“All Must Have Prizes!”

Dame Kelly Holmes yesterday launched a stinging attack on the decline of competitive sport in schools and said it risked spawning a generation of bad losers.

The double Olympic champion and former Army physical training instructor blamed a culture of political correctness for making 'competitiveness' a dirty word.

Can’t see the loony PC crowd coming off the blocks too quickly to take on a darling of the sporting world and a Dame to boot, can you?

Odd, that…

Her comments come a year after Gordon Brown admitted Labour had made a 'tragic mistake' by allowing dozens of mainly left-wing councils to scrap competitive sports in schools in the 1980s.

And after that, what happened?

Well, pretty much the same thing that happens every time Gordon makes a promise.

Once the headlines are achieved, nothing:

After the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the Government pledged to end a 'medals for all' culture in which sports days have been cancelled and field sports 'dumbed down'.

But Dame Kelly has criticised established policies that continue to allow health and safety concerns to ride roughshod over sporting rivalry.

See, with the government, it’s never just one hurdle you have to overcome. It’s several, and they get progressively higher…

The 39-year-old former middle distance athlete said: 'Too often, in these politically sensitive times, it seems that competitiveness is seen as a dirty word.

'I was surprised by how many schools I came across where sports day had been abandoned. It's very important to learn how to lose.

'What you should do is pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again. If everyone gets a prize, where on earth is the incentive to push yourself to do better next time?'

But if only one or two people get a prize, it’s not f-a-a-a-i-i-i-r!

Think of the children!

I Guess You’d Have Had More Luck If They Were Morris-Dancing...

…rather than screaming like banshees:

Council inspectors are investigating a Roman Catholic primary school after complaints about the noise levels.

Officials from a noise pollution team were brought in after neighbours claimed they were being confined inside their homes due to the "unbearable" screams of laughter from the youngsters.

Hmmm, surely if you live near a school, you must expect a certain amount of noise?

Still, the response from the head does seem rather dismissive:

Headmaster John Thorpe said his school took all possible steps to be a good neighbour and he had changed the sound of the school bell in a bid to appease the neighbours who have also complained about footballs being kicked against the playground's mesh fence.

He said: "Children have to be educated somewhere and there are obvious good reasons why it should take place in residential areas.

"Bearing that in mind, it is inevitable that there will be a range of different responses to that from residents.

"We have always adopted a good neighbour policy and done whatever we can to mitigate disturbances.

"Some people will say that the sound of children laughing and playing together can be quite uplifting.

"As a teacher, I think it's good to hear children running around and thoroughly enjoying their lives."

And some people will say the noise of children running around and enjoying themselves is pretty intolerable, Johnny boy, particularly since most children’s dials these days go all the way to 11 and stay there, regardless of location.

I was once unfortunate enough to be on a Tube train when a school outing got on, and they proceeded (totally uncorrected by any of the teachers with them) to make such a din that driver and station announcements couldn’t be heard, and you could barely hear yourself think.

So I have a bit of sympathy with the residents:

But neighbour Bill Disley whose house is only a few yards away from the school playground, said: "The noise is unbearable.

"People always say 'oh, well kids have got to make noise'. I've got six grandchildren and I know kids make noise, but this is unbearable.

"We can't sit outside now, we can't open doors and windows. The neighbours feel exactly the same way."

Wouldn’t they have got used to this by now, tho…

Ah:

The neighbours said the noise problem started in 2007, when the old Moss primary school was extended and merged with two other schools, St Andrew's and St Osmund's.

The site went from housing only a handful of pupils to having more than 380, as well as a nursery. Mr Disley has now spent more than £5,000 trying to block the noise out from his property and hiring expert consultants to measure noise levels.

Well, that puts a different complexion on things, doesn’t it?

This is the equivalent of a pub venue being granted a license for a small amount of live music, over no objections from the neighbours, then promptly expanding this agreement to host a Van Halen concert. Every weekday.

What has the council got to say for itself, since it’s policies have directly led to the situation Mr Disley and his neighbours now find themselves in?

A Bolton council spokesman said: "We have listened to the concerns of Mr Disley and sympathise with his situation.

"The council's pollution control unit has carried out several noise assessments at his property and while we understand the noise is annoying to the individual, it does not constitute a statutory noise nuisance.

"A report on the situation is due to be considered later this month."

See?

It’s different when it’s the council doing it, and not just some of you serfs looking to have a good time…

Anything China Can Do, We Can Do Better…

..not trade and manufacturing, of course, but we can sure impose illiberal restrictions on freedom of speech just as well, if not better:

Police have been handed 'Chinese-style' powers to enter private homes and seize political posters during the London 2012 Olympics.

Little-noticed measures passed by the Government will allow officers and Olympics officials to enter homes and shops near official venues to confiscate any protest material.

What?! Why…?

Well, it’s all down to legislation designed to allow the all-important advertisers to be able to swoop on illegal threats to their cashflow. And, as usual, badly drafted and allowing extensive overreach:

The powers were introduced by the Olympics Act of 2006, passed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, supposedly to preserve the monopoly of official advertisers on the London 2012 site.

They would allow advertising posters or hoardings placed in shop or home to be removed.

But the law has been drawn so widely that it also includes 'non-commercial material' - which could extend its reach to include legitimate campaign literature.

I would say it’s just a mistake and not a plan to allow the police these powers for nefarious intent, but we all remember Walter Wolfgang, don’t we?

And how handy those terrorism powers came in when it came to shutting up dissent at the Labour Conference…

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'This is a Government who just doesn't understand civil liberties. They may claim these powers won't be used but the frank truth is no one will believe them.'

They understand them just fine. They simply don’t believe that we should have them…

Liberal Democrat spokesman Chris Huhne said: 'This sort of police action runs the risk of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. 'We should aim to show the Chinese that you can run a successful Olympics without cracking down on protestors and free speech.'

We should aim to show that we can run a successful Olympics for lots of reasons (if we can’t get rid of the damn thing!) but not just to show up the Chinese, surely…?

Scotland Yard denied it had any plans to use the powers.

Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison said: 'We have no intention of using our powers to go in and take down demonstration posters.'

I’m sure you don’t.

I’m also sure you never had the intention to use the terrorism powers the way you did, but you did, didn’t you?

But critics said that - given the powers were now law - it was impossible to predict what would happen in three years time.

Campaigners said the existence of the powers was 'dreadful'. Peter McNeil, who is against the holding of equestrian events in Greenwich Park said: 'It's bullying taken to another level. It's quite appalling that this should happen in a democracy.'

It’s quite appalling that it should happen anywhere, frankly. It’s just additionally surprising that it should happen here.

Well, it is, if you haven’t been paying attention over the last decade or so….

“My old man’s a dustman…”

“…he carries out vital social research for the council…”:

Nearly 100 town halls ordered secret searches of their residents' rubbish bins last year.

The official aim was to find out who was throwing out what to help councils encourage recycling.

But some staff examining the contents of bins also classified residents as well-off or poor.

Based on what?

Old copies of ‘The Sun’, fast-food cartons, ASDA Smartprice food wrappers = poor?

Old copies of ‘The Guardian’, organic ciabatta wrappers, Waitrose food packaging = not poor?

I guess we’ll never know – they don’t seem to want to show their work:

Eleven councils in Kent allowed the bins from more than 2,000 homes to be scrutinised by officials working for the Kent Waste Partnership.

Waste was dumped into a big pile and sorted into 66 different categories, which included ten types of paper and card, 11 types of plastic, five sorts of glass, six kinds of textiles and a miscellaneous category that included disposable nappies, carpet and sanitary waste.

Not sure how you could possibly ascertain social status from any of that…

Oh, and this is another own-goal for Labour’s FOIA:

The bin trawls, uncovered through Freedom of Information requests, have been criticised as an invasion of privacy and a waste of effort.

One council chief said he strongly objected to the examination of waste unless specific permission is obtained from the householder.

Jeremy Kite, Tory leader of Dartford in Kent, said: 'I do not believe it is right.'

Not many people will.

Or accurate, either…

Obo has some choice words for these literal muckrakers.

New Definition Of ‘Rare’….

..actually now means ‘pretty frequent’:

A mother was jailed for two years yesterday for crying rape against a man she met on a dating website.

Jennifer Day, 34, who made the false allegation against former boyfriend Andrew Saxby after a row, was told by the judge that she had undermined efforts to treat genuine rape victims fairly and sympathetically.

The court also heard that Mr Saxby was subjected to 'degrading and upsetting' examinations while being held by police for ten hours.

At last, a judge prepared to tell it like it is, and to not be swayed by calls for leniency.

And yet again, this one turns out to have had form for false claims:

During the trial, the court heard how Day had a history of making up stories. The jury was told that while working at Royal London Hospital in East London as a nurse, she suffered stress-related hair loss and led her colleagues to believe it was cancer.

Nice lady, eh…?

Over at Tim Worstall's, johnb is playing possum...

We R Drpg Ths Srvs, K Thnx Bai

It seems that no sooner has Jacqui Smith been kicked to the curb, but they are quietly retiring some of the wackier ideas she oversaw:

A new police text message service has been shelved after it was used just three times a day.

The text number 66101 was launched in March by the-then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith in a £3.5million advertising blitz.

It allowed the public to use a mobile phone to text their postcode and the word 'PLEDGE' to report low-level crime.

However it has now been branded an 'expensive failure' after the Home Office today admitted that the service had attracted just 3,000 messages nationally in its first three months in operation.

The report doesn’t say how many of them were real messages, though. Bit of an oversight, or a deliberate omission?

By May, it sounds like even the pranksters had got bored:

In May it received just 91 text messages - fewer than three a day - and has now been quietly dropped.

Like Jacqui herself…

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling said: 'Both the police pledge and the new national police target seem to have ended up with forces spending money on PR exercises which could be better spent on frontline policing.'

Yes indeed.

I’m sure you won’t do that though, when you get in.

Will you?

Matthew Sinclair, Research Director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'The policing pledge always looked like it was going to be an expensive failure but it is incredible that, within just a few months, the new text message service it created is down to just a few users per month.

'It is vital that lessons are learned from this failure and governments stop trying to fix the police through gimmicky initiatives and, instead, make the police accountable to local people who can really see the changes that are needed.'

Hold your hoses. It doesn’t look like they’ve learned this lesson yet.

The Home Office seems to believe that the rumours of the death of this scheme have been greatly exaggerated:

A spokesman for the Home Office said: 'This is a part of the government's Justice Seen, Justice Done campaign which launched in March.

'The public were invited to text "PLEDGE" and their postcode to 66101 to obtain their neighbourhood police team's contact number for people who did not have access to the web.'

He added: 'The next phase of the campaign will launch in the autumn and we plan to resume the text service then, but it will not run in the interim as this is not cost effective.'

Why, if it’s not a success now, do you think it might be in the autumn?

Or are we locked into a contract for this wretched thing that we can’t get out of?

Age Unconcern II: This Time It’s Personal Criminal

It seems a fakecharity has problems in the Borough of Barking and Dagenham.

A few weeks ago, we found out that an unholy row had been triggered by Age Concern’s decision to shut down all of their Active Age centres.

Shortly after that, council leader Liam Smith gave this undertaking that they would not close, saying:

He said: "As leader of the council I will not allow any of those centres to be closed under my watch.

"I'm very disappointed with the way in which they have used older people as blanket shields to hide that they are a business.

"We will not lose any of those centres. This is a guarantee."

Stirring stuff!

Age Concern said they had been hit by the credit crunch, could no longer cover rent and staff costs and that the council had reduced its subsidies.

Cllr Denyer told the meeting that although Age Concern had told club members that the council did not pay for anything, it did in fact pay the rent for the facilities.

And now, in last week’s hardcopy edition of the ‘Post’ (not yet on the online edition) a news item on page three reads:

The Chief Executive of Barking and Dagenham Age Concern has been arrested on suspicion of fraud.

Claire Ramm, 52, of Elm Avenue Upminster will appear at Barking Magistrates’ Court on July 22 accused of financial malpractice.

And she won’t be alone:

She will be joined by four other people who will also appear before magistrates on the same charges.

One of these is the chief executive of The Disablement Association of Barking and Dagenham (DABD) charity...”

Now, I thought fraud cases were notoriously longwinded investigations, so this arrest seems a little quick, assuming it all kicked off from the intended closure of the Active Age centres and Liam Smith's speech to the council.

What has been going on...?

Well, Here’s A Few More Votes…

…for the BNP:

NHS treatment will be available for tens of thousands of failed asylum seekers to ensure their human rights are honoured, it was announced yesterday.

At present, they are denied free treatment if an asylum bid has been turned down but they have not left the country.

But a Government U-turn means failed applicants who are destitute or cannot return home 'through no fault of their own', will be entitled to free care.

Which is nice to hear, isn’t it?

Especially coming just a day after the idea of charging you £20 to see your GP was mooted…

The decision increases the numbers potentially able to use the NHS by tens of thousands. But the campaign group MigrationWatch believes it could open the floodgates to 'up to a million' illegal immigrants.

I think Migration Watch is simply taking any figure estimated by the government and magnifying it by a factor of 10. God knows, it’s worked in the past…

The government’s plans may come unstuck, however:

Last night doctors undermined the strategy by saying it was not their job to act as immigration officers - raising the possibility that GPs would refuse to ask failed asylum seekers tough questions about their status.

Really? They seem to have no problem asking tough question if you drink, smoke or like your fry-ups a bit too much. What’s the difference here?

Oh, and the British Meddling Association have decided that this is one government policy they don’t want to enthusiastically foist onto the population at any costs, thank you very much:

The British Medical Association said all failed asylum seekers should be treated free - and that it was not their job to decide who is eligible for free care and who is not.

Head of ethics Dr Vivienne Nathanson said: 'There are many who have had an asylum claim refused, cannot return home and need urgent treatment. This announcement, while positive, applies to only one group and does not go far enough. '

Tell me, Dr Vivienne, are you aware of the irony of the fact that your organisation has the word ‘British’ in its name?

No, probably not…

You’d Have To Have A Heart Of Stone…

…not to…ahh, you can probably guess:

A boy of 14 collapsed after chewing 45 sticks of nicotine gum - equivalent to 180 Marlboro Light cigarettes - in just 25 minutes.

Aiden Williams overdosed on the Nicorette gum, designed to help smokers quit the habit, after it was handed out by counsellors at his school.

D’oh!

Aiden chewed his way through 45 sticks - a total of 90mg - meaning he had the equivalent of 180 Marlboro Lights in just 25 minutes.

His mother Caroline Williams said today: ‘I couldn’t believe that this gum can be given out like this without parents knowing. It is then being passed around the playground.

‘The doctors said that he could have died and he had to be kept in for 24 hours for observation.

‘I know what my son did was stupid, but if anything it proves that these kids can’t be given responsibility for taking medication that could do serious harm.’

He’s 14, not 4. If he ‘can’t be given responsibility for medication’ at 14, when can he..?

The school is understandably caught between a rock and a hard place – continue the government-mandated anti-smoking work, or err on the side of health and safety, risk assessments and getting sued.

The government wins out:

Paul Harris, deputy head at Menzies School, said: ‘We have older teens in school who have issues with smoking and work directly with Decca, which offers support.

‘This is low-strength nicotine gum and there is nothing stopping youngsters from the age of 12 buying it over the counter.

‘Decca does not have to inform pupils’ parents about this.’

In other words, ‘If your idiot kids kill themselves with it, we’ll live with that. But OFSTED might give us a bad report if we turf DECCA out on their ear, and that would be a tragedy’…

DECCA are pretty unrepentant too:

DECCA Service manager Margaret Storrie defended the council's policy of handing out Nicorette gum to children without telling parents.

She said: 'DECCA is a confidential service engaging with young people and we do offer nicotine replacement gum to help young smokers quit.

'We always encourage young people to speak to their parents and we often organise meetings with family members so young people get the support they need.

'Aiden overdosing on gum like this is the first time such an incident has happened and we are disappointed to hear about it.

'Aiden's friend who was originally given the gum would have been told very clearly how often to use it by the worker who gave it to him.

Well, yes, I’m sure he was. But expecting teenage boys to treat with caution anything they’ve been handed by an adult, whether condoms or nicotine gum, is pretty much expecting them to sprout wings and fly, isn’t it?

This incident is the perfect storm – ‘risk-free’ teenagers meet dogmatic health service policy in a ‘parents have no rights’ school culture. Hilarity ensues.

Mrs Williams, you raised a moron. Mr Harris, you are employing morons. Ms Storrie, you too are employing morons.

When, oh when, will someone invent an anti-moron gum?

More Government Advice Found To Be…

…not worth the paper it’s written on?

The benefits of breastfeeding have been greatly exaggerated, according to a leading expert.

Michael Kramer, a professor of paediatrics, claimed that much of the information used to persuade new mothers to breastfeed was either wrong or out-of-date.

Whoops! So much for ‘settled science’…

Professor Kramer, who has spent more than 20 years studying the subject and been an adviser to the World Health Organisation and Unicef, believes a significant amount of evidence behind the claims is flawed.

Really? Which bits?

NHS leaflets given to pregnant women and new mothers claim that breastfeeding protects against obesity, allergies, asthma and diabetes.

Professor Kramer's own work has failed to demonstrate that breastfeeding protects against asthma, allergies or childhood obesity.

Oh, dear. This will throw a spanner in the works of all the ‘breast is best’ advocates.

It appears that some of the benefits observed and outlined in government advice and the glossy magazines favoured by yummy mummies is based on correlation, rather than causation:

However the professor claims that many of the supposed advantages can be explained by differences in lifestyle, with women who breastfeed being more likely to pass their healthy habits on to their family.

'There is very little evidence that it reduces the risk of leukaemia, lymphoma, bowel disease, type 1 diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure.

'I don't favour overselling the evidence - we should not be conveying false information.
'I think some of the advice promulgated on obesity or allergies is false information.'

Can we call the ASA about it then?

He isn’t going to wait around to be accused of being in the pockets of the baby-formula companies – he has some criticism for them too:

He said the confusion was being exacerbated by competition between the formula milk industry and the breastfeeding lobby. Doctors, unwilling to side with big business, are being 'brainwashed' by those in favour of taking a natural approach.

'The formula milk industry jumps on every piece of equivocal evidence,' he said.

'But the breastfeeding lobby have a way of ignoring the evidence. Both sides are not being very scientific.'

Sounds a lot like the ‘anthropogenic global warming’ crowd, doesn’t it?

And like them, the government is treating this new evidence by sticking its fingers in its ears and saying ‘La la la la I can’t hear you…’:

A spokesman added: 'The Government is fully committed to the promotion and support of breastfeeding, as it is the best form of nutrition providing all the nutrients a baby needs for the first six months of life.

'Our ambition is to encourage and support more and more mothers to initiate and continue breastfeeding, and particularly to support mothers belonging to the disadvantaged groups.'

Even though those groups pose more of a lifestyle risk than a bottle-feeding one to their children?

Jacque Gerrard, of the Royal College of Midwives, said: 'Breastfeeding is the right way to produce healthy babies.'

Or, to translate: ‘Sod the new evidence, we’ve printed all these leaflets now…’