Piggy-back Pianist

A little music to lighten the spirit.

From Youtube comments which I've verified:


I wonder if people have any idea at all how difficult this piece is to play on the piano, especially with such pristine articulation as Sokolov demonstrates? The piece was actually written for a two-manual harpsichord where the hands don't run into each other since they're on separate keyboards. This performance is nothing short of astounding. 


If you would like to hear the composition played on a double harpsichord, as the composer intended, you can hear it below.  Isn't music wonderful?

Food Glorious Food

Official research for the Scottish government has found that 36% of Scots have no idea what food is in season and when.

In order to educate the ignorant hoi polloi shops, chefs, restaurant owners and householders are all being urged to embrace seasonal fruit and vegetables as part of a new campaign dubbed 'Eat in Season'.

Richard Lochhead, the rural affairs minister said in-season food was often cheaper and tastier.  I would agree but only because there is a greengrocer in town.  Supermarkets can claim their fruit and vegetables are fresh but how do they define fresh?  I've been doing a wee experiment of my own over the past few months.  In the salad drawers of my fridge I have had some of my home grown apples and some supermarket apples.  They were placed there in September.  My tasty home grown fruit lasted nearly four weeks.  The supermarket bought fruit is still in the fridge but showing signs of 'shrivel' rather than decay.  They'll be fine for a glass of apple juice though.

Because my home grown apples rotted much quicker than the shop bought ones doesn't prove that they weren't as fresh as commercially grown fruit, but it does prove that commercially grown fruit is treated in some way to delay rot. In the past I've usually relied upon the appearance of food to convey it's freshness but no longer.

More seriously, why are so many people unaware of seasonal produce? Surely our schools should be teaching children the food and nutrition basics or are they too pre-occupied with sex, alcohol and other social issues? It would be easy to encourage children to visit this site and they would find out within minutes.

However, I do have some sympathy with those who do their best to education Scots in fresh, seasonal food because most of us now buy at supermarkets - many have no choice.  Also in winter the lure of a fish supper or a take-away curry can be too much.

I would like to think Mr Lochhead's project did make us aware of our 'seasonal larder' but I have my doubts.

Edward sent me this little tale. Has much changed?



It must be over 35 years ago because it was just before we married. I
was up in Glasgow and my soon-to-be wife sent me out for some shopping, including green beans. 


The nearest shop was a substantial Co-op. Looking at the
rather tattered, tired selection of veg, I asked an assistant,

"Do you have any green beans?"

"Do you mean Heinz* Beans, son?"  (Pronounced Heenz)

"No, green ones, fresh ones"

"This is Knightswood no' Hollywood".

what Is An Ally?

On Friday the soldier killed in Afghanistan belonged to the 1st Battalion the Royal Irish Regiment.  Another was killed by an IED yesterday.  He was a member of the 3rd Battalion The Parachute Regiment and his death increases the number killed in this unwinnable war to 352.

We lost 106 soldiers during the four years they fought the Taliban in Sangin, Helmand province, yet the governor of the province was pleased to tell the US that the British strategy in the province is flawed.  General Dan McNeill (US Army) was said to be 'particularly dismayed by the British effort' and was also highly critical of a ceasefire agreement the British made with local Taliban leaders that allowed British troops to leave the Helmand town of Musa Qala in 2006. "They have made a mess of things in Helmand, their tactics were wrong and the deal that London cut on Musa Qala had failed," he's reported to have said. (The Taliban reclaimed the area within months).

US Marines took over Sangin three months ago.  So far 27 have died and more than 140 have been injured - far worse casualties than those suffered by any British forces in such a short time.  British forces had strung out a series of small patrol bases along route 611 - known as Pharmacy Road - but the Americans closed half of them to 'free up forces to manoeuvre against the enemy'.

US troops on the ground are realising the British weren't inadequate:

"The British shed a lot of blood here," says captain Matthew Peterson, commanding officer of Lima Company. "They sacrificed a lot of men holding on to Sangin. Let's not forget that the British started what we are doing . . . We are building on [that]."

Some soldiers say that despite the British losses, they were unprepared for the intensity of the violence.

"It all just happened so fast," Buckholz says. "We knew Sangin would be tough but we didn't realise how fast it would happen. As soon as we got here it was, like, bam. There was no time to ease into it. People started dying immediately." (source)

Now the US has made a peace deal of their own.  They are cautiously optimistic although ISAF has been careful not to overstate the outcome of this latest deal which some analysts worry will have little more than a localised impact.

There's nothing more demoralising than an ally criticising your best efforts and saying  they're not good enough.  I never heard Liam Fox defend our troops when the avalanche of negativity rained down on them last year. 

The Strategic Defence and Security Review seeks to lay off 17,000 soldiers, sailors and airmen within five years.  The first of their allowances cuts, which it is said amounts to a drop in annual income of £1,400 for every service person, will be made in April and then phased in over the next two years.  Some payments, such as the commitment bonus for long service, have been cut by as much as half, the MoD has revealed.

HM Forces will be reduced by 17,000 within five years and possibly earlier.  There are many within the three services who know they can command much higher salaries in the business world and to see their colleagues humiliated by the US without any redress from their own government, plus losing income, will break the invisible bonds of loyalty our forces give to the country.  The best will leave once their current service agreements conclude.  We'll be left with a much weaker military.  That will suit the unelected manipulators in the EU perfectly.

Is the US our ally?  I certainly have reservations.

Be Safe. Ensure You Have Evidence of your IQ Before Sex

I trust I'm not treading on the toes of my fellow blogger, who has professional experience in these matters, but I was angry when I read an article in the Telegraph this morning. 'Court bans man with low IQ from having sex' states the headline.

The Court of Protection, that little-known authority whose proceedings are secret, has judged, on a 41-year-old man with an IQ of 48, that he 'should not be allowed to have sex with anyone on the grounds that he did not have the mental capacity to understand the health risks associated with his actions'.  Under the Mental Capacity Act 2005, Court of Protection judges have the power to make life and death decisions for people deemed to lack the intelligence to make them for themselves.

The man named as Alan, had been in a sexual relationship with a man with whom he lived and told officials "It would make me feel happy" for it to continue. However, his local council disagreed and decided his 'vigorous sex drive' was inappropriate because of his IQ and he did not understand what he was doing.

Alan lived in a home provided by the council and was also accused of making lewd gestures at children in a dentists' surgery and on a bus, although no police action was taken.

In June 2009 the local authority began court proceedings to restrict his contact with his friend on the grounds that he lacked mental capacity and an interim order was made to that effect.  "Since then Alan has been subjected to close supervision to prevent any further sexual activity on his part," except when he is alone in his bedroom.

So masturbating doesn't carry health risks according to the judge.  I have a retired nursing friend who worked in A & E most of her career and she would firmly contradict that statement.  She could keep anyone enthralled for hours with her accounts of the amusing and more serious cases of male masturbation she treated in her days in the front line.

More seriously, surely if Alan was told he must use condoms that was all that was needed, but to deny him a sex life is appalling.  By all accounts he wasn't putting himself or the other person involved at any risk and the judge had obvious difficulty finding a reason to enforce this order.

The judge said it requires an understanding and awareness of the 'mechanics of the act'.  How many people, stoned out of their minds on a Friday or Saturday night, have a clue about the mechanics of the act?  But, because they have a higher IQ than Alan, they're exempt - for now. It won't be long though before this becomes commonplace.

It wasn't so long ago a bonny girl was stopped, by Fife social services, from marrying her boyfriend because they judged her 'too stupid' to understand the vows.  They didn't give up there though.  When she was breast feeding her three day old son Ben in the maternity ward, they came and took the child into care because they 'feared she lacked the intelligence to be a good mother'.  Of course this case was child kidnapping wrapped up in lies. Fortunately their story has a happy ending but it's not always so.

source

The Clucking Tosspots - Guest Post

I wrote the following nearly a year ago and it is perhaps even more relevant today.


I don't know if it's the same the world over, but they seem endemic in UK society and particularly rife in positions of authority.

These people have statistics coming out of their ears, can quote them chapter and verse and deduce from the resultant mash the precise constituents of cause and likely effects. Mr & Mrs Clucking Tosspots are the coroners for societies ills and the standard bearers for it's salvation. Who, from their statistical bag of averaged averages, produce the potions and prognoses we should all swallow and aspire to.

Don't know why, whether its down to a new awareness on my part or a growing commitment on their's, but it does seem as though there's been an exponential growth in the ranks of Tosspots in the last couple of decades. Though the growth by itself could be explained by the Tosspot pool contained in government nurturing and recruiting those of a similar disposition to NGO's, quasi committees, quango's and other positions of authority that are within the governments gift or remit.

Probably the Tosspot effect accelerated when their Clucking could be transmitted over the mass entertainment medias of radio, television and films. When popularity was morphed into marketing by the advertising gurus and the spin of ideal homes and whiter than white washes was spun into ideologies and doctrines of material illusionism. When marketing became a tool not just to promote products but to fertilise minds in the secular religions of free markets, of capitalism over communism - or any other 'ism that challenged or threatened capitalism freedom to manuevre and prosper. While the other ism's polluted their ideologies with despots, capitalism disguised its despots by philantrophy, better tunes and the mastering of marketing control of democracy. It's probably around this stage that, whether by design or happy accident, the market gurus became aware of the potential of Clucking Tosspots at, or near the top of positions of authority.

How else can we explain the likes of Reagan, Kissenger,Thatcher, Nixon, Ford, Bush Snr, Major, The Clintons, Bush Jnr, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Blair, Brown, Straw, Prescot???, Balls, Hoone, Byers et al; to name but a few of the top echelon, how such mediocrity could succeed to such high office unless some 'power' wanted them there. Of course the marketing myth is that we the people voted them in. But if the choice is limited amongst Clucking Tosspots any difference is no more than a whisp of irrelevence. But the mediocrity the Tosspots provide and practice is proving very dangerous to the welfare, wellbeing and future of our society.


contributed by John Souter

It's That Time of Year Again

I'm a day late but better late than never.  The 6 Nations kicked off yesterday with England just winning against Wales.  Well done England.

Today Ireland are playing Italy in Rome and Scotland will shortly be playing France in Paris.

To show just how impartial I am I wish every team good luck and I'm looking forward to some quality entertainment.  Scotland has as good a chance as any of winning of course.

Take Your Pick

Sound of Scotland   (With a treat for Dundonians - video)

'School Dinner' Money Wanted'

Bending To The Rules And The Wind

Trump Climbdown Cautiously Welcomed

A week's levelling

Arms Trade Blue Peter

Should Welfare be Expressed as a Personal Debt?

Holyrood Liberal ambivalences...

EU Census

Hannan and Carswell - false prophets?

The most subversive threat to the Central State

You've been Tesco'd

An 'Operational Accident'

A British soldier died in an 'operational accident' in Nad-e Ali district of Helmand yesterday.

The MoD said the accident was being investigated, but it is understood the soldier died in hospital after he was shot by mistake when he and his comrades were cleaning their rifles after a routine patrol.  One of the weapons fired live ammunition which struck the soldier.

No other information is yet available, but if this soldier was shot by a colleague who was negligent in following the strict military procedures for weapon cleaning, the tragedy is two-fold.  One soldier has lost his life and his family will suffer endlessly from that loss.  Another soldier will carry the burden of his death because he didn't adhere to well practiced methods and knew his action was preventable.  The truth of the accident will become known in time no doubt.

A total of 351 British military personnel have now died in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001.  The latest death brings the number of troops who have died as a result of accidents, illness, non-combat injuries or who have not yet officially been assigned a cause of death to 42.

Uprising

from Max himself

Edinburgh's White Elephant

The Edinburgh tram project is once more in the news.  Audit Scotland reports the company constructing the controversial tram line is at risk of lacking the skills and experience to finish the project.  I do wish they would tell us something we don't know.

The city-council owned developer TIE's chairman stepped down with immediate effect in November branding parts of the project "hell on wheels".  A new chairman was selected last week.  Is it any wonder? 99% of the infrastructure construction works should have been completed by the end of last year.  In reality the figure was about 28%.

Audit Scotland also said that 74% of the available funding had been spent by the end of December 2010.

Mediation talks are due to take place soon but Edinburghers - and those from further afield - know that there's been far too much talk and not enough action.  Talk, in this type of situation, isn't cheap.

Audit Scotland say the project cannot be completed within the present budget.  They say TIE isn't up to the job.  What is the agenda here?  Does the council want rid of TIE? Is TIE's continual bleating about the incompetence of the council an excuse for more money?

Whatever it is, for the next few generations this one tram line through a small part of the city will be Edinburgh's white elephant.  I certainly agree with Audit Scotland insofar as they suggest the Scottish government should now intervene and knock some heads together to ensure one of these gliding feats of engineering decorates the once-upon-a-time delightful Princes Street.

A Must Read - Kenneth Roy

                                 

On Wednesday Kenneth Roy led on The Megrahi Scandal in the Scottish Review.  He questioned Alex Salmond's decision to reappoint the Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini, when the SNP took office in 2007.

He also suggests that it would take the Scottish government only 4 weeks to publish the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission's report.

Wednesday's article is here.  A must read.

European Odyssey

Edward Spalton is one of my regular readers who works hard promoting the necessity for Britain to withdraw from the EU. Very soon Edward is to give a talk, as part of a CIVITAS programme, to the undergraduates of Goldsmiths' College, London and he kindly sent me a copy of his speech.  I've had his permission to publish it.

For those who remember memories can be refreshed and ire rekindled.  For those too young to remember this is an opportunity to read a little truth.

A British EEC surplus butter mountain photographed

at a Labour Party Gala Morning. April 1984

European Odyssey

From Moderate Support to outright Opposition to the EU Project

by Edward Spalton, Vice Chairman, Campaign for an Independent Britain February 2011

Thank you for inviting me. I was a few years younger than this audience when I first heard about the institution which is now the European Union. I was on a school trip to Germany and the German boy, who was my host, asked “Have you heard about our Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft? It will guarantee our living standard”. 

Neither his English nor my German was up to translating the word, so an explanation had to wait until we got home. When I mentioned it, several other boys said that their hosts had asked exactly the same question. So it was obviously something they had been taught in school. It was 1958.

Our teacher explained that the word meant “economic community” and it had been created the previous year by a treaty between Germany, France, Italy and the Benelux countries. We talked about it for a while and thought it was a great idea that these former enemy countries were getting together to co-operate with each other and improve their lives. Most boys had fathers or uncles who had been in the war and it seemed a hopeful sign of future peace but we didn't think of it as something we in Britain would be joining.

“But remember” said our teacher “This shows a big difference between the traditions of England and Germany. You would not be taught a political opinion as fact like that in a British school”.

1

Of course, when we came to our conclusion that the EU (then the EEC) was a good thing, we did so in total ignorance. We didn't know what the treaty contained, what institutions (if any) it set up and what its political objectives were. For many years people called it “The Common Market” and thought it was a co-operative trade agreement between sovereign countries.

When I went to work in the Sixties I studied calf rearing and animal feed production techniques with a Dutch company with which our firm made a technology sharing agreement. The Dutch are quite like us and so were their farming and feed production but all their prices for foods were very much higher than ours – things like wheat, beef and milk powder. As an industrial country, Britain had a free trade policy for food with the whole world. The Dutch were in “The Common Market” and their prices were driven up by the high levies and customs duties imposed on food coming from outside Europe. This was the Common Agricultural Policy.

We started to pay these needlessly high prices from 1973 when we joined the “The Common Market”. In 1993 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said “an average family of four in Britain pays approximately and extra £940 a year as a result of artificially high agricultural prices. It will be more today. Just think how much that has come to over your lifetime. Your parents might well have been able to get you through university without a student loan, if they had been able to keep the money in their pockets.

It was this wicked waste of resources - the grain, butter and beef mountains caused by guaranteed high EU prices which first started me questioning the European project.

2

Those food mountains were dumped on the world market at well below the cost of production, putting many Third World farmers out of business and thus increasing the likelihood of famine as their countries were less able to feed themselves. The cost of that evil has also been borne by your parents' taxes. Britain's fishing fleet was destroyed at the same time and is now a shadow of its former self.

So what was the political programme driving this strange policy? It certainly was not merely establishing a “Common Market” - not even one with the rules of a lunatic asylum. I now quote from Jean Monnet who has been called “The Father of Europe”. Addressing the Washington Press Club on April 30 1952 he spoke of the European Coal and Steel Community, the fore-runner of the all-embracing “Common Market”. He said “In this challenging time we are naturally encountering difficulties. THEY ARE THE BIRTH PANGS ATTENDING THE CREATION OF A UNITED STATES OF EUROPE”.

A German politician expressed his view rather more robustly in 1951. Dr. Seebohm, Minister of Commerce in Dr. Adenauer's government said “Will free Europe join Germany? Germany is the heart of Europe and the limbs must adjust to the heart, not the heart to the limbs”. Germany has continued to be very successful in making the nascent European state to serve its requirements ever since.

“The Common Market”, freer trade between member states and so on were all part of a gradual step-by-step process – abolishing the national democracies of Europe and making them into mere provinces under a single European government with no pretence of democratic accountability. Or consent. That was, is and ever more shall be the aim of the continuing process of European integration as the unelected Commission in Brussels and other institutions gather ever more power to themselves.

3

As early as 1947 Peter Thorneycroft, later Chancellor of the Exchequer and chairman of the Conservative party wrote in “Design for Europe”:

“No government dependent on a democratic vote could possibly agree in advance to the sacrifice that any adequate plan must involve. The British people must be led slowly and unconsciously into the abandonment of their traditional economic defences.....They must not be asked”.

And that is how the EU project has always progressed, running away by stealth from democratic responsibility to the people, to undemocratic institutions in Europe which remain in power whoever you vote for. 

Here is a time line of deceit and arrogance by Edward Heath, the prime minister who took us in:

1970 THE LIE DIRECT “There will be no blueprint for a federal Europe”

1971 “There is no question of any erosion of essential national sovereignty”

“There are some in this country who fear that in going into Europe we shall in some way sacrifice independence and sovereignty. These fears, I need hardly say, are completely unjustified”.

1975 “There is no danger of a single currency”.

Yet on 1 November 1991 in an interview with Peter Sissons:

Sissons: “The single currency, the United States of Europe: was that on your mind when you took Britain in?”

Heath: “Of course, yes”

4

The deceitfulness of politicians is not uniquely Conservative . Whose election manifesto do you think I am quoting here?

“We'll protect British industry against unfair foreign competition” 

“We'll negotiate a withdrawal from the EEC which has drained our natural resources and destroyed jobs”. That was Tony Blair's manifesto in 1983. Gordon Brown's was the same.

The EU has destroyed British jobs. The cumulative adverse balance of trade amounts to some £300 billion – so our most successful export to the EU has been British jobs – mostly skilled, hi tech, well-paid  British jobs. In exchange we have got shelf stacking and spanner and screwdriver work. This is why your job prospects are so poor today. 

The majority of laws passed by our Parliament today are required by the EU. The EU tells the government what laws it must make and the government whips its MPs to vote for them.  So it looks democratic but it isn't. We and our interests do not come into it at all. No wonder the main parties all ratted on their promise of a referendum on the EU constitution, renamed the Lisbon treaty! Parliament is a marionette. We can vote to change who sits there but whilst we remain in the EU, it is not we the people but Brussels which pulls their strings.  

Mark Leonard, a convinced Europhile explained the process very well under the heading “How the EU deceives its way to power”:

“Like an invisible hand, the EU operates through existing political structures... There are no European courts, legislatures or business regulations on display in London. The British House of Commons, British law courts and British civil servants are still there but they uphold and implement European law. By creating common standards that are implemented through national institutions, the EU can envelope countries without becoming a target for hostility”

5

Does it matter? Mr. van Rompuy, Baroness Ashton, Senhor Barroso and the EU Commissioners are our real government for many of the major policies which affect us  all – from world trade and climate change to the way our dustbins are collected and the permitted curvature of our cucumbers. 

They may be the kindest, wisest  people with only our best interests at heart. But if they or their successors are not endowed with wisdom and good judgement and they do not have Britain's best interests at heart, what then? They were not appointed democratically and we cannot get rid of them democratically – whoever we send to Parliament, whoever lives in No 10 Downing Street – not as long as we remain locked inside the structures of the EU. So, if you have a form of government and policies which you cannot alter by voting, what have you got? Senhor Barroso calls it an “empire” and we are in one of its provinces.

He should know. He's president of the EU Commission.

In exchange for giving up any real democracy by imperceptible stages , they promised us economic growth and stability. We haven't got it, have we? Ask the people of Ireland and  the people of Greece. We would be suffering as bad a fate as theirs - destruction of  public services and unemployment on a scale far greater than anything we have here, if we too were shackled to the euro currency with an exchange rate and interest rate which did not suit our economy.

6

When the euro was founded, it was claimed it would be  as sound as the Deutsche Mark and no country would be responsible for another country's debt. Look at it now! We knew then that Greece and the other “Club Med” countries had lied about their finances to get in. So did the EU authorities. This tragedy for these countries is seen as an opportunity by the EU to bring in a single, Europe-wide economic and fiscal government which will be even more anti democratic. The present  crisis was foreseen and intended. It is what the EU calls a “beneficial crisis” - for the advance of EU power, that is.

The countries of Europe, however they organise their relationships, amongst each other will always be important trading partners for Britain.

We can be on perfectly good, neighbourly terms with them without being part of a European state. We do not have to become a state of the union to trade with America, nor a province of China to trade with China. It is a big, wide world out there with economies offering far greater prospects than the sclerotic, over regulated economy of the EU, distorted and tortured by the political imposition of an unworkable currency union.  Even the EU commission admits that the cost of its regulation is over 5% of EU GDP whilst the claimed economic stimulus of the Single Market is said to be around 1-2%. So, even by its own figure the EU is a drag on all the economies of Europe, equivalent to the whole production of the economy of the Netherlands.   

Exports to the countries of the EU account for about 10% of our GNP (although it is declining) and a roughly similar amount goes to the rest of the world (although that is increasing). The remaining 80% is purely domestic and internal. So we are bearing the huge dead weight of EU regulation on 90% of our economy quite needlessly for the sake of what we send to Europe.

7

The great selling point of the EU was security, prosperity and stability. That has proved to be an illusion. It hasn't worked, it doesn't work, it can't work. 

For a timid, obscure, offshore province of an inward-looking, economically declining European Empire, the future is decidedly bleak. Benjamin Franklin wisely remarked that a country which tried to trade freedom for wealth would end up possessing neither and deservedly so. 

There is a great, wide world out there, full of opportunity for a confident, free country, trading with the vibrant, rising economies of the developing world and renewing its links with the Commonwealth countries which were so shamefully treated when we joined the EU. 

As we have seen, the EU will not bail us out. We are expected to bail it out. 

Back around 1983 when Tony Blair committed himself to getting us out of the EU, Ken Clarke remarked “The great thing about Europe is that it makes most of Labour's policies illegal”. That was Old Labour, of course. It is often forgotten that the principle of market competition is built into the EU, into everything. That is why we have ruinous Private Finance Initiative in the NHS and elsewhere. According to the EU, the NHS is part of an EU market for health services, geared to the interests of corporate business. So is the Post Office and every other public institution.

Even that bastion of the free market, the United States does not have that written into its constitution. So Labour or any other government has no choice but to go along with privatisation. There is an unholy alliance between government and corporate capital, enforced by the EU. New Labour was the EU's obedient slave. As long as it was wedded to the EU it really had no choice but its enthusiasm for the corporate trough was decidedly unseemly.

8

This alliance of the power of the state (in this case the EU super state) to that of big business has a name – corporatism. It was how Mussolini defined fascism. Henry Wallace, the 33^rd Vice President of the United States knew it well and described its aims thus in the 1940s

“Their final objective, towards which all their deceit is directed, is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection”. 

Before we throw away more money (which we haven't got) into the  insatiable, unappeasable  maw of a nasty authoritarian state and  crucifying currency system, we need to renew our own institutions, especially our Parliament as  truly sovereign, responsible to us alone and worthy of respect. Then we can take our place in the world as a moderately sized, decent, independent democracy on good terms with everybody and at ease with ourselves.

FMQs 3 February 2010

Why does Iain Gray, the leader of Labour MSPs, continue to question the First Minister on justice matters when he knows the SNP government has improved the policing of our streets by an extra 1,000 pairs of feet and recorded crime is at a 30-year low?

Of course Mr Gray was attempting to pin down the FM on the new Community Payback Order which was voted through the parliament this week.  A feeble effort.

Ms Goldie called the same programme 'candy floss and flim flam' and suggested community service was a joke when low-level offenders were offered arts and crafts as well as manual work.  The FM again defended the programme saying offenders were learning new skills and that was a benefit to society.

Tavish Scott questioned removal of social workers from councils to the NHS, the proposal to create a single national fire service and the proposed reductions in police forces.  Alex Salmond insisted the government judged these matters in terms of effective government.

It wasn't an informative FMQs today.  More like a practice run in one-upmanship in the lead up to the Holyrood election.

Elderly Care Reform Or Balancing the Books?

The Scottish government is proposing moving approximately 38,000 council workers to the NHS under a radical plan to look after the elderly.

Under the government's plans Shona Robison, Health Minister, said older people could get better treatment with more integrated services.  The NHS would take charge of organising home care for patients who need support after leaving hospital.  It's also hoped the proposals, to be taken forward by a 'lead commissioning' group with £2m of backing, would save money and cut bed blocking.

"We want to see health and social care for adults delivered in an integrated way by NHS and council social work staff working together to give a seamless service.

"Evidence from partnerships in England shows more older people can get quicker care packages, cuts in delayed discharges, reduced length of stay in acute hospitals and fewer unplanned emergency admissions to hospital".

Let me get this right.  Currently some social workers are seconded from the local council to the relevant health board where they assist with problems, such as organising home care or care home places, concerning the hospitalised elderly. What is proposed is that these council staff will now be transferred onto the health board's books.  The council will then become 'lead commissioners'.

So all social work services for the elderly will no longer be provided by local authorities.  I presume local councils will continue to provide services for those who require home care or is this to be provided by the NHS?

Will the NHS be providing occupational therapy and such other services for those who have been discharged from hospital or will such services then be transferred back to local authorities?  As a means of saving money this sounds a non-starter if it is partly duplicating services currently provided by local councils.

It would appear to be an attempt to solve the problems created by handing the care of frail patients backwards and forwards between councils and the health service.  But will it? The NHS isn't any better than councils for making speedy decisions and I wonder if this change will improve the service for elderly patients.

The Herald also has some questions although welcomes the proposals in principle.  However, the affable Cosla president, Pat Watters, launched a strong attack on the plans, saying that during four years of debating the issue with the minister she had 'at no time raised this idea as the best way forward'.

The government do have Lord Sutherland, who reviewed Scotland's landmark free care for the elderly scheme, on side. "The time for talking is over.  It is now time just to get on with it."

I think the time for talking is only beginning.  The public need to understand the implications of this plan and I'm already confused.  Presently any frail person needing assistance with care contacts their local council. Will this change once these proposals are brought into practice in 2013? Is this proposal partly to redeploy local authority staff and save jobs?  I'm strongly in favour of jobs being saved but would be less happy if moving these workers to the already top-heavy administration of the NHS proved to be only a process to balance the books.

I suppose the devil will be in the detail of the proposal and once the Scottish government puts it online then we can all read what the future holds.

A Request I Couldn't Refuse

I was asked by Michelle Gallacher, the communications officer for Scotland's MacMillan Cancer Support, to promote their latest campaign.  Yesterday they launched the campaign which is calling for an overhaul of cancer services to cope with massive increases in the number of people surviving the illness.  I couldn't refuse.

The following is their full press release.

SCOTS CANCER PATIENT FILM DEMANDS

BETTER POST TREATMENT CARE

SCOTS cancer patients are backing calls for an overhaul of NHS services to cope with massive increases in the number of people surviving the disease.

The patients feature in a short film launched by leading charity Macmillan Cancer Support, an organisation that says reform is urgently needed to cope with the growing population of cancer survivors.

There are currently two million cancer survivors in the UK – 180,000 in Scotland – and this number is set to double within the next 20 years*.

Patients often feel abandoned after their hospital treatment has ended and many develop long term emotional, psychological and physical problems that seriously affect their quality of life. Reform is needed as the current system does not meet patients’ long term needs.

As well as helping to get the lives of cancer survivors back on track, Macmillan say transforming care after cancer treatment could free up NHS resources by, for instance, reducing the need for unnecessary follow-up hospital appointments.

To highlight the issue, the charity has launched a one-minute film called Change Cancer Care Today.

Among those who feature in the film is father-of-two Alan Clarke, of Newton Mearns, who is recovering from a diagnosis of head and neck cancer.

In the video, the 44-year-old says: “Treatment is the easy part of cancer. Living with it is the hard part. Treatment for me took six months, living with it is going to take forty years.

“As soon as the treatment finishes the NHS is finished with you and pushes you back into society. That’s when the real stress and pressure begins.”

The film’s aim is to encourage people to join Macmillan’s e-campaign and flag up these issues to Scottish Parliament candidates in advance of elections in May.

The charity, which is celebrating its centenary year, hopes the video campaign will help persuade the next Scottish Parliament to commit to ensuring that every cancer patient has access to services that can support them in the long term.

Macmillan’s director for Scotland, Elspeth Atkinson, said: “While it is good news that more people are surviving a cancer diagnosis, it is vital that our health system is able to support them.

“Much more needs to be done to ensure that these growing numbers of people are given the support they need to cope with a cancer diagnosis or the consequences of its treatment.

“We know one in five people living after cancer treatment will develop long-term emotional, psychological and physical problems. These issues seriously affect quality of life but also lead to unnecessary illness that can result in hospital readmission.

“If patients are equipped with information so that they know when they need to see a health professional or when they may need a diagnostic test, this will reduce the need for unnecessary follow-up hospital appointments.

“This, in turn, will free up resources which can be reinvested in the care of patients with complex needs and in new long term support services for people who have survived cancer.”

In the video, Macmillan is also calling on the next Scottish Parliament to ensure that every patient has access to a clinical nurse specialist from the time they are diagnosed.

These skilled nurses are responsible for coordinating patient care and making sure patients have access to personalised information, advice and support. They are also the key to a more efficient cancer service.

Teenager Megan McLaughlin also took part in the video, stressing that she didn’t think she’d be able to cope with her diagnosis of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma without the help of her clinical nurse specialist.

The 18-year-old, of Greenock, said: “I was so lucky that I had a Macmillan nurse. She was always only one phone call away.”

A cancer diagnosis is also a time of great uncertainty and anxiety and patients often have questions and concerns. They are also likely to be too ill to work and so money becomes a real worry at a time when their daily living expenses may increase.

This is why Macmillan is also calling for patients to receive routine access to the information and benefits advice they might need.

Carol Morrison, 45, of Greenock, who also features in the video, said: “As soon as I found out I had cancer I had to give my work up right away. I actually couldn’t keep up with my bills and I was finding it very, very difficult.

“When you are ill, you haven’t got the same concentration and, because you’re feeling sick, you don’t feel like filling forms in. But sitting talking to someone and them doing it for you is an awful lot easier.

“I don’t know how I would have coped if I didn't have a Macmillan advisor. I just wish that everyone can get that type of support.”

To find out more, visit www.macmillan.org.uk/scottishelection.

        Access to financial support:

Macmillan has established a network of benefits advice services across Scotland. We are calling on the next Scottish Government to help us to ensure every cancer patient has access to financial help. These advisers help people affected by cancer identify and apply for welfare benefits and charitable grants they may be entitled to.

         Access to information and support:

A cancer diagnosis brings with it all kinds of questions, uncertainties and anxieties and Macmillan has established services to help people to find the right information and support at this difficult time. We will be developing these services further throughout the next year.

Macmillan is calling on every patient to have a comprehensive and regular assessment of all their support needs and for systems to be established so that patients are referred to these services if appropriate.

The Scottish Parliament elections will take place on 5 May.

*Internal analysis by Intelligence & Research, Corporate Development Directorate, Macmillan Cancer Support. Analysis based on Maddams J, et al. Cancer prevalence in the United Kingdom: estimates for 2008. British Journal of Cancer. 2009. 101: 541-547

2011 is Macmillan Cancer Support’s centenary. For 100 years Macmillan has been providing medical, emotional, practical and financial support to people affected by cancer. For cancer support at home, over the phone, call the Macmillan Support Line free on 0808 808 00 00 (Monday to Friday, 9am – 8pm).

Is this the time?

For Independence?

Subrosa has blogged on the leaks regarding Megrahi's release. Few people seem that concerned that Gordon Brown is now a proven liar and puts the Scottish and British to shame. It would seem to me that the fewer politicians and bureaucrats, assemblies and talking shops we have, the fewer opportunities for the wannabe rulers to lie. If we as a Nation are to change, we need a Union of these Islands people to agree to hold them to account. This Megrahi incident is a perfect example of divide and rule. Might I suggest that a perfect vehicle for the grubby power grabbers amongst us is a group of EU states, all divided and subjugated to an unelected commission of dictators?

contributed by OldRightie

The 200 Year-Old Rock

It took four years for craftsmen, many of them local, to complete the construction of the Bell Rock lighthouse which stands nearly 12 miles from Arbroath's harbour.  It was completed in 1811.

The Year of Light festival begins tonight with an extravagant firework display and events, created by locals, are planned for throughout the year.

The Bell Rock is said to be one of Robert Stevenson's most famous structures.  Stevenson, the grandfather of the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson, was considered to be one of Scotland's greatest engineers.

Towering nearly 116ft above the North Sea the Bell Rock is the world's oldest lighthouse still in use.  Apart from during the two world wars, it has been shining since 1811.  Nowadays it is automated and run from Edinburgh by the Northern Lighthouse Board.

As a child I used to see the Bell Rock regularly when we visited family further up the north east coast.  It fascinates me to this day and it's thanks to the internet that I now know the full history.  Lighthouse keepers are renowned for their record-keeping and the logs give an exceptional insight into life on The Rock.  Did you know that in 1815 Sir Walter Scott, on a voyage with the Commissioners, visited the lighthouse, where he signed the visitor's book and wrote his famous lines Pharos Locquitur?

Far in the bosom of the deep,

O'er these wild shelves my watch I keep;

A ruddy gem of changeful light,

Bound on the dusky brow of night,

The seaman bids my lustre hail,

And scorns to strike his timorous sail.

You can read much more here.