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Friday in Parliament - featuring dead badgers, traumatised children and more.

Monday, June 22, 2009
From Hansard I discover what Ed Balls does during the working day:

"Andrew Rosindell: To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families how many schools he visited on official business in the last 12 months.

Ms Diana R. Johnson: My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families visited approximately 92 schools over the period since May 2008 on official business".

Even if he only inflicts himself onone class per visit, that must some 2300 children traumatised in a year. Not to mention the teachers who will have been seeking refuge in gin, chardonay or whatever later in the day. Good news for the nation's psychotherapists at least.

And a contender for weirdest question of the year:

Mr. Drew: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs if he will make it his policy to provide a service for the collection and disposal of badger carcases found (a) on land adjacent to individual households and (b) in water courses
I am not making this up, and the response to Drew was not 'are you on crack, matey?'.

"Jim Fitzpatrick: DEFRA has no plans to provide a service of this nature". Blah etc
Unfortunate perhaps, as we are thus spared dead badger collection boxes to go along with the orange bags, green recycling boxes etc. Perhaps they should have black and white stripes, thus giving the various municipal bin stasis the opportunity to levy ferocious fines for putting dead zebras, skunks etc in the boxes.

Bees are back on the parliamentary menu in a big way (see passim), and I am indebted to Simon Burns for this:

Mr. Burns: To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs which (a) organisations and (b) individuals were consulted during the development of his Department's bee health research Rationale, Objectives, Appraisal, Monitoring and Evaluation statement.

Jim Fitzpatrick [holding answer 18 June 2009]: DEFRA’s bee health research Rationale, Objectives, Appraisal, Monitoring and Evaluation statement (ROAME) was included as part of the public consultation on the Healthy Bees plan which commenced on 8 April 2008 and closed on 29 August 2008. The consultation documents were published on the DEFRA website and were sent to the following organisations.

Among the organisations quizzed were:

Bee Diseases Insurance Ltd.

Commercial Queen Rearers’ Association Of The UK (My favourite, that. Make up your own off colour joke)

Women’s Food and Farming Union - What is women's food anyway? Probably not pork scratchings.

BASF. If memory serves, the Tommies of WW1 fought in unforms dyed by BASF

A quick one on Gib:

"Adam Price: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what his policy is on the inclusion of Gibraltar on the UN’s list of territories in the process of decolonisation. [280231]

Chris Bryant: The Government believe Gibraltar should not be included on the UN list of non self-governing territories. The 2006 Gibraltar Constitution provides for a modern and mature relationship between Gibraltar and the UK, and Her Majesty’s Government regrets that the UN Committee of 24’s outdated criteria fail to take this into account. The Government do not consider that any of their Overseas Territories should remain on the UN list.

Chris Bryant saying something sensible. Miracles will never cease.

Bob Spink: To ask the Secretary of State for Health how many children were admitted to hospital as a result of an accident in school in each month of the last five years; and if he will make a statement.

The table shows that under 18s are most likely to get hospitalised in late autumn and winter. Given that the peak figure was 27 in March 2005-6, I take the figures cum grano salis, as I was responsible for at least two school-related hospital admissions - I was a little accident prone as a small person

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posted by Croydonian

A selection of odds and ends

Monday, May 04, 2009
Starting, naturally, with an opinion poll:

Should the IDF take out Iran's nuclear facilities? 66% of Israeli Jews polled agree, 15% do not, and the rest do not know.

Conspiracy fans everywhere will be delighted to know that we are in on this one too:

"The Israel Air Force recently staged military exercises between Israel and the British colony of Gibraltar near southern Spain, the French magazine L'Express reported on Saturday.

The fact that the drills were held 3,800 kilometers away from Israel "confirms that the Israel Defense Forces is making concrete preparations" to attack Iran over its refusal to cooperate with the international community over its contentious nuclear program, according to L'Express".

That the IDF is able to project force well beyond Israel's immediate neighbourhood is well known, but sending a squadron of F-16s to the other end of the Med is a rather different proposition to securing overflight rights among some less than neighbourly neighbours. Perhaps An All Seeing Eye can tell me whether plane spotters have been out in force in his neck of the woods.

Let's see Harman get upset about this:

"As the crisis continues unabated and the collapse of the global economy pushes up unemployment figures, one thing is becoming clear: The crisis is disproportionately affecting men. Almost 80 percent of the 5.1 million Americans who have lost their jobs in recent months have been men. The US male unemployment figure is now 8.8 percent, while it is still only 7 percent for women".

And a passing Tamiflu-reistant porker just did an Immelman turn.

Factlet o' the day:

"The designer of the first-ever Soviet limousine was arrested on wrongful accusation and died in Stalin camps after two years of imprisonment".

As every schoolboy knows, the KGB's predecessors use to tour Moscow etc in vans marked 'Drink Soviet campagne'.

Meanwhile, the Kiwi equivalent of whoever presents the breakfast TV progs in these parts has got himself in trouble:



Not enormously gallant, but there you are.

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posted by Croydonian

Grim news

Monday, September 22, 2008
I am indebted to reader Geoff for telling me about trouble in store for his home patch of Gibraltar and our other 'colonies' including the Falklands territories and the Caymans:

"He is one of the last people Gibraltar – less still the Falklands – would have hoped to have seen nominated. Jorge Argüello, Permanent Representative of Argentina to the United Nations, is the new chairman of the Fourth Committee, the Special Political and Decolonization Committee. He is set to be addressed in a fortnight’s time by both Chief Minister Peter Caruana and Opposition Leader Joe Bossano".

Further detail at the Gibraltar Chronicle, also picked up by Mercopress, the South Atlantic News Agency.

Before looking further at Arguello and Argentina's role as less than honest would be honest broker, note how the UN introduces its page on decolonization:


"...more than 80 nations whose peoples were formerly under colonial rule have joined the United Nations as sovereign independent states since 1945".

Note emphasis on people, not on land.

The 'decolonization' committe 21 vice presidents, inclusing those bastions of stability, Everest leve high moral ground, liberal democracy, human and property rights Afghanistan, the 'People's Republic' of China, Myanmar, and Egypt. We are on the committee too, along with our Uncle Sam, presumably to play the role of Aunt Sallies while picking up the tab for this.

New head honcho Argüello has a biography at the UN, salient points noted below:

"Mr. Argüello was appointed as his country’s Permanent Representative in June 2007. Prior to that, he was a National Congressman from 2003, during which time he served as President of the Foreign Relations Committee and President of the Parliamentary Observatory of the Malvinas Question. He was also Vice-President of the Permanent Commission on International Peace and Security with the Inter-Parliamentary Union".

It seems less than likely that Argüello is going to put much emphasis on the will of the peoples of Gibraltar or the Falklands, as both have emphatically rejected any change in sovereignty status. While the current administration would doubtless love to sell Gib and Port Stanley down the river, they will find it difficult to do so with a spotlight on them, so perhaps we will be looking at irritation, wasted time and anxiety for those involved, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Anyway, I will re-quote Rupert Davies of Sierra Leone, "Rupert Davies ( Sierra Leone) said it was in the spirit of General Assembly resolution 637 -- which reaffirmed its recognition of self-determination as a prerequisite for the realization of all fundamental human rights -- that his delegation had repeatedly maintained that the rights of the islanders who had lived on the Territory for 175 years should be paramount in any negotiated settlement. Subjecting people to alien domination constituted a violation of their right to freely determine their political status and pursue development. There was no dispute that the people were the holders of the right to self-determination".

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Spanish king visits part of Spain - Morocco throws hissy fit

Saturday, November 03, 2007
Mainly because the parts of Spain in question are Ceuta and Melilla, the Gibraltar-like enclaves in North Africa. And from a Moroccan spokesbod:

"Morocco “totally rejects and opposes” the visit, Moroccan government spokesman Khalid Naciri declared on Thursday, warning that it could harm relations. “There are some red lines regarding the territorial integrity of Morocco that should not be crossed — our Spanish friends should understand that,” he added". Source.

Her Maj has not been to the Rock since 1954, but our Spanish amigos do get a bit upset when royal-lets go there, as Princess Anne did in 2003:

"Britain enraged Spain yesterday by announcing that the Princess Royal will travel to Gibraltar next year to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the colony's conquest. The announcement that the Princess will visit the Rock added to Madrid's anger after the failure earlier this year to strike a deal on Anglo-Spanish co-sovereignty over Gibraltar. "Although this is of symbolic rather than political importance it is clearly not going to be something that helps to resolve the dispute," said a Spanish government spokesman. "In fact it is far from helpful."

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posted by Croydonian

Has the UN actually been paying attention - for once?

Thursday, June 21, 2007
I ask, because it is considering decolonisation, again, and the list of places it features does not include Gibraltar. However, all the territories listed are either ruled by us or by our Uncle Sam so no surprises there.

Hidden deep in the text is this little gem about Pitcairn: "...according to a 2004 statement by a representative of the island Mayor, the people of Pitcairn did not fully understand all the possibilities or the significance of the various self-determination options available to them". Given that there are fewer than 50 Pitcairners (1), the individual concerned may well have conducted individual grillings on civics with all of them, but it is still pretty insulting.

Elsewhere, a range of dog bites man observations were made by Guamanian independence activists, including this shocking comment found in the archives : "In a secret memo issued on 21 November 1945, Vice Admiral G.D. Murray, then commander of the Marianas Navy Force, stated that “the economic development and administration of relatively few native inhabitants should be subordinate to the real purpose for which those islands are held”. Vice Admiral Murray had stated that the island’s commercial or industrial value were “of little or no relative importance to the welfare of the United States”. Erm, a war had just finished and that part of the Pacific is not exactly awash with deep water ports and the like.


(1) - Of no relevance to the foregoing, but some years back I engaged in a confectionery / film title competition with some friends, and by comment consent 'Mutiny on the Bounty' was the winner, followed by 'Mars Attacks'.

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