Gordon is alive! – Ming the Merciless

Reports today that Ming Campbell has delegated responsibility to Paul Burstow MP to develop coalition plans is further evidence of why the Liberal Democrat Leader is not up to the job. In an interview with The Times, Sir Menzies Campbell said that the price of putting Gordon Brown in Number 10 would be the introduction of proportional representation at Westminster. Ming did not rule out the possibility of a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition, but interestingly, did not speak as warmly about David Cameron as he did about Mr Brown.

This can only be good news for the Conservatives. We should have nothing to do with any idea of a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Proportional representation would be bad for British democracy and government. A better electoral strategy would be to highlight the increased chance of getting Gordon if you vote for Ming. I do not believe that there are any votes for the Liberal Democrats in ‘Middle England’ if they aligning themselves more closely with the dour one. By indicating that he would countenance working with Gordon, Ming has shown no mercy to his Liberal Democrat colleagues sitting in Lib Dem-Con marginals in the south of England. Sir Ming may very well be the second best thing that has happened to Conservative electoral fortunes in a decade.

Today’s report prepared by research teams from the LSE & Institute of Psychiatry reveals the sad reality of dementia and its likely long-term impact on us all. There are currently 700,000 people with dementia in the UK. It is projected that by 2025, there will be over a million people with the disease, of whom two thirds will be women. The present financial cost of dementia to the UK is over £17 billion a year. The researchers’ investigations revealed that caring for one person with late-onset dementia costs society an average of £25,472 per year. And it is not just financial burdens that should be of concern. Demented patients can have a profound adverse effect upon the family unit.

Dementia is increasing in prevalence as a consequence of our ageing population. Other important contributory factors to this increase are high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and a lack of exercise. There is no cure for dementia, and those with the condition will need increasing care as the disease progresses. I have worked in a dementia unit and hence understand the difficulties of the levels of care needed. Unfortunately, psychogeriatrics is not a glamourous specialty, and consequently does not attract the necessary funding of research and care. As Professor Martin Knapp, of the London School of Economics, one of the report’s authors, said: “Dementia is one of the main causes of disability later in life ahead of cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke, yet funding for dementia research is significantly lower than these other conditions.”

It is not only dementia that is on the increase. More than 1.5 million Britons now have Type II Diabetes ¹. This is thought to be a direct consequence of poor choices in diet and diminishing levels of exercise. The cost of diabetes to the NHS by 2025 has been estimated at 25% of the entire healthcare budget.

Finally, I would like to mention a condition that infuriates doctors. It is one that leads to approximately one million missed GP consultations per year in this country³. I believe that the condition is caused by the NHS and the way in which it is structured. I am referring to the ‘DNA tendency’ (DNA = ‘Did Not Attend’). On most days, I have patients not attending scheduled appointments. This attitude reflects a growing problem of people not respecting the system. Clearly, because people do not directly pay for the service, they do not treat it with the necessary respect.

The “Three Ds” I have referred to will eventually cause the break-up of the NHS as we know it. Unless the British healthcare system changes, from being the responsibility of the state to being the responsibility of individuals and communities, it is doomed. Like dementia, the incidence of Type II Diabetes can be reduced by changes in lifestyle². If an individual exercises more, does not smoke and is not overweight, he is less likely to develop both conditions. The same philosophy should apply to DNAs. These missed appointments will only diminish in number when patients are held more responsible for their cost.

Emphasising personal responsibility for health and the care of your own family has to be the way forward for health and social care in this country. Where there are genuine cases of need the state should step in. In my professional experience, however, most people are capable of looking after themselves. Indeed, when a patient accepts the challenges of diabetes and dementia, I have found only better outcomes in terms of morbidity. My advice is to give people more responsibility for their lives and we might see an improvement in their health.

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Thomas Jefferson, 1802

Alistair Campbell was once famously quoted saying, in reply to an American interviewer, “We don’t do God”. Yesterday, Michael Portillo used his Sunday Times column to advise David Cameron to essentially take the same advice. The article had been written in response to the news last week that David Cameron regularly attended Sunday worship in Kensington, West London. And furthermore, that Mr Cameron’s daughter was going to attend the Church of England School attached to the same church.

Response to the Portillo article was swift, particularly from social conservative commentators. Interestingly, the thread of responses to the Portillo article on Conservative Home provides enough evidence for why the Conservative Party should ‘go softly’ when contemplating the use of religion to put forward its admirable plans to improve British society. The wide range of views expressed, often quite strongly and with venom, illustrated that Britain would be far better off forging a path that separates church from state.

By arguing for the need to keep religion out of politics, I am not suggesting that Christians who volunteer and devote their time and energy for the improvement of our society should not be supported and congratulated. If, by following ‘God’s will’, these individuals become noble and good citizens, then who am I to criticise. For example, the research by the Centre for Social Justice provides ample evidence of the sterling work undertaken by faith groups up and down the country. My point is that to be a good person one does not necessarily have to be actively religious, be that Christian, Muslim, Hindu or any other faith. A political party of an essentially secular country should be careful when contemplating the promotion of observance to particular religious practice. As Thomas Jefferson (pictured above) once remarked,”History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government”.

Where Michael Portillo had a point was when he asked the question, “If moderation and secularism have been overturned in parts of the Muslim world, why should not the same thing happen in Christian societies?” I am similarly concerned that Britain, and other ‘Christian’ countries, may respond to the indiscriminate attacks of extreme Islamists by making their societies less tolerant. To do so, would be wrong. Like Portillo, I am no ‘militant secularist’, however, I do not want British politicians of the future to talk about “crusades“, claim to have taken to prayer to aid decision-making, or to have indulged in overt religious activity. In Britain, a person’s faith has always been a private matter. Let’s hope it remains that way.

On Monday, it is rumoured that the Defence Secretary will announce a further increase in British forces for Helmand Province in Afghanistan. This has been long called for by military commanders on the ground, as a large Spring offensive by the Taliban is expected. It will not be the first time in British history that a sizeable British force will find itself in the rugged terrain of Central Asia.

In British military history few defeats were as dramatic as that sustained in the Kabul Gorge in 1842. By the end of the battle, the entire force of 690 British soldiers, 2,840 Indian soldiers and 12,000 followers were killed or in a few cases taken prisoner by the Afghan forces. The final stand by Her Majesty’s 44th Foot (pictured above) took place at Gandamak on the morning of 13th January 1842 in the snow. Only 6 mounted officers managed to escape, of whom 5 were killed along a nearby road. That afternoon, the British troops in Jellalabad, watching for their comrades of the Kabul garrison, saw a single figure ride up to the town walls. It was Dr Brydon, the sole survivor of the column. So ended the First Afghan War.

The picture above illustrates the rout of British forces at the Battle of Maiwand in 1880. It came at the end of the attempt by British forces to reinforce their control of Afghan territory. The disaster at Maiwand signalled the end of the Second Afghan War. It is sobering to note that Maiwand is to be found in Helmand Province.

These two Afghan Wars, and an equally unsuccessful Third War during the 1920s, were all about Britain defending its regional influence. This so-called ‘Great Game’, a phrase reputedly coined by Arthur Conolly, a captain of the Sixth Bengal Light Cavalry and employee of the British East India Company, to describe the British and Russian Empires’ fight for supremacy in Central Asia, ended with the start of the Second War. The subsequent onset of the Cold War saw Britain replaced by the USA in what then became known as the ‘New Great Game’.

With the announcement of further British forces to augment the large Anglo-American force already present, we are probably now witnessing a new phase of that ‘New Great Game’. The brief history of Britain’s involvement in Afghan affairs presented above serves to highlight the reality of military campaigns in that inhospitable country. The British government needs to have a clear strategy, and more importantly, a firm idea about the operation’s goal(s). Please let us not hear about a futile ‘war on drugs’, a war that will never be won by putting troops in the field. Fighting the Taleban and Al Qeeda forces should be about supporting the fledgling democracy in Afghanistan. Nothing more than that, and certainly, nothing less.

In a week when a photograph of David Cameron dressed in his Bullingdon Club attire made the headlines, I thought it would be interesting to compare his alleged, youthful indiscretions with those of the people he has faced, and continues to face, across the Despatch Box.

In the early Seventies, the Home Secretary John Reid joined the Communist Party of Great Britain, a party that then openly sympathised with the Kremlin. And he did not do this as a student, but as a tax-paying, married man in his late twenties. I certainly had formulated my politics by that age. Had he?

In 1978, Dr Reid’s predecessor at the Home Office, Charles Clarke MP, a then radical Marxist, organised the 1978 World Youth Festival, a jamboree that most seriously left wing, young politicians attended. Amongst comrades with him in Havana were future New Labour modernisers and MPs Peter Mandelson, Paul Boateng and Fiona McTaggart. Where are they now?

The Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett has also travelled far across the political spectrum during her adult life. She supported Tony Benn for the Labour Deputy Leadership in 1981, when Benn represented the Left Wing of a leftward-leaning Labour Party. Today, we see her standing ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ with Condeleeza Rice. Political principles?

Mrs Beckett’s predecessor at the Foreign Office, Jack Straw (pictured above on a Chilean beach) was also once a Marxist sympathiser. In the mid-1960s, he visited Chile as part of a student party. The Foreign Office report of the trip was recently declassified. In it, Mr Straw was described as “the chief troublemaker acting with malice aforethought”. During the trip, he met with the future Marxist President Salvadore Allende. He denies ever having engaged in political activity in Chile.

In contrast, the young Peter Hain (pictured being carried above) was never shy of engaging in political headline grabbing. The Northern Ireland Secretary was once publicly in favour of a unified Ireland (he has since back-tracked from this position). In 1973, he was convicted of criminal conspiracy at the Old Bailey, however, in his defence, it was related to his proactive attempts to disrupt sports tours to apartheid South Africa. Having said that, he did go on to champion that great advocate of human rights, Robert Mugabe, in his fight against minority, white rule in Rhodesia (he has also since withdrawn his support for this man). So many changes of view….

And finally to the Prime Minister. He was first elected to Parliament in 1983 on a manifesto that called for, amongst other hair-raising ideas, unilateral disarmament and the complete withdrawal from the European Union. The man, who has recently announced his support for Britain’s nuclear deterrent being replaced, was then a card-carrying member of CND. (Indeed, the possible future Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Peter Hain, remains a member of the same organisation).

My point is that everyone is capable of making mistakes in their youth. Indeed, every person should be allowed to change their minds about political issues and the appropriate way to behave. If the public and media want politicians with no past then politics will be the poorer for it. The stories about the Bullingdon Club’s behaviour, if true, are not attractive. If David Cameron was ever present at such occasions, one must remember that he was then of an equivalent age to when his opponents were calling each other ‘Comrade’.