Journal of the Plague Years

• Have you tried the ground-down bark of pine trees in your bread?
• Morality and religion in the abortion debate.
• The Bells of Hell, going ting-a-ling-a-ling for me...
• Further to Lillian Ladele and 'A Case Of Conscience'.
• Is legislation the right way to promote respect for members of the armed services?
• God blesses the Blairs because He knows that they're good people.
• But of course life is worth less, there.
• You never were Prime Minister, Mrs. Blair. You weren't elected to represent anyone. So now you've gone, please just shut up.
• President Ma Clinton might well have proved a monster.
• The Independent at less than it's best. (But at least the Christian Aid report gets an airing.)
• We'll come full circle.. (A personal comment, not to say grumble...)
• The People's Post Office.
• If you read the Telegraph, you may wish to migrate.

Have you tried the ground-down bark of pine trees in your bread?

20 May 2008 .

As the food crisis begins to impinge on the UK and Europe, there is inevitably going to be a great deal of rethinking about EU's agricultural framework, which came to its present form in a time of perceived surplus (for us in Europe, at least). There is talk about bringing 'set aside' land into use, rethinking of funding farmers for not producing, and so on.

Listening to the UK politicians today, however, had me hearing a distant alarm bell. They appear to be talking about removing all farm support and all overview, of allowing farmers to compete in a wholly free market, producing to meet whatever the market appears to demand...

A personal note: it's only in the last 70 years that we have had an era of plenty in Europe. As recently as the 1930s the situation was very different for an awful lot of people. My father, here in England, suffered from malnutrition as a child, and the rickets he contracted then almost certainly contributed to his very premature death. My son's maternal grandparents, on the other hand, were Finnish: between the wars they actually faced starvation; they told me about the bark-bread years, the years when folk ground down pine-bark and added it to their flour... and there are plenty of people still alive all over Europe who have equivalent stories to tell.

Because we've had full shelves of cheap food, we've forgotten that we've never actually been that far from shortage. One of the reasons that we have lived well has been the intervention which has been part of our lives since the Second War, subsidies in this country after 1945 and, in Europe, the much-maligned Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

There was a lot wrong with the CAP - it was sometimes expensive, it led to butter mountains and wine lakes, it was dirigiste, there was corruption - but it wasn't new technology or even better fertilizers, or better shops, or greater ambient wealth which gave us this generation of extraordinarily plentiful food, it was intervention. (I admit that by the 1980s, I did not know one single person in England, friend or colleague, who agreed with me... their memories are a bit longer over the channel, however...)

So now we have a government - which has already demonstrated ad infinitum its poor grasp of history, economic incompetence and lack of sympathy with our independent farmers - suggesting that we abandon what remains of the mechanisms which ensured that we were fed, in the name of their ideology of a free market (which has proved disastrous in the comparatively simple task of running the railways, for example), at a moment when suddenly we are going to need the closest attention to making sure that we can feed ourselves.

Purely by the way: farming can never be a good arena for a free market, anyway:

• Farmers can only respond next year to what they perceive the market demanding this year.
• And when they all respond to this year's same perceptions by all producing the same crops next year, suddenly there'll be a shortage of everything else next year (that's what happens!)
• Apologists will argue that the buyers, the supermarkets, will anticipate next year's needs and advise the farmers accordingly. Yeah, right... and without manipulating the system? And that's even assuming they can predict competently...
• The resulting concentrations of crops can be an open door for disease, and could exacerbate the effects of a poor harvest ten-fold.
• Economies of scale will ensure that small farms are absorbed into the large ones even faster: but exactly those economies of scale (monocultures, use of chemicals, de-hedging, etc.) are what are leading to land degradation in the UK almost as bad as that in the US. (If you don't believe me, go and have a look at areas of the Fens where dust storms are becoming rarer only because the topsoil, having dried out, is almost gone; 15 foot and more of shrinkage and erosion in some places - to such an extent that vast areas which were not below sea-level now are.) In any case, wholly profit-driven farming (of this type, which is comparatively new) is already proving itself incompatible with long-term soil management.
• Market forces are already giving the supermarkets damaging monopsony power. The free market our politicos dream of will accelerate this process; it's already beginning to become apparent that the consumer, let alone the farmer, is not the long-term beneficiary.
• At a time when there'll be an increasing need for food, the free market will increasingly demand fuel - and the big farms will have no interest in resisting the profits offered.

CAP agriculture 'free market' bark-bread supermarkets monopsony monoculture 'cheap food' shortages malnutrition

Morality and religion in the abortion debate.

20 May 2008 .

There is obviously, and inescapably, a moral element in the debate about abortion; it's the source of poignant and intense emotions since there are so many conflicting moral imperatives under consideration, not just in society but often within each of us individually. It is absolutely right that the ethical dimensions are fully explored in the debates, publicly and in parliament.

What has no place in the parliamentary debate, whether or not it informs our individual consciences, is religion.

When Brown was threatening the whip on this debate, I argued on this site that he was wholly wrong to dictate to his MPs contrary to their consciences; I referred particularly to the Catholics, including, I believe, Ruth Kelly, who were being put in an intolerable position. People, and MPs, are entitled to bring whatever directs their conscience to the outcome of such a debate as this one...

However, they're not entitled to assume a favoured status for their morality simply because it happens to ride under the banner of religion.

If you argue with me on the basis of evidence - or your morality - I can argue back. If you argue with me on the basis of your religion, and 'revealed truth', there can't be any meaningful argument between us: apart from anything else, you're not treating me as an equal citizen, no matter how much you may claim to the contrary. And I flatly refuse to respect any law which exists on the basis that you say that your god tells you how I should behave.

morality religion abortion debate 'moral dimension'

The Bells of Hell, going ting-a-ling-a-ling for me...

19 May 2008 .

Dispatches on Channel 4 tonight ('In God's Name'), reporting on fundamentalist and hard-line Christians in England... nothing particularly new, the usual blend of sanctimoniousness and intolerance*, and the usual response in me - irritation and embarrassment. But then, I've always known that in their eyes I'm numbered among the damned... Ho, hum.

* I forgot to mention their acid hatred, this evening mainly aimed anyone who doesn't condemn abortion out of hand. Plus all Muslims. (Although where the fundamentalists and their religions are concerned, there's not a jot of difference between them: whatever their religion, God loves them and unless I agree with every one of their ludicrous ideas I'll enjoy an eternity of the nastiest torment which they - rather than God - can think of. A plague on all their houses...)

However, watching the programme reminded me of the philosophical difficulty which I'm still finding hard to resolve: what objective difference between my evangelising about the environment and their evangelising about religion?

• I'm banging on about what seem to me the self-evident dangers facing the planet because of our greed and profligacy; they're banging on about what seem to them the self-evident dangers facing us because of our sinfulness
• I say the evidence is there for all to see; they say the evidence is there for all to see.
• And so on...

There are some differences: I believe that we're all in the same boat, whereas they seem happy to consign kaffirs and heretics to damnation; and hate isn't any part of my message...

I'm a remarkably intelligent chap, of course, but not quite as clever as I need to be: I believe that there's a qualitative difference between my science and their superstition - but I don't quite know how to demonstrate it.

[In complete (apparent) contradiction to this item, I'd like to refer you to the item below!]

'philosophical conundrum' Dispatches 'In God's Name' Abortion Islam

Further to Lillian Ladele and 'A Case Of Conscience'.

19 May 2008 .

It's reported tonight that Ms. Ladele, a registrar in Islington who does not wish to preside at 'gay weddings' for reasons of conscience, is finally to meet the council in court.

The whole news item (BBC) was skewed (biased, actually) towards the suggestion that Ms. Ladele is 'obstructing' gay unions: she isn't, and never was - there are plenty of registrars in Islington happy to oblige. I note that the BBC's selection of interviews-in-the-street made it very clear which side they support; Reith would turn in his grave.

This seems to be such a basic matter of conscience that I would ask you to read my page about Ms. Ladele in Islingon.

I write this item simply to express my wholehearted support for Ms. Ladele's stand, even though I suspect we would fundamentally disagree on almost any topic we might ever find to talk about.

'Lillian Ladele' Islington registrar

Is legislation the right way to promote respect for members of the armed services?

19 May 2008 .

The disdain, sometimes aggression, shown to members of our armed forces is a disheartening commentary on our times, on too many levels. It's not new, exactly, but so far as I know it hasn't happened like this in England since troops ceased routinely to be used to control the turbulent populace nearly two centuries ago.

English youth has had a reputation for yobbishness and aggression among our neighbours in Europe fairly consistently since the middle ages; and it led the way in football hooliganism: so, however depressing it may be that some numbskulls interpret public disapproval of a stupid war as a licence to attack forces personnel, it's not entirely surprising.

More repellent, perhaps because it came out of the blue, is an allegation that personnel in uniform have been refused entry to Harrod's.

[I've decided to enjoy the next bit... Coming as I do from an old family, with paternal ancestors living in London in the 12 century (milkmen aside), I have always regarded Harrod's as arriviste, the sort of place that people who think they have class think has class. Since it was taken over by Fayed (who tries to give himself class by calling himself al-Fayed, rather in the spirit of that other wannabe, von Ribbentrop), the shop has become a joke. It is a fundamental rule that a gentleman is never rude to anyone below the rank of Major - a rule which Fayed, of course, would never have learned.]

Joking aside, however... That our servicemen and women deserve our respect seems to me self-evident; that they don't get it leaves me pretty appalled. What I'm less certain about is that there should be a law (heard this evening on the news) making discrimination against service personnel a criminal offence.

1) It is, at the very least, ironic that the same government which initiated the war which the public so resent and which, through its own cavalier treatment of the troops, helped to fertilise the hostility against them, should have the gall to legislate in this way.

2) Firemen, too, put their lives at risk for us - and are also treated with contempt; as do the police. Are we to have a law commanding respect for them, too? If not, why not? It's the where do you draw the line? argument. Prison for those who mutter about a traffic warden? The point is, of course, that there are already plenty of laws to deal with assaults and even abuse. [As it happens, I don't favour special cases; I disapprove of the idea that an assault motivated by racism or homophobia should be treated more harshly than the same assault for some other motive; I'm not sure whether this would be regarded as the same argument, however.]

3) I doubt if such a law would be workable in the generality.

Uniform 'Armed services' respect Harrods

God blesses the Blairs because He knows that they're good people.

17 May 2008 .

In the light of the yesterday's report, The Living Planet Index ( Classified - Pollution and Climate), the shenanigans of one self-centred, greedy woman should be been seen in pretty clear perspective... but that isn't the nature of the world we live in? and isn't clear which story the media find more interesting?

When Madame Blair injected herself into my view of the public world, I was absolutely resolved not to allow my first impression of her to colour my future opinion: I told myself, seriously, that my instinct that she was a deeply unpleasant piece of work was a prejudice based only on her unfortunate appearance.

[On the contrary, because she was a civil rights lawyer (in a country where we increasingly needed such), I wanted her to be effective and, most of all, influential on her prime minister husband... who, in the event, oversaw the most comprehensive erosion of English civil liberties and rights in our peacetime history.]

Over the years I gave her the benefit of the doubt, even as it was becoming clear that she had the same post-modern grasp of reality as her hubby (wherein the truth is what you convince yourself, and tell others, it is... what those who wish to be in their loop call 'the narrative').

I believe the point at which I realised that my first instinct had been right all along probably came at an incident in, I believe, Melbourne in Australia, when a store suggested that she might like to take a little something, on the house, as a gift; she reportedly accepted the offer to the tune of nearly 80 items. (I'm prepared to bet she nicks hotel towels, too.) Why that report should have swung it for me, I'm not sure; there were plenty of others just as repellent.

Her skills as a lawyer may, for all I know, be unsurpassed within the legal arena... though I find myself doubting it... but for all practical purposes, she has come across (to me, at least) as a complete waste of space in the public arena. In fact, I don't believe her public behaviour has been commensurate with any real understanding of civil society, let alone civil rights...

It's become clear from what is quoted of her new book that she is poisonous. [I emphasise 'quoted' because nothing would possess me to read it, and it's serialised in a paper for which I no longer have any respect. It means I'm criticising something I haven't read, which is bad practice, but I really do doubt that the Independent and others are deliberately misquoting passages or episodes, no matter how much they may then excoriate them.] The details of her sex-life in the Queen's residence; the cloying - sickening - account about how she told hubby that God knew he was good, as the news was sinking in (or should have been) that hubby had driven Dr. Michael Kelly to suicide; the publication for profit of episodes which she was quite prepared to sue others for revealing on the pretense of protecting her privacy (and, indeed, the brazen descriptions inextricably and inexplicably mixed with coy reticence - so that the phrase 'I'm a good girl, I am' springs to mind in its worst light); the fantasies about her supposedly poverty-stricken and deprived background; the binding thread of self-justification (along with the thumping royalty, of course)... Maybe I really am misjudging her this time... but I doubt it; if I am, well, frankly, she's so far gone in so many other ways that I couldn't care less.

I don't even know why I've wasted part of my life in writing this entry, except once again to place my loathing for our 'political class', as it's become, on record.

[And to have something of my disdain on record if I'm ever unfortunate enough to end up, in any capacity (accused, witness, jury), in a court over which that poisonous woman presides... because I'll refuse, or recuse, or something.

[Actually, to be fair, she's achieved something of a masterstroke, bringing disrepute to the political class and the judiciary in one fell swoop. Even Lord Goldsmith didn't quite manage that!]

I don't think I've been unpleasant about anyone's natural appearance on this site before, and I certainly don't plan to make a habit of it: but with regard to my reaction to Ma Blair's appearance, there's an aphorism that the face you have when you're fifteen is given to you by God... at fifty, it's what you made for yourself...

'Cherie Blair' 'God knows you're good' 'Lord Goldsmith'

But of course life is worth less, there.

14 May 2008 .

As rescuers, consisting in large part of the Chinese military, go in to help the victims of the earthquake in that country, I think some clear racism has popped up here in the UK: one or two papers have suggested that one of the reasons why the Chinese relief effort is so quick and focussed is that 'the eyes of the world are on them'. (I regret: not my newspapers, so no cuttings to refer to... but I'm not making this up!*) In fact the Chinese military, for all that we disapprove of them in other ways, have a very powerful ethos pushing them to help victims in these circumstances: if, God forbid, we ever have a disaster in this country on such a level as to require their assistance, I shall have no problem at all with being helped by Chinese soldiers. But then it was always a feature of white racism to assume that races of colour somehow 'care less about human life than we do'.

* Added 16th. May: Re-reading today what I wrote here, I realise just how outrageous an assertion it was for me to make without being able to quote chapter and verse as to exactly which paper(s) I'm talking about... yet I did see it... so, even without references I've decided to leave it as it stands: if anyone reads this and saw or heard what I'm claiming, I'd be grateful for a reference - please contact me.

On the subject of natural disaster affecting thousands or millions of lives... More aid is getting through to Burma, but still very little, and the Burmese authorities have refused even the most sensitive of offers from most of the outside world; so it's tempting to ask why haven't we simply gone into Burma? There was an argument on Newsnight this evening - which I don't buy, but which is worth repeating - which is that while we went into the Balkans without being invited, and we'd probably go into African countries (or even Latin-American, in the unlikely event that they weren't helping themselves and each other), the reason why we're not acting in Burma is that it's a long way away and there aren't any media on the spot. [My immediate response is that we're not going into Zimbabwe; although I accept that Darfur is such an internationally-involved diplomatic/political mess that I don't think anyone has any practical suggestions.]

earthquake racism aid intervention 'Chinese military'

You never were Prime Minister, Mrs. Blair. You weren't elected to represent anyone. So now you've gone, please just shut up.

14 May 2008 .

All these overwhelmingly self-serving memoires from 'B' list politicals (Prescott, Ma Blair, etc.)... For most of my adult life there were the so-called Radcliffe rules, which allowed a decent interval between departure from office and publication of such personal recollections - and they weren't as scummy then as the current crop seem to be, either.

I know that a lot of folk find the personalities of politics fascinating: I don't - I think our focus on them is a downside of the way democracy works (?) in this country now, which gets in the way of the business of good governance.

The worst example: Why I should know so much about Cherie Blair absolutely defeats me - not only did she never hold political office, she was never even elected as an MP; yet she has fed on being in No10 and has made a fortune on the back of it. And now, with the government, and Brown, going through difficult times (meaning difficult times for the country), so that, by any sane judgement, those who are in a position to cause damage but cannot make a positive or at least relevant contribution should keep their mouths shut, she publishes to nobody's profit but her own - and much of what she publishes is on the moral level of gossip. What on earth business does she have stirring up the mud about matters which should have been none of her business, about which as a lawyer she should know she ought to have maintained the strictest discretion?

How do we get good governance in a country in which (by these people's recent actions and by their own published accounts) the personalities in the government are not only predictably if unfortunately driven by pride, ambition and testosterone but also riven by jealousy, envy and peeing on (mostly our) gateposts? It's also to the point that, if these passions are inevitable, it may well be up to the media to unearth them, or civil servants perhaps to blow whistles if the passions become too counter-productive; but it's not to anyone's benefit for the people involved, or their spouses or lovers, to wash this linen in public to earn fame or fortune - of which, due to the way the system works, they already have an excess.

[It might even be argued that broadcasting on TV from Parliament was a massive mistake, because it gives small people the chance to strut and show off; and their infantile heckling and political point-scoring reinforces the impression of testosterone-fuelled dogs peeing on our gate-posts.]

Gordon Brown in trouble (to the extent of losing support from members of his own party on controversial issues or even of making serious mistakes) is one thing, an aspect of a malaise about which we're entitled to be concerned. The apparent decision by members of his own party to undermine him, to get the knives out, is another - and it's damaging not only to the party but to how we're governed. We can live without the whip, but not without loyalty. The way the balance has gone on this suggests that the top levels of our political system may be ill: the input of Ma Blair, Campbell, Prescott et al suggest that the most destructive aspects of our new social fixation on gossip and celebrity ('albeit' or 'because' at the same time shallow - I'm not sure) have reached into our body politic - and it's not just ill but stuck in the ICU without a nurse.

'Cherie Blair' Prescott 'Alistair Campbell' 'Radcliffe rules'

President Ma Clinton might well have proved a monster.

13 May 2008 .

I did hear it - it was widely reported, of course - but I'm still asking myself with disbelief whether I somehow imagined it... Did she, a prospective president of the United States, sitting in some drawing room somewhere, really say that the US could obliterate Iran?

Of course it's true the US has the military power; but where's the refusal to allow her country ever seriously to think of going down that road in the first place?

I am so glad that it looks like she's out of the running in any realistic way... Now, I'm asking whether the Americans will let that liar, clearly with no vocation to peace, anywhere near the vice-presidency. Don't get too close to her, Obama...

'Vice president' 'Hillary Clinton' 'Obliterate Iran'

The Independent at less than it's best. (But at least the Christian Aid report gets an airing.)

12 May 2008 .

A sharp headline in the Indy today, Tax evasion 'costs lives of 5.6m children', appeared under the by-line of Sean O'Grady, the Economics Editor. Children world-wide, presumably, but, annually or cumulatively? Was this, I wondered, Brits evading their taxes? Most of all, however, my immediate thought was that even if everybody suddenly saw the light and started paying their taxes, would that revenue really be directed at the 5.6 million children? Or would it continue to be spent and misspent in the same old ways... or simply go into the pockets of different folks (not to even think of mentioning politicians or arms manufacturers).

Alongside the headline, mugshots (sinister!!!) of three tax evaders, U2's Bono, F1's Lewis Hamilton and rock music's Phil Collins... except that they're not evaders but avoiders, possible a bit distasteful but wholly legal. So, the Indy not at its best at the off, on what may be a matter of fairly fundamental importance about which it might need to be.

Of course, it always helps to read the article, rather than relying on the headline and shock pix (shame on you, Indy)... It turns out to be report about a document from Christian Aid, Death and Taxes: the True Toll of Tax-Dodging.

The thinking behind the figure of 5.6 million children is made clear; trade-related tax evasion (alone) will be responsible for this number of deaths of children under five between 2000 and 2015 (equivalent to 1,000 youngsters per day). And Christian Aid are understandably positing tax-dodging as a problem world-wide, which they say is cheating the (unspecified) poorest countries $160bn per year, up to four times what the World Bank estimates to be the cost of achieving the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

The report also refers to the 'conventional' distinction between tax evasion (illegal) and tax avoidance (often called legitimate but in my submission merely legal, not at all the same thing) - hence the unfortunately chosen mugshots. The importance of this point probably won't be grasped (in either sense) by our government, even though tax avoidance as often practiced is regarded by many ordinary folk in this country and overseas as a running insult:

Offshore banking can only ever be for four reasons, says CA (paraphrased): (a) Tax avoidance, (b)Tax evasion, (c) to function in secret or (d) to sidestep regulations on financial services or monopoly practices: in each case the pursuit of profit outweighs all other considerations, including good citizenship and social responsibility...

• The problem is that since the Thatcher era we have a political culture, heartily endorsed by Blairism, which won't challenge the tax-dodgers - which, in fact, is in thrall to the class which includes them.

If this last seems like rebellious-student peak, I refer to CA's list of companies practicing tax avoidance: BP, Shell, Exxonmobil of course, Ford, Wall-Mart and our own Development Department's CDC. (CDC, the Commonwealth Development Corporation, formed under public ownership to help poorer countries and now a plc - to no advantage to British taxpayers - and making massive profits, 350 million pa, which it hides offshore, hence paying no taxes.)

The British government is actually particularly on the spot, says CA, since so many of the most notorious 'Tax Havens' are overseas territories or crown dependencies (Channel Islands, Isle of Man, Cayman, Bermuda, Virgin Islands): but that's Thatch-Blair Britain for you... after all, what are friends for?

What's the betting? I reckon, a few appropriately smarmy-sincere - and vague - words from a government apparatchik, followed possibly by the appearance of some action... but no substantive effect. (The reasons for Brown's lack of action would be different from Blair's, but the result will be much the same.)

Instead of protecting wealthy 'Non-Dons', says CA, the British and Irish governments should 'support international moves to curtail... the secrecy of tax havens, thereby lifting the lid on the tax industry and its machinations.' Some hope!

Meanwhile, I hope the Indy will do better by us on this issue in the future than it did today. That headline with those pictures was not so clever; and this reader at least would have preferred something a little higher than page 5.

'Christian Aid' Tax dodging evasion avoidance haven 'Death and Taxes' 'Offshore banking' trade-related

We'll come full circle.. (A personal comment, not to say grumble...)

11 May 2008 .

In 10, or 15 or 20 years, the pendulum will be returning, assuming we haven't all drowned, melted or simple starved first, and we in the UK will stop selling the family silver (not that there's much left now), start to rein in the more rapacious and currently almost unfettered elements of the private sector.

What depresses me is that until then, I'll have to go on living in a country remade by New Labour - with every prospect of Blair-clone Cameron or worse taking over when Brown goes... knowing that the 'third way' has proved a disaster for the country and, whatever government spin may be saying, for an awful lot of people in it. (I'm not sure that I'm too bothered about you lot, since you keep voting these triangulating* frauds in.)

*Lovely word, 'triangulating': what does it mean - what could it mean - other than lying?

Mind you, if we're to return to anything like a balanced, social-democratic(ish) economy, we'll need someone of the calibre of, let's say, Colonel Nasser to start pointing out that our hospitals and schools are, after all, actually ours.

Added 14th May: Talking of coming full circle; it was the left which provided the impetus for the abolition of the 11+ exam on the grounds that some children were left by the experience feeling that they were failures. The SATs exams are achieving exactly that effect in spades (and now it seems that the inspectorate has written to each 11-year-old child in some schools held to be performing below average [in poorer areas, by no coincidence] saying words to the effect that 'although you passed your SATs, you didn't do as well as you should... your school isn't doing its job properly'). All the while, a New Labour government expresses its determination to enhance, strengthen, extend the testing, in the face of all the evidence against the wisdom of continuous testing. More on this anon.

SATs 11+ 'Colonel Nasser' renationalise Blair-Cameron 'third way' social-democracy deregulation

The People's Post Office.

11 May 2008 .

As plans plough ahead, with unseemly speed, for the closure of up to a third of the post offices in the country, many of which are profitable, most of which are of sometimes immense importance to local communities they've served for generations and all in the face of considerable public protest (thereby giving us another glimpse of The Father Of The Nation listening to our pain)...

...a medium-intense advertising campaign over the past several weeks promoting the 'People's Post Office' might smack of cynicism.

It stinks of post-modern new-labour irony. After all, before it was privatised it did actually belong to the people.

Well, there you go!

'People's Post Office' 'Post Office closures'

If you read the Telegraph, you may wish to migrate.

11 May 2008 .

I accept that I'm not part of the Daily Torygraph's target market, and I don't read it very often. I glanced at a copy last week, however... it was even more unfulfilling the I remembered - to the extent that I was quite surprised.

I may have found an explanation, if not in detail, certainly in principle. Apparently the paper has dumped its religious affairs, science and social affairs correspondents in favour of a new post of 'Showbiz Editor' (sic). The arts correspondent has been sent on Mickey Mouse projects (including measuring the speeds driven by oldies on motability scooters in Rugby). The paper had to pay an out-of-court-settlement in six figures to its quondam education editor for constructive dismissal. At least eight other hacks may be determined to take wrongful dismissal cases all the way.

A 'Showbiz Editor' in a national daily! I'm almost asking Am I the only one who's disgusted, etc... (What are Heat and Hello for?) Mind you, it seems that the driving force behind at least some of these improvements (for what else could they possibly be?) is one Tony Gallagher, now deputy editor of the Telegraph but late of the Mail (q.v); well, I never!

'Daily Telegraph' 'Showbiz editor' 'constructive dismissal'

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