How To Help Someone Near Death

The greatest thing one can do for another (letter from the Telegraph):

Sir - The death of

Dame Cicely Saunders

(Obituaries, July 15) is a great loss to the hospice movement.

I spent the whole of my career in nursing and in the early 1970s I heard a lecture given by Dame Cicely, who described the three important things that the terminally ill need. They are given as if the patient were speaking - Stay with me - Speak to me - Hold my hand.

These few words perfectly describe the needs of a dying person and were so powerful that I remember them every time I think of that situation. May I commend them to every person who is a carer, be they a relative, a friend, or anyone in the medical field. To carry out these three things is the greatest thing one can do for another person.

Jeanne Yates, Devizes, Wilts

Something to remember in these troubled times. Thank you, Jeanne.

Justice Is Fallible

It always surprises me how much confidence people place on the verdicts of the courts.

The justice system is a human construct and so subject to error, both of fact and reason.

Professor David Taylor is spot on in his letter to the Telegraph regarding so-called expert witnesses:

Sir - Judge Thorpe (letter, July 20) recognises the failure of the way that expert witnesses are treated in this country, but not the cause of the failure.

The fault lies not with insufficient expertise on the part of the witness, but in the fact that even the best experts can be wrong. I very much doubt if Prof Roy Meadow would have failed Judge Thorpe's tests.

The answer is that expert witnesses must be treated like any others, and be subject to challenge. It is true that this can lead to undesirable contests, but even so, this is preferable to the present system.

Prof David Taylor, Scarborough, N. Yorks

Council Pygmies Oppress Giants

Brian Culbert and his wife Fiona wish to extend their house in Lumphanan, Aberdeenshire. Mr Culbert is 6 ft 10 in and Mrs Culbert is 6 ft. As they keep banging their heads on the ceiling and doors, they want their extension to have a higher ceiling.

But, after 18 months, the council has refused them planning permission, Councillor Peter Argyle saying if they allowed it because the Culberts are above average height,

Then in theory that would open the door to anyone else who is tall getting applications approved on the basis of their height. That is just not logical.

It seems perfectly logical to me: if you're tall you need higher ceilings and doorways than if you're not.

Councillor Jenny Watson, height 5 ft, said they should just "buy a bigger house". Well thanks, Councillor Jenny Watson, perhaps you'd like to pay for it, and suffer the inconvenience and disruption too?

But perhaps councils should just stop telling people what they can and can't do with their own houses, and to their own land? The planning process is slow, expensive, and wasteful; the bureaucracy pettifogging, harsh and oppressive (and, of course, with a vested interest in itself).

Does anyone imagine the world would fall apart if the Culberts built an extension fitted for someone of 6 ft 10 in? Like hell!

If thy eye offend thee, pluck it out!

Government Uses EU to Bypass UK Constitution

The UK government is using the London bombings to advance its Big Brother agenda. It wants internet and mobile phone companies to retain data about user activity for extended periods, ostensibly for intelligence purposes. This agenda has previously run into considerable opposition, both in Parliament and among civil liberties and other groups.

Now the government intends using the device of an EU inter-governmental agreement - which is not enforceable by the EU - to enable implementation within the UK without an Act of Parliament, and hence without normal Parliamentary scrutiny, and without the possibility of Parliamentary amendment.

As the EU Referendum blog points out in an illuminating post, the UK government is using the EU to legislate in the UK outside the normal Parliamentary process, effectively bypassing the UK constitution.

It is an extremely important point to grasp in understanding how Britain is losing its constitutional safeguards, and Parliament has lost a large part of its power, not simply to the EU, but to the executive.

Commons Sidelined, Again

The Home Secretary, Charles Clarke, is reported to have caused outrage in the Commons when it became apparent that amendments to the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, will be introduced in the House of Lords. The Commons will be unable to debate them, and the limited debate they were allowed yesterday had to be conducted in ignorance of what they would be.

Kenneth Clarke, a former Tory home secretary, said the proceedings were "a complete outrage" and the Government was treating the Commons with "intolerable contempt".

Other MPs expressed anger at being cheated of consideration of the new legal moves before being asked to approve the Prevention of Terrorism Bill. But attempts to force the suspension of the Commons to allow time to consider the changes were unsuccessful.

Amazing that MPs (especially arch-Europhile Kenneth Clarke) should get so worked up about being sidelined in this debate, when Parliament has been completely cut out of the picture on so many matters by the EU, is often ignorant of where power now lies, and while its decline continues apace.

Fairtrade Critique

Nice post on Fairtrade by Alex Singleton on the Adam Smith Institute blog, explaining how counter-productive Fairtrade is (even if it does relieve middle class guilt).

Neigh To Horse Passports

Horse owners face fine or jail from today if they do not have passports for their animals. The passports are required by the EU to control the quality of meat entering the human food chain - they eat horses on the continent.

According to the Telegraph, while half a million passports have been issued, anything up to half a million animals do not yet have a passport, which must be shown when moving premises, entering competitions, breeding, etc.

The government has twice delayed implementation of the law, because so few people had acquired the passports: once in January 2004, and again in June 2004.

The government says that if Britain does not comply with the law to the EU Commission's satisfaction, the Commission may withdraw approval for around 60% of veterinary medicines.

So what does it mean?

It means Britain can no longer make the law for itself, because our government is no longer competent to decide this matter, and there is now no one Parliament can bring to account and force a change if the policy and law on horse passports is thought to be unsatisfactory.

And it suggests that the most effective form of resistance to unwelcome bureaucratic laws which do not have general support is to ignore them. The horse passport requires a certain amount of cooperation among horse owners if it is to work.

Notice too, that it is the UK government that gets the flak for failing to derogate from the EU regulation: the principle of subservience to EU law is not questioned, and nor is the EU criticised for creating the regulation in the first place.

Act Needed For Prince Charles' Marriage

I think the government is deliberately undermining the monarchy. It seems quite happy to let the uncertainty continue over the legality of Prince Charles' marriage to Camilla, and for our future king to suffer the inconvenience and indignity of being married in a public registry office.

It would not be difficult for Parliament to pass an Act putting the legitimacy of Charles' wedding beyond doubt, and enabling him to have the civil ceremony at Windsor Castle as originally intended, but without making the Queens' home a wedding venue for everyone else.

It is not enough for our second rate Lord Chancellor to make a statement of his advice: the trouble is that if there is any question over the legality of Charles' marriage, it may give rise to serious constitutional and legal questions in the future, affecting not only Charles' family and heirs, but the country.

We owe it to the family who bear the burden of being Britain's constitutional keystone, and to ourselves, to sort this out properly.

Labour Plays Politics With Election Court

The Times reports on Labour's attempt to delay the trial of three Labour councillors accused of using postal ballots to rig elections to seats in the Bordesley Green and Aston wards in Birmingham in June 2004.

When Richard Mawrey, QC, the judge, refused an application to delay the trial until after May 5th, the Labour party withdrew legal funding from its accused councillors, presumably attempting to distance itself from them, but at the same time revealing its real interest in the case.

Doubtless without the case Labour would also find it easier to press ahead with introducing their contentious system of postal voting for the general election.

Another example of Labour's total cynicism, and contempt for the legal process.