Chris Keates: still an evil old baggage

Chris Keates: still looking like a Roald Dahl villian, drawn by Quentin Blake...

Some years ago, Chris Keates—or, rather, what I wrote about her (this is an edited version)—got me into some trouble with Andrew "Brillo Pad" Neill.

The essence of my point—crudely made but, I think, getting the point across—was that her defence of her union members was actually destroying (or "fucking") the life chances of the children that her members pretend to teach.

Your humble Devil has discussed (and, yes, caveats acknowledged) just how well the Free Schools and Academies are going in educating children—usually in very poor areas (such as those in which I live).

Despite these results—via Prodicus—it is hardly surprising that Chris Keates is now attacking the Academies (and other state independent schools) on behalf of her members (I use that word in a number of different senses).

But the NASUWT general secretary Chris Keates attacked his education policy as being motivated by "ideological fervour".

She said the coalition government's education plans were "driven more by the desire to create a free market and lining the pockets of business than ensuring that all children have the highest standards of education".

Who gives a fuck who delivers education, as long as it is the best possible education that we, as a society, can afford to give these children? Because—and I've said this a million times—if you give a child a good education, they have the tools to succeed in life. True, this isn't always enough—but if you fuck up children's education, then you almost always fuck up their lives.

The teachers' union also announced that it would be holding a strike ballot of members between 4 to 17 November - under the campaign of Standing up for Standards.

"Standing up for Standards?" What kind of standards? Oh, yes, these kinds of standards...

Government-funded research claims 20% of 16- to 19-year-olds lack basic skills

Around a fifth of pupils leave school functionally illiterate and functionally innumerate, despite average achievement in the three Rs improving over the past decade, a new Government-funded study has found.
...

Teaching union the NUT said the study, funded by the Government’s Skills for Life strategy unit, confirmed the “long tail of underachievement” already highlighted by the Pisa international comparative study.

The Sheffield report—The levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy of 13- to 19-year-olds in England, 1948-2009—says the latest evidence shows that 22 per cent of 16– to 19–year-olds are functionally innumerate. Professor Greg Brooks, one of the study’s authors, said this had remained at around the same level for at least 20 years.

His report says this means people have “very basic competence in maths, mainly limited to arithmetical computations and some ability to comprehend and use other forms of mathematical information”.

“While this is valuable, it is clearly not enough to deal confidently with many of the mathematical challenges of contemporary life,” the report adds.

Levels of functional innumeracy are higher still among older age groups and even the 22 per cent is “higher than in many other industrialised countries”.

Ah, those kinds of standards.

Look, teachers: I can understand why you might support truly evil people like Chris Keates—because she gets you pay rises, and pensions and all those other perks.

That's fine.

But don't you ever—EVER—try to tell us that you have the kiddies' interests at heart. You don't.

You and your unions—led by Chris Keates and her highly paid colleagues—are interested only in what you can get for yourselves, and screw the kids that you are supposed to teach.

But what makes the whole situation truly unforgivable is that you are willing to destroy the life chances of many thousands of pupils because your pension is more important than the jobs, and the children, that you profess to care about.

Y'know, it's the hypocrisy and cant that I cannot stand.

Seriously, teachers, you are almost as bad as doctors.

And Chris Keates is just about as bad as you can get...

Mmmmm. Salty...

Leg-Iron points to the deliciously-named WASH—World Action on Salt and Health—whose aims are as follows:

World Action On Salt and Health (WASH) was established in 2005 and is a global group with the mission to improve the health of populations throughout the world by achieving a gradual reduction in salt intake. WASH will encourage multi-national food companies to reduce salt in their products and will work with Governments in different countries highlighting the need for a population salt reduction strategy. The overall aim is to bring about a reduction in salt intake throughout the world by reducing the amount of salt in processed foods as well as salt added to cooking, and at the table.

Yes, it's another bunch of interfering busybodies who seem utterly incapable of keeping their fucking noses out of other people's business. Their UK arm is called—without any irony, apparently—CASH, or Consensus Action on Salt and Health.

Inevitably, CASH is a fake charity—11.2% of its income [PDF] came from the taxpayer in the form of a grant from the Food Standards Agency.

Voluntary income
Birds Eye: £1,000
British Heart Foundation: £2,500
Food Standards Agency: £23,500
Heart Research UK: £10,000
McCain Foods (GB) Ltd: £1,000
Marks and Spencer: £1,200
Nissan UK Ltd: £168,000
Walkers Snacks Ltd: £1,000
Total: £208,200

As for the other donors... Well, we all know how this works, don't we? It's extortion with menaces, basically. The only reason that the amounts are so small, at present, is because the organisation is pretty small. As they grow in size, so will the menaces and thus the "donations". (Although, I must confess, that I haven't a clue why Nissan gave so much.)

Salt—sodium chloride (NaCl)—is pretty vital to humans. It is crucial in regulating our cells' osmotic potential (thus keeping them at the correct pressure) and it is also used (alongside potassium chloride) for generating the electrical currents in our nervous system (through action potential). As with a good many things, too much can cause salt poisoning—but, as Leg-Iron points out—too little will kill you.

In a recent New Scientist article, one of their drones derided all salt deniers as being in the pay of the salt industry. No imagination, these Righteous. They even struggle to come up with different names for their fake charities. Their methods are always exactly the same.

Their only aim in this case is the eradication of salt from the diet, which will kill even more people than the NHS have managed. Oh, it doesn't matter to them. It's not about health. None of it ever was. It's about getting people to do as they are told. Even if it kills them.

Indeed. Further, the problem is that there is simply no need for organisations like WASH (or the hilariously-named CASH): the body is very good at excreting substances that might harm it or for which it has no need (apart from certain Heavy Metals, which are poisonous through accretion). Salt is mainly excreted in urine or, to a greater extent, in sweat.

And, via The Englishman, there is (to be charitable) very little evidence that excess salt (rather than suicidal doses of it) causes any damage at all.

In fact, while there have been more than 17,000 studies published on salt and blood pressure since 1966, even following populations for decades, none has shown notable health benefits for the general population with low-sodium diets. According to Dr. David Klurfeld, Ph.D., professor and chairman of the Department of Nutrition and Food Science at Wayne State University, editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, “the better controlled studies fail to show a significant benefit on blood pressure for large groups with sodium restriction.”

So, might I suggest that WASH, CASH and all of the other wastes of time and money shut the fuck up?

The Green Agenda

Dick Puddlecote has a series of quotes from (low-energy) luminaries of the Green movement around the world.

"The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature's proper steward and society's only hope."—David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth

It's a bit scary, that.

But then, so are these.

"Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsiblity to bring that about?"—Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme

"We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy."—Timothy Wirth, President of the UN Foundation

“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very useful.”—Dr David Frame, climate modeller, Oxford University

Quotes like these will be familiar to long-time readers of The Kitchen, and there are many more over at The Green Agenda—including this one (which I have definitely quoted before) from a scientist named Stephen Schneider...

"We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public's imagination... So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts... Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest."—Prof. Stephen Schneider, Stanford Professor of Climatology, lead author of many IPCC reports

Professor Stephen Schneider died last week, on the 19^th July—and the Telegraph led with a rather snide subhead.

Professor Stephen Schneider, who died on Monday aged 65, made his name in the 1970s by predicting a "new ice age", but went on to become one of the best-known proponents of the idea of global warming caused by human activities.

The rest of the obituary is, however, rather more fawning in its tone—unlike Phelim McAleer's piece on Not Evil Just Wrong.

Professor Schneider's death is a shock and a tragedy for his family and we at Not Evil Just Wrong offer our condolences to his relatives for their personal loss. His death was sudden and must have come as a shock to his family and colleagues. However, it has to be said that Professor Schneider died as he had lived—a completely unrepentant hypocrite.

Global Warming alarmists, of which Professor Schneider was one of the most prominent, all agree that aviation and flying is one the biggest causes of Global Warming—which they believe is going to wipe out hundreds of millions of lives and make large parts of the planet uninhabitable.

But just like Professor Schneider they fly and they fly and they fly. Often they will fly to conferences that come to the conclusion that others must not be allowed to fly.

Of course important people such as Professor Schneider must fly because they are doing an "important" job. But people from middle America, who work hard and want to go on vacation or to visit family they must be kept at home.

And the people of the developing world, they must forget about living in a modern economy burning fossils fuels or having a modern business infrastructure which involves airports and business flights. No—according to the late Professor Schneider and his colleagues they must continue to have a pre-industrial existence because industry will destroy the planet by causing Global Warming.

Of course the recent Global Warming scare is not the first time that Professor Schneider wanted to call a halt to the modern industrial world. In the 1970's Prof Schneider was one of the main Global cooling alarmists—he warned we were about to enter a new Ice Age and the only solution was to end industrial output.

Professor Schneider posed as an academic but hated tough questions and debate. He used Stanford's lawyers to try and censor our documentary when we interviewed him about his scientific flip-flopping. As a small film production company we had to remove his interview from our film. When I tried to push him further at the Copenhagen Climate Conference—he called an armed security guard to have our cameras switched off.

But that is not why I am breaking the long standing tradition of not speaking ill of the dead. I am a journalist and used to the powerful not wanting to answer awkward questions.

I am speaking strongly and truthfully about Professor Schneider because he was a hypocrite who wanted to deny the benefits of modernity to hundreds of millions across the globe whilst enjoying those benefits himself.

I don't think that I have anything else to add to that, frankly.

UPDATE: a reader writes...

I noticed an interesting quote on your recent "Green Agenda" post:

“The models are convenient fictions that provide something very
useful.”—Dr David Frame, climate modeller, Oxford University

In response to that:

"I stand by that quote - in fact I think it's a blindingly obvious point. The models are fictitious worlds - just look at their representations of topography, clouds and other everyday phenomena.

But they are convenient tools that let us learn useful things, like how the fluid bits of the earth system respond to radiative forcing."

The way the article is phrased appears to suggest that this fellow is a lefty and interested in pushing the green agenda, but as someone who has discussed the matter with him personally I know that this is far from the case. That quote could have been read as the useful thing being the chance to perpetrate a bit of Marxism disguised as science, but that isn't the case either as the above comment shows.

Of course Dr Frame (and my reader) is entirely correct—the climate models are fictitious worlds. The trouble is that, whilst most scientists ( and those au fait with that world) would take this fact for granted, it is all too often that I hear people (especially those in the media) talking about "the evidence from climate models shows...".

Climate models are just that—models. They cannot show any evidence, only suggestions. The only evidence possible is that collected from the real world using proper, scientific methods.

Mind-boggling hypocrisy

Having said that nothing was happening, I was perhaps a little premature: after all, I am sure that (if one looked) no day would go by without yet another example of our Lords and Masters' mind-boggling hypocrisy or Third-World levels of venality being exposed.

In this case, Our New Coalition Overlords™ have been using the money that they extort from us by force to stock up the Parliament booze cellars.

Foreign Office minister Henry Bellingham revealed that Government Hospitality, which manages the cellar, had spent £17,698 on new stock since May 6—bringing the total value to £864,000—though he insisted the standard practice of buying wines young saved money for the taxpayer.

It isn't just that this bunch of crooks steal our cash so that they can drink wine that most of the rest of us simply wouldn't be able to afford, of course—although that's bad enough.

No. It's much worse than that. And, just to emphasise the point, here's Henry Bell-End-ingham again...

"Careful management of the Government wine cellar enables GH to provide wine for high profile events at significantly below the current market rate, making substantial savings for the taxpayer."

Substantial savings for the taxpayer, eh? That sounds jolly good.

But... Hang on a second! Isn't it you kill-joy bastards that are attempting to introduce minimum pricing and a ban on below-cost alcohol sales so that, in other circumstances, taxpayers can't make "substantial savings" for themselves?

But of course I can see that you people are different: you people won't cost the NHS anything—because you've all got private health insurance, I imagine (involuntarily paid for by us). Can't go mixing with the plebs and the MRSA now, can you?

And you won't cause any problems drink-driving because you've all either got chauffeurs or jolly nice flats within spitting distance of the House, haven't you (involuntarily paid for by us again)?

So, what you're telling me, Hank ol' chum, is that drinking large amounts of booze is bad for the proles, but good for MPs. That booze might damage us but, magically, does no harm at all to jumped-up little authoritarians in suits?

Or is it simply that booze bought with the sweat of other people's brows tastes exceptionally good and, despite all of the expenses scandals, you just can't wean yourselves off that sweet, sweet liquor?

Seriously, you people are just beyond the fucking pale: you would happily deny us the opportunity to make "substantial savings" on our own drink, but you try to defend the—frankly obscene—amount of money that you spend on booze by claiming that you are making "substantial savings".

So, tell me, Hank ol' chum, how much would we save if you bought no booze at all? Oh, and how much would be save if you stopped the booze subsidy in the House of Commons bars? Because, ladies and gentlemen, let us remind ourselves that in 2007/08*, our Lords and Masters subsidised their own booze to the tune of £5.5 million.

As my peripatetic Greek friend has noted, drinking is one of life's greatest pleasures; these bastard politicians are attempting to remove that pleasure—for our own good, of course. And not only do they spend our money on their own booze, they throw yet more of it at fake charities so that Temperance scum like Alcohol Concern can use half a million quid of our money per annum to persuade MPs to make laws to force the rest of us to stop drinking.

IT'S OUR MONEY, you bastards.

And the only reason that you can take our money in tax is because the vast majority of us are not hopeless, helpless alcoholics—we are working, productive members of society who like to have the occasional drink so that we can forget the fact that we spend nearly half the year working to pay for those who aren't.

How dare you rely on our industry and then use our own capital against us? How DARE you?

And there are still people who genuinely believe that people go into Parliament to try to make people's lives better; there are even those in Parliament who will tell you, with a straight face, that they genuinely want to make people's lives better.

The mind boggles—truly it does.

P.S. There's some more quality comment from Dick Puddlecote, Captain Ranty and Leg-Iron.

* I can't be bothered to hunt down more recent figures: if anyone has them to hand, please feel free to post a link in the comments.

I'm just wondering...

... when this whole repeal thing is going to start?

I mean, NuLabour apparently introduced something like 4,300 new criminal offences, and the only things that the Coalition seem to have announced are higher taxes, probable higher taxes, and more crack-downs on personal freedom.

So, would anyone like to tell me what illiberal laws—apart from ID cards (which didn't really exist anyway)—Our New Coalition Overlords are going to scrap? Because I'm slightly in the dark.

With a professed dedication to civil liberties and 4,300 new-ish criminal offences to choose from, one would have thought that the Super Coalition™ might be able to announce something other than CGT rises and minimum pricing for booze, eh?

But no. It seems to me that our new masters, just like the old masters, are all mouth and no fucking trousers.

Actually, I don't know why I should be suprised...

In which I am a bitch

Dan Hannan keeps referring to himself as a blogger: this really grips my shit is a big way. So I left a comment there...

You know what, Dan? I'd try to answer you except that you never answer anyone.

Don't pretend that you are a blogger: you aren't. You are an old-style columnist who cannot be bothered to answer his critics: there is no difference between you and Polly Toynbee.

You want to see what a blogger is? Look at the rest of us out here or—better—look at Lord Tebbit. He answers his critics: you cannot be arsed.

The fact that you won an award for "blogging" is one of the biggest travesties of our times.

You are generally good at what you do—indeed, I agree with you much of the time (as you know). But you are not a blogger, and you should stop referring to yourself as such.

DK

Oce upon a time, we bloggers were bloggers: we weren't divided by party lines. It was us versus the established media: now, we seem all too eager to accept those MSM wankers calling themselves "bloggers". I blame (mainly) that cunt Oliver Kamm, who is the first blogger that I know who crossed the line.

Here's the trick, chaps: bloggers answer their critics—they engage in conversation. And I don't care how much I agree with Hannan and endorse his attacks on our government—he is not a blogger.

The worst thing that politics ever did was to destroy the blogger-to-blogger relationship: it's dead, but we should now (in the spirit of coalition) resurrect it and give the Establishment hell...

UPDATE: one other blogging convention is that, every now and again, you have to get a bit pissed and post a nonsensical, rageous and gratuitously insulting post, in which you pine for "the good old days"—a mythological golden age probably located sometime in 1954(b).