Some thoughts on the woman who put a cat in the bin

The video and the story have gone viral, so I really shouldn't have to explain the story of the woman who put a cat into a wheelie bin in Coventry. The woman who did it has since been identified as one Mary Bale and questioned by the RSPCA.

I have two cats and, being a "big girls' blouse" as my other half puts it, I love them to bits. I'm extremely protective of them, and would be as justifiably furious as Lola's owners.

But, like them, I do think those who have taken to venting their spleen over this (and countless other issues) on Facebook verge on the bat shit crazy. Yes, this was at best an incomprehensible and thoughtless act. But calling for the woman to be "repeatedly head-butted" is hardly a rational response.

This is not to say that acts of animal cruelty should be excused or ignored.

The recent story of a dog which was tied to a rucksack and thrown in a canal moved me closer to mindless violence than the cat story. If I saw such a thing taking place, I doubt I could be held responsible for my actions.

But, even if it were justifiable, beating the living fuck out of everyone who was caught would not stop animal cruelty. Nor change the fact that, legally, the consequences are akin to those for graffiti.

What the solution to that is, I can't say. But, in working it out, our main point of reference must be our reason, not our sensitivities. Otherwise, we are no better than the angry mobs who - in a fury over paedophiles - harangue the innocent and in fact put children at greater risk.

Mary Bale has been questioned by the RSPCA and will be punished accordingly. Lola the cat, meanwhile, has fully recovered from her ordeal. There is no need for any repeated head-butting.

Enemies of Reason has some reflections on this of a more philosophical nature.

Steering the Camp for Climate Action back on course

The Camp for Climate Action 2010 is drawing to a close. Having occupied a site on the doorstep of Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS) global headquarters since last Thursday, tomorrow they will be returning the basecamp to nature. So what's been achieved - and what was the point?

Firstly, it should be said that the camp was never going to bring down capitalism. That was never the point, and it would be a rare and special soul who went to the edges of Edinburgh with that idea in mind.

So why do it then? In the words of the Camp's website;

The Camp for Climate Action is a grassroots movement taking direct action against the root causes of climate change. After mobilising and helping stop the proposed third runway at Heathrow and a new coal fired power station at Kingsnorth, we're growing into a mass movement reclaiming our future from government and profit-hungry corporations.

The point is not some vague and impossible goal of "overthrowing capitalism," but of challenging its advances in the present whilst drawing peoples' attention to what is happening.

The choice of RBS as this year's target is a case in point;

RBS is the UK bank that has been the most heavily involved in financing fossil fuels and corporate bad guys around the world. It took part in providing E.ON with $70 billion at the time it was looking to bust out 17 new coal and gas power plants across Europe, and underwritten $8 billion in loans to ConocoPhillips in the last three years, who apart from being active in the Peruvian Amazon are one of the biggest players in the Canadian tar sands. In fact RBS is the UK bank the most heavily involved in providing the most loans to oil companies that are extracting tar sands and in doing so trashing the climate and destroying Indigenous Communities.

Since the financial crisis, RBS has received billions of pounds of public money to keep it afloat, to the point where it is now 84% owned by the UK public. Communities in the UK are now facing years of cuts to health, education and social services as a result of bailing out the actions of irresponsible bankers. And now they are using our money to prop up the E.ONs and the Shells of this world.

Using public money to support banks in trashing the climate embodies the absurdity of the economic and political system we live in. We need to stop our money from being used to finance tar sands, coal and all fossil fuels, and we need to have democratic financial institutions that serve the needs to people, communities and sustainability rather than just lining the pockets of greedy bankers.

The only way to prevent catastrophic climatic change is to stop burning fossil fuels by leaving them in the ground and switching to the alternatives. The current growth-orientated economic system causes our society to be addicted to burning fossil fuels. In order for our species to survive we need to move beyond capitalism by radically transforming human social relations.

World leaders, Politicians and the Capitalists they serve are failing to prevent the destruction of our planet because they have a vested interest in maintaining profits through business-as-usual. The false solutions they offer (such as bio-fuels, carbon trading, carbon capture and storage, nuclear etc) serve only to "green" capitalism in the search for more growth.

Banks and finance institutions are essential to maintaining the social control of capitalism for the benefit of the ruling class. British banks such as Barclays, Lloyds TSB and RBS are also major investors in companies that extract and burn conventional and unconventional fossil fuels. While the economy is in crisis after the bailouts and austerity measures begin to bite we must ask: Why is it that elites are benefiting from the profits of destructive investments which are killing the planet all loaned with money they stole from the public in the first place?

This disastrous investment must stop because fuels such as coal and the tar sands will if fully exploited certainly lead to global climate catastrophe. The building of new coal power stations and the expansion of other polluting industries must also be stopped and existing plants decommissioned.

The exploitation of Coal, Tar sands, Oil and Gas affects the health and environments of communities the world over, often causing militarization and conflict. Many are resisting this locally and finding solidarity globally, the climate justice movement works in solidarity with these struggles against these corporations for direct community and worker control.

Direct community and worker control being not only the ultimate goal of the anarchist movement but also, as I've argued previously, the only way to seriously combat climate change. This cannot happen overnight, but only through serious efforts to educate, agitate, and organise.

Indymedia offers an overview of the camp's actions to that end;

GROWING RESISTANCE

There was a day out from Climate Camp to Cousland on 21 August to participate in Growing Resistance, an event organised by Coal Action Scotland in solidarity with Communities Against Airfield Open Cast.

Report from the Growing Resistance event.

SUNDAY STROLL TO RBS HQ

On Sunday, several hundred climate campers, including lots in 'greenwash guerilla' outfits took a stroll across the bridge from the camp and into the grounds of RBS Headquarters. Undeterred by police attempts to keep them on the climate camp side of the bridge, a large number of activists reached the RBS HQ, where it appears that balloons full of molasses (dirty oil) were catapaulted at the building, a couple of windows got broken and some activists may have got onto the roof (unconfirmed).

MONDAY DAY OF ACTION

Monday's Day of Action saw campers taking diverse actions against RBS and other connected climate criminals. Five activists were arrested following an occupation, lock-on and banner drop at the headquarters of Forth Energy in Leith, protesting against the company's plans for four biomass power stations. In Edinburgh, a giant pig delivered and spilt a large quantity of 'oil' at the entrance of oil prospectors Cairn Energy, with more sprayed onto the walls; several branches of RBS also received attention.

In themselves, these actions have done nothing but cause some inconvenience to RBS and good copy for the media. The "climate justice movement" is not a big one, and its hestures are often tokenistic. Moreover, being an extremely broad-based movement, it is unable to build momentum based on class struggle.

In short, it holds lofty and admirable goals at its core, but is doing little more than tread water.

This is not to say that actions such as Climate Camp are a waste of time and should be scrapped. Far from it. If we are to take that attitude, we might as well simply declare that we are fucked, wash our hands, and wait for disaster.

More constructively, we need to see this movement become more explicitly anti-capitalist. If that seems a strange statement, then it is down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what capitalism is.

As an article on Infoshop.org explains;

Capitalism is the name for an entire social order. It is not just an "economy." Thus, the international nation-state system is an integral part of capitalism, and has been from the very beginning. Capitalists took over the pre-existing state forms and turned them to their own ends, integrating them into their project of accumulating capital. The ability to make profit from privately owned productive properties would be impossible without the legal framework provided by governments, backed by police and military violence. Businesses and governments are in bed together, and have been for the past five hundred years (profit takers + politicians = capitalism). Yet even when a few climate justice activists do admit that capitalism has to be destroyed in order to stop global warming, they fail to note that states do too. Except for anarchists. 

Though the mission statement and press releases from Climate Camp hint at exactly this perspective, talking of the "political and economic power" that "lies at the heart of the problem," an anti-statist anti-capitalism is never explicitly laid out.

Indeed, as one commenter noted on Indymedia, "many come from an anarchist position, [but] others [come] from more mainstream (i.e. Labour, Conservative, and Liberal) positions." This limits the potential of the Camp to offer a genuinely anarchist perspective on the matter or to push for the kind of broader social movement neccesary to enact real change.

Indeed, the dilemma Adam Ford described a year ago still holds true;

The idea of a class-based transformation of society is rejected – in some cases because of righteous disillusionment with traditional forms of class struggle, in many cases because the individual is from a relatively wealthy background. When such people see impending environmental catastrophe as the number one threat to their lives, their philosophy often becomes more anti-technological than anti-capitalist. Taking this perspective to its logical conclusion, capitalism and the state wouldn’t be much of a problem if they could somehow leave people alone in ecological peace, but since they can’t, both must be overcome. But with international class-based solidarity apparently ruled out, the result is that “setting an example” (as one woman put it) becomes the main method of ideological recruitment.

This sets green and black anarchism up for its own failure. Due to the built-in ideological structures of mainstream media and the state, the example set is of using those compost toilets, getting attacked by police, and putting yourself in mortal danger on your week off. Understandably, this is not an example that many are willing to follow.

Thus, a shift in focus is needed from the "lifestyle" of the Camp to germinating the ideas behind it amongst the working class. After all;

While capitalist ideas prevail amongst the working class, invasions of power stations are less direct action and more dramatic lobbying; ultimately impotent appeals to the government to see further than the short term bottom line, something it is organically incapable of doing.

Needless to say, overcoming this point will not be easy.

As the Infoshop article notes, effective and long-lasting action "will require an unprecedented, massive, global anti-capitalist (including an anti-statist) movement." Such a thing may be beginning to emerge, but it remains in its infancy. Susceptible to easy diversion along less radical paths.

In both action and dialogue, we need to fight to ensure that doesn't happen. In short, we need to turn direct action away from gesture politics and towards pushing more long-term change.

UN excuses corporate crime in the Niger Delta

The Guardian reports on the frankly stupefying findings of a UN investigation in the Niger Delta;

A three-year investigation by the United Nations will almost entirely exonerate Royal Dutch Shell for 40 years of oil pollution in the Niger delta, causing outrage among communities who have long campaigned to force the multinational to clean up its spills and pay compensation.

The $10m (£6.5m) investigation by the UN environment programme (UNEP), paid for by Shell, will say that only 10% of oil pollution in Ogoniland has been caused by equipment failures and company negligence, and concludes that the rest has come from local people illegally stealing oil and sabotaging company pipelines.

The reason for this outcome is that the investigation was "paid for by Shell." I very much doubt any multinational company would be so stupid as to pay for an investigation likely to find them at fault.

Further, as Mike Cowing, the head of a UN team studying environmental damage in the region, admits, UNEP "cannot say whether a particular spill is from one cause or another." In fact, because "our [anecdotal] observation is that there is a serious [bunkering ] problem," they pluck the figure of 90% out of the air.

This figure is in contrast to Environmental Rights Action, Nigeria's leading environment group, whose "observation is the direct opposite of what UNEP is planning to report."

Not that we should be surprised, since the official spill site list "is given by the oil companies themselves."It is "endorsed by the [government] agencies," who are of course also have oil interests in the region and are highly dependent on Shell. The idea that "no party will be able to influence the science" is laughable.

Nonetheless, this exposes the weakness of the UN and its various enforcement bodies in the face of corporate capitallism. Cowing claims to be "focusing on the science" because "UNEP is not responsible for allocating responsibility for the number of spills being found in Ogoniland." But if so, then what is the point?

Writing on this issue last November, I cited an Amnesty International report (PDF) which told how decades of pollution have seen "violations of the right to an adequate standard of living, including food and water, violations of the right to gain a living through work and violations of the right to health."

Worse, "the government of Nigeria has given the oil companies the authority to deal with matters that have a direct bearing on human rights." Which has "fundamentally undermined access to effective remedy, contributed to ongoing violations and led to deeper poverty and deprivation."

In April this year, a report on oil production in the region by the Independent noted that "medical studies have shown the gas burners contribute to an average life expectancy in the Delta region of 43 years." In addition, "12 per cent of newborns fail to see out their first year."

From which, I made the following point;

In the midst of such a scene, armed and militant resistance is inevitable. Though attacked as criminals, the armed rebels of the Delta are supported by indigenous people for one quite simple reason. They get results.

As Joseph Hurstcroft, executive director of Stakeholder Democracy Network, told the Independent, "there is an obvious correlation between militancy, reduced oil production and reduced flaring." When it is near-enough estalished fact that the oil companies "will never stop gas flaring until the oil wells run dry," what else can those affected do but take up arms?

My article, of course, wasn't just about the Niger Delta. For that is just one of many areas around the world where the oil companies'  profit is resulting in untold human misery.

But all the UNEP findings do is reinforce the propaganda of the state-corporate interests responsible for this. As Ben Amunwa of London-based oil watchdog group Platform told the Guardian, "many Ogoni suspect that the report's focus on sabotage and bunkering will be used to justify military repression notorious in the Niger delta, where non-violent activists, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, were executed."

There can be little doubt that Shell's "exoneration is a thinly-veiled propaganda exercise. It leaves the issue of environmental destruction largely unaddressed and the people of the Delta at further risk of state repression if they try to stand up for themselves.

Let us hope, at least, that UNEP can deliver the promised "massive clean-up" without interference from Shell or the government.

Urban fox hunting, class, and a militant response to animal cruelty

Although nowhere near as fervent as the initial furore over the "fox attack twins," the media's demonisation of foxes continues unabated. And we are beginning to see the consequences.

Some of the stories that have come out about this have been truly ridiculous.

For example, one can only wonder why the woman who told the Daily Mail of "horror at being bitten by fox on two separate nights" didn't think to keep her windows closed after the first instance.

I do feel for the family whose pet dog was killed by an urban fox. However, as the owner of two cats and a dog, if a fox had previously been in my garden long enough for me to grab a camera and take pictures, I'd have made a point of deterring from coming back.

I'd also have deliberately kept my dog away from it. I certainly wouldn't have let it chase after the thing and end up "two roads away." That's active carelessness.

The latest round of nonsense follows a teenage girl being bitten whilst she camped with friends in her back garden. Or, as the Mirror would have it, "Camping girls attacked by a crazed fox." The paper tells us that the "crazed," "snarling," "bloodthirsty" animal "ripp[ed] a foot-long hole in the canvas" before "sinking its teeth into her left foot."

All of which sounds terrifying, except that despite the apparent foot-long hole in the tent, post-attack the fox couldn't get back in. "I could see its claws running down the tent door as it tried to get back in," schoolgirl Bethany Blackburn is quoted as saying.

Not only that, but it was only then that they decided to use their mobiles to call into the house. Before that, according to the account in the Daily Mail, "before it struck it had spent more than two hours clawing at the sides of the tent." However, the girls say this as "a bit of fun" and, in the tradition of badly-written pulp horror, "their amusement turned to terror" when the creature "lashed out."

Such hysterical exaggeration, more expected of the 13 year old girls than of the adult "journalists" writing about them, is nothing new. Foxes are not the first group to fall victim to media sensationalism.

But it appears that the mania over this has inspired complete lunatics to take matters into their own hands. A new blog, Urban Fox Hunters, has sprung up hoping to "co-ordinate" the efforts of this "collective" in "keeping our streets safer"[sic].

That they view gangs who catch foxes for illegal fights with pitbulls as "other people getting stuck in as well" says all that need be said of the mindset of the twats behind this. You cannot seriously claim to be all about "humanely exterminating pests that are attacking kids" when your first blogspost includes the phrase "note to self, NO BEER BEFORE HUNTING!"

At the same time as this is going on, "cubbing season" has reared its ugly head once again.

As the League Against Cruel Sports explains;

In the spring, vixens gave birth to new litters of fox cubs. These little cubs have been growing up in relative safety, learning how to survive in the wild, but now their lives are in terrible danger. Even though it’s illegal, some extremist hunters will be secretly hunting them.

Cub hunting is an activity which traditionally starts in August and continues until mid-October. Its primary purpose is to train young foxhounds to kill foxes and give them a taste for blood. This is because the hounds are not fox killers by nature and for hunts that are still hunting foxes illegally despite the ban, it is important that the hounds are trained to know which animals they are expected to chase and kill. The pack is usually taken at first light or in the evening to a small wood or ‘covert’ where a family of foxes are known to live. The hunt supporters surround the covert and any cubs that attempt to escape are driven back towards the hounds to be savaged. If any cubs remain in their earths they may be dug out and given to the hounds.

What follows are some of the most horrific acts of cruelty to animals. Cubs scatter in terror and panic, absolutely petrified as they meet their often agonising, prolonged deaths. They are sometimes literally ripped to pieces, with desperate vixens unable to save them from their fates.

The hunters who carry out these kinds of activities are nothing more than bullies who get pleasure out of seeing defenceless cubs die in immense pain and agony and we don’t believe they should be allowed to get away with this. 

Quite. If you wish to support the League with a donation, you can do so here.

What I think is obvious, however, is that eradicating such practices completely will require more than just catching out certain individuals or groups. There needs to be a complete change in the mentality which drives this kind of obscene cruelty.

Firstly, the deliberate hysteria and fear-mongering of the mainstream media needs to be seriously challenged.

On any number of topics - organised workers, health and safety, immigration, crime, etc - it is using misinformation and sensationalism to drive a reactionary agenda. It turns the working class against our own interests, generates out-group hostility which divides us as a class, and ensures that mass action or self-organisation can only materialise in the form of a derranged mob mentality.

We need to address this, both within our own communities and nationally. A concerted effort to produce alternative media for mass - rather than activist - consumption would challenge the hegemony of the mainstream media and allow more people to see beyond the propaganda model.

Secondly, we need to confront the overt classism in the reporting of animal rights issues.

The gangs who set their pitbulls on foxes, or cats, are thugs, plain and simple. There is no justification for training a dog to have a lust for blood, or getting pleasure from it tearing other creatures apart.

So why are the people who do this only called "sick thugs," and their actions "horrific," when they live on council estates and wear tracksuits? Why is doing the same thing acceptable on horseback or when you live in the countryside? Why is it then simply described as "the hunt," without epithets such as "sick" and collective nouns such as "gangs?"

Just nine hunts have been prosecuted since the hunting ban, with only three of those ending in conviction. By contrast, prosecutions and convictions for dog fighting and related cruelties are commonplace.

As long as this is treated as a class issue - i.e. just another disgraceful act from the "yobs" at the bottom of the societal scrapheap - we forget that animal cruelty is wrong. Whatever guise it takes, and whatever the economic background of the perpetrator.

For dealing with the practice of animal cruelty, we have direct action.

To many this is seen as violence and terrorism. But, as I explained in Animals in anarchy, this is not the case;

Obviously, there needs to be pressure by protesters if anything is to change, and a push towards environmentally sustainable production methods that do not harm animals. But does this justify what the authorities call “terrorism” and “animal rights extremism?”

If ecoterrorism means harming individuals, such as research scientists or factory farmers, then the answer is unequivocally no. Bringing harm against others, without the justification of self-defence, is not acceptable. The most notorious animal liberation group – the Animal Liberation Front – agree with me on this front. They stipulate that “anyone who carries out direct action according to ALF guidelines is a member of the ALF,” and these guidelines are quite explicit in the purpose of such action;

1. To liberate animals from places of abuse, i.e. fur farms, laboratories, factory farms, etc. and place them in good homes where they may live out their natural lives free from suffering.
2. To inflict economic damage to those who profit from the misery and exploitation of animals.
3. To reveal the horror and atrocities committed against animals behind locked doors by performing nonviolent direct actions and liberations.
4. To take all necessary precautions against hurting any animal, human and non-human.
5. To analyze the ramifications of any proposed action and never apply generalizations (e.g. all ‘blank’ are evil) when specific information is available.

The fourth and fifth point are important, as they are in line with the anarchist position on nearly all matters. The ALF state explicitly that “the ALF does not, in any way, condone violence against any animal, human or non-human. Any action involving violence is by its definition not an ALF action, and any person involved is not an ALF member.” As such, “in over 20 years, and thousands of actions, nobody has ever been injured or killed in an ALF action.” Under such conditions, and noting the caveats outlined above in regard to capitalist production, freedom of choice, and utilitarianism over the idea of animal “rights,” I cannot condemn direct action “ecoterrorism.”

Thus, local communities and groups opposed to practices such as fox-baiting, dog-fighting, and the like should be encouraged to physically intervene when they can to rescue the afflicted animals. Done right, this shouldn't involve assault or the initiation of violence.

However, self-defence when those involved react is entirely permissable. And I, for one, would have no qualms if any of these idiots found themselves on the receiving end of a good kicking.

The al-Megrahi scandal is a product of the profit motive, not just corrupt individuals

BP will begin deepwater drilling off the coast of Libya in the next few weeks. The announcement, and the diplomatic rows surrounding it, display the fatal flaw at the heart of capitalism.

The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues despite efforts to plug the leak. The environmental damage is enormous, but concerns have also been raised over the company's safety record. Especially after news that the oil rig's warning system was switched off before the blast.

Meanwhile, late last year, the Scottish government got embroiled in a row with the United States after releasing Abdel Baset al-Megrahi. Al-Megrahi had been found guily of the Lockerbie bombing in 2001, and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Aside from the outrage over the release by families of the victims, there was also the side issue of oil. At the end of August last year, the Times quoted oil industry sources as saying that "the release of the Lockerbie bomber from prison would liberate Britain’s largest industrial company from a string of problems hampering its $900 million (£546 million) Libyan gas projects."

Thus, BP lobbied the British government, and it appears they were receptive. Leaked letters from then-Justice Secretary Jack Straw to Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill revealed that the British government thought it “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to see al-Megrahi released.

In September, an investigation by the Sunday Telegraph revealed that "medical evidence that helped Megrahi, 57, to be released was paid for by the Libyan government, which encouraged three doctors to say he had only three months to live." This was important "because, under Scottish rules, prisoners can be freed on compassionate grounds only if they are considered to have this amount of time, or less, to live."

Libyan chief spokesperson Abdul Majeed al-Dursi promised that "Britain will find it is rewarded" for the release. With BP now set to begin deepwater drilling, it seems he has lived up to its word.

Sue Cohen, whose daughter Theo died at Lockerbie, told NBC News that "western governments seem to be run by one thing now – the great God money." She's not wrong. Indeed, it adds a new gravity to the argument that the invasions of Iraq and Afghanisatan were motivated by corporate interests.

But we cannot make the mistake of thinking this a new phenomenon, or the fault of only a few, corrupt individuals. The root of this whole saga is the incentive to maximise short-term gains above all else.

It is important to remember this as mainstream debate seeks to hang BP, or its CEO Tony Hayward, as the sole culprit in the affair. Putting profit before people, as I've noted previously, is par for the course in pursuit of petrodollars. Or, for that matter, profit more generally.

Corruption at this level is a symptom of capitalism, not an unfortunate by-product. If we want to stop it happening again, we need to fight to get rid of the underlying cause.

How the Propaganda Model drives climate scepticism

My last post on the subject of climate change scepticism ended with the observation that "as long as we waste our time arguing with sceptics clutching at straws, we are ignoring the real debate on climate change: what on earth do we do about it?"

What I should have added is that, perhaps, this is the point.

The one issue that I have yet failed to pick up on is where the climate "debate" fits into the Propaganda Model of the corporate media. Fortunately, it is a point that David Cromwell and David Edwards have taken up with aplomb over at Medialens;

English football’s Premier League is a farce. Year in, year out, the same ‘Big Four’ super-teams - Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and Liverpool - fight for the same top four spots they have dominated since the 1996-97 season. Even for casual consumers of football news, the truth is hard to miss: at the end of every season, the teams that have most of the money - supplied by tycoons, TV rights and participation in Europe’s even more glamorous Champions League - simply buy off the best players from the lesser teams that have been causing them trouble. And if the super-team managers fail to deliver, then the best managers and trainers are brought in to put things right.

Quality is bolstered by quantity to further reduce the risk of failure - the super-teams are actually multi-teams. If an inspired lesser team manages to compete with one of the Big Four, the latter can always bring on fresh-legged, world class substitutes with whom the lesser teams, with no superstars on the bench, are unable to compete. The reality is that, over the course of a season, super-teams compete against lesser squads with the equivalent of two, three or more squads of their own. The cards - the credit cards, cash, lucre - are totally stacked in favour of the Big Four.

Week after week, Big Four fans look on breathlessly to see if a ton of money will once again allow the big business machine they call ‘us’ to overwhelm teams with a fraction of ‘our’ resources. No one seems to notice, or care, that every match is begun on a playing field mechanically tilted by giant under-pitch cogs towards the goal of the lesser team.

Type the words ‘Premier League’, ’Big Four’, and ‘dominance/domination’ into the LexisNexis search engine, and you will find occasional, small gestures in the direction of truth in the national press. In 2007, Simon Cass wrote in the Daily Mail that fans “are increasingly frustrated that the fight for the Premiership has become a money-driven, foregone conclusion with each passing season and the rich simply getting richer”. (Cass, ‘Only the top four matter,’ Daily Mail, July 26, 2007) Predictably enough, such observations are supported by analysis that is crassly superficial, and unlikely to embarrass the powers that be.

The Rise Of Climate Scepticism

In the New York Times on May 24, Elisabeth Rosenthal pondered another of the great unsporting contests of our time: the clash between people seeking and opposing action on climate change:

“Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here [Britain] to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?” (Rosenthal, ‘Climate Fears Turn to Doubts Among Britons,’ New York Times, May 24, 2010; http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25climate.html)

The change in public opinion, Rosenthal noted, has been most striking in Britain, which has become “a home base for a thriving group of climate skeptics who have dominated news reports in recent months, apparently convincing many that the threat of warming is vastly exaggerated”.

A BBC survey in February found that only 26 per cent of Britons believed that “climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,” down from 41 per cent in November 2009. A poll conducted for the German magazine Der Spiegel found that 42 per cent of Germans feared global warming, down from 62 per cent four years earlier. A Gallup poll in March found that 48 per cent of Americans believed that the seriousness of global warming was “generally exaggerated,” up from 41 per cent a year ago. (Ibid.)

Rosenthal made no mention of analysis challenging these figures. Professor Jon Krosnick of Stanford University has been surveying American views on climate change since 1995. Krosnick claims that Americans remain overwhelmingly convinced that man-made climate change is real and should be tackled:

“The media is sensationalizing these polls to make it sound like the public is backing off its belief in climate change, but it’s not so.” (http://www.thenation.com/article/climategate-claptrap-I)

According to Krosnick, Americans’ views have remained quite stable over the past ten years. In November 2009, 75 per cent of Americans believed that global temperatures were going up - a “huge number”, Krosnick notes. The number of Americans who think all scientists agree about climate change +has+ declined to 31 per cent. But as Krosnick comments: “most Americans have thought that for the entire fifteen years I’ve been polling on this issue”.

In the New York Times, Rosenthal cited newly sceptical members of the public:

“Before, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this climate change problem is just dreadful,’ said Jillian Leddra, 50, a musician who was shopping in London on a recent lunch hour. ‘But now I have my doubts, and I’m wondering if it’s been overhyped.’”

Up to this point, Rosenthal’s analysis was reasonable enough. But this was her explanation of the change in public opinion:

“Here in Britain, the change has been driven by the news media’s intensive coverage of a series of climate science controversies unearthed and highlighted by skeptics since November. These include the unauthorized release of e-mail messages from prominent British climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that skeptics cited as evidence that researchers were overstating the evidence for global warming and the discovery of errors in a United Nations climate report.”

Rosenthal’s account is so deceptive because it portrays climate scepticism, and media +enthusiasm+ for climate scepticism, as naturally occurring phenomena - they simply +are+. But this is a lie. Like Premier League football, the playing field hosting the public debate on climate is massively tilted by hidden forces in favour of the corporate interests that have long fought environmental responsibility tooth and nail. The pitch on which the game is played - the corporate media - is itself corporate! 

I would recommend that you read the whole thing. It demonstrates how the corporate media's weight on this issue doesn't just come into play in articles and editorials, but also in advertising, and even in the education system.

This is the point that's missed when climate skeptics enthusiastically point out that they're "not funded by Big Oil." The influence of "Big Oil" is only one element of the propaganda filters around this issue. As Cromwell and Edwards note, "it is not just that the pitch is tilted - the very tectonic plates underpinning modern culture are slanted against honest discussion of, and responses to, climate change."

This is what we're up against, not only in terms of public opinion, but when it comes to actually doing something about the problem. We need a way to change that.

Christopher Monckton, "Climategate," and moving beyond the God of the Gaps

The so-called "controversy" over climate change rolls on, with two major stories coming to the fore at the same time.

Lord Christopher Monckton is one of the leading lights amongst Climate Change sceptics. On October 14th 2009, he gave a talk at a climate sceptic event sponsored by the Minnesota Free Market Institute. The slides from the talk can be found here (PDF).

You get an idea of the ideological bent behind the talk from Monckton's use of the phrase "the left, the environmental left, the intolerant, communistic narrow minded faction that does not care how many children it kills." Nonetheless, because it presented a detailed, if erratic, critique of the scientific evidence for anthropogenic climate change, it deserved a response.

John Abraham, a professor of Thermal Sciences at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota, offered that response. In a 73 minute talk, Abraham challenged the arguments that Monckton made, his interpretations of cited sources, his honesty in citing sources, and his credentials as a scientific commentator.

Monckton's immediate response was to whine about "artful puerilities."

As Abraham noted soon after, Monckton's article "dealt with a small number of very peripheral issues" and "there remain very severe errors with your presentation that are yet unanswered."

But it seems that this was only an initial response, and the climate sceptic has now "issued an extensive and detailed critique and refutation of a widely circulated 83-minute personal attack on him." So says Monckton's employer, the Science and Public Policy Institute, whose website hosts the 99-page document (PDF).

Already, the document has its detractors.

In particular, Gareth of Hot Topic takes issue with Monckton's response to the assertion that he has no scientific background;

He claims his “heavily mathematical” paper on climate sensitivity was published in a “reviewed journal”. Interesting choice of words, Chris. The “paper” was published in a newsletter of the American Physical Society, not in any peer-reviewed journal, and was never subjected to the sort of review that would be routine for any scientific journal. Lucky, really, because Monckton makes so many errors his opus would never have made the grade in the mainstream literature.

The rational basis, therefore, for the assumption that Christopher Monckton, Viscount Brenchley, has no scientific background is that the evidence shows he hasn’t got one. The very best that can be said for him is that he has a facility for maths, a wonderful line in pompous prose and a bee in his bonnet.

He's not the only one to come to such a conclusion.

Rabbett Run has already dissected points 455 and 456, and a commenter over at The Blackboard has this delightful summation;

My favourites so far:

27 – You said I said the world is not warming, but you’re wrong because I said the world is cooling.

30 – You said I said that sea levels are not rising. But you’re wrong because I said sea levels are not rising.

These are also good …

1 Are you familiar with the convention in the academic world that if one wishes to rebut the work of another he should notify that other in good time, so as to avoid errors in the rebuttal and to afford the other a fair and contemporaneous opportunity to refute the rebuttal?

Did you contact Al Gore before issuing a criticism of ‘Inconvenient Truth’ or are you a hypocrite? Did you contact Professor Michael Mann before accusing him of genocide?

also 17 Please provide a full academic resume. Though you have described yourself as a “professor” (3, 62) more than once in this presentation, are you in fact an associate professor?

Though you have described yourself as a member of the House of Lords, is it not the case that you are not and never have been? That you stood for election and received zero votes?

Heh.

Thus, Richard Littlemore concludes;

Here's the bottom line: Monckton is a risible hack who burries fact in a lather of language, and who cares for nothing so much as the promotion of his own dubious reputation. If you doubt it, take the 90 minutes to watch Monckton's rude, sophomoric and objectionable presentation and then take another 80 minutes to watch John Abraham's remarkably respectful response. Then, if you're really, really determined, check out Monckton's latest epistle.

After such an exercise, preferably followed by some strong drink and a good night sleep, I believe that most people will conclude that John Abraham is a careful scientist and that the Lord Monckton is a belligerent and unapologetic polemicist, pushing an ideological viewpoint that is - in a way that he has noticed himself - quite directly in opposition to the evidence at hand.

Meanwhile, there has been an independent review (PDF) of the so-called "climategate" emails. More than 1,000 emails from scientists at the University of East Anglia were leaked by hackers, with sceptics delighting that they supposedly unveiled a conspiracy to cover up evidence against climate change.

However, though "there has been a consistent pattern of failing to display the proper degree of openness," the inquiry found that "their rigour and honesty as scientists are not in doubt." The scientists failed to comply with Freedom of Information requests and were too quick to dismiss critics, but they were "not in a position to withhold access to such data or tamper with it" and "any independent researcher can download station data directly from primary sources and undertake their own temperature trend analysis" if they so wish.

Of course, this will not sway the most resolute of sceptics, who - like creationists - will continue to pick at the edges and pray to the God of the Gaps.If you want to argue with such people, then you can find an extensive list of their arguments debunked here.

As long as we waste our time arguing with sceptics clutching at straws, we are ignoring the real debate on climate change: what on earth do we do about it?

Why Netanyahu's PR exercise will not bring peace to the Middle East

Israel has "eased" restrictions on what can go into Gaza, and Barack Obama is to hold "key talks" with Binyamin Netanyahu in Washington. This, according to the official narrative, marks the two countries "repairing their friendship." The truth is somewhat more complex.

Yes, as Al Jazeera reports, Israel is "moving from a policy of barring everything except items on a "kosher" list to a system under which everything is permitted except blacklisted items." This means that consumer goods will now be allowed in, no doubt easing the suffering of the Palestinians under the blockade.

This doesn't change the fact that the blockade is illegal under international law. On top of severe and discriminatory rationing of the water supply to Palestinians, and forced eviction of Palestinians in East Jerusalem, it is part of an overall policy of socio-economic apartheid and ethnic cleansing.

People will continue to suffer, especially as "the naval blockade of the coastal enclave will also continue, as will restrictions on the movement of people within Gaza." That "construction materials like iron and steel will only be allowed to enter under Israeli supervision," makes it difficult for any rebuilding in Gaza without a level of political will that simply doesn't exist at present.

But, after Netanyahu's mild chastising by Hilary Clinton for his country's policy in the West Bank, this is Israel returning from the wilderness. It has done something good for Gaza, its other crimes are forgotten, and thus both US-Israeli relations and the official "peace process" are back on track.

Except, of course, that the US-Israeli "rift" was in the first place little more than PR, and the prospects for peace remain slim.

As Fawaz Gerges, a professor at London School of Economics, told Al Jazeera, "this Israeli government has not given the international community, the American government or the Palestinian authority any reason to believe they are serious about the peace process."

Meanwhile, the main subject of talks between Obama and Netanyahu are not the peace process, but Iran.

The US has imposed sanctions, despite Iran meeting the deadline to inform the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of a nuclear fuel swap with Brazil and Turkey. Iran then barred two UN inspectors only when it was met with further UN sanctions.

But both leaders are in "agreement on this issue" as "the sanctions that were imposed by the congress and signed by the president are certainly in line with the Israeli demand." Talks today are likely to see Netanyahu continue in his efforts "to convince the president that the Iranian threat tops any kind of a peace settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis."

All of which is entirely consistent with the course of US-Israeli relations and with attitudes to rival powers in the Middle East.

The only potential spanner in the works is that "many voices in America now are saying Israel represents a strategic liability rather than a security asset for the United States" because "what happens in the Israeli-Palestinian theatre affects the national security of United States."

We shall have to wait to see whether this jeopardises Israel's long-held position as the US's most valuable client state as time passes.

In the meantime, though, what we are seeing is the normal course of Middle East politics and the US-Israel propaganda narrative. Especially now that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla has become old news, don't expect any "breakthrough" in the peace process any time soon.

More fox-related hysteria from the nonsense-mongers of the press

Today's Mail on Sunday is apoplectic with rage;

Mother of twins mauled by fox is threatened by animal rights activists

Except, of course, that four paragraphs in we learn that this is complete and utter bollocks. In fact, "Scotland Yard said it was not aware of a specific threat against the family but admitted that there was ‘concern’ over inflammatory postings on social networking sites."

In essence, somebody set up a Facebook group which (perhaps in bad taste) called the mother of the twins a "lying bitch." It's understandable that the woman in question and her friends might consider this as being "harangued and besieged" by animal rights activists. Less understandable, though predictable, is how the Mail can run with the headline it does whilst quoting the police as saying "there is no tangible threat but we are keeping in touch with the family."

People might wonder why papers like the Mail admit in their own articles that they're lying. Surely, if you're going to go with sensationalism, you might as well eschew facts altogether? Depressingly, it's not necessary.

Hence the comment (rated with 338 green arrows by fellow angry simpletons) of Garvnor in Redbridge;

I would really love to get hold of one of these so called animal activists!!!!! THEY ARE ALL COWARDS HIDING BEHIND MASKS AND GOING OUT IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT!!!

If Garvnor ever does get hold of an animal rights activist, though, I suspect that they would be able to escape his grasp by doing this;

Despite the outrage the Mail deliberately provoked in Garvnor and his ilk, the cowardly mask-wearers may well have been onto something.

Quoted disapprovingly by the Mail, one commenter on the Facebook group Urban Fox Defenders said that "there is something here that simply does not add up" about the story of the original attack. This is certainly true when it comes to media coverage of the incident.

Saturday's Daily Mirror reported that "the scratches on her face and bandaged arm tell yesterday of the damage a fox did to baby Lola Koupparis." But, if she was mauled, wouldn't the toddler have bite marks on her face, not scratches? The Sun seems to think so;

Bite marks and bruises were clearly visible on little Lola’s face, and her arm was bandaged from where the animal tried to drag her from her cot.

Likewise the Daily Star;

Wounds from the attack were still clear on her face, which was covered in bite marks and cuts.

But, then, are we to believe "news" papers that would make a story out of the fact that an urban fox was alive, and being a fox, in an urban area?

The Sun tells us in shock, outrage, and horror that a fox walked past the home where the girls were attacked. And, as if a fox walking past an area where foxes are known to haunt wasn't scary enough, "the chilling sight in Hackney, East London, was echoed in towns throughout Britain." Apparently, the fact that "they have inhabited our towns and cities since the 1930s" isn't enough to mute the rag's surprise that news coverage of the incident hadn't shamed them into hiding.

The result of all this hyperbole and tacking urgent headlines to non-stories, as Iain Hollingshead writes for the Telegraph, is that "there now seem to be plenty of people who want revenge."

He notes that "John Bryant, of the British Humane Wildlife Deterrence Association, has had a particularly busy few days, telling any newspaper that will listen that, in his 40 years’ experience, he has heard of only two cases of fox attacks: “One victim was a cat, another a German shepherd” (a dog, presumably, not a Teutonic herdsman)."

And even if the hysteria were justified, Boris Johnson's call for a cull would be ineffective. " According to the Mammal Research Unit, at least 70 per cent of urban foxes would need to be killed each year, and every year for a long time, to reduce numbers." The real alternative, according to Bryant, "is to leave them in their territory to keep other foxes out and educate them about where they are not welcome."

It's doubtful he will be heard over the insanity of the tabloids in full flow. With headlines such as the Daily Express's "foxes are born killers that don't belong in cities," we are not going to see rational debate on this subject. All I can hope is that ordinary people somewhat more sane than Garvnor of Redbridge respond to urban foxes as Bryant has suggested.

But, ultimately, there needs to be a campaign for more humane deterrence which marginalises the fevered blood lust of the "hang 'em and flog 'em" brigade.

The media resorts to absurdity to draw our attention from reality

A lot has been made in the news lately of Barack Obama's "attacks" on BP. Some, such as the ever-deplorable Daily Mail, have gone so far as to refer to them as "anti-British." Not only is this clearly nonsense, it shows just how much media coverage of the Gulf Sea Oil Spill is trying to reduce an environmental quagmire to a political slanging match.

Boris Johnson has said that Obama's words have become "a matter of national concern." Norman Tebbit has called Obama's conduct "despicable," and called it "a crude, bigoted, xenophobic display of partisan political presidential petulance against a multinational company." Meanwhile, the BBC reports that "BP shares have continued to trade lower as attention turns to the possible impact of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on the UK's image in the US."

The clear message is that the reputation of a multinational corporation is what matters most in this whole saga.

The environmental disaster is just a side-show. The deaths of the workers on the oil rig are an embarrassing inconvenience. More important is the little-known fact that one can be "bigotted" and "xenophobic" against a corporation, and the fact that the market is suffering as a result.

In an attempt to claw back some perspective, I once again quote the excellent Trial by Fire blog;

It should come as no surprise that the company bankrolling this disaster, BP spent $3,650,000 in lobbying expenses in 2006 alone, no doubt to influence regulations. The company is one of the largest oil corporations in the world.

According to Beyond Petroleum (formerly British Petroleum, or BP), the rig was drilling 18,000 feet down to get to pockets of gas and oil under pressure when it caught fire.

The rig reportedly lacked a last-ditch safety valve, an “acoustic switch,” that could have potentially averted the massive oil spill. Such safety mechanisms are common in many oil rich countries around the world, but are not mandated in the U.S. because of their high cost.

A History of Neglect:

In 2006, BP pleaded guilty to felony charges after an explosion at their facility in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 workers and injured 170 others.

Carolyn Merritt, chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, told reporters while investigating the Texas explosion that:

“[These] things do not have to happen. They are preventable. They are predictable, and people do not have to die because they’re earning a living,”

She was right. Investigators at the sight found problems everywhere:

“There were three key pieces of instrumentation that were actually supposed to be repaired that were not repaired. And the management knew this… They authorized the startup [of the machinery which exploded] knowing that these three pieces of equipment were not properly working.”

Despite Bp’s own rules to the contrary, they had parked trailers full of workers in an open area right next to the broken machinery. At the mandatory safety meeting that morning, management didn’t once mention the dangerous procedure that would soon be taking place.

One worker, scared for his safety, wrote his supervisor: “the equipment is in dangerous condition and this is not taken seriously.” Another wrote “this place is set up for a catastrophic failure.”

But management in London didn’t listen, and the company flourished as a result. BP made a profit of $19 billion that year.

Nearly a year afterwards, the company again faced controversy when it was discovered that one of their pipelines had leaked nearly 4,800 barrels of oil into the Alaskan wilderness. The leak was caused by the company’s refusal to check its expansive pipelines in Prudhoe Bay.

In a leaked memo, inspection and quality-assurance specialist Bill Herasymiuk warned BP’s corrosion, inspection, and chemical team warned of an impending “catastrophe” if practices in the company were not changed.

Sure enough, four years after it was instructed to inspect it, BP found that a six-mile length of pipeline was corroded.

This is the real issue here. Not to mention the incomparable human misery wrought by oil companies such as BP and other multinationals worldwide in the pursuit of profit.

No matter how much the media tries to make us, we should never forget that.

Urban foxes and tabloid fear-mongering

According to Boris Johnson, councils should "focus on their duties for pest control," after twin baby girls were apparently mauled by an urban fox.

He accompanied this with the bizarre declaration that foxes are "a pest and a menace and could in rare circumstances pose a threat to humans." If nothing else, with revoking the ban on fox-hunting being on of David Cameron's election pledges, this could provide an opportunity to bring the toff sport to the big city.

With the tabloid media engaging in its traditional role of hysterical fearmongering with aplomb, it may even be a popular move.

Alternatively, we could look at this matter rationally, as Terry Nutkins has in the Guardian;

Foxes are now treating urban areas as their territory. They don't necessarily differentiate between concrete and a tree, as both are now part of their habitat. They are carnivores and opportunist feeders, but they don't attack humans. I can't remember a single verified case of a fox attacking a human unprovoked.

This fox, if it was a fox, was probably young (as they are usually born around May). It reportedly entered the house through an open door, without knowing where it was going, and probably panicked when it found itself in a room with these two infants. When a fox is stressed, it runs about a lot and it could easily have injured the children accidentally. What I am definite about is that this fox did not go "on purpose" to attack the two children; that's simply not what foxes want to do. Any injury it caused those children would have been, in that sense, accidental.

This has been reported as an attack by a fox, but I am doubtful. Domestic animals are far more likely to attack humans as they do not attempt to avoid us as foxes do. Whether it was a fox or not, we need to be more responsible about how we treat wild animals when they come into areas of human habitation. People are scared of wild animals, and when they hear or read stories like this, they tend to lose sight of how to deal with the underlying issues they raise. We need to make sure that foxes do not become persecuted. The same is beginning to happen to badgers again because of concerns about bovine TB.

When a very rare incident like this involving a fox does occur, it is never the animal's fault. Foxes are not like wolves. They will never hunt humans, but only defend themselves if they feel that their own lives or their young are being threatened.

Obviously, this must have been a terrifying ordeal for the mother of the injured children. But it does not, in any way, justify some kind of mass fox cull. It certainly doesn't justify the tabloids pandering to the instinctive fears of parents and trying to whip up a frenzy. Foxes are not going around killing babies or eating human flesh. They're caught up in an environment they don't understand and they're scared.

Nutkins recommends the methods employed by the RSPCA to remove foxes from inner cities, and I'll second that. If you see a fox, then call them, not pest control.

An insult to the victims of Bhopal and why health and safety is not the enemy

In 1984, the people of Bhopal, India, suffered an utterly horrendous environmental disaster. 3,500 people died in the immediate aftermath of the accident at a Union Carbide plant, and as many as 25,000 since. Not to mention birth defects and other devastating consequences. Today, over 25 years later, they are still awaiting justice.

An Indian court has found eight former plant employees - one already dead - guilty of death by negligence. The charges had been downgraded from "culpable homicide not amounting to murder" in 1996, and the final sentence was two years in prison alongside a fine of 100,000 rupees (£1,400) each. Survivors' groups have called the prosecution "sloppy," and the verdict "an insult."

They have a right to be angry. Especially after the $470m (£323m) compensation paid by Dow Chemicals, which now owns Union Carbide, went to the Indian government rather than the survivors. Not a penny has been spent on cleaning up the area.

Dow, however, refuses to take responsibility and considers the matter closed. "The Bhopal plant was detail designed, owned, operated and managed on a day-to-day basis by Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) and its employees," a spokesperson has said, and so "all the appropriate people … have appeared to face charges."

Needless to say, this is not quite true. Union Carbide's then chairman, Warren Anderson, fled India in the wake of the disaster and has refused to return. It was his company's decision to lay off staff that led to a single employee monitoring the control room on the night that methyl isocyanate became mixed with water, triggering the chemical reaction that traveled to the nearby slums and killed so many people whilst they slept. This aside from cutting corners in the building of the plant, non-compliance with any basic health and safety standards, and refusal to acknowledge continued warnings from the workers' union or health and safety reps.

That they have gotten away with this for so long should come as no surprise. After all, the prime concern of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in these matters is that health and safety regulations aren't used "as disguised protectionism;"

The Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement (TBT) tries to ensure that regulations, standards, testing and certification procedures do not create unnecessary obstacles.

However, the agreement also recognizes countries’ rights to adopt the standards they consider appropriate — for example, for human, animal or plant life or health, for the protection of the environment or to meet other consumer interests. Moreover, members are not prevented from taking measures necessary to ensure their standards are met. But that is counterbalanced with disciplines. A myriad of regulations can be a nightmare for manufacturers and exporters. Life can be simpler if governments apply international standards, and the agreement encourages them to do so In any case, whatever regulations they use should not discriminate.

The agreement also sets out a code of good practice for both governments and non-governmental or industry bodies to prepare, adopt and apply voluntary standards. Over 200 standards-setting bodies apply the code.

In practice, this means that the WTO's dispute panels can declare any domestic law a "barrier to free trade" and demand it be abolished. Though this was not the case in Bhopal, this is the "free market" ideological dogmatism that justifies the kind of gross negligence that caused that disaster.

As well as fighting for justice for those who died, then, the Bhopal campaigners are in the corner of all the people in the developing world who suffer and die because of globalised "free" trade.

But those in the developed world should take heed too. Over a century of struggle has pushed us away from the horrendous conditions of the industrial revolution, the same child labour, fire-trap workplaces, and non-existent health and safety measures that people elsewhere suffer today. In the fight by the business classes and their allies to roll back this progress, health and safety is on the front line.

The media propaganda campaign against "health and safety gone mad" and/or "health and safety killjoys" is built upon myths and half-truths. (As is the campaign against "political correctness.") The point is to turn ordinary people against the very concept that keeps them from dying or suffering serious injuries in the workplace so that it can be rolled back. Hence the media silence when workers are killed because of lapses in health and safety, or over the still unconscionably high industrial death toll in countries like Britain.

Where this is going should be obvious, given existing Tory plans to curb the power of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and "change whatever we need to change."

The Nottingham Post tells us what is already in the pipeline;

They have made no secret that they want to abolish law relating to the social chapter which gives rights to employees such as working hours. Industries like nursing and bakery workers all have access to sensible and less-stressful shift patterns. The Tories objected to this. Let's not forget they still do.

They plan to amend the law where the Health and Safety Executive can carry out inspections in industries where an investigation is already under way.

The HSE would not be allowed to carry out its independent audit.

I am sure that a lot of cases for injury compensation have been won due to the involvement of the HSE and let's not forget their legal powers have made the workplace a safer place to be. Departments like these will be targets for the Tories.

We are far away from the working conditions of the 19th Century and of the developing world. But we want to keep it that way.

Health and safety is one the most importing areas of (still ongoing) progress, and Bhopal should serve as a timeless reminder of why we should ignore the deregulatory message of the "free" market propagandists.