contribution by Josh Plotkin

While second-home flipping and suspect renting arrangements are the stuff of which headlines are made, public scrutiny of expenses has revealed the weird and wonderful reality of some of our MPs. Let’s take…oh, I don’t know, David Tredinnick, Conservative MP for Bosworth.

David Tredinnick has superb form in the field of, well, being an idiot. Over the years he has come out with torrents of rubbish, popping up to add his own ridiculous noise to any debate on homeopathy, alternative medicine or other new-age nonsense.

In a debate on NHS homeopathy funding last year, his indignant support of public money being used to fund pseudoscience prompted one of my favourite ever soundbites from the House, from Rob Marris MP:

In this country we use a lot of recycled water, but I am surprised that water, which supposedly has a memory, does not have a memory of the faeces that were in it and thereby make us all sick. My right hon. Friend has referred to research, but against that background is she aware of any peer-reviewed medical research that indicates that homeopathic medicine works through anything other than a placebo effect?

This is about as complete a dismissal of a patently inane argument as I have ever come across. In one particularly enlightening speech – on the ‘evidence’ for alternative medicine – he wanders off the reservation completely.

Another issue is the introduction of evidence-based practice, which tries to specify the way in which professionals or other decision makers should make decisions. Naturally, as its name suggests, it places a greater emphasis on evidence. The practice guide, however, asks for evidence-based design and development decisions to be made after reviewing information from repeated, rigorous data-gathering. That militates against complementary and alternative medicine, where there may not be a huge number of rigorous or repeated databases to work from.

There is not a vast quantity of studies and that has been used against complementary medicine as an excuse. The methodology of assessing CAM might also be unfamiliar to primary care trusts. It might also be difficult to record accurately exactly how homeopathy, for example, treats. It is always different for individual patients, and that can be difficult to record. Sometimes, the treatments require a combination of remedies.

My next point is that homeopathy does not fit normal—that is, orthodox—methods of assessment. For example, the scale of prescribing is in reverse so that the weaker the dose, the more powerful or effective it is. That subject has always been hotly disputed by many doctors, but homeopathic treatments have been operating on the reverse scale of prescribing for 200 years. Some of the most powerful—the constitutional remedies—are so diluted that they can hardly be detected. There are similar problems with acupuncture and its acceptance, as some doctors and commissioners do not necessarily believe in meridians. The same issue occurs with herbs that are unknown in this country.

My favourite part is his argument that the lack of evidence for alternative medicine might be used “as an excuse” for PCTs not to use it to treat patients. Unless I’m missing something, treatment decisions are taken on the basis of evidence that they work. Alternative medicine isn’t used to treat patients for the same reason that, say, cream cheese isn’t used to treat patients: there is no evidence that it is an effective clinical treatment.

Anyway, it is in this context that Tredinnick’s parliamentary expense claims, along with those of every other MP, have been published in full. Alongside the by-now-expected second home claim and £7,000 per year phone bill (no doubt essential for communicating with the good people of Bosworth), Tredinnick has made a rare unique claim: £210 for software from a new age astrology company and £300 on tuition sessions from the firm, Crucial Astro Tools, to learn to use it.

A quick visit to www.crucialastrotools.co.uk (and I highly recommend it for all your astrology needs), reveals that to spend £210 he must have bought the whole shop: from Solar Maps 3 (”complete tools for the locational astrologer”) to the £19 Galastro and £15 Astrological Mandalas (apparently, the world of astrology is even allowed to invent its own words!). Well, I hope he got good parliamentary use out of them – if £300-worth of tuition didn’t at least ensure that I’m inclined to demand my money back.

David Tredinnick is, unfortunately, not retiring at the next election; and, with a 5,319 majority even in the context of an overall Labour victory, it looks like the citizens of Bosworth will stand up and be counted once more. I look forward to many more years of spurious nonsense from this man’s good offices.

—————
Josh has experienced politics from various angles: as a Lib Dem MP’s researcher, a temp in the lower echelons of several Government departments, and a deeply unenthusiastic lobbyist for a morally dubious organisation headed by a former Tory MP. He has been unimpressed with most of what he’s seen, and writes about it at the paidtoreason blog.

Reader comments

1. Liberal Conspiracy

   Article: David Tredinnick MP – giving MPs a worse name http://bit.ly/1CvI8V

2. Liberal Conspiracy

   Article: David Tredinnick MP – giving MPs a worse name http://bit.ly/1CvI8V

   [Original tweet]

3. Top10 Astrology

   Astrology News – Liberal Conspiracy » David Tredinnick MP – giving MPs a worse name http://bit.ly/qF48l

4. Tom E

   Liberal Conspiracy » David Tredinnick MP – giving MPs a worse name http://bit.ly/3UxCnU

   [Original tweet]

5. Rosemary Breen

   Via PsychicParanorm Liberal Conspiracy » David Tredinnick MP – giving MPs a worse name http://bit.ly/rgyB7

   [Original tweet]

6. Top10 Astrology

   Astrology News – Liberal Conspiracy » David Tredinnick MP – giving MPs a worse name http://bit.ly/qF48l

   [Original tweet]

7. Tom E

   Liberal Conspiracy » David Tredinnick MP – giving MPs a worse name http://bit.ly/3UxCnU

   [Original tweet]

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.