Why protests against the GM foods field trials is pro-science
contribution by James MacKenzie
There’s been a lot of fuss this week about Jenny Jones’ support for Take The Flour Back, a revival of mid-1990s anti-GM activism. On one side, so the story goes, you have plucky scientists just doing research, and on the other side you’ve got anti-science vandals and woo-merchants.
The truth is rather different, but to be fair to the skeptic firing squad, some of the Take The Flour Back logic was poor. They’re worried that one of the genes inserted at Rothamsted is ‘most similar to a cow’.
I should declare an interest, or at least some history – I was convicted in Edinburgh in 1999 for an anti-GM protest, and acquitted on appeal in 2003.
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By using age to allocate NHS funding, Lansley rewards Tory voters
Health secretary Andrew Lansley said at a NHS Clinical Commissioners conference in April: “age is the principal determinant of health need”.
It follows from this the NHS should devote a greater proportion of its resources in areas with the largest elderly populations.
But the evidence doesn’t stack up. Furthermore, it looks like the funding is being shifted for political reasons.
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Adrian Beecroft highlights mindset of Tory right
Some of the £537,000 Adrian Beecroft has given to the Conservative Party in recent years came into his possession by lending out small sums of a few hundred pounds a time, at rates of interest as high as 4,000% a year.
It’s probably fair to assume that among those who see little choice but to subject themselves to usury will be people that have lost their jobs and do not have recourse to more reasonable sources of credit than wonga.com.
For Cameron, looking weak is a bigger problem than being unpopular
Much was made over the weekend of a poll by Sunday Times / YouGov that Ed Miliband was now more popular (beyond margin of error) than David Cameron.
32% now say he is doing well, while 55% say he is doing badly. In net terms (% saying ‘well’ minus % saying ‘badly’) his rating his now minus 23. Cameron’s rating is now minus 29, and Nick Clegg’s minus 54.
But I would suggest this is wrong indicator to look at. What Cameron should be more worried about is that more people now seem him as “weak” rather than decisive and strong.
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With Caroline Lucas stepping down, how the Greens need to change
Caroline Lucas MP, has announced that she will not stand for re-election as Green Party leader in September in order to make way for new leadership voices.
In the announcement says that “I will also be able to dedicate even more of my work to the political frontline, putting the Green case for change in Parliament and in all circles of national political debate.”
This is an extremely positive development despite the fact that Caroline Lucas is clearly the most capable, extra-ordinary green politician.
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What the Greens in London will do next
My third place in the London Mayoral contest was a big blow to the Liberal Democrats within the coalition. After promising to scrap tuition fees and oppose austerity, doing the opposite has shattered many Londoners’ trust even in their outsider candidates like Brian Paddick.
The result was an endorsement of the Green Party’s focus on pay equality, lower fares paid for with a pay-as-you-drive scheme (“Oyster for your car”), lower rents delivered with co-operatives and private rented sector reform, and healthier streets thanks to less traffic and cleaner vehicles.
We are determined to push forward with these ideas on the London Assembly.
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Toxic Tories force Cameron to abandon gay marriage
Have you seen the Sunday Times headline for today?
Interventions like this by Cameron, to offer olive branches to the right by losing something from his more “liberal” toolbox, confirms my long held belief that the Conservative party is held back, from being conservative, by a more “toxic” audience; indeed what I have called the party’s “toxic constituency”.
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We won’t see anyone else like Ken Livingstone again
contribution by Rachel Coldbreath
I love London.
I don’t mean it’s a great place to live. It can be. It can also be hell. It’s a hard place to live. It’s expensive. It isn’t easy to make close friends here, if you’re starting from scratch. You don’t get much space, and within that tiny space it is possible to be infinitely lonely. People come here, and hate, it and go. People come here, and love it, and stay. Those are Londoners.
I grew up here when “London Mayor” meant some old Lord, well connected in the City, who wore a big chain and a tricorn hat, who was wheeled out once a year in a fairytale gold carriage to be waved at by grateful orphans.
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Say hello to a new era of Conservative in-fighting
The local elections results have so far been disastrous for the Libdems: they’ve dipped below 3000 councillors for the first time since the party was formed (ht @philipjcowley.
But they were worse for the Conservatives, who were largely shielded last year thanks to the AV referendum. According to the BBC the national vote share was Labour 39%, Tories 31% and Lib Dems 16%. That puts Labour up 10pts on its 2010 result and Libdems roughly higher than their current polling. Only the Conservatives come out worse.
The Conservative leadership will do everything to spin away their losses – but you could see major flashes of Conservative infighting last night.
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Can Labour develop its own plan to bring back lost voters?
contribution by Mike Morgan-Giles
Recently it appeared that Ed Miliband had put a real marker down on the thorny issue of party funding, but that changed when reading the small print.
Labour is spending more than it brings in and the current arms race isn’t sustainable – state funding is now a necessity.
But to state the obvious: it was not a radical game-changing proposal. A strategic approach is needed on a wide variety of issues – such as campaigning and policy development – and it’s time those from the left started making their voices heard.
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» Robin Hood tax: backed by the rich AND the rest, says new poll
» Criticism of Obama for its own sake: a reply to Mehdi Hasan
» Do older people really need more NHS healthcare?
» There are alternatives to the reckless ‘Plan A’
» On Beecroft: it is already quite easy to sack people
» Why Cameron’s claim of 600,000 jobs created is plainly wrong
» By using age to allocate NHS funding, Lansley rewards Tory voters
» The rise in domestic violence deaths is not an “isolated” problem
» Adrian Beecroft highlights mindset of Tory right
» The US is now a model for the Eurozone to save itself
» The IMF plan to revive the economy doesn’t go far enough
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