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Sellafield: the most hazardous place in Europe
Building B30 is a large, stained, concrete edifice that stands at the centre of Sellafield, Britain's sprawling nuclear processing plant in Cumbria. Surrounded by a three-metre-high fence that is topped with razor wire, encased in scaffolding and riddled with a maze of sagging pipes and cabling, it would never be a contender to win an architectural prize. Yet B30 has a powerful claim to fame, albeit a disturbing one. "It is the most hazardous industrial building in western Europe," according to George Beveridge, Sellafield's deputy managing director. Nor is it hard to understand why the building possesses such a fearsome reputation. Piles of old nuclear reactor parts and decaying fuel rods, much of them of unknown provenance and age, line the murky, radioactive waters of the cooling pond in the centre of B30. Down there, pieces of contaminated metal have dissolved into sludge that emits heavy and potentially lethal doses of radiation.
Ed Balls ‘ran’ Labour’s smear unit
Ed Balls, the schools secretary, used Damian McBride, the disgraced spin doctor, to smear ministerial rivals and advance his own ambitions, a Downing Street whistleblower has claimed. In an explosive new twist to the e-mail affair, a No 10 insider has revealed that Balls was the mastermind behind a “dark arts” operation by McBride to undermine colleagues. He claims the education secretary is running a destabilising “shadow operation” inside Downing Street to clear his path for the party leadership if Labour loses the next election. The insider said: “There is now an operation within an operation at No 10 and it answers to Ed Balls.”
'Save the planet' rhetoric soars to crazy new heights
How would you cope if faced with a GCSE physics paper? Have no fear. You don’t need to know anything about physics...so long as you’ve listened to enough environmentalist propaganda to know what answers are expected (eg that most of the sources of the electricity we use are creating global warming), you could get 100 per cent. But if, of course, you don’t agree with the Government on these matters, you will fail. Doubtless one of the teaching aids which might have guided you to the right answers would have been Al Gore’s famous Oscar-winning movie An Inconvenient Truth, which in 2007 our then environment secretary, David Miliband, ordered to be sent to every secondary school in the country. It was obviously inconvenient that in October that year a High Court judge should have ruled that nine of the claims made in that film were so scientifically absurd that the Government would be in breach of the law against teaching propaganda in schools unless the film was accompanied by material correcting its errors.
Australia's dirty little colonial wars
The Australian War Memorial, an imposing building on the shores of Lake Burley Griffin in Canberra, honours the dead of two world wars as well as other conflicts, including Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam. But the bloody and prolonged battles that accompanied white settlement of Australia, and claimed at least 20,000 Aboriginal lives, rate barely a mention. More than 200 years after the First Fleet landed at Sydney Cove, white Australians are still struggling to come to terms with their colonial past. Long erased from official accounts, the clashes and massacres that took place on the frontier remain a contested area of history, often replaced by more palatable stories of rugged pioneers conquering an inhospitable land.
£200,000 bill for school in Sikh bracelet battle
A school that lost a High Court battle in a dispute over a religious bracelet has been landed with a £200,000 legal bill, it emerged yesterday. And education bosses have been ordered to pay the student banned from wearing the Sikh Kara bangle damages believed to be at least five figures. Aberdare Girls’ School, in Aberdare, Wales, is reeling from the bill, which includes an invoice from human rights group Liberty, who brought the case on behalf of Sarika Watkins-Singh, 15. The school’s own legal fees top £76,000. Early last year, Ms Watkins-Singh was excluded from school for refusing to stop wearing the bangle, which she claimed was fundamental to her religious belief. The school denied any racial discrimination and Ms Watkins-Singh spent nine weeks being taught in isolation because the bangle was against its uniform policy.
‘We need to continue being rude and offensive’ says cartoonist sued for libel by ANC president
When Jacob Zuma this week becomes South Africa's third black president, his most formidable opponent might not be the official opposition - but a cartoonist. Jonathan Shapiro is Zuma's bête noir, the subject of a professional fatwa for injuring the 67-year-old African National Congress leader's "dignity and reputation". Shapiro, 51, who draws under the professional name Zapiro, is the subject of the biggest libel case anywhere against a cartoonist. Zuma sued him for 15 million rand (about £1.2m) over a cartoon in which the ANC chief is shown loosening his trousers as he prepares to rape a beautiful black woman, representing South Africa's justice system. Her scales of justice are spilled and she is tied up and held down by Zuma's top four lieutenants. One of them, ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe, is saying: "Go for it boss!" Shapiro says it is a metaphoric gang-rape, an image drawn at a time when the ANC was putting the country's justice system under huge pressure to drop 783 separate counts of corruption against Zuma in connection with the country's graft-ridden arms deal with BAE and other European weapons manufacturers. The cartoon was prophetic: this month - just two weeks before Tuesday's general election - the director of the country's National Prosecution Authority, Mokotedi Mpshe, dropped the charges against Zuma, to the fury of his prosecution team who had spent eight years preparing the case. The team accused Mpshe of losing his nerve and being willing to do anything to secure his future under president Zuma at the expense of principle - and possible fatal damage to South Africa's liberal constitution.
Blind to be cured with stem cells
British scientists have developed the world's first stem cell therapy to cure the most common cause of blindness. Surgeons predict it will become a routine, one-hour procedure that will be generally available in six or seven years' time. The treatment involves replacing a layer of degenerated cells with new ones created from embryonic stem cells. It was pioneered by scientists and surgeons from the Institute of Ophthalmology at University College London and Moorfields eye hospital. This week Pfizer, the world's largest pharmaceutical research company, will announce its financial backing to bring the therapy to patients.
I know those sneers. I've heard them too
For all Boyle's success, this relentless narrative of "who'd have thought it" must be painful. One of the loveliest aspects of Boyle's demeanour was how straightforward, lively and confident she was. I should think it might be hard for her ever to be so unaffected again. Cowell and his snarky team hold up a distorting mirror that is often quite irresistible; it invites its victims to internalise the unkind gaze of the supercilious. Thus is born the etiology of embarrassment. Did Boyle really see herself as old, dowdy, unfashionable and undesirable until she was told so, in public, in no uncertain terms? In subsequent television appearances, Boyle has been made up, gussied up, fluffed, coiffed and crimped. Debates rage about whether she should stay the way she was at the magic moment of first discovery, forever the ugly duckling on the cusp of swanhood. I am not one who believes that she must never change - it seems rather inevitable, for better or worse. But the reason Boyle is a heroine has little to do with her transforming any aspect of herself. Rather, it was she who transformed the audience, it was she who challenged their beliefs.
While we suffer, the box-tickers will continue to prosper
A hospital manager performs as essential a service as a doctor. Without his or her organisational skills, the NHS could not function. A more emblematic Labour figure is Cynthia Bower, a civil servant who has made a career from box-ticking. She failed to spot that hundreds of patients were dying before their time in Stafford Hospital. Nevertheless, the Department of Health promoted her from monitoring the West Midlands' health service to the £200,000 post at the Care Quality Commission, where she must monitor standards in all the health service. In "The Audit Explosion", a prophetic pamphlet written in 1994, Michael Power, an academic authority on accounting, anticipated the Cynthia Bowers of our day. He predicted that the new craze for targets and reviews would "spread a distinct mentality of administrative control" which would undermine trust and encourage the proliferation of empty gestures. The embrace by government of targets and supervisors would bring a "major shift in power from the public to the professional and from teachers, engineers and managers to overseers," he wrote. Although the form-fillers claimed to deliver transparency and accountability, they were in fact engaged in a "peculiar form of alchemy" that turned workers into "auditees" who did what they had to do to meet a target.
The absurd listing of a block of flats in Sheffield is richly comic ... and expensive
The absurd listing of a block of flats in Sheffield is richly comic … and expensive. Britain has the most vigorous and highly evolved (not to mention interfering) heritage "industry" in the world. Of course, it's a bureaucracy not an industry, but we have somehow fallen into using that term. You could actually argue that since in post-industrial Britain factories which manufacture useful things are mostly memories, the I-word is itself an elegiac reminder of the once magnificent industrial system we have lost. Heritage is ever nostalgic.
Vast resources are deployed in the heritage bureaucracy with commensurate impact of national life. The National Trust has a turnover of more than £300m while English Heritage has a grant-in-aid of £129.4m and adds another £50m or so to its budget from gate money, fund-raising and profits from selling erasers decorated with (maybe I am fantasising here) pictures of Bolsover Castle to schoolchildren. Certainly, these sums dwarf, for example, the R&D budgets of Britain's few surviving white goods or optical equipment or commercial vehicle manufacturers (if there actually are any). But what does the heritage industry actually make? The answer is : sentimental fantasies designed to its own brief.
Catherine Bennett on Derek Draper's psyche
We may accept a therapist who is, from time to time, bullying, boastful, greedy, shallow, self-obsessed, vulgar, unprincipled, childish and hypocritical. But should it be possible for Draper to work in mental health now he is known to endorse the use of mental health rumours as not merely an acceptable political weapon, but "absolutely totally brilliant, Damian"? The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, BACP, of which Draper is a member, will respond to complaints that he has contravened its ethics. Although (perhaps because it is thought to be confined to novels by Wilkie Collins) there does not seem to be an explicit prohibition against false allegations of madness, a list of desired "personal moral qualities" includes those of empathy and humility. But in the event that the BACP did exclude Draper, it would be possible for him to continue to practise as a psychotherapist or counsellor, since neither term is protected. Anyone in need of podiatry, on the other hand, can be reassured that Draper will never be allowed to mess with their feet.
Humiliation tames our little despots
To enjoy seeing those who abuse power being humbled is not sadistic. The fear of humiliation is one of the few things that make those who hold office think twice about overstepping the mark, which otherwise is so tempting. It is essential that McBride, Brown, the police, Smith and the US justice department experience painful disgrace. That helps to protect us against further violations of public trust and liberties. It is a delightful irony that McBride, who intended to cause hurt to political opponents by spreading lies, has instead brought ignominy to Brown by exposing a truth about how No 10 operates. The damage to the prime minister’s reputation could not have come at a more excruciating moment. From the Olympian heights of the G20 summit he has fallen into a gutter of his own making.
It’s pure hell in the mountainous Cotswold region
The first thing that will happen if you move to a land of clean air and big skies is that, immediately, some ramblers will come and sit in your kitchen claiming that they’ve done so for 21 years without let or hindrance and that, if you complain, you will have to spend all your life savings in legal fees. Eventually you will lose and Janet Street-Porter will bring all her mates round to sit by your Aga, explaining that it churns out six tons of carbon dioxide every year and you are a murderer. But you won’t notice because you’ll be too busy attempting to rid your garden wall of slogans urging you to go back to London and thus free up property in the countryside for the glue-sniffing, pimple-faced locals.
Doctor, I've got a problem with my genome...
Most geneticists predict that, within a couple of years, it will be possible to sequence all six billion letters of an individual's genome for less than $1,000. Such profiles will soon be affordable for anyone who wants one - and many believe that the NHS will be paying for them within a decade. As these genome scans become cheaper, they also reveal more and more meaningful information about health. More than 400 common genetic variations are now known to affect people's risk of serious conditions, including heart disease, diabetes and many cancers; new links between genes and disease emerge every week, along with new information about reactions to drugs. These developments have brought us to the verge of a revolution in personalised medicine, by which treatment and prevention are tailored to an individual's genetic make-up. Its delivery, however, will depend on the ability of doctors, particularly GPs, to interpret their patients' DNA data and use it wisely in clinical practice. And there is little evidence that the medical profession is ready.
Woman makes cup of tea after being shot in head
Police and doctors hailed the survival of Tammy Sexton, 47, as miraculous after a bullet from a .38-calibre handgun struck her squarely in the forehead, passed through her skull and exited through the back of her head. She is expected to make a full recovery, while her husband shot himself dead after the attack on his wife. But law enforcement officers in Jackson County, Mississippi, were also astonished that Mrs Sexton offered them tea when they arrived at her home after the shooting.
How Gordon Brown became 'The Gordfather'
Gordon Brown has long promoted himself as a man of principle. The reality is very different, and, post-Smeargate, threatens to destroy the Labour Party. Belatedly saying "sorry" was a wretched experience for Gordon Brown. Any confession of regret is a self-inflicted wound, but Damian McBride's embarrassing exposure of the Prime Minister's secret weapon coinciding with the acquittal of Damian Green, the Conservative front bencher, has devastated Brown's tools of trade. Since 1997, Brown's muted tyranny has efficiently intimidated his allies, political opponents and many of Westminster's inhabitants, including its journalists and civil servants. Like a Mafia godfather, Brown justified his vindictiveness by appearing to murmur, "This is business, not personal".
Police killer Harry Roberts's five-year terror campaign to silence woman who kept him behind bars
Justice Secretary Jack Straw was last night facing urgent questions about how Britain’s most notorious police killer was able to terrorise a woman whose evidence blocked his release from jail. From his cell, Harry Roberts orchestrated a horrifying five-year campaign of intimidation designed to silence 65-year-old Joan Cartwright and her son James. Mrs Cartwright works at an animal sanctuary where Roberts, who gunned down three unarmed officers in cold blood 42 years ago, worked while on day release from open prison in 2001. The job was supposed to be a prelude to his release the following year. But it was the Cartwrights’ allegations about his activities at the sanctuary that denied him parole and kept him behind bars. (MrP: An appointment with Mr Pierrepoint would have saved a lot of hassle)
Four CIA chiefs said 'don't reveal torture memos'
Four former CIA directors opposed the release of classified Bush-era interrogation memos, officials say, describing objections that went all the way to the White House and slowed disclosure of the records. Former CIA chiefs Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch all called the White House in March warning that release of the so-called "torture memos" would compromise intelligence operations, current and former officials say. President Barack Obama ultimately overruled the objections after internal discussions that intensified in the weeks that followed the former directors' intervention. The memos were released on Thursday.
Judges in dock for verdict on victim of sex attack
Judges were last night criticised for upholding the drink-driving conviction of a woman who used her car to flee the scene of a sex attack. Victims' groups yesterday said the decision – by the Court of Appeal – was a huge blow to women trying to get a fair hearing from the justice system after suffering a sex attack. The convicted drink-driver had argued she was "effectively" trying to escape from her attackers when she got behind the wheel while over the limit last year. Her story – of being forced into non-consensual sexual activity with four men and then being indecently assaulted by one of them in her car – is not in doubt. But both the original sheriff in her case and the three judges sitting in the Court of Appeal, Lords Carloway, Emslie and Abernethy, argued that she should not have driven off while under the influence. She should instead have used her mobile phone to call for help, they said. The woman was arrested near Falkirk in February 2008 after being found drunk behind the wheel in "a state of undress" and "a state of distress". She was convicted in July 2008 of drink driving by a sheriff who found her story "entirely credible and reliable".
Ban helps heavy smokers to cut their drinking levels
It has tackled two vices for the price of one. The ban on lighting up north of the border has resulted in heavy-drinking smokers cutting back on alcohol. A survey of 1,000 adults after the smoking ban was introduced found that Scots smokers who also enjoyed at least two drinks a day cut back by an average of six drinks a week. The research, carried out in America and Scotland, appears to dispel fears that Scots discouraged from pubs because of the smoking ban would consume more alcohol at home. Sherry McKee, of Yale University, said: "Smokers who were moderate or heavy drinkers drank less in pubs following the ban.
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