Author: David Landon Cole

The bully pulpit, or, why I’m Ben Goldacre

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Teddy Roosevelt referred to the Presidency of the USA as a ‘bully pulpit‘. He used the former word in the (Famous Five) sense of ‘bully for you’. In other words, it’s a great platform from which to promote an idea or ideology. Any elected representative can, eventually, be removed from office in a reasonably-functioning democracy. In the USA, the occupancy of the bully pulpit is limited to eight years. However, the Presidency of the United States is not the only bully pulpit; many others have no check or balance from an electorate, reality or vague sense of decency to contain them.

Enter, stage left, Jeni Barnett. Jeni has a radio programme on LBC and used it to suggest that the MMR triple vaccination was unsafe. While my understanding is that the overwhelming consensus is that the MMR jab is not only safe but a very good idea (CDC, IoM, NHS) and that there is, at least, a prima facie conflict of interest in the originator of the research, Barnett has the right to broadcast these opinions, even if they do contribute to declining rates of measles vaccinations. This right is contigent, IMHO, on a sensible provision in copyright law (based, I believe, on earlier Common Law principles) called fair dealing that allows you to criticise and review what people have broadcast (CDPA 1988 s 30 as amended). In other words, the fact that you’re on the radio doesn’t give you immunity from people pointing out your errors.

Enter, stage right, Ben ‘Bad Science‘ Goldacre. Goldacre posted, with some pithy remarks, the relevant bit of Barnett’s remarks; he has since removed the audio because of a legal threat (ish) from LBC. You can read Goldacre’s reactions here; Barnett has thoughts here; interestingly, that particular page no longer appears in her archive or on the front page of her blog.

You can read more about all of this, including some interesting insights on the legal position, over at the Wardman Wire.

Three things come out of this. Firstly, given that Wakefield’s research has been gutted by the peer review process and that the peer review process has consistently supported the safety and efficacy of the MMR jab, I am not minded to give much credence to Barnett’s comments; I just hope that other people do the same.

Secondly, as Goldacre puts it,

without being too Billy Bragg about it all: this is a law that apparently works a bit better for wealthy people.

Thirdly, quite a lot of the denizens of the internet in general and blogosphere in particular get really annoyed when freedom of speech is impinged upon. They’ll have a robust debate with positions they don’t agree with, but if you don’t play by the rules, they kick up a stink that can bring you a lot of negative publicity. The Times has picked it up as did Radio 4’s Start the Week and there’s an EDM in the offing from Paul Flynn MP. It would seem that people need to learn about the Streisand Effect.

You may insert the usual hand-wringing rant about the ‘meedja’ here.

xD.

London snow

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Evidently, the UK has come to a halt because of the snow. As I mentioned in my previous post, I’m in Oslo. Suffice to say that ten or fifteen centimetres of snow isn’t a problem for Norway.

Looking at Facebook, lots of people are complaining that the snow brings London to a halt. Ten centimetres of snow lying on the ground, up here, can be counted on consistently during the winter. In the UK, it’s a once in fifteen or twenty year event. It’s simply not worth building the transport system to deal with events that happen so infrequently. It would make as much sense as Norway preparing itself for sand being blown in from the Sahara.

Stop complaining, build a snow person and enjoy the day off work.

xD.

Oslo, ten degrees below freezing

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Actually, it’s rather colder than that now.

My travels have brought me to Oslo, which is a pleasant city with more than a few sights to be seen. Unfortunately, I only had today to wander round. I arrived relatively early this morning and the combination of the hour, being a Sunday and the cold meant that hardly anyone was about, despite it being a bright, clear day. The effect was rather eerie; everything is either clean and well-maintained or clean, well-maintained and covered in snow and with so few people about, it felt as if the city was too big for its population. It wasn’t quite 28 Days Later, but it did feel as if it was circa 2045 and the population had declined somewhat. I fully expect tomorrow to be busier.

As I was saying, Oslo is a very pleasant city to walk around. I wish I’d brought a camera; as it is, you will have to make do with a mobile phone photo of the rather wonderful new opera house.

Oslo opera house

It seems that Oslo is following in the footsteps of cities like Cardiff and Bilbao in using a cultural centrepiece to regenerate waterside areas. The Operahuset is, I’m told, meant to look like part of an iceberg, something that we might suddenly find to be in short supply, although the ships in the harbour made me think more of the prow of a ship. Either way, the roof slopes down to ground level, meaning that you can walk right up to the top, affording yourself a lovely view of the top of the Oslofjord. I really like the building; its use of glass to open up the foyer, offices and, at the back, the props departments combined with the public space created around and on top of it, are, at a guess, something to do with demystifying or opening up the opera; its unusual shape certainly encourages people to wander round and see what’s going on.

Oslo lying at 59° 56? 58? N, this is the furthest north I have ever been; it edges out my previous boreal approach, St Petersburg, by a few arcseconds. It is two-thirds of the way from the Equator to the North Pole.

xD.

The succession to the British monarchy

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Seeing as everyone’s talking about the monarchy in general and Prince Harry in particular, it’s worth pointing out that history only gives William slightly better than even odds of ascending the throne and acquiring all sorts of other fun titles.

Queen Anne succeeded William III (who sort of succeeded himself, as he’d previously been coregnant with Mary II); however, Anne’s father, James II had previously been King. The next monarch was George I; he was the closest Protestant relation to Anne. Not, though, particularly close; counting Catholics, he was fifty-first in line to the throne. George II was actually George I’s son. George II’s son, Frederick, predeceased him, and his grandson, George III ascended the throne. George III was succeeded by his son, George IV. George IV passed the throne to his brother, William IV, who in turn passed it onto his niece, Victoria. Victoria was succeeded by her son, Edward VII, who was succeeded by his son, George V. George V was succeeded by his son, George VI, and then his son, Edward VIII, who promptly abdicated in favour of George VI. On his death, the throne passed to his daughter, Elizabeth II.

In other words, since the Acts of Union of 1707 that created Great Britain, the heir apparent has become monarch only six out of eleven occasions. Of course, things are rather less turbulent at court (and, for the most part, less important) than in the past. However, this is as much accident of history and Elizabeth II’s longevity as anything else. If, say, we had a series of general elections where there was no clear winner, the monarch, having perhaps to successively choose between the party with most seats and the party with most votes, could become really quite important. I would hope that people are considering this already; I would prefer to have a definite arrangement rather than leaving it to whim and caprice. Now, even if Prince Harry doesn’t become king, he may go for a role as Special Representative for International Trade and Investment, as Prince Andrew does at the moment. It may be a little hard for him to go to Israel, Pakistan or the Arabian world given his taste in fancy dress and nicknames.

xD.

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Why we should take non-Brits from Guantanamo

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Iain Dale asks why we should accept people who aren’t connected with Britain from Guantánamo Bay. These are my reasons why we should.

Firstly, it is in our strategic interest for two reasons. I will look at the morality and legality later, but it is enough to say that many states and people, friendly, neutral and hostile, regard both Guantánamo as immoral and the UK as very close to the United States. By acting to expedite the closing of Guantánamo, we are acting to right a perceived wrong. It also improves our standing within the EU and NATO if we can demonstrate an ability to act as an effective link or broker between the western and eastern sides of the Atlantic. I would add that there might well be (although I do not know this for a fact) people who would be repatriated to, say, Bosnia-Herzegovina. While I do not wish to impugn Bosnia-Herzegovina and am using it just as an example, I do not believe that it, or many other states, have the state-capacity to effectively monitor these people. If we look slightly more widely around the Balkans, the apparent ease with which people evaded the ICTY, I believe the point is proven. In the long-term, taking in detainees here is more secure than leaving them in limbo or Ruritania.

Secondly, it is expeditious. Whether Mr Dale likes it or not, President-Elect Obama has made it clear that Guantanamo is to be closed. As I mentioned, we are seen as close to the US in foreign policy terms. One of the big problems with Guantánamo was the lack of clarity as to what was going to happen to people held there. We now have a resolution; however, we will have to accept people who do not have an immediate connection to the US for a few reasons. One is that some states will not accept people who have a prior or stronger connection to them. We can exert more moral pressure on them to accept people from Guantánamo if we show how much we are doing; in any case, it will not work for everyone. There are some states that it would be wrong to ‘export’ these people to; they are those states that would torture them. They would go from a frying pan to a rather hotter fire and many of the problems we face because of Guantánamo would be reinforced.

Thirdly, it is morally right. Guantánamo was an abrogation of rights, poorly implemented and conceived, that took away some of our moral high ground and constitutes a serious threat to habeas corpus in the USA. Its closure rectifies at least some of those issues. Moreover, the USA is our friend and ally; if it seeks our support on this, given that the costs are minimal and the benefits great, I would have hoped it would have been a no-brainer.

If I may refer to the title of Iain’s post – “Guantánamo is a problem made in America” – I would contend that the problem may have been made there, but that does not relieve of us our obligations to justice and due process, or to our ally, or the effects its existence and the method of its closure may have on us.

In short, it is both morally right and in our strategic interest.

xD.

The dumbest generation?

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Via Tiberius Gracchus, I read a despondent post from Ashok Karra; do read both the original and the reply.

Ashok’s lament is based on Mark Bauerlein’s book, The Dumbest Generation:

“that our unparalleled access to knowledge is coeval with a culture of decadence which allows the construction of entire worlds around our purely adolescent selves”

Our time is not uniquely stupid, or, if it is, we have no way of showing it to be so. In this, I largely agree with Tiberius. However, Ashok’s post picks up on something of a theme I’ve seen of late in books like Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur, Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody and Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet and how to Stop it. Essentially, it argues that the combination of easy access to information through the internet and, crucially, easy means of putting information on the internet1 means that our culture is degraded because our population does not think critically. This affects everything – politics, music, literature, the arts, everything. I think that those authors and Ashok are missing the point.

Let us take one of the supposed high-points in the intellectual life of our species; classical Athens. Aristotle believed that part of the human condition was to be a zoon politikon. This is often rendered as ‘political animal’ but such a translation loses some of the meaning of ‘political’; it means ‘of the polis, or Greek city-state. The good life was achieved by living in, and taking an active part in, the city-state as this fulfilled man’s (and it is man’s – women had very little status in ancient Greece) various needs and potentials. That option isn’t open to us now; even engagement in the municipality isn’t the same because national identification has primacy for most people. Since that high point, we have gone downhill, according to Ashok and others’ argument, and thought less and thought less critically.

Unfortunately, that’s a load of rubbish.

It’s often nice to think that the Athenian agora was full of people wandering around, alternately philosophising and politicising. I rather think it more likely that it was a mixture of something that student politicians in the UK would recognise – scandal, rumour and faction – and people just trying to get on with their lives.

Socrates was in the habit of accosting people in the agora in Athens to discuss whatever was on his mind; not necessarily philosophers, but whoever was going about their business there. In response to a pronouncement from the oracle at Delphi that he, Socrates, was indeed the wisest in Greece, Socrates decided that his wisdom came in recognising that he didn’t know much and was prepared to analyse things critically and honestly. His compatriots gave unthinking, uncritical answers – dumb answers – to his questions, asserting knowledge when what they had was prejudice (in the sense of having pre-judged based on existing personal and societal biases and received wisdom).

We might take another moment of great conflict and change – the foment around the time of the North American War of Independence. At the same time as Tom Paine was proseltysing his radical messages, one retort ran

So you, great Common Sense, did surely come
From out the crack in grisly Pluto’s bum

(Tom Paine – A Political Life by John Keane)

As Mark Steel commented – what is that, magical realism?.

I will not deny for a moment that there were some interesting, eye-catching developments from those periods – and those are just two in history – I will deny that those periods were awash with it. Yes, perhaps more people were aware of great debates. I wonder how many read much more into them that they did into the arguments between two feudal lords in other times and places.

If I may borrow, via Ed Murrow, a phrase from Shakespeare:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves

Trivia, rumour and gossip are as much a part of the human condition now as they ever have been; it is part of our social nature. I am prepared to accept that our liberal-capitalist-democratic order is fragile and requires a more active and informed citizenry to survive, which in turn requires a long, hard look at the nature of politics, education and the media in the west, but that doesn’t mean the material we have to work with is qualitatively worse or that it has been made so by the internet.

xD.

1 – This is an interesting effect, deserving of study. It is principally the ease by which it can be done. Once upon a time, you either had to code directly in HTML (and CSS and the rest) or use a WYSIWIG editor like MS FrontPage. You still had to sort out how to upload your files and storage space was frequently limited. The Web 2.0 phenomenon is not so much about social media as faster internet speeds, cheap storage and user-friendly interfaces (hard and soft) so that you don’t have to know anything about computers beyond standard office skills to have a blog, edit Wikipedia or post something to YouTube.

Bendy buses – answers to FOI requests

Posted on by David Landon Cole

TfL have responded to my Freedom of Information requests about bendy buses, specifically the 507 and 521 routes. The questions and their responses follow below the fold, but the key points are:

  • The proposed replacements for 18m bendy buses are 12m single deckers. Operators have been asked to submit bids for 12m single deckers and 18m articulated.
  • There has been no public consultation on the change; there has been stakeholder consultation. As most people on the 507 and 521 come from outside geographic stakeholder areas (that’s why they arrive at Victoria, London Bridge and Waterloo), it seems likely their views will not be taken on board.
  • Only 1% of passengers on the 507 and 521 use paper tickets bought from roadside machines.

xD.

Update: Many thanks to the excellent Dave Hill for writing about this at his blog over at The Guardian.

Continue reading “Bendy buses – answers to FOI requests” →

The BNP’s epic fail

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I’m not going to go over it in fine detail, although I recommend the posts and comments at Pickled Politics, Liberal Conspiracy and these two at the Wardman Wire. The second one deals with legal implications for blogs; look, listen and take heed. I commented on the subject at PP, and it pretty much sums up my opinions on ‘knuckledraggergate’:

OK, we don’t like the BNP. They are pernicious. I still think it’s wrong to publish the list. It should be possible to be a member of an organisation without having that advertised to the world. If nothing else, it sets a dangerous precedent.

Firstly, there should be an assumption of privacy of data unless there is compelling reason to the contrary; why should my membership of the RSPB be published?

Secondly, if the proof of concept of damaging an organisation by releasing its internal details to a waiting media and internet is shown, more people will want to do it. Leaking my membership of the RSPB is unlikely to be a problem, it’s not hard to see how an association with a trades union or the ANL could cause problems for some people if published.

Thirdly, this has damaged the BNP, which is a good thing. We can retain the moral high ground; there is no need – even if it is interesting – to rub their noses in it.

There’s more on the story courtesy of the BBC; it originally came from Lancaster UAF.

Normal blogging service will resume shortly.

xD.

PS Truly, an epic fail.

A brief note on Afghanistan

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The UK’s commander in Helmand, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, has said that we shouldn’t expect a decisive military victory in Afghanistan; I wholeheartedly agree. He should have added that there was never going to be a military victory in Afghanistan.

Setting up the Afghan government was never going to be enough, either. The international community needs to rally round and provide development support to build the institutions that will allow Afghanistan to run itself. A successful part of that has been the establishment of the Afghan National Army, which (I believe) now takes part in more than two-thirds of missions conducted under the ISAF or OEF banners. More work does need to be done, for instance, on the Afghan National Police. It is worth mentioning OMLTs (Operational Mentor Liaison Teams, or Omelettes), which remain attached to an Afghan unit after it has been set up and trained to provide ongoing training and advice.

NATO went into Afghanistan under an Article V1 commitment to prevent further attacks, on the US in particular, launched from Afghan territory by al Qaeda with the complicity of the then-government. The conflict was and is increasingly characterised by asymmetry; while there have been some ‘pitched battles’, insurgents are increasingly avoiding such conflicts. Instead, they are going after development work precisely because it is that work which wins hearts and minds and helps to develop the structures that Afghanistan needs. A good instance is the delivery of a hydroelectric power turbine to produce electricity for on the order of two million people. It took five thousand troops to safeguard its passage precisely because the Taleban were so determined to stop it arriving.

While the higher echelons of the Taleban are under pressure, local groups are able to maintain opposition. This is largely because they use aggressive means with no regard at all towards loss of life, Afghan or otherwise. It is worth remembering, though, that a couple of years ago the Taleban were talking in terms of defeating the Afghan government in some parts of the country. They have failed. While the situation is not necessarily what I’d describe as ‘good’, the Taleban are being defeated as a coherent force.

As I said at the beginning, there was never going to be a military victory in Afghanistan. What military force can do is allow and support the autonomous developments needed for Afghanistan to run itself and thus prevent further attacks like 9-11.

xD.

1 – Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty, aka the Washington Treaty, runs:

The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking forthwith, individually and in concert with the other Parties, such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.

Any such armed attack and all measures taken as a result thereof shall immediately be reported to the Security Council. Such measures shall be terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to restore and maintain international peace and security.

Full text of the treaty at Wikisource.

PS – I draw your attention to the disclaimer at the bottom of this page.

Mayor Johnson, or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bendy bus

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The 507 (Wikipedia, TfL) and 521 (Wikipedia, TfL) are going to be the first London bus routes to have the bendy bus removed. This is going to make my commute into work longer. Bendy buses have attracted a lot of opprobrium; read on to find out why they’re actually a really good idea.

Graphic of a bendy bus

The 507 and 521 are the last of the Red Arrow routes that were set up in the mid-Sixties to deal with short, high-density, commuter journeys. The idea was twofold; increase bus capacity and, crucially, the speed with which people could board and alight from the bus, thereby increasing route capacity and decreasing journey time. Obviously, it takes more time to use a double-decker; there’s only one exit door and passengers can’t go up and down the stairs at the same time; in any case, people taking short journeys are less likely to go up the stairs, leading to overcrowding downstairs. The solution was to move to a single-decker bus with less seats but more standing room and to allow people to leave by the front door as well.

The 507 and 521 routes haven’t changed in their requirements since the Sixties. Both run between major termini that are close together; in the 507’s case, Waterloo and Victoria and, in the 521’s, Waterloo and London Bridge. More importantly, they go through places where lots of commuters want to go; the 521 goes past Holborn, St Paul’s and Monument (all areas with lots of offices that people who come in by train to Waterloo and London Bridge want to reach) and the 507 goes up Horseferry Road. That’s significant because I board the bus at Horseferry Road but also because the buses, in both directions, practically empty in the morning on the Horseferry Road stops as lots of civil servants go to work in the area; conversely, the buses fill up in the evening peak and empty at the termini.

The bendy buses are ideal for these routes. They can accomodate a lot of people, who can board and alight quickly and in large numbers, travelling over short distances. The ideal would probably be a tram but these are costly to install and there are other priorities, not least the Cross River Tram and, of course, Crossrail. The bendy buses are an ideal solution. The alternative that we are going to have is the double-decker. I like double-deckers, but they’re not appropriate for these routes. I’m sure a lot of people who take traditional double-deckers in the morning rush from major rail stations will be familiar with the long boarding times as everyone clambers on in the one place. You can usually find a seat upstairs (hence the iBus announcement: “Seats are available on the Upper Deck”) as many people are only going a few stops and don’t want to have to fight up and down the stairs. On the 507 and 521 routes, that will be worsened by everyone wanting to leave the bus over two or three stops.

A particular issue for the 521 is the Strand Underpass. It connects the northern end of Waterloo Bridge directly to the top of Kingsway. Originally built for trams, it is not high enough for double-deckers. Presumably, the 521 will have to be diverted round the Aldwych and up Kingsway. These are two busy roads that will become further congested and will delay the 521.

Some of the arguments against the bendy bus are also rubbish. The big one is that there’s lots of fare evasion; I’m sure that’s true on some routes. On the 507 and 521 – the first routes to have bendies removed – just about everyone is using a major rail terminus. They’re probably going to have a Travelcard already – which includes London buses.

Bendy buses aren’t appropriate for every route. The 36, for instance, isn’t ideal for going across Cambridge Circus. That doesn’t mean they’re not appropriate for any route. Unfortunately, bus policy – not necessarily the most fascinating of issues – is being decided by little more than tabloid prejudice.

I’ll see you in the queue.

xD.

Update: Peezedtee weighs in and, in fact, weighed in back in March.