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Longtime readers of this blog in its earlier form will know that from August 2002 onwards I used to enjoy a good rant. I haven’t actually had a good on-line rant for quite some time now and fear that I may have mellowed.
Also, as a number of people from work or who know me via work drop in to have a look from time to time, I have become more circumspect in what I say publicly. Thus my inner feelings seethe with barely suppressed rage at the vicissitudes of life which I do not express, or at least don’t express those which effect my work.
I was reminded of this in the course of Saturday morning when I listened in to the last hour or so of Rick Wakeman’s weekly show on Planet Rock. He usually features some grumpy or other having a good rant and I felt the juices begin to flow as I listened.
I do not plan to give reign to feelings just now, but were I so to do it would be in connection with the firing of Professor David Nutt.
There are several aspects of this which have attracted plenty of comment in the press and on the net and I have no particular intention of adding to that. I do note one particular sentence from the letter dismissing him though, the one which read: “I cannot have public confusion between scientific advice and policy…”.
Now in the case of drug use there are several variables in play when setting policy, but one would have thought that, in this area as in all others, that if there is a disjunction between the evidence and the policy then the evidence should prevail.
“Scientific advisory committees latest. The government’s just sacked Jeff Goldblum. Now they’ve gone too far!”
David Schneider, Twitter, 06th Nov ’09
Gotta love how this thing’s now being referred to as ‘The Nuttsack Affair’ 😉 😀
Aye, there are two senior members of the drugs advisory board who’ve now quit over Nutt’s sacking, and there are murmurs of disquiet in the cabinet too – but, that said, this is the Labour Party we’re talking about here, where having a spine is considered a treasonable offence and where they’ve proved all too recently, even when given the opportunity to replace him, that they daren’t move against ‘The Dear Leader’.
The period of Brown’s last few months in office is just a bad film which we’re all required to sit through whether we like it or not – whilst waiting eagerly for the end credits… and comforting feeling that he’ll then have to face his nemesis: the British electorate.
In the old days, some kindly colleague or a civil servant would have put a friendly arm round him and escorted Brown to a dimly lit room, where he’d find a table and chair, a bottle of whisky and a service revolver, before being left to his own devices and then time would take care the rest – although nowadays, they’d probably insist on the Health & Safety Executive vetting the room and its contents, and end up removing the revolver on the grounds that Brown might “cause undue injury to himself or others…”
Callaghan, Brown … I wonder whether Labour can fit a third non-electorate-appointed prime minister in? Either way, Brown’s arse is toast come May.
Things are complicated up here by the strong showing of the SNP who have proved to be a lot more competent than many expected. Even given that context, though, the question for the UK General Election is that of the alternative. As a civil servant I can not publicly express a preference, of course – which is just as well as I don’t have one and am generally in a “plague on all of your houses” mood at present.
In the case of Prof. Nutt, I note that the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, agreed with the Home Secretary’s decision so no clear blue water there then.
Meantime another senior advisor has just resigned and, at least according to press reports, some senior ministers are said to be unhappy at the decision to fire Prof. Nutt.
Not since Thatcher have I witnessed a ‘leader’ more detached from reality and, more pointedly, the opinion of others; which he singularly refuses to take into consideration.
This man, Brown, missed his calling in life: he would have made only a passable Borders bank clerk, where routine and dour drudgery and not the need to interact with sentient beings would be the chief requirement.
The general election cannot come soon enough to be rid of this tedious man an his sixth-form-mentalitied ideologues.