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Alastair Campbell, who brought this country to its knees, has spun his way out
“Alastair Campbell, who brought this country to its knees, has spun his way out-of-trouble.
I say ..
Shibley's AV poll
Whether you voted for Ed Miliband, David Miliband, Ed Balls, Andy Burnham or Diane Abbott, or none of them, please complete this survey. It takes about 10 minutes to complete. There are 22 questions which should be answered YES or NO. You must be a Labour voter to take part. Please do not take part if you are a non-Labour voter.
Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.
For interest, the questions are reproduced here.
This survey is simply an exploration of views on the AV – the Alternative Vote.
Please only complete this survey if you are a Labour voter (although the issues are not party-political, officially).
This survey consists of 22 very brief YES or NO questions.
Thank you for agreeing to do this survey.
The survey will close at 11.59 pm on 10th December 2010.
What is AV?
Put simply, under our current system – sometimes referred to as First-Past-the-Post – the candidate that gets the most votes in an individual constituency is elected as the MP. The party with more MPs than all the other parties put together then forms the government.
Under AV – the Alternative Vote – the voters rank candidates in order of preference and anyone getting more than 50% in the first round is elected. If that doesn’t happen, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated and their second choices are allocated to the remaining candidates. If no candidate at the second stage has a majority of votes, the next lowest candidate is eliminated and their votes are redistributed. This process keeps on occurring until a winner emerges.
QUESTIONS 1-9. Please answer the following general questions.
1. At the beginning of this survey, do you feel that the UK should we have a system of AV?
2. Do you think that an AV referendum is a top political priority, given other recent political events?
3. Would the official Labour party line be relevant to how you vote?
4. Should Labour have specific policy on how to vote in the referendum?
5. Do you think that coalitions break promises?
6. Do you think that Britain should have a system of coalitions?
7. Would AV encourage a hung parliament?
8. Would it worry you if the AV vote encouraged a coalition?
9. Would you consider voting no to AV if Nick Clegg remained as Leader of the Liberal Democrats.
QUESTIONS 10-15 The following reasons have been put forward as reasons to vote for AV. For each reason, do you fundamentally agree with the statement as given?
10. The Alternative Vote is a fairer and more democratic way of electing our parliament
11. All MPs would have the support of a majority of their voters.
12. It penalises extremist parties.
13. It eliminates the need for tactical voting.
14. It encourages candidates to chase second- and third-preferences.
15. It retains the same constituencies, meaning no need to redraw boundaries, and no overt erosion of the constituency-MP link.
QUESTIONS 16-20 And do these issues matter?
16. Does it matter the MPs would have the majority of their voters?
17. Does it matter that it penalizes extremist parties?
18. Does it matter if it eliminates the need for tactical voting?
19. Does it matter that the constituencies are the same?
20. Does it matter whether it encourages candidates to chase second- and third-preferences?
GENERAL QUESTIONS
21. And finally, at the end of survey, do you feel that the UK should we have a system of AV?
22. Are you likely to be influenced by any campaigning on this selective issue?
Thank you for completing this survey.
Not waving but drowning
At least the British political commentators have been consistently two-faced in their opinions of PMQs. When Ed Miliband ‘does well’ in them, some of these journalists instantaneously take to the airwaves to insist that nobody watches PMQs. When David Cameron does well, it is a sign of brilliant wit, showing that Ed Miliband’s leadership is in its dying days. Thankfully the UK voters are not stupid as to judge the future of this country on a limited pre-prepared stand-up performance from David Cameron. A deserving ‘funny man’ he is, but in terms of where he is leading the country on GDP in 2011 he is a ‘cause for concern’.
In last week’s PMQs, Ed Miliband tried to pull a literary punch with David Cameron by asking whether Cameron was the son of Thatcher, alluding to the Wikileak reported earlier that week from William Hague. David Cameron started his answer laughing, in mock-pity, saying, ‘Oh dear, not waving but drowning”.
I haven’t read a single person pick up on the phrase. In a sense, it was brilliant for David Cameron to refer to a classic poem by Stevie Smith in 1957, called “Not waving, but drowning”; if that’s what he meant. The work, the most famous of Smith’s poems, describes a man whose distressed thrashing in the sea causes onlookers to believe that he is waving to them.
The text of the poem is as follows:
Nobody heard him, the dead man,?
But still he lay moaning:
?I was much further out than you thought?
And not waving but drowning.
??Poor chap, he always loved larking
?And now he’s dead?
It must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,
?They said.
??Oh, no no no, it was too cold always
?(Still the dead one lay moaning)?
I was much too far out all my life?
And not waving but drowning.
Unfortunately, David Cameron has been hoisted by his own petard, when you look carefully about what commentators have in fact said about this poem. One expert, Ingrid Hotz-Davies. has suggested that the “drowning man” is Smith herself, but the poem’s humorous tone masks this plea for help. While David Cameron appears to be laughing at Ed Miliband, his funny words could belie some distress about his own personal professional standing, while this Coalition falls apart day-by-day.
Other commentators have picked up on the “pain behind the smile” theme of the poem. This of course would not be at odds with a man with supposedly good presentation skills inflicting the worst cuts since the Second World War, which could see GDP at alarmingly low levels for the whole of next year.
Dr Shibley Rahman is a member of the Holborn and St Pancras CLP, and also active in the Fabian Society, Compass and Progress.
James Naughtie summed up what I feel about the BBC – here's the clip!
Relive the moment! It couldn’t have happened to two nicer blokes, Jeremy Hunt MP and James Naughtie, but it sums up exactly what I feel about the smeartastic BBC.
I am glad James Naughtie is doing his best to raise the happiness index of the UK. The slow car crash in full is here.
But lightning never strikes twice? Well…..!
Happy xmas.
The BBC is clearly on a path of self-destruct when it comes to journalism
I am actually a world-respected expert in dementia, particularly in the field of the frontotemporal dementia, although I have written several book chapters mainly on Alzheimer’s disease. For example, these are some publications.
Shibley Rahman, Sahakian, B.J., Robbins, T.W. (1999). Comparative studies in frontal lobe function: what they reveal about possible therapeutic strategies in frontal variant frontotemporal dementia. Dementia and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders 10 Suppl 1:15-28.
Shibley Rahman, Sahakian, B.J., Hodges, J.R., Rogers, R.D., Robbins, T.W. (1999) Specific cognitive deficits in early frontal variant frontotemporal dementia. Brain 122 (Pt 8):1469-93 [accompanied by a Wellcome Trust Press Release, August 1999 and presented at the Society for Neurosciences, Miami (1999)].
Shibley Rahman, Sahakian, B.J. (2001) Dementia. Chapter in: Textbook of Clinical Pharmacology, McGraw Hill Publishers.
Shibley Rahman, Sahakian, B.J., Gregory, C.A. (2001) Therapeutic strategies in early onset dementia. In: Early Onset Dementia (ed. J.R. Hodges). Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Shibley Rahman, Swainson, R., Sahakian, B.J. (2001) Dementia of the Alzheimer type. Martin-Dunitz.
Shibley Rahman, Robbins, T.W., Cardinal, R.N., Sahakian, B.J. (2001) The neuropsychiatry of decision-making. Trends in Cognitive Sciences Jun 1;5(6):271- 277.
Lee, A.C., Shibley Rahman, Hodges, J.R., Sahakian, B.J., Graham, K.S. (2003) Associative and recognition memory for novel objects in dementia: implications for diagnosis. Eur J Neurosci 18; 1660-1670
Deakin, J., Shibley Rahman, Sahakian, B.J., Nestor, P.J., Hodges, J.R., Robbins, T.W. Paroxetine does not improve symptoms and impairs cognition in frontotemporal dementia: a double-blind randomized controlled trial. Psychopharmacology (Berl). 2004 Apr;172(4):400-8. Epub 2003 Dec 10.
Shibley Rahman, Sahakian, B.J., Nestor, P.J., Hodges, J.R., Robbins, T.W.Methylphenidate (‘Ritalin’) can Ameliorate Abnormal Risk-Taking Behavior in the Frontal Variant of Frontotemporal Dementia. Nature (Neuropsychopharmacology). 2005 Sep 7; [Epub ahead of print]
Shibley Rahman, Griffin, H.J., Quinn, N.P., Jahanshahi, M. The factors that induce or overcome freezing. Behav. Neurol. 2008;19(3):127-36.
Shibley Rahman, Griffin, H.J., Quinn, N.P., Jahanshahi, M. Quality of life: the relative contribution of physical symptoms. Mov Disord. 2008 Jul 30;23(10):1428-34
Manes, F., Torralva, T., Shibley Rahman, Ibanez, A., Roca, M, Beckinschtein, T., Gleichgerrcht, E. Free will and decision-making in early behavioral frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD): a legal and ethical dilemma. Submitted to Brain, 2010.
Shibley Rahman, Manes, F. The cognitive neuroscience of the legal mens rea. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2010. In preparation.
Bechara, A., Shibley Rahman, Manes, F. Position statement on frontal variant frontotemporal dementia. In preparation.
I was therefore aghast when I read this on the BBC website:
Nursing care for people with dementia is in need of a radical overhaul, a leading think tank has warned.
The King’s Fund says people with Alzheimer’s and dementia in England are having NHS-funded care withdrawn in the later stages of their illness.
The reason being is that Alzheimer’s disease is a major type of dementia; they are not two separate conditions. In other words, Alzheimer’s disease is one of very many causes of dementia, and saying ‘Alzheimer’s disease and dementia’ is very confusing and dangerous to lay-people; some people might think that Alzheimer’s disease is a later stage of dementia, for example.
It’s not the first time that the BBC has screwed up basic neuroscience. For example, it regularly screws up coverage of Huntingdon’s disease, by getting the name wrong.
Please give us a break BBC…
Dr Shibley Rahman
The BBC RTS Huw Wheldon lecture 2010 by Professor Brian Cox
80% of people in the general public rely on television to get their information on science. The 2010 Royal Television Society lecture considered the anomalies between science and television, analyzing thereby the principles of good science TV practice.
The opening of this lecture
Defining science is notoriously difficult. The Panel on Public Affairs of the American Physical Society, for example, proposed a definition that some describe as pure science:
“Science is the systematic enterprise of gathering knowledge about the world and organizing and condensing that knowledge into testable laws and theories.” They went on to explain that “. . . the success and credibility of science is anchored in the willingness of scientists to expose their ideas and results to independent testing and replication by other scientists . . . (and) abandon or modify accepted conclusions when confronted with more complete or reliable experimental evidence.” Many dictionaries (e.g., New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 1993) amplify this definition by highlighting the use of the scientific method as the way of identifying any activity as part of science. The report “Science for all Americans” identifies the fact that science is carried out in, and consequently influenced by, its social context.”
The House of Lords’ “Science and Society” report defined the public understanding of science in general terms as the:
“. . . understanding of scientific matters by non-experts. This cannot of course mean a comprehensive knowledge of all branches of science. It may however include under- standing of the nature of scientific methods . . . awareness of current scientific advances and their implications. Public understanding of science has become a shorthand term for all forms of outreach (in the UK) by the scientific community, or by others on their behalf (e.g., science writers, museums, event organisers), to the public at large, aimed at improving that understanding.”
The issue that I’ve always grappled with it is that scientific communicators don’t necessarily have to be good scientists themselves, but it helps enormously if they understand the terminology. For example, recently I picked upon the fact that a Director of a UK cancer charity presented a screening test for a male cancer as a pretty fair diagnostic test, not talking about how that test could produce elevated levels in related conditions (a problem with selectivity). This is a problem as the media will find her a ‘golden find’ to discuss such matters, from being a Director, but actually what she presented was actually very reckless indeed. The media therefore have to ensure that they do not abuse their authority, and possibly this is one of the most admirable aspects of the peer-review process that Brian Cox discussed: the meritocracy of peer review.
However, I am disturbed about how people in the media, particularly the BBC, often do not attempt to present conflicting hypotheses about how disease is caused, for example dementia. The problem there is that the media can either avoid controversy altogether, or really grab attention-seeking sensationalist headlines, such as ‘the length of the index finger could be a useful screening test for prostate cancer”. The general public want to be able to trust scientists, and therefore find non-facts difficult to address. This is similar to a patient asking a Doctor for a diagnosis; the patient doesn’t want the list of possible diagnoses as long as your arm. Or indeed, a business client approaching a lawyer. The client wishes to have legal advice based on the most up-to-date case or statute law, and not an academic diatribe which simply leaves him or her extremely confused.
I believe that scientists should be entertaining, and one of the first things I learnt in public understanding of science is that you can’t engage an audience unless the audience finds your material interesting or challenging; and it is vital that you explain it in a clear way avoiding any complicated words. I personally should like to recommend a brilliant show presented by Dr Chris Smith from the University of Cambridge called “The Naked Scientists”. Ways of getting to the show are found on this page (link here). The show is presented live every Sunday at 6 pm, and is not only very challenging, but also is very entertaining.
And certainly people in the public tend to have dingy memories of sitting in a laboratory, learning chemistry, physics or biology, or “Double Science”. Maybe the science curriculum over decades has failed to inspire, in being out-of-touch with the latest discoveries, or seems detached from the issues which the public want to know about and are intrinsically interested: how fossils are made, what happens in a cancer, which materials are ‘strongest’.
Science communicators need to be like another type of leader in entrepreneurship. They need to demonstrate confidence not arrogance, a clear message, some degree of risk-taking, good personal skills, good listening skills, and personal features which make them attractive to follow. I believe that they also need to be authentic, and to have a real understanding of what they’re talking about. For this, they do not have to be an expert, but should clearly demonstrate the limits of our current knowledge.
An open letter to the BBC General Standards Board
My problem is that, even after abstinence, I can’t seek restoration to the General Medical Register in January 2013 or admission to the Solicitors’ Roll on successful completion of my training contract, realistically, whilst this story persists on the BBC website; and assuming I maintain my clean sheet on character and suitability issues following my coma in iTU in the summer of 2007. Both professions are very concerned (quite rightly) about trust in the profession, and its reputation, and given that I have now been successfully rehabilitated from alcoholism I feel the BBC should remove them. So I am now sending this open letter to the BBC General Standards Board to explain my problem. It is a very serious one, and should be given some thought and attention by some very senior people.
The letter is as follows:
Dr. Shibley Rahman
[redacted]Chairman of the General Appeals Board (21/07/10), 24 July 2010
180 Great Portland Street
London
W1W 5QZDear Sir,
OPEN LETTER : URGENT
As you will have inferred from all my correspondence to the General Standards Board, I am really concerned about the damage that this BBC story (actually whose central allegation that I am a stalker is actually in fact incorrect) is doing to my personal reputation in July 2004. You have already been sent this evidence on numerous occasions, as you are aware. This incident for which I received a harassment warning in the context of me being drunk was not criminally classified as stalking. This was one of the items of evidence that led to my ultimate erasure in July 2006 by the General Medical Council. Your news items are still on the BBC Online website today.
Despite the fact I am disabled, but because I have been abstinent for three years, and written two books on postgraduate medicine and completed my PhD in medicine, will be applying for restoration in January 2013. Please note that the ‘Duties of a Doctor’ from the GMC currently provide the following:
“Never abuse your patients’ trust in you or the public’s trust in the profession.”
As I have been abstinent for three years, and it is six years since the event itself (2004), I think it is essential that the BBC remove this, to prevent damage to my personal reputation in my reapplication.I still remain angry about your ‘Entertainment’ stories run during the actual hearing of 2006, which I feel compromisd the fairness of my trial, although I have no intention of recourse to legal action over this.
I am especially concerned, as I am now an upstanding individual. I intend to apply to be a solicitor with proven rehabilitation, and similarly the Code of Conduct of Solicitors provide:
Members of the public must be able to place their trust in you. Any behaviour within or outside your professional practice which undermines this trust damages not only you but the ability of the legal profession as a whole to serve society.
Trust IN me is potentially impossible when your story is number 1 of a Google search of my name, whilst the BBC continues not to remove this story, which is extremely damaging to me.Please remove these stories before I seek for advice from the General Medical Council and the Solicitors Regulatory Authority, as to what to do about these stories. I cannot seek restoration/admission to the Solicitors Roll if the BBC refuses to acknowledge my rehabilitation, and therefore undermines me as a professional.
My problem is that, even after abstinence, I can’t seek restoration to the General Medical Register in January 2013 or approval for the Solicitors’ Electoral Roll after completion of my training contract, realistically, whilst this story persists on the BBC website. Both professions are very concerned (quite rightly) about trust in the profession, and its reputation, and given that I have now been successfully rehabilitated from alcoholism I feel the BBC should remove them. So I am now sending this open letter to the BBC General Standards Board to explain my problem. It is a very serious one, and should be given some thought and attention by some very senior people.
I am still hopeful for a sensible outcome.
Yours sincerely
[ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE]
Dr Shibley Rahman
Queen’s Scholar
BA(1st) MA MB BChir PhD (all Cambridge) MRCP(UK)
LLB(Hons.) FRSA MSB
Master of Law student at the College of Law of England and Wales
Associate Member of the Institute of Directors
Company Director of Law and Medicine Limited