In like Flynn

Strasbourg, 04.06.2010 – The handling of the H1N1 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), EU agencies and national governments led to a “waste of large sums of public money, and unjustified scares and fears about the health risks faced by the European public”, according to a report by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) made public today in Paris.

The report, prepared by Paul Flynn (United Kingdom, SOC) and approved today by the committee ahead of a plenary debate at the end of this month, says there was “overwhelming evidence that the seriousness of the pandemic was vastly overrated by WHO”, resulting in a distortion of public health priorities.

Presenting his report, Mr Flynn told the committee: “this was a pandemic that never really was”, and described the vaccination programme as “placebo medicine on a large scale”.

In its adopted text, the committee identifies what it calls “grave shortcomings” in the transparency of decision-making about the outbreak, generating concerns about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on decisions taken. Plummeting confidence in such advice could prove “disastrous” in the case of a severe future pandemic, it warns.

In particular, the WHO and European health institutions were not willing to publish the names and declarations of interest of the members of the WHO Emergency Committee and relevant European advisory bodies directly involved in recommendations concerning the pandemic, the parliamentarians point out.

However, attending the meeting was Fiona Godlee, the Editor-in-Chief of the British Medical Journal, who told the parliamentarians that, according to an
investigation by her journal, scientists who drew up key WHO guidelines on stockpiling flu vaccines had previously been paid by drug companies which stood
to profit.

Interesting n'est-ce pas? This is damning stuff. Here's a PDF of the provisional report. I will be intrigued to see how much coverage this gets in the UK media up to and after the debate "by parliamentarians from all 47 Council of Europe member states on Thursday 24 June during PACE’s summer session in Strasbourg". Is that the same thing as the European Parliament? I'm ashamed to say I don't know.

Cardiff and St Illtyd's Paul Flynn is acknowledged as a Welsh Born Icon.

Local Knowledge

Extracts from the Floods Debate in the Commons yesterday

Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab): If we are able to answer one question, it will give us the key to what I believe are the long-term practical solutions to the problems of Somerset and elsewhere. Why did the Somerset levels flood and the Gwent levels not flood?

Having represented part of the Gwent levels continuously as an elected person since 1972, I know them well, and members of my family live in Somerset. The areas are almost identical. They share 2,000 years of history, and their topographies and geographies are identical. The Gwent levels were drained by the Romans, and the sea wall was built by the 20th Augustan legion 2,000 years ago. During that long period, the levels have been treated very much the same. Drainage has been put into both. They have recently shared exactly the same weather—they are only a short distance apart—and exactly the same tides. There is no dredging on either side. So why on earth was there flooding on one side of the Severn estuary and not on the other? I believe that the answer lies in farming techniques.

As has been said, dredging is not a panacea. In 1928 there was a flood here, on this spot. The terraced houses opposite, in Page street and Millbank, were flooded, and people died. That flood was caused by dredging, which was carried out in the lower reaches of the Thames to increase access for ships. Yes, water did flow out more quickly as a result, but it also flowed in more quickly. It was easy for the tide to come in. In the dredged areas, the tide came in and met the water coming down from the hills. If dredging is seen as the answer in Somerset and is proceeded with, the lower reaches of the Parrett will be exposed to the extraordinary characteristics of the Severn, which holds more sediment in suspension than almost any other river in the country.

Mr David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): I am sorry, but I think that the hon. Gentleman is completely mistaken. The River Parrett is tidal for 18.3 miles of its length from the Severn estuary. It is precisely because of the tidal surge from the Parrett that we cannot move the water away from the Mendips, the Quantocks and the other hills. That is not comparable to the situation in the Gwent levels, where the topography is different.

Paul Flynn: If the hon. Gentleman will bear with me, on the characteristics of the Severn we know that on both sides of the river we have the second highest rising and falling tides in the world, but the issue is the amount of sediment because of the length of the river. In the Severn estuary and on the beaches, sometimes the rocks are clean and nothing has been deposited, but on another tide 1 foot of mud may be deposited there. Given the 18 tidal miles of the Parrett, it will be easy for the sediment to come in.

However, the sediment is not just coming in from the tidal reaches of the river; it is also coming down from the hills. That is key. Dredging would create an open door to allow the sediment to move in from the Severn in greater quantities, as it did with the Thames in 1928.

What is the difference between the two areas? The difference lies in the Quantocks, the Mendips, around the Welsh hills and the Wentwood. There is a difference in farming in the two areas. That is made clear in a report in Soil Use and Management. It contained a warning, six weeks before the floods moved into Somerset, that a disaster was brewing. It said that surface water run-off in the south-west of England, where the Somerset levels are, was reaching a critical point—it said that six weeks beforehand. It added that on 30% of the land that researchers investigated, instead of percolating into the ground the water was pouring off the fields.

One of the main reasons was the increase in the growth of maize. There are other reasons, but when I was first elected the maize grown in this country occupied 1,400 acres. It now occupies 160,000 acres. What are the characteristics of that? It breaks up the soil and allows the water to run off. Maize is being grown in Britain not for food for humans but for animal food and biodiesel. One could ask whether, in trying to solve the climate change problem in that direction, we are creating a bigger problem in the other.
There was another warning—a clear warning—in 2005, when a Government report published a devastating catalogue of the impact of the changes in land use. As well as warning of the loss of fertility from the land and the poisoning of water courses, it said that
“increased run-off and sediment deposition can also increase flood hazard in rivers”.
That point was made in 2005. That Government paper urged:
“Wherever possible, avoid growing forage maize on high and very high erosion risk areas.”

The Government of the time—this is crucial—made it a condition of receiving some £3 billion in subsidies that farmers took action against that. The Government argued that ground cover crops should be sown, as a condition of receiving the subsidies, under maize and the land should be ploughed, then resown with winter cover plants within 10 days of harvesting to prevent water from sheeting off. Why is that not happening in Somerset? The reason is that the current Government have dropped that condition. That is one of the main causes of the extent of the floods. They issued a specific exemption for maize cultivation from soil conservation measures. We are now in the position of looking for instant solutions. Dredging is the cry. It has some effect but it can be deleterious as well.

We have thrown money at the problem, which most people are asking for. That will help, but in the town that I represent, there were regular floods 20 or 30 years ago. Now there are areas where fields are designed to flood and to take the excess water, and they have not been flooded for decades. There are plans. If we go ahead with some of the instant solutions being suggested in Somerset, we will decrease the flood threat to farmlands but we will greatly increase the threat to urban areas. One field flooded is far less damaging than having 100 houses flooded. We have to look realistically at the changes that are taking place. Of course the weather was thoroughly exceptional, but there are whole areas of Somerset that have been flooding for centuries. The “ey” suffix on the names of many of the villages there means “island”, and historically they were islands—little mounds standing up among the flat areas.

I welcome the reasonable way in which the Secretary of State has put his case today. We are now looking for long-term solutions. We are not looking for solutions that merely address the immediate political problems; we need solutions that will last for decades and that will take into account the changes in farming on our hillsides. The land there is no longer retaining the water and allowing it to percolate through slowly; the water is now rushing rapidly down and causing these freak flooding incidents.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Paul Flynn is a long time straight bat and already a Welsh Born Icon.

jolt for democracy

This blog is on record in approving of Tory MP Rory Stewart, and Labour MP Paul Flynn, which makes it gratifying to read Paul Flynn's comments on Rory Stewart's election as chair of the Commons defence select committee.

Just as politics was slipping into a coma of torpor an electrifying jolt jerks it into new life.

It could not have happened without the Wright reforms. They continue to deliver. Rory Stewart was unelectable by the whips as a Select Committee Chairman. He is not biddable, has a unique hinterland of extraordinary achievements and possesses a working brain-all traits that disqualify him from promotion by the neurotically controlling whips.

The Defence Select Committee, under Rory, will metamorphose from passive collaborating cheerleaders for the war party into a critical voice of objective reason. That's if the other establishment committee members allow him to lead. The rough democracy that the Wright reforms imposed of the election of chairs produced a range of eight Tory hopefuls with a wide spectrum of opinions.

Coincidentally, I am 81% of the way through reading Stewart's The Places In Between. (My kindle tells me 81%. This is not the kind of figure I keep in my head.) The book is about his solo walk across north-central Afghanistan in 2002, at the American invasion and occupation after the events set in motion by 9/11.

Maybe http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/defence-committee/ will be worth keeping an eye on now.

COMMITTEE... (A NEW MUSICAL)

In COMMITTEE... (A NEW MUSICAL), the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Takes Oral Evidence on Whitehall's Relationship with Kids Company at the Donmar - make of that what you may - Paul Flynn MP is played by Anthony O'Donnell.

Flynn and O'Donnell both went to school at St Illtyd's; just like me and my brothers.

Still doesn't make the alma mater Eton, or Tony O'Donnell Eddie Redmayne ..... read on.

Under New Labour, only the future is certain. The past keeps changing.

Paul Flynn, Old Illtydian and long standing Newport MP has died at the age of 84. He has appeared quite a lot on my spindrift pages over the years.

When Newport played Manchester City in the FA Cup this weekend, City’s starting XI cost £320m to assemble. Newport’s was put together for £50,000 and only two of the players commanded a fee. It would have tickled Flynn pink to see County play so well against the superstars at the 7,850 capacity Rodney Parade. I hope he caught it on the TV.

Green and Gold

Paul Flynn MP

Last night I met Tony O'Donnell.

It was a riot of rushed words, shared memories of mutual friends plus gratitude from me for Anthony's playing of me at Donmar Warehouse Theatre. He wore a wig for the show which he sadly dumped for the photograph. Otherwise the resemblance was convincing.......

Following the show Anthony joined me in singing our old school song-Green and Gold. We were both at St Illtyd's College Cardiff. I was there is the late forties Anthony in the early sixties but we share many friends-especially from the Splott area of Cardiff. We will have another get together to catch up on many events.

See Icons passim.

More matter with less art

Paul Flynn MP says, "on Thursday last, 14th April, the Commons was treated to the best speech made in this Parliament.

"An unrivalled authoritative source as a soldier and a politician, Adam Holloway revealed the truth on the shared conspiracy that led 634 UK soldiers to the deaths and left 2,000 others to survive, maimed in mind or body."

The three paragraphs below are the meat in the sandwich as far as I am concerned.

From what I have seen on the ground since I became an MP in 2005—in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and last week in Syria with my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden—I believe that the full panoply of the Government machine has become dysfunctional in four overlapping parts. First, we have suffered from having a narrowly focused class of professional politicians who understand politics, not leadership, and who have almost no understanding of the complexities or realities on the ground. Secondly, we have ambitious civil servants who know that careers advance by staying close to what the rest of the group think. Thirdly, we have military officers with a civil service mindset who have also learned that the right answer is “we can do it” rather than “we can’t do it without…”. Finally, we have experts who are ignored or marginalised.

No experts were present at President Bush’s Prairie Chapel ranch when Prime Minister Blair agreed to support a US-led invasion of Iraq. Of course, Prime Minister Blair was determined to uphold the US-UK alliance, but he does not seem to have made even the slightest attempt to stop his friend President Bush from driving us drunk into Iraq. Back home, we needed to find reasons to go into Iraq, and we created the infamous dossier in a sort of late-night essay crisis. So late into ​the night did they work in Downing Street that they managed to read the bit from the top-secret, single-source report about missiles but failed to read the “analyst’s comment” section of the CX. They failed to see the comment that there was no way in which the missiles referred to could still be in the hands of Saddam Hussein.

Most of the public, as well as many people in Parliament, were in good faith convinced by the Prime Minister. Later, we convinced ourselves that we were in Afghanistan to “fight them over there” so that we did not have to “fight them over here”. Several years ago, after I had given a presentation to an immensely senior person in a previous Government, he asked me, “Adam, are you really saying that the Taliban are not a threat to the UK?” That revealed a fundamental misunderstanding of the difference between the Taliban and al-Qaeda; it almost beggared belief. That difference between a local xenophobic tribal traditional movement and a death cult was not, and is still not, understood.

I recommend you read the whole thing at http://paulflynnmp.typepad.com/my_weblog/2016/04/best-speech-in-this-parliament-ignored-by-media.html.

I must try and pay attention to this Holloway fella, bearing in mind I blogged my bafflement over afghanistan only eight days ago (Icons passim).

Update: http://www.cps.org.uk/publications/reports/in-blood-stepp-d-in-so-far-towards-realism-in-afghanistan/ might be a good place to start.

Not Fade Away

We seem to have run into a vein of form with old photos since I posted a shot of my father in action from the 56/57 season last week.

Chris has posted a picture of his Dad digging the foundations for the Swansea Uplands Rugby Football Club at about the same time. (This also contains a link to a history of the club contains the strangely inspirational fact that "the club played its final pre war fixture on tour against Old Whitgiftians in Croydon on 10th April 1939 and following a meeting held on 18th April 1939, the club enlisted en-bloc forming a “sportsman’s platoon” in 5th Battalion The Welsh Regiment".)

I've also found two posts on Paul Flynn MP's website that show details of a photograph of the staff and pupils of St Illtyd's in 1947. I can see my Mum's brother Michael Milton on it and I am sure it should feature my father as well but I can't seem to find him.

(The links are: http://www.paulflynnmp.co.uk/hotnewsdetail.jsp?id=496 and http://www.paulflynnmp.co.uk/hotnewsdetail.jsp?id=506).

Finally, another photo of the Old Illtydian's off duty in the 1950s toasting a stuffed wolf. Go figure.

'Fitness for Purpose'

LONDON: Responding to "Closing the Gap", a report - by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary - on the ability of the current structure of policing in England and Wales to provide effective and sustainable services in the future, a leading figure in organised crime has voiced his approval of plans to reduce the number of police forces in England and Wales from 43 to 12.

Supporting police modernisation, British crimelord Harold Shand said, "Modern organised criminals are sophisticated, organised and well-resourced entrepreneurs trafficking in drugs and people, engaging in fraud and extortion. We run business empires that reach from the other side of the world to the dealer on the street corner".

Pointing to efficiency gains over the last decade , Shand noted that the price of an ecstacy tablet has fallen from £20.50 a ten years ago to only £7 today and that prices of heroin and cocaine both fell by 30 per cent over the same period.

"Ten years ago, the price of one ecstasy pill would have bought 14 pints of lager or 222 cigarettes. Today, the £7 street price for a tablet of ecstasy is the equivalent of 3 pints of lager or 30 king-size cigarettes.

"We work in a competitive industry. Dealing with 43 separate Police Forces fragments our business processes, reducing efficiency, and hindering our work in delivering value to the customer. We welcome the proposed streamlining."

While this endorsement will be welcomed by the Home Office, serial Labour rebel MP Paul Flynn struck a dissenting note saying: "This is a decision that is rushed. It's not based on any rational basis. It will help only the criminals and it will harm the whole structure of the police. It's reorganisation for reorganisation's sake."