Heroin Shooting Galleries

The Independent reports today that trial schemes -- which enable heroin users to obtain drugs and inject them under supervision -- have dramatically cut crime rates and stopped addicts buying their supplies on the streets. A poll on BBC Online in November 2006 found that 50.8% of people were in favour of heroin being prescribed to addicts on the NHS (11450 surveyed).

Long-term heroin users are among the hardest addicts to treat. They lead chaotic lives, often robbing and stealing to fund their habits. According to official figures, 10 per cent of drug addicts commit 75 per cent of the acquisitive crimes in the Britain. But the number of offences committed by the heroin addicts taking part in the shooting gallery scheme fell from an average of 40 each per month before they were admitted to "about half a dozen a month" after six months of intensive therapy. Instead of buying street heroin every day, the 150 volunteers are now buying it only four or five times a month on average – while a third of them have completely stopped "scoring" the drug on the streets.

Professor Strang, head of the National Addiction Centre at the Maudsley Hospital: "This is genuinely exciting news. These are people with a juggernaut-sized heroin problem and I really didn't know whether we could turn it around. We have succeeded with people who looked as if their problem was unturnable, and we have done it in six months."

The Green Party is in favour of treating heroin addiction as a health issue, not as a crime problem. We also favour taking some drugs (specifically cannabis, speed, and E) out of the hands of criminal mafia.

Mafia compete against each other, making drug supplies more and more potent to keep their customers. Legalisation would break that cycle. If currently illegal drugs were legalised, they could be regulated in the same way other damaging substances -- tobacco and alcohol -- are. Users could also purchase from places where they would be sure drugs had not been tainted with other substances.

"Ultimately, we need a new paradigm for drug policy development, one based around health and wellbeing rather than macho posturing and knee-jerk, short-term responses to the failures of the current criminal justice-based policy."

Low-Interest Renewable Energy Loans

Polly Toynbee, in the Guardian today, wonders how commited Brown will be to direct intervention in markets (e.g. guaranteeing electricity prices for secure investment in solar technologies) to usher in his "Marshall Plan" for a "fourth technological revolution" on the environment.

Brown's Marshall Plan comment was interesting. Here's how the Marshall Plan worked.

- Europe decided which country should get what (based on what each country declared it needed).
- An American-created bureaucracy (the ECA) arranged for the transfer of goods from American suppliers.
- The US supplier was paid in dollars credited against Marshall Plan funds.
- The European recipient was not given the food, feed, fertiliser, fuel or raw materials as a gift, but had to pay for them in local currency. The local current was deposited by the government in a counterpart fund.

This money, in turn, could be used by the ERP countries for further investment projects. Most of the participating ERP countries were aware from the start that they would never have to return the counterpart fund money to the U.S., and it was eventually absorbed into their national budgets and disappeared. Germany, however, was left in doubt - would it have to repay its debts? This uncertainty was to have a very positive effect ... [Germany] insisted from the beginning that the money could only be given out as loans subject to interest - a revolving system which ensured that the funds would grow rather than shrink ... The money Germany owed the U.S. was paid back in installments (the last check was handed over in June, 1971) and interestingly enough, did not come from the ERP pot, but from the federal budget. The Special Fund, now supervised by the federal economics ministry, kept growing: in 1971, it was over DM 10 billion. Today it has reached more than DM 23 billion. And thanks to the revolving loan system, by the end of 1995, the Fund had made low-interest loans amounting to around DM 140 billion.

Gordon Brown has a choice. It's a biggie. Does he choose to intervene in a top-down way, or in a rolling, Germany-Marshall-Plan, bottom-up way?

He could spend £40 billion on perfectly worthwhile sustainable development projects over the next few years.

Or he could take £40 billion, and set up a fund to offer low-interest loans not just for 2008-2012, but for 2008 until 2038.

A six-panel array of domestic solar PV (high efficiency, 1kW) costs just under £10 000. The current grant available is only £2500. £40 billion divided by 4 million homes receiving a 1kW array leads to a £10000 low-interest loan (£13400 to be paid back, on a 3% loan over 10 years, that works out to £25 a week repayment).

Brown needs to realise that, more than ever more, there are millions of households out there who want to make a difference, and are probably willing to put £25 a week aside.

UK Youth Parliament - Fares Fair

The UK Youth Parliament is campaigning for all under 18s in full-time education to be allocated a national concession card to use public transport.

Their argument is that it would:

- make buses and trains more accessible to young people
- allow access to leisure facilities
- create a cleaner environment as a consequence of cutting down car use
- create the same freedom that pensioners enjoy, as like pensioners, young people in full time education do not have an income and are reliant on public transport.

If you support it, you can sign their petition at: http://www.ukyp.org.uk/faresfair

You can also watch a YouTube video promoting the campaign.

Upcoming Radio/TV

- Monday 19th November, 7pm to 730pm, BBC 2 - "The Trillion Dollar Revolutionary" -- a profile of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela

- Monday 19th November, 8pm to 9pm, Channel 4 -- "Dispatches: Mark Thomas on Coca-Cola" -- Mark Thomas investigates the way in which Coca-Cola and its suppliers operate and the extent to which they uphold moral and ethical obligations. Thomas travels to South America, India and the US which undermines Coca-Cola's image as a force for good, and has caused a backlash from consumers around the globe.

- Tuesday 20th November, 11am to 1130am, BBC Radio 4 -- "Energising the West" -- Miriam O'Reilly explores how the West Country has become a testbed for alternative energy technologies, from harnessing the natural power of the elements to successfully recycling wood and animal waste to produce electricity.

Labour, Transport And Climate Change

Gordon Brown is to give his "first major speech" on climate change today. I suggest that the problem in meeting Labour's promised cuts of 60% in emissions by 2050 is Ruth Kelly.

Ruth Kelly is Brown's Transport Secretary, she appeared on Andrew Marr's Sunday AM, and the transcript is enlightening.

1) She wants the expansion of Heathrow to go ahead (its third runway with an extra 300 000 flights per year). She squares the circle by saying that we need EU-wide caps on overall aviation. That is, other weaker economies will have to cut back, so we can fly and fly and fly and fly. It's the same trick that Gordon Brown will try. There might be EU-wide targets of 20% of energy being renewable by 2020, but Britain under Brown will push for Britain's share to be, say, 15%, and five other countries can balance us out by having 21% by 2020. The other countries will benefit from industrial jobs linked to renewable energy development, and Britain will lose out.

2) Kelly made a great play out of 1300 new carriages for the rail system, but she sketches out a future where it is not a government priority to replicate the Eurostar high-speed line for London to Bristol, or London to Scotland. Locally, more carriages and more seats on trains mean fewer toilets, fewer buffet services, and a fare hike on off-peak fares that are not saver tickets.

3) Andrew Marr doesn't call her on it, but it's clear that Kelly continues to oppose EU plans to have a target of 120g of carbon emissions per kilometre by 2012.

RUTH KELLY: One of the things I want to show is how the Transport Department as a whole can make real significant contributions to reducing CO2. But within that we shouldn't be telling people what form of transport they take, we should be providing the options ...
ANDREW MARR: Why not?
RUTH KELLY: ... investing in technology, trading in carbon and let the individuals make their choices. And that means just take cars for example. There's a really good example, that, you know, if we really invest in technology and we set a framework whereby 2020, or 2030 or 2050, car manufacturers know exactly what's expected of them. By 2050 we might have a situation in which cars are carbon free.

4) Elsewhere, Kelly's department is spending over £5 billion to widen the M1 (more car driving, more emissions). In contrast, £5 billion could pay for the government's contribution to 12 light rail schemes the size of Nottingham's 2nd phase of their tram network.

When NET Phase Two is complete, Greater Nottingham’s tram network will cover over 19 miles. 20 million trips are expected to be made by passengers using the NET system every year, of which 30% are expected to be ex-car users. NET Line One was opened in March 2004 and has shown strong patronage with 8.4m and 9.7m passengers respectively in its first two years of operation. The City Council says that a recent passenger survey revealed 98% satisfaction with the service and 80% support for the planned new lines south and west of the city.

A Game We Like To Call .... Who is?

Who is ... Helen Ghosh?

The government department spearheading the fight against climate change is planning an emergency package of at least £300m of cuts covering key environmental services, the Guardian has learned.

Frontline agencies tackling recycling, nature protection, energy saving, carbon emissions and safeguarding the environment are all being targeted in the package which is being drawn up by Helen Ghosh, the top civil servant at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Who is ... David Addington?

Perhaps the most powerful lawyer in the Bush administration ... David Addington, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's counsel from 2001 to 2005, and since then his chief of staff, does not talk to the press. His voice, however, has been enormously influential behind closed doors, where, with Cheney's backing, he has helped shape the administration's strategy in the war on terror, and in particular its aggressively expansive conception of executive power.

Who is ... Herb Nahapiet?

Nahapiet is MD of Kalyx (which used to be UKDS, which is still a subdivision of Sodexho) who run "Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre" -- a key part of the inhumane system of migration controls that lock up refugees and migrants just because they try to make a life here.

WATCH AGM Today

WATCH (Working Actively To Change Hillfields) is having its AGM today (330pm, St Peter's Community Centre, Hillfields, Coventry, CV1 5LY).

WATCH's services are essential for Coventry, whether it is their employment project (with help for the long-term unemployed, migrant workers, and refugees/asylum seekers), the Hillz FM community radio station, youth training projects, or ongoing support for community groups in Hillfields.

WATCH, however, has been caught in a funding bind. The city council stopped all of its funding to WATCH (£120 000 a year, 25% of the centre's funding) at the end of March 2007. Andy Matchet shows up to Respect agenda photo-ops at WATCH. Tony O'Neill and Kevin Foster have been interviewed on the Hillz FM and say they're friends of WATCH. Then, this comes down the pipe. Why is work that provides services to youth, the unemployed, and refugee communities undeserving of funding? WATCH would have to be recreated if it were to go under the waves, so why not fund it in the first place?

It would be welcome if the city council would decide which 20 organisations in the city require core funding for their operations, and then provide multi-year funding to said organisations. As a city, we could then avoid the year-by-year funding instability that plagues non-profit groups.

Ironically for a Conservative-controlled council, David Cameron was calling for support for groups such as WATCH in August of this year:

The social enterprise is the great institutional innovation of our times. At the moment, however, we are not making nearly enough use of the potential of the voluntary sector. Only about 5% of public services are provided by independent operators, who report a range of financial and bureaucratic obstacles to effective contracting with government ... Smaller, locally based voluntary organisations, which are often the most effective at combating entrenched deprivation, are losing out to the large national operations. The government is funnelling the majority of its third sector funding to the big players, which in turn allows them to generate the publicity which ensures they also receive the lion's share of voluntary giving as well.

Breadmaking

I've been baking bread like a demon. We visited friends in Berlin in the summer of 2005, and they were into making sourdough broetchen for breakfast. The real catalyst in the last month was myself buying a book about making bread in WH Smith. Why buy bread when you can make you own?

I've started with small loaves of organic spelt bread.

Spelt is old-school. It has been found in Stone Age excavations and was mentioned three times in the Book of Ezekiel in the old Testament.

Spelt is different in a number of ways:

Spelt is the forerunner of modern wheat with a unique nutty wheaty flavour. Think of the taste difference between a bland Golden Delicious Apple and a tasty Russet Apple. Then imagine an equivalent difference in flour and you will want to sample the intense wheaty flavour of Spelt.

Spelt contains more protein, fat and fibre than wheat. It also contains special carbohydrates called mucopolysaccharides, which play a decisive role in stimulating the body’s immune system, helping to increase its resistance to infection. Due to Spelt’s high water solubility the grain’s vital substances can, like liquid nutrients, be absorbed quickly by the body.

Ingredients:

250g organic spelt flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp fairtrade sugar (I've used brown)
1 tsp yeast
175ml warm water
3 tbsp organic olive oil

What to do:

1. Mix the flour, salt, sugar and yeast together. Carefully measure the water, and add it in. Start kneading the dough for 15 seconds, then, while it's still craggy, add the 3 tablespoons of olive oil. Keep kneading until you have a smooth pliable dough (you might need to add a bit of extra flour, use your discretion).

2. Leave it in a bowl (covered with a cloth) to rise. Wait until it has doubled in size (usually 45 min to an hour).

3. Take the dough, add any ingredients you want to (chopped apricots, sultanas, crushed walnuts) and knead it on a lightly floured surface for a number of minutes.

3. Shape it into a cooking tin (greased), and leave it covered to rise for a 2nd time (for 25 minutes).

4. Bake it in an oven at 225C for 35-40 minutes (cover the bread with foil for the last 15 minutes to prevent overbrowning).

You can find some more spelt recipes here.

Brown's Britain -- Labour Remains Pro-War

David Miliband said, in September at the Labour party conference, that, "While there are military victories, there never is a military solution."

This week, however, Miliband told the BBC that a Brown-led Labour government, given the choice again, would still have decided to go to war in Iraq.

And Miliband is encouraging other EU countries to build up their "defence capabilities" for the use of "hard military power."

Gordon Brown refuses to rule out military action against Iran.

Finally, there is Gordon Brown's approval for Menwith Hill, the intelligence listening station in Yorkshire, to be used as part of the US missile defence system.

This was announced back in July, when the government made 46 announcements in the last two days before Parliament broke up for the summer.

The US/UK line is that the system will shoot down intercontinental missiles fired by Iran/North Korea. But the sites are being installed in Poland and the Czech Republic. In June, Vladimir Putin:

called Bush's bluff by offering sites for the missile defence programme in Azerbaijan and southern Russia, which are much closer to Iran. Bush turned him down and restated his decision to build the facilities in eastern Europe, making it clear that their real purpose is to shoot down Russian missiles. Russia has around 5,700 active nuclear warheads. The silos in Poland will contain just 10 interceptor missiles. The most likely strategic purpose of the missile defence programme is to mop up any Russian or Chinese missiles that had not been destroyed during a pre-emptive US attack. Far from making the world a safer place, its purpose is to make the annihilation of another country a safer proposition.

So, we have aggression against Russia, against Iran, and the continued occupation of Iraq. And Miliband urging EU governments to build up their military forces and intervene around the world. Plus new aircraft carrier building, and the retention of Trident, with its £76 billion pricetag.

In what way is this different than Blair's endless military adventures?

"Down To Earth" Included In Guardian Guide

Coventry Telegraph:

Down to Earth, in Earlsdon High Street, is the only Coventry business to appear in the Guardian guide to Britain's finest independent shops and suppliers.

Suzanne Bristow, who set up the shop seven years ago, said she was delighted that her hard work had been recognised. Suzanne opened Coventry's first organic shop in February 2001 after starting out running an organic box scheme from her back room. She delivers boxes of seasonal, locally-grown organic vegetables and fruit to customers as often as they like, and the service has proved popular around the city.

You can visit their website here.

Brown's Britain -- Personal Debt And Saving

In Gordon Brown's final budget, he emphasised that Britain had "rising employment and rising investment; continuing low inflation; low interest and mortgage rates; built on the foundation of the longest period of economic stability and sustained growth in our country's history."

Alliance and Leicester have found that:

Homeowners are responding to the five interest rate rises since August 2006 by cutting back on saving and by borrowing less. It finds that those with mortgages are increasingly lagging behind the average. In January 2006, the average sum of savings of a mortgaged household was 64 per cent of that of homes with no mortgage to pay, but it is now down to 48 per cent.

Gordon Brown's constant emphasis on how we've never had it so good obscures the fact that a minority of households are financially unstable in three to four combined ways, and half of us are not financially stable for the long-term, i.e. retirement.

Financial exclusion affects up to 8 million of the most vulnerable households in the UK.

- Half of households have negligible savings; half are not making provision for a decent income in retirement.
- Only one in three households with incomes under £20k have life insurance.
- Only 12% have income protection insurance
- In some of the most deprived areas, close to half the households do not have home contents insurance.

At the same time, personal debt has reached record levels at over £1.3 trillion, while the huge increase in property prices pushes mortgages to levels which exclude lower income consumers.

Mick McAteer, Director, Financial Inclusion Centre

If we have had 60 straight quarters of "growth," we need to start thinking about why "growth" is wrong, that is, why "growth" is not being redistributed to society.

Brown's Britain -- The Elderly

- Should a person retiring in Britain receive 30% of the average UK wage -- whilst, the European average is 60%?

Donald Duval, chief actuary at Aon Consulting UK: "It is a difference of philosophy and a different view of the role of the state. In most of Europe, it is believed that the state's obligation is to ensure that people have a reasonable standard of living, relative to what they had when they were working. In the UK, the role of the state is to ensure that people do not starve. If people want to have more than the basic level, they need to save for themselves."

The UK state pension scheme is heavily reliant on funding from immigrants, as 50% more foreigners move here than to other countries. Mr Duval said that this boosts the working-age population, offsets some of the side-effects of an ageing population and leads to increased contributions to UK payouts.

"Migrant workers have helped boost the pension pot in the UK but this is not a sustainable measure and is a smokescreen hiding deeper issues facing the pension system," he said.

- Should pensioners struggle with fuel poverty, year upon year upon year?

"The Government now needs to ensure that all pensioners in private housing can access schemes to insulate their homes, tackle fuel poverty and help our older generation to lead the way in changing lifestyles."

- We need to have regular exercise, from age 40/50 onwards, so that people can enjoy their extra years in retirement:

A gentleman in his late 70s crawls through a plastic tunnel on his hands and knees and then prepares to roll down a small slope onto a mat.

"He must keep his arms straight above his head as he rolls. This helps strengthen his back muscles ... Good balance is important for reducing falls in older people and a small amount of impact, we have found, makes the bones stay stronger."

- To be blunt, should poorer pensioners die younger than rich pensioners?

The average physical health of a 70-year-old high earner was similar to the physical health of a low earner around eight years younger. In mid-life, this gap was only 4.5 years. Among high earners, retirement appeared to improve their mental health and wellbeing. But no similar improvement was seen in the lower occupational groups.

Tarani Chandola, from University College London, said: "There has always been an assumption that the health gap gets narrower with age as people retire. Retirement does not level the playing field. These health inequalities actually increase. This is not a time to get complacent."

Coventry Unions Challenge Post Office Closure

Coventry Telegraph:

Neil Robinson, secretary of the city branch of the Communication Workers' Union, said officials had asked for a meeting with Post Office bosses to confront them over the issue of transferring services from the Hertford Street Crown office to WH Smith's West Orchards store. The union will argue that the move would put the new post office too close to the other major city centre post office in the Co-op, on Corporation Street.

Robinson: "The two offices would, we estimate, be only around 50 yards apart and we think there may be a legal issue here. Our officers at headquarters are looking into it and will take legal advice if they think there is a case."

The CWU will also be coordinating petitions raised by the union, Coventry Pensioners' Association, Coventry City Council and Dave Nellist, leader of the council's Socialist group, to present to Post Office Ltd, and asking people to sign postcards outside the Hertford Street branch.

"Sicko" At The Warwick Arts Centre

Michael Moore's latest documentary, Sicko, will be shown from the 16th to the 22nd November at the Warwick Arts Centre.

One review remarks that the film sees a slightly different Michael Moore:

He still wears the baseball cap, but he's onscreen less, not so cocky, not going for so many laughs. He simply tells one story after another about Americans who are sick, dying or dead because we have an undemocratic, profit-gouging health care system.

It's also a very relevant film for Britain, with increasing influence from huge US firms who want to run GP practices, bid for contracts from primary care trusts to providing data analysis and research, or even be invited to act as middlemen, negotiating with hospitals on the trusts' behalf to reduce costs, "ushering in the prospect that some patients may find their care plan managed not by a doctor but by an American insurance company."

Newsnight/Radio 5 Live Debate On Immigration

Newsnight and Radio 5 Live will be putting questions to politicians, and taking texts, emails and live calls, in a unique simulcast on the subject of immigration tonight (1030pm, BBC 2; 909/693 MW for Radio 5 Live, or on digital). You could also listen online.

In a poll for the programme, 72% believed that the government is doing a "poor" job in its handling of immigration, while nearly 62% thought that Britain would lose its unique identity if immigration continues at its present rate.

The government -- to improve the linked issues of immigration and integration -- needs to fund ESOL. Cutbacks on ESOL have hit people who are:

the most socially excluded, from countries where there is war and/or extreme poverty and so they have little or no educational background. The branch also warned of the false economy of privatising ESOL or ignoring social consequences of cutbacks: Please can councillors and politicians start to seriously address this issue before more money has to be spent on translators in schools, health care and other public services, and before we start having to pay out for the gaps in social integration which will start cracking open as the ESOL and other Adult Education cuts start to impact.

The government is also playing with the idea of charging refused asylum seekers and undocumented migrants for NHS primary health care. A review is expected to be published in December 2007. This could prevent vulnerable people, including pregnant women and children, from accessing vital treatment.

What the government should consider is the proposals from the "Strangers Into Citizens" campaign:

In the year of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, it is a grave matter that close to half a million people living in Britain today do not enjoy the protection of the law. These people are termed "illegal", even though they are hardworking, taxpaying, law-abiding people who want only to bring up their families in peace and security. Unbending employers take advantage of their lack of protection to pay them poverty wages, undercutting other workers -- making a mockery of minimum wage legislation. Others are not exploited, yet cannot report crimes, open bank accounts or go to doctors.

They have learned our language, and are familiar to us. Their children study in our schools. They work in our factories and our shops and our offices.Yet where British people who know them see them as fellow citizens, the law of our land sees them not at all. While our economy profits from the contributions of these migrants, we do not accord to them basic rights.