Mexico Flu, Pandemic?

The outbreak of the swine flu virus in Mexico could be far more serious that we’re led to believe. Citizens and health professionals in Mexico have been writing in to the BBC with quite worrying statements. Doctors are reporting that vaccines, even at high dosage, are simply not having any effect. One concerned Doctor, working in one of the biggest hospitals in Mexico City writes:

I work as a resident doctor in one of the biggest hospitals in Mexico City and sadly, the situation is far from “under control”. As a doctor, I realise that the media does not report the truth. Authorities distributed vaccines among all the medical personnel with no results, because two of my partners who worked in this hospital (interns) were killed by this new virus in less than six days even though they were vaccinated as all of us were. The official number of deaths is 20, nevertheless, the true number of victims are more than 200. I understand that we must avoid to panic, but telling the truth it might be better now to prevent and avoid more deaths.

If this statement is true, its deeply worrying. The authorities may be trying to prevent panic, but without being open about the seriousness of the situation, people are going to be taking less precautions.

Conservative Spring Forum Live!

13:30 Opening speech by Party Chairman, Eric Pickles

13:40-14:45 Routemap to Recovery – Speech by George Osborne at end

15:00 – 15:10 Speech by Daniel Hannan MEP on Gordons Broken referendum promise

15:10 – 16:00 Our vision for the future with Oliver Letwin

16:05 – 16:30 Speech by Leader of the Conservative Party David Cameron

This Morning Poll – 70+% Back David Cameron

Just finished watching David Cameron’s interview on This Morning (ITV). They discussed what the Conservatives would have done, Cameron responded by saying he consistently argued in favour of reducing borrowing, opposing the VAT cut, opposing further fiscal stimulus. He put forward his proposals for expenses reform as an ‘interim solution’, signalling he might completely reform expenses if elected.

At the end of the fairly long interview they announced the poll results of callers. I’m sorry I can’t remember the exact figure, but he definitely got some 70+% against Brown.

Are Conservative Voters more Liberal than Lib Dem Ones?

David Davis the former Shadow Home Secretary, appeared to come out as the champion of civil liberties last year, whether you agree with his method of doing so or not, is another matter. PoliticsHome recently released a poll concerning civil liberties. In particular it referenced the governments plans to follow an EU directive, which forces internet service providers to record which websites we visit, what e-mails we send and telephone calls we make. The data will not be usable by just the police and security services, but by local councils investigating less serious crimes.

The poll asks:

From today, a new EU directive will come into force requiring internet and phone companies to store data on all the times and durations of all calls made and websites visited by anyone, for a twelve month period. This is to ensure evidence is available for criminal investigations. Do you approve or disapprove of this?

The answers were interesting. Those that disapprove by party identification: 64% 47% 56% 61% (the final figure being no party identifcation).

When given the arguments for and against, they were asked again whether they aproved or disapproved. Approved: 19% 32% 24% 18% Disapproved: 67% 49% 62% 62%

When asked which of the following about the “big-brother state” comes closer to their view:

“Give me my privacy back: this has gone too far. They can’t secure it, they are collecting more and more, and I do not want to live in a big brother state.”

The results were: 62% 45% 51% 60% an indication that Conservative voters are more concerned about the disastrous implementation of the big brother state.

“The state should have access to data about its people for security purposes – as long as it is not abused, I think the current levels, including these proposals, are about right.”

The results were: 31% 42% 40% 26% They signal that Conservative and independent voters can see what the Labour and Lib Dem ones miss, the state already abuses what it has – agreeing to stick with the status quo allows the state to slowly creep further and further.

The poll appears to display that the Conservative voters are championing liberty which is interesting, but to infer that solidly more research would have to be done. People are generally fed up with the interference of the state in their lives. The Liberal Democrats are disappearing into the wilderness. The Conservatives need to push this agenda, and show that it is the party of freedom.

Lost in the Post: Gordon Brown’s Letter Regarding McBride E-mails

McBride Smeargate E-mails, Final Nail in the Coffin?

Browsing through the comment sections of various newspapers, the general consensus is that Brown cannot recover from Smeargate. Even if he didn’t know about these particular e-mails, his judgement has to be called into question. It was Gordon Brown who appointed Damian McBride, knowing the way he conducts his work, and it’s Gordon Brown who refused to bow into pressure to ditch McBride last year, instead he moved him from media, to strategy. Keeping him at the heart of number 10.

The damage comes not just from McBride, but from Tony McNulty and Jacqui Smith too, for their part in the expenses row. Despite there being just a year to go before the general election, the government appears to be falling apart, rather than coming together to present a unified vision of the future to the country. Brown has no authority with the public now. It all started when he claimed his decision to not call an election, was nothing to do with the fact he was going to lose it. His attacks on the Conservatives as the ‘do nothing party’ do not wash. His claims that the economic crisis was all to do with America, ignore the domestic mess. His refusal to admit Britain is one of the worst countries in the industrialised world to weather the storm, vastly stretch the realms of imagination.

Where then from here? If the Conservatives are to become elected, it needs to be because they are the best team to run the country, to lift us from this economic disaster. They can’t just win because the opposition collapsed, they need a real mandate to make the tough decisions. David Cameron’s budget response, needs to be a coherent message of change. It needs to lay down the foundations of how a Conservative government would handle the economy if the public put their trust in them.

“Having spent four years shedding the image as the “nasty party”, Mr Cameron is obliged to administer the nastiest economic medicine ever prescribed by any government since the Second World War.” Michael Brown in the Independent.

NHS Mental Health Patient Deaths

You may well have missed this article in yesterdays Guardian, as the details of Smeargate aired in the Sunday papers. It’s about a new statistic, four mental health patients die per day in NHS care. From 2007-2008 that is 1,282 deaths and another 913 suffered ’severe’ harm. The government have got a rash of criticism regarding the figures. Norman Lamb the Liberal Democrat health spokesman had this to say:

“These figures are shocking. It’s a scandal that four people a day are dying while under the care of the NHS, and nearly three a day are ending up seriously harmed. It’s an appalling indictment of NHS psychiatric care,”

The government however claim that they’ve put £130million in the past 2 years, into acute psychiatric wards, in order to lower the risk of suicide. A government spokesman responded to the statistics with:

“It would be irresponsible to draw conclusions from this data without knowing the details of each case. But we do know that safety on mental health wards is improving. Suicides have been radically reduced, from 215 in 1997 to under 150 now.”

I applaud the reduction, although with such huge amounts of money being pumped into the NHS  over the last 12 years, one does wonder if all of that money has been put to good use. The most worrying part of the Guardian article must surely be this:

..guidelines intended to help another vulnerable group – mentally ill people who have recently returned home from care, among whom suicides are common – are widely ignored.

Isn’t this rife throughout the NHS? The obsession with targets, getting patients processed, in and out, rather than an obsession with care, and making people better. Following up mental health patients, or general out patients, must surely be part of the care process, not simply when you’re inside the hospital.

We may yet see worse figures than these, as the economic crisis grips, more and more people will find their homes repossessed, their jobs lost, and many will find it hard to cope. Now is the time more than ever, to ensure we’re delivering the best possible mental health service, that cares from before the patient walks through the door, right through to them leaving, and beyond.

Can McBride Take Inspiration from Derek Draper?

Derek Draper September 2007 to the National Housing Federation:

In a world ever dominated by shallow spin about superficial things, you all have stories to tell that are real, vital and truly important to peoples’ lives.

I understand that why you might be wary, and hesitant BUT

Your story, and your stories, should be – indeed need to be – a much, much, louder part of our national conversation.

Derek Draper runs a media training company (hattip: Tory Bear), the above is an extract from his speech to the National Housing Federation. He quotes parts of the speech in the companies sales pitch. Perhaps Draper and McBride could use a bit of media training from flow media training themselves. I’m not sure it would do much use though, as it assumes either party actually has real, positive, important to peoples lives, stories to tell. They much prefer the ‘world ever dominated by shallow spin’, they enjoyed the prospect of being the dominant ones, until their nasty E-mails were discovered.

The only part of Derek and Damian’s stories we want or need to be part of the national conversation, is the part that shows them up for what they really are.

We believe that what is true of political communications and consumer marketing is true of any and all communications: human beings decide what they think of you with their gut. If your emotional message leaves them cold, then your argument won’t matter.

Susan Boyle on Britain’s Got Talent

I can’t say I watch Britain’s got Talent, but I came across this clip from it. You have to watch from the start until at least 2 minutes in… keep watching!

SmearGate: Damian McBride E-mail Texts

12/04 9am Update: This is from the today’s News of the World website for those of you who haven’t bought it yet.

The Sunday Times is reporting the contents of some of the e-mails as:

‘McBride goes on to suggest that the website should spread rumours that pictures exist of Osborne “posing in a bra, knickers and suspenders” and “with his face ‘blacked up’ ”.

“He wouldn’t be the first student to do some cross-dressing at university. But . . . why would a student in the late 1980s black up his face for the amusement of friends in their private college rooms? This in the era when young Tories wore ‘Hang Mandela’ T-shirts.”

In what is perhaps the most vicious section, McBride suggests spreading rumours about the mental health of Frances, Osborne’s wife, following the furore over his discussions with a Russian oligarch during a party on a yacht last summer.

He suggests the website hint the shadow chancellor may try to use his wife’s “emotional difficulties” as an excuse if he is demoted in a Tory reshuffle.’

Whilist Coffee House airs another conversation:

On 13 Jan 2009, at 18:34, “Damian McBride” wrote:

Gents

A few ideas I’ve been working on for Red Rag. For ease, I’ve written all the below as I’d write them for the site, but obviously Andrew will want to adapt for his own house style, length, etc.

The first one is a solid investigative story, so may be a good one to use early. The other 3 are gossipy and mainly intended to destabilise the Tories.

I’m not sure how to set up easy links in the copy of the text, so I’ve stuck in the full links below each bit of relevant text.

Damian

From: Derek Draper
Sent: 13 January 2009 18:56
To: Damian McBride
Cc: Dodgshon, Andrew; Whelan, Charlie
Subject: Re: Rag [UNCLASSIFIED] [Non-Record]

These are absolutely totally brilliant Damian.

I’ll think about timing and sort out the technology with Andrew this week so we can go asap.

Do we want to tip off anyone about Red Rag having set up? Walters? I could do it and say LabouLlist had been sent the link anonymously.

PS Don’t forget LabourList Damian!

I suspect there will be more in the Sunday papers..