The Observer reports today that

A private company is being accused of charging NHS patients exorbitant rates to use the phone and watch TV.

This is a private company which has paid to help improve NHS services. As with any private company, the most important thing for them is that they make money, and they’ve spent millions of pound installing the Patientline service with the government’s backing. Now that they are trying to recoup those costs, and make a profit, it is the private company that is being critcised.

This seems deeply illogical to me – the NHS is so misfunded that private companies are having to be brought in provide the services which patients view as necessary. Patients are then asked to pay for these services, because the government won’t. And yet it is the private company which gets criticised.

Michael Summers, chairman of the Patients Association: says: ‘It’s critical that people who are unable to visit a sick, elderly or very young patient should be able to get through to them at a reasonable price. These charges are too high and callers should be told very clearly how much they’re paying for the service.’

Surely in a National Health Service, it is the job of the government to provide ‘critical’ services. Their failure to do so should reflect badly on them, not the private companies they invite to step into the breach. And I’m quite surprised that The Observer of all newspapers has chosen not to point this out.

Following each of the terrorist attacks of the last few years, including that of two weeks ago in London, George Bush, Tony Blair, and their associated administrations and political parties have roundly criticised the terrible jihad – deliberately mistranslated as ‘Holy war’ – which radicalised Muslim groups have declared against Western society. They conveniently seem to forget that it is not the radical groups which declared the war, but George Bush, when he declared a War on Terror.

According to my dictionary, war is

the waging of armed conflict against an enemy

Conflict. That involves retaliation. It’s a two-way thing. So how can our leaders declare a war, effectively beginning a two-sided conflict, and then condemn any attacks which come their way? They’ve said they are attacking their enemy, the enemy is providing a great deal less retaliation that the force which the coalition is putting forward. Can one imagine Churchill standing up and spouting about how it’s terrible that fifty British citizens should die in the war, when we’ve killed tens of thousands of innocent people in their home countries? Tony Blair and George Bush have announced that this is a war. They have to expect colateral damage on both sides, since that is a product of war. If they weren’t comfortable with that idea – and remain uncomfortable with it – then why declare war in the first place?

This post has been sat in ‘draft’ status for a few days now… Today, I notice that John Pilger has made a not-dissimilar point in his excellent article in this week’s New Statesman:

In 2001, in revenge for the killing of 3,000 people in the twin towers, more than 20,000 Muslims died in the Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan. This was revealed by Jonathan Steele in the Guardian but never became news, to my knowledge. The attack on Iraq was the Rubicon, making the reprisal against Madrid and the bombing of London entirely predictable: this last “in response to the massacres carried out by Britain in Iraq and Afghanistan”, claimed the Secret Organisation Group of al-Qaeda in Europe. Whether or not the claim was genuine, the reason was. Bush and Blair wanted a “war on terror” and they got it. Omitted from public discussion is that their state terror makes al-Qaeda’s appear minuscule by comparison. More than 100,000 Iraqi men, woman and children have been killed not by suicide bombers, but by the Anglo-American “coalition”, says a peer-reviewed study published in the Lancet, and largely ignored.

In fact, go and read that article – it makes the points rather more eloquently than me, even if I don’t agree with everything he says. Plus, it’ll save me finishing off this post. Go read.

It’s very difficult to comment on a situation like that in London, particularly when it is ongoing – even as I type, it would appear that an arrest has been made in Birmingham, and suspicious suitcases are being dealt with there. Above, I’ve put the CCTV pictures released by the police following yesterday’s attempted attacks. I would personally have thought that it can’t be too difficult to track down failed suicide bombers – after all, they didn’t expect to survive and so presumably wouldn’t have put plans in place to get away.

It is clear that these attacks, and attempted attacks, are terrible. We can only hope that fewer will happen in future, though that looks increasingly unlikely. It is important in all of these to keep one’s head, and I can only hope that the police haven’t lost theirs, with the reports today of a horrific killing by police this morning, which appears to me to have been an over-reaction to a perceived threat. The basic story is that a man under surveillance following the attacks refused to follow police orders, and so was shot five times at close range. I wasn’t there, and can’t claim to really know what went on, but I do wonder whether the situation was grave enough to use lethal action – and why was it necessary to shoot him five times? Perhaps the police were acting entirely professionally, as one would expect them to, but there are clearly questions which need to be addressed. We can’t go killing every Asian man in a big coat who doesn’t do as police ask.

In the two weeks since the 7th July attacks, there have been over 250 security alerts, and armed police officers are now stationed at every tube station and patrolling the streets. A second attack can only increase the fear, and it would appear that certainly American tourism is suffering. In other words, the terrorists appear to be succeeding in disrupting our daily lives, and – essentially – terrorising us. At the same time, it’s not good enough for the police to simply instruct Londoners to ‘get on with their normal life’. You can’t instruct someone to not be scared.

As I’ve said, it’s impossible to reflectively comment on an ongoing situation – and it appears that this situation will be ongoing for some considerable time – and I have no solutions to the problems I’ve mentioned. I’m sure I’ll post more about this in future, but for right now, I think I’ll leave it there.

Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Longhorn is now Vista. Personally, I preferred the former.

There appear to have been some incidents on the tube and on a London bus. BBC One, ITV, and Five have all scrapped their schedules and are broadcasting rolling news coverage. As some presenters have been noting, this incident probably wouldn’t be getting nearly this much coverage if it wasn’t for the previous attack, because it doesn’t currently appear to be nearly as serious an attack.

The incident doesn’t (at this stage) seem to have caused the number of casualties as in the attacks of two weeks ago, and the police are not currently treating this as a major incident. As you would expect, details are still emerging – it would appear currently that the working theory is that the evacuation has been caused by the explosion of three detonators, but no bombs. You can follow the latest developments on the Newsblog or on the BBC News site.

After months of speculation and waiting, the sixth book in the Harry Potter septology has been released. And now I’ve read it. And hence, this review might contain spoilers. Though I’ll try to avoid them. But no promises. So look away now if you don’t want to know what happens.

The sixth book has a lot to live up to. The first five (or perhaps just the marketing craze surrounding them) had sent large sections of the population – and not just the younger members – into something of a frenzy. I didn’t really see that there was much that was terribly special about the first five books in all honesty, but perhaps that’s because I wasn’t reading them closely enough. After all, if I’d gone through and listed every occurance of the number twelve in the books (as has one dedicated fan), then perhaps I’d have got more out of them. But for me, they were never anything more than something to read. Once.

Book six, though, is quite a different kettle of fish. I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I thought it was absolutely excellent. It’s a very different book to the first formulaic five, which all follow the same pattern of an event-filled year at Hogwarts, with Quidditch matches and lessons described in mind-numbing detail, followed by some huge battle with Lord Voldemort at the end of the school year and, hence, the end of the book. Book six sticks loosely to this framework, in so far as it is set in a year at Hogwarts, with a big action-packed bit at the end, but no more are the every movements of Harry and friends described in quite such detail. Instead, the book has very little action, but more discussion and exploration of the things that have happened in the previous five books, and the reasons behind them.

This is where the true mastery of the writing of the books hit me. Being the cynic that I am, I wasn’t entirely convinced that JK Rowling had indeed plotted out all seven books in her head, and felt that she was rather making them up as she went along. But the explanations in book six show that this clearly wasn’t the case – everything had a reason, from the smallest reference to the biggest events, leading up to the biggest (and most emotional) event yet at the end of the book, which provides the spur for Harry to go off and complete the necessary tasks laid out for him for the seventh book. Never previously in the series has it been clear from the previous book what is to happen in the next – hence my suspicion – but the path is now clearly laid, complete with the required motivation for completing it. Effectively, the story so far is wrapped up, in preparation for a huge ending in book seven. (Assuming, of course, that book seven is published as a single book, and that the publishers don’t try and squeeze every last penny of profit out of the franchise by releasing it in several parts.)

So, this book is effectively one long gear-change in the story of Harry Potter. It explains all that has gone before it, and sets the scene for the finale to come. And hence, it could have been mind-numbingly boring. But luckily for me, I found it not to be so, not least because the tone (although not the mood) is much lighter in this book than the previous one, in which Harry seemed to be constantly bad-tempered. However, I think a lot of the younger readers – JKR’s target audience, after all – would be both confused and bored by the book. There’s so much background to get to grips with, and so much double-double-double-crossing, that some adults, let alone kids, found it hard to keep up with which people were goodies, and which baddies. I also think that younger kids would have difficulty getting to grips with some of the humour in the latest installment, as – with the various romances involving the three central characters – it’s not quite the same kind of humour as in the earlier books. I’d imagine that children would prefer more action, as in the earlier novels. But who am I to speak for the under-twelves of today? And how many of the readers are really children, and how many are actually adults? With an increasing number of the latter, they have to be catered for. Or perhaps not, because they might well buy it anyway. Who can say?

Let’s be honest: Am I really going to complain that this book was rubbish because other people might not like it, when I thought it was excellent? Am I really going to rubbish a book because it’s supposed to be kids literature, and I haven’t thought the books so far have been particularly spectacular? No. I am, however, going to say that I thought it was excellent, and I’m quite looking forward to book seven – which, rumours appear to say, is already written, and will probably be released in a year or so. There we go, I’ve said it. Now I just have to prepare myself for the huge Pottermania which will no doubt accompany the publication of the last book. And read something else in the meantime.

Under the headline “Open fried, you’re dead“, and a pictured captioned “You’re hisstory … snake struck at fence after getting in tangle with wires” the Sun writes:

IT’S fang you and goodnight for this giant snake – as it chomps into an electric fence. Game wardens saw the 20ft rock python bite at the fence after getting its tail tangled on the cables.

After those two sentences, there’s a further pictured, captiond “Oh deer … earlier meal visible…”, and then they continue:

When they slit it open to examine the snake’s bulging belly at the Silent Valley Game Ranch in South Africa they found a whole antelope carcass. A spokesman said: “Usually the snake will hide to digest its meal.”� Guess this beast hadn’t adder nuff.

I found it funny. But it really demonstrates that The Sun, for all its faults, still hasn’t lost the good and bad puns that are forever groanworthy and that make it so popular. Good for it.

The Guardian reports today that

The government is to draw up a list of extremists from all over the world, the home secretary, Charles Clarke, announced as he revealed new anti-terrorism measures today.

My question is simple: How exactly does Mr Clarke propose to define an ‘extremist’?

At first glance, the problem seems relatively easy, a simple case of including anyone who encourages others to kill themselves and others. But that ideology is more closely tied to religions around the world that you might expect – not just Islam, which this legislation is clearly unfairly aimed at, but also Christianity, the stated religion of choice for the majority of British citizens. For example, a couple of weeks ago, I saw a Christian minister preaching about David and Goliath, effectively a story about a small unlikely minority overpowering and killing their perceived enemies of a much greater force. The minister went on to say that those that helped to fight this kind of injustice were truly treasured by her god. In the minds of the perverted minority, this could be taken as a sign that they, too, should fight to kill their perceived religious enemies, and go and blow up the nearest Mosque. In the minds of the potential bombers at least, the minister would have appeared to encourage them to take this course of action, and it is undeniable that this message can be taken from the sermon and from the Bible if that is what one is looking for. So does this minister count as an extremist?

Let’s refer back to the Guardian article:

The database would list individuals who had demonstrated “unacceptable behaviour”, which would include inflammatory preaching or running websites and writing articles intended to foment or provoke terrorism.

Ah. We’ve hit a bit of a brick wall. The database includes people who have demonstrated “unacceptable behaviour”. That’s helpful. But with the given examples including “inflammatory preaching”, I can’t see any reason why our middle-of-the-road Christian minister couldn’t be on the extremist database. Except, of course, for this small clause:

He said the “unacceptable behaviour” would not be permitted by anyone with leave to enter or remain in this country, including students, asylum seekers and refugees.

So as long as our minister is British-born, it isn’t an issue. If, however, early in life – perhaps too early to remember – she had fled with her parents from persecution in Zimbabwe, she could possibly end up on this database.

But ending up on this databas – the purpose of which is sinisterly unexplained – is likely to be the least of our minister’s worries, when she considers what else is in this upcoming legislation:

He said the legislation would create three new criminal offences – acts preparatory to terrorism; indirect incitement to terrorism, which would cover those who glorified and condoned terror acts; and giving and receiving terrorist training.

This minister, in preaching what many millions have preached before her, has undoubtedly given ‘indirect incitement to terrorism’. She didn’t mean to put the idea into the perverted minds of her audience, but she’s managed to do it. That’ll be a lengthy jail sentence for her, then.

Now I’m quite likely to be accused of being silly here. People will doubtless point out that this is not what the legislation is intended for. But – and here’s something this government doesn’t seem to understand – that doesn’t matter. Laws are not restricted to what they were meant to be used for. Judges and the police have a nasty habit of sticking to the very letter of the law. That’s why laws have to be carefully constructed, debated, and re-written almost to destruction, and not rammed through Parliament to ensure as little opposition as possible.

If this government continues to make laws which are this full of gaping holes, sooner or later it’s going to turn round and bite them back. For instance, when Tony Blair encourages us to do everything possible to defeat these terrorists, is he not indirectly inciting me to go and commit a terrorist attack on foreign soil, against those I perceive to have been behind the terrorist attack here? These laws also leave the door open for a future, even less moral government to legitimately lock up their opposition – after all, speaking against the government must surely be indirect incitement to terrorism – and generally rule with an iron fist.

The government may well feel we’re under a great terrorist threat, but much of their legislation designed to combat it puts us in ever greater danger of a future much more bleak than the very occasional terror attack. In short, they need to get a grip.

How, when, and why has the phrase ‘rip-off’ managed to enter common lexis? A decade ago, only the seedier tabloids would dared have printed a headline with this kind of slang. But within the last few years, the Daily Mail has picked up ‘rip-off’ and run with it, creating the whole image of a ‘rip-off Britain’.

Today, however, the phrase seems to have gone one step further – and one-step too far in my opinion. The Independent today includes the headline:

Banks accused of rip-off charges for holidaymakers

That’s a broadsheet newspaper printing clichéd slang-laden headlines. Even the story’s pretty old: If you don’t know by now that the banks will try and over-charge you in every conceivable situation – especially when you’re doing something different like going on holiday – then you’re rather slower than the rest of us.

Understandably shocked by this development, I hurried off to check the Guardian and Times style guides. The latter says it is to be avoided, the former hasn’t stooped to including the phrase yet.

It seems the British broadsheet culture still has a pulse… though even I’ll admit that it’s fading fast.

Following yesterday’s publication of the Chatham House report, which was swiftly followed by mildly ridiculous denials by Tony Blair, Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, and John Reid, an argument is understandably being fought between the media and the government. The government is losing.

Shortly before the London bombings, an intelligence report claimed that

Events in Iraq are continuing to act as motivation and a focus of a range of terrorist-related activity in the UK

So Mr Blair’s denials of this show that he is not accepting what his intelligence sources are telling him. He’d prefer to spin his own version, which doesn’t get him in quite such hot political water.

Now in the face of overwhelming logic, Mr Blair has apparently seen fit to shift his argument slightly.

Of course these terrorists will use Iraq as an excuse as they will Afghanistan. But 9/11 happened before both to those and before then the excuse was US policy.

“They will always have their reasons for acting. We have to be really careful to giving into the perverted and twisted logic to which they argue.”

He said compromising on certain aspects of foreign policy would not make the terrorists go away but would enable them to argue that the UK “was on the run, let’s step it up”.

So he appears to no longer be arguing against the obvious point that attacking Iraq has provided terrorists with another ‘excuse’ for attacking us, and thus provided yet another reason, increasing the risk to the country. The third paragraph of the above quotation also shows very clearly that he’s now admitting that British foreign policy affects the actions of terrorists, something that he’s previously strenuously denied. So that’s quite a significant shift, however subtly he’s tried to make it.

In a slightly pointless exercise, the Guardian has conducted a poll which concluded that two-thirds of Britons believe that there is a link between the invasion of Iraq and the London bombings, and over half believe that Mr Blair bears some responsibility for the bombings. The value of these particular results is not really very clear, but tucked away at the bottom is a much more significant statistic: Support for ID cards has fallen, relative to polls taken both immediately after the bombings, and – crucially – before them. So, even in the face of a terrorist attack on British soil, ID card support is falling. This is particularly significant, because one of the central arguments earlier in Mr Blair’s ID cards campaign was that after any hypothetical terrorist attack, people would be angry that he had not done any more to protect them, and would not be worrying about civil liberties arguments. This has today clearly been proven to be a flawed argument.

All things considered, it would seem that the Chatham House report has played badly for the Prime Minister. But, more frustratingly, it never needed to, if only he’d accepted in the first place that foreign policy affects the terrorism risk. If handled correctly, this admission would have been much less politically damaging than this Chatham House report appears to have been, as the report has essentially made him look pretty stupid, and their handling of the attack as a whole hasn’t really helped their Terrorism policies. But then, it’s very easy to say these things with hindsight, and I’m sure that when trying to deal with a terrorist attack of this nature, life is rather more difficult. Unless, of course, you’ve got a well thought out plan. But this government isn’t really very good at planning for unexpected events, is it? Look at Iraq!

Oh, and just to make you feel extra safe, the leaked report also concluded that

At present, there is not a group with both the current intent and the capability to attack the UK.

Our lives, their hands.