It is curious how certain hypotheses gain currency and quickly become accepted as an established fact, sometimes against the weight of evidence.

In the mid nineteen eighties I happened upon a BBC television programme examining the matter of heart disease.  The earnest presenter, a doctor, adamantly asserted that the “fatty heart hypothesis” was not a hypothesis, but a proven fact.  If you eat a fatty diet and don’t do any exercise, your arteries clog up and you die of a heart attack - plain and simple. It seemed a fairly sound argument to me. On the other hand I found his stridency jarring.  Other experts thought they were possessed of evidence undermining the fatty heart “fact” and this irritated the presenter, who saw them as heretics.

A few years later, I happened upon another programme about a body that had been discovered in a glacier in the Alps.  The body had been frozen intact, with the remains of clothes and some belongings. After examination by an assortment of experts, it was established that the individual had died about four thousand years ago.  He had been almost certainly a nomadic shepherd.  Forensic examination showed that he had not died of any illness nor had he been killed.  It was believed that he had been caught in a sudden blizzard and died of exposure. Examination of his bones suggested that he was aged about forty years or so old. 

It was possible to make a number of assumptions about his life style.  The glacier in which his body was frozen and transported down to the lowlands over the course of four thousand years, started life high in the Alps, where until the last century there had still been a tradition of shepherds moving livestock up and down the mountains through the passing of the seasons.  Thus he had not enjoyed a sedentary life style – it was not possible for him to have done so.  He had never eaten processed or fatty foods.  He had not been afflicted by any of the vices of soft, lazy, easy late-twentieth century living.  Yet examination showed that his arteries had fatty deposits just like your average, overweight, unfit company executive.  Oh well, it's back to the drawing board.

I was reminded of this when a number of scientists[1], who had been routinely ignored for years, published an open letter challenging the orthodoxy of “global warming”.  It was then disclosed elsewhere that the purportedly inevitable, inexorable increase in global temperature had fizzled out in 1998.[2]  The global warming theorists may yet be proved to be right. Then again, they might be shown to be as misguided as flat earthers. 
 

[1]   Sixty-one experts, as it happens.  The letter was dated 6^th April 2006.

[2] Professor Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland.  For a full report see The Daily Telegraph 9^th April 2006.

I have a shocking admission to make.  I have always had a soft spot for Cherie Blair.  My prejudices in that respect were reinforced when a very good friend of mine, who had met Mrs Blair in a professional capacity, confided that she was a very pleasant, likeable individual.  It should not surprise anyone therefore when I declare that charging the Labour Party for her hairdressing was reasonable.  In these “presidential” times, the First Lady has to look the part and I have little doubt that the effort she applied to Labour’s election campaign was worth thousands of votes.

The disparity in cost between Sandra Howard’s hairdressing expenses (£65) and those of Mrs Blair (£7,700) however, is symptomatic of the difference between Labour and the Conservatives in matters concerning money. A high proportion of Conservative MPs and Councillors, by virtue of having been or being engaged in business, know the value of money. They have learned to watch the bottom line.  They have learned to be prudent.  They know what they can and cannot afford. They hate waste.  They want their money’s worth.

This fiscal responsibility on the part of the Conservatives has always been portrayed by its political opponents as a vice, whereas it is a virtue.  It is so readily forgotten that the sound economy about which we hear so much by way of Gordon Brown’s boasts, was created by the Conservatives, not Labour. 

The extent of the Labour Government’s wastefulness is truly shocking.  Recent examples include the more than £2 billion in overpaid benefits received by the unemployed and people on low incomes, since Labour came to power.  Ministers limply claim that there was nothing they could do to recoup the cash other than ask people to repay it voluntarily.  As much as £500 million [1] may have been wasted by the NHS overpaying for just three prescription drugs over the last three years.  What an extraordinary state of affairs. In spite of the many extra billions spent on the NHS by Labour, staff are being sacked and numerous hospitals threatened with closure, something that never happened under the Conservatives.

Labour was able to evict the Conservatives from power in 1997 because the electorate believed that the old spend, spend, spend Labour Party was a thing of the past.  Tony Blair admitted openly that a problem cannot be solved by simply throwing money at it. Since 1997, Labour has done nothing but.

Following Iain Dale’s scoop yesterday about Michael Brown, the Liberal Democrats' benefactor to the tune of £2.4 million[1], today it is reported by Rajeev Syal, Dominic Kennedy and James Doran of  The Times that: - 

 “The Lib Dems, already risking bankruptcy if the donation is ruled ineligible by the Electoral Commission[2], sought to distance themselves yesterday from the latest events. The Lib Dems issued a statement yesterday saying:

 

 “We are not aware that this has any connection with the Liberal Democrats. Any further action is a matter for the police and for the relevant authorities.” ”

“Distance themselves from their biggest donor”?  They are not going to manage that until they have distanced themselves from the £2.4 million he donated - by giving it back.