“Organic food is no healthier and provides no significant nutritional benefit compared with conventionally produced food, according to a new, independent study funded by the Food Standards Agency”

reports The Guardian.

I’m sorry, but I thought the whole point of organically grown food was that it was environmentally friendlier, not “healthier”.

“But in truth, [the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s Chairman, Trevor Phillips’] failings are not the issue. The EHRC is falling apart because many of the people who run it are not concerned about equality at all, but rather with gaining preferential treatment for their own specific set of clients.”

David Green

Says Martin Kettle (with my emphasis),

“Reports that Labour is braced for defeat in Ian Gibson's old seat are entirely accurate. So braced, in fact, that officials have begun floating the absurd idea that anything less that a 10,000 Tory majority – something the Tories did not even manage in 1987 – would be a setback for Cameron.  Some setback.”

Well, let us sit back and see how the Toryphobics try to spin the Norwich North result.

“Indulge me in some historical determinism. We, the peasants, are failing to rise up and embrace the need to change. We will not choose to give up modern life, with all its polluting seductions. Our intransigent refusal to choose green will be met by a new militancy from those who believe we must be saved from ourselves...”

Antonia Senior

As reported by The Times this morning,

“The economy shrank much more than expected in the second quarter to record a record annual decline, official figures show…..The economy has now shrunk by 5.7 per cent since the recession began in April last year, bigger than the downturn in the 1990s and in the early 1980s.”

Economy shrinks at record annual rate in Q2

During a recent dialogue concerning whether the United Kingdom should adopt a pluralistic legal system, Sheikh Faiz Siddiqi, founder of the Muslim Arbitration Tribunal said,

“in a jurisdiction where rights are afforded to many mistresses and there is recognition of same-sex marriages, the idea of polygamy should not be so alien or distant.”

He is right, isn’t he?

Challenging debates remain on Islam and English law

“The state needs responsible, educated and above all free individuals to function properly, but that won't happen until the left ditches its reflex respect for the state and stops thinking simply in terms of power, edict and obedience.”

Henry Porter

The Times reports today that,

“[Jay Hunt, BBC One’s Controller] confirmed that Bruce Forsyth, [Strictly Come Dancing’s] octogenarian host, would be returning to the show, albeit after agreeing to take an unspecified pay cut as part of the corporation’s drive to slim presenters’ fees.”

“....after agreeing to take an unspecified pay cut.” Good.  The BBC has taken on board public disquiet over the payment of highly inflated presenters’ salaries funded by the annual licence fee.  So can we expect all the other presenters’ salaries and fees being renegotiated downwards soon, then?

Nothing will stop Labour and its Media claque from continuing to seek the scalp of the Conservative Party's director of communications Andy Coulson, in an endeavour to inflict damage upon David Cameron.  The story will be kept rolling (or perhaps more aptly, limping) for a while yet, but it is nevertheless a severe blow to Labour that the Metropolitan Police have confirmed that there is not any need to reopen their investigation into claims of illegal ‘phone-tapping at the News of the World because no new evidence had come to light since the case was first investigated four years ago (my emphasis).  The Police emphasised in particular that no evidence was found that former deputy prime minister John Prescott's ‘phone was tapped.

A lot of hot air will be expended during the course of the next week or so by partisans seeking to cause the Conservatives the maximum amount of embarrassment, but in the meantime, those of us possessed of a critical facility will await the evidence.

Police rule out fresh investigation into News of the World phone-tapping claims

Another case of “Give a dog a bad name and hang him”

So, Labour politicians and their helpers in the Media think that as Andy Coulson had been a bad boy in the past, David Cameron should now dismiss him in the light of The Guardian’s latest “revelations”.

First let us remind ourselves that Mr Coulson was a bad boy in the sense that as Editor of  the News of the World, he accepted that the buck stopped with him concerning the criminal conduct of one of his journalists even though he knew nothing of that journalist's errant activities. Second, the events leading to Mr Coulson's principled resignation as editor took place long before he was appointed as the director of communications for the Conservatives.  More importantly, and forgive me for asking, but where is the evidence of Mr Coulson’s wrongdoing in relation this current story?

At least this episode will assist the Conservatives to determine who are their real friends in the Media.

Andy Coulson trusted member of Cameron’s inner circle – Terry Kirby

The concept of bull fighting makes me feel very uncomfortable, but everyone to his own.  Giles Coren’s article in The Times this morning did amuse me however, particularly this passage,

 “You who are so quick to anthropomorphise the bull and weepily to share its pain, try reversing the process. Imagine not that the bull is a man, but that you are the bull. Imagine that you are given the choice between living to, say, 35 years of age, mostly in a shed, in massive single-sex groups, feeding on silage (prison is a fair comparison) and then queuing with your mates to die at the hand of a shaven-headed thug with a bolt gun . . .

 

Or then again, imagine living free in thousands of acres of land, eating whatever you want, shagging who you like, and then, when you are perhaps 70, being asked to fight to the death against a Spaniard in pink tights.”

In 2007, during the commemoration of the two hundredth anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade following the campaign led by Tory MP William Wilberforce, a curious statistic was quietly and casually repeated.  This statistic comprised the claim that until the abolition of the trade by the United Kingdom in 1807, British slave traders had transported as many as fifty million Africans into slavery.  Complete, definitive records as to how many individuals were kidnapped and sold into slavery no longer exist (if they ever did) thus the “fifty million” figure does not have any basis in fact and it is hard to resist the conclusion that it was simply plucked from the air.

It is interesting to note that according to the fifth census conducted in the United States in 1830, twenty-three years after the abolition of the British slave trade, the total black population amounted to 2,328,626 individuals, of whom 2,009,050 were described as slaves and 319,576 as being free.  The census recorded that the total population of the United States was 12,858,670.  The population of the United States had grown rapidly, given that in 1800 records indicate a total population of 5,308,483 of whom 893,602 were slaves.  In 1790 the figures were 3,929,326 and 697,681, respectively.

It is a fair assumption that by 1807 a significant proportion of the population of African descent had been born in the United States and had not been transported.  For instance without the trade, the slave population nearly doubled between 1810 and 1830 (1,191,362 individuals increasing to 2,009,050).  Against this, it must be borne in mind that Africans were being abducted on a relatively large scale over the course of a century. Furthermore, though the main destination was the American colonies, many Africans were delivered to estates in the West Indies, albeit on a much smaller scale. Also, many prisoners perished during the journey to their new “home” or very shortly thereafter.

Taking all factors into account, fifty million is still an implausibly high figure which can only have been an extrapolation from various other estimates and loose guesswork of the likely numbers of individuals transported at the very height of the slave trade.  It is immaterial whether the figure for abductions was five million or even five hundred thousand.  It was an ugly trade, but funny figures do not make it uglier.

“British law, which, while it has its flaws, is more developed and grounded in reality and fairness”

Zeinab Huq

I’ll give a religious court (of any persuasion) a miss, if you don’t mind

It has been said before but clearly it needs saying again, that whilst Tony Blair was endeavouring to prevent a fifth consecutive Conservative victory in 1997 and bring to an end eighteen years of Conservative government, the Conservatives are seeking to thwart a fourth consecutive Labour success.  To compare David Cameron’s challenge to Labour after only thirteen years (by May 2010) is not comparing like for like, as Labour’s media partisans well appreciate.