Bio security - an effective alternative to badger culling

I have always been puzzled as to how badgers are supposed to infect cattle with bovine tuberculosis (bTB) given that the main method of disease transmission is via exhaled breath. The number of occasions that a cow breaths in breath exhaled by a badger must be very low compared to the number of times that they breath in breath from another cow.

I was therefore very interested to read this letter in The Times (paywall) by Emeritus Professor of Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases Keith Neal (ignore the headline - this reflects the second letter). He says that the disease can also be passed in faeces and urine but:

• cows are unlikely to eat badger faeces
• urine quickly soaks into the ground

making direct disease transmission via these extremely unlikely.

He suspects that badger to cattle transmission may be caused by badgers getting into places where cattle food is stored and urinating on the food. He points out that the best way to stop this transmission id by better bio security (to stop badgers getting into such places) but that this requires expenditure by farmers.

In other areas of the world in which bTB has been reduced, such as Ireland, there has been a emphasis on improving bio security, among other measures.

Can ask.fm be banned? A more realistic way of tackling cyberbullying

The father of Hannah Smith, who committed suicide after cyberbullying, called for the ask.fm website she used to be closed down. That's understandable, however it is probably not possible. ask.fm is based in Latvia and does not appear to have broken any British or Latvian laws. Prime Minister David Cameron has told parents that they should tell their children "not to use these vile websites". I regard myself as being reasonably Internet savvy but not heard of ask.fm until this tragedy. How are parents supposed to know about such sites? How can they be expected to monitor their children's internet access when this may be outside the home on a smart phone?

One solution might be for an organisation to assess sites that allow posting by children and teenagers and give them a safety rating. They could look at things such as:

• whether anonymous posting is allowed
• the ease of reporting abuse
• whether the site is moderated
• number of staff available to investigate reports of abuse.

Such websites should then be encouraged to display the rating in a prominent place. Parents, children and teenagers could then be advised to look for the rating before using a site. Perhaps the NSPCC or Childline could get involved in this.

Schools also have a role to play. They should be advising pupils about the dangers of revealing personal information about themselves and of posting revealing photos of themselves. They should also be prepared to offer support to pupils who are being bullied, both physically and online.

Money spent on "illegal immigrants go home" poster vans could have been better spent

I wasn't too fussed about the vans with the "illegal immigrants go home" posters at first. Then I read India Knight's column (pay wall) in the Sunday Times where she compared them to racist graffiti. This changed my mind.

Apparently, the Home Office has spent £10,000 pounds on this campaign. That sounds a lot of money for two poster vans and a few leaflets!

In the meantime a parliamentary committee has confirmed what I have thought for a long time - the figures for immigration are a "best guess". They are based on interviewing a few thousand people travelling in and out of the country. We can be sure that anyone who is intending to work illegally, or over-stay their visa, is not going to tell the truth! I strongly suspect that there are far more over-stayers than other kinds of illegal immigrants.

A previous government stopped the recording the details of people leaving the country, presumably to save money. This means that we have no idea who, or how many people, over-stay their permission to enter the country. 

Rather then spend £10,000 on this gimmick, it would be a much better idea to get the "E-Borders" project under way so that the borders agency will know exactly who has entered and who has left the country.

That money would also have been better spent on helping the borders agency process its incredible backlog of illegal  immigration cases.

Proposal to allow 15 minute parking on double yellow lines a bad idea

Conservative Communities Secretary Eric Pickles wants to allow vehicles to be able to park on double yellow lines for up to 15 minutes. 

This is a bad idea for the following reasons:

• Double yellow lines are often provided to prevent parking in dangerous places, such as at road junctions
• Double yellow lines are also used to reduce congestion
• Limited waiting restrictions can already be used to control parking in locations where it is safe to park but it needs to be controlled (as in my local Theale High Street)
• It would make enforcement almost impossible as Civil Enforcement Officers (traffic wardens) would either have to wait to see when drivers returned or make copious notes of time when vehicles parked.

Under their code of conduct, enforcement officers already have to wait five minutes, to allow drivers to return, before issuing a ticket.

This proposal seems like typical Tory pandering to the attitudes of papers like the Daily Mail or the Sun where any attempt to enforce road laws is made out to be a "war on the motorist".

How would a school packed lunch ban work?

It's all very well suggesting that packed lunches should be banned in schools, but how would it be enforced?

Would schoolchildren be frisked at the school gate for sandwiches and crisps?

Outlawing khat will ensure that it becomes associated with crime and terrorism

The Times reported today that "the Home Secretary, Theresa May, is poised to ban a legal drug (khat) in defiance of her own officials."

The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs says that there is no evidence that khat causes health problems . It also says that there is no evidence that trade in khat is directly linked to organised crime or used to fund the extremist Islamist terrorist group al-Shabab.

Outlawing the drug will mean that there will no longer be a legal sources of supply.

The report says that khat is used by 90,000 Somalis, Yemenis and Ethiopians in Britain. With that kind of demand, we can be sure that outlawing the drug will ensure that it will become associated with organised crime and/or terrorists.

Senior West Berks councillor trying to deflect criticism by chief schools inspector?

Councillor Alan Law, Executive Member for Finance at West Berkshire Council, complained about the low fines meted out to benefits cheats by local magistrates on the local radio this morning..

An I a cynic for wondering whether he was trying to distract attention from yesterday's criticism of West Berkshire Council by England's Chief inspector of Schools? The inspector criticised the council for the poor GCSE results achieved by pupils receiving free school meals.

Councillor Law also said that the £1M in defrauded housing and council tax benefits could otherwise have "filled all the potholes twice over". This is nonsense. These benefits are government funded benefits that are administered by the council. The £1M would have been money saved by the government, not by the council, if it had not been claimed fraudulently.

Many of the poor children being left behind in schools now are in suburbs, market towns and seaside resorts - Chief Schools Inspector

In a new report,  England's Chief Inspector of Schools said "there were 15 local authorities where only a quarter of children on Free School Meals achieved five good GCSEs including English and maths last year and that those with the poorest record on this were West Berkshire, Peterborough, Barnsley and Herefordshire.”

Please see the full BBC report

In West Berkshire (my council) at least, the problem has been made much worse in the last few years by the council sacking schools advisors. They had twenty two in 2010, now they have just five.