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Letters
West Dorset MP Chris Loder must be delighted by Government plans to scrap the TV licence, even though the move has been described as a death sentence for the BBC. Mr Loder is a member of the influential Common Sense Group of Tory MPs and the dismantling of the BBC is among their chief aims. Every Government since the days of Winston Churchill has accused the BBC of bias so why set out now to destroy it? The extensive CSG manifesto provides the answer: public opinion is no longer shaped by a wealthy elite whose newspapers have aways been propaganda sheets for the Tories. The pro-Tory bias must be restored and the first step is to crush alternative (“Marxist”) voices even where they are trusted and respected. But there is more. The next targets for Mr Loder and his pals are the abolition of the legal requirement on broadcasters for impartiality and the abolition of laws against hate speech. This would clear the way for a UK channel like the notorious Fox News that has done so much to propagate lies about the US election. The CSG sees itself “in the midst of a culture war, one which could prove to be a life and death struggle for conservatism”. Don’t let the BBC become a war casualty. Make your voice heard before it’s too late.
Simon Moon Mere, Wilts.
My MP Andrew Murrison, in last week’s NBV magazine proposes to support the PCSC Bill, to as he puts it “Ensure that vandals are convicted”. A remark made in connection to the acquittal of the Colston Four. My I remind the right honourable MP for South Wilts that they were found not guilty by a jury. Or maybe as we have seen with parties at Downing Street, this government doesn’t uphold the law. And his support of the easing of the PM’s covid restrictions because the data has vindicated his actions is laughable, if only we had followed the data to begin with. We should have locked down weeks earlier each time and much stricter. That would have saved tens of thousands of lives and the economy. At every step his party has put people’s lives and jobs at risk and they’re not finished yet. As an island nation in comparison to New Zealand, England has spent 213 days in national lockdown, whilst New Zealand has spent 71 days. England has had over 100,000 Covid deaths. New Zealand has had 52. If we adopted similar policies and then vaccinated this would have been over by now But I’m sure you are right Mr Murrison, it was the restrictions that took our freedom not your Prime Minister’s inept leadership.
Mark Holderness Shaftesbury
Conservative MP and popular Brexit supporter David Davis summed up the pathetic Johnson government perfectly with his quote from Oliver Cromwell, when he used part of the “for the name of God” speech at Prime Minister’s questions recently. For the benefit of those not aware of it, I have taken the time to quote Oliver’s speech that dismisses the rump parliament in 1653. Interestingly, it could have been written today and would have the same recognition as it did almost four hundred years ago by the public. “It is high time for me to put an end to you sitting in this place, which you have dishonoured by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice. Ye are a factious crew and enemies to all good government. “Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defied this sacred place, and turned the Lord’s temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation. “You were deputed here by the people to get grievances redressed, are yourselves become the greatest grievance. Your coventry therefore calls me to cleanse this Aegean stable, by putting a final period to our iniquitous proceedings in this house; And which by Gods help, and the strength he has given me, I am now come to do. “I command ye therefore, upon the peril of lives, to depart immediately out of this place. Go, get you out! Make haste! Ye venal slaves be gone. “So, take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go.”
Mike Fry Upton
We have all been informed of another round of significant Council Tax increases. For many years, some London Boroughs have boasted of major efficiency pursuits to minimise increases, whilst some have even reduced their charges from time to time. Why are our rural Councils so allergic to learning these skills to contain costs? The bigger issue with Council Tax is not a local one. The valuation bands of this tax stop at Band H (£320,000 in 1991) which means that anybody with a property substantially in Band H is subsidised by everybody else in the bands below. It would be like saying there’s no need to collect any more income tax / inheritance tax / VAT from you because we’ve already squeezed those tax requirements out of those earning / inheriting / spending less that you! I’ve always wondered why 650 MPs aren’t talking about this – maybe they are all living in magnificent homes, well into this cavernous Band H, and are very happy for us lowerband folk to subsidise them! There’s an enormous London town-house – 21 Upper Grosvenor Street, W1K 7PD
– currently on the market for £54.5 million - and its Council Tax for 2020/21 was £1655.12. For our very modest bungalow on the outskirts of Sherborne we were required to pay £2078.77. How can this ever be considered fair? The valuation bands should capture all values of all properties, and the tax apportioned accordingly, and distributed more evenly. The imbalance is stealthily amplified each year when rural Councils keep upping the bills substantially – so when will our MPs do something about reforming this tax? Perhaps the MPs who write in this magazine can be persuaded to share their views on this iniquitous tax! I have already written to my MP but had no reply! And I do hope it becomes a major topic in all the local and national elections in the future because it needs fixing.
Clive Pallot Sherborne
I refer to the letter by Gordon Lethbridge in the BVM regarding my letter about the pandemic. I have been producing and using computer models for over 40 years. They, like econometric, demographic and general circulation models are used to make predictions for the future. When model parameters are changed the results are called scenarios and this introduces model and epistemic uncertainty in the results. Demographic forecasts are given as high, low and medium estimates and the decision maker normally adopts the middle value. Computer models must be debugged or worked through line by line so that the results are what the algorithm was meant to produce. The Post Office accountancy program was not checked in this way which resulted in false prosecutions for fraud. In 1935 Karl Popper published The Logic of Scientific Discovery which should be read at least in part by all who are engaged in scientific work. The key argument put forward by Popper is that science proceeds by a process of falsification such that when a theory or model does not match reality it must be rejected. A more stringent test is to get right answers for the right reasons – that is white box modelling as compared with black box modelling. The epidemiological processes of disease spread are not completely known. False positive tests have been reported making a very uncertain database to work with. Writing in the Journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, Dr Ron Brown pointed out that the Case Fatality Rate is higher than the Infection Fatality Rate and, correcting a mistake in a paper in the highly respected New England Journal of Medicine, showed that all confirmed cases are infectious but that infections are not equal to cases due to asymptomatic infections present in covid-19. In the present case this resulted in an over prediction of fatalities. Then came more confusion: lower than expected fatality rates following mitigation measures such as social distancing were wrongly attributed to the measures being effective. In New York State in 113 hospitals who received 1269 covid-19 patients, most had been following isolation orders for six weeks. This fact made officials doubtful about the value of social distancing measures. In the case of the modelling of Foot and Mouth Disease and the paper I quoted in Epizootics, it was Neil Ferguson and co-workers at Imperial College London who grossly over predicted the spread of the disease, first because they got the reproductive rate wrong, and second because they did not include the presence of separate animal species even though virus output varies between animal species. The gross error in CJD mortality by the same people needs no repetition. So I put my concerns thus: if a contractor lets you down twice would you ask him back for a third time? Another issue which I omitted was the woeful neglect of a Service which was started in the UK over 70 years ago and copied the world over. Yet we only have 2.5 hospital beds per 1000 people while Germany has 8 and Belarus 11 (British Medical Journal Sept. 2020). If any reader would like more information then they are welcome to write to me at CHRS, Shute Lane, Bruton, Somerset.
Dr Colin Clark Bruton
Cartoon by Lyndon Wall justsocaricatures.co.uk
Re-wild your hair to show that you care
By Lorraine Gibson
It’s time to grab the neon hairspray and clippers as Mytime, the local charity that supports Dorset’s young carers, announces its annual Hair2Care Day fundraiser (February 18). The event encourages people to transform their locks in wacky ways to raise money to fund the charity’s support of the often unseen and unsung young carers living in our communities. Right now, 700,00 known children in the UK are caring for someone who is unable to cope on their own due to various reasons including disability, substance misuse, mental-health problems or other issues. And since our readers are known for their championing of great causes, Mytime is asking you to join in the hairraising fun. How far you go is your call. Let your hair down, put it up or be really bold - or even bald - and shave the whole lot off; whatever you do to your do, you’ll be supporting children, some as young as five, who are looking after family members, from getting them dressed or making their food to doing laundry and dealing with household admin. Mytime wants individuals and organisations to get involved in their mission to give children a precious window of time where they can see friends or to just do their own thing and forget about responsibilities for a while. Penelope Day, the charity’s fundraising director says: “We know that young carers provide invaluable support to their families, but lots of people don’t realise how much they really do, because it happens behind closed doors. “They can feel isolated, invisible and lonely because they don’t have much time to see their friends or because they don’t feel they can talk about their responsibilities. “We launched Hair2Care to give young people a day all about them, to show them that people see what they do and appreciate their hard work. “What better way to do that than with the brightest, boldest hairstyles possible?” Mytime’s support team is largely made up of parents and people who’ve been young carers themselves, so they know the score. Laura Cole, once a young carer herself and now their Level Up Programme Coordinator says: “As a former young carer, I am so proud to work for a charity that is passionate about supporting these incredible young people. “I know how incredibly lonely it can feel being a young carer due to not having much time to see friends or because they don’t feel they can talk about their caring role. Laura adds: “Mytime Young Carers make such a difference to the lives of hundreds of young people across Dorset by providing an inclusive community and helping them feel proud of their caring responsibility. “I feel so grateful that I am a part of this team and using my own experiences to help them realise they are not alone and help them gain more confidence.” Last year the Hair2Care campaign was so successful, it made national news and hairdresser to the stars, Lee Stafford and EastEnders actor Scott Maslen both got involved. For more information: mytimeyoungcarers.org You can donate via text: to donate £1, text HAIR to 70201; to donate £5, text HAIR to 70970 or to donate £10, text HAIR to 70191.
It’s not every day you get to meet an armadillo at school. Or a python, pygmy owl or giant stick insect. However, children at North Cadbury Primary were delighted to meet all these creatures, plus a giant millipede and a fattailed gecko when Animal Encounters paid a visit. Among the things the children learned was about the clever way these animals camouflage and self-protect themselves. The school’s Victoria Bridgeman-Sutton said: “The children were wowed, especially by Herbie, the three-banded armadillo who was making his first-ever outing. “The owl appeared to have extra eyes in the back of her head and the stick insect not only had leaf like legs, but also could make her tail curl up like a scorpion.” Animal Encounters’ Chris Johnson was able to explain details of the animals’ lives to the children. “It was a fabulous way to start the term,” said Ms Bridgeman-Sutton.
Sherborne Rotary know the value of money
By Faith Eckersall
When Sherborne Rotarian Mike Balfour found an old-style large 50p piece in the collecting box for the club’s annual Nativity in the Conduit, he knew it would not be accepted by a bank. However, on closer inspection the rogue coin turned out to be a rare a 1984 Christmas Isle of Man 50p, depicting a steam train. Sherborne Rotary sold it on eBay for £16 and the money formed part of the club’s recent donation of £1,000 to the Sherborne Voluntary Ambulance. SVA chairman, Dr Charles Middle, said: “Since the start blackmorevale.net
of the covid-19 lockdown we have seen a significant drop in income. Usually, the ‘Red Bus’ is on the road seven days a week transporting the elderly, disabled and learning disabled to lunch clubs, shopping trips, society meetings and day trips to the coast, garden centres and steam trains.” However, he said, the bus was now seven years old and will need to be replaced within the next few years. The services of the SVA provide a much needed and welcome means of social support and interaction for people in the local area, he added. “Users are charged a small fee per trip, based on mileage, to cover the cost of fuel and many of our users describe us as an essential, particularly during covid times. Without it many would lose their independence and be unable to access local services.” The SVA is funded entirely by donations and its
committee’s fund-raising work. “The last two years have been very difficult and we are aware that additional funding will be necessary to meet our long-term plans and objectives,” said Dr Middle. Email sherbornevoluntary ambulance@gmail.com to find out how to donate New Blackmore Vale, 4th February 2022
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