Tag: politics

Why drinking milk is good for us (and our farmers)

Red top milkMilk prices are sinking fast and UK dairy farmers are fighting to stay afloat. The ‘milk trolley challenge’ and supermarket protests have helped raise the profile of their plight but our appetite for the white stuff has never been lower. Twenty years ago we drank three times as much whole milk as we do today; sunflower oil spreads have all but killed the butter market, and even sales of cheddar are starting to crumble.

For the past decade, nutrition ‘gurus’ have drip-fed us the idea that all dairy is bad for and milk-free diets are healthy. Science has shown us that milk may not be the elixir of life we thought it was fifty years ago, but it is packed with nutrients that can benefit us in all stages of life. In childhood, this is especially true. Very few foods contain as much calcium as milk does and research shows that kids who drink milk end up significantly taller than their schoolmates who don’t. Bones get stronger and thicker until early adulthood, thereafter they gradually weaken. A daily dose of milk in childhood helps to ensure a lifetime of strong bones and reduces the chances of developing osteoporosis (brittle bone disease) in old age. Read more

Don’t forget to vote: it’s good for body and mind

Voting is importantWaiting for the general election has been a bit like waiting for Christmas. The hype keeps building but the big day never seems to arrive. Rather than greetings cards, however, ‘vote for me’ flyers have been piling up on the door mat. And instead of wall-to-wall seasonal specials, television viewing has been nonstop politics. Come May 7th, few of us will expect to be unwrapping gifts and digging into turkey, however. But taking a visit to the polling station could be just the thing for leaving you feeling warm and fuzzy inside. Read more

Why I hope this is the last Paralympics

053Blink and you just might miss it. If you don’t live in the UK, that is. Last night, 80,000 people watched the Paralympic opening ceremony – a slightly more modest, but nonetheless equally poignant affair than its bigger brother. As the kids return to school and the Olympic feel-good fades, it offers a last-hurrah for an enthralling and passion-filled spectacle. Celebrating ability and achievement in the face of physical, mental and psychological ‘disability’, I will savour watching it. At the same time though, I hope I don’t have to watch it ever again. Read more

The real legacy of the Olympics: uncomfortable truths.

Olympic StadiumAbout 15 years ago, I visited the Montreal Olympic Village. A captivating and beautiful city, the Olympic Village was a complete contrast. Tired-looking vacant stadia and vast, mostly unused concrete behemoths populated by a few shuffling tourists. I found it a depressing place and the slowly flaking paint symbolised a squandered enterprise. Costing Canada $1bn, the 1976 Montreal Olympics were the greatest financial disaster in the history of the Olympic games.

UK residents will be well-versed with Prime Minister David Cameron’s rhetoric: London 2012 will leave a ‘lasting legacy’ for the UK and London. It will regenerate to a deprived London district; increase tourism, improve infrastructure and give a much-needed economic boost. These are compelling and believable justifications for spending £9bn ($14bn) from the public purse. However, claims of a major economic boost have already shown themselves to be exaggerated: increased sales and footfall in Stratford have so far been cancelled out by losses in the West End.

My heart says that London 2012 is a good thing for the UK. Yet I can’t help feeling we have been misled by the politicians’ claims that it will make a better Britain. There is ample evidence to investigate claims about tourism, economics and even the ‘feelgood’ factor. David Cameron, like practically every country leader before him, has chosen political points over a sincere explanation of the evidence. Let’s find out what the legacy of London 2012 will most likely look like… Read more

Ofsted Head says Teachers don’t know Stress. Perhaps Sir Michael Wilshaw should have done his homework.

Source: Ofsted

Teaching is an incredible privilege. It’s hard to underestimate the importance of inspiring and motivating young people – helping them achieve and grow. It was therefore more than a little surprising when Sir Michael Wilshaw, head of the UK schools inspectorate Ofsted, started a finger-wagging tirade accusing teachers of being shirking whiners.

“You youngsters don’t know you’ve been born!” Teachers today surely don’t know what stress is – real stress, he lambasted. “Why, when I was a teacher, I had to walk to work in the wind, rain and snow…” Ok, he didn’t say that, but it was close. Rather than face up to their responsibilities, he says that bad teachers blame ‘stress’ and blame everyone else for their problems.

As an ex-hospital doctor, I can say with some authority that teaching is far from stress-free. But personal experiences and emotions aside, has Sir Michael Wilshaw made some important – if uncomfortable – points? Let us take a, hopefully unbiased, look at his actual statements and whether or not they are justified… Read more

The Scary New Computer Program that spots Born Leaders and Predicts Election Results!

Have you ever done a ‘leadership’ exercise?

three cups stackedI’m sure you know the sort of thing – You’re on a corporate “training day” and after being placed into arbitrary groups in a stuffy meeting room, you are given a handful of straws, paperclips and plastic cups and told to build a tower that reaches the ceiling. Oh, and it’s a race.

Normally billed as a light-hearted ‘ice breaker’, such tasks are watched by an eagle-eyed organiser – on the lookout for the ‘natural leaders’. Which people are the ‘doers’; who are the diplomatic types; and who like the sound of their own voice a little too much?! These activities make me cringe – they feel artificial and forced – and worse, presume that true leadership can be identified in a conference room.

But is leadership really an inherent ability that some of us have but others don’t? Researchers from the University of Amsterdam seem to think so. In newly published work, they claim to have developed a computer program that not only predicts who are the best leaders from facial characteristics, but will also tell you who will win the next presidential election…

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The Science of Rioting – Is there a reason for the Violence? Is there a Solution?

Violenti scontri per le strade by Il Fatto Quotidiano, on FlickrThe streets of major British cities descended into chaos last night. Again.

Angry stick-weilding, BMX-riding hooded teenagers went on the rampage. Breaking, burning and looting for no apparent reason – the police largely impotent to halt to the anarchy.

It’s been a long time since the UK has seen anything like this. Just what triggered these night-time waves of indiscriminate destruction, no-one seems certain. A peaceful protest three days ago about a questionable police shooting escalated into violence. Now neither shops, homes or landmarks are being spared by the hands, bats and Molotovs of an uncontrolled testosterone-fuelled rage.

Is this the product of a disenfranchised youth? Former London Mayor, Ken Livingstone blames the austerity cuts. London councillor, Mike Fisher called it “pure criminal activity by mindless thugs and morons”. As David Cameron cuts short his summer break to exert some leadership, I’d be very surprised if he’ll be ‘hugging a hoodie‘ in London tonight.

Politicians and victims of the violence will undoubtedly draw their conclusions to make sense of the carnage. Is there a rational scientific viewpoint to take on the reason for all the unrest? Current thinking in psychology, might make you reassess what is going on… Read more

The Great Atlantic Divide – Why Europeans Riot (but American’s don’t)

A fireball erupts as civilians shriek and run for cover. A security officer burns and a gas mask-wearing man dashes through the smoke. Men beat each another with bats and stones. Shots are fired and grenades hurled as a city centre descends into chaos. Is this a scene from a warzone? No – this is modern-day Europe.

rage by how will i everAs Greek politicians try to balance the books by slashing pensions and cutting welfare, violence spills onto the streets of Athens. Protestors hold fists skyward and chant “Don’t obey the rich – fight back!” Amidst drastic ‘austerity measures’, such scenes are becoming frighteningly commonplace.

Spain, Iceland, Portugal and now Greece have witnessed their populace flooding the streets in protest of such ‘social injustice’. Europeans don’t like to take things lying down it seems; but this would never happen in the good old USA… Read more