Notes from the Panopticon

The Lives of others

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody, it saves so much trouble.  ~ Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936)

I have just returned from New Zealand. It was the third of what I hope will be many, many visits.

New Zealand is special. Its beauty is not just skin deep. Granted it has spectacular landscapes and wilderness and emptiness and quiet roads where the curves slow you right down, but the best of it is an attitude to life that has vanished in much of the world. Let me illustrate.

Massive melon 

We went to stay with New Zealanders whom we had never met. My wife had started an e-mail acquaintance while researching a family from which our soon-to-be new friends were descended and this resulted in an invitation to stay for two nights.

The second night, I helped prepare supper. We were having water melon for dessert. It was so enormous that our hostess called a neighbor, cut the melon in half and gave half to him. Was it going to be too much for him? If so, he should give half to the people at the next farm. And then it turned out that the melon had been given to us by yet another person who had grown it. A gift shared out and passed on three times.

Once you start to notice such examples, the generosity, kindness and caring go on.

Working lunch 

We stayed in a motel and on arrival in the evening we asked the receptionist to help us book a trip the next day into the bush (NZ for the country). We were told to bring a packed lunch. The receptionist gave us directions to the best food shop for the morning but, when we got up, there was a bag with two packed lunches hanging on the door handle. There was also a note: "I was making these for a group of road contractors who are staying. It was no trouble to make two more."

She'll be right 

One of the reasons my wife made the trip was to visit various libraries across the country. This involved trawling through miles of microfilm and dozens of files of documents going back to the mid-nineteenth century. And loads of photocopies. Each evening, she told the staff how many copies she had made. "Don't worry, we'll take payment when you've finished." The days passed and the potential bill mounted. If she had left the country without paying, it would have been difficult to recover the money. Yet they trusted her. A Kiwi saying covers it all: "She'll be right."

Traumatized hijacker 

New Zealand is a country which lacks paranoia and it feels much healthier for it. While we were there, a mentally-disturbed Somali woman tried to hijack a plane. Helen Clark, the Prime Minister, responded maturely. She told an aggressive (and potentially racist) interviewer that it was wrong to tar a community with the brush of an individual who had lost control. She pointed out that much of the Somali community had been deeply traumatised before they has fled a war-torn country and found refuge in New Zealand. She said that much should be done to support people who had suffered. What a refreshing change from the heartless attitude which characterises much of the vocal response to refugees who find their way to the UK.

Clark also pointed out that this was an isolated incident. Over-reaction by insisting on elaborate security measures would overburden a country that relies on frequent small-scale domestic flights, often from tiny airports and on small aircraft. She was waiting for reports to decide in detail what to do, but it was clear that she preferred to look at the thousands of flights that passed without incident rather than at the one which had gone wrong.

Defeating paranoia 

Many years ago, I suffered the indignity of being stabbed in the back by a work colleague whom I trusted. It was horrible. But what was far worse was the way in which my attitude to people changed. Until that point, I had lived my life assuming the best of everyone I met and this made for a jolly and positive life. That feeling vanished overnight. Once I had recovered from the shock, I set about reorienting myself. I decided that not trusting other people was such a debilitating attitude that I myself was reduced by it. So over the months, I set about restoring my trust. It was not easy and it took much longer than I expected. But it was worth the effort and, happily, my feeling of well-being is now restored.

Being in a country where paranoia is not the natural state is so refreshing. Paranoia feeds on itself. Self-protective measures become more and more aggressive but they only aggravate the feeling that not enough is being done to achieve security. That feeling will never go away because complete safety is unachievable. The harder you try to eliminate danger, the more futile your search for security becomes.

Growing up 

What is true for the individual is also true for a state. But it takes maturity on the part of politicians charged with balancing freedom and security to admit this and to stop pretending that they can provide total security.

Later in our visit, I was struck by another example of how mature political debate can be in New Zealand. Auckland is the country's only big city. It does not have a proper mass transport system and therefore suffers from serious traffic congestion. Local politicians now propose to impose a tax surcharge on petrol in the city to pay for the provision of decent public transport and when interviewed, local voters recognised the need for this. They accepted it had to be done and that no-one but themselves should be asked to pay for it.

It is strange that politicians and voters in this young country are so mature, while those who work in our mother of parliaments are so prone to hysteria. Perhaps it has something to do with the British voting system. First past the post was used in New Zealand until it was changed in the face of growing popular disillusion with sleaze in public life. Perhaps abandoning the principle of winner-takes-all has injected fresh air into a stagnant political culture. More of that in a future article.

Picture credits:

ruudvisser.wordpress.com/.../17/watermelon-art/

http://notetoself-dickie.blogspot.com/2007_06_24_archive.html

Yet more moral hazards

In any country there must be people who have to die. They are the sacrifices any nation has to make to achieve law and order.~ Idi Amin Dada (mid-1920-2003)

A reply to the latest comments by threeportdrift and Peter Horne (see previous post).

Economic and moral hazard

There is indeed an economic hazard: if the authorities allow a failing bank to go under, confidence in the banking system might collapse, leading to the kind of financial crisis that the world suffered after 1929. And this is the moral hazard: by seeking to avoid the economic hazard, the authorities create a different one; banks will not be so careful in the future, so there is a risk of further failures. They will not be constrained by the need to look after their future well-being because they will expect the authorities to do so. So there is a trade-off. The authorities, in the case of Northern Rock, chose to avoid the economic hazard and no doubt they will bring in a raft of regulations to try to minimise the moral hazard they have created. "Moral hazard" is, perhaps, a misnomer in this case because the real effect is a shift in the nature of self-interest which must be the core of any business motivation. The important thing is that the trade-off is recognised for what it is, and that the authorities make a clearly thought-out decision based on the balance of dangers.

Help the poor

You are quite right to point out that this is similar to an argument that can be – and often is – made against providing financial support to the poor. If you give money to the poor, they will be discouraged from seeking gainful employment, others will lose their incentive to work and more people will choose to live on welfare. This is indeed a "moral hazard".

You also point out that the motive for supporting the poor is an ethical one (we don't like to see others suffer), while the motive for supporting a failing bank is an economic one (a failing bank could precipitate the collapse of the financial system, leaving the economy and all its participants devastated and unable to recover).

You don't say whether you think that the ethical motive is worth risking the moral hazard – a scrounger's charter as right-wingers would say. I suspect that you do and, if you do, I agree with you. But I would be cautious about how the poor are defined and how they should be helped. Without going into detail, people who are poor because they are unable to work should be first in the queue and the method by which their incapacity is assessed should be simple and clear, and should not be humiliating. (I have long thought that complaints about means tests are misplaced since everyone who works has to fill in a tax form, which itself is a means test. But listening to the debate about incapacity payments, I realised that the complexity of the rules and the humiliation associated with the tests are the real problem)

Falling on hard times

I also believe that people who have fallen on hard times should be supported financially and helped to recover. And the nature of the support should be such that they are given a strong incentive to go back to work (the poverty trap is an iniquitous moral hazard that has to be removed). And so on...

Taking advantage

To summarise, I believe that, when acting to solve a particular economic or ethical problem, the benefits should be weighed against the dangers of moral hazard. There is an unintended, but often predictable, danger that people adapt their behaviour to take advantage of the open hand of the state. And in framing its benevolence, there is always a risk that the state can find itself with a large and never-ending obligation.

Respect for the law

Now to your second point about loss of respect for the law. This goes to the heart of my point about moral hazard. The reason this issue is so important is that the law must earn respect, it should not be taken for granted. It is wrong that governments, like those of Robert Mugabe get away with grave misdeeds just because they are in charge of making the laws. It is iniquitous that a monster like Idi Amin was allowed to live out his life in comfortable exile just because he was a former leader of state. And in a different league, it is wrong that the British government should hide behind the doctrine of Crown immunity.

When I drafted my reply to your first comments, I tried to set out a list of necessary conditions for any law to be based on a firm foundation. It was too tough a task for a short note so I gave up. (It did, however, bear some relation to the list of criteria which Peter Horne cited.)Perhaps I should have persisted.

Bringing law into disrepute

My first criterion is that laws should not discriminate against any significant minority of the population. And I think all the examples that you cite are cases where efforts were made, not only to discriminate against minorities, but also against majorities. So the laws that so troubled Ghandi and the other notable civil rights protestors you mention would have fallen at the first hurdle. Your examples illustrate my point; they do not undermine it. If a government tries to do something by passing laws which brings the law into disrepute, it runs the risk of undermining respect for the law and opens the door to legitimate protest. This, as we saw in Northern Ireland, can lead to serious and fatal civil unrest.

Euthanasia

Other areas where there is "civil disobedience" on a lesser scale include the laws against euthanasia. The objection to these laws is widespread. Institutions which practice it are tolerated but any individual who participates in the act risks prosecution and incarceration. But this depends on the whim of the authorities, not a happy situation in an open society.

Sailing close to the wind

I do not agree with your last point about the effects on moral standards of moral turpitude of some of those in the public eye and those who feel they can circumvent the law. People will question their moral compass. It is human nature to sail close to the wind, but a complex and poorly-enforced legal structure has the paradoxical effect of creating a race between law-makers and the rest of us to find or to plug the loopholes in the law. A simple legal structure which reflects a morality which most of the population accepts will result in a decent and law-abiding society.

Law and religion

As for the escape to religion and fundamentalism, I believe that the horrors of Sharia law, the burning of heretics, the unofficial imprisonment of young women in the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland, and the social mayhem created by missionaries in the nineteenth century all speak for themselves. Legal structures based on religious conviction have repeatedly shown themselves to be fatally flawed. The fact that there is now an upsurge in evangelical movements is itself a demonstration of the way in which society is losing moral cohesion. And this, I believe, stems from governments legislating without giving full consideration to the moral hazards which their laws will generate.

Peter Horne and Leslie Stephen

In reply to Peter Horne's comment, I would agree that all human action has an impact on others, but the degree to which it affects others can vary considerably.

I agree that moral issues should be considered when deciding whether to curtail the liberty of individuals. It is the complexity of deciding what is worth doing, and whether the law is an appropriate mechanism for achieving any given aim, which makes me think we should err on the side of caution. My object has been to draw attention to the way the flood of laws introduced by the present government has made us all a little bit nastier. And that includes government ministers, political parties, civil servants and other administrators who, instead of focusing on serving society, duck and dive to gain advantage. One human quality that has vanished because of this over-administration is compassion. Automatic penalties without the intervention of a human being are becoming the norm.

Authority and autonomy

Swinging the emphasis in defining what laws are acceptable, from preventing harm to others towards which restraints are injurious, makes – to my mind – little difference. The point is that, in both cases, there is an authority which claims to know best what is good for others. And I deny that this is ever true (except for children or persons who are seriously lacking in mental or moral capacity). The key to good law lies in the three tests you mention, in research to discover what measures will be effective, and in open discussion and debate. With the vast number of laws that have recently been passed, it has obviously been impossible to carry out this process. And we are all paying the price.

More moral hazards: a reply to threeportdrift’s comment

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. ~ John Stuart Mill (1806 –1873)

From the start I hoped that this blog would provide a forum for discussion. It is hard thinking in a vacuum and I am grateful to threeportdrift for making a number of very interesting points. (see original article and threeportdrift's comment)

What I mean by moral hazard

It seems I failed to make clear exactly what I
meant by moral hazard so I'll have another go. The moral hazard faced when failing banks are bailed out is that the fear of failure is dented and therefore other banks will behave irresponsibly in the future because they believe that they too will be rescued if they gamble and lose.

The parallel in law-making is that, if laws are made and widely ignored, or if they are poorly or unevenly enforced, then respect for the law is eroded. A society without respect for the law is in danger of losing moral cohesion. This is the hazard it faces. It is parallel to the financial moral hazard: if people see others getting away with irresponsible behaviour, they will tend to abandon their own moral compass and behave less responsibly too. It also happens when there are too many laws which citizens find silly, unfair or unacceptable, or which they do not understand. In all these cases, there is a danger that society will lose faith in the institutions which uphold justice.

That is the simple part of the argument. The harder part is deciding when it is reasonable and realistic for society to enact laws to persuade people to pull in the same moral direction, and when it is justified for parts of the population to stand up against laws that are unfair or unjust. And it is here that threeportdrift seeks to take issue with the examples I used to make my point.

Loss of moral faith

My fear is this. The huge number of laws introduced by the Labour government, and its inconsistency in enforcing its policies, are indeed giving rise to a loss of moral faith.

Threeportdrift's last point ("ordinary oiks get off time and time again with warnings even whilst their behaviour gets more and more destructive"), far from undermining my point, actually supports it. I see it like this. The "oiks" see the Kate Mosses, the Elton Johns and the Jackie Smiths of this world getting away with breaking the law and think to themselves "why should I bother?" The reason they should bother is that they don't have the financial and social resources to slip through the legal net. So they get caught – in numbers that the legal system finds difficult to cope with. And so the justice system has a problem which it handles by reducing prosecutions for minor offences. This, in turn, reinforces the idea that the law is there to be ignored. And small crimes turn to bigger ones. (more here)

But let us not forget that being let off with a warning leaves an indelible stain. It makes it hard to reintegrate into society and, in particular, to make a legal living. So an underclass is generated that does not fully integrate into society. Organised crime is the main beneficiary, with society providing them with a work force made up of young men and women with no hope and with nothing to lose. (more here)

We must also remember that the Jackie Smiths and Kate Mosses and Elton Johns provide(d) these gangs with a market for their products, just as the celebrities of the day provided the Mafia with a market for illegal booze when the US government introduced prohibition.

Picking and choosing

Drug laws, I believe, generate the largest and most easily identifiable moral hazard. But respect for the law and the government is also eroded in other ways. If people feel able to pick and choose which laws to obey (speed limits outside schools good; roadworks on the M4 in the early morning bad) is exactly the kind of moral hazard that I am concerned about. It would be much better for the government to bring in fewer laws, to think harder about their implications, and to do its best to ensure that all parts of society are have an incentive to pull together and respect the law.

Epidemic hazard

A final point. Society's contempt for the government and its institutions also shows itself outside the area of the law. When a rogue scientist (completely spuriously) claimed that the MMR vaccine (more here) was the cause of autism and some types of bowel disease in young children, the government was unable to convince the public – in particular the parents of young children – that there was no danger. The government was paying the price for failing to maintain the trust of society, the effect of perceived lies and double-talk, as well as frustration at government efforts to micro-manage people's lives. So when an opportunity arose to make a protest, the population voted with its feet. The result was a catastrophic collapse in the number of children protected against measles, mumps and rubella, and a population vulnerable to an epidemic. Lies and obfuscation also carry a moral hazard.

I believe the government should treat us as citizens, not as subjects. The task is not easy because it must reconcile different needs and expectations in its policies and law-making. But its watchword should be "less is more" (see JS Mill quotation at the top of the page). Fewer laws mean fewer risks of moral hazard. And above all, everyone – and that includes the government and its ministers – should be treated equally.

Thank you, threeportdrift , for giving me the opportunity to clarify my thinking. I hope that I have made my point better now. I am always keen to hear from readers.

Picture credits:

www.badscience.net/?p=457

http://sobnation.wordpress.com/

Moral Hazards

The first sign of corruption in a society is that the end justifies the means. ~ Georges Bernanos (1888-1949)

Between a rock and a hard place

The term "moral hazard" has been around for a long time. It popped into consciousness most recently when Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, invoked it to explain why it is not always a good idea for the government to bail out a bank – specifically Northern Rock.

It's like this. People are grown-ups who navigate through the world by taking risks, some of which work out and some of which don't. This is especially true of the banking business. If the risks taken don't work out and the bank finds itself up s*** creek without a paddle, there will be a nasty fall out. Ordinary people with money in the bank will get hurt. If the government bails out the bank using tax payers' money, then the next bank will be less careful, believing that – if the worst comes to the worst – the government will pile in to save it. Risky business practice will become the norm and we shall all go to hell in a hand-basket.

But a big problem remains. We, the poor bank customers, do not have the resources or the understanding to know whether a bank is acting prudently or not. And we would not be given the information on which to base a decision even if we asked for it. So we have to rely on government regulatory systems to check things out for us. Hence the dilemma when government watchfulness fails.

Law of unintended consequences plus

There are many other moral hazards we need to worry about, most of them relating to government activity. It's a bit like the law of unintended consequences but, in the case of moral hazard, the dangers created are evident at the start. The hazard is created by the wilful folly of decision makers.

Loans for honours

Let's start with a topical one. Donations to political parties. For the benefit of readers outside the UK, the Labour government has twice been caught flouting the rules on accepting political donations. The first time, they broke the spirit but not the letter by accepting loans instead of gifts and offered to repay the lenders with honours. The second time, the jury is still out. The claims and counter claims about who did what and who knew what when are the typical spats that go on between politicians when they have broken the rules and been caught out. "I didn't know and didn't mean it" is a feeble response which would not be accepted as a defence in court. Yet that is exactly what we are getting from the politicians who frame our laws.

Why should politicians get away with breaking the law while expecting the rest of us to obey it? Perhaps it's because they have power and the rest of us don't. And it's probably why David Blunkett (former Home Secretary) seemed so indignant when he was caught using public money to pay for his girlfriend's train tickets. The moral hazard here is that respect for law is eroded when the powerful show a blatant disregard for it (if, that is, they think they can get away with it).

Drug culture

And then there is legislation against drugs. Celebrities do not even try to hide the fact that they break the law – and those same celebrities are feted by the political clique and even by royalty. The moral hazard here is obvious. On the one hand, ordinary oiks caught with drugs receive, at the very least, a criminal record and a good chance of going to prison. Their life chances are often ruined, while the rich and famous continue to smoke and snort with impunity.

Politicians bemoan the decline in respect for law and order; they berate an ill-disciplined youth for its failure to behave responsibly. But how can you persuade disadvantaged young people to respect the law when, at the same time, the politicians who frame the laws (and their celebrity friends) fail to do so? You see what I mean by moral hazard.

Slush funds

Which brings me to laws that are unenforceable. The war on drugs is costly both in financial resources and in wasted lives. The demand for drugs cannot be stemmed. Organized crime finds it has a lucrative business and a good percentage of the population is happy to ignore the law. What is it about governments around the world that they cannot break the habit of banging their heads against this particular brick wall? They know they are not going to win (just as the US failed to stop alcohol consumption in the 1920s). Instead they have created a moral hazard. Lakes of illegal money are used to corrupt politicians and officials and, in some states of the world, to subvert entire governments.

Criminal records for all

Moral hazard also comes from the efficient enforcement of regulations that are routinely ignored. Such a high proportion of drivers have been convicted of speeding that many of them accept the status of convicted criminals as normal, not something of which they should feel ashamed. This situation should not be accepted with equanimity and at least the government minister who was caught driving while using a mobile phone was convicted and fined. But he still attempted to mitigate his crime by claiming that he was dealing with important affairs of state at the time.

The hazard here also undermines respect for the law. Unless criminals represent only a small minority of the population, then criminality becomes normal, fear of punishment loses its sting, and punishments become harsher to enforce the law. We end up in a situation where you might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. If I am fined for putting my bins out on the wrong day, why should I leave it at that? I might as well do some fly tipping as well. Not a big deal in comparison with the other examples, but corrosive all the same.

Less is more

According to the Liberal Democrats, "Since 1997 this government has passed 365 acts of Parliament and more than 32,000 statutory instruments." This has introduced well over 3000 new criminal offences. When the government was caught out in the loans-for-honours fiasco, it responded by introducing yet more legislation and has now tangled itself up in that.

The most horrific part of the unfolding saga is not the facts of the case, but a statement by Wendy Alexander (leader of the Scottish Labour Party) in which she rejects any suggestion of "intentional wrongdoing". Her statement clearly shows that an important politician no longer feels bound to obey the law. "I did not mean to do it" may be a mitigating factor – but it is definitely not a defence.

So the government itself has fallen victim to the barrage of moral hazards which it created.

Slippery slope

Mervyn King thought long and hard before the rescue of Northern Rock was put in place. One assumes that an assessment was made and he accepted that the failure of the bank would pose a greater danger than the moral hazard created by the rescue package. Would that the government made more decisions in this way. If only it would think harder before creating so many new laws.

And there is little evidence that society is improving as a result of all this legislation. Prisons are overcrowded and convicted criminals are released early to make room for new ones. Middle-class criminals discuss the hazards of life with 9 points on their driving licences (next strike and the licence is gone), petty thugs wear ASBOs* as a badge of honour, and government ministers wriggle when they are caught on hooks of their own making. The investigation of a major corruption case is abandoned when a dodgy ally threatens to take its business elsewhere. A self-confessed drug user sings at the funeral of the Princess Diana in front of a congregation that included past, present and future prime ministers, the assembled royal family and a world-wide television audience.

The legal structure has started to creak. Respect for the law is flying out of the window at all levels of society – including the political classes. There is ever-present danger of the endemic corruption which dominates so much of the world. In the map below, the darker the red, the more corrupt the nation. Frightening isn't it?

• An ASBO is an Anti-social Behavior Order. It can be requested by the police, or a local authority and is imposed by a judge without a trial. The person on whom it is imposed is restricted from acting in certain ways or being in certain places. Violation of the ASBO can result in a prison sentence. So it acts as a method of punishing an individual without needing to prove that they have committed any crime other than violating the ASBO.

Bully boys

"I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers" ~ Kahlil Gibran (1883 – 1931)

The news that a 19-year-old girl from the largely Shia town of Qatif has been sentenced, by a Saudi court, to 200 lashes and six months in prison, after she and a male friend were raped by a gang of seven men, adds poignancy and relevance to this article. Both victims were originally sentenced to 90 lashes for “illegal mingling”, for riding in a car together without a chaperone. The girl’s lawyer was banned from the courtroom and his licence withdrawn when he appealed against the original sentence.

The rapists were originally sentenced to terms ranging from 10 months to 5 years, sentences which were also increased on appeal. The two cases, the illegal mingling and the rapes, were tried at the same time and in the same court.

Let me first establish my credentials. I am straight. I am attracted by women, not by men. I have homosexual friends of both sexes. I have been propositioned by men and turned them down because what was on offer was not to my taste.

So what is it that homosexuals do which is not to my taste? They are people who are just like the rest of us but who are attracted to the bodies of others of the same sex. They get pleasure from indulging in activities that are parallel to the ones I like to indulge in with my wife. My preference is to do these things with a woman, not with a man.

For homosexuals, the practices they enjoy with willing partners were illegal in this country until very recently. They remain illegal in many countries. And everywhere homosexuals are discriminated against merely because of what they like to do with each other.

Let's not beat about the bush. Let's be clear about what discrimination is. It is bullying pure and simple. It is picking on individuals who don't fit into the norm. It is picking on the kid in the playground because he wears glasses. But what is special about some forms of bullying is that they are:

• ignored by those whose job it is to maintain law and order (e.g. disproportionate numbers of black people in prisons and mental institutions)
• tolerated (e.g. churches exempted from female equality legislation)
• officially sanctioned (e.g. laws against homosexual acts)

All pretty obvious stuff, so why go through it again? It is because the laws against homosexuality – which were brutally enforced until so recently – were as wrong then as they are now. (It is likely that the brilliant Alan Turing, who did much to win World War II by deciphering enemy codes, was hounded to death by an unrelenting police force.)

Laws which stop people doing what they want to do – unless of course they hurt others – are wrong. So how was legislation against homosexuals justified? And how are the prejudices which still lead to discrimination (e.g. restricted employment in the church and armed forces) justified? The justifications fall into 4 groups:

• Religious
• Unnatural
• Unsocial
• Disgust

Religious objections

Religious objections continue to be the most effective. They come from powerful institutions which influence the framing and interpretation of laws. They also enjoy a peculiar exemption from normal debate because people's religious beliefs are treated as sacrosanct (no pun intended). In Britain for example, churches continue to discriminate against homosexuals – as they do against women – with impunity. Their justification is in scripture and in the beliefs and feelings of their adherents.

What is it about sexual preference that makes it so difficult for churches to accept? They are happy to ignore or sidestep a vast array of other scriptural strictures ("thou shalt not kill" leaps to mind), while homosexual behaviour leads to deep discomfort, and even to schism. At the same time, it is an open secret that homosexuality has dug its roots deep into the workforce and hierarchy of many churches, resulting in little harm to their operations.

The harm that does result is caused by the moral hazard inherent in covering up activities that are officially outlawed. This leads to corruption and institutional paralysis in the face of evidence of abuse. It is the same moral hazard caused by the celibacy of Catholic priests and nuns which, notoriously, has led to child abuse scandals across the world and the payment of millions in hush money. And some church institutions in which systematic abuse took place survived almost to the present day (e.g. the Magdalene laundries in Ireland).

Churches would be cleaner and healthier places if they accepted that most homosexuals, like most straight people, are decent, honorable and caring members of the community. Their sexual preferences hurt no one and, as individuals, they have much to offer to the community. Acceptance would make it easier to police the bad apples (straight as well as gay).

Nature in all its glory

The claim that homosexual acts are unnatural can be attacked from three directions:

• First, what is wrong with unnatural? The list of unnatural things that are part of everyday life is endless. Births by Caesarian section, wearing clothes, flying in airplanes, circumcision, enforced monogamy, baptism, inoculation, pain relief… Why single out homosexuality as unacceptable because it is unnatural?
• Second, who says it is unnatural? The fact that so many people in so many places and times have been willing to indulge in acts which carry the severest penalties suggests that their impulses are common, powerful and natural. Any field with farm animals reveals that homosexual activity goes on among all kinds of animals, not just among humans.
• Third, what's so good about natural? Dying of malaria is natural.

The "unnatural" lobby sometimes argues that homosexual relationships are, by definition, barren. But that is not an excuse for legislating against them or discriminating against them. Priests and nuns are required to be celibate by their calling. Infertile couples of all kinds have sex and, outside of Ceausescu's Romania, no-one is forced to have children. The argument is spurious.

Moral turpitude

Does homosexuality disrupt society? I'll give two examples to explore this hypothesis:

• Imagine a man propositioned by a woman but not tempted because he is homosexual. His tastes are frowned upon by society, so he enters into a relationship with this woman for whom he has no desire. This unhappy relationship could easily become socially disruptive; finding a man to make him happy would be more likely to result in harmony.
• Now imagine a woman reaching marriageable age at the end of World War I when there was a shortage of men. For companionship, she chooses to live with another woman and discovers that she is not averse to sexual experimentation with her companion. When this relationship becomes known, they are shunned by society. That shunning is socially disruptive. Not their loving act.

People's sexual preferences are part of who they are. I would not be happy in a homosexual relationship and I do not expect a homosexual to be happy in a straight one.

Finally, the argument that homosexuals might corrupt our children. This argument is spurious too. A homosexual would only corrupt a child sexually if he or she was a paedophile (and there are almost certainly more heterosexual than homosexual paedophiles).

And homosexuals who want to adopt, or otherwise organize themselves to bring up children, are just as likely to be as good parents – or bad parents – as straight couples.

" It's disgusting and should be banned."

I was careful to say at the outset that, when propositioned by men, I declined because it was not to my taste. I did not find it distasteful or disgusting. I just did not want to do it. There are a whole range of things I like to eat that my wife dislikes because of the taste or texture and she is not slow in saying so. I sometimes feel hurt when she says that the custard or sticky drinks that I enjoy are disgusting because it spoils my appetite. Disgusting is a nasty word for something you dislike. It is used deliberately in the context of homosexuality in order to raise the emotional temperature. To justify the bullying.

Truly disgusting acts are those where someone is made to suffer, like locking up homosexuals or executing them (as happens in Iran).

Legalised bullying

None of the justifications for legislating or discriminating against homosexuals carry any weight. So why was legalized bullying against a minority tolerated for so long? It is because there is an impulse in many people that makes them feel justified in telling others how to live their lives. And even to call for their prejudices to be turned into laws.

The controlling impulse of those who claim moral superiority and those who think they know best is a powerful force. No longer able to discriminate against homosexuals, the "do it my way" brigade are picking on other groups: smokers; fat people; drug takers; immigrants; asylum seekers; Polish plumbers; women who want abortions; just women (in many countries and communities, especially Islamic ones); terminally ill people who want to end their lives (and friends and relatives who, distressed by their suffering, want to help them); non-violent drinkers; adolescents; children; parents…

There is an unrelenting desire to bully non-conformists and minorities. Homosexuals have proved very recently that minority groups no longer have to accept all that is thrown at them. So let us all learn a lesson from them and not give in to those who want to push us around.

It would be even better if we curbed the urge to tell other people how to live their lives. Providing information is good. Giving a helping hand when asked is good. Offering unsolicited advice is bearable. Forcing people who don't hurt others to conform is unacceptable. This I find disgusting.

The Sharks and the Jets

The last few weeks have given an insight into the silly, testosterone-fuelled, adolescent nature of our political class. With the smell of an election in the wind, they spent the time braying at each other, calling each other chicken, and striking menacing poses.

Neither side felt particularly confident, so the poses were particularly nauseous and infantile. But they were not unusual. When will politicians grow up and behave in a way that earns respect instead of behaving like gangs of louts?

The press does not help – journalists stand about and egg the idiots on.

And we're supposed to take elections seriously.

Child abuse Australian style (the Stolen Generations)

Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation. ~ Khalil Gibran (1883 - 1931)

The other day I heard the story of Leonie Pope on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Live hosted by Fi Glover. It is a truly horrific story that reinforces one of the messages of this blog. We must always be vigilant; we must never allow the acts of governments and their agents to go unscrutinised.

Tragedy emerged

Leonie, now 35, was adopted by a Welsh family over 30 years ago. She grew up in Wales and now has a family of her own. It was only when she decided to trace her origins that the tragedy of her background emerged. She was the child of an Aboriginal mother who was tricked into giving her up for adoption; she was told instead that she was signing a paper about inoculation. The crime was aggravated when Leonie's mother asked where her baby was and the nurses told her that her daughter had died. When she asked for the body so she could bury it, she was told that it had already been disposed of. And the lying went on when Leonie arrive in Wales; her adoptive parents were informed that her natural mother had abandoned her in the hospital.

Leonie was one of seven children, each of whom were taken away from this Aboriginal mother. And sadly only one of them succeeded in finding her before she died.

Children taken away from parents

This story is not unusual. Starting in 1910 but continuing to the 1970s – I'll repeat that, the 1970s – 100,000 Aboriginal children were taken away from their parents and raised in church – I'll repeat that, in church – or state institutions or were fostered or adopted by white parents. Leonie was lucky because most of these children received little education, many of them were abused, and most ended up in low-grade domestic or agricultural work. The story of another family treated in this manner is told in the film Rabbit-Proof Fence and in

the book by Doris Pilkington on which it is based.

These children were all victims of a policy implemented, not only by the Federal government, but also by individual Australian states, to take Aboriginal and mixed-race children away from their parents and assimilate them into European society. The emotional damage has been devastating. Between 10% and 30% of Aboriginal children were removed in this way and many have fallen victim to depression, alcohol and drug abuse; and some have resorted to delinquency and violence. And the families and the societies from which they were stolen have never recovered.

Appalling consequences

The appalling consequences of this policy were revealed in a national inquiry, Bringing them Home, published in 1997. In the face of the evidence, the Australian government has offered neither apology nor compensation to those affected, many of whom who are still alive and living with the consequences. Indeed, a former minister for Aboriginal affairs has even denied the existence of these people, while government lawyers continue to argue that the removal of the children was done for their own good.

Now, at last some progress is being made. A report issued in 2002, Restoring Identity, has been welcomed by ministers in four of Australia's states.

Reluctant to show remorse

I can barely control my emotions as I recount this sorry tale. These actions were carried out by a democratically-elected government in a country that proudly calls itself the "Lucky Country". A government of a wealthy state, an important member of the free world, not only behaved in this manner, but is reluctant to show remorse for such gross violation of human rights.

The politicians involved could claim that they reflected the mood of the electorate, many of whom – no doubt – thought of Aboriginals in the same way as Americans in the Wild West thought of Native Americans – as a nuisance to be disposed of. And for much of the period of the policy, Aboriginals did not have the right to vote and had no representation. (They were given the vote in 1965 but, even now, there are no Aboriginal elected representatives.)

Nurses lied

Leonie was not taken from her mother by politicians, but by nurses and doctors and social workers. And these people happily lied to a woman who had gone though the twin emotional traumas of birth and bereavement. In their privileged position, they had power over this mother and they abused it. Such callousness is the stock-in-trade of functionaries charged with carrying out policy. Habituated by the daily grind of working through a case load, irritated by the emotional reaction of those effected by decisions they are powerless to challenge, these functionaries treat people as objects.

We must always being vigilant. Civil rights are very fragile. Never forget that, in another time and another place, some of those 'objects' could be you and yours.

Picture Credits:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/saturdaylive/saturdaylive.shtml

samuseum.sa.gov.au/orig/media/media-archive.htm

Rabbit Proof Fence still

The political animal – right or wrong

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me." ~ Dudley Field Malone (1882 – 1950)

At last! Controversy! Thank you Common Sense for replying to my post, and especially for disagreeing with me. It forces me to think some more and take stock of my ideas. One day, no doubt, I shall be presented with an argument that makes me change my mind and I look forward to that. But not today. Here is the comment in full:

I seem to think that you bristle when you feel that bloggers are dismissed out of hand as a breed. Yet you lump all politicians together and throw them into the fiery furnace. Did you never hear of a politician you had any time for? Nelson Mandela? Franklin Roosevelt? Willi Brandt? Nye Bevan? Itzhak Rabin? By and large, we get the politicians we deserve, the ones who, like the poor immigrants who service the public sector, are prepared to do the dirty jobs that we are too delicate to face – such as taking responsibility for the dull business of keeping the national show on the road and, sometimes, making the tough decisions that people who don't have to think much about it resent in a knee-jerk way. If you don't like it, put yourself up for public office. Do better. Otherwise you are merely an anarchist or (worse) a blogger whistling in the wind. Oh and by the way, I didn't sign your petition because I thought there was some merit in the argument about health and safety. If the flowerbed tender had been hit by a driver who hadn't seen her, that driver would have been entitled to feel aggrieved and that it was her own fault. The authorities have to make decisions that affect everyone. Just because a local busybody feels her freedom has been curtailed doesn't mean that the authorities are fascists or indeed that they are wrong to cleave to their decision. If you think that's officialdom gone mad, you must have spent most of your life avoiding organisations of every kind.

 

Smaller discussion first.

The wearing of a peaked cap, real or metaphorical, does not stop an individual from being a busybody. Some of the

restrictions imposed by health and safety officers are silly and need to be scrutinised. So do many of the restrictions placed on everyday life by officials making their own interpretations of enabling legislation.

There is a growing body of academic evidence which supports the view that a person stops behaving normally when placed in a position of authority. This explains atrocities like Abu Graib; ordinary decent people feel that their official position allows them to treat others without considering their humanity. On a less vicious scale, the phenomenon happens everywhere and every day in the enforcement of petty regulations by the bureaucratic process.

Iraqi translators who worked for the British army are being refused asylum when their lives are under threat and many have already been killed. This is a nasty but bang up-to-date example of how the moral compass can be lost by those who work in an official capacity. Power goes to their heads.

I shall be writing more about Philip Zimbardo and his Stamford Prison Experiment, as well as his own review – 36 years on – of this groundbreaking work (in his book The Lucifer Effect). This provides incontrovertible proof that the phenomenon exists and is universal. What Zimbardo has to say about how the experiment, and his part in it as designer and controller, affected his life should make us all sit up and take notice. His insights offer hope and understanding. There is a real chance that – if we wanted to – we could devise strategies for controlling the more beastly aspects of human social behaviour.

If you read my text carefully, you will see that I rarely say that bureaucratic actions should be stopped, simply that they should be thought through better, that decision processes should be transparent, and that there should be simple procedures to achieve redress.

And that brings me to the bigger issue: my attitude to politicians. I get a lot of flack (you are not the first to complain), so I revisit my thinking regularly and I agree that at one level I must be wrong. There must indeed be people who go into politics for good reasons.

I also have to admit that the fire which fuels my distrust has subsided with the departure of Tony Blair and his familiar, Alistair Campbell. I see Tony Blair as a political version of Jordan. He bemused people with his charisma just as she bemused people with her chest. Whatever one thinks of Gordon Brown and his policies, he cannot be accused of being vacuous or of not being a serious thinker. Whether or not he is a conviction politician does not matter. He is competent, he has a track record, and when he sets himself a task, he usually gets it done with limited negative fall-out. The fact that he believes the constitution should change in a direction that I would like is an added extra (although not far enough, I hasten to add.)

One of the aims of my blog is to examine ways in which democracy, a fragile system, can be strengthened so that incompetents like Blair and his sidekick can be stopped before they do too much harm. And one of my themes is that the separation of powers, which is at the heart of all serious democratic models of government, should be preserved and extended. No-one has a monopoly on wisdom and the spreading about of ultimate authority is an indispensible safeguard.

An aspect of this, covered in "Cheerleaders", is that MPs should have a separate role from the government executive. They should represent their constituents (i.e. act on their behalf) more seriously, keeping a watchful eye on what the government is doing, instead of blindly cheering them on or constantly attempting to put a spoke in the wheel depending on their party affiliations.

Now back to my problem with politicians. Common Sense provided a helpful parallel between politicians and immigrant workers. I should like to offer another. But I must put up a big warning sign here. It is a powerful simile to illustrate what I mean, no more and no less, and you must not take it any further than that.

If you want to find a concentration of paedophiles, you might look for them at work in children's homes or in other places where children are gathered together away from the supervision of their parents. This does not – of course – mean that everyone who works in these places is a paedophile, or even that a high proportion of them are. But these places are magnets for people with paedophile tendencies.

Now, if you want to find a concentration of control freaks – people who enjoy interfering in other people's lives and telling them what to do – you might well look at the political classes and the places where they gather. As with paedophiles, this does not mean that everyone there is a control freak, but the political process is a magnet for people with controlling ("I know best") tendencies.

I would further argue that, unlike working in a children's home where an ordinary person stays ordinary, working in politics engenders an intoxication with power in all but the strongest.

So my parallel is between uninvited and inappropriate fiddling with private parts, and uninvited and inappropriate fiddling with private lives (if you see what I mean).

Personally, I find power distasteful. I enjoy my life and I believe it is up to others to enjoy theirs with minimal interference if they harm no one but themselves. So the option of seeking office is anathema to me. To go back to Common Sense's parallel, I would prefer to clean lavatories with the immigrants.

Late in life, I became interested in thinking through my ideas about the political world. And I now realize how much my thinking has been influenced by Karl Popper, whom I have not read for at least 35 years. But his ideas have stayed with me. Openness and opportunity for all is what I would like to see and, for much of my life, I have watched it grow in fits and starts. I grieved when I saw it crushed underfoot by unthinking men such as George W. Bush and Tony Blair.

You can link to Common Sense here.

Philip Zimbardo has a website here.

Jeremy Paxman has written a fascinating analysis of the inner working of the politician, body and soul.

More information about the Iraqi translator asylum issue here.

The link to my article Cheerleaders is here.

 

Power Structure

When the government fears the people, you have liberty. When the people fear the government, you have tyranny ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743 –1826)

Understanding an institution requires an examination of its roots. The governments of the nation states we know today are the direct descendents of monarchies. And even if those monarchies are overthrown by revolution, the new governments inherit their structure. They work the levers of power using the pattern set by their predecessors. Soviet Russia had a powerful secret police system because the Tsars bequeathed it one. In turn, modern Russia has a powerful internal security service because it never gave up the one left by the Communists. But this is straying from my subject.

Monarchies developed to protect those who lived in their sphere of influence. Have no doubts – people in those days needed protection from ubiquitous marauders. And it was good to have a local strong man providing this protection. But the local strong man required funds to fight off the predators and he exacted tribute in money, kind and service in order to do so. This set him up rather well with lands and fortresses and debts of duty, so he continued to demand money even when there was no external threat. There were local criminals to keep under control and natural paranoia has always been easy to exploit.

Death and Taxes

The tribute is still paid today. It is known as tax and, along with death (a very appropriate pairing), is the only inevitability in life.

The structure developed by these strong men and imposed on their vassals –now known as government – has many similarities to the protection rackets operated by organised criminal gangs.

If you are shocked by this analogy, think a bit harder. Pay your taxes or we will bankrupt you, and maybe even lock you up. Pensioners feeling the injustice of paying council tax at a level they cannot afford, have been thrown in prison. Obey our rules or you will be sorry.

But, you respond, aren't taxes are used to help the poor and the weak? Yes they are – but Mafia families also help out their own when it suits them. It helps to maintain their power.

"Made Men"

The dynastic wars fought throughout Europe up to the start of the 20^th century can easily be seen as the wars of rival criminal gangs squabbling over territory. The nobility were the "made men" of their era and they behaved appropriately. Imagine what Al Capone would have said if his henchmen told him they had "whacked" a usurped rival (suspected of buggery) by sticking a red hot poker up his arse. Now you have the idea, just keep looking for parallels. You will find many.

It is important to realise that a well-ordered society does need protection. It needs a tough champion to keep order. Look at what happened in Yugoslavia when the strong man disappeared. The country quickly fell into a turf war masterminded by very unpleasant war lords – no more unpleasant than medieval kings with their purges and witch-hunts, but very nasty and very up to date. Again, we have no shortage of examples.

Mafia Family

If we look at the terror tactics used by dictators such as Saddam Hussein, we are again reminded of a Mafia family – or even the Doge's Venice. Saddam's supporters were forced into a loyalty coupled with brutality by being constantly watched. They were threatened with becoming victims themselves if they failed to be vicious enough to others.

But what has this to do with democracy, you may ask? It is all about power.

Protection Racket

As Churchill famously wrote, "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." And the problem with democracy, especially representative democracy as practiced in Europe and America, is that it is not very good. And it is not very good because it attracts into government those people who have a taste for power – just the kind of people who are attracted by the idea of running a protection racket. It makes them feel important and gives them control over other people's lives. With the process of democracy, they can achieve power without risking their own skins. But they do share at least one characteristic with the monarchs of old. In order to be successful, they must be completely ruthless. Why? Because they have chosen to inhabit a world where ruthlessness is the only indispensible quality.

The advantage democracy has over other forms of government is that, when operating well, it allows power to be transferred easily from one politician to another. The innocent population no longer gets killed in the cross fire.

Killed in the cross fire

But this does not happen infallibly. At one extreme, democracy is distorted by elections being rigged; or oppositions banned; or constitutions changed or suspended when a leader, drunk on power, refuses to give it up. More commonly, gerrymandering is used to limit the power of the electorate. And unwillingness to give up power is very common. Edna Healy has described the "horse's eye look" that prime ministers get when their power is waning but they do not want to abandon the top job.

The drug of being Capo di tutti capi is both powerful and addictive. It is only the strength invested in the democratic process, and the guarantees of civil liberties, that protects us from those we need to be our leaders. We must defend the structures that have been put into place to mitigate the efforts of politicians to impose their will on the population. We must resist their unfettered use of the new Panopticon. We must ensure they understand that their mandate is limited, that they will always be scrutinized and held to account.

Most people don't seek power. They don't want to interfere in other people's lives. So how is it that politicians find it so easy to whip up a mob and let them loose on their enemies? To stir up hatred against a group of outsiders? To create a new order of demons? A subject for future examination.

MMR Vaccine: Truth and Consequences

All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not honesty and good-nature ~ Michel Eyquem de Montaigne-Delecroix (1533–1592)

This article was prepared before the current measles outbreak was announced. It is even more relevant now.

The MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine has been routinely administered to most one-year-olds in the US since the early 1970s. It was widely introduced into the UK in 1988. Ten years later, in February 1998, thirteen doctors based at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead published a report in the Lancet, alleging that the vaccine was linked to the development of inflammatory bowel disease and autism. (The same research team had already suggested in 1995 that MMR was associated with Crohn's disease, although this claim had quietly been abandoned.) The new report was based on a finding that eight out of twelve children referred to the hospital had suffered from sudden onset of developmental disorders very soon after the administration of the vaccine.

The Guardian, at the time, stated that: "A medical study suggests today that there could be a link between the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) given to children in their second year of life and inflammatory bowel disease and autism … They also found that the behavioural changes in the children which are typical of autism, such as forgetting the basic language they had just learned, began within days of their MMR vaccination".

Report discredited

The doctors' report was discredited by the investigative journalist, Brian Deer, who commented that: "even a superficial examination of the report revealed crude errors, inconsistencies and omissions which might properly have been challenged by the Lancet's editor". Instead of such careful scrutiny, The Royal Free Hospital was quick to promote the report through a press release, a video news release and a press conference.

Deer's investigation, published in a Sunday Times special report and a Channel 4 documentary programme, revealed that Dr Andrew Wakefield, who fronted the study, was receiving payments from Richard Barr, a solicitor who was trying to bring a case (financed by the British Legal Aid Fund) against the vaccine manufacturers. The children cited in the doctors' report, were in fact associated with Barr and his action.

Undermined confidence

The effects of the controversy were to undermine confidence and to drastically reduce the uptake of the MMR vaccination. Between 1995, when information began to appear suggesting that the MMR vaccine was implicated in bowel disorders, and 1998, when the paper was published alleging the link with autism, the uptake of the vaccine fell from 92% (close to the World Health Organisation's recommended level of 95% for the protection of a population) to 88%. It hovered at about this level until 2001 when the case was taken up by the media with a sustained attack on the vaccine.

By 2003, the level of uptake had fallen to around 80%. By then, 12% per year of young children had been put at risk by a scare which proved to be unsubstantiated. And it took until 2005 to bring the uptake rate back to 84%, which is better but still more than 10% below the World Health Organisation's recommended level.

Harm done to the nation's health

It is difficult to assess the harm which this has done to the nation's health.

The chart below, showing the incidence of the three diseases, looks dramatic; incautious journalists might jump to the conclusion that we are in the grip of a mumps epidemic caused by the MMR debacle. They would be wrong. The rise in mumps cases is mostly in the over-15 age group – a group who (as children) were too young to benefit from the introduction of MMR. This is the normal type of epidemic which occurs from time to time and which blanket vaccination is designed to prevent.

There has also been a smaller – but still significant – rise in cases in the under-15s, which probably did result from the MMR boycott. With an epidemic among teenagers and young adults (for whom MMR was not available), and with parents avoiding MMR, young children are being exposed to mumps with no protection against catching the disease.

The second chart shows the infection rates of the other diseases in a little more detail by cutting off the top of the graph and the mumps spike. It shows that there was very little effect on infection rates during the problem period. Epidemics come and go, and luckily there has been no significant outbreak of measles or rubella during the period, as there was with mumps. However, the low level of immunisation has put children and unimmunised adults at risk, in the same way that young adults are currently at risk of catching mumps.

Dangerous diseases

All three diseases are dangerous and can cause serious long term consequences:

• mumps can cause sterility
• rubella can cause birth defects in babies whose mothers are infected during pregnancy
• measles can cause death; in 2006 an uninoculated thirteen-year-old (with an underlying lung condition) was the first child to die of measles in the UK for 14 years

Children who missed out on the MMR are growing up vulnerable to these diseases. More than 3000 of them have already fallen victim to mumps.

So how did we get here and what can we learn? The government, faced with the problem of falling confidence, did not handle the situation well.

Loss of trust

The first and most serious problem was that it had lost the trust of the public. This is not a problem peculiar to the MMR crisis. But it does show how important it is for a government to show itself to be honest and open. Without trust, it cannot carry out its job properly. Here are some factors which led to this disintegration of trust:

• The handling of the BSE crisis by the previous Conservative government which undermined faith in official scientific advice.
• The disastrous strategy used in the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak which led to the closure of the countryside and pyres of burning carcases – how could people trust a government that let things get so out of hand?
• The failure to address the growing menace of hospital acquired infections – most people knew someone who was affected.
• The failure to demonstrate that the huge additional resources which were being poured into the NHS were making a difference – this had a disastrous effect on NHS staff morale and undermined public trust further.
• The style adopted by ministers and officials when questioned about their policies and actions; this had become mealy-mouthed and defensive.
• The failure of Tony Blair to say whether his son Leo had been given the MMR. This undermined confidence in government advice and was a particularly crass version of the "do what I say not what I do" attitude. Blair should have known better. He was a father of a young baby and was dealing with a public fearful for the health of their children and had been given a unique opportunity to demonstrate confidence in the advice of government scientists – an opportunity which he flunked.

Richer parents

In addition, faced with a potential public health disaster, the government failed to try an alternative strategy. Instead of insisting that it was MMR or nothing, they could have offered separate inoculations, an option chosen by many richer parents (including the Blairs? – a later leak suggested that Leo had been given the MMR but by then it was too late). Offering an alternative to MMR, with a carefully-reasoned explanation of why the government felt it was right to choose the three-in-one, would have been so much more reassuring than the "we know best approach" which put thousands of children at risk.

Of course the government were not the only culprits. The more drama-driven elements of the press were all too keen to spread doom-laden predictions over their front pages, to ferment fear and insecurity in their readers. And we must remember who started the whole debacle. Scientists who do not follow proper procedure undermine respect for all scientific research.

And so children were put at risk by a three pronged failure:

• Shoddy science
• A hysterical press
• A mistrusted government

Luck may run out

There is a risk that the whole can of worms will be reopened now that Dr Wakefield and two of his colleagues (Professor John Walker-Smith and Dr Simon Murch) face a hearing before the General Medical Council. They will be questioned about the conduct of the research that underpinned their report. Let us hope that lessons have been learnt and – equally importantly – that no efforts are made to reignite the fears. So far we have been lucky, with only a limited impact from reduced immunisation. Luck may run out.