John Hemming's Web Log

It is unusual for The Sun to come out critical of the system. This Article by Jane Moore is not officially from "the sun", but it is exceptional to get this reported. It properly identifies the flaws in government policy in keeping what is happening in the courts secret. "IT can no longer be ignored by those who purport to be in charge of this country that something is deeply rotten at the core of Britain’s social services."

this briefing is a good summary of the new standards regime. The new regime reinforces democracy ensuring that councillors are primarily accountable to the electorate.

I have just started reading the World Energy Outlook 2012. It will take some effort to properly review this, but it is an interesting document. Followers of my comments will have noted that oil demand by the OECD peaked somewhere between 2005 and 2008. It depends whether you look quarterly or monthly or even daily (and those figures would be hard to get in a reliable sense). However, in terms of millions of barrells of oil per day old demand is about 10% less than it was. The first interesting thing about the WEO is that with the "new policies" scenario that is their key scenario in fact oil consumption continues to go down from 2020 to 2035 (in the OECD). On a 5 yearly basis the USA's consumption is shown as peaking in 2010. (page 564) OECD Europe oddly enough has its highest figures marginally in 1990, but that is only because 2000 is missed out. I think again the peak for Europe (OECD) would be somewhere in 2005-8. The other interesting element is looking at …

This is a post by someone who was adopted. The person concerned was adopted at age 7 months which is only just into the start of the period at which people could get RAD and hence is a good case to be considered as part of what the government wish to achieve. The underlying problem in terms of government policy is the failure to properly and scientifically approach the analysis of the policy. It is absolutely no good at all simply picking on a few examples where things have worked out well and using those as justification for the policy. What is needed is an analysis of the effects of each step in the decisionmaking process. For example there is a step of a court order placing one or more children for adoption. What needs to be studied is what the consequences are of this. It is wrong to simply consider the children that do end up adopted, you also need to consider those that don't. The Education select committee (actually its predecessor) visited Denmark and considered …

Rico Sorda has kindly extracted my speech of today onto his web log here I shall highlight the key element:
Parliament has to stand on the side of the powerless. Whitehall mandarins, judges, BBC managers, council bureaucrats and professionals all have their own interests and a desire to hide mistakes. Parliament needs to balance the scales on the side of the weak—those without wealth who are crying out and not being heard.

The saga of the Ariel and Prospero statue warrants a read as well.

As a result of the efforts of the Deputy Lord Mayor there is now a special Birmingham Poppy (which I used to attach my more traditional poppy for the remembrance service today)

This web page has the BBC interviewing various people (including myself) about Jersey. One of the commentators said that those on the side of the establishment were given twice as long as the anti-corruption campaigners. I haven't checked this.

Warning: Most of this is in Italian.

There will, of course, be a move to claim that all the current stories revealing historic coverups are historic and have no relevance today.

However, this would be misleading. I know of recent cases of children being maltreated in care that I have reported to the authorities and received an inadequate response. It is also obvious that the action of banning Leah McGrath Goodman was part of a coverup. This happened in 2011.

This is a report about the possible economic consequences of peak oil from the IMF. The report is impressive because of the way in which it looks at a number of the key issues. It comes to similar conclusions to those which I have highlighted. Historically the DTI refused to do a risk analysis on peak oil because it was "too risky." I need to allocate some serious time to reading the IMF report.

Humanitarian Crisis for Indian children and their families in confiscatory child care proceedings abroad
The original document is here.

A case for intervention under human rights laws for the repatriation of Indian children facing foreign confiscatory care proceedings to their relatives in India, instead of being consigned to foreign state institutions or foster care, or being given away in forced adoption abroad.
Summary
Petition to the National Human Rights Commission to:
 recommend that the Government of India institutes a formal and transparent mechanism for the return to India of Indian children caught in confiscatory child care proceedings abroad
 commission a legal and statistical study on the functioning of confiscatory child protection or child welfare laws abroad
 spread awareness of the humanitarian concerns raised in this petition

12 October 2012
To, National Human Rights Commission Faridkot House, Copernicus Marg New Delhi – 110 001
Re: Petition to the National Human…