John Hemming's Web Log

The government recently released detailed figures on the daily admissions into hospital NHS trusts for Covid. Previously only the government had this information, people more generally could not get it. The importance of this is that it becomes possible to check whether the government's figures for infection area by area are accurate or not. Obvoiusly there is not a one to one relationship between local authorities, MSOAs and NHS trusts. Sometimes people go to a different hospital to their local one, but normally they go to the local one. Hence we can do a broad brush test for accuracy. I have picked London because the government are claiming a uniformly high level of infection across the city. The evidence from hospital admissions is that there is infection, but many hospitals have not actually had much of a second wave (click on Guys below to see an example) and the remaining infection growth is in a limited number of trusts. The table looks at growth from the peak in Apr...

Vitamin K is a closely related group of molecules. The main division is into K1 (Phytomenadione) , K2 (Menaquinone) and K3 (Menadione) . The first two types occur naturally in food and the third is created synthetically and used in animal feed. Originally K was identified and named by Henrik Carl Peter Dam (1895-1976) and Edward Adelbert Doisy (1893-1986) because it assisted in the coagulation of blood, but another function relates to handling the calcium balance in blood. It was perhaps second noticed for its benefits for dental health. In Particular K2 has been identified as being good at ensuring that calcium is built into bones and not into soft tissue (be that arterial calficiation or elsewhere). There is a debate as to whether K2-Mk4 or K2-Mk7 is more effective. The different types of K2 are named depending upon the number of molecular parts called isoprene residues attached to the original vitamin K structure. Unsurprisingly MK4 has 4 and MK7 has 7. There are ...

I am not quite sure when Insomnia became an issue for me. I was born in 1960 and it may have been in the early 2000s (20 years ago at the time of writing), but I know it was an issue for a long time. I had tended to get into the habit of normally going to sleep drunk, waking up in the middle of the night and then hoping to get some reasonable sleep between perhaps 6am and 7am so that I was functional for the next day. In 2016, however, I started to keep some records as to particularly what I was drinking, but also my blood pressure and heart rate on waking and going to sleep. I then decided to put some serious effort into improving my sleep patterns. I am pleased to say that I have made good progress with improving sleep and getting rid of insomnia. I have decided to write this blog post. In part to enable me to structure the medical research that I have collated and in part because I have found that people are unsurprisingly often quite interested in my experience in this area....

I made the mistake recently of allowing Windows to update the operating system. Immediately after updating the operating system Chrome stopped logging in automatically (the bit on the top right of Chrome said "paused"). This has happened to quite a few people so I looked up to find out solutions one place that has solutions is https://9to5google.com/2020/06/15/google-chrome-windows-10-may-update-issues/ . On that I did try the Windows-L to lock and unlock, but that appeared to help sometimes, but was not that helpful. However, I do now I think have a solution. It appears that after you login to the windows operating system it does some security processes. If you wait long enough by making a cup of tea before logging into chrome then chrome logs in OK. However, if you go immediately into chrome it fails to log in. This is obviously some form of bug in Windows, but I am pleased that I have a solution that so far seems to work. It is also a solution that involves makin...

Birmingham based Fintech, Cirrostratus Exedra, claims its Open Banking Treasury Management Software is a defence for senior directors against fraud such as Wirecard or Patisserie Valerie. Cirrostratus Exedra through its Vat Direct website gives senior directors the ability to see the balances on all of their bank accounts up to the minute whatever bank they bank with.  CEO John Hemming said, "To find out all the balances on all of the bank accounts without account consolidation means logging in onto all of the online banking services.   That takes a long time to do. However, our treasury management Open Banking service enables Directors to see all the current balances on all of the bank accounts on a single website page." "With Patisserie Valerie and Wirecard some directors were misled as to how much cash the business actually had in bank accounts. Had Luke Johnson, the chairman of Patisserie Valerie been able to look at all of the balances on all of the ba...

Following the launch of a campaign against the use of false allegations, campaigners have been protesting across the country from Liverpool, to Newcastle, from Shrewsbury to Brighton about the Labour Party's lack of concern about the use of false allegations by senior Labour Party officials. John Hemming said, "The vast majority of people are opposed to the promotion of false allegations. However, it appears that the Labour Party nationally are not really bothered about the promotion of false allegations by senior Labour Party politicians as long as the target of those false allegations are opposition politicians." "Although Tom Watson has stepped down as a Labour Candidate he remains for now the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party.   Jess Phillips is also the Chair of the Womens Labour Parliamentary Party.  A material number of Labour MPs have been involved in the promotion of false allegations of child rape against political opponents as well as these tw...

Many people will know that my family and I have been subject to a campaign of false allegations by Esther Baker for the past 4 1/2 years. Yesterday there was a court judgment Baker v Hemming [2019] EWHC 2950 (QB) which formally confirmed that the allegations were false. Esther Baker, who had brought a libel claim against me, dropped her defence of Truth to my counter-claim and was taken by the judge as no longer trying to prove her allegations. Due to Baker's various breaches of court rules and orders, she has been barred from further repeating her allegations even in the court proceedings. Further claim of mine in libel against Baker are ongoing. There is a good summary in the Daily Mail here . This demonstrates the challenge in fighting false allegations in today's Britain. A substantial campaign was built up to promote allegations which had no substance to them. Various Labour MPs and in...

Click here to try the beta test call entre phoning service "John Hemming, who has created an internet Startup called Cirrostratus since he ceased being an MP, is launching a free online service to make life easier for people phoning call centres.   The service is provided by Cirrostratus, but the SIP backbone is provided by the multi-award winning business VoIP solution, Soho66." John said, "Many people find phoning call centres a real pain.  Our service is aiming to make things a lot easier.   One click on alink or the bookmarks list and our server will phone up the call centre and get through all the menus.  This is a lot faster than when people have to phone up and is less irritating." "Additionally the system uses WebRtc and the internet to make the call. This means that people don't find their normal phone system being blocked whilst they hang on the line waiting to speak to a human being." Marketing Manager from Soho66, David McManus, said:...

It was recently reported that the police were not investigating the allegations of Perverting the Course of Justice that I had made. This came as a surprise to me as I had been told for some time that my allegations were to be considered once the VRR had been rejected. I have now had a very constructive meeting with Staffordshire police on Friday 29th June 2018 and the misunderstandings have been resolved. At that meeting the evidence relating to the perversion of the course of justice and the harassment campaign against my family were discussed. The police have decided to investigate both the perversion of the course of justice and also the harassment campaign. I would like to thank them for changing their decision and I accept their apology for the way in which they did that. I am also in possession of written confirmation a police force would be investigating allegations that a vulnerable witness has been harassed for trying to expose the campaign against me. I hope that the auth...

I have now reviewed the case paperwork for the above case where I have been asked for further and better particulars of the situation with the final hearing and had a meeting with the grandparents. There is no judgment for the case. I have read the transcript of the hearing. This confirms that the hearing lasted of the order of 10 minutes as what was treated as a consent hearing. The grandmother was in the court building, but not in the hearing. The grandfather was in part of the court hearing, but because of hearing difficulties could not really hear what was going on. The judge was told that the grandparents consented both to a care order and to the threshold documents. The grandparents are both adamant that they did not consent to the care order or that the facts of the the threshold warranted removing their grandchild. The nub of the case was the agreed fact that the grandfather in order to keep their granddaughter safe and stop her getting up to cook during the night, loc...

Statement by John Hemming I am pleased that the Police have now made it clear that there has been a concerted effort to promote false criminal allegations against me and that the allegations had no substance whatsoever. I would like to thank Emily Cox, my children, Ayaz Iqbal (my Solicitor), my local lib dem team and many others who supported me through this dreadful experience. There are many worse things that happen to people, but this was a really bad experience. It is bad enough to have false allegations made about yourself to the police, but to have a concerted campaign involving your political opponents and many others in public creates an environment in which it is reasonable to be concerned about ill founded vigilante attacks on your family and yourself. Luckily there was a more substantial lobby to the contrary as well, which included many people who were themselves real survivors of abuse, which has helped. I am normally someone who helps other people figh...

I have always wanted to put together some figures to see what has been happening to total government expenditure. It was clear at the start of the coalition government that what started as a government which was really quite tight as to finance developed into a government with some financial flexibility. At the time I knew that was because the interest rates on government debt were coming down which freed up money to be spent. I have spent a little time getting at the statistics from the ONS to try to see what actually has happened actually since 1998. In the chart below I have taken the ONS figures for spending in the calendar year. That is because the inflation figures (RPI/CPI) are also calendar year figures. In the end a similar pattern would arise with financial year figures. What I have taken is the current spending excluding banks and calculated that in 1987 Equivalent Pounds sterling. When copying the image from my source data I have left the source figures both for cu...

Original Date 26th May 2017 One thing I used to do when I was the Member of Parliament for Yardley was to call together meetings of all of the religious organisations in Yardley as a Yardley multi-faith group.  In many ways it is the creation of informal links between people that makes communication easier even if there is no formal decision making power. Obviously this is something I would intend to do again if the people of Yardley ask me to take on the responsibility of representing them in parliament. It highlights the sort of thing that politicians can do which arises from a leadership role within communities rather than any constitutional position. I have already written in an earlier blog post about the principles of resolving conflict.  It can be summarised as "murdering innocents is wrong". A number of local mosques have issued statements following the atrocity in Manchester and I think it is worth quoting from parts of them. One said that the mosque ...

Candidates in elections tend to find themselves very busy with lots of things to do.  It is, therefore, necessary to prioritise things to ensure that the important things are dealt with. To me the issue of homelessness and rough sleeping is an important issue.  Therefore, when Birmingham's Faith Leaders group contacted me to ask me what I would propose and whether I would work with them to make things better I was pleased to respond with my views and indicate that I would work with them after the election. The Faith Leaders Group (Bishops and other religious leaders in Birmingham) have now sent out their report. Sadly, according to their report,  I was the only candidate for Yardley to respond.  The group in their report said: "Particularly disappointing was the lack of response from some of those candidates seeking re-election as MP for their respective constituencies." It is worth looking at the priorities of my opponent. Interestingly today she has dec...

Plans by Theresa May to axe free school lunches would waste the £2,267,245 invested in Birmingham to upgrade school kitchens, according to the Liberal Democrats. It comes after figures revealed 31,895 children in Birmingham are set to lose out under the Conservative proposals. When in government, the Liberal Democrats invested £160m upgrading school kitchen facilities to enable them to prepare hot lunches, including £2,267,245 in Birmingham. John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat candidate for Yardley commented: “The Liberal Democrats in government invested £160m to give schools the kitchens they needed to ensure that no infant would go hungry, including over £2,000,000 in Birmingham. "This policy was extremely successful and guaranteed that local children received at least two of their five a day in their school lunch. “But now Theresa May is threatening to throw that money down the drain. "A Conservative measure designed to save money will waste m...

Conservative manifesto plans will mean the average household in Birmingham could be forced to pay 39.5% of the value of their homes for social care after they die, it has been revealed. The manifesto plans, which would mean that people would be forced to hand over assets worth over £100,000 to pay for social care at home, would have a particularly damaging impact on sufferers of dementia, who have complicated long-term health needs. The Liberal Democrats have hit out at the plans and are calling for a cap of £72,000 to protect people from crippling care costs. John Hemming, Liberal Democrat candidate for Yardley said: “Many elderly people currently face the cruel situation of having to sell their home when they die to fund residential care home costs.  Now the frail and elderly receiving care in their own home will face a ‘Personal Death Tax’ charged against their home. And the more help you need, the more the Conservatives will take when you die. “The Liberal Democrats ...

The Liberal Democrats have slammed the Conservative proposed "dementia tax," as official figures have revealed the number of people diagnosed with dementia reached a record high of over 442,000 last month. NHS digital statistics show that in April 2017, the number of patients recorded by GPs as having dementia was 442,000, more than double the 220,000 cases recorded 10 years ago. Older people with dementia often need care in their own homes for many years, meaning they would be hit with crippling costs to pay for their own care under Conservative proposals. Over 134,000 patients with dementia were below the age of 79, while 307,000 were 80 or older. Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary Norman Lamb commented: "These figures reveal the impact the Conservative dementia tax will have on thousands of vulnerable people across the country. "Frail and elderly people receiving care in their own home will now face a ‘Personal Death Tax’ charged against...

The Labour Candidate has recently claimed that John Hemming was campaigning for unilateral nuclear disarmament at the 2015 General Election. This has been done on twitter and this is what she has said: She also seems to be confused between multilateral disarmament and unilateral disarmament. The Lib Dem position in 2015 and now was one of keeping nuclear weapons, but having fewer of them. In a world with rogue nations such as North Korea we cannot throw away the nukes as Jeremy Corbyn would do. It was recently confirmed that even though many Labour MPs wish to keep the nuclear weapons, Jeremy Corbyn might still scrap them as PM. John Hemming's view has been one wishing to see multilateral nuclear disarmament (where everyone in the world gives up having nuclear weapons), but of course with North Korea doing what they are doing this is not possible now and is unlikely to be possible for many years. He has not supported unilateral nuclear disarmament (where the UK throws aw...

This is a link to a debate in 2007. At that debate I asked a question of the minister: John Hemming (Birmingham, Yardley) (LD):  As an ex-cub scout, venture scout and assistant scout leader, I welcome the recognition of the importance of scouting in its centenary year and hope that funding follows. The Minister will be aware that I am concerned that children are inappropriately put into care and that research demonstrates that 70 per cent. of children return to their parents when they escape from the control of the state at the age of 16. I am particularly concerned about deaths of children in care, particularly one that occurred in the Trafford local authority area earlier this year. We must ask why arbitrary bureaucratic rules prevent children in care from making toast for each other but do not allow people to prevent them from acting as youth prostitutes. Will she look into the treatment of children in care, including the activities they are allowed to be involved in? B...