At Oxford University's Department of Engineering Science, May 24, for the 38th Maurice Lubbock Memorial Lecture on LONDON 2012 - Engineering Success. Professor Guy Houldsby, Head of the Dapartment, is on my left, and the Lecturer Howard Shiplee CBE, Executive Director, Laing O'Rourke, on my right.

Committee Room 14: Medical Justice meeting
Photographs courtesy of Edward Goldwyn

At the Medical Justice meeting to launch The Second Torture

The week

Monday received a large delegation of Bangladesh National Party UK members who presented a petition. I forwarded it to the Foreign Secretary asking if he would take up the human rights matters they raised with the Bangladesh government, Their three main concerns are extrajudicial executions, enforced disappearances and the conduct of the war crimes trials, all of which have been taken up by international NGOs and lawyers.

At question time I had asked the Minister, David Howell, if we might suggest to the Bangladesh government that they issue an invitation to the UN Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances, and he said he would discuss this with colleagues.

Tuesday I recorded a broadcast for Channel 4 TV for transmission that evening, on the report by Medical Justice of the treatment of asylum-seekers who claim they were tortured. MJ showed conclusively that Rules 34 and 35 of the Immigration Rulles, which lay down the procedures for checking and acting on torture claims, are being widely ignored.

Wednesday a meeting with Abdul Malek, BNP convener and colleagues

Thursday, to Oxford to chair the meeting of the Maurice Lubbock Memorial Fund trustees, followed by the Open Day at the Engineering School, and the Maurice Lubbock Memorial Lecture by Howard Shiplee CBE of Laing O'Rourke on "LONDON 2012 - Engineering Success" The completion on time and within budget of the vast collection of engineering projects required for the Olympic Games shows that we can do it, with the right management. We have the engineers, and a skilled and able workforce. Lets hope the Government will  get stuck into other large infrastructure projects as Nick Clegg foreshadowed in his Financial Times article the other day, see http://bit.ly/MmmtQ4

Friday, meeting with Sean Risdale and Matthew Brindley of the Irish Travellers Movement in Britain to discuss the situation at Dale Farm.

 

Lindsay's birthday dinner May 26

The Maurice Lubbock Trustees:
Dr M Jones, Sir John Lucas-Tooth, the Hon Lyulph Lubbock
Dr Alastair Howatson, Lord Avebury

Maurice Lubbock Memorial Fund Trustees meeting May 25

 

In the Garden

 

More medical

Dr L confirms that my disorder is primary myelofibrosis, see http://1.usa.gov/LapWPe

The longer description is "Myeloproliferative disorder/Myelofibrosis cMPL W515L mutation"

Lindsay at the exhibition to mark the centenary of the birth of her mother Pamela Hansford Johnson, in the Clapham Library, which she organised. Pamela was born in Clapham and lived there for the first decade of her life. She wrote 27 novels, some plays, and hundreds of literary articles. Her books have just been republished.

The local elections

 
We have lost many good councillors, and clearly the electors are handing out an equal share of the blame to Liberal Democrat candidates as to Tories for the way Messrs Cameron and Osborne are going about the task of eliminating the deficit. We have been given no credit for mitigating the worst effects of Tory-inspired legislation on health, welfare and the justice system, or for LibDem-inspired ideas like the Pupil Premium and the reduction of taxes on low-paid workers, because people aren't aware of the role we have played in the Coalition. We have tried to explain it, but the media aren't interested.

What the Party needs in the second half of this Parliament is an easily understood objective that distinguishes us from the Tories, a principle that we will apply to all the decisions we have to make on Government business from now on. As I have said here before, there is plenty of evidence [http://bit.ly/bmk8Z] that in more equal societies:

• People live longer, a smaller proportion of children die in infancy and self-rated health is better
• They  are far less likely to experience mental illness.
• They are less likely to use illegal drugs.
• Children do better at school in more equal societies.
• A lower proportion of people are imprisoned
• Obesity is less common
• There is more social mobility
• Communities are more cohesive and people trust each other more
• Homicide rates are lower and children experience less violence
• Teenage motherhood is less  common
• Unicef measures of child wellbeing are better
  Therefore, we should apply this test to all Government measures: do they promote greater equality, or greater inequality,and we should support or oppose them on that basis. The abolition of the 50p tax rate, for instance, should be opposed, as should any further reductions in benefit.  We should promote measures to get people back into paid employment, particularly when they concentrate on helping people at the bottom of the income scale, such as the building of affordable dwellings, and in order to compensate for the additional spending, we should increase taxes on the rich and on the agents of self-harm - alcohol, tobacco, salt, fats and fast food.
  
  LibDem policy has always been to create equality of opportunity. Since the evidence shows that greater equality means greater equality of opportunity, we must believe in promoting equality itself, and in doing so, we can mark out a distinctive territory that will allow us to escape being tarred with the Tory brush.

Medical etc

After a week of diarrhoea, which came to an end yesterday, I was asked to visit haematology outpatients this morning for a checkup.  A blood test showed that platelets were down to 434, within normal range for the first time, but haemoglobin was down to 9.1. The dose of hydroxycarbamide is being maintained pending another blood test next Monday. Evidently its going to be difficult to keep both within tolerable limits and I imagine the time will come when other methods such as a transfusion will have to be adopted.

To the House at quarter to one, where the new Peruvian ambassador Julio Ernesto Muñoz Deacon came to lunch. We had an excellent discussion covering a lot of ground - Peru's rapid growth; the dependence on extractive industries; the problem of water; Peru's relations with the neighbours and particularly Brazil; the problem of inequality, and President Humala's remarkable standing in the polls.

Afterwards, sat in on questions and the first four speeches in the debate on the draft House of Lords Reform Bill. The Labour Party manifesto called for an all-elected upper House, but they see that because no two people agree on what is to be done, the issue is a perfect opportunity for making political mischief. Jan Royall's speech dwelt on the public's lack of interest in reform, particularly when so many are facing serious economic problems. Of course, the time is never right for boring constitutional changes, so we'd better leave the undemocratic appointed Lords alone for another few decades.

Disaster

Torrential rain and gales led to collapse of massive bush and part of the boundary wall. We need to establish whether the wall is owned by us or the Borough of Lambeth, who own No 24

With Frances & Ros, Lyulph & Sue, at Eric's memorial, High Elms April 22

Rest of the week

Tuesday: meeting chaired by Martin Horwood MP to launch Christian Aid's report The Scandal of Inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean, which has a chapter on Peru. Growth has been vigorous, but concentrated in the extractive industries, which don't create proportionate employment for the poor, or generate proportionate services that benefit the whole population.

Wednesday, meeting with Peruvian visitors to discuss mainly the problems cause by extractive industries, reinforcing the Christian Aid message, Presidentb Humala came into office pledged to support the cause of the poor, and indigenous people in particular, and there is still hope that he will deliver the goods. Its a matter of ensuring that the tax revenues from oil and gas, and mining, are well spent, and that personal taxation is redistributive. As in other Latin American countries, there is a very rich elite.

Thursday, I chaired a very useful meeting of the Department for Education's Gypsy, Roma and Traveller Stakeholder Group. We had the best attendance ever, and got through a substantial agenda in two and a quartr hours.

Back to work

The House met again this week after a 3.week break. Monday the main business was the Commons amendments to the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, which was sent back to the Commons for a send time, with some of our amendments reinstated, including the one that removed the deduction from awards made by the court to claimants suffering from mesothelioma of 'success fees' and After the Event Insurance. After that I attended the Baha'i annual reception but didn't stay very long because my legs hurt if I stand for any length of time.

I've had diarrhoea all week and though I''ve managed to get through all the engagements in the diary its left me feeling washed out. So having had my weekly Skype call to Maurice in Auckland I'm going to bed early, and hope to resume this blog tomorrow.

Daniel Thornton speaks. On the right of the picture is Labour peer Paul Boateng, who is travelling to Ghana on behalf of the All-Party Group today to attend the simultaneous launch there of Pneumococcal and Roatvirus vaccines. Together those diseases kill an estimated 1.5 million children a year worldwide. Ghana is the first country in the world to launch the two vaccines together - a great achievement!

A good audience

 

Flo Benjamin speaking. Daniel Thornton, Chief of Staff to the CEO of GAVI on her left

Flo Benjamin, Liberal Democrat peer and children's advocate, meets Dr Sabrina Kitaka, senior lecturer and paediatric and adolescent health specialist at Makerere University, Uganda. With William Heald, organiser of the All-Party Parliamentary Group Against Childhood Pneumonia

World Immunisation Week

Glenys Kinnock, Opposition Spokesperson on Intenational Development, addressing the meeting. On her left, Kirsten Mathieson from Save the Children, who gave a preview of their report on the children still to be reached

Blasphemy

If ants could think, express themselves and communicate ideas to each other, and an ant expressed a disrespectful opinion or used an insulting expression about a human being, she wouldn't turn a hair. The ant's insult would be of no concern to the human, she being so far above the insect in the scale of living things, Similarly if a god or gods exist, they would be so immeasurably superior to humans that blasphemy would be of no importance in their minds. Humans do get angry when another member of the same species insults them, so blasphemy is attribution of human reactions to the gods

Catherine Knyvett, 11G grandmother

 

Kismayo

Should EU naval forces help Kenya/Ethiopia joint operation to occupy Kismayo by blockading the port to prevent pirates and terrorists escaping to Yemen? http://bit.ly/I8V6nx

Bahrain

According to The Guardian, Mr Cameron will identify four groups in the Islamic world that are determined to defeat democracy. First are the authoritarian leaders Muammar Gaddafi, Hosni Mubarak, former Tunisian President Zine-al-Abidine Ben Ali and Assad

In each case", he says, the Arab spring has shown that denying people their rights in the name of stability and security actually males countries less stable in the end. Over time the pressure builds up until the people take to the streets and demand their freedoms".

What does Mr Cameron think the people of Bahrain have been doing, and why is the name Hamad al-Khalifa missing from his list of authoritarian leaders?

Huge lunch at Lyulph's April 6, 2012

 

JW & cat at Lyulph's April 6

 

Somali piracy

When enemy combatants are captured during a war, they are imprisoned without trial until peace returns. Would it be possible for the UN to develop a n analogous legal regime under which Somali (or other) pirates captured under arms could be similarly held without trial in a designated territory until the piracy operations are declared at an end, or for ten years, whichever is the less? See http://ind.pn/HnTO9B

My father at Avebury 1909

 

Alistair pondering the meaning of life, or just putting on a funny face?

 

East Timor

Contrary to John Pilger’s New Statesman article (http://bit.ly/I6Yu6c), silence didn’t envelop  East Timor after the Indonesian annexation of 1975. Carmel Budiardjo’s TAPOL reported in detail on the occupation, and a network of MPs from Japan, Australia and the UK campaigned for East Timor’s liberation.

With Kohee

 

Alastair signs the visitors; book'

 

A happy reunion

With Mekh Gurung, Indra, and daughter Kohee, 6. She was interested in the cats, and wanted to know if we thought there were cats on other planets. The consensus was that if life evolved elsewhere in the universe to the same extent as it has on earth, the most intelligant species would probably have domestic pets, but they might not look or behave like cats. Kohee is doing very well at school!

Alastair visits

Dear little Alastair, who was staying overnight April 5/6