Vascular

Yesterday, six monthly scan to check EVAR (endovascular aneurysm repair), see Friday July 16, 2010. Its  an artificial plastic aorta, and its working OK. We had a discussion with the consultant about the blockages in both femoral arteries and he agreed to have them scanned with a view to possible angioplasties. I don't think Professor M will approve.

Bach Cello Suite No 2 in D minor

I have resolved to listen to some music before shutting down for the night. This evening it was the immortal Rostropovich playing Bach's cello suite No 2 in D minor.

View from my office window 17.40 this afternoon

Institute of Fiscal Studies analyses Party manifestos

Yesterday the IFS confirmed that the Liberal Democrats are the most transparent party in our manifesto. Tories give a “misleading impression” of cuts. Labour give “disappointingly little” information on borrowing and do not provide enough funding for the NHS.

The IFS found:

●       Lib Dems most transparent of all the parties

●       Lib Dems only party that will end austerity in 2017/18

●       Lib Dems will deliver £8bn for NHS and invest in public services

·         Conservatives will embark on £30bn of cuts to public services that are “not mentioned” in their manifesto

·         Conservatives manifesto gives “a misleading impression” of the scale of the cuts to public services

·         Conservatives “have not provided anything like complete details” of how they would eliminate the deficit

·         Labour will only increase spending on the NHS by £4.2bn - which the IFS describe as “a very tight settlement”

·         Labour “not spelling out” how much they would cut unprotected departments by

·         Labour have provided “disappointingly little” information on what they would borrow

·         SNP debt scenario similar to Labour’s

·         IFS said today that austerity would continue for longer under the SNP

·         SNP will spend more on debt interest and less on public services than the Liberal Democrats

Liberal Democrats plan to help carers

Disability manifesto / King’s Fund

Stronger Economy. Fairer Society. Opportunity for Everyone

Disability manifesto

A £150m package for Britain’s 6.5 million carers is being announced by the Liberal Democrats today as part of our Disability Manifesto.

The package will help carers across Britain who support their loved ones who are older, disabled or seriously ill.

Around  one in every eight adults provide unpaid care for family and friends. Under the Liberal Democrats these carers will receive a £250 grant to ease the cost of looking after family members who require support for 35 hours or more each week over a 12 month period.

In addition, the NHS will have a legal duty to identify carers and introduce an innovative new ‘Carer’s Passport’ that provides people who look after ill and vulnerable loved ones with privileged support.

This could range from more flexible visiting hours and free hospital parking, through to free cinema tickets, free restaurant meals, and free gym sessions.

Carers could get an additional five days paid additional ‘care leave’ a year, and would be allowed to do more work without losing their Carer’s Allowance by extending the ‘earnings limit’ from £110 per week to £150 per week, putting more money back into their pockets.

In government, the Liberal Democrats would also appoint a new cross-government ‘Carer’s Champion’ to ensure carers get a voice at the heart of government.

The Disability Manifesto also includes measures to simplify the disability benefits system and protect benefits for the disabled from cuts to welfare, encourage employers to take on more people with disabilities who want to work, give people with disabilities better access to transport, and tackle disability hate crimes.

King’s Fund report

The latest King’s Fund quarterly monitoring report suggests the NHS is facing its “biggest challenge for years” with mounting deficits, worsening performance and declining staff morale.

That's why Liberal Democrats have a credible plan to invest the £8 bn per year that NHS bosses say it needs by 2020. We are the ONLY party to come up with a plan.

We will invest £1bn from higher taxes on the wealthy to enable the NHS to provide care closer to home, so fewer people have to go into hospital.

The NHS needs more than investment. So we are calling on all parties to join us in a non-partisan review of health and care after the election to ensure our NHS is safeguarded for the future.

Lindsay's office

Migrant deaths in Mediterranean

House of Lords Official Report November 4, 2014 Column 1619

Lord Avebury (LD): My Lords, does my noble friend note the comment made by the UN special rapporteur on migrant rights that it is appalling to bank on a rise in the number in people who drown acting as a deterrent? Does he think that the EU views a steep rise in the number of people killed with complacency, if not with satisfaction, because more people are drowning and acting as a deterrent?

Lord Bates: It is certainly not the case to say that the Government have been passive on this. My right honourable friend the Home Secretary had meetings with her Italian counterparts last month, and will meet them again this month. We have extended our offers of support and of course we have looked at the countries from which most of these migrants are coming, namely Syria and Ethiopia. We are putting large sums of money—£700 million in the first instance, £360 million in the second—to try and help people to give themselves a proper life at home.

Its all very well to say, as the inane Philip Hammond does, that "we must target the traffickers". We don't have any jurisdiction over what criminals are doing in Libya, where there are two competing governments plus the Daesh and no effective law enforcement. There's a faint hope that the two governments might reach a compromise at UN brokered talks in Nigeria, but if not, there's no hope of dealing with the traffickers or the increasing flow of destitute migrants.

After May 7

The polls are consistently predicting that neither Labour or Conservatives will have a majority in the next Parliament and while they could all be wrong, don't bet on it. Betfair says that 87% of thepunters are putting heir money on a hung Parliament.

That seems to indicate another coalition, but the British people wouldn't take kindly to a deal between Labour and the SNP, the only combination which might produce a Commons majority. The alternative would be a minority Government.

The moderating influence of a strong LibDem contingent will be essential to stability in any imaginable scenario..

Outlaw caste discrimination

The Liberal Democrat manifesto, published today, says

"We will... outlaw caste discrimination"

We had fought hard with others  to insert a provision in the Equality Act to treat caste as an aspect of race, but the best we could achieve was to give the  Government an obligation to make such an Order, without specifying a date for it, see http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2013/24/section/97. The Tories, under pressure from high caste Hindus, created a process involving two consultations, a feasibility study and other delaying mechanisms lasting two years, so that the law had not come into effect by the General Election.

People who want to end caste discrimination in the UK have an opportunity now to ask the candidates for their constituency standing in the election if they will support the implementation of this law without further delay in the next Parliament.

Cataract operation

Just got home at 15.30 from St Thomas's where I had a cataract operation on my left eye, having had the right eye done a few weeks ago. It took about 30 minutes, a bit longer than the previous one because the surgeon was instructing someone. The eye feels a bit sore as is natural,  and so far the sight from it is blurred, though  I dare say that will improve over the nest few days. No other engagements for the rest of today.

Wednesday evening

This morning when I woke up the eye was inflamed and painful. We rang the hospital and went there for it to be examined. Saw the duty eye doctor after a couple of hours' wait, by which time the paracetamol I had taken earlier had kicked in and I was feeling much better. The doctor said the inflammation wasn't abnormal - though I didn't experience it when the cataract in the right eye was operated on a few weeks ago. Vision of the left eye is still slightly blurred, but that's caused b the macular degeneration, not the operation. Probably I will be able to see reasonably well for the remaining 14 months or so of my life.

Copy letter to FCO Minister who deals with Saudi Arabia

Note: As expected, this example shows that letters to FCO Ministers about important human rights issues from several weeks before general election purdah started will not receive substantive answers.

From Lord Avebury                                                                                       P1501032

March 1, 20015

Dear Tobias,

 A new law has been enacted in Saudi Arabia  with effect from February 1, 2015,    The Penal Law for Crimes of Terrorism and its Financing (Royal Decree No. 44 (12/2013).   The effect of it is

a.       To criminalise any conduct that “disturbs public order” (a charge used frequently against dissenters and human rights activists) and anyone aiming to “infringe the interests of the kingdom, or its economy, or its national or social security.” This would cover any criticism of Saudi law, policy or the authorities within or outside Saudi Arabia.

b.       To grant extensive powers to the interior minister, undermining the due process rights of the accused in existing Saudi law. The minister is given power to order arrests of terrorism suspects without going through the public prosecutor, as well as powers to access the suspect’s private banking and communications information, all without any judicial oversight.

c.        To give the Saudi Specialised Criminal Court (SCC) authority to hear witnesses and experts without the presence of the defendant or the defendant’s lawyer.  It does not require the court to inform the defendant or his/her lawyer of the content of the testimony, and  allows the court to convict on evidence that the defendant is incapable of knowing or challenging. 

d.       To list offences that shall apply to anyone, whether of Saudi or foreign nationality, who commits or aids and abets in the commission of an offence described in the law while outside the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia thus allowing those who are concerned about human rights in Saudi Arabia to be convicted in their absence and without knowing the evidence against them. 

e.        To restrict a suspect’s right to access to a lawyer for an undefined time, the period to be determined by the investigating agency.  This would deny access to a lawyer during interrogation in contravention of the provisions of the Saudi criminal procedure law.

f.        To raise the current legal limit on the time officials may hold a suspect in pre-trial detention from 6 months to 12, with power to the SCC to grant an unlimited extension, and increases detention of the terrorist suspect incommunicado from 60 to 90 days from the date of arrest.

Saudi Arabia is at the bottom of the list of countries in the world for observance of human rights (See the global survey of Freedom in the World 2015), below China, Cuba and Russia!  Its record in relation to the Shia minority and human rights activists is atrocious and many have been kept untried for years in Saudi jails. As you know, capital punishment is handed down frequently, and so is flogging, up to 1000 lashes at the rate of 50 a week in public.   

You are probably aware of the case of the British citizen Abdul Hakim Gellani, dob    December 11, 1964, director of a travel agency that specialised in pilgrimages to Mecca.  On November 19, 2005, while on a business visit to Saudi Arabia, Mr Gellani was arrested in Mecca by the Saudi Security Services. Following intervention by the FCO, as well as a law firm contracted by Mr Gellani’s family, the Saudi authorities finally acknowledged his arrest and detention on December 14, 2005.  On December 18, 2005, Mr. Gellani was transferred to Ruwais Prison in Jeddah  and received a welfare visit from the British Consulate the following day, but did not receive a full consular visit until March 12, 2006. He went on a hunger strike protesting his conditions of detention and lack of a fair trial. He was not charged in accordance with the Saudi Law of Criminal Procedure.  He was not brought before a judge until July 19, 2006, when he was released.  He then tried to leave Saudi Arabia and the FCO gave him a new passport, his existing passport having been seized by the Saudi authorities, but the Saudis refused to give him an exit visa.

Following an interview with Al-Jazeera that covered detention conditions in Saudi prisons, Mr Gellani was re-arrested by the Saudi Security Services on August 8, 2007 at Hotel Morjane, his temporary residence in Mecca. The Saudi Arabian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied Mr Gellani’s detention until September 23, 2007. Subsequently, his family learned that he had been transferred to Ruwais Prison, where he was held incommunicado until October 27, 2007 when he received a visit from the British Consulate, the first since his re-arrest. After that visit, he was allowed regular calls to his family and further consular visits.  

 Mr Gellani was held in solitary confinement and, on several occasions, had to sleep on the floor, without blankets and in a constantly lit cell. He was subjected to severe beatings and humiliation. On other occasions, he was denied the Koran and was handcuffed for several days. Such treatment, together with the fact that Mr Gellani did not know when his detention would end, amounts to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment and represents a grave breach of Mr Gellani’s rights under the Saudi domestic laws and international law.  In neither of his periods of detention was Mr Gellani   charged, and although he was brought before a judge several times, he was told that he could not be heard without a lawyer.

In September 2010, Mr Gellani’s family, with the help of a London-based law firm and the intervention of the FCO, succeeded in obtaining a Saudi lawyer to represent him in court proceedings. However, the lawyer was prevented from appearing in court at Mr Gellani’s last hearing, scheduled for September 26, 2010 as he was arrested on the day of the hearing and detained for three days by the authorities for interrogation. Thus Mr Gellani was not given a fair trial, nor had he proper access to legal counsel, let alone to information regarding the length of, or reasons for,  his continued detention. The matter was considered by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in late 2010 and they produced an Opinion.   The Opinion was communicated to the Saudi Government on December 28, 2010 but no response was ever received.  Mr Gellani was released over nine months after the Opinion was communicated and no compensation has ever been paid to him.  

 In light of the gross and persistent violations of human rights by Saudi Arabia, and their treatment of UK citizens in particular, it is manifestly inappropriate for the state to be a member of the Human Rights Council, and I would be grateful if you could let me know whether there is any mechanism by which they can be ejected from the Council?

As regards the new law mentioned above, could you please tell 

a.    How the Government will protect British Citizens detained under this new law.

b.     What guidance they intend to give to companies and individuals engaged in trade with Saudi Arabia or conducting business in Saudi Arabia.

c.    What amendments they will make to the travel advice given on the FCO website on the risks visitors to Saudi Arabia may incur under the new law.

Tobias Ellwood Esq MP,

Foreign & Commonwealth Office

London SW1A 2AH.

David says "... the failure to find a just settlement and a genuine peace process, has led to a further 35 years of hatred, lost lives, and lost opportunities.

David Alton's photographs of our visit to Shatila Palestinian refugee camp, 1980

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