Wiggins achievement in perspective

Wiggins in yellow with his Team Sky support
earlier this week

 "I'm on that list of riders who won Paris‑Nice, the Dauphiné. There's just one left now to win."


So said Bradley Wiggins yesterday after winning the 2012 Paris-Nice to add to his 2011 win in the Criterium de Dauphiné Liberé. But who else in on that list?


Well 3 time Tour de France winner Louison Bobet (1954-6), five time Tour Champions Jacques Anquetil (1957, 1961-4) and Eddy Merckx (1969-72, 1974) and Raymond Poulidor who while he never won le Tour did win the 1964 Vuelta a España. It means that of the five names of those who have won the two eight-day Tours only Wiggins has yet to win a Grand Tour and along with Poulidor, who was up against Merckx is the only one yet not to have won le Tour.


Here's another thing, apart from Poulidor, Wiggins is the only one to have won the Dauphiné first. Anquetil thrice (1963, 65-6), Merckx (1971) and now Wiggins 2011-12 are the only riders to be champions of both at the same time. The first time the other two did it they went on to win their third Tours. 


Wiggins isn't talking himself up too much ahead of July instead saying:

"I don't know if I'm a favourite [for the Tour] but I'm one of maybe five riders who can do something there [overall] this summer. I said Paris-Nice was a stepping stone, no disrespect for Paris-Nice. But I must continue that progression to July now. Lance Armstrong warned me recently not to burn too many matches for July. It's certainly a long trail."

But he is taking the advise of the seven times winner. Only the Tours of Catolonia and Romandie, his defense in the Dauphiné are where he will be competing ahead of the three weeks in July in which he could make history. 


But he already has as a winner of both, indeed a concurrent holder of, the Dauphiné and Paris-Nice titles.

1st Amendment Censorship, Texas Abortion Law and Doonesbury Day 1

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution

I've watched this weekend anxiously my own political party have a heated debate on a key issue of health reform. Each side was allowed to put its case. 


Listening as I often do, through the wonders of the internet, to American radio and TV, or reading their press I know that sometimes that debate is stiffled. Pro-Choice and Pro-Gay messaging is often knocked down, without any balance of the argument from the other side. This from a country that loves to talk up the freedoms granted to their citizens by their bill of rights, which includes the 4th Amendment above.


You see there is a freedom of speech and the press. Yet this week certain parts of the press are using their freedom to stifle one of their syndicated cartoon writers freedom of speech via their publications. Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury strip holds the mirror up to the bi-polar nature of American political thought. Where, you are either for or against something it seems, you cannot see good points of something while objecting to it overall. 


This week, the target of the cartoon in the Texas State Abortion Law which now requires women seeking an abortion to visit the abortion clinic twice! The first is 24 hours before the abortion can be carried out is so that a sonogram can be taken of the fetus. The mother can opt out of seeing the images and hearing the heaertbeat, but must listen to the description of the sonogram. There is also at this first visit be advise as to the risks, alternatives etc. before the mother is sent home to sleep on the matter. 


It forces the mother who probably already has taken sometime thinking about the decision to even attend for an abortion, to spend another night having been introduced to the fetus and given all the information that she wants. Both the added time penalty and this wait between the actions on day one and the termination are seen as adding emotional strain to women who are already going through all sorts of turmoil. 


However, the cartoon which tries to point out the turmoil from the women's perspective has been pulled from it's syndication slot in some papers, or moved from the family to editorial section of others. The reason supporters of this Law give for it is that it serves educational and awareness purposes. I would argue that pulling the Doonesbury cartoon removes the education and awareness from the women's perspective to a lot of America.


If you are reading this and can't find this week's Doonesbury in your paper you will probably be able to find it online at their website. But as a counter to those who want to censor freedom of speech I'll be displaying this week's strips.

© 2012 Garry Trudeau , Universal Press Syndicate

Wiggins win Paris-Nice

Last Autumn Mark Cavendish became the second Brit after Tom Simpson to pull on the Rainbow Jersey on the road. Today his 'new' teammate Bradley Wiggins did the same in Paris-Nice.

The Paris-Nice stage race is often seen as an early season warm up to the Tour de France and Team Sky can be proud of their performance this week. Wiggins came second in the opening Time Trail but took the lead at the end of stage two and has never been beaten.

On stage 2 in the win Wiggins found himself on the right side of a crash and in the small leading group. On stage 5 he attacked on the climb and although Vestra beat him to the line he had done enough to stamp his authority on the race. On stage 6 he found himself in a an early group that was allowed to get away along with Vestra, before 2/3 of the field came back to them.

But up against the clock today he beat Lieuwe Vestra of Vaconsoliel by 2 seconds to extend his lead to 8 seconds overall.

An impressive win and a show of the form that Wiggins is carrying at the moment

A little bit of Songs of Praise I

I somehow don't think I'll be playing this bass line the next time we play this in Sunday worship. Though as I am down there now for practise who knows.

Has the amendment from the Sheffield Conference in March 2011 been delivered?

Here is something for my fellow Lib Dem Conference Reps to consider before voting on the Emergency Motion debate tomorrow.

Dr Charles West and Dr Evan Harris, who proposed the amendment, report back.

Conference therefore calls on Liberal Democrats in Parliament to amend the Health Bill to provide for:


I) More democratically accountable commissioning.


The Government says:
“Commissioning will now be more democratically accountable. Clinical Commissioning Groups will have to involve Councils’ Health and Wellbeing Boards in commissioning decisions.”
[Source: Government leaflet at Gateshead Conference]

The true position:

• The Bill has had no significant amendments in this area [see Schedule 1, clauses 189-193]
• The Coalition Agreement called for elected members on commissioning bodies. The Bill never permitted this [see Coalition Programme page 24-25]
• The Bill provided that the Health and wellbeing Boards need not have naymore than one or a minority of councillors on them. That has not changed. [Clause 193]
• The only duty on commissioning groups is to consult the HWB on a commissioning plan. If the HWB disagrees it has no power to stop the CCG and there is no statutory right of appeal. [Clause 25, section 14Z12]
• Overview Scrutiny Committees have lost the automatic right to call in a health decision to the Secretary of State so the new NHS would be less democratic than before. [Clause 189]

II) A much greater degree of co-terminosity between local authorities and commissioning areas


The  Government says:
"There is now a clear presumption in favour of co-terminosity . We expect the vast majority of commissioning groups to sit within social care authority boundaries. But where this is not the case, Health and Wellbeing Boards will be able to object to any boundaries that cross social care boundaries."

[Source: Government leaflet at Gateshead Conference, dropping the word “much” from the motion”]

The true position

• There has been no amendment to the Bill and there is no mention in the Bill of co-terminosity [Clause 24]
• There is no statutory right of Health and Wellbing Boards (who could have only one councillor on them) to object to CCG boundaries let alone to veto them. The decision on boundaries is made by the Commissioning Board 9a quango) with no statutory duty to even have regard to HWB's views [Clause 24, ssection 14A & B]
• There is no role for Council's Overview and Scrutiny Committee [Clause 24, section 14A & B]

III) No decision about the spending of NHS funds to be made in private and without proper consultation, as can take place by the proposed GP consortia.

- Delivered

IV) The complete ruling out of any competition based on price to prevent loss-leading corporate providers under-cutting NHS tariffs, and to ensure that healthcare providers 'compete' on quality of care.

- Impossible to deliver. Tariffs cannot reflect the full complexity of services, and EU and UK
competition law will not permit the NHS to ignore price.

V) New private providers to be allowed only where there is no risk of 'cherry-picking' which would destabilise or undermine the existing NHS service relied upon for emergencies and complex cases, and where the needs of equity, research and training are met.

The Government says:

"The tariff will accurately reflect the clinical complexity of the service to stop any new providers from undercutting NHS services. New requirements on transparency for providers will ensure that they are only allowed to refuse patients on clinical grounds*, so they won’t be able to cherry-pick the profitable easy cases"
[Source: Government leaflet at Gateshead Conference]

The true position

• The Sheffield Conference called for a duty on commissioners and Monitor to avoid destabilising existing essential services from the outsourcing of profitable services, such as elective orthopaedics, making a trauma service unviable. Amendments doing this tabled by Andrew George MP were not accepted by the Government
• Refusing patients on "clinical grounds" and getting the same price for the easier clinical cases that are taken is actually the definition of how to "cherry-pick the profitable easy cases" that the motion rejected.

VI) NHS commissioning being retained as a public function in full compliance with the Human Rights Act and Freedom of Information laws, using the skills and experience of existing NHS staff rather than the sub-contracting of commissioning to private companies.


The Government says:
"Commissioning groups will be public bodies, not private organisations, and will be subject to these pieces of legislation. Commissioning decisions will have to be taken in-house by commissioning groups, not outsourced to private companies so it cannot be privatized."
[Source: Government leaflet at Gateshead Conference]

The true position

• There have been no amendments preventing the wholesale privatisation of commissioning work referred to in the Sheffield motion. The original Bill already provided that the final decision be made by the CCG, but the Government's plan is to allow and encourage the outsourcing of commissioning work to private companies, called "commissioning support" companies.
• Designing care pathways and evaluation the quality of rival bids, should not be done by private companies with vester interests which are not subject to FoI or the HRA.
• The spending of £60 Billion of NHS money should remain a public function

VII) The continued separation of the commissioning and provision of services to prevent conflicts of
interests.

The Government says:
"Commissioning Groups will now be required to establish robust procedures to tackle conflicts of interest"
[Source: Government leaflet at Gateshead Conference]

The true position:

• All the Bill now does is to require CCGs to have a register of interests. But there is no sanction against such conflicts unlike in Council. The register doesn't apply to the companies doing "commissioning support".

VIII) An NHS, responsive to patients’ needs, based on co-operation rather than competition, and
which promotes quality and equity not the market.


The Government says:
"Monitor will have a primary duty to promote patient interests rather than to promote competition and can promote co-operation between providers when it is in the interests of patients."
[Source: Government leaflet at Gateshead Conference]

The true position – it's been made worse.

• After the Sheffield motion the Government increase the promotion of the market by commissioners by increasing the duty on commissioning groups and the NHS Commissioning Board to promote patient choice more than to tackle access and health inequalities [Clause 25, section 14S versus amended 14U]
• Monitor's duties are only to prevent anti-competitive behaviour [Clause 61(3)] where it deems this works against the patient interest. An amendment to ensure Monitor had a duty to prevent anti-collaborative behaviour in these circumstances was rejected by the Government. [Amendment 165 Baroness Finlay]
• The part of the Bill [Clause 73] which gives Monitor its enforcement powers omits to do so in respect of integration and co-operation.

Diagnosis: In summary, of the 8 broad (or in some cases narrow) requirements that this conference
passed, at most 3 have been delivered and 5 have clearly not. That is why even the non-political
Royal Colleges, who have read the Bill, are calling for the Bill to be dropped.

Back to me


We are being told that everything that Conference asked for last year has been settled. As you can see above it clearly has not. We do believe in devolving power out to the Trusts but with that we still expect accountability which is clearly missing from what has been done. The Bill still is full of holes and no matter what the Bill with Shirley Williams' name attached says will not save the NHS. Only a rejection of that motion tomorrow stands a chance of doing so.

I'm not Andy Burnham's poddle Nick! #LDConf

I hated to hear our leader say during his Q&A

"We need to say tomorrow we're on Shirley Williams' side & not on Andy Burnham's."

For a start I also hated the fact that one of the two motions on the NHS yesterday bore the subtitle The Shirley William's Motion. I thought as Liberal Democrats that were not in the business of political personality cults, but rather into testing each option on the facts.

The fact that even with Our Shirl on the motion it only won by 29 votes after transfers should tell Nick that it isn't just about Andy Burnham. 280 Liberal Democrats voting reps at conference are not and were not persuaded by the screams of Andy Burnham.

Many of us have been following with forensic scrutiny the coming and goings of every step along the passage of this bill. Even last Spring just after its publication we were ready to tell you and our MPs what to change. Yes Shirley was one of those, but so were all many of medical professionals within our own party. Many of them are still telling us that this Bill needs more time, shouldn't be rushed so that you and David Cameron can conveniently put it into the Queen's Speech. However, it is possible that those that voted a second preference on this weren't aware of the depths of issues and saw the words save, NHS and Shirley Williams all together without a great deal of thought, I've spoken to one voting rep since who did just that.

We're not against reform, we know it is needed. But we're saying you need to stop and think again. If that means dropping the current Bill and rethinking then that is what is needed. We know what was agreed in the Coalition Agreement and this is still going far beyond that.

The Liberal Democrats I know is not about personality. Indeed on occasions as you know Nick, bringing a big name to bear on a vote when conference is in a volatile mood can be the end of what is wanted. So don't tempt us to turn our backs on following Shirley, we might just do that.

So the Lib Dems are not debating Dropping the NHS Bill, but...

Save the NHS - The Shirley Williams Motion 309
Withdrawal of the Health and Social Care Bill 280 after transfers

So the result of the ballot on the emergency motion came as a disappointment to me. The outrage that flowed on Twitter afterwards less so following on from the number of tweets urging conference to drop the bill in the last 24 hours. That was something that as I had access to a left of centre blog with more Labour readers I chose to write about elsewhere.

However, there are a few things to note about that outrage.

Firstly there have been 1,000 amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill. The majority of these have come from Liberal Democrats and not from Labour. So don't believe the lie that Labour did all they could to change this bill.

Last year the Liberal Democrats did pass a motion that had 13 sizeable changes on them to make the Health and Social Care Bill fairer. Of these 6 are now included in the Bill, as demanded by Lib Dem conference last May. So see the Lib Dem activists have been working on getting these changes for over a year, not just the last 24 and not just the fours hours from 9am to 1pm that the Emergency Motion Ballot was open. Indeed Liberal Democrats have been writing to their MPs of ALL parties and yes that does include the Northern Irish parties about making the right changes to this Bill, not just hounding Lib Dem activists for the last 24 hours.

The vote itself was within 30 votes. Yes it was on transfers, but you don't hear any Lib Dems lamenting that the decision is made under AV, only those who were urging us from outside to vote to drop the bill. Some are lamenting the failure of democracy, but Lib Dem party democracy has yet to run its course. Sure the establishment motion with the witty moniker Shirley Williams* has got through but there will still be a vote on that motion, democracy within my party had not ended yet, there will be a debate, there will be a vote. And with less that 30 votes in it when it comes to the emergency motion nobody can tell how it will go once the arguments are laid out (I speak from experience there).

What you may have are people who not knowing the issues fully transferred their second preferences to the issue that bore the name of Shirley, but if the Drop the Bill speaker(s), and there will be at least one, called in the dabate put a strong enough case, there may be swing votes in the hall that reverse the decision of today (again Lib Dem Conference can be a volatile place in this mood).

There have been a number of personal attacks to me on my own Twitter feed. Obviously from people who have no idea of my stance on this matter, even with my current Twibbon. Some saying that MY Voters will never vote for me again. Thankfully I know from the messages (by Twitter or email) that my voters have sent to me over tuition fees, over taxation, over the NHS over the past 21 months that actually my voters, know exactly where I stand on such issues, and more, are would quite happily vote for me again. They also know that I have moved away from Scotland so I may have to find a way to get back.

As for the Lib Dems we will survive. We will continue to fight on. We have brought changes to what a majority Conservative Government would have wanted to do with the NHS, in time people will see that, because their manifesto will take them further along the line, doing the things that Lib Dems in Government have prevented them from doing.

Update BBC New briefly went across the Q&A session with Nick Clegg who said:

"We need to say tomorrow we're on Shirley Williams' side & not on Andy Burnham's."

Seeing as I thought we were an evidence based not a personality based party I find the assumption that the 280 Conference reps who voted to drop the bill are being knocked aside with such a line from the leader. If he hasn't listened to the people, and isn't listening to his own reps so far, we'll have to make him listen in the morning.

* Having seen this tactic used by the SNP in 2007 I'm seriously considering a Constitutional Amendment that no motion entering the emergency ballot can pull on the name recognition of any party member over the substance of the arguments.