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On the Subject of....Black Holes

  We have been hearing rather a lot about ‘Black Holes’ over the last 3 months or so….some would argue a bit too much. Sadly, there has been little attempt being made to explain their origin or properties, and the focus instead has been on explaining how terrible things are likely to get for us all because of them. In an attempt to dispel some of the current UK.Gov-induced pre-budget gloom and despondency, I’ll take a light-hearted look at these not-so-celestial phenomena and attempt to explain them for the interested reader. Firstly, do they resemble the cosmological feature of the same name ? In some ways, they would certainly appear to.... Black holes frequently arise at the centres of galaxies and have such huge masses that their gravitational attraction sucks in everything in their vicinity, including light. They thus have a habit of getting progressively bigger…and darker, and present a distinct ‘event horizon’ beyond which nothing is visible. Our friendly neighbourhoo
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Update on Pensioner Benefit Changes

  Since Rachel Reeves axed the winter fuel payment in July, there has been much angst amongst pensioners not entitled to Pension Credit over her plans to remove other essential benefits, such as free prescriptions and the concessionary bus pass. This would apply to the same cohort (i.e ca 10 million of the 11 million over the current state pension age of 66), and would include up to 2 million of the poorest in our society, many of whom live alone and have no relatives to provide assistance. The government failed to  carry out a full review of the potential consequences of withdrawing universal winter fuel payments  before announcing the change in July, and have still not done so. A legal challenge has been instituted in the courts. In  the meantime, Age Concern have carried out their own review and confirmed that at least 2.5 million pensioners at or below the officially recognised poverty line and a further 0.4 million just above it, will be adversely affected. If the same criteria
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Britain’s Worst Prime Minister ?

  This post was first released in October 2022 as a response to the political 'crises' of the time. Note the more recent updates at the end of the main text - nothing really changes, does it..... As a bit of light relief from the momentous events of recent weeks in politics, I thought I’d take a wry and admittedly somewhat irreverent look at what motivates our politicians….if Radio 4’s ‘News Quiz’ can get away with it each week, despite the BBC’s draconian rules on all things pc, then so can I… In seemingly perpetual 'crisis' situations like this one,   as individuals we only really have two options - either to laugh or cry; I prefer to laugh – for now, at least. Recent upsets at the top of the political tree, and the almost obsessive speculation about the outcome of yet another leadership race in the media, prompted me last week to ask myself the question:  “Why on earth would anyone actually want to be PM at a time like this ?” The role is, after all, a positiv
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UK Political System - Does it Need reform ?...An update

  Two years ago I published a blog describing in detail some of the problems with our UK political system, as I saw it then.   The recent General Election result has ‘set the seal’ on the unsuitability of our ‘First Past the Post’ (FPP) system, and reinforced the need for change. This will need to be radical if we are to maintain  our democracy in a healthy state, and ensure it continues to be fit for purpose in the 21 st century. A reappraisal is particularly important at a time when populism is eroding modern democratic institutions and the world as a whole is tending towards autocracies as the chosen method of government.   Amongst other things, to achieve this we will need to exert more control on the UK government of the day, and this will involve some form of continuous assessment ‘with teeth’. We cannot afford to continue to give governments we elect with large working majorities 'carte blanche' to do whatever they want for the whole of their 5-year term. Here a
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The UK's Teen Vaping Epidemic – Should we be Worried ?

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  I first published this blog in late 2023 when the realisation that vaping was harmful to teenage lungs was becoming more widespread, and the authorities were finally waking up to the fact that they needed to do something.  All the evidence that has emerged since then has tended to confirm our suspicions - i.e. that long-term vaping does impair lung function, and is likely to be doing so irreversibly. We should thus only be permitting the use of vapes strictly as an aid to stop smoking, and only for as long as is necessary to 'kick the habit'. If we fail to restrict availability, and don't manage to convince our kids as to the dangers, we will be condemning a whole generation to breathing problems in their middle and later years, with the serious burden that will put on our NHS as a result. Teenagers who have not yet taken up the vaping habit should be prevented from doing so at all costs. Those who have already been ensnared by the marketing hype, and nicotine's extre
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