Brexit and My MP - Part 29 - A Meaningful Vote

Dear Mrs Milton

Last week it was reported that an agreement had been reached whereby Parliament would have a meaningful vote on the final Brexit deal. Within 48 hours it appears that the Prime Minister had reneged on that deal. As you will know, the relevant amendment, originally put forward by Dominic Grieve MP, will make its way back to the House of Commons next Wednesday. I urge you to “take back control” by backing this amendment and placing decision making where it should be, with Parliament.

Yours sincerely

Richard Bawden

Brexit and My MP - Part 28

Dear Ms Milton

The EU Withdrawal Bill returns to the Commons shortly and Tom Brake has tabled an amendment - 19a - that would guarantee giving the British people the final say on the Brexit deal. Given that the June 2016 referendum was held in an atmosphere of almost total ignorance of the consequences of Brexit it seems to me to be only right that the British people should have the opportunity to decide upon the UK’s fate with a much better understanding of the likely impacts.

I therefore urge you to support the amendment - and to ask your party colleagues to do the same.

I look forward to receiving confirmation that this is the approach you will take.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,

Brexit (sort of) and My MP - Part 27 - Tier 2 Visas and the NHS

Not strictly about Brexit but it's part of the fallout:-

Dear Ms Milton

I have been following the recent exchanges about NHS staffing and restrictions arising from the operation of the Tier 2 visa system with increasing dismay. The evidence I have seen strongly points to NHS bodies being unable to recruit sufficient doctors because of these restrictions. Indeed, a good friend and neighbour has fallen foul of this problem having had a procedure twice delayed because suitably qualified staff were not available.

It seems to me to be utter nonsense to prevent the NHS from being fully staffed because of a seemingly arbitrary general cap on non-EU immigration. I therefore wish to add my voice to those who are calling for NHS staff to be totally exempt from the Tier 2 system; and I urge you to support such a move.

Yours sincerely

Carbon Bubble => Financial Crisis?

This article from Edie posits the notion that technology and economics, not legislation, are now driving investment in low carbon energy production and that fossil fuel companies are sitting on a large inventory of essentially stranded assets. It suggests that the proverbial will hit the fan at some point potentially triggering a financial crisis. However, it also suggests that more political intervention is required if we are to keep within Paris agreement limits.

There have been good ethical reasons for a long time for examining one's investment portfolio but perhaps now is the time to do so again.

Playing Games with Cancer

There's a fascinating paper been published in Nature Communications suggesting that a game theoretical approach to treating prostate cancer by aiming to keep it at bay rather than eradicating it can lead to significantly enhanced survival times. The key is to keep medication doses below the threshold where the cancer is likely to become stronger and more resistant. Although the paper doesn't mention it, I wonder if there's mileage in combining this approach with multi-drug testing of cloned cancer cells - a kind of personalised therapy.

By-the-by there's also news in the Journal of Infectious Diseases that Australia is well on the way to the near eradication of cervical cancer through its programme of school-based vaccination against the human papillomavirus. Exciting stuff!

Unnecessary Packaging

I ordered four new printer cartridges the other day. Half the order arrived today - in separate plastic bags. Inside each was one cardboard package. Inside each package was one plastic wrapped cartridge. How daft is that? I guess part two of the order will be similar.

Dictionary of National Biography 1st and 2nd Editions

The DNB is a great source tome for genealogists. Wanting to look up details of a distant cousin the other day I did a standard internet search and came upon this wonderful site. I'm not sure why I didn't take my usual route of going directly to Internet Archive's search function but I didn't and I'm now glad that was the case because having a direct link to each volume is just SOOO useful.