“This brain fog is terrible – oh the suffering!”

 

You couldn’t make it up – you really couldn’t! The tribe populating the ‘corridors of power’ have utterly lost any connection to life as we know it – we who live outside that charmed circle, we who have to pay for their follies. There’s the outcry about ‘too much work’, there are two about ‘Our NHS’ needing more money, and there’s an example of such blatant hypocrisy that words simply fail.

Taking that last item first, we’re informed that Owen Paterson, the former MP who had to resign, is  “suing the government for infringing his human rights after he was found to have broken lobbying rules.” (link, paywalled). And where is Paterson suing? Surprise surprise:

“He is suing Britain at the European Court of Human Rights, according to documents published yesterday. […] In 2014 Paterson called for the UK to repeal the Human Rights Act and withdraw from the European Court at which he is now suing the government.” (link, paywalled)

And this is why we must refrain from looking at politicians as a sort-of secular saviours: they say one thing in public, campaign for one issue in public because it helps them climbing that greasy pole – and in private they disregard their public stance provided it suits and helps them. 

Staying with ‘news’ relating to what happens across the Channel, here’s another item demonstrating the unwillingness of Whitehall to actually do some work. There’s currently a ‘review’ of EU Laws to be scrapped or retained, as part of the Brexit Freedoms Bill, and there’s the outcry:

“Downing Street is conducting a Whitehall review of plans to scrap or retain all EU legislation in UK law by the end of next year amid warnings from officials that it will force ministers to axe other policy priorities.” (link, paywalled)

No, don’t ask why this hasn’t been done already, don’t ask if this wouldn’t have been wonderful work to do while WFH. Remainers want to keep those laws for when we rejoin. So now the Cabinet Office is conducting an audit of that EU Law audit because the actual work might ‘cause a logjam’. You couldn’t make it up:

“An official Whitehall impact assessment of the policy warned that it would affect policy work by departments and lead to logjams in parliament. “In some cases, other policy priorities may have to be paused entirely,” it said. The assessment warned that MPs would have to scrutinise a large amount of secondary legislation needed to ‘sunset’ old EU legislation or replace it with new laws. “It is likely that 1,000 statutory instruments will be required to effectively transition . . . and will take up a significant amount of parliamentary time,” it said.” (link, paywalled)

Isn’t it lovely to see how those Whitehall mandarins care about the work-life balance not just of their own civil serpents but also of MPs! Here are some other entities opposing this Bill, namely:

“[…] the TUC, the RSPB and the Wildlife Trust. The CBI has also warned that changing EU regulation and introducing new British standards risked acting as “a further drag on growth”.” (link, paywalled)

This foot-dragging by Whitehall and those NGOs tells me that they are waiting for Starmer to get into No 10  because Labour is ‘Rejoin’. Thus keeping all those lovely EU Laws is what’s needed. They couldn’t be more blatant.

And so to the Sacred Cow and the latest NHS ‘outrage campaign’ to which the DT has dedicated two articles. It’s about the menopause and a speech by the boss of NHS England, Ms Amanda Pritchard which she presented at the CBI conference. There’s her article (paywalled link), and there’s the puff piece referring to that article, gracing the top spot at the time of writing (paywalled link).

It’s about the menopause and about bosses needing to do something to alleviate the suffering … and by gawd, the Sacred Cow is ‘doing something’ because it’s the “the biggest employer of women in the country – one million work for the NHS and up to 260,000 could be approaching or going through menopause,” (paywalled link). Well, that explains to some extent why the NHS is in the state it is in. Non-menopausal ‘workers’ suffer from PMS which impacts their work, menopausal ones suffer:

“With symptoms ranging from muscle aches and joint pain, to hot flushes, anxiety, difficulties sleeping and brain fog – this obviously has a huge impact on your ability to work and go about your daily life.” (paywalled link)

How on earth did women in the workforce cope before “we” were made ‘aware’ of all this suffering! God forbid a menopausal nurse, quietly suffering from brain fog with no support, were to give someone the wrong drug! But help is at hand – the NHS has proudly developed ‘guidance’. Of course it has! See this:

“That is why we have launched new national guidance to help women through menopause – to boost awareness, and support teams to put in place practical measures in the workplace. Simple steps like flexible working patterns, fans to help make temperatures more comfortable, cooler uniforms, and staff training, can make a big difference […]” (paywalled link)

How on earth did women survive the menopause without guidance, support teams and ‘staff training’! Will there be new posts for ‘menopausal support staff’, paid for by us? Of course there will! Will we have to pay for this? Of course we will! Nothing is too good for Our Sacred Cow and all who work in them, and never mind overstretched A & E departments (all those gambling addicts, right?) and ambulances waiting for hours.

I leave you with news that the future is upon us. Robo-dogs are roaming the woods at Blenheim Palace which has become

“[…] a testing ground for a pack of robot dogs monitoring the impact of climate change. They were designed by Oxford University’s Robotics Institute (ORI). The dogs use hyperspectral image analysis and artificial intelligence to gather information on the estate’s woodlands, which are home to more than 2,800 animal and plant species.” (link, paywalled)

Amazing, isn’t it, how ‘climate change’ is the fashionable pretext to test out robotics and AI. But see this (my emphasis):

“David Green, the head of innovation at Blenheim, said the robots would be able to record more comprehensive and accurate information than human researchers. […] “One of the main challenges in biology is to be able to collect the data in a way that is fast, reliable, and integrated. Training and fieldwork is hard to do with humans and the data sets created can be sub-optimal, so using autonomous robots allows researchers at Oxford University to gain access to data pipelines faster.” (link, paywalled)

Yeah right: humans – stupid, AI – brilliant, because AI programmes don’t need to be set up so that they can learn, do they! And ‘humans are hard to train’, the horror! Of course, neither the AI programmes nor those robodogs will ever fail, unlike humans, some of which may suffer silently from brain fog and a lack of fans while stalking yon woods.

Perhaps the NHS ought to look into robotics and AI. Perhaps, being without menopausal guidance, so should Whitehall. There must be lots of brain-fogged civil serpents around.

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