Met Office and the MoD

Did you know that the Met Office is part of the MoD?

It says so here

In 1996 the Met Office became a Trading Fund within the Ministry of Defence. As a Trading Fund we are required to operate on a commercial basis and meet agreed performance targets as set by our Ministerial Owner.

It also says

The Under Secretary of State for Defence and the Minister for Veterans, currently Kevan Jones, is the individual charged with directing and overseeing the Met Office on behalf of the Secretary of State for Defence.

The ultimate responsibility and accountability lies with the Secretary of State for Defence, currently the Right Honourable Bob Ainsworth MP.

There has to be a list somewhere that shows fairness, and will show how much the Met Office 'earns' and how much has been cut from its' budget.

After all, the MoD is cutting military funding, including that of the youth branches of the Army (ACF and UOTC)  and the TA (whose soldiers have to go into battle).

Playing Hangman.

No, this post is nothing to do with this sort of person, it's to do with the game where you choose letters one at a time and try to make a word before your alter-ego is throttled by a noose suspended from a gibbet that your incorrect guesses have helped to construct.

Mrs Rigby has such a game down there at the bottom of her blog page and has been trying out a few experiments. She has found that in this particular online Hangman, which is probably aimed at children, T,R and N are the most commonly used consonants whilst E is the most commonly used vowel.

This is probably due to the target audience, because it doesn't quite cross reference against more carefully carried out research carried out by Samuel Morse (who designed the Morse Code) and by Christopher Latham Scholes (who designed the QWERTY keyboard).

For those who prefer a slightly analytical, scientific, approach to crosswords, cryptograms, anagrams and word puzzles composed in English there are lists of most commonly used letters and letter combinations here and here.

Power2010

Mrs R followed a trail from here to here and then here***.

She suggests you might like to do the same - and make sure you do it very soon, otherwise it will be too late.


NB

*** All active links to the latter site have been removed from this blog ***

He didn't say what you said he did.

Several newspapers have reported that the new Chief Constable of South Wales won't be doing his own shopping any more - " for security reasons".

It would seem that the initial story was carried in Police Review, written by a Police Review reporter who had interviewed the newly promoted Chief Constable.

In the Telegraph the story starts to resemble the BBC's reporting of the Myleene Klass business - where the police said they didn't tell her a knife was an offensive weapon, because :-

A statement from South Wales Police said: “Chief Constable Peter Vaughan did not make any reference to “security issues” during his interview with the Police Review reporter. As a result we have requested a retraction of the inaccuracy in its next edition.

and to make absolutely sure they got the message :-

“We do not wish to comment any further in relation to this matter.”

But the Telegraph doesn't let it end there, it says:-

Chris Herbert, editor of Police Review, said no letter requesting a retraction had been received from the force.

He added: “We don’t go around making up quotes. He (Mr Vaughan) said he had security concerns and his particular concerns were around going shopping to his local supermarket.”

Mr Herbert added: “We are not making any judgment on whether that is right or wrong, or good or bad. That is what he (Mr Vaughan) told us and that is what we reported.

He's right, reporters are there to report, not pass judgement - at least they should be.

Whose fault?

We live in an increasingly litigious country, where if something goes wrong it's somebody else's fault.

People are able to claim thousands and thousands of pounds in compensation for hurt feelings if they are called something they don't like, and can be given tens of thousands of pounds in compensation if they get achy muscles because their keyboard isn't the right design for their body.

If you're involved in a car accident insurers will do their best to work out which driver is culpable and the police might try to work out if anybody broke any rules which could result in prosecution and expensive penalties.

So, Mrs R wonders, who will be blamed for this

police reported a major pile-up on a frozen motorway.

Greater Manchester Police said seven people had been injured in the crash, which involved up to 10 cars on the A627(M) in Oldham.

In this report it says

It is thought the vehicles may have skidded on a patch of black ice.

Black ice develops when water freezes. It's called black ice because it isn't easy to see - it looks more like moisture than ice and it's harder to work out whether it's ice or water in bright artificial light.

The first article also says

The day began with Met Office warnings of treacherous roads and police reporting black ice in several areas.

Mrs R believes that black ice should be rare on roads, especially major roads, because they should be properly maintained and kept in a safe condition by those we pay to do it - the Highways Agency and their agents or subcontractors.

Motorists pay their taxes and can, reasonably, expect the money to be spent where the tax says it will be spent otherwise, maybe, that particular tax is misrepresented.

The Highways Agency and councils have cut their use of salt for gritting roads by half - up from the 25% agreed last week - to protect supplies.

They have had to "cut their use of salt" because central government has told them to - to preserve supplies. Supplies can't be topped up because British salt mines are working at full capacity and salt ordered from abroad isn't due to arrive until around 21st January.

They have had to preserve supplies because advice was given that only 6 days salt would be needed this winter - and some of the people responsible for keeping our roads safe did as they were told. It didn't matter where in the country they were and what their normal winter conditions were - they did as they were told.

Those that didn't do as they were told, and instead used their common sense, had their road salt taken away from them and suppliers were ordered not to give them any more. Central government set out those rules.

So, near Oldham, due to a major accident the A627M is closed and

Drivers are being advised to find alternative routes as the roads could be closed for some time.

These drivers are being told to use roads that probably won't have been gritted and salted. They won't have been gritted or salted because central government has told salters and gritters to concentrate their efforts on major routes - those with an M or an A at the beginning of their number.

If there is a major accident on one of the 'alternative routes' that is later found to be because it was icy - who will be culpable?

Update :_
Via MummyLongLegs
This

An 11-year-old girl has died after she apparently slipped on ice outside her primary school in Lancashire.

and

An investigation is under way into the circumstances of her death, and how she came to fall to the ground.

A spokeswoman for Lancashire Police said Naeemah was believed to have slipped on ice, but that officers were still investigating.

Pictures accompanying the story show the pavements and the road covered with ice. Who should ensured they were safe?

Sedition, proscribed organisations and actions.

There's an opinion on "Proscribed Organisations (Name Changes) Order 2010, SI 2010/34" from Head of Legal

Maybe it isn't quite as bad as Mrs R first thought, although she did think, for a little while, that the group achieved what they wanted - as declared on their banners

Freedom of Speech - Go to Hell

Maybe Mr C of Islam4UK will end up in parliament. Stranger things have happened. You see Mrs R spotted the list of names that are proscribed, and amongst them is this one - at the head of the list.

The Irish Republican Army.

Making the IRA a proscribed organisation obviously worked. It worked so well that the IRA was abolished and all the people who used to be members of it went home and did something else. It all worked so well that The New York Times writes about the organisation and its' history, and the State Department Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 Report, says

The IRA retains the ability to conduct paramilitary operations.

The NYT article doesn't mention Sinn Féin, "Considered to be the political arm of the IRA.", and that Sinn Féin's Jerry Adams has a place in Parliament.

Digging a bit further into the rules

(5A) The cases in which an organisation promotes or encourages terrorism for the purposes of subsection (5)(c) include any case in which activities of the organisation—

(a)

include the unlawful glorification of the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of acts of terrorism

and

(5B) The glorification of any conduct is unlawful for the purposes of subsection (5A) if there are persons who may become aware of it who could reasonably be expected to infer that what is being glorified, is being glorified as—

(a)

conduct that should be emulated in existing circumstances, or

(b)
conduct that is illustrative of a type of conduct that should be so emulated.

and

(5C) In this section—

“glorification” includes any form of praise or celebration, and cognate expressions are to be construed accordingly;

“statement” includes a communication without words consisting of sounds or images or both.]

Picture a group of imaginary teenagers calling themselves "The Gunpowder Plot". Imagine them having meetings where they discuss blowing up parliament. Imagine them setting up a Facebook Group.

Imagine them spending hours making a few pictures or animations - of gunpowder and noisily exciting explosions - and putting them on Flickr or YouTube. They might add in a few people wearing funny clothes and unusual headgear and then these imaginary teenagers might themselves decide to wear something similar - because they think it looks cool (and different) - and they might even make themselves some badges - to put into their Facebook profiles.

We Rigbys know that teenagers, especially young teenagers, like to do things like this - they like to set themselves apart from boring, stuck-in-the-mud, adults. They often like to talk of doing dangerous, and sometimes very silly, things - but these discussions tend not to travel much further than the settee or the computer chair.

Sadly we also know that there are sometimes teenagers who will fasten bombs to their bodies and blow themselves, and other people, into tiny little pieces. There are also people who will pack cars full of explosives and detonate them remotely - they've been doing it for years. These people are very rare, thank goodness, but it doesn't mean that the security services don't keep an eye out for them. These days they can check phone calls and the internet.

Now let's imagine somebody's watching the internet and looking for 'key words'. I'm told they do this in the hunt for extremists and terrorists, they look for words like "bomb", "explosion" and "blow up".

It would seem that, according to the newest rules, it's possible for a group of youngsters whose sole interest is the history of the gunpowder plot to find themselves on the wrong side of the law, guilty of the "glorification of the commission or preparation (whether in the past, in the future or generally) of acts of terrorism" - after all, what worse act of terrorism can there be than trying to blow up parliament for reasons of religion?

Won't happen? No, of course it won't, because the people who enforce the law are far too sensible to even think of arresting somebody for having a bit of fun, they would never think a harmless interest, hobby or pastime could be terrorism.

As far as Mrs R can tell, the people of Islam4UK did little more than use unpleasant words, they waved a few placards and threatened to get together to have a march. Some other people didn't like what they said, and they didn't like what they said they wanted to do - so now there's a law against it. Now there's "a law against it" there can be bits added to the law using statutory instruments, which is quite handy because nobody ever notices it happening.

Isn't it, maybe, a good job that the laws of sedition have been repealed to protect free speech.

Justice Minister Claire Ward said: "Sedition and seditious and defamatory libel are arcane offences - from a bygone era when freedom of expression wasn't seen as the right it is today.

"Freedom of speech is now seen as the touchstone of democracy, and the ability of individuals to criticise the state is crucial to maintaining freedom.

"The existence of these obsolete offences in this country had been used by other countries as justification for the retention of similar laws which have been actively used to suppress political dissent and restrict press freedom.

"Abolishing these offences will allow the UK to take a lead in challenging similar laws in other countries, where they are used to suppress free speech."

From Today's Mail

Within the comments section of this article

Now lets see him naked!

- Alison Mellor, Cheshire, UK,

That's nice Alison. Just a thought though.

Would Hattie let a man that he hoped to see a female actress naked?

.....

Fat people are less likely to get jobs because

employers assume they will be lazy, a study has revealed.

Maybe they'll introduce quotas to put things right - there are a lot of overweight people so they must be under-represented in the workplace.

Quota have made sure the best person has always gets the job, irrespective of their racial background, age, creed, gender, sexual orientation etc - haven't they?

Quotas have made absolutely sure that the best qualified person always gets the job - haven't they?

.....

Why isn't this a surprise?

More than half the scientists on the swine flu taskforce advising the Government have ties to drug companies.

Eleven of the 20 members of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) have done work for the pharmaceutical industry or are linked to it through their universities.

Many have declared interests in GlaxoSmithKline, the vaccine maker expected to be the biggest beneficiary of the pandemic.

The disclosure of the register of interests comes just days after a health expert branded the swine flu outbreak a 'false pandemic' driven by the drug companies which stood to profit.

The Government is now trying to offload up to £1billion worth of unwanted swine flu vaccine.

Last July, the Department of Health warned of up 65,000 deaths, with 350 a day at the pandemic's peak. But the death toll now stands at just 251.

Shakes head.

But, you know, I'm not in the least surprised, not in the least.

What does surprise me is how long it's taken for the papers to write about it.

Low-salt government

According to the BBC it would seem that advice is responsible for councils all over the country failing to have more than 6 days stock of road salt.

It says so here

six days supply [of salt] - the officially minimum recommended level of salt needed to meet demand

It would also seem that, last spring, British Salt in Cheshire was offering councils cut-price salt, but

Up to 30 councils spurned an offer last year of thousands of tonnes of de-icing salt at a reduced price, to use on the roads this winter, the BBC has learned.

British Salt Director David Stephen made the offer from its 60,000 tonnes stockpile in April but had no takers.

The offer had been made because

"Following last year's winter, we knew we had 60,000 tonnes available ..." said Mr Stephen.

"We went to the markets and offered them this same product at a discounted price," he added.

Unfortunately

None of the councils contacted responded.

and why didn't they respond? It was because

every council had six days supply - the officially minimum recommended level of salt needed to meet demand.

So somebody in government had told them they would only need 6 days supply of salt, and everybody followed the rules.

It would seem that, now,

LGA's David Sparks ** said the six-day advice may have to be revised.

and

British Salt is nearing the stage where orders will exceed supply at its factory in Middlewich, Cheshire.

"Once the panic has died down we will go back to the councils and see if we can secure a supply position with them," Mr Stephen added.

In the meantime Britain is

buy[ing] salt from abroad

even though everybody could have

 stocked up last year and saved money if they had ordered earlier.

It wouldn't have made any difference because

David Sparks, a member of the transport board of the Local Government Association said he was not aware of British Salt's offer.

I can't see that he needed to be, it should be up to individual councils to make up their mind how they spend their money.

But he added: "That wouldn't have altered anything because everybody did have six days of salt which was the consensus view of the level of salt that was adequate to meet the demands that we would face.
"The consensus may have been wrong but I don't know that, I would much prefer us to systematically review it so we can come to a figure in the light of our experience that is more able to deal with the problems we face.
"If it is decided that we need to plan for [and] spend more money for rarer events then so be it, but it needs to be something that's studied systematically."

So somehow they reached a 'consensus' - and that consensus was wrong - but they're going to have a meeting about it and work out what to do next. In the meantime the country isn't able to do anything because it's ground to a halt.

Mr Sparks added: "The problem we face is that we do not know what the weather is going to be like.

Oh dear, the weather forecasters got it wrong. That'll be the same weather forecasters who work for the Met Office (run by John Hirst****) who reckon they can accurately predict that the planet will burn up if we keep breathing out.

Mr Sparks says

We must first ensure there is an adequate supply of salt and that is defined and there are adequate methods of increasing that supply should the need arise.

Yes - I wholeheartedly agree that there needs to be an "adequate supply of salt".

Take away the puppet strings and let councils to think ahead, let them use their common sense and realise that what's good for the Scilly Isles isn't the same as what's good for Yorkshire, Humberside or Cumbria. Councils should be free to make up their own minds - especially if they know from experience that they have snow, frost or ice for more than six days between October and March.

Local councils should be allowed to plan ahead and buy something at lower out-of-season prices - something that should never, ever, need to imported via our expensive port system because it can be sourced from within Britain. 

"Equally we need to look at whether there are alternative methods of dealing with the problems of extremely cold weather on the roads network.

Maybe they should have another meeting? A long, expensive, meeting of lots of important people in a place that has lots of snow and ice in the winter.

Didn't some people already do that? They got into their planes and went here - but it was the wrong sort of meeting, wasn't it.

Transport minister Sadiq Khan*** admitted that the six day advice may be altered in the future.
"Once we get out of these freezing conditions we'll need to look at the lessons and one is asking if the national resilience programme is adequate if there may be more frequent periods of bad weather," he said.

There we have it - lessons learned!

.....

Out of interest :-
** Councillor David Sparks OBE is Councillor for Quarry Bank and Dudley Wood area of Dudley Metropolitian Borough Council; Group Chair of the Labour Group of LGA where hs in on the Regeneration and Transport board of the LGA (which covers the areas relating to transport, economic development in rural and urban areas.);Board Member of Regional Development Agency and Chairman of Dudley Zoo.
*** Sadiq Khan is MP for Tooting and Minister of State, Department for Transport as well as having lots of other local responsibilities
**** John Hirst runs the Met Office. He previously worked for Premier Farnell, a company that
is a leading, high service, multi-channel distribution group supporting millions of engineers and purchasing professionals globally through its Group companies. Our products range from electronic components to industrial products from over 3,500 leading suppliers

Caring Britain?

From the Mail

'It is unbelievable they are moving people including a 93-year-old, a 98-year-old, and a 106-year-old on a day like this.

Today, with snow lying on the ground and council gritters standing idle because the government says they mustn't use salt and grit on anything other than major roads, several very old people were forcibly removed from their homes and rehoused - because the council said so. ... Maybe they had nothing else to do with their time.

Caring Britain?

It makes you wonder, sometimes, it really does - especially as a similar sort of place in Rigbytown was 'urgently' closed down more than two years ago, yet is still standing.

Red diesel and snow.

According to the Mail

Farmers have ... been warned they could face fines if they grit snow-blocked roads using tractors powered on red diesel.

HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) issued guidance to the National Farmers Union warning them not to use the reduced-tax fuel when gritting.

We Rigbys think the situation is getting beyond ludicrous. So not only are farmers, who might be able to help, being threatened with fines but the only way they can get their snow-clearing equipment onto the roads is if they spend time draining their fuel tanks to ensure every trace of red diesel is removed, and then refill with the undyed stuff - then repeat the process if they want to use their vehicle on their farms. Talk about labour-intensive, when a slight relaxation of the rules, or common-sense ignoring them because it's important would be much more useful.

Not only have councils been ordered not to salt or grit 'minor' roads, they've also been told not to grit pavements or hard shoulders on major roads - because there isn't enough salt or grit in Britain to get the job done. One thing they seem to have forgotten is that councils have a duty to maintain public footpaths so that nobody falls over - let's wait and see how many people make a claim for negligence, after falling over and breaking an arm or a leg on a dangerously slippery pavement.

The few people who could help out by clearing side roads of snow are being threatened with financial penalties if they do something useful, something of benefit to this country.

But the move has been criticised by those who claim it could stop farmers reaching neighbours stranded in the deep snow.

Under current rules farmers can only grit roads if using tractors powered by white diesel - the standard fully-taxed diesel for trucks, vans and cars.

Yes, we know the difference between red and white diesel. The red is a hard-to-remove dye. We also know that tiny traces of red diesel left in a tank that's then refilled with white diesel can lead to prosecution from over-zealous enforcers.

Geoff O'Connell, a parish councillor in Belford, Northumberland, said: 'Doesn't anyone at HMRC realise that we are experiencing a national emergency, one of the worst outbreaks of Arctic weather for decades?'

Clearly not! - But there have been having meetings to talk about it.

Maybe there is hope though, and farmers will be able to help out without being fined. There's more about the red diesel rules in Farmer's Guardian, which says:-

FARMERS should be aware in which circumstances tractors can be used in the current harsh weather conditions sweeping the UK to avoid facing the wrath of the law.

As many farmers are assisting with road clearance with ploughs, towing cars and gritting roads around the UK to support councils and local authorities, many may be unsure what is legal with the red stuff in the tank and what is not.

The National Association of Agricultural Contractors (NAAC) clarifies that tractors can be used for snow clearance on public highways when running on red, but not when on private land such as in supermarket car parks, or land that is not maintained by a council or highways agency. On the other hand, the NAAC says that gritting using red diesel is only legal with a dedicated gritting machine i.e. one that is purely designed for this role.

Tractors with spreaders which are either mounted or towed behind are not legal on red diesel, and even vehicles towing gritting equipment mounted on trailers, those into which gritting material is merely dropped or held in place with straps, or drop-sided vehicles carrying grit for manual spreading are not permitted to use rebated fuel.