Allergy Alerts

Fortunately, I don't suffer from any food allergies (perhaps mussels, the last few times I've eaten them I have been sick shortly afterwards - it may be coincidence - but I'm sticking clear of them now) - but some people do - and consequences can range from discomfort through to life-threatening.

These days it is popular to decry regulations - and Government funded organisations. Yet one that I would like to draw your attention to, plays an important role in monitoring food which might cause problems for anyone with a good allergy.

The Food Standards Agency is the body responsible. Its website can be accessed at https://www.food.gov.uk

In particular it has a section on the website called "Allergy Alert" - you can see the latest alerts at https://www.food.gov.uk/news-updates/news/allergy-alerts-news

Sometimes there will be a problem with a food product that means it should not be sold. Then it might be 'withdrawn' (taken off the shelves) or 'recalled' (when customers are asked to return the product). Sometimes foods have to be withdrawn or recalled if there is a risk to consumers because the allergy labelling is missing or incorrect or if there is any other food allergy risk. When there is a food allergy risk, the FSA will issue an Allergy Alert.

The Chinese New Year

This weekend sees the beginning of the Chinese New Year. This will be the Year of the Rooster. Saturday will be the first day of a year that is based on a lunar calendar. It is also known as the Chinese Spring Festival. [I was always bemused by that - the dates on which the festival begins can only be between January 21st and February 20th - dates I associate - certainly in England - with the worst of the winter.] However it was, according to a Chinese website - "set to coincide with the slack time just before a new year of farm work begins, as a time of preparation." It begins on the day of the New Moon.

While researching for this post I came across this very interesting website - http://www.chinesenewyears.info

In London the London Chinatown Chinese Association have organised a free event on Sunday. It will begin at 10.00 and end at 18.00 - and we are promised "the biggest dragon and lions procession in Europe"



I'd like to wish a Happy New Year to all my Chinese friends.

Chinese New Year Parade
The theme of the celebrations for this year is “China: Today & Yesterday”, celebrating Chinese cultures past and present.

The day kicks off at 10am with a colourful Chinese New Year parade that snakes its way from Charing Cross Road (just to the north of Trafalgar Square) to Shaftesbury Avenue. This lively event features six hand-crafted floats and the largest gathering of Chinese lion and dragon dance performers in the UK.

Trafalgar Square
Events take place in Trafalgar Square from 11am, as screen shows and a thanksgiving ceremony are followed by firecrackers, speeches and the Lions’ Eye-Dotting Ceremony at 12pm.

Don’t miss the spectacular Flying Lion Dance at 12.50pm, before the Dragon Dance and a range of performances take place on the main stage. You’ll experience everything from puppetry, acrobatics and martial arts, to drumming, classical music and Chinese rock hits!

The day ends in Trafalgar Square with a grand finale featuring martial arts, traditional sounds and a stunning light show with special effects from 5.30pm.

The Soft Drink Industry Levy

What a title! It seems designed to bore - but behind it is an important initiative designed to improve the health of the nation.

Sugar is relatively cheap to produce - but the costs to individuals and society can be huge. There is growing evidence of the damage that it can do. The damage to teeth has been obvious for years - but the use of sugar has also been linked to diabetes, obesity, depression and dementia.




In the 2016 Budget, the former chancellor, George Osborne announced the introduction of a levy on soft drinks. The levy would apply to manufacturers and importers of sugar added soft drinks and would be implemented in April 2018.  There would be exemptions for fruit juices and milk based drinks and for small producers.  The proceeds of the Levy would be used in England to increase spending on PE in schools, after school clubs and breakfast clubs.

Not only will this 'sugar tax' bring in extra resources for good causes - but it is intended to discourage over-consumption of a delicious but deadly poison. The House of Commons Library [an independent, non-party political body] has produced a research paper on the Levy. It is available here.

French Bookshops

The ideal place to buy French books and games - is in France -



- but if you can't get there, there are a couple in London. I often use La Page, between South Kensington Underground station and the Institute Français.

Does History Matter?

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Those words took on a very chilling meaning for me last week. I was in Hamburg. Each morning I passed a statue outside the Dammtor station commemorating 'Kindertransport'. Between 1938 and 1940 thousands of refugee Jewish children were enabled to escape Germany and were brought to Britain. Many of those left behind perished as part of Hitler's "final solution". More information about Kindertransport can be found here.

I also noticed around the city, and in the street where we were staying, small plaques in the pavement 



they noted who had lived on that site - and what happened to them.


Hitler came to power through deploying demagoguery, scapegoating and ultra-nationalism. After the extent of what had happened became clear - there was a worldwide move never to allow such things to happen again - but as the quote from George Santayana says - "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

A decreasing number of people can personally remember this awful period in human history. We need to keep reminding ourselves - and others - of the awful capacity for evil which can arise. Demagoguery, scapegoating and ultra-nationalism have had little impact in Europe over the last 70 years - but new clouds are rising over the horizon. We play with fire at great risk!

Watching the Lords

As employers (and employees) have known down the centuries - job security enhances independence. This also applies to the House of Lords. There's no de-selection if a Peer speaks his or her mind - upsetting the party hierarchy. As a result the House of Lords is harder to manage - and questions can be direct and embarrassing, especially for the Government.

The full business for this week can be found on the parliamentary website - www.parliament.uk but I'd like to highlight some matters which will be coming up.

Today, in the 30 minutes of oral questions - subjects relevant to my home city of Milton Keynes come up. One is about continuing the centuries old practice of printing master copies of Acts of Parliament on vellum. This is done in Newport Pagnell. The other question concerns when the Government can terminate a rail franchise where it has failed to provide the service required. This is about Southern Railway - which used to provide a service through west London onto Croydon from Milton Keynes.

Tomorrow a question will be put by Lord Roberts of Llandudno about how the government intends to fulfill its promise to accept 20,000 refugees from Syria by 2020.

On Wednesday Lord McKenzie of Luton will ask how the government intends "to address the causes of the increase in the number of council tenants in receipt of Universal Credit who are in rent arrears"

Thursday will see a debate on the case for tackling the causes of poverty in the UK.

The Investigatory Powers Bill will be considered in Committee (of the whole House) today and on Wednesday

Why did they do it???

A happy Independence Day to all our friends from the USA. To celebrate the day the text of the Declaration is set out below - it's always worth reading and reflecting on - because it is founded on so many important ideas - which remain important today.

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. 
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: 
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. 
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. 
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.