You know I heard BBC news posing the question the other day of How are we
going to adapt to a drier world . ****s. The so called AGW drought is a
total nonsense. Only recently it's been commented on this NG that the
Environment agency and UKMO were exageratting the so called drought that was
confined to a narrow band of the SE. Well surely this recent wet spell will
redress the phoney drought conditions. A friend omine has a boat moored at
Reading on the thames; he tells me that the river is very high at the
moment.

Never the less Patricia Hewitt and her lyinig cronies will tell us that the
NHS has just come through the driest period ever in earths history.
Personally I some how drought it.

Oh have a look at my recent attempts to get her to confirm her "coldest
winter in 40 years " statement

"Thank you for your further email.

Whilst I appreciate that you may wish a definitive answer on this matter, as
I have explained previously, if Ms Hewitt did make a mistaken comment in an
interview regarding the weather then I am afraid that it is not a matter I
will pursue further with her office. Interviews around the time were given
to launch the NHS Winter Report 2005-2006 which praises the performance of
NHS organisations and their staff during the more challenging winter months
and should be regarded in this context. You can read the report online using
the link below.

http://www.dh.gov.uk/NewsHome/NewsAr...244&chk=6Lomg5

I am sorry that I am unable to help you further on this matter.

Yours sincerely,

Clare Noblett
Department of Health
Hello Clare. I see plentyof political water has gone under the bridge since
our last encounter. Your boss has been booed by the RCN, Clarke's gone,
Prescott demoted and very bad local elections however I'm not prepared to
let this rest.

Waiting for a truthful reply from Mrs Hewitt seems out of the question. The
reason being - as I now have the transcript of the said Radio Five
interview- the Secretary for Health did say "the coldest winter for forty
years". Now this is a lie and unforgivable more so considering how the
Ministry of health has been increasingly encroaching into the business of
the Minsistry of Defence (UKMO), with ridiculous local health forecasting
shemes designed to distract from the disaster that the NHS is rapidly
becoming. So all Hewitt had to do was ask those willing civil servants over
at UKMO how this last winter rated and I can assure you it was not the
coldest for 40 years, 30 years, 20 years in fact ten years is pushing it. I
put it that Hewitt is conciously not telling the truth as way of NHS bad
news deflection.

This Smoke& Mirrors media manipulation is a disgrace..Thanks
Lawrence Jenkins
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2006 12:11 PM
Subject: Response to your Query : - RefE00000089182 - Response to
your Query : - RefE00000086509 - Do I have to move to Leicester


Dear Mr Jenkins,

Thank you for your patience. I have consulted with my colleagues in the
Press Office who tell me that the Media Monitoring Unit do not have a record
of an interview with Patricia Hewitt on Radio Five Live at the time
specified, and therefore we do not have a transcript. However, I am sure
that you will appreciate that the Secretary of State has a very pressing
schedule at the moment and so I am afraid it is not appropriate for me to
pursue this any further with her private office.

I am sorry that you will be disappointed with this reply.

Yours sincerely,


Clare Noblett
Department of Health"




There you have it liars in the extreme.

"Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
...

Oh give it a rest

At least you got a good dialogue going and you got her
to admit the possibility of a mistake. But politicians say
thousands of things and you can hardly pursue them
doggedly on every little thing can you?

Col
--
Bolton, Lancashire.
160m asl.

You certainly can. They are supposed to be OUR representatives in
Parliament, and as such should place our interests in the forefront of
debate.

I agree with Lawrence. The lies and spin, dishonesty and general
shiftiness of the current encumbents is beyond the pale.

The present government will go to unlimited lengths to control the public,
and extract any and all revenue it can to satisfy its own ends, even if that
means conning us all about droughts, climate change and so-called "green"
issues, crime, education, the Health Service, immigration, transport,
energy, pensions - the list goes on. We are rapidly approaching third world
status, and most of the original partners are laughing their socks off at
us.

Crass incompetence, and there seems to be little we can do about it, as the
alternatives appear now to be just as ghastly.

That's why I (and others) are quitting this declining country in droves.
(and before anybody chips in with "good riddance", it's water off a duck's
back ;-))

CK
"Col" wrote in message
...

"Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
...

Oh give it a rest

At least you got a good dialogue going and you got her
to admit the possibility of a mistake. But politicians say
thousands of things and you can hardly pursue them
doggedly on every little thing can you?

Col
--
Bolton, Lancashire.
160m asl.

""Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
...

snip tiresome polical crap

I thought this was a UK science/weather newsgroup.

alt.politics.british is over there -----

T

That's why I (and others) are quitting this declining country in droves.
(and before anybody chips in with "good riddance", it's water off a duck's
back ;-))

CK

Good riddance then. 16mm of rain running off the ducks backs since midnight.

--
David Mitchell, 70m amsl, Langtoft, East Riding of Yorkshire.

Never the less Patricia Hewitt and her lyinig cronies will tell us that the
NHS has just come through the driest period ever in earths history.
Personally I some how drought it.

Lawrence what do you expect from this Government, they are all crooks in
suits, who are totally incompetent as well as been lying cronies to
boot!
--
Graham

T wrote:
""Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
...

snip tiresome polical crap

I thought this was a UK science/weather newsgroup.

alt.politics.british is over there -----

T

Unfortunately, no one is allowed to make a mistake any more, whether in
public office or not. If you do make a mistake then you are hounded,
criticised, persued, sneered at or (if you are driving) gesticulated
at, assaulted and possibly stabbed.

Why? Because there are so many sad individuals who have nothing better
to do than boost their own image of themselves by the continuous
criticisms of others.

It could be argued that I have made a mistake by typing this response -
only time will tell.

"CK" wrote in message
.. .
You certainly can. They are supposed to be OUR representatives in
Parliament, and as such should place our interests in the forefront of
debate.

Yeah, she made a mistake. Big deal.
That has been (partially) acknowledged. Lawrence should move on.
In the great scheme of things it's really not that important.

I agree with Lawrence. The lies and spin, dishonesty and general
shiftiness of the current encumbents is beyond the pale.

The present government will go to unlimited lengths to control the public,
and extract any and all revenue it can to satisfy its own ends, even if that
means conning us all about droughts, climate change and so-called "green"
issues, crime, education, the Health Service, immigration, transport,
energy, pensions - the list goes on. We are rapidly approaching third world
status, and most of the original partners are laughing their socks off at
us.

Oh yes, it's all a conspiracy I tell you!
We've always had 'spin' just we didn't always call it that.
What was said aboud the winter was just ignorance, not part of some
dastardly plot.
3rd World status? Yeah, right......
Clearly you have no idea what living in a 3rd Wordl country is like.

Col
--
Bolton, Lancashire.
160m asl.

wrote in message
oups.com...

Unfortunately, no one is allowed to make a mistake any more, whether in
public office or not. If you do make a mistake then you are hounded,
criticised, persued, sneered at or (if you are driving) gesticulated
at, assaulted and possibly stabbed.

Why? Because there are so many sad individuals who have nothing better
to do than boost their own image of themselves by the continuous
criticisms of others.

It could be argued that I have made a mistake by typing this response -
only time will tell.

Not as far as I am concerned.
Couldn't agree more!

Col
--
Bolton, Lancashire.
160m asl.

To all those that think the poor love made a mistake - are you really that
naive?

For chrissakes don't you think she should check out her facts? She has an
army of advisors around her supplying her with info and sound bites.

As for Crazy horse or whatever his stupid name is. I have never had a
problem with people making mistakes and if the said minister for health made
a mistake come out and say so. Trouble was, this was not a mistake it was a
concious ,calculated effort to mislead the general public.

Of course there are problems with the NHS look at the demands placed upon
it an extreme example being that every one enters the country with
HIV -regardless of wheteher they have ever paid tax or NI contributions -
immediatley receives millions of pounds worth of treatment. Deal with the
truth don't use lies and distortions to deflect.

As for posting off topic, well In mitigation the initial post was about the
what is now becoming legend great drought of 2006. I think a look at Philip
Eden's post from march 18th would be apt.

" Let me summarise the points I have tried to make:

1) Rainfall statistics are spun by the water industry with the collusion
of the EA and the MO. We are told that it has been the driest 15
month period for a century (the caveats are there, but rather
hidden away, so it's hardly a surprise that journalists don't see them).
The data are spun in several ways:


a) It's 16 months now, but the analysis was put together before the
end of Feb so that the heavy Feb rainfall in Kent, Surrey and Sussex
was excluded.


b) It's only a very narrow zone, averaging 30km wide, stretching roughly
from Basingstoke to Maidstone, where serious records have been
broken. At one or two sites in this zone 2005 was the driest calendar
year since 1921 (i.e. 85 years ago, not 100). You can always find
one or two sites in a notably dry or wet period which are rather more
extreme, statistically, than the general pattern. Thus, if we concede that
1 or 2 water companies may be seriously affected, the way the data are
presented allows, encourages even, other water companies to jump on
the "we have a shortage" bandwagon.


c) Apart from SE England, 2003 was a drier year than 2005, as were
1997, 1996, 1991 and 1990, so although rainfall has been below
average over most of England and Wales, the shortfall has only been
noteworthy in the southeastern corner. (2004 was actually drier than
2005 over most of northern and western Britain).


d) The present dry spell began in November 2004, so to make the
statistics look more extreme, the water industry analysis compares the
dry spell only to other 15-month periods *beginning in November *.
If you compare it with 15-month periods beginning in *any* month,
1995-97 wins hands down every time. On that occasion below
average rainfall persisted from March 1995 to October 1997 inc,
a period of 32 months, so we've got a long way to go to emulate that.


B) The other aspect of the so-called drought that worries me is
the targeting of domestic users. I am far from up-to-date on these
issues, but I did research the subject back in 1990, in another
"record drought". (It seems that we manage the "worst since
records began" about every 4 or 5 years ...)


The water supplied by the water companies is used up in three
broad ways: by domestic users, by commercial users, and in
leaks from the network. From memory, 16 years ago, the
proportions were something like 60% to industry, etc,
35% to domestic, 15% in leaks (but my memory may be
faulty ... in any case the proportions will have changed since then).
Commercial users are charged more than domestic users, and
some pay much more to ensure an uninterrupted supply. Plugging
leaks is also expensive.


Thus in a time of low rainfall it is more economical for the
water companies to restrict supplies to domestic users. The only
recourse *we* have is to make a fuss, to reject the spun
statistics which are designed to scare us out of our profligacy
(I don't dispute that we are profligate, that metering is sensible,
etc, etc, but it's a cheap, two-faced trick to try to frighten the
general public by cherry-picking the statistics to present an
image of imminent desertification of southern England. They should
face the issue of metering head on, rather than blaming the weather).


No doubt there's a website somewhere that gives up-to-date
statistics w.r.t. commercial/domestic/leakage proportions.


C) Building a million or more new homes in the Southeast is
hardly designed to help.



Philip Eden"











wrote in message
oups.com...

T wrote:
""Lawrence Jenkins" wrote in message
...

snip tiresome polical crap

I thought this was a UK science/weather newsgroup.

alt.politics.british is over there -----

T

Unfortunately, no one is allowed to make a mistake any more, whether in
public office or not. If you do make a mistake then you are hounded,
criticised, persued, sneered at or (if you are driving) gesticulated
at, assaulted and possibly stabbed.

Why? Because there are so many sad individuals who have nothing better
to do than boost their own image of themselves by the continuous
criticisms of others.

It could be argued that I have made a mistake by typing this response -
only time will tell.