What are we going to do about the growing challenge of dementia?
April 14th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I have previously done a posting about my participation in a study looking at the health risks which might predict the onset of dementia. The study, conducted by Imperial College in London, is called CHARIOT PRO – a abbreviation for Cognitive Health in Ageing Register: Investigational, Observational, and Trial studies in dementia research: Prospective Readiness cOhort Study.
The study – led by the world-renowned Professor Lefkos Middleton – involves over 400 of us aged between 60-85 – each of whom has a study partner – who are given cognitive tests and health questionnaires every three months. This weekend, hundreds of the participants and study partners gathered at Imperial College for four and half hours of briefings on the nature of dementia and the research being conducted around it.
For most of human history, average life expectancy was around 30 years but today it is over 70 years and still rising. This means that, for most of history, dementia has not been an issue but, since it was first diagnosed by the German physician Aloysius Alzheimer in 1901, the number of sufferers has grown and grown worldwide and, as longevity increases and birth rates fall, the proportion of the population suffering dementia will increase.
The headline message of this weekend’s meeting was that so far every study testing a drug with sufferers of dementia has failed to work, so now the focus is on trying to identifying what might tell us who is most likely to develop dementia so that they can be given drugs before the symptoms become apparent.
This requires a well-structured, long-term examination and the CHARIOT PRO study is currently one of the top five in the world on the issue of dementia,. Originally participants were signed up for three and a half years, but this weekend we were advised that funding has now been agreed to carry out testing for a further year. So I’m probably in this project until I’m approaching 75.
Posted in My life & thoughts, Social policy | Comments (2)
The making of American power (5): Trump’s foreign policy
April 12th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I attended the last session of an excellent eight-week evening class at London”s City Literary Institute. The title was “The making of American power: US foreign policy from the Cold War to Trump” and our able lecturer was Jack Gain. Week 8 of the course was about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy over the last two tumultuous years.
One point made was that what Trump has said – in tweets and speeches – and what he has done – in actual events – have not always been the same. So he originally questioned the whole necessity of NATO but subsequently confined himself to calling for each NATO member to spend 2% of its GDP on defence – a call made by Obama and other presidents . He branded the North Korean dictator “rocket man” but has been willing to meet him twice – something no other president has done.
Another point is that, when one looks at the actions rather than the words, Trump has not always been as different as liberals feared or as conservatives hoped, so there has been more continuity in American foreign policy than might be appreciated. After all, Obama was keen for the US to pull back from overseas adventures and unwilling to engage in Syria.
In an interesting article for “Foreign Affairs”, neoconservative Eliot A. Cohen observes:
“What explains this continuity? Part of the reason is that Trump seems to have a short attention span, little understanding of how the federal government works, and a tendency to get distracted by domestic political fights. Insider accounts of the administration should be taken with a grain of salt, but they paint a consistent picture. In an anonymous New York Times op-ed, one insider described being told by a “top official” that “there is literally no telling whether [Trump] might change his mind from one minute to the next.” It is unsurprising that a man who by some accounts gets most of his news from television cannot get a grip on the vast complexity of the U.S. government.
The Times op-ed points to a second, undeniable fact: Trump faces unprecedented opposition from within his own administration. This opposition has only grown as Trump has replaced his initial cadre of advisers. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Adviser John Bolton are both more familiar with Washington than their predecessors and more adept at telling the president what he wants to hear. Both hold views of foreign policy that are not wildly distant from those of establishment Republicans; they just take care not to rub them in Trump’s face.”
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (1)
The Conservative Party is dying – literally
April 10th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
“Younger and older generations have always been politically different, but never by this much. The generational schism exposed at the last General Election was unprecedented. The gap between the youngest and oldest voters was three times the post-war average – a fifty percentage point increase on the median gap since 1945. Age, rather than class or income, is now the best predictor of vote intention.
This report confirms that age polarisation is not only here to stay but that
the gap between younger and older generations is growing. The Conservative vote is ageing at a faster rate than the general population, largely due to the party’s failure to convert large numbers of young potential voters. It is an extraordinary finding that 83% of Conservative voters are now over the age of 45. Just 4% are under the age of 24 years old.Meanwhile, Labour’s reliance on younger voters is growing. A sizeable proportion of older voters will now not even consider voting Labour, imposing a hard electoral ceiling and threatening the party longer-term as the population ages. In terms of composition, however, Labour remains much more generationally balanced: 53% of Labour voters are over the age of 45 and 47% under the age of 45.
The net result of these trends is that the “tipping point age” – the median age at which a voter is more likely to be Conservative than Labour – is now 51 years old, up from 47 at the 2017 General Election. Before the 2017 campaign, the tipping point was 34 years old.”
This is an extract from the summary of a report entitled “Generation Why?” published this week by the Conservative think-tank Onward. You can read the full report here.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
The introduction of the world’s first 24-hour seven-day-a-week Ultra Low Emission Zone
April 8th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Two weeks ago, I started to live in the centre of London, so it is a fortuitous coincidence that today sees the introduction in the capital of the world’s first all-day, all-week Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).
You can find a question and answer guide to London’ ULEZ here and an examination of how it compares to schemes in other countries here.
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
A review of the new bio-pic “At Eternity’s Gate”
April 7th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
There is a whole sub-genre of films about artists and Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) has been the subject of more than most with this work, focusing on the last two years of his life, being the ninth (the previous one – only two years earlier – was “Loving Vincent”). For me, seeing “At Eternity’s Gate” had a special appeal because I viewed it at London’s Tate Britain art gallery immediately after visiting the exhibition “Van Gogh And Britain” about his three years (1873-1876) in England.
Three things make this latest van Gogh bio-pic stand out. First, the film is co-written and directed by the American Julian Schnabel who is himself an artist and understands the creative process of painting. Second, Vincent is played by Willem Dafoe, who may technicaly be two and a half decades too old, but gives a wonderful performance that was rightly Oscar-nominated. Third, the cinematography is gorgeous with a wide palette of colours and much of the film shot on location in southern France.
One could criticise the production for being slow and discordant, but I guess that this was the intention of the director to reflect the mental turmoil of the artist. Also the representation of van Gogh’s fatal shooting is controversial although it was advanced in a 2011 biography. But, whatever reservations one might have, this is film that imprints itself on the memory.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
A review of the film “You Were Never Really Here”
April 5th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
Scottish writer and director Lynne Ramsay has created a really dark look at American society in this grim tale of the search for a missing teenage girl who is being held as a sex slave.
Out to retrieve her is Joe, a Gulf War veteran suffering post-traumatic stress, whose weapon of choice is a hammer (it is a violent movie but one rarely sees the violence overtly). Joaquin Phoenix is mesmerising as the laconic loner on a mission in a film with minimal dialogue but lots of atmosphere.
The title of the protagonist and his vigilante role reminded me of a film called “Joe”, released as long ago as 1970, but the nightmarish vision of this 2017 work is in a category of its own.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (2)
So two more Government Ministers resign – making how many under May’s premiership?
April 4th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
It has been really hard to keep up with Ministerial resignations since Theresa May became Prime Minister. There were two more yesterday in protest at her decision to talk to Opposition Leader Jeremy Corbyn to see if they can agree a way out of the Brexit fiasco.
If you thought that, under May’s ‘leadership’, there have been more resignations from government than is usual, you would be right. Even under her short tenure, there have been more than 30, from the Foreign Secretary (Boris Johnson) down.
At the end of this page on the BBC website, there is a fascinating graph showing the number of resignations at each stage of the premiership of the last six occupants of 10 Downing Street. And I’m sure that, in the case of Theresa May, the resignations are not yet over and will soon culminate in her own departure.
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Two thoughts about Brexit
April 3rd, 2019 by Roger Darlington
I know that I should be blogging more regularly about the horror story that is Brexit, but: a) it’s hard to say anything that hasn’t already been said and b) as soon as you think you’ve caught up with developments, something else happens.
As I follow the twists and turns of the debate and I reflect on all that is happening, I am reminded of two of my favourite quotes.
The first is something I learned when I spent four years working in two governments departments as a Political Adviser in the early 1970s: “It isn’t over till it’s over … and then it isn’t over”.
I keep thinking that May’s deal is dead and then there is talk of another vote. I keep thinking that a no-deal Brexit has been ruled out and then it’s back on the agenda. I keep thinking that we’re going to leave the EU and then we ask for another extension.
The truth is that, whatever happens, this Brexit issue is going to run and run for weeks, months, years, decades.
The second quote that I recall is one that is portably apocryphal but I like it. When the then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai was asked his views on the French Revolution, he was reported to have responded that “It’s too soon to say”.
As we seek to make judgements on whether decisions around Brexit were right or wrong and when some kind of leave or remain option is actually implemented, for many years – indeed decades – afterwards, we will be assessing whether a particular setback or success was or was not the result of Brexit.
There will never be a final and definitive judgement.
So, even if you’re fed up with the whole Brexit debate, you’re going to have to stick with it – for life. Sorry …
Posted in British current affairs | Comments (0)
Who is going to be the Democratic candidate in 2020?
April 1st, 2019 by Roger Darlington
It is far to early to predict this. After all, the first primary is not until January – nine months or so away. And, so far, many of the declared candidates have spent a lot of time apologising for comments made or policies supported in their past.
For the moment, though, former Vice President Joe Biden – who has not actually declared yet – holds a double-digit lead over the rest of the 2020 Democratic field in a new poll which was released last week.
In the Quinnipiac University poll, Biden heads the pack with the support of 29% of registered Democrats and voters who lean to the left, while Senator Bernie Sanders holds a second-place ranking with the backing of 19% of those surveyed.
Former member of the House of Representatives Beto O’Rouke, who announced his bid for the presidency this month, sits in third place in the poll with 12% (although so far his policies are very ill-defined) , while Senator Kamala Harris is in fourth place with the support of 8% of respondents.
Meanwhile, South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg – unknown outside the USA – has surged in the polls since the announcement of his exploratory committee and was tied for fifth place with Senator Elizabeth Warren, each earning the support of 4% of voters.
So why is it that currently the three B’s, [Joe] Biden, Bernie [Sanders] and Beto [O’Rourke] are doing so well? It could just be better name recognition in a crowded field of some two dozen possible candidates in advance of any primaries or hustings. Watch this space …
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
How fast is your broadband?
March 29th, 2019 by Roger Darlington
This week, I chaired a meeting of the Consumer forum for Communications at the headquarters of the communications regulator Ofcom. One of the presentations was from Ofcom staff on the subject of superfast broadband (SFBB).
Superfast broadband is defined as a service offering a download speed of at least 30 megabits per second (Mbit/s). We were advised that such a service is now available to 94% of UK premises, but only 47% of premises with access to SFBB have actually signed up to the service.
If you look more closely at that 94% coverage figure, we see that (astonishly) 19% have no broadband connection at all, 16% have a connection up to 10 Mbits/s, 20% have a connection between 10 and 30 Mbit/s, and 45% have a connection above 30 Mbit/s.
So, where are you in this picture? Up until last weekend, my broadband connection was around 24 Mbit/s but, since Tuesday, it has been 100 Mbit/s. I moved home and switched from TalkTalk to Virgin Media. So, now I really am in the fast lane of the infornation superhighway (as it used to be called).
Ofcom is keen to encourage broadband users to consider increasing the speed that they have and has been running a Boost Your Broadband campaign which provides a lot of useful information.
Posted in Internet | Comments (0)