The Uncertainty Principle

And somewhere in the quisling clinic / there's a shorthand typist taking seconds over minutes

Fans of Jakester will be pleased to hear that due to autumnal excesses, there is even more of him to love. I weighed myself for the first time since the summer the other week, and have become fuller figured since then. More statesmanlike, more majestic. Maybe I should hit the gym a bit more.

People seem up in arms about the decision of East Suffolk primary care trust to not consider patients for hip and knee replacements at Ipswich hospital if they have a body mass index of more than 30.

As with any announcement from any primary care trust, we should have expected the 'NHS in crisis - stout bodies pile up in reception areas' headlines. What has been surprising is just how seriously people are taking this.

The Christian belief, that we are all sinners capable of redemption, though not in this world, seems to me vastly more sophisticated in its understanding of the human predicament, than the secularised Manichean view that divides people into victims and perpetrators.

Hold on there Padre!

Let's not panic here. I know it looks like healthcare rationing - that is because it is.

Just because there has been a revolution in rising expectations of the NHS since it was established doesn't change some basic facts.

Healthcare rationing is pretty bloody grim, I wouldn't choose it. Nor would most, that's why we have consistently elected a government who have commited to taking more of our money off us and putting it in to public healthcare and decentralising decision making to local primary care trusts. Rock on. In the short-term, though, I don't see an alternative to what is de facto 1940s and '50s style rationing.

There are more nurses and doctors that ever before, but the NHS isn't more effective or more productive. Not least because people are expecting more and more from it, as well as expecting to feel better and better. The demand is high the resource is scarce and this sort of rationing will carry on in all but name.

What's the alternative? Some hefty debates between socialists and privatisers beyond the 'I can clear 30 more civil servants from the Department of Health than you can' exchanges. Shouldn't be too long now, eh?

In the meantime, can someone keep me off the eclairs?

Checking on a checkmate / Grassing on a classmate

I see the register of MPs interests has been published.

Oh look! they're having a pop at Cherie already.

Before the accusations of venality and corruption are flung about once more, it is worth enjoying a few of the details:

Respect MP George Galloway declared £75,001 to £80,000 of earnings for a Mail on Sunday column. He also detailed an advance of up to £30,000 for the 'I'm not the only one' book, and up to £15,000 for 15 events believed to be his 'an audience with' speaking series

Blunkett's fee for four weekly columns in the Mirror was between £10,001 and £15,000.

Shadow education secretary David Cameron reveals that helicopter and plane trips between London and Blackpool for this year's autumn conference were paid for by supporters.

Conservative leader Michael Howard says he received a Christmas hamper from the Sultan of Brunei.

Chancellor Gordon Brown says that his wife and baby have received two upgrades from Virgin Atlantic.

This is what it means when DJs reload it / that sixteen was mean and he knows it

Today's reloads competition is now open.

Don't worry, the rules are simple:

1. Go to wikipedia
2. Press 'random article' six times.
3. Pick the best entry out of your six random selections.
4. email the link to the convenor - today it is me. If you want to join in the fun, but don't know my email address, use the comments box below.
5. The competition will close at 5pm, and I will select the winner which will get announced here.
6. The winner is the convenes the next round of Reloads either via email or on your blog.

UPDATE! Oli and Julian are already in.

UPDATE! UPDATE! Oli wins!

UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!

The home of Reloads is now www.reloadsthegame.blogspot.com The site will be maintained by TUPNews, who will post each morning with the name of the day's judge.
Competitors should leave their entries in the comments section. Judges should make their decision by 10am the next day at the very latest.

Never said I was a stool pigeon / I never said I was a diplomat / Everybody is under suspicion / But you don't want to hear about that

I have got a lot of work on at the moment - hence the low postage here.

Today: multiculturalism and nationhood.

During this difficult time, it is important for all bloggers to bear in mind one thing.

The French riots bear out your political opinions. Whatever they are. The hyperbole and polemic of the rioters, French government and opposition, the torched Peugeots on the housing estates, they all merely serve to underline the fact that you are right about stuff. You should point this out to people more.

Future generations looking back on these events will curse that your unique prescriptions about social policy, Iraq, licensing laws or folding bicycles were not readily adopted at the time. Especially since you went to all that trouble of paying for a typepad account.

I tend to get quite annoyed with Trevor Phillips. I have seen him on my tube home a couple of times, but haven’t spoken to him about this yet.

I get annoyed that they - the CRE - seem to promote getting a debate going and getting headlines, rather than coming out with something sensible. However important the substance of their underlying argument is, their message is neutralised by the absurd and childish polemics they use. Hence the question of rural racism turning on Phillips’ accusation of 'passive apartheid' in the countryside.

That said, last year, when the Commission for Racial Equality came out with their 'multiculturalism isn’t working' statement I stood shoulder to shoulder with them. This was roundly denounced at the time. Most liberal commentators were scared of being portrayed as turncoats, like when seemingly friendly taxi drivers turn a bit racist in the middle of a conversation about the 4-4-2 formation.

Particularly after 7th July, the idea that multiculturalism can and should be limited has gained favour.

Lest I sound like a Daily Mail reader, this point should be clarified. The sort of multiculturalism that should be limited is the sort that believes the only feasible way of managing a stable modern polity is through encouraging a series of isolated communities, whose cultural and religious practices are inert and self-regarding.

This debate is further complicated by the fact that most of us nice middle-class boys define multiculturalism by our limited practice of it. As in, 'down my road I can eat out at Lebanese, Japanese and African cafes. I endorse this'.

Back in 2003, prior to my appointment as an Operations Assistant in Boots the Chemist, I narrowly missed out on becoming parliamentary assistant to Vince Cable MP. We had a long interview and nearly as long phone conversation the next day. I liked him and the way he moved his party away from their 50% top rate of income tax policy.

A few weeks ago he wrote an article on his own experience of multiculturalism. Its quite good. 'Racism isn’t fashionable but it isn’t dead' and all that.

It gets the point across about the importance of multiple identities, but sidesteps the idea that, when it comes down to it, these different identities should be put in a hierarchy of importance.

It also casually references the important idea that the Scottish are British. As you lot who are bound to have read some Hobsbawm know, the pompous idea of the independent Scottish nation was largely a nineteenth century phenomenon. The kilt itself only dates about that far back.

And even if the kilt wasn't such a recently invented tradition, what sort of emblem for a national identity is the failure to endorse trousers?