As I munched the first burger I’ve eaten in years (homemade with relish and a fab side salad) in a small cafe in Glastonbury, I read with interest an article in the Daily Mail by Christopher Booker entitled ‘Pandemic of Panic‘ (p14, Thurs 30/04/09 if you’re interested) and contemplated BSE and CJD.

I was struck by so much of what he was saying and suggesting about the scares that we seem to endure on a regular basis.  His basic premise (and I concur) was that they all seem to follow the same basic pattern:

1. Dubious ’scientific’ research reported in the academic sector
2. Picked up and reported as ‘fact’ to those in authority who have neither the wisdom nor the wit to question what is being told them
3. ‘Leaked’ to the world’s media who jump up and down in glea at the thought of finding yet another ‘news’ item that they can promote to a largely indifferent public as the next ‘big worry’ that we must all subscribe to.
4. Only to be slip into some sort of non-event oblivion (sometimes within just a few days) which we all remember with amusement at a dinner party ten years down the road – shades of my reaction to the millennium bug spring to mind here, but that’s a story for another occasion.

However, what I found noteworthy was not so much what he was saying as what he was NOT saying.

My own view (completely unsubstantiated and purely subjective – soon to be addressed though) is that these moments of national and international panic usually occur at a moment of crisis for those powers that be who feel themselves threatened in some way by something or other..

I believe a time like that exists now, the so called global ‘credit crunch’ (which was probably started as a diversionary tactic for something else) has spiralled out of control and now risks becoming a reality as nations talk themselves into it.

So, what are the options? Firstly, it is worth bearing in mind that, although there have been 158 deaths in Mexico so far and one in the US, several thousand people die in the UK every year from ‘normal’ flu anyway.  Perhaps one of the problems is a lack of consistent data from any nation to which we can compare things.  You can check out this forum posting to see how confusing it can get: http://www.jabs.org.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=58 (posted 01/08/2006).

One thing I plan to do is to have a look at just what was going on in the world at the time of the last major ‘panics’ we had – once again this will be purely circumstantial with no evidence put forward; however given the fact that our own NHS can’t come up with accurate or even complete statistics, then I guess that won’t be a problem !!!

Huge amounts of public money are being thrown at the wall of concern surrounding the impact on society of the breakdown in family structures. Although each independent initiative discussed here performs to an adequate standard in itself, without effective coordination the losers will continue to be the very people at whom this money and effort is targeted.

This report begins by reviewing four landmark studies that indicate a progressive structural breakdown. It goes on to describe a few of the plethora of publicly funded initiatives set up to address the problem. Many of these initiatives overlap or duplicate. In many cases, the initiative is a radical departure from ‘core business’ and with little interaction between organisations, training and set-up costs will often be re-inventions of the wheel.  It is to their credit that many have ‘hit the ground running’. The cost however, runs into billions.  Sure Start for example, has been advanced £80 million this year to pilot their scheme in a small number of ‘trailblazer’ areas.

You can download the complete document here, which was written by my wonderful husband, John (who is a non-exec Director with one of our local Primary Care Trust’s).

I don’t know what it is like elsewhere in the world, but here in the UK we have a policy of ‘Social Inclusion‘.  What this means in practice is that everyone has effectively been put into a blender together – brown, black, yellow, white, pink etc… and we’ve all be blended and now it’s all ……. Grey (ugh, not one of my favourite colours and not one that suits my complexion anyway).

Now we are all expected to think the same, have the same opinions, dress the same, have the same qualifications, do the same jobs to the same standard for the same length of time, be skilled in all the same things, learn subjects in the same way, be mindful of others peoples ’sameness’.  It’s all just the same!

Is it working?  NO it isn’t, we aren’t all the same and Social Inclusion is political correctness taken to it’s extreme – unless of course you believe in consipiracy theories and begin to feel (as I do) that it’s all one big plot against the nation, state, humanity (choose your own ending there).

If we all think the same, do the same things, behave in the same way – it is much easier to control a population, we believe the same things like the so called ‘news reports’.  We no longer question the party line, we no longer protest; and instead we have consumerism to keep us quiet – the more we can consume, the less time we have to question where we as a society are heading towards.

And where did this rant come from? I’ve been questioning what’s been going on for some years now – just amongst friends you understand; but on Friday I had a really interesting conversation with one friend who works with people with learning difficulties who is very disillusioned about it all.

The conclusion we came to is that everyone is the same; we are all human, we all have needs and expectations; but that this is where it ends.  We are also all different, we all come from different backgrounds, experiences, cultures; we have different opinions on what life is all about – why can’t we celebrate our difference, accept that it’s OK not be grey and to live the life we were all meant to live, except live it in more harmoney, accepting that our neighbours down the road have a different lifestyle and THAT IT IS ALL OK.

Rant over for the day, see you for coffee tomorrow, maybe