“National crisis” facing UK National Health Service as deficits grow

Ben Trent

In the latest quarterly report of NHS Improvement (NHSI), the combined forecast deficit of NHS trusts stands at a staggering £519 million.

NHSI is responsible for overseeing foundation trusts and NHS trusts, as well as “independent providers” operating within the NHS. This figure has been deemed “unaffordable” by NHSI. Trusts across England were already at a total deficit of £814 million at the close of June, roughly £80 million worse than the same time last year.

NHSI has noted that providers, for the first time, are carrying an underlying deficit of around £4.3 billion, if the non-recurrent “provider sustainability fund” is discounted.

The report details how successful trusts have been in trying to mitigate the continued cutting back of resources and the challenges faced—especially the continuation of the three-year trend in increased demand of an ageing population. The report details a 3.7 percent increase of A&E [Accident and Emergency] admissions from the same quarter in 2017/18.

Despite claims that two thirds of providers met budgeted targets last year, the deficit at the end of 2017/18 came in at £966 million. With the declaration by NHS Improvement that the current target is insufficient, the report states, “NHS Improvement and NHS England regional colleagues have been working with the most challenged health economies to identify actions to close the residual local planning gap.” In other words, already punitively reduced services need to be cut back even more.

The Kings Fund charity has demonstrated the impact of austerity measures on the NHS since they began to take effect in the financial year 2009-10.

The think tank reported that in financial year 2010-11 only 5 percent of NHS trusts overspent their annual budget. In 2015-16, an overwhelming 66 percent of trusts were overspending their annual budgets. The figures throw into sharp relief the true impact of the austerity measures on the NHS. An additional £1.8 billion was made available to the NHS in 2016-17 in the form of the Sustainability and Transformation Fund, but 44 percent of trusts still posted deficits for the following two financial years.

Acute hospitals comprised almost 90 percent of those in deficit. The latest predictions would see an increase of trusts reporting “overspending,” affecting up to 49 percent of all trusts.

Any minuscule funding given by the Tories to the NHS is massively offset but the spending cuts. By 2021 under the government’s Forward View, the NHS must save £22 billion in “efficiency” savings. Moreover, most of the cash granted in the provider sustainability fund, currently set at £2.45 billion, is allocated to acute trusts providing emergency care, but receiving it depends on them agreeing and meeting stringent financial and performance targets.

NHSI suggests ways to make further cuts by considerably reducing long-stay patients (those in hospital for over 21 days) in acute hospitals. NHSI has called for a 25 percent reduction of long-stay patients by December 2018. This was a reaction to the crisis at the start of the year—brought on by government cuts—whereby collectively the country’s 137 trusts were reporting an average bed occupancy rate of 91.7 percent (above the recommended safe level of 85 percent).

In January, 68 senior doctors issued a letter declaring that they had “insufficient hospital and community beds and staff of all disciplines.” In addition, cuts in social care means patients who could be looked after in the community have to stay in hospital.

The report includes an operational performance overview, revealing that against all the principal metrics that NHS England/NHS Improvement are measured against, the bodies are underperforming. This is with an exception of the 31-day wait from diagnosis to first treatment. These indices highlight the inability to process patients in sufficient timeframes.

Another revelation in the report is the almost 10 percent increase in NHS staff vacancies across this quarter. By the end of June, a total of 107,743 vacancies existed out of the 1 million staff employed by the NHS. According to predictions, this number will continue increasing throughout the financial year. With a staggering 41,772 nursing vacancies alone, the NHS is on a verge, as expressed by Siva Anandaciva of the Kings Trust charity, of a “national crisis.” The last three months alone saw an increase in nursing vacancies by 17 percent.

Royal College of Nurses (RCN) director Tom Sandford declared, “This report paints a bleak picture of rising demand and unsustainable workforce shortages, and betrays a huge over-reliance on bank and agency staff in England.”

The continued reliance on agency and bank staff is due to the rapidly increasing number of vacancies that are left unfilled. The use of agency staff is a major contributor in the overspending of acute hospitals. As NHS Improvement notes, “The overspending against pay budgets was caused by increases in temporary staffing with bank staff overspending against plan by £102 million and agency staff by £32 million. This continues the trend identified in 2017/18 of increasing use of temporary (especially bank staff) by trusts to manage workload in the face of increased demands, high levels of vacancies, sickness/absence and staff turnover. As a result of these pressures, overall spending on bank and agency staff is up by £134 million (11 percent) on the same period in 2017/18.”

A recent letter submitted by an anonymous nurse to The Plymouth Herald gives some indication why nursing staff are leaving the NHS in droves. It describes the experiences and the pressures felt by nursing staff. The nurse explains why she moved into the occupation and her love for the job, but that “something has changed within the NHS, community beds have been lost, smaller hospitals have been closed, mental health services have been starved of funding and jobs cut, funding has been cut year on year, these are just a few examples I can give. The numbers of acutely unwell patients coming into the emergency departments is increasing but the services and facilities available to us is [sic] declining.”

The letter continues, “You inform management about the unsafe nature of the unit and they give you a sympathetic look, there is nothing they can do, every ward is exactly the same, there is no one to help.”

She adds, “You have no time to eat or even go to the toilet as your colleagues are just as busy as you are and they cannot cover your work load or cope with any emergency situations whilst you leave the unit, this has an effect on your own physical and mental health.”

The viciously cyclical nature of the predicaments facing the NHS and its workers are not merely symptoms of mismanagement. They are the outcome of a systemic attack on a public health service provider with the intent of bringing the 70-year-old institution into private hands. Huge chunks of NHS provision are already in private hands such as those under Richard Branson’s Virgin Care, which has won over £2 billion in NHS contracts.

The unions have not only proven ineffective in combatting attacks on the NHS but are complicit in them. As the WSWS reported, the “best deal in eight years” touted by the unions was a fraud. The subsequent anger and rebellion by NHS staff at the blatant sellout pay deal resulted in the resignation of the RCN’s chief Janet Davies, after an initial apology failed to placate hostile rank-and-file members. But the resignation and resulting standing down of the RCN’s leadership—after a no confidence vote in them by the membership—is simply an appeasement maneuver. The leadership insisted that it would not reopen a pay agreement that sees NHS workers forced to undergo an effective pay cut for a further three years.

The fight to defend the NHS cannot be conducted within the constraints of bureaucratic unions but must be organized independently of these appendages of management. Health workers should contact NHS FightBack to discuss taking this fight forward through the building of rank-and-file committees, independent of the unions and the development of a socialist programme to defend the right to free, high-quality health care for all.

Slashing of welfare spending forces millions into poverty in UK

Dennis Moore 

After a decade of severe austerity imposed on millions of people across the UK, by the year 2021 there will be £37 billion spent less on working age social security compared to 2010,

This is the estimation of a report produced by the House of Commons library. The figures were obtained by Frank Field, the former Birkenhead Labour MP, who now sits as an Independent. They reveal the staggering level of cuts to welfare benefits that have pauperised millions, including the most vulnerable in society.

Half of these cuts will come from the freezing of working age benefits that has occurred since 2016 and will deliver cuts of nearly £16 billion.

They include cuts to disability benefits, including Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) that together will have been cut by £5 billion, or 10 percent, since 2010.

Other cuts include: Universal Credit, (£3.6 billion), Tax credits, (£4.6 billion), Child benefit, (£3.4 billion), Housing benefit, (£2.3 billion), disability benefits, (£2.8 billion), ESA, and Incapacity benefit, (£2 billion).

The cuts to welfare spending come at a time when costs for the poorest families have risen, leaving many having to spend a greater amount of their income on food, child care and housing.

A study carried out this year by the European Federation of National Organisations Working with the Homeless (Feantsa) found that for the some of the lowest earners in Britain, the cost of a home has risen faster than anywhere else in Western Europe, increasing homelessness. Freek Spinnewijn, the director of Feantsa, said: “Housing exclusion and homelessness have taken on dramatic proportions in the UK.”

The Europe-wide investigation found that the costs of housing for those earning an average £16,000 a year increased by 45 percent, between 2010 and 2016. This is compared to just 10 percent for low earners across Europe. On average poorer households in the UK spend 47.4 percent of their average disposable income on housing costs.

Spending above 40 percent of one’s income on housing is defined as housing cost overburden, and is generally accepted as the benchmark above which general welfare and standard of living is threatened. This number falling into this category has increased by 70 percent since 2010.

A study by the Social Metrics Commission (SMC) think tank found that more than 14 million people, including 4.5 million children, are now living below the breadline. Up to 50 percent of those have been trapped in persistent poverty for years.

The SMC is a cross-party body that works alongside representatives from charities and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. It was founded by Conservative Party member Baroness Stroud. It has developed a more accurate measure of material disadvantage in the UK. The SMC defines poverty as “the extent to which people have the resources to engage adequately in a life regarded as the norm in society.”

While devising a more accurate system of measuring poverty, Stroud is now documenting the terrible levels of poverty she and her party were instrumental in causing. With the election of the Tories in 2010, Stroud was appointed as a Special Adviser to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, tasked with creating and ensuring the imposition of the Tories scorched earth policy on welfare spending. Another of the SMC commissioners is David Laws, who played a central role for the Tories’ coalition partners in that government, the Liberal Democrats, as Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Schools Minister and Cabinet Office Minister from 2010-2015.

The system developed by SMC takes into account factors such as the impact on a household of a disabled child, the impact of poverty in one parent family households, and a household where no one works, or where a household is dependent for income on irregular hours or zero hours contracts.

The system includes measuring core living costs such as rent and childcare costs and recognises that even a family described as living on a relatively comfortable income has no guarantee that they will be able to meet basic material needs, if it is consumed by unavoidable weekly outgoings.

The measurement examines the depth and severity of disadvantage, concluding that 12 percent of the total UK population is in persistent poverty, defined as having spent all or most of the last four years living below the breadline.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts that the numbers of children living in poverty will rise to 5.2 million over the next five years, as government welfare cuts take effect, reversing any progress that has been made in the last 20 years.

The cuts to welfare spending and the implementation of Universal Credit (UC), due to be rolled out nationally next year, have had a catastrophic effect on some of the most vulnerable in society.

The National Audit Office report on UC published earlier this year paints a damning picture of the benefits system. Eight years in development, UC has already consumed £1 billion of public spending in its implementation. Many have tried and failed to claim UC. Many who have been able to make a claim have faced huge problems, with figures showing that 113,000 UC benefit claimants were paid late in 2017.

The attacks on the poorest people are having a devastating impact. Recently published figures by the Office of National Statistics show that Britain’s improvement in life expectancy has slowed down at the fastest rate of any leading industrialised nation, excluding the US. Since 2011, the rate of improvement for women has collapsed by over three quarters.

Earlier this year a number of academics demanded a public inquiry into the worst slowdown in life expectancy improvements in the last 120 years.

An article published last year in the British Medical Journal Open concluded that severe public spending cuts in the UK were associated with 120,000 deaths between 2010 and 2017.

The collective impact of welfare spending and budget cuts to services at the local authority level is leaving many areas of Britain resembling areas of the US—where there was no comprehensive welfare state historically—with the decimation of essential services.

Knowsley, a working-class and impoverished area in the city of Liverpool, has seen its budget cut by nearly half. Liverpool has suffered cuts of nearly two thirds, representing its largest source of discretionary funding. Many other areas of the UK have seen similar cuts.

CEO of the Child Poverty Action Group, Alison Garnham, said, “Cuts and freezes have taken family budgets to the bone as costs rise and there is more pain to come as the two child limit for Tax credits and universal credit, the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, and the roll out of universal credit push families deeper into poverty.”

After the financial crash of 2008, those in power were telling everybody “we are all in this together,” even as they handed over a £1 trillion to bail out the banks at the expense of the public purse. As all figures attest, 10 years on, the cost of this exercise in mass theft has been paid for through the imposition of austerity and impoverishment of millions of people.

Bavaria state election delivers major blow to Germany’s grand coalition

Johannes Stern

The result of the state election held in Bavaria on Sunday is a major blow to the grand coalition (Christian Democratic Union/CDU, Christian Social Union/CSU and Social Democratic Party/SPD) that rules Germany. After the conservative Union (CDU and CSU) and SPD achieved their worst results in the post-war period in the general election in September 2017, these parties suffered an even worse defeat in the first state election to be held this year, losing collectively more than 21 percent as the electorate registered opposition to the government’s right-wing policies.

The CSU, which has governed the state of Bavaria since 1957, gained just 37.3 percent of the vote and failed to gain an absolute majority. It was its worst result since 1950. At the last state election in 2013 the party won 47.7 percent.

The SPD lost even more votes than the CSU and received just 9.5 percent—a fall of 11.1 percent and its worst result in a state election in post-war history. At a federal level, the Social Democrats are now polling at 15 percent, a historic low.

“We could not convince voters and that is bitter,” said the visibly aggrieved SPD chair Andrea Nahles on election night. One of the reasons for the miserable result was the “poor performance of the grand coalition” in Berlin. The SPD had been unable to “liberate itself from the political disputes between CDU and CSU.”

The result in Bavaria confirms the deep-seated hatred on the part of workers and young people for the SPD—the party that introduced the anti-social Agenda 2010 policy, which has plunged millions into poverty and created Europe’s largest low-wage sector. The SPD’s “performance” in the grand coalition has consisted in intensifying the policy of militarism, the build-up of the police and intelligence agencies and social cuts, based on the support of the most right-wing forces.

The CSU chairman and federal interior minister, Horst Seehofer, has only been able to implement his “Master Plan for Migration” (largely based on the policy of the far-right AfD) with the backing of the SPD. The same applies to the still-current domestic intelligence agency (BND) president Hans-Georg Maassen, who works closely together with the AfD and far-right circles. When thousands of neo-Nazis marched through the city of Chemnitz at the end of August, chasing migrants and leftists and attacking a Jewish restaurant, both Maassen and Seehofer expressed solidarity with the right-wing mob.

Popular opposition is mounting as the SPD cements its relations with the far-right. One day before the election in Bavaria, a quarter of a million people took to the streets of Berlin to protest against the AfD and the right-wing agenda of the federal government and the opposition parties. Despite an increase in voter turnout of nearly 10 percent in Bavaria compared to 2013, this sentiment could find only a distorted expression within the existing party system.

The main party to profit was the Greens, who received 17.5 percent of the vote, about 9 percent more than five years ago. According to the election research institute Infratest dimap, the main increase in votes for the Greens came from former voters of the SPD (210,000) and the CSU (180,000). In addition, about 120,000 former non-voters gave their votes to the Greens this time round.

Some may have voted for the Greens with the notion that the party is less aggressive when it comes to refugee policy than other parties. But that is an illusion. After the former Green pacifists backed Germany’s first post-World War II military intervention (in Yugoslavia) in 1999, in the face of fierce popular opposition, the party also shifted far to the right in the sphere of social and refugee policy. Wherever the Greens are involved in government they back police-state measures and the brutal deportation of refugees. In the state of Hesse, the ruling coalition of the CDU and Greens, headed by Volker Bouffier (CDU), has set new records for deportations. Nearly 600 men and women were deported in the first four months of this year alone—50 percent more than in the same period in 2017. Germany’s next state election will take place in Hesse in just under two weeks.

In Bavaria, the Greens are preparing to form a coalition with Seehofer’s CSU and enforce its far-right political line against growing popular resistance. The party’s leading candidates in Bavaria, Ludwig Hartmann and Katharina Schulze, both expressed their support for an alliance with the CSU, along with leading Green politicians based in Berlin. Green Party spokeswoman Franziska Brantner stressed, “Following the negotiations over a Jamaica coalition (a coalition of the conservatives, Greens and neo-liberal Free Democratic Party) at a federal level, we are prepared to go all the way, we want to take part constructively, and to this end show we are also more determined than the SPD.”

Immediately after the election, however, there were indications that the CSU is seeking to form an administration with the state-based Free Voters (FW), which received 11.6 percent of the vote (gaining 2.6 percent). On the night of the election Bavarian Premier Markus Söder (CSU) declared the CSU had a “clear government mandate” and sought a “civic alliance” with the Free Voters. FW chairman Hubert Aiwanger announced he would “put feasible proposals on Söder’s table.”

The FDP enters the new parliament with 5.1 percent of the vote while the Left Party, with 3.2 percent, failed to clear the 5 percent hurdle for representation. The Left Party is widely regarded by workers and young people as a political foe rather than an alternative. In those administrations where the Left Party governs in alliance either with the SPD or Greens, it administers austerity policies with disastrous consequences. In the sphere of refugee policy, the party propounds extreme right-wing and nationalist views.

Last week the head of the Left Party’s parliamentary faction, Sahra Wagenknecht, spoke out openly against the mass demonstration which took place on Saturday in Berlin. “When we talk about open borders for all, then we refer to a demand that most people find unreal and completely alien, and they’re right,” she explained, echoing the AfD. It is already clear that her newly founded movement “Stand Up” is nothing other than a right-wing and nationalist movement aimed at opposing the growing resistance to racism and xenophobia.

Wagenknecht and the Left Party are worried about the growth of social and political opposition and have adopted the right-wing, xenophobic propaganda of the AfD. She promptly won the acclaim of AfD leader Alexander Gauland. Gauland, who just a few days ago published an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung largely based on a speech by Hitler in 1933, praised Wagenknecht as a “courageous voice for reason.”

Although the ruling elites in Germany and their leading media and parties systematically promote the AfD and legitimise its noxious policies, the right-wing extremists received fewer votes than expected. The AfD result of around 10 percent was lower than its total in Bavaria for the federal election in September 2017 (12.4 percent).

This is no reason for complacency, however. No matter which government is formed in Bavaria, it will invariably shift further to the right and orient itself even more to the program of the AfD. The threat from the right can only be stopped by the independent mobilisation of the working class on the basis of a socialist program. The building of the Socialist Equality Party (SGP) is therefore of crucial importance.

HEC Paris/Eiffel MBA Scholarships for Developing Countries 2019/2020 – France

Application Deadline: Within 1 week of admission. No essay required

• For those admitted and confirmed after 1/01/18: March 2019
• For those admitted and confirmed after 1/01/19 : March 2020

Eligible Countries: EIFFEL is offered for candidates working in emerging countries

To be taken at (country): HEC – Paris

About Scholarship: Launched in January 1999 by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Ministère des Affaires Etrangères), the Eiffel Scholarship is designed to bolster international recruiting by French schools of higher education, at a time when competition to attract top foreign students is growing among developed countries. HEC reserves the right to submit only those candidates it feels best qualify for the Eiffel Scholarship as the award is particularly competitive and prestigious. Note that applications from students currently studying outside France will be given priority over those from students already studying in France.

Type: MBA

Selection Criteria and Eligibility: The HEC MBA Program applies on behalf of admitted eligible students. In order to be eligible the candidate must:

• Be aged 30 years old or less in the selection year.
• Only admitted candidates can apply for this scholarship.
• Have a single nationality from a developing country deemed an ’emerging country’ by the French state department, especially those in Asia and Latin America, for example, currently under-represented among the student population in France.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Eiffel Scholarship provides participants with a monthly allowance of approximately €1,100, and covers additional expenses including travel, health insurance and cultural activities. Tuition fees are not covered by the scholarship.

Duration of Scholarship: for the period of study

Offered annually? Yes

How to Apply: Interested candidates should first apply for admission into the HEC Paris MBA programme in order to get this scholarship.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for Details

Sponsors: French Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Commonwealth Scholarships 2019 (Fully-Funded Masters & PhD) in UK for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 19th December 2018 16:00 (GMT)

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Developing commonwealth countries

Subject Areas: All subject areas are eligible, although the CSC’s selection criteria gives priority to applications that demonstrate strong relevance to development.

Levels of study: Masters and PhD

About Scholarship: Each year, Commonwealth Scholarships for Master’s and PhD study in the UK are offered for citizens of developing Commonwealth countries. These scholarships are funded by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), with the aim of contributing to the UK’s international development aims and wider overseas interests, supporting excellence in UK higher education, and sustaining the principles of the Commonwealth.

Offered Since: 1959

Type: Masters (one-year courses only) and PhD

Who is qualified to apply? To apply for these scholarships, you must:
PhD

• Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person
• Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country
• Be available to start your academic studies in the UK by the start of the UK academic year in September/October 2019
• By October 2019, hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) honours standard, or a second class degree and a relevant postgraduate qualification (usually a Master’s degree)
• NOT be registered for a PhD, or an MPhil leading to a PhD, at a UK university before September/October 2019
• NOT have commenced and be currently registered for a PhD, or an MPhil leading to a PhD, in your home country or elsewhere
• Be unable to afford to study in the UK without this scholarship

Masters

• Be a citizen of or have been granted refugee status by an eligible Commonwealth country, or be a British Protected Person
• Be permanently resident in an eligible Commonwealth country
• Be available to start your academic studies in the UK by the start of the UK academic year in September/October 2019
• By October 2019, hold a first degree of at least upper second class (2:1) honours standard, or a second class degree and a relevant postgraduate qualification (usually a Master’s degree). The CSC would not normally fund a second UK Master’s degree. If you are applying for a second UK Master’s degree, you will need to provide justification as to why you wish to undertake this study Be unable to afford to study in the UK without this scholarship

The CSC promotes equal opportunity, gender equity, and cultural exchange. Applications are encouraged from a diverse range of candidates.

Selection Criteria: Applications are considered according to the following selection criteria:

• Academic merit of the candidate
• Quality of the proposal
• Potential impact of the work on the development of the candidate’s home country

Selection process
Each year, the CSC invites selected nominating bodies to submit a specific number of nominations. The deadline for nominating bodies to submit nominations to the CSC is 25 January 2019.
The CSC invites around three times more nominations than scholarships available – therefore, nominated candidates are not guaranteed to be awarded a scholarship. There are no quotas for scholarships for any individual country. Candidates nominated by national nominating agencies are in competition with those nominated by other nominating bodies, and the same standards will be applied to applications made through either channel.

Number of Scholarships: Approximately 300 scholarships are awarded each year. The CSC invites around three times more nominations than scholarships available – therefore, nominated candidates are not guaranteed to get a scholarship. There are no quotas for scholarships for any individual country. Candidates nominated by national nominating agencies are in competition with those nominated by universities/university bodies, and the same standards will be applied to applications made through either channel.

Duration of Scholarships: 12 months for Masters and up to 36 months for PhD

Value of Scholarships: Each scholarship provides:

• Approved airfare from your home country to the UK and return at the end of your award (the CSC will not reimburse the cost of fares for dependants, nor usually the cost of journeys made before your award is finally confirmed)
• Approved tuition and examination fees
• Stipend (living allowance) at the rate of £1,084 per month, or £1,330 per month for those at universities in the London metropolitan area (rates quoted at 2018-2019 levels)
• Thesis grant towards the cost of preparing a thesis or dissertation, where applicable
• Warm clothing allowance, where applicable
• Study travel grant towards the costs of study-related travel within the UK or overseas
• For PhD Scholars, fieldwork grant towards the cost of fieldwork undertaken overseas (usually the cost of one economy class return airfare to your fieldwork location), where approved
• For PhD Scholars, paid mid-term visit (airfare) to your home country (unless you have claimed (or intend to claim) spouse and/or child allowances during your scholarship, or have received a return airfare to your home country for fieldwork)
• Family allowances, as follows (rates quoted at 2018-2019 levels):
  • If you are accompanied by your spouse but no children: spouse allowance of £233 per month
    for a maximum period of nine months, if you and your spouse are living together at the same
    address in the UK (unless your spouse is also in receipt of a scholarship; other conditions
    also apply)
  • If you are accompanied by your spouse and children: spouse allowance of £233 per month
    and child allowance of £233 per month for the first child, and £114 per month for the second
    and third child under the age of 16, if your spouse and children are living with you at the same
    address in the UK (unless your spouse is also in receipt of a scholarship; other conditions
    also apply)
  • If you are accompanied by your children but no spouse: child allowance of £465 per month for
    the first child, and £114 per month for the second and third child under the age of 16, if your
    children are living with you at the same address in the UK

To be taken at: UK Universities

How to Apply: You must apply to one of the following nominating bodies in the first instance – the CSC does not accept direct applications for these scholarships:

• National nominating agencies – this is the main route of application
• Selected universities/university bodies, which can nominate their own academic staff
• Selected non-governmental organisations and charitable bodies

All applications must be made through one of these nominating bodies. Each nominating body is responsible for its own selection process and may have additional eligibility criteria. You must check with your nominating body for their specific advice and rules for applying, their own eligibility criteria, and their own closing date for applications.
You must make your application using the CSC’s online application system, in addition to any other application that you are required to complete by your nominating body. The CSC will not accept any applications that are not submitted via the online application system.

All applications must be submitted by 16:00 (GMT) on 19 December 2018 at the latest.

Application will be available soon.
You are advised to complete and submit your application as soon as possible, as the online application system will be very busy in the days leading up to the application deadline.
Your application must include the following supporting documentation, by 16:00 (GMT) on 4 January 2019 in order for your application to be eligible for consideration

• Proof of citizenship or refugee status – uploaded to the online application system
• Full transcripts detailing all your higher education qualifications (with certified translations if not in English) – uploaded to the online application system
• References from at least two individuals – submitted directly by the referees to the online application system (referees will be sent an email request)
• Supporting statement from a proposed supervisor in the UK from at least one of the institutions named on your application form – submitted directly by your proposed supervisor to the online application system (supervisors will be sent an email request).

The CSC will not accept supporting documentation submitted by nominating agencies or outside the online application system.

Visit PhD Scholarship webpage for details. Read carefully for guidance.

Visit Masters Scholarship webpage for details. Read carefully for guidance.

Evolution of Religion

Kary Love

Science answers many questions but not of morality or wisdom. Human judgment is responsible there.

But morality began with evolution. It was useful work that people did that had survival value. So, the tribe recognized that those who carried their load and were able to contribute above their need were desirable members of the tribe. They were selected for mating and their genes reproduced. Whatever gene copy accounted for this was, over time, inbred. People did for others really for their own benefit. To be selected for reproduction. And so, the circle goes. Until doing for others is part of the DNA, the gene pool, the selection process.

It becomes “second nature.” Instinctual. To do good work. It is human nature.

Human observation discerned the positive response to doing good work and found it good. Human curiosity sought to explain such goodness in an often bleak and unforgiving world. Nothing in the world seemed to explain it, so speculation arose it came from beyond this world. Over time, this speculation became religions.

Religions made sense in the face of insufficient knowledge. With the advent of scientific knowledge, the borders of the “out there” explanation becomes smaller and smaller. Human responsibility increases exponentially with every scientific advance. Surely, we know enough by now to realize “out there” is not coming to save us from ourselves. The science of nature’s god is astonishing. Our ability to use it stupefying. This god gave us a miraculous gift! But, our capacity to use it for self-destruction is not only appalling but insulting. It is the ultimate sacrilege in both religion and science.

To continue good works, this is the human imperative. Not all get it, there are mutations. But if this great good work is to go forward, there must be humans to do it. Given our creation of nuclear weapons, given our military’s massive consumption of fossil fuel and thus production of planet-killing greenhouse gases, rejection of war and violence has now become a species imperative. Lucky, we have been. Statistics and mathematics suggest that luck will run out. Human judgment alone stands in the way. Our second nature—to do good, to be kind—must become First Nature.

Corporate Debt Scares

Dean Baker

As we mark the 10th anniversary of the peak of the financial crisis, news outlets continue to feature pieces how another one, possibly worse, is just around the corner. This mostly shows that the folks who control these outlets learned absolutely nothing from the last crisis. As I have pointed out endlessly, the story was the collapse of the housing bubble that had been driving the economy. The financial crisis was an entertaining sideshow.

There is one story in the coming crisis picture that features prominently — the corporate debt burden, as discussed here. (This Bloomberg piece is actually well-reasoned.) The basic story is a simple one: corporate debt has risen rapidly in the recovery. This is true both in absolute terms, but even in relation to corporate profits.

The question is whether this is anything that should worry us. My answer is “no.”

The key point is that we should be looking at debt service burdens, not debt, relative to after-tax corporate profits. This ratio was was 23.1 percent in 2017, before Congress approved a big corporate tax cut. By comparison, the ratio stood at more than 25 percent in the boom years of the late 1990s, not a time when people generally expressed much concern over corporate debt levels.

It is true that the burden can rise if interest rates continue to go up, but this would be a very gradual process. The vast majority of corporate debt is long-term. In fact, many companies took on large amounts of debt precisely because it was so cheap, in some cases issuing billions of dollars worth of 30-year or even 50-year bonds. These companies will not be affected by a rise in interest rates any time soon.

But clearly, there are some companies that did get in over their heads with debt. There are two points to be made here.

First, with the stock market at extraordinarily high levels (this is true even with the selloff of the last two days), companies can still raise a large amount of capital by issuing new shares. If their debt burden poses serious risks to the company, presumably they will go this route. In many cases, companies will have subsidiaries, land, or other assets that they can use to raise money if it is needed to pay off its debt.

Second, some companies will undoubtedly face financial distress and need relief from creditors, either through renegotiating debt or bankruptcy. The question here is, so what? Companies are always going bankrupt. Our laws are designed to allow companies to continue to operate through a bankruptcy. Creditors are forced to take a loss on their loans, the size of which will depend both on the financial shape of the company and where they stand in line as a creditor.

So let’s say that a substantial portion of the $1.3 trillion of speculative debt cited in the Bloomberg piece faces a credit downgrade, with some of it going into default. This means that some investors lose money. We have a $20 trillion economy. If the losses amounted to 40 percent of these bonds (which would be huge), that still only amounts to $520 billion, or 2.6 percent of GDP. The impact of this loss would barely be felt in the economy as a whole.

In short, even in the really bad story here, we are not talking a major financial crisis or a second Great Depression. Some investors get hit as a result of making some bad picks. This may be a serious problem for them, but it’s not the sort of thing the rest of us need to worry about.

Syria’s Chessboard

Conn Hallinan

The Syrian civil war has always been devilishly complex, with multiple actors following different scripts, but in the past few months it appeared to be winding down. The Damascus government now controls 60 percent of the country and the major population centers, the Islamic State has been routed, and the rebels opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are largely cornered in Idilb Province in the country’s northwest. But suddenly the Americans moved the goal posts—maybe—the Russians have fallen out with the Israelis, the Iranians are digging in their heels, and the Turks are trying to multi-task with a home front in disarray.

So the devil is still very much at work in a war that has lasted more than seven years, claimed up to 500,000 lives, displaced millions of people, destabilized an already fragile Middle East, and is far from over.

There are at least three theaters in the Syrian war, each with its own complexities: Idilb in the north, the territory east of the Euphrates River, and the region that abuts the southern section of the Golan Heights. Just sorting out the antagonists is daunting. Turks, Iranians, Americans and Kurds are the key actors in the east. Russians, Turks, Kurds and Assad are in a temporary standoff in the north. And Iran, Assad and Israel are in a faceoff near Golan, a conflict that has suddenly drawn in Moscow.

 Assad’s goals are straightforward: reunite the country under the rule of Damascus and begin re-building Syria’s shattered cities. The major roadblock to this is Idilb, the last large concentration of anti-Assad groups, Jihadists linked with al-Qaeda, and a modest Turkish occupation force representing Operation Olive Branch. The province, which borders Turkey in the north, is mountainous and re-taking it promises to be difficult.

For the time being there is a stand down. The Russians cut a deal with Turkey to demilitarize the area around Idilb city, neutralize the jihadist groups, and re-open major roads. The agreement holds off a joint Assad-Russian assault on Idilb, which would have driven hundreds of thousands of refugees into Turkey and likely have resulted in large numbers of civilian casualties.

But the agreement is temporary—about a month—because Russia is impatient to end the fighting and begin the reconstruction. However, it is hard to see how the Turks are going to get a handle on the bewildering number of groups packed into the province, some of which they have actively aided for years. Ankara could bring in more soldiers, but Turkey already has troops east of the Euphrates and is teetering on the edge of a major economic crisis. Pouring more wealth into what has become a quagmire may not sit well with the Turkish public, which has seen inflation eat up their paychecks and pensions, and the Turkish Lira fall nearly 40 percent in value in the past year. Local elections will be held in 2019, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party ‘s power is built on improving the economy.

In Syria’s east, Turkish troops—part of Operation Euphrates Shield—are pushing up against the Americans and the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces fighting the Islamic State (IS). Erdogan is far more worried about the Syrian Kurds and the effect they might have on Turkey’s Kurdish population, than he is about the IS. 

Ankara’s ally in this case is Iran, which is not overly concerned about the Kurds, but quite concerned about the 2,200 Americans. “We need to resolve the difficulty east of the Euphrates and force America out,” Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said in early September.

That latter goal just got more complex. The U.S. Special Forces were originally charged with aiding the Kurdish and Arab allies drive out the IS. President Donald Trump told a meeting in March, “we’ll be coming out of Syria like very soon.” But that policy appears to have changed. National Security Advisor John Bolton now says U.S. troops will remain in Syria until Iran leaves. Since there is little chance of that happening, the U.S. commitment suddenly sounds open-ended. Bolton’s comment has stirred up some opposition in the U.S. Congress to “mission creep,” although Trump has yet to directly address the situation. 

The Kurds are caught in the middle. The U.S. has made no commitment to defend them from Turkey, and the Assad regime is pressing to bring the region under Damascus’ control. However, the Syrian government has made overtures to the Kurds for talks about more regional autonomy, and one suspects the Kurds will try to cut a deal to protect them from Ankara. The Russians have been pushing for Assad-Kurd détente.

Turkey may want to stay in eastern Syria, but it is hard to see how Ankara will be able to do that, especially if the Turks are stretched between Idlib and Euphrates Shield in the east. The simple fact is that Erdogan misjudged the resiliency of the Assad regime and over reached when he thought shooting down a Russian fighter-bomber in 2015 would bring NATO to his rescue and intimidate Moscow. Instead, the Russians now control the skies over Idlib, and Turkey is estranged from NATO. 

The Russians have been careful in Syria. Their main concerns are keeping their naval base at Latakia, beating up on al-Qaeda and the IS, and supporting their long-time ally Syria.  Instead of responding directly to Erdogan’s 2015 provocation, Moscow brought in their dangerous S-400 anti-aircraft system, a wing of advanced fighter aircraft, and beefed up their naval presence with its advanced radar systems. The message was clear: don’t try that again.

But the Russians held off the attack on Idlib, and have been trying to keep the Israelis and Iranians from tangling with one another in the region around the Golan Heights. Moscow proposed keeping Iran and its allies at least 60 miles from the Israeli border, but Israel—and now the U.S.—is demanding Iran fully withdraw from Syria.

The Assad regime wants Teheran to stay, but also to avoid any major shootout between Iran and Israel that would catch Damascus in the middle. In spite of hundreds of Israeli air attacks into Syria, there has been no counter attacks by the Syrians or the Iranians, suggesting that Assad has ruled out any violent reaction.

That all came to end Sept 17, when Israeli aircraft apparently used a Russian Ilyushin-M20 electronic reconnaissance plane to mask an attack on Damascus. Syrian anti-aircraft responded and ending up shooting down the Russian plane and killing all aboard.  Russia blamed the Israelis and a few days later, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow was sending its S-300 anti-aircraft system to Syria, along with a series of upgrades in Damascus’ radar network. Syria currently uses the S-200 system that goes back to the ‘60s.

The upgrade will not really threaten Israeli aircraft—the S-300 is dated and the Israelis likely have the electronics to overcome it—but suddenly the skies over Syria are no longer uncontested, and, if Tel Aviv decides to go after the Syrian radar grid, the Russians have their S-400 in the wings. Not checkmate, but check.

How all of this shakes down is hardly clear, but there are glimmers of solution out there. Turkey will have to eventually withdraw from Syria, but will probably get some concessions over how much autonomy Syria’s Kurds will end up with. The Kurds can cut a deal with Assad because the regime needs peace. The Iranians want to keep their influence in Syria and a link to Hezbollah in Lebanon, but don’t want a serious dustup with Israel. 

An upcoming Istanbul summit on Syria of Russia, France, Turkey and Germany will talk about a political solution to the civil war and post-war reconstruction.

Israel will eventually have to come to terms with Iran as a major player in the Middle East and recognize that the great “united front” against Teheran of Washington, Tel Aviv and the Gulf monarchies is mostly illusion. The Saudis are in serious economic trouble, the Gulf Cooperation Council is divided, and it is Israel and the U.S. are increasingly isolated over in hostility to Teheran.

Wasting Food In A Hungry World: World Food Day- 16 October

Moin Qazi

India produces enough food to meet the needs of its entire population, and has at its disposal arable land that has the potential to produce food surplus for export. Yet, it is unable to feed millions of its people, especially women and children. India ranks 100th among 119 countries in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2017, where it has consistently ranked poorly. Indeed, the world’s zero-hunger goal appears to be slipping further into the future rather than getting ever closer.

Imagine a land mass greater than China. Now imagine that land is only used to produce food. Then suppose all the crops and produce from those 2.5bn acres are not eaten and left to rot. Imagine all of that – and you get an idea of  the amount of food the world wastes every year. It is almost a third of the world’s  . In terms of weight, it adds up to around 1.3bn tonnes. The case for action becomes even stronger when we consider that 1 in 9 people are malnourished worldwide.

Despite the fact that every twelfth Indian has to sleep on an empty stomach, the country wastes food worth a whopping Rs 58,000 crores in a year, about seven percent of its total food production. It is lost   during harvest, or on the journey from farm to markets- in essence in production, processing, retailing and consumption Lack of cooling facilities is the major reason for crops perishing after harvest.

As you trudge through the mire of any government-run food auction yard, or mandi, you will find piles of supposedly fresh produce lying everywhere, rotting in the sun and competing with mangy dogs and scampering mice for your attention. A lack of education on post-harvest practices often results in poor quality control and food being damaged during handling. Better processing and recycling can feed 11 per cent of the world’s population.

One of the major ways of enhancing food security in India is by simply controlling wastage.  . India is the second-largest producer of vegetables and fruits, but about 25-30 percent of it is wasted due to inadequate logistical support, lack of refrigerated storage, supply chain bottlenecks, poor transport and underdeveloped marketing channels. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) puts this figure at around 40 percent, worth around $8.3 billion.

Twenty-one million metric tonnes of wheat, which is almost equal to Australia’s annual production, rots each year due to improper storage. According to the Associated Chambers of Commerce, the country experiences a post-harvest loss of Rs 2 lakh crores annually. Less than 4 percent of India’s fresh produce is transported by cold-chains, compared to more than 90 percent in the UK. Better cold storage, improved infrastructure and education about food handling could help transform this situation.

The World Bank recently stated that nearly 60 percent of the country’s food subsidies do not reach the poor; they are syphoned off by the middlemen. Reforming the faltering public distribution system which mainly supplies subsidised grain to the poor and modernizing other areas, such as computerization of outlets and satellite control over the movement of transport vehicles can go a long way in   plugging the leakages.

The Food Corporation of India (FCI) was set up in 1964 to offer impetus to price support systems, encourage nationwide distribution and maintain sufficient buffer of staples like wheat and rice but its performance has been woefully inadequate, in comparison to the needs of the country. Around one percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) gets shaved off annually in the form of food waste. The FCI has neither a warehouse capacity nor the manpower to manage this humongous stockpile of foodgrains.

Every year, the government purchases millions of tonnes of grain from the farmers to ensure that they get a good price for their produce, for numerous food subsidy programmes and to maintain an emergency buffer. The cruel truth, however, is that most of the produce is left out in the open, vulnerable to rain and attacks by rodents or stored in makeshift spaces, covered by tarpaulin sheets, thus increasing the chances of spoilage. Several countries are now using metal grain silos to guard against fungus attacks on the grain stock.

It is estimated that one million tonnes of onions vanish on their way from farms to markets, as do 2.2 million tonnes of tomatoes. Tomatoes get squished if they are packed into jute sacks. Overall, five million eggs crack or go bad due to lack of cold storage. Just three states of India—Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana—grow most of India’s grains and the food has to be transported to far-flung areas.

A study undertaken by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (2013) highlights that the underlying cause of post-harvest loss in the country is due to the lack of infrastructure for short-term storage, particularly at the farm level, as well as the lack of intermediate processing in the production catchments. If there are no proper roads linking fields to markets, farmers cannot easily sell their surplus produce, which may then spoil before it can be eaten. Improving road and rail capacity enables farmers to reach buyers and likewise, fertilisers and other agricultural inputs to reach farmers.

The Indian Institute of Management, Kolkata, has uncovered that only 10 percent of the perishable produce has access to cold storage facilities in India. These are mostly used for potatoes to meet India’s robust demand for chips. This, along with inappropriate supply chain management, has resulted in India becoming a significant contributor to food wastage both at pre and post-harvest levels. The study estimates that India needs storage facilities for another 370 million metric tonnes of perishable produce.

Added to the wastage of food, there is a depletion of precious resources involved in its production. According to the United Nations, India is estimated to use more than 230 cubic kilometres of fresh water annually, for producing food items that will be ultimately wasted. To put this into context, this amount of water is enough to provide drinking water to 100 million people every year. Besides this, nearly 300 million barrels of oil used in the process are also ultimately wasted.

Despite being the world’s largest banana producer, India holds just 0.3 percent share of the global banana market. Production is fragmented compared to the large-scale commercial farms of its competitors, with small-hold farmers having little business or technical support.

The cost of delivering energy to remote, rural regions for running storage facilities is also quite steep and this means that even when storage facilities are built, they may not be able to function.

In recent years, numerous initiatives and interventions have been undertaken by the Indian government, and local and international actors to target food loss and wastage across the agricultural value chain. For instance, the Indian government is seeking to streamline and modernise agricultural value chains, through reformation of the PDS to reduce the waste and loss associated with the distribution and storage of foodgrains. The government is also extending support for the setting up of cold chain projects whereby 138 cold chain projects have been installed.

Studies have also indicated that on-farm interventions can also contribute towards reducing food losses and waste. For instance, a pilot study sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has revealed food loss reductions of around 60 percent during field trials, testing low-cost storage techniques and handling practices. Another study, undertaken in Punjab, which focused on the harvesting of ‘Kinnow’ (a citrus fruit), demonstrated how on-farm food losses decreased from ten percent to only two percent when a combination of harvesting techniques was used.

India has developed some modern supply chains linked to food processing companies, such as Nestlé, Pepsi, Unilever and Del Monte but these handle only a fraction of the country’s perishable food produce.

India needs to mobilise large-scale investments in cold storage methods, refrigerated transport and other modern logistics to modernise its food supply chain. Apart from this a strong will by the political class and an imaginative thinking on the part of the policy-makers is needed.

From GM Potatoes To Glyphosate: Regulatory Delinquency And Toxic Agriculture

Colin Todhunter

Food and environment campaigner Dr Rosemary Mason has just produced the report ‘Shockingly high levels of weedkiller found in popular breakfast cereals marketed for British children’. In this 68-page document, she draws from new research in the UK that mirrors findings from the US about the dangerous levels of glyphosate found in food, especially products aimed at children (glyphosate is the active ingredient in Monsanto’s weedicide Roundup). Readers can access this report here (which contains all relevant references).

Mason begins by reporting on research that significant levels of weedkiller were found in 43 out of 45 popular breakfast cereals marketed to US children. Glyphosate was detected in an array of popular breakfast cereals, oats and snack bars.

Tests revealed glyphosate was present in all but two of the 45 oat-derived products that were sampled by the Environmental Working Group, a public health organisation. Nearly three in four of the products exceeded what the EWG classes safe for children to consume. Products with some of the highest levels of glyphosate include granola, oats and snack bars made by leading industry names Quaker, Kellogg’s and General Mills, which makes Cheerios.

Back in April, internal emails obtained from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) showed that scientists had found glyphosate on a wide range of commonly consumed food, to the point that they were finding it difficult to identify a food without the chemical on it. In response to these findings, however, The Guardian newspaper in the UK reported that there was no indication that the claims related to products sold outside the US.

In view of this statement by the Guardian, Mason was involved in sending samples of four oat-based breakfast cereals marketed for children in the UK to the Health Research Institute, Fairfield, Iowa, an accredited laboratory for glyphosate testing.

After testing the samples which were sent, Dr Fagan, the institute’s director, said:

“The levels consumed in a single daily helping of any one of these cereals, even the one with the lowest level of contamination, is sufficient to put the person’s glyphosate levels above the levels that cause fatty liver disease in rats (and likely in people).” (Access the Certificate of Analysis here.)

Just as concerning were results for two ‘organic’ products from the US that were also tested at the time: granola had some glyphosate in and ‘organic’ rolled oats had even higher levels of the chemical.

Mason argues that the fact such high levels of glyphosate have been found in cereals in Britain should ring alarm bells across Europe, especially as the distribution of glyphosate and aminomethylphosphonic acid in agricultural top soils of the European Union is widespread.

A question of power

As in her previous documents, Mason describes how regulators in the EU and the UK relicensed Roundup for the benefit of the industry-backed Glyphosate Task Force. Even more alarming is that, on the back of Brexit, she notes that a US-UK trade deal could result in the introduction of Roundup ready GM crops in the UK. Indeed, high-level plans for cementing this deal are afoot.

Mason offers worrying data about the increasing use of biocides, especially glyphosate, as well as the subsequent destruction of the global environment due to their use. As usual, she produces a very data-rich report which draws on many sources, including official reports and peer-reviewed papers.

Of course, there is a strong focus on Monsanto. Aside from the use of glyphosate, she also documents the impact of the company’s presence in Wales, where she lives, with regard to the dumping of toxic chemicals (PCBs) from its manufacturing site there between 1949 and 1979, the effects of which persist and still plague the population and the environment.

Mason asks:

“Monsanto has been bought up by Bayer, so the Monsanto name has disappeared but where are the Monsanto executives hiding?”

She is aware of course that such figures don’t have to hide anywhere. The company ‘got away with it’ in Wales. And its recent crop of executives received huge ‘golden handshakes’ after the Bayer deal despite them having perpetuated a degenerative model of industrial agriculture. A model that has only secured legitimacy by virtue of the power of the global agritech lobby to lock in a bogus narrative of success, as outlined in the report ‘From Uniformity to Diversity’ by The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems.

As that report notes, locking farmers into corporate-dependent treadmills, state support of (export) commodity cropping via subsidies and the discounting of the massive health, environment and social costs of industrial agriculture ensures that model prevails and makes it appear successful. If you base your food regime on short-term thinking and a reductionist yield-output paradigm and define success within narrow confines, then the model is a sure-fire winner – for corporate growth (profit) if little else.

Without being able to externalise the health, social and environmental costs of its actions and products, this model would not be viable for the corporations involved. Widening the parameters to properly evaluate ‘success’ entails asking the industry questions that it finds very difficult to gloss over, not least what has been the cost of input-(biocide)dependent yields of commodities in terms of pollution, health, local food security and caloric production, nutrition per acre, water tables, soil quality and structure and new pests and disease pressures?

Why have African countries been turned from food exporters to food importers? Why is land in South America being used for Roundup Ready crops to feed the appetite for meat in rich countries, while peasant farmers who grew food for themselves and local communities have been displaced?

And what are the effects on once thriving rural communities; on birds, insects and biodiversity in general; on the climate as a result of chemical inputs and soil degradation; and what have been the effects of shifting towards globalised production chains, especially in terms of transportation and fossil fuel consumption?

The global food regime degrades public health and the environment, and it has narrowed the range of crops grown, resulting in increasingly monolithic, nutrient-deficient diets. Yet the powerful industry lobby calls for more deregulation and more techno-fixes like GMOs to ‘feed the world’. This is in spite of the fact that hunger and malnutrition are political: these phenomena are in large part the outcome of a global capitalist food regime that, with help from IMF/World Bank geopolitical lending strategies and WTO rules, has undermined food security for vast sections of the global population by creating a system that by its very nature drives inequality, injustice and creates food deficit areas.

Moving to a more sustainable model of agriculture based on localisation, food sovereignty and agroecology calls for a different world view. Proponents of industrial agriculture are resistant to this because it would harm what has become a highly profitable system based on the capture of political, research and media institutions.

And this is where we return to Rosemary Mason. If there is an overriding theme within her work over the years, it is corruption at high levels which facilitate much of the above. For instance, she notes the determination of the UK government, working hand in glove with global agribusiness, to ensure certain biocide products remain on the market and to help major corporations avoid any culpability for their health- and environment-damaging practices and chemicals.

Mason and various whistleblowers and writers have over the years described how these corporations have become institutionally embedded within high-profile public bodies and scientific research policy initiatives. Regulatory delinquency, institutionalised corruption and complete disregard for the health and well-being of the public is the order of the day.

GMOs and a post-Brexit deal with the US

If the UK is about to introduce GM crops into its fields on the back of a post-Brexit deal with the Trump administration, then it should take heed of what the ex-director of J.R. Simplot and team leader at Monsanto Dr Caius Rommens says in his new book:

“The main problem about the current process for deregulation of GMO crops is that it is based on an evaluation of data provided by the developers of GMO crops. There is a conflict of interest. I propose that the safety of GMO crops is assessed by an independent group of scientists trained at identifying unintended effects.”

This former high-level Monsanto researcher of potatoes now acknowledges that genetic engineers had limited insight into the effects of their experiments. Genetic engineering passes off the inherent uncertainty, unintended consequences and imprecision of its endeavours as unquestionable certainty. And the USDA accepts industry information and reassurances.

After finding that most GMO varieties of potatoes that he was involved in developing were stunted, chlorotic, mutated or sterile, and many of them died quickly, Rommens renounced his genetic engineering career and wrote a book about his experiences, ‘Pandora’s Potatoes: The Worst GMOs’.

In an interview with GMWatch, Rommens is asked why regulators in the US, Canada and Japan, which have approved these potatoes, are ignoring these aspects.

Rommens responds:

“The standard tests needed to ensure regulatory approval are not set up to identify unintended effects. They are meant to confirm the safety of a GM crop, not to question their safety. None of the issues I address in my book were considered by the regulatory agencies.”

A damning indictment of regulatory delinquency based on ‘don’t look, don’t find’. GMOs have nonetheless become the mainstay of US agriculture. Now the industry is rubbing its hands in anticipation of Brexit, which would pry the UK from the EU and its precautionary principle-based regulation of GMOs.

The push to open up Britain to globalisation in the 1980s ushered in a free-for-all for global capital to determine the future direction of a deregulated UK. Three decades down the line, the consequences are clear for food, agriculture, democracy and public health. The worrying thing is that thanks to Brexit, it could be the case that even worse is yet to come!