Most of my social interaction comes from work these days. I should probably seek out a more diverse friend group, but there are only so many hours in the day. In recent weeks, I’ve been working alongside an older gentleman we’ll call Chris. We’ll call him that because that’s his name. Chris is a dog person, and has kept pitbulls as pets for most of his adult life. I have cats, so we have a good time talking about how each one’s choice of pet doesn’t make sense to the other.
One day, while we’re at our workstations in the shop, Chris sends me an email with a link he says I should find useful. It appears to take me to a lengthy address that includes “catfoodexposed.com” in the URL. If Chris weren’t in the room for me to ask personally, I would have suspected this was an attempt by the company’s IT team to test my email scrutinising skills. Chris says he thinks I’ll want to read it since I have cats.
Ignoring the “catfoodexposed” domain name – which is both amusingly specific and worryingly conspiratorial – I follow the link to see what could be so enigmatic about kitty kibble. I’m immediately met with a banner at the head of the page labeling itself an “advertorial”, and a quick scan of the page shows common indicators of quackery. The first and most obvious is the disclaimers telling the reader not to take it seriously:
That should be enough to call it, but we’re having a slow day at the office. The headline does little to allay my suspicions; “Health Concerns Surge Over ‘Sawdust’ Additive In Trusted Cat Food Brands”. By the second sentence, we’ve hit a claim sorely lacking a citation; “So why is it [sawdust] one of the most common ingredients found in cat food today?” I would expect any self-respecting journalist to back that up – perhaps with a list of ingredient labels from major manufacturers wherein the top ingredients include “sawdust”, or some euphemism for sawdust. Strangely, no such evidence is provided.
This piece from veterinary doctor Martin Goldstein is intended to tell the reader that their pet’s food is filled with sawdust, a fact that is being cleverly hidden by manufacturers, who instead label the additive as “powdered cellulose.” In fact, the piece’s assertion that powdered cellulose is sawdust isn’t even substantiated. Since the author didn’t feel like explaining, I looked it up myself. Turns out powdered cellulose is all over the place. It’s commonly used for its absorptive properties and as a filler to give food products a desired texture, and has little impact on the thing that eats it. The EFSA even re-evaluated the additive in 2018, and that report’s abstract concludes, “there would be no safety concern at the reported uses and use levels for the unmodified and modified celluloses…” since the additives are passed completely through the digestive track without any caloric effect.
Six sentences in, we hit yet another major issue: “After discovering how devastating filler ingredients can be to your cat’s health…” Here’s another place where a citation wouldn’t just be helpful, but arguably required. Where are these discoveries documented? How do we know that pet health is directly related to filler ingredients? How devastating are the additives? You’re the expert, Dr. Marty, show me! The rest of that sentence is almost a punchline. One might expect a medical expert in this position to launch a campaign to take food manufacturers to task, file a class-action suit on behalf of pet parents, or even offer services to pet owners affected by substandard foods. Dr. Goldstein “created a free video report…” How generous of him.
Passingly, I find it amusing that this piece (I won’t call it an article, since its own disclaimer says it isn’t an article) is written for and on Dr. Goldstein’s website, and it uses quotes from him as though he were an outside expert brought in to share his expertise. He’s even quoted in the piece as saying, “I have a special nickname for these kinds of ingredients at my clinic: Cat Health Destroyers.” Firstly, the special nickname doesn’t seem special or clever, and Dr. Marty really whiffed on a good zinger; secondly, Dr. Goldstein retired from practice four years before this piece was written, so I wonder if his only clinical involvement is catchphrases at this point.
The piece goes on, providing an anecdote from Dr. Goldstein, stating that his pet cat lived for 24 years, followed by another testimonial with no attribution. Two personal accounts do not make for compelling medical evidence, especially when we don’t even know where one of them came from. In this whole piece – all sixteen sentences of it – nothing of substance has been presented, but disclaimers were offered to inform the reader that this isn’t a real article, nor is it real medicine.
After Googling “Martin Goldstein”, I found his page on the Foundation for Alternative and Integrative Medicine, which is not a place I would hope to find my veterinarian. On that page, Dr. Goldstein’s accreditations include a certificate from the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society. Regular readers of The Skeptic probably don’t need to be convinced that acupuncture is, in a word, bunk.
The next paragraph is even worse; it implies that Dr. Goldstein’s methods are effective for “treating chronic and degenerative illnesses, especially cancer.” Alternative medicine commonly claims to cure or treat cancer while offering no evidence of efficacy. These operations regularly draw in people in emotionally vulnerable positions – such as a loved one or pet suffering from cancer – to make easy and recurring sales of products and services that do nothing for the patient. Dr. Goldstein avoids making a direct assertion that his treatments cure cancer, which is good since that would be illegal, but I think he’s playing with fire here.
I must confess, I’ve buried the lede. The thrust of Dr. Goldstein’s advertorial is that our pets are eating powdered cellulose, and that is detrimental to their health, so we should place our trust in vets who know how pet food is formulated to protect our four-legged friends from harm. But the research seems to say that powdered cellulose is safe to eat. We could intuit this outcome by just considering what “powdered cellulose” means. It means plant matter that has been finely granulated. If plant matter was harmful in our food, then vegetables would be lethal.
At the end of all that, suffice it to say that I am not convinced. The content of the piece is threadbare and wholly unsupported, its assertions are misleading, and frankly, the whole thing smells like a sales pitch. The author refuses to show where the data are coming from, the core concept of the piece dissolves under scrutiny (given that all plants contain cellulose), and for the two anecdotal citations in support of the claims, I could just as easily offer more than two anecdotes of perfectly healthy pets that eat sawdust-ridden food.
I think I am a conscientious pet parent who takes the health of their pets seriously. They are, after all, members of my family. But that intent to take their health seriously brings a responsibility to make informed decisions on their behalf, and I don’t get the impression that Dr. Marty is giving me much information.
Ways of Being – Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence – James Bridle, Penguin July 2022
Ways of Being – Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence – James Bridle, Penguin July 2022
At the heart of Ways of Being is the idea that intelligence is not a property of brains, central nervous systems or even individual organisms but a collective phenomenon that arises between things. Author James Bridle, computer scientist, artist and artificial intelligence expert, suggests it is hubris that led us to define intelligence as ‘what humans do’ and sets out to democratise it, to show that intelligence is everywhere.
Bridle argues that biological phenomena such as horizontal gene transfer, fungal networks, plant chemical defences and endosymbiosis – the process by which free living single-celled organisms became the mitochondria, chloroplasts and other organelles in plant and animal cells – represent scientific evidence for panpsychism, one of the oldest philosophical ideas and a popular theory of mind in the nineteenth century. These phenomena are seen as evidence that there are no boundaries between species, that intelligence is a purely relational phenomenon and hence ‘everything is intelligent’.
Ways of Being ultimately sets out to break the nexus between nature and culture, to show that humans do not live as Aristotle suggested at the pyramid of creation but belong as Bruno Latour suggested in a ‘parliament of things’. This noble task of undoing four hundred years of Descartes’ influence on nature-culture dualism has preoccupied many over the last century, but you won’t find any reference to Alfred North Whitehead, Stephen Toulmin, Phillipe Descola, Clarence Glacken, Yrjö Haila, Daniel Dennett, Caroline Merchant, Peter Godfrey-Smith, Val Plumwood or any of the other philosophers who have made this their life’s work.
What Bridle does not acknowledge is the possibility of ‘design without a designer’, Daniel Dennett’s description of natural selection as a process that solves problems without forethought and is therefore capable of producing mind from matter without outside assistance.
While Darwin characterised the environment as the original natural selector, what Dennett and others have pointed out since is that evolution has not stopped evolving, that plants and animals are active participants. Plants change their environments to suit themselves and their symbionts while animals participate in natural selection by learning from each other, predicting the consequences of their actions and using tools.
Each of the nine chapters in Ways of Being ends with an imperative, a statement of what must be done to avoid ‘A new Copernican trauma… wherein we find ourselves standing upon a ruined planet, not smart enough to save ourselves’. Of these imperatives, three that are easy to accept are diversity, randomness, and monism (the inseparability of nature and culture), given that the first two are inherent features of natural selection and the third a consequence of it. The core proposition however, that intelligence is a purely relational phenomenon, remains an article of faith.
What Bridle ignores is the possibility that material explanations account for the remarkable biological phenomena he cites as evidence of ubiquitous intelligence. Explanations such as chemical and electrical gradients, the sensory abilities of plants and animals, and cooperative evolution which Darwin acknowledged was a challenge to his theory for which he had no answer. A hundred years after the publication of On theOrigin of Species, biologist William Hamilton produced an explanation for inheritance of cooperative behaviour by natural selection which is now an accepted evolutionary process along with kin selection and reciprocal altruism.
Bridle also misrepresents ecology as aiming to ‘find connections between all things’. Ecology like all branches of science sets out to test assumptions and hypotheses, not support them. To approach ecology with the conviction the everything is connected in ways more meaningful than simply being on the same planet, sharing the same ocean or breathing the same air overlooks the fact that the consequential connections between species – cooperative, competitive, mutualistic and antagonistic – are temporary, opportunistic and constantly being broken and reformed as a result of speciation, extinction and adaptation.
Which begs the question, how does Bridle’s concept of intelligence evolve? And if it evolves through natural selection, what is the unit of selection, the equivalent of the genes, individuals or groups on which natural selection acts? Do the units of selection reside in things or in the space between them, or does relational intelligence evolve through means other than natural selection?
You won’t find answers to these questions because this book is ultimately not about science. Like anthropology’s New Animism, this is ‘outsider’ philosophy. Not based on thousands of years of lived experience or hundreds of years of debate but newly-minted, using biological phenomena to support a metaphysical concept which, as presented here, is beyond the reach of empirical evidence.
There is no doubt that the central idea in this book challenges conventional thinking about our place in the world and through that, provides a source of hope to anyone searching for a path out of humanity’s dilemmas. Brenna Maloney in The Washington Post said at the conclusion of her review:
“Bridle has created a new way of thinking about our world, about being. How would we live our lives and change our world if we embraced this thinking? If we did not place ourselves at the center of everything? Please read this important book. Read it twice. Talk about it. Tell everyone you know.”
Taking ourselves out of the centre of things remains humanity’s big challenge. However there’s a cost to Bridle’s way of doing this. Substituting yet another form of mysticism for uncertainty and the unknown has the potential to do the opposite of grounding ourselves in readiness for the challenges ahead. Read this book by all means, but also read Daniel Dennett and Terrence Deacon to get a glimpse of how others have proposed that mind could emerge from matter, and this amazing thing called life could – without magic or mystery – evolve the intelligence to contemplate itself and its place in the world.
In August last year, the Religious Education Curriculum Directory announced the release of a new syllabus for Catholic faith schools called ‘To Know You More Clearly’, set to be implemented in September 2023. Catholic faith schools represent roughly 10% of state-funded education and many of them have adopted this syllabus. Currently, students are in their third term of learning under this syllabus.
Between the ages of 13 and 14, students enter year nine, a pivotal stage marked by an increased curiosity about the world and increased engagement in social and political affairs. It appears that ‘To Know You More Clearly’ aims to leverage this developmental phase, intending to foster a deep understanding of Catholic beliefs among students, especially in their outlooks on social and philosophical issues.
In secondary schools throughout the UK and Wales, including non-faith-based institutions, the introduction of philosophical and ethical debates typically begins in year nine, within religious education or dedicated social education classes. The objective is to stimulate students’ engagement with ideas, broaden their moral comprehension of the self, and enrich their interactions with others and wider society. This approach is echoed in ‘To Know You More Clearly’, highlighting the importance of such discussions in shaping students’ moral compass and worldview.
When students in year nine start to examine social issues and philosophical questions, the authors of ‘To Know You More Clearly’ frequently reiterate that they should do so purely within the framework of “the nature of human beings who were made in the image of God.”
This is the aim of the module; to delve into the “mystery of imago Dei” and how it sheds light on fundamental truths about human nature. It also aims to examine the moral significance of the beliefs that “human life is sacred” and that humans are “stewards, not owners, of life”. These concepts are supported by referencing St Paul’s teachings on the dignity of the human body in Corinthians 6:12-20. This passage highlights the importance of using the body in accordance with moral principles and serving the Lord rather than engaging in “sexual immorality”. It underscores the sacredness of the human body and its connection to Christ. The conclusion to the passage reinforces the idea that human bodies are regarded as temples of the Holy Spirit, emphasising the importance of respecting and honouring God through one’s actions and treatment of the body.
In this social issues module for year nine students, the syllabus outlines week-by-week debates on different philosophical areas, presenting converging social issues within a unified discussion. One week’s topic explores “ethical issues related to the sanctity of life”, covering subjects such as abortion, euthanasia, IVF, capital punishment, genetic engineering, and eugenics. Examining this within the context of imago Dei and the connection to St Paul’s teachings on the ‘dignity’ of the human body, it’s difficult not to notice the intentional alignment and implied association between abortion and IVF with eugenics and genetic engineering. Abortion is revisited later in the syllabus with further emphasis on imago Dei and the sanctity of human life, emphasising the belief in every individual’s right to life and physical integrity from conception to death.
Statue of St Paul in front of St Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, sculpted by Adamo Tadolini. Image by AngMoKio, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons
In my own Catholic religious education, abortion and IVF were discussed merely to fulfil a requirement, with the teaching centered on their classification as sinful acts against the body as a vessel of God. This framing of the debates surrounding the body appears to be a deliberate attempt to influence undecided young people.
In the same module, a parallel comparison of social issues emerges in the section focusing on bodily autonomy. The curriculum delves into “ethical issues related to the integrity of the human body”, such as torture, kidnapping, domestic violence, and the distinction between gender as a biological, versus gender as a social construct. Once again, the syllabus guides students’ discussions, more prominently this time, by juxtaposing torture, kidnapping, and domestic violence with the debate on gender, which includes acknowledgment of transgender identities. This implies that transgender identities or experiences of gender diversity are violations of bodily integrity akin to the heinous nature of torture.
The language concerning marriage in the curriculum exhibits a similar bias, particularly evident when discussing the “Difference between civil and sacramental marriage” and contrasting civil law with the Church’s teachings. The syllabus’ stance emphasises that marriage requires a man and a woman for it to be sacramental. This suggests that marriages recognised under civil law, including queer and gender-diverse marriages, are deemed invalid according to Church teachings. When schools adopt this stance, it implies the invalidity of individuals’ identities, potentially impacting their well-being within the institution.
The syllabus emphasises that by the unit’s conclusion, students should grasp the Church’s teaching on marriage as “a lifelong partnership between a man and a woman, freely entered into, which is ordered towards the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children”. This passage employs language laden with significance, notably the term ‘ordered’, reinforcing the belief in marriage exclusively between a man and a woman. The use of ‘order’ implies institutional influence over married individuals, evoking traditional, divinely ordained structures and prescribed lifestyles.
It is also essential to note the shortcomings of the syllabus in presenting non-religious perspectives objectively and inclusively. The syllabus postpones introducing an atheist alternative to the Catholic worldview until key stage three. Additionally, when addressing non-religious perspectives, it claims to be “motivated ultimately by love” for individuals who do not recognise the universal scope of Christ’s salvation.
There is emphasis placed on the notion that the syllabus’ omission of non-religious perspectives would constitute a ‘missed opportunity’. The syllabus teaching atheist perspectives is seen by the authors as an “opportunity for those young people in our schools who are culturally and unthinkingly atheist” to see the Catholic way of living. There isn’t any reference to initiatives aimed at broadening students’ perspectives. Atheism is solely mentioned to confront the “ubiquitous, atheistic worldview which dominates much of our cultural life” and to ‘save’ and enlighten students who are, to them, atheist by default.
In addition to lacking comprehensive teaching on alternative beliefs, this curriculum strongly advocates for the integration of Catholic teachings throughout all subjects. It emphasises that religious education should influence every aspect of the curriculum, encouraging students to use Catholicism as a foundational framework for understanding all subjects.
Screenshot from the ‘To Know You More Clearly’ Catholic faith school syllabus; Article 4 – Religious education as the heart of the curriculum.
The debut of this syllabus could significantly impact the cultural and political awareness of its target audience, diverting young people from introspection about their identities and decisions. Instead, it encourages adherence to societal conventions and institutions, framing personal identity, relationships, and physical attributes within the context of serving a larger purpose.
A campaign has been launched by protestors against the ongoing Gaza-Israel conflict, which says that as the UK government is “actively enabling a genocide in Gaza… British taxpayers can legally withhold taxation.”
While much has been written elsewhere on the rights and wrongs of the war and the legalities of the UK’s involvement, I want to focus here on this notion of withholding taxes, the argument for which essentially runs like this:
It is illegal to fund genocide.
The UK government is “enabling a genocide” in Gaza.
A portion of our taxes pays for the UK government to do this.
Paying taxes is therefore breaking the law.
We should withhold our taxes until the UK government stops.
This has been jumped on by tax lawyer Dan Neidle of Tax Policy Associates, who suggests that “none of the claims have any legal basis” and could well result in significant legal and financial consequences. His claims are strongly disputed by the campaigners, who say that “tax experts are not best placed to judge the legality of the campaign” and that their (unnamed) “team of experts” is, in fact, correct.
I will leave it to the reader to judge which party to trust, and as I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant and am in no position to advise anyone on anything, I will instead take a layperson’s look at the campaign website.
A cartoon from the notaxforgenocide.uk website showing key British politicians ignoring the protests of people demanding an end to the Gaza genocide and highlighting that the UK is complicit in it with protest signs.
The Nuremberg Code
First up, the campaign says it is illegal to pay tax if any of it is used to fund “genocide, murder or any criminal activity” as per the UN Charter, the UK Terrorism Act, the International Criminal Court, and… the Nuremberg Code?
Regular readers will have come across the Nuremberg Code in The Skeptic before, as some people believed the Code prohibited the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Those people were wrong on that, but they were at least correct that the Code does refer to experimentation on humans.
But I’ve no idea why this tax campaign refers to the Nuremberg Code, unless the campaigners believe the UK government is illegally funding some kind of involuntary human experimentation in Gaza? If they do, I missed it on their website. Perhaps they meant the Nuremberg Principles, which relate to war crimes.
Is defending Ukraine bad, too?
The preview document for the “Declaration of Deed and Trust” that can be downloaded on the campaign website – which, in fairness, doesn’t seem to be the final version – says that taxes, which have gone via Parliament’s Consolidated Fund to the Ministry of Defence (MoD), are being used “for the instigation, facilitation, support or conduct of various illegal wars, invasions, occupations or armed attacks on the people of diverse independent Sovereign States, most recently Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, the Yemen and the Ukraine” [sic].
Reasonable and differing opinions are available on UK involvement in most of that list of countries, but it would surely be quite a stretch to say that British financial and military support for Ukraine’s defence against an all-out invasion from a foreign power is in some way illegal, or constitutes supporting an invasion, or an occupation of Ukraine, or an attack on Ukraine.
One can of course reasonably think the UK taxpayer should not fund Ukraine’s defensive efforts, but the implication that supporting the legitimate government of Ukraine with military aid is somehow supporting an attack on the people of Ukraine is certainly audacious. Perhaps this will be clarified or removed from the final draft.
War Crimes and Punishments
The document also says that if the UK government ceases the activity that the campaign says is illegal, the pledger still won’t pay until “1000 of the leading instigators, perpetrators, financiers, investors, advisors, company directors, public officials and natural persons complicit in the criminal acts” have criminal proceedings initiated against them.
One might well ask who these 1,000 people are, and who gets to decide. More to the point, the campaign’s argument seems to be that it is illegal to pay taxes if those taxes fund illegal wars – but even if that is true, why would that make it legal to withhold taxes if a seemingly arbitrary number of unnamed people aren’t prosecuted?
Dilution and Responsibility
The campaign website says that their legal reasoning is applicable to Council Tax as well as income tax, because a percentage of this goes to paying council employees, who then pay a percentage of that salary as taxes to Parliament’s Consolidated Fund, a percentage of which then goes to the MoD. This does feel like the dilution of culpability on the taxpayer is starting to get a bit watery.
In any case, from a very basic common sense and historical standpoint, taxpayers have not generally been held accountable for the actions of their governments. The many trials that followed the Second World War saw thousands of people in Japan and Germany prosecuted for their wartime conduct… for specified war crimes, not for merely paying their taxes, even though we all know that terrible atrocities were committed with those funds.
Will it work? And a DISCLAIMER
I don’t know if this will work, as – obviously – I’m not qualified to provide legal or tax advice. The campaign says they are seeking advice from a KC to provide a written opinion on the campaign so that participants know the risks. Their argument seems to be that participants would not be avoiding tax but withholding it from the government it in a “Deed of Trust” until the above conditions are met. It remains to be seen whether the courts would agree. It is certainly worth noting that, in a typical year, something like 50 people are jailed for failing to pay council tax, and a further thousand people a year receive suspended sentences.
In fairness, No Tax for Genocide also notes that it does not provide legal or financial advice, in a fairly large disclaimer at the bottom of the main page.
There’s an asterisk halfway through the disclaimer paragraph, but I can’t find a footnote or endnote that it points to. Hopefully nothing important, given the seriousness of the campaign and the possible implications for participants…
Note: this piece contains descriptions of mental health crises and suicide.
I am a solicitor and I represent people before the Parole Board of England and Wales. I used to say I represent prisoners but these days not everyone I represent is in prison – some people who the Parole Board deal with are in the community with you and me. I am going to tell you about one of them: my client, Matthew.
I want to talk about it because I think this is an important skeptical story. It has been written before that skepticism can often feel like a Sisyphean project, especially if you subscribe to the idea that your skepticism should be compassionate and aim to make the world better, rather than just making you feel superior. This is about how you keep going and keep motivated when things seem to be going backwards or look bleak.
It is also a story about what happens when you fail to listen to evidence, and the unintended consequences that can arise when policy decisions are poorly thought out or institutions refuse to change their mind.
In relation to Matthew, I had new experience of being on the other side of a court proceeding. I am used to being the advocate, asking questions of witnesses and making submissions in hearings. But back in January, I was the one being questioned as I gave evidence at the inquest into Matthew’s death.
Coroner’s courts are courts that investigate unnatural deaths. They are inquiries, rather than criminal or civil trials, with a judge – known as the Coroner – who will investigate a matter and arrive at a conclusion about the circumstances of a death. They aren’t designed to apportion blame – though criminal proceedings can be instigated as a result of a Coroner’s findings. A famous example of that would be the ultimately unsuccessful prosecutions that followed the inquests into the Hillsborough disaster in 2016.
A Coroner has raised concerns about the mental health of offenders serving indefinite sentences after a man died.
Matthew Price took his own life while on licence under an imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentence 10 years after his release from jail.
Mr Price, 48, who spent three years in jail after being convicted of causing grievous bodily harm with intent, died on 16 June 2023
The article goes on to mention how Matthew died, which I am choosing to omit.
IPP sentences are a type of life sentence, given out between 2005 and 2012, originally part of Labour’s attempts to appear tough on crime in the late 90s and 00s. They often had tariffs measured in months or even days.
The tariff was the minimum period someone had to serve before the Parole Board considered whether someone was safe to be released. For a standard life sentence the tariff is often measured in decades; one of my pet peeves in crime reporting is where articles say someone convicted of murder has been ‘sentenced to life’ – that isn’t news. A life sentence for murder is automatic – the news bit is the length of the tariff, but I digress. With IPPs these were for offences less serious than murder, and it was envisaged that they would apply to a hundreds of people, a small but persistent group of offenders. During sentencing the judge had to first decide if the conduct warranted a standard life sentence and, if it didn’t, they would go on to consider an IPP.
IPP sentences were given out for a very wide range of offences – 153 different offences, in fact, and a lot of these offences were minor and weren’t necessarily violent.
This wouldn’t have been an issue per se, but the problem was that the judges were given (at least initially) no discretion. If a person ticked the right offence boxes then they automatically got an IPP. Instead of the anticipated hundreds of IPPs judges gave out thousands. More than 8,000 were given out over 7 years.
A red cross drawn in pen over a circular checkbox. Image by Damaris Wessinger, Pixabay
This was a problem because there was no corresponding increase in resource in prisons to address offending behaviour, and many prisoners got stuck. There are still around 1,200 of them at this point who have never been released – they’re now in the 19th year of a sentence that had single digit tariffs, or even tariffs that were measured in months or days.
IPP sentences were deemed unlawful in 2012 and were therefore abolished, but this abolition was not retrospective. Everyone who received an IPP sentence still had one.
There have been growing calls since then to get rid of the sentence entirely. Successive governments, and Justice Secretaries – including David Blunkett, who introduced the sentence – have recognised it as a stain on the justice system… but they’ve only done so vocally once they are no longer able to do anything about it.
There has quite rightly been a lot of focus on those who have gotten stuck in prison, or in the revolving door of recall. They must prove they are safe before being released, but the lack of resources meant that people flew past their tariffs, so they got frustrated, they acted out – which damaged their chances of release – and they got stuck in a cycle of hopelessness. Many, many of them have at this point taken their own lives in despair.
If an IPP prisoner does manage to get released, they remain on license, where the slightest perceived infraction can result in being recalled to prison. They can apply for their licence to be terminated 10 years from first release. This became an automatic right in 2022.
There was a Justice Select Committee (JSC) report completed in September 2022 – a cross-party report that looked at 17 years of evidence about this sentence. That declared them to be ‘irredeemably flawed’ and recommended that all those with them be resentenced. This was rejected by the government and Justice Secretary, Dominic Raab, in February 2023. The select committee also recommended that the 10 years on licence prior to being able to apply for termination be cut to five. This was also rejected by the government.
So, back to my client Matthew. He had one of these sentences. Unlike many though, he had been out of prison for a very long time. Very nearly the 10 years required before being able to apply for termination. He was in the community. He was working, he hadn’t committed any further offences. So, what happened? Why has the Coroner linked Matthew’s IPP sentence with his death?
I could explain what happened, but I would actually prefer to let Matthew do that in his own words – he sent this message several weeks before he died, and it is how I came to be his solicitor and to help him with his application to terminate his licence. It is edited slightly for length:
Back in 2010 at the age of 35 I committed a Section 18 wounding on my friend.
There was no justification whatsoever for my actions and my friend should never have been subjected to that whatever the circumstances. I still feel bad to this day for the impact my actions had on my friend and my family and others.
After pleading guilty I was sentenced to prison for the first and only time in my life on a IPP sentence with a 3 year tariff.
In my time in custody I never really did any accredited offending behaviour courses… this was because I was below the required risk threshold to meet the criteria for such courses but spent my time doing other positive activities instead including gaining employment … and was released in November 2013.
I continued to make good progress in the community and had the supervision element of my licence suspended in August 2019.
I will just note here that this means that he didn’t have to keep in touch with probation anymore – he could still be recalled to prison, but he wasn’t being closely supervised.
The never-ending nature of when or if my sentence will ever come to an end eventually took its toll on my mental health and after trying to throw myself off a bridge in March 2020 before being talked down by police. (Even the police didn’t appear to be familiar with the sentence I said I was under and it was as if they thought I was imagining that I was under a sentence that couldn’t be true)
I will note that the police officer who called me to ask if I knew why Matthew may have taken his life was surprised to hear that these sentences were still a thing.
Following this I spent 3 months in a mental health hospital, had my medication restarted, and had the supervision element of my licence reinstated. On being discharged from hospital I received support from community mental health nurses. Their support and medication helped me greatly but in the greater scheme of things I knew being under mental health treatment was going to impact greatly on the chances of my sentence ever been brought to an end.
I want to flag there that, as a result of his mental health crisis, Matthew was put back on supervision – he was essentially punished for having poor mental health.
Eventually I came off medication gradually and discharged myself from this support that was helping me because I knew I had to try and find a way to pretend I didn’t still have mental health issues when really I did.
Since August 2022 I’ve had to pretend that losing my father hasn’t effected me as much as it really has, as well as pretend I don’t have mental health issues when I do, and not to go back on medication because seeking mental health support and being on medication can be classed as poor coping and behaviour by HM Prison & Probation Service in assessments.
And it was – I have seen those assessments.
The only way I can keep my risks LOW is to live this pretence that everything is ok when I know it’s not.
The truth is I need mental health support and I feel I need to be back on medication to be able to cope with this sentence but I’m too scared to ask for it because doing so will go against my chances of ever bringing my sentence to an end.
…
I’m stuck in a never ending cycle of which suicide is quite possibly really the only way out.
Asking for help will go against me, not asking for help will most likely kill me.
I’ve never denied my offending and taken full responsibility.
Of course I needed to go to prison as a result of my actions but how can it be right that I’m being expected to cope on a irredeemably flawed sentence, that’s inhumane and was abolished in 2012 and also be on a potentially lifelong licence that might never end, and feel fearful to ask for mental health support help.
…
The fact is the neverending and never knowing nature of this sentence feeds poor mental health.
Even those on whole life orders or on any other sentence at least have a sentence that brings clarity for both victims and offenders of the sentence that’s being served.
Even if they’d hung me there would have been a definite ending.
The truth is that this long abolished IPP sentence has proved to be capital punishment through the back door in many cases with those who have seen taking their own lives as the only way out growing rapidly recently.
This is a cry for help because this never-ending sentence and the not knowing has crushed and broken me and I don’t know what to do for the best anymore.
I’ve now been released from prison for almost 10 years, yet I’m no nearer knowing when or if this nightmare will ever end.
Matthew died four weeks after sending that email to a large number of people, including the current justice secretary Alex Chalk, members of the JSC, his probation officer, and several law firms – including mine, which is how he became my client.
Given I had been representing Matthew, he had messaged people with my details prior to his death, and I was the last person to speak to him, I was asked by the Coroner to provide a witness statement. I wanted to give the best evidence I could, so I provided the Coroner with the email above, the Justice Select Committee report, and a recent report of the Independent Monitoring Board of prisons with regards to the welfare of IPP prisoners. I also had a response from the Ministry of Justice to an email sent by my boss and all of the recipients of Matthew’s email informing them that he had died – Matthew had received encouraging responses from many of the JSC and in the House of Lords, but nothing from the Secretary of State for Justice (SSJ). Their response was generic, and wrongly assumed Matthew had been in prison.
I was told that I wasn’t needed for the hearing itself, but I felt it was important for me to go anyway, for Matthew, for his family, and to be helpful if I could. I felt it was important to show up. Matthew may have died, but there are thousands of other Matthews still out there.
I’m very glad I did, because the Coroner had a lot of questions for me about my statement, and about other aspects of the evidence that I was able to answer. I could not have done this if I had decided not to attend.
The result of that was that the Coroner issued what is known as a Regulation 28, or Prevention of Future Deaths report. This is something that a Coroner can issue when the evidence they have been presented gives rise to concern that there could be future deaths unless action is taken by the body that the report is directed to. In this case the SSJ.
The MATTERS OF CONCERN are as follows. It was apparent from the evidence that I heard and read at the inquest that there are serious concerns about the welfare of individuals who remain subject to IPP sentences. For example, the Independent Monitoring Boards (‘IMB’) completed a report with key findings entitled ‘The impact of IPP sentences on prisoners’ wellbeing’ in May 2023. This report was written following the rejection by the government of the recent Justice Select Committee’s recommendation for a re-sentencing exercise to take place for anyone serving an IPP sentence.
Whilst the key findings of the IMB report are focused upon the impact upon serving prisoners and the prevention of recall, I was deeply concerned about the evidence I heard in relation to the clear impact that the on-going IPP sentence had had on Mr Price. He had served a three year tariff and at the time of his death he had been released back into the community for nearly ten years
Mr Price was anxious about the ever-present potential for recall to prison. Furthermore, he had conveyed in communications to others that he felt that seeking help with his mental health by way of support and medication might count against him when seeking to be successful in discharging the IPP. Whilst Mr Price was engaged with legal support in navigating the review process, the on-going impact of uncertainty of being on an IPP sentence was clearly apparent.
As a consequence of undertaking Mr Price’s inquest, the on-going wellbeing of those serving IPP sentences, be that in prison estate or in the community, is a matter of concern to me as a Coroner.
The Ministry of Justice is fully apprised of the IPP context and whilst matters have been raised by the IMB I am concerned that specific focus upon the welfare of individuals living in the community should be appraised by those who may be able to take appropriate steps to further support an evidently vulnerable section of society.
Now, the SSJ is required to respond to the Coroner – they don’t necessarily have to do anything, but they do have to respond. At the time of writing, they have only responded to the BBC article:
Our thoughts remain with the friends and family of Matthew Price.
We have taken decisive action to curtail licence periods to give rehabilitated people the opportunity to move on with their lives and have mental health support in place for IPP offenders living in the community who are at risk of self-harm or suicide.
That is a reference to the recent announcement, following Matthew’s death, that the government are proposing to change the licence period rules. There is currently an amendment to the Victims and Prisoners Bill that is currently crawling through parliament, reducing the period from 10 to three years for first review. If the Parole Board say no and you are out for a further two years without incident, your licence will be terminated automatically. Matthew’s would have been terminated in 2018 under that proposal. This announcement came a couple of weeks before Matthew’s inquest – the SSJ was already aware of his death.
I also just want to note the first sentence of the SSJ response, about how their thoughts are with Matthew’s friends and family. Matthew didn’t have any friends. His offence had been against a friend, and so he deliberately avoided making friends for fear of repeating the behaviour that had gotten him into trouble – so strong was his fear of returning to prison. He was condemned to a lonely, seemingly endless period of supervision in the community, on a sentence that had been abolished before he was released.
Progress on righting this irredeemably flawed policy is very slow and painful. I am not going to presume that my assisting with Matthew’s inquest has single-handedly moved the dial, but it is important that we do what we can, when we can, to move it – however slowly, however painfully. Even where things seem to be going backwards, or we lose people. I am aware of at least one other community IPP death since Matthew’s. We need to keep showing up, even at the darkest points.
Matthew wanted me to tell people what had happened to him, and why.
This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 2, Issue 4, from 1988.
Since the seventies there has been a revival of interest in, and a considerable expansion of the study of, near-death experiences (NDEs); especially those describable as out-of-the-body experiences (OBEs). For instance, J.C. Hampe’s To Die is to Gain (London: Darton, Langman and Todd, 1972) and R.A. Moody’s Life After Life (New York: Bantam, 1977) have both sold well and attracted the attention of the electronic media. In Immortality or Extinction (London: Macmillan, 1982), Paul and Linda Badham round off their very creditably critical account of the research reports of these and other writers by asking: “If we accept these ‘traveller’s tales’ from the dying as evidential, what conclusions follow?”
Their own cautious verdict about those NDEs that are also ODEs is: “If no other plausible explanation can be put forward, then we have some grounds for accepting them as being what their percipients claim them to be – reports of what actually happens at the moment of death. And what appears to happen is that the soul leaves the body and begins to move on to another mode of existence.” (p. 89)
Bust (and portrait) of the English philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, at Hardwick Hall. Photo by Tim Ellis, via FlickrCC BY-NC 2.0 DEED
Hold it, now! Is there any good reason to believe that these tales are evidence for anything other than the experiences that their tellers may or may not have had in the privacy of their own minds? Let us never forget how the incorrigible Thomas Hobbes responded to the claim that God spoke to some prophet in a dream: “Certainly, I will allow that he dreamed that God spoke to him.”
What we can deal with here, and perhaps settle, is the small question of whether any OBEs either do or could support, as the Bradhams and so many others clearly believe, a Platonic-Cartesian view of the nature of man. It is only if that is answered in the affirmative that there arises the question of whether they do or could constitute evidence for survival.
The prior question itself arises because many people have reported that, usually in the crisis period of a serious illness, it has seemed to them that they were seeing themselves from a point of view other than that occupied by their own eyes, and probably while their eyes were in any case shut. They have seemed to see, and much more rarely in other modes to perceive, both themselves lying apparently unconscious in their beds and other objects not visible or otherwise sensible from the position of those beds. It is said too that sometimes the subjects of these OBEs produce information, which appears to them to have been sensibly acquired, about objects not normally observable, even by the medical staff and fit visitors (Badham 1982, pp. 74-5 ).
Certainly these first are very odd and very remarkable experiences. Nor is there any reasonable doubt that they do occur; although whether any of their subjects can in fact produce information about objects not normally observable is open to question. If and in so far as it is established that they do, then these productions of information will have to be rated as ESP performances. But what is grossly uneconomic and gratuitous is to attribute such performances to incorporeal souls, postulated ad hoc, rather than to the flesh and blood persons who were the patients of the OBEs in question. It is enough to have to hypothesise ESP, without also hypothesising immaterial souls to be its agents: “Agents,” as Ockham is supposed to have said, “are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.”
The fact that OBEs do occur, albeit rarely, is no more a reason for saying that the person having such experiences is at the time disembodied, than is the fact that we can all image (that is, form a mental image of) ongoings distant in either time or place a reason for saying that; when we are engaged in these imagings, we are actually then or there, rather than when and where we in fact are. And, if subjects do produce information about objects not normally observable by anyone, then, as in the séance room situation, these achievements can and should be most economically described in terms of the psi-powers of those subjects.
It is best to assimilate the case of OBEs to that of imagination (imaging). For what is in dispute is not really what (private) experiences are had or what mental images are formed, but how these experiences and these images are properly to be described. So, just as the correct answer to the question, “Where and when is the woman imagining she is Helen of Troy, being seduced by Paris?” is “Wherever she is when she is doing the imagining; maybe in boring Bootle on a wet Sunday afternoon!”; so the answer to the question “Where was the patient when he was having the out of the body experiences?” is – just as dispiritingly – “In his bed, apparently unconscious.”
Wear Sunscreen. If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it.
Every year, as summer approaches, there is a small movement of people for whom a cloud of controversy surrounds sunscreen. Since the development of the first commercial sunscreen by Milton Blake in the early 1930s, some have raised questions regarding sunscreen safety, claiming it is toxic, ineffective, or even deliberately engineered to cause harm.
The exact origins of the anti-sunscreen conspiracy theory are difficult to pinpoint. It is often propagated through social media platforms, blogs, and alternative health communities that promote a naturalistic health and wellness approach. Like many conspiracy theories, it likely stems from a combination of misinformation, anecdotal experiences, and distrust in established institutions.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States, with around 6.1 million adults treated each year for basal cell and squamous cell carcinomas. Statistics provided by Cancer Research UK suggest that 1 in 41 women, and 1 in 35 men will be diagnosed with melanoma skin cancer in their lifetime – with 86% of cases likely to be preventable. Skin cancer may have a genetic component, yet it is mostly caused by repeated unprotected sun exposure, tanning, and sunburn.
Sunscreen offers the best protection against UV radiation, which may trigger DNA damage and cause cells to become cancerous. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) asserts that wearing sunscreen is safe and fundamental to reducing the risk of skin cancer. There have been some reports that suggest a heightened melanoma risk associated with sunscreen application, but these statistics can be deceptive: individuals prone to sun sensitivity, who are already inherently at a greater risk of melanoma, often use sunscreens more frequently. Consequently, elevated melanoma risk among sunscreen users may primarily signify an increased risk within sun-sensitive individuals, rather than a direct consequence of sunscreen usage.
Misinformation and conspiracy theories are commonly encountered in wellness communities on social media, where credible scientific evidence frequently takes a back seat within a polarised environment that emphasizes binary viewpoints. A 2022 qualitative review of misinformation related to skin cancer shows that common themes of sunscreen misinformation include: claims around immune dysfunction, irreversible vitamin D deficiency, the inclusion of carcinogenic chemicals, not requiring sunscreen on cloudy days, suggestion of alternative homemade ‘natural’ recipes, the idea that sunscreen directly causes skin cancer and other cancers, and the promotion of alternative ‘cures’ for skin cancer.
Anti-sunscreen advocates, whether influencers,doctors, or top fashion brands, demonise sunscreen using pseudoscientific and misleading claims that trigger fear, perpetuating the myth of a healthy tan. Their voices have been intensified by wellness influencers and other health gurus, who encourage their followers to adopt a “natural” lifestyle. Sensationalist content about the harms of sunscreen encourages using natural ingredients, claiming that the chemicals in sunscreen could harm your health. TikTok creators argue that we should avoid sunscreen because our ancestors were hunters and gatherers in the sun, while others promote DIY sunscreen recipes. This latter trend gained traction due to its simple recipes, easy application, pleasant smells, and promised aesthetic benefits. However, homemade sunscreens do not come with SPF ratings and are not tested by official regulatory bodies, giving them unknown safety and effectiveness.
UV from the sun can damage skin cell DNA and lead to cancer, whether it’s a blue-sky day or not.
TikTok is particularly dangerous because video content is often more influential in memory retention and persuasion. Exposure to misleading information related to sunscreen efficacy through videos may influence individuals to adopt beliefs and behaviours consistent with the misinformation shared in the video.
Amid the interest in “natural” beauty and the awareness that certain potentially hazardous chemicals found in sunscreens are prohibited in some countries, celebrities and influencers such as Gisele Bündchen have embraced natural processes. “Synthetic” is labelled as “toxic” and “natural” is considered “clean” – whatever that means. Other influencers argue that the sun is “the life force” and it is the sunscreen that causes cancer and not the sun, arguing that the sun is “healthy” and a source of Vitamin D.
The conversation about natural beauty further fuels the fearmongering anti-sunscreen movement, and the algorithms are not helping. TikTok’s algorithm, for example, is shockingly effective at nudging and shifting a user’s preferences and beliefs.
Given the occasional headline about sunscreens, it is only normal for consumers to ask questions, and perhaps even to fall for some of the misinformation. However, as of now, all studies continue to provide evidence that sunscreen prevents skin cancer. Sunscreens, like all everyday skincare items (and everything), are made up of chemicals, but they also undergo rigorous safety testing prior to public release.
The anti-sunscreen movement, while perhaps not as alarming as the anti-vaccination movement, is still a significant concern. It illustrates another example where evidence-based science is overshadowed by ideology, posing a serious threat to public health and safety. This anti-science movement highlights the critical need for evidence-based education on skin cancer prevention. Efforts to combat misinformation, led by dermatologists and scientists, are essential in promoting the adoption of evidence-based photoprotective practices and ensuring public safety in the face of ongoing challenges posed by ideological biases.
Brandolini’s law posits that debunking false information demands significantly more effort than generating it. It reminds us of the uphill battle against misinformation, emphasising the ongoing necessity for diligent efforts in countering false narratives and prioritising evidence-based approaches in public health communication.
Around 2018, a problematic movement started to become visible online. One that has, over the last few years – and especially during the pandemic – incorporated more and more conspiracy theories, transforming from a something notionally supportive of women in domesticity, to a movement shrouded in racism and hatred towards women who choose a different path. I’m talking, of course, about the TradWife movement.
#TradWives began on social media as a branding aesthetic, largely based on that of the 1950s in the US. Or, at least, a romanticised version of that period, because it conveniently overlooks that women’s power and autonomy had grown during World War II, before they were forcibly pushed back out of the workforce by returning soldiers and back into the home. The effect of this sudden loss of power would lead to the over-prescription of Valium and Librium to silence those women who did not want to accept their autonomy being taken away.
Gradually, this imitation of aesthetics turned into a movement that openly and proudly labelled itself anti-feminist and promoted a supposedly traditional division of gender roles as a way of offering self-fulfilment – again, conveniently overlooking that it is only thanks to feminism that women have the freedom to decide their roles at all.
The TradWife movement encourages women to turn away from these hard-fought freedoms, such as the right to work, the right to have an abortion, and in extreme cases even rejecting women’s right to vote. The movement instead aligns closely with a fundamentalist view of Christianity, teaching that a woman ought to obediently and completely follow her husband’s will.
The aim of the TradWife movement is to row back on the many gains of feminism and, in doing so, they are never afraid of being openly hypocritical. On the one hand, they believe that women are to be seen, not heard; on the other hand, they openly seek to recruit others into their ranks, through public speaking and social media, even as they decry feminists for daring to do the same.
TradWife influencers portray themselves as women who are merely trying to be those perfect, traditional wives from the “simpler times” of the 1950s in the US, yet at the same time they have built huge platforms – Lana Lokteff, a prominent TradWife voice online, had over 300,000 YouTube subscribers before her channel was banned in 2019. They make regular public statements, run brand-based businesses, and have even been part of pyramid schemes and multi-level marketing schemes that have found a willing market among Republican-minded American housewives.
By embodying these inherent contradictions – essentially, having their aesthetically pleasing homemade cake and eating it, too – TradWives continue the tradition of women’s roles within white supremacist movements.
#TradWives and white supremacy
It is not just the domestic aesthetic that #TradWives take from the 1950s – frequently, their white supremacist view of race is lifted directly from that past, too.
More specifically, when it comes to TradWives, views on race are discussed as part of the revival of the Great Replacement Theory, a notion first coined by French author Renaud Camus. According to this discredited idea, the white race is in mortal danger, with the threat coming at the hands of people of colour, who are deliberately brought into a country (in most versions of the theory, by a secret global cabal of Jews) in order to out-breed, and eventually replace, the ‘native’ white population. One of the defences against this imagined attack, according to the white supremacist, is for white people to do their duty by having as many offspring as possible to make the white race harder to replace. There are other proposed solutions, of course, along far less peaceful lines.
As well as being expected to be a baby-making machine to secure the future of the white race, TradWives are central to the Great Replacement rhetoric in that white women’s wombs must belong to the white male community, and therefore women must fear men of colour and immigrants, who might take this rightful property from white men.
Despite the visibility of TradWives, and their online appeal, there is as a result no active place for women in movements revolving around white supremacy. Take, for example, Elizabeth Tyler, who brought 85,000 members into the Ku Klux Klan. Her reward? Her male colleagues pushed her out of the KKK because they found her to be too active.
None of this is to denigrate or criticise women who choose to be housewives, but merely to highlight that #TradWives do not have the idyllic lifestyles their YouTube videos and TikTok montages would have you believe, and life for the TradWife is far from easy even within their own communities. They are criticised by men who share the same values with them, precisely because these men resent their public speaking and entrepreneurialism.
It oftentimes feels that, as a woman, no matter what you do, you cannot win. That should be incentive enough to work towards creating access to more opportunities and choices – be it becoming a homemaker, being childfree, or figuring out a balance of family life and career with one’s partner – rather than limiting women to play-acting a non-existent ideal.
