References, notes and asides

1. Ferri, E., Brynner, J. and Wadsworth, M. (2003) Changing Britain, Changing Lives: three generations at the turn of the century. Institute of Education.

2. In a report published in January 2004 by the Independent Review of Government Communications, Professor Tait revealed the following "melt-down of public trust". Nationwide surveys suggest only 19% of the public in the UK now trust politicians to tell the truth. 'If trust in politicians and participation in elections continue to decline, it is no exaggeration to say that the whole democratic process is under threat," he said. 71% now trust the Post Office, 53% trust schools, only 22% trust the civil service and 13% trust the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. When asked whether the government of the day would put the national good above party gain, 39% believed so in 1974, but by 2002 the figure had fallen to 16%. This lack of trust is leading to a lack of engagement, especially among the young. Only 16% of voters under 25 took part in the last election.

3. Lane, R. E., (2000) The Loss of Happiness in Market Democracies. Yale University Press.

4. Griffin, J. & Tyrrell, I. (2003) Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking.
HG Publishing.

5. This research began in 1992 and was sponsored by the European Therapy Studies Institute (ETSI).

6. See: www.mindfields.org.uk for details about MindFields College.

7. Mc Neill, W. H. (1991 edition) The Rise of the West: A History of the Human Community.
Chicago University Press.

8. Wheen, F. (2004) How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World. Fourth Estate. "A Gallup poll in June 1993 found that only 11 per cent of Americans accepted the standard secular account of evolution, that 'human beings have developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life, but God had no part in this process'; 35 per cent thought that humans evolved over millions of years, but with divine guidance; and 47 per cent maintained that 'God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so' — the creation story as told in the Book of Genesis. Other polls at about the same time discovered that 49 per cent of Americans believed in demonic possession, 36 per cent in telepathy and 25 per cent in astrology; and that no fewer than 68 per cent approved of creationism being taught in biology classes."

9. The underlying psychological rule that ensures this will always be so is: 'emotional arousal makes us stupid'. When strong emotions arise our higher brain (the neo-cortex) is virtually disabled and we resort to the circuitry of the limbic system which operates out of an 'all or nothing', 'black and white', 'fight or flight' mode. This retreat into animality happens very easily, which is why even the most intelligent people can be blinded by greed, become unreasonably angry or anxious, or fall in love with someone quite inappropriate for them.

10. In a YouGov poll 68% did not believe that the Government is honest and trustworthy. Daily Telegraph. July 21, 2003.

11. This was memorably summed up by Augustus De Morgan (1806-1871), an English mathematician, who wrote this popular ditty in his book, A Budget of Paradoxes. "Great fleas have little fleas, upon their backs to bite 'em, and little fleas have lesser fleas, and so on infinitum. And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on, while these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on."

12. The health impact on communities suffering the decline of fishing can be dramatic — drug abuse, depression, and removal of local schools due to depopulation all damage healthy coastal communities. Between 1993 and 2000, Buckie suffered a 62% decline in fisheries employment, Fraserburgh 30% and Peterhead 24%. For a story of one Scottish community see, Marine Times, 8th February 2004 "Stitched Up" by John Kinsman (correspondent in Grimsay, Hebrides, Scotland).

13. Government ministers are now encouraging people to learn to love the 'barbed wire'. "In your own interest, learn to love the nanny state," said Tessa Jowell, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, in The Times, 2 January 2004.

14. Before Vatican II, the Church consistently taught that only Roman Catholics had a chance to be saved and attain Heaven. Followers of other Christian denominations and of other religions would be automatically routed to Hell for all eternity. For example, Pope Innocent III (circa 1160 —1216), considered one of the greatest popes of the Middle Ages, wrote: "There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all can be saved." Pope Eugene IV, (1388—1447 ) wrote a Papal bull in 1441 titled Cantate Domino. One paragraph reads: "It [the Church] firmly believes, professes, and proclaims that those not living within the Catholic Church, not only pagans, but also Jews and heretics and schismatics cannot become participants in eternal life, but 'will depart into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels' [Matt. 25:41] ... "It was not until 1964 that the Catholic church allowed for members of other Christian denominations and believers of non-Christian religions a potential for salvation.

15. Brazen Victorian patriotism and feeling of divine importance were summed up in the very popular verse composed by Arthur Cristopher Benson, son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and put to marvellous music by Edward Elgar. It is still, rather incongruously, sung with passion at the last night of the Proms:
Land of hope and Glory, mother of the free,
How shall we extol thee, who are born of thee?
Wider still and wider, shall thy bounds be set;
God who made thee mighty, make thee mightier yet.

16. Tracinski, R. W. (2002) The Moral Basis of Capitalism. Centre for the Advancement of Capitalism. The following example of economic and cultural imperialism illustrates the lack of balance in the system when one view prevails: "In many developing countries, local television programming has almost been eradicated. This is not because these countries cannot make their own programmes, or that they do not wish to do so; it is largely because the economics of programme making, combined with the agenda of American multinational advertisers, makes it almost impossible to produce local programmes. Just as America dumps cheap commodities on developing countries, thus forcing locally produced commodities and goods to the wall, so television programmes are dumped on the Third World. The system works like this. A single episode of a hit television show such as Alias or Dark Angel may cost up to $5 million to make. This money is recouped by selling the show to a single network in the United States and Canada. The European sales are pure profit. Once the American and European markets are sewn up, the programmes are dumped on Third World television stations according to a long-established formula for payment. The higher a country's per capita income, the higher it is on the ladder of 'development', the more it pays. Thus, while a British channel will pay something in the region of £200-250,000 for an episode of a high-rating show like The Simpsons, Malaysia may acquire the same show for less than US$70,000 and Bangladesh for only US$25,000. Thus a programme with exceptionally high production values is sold for peanuts, making it impossible for local programming, working on modest to minuscule budgets, to compete. Inevitably, local programming always looks inferior to imported shows. But programmes are not bought individually; they are bought in package deals. So a major proportion of the seasonal output of a local channel in a developing country may consist exclusively of the imported package. Moreover, each programme of the package will be subsidised or 'sponsored' by a multinational company: the programme will be associated with its name or with one of its brand products. As a general rule, American multinationals do not sponsor local programmes, even if they attract high ratings. They sponsor only those programmes — Model Inc., Melrose Place, Baywatch — which promote the central images of American culture: the images of high consumption, of unrestrained freedom, of the young individual as the consumer. Thus, television channels in countries with 'open economics', such as South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Hong Kong, are totally domin-
ated by American companies. These companies also fund frequent 'live concerts' (which come under local programming) in which imported American pop stars entertain the local audience, as well as sports events. When what is being shown on terrestrial television is combined with what is coming down from the satellite — 24-hour MTV, QVC (the 'Quality, Value, Convenience' shopping channel), old American movies on TMC, endless repeats of situation comedies on the Paramount Comedy Channel, and American reality and quiz shows - we get a more accurate picture of the almost total displacement of indigenous culture." From, Why do people hate America? by Ziauddin Sardar and Merryl Wyn Davies. Icon Books.

17. Deikman, A. (2004) Them and Us: Cult Thinking and the Terrorist Threat. (With an introduction by Doris Lessing.) Bay Tree Publishing. Them and Us is an updated presentation of Deikman's 1990 book, The wrong way home, and probably the best book on the ubiquity of cult phenomena, a way of thinking we all share in some measure. When we belittle others, shy away from dissenting views, rely on an inspiring leader, or simply go along with the group, we set ourselves on the path to cult thinking. Once we draw a clear line between Them and Us — whoever they are — we begin to lose our way, believing 'we are the chosen ones'. The antidote, says Arthur Deikman, lies in recognizing cult thinking in a wide range of institutions — corporate, political, religious, and educational — and in our personal responses. When we understand how easily we fall into patterns of defensiveness and accusation, we develop a more realistic view of the world and can respond more effectively to the attempted impositions of cult behaviour, hatred and terrorism.

18. Burke, J. & Ornstein, R. (1995) The Axemaker's Gift. Putnam.

19. Donald, M. (2001) A mind so rare: The evolution of human consciousness. W. W. Norton.

20. Fortunately this is widely recognised. For example the 'PEACE Middle East Dialogue Group', calling on Palestinian and Israeli leaders to negotiate a peace settlement, make their first principle that, "The parties shall recognize each other as equals and declare that the same principles apply to both sides."

21. Kotulak, R. (1997) Inside the Brain: Revolutionary discoveries of how the mind works. McMeel Publishing. The power of experience to shape the development of the brain hit scientists like a thunderbolt in the 1960s and 1970s. So startling were the findings considered at the time that for a while many scientists refused to believe it. Nevertheless, research by Torsten Wiesel and David Hubel, for which they won a Nobel Prize, showed that sensory experience is essential for teaching brain cells their jobs, and after a critical period, brain cells lose the opportunity to learn those jobs. That failure to learn is well known in real life. Even if a person's brain is perfect, if it does not process visual experiences by the age of two, the person will not be able to see, and if it does not hear words by the age of ten, the person will never learn a language. "These are very important insights," said Wiesal. "There is a very important time in a child's life, beginning at birth, when he should be living in an enriched environment — visual, auditory, language, and so on — because that lays the foundation for development in later life." With the exception of children with brain damage, the way they develop always depends on environmental influences and upbringing. Subsequent research has shown that mothers and fathers also shape the brains of their infants through socialising them. Socialising small children boosts — and sets for life — their serotonin level. Serotonin regulates emotional intensity (among other things), which is why scientists colloquially call it 'the emotional break' and when parents and society do not ensure that a child is well socialised in the critical early years we are, in effect, programming the child's biology to operate more crudely. We know that, in many children, the biological need to solve problems through social collaborative activity is not matched up in their environment at the critical stages in their development. In such cases their brains neural networks adapt to develop other 'skills' that nature guesses would help them: the behaviour of the isolate or the dependent, or a simple regression towards aggressive behaviour and violence for example.

22. Griffin, J. & Tyrrell, I. (2004) Dreaming Reality: How dreaming keeps us sane or can drive us mad. HG Publishing.

23. Griffin, J. & Tyrrell, I. (2003) Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking. HG Publishing.

24. Peter, L. J & Hull, R. (1969) The Peter Principle: why things always go wrong. William Morrow. The Peter Principle states that: In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Dr Peter provides an insightful analysis of why so many positions in so many organizations seem to be populated by employees who exhibit signs of incompetence. According to Dr. Peter useful work is only accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence. Experience bears this out on a daily basis.

25. To take just one government example (revealed in the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry Report), since its inception over 50 years ago no NHS Government White Paper has ever been carried through in its entirety. Examples of business failures are legion.

26. That a few people tend to carry the majority is known as 'Pareto's Principal'. The principle that roughly 20 percent of something are always responsible for roughly 80 percent of the results is widely referred to in business and management circles. It is based on widespread observations in all kinds of organisations of the "vital few and trivial many". The 80/20 Rule says that in any project a few (20 percent) are vital to its success and many (80 percent) are trivial. In sociological terms, 20 percent of the people own 80 percent of the wealth. In manufacturing 20 percent of the defects cause 80 percent of the problems. Project Managers know that 20 percent of the work (the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent) consume 80 percent of your time and resources. The 80/20 Rule seems to apply to almost anything, from people management to the physical world. A businessman knows that 20 percent of his stock takes up 80 percent of his warehouse space and that 80 percent of his stock comes from 20 percent of his suppliers. Also 80 percent of his company's sales will come from 20 percent of his sales staff. 20 percent of his staff will cause 80 percent of his problems, but another 20 percent will provide 80 percent of his production. It works both ways.

27. People are becoming very expert at raising the spectre of legal proceedings with no just cause. The alarming rise in false claims of sexual abuse, for example, has been addressed by a Home Affairs Committee Enquiry on 'The Harm Caused By False Accusations', which came to the conclusion that, 'The reasons for this situation have much to do with the mechanistic nature of modern law, which has little regard to whether changes made are actually beneficial to society.' (As Charles Dickens wrote in Bleak House, "The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself.") But it is not just absurd laws that cause these problems, it is also the rise of our self-centred therapy culture, as Frank Furedi describes in his book of that title. "Most policy statements prefer a loose definition that includes conduct that is inappropriate, or "unacceptable". It is behaviour that is interpreted as 'offensive or intimidating' by the recipient. Harassment can also be either 'deliberate or unintentional'. When such a wide range of acts — clumsy gesture, bad practical joke, outburst of resentment — becomes causally linked to psychological illness, then fundamental forms of human interaction acquire a menacing complexion. "Widely accepted definitions of harassment, stalking and bullying insist that these acts are determined by the victim's feelings rather than by the intention of the person who has caused the offence. Many companies have adopted policies on bullying and harassment, which allow the recipient to determine whether he or she has been injured. For example, the policy of leading retailer Marks and Spencer states that, individuals 'have different levels of sensitivity and it is up to the recipient to decide whether they are experiencing behaviours unacceptable to them'. As the notion of unacceptable behaviour is typically left rather vague the range of individual acts that it can encompass becomes infinite. It is the individual's emotion rather than any objectively defined criteria that ultimately define an act or an experience as harmful. This subjective interpretation of what constitutes a harmful act indicates that the heightened sense of injury that pervades contemporary society relates principally to harms that violate the emotion." Furedi, F. (2003) Therapy Culture: Cultivating vulnerability in an uncertain age. Routledge.

28. See The Times, 22 December 2003. "Need time off work? Here's a sick note, no questions asked".

29. See, for example, the case of a Kansas City, Missouri, USA judge who was granted immunity from her mistake in neglecting to disclose her investment in a company over whose court case she was presiding. (Kansas City Star, "Immunity from mistakes disgusts former litigants" by Joe Stephens, 4 May 1998)

30. Sergeant, H. (2003) Managing not to manage. Centre for Policy Studies.

31. It is frequently observed, and visual news reporting from all over the world illustrates it, that dictators make themselves highly visible with giant portraits and statues festooning public and private places to a ridiculous degree.

32. That good government is invisible was understood as long as 2,500 years ago. It has perhaps never been more beautifully expressed than in the Tao Te Ching: "How did the great rivers and seas get their kingship over the hundred lesser streams? Through the merit of being lower than they; that was how they got their kingship. Therefore the Sage, in order to be above the people, must speak as if he were lower than the people. In order to guide them he must put himself behind them. Only thus can the Sage be on top and the people not be crushed by his weight. Only thus can he guide and the people not be led into harm."
(From The Way and Its Power: The Tao Te Ching and its place in Chinese thought by Arthur Waley, 1934.)

33. A recent example, following food scares in the UK, is the appointment of a commissioner, Sir John Krebs, as the head of the new Food Standards Agency, long promised by the Labour Government as a wholly independent body, which would exercise control over all aspects of food safety law. Almost simultaneously in Brussels, the EU Commissioner for consumer protection, David Byrne, announced that the EU was to take over competence over all aspects of food safety law throughout the EU. It would set up its own European Food Safety Authority and launch 84 initiatives. Just when Blair's New Labour government was announcing its own centralising agency, the EU was degrading it to a branch office of its own agency. For more examples, see, Booker, C. & North, R. (2003) The Great Deception. Continuum.

34. In order to be eligible for the Department of the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) Farm Woodland Premium scheme, whereby farmers are subsidised to plant redundant farmland with trees, it is necessary to fill in every year of the 10 year payment scheme the same 5 page claim form, which in turn must be sent to both DEFRA and the Woodland Trust, who administers the scheme and makes the payments. This form actually requires a repetition of data gathered by DEFRA from other forms and most of it has nothing to do with the trees in question.

35. High Functioning Autistic (HFA) people, often termed as suffering from Asperger's syndrome, have many deficits over normal functioning. They tend to have an obsessive desire for sameness and repetition, find it difficult to adjust priorities, want to impose their own perspective on situations, lack the ability to empathetically connect to how others might react to their behaviour and have difficulty understanding that their behaviour affects how others think or feel. We notice that this level of autistic thinking characterises much of the policies and behaviour of politicians and bureaucrats. Perhaps higher level thinking and functioning is harder in groups, which therefore fall back to operating autistically, or perhaps careers which give opportunities for autistic people to thrive, like ones obsessed with rules and control, attract high functioning autistic people. It should be noted that when autistic thinking is combined with originality we get geniuses of the calibre of Einstein and Newton. These issues and many more are discussed in, Michael Fitzgerald's book Autism and Creativity. (2004) Brunner-Routledge.

36. "Britain's red tape burden is 'out of control' and has soared to more than £30 billion according to the British Chambers of Commerce. The BCC's burdens barometer, which tallies the cumulative impact of the extra burden introduced since 1998, a year after the present government took office, shows the effect of red tape to have increased sharply, even in comparison with a year ago. Then the estimate was £20.6 billion. These figures are all the more telling because they are compiled on the basis of the government's own regulatory impact assessment." Sunday Times, 7 March 2004. Businesses are extremely concerned at the increasing levels of bureaucracy, regulation and red tape, which are having a detrimental effect on companies and stifling their ability to grow. The administrative burden imposes a reading requirement of close to one million words on entrepreneurs. Most of these items of legislation are accompanied by 'Guides' comprising more than 1/4 million words, not to mention the myriad of EU Directives emanating from Brussels. And yet all the 'Guides' carry a disclaimer that they are not 'legal interpretations' of the acts.
Together with the amount of legislative reading, small businesses are expected to complete almost 100 core forms per annum, to comply with the requirements of many State bodies. Many of these forms need to be filled out several times, particularly tax compliance forms, to take account of all employees and a number of mandatory returns. The number of questions per form can vary from 10 up to 100. The regulatory forms are littered with warnings of penalties. While the 'warnings' may individually appear innocuous, they apply to forms containing complexity and carry the threat of fines or imprisonment. Some forms require a competent mathematician and in some cases a linguistic expert if they are to be 'complete and correct'. The burden is that much greater on small business where the owner manager is wholly responsible for all aspects of the business and the people he or she employs. Every hour spent on form filling and adhering to regulations is one less hour spent on running the business. Recent OECD surveys confirm that the smallest companies — those with less than 20 employees — endured more than five times the administrative burden per employee than larger firms did, equating to an annual cost of 4% of turnover. Moreover, this can put off the potential entrepreneur or drive him or her unwillingly into the "informal economy". Regulations also impose burdens on the State itself through the need for the explanation and enforcement of often complex rules on businesses. A good deal of official time and energy in central and local Government is taken up by enforcing and applying regulations, therefore simplification would save time, money and staff effort for Government and for business. In a competitive environment, businesses already have enough to do in responding quickly to changing customer needs, to plan and monitor their financial, marketing, personnel and investment activities skilfully and flexibly. The impact of regulation takes its toll in diverting precious time and energy that would be far better used in generating products, services, and sales and, in the end, jobs.
(Adapted from the article, Red tape stifling small business, by S. Heaphy, published in January, 2004 by ISME, the Independent Business Organisation of Ireland.)

37. Caius Petronius A.D. 66

38. This observation has been made many times. One manager in a North London Hospital said, 'Decent, otherwise scrupulous people are pushed into conniving with Government into hitting targets at the expense of patient care." Sergeant, H. (2003) Managing not to manage. Centre for Policy Studies.

39. The Education Secretary, Charles Clarke, has said the government will have failed if adult literacy does not improve "massively" within five years. He said the way 7 million British adults struggled with basic sums was an "indictment of the whole way in which the education system operates." BBC News Online, 21 August 2003.

40. Ministers are again changing the criteria over which institutions can be called a university. Up until now, only institutions that carry out teaching and research could term themselves 'university'. Now there are moves to allow teaching institutions and those specialising in only a few subjects to call themselves "university." See "Ministers accused of dumbing down unis," BBC News Online, 4 June 2003

41. Sergeant, H. (2003) Managing not to manage. Centre for Policy Studies.

42. Whyte, J. (2003) Bad thoughts. Corvo Books. See pages 98—100 and 130—133 for a fascinating analysis of how the government officials use statistics to redefine 'poverty'.

43. Hood, C. (1998) The Art of the State. Oxford University Press.

44. On 28th November 2003, the Blair Government announced 13 questions for voters to answer in what he called "the biggest consultation exercise ever for voters." But most of the questions were loaded. Voters can respond through the official website www.thebigconversation.org

45. Take as one well-known example, the over budget European Fighter Aircraft, now known as the Eurofighter. Launched in 1985 as a European-built plane designed to fight a Cold War soviet MIG, it still does not yet exist, has split its design partners and has cost taxpayers £20 billion (£6 billion over budget). See "Air Farce One," The Sunday Telegraph, 4 January 2004. Richard Lomax's article, prior to his broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 5 January 2004. The article points out that, for an equivalent spend of £20 billion, 169,491 new homes could have been built, 111 hospitals, 1,250 schools, 25 Millennium domes etc. Not one politician involved has ever been voted out because of his involvement in the project.

46. The EU "Social Chapter" which the UK opted out of in order to approve the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, was finally adopted by the Blair government following Blair's announcement on 1 May 1997 after the General Election. The Social Chapter and the Working Times Directive in it have unleashed even more bureaucracy and costs on businesses. Much has been written about the EU drive to metrify the UK, in particular the case of greengrocer Steve Thoburn who wished to sell fruits and vegetables by the pound as his customers wanted him to. Loose goods must be sold in metric units now, although the prices can be quoted in both metric and imperial, and customers are allowed to order in imperial. The latest move is to "redenominate" the imperial pint to be 500 ml in order that it could still be sold and ordered as a "pint" in pubs. A useful website which follows this development is www.network54.com

47. A story reported in The Sunday Telegraph (25 January 2004) concerns the author Philip Pullman and perfectly illustrates how divorced from humanity bureaucrats can become when they design forms and demand that they are filled in to satisfy EU legislation. He received a formal letter from the merger taskforce of the 'Competition Directorate' investigating the merger of two French publishing firms asking him to fill in a five page questionnaire within three weeks or face a fine of 50,000 euros (£34,000). Not only were the questions poorly translated into English and impolite, but they also asked confidential details of his publishing contracts, none of which were with the two firms being investigated. He replied with a stern letter, suggesting that as he is a freelance writer he should charge them for his time, rather than being subject to a potential fine himself. He never heard from the Directorate again.

48. Statement by Michael Howard, Leader of the Conservative Party, The Times, 2 January 2004.

49. This bizarre manifesto pledge can be read on the internet at: www.labour.org.uk/manifesto

50. Remarks by President George W. Bush at the 20th Anniversary of the National Endowment for Democracy, 6 November 2003. The president's use of language is legendary. In April 2003, when a reporter asked him what his message to the Iraqi people was, he replied. "You're free, and freedom is beautiful and, aah, you know, it'll take time to restore chaos and order ..."

51. Government achievements (both parties) include the gradual destruction of our railway and road transport system, alienating the police forces from the population, dismantling family friendly taxation, wasting millions on the Millennium Dome, pursuing cruel asylum procedures, stopping people thinking by encouraging political correctness, letting the criminal justice system fall even further into disrepute, demoralising children by constantly moving the goal posts in the education exam system, giving away our sovereignty to the EU, increasing the number of civil servants to manage this ... and so on and so on. Without a sound psychological perspective of why this happens informing government, along with a will to change the way things are done, this situation will continue, whichever party is in power and however hard they all work, and however good their intentions are.

52. Bortoft, H. (1996) The Wholeness of Nature. Floris Books.

53. Gold, S. M. (1997) Florence Nightingale: Letters from the Crimea. Manchester University Press.

54. Sergeant, H. (2003) Managing not to manage. Centre for Policy Studies.

55. ibid.

56. ibid.

57. Although terrorism is not included in the US health statistics the FBI has tracked deaths caused by terrorists in the US since 1990. The high mark was reached in 2001, the year of 9/11 with a total of 3,047. The previous high was 1995, the year of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, with 169. In no other year did the number exceed six, and in five of those years there were no deaths at all. The figure for Europe is much less (if you exclude the Balkan war crimes).

58. Fitzgerald, M. Autism and Creativity. (2004) Brunner-Routledge. This book gives a fascinating account of Adolf Hitler's autistic traits. It also describes how some of the most creative original thinkers were high functioning autistic people, including Socrates, Newton, Wittgenstein, Einstein, W. B. Yeats, Lewis Carroll and the great Indian mathematician Ramunujan. The eccentric behaviour of creative geniuses is often nothing more than the behaviour found in HFA people. The reason they go on to pioneer new ways of thinking and doing things is because they don't understand the world and other people around them in the way normal people do, so they have to ask questions, which they tend to do obsessively, and which therefore can lead to profound discoveries.

59. Griffin, J. & Tyrrell, I. (2003) Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking. HG Publishing.

60. For published reports and statistics, see the University of Michigan statistical database, www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stenv.html

61. Ibid.

62. Ibid. Even if we had, for example, a revolution in producing cheap energy — the so called energy from hydrogen dream — that dream itself is dependent upon organic energy to generate the release of the hydrogen energy. So there is no possibility of our world surviving, at this time, without access to organic energy, and yet that's one of the main resources that is rapidly running out.
63. Ibid.

64. United Nations Human Development Report, 2002.

65. See The New York Times, 25 February 2004, by Michael Vines where the US federal response to the issue of how AIDS drugs are paid for in sub-Saharan Africa is announced.

66. "Safeguarding the Effectiveness of Existing Antibiotics is Essential," a letter to President Bush from fourteen leading scientists published in the Washington Times, 10 September 2003.

67. See The Guardian (14 February, 2004) report by Tim Radford, 'Soil erosion as big a problem as global warming, say Scientists'.

68. Science, 9 January 2004, Vol 303, Number 5655.

69. "Humans cannot flourish without other humans, ecosystems, and species, and nothing in a biotic community can flourish on its own. Likewise, communities (both social and ecological) depend on the existence of other communities. To be extracted from a community, human or otherwise, is to lack relationships and contexts that provide the meaning, substance and material for various sorts of lives." Cuomo, C. J. (1998) Feminism and Ecological Communities: An Ethic of Flourishing. Routledge.

70. Welch, J. with Byrne, J. A. (2001) Jack: straight from the gut. Warner Books. Jack Welch was the chief executive of General Electric, the most successful corporation of the 20th century. Its success was largely due to his programme of dismembering central planning and systematic decentralisation of authority.

71. Kay, J. (2003) The Truth About Markets. Allen lane.

72. Ibid.

73. Ibid.

74. Ibid.

75. Bromhall, C. (2003) The Eternal Child. Ebury Press.

76. Dunbar, R. (1992) Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. Journal of Human Evolution, 20, 469-493.

77. People have been wrongfully imprisoned solely on the basis of 'expert' opinion, as in the case of 'The Birmingham Six'. More recently, after psychiatrists and psychotherapists have generated false memories of abuse in patients, they manage to convince people that sexual abuse must have occurred, even though there is no corroborating evidence. Prosecutions have gone ahead where these wild opinions are taken as facts and people end up in prison. The same has been happening with unexplained cot deaths — innocent mothers have been jailed. (Of course sex abusers and murderers should be taken to court, but only when there is concrete evidence of the crime against them.)

78. Efficacy studies repeatedly show it to be true that any form of psychotherapy or counselling that encourages worrying (emotionally arousing introspection) tends to deepen and prolong depression. See Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking for the explanation of why this happens.

79. Sergeant, H. (2003) Managing not to manage. Centre for Policy Studies.

80. Prospect, December 2002.

81. Sergeant, H. (2003) Managing not to manage. Centre for Policy Studies.

82. The Times. (25 January 2004) Ethics police bogged down by tiniest tiffs.

83. There is much research that confirms that the attitude of the doctor towards the patient, if positive, has a hugely beneficial effect. The opposite is also true. Ill people are very sensitively tuned to negativity. If a doctor's tone and body language is miserable (even if he or she is saying all the right things) the patients are usually too anxious (emotionally aroused) to recognise that the negativity is not related to their own condition.

84. Quoted from the 1929 Royal Commission on Police Powers.

85. Hitchens, P. (2003) A Brief History of Crime: The Decline of Order, Justice and Liberty in England. Atlantic Books.

86. Blakeslee, T. R. (1997) The Attitude Factor. Harper Collins.

87. This is why politicians, when they can afford it, send their own children to the best schools, not the local ones their policies have ruined.

88. The Government has recently announced a £300 million MOD refit, following on from the drastic overexpenditure on Portcullis House (£80 million). Not only has the Millennium Dome been bailed out, but the Government continues to spend £30 million a year keeping it open. The government will spend £19.6 billion on technology this year, an increase of 2.2%, and there is no audit of this technology spend. The average European government spend on technology is, by comparison, £1.5 billion per year.

89. Shah, I. (2000) Knowing How to Know. The Octagon Press.

90. Weekes, D. J. and Ward, K. (1988) Eccentrics: the Scientific Investigation. Stirling University Press.

91. As Alfred North Whitehead famously stated, "All of Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato."

92. Carter, R. (2000) Mapping the Mind. Phoenix Books.

93. Deikman, A. (2004) Them and Us. Bay Tree Publishing.

94. 'Understanding the New Level of American Violence,' by Jim Gilligan, presentation to the Harvard University Group on Mass Violence, 31st October 2003.

95. Wilkinson, R. (2000) Mind the Gap: Hierarchies, Health and Human Evolution. Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

96. Bentall, R. P. (2003) Madness Explained: Psychosis and Human Nature. Allen Lane.

97. Abbot, J. and Ryan, T. (2000) The Unfinished Revolution — Learning, human behaviour, community and political paradox. Network Educational Press. "Highly recommended."

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