The Victorian Election is in a few days, and the conservative Liberal leader Matthew Guy has just promised to shut down Richmond’s safe injecting room within a week of being elected. Guy claims that it is “intolerable to have the facility next to a primary school“.
The school in question is Richmond West Primary School. It is my daughter’s school and it is a lovely school. So, I have a deep interest in this issue and a strong opinion on it.
My opinion is that Matthew Guy is an ignorant, sleazy, hypocritical, god-bothering, worthless piece of scum.
There are innumerable reasons to vote against Matthew Guy and his loathsome Liberal and National mates on Saturday, and Guy’s neanderthal stance on Richmond’s safe injecting room should be high on everybody’s list.
What is your opinion of big Dan? We do need need a viable alternative to Dan.
My opinion is that Big Dan is irrelevant. The Liberal and National Parties are a bunch of medieval fear-mongers and, excepting for a few fringe clowns, no one remotely approaches their awfulness.
Hey Marty, tell us what you really think! But seriously, it’s a sad indictment on Victorian politics when the only realistic alternative to Dan is this …. guy. I totally agree with your assessment. Unfortunately, he obviously thinks that it’s a vote winner (which is a worse indictment on society in general if true).
Don’t get me stated on what he did while Planning Minister. Hopefully Victoria has a long memory. And hopefully he’ll end up being the Fall Guy.
You’re right, of course. Guy was a woeful planning minister, and the fact that he’s an inept and dodgy business-sycophantic twit should matter the most. But not for me. What I really can’t stand is Guy’s cheap sanctimony, his willingness to demonise and to destroy while claiming the God-given moral high ground. Every time I read about Guy’s “Christianity” I want to puke.
Marty,
Ad hominem …
But I was thinking how best to refute his unfounded arguments statistically without being accused of the bias mentioned in
BAD PHARMA by Ben Goldacre
which most drug sponsored trials seem to get away with by varying the baseline and publishing
selectively etc
Using unconscious bias I found this favourable research based on an injecting house in the US?
Eg https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5685449/
Steve R
Ad hominem? Ya think?
Thanks, Steve. An interesting and very relevant article.
There is obviously a time for reasoned criticism. There is also a time, however, for dismissive contempt, and I think Guy’s sleazy election stunt was such a time. It is clear that Guy himself didn’t give a stuff about the evidence of the success of the Richmond trial. He simply didn’t care that lives were being saved, and he was pandering to fearful and ignorant people who he hoped also didn’t care. In that light, the evidence was beside the point, and marshalling the evidence would have been a waste of time.
There are other reasons why I didn’t and don’t want to argue on the evidence for Richmond’s trial, but Guy’s heartlessness was reason enough.
Marti,
I think the weekend result is clear enough to all that his party is out of touch
Hopefully in due course similar positive statistics will become available in 3121.
Steve R
Marti
Clearly the voters gave their reaction to his parties campaign in spades last weekend
SteveR
Ps you might enjoy Ben Goldacre’s book mentioned above ( an ex UK GP and journalist for the Guardian). He has been sued many tmes for “outing” misleading claims of homeopathic treatments
and understating the potential side effects of trial based beta drugs .
I believe he is currently researching on the over prescription of statins in the NHS
Perhaps, though possibly voters just ignored the Liberals rather than rejected them. It may simply be that getting things done is a good way for a government to get back into government.
I’ve read (most of) of Bad Pharma and I agree it’s great. I have a link to Goldacre’s (inactive?) site in the sidebar.
Happily, voters used the safe rejecting room ….