Whitehall 1212 for the first time in history Scotland Yard opens its official files to bring you the authentic true stories of some of its most baffling cases Research on Whitehall 1212 comes from Percy Hoskins chief crime reporter of the London Daily Express The stories for radio are written and directed by Willis Cooper Here is chief superintendent John Davidson custodian of the famous black museum of Scotland Yard This exhibit from the files of the black museum is labeled 50 MR 242 Which is the file number of the case you are here about You'll note that it is not a very good wedding ring. That is it is Of intrinsically poor quality The base metal of which it was made Shows through the shabby worn covering of gold wash with which it was once adorn Base metal It says base as the purpose for which the ring was purchased for sick shillings As false as the promises of the bridegroom who bought it and took it back again After it had served its purpose I hope you'll pardon my sentimentality A policeman is generally not entitled to that luxury I ask you to judge for yourself Inspector Stephen Rockied There was Scotland Yards principal representative in this case shares my feelings I think Your feelings seem to have been shared by a great many persons who participated in this case John Witness mr. Justice Brewster and what he didn't say at the trial. I'm afraid I don't remember Stephen He omitted the phrase May the lord have mercy on your soul When he's sentenced Stanley Brown to death 50-242 Began for me with what if it happened in a drama for the wireless would be described as an incredible coincidence A letter had been passed to my desk It had been addressed to criminal investigation department new scotland yard A letter from a man named crittenden living at Aston clinton in buckinghamshire The cid receives dozens of letters of its type daily And it is our generally tiresome duty to read them all Whilst I was glancing over it a visitor was announced Before he sat down he laid a three days old copy of the morning telegraph on my desk You're inspector rockied. Yes My name's ramsey norman ramsey formerly of blackpool now resident in shepherds bush. Yes I've been carrying this paper around for three days. Why? This article here, sir this one here I get tragedy bride drowns in bath. That's the one What about it mr. Ramsey I've come here because I was a witness to a very similar case two years ago. Where sir In blackpool where I formerly lived A bride drowned in her bath just two days after her wedding. What was her name brown? I see Well, mr. Ramsey you ought to be commended for bringing this to our attention That was her husband's name. I assume stanley brown was his name. What happened to him. Do you remember? I don't know. He went away the day his wife was buried In rather a hurry. I thought Are you making an accusation mr. Ramsey? I must admit. I didn't like the fellow. Are you making an accusation? I am telling you what I know about an extraordinary coincidence, sir Excuse me Did you know the wife's maiden name? I believe it was crittenden That's right. Yes. I'm sure alicia crittenden. Oh, you've heard of the case Do you remember how the late mrs. stanley brown the former alicia crittenden was buried, sir? I most certainly do The most shocking thing I'd ever heard of she was buried in a common grave with three other deceased persons In the cheapest part of the graveyard. How do you know that? Because I have a letter here in this morning's post from her father Relating the same facts you've just told me and considerably more besides You speak of a coincidence mr. Ramsey. Well, this is amazing It's more than that, sir I'm afraid I shall have to ask you a few more questions We talked for two hours Mr. Ramsey remembered a great many things about the death of the bride and her bath at blackpool He remembered a representative of an insurance firm who'd asked him his opinion of alicia crittenden brown As a potential risk for life insurance He recalled having been asked to witness two newly drawn wills One of the husband and one of the wife in which each left the other everything He recalled the circumstances of the fatal bath, but they had two small rooms on the first floor in this house It was a sort of private lodging house. You see Extremely charming people owned it mr. And mrs. Ralston I've heard that they've gone to america Well, I remember the circumstances quite well indeed The bathroom was just above the kitchen where the rest of us was sitting this particular saturday night Do you remember exactly when it was an early in march if I remember correctly? She was upstairs. I I remember he's saying to her now mind don't get the bath too hot remember your seizures Her what? seizures she had epilepsy I believe Well, then it was very quiet on the floor above us and Last brown said he was a bit worried about her and went up Came back almost at once and said oh, she's all right or Something like that sat down played the piano for a while Then he went upstairs again and I heard him calling out that she had drowned The doctor came and that was the whole thing And you have certain suspicions Not enough to go to the police Before I mean You obviously have now Did you notice the name of the husband of the bride who was drowned in the bath at high gate? Why I look at the paper here Stanley jay stanley stanley brown's full name was James stanley brown Well, mr. I'm sure you understand inspector that I realize I may be doing the man a dreadful injustice. He may so far as I know be the victim of Coincidence. Well, yes put it that way if you like I shall never forgive myself.  Ramsey? I'm sorry. Here's rather fishy looking Yes, of course, I'd recognize jay stanley brown Excuse me Will you put me through to the police at high gate, please? Right Ring me when you get them I should like to ask you to come up to high gate with me. Could you come this afternoon? This afternoon. Well, let me see this Sorry Inspector rockheed speaking scotland yard Oh, yes Hello, is that you richard? Oh, I wanted to talk to chief inspector richard yabba at high gate right Oh, there you are richard Stephen rockheed here. Oh fine. Thank you. How are you? The young woman who died in her bath. When was it the day before yesterday? Right Mrs stanley I'd like to have a look at her husband richard Where would I find him? I mean does he live at What what's the matter sir? Can't hear you all boy Oh when What? Interesting the same day she was buried. Hey, what? That's very interesting how long have they been married says recently married in the paper here Hmm three days. It's brown. I know it Sorry, sir. Well, yes, I would rather like to talk with him I think we'd better pass the word to have him picked up Is he gone if you please mr. Ramsey? I'm sorry What's he look like half a take where's my pencil over here? Now go ahead Tall about 14 stone big chap, isn't he? What kind of extraordinary eyes but that's him like an insane what? What Finn and haddie You do turn a phrase richard Excuse me. What are you saying a bald headed ask him it is bald.  That's not him. It can't be will you please be quiet mr. Ramsey. He was perfectly Sorry richard. Yes. Thanks Give our people here at the yard the fullest description you have and thank you very much indeed No, I'm not sure But the circumstances of his wife's funeral do interest me I'm very curious. Thank you Is he gone sir? He's gone. Yes, and where do you suppose his bride is? Well, you said she was buried. She is buried in a common grave with four other miscellaneous corpses Just like the other bride of three days who died in her bath Mr. Jay Stanley of Highgate who bore certain resemblances to mr. James Stanley Brown of Blackpool was not to be found The attending physician at Highgate who'd signed the death certificate for the drowned bride Told us that she had visited him the afternoon of the fatal bath He'd given her some powders for what she described as a migraine headache Which was sometimes she said so severe that she had fainted from the pain The powders had not been unsealed when the body was found Although the husband had told him that his bride had complained of a nagging headache immediately before her bath You certified her death, of course as from natural causes. I asked the doctor I did sir I was convinced at the time and still I am that a Sudden twinge of pain caused a defect She slipped down on the bath until her head was under water and she drowned before a poor aide could reach her She was naturally alone in the bathroom, sir Do you recall anything that her husband said at the time, sir? Well, the man was all but prostrated He kept repeating that if he'd only insisted she take some of the medicine I had given her she'd still be alive Would she have been any fact I so certified inspector a post mortem might I I I saw no need there nor do I know of a post mortem If I may mention opinion, I think you're being needlessly official, sir. Sorry doctor Reply by mr. Francis Harrington insurance broker of high gate to an inquiry by inspector rockied of scotland yard An inquiry at eight rather high the crescent south end disclosed the fact that this was an accommodation address Stanley had picked up his check Cancelled his arrangements for receiving mail and gone away from there leaving no forwarding address I was having a plate of cold roast beef with john devison the black museum man He was a superintendent then In the course of our meal. I told him the sequence of events John finished his roast beef in silence What do you think john I asked A little too well done for me. I'm afraid what? I like my roast beef rare Wasn't that what you were talking about? You know quite well. I wasn't john See past those pickles if you're not going to eat them wouldn't well Excellent pickle Why If you're asking about the story of the brides and the bath steven. I am well I'm forcefully reminded of a biblical quotation The wicked flea when no man pursuers That's parables 28 first verse. We're pursuing this fella. Yeah, but he doesn't know it Far as he knows no man is pursuing him. Yes, but he That is obviously fleeing Therefore he must be wicked QED On the face of things these two deaths are coincidences john That's quite possible. We don't even know it's the same man Ball-headed men don't suddenly grow curly black hair. Well, sometimes they wear wigs. Yeah, I thought of that Have to find him to prove it So any more beer in that jug Thank you Look, I don't think you're going about finding him on the right way steven Do you have any suggestion then? Say no more of that beer I suppose That's a pity Well, I think if I were doing it, I'd take my cue from that proverb. I just quoted Well I'd give the wicked something to flee from He just might flee right into your arms Perhaps you'll tell me how to do that one. Of course Well, I dig up those girls bodies and let any Henry bird of the pathologists have a look at them Hmm Can't say I envy him one of them's been dead a year or more hasn't she two years poor Henry Well, at least he could tell you whether the chap's really wicked or not The years then cry havoc and let's slip the dogs of war and Julius Caesar act three seen one After a series of annoying explanations on my part I succeeded in obtaining the necessary permission to exhume the bodies of elicia christened and brown at blackpool and of the late mrs. J stanley at highgate Henry Bernard the long suffering pathologist was assigned to perform the post mortems on both bodies Accordingly he proceeded first to blackpool in Lancashire for the first of the examinations I waited impatiently Two days later. I received a telephone call from that well-known watering place. It was of course bernard Excuse me, sir. What do you want? I'm talking in the police station just telephoned you They waited but then they said they wouldn't wait any longer and pleased to give you the messages once as it is extremely important Well spit it out. What do they want?  I'm in no mood to be bothered with details. It can be handled by Tell them to do their own work. I'm busy of all the Hello bernard Hello, are you there? Hello He's hung up. Damn it. Now look here. They said you'd be most interested when you hear the lady's name, sir Well, what is her name then? Mrs. J Stanley Brown, sir I hurried at once to wardow street where mrs. Marigold brown the alleged wife of the vanishing j Stanley brown had come to report the threat in her life She was a tall angular woman singularly unattractive wearing a shapeless gray tweed coat And a series of large aluminium bracelets which clanked She sat stiffly in an uncomfortable chair and answered my questions quietly Yes We've been married for 11 years Stanley and I You could of course produce your married certificate mrs. Brown. I have it at home Mr. Brown and you live together He's away a great deal I'm alone for several months at the time. Where does he go? The business takes him to various parts of the country. What is his business mrs. Brown? I'm afraid I don't know because he doesn't give me much money When he's away I generally go into service. I'm considered quite a good housemaid Do you know what your husband does when he is away from home? I think he deals in second hand goods in various places Do you hear from him when he's away? He sends me picture postcards from where for example Portsmouth, Bristol, various places, Blackpool Where? Blackpool That was a long time ago Two years He doesn't tell me his business This is the first time he's threatened your life I've been a good wife to him all these years Would you answer my question please mrs. Brown? Well He said things in the heat of the moment not threatened me, but he said he wished He was well rid of me And this time? He meant it I could tell from his face that he meant it. I could tell by the way he shouted And he laid hands on me too Your eye? Yes What was the occasion for this? I don't ask Stanley for money very often But this time I knew he had some money he'd been drinking when he came back from Igarth I get you say Yes When I asked him if I could let me let me have two pounds for a new dress and coat Blew into a rage He'd been drinking I said And he flew at me and broke my glasses and threatened my life Just what did he say to you mrs. Brown? He said he said he'd take me and drown me Police stations throughout England were advised that Scotland Yard wanted Jay Stanley Brown Not merely for questioning as we would have had to say before his poor shabby wife made a complaint Now he was wanted for a violation of the Summary Justice Act of 1879 Threatening a breach of the king's peace Which is felony The questioning would come later Henry Bernard the pathologist had left Blackpool and gone to Highgate for the post mortem on the second bride I came to the mortuary at his request This is my assistant mrs. Little John inspector Rocking. How do you do mrs. Little John? Thank you very much I found out something inspector Come over here, please Dead bodies don't bother you I hope Oh, no, I've uh brought the last mrs. Uh Stanley he called himself at Highgate, and they Stanley. Yes Well, there's nothing at all I could discover on the one at Blackpool But this one is much more recent You see a little more than a week Yes Hmm. She must have been quite good-looking puzzles me why girls like this will marry such rascals I understand he's hideous. So we're here Well, what did you find to show me? Well, I'll get to it mrs. Second first though The bride at Blackpool She didn't have any epilepsy I thought you said you couldn't be sure I can be sure of one thing Look, I've had a bathtub brought in here. Where oh there What now be patient be patient This is exactly the same type of bathtub in which the woman at Blackpool was drowned And by another of those coincidences you're so fond of Also the same as the one at Highgate I've seen them both now Now I'm going to show you something mrs. Little John. Yes, sir Oh, I hope that water isn't cold. You've had it filled of course Now mrs.  Little John Now get in the tub You'd feel sillier without your bathing suit get in please. This was warm sit down Now the first reaction in an epileptic seizure is a sudden stifting of the muscles Especially of the legs mrs. Little John will now stretch out her legs sharply observe If you please mrs.  Little John She's wedged in there But if her legs were relaxed Show me mrs. Little John No, I'll show you something else Step around here to the end of the tub Take off your coat. It doesn't matter if your shirt sleeves get wet. No, what are you going to do? You're going to do it Reach down in the water Take hold take hold of mrs. Little John's ankles.  Little John Lift her feet out of the tub Oh Hold her feet up hold them up Hold them up But her head is under water, man. Of course, old chap. She's drowning That's the way the young lady over there on the table was murdered Oh, I say drop her feet. She is drowning I would not recommend that you try that trick with a friend It took artificial respiration to revive mrs. Little John And when Bernard showed me marks on the ankles of the drowned bride Marks that fingernails would have just fitted into Well, we measured the tiny scars and photographed them for comparison with the fingers of stanley brown Should we ever catch him? It was almost exactly seven weeks later I had a telephone call from mrs. James stanley brown the living one Please come to my flat at once. She said it's of the highest importance I went there mrs. Brown was quite excited.  What's happened mrs. Brown? Oh inspector I want to withdraw the charge against my husband Please say I come withdraw it. I mrs. Brown. Please say I may. Oh, please I'm afraid I'll have to know more about this mrs. Brown before I can answer this.   Yes. He came back to me and we've had such a long talk We're going to start over again and whose idea was this Why is of course And now I want to cancel a silly charger laid against him. It wasn't a silly charge mrs. Brown I was ashamed of myself. I simply must have you dropped these charges They're only a formality anyhow Oh, we're going to be so happy already has begun to treat me just like Where is he now mrs. Brown? The dear great boy. Where is he please? She wept bitterly when I arrested him in the bathroom alongside the inviting full tub stinking of cheap bath salts for this pathetic last bath Despite the things he'd done to marigold brown Her dreams died hard But they died when she heard the story of the other brides who had their baths Henry Bernard proved the points he'd made to me and miss little john In the face of it all stanley brown confessed On that day marigold brown stopped weeping and believing in this black-hearted man He was found guilty of course and sentenced to death He was guilty of the death of three women On the day he was hanged at wandsworth marigold brown committed suicide I think there's some good advice in what superintendent john davidson told me Give the wicked something to flee from sometimes they'll flee right into your arms You have heard another in the series whitehall one two one two Researches from persie huskins of the london daily express Among those heard in today's story of scotland yard case number five o m r two four two Where harby haze winston ross harris brayham lester fletcher patricia courtley and bulla garrick The stories for radio are written and directed by willis cooper The fight against cancer is your fight you're personally concerned with this disease for anyone can develop it And there is something you can do to protect yourself and your family First familiarize yourself with the facts about cancer Interesting easy to understand literature may be obtained from the local unit of your american cancer society Guard your family and strike back against cancer Mail a generous contribution to cancer in care of your local post office This is nbc the national broadcasting company


hey guys welcome back to another youtube video so this week we asked you guys to send us some crazy dares and we picked out our favorite ones and we're going to be doing them inside targets also wait are we going to have to redo that we're filming a target there video do you want to be in it yeah i'm down let's do it i hate this is so random this is so random all right so the first day we have is someone said i dare your subscribers to like the video how do how are you supposed to do that guys the first there's for you guys go like the video let's try to get this video to 150,000 likes i know we can do it so yeah let's actually do the first first day he actually farted in front of her that was a real fart that was a real fart he just farted in front of her why did she look at you like that she looked at me like i was the problem he was the problem he said what what is it three o'clock oh my god oh my god he ran away he ran away i dare you to do squats in front of strangers so next there is do a backflip in front of strangers and act like nothing happens so i've done a backflip for like six months but we're gonna have to try and see how that goes okay all right i can do one perfectly so let's let's go she's gonna care so i think this one's for me um do the cart glide in front of strangers what's that oh my god no no you're fine you're fine next there and now something embarrassing over the intercom okay all right okay okay can we get some assistance in the men's bathroom my brother alex i seem to clog the toilet guys our youtube channel it's not at 12 millons it's forever jet so i actually picked it up so that's like but we gotta leave this next there get in a fake fight in public okay we're right we have a lot of experience for this let's do this okay so the final dare is i dare you to shop shirtless in target oh man wait so we gotta walk around shirtless no i have them working out i can't i i can't do this there i'm gonna have to pass this one no we have to do it they dare not yeah no no we're we're actually leaving yeah i know it's not gonna be a weird but i'll just have to walk you guys out now they figured since so i guess target has a really strict no shirt policy yeah they kicked us out within 10 seconds all right so that is going to be it for this week's videos thank you so much for all of the dares that you set us and remember try to get this video to 150,000 likes i know we can do it also thank you so much to kayla for just being at targets we're gonna link his channel in the description so be sure to check it out he films a lot of awesome videos but yeah we didn't end the video for we get kicked out yeah so anyways thank you guys so much for watching and we will see you guys next time


Adriano, thanks to Organizer for inviting me. So today I will talk about some recent result that we have obtained in collaboration with Diego Alberici, Pierluigi Contucci from Bologna, and Adriano Barra from Salento University. So if you want to find some details, there are two papers on the archive. Here is the index. So basically, here is the outline of the talk. I will introduce what I mean for deep enough. And I will show how to control the annealed region and then give also a replica symmetric bound. So there are related words on this kind of model, in the case of bipartite models, when we have only two layers. The first work is by Adriano Barra, Giuseppe Ginovese, and Guerra. This is the first work, I guess, on the spin glass in bipartite setting. Then there is a word from our finger and chin in the spherical case that actually was completely solved in 2017 by Beik and Di, using random matrix theory. And I want to also mention that in the Bayesian, what we call Bayesian transsecting, you can completely solve the model using the technique introduced by Sean Barbier-Macris and Milan. So we will talk about deep, sometimes called restricted Boltzmann machine, introduced by Impe and Salo Godinov in 2009. And we will focus mainly on the deep architecture of this model that we can think as a linear chain of Boltzmann machine. And we look at the model from the point of view of spin glass theory. So we fixed the coupling to be pointed and tried to understand the phase diagram, basically. So what I will show is a complete characterization of the annealic region and the replicasimetric bound. So here's the definition of the model. So you take N-capital and spins, and you arrange them in K-capital K layers. The size of the layer P is N-P. The capital N is the parameter that controls the thermodynamic limit. And we assume that the relative density here, as I will define the thermodynamic limit with lambda P. So clearly, you have this condition for the lambda P, which is the sum of lambda P equal to 1. So basically, lambda P belongs to some k-dimensional simplex. So Jij is the coupling between the spin i and j. And we assume that this is a standard Gaussian random variable. And we can also imagine to have some external field acting on the layer P. We have no special requirement on the distribution of the random field. Only we have absolute, final absolute moment. And then we can also, let's say, fix some parameter beta beta, which is a vector, that basically it's the variance. You can think of beta P as the variance of this Jij. Maybe a picture is more clear. So you have this k-layer. And each spin, sorry, the interaction is allowed only between spin from one layer to the next one. So we not allow interaction between the same layer. OK? So the Hamiltonian is defined in this way. So given the configuration of spin is the sum of all this contribution, which basically is the interaction between the layer P and the layer P plus 1. The factor 2, it's only for math convenience, as you can imagine. And you see here the role of beta P. You can think of beta P as like a local temperature for the two consecutive layer, OK? So a central object in a spin glass theory and for this model in general is the overlap. Here in this case, you have several kinds of spin because you can identify a spin with respect to the layer that it belongs. So you have for any P, which is the number of layer, you have the overlap of the system, which is the normalization 1 over NP sum over all the side in the layer, sigma i tau i, where sigma and tau are two configurations of spins, OK? So the covariance matrix of the Gaussian process with the Hamiltonian you can think as Gaussian process is basically a quadratic form. It's n times, so it's extensive in the volume, which is a good thing, times this object with order 1 and this is a quadratic form built up by defining a vector of the overlap, which basically each component is the overlap associated to the P layer. And the quadratic form is associated this matrix M1. And then 1 is defined in this way, where lambda is the vector of the relative density and the matrix M0 is this one. So behind, let's say, the main characteristics of this matrix is that it's three diagonal and this is exactly the reason why we can solve, we can say something, let's say, about the annealant and the replica symmetric regime. So if you think in the case of k equal to, which corresponds to the bipartite case, you simply have to look at this little minor here and this corresponds to the bipartite case. So OK. As usual, the statistical mechanics, the first thing to do is to look at the partition function and even more interesting, maybe, it's the coincident pressure, which is the 1 over n, the expectation over all the jj's of the logarithm of the partition function. So here, the partition function is the exponential of the Hamiltonian. We keep the action of the magnetic field in the measure, if you like, only for convenience, of course. Anyway, we are interested to this object. This is a spin-glass model and the good news and also the bad news, it's not easy to treat with classical spin-glass technique. What I mean is that if you try to use interpolation, let's say, for example, to prove the thermodynamic limit because of this structure of the matrix interaction, then you have some problem because you see that this matrix, for example, in the case k equals 2, is not positive defined. So we have some issues if you try to use the interpolation method in the usual way. Nevertheless, we can still do something. And the idea is that, OK, usually in the interpolation, if you think of the Schrodinger-Farcky model, you compare the two-body interaction, which is the characteristic of the Schrodinger-Farcky model, with some one-body interaction that you can tune a little bit and play. Here, we do something a little bit different. We compare the pressure of our model with some convex combination of SK model with this symbol, pskn. I denote the pressure pressure of a Schrodinger-Farcky model of n particle, where the temperature of this Schrodinger-Farcky model depends on a parameter. One, so there are positive numbers plus something which is a function of a. So a is my free parameter that I can tune for my convenience later. But you fix a and you define this object, which is basically this part, which is a convex combination of SK models plus something. Here, the temperature of the SK is given by this function theta p of a, which is defined below. What is the point in defining this object?  OK, just an idea to how to prove this inequality. You do an interpolation between your model, the deep-molson machine, with k layers. And then you take k independent Schrodinger-Farcky models, then you do interpolation, and you can control the derivative observing that this object is always positive. OK, clearly you have to play a little bit with constant, but it's not hard to show this inequality. And this, basically, is the starting point of the work. Because the idea is that, OK, since now we have, let's say, a good control of what happened to the pressure of the SK model, so we can control the left-hand side by controlling the right-hand side. So in particular, you can choose a to infer something about the pressure of the deep-molson machine. So the first thing that you can do is to completely characterize the annealed region in this way. So first, you set the external field equal to 0. And just the definition of the annealed pressure, instead of taking the expectation of the logarithm, you take the logarithm of the expectation of the partition function. This is the definition of annealed pressure, clearly because that is the sum of Gaussian, this can be computed exactly. Actually, it's independent on n. And that's this expression. And also, by Jensen inequality, you have that this object is always greater than the pressure of the model. Notice that here, I put the limb soup instead of the limb, because actually, we are not able to prove the existence of the limb of this object. The reason is the same that I just mentioned before, because the matrix that tuned the overlap, the covariance matrix of the process is not positive defined. So you cannot apply a logarithm in the argument, something like that. So we say that the system is in the annealed regime if the pressure of the model, the quench of the pressure of the model equals the annealed one. This is just the definition. And as I mentioned, we have to exploit the control of the annealed regime of the SK model. Because if you remember here, in the right hand side of this inequality, there is a convex sum of SK models. So just to remember what happened for the SK model, there is this result, which I guess it's the first rigorous result on the SK model due to Eisenman, Lebowitz, and Ruell, which is the pressure, the quenchate pressure of the SK model equals the annealed one for beta small enough. So for right temperature regime, this is the result for the SK model. Then you can use it to control the right hand side of this inequality. Notice that the annealed pressure is always an upper bound. The annealed pressure is always an upper bound for PDBM. Here, you have the reverse inequality. So it's reasonable to opt for something. In fact, what you can obtain is that if you consider the system of inequality and you define this subset of the space parameter, which is basically all the beta lambda, remember, is the collection of local temperature. Lambda is the relative density, which belongs to some simplex. Such that there is a solution for this system. So this is my set capital A. And I did not buy the bar capital A. It's the topological closure of AK. What you can prove, if you take a point in the phase diagram beta lambda that belongs to this set, then you have a quality between quenchate and annealed pressure. Lale, sorry if I interrupt you. You have just roughly a minute. I have just roughly a minute. You are out of time. OK, so very quickly, this condition for AK it's very implicit because you see it's a mess, if you like. Anyway, there is an interesting connection between this region, AK, and some matching polynomial that comes from monomer dimer models. So basically, the condition that beta lambda belongs to AK is equivalent to some other condition that are more explicit in the parameter beta lambda. So again, exploiting the fact that now we have a good control on the SK model, we can use the previous bound to obtain a replica to obtain, sorry, a lower bound, which is given in terms of a replica symmetric functional. But the point is that this bound is not totally known for all the choice of the parameter beta lambda H only, but only in a suitable region that you can determine. This suitable region is basically the analogous of the Almeida-Tarres condition for the SK model. So very quickly, I go in the definition of the replica symmetric function. So this is the function that you have to look if you're OK. This is the replica symmetric function that you obtain simply comparing your model with some one-body interaction. And the stationary condition is this one recently has been proved by Genovese that actually this condition is obtained by a min-max procedure. And the main theorem is that under some condition on the parameter beta lambda H of the phase diagram, this replica symmetric function is a lower bound for the thermodynamic limit of the pressure. So I can stop here if I have, because actually the last two slides are only corollary of this main theorem. Because again, this is not so explicit, but if you work a little bit, you can find condition that are more explicit in the space of the parameter. So that's all. OK, thanks a lot.


The next item of business is a member's business debate on motion 2223 in the name of Clare Adamson. On type 1 diabetes in Scotland, that debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those who wish to speak in the debate to request—sorry, to press the request to speak buttons now. I call on Clare Adamson to open the debate around seven minutes, please, Ms Adamson. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I begin by thanking my colleagues across the chamber for supporting the motion on type 1 diabetes in Scotland, allowing this debate to happen this evening? I would also like to welcome to the gallery some of the juvenile diabetes research fund members, GDIF representatives and also members of the type 1 diabetes family community in Scotland. This debate is to raise awareness of type 1 diabetes, a condition that affects 29,000 people living in Scotland. Scotland has the third highest incidence of type 1 diabetes in the world. I am by no means an expert on this disease, and my relationship with GDRF began when I was invited to the wonderful Strathclyde Park in my constituency to open the GDRF one-walk campaign fundraising event this year. I met with many of the families at that event, an event that raised over £70,000 for type 1 diabetes research. I have to commend the families and those who support people with type 1 diabetes. It is an extremely profound diagnosis to have in your family. For young children, it can mean disruption to sleeping patterns, to education, with constant monitoring required to ensure a glucose balance within the body. I was very pleased to meet some of the families at an event held by my colleague Anna Sarwar by GDRF in the Parliament. I would like to commend the families again who were represented there, including Ruth Elliott, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at 18-months-old. Ruth has raised over £23,500 for GDRF by climbing Kilimanjaro and taking part in other fundraising events. I would also like to commend David Ballantine, who I believe was his granddaughter, who has a type 1 diagnosis, and he made headlines last year when he hauled a 19-stone anvil up Aaron Peak in Goldfell over a 26-day excursion—a herculine effort that raised £15,400. I commend the community for getting behind and supporting those who suffer with the disease. I also specifically mention Anna Farrar, who, when she visited the Parliament, I am sure was having a day off school—it might even have been off nursery—who came along and was able to demonstrate the continuous glucose monitoring system that she has, which she reads with a mobile phone and helps her to monitor diabetes. That is something that her family has to fundraise for on an on-going basis to fund that control of her disease. I would like to set the tone by mentioning a quote from Peter Jones, who is the chair of GDRF Scotland, who said that he was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when he was 37. The impact that I have will continue to have on his life is profound. It is not linked to lifestyle and there is no known cure. Managing the condition on a day-to-day basis is like walking a tightrope. We have the expertise to accelerate the path towards the discovery of new treatments and, one day, a cure. If we can encourage Scotland to lead the global fight against type 1 diabetes, we should be doing this. I think that that sets the tone about what I want to bring to the chamber and to share with my colleagues and to share with the wider community in Scotland about the work that GDRFs do. GDRFs have three research streams. One is specifically in finding a cure for those currently suffering, which would involve some system that would replace the molecules that are lost within the pancreas that are attacked by the immune system, causing the type 1 diabetes. GDRFs also have a treatment research stream, which is looking most specifically at the development of an artificial pancreas, which would be a replacement for the body's own function, its pancatic function, and can provide insulin levels and monitor glucose levels within the body automatically. GDRFs are also looking at smart insulins, which could be injected at any time by a type 1 diabetic, but would only become active within the body when the glucose levels required that. It is a very innovative research work. GDRFs are also looking at the prevention research stream, which is understanding the genetics and the immune system further to prevent the immune system fault that leads to the development of type 1 diabetes within the body. Scotland is home to some of the world's best type 1 diabetes research. Scotland-based researchers and, indeed, Edinburgh and Glasgow receive funding in the region of £3.9 million from GDRFs every year. The Scottish Government's chief scientist's office co-funds Scottish Diabetics research network type 1 bioresource, which contains samples of blood, urine and DNA of over 6,100 type 1 diabetes patients in Scotland. That is a unique and fantastic resource that is coupled with Scotland's world reading, an award-winning SCI diabetes system, which provides comprehensive snapshot of diabetes in Scotland and is the envy of others across the globe. Data on SCI diabetes can also be viewed by GP practices, by hospitals and patients who can view their own data to support the self-management of their condition. The DBA's Scottish Care Information Diabetes is commissioned and owned by the Scottish Government and is providing a fully integrated shared electronic patient record to support the treatment of NHS Scotland patients with diabetes. GDRFs themselves say that this is the jewel in the crown of Scotland's arsenal to fight diabetes, and it has been successfully exported to the Middle East. It provides functionality for both primary secondary care collections and includes special modules for pediatrics, podiatry, diabetes and special nursing diabetics. One of the things that I learned when I met the patients is that they sometimes get very frustrated that type 1 diabetes is linked with type 2 diabetes. At the time of the walk that I was there, they were particularly concerned about a food standards agency campaign that had been run, which did not initially make the distinction between type 1 and type 2 diabetes. To the families that I met on that day and to the families that are here today, it is the best of my ability. I have addressed this with the Food Standards Agency and I want to thank their chair, Ross Finney and chief executive, Geoff Ogilvie, who met with me at a very productive, open and helpful meeting. I am sure that the concerns of the type 1 community are very well understood at this time. I would like to finish by just again thanking my colleagues this evening for the opportunity to raise the concerns and the challenges faced by the type 1 diabetic community. I am looking forward to the debate going forward. I move on to the open speeches. Speeches have up to four minutes, please. Alex Rowley to be followed by Miles Briggs. I begin by congratulating Clare Adamson for bringing forward this member's debate on type 1 diabetes. I hope that we can agree a consensus across the chamber to raise awareness of the condition and the work that is needed to drive forward research into a cure. I wish also to commend the work of GDRF as their passion and dedication into research and campaigning for finding a cure for type 1 diabetes is exceptional. I am also grateful for the comprehensive briefing provided by GDRF and, in particular, the way that it has set out the issues that it wishes to see as the basis for continuing discussion within this Parliament, with a focus on excellence in research and collaboration across northern Europe. Last September, I attended a meeting hosted by Anas Sarwar, where families affected by type 1 diabetes called on MSPs to raise awareness of the condition and to put Scotland at the forefront of type 1 diabetes research. It is very valuable for politicians to hear testimonies of what the condition is actually like for those who have to live with it. I welcome the research that has been undertaken by GDRF into curing, treating and preventing the condition. I also hope that this work will help us to understand why the incendies of the condition are rapidly rising in children under the age of five in Scotland. The approach that is taken to foster collaboration between industry, academics and clinicians is a welcome approach. I hope that this proves successful and producing results that can improve the condition of those who live with type 1 diabetes. GDRF has shown that it wants to work with parliamentarians to target investment in type 1 diabetes research, reduce bureaucracy that hinders that research and improve the delivery of the research's findings. I hope that we can agree across the chamber to work with GDRF on those aims. I welcome the additional funding of £10 million by the Scottish Government to fund more insulin pumps and to continue its glucose monitoring equipment. That is a step in the right direction. However, we must continue to strive further in the improvement of type 1 research and treatment. I hope that the Scottish Government will commit to safeguarding and fully funding the Scottish Care Information Database, which GDRF describes as the jewel in the crown of Scotland's arsenal to fight diabetes. GDRF has also shown interest in another European area of excellence. We share a mutual interest with various Scandinavian countries, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Scotland, each of whom are among the 10 highest countries in the world for type 1 instances in children. There is an opportunity to enter discussions with those countries on shared interests when it comes to research. It is clear from this dedicated campaigning work undertaken by GDRF that there is a three-way approach to dealing with type 1 diabetes. There must be understanding, management and treatment of the condition. All parliamentarians can take steps to help to progress that. The debate alone is essential in raising awareness, particularly considering the fact that Scotland has the third-highest intensity of type 1 diabetes in the world. That will help to generate further understanding of the condition and will hopefully lead to further discussion on the management and treatment of type 1 diabetes. I hope that we can continue to work together to support world-leading research happening here in Scotland and with the political will alongside the leading industry, academia and the work of clinicians that we can eventually find and deliver a cure for type 1 diabetes. I would like to start by congratulating Clare Adamson on securing today's debate and also to congratulate her for the work that she has undertaken both inside and outside of parliament. I would also like to thank Diabetes Scotland and GDRF for their useful briefings ahead of this evening's debate. As the motion makes clear, type 1 diabetes, unlike type 2, is not linked to dietary or lifestyle factors. Rather, it is an autoimmune moon condition whose cause is not yet understood and which is unpreventable at the present time. I have a good friend who has type 1 diabetes, her and has had it for her whole life. I have to say that I have always been amazed and it is always amazed me how she has never let that hold her back in anything that she has turned her hand to, but growing up and working with her, I was always concerned at the constant strain on which the monitoring of her blood glucose levels has on her body, as well as the injecting of insulin that she has done to take. The effect that that has in her life, perhaps especially when she was a young woman growing up, has always been mentioned. Blood glucose levels must be monitored up to 10 times a day, so the development and roll-out of continuous glucose monitoring, an area that Scotland has lagged behind in recent years, will be of real benefit to type 1 diabetes patients. The Scottish Government's recent announcement of £10 million is indeed welcome, although we need to see more detail surrounding how that will be rolled out and the timescale for doing so, so that the many thousands of Scottish patients who desperately need CGM can access it without further delay. I hope that that is something that the minister will outline when responding to this evening's debate. I would also like to join Claire Adamson in paying tribute to JDRF for the excellent work that it does, both in supporting people who have type 1 diabetes and in funding the research to prevent the disease, improve current treatments and, eventually, let's hope to find a cure. With Scotland has already been outlined today having such a high incidence of type 1 diabetes, it's entirely appropriate that our scientists are at the forefront of this vital research. As the motion suggests, some internationally important research is currently being undertaken in Scotland with the support of funding from JDRF. For example, at the University of Edinburgh in my region, Professor Helen Cohen and her team are working on a project to develop a set of indicators of the disease, or biomarkers, to be used along with clinical data to find out who is at most risk of rapid progression of diabetic kidney disease. They aim to produce useful information that will help to accelerate the process of developing drugs to prevent and reverse kidney disease in type 1. I wish those researchers and others working in this area all the very best of success. We must also ensure that our NHS is providing the best possible service and support to type 1 patients. Diabetes UK's 2015 Age of Diabetes report highlighted a range of areas where improvements are clearly required in Scotland. It's a real concern to everyone in the chamber that the evidence now suggests that people with type 1 diabetes are receiving a poorer level of care than those with type 2. With the percentage of type 1 patients receiving their vital HBA1C check each year being lower than the number of people with type 2, that must be addressed to help to reduce the risk of potential complications as a result of people not being supported to manage their diabetes well. I hope that this is also an area where we can look at making changes in the future. Deputy Presiding Officer, diabetes is rightly high on the public health agenda and it must remain so. Tackling the rise in the number of people with type 2 is clearly a policy priority for Governments across the western world. However, we must also recognise the needs of our constituents who have type 1 diabetes and ensure that they are getting the best possible treatment, support and care until hopefully our scientists can develop the cure that we all want to see. I call Graeme Dey to be followed by David Stewart. Presiding Officer, can I first congratulate Clare Adamson on securing this debate on a very important issue that touches the lives of and impacts upon so many, especially here in Scotland, where more than 6,000 families are known to be affected? At the beginning of December, I attended an event at Dynamic Earth to celebrate the 30th anniversary of JDRF. I did so to support my constituents, Helen and Malcolm Taylor, who, in 2012 tragically and needlessly lost their teenage daughter Clare to undiagnosed type 1 diabetes. The Taylor's, in seeking to ensure some small good emerged from a tragedy that has impacted the lives of all the family, have organised events to fundraise for JDRF and raised awareness of type 1 diabetes. Let me take this opportunity to express my admiration for the way in which Helen and Malcolm have gone about that and conducted themselves, especially given the specific circumstances around Clare's passing. Can I also note how struck I was by two contributions made to the 30th anniversary event at Dynamic Earth? The first was from the First Minister, who has very clearly maintained a passion for tackling type 1 diabetes from her days as health secretary. The second came from a 12-year-old type 1 diabetes sufferer called Katie Shaw, who captivated the audience as she explained how research has helped her and her younger sister. I came away from Dynamic Earth genuinely, we uplifted, because what we'd heard all round was a story of progress and hope, and a story firmly rooted in Tayside. As Clare Adamson's motion mentions, JDRF is funding research into type 1 diabetes at the University of Dundee, as is the Scottish Government. The main project is initially receiving £1.7 million from the edd dollars from the charity. The scientists involved in the project are conducting the biggest study of its kind in Europe. They are looking at a new hypothesis that an inexpensive drug with a simple treatment regimen can prevent type 1 diabetes. The study aims to contact all 6,400 families in Scotland affected by the condition with a view to expanding into England at a later date. Children aged 5 to 16 who have a sibling or parent with type 1 diabetes will be invited for a blood test to establish whether they are at high risk of developing the disease. The disease, if so, will be asked to take part in the trial. Researchers will then examine the impact of administering metformin, the world's most commonly prescribed diabetes medicine to young people in the high-risk category. If successful, the large-scale trial could explain why the incidence of type 1 diabetes has risen fivefold in the past 40 years and provided a means of preventing it. The fourth front attack on diabetes is the SCI diabetes system, which is based in the city of GDDRF. As we have heard, it is a dual in the Crown of Scotland's arsenal to fight type 1. SCI diabetes provides a fully integrated share electronic patient record to support treatment of NHS Scotland patients. With the right safeguards in place, it could also be a great tool for researchers studying patterns in type 1 or looking to recoup people to trials. Although there is much to be optimistic about in terms of getting to the root cause of type 1 diabetes and finding a cure, we are not there yet. As long as there is no cure, we must do what we can to make the lives of those with diabetes easier. That is why I so warmly welcomed the recent announcement of £10 million of funding from the Scottish Government for insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitoring equipment. There are now 3,200 insulin pumps in use in Scotland and an increase of 400 per cent since 2010, thanks to £7.5 million in previous funding from this Government. The new transfer funding will build upon that over the next five years, helping people to better manage their diabetes. Beyond that, GDDRF states that one day there will be a world without type 1 diabetes. On those positive and hopeful notes, I will conclude. David Stewart, to be followed by Brian Whittle. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and could I also congratulate Clare Arnston on securing this evening's debate and for her very clear and indeed passionate speech on type 1 diabetes. Presiding Officer, I should declare an interest of sorts as the long-standing joint convener of the cross-party group on diabetes and as the first Scottish parliamentary champion. I want to put on record my thanks for all the groups in Scotland who work with people with diabetes, GDDRF, Diabetes Scotland, the scientists researchers and, of course, the dedicated doctors, carers, consultants and diabetic nurses. We should not forget the proud record from history where a Scott Professor John McLeod, along with Banting and Best, discovered insulin in 1921 and received a Nobel Prize in medicine. Before 1921, having type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. My own late father-in-law was diagnosed at the age of 10 and he was told that he would live only until he was 20.  So what is the big picture? Well, the prevalence of the condition has doubled since 2003. It is the main cause of blindness in those of working age and 10 per cent of NHS hospital expenditure relates to the treatment of diabetes and its complication. 40 per cent of people living with type 1 has some form of diabetic retidopathy. Clare Addison's motion rightly focuses on research. We have a huge acute challenge but also unparilled opportunities to improve the lives of people in Scotland with a condition. We should also aspire, in my view, to be the world leader in type 1 research and development. Scotland has real strength in life science in the biotech sectors. We have a real comparative advantage that we should exploit. Let me give you one example of best practice and collaboration from my own region in the Highlands and Islands. Collaboration with business, with the public agencies and the university sector, the so-called triple helix. Johnson and Johnston acquired the UK assets of Inverness Medical Ltd, which was originally established in Inverness to design and manufacture glucose test strips and electronic metres for the global diabetic market. This site employs more than 1,000 people and is regarded as a centre of excellence for those who are working in the field of diabetes. Hans and I's enterprise played a major role in attracting Johnson and Johnson to the Highlands, which reinforces my view of the importance of a locally-based enterprise agency. It is part of the Highland Diabetes Institute, which is a unique model of bringing together a partnership between a commercial company, an academic institution—the case of UHI—and a national health provider. Just a few short months ago, I took part in a GDRF roundtable dinner to debate type 1 research. The participants were leaders in the field in science, medicine and biotechnology. The clear conclusion was that, with 800 to 900 new type 1s in Scotland every year, there needs to be major strides made in biobanking, the jargon for the process of taking samples of tissues for research use. First-class works that have been carried out, some previous speakers have mentioned the Scottish Diabetes Research Network type 1 bioresource. That is a phenomenal resource, but we need to have a rigorous strategy to protect, grow and nurture the next generation of world-class researchers in Scotland. In conclusion, Presiding Officer, I thank their answer again for her initiative in securing this debate. In the 1920s, has Scott made a revolutionary step change with the discovery of insulin? Our goal for 2020 must be to foster world-class research to prevent, treat and cure type 1 diabetes. Brian Whittle, to be followed by Emma Harper. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I begin by thanking Clare Anderson for bringing this important debate to the chamber. I sat on the cross-party group for diabetes, and although my initial area of interest was type 2 diabetes in its prevention, I am fast catching up with the details of type 1 diabetes, the difficulties that living with the disease can bring, the fast pace of developing technology that can bring relief to sufferers, and the incredible work that is being done by GDRF and others in the search to find a cure. The daughter of a friend of mine was diagnosed with the condition a decade ago at the age of four. As a parent, how do you explain to a four-year-old that she has to have injections every day? My friend gave himself a placebo injection at the same time as his daughter's injection to help her through that. Anything that he can do to be a parent, so a cure cannot come fast enough. It has been a steep learning curve for me on the cross-party group with my colleague, group convener and very patient teacher Emma Harper, leading my education. Ms Harper can speak from personal experience and has a much deeper knowledge and understanding of the disease and speaks much more eloquently and in-depth on the subject than I can. I coach an athlete who has type 1 diabetes and he goes through the routine of testing his blood sugar at the start of every training session to ensure that he is at the correct level for intense physical activity. That speaks to a very important point. In most cases, with careful monitoring and healthy diet, having type 1 diabetes diagnosis does not prevent a person from continuing with a full, active and inclusive lifestyle. That particular athlete, for example, has, in fact, meddled at the Scottish Championship. Let's face it, you can be diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and still become Prime Minister. However, what has become clear to me is that there is an uneven spread of access to information, to advice, education and certain types of treatment, especially developing technologies like insulin pumps and constant glucose monitoring. That inequality, in turn, inevitably leads to inequality of opportunity and inequality in leading a more fulfilling, inclusive and productive life. We in the cross-party group have held compelling testaments to the difference that an insulin pump can make to the lifestyle and therefore the wellbeing of a type 1 diabetes sufferer. I can remember a specific talk given in the last cross-party group by a young lady, her intense struggles with the condition, the blackouts, hypoglycemia, a year lost at university, the constant mental pressure of not knowing when the next collapse might happen. Having been fitted with that insulin pump, despite her initial reservations, has transformed her life. She now lives a normal, fulfilling life and has even learned to drive, something that she thought would be far beyond her reach. So while the search for a cure continues, the challenge for tackling type 1 diabetes is twofold. Number one, education is key to ensuring that all have access to the information that they require to understand the condition and have access to the innovations and management systems that allow for normal living. Secondly, there is a constant financial battle within the health service to allocate appropriate funding to the treatment of all diseases and conditions, as well as the research into the development of more effective treatments and ultimately cures. It is an increasing juggling act to ensure that all bases are covered, and some of the covers on those bases are inevitably becoming rather thin. What we must do is not consider the conditions in isolation. For example, if we were able to reverse the rise of type 2 diabetes and the subsequent increasing drain on the NHS resources, which is some 12 per cent of the NHS overall spend, some of that savings and the savings from other preventable diseases such as obesity and alcoholism, drug addiction, smoking, musculoskeletal conditions, strokes and heart disease could be reallocated to the treatment of type 1 diabetes and the research into finding a cure. A reallocation of precious resource that could ensure that the access to effective treatments of type 1 diabetes need not be a postcode lottery. In conclusion, I warmly welcome the chance to discuss type 1 diabetes in Scotland, to commend our NHS staff and their commitment to deliver the very best in care and treatment to sufferers and to highlight the fantastic research work that GDRF and others organisations are doing to treat and ultimately cure the potentially debilitating condition. I would like to add my congratulations also to Claire Adamson for securing this debate, but she has really enjoyed it so far. I would like to also bring members' attention to my interest as co-convener of the cross party group with Dave Stewart on diabetes. I understand how serious type 1 diabetes is. It is known that in Scotland we have got 30,000 people who have diabetes, 2517 adults and about 3,812 children. Type 1 diabetes is not caused by lifestyle and there is currently no way to prevent the condition. The long-term implications of the disease are well documented. They include many complications and increase risk of dying from heart disease and stroke, both of which are clinical priorities in Scotland. There are microvascular complications that can affect the eyes, the heart, kidneys, extremities and even the gastrointestinal system. Diabetes complications have a major economic impact on the NHS. One billion pounds per year or 10 per cent of the NHS budget is spent on diabetes and its complications. What more, people may not be aware of, are the short-term complications the day-to-day living with type 1 diabetes. Persons with type 1 must continuously monitor their glucose levels day and even night to ensure that blood glucose levels are correct. Blood glucose levels that are too low can lead to hypoglycemia and even seizure activity in loss of consciousness. Levels that are too high can send patients into hyperglycemia, which can also be life-threatening. Therefore, unsurprisingly, living with type 1 can disrupt one's life on a daily, sometimes hourly basis. It is incredibly important to me as co-convener of the cross-party group to use that platform to explore what can be done to help those who live with diabetes. Helping families with diabetic children manage the disease is something that I am particularly passionate about. As I saw during my time as a nurse and how difficult it can be when you are listening to parents telling the stories of their daily life and the behaviours that you have to adapt to, it is especially difficult for the parents of children who do not know the symptoms of hypoglycemia and are not aware of the symptoms and therefore they need to be monitored really closely through the night. I emphasise that some parents wake their kids three times during the night to do a finger stick for a blood glucose sample. Being unaware of low blood sugar can have its real difficulties, as I have talked about. Wake in your children to check their blood glucose levels that are exhausting for all those involved. A child diagnosed with type 1 at the age of five can face up to 19,000 injections and 50,000 finger sticks by the time that they are 18. That can be five or more finger sticks a day. The junior diabetic research fund is an excellent charity working to give a voice to those children and their families and drive forward research until we find a cure. The research is crucial. I remember in 1978 testing my urine for the presence of sugar and now we have come a long way. The charity was founded by some of the world-leading research doctors. It is happening in Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and there is some great funding that has been added to it, about £3.9 million. A big step that we can take and what we are taking to make the lives of persons with type 1 easier is to develop and help fund the new and innovative methods of meeting the challenge of continually monitoring glucose levels. For example, we have continuous glucose monitoring and we have WeGizmos, like I have got one, flash monitoring that allows greater scrutiny of blood glucose levels, allowing young people to lead independent lives, doing things that their peers take for granted, like travelling to uni on public transport or obtaining a driver's licence or even a job. Last year, a new plan to improve the management of type 1 diabetes was backed by £10 million of investment by the Scottish Government. So I thank Claire again for bringing forward this debate and I am confident that Scotland can continue to lead the way in both development and implementation of technology to help those with type 1 diabetes and find a cure. Thank you very much. The last of the open speeches, Annas Sarwar. I join other colleagues in congratulating Claire Adamson for bringing forward this debate. I also genuinely thank her for her compassionate and passionate way that she has supported this issue. She joined me at the cross-party meeting that we had with JDRF and the contributions that we heard particularly from the young families that I thought was extraordinary and moving. She mentioned young Anna, who I think touched all of us on that day. We thought that politicians were centre of attention but I can assure you that young Anna was centre of attention that day. I also pay tribute to the JDRF, who are the leading global charity on this important issue and who are leading research that will benefit not just Scotland but actually benefits people right across the world. I also thank you to the JDRF for their hard work and dedication on the very important issue. Other colleagues have already mentioned some of the statistics, but I just want to run through some of them again really quickly. Scotland has the third highest incidence of type 1 diabetes in the world. More than 29,000 people in Scotland live in the condition. As Alex Rowley said, it is increasing at a rate of 4 per cent each year, particularly in children under five. At the same time, through Scottish-based research, we have £3.9 million in research coming from the JDRF and there are research projects based in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee, which are looking at complications and treatments of type 1 diabetes. I want to focus my remarks today on how we can improve matters in Scotland and some key asks to Government and key asks to all political parties. What is it that drives people who suffer from type 1 diabetes? It is the hope of a cure and we have that sense very clearly from the families at our meeting. That is why the 19 research and university higher education institutions that are playing their part collaboratively between industry, academia and clinicians recognise worldwide that Scotland can be the global leader on type 1 diabetes. That is something that we can take pride in right across this chamber. If we in Scotland could find that global cure to type 1 diabetes. I welcome and congratulate the Scottish Government via the chief scientist's office, who has pledged £1 million annually to research of type 1 diabetes. I wonder from the Government if there is a plan to expand the level of funding towards research as we progress over coming years. Secondly, there is the JDRF working closely with the chief scientist's office to develop research fellowships in Scotland. Is this something that the Scottish Government too will be committed to in terms of supporting the fellowships so that we can widen the research, aim at prevention, treatment and a cure for type 1 diabetes? Importantly, there is so much important research happening in Scotland. Can we have a commitment that research will not just be published and recognised but demonstrated in terms of the actions that we take here in Scotland to try to widen access, to try to widen the use of pumps and to share that knowledge and best practice with other parts of the UK and other parts of the world? One of the overarching messages that we got from our meeting was from people saying that we need public awareness to stop the confusion of type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. I hope that we played our part today in trying to create that awareness. However, how we can create awareness more generally in the public would also be helpful. The availability of insulin pumps, we have heard about the expansion of the availability of pumps and extra funding, which is to be welcomed. At what level will that be rolled out across all parts of Scotland? We do not know the details yet in terms of individual health boards to make sure that we do not have any kind of post-school lottery between health boards so that we can have a uniformity of access to insulin pumps right across Scotland. In terms of the continuous glucose monitoring, how we can accelerate the delivery of that and have it uniform right across all parts of Scotland. Finally, as someone who employed an individual with type 1 diabetes, I do not think that we recognise the impact that type 1 diabetes can have on an individual, whether they be at school, in a college, in a university or in the workplace. More work can be done to make sure that we educate employers and educators about how they can support people with type 1 diabetes in a much more meaningful way. I end by just saying, I genuinely hope that, in Scotland, we can find that cure and be a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. I now call Eileen Campbell to wind up the debate. Around seven minutes, please, minister. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I also like others. I thank Clare Adamson for today's debate. I also welcome the GIDRF and others who have impacted on type 1 diabetes to the chamber this evening. I congratulate the efforts that are described by Clare to raise so much, whether that is at Strathclyde Park, up Kilimanjaro or hauling anvil up Goatfell. The Scottish Government recognises the challenges faced by people living with all forms of diabetes on a daily basis. However, today's debate is focused rightly on type 1 diabetes, and I believe that Scotland has a strong track record on helping people with type 1 diabetes to live longer, healthier lives. The Scottish Government does not, however, act alone or have all the answers. The cause for type 1 diabetes is not known, it is not linked to lifestyle factors, and at the moment there is no cure. 80 per cent of diabetes complications are preventable or can be delayed with early detection, good care and self-management. That is what makes Graham Day's contribution so profound, and I too pay tribute to his constituents, Helen and Malcolm, following the tragic loss of their daughter, Clare. That shows that we must do more to make sure that we can make improvements across Scotland. Our Scottish Diabetes Survey is informed by Sky Diabetes, probably the most complete diabetes register in the world. We know from the survey that there are now more than 30,000 people living with type 1 diabetes in Scotland. The survey is an incredibly important tool in helping us to achieve improvement and enable us to see and monitor changes over time. It shows us that, while the numbers of people with type 1 diabetes are increasing, the rate of increase has remained relatively static within the under-five-year-olds group that the picture is similar. That is why research is so important. GIDRF's work is hugely valuable, as Clare Adamson, Anna Sarwar and others have rightly reflected. Through their research, which includes investment of almost £4 million at Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow, their support and their advocacy services, it is valuable not just to Government but to society as a whole. In 2015, the Scottish Government published the health and social care research strategy delivering innovation through research, which sets out an ambitious agenda for change. It required new ways of working and identified four areas that are critical to our future success. They are efficient support for research, partnership and Scottish patient and public, targeted deployment of resources and investing in the future. In that context, the chief scientist office of the Scottish Government invests over £60 million each year to support the health research infrastructure to buy into UK-wide funding programmes and to directly fund research studies primarily through its two response mode committees. In order to improve our understanding of the impact of changing diabetes care on our population, the complications associated with diabetes and the development of new therapies, the CSO also funds the Scottish Diabetes Research Network. That network supports the setup and delivery of clinical and epidemiological research across Scotland. Recent studies have included a range of commercial trials of novel therapies for people with diabetes, a groundbreaking multi-centre trial of insulin pump therapy and rates of amputation in people with diabetes. Scotland can also draw on a series of unique research assets to support research in diabetes, including Sky Diabetes, which tracks real-time clinical information on all people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes in Scotland. It is used in all hospital clinics and 1,200gp practices, and it has been successfully employed to recruit to clinical studies. With the Scottish Diabetes Research Register, more than 10,000 patients have consented to be part of an electronic database of patients who have agreed to be contacted about research for which they are eligible. That research register uses the latest clinical data on each patient to identify suitable patients for studies, thereby increasing the efficiency of recruitment to clinical trials. Many treatments for diabetes are delivered in primary care and primary care professionals have a key role to play in achieving the aim of diabetes research and maximising access to clinical studies for diabetes patients in Scotland. Implementation of the Diabetes Research Network primary care initiative aims to expand the number of studies that can be carried out in primary care by engaging and providing support to GP practices to conduct clinical trials. Indeed, that initiative recently won the primary care award for innovation and service delivery at a diabetes UK professional conference. In relation to type 1 diabetes, the Scottish Government is also proud to have been involved in setting up the type 1 diabetes bioresource, which is co-funded by the chief scientist office and diabetes UK. Over 6,000 type 1 patients have consented to take part in the study, thereby creating the largest biobank of type 1 diabetes adults in Europe with blood, urine and DNA available for further study. That resource is well placed to enable exciting new discoveries on the cause and the treatment of type 1 diabetes. When somebody in Scotland can be proud of the strong body of research into diabetes, which we both lead and host, we are not complacent and together must rise to the challenge posed by such a serious disease that impacts on the lives of thousands of people in Scotland. The impacts of which have been articulated by many MSPs here tonight. Alex Rowley is right that the power of people's testimonies is important to ensure that we continue to make the improvements that we need. Miles Briggs and Ryan Whittle are also right to acknowledge the impact that type 1 diabetes has on young people in particular. Of course, Emma Harper's contribution and in-depth knowledge is particularly compelling so too, the authoritative way in which she spoke this evening. Although we nationally and internationally strive to find a cure for diabetes here in Scotland, we continue to work hard to ensure that people are supported by world-class diabetes services. Through our Diabetes Improvement Plan, we are progressing a wide range of actions to achieve that. Some examples include the diabetic ketoacidosis campaign, one for two consecutive years, which aims to raise awareness of sign symptoms to prompt quick referral and early diagnosis. The national glycemic target campaign knows the numbers for children and for adults to help people understand the blood glucose reading that they should be aiming for and structured education resources for people who are newly diagnosed with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Although that is only a small flavour of some of the activity, I want to talk a little more detail about three important areas in particular. The First Minister, as others have highlighted this evening, announced £10 million of new funding at the GIDRF's 30th anniversary. That funding will support further increase in provision of insulin pumps for adults and also improve access to continuous glucose monitors. We know that, for some people, those technologies can literally be life changing. At the start of 2016, we introduced a new quarterly reporting mechanism that enables diabetes teams to monitor and identify improvement across 12 key measures of diabetes care. Those measures include the nine essential healthcare checks, which are so important in keeping healthy and reducing risk and detecting signs of the complications that are associated with diabetes. Access to information to support people to manage their diabetes is equally as important. My diabetes my way is an award-winning resource that enables people to see and check their clinical results and their health information. It provides a wide range of advice and is demonstrating its value in helping people who use it to improve their blood glucose control. To further help to raise awareness of living well with diabetes from next month, we will also be running a poster campaign in community pharmacies to encourage people to make sure that they get all of their nine healthcare checks. To conclude, I want to place our thanks to the incredibly valuable work of Diabetes Scotland in supporting people who live with diabetes and, of course, to the dedication, efforts and research of the GIDRF. I would also like to offer my thanks to Clare Adamson and the other members this evening for the contributions that they have made for tonight's debate. David Stewart reminded us that Scotland led the way in the discovery of insulin treatment in 1921. We should, though, aspire to continue to lead and build on the strengths that I have and others have outlined today, because we are all united in a desire to help people living with diabetes, live longer and healthier lives and support the work of GIDRF and others to find that long-learned for cure for type 1 diabetes.


Hi, I'm James. And I'm Anthony. And this is Words and Numbers. Hey, Aunt. How are you doing? James, I'm doing a lot better than the state of Illinois.  This was always the case. Then, some years later, it got to be Florida. But there's a new dog in the hunt, right? Now every time something idiotic is happening, we have to stop and ask, well, what about Illinois? And Illinois has its fair share, right now, of what we might call budget troubles. Yeah, very large budget troubles. I just ran across an article today or yesterday, warning that Illinois' debt is going to be downgraded to junk bond status, which carries all sorts of implications about what institutions are and are not allowed to invest in it. But basically what it means is the state is in such financial straits that its debt is incredibly risky. Yeah, that's right, which means in layman's terms, the faith that the financial industry has that Illinois will pay its debt on time or even at all is diminishing. And it's diminishing quickly. It's diminishing in large part because they can't get their act together with a budget. It's been some time since they've had anything approaching budgetary sanity in Illinois. Just recently, the legislature came up with a new scheme to raise taxes very significantly. It was about 32% increase, which one of the legislators had the temerity of saying was, no, no, no, 1.2% increase because he doesn't know how division works. Right. Yeah, that's worth mentioning. I think I should have looked it up. I thought he said 2%, maybe you're right, 1.2. But the correct statement is 1.2 percentage points, which actually translates into the whatever you said it was, 30%? It's about 32%. So everybody in the state of Illinois, if this plan moves forward, is about to see their income tax increase by a full third. Yeah. Yeah. That's a lot. And to make matters worse, we both know what's going to happen if Illinois actually does get a nice influx of cash from this. All right. They'll spend it on all kinds of other things and end up in exactly the position they're in right now a couple of years down the road if that one. Right. But in walk, the governor and the governor vetoed this scheme and now we wait for the legislature to decide whether they're going to override his veto or not. So no matter what happens, it's going to be a mess in Illinois and it's going to be a mess for a while. And this is a problem, I mean, we've talked about it before that of course the federal government has, but many of the states have the same problem as well. And there are lots of things that we have and can talk about that contribute to this. But one of the things that contributes is the fact that somehow it's so easy for politicians to simply ask for more money rather than to turn around and try to spend less, which is the exact opposite way that households do it. Right. If you or I are in a budget crunch, you don't turn to your employer and say, well, you're going to have to pay me 32 percent more next year. Right. You look around to what you can cut. I'm feeling the pinch. So I'm just going to have to have you give me some more. It doesn't work this way in the real world where individuals are concerned. But and I think here's the critical difference. And we've said this before and, you know, I'm probably spitting into the wind saying it again, but but bear with me. Politicians don't ask the right question, right? They sit down and they say, what is it that we want? Yeah. And then they decide what they're going to do, whereas normal constrained human beings ask first, what can we afford? And then we prioritize under that number. Right. Right. Right. We, you know, so if I'm not bringing in the big money this year, chances are we're not going to Disneyland, right? But but politicians always go to Disneyland. This is their problem. Well, I was looking up Illinois figures and if you include unfunded liability, so promises they made for future pension payments, it seems that they owe in the state in total about two hundred billion dollars. The state collects about 40 billion dollars a year in in revenue, which means that it owes about five times what its annual income is. And you could see how that's going to work out, right? It doesn't take a genius to put two and two together here. A politician will never be able to do it, but it doesn't take from the pool of the rest of us. We don't need the best and the brightest to know that this isn't going to work out long term. Yeah, well, see, this is the interesting thing about the whole political process. The politician doesn't need it to work out. He only needs it to work out for the next five to six years until, you know, he gets elected to some higher position somewhere else and leaves the problem for the next guy. So, you know, they have every motivation to promise the moon and the stars to overspend and then to completely underdeliver when push comes to shove, right, and to just leave some future generation holding a half empty bag. Now, there's an interesting problem here with with Illinois and all the other states face it. And it's interesting because the federal government doesn't. And that is that the federal government, when push comes to shove and it just doesn't have enough money to pay its bills, it can print money, right? And there's all kinds of bad things that arise from that. But the fact is the federal government does have the ability to to print money to pay its debts. But Illinois doesn't. And so all of a sudden, this junk bond status that we're talking about here is is is a is a bigger problem for Illinois than it would be for the federal government because Illinois is constrained. And I think that there's an interesting lesson here. And the interesting lesson is this, if if a government does not have the ability to print currency, then that creates a natural break on its spending. There it reaches a point where it's spent so much that now the financial markets are downgrading its debt, the interest it's going to have to pay is much higher. And that puts natural financial pressure on on restricting future spending. Right. And and one of Illinois's big expenses is in fact interest on its debt. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it's running into a real problem, right? That as that interest rate goes up, their payments go up, they already can't make the payment and you see how this is going to end, right? So one way or another, the way you put it is is interesting, right? It's a natural break. There's a point that Illinois just can't get through because once they pass that tipping point, easy money is gone. Right. And and when easy money is gone for politicians, all that remains is hard money. And that tends to be when the voters become a lot more interested and you can bet the voters of Illinois are going to be very interested in a 30 percent increase in their state income tax, right? And sooner or later, responsibility will be foisted upon these representatives, whether they want it or not. Right. And it's it's not clear that the people really want them to be responsible, but it is clear that the people don't want their taxes to go up. Yeah. And I think generally speaking, what people want is very, very low levels of taxation and very high levels of government largesse floating into their lives, right? And if they can't have both, then hard choices will be made. Right. But as long as politicians can promise them both things, hey, life is easy, right? We'll just keep going along the way we've always gone along. And it's interesting, right? Because now. Fiscal sanity is about to be imposed. Yeah, by the laws of mathematics, right? But by math, right? On on Illinois in a way that it has not here to fore been imposed on the United States more generally. And this is how the United States accrues a twenty trillion dollar stated debt. But as we've said many times in the past, some were between one hundred and twenty trillion and two hundred and twenty trillion in an unstated debt when you start getting into unfunded liabilities and mandates. Yeah. And you know, the federal while the federal government could print money and much of the quantitative easing is kind of like what that is, while the government could print money to pay off its debt, doing so creates inflation and inflation eats away. It's effectively a tax on your savings. Eats the purchasing power of money that you've put in the bank. And I think that the interesting lesson here is to impose the same kind of fiscal prudence on the federal government would require that the dollar be backed by something, right? So once upon a time it was it was backed by gold. There's nothing magical about backing it by gold. The important thing is the quantity of gold is fixed. And if the quantity of gold is fixed and your dollar is backed by gold, then the number of dollars that you can print is fixed. And now you take away from the government the ability to just wantonly print. And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, Anthony Davies is a gold bug. Well, yeah, I wouldn't say that necessarily. I'm a fixed quantity bug, right? It doesn't have to be gold. It could be the old land. It could be, you know, gallons of fresh water. I don't know what it is, right? But something that's fixed in quantity. Right. No, it just has to be. The dollar has to be based on something that doesn't increase every time the government wants it to. Right. Right. And that's the simple way of looking at it. Right. Could be a gold standard. Could be some kind of basket of commodities. Could be almost anything that exists in the physical world that somehow we care about. Along these lines, you know, we did an episode on on cryptocurrency. And one of the comments that one of our viewers gave us was, well, yes, but cryptocurrency isn't backed by anything. You know, things like Bitcoin and so forth. And and I was thinking about that because, of course, the dollar isn't backed by anything as well. And then I thought, wait a minute, that's not right. The dollar is backed by something. What it's backed by is pain. That is, when it's time to pay your taxes, you must pay your taxes to the government in US dollars. And if you don't pay in US dollars, they will come and do bad things to you. That is the value of the dollar is backed by pain. Well, those of us in political science would say backed by the monopoly of force, right? Which might be the exact same thing in the end. The threat of pain is every bit as effective as pain. Maybe more so. Those of us who grew up with Italian mothers would tell you. But when it comes right down to it, right? Fiscal responsibility is a matter of simple mathematics, no matter what level we take it to. Because even at the federal level, as you said earlier, right, as as the Fed just simply prints more money, inflation is coming. Right. Of course, of course, it's coming. You will hit a point that's so ridiculous that the money just isn't worth as much as it once was. And for an example, look at Venezuela. Yeah, look at Venezuela and take a long, long look at Venezuela. Incidentally, Venezuela raised its minimum wage a couple of days ago. So I saw that. Right. Yeah, that'll fix everything. Yeah, that's always the answer to these kind of hardcore baked in problems. But when you look at Illinois, and you see in a relatively constrained world, what it means to be responsible, and then you look at the United States more generally, and you see in a relatively unconstrained world, how easy it is to skirt that responsibility. You know that hard times lie ahead, right? Because sooner or later, there will be a reckoning. Right. And we're all going to be present for that reckoning if the numbers add up the way that we think they do. Um, so maybe it's it's time to impose upon ourselves some kind of fiscal responsibility to get us around. Yeah, this lunacy that we've that we've been engaging in all these years. So is that possible? And I'll give you the last word here. Well, I think one of the things to keep in mind is is the whole the whole purpose of a monetary system, in a sense, is to prevent us from consuming more than we produce. Because clearly, clearly that's, you know, that's a problem. And when we borrow money, what we're really doing is is eating today in exchange for eating less tomorrow. And so there comes a point at which you just simply cannot borrow anymore because the future generations aren't going to are going to be under too much hardship, trying to pay back the stuff that you consume today. And on that happy note, that's all we've got time for this week on Words and Numbers. Come on back next week, Wednesday, round about noon eastern time for a new episode. Until then, check out the great content at fee dot org and at fee online on social on social media. I'll see you next week. And see you next week, James.


His appearance would easily lead some people to have faith about him, and in the past, they would be right. Being care, multiple piercings on the face, and some immodest choice of clothes, was the normal appearance of Effa Zabani.  No, I wouldn't write him off.  I will wear baggy pants to my wedding, then later on I became a bodybuilder, and I thought I will always weight 120 kg. I thought I will always be super ripped, super jacked. This is the way to go, this is reality, this is the best way to live.  It all will change when you're in your 30s. Believe me.