The inquest into the death of Princess Diana is drawing to a close, and the coroner Lord Justice Scott Baker has been summing up to help the jury to reach a verdict. Among other things, he has advised them on the credibility of one of the witnesses at the inquest, Diana’s butler Paul Burrell.

The BBC summarised his comments about Burrell like this:

Lord Baker suggested to the jury that Mr Burrell may have given evidence while thinking that “whatever he said might have an impact on his future enterprises”. Mr Burrell worked for Diana from 1992 and described himself as “Diana’s rock” - but Lord Baker said he was “quite a porous rock” given that many of the princess’ secrets were made public. The coroner said: “I advise you to proceed with caution especially if you are left with the impression that he only told you what he wanted you to hear. “On the other hand he was close to Diana and was particularly well-placed to hear information that others were not. The fact that he has not told you the truth on some occasions does not mean you cannot accept anything he he has told you. But you should proceed with caution.”

[Source: BBC News: Diana's butler 'obviously' lying]

In other words, although Burrell, being close to Diana, has a good ability to see, his vested interest to advance his own career means that he can’t be relied on.

Student pub crawl specialists Carnage UK have come under fire for encouraging students to binge drink. According to students seeking to promote a responsible drinking campaign at the National Union of Students (NUS) annual conference, nights like those run by Carnage not only damage students’ reputation but also put their safety at risk.

Carnage’s response to this criticism was to list official university events that also encourage students to over-do it. Speaking for Carnage, Paul Bahia said,

‘At Liverpool University the union used to have a flagship night called Double Vision which offered a double spirit for £1, while York University student union promotes treble shots when you purchase a single shot, via their union website.’

Several of the student unions defended themselves, claiming to have changed their policies on discounted drinks. That, however, is beside the point; Carnage’s argument is a bog-standard tu quoque and in no way defends what they do.

Even if the student unions are being hypocritical, doing the very thing that they’re telling Carnage to stop doing, that doesn’t make what Carnage does any better. If Carnage are promoting irresponsible drinking, and the student unions are promoting irresponsible drinking, then they should both stop.

Carnage’s only other defence against the accusation that they promote excessive drinking was that they don’t discount alcoholic drinks at their events, that they are ”not a cheap option”.

That argument, though, confuses promoting excessive drinking with discounting drinks prices; there are plenty of other ways of encouraging people to drink more than is good for them. Carnage’s critics complain about the tone of the advertising of the event, and the peer pressure to drink experienced by students on them, not about the prices.

Both of the arguments offered by Carnage fail as justifications of their actions.

Professor Andrew Clark from the Paris School of Economics claims to have shown that religion is good for you. With religious faith, he suggests, we are better able to cope with setbacks in life such as divorce or redundancy, and as a result believers generally experience a higher level of life satisfaction than atheists.

However, that doesn’t mean that churches should expect to be inundated with calls from recanting atheists wanting to arrange to be baptised.

There’s a difference between beliefs being beneficial and beliefs being true, and we shouldn’t confuse the two. Plenty of beliefs that would increase well-being (e.g. the belief that people only ever say nice things about each other behind their backs) have no basis in fact whatsoever.

Arguments inferring that something must be true from the idea that it’s good for us to believe it (or that it isn’t true from the idea that it’s bad for us to believe it) commit the appeal to consequences fallacy.

Whether belief in God is good, bad, or indifferent for us is an entirely separate matter to whether it is true.