Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Send British Troops To Gaza. Nazi Israel Must Be Stopped.
The Israeli pirate assault on aid ships seeking to relieve the besieged people of Gaza is just the latest atrocity from this vile and inhuman regime.
Stormtroopers Against Saints
Israel now represents just as much a threat to civilisation as did Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It constantly flouts UN resolutions, commits war crimes and we are certain that it has weapons of mass destruction. The civilised world needs to step in. Israel must be stopped at all costs and this is a cause that it is worth our troops dying for. It is more urgent and pressing than Afghanistan. British troops would be better employed in crushing the evil Israelis than they are in fighting the Taliban. If we do not stand up against the great Nazi evil that Israel has become then we have no right to call ourselves civilised
We should send in the Navy and smash the Israeli blockade, open up a sea corridor to allow aid and relief in. HMS Daring, with the most advanced anti-aircraft weaponry in the world, should stop tootling up and down the south coast and blast the Israeli air force out of the sky. The time for negotiating with and appeasing this pariah state is past. We must take decisive action now.
Israel
I am not anti-semitic because Arabs are Semites just as much as Jews. I am not anti-Jewish but I don’t understand the relationship betwen the state of Israel and the Jewish religion. I am anti-Israel and all men of honour, decency and common sense must be. Its conduct in Gaza and throughout Palestine is beyond any justification. Its conduct is always disproportionate. Its whinging about the little fireworks that the Palestinians shoot in is pathetic. If my country was being oppressed and bullied then I would react at least the same. Suicide bombers against Israeli targets are equally as justified and heroic as any suicide mission against the Nazis in the Second World War.
War Criminal
This may well be my generation’s equivalent of the Spanish Civil War. Give me a chance to fight against the fascist Israelis and I don’t see how my conscience could deny it. They need to be given a dose of their own medicine and pulverised into submission, forced to withdraw from the settlements, forced to abandon their entire national strategy and policy. It is clear that the world made a great mistake in establishing the state of Israel. Perhaps we should have left them to their fate.
Prime Minister Netanyahu is presently in Canada, a nation famed for its defence of freedom and justice. He should be immediately arrested and detained as a war criminal.
The onus is now on us. Obama and Cameron must step up to the plate and condemn this action outright. US and UK forces must join in this most urgent mission. Leave the rest of Europe to dither as usual. We must get on with the job.
Cameron Stumbles Over Kerb Crawlers
Oh dear! Here comes the first knee-kerk reaction. Next thing we’ll be hanging and flogging them. The law against kerb crawling is of very dubious value or common sense anyway. It’s the oldest profession. Men want to pay women for sex and women want to sell sex. It’s been going on since time began and silly, pointless little laws aren’t going to change it.
Can I Put You Down As A Researcher?
Fair enough, stop drivers kerb crawling in residential streets and harrassing your daughters but if you don’t pair such laws with legalised brothels or designated red light districts you are just making the problem worse.
I understand David Cameron’s desire to want to do something to declare his horror at the Bradford murders but I thought we were supposed to be past this sort of politicking now? I thought legislation was now going to based on a rational, properly researched approach to problems.
What we need to do is make it safer for women who want to work as prostitutes and call a halt to the pressures that force women into prostitution. That means some sort of regulated sex industry and the legalisation and regulation of drugs.
It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense. It means you may have to face down the self-righteous, moral crusaders so it takes a modicum of courage but I thought that’s where we are now. This is the first crack in the veneer. Let’s hope it’s quickly mended.
It’s Not Drugs, It’s Drug Laws That Killed the Bradford Girls
Forced Here By The Law
If heroin was legally available on prescription the three Bradford prostitutes would be alive today. It is our discredited, ludicrous policy of prohibition that has led these women to their terrible deaths. Cowardly, self-serving politicians who will not address the real issues about drugs policy have blood on their hands.
Today we also learned that the sensationalist, exploitative treatment of the death of two young men in Humberside “linked with mephedrone” was nothing but hysteria. See the story here. Humberside Police shares responsiblity with the media for leaping on a bandwagon, seeking kudos or some unknown advantage through lies, propaganda and misinformation. Trying to look tough.
It’s not a good idea to use heroin or mephedrone but criminalising users and creating a lucrative black market for criminals to exploit is an absurd idea. It’s exactly what America did with alcohol in the prohibition era when, in fact, it created organised crime.
Created By The Law
For those who become addicted to illegal drugs there is very little help available. Almost all street crime is related to feeding a drug habit. If, instead of the unwinnable “war on drugs” we put our money into a regulated supply and treatment facilities we would massively reduce the harm that current laws cause.
The girls in Bradford, the poor people of Jamaica, our young heroes who are dying in Afghanistan, the young man who is selling his body right this minute in Manchester, Baltimore, Hamburg or Singapore, the downtrodden people of Columbia. They are all victims of our absurd, self-defeating drug laws. When will our politicians and leaders stop chasing cheap political points (and expensive bribes) and face the facts?
Fighting For The Law
Legalise, regulate, tax – you pull the rug from under organised crime, you eliminate the need for most street crime, you have the resources to address the issue as a public health problem.
Transform Drug Policy Foundation has the answer.
I Weep For Jamaica
Ocho Rios
The events unfolding in Jamaica are disastrous for the country, its reputation, tourist industry and economy. They give an impression that is completely false. In reality it is a wonderful place, full of kind, warm, generous people. I was astonished on my first visit to find the countryside lush and green, rather like Cornwall or Wales and the people more friendly than anywhere else I have ever been.
I was very privileged to be introduced to Jamaica by a Jamaican. It was no all-inclusive tourist resort for me. There the poor Brits hunker down and never move anywhere. They seem to believe that right outside the gates are a bunch of Uzi-toting crack dealers but it’s simply not true. I’ve been back several times and I love the place. I recommend Ocho Rios on the north coast of the island.
True, the murder rate is one of the highest in the world but it all happens in a very small area of Kingston. The rest of the island is peaceful and probably safer than London. I have been through the Tivoli Gardens and Trench Town districts where all the trouble is. It’s not a good place. You lock the car doors and windows and you don’t stop but it is tiny. According to my memory it’s not much bigger than, say, Regent’s Park so it’s easy to avoid.
My Local
Undoubtedly at the root of these problems is high level corruption and I wouldn’t be surprised if that extended to US officials as well as Jamaican. The cocaine trade is a huge curse on the country but while the world continues with its ludicrous, discredited policy of prohibition it will never solve the problem. Drug laws support and encourage organised crime and corruption. If we stay on our present course things will only get worse.
I weep for Jamaica and its wonderful people. Without radical international action, I have no idea how this problem can be solved.
Theresa May Must Act On Gary McKinnon And Ian Tomlinson
It's Decision Time
After defence there can be no higher priority for any government than justice. The new government’s honeymoon period is over. The cases of Gary McKinnon and Ian Tomlinson need urgent attention from our new Home Secretary.
A Victim Not A Villain
Gary McKinnon’s case raises profound issues. He is in danger of “extradition” to the US but any idea that this is some legitimate process is nonsense. He is actually in danger of illegal rendition or kidnapping which the previous Labour government seemed ready to sanction. Any alleged crime was committed on British soil so there isn’t even any question of “extradition”. If he is to be tried he must be tried where the alleged crime was committed.
There seems though to be no progress at all on the murder of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests. This is a scandal and injustice of the very highest order and those responsible for prevaricating and filibustering over bringing charges are criminals themselves.
Murder
Ian Tomlinson’s family waits helpless while the dilatory DPP, Keir Starmer, and the CPS quibble and procrastinate over facts that the whole country has seen revealed on its TV screens. Obviously they intend to delay long enough so that the case be consigned to history like the murder of Blair Peach by a police officer in 1979. It was only last month that the Metropolitan Police came clean on this, 30 years too late.
There is some nonsense excuse being peddled that there is a problem with obtaining expert medical evidence. This is a dreadful miscarriage of justice. These are issues for a jury to decide. Keir Starmer should be dismissed for gross misconduct and should consider himself lucky if he doesn’t go to jail for perverting the course of justice.
Thug
We have already seen the inexcuseable acquittal of Sergeant Delroy Smellie, the thug who assaulted Nicola Fisher at the G20 protests (see here). This must be one of the lowest points ever in the history of British justice. There can be no other description of this verdict and District Judge Daphne Wickham who made the decision than corrupt. She deserves to be tarred and feathered for what she has done.
What can be higher in priority on Theresa May’s todo list than these matters of great principle and injustice? She should put everything else aside. There can be no more excuses.
Facebook – It’s A Snide, Snide World
I don’t know the name of the geek from Facebook who said that he wanted everyone on the planet to become a member of his website but he follows Adolf, Joseph, Benito, Francisco and other tyrants in having ambitions that must be thwarted at all costs.
Let me be clear, yes, you can find me on Facebook. It’s true, with nearly half a billion members it is difficult to ignore it. I use it to publicise this blog to as wide an audience as possible. You can call me a hypocrite if you want but I don’t and won’t participate in the snide, puerile and thoroughly unhealthy relationships and lifestyle that it promotes.
Is This The Real Life Or Is It Just Fantasy?
If there are nearly a half a billion members on the site there must be at least a billion virtually identical photographs that consist of two or three faces (usually inane blondes at a party) pressed together cheek to cheek with vile grimaces or smiles. If it’s supposed to be about individuals why does everyone look exactly the same, talk exactly the same and behave exactly the same?
There are now an extraordinary number of sad, dysfunctional people who live their life, vicariously and actually, on Facebook. This, I believe, should be of great concern to all of us. More than that, the site encourages behaviour that is dishonest, underhand and snide. It’s not a force for good. It’s a force for evil. It’s a perversion and abuse of the internet, probably mankind’s greatest ever invention.
You know the sort of person who’d rather text than make a phone call? It’s often very dishonest communication, the ideal way for a coward to make excuses, lie or deceive. It’s said that 80% of communication is non-verbal and you certainly get a lot of that extra meaning over the phone. You get none at all by text. It’s just the bare, badly, carelessly or deceptively chosen words. Facebook goes even further, it encourages members to post messages and pictures so that they’re seen by third parties as well. In fact, often the message or picture is posted mainly for their benefit, to embarass or annoy. This is the real wickedness. It’s already led to murders and countless, countless, arguments and disputes which have ended in violence. Of course, it depends on you. You or your friends can behave badly through any medium or face to face. The point is Facebook encourages you to be snide. It’s not nice.
I don’t know what the answer is. I certainly wouldn’t be encouraging children to use it. For many it’s already become a substitute for real life. Its most well known deficiency is the way it makes you collect an ever greater quantity of friends with no regard whatsoever for quality. My sons and all their real world friends have in excess of 1,000 Facebook friends. I have 24 so that must make me – what?
There’s no doubt that there are business opportunities presented by Facebook. With that many members there’s bound to be. In that context it’s not surprising that Cheryl Cole has 1,698,477 friends. Mind you, Paul Macartney only has 11!
So I’ll be staying on Facebook but I won’t be participating in it. I think it should have a big warning flash up on the screen every time you log in: “GET A LIFE”
UEA Offline To Email
Leaks like A Sieve
We all know how indiscreet certain people at the University Of East Anglia’s Climate Change Unit were recently. Not only was the content of their emails outrageous, dishonest and reprehensible but their email system was so insecure that it resembled a sort of digital colander.
Now, in a classic, public sector, knee jerk overreaction, it is virtually impossible to get an email through to UEA. My son, Richard, is there doing a law conversion course after graduating in PPE last year. Every email I send him is bounced back to me as “unacceptable content”.
It’s only the sort of correspondence that might pass between any father and son. There’s no cocaine deals, terrorist plots, child porn, not even any attempt to falsify information on which the future of the world might depend. I did send him the latest draft of my novel which I think did have the odd swear word in it. Dear me, I think that must be it! Trouble is I don’t think Amazon or WH Smith accept novels these days without swear words in them.
Fortunately, Richard and I are super-duper, super-sophisticated hackers right at the leading edge of technology. We had a bright idea and used a different email address. Now why didn’t the Climate Change Unit think of that?
Wenlock Mandeville Disaster
Child's Play
The most obvious explanation is that someone at the Olympics Committee has been horizontal jogging with someone at the design company.
What else?
There has to be a rational explanation for one of most ridiculous, badly-judged communications campaigns I have ever seen. The Wenlock and Mandeville mascot idea is third-rate, junior (bad) art school nonsense.
I first worked on ideas like this more than 30 years ago. I stake all my experience on this, I stand by every ounce of this assertion – it is NONSENSE, shocking NONSENSE and I am dismayed to see it. If it gains any traction then it will only be because of the money spent on it. Almost anything else would be better!
Lord Coe and other talented individuals on the Olympics Committee have made a mistake here. This is a serious error of judgement.
Nick Clegg – The Boy’s Own Politician
"Is it a bird? Is it a plane?"
It’s a film script, a comicbook cartoon, a dazzling adventure story. It lifts the spirit and refreshes the soul. It’s a politician you can believe in! It’s Nick Clegg!
I hope so. I really, really do. I hope I am living through a huge moment in history when two bright, inspirational leaders take the helm of HMS Great Britain and steer us through the storm to calm waters and the broad sunlit uplands beyond.
Nick Clegg’s speech today was as inspirational as they come. If history views him kindly then this speech will rank with Churchill, Disraeli, Martin Luther King, Obama. He deserves our trust. If he has got it wrong or can’t deliver there will be plenty of time for recriminations and to return to dull cynicism.
For now, let us believe.
Unite Against Unite
Punks
Isn’t it wonderful to see the preposterous Unite and its two Marxist agitators, Tony Woodley and Derek Simpson, getting smashed back by the Courts?
This is exactly why we elected a Tory government.
But is it justice?
Peter Reynolds 