Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category
Three Questions
1. Why do we need an enquiry into the policing of demonstrations when all we are asking for is that all those involved should obey the law?
2. Why were any files about Hillsborough secret in the first place?
3. Can you think of a more inappropriate person to be posting anything on YouTube than Alistair Darling?
Stop Police!
We have now reached the tipping point. Enough is enough. The disgraceful oppression at the Gaza demonstration in Kensington, Ian Tomlinson’s death, the six-foot plus thug who beats five-foot minus women, the deliberate disguise of identity, the arrogant invasion of the mother of parliaments, the Stasi-like investigation of Damian Green extending to Shami Chakrabati. Stop Police!
I respect the challenge and difficulty of the job you do and the vital necessity of your role. There will always be more good policemen than bad but, yet again, you are losing our trust. Now is the time to stop, sort out the bad apples and start afresh before the problem becomes systemic. There is a failure of command and leadership as well so I expect some policemen to go to prison, some policemen to be sacked, some required to resign and some to be disciplined.
Nursing Council Needs Treatment
Yesterday, Margaret Haywood, a nurse at the Royal Sussex Hospital, who helped expose appalling standards of care of elderly people was struck off the nursing register by the Nursing & Midwifery Council. For the full story go here.
Margaret Haywood
This is an example of the very worst of Britain. What prehistoric, myopic, downright stupid bunch of idiots managed to come up with a decision like this? Amidst this country’s many wonderful attributes one of our worst is this inability to move forward, to catch up with the times. I’m afraid that the members of the panel responsible for this ruling have made real fools of themselves.
It is 100% clear that Ms Haywood’s actions were in the interests of patients and this must override any other consideration. Any set of rules or procedures that doesn’t allow for this fundamental priority needs to be changed. Surely a High Court action (the Royal College of Nursing should fund it) will sweep away this ruling and reinstate Ms Haywood with compensation and an unreserved public apology.
Violent Pigs Shame British Police
There have always been bullies and violent individuals in the police. Much has been done to reduce the problem but at the expense of overburdening all officers with paperwork. The two brutal thugs who have been caught in the act of murder and assault at the G20 protests must be dealt with as severely as possible. They are guilty not only of inexcusable violence but of breach of trust which hugely magnifies the seriousness of their crimes.
Yes, the enquiries must be allowed to run their course but no reasonable person can have any doubt that what we have seen on our television screens are crimes, both of which will require long prison sentences where, perhaps, these individuals will get the treatment they really deserve.
One of the most worrying aspects of both these cases is that both officers, against all the rules, appear to have removed their identifying numbers. This indicates a premeditated intent to behave in a way that they do not want to be held accountable for.
This no time for the sort of weasel words and pathetic excuses which we are already seeing. This is a case of “THUG PLOD, STUPID PLOD, DUMB PLOD”. The Tactical Support Group (TSG) must be disbanded immediately. Any unit that can demonstrate such inept, cynical, criminal behaviour must go and now!
Barack Does It For Me
Yes, the expectation is ridiculous but Barack Obama continues to fulfil his promise at every stage.
His “First 100 days” is the point at which everyone will seek to pass judgment but I acknowledge him now. This man remains a beacon of hope. His personality and integrity shines through everything. His direct, considered and incisive answers to questions reveal a leader who is exactly what the world needs. I believe we deserve
Barack Obama In London
him too. Other current political issues show the seedy, self-serving, mediocre individuals we have had to put up with for far too long.
I was immensely impressed with his announcement on plans for the US car industry which was an object lesson in how to deliver bad news, how to tell all parties involved that it is time to get real.
He arrives in London and with supreme capability immediately addresses the world economic crisis and arms reduction, apparently making more progress on both in hours than other politicians have made in years.
Hail to the Chief!
Rugby Is Life
BBC News And The Fritzl Story
Now I am an “out and proud” news junkie. The BBC News channel runs on at least one screen in my house for at least 12 hours a day but even for me, the coverage of the Fritzl trial has been totally over the top: boring, repetitive and not even news.
The news all happened when this evil man was discovered. He pleaded guilty right at the beginning of his trial and was clearly going to be sentenced to life imprisonment. Why has the BBC gone over and over it, again and again?
Turgid would be a gentle criticism of this coverage. Most people can’t stand the degree to which I will watch the news so when you begin to bore and irritate me you really are in trouble!
Women Are Violent Too
The latest strictly politically correct announcement totally overlooks, again, the violence perpetrated by deceitful, wicked women against men. I should know. I spent five years locked in an abusive relationship with an apparently charming and sophisticated “lady” who would frequently beat me with her fists and anything else she could lay her hands on.
I vividly remember the day I retreated to a mutual friend around the corner who received me hesitatingly, sceptically and then with horror as I revealed a fresh, massive bruise covering half my arm. “But she’s so sweet and gentle!”, she said. “I can’t believe it!” but there was the evidence in front of her.
On one occasion she beat me with a baseball bat until the blood drenched my hair and ran down my face. On another she chased me from room to room with a pick axe handle and an X-ray later revealed a fracture of one of my vertabrae.
So it makes me very angry when the media and the police talk about domestic violence as if it’s always men attacking women. Being a “battered husband” is much more common than I believed until I started talking about it. Women get away with it much more easily. They lie and weep and if you put your hands up to defend yourself then you’re the one who’s being aggressive.
Any violence is unacceptable but it would be good to see a more even hand smartly applied to what actually goes on in relationships.
World’s Worst Banker
http://www.worldsworstbanker.com/
I urge you to go to this site and sign the two petitions listed there.
The first is about the reduction of his pension. Personally, I think he should lose it all. I would have no objection to the introduction of the Fred Goodwin Pension Confiscation Act 2009. As the Prime Minister endlessly repeats: “These are extraordinary times…”
The second is on the Number 10 website and calls for the removal of his knighthood “for services to banking”… cough, cough, choke, gag, choke, cough…
Pundits talk about whether the future of democracy is in online participation. There’s no doubt that it is worth making the effort and signing these two petitions.
Cannabis
God's Herb
I have smoked cannabis since I was 14. There have been a few breaks, some of a few months, some of a year or two but those apart, I have smoked cannabis every day of my life for nearly 40 years.
I have come to regard weed or hash, in all seriousness, as the Rastafarians do, as “God’s herb”. It is a sacrament, a truly positive, honourable and precious thing in my life. Something that I thank God, I did not miss.
I grew up with smokin’ dope. It was a fundamental part of my adolescent culture with the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, with a heady summer living the love and peace dream in Amsterdam. LSD blew my mind in those days but a joint was always a sustaining experience. Something I held onto.
As I grew up and got interested in business, I relished the delicious and maverick escape that I enjoyed. I took it seriously and wrote a 40 page report for the Home Affairs Committee entitled “An Unaffordable Prejudice”.
The prejudice, misinformation and sheer nonsense has continued throughout my life. The idiocy of downgrading cannabis to a Class C drug and then, just two years later, back up to Class B is only outdone by the crass stupidity of failing to decriminalise it completely. Prohibition has proved time after time to be an ineffective solution. Worse than that, the law makes a complete ass of itself by sustaining the criminal supply and distribution of a product that is never going to go away.
Regulation is the only viable solution and would provide the framework to care for those very few who may suffer from cannabis use.
What are the dangers? Clearly any intoxicant offers more potential for harm when used by the young, when the brain is still developing. Despite my own experience, cannabis use should be for adults only. In adults it has been proved to be one of the least harmful substances known to man time and time again – despite the fact that most have actually set out to prove the opposite.
Recently the popular argument has been against skunk, a strain of cannabis that can be up to 20 times stronger than that previously known.
To claim this is a recent development is simply wrong. For at least 20 years it has been difficult to buy anything but skunk and other F1/F2 hybrids of the plant. There are many others: Northern Lights, Haze, Blueberry, etc. In my teens it was difficult to buy anything but Lebanese or Moroccan hashish. In Holland where the market is partly regulated there has always been a wide choice of grass or hash from all parts of the world grown and/or processed in many different ways.
The latest suggestion is that skunk is causing psychoses in adolescents – yet the incidence of psychoses in adolescents has remained constant since records began. This is just the lastest scaremongering. 60 years ago it was said that cannabis caused young women to be promiscuous with black men. The standard of the argument has not improved.
It really is time that this hopeless policy against a benign, natural herbal product was stopped. Hemp is one of the most ecologically friendly, sustainable crops in the world. As regulated cannabis it would pull the rug from underneath a great swathe of criminality and produce billions in additional tax income. As biofuel, building materials, fabrics and cattle feed it could help to revitalise agriculture and many other businesses.
Peter Reynolds 