Reality, or something like it

Boriswatch: Caesar in London

2009-04-10T20:45:00.001Z

Almost as soon as the result of the London Mayoral election had been announced, the Conservatives hailed Boris Johnson’s Mayoralty as the template for a future Tory Government. They said that what London saw under Boris, the rest of the country could expect to see under Cameron. If this is the case, I would be very concerned.

My reason for this concern is simple – Boris Johnson does not believe that he is accountable to anyone and runs London as an autocrat, rather than the democrat he promised to be. The most recent example occurred on Thursday morning when he announced the resignation of Bob Quick as the head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism division. He did this despite being asked by the Home Secretary and the Police to let the Met announce Quick’s resignation. Now, fair enough, he is chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, but the Met is not just London’s force, it has a national role too, especially in counter-terrorism. Therefore, it should be answerable to the Home Secretary as well, but Boris decided he’d go ahead anyway. (As an aside, this isn’t just bad for accountability, it’s bad for the Met’s operational effectiveness – they need to have clear leadership on counter-terrorism, and not have the Mayor of London confusing their directions).

There are other examples too. Boris recently tried (and failed) to walk out of a Commons Transport Select Committee inquiry into London transport’s response to February’s heavy snowfall. His reason for this was that he didn’t like the questions and thought them partisan. And last year, when asked about charges against his Olympics advisor David Ross regarding Ross’ breach of financial regulations, his response was ‘lalala, byebyebye.’

From a man who promised accountability, this is simply not acceptable. When you are an elected politician in a democracy, you have to answer difficult questions. Gordon Brown can’t simply walk out of Prime Minister’s Questions because he doesn’t like the questions or thinks that the opposition are being partisan. This is called holding Government to account, and it’s clearly something Boris doesn’t believe in.

In a way, this is hardly surprising. Boris is a classicist and is famously a fan of the Roman Empire, so perhaps the fiefdom analogy is wrong, perhaps he sees himself more as a Caesar figure. Either way, his promises of greater accountability and greater democracy have come to nothing. This is what we can expect of a Tory Government. We know this, because they told us.

Shoes, China and the real disgrace

2009-02-08T17:49:00.000Z

Last week, something disgraceful happened in Cambridge. While Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was speaking at an event at Cambridge University, a member of the audience threw a shoe at him and berated the university for ‘prostituting itself with this dicator.’ The news of this event caused widespread outrage in China, with many calling it a disgrace. However, this protestor was the only one whose actions could not be considered disgraceful.

Indeed, those most guilty of disgraceful conduct were the other members of Premier Wen’s audience, who told the protestor to sit down and shouted ‘shame on you.’ What they should have been doing was applauding him. What they actually did was applaud Mr. Wen who, while he may be well-loved in China, is still the leader of a one-party state that denies its citizens basic freedoms, such as the ability to choose their own leaders.

While the shoe-thrower’s protest may not have been the most well-mannered, he did have a point. The Chinese government is still a repressive regime, and nowhere was that better shown than in the media response to the shoe-throwing. It is no secret that the Chinese media is tightly controlled by the government and criticism of the Communist Party’s monopoly on power is forbidden. One needs only think back to the row over Google’s decision to censor their search engine in China to see just how restricted the media is there. In response to the incident, the Chinese media, as well as giving fawning descriptions of Mr. Wen’s speech, suggested that the shoe-thrower might have ‘mental problems’ and that his actions showed ‘how deeply political nonsense has permeated into European awareness.’

Presumably this ‘nonsense’ includes such ridiculous ideas that the only candidates in their elections are those approved by the government, or that there is widespread political interference in the judicial system, or that punishments such as Hard Labour (called ‘Re-education by Labour’) still exist, or perhaps that places like Tibet are subject to repressive security regimes. All of the above nonsense I managed to find in a quick look at the Foreign Office’s political profile of China. Yes, even the usually moderate and diplomatic Foreign Office, an organisation which does not want to offend the Chinese, uses the word ‘repressive’ about the Chinese government.

China may like to pretend that all is well in the harmonious society, and it may complain that too many in the West like to criticise it unjustly while ignoring anything good about China, but the truth is there is a lot to criticise China for. For all its talk about progress, it is still a country where dissent is punishable by imprisonment, religious freedom is lacking and the democracy is absent. The real disgrace about last week’s shoe-throwing incident is not that it happened but that, among the cries of ‘shame’ and ‘get out’, nobody thought to shout ‘Hear hear.’

There is only one man for the job, and it's not who you think

2008-09-25T22:33:00.000Z

There is only one man suitable to lead this country over the coming years. Of the politicians available, there is only one who has the experience, the acumen and the moral fibre necessary to guide the British ship of state through the rough seas ahead. That man’s name is Gordon Brown.

I do not mean to say that he has not made mistakes, and will not make more, nor do I mean to say that his every policy is solid gold, for there are many that are not (the 10 pence tax debacle being just one of them). But, given the choice between Brown and Cameron, I would choose Brown any day of the week, and not just because I cannot stand the idea of David Cameron as Prime Minister.

Of course Brown is less inspiring than his Conservative counterpart, he does not play the media game as well nor is he as good an orator, but he has never tried to hide who he is, or what his beliefs are. And having spent an hour of my Tuesday afternoon listening to his speech to the Labour conference, I am convinced that he genuinely believes in helping the poor and the disadvantaged, the huddled masses that are at best ignored and at worst damned by the majority of the population. I am convinced that he believes in that most British of principles: fairness, and will do more than the Conservatives to make it a reality. And, in a week when George Osborne declared that the terrible effect the collapse of the banks was simply the workings of the market, I am convinced that he is the man to rebuild the British financial system so that it favours, not the miniscule number of bankers in the City of London, but the vast and overwhelming number of ordinary British citizens.
At the next election, we will be presented with a choice about what sort of country we want to live in. On the one hand, we will have Cameron’s meretricious Conservatives – a veneer of fine and principled words about fairness and global warming, but underneath the same reactionary, elitist, callous party they have always been. On the other hand, we will have the Labour Party – a party with a membership genuinely committed to fairness, with a leader whose morality, whose desire to do good, is unquestionable. I know who I would rather have in Downing Street.

Cameron's Masquerade

2008-07-21T18:50:00.000Z

Only the most callous of individuals could claim that nothing should be done to aid the poor, and so it is laudable that even the Conservative Party should wish to claim, as they did last week, to be the ‘party of the poor.’ Or rather, it would be laudable if the claim were not so false as to be insulting. Let us not forget that David Cameron has advocated the introduction of a social security system based on that previously attempted in Wisconsin. Under such a system , citizens would only be permitted to claim the pittance that is unemployment benefit for only two years of their whole life, no matter their circumstances, no matter their level of skills or education.

This was not the worst aspect of the Wisconsin system, nor do I have time or space to enumerate its countless failings. Suffice it to say, this is not the policy of the ‘party of the poor.’ It is, however, the policy of a party that does not care for the poor – whose support comes from the middle and upper classes where it is more electorally expedient to victimise the poor than to actually help them.

That the Conservatives tend to treat the poor as little more than criminals has been long established. One only needs to look back to the introduction of the minimum wage to see their wholesale opposition to measures designed aid those in dire need (every Tory voted against it, a fact that gives a new meaning to Boris Johnson’s claim that they are ‘leading the way on low pay’).

However, while this is standard practice for the Tory party, it is more surprising when it comes from a former champion of the poor – the Labour Party – who recently stated that they would not countenance increasing the rate of taxation on incomes over £100,000 in order to help the poor because it would ‘send the wrong message.’ What was wrong with the message that those who have money to spare should aid their fellow man and be responsible for the improvement of society was beyond me. One would have thought a Christian such as Brown would agree.

The mantle of ‘the party of the poor’ is a noble target, but for the Conservatives to claim it at this juncture is laughable. Tragically, the same is true of Labour. We must remember that the poor are human too, and their lives just as sacred as those of the rich. They deserve better than either party is offering – better education, better housing and better opportunities. It is wrong to condemn them to more extreme penury, as the Wisconsin model would. Until then, Oliver Letwin’s comment is simply kicking hundreds of thousands of people while they’re down.

BorisWatch: Fear and Loathing in London

2008-05-30T15:38:00.002Z

It’s been almost a month since Boris Johnson became Mayor of London, so what has he done? The answer is: very little, but there are two significant measures he has introduced, both designed to tackle perceived problems with law and order (always a favourite with the paranoid right wing).

The first of these starts on Sunday and will see a blanket ban on the consumption of alcohol, or the possession of open containers of alcohol, on public transport. Boris has claimed that this will make people’s journeys on the London Underground more pleasant as they won’t have to deal with aggressive drinkers. I sincerely hope that I am not the only one that sees the massive problem with this statement, but for all those that can’t quite make it out (like, say, Boris), I’ll point it out. This policy would work if the cause of public drunkenness (which, I’ll concede, is not always edifying) were caused exclusively by people drinking on public transport. However, as anyone with a functioning brain cell will tell you, most people do not get drunk on the tube, but rather do it in the many pubs and clubs around London. Only then do they get on public transport and cause a nuisance, so how does Boris plan to deal with all of those people, who, I imagine, make up a more significant proportion of public transport users than people who drink on the tube, and are probably just as threatening.

So why is this a problem? Well, it isn’t per se, but coming from a party that claims to be against the authoritarian bureaucracy of the current Labour government, and a mayor that has frequently complained of the ‘schoolmarminess of Blair’s Britain,’ it seems just a little hypocritical to be introducing rules and regulations that will do little to improve public welfare. Not only that, but I’d prefer my Mayor (even if I didn’t vote for him) to actually implement productive policies, rather than mess about with symbolic but ultimately pointless and ineffectual gestures.

The second tactic is more frightening, more pointless and more counter-productive. They are, of course, knife arches. This is one of those policies that I hate mainly because it sounds so reasonable so people not given to close questioning of government policy, or are of the vaguely authoritarian bent anyway, but is, in fact, ridiculous. For those among you in those two categories, I’ll explain:

Firstly, on a purely organisational basis, this policy is simply impractical. Imagine the thousands, if not millions, of commuters who use London’s stations every day. Now, imagine the delay and chaos caused by making them all go through knife arches, especially as they are all guaranteed to be carrying something metal (keys, wallet, mobile phones etc. etc.). Of course, they could always use racial or some other form of profiling, it’s not as if that’s ever caused a riot…..

Then there’s the principle argument. When any one of us can be subjected to a search procedure on the whim of a police officer, without any evidence that we might be somehow guilty of a crime, we become mere objects of suspicion, with knife arches adding to our status as the most watched people in the world (and therefore, presumably, the most suspected). Oh, and for all the individuals out there who say that they don’t mind, they’ve got nothing to hide, I’ll go ahead and assume that you won’t mind having security cameras installed in all the rooms of your house, you know, just to make sure you’re not selling crack out of your kitchen. Hey, you’ve got nothing to hide.

To be honest, the worst thing about this is not the faintly authoritarian tone of the policies of a man who complained about just such policies when he was in opposition, it’s not even the fact that they’re pointless and intrusive policies. No, the worst part of it is that they are being implemented when the facts suggest that they aren’t actually necessary. While Kit Malthouse, Boris’ Deputy Mayor in charge of Policing, claims that there has been an increase in ‘death and injury caused by young people carrying and using knives,’ the Metropolitan Police’s most recent survey suggests that knife crime has actually dropped 15.7% over the past two years and that you’re twice as likely to be attacked on public transport in Perth, Australia (where many Britons go to flee the crime of their homeland) than you are on public transport in London. The first point this raises is the question: why is the Deputy Mayor not in possession of all the facts, or is he deliberately misleading the public (and if so, why?)? The second point is that, if Team Boris really wants to make Londoners feel safer, why doesn’t he tell us about these figures rather than instituting policies and making statements guaranteed to make us think the worst about our city? Surely he’s clever enough to know that it would be a better way to make us feel safer, or perhaps that Oxford education’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

The Kosovo Crisis

2008-02-18T21:44:00.001Z

At the beginning of another century, a crisis is once again developing in the Balkans and, once again, a nation’s desire for independence is causing concern among the world’s major powers. The problem facing today’s powers is that of Kosovo and its attempt to win independence from Serbia but before I talk about the details of this particular situation, I’ll give some background.

In the late 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic began to suppress the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo. While Kosovo was part of Serbia (and, indeed, is very dear to the Serbians and viewed as the cradle of their culture), Serbs only made up 10% of the population there. In 1999, the continued persecution of the Kosovan Albanians led to a series of NATO air strikes against targets in both Serbia and Kosovo. Since then, Kosovo was governed as an autonomous region under UN and NATO protection, although it was still technically part of Serbia. Then, on 17th February, Kosovo declared independence.

That is the story so far. Now comes the difficult issue of recognition. The UK, USA, Germany and France, among others, have all decided to recognise Kosovo’s independence (or are expected to do so soon). This is done under the principles of democracy and self-determination. The government of Kosovo under Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was democratically elected by the people of Kosovo, and the declaration of independence unanimously approved by the Kosovan parliament.

Opposing them are Serbia and Russia, among others, who claim that it is a breach of international law and outside of the original UN Security Council Resolution on the Kosovan issue. For Serbia, as I have already said, Kosovo is an important place historically and they have sentimental reasons for keeping hold of it. Russia’s angle is harder to judge. It is hard to believe that President Putin is the concerned with international law, it doesn’t fit with his track record. Perhaps he fears another pro-Western government near his borders, perhaps he wishes to provoke a confrontation with the West. It is hard to say.

What is certain is this, with Serbia’s declaration in November of 2006 that Kosovo could only be removed from Serbia by force, and their recalling of their ambassador to the United States, Serbia is not going to give in without a fight. The question is whether or not they will fight with force or diplomacy.

Fighting with diplomacy will not be a great problem, but the use of military force will put the Western world in an almost impossible bind. On the one hand, they will have to defend their credibility with regards to democracy and the defence of small nations, especially ones whose independence they support. On the other, they will have to use their already over-stretched forces to fight a European war, and there is a chance that one of the West’s opponents will be Russia.

It is absolutely vital that Putin’s Russia, with its state terrorism and authoritarian government not be allowed dominance of world affairs, which the weakness of the West would give them. As bad as the USA may be, that would be far worse. It is also vital that the Western World, especially the USA and UK, stand up for democracy when it is in its greatest need. The people of Kosovo have made a declaration of their will and we must not allow would-be Tyrants to crush that democratic spirit. Hopefully we will be able to accomplish this without resorting to violence. We must exhaust our diplomatic channels before fighting, but we must prepare for all eventualities. This is a situation that could easily descend into chaos and carnage, just as it did at the beginning of the last century. Hopefully the world leaders of today will have more sense than they did then, or perhaps the terrible prospect of modern warfare will restrain them. I do not know whether or not there will be a war, but we must hope and pray that there is not. We will probably not survive it.

Tough On The Poor....

2008-02-08T21:16:00.000Z

There must have been a coup. It seems we all missed it, but the government of the United Kingdom must have been overthrown and replaced by the editorial board of the Daily Mail. This can be the only explanation for the latest anti-poor policy to be announced by the supposedly socialist Labour government.

Caroline Flint, the housing minister, has proposed that those living in social housing, something which is designed to make sure that the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society are not forced onto the streets, should actively seek work as a condition of their tenancy. The idea behind it is to use fear as a method of fighting unemployment rather than, say, improving training and education for the disadvantaged. And, as a further benefit for the government, they can threaten the working classes with the stick of homelessness and hence please the Daily Mail.

This policy will not help the problem of unemployment among those living on council estates (which is currently at around 50%). The problem does not stem from laziness and so cannot be solved with fear. The problem is caused by poor education and no amount of threats will overcome the fact that these unemployed lack the skills to help them into work. This punitive policy is designed simply to make the government look tough on the poor – something that is oddly popular.

The result of this policy will not be reduced unemployment but increased homelessness. Single mothers will have to leave their young children alone (which will, of course, do wonders for their upbringing) or face the terrible prospect of being without shelter for themselves and their children. The members of society who are least able to look after themselves will be driven further into poverty, and for what reason? It is time the government abandoned populism and started to think.

As Some Day It May Happen That A Victim Must Be Found

2008-01-10T20:42:00.000Z

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed, who never would be missed.

So sings the Lord High Executioner in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. In 1992, Peter Lilley MP (whom I am ashamed to say is an Old Alleynian), suggested at the Conservative Party Conference that, among those society offenders who never would be missed could be included “welfare scroungers” and “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue.” This belief pervades middle class opinion beyond all reasonable degree. The idea that people on benefits are simply scroungers and that the poor are poor because they’re lazy and therefore don’t deserve benefits has become almost axiomatic in British politics. Indeed, such a view has been one of the tenets of the Conservative Party ever since Mrs. Thatcher decided she didn’t like poor people. Worryingly, it’s starting to infiltrate that former bastion of Socialism and defender of working class rights, the Labour Party.

The Conservative Party have never really been comfortable with the government helping people. I’m not quite sure why they have an aversion to helping those in need, but they are perpetually on the lookout for ways to get out of giving money to the people that need it most. David Cameron, the allegedly ‘Compassionate Conservative’, recently announced a tough new policy on incapacity benefit. He wants to force all of the 2.64 million recipients of incapacity benefit to prove that they are actually disabled. As support for this policy, he cited the ‘fact’ that there are 200,000 people who are pretending to be disabled in order to receive the pittance that is incapacity benefit (about £80 a week at most, clearly a fortune). Where he got this figure, no-one is quite sure, although I have an idea that it may have come from an orifice not usually associated with good ideas.

This ridiculous pronouncement is hot on the heels of another, equally ridiculous one, that the Conservatives would follow the Wisconsin model for benefits. For those that do not know, the Wisconsin model entails mothers of infants being forced into work, the privatisation of social security (which led to incompetence, corruption and general lack of decency in welfare distribution) and, as if that isn’t enough, you were only allowed to claim 2 years of benefits throughout your whole life. No provision was made to enable the unemployed to be retrained and given skills that would get them at least acceptable jobs so that they didn’t have to resort to benefits. No, as far as the leaders in Wisconsin were concerned, the poor were worth precisely sod all.

Just to put things into perspective, receiving benefits is not a comfortable or good position to be in. Unemployment benefit (or Jobseeker’s allowance as it has been pointlessly renamed) is £46.85 a week for those between 18 and 24, and £59.15 for those aged 25 or over. As a guidance, the poverty line for 2005/2006 was £108 per week for a single adult (that is after tax and housing payments have been deducted). Obviously people don’t live on unemployment benefit alone, but even so, it does not provide anything like a comfortable amount of money for these so-called scroungers. Living on benefits entails living in appalling conditions in the most run-down, crime-ridden areas of the country. If you think this is a rare occurrence, think again. 13 million people in this country live below the poverty line, that’s a fifth of the population. It rips apart self-respect and leads to human misery on a scale unimaginable by the likes of the Conservatives who believe an estate is something with fields and a large house.

Yet this is the Conservative view of Britain. A nation where the upper and middle classes pay less tax and the poor suffer. A nation where the misery of poverty is compounded by a draconian welfare system. The further destruction of the welfare state started by Clement Attlee in 1945. He sought to build a New Jerusalem here in the UK, a new promised land where suffering was unknown and people could get the help they needed without being subjected to abuse and suspicion.

With 13 million people in this nation living in poverty, one would think that every political party would seek to help them out of it. Especially as poverty breeds the criminality that Middle England is so afraid of. But, instead of improving education, both for adults and children, instead of helping people raise their aspirations beyond becoming the most powerful drug dealer on the estate, the Conservatives want to get tough on the impoverished, probably because nobody ever lost an election going after the poor.

The day has come and the victim has been found. It is the British poor, and David Cameron is the Lord High Executioner.

An Unholy Mission

2007-12-08T21:48:00.000Z

What matters more in this world, Catholic dogma or the well-being of the people who live in? Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, seems to think it is dogma. The Cardinal, in his crusade to impose hardline Catholic doctrine on social policy, has recently issued a code of medical ethics which states that doctors must not offer any service that conflicts with the Cardinal’s quasi-Medieval (and downright dangerous) beliefs regarding healthcare. Therefore, they must not prescribe contraception or offer abortions or IVF treatment. The General Medical Council has deemed this code to be unworkable, but despite this the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth in north London is expected to implement it in the next few weeks.

This intrusion by hardline religion into social policy represents a direct threat to healthcare and puts Catholic values above patients, an abhorrence for the medical profession, which is supposed to put patient care above all else. Never mind the fact that absence of contraception doesn’t prevent people form having sex (and, in fact, increases unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases), and that abortions may be necessary to save the life of a woman, Cardinal Murphy O’Connor is determined to see that Catholic dogma is the writ that runs in this nation, and damn the consequences, though they be disastrous.

This is not the only time that the Cardinal has sought to impose his extreme version of Catholicism on this nation. Last month, he tried to block laws on embryo research by lobbying Catholic MPs. Not caring that such research could save millions of lives in the future and provide cures for some of the most debilitating genetic diseases, the Cardinal tried to force Catholic MPs to choose between his hardline beliefs and public good. He has also led an attempt by extremist Christians to prevent homosexuals from adopting, basing his case not on evidence or rationality, but on bizarre arguments derived from a few lines of the Bible, lines which many others do not believe.

Religion is fine, I have no problem with religion, even extremist religion, as long as it is observed in private. As soon as it invades public policy and men like Cardinal Murphy O’Connor attempt to impose it on others, it becomes dangerous and must be resisted by anyone with a social conscience.

Free Speech Standing in Oxford

2007-11-24T19:10:00.000Z

The views of Nick Griffin and David Irving are abhorrent, disgusting and absolutely wrong. For this reason, it is right that the Oxford Union Society has invited them to speak there.

By sending these invitations to the leader of the BNP and one of the most notorious holocaust deniers currently masquerading as an historian, the Oxford Union is providing us with an opportunity to destroy their ridiculous views and defeat them in public debate. This is the reason that we have freedom of speech, it allows us to deride the views of people like Griffin and Irving and hence make sure that on-one else believes them. This is what inviting them to speak at the Oxford Union will do, it will not legitimise their views and it will not give them a platform. It’s difficult to look legitimate when you’re being torn to shreds by students.

Had the invitation been withdrawn, as some of the more stupid and short-sighted groups and individuals in this country have demanded, and among them a member of the Cabinet, the effect would have been disastrous, it would have been the exact opposite of what those who call for Griffin and Irving to be silenced want. It would have made them martyrs, the sole defenders of freedom of speech. Not only this, but it would have meant that a golden opportunity to destroy them would have sailed by. If we continue to forbid people like Griffin and Irving from speaking in public, nobody will hear the counter-arguments. Not only will the BNP be martyrs, they will also be more able to convince people of their lunacy because they will be unable to argue against them. By refusing to engage these abhorrent people in debate, we do not contain them, but allow them to spread their views all the more effectively.

Fortunately, the Oxford Union voted to invite Griffin and Irving. The students of the Oxford University will not be swayed by their bigotry, they are far too intelligent for that. Instead, they will crush their arguments in five minutes flat and we will be a little further on the way to finally getting rid of this cancer in British politics. Because of actions like this, we will be a stronger society. Without actions like this, we would be a more vulnerable one, at the mercy of fear, intolerance and hate.

Shirking Our Responsibilities

2007-10-30T21:56:00.000Z

Saudi Arabia is a nation that still administers public floggings, sometimes consisting of thousands of lashes. This is not the worst of Saudi Arabia’s vicious excesses, and I suspect that it may not even be the most barbaric. Even so, Britain does not seem to care, as has been seen by the welcoming of their King.

When it was Zimbabwe, Gordon Brown was not so willing to shake the blood-soaked hand of a brutal dictator. Indeed, he made it a matter of principle to boycott a conference that he was scheduled to attend, claiming in an article in the Independent that “We will not shirk our responsibilities.”

He cited as the reason for his refusal to meet with Robert Mugabe that “There is no freedom in Zimbabwe; no freedom of association; no freedom of the press.” It’s interesting that, if you replace ‘Zimbabwe’ with ‘Saudi Arabia’, the sentence is no less true. Indeed, the similarities between the two nations are remarkable. Neither is a democracy, neither has any semblance of human rights or common decency and neither has any sense of Justice. In fact, the only difference between the two regimes is that Britain doesn’t need anything from Zimbabwe.

While Zimbabwe gives us nothing except an opportunity to show off just how much we care about human rights throughout the world, Saudi Arabia gives us oil, and it seems we didn’t care so much about global human rights after all.

The truth is Brown’s posturing on Zimbabwe was a front, a pretence in order to fool the British people, and perhaps the rest of the world, that Britain was serious about human rights, that we cared about the plight of people in far off lands, who have been deprived of the rights that they ought to have simply by being human. Apparently, we only care when it’s politically convenient, so much for Brown’s alleged morality.

We should support human rights, everywhere. We should support democracy, everywhere and we should support liberty, everywhere. Even when it may be politically difficult to do so, it is our duty as a free and powerful nation. We must not shirk our responsibility, as Brown has so disgracefully done.

The Duty of a Nation

2007-09-27T19:33:00.000Z

England may have its flaws, but reading the newspapers today, these flaws are irrelevant compared to the vast, unimaginable and often fatal suffering endured by the citizens of other countries.

I refer, of course, to Burma, where the soldiers of the vicious military Junta that usurped the democratically elected government of that country are beating to death Buddhist monks and other citizens protesting against that Junta. For conducting a protest, an act that we here may exercise without fear of severe beating, these most courageous people are being murdered by a regime hell bent on absolute power.

And this is not the first time such a terrible act has occurred. In 1988, troops opened fire on demonstrators. Thousands died, and the regime lived on. Many analysts now fear a repeat of this most barbaric act of violence.

From our peaceful land, it may be difficult to comprehend the sheer scale of the violence that has been perpetrated by the Junta in Burma. Not simply violence against the person, but violence against their human rights, rights that we hold to be inalienable. The Burmese people have been stripped of their rights, their liberty and, in many cases, their lives, because they are, in the words of Gladstone, a nation struggling rightly to be free. For this reason, they must be supported by the free nations of the world in any way possible.

President Bush has already encouraged sanctions, although these are likely to be of limited use. Sanctions usually only impact the poor members of society, while the government remains strong, and this is not what we should be doing. Action must be taken, and it must be decisive action. We must give our full support to the protestors, and it must be practical support. If necessary, it must be the support of a rifle.

Current events in Burma are an excellent example of why we should fight to defend our freedoms, and a terrible sign of what may happen if we don’t. But it does not only show us why we must defend our rights at home, it shows us why we must defend liberty for all the peoples of the world, for all those who are oppressed and beaten, as the people of Burma are in their brave attempt to assert their basic human rights. It is our duty as free and powerful nations to fight against the injustice and inhumanity of such regimes, and this is a duty we cannot afford to be neglectful of.

Greed Is Not Good

2007-09-02T21:02:00.001Z

Over the summer, the financial services industry came to a shocking conclusion: lending a lot of money to people who could never pay it was a very, very bad idea. This conclusion was shocking purely because it took them years to realise this fact which, to the layman at least, would appear to be obvious.

However, the markets will recover and the men in the city will continue to make ridiculous amounts of money out of all proportion with what they actually do. The real crisis does not lie on Wall Street or in the Square Mile, it lies with the hundreds and thousands of ordinary people who have been dispossessed or bankrupted by the sheer unadulterated greed of the bankers who lent them the money and thought only of the money, rather than the lives that they were about to destroy.

The truth is that the men in the city live only to make money. They lack morality, compassion and decency and have taken to heart the now infamous words of Gordon Gekko: Greed is Good. They don’t care that their machinations can and very often will bring the ruination of the ordinary man, as long as they get their money, everything is fine.

It isn’t just the bankers though, the politicians are also to blame. Only now is President Bush finally attempting to do something to stem the tide of repossessions, but nothing he can do will erase the fact that, when the politicians needed to protect their people, they failed. The relatively laissez-faire attitude of the governments along with the easy credit given out by the banks has conspired, however unwittingly, to destroy the lives of thousands of people. They have been left without homes and without funds, all thanks to the greed of the city.

Business is fine, I have no problem with business, but when money is put above people’s quality of life, it is not business, it is banditry. In future, the stock brokers and the bankers must think less about their wallets and more about the people they are dealing with, for Gekko was wrong, greed is not good.

A Private Attack on Public Freedom

2007-08-04T20:34:00.000Z

There is so much wrong with BAA’s current attempt to restrict the rights of environmentalists protesting against the expansion of Heathrow that it is difficult to know where to begin. Do I begin with the injunction itself, a vicious attempt to further shred a right to protest already in tatters while targeting a vast array of people, regardless of their intent? Do I talk about BAA’s lawyer, Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, a man who has made a living ripping chunks of flesh out of the body of British civil liberties while insisting that he is a democrat that believes in the right to protest? Or do I talk about the fact that such an injunction, if granted, would lay down a legal precedent of allowing companies to bully the protest groups, so vital to the functioning of our free society, with impunity?

The right to free protest is one of the most fundamental to society. Protests raise awareness about an issue, as well as creating a PR issue for either the government or the company being protested against, a point even more vital in today’s media-centric world. Through this, and the amount of support a protest demonstrates, action can be forced upon the government or a company. In a democratic society, the people must be free to express their will.

If the injunction were granted it would further reduce the right to freedom of protest from its inviolable position as a human right to a privilege, something that you’re allowed if you’re good and don’t make too much noise. That is not the point of the process. BAA want the injunction because they think a protest would be too “disruptive”. This is part of the point of a political protest, but if the protestors do cross the line into criminal territory, then there are adequate laws to deal with it and there is no cause to prevent law-abiding citizens from carrying out a peaceful protest. If the judgement expected on Monday is in favour of BAA, a major blow will have been struck against the rights of the individual citizens of the country, against people like you and me. Not only because our rights will, once again, have sustained severe damage, but also because it will have been at the hands of a private company. If the injunction is granted, it will set a precedent that will allow private companies to suppress the rights of the people. Forget about the sovereignty of Parliament or the people, we will have the sovereignty of shareholders.

What Britain requires is a law guaranteeing our rights to freedom of speech, freedom of protest and all the other freedoms that are vital to a functioning liberal democracy. Only this will provide cast-iron protection against private companies that wish to curtail the public’s freedom.

Then there is the lawyer. Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden has made a living out of finding ways to limit the right to protest. He has protected many varied organisations from the hassles of protestors, including animal testing laboratories and arms manufacturers. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these causes, he has profited from stripping British citizens of their rights.

And while he does this, he claims that he believes in democracy and human rights, saying “My thesis is that protest in a liberal democracy should be conducted peacefully and lawfully.” Of course protest should be peaceful and lawful, but there was no real suggestion that the majority of protestors were going to be anything other than this. After all, these are members of the National Trust, not the National Front.

Mr. Lawson-Cruttenden also operates the lawyers ‘taxi-rank’ principle, whereby lawyers never turn down work in their field, he is an “intellectual prostitute”, as he calls himself. It’s odd to find someone who is willing to admit that they prefer prostitution to principle.

Drug-Induced Madness

2007-07-20T16:52:00.000Z

First the Conservatives and now Labour have queued up to pay tribute to that bloc of reactionary idiocy known as “Middle England”. I refer, of course, to their recent pronouncements regarding cannabis. Iain Duncan Smith (yeah, I though I’d seen the last of him too) and Gordon Brown (although in more guarded terms) have called for the re-classification of the drug, generally assumed to mean from Class C to Class B, making possession an arrestable offence once more and hence wasting hours of police time arresting and processing essentially harmless stoners instead of, well, people that actually pose a threat to public safety (like murderers and terrorists, for instance).

This argument is made on a couple of points which are. The first is that cannabis today is stronger than it used to be, and therefore the lower classification is nonsensical. This is simply not true. Studies carried out be the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction have shown that “the effective strength of cannabis consumed in Britain has remained stable for the past 30 years” and that high-potency varieties of the drug have always existed, thus rendering the groundless.

The second point is that cannabis poses a health risk. Quite apart from the fact that deaths in this country due to cannabis register at literally zero (compared to the umpteen smokers and drinkers that die each year), the claim that cannabis causes psychosis is greatly exaggerated. While in a tiny minority of cases it can induce psychosis (and then usually in those that were prone to psychosis anyway), for most it does not have this effect. Indeed, one of the chemicals in the drug, cannabidinol (or CBD), reduces psychosis. In fact, it is better at doing this than the legal anti-psychotics currently available on the NHS. It may even be possible to grow cannabis that contained high levels of CBD. However, this is impossible under prohibition and without regulation provided by law, this will not happen.

British drugs policy has always been a mess. Under the current situation, cannabis is illegal while tobacco and alcohol, both deadly, are legal. Indeed, the House of Commons itself, in a report published by the Science and Technology Select Committee admits this. And yet, come the time for re-classification, MPs will, sheep-like, head for the Aye lobby, for they are too afraid of the ignorant, reactionary, conservative horde of Middle England, a dark territory, unknown to reason or logical thought. Such is the way that good policies are destroyed. And, as a result of this, teenagers will be locked up for something that is completely harmless.

None of our Business

2007-07-20T16:51:00.000Z

Two whole pages of today’s Times were devoted to it and yesterday’s free London papers shouted it from their front pages – the Home Secretary has confessed to smoking cannabis at university. In other news, the Pope confessed some Catholic tendencies… Anyway, despite cannabis being relatively harmless (see above), the papers were full of reports that various cabinet ministers had confessed to this “crime” (although oddly enough not one of them enjoyed it).

First, a point of pedantry – it isn’t a breach of the law to smoke cannabis, or, indeed, take any other drug. Possession is illegal, dealing drugs is illegal, but consumption is not.

Second, a point of principle – it is none of our damned business. Even politicians are entitled to private lives and if it doesn’t effect how they do their jobs we do not have a right to know about it. If Jacqui Smith, or any of her cabinet colleagues, were still taking drugs, it would definitely be in the public interest for papers to report it, but the truth is she isn’t and hasn’t for a quarter of a century. Now, I may not be an expert, but I’m fairly sure you can’t be stoned for 25 years.

Acts of Journalism (Part VI)

2007-06-27T21:08:00.000Z

Blair’s Broken Promise

By the time you read this, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair will no longer be Prime Minister. He will become one of those rare creatures, an ex-Prime Minister (of which there are only two other examples alive today) and he will leave behind a Britain that has, without a shred of doubt, changed.

Ask the man on the street what he thinks Tony Blair’s legacy will be and it will almost certainly contain the words “Iraq”, “spin”, “NHS crisis”, “human rights abuse” or “liar” (or, if they’re more inclined to the far-right, “immigration” and “multiculturalism, said in tones of disdain). However, is this fair? Has Blair’s premiership been an entirely negative thing, and are all of these criticisms justified? While the public perception of the Blair years has been clouded with these accusations, some of them justified, Blair’s leadership has not been the unmitigated failure that most appear to believe.

However, I shall begin with the justified criticism. Under Blair, Britain has seen its people disengage from politics. This can be seen by the sharp decline in voter turnout. In 1997, the year of the Labour landslide, voter turnout was around 71%. This was only very slightly below the average for the previous ten elections, and approximately the same as the turnout that re-elected Margaret Thatcher for the first time. However, in 2001, turnout plummeted to 59%, only increasing to 61% in 2005. This cannot be attributed to mere disillusionment as may be expected with any government. Since the war, voter turnout has not dropped below 70%, with the exception of these two most recent general elections.

This disengagement, which has perhaps allowed the Blair government to push through measures that would, in other circumstances, be violently opposed by the people, must have a cause, and part of that cause can be found in the “spin” that emanated from Downing Street over these years. Spin is certainly not a new thing; it is only natural that governments attempt to put a positive light on their activities. However, under Tony Blair, it appeared to reach new heights (or depths, depending on how you look at it). The Labour “spin doctors”, most notably Alistair Campbell, attempted to control the media in an entirely new way, keeping a tight leash on information and access to it. Even the Prime Minister’s monthly press conferences in Number 10, the first of their kind, were tightly managed with reporters eager not to anger the spin doctors.

For most, this spin reached its zenith with the “Dodgy Dossier” and the Iraq war. This dossier, especially when proved to be almost totally untrue (and, in fact, the whitewash that was the Hutton Report) only served to increase the mistrust of government and politics, a mistrust compounded most recently by “cash-for-peerages”. This mistrust, and the ensuing disengagement from politics, is certainly a legacy that Tony Blair will leave behind.

Iraq, and the “Special Relationship”, will be another. The Special Relationship (for which read “slavish support of the US Government”) damaged Britain’s credibility abroad. Not only is Britain seen as nothing but the “poodle” of the United States (there is a reason why this dog is given Mr. Blair’s face in many political cartoons), but also as reactionary, with our support for “extraordinary rendition” (the euphemism the Pentagon has given to kidnapping and torturing terrorist suspects without recourse to such tiresome encumbrances as due process and courts of law), non-opposition to Guantanamo and failing to stand up to America over pretty much anything, we have lost friends in Europe and the Middle East (where we had few friends to begin with), made our local Muslim communities ripe fields to be harvested by the terrorist recruiters and lessened our diplomatic status in the world.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the greatest foreign relations disaster since Suez, our troops are fighting a battle they have little hope of winning while every day an insurgency grows stronger. Perhaps the situation is not entirely Blair’s fault, but he (and his cabinet) voted for the war and he has turned a deaf ear to reports of the situation worsening while blundering on, putting British soldiers (and civilians) at risk. This will be the most significant item of Blair’s legacy, and rightly so.

Finally, Mr. Blair has left an authoritarian stamp upon British society. As well as creating over 3000 new criminal offences, the Blair government has instituted detention without trial (at least until it was struck down), ASBOs that are applicable for just about anything, a ban on the right to protest in Parliament Square, stop and search powers, as well as introducing a bill (the hideously dull sounding Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill) that would allow ministers to amend laws without consulting parliament at all. All this, in addition to numerous other affronts to the basic liberties of this country, has resulted in an incredibly authoritarian government. Again, Mr. Blair will be remembered for this, and rightly so.

However, it is not all bad. For example, despite constant criticism of the NHS, it has not, contrary to public opinion, been an absolute disaster. While many trusts are facing financial problems (which is to be expected, with such a huge public organisation), the idea that care is all sub-standard is simply unfounded. There are still more beds than there are occupants, waiting lists are down (although this may be a branch of the aforementioned “spin”) and, most significantly, 92% of hospital inpatients rated their overall care as “Good” or better. While I could now digress and pontificate on the virtues of socialised healthcare, this article is about Mr. Blair, so I shall merely say that there has been an increase in government spending on the NHS in addition to the things mentioned above.

While speaking of government spending, I must briefly mention the British economic state. One of the greatest achievements of Blair’s early years was the granting of independence for the Bank of England, resulting in interest rates being set according to what was good for the economy, rather than what would gain votes. This should be viewed as a success, as should the fact that Britain has seen steady growth and reasonable inflation. While this may be more due to the Chancellor and incoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Blair’s government will leave this behind and it must be considered in any evaluation of his premiership.

However, Mr. Blair’s greatest achievement has to be the great leaps he has made towards peace and reconciliation in Ireland. Beginning with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 to the ceasefires, peace talks and, finally, the disarmament of militant elements in Northern Ireland and the formation of a power sharing executive for the province, Blair has achieved what many Prime Ministers before him, from Gladstone to Thatcher, failed to achieve.

Had we not gone to war in Iraq, it is likely that his achievements in Ireland (which, after centuries of bloodshed and hatred, were no small deed) would have been the thing that marked out Tony Blair’s tenure as Prime Minister. Indeed, we could have seen great success, with public spending increasing, healthcare improving, more people going to university, Britain becoming richer and quality of life improving. When Labour won a landslide victory in 1997, they were given their greatest chance to make an impact on British society since Attlee won the 1945 election. With a huge majority in the House of Commons and a massive mandate from the people, the Labour Party had so much potential. However, they became mired in scandal, spin and foreign policy disasters and now, while Tony Blair searches through the rubble of that first hope for a legacy, the potential has been wasted. Instead of being a force for great reform and an improvement in social welfare, Mr. Blair did not fulfil this potential. Ultimately, his legacy isn’t Iraq or authoritarianism, those are merely symbols of the greater Blair legacy, that of disappointment, failed potential and frustrated hopes.

[Originally published in the Political Economy Review, 10th edition- 2007]

Only in America?

2007-06-01T17:42:00.000Z

It turns out I should have delayed writing that last article, for no sooner had I written it than I heard Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh’s ridiculous pronouncement comparing abortion to the Dunblane massacre (where 16 children were gunned down in Scotland). In his tirade against a woman’s right to choose, he said that

“We are killing -- in our country -- the equivalent of a classroom of kids every single day, he said. Can you imagine that? Two Dunblane massacres a day in our country going on and on.”

Of course, the good Cardinal conveniently ignored the fact that, while Dunblane was a cold-blooded, unprovoked and vicious massacre without reason or logic, abortion is not so unfounded and unthinking. In comparing abortion to a massacre, Cardinal O’Brien sought to arouse revulsion and shock, what he has done instead is to callously ignore all the women who, without abortions, would now be dead and insultingly compare their actions to the work of a homicidal maniac. He has disregarded the manifold medical and social reasons behind abortions. Reasons, I might add, that in this country, two doctors have to certify. This is not abortion on demand, this is not cold, unthinking, unreasoning murder and it would appear that the good Cardinal is seeking to place the life of an unborn child, who would not live without the mother, above the life of that mother. It would appear that he does not care that, if abortion is illegal, many will still seek it, and it will be dangerous, even fatal, to the mother.

In this, we see some of the worst of the American Christian right - something once dismissed with the words “Only in America” - rearing its hideous head in this country. The topic of abortion, which has divided American opinion since the Supreme Court gave women the right to choose, is now being raised by our own particular set of Christian fundamentalists, although surprisingly, they belong to the Catholic Church, rather than the fringe evangelical groups that one finds in America. Only public opinion is not, in this case, on their side, as it is not with homosexuality. While the Christian right may scream loudly and attempt to impose their version of morality upon us, a version that denies basic rights to many, we must remember that the silent majority is on our side. I wish they would be more vocal.

Cardinal O’Brien was backed up by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, England’s top-ranking Catholic Prelate and a man who recently hit the front pages demanding that the government not end homophobic discrimination in adoption. Now this holy pair is seeking to deny communion to any pro-choice politicians attending Mass. They are forcing Ministers like Ruth Kelly (who still hasn’t said homosexuality isn’t a sin) to choose between Christianity and Politics. I hope that the disproportionate influence of the religious right is resisted, and I hope that such ministers and members of Parliament choose public opinion, rights and safety.

The Thin Veil

2007-05-30T17:20:00.000Z

First, something amusing. According to Reuters, the Polish government is going to initiate an investigation into the Teletubbies. Yes, you did read that right, I did mean to write the Teletubbies. Now, the question is, why? Why would anyone want to investigate the Teletubbies? OK, they’re annoying and they don’t speak English, but that’s no reason for a governmental investigation. Apparently the supposed homosexuality of the programme is grounds for a probe, though. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Polish government’s children’s rights watchdog wants to start an investigation to out the Teletubbies.
This very same idea was raised by the late Jerry Falwell, a US evangelist. Something makes me shudder whenever I hear the words “US evangelist”. I presume it is because of what usually follows. The now familiar diatribe of hatred, mixed in with a healthy dose of fire and brimstone and a condemnation of the populous’ apparent moral bankruptcy. We all know the score.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Christianity is being used by a set of ultra-conservatives professing membership of that religion to justify all sorts of hatred. Seemingly forgetting the part about “love thy neighbour”, the extreme Christian right campaign vigorously against rights for homosexuals. They are joined by the usual conservative suspects, who campaign because they don’t’ want homosexuals to have “special rights”. Since when is equal access to housing and education a “special” right? Since when is the right to raise a child a “special” right? Since when is the right not to be discriminated against, not to be attacked and victimised in the street a “special” right? In their all-consuming hatred of homosexuality, the conservative/Christian alliance has forgotten that these people are human beings. They have forgotten that their religion was based, in the main, on altruism, on helping your fellow man.
This became particularly apparent in the Catholic Church’s campaign to prevent homosexual couples from adopting. They claimed that they were not fit to raise children, because children require two loving parents, conveniently forgetting that we let single-parent families raise children, and that often these children do well in life.
They claim that it is offensive to their religion, that their God forbids it, and it is therefore wrong. It isn’t religion, there are many good, decent Christians who do not take this hard-line, what it is, however, is good, old-fashioned ignorant bigotry, covered by a thin veil of religious doctrine, religious doctrine that has moved on from being based on a book written back when it was acceptable to sell your daughter into slavery (as condoned by the Bible), when it was acceptable to execute people for working on the Sabbath (as condoned in the Bible) and when it was not acceptable to eat pork (as forbidden in the Bible). I don’t see many Christians complaining about this.
This problem is becoming increasingly prevalent, not just in the USA (where there are already purpose-built conservative Christian colleges), but in the UK. The Principal of Wycliffe Hall, a theological college of Oxford, believes that said conservatives should “capture” the theological colleges and hence influence future generations of the ministry. We have a government minister who not only is a member of an extremist Christian sect, but refuses to say that homosexuality is not a sin.
Make no mistake; such policies will lead us backwards, into a world of inequality, of hatred, of division. If we allow such things to take root, it will destroy every step towards a better society we have taken since we stopped burning heretics.

The Massive Over-reaction of the Highly Paranoid

2007-05-14T18:26:00.000Z

It is not often that I comment on what would appear to be relatively minor incidents in foreign countries, but here's a little tale illustrating the terrible paranoia that can follow disasters, and must be guarded against. It is, of course, from America:

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, a boy was expelled from Clements High School in Texas. You may well ask what the reason was. Was he found carrying a firearm onto school premises? Was he taking or dealing drugs on school grounds? Was he victimising other students? No. His crime was to create, many years ago, a map for the internet game Counter-Strike based on his school.

The truth is I don't really know what I can say about this bizarre state of affairs. It should be immediately obvious to anyone thinking about the above paragraph for a minute to realise the utter stupidity of the school's decision.

Or so any right-thinking, sensible individual would believe. Unfortunately, it would appear that the school board directly responsible for Clements is not populated by right-thinking, sensible individuals. It would appear that it is, instead, populated by paranoid morons who cannot see the fact that making a map for a video game does not qualify as behaviour signalling psychotic predisposition. Now, I understand that after a tragedy involving a boy of a psychotic disposition (although this was not helped by his situation, as reported in the previous article) shooting many of his fellow students, schools are liable to be a little edgy, and I could understand if the boy had brought weaponry into school, or said that he'd planned to kill some people. But the fact is he didn't, he made a map for a video game. That's the security risk here. Apparently.

Now, to the school board's credit, they did organise a meeting to discuss the reinstatement of this unfortunate. Unfortunately, a quorum was not present as many of the board's members stayed away (for what reason I cannot be sure) including, and here's the surprise, the Board's President Steve Smelley, the man who called the meeting. Now, not attending a meeting that you've called is a pretty clear indication that you don't want that meeting in the first place, although again, I cannot fathom why.

Time was when you'd make a mistake, admit it and resign immediately.

Acts of Journalism (Part V)

2007-04-20T23:23:00.000Z

Before I post my article, I would like to extend my deepest condolences to those who lost friends and family in the Virginia Tech massacre. Words fail.

Nobody is Born This Way

We may never know what led Cho Seung-Hui to wake up one Monday morning and murder 32 people. We may be able to hazard a guess at what brought about this tragedy at Virginia Tech University. There are clues in the form of his “multimedia manifesto”, as it has been christened, but it is highly likely that we will never know for sure.
However, while following the reports of this tragic event, I could not help but think of another incident which took place in Littleton, Colorado. On the 20th of April, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed twelve students and a teacher at the now infamous Columbine High School.
In the aftermath of such an event there was, of course, a desperate struggle for answers. Many reasons were proffered. While it is undoubtedly true that both boys (and, indeed, Cho) were mentally unbalanced, the question has to be “What made them that way?” There must have been something, there must have been a reason for this. One thing is clear: they weren’t born wanting to kill their classmates.
In the case of Columbine, various reasons were put forward. Those involving violent video games and aggressive music were the most commonly proposed. However, I believe that neither of these accounts adequately for turning shy kids into ruthless killers. Perhaps they were symptoms of their disturbed minds, but they were not causes. The most compelling reason, I believe, is that the society in which they lived did not merely react coldly to Harris and Klebold, but actively shunned them. According to various sources quoted in the Washington Post (in an article entitled “Dissecting Columbine's Cult of the Athlete” by Lorraine Adams and Dale Russakoff. I suggest you Google it) shortly after the massacre, there was a significant, blatant and fatally ignored culture of bullying, led by the “jocks” with whom we are so familiar. It was the sort of bullying, the sort of ostracising that leads to often crushing depression. And sometimes, this depression becomes something much, much worse. If you want evidence of the objects of Harris and Klebold’s rage, just look at what they shouted when they began their rampage: “All Jocks stand up. We’ll get the guys in white hats” (the “uniform” of jocks at Columbine was a white cap).
And now it has come out that Cho Seung-Hui was bullied at his school and taunted with various comments about his race and his shyness. If find the latter reason particularly bizarre. If someone is shy, why would taunting them about it make the situation any better? A split second after that thought came the answer: because they just don’t care. I don’t know what it is that makes people behave in this despicable, disgusting, disgraceful manner, but it is clear that they have no sense of decency or respect for the feelings of others.
If murder is the extreme result of such persistent bullying, what happens to the others? What happens to those who are not pushed over the edge to suicide (as one boy in this country was earlier this week) or even murder? It is clear from the experiences of those who have been bullied, and from the fact that some are willing to take their own lives to get away from it, that those that are bullied persistently, without mercy or remorse, kindness or compassion, suffer from intense and terrible depression. Depression that crushes souls, that leaves self-esteem, a most valuable attribute, annihilated, that causes people to cry themselves to sleep every night.
Most disturbing of all is that it is often regarded by its perpetrators as harmless, a “joke”. To suggest such a thing is both callous and insulting, and those who believe that because they could take it, everyone else can, are fools.
No, bullying does not always lead to murder, or even suicide, but it does lead to despair and depression. Anyone who fails to realise this and continues to bully, no matter how harmless they may think it, is ignoring their duty to their fellow man. That is what caused Columbine and Virginia Tech, and it is what has caused people to commit suicide. In the most recent case of an eleven-year old hanging himself, one of those who bullied him (an adult, no less), believed it was “just banter”. If the other person can take it, fine. If not, we should not taunt, or ostracise them, because nobody is born depressed and distraught, nobody is born wanting to take their lives or the lives of others – Nobody is born this way.

A Fatal Apathy

2007-04-08T14:23:00.000Z

In 2005, to a collective shrug of the shoulders, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act was passed. This apathetic response was, and continues to be, a surprise. Under Section 132, it has become illegal to conduct a demonstration, either on your own or with others, in a "designated area" without prior police permission. This "designated area" is, in effect, anywhere up to one kilometre from Parliament Square, ie. anywhere you'd want to demonstrate against the government.

Admittedly, the permission has to be granted. However, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police may place limits on:

(a) the place where the demonstration may, or may not, be carried on,

(b) the times at which it may be carried on,

(c) the period during which it may be carried on,

(d) the number of persons who may take part in it,

(e) the number and size of banners or placards used,

(f) maximum permissible noise levels.
If, in his "reasonable opinion", the protest would pose a danger to public safety, public order or security. Things like that.

The problem with this is that the Commissioner's "reasonable opinion" could, in fact, be anything. This, and phrases like it, are to be found in various pieces of legislation that have been passed under the Labour Government. There are no checks, no balances, it is the Commissioner's decision, and the Commissioner's alone.

What the Act represents is a serious infringement of civil liberties in this country. The right to protest is one of the most important rights that we possess (or perhaps, used to possess). We ought to be able to do it without having to ask for permission from the authorities, who are free to place whatever restrictions they like on it (for remember, there are no test of "reasonable opinion"). With this measure, this right, which is so vital to our continued existence as a free, democratic society, becomes a privilege, a treat, something the government lets us have as long as we're good and behave ourselves. It is typical of the disregard for Liberty shown by various Western leaders in recent times.

As if this was not enough, the legislation is applied in a strict and unbending manner. One man standing outside Parliament with a banner saying "Freedom of Speech" was arrested under this act. He posed no threat to security or public order, not was he a hindrance to access to Parliament or Parliamentary business. But, because he had not asked for permission, he was arrested. The same happened to someone eating a cake with the words "Freedom of Speech" inscribed on it in icing. Even a man dressed as Charlie Chaplin carrying a sign saying "Not Aloud" outside Downing Street was arrested under this act. I kid you not.

But, it is not the behaviour of the Government that is the worst thing of all. No, it is the behaviour of the British people. The sheer apathy that has permeated our politics has even seeped into our concern about our rights. We did not care that our rights were being taken away, and we continue not to care. This disgraceful state of affairs will not only persist, but it will deteriorate for as long as we keep up this fatal apathy, this apathy is the thing that strips us of our rights, of our Liberty. If we want our rights, we need to fight for them. As the Korean War Memorial in Washington DC says, Freedom is not Free.

One final point. As the man dressed as Charlie Chaplin was arrested and bundled into a Police van, one person in the crowd shouted out "It's a free country, isn't it?"

Apparently not.

Maybe Private Schools are just Better.

2007-03-04T19:39:00.000Z

Today I read in the Sunday Times, under an article headed "Elite Public Schools Tighten Grip on Oxford", that last year, Oxford admitted twice the number of students from private schools than they had in 2001, while the number of state school admissions had barely increased. This revelation caused outrage in certain quarters. Of course, it must be the "old school tie" network at work once again, those damned private school people must be receiving preferential treatment, Oxford can't be encouraging state school children to apply as hard as they should be. These are the only explanations.

Well, I'm going to say something here that, while it may be unpopular, and may cause some people to brand me as an upper-class, public school elitist, I should say anyway, for balance:

Private schools might be better than state schools. True, there are many good state schools, St. Olave's, for instance. However, most of the top schools in the country are private schools, private schools are the ones that prepare their students the most for the interviews and the rest of the admissions process.

This is not to say that talented state school pupils shouldn't go to Oxbridge. Of course they should, everyone who can cope with the workload and benefit from it should go, and they should be encouraged to do so. However, there are two problems.

The first is that there are many people in state schools that just aren't up to it. Yes, it would be wonderful if our state education system made everyone good enough for a place at one of the country's top universities, but they don't and we should stop pretending that they do.

The second is that you can't force people to apply to Oxford or Cambridge. If they dont' think they can do it, or they don't want to, they won't. Now, perhaps more should be done to convince the ablest state school pupils to apply, but ultimately, the choice is up to them.

Ultimately, it isn't the universities fault that large numbers of privately educated people get places. To say so is ridiculous, of course there isn't this conspiracy against state school pupils to keep them down-trodden and enslaved to the bourgeoisie, or whatever Marx would have said. No, it's the governent's fault for cocking-up the state education system so badly while trying to encourage positive discrimination in universities. University places shoudl be offered on ability and ability alone and, to their credit, I believe that this is generally the case. We should stop caring about where the students come from.

As a final note, as a public school pupil, perhaps I'm a little biased, but I struggle to see how my socio-economic background means that I don't deserve a place at Oxford. In short, why the hell shouldn't Etonians go to Oxford?

SHAME!

2007-03-01T15:45:00.000Z

Well, in the last post we covered financially bankrupt, so I suppose it was only right to look at morally bankrupt as well. Today, I read the headline

"UKIP Bars Disabled Candidate from Prime Seat"

Could this just be the Independent going on about positive discrimination? No, it turns out that the reason was that the man, a Mr. Jack Biggs, was indeed rejected by UKIP because he was disabled. The local UKIP chairman, Vicki Sharp, wrote the following to Mr. Biggs:

"In view of your being registered disabled you will not be able to stand as a full candidate for Ukip." She went on to say that they would welcome him as a paper candidate (that is, a candidate whose name is on the ballot paper, but is not expected to win or campaign). Paper candidates are usually only used in unwinnable seats, but this was (tragically) a winnable seat for UKIP.

Now, had Nigel Farage, UKIP's leader, had half a brain, he might have said "Yes, this is a disgrace, I apologise on behalf of the party for the awful treatment of Mr. Biggs etc. etc." But he didn't, did he?

No, what he said was:

"He was trying to get us to say that he couldn't be a target candidate and to use that, and to try and blackmail the party into not standing against his daughter, who was a current serving councillor. I don't think he has behaved very honourably."

Honourably? What the hell does Nigel Farage know about honour? Not only does his party reject a candidate on the grounds of disability without so much as a murmer of dissent from him, he then goes and slurs said candidate's name in yet another pathetic attempt to portray UKIP as the long-suffering victims of other people's malice.

Please, could the Electoral Commission and the Courts hurry up and make them pay the £300,000 they owe so we can be rid of this shameful excuse for a political party.

Financially as well as Morally bankrupt

2007-02-25T15:55:00.000Z

It happened. Of course it would, every extremist organisation is eventually sunk by its own cock-ups. Every organisation that sets itself up as a moralising force of zealotsis eventually found wanting. Just look to the American Evengelical preacher who was found taking crystal meth and sleeping with male prostitutes.

I am, of course, talking about the United Kingdom Independence Party, who have suffered not one but two revelations about their finances.

The first was some two or three days ago, when it was revealed that the electoral commission was ordering them to pay back the £360,000 they received from a man who was not on the electoral register. A little legal point here, in order to legally donate money to a political party, you need to be on the electoral register and if a party accepts money from someone who isn't, they have to give it all to HM Treasury. This is what is happening to UKIP.

Of course, they claim that they're being victimised. Pity the poor euroskeptic fools, the government is victimising them by making them obey the law. Of course, the Government has had its own fair share of alleged dodgy deals (just ask Lord Levy), and the idiots in UKIP are using this to try and excuse their own behaviour. Well, yes, the government should be investigated, but whether or not they sold cash for peerages doesn't excuse UKIP's breach of legal requirements.

The second was a revalation regarding emezzlement of EU funds. It turns out that a UKIP MEP, one Tom Wise, stole £40,000 or so into his own private account, claiming that he was paying one of his staff members. Of course, the fact that his party is opposed to the EU "gravy train" didn't hinder him in his efforts. Oh no.

But this is not the only way in which UKIP takes advantage of the EU funds that they are so opposed to. EU rules forbid party workers from being paid with taxpayers money. So what does UKIP do? It hires party workers as "advisers" or "assistants" to its MEPs, allowing them to draw salaries of up to £40,000. Corrupt? I think so.

And one final point on the electoral commission's ruling. One woudl think that UKIP would be proud that, after spending money on things detrimental to the UK (namely their existance and electoral campaign), their funds were instead going to go to the Treasury, from where they can be used to pay for schools and hospitals and other things that are actually beneficial to the United Kingdom.

A Terrible Culture

2007-02-12T20:25:00.000Z

Ignore the rest of the blog in the link I'm about to give you (unless you happen to like explicit stuff). Actually, this article is fairly brutal, so if you're easily sickened, you might want to skip this one.

But first, some background. The author of the blog in this link has written about his many sexual conquests in China, much to the outrage of the Chinese morality police. He's received hostile e-mails and death-threats and was recently driven from the web, probably fearing for his own personal safety. I think he makes an excellent point.

http://chinabounder.blogspot.com/2007/02/new-girl.html

The moral? Make sure you apply your moral outrage proportionally and reasonably.

Acts of Journalism (IV)

2007-02-05T22:30:00.000Z

The Price of Standing By

Among the more ridiculous pronouncements of the far-right is this one (courtesy of www.ukip.org):

“Our forces are not world policemen or international social workers.”

In 1994, 800,000 to 1,071,000 innocent people were slaughtered in an African nation while the West did nothing. No, that’s not true, weapons from France and the UK firm Mil-Tec supplied weapons to those carrying to the massacre. The country was Rwanda, and the massacre has become known as one of the most terrible genocides of the late Twentieth Century.
And now it looks set to happen all over again. Despite continued pleas from aid agencies, news organisations and various human rights groups, the killing in Darfur, Sudan continues. Now, this calculated slaughter of innocents (ridiculously called a “conflict” by some) is spreading to neighbouring Chad and the Central African Republic.

The UN is doing little, if anything. True, Kofi Annan has appealed to both sides to stop, and a mission is being contemplated, but while the situation is debated in the UN Security Council or the General Assembly, people are dying.

One would think that the US and UK, two nations who purport to be in favour of intervening in other nations for humanitarian reasons (known as “The Blair Doctrine”), would bypass the UN, as they did in Iraq, and save the people of Darfur. One would be wrong.
The far-right will claim that it’s not our problem. It doesn’t involve British interests and therefore we have no cause to act. However, this is both selfish and negligent. If you see a person being attacked in the street, do you shrug your shoulders and walk on by, ignoring the plight of your fellow man? Or do you step in?

It is extraordinarily callous of the far-right to say that these people do not deserve our help. Back in 1994, the West’s inaction condemned hundreds of thousands of innocent people to death. In saying that we should not help these people, we imply, at best, that we do not care whether or not they live or die, and at worst, that they deserve to die.The Monroe Doctrine of inaction, has no place in the modern world. A world that is interdependent. A world in which human rights exist. If we have the power to stop genocide, then we must act. We cannot pay the price of another Rwanda.

Acts of Journalism (Part III)

2007-02-05T22:28:00.000Z

Why Test?

A-Levels, AS Levels, GCSE, SATs, IB, Internal Examinations – all part of normal school life, but at some point you’ve got to ask: What’s it all for? Especially when hacks in politics and the media are saying they’re worthless and Universities are saying that they’re not useful for admissions.

The truth is, schools are obsessed with results, the mere existence of a league table makes schools want to climb it. This is one of the many reasons why testing, particularly over-testing, is a bad thing.

The desire to climb the league tables puts pressure on both the teachers and, more importantly, the pupils. Everything is directed towards the exams in the last three years of school. It’s understandable – not only do these exams contribute to the school’s coveted league table position, but for the pupils, everything turns on these exams, their future rests on their ability to fulfil some very narrow criteria on a couple of days in the summer.

It is bizarre that exams taken in late adolescence define the scope of your life for decades. It would be risible if it were not so serious. For, while it may be hard for the intelligentsia at Dulwich College to imagine, there are many for whom failure at GCSE is a very real possibility, and for these people, there is little hope of respite from the life of drudgery to which they are doomed. The consequences of such a failure could be, and in many cases, is catastrophic.

However, for those who do pass, even for those who pass with flying colours, there is little benefit. The formulaic nature of these exams and the strict criteria which one must fulfil are so dogmatic as to render the educational benefit of the examinations system nil. Lessons are no longer about learning, they are about jumping through hoops while the ringmaster of the examinations circus cracks his whip. Schools are no longer produce educated people, but parrots and trained monkeys.

The problem with exams is not their supposed ‘easiness’, as the hacks would have us believe, but their sheer lack of value. Students are unable to explore subjects in depth, only what is needed is taught as the deadline of the examinations season approaches. Exams, far from helping, have failed schoolchildren on a catastrophic level.

Acts of Journalism (Part II)

2007-02-04T16:37:00.000Z

Is It Still The Silly Season?

The summer months, when Parliament breaks up for its summer recess, are called the “Silly Season”. It is a time for the media, and people in general, to do silly things in the absence of serious matters. After Silly Season comes the Conference Season, there the major political parties, and the smaller ones, have their conferences.
This season was particularly interesting, with the two main opposition parties having the first speeches from their new leaders, and even Labour had a speech from heir-apparent Gordon Brown. But they were not the only leaders giving speeches, for UKIP has a new leader, Nigel Farage. And Nigel Farage spoke to the UKIP conference for the first time as Leader. Listening to his speech, one would think it was still the Silly Season.
It was a speech of populist sentiments. It was designed to stir the hearts of the aging UKIP membership, who yearn for “the good old days” (whenever they were) and gain new voters by making them sound reasonable. The trouble with populism is that it is not practical, a lesson which Mr. Farage is yet to have learnt.
The thing that looms largest about UKIP is their anti-EU sentiment. They detest the EU, they see it as the source of all our troubles, they see it as subjugating the British people, as bringing dirty hordes of horrible foreigners to our shores (a terrible thing in the view of Mr. Farage). As the epitome of the Little England mentality, they don’t like foreigners, never mind the fact that the NHS (an institution which they support) needs these people to function. Never mind the fact that they provide this country with vital services at affordable prices, leaving people with more money (another thing that UKIP like). What services? Well, how about the Polish builders that renovated former UKIP leader Roger Knapman’s home, the builders that could only work there thanks to an EU treaty?
While I’m on the subject of money, the UKIP tax policy makes for interesting reading. First of all, he wants to impose a flat tax of 33%. In his populist manner, he passes it off as a “tax cut”. Well, considering that the lowest rate of tax in this country is 10%, the basic rate 22%, this is hardly a “cut”. What it is, is a break for the richest in our society, and a tax increase for the poorest. In fact, under Farage’s tax system, everyone earning between £14,585 and £75,657 will pay more tax under Farage. So much for three quarters of the population paying less tax. Among those hardest hit by Farage’s tax plan will be young families and junior professionals, some of those that can least afford it. Good choice, Mr. Farage.
Mr. Farage’s main claim, though, was that his party had the support of “the majority” of British people, that most people supported his ridiculous EU policy, and his punitive taxation scheme. I have one question for Mr. Farage:

If the majority of the British people support you, why aren’t you in office yet?
[Originally published in the DC Voice]

Acts of Journalism

2007-02-02T23:04:00.000Z

A School, Not a Sports Club

It cannot have escaped your notice that, at Dulwich College, sporting achievement is greatly praised. A whole magazine, the Sporting Alleynian, is devoted to sport (nothing else has this honour). Assemblies, particularly end of term ones, are filled with reports on how our sporting teams have fared recently (this being the majority of those assemblies). And, with perhaps one or two exceptions (and I stress: perhaps), our School Captain is a boy of great sporting prowess.

I do not mean to say that sportsmen are bad people, or that I do not respect them; they are good at something and work hard at it. Nor do I mean to say that Games lessons are unimportant; in the age of the expanding waistline, physical fitness is very important. However, Dulwich College is a school, an academic institution – it is not a sports club.

As an academic institution, its primary role is to educate. Everything else must be secondary to this. Sport, while worthwhile, should not come before lessons and sporting achievement should not come before academic achievement.

The reason for the first is due to the school’s role as a place of education. Sports must not be a reason for missing academic lessons. Scholarships should not be handed out for the sole purpose of strengthening our 1st XI, nor should places be offered for this reason. The money spent here should be spent recognising academic achievement and furthering the teaching potential of the College.

The reason for the second is one of messages. Much time and praise is given to sporting achievement, more so, in my opinion, than to academic achievement. This sends out the message to students that, at Dulwich College, sport is more important than academics. Here, at a school, where academic achievement ought to be, must be, held in the highest regard, sport is seen by many as the most important thing. This creates the impression that if someone isn’t good at sport, they are inferior to those that are. In a world already prejudiced in this way, the school is feeding this prejudice, a prejudice that any school should be stamping out. This is not idle speculation, this is fact, I have seen it.

My conclusion is this: academics, at school, must come first in all things; sport must be no more than an extra-curricular activity.

[Originally published in the DC Voice]

Condemnation, but no action

2006-11-28T18:38:00.000Z

Burma

Today, Foreign Office Minister Ian McCartney issued a press release, in which he condemned "in the strongest terms the the Burmese government's decision to order the closure of the field offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Burma and to halt most of its activities."

This is typical of the British government of today, all talk and no action. We've seen it all over the world: whenever someone breaches human rights, the most they have to fear from the West is an official condemnation in the strongest terms.

Burma (I will not call it Myanmar, I take the FCO's line that the unelected military junta hasn't got the right to change its name) is ruled by dictators, Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of the democratic opposition, has been placed under house arrest since 2000 (after a short release), the people of Burma are oppressed and now the Red Cross, universally deemed a good thing, has been effectively shut down.

And yet, what does Britain do? Nothing. What does the USA do? Nothing. The west sits around while the people of Burma, and a myriad other nations of the world suffer. The UK/US alliance has made much of human rights and democracy, and yet when it comes to direct action, they are inert.

I'm sure that none of them got into politics wanting to equivocate and do nothing. If an official condemnation is the most that they can do, they have become like the League of Nations in the 20s and 30s, a toothless organisation, ignored by the people of the world, fit only for making a show of doing something. Words will never be a satisfactory substitute for actions.

Slavery and Scottish Independence

2006-11-26T22:27:00.000Z

No, the two aren't linked, but I wanted to talk about two separate things in the saem post:

Slavery

Tony Blair has apologised for Slavery. Well, sort of. What he did was express "deep sorrow", but stopped short of the apology that many wanted. I don't see where the problem is. I agree, slavery was an abomination, a terrible, terrible crime against humanity.

However, what people need to understand is that Tony Blair, and indeed nobody alive now, was responsible for the slave trade. Today, it is treated with the disgust it deserves, but Blair, and indeed the British people, have nothing to apologise for. The only reason that one should apologise is if you have done something wrong, and as nobody who is alive now was involved in the slave trade, why should we apologise?

Scotland

Today, the Home Secretary John Reid dismissed the Scottish National Party as "not fit for purpose" (which now seems to be Reid's all-purpose phrase for things he doesn't like). This continues the trend at the Scottish Labour Party Conference for bashing the SNP, off the back of a Sunday Telegraph poll saying that 52% of Scots supported independence from the United Kingdom. Coupled with massive predicted gains in the Scottish local elections for the SNP, a party that wants Scottish indpenedence, Labour is rather worried. And so should the Scots be.

Scotland relies on England, the Scottish economy needs the rest of the UK for support. Every nation in the United Kingdom relies on each other, and Scottish independence will cripple Scotland. A border between England and Scotland will solve nothing, and will only add to the problems the UK is facing.

The SNP's ludicrous campaign is based on a lie: the belief that England somehow oppresses Scotland. This is simply not the case, and hasn't been since the Middle Ages. Scottish MPs give the Government its majority in the Commons, passing laws that will have absolutely no effect on their Scottish constituents. English students are saddled with ever increasing debt thanks to top-up fees (passed on the Scottish vote), while Scottish university students are subsidised by English taxpayers (while the SNP claim that Labour have forced debt upon Scottish students).

So, while the Northern Ireland independence ordeal is coming to a close, the SNP look set to start a ridiculous attempt for Scottish independence, which is not only predicated on a falsehood, but will cripple Scotland. Not fit for purpose? They are, Mr. Reid, but their purpose is a terrible one. Scotland will not survive on its own, hopefully the Scottish people will realise this, and that England is not the enemy.

Climate Change Rally

2006-11-04T20:06:00.000Z

Today, I participated in my first protest rally. At about 11 o'clock I turned up at Grosvener Square outisde the (hideous) US Embassy where there was a huge crowd of people carrying placards and banners etc. and distributing leaflets. There were many speeches by MPs and the like before we moved off at about 1 o'clock to Trafalgar Square, where there was an even bigger crowd, as well as more speeches and some music. It has been reported that 30,000 people attended the rally.

That's the brief account, now here's the article:

Climate Change is real, so say scientists, Government advisors, even politicians (with the notable exception of Bush et al.). Climate Change is also incredibly dangerous, it will turn places like Spain into barren deserts, it will destroy Africa even more than it already is, it will see places like London and New York underwater and the world as we know it will be irrepairably damaged.

Clearly, something needs to be done. The sad truth is we cannot go back, we cannot reverse climate change, but we do not have to go forward. It will be hard, and we will have to make many sacrifices. It will also be unpopular and, horror of horrors, bad for business.

However, it is our future, it is the people of my generation that will have to live with the consequences of today's actions. It is time to listen to the evidence, it is time to accept the facts and it is time to stop putting profit before children.

That's All Folks, Thank You and Good Night

2006-10-25T19:09:00.000Z

At last, the end is in sight. General George Casey, commander of the Multi-National force in Iraq, has outlined plans for the US to leave the country within 12 to 18 months. Gone is the ridiculous "Stay the course" policy, gone is the idea that the presence of US troops can solve Iraq's problems. Even though they may not say it, this represents an admission by the Bush administration that Iraq is lost and that the presence of US troops exacerbates the terrorist threat.

However, the question is, what happens next? Well, it's usually an idea to look at past precedent for an answer, and for that, I turn to Aden in the mid-60s. Britain had held Aden as a colony for over a century, but in the mid-60s, an insurgency (or "emergency", as it is known) began. British troops clashed with Arabs and, in 1967, the British troops withdrew. Between the time that Britain announced the withdrawal and it actualyl taking place, the terrorist organisations within Aden stepped up their attacks in order to make it look like htey were forcing the British out.

I am not saying that this will happen in Iraq, but I wouldn't be surprised if the insurgency increased in intensity (beyond its already bloody level). However, this is not Aden in 1967, this is Iraq, 2006 (or 2007, as it will almost certainly be). Afte the US withdrawal, the British will probably hang around with NATO and a few others, as we are in Afghanistan. However, I anticipate that the country, with no strong military presence, will descend even further into Civil War.

This leaves us with a conundrum, while it is undoubtedly best for American and British citizens if we withdraw, as it will decrease the risk from terrorism, it is unlikely to end happily for the Iraqis. Civil war, bombings, murders, all this will, most likely, continue. So, what's the answer.

The truth is, there is no easy answer. It was always going to end this way, after poor planning, poor intelligence and poor execution of what little plan there was, what else could happen but this, and how else could it have ended? This is a sad truth, but it will not be the Americans or the british that suffer from their poor planning, it will be the Iraqi people.

Hate-Builder

2006-09-29T21:24:00.000Z

This is Stephen Green. He used ot be a builder. Now, he works for Christian Voice. Here is their website: http://www.christianvoice.org.uk/

Yes, once consigned to the USA, they are here, fortunately in smaller numbres, but they are here all the same. Being a Christian Fundamentalist, he didn't like the Jerry Springer Opera. Fair enough, he's entitled to that.

However, back in 2005, while the show was on tour, it promised to donate a large sum of money (somewhere in the thousands) to Maggie's Centres for cancer sufferers. The actors had agreed to waive their wages for a night, with all the money goign to the charity.

Enter Green and Christian Voice. Using what can only be described as mob-tactics, they threatened the charity with a protest outside their offices. The charity caved.

Now, I recognise that he has a right to freedom of protest and, while I do not agree with him, I will fight for that right. However, his conduct here is dispicable. The cast of the show were doing a good deed. It was an act of kindness towards sufferers from one of the world's most terrible and widespread diseases. But Mr. Green and Christian Voice didn't think about that, did they? They didn't think about the people that the money would have helped, did they? It is a disgrace.

Mr. Green should stop building hatred and suffering, and get back to building houses.

Criminals?

2006-09-28T21:11:00.000Z

I quote from The Independent newspaper:

"It's nearing the end of a science lesson at Dr Challoner's Grammar School in Amersham when the assistant headmaster enters, marches to the front of the classroom and raises her hands to speak. "We have made it clear to you that we do not want drugs in this school. And that from time to time we may bring in some dogs. Well," Mrs Horrocks tells the class of boys aged 13 and 14, "they are here. If anyone is frightened of dogs put up your hand." One boy's arm hovers upwards but quickly comes down again as excitement reaches a crescendo among his classmates.
The children are told to leave their bags and queue up outside while the dogs, trained to sniff out illegal drugs - from cannabis to crack cocaine - get down to business. A spaniel leashed to its handler darts around the empty classroom, sniffing the children's pencil cases, blazers and bags. As the boys file back in grinning, some of them a little nervously, each is smelled by the second dog, a black labrador. None of the bags or pupils has been "indicated" by the dogs, whose powerful sense of smell can detect traces of cannabis or cannabis smoke up to a month old."

I have a serious problem with this. Now, many of you might think randomly testing children for drugs is a good thing, but I don't think it is. You see, it is a symptom of a wider disease.

The criminalising and demonising of children.

Indeed, children are no longer the cute, cuddly, innocent people you once knew. No, they are violent, rebellious, illiterate, drug taking, criminal, sex-mad, binge-drinking swine. They must be feared and dealt with.

You see, the current assumption about children would seem to be that they are all guilty, until someone proves otherwise. The above example shows this. Is there any evidence to suggest that one of these children might be taking drugs? No, the fact that they are children is enough to have them lined up, have their bags and persons searched and force them to prove that they are innocent.

This, quite clearly, is wrong. Why should children be treated any differently from adults in this respect? I quote the words of a teenager known only as "W":

"They shouldn't be allowed to treat me like a criminal just because I'm under 16"

"W" was involved in a very interesting case quite recently. The Government created these things called "Curfew zones", anyone under 16, if unaccompanied by an adult after 9pm, could be held and escorted home. "W" was a model student, however, this was not enough when he was caught unaccompanied in a curfew zone. All these facts coudl not outweigh the seemingly damning one: the fact that he was a child and therefore, in the eyes of the Government (and the police officers who apprehended him), he had to be a criminal.

Fortunately, as a result of an appeal by "W", the curfew zones no longer exist. However, the problem remains. Are children to be continuously demonised by the Establishment? I woudl hope not, because if you demonise an entire generation on the basis of the behaviour of a small group of them, you are bound to breed resentment. We need to make peopel feel included, but the criminalisation of children doesn't do this. If you treat people like scum, they will feel like scum.

It is time to end this injustice, this denial of human rights. Children are citizens of this country as well, and as such deserve equal treatment under the law. Otherwise, we may reap the consequences in the years to come.

Not the Apocalypse again

2006-09-16T18:36:00.000Z

There is a popular belief currently circulating in the more extremist Christian groups that the end of the world is, indeed, nigh. They call it "The End Times", and they genuinely believe that Jesus Christ himself will return to earth and the world will end (according to the book of Revelations).

They believe it's going to happen because they see the creation of Israel and violence in the Middle East as fulfilling prophecies set down in the Bible. Some even believed that the world would end this year.

Let me first say this: People have thought the world was going to end many, many times before. I remember the last time the world was supposed to end, needless to say, it didn't happen. Peopel thought the world was going to end back in the 70s, they thought it was going to end in 1844, 1590, 1635, 1700, 1378, 1533 and many other dates. Just in case you had forgotten, it's 2006 and none of the predicitons made in the past have actually been fulfilled.

Now, normally I wouldn't write about this, it's a couple of Christian extremists who parted company with reality a long time ago saying the world is going to end. It didn't happen the last hundred or so times they said it would, so why comment? Because it is effecting the policy of certain Governments, and is directly related to Israel.

You see, part of the End Times is supposed to be the nation of Israel being formed. Many of the "End Timers" (as the proponents of this theory are known) believe that the illegal settlements in the occupied territories in Palestine (such as those in the West Bank, and the ones that were, until recently, in Gaza) are parts of Israel and if Israel does not own them, the end of the world is beign delayed. Now, to the vast majority of sane people, the apocalypse being delayed is a good thing, "End Timers" are convinced that they are going to be saved and therefore want the Second Coming to happen ASAP.

What this means is that they support Israel when it says that it will retain the occupied territories and that they support the repression of the Palestinian people and the theft of their lands. As if this wasn't bad enough, it actually has an effect on World Leaders. A few years back, George W. Bush wanted Israel (then under Sharon) to work towards a two-state solution with Palestine. Now he doesn't.

So, what does this mean? It means that as long as these people continue to believe that the end of the world is upon us, the USA (where the bulk of these people are concentrated) will continue to support Israel, the Palestinians will continue to be oppressed and we'll still be faced with the same problems many years from now.

The sooner "End Timers" realise that they are not the first people to predict the end of the world, that everyone before them has been wrong and the world is not going to end this time either, the better for everyone, not least the starving Palestinians in the prison that is the Gaza Strip.

Could you be pre-pregnant?

2006-09-06T20:20:00.000Z

I was reading the Guardian on Monday, and came across a most disturbing article. Within it was this story:

"When Regina McKnight, of South Carolina, went to her local hospital to give birth in May 1999, she prayed that the baby would be healthy. She had good reason to worry. Since her mother had been killed by a hit-and-run driver the previous year McKnight had begun smoking crack. She was naturally devastated when the baby was stillborn - and shocked, five months later, to be charged with homicide. Prosecutors argued that smoking crack had caused the stillbirth and that McKnight should therefore be classed as a murderer.

Despite medically disputed evidence about the role cocaine had played in the tragedy, McKnight went on to become the first woman in US history to be convicted of foetal homicide by child abuse. An appeal to the US Supreme Court failed and she is serving a 12-year jail term."

This, and other foetal protection laws, is a symptom of yet another bizarre thign to emerge from the minds of the US right-wing. That all women should think of themselves as "pre-pregnant" all the time between their first period and their menopause. Last time I checked, that was quite a while. They are to do the following things:

take folic acid supplements,

stop smoking,

stop drinking regularly,

maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control.

This is not for their own health, you understand, but for the health of their unborn, sorry, as yet non-existant, baby. Now, this is all a good idea if you are pregnant. In fact, it's a great idea if you're not pregnant, even if you're a man it's a great idea, it'll improve your health and make you live longer. Indeed, this would not be a problem, but for the motivation and the hypocrisy of it.

The motivation, it would seem, is to protect a child that does not exist and may never exist. Now, I can appreciate poeple being advised, even forced, to follow the above guidelines if they actually are pregnant, but what about people who don't want to get pregnant. America may end up with a situation where women are punished for indulgant behaviour (drinking or smoking, both perfectly legal, if unhealthy, last time I checked) earlier in life, before even thinking about having a child.

The USA is, in fact, in danger of creating a system where women are incubators first and people second. They are in danger of creating a culture where people think that the sole purpose of women is to have children.

Now, the hypocrisy.

This only applies to women. Despite evidence that male alcoholism can lead to them becoming impotent, there are no guidelines for men to follow. No, men are free to drink, smoke and do whatever, while women have to be always prepared for pregnancy from the moment of their first period. I'm sure there's a word for this... ah yes, sexism.

Also, while it is a bad thing to be on drugs, and particularly so to do so while pregnant, women in America, in fact, all drug users in America, are just locked up. They don't recieve treatment for their addiction (which, by the way, is a medical condition, and should be treated as such). Even a Labour MSP has suggested female drug-users (not male, note) be paid to use long-term contraception. It would appear that the Governments of the world are more keen on demonising these people and locking them up than actually helping them. But that would be vastly out of character for Governemnts, or the right-wing in general.

In fact, the current climate in the uSa makes it lessl ikely for these women to seek the treatment they so desperately need. Who would, given the options? A long prison sentence and having your child removed from your care? I wouldn't take those odds. If these people are going ot helped, the US needs to drop its punitive attitude towards drug users and actually do somethign good for a change.

Oh, and by the way, it's interesting to note the American right-wing's obsession with the unborn (or, in this case, non-existant) child. It seems that the Republicans et al., while spending a lot of time shouting about this subject, forget the children that actually, you know, exist. Social Security? Education? Housing? Free (or even cheap) healthcare? A faimly that loves them, as opposed to a foster family(who have been shown to be nowhere near as beneficial for a child as their real family, in most cases)? No, it would seem that the American right-wing stops caring for children at about the moment they're born.

Results, exams and hoops.

2006-08-24T23:20:00.000Z

They're all out now, A-level and GCSE results have been distributed, celebrated (and in some cases mourned) and they have, of course, been criticised by the Don't-make-em-like-they-used-to never-have-happened-in-my-day Brigade in the media and politics.

I find it insulting to the effort that I and my fellow students put in to get these results that these people claim that "standards are slipping" and that the exams are "too easy". Ladies and Gentlemen, they're not, and I challenge any one of those who claim that they are to sit them in the next exam season and get the top grade. People put real effort into these exams, and then they are told that they are worth nothing, that all that effort is pointless because they are "too easy". It's enough to make you not want to bother.

Now, that's not to say the exam system is perfect, it isn't. Not because it's too easy, but because it's too rigid. There are set criteria, things you have to write in order to get certain marks. Because of this, they mean that people can't show off, that they can't show how brilliant they really are because if they don't fulfil the criteria written on the examiner's mark scheme, it doesn't matter how clever or how brilliant they are.

What the education system is supposed to be about is education, instead it's about teaching people stock answers to standard questions. What we need an education system that educates people, that teaches them to think for themselves. What we have is an education system designed to make pupils jump through hoops.

And how did I do? 9A*s, 2As and an A in Additional Maths (the highest grade, as it's not actually a GCSE). And I'll be damned if anyone's going to tell me that GCSEs or any other exam is "too easy".

A Sad Day for Cricket

2006-08-22T17:40:00.000Z

On Sunday, Chaos gripped the Oval. The Pakistan team, having been accused of ball tampering (a form of cheating), refused to come out of their changing room after the tea break. When they eventually came out, the Umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove refused to come out of their changing room, having decided that, by refusing to play, Pakistan had forfeited the match. The ICC have backed the Umpires, England were awarded the Test Match (winning the series 3-0) and the Pakistani Captain, Inzamam-ul-Haq has been accused of bringing the game into disrepute.

Cricket is a very English game. It encapsulates typical English values like fair play. It is also very English in the sense that you must play by the rules or you don't play at all. The truth is that
the Umpires were perfectly within their rights to award England 5 runs when they thought that ball tampering had occured and they were following the Laws of Cricket when they decided to award the match to England.

This dogmatic aproach to following the Laws is bad for cricket. The unwillingness to bend the rules after a deal had been reached by the English and Pakistani cricket boards meant that not only was Pakistan's honour insulted (a grave thing in their culture), leading to the current crisis, but the fans were disappointed, and the primary goal of every sport should be to entertain the fans.

So yes, we need rules for every game, and yes they should be followed, but if bending the rules keeps the game going with no real harm to anyone, then they should be bent.

Lords Reform

2006-08-17T18:52:00.000Z

Some of you may have noticed the image on my sidebar. It's the huge one under the "Save Parliament" one. It says "Elect the Lords". It's a campaign supported by Charter 88 (www.charter88.org.uk) and, if it is successful, will result in a massive Constitutional change for the UK.

For those who do not know, the House of Lords is the Upper House of the British Parliament. It used to be very powerful. It was able to block Government legislation, introduce its own and basically do everything the House of Commons could, except take part in the formation of a Government (although the Priem Minister could be a Lord, until Douglas-Holme). After Asquith's "People's Budget" ws rejected, Asquith, in 1911, passed the Parliament Act limiting the power of the Lords. The Lords could no longer block legislation, only delay it. The basis for this was that the Lords were not democratically elected and therefore had no right ot interfere with the business of the people's representatives. However, the preamble to that act said, among other things, this:

"And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation"

That was 95 years ago (for the exact period of time, see thign on sidebar).

I believe that now, it can be put into operation.

We need two things to funciton as a proper Democracy:

1. An upper house with the power to place checks and balances on the Government and review legislation.

2. We need an elected upper house, so that it has the mandate and the right to do this.

In order for this to be the case, we need to scrap the House of Lords and replace it with a democratically elected institution.

Now, there will have to be laws governing this and here is my suggestion:

1. The upper house is elected by proportional representation on a fixed term basis. This is to ensure that it represents the will of the whole people, but also to ensure that we don't just get a carbon copy of the House of Commons, which would be no good when it came to reviewing legislation.

2. The upper house cannot take part in the forming of a Government, nor can it block the great financial bills (these being very important). This is also to preserve the seniority of the House of Commons.

The Parliament Act of 1911 was only ever supposed to be temporary, as the preamble suggests. It is time we got an elected upper house that can actually do its job. For more information about the Elect The Lords campaign, go to www.electthelords.org.uk .

It's time we got some more democracy in this country.

Policy of Appeasment

2006-08-16T00:55:00.000Z

Today, I saw a book. This book, in fact:

Just in case you can't see what it says, I'l write it here in slightly larger font:

MICHAEL GOVE

CELSIUS 7/7

How the West's policy of appeasement has provoked yet more fundamentalist terror - and what has to be done now.

Right then. Michael Gove is, in fact, Michael Gove MP, Conservative Member for Surrey Heath and Shadow Minister for Housing. Here is his website: http://www.michaelgove.com/index.php.

I would now like to talk about the front of this book. Particularly 5 words on it, specifically these words: "The West's Policy of Appeasement". I would like to know exactly what Mr. Gove thinks appeasement is.

Is this "appeasement"? Is 40094 Iraqi civilians dead "appeasement?" If Mr. Gove considers these thing to be "appeasement", I shudder to think at what he means by "What has to be done now". Could it be this, perhaps:

Constitutional Crisis?

2006-08-01T16:34:00.000Z

Firstly, let me say this: The United Kingdom has a Constitution. However much people say that we don't, we do. Part of this constitution is contained in Magna Carta. Now, we've all heard of Magna Carta, and those of us that live in England have all been told about it in our history lessons, but here is an interesting fact:

Magna Carta is still law.

Yes, after all these centuries, the original Constitution is still, technically, in force. Now, what does this mean, and why am I bringing it up now? Well, contained within Magna Carta is a very important article. Article 39 states (in translation) that:

"No freemen shall be taken or imprisoned or disseised [deprived of property] or exiled or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him nor send upon him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

This is key. At this point in time, we are all "freemen". However, due to the ignorance of Magna Carta, this article, which guarantees our right not to be imprisoned without trial, is being ignored by Her Majesty's Government.

In their various rushed-through, quasi-totalitarian anti-terror legislation, the Labour Government have made provisions for people to be imprisoned without trial. To me, this seems unconstitutional. In fact, this is unconstitutional.

It isn't the first breach (or attempted breach) of the Constitution that Labour has made. Their "Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill" nearly destroyed Democracy in this country (see the "Save Parliament" button on the sidebar for more details). What surprises me is that very few people noticed, or even cared. However, while that may be a breach of Constitutional Convention, this is a breach of codified law. As such, can someone with legal knowledge tell me whether we can take her Majesty's Government to court for breaching the Constitution?

We Still Have Some Power... Or Do We?

2006-07-28T22:48:00.000Z

Today a petition directed at the Prime Minister was printed on the front page of The Independent newspaper. It was signed by various important people (including Sir Menzies Campbell and Clare Short) and called upon Blair to demand a ceasefire in the Middle East.

This evening, he and Bush did just that. This is heartening. It would appear that this petition actually worked and Blair listened to us for a change. However, is this really the case? If the past few years of Blair's Premiership have told us anything, it's that he does not listen to the people. He didn't listen over Iraq, he didn't listen over tuition fees, ID Cards, Anti-terror legislation or, indeed, anything. It seems that, far from being a good Democratic leader and listening to the electorate, he does what he wants and damned be everyone else. In fact, Blair's tenure as Prime Minister has been characterised by a very "Mother knows best" attitude (or, if you're wanting something more accurate, "Big Brother knows best").

This is shocking in itself, but then lets just have a look at what he's done with this attitude. In the case of anti-terror legislation he has pushed through some shoddily-written, totalitarian rubbish against the will of the people. What is his agenda here? In the case of Iraq, what was his agenda there? Was it, as I suspect, to please George Bush and Washington? In fact, if you want to know how far up Bush's arse Blair's tongue goes, take a look at this little known piece of information:

In the recent cabinet reshuffle, Jack Straw was demoted from Foreign Secretary (a position he was very good at, to be replaced by Beckett, who had been awful at DEFRA) to the non-position of Leader of the House of Commons. Why? Because Washington said so. I'd be surprised if Bush wasn't feeling a tickling sensation in his stomach by now. Yes Mr. Bush, that really is Tony's tongue.

Anyway, all this suggests that Bush and Blair were going to call for a ceasefire anyway and the question was when. So, why didn't they call for a ceasefire immediately and save hundreds of lives? Was it their intention to allow Israel to murder a few more innocents and break a few more articles of the Geneva convention by bombing refugees (whom they had ordered out) and the International Red Cross (along with the UN, after beig warned on numerous occaisions)? This shows a shocking disregard for human life on the part of our leaders, or should I say a shocking disregard for Arab life?

Her Majesty's Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, has blood on its hands. Their failure to immediately call for a ceasefire and act to preserve life and has led to unnecessary loss of life. It is time the Government put that "ethical foreign policy" into practice and acted with some morality. If the Government doesn't start listening to us, we must vote them out.

The Middle East Crisis

2006-07-18T14:48:00.000Z

On the 12th of July, Hezbollah seized two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. Israel, in their usual fashion, claimed that this was an "act of war" and launched a series of air and artillery strikes on the Lebanon, hitting such important terrorist targets as Beirut's international airport, various apartment blocks in southern Lebanon and a pro-Hezbollah TV station (which would make more sense if the Israelis hadn't claimed they were trying to get their soldiers back). Strangely, they didn't hit the Hezbollah HQ until 3 days later (I would have thought that this would be the top target, evidently killing innocent civillians at an airport is more important to Israel).

Now, why, in response to a terrorist attack, would you attack a country and her innocent civillians? Imagine if, in response to the IRA bombings, we'd flattened Dublin. We would have been hauled over the coals and support for (and membership of) the IRA would have increased dramatically. Now, while Israel isn't being hauled over the coals (The spineless leaders of western democracies won't stand up for them), Hezbollah support and certainly hatred of Israel have increased. It's almost as if the Israelis don't care.

Of course, Israel's logic says that Hezbollah are supported by the Lebanese Government and that this is Lebanon declaring war. They'll say that Lebanon's inability (or, in their mind, refusal) to crack down on Hezbollah shows this. Actually, what it shows is that the Lebanese government is weak and that their PM can barely control one militiaman, let alone the whole of Hezbollah. But then when have Israel let trivia such as moderation, proportionality or the truth get in the way of a few air strikes?

Founder's Day

2006-07-02T21:19:00.000Z

Another year, another Founder's Day. Described by one College teacher of note as "a third rate village fete", it's not something I usually loook forward to. This year, I had much to do (well, I say that, it sounded like a lot).

1. Prepare for and then actually do a debate on "This House Woudl admit girls to Dulwich College".

2. Sort out Law Society stand

3. Do concert.

4. Try not to get too bored in between times.

So, I arrived with Dan far too early and prepared both sides of the debate. It didn't take too long, the only tricky bit was getting into the library to use the marvellous resource that is the internet. Having got all that ready, I very quickly got the Law Society stand together (ably assisted by Chris Vilvaraj). Ok, it was put together very quickly and not very professionally, but it looked OK (which is what we were aiming for).

Then began the "tying not to get bored". I didn't succeed, enough said about that. Anyway, then we had the debate and, by virtue of a coin toss, we were opposing the motion. Somehow we managed to beat Jack Devlin and Tom O-Reilly (supposedly the best debators at the College) despite the fact that Dan nearly fainted and I had to do one of his speeches for him. I think I was the only person there that actually went to a mixed school (although Dan may have done), so I was able to impersonate someone who actually knows what goes on (which caused Tom to, I hear, mutter "But he was only 10"). Anyway, we won, which is the important thing.

Then we had a longer period of trying not to get bored until the football started. When it did, myself, Vilvaraj and various other Union people retired to the library to watch the match and.... no, I won't say that, people could be prosecuted. Anyway, a little way into the second half I got a call from Sarah saying she was outside, so outside I went for a chat with her, t'other Sarah and Philip Parbury, who turned up eventually. That was unexpected, but excellent.

After we lost the match (surprisingly, I didn't care that much. Something must be wrong...) I headed over to watch the "rock" bands perform. I'm not going to say anything about their quality, for my personal safety, you understand.

When that was all over and done with, we had the concert. It was OK, in parts, and absolutely awful in others (mentioning no names, pieces, sections or groups). When it was all over, Sarah and Sarah reappeared, with Helen bounding (yes, I think that's the right word) along. What followed as a long chat about various things (which shall not be spoken of by me), and Julian Bubb-Humphreys (and if it's spelt wrong... I could care less) doing his usual camp routine (and challenging one of the Sarahs). Somewhere along the line, my family left the area and went back to the car, before remembering that I wasn't with them and summoning me. Thus ended a better than usual Founder's Day (all down to the company, you know).

Report from Speakers' Corner

2006-06-25T21:44:00.000Z

Today, I went to Speakers' Corner for the first time in my life. For those of you that don't know, Speakers' Corner is next to Marble Arch, on the corner of Hyde Park and stands as one of the greatest symbols of freedom of speech in this world today. Every Sunday, there are speakers there. Anyone can go along, stand on a soapbox (or a stepladder, as is more the case these days, only the Socialist Party had soapboxes) and talk about anything. Speakers' Corner has attracted everyone from intellectuals (Marx came once) to nuts. The nuts are more prevalent today.

As I say, this was the first time in my life that I have set foot in Speakers' Corner. It was an... interesting experiance. I wandered around listening to various people. There was someone railing against religion, saying it was all rubbish and that there was no evidence for it. In fact, there is no evidence for King David or the Kingdom of Israel (if you believe him, and I haven't seen aynthign to suggest that he is wrong). He also claled on God to striek him down if he was wrong. Needless to say, no striking occured. Then there was another man, well, two, who were what I would deem Christian extremists (one of them called me corrupt, damn him). I always find two things about these people interesting, and these men were showing both of them:

1. They have this belief that man is inherently corrupt. I disagree, I think that most people are decent and honest.

2. They gloss over the Old Testament. They talk a lot about Jesus and a loving God, but refuse to recognise that the Old Testament God is vengeful and smites people.

Anyway, then there was another man. He was different. He wasn't saying much, and he certainly wasn't shouting, which is unusual. I had a very interesting conversation with him about language, religion and the meaning of "good Government". And, indeed, whether George Bush really is responsible for anything.

Moving on, there were two people from the Socialist Party of Great Britain, a few Muslims and Diane. I feel I should mention Diane especially because I spent a few hours listening to her spout whatever rubbish she believed. Diane believes that the English are the greatest people in the world and that everyone still works for us (which may have been true a few centuries ago, but certainly not anymore). She also believed that all foreigners had "abandoned their roots" and were evil in some way. And then she refused to believe that anyone except herself was pure English, no matter how much I claimed, she kept saying somethign about "just becuase your family moved here doesn't make them English". Ok, I am not "pure blooded English", I am, in fact, partly Irish, but only a very long time ago. Anyway, I hope you can all see the rubbish that she was speaking here and, interestingly enough, she believed that she was the onyl pure blooded English person.

When pressed, she said that the English had come from Scandanavia thus abandoning their roots etc. etc.). She also kept talking about God, and yet professed to have no religion. In short, she hadn't the faintest idea what she was talking about, and she was way mnore harline than even the BNP.

This would have been scary, but for the fact that the whole crowd was heckling her and laughing greatly. There were about five main antagonists (myself included) and we generally had a good time.

Anyway, I shall certainly be returnign to Speakers' Corner, and if anyone wishes to join me, it's on the corner of Hyde Park, at Marble Arch, Sunday mornign (until about 5 in the evening).

The Crusade For Truth

2006-06-01T22:38:00.000Z

In order to spread truth among the peopel of this Earth, I have created a new blog. Feel free to join the Crusade at:

http://the-crusade-for-truth.blogspot.com

The Wind That Shakes the Barley

2006-05-31T16:31:00.000Z

Cannes:-

The Palm d'Or, the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival, was awarded to The Wind That Shakes The Barley. Said film is a tale of Damien, an Irishman, who leaves a successful career and joins his brother, Teddy, in order to fight against the British. It's set in 1919, during the Black and Tans' reign of terror.

Accepting this award, Ken Loach, the director of TWTSTB, said this:

"Our film is a little step, a very little step, in the British confronting their imperialist history, maybe if we tell the truth about the past, maybe we tell the truth about the present.''

Ok, let's start with the Black and Tans. For those of you that don't know, the Black and Tans were Churchill's genius idea for fighting the IRA. It basically ran along the lines of the current war on terror. We'll send in a bunch of brutal soldiers and have a slaughter. Well, it didn't work then and it's not working now. The Black and Tans murdered countless innocents, burned large sections of Cork (and then put burnt corks on their caps) and were generally not very nice. Not only that, but they were very open about their brutality, at least the US Marine Corps know it's a bad thing (and any American saying that we should "evoke the spirit of Churchill" or the like in the War on Terror should have a look at how Churchill handled terorrism and how many British citizens died afterwards). Basically, the Black and tans show us that violence doesn't work. But this is supposed to be about a film.

Now, I have no problem with a film portraying the Black and Tans as the brutal murderers that they were, it needs ot be done, if only to teach the current establishment a lesson about fighting terrorism. However, what i do haev a problem with is the films depiction of the IRA, and the above quote. Now, to my mind, the more than sympathetic depiction of the IRA in this film is a disgrace. There's no mention of the fact that the IRA were just as indiscriminately murderous as the Black and Tans. There's no mention of the fact that, long after the Black and Tans were disbanded, the IRA continued to murder innocents.

I agree with Loach, we shoudl tell the truth about the past. The truth, the whole truth and nothign but the truth. Unfortunately, this film doesn't tell the whole truth. Yes, the Black and Tans were inexcusable, but we shouldn't look with any sympathy on the IRA's past actions either.

Yes, we must face the truth about some of our actions, past and present, but the militant Irish Nationalists shoudl face the truth about theirs.

All Hallow's

2006-04-17T20:22:00.000Z

I'm writing a play. The idea came to me when hearing some story or other about the Christian far-right (as you all shoudl know by now, I hate them). The play's about... well, I'll tell you that later. Anyway, it takes place in what is known asa "Hell House". For those unfamiliar (and I'm guessing that's most of you), in America, particularly the Bible Belt, there exist these things called "Hell Houses" where the idea is to portray to teenage minds the horrors of hell and "sin" (I put it in inverted commas because homosexuality is regarded as a sin, and, well, just see the post below this one). These things are run by the Christian Extremists in the hope of converting, no.... that's the wrong word... terrifying these children into Christianity. So, I had to do some research (my knowledge of these establishments comes from one article I read in the Independent some time ago). In order to research I typed "Hell House" into Google and I clicked on a likely looking result, it led me to the Landover Baptist Church ("The Largest and Most Powerful Assembly of Worthwhile People Ever to Exist. Unsaved are NOT Welcome"). Here's a brief description of what the Hell House at the Landover Baptist Church is:

"Landover Baptist's "Hell House" is an outreach event that is structured very much like a typical haunted house that people visit and walk through. It is the only place on our 35 square miles of Church campus that unsaved people are welcome to visit since, after all, without the unsaved there would be no Hell in the first place."

In line with what I've already told you ("outreach" is some sort of Christian marketing scheme: http://www.outreach.com/print/default.asp). Please note the spin in the last sentence.

It goes on to say this:

"Hell House capitalizes on the High Holiday of nonBaptists, Halloween (Hebrew for "Satan Ruleth") a time of year when the Devil celebrates the Fall of man and the rise of Catholicism, and when people have trickery in their hearts and Satan on their minds."

So, you see..... wait a minute, let me read that again. *reading, muttering, mumbling etc.*

WHAT? These people would have you believe that Halloween is Hebrew for "Satan Ruleth". Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a LIE. No two ways about it, no excuses, no equivocating, this is a lie. Halloween is short for "All Hallow's Eve", which is a Christian celebration (not the "High Holiday" of the nonBaptists, whatever that is, but I'lll come to that bit later). It celebrates all the blessed souls (not Satan etc.). The irony here is that Halloween celebrates the exact opposite of what the Baptists think, in fact, it celebrates the very thing that they want ot be, te "hallowed souls" (Those saved by Jesus). So, they're lying. Either that or they're just plain stupid. The annoying thing is that most people would believe it (unless they knew what Halloween actually meant) because it's come to be a time for frightening things.

But this is also a lesson in spin. Notice how the author portrays (or attempts to portray) the nonBaptists as evil, Satan worshippers by saying that their "High Holiday" is the time when they worship Satan. I'd say somethign like "clever, eh?" here, but I don't want to credit the extremists with that.

Anyway, the point of this article is, as well as advertising their hell house etc., is to declare the fact that thye've nicked 200 corpses from the Turkish Earthquake (yes, this was a while ago) for use in their Hell House. Corpses that would have been "wasted in mass graves". I wonder if they asked permission from the families, or thought of respecting the corspes... probably not, afterall, they are Muslims and unbelievers and all that, so it's OK, right?

Anyway, on with the article (sorry, this is going to be long).

"We intend to so traumatize people with images of death and Hell, that they will have no choice by to fall flat on their faces in the conversion tent and repent, get baptized and get their little Devil loving souls into church!"

Oh, the shamelessness of it. They want to traumatise teenagers... aren't they nice people? And also not the deduction that anyone who isn't a Baptist loves the Devil, oh the gleeful shamelessness of it all.

"Groups of 20-25 people will tour Hell House with their own personal demon acting as their tour guide. The 10 scenes each last 2-3 minutes (with the exception of one scene that now only lasts 30 seconds, in an effort to cut down on all the vomit we had to clean up between groups last year)."

OK, these people sound charming, and their very own Demon to guide them.... how kind.

"Scene 1 is a funeral scene of a teenage homosexual boy who has died of AIDS he caught from the ink on the book report graded by his pedophile homosexual Secular-History teacher."

I'm sorry, there's only one thign I can say here:

What the fuck? He caught AIDS from INK. Is that possible? I'm not a doctor, so I don't know, but I don't think that that's possible. And what's wrong with Secular-History? You want us to teach what, the Biblical era and the Spanish Inquisition?

"His disease-riddled body will be carried to the lake of fire by the Devil himself. Boils and blisters will pop realistic pus from the plague covered face of the sodomite child, while dysentery takes its horrible toll from his exploding buttocks, as he is placed into the lapping flames of eternal damnation."

See the post below this one for how I feel about this. It's that Old Testament that stops me beign a Christian.

"Scene 2 is a drunk-driving scene where a father realizes he has just killed his family. He will shoot himself in the head, just grazing his skull (splattering bits of bits of bloody skull on the windshield), and continue shooting bullets into his writhing drunk body until finally he lurches towards the on-lookers causing a spray of warm blood to spattered onto the unsaved crowd. Cackles of hellish laughter will be heard as the drunk's body goes limp and falls onto the floor."

OK, I'm all for the anti-drink-driving message, but really. Again, I'm not even sure it's possible, but it just seems gratuitous, can't we stick to those adverts with the two blokes in the pub?

"Scene 3 will depict the real autopsy of a teen-suicide (We have flown in over 200 real corpses from morgues as far away as Istanbul for this event). The Christian doctor will pull the heart out of a each body and put it in a jar of formaldehyde labeled "Unsaved." "

Mmmmmyes, because that happens. This is what the corpses are for? This? I'm sorry, but I think they should show some more respect to these people and not use their bodies to convert children to a religion that they probably didn't believe in. And even if they did, it's not right, morally, or indeed in any other way.

"Scene 4 is a pre-teenage drug usage scene where everyone will be surprised who is really in control."

Ah, finally they're talkign abotu something important: peer pressure...

"The Devil..."

Spoke too soon

"The Devil will smoke marijuana with a 11 year old little girl."

I see. There's not much I can say about this. Yes, marijuana is smoked by 11 year olds (I fairly sure, hey, some of them even take heroin).

"The girl will instantly become "stoned" and scream for the Devil to impregnate her with his unholy Spawn. Given the power of a gorilla by her evil drug, the little harlot will try to overpower the Beast and rape him, only to become violently ill and die of the all too familiar "marijuana overdose""

Yes. Quite. In the words of Robin Williams "Marijuana does many thigns. It enhances colours, sounds, experiances. It does NOT fucking empower you."

He's right. Marijuana doesn't give you "the power of a gorilla". My other issue is with the "death by marijuana overdose". I'm sorry, this doesn't happen. You'd fall asleep before youtook nearly enough to kill yourself. They also say that Hendrix died of marijuana overdose. No, he didn't. This is a lie. He died, as his death certificate says, of "inhalation of vomit after barbiturate intoxicatoin" the "barbiturate" was a sleeping pill (which he overdosed on), not cannabis.

"Scene 5 is a riveting abortion scene"

Ooooo, riveting eh?

"Satan will play the role of the Jewish doctor."

Because Jews are evil, aren't they? Come on, they were persecuted by the Nazis, they have to be evil. Anti-semites.

"As the fetus is sucked out of the woman's private area, the devil will open the bottle of bloody chunks and consume it. As the blood drips from the corners of his mouth, he will let out a Hellish burp! He will then smash the bottle on the floor, throw back his head, and let out a ghastly howl!"

Not really sure what to make of this other than the old "abortion bad" thing. I disagree with the statement, I am pro-choice and people that want to ban aboriton are just plain stupid. OK, don't have an aboriton if you don't want it, but what gives you the right to make yuor beliefs inot my laws?

"The final two scenes are hell and heaven."

Oh Dante, where have you ogne?

"In hell the Tour meets Satan himself. Hell will be hot, smoky, loud, visually disturbing, and sensually confusing. Satan will boast that everything they have witnessed in Hell House has been his handiwork, and that he will have their souls, too."

I see. I can't argue with this except to say that certain theologian, my grandfather included (former Chaplain at various schools, a Canon, Doctor of Theology and an Anglican) say that Hell might not actually exist.

"They are then rescued out of hell by angels and Landover Deacons"

Isn't that nice, and those Landover folks too.

"They are then rescued out of hell by angels and Landover Deacons that escort them to heaven where they finally meet Jesus. But Jesus will turn to them in a loud echoy voice and proclaim for all the room to hear: "You think you have just seen the Hell that awaits you? Ha! Wait till you see what the Father, me and the Holy Ghost have REALLY cooked up for you! An eternity of torture so brutal it will make what you have just seen look like a little fairy picnic! And don't come crying to me when you get there! Landover Baptist gave you the chance to be saved and you never took it. Never even picked up a pre-printed tithing envelope conveniently located by each exit! Get thee Hence you unsaved worthless Sinners!"

What? Does Jesus really do advertising? Hey, that would be great.. maybe i could get him to advertise my blog.......

I thought Jesus was supposed to be a nice guy. Loving, forgiving, accepting, tolerant. But no, he just wants to torture sinners. Charming. Personally, I don't believe it.

"Before leaving heaven they are given the opportunity to pray a prayer of salvation, and to also visit or pray further with a counselor."

OK, back to a reasonable use of a church, praying for forgiveness, talkign to God, all the usual stuff. Wonderful.

"If they refuse to accept Christ, they are forced back into Scene 6 where they will enter a hidden door into Scene 6b."

I knew there'd be a catch. Observe the word "forced", sounds ominous, doesn't it?

"In this scene they will witness a deranged lust-filled homosexual raping a live chicken."

I'm sorry, I just have to stop laughing. Now then, let us move on past this scene (I can't comment, i just can't, this is too weird).

"The chicken will then be be-headed, de-feathered, and cooked. The unrepentant souls will then be given the choice of eating the unholy chicken or going forward to scene 7."

Oh, hey, free food (I'm not entirely sure what this is supposed to prove).

There is more about if you don't accept Christ you are whipped and beaten, and I would write about it in a suitably shocked and horrified tone, but I can't keep it up.

Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Landover Baptist Church is, to the best of my reasoning and knowledge, a hoax.

BUT, such places do exist (without the whipping etc.) and to the best of my knowledge, this is a fairly decent retelling of what goes on in them. The quesiton is, apart form being factually wrong, is it morally wrong as well? I believe it is. We can't shock people into believing in God, they need to find it for themselves. This sort of behaviour is a disgrace.

Anyway, on with the play...

The last acceptable forms of discrimination

2006-04-16T20:09:00.000Z

Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: It is an abomination

Leviticus 18:22 (King James Bible)

It is no longer socially acceptable to discriminate against women, and rightly so. It is no longer socially acceptabl to discriminate against other races, and rightly so. In fact, it is no longer socially acceptable to discriminate against any group of people, except two.

Firstly, homosexuals. This problem is more prevelent in schools, and in some other countries apart from the uK (although such discrimination is rampant in schools). Homosexuals are people like any other, and yet they are discriminated against in the Bible. The sam Bible that mandates death for adulterors, for those that disrespect their parents, even for those that work on the sabbath. The same Bible that does not condemn slavery.

Why is this still the case? Why can people still discriminate against homosexuals in schools, and sometimes in Governments. What makes them still a target? Anyone who indulges in this form of discrimination is morally bankrupt and in line with racists and sexists. Full stop.

The second case is much less commonly noted, but evident everywhere, and that is the discrimination against children. I speak as someone under the age of 18 and therefore with curtailed rights. Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, I want my damned rights. I want to be able to vote, who is to say that I would make an irresponsible decision. Those that know me would probably say that I would make a responsible decision, whereas many adults would not. Who is to say that there is a magic age at which you are responsible. There is not, and it is ridiculous to say so.

We must stamp out discrimination in all its forms. It must not be socially acceptable to discriminate against anyone.

United 93

2006-04-05T17:01:00.000Z

Disclaimer: The following article may offend people. If you are an American who is easily offended (particularly with regard to Septemeber the 11th) DO NOT READ ON. You have been warned.

For those of you that don't know, United 93 is the name of a film that is going to be released in America fairly soon. What's it about? September the 11th 2001, what many would call a sensitive subject. Why anyone would want to make a film about it I don't know, but someone did, so fair enough.

Recently, a few cinemas in America pulled the trailer for United 93 after it shocked audiences who saw it. When I read about this, I was, of course, interested to see what all the fuss was about. So, this afternoon, I went to look for the trailer. I just found it, and watched it. It seems fairly standard stuff. Perhaps they're using some artistic licence in showing what happened on the plane (United 93 was one of the hijacked planes). In fact, from what I coudl tell from the trailer, the whole film looks like artistic licence.

What also struck me was how unaffected I was. It didn't shock me, at all. OK, I'm not American, so maybe that's a factor. Having said that, if someone made a film about the 7th of July bombings (and, let's be honest, why would they?), I don't think I'd be affected at all.

So, what does this all mean, Americans are overly sensitive? No, I'm not going to say that. What I am going to say is this: Get over it. The attacks happened nearly five years ago, you've paid your respects, you have remembered, you're not likely to forget, so get over it. I could understand that if you had lost family members or friends in the attacks. I owuld expect it if that was the case. But the vast majority of Americans did not lose family members or friends. If you're going to keep acting like this we're never going to make any progress towards peace, and you'll be playing into the Repubilcan's hands (I'm not entirely convinced that Bush et al. actually want peace).

Anyway, that's my opinion. You must form your own opinions and judge for yourself, here's a website with the advert:

http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/united93/

Three Steps to Peace

2006-03-12T13:06:00.000Z

For a long time, Palestine has been an area of contention, so here's an idea of how to end the conflict:

1. Palestinians arrest any terrorists that are living in Palestine. The Israelis try (or allow to be tried by an international court) the Mossad agents that went around murdering Paliestinians during hte last Century.

2. Israel withdraws completely from Gaza and the West Bank. They tear down that wall and allow Palestinians to travel freely through Israel. And stop oppressing the Palestinian people.

3. We re-draw the borders to create two states, probably going back ot the way the borders were drawn up when the UK left the region. Jerusalem would be a free city, run by a Council composed of 50% Palestinians and 50% Israelis.

How's that?

This Is Funny

2006-01-21T23:13:00.000Z

OK, this is reputedly the funniest blonde joke ever, have a look:

http://j-walkblog.com/index.php?/weblog/posts/blond_joke/

You Call This Journalism?

2006-01-20T13:11:00.000Z

A few days ago, I was watching Sky News. I forget what they were talking about, it had something to do with the economy and sounded fairly important. Anyway, they interrupted it with a newsflash. What was it? A terrorist attack? Another Government cock-up? A sporting event? No. It was Gordon Brown and his wife going back into their home after having their child.
Congratulations to them and all that, but it's not something that you interrupt serious news for. As far as I am concerned, it's just two people returning to their home.
But that's not all, magazines and newspapers are full of things to do with celebrities that, to be honest, I couldn't care less about. Who cares if so and so broke their diet (yes, that is a genuine example). For one, it's none of our business, for another, it's not news. It's not even remotely important. People do these things every day.
So, are we doomed to more mind-numblingly dull, unimportant stories about celebrities we don't care about? In a word: YES.

The U.S. Reich

2005-12-20T21:41:00.000Z

The Americans are at it again. Once more we find Bush et al. eroding the freedoms of their people. It's sad that tht U.S. can't exist anymore without the paranoid Stalin-esq measures that they are currently using.

First, we hear news that Bush can actually authorise wiretaps and other surveillance on U.S. citizens without a court order, without even telling a court. As if this enforcement of the POlice State wasn't bad enough, guess what they're using to justify it. September the 11th. Yes, that's right, the Bush administration is saying that "if we used wiretaps before september the 11th, we could have stopped Al-Qaida". It's sad when people use a disaster to justify Fascism. Reminds me of Hitler and the Reichstag.

What is more, the PATRIOT Act is up for another vote. If it passes, it will continue to rain down Fascism on the U.S. people. If September the 11th was Bush's Reichstag Fire, then the PATRIOT Act is his Enabling Act. Here's what it let's him do (courtesy of the ACLU):

Making it easier for the government to initiate surveillance and wiretapping of U.S. citizens under the authority of the shadowy, top-secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. (Sections 101, 102 and 107)
Permitting the government, under certain circumstances, to bypass the Foreign Intelligence

Surveillance Court altogether and conduct warrantless wiretaps and searches. (Sections 103 and 104)

Sheltering federal agents engaged in illegal surveillance without a court order from criminal prosecution if they are following orders of high Executive Branch officials. (Section 106)

Creating a new category of "domestic security surveillance" that permits electronic eavesdropping of entirely domestic activity under looser standards than are provided for ordinary criminal surveillance under Title III. (Section 122)

Using an overbroad definition of terrorism that could cover some protest tactics such as those used by Operation Rescue or protesters at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico as a new predicate for criminal wiretapping and other electronic surveillance. (Sections 120 and 121)

Providing for general surveillance orders covering multiple functions of high tech devices, and by further expanding pen register and trap and trace authority for intelligence surveillance of United States citizens and lawful permanent residents. (Sections 107 and 124)

Creating a new, separate crime of using encryption technology that could add five years to any sentence for crimes committed with a computer. (Section 404)

Expanding nationwide search warrants so they do not have to meet even the broad definition of terrorism in the USA PATRIOT Act. (Section 125)

Giving the government secret access to credit reports without consent and without judicial process. (Section 126)

Enhancing the government's ability to obtain sensitive information without prior judicial approval by creating administrative subpoenas and providing new penalties for failure to comply with written demands for records. (Sections 128 and 129)

Allowing for the sampling and cataloguing of innocent Americans' genetic information without court order and without consent. (Sections 301-306)

Permitting, without any connection to anti-terrorism efforts, sensitive personal information about U.S. citizens to be shared with local and state law enforcement. (Section 311)
Terminating court-approved limits on police spying, which were initially put in place to prevent McCarthy-style law enforcement persecution based on political or religious affiliation. (Section 312)

Permitting searches, wiretaps and surveillance of United States citizens on behalf of foreign governments - including dictatorships and human rights abusers - in the absence of Senate-approved treaties. (Sections 321-22)

Diminishes public accountability by increasing government secrecy; specifically, by
Authorizing secret arrests in immigration and other cases, such as material witness warrants, where the detained person is not criminally charged. (Section 201)

Threatening public health by severely restricting access to crucial information about environmental health risks posed by facilities that use dangerous chemicals. (Section 202)

Harming fair trial rights for American citizens and other defendants by limiting defense attorneys from challenging the use of secret evidence in criminal cases. (Section 204)

Gagging grand jury witnesses in terrorism cases to bar them from discussing their testimony with the media or the general public, thus preventing them from defending themselves against rumor-mongering and denying the public information it has a right to receive under the First Amendment. (Section 206)

Diminishes corporate accountability under the pretext of fighting terrorism; specifically, by
Granting immunity to businesses that provide information to the government in terrorism investigations, even if their actions are taken with disregard for their customers' privacy or other rights and show reckless disregard for the truth. Such immunity could provide an incentive for neighbor to spy on neighbor and pose problems similar to those inherent in Attorney General Ashcroft's "Operation TIPS." (Section 313)

Undermines fundamental constitutional rights of Americans under overbroad definitions of "terrorism" and "terrorist organization" or under a terrorism pretext; specifically by
Stripping even native-born Americans of all of the rights of United States citizenship if they provide support to unpopular organizations labeled as terrorist by our government, even if they support only the lawful activities of such organizations, allowing them to be indefinitely imprisoned in their own country as undocumented aliens. (Section 501)

Creating 15 new death penalties, including a new death penalty for "terrorism" under a definition which could cover acts of protest such as those used by Operation Rescue or protesters at Vieques Island, Puerto Rico, if death results. (Section 411)

Further criminalizing association - without any intent to commit specific terrorism crimes - by broadening the crime of providing material support to terrorism, even if support is not given to any organization listed as a terrorist organization by the government. (Section 402)

Permitting arrests and extraditions of Americans to any foreign country - including those whose governments do not respect the rule of law or human rights - in the absence of a Senate-approved treaty and without allowing an American judge to consider the extraditing country's legal system or human rights record. (Section 322)

Unfairly targets immigrants under the pretext of fighting terrorism; specifically by
Undercutting trust between police departments and immigrant communities by opening sensitive visa files to local police for the enforcement of complex immigration laws. (Section 311)

Targeting undocumented workers with extended jail terms for common immigration offenses. (Section 502)

Providing for summary deportations without evidence of crime, criminal intent or terrorism, even of lawful permanent residents, whom the Attorney General says are a threat to national security. (Section 503)

Completely abolishing fair hearings for lawful permanent residents convicted of even minor criminal offenses through a retroactive "expedited removal" procedure, and preventing any court from questioning the government's unlawful actions by explicitly exempting these cases from habeas corpus review. Congress has not exempted any person from habeas corpus -- a protection guaranteed by the Constitution -- since the Civil War. (Section 504)

Allowing the Attorney General to deport an immigrant to any country in the world, even if there is no effective government in such a country. (Section 506)

And thus the U.S. Reich recieves more power. It will not surprise me when Bush recieves unbridled power. However, this is not the limit of it. What is even worse is the way that the U.S. far-righists try to gag the people that speak the truth about this Fascist regime. They say this (or words to this effect):

"If you don't support Bush and his policies, you are unpatriotic, you are unamerican, oyu are supporting the terrorists"

This is wrong on so many levels, but I'll give bonus points to anyone who can tell me the last person in Government to use the phrase "unamerican" in such a fashion.

Here's my advice: If oyu are American, or know any Americans, get them to write to their Congressman, or their Senator or Their Governor or even the President himself and say "NO, we will not let Fascism take over our nation".

The Indpendent

2005-12-04T19:24:00.000Z

I read the Independent (for future reference). This cartoon was in today's issue:

Good, no?

I found this, and I'm a more unstable man for it.

2005-11-17T21:47:00.000Z

http://marrymetonyblair.blogspot.com/

I think someone needs to be committed to an institution.

No, it isn't me, damn you.

We Will Remember Them

2005-11-12T21:14:00.000Z

Yesterday was Armistice Day. At the Eleventh Hour, of the Elevnth Day of the Eleventh Month we stood outside the War Memorial at school and remembered.
Or did we?
I remembered. I remembered that people had died so that we could be free. I remembered that war is a terrible, horrific thing that should never be entered into lightly. I remembered the fallen. But I got the distinct impression that nobody else was. Nobody else was standing there, thinking about what we were supposed to be thinking about. mayeb there's something wrong with my generation, maybe it's that they go through it so often, they view it as a ritual that's as pointless as it is boring. Maybe this is why we still have wars, people don't remember.
One guy in my class even asked why he should show respect. Does he not understand what these people did? I told him that these people died so that he could be free, that these people died so that he could live a decent life. He said that a taxi driver was of more use to him, why shouldn't he give his money to his taxi driver than "a few dead people". First of all, it's not about the money, it's about remembering, and second of all, the money goes to the Royal British Legion, not just some dead people.
There's something wrong when peopel think taxi drivers are more important than those that died for our freedom.

Gun Crime

2005-10-31T20:14:00.000Z

A few facts and figures to start off with:
According to the Crime in England and Wales 2003-2004 Report

There were 81 deaths involving firearms in England and Wales.

That's about 0.135 deaths involving firearms per 100,000 people (unless my figures for population are wrong, around 60 million people in Britain?)

In America there were 9416 gun murders, 67% of all murders. (You do not know the meaning of the word "unhelpful" until you have tried to get statistics out of the U.S. Government. Interestingly, they were more keen to give me the percentage of violent crime committed by black people than they were to give me the above figure).

Assuming that there were around 295 million people in America, there are about 3.1 gun deaths involving firearms per 100,000 people.

Therefore I can conclude, fairly safely, that there is a higher gun murder rate in the USA than in England and Wales.

I would try and find out how many of these were committed with legal firearms, but I think I might be here till Christmas 2010 trying to get the U.S. Governemnt to tell me.

Another interesting site told me that:

There were 506.1 (to one decimal place) violent crimes per 100,000 people in the U.S.A. in 2000.

The same site also told me that, in the catagories of sexual offences and robbery, there were many more cases per 100,000 people in America than in England and Wales. The anomaly was "Violence against the person", which was greater in England and Wales.

It is clear from this that legalised gun ownership does not lead to greater security from shootings, rape or robbery. I am not saying that the evidence supports my theory that gun control lessens these things, but clearly, something is wrong.The arguments put forward by those in favour of legalised gun ownership (namely, the American Right-Wing), are that it protects you from these things and if you make firearms illegal, rape, murder etc. will become more common as "people cannot defend themselves". This is not the case. People don't think about that sort of thing when committing a crime, and if they do, they take it into account. Poeple probably couldn't defend themselves either because the criminal might be carrying a firearm (they are legal you know) and would get the drop on their victim, or the victim might not be carrying a gun, or might not be able to reach it. When will the U.S. realise: giving people guns is a BAD IDEA.

(Regarding violence against the person, it's difficult to tell. I doubt that many of the cases involved firearms, and that the majority was common assault or attacks with knives, it's interesting though).

P.S. After the "Brady Bill" was passed in the U.S. (banning various firearms), the gun murder rate decreased. But then, as we have already seen, people in Government never learn.

The Washington Affair

2005-10-31T19:40:00.000Z

I refuse to call it "Plamegate". Why does everyone insist on taking the name of someone or something involved and putting "gate" on the end? (Yes, I do know about Watergate, but still, why?).

For all those who don't know, Joe Wilson was sent by the U.S. Government to investigate claims from documents that fell into the hands of Italian Intelligence reporting the Saddam Hussein had tried to by Uranium Yellowcake from Niger (this was before the war in Iraq. We now know that the documents were forged, but not who they were forged by). Mr. Wilson found that these allegations were false, but the Bush Administration already had their hearts set on Iraq. They wouldn't listen, and became angry when Mr. Wilson would not tell them what they wanted to hear. A while later, Mrs. Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson's wife and a CIA undercover Agent, was outed by the press. It has now been found by the Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, that her identity as a CIA agent was leaked by the Government. Those under investigation are Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, one of Bush's Political Strategists and close advisors (he helped build the case for war in Iraq) and (possibly, and we can always hope) Vice-President Dick Cheney, the most powerful Vice-President in years.
Libby has been indicted already, but not for the leaking of Mrs. Plame's identity, but for lying about it (1 count of Obstruction of Justice, 2 counts of Perjury and 2 counts of making false statements). If he is found guilty, he could face 30 years in prison and fines of up to $1,250,000. Rove is still under investigation, but perhaps Fitzgerald is going higher, perhaps he has his sights on the very top of the administration. If the Bush Administration's luck is out, it is possible that the whole case for the war will be officially, once-and-for all discredited. I'm putting htis here mainly so nobody forgets what has happened (this is a premanent record), but also to help those that don't know what's going on.

Point of Law: International Law dictates that no nation may engage in an aggressive war. The first charge for the Nazis at Nuremburg was starting an aggressive war. So much for a "legal" war.

A ridiculous thing to say

2005-10-23T22:16:00.000Z

I heard on the news that a bird had died of bird flu in quarantine in the UK. Well, that's it Ladies and Gentlemen, we are not safe, we're all going to be in great danger in the next few years, good luck.
But that's not all they said. They said that, because the bird was in quarantine it didn't die in the UK. OK, legally, they're right, quarantine is not the UK, but I don't give a damn about the legal technicallities of quarantine, that bird was on the piece of land commonly known as the UK, therefore it died in the UK. What are these people trying to say?

Bird Flu

2005-10-17T15:41:00.000Z

The latest news is about 50,000 British people are going to die. However, I've also heard from a Government Minister that we're stockpiling the treatment for bird flu, so maybe we won't all die. I've also heard that the virus currently seen in Turkey and Romania can't travel from birds to humans, so what are we worrying about? And just what is the official story?
The other thing is why can't we stop it spreading? It can't be that hard to stop the transportation of chickens from one country to another. Or are we going to encounter the same problems that we did with foot and mouth or BSE? The good news is that we did eventually see these off. BSE took a while, and Turkey can look forward to not having the French buy their chickens, and Foot and Mouth, despite the Labour cock-up, was eventually sorted.

So, apparently we're going to get this virus, or not.

But didn't we think that we were all going to get Ebola not so long ago?

Mufti Day

2005-10-07T20:17:00.000Z

Today was Jeans fo Genes Day (a charity event). Now, usually this entails the entire population of the College being allowed to wear their own clothes (that's what Mufti means). Only this year, it was different. While JAGS got to wear what they wanted, we could only wear jeans, but had to keep the rest of our iuniform on (shirt, tie, blazer).

1. What the hell is the point? Not of this, but of Mufti day in general? No, I'm serious. Why do we want to do this? It's not that i don't like my clothes, it just seems a little bit pointless. Any ideas?

2. The Boycott. We didn't like this new rule. Therefore a boycott was organised. OK, I say organised, I mean that lots of people all over the school thought it would be a good idea not to do this so the administration don't try this again (stop it before it starts). As a result, only a few people actually wore jeans, and the College got a fraction of the money it usually does. The College doesn't like this. The College wants to look charitable. The logic was that if we make the College look uncharitable, it will let us go back to wearing our own clothes because otherwise it won't look charitable.
All well and good? I'm not sure. While I was one of the advocats of this boycott, I now feel bad for having encouraged peopel not to pay money to a charity purely for selfish (well, not for myself, but for the community, I couldn't care less) reasons. Did I do the right thing, or should I make a donation directly to the charity to make up for it?

And I thought Accountants were boring

2005-09-20T19:21:00.001Z

My cousin has got a job at KPMG, one of the top accounting firms in England. She started yesterday and, while saying it was a dull day, told me some very funny things...

1.Her computer broke down (first day and it breaks, good work). Anyway, to get someone to fix it she had to call the IT Specialists. In India. My initial reactoin was "How long is it going to take him to get out here?". It turns out that India just calls London and sends someone round. Or should I say up, because, actually, the IT people are on the floor below my cousin. Here's a money saving idea: Cut out the Indian call centre and have the peopel in the building take the calls directly. And I thought accountants were good with money.
2. Paperchase. This is a program that they use in her office. If you are going to audit a company, you can look at all the audit records for that company from audits that have already been done on it. I assumed it just brought it up on a computer screen, but oh no. Apparently some secretary downstairs has to find the file and bring it up to you. Oh the fun you could have with that... (No, not that file, I wanted the one before that," and so on.

Tha's all for now

I'll let the pictures do the talking

2005-09-12T21:12:00.000Z

The thought proccesses of an amateur Batsman (or, How not to bat)

2005-08-29T20:44:00.000Z

Right, what's this? I'm in, OK. Pads, check, gloves, check, bat, check. Pick up and put on helmet. Right, off we go, to the crease. What's this? My partner might not be up for taking quick singles, OK, I'll let him call when he wants to run. OK, here we are at the crease, I'll take my guard at middle please, Umpire. Thank you. Mark middle stump... Oh, there's a line there, I'll use that. Right, get into the stance. OK, play a nice defensive innings, just bat out the game for 8 overs, you'll be fine. [this next bit is accelerated].
Ok, there's the bowler, here he comes. He's running up, he bowls... right, it's wide of my off-stump, [Before I go on, here's what should happen next: Right, it's the first ball, I don't want to take the risk of being out, it's not going to hit my stumps, I'l leave it alone].
I'll hit it. Might as well try and get some runs. Front foot forward and across, bring the bat down and through... right, connected. Oh dear, it's in the air. And heading for that fielder, he might catch it. Oh, that's OK, I've seen him field, he's got no co-ordination, he'll never do it...
F**K
Right, helmet off, back to the pavillion.

High Drama at Trent Bridge

2005-08-28T17:39:00.000Z

Picking up from where my last post left off, here's how it happened:
Gilchrist went to a magnificent flying catch from Strauss,
Shane Warne was caught out for 0 and the final 3 wickets came quickly, leaving Australia all out for 218. England then decided to enforce the follow-on, so Australia had to bat again. This innings did not go quite as well, with wickets being few and far between, one notable one was Australia's captain Ponting being run out by the substitute fielder, Gary Pratt, Ponting was not pleased. England finally bowled Australia out for 387, leaving England chasing 129 to win.
This should have been easy, but with careless shots from a few England batsmen (naming no names), and some clever fielding form the Aussies, England lost wickets quickly. Flintoff, after making 26 was unfortunately bowled.
Hoggard and Giles came to the crease with England at 116 for 7. THey both played a sensible innings to take England to 2 to win. Ashley Giles, facing a ball from Warne, swept down the leg side and ran the final two, causing a small riot on the balcony where the rest of the England team were standing. We now go to the Oval needing only a draw to win the Ashes.
It's Lions 2, Convicts 1.

Could this be the year?

2005-08-26T21:39:00.000Z

Could this be the year that Australia's dominance of World Cricket finally starts to crumble? I think it might be.

The story so far:

Ashes 2005, England vs. Australia in a five test series.

Lord's:
A poor start to the series with Australia defeating England comfortably, putting hte series on 1-0 to Australia. It looked as if it was going to be a long series.

Edgbaston:
"The Greatest Test". With Australia needing 3 runs to win and England only needing one wicket, Steve Harmison bowled the crucial ball which caught Michael Kasprowicz on the gloves. The ball carried and the England Wicket Keeper Geraint Jones dived forward to take the winning catch. England win by 2 runs, and the series moved to 1-1.

Old Trafford:
Rain robbed England of a victory. Needing just one wicket at the end of the fifth and final day of the Test, England just oculdn't seem to get either Lee or McGrath out. Australia hung on for a draw, keeping the series at 1-1.

Trent Bridge:
We're only 2 days in, but it looks as if England could walk away victorious once agian. England racked up a first innings total of 477 all out with Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff making 102, assissted by Geraint Jones, Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughn. Shaun Tait, replacing the injured Glenn McGrath, made a stunning debut, taking 3 wickets. Australia's innings started immediately after tea. They proceeded to lose 5 wickets, with Matthew Hoggard leading the England bowling assault. Australia stand on 99 for 5, with Katich still in and Gilchrist about to step up to the crease. It looks set for another thrilling test match.

A note to the Australians: Bow down before the awesome power that is Andrew Flintoff and the England side you convicts, you.

In the words of Channel 4's resurrected W.G. Grace: Bring it on!

Guantanamo Bay

2005-08-24T18:15:00.000Z

What happens when you break the law? You're arrested, tried, and punished. Yes?
Well, no. You see, America is breaking the law. It has been for some time now, but they're not being punished for it. I'm talking about Guantanamo Bay, a camp where we have reports of prisoners being tortured. THe Geneva Convention, which America has signed, expressly forbids the torture of Prisoners of War. That's what these people are, PoWs. So America is breaking the law by torturing them.
Of course they can't be PoWs, because if they were, why would America be trying to have them tried by a Military Tribunal? So they must be criminals. If so they should have been charged, and they still shouldn't be being tortured, it says so under American law.
Well, the Americans are trying to get round this by saying that they are "Enemy Combatants" and therefore afforded no rights by the Geneva Convention, or American Law. Yes, "Enemy Combatants". This is a phrase invented by the Bush Administration to try and get round the legal points that have been raised (see, they know that they're breaking the law). However, aren't Enemy Combatants that have been captured PoWs?

The Casualties of the Price War

2005-08-16T09:31:00.000Z

It has recently come to my attention that people in South Africa are going bankrupt. This is because of the price wars that are waged in British supermarkets.
To understand this, you need to see that the goal of the supermarkets is to make a profit. They do this by minimising their losses (such as the price they pay to the farmers in South Africa). However, with the price wars making the supermarkets drive their prices down, and offers of "buy one get one free" means that the supermarkets take less money than they would if they didn't do these things. However, in a Capitalist society, they must, because they wouldn't make money otherwise.
This leads to the supermarkets paying the farmers less, which means the farmers make less money and go bankrupt, forcing them and all their labourers out of work.

Isn't Capitalism wonderful?

Hiroshima

2005-08-15T19:47:00.000Z

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only times that a nuclear bomb has been used in war. And we are still in possession of them. I would have thought that these two atrocities alone would be enough to make us disarm. If not, then surely the Cuban Missile Crisis would have been. But no, evidently not.
One of the interesting things about these two atrocities is that they were used against civilian targets, after America had just called the Blitz "inhuman barbarism". Then what was Hiroshima? What was Nagasaki?
What makes them even worse was that the Japanese were looking for peace. Was an unconditional surrender, as opposed to the conditional one that the Japanese undoubtedly wanted, worth the murder of all those innocent civillians?
Antoher strange thing is that the commander of the Enola Gay (the aircraft that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima) expressed remorse. Oppenheimer, the man that invented the bomb, should remorse also. The pilot of the Enola Gay didn't. Hmmm, I wonder why?

The IRA's Declaration and the stupidity of our leaders

2005-07-29T16:48:00.000Z

"The leadership of Oglaigh na hEireann has formally ordered an end to the armed campaign" So begins the IRA's Statement that was released at 12:46 yesterday. This, if they are to be believed, is the end to a long and bloody campaign. And the moment that it comes could not have been better.
Now, Bush and Blair have an example of how to go about fighting terrorism. Not with a barrel of gun, but with Diplomacy. Fighting the terrorists will only lead to more violence, more bloodshed and more death. We cannot afford this. In Ireland, we spent too long using the Army to fight the IRA, but then we did it right and the IRA has disarmed. The War on Terror looks to go the same way. Why don't we learn from history and get it right first time?

Australia beat England by 7 wickets

2005-07-10T19:44:00.000Z

I spent most of the day sitting in Lord's cricket ground in the heat getting a slight tan and watching England perform rather poorly.
England got 223 for 8 which wasn't nearly enough and allowed australia to stroll to 224 with 7 odd overs to spare and 3 wickets lost.
Interesting parts were:
Flintoff getting 87 to take England to a reasonable score before getting caught out very easily.
Lee took 5 wickets
Ponting got a century before being dismissed for 111 with a catch from Pieterson.
Some Australians trying to get a mexican wave going (I think they had a little too much Fosters).
An Australian fielder stopped the ball but touched the boundry rope at the same time. In cricket, this coutns as a 4 but the Umpire took several minutes conferring with the third Umpire. Throughout this time the crowd had been shouting "Four" and every time that fielder stopped the ball, even if it was ten yards from the boundry, everyone shouted "Four".
We got a preview of the fly-past that happened today. All the planes flew near Lord's and a Lancaster and two Spitfires actually flew over the ground.

The mood in London

2005-07-09T14:04:00.000Z

I went up to London yesterday. 1 day after the attacks and everything (with the exception of the tube) is back to normal. Peopel are going to work and wandering around the streets as if nothing had happened. People may have apeared a little subdued, but let's be fair, it was raining. The only disappointment was that the people who were supposed to be perfroming in Embankment Gardens didn't show up. They were probably too scared, as many Americans in London have been (my Dad's secretary for one). Generally it was good, and I hope that the cricket at Lord's is still on, I shall be very angry if they cancel that.

We are not afraid

2005-07-07T19:12:00.000Z

I don't need to tell you what happened today, I'm sure that you all know by now about the attack on central London. I have a message for you:
Do Not Panic
That is the desire of every terrorist leader in the world, for us to panic and become weak. After this attack we must do what many in America (and 1930s Germany) failed to do. We must keep a leash on our leaders. We must not allow them to use this attack as an excuse to create a Police State in Britain. It has already been happening in America but it must not be allowed to happen here. We have got off lightly, 33 dead is very low and the terrorists are likely to move on, having hit Britain, and not continue to attack us.
Also, we must cease our attacks on their nations, instead we must talk with them. Dialogue has solved the Irish problem, the old enemy has been replaced by a new one, let us get it right first time, rather than fight for years before realising that it is the wrong way.
Remember, we lived with the IRA for almost a century and we survived. We must let the terrorists know:
We Are Not Afraid.

Wimbledon

2005-06-30T17:12:00.000Z

I've just got back from Wimbledon Tennis. No, I didn't go to school today, I went to the tennis. Why? Because the Merton Music Foundation's Youth Concert Band was playing there. Being a member of this band, it seemed like a good idea to go along and play. It meant I got up later than usual and played until about 1:15. We did four sets, but before we started, some people in the band saw Boris Becker opposite where we were playing, so ran over to get his autograph. It turned out that he was doing an interview on German TV so they asked us to play "Purple and Green", the official Wimbledon music, for them. Then we did our four sets, which went very well. At 1:15 we packed up and were alowed to wander around Wimbledon. Unfortunately it rained, so there was no tennis to watch, but we chatted a bit and it was generally a good time.

2005-06-26T16:18:00.000Z

To whoever commented on my New World Order post with the address the World Socialism webpage.

Could you please make yourself known?

Cheers

Take to the skies

2005-06-24T21:38:00.000Z

On a less political note, I went flying on Thursday with the RAF. It's only the second time I've been, but the first time was great. So, we left DC at 1110 and went to RAF Benson (just outside Oxford). There were 10 of us, 3 Corporals from the year above, 6 Cadets from the year below, and me, the only Junior Corporal. We spent a few hours travelling up in the minibus to Benson and when we got there we watched a safety video and then sat around for a bit watching Henman losing. He couldn't string two points together! Oh well, he's out now, and I'll have to content myself with second rate stuff when I go next week (more on that later), unless of course Murray gets through.
Anyway, after waiting around we went past two huge hangars with Merlin Helicopters and a big Ghurka symbol on the doors to the hut thing where we put on our flight suits, helmets and parachutes. I was half hoping that I would need to bail out, just to have the experiance, but then I might screw up and die, and that would be bad. Well, I waited for a bit until it was my turn. I walked out to the plane, a Grob Tutor, and got in. The Pilot did his engine checks and took off. Once we were up he gave me the controls and I flew about for a bit, trying to remember how everything was done. The pilot said that my flying was very smooth, so I haven't forgotten it all afterall. Anyway, after about fifteen minutes of the half an hour flight he took the controls back and we did some aerobatics. I was a bit worried at first, I'm not the best person with rollercoasters etc. but we did some of the more gentle things. We did a few wing overs, they're the ones in the films when the planes turn around at looks good, The Battle of Britain has the best examples (yes, I watch war films). Anyway, you climb up and then bring the wing over the nose and you turn around. We did a few small ones and the G force wasn't too bad until we climbed out of them, when it went up to 2G, which isn't too bad, but it's a bit constricting. Then we did a really big one. I looked up and thought: "Hey, there's a football pitch up there". So I've been upsidedown in a plane, what fun! And we went into 0G. 1 G is normal, 0G is weightless. We climbed and then dived sharply and I was lifted a little way out of my seat. Regrettably that was the end of the seesion, but I'm going again at the earliest oportunity I get.

Israel

2005-06-19T19:49:00.000Z

Israel: A nation founded on terrorism and maintained by oppression.
That's a pretty bold statement, but true nonetheless.
In 1947, amid an Israeli terrorism campaign, pulled out of Palestine. One of the most prolific attacks mounted during this campaign was the attack on the King David Hotel. 15-20 Irgun terrorists (a Jewish terror organisation) blew up the wing of the Hotel where the British administration was based, killing 91 British Civilians. So, that shows founded on terrorism.
The oppression part is easy: The wall around Israel, the constant mistreatment of the Palestinians, and, most importantly of all, the illegal occupation of Palestine.
Now, this shows a discrepancy in Western Foriegn Policy. In all other cases of invasion in the twentieth century, the West has condemned, and sometuimes intervened in, them. From The German occupation of Belgium in 1914, through to Hitler's campaigns, until the First Gulf War and Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, the West has done something. But not in Palestine. And why not? Because America, being hipocritical, chooses not to attack Jews. It's all very well when Arabs invade other countries and America gives support to those countries being invaded. It's all very well when Communism invades somewhere far away. But when Israel invades somewhere, America leaves well alone. Another example of American hipocrisy is that Israel has not signed the NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty, only countries that have signed it are permitted to have nuclear weapons), however, Israel is known to possess nuclear weapons. When other countries might, possibly, maybe, have nuclear weapons, America complains. But not with Israel. What does this suggest about America?

Michael Jackson Walks Free

2005-06-15T19:21:00.000Z

That was the headline of The Independant yesterday. Notice "Walks Free" not "Is Innocent", not "Not Guilty" but "Walks Free".
The trial was a farce, and personally I believe Jackson to be guilty as charged. But then again, I wouldn't put anything past a man who changed the colour of his own skin and who dangles babies out of windows.
Of course, all of the fans outside should really have been removed. Why? Because they were in contempt of court. Who could argue that all those placards weren't trying to influence the jury? There should be a retrial, and the Prosecution should make sure they do it probably.
Anyway, he's bankrupt now ($200 million in debt) so we won't be seeing much more of him, hopefully. Unless he releases a new single to try and cover his debts (which it won't). God help us if that happens.

Be Seeing you

New World Order

2005-06-11T16:05:00.000Z

Where are we going? The answer is simple, we are headed for a global collapse. Why? Because the leaders of the world's most powerful countries, particulaly Bush, are only out for their own interests. Now, this shouldn't be a problem, the main goal of any government is to look after its own citizens before anyone else. But with the rise of China and the West's constant quest for more oil we are headed for disaster. There is absolutely no way that the United States are going to sign the Kyoto Agreement. There is no way that they are going to give up their ugly, inefficient 4X4s for the benefit of others. Ladies and Gentlemen, we cannot go on like this.
The Human Race will find way, of that I have no doubt. However, there will be less food, less energy and a lower quality of life for all. Unless we can do something to avert this now.
What do I propose? A New World Order. One World, One Nation. I am not exactly certain what the Nation will be, but I know this: it must begin as a Dictatorship. However much we may hate the idea, it is the strongest form of government. We need to begin there because we need to solve all our environmental and economic problems. Once these are under control, power must change and we must become a Communist Democracy. There must be no money, everyone must be treated the same. We cannot afford to have dissaffected workers committing crimes because they have nothing else to do or because they feel oppressed. In the New World Order, all must be equal.

Be Seeing You

Where do we go from here?

2005-06-03T15:33:00.000Z

The French and the Dutch have said no. Whether this is a rebellion against their governments or not is unimportant. What is important is two of the founding members of the EU have rejected the new Constitution. Ladies and Gentlemen, the EU Constitution is now dead. R.I.P. So it doesn't really matter that we aren't going to have a referendum on it, because we haven't got anyhting to vote on.

And Dan, after your last comment, I denounce you as an enemy of Democracy, and you should be treated as such.

Be Seeing You

This isn't how Democracy works

2005-05-30T00:33:00.000Z

Due to France's NO vote on the EU Constitution yesterday, Downing Street are showing signs that a referendum on the Constitution in Britain is not going to happen. Now, this is very dangerous. The way Democracy works is that the people decide, but Mr. Blair seems to think that if you are not going to win, you should not hold a referendum. So, instead of the British people deciding what will happen to their country, they will only be allowed to have their say if it agrees with the government. Mr. Blair needs to do some serious thinking.
However, it is not so important in this particular matter, as France have voted no, and the Dutch are about to, the EU Constitution is dead. Who knows what will happen next?
Be Seeing You

Execution Day?

2005-05-27T19:09:00.000Z

Today, the French hold the future of their nation, and quite possibly the future of Europe, in their hands. Today, they vote in a referundum on the new EU constitution. The "NON" campaign, in which blogs have played a large part, looks like it is going to come out victorious. (Just as a by the way. The "OUI" campaign used the argument that if the French voted no it would make the British happy. Is this xenophobic attitude the sort of thing we want in the civilized world?) The question is, what would this mean? It may mean many things: It could be the end of the new EU constitution, which would almost certainly mean the death of the EU, as the old constitution needs replacing soon. This would mean that Europe would lose a lot of its power and influence, and that they would be replaced as the second most powerful political entity by Japan and China. It could also put paid to any plans of a public referendum in this country as Blair may decide that it is to big a risk to give this sort of power to the people.
The real question is: Would a French NO vote be the death knell of Europe?
Be Seeing You

A few things.

2005-05-19T20:53:00.000Z

OK, here's what's going on:
I met Sarah on Tuesday, which was great, she's really nice, and I'm thankful for her company, because otherwise I'd have to invite someone like Dan...
What else is happening... not a lot, there's too much music this week, and I'm starting to feel strangely unhappy, oh well, it'll pass, I'm sure.
Right, I'm feeling Socratic, so I'm going to ask a few questions:
Why do people feel the need to act differently aorund others?
Why do people find talking to members of the opposite sex difficult (yes, some people do)?
Why can't everyone get along?
Why do we get things like Columbine?
Why do I feel lonely in a crowded room?
Why don't people take an interest in what's happening in the world?
Just what is happening to the world?
And society?
What drives someone to commit a crime?
And the eternal, ultimate question:
WHY?
Please can you answer these questions, I can't.
Be Seeing You
ADDITIONAL: The change of name has been enforced by various people for various reasons. It's quite easy to guess what it means, just don't post it here.
Be Seieng You

Free Speech and Trial By Jury

2005-05-13T20:19:00.000Z

I'm fed up of not being allowed to argue with rude teachers. Earlier this week I walked into my maths class late. This was ok, as I had an reason, I was in a rehersal for some piece obne of the groups I'm in is playing next week. We had a cover teacher, and I told him that I had been to a rehersal and that I was sorry for being late. Now, the usual response I get is: "OK, sit down, here's the work you need to be doing." But no. This man spends about ten seconds thinking and then says:
"Evidently it wasn't a rehersal for getting here on time." Now that's just plain offensive. Not only that, it took him a while to think of it. I wanted to tell him that actually I was at a rehersal for a piece of music and that I objected to that sort of treatment, but decided against it, and here's why.
If you say something that a teacher thinnks is out of line, especially the strict ones, like the man in my maths lesson, you're liable to get punished. Now, this wrong on two levels. First of all it contravenes the principle of free speech, I should be allowed to say what I like for all sorts of reasons that I won't go into now. But secondly it's actually illegal. The government acccords me certain rights, and one of those rights is the right to freedom of speech. This right is being oppressed by schools everywhere, and so is another:
The right to Trial By Jury. Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, you can be punished without evidence. Not only that, the punishment is erratic, with one teacher, you may get away with something, with another, straight into a double detention. And while it may not be the worst of punishments, it is once again against the principles and the laws that govern this country.
On a lighter note, I'm now owed three sachets of sugar, all because someone at DYO thought I couldn't play the piano at all, and that I didn't remember debts, and now I've started charging interest, one sachet for every week he fails to pay, I stand to get a lot of sugar.
Expect more on rights and their oppression at school in the future, and Democracy and Freedom and Peace and stuff like that.
Be Seeing You

A Grim Day

2005-05-06T19:12:00.000Z

Yesterday started out well enough. It was the day of the concert at St. John's, Smith's Square and I missed all of school, (except English, which is pretty relaxing anyway). This was great because I played for a couple of hours and then went to Pret with Michael Chan (the First Horn) and we had a drink and something to eat. I then went back to the College, almost fell asleep in English and then returned to London for a meal at Pizza Express on Millbank and the concert. The first half wasn't great, but the second half was amazing. We had Elliot giving a beautiful rendition of Grieg's Piano Concerto and then the first movement of Cesar Franck's Symphony.
However, as we did this, the nation made a great, and potentially terrible decision: They re-elected Blair. Although with a majority of only 63 instead of 180. Incidently, Blair recieved the lowest share of the vote that has formed a government for a long time.
Some other interesting things hapened in the election. We had the lowest number of votes for a single party ever: 1. It was the Vote for Yourself Party.
George Galloway's R.E.S.P.E.C.T. Party won Bethnal Green, and I must say the Paxman's conduct during his interview with Mr. Galloway was shocking. His sole question was "Do you feel proud to have defeated one of the few black women in Parliament?" You can't ask that, it's quite frankly offensive and Galloway was right to rebuke him. I bloody well hope Paxman apologises very quickly for this disgraceful behaviour.
Well, I think that just about covers it. Another five years of Blair then. Good luck, ladies and gentlemen.
Be Seeing You

On this day...

2005-05-02T18:57:00.000Z

On this day in 1945, the troops of the Soviet Union marched into Berlin and raised the Red Flag over the Reichstag, thus ending the Second World War. Now, say what you like about war, but I would not be here without it. For, without the Great War (That's the World War before this one), I would not be alive, as my great Grandfather met my Great Grandmother's brother in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
The 20th Century is known as the Century of Total War, and it's not hard to see why. However, this century seems to be a continuation of this theme. We've had the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and there have been conflicts in many other places, and it would appear that there is more to come. Yesterday, North Korea fired a nuclear missile into the Sea of Japan. The purpose of this test, which came at the beginning of talks with on the subject of North Korea's weapons, is presumeably to show that they are serious. Another thing hapened today, which was that Tony Blair's plans to upgrade our own Nuclear arsenal were released. It would appear that the next world war will be the first to see major use of nuclear weapons (no I haven't forgotten the two dropped on Japan, but two is not exactly what I had in mind).
Ahhh, yes. Our esteemed Prime Minister Tony Blair. Arch-Liar of Great Britain. On this day in 1997 he began his time as our Prime Minister, what fools we were. I'm told that Thatcher was a lot worse, but at least she had good reasons for taking us to war, even if it was over the Falklands. Maybe we need a new breed of politicians, ones that don't lie. It's possible that our generation, tired of the lies of the old, will change the face of politics, but I doubt it.
Some things to think on there.
Be Seeing You

Philosophy #2

2005-04-29T22:32:00.000Z

As you may have gathered, I'm not a big fan of religion. However, I've had a thought.
The basic message of all religion is "Be nice to other people". However, they also demand that you believe in their God. So, presumably, if you don't believe, there's no point in being nice, because you'll burn (according to Dante, the outermost circle of hell is reserved for benevolent sinners. It may be the outside, but it's still Hell.). Now, we don't really need all the different denominations of religion, we don't even need religions, all we need is to be nice to one another, without the squabbling and sometimes bloody combat between the denominations and religions.
Just a thought
"An unexamined life is not worth living by men" - Socrates
Be Seeing You

Concert Venues

2005-04-27T21:01:00.000Z

OK, I ment to do this post on Tuesday but never got round to it. On Monday I performed at the Royal Albert Hall. It's a wonderful venue, with large dressing rooms (however the arena is a little bt cold, surprisingly). So, anyway, I've been thinking about the various venues I've played at and here's a guide to some of the things about venues.
1. Never play at schools. Ever. Unless they are very, very old schools with very old, very big halls.
2. St. John's, Smith's Square is an excellent place to play and has a very good restaurant. However, the dressing room is a small section of the crypt and it's just not possible to fit an orchestra inside.
3. The Fairfield Hall and The Ashcroft Theatre are good. But the dressing rooms behind the stage aren't that great, however if they are on the top two floors they can be quite fun.
4. Using the telephones in your dressing room to call your mates in other dressing rooms on the internal line is ok, just don't get the phone cut off like we did at the Fairfield Hall.
5. The Royal Albert Hall is very, very good.
Be Seeing You

The Outcome of AGI

2005-04-26T18:13:00.000Z

Ok, well, we lost. To the Navy.
This proves once and for all that the Inspection is rigged.
The Navy have about...
15 people, so it has to be rigged, bearing in mind that Ben is the best RAF leader that we've had for a long time.
Be Seeing You

Good luck RAF

2005-04-24T22:24:00.000Z

As I shall be playing at the Royal Albert Hall tommorrow, I shall not be attending the Inspection for the Dulwich CCF. So I want to wish good luck to the defending champions and the greatest section at the school: The RAF. (Don't worry, those Army and Navy people haven't got a chance against such a well organised machine, thanks to Ben)
Be Seeing You

Philosophy #1

2005-04-23T20:53:00.000Z

For all those that don't know (which is most of you), I occaisionally have moments of very clear thought. In these moments I think about life and come out with a philosophy for a certain aspect of life. So, this is one of the first ideas that I had, it's about how we live.
Every day we change. Every day we stop being one person and start to be another. It's probably not too clear what I'm talking about and I shall try to explain. I have noticed a problem at school. The problem is this: everybody has a personality, not a problem in itself, but they all have a certain personality, ne specific personality for the droves of children at schools around the country. It is a cruel personality, a personality that includes bigotry and need to be horrible to people who you may percieve as being the type of person that this bigotry is directed against. You all know what I'm talking about.
The problem is that this is destroying people's lives. It is making people unhappy, and why is it done? Toi avoid being the sort of person that the bigotry is directed against. I am sure that if we acted how we really feel, and didn't judge people by what they thought, or did to relax, or the way they dressed we would all be a lot happier. We should, instead, judge people on whether they are nice. It's very simple really, all those who actually believed in this personality (I'm starting to wonder if this is the word I want, but it will have to do) will become disliked. And that should make them realise that they are wrong.
I am sure that I am not the first person to put forward this belief, but it is something that needs to be said as often as possible.
Any other thoughts that I have will be published later.
"An unexamined life is not worth living by men"
Be Seeing you

Lies and Cannabis

2005-04-22T18:42:00.000Z

I am fed up of teachers lying. Today Assembly was a man droning on and on about cannabis. He said some things about it that were true but a lot that was just wrong. One of the major lies he told was that cannabis makes you mentally ill. It doesn't. This was prved by American scientists many years ago.
So, why is cannabis illegal? I'm not really sure. It has the same effects as smoking. In fact, according to various reliable sources, it isn't really that addictive. So what's wrong with it? Well, nothing as far as I can see. So maybe we should be allowed to smoke cannabis. Well, I'm not sure, it's an idea.
The other message is question everything that you are told. As Socrates said: "An unexamined life is not worth living".
Be Seeing You

Something else you need to know about Pope Benedict XVI

2005-04-19T19:56:00.000Z

Until his election, Ratzinger led the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith. That's the latest incarnation of the Inquisition (A very Christian organisation that went around torturing and burning people).
So I would advise all Heretics to lay low for a while or seek protection elsewhere

A New Pope

2005-04-19T19:52:00.000Z

Cardinal Ratzinger (Now that is a name) is to be known as Pope Benedict XVI (that's sixteenth for all those that didn't know, like Dan). The man that was called Pope Jean-Paul II "Enforcer". "Enforcer", isn't that a Mafia term? Oh well, here's what you need to know:
He's the first German Cardinal and deeply Conservative. So we can look forward to another long period of a regressive Catholic Church that encourages all sorts of things (see earlier posts and sorry Catholics)
Meanwhile, Dan has finally set up a blog of his own, well done Dan. There's a link on the left of this page and I suggest you all go over there and take a look.
Be Seeing You

Once More Into The Breach Dear Friends, Once More

2005-04-18T19:53:00.000Z

Forgive the Shakespeare, I saw Julius Caesar at the Barbican on Saturday and am back to thinking that Shakespeare's good. The Breach in question is school. I have also been reading If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O'Brien and I am feeling a similar way about school that he did about Vietnam. I really don't want to go back, do you think they'll accept a form of Combat Fatigue as a reason for not going to school?
Anyway, still on the subject of school and in keeping with the political theme that seems to exist here, I have something to say to Jamie Oliver:
Don't try to give us healthy school dinners before you can give us food that tastes nice. Walk before you run Jamie. I am actually eating food at school (I didn't for about four years, this has resulted in my being able to not eat and feel ok) and I am starting to remember why I didn't eat at school. Packed lunches are out because I just don't like them and it's something else to carry but really, you'd think a school with as much money as Dulwich could afford decent meals. I'm going to hunt down the catering committee and try to bring them around. They're hard people to find you know, must be fear that's keeping them in hiding. Anyway, see you all when I return from hell.
Be Seeing You

The Situation is getting worse

2005-04-15T19:23:00.000Z

In my search for additional funds I have done something I thought I never would. Manual Labour. I spent two hours this afternoon shovelling sand from the road outside my house into the drive. It's there for cement. It would have been fine, had it not been for the fact that the sand was actually heavier than expected, especially when it filled my wheelbarrow. And the bloody wheelbarrow broke causing a lot of trouble and it started to rain quite heavily.Ah well, good for £20.
Right then, back to thinking up less physically tiring ways of earning money.
Be Seeing You.

A Cat

2005-04-14T13:59:00.000Z

Once again, as I have nothing important to write about and I feel that I should write something I'm going to write about a cat that I met whilest walking home from Wimbledon. It was a very friendly cat that followed me as I walked home. consequently, I spent about ten minutes trying to persuade said cat that it wasn't a good idea to follow me as I couldn't feed it. I don't know if you've ever tried to get a cat to stop following you (and I'm sure you haven't), but it is very very difficult. Finally it started raining so it hid under a car and left me alone. A strange cat, definately.
Also, a quick note to Dan, if he's reading this. I need you to find out how odds are calculated for bookmaking, I have an idea.
Be Seeing You