Afghanistan War Aims

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Jul 252009
 

Sometimes I really do not understand some comments that crop up from time to time in the media. Apparently there are many people who do not understand why we are fighting a war in Afghanistan.

Well I guess some people are so dumb they need reminding to keep breathing.

Or are so uninterested in what is going on that they never listen to media discussions on the war.

It is not as if the reasons have not been discussed many times. And it is not as if the aims are particularly difficult to understand – we’re there to establish a stable government that is not going to let Afghanistan be used as a solid base for terrorism. Sure, things start to get a little more detailed and confused when you dig down into more precisely how that will be done especially when combating the opium/heroin trade gets mixed in.

The terrorists in Afghanistan use the heroin trade to raise funds for their activities, so it is perfectly reasonable to try to stop the funds, but it needs to be done in such a way that it does not irritate the opium farmers whose livelihood depends on the trade. As I have suggested before, the simplest way of dealing with this, is to simply buy the opium for a fair price ourselves.

So the next time someone complains that they do not know why we are fighting in Afghanistan, remember that whilst it is perfectly reasonable to object to the war for all sorts of reasons, objecting because you do not understand the aims is just indefensible.

Rampant EU Phobia at the Sun/EU Legislation on Horse Meat

 Media, Politics  No Responses »
Jun 282009
 

Of course anyone who has ever kept up with the Sun (a UK newspaper famous for thinking that topless woman is news, and for being keen on the “frothing at the mouth” school of journalism) will not be surprised in the least that they are jumping up and down and screaming at the thought that the EU is daring to interfere with our right to chomp through Rebecca’s pony after it has eaten it’s last bit of grass.

The news article is here (at least for now … newspapers are notorious for moving things around). But I dare say it is more of a waste of your time than reading this blog entry.

What has gotten the Sun so excited is that the EU is proposing European-wide legislation requiring the owners of working horses (which includes “pets”, riding horses, and racing horses) to sign a declaration that they will not allow the deceased horse to enter the human food chain.

What has gotten everyone involved so excited about being asked to promise something they would not do anyway ?

Well … perhaps. It turns out the British are not quite as horrified by the idea of eating horse meat as might appear. Seems that we will quite happily tuck into Rebecca’s dead horse if there isn’t any other kind of meat available. During WWII, horse meat was regularly supplied and eaten, and quite a few people have fond memories of certain dishes.

Before judging this latest EU proposed legislation, it is worth looking into why it is proposed. The idea behind it, is to stop the carcasses of horses that have been treated during their lifetimes with drugs inappropriate for food animals from entering the food chain. In other words if we do not stop such animals entering the food chain, there are many medicines that cannot be used.

So the people protesting at this EU legislation being imposed are essentially saying that they’re happy for horses across Europe to receive less than ideal health care because they do not want to make a declaration that they won’t eat their favourite horse. Ridiculous isn’t it ?

Of course there are those who say that this is all an indication of how useless the EU is that a law that is required for mainland Europe (where horse meat is widely eaten) has to be applied in the UK where allegedly it isn’t needed. But are we sure that it isn’t needed in the UK now ? Or in the future ?

It is essentially a sensible law, and the EU is being condemned for applying it over here! Anyone would suspect that in fact all this fuss was brought about by a newspaper proprietor with an axe to grind. The thing to remember about newspapers like the Sun is that they lie … they have been caught lying many times in the past, and they are not above trying to slant news to suit their own agenda. In this case a hatred of the European Union.

Iranian Islamic Republic In Crisis

 Politics  No Responses »
Jun 232009
 

The BBC today is saying that that the Iranian Islamic republic is in crisis, although that probably has been the case for days now (or even years if you are interested in human rights as I am). The thing is that nobody seems to have picked up on what seems obvious to me – just how stupid the current leadership of Iran is.

If you are going to ignore the results of an election, don’t have one. Come up with some sort of fake crisis that makes one impossible. If people feel they have a say in their government and it is ignored they get a bit more annoyed than if they don’t feel they have a say.

If you are going to rig an election to come out the way you want, you should at least try to make it look honest. Doing such daft things as causing 150% (or whatever) of the electorate vote for you is not going to keep the electorate on your side. Give the electorate at least some choice in believing the results.

If people are rioting in the streets because of your rigged election, don’t say that you’ll review some suspicious bits but the result still stands. That will just make them riot harder.

At a certain level of violence in the streets, it is no longer sensible to send the thugs in. It is time to start thinking of a sensible solution.

If all this were to occur some place other than Iran, it might be more understandable – still stupid. But when the leadership of Iran acquired power in almost exactly the same circumstances ? You could almost believe that they want to destroy the Islamic republic – the protesters were not originally calling for the end of the republic, but the actions of the leadership have pushed them towards it.

The Second Home Allowance for MPs

 Politics  No Responses »
May 102009
 

British MPs have managed to make themselves look corrupt in a spectacular way with the leaking of the details of purchases made on the second home allowance. It is particularly amusing that the biggest fuss is about somewhat trivial items such as loo brushes (that’s not a real example) and the like.

It is worth pointing out that the whole second homes allowance was introduced by the Tories in the 1980s to supplement MPs salaries during a time when Thatcher was grinding away at public sector salary increases. So this is not strictly speaking a Labour issue.

There have been a number of excuses floating around as to why MPs need a second homes allowance, and because MPs are so good at spinning rubbish it is easy to start to think that they may have a point. But lets compare things with not just the private sector but everyone else …

Normally when you take a job, you are expected to live within a reasonable distance of work. It’s not usually explicitly stated but you are expected to turn up to work every morning at a reasonable time, and stay for a reasonable length of time. Whilst you may get a more or less generous “bonus” to making moving easier, you don’t get money to pay for a home near work.

So MPs might have a point about a second home allowance but until such an allowance becomes common place outside of Westminster, they are going to look like pigs in the trough if they do have one. Under the existing system it does make sense to make some sort of arrangement for providing accommodation to MPs whose constituency is some distance from London.

But that can simply be provided by a block of flats close to Westminster – perhaps something on the river.

If MPs had sorted this all out before all this fuss, it would have been quite reasonable to abolish the second home allowance, spread the money used for it previously amongst the MPs as a salary increase. But because this was not sorted out previously the MPs should lose the money completely.

It would seem that many of the items coming to light are strictly speaking “within the rules”, but that is not good enough. We have to trust MPs to be honest and honourable as they make the rules that govern us. If they are apparently eager to exploit a system that is not quite as rigorous as it should be, what is to blame ? The MPs of course.

In any position of power, there are ways of abusing that power. It is the responsibility of those with power to not abuse that position. Can we trust MPs not to abuse their position ? Apparently not; at least not those MPs who have abused the system. Parliament needs to identify the 10 worst offenders and expel them for a minimum of 5 years.

Or if they do not have the courage to do this, perhaps we should identify the top 50 most serious offenders and refuse to re-elect them at the next election.

One of the dangers of so much concentration on the second homes allowance is that we are in danger of overlooking worse things. For instance, why are MPs allowed to take on jobs in addition to their job in Parliament?

In many situations (at least in the public sector), if you are in any sense in a senior position, you are effectively prohibited from taking additional jobs. At least without getting permission to do so. In the case of MPs, I see no reason why they should be allowed to have additional jobs – they already have an important and well paid job and any other job will take them away from what they are supposed to be doing.

There’s a tired out old excuse that MPs like to trot out whenever the second jobs question gets asked – that they need second jobs to keep in touch with the outside world. It is really an excuse to rake in fat cat salaries – after all how many MPs with second jobs work as nurses in hospitals ? Or anything that does not pay ridiculous amounts of money for trivial amounts of work.

Time to refuse to elect part-time MPs.

Police Actions At The G20 Protests

 Politics  No Responses »
Apr 152009
 

Now that there has been time for things to surface and time to reflect, we can see that whilst the majority of the police were well behaved and went about their business responsibly, but as might be expected a lunatic fringe tried to spoil things by going too far …

  1. Battering a passer by to the ground because a man walking away from you with his hands in his pockets is just so threatening. Ian Tomlinson was merely on his way home from work when this happened and died from a heart attack a few minutes later around the corner. See the video:
  2. Giving a woman a back-hander and then using a truncheon against the back of her legs, just because she’s a little in your face. Normally someone who behaves like this towards a woman is condemned for their actions, but it’s perfectly ok if you are the Police and she’s a protestor :
  3. If you look closely at the video above you will notice that the policeman battering that protester has no identifying numbers on his shoulder. British police are supposed to have identification to stop the anonymous brutality that occurs in police states, but perhaps we are living in one ?

If you look around YouTube, you may well find other examples that make it appear that the police were heavy handed against the protesters. For example :

I’ve seen quite a few video clips of violent protesters over the years – frequently at G20 (or similar) events, and the protesters in this clip don’t look particularly violent to me. I am not saying there wasn’t stuff going on that isn’t coming across too well in the video, but the police response to me looks excessive.

The death of Ian Tomlinson shows why everybody should be concerned with the possibility of police brutality at such protests – it is easy for people to be caught up in these events who have nothing whatsoever to do with the protest. And the police need to be constantly reminded that the protesters have the right to be there, and the right to protest.

And as to how that policeman was allowed to go out without identification, well that should be regarded as the equivalent of a burgular going out “tooled up” for a job … he was prepared to go out and indulge in levels of violence extreme enough that he felt he needed to protect his identity. Who allowed him to go out on the streets in the first place ?

Today it was announced that there will be a review of the police tactics used for dealing with demonstrations. That may well be a good idea, but what would be more helpful is a review of every policeman’s attitude to demonstrators.

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