So Salman Rushdie get a gong in the birthday honours list. Good for him!
And Iran gets all hot under the collar about it. Bad for them! I hope someone in the Foreign Office points out that it is none of their business and they should sulk about it in silence. After all, we’re not exactly threatening any Iranian citizens with murder are we ?
And a few days later, Pakistan also gets into the act. Again, what right do they think they have to criticise us when we honour a great writer ?
A UK Member of Parliament named Anthony Steen has hit the news headlines for leaving his car in a disabled parking bay for three days. He has come out with some sort of excuse for this blaming disabled people somehow. Probably not quite like that, but I don’t care.
Come out with some genuine argument about how there are too many disabled parking bays and I might pay attention.
But pay attention to some drongo who came out with some sort of argument after he has been caught parking illegally ? Not a chance. This is an example of behaviour that gives politicians a bad name. He’d be far better off by saying “Oops! I shouldn’t have done that”, paid his parking fine, and keep his mouth shut about any criticism of disabled parking.
Funnily enough he’s a member of the political party that used to bang on so much about their being the party of “law and order”. Breaking the parking laws is funny sort of behaviour for an MP from that party isn’t it ?
I guess this little rant makes me one of those “whingers and whiners” that he’s now going on about.
A bit of an odd mixture, but this all occurred to me when I was waiting 2 minutes at a pedestrian crossing for a chance to cross the road in 10 seconds; at which point I would have to do this all over again.
It occurred to me that most of the cars whizzing past my nose were being driven by people who didn’t pay the local council tax which funds the local roads whereas I do. Seemed a little unfair that they get more time to get across the crossing than I do, when it is my money paying for everything. Don’t get me wrong … whilst I might like the roads to be a bit cheaper, and we should spend more money on public transport, I still think the roads are worth having.
Of course it is not a simple matter where every pedestrian is a tax payer and every motorist is an outside who doesn’t pay the council tax. And motorists will say that their road tax is being used to pay for the roads … which is true for motorways (which I’m not commenting on here), but not the case for local roads.
I just think we need to redress the balance between the pedestrian and the motorist a little more.
Historically we have gone to an enormous amount of effort to keep traffic moving, and it is time to accept that it just isn’t possible with the levels of traffic we can have in today’s cities. And giving pedestrians a bit more priority on the roads is the polite thing to do given that we are helping pay for the roads. We need equal time to cross the roads that motorists have to cross the pedestrian crossings, and we need more pedestrian crossings.
If it takes a motorist 20 minutes to traverse my city rather than 15 minutes, so what? The motorist will still be well ahead of the pedestrian who will take an hour or more for the same journey so they will still be well ahead.
The UVF made a little announcement today, saying that they’ve put violence behind them and their arms are “out of reach” … whatever that phrase is supposed to mean. This is of course great news after all the UVF is one of the organisations that began with the “troubles” in Northern Ireland/6 counties. And from the beginning they were one of the most violent … the first killing of a policeman was them, and they gloried in sectarian killings far more than most paramilitary organisations.
But there is one thing that has always puzzled me about the peace process in NI. Whilst the IRA was still armed, all the pressure on disarmament was directed towards them with only occasional mention of organisations such as the UVF. It seemed very one-sided especially when you consider the origins of the “troubles” where peaceful protests by catholics was met with increasing violence by “loyalists” (I’ve always hated that description). It is easy to forget that British troops were first sent to NI to protect the catholic community.
Anyone who knows the history of the IRA knows that after the border wars of the late 1950s/early 1960s, they had stopped using violence and were interested to see what the independent peaceful protests about the atrocious treatment of the catholic community could achieve. The loyalists claim that these protests were wholly controlled by the IRA … not so! Sure there were IRA members who took part … as (mostly) catholics themselves they had some interest in seeing the aims of the protest movement succeed, but it was never an IRA cover organisation.
So why were the loyalist paramilitaries treated so leniently by the peace process ? Why were the loyalist politicians allowed a voice when the republican politicians gagged ? Well, part of it is because the loyalists politicians managed to maintain a better illusion of distance between themselves and the paramilitaries … I guess you could say they were better politicians. And perhaps the British and Irish governments took the rantings of a certain loud and vile politician too seriously.
The peace process tends to give the impression that the republicans were more responsible for the troubles than the loyalists. They are certainly not without fault, but hopefully history will spread the blame more evenly.
Today (or to be more precise just an hour or two ago) Iran released a video containing images of the British navy prisoners they took in dubious circumstances. The contents of the video seem to show the prisoners being relatively well treated, and it is possible (I’m being very charitable here) that the Iranian government intended to use it to demonstrate that the prisoners are being well treated.
So why is there so much condemnation of the video ? Well ignoring any other issues, it is against international law in respect to prisoners.
So the Iranians need to understand that whatever their motives, the release of this video is a public-relations disaster for them. They have come across as a government that has no respect for international law. It does not matter if the Iranians believe this bit of law is wrong, or if they do not have respect for international law, breaching the law it in this way will come across very badly.
The Americans and the British have been accused of the same thing themselves, and there is some grounds for complaint here … although our system makes it difficult to do anything with a media industry that is effectively out of control. But two wrongs don’t make a right. The Iranians will not look good whatever they do with regard to the prisoners they hold, but releasing the video makes them look considerably worse.
It would have been better by far if they really thought such a video was needed, to release it privately into the hands of the British government and allow them to decide what to do with it.