We Owe America?!

According to Gordon Brown, "we should acknowledge the debt the world owes to the United States for its leadership in this fight against international terrorism." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6920877.stm

No, we shouldn't.

I didn't see the US stepping in during the IRA's 1969 - 1997 campaign. In fact, the US still fails to see the IRA as a Foriegn Terrorist Organization (although the Real IRA does appear on the list), and much IRA funding came from American wallets.

I haven't seen US soldiers deployed to Spain to assist in the fight against Basque Seperatists, or sent to Japan to help fight Aum Shinrikyo.

The War on Terror has so far only hit Afghanistan (which is still a mess 6 years after the initial invasion) and Iraq (which only became a war on terror when Sadam was ousted and the borders became open to al quieda).

So who, exactly, owes a debt to America for this grand crusade?

The hundreds of servicemen killed in a war that had no justification? The thousands of Iraqi civillians killed in the daily bombings? The people left surviving?

A report by Oxfam and a coalition of Iraqi NGOs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6921617.stm) stated that "the government was failing to provide basics such as food and shelter for eight million people." Aid efforts are being hampered by corruption and mismanagement and now Iraq faces a new humanitarian crisis. In the meantime, disaffected Muslims in the West are turning to Islamic fundamentalism, training for jihad and bringing the War on Terror back to our own streets.

Thanks, America.

Open Government?

Norman Lamb, Lib Dem MP for North Norfolk and Shadow Secretary for Health, is quoted by the BBC as saying: "The government introduced the Freedom of Information Act. It is remarkable to see how resistant it is to complying with it."

The reason Mr Lamb, like a number of MPs, is annoyed with the Government is because of the number of written statements issued by the Government prior to the annual Parliamentary holidays. Over a hundred were released in a move that shadow Commons leader Theresa May described as showing "disdain" for MPs.

The statements include: details of the cost of Tony Blair's fairwell tour (£1.5million); details of how many claims are still outstanding at the Child Support Agency (£3.5billion); costs of chauffer driven cars for ministers last year (£6million); information about an Immigration reform programme and tax arrangements for flood victims.

The fact that this information has been released as written statements, rather that announced in Parliament, means that there is now no way for MPs to debate any of the issues or question ministers. Since some of the information was requested by MPs, and their requests previously denied until now, there is a suspicion that the Government is using the recess as a means of burying news and circumventing the democratic process.

As Norman Lamb commented, "Fundamentally I believe in open government and I think secrecy breeds suspicion."

Story on the BBc's website here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6918266.stm

Out-Of-Hours Shambles

According to the Daily Mail, As many as 35 people died last year because of failings in out-of-hours care by GPs, figures have revealed.

Complaints about the service have risen by almost a fifth, with common criticisms including a failure to diagnose a condition properly and delays in visiting patients.

The full article can be seen at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=461363&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=&ito=1490.

Speed Cameras (yet again)

June 2007, the dying days of the Blair Government, and the police decide that they're not content with having the highest density of traffic cameras in the World, and now want to revert to hiding cameras from the motorist to catch even more offenders.

Before speeding cameras were introduced, the UK had Europe's lowest incidents of accidents due to speeding... so why do we need all these cameras? And how come we've got more than countries who should be envying our safety record?

A leading insurance company has decided not to increase the insurance premiums of motorists with up to 6 points for speeding so all their sophisticated analysis suggest that speeding does not make dangerous drivers as they believe that more than 30% of drivers in the UK have 6 points or more and it is the norm.

A simple calculation will show how much money the Police Forces are collecting and the reason for their enthusiasm to put up more cameras. It is difficult to rationalise a driver slowing down for a camera one cannot see or isn't aware aware of. One wonders how long the enthusiasm would last if the money collected did not go to the Police and they recieved no credit for 'catching' motorists.

Can the Government and the Police at least try to be a bit more honest with the motorist and simply say "We need to tax you more to help pay for the Police Force and we do not want to face the political fall out of asking for another £50 to £100 per car so we will continue with the charade of speeding cameras, making drivers feel like a criminals, have a convoluted method of collecting the money, make you feel you live in a Police State and generally miff you all off?"

Lost In Translation

The Times (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/article755994.ece) and the BBC have both described how the UK spends around £100m per year in translating and interpreting for British residents who don't speak English.

The costs broke down to: £25m spent by local councils, £21m spent by the police, £10m spent by the courts and £55m (a conservative estimate) by the NHS. One community centre funded by the Home Office offered its services in 76 different languages.

Why?

It is against our interests to have people living in this country but unable to speak our language. It encourages seperatism, keeps people of ethnic backgrounds in secular ghettos, and acts as a drain on our resources. Surely we'd be better off spending the money teaching people how to speak English so that they could then interact with the rest of the population and do simple things like help their kids with the homework or get jobs. Because, lets face it, unless you're able to ge a job as a chef in an ethnic restaurant where you don't have to interact with the customers, its highly unlikely that you'll be able to get a job, so up goes the unemployment figures and up goes the number of people living on, and dependant on, benefits.

As the Times article says: "The evidence is plain to anyone who visits Brick Lane in the East End of London. In the Bangladeshi community... English is a foreign language. Restaurants, shops and doctors’ surgeries all cater to a population that speaks Bengali or Sylheti. Even the street signs are in Bengali. The language barrier is reinforced by multiculturalists whose zeal to translate everything has given people a disincentive to speak this country’s language.

Every year Bangladeshis sit at the bottom of rankings of educational achievement. Their society persists in economic stagnation that locks many people into the catering industry. Drug abuse and crime are on the rise in the East End. Functionally illiterate young Bangladeshi males, with no hope of employment, can choose between extremists in the mosques or the gangs in the streets."

By pandering to the ethnic populations of Britain and making it easier for them to get by with little or no knowledge of the language, we are, in fact, making things harder for them. How can they possibly embrace life as a British resident if they don't interact with the rest of the population? How can they be made to feel a part of a society that they are unable to contribute to?

Far from creating a permissive, multi-cultural society, all Blair managed to do was create a number of micro-societies, each unable to communicate with each other.

Transport

Congratulations have to be given to Blair and Prescott for the superb job they did with the transport system.

The BBC recently highlighted the fact that it only costs £500 to transport a container load of goods the 10,000+ miles from China to the UK. To then transport the same container a couple of hundred miles within the UK will then cost you a further £1500.Because that makes sense.

No wonder the Chinese manufacturing industry is hammering ours if they don't have the same kind of overheads British companies have to face.

Criminal Tagging

As the jails become overcrowded the Blair Government looked for a cheap alternative. The cost of tagging criminals is only a fraction of that for providing a cell.

As a result, the UK has more than twice the number of tagged criminals than the rest of Europe put together. In 2006, we had over 60,000 criminals roaming the streets roaming our streets.

There is no evidence that tagging acts as a deterrent to crime (anyone who's seen Lindsay Lohan's most recent brush with the Californian authorities will know that she was arrested for drunk-driving and possession of cocaine despite having been tagged). Re-offenders are at a record high. The really tragic disasters are the 6 murders and 4,000 other offences carried by 'tagged criminals' -- criminals that should ahve been taken off of the streets and prevented from being able to carry out these crimes.

It wouldn't be a problem if the Government only tagged petty criminals (with jails as overcrowded as they are, I can see the reasoning behind keeping a vandal or a speeding motorist out of the cells) but pressure on judges by the Government mean that serious violent criminals and suspected terries are let out of custody... and then the Government is surprised when some disappear and most just ignore the 'tagging curfew' since there is no effective policing of the system. If there was a 'one strike and you're in' policy that put curfew breakers back in jail, maybe the tags would be effective. But, sadly, there isn't and most tagged criminals admit they are consistent curfew dodgers.

Worse, the system has no clue where the criminal is once they have left their house; it only knows that they have left the building. What sort of security is that? After a decade of increasing surveillance and diminishing privacy and civil liberties, you would have thought that keeping track on convicted criminals would be a key thing. Especially since tagging is supposed to be a crime deterrant -- how much more effective would it be if your tag could place you at the scene of a crime at the time that the crime took place?

But, no, that would be too easy. So, instead, we have a system which leaves at least 15,000 criminals (at any one time) to their own devices and free to commit crime. Is not the first responsibility of our Government and Courts to protect us from criminals?