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?

Blair's Broken Society

We live in a broken society, according to Iain Duncan Smith and the Centre for Social Justice.

As quoted in The Times (full article available at http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/the_way_we_live/article2075194.ece), Iain Duncan Smith says:

“I have been visiting many of Britain’s most difficult and fractured communities… I have seen levels of social breakdown which have appalled and angered me.”

One of the places Duncan Smith has visited is Glasgow, where 50% of income is unearned (i.e. it comes from benefits) and a third of people of working age are economically inactive. The same picture is being painted across the UK. Family breakdown is attributed to some of the reason for the growing gulf between rich and poor: children from broken homes are 75% more likely to fail school, 70% more likely to get a criminal record, 70% more likely to develop a drug dependancy, and 50% more likely to suffer alcohol problems…

…and Blair and Brown have spent the last decade encouraging this. A couple with two earners and a combined income of £35,000 would be £5,500 pounds a year better off if they split up, thanks to Brown’s crazy tax credit calculations.

Forget Cash For Honours, What About Passports For Terrorists?

In July 2005, just weeks after the 7/7 bombings that left 52 people dead, four men attempted a second wave of bombings across London. One of the four, Muktar Said Ibrahim, had been known to MI5 after being spotted at a suspected terror training camp in the Lake District in Spring 2004. Before that, he had been to the Sudan to learn how to fire rocket-propelled grenades.

And yet, despite being known by the security forces; despite having come to Scotland Yard’s attention three times in a year; and despite being charged under the Public Order Act for distributing extremist Islamic material, he was granted a British passport and allowed to travel to Pakistan (at the same time as two of the July 7th bombers) where he received more training for his coming jihad.

Poverty Target Will Be Missed

According to a report recently published by Barnado's, the government is on track to fail to fulfill its own targets to halve child poverty by 2010.

Eight years ago, Tony Blair pledged to drastically reduce child poverty. While the number of children living in poverty steadily fell during the late '90s, the progress that had been made has now stalled and estimates suggest that the government need to earmark an extra £3.8billion to meet the targets that it set itself -- less than half of the cost of hosting the 2010 Olympics.

The report also claims that children in poverty suffer more health problems than their counterparts from more affluent families, attain worse examination results and are more likely grow into an adult life consisting of unemployment and debt. Since the NHS is currently facing an unparralleled budget crisis, which is only going to grow worse with out current population growth rates, surely it would make sense to invest the money and nip future problems in the bud?

See: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6682029.stm

Tony: Then & Now

There's an interesting article on the Telegraph's website detailing the differences between the Tony before power and the Blair that we know today.

As an example:

On Oct 30, 1994, Mr Blair said:


"I support the Prime Minister's establishment of the Nolan inquiry into standards of conduct in public life, but its remit is narrow.

In at least one crucial respect it is seriously flawed, as the funding of political parties is excluded from investigation. Yet this issue best symbolises the decline in standards in political life. This is not a partisan point. There is legitimate concern from all sections of the population that the governing party is being funded from undeclared sources of private and corporate wealth, much from overseas. The Conservatives' unwillingness to declare the names behind large donations is hard to justify. We would ensure that all donations above £5,000 had to be declared, and that corporate donations were subject to shareholders' approval. Of course, trades unions give money to the Labour Party and sponsor MPs. We must nail the lie that this is remotely equivalent. Money is given openly and declared in our accounts."

Now

Labour is embroiled in the so-called "loans for peerages" scandal, with Scotland Yard investigating whether the party sold honours or other favours, such as lucrative government contracts, in return for money. Tony Blair has admitted exploiting a loophole in the party funding rules he introduced after coming to power in 1997 to secure £14 million in "secret" loans to fund Labour's general election campaign last year. He then nominated for peerages four of the businessmen who made loans - but did not inform the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission of their financial link to the Labour Party.

(see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=TFKD0Y131IEHJQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/03/31/nblair131.xml&page=2 for the rest of the article)

Iraq: A Legacy Of Failure

At least six of the ten years of Tony has been spent at war. Apart from our usual presence in hotspots needing UN intervention, most of our fighting has been done to support America and cement our special relationship with them.
Blair had visions of Britain being the bridge between America and Europe: we're tied to the EU but remain America's largest foriegn investor. We're physically closer to Paris than Pennsylvania, but we're culturally nearer to New York than Nuremberg. It made sense for Britain to bridge the gap between the two powers and help negotiate treaties between the two that ensured commonality in purpose.

Unfortunately, the Iraq war happened. Taking sides with America alienated us from our two biggest rivals in the EU, as France and Germany's concerns at the UN were swept aside and ignored. To make things worse, Tony displayed no control over the US -- Bush was going to war despite lack of evidence of any involvement in terror and lack of public support from both sides of the Atlantic, and he was taking us with him.

Rather than help build a bridge between Europe and the US, Blair helped enlarge the divide. And he did so by capitulating to Bush so cravenly that he lost respect amongst his voters, respect from our EU allies. From that momoent, we no longer had a truly special relationship with the States, we were simply at their beck and call.

As Professor Victor Bulmer-Thomas, Head of the Chatham House think tank, has stated "The post 9/11 decision to invade Iraq was a terrible mistake and the current debacle will have policy repercussions for many years to come," he said. "Tony Blair's successor will not be able to offer unconditional support for US initiatives in foreign policy and a rebalancing of the UK's foreign policy between the US and Europe will have to take place." (see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=C2NMURAQ3TVQFQFIQMGCFF4AVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/12/19/wpal119.xml

Judges "May Be Forced Into Lighter Sentences"

As the Home Office has now been split into two seperate entities, their are fears that the new Ministry of Justice will lead to shorter prison sentances being passed on convicted criminals.

Because of the way that the split has occured, the Prison Service and the Courts Service are now included in the same budget, meaning that the ministry will have to chose between cutting staff levels within the Courts system or setting shorter custodial sentances.

Lord Phillips, the Lord Chief Justice, has some concerns quoted in the Tlegraph article available at the following link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/08/njudges08.xml.

One interesting aspect that is revealed within the article, and something that is indicative o fLabour policy ni general is the fact that due to prison overcrowding the Government has already been attemptting to persuade judges to pass shirter sentances, but these moves have been largely ignored because recent legislation has also required them to pass indefinate sentances on a wider variety of offenses. It's almost like the Government doesn't really know what its doing and is someone else can make sense of their conflicting decisions....

Brown Admits Mistakes

Even Gordon Brown admits that the Blair years have been full of mistakes. Embarking on his own leadership campaign (surely, the most one-sided race since Roadrunner last led Wile E. Coyote through Acme Canyon), Brown has hinted at a review of ID cards, admitted that mistakes have been made in Iraq and vowed to end the cult of celebrity.

The Telegraph reported on the launch of Brown's leadership campaign (see: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/05/12/nbrown12.xml) where he distanced himself from the spin and image obsession of Blair's New Labour and said that he "had never believed that politics was about celebrity."

Of course he didn't.

You might be churlish enough to think that the reason Brown wants to end the cult of personality is because the man lacks one of his own, that it has been Blair's persona that has carried the Labour Party through the last couple of General Elections and that the party is going to struggle to win a fourth successive election with Gordon Brown at the helm. But, as shadow Chancellor George Osbourne pointed out on a recent edition of The Politics Show (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6640417.stm) Brown has not been adverse to using spin himself.

For example, announcing the last Budget as being a tax cutting exercise when figures reveal that the drop in income tax was more than matched by rises in a hundred other taxable items. Or his announcement that his government would build 100,000 environmentally friendly homes when the same announcement was made a year ago by housing minister, Yvette Cooper.

The problem Brown is going to face is a simple one. I don't know about you, but I can't help but think of Dad's Army when I think of the Labour Party. Tony Blair is Private Joe Walker, the black-marketeer. He's a likeable enough bloke, but you wouldn't trust him with your rations (or your sister) for fear that he'd sell them off. Brown, on the other hand, is Private James Frazer - the wild-eyed, tight-fisted Scot who makes regular pronouncements of doom. One you might not trust but you'd vote for him believing that his dealing might be dodgy but he'd get things done (even if experience would suggest otherwise). The other? You wouldn't even sit next to him in the pub, let alone let him make your decisions for you.

The Telegraph also highlights an interesting issue about the Brown/Blair relationship. According to an updated biography about Blair due for re-release soon, Brown spent last Summer fearing that Blair had reneged on his deal to stand down and allow Brown take over the reins and consequentially indulged in “sulks, tantrums and rages.”

Blair might have had his faults, but at least he didn't act like a toddler when he didn't get his own way. Is Brown really the man we want representing the UK on the World Stage?

Things Can Only Get Better...?

On the 13th of May, 2007, The Politics Show revealed the results of a survey it had commissioned. Over 4,000 UK wide residents responded and were asked their opinions on a variety of topics regarding life under Blair. The results can be seen at the show's website, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6640411.stm) and included:

Education and Schools: 70% thought it was worse under Blair

Public Services: 36% thought public service was worse under Blair, despite massive increases in government spending.

Better Off: Although Blair and Brown keep claiming that we are a more propserous nation after a decade of Labour rule, only 40% of people in Scotland and only 34% of English residents agreed.

Crime: 56% of all UK resisdents agreeed it is worse since Blair came to power.

Rural Post Offices: 1,000's have closed during the Blair era. Couple this with the closure of local schools and you get a growing picture of countryside life being destroyed.

Rural Schools: 1,000's closed down under the Blair era. More have had their playing fields sold off. So much for the concept of "healthy in mind and body" for our young population. No wonder we have the most obese children in Europe.

Tony & George: Endless Love

"Meet The Neets"

Neets, if you were unaware, is an acronym referring to people between the age of 16 - 24 who are "Not in Education, Employment or Training." There's now over 1.2 million of them in this country, representing a fifth of people in that age group who are literally sitting around doing nothing all day.

As the Telegraph reported (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/15/neets15.xml):

"Among their ranks are the troubled, the badly educated, and the feckless and work-shy. In the 16 to 19 age bracket, 11 per cent are classed as Neets - double the proportion in Germany and France."

This is clearly going to be a massive problem for the UK and these people will be a huge burden on the working taxpayers:

"The research... calculates that this "lost generation" is costing the country £3.65 billion a year - enough to fund a 1p cut in income tax. Indeed, the Government's own figures estimate that each new Neet dropping out of education at 16 will cost the taxpayer an average of £97,000 during their lifetime. The worst will cost more than £300,000."

And all of this despite an election manifesto which, in 1997, promised great reforms to the Welfare State and making it clear through the Welfare-To-Work scheme, that indolence would not be an option.

"In reality, this "get tough" approach is not quite what it seems. When a young person signs on to the New Deal, they spend four months talking to their personal adviser about options. If a job is not found, they are given a "package of full-time help", such as a remedial skills course or work experience, and paid a "training allowance". If the young person is still without work after that, they make a new claim for the jobseeker's allowance - and the whole process starts again."

Six Years of Fighting, No Victories

One would expect Tony Blair to be an expert on the subject now, having spent most of the last 6 years fighting them. Certainly he is an expert at losing them and wasting the Nation’s blood, finances and international standing.

A look at history would have given him a hint of things to come our previous exploits in Iraq and Afganistan were pretty disastrous and Blair has waited a hundred years managed to top those.

The USA exploits on foreign soil were no more clever. The Vietnam war indicated that the USA cannot win any prolonged war ‘clinically from the air or with their modern technology’ and so any prolonged conflict was bound for failure. As the body counts continue to rise, so Bush and Blair’s approval ratings continue to slide.

Voting: Minority Rule?

Blair won the 2005 General Election with 35.3% of the total votes cast. However, as there was only an estimated 61.3% turnout on Election Day, this means that Blair was re-elected to office with the votes of just 22% of the eligible electorate. In what way can Blair and Brown claim to have a mandate from the nation to run the UK as they sees fit when less than a quarter of the populace have given them their approval?

The fact that they are willing to ignore public opinion and pursue policies that are unpopular and against our interests (the continuing war in Iraq, for example) proves how little regard they have for the electorate, despite the 2005 clear message that the vast majority of the UK don’t support them.

Perhaps this is why Blair has done nothing to change the “first past the post” system and given us something more representative of public opinion.

Voting: Devolution Does Not Apply To England

Despite devolving decision making and tax raising to the Scottish and Welsh assemblies, Scottish MP’s are still permitted to vote on English matters.

While it is fair to say that representatives from all of the home nations should have a say in the running of the United Kingdom as a whole, is it really fair that the Scottish be allowed to play a part in decisions that only affect the English and not vice versa?

For example, why should the MPs for Aberdeenshire have the ability to vote on matters concerning the local NHS Primary Care Trust for Oxfordshire while Oxford's MP can't have similar input in decisions about Aberdeen's NHS?

Of course, this position suits Labour’s purposes and protects their interests – having lost an average of 7% of English votes during the last election, they are no doubt aware that an English Assembly would not be a Labour dominated one.

Now that the SNP has gained control of Scotland, it will be interesting to see if (a) they persue independance and (b) if they do, will English affairs be left to English representation.