Not Mid Morning Matters

JD in the Morning, off air…
December 27, 2014

So, that’s that then?

It’s Christmas time and there’s no reason to be afraid? Maybe this is the very essence of what we have all enjoyed in the last few days? This time of year is fraught with fear, danger and emotional hurdles to overcome. Have you bought the right present, have you made the right choices for food, have you bought enough, drank enough, eaten enough or eaten too much?

Christmas is a time for very few answers. This time of year is the real balance between need and want, and want seems to have the balance tipped to its favour. We have all just gone through a period of want, from wanting it to be the best Christmas ever to wanting ‘the’ present and probably having to put on the ‘you shouldn’t have’ face on when you really meant ‘why did you?’.

We are now all the other side of this commercial and financial excess. The festive payday reckoning will come for us all in January. We can all take comfort or face the fear from the reality of our own personal debt. And if we didn’t get what we really wanted on the big day, we can always go and buy it at a huge discount in the sales. This is assuming you haven’t already done so on-line on Christmas day. Jesus would be so proud.

It is hard to know what this ‘most wonderful’ time of year really means? Family plays a huge part in its definition and it did for me. Spending time with mine was a real gift tainted with sadness and a good dash of hope. Yet there was something lacking, something missing, something not there. As I was sitting watching the joy of my two youngest children opening their gifts while I was stuffing discarded wrapping paper into a bin bag, I wondered what they were really thinking. Do they want all their gifts, let alone need them? Is the paper that I am ‘recycling’ only going to cover more gifts next year, which will be enjoyed all to briefly before being put on a shelf or in a cupboard as we all move on into another new year? Probably.

The opened gift in the cupboard is a sad indictment on our way of life. It is proof that we are driven by an economy that requires us to keep buying stuff to keep the ball rolling and our economic world spinning, whether we have the actual money or not. Real incomes have fallen in the last five-year and despite the personal injection of over £10 billion PPI cash in to many pockets, paid back to us by banks who took it from us illegally in the first place under Labours ‘light touch’ financial regulation, the current government needs us to spend this and more or we will economically die. Our principal political leaders and their party’s need us to continue to want and not to think too hard about what we need.

In 2015 we all face a number of choices ranging from who we pay off first to who will form the next government and lead us for the next five years. Each party will claim they have a plan for our financial security, to give us more of ‘our money’ in our pockets so we can shop and buy stuff. Yet they will all talk about cuts and belt-tightening. They are all guilty of a basic hypocrisy, suggesting it’s not you but someone else and they are on your side. In reality it is you who must be on your side first and foremost by taking responsibility.

We all need to work out the difference between want and need. Maybe, regardless of who gets their hand on the tiller of power next May, we can all give our loved ones what they need next year and want to do it too.

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November 30, 2014

Black Friday, a dark day.

On Friday 28th November 2014 people were queuing at midnight and police were called to deal with scuffling crowds as fights broke out. This was not the end of days due to rumoured shortages or social unrest at austerity and the lack of a pay rise for years, although the pictures might imply otherwise. This was all about shopping and buying stuff. This was all about want, not need. This was about a bargain. This was Black Friday, the most successful day on-line merchant of everything Amazon ever had. Their sales “surpassed all expectations”, selling more than 5.5 million items. This was about billions of pounds being spent. Black Friday has arrived and we all loved it.

Being in the ‘black’ is about being in credit. This is how business entered income into the sales ledger in the time before the PC, in black ink. Being in the ‘red’ is about being in debt, entered in the books in red ink. So the irony of creating a day called Black Friday to get you and me to shop for a bargain or three should not be lost on us. The chances are that on day so named about being in credit may well have pushed many further in to debt.

One of the biggest con tricks that has been played on us all by successive governments and the financial Services industry is changing the word ‘debt’ into ‘credit’. A credit card or a loan is a debt and to call it anything else is delusional, yet we have all become deluded. Since the invention of the credit card in the early 1970’s our governments have created a financial world, through ‘light touch regulation’, to convince us all that credit is good, buying things you want but don’t need is good and more stuff you have the better your life is. And if you don’t have enough stuff, get another credit card or more easy, flexible credit (terms and conditions apply) and it can be yours. Even Mortgages, a word based on the French for death, have been re-branded to be less scary and more cuddly Home Loans. How cute because there is no place like home, even if you will never actually, really own one and you are in debt, sorry credit, for the rest of your life.

Black Friday is, of course, a business construct. It is a simple marketing tool to get us to buy goods, so perpetuating the consumer lead recovery much denied by our current government. They wanted our recovery to be a manufacturing led recovery, built on making things and on construction. Actually the only real government construction I’ve noticed being done are the concrete walls springing up dividing our motorway carriages. These concrete walls in our central reservations are a very strange bit of new infrastructure. If I were to crash on a motorway I’d rather hit a metal ribbon than a concrete wall.

Black Friday was simple to create, based on the post Thanks Giving holiday from our american cousins. Here in the UK it married the last working day of the month with the last payday before Christmas. It marketed and advertise deals that had to be had and we the willing consumer, flush with our hard-earned cash and ‘credit cards’ were ripe for the buying. And we shopped. I bought a coat.

So what does Black Friday say about us, about you? Is this time of year about a great deal on a Smart telly or a coat? Is this time of year about eating, drinking and making merry? Is this time of year about excess or is it actually about something else? I am not a religious man. I will leave that for others but I do worry that getting a 40’’ Smart TV for £120 is more important for some than anything else. This worries me and it should worry you too.

If Black Friday doesn’t worry you then you always have Cyber Monday and the Boxing Day sales to come. And you can buy more stuff on-line on Christmas afternoon. The baby Jesus would be so proud.

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November 23, 2014

You want out of the EU, right?

Then there were two. UKIP now have their second MP and it’s fair to say that neither of the defectors who are now UKIP MP’s were moderate Conservatives in the first place. They wanted out of the EU. They have their position and they don’t want a debate it. UKIP don’t want a renegotiation, they don’t even want to discuss what is good about the EU, they just want out. UKIP arrogantly assume you want out of the EU too. To UKIP it is a binary question with a binary answer, and that ‘out’ answer leads to a land of men in business suits, women at home, blue striped milk jugs on the breakfast table, corporal punixshment and lunchtime drinking in the pub. Where do I sign?!

Of course you want ‘out’ of the EU don’t you? Of course you do. The press says you want out, UKIP says you want out so that’s it. And you weren’t asked about the EU. You were only asked about the Common Market back in 1975. The EU is a bad thing. It takes all our money, makes all our laws and the entire population of continental Europe wants to come to the UK to take all our benefits and all of our jobs. The simple solution is get out of the EU and the UK is back to its 1950s heyday. This seems to be a UKIP vision of the UK, a sort of Kath Kidston brand of the past, a stylised pre globalised world of safety, empire and security, which never really existed. But it will have lovely spots.

Here are three of many arguments for staying in the EU.

Peace. Since the formation of cooperation over coal and steel production between Germany and France in the early 1950s the central tenet of the EU has been the free movement of people, to remove the need for formal boarders and denies any nations desire to expand the beyond them. The countries not in the EU but who trade within the block, such as Norway, also have to allow free movement of people. It’s part of the EU deal. This is something UKIP forget to mention, along with the rest of the political class and the press. The EU won the Nobel Peace Prize back in 2012.

The European Convention of Human Rights. This is nothing to do with tehe EU. It was born out of the atrocities of the WW2 and originally called the Treaty Of London. The treaty protects the rights of everyone beyond the European landmass. Winston Churchill was one of the instigators.

Cheaper labour. The reality is that if you want a pre made lunchtime sandwich, fresh seasonal British veg and fruit in the shops or decent service in a restaurant then you need cheaper labour from the EU. Simply, our UK work force can’t or won’t do these low paid, hard work jobs. British workers want more pay than is available and if you think it’s just a case of paying more for the job then you’re deluded. If it cost more to do the job it will cost you more to benefit from the product of that job. And if it costs you more than you will need to earn more to pay for it. This is called inflation. It’s a bad thing.

Being in or out of the EU is not as simple as UKIP are selling or as complicated as the other political parties are implying. The EU is far from perfect. The EU needs reform so free movement of people does not mean free money if you move to the UK. Yet to use immigration as the reason your lot is not how you want your lot to be is a delusion. UKIP’s ‘Kath Kidston 1950s Britain’ is no more real than the Labour or Conservative view of Britain’s place in the EU. A real, factual debate is needed.

If you could be made happier, healthier and wealthier by leaving the EU then don’t you think the other parties would be selling an exit too? Of course they would. It’s time to open our minds to what the EU is for and stop looking for simple answers to complicated questions.

UKIP have conflated immigration and the EU into a potent cocktail with a big kick. They offer a simple solution and an even simpler result. The other political parties have failed to answer their pitch.

It’s not the EU that has failed us, it’s our political class, again.

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November 9, 2014

Sound Policies for a (insert your hope here) Britain

There is an election coming. You may have noticed. All the parties are squaring up to each other while trying to convince you that they ‘have a plan’. They all want to ‘help’ you and yours have a better life, they all say other parties offer you nothing and scare you about why you should be afraid of them if they get in.

We are, of course, being ravaged by ‘crisis’ in all our public services, there is failure on every front and it is all everyone elses fault, but not yours. You are the victim. This was the same in 1979, 1983, 1987, 1992, 1997 and so on. You didn’t ask to the barrow the money, you didn’t use the services and you said yes when you should have said no. So now, as we hope for actual leaders to actually lead and real ideas to inspire us, it’s time to test and debate what they are offering. Exciting isn’t it? Well maybe it just might be in a world of four or even five party politics.

I thought I would flesh out my own ‘manifesto’ for a healthier, wealthier, happier or any other ‘ier’ in Britain you might want. Working on the old principle that there is no such thing as a bad idea, these ‘policy headlines’ may just appear somewhere else in the next few months or at some time in the future.

Here goes.

We all pay a flat income tax at 20% of our income, after that income exceeds £15,000 per annum. National Insurance is abolished, along with VAT. Once you earn over £100,000 you then pay 30% income tax and 40% over £200,000.*

You pay a further 2% of you income to you local council.*

Fuel Duty and Vehicle Tax is abolished and you pay 2p for every 1 mile you drive.*

Both national and local councils must send you an annual receipt of what you paid and what they spent it on.

A visit to the Doctor will cost you £18.50, like a basic visit to the dentist, which is currently £18.50. The same exceptions will apply as in dental treatment and if you are undergoing treatment for a chronic illness you do not pay.

Caravans are only allowed to use the UK road network between midnight and 5am between March and November.

You must pass a test to tow a caravan and all caravans must pass an annual MOT.

You can’t get married until you are 30 years old, unless you have the written consent of all family members.

Children learning stringed musical instruments must do so in sound proof rooms.

All barriers and protective street furniture will be removed to make us all pay attention to what is actually going on around us as we walk, drive, cycle. You have a survival instinct and you can use it. Headphones are not allowed on bikes, buses or pavements

The use of traffic cones closing any lanes on our motorways must be no more that half a mile from where the work is being done or where the incident is.

All police vehicles must be marked as police vehicles.

All government departments, both local and national, must be able to clearly answer the ‘why can’t it be done’ test. And ‘we don’t have the money’ is not good enough. You are the government, act like one.

You vote for the person you want to represent you and then party you want to run the council or country.

No election counts unless 40% of those who can vote do actually vote. Any turnout below 40% means no elected representative. Anyone wants your vote must engage you for it.

All big planning applications must go to the applicable local council ward referendum. If less that 40% of those who can vote don’t vote in the referendum, the planning is passed. Over a 40% turnout a simple majority is required to pass or reject any planning application.

We all get a citizen card that is also our driving licence. This card contains details of our insurance and whether we voted or not.

If you didn’t vote shut up as nobody cares what you think.

If you are an elected official and you don’t tell the truth, claim to be one thing and then we find out you are something else you are fired.

Cyclists have to be insured to cycle and pass a basic test on the highway code.

Page three is out of date. Stop it.

Bring back Double D peanuts in the pub.

Local government deals with schools, health, police and local infrastructure.

National government deals with motorways, trains, justice, wars and foreign policy. No government department or profession effected by a government department can ‘overhauled’ or ‘reformed’ until those reforms have been discussed with those they are going to effect.

Junk mail is no longer allowed.

Christmas can’t start until 1st December. Easter can’t start until lent.

Mobility scooters are only to be sold to those who can’t walk, not to those who choose not to walk. They must also be licensed and can not go faster that 3mph.

Bond films or Carry On films must be shown on one free to air TV channel on every Bank Holiday in the afternoon.

I commend all these polices to the house and hope I can count on your vote. Some of the above may not vote winning.

*Sums may not add up, much like everything else that has come out of HM Treasure since 1945

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Video | October 22, 2014

It’s gonna cost you being ill

In the last few weeks, doing my day job, I have talked with those who are living with dementia and cancer. They have told me about how these dreadful diseases have touched their lives. I have also heard how dementia and cancer has changed their lives and how their lives have never been the same since they found out they have these two potentially devastating illnesses in their lives.

A generation ago you couldn’t even say the word cancer on hospital ward, let alone at home. Nobody talked about it and if you actually, eventually got ‘the diagnosis’ that was pretty much it. Get your affairs in order if you can, the clock is ticking and you can’t wind it up any more. A generation on and cancer is not the killer it once was. Some cancers are still not treatable and are fatal but most are livable, most are treatable. Today you can have a life and do something while you live with cancer. Linda Bellingham proved this beautifully, with great style and great humour too.

Dementia today is where cancer was a generation ago. We are still in denial over it, there are very few treatments for it and there is currently no cure for it. Cancer and our success in tackling it means that dementia has now been exposed for the illness it is. It’s not inevitable it will get you as you get older but, like cancer, you have a one in three chance of ‘the diagnosis’ and those odds are not good enough for you and me.

The principle problem with dementia and all its various types is getting the actual diagnosis. We know there are no treatments or cure and because of this we don’t want to face having to be assessed to see if we have it. As it stands the medical profession is currently not equipped or skilled enough to recognise the signs of dementia, treat it or cure it, much in the same way they were with cancer 30 years ago.

So giving GP’s £55 to diagnose dementia is ridiculous and it’s abhorrent. GP’s shouldn’t be paid a fee to do something that they should already be doing. If it’s a training need for GPs then train them but paying per diagnosis of dementia is just wrong. What next? £10 per cold and a £5 for ‘it’s a virus’?

The reality is that doctors already earn good money and they have to commit to a profession that takes their all. That is the deal. I used to be married to one and I am in awe of all she has done and still has to do every single day. All doctors constantly learn and train. It’s what they do. Adding dementia to their continued professional development should not be a problem. Dementia is fast becoming the health issue of our time and every doctor would benefit from this specific focus in their training.

The other issue we all have to face is that healthcare costs far more than we are all paying at the moment. Like or not every drug used costs millions to develop, prescribe and that has to be paid for. Every doctor, nurse, care assistant has to be trained, developed and rewarded and that has to be paid for. Every bit of the NHS has to be paid for. And the NHS needs to be managed and that has to be paid for too. 113 billion pounds is not enough to run the NHS you and I want. We are just going to have to more for it to use it.

The NHS is not free. It was never set up as ‘free’ and now, with health challenges like dementia, unknowns like Ebola, further advances in cancer care and its treatment we, you and me, are going to have to pay for it. Maybe we will not be paying for ourselves but for others, our loved ones to be treated and cared for. One thing is certain we are not paying enough today.

Here is THE question. Would you pay what you could to save your partner, your child, your parent? I would. I would give all I could. It’s about time we all faced up to that reality.

Another reality is that the NHS is not a political football to be kicked between the political parties claiming they can make it better. They have both made a mess of it, through under investment, PFI, miss management and perpetual reorganisation starting back with Enoch Powell in 1962 and every government of every colour since. They one thing politicians have not be fundamentally honest with us about the NHS is its cost. A NHS set up in 1947 is not equipped for 500,000 people living over the age of 90 and all the medical advances to today. Our healthcare success is the NHS financial failure.

If you and me want the NHS, to save the NHS, use the NHS you and me are going to have to pay for the NHS, if we can. Dementia proves it and the political parties need to stop prancing about saying they can do better and be honest about our healthcare.

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Quote | October 10, 2014

Do you buy the bi election result?

UKIP win a bi election and come a very close second in another. What does it all mean? Who really knows? All the claims of a new ear of four party or even five party politics are a bit far-fetched as one Green MP and one UKIP MP doesn’t really change anything for you and me. It does mean they can do stuff in the House of Commons and for their constituents but it’s a bit like being a one-legged man at an arse kicking party; thanks for the invite but I can’t really join in.

History shows us that fringe parties are mostly parties of protest. There are a chance to give the main parties a bloody nose and tell them to listen and to stop being what they think they should be. This time it may be different, especially if the Rochester bi election or as it should be known the Reckless bi election goes UKIPs way too. The Reckless bi election; how apt.

What is surprising is that the main parties didn’t see this coming, much like they didn’t see the SDP coming, they failed to see the financial crisis, prepare for the recession and actually deal with deficit that we are all living with and will continue to suffer from for many years to come. Why? Simple. Short termisum.

Our current leaders are short-term opportunists, hoping that the next year will be better than the last by tinkering around the edges but seldom planning much beyond the next electoral cycle. Even when they try with deficit reduction plans or fixing energy prices we don’t believe them and, in reality, they can’t actually do it because big P politics always gets in the way of achievement. The drastic public spending cuts and/or tax rises required to reduce the deficit will never happen as they would be political suicide. Other ‘vote winners’ such as the freezing of energy prices in a global market are, frankly, nuts. It’s the stuff of Canute and tides. If this had been done last year you would have lost out on the falling oil prices of the last 12 months and be paying well over the odds. Today the oil price is at a four-year low. Short termisum defined.

Our leaders, or managers (see earlier blog) do not get it. We need vision, leadership, statesmanship plus the ability, ambition and drive to see it through. We need do-ers not talkers who say they are ‘listening’ or have had ‘a wake up call’ or say ‘I want to tell you this’. Any politician who says ‘I want to tell you this’ should have the microphone removed from him or her, be sent home and they do something else, where nobody will be really listening either.

We need actual, real leaders and those who actually do. We need those who say they are going to do something and then actually do it. We need our faith restored and, until we have that, we will give anything a punt because our hope is the most powerful aspiration we have. The trouble is that hope is killed by failure and our hopes have been dashed a fair bit by all the political colours and their successive failures in the last two decades.

On my recent BBC trip to Bordeaux I saw a French city through the eyes of its governance not through the eyes of a tourist. It was fascinating. In two decades and with a lot of pain for those who live in Bordeaux the Mayor and the council have transformed the city with integrated public transport and bold policies to claim the city back for the people. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops but I didn’t meet anyone who didn’t see the city today as better than it was twenty years ago. The Mayor of Bordeaux has been elected three times and is about to run to be the President of France. Alain Juppe is a man who gets things done.

The vision, the action, the result is what we vote for in a true liberal democracy not words, more words and sniping at the other lot. UKIP have clearly demonstrated that if you fill the green leather benches of parliament with managers and sound bites voters will look for leaders who apparently stand for something. UKIP a have cleverly combined Europe and immigration into policy with a simple solution, leaving the rest of the political class to flap about like fish out of water, still gagging at the word immigration.

The next seven months will be very interesting as we may see the emergence of two types of politics and politician. Those who get it and those who lose their seat.

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September 27, 2014

War BUT is there something more to believe in?

So the UK is at war, notionally and actually. It was a decisive vote for the Prime Minster. Our Parliament, our MP’s and our democracy showed us and showed the world how the United Kingdom does business and means business. You may not like the outcome but democracy was served.

We have joined the 40 or so other countries who are completing air strikes against Islamic State, I S or ISAL. Two things on this. They are not Islamic as any scholar of Islam will tell you if you ask and listen and they are not a state, nation or country. They are an idea, a belief.

This is THE issue. How do you bomb an idea, a belief, a version of a religion? ISAL do have a flag, always something that has been fought over throughout history. You take the flag and you win. With the flag comes the castle, the country and the spoils but there is none of this to win. If ISAL are bombed to oblivion Iraq is still as failed state that the west created and Assad is still president of Syria, spported by Iran, China and Russia. This is going to be a long process and it will cost many lives. It has already been a long process from the birth of Islam and its divisions into its various forms and the conflict resolution by the hands of the British and the French at end of the First World War. The Sykes Picot agreement at the fall of the Ottoman empire created the division of the Middle East regardless of tribe or creed. The division of the Middle East then are the lines on the map we know today. Division; never has a single word meant more as the world lines up to fight the idea and belief that is ISAL.

Wars based on ideas or beliefs and their execution are flawed. History is replete with those failures, the most recent of which being the War On Terror. You can’t win against an idea because it is not a castle to be won any more than you can wage a war against a belief because you can never kill every believer. It is just not possible. You have to marginalise the belief and give those who harbour the ideals of their belief something better to believe in. Nor can you just tell believers they are wrong, that you are right and bomb them into agreement.

Here is reality. Bombing ISAL is right because the Gulf States are part of it. It is they who can show ISAL they are wrong in thier ideas and beliefs. They can show them that there is something better to believe in, the real Islam and not some crack pot, nutty, vile version of a faith that has no place in a modern world. The Gulf States, these Muslim states have a duty to their faith, their God, their Prophet and what they believe in, especially this week with the Hajj beginning on Wednesday. The greatest enemy to Islam is ISAL.

The beliefs of the Gulf States, the ones we like, the ones we do’t like and the ones that don’t like us need to get through to those who have chosen ISAL. ISAL can’t seem to see any other way than their warped version of Islam, which we in the west find abhorrent. It is vital the Gulf States make this clear having got ISAL’s attention through force, with our help.

Islamic State bares no resemblance to any decent Shia, Sunni or Sufi. This needs to be as clear and loud as the bombs we drop, for all our sakes and for Muhammad, peace be upon him and on us too.

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September 22, 2014

The United Kingdom? Why the majority needs a say NOW

We are still a United Kingdom, or Queendom if you prefer, as the vote in Scotland has given the whole of the UK a real chance to consider its political future. But will it? Not as I write. It seems that big P politics is set to get in the way, again.

The result from Thursdays referendum in Scotland was decisive, if not slightly born out of Westminster panic based on one Sunday Times poll. The real winner was democracy and the Scottish people with a voter turn out of 86%. The engagement of 16 and 17-year-old voters must mean that they are enfranchised on all future votes but the total turn out proves that when it really matters ‘we the people’ will get involved, listen to the arguments on both sides and vote. Politics in the UK could learn a lot from the experience of Scotland. This vote may also finally kill the ‘centre ground’, which has done more to damage democracy than anything else in a generation.

Yet as one question is answered many others are posed and one of those questions is very big. What of the rest of the UK and its governance? Scotland has it’s parliament, Wales and Northern Ireland have their Assemblies but England has, err nothing. That is not entirely true. England has councils, lots and lots of councils. There are parish, town, district and county councils plus unitary authorities and there are local enterprise partnerships, MPs and lets not forget MEPs too. The South West has six of those. All those people, elected and doing what? We are not short of governance or politicians to do it. They all cost you money and they all have their agendas.

If you have ever watched a council meeting or been part of this level governance at any level you can see why so little actually gets done. It’s a miracle that anything ever gets done. So does England need is own Assembly or Parliament as well as councils various or does it need to look at all the layers of government it currently has and make it more effective?

First question. Do we really need all the various councils we have? It is hard to get good Councillors, even harder to get people to vote for Councillors. Local government and governance is the one that actually affects us more day-to-day than anything else. Why not have one single level of local government rather than three or four? And why not pay those who do it too? No amateurs, part timers, parish pump types but local politicians dedicated to public service and paid properly for it.

Second question. Does England need a parliament too? The simple population statistic is that 85% of the United Kingdom … phew … Is English, in that they live in England. Minorities have their voices heard and constantly championed through assemblies, parliaments or pressure groups who are often shouting about how hard done by they are and why the need more money/representation/say/rights. The English majority have nothing. There is real need for an English parliament for English governance.

This would lead to an English and Scottish parliament, a Welsh and Northern Ireland assembly. Add to this a single tear of regional assemblies, and a House of Lords replaced by an elected Senate for UK wide issues and governance and Robert’s your father’s brother, it’s a new way of doing politics and running the UK.

The single tear regional assemblies plus a Welsh and a Northern Ireland assembly would deal with the day-to-day services we all use including education and health. An English and Scottish parliament would deal with law making, Police, Crime, Defence etc, oversight of regional assemblies and would have the ability to set and raise taxes. An elected Senate would deal with international policy, with oversight over parliament, National parliaments and assemblies and regional assemblies, and all this would be held in check and balance by select and scrutiny committees, both regionally and nationally.

This means you only have to vote three times; locally, nationally and for the senate. It might also arrest the real danger that government by consent of the majority is slowly heading for government created from the apathy of the majority and narrow politics of the minority. Change is needed as we are increasingly getting the Councillors, MPs, party leaders and government we deserve.

One last thing. We need to teach democracy in schools.

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We may be asking the wrong questions

This could be the last time it write and publish a blog as British citizen. I am English but as I tap on the keyboard I am British too but after 18th September I could just be English, diminished in my identity and I have no say over it. Yet this is not the issue that drives the last week.

In the last week a Police and Crime Commissioner still refuses to resign despite a no confidence vote from the very body that holds him to account. South Yorkshire PCC Shaun Wright was charged with looking after children for five years at Rotherham Council, before being elected as Commissioner. Over fourteen hundred girls were abused when he was running the council department who were supposed to protect them. Wright claims he knew nothing about the abuse and South Yorkshire police are trying to explain why they DID nothing about it. There are now similar claims of police negligence and inaction in Manchester. Nothing else has happened.

Manchester is the city where this week a dog’s home was burnt down. The response? Over a million pounds was raised in 24 hours to help the dogs that survived. Do we care more about dogs, dead or not, than we do young girls who have been abused and raped? If those who gave money instead gave a home to the dogs wouldn’t that actually solve the problem? Yet this is not the issue that drives the last week.

Saturday night, as I closed my eyes to sleep, my phone pinged and the news that a third hostage had been ‘executed’ by Islamic State, now being called ISAL, the third name change in as many months. We can’t even get naming them right. The third victim is 44-year-old British Aid worker and father of two David Haines. Another British hostage was shown in the now familiar video as the probable next victim.

Those who are doing this hide behind their ‘religion’, a coward’s mask, the name of a Prophet and their warped version of ‘truth’ that is beyond any reasonable or intelligent understanding. The world and this country faces a real and present threat and what we need to hear are Muslim leaders, Imams, Islamic voices shouting from the rooftops ‘Not in my name’ ‘Not in my god’s name’ ‘Not in Mohammed’s name’. We all need to hear this now, loudly and clearly. ISAL, I S or whatever they want to call themselves need to hear this too.

This week we could all be diminished by a skewed nationalist ideal that has no real idea what a yes vote will actually mean. ‘Yes’ voters certainly won’t be more Scottish any more that I will be more English in seven days time. Yet there are bigger stakes to play for than this, real matters of identity and consequences beyond oil, shortbread and kilts. What is needed is a loud, clear, world wide Muslim voice condemning the actions of ISAL. This would be a good NO we all want to hear.

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September 7, 2014

The Rivers that should flow through us all

This week Joan Rivers died. At 81 she had made generations laugh and the consensus is that she always spoke her mind, said what she felt and she has been widely praised for it. Her last book was Mad Diva and her previous book I Hate Everyone Starting With Me gives you a real insight into her world, just by the titles. Celebrities, Gaza, Jews, Presidents, her husband’s suicide all became her material and through the laughter she made us think about what they are, what we stand for and what they should be. Her comedy was honest, challenging comedy and it is style of comedy that allows us to laugh and come to terms with so many things, especially at their darkest.

We should really value someone who says what they feel and we should mourn their passing. The dichotomy is that we all claim to value free speech yet condemn anyone who dares to step off the safe speaking path for fear of offending anyone. Maybe we should also be mourning the rise of a world where we can’t say what we feel or express our opinion, for fear of upsetting someone as it or we might be considered an ‘ist’ by anyone in earshot. I have written about this and about ‘ists’ in an earlier blog but one thing we could all learn from Joan Rivers is that speaking our mind and letting others know what were are really thinking is not a bad thing, and those who don’t like it are the ones with a problem, not you. Any ‘ist’ be they racist, feminist, fundamentalist… the list of ‘ists’ goes on … who does not listen and believes they are right and you are wrong, they are dangerous. The one thing we can all know is that we don’t all know.

Maybe we could apply a Joan Rivers freedom of free speech test to our world leaders or managers (see earlier blog) who were recently sent to Newport in Wales to talk and come up with the odd plan or two. Quite why 60 world leaders were being punished by being sent to Newport is unknown but one thing is for certain that if you think Newport has problems, they are nothing compared to our world at the moment. Leaders who speak freely could say a lot to those who seem hell-bent on our destruction. They don’t and it was yet another lost opportunity. Joan Rivers would have told Islamic State, Putin and NATO what she thought and that may have made NATO bounce into actual action, or at the very least laugh and think.

NATO was set up in 1949 as an American lead answer to the perceived Soviet threat after the Second World War. How quickly second world war allies become enemies and, as President al-Assad of Syria may find very soon, the reverse can happen too. From the formation of NATO to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world broadly knew what to do. It was like a school playground with two adversaries, one on the east side the other on the one west side of the playground, looking at each other with a ‘come and have a go if you think your hard enough’ attitude. There may have been a bit of shuffling of feet and even the odd flexing of muscles but each side understood the other and each knew what could happen if they did actually fight, so they didn’t.

Communism fails, the Soviet Union breaks up and the Berlin Wall falls. NATO struggles with what to do next. And so does Russia. Twenty-five years on the purpose is back on both sides and, again, each side knows the rules. It may be scary but at least it is territory they and we know. Threats, cease-fires, negotiations, claim and counter-claim but the East versus West game is back on in the global playground.

Islamic State is a totally different situation. There are no rules and they don’t have any rules apart from their own warped view of the Koran. These Muslim extremists or fundamentalists are to Islam what the Klu Klux Klan is to Christianity. They now have their caliphate incorporating large parts of Syria and Iraq so what next? They seem bent on widening their expansion and influence while having no regard to or for anyone who is NOT them. Islamic State and its ‘success’ must be a real kick in the prophets for Al Qaeda. So how do you deal with I S? Simply, you don’t. Bombing them acts as their recruiting sergeant and the West must stay out. It is for Syria and Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to sort out this mess. It is a Muslim and tribal issue and the West must stay out, including aid workers and journalists. Turn off the cameras, turn off the lights and let them all get on with it and they can let us know when it’s sorted.

The one thing that would help us all in the East and West and Middle East would be that the leaders of those countries, together with ALL Muslim leaders in Britain, condemn with out conditions or ambiguity Islamic State. The world needs to hear from Muslims that Islamic State is ‘NOT in my name’, that Muslims do not support I S and their intentions. Only then can we all start to face those who are a real threat and not treat those who may look like a threat as one.

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