Dull Politicians

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The Prime Minister, David Cameron, was reprimanded this week by the Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, for calling Labour’s Ed Balls “a muttering idiot”. A muttering idiot? I would have thought that was almost a compliment, bearing in mind most people’s view of the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer!
Really though, was it that much of an insult? In Australia and Italy for example, politicians get away with far worse and the insults are generally far more fruity resulting sometimes in bouts of fisticuffs between over-excited opponents. Now there’s a thought, how much would you pay to watch Cameron slap Milliband around the chops, or vice versa?

As far as the UK is concerned perhaps it’s just a sign of the times and an indication of how dull and lacking in wit are many of today’s politicians. Indeed, our current bunch are pygmies compared to some of the greats of old, statesmen like Winston Churchill, David Lloyd George or Benjamin Disraeli. Prime Minister Disraeli once described his opponent and former PM William Gladstone as being “inebriated with the exuberance of his own verbosity”. Now that was a clever insult – in fact, probably too clever for the majority of dullards present in today’s House of Commons!

As someone once said of politicians “The more I see of the representatives of the people, the more I admire my dogs”.

Killing Our World

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We’ve been told so many times about the terrible damage we’ve caused, and are causing, to this wonderful world of ours, that we’ve almost become immune to it, reports of the pollution of the atmosphere, the destruction of the rain forests, the wiping out of whole species of animals and the denuding of the oceans. We mustn’t though because the problems are getting worse and as many scientists repeatedly tell us, the Earth is slowly dying. That is not scaremongering, it is not hyperbole but the simple truth.

A new book, “Ocean of Life” by Callum Roberts, confirms the dreadful damage wreaked upon our oceans and reveals that in the last 30 years mankind has caused more damage to the oceans and seas than in all  preceding time. It draws our attention to some terrible statistics such as the fact that we have already lost 75% of the oceans’ larger creatures like whales, sharks, dolphins and turtles. It reveals the irreversible damage caused by pollution to our coral reefs and paints a bleak picture of a time when there will be no living reefs left.
We know that we have virtually wiped out once plentiful fish such as cod and tuna but still we fish like insatiable monsters who can only rest when there is nothing left to destroy. Why is it that we can be so clever and so imaginative, inventing  cures for previously untreatable illnesses, design aeroplanes that can fly half way around the world without refuelling and construct buildings that reach up into the clouds, but when it comes to something as simple as preserving the world around us we behave like deranged Neanderthals?
Maybe it’s too late to do something about it, maybe we are doomed but I don’t think so. It is up to us to change our way of life and our habits, change what we eat and change our fuel to name but a few vital measures. It is up to us to lobby our politicians and tell the captains of industry how concerned we are about our impact upon our planet.
We are capable of change, of that there is no doubt, but what is required is the desire and the will to change. We can give our help to organisations like the World Wildlife Fund (www.wwf.org.uk) to Greenpeace (www.greenpeace.org.uk) and to other organisations like them. If we do nothing the legacy we leave to our children and our children’s children will be a permanent stain upon our generation and upon those before us. We will be remembered as the generation who took and took without giving back, the generation so obsessed with material wealth and comfort that we carried on taking, ignoring the evidence before us until one day our beautiful Earth simply collapsed and died before our very eyes.

Mobile Phones in Class

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The national schools inspectorate, Ofsted , whose website describes itself as “raising standards/improving lives”, has announced that it is starting a campaign to improve discipline in our schools.  About time too you may think, but let’s be generous: at least it’s a step in the right direction, no matter that it’s probably about forty years overdue!

According to newspaper reports, Ofsted have specifically stated their intention to encourage schools to  ban the use of mobile phones by children in the classroom.  I’m sure that parents who no longer have children or grandchildren at school will be astounded by that statement and will wonder how on earth we have got to the situation where children are allowed to bring mobile phones to the classroom in the first place. 
Call me old fashioned but aren’t school classrooms meant to be places of learning? Aren’t schools places where children are to be provided with an education as opposed to the opportunity to play computer games, text their friends and access goodness knows what on the internet.
How can such a distracting and disruptive practice be allowed? Have our state schools really sunk that low? The answer is sadly in the affirmative. If you doubt it just read the newspaper reports of demoralised teachers, assaulted by pupils and abused by parents, packing it in after years of stress and lack of support from successive governments.  
If children have to bring their phones to school, and I can see times when a phone might be necessary, such as phoning a parent for a lift or confirming a late return home, then they should be left in a locker in the school and accessed only when school is over or possibly in the school lunch hour, with the head teacher’s approval.  All schools have land lines and I’m pretty sure that they still have secretaries who are more than capable of linking pupils with their parents during school hours should it be absolutely necessary.
If Ofsted is serious about “raising standards” it should ensure that mobile phones are banned from the classroom forthwith.

The Evil Side of Political Correctness

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One of the most disturbing aspects of the sex gang trial verdict last week was the amount of denial by both police and politicians. The facts of the case were truly brutal and disturbing and anybody who followed the trial could not fail to be simultaneously angered and sickened.

The undisputed facts were that a gang of nine Pakistani Muslims systematically raped and abused forty seven young white girls in Rochdale over a period of several years. The ringleader was jailed for 19 years with others receiving varying sentences.  Investigations continue and it is feared that the number of perpetrators and victims could be even greater. This predatory sexual grooming of vulnerable underprivileged white girls by gangs of Pakistanis is not just limited to Rochdale either.
The problem then is what to make of those facts and what to do about them. The first step is surely to accept the facts and to accept that the crimes are indeed racial in spite of what the mouthpieces of political correctness may say to the contrary. All of the men convicted, bar one (and he was evidently an Afghan asylum seeker) were Pakistani and all of the victims were white.  That is fact.
Of course, we are strangled by political correctness in this country and the feeling that we must somehow treat non-white criminals differently from white criminals. Much of this arose from the MacPherson report into the police following the murder of Stephen Lawrence in the 1990s and to an extent it is understandable. The Metropolitan Police undoubtedly made some grave errors in the Lawrence case and they were rightly castigated for it.
Whilst the police should always be careful to be completely open and not show favour or prejudice to any person or group they should not go so far as to treat any person or group with kid gloves. A criminal is a criminal irrespective of the colour of his skin, his religion or his political leanings. To accept anything else goes against everything that our legal system has ever stood for.
Many people, white and non-white, Christian and Muslim were outraged by the comment of the Labour MP Keith Vaz that the problem “is not a race issue” and one leading Muslim, Mohammed Shafik, chief of the Ramadhan Foundation accused Vaz of “playing an insidious game”. One of the problems with exponents of political correctness is that they are so blinkered by their warped principles that they cannot see beyond them, or maybe they just see what they want to see. By denying the facts they are creating unnecessary racial tension and are inflaming feelings against all Muslims. They are playing into the hands of the far right who need no excuse to attack ethnic minorities such as Muslims, the vast majority of whom are no doubt law abiding citizens equally outraged by the Rochdale case.
A final thought, what would Vaz and his politically correct supporters have to say if the situation was turned on its head and white gangs of sexual predators were raping and abusing  innocent young Pakistani girls. Would it be racial then, I wonder? I think we know the answer.

Europe -The Plot Thickens

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Two important elections took place in Europe last week, with results that could well spell the breakup of the eurozone and possibly of the European Union itself.

In France Nicholas Sarkozy, the little Napoleon, received his marching orders from a disgruntled electorate tired of his vain posturing and his failure to make any headway in solving the continuing financial problems of  both France and the eurozone. His conqueror, Francois Hollande, a socialist, has made it clear that he does not support Germany’s attempts to solve the European crisis and it looks like the cosy Franco-German axis of Sarkozy and Merkel is no more.

 In Greece, the ailing country’s electorate have grown sick of the austerity measures imposed upon them by their German-backed government and have ousted it in favour of a government promising to both  inject growth into the economy and reject the international bailout plan previously agreed with the rest of the EU.
It all looks pretty serious and Europe’s problems seem to be getting worse rather than better. Surely, it is now only a matter of time before Greece defaults on its debts, leaves the euro and causes a financial collapse which will reverberate throughout the whole eurozone and beyond? Greece is looking more and more like the card to bring down the whole pack. Let’s hope that our Government are taking appropriate measures to cope with the inevitable fallout.

More Cruelty to Animals

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Many people in this country, both vegetarians and meat eaters, are concerned by the inhumane slaughter of animals to produce halal and kosher food. Over the weekend a leading vet was quoted as saying that the increase in the number of animals killed in ritual slaughter was ”unacceptable”. So what is the problem?
In the UK we pride ourselves on our largely civilised views and way of life. Though there are some imperfections, we have a rule of law that substantially protects our freedoms, guarantees our historic rights and basically enables us to live with its full protection. We have a whole raft of laws, rules and regulations that cover not just the rights and welfare of human beings but also those of animals.
Even though most of us eat meat we are concerned that those animals reared for our plates do not suffer unnecessarily. By law, animals destined for slaughter must first be stunned so that they are technically dead before being butchered.  The one exception is the ritual slaughter favoured by Jews and Muslims for kosher and halal food respectively meaning that animals are killed simply by having their throats cut. The result is that they bleed to death in great pain and distress; and all of this for religion. Unfortunately, that isn’t the full extent of the cruelty (and no other word will do) since investigations have shown that many non-halal or kosher abattoirs up and down the land are breaking the law by not stunning animals, simply to save time and increase productivity.
None of this is acceptable and the Food Standards Agency, which has evidently set up a board meeting later this month to discuss the question of non-humane killing, needs to act quickly. I cannot see how any religious belief can justify cruelty to animals and I certainly cannot see how monetary profit can justify it either. We need to revaluate our attitudes to animal welfare and whilst we’re considering humane killing we need to look too at other issues such as how animals are reared before slaughter, and particularly the production of veal and the force-feeding of ducks to make  pate foie gras. We have to eat, but if we cannot prepare our food better than this how can we call ourselves civilised?

Gutter Press

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In the midst of the usual depressing political and economic bulletins came the news this week that the English FA have appointed a new fall guy, sorry, manager to try to revive the fortunes of the hapless, under achieving national team. The latest holder of the poisoned chalice is Roy Hodgson, a well-respected and successful club manager with widespread experience of European football and a reputation for bringing the best out of average players. Perfect for the England job, you would have thought!

Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t the choice of the masses nor their mouthpiece, the tabloid press. The person they wanted for England manager was of course Harry Redknapp, a man who, when not appearing in court defending his reputation, coaches Tottenham Hotspur to play some of the most exciting football in the Premier League. The fact that their hero has won nothing doesn’t appear relevant and the protests at the appointment of Hodgson at the expense of ‘onest ‘arry have been fervent and widespread. Fair enough, you may say, people are entitled to their own opinion and are equally entitled to express disappointment when things don’t go the way that they had hoped.

What we got instead, of course, was something rather different and that guardian of the nation’s morals, the Sun, had a loud brash front page spread slating Hodgson and mocking him for his inability to pronounce the letter r. In big bold letters the headline proclaimed “Bwing on the Ewos!” (the European Championships take place next month). Not only is this sick bullying schoolboy humour of the cruellest kind, it is an insult to anybody with a speech impediment and in particular a gross insult to a man who appears to be a thoroughly decent, gentle and dignified  human being. He is also well educated and evidently speaks five languages which is probably five more than the moronic faceless coward who wrote the Sun’s “article”. As the former England right back and excellent television pundit Gary Neville said, the headlines were “disgusting…..and a certain paper needs putting out of circulation”. He’s not wrong.

European Austerity Measures!

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Last week leading economists declared that the United Kingdom is now officially back in a “double dip recession” : strange that, since most of us were unaware that we’d escaped the first dip! Basically, the country has been in the economic mire since the dark days of the “credit crunch” of 2008 and not a lot seems to have gone right since then in spite of the removal of the bungling Brown government . Sadly, the Coalition haven’t taken us much further towards the promised land and the repeated cock-ups of the dynamic duo of Prime Minister Cameron and  Chancellor Osborne don’t exactly fill the country with confidence or optimism. It really is starting to look like doom and gloom and one wonders is there anybody who can provide us with the positive, honest and competent leadership we so desperately need?

Still, we can always look to the soap opera of Europe to cheer us up and gain comfort from the knowledge that whatever happens, at least  we are not in the euro: mind you, it’s doubtful that anyone else will be soon, so disastrously is the European Union handling the economic crisis.
Here are two recent examples of European corruption; call it incompetence if you are feeling generous. Firstly, the European Commission’s draft budget was recently published calling for a 6.8% increase in spending. In the middle of the worst recession in living memory that is almost unbelievable in itself but yesterday the Sunday Times revealed that the Commission has just agreed a £10 million four year deal, with a private Belgian airline, to fly European officials all over the world on EU business. Evidently the airline’s charges work out, on average, at £16,000 per hour per flight. Why can’t these officials travel on scheduled flights like normal (perhaps there’s a clue in that word) people? Even first class flights wouldn’t approach those figures.
Secondly, the Commission’s budget states that, amongst its “tough” decisions on savings is one to cut its workforce by 1%; a tiny proportion you have to agree. However, even that turns out to be a gross exaggeration since, as Open Europe reveals in its fortnightly bulletin, the proposed staff reductions for ALL European Union institutions next year amount to a loss of only 6 (yes, six!) jobs out of 41,000 (www.openeurope.org.uk).
Of course, we know that the European Commission is unelected and clearly feels no responsibility to the likes of you and I but even so, I can’t help but wonder, what planet do these people come from?

The Last Englishman

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Like many people in the UK I bemoan the fact that our children are no longer taught substantive English and British history, save in private schools. We have such a rich heritage that the omission is nothing short of a scandal. Until our governments see sense (common sense?) I suppose we who were lucky enough to be taught English history must satisfy ourselves by passing on that knowledge to others less fortunate. Today I will be making a speech at a belated St George’s Day lunch and my theme is Hereward the Wake, a hero of these Isles referred to by some as the Last of the English.

Following the battle of Hastings on October 14th, 1066 England lay defenceless against the organised might and ruthlessness of William the Conqueror and his victorious Norman army. By the clever use of gifts of land  in return for oaths of allegiance King William, as he was quickly proclaimed, ensured that England would soon be pacified and brought to heel. This system, the Feudal System, guaranteed the loyalty of his nobles who quickly occupied the estates of the English (Anglo-Saxon) nobles who had been decimated at Hastings.

Some natives refused to bow to the Conqueror and revolts sprang up in various parts of the country. These were swiftly and brutally crushed but one man still resisted. Hereward the Wake (meaning wary or watchful) was born in the town of Bourne, Lincolnshire the son of an Anglo-Danish nobleman. He was something of a hothead in his youth and was outlawed by the King causing him to flee the country. Whilst in Flanders, where he had fought as a mercenary, he learned of the Norman conquest and shortly afterwards returned home with some followers. He discovered  that his father had been driven from the family home and, worse still, that his younger brother had been killed and his head nailed above the doorway.

Hereward, a redoubtable warrior, sought revenge on those responsible and legend has it that he single-handedly killed the fourteen Norman culprits and then had their heads nailed above the same doorway.  Clearly he couldn’t remain at large since the Normans were sure to come looking for him and so he and his followers went into hiding in the nearby Fens. The Fens, comprising treacherous marshland surrounded by thick forest, made an ideal base for the guerrilla warfare that Hereward planned against the Normans.

Hereward soon became a sharp thorn in the side of his enemies who tried desperately to capture him as his successes continued. As word of his exploits spread he became the symbol of English resistance and his small army increased in size as other rebels joined him. Aided by the Saxon Lord Morcar, from Northumberland, and a small force of Danes he led an attack on the Abbey at Peterborough capturing a large hoard of treasure which he wished to prevent from falling into Norman hands.

So serious was the threat now posed by Hereward that a Norman army led by King William in person descended upon the Fens determined to bring the rebellious Englishman to justice. Hereward’s stronghold was well chosen however and the Normans could find no way through the treacherous fens and marshes that he now called home. The Normans tried to cross over the marshes by means of various causeways but Hereward always outwitted them, on one occasion hiding his men in the reeds and then setting fire to stockpiles of wood as his enemies approached. Fleeing the flames, those Normans who were not drowned in the marshy waters were picked off by hidden English archers.

What the Normans were unable to achieve by straightforward military means they were however able to achieve by treachery and so it was that the Abbot of Ely, sick of the fighting, revealed to the Normans the whereabouts of a secret path leading straight into the heart of Hereward’s camp. Armed with this information the Norman soldiers followed the path and attacked the camp taking the rebels completely by surprise. Though many were killed in the sudden attack Hereward managed to escape.

It is here that his story has become blurred through the mists of time. Some say that he made peace with King William, others say he was later ambushed and killed by the Normans and yet more who say he simply melted quietly away into the anonymity of the marshy Fens. Whatever the truth, his memory lives on and to many, Hereward the Wake embodies the spirit of a true freedom fighter, the last of the English.

Happy St George’s Day!

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Today is St George’s Day , the national day of England although, unlike most national days, ours tends to pass with barely a nod of recognition by the majority of the nation. I wonder how many people will be wearing red roses today? Nevertheless this is England’s day and there will still be plenty of folk celebrating  and honouring  the memory of our patron saint, St George of Cappadocia. Whereabouts in England is that you may wonder?

Well, of course, it isn’t in England. Cappadocia was a province of Asia Minor at the time of the Roman Empire (now a part of modern Turkey) and St George is said to have been a Roman soldier of great valour who died for his Christian beliefs. How strange, one might think,  that we should have as a patron saint a man from the Middle East with no apparent connection to England. Well maybe, but it’s not without precedent. The most widely celebrated patron saint in the world, St Patrick, wasn’t even Irish; he was born in either Wales or Scotland, depending upon which historical account you read!
St George was adopted by the English in mediaeval times because of his religious beliefs and because he represented the qualities that honourable Englishmen aspired to in those times. With all heroes a legend develops and the story of his fight with and eventual conquest of the dragon was mere allegory and a symbol of the victory of good over evil. The St George cross (a red cross on a white background) was used as a flag by the Crusaders in their wars with the Saracens and was also painted on to their shields to demonstrate their Christian beliefs, if not their behaviour – as a cursory inspection of the history of the Crusades will reveal! It became the official emblem of England at about the same time and in 1222 the Council of Oxford declared that April 23rdbe treated as a day of national celebration, a tradition that has continued for nearly 800 years.
Whatever the nationality of St George the man and whatever the truth or otherwise of his exploits he is our patron saint and any man who symbolises, as he does, the victory of good over evil is someone we should all feel proud of. This is our day. Let’s all enjoy it and toast the memory of our patron saint with a glass of finest English bitter. Happy St George’s Day!