Slings, Arrows and Outrageous Fortunes

Hullo ma wee blog,

Is it just me or do things just stop making sense when you get older? I've never felt this so often before, never felt so aggravated every single time I pick up a newspaper or hear a headline on some news programme.. Every time there's a current affairs programme on the radio there's going to some bloody politician spouting the line, doling out tales of woe about how bad the current economic climate is, how dire the country's finances are, how cuts being implemented are being targeted to make them as fair as possible, how carefully thought through they all are, consideration given to every aspect of our modern life blah blah blah.

Through all this we are also told that this is the best way to deal with things. We can't go on spending and borrowing more than we earn.

On the face of it I have to agree. We ARE in the middle of a global recession. We do need to make changes. But I can't stop being skeptical about this coalition government and particularly about the Lib-Dem ability to reign in the excesses of Tory ideology. Both the Tories and Lib-Dems made numerous pledges to us pre-election about what they would and wouldn't do and of course if you believed all of it then you need your head examined, but -  I've never known so many pledges to be ditched so quickly and openly. This really worries me. The Government are prepared to to treat us like we are somewhere between idiotic children and simple cash cows. I AM ABSOLUTELY SICK TO THE BACK TEETH OF IT ALL.

When politicians start dripping words like 'fair', 'justified' 'equality' and 'common good' it doesn't bode well for the future. If you have any sense you know you're in trouble.  And don't believe for a second that it includes them or their vested interests whatever they say regardless of political party or ideology.  I also have heard lots of Government MP's lately  bleating about  "the scale of the problem was much worse than we were told by the Labour government". Well I'm sorry but that's absolute crap. The financial situation was fully known about before you toe-rags were elected and in the weeks before you actually created this abomination of a coalition government it was DOWNGRADED by £5 billion - so the situation you inherited was even BETTER than you should have ALREADY KNOWN  it was.

 Or maybe you were asleep and missed that. { maybe you were doing your expenses!}  As for some of the 'crazy' previous decisions you have had to mop up after - many of these - such as spending on nimrod and aircraft carriers involved cross party consultation and decisions.

Not once when the bale out of the banks and banking system was being discussed did you - any of you then in opposition - say it was the wrong thing to do. Never once did you say we couldn't afford this without massive and agonising impact, paying off hundreds of thousands of people and cutting services for the most vulnerable and needy in our society, yet now it's oh so obvious that this policy was just building up problems for the future. Who the hell do you think you are kidding here? Shame on you. SHAME ON YOU ALL! You say you have the skills in the coalition to sort this. You have the perspective. Yet many of you are millionaires in your own right and fifteen of the front bench government ministers went - not just through a private education - but 15 of you went to THE SAME SCHOOL! How will that bring  a breadth of perspective? You have no idea what people are going through cosseted as you are by salaries expenses and great big party blinkers.

Of course it does bring perspective,all that expertise, that world experience, but perspective of a very different kind to what's needed. None of you millionaire old school tie brigade will make a decision to make those who really can pay their way do so, no matter how justified it would be. No, no, no. You would work doubly hard to create a justification for the opposite. These people are 'wealth creators'. Well sorry - but they're not. They're wealth takers, nothing more. They pay their workers salaries and benefits as low as they can push them, nothing more and squeal at any hint of added cost no matter how justified, no matter how paltry.  That's where your perpsective falls short. None of these super rich top tenpercentile earners in the UK will ever feel anything like the same kind of pain as the lowest paid workers and families who depend on some of those very benefits removed for creating a basic decent standard of living. Benefits that the poor are paying for through taxes at a higher rate than the top earners regularly pay anyway thanks to your inaction on the tax system. Those highest earners wouldn't vote to keep you in power if you did or give you jobs when you 'retire'.

None of them will feel any pain at all. None of their children will be denied access to education because their parents can't afford it. They'll be sent like their fathers to Eton and Cambridge where annual fees are higher than the average national wage and then be given access to jobs based on pedigree, on connections and by right of the old school tie and spend the rest of their life increasing the inherited wealth because of that protection rather than have to dig it up from scratch.

So let me just remind myself of some of the crap you promised in the election campaign and whats happened since!


No frontline cuts in public services - DECIMATED
Protecting the NHS budget - MASSIVELY CUT AND FRONTLINE NURSES BEING PAID OFF
3,000 more police officers - POLICE OFFICER NUMBERS IN ENGLAND AND WALES BEING CUT. NUMBERS IN SCOTLAND UNDER THREAT.
Keeping VAT at 17.5% - RAISED TO 20%
Keeping the Future Jobs Fund - SCRAPPED
Preserving tax credits for middle earners - REDUCED
Scrapping tuition fees - TUITION FEES RAISED TO UPPER LIMIT OF £9,000 pa. FUNDING FOR EDUCATION DECIMATED - yes education costs - but ignorance will cost more.
No bonuses for bank directors - HUGE BONUSES FOR BANKERS REMAIN. NO EFFECTIVE STEPS TAKEN TO REGULATE THE EXCESSES OF THE BANKING SYSTEM WHICH CAUSED MUCH OF THIS PROBLEM IN THE FIRST PLACE. TAX ON TRANSACTIONS SET AT LOWEST ESTIMATED LEVEL. BANKS ALREADY PLAN PASSING THESE CHARGES DIRECTLY ON TO CUSTOMERS
Three more army battalions - SCRAPPED.
Pupil Premium additional to the schools budget - SCRAPPED
Keeping Child Benefit universal - SCRAPPED
A Post Office Bank - NOT HAPPENING
No cuts to the Royal Navy - HUGE CUTS TO NAVY AND AIR FORCE
Automatic prison sentence for carrying a knife - NOT IMPLEMENTED FOR ENGLAND AND WALES
Cutting rail fares each year - 10% INCREASES IN FARES
No more top down NHS reorganisations - THE BIGGEST EVER REORGANISATION OF NHS ANNOUNCED TO TAKE PLACE AT THE SAME TIME AS IMPLEMENTATION OF HUGE CUTS
No cuts to public spending this year - MASSIVE CUTS TO SPENDING AND A HUNDRED THOUSAND PLUS TO BE MADE REDUNDANT.

Military chiefs have written a joint letter saying we are leaving ourselves unprotected and that these cuts make no defensive sense and serve only fiscal policy. We were told that getting rid of quango's would simplify procedure and save almost £100 million annually. Since then the Institute for Fiscal Studies - who are normally the experts the govt use for these things - say that there will be no significant savings as a result of changes made. Unsurprisingly the govt say the IFS have got it wrong.

On top of all this fuel prices are through the roof - our  home domestic gas cost has gone up 55% this year. You can add another 10% on that for last year too. God knows what the % increase is for transport fuel - yet you sods continue to add to the misery by increasing the tax take on every single litre sold. - How can you possibly justify that?  Mervyn King, head of your own Bank Of England is saying that banks are showing no change in operation and no real restraint in managing bonuses. And you lot - YOU LOT - have rolled over on forcing reforms and charging a meaningful transaction tax and instead have given them £19 billion worth of tax reductions by allowing them to offset previous losses against future tax. EFFECTIVELY YOU'VE GIVEN THEM ANOTHER 19 BILLION POUNDS OF OUR MONEY. ??????  WHERE DID YOU GET THE MANDATE FOR THAT BIT OF PERSPECTIVE? That should pay for a few Tory voting chief exec bonus'  no doubt. That should earn some of you a nice little earner in drectorships when you give up this political malarky to go and top up your pension schemes.

You absolute gits.

Today I hear that the number of billionaires in the country has increased at a higher rate than previously yet we have taken no steps to ensure that our tax system is properly reformed. It's reckoned that billions annually in tax are not paid through deliberate tax avoidance by UK companies yet this is not illegal - only 'tax evasion' is. If we only stopped companies sending profits into tax havens and made them pay the tax THEY ALREADY SHOULD BE PAYING - we would wipe out the entire national debt in one bloody year!!! - without making one single person redundant. Never mind stopping up the loopholes for tax deductions so often used by the super rich. They should be following the spirit of the law- not trying to avoid the letter of the law.Frankly, the law should leave them no option, yet you hesitate to make any meaningful change. And you reward these same people with peerages and consultant positions. You self seeking cretins.

 We're as bad because we put up with it too. Will we never learn.

In the meantime you're not tackling these issues because you are too busy cutting jobs, freezing wages and raping peoples pensions. I bet every bloody one of you has a final salary pension but heaven forbid we should give one to a fireman, policeman, a nurse or a teacher and many who have often worked hard for years at lower salaries than they could have got because they have the sense of social responsibility you so clearly lack,  because they want to make life better for people.

It's time somebody - any bloody politician at all - grew some balls and some integrity and made some changes that are actually going to be genuinely for the benefit of this country and not just the self serving, crass and damaging same old same old over and over again.

WILL YOU PLEASE - PLEASE - GET A GRIP.

I've never been ashamed to be British -  BUT I AM NOW!

Rant over.

Phew.....I feel better for that.

Is the Devil in The Detail?.........

Hullo ma wee blog,


Did you ever think that by helping someone not commit a crime you could be convicted of a crime yourself?

Probably not. It does sound daft, doesn't it?

But in Scotland you could be.

Last week the Holyrood committee scrutinising Margo MacDonald MSP's 'End of Life Assistance Bill' concluded that it, "does not recommend the general principles of the Bill to the Parliament.", on the voice of the majority of its members. Currently under Scots law - which is separate and completely independent of the rest of the UK  - the situation is;

"... if a first person assisted a second person – thereby acting in concert – to take that second person’s own life, or attempted to do so, the first person would be dealt with under the law of homicide".

Now, the conundrum for me here is this. If, as above, helping someone to commit suicide - and lets leave all the arguments around this to one side for a second - as suicide is not an illegal act in the UK, you could be charged under the law of homicide. In other words  - you would be committing a crime by helping someone not commit a crime.

Margo MacDonald is a Member of Scottish Parliament. She is also terminally ill with Parkinson's disease and brought a private members bill on the subject of "assisted suicide" for consideration. To allow this to be considered it first has to go through a filter process of committee like all the other odds and sods private matters before they are approved to be heard in Holyrood itself. The bill's aims were;

“That persons who wish to decide when to end their lives should be able to do so, legally, with the assistance of a registered physician. This has come about because of the experiences of people with degenerative conditions, terminal illnesses and those who become entirely dependent on others following a trauma.” (Margo MacDonald 2008.)

It's a very specific area of the whole suicide issue, that terminally ill or debilitated patients should have the right to choose the timing and method of their death and should have legal access to assistance to do this without unnecessary pain or suffering for themselves or those around them. Currently people in the UK who feel they have to do this travel to places such as Switzerland where the practice is legal. Some are 'assisted' by family or friends to do so which places those assisting in a precarious legal position. I don't propose to get into all the deeply complicated issues and morality around 'right to choose' here. I'm more interested in this post to raise the issue of how can it be against the law to help someone who is themselves breaking no law. Don't mistake me - there are real and thorny issues around just this wee nugget that should be considered, difficult choices to be made and many opinions and agendas to be addressed .   Perhaps this is why our elected representatives have chosen to dodge the proverbial hot potato despite, it would appear from newspaper and TV articles,  public perception being sympathetic and feeling this is an area of legislation that needs to be addressed.

The six person committee stated:

"There is no ambiguity in current Scots law in this area – if some people choose to travel to other jurisdictions to commit an assisted suicide or to access voluntary euthanasia, they do so because certain, inherent aspects of those actions are unlawful in Scotland. That the decision of whether to prosecute is separate and subject to the Prosecution Code is part of due process. Any call for clarity is, therefore, spurious."


Consider - what is "assistance" legally at present?  Is it simply agreeing the wish, or maybe it's failing to try and dissuade; or is it taking the person somewhere suitable; is it providing the drugs or is it being present at the death and taking no action to prevent? There is no legal definition in Scotland just as there is no clear definition in law as to what is 'terminal' - as it depends on a notion of timescale that would have to ascertained. There have to be laws in place surely, checks and balances to protect each individual, to ensure that the afflicted person is not being duped or unnecessarily 'helped' to a hasty decision or if  'assistance' veers off into a form of homicide, you might say, if the accused person's actions move from bystanding to participation, if it becomes direct life-ending action? These are questions. Real and substantial questions. There may be answers to them, but the Committee offers none and recommends Parliament need not discuss it further. The questions of what is assistance, what is the definitive legal interpretation, because the bill will potentially not proceed to a full hearing before Parliament, will all lie unanswered, mostly perhaps because they are questions difficult for politicians with canny eyes to re-election or moral or religious concerns to tear open for frank examination. Are these honestly too difficult or too sensitive to be heard, considered and too painful to make decision over?

To call these issues "spurious" and unworthy of debate as it has "no ambiguity" is a huge failing of the committe, especially when the bulk of public opinion is in favour of allowing these poor souls such an avenue. It isn't illegal to commit suicide, is it? No? Then how can assisting someone to commit something which isn't an offence be offensive?   What exactly is assistance? How should 'terminal' be defined?

What a waste of time and money if you can't see there are things here that have to be clarified.

The bill's onward progress will be voted for on 25th November when the house will decide to accept it for discussion or to accept the committees evaluation.

Forgive me the pun but I hope they can get their Act together on this one

{They didn't and the bill was declined for progress on to be discussed in parliament.}

See you later.

Listening to this

There's A Fundamental Problem With Multiculturalism...............

Hullo ma wee blog,

Jings! I huv'nae half been a serious wee fella this last week or so. Aye, I'm afraid this is another one but I hope you'll forgive me. Hopefully I'll be a bit more lighthearted soon but this has been bugging me for a considerable while.

In among all the stories about spending last week I was caught by German Chancellor Angela Merkel's statement that in her opinion multiculturalism has failed in Germany. I firmly believe in the ideals and the principals of multiculturalism but she sees western Europe going down under the tide of radical Islam. Rather than liberal society creating the utopia of harmonious cultural pluralism, it's being swallowed whole by a giant predator whose voracious mouth it encourages in the spirit of tolerance. The very act of liberality, it would seem ,ensures its downfall as it invites enemies and friends equally and empowers them with all the worthily inclusive legal protections that it would use to defend itself. It is in effect being eaten from within by a self- inflicted parasite for which there is no known cure.

I felt a comment like that coming from Germany in particular to be somehow more telling than some of the stories heard from other European countries. I don't know much about Angela Merkel, her policies or her politics. I don't know for instance if such a comment from her could simply be political opportunism or even political diversionism, taking the focus away from some other aspect of European politics. I do feel that given their history, German mainstream politicians are potentially less likely to make inflammatory statements on race, to stoke any fires of religious bigotry without careful consideration.

There's been many signs of concern, discontent even, within the liberal countries of western Europe over the last year around the increasing impact of Muslim culture, particularly the more fundamental aspects of that culture and its apparent demand for us to accept change on what are seen by many to be basic aspects of western values and culture. I've spoken here about the debate on acceptance of the burqa and the niqab and this year has also seen some fairly radical steps taken by nations that directly affect Muslim populations. France and Belgium have banned the burqa and other countries are debating doing the same.; Switzerland has banned the building of any further minarets; Denmark has imposed ferocious limits on immigration.

It would seem that battle lines are being drawn whether we {or they} like it or not. There has been a culture, radically different to our own, planted in our civilisation and while it seems to want to take advantage of the commercial and political freedoms it doesn't seem to want to integrate with our culture and its more tolerant views on religion, marriage, sexuality or morality.

But is that really true? Have we, as a society, done enough ourselves to integrate these populations into every aspect of our lives? Have we really welcomed them with open arms or gone to them and encouraged their engagement with us? Have we actively built bridges with them and welcomed them into our homes and our lives, made sure that we have explained our expectations of them as citizens, told them what their responsibilities are as well as their rights. Have we done everything we could to protect them from bigotry and exclusion by elements of  'oor ain folk'.  I'm not convinced that we have and until we do I don't think multiculturalism is going to work. {it also has to be reciprocated by the other party too.}  It's not something we are naturally good at. Think how we behave when us Brits move abroad. Not exactly known for embracing the local culture and integrating into society are we? More likely we're known for doing the opposite and creating a 'Little Britain'. [Historically we have done little but dominate other countries and exploited their natural resources and manpower to our own ends.]

I think it's important that we are allowed and encouraged to keep the best aspects of our culture. It's beneficial to all that heritage is strong. It keep us unique and enriches, not denigrates whatever society we are part of and that goes too for Moslem or any other culture that comes here. I believe that we are all better for having an understanding of our roots and heritage and the roots and heritage of others. It's important that the best parts of all are used and spread to the benefit of all. Many parts of differing cultures get on perfectly well together, it's only in certain areas that conflict or confusion arises and these need to be carefully and calmly explored. Above all, it's important the indigenous culture and values of any host country are respected, protected and preserved and where change happens that this is done naturally and organically, freely driven by the host coming to recognise and accept the change as a beneficial development, not by imposing or demanding an uncompromising and inflexible set of conditions. To me that's not integration or even immigration. To me that's domination. That's invasion. It's where a host society, is being forced to change and in a direction that's not welcome. When this happens decisions have to be made. I believe this is what Angela Merkel and others are really saying. When a minority wants to use laws designed for tolerance and freedom to protect itself while at the same time spreading intolerant attitudes which threaten our core values then measures have to be taken to protect those values. These measures should be debated, taken openly, and be appropriate and just and should at all times uphold our values of tolerance and human rights for the benefit of society as a whole.

 Good and Evil.

Too close for comfort.

I do think there is a problem with Islam though and it's one that needs to be tackled urgently and ferociously within the framework above. Although I say the problem is with Islam I would qualify that and say that it is not a problem with the Muslim faith. I absolutely uphold the right of anyone to practice their faith. While not a practicing Christian it's how I was brought up and they are fundamentally the values I carry. I believe everyone has the right to follow the religion they choose without interference so long as that religion is not aggressive or bigoted against other religions or lifestyles. I believe that within Islam there is a crisis where radical hardline fundamentalist views are hijacking mainstream opinion and deliberately moving towards conflict to achieve domination of non-Moslem cultures. Their ability to do so lies at the heart of modern western unease with Islam and needs to be tackled by the Moslem populations themselves. But those who do this radicalisation are doing exactly the same within Islam as they are trying to do with our tolerant principles of individual freedom in the west. They use the very structure of Islam to protect themselves while promoting views which are very non Islamic. But by it's very nature confrontation or conflict isn't something that moderates are good at. Just as there is a radical risk built into any religion, Islam appears to stand ever closer to the moderate and tolerant majority losing control to fundamentalism by failing to curb negative tendancies, even sometimes seeming to protect fundamentalist ideals when criticism comes from outside the faith. Our western perception therefore is that Islam has moved away from a progressive and tolerant attitude to more conservative views. Holding to these semi-conservative views could be a way of using appeasement in preventing a swing to an even less tolerant outlook by potential supporters of a fundamentalist viewpoint, acting to show willingness to preserve and protect rather than modernise and adapt the faith as we have done in the west.

So, what is the problem with Islam?  It's that Islam is not just a faith but is also an ideology. This issue is 'fundamental' in several ways. In the west we are used to faith being almost completely separate from the state. While the states values may be based on religious principles, just as Christian principles shape Britain's laws, religion here no longer dictates the law of the land and has no control over it or the functions of the state. State and religion are completely separate and there are controlling structures for both.  In Islam, faith is the state and faith dictates the law, which controls every other aspect of life; justice, welfare, commerce, health, police and politics. There is no separation.  Religious leaders and their interpretation of  faith, and therefore how the faithful should behave, are important in ways we haven't known in the west for several hundred years, when the word of a Pope could send hundreds of thousands of believers on invasions as 'crusaders' - a term that Islamists of a conservative/fundamentalist mindset still use as an inflammatory description of westerners .  Religious interpretation can be polarised or hijacked to promote a particular agenda in radical or 'fundamentalist' ways. It is this reality, linked to Islam as an ideology that is it's greatest threat. A strong Islamist population with fundamental tendencies is a huge potential problem for western political systems. This is the fear and the reality which is at the root of statements such as 'multiculturalism doesn't work'. See this piece from 'The Telegraph' on how this is affecting politics in Tower Hamlets in London.

Islamic fundamentalists have become adept at manipulating ideology and faith for their own agendas and in turning the liberal values of others against themselves in the attempt to impose fundamentalist beliefs on others. They have also become adept at manipulating the faith of Muslims who are not fundamentalists themselves by stoking their fears and prejudices against other faiths or ideologies. This is what we are seeing in the conflicts in the middle east today.

I read a report about City University, central London, which states that a hard-line Islamist ideology is being promoted through the leadership of the university’s student Islamic Society, leading to increased religious tensions on campus and to the intimidation and harassment of staff, students and members of minority groups by extremists and increasing the risks of students turning to terrorism. It shows very clearly how this minority group has attempted to create huge influence within the university and to dictate or influence the actions of other groups to it's advantage. While it's a lengthy and academic piece - I took about 40 minutes to read it - it shows in microcosm how fundamentalism works to manipulate others to it's own ends. That this is amongst 'educated' students and not poor or uneducated people, shows faith is a powerful weapon when manipulated by experts.

In essence, if you don't have time to read the whole chilling report the method used is this;

There are four contributory factors which are:


1. Exposure to an ideology that seems to sanction, legitimise or require violence, often by providing a compelling but fabricated narrative of contemporary politics and recent history.

The report states;

City Univerity ISoc {Islamic Society} events and particularly Friday sermons given by ISoc members have additionally explicitly advocated the murder of individuals who do not pray, for women to be ‘forced to wear’ hijab, for the ‘prohibition’ of homosexuality and the ‘killing’ of apostates. Furthermore, extremely conservative opinions are advocated by ISoc speakers, such as that Muslim women must ‘walk as close as they can to a wall’, that women ‘should try their best to stay at home unless there is a necessity’, and that men should only speak to women ‘in times that are necessary’. Simultaneously, the ISoc have promoted a warped understanding of current affairs in which Muslims are the innocent victims of complex plots and conspiracies. This serves to reinforce their narrative of a global religious war between Muslims and non-Muslims. For instance, attacks on ISoc members by local gangs were deliberately and explicitly equated with foreign conflicts such as those in Kashmir and Palestine, while the attempted Detroit airliner bombing was dismissed as anti-Muslim propaganda.


2. Exposure to people or groups who can directly and persuasively articulate that ideology and then relate it to aspects of a person’s own background and life history.

Through material made available on their website, City ISoc have exposed students to a number of extreme Islamists whose pro-jihadist teachings are likely to prove a radicalising influence. These include Anwar al-Awlaki and Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, both of whom have directly radicalised a number of prominent terrorists who have subsequently carried out attacks in the Middle East and in the West. Through its website, City ISoc has also exposed students to a number of extreme Wahhabi scholars who promote an intolerant and hard-line version of Islam. Such Wahhabism has historically helped to nuture pro-jihadist ideologies and to fuel religious tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims, and between Wahhabists and other Muslims. · In addition, the president of City ISoc, its ‘ameer’, appears to be a significant radicalising influence in his own right. A number of students have described him as a “hypnotic”, charismatic figure, who is capable of inspiring unquestioning obedience and devotion among his immediate followers.

3. A crisis of identity and, often, uncertainty about belonging which might be triggered by a range of further personal issues, including experiences of racism, discrimination, deprivation and other criminality (as victim or perpetrator); family breakdown or separation

'Partly through promoting its false narrative of victimhood and partly through its separatist and confrontational Islamist ideology, ISoc members have sought to create a globalised ‘grievance-based’ Muslim identity that is hostile to non-Muslims and paranoid and suspicious of outsiders. The ISoc’s president particularly sought to shape this identity. ISoc sermons, for example, deliberately reinforced this ‘us and them’ outlook, for instance through the use of phrases such as ‘the black heart of the kuffar [‘infidels’]’. · In order to push Muslim students into adopting this binary ‘us and them’ outlook, the ISoc has manipulated genuinely disturbing incidents and presented them as being part of a global conspiracy against Muslims. For instance, following the gang attack on Muslim students, the ISoc’s Friday sermon used war-like language to urge students to unite behind the ISoc’s leadership to the exclusion of other religious and social groups, saying ‘let us as Muslims stick together, united as one. One brotherhood, one sisterhood, united at all costs’.  Additionally, Islamist policy proposals advocated by the ISoc, such as stoning adulterers and killing apostates, are presented as being core Muslim beliefs and as being at odds with the ‘western value system’. Such phrasing deliberately creates a conflict between students’ ‘western’ identity and their ‘Muslim’ identity; effectively a laying down of a ‘with us or against us’ ultimatum for Muslim students – who are also told by the ISoc to defend such ‘Islamic’ acts against non-Muslims and not to become ‘apologists’ for their religion.  Moreover, they engaged with other members of the university campus, and student politics, in religious terms. For example, they advocated voting as Muslims – and what would benefit Muslims – rather than as members of a democratic, secular student body.'

4]  A range of perceived grievances, some real and some imagined, to which there may seem to be no credible and effective non violent response.’
 
As shown above, ISoc members have repeatedly taken Muslim students’ perceived and genuine grievances and amplified them by combining them with the ISoc’s Islamist ideology and with the ISoc’s preferred grievance-based identity. A typical ISoc strategy was to create a crisis between the ISoc and various members of the university population, to depict this crisis as evidence of Muslims being persecuted by non-Muslims and then to advance Islamist or separatist policies as a solution.  For instance, the ISoc has depicted the university’s closure of Muslim-only prayer facilities as evidence of an institutional hostility to Muslims. The ISoc, using religiously-loaded language at one Friday sermon, described this as an example of ‘the non-Muslims, the polytheists, the university officials who are driving us out of our homes’. Ultimately, they projected the conclusion that ‘no longer is it easy to practice Islam on campus’.  In addition the ISoc fostered a sense of grievance by presenting all criticisms of the ISoc as examples of wider society’s intrinsic Islamophobia. ISoc members writing on the society’s website abused individual university staff critical of the ISoc as ‘having an outright hatred for the Islamic way of life’. Similarly, staff and students critical of the ISoc’s activities have been repeatedly described by ISoc members as ‘Islamophobic’, implying that their opposition to the ISoc was based on irrational, anti-Muslim prejudice.  The ISoc leadership also used the incident over the campus stabbings to their advantage. By taking a genuine grievance – a serious and alarming incident in itself – they managed to draw parallels between their ‘plight’ and the people of Kashmir and Palestine, declare the university to be throwing them “out of their homes” and cast the police as the “kuffar” whose promises “mean nothing”. khutbas (Friday prayers) have repeatedly promoted an extreme Islamist ideology that combines many aspects of jihadist and Wahhabi thought. Potentially, this ideology, as laid out by the ISoc’s leaders in their Friday sermons, calls for an ‘Islamic state’ in which shari’ah law will be instituted. It also calls for, in the words of the ISoc leader, ‘offensive jihad’ – i.e. unprovoked attacks on non-Muslims

It seems incredible that such exhortation to violence should be made by anyone who purports to be a leader of any community within a civilised country.

It really does require a reading of the whole report to explain how such radical views can be disseminated through an educated population, but this reinforcing and expanding of an 'aggrieved and threatened' culture is at the heart. I would urge you to read it.

But what of multiculturalism?  Is it really dead?  Should we simply discard it as 'failure to launch'?

I don't think so. To discard it would be to play the hand of the radical and retreat behind city walls and man the ramparts. We shouldn't either allow ourselves to become 'aggrieved and threatened' as a society.  We have to embrace multiculturalism. We have to find ways to make it work.

The alternative would surely be too horrible to contemplate.

How To Get More From Less............

Author - Wealth of Nations

Hullo ma wee blog,

It's now a few days since the govt released details of its spending review aimed at reducing the national deficit and getting the countries finances back on an even keel. The Chancellor George Osborne went to great lengths to make sure that the country got the message that the situation was bad,that something was being done to reduce the deficit urgently and that the measures being taken were fair to all parts of society with everyone paying their fair share. During the hour he took to explain the outline of the measures he used the words fair or fairness repeatedly, over twenty times in fact.

But listening to it all I was struck by thoughts of justice and fairness, particularly about the fact that what is just isn't always fair and what is fair isn't always just.

Now the dust has begun to settle and proper analysis has begun it's become obvious that what many feared has been enacted and it is the poorest sections of society who are bearing the greatest burden. The Govt is making much of the fact that it is the highest two percent of earners who are most heavily hit but have not mentioned the fact that it was actually the previous Government who put these measures in place.  Every Tory or Lib-Dem political interview I have heard - and there have been plenty over the last couple of days has also trotted out the "this situation has been inherited from the previous Govt" line. At it's most basic level this is true; the situation was there when the new Govt took office. However the situation arose over a much longer period as part of a global banking crisis and the action taken to support our banks and prevent them from collapse - which is the reason why finances are in such a state -was debated and agreed by all parties as being the right thing to do, as was the defence spending which was a cross party decision.

Sadly the Chancellor took another £7 billion from the welfare budget which is there to support the poorest parts of society - after already having reduced the welfare budget by £11 billion - therefore hitting this poorest, traditionally non Tory-voting sector hardest. Affordable housing investment is also being reduced by 70%. There is no doubt where that is going to hit . More families trapped in the poverty trap. But did the Govt need to hit this sector for the extra £7 Billion?  I think it should have come from the banks and from the middle class sectors least hit by these measures. Alternatively what difference would it really make to the lifestyles of highest earners if the impact on them went to 6% or 8% or even 10%.



It appears that the vast middle income -and significantly more Tory-voting - sector is being hit the least especially after the furore they kicked up about potentially losing the child benefit. The odd decision finally implimented to remove this benefit if there is a high tax bracket earner in the household means that families with two incomes just below this threshhold can still earn in excess of £85k per annum and qualify while a single income household of £45k a year won't as that income falls into the high earnings bracket. It's one example of what the Government considers fair. {It would be more fair and just to set a total household earnings threshold to avoid such an anomaly.} The Govt decided not to reduce the final age of qualifying for child benefit to 16 as planned but to leave it at the current 19 years after significant rumbles of discontent from the middle classes. This reduction would have saved how much?  Yes, that's right, £7 billion, same as subsequently taken from welfare by the additional hit.  The Govt will also keep free bus passes, free TV licences and winter heating subsidy for all over 75's regardless if you live in a damp hovel or in luxury, if you have a retirement income of £10k a year or £500k a year. Wouldn't it be fair to remove these benefits from any household with a retirement income of over £20k a year and save this waste or give a free bus pass to the unemployed to encourage them to look wider afield for jobs.

Who pays most-June 2010 budget and spending review combined

Now the independent 'Institute of Fiscal Studies' has weighed into the argument saying the poorest are indeed unfairly shouldering the biggest share of cuts, but despite this august body being regularly used as a think tank and sounding board for Govt financial decision making the Govt says they have their figures wrong and the Chancellor's figures are correct, that choices made are fair to all.

It's interesting to note that the 'unwarranted' bank levy, set at just £2.5 billion, pales into insignificance with the £7 billion bonus' the banks have awarded this year and that as stated in my last rant - sorry - post - banks have been allowed to offset losses of £19 billion from the last two years against future tax over the next three years. In my view while this may help banks stabilise further, it should be a temporary measure, a deferment, repayable within 5 years and there should be further penalties if banks do not - as it would appear they are failing to do - make cash more freely available for small business'

So is this spending review fair? Perhaps - depending on your perspective. Is it just? Absolutely not. Does it penalise the poor who predominately vote against the Tories and who have no financial buffer while protecting the middle classes and traditional Tory heartlands. Absolutely yes.

Will it solve the problem?

We'll just have to wait and see

All at Sea on A Tide of Spending Cuts

The British Navy of the Future......

Hullo ma wee blog,

Well, what an interesting day it's been today. Mr Cameron, our duly elected 'High Heid Yin' has announced the result of the defence review. This is a defence review which is "in no way related to" the spending review being announced tomorrow but rather "takes into consideration" the financial climate that we currently find ourselves in as well as the strategic direction we need to take for the defence challenges ahead.

Aye Right!

So apparently what we need to defend ourselves over the next few years;
17,000 less forces personnel. {Including 18% less deployable manpower}
25,000 less Ministry Of Defence support staff.
Ark Royal aircraft carrier withdrawn immediately.
Existing Harrier fighter scrapped.
Replacement Nimrod reconnaissance aircraft scrapped.
Tanks and artillery reduced by 40%.
Two new aircraft carriers - with no fixed wing planes available to fly off them until 2010
RAF Kinloss in Scotland - with no Nimrod - to close.
Any final decision on the future extent of Trident nuclear programme delayed until 2016.

Get rid of an aircraft carrier and the aircraft  which use it before a replacement is available? Get two new carriers, mothball one of them immediately then wait ten years to get any aircraft to fly off the one that's in service?  Hmmmm........ So, if we don't need planes on aircraft carrier for ten years, why would we need them after ten years??????   How does this make sense?

Apparently 'some' tornado fighter squadrons may go and some bases will close but which ones "have not been decided yet".

Aye right.

You mean you have already decided to close Lossiemouth, also in NE Scotland but want the RAF to announce it separately so you don't take the heat for impacting Moray with job losses which are equivalent per head of population to 80,000 jobs in London. Now you wouldn't stand for that politically would you Mr Cameron. Oh No. Not all those nice Conservative voters, but well, no one in Scotland voted for you anyway so what the hell difference will it make to you if it's up there.

OK I admit, I may have you wrong. It's not announced so I'll wait and see. {Notice how I'm not holding my breath though}

I do know that the banks are back in profit, bankers have already returned to the big bonus culture AND have wangled an agreement with you to offset previous losses against tax so they don't pay £19 billion over the next four years. That's clever of them - and generous of you if you don't  mind me saying, but I'm sure you took the current financial climate into consideration on that one too, didn't you?

Sorry, I CAN'T HEAR YOU.........


Can't wait to hear the spending review tomorrow. Apparently half a million public service workers will get the chop with probably the same again in the private sector losing theirs with the knock on effect. Of course more private sector jobs will be created later, but these will be at lower salaries and with worse pension provision. And of course how much you can put into a pension before paying tax has been reduced so we can pay more tax on money we have already paid tax on.

Even more competition to come for me in the job market then - and I'm already looking at jobs with half my previous salary.