Month: October 2023

The King’s Speech on 7 November will set out the legislative programme for the (hopefully) last throes of this government.. It comes at a time when world peace is in peril, as is the balance in British Society. government Ministers banging on about anti-semitism is only likely to increase it. Discrimination and hatred must be confronted whether it is based on religion, sexuality, race or gender. End of. this is probably out of order, but it is my blog and no one reads it anyhow. Integration! Immigrants need to be integrated into society. that does not mean converting them to Christianity or the greedy capitalism of this government, nor the bigotry of the right. But it does mean welcoming them into our society, and developing a sharing of values and ideas and cultures. it seems that this element, so vital to the functioning of a tolerant society has been missing. English language classes have closed. Faith schools have sprung up – personally I would like to see the closure of all faith schools of all religions and strict rules on what can be taught. Groups can arrange their own lessons if they deem it necessary. The wearing of the kippah and hijab abd jib discouraged. (but not banned).

Reference by politicans and others to anti-semitism and islamaphobia should be minimised with these refered to as hate crimes along with homophobic, sexist, misogynistic and racist comments and actions. All these should be treated in the same way as paedophibia is – zero tolerance.

The second element of the King’s Speech is likely to be the appeasemnt to the oil companies. The war we should be raging is against climate change. Every change in environmental, housing, transport, social policy should be taking into consideration the future of our planet. With flooding likely in the south over the next few days it is time Sunak got real on the environment. Too many of the new homes required are built on flood plains with little regard to geographical understanding! Labour is back-tracking on a right to roam legislation as is being introduced in Scotland. If this was introduced it could be possible to compensate for lack of gardens with free and widespread access to the countryside.

massive investment in up grading the national grid is urgently required to enable clean energy to be produced and accessed. Smaller scale projects should also be encouraged with local investment supported by national funding. With nearly 20% of the population living in ruarl areas and the same again in small towns the opportunity for locally produced and used energy is immense and cost efficient (over 50% of energy produced is lost before consumption!

A joined up transport policy is urgently needed.

Education needs a complete overhaul.

The new government will face tasks not seen since 1945 – let us hope they are up for/to it!

Horrible people need others to blame and to justify their depraved policies. Braverman needs the small boats and their migrants – however Netmanyaho and Hamas take this to a mutually beneficial level. They both need each other to justify their heinious crimes.

OMG this government has to go! They have no clue on anything!

So Israel is banning UN Personnel from entering tjhe country as it does not like what Guetes has said! Have western democracies been negligent in not bringing Israel to account earlier? Israel seems to believe it has a carte blanche to wreak whatever atricities it likes on Palestinians with impunity. Any criticism is soon met with a mention of the holocaust. Israel has now attacked Syria – almost goading them into a reaction. Is this in the hope of the west then endorsing them even more.

If you are just joining us, here are some highlights from Tuesday’s UN Security Council meeting in New York. I fully agree with Guterres statement.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate ceasefire to end “epic suffering” in Gaza and that “no party to an armed conflict is above international humanitarian law”

• He also said the Hamas attack on October 7 “did not happen in a vaccum”. That drew an angry response from Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who wrote on X, describing Guterres’ statement as “shocking” and “disconnected from the reality in our region”. He added that he would cancel his meeting with the UN chief
• US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reiterated that every country has the right to defend itself and that “we must unequivocally condemn Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack against Israel”. But he added that “humanitarian pauses must be considered” to protect civilians in Gaza
• Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry called for a ceasefire, expressing “regret” over the Security Council’s failure to adopt a resolution calling for one

I am ashamed to say tat I have suffered from war fatigue. I have turned over the news to avoid hearing about the deaths of civilians in Gaza. The Israelis are trying to keep the public aware of the horrific attacks by hamas with a constant trickle of new evidence – layest was body cams footage. Corbyn is correct in that there needs to be a ceasefire – a comment also fordefully made by Stephen Flyn of te SNP. Starmer seems scarred by Labours past disputes with Zionism and basically echoes a watered down version of whatever Sunak says.

Only with a ceadefire can wider conflict be avoided – Israel has already bobed targets on the West Bank whilst confict with Hezbollah in lebanon is never far away. Will Israel provoke Iran and thus cause a major confrontation. The oil price is creeping up suggesting that this is a possibility.

Sadly unreported by most papers the Covid Inquiry continues to throw up scandals! The current Governments Chief Medical Advisor referred to Sunak (Then Chancellor) as Dr.Death regarding his eat out to help out initiative. The Mail was also referred to for the pressure they put on the government to get people back to work to enable more newspaper sales! Only Matt Hancock came out as OK yesterday! He commented that calls for more people to wear masks was premature as there were not enough masks available and demand might take them away from nurses and care home workers who needed them.

Tories routed in two ‘safe’ seats. What will happen now? Sunak has never looked weaker – his trip to the Middle East has shown his lack of any semblence of statesmanship. Quite why he flew out there is puzzling – maybe he was hoping recalcerant conservative voters in Mid-Beds and Tamworth would turn out and vote tory. No such luck! The majority of tory M.P.s will be aware that he is unlikely to lead them even to an honourable defeat.

We know that there is a sizeable group around Truss – probably about 60+. however it is unlikely that they will coalesce behind her. She had her chance and blew it! Other front runners like Mordant, Braverman and Badenoch are probably too extreme for the majority of conservative voters. i wonder if we will see yet another leadership farce?

Is this a sign tat the majority of voters swinging into the middle. Starmer did not raise the Labour vote, it was more a case of tories not bothering to turn out? However as Labour firm up policies they are likely to increase their votes. Sunak seems to be putting his hopes on telling the electorate that the government for the past 12 years has be a disaster and he will change things for the better. However he seems to lack the political nous, gravitas or ability to convince people. Unless they work incredibly hard it is unlikely that either of last nights winners will win again in a General Election.

It was also heartening that the vote for the right wing groups was small, although totalled 8.1% in Tamworth. With tactical voting we could indeed see an armeggedon for the tories at the GE. Will those ‘true’ tories start to be more vocal – those in the centre have been too long in the shadow of the right wing (perhaps this is down to the lack of press coverage, who love the rapid right). In many ways British Politics needs a strong opposition?

I was brought up to respect the police. However it is getting increasingly difficult. A 13 year old boy was knocked off his bike by armed police and then had a sub-machine gun pointed at him whilst he was handcuffed. His crime? Playing with a bright blue water pistol with his younger sister who had a bright pink one. And yes, he was black! Would a white child have been subjected to the same police action? It is of concern that the police, who had enough time to follow and knock the child off his bike, could not tell the difference between a pistol and a brightly coloured water pistol. And still the Met.Police Commissioner maintains, despite now 2 reports to the contrary, that the Met Police are not institutionally racist! The investigation has found no fault in te police officers who also criticised the mother for getting angry with them. I realise that the armed police have a difficult job that requires instatant decision making (hopefully they are trained to do this), but this does seem to be a bit over te top!

Elsewhere Geta Thunberg was arrested for demonstratiing to save the planet, and our wonderful government has just realised that the prisons are full and they are having to let some prisoners out early! And baroness Monet is still free!

Proving that he is no statesman, and not a leader of all the people of this country. He has the aroange of priveldge that permeates the Conservatibve Party. He believes that he is always correct. As leader of the UK he should have chosen his words much more carefully to represent the views of all communities in the UK. Of course he should condemn the actions of Hamas – but he should also strongly support the ending of the humanitarian crisis that Israel is creating. Israel has for too long believed that it could act with impunity with regards to Palestine.

Some members of the Israeli Government are promoting the killing of Palestinians. Sunak is supporting this. Is there no one calling for a cessation of hostilities? Israel has now killed approx 3000 Palestinians with no evidence that any of them were Hamas terrorists.

Surely it is totally naive to think that the last 70 years of Israeli occupation can be wiped from the equation.

Those who perpetrated the 7-10-23 massacre should not be alowed to walk freely amongst us. Hostages should be freed, but Israel should not only halt the bombings but also agree to meaningful talks about the future. British politicians talk about supporting Israels right to defend itself – by which I interpret as its borders – but where are its legal borders? Continued annexation of the West Bank is a desired policy of several cabinet ministers in Israel.