is urgently needed. Not piecemeal statements which will be picked over by the rightwing press like flies on a corpse, but a comprehensive document which cane sold to the public. One which shows that the main costs will be born by the wealthy not the poor. although how Steve Baker (rightwing MP will manage a U Turn on that will be interesting.
THE BLAME GAME
Williamson has effectively shifted the blame for incidents such as the shooting in Plymouth recently onto teachers. In Scotland teachers will get training to do this, not in England though.
Finally awake Williamson has agreed to provide 300.000 Carbon Monoxide monitors for classrooms across the country – with schools going back soon this would seem to be rather late. Also it would be good to know what the contingency plans are if the monitors show inadequate ventilation? But no rush as the monitors will not be in all schools until next year.
I love the Guardian – again – a recent investigation has shown that whilst swearing is down 27%, males still swear more than women and ‘bloody’ has dropped from 1st to 3rd place being replaced at the top by ‘fuck’ and then ‘shit’. Followed by bollocks; piss off; bastard; twat; and arsehole. The c word was 12th! Whilst there is firmly a place for the expletive, In. rather like the prosaic insults such as ‘may the fleas from a thousand camels infest your crutch’!
ARRESTED
Dominic Raab should not be resigning, or being sacked, he should be arrested for manslaughter.
Spain has offered to become the EU hub for refugees fleeing Afghanistan whilst Germany has not put a number on how many it will take. The UK has offered to take 20.000 but only 5.000 this year – I guess they hope the rest will be dead by then.
UK FOREIGN POLICY
That may be an oxymoron. We invade countries with leaders we do not like, unless they have enough oil, or are poor enough for us to supposedly win. We have turned Iraq and Libya into graveyards for their citizens. attempts to depose Assad in Syria have resulted in similar debacles. Biden has been justly criticised for his abandonment of Afghanistan followed by the pathetic response of Johnson that we have to do what the Americans do. We have a couple of spanking new aircraft carriers at a cost of £8 billion – our latest strategic ploy seems to be to see how much we can annoy the Chinese Government with them. But seriously, what will we do with them? Interfering in foreign governments has been a complete disaster, holidays in the tropics for the armed services?
THIS WEEKS WINNERS
Idiot of the week is shared this week. Dominic Raab should be hands down winner – does he not realise that being a Minister for Defence is 24/7? Or will threats to our country and allies (although who would want friends like us (and the Americans)) only occur when he has had a cup of tea and maybe a little siesta after dinner. And he has not the balls to resign. Sharing the award is Bozo – the buck stops with you. He hesitated over sacking Hancock, and now the same with Raab.
THE GUARDIAN
I truly love this paper for its quirkiness and generally being less antipathetic to my own views. But sometimes I wonder who writes for this paper. An article today about high sugar yogurts (so far excellent), said that someone yogurts had 5.5tsp of sugar per serving (bad), clever marketing was being employed (bad), but then they list products that are not available within my consciousness! I think this is a new geographical concept – but the following products are not available at my local Premier Store – Nush almond milk strawberry tubes; the Coconut Collaborative mango and passion fruit yogurt; and Yoplait Petit Filous strawberry and banana yogurt.
SETTING AN EXAMPLE
The majority of the government ministers attending Parliament shunned the speakers advice and went maskless. My paper (Guardian) did not comment on the Labour side which was unfortunate, but then they are not the government and the ones making rules. However with mask wearing recommended in crowded indoor places it would seem to be foolishness not to mask up. A photo of the government benches showed just 2 MPs wearing a mask out of the 62 in the photo. And surely the HoC is a crowded place with all within 1m of each other.
AFGHANISTAN
The government correctly recalled parliament for a debate about this disaster. They had days to prepare and yet, their main argument was that the Labour Party did not propose better ideas. They really do not get the idea of an opposition! They also faced fierce opposition from their own side as MP’s were allowed back into the chamber. This trend may increase as backbenchers make their views heard about the governments preponderancy for making statements that include unsubstantiated statistics, fiscal and otherwise.
LET THEM EAT CAKE
the cost of the wests military intervention in Afghanistan is now estimated to be $2 trillion or $2000000000000). The Taliban and extremism have returned mainly due to the abject poverty. It could have been so much better to have invested in humanitarian and education projects . According to SIRI this works out at about $90000 dollars for every person in Afghanistan, and even if spread over 20 years is considerably more than GNI of $500p.a.
WORLD GEOGRAPHY FROM A JAMJAM PERSPECTIVE
One trillion dollars, thousands of deaths and the Taliban are back in charge. Presumably backed by Islamists from the Arabian Peninsular, they may find it difficult to control the whole country with its history of tribal differences and war lords. they will also need to beware of supporting islamic groups in the Uyghur Region. Russia too will lament the withdrawal of American and British troops, with terrorism always just under the surface in the former soviet states in the south. American and Britain can hope that the Taliban will not support organisations like Al Quida in the future. Certainly the ‘west’ can be seen to have lost a lot of influence in the region.
Britain can stop hallucinating that it still has influence across the world. With Brexit we lost a lot of diplomatic influence (and during Bozo’s tenancy in the FCO), and now we have lost another chunk of military influence. If Britain was a private company the directors would surely be telling it to concentrate on core activities!
The USA – Trump basically started the withdrawal of the US as a world policeman. Biden had little choice bit to allow the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, although he will have been surprised at the speed of the collapse of their puppet government. Whether it will exert a greater influence in the Americas and Europe we wait to see. Will America also want to be more involved with the development of Africa – a potentially important area as a source of raw materials and a growing market place.
China will be watching carefully. It wants to develop its influence but is ready for any confrontations outside its immediate area of influence.
Russia still has problems with poverty at home. The huge geographic area of its lands make it difficult to develop – in tiny UK we have a huge disparity between different areas. Putin likes the macho image, but has little to back it up with.
The E.U. will take a while to adjust to the loss of the UK which was a major contributor to its budget and added expertise and economic power. It is however developing and seems to be keeping its head down diplomatically. With no great pretentious for power (although maybe France retains some illusions of grandeur) it can concentrate on its core area without distractions. North Africa may change this – another complete cockup was the removal of Gaddafi – now Islamic extremist groups are in the ascendance and the EU may have to respond militarily and economically. The traffic in refugees seems to be growing, so economic investment in Africa seems imperative, and suppression of terrorist activity may be difficult. Most of the Sahel seems to be in a state of ephemeral security – and in need of economic advancement and population control. This sounds ominous but a healthy population with sexual equality and opportunities for economic advancement results in steady population, a better social and ecological environment.
Japan – a country which was lauded in my youth for its growth – seems to have a mature response to the horrors of its part in WW2 and just be doing what it did in the C19th – look after itself. Restrictions on its military have meant more investment in other areas. Time for the UK to follow the same path?
It seems that armies are less important than the ability to distribute weapons?