Fickle and hypocritical

“Ask yourself this, why didn’t Tony Blair make his religious beliefs known whilst he was Prime Minister? Answer, because Alistair Campbell had the political wherewithal to realise that the two do not mix.

So why is Blair so quick to come out now? Firstly he is now playing to an American Market because he knows he has lost all credibility in his own Country, and now that he is out of ‘politics’ he can say whatever he wishes, even if it is nonsense.
Oh, but he did that whilst he was in office.”

The above was my response to a 'Have Your Say’ item on the BBC website asking:

Should politicians bring their religious beliefs into their politics? Can politicians with strong religious beliefs still be objective? Should religion have a bigger role is solving the world's problems?

This followed the call by Tony Blair for religion to have a bigger roll in solving the world’s problems. Is Faith important in politics?

I am sure that others have found better ways to express themselves on HYS but shouldn’t someone tell the former Prime Minister that most conflicts in the world are caused by, and in the name of, religion. Even he and Bush took ‘advice’ and prayed for victory in Iraq because they took the moral high ground.

He plans to launch a Faith Foundation, which will bring different faiths together to promote religion as a force for good.

Will he set it up in the Middle East, maybe the West Bank? No, he will launch it in a secular society such as ours where he will get away with it, because we are a society more tolerant than most religions.

--------------------------------------------------------

Given that a man is innocent until proven guilty, or even if that be eight men are innocent until proven guilty, the very fact that we are submitted to the hate of the extreme fundamentalists within a religion such as those Islamic extremists who stand accused of plotting to blow up planes crossing the Atlantic, then I wonder if man will ever be able to live in peace.

Why should anyone turn to their, or any other, faith whilst lunatics such as those that kill, or plan to kill, innocent people continue to peddle a loving, peaceful God.

The world’s problems will only be solved by man when he can look beyond his religion, in the case of all religions.

If you wish to believe in a God then do so, but please do not bring him to the negotiating table, there were what, thirteen [?] around the table of Christ and even then there was at least one dissenter amongst them.

No news is not always good news

Cannabis 'should remain class C' - The body which advises the government on drugs policy says cannabis should remain class C status, the BBC understands.

What this means is, we are having a no news day.

A no news day is one whereby there has been no shootings or stabbings, the news that has recently been reported on has either faded away or has been so badly flogged to death that nothing more can be done with it.

It also means that the BBC will be reporting on no news at all, hence the ‘news’ that Cannabis should remain class C.

Unfortunately it comes as no news to me that no matter what class it is I am unable to smoke any to nullify the pains these expensive tablets cannot due to my no longer being a smoker.

Anyone got any nice cakes they would like to donate?

The battle for Afghanistan and political change

Paddy Ashdown, the highly thought of, and much in demand Liberal democratic and Peer, has warned the Nato-led alliance is “getting pretty close” to losing control of Afghanistan. He warns that the political battle is probably more important than the military, and that coming from a ex-Royal Marines Officer who saw active military service in Borneo and the Persian Gulf.

If the west had finished the job that set out to do in Afghanistan and set-up a democratized government that could then have been held up as an example to all of us and not just the Middle East we would never have needed to invade Iraq, thus reducing Bush/Blair’s wish for a democratic change in Iraq. Doing the job properly with the correct amount of resource and focus would have meant an end to the Taliban, which would have been welcomed by the majority of Afghanis, the extremists training grounds would also have been reduced and their hiding places effectively restricted. In addition to this would have been the reduction in the drugs emanating from that region, or at least their control to the benefit of everyone, Afghan farmer and western teenager alike.

The longer we in the west pour more military into the region the more reason the Taliban will have for recruiting and that is good for no one.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

The world, and not just America, is ripe for ‘political change’, let us hope that it also begins for Zimbabwe.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Half an hour after posting the above I found this article related to Barack Obama, it is interesting to note that there is more than one way to look at a Goddess. It is also poignant given the statement I made above regarding 'political change'.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Mr Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach, has announced his resignation in May from office; this comes on top of allegations relating to corruption. Whatever the outcome of any future investigations for me his legacy will always be the part he played in helping to obtain Peace in Northern Ireland.

Close the door, the flood gates are open

I find it totally unbelievable that a House of Lords committee have suggested there should be a cap on immigration levels in the UK.

The unbelievable part is the fact that there isn’t one already.

The report, according to the BBC, also hints at the government being able to modify the rights of people to follow relatives who have settled in the UK “if the government chose to do so”

Why should the rights of people who wish to follow relatives to this country be any different to the rights of any other wishing to apply for citizenship in the UK?

The report is calling for a cap on Non-European immigration but why stop there?

If we were the size of the US you could hide one or two thousand immigrants quite easily perhaps but in my small hometown I can already walk through the market place and with every few yards walk readily notice the influx of immigrants from the ‘new’ Europe.

Great Britain may have a big ego but we are not exactly overrun with space right now as we build yet more and more houses for the people already living here and those not yet born. The more houses we build the worse flooding will become as flood plains are built upon, the more immigrants we allow in the more houses will be required....can you see a pattern emerging here?

I totally agree with any findings that dismiss the suggestion that we need immigrants due to labour shortages. I am not altogether happy with taking expertise such as nurses and doctors from countries that have shortages of skills themselves therefore we need to train more professionals and retain them with wages and working hours that befit their status. Just look at how we treat our MPs compared to nurses and doctors, second homes and furniture paid for? As for taking unskilled labour to work in sweatshops or strawberry picking farms well that is just nonsense.
We already have a work force more than capable of picking strawberries, you can see most of them sitting outside pubs on a sunny day drinking ale whilst holding onto the lease of their banned [breed] dogs.

I am not against immigration or refugees and I am indeed not a racist in its true sense, and I would class myself as being pretty liberal in many ways, although perhaps my views on my blog my suggest otherwise, but I do get angry with the how out of touch government are with the views of the people it represents on issues such as this.

Zimbabwe election

I have been reading comments on the ‘Have Your Say’ page of the BBC website [I still like the BBC site despite their insistence to overkill the coverage of Heathrow’s Terminal 5 fiasco] about the elections in Zimbabwe and I am amazed by the amount of comments on there coming from the US.

Perhaps it is an old colonial throw-back but many of the comments are asking for the west to keep out of the ‘democratic’ politics of Africa. I find this strange, since we left Zimbabwe the people there have known nothing other than the rule of Mugabe for 28 years and yet the country is fraught with problems, the least of them being a shortage of water and food.

Perhaps it is just the fact that the west, especially the US, have had their foreign policy focus elsewhere. I know that GW Bush has aided Africa with programs to assist with poverty and HIV but Mugabe has for the most part been ignored, until now.

The way in which the world’s press report on events in other countries obviously has a bearing on how we in the west perceive the world and our perspective of it. I realise that I must read more of the coverage given over to news in other countries, perhaps someone can recommend a news worthy source on the internet for the US, not Fox.

No doubt there is trouble ahead for Zimbabwe as a result of these current elections, either way the ordinary people are in a no win situation; if Mugabe wins [rigs the election] they will still live in abject poverty, if he loses [which he won’t is my guess, not without a fight] then there will be more bloodshed and perhaps another catastrophe in the making.