Category Archives: Politics

Who is bailing out the charities?

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If you’re a UK registered voter you may be interested that there’s a current petition in support of charities that have lost funds in the collapse of Icelandic banks. The text of the petition says,

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to do everything in his power to assist with the recovery of funds lost by UK charities in the failed Icelandic bank Kaupthing Singer and Friedlander. [Petition here]

I became aware through ambmarketing’s blog:

As you may have seen in the media, Naomi House based near Winchester, along with many other charities have been caught in the Icelandic banking collapse. Naomi House has £5.7 million pounds frozen. After nearly two months the government remains silent on the subject of whether they will have their funds returned even though they have looked after the smaller retail depositors to the tune of £2.6 billion.

[Read more]

Naomi House is the children’s hospice for Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Wiltshire and the fringes of West Sussex and Surrey. We help over 220 families with life limiting conditions and support their families. We are there for the good days, difficult days and last days.

[Read more]

This may make a difference, it may not, but if you’re registered to vote in the UK it may be one of those small things that tips the balance and doesn’t take you any time to do.

Please feel free to pass this message on. No need to HT, credit, or acknowledge the message from me. Just copy, paste and encourage all who can to sign up.

The great change

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Tomorrow when I wake up there will be a new President Elect of the United States of America. That’s barring any recounts, challenges or alien invasions. Some people will consider that the new occupant of the White House will be there to bring about change to a nation that is facing some difficult time and is tired with the old order of things. However, I think the change has already taken place and here are my reasons why.

1. The nominees – it’s true, almost anyone can become President. In this campaign we have had female contenders, black candidates, the young and the old. It doesn’t matter which party wins, there is going to be either a ‘first’ black President or a ‘first’ female Vice-President. The barriers are coming down and it will make it easier for future contenders to gain the party nomination and run for the office of Commander in Chief.

If you are thinking that you’ll believe that the barriers have been removed when a physically disabled candidate has been able to run for the office, then I’m afraid that you’re already a few generations too late. Franklin D. Roosevelt spent most of his Presidency in a wheelchair. His disability wasn’t publicised, but it wasn’t hidden either, his advantage was being President at a time when the media coverage wasn’t quite so intense. John F Kennedy was another President who struggled with physical health. His back pain was so intense he wore a girdle to support his frame and took a number of pain killing drugs to help him get through the day. Strangely, the girdle probably helped him as much as it restricted him, as it gave him an athletic shape and kept him upright for much of time.

2. Party funding – Candidates can take election funds straight from the tax payer, to the tune of something like $80 million. However, if they take this funding they cannot spend more than that. In this election Barak Obama went with his own funding and raised record amounts. In one month alone he managed to raise $150 million. I can see both positive and negative sides to this. If I was an American tax payer I’m not sure that I would be happy seeing my dollars going to fund a political campaign, especially when there are so many other genuine needs in the country. However, the $80 million cap on both parties ensures that each side has an equal playing surface. In this election, Obama could outspend McCain by more than 2 to 1, ensuring that his message was unmissable.

3. The Republicans are no longer the default Christian party. Looking at America from a distance it’s sometimes difficult to understand why the evangelical Christian movement was so tied to the Republican party. OK, we understand that they are anti-abortionist and anti-gay marriage, but they also support the right to bear arms and are also the party that have supported war as a primary response to terrorist activities. The Democrats have always been the liberals who would seemingly make any activity permissible. However, there has in this election been a big change. Christian media have been talking about why it is now OK to vote Democrat and the Republicans have lost the guaranteed Christian vote.

I think this is a good thing for the future. Parties and candidates will now have to work much harder to gain the Christian vote (which is still a huge influence in the US) and cannot guarantee that they will get it based upon tradition or two key issues.

Anyway, I’m off to sleep, with the expectation of a slightly different world in the morning.

Me and David Davis

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Today I became more politicised than ever before. Up until now I’ve voted in each national election and all except for one by-election and that has counted for nearly all of my political involvement.

But, recently I’ve become more concerned. The Prime Minister of this country is not the Prime Minister that I voted for – OK, so we vote for political parties and not for individuals, but the prospect of this leader for another two years… Then there’s the lack of fulfilled promises, oh, and a leadership that believes the only way to make people do the right thing is to bring in more legislation and rules – not that anyone knows what ‘right’ is anymore.

So I’ve signed up for the David Davis newsletter at his website, and become his friend on Facebook. His introduction says this…

Welcome to my campaign to preserve our fundamental freedoms.

On 12 June, I resigned from Parliament to take a stand against the sustained assault on British liberty. I resigned after the vote on 42 days, because it marked a watershed. Prolonged detention without charge undermines a fundamental liberty. But it also likely to prove counter-productive – with a range of security experts warning of the security risks presented by this draconian measure. I do not believe we can defend our security by sacrificing our liberty.

My campaign is not, however, just about 42 days. It is about the relentless erosion of our fundamental freedoms over the last eleven years.

Read more here

To love or legislate

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Today should go down in history… the front page of the Times was about the role of religion in society, and some of it actually made sense.

‘Labour is failing society and lacks the vision to restore a sense of British identity, the report says in the Church’s strongest attack on the Government for decades. It accuses the Government of “deep religious illiteracy” and of having “no convincing moral direction”.’

Personally I’m yet to be convinced that it’s right to have a ‘minister for religion’, but I am pleased that this kind of thing is being flagged on a public level. Maybe some proper discussion will follow.

This is all following the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu’s remarks to the Institute of Jewish Policy Research this week where he said…

“Our current Government is in danger of sacrificing Liberty in favour of an abused form of equality – not a meaningful equality that enables the excluded to be brought into society, but rather an equality based on dictat and bureaucracy, which overreaches into the realm of personal conscience.”

Read the full thing on his site or turn to Cranmer and scroll down

For the last few years I have been becoming increasingly troubled by our government’s desire to bring in new legislation to deal with every problem, as though strengthening the rules is going to bring an end to every problem.

You see, you can create tougher rules for those involved in knife crime that results in longer sentences, or enforce every biological father to put his name on a birth certificate to make sure they are responsible for the child in the future, but none of this goes to the heart of the problem.

We’ve forgotten how to love and care for each other. Love now simply means sex, ‘making love’ is just another term for the act of sex. What about putting the needs of someone else before ourselves?

In an ideal world this is shown through the family. Where the parents are able to show love and compassion to their children. But, today, children often seem to be seen more as a chore than a delight and they have to fit in around the needs of the parents.

How do we get back to truly loving each other? Not in a soft, soppy kind of loving way; or in a physical only way; but the kind of love that actually makes a difference. Where people look out for each other and care for them. That they will actually take time out of their lives to provide for the needs of someone else and not require anything in return.

This kind of thing will change society, but cannot be brought about by a change in legislation. It requires a change of values where ‘I’ is no longer the most important, but we start thinking in terms of ‘we’ and ‘us’.

Enough thinking for one day.

Night

Science and politics

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Once again I should be getting ready to go to sleep, instead I’ve distracted myself with a discussion on Radio 4 regarding the votes tomorrow.

The votes… ah, yes; there’s a vote taking place in the commons tomorrow regarding the Human Fertility and Embryology bill. In part this is about whether it’s OK to choose embryos before fertility to create children as donors. There’s also another part of the bill which enables the creation of human-animal hybrids. Now I don’t think we’re talking about creating creatures that are half human half cow… but I could be wrong.

There’s also other votes about whether it’s OK for lesbian couples to receive fertility treatment/or maybe it’s to do with adoption… and something else about the limit on abortion…

Anyway, there’s lots going on and I have to admit that up until this evening I wasn’t really paying attention. Some of it (as I’m sure is clear from the above) I don’t fully follow, even less have an opinion about yet. But, I think I should. I also think that it’s worth a prayer or two over the next couple of days. This country is changing – we seem to introduce laws for fun and think they are going to solve all problems – but it doesn’t work like that.

One of the commentators on the radio was saying that he thought that it was OK for same sex couples to be parents and single females to receive fertility treatment. However, when discussing knife crime he had to admit that it was important for young people to have a father figure, if possible a full-time father at home.

Olympic Games – I choose not to watch:

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Mark blogged about this a few days ago.

I don’t understand enough about the situation in Tibet to say that I’m not going to watch because of what is taking place there. However, it’s no secret that China’s human rights record towards a number of groups is pretty poor (is that an understatement?). Therefore, I will be staging my own protest by avoiding watching the games as far as is practical.

I like athletics – once upon a time I was pretty quick up until 400m – but to suggest that the Olympic Games is separate from politics is ridiculous.

It has been interesting to see the protests around the world about the Olympic Games. Maybe it has been good that China has been given the games as all these issues are public and on a global scale.

Fox News

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I really wonder if I’m well. Currently I’m sat mucking about with a test blog and watching Fox News’ coverage of the American elections. This is my attempt at trying to see the elections from another point-of-view, something different to UK media.

They’re just covering the entry of Ralph Nader to the election. Nothing like self promotion, I can’t conceive that he’s entered for anything else.

Then there’s Hillary talking about fashion on her flight. I wonder if this is her attempt at snubbing Vogue.

I think I’d vote for either Obama or McCain. Obama would be my first choice. I don’t really care about whether he has experience or not. There have been plenty of experienced politicians before and I don’t think many have been roaring successes. Besides, that’s why there’s an election every four years, if you don’t like the guy/gal, you can get rid of them. Also, that’s why you still have the right to bear arms, to overthrow a government that goes bad.

McCain, basically because I’d take most people over Hillary. Can you imagine working for her? It would be like being told off by a school teacher. She really does scare me.