|
Current Thoughts
August 25th 2010  A melancholy prediction, which I hope will not happen, but I fear it will. The talks between Israel and the Palestinians will go on for a few weeks,
then Israel will officially (it never stopped in reality) resume building settlements in the West Bank. The Palestinians will walk out. The Israelis will blame the Palestinians for the breakdown.
br>August 16th 2010 The UK is finding out how politically motivated the coalition government is. The arbitrary abolition of the Audit Commission is a political decision, nothing to do with the deficit.
Other examples are privatising the means to reduce the number of benefit fraudsters - reduction of benefit fraud is always a populist aim which conveniently ignores the reality that
over 99% of all claimants are honest and their claims justified; the proposal to privatise the national parks. Many of us believed that the financial crash would see the beginning of the end for neo-con economics, which did so much
damage around the world with its ultra laissez-faire jungle capitalism. David Cameron appears to be declaring to the world that he is the new flag bearer of the neo-con creed:
private good, public bad, to adapt Orwell. It's bad news not just for the UK.
August 12th 2010 Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, such as there have been any, have always been based upon the borders being based upon those of 1967.
The so-called Quartet recently issued a statement including that premise. Israel's Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has explicitly rejected it. At least now there is no room for doubt: Israel under its present regime is
not interested in a settlement, only in expansion, squeezing the Palestinians into a smaller and smaller space. Time for the US to tell Israel to get real. It is long overdue.
August 6th 2010 There is an interesting interview with the outgoing UK ambassador to Israel. He said "There is a drift of opinion away from Israel. [Referring to the UK]
This is not government. This is happening with the popular mood." Settlements - Israel's choice of expanding or not - is seen as crucial: "to go on building settlements signals “that’s the agenda....... that’s why settlements has become a
critical litmus test of Israeli intentions” as are the issues of Jerusalem and the right of (Palestinian) return: "That’s why the two hardest issues here are Jerusalem and the right of return – the refugee issue – because they are the two issues
which encode the identity narratives which are at stake here."You can read the full interview at Interview with Tom Phillips
August 3rd 2010 There is much speculation about the new profitability of UK banks and the fact that businesses are still being starved of investment by those same banks.
Well, we know that the answer is simple. Banks make more money gambling their money in the financial markets than in investing in business. Proper investment holds more risk than the continued nano-second to nano-second manipulation of the markets,
which not only provide banks with profits but astronomical rewards for those with the required skill and nerve to gamble. The time is long overdue to force financial institutions to split: one part to be responsible for the provision of funds for business
and individuals, with a relatively low rate of profitability and part to continue to gamble away in the knowledge that no bail outs would be available in the future. Oh, just a thought, the banks exercising a social function of investing might attract a lower
rate of tax than the gambling institutions.
Last Month
July 28th 2010 At last,a UK politician who is willing to speak at least some of the truth about Gaza - I refer to David Cameron's words of "prison camp". The Israelis may huff and puff
about Hamas, but that is no excuse for the denial of basic materials for the whole population. May other politicians follow the UK's Prime Ministers' lead.
July 24th 2010 Not an original comment, but it's worth repeating. UK politicians might be more persuaded to attend the US Senate Committeee hearings about the Lockerbie bombing if Messrs Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld attended
the UK Chilcot Enquiry about the Iraq war. Whilst the loss of American and other Western lives is tragic and cannot be condoned in any way, the decision to invade Iraq on
spurious grounds cost far more innocent lives. But we know the usual double standards apply: non-Western lives are worth less than Western lives.
On which subject, it is extremely worrying that the use of drones in Pakistan against "militants" - who are conveniently anonymous - under the current US presidency has increased so much. There is simply no accountability here.
The autonomy of a sovereign state is violated time and again; innocent civilians are killed (anything up to a 1,000 so far); there is no proof that any so-called militant was indeed a militant; it reduces the act of war to the level of a computer game; it increases the chances of more people being alienated and turning to terrorism.
I predict that - assuming the human race progresses towards being more civilised rather than becoming more barbaric - the use of attack drones will be banned alomgside the use of landmines.
July 22nd 2010 Yet again we find that in the UK, the police are above the law, but in this case - of Ian Tomlinson - the lengths to which the
establishment will go to protect the police from prosecution are astonishing. Video evidence shows an assault. No-one can deny that, yet the investigation into whether or not more serious charges could be brought was dragged out for so long that the
charge of assault ran out of time. Now, let us consider a case of a youth seen assaulting another on camera, the victim being hospitalised. Would the police wait to charge the youth with assault until it is clear that the victim has died (manslaughter or murder) or
forensic tests have shown his injuries were caused by the assault (assault causing actual bodily harm)? No, you can be sure they would not: "You are charged with common assault, other more seriuous charges may follow"As for the post mortem examinations, the Crime Prosecution Service decides that because one pathologist, since barred from forensic work and undergoing disciplinary proceedings, disagrees with two other pathologists, the case cannot be brought to trial. If the CPS took decisions like that every time expert witnesses disagreed, there would be few trials where expert witnesses are called. A contrary view can always be found: it is up to the courts to decide who is right. No justice. Again.
July 21st 2010 The UK city of Birmingham continues to fail children in its care according to a recent report. The UK banks failed to perform and were given billions of pounds of taxpayers' money. Somehow, I do not think
that Birmingham will receive any money in order to provide adequate resources to meet its obligations. In fact, given the "fines" on hospitals which perform poorly, Birmingham may well find its funding cut even more than that the current round of budget cuts.There you have Western capitalism in a nutshell: wealthy bankers are protected over and above the most vulnerable children in our society.
July 13th 2010 The NHS is about to be re-oeganised yet again and I have no doubt that the cost of reorganising would have paid for a lot of health care. I wonder what evidence there is that handing the
budget over to GPs rather than Primary Care Trusts will save a significant amount of money. More ominous is the proposal that GPs - who are effectively self-employed, primarily interested in patient care not administration - can contract out the administration to private companies.
There would be nothing wrong with that if - and this will not happen of course - such private companies had to be run on a not-for profit basis. Yet again we see that UK politicians have not learned from the US: that provision of health care is actually cheaper under state control, private provision always results in profit first, care second, with the poor and inarticulate either finding care difficult or impossible to obtain.
July 11th 2010 Two items which when put together makes one pause for thought. The UK government, justifying the austerity measures: better that the government manages the actions necessary
than the markets imposing a way forward. Secondly, an item which explains that Morocco is relatively cheap to visit in the summer and the Moroccan government moves the exchange rate to make it more attractive to tourists.One, supposedly advanced society, saying we have to act before the market acts (no control over our own affairs), the second, less advanced, still has control over its currency. Tell me, what are the advantages of the globalised world my government so eagerly embraced? What are the advantages which are worth surrending your control over your national currency? Are there any answers out there?
July 6th 2010 It is difficult (impossible?) to find a copy of the new list Israel has published detailing materials banned
from entry into Gaza but it appears that "equipment drawing water from excavated sites" is still banned. Quite what "excavated sites" means is unclear, but it sounds horribly like the restrictions
Israel imposes on the West Bank: no Palestinian drilling for desperately needed water is allowed. Extraction of water appears not to be necessary for life.There is of course no lifting of the restrictions on the movement of people and export of goods. Just how are Gazans expected to survive? It is of course no coincidence that the list is announced as Binyamin Netanyahu meets Barack Obama. I hope the US continues to be resolute in transmitting its disdain for Israel's policies and actions. Sooner or later Israel's people will wake up to the fact that their leaders do them no favours. Peace always comes from dialogue, never from war.
|
