tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70938678169269921122024-03-05T18:33:01.353+00:00Ernest Hall's BlogWritten and published by Ernest Hall.Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.comBlogger396125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-92132868340936990742015-10-23T08:54:00.000+01:002015-10-31T07:46:33.596+00:00Another Afterthought<div class="MsoNormal">
A Further Afterthought</div>
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<br /></div>
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In
1954 Nikita Khruschev the Soviet President, himself half-Ukrainian, decided
that the <st1:placename w:st="on">Crimean</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Peninsula</st1:placetype>
should be part of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>
and not, as it had been since Tsarist times, part of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>. The transfer made very little difference at
the time. Both <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> and
the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region> were simply
provinces within the <st1:place w:st="on">Soviet Union</st1:place>. It is
probable that it didn’t even occur to Mr Khruschev that the residents of <st1:place w:st="on">Crimea</st1:place> – or anyone else – should be consulted about the
transfer. In 2014 <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
annexed (or recovered) its lost province. This was achieved without, I believe,
a single casualty and to the general satisfaction of the residents of <st1:place w:st="on">Crimea</st1:place>. </div>
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<br /></div>
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There
was outrage in ‘the west’, within the EU and within NATO. Economic sanctions have been imposed on
Russia (a response to these has contributed to the ruin of British dairy
farming); highly provocative military manoeuvres have been held by NATO in
Poland, and our much depleted army has managed to send a few troops to
strengthen the resolve of the Baltic States to resist a ‘Russian invasion’.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In
1950 <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> invaded and
annexed <st1:country-region w:st="on">Tibet</st1:country-region>. There was no justification whatsoever for
this. It has been reported that 10,000
died in battle as the Chinese took over. There has been a resistance that
continues to this day. Thousands of Tibetans, including many Buddhist monks and
nuns have been killed or imprisoned. The
Dalai Lama, as representative of that resistance, lives in exile and has been
welcomed in many western countries.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Has
‘the west’ applied similar crippling economic sanctions on <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region>, and
carried out similar military manoeuvres in the Pacific area? Not a bit of it – and our government has led
the general kow-tow to the Chinese government.
The President of the one-party government of <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region>
has been given an official welcome by our Queen on his State Visit to the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>. He travelled with the Queen in the State
Coach to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Buckingham</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Palace</st1:placetype></st1:place> where he and his
wife were to be honoured guests at a royal banquet. During that same day hundreds of British
steel workers learned they were losing their jobs, at least partly because of
the dumping of Chinese steel at prices lower than the cost of production! I was pleased to note that the Prince of
Wales (for whose sometimes controversial views I have a great deal of respect)
managed to absent himself from this official bean-feast.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
government’s attitude to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi
Arabia</st1:country-region> is, if possible, even more
contemptible. The biggest danger facing
both ‘the west’ and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
today is IS (self-styled Islamic State)
Have our rulers really not noticed that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> provides the
inspiration and the model that IS would like to see world wide? The Saudis practise, within their own
borders, the beheadings, amputations and public floggings that IS (and other
similar organisations in <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place> and elsewhere)
are trying to spread world-wide.
Oil-rich Saudi Arabians have financed IS activities in the past and
possibly still do so today.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It is bad
enough when they exact their extreme interpretation of Sharia law on their own
people but surely when a British citizen becomes a victim it’s time for the
government to take action. Seventy-four
year old Karl Andree, a retired oil executive who has lived and worked in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>
for many years was, and is, just such a victim.
The Saudi religious police (<st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>’s equivalent of the
Gestapo and KGB) discovered two bottles of home-made wine in the boot of his
car. For this ‘offence’ he was arrested,
tried in a Saudi court and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment plus, on his
release from prison, a public flogging of 360 lashes delivered in monthly
instalments. </div>
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<br /></div>
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This might
have become a shining example of how the British Government looks after the
interests of its citizens even when they are abroad. Surely one might have expected swingeing economic
sanctions (with all NATO and EU countries invited to take part) and armed
battle ships of the Royal Navy ordered to patrol the Red Sea and the <st1:place w:st="on">Persian Gulf</st1:place>.</div>
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<br /></div>
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But – we buy
oil from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>
and they buy weaponry from us. Moreover
as a result of the Government’s doctrinaire privatisation of our public
services I have little doubt that in at least one of those British public
services one or more wealthy Saudi Arabians are substantial shareholders. Our
government couldn’t possibly risk all that for the sake of one British citizen
who should have known better anyway. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It is possible
that Cameron and Co did make a discreet protest ‘behind the scenes’. We’ll probably never know, but if there ever was
such a protest it was quite ineffectual.
Karl Andree has served the twelve months in a Saudi prison and now faces
the likelihood of regular public humiliation and pain as the 360 lashes are
imposed. He is in poor health and is
unlikely to survive this barbarous punishment for something that in almost
every other country in world wouldn’t have been considered to be a crime at
all!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Those 360
lashes, administered in public have stirred our Government into action. No there won’t be any sanctions against <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>, nor British warships in the <st1:place w:st="on">Red Sea</st1:place>. But
David Cameron, our Prime Minister has written a letter to the King of Saudi
Arabia pleading for clemency! According
to the <i>Daily Mail </i>our Foreign
Minister is quite convinced that Mr Andree will be spared the public flogging –
well, we’ll wait and see. I hope he
won’t be expected to write a letter of thanks to the King of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> –
or to Mr Cameron! Oh – a final
touch: <st1:place w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:place> now has a
representative on the United Nations Committee for Human Rights!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Now <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region> is being added to the list of
‘untouchables’ - we mustn’t upset the Chinese because they’ll control all our
nuclear energy! Goodness knows what other shares in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>’s vital services are held
by the Chinese or other foreigners. The self-satisfied. mendacious, self-seeking
hypocrites that we (not me personally!) have elected to rule us, have sold off
the <st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place>’s
independence piece by piece. And they have the impudence and effrontery to
denigrate Jeremy Corbyn as ‘anti-British’!</div>
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<br /></div>
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One
of the few compensations for being very, very old, is that I won’t for long
have to live in the uncaring, cruel, selfish and greedy world into which David
Cameron and George Osborne are leading us. </div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-67433353787237340752015-10-01T15:21:00.000+01:002015-10-06T15:32:20.692+01:00An Aftertthought<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">An Afterthought</span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Jeremy Corbyn is currently under attack from the press and
some of his Labour Party colleagues for having declared that, if he were Prime
Minister, there are no circumstances under which he would authorise the firing
of a nuclear weapon. </div>
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<br /></div>
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Has it not occurred to anyone that any Prime Minister who <b><i>did </i></b>authorise
the firing of a nuclear weapon would be ordering the killing of hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of innocent civilians, men, women and children? He would therefore be guilty of a war crime
that makes any misdeed perpetrated by President Assad, Saddam Hussein or even
the self-styled Islamic State, pale into insignificance.</div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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<i>Would we really prefer that kind of Prime Minister?</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Another Afterthought</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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Mentioning President Assad above brought him to the
forefront of my mind. He is, so I have
read, a cruel and despotic dictator. He
and his forces have certainly done some dreadful things in the civil war in his
country – but then so have the forces of his opponents. I have tried in vain to discover what he was
like before the civil war began. His sin
appears to have been little more than that of being, ‘<i>the wrong sort of Muslim’. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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The <i>‘right sort’</i>
are to be found in countries like <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>
and <st1:place w:st="on">Qatar</st1:place>.
They are Britain’s trusted allies, despite the fact that Saudi Arabia’s total
lack of respect for human rights and contempt for western values provide the
inspiration for the jihadist terrorists of ISIS – and Saudi Arabia’s and
Qatar’s oil-rich business men have funded, and possibly still fund, the
terrorist organisation’s activities.</div>
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<br /></div>
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. We all know the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>’s and the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>’s views. Assad might be allowed to play a part in any
peace talks that eventually take place – but he must never again be the
country’s President or play a leading role in its government. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Qatar</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Turkey</st1:country-region> agree but <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iran</st1:country-region>
take a precisely opposite view. Nobody
has asked the Syrians!</div>
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<br /></div>
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When the civil war
comes to an end, as eventually it surely must, the question of how <st1:country-region w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region> should be
governed should be left to the Syrians.
Get all the foreigners (fighters, diplomats, entrepreneurs eager to make
a fortune out of reconstruction) out of the country. Let those Syrians who have
remained in their war-torn country, and those who are prepared to return to
help rebuild it, decide how and by whom, they wish to be ruled. It may be that they would choose President
Assad again – he must have a pretty considerable following or he wouldn’t have survived
so long in the face of such ferocious opposition. Probably not, but it isn’t for ‘us’ or the
Iranians or Russians, to decide.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
</div>
Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-88961544099327952992015-08-03T14:33:00.000+01:002015-08-03T14:33:11.518+01:00POSTSCRIPT (3)<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">POSTSCRIPT (3)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Global Warming – Global Warning!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>In
my last blog I said that I was a member and supporter of the Green Party
because I believed that Climate Change (global warming largely due to human
activity) was currently the biggest threat facing humankind. Since then I have had an email from a regular
blog reader who points out that global warming is not just a future threat – it
is already responsible for most of the political problems that are causing us
concern today. Here is part of that
email:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">I am beginning to see world events in terms of global
warming. Did you know that the real
cause of the “Arab Spring” was the rising price of grain, resulting in people
in the Arab countries being unable to afford to eat? The uprisings coincided with a spike in the
price of grain. Then the price subsided a bit, but the trend remained very
definitely upwards due to lower crop yields and more of the world’s arable land
becoming desert. This was reducing output while the population continued to
grow. The uprisings were a cry for help and a call for an end to dictatorial
and corrupt governments. As things got
worse the protestors tried other governing systems. In
that part of the world a liberal parliamentary democracy is not the obvious
choice of the reformers - but<b> </b>a more
rigorous interpretation of Islam is. Hence the advent of the Muslim Brotherhood (in
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Egypt</st1:place></st1:country-region>
now brutally suppressed) the Taliban, Al Qaida and, most extreme and the most
successful of all, the so-called Islamic State.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> The no more than
Two Degrees Centigrade rise in world temperature upper limit to which all world
leaders have agreed is not an ideal figure. It is the point at which scientists
predict the world will no longer be able to feed itself, and there will be
widespread famine, riot and war<b>. NASA
has said publicly that today Climate Change represents the greatest threat to
world peace<o:p></o:p></b></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">So in
the light of that, I think what we are witnessing in the Mediterranean and <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Calais</st1:place></st1:city>, is the beginning
not the end. It is fundamentally the impoverished
world meeting the rich world, and the rich believing their prosperity would be
diminished if they shared it with migrants.
I think the incredible risks which the “economic” migrants are prepared
to take is testament to the fact that they are escaping a life of destitution
as well as immense danger, and particularly, they can see no future for their
children in the country they came from. This is really what has driven all
previous mass migrations, like the Irish escaping to the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region> from the potato
famine.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> In
the past <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>
has been far more generous. We welcomed Jewish migrants from Nazi <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place></st1:country-region>, we
welcomed the Vietnamese Boat people escaping tyranny there and we welcomed
Ugandan Asians escaping Idi Amin. And of course, in each case, the migrant
population has not been a burden but has done very well in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>. The political tide has really turned since
then.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">I think that the situation in the Mediterranean, and in <st1:place w:st="on">Eastern Europe</st1:place> where almost as many migrants are coming via land frontiers, is the most
significant development. The total number of migrants has reached
180,000. By contrast there are “only 4000” in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Calais</st1:place></st1:city>. The rest have gone elsewhere in
Europe – mainly <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Sweden</st1:place></st1:country-region>. So why the fuss in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Calais</st1:city></st1:place>? Well this is entirely caused by the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> decision not to be part of Schengen, not to
accept any quota of migrants at all, and to relocate the frontier to <st1:city w:st="on">Calais</st1:city>, instead of it being in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Dover</st1:city></st1:place>. It is NOT the result of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> Benefits system being too generous (it isn’t
actually more generous than <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">France</st1:place></st1:country-region>),
but it’s a good myth to promote.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">If we had no borders – like <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
/ <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Belgium</st1:country-region></st1:place>
– there would be none of this. There are
migrants arriving in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Italy</st1:country-region>
and wandering all over <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> to other
EU countries all the time, and no one even knows. If the border was
in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Dover</st1:place></st1:city>, as it
should be, then people could legally hitch a ride with a lorry driver or car
driver, and then apply for asylum as soon as they land. However, by putting the
border in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Calais</st1:place></st1:city>,
they can never get to English soil in order to apply for asylum, so they have
to practically kill themselves in the attempt. Why can we not have an asylum
office in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Calais</st1:city></st1:place>
as well? Is it because they don’t want them applying and it is likely that too
many would be approved? Why does the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region> stay in the UN if we aren’t
prepared respect international agreements? <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">I agree with my
correspondent that those migrants aren’t attracted to the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region> by our
generous benefits. Even if it were true
that our benefits are more generous than those of other countries, I really
don’t think that migrants would risk their lives daily in the hope of acquiring
a few extra quid! Many are attracted to
the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>
because they have learned a little English at school and think, probably
correctly, that they’d speak it fairly fluently after a few months. English has become a world-wide language –
and that has its disadvantages as well as its benefits.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> When
I hear David Cameron saying that migration from <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
to the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> is a European
problem, not just a problem for <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
I am amazed at his temerity. It would be
a European problem if we had signed up to the Schengen Agreement and had
abolished our national frontiers – or if we had been prepared to accept a few
of the thousands of migrants who have reached Italy, Spain or Greece either
across the Mediterranean or from
Turkey. As it is I think our fellow
Europeans could surely quite reasonably say, ‘<i>If those opt-out Brits want to keep their own frontiers and accept no
refugees from Africa of <st1:place w:st="on">Asia</st1:place> – it’s up to them
to guard those frontiers and keep the migrants out. We’ve got plenty of our own problems to solve
before we can give thought to those that the Brits have brought upon themselves!’<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span></i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> On the world stage our top politicians
diligently pursue what they think of as our national interests. Meanwhile
Climate Change waits in the wings with nasty surprises in store for all of them……….<b>and us!</b><i> <o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-71782373775000197102015-07-29T19:37:00.002+01:002015-07-29T19:37:25.331+01:00POSTSCRIPT (2)<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">POSTSCRIPT (2)<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Post-Election Politics</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>I
have long believed that what we had come to think of as the three main
political parties – Conservative, Labour and Liberal/Democrat, all had the same
basic policy; to win the next election
by any means possible and, having done so, to hang on to power for as long as
they could. The Lib.Dems knew that they
wouldn’t win outright but hoped they’d have sufficient parliamentary seats to
hold the balance between the Labour and Conservative MPs at <st1:place w:st="on">Westminster</st1:place>. They wanted to form a coalition with one or
other of the two parties (they really didn’t care which one) and they expected
to get a few cabinet posts and the title (and appropriate salary and perks) of
Deputy Prime Minister for their leader.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But in the General Election it
didn’t happen like that. The
Conservatives (who secured only 35 percent of the votes cast) obtained a small
first-past-the-post overall majority and, as I had forecast, the Lib.Dems. were
all but destroyed. The third party in
today’s House of Commons is not the Lib.Dems. but the Scottish National Party! That's something that I hadn't foreseen!</div>
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<br /></div>
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After
the General Election the leaders of the Lib.Dems, the Labour Party and of UKIP
all resigned. Nick Clegg, Lib.Dem.
leader brought his downfall upon himself by acquiescing to and defending
measures he had, only a week or so earlier, promised to oppose. The opening words of Robert Browning’s ‘Lost
Leader’ come to my mind ‘<i>Just for a
handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick on his coat’. </i>Ed Miliband, Labour Leader, lost the
election not because of anything he had done or failed to do but because of the
daily dose of quite unjustified vilification and denigration launched about him by the right-wing
press. If something appears before your
eyes day after day you begin to feel there must be something in it – even when
there clearly isn’t. What about Nigel
Farage of UKIP? He did resign, but was
back and leading his odd army of Europhobes and crypto-fascists before you
could say ‘<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on"><i>Brussels</i></st1:city></st1:place><i> Bureaucrat!’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i> </i>The Lib-Dems have
chosen their new leader who has, as might have been expected, been denigrated
by the right-wing press. Apparently he
is a fundamentalist evangelical Christian and believes in a literal Heaven and
Hell. Well, that’s no more fanciful than
believing that ‘market forces’ and private enterprise will solve all the
world’s problems. He is, I think,
likely to prove to be a man of his word.
</div>
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The election
of a new Labour leader is proving much more exciting than had been expected. There appear to be three ‘New Labour’
candidates with proposed policies that are much the same as the Conservatives but
perhaps – depending on what the latest opinion poll says – a little less harsh
on the poor, the unemployed and the disabled.
But now there’s another candidate; Jeremy Corbyn, fighting for the ‘old
Labour’ policies of a fairer distribution of the country’s wealth, an end to
privatisation and unilateral nuclear disarmament. At least one of those who sponsored him said
that she didn’t think for a moment that he would get anywhere but that she felt
the voice of ‘old Labour’ should be heard.
No doubt lack of support for Corbyn was expected to demonstrate beyond
doubt how thoroughly ‘New Labour’ had destroyed the tattered remnants of the ‘old
Labour’ of George Lansbury, Nye Bevan and Michael Foot.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But, once again, it hasn’t happened like that. Jeremy
Corbyn, who seems to be a very likeable, straight-forward chap, and his radical
policies are proving unexpectedly popular, especially with younger Labour
voters. Opinion polls suggest that he <i>could </i>win the leadership election. Hundreds of people who have previously not
bothered to vote, may decide that Jeremy Corbyn offers something different;
something that it’s worth turning out to vote for. I don’t know why everybody should be so
surprised. The democratic socialist policies for which Corbyn stands are much
the same as those held by the Scottish National Party who, you will recall,
made an almost clean sweep of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region>’s
New Labour MPs in the recent General Election.
Are the Scots really <b><i>so </i></b>different from the rest of we
British?</div>
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Needless
to say, prominent has-beens from Labour’s past have been paraded to offer dire
warnings of endless years of opposition for Labour if Corbyn were to be elected
leader. Finally former Prime Minister
Tony Blair gave us his great thoughts on the matter - and probably increased
rather than diminished Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of success.. Anyone, he said, whose heart was inclined
towards old Labour ‘<i>needed a heart
transplant’. </i> That, I think, was bound to infuriate hundreds
of sincere Labour supporters who cherish the memory of the up-hill struggles of
the 19<sup>th</sup> and 20<sup>th</sup> Century pioneers of the Labour, Trade
Union and Co-operative movements. <i>'Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We'll keep the Red Flag flying here!'</i></div>
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No-one
could deny that Tony Blair was a great winner of elections. He did so by creating 'New Labour and dragging it far enough to
the right to attract the support o the Murdoch Press. Thousands of Labour Party members who voted
to revoke Clause 4 imagined that they were voting against everything being
nationalised. They were, in fact,
opening the door to the privatisation of every public service.</div>
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In
the ten years that New Labour formed our government, the gap between the
wealthy and the poor actually widened, Tory legislation like the Right to Buy
Act which lies at the root of today’s housing problems, remained intact. An unholy friendship between Tony Blair and
the most reactionary American President in living memory, led to an illegal
bloody war in Iraq that has resulted in the ruin of that country, the growth of
terrorism throughout North Africa and in Europe and the USA too, and the
martyrdom of hundreds of Christians in the Middle East, North Africa and the
Indian sub-continent. Tony Blair was
made United Nations Peace envoy to the <st1:place w:st="on">Middle East</st1:place>. As I have previously said in this blog, that
was like making one of the Kray brothers a Chief Constable. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It
simply isn’t true to claim that a political party can achieve nothing in
opposition. Had Nick Clegg not entered
into coalition with the Conservatives the Lib.Dems. could have retained their
independence – voting for, or at least abstaining from voting against – any
legislation to which they didn’t object and joining with Labour and the small
opposition parties to oppose legislation they found objectionable. Where the
party in government has only a small overall majority this can be very
effective. In this parliament David
Cameron was all set to pass legislation legitimising fox hunting with
hounds. The SNP MPs said they would join
with Labour in opposing this (largely to remind the Conservatives of their
fragile majority) and, to avoid the possibility of humiliating defeat, that
legislation has been put on the back burner.</div>
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Had
they adopted that policy the Lib.Dems. could have prevented particularly
objectionable legislation from being passed, and retained their own
integrity. They wouldn’t have been given
any seats in the government and their leader wouldn’t have become ‘Deputy Prime
Minister’ – but they might well have been spared humiliating defeat in the
General Election. ‘<i>This above all, to thine own self be true!’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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I
am neither a member nor a supporter of today’s Labour Party. I am a member of and support the Green Party because I
believe that today, care of the environment and countering the effects of
climate change are more important than any other political issue. I think though that if Jeremy Corbyn were to
be elected leader of the Labour Party a great many, perhaps most, Greens would
be delighted that one of the main parties
would be working towards the resolution of at least some of our concerns.<i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-78857709508984486032015-07-21T07:24:00.000+01:002015-07-21T07:28:40.326+01:00Post Script 1<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">POSTSCRIPT<o:p></o:p></span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></b>
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><i>Little Royal Nazis? What rubbish!</i></b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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When,
a few weeks ago, I wrote my farewell bog, it was my firm intention never to
blog again. I was old, my ideas were
stale and I wasn’t expressing them half as effectively as once I did. In short I was a now senile and decrepit early
twentieth century man who had somehow made it to the twenty-first century but who didn’t fit in with the spirit of today’s ‘<i>brave new world’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Oscar Wilde once remarked that he could resist anything except
temptation<i> </i>and one or two recent
events have tempted me to write at least one postscript to my blog series. Although many of my views have been described
as ‘way out left’ and I am now a member of the Green Party I am not, and never have
been, a republican. I think that there is a lot to be said for having a Head of
State who is outside party politics, is trained from childhood to be a
constitutional monarch and who, even before the coronation, is likely to be
more knowledgeable about our government and constitution than any of the
here-today-and-gone-tomorrow Prime Ministers who will form a government during
his or her reign.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDo60uvlbhmmCzdo3gwU01GgEgIl-Xxa4vDulxFXy8L2BeDdyB5Hfu6BPlouE5-zy4pY904uIeKkTpjfVYyeluLxmE_vPlxQvIMv-3kef03-4TeI6OcuosvIVKNv2qAXEqIFLRWO4w0bM/s1600/Queen+of+Denmark.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDo60uvlbhmmCzdo3gwU01GgEgIl-Xxa4vDulxFXy8L2BeDdyB5Hfu6BPlouE5-zy4pY904uIeKkTpjfVYyeluLxmE_vPlxQvIMv-3kef03-4TeI6OcuosvIVKNv2qAXEqIFLRWO4w0bM/s400/Queen+of+Denmark.PNG" width="266" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Scandinavian Royal style. The Queen of Denmark arrives in London for the Olympic Games. Photo by my elder son Pete.</i></span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">I can’t think of any way of achieving this surely desirable end other
than by a hereditary constitutional monarchy.
I would prefer our monarchy to be more in the Scandinavian style but
perhaps something on those lines will evolve.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I was both angry and contemptuous when I learned that the <i>Sun </i>had used on its front page
photographs <i>taken in 1933 </i>of the
children of the Royal Family, and their mother, giving the outstretched arm
Nazi salute. I was around in 1933 (an
enquiring lad of twelve), which I am quite sure can not be said of either the
editor or the owner of the <i>Sun</i>. We
had all seen Hitler and the Nazi salute in the newspapers or on the brief
cinema newsreels (there was, of course, no tv in those days) and most of us
thought that Hitler looked like Charlie Chaplin and that all the heel clicking
and saluting was just plain daft. We practised
the Nazi salute and one or two of us even tried goose-stepping! It was just a laugh. We were taking the mickey. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It could be that that is just
what those young royals were doing back in 1933. It was unfortunate that someone had a good
camera available at the time. It was a
family photo that the <i>Sun </i>has
obtained (by bribery or the proceeds of a theft? We’ll probably never know) and used to try to
undermine trust in the Royal Family. In
1933 no-one (certainly no-one in our government) foresaw the potential for evil
in Adolf Hitler. Nor, I think did anyone
in the press. Those who did not regard
Hitler as a joke, saw in him a politician who was different and would pull
Germany together, defeat the communists (they were seen as a much bigger threat
than the Fascists and Nazis) and with whom Britain could negotiate with
confidence. </div>
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I think that it is significant that the owner and ultimate controller
of the <i>Sun </i>and other newspapers,
radio and tv enterprises, all of which help to mould public opinion, is a
former Australian, now USA, citizen who owes and shows no loyalty to the United
Kingdom, its constitution and its traditions.
He is the head of a ‘news’
organisation that is best known for its phone hacking, its obtrusive pursuit
and harassment of its victims (who can be any of us), and its bribery of public
officials – all of which activities are said to be in exercise of ‘the freedom
of the press’; a strange ‘freedom’ that involves control by a foreign
multi-millionaire. </div>
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I find it strange that Rupert Murdoch is permitted to reside in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> and even
stranger that so many top politicians fraternise with him and seek his favours. One who, very honourably, declined to do so
was Prime Minister John Major – who subsequently suffered at the hands of the
Murdoch press. Among the latest to seek
his company and his favour has been Nigel Farage, leader of UKIP. They have in common a determination to
prevent the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>
from ever becoming part of a European Federation. I wonder if both, or either, would be equally
determined to keep the UK independent of Federation with the USA – with the ‘A’
tactfully altered to be the initial of ‘Atlantic’ rather than ‘America’?</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">More of Rupert’s
malign influence?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; text-align: justify;">
Among the emails urging me not to
give up writing my blog was one from a regular blog reader expressing his
concern about the government’s apparent determination to change, or even
destroy, the BBC as we know it. Urging
them on in this enterprise are, of course, the BBC’s commercial rivals,
prominent among them Mr Rupert Murdoch of Sky tv as well as a number of
newspapers. Below are extracts from my
correspondent’s email;</div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">Literally every day
more reports are leaked to undermine the BBC. A Parliamentary Committee has
been appointed with a specific brief to investigate and make recommendations
about the future role of the BBC. More than half the people nominated to this
Committee have previously made public statements about how the BBC needs to be
scaled back, or the licence fee should be abolished. And on top of that, they
are clearly briefing papers like the Times with more details of their
“thinking”, suggesting that the BBC is “too popular” and that they shouldn’t be
doing successful programmes with high audiences, and they should not be running
such an extensive web site, and they shouldn’t be attempting to cover all of
the News in it, and some of the money for the Licence fee (if it continues at
all) should be given to other providers, not just the BBC. They have called the
Licence Fee “a regressive Tax” – (so unlike their other taxes). Oh, and
ministers saying the BBC Commission is “not fit for purpose” (always a prelude
to scrapping something) because of “the Saville scandal and the pay-offs to
senior staff who were made redundant”. Clearly it would be better for
them to discredit and then abolish the Commission first, because last time they
threatened to axe part of the licence fee, the entire Commission threatened to
resign in protest – probably never been forgiven for that piece of insurgency.</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;">Some people are baffled by all this – thinking that everyone
liked the BBC and would be pleased that Strictly and Masterchef were runaway
successes and that all the news and cooking recipes were published for free on
the web site. I have been trying to explain to them the Right Wing
thinking on all of this. First of all, the BBC is making programmes which conflict
with the financial interests of Tory Party donors. Secondly they are giving the
News and cooking recipes away for free, when others are trying to make money
out of them. Thirdly, the Licence Fee is a sort of compulsory subscription, and
poor families who have to find £140 a year for the Licence fee may not then be
able or willing to buy a subscription to Sky on top of that. And lastly, from
the viewpoint of the average Tory back bencher, an “unbiased BBC” which
investigates climate change, tries to find the root causes of the migration,
tries to explain what cuts in Welfare actually mean, suggests that not many
people would actually benefit from reduced Inheritance tax comes over as
rampant socialism to them.</span><br />
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"><br /></span>
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</div>
<span style="color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 11.0pt;"> </span><b style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The Friends
of Widows and Orphans?</span></b></div>
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Among the promises that helped the Conservatives to win the May General
Election were measures aimed at helping widows and orphans – well, if not
actually always widows and orphans those who were left after a house-owner’s death. There were two measures promised; No
inheritance tax (death duties) would be payable on the death of the owner of a
property valued at less than a million pounds.
There are more of those than you might imagine – and anyone affected who
wasn’t already a Conservative supportet could reasonably be expected to vote to
secure a Conservative victory and the honouring of that promise.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The other promise affected a great many more people, including myself. Folk nearing the end of their lives and
needing local authority care, had to pay for that care unless they had very
little savings and did not own a property that could be sold to raise the
necessary cash. This meant that many
modest family homes had to be sold to pay for the care needed by the owner
during his or her final years. Home
owners were unable to pass on their most valuable asset to their sons and
grandchildren. The government was to put
a cap (I think it was £75,000) on the amount that someone in care could be
required to pay. The family home might
still have to be sold but the home-owner’s heirs might, at least, receive a
worth-while legacy.</div>
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Well, the Conservatives did win the election though (I’m glad to say)
without my vote. Guess what? They’re implementing at once that freedom
from inheritance tax on homes valued at less than a million pounds. And the cap on those in receipt of care? Oh yes, they’re going to apply it – but not
for another couple of years.</div>
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Well, I’m 94 and have stayed out of care so far. It looks as though, if my heirs are to
inherit my modest bungalow, I must try to stay out of the clutches of the
official carers for at least another couple of years – or ‘pop my clogs’ without
too much further delay!. </div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-20654794491672855852015-06-29T14:05:00.001+01:002015-06-29T18:58:43.259+01:00Blog date 32<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Tendring Topics……..on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">‘Now
is the hour…..<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> …….for me to say goodbye’<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b> </b>Those were the
opening words of a popular song of the wartime years when there were so many
goodbyes, many of them for ever. I am afraid, dear Blog readers, that time has
come for what was my weekly blog. Google
informs me that I have been writing and publishing it for seven and a half
years and that I have written and published 390 blogs in that time. For the first three or four years I wrote an
average of about 2,000 words per blog. More
recently I have reduced that to about 1,000.
I reckon that I averaged about 1,200 words a week for seven and a half
years. That’s 7.5 x 1,200 x 52. No, I’m not going to work it out but it
certainly comes to quite a lot of words.</div>
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Also
thanks to Google, I learn that my blog has a world-wide readership. There are twice as many regular readers in
the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> as there are in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>. I have regular readers in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>, and occasional
readers in virtually every European country and in such countries as <st1:country-region w:st="on">China</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">India</st1:country-region>,
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Sri Lanka</st1:country-region>, and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region>. Thank you all, dear readers, for your
interest and encouragement.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I
used always to enjoy writing my blog and was proud of it. Lately though I feel
that I have become stale and repetitive.
I find myself forgetting how to spell simple, straight-forward
words. I often have to refer to Google
for facts that should be – and once were! – engraved in my memory. It is, I think, just old age. Now that I am
94, it seems better to depart from the internet stage before I publish
something that is obviously total rubbish.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
causes that I have supported throughout those seven and a half years remain the
same. I can only hope that others will
keep them alive.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i>Nuclear Disarmament<o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>I believe in unilateral nuclear disarmament. Our own nuclear arms are concentrated in the
Trident Submarine Fleet wrongly described as ‘our independent nuclear deterrent’. It is anything but independent (can you
imagine our government even threatening to use a nuclear weapon without the OK
of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>?). It hasn’t deterred any one of the many acts
of violence and aggression that have taken place since the end o0f World War
II. Did those nuclear submarines deter
the Argentines from invading the <st1:place w:st="on">Falklands</st1:place>?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>It might persuade other governments relying on nuclear defence to
refrain from using their weapons because of the certainty of Mutually Assured
Destruction (MAD!) It would <b>not </b>deter the jihadists of the Islamic
State from using such a weapon if they ever got hold of one. They are quite
certain that they’ll be assured a ‘front seat’ in Heaven if they kill
themselves while precipitating a satisfactory number of infidels and apostates
(every-one who doesn’t share their noxious beliefs) to the ‘other place’! <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i> A
country relying on a nuclear weapon ‘as a deterrent’ has a government as stupid
and as irresponsible as a fifteen year old adolescent who carries a sheath-knife
into the classroom with precisely the same motive! <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><b>Working for World Peace<o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>I do </i><b>not </b><i>believe that the best way
to secure world peace is to ring <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region></st1:place> around with members of Nato
– inevitably seen by the Russians as a hostile alliance. We complain of the ‘provocative action’ of
the Russians in flying a couple of bombers round <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> keeping just outside
British air space. What are the Russians
to think of NATO military manoeuvres in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Poland</st1:country-region>,
just beyond <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s
frontiers? We know the Russians have an
enormous army and air-force. They know
that NATO has too! For goodness sake,
let’s stop trying to prove that ‘mine is bigger than yours!’ They’re both big enough to reduce our
wonderful world to ruins if their top politicians are daft enough to let them.
And I fear that some of them may be. For goodness sake let us talk peace and
join together to think of how best to counter the acts of the jihadists – the
real enemies of both Russia and ‘the West’.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><b>Working for a more equal economy<o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i> </i></b><i>The top ‘at home’ priority of any
responsible British government should be to narrow that yawning, and ever
widening, gap between the incomes of the very poorest and very wealthiest of
our citizens. Shamefully this gap actually widened during the decade of New
Labour rule. A way in which any
government could narrow that gap would be the radical reform of the income tax
system and making a reformed income tax the principal source of government
revenue. Every adult, rich or poor, should be required to pay the same
percentage of his or her g<b>ross </b>income
as their annual subscription for the very-considerable privilege of living and
working in the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>. Benefits to the very poorest of us would
need to be raised to prevent this tax reducing anyone to homelessness or
malnutrition. I think that 20 percent of
every adult’s gross income (before there’s a chance to salt it away overseas or
in a charitable trust!) would probably be sufficient. We would then <b>all </b>have an interest in <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>’s economic future and
really would ‘all be in this together’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><b>The European Union<o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>Forty years ago I voted no to the European
Common Market in that famous referendum. I had the rather romantic idea that we
could seek closer economic and political union with the countries of the
Commonwealth and what was left of the British Empire, to create a political and
economic bloc capable of co-operating or competing with the USA and the world’s emerging powers.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>If I’m still around when we have the
opportunity to vote either to stay in or depart from what is now the European
Union, I shall vote to stay in, and I will hope that we achieve an even closer
economic and political union with our European partners. I believe that the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> can make its voice heard and its opinions
respected better as an active member of a federal Europe than as a non-voting
protectorate of the <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region></st1:place>.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>We are part of <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>
by geography, history and culture.
Nowadays it isn’t politically correct to say so but over the centuries the
Christian faith has been the background in front of which the ancestors of all
we Europeans have lived, worked and died.
As was repeated over and over again in the Scottish referendum campaign; </i><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">‘<b>We’re
better together’!</b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>I’d have a little more respect for Ukip if
they really stood for an independent <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:place></st1:country-region> as they claim. They
don’t. Their venom is reserved for our neighbours and friends in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place>. You’d
think that the EU was another hostile country determined to weaken and destroy
the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>
instead of a union of Nations in which we have exactly the same influence as
anyone else. Remember the Ukip members of the European Parliament rising and
turning their backs at the playing of the European Anthem. I don’t believe that even the most fervent
Republicans would be so ill-mannered as to turn their backs when others were
standing and singing ‘God save the Queen’.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>Ukippers seem to be quite happy with our
membership of NATO (on which we Britons have never had the opportunity of
expressing an opinion) and our one-sided ‘special relationship’ with the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>. NATO and the ‘special relationship’ have
cost us far more that the EU in both blood and money. They involved us in two ‘colonial wars’, one
illegal and the other unwinnable. In
every country where we have interfered the result has been disastrous. In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Iraq</st1:place></st1:country-region> Islamic
State forces are slowly but surely taking over. I’d be very surprised if there are not Iraqis
today who look back on the rule of Saddam Hussein as a golden age! In <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:place></st1:country-region> the
Taliban attacks ever more boldly, and the even-more-bloodthirsty jihadists of
Islamic State have also put in an appearance.
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Libya</st1:place></st1:country-region>
is now ungoverned and ungovernable – thanks to our helping in the overthrow of
Colonel Gaddafi! Gaddafi’s rule was
awful but the current anarchy (of which Islamic State is already taking
advantage) is surely worse.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i><b>Climate Change<o:p></o:p></b></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i> </i></b><i>I have left climate change till the last despite
the fact that this is the threat that is capable of making the other causes
that I have supported seem to be trivial irrelevances. The reason it comes last is that effective
countering of climate change demands the support and action of the government
of every country in the world, and there are powerful forces trying to prevent
this.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjgXvBdU_IMyVu_jlU5mFk55cyGKtyYs0AAjqrgscBKUhyFemzjZe0hrEkEED9N4fXHmhb1Z7k0rG2W3ojGWtIdxn-ZEYb0PgSkn_Dq5gWIDtRaWetezkXkqUt7VFoOkIP5v6xMkT_LM/s1600/The+Rhone+Glacier.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGjgXvBdU_IMyVu_jlU5mFk55cyGKtyYs0AAjqrgscBKUhyFemzjZe0hrEkEED9N4fXHmhb1Z7k0rG2W3ojGWtIdxn-ZEYb0PgSkn_Dq5gWIDtRaWetezkXkqUt7VFoOkIP5v6xMkT_LM/s320/The+Rhone+Glacier.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><br /></i></span>
<b><span style="font-size: x-small;">I took this photo of the Rhone Glacier on the pass between Italy and Switzerland in 1980. I was told that last year 2014 there was no ice visible from that vantage point </span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> </i><br />
<i>We don’t need a
university degree to note that in recent years there have been more extreme
weather conditions than even folk of my age can remember. There have been extreme heat waves destroying
rain-starved food crops. There have been
typhoons and hurricanes, devastating floods, prolonged droughts, occasional
unseasonable spells of arctic weather. All of these have brought loss of life
and destruction of property world-wide. The polar ice-caps are melting at an
accelerating rate as are the mountain glaciers.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> The overwhelming
conclusion of the world’s most eminent scientists has been that global warming
is taking place and that this has caused those extreme weather conditions
world-wide. Furthermore, they are
equally certain that most of that warming is due to human activity – to
humankind’s relentless exploitation of the world’s natural resources, in
particular to the profligate burning of fossil fuels (coal, gas and oil) for
space and water heating in the home, in industry, for travel, and for any other activity
needing an energy supply. The remedy
seems simple and straightforward enough; reduce and eventually eliminate the
use of fossil fuels and replace them with sources of clean, renewable energy
such as can be supplied by wind turbines, solar panels, the sea’s waves, the
flow of the rivers, the ebb and flow of the tide. There may be others. The <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></st1:country-region>, with its
enormous coastline, is well suited for the use of tidal energy.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> Voices demanding
urgent international action to combat man-made climate change include virtually
the whole of the scientific community and, surprisingly but very, very
gratifyingly, the Pope. The present Pope
has won the admiration of many non-Roman Catholics and will, I hope, have persuaded thousands
over to the ‘Green cause’. Lined against
them are the many thousands of people who work in, or profit from, the fossil
fuel industries. These include some very
wealthy and influential men.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> Our new government
which once, just before an election, urged the electorate ‘if you want Green.
Vote Blue’, seems to have joined the forces of Mammon. They are abolishing grants toward the
production of wind turbines, giving local councils the final word over whether
they should permit wind turbines in their areas (of course there will always be
lots of local Nimbys who will oppose them) and are encouraging fracking –
exploiting yet another source of fossil fuel as well as despoiling our countryside.
In an earlier blog I said that if either the Conservative or the Labour
Party won the election outright the results wouldn’t be as good as supporters
had hoped but, on the other hand, they wouldn’t be as bad as their opponents
had feared, I was wrong. On the climate
change front at least, the Conservative government’s action is even worse than their
opponents had feared. Shortly there’s to be an international conference on
climate change My guess is that there
will be lots of good intentions expressed but precious little urgent action
promised.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> Perhaps I’ll conclude
with a couple of verses from a poem by Arthur Clough, a 19<sup>th</sup> century
poet. It has cheered me on occasion:<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Say not the struggle naught availeth,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The labour and the wounds are vain<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">The enemy faints not, nor faileth,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And as things have been, they remain.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Perhaps by yonder smoke concealed<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Your comrades chase e’en now the flyers<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">And, but for you, possess the field.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Although the tired waves, vainly
breaking.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Seem here no painful inch to gain;<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Far back, through creek and inlet
making,<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i><span style="font-size: 10.0pt;">Comes silent, flooding in, the main.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>And that, dear blog
readers, is the end of my final blog. I’m
sorry I couldn’t contrive a happy ending – but it is, at least, a hopeful one.</i><span style="text-transform: uppercase;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-54433084893660141352015-06-02T14:13:00.000+01:002015-06-02T14:13:46.349+01:002nd June 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics………on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Dwellers in ‘<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Cloud</st1:placename> <st1:placename w:st="on">Cuckoo</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Land</st1:placetype></st1:place>’?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The NHS.</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>I
sometimes wonder if I live in the same world as today’s top politicians. Here in <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton-on-Sea</st1:place>
there is an acute shortage of general medical practitioners (family
doctors). I have been served by the
same medical practice since my family and I moved to <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton</st1:place>
in 1956 fifty-eight years ago. In those
distant days there were just two doctors. They were Dr Craig and Dr Geddes,
both Scotsmen and not dissimilar to the Dr Cameron and Dr Finlay of the tv soap
‘<i>Dr Finlay’s casebook’. </i>They behaved similarly too. I remember several occasions when one or
other of them visited my home late at night or early in the morning when one of
my two then-young sons, or my wife or I, needed urgent medical attention. There were no appointments. Patients just turned up at the surgery. They might have a longish wait to see a
doctor but see one of the two doctors they always did. And that doctor was always familiar with
their medical history and could refresh his memory from written notes. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Lots
of changes have taken place since 1956. <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton</st1:place> has almost doubled in size and my doctors’
surgery, now renamed a ‘medical centre’ has doubled in size too. There are
several practice nurses and a practice manager.
Both Dr Craig and Dr Geddes died many years ago. At one point there were as many as six
medical practitioners, two of them women.
There were, I think, appointments but most people just turned up at the
medical centre and saw either their preferred doctor or whichever doctor was available.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Now,
there are only three doctors and one of them is only part-time. They see patients only by appointment and
it’s very difficult to make an appointment. ‘<i>Phone just after 8.00 am’, </i>you’ll be told by the receptionist – but
the line is always engaged. By the time
you manage to get through all the doctors are booked. I have found from experience that the only
way I can make almost sure of seeing the doctor of my choice is to turn up at
the medical centre fifteen minutes before they open at 8.00 am and ask the
receptionist for an appointment then.
There’s usually a queue so I may need to get there before 7.45 am to be
at the right end of that queue! As I am
now 94 I rarely bother! The service
provided for patients by our local doctors (the ‘front line’ of the NHS) is
clearly not nearly as good as it was as recently as five years ago. If it were much better than it had been when
the coalition government took over, I am quite sure that it would be trumpeted as
one of the government’s successes. As it
is, I’m not quite so partisan as to proclaim that ‘<i>It’s all the government’s fault’.
</i>I don’t suppose that it is – but the government, with its continual
‘targets’ and its reorganisation of the NHS so as to increase the field of
local GP responsibility, has certainly played a major role in this
deterioration.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
We
need to attract many more qualified doctors to the Tendring Area – and this
can’t be done <i>just by offering them more
money. </i>For goodness sake – our coast
has the lowest annual rainfall in the <st1:place w:st="on">British Isles</st1:place>
and more than the average amount of sunshine.
It’s a lovely place to bring up children (my late wife and I have done
it and I write from personal experience!) and it’s only about an hour and a
half from <st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place>
by road or rail. It really shouldn’t be
difficult to attract young doctors here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Is
the new all-Conservative government taking any steps to encourage this? Not as far as I know but, of course, they’ve
only been in office a few weeks. During
those few weeks though, Prime Minister David Cameron has found time to promise
that within a couple of years we should be able to consult a doctor any day of
the week and all hours of the day! Can
David Cameron really inhabit the world that I do? I, and I suspect a great many other local
people, would be happier if he were to concentrate his efforts on the – surely
much more easily achieved – objective of making it possible for us to see the
doctor of our choice between 8.00 am and 5.00 pm on Monday through to Friday in
every week! That surely shouldn’t be too
much to ask</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span><b><span style="font-size: large;">Home
Ownership</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b> </b>So the Government
plans to go ahead with its determination to ‘buy votes with other people’s
money’ by extending their ‘right to buy’ scheme from council house tenants to
the tenants of housing associations.
They justify this by the alleged fact that 86 percent of the public have
aspirations (that’s the OK word just now) to become homeowners. Presumably this claim follows a public
opinion poll on the subject conducted among those not owning or buying their
own home. If they were just asked <i>Would you like to own your own home? </i>I’d
have expected that even more than 86 percent would have answered
positively. No-one particularly likes
paying rent, having to observe tenancy rules and never knowing when and why
they may be given notice to quit.
Neither do adults, particularly with young children, like being homeless
or having to share with ‘mum and dad’.
Of course they’d much prefer having their own home.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But
that’s not what they are being offered.
What they are being offered is the possibility of home ownership (you’re
not ‘the owner’ till you hold the deeds of the home) after repaying a large
loan month by month over a period of twenty years or more. During that period you’ll be responsible for
paying council tax and for carrying out all repairs and internal and external
decoration. If you default in making
those regular monthly payments (and who knows what’s going to happen in twenty
years?) you’ll run the risk of homelessness for yourself and family, and the
loss of much – even perhaps all – of the money you’ve already paid. That
prospect might, I think, considerably reduce the number of potential home
buyers on whose aspirations the government claims to base its policies.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
As
a former local government Housing Manager I have always objected to council
tenants being treated as second class citizens. But I don’t think they should be given special
privileges or financial benefits either.
Most Council tenants were happy to remain as tenants until the
possibility of buying their homes ‘on the cheap’ was offered them. Under former
governments they enjoyed payable rents, security and reasonable tenancy
conditions. All structural repairs and
maintenance was the council’s responsibility. I am sure that Housing
Association tenants are the same.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
sale to Housing Association tenants of their homes at discounted prices is still only one of the 'intentions' of the government. I think that they may find
themselves facing a few expensive legal challenges on the way to its fulfilment. To David Cameron and his pals in <st1:city w:st="on">Westminster</st1:city>, Housing
Associations and local authorities are much the same thing. They both owned lots of rented houses in
which not-well-off people enjoyed secure tenancies ‘for life’ or at least for
as long as they paid their rent and observed their not-usually-very-onerous
tenancy conditions. Both provided
‘social housing’ which they had a responsibility to keep ‘fit for habitation’
and neither made a substantial profit from their house ownership.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In
fact there is one crucial difference between Council Houses and those owned by
Housing Associations. Council Houses
were built with public money – from the rates and from central government
grants. It could be claimed that a more
than usually stupid government had every right to require local authorities to
sell them off at bargain-basement prices.
A similar case can <b><i>not </i></b>be made for the compulsory sale
of Housing Association property. Those homes were not provided from the rates
and taxes of earlier, more responsible, governments and local councils. They were provided by charitable giving,
mainly from the generosity of very wealthy and benevolent 19<sup>th</sup>
century business men, for the purpose of providing the ‘working classes’ with
comfortable, secure and healthy homes at affordable rents.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
George
Cadbury and George Peabody must be among many wealthy Victorian philanthropists
who are turning in their graves at the thought that, for electoral advantage,
the homes that they provided for the poor may be compulsorily sold off at
bargain basement prices. They probably
would have had sufficient foresight to see that such homes would eventually
fall into the hands of profiteering landlords – and be let at ridiculously high
rents to tenants who would only be able to pay them by means of Housing Benefit
from their local authority!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
If,
of course, it is found that the government can legally compel Housing
Associations to sell off their properties with a substantial discount, there
can be no reason why they should not extend the ‘right to buy’ to many
thousands of tenants who are charged unreasonably high rents, have no security
of tenure, and who fear that asking the landlord to carry out repairs will only
lead to their losing their homes. They
are the tenants of private landlords. Surely the ‘right to buy at a discount’ should
be extended to them to them before it is offered to Housing Association tenants
who are already satisfactorily housed?</div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-9235371064516164672015-05-21T11:53:00.001+01:002015-05-24T08:05:28.536+01:0021st May 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics……….on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">……and in the rest of the World</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I
have been preoccupied with the British General Election in recent weeks and
have barely mentioned the two devastating earthquakes that have taken place in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Nepal</st1:country-region>, and the
appalling loss of life there. They
certainly demonstrated humankind’s helplessness in the face of the forces of
nature, and our inability either to forecast the occurrence of natural
disasters or to counter or modify their power. It may be that events in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Nepal</st1:country-region> will teach
us all a little much needed humility, but terribly sad that this should have
been at the cost of so much destruction, so many innocent lives lost, and so
much human sorrow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Then
there have been the thousands who have seen Europe as a promised land of wealth
and prosperity and have tried to reach it from African and Middle Eastern
poverty and strife – and the hundreds who have drowned in the <st1:place w:st="on">Mediterranean
Sea</st1:place> in the attempt. Our efforts have all been towards saving their
lives and preventing their attempting that hazardous journey. We may slow them down but they’ll still keep
coming. Ought we not to give some
thought to the reasons for their flight and help them to make their homelands
better places in which to live?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There
has been one unequivocally good thing that has developed on the world scene in
recent weeks, and that is the restoration of normal relations between the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region>. Ever since Cuban rebels overthrew the corrupt
Batista regime in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region> and,
under their leader Fidel Castro, established their own Communist government,
the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>
has tried by one means or another to secure a regime change. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion from the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> (which could certainly not have happened
without <st1:country-region w:st="on">United States</st1:country-region> help
and encouragement) resulted in Castro asking for help from the <st1:place w:st="on">Soviet Union</st1:place>. They
sent some missiles and we had the Cuban missile crisis that <b>could</b> have developed into a nuclear
World War III. Fortunately the Soviet
Union withdrew its missiles and the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>
government made sure there were no further attempts at armed invasion from the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Instead the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> cut off all diplomatic relations with <st1:country-region w:st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region>, tried to isolate it from South and Central
America and from the rest of the world,
and its CIA made several comic opera attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro <st1:place w:st="on">Cuba</st1:place>’s
President. These included, would you believe it, a gift of exploding cigars! A new U.S. President stopped these
assassination attempts.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
With external
threats reduced, the regime mellowed (it had long been a paradise of freedom
and human rights compared with – for instance – Britain and the USA’s ally, Saudi Arabia. President Obama, to his credit, is resuming normal diplomatic
relations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I had hoped
that the commemoration of the anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe
might have brought about a similar effort on <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>’s
part to bring an end to current hostility towards <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>. Have we forgotten that from 1941 to 1945 <st1:country-region style="text-indent: 36pt;" w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">,
or the </span><st1:country-region style="text-indent: 36pt;" w:st="on">USSR</st1:country-region><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> as it then was,
was our ally – and had been our ally against Nazi Germany for rather longer
than the </span><st1:country-region style="text-indent: 36pt;" w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">? What’s more, not only had the people of the </span><st1:country-region style="text-indent: 36pt;" w:st="on">USSR</st1:country-region><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> suffered far more than those of </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">any </i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">other country at the hands of the
invading Nazis, but they had contributed more than any other country towards
Victory in </span><st1:place style="text-indent: 36pt;" w:st="on">Europe</st1:place><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> and the destruction of Nazism. Winston Churchill acknowledged this when he
declared that </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">The Red Army tore the guts
out of the Wehrmacht’</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I spent the final eighteen months of World War
II as a POW at a ‘working camp’ (Arbeitskommando) in a small town in eastern <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>. I well remember how our spirits rose when we
heard artillery fire in the east during the bitter winter of 1944/1945, as the
Red Army advanced through <st1:country-region w:st="on">Poland</st1:country-region>
into <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>
itself. At first a faint murmur, the
sound increased almost daily to a roar.
We knew that the day of our liberation was close at hand. And so it was. On 7<sup>th</sup> May 1945 we could hear the
chatter of machine gun fire as well as the thunder of the guns as we were
marched, with armed guards, southwest into the Zittau mountains and away from
the battle-zone. The following day our guards,
having heard that the war was over, deserted us – and we made our own way
home. With a mate, I hitch-hiked through
Soviet occupied <st1:country-region w:st="on">Czechoslovakia</st1:country-region>
at first to <st1:place w:st="on">Prague</st1:place>,
then on to Pilsen, where we encountered the American army. They transported us
by air to <st1:city w:st="on">Rheims</st1:city>
and the British Army. I walked through
the door of my home in <st1:place w:st="on">Ipswich</st1:place> at about 10.00
pm on the 18<sup>th</sup> May – just ten days after VE Day. By a fortunate coincidence it was my
twenty-fourth birthday!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Had it not
been for Hitler’s mistake in invading the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941 I
have little doubt that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>
would have been invaded and occupied.
Even if the <st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place>
had eventually won, the war would have dragged on for at least another two or
three years. Very likely I would never
have returned home. Many POWs didn’t.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I have never
forgotten the debt that I owe to the Russian army and to the Russian
people. I am sorry that Angela Merkel,
an East German who has probably learned from her parents and grandparents
something of the horrors of modern warfare, was the sole ‘western leader’ who
joined with President Putin and hundreds of others in the commemoration of
Russia’s loss of tens of thousands of men, women and children, who had died in
what the Russians call their <i>Great
Patriotic War. </i>I am not, of course,
referring to the depressing display of military hardware on the anniversary of
VE Day but the much quieter and more peaceful commemoration on the following
day. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
David Cameron
quite thought, until he was corrected, that the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United
Kingdom</st1:country-region> was ‘junior partner’ to the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> in the
struggle against Hitler in 1940. I hope
that all blog readers are aware that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>
‘stood alone’ in that fateful year, that the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>
was neutral and that many Americans (including the <st1:country-region w:st="on">US</st1:country-region>
ambassador to the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>
– the patriarch of the Kennedy clan!) were determined that their country would
remain neutral. It follows that David
Cameron may not be aware of the <st1:place w:st="on">USSR</st1:place>’s
leading role in Hitler’s defeat – or even perhaps, that they were our allies in
World War II. He certainly gives that
impression.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
‘The west’ is
cold-shouldering <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> and
applying economic sanctions because of Russian activities in the <st1:place w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:place>.
What on earth are they expecting to achieve?
Do they seriously hope to return the Crimea to the rule of the Kiev
Government in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>
<i>against the wishes of the overwhelming
majority of the peninsula’s population?
</i>The Crimea had been part of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> since the rule of the Tsars. It was ‘gifted’ to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region> by Nikita Khruschev during the period of
his presidency of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USSR</st1:country-region>,
without any thought of consulting the residents. It made little difference at the time because
both Crimea and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region> were
part of the <st1:place w:st="on">Soviet Union</st1:place> as they had both
previously been part of the Tsars’ Empire. Crimea was recovered by <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> after a
referendum established that that was the wish of the Crimean people. David Cameron claimed that the referendum
took place ‘<i>under the shadow of the
Kalashnikov’ </i>but a recent opinion poll <b>commissioned
by the Ukrainian Government </b>in <st1:city w:st="on">Kiev</st1:city>
emphatically confirmed that wish.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The people of
the eastern provinces of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>
wished to retain their Russian ethnicity and the Russian language and
traditions. We saw on tv news bulletins
the non-violent resistance of men, women and children to the incursion of <st1:place w:st="on">Kiev</st1:place> government tanks and
armoured cars. The <st1:city w:st="on">Kiev</st1:city> government used its military superiority
to enforce its rule – and the eastern Ukrainians responded in kind. Thus civil war broke out, costing thousands
of lives. Remorseless shelling of
residential areas in rebel-held areas by government forces has resulted in over
a million civilians crossing the border and seeking political asylum in <st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Peace
overtures, supported by <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region> but not by the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>, resulted in
an uneasy ceasefire and the resumption of peace talks. The Kiev Government insists that what is
taking place is an invasion of eastern <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>
by the Russian army – they criticised the Pope for referring to ‘the civil war’
in eastern <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>! Since the cease-fire, UN observers and
British journalists have been present in the rebel-held areas. They would surely have noticed – and reported
– the presence of Russian army units. I
think it quite likely that the Russians<i>
have</i> supplied the rebels with arms and that Russian volunteers<i> have</i> strengthened the rebel forces. We do know that the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> has supplied the Kiev Government with
armoured cars and <b><i>is </i></b>sending British army units to train government forces in
‘defence’, although the rebels have neither the ability or intention of
invading western <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>. The <st1:place w:st="on">Kiev</st1:place>
government tries continually to involve NATO in the civil war that has resulted
from its obstinacy. I notice that the
BBC’s news bulletin always refers to the Ukrainian rebels as the ‘<i>Russian backed rebels’. </i>Perhaps they
should also refer to the <st1:city w:st="on">Kiev</st1:city> government as the
‘<i>British backed <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Kiev</st1:place></st1:city> Government’. </i>The <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> is, I think, the only NATO or EU
country that is so blatantly backing one side in this civil war. </div>
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For goodness
sake – it’s time that we reviewed the sanctions that are harming British
interests as well as Russian, and made real efforts to bring about a permanent
peace in the area. We should be talking
to the Russians. It was Winston
Churchill again who remarked that <i>jaw,
jaw is <b>always </b>better than war, war –
</i>and Churchill had had more experience both of patient negotiation and of
the realities of warfare than most of us.<i>
</i> Both sides must make
concessions. The <st1:place w:st="on">Kiev</st1:place> government must be made to realize that
they can’t ethnically cleanse eastern Ukraine of Russian culture and influence
and the rebels must, in the cause of peace, be prepared to accept something
short of full independence. With a
permanent peace established, both the ‘west’ and Russia must come together to
rebuild Ukraine and undo the damage done by this disastrous civil war …….or
would we really prefer to walk blindly into World War III? </div>
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<i> </i></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-63179526785168585182015-05-10T20:26:00.002+01:002015-05-10T20:26:50.971+01:0010th May 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics…….on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Day of Reckoning (2)</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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I
can’t even say, ‘<i>I told you so!’, </i>because
I didn’t! Like almost everyone else, I
believed that the outcome of the General Election would be a hung parliament.
Either David Cameron or Ed Miliband would have to form a coalition, or at least
come to an understanding with one of the smaller parties in order to produce a
workable government. Most of the press
feared an understanding between Ed Miliband and the SNP. I would have welcomed it because I thought
that Nicola Sturgeon, the SNP leader was far more impressive than <b><i>any </i></b>of
the other party leaders. She might prevent a Miliband premiership from becoming
a pale imitation of a Tory one. Perhaps
that’s just what the press lords feared!</div>
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<br /></div>
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My
own worst possible outcome was of a coalition between the Conservatives and the
Ukippers which I felt could easily develop into a right-wing dictatorship.</div>
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<br /></div>
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In
this blog I did at least consider the possibility that, despite the predictions
of the opinion polls, one or other of the two main parties might achieve an
overall majority and manage to form an
effective government without seeking the support of any other party. I said that if that happened I could
confidently predict that the final outcome would not be as good as supporters
of the majority party were hoping, but was unlikely to be as awful as their
opponents feared. I still stand by the
first part of that prophecy – but am a little less confident of the second.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I
did correctly foretell the humiliating defeat of the Lib.Dems but really didn’t
expect Ukip to lose one of the two seats it held prior to the election, thus
making Douglas Carswell, our own MP for <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton-on-Sea</st1:place>,
the sole Ukipper in the House of Commons.
Ukip gained a lot of votes but they were spread fairly evenly over <st1:country-region w:st="on">England</st1:country-region>. As a result, our first-past-the-post
electoral system prevented those votes being translated into parliamentary
seats. It has been quite educational to
observe Mr Carswell’s sudden conversion to the idea of proportional
representation. I quite expected the SNP to triumph in <st1:place w:st="on">Scotland</st1:place> but was astonished by
their almost complete demolition of the previously dominant Labour Party there.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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Ed
Miliband’s defeat was, I think, at least partly due to the constant drip, drip,
drip of denigrating and scare headlines principally in the Sun, the Daily Mail
and the Daily Express, about his weakness as a leader and the probability that
he would be subjugated by <i>the wicked
witch from the north </i>(Nicola Sturgeon).
Several people interviewed after the tv debates said they were quite
surprised to discover that the Ed Miliband they had seen on tv didn’t match
those headlines.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
Sun is part of the Rupert Murdoch press empire, the Daily Mail is owned by Lord
Rothermere, and the Daily Express by Richard Leonard, who also owns the ‘adult’
tv channels <i>Television X </i>and <i>Red Hot TV </i> (No, I haven’t tried to access either of them
but their names suggest their nature).
Oh yes, and Richard Leonard has recently donated over a million pounds
to Ukip.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Do
you find it as extraordinary and shaming as I do that three very wealthy
individuals – a foreigner with no ties of loyalty to the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>, a
‘non-dom’, and a purveyor of soft porn, should own and control the means of
influencing the British electorate?</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
Conservative Government will have only a very small majority over all other
parties in the House of Commons. I don’t think they’ll find their task to be an
easy one, especially bearing in mind the fact that the opposition, with its
Scottish, Welsh and English MPs, is much more representative of all the people
of the still-united United Kingdom than the members of David Cameron’s
government.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">…….and the Green Party?</span></b></div>
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I
have never made any secret of the fact that I voted for the Green Party in the
General Election and am now a member of that Party. On the face of it they failed dismally. They gained not a single extra member in the
House of Commons.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Look
a little deeper though and it will be clear that they are a Party on the way
up, not down. Their candidates obtained
a total of over a million votes throughout the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>.
Remember too, that for every voter who puts a cross against the name of
a Green candidate there are probably at least two others who would be
supporters, but because they live in a strongly Tory or Labour area, or like me,
in the heart of Ukipland, imagine that a vote for the Greens is a wasted one. I knew perfectly well that Chris Howell the
Green Candidate in my area hadn’t a hope of being elected, but he did get twice
as many votes as he did in the by-election only a few months ago. Caroline Lucas, our one MP, retained her <st1:place w:st="on">Brighton</st1:place> seat in Parliament with a substantially
increased majority, and the Green candidate came second in four constituencies. The Green Party now has more actual <b><i>members
</i></b>than either the Lib.Dems. or Ukip. </div>
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No,
I don’t consider that my vote was a wasted one.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Some sage advice</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>Did
you see that some has-been Labour politicians have been commenting on Ed
Miliband’s lack of success in the election.
Some say that he should have made a greater effort to reach the ‘aspirational’
voter. Lord Mendelson (he’s an architect
of New Labour who has ‘no problem with billionaires!) says that Ed Miliband
took the Labour Party too far to the left.
Too far to the left! We’re talking
about the chap who apologised for Labour’s original opposition to ‘right to buy’,
who, if he had been elected would have carried on with austerity, and who
supported the renewal of the wildly expensive and utterly useless Trident
submarines!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Hasn’t
anyone noticed that Nicola Sturgeon’s Scottish National Party swept away New
Labour in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region> with policies
well to the left of anything that any Labour leader in <st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place> has ever dared to suggest?</div>
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<br />
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If
the electorate want Conservative policies, they’ll vote Conservative – not New
Labour!</div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-75443016010765818112015-04-30T19:23:00.001+01:002015-04-30T19:23:06.770+01:0030th April 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics…….on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Day of Reckoning</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>When
this blog is published the General Election will be only a few days away. It is possible that by the time I prepare
another blog we will know the composition of the next government. Do you remember the situation just before
last year’s Scottish referendum?
Scottish public opinion polls showed the YES and NO campaigns to be very
close. There was a distinct possibility that the YES vote would triumph. That, decided the leaders of the three main
political parties, had to be prevented at all costs. In a rare spirit of co-operation they
published a joint promise that if the NO
voters comprised a majority the Scots would be offered virtually everything
they asked for short of complete independence and the break-up of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:country-region>. And of course, the NO campaign was
successful.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I
think that we have reached a similar point in the General Election campaign.
Opinion polls show that the Labour and Conservative Parties are neck and neck
and the leaders are resorting to desperate measures to attract voters. David Cameron has promised that if a
Conservative Government is elected, there will be no increase in either the
standard or the higher rate of income tax, or in the rate of VAT, or in
National Insurance contributions (three principal sources of Government finance)
for the government’s period of office – the next five years. To make certain that that promise is honoured
the government will introduce a bill to Parliament giving that promise the force
of law. The only possible reason why a
government should introduce and support a law limiting its own powers must
surely be that top politicians now realize the electorate doesn’t believe a
word that any of them say. David
Cameron imagines that enshrining it in law will assure electors that that
particular promise <b><i>will </i></b>be kept. It still
may not be, of course. Parliament can
pass a law and parliament can repeal that same law if it wishes to do so. I have no doubt that if circumstances
demanded, the government would break that promise quickly enough, as it has
others. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
This
generosity of the government to those of us fortunate enough to be liable for
income tax will be funded by further cuts in government grants to local
authorities and to welfare and public services. David Cameron and George Osborne have so far
declined to tell us who will suffer. I
am always amused when David Cameron speaks of the wealthy having worked hard and
saved to acquire their millions for the purchase of their yachts, their British
football teams and their stately homes.
Can you imagine Russian oligarchs, made rich by President Yeltzin
generosity to his pals, carefully putting their roubles into a saving bank
until they had saved up enough to go to <st1:country-region w:st="on">England</st1:country-region> and buy a thoroughly
modernised castle and a professional football team? I reckon that most, if not all, of <st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place>’s
growing army of billionaires should put OBE (Other B………..s’ Efforts) after
their names.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
current big worry of English politicians is the intentions of the Scottish
Nationalist MPs. To their consternation
the SNP didn’t wither and die when they lost that famous referendum. On the contrary they grew in both membership
and supporters so that, although the Liberal Democrats are regarded as the
third ‘major party’ in <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>
politics, their place has in reality been taken by the SNP, despite the fact
that their appeal is only to one region of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:country-region>. Their former leader Alex Salmond is now
leader of the SNP members of the Westminster Parliament while his place as
Leader of the party has been taken by Nicola Sturgeon – in my opinion the most
articulate, confident and charismatic political leader in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:country-region>
today. </div>
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<br /></div>
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In
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region>
the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Ukippers barely have a foothold. It is expected that the SNP will take the
place of Labour in dominating the Scottish political scene. It is by no means impossible that there will
be sufficient SNP MPs elected to prop up a minority Labour Government. It’s a possibility that terrifies all the other party leaders
including Ed Miliband, who has repeatedly declared that he would not enter into
any kind of coalition or other voting pact with Alex Salmond and his merry men
– and women! A columnist in <i>The Sun </i>declared that a Labour pact with
the SNP would be the first step on the path to a Communist Dictatorship! Goodness,
I thought that I’d better check on what the SNP really does stand for - beyond independence
for <st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region>. I have always found the web’s Wikipedia a
very reliable source of information.
Here’s what they have to say about the SNP’s policies</div>
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<i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">The SNP's policy base is mostly in the
mainstream European<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_democracy" title="Social democracy"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">social
democratic</span></a></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></i></span><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">tradition.
Among its policies are commitments to<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage" title="Same-sex marriage"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">same-sex
marriage</span></a></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">,
reducing the<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_age" title="Voting age"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">voting
age</span></a></i><span class="apple-converted-space"><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></i></span><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">to
16,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unilateral_nuclear_disarmament" title="Unilateral nuclear disarmament"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">unilateral nuclear
disarmament</span></a></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">,</span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax" title="Progressive tax"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">progressive
personal taxation</span></a></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">, the
eradication of poverty, the building of affordable<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_housing" title="Social housing"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">social
housing</span></a></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">,
free<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higher_education_in_Scotland" title="Higher education in Scotland"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">higher education</span></a></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">, opposition to the building of new<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_plant" title="Nuclear power plant"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">nuclear power plants</span></a></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">, investment in<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy" title="Renewable energy"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">renewable
energy</span></a></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">, the
abolition of<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Passenger_Duty" title="Air Passenger Duty"><span style="background: white; color: #0b0080; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">Air Passenger Duty</span></a></i><i><span style="background: white; color: #252525; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;">, and a pay increase for nurses<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Apart from <i>‘same sex marriage and reducing the voting
age to 16’ (</i>public opinion has changed a great deal in the past seventy
years!) those are much the same policies that I, and thousands of other
ex-servicemen returning from World War II, thought we were voting for when we
rejected the Conservatives and elected the Attlee Government in 1945. I find it quite refreshing that the Scots
have retained – or perhaps rediscovered – the idealism of the old Labour
Party. There’s certainly no sign of a
communist dictatorship there. I think
that an alliance between the SNP and Labour would do nothing but good.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Much more
sinister and – sadly – I think rather more likely, is the possibility of an
alliance between the Conservative Party and UKIP to form a coalition government
of Tories and Ukippers. A great many
well-to-the-right-of-the-party Conservative MPs are crypto-Ukippers and have
refrained from taking the same path as <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton</st1:place>’s
turn-coat MP Douglas Carswell either from loyalty or after weighing up where
their personal advantage lay. I think
that they would find Nigel Farage a much more charismatic and confident leader
than David Cameron, and that it wouldn’t be long before the two parties merged
with Farage on top! Then I think we
really would be on the way to a right-wing dictatorship, supported
ideologically by the Murdoch press and financially by reactionary Republican
supporters from across the <st1:place w:st="on">Atlantic</st1:place>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Possibly all
this speculation about coalitions is pointless and either the Conservatives or
Labour will get an overall majority of MPs.
I do urge every blog reader with a vote to use it on Thursday. If you
are fed up with both the Tories and the Labourites – remember that UKIP is not the only, or the
best, alternative. There is, I think, a
Green Candidate in every constituency!</div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-9541777680374355122015-04-26T14:59:00.001+01:002015-04-27T07:34:14.870+01:0026th April 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics………on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Humankind’s Priorities</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>The
appalling earthquake in <st1:place w:st="on">Nepal</st1:place>
reminds us of the potential destructive power of nature. In a few minutes thousands of human lives
were lost and hundreds of buildings flattened.
The power of the quake shook houses and caused panic in <st1:city w:st="on">Calcutta</st1:city> hundreds of miles away. It also shook Everest the world’s highest
mountain causing avalanches that cost yet more human lives.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In
Western Europe, including the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United
Kingdom</st1:country-region>, we may feel free of danger from
earthquakes but the warnings of the world’s scientists about the effects of
global warming are becoming more and more urgent. Instead of recognising that climate change is
largely the result of mankind’s misuse of the bounties of nature we blindly
continue draining existent oilfields and finding new ones. Now ‘market forces’
demand that we. turn ‘<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><i>England</i></st1:country-region></st1:place><i>’s</i> <i>green
and pleasant land’</i> into an industrial wilderness by fracking for oil and
gas in subterranean beds of shale. We
have been warned that governments should take immediate action to seek out and
develop sustainable and non-polluting sources of energy – the use of wind, sun,
the waves and the tides – and phase out the use of fossil fuels. The evidence of the effects of global warming
are all around us - unprecedented
typhoons and hurricanes, floods, bush fires, droughts and periods of unseasonal
extreme weather conditions. The arctic
ice is thawing every year, the glaciers are retreating and the world is facing
climatic catastrophe. The general election
is now less than a fortnight away.
No-one would have guessed from the televised debates between the
political party leaders that our country (and the world) is threatened by the
inexorable and accelerating progress of climatic change. Most are much too busy scoring political
points against their political opponents, and earning the votes of the gullible,
by making impossible promises that will turn out to be no more than
aspirations. David Cameron, Ed Miliband
and Nick Clegg all accept the reality of global warming and its consequences –
but all are prepared to ignore the warnings, at least until after the election,
because ‘<i>there are no votes to be
obtained by banging on about climate change’.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> </i>Nigel Farage is at
least honest in his intentions. Denying
the warnings of the world’s scientists, he doesn’t believe in the reality of
global warming or – if it is taking place – that it is anything to do with
human activity. He’d drag the last
barrel of oil and cubic foot of gas out of existing wells and encourage the
frackers. He’d withdraw financial support from wind and solar farms. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The only
party leader who has tried to highlight the real and urgent problems arising
from an over-exploited natural world is Natalie Bennett, Leader of the Green
Party. Below you’ll see a copy of an
email that I have received from her that sets out her, and the Green Party’s
priorities. If you believe that The
Greens are fighting for a cause in which you believe, don’t be persuaded that ‘<i>a vote for the Greens is a vote wasted’ </i> If everyone had said that about the fledgling
Labour Party at the beginning of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, Labour would not
now be competing with the Conservatives for power<b>. ‘<i>This above all, to thine own self be true’</i></b><em><b><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;">.</span></b></em><em><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></em><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;"></span><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br />
</span><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10.5pt; text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10.5pt; text-align: justify;"><i>Hello Ernest,</i></span></div>
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<i><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;">
<br />
This year the most important climate talks in history will take place in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Paris</st1:city></st1:place>.<br />
<br />
Leaders from around the world will come together to decide the world’s course
of action in addressing the most important issue of modern times.<br />
<br />
</span><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10.5pt;"></span><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Yet, despite the looming th</span><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;">reat of a climate crisis, during this
election you could be forgiven for thinking that the threat had lifted.<br />
<br />
The truth is, politicians from the other parties simply aren’t speaking about
climate change. In fact I was the only party leader to raise the topic during
the three and a half hours of Leaders debates.<br />
<br />
You and I know both know that the science is unequivocal – fortunately we have
the plan to tackle the crisis.<br />
<br />
The Green Party is the only party calling for the urgent action required and at
the heart of our pledge to protect the environment is our conviction that we
must also reconfigure our world to work better for people.<br />
<br />
We will cut public transport fares – because everyone should be able to afford
to get to where they want to go – and because the air pollution caused by cars
is a crisis that must be tackled.<br />
<br />
We will invest in home insulation – because no one should fear family members
getting ill or even dying from the cold – and because we want to cut carbon
emissions.<br />
<br />
We will generate 80% of our energy from renewable sources by 2030 – because we
know we must leave four-fifths of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground.<br />
<br />
We are using three times as many resources as our planet can sustain - we must
change course, and we can.<br />
<br />
I, like you, want to leave a better future for our children. I want the next
generation to look back on what we did at this time and think ‘my
parents’ generation did something to protect our world’. I want them to be
proud of us. <br />
<br />
To keep climate change on the agenda and to continue our fight for social
justice we must elect more Green MPs.<br />
<br />
We can do this if we have a strong Green voice in parliament - but we need your
help now more than ever with a Green vote on May 7th.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;"><i><br />
Thank you,<br />
<br />
<strong>Natalie Bennett</strong><br />
<strong>Leader, Green Party of <st1:country-region w:st="on">England</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Wales</st1:country-region></st1:place><o:p></o:p></strong></i></span></div>
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<strong><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;"><i> </i><o:p></o:p></span></strong></div>
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<span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'; font-size: 10.5pt;">Well,
I’m a postal voter and have already posted off my vote for Chris Howell, <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton</st1:place>’s Green Party Candidate. I hope that at least some regular readers of
this blog will also vote Green!</span><span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br />
<!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--><br />
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<span style="color: #403e3a; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 10.5pt;">
Ernest Hall<br />
<br />
</span> </div>
Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-88805739794218999082015-04-21T10:00:00.001+01:002015-04-21T14:37:16.237+01:0021st April 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics……..on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">I’m not alone!</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I
had begun to think that I was a solitary voice crying in the wilderness in my
dislike of ‘right to buy' and, if the Conservatives win the general election,
its progression from the tenants of local authorities to those of Housing
Associations. However I was pleased to
read in the <i>Church Times </i>that<i> </i>Dr. David Walker, Bishop of Manchester,
has condemned it as making <i>economic
nonsense </i>and being morally indefensible.
David Orr, Chief Executive
Officer of the National Housing Federation also describes the extension of
‘right to buy’ to tenants of Housing Associations as fundamentally the wrong
answer to our country’s housing problems since it involves the transfer of
large sums of money to private individuals who are already some of the best and
most cheaply housed people in the country.
Furthermore, he says that it is completely unfair to the tens of
thousands of tenants of private landlords who haven’t the remotest possible of
ever becoming home owners. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
With
the general election coming ever nearer I might be asked, and I have indeed
asked myself, why – since I am so strongly opposed to the present coalition
government – I don’t wholeheartedly support the Labour Party, which is the only
political force with a realistic possibility of replacing them.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
reason is that there are a few political objectives about which I feel
strongly. My support, little and feeble
as it may be, goes to any party that shares those objectives.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>I believe very strongly that the enormous
gap between the incomes of the very wealthiest and the poorest in our country
is scandalous – the largest in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> and one
of the largest in the developed world.
Its narrowing should be a government priority.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> </i>During the decade
of Labour rule that gap widened and Ed Miliband’s Labour Party has no plans to
use income tax, or any other effective means, to narrow it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Compelling local authorities and/or Housing
Associations to sell dwellings to sitting tenants at discounted prices is a
betrayal of earlier and wiser generations who provided those homes for letting
to eliminate homelessness, overcrowding and sub-standard housing. ‘Right to buy’ should be repealed as a major
cause of our present housing crisis.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> </i>New Labour failed
to repeal ‘right to buy’ when it had the opportunity to do so and Ed Miliband
has actually apologised for the Labour Party’s earlier opposition to its
introduction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>The possession of weapons of mass
destruction, particularly nuclear weapons, does not protect our country from
attack any more than carrying a knife protects an individual. It might encourage any ill-disposed country,
or terrorist group, possessing similar weapons to use them against us before we
had a chance to use ours. The threat of using nuclear weapons is only effective
if we are in fact prepared to use them.
If we ever did so we would be guilty of mass murder and possibly
responsible for a chain of events that could result in the extinction of the
human race. We should cease our reliance
on nuclear weapons as an ‘ultimate deterrent’ and disarm our Trident Nuclear
Submarine fleet. Reliance on Nuclear
Defence has been rightly described as Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>Meanwhile, the coalition government has run
down our regular army which can be used for genuine ‘defence’ as distinct from
acts of vengeance, for peacekeeping, and for replacing ‘outsourced’ private
enterprises, when they fail to fulfil the public services for which they have
been contracted. Where would we have
been had the army not been available to replace the firm that had contracted to
provide security for the Olympics and had failed to do so?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
David Cameron
has announced that a future Conservative Government would replace the existing
ageing Trident Submarine fleet with four new state-of-the-art nuclear
submarines costing billions of pounds.
Ed Miliband has been at pains to assure the electorate that he would not
oppose this.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>I believe that a responsible government
needs to carry out a thorough review of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>’s
foreign policy, beginning with referendums on our membership of NATO and our
‘special relationship’ with the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>. These have resulted in our blindly following
the American lead into the illegal invasion of Iraq (into which we were led by
deliberate lies about Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and its complicity
with the outrage of ‘9/11’) and the unwinnable war in Afghanistan, despite our
experience of failure in similar wars in that country in the 19<sup>th</sup>
century! We have not had reciprocal
support from the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>, particularly
in the recovery of the Falklands from invasion by <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Argentina</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>More recently, while our EU partners are
struggling with the Kiev government, the Russian government and the Ukrainian
rebels to secure a lasting peace in Ukraine, our coalition government has given,
and is giving, military support to the Kiev government – a government that has
lied repeatedly to obtain NATO support, has ruthlessly shelled its own people,
and has driven over a million Ukrainians into seeking refuge in Russia.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It might have
been expected that UKIP, claiming to be fighting for the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>’s independence, would have agreed with my
ideas for a radical revision of <st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place>’s
foreign policy.. It seems though that
they’re happy enough having our foreign and defence policies dictated by
foreigners from across the <st1:place w:st="on">Atlantic</st1:place>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I have never trusted Nigel Farage whose
meteoric rise to fame reminds me too much of Adolf Hitler’s rise in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> in the
late 1920s and early ‘30s. I hadn’t
realized though until the election campaigns got into their stride that he was
campaigning under false colours. Ukip,
under Nigel Farage, isn’t battling for UK Independence. He and his disciples just want to sever our
connection with Europe to which we are linked by geography, history and culture, and to the European Union in which <st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place> has an equal and
influential voice.. If they were honest
they’d just describe themselves as Europhobes.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>Finally, and perhaps most important of all,
I’d like the new government to accept the need for early and decisive action to
combat and alleviate the effects of the global climate change that is taking
place before our eyes. Already we have seen unprecedented drought and bush
fires in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Australia</st1:country-region> and parts
of the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
There has also been severe coastal flooding in parts of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> and a period of unseasonably arctic
conditions extending from <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region>
almost as far as <st1:state w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Florida</st1:place></st1:state>. Island nations in the Pacific, and parts of
the Indian subcontinent have been threatened with extinction. Even in the equable
<st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region> there are many households
still suffering from the effects of last year’s floods in <st1:city w:st="on">Somerset</st1:city>
and in the <st1:place w:st="on">Thames</st1:place> valley.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Nigel Farage
denies that unprecedented climate change is taking place or – if it is - that
human activity has any responsibility for causing it. Given the opportunity he’d stop all
government financial support for wind farms and solar farms. He’d encourage the extraction of every last
ton of coal from British coalfields and the last barrel of oil from our inland
and off-shore oil reserves. He’d tear up
the British countryside by ‘fracking’ gas or oil from the beds of shale deep
below our feet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The other
party leaders have more respect for the urgent warnings of scientists
world-wide and for the need to take urgent action in the face of otherwise
inevitable catastrophe. Both David
Cameron and Ed Miliband, on one or other of whom prompt action surely depends,
are aware of this. Both are fully
determined to take resolute action…….but not just yet. Only in the Green Party’s election literature
has the threat of climate change featured prominently. Only the Green Party shares the concerns
that are important to me. In <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton</st1:place>’s
by-election I voted tactically for the Conservative Candidate because I thought
he had the best chance of defeating the turn-coat former Conservative now
Ukipper, Douglas Carswell, who was in fact elected. For the General Election I shall follow the
advice that I quoted in this blog a week or so ago, given by Polonius to his
son Laertes in Shakespeare’s play <i>Hamlet,
‘This above all, to thine own self be true and it must follow, as the night the
day, thou canst not then be false to any
man’.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I shall vote
for <st1:personname w:st="on">Chris Southall</st1:personname>, the Green
candidate. He is a local man, living
with his family in Burrs Road He is a trained engineer and has been
self-employed for most of his life, working as a potter, computer engineer,
drummer and with people with special needs.
He has been both a school governor and a parish councillor. Chris practises what he preaches. He and his family live in an ‘Eco house’ with
a Permaculture Land Centre that is sometimes open to the public. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
He may be
unlikely to win the election but a vote for him is <b><i>not </i></b>a vote wasted. My vote, together with those of
all who vote Green at the General Election, will give national politicians an
idea of the growing number of folk in the UK who care passionately about world
peace, fairness and justice, and the future of the world in which we live.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Voting
for the whole of Tendring District Council will take place on the same day as
the General Election. In my (<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Alton</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Park</st1:placetype></st1:place>)
ward I have a choice between two Labour and Co-op, two Conservative, and two
UKIP candidates. I shall vote for the Labour
and Co-op hopefuls, more in the hope of keeping the Ukippers and the Tories out
than of getting those for whom I am voting in!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-28645568852349839532015-04-16T19:01:00.001+01:002015-04-21T07:55:13.749+01:0018th April, 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics……on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Buying Votes…….with other people’s
money!<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>That’s
how I described the ‘Right to Buy’ legislation introduced by then Prime
Minister Margaret Thatcher in the ‘avaricious 1980s’. ‘Compel to sell’ legislation might have been
a more appropriate name for it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
For
almost a century prior to the advent of Thatcherism, local authorities
throughout the UK had built council houses to let, in order to combat
homelessness and overcrowding in their areas and to rehouse families from
individual unfit houses and properties in ‘clearance areas’ that were to be
demolished. They allocated tenancies
according to housing need, without paying particular attention to whether
housing applicants were poor or comfortably off. I think that, on the whole, they were successful. Slowly but surely, slums were demolished, overcrowding
eradicated and substandard houses improved or demolished and replaced. I know
that in the years before local government reorganisation in 1974, while I was
Clacton-on-Sea’s Housing Manager, no-one was forced to ‘sleep rough’, under the
Pier of instance, for want of a roof over their head; nor did we have to resort
to providing bed-and-breakfast accommodation for homeless families. The Council had a modest annual house
building programme and this, together with casual vacancies resulting from a
death or a tenant moving away, prevented even temporary homelessness. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
All
that was changed by ‘right to buy’.
Local authorities were compelled to sell homes to sitting tenants at bargain
basement prices. Many of the better off
(and least troublesome) tenants took advantage of the legislation and bought
their council provided homes. Some of
them took advantage and sold them on directly they were able to do so. Some of those houses were bought by
speculators and again let – but this time at a much higher ‘market dictated’
rent. Councils were told not to let
homes to people who could afford to buy or rent privately. Tenants could not expect a home for life –
tenancies were for a short fixed period, and were not renewed if the
circumstances of the tenant had changed.
The government made clear that ‘social housing’ should be a temporary
provision for the poor or, as Mrs Thatcher preferred to put it breathily, ‘<i>for the genuinely needy’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Inevitably
Council Estates deteriorated. Tenants had no incentive to tend their gardens,
redecorate their rooms or take any pride in their homes. Former tenants who had bought their homes
sold them directly they were able to do so, taking advantage of accelerating
house price inflation, and moved on to a better area. Councils no longer had any incentive to
build homes that they knew would have to be sold on ‘on the cheap’ after a few
years. Nationwide demand for homes
vastly outstripped supply. Inevitably both rents and house prices rocketed and
the housing situation that we have today developed. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Those
extra votes that ‘right to buy’ undoubtedly won were very dearly bought indeed. But extra votes, from former tenants who had
bought their homes ‘on the cheap’ at their Council’s expense, they certainly <b><i>did</i></b>
buy.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Now,
with the general election only weeks away, the opinion polls indicating that
the Conservatives and Labour are neck-to-neck, the Lib.Dems. nowhere in the
polls, and Ukip and the Greens threatening both the main parties, the
Conservatives are hoping that they can pull off the same trick a second time.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Local
authorities were not the only providers of ‘social housing’. Housing Associations also housed thousands of
folk who couldn’t aspire to home purchase (I say ‘home purchase’ rather than
‘home ownership’ because, as many home purchasers have discovered, no-one
becomes a <i>home owner </i>until he or she
has paid off the final instalment of the mortgage loan) Prior to ‘right to buy’, Housing
Associations provided a much smaller proportion of social housing than local
authorities. However during its decade
of power New Labour did nothing to repeal the pernicious ‘right to buy’
legislation and Ed Miliband actually apologised for the fact that his party had
opposed it! Consequently Housing
Associations have provided a steadily increasing proportion of the UKs social
housing.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Evidently
hoping that his proposal will buy as many votes as Margaret Thatcher’s did back
in the ‘80s David Cameron has promised
that, if the Conservatives form the next government, tenants of Housing
Associations will enjoy the same ‘right to buy’ as council tenants. The government’s costs will be recovered by compelling local authorities
to sell off their most expensive housing when it becomes vacant and thereby, so
they believe, raising £4.5 billion a
year. (This is, of course, the same
government that claims to believe in loosening the power of the state and
putting local matters in the hands of <i>local
</i>people!)</div>
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<br /></div>
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Will
it work for a second time? Will this
ploy be as successful in buying votes as Margaret Thatcher’s was in the
1980s? Possibly not; prior to the 1980s
central government did not dictate housing allocation policy to local
authorities. Many –perhaps most –
authorities allocated tenancies on the basis of need for accommodation. The applicants’ financial circumstances were
a minor consideration. Certainly neither of the authorities for which I worked
as Housing Manager in the 1950s, ‘60s and early ‘70s barred any applicant on
the grounds that they could have found private rented accommodation or could
have bought their own house.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Consequently
when Margaret Thatcher offered all council house tenants the ‘right to buy’
their home with a substantial discount on the actual value, there were hundreds
of council tenants eager and able to become home buyers and take on the
responsibilities, as well as the
privileges of ownership. That was a
long time ago. Since then social housing
has been allocated only to unemployed or low waged people with few resources
and often large families. A great many
of them wouldn’t be able, or wouldn’t wish, to take on the responsibilities of
home ownership no matter how large a discount they were offered. I
doubt if many will respond positively.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Anyway
if they’re wise they’ll remember that it will only happen if the Conservatives
win an overall majority in the general election. If I were a Housing Association tenant I
wouldn’t be getting too excited about the prospect of home ownership just yet. I wonder if David Cameron has ever thought of
extending the ‘right to buy’ to tenants of privately owned properties? Probably not; private landlords are almost
certainly Conservative Party supporters.</div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Is ‘Ironic Fate’ waiting in the wings?</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>I
once had a colleague with a firm faith in what he called ‘Ironic Fate’ (or I.F.
for short) I.F. was continually on the look-out for
humans who took the future for granted, and handed out an appropriate
punishment. He believed that the fate of
the <i>Titanic </i>was sealed when the
Captain declared that <i>‘God himself
couldn’t sink this ship’</i>. Hitler
did the same thing by promising Germans<i>
‘a thousand year Reich’. </i>My colleague took this conviction to
extremes. He would never, for instance,
put up the new office calendar on 31<sup>st</sup> December, because that would
have been taking for granted that we’d survive into the New Year. <i><o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I don’t
personally believe in an ironic fate waiting to catch us out but<i> </i>I have thought a lot about I.F. or
Nemesis as the election campaign gathers pace.
There are all these politicians making firm commitments for the future. One promises umpteen million pounds for the NHS, or for Education,
or for affordable homes. Another says
that there’s no way, except by taxation, borrowing or even more savage cuts
than we have already experienced, that
that promise can be realized. One
politician is going to give us four brand-new state-of-the-art nuclear
submarines (just what you've always wanted?), another a new airport for <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>,
yet another a north/south rail link.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Is it just
possible that, perhaps while the election results are still being evaluated,
nature will demonstrate its supremacy over all things human and mortal with
another tsunami, this one closer to home, a burning all-consuming drought like
those recently experienced in Australia, a gale of the strength of the typhoon
that recently devastated an island nation in the Pacific, or extreme weather
such as they have experienced recently in the USA and elsewhere.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
All the party
leaders (except perhaps Nigel Farage) accept that climatic change is taking
place and that human activity is its principal cause. They all, again with the exception of Nigel
Farage, accept that urgent action is needed – but, as far as they are
concerned, not just yet. They’ll oversee
the extraction of the last barrel of oil from bowels of the earth and ruin the
countryside by ‘Fracking’ for shale gas, before they take serious steps to find
and develop renewable and clean sources of energy, and put combating climate
change as the very first item on their manifestos.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I wonder if,
when climatic catastrophe strikes, anyone of them will think. <i>‘That’s exactly what that Green woman, the one with an Aussie accent, what was her name, warned us about during the election campaign – but at that time we all
had much more important things on our minds.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>. </i> </div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-73320699945420871812015-04-11T10:21:00.003+01:002015-04-26T15:00:04.039+01:0011th April 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics……..on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: large;">Oh to be a Non.Dom – in a new Financial Year!</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>After
I took early retirement from Tendring Council’s service in 1980 I earned a
considerable income from freelance writing.
I wrote and had published five commercially successful books on domestic hot and cold water supply and drainage. I wrote the plumbing section of a number of
d-i-y manuals including the ‘Readers Digest Householders’ Manual’. I wrote and sold dozens of feature articles
to magazines and periodicals on domestic hot water supply and drainage, on
local government, on camping and caravanning in the UK and mainland Europe and
on any other subject about which I had at least some knowledge and
experience. For several years I wrote
Advertising Features for Essex County Newspapers, and for ‘<i>Look East,’</i> a publication promoting commerce and industry in <st1:place w:st="on">East Anglia</st1:place>.
I also wrote a weekly column, ‘<i>Tendring Topics’ </i>for the <i>Coastal Express’ </i>for twenty-three years.<i> </i> </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Some of this work was for overseas
publishers. I remember writing about
Dedham’s and Harwich’s association with the USA and about the historic village
of Bosham near Chichester, one-time home of both King Canute and the ill-fated King
Harold killed at the Battle of Hastings, for a magazine for retired citizens of
New England. I had a lucrative
arrangement with an Australian publisher who sought permission to print
articles of mine that had already appeared in <i>Do-it-Yourself</i> Magazine in <st1:country-region w:st="on">England</st1:country-region>. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I declared every
penny I earned, including those from overseas, to Inland Revenue and I claimed
reasonable expenses. I paid quite a lot
(by my standards) of income tax each year.
I didn’t complain. I enjoyed what
I was doing and the tax was only a fraction of my income.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I would have
been a lot less happy had I realized that there was a privileged minority of
very wealthy people who paid no income tax on money that they received from
overseas. They were the ‘non-doms’ whose
‘domicile’ was said to be elsewhere than in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>.
It seems that ‘non-dom’ status can be inherited and that having a clever
lawyer is much more important than where you or your parents actually live or
may sometime have lived.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Now it’s one
of the issues that may affect voting in the general election. Ed Miliband says that if he becomes Prime
Minister his government will abolish ‘non-dom’ status altogether. Apparently though the shadow chancellor has
said that to do so would bring in very little extra revenue, and Ed Miliband’s
political opponents claim that it would lead to all these wealthy and talented
‘non-doms’ leaving the country and domiciling themselves elsewhere.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It is a sad
reflection on the zeitgeist of our wonderful ‘free market’ society that
discussion about ‘non-dom’ status has been solely concerned with whether or not
the Treasury would benefit from its abolition.
I have heard no-one say that it is clearly wrong for a privileged
minority of very wealthy individuals to be exempt from taxation to which
ordinary ‘hard-working tax-payers’ (about whom David Cameron claims to be so
concerned) are subject. Morality, it
seems, has nothing to do with it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><st1:country-region w:st="on"><b>United
Kingdom</b></st1:country-region><b> <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Independence</st1:city></st1:place>………but
from whom?<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It is always
interesting to hear what Nigel Farage has to say about any subject other than
the European Union. Recently he was
discussing Britain’s defence policy and I was just a little surprised to hear
him say that he was all for our spending two percent of our national wealth on
‘defence’, as requested by NATO. It was
the <i>as requested by NATO </i>that astonished
me. Mr Farage believes that the
government should comply with ‘the will of the people’. He’d like to see an immediate in/out
referendum on the EU because he is quite sure that the <i>Outs </i>would win. He’s certain
that the British people don’t want to be ruled by ‘foreigners’.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
He could be wrong
about that but, in any case membership of the EU is one of the few matters about
which the British electorate has been consulted in a referendum. Surely there are several matters of national importance
about which we have <i>never </i>been
consulted. One of them is membership of
NATO and another, closely related, is our ‘special relationship’ with the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>. I’d have thought Nigel would be demanding a
referendum on these subjects before demanding yet another on EU membership. Doesn’t NATO consist almost wholly of
‘foreigners’ and isn’t the special relationship a little one-sided? </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
We blindly
followed the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> into the
invasion of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region>, and the
USA and NATO into an unwinnable conflict in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Afghanistan</st1:country-region>. The <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>
entered World War II against the Nazis only when Hitler declared war on the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> in accordance with Nazi Germany’s treaty
with <st1:country-region w:st="on">Japan</st1:country-region>.
We’ll never know if the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> would have engaged in war in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> had he not done so. I think it at least possible that the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> would have
decided that <i>their </i>war was against
the Japanese and in the Pacific. They’d
have thought about Hitler only after they had defeated the Japanese.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
We do know
that the USA gave us no support when the Falklands was invaded by Argentina,
and actually led an armed and unprovoked invasion of Grenada (the island in the
Caribbean, not the town in Spain!) then part of the Commonwealth, in order to
force a regime change.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Nigel Farage
is righteously indignant about the cost of our membership of the EU. Perhaps the BBC’s Radio 4 ‘<i>More or Less’ </i>team could discover if our membership of NATO and the
Special Relationship have cost us more in cash than our membership of the
EU. Without a shadow of doubt our
participation in those two USA-led ‘colonial wars’ in the Middle East have cost
us much more in dead and wounded!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
All of this
simply confirms in my own mind that Farage has no objection to British foreign
and defence policy being dictated from the other side of the Atlantic but he
dislikes our co-operating with our European cousins and developing into a
federal super-power able to co-operate (or compete) on equal terms with the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>, the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russian
Federation</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on">China</st1:place>.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><o:p> </o:p><b>The Fruits of Desperation</b></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Do
you remember how the coalition government, supported in this instance by New
Labour, offered concession after concession short of complete independence, to
the Scottish nationalists in a successful attempt to secure a majority NO vote
in the recent referendum? Desperate
measures were needed because opinion polls suggested that the YES voters might
be successful. It was a tactic that
they may now be regretting. A number of
English towns and regions are demanding autonomy comparable with that of the
Scots. At the same time it seems likely
that SNP candidates will triumph in the forthcoming General Election and, since
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region> remains part of the
<st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place>,
may prevent the Conservatives forming a government with a comfortable majority
in the House of Commons.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
leaders of the main political parties are now taking desperate measures to
gain, or retain, a few votes. I
mentioned David Cameron’s promise to would-be home buyers of thousands of homes
‘on the cheap’ a blog or so ago. They’ll
be cheap because the developers won’t be required to build any ‘social housing’
or contribute to the provision of public services in the area. Now there’s the idea of lending would-be
tenants the few weeks rent-in-advance that nowadays landlords demand. It’ll certainly add to the burden of debt
that most people have to carry these days.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There’s
a promise to freeze rail-fares (though a BBC analyst says that it’ll actually
mean a fare rise!), to pay large firms and public authorities to allow some of
their employees a few days off to do voluntary work, to make more
apprenticeships and so on, and on, and on!
They make wild promises about what they’ll do – but they’re even better
at rubbishing the claims of their opponents.
The SNP threatens to rob the Labour Party of what were once ‘safe
parliamentary seats’ in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region>. So ED Miliband has toured Scotland today telling electors that the SNP’s proposed
programme can only be carried out by raising taxes and making even deeper
austerity cuts than the Tories have. Mind you, Ed Miliband has recently been at
the receiving end of just such a ‘rubbish your opponent’ campaign. It’s a bit complicated and depends on lots of
‘mights’, but I’ll do my best to explain.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It
is just possible that Labour <b>might</b>
win enough seats in the election to have more parliamentary seats than any
other party, but not have an overall majority.
It is also just possible that the SNP <b>might</b> gain enough seats to make up an overall majority and <b>might</b> be prepared to support a minority
Labour government. They would obviously
expect a quid pro quo for this – and it is possible that the price they <b>might</b> demand for that support <b>might </b>be that the Labour
Government does not renew the Trident Nuclear submarine fleet with its ‘ultimate
independent nuclear deterrent’. If they
did so then Ed. Miliband, in order to become Prime Minister, <b>might </b>accept that condition. According to the Conservative Defence Minister
he has already<i> ‘stabbed his brother in the back’ </i>to become leader of the Labour
Party so he’d have no hesitation in<i> ‘stabbing his country in the back’ </i>to
become Prime Minister.. David Cameron says
he supports his Defence Minister in this assertion and proudly announces that <i>only </i>the Conservative Party will present
the electorate with four brand-new state-of-the-art Trident submarines. Goodness, is that a threat or a promise? It's certainly as good a reason as I know
for <b><i>not
</i></b>voting Conservative.</div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-63350556719040041202015-04-05T06:11:00.000+01:002015-04-05T06:11:13.003+01:005th April 2015 (Easter Day!)<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Tendring Topics…….on line<o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<b><br /></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>The Voices of the People?</b></span><span style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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I
am interested in politics. That’s why they’re a recurring topic in this
blog. But I’m not really interested in
politicians’ speeches, and in interviews with politicians. They’re all too often a masterly
demonstration of how to avoid giving a straight answer to a straight question; ‘<i>What we should really be asking ourselves
is…………………’ </i>and so on! Then again what, at the time, seemed to be a firm
promise turns out to have been no more than an ‘aspiration’. I’m much more interested in what they do than
in what they say!</div>
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Even
as recently as a week ago if someone had told me that for two whole hours I
would listen to politicians arguing with each other on tv, I’d have thought
they must have confused me with someone else.
Yet that’s precisely what happened during the evening of Maundy
Thursday, 2<sup>nd</sup> April. A debate
took place on ITV between seven prominent politicians, each the leader of a political
party with candidates in the General Election on 7<sup>th</sup> May. There was David Cameron, Conservative; Ed
Miliband, Labour: Nick Clegg, Liberal; Nigel Farage, UKIP; Natalie Bennett,
Green Party; Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish National Party; and Leanne Wood, Welsh
National Party.</div>
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I
started to watch when the debate began at 8.00 pm, telling myself that I could
always turn it off or switch to another channel if it became really
boring. But it didn’t and I watched till
the end at 10.00 p.m. Mind you I was sitting in a very comfortable armchair
with a generous double-scotch (well watered down!) at hand. I really think that
the ITV authorities who organised the event, and the presenter, who kept the
participants in order, deserve to be congratulated. It could have developed into disorganised
pandemonium and threatened to do so on a couple of occasions. However the presenter was polite but firm and
order prevailed.</div>
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I suspect that watchers heard what they wanted
to hear from the debate. The headlines
of at least one newspaper reported that David Cameron had clearly triumphed,
while an immediate post-debate opinion poll commissioned by another newspaper
indicated victory for Ed Miliband.
Personally, I thought that Cameron and Miliband trotted out all the
predictable arguments that we have heard from them before. Nick Clegg remains confident that Lib.Dems.
will help either Labour or Conservatives to form a government and will steer
that government’s actions towards the ‘middle ground’. He could, of course, be right – but I doubt
it. Nick Clegg also took pride in the
fact that the coalition government had raised the threshold of liability for
income tax thereby, so he claimed, lifting thousands of people ‘out of the tax
system altogether’. That is simply
untrue. It has raised them out of the
‘income tax’ system but they still pay the indirect taxes and customs duties
like VAT and duties on petrol, alcohol and tobacco that Conservatives much
prefer. It also perpetuates the myth
that there is an under-class of non-taxpayers supported by tax-payers who have lifted
themselves out of poverty by hard work and thrift. I wonder how many of <st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place>’s thriving billionaires
acquired their millions by their own ‘hard work and thrift’? </div>
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Nigel
Farage was his usual obnoxious self, pouring scorn on the EU and suggesting
that ‘Health Tourism’ is a serious problem and that a majority of folk
diagnosed as HIV positive were immigrants.
Nick Clegg pointed out that not all foreigners in this country were
malign. Both he, <i>and Nigel Farage, </i>were married to ‘foreigners’! Farage also claimed that all the other
parties represented at the debate were the same, since they all supported EU
membership. Only Ukip, he claimed, represented the will of the British
people. I continue to see in Nigel
Farage’s progress parallels with the early political career of Adolf Hitler in
the late ‘20s and early ‘30s. He too
assured a disillusioned-with-politicians electorate that his Party (the NSDAP
or Nazis) was ‘different’ – and so it was! </div>
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I
was impressed with the three women representing the Green Party, the SNP and
the Welsh Nationalists but am quite ready to concede that my judgement is
largely founded on the fact that the policies they promoted are the ones that I
believe are needed today. The most
impressive, confident and articulate was Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the
Scottish National Party. She was the
only debater who had the courage to refer to the UKs folly in its insistence on
possession of nuclear weapons. ‘<i>The scarce resources of our country should
be invested in the future of our children, not on new nuclear weapons’.</i> A comment on ‘I’ daily newspaper says that
she gave an impressive performance and that ‘<i>it is possible that some English voters watching might have been
tempted to switch from Labour to SNP if the Party was standing outside
Scotland’. </i>I remarked in this blog a few weeks ago that Ms. Sturgeon was a
worthy successor of Alex Salmond. She
certainly is! It is a pity that those three women party leaders with so much in
common, didn’t get together to agree who was to say what at the debate! Leanne
Wood (Welsh Nationalist) and Natalie Bennett (Green Party) covered much the
same ground as Nicola Sturgeon but less confidently and forcefully. I’d have liked to have heard from Natalie
Bennett rather more about the Green Party’s environmental policies – the
importance of combating the effects of climate change world-wide; of finding
and developing clean and renewable
sources of energy, and of urgently reducing our dependence on fossil fuels; and, of course, of the utter folly of
encouraging ‘fracking’. </div>
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Voting
in the General Election will be taking place the day before the 70<sup>th</sup>
anniversary of VE Day, the day on which in Europe World War II ended. It comes as something of a shock to me to
realize that you really have to be at least eightyish to remember anything at all
about World War II, six years that were such an important part of my life.. On that fateful day in 1945 I was with a
group of British prisoners of war being marched south-westward into <st1:country-region w:st="on">Czechoslovakia</st1:country-region>,
away from the inexorably approaching battle front. Half-way through the morning our guards
announced that they had heard on the radio that the war was over, and left us
to our own devices. We thereupon
liberated ourselves – though with grateful thanks to the Soviet Red Army. I walked through the front door of my home in
<st1:place w:st="on">Ipswich</st1:place> just ten days later – on 18<sup>th</sup>
May, which happened to be my 24<sup>th</sup> birthday!</div>
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I
little thought on that day that seventy years later the world would be
threatened by climate change; that Christians would be massacred in parts of
Africa and the Middle East for no other reason than that they <b>were </b>Christian; that the Christian
faith was in danger of being eradicated from the region that saw its birth; and
that the world’s rulers believed that nuclear weapons, whose use could erase
humanity, were needed to maintain a precarious world peace. </div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Finally</b></span></div>
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Let's end this somewhat gloomy blog with a message of hope on an Easter Morning on which the daffodils in my garden announce that Spring is here. Here is the traditional Easter salutation of the Universal Church of Christ and the response.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqy6fz5CjiCCXYc0MFoI5yHgw5C1qoK9HFAr2dng33qv149y3ZUNeXBlQu32frqp_UEeh_hpyOI2AhI8yPmT-OQgKYDknub0266YdB1JRonS__gy1r4MfZmi-ufS7zRaNcdFGFP124mBg/s1600/Daffodils+003.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqy6fz5CjiCCXYc0MFoI5yHgw5C1qoK9HFAr2dng33qv149y3ZUNeXBlQu32frqp_UEeh_hpyOI2AhI8yPmT-OQgKYDknub0266YdB1JRonS__gy1r4MfZmi-ufS7zRaNcdFGFP124mBg/s1600/Daffodils+003.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: x-large;">'Christ is risen - Alleluia!' 'He is risen indeed, Amen!' </span></b></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-60621008793856097972015-03-30T18:50:00.002+01:002015-03-30T18:50:44.057+01:0030th March 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<b><i><span style="font-size: large;">‘There’s
no point in voting – they’re really all the same!’</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></i></b>That’s one of the
standard reasons given by those who can’t be bothered to vote in Parliamentary
Elections. The really sad thing is that
they’re not far out. In times gone by –
certainly before World War II and I think for some time afterwards, political
parties had a clearly defined purpose and we all had a pretty good idea of
their ultimate aims. Leaders and members of the Conservative Party, as their
name suggests, thought that the social order in our country and the way that
industry and commerce performed were pretty well OK. Conservatives agreed that some things might need
a slight tweak here or there, but generally speaking they felt that history had
come to an end and that we Brits were currently living in the best of all
possible worlds.</div>
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The
Labour Party on the other hand, believed that there was a great deal wrong with
our present social and economic system and wanted to change it. They were influenced by the great reformers
of the 18<sup>th</sup> and 19<sup>th</sup> centuries, by Christian concern for
the poor and disadvantaged (‘<i>He hath put
down the mighty from their seat and hath exalted the humble and
meek..........He hath filled the hungry with good things and the rich he hath
sent empty away) </i>and to some extent by the revolutionary ideas of such
thinkers as Marx and Engels. They
thought it possible that they could, by democratic means, create an earthly
Paradise – fulfilling William Blake’s prophecy in his great poem Jerusalem ‘<i>I shall not cease from mental fight, nor
shall my sword sleep in my hand, till I have built Jerusalem, in England’s
green and pleasant land’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i> </i>The Liberal Party,
originally the Party of the rulers of industry and commerce in conflict with
the land-owning gentry of the Conservative Party, sat uneasily between
Conservative and Labour<i>, </i>declining in
power and influence throughout the twentieth century, though enjoying a
temporary popularity at the beginning of the twenty-first century.</div>
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Love them or
hate them, the three parties were quite clear in their objectives and those who
had votes (it wasn’t till well after the end of World War I that there was
universal adult suffrage, and eighteen year olds didn’t get a vote until after
World War II) knew exactly why they voted for the party of their choice. </div>
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Now, thanks
largely to Tony Blair and his New Labour, all that has changed. All main
political Parties now support the Market economy in which everything and everybody
has cash value. Job satisfaction – enjoyed
by many thousands (including myself) in the past – has been replaced by a
struggle for personal wealth in which everyone grabs as much as he or she can
demand for as little as they can get away with.
Leading New Labourites like Lord Mendelson declare that they ‘<i>have no problem with billionaires’; </i>well
(while thousands of their fellow Britons are homeless and reliant on voluntary
food banks to keep their families fed) they should have problems with
billionaires.</div>
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Both
Parties accept that top bankers must be paid in millions a year, plus more
millions as bonuses – because ‘<i>that’s the
only way we can attract the very best brains’ </i>to make Britain great again. Those ‘best brains’ who demand and receive
millions of pounds for their services are the very people who, as was
repeatedly affirmed by the recently retired Governor of the Bank of England,
caused the current financial crisis.
They were also responsible, if only by default, for the banking scandals
that have made the press headlines in recent years.; miss-selling of insurance (for which the banks
have had to pay millions of pounds in compensation), fiddling interest rates and assisting very
wealthy clients to become even richer by tax avoidance. If those are the kind of things that result
from appointing (at enormous expense)
the very best brains to head our banks, perhaps we should find out what
the ‘second-best’ brains can do. At the
very least they’d come a bit cheaper – and might not be quite so good at
feathering their own nests!</div>
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George
Osborne is already set to impose further austerities on a long suffering public
sector. He says that he only proposes to
impose the same economies this year as he did last year. He will be imposing them on already sadly
depleted services. Does he really
imagine that if you empty half the water from a bucket one year, you can pour
out the same volume of water from that same bucket the next year without
emptying it?</div>
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So far the
competing political parties have been much more eager to denigrate their opponents
than to tell us what they themselves propose to do to solve <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>’s
problems. The Conservatives promise more
of the same medicine and warn us that electing a Labour Government will create
chaos. The New Labourites point out that the Tories are already wrecking the
NHS and will probably try to solve its problems by mass privatisation. Well, my medical practitioner (family doctor)
service is certainly not as good as it was when the coalition took over
government and the government’s bungled reforms have without doubt played a part in
this deterioration. Now they are
proposing that pharmacists should take on some of the tasks previously
undertaken by doctors. That has the
potential of creating long queues waiting for service in pharmacies as well as
in doctors’ waiting rooms. </div>
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For many years the British government’s
annual expenditure has exceeded its annual income resulting in a ‘deficit’ that
is filled by borrowing. <st1:place w:st="on">Central Governm</st1:place>ent’s strategy must be the reduction, and
eventually the elimination, of that deficit.
There are two ways in which this can be done; by reducing expenditure
and by increasing income.</div>
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Conservative,
Labour and Liberal Democrats have all chosen the path of reducing expenditure –
not on obviously wasteful practices like maintaining a wildly expensive
‘independent nuclear deterrent’ which is neither independent nor an effective
deterrent, maintaining an ‘armed presence’ in the Middle East, and
unquestioningly supporting the USA in
such military adventures as the invasion of Iraq and of Afghanistan, not to
mention blindly backing the Kiev government in the civil conflict in
Ukraine. No, the government has
concentrated its demand for economies on benefits for the poor and the
unemployed and on local government services – education, maintenance of highways
and footpaths, social services, libraries, public parks and gardens, refuse and
recyclable collections and so on; all the services in fact that make the
difference between civilisation and barbarism.</div>
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All
the main parties reject the other way of reducing the deficit; increasing the
government’s income by taxation. There
are ways in which this could be done with minimal hardship. I have suggested in this blog that all state
‘benefits’ should be subject to income tax – winter fuel allowance for the old,
children’s allowances, attendance allowance, free tv licence, free
prescriptions and so on. This wouldn’t affect at all the really poor who don’t
pay income tax. It would affect the rest
of us (several would affect me!) but they wouldn’t impose a crippling burden on
anybody. It would at least <i>reduce</i> the scandal of elderly
millionaires getting exactly the same winter fuel allowance and other universal
benefits as the rest of us oldies.</div>
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Nor,
I think, would a penny or two-pence on the standard and higher rate of income
tax cause real hardship to anyone. We’d
only lose a little of the taxable part of our income. I’m no mathematician but I believe that
penny or tuppence on each pound of our taxable income would make a tremendous difference
to our country’s finances. Yet David
Cameron promises that a new Conservative Government would not raise the rate of
VAT (he could naturally be expected to prefer indirect taxation that
disproportionately penalises the poor).
Much more shamefully, Ed Miliband, Labour leader, promises that if he
leads a Labour government, there will be no increase in either the standard or
the higher rate of income tax.</div>
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Perhaps
the cynics are right and they really <b><i>are</i></b> ‘all the same’. They’ve certainly all got the same ultimate
aim. No – it’s not to make our country a
better place in which to live. It’s to
get sufficient compliant MPs elected to enable them to form a government and,
having done so, to hang on to power for as long as they can manage to get away
with it. </div>
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It’s still
worth while to vote though – and our duty to those who in the 19<sup>th</sup>
and early 20<sup>th</sup> Century – laboured and endured derision, arrest and
imprisonment for the right to do so. If
you can’t bring yourself to vote <b><i>for </i></b>a candidate, then vote against
the candidate whose policies you most dislike.
Put your cross against the name of the candidate most likely to defeat
him or her!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
And, of
course, in this General Election we’ll have at least two credible alternatives
to those of the three traditional parties.
There’s UKIP and there’s the Green Party. UKIP consists of Nigel Farage and his
followers. He wants to get us out of the
European Union and to limit immigration. For other policies he’ll just jump
onto any bandwagon that promises a few extra votes, but generally speaking, his
policies are well to the right of the most hard-line Conservatives. A quite astonishing number of prominent
Ukippers – MEPs and other senior party members, have departed from Ukip ‘under
a cloud’. I can imagine no circumstances under which a Ukip candidate will get my vote.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The Scots the
Welsh and the Northern Irish all have nationalist alternative candidates for
whom they can vote. I shall vote Green
because they are working towards a fairer and a more sustainable <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region> of which
it might truly be said <i>we are</i> <i>all in this together.</i> They won't achieve this in my time but perhaps my
grandchildren’s generation will bring it about. As yet at least, the Greens are
not tainted by the determination to achieve office at any price – and I wish them well.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I’m sorry if
any –or all – of the above sounds like a history lesson. It isn’t that to me. It’s the story of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:country-region>
during my lifespan, from the first quarter of the 20<sup>th</sup> century to
the first quarter of the 21<sup>s</sup><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">. </span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-34030080714173143962015-03-23T19:10:00.001+00:002015-03-27T10:24:18.441+00:0025th March 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics……..on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">‘<i>Dear
Ernest……….<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: large;"> …….. warm regards, <st1:place w:st="on">Douglas</st1:place>’</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
You
would probably imagine that the above was the salutation and farewell of a
personal letter from a close friend or relative, and that between that ‘hello’
and ‘goodbye’ there was a communication of great interest to both ‘Ernest’ and
‘Doug’. It wasn’t; and although
presumably it was of interest to the sender it certainly was not to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It
wasn’t a personal letter. I have never met, and almost certainly never will
meet the ‘Douglas’ who addresses me by my first name and sends me his <i>‘warm regards’. </i>Nor was it a personal letter. It was a circular letter, probably sent to
every Tom, Dick and Harry and every Jane, Mary or Kate in the Clacton-on-Sea
parliamentary constituency from Douglas Carswell once our Conservative MP but
currently, thanks to a lightning conversion and an expensive and totally
unnecessary by-election, one of two UKIP
MPs in the House of Commons.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
A
remarkable feature of that by-election was the fact that Douglas Carswell the
UKIP candidate, was the only one who seemed to make a <b><i>real </i></b>effort to get
elected. I was deluged by UKIP leaflets,
brochures and at least one of those ‘personal’ letters from Douglas Carswell. I received a phone call on behalf of UKIP and
a canvasser who called at my front door. He seemed a little shocked when I
assured him that I would <i>never </i>vote
for any UKIP candidate.<i> </i>There was
also – so I believe – a well-attended public meeting addressed by both Douglas
Carswell and his political boss Nigel Farage.
I received just one leaflet from
the Conservative candidate, one from the Liberal Democrats and one from
Labour. There were also a Green candidate
and two independents from whom I received nothing.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
General Election is now only a few weeks away.
History seems to be repeating
itself. During the past week or so I
have received three glossy brochures or leaflets extolling Douglas Carswell’s
virtues, a canvassing phone call, and today (21st March) this ‘personal letter’ from the man
himself. The content of the letter confirms
my opinion that, apart from leaving the European Union and reducing immigration,
UKIP’s policy is simply to jump on any band-wagon that offers the promise of a
few extra votes. I have so far received nothing from any of the
other candidates.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Douglas’
circular letter promises that UKIP will abolish hospital parking charges,
funding this by ’cutting overseas aid and EU payments’ (could be a vote winner
– parking at <st1:place w:st="on">Colchester</st1:place> General Hospital is
difficult and expensive – and getting worse!).
They’ll also ‘defend the NHS, defend winter fuel payments, bus passes
and tv licences for older folk’ (there are lots of ‘older folk’ with votes in
this constituency) ‘stand up to big corporations’ (I don’t know quite what that
means but it certainly sounds vote-catching!) and ‘introduce an
Australian-style points system’ to control immigration (locally our most
serious immigration problem is created by fellow-Brits driven from the London
area by ridiculously high housing costs and the ‘bedroom tax').</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
At
the end of the letter there is a chart based on figures supplied by www.
ElectoralCalculus.co,<st1:place w:st="on">uk</st1:place>
which suggests that UKIP can expect to gain 48 percent of the votes in this
area in the general election, and the Conservatives 45 percent. Douglas Carswell appeals <i>‘Only UKIP can keep David Cameron’s candidate out of <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton</st1:place>’. </i>I’m inclined to reverse that message and
proclaim. <i> Only the Conservatives can keep Nigel Farage’s
candidate out of Clacton</i>. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Regular
blog readers will know that at the by-election I ‘voted strategically’. For the first, and probably only time in my
life I put my cross against the name of the Conservative candidate in the
hope of denying the seat to Douglas Carswell.
It didn’t succeed! The
closeness of the two parties in the forecast tempts me to do the same in the
General Election – but I won’t. This
time I’ll vote Green because I am convinced that it is only the policies of the
Green Party that offer a cure for <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>’s ills.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Final Note:</b> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The reason
that, in both the by-election and in the months preceding the coming general
election I had so much potentially mind-bending material from the UKIP candidate and so little
from the others, is not I am sure, because the Labour, Conservative, Green and
Lib.Dem candidates and their supporters lack enthusiasm and conviction, but
that they have limited funds – and good quality printing and distribution costs
money. UKIP presumably has some very
wealthy and generous financial backers – or perhaps Douglas (as he uses my
first name I’m sure he won’t mind my using his) has a very considerable
personal fortune that he is prepared to use to secure electoral success.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">An Anniversary</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 14pt; font-weight: bold;"> </span>We have recently seen the first anniversary of the annexation/recovery of the
Crimea by <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>. It was marked by a public opinion poll in the
Crimea that revealed that 93 percentage of the population were happy to remain
as Russians and had no desire to be once again citizens of <st1:place w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:place>. Ninety-three percent! That’s the kind of
result that one would only get in a place like <st1:country-region w:st="on">North Korea</st1:country-region> – it must have been
fiddled or fabricated! Well, that’s
what ‘the west’ would no doubt like to believe.
The only difficulty with that explanation is that the opinion poll was
carried out by a Ukrainian polling agency commissioned by the Ukrainian
government. That was not the result for which the government in Kiev was hoping! Certainly in the 1950s when
both <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region> were provinces of the Soviet Union, the
citizens of the Crimea were not consulted when Nikita Khruschev decided that
their land (which had been part of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
since Tsarist times) should become part of <st1:place w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:place>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Meanwhile
the fact that we have heard no recent news from the disputed region of Eastern
Ukraine suggests that the terms of the
cease-fire are being observed; that hostilities have ceased and heavy weaponry
withdrawn from the front line. I hope
that prisoners are being exchanged by both sides and that talks are in progress
about the degree of autonomy to be granted to the Russian speaking eastern
areas of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>.
Meanwhile the British Government, which played no part in the cease-fire
negotiations, has supplied the Ukrainian Government in Kiev with armoured cars, and is sending units from our army (depleted by government cuts and by less-than-totally-successful campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan), to help train the Ukrainian
army. That’s our contribution to the
cause of world peace!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
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<br /></div>
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</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-13420931769162900342015-03-19T14:51:00.000+00:002015-03-19T14:51:45.826+00:00March 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics…….on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">‘</span><i><span style="font-size: large;">This
above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day
thou canst not then be false to any man’</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i> </i></b>In
Shakespeare’s <i>Hamlet </i>that was part of
the advice that Polonius, a Danish courtier, gave to his son Laertes before the
latter embarked on a trip to England, then a distant perilous country, full of
temptations and pitfalls for a visiting young Dane with money in his pocket. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
If Nick Clegg had heeded that advice five
years ago I think it very unlikely that his Party would now be facing the possibility of humiliation in the coming General Election.
The Liberal Democrats didn’t really have to be junior partners in a very
unequal coalition. They could have let
David Cameron form a minority government promising to support it for as long as
it was possible to do so without breaking pledges that they had made to the
electorate.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But
he allowed the promise of the empty title of Deputy Prime Minister and two or
three Ministerial jobs for a few of his lieutenants to lure him into a
coalition and – very shortly afterwards – to break spectacularly the pledge he
had made to the electorate about
University Tuition fees.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Before
the last General Election I don’t recall that anyone expected it to result in a
hung Parliament and an unequal Conservative/Lib.Dem. coalition. This time two other parties, the Ukippers and
the Greens are serious contenders nationwide and in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region> the Scottish National
Party will almost certainly overturn Labour’s domination of the electoral
scene. Few expect either of the two main
parties to achieve an overall majority in the House of Commons. If we are again
to have a coalition government which parties will coalesce to form one?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Nick
Clegg appears to be confident that the Liberal-Democrats will again hold the
balance and have the choice between coalition with the Conservatives or
Labour. The opinion polls suggest
otherwise and so, for what it’s worth, do I.
Since the Lib-Dems, in government, broke promises that they made to the
electorate before the last election why should we imagine they’ll be any
different now? I voted for them then but
they certainly won’t get my vote in May.
I’m not alone!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Scotland</st1:country-region>
the SNP has come on in leaps and bounds since the referendum. <span style="background: white; font-family: Helvetica;">Nicola Sturgeon, their present Leader,</span>
seems to be a worthy successor of Alex Salmond. The Tories are evidently
fearful that they will have sufficient successful election candidates to join a
coalition with Labour and form a government. Many Labour hopefuls fear the
same. Well, they certainly brought that possibility onto themselves. If at the time of the referendum they had
been a bit less enthusiastic about preserving the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom intact</st1:country-region> there would now be no Scottish MPs at <st1:city w:st="on">Westminster</st1:city>. Both Ed Miliband and Nicola Sturgeon, the
SNP leader, have said that there will be no such coalition but, of course,
politicians don’t believe other politicians’ promises any more than the rest of
us do! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
If
there are a substantial number of Scottish MPs I think it likely that they’ll
do what the Lib.Dems. should have done last time; support a minority government
for as long as its policies are acceptable to them but try to amend or defeat them
when they are not. They won’t get any
seats in the government that way but <i>‘What
profiteth it a man </i>(or a political party) <i>to gain the whole world – and lose his soul?’<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> </i>A much more
sinister, and I fear<i> </i>more likely,
outcome of the General Election could be that UKIP will form a coalition with a
minority Conservative government, with Nigel Farage as Deputy PM and several
Ukip MPs (almost certainly our own turn-coat MP Douglas Carswell would be among them) in senior
government posts. The flamboyant and charismatic Nigel Farage would soon
outshine the present PM and the Chancellor in the public eye, and probably in the eyes of a
substantial number of hard-line Tory MPs.
Farage’s career has, so far, mirrored that of Adolf Hitler in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region> in the
1920s and early 1930s. I fear a future
in which he acquired real power.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
But
it may well be that all these anxieties and hopes are groundless. Such is our first-past-the-post electoral
system that perhaps, to everyone’s surprise, either the Conservative or the
Labour Party will secure a commanding majority and rule the country for the
next five years. If that is so then I
can confidently predict the future outcome: <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>’s future will not be
anything like as happy and as prosperous as supporters of the ruling party promise – but neither will it be quite as disastrous as opponents of that ruling
party fear. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
In
May I fully intend to vote for the Green Party candidate. The Greens won’t form a government and it’s
unlikely that they’ll be asked to take part in any coalition. In my own <st1:place w:st="on">Clacton-on-Sea</st1:place>
constituency it’s very improbable that, with our present first-past-the-post
electoral system, the Green Candidate will be elected. I may help him save his deposit though (the
Greens rely on the support of its thousands of members. Unlike other parties, they have neither
multimillionaires nor trade unions financing them), and nationally I will add
to the number of Green voters. <b><i>‘This
above all’ </i></b>I shall be being true to myself and voting for a party whose
policies I wholeheartedly endorse; a party that really does want to make Britain and
the world a better place for this and future generations.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
My
vote will not be wasted! </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><i> <o:p></o:p></i></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">A Spendthrift’s Charter?</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b> </b>I have sometimes
wondered if the present government likes having a large proportion of the UKs
population in debt. Perhaps it makes the
failure of their policies to reduce the national debt substantially, seem less
important. There are student loans, for
instance;. I understand that increases in tuition fees result in some students
leaving their colleges with a debt burden of as much as £40,000! Then, of course, the Government’s obsession
with home <i>ownership </i>has made sure that thousands of home buyers will owe thousands of pounds to banks or building societies for the
whole of their working lifetimes..</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
latest encouragement to financial irresponsibility is making it possible for
those who put aside a percentage of their income every month to provide
themselves with a pension on retirement, can now withdraw the money at any time
from their ‘pension pot’ and use it as they think best. The hope is presumably that they will
re-invest the money to enrich themselves and to help keep the wheels of
industry turning.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It
will surprise me if at least some of those pension investors, with the
opportunity to get a considerable sum of money into their bank accounts will
say, ‘<i>Blow provision for retirement. Let’s go on a cruise to the Bahamas. We’ll worry about “tomorrow” when it comes1’</i>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I’m
glad that I was never able to withdraw cash from the ‘pension pot’ into which I
paid 6 percent of my salary for most of my working life. I wouldn’t have squandered it on a spending
spree but, when my wife was diagnosed with pulmonary and laryngial TB, I’d have
been sorely tempted to withdraw any money I had saved in the hope of buying her better,
speedier treatment.
Perhaps (or perhaps not!) in that way I might have bought my wife a speedier recovery; might even have spared her the major surgery that saved her life but left her
with a permanent disability.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There’s
no ‘perhaps’ though about the fact that, without an adequate pension, our sixties
and seventies would have been much less comfortable, less worry-free and much
less pleasurable. And now that I am in my
nineties and have been a widower for nearly nine years, I would be a
poverty-stricken housebound cripple without the pension that has provided me
with a warm and comfortable home and, among many other things, my mobility
scooter and the lap-top on which I am writing these words. Thanks to that
pension I am able to remember generously the birthdays of my young great-nieces
and great nephew (I have yet to acquire any great grand-children), and to offer
visiting family and friends hospitality in a local licensed restaurant! As some-one once remarked, '<i>money can't buy happiness, but it can help you to be miserable in comfort!'</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I daren’t think how miserable and bad tempered
I’d be without all those things! I’d
advise anybody – ‘<i>However much you may be
tempted <b>never </b>imperil your retirement
pension. You will live to regret having done so. It’s extremely unlikely that you’ll make your
fortune by gambling on the Stock Exchange – and even less likely that you’ll make it on the
National Lottery!’</i><br />
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">The Budget</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
Regular blog
readers will know that my idea of a good Budget is one that narrows the yawning
gap between the incomes of the very richest and the very poorest people in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>. A bad Budget is one that widens that
gap. It follows that it is a long, long
time since I have experienced a good Budget and that the one revealed by George
Osborne on 18<sup>th</sup> March was more blatantly robbing the poor and enriching
the wealthy than most. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
The threshold
of income at which tax becomes liable has been raised. That means that some low-paid workers will no
longer have to pay tax and that every single payer of income tax (including the
very wealthy) will benefit. Those who
won’t benefit are the really poor, whose incomes are too low to be
taxable. They will, of course, continue
to pay indirect taxes such as VAT and excise duties like those on petrol,
alcohol and tobacco. But that’s not all
– the level of liability to pay <i>the higher rate of income tax</i> has also been
raised, even higher. Thus those whom
most of us would consider to be very wealthy will receive a double hand-out. Meanwhile,
there are to be even more cuts in the funding of benefits and of public services, which
will most affect the very poor.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
Perhaps the
most depressing aspect of the news reports was that I didn’t hear a word of
protest from Ed Miliband about this particular aspect of the Budget.</div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
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<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-13985643478950706792015-03-06T09:53:00.000+00:002015-03-06T09:54:41.012+00:006th March 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics……..on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The New ‘Levellers’</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>For
many years I would have described myself, if asked, as a democratic
socialist. In today’s market-based
society, everything, and everybody, is deemed to have a price. It’s a society in which it is assumed that
everyone’s ambition is the acquisition of greater personal wealth; in which
everyone grabs as much as he can for as little as he (or she) can get away
with.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I
have learned to survive, even to prosper, in this society. I didn’t and don’t like it. I hoped that democratic socialism could
develop, if not into an earthly paradise, at least into a fairer and happier
society than the one in which we live today. However reading of the researches of two
Quakers, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, in their book <i>‘The Spirit Level’</i> published in 2009, convinced me that, although
public ownership could be one way of producing a fairer society, there are other ways – the co-operative movement could be one, as could employer/employee
partnerships like the John Lewis business group.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Richard
and Kate discovered and demonstrated that our society’s greatest evil was the
ever-widening gap between the incomes of the wealthiest and the poorest members
of our society. Furthermore they
discovered that levelling off incomes didn’t just benefit the poor (though they are the immediate and obvious beneficiaries) but the whole of society – rich,
poor, and the great majority of us who are neither the one nor the other. More equal societies, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Denmark</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Sweden</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Norway</st1:country-region>
for instance, are happier, less crime-ridden, have fewer teenage pregnancies,
and are more peaceful and healthier societies.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
<st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:country-region> has the most
unequal society in <st1:place w:st="on">Europe</st1:place> and one of the most
unequal in the whole of the developed world.
The gap between the incomes of the wealthiest and the poorest in the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:country-region> steadily
gets wider. The Labour Party was created
to provide a political voice for working people and the poor. It is to the party’s shame that during ten
years of New Labour government, the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest
widened!</div>
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In
2009, in the wake of the publication of <i>The
Spirit Level </i>the Equality Trust was formed to draw attention to our unequal
society; to promote policies that work towards greater equality and oppose
those that widen the gap. All over the
country there are groups working towards those ends. A newsletter is sent regularly to supporters
and below is an extract from the latest newsletter:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;">February
has been a successful if troubling month for exposing some of the forces behind
our extreme inequality. Revelations on HSBC’s role in tax avoidance saw the
media focus on the incredible schemes used by the very rich to shield their
wealth. With impeccable timing it was also revealed than banks themselves have
done pretty well over the last few years. The Robin Hood Tax campaign found
bonuses paid out by banks and insurers since the start of the financial crisis
are set to top £100bn this year.</span><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i><span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;">It didn’t end there
either, as a sting operation led to claims that MPs Jack Straw and Malcolm
Rifkind were involved in a ‘cash for access’ scandal. We calculated that Rifkind
and Straw command rates of around £2,290 and £500 per hour for some of their
consulting work. That’s 197 and 43 times the average wage rate respectively.
Once again the question is asked as to how, and how much, our politicians are
paid.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;">If you’d like to know more about the Equality Trust and its
work, the address is <st1:address w:st="on"><st1:street w:st="on">18 Victoria
Park Square</st1:street>, <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>, <st1:postalcode w:st="on">E2 9PF</st1:postalcode></st1:address>. Its email address is <a href="mailto:info@equalitytrust.org.uk">info@equalitytrust.org.uk</a> and its
web site is <a href="http://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/">www.equalitytrust.org.uk</a>
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.75pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;">The major parties are setting out their
policies in attempts to persuade us to vote for their candidate in the General
Election which is now only weeks away.
It seems to me that the only Party attempting anything more than a
slight nudging in one direction or the other of the present grossly unfair
economic and political system is the Green Party. I was surprised and heartened
to learn that the Greens now have more members that the much more publicised
Ukippers. Green policies are not all that different from those of the Party for
which I voted and which won the election in 1945 at the end of World War II. They do promise the hope of a fairer, more
equal society. The Green Party candidate
will get my vote. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;">That General Election in 1945, held just after I had returned to
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region>
at the end of World War II in Europe, was the first opportunity I had ever had to vote. I
voted I thought, for a fairer <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region>
and a more peaceful world. The vote that I hope to cast in May this year will
almost certainly be my last opportunity to vote in a general election. I shall
cast it with exactly the same hope of a fairer <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Britain</st1:place></st1:country-region> and a more peaceful world, not
for myself this time (I certainly </span><span style="color: #52505c;">won’t</span><span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 10.5pt;"> see any sign of it in my lifetime!) but
for my grandchildren.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><i><span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></i></b></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.75pt;">
<b><i><span style="color: #52505c;"><span style="font-size: large;">There’s
no place like home……..</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></i></b></div>
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<span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="line-height: 15.75pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<span style="color: #52505c; font-size: 14.0pt;">……….</span><span style="color: #52505c;">and
no vote-winner like <i>‘homes for all’</i>
or, as far as the Tories are concerned <i>‘Home
ownership for all’</i>. At least that’s
what all the Party leaders think, because they’re competing with each other to
promise 100,000 200,000 (why stop there – the sky’s the limit as far as <b><i>promises
</i></b>are concerned) new homes if only they’re elected in May. To hear them talk you’d think they were
going to don the overalls and hard hats they wear for <i>‘photo opportunities at the workplace’</i> and go out and build those
houses themselves. </span><span style="color: #52505c; line-height: 15.75pt; text-indent: 36pt;">A blog reader and regular correspondent, who has expert
knowledge and experience in the field of housing explains the rationale of
David Cameron’s promise of 200,000 cut-price homes.</span></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>He is promising to build 200,000 new homes and sell them at a discount to
first time buyers under 40 (a high age limit, but that’s how long it takes to
save a deposit these days!) He claims
this “scheme” will cost nothing to the public purse. Developers are apparently
very enthusiastic.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<i>The <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">London</st1:place></st1:city>
Evening Standard explains, as no other news medium is doing, that these homes
are to be built on “brown field” and ex-commercial sites, not normally
available for housing. When Local
Authorities allow these sites to be built on for a major development (as
Croydon Council is doing right now),
they normally get money from the developers for building infrastructure, of
£45,000 per home. They also have a requirement that 20% will be “affordable
homes” and are sold to a Housing Association. Both of these rules are being
scrapped for this scheme, thus “allowing developers” to sell the homes at a 20%
reduced price. Presumably, for the concession, they are forced to sell at this
reduced price (but in a market economy this doesn’t make much sense). If the
buyers sell within 5 years they have to return the subsidy (I don’t understand
that, because it isn’t really a subsidy, just a concession, which cannot be
reversed). I don’t know who they would return it to? The homeless families who
are being short changed by this scheme? It sounds like a good 5 year
savings plan to me, to buy a 250K flat and get a 50K discount, wait 5 years
while you live in it, then sell and get the 50K back, plus the value of house
price inflation which probably means it would be worth 100K.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>The reality is, that this is another calculated move to help core Tory
voters – middle aged, middle class people aspiring to buy their first home –
while robbing would-be Labour-Voting Social Housing Tenants of potential
housing. In the end, this isn’t reducing the cost of housing, but rather
it is increasing it, by increasing the supply of inflated owner-occupied
housing at the direct cost of the supply of the shrinking supply affordable
rented housing. However, it makes a good headline before an election;
about as meaningless as many of the other promises being made right now.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
It is worth remembering that
much, if not all, of our country’s current housing problems date from the
Thatcher years when <i>‘right to buy’</i>
legislation compelled local authorities (but not private landlords) to sell, at
bargain basement prices, houses and flats that had been provided by their
predecessors to eliminate homelessness and overcrowding from their districts; ‘<i>buying votes with other people’s money!’ </i>Prior to the ‘avaricious eighties’ local
authorities had a right and a duty to provide homes in their districts for
letting and to allocate them to those with greatest need.<br />
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><br /></span></b>
<b style="text-indent: 36pt;"><span style="font-size: large;">‘The Government giveth – and the Government taketh
away!’</span></b><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I recently commented in this blog
on the Government’s proposal to hand over all health and welfare services in
the <st1:city w:st="on">Manchester</st1:city>
area to the local authority for that area. That’s quite a responsibility!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Today I have just heard on ‘BBC
Breakfast’ that, in connection with another public service, the Government is interfering in the very
minutia of local government administration.
Motorists nationwide parking their cars in municipal car-parks are to be allowed an
extra ten minutes before any action is taken about their over-running the time
for which they have paid. Furthermore
local authorities mustn’t use illegal parking fines as a source of revenue.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Goodness – local government can
be trusted to run the health and welfare services of a large conurbation
but can’t be trusted to administer its
own car-parks! <span style="text-indent: 36pt;">It couldn’t, I suppose, be
anything to do with the fact that a great many supporters of the present Government
are owner-drivers of cars – and that a general election is only a few weeks
away?</span></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-13601333309647030322015-02-27T10:31:00.000+00:002015-02-27T10:31:02.272+00:0027th February 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics……on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Is our economy safe in their hands?</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
One
of the main points of the Conservative Party’s election campaign is that the
country’s economy is safe in their hands.
Vote for any party other than the Conservatives, they say, and you’ll
have Ed Miliband as Prime Minister. Our economy – your money – is safe with
David Cameron. Well, I’m not all that
keen on Ed Miliband but I really don’t think his economic policies are
materially different from those of David Cameron. It doesn’t seem to occur to either of them
(or perhaps they’re both too scared of well-off voters to mention it) that
cutting essential public services is neither the only nor the best way of
reducing that deficit. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The deficit is
the difference between the government’s income and its expenditure. Why not try increasing its income? A penny on income tax would hurt no-one (even
with the skewed-in-favour-of-the-wealthy income tax system we have today) and would
have an instant effect on the deficit.
Instead David Cameron is talking about cutting income tax! Both he and the Liberal Democrats are
convinced that they’re doing a tremendous service to the poor by raising the
level at which income becomes liable, thereby taking some low-paid workers out
of the income tax system altogether.
Sometimes they say, ‘<i>Out of the
tax system altogether’, </i>as though income tax were the only tax we all pay.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In fact, by
raising the threshold at which income
tax becomes payable, they are helping everyone who pays income tax – but they
are not in the least helping those whose income is already too low to be
subject to taxation. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
One way in which the Government has wasted our
money is in the maintenance of our Trident Nuclear Submarine ‘independent
Nuclear Deterrent’. It is <b><i>not </i></b>independent
(can you imagine us using it – or even threatening to use it – without the OK
of <st1:state w:st="on">Washington</st1:state>?)
and it hasn’t deterred any of the many acts of aggression that have occurred in
the post-war years. When the Falklands
were invaded by <st1:country-region w:st="on">Argentina</st1:country-region>
neither our ‘nuclear deterrent’ nor our ‘special relationship’ with the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> were the
least help to us. Nor does everyone
think that the lavish cost of an all-but-a-state-funeral of a politician who
deeply divided the country and whose flagship ‘right to buy’ legislation is
responsible for our current housing crisis, was money well spent.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Perhaps though
the most absurd and obviously crazy way in which the Conservative dominated
coalition government has frittered away our money has been the replacement of
area Police Committees with directly elected ‘Police and Crime Commissioners’
with power to appoint and sack Chief Constables and to determine the general
direction of police work though operational control remains, thank goodness,
with the Chief Constables. The former
Police Committees were, so the coalition claimed, ‘undemocratic’. How can one man or woman, elected by a tiny
fragment of the total electorate, possibly be ‘more democratic’ than a
committee, at least some members of which had been elected locally?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The obvious
way to make the police answerable to the local public was to make them the
responsibility of the local county or unitary authority council. They would
elect some of their members to serve on a ‘Police and Crime Committee’ with the
same responsibilities as those of Police and Crime Commissioners. These police committees would be more
representative of their whole area than any single individual could hope to be. They’d also be much better able to
co-ordinate police activities with those of other local or regional services
such as education, social services, highways, and parks and gardens, for which
the County Council or Unitary Authority is responsible. What’s more, they’d cost less, which I would
have thought would have been a prime consideration of our Prime Minister and
Chancellor.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
You’ll recall
that the public showed its contempt for the whole idea of directly elected
Commissioners (an idea imported from the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>) by failing to turn up at the
polling booths. Nationwide the
percentage of those bothering to register their vote was the lowest
recorded in any election – and <st1:place w:st="on">Essex</st1:place> set a
splendid example by having the lowest turn-out of the lot!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Of course
there has always been the possibility that those of us who were convinced that
the appointment of Police and Crime Commissioners was a costly mistake were
quite wrong. There could have been a dramatic fall in crime and rise in the
detection rate, and we might have all been sleeping easier in our beds in the
knowledge that we had a Commissioner looking after our interests. <st1:place w:st="on">Essex</st1:place>’s own
Commissioner – Nick Alston - seemed a pleasant enough chap. Perhaps he <b><i>could</i></b> work miracles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Headlines in
the local <i>Daily Gazette </i>suggest that
he can’t; <b><i>It’s official……crime is rising in <st1:place w:st="on">Essex</st1:place>. </i></b>In fact, that is only partly true. The number of domestic abuse cases rose from
9,222 to 10,825 in 2013 and there was 35 percent rise in prosecutions against
Class A drug dealers. The solved crime rate fell to 27.63 percent. On the other hand there was an 11.6 percent drop
in the number of burglaries and there were 900 fewer incidents of rural crime.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
While the government exercises tight
control of the purse strings there is little that either the Crime Commissioner
or a Police Committee can do to reduce crime.
Mark Smith, chairman of the Essex Police Federation is quite sure that <i>the politicians </i>are to blame<i>: <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i> It is
quite clear that what we are being told by the politicians is not true. They say crime is down. It is not and we are not even recording new crimes
like cyber crime and ‘grooming’.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>We have already had cuts of £72.5 million
and have heard that in the next five years we are going to have to save another
£80 million. We will probably lose 200 officers this year, so we will have gone
down from 3,600 to 3,000. In five years there will only be about 2,000 if the
cuts go ahead.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
I’m not a
great Ed Miliband fan and intend to vote Green in the General Election. However
I’d support Ed Miliband’s promise that a future Labour Government would put
more coppers on the beat and pay for the change by scrapping those expensive
and largely impotent Police and Crime Commissioners.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Yet another NHS reorganisation?</span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
In this blog I
have again and again criticised the action of successive governments – both
Conservative and Labour – of stripping local authorities of the powers and
responsibilities that were theirs in the 1930s. When in 1937 and aged sixteen, I stepped onto the very lowest rung of
the staff ladder of Ipswich Corporation’s Public Health Department in 1937 the
Department was responsible for a <st1:placename w:st="on">General</st1:placename>
<st1:placetype w:st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype>, an <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Isolation</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Hospital</st1:placetype></st1:place>
(infectious diseases like diphtheria and scarlet fever were much more common,
and deadlier, in those days), a Maternity Home and a Tuberculosis Sanatorium.
The department was also responsible for the domiciliary midwives and district
nurses and the school medical service, as well as the environmental health
services for which it is responsible today.
There may well have been other services of which I was not aware. I was very young, on the very lowest staff level – and my
local government career was interrupted after just two years by the outbreak of
World War II!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
After the war
I was older and, I hope, wiser than I had been. I was one of the returning servicemen who
voted for Clem Attlee’s Labour Government – but I was a little dismayed when
all those local health and medical services were taken over by the NHS. However I thought that the advantages of a
truly <b><i>National</i></b><i> Health Service </i>outweighed
the disadvantages, and – until the last year or so – I have had no reason to
think otherwise. I wasn’t impressed
with the Government’s last NHS reorganisation.
It sounds wonderful to make GPs responsible for all their patients needs
– seeing a consultant, getting a bed in a hospital and so on. But GPs are fully occupied examining
patients, treating them and passing them on to consultants when necessary. They really didn’t have the time for
administrative work. I wrote in this
blog that they were getting rid of one layer of bureaucracy and replacing it with
dozens of smaller layers as GP practices took on extra staff or formed consortiums to deal with this
work. Now it seems the Government is
really trying to localise the Health Service in at least one part of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>. They are making the local authorities that
comprise Greater Manchester a single comprehensive Health and Welfare
Authority, responsible for both Health and Social Services. It sounds a brilliant idea but there are several matters on which I’d like further clarification.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
The government
will fund this new authority. This
government isn’t famous for its lavish support of public services. Will there be adequate funding?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<i>He who pays the piper calls the tune. </i>Are we quite sure that this new authority
will not find itself directly under the thumb of bureaucrats in <st1:city w:st="on">Whitehall</st1:city>?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Just now the
new authority will be under democratic control by elected councillors. But I understand that within a few years the
area will have an all-powerful ‘Mayor’.
Will a Mancunian equivalent of Boris Johnson dictate Health Service policy?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Services inside the new authorities’ area
will inevitably be different (not necessarily either better or worse) that
those outside. What will happen when
someone complains that ‘<i>That woman over
the road got into hospital immediately.
I’ve been told I’ll have to wait two months – it’s just a post code lottery?'</i></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-45793686234081714592015-02-20T09:34:00.001+00:002015-02-24T10:03:36.132+00:0020th February 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics…….on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">‘Immoral Earnings’</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>Tax
evasion (strictly illegal) and tax avoidance (legal but often distinctly dodgy)
have been a recurring theme in this blog. I regard income tax as our annual
subscription for the privilege of British citizenship. We should be proud to
pay it, not reluctant. There is nowadays a thriving business in advising
already-wealthy clients how to avoid paying anything like their fair share of
income tax – in some instances how to avoid paying any income tax whatsoever. This new ‘profession’ is surely parasitic and
’living on immoral earnings’, much the same as brothel keepers and the like;
and deserving the same punishments as them if or when they are brought to
justice.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I was astonished when I learned that BBC investigative
journalists had discovered that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Britain</st1:country-region>’s
largest Bank HSBC, was among the
foremost of these ‘financial pimps’ – and that one of their multi-millionaire
clients had lived in luxury for years without ever paying a penny in income
tax. HMRC – the government department
charged with the collection of taxes and customs duties believed that this
particular client was living somewhere in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Spain</st1:country-region>, but – surprise, surprise! –
had been unable to contact him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There
seems to have been a remarkably cosy relationship between HSBC, the HMRC and
the government that employs the latter to collect money owed to them (<b><i>our
money</i></b> in fact). A former Chief
Executive, later chairman of HSBC, on leaving the bank was ennobled (just like
our own Lord Hanningfield!) and given a job in the government. Nothing wrong with that perhaps – I have
always thought that the Kray brothers would have made excellent Police and
Crime Commissioners! Rather more
worrying is the fact that, on retirement, a former senior official of HMCR was
given a senior position with HSBC.
Poacher becoming a Gamekeeper is one thing – but Gamekeeper becoming
Poacher is something quite different. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I
wouldn’t pretend to understand exactly how multi-millionaires were advised on
avoiding the taxation that the rest of us have to pay. It seems though that at the centre of this
operation was a Swiss ancillary of HSBC. We are told that that ancillary has
now been thoroughly reorganised. <i> ‘Lessons have been learned’ </i>from the
mistakes. They were made a few years ago
and we must now draw a line under the past and move forward into the future.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I
bet that those ‘celebrity paedophiles’ who are serving prison snentences for incidents that occurred<i> forty or fifty years ago</i>, are wishing that they
could have said the same thing – and got away with it!</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Prime Minister’s response</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>David
Cameron’s response to the revelations about HSBC and HMCR was as we have come
to expect. No government, he claimed,
has done more than his has to stem aggressive tax avoidance and tax
evasion. That says no more than that no
government has ever done very much in that field. Understandable enough – start taking money
from the super-rich and they’ll be less inclined to offer financial support to
the party that they had relied upon to look after their interests.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Probably
though Mr Cameron, like me, doesn’t really understand how tax avoidance works,
and how it can be prevented. He swiftly
moved on to a field in which he and his chancellor have become experts;
penalising the poor and vulnerable to avoid inconveniencing the really
wealthy. They hadn’t previously noticed
that some of those who receive benefit do so because they are suffering from
obesity or alcohol or other addiction.
These are curable conditions. Cut
their benefit unless they are positively seeking a cure and you’ll not only
improve their medical condition but you’ll encourage them to seek work and save
a few quid to reduce that deficit.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
I’m
reminded of a somewhat cynical story that was circulating in <st1:place w:st="on">Germany</st1:place> in the early post-war years
when every firm and every organisation was struggling to rid itself of the
taint of Nazism. One keen German
gardener meets another: ‘<i>What have you been doing today Fritz?’ ‘I’ve
been denazifying my carrot patch’. ‘Denazifying?’ ‘Yes, denazifying – you know; pulling out
the little ones so that the big ones will thrive and get bigger’. <o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Ukraine</span></b></st1:place></st1:country-region><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Three times I
have started to put on paper my thoughts about the situation in </span><st1:country-region style="text-indent: 36pt;" w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> and
three times I have failed.</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">The situation
changes day by day, almost hour by hour.</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Hope of a peaceful settlement almost dies – and then flickers into life
again. One thing that is certain is that the outlook on both sides has hardened
as a result of the conflict. Before the killing started I am quite sure that the
rebels would have been satisfied with a limited autonomy within a loose
Ukrainian Federation.</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Now, I think, they’ll
be striving for full independence.</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">
</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Similarly, many on the government side would, I think, have been willing
to grant that limited autonomy.</span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> </span><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">Now hard-liners
will be satisfied with nothing less than the ethnic cleansing from </span><st1:place style="text-indent: 36pt;" w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:place><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">
of all Russophiles (hundreds have already been killed and thousands driven into
exile) and the obliteration of the Russian language and of Russian culture from
the country.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
In this
conflict it is the rebels (always referred to in BBC news bulletins as ‘Russian-backed rebels!) who are the
victims. They feared that the Kiev
Government intended to destroy their language and culture. At first they tried to prevent them by
peaceful means – do you remember the tv pictures of unarmed civilians, men,
women and little children trying to stop the progress into their country of
Kiev government tanks and armoured cars?
Since the fighting started it is the rebels’ homes that have been
flattened by shellfire. The million
people driven from their homes and seeking refuge in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> are all from rebel held
towns and villages. I have little doubt
that they comprise most of the 5,500 dead.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
Angela Merkel
and the French President are at least trying to keep the flame of peace
alight. Our government? Well, we’ve supplied the Kiev Government
with sixty second-hand armoured cars.
They’re unarmed at the moment but the <st1:city w:st="on">Kiev</st1:city> government can soon mount some machine
guns onto them and send them into the conflict. Oh yes – and our Defence Secretary has
announced that any armed Russian incursion into the <st1:place w:st="on">Baltic
States</st1:place> will be resisted by NATO.
Over a quarter of the population of two of those three Baltic states are
ethnic Russians. The Defence Secretary (who clearly isn’t old enough to
remember the true horror of a European War) would be better occupied urging the
governments of those <st1:place w:st="on">Baltic States</st1:place> not to treat
the ethnic Russians as second-class citizens, and to give the Russian
language the same status as the local tongue.
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Switzerland</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Belgium</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Wales</st1:country-region> all have more than one ‘official
language’. So could <st1:country-region w:st="on">Latvia</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Lithuania</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Estonia</st1:country-region>.
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
If the Baltic
ethnic Russians have no grievances they’ll have no inclination to revolt and
seek Russian help. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">Some later thoughts<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
This morning
(Friday 20<sup>th</sup> February) I have just heard that an influential
committee of the House of Lords has declared that, due to inept policies
pursued by inexperienced foreign office officials, we have ‘sleep walked’ into
the situation in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>. My own fear is that we may be sleep-walking
into World War III.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
Nations, as well as individuals, should make a
real effort to see the world through the eyes of their opponents. <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
sees itself surrounded by a hostile NATO alliance extending from the Baltic,
round the frontier of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russian Federation</st1:country-region>
to the <st1:place w:st="on">Black Sea</st1:place>.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
We may well
think of that NATO alliance as being purely defensive – but how would we feel
if the <st1:placename w:st="on">Irish</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Republic</st1:placetype>,
the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Netherlands</st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Belgium</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region> were to become part of a
potentially hostile alliance? How would
the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region> feel if <st1:country-region w:st="on">Mexico</st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place> did the same?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 36pt;">
In the case of
the <st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place>
we <b><i>know
</i></b>what would happen. In the 1962 the Soviet Union attempted to supply its ally <st1:country-region w:st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region>
with missiles to defend itself from the very real threat of invasion from the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>. President
Kennedy – by no means the most bellicose of American presidents – was prepared
to bring the world to nuclear war to prevent it. Fortunately Nikita Khruschev, then President
of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USSR</st1:country-region>,
had more sense. He withdrew the missiles
– but there<b><i> was </i></b>no further attempt to invade <st1:country-region w:st="on">Cuba</st1:country-region>
from the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>.</div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-30635308840721984572015-02-13T10:27:00.000+00:002015-02-13T10:27:20.519+00:00February 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">The tragedy of Ukraine<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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Regular
blog readers will know that I have a personal concern about the conflict in
Eastern Ukraine because of the thought that those engaged on both sides in that
conflict may be that grandchildren of the Russian and Ukrainian conscripted
‘slave workers’ who were my good friends and comrades in Germany from 1943 till
1945 when I was an ‘other rank’ British POW also compelled to work there.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I
was delighted when the political leaders of France and Germany, having had
talks with the President of the Kiev Ukrainian government, discussed with
Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, their plans for an immediate cease-fire
leading to a permanent peace I had hoped
that these talks would be successful though I was not convinced that either the
Ukrainian President had absolute control of the government forces (there are, I
believe, a number of private ‘militia’ groups supporting the Kiev government) or Vladimir Putin control of the rebels..</div>
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<br /></div>
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There
have now been over 5,000 fatal casualties in this unnecessary civil war. Although we don’t know who these casualties
are I’d be very surprised if the majority of them are not civilians and victims
of the relentless shelling by the government forces of towns and villages under
rebel control. Certainly most of the
thousands of refugees whose homes have
been destroyed and who are seeking refuge in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>, are from rebel-held areas
under constant attack.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It wasn’t really surprising that that first
peace initiative failed. It was never likely that an agreement that had been
welcomed by the Ukrainian President could possibly be immediately acceptable to
the rebels. Both sides needed to
compromise if there were to be a lasting cease-fire. A few weeks ago there had been hope as the prisoner
of war exchange agreed in <st1:city w:st="on">Minsk</st1:city>
in September took place. Since then the
fighting has flared up again. It is
assumed by our press and the BBC that the rebels were responsible – but were
they? It really does take two to make a
quarrel – or a war.</div>
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<br /></div>
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After
the failure of the German and French peace initiative, hopes of a cease-fire
flickered but were not totally extinguished.
Fortunately, neither Angela Merkel or her French counterpart were
prepared to take ‘no’ for an answer.
They arranged a meeting on 11<sup>th</sup> February, this time with both
Vladimir Putin and Barak Obama, Presidents of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russian
Federation</st1:country-region> and of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>, taking part. Once again there
were no representatives of Russian speaking <st1:place w:st="on">East Ukraine</st1:place>
present. This was not because no
representative of the rebels was prepared to come, nor yet because President
Putin had advised them against coming; but simply because the representatives
of the <st1:city w:st="on">Kiev</st1:city>
government refused to speak to them!</div>
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It must have
been a strange peace conference that barred one of the combatants from
participation. However it permitted the <st1:city w:st="on">Kiev</st1:city> government to persist in the fiction that the rebels
were under the direct command of <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>, and effectively prevented
them from publicising their reasons for armed resistance to a government
take-over. </div>
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</div>
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Discussions
went on throughout the night. With the
dawn came news of a hard-won agreement that German Chancellor Angela Merkel
said gave ‘<i>just a glimmer’ </i>of hope. There is to be a complete cease-fire
effective from midnight on Saturday 14<sup>th</sup> February. Both sides are then to withdraw their forces
to leave a ‘peace corridor’ between them.
Prisoners are to be exchanged and talks to begin about the degree of
autonomy that is to be accorded to <st1:place w:st="on">East Ukraine</st1:place>.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
Foreign Minister of the Kiev Government has already said publicly that the plan
will fail and, of course, his government has the power to make sure that it
does so – and to put the blame squarely onto the rebels!</div>
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The
only way to ensure that the peace plan has any chance of succeeding is for the cease-fire
to be rigorously policed by a considerable number of neutral observers from <st1:country-region w:st="on">France</st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>. They might, at the same time, see if there is
evidence of the Russian Army Units that ‘the west’ seems to be quite certain
are now fighting in <st1:place w:st="on">Eastern Ukraine</st1:place>. On the BBC tv news recently we have had
several reports from correspondents behind the rebel lines in <st1:place w:st="on">Eastern
Ukraine</st1:place>. None of them has mentioned the presence of Russian
Military Units. </div>
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My
own guess is that the Russian government probably has given the rebels some
artillery because we have recently heard of the rebels shelling government army
positions. Previously it was the
government troops doing all the shelling.
I think too, that it is probable that Russian Army volunteers have been
granted leave to allow them to support their brethren across the frontier. Had the Russians sent an armoured division in
to help the rebels – as has been claimed by the Ukrainian President – I believe
that the Russian flag would now be hoisted over the Kiev Parliament!</div>
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I
believe that by far the best solution would be for both sides in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region> to be disarmed and for <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>’s neutrality to be guaranteed by both
NATO and the <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russian
Federation</st1:country-region>.
Further I believe that both the Russian and Ukrainian languages (are
they really <i>very </i>different?) should
be made official languages in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>
and given equal status, and that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Ukraine</st1:country-region>
should be given free trading access to both the EU and the <st1:place w:st="on">Russian Federation</st1:place>.</div>
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Without the financial burden of defence
spending, with easy access to the world’s markets, and with the financial help
needed to rebuild their shattered country provided by their fellow Europeans
both in the EU and in Russia, Ukraine’s recovery could be spectacular, and a
model for other defence-burdened countries to follow. No – of course I know it
isn’t going to happen. It would spell
the end of civilisation as we know it.
Think of all the jobs that would be lost in the ‘defence industries’
(not to mention the loss of dividends to share holders!) if it did!</div>
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<br /></div>
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Late
News – I have just (13<sup>th</sup> February) heard that if the cease-fire to
begin at midnight on the 14th is broken, further sanctions will be imposed on <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> by the
EU. Don’t those blinkered idiots <i>even consider </i>the possibility that the
cease-fire might be broken by Ukrainian government forces?</div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-88371496371700513342015-02-05T19:43:00.001+00:002015-02-05T19:43:51.240+00:005th February 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
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<b><span style="font-size: large;"> Eye to Eye with ‘</span><i><span style="font-size: large;">Private Eye’</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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On 24<sup>th</sup> January I
wrote critically in this blog about the
Westminster Abbey authorities flying our national flag at half-mast in mourning
for the death of the King of Saudi Arabia, and of the Prime Minister and the Prince
of Wales, a future Defender of the Faith (our Faith!) flying to that benighted
country to present their condolences. <span style="text-align: justify;">I asked if we really needed oil –
and arms sales – so desperately that we were prepared to take as an ally a country
whose ethos is the exact opposite of the</span><i style="text-align: justify;">
‘British values’</i><span style="text-align: justify;"> that our Prime Minister claims to be so keen to promote.</span></div>
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<br /></div>
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I
have just read the copy of <i>Private Eye</i>
published on 23<sup>rd</sup> January, just the day before I published that blog,
in which they gave their view of the <st1:country-region w:st="on">United
Kingdom</st1:country-region>’s relationship with <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>. Here it is:</div>
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<i>While David Cameron stands shoulder to
shoulder with world leaders protesting at extremist assaults on freedom of
expression on the streets of Paris, his government continues to ignore such
intolerance when practised by a government with which the UK wants to do
business.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i> As ‘Charlie Hebdo’ was
attacked, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:place></st1:country-region>
was meeting out the first of 1,000 lashes to blogger Raif Madawi. Yet so keen is Cameron to cultivate the
despots in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Riyadh</st1:place></st1:city>
that, not only did he not denounce the flogging, but his government continues
to cover up the corruption that sustains the barbaric regime there.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i> ‘Private Eye’ is
currently engaged in a freedom of information battle with the Ministry of
Defence for details of its complicity in corruption on a £2 billion defence
contract. The government refuses to
provide it on the grounds that exposing such dirty secrets would harm relations
with <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:place></st1:country-region>.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i> Given that the
oppressive state spawned the group that claims responsibility for the Paris
attacks (not to mention the 9/11 bombers) al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula,
perhaps the ‘relations’ so highly valued by the British government would be
better served by exposing the Saudi regime rather than covering up for it.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3HyI4CS4Vl5iCXpqSdu1xXVvVFexsleZay7eYa_1h09rCk76Ljzr990g2-f3hlq9ECyNjC8fsUGLSX044U5Few_0yHSj7VHz89EbkHFyX0FSz0JdqwWClhDWnhat7N4GdLFbQvxsBdYU/s1600/img087.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3HyI4CS4Vl5iCXpqSdu1xXVvVFexsleZay7eYa_1h09rCk76Ljzr990g2-f3hlq9ECyNjC8fsUGLSX044U5Few_0yHSj7VHz89EbkHFyX0FSz0JdqwWClhDWnhat7N4GdLFbQvxsBdYU/s1600/img087.jpg" height="640" width="459" /></a></div>
<i> </i><br />
<i> </i>King Abdullah of <st1:place w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:place>
died on 23<sup>rd</sup> January, the day that <i>Private Eye </i>went on sale. In that issue it commented on the
jihadist murders in <st1:city w:st="on">Paris</st1:city>
and on the world-wide demonstrations – led by the western world’s political
leaders - supporting ‘free speech’. It
was unable though to comment in that issue on the obsequious haste with which
some of those same leaders flew to Saudi Arabia to offer their condolences
on the loss of the leader of a country that prohibits free speech, bans the
practice of any religious faith other than its own fundamentalist version of Islam, inflicts
cruel and barbarous punishments on it
own people, holds democracy and human rights in contempt, and generally makes Saddam Husseins's Iraq, Colonel Gadafi's Libya and President Assad's Syria, seem by comparison to have been earthly paradises of liberty and tolerance.</div>
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<o:p> </o:p><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">In view of
this, the cover of the </span><i style="text-indent: 36pt;">Private Eye </i><span style="text-indent: 36pt;">of
23</span><sup style="text-indent: 36pt;">rd</sup><span style="text-indent: 36pt;"> January shown above, was remarkably prophetic. The 'speech bubble' shown emanating from the world's leaders is surely more accurate than '<i>Je suis Charlie', </i>the slogan of the 'free speech' protesters!</span><br />
<span style="text-indent: 36pt;"><br /></span>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;">‘<i>Man’s
inhumanity to man!’<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
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I
can’t imagine a crime more heinous than that of IS (Islamic State) in burning
alive, in a cage, the unfortunate Jordanian airman who fell into their
hands. The wickedness of the action was
made worse by IS’ pretence of negotiating his release in exchange for a
captured failed suicide bomber. These
‘negotiations’ ensured IS the publicity for which they had hoped, and gave
false hope to the victim and his friends and relatives. I have little doubt that his fate was sealed
from the moment of capture.</div>
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The
airman’s dreadful death brought to my mind another shameful incident almost
exactly seventy years ago. I was a
prisoner of war at a ‘working camp’ in Zittau in eastern <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>. Throughout the bitterly cold winter of
1944/’45 we had watched civilian refugees from the inexorably approaching
Eastern Front pass through the town; old men, women and little children. Many
were trudging through the snow pulling little carts with all their
belongings. They were making for <st1:city w:st="on">Dresden</st1:city>, 60 or 70 miles
to the west where they’d be sorted out by the German Red Cross and sent to
relatively safe areas for refuge. It was
obvious to all that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Germany</st1:country-region>
was defeated and World War II coming to an end.</div>
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On
the night of 13<sup>th</sup> February 1945 <st1:city w:st="on">Dresden</st1:city> was flattened by high explosive and
incendiary bombs dropped by hundreds of RAF bombers. The centre of the town – not the railways and
factories on the outskirts – was the bombers’ target and it was crowded with
hapless refugees. The RAF bombers departed before the dawn but bombers from the
<st1:country-region w:st="on">USA</st1:country-region>
continued during the following day. The number of dead is estimated to have
been between 22,000 and 25,000. Many of
them were killed by collapsing buildings, others were asphyxiated by
smoke. They were the lucky ones. A substantial number, men, women and little
children will have been burnt alive – just like that unfortunate Jordanian
airman.</div>
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The
crews of the RAF and American bombers were ‘just obeying orders’. They didn’t know on whom their bombs were
falling and anyway, the Germans had done much more dreadful things. The bombing of <st1:city w:st="on">Dresden</st1:city>
took place just a few days after the Soviet Army had liberated the Auschwitz
death camp in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Poland</st1:country-region>
and had told the world of the horrors they had discovered there. Those aircrews were quite different from the killers
of IS who had allowed their victim to hope for release and had then murdered
him in the cruellest way that they could devise – a way that was guaranteed to
torture not only their victim but those who loved him.</div>
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Those
aircrews<b><i> were </i></b>quite different from the cold-blooded torturers and
murderers of IS. But their victims, whose bodies were found among the still
smouldering ruins of <st1:place w:st="on">Dresden</st1:place>,
suffered exactly the same agonies as that Jordanian airman. I didn’t realize it
at the time, but the events of that February night almost exactly 70 years ago set my mind on a course that ended with my repudiating all acts of violence
and, just three years later, joining the religious Society of Friends (Quakers)
and embracing the Quaker testimony against all wars.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Late Note. </b>The action of the
Jordanian Government in hanging two jihadist prisoners (including the woman
whom the government had been prepared to exchange for that airman) was
understandable but regrettable. It is
only by breaking the cycle of vengeance that we can hope to achieve peace.<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-8846503560228249142015-01-30T13:53:00.000+00:002015-01-30T13:53:28.666+00:0030th January 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics……on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">‘<i>Jaw,
jaw is always better than War, war!’<o:p></o:p></i></span></b></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Sir
Winston Churchill, the fiftieth anniversary of whose death was remembered last
week, was best known as a great war leader.
Perhaps it was his own personal experience of two world wars, and the
South African war before them, that inspired him to declare that ‘Jaw, jaw’
(negotiating with the perceived enemy), was always better than ‘War, war’
(confronting that perceived enemy with the weapons of death and destruction). </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
It
is advice that the world’s leaders really need to heed today. The news that the Russian Ambassador had been
summoned to explain why Russian bombing aircraft had flown round the United
Kingdom some 25 miles from our shores, had been shadowed by our fighters and
had disrupted air traffic over the English Channel wasn’t one of the first
items in the BBC’s news bulletin today (29<sup>th</sup> January). It could well have been the most significant
news story though, because it is just such provocative acts that could, unless
those concerned are prepared to ‘jaw, jaw’, <b><i> </i></b>trigger the outbreak of World War III. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
One
doesn’t have to be either a psychic or a James Bond to guess the answer of the
Russian Ambassador. The flight of the Russian bombers was a direct response to
NATOs provocative military manoeuvres in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Poland</st1:country-region>
and the <st1:place w:st="on">Baltic States</st1:place> during the course of
which I have little doubt that NATO military aircraft had on many occasions
flown up to – and perhaps beyond – the Russian and/or the Belorussian
frontiers.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The
NATO manoeuvres were a response to Russia’s recovery of the Crimean peninsula
(which had been welcomed by the overwhelming majority of the inhabitants), and
Russian support for the Russian-speaking rebels of Eastern Crimea demanding
freedom from the rule of the Ukrainian Government in Kiev. Tit for tat – just as in a primary school
playground, but possibly with rather more dire results!</div>
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<br /></div>
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The
NATO response had not been to discuss the possibility of a joint demand for a
cease-fire from both <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
and the NATO countries, and a discussion of possible remedies of the grievances
of the people of <st1:place w:st="on">Eastern Ukraine</st1:place>. Nor have
they suggested a referendum, under United Nations auspices, of the people of
Crimea to enable them have the same right of self-determination as – for instance
– the people of the Falklands, <st1:place w:st="on">Gibraltar</st1:place> and
Kosovo. Instead ‘the west’ immediately
gave wholehearted backing to the Government in Kiev, decided that Russia was
entirely responsible for the rebellion in the east, and imposed economic
sanctions on Russia. They gave no
credit to the Russians when they managed to achieve a cease-fire and peace
talks between the two sides, but now that the ceasefire seems to have been
broken (by which side I wonder?) they are proposing further sanctions.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
As
a lifetime supporter of the BBC I have been bitterly disappointed that they
have reported nothing of the Kiev government’s relentless shelling and bombing
of towns and villages under rebel control nor, as I discovered from quite another
neutral source, of the thousands of civilian refugees from the shelling who have fled into Russia to seek asylum.</div>
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<br />
I
remember our foreign secretary (it was William Hague at the time) declaring
darkly that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>
must realize that its actions <i>would have
consequences. </i>Indeed, and so they
did. But, of course, in the Kremlin
other politicians were saying exactly the same thing – in Russian. </div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
There’s
no doubt that EU and American sanctions have damaged the Russian economy – but <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region> has, as
might have been foreseen, imposed counter-sanctions against us. A few days ago we heard how British dairy
farmers, struggling to keep their heads above water, had been hit a devastating
blow by the Russian ban on the import of British dairy products. A regular blog reader has suggested that the
whole country, not just the dairy farmers, should bear the financial burden of
this ban, perhaps by an increase in income tax, not likely to be a very
attractive idea a few months before a General Election!</div>
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Now
the EU and NATO are meeting to discuss further sanctions on <st1:country-region w:st="on">Russia</st1:country-region>. How the terrorists of IS (Islamic State)
Islamic State – in Syria and Iraq, Africa and Afghanistan – must be laughing to see their
enemies, in Russia and ‘the West’, impoverishing themselves, and treading the
very dangerous path that could end in war.
How delighted they’d be if World War III did break out! And all because the leaders of ‘the west’
were not prepared to ‘<i>jaw, jaw’</i> with <st1:place w:st="on">Russia</st1:place>
the possibility that a substantial minority of Ukrainians should be granted the
right to determine their own future; a right that ‘the west’ has supported in
other parts of the world. </div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<st1:place w:st="on"><b><span style="font-size: large;">Eton</span></b></st1:place><b><span style="font-size: large;"> and
Oxbridge? Try <st1:place w:st="on">North
Essex</st1:place>!</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>I
wasn’t particularly surprised when I read in the local <i>Daily Gazette </i>that exam results had revealed <st1:placename w:st="on">Colchester</st1:placename>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Royal</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">Grammar
School</st1:placetype> and Colchester’s High School for Girls to be the best
schools in <st1:country-region w:st="on">England</st1:country-region>. They have both had an unrivalled reputation
for years.</div>
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I
was totally astonished though to learn from the same <i>Gazette</i> that Yanis Varoufakis, a Ph.D graduate at Essex University (just
on the Colchester side of the Colchester/Tendring District boundary) is the
Finance Minister of the new Greek Government; that Rena Dourou, another Essex
University Graduate who had been the elected governor of Attica (the part of
Greece surrounding Athens) is also a member of that government, while a third
Essex Uni. Graduate, Fotini Vaki, has been elected to represent the island of
Corfu in the new Greek parliament!</div>
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Nor,
records the <i>Gazette,</i> is it only in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Greece</st1:country-region> that graduates of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Essex</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>
have achieved distinction. John Bercow,
Speaker of our House of Commons, graduated there in 1985. Daniel Libeskind, world-renowned architect and
master-plan architect for the reconstruction of the World Trade Centre site in
New York after the destruction of 9/11, graduated in 1972, Lord Triesman who graduated in 1969 is
Labour’s shadow minister for foreign affairs. David Yates, BAFTA winning tv and
film director, who directed the final four episodes of the Harry Potter film
series, graduated in 1987, Oscar Arias
Sanchez who graduated in 1975, was twice President of Costa Rica and received
the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987; Baroness Virginia Bottomley, who graduated in
1970 was a Conservative MP for twenty-four years and held two Secretary of State
roles in the ‘90s, and Sir Christopher Oissarides who graduated in 1971, was
awarded the Nobel prize for his contribution to the theory of search frictions
and macroeconomics! (No – I’ve no idea
what that means!)</div>
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It
is clear that <st1:place w:st="on">Eton</st1:place> and Oxbridge isn’t the only
route to the top. <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placename w:st="on">Essex</st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st="on">University</st1:placetype></st1:place>
may have arrived rather late on the scene but it has certainly made its mark. I
have no doubt that, less than twenty miles from my front door, there are more future cabinet ministers and Nobel prize winners in the pipeline!</div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7093867816926992112.post-54042129557788556602015-01-24T09:17:00.000+00:002015-01-25T08:05:32.059+00:0024 January 2015<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Tendring Topics………on line<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Keeping things ‘in proportion’</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"> </span></b>I
am not one of Lord Mendelson’s greatest admirers. He was one of the creators of <i>New Labour </i>which, to win elections,
surrendered the Labour Party’s soul and converted British politics into a pale
imitation of the politics of the <st1:place w:st="on">USA</st1:place>. There is precious little
difference between the objectives of the two main parties. They
only differ in how best to achieve them.
In office Tony Blair, Lord Mendelson’s friend and political colleague,<i> </i>continued the process begun by Mrs
Thatcher of turning the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>
into a Prime Ministerial dictatorship.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
However,
I am inclined to be on Lord Mendelson’s side in his current disagreement with
Ed Miliband and his shadow Chancellor Ed Balls. It is, I think, shameful that multi-millionaires
in this country are likely to pay a much smaller proportion of their income in
taxation than those whose income is so low that they pay no income tax at all,
but do have to pay the government every time they buy an object or service that
is subject to VAT or purchase something that is subject to customs duty, like a
packet of cigarettes or a pint at a pub.
Multi-millionaires also, of course, pay a much smaller proportion of
their income in taxation than do those mythical beings who David Cameron always
claims he is eager to help – average hardworking wage earners who pay income
tax and, of course, the indirect taxes and custom duties that this government
prefers</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Ed Miliband’s
mansion tax may not be intended to be a one-off tax to help the NHS – or any
other good cause – out of its current crisis, by taking a few hundred thousand
pounds from the bank accounts of the super-wealthy, but that’s how it
sounds. I think that the government
should be fair to both the wealthy and the poor by claiming an equal percentage
of the gross income of all of us to fund public services. The obvious way to do this is by means of
the income tax system, the only tax that is linked to ability to pay. I think we should consider it not as an
imposition but as a privilege to pay our annual subscription towards the
not-inconsiderable benefits of being a British Citizen, or towards our
permission to live and work within the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>.
We would then all have an equal stake in the prosperity or economic
failure of our country. We really would
be <i>all in this together!<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<i> </i>Income tax is the
obvious means that a government could use to level the economic playing field
but another way that would help to do this would be – as Lord Mendelson suggests – adding additional tax bands to the Council Tax system.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Blog
readers past the first flush of youth will recall the ‘bad old days’ in which
local authorities, County, Borough and District Councils raised part of their
income by means of ‘the domestic rates’.
These were an annual charge on each dwelling within the district. Nobody enjoyed paying them but they were
based on the estimated rental value of the property. They therefore had at
least a rough relationship to the income of the occupier of the occupier or
occupiers</div>
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<br /></div>
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Mrs Thatcher’s
government changed all that. Instead of
the rates we were to have a ‘community charge’ (almost instantly rebranded ‘the
poll tax’) which taxed each individual equally regardless of whether that
individual was a millionaire or a refuse collector. It took no account whatsoever of ability to
pay. The rating system may have been disliked but the poll tax was actually
hated. It was just such a tax that had provoked
the medieval ‘peasants revolt’. In the
late twentieth century it produced wide-spread demonstrations, riots and the
eventual fall of the Thatcher government.
</div>
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<br /></div>
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The Poll Tax
was replaced by the ‘Council Tax’. This is based on the estimated purchase
value of the property and therefore makes a pretence of bearing some
relationship to the income or wealth of the householder. Properties are classified as being in one of
eight ‘tax bands’, the lowest of which is under £40,000 and the highest
£320,000 and above. A glance will make
it clear that those bands are hopelessly out of date. I suppose for £40,000 you might, just
possibly, get some kind of a shack in an area like the Brooklands Estate,
Jaywick just a couple of miles from my
home – but that estate has been declared to be the most deprived area in the
UK!</div>
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<br /></div>
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At the other
end of the tax bands the situation is even more ridiculous. The highest tax band for Council Tax is
£320,000 and above. I agree that in the Clacton area you would get a very nice
property for £320,000 – but not in many other parts of the <st1:place w:st="on">UK</st1:place></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Do you ever
watch ‘<i>Escape to the Country’ </i>on BBC
tv. Briefly it’s about very fortunate
(and often very hard working and gifted) folk who have made a fortune in <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>, or <st1:city w:st="on">Manchester</st1:city> or <st1:place w:st="on">Sheffield</st1:place> or wherever and are now seeking a residence ‘in
the country’. A BBC presenter introduces
them to three or four ‘desirable residences’ in the area of their choice. It’s not a programme I like to watch. I have spent too much of my professional
life trying to help people who are homeless, or overcrowded or living in
squalid conditions, to enjoy seeing well-heeled folk looking over a luxurious
home and complaining that <i>‘the view isn’t
quite what we’d hoped for’ or ‘the paddock isn’t really big enough for Rosalie </i>(their
spoilt brat!)<i> to exercise the pony we’ve
given her for her birthday’.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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It’s very
unusual for one of those very comfortable and very desirable homes ‘in the
country’ to change hands for as little as £320,000. That sum would probably buy a roomy three
bedroom home in one of <st1:city w:st="on">London</st1:city>’s
more pleasant suburbs. That means that
an executive officer of a biggish enterprise or a middle-grade civil servant,
living in a comfortable but hardly palatial home in Cheam or Twickenham would
pay exactly the same Council Tax as the owner of a ‘Downton Abbey’ or similar
stately home or family mansion.</div>
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There should
be at least three higher tax bands, ending at homes valued at £2 million pounds
or more, to bring something like fairness to the Council Tax system. The
Council Tax bands, like the income tax system, need urgent reconstruction to
make sure that those who have done best from our market economy should pay at
least as big a proportion of their wealth in tax as those who have been less
fortunate.</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<b><span style="font-size: large;">A trusted ally – or a ‘pariah state’?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<br /></div>
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In recent
months I have been quite proud of the fact that I am a member of the Church of
England as well as of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). I welcomed the Church’s decision to ordain
women as Bishops as well as Priests. I
have applauded the Archbishop of Canterbury’s campaign to replace ‘pay day
lenders’ with local ‘credit unions’ and his criticism of economic policies that
have led to the proliferation of Food Banks throughout the <st1:country-region w:st="on">UK</st1:country-region>.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
That
enthusiasm suffered a severe blow this (23<sup>rd</sup> January) afternoon when
I learned that, to comply with government guidelines, the authorities of
Westminster Abbey would be flying our national flag at half-mast in mourning
for the King of Saudi Arabia. It
suffered a further blow with the news that the Prince of Wales (a future
‘Defender of the Faith’) together with our Prime Minister were to fly to <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> to
express their condolences. I suppose
that the Prince is aware that any expression of the Faith that he will pledge
himself to defend is strictly forbidden in Saudi Arabia and that any Muslim in
that country who converts to Christianity is likely to be executed!</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region>’s disregard for democracy and human
rights makes <st1:country-region w:st="on">North Korea</st1:country-region>
seem like a liberal <st1:place w:st="on">Paradise</st1:place>! Torture is routinely practised in Saudi gaols
and public executions, amputations and floggings are daily occurrences. The case of a blogger who considered the
possibility that <st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi
Arabia</st1:country-region> might become a secular state and who is
being publicly flogged with fifty lashes every Friday until, if he survives long enough, he has received a total of 1,000 lashes, has recently
made the press headlines. Women in Saudi-Arabia
are said to be much more free than they were a decade or so ago – but they are
still forbidden to drive cars or leave their homes without a male escort
(husband, father or brother). </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Most of those
involved in the 9/11 outrages in <st1:state w:st="on">New
York</st1:state> were Saudis.
<st1:country-region w:st="on">Saudi Arabia</st1:country-region> is the
home of the noxious fundamentalist Islamic faith that IS (the Islamic State) is
trying to impose in <st1:country-region w:st="on">Syria</st1:country-region>
and <st1:country-region w:st="on">Iraq</st1:country-region> and that Boko Haram
is imposing, even more blood-thirstily, in sub-Saharan <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>.
Donations from oil-rich Saudi millionaires financed IS during its early days.
They possibly still do so.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
Do we really
need oil (and arms sales) so badly that we are prepared to befriend a state
whose philosophy is the exact opposite of the British values that David Cameron
and his colleagues are so eager to propagate?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 36.0pt;">
<br /></div>
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Ernest Hallhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06477884976300854594noreply@blogger.com0