Brown is an idiot he does only have one working eye and he lies all the time saying he's saved the world economy. so jeremy clarkson was just stating the obvious
all the liberal pc brigade get off your high horses .
can people say nothing today without others being offended . - Also ever heard of freedom of speech and freedom to offend . Believe me i and many others in private at least have probably said much worse about brown. i for one feel no qualms about insulting a person who destroyed final salary person's, taxed people to the hilt , borrowed way to much and wasted taxpayer's money. Taxi for brown i say.
all the scots labour mps are moaning - bet brown told them to do clarkson wasn't saying he's a crap prime minister because he is scottish he was simply stating that Gordon Brown is scottish which he is. Gordon brown has lied to us repeated he said he wouldn't raise taxes he did , he said he's saved the british/world economy he hasn't , he said he would obey his golden rule he hasn't , he said he didn't postpone the election he did , he said he abolished boom and bust -he hasn't these were all lies.
as for getting rid of him - Top gear is great - dont .
I also think the latest news that clarkson has apologised was a mistake . He shouldn't apologise for making a harmless jokes
here's a link to what jeremy clarkson said :http://entertainment.uk.msn.com/tv/news/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=13779495>1=61503&ocid=today&vv=650
I'm a member of the Conservative Party and have very strong beliefs on a variety of political subjects especially on the EU, foreign policy particularly relating to Israel and the wider Middle East, crime, the welfare state, justice and taxes just to name a few. I am now working this year as the parliamentary liaison for a fantastic political organisation called the Freedom Association.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Monday, February 2, 2009
Hamas doesn't want peace with Israel
Apparently until the end of blockade hamas will still fight israel, this will translate till israel gets out of the west bank and then until israel ceases to exist .
All this shows is Binyamin Netanyahu was right on this issue - although on other s such as the peace process i completely disagree with him.what the hell was the point of the ceasefire- hamas still wants to destroy israel and hasn't been significantly damaged.
here's the link which shows hamas comittment to terrorism.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090201/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictiranhamas_20090201183342;_ylt=Ah_ZF8ag9afMi1L3DWT23wKaOrgF
All this shows is Binyamin Netanyahu was right on this issue - although on other s such as the peace process i completely disagree with him.what the hell was the point of the ceasefire- hamas still wants to destroy israel and hasn't been significantly damaged.
here's the link which shows hamas comittment to terrorism.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090201/wl_mideast_afp/mideastconflictiranhamas_20090201183342;_ylt=Ah_ZF8ag9afMi1L3DWT23wKaOrgF
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Israel needs to stand up to racist that is avigdor Lieberman
There is a party called Yisrael Beiteinu Led by Avigdor Lieberman it is essentially racist far right in character with a leader whose penchant seems to be pissing of israeli arabs. Yet for some reason the israeli government indeed the israeli judiciary system under Menachem Mazuz seems to be giving into him. Just recently in an act of stupidity the two main arab parties were banned, sure a minority of them supported hamas , but the majority didn't and anyway for a 20% part of the population who already feel disenfranchised this will only make the situation worse .
Just Recently Avigdor Lieberman like usual made some extremely racist remarks he said "Lieberman had called UAL MK Taleb a-Sanaa "a clown" and "a terrorist," adding that he should "be treated as such. We will take care of you like we take care of every terrorist; we will take care of you just like we took care of Hamas."
Lieberman's current Knesset campaign slogan, "No loyalty, no citizenship," is aimed at the Arab party leaders, whom he has consistently claimed constitute a fifth column working against Israel. Lieberman should have been banned and his party should be also banned unless they stop the anti arab rhetoric
At least the supreme court has now reinstated the two israeli arab parties, but the monster that is avigdor lieberman is allowed to preach his racism , tainting israel's image abroad.
Just Recently Avigdor Lieberman like usual made some extremely racist remarks he said "Lieberman had called UAL MK Taleb a-Sanaa "a clown" and "a terrorist," adding that he should "be treated as such. We will take care of you like we take care of every terrorist; we will take care of you just like we took care of Hamas."
Lieberman's current Knesset campaign slogan, "No loyalty, no citizenship," is aimed at the Arab party leaders, whom he has consistently claimed constitute a fifth column working against Israel. Lieberman should have been banned and his party should be also banned unless they stop the anti arab rhetoric
At least the supreme court has now reinstated the two israeli arab parties, but the monster that is avigdor lieberman is allowed to preach his racism , tainting israel's image abroad.
Monday, January 26, 2009
The vatican gives succour to holocaust deniers everywhere
a deeply worrying article in the times here, 3 days before Holocaust memorial day -the pope reinstates bishops who denied the holocaust - absolutely disgusting -this disturbing article is found in the times.http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5591687.ece
The scourge of anti semitism it seems goes to the heart of the catholic church.
The scourge of anti semitism it seems goes to the heart of the catholic church.
An angry message to leeds uni Occupiers
This is utter rubbish israel was defending itself against hamas terrorists . Terrorists who want to destroy the state of israel, terrorists who use children to carry out there aims terrorists who fire from civilian areas including schools and hospitals . terrorists who use civilians as shields . terrorists who have killed 200 members of fatah in the past month.
Do you just ignore what is happening to the people in southern israel. Why should the israeli ambassador be expelled, that is tantamount to calling for israel not to exist - there are 60 arab states 1 jewish democratic state who isn't medieval who aren't terrorists and give equal rights to their citizens. i dont hear you calling for the end of hamas
Do you just ignore what is happening to the people in southern israel. Why should the israeli ambassador be expelled, that is tantamount to calling for israel not to exist - there are 60 arab states 1 jewish democratic state who isn't medieval who aren't terrorists and give equal rights to their citizens. i dont hear you calling for the end of hamas
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The Government needs to cut spending not waste it
Every year the Taxpayer Alliance produces a book called the bumper book of government waste and year and year hte amount of spending the government , the EU etc wastes gets worse and worse. 2009 is when government spending and thus waste goes into overdrive. Being the tax and spend socialist he is and with an opposition in david cameron who is scared to mention the word's spending cut's event though this was what bought Britain out of the recession in 1992 and in the earlhy 1980s , Brown is given a free run to wrack up government waste , and Gordon's having a great time , treating the taxpayer's money like his own personal credit crunch. The problem is the last time the government tried to tax and spend there way out of a recession it didn't work , what happened in the 1970s was the tax and spend policies crowed out the public sector , reduced incentives for entrepreneuralism saddled people with higher taxes and increased the power of the unions to a stage when the question could be asked who run's the country and the resounding answer back was the union. Brown though hasn't learnt from history and is repeating this mistake.
The bottom line is the Government cannot be trusted with too much of the taxpayer's money it will be wasted, it will lead to a deeper recession,and it could bankrupt the country. From the NHS it system , to amount of managers and consultants not needed in the NHS , to the wasted money of putting camera's in people's wheelie bins to ID cards and the amount wasted on government reviews , as well as the million's spent on Saving Northern Rock a much smaller bank than RBS which should have on the moral hazard argument been let to go to the wall. All this money could have been saved , taxpayers could have got value for money , but like a baby addicted to milk , the government is addicted to spending taxpayer's money.
To Conclude the latest book on Governmnent spending in 2008 before the recession hit's it peak showed the Government has misspent (that's government speak for thrown the taxpayer's money down the swanney) 101 Billion pounds , the scary thing was this was before the latest government spending binge. This shows that spending more is not the right answer in recession or a time of economic growth , the right answer is to be prudent with people's money and where possible cut government spending.
The bottom line is the Government cannot be trusted with too much of the taxpayer's money it will be wasted, it will lead to a deeper recession,and it could bankrupt the country. From the NHS it system , to amount of managers and consultants not needed in the NHS , to the wasted money of putting camera's in people's wheelie bins to ID cards and the amount wasted on government reviews , as well as the million's spent on Saving Northern Rock a much smaller bank than RBS which should have on the moral hazard argument been let to go to the wall. All this money could have been saved , taxpayers could have got value for money , but like a baby addicted to milk , the government is addicted to spending taxpayer's money.
To Conclude the latest book on Governmnent spending in 2008 before the recession hit's it peak showed the Government has misspent (that's government speak for thrown the taxpayer's money down the swanney) 101 Billion pounds , the scary thing was this was before the latest government spending binge. This shows that spending more is not the right answer in recession or a time of economic growth , the right answer is to be prudent with people's money and where possible cut government spending.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Why Israeli shell's hit a hospital
Yuval Diskin, in a report to the Israeli cabinet, said that the Gaza-based leadership of Hamas was in underground housing beneath the No. 2 building of Shifa Hospital hence why the al shifa hospital was hit , in the past this hospital has also been used to hide hamas munitions and treat hamas terorrists as well hamas terrorists pretending to be injured. this was the same hospital where hamas operatives killed 30 palestinians for collaborating with israel .
this just shows what a disgusting group hamas is - the left should think about this when they idiotically ask us to support the resistance in gaza, saying we all are hamas , and in a particularly disturbing example in holland shouting. Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas, with the help of useful idiot lefy socialist parliament member Harry Von Bommel shouting supporting for another intifada against israel. The left as Nick Cohen showed in his book what's left at least the far left is actively engaging with islamic extremism , someone needs to wake them up and show them what idiots they are being.
this just shows what a disgusting group hamas is - the left should think about this when they idiotically ask us to support the resistance in gaza, saying we all are hamas , and in a particularly disturbing example in holland shouting. Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas, with the help of useful idiot lefy socialist parliament member Harry Von Bommel shouting supporting for another intifada against israel. The left as Nick Cohen showed in his book what's left at least the far left is actively engaging with islamic extremism , someone needs to wake them up and show them what idiots they are being.
The real facts on the hamas -Israel War - what the media ignores to tell you.
heard that israel's killed thousands of civilians , that the attack is disproportionate, that hamas is a brave resistance force not endagering the lives of civilians , that israel has killed un workers and bombed schools , well a lot of these allegations are quite frankly crap believed by a world media interesting in smearing israel .
please go to this site - it debunks many of the bogus allegations thrown at israel
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=3587015&content_id={2824FE24-90B2-4815-966B-B60ED1E3739D}¬oc=1
please go to this site - it debunks many of the bogus allegations thrown at israel
http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=3587015&content_id={2824FE24-90B2-4815-966B-B60ED1E3739D}¬oc=1
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
some light thrown on un school incident
i may have been hasty to judge israel it appears according to a jerusalem post article that there was definitely mortar fire from hamas terrorists coming out of gaza -a couple of palestinian bystanders speaking under anonymity have said this also . there also appears due to the power of explosion there may have already been explosives in the school put in by hamas - if this happened i retract what i said completely earlier about israel's attack on the school on the grounds that a there was definitely terrorists firing from the school and b -they actually blew up the school not israel.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
i wont support day 11 of israel's offensive in gaza
i am one of israel's strongest supporter and will continue to be so . i have supported all of israel's actions against hamas in gaza until now
i am sorry i cannot defend the hitting of a school by the israeli millitary killing 50 people including 30 children, i cannot support israel when this is the second time in 2 days a school has been hit ,and whilst i supported the ground offensive the idf normally so accurate should not be this inaccurate , i would understand if these were palestinian run schools as these are used and controlled by hamas but this was used by civilians a school run by the un to keep them out of the line of fighting so they wouldn't be exploited and used by hamas ,and israel ends up killing them and in one full swoop loses support across the world and handles the initiative to hamas. This breaks the idf code of conduct which israel cant afford to do , especially after ten days of doing the right thing when civilian casualties were low and hamas high , but this 11th day israel got it so so wrong.this is a massive and stupid blunder and now israel will have to stop their actions and accept a ceasefire because if they dont , they will even lose the support of there strongest ally that being the United States.
This is turning out the same way as the israel-hezbollah war - with the terrorists coming out on top. this is an utter catastrophe for the world -but once again shows israel is relying way too much on the airforce and not enough on hand to hand combat.
Hamas will receive more support from leftwing liberals as well as the islamic extremists who dont realise that hamas in it's charter states it wants to destroy israel and throw all jews into the sea. israel has just given a massive coup to anti semites and groups like hamas which include al quaeda everywhere.
i am sorry i cannot defend the hitting of a school by the israeli millitary killing 50 people including 30 children, i cannot support israel when this is the second time in 2 days a school has been hit ,and whilst i supported the ground offensive the idf normally so accurate should not be this inaccurate , i would understand if these were palestinian run schools as these are used and controlled by hamas but this was used by civilians a school run by the un to keep them out of the line of fighting so they wouldn't be exploited and used by hamas ,and israel ends up killing them and in one full swoop loses support across the world and handles the initiative to hamas. This breaks the idf code of conduct which israel cant afford to do , especially after ten days of doing the right thing when civilian casualties were low and hamas high , but this 11th day israel got it so so wrong.this is a massive and stupid blunder and now israel will have to stop their actions and accept a ceasefire because if they dont , they will even lose the support of there strongest ally that being the United States.
This is turning out the same way as the israel-hezbollah war - with the terrorists coming out on top. this is an utter catastrophe for the world -but once again shows israel is relying way too much on the airforce and not enough on hand to hand combat.
Hamas will receive more support from leftwing liberals as well as the islamic extremists who dont realise that hamas in it's charter states it wants to destroy israel and throw all jews into the sea. israel has just given a massive coup to anti semites and groups like hamas which include al quaeda everywhere.
Monday, December 22, 2008
report on israel- with the facts unlike the bbc
recently 80 rockets have been fired at hamas from israel , yet you wouldn't hear this on the bbc , or if you do hear it , Israel apparently is in the wrong to defend themselves. What israel should start doing if they want to be proportionate is lobbing rockets back at Gaza - the bbc would have a field day at this.
Then there's this whole crap about collective punishment. Im sorry the palestinian group hamas now controls gaza , why the hell should israel be providing fuel and food for a foreign territory - does England provide france no . How about hamas stop indoctrinating children through hate filled messages at school and start providing their people with food and water -but then to them bombs and rockets are more important.
Then their's bethlehem - yes there are problems - but not from what left wing church leaders such as stephen coulter will tell from nasty israeli jews - no from islamic extremists who are persecuting Bethlehem's christians - did the bbc report this you bet your bottom dollar they didn't.
Then there's this whole crap about collective punishment. Im sorry the palestinian group hamas now controls gaza , why the hell should israel be providing fuel and food for a foreign territory - does England provide france no . How about hamas stop indoctrinating children through hate filled messages at school and start providing their people with food and water -but then to them bombs and rockets are more important.
Then their's bethlehem - yes there are problems - but not from what left wing church leaders such as stephen coulter will tell from nasty israeli jews - no from islamic extremists who are persecuting Bethlehem's christians - did the bbc report this you bet your bottom dollar they didn't.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
baby p -and the sickening suppor for harringay's social services leader.
a baby is brutally hacked to death , causing outrage everywhere, social services met this baby constantly and could see bruises - even a broken back yet did nothing , a doctor clearly saw the baby was in distress and did nothing - the social services head should be villified, and yet madly 60 teachers across the UK are pledging their support to the dangerously incompetent leader of Harringay Social Services her name being sharon shoesmith. The teachers says she has worked relentlessly for children-no she hasn't she has presided over infanticide - which she should have stopped - if anything she should be sacked with immediate effect -and put in jail ofr assistance to murder-she could have stopped it after all.
this is not only what has happened -an independent inquiry blames legal advice-and says their have been numerous example of good work done by social services- Hello ever heard of a thing called common sense- a baby is clearly being beaten -yet social services do nothing - hmm yer great job not.
this is not only what has happened -an independent inquiry blames legal advice-and says their have been numerous example of good work done by social services- Hello ever heard of a thing called common sense- a baby is clearly being beaten -yet social services do nothing - hmm yer great job not.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Finally the Real Mccain arrives in a gracious concession speech
stuck to the bush regime of spend spend spend, a failing economy , two wars not going to plan ,along with the one of the most unpopular president's in history, it was always going to be a tough yer for the republicans , but if one man could save them , it would be John Mccain the maverick (the person who deserved to be the president in 2000)instead of the buffoon Bush. A person who put what was right before party politics a man who stuck it to the extremists in his party for example on free trade, campaign finance, taxes , government spending and immigration. Mccain since 2006 though thanks to the GOP and the religious right has had to stop being himself , he suddenly supported Bush's unfunded tax cuts, stopped calling the religious right the agents of intolerance, became more populist on the economy , although to be fair he always stuck up for free trade,and worst of all was forced to pick Sarah Palin , as the choice of Joe Lieberman wouldn't be allowed .
Then there was the negative campaigning . For sure Obama engaged in negative campaigning against him but Mccain's was much less subtle and more open. You could tell he was never comfortable with Obama Bashing but he let it happen on his watch. It seemed only in the last two weeks when the pressure was off and he started to relaxed, he stopped the personal attack and launched attacks on policy (how he should have started) the whole spreading the wealth ,and how Obama's policy were like socialism were pertinent and true , however the damage had been done thanks to Sarah Palin saying Obama had palled around with terrorists -and then of course Mccain had to say this -thanks for that Sarah (Idiot )Palin.
It was only in his concession speech we saw the Real John Mccain. Standing up to the morons in his own party who booed him when he praised Barack Obama he pleaded with them to stop. They more than anything lost him the election -he couldn't be a maverick with these idiots as his supporters. The Bipartanship he showed in the Mccain-Feingold campaign finance bill, and the immigration bill with Ted Kennedy came out -as he offered his support for Barack Obama . Then there was the taking the blame moment , he didn't have to , he could have blamed bush , the war , the economy , his own supporters, the republican brand , but showing his humbleness he blamed himself -that takes guts. McCain's speech was wonderful and captured the very essence of 'Country First'. What a shame to pull out your best speech as you concede.
Barack Obama could do no better than offer Mccain a man still with much energy as shown by his frenzied last few days of campaign across America, a role as a secretary of state- for example the role of secretary of state for defence -it is surely what a true American War Hero deserves - and after all if Obama's pledge on bipartanship means anything (which after his partisan election campaign -for example not standing up to the democrats on the issue of free trade) - i doubt , then it would be the right choice.
Even with a flawed campaign ,and getting thrashed in the electoral college(a system the electoral college that to me seems a joke and certainly not democratic) the popular vote was close, 52% for Obama 47% for mccain. Who Knows if Mccain had been the man we know he is ,and not the man the Republican Machine wanted him to be , he might have won the election.
Good luck for the future John , Be true to yourself
Then there was the negative campaigning . For sure Obama engaged in negative campaigning against him but Mccain's was much less subtle and more open. You could tell he was never comfortable with Obama Bashing but he let it happen on his watch. It seemed only in the last two weeks when the pressure was off and he started to relaxed, he stopped the personal attack and launched attacks on policy (how he should have started) the whole spreading the wealth ,and how Obama's policy were like socialism were pertinent and true , however the damage had been done thanks to Sarah Palin saying Obama had palled around with terrorists -and then of course Mccain had to say this -thanks for that Sarah (Idiot )Palin.
It was only in his concession speech we saw the Real John Mccain. Standing up to the morons in his own party who booed him when he praised Barack Obama he pleaded with them to stop. They more than anything lost him the election -he couldn't be a maverick with these idiots as his supporters. The Bipartanship he showed in the Mccain-Feingold campaign finance bill, and the immigration bill with Ted Kennedy came out -as he offered his support for Barack Obama . Then there was the taking the blame moment , he didn't have to , he could have blamed bush , the war , the economy , his own supporters, the republican brand , but showing his humbleness he blamed himself -that takes guts. McCain's speech was wonderful and captured the very essence of 'Country First'. What a shame to pull out your best speech as you concede.
Barack Obama could do no better than offer Mccain a man still with much energy as shown by his frenzied last few days of campaign across America, a role as a secretary of state- for example the role of secretary of state for defence -it is surely what a true American War Hero deserves - and after all if Obama's pledge on bipartanship means anything (which after his partisan election campaign -for example not standing up to the democrats on the issue of free trade) - i doubt , then it would be the right choice.
Even with a flawed campaign ,and getting thrashed in the electoral college(a system the electoral college that to me seems a joke and certainly not democratic) the popular vote was close, 52% for Obama 47% for mccain. Who Knows if Mccain had been the man we know he is ,and not the man the Republican Machine wanted him to be , he might have won the election.
Good luck for the future John , Be true to yourself
Friday, July 18, 2008
israel hands hezbollah a propaganda victory in a futile prisoner swap
would you free ian huntley for the dead victim's body to be returned to their family ? the answer would surely be no , yet Israel has released samil Kuntar - a person who killed a whole family including 3 innocent young children 30 years ago for the bodies of ehud goldwasser and eldad regev - that's not to mention the other hezbollah prisoners . In other words Israel has given up a murderer for almost no gain- here are some articles which explain this very well
HERE'S THE FIRST
Israeli critics question lopsided prisoner swap By STEVEN GUTKIN and ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writers
Wed Jul 16, 5:31 PM ET
JERUSALEM - Critics of Israel's lopsided prisoner exchange with Lebanese guerrillas said Wednesday that such deals only encourage more hostage-taking — a fear underscored by Gaza militants who said the swap proves that kidnapping is the only language Israel understands.
ADVERTISEMENT
The deal, in which a notorious Lebanese attacker, four other militants and the bodies of 199 Arab fighters were traded for two dead Israeli soldiers, closed a painful chapter from Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon.
But it also raised questions about whether Israel should reconsider its policy of bringing back every soldier from the battlefield at just about any cost.
Israel has been carrying out unequal prisoner swaps for decades, including handing over 4,600 Palestinian and Lebanese captives in 1983 in exchange for six captured Israeli soldiers. In the past it's even traded live prisoners for bodies, as it did Wednesday.
The rationale for such trades was a wartime ethic seen as essential in Israel's early days to instilling loyalty and commitment from its troops.
In today's world of asymmetric warfare — with militant groups increasingly focused on kidnapping as a way to pressure Israel and with the fight against terrorism now a worldwide challenge — the lopsided swaps could have graver consequences than in the past.
"What we've done now has made kidnapping soldiers the most profitable game in town," said Israeli security expert Martin Sherman.
"There is absolutely no reason why Hezbollah should not invest huge resources now, along with Hamas, in the next kidnapping."
The issue is of immediate concern because the government is deeply involved in indirect negotiations to free its other captive soldier, Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Unlike Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two soldiers whose bodies were returned Wednesday, Schalit is believed to be alive.
Following this week's Cabinet vote that cleared the way for the Hezbollah deal, Construction Minister Zeev Boim, one of only three ministers to vote against it, said he was afraid the swap would make it harder for Israel to win the release of Schalit.
"No one should be surprised if Hamas will now raise the price for freeing him," he said.
Hamas made it clear Wednesday that it intended to do just that.
"As there was an honorable exchange today, we are determined to have an honorable exchange for our own prisoners" held in Israeli jails, Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said. "Let them answer our demands." Israel holds about 10,000 Palestinians in prison.
Haniyeh's spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri went further, saying the swap "shows that the only successful way to free the prisoners is by kidnapping soldiers."
Explaining his opposition, Boim, the construction minister, said Wednesday: "We needed, in my opinion, to take this opportunity to change the rules we were dragged into many years ago, which have led to many lopsided deals."
But the Israeli military said the deal drove home the Jewish state's deep commitment to its soldiers.
"This painful process exemplifies Israel's moral commitment to secure the return of all of their soldiers sent out on operational missions," said a statement Wednesday from the Israeli Defense Forces. "It demonstrates a compelling moral strength which stems from Judaism, Israeli societal values and from the spirit of the IDF."
Wednesday's exchange involved freeing a Lebanese militant convicted of what many consider to be among the most gruesome crimes inflicted on Israelis in their history.
Samir Kantar was sentenced to three life terms for killing an Israeli man in front of his 4-year-old daughter, then killing the little girl by smashing her skull with his rifle butt.
During the grisly attack, the girl's 2-year-old sister was accidentally smothered by her mother during a desperate attempt to silence the child's cries as the two hid in a crawl space.
For Israelis, the 1979 attack was a nightmare scenario feared by many in a nation living in a constant state of war: a terrorist breaking into their home in the middle of the night and kidnapping and killing a family.
Because of the visceral reaction, successive governments held off on including Kantar in any previous swap. Kantar was 16 years old at the time of the attack and he has consistently denied killing the girl, saying she died in crossfire.
That Israel paid such a high price for dead bodies could provide an incentive for militants to kill future hostages, said Yuval Steinitz, a lawmaker from the opposition Likud Party.
"This is a very dangerous precedent," he said. "We are telling them that they don't have to do their utmost to keep captive soldiers alive, to save them if captured."
Nor was the high price of the swap lost on ordinary Palestinians.
"Nobody would have expected that Israel would give up the likes of Samir Kantar. Hezbollah has shown that they are mighty people, and Israel is afraid of them and had to meet their demands," said Samar Mohammed, a 23-year-old architect in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Despite the criticism in Israel, the swap could provide a badly needed boost for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose grip on power is gravely threatened by a burgeoning corruption probe.
Olmert launched a monthlong war against Hezbollah in June 2006 in response to the servicemen's capture. His handling of the war was widely criticized, and he has been under considerable pressure to resolve the issue of the soldiers' fate.
Wednesday's swap closed a painful chapter from the war, and Israelis reacted to confirmation of the young men's death with a mixture of anguish and anger.
One of the soldiers' aunts sank to the ground in despair, and other mourners demanded revenge, chanting "Nasrallah, you will pay" — referring to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.
2.Hezbollah prisoners freed in exchange for dead Israeli soldiers
2 days ago
BEIRUT (AFP) — Five Lebanese prisoners freed by Israel arrived to a hero's welcome in Lebanon Wednesday, hours after Hezbollah handed over the bodies of two Israeli soldiers seized by its guerrillas two years ago.
Among those freed in a prisoner swap greeted with triumph in Lebanon but anguish in Israel was Samir Kantar , who was sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder, including of a child.
The prisoners were transported to Lebanon late afternoon in a convoy of four International Committee of the Red Cross vehicles via the Naqura border crossing, where they were cheered and applauded by crowds of Hezbollah supporters who had been waiting all day for their arrival.
They were then flown by helicopters to Beirut, where they were accorded a red carpet welcome by Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the entire cabinet and a host of lawmakers and religious leaders.
The five -- Kantar and Hezbollah fighters Khaled Zidan, Maher Kurani, Mohammed Sarur and Hussein Suleiman -- stood on a platform as Sleiman spoke and then shook hands with the politicians lined up to greet them.
"Your return is a new victory and the future in your presence will be a path in which we will realise the sovereignty of our territory and the liberty of our people," Sleiman said.
"I tell Samir and his companions that they have a right to be proud of their country, their army and their resistance."
Kantar kissed his mother, Siham Kantar, 71, after the meet and greet with the politicians as crowds and the media swarmed around him.
His mother had burst into tears while waiting earlier at the airport when she was told that her son had arrived in Naqura and was indeed free after more than 28 years in jail.
"I never gave up hope for a day," she said, choked by emotion.
"This moment makes up for 30 years of waiting. I want to hug and kiss him. My only wish is to see him."
The four freed Hezbollah fighters were captured in the July-August 2006 war which killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon and 160 in Israel were also freed. They and Kantar were the last remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah made a rare public appearance at celebrations attended by tens of thousands of people in the southern suburbs of Beirut Wednesday night.
"The period of defeat is over and the time of victory has arrived," Nasrallah said at the celebrations marking the success of emptying Israeli jails of Lebanese prisoners.
"This people and this nation and this country that gave a clear picture to the world... cannot be defeated," he added.
Kantar told the cheering crowds he thanked God for giving him the strength to endure his almost three-decade imprisonment, which made him the longest-serving Arab prisoner in Israel.
The five prisoners were released in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev , captured on July 12, 2006.
The fate of the two soldiers was not known until their bodies were returned to Israel Wednesday morning.
"Today we hand over Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev," Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa said at Naqura, as men placed two black coffins on the ground amid a crowd of onlookers.
The mood in Israel had been sombre as it waited to learn the fate of Goldwasser and Regev, whose capture in a deadly cross-border raid in July 2006 triggered a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon.
"Both soldiers have been identified," an army spokeswoman told AFP after forensic tests on the remains.
Goldwasser's family broke down in cries of despair when they saw the footage of Hezbollah handing over the caskets, while neighbours gathered around the Regev home, lighting candles and quietly shedding tears.
"Eldad! Eldad! What have they done to you?" wailed Regev's aunt Hana.
Many in Israel question whether the nation is paying too high a price for the return of the soldiers who are to be buried on Thursday, saying the swap risks bolstering its arch foes in the region.
Israel also was to transfer to Lebanon the remains of 199 Palestinian and Hezbollah fighters exhumed over the past week.
Among the first bodies handed over was that of Dalal al-Moghrabi , who led a bloody commando attack in 1978 that Israelis describe as the "Coastal Road Massacre."
She was killed in a battle with Israeli forces after her group blew up a bus they had hijacked on the road between Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing 36 people.
Lebanese television showed footage of a convoy of trucks crossing into Lebanon Wednesday evening carrying the bodies of the remaining fighters.
They were due to be transported to Beirut Thursday morning, Hezbollah said in a statement.
Israel's Jerusalem Post newspaper has billed the festivities in Lebanon as "a celebration of evil."
Israeli commentators warned the swap had given a propaganda victory to Hezbollah, setting a dangerous precedent for any future exchanges and possibly encouraging new attempts by militant groups to seize Israeli soldiers.
3 -my view- SO A Propaganda victory for hezbollah and Hamas rewarding them for their deadly acts - i hope Mr Olmert and his cabinet can live with the disastrous decision they have just made . Oh and also - the response by Mahmoud Abbas praising samil kuntar shows this man is no friend of peace -he is a supporter and lover of terrorism just like his former master Arafat-yet olmert deals with him -because Olmert likes giving in to terrorists as just shown
HERE'S THE FIRST
Israeli critics question lopsided prisoner swap By STEVEN GUTKIN and ARON HELLER, Associated Press Writers
Wed Jul 16, 5:31 PM ET
JERUSALEM - Critics of Israel's lopsided prisoner exchange with Lebanese guerrillas said Wednesday that such deals only encourage more hostage-taking — a fear underscored by Gaza militants who said the swap proves that kidnapping is the only language Israel understands.
ADVERTISEMENT
The deal, in which a notorious Lebanese attacker, four other militants and the bodies of 199 Arab fighters were traded for two dead Israeli soldiers, closed a painful chapter from Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon.
But it also raised questions about whether Israel should reconsider its policy of bringing back every soldier from the battlefield at just about any cost.
Israel has been carrying out unequal prisoner swaps for decades, including handing over 4,600 Palestinian and Lebanese captives in 1983 in exchange for six captured Israeli soldiers. In the past it's even traded live prisoners for bodies, as it did Wednesday.
The rationale for such trades was a wartime ethic seen as essential in Israel's early days to instilling loyalty and commitment from its troops.
In today's world of asymmetric warfare — with militant groups increasingly focused on kidnapping as a way to pressure Israel and with the fight against terrorism now a worldwide challenge — the lopsided swaps could have graver consequences than in the past.
"What we've done now has made kidnapping soldiers the most profitable game in town," said Israeli security expert Martin Sherman.
"There is absolutely no reason why Hezbollah should not invest huge resources now, along with Hamas, in the next kidnapping."
The issue is of immediate concern because the government is deeply involved in indirect negotiations to free its other captive soldier, Gilad Schalit, held by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. Unlike Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, the two soldiers whose bodies were returned Wednesday, Schalit is believed to be alive.
Following this week's Cabinet vote that cleared the way for the Hezbollah deal, Construction Minister Zeev Boim, one of only three ministers to vote against it, said he was afraid the swap would make it harder for Israel to win the release of Schalit.
"No one should be surprised if Hamas will now raise the price for freeing him," he said.
Hamas made it clear Wednesday that it intended to do just that.
"As there was an honorable exchange today, we are determined to have an honorable exchange for our own prisoners" held in Israeli jails, Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh said. "Let them answer our demands." Israel holds about 10,000 Palestinians in prison.
Haniyeh's spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri went further, saying the swap "shows that the only successful way to free the prisoners is by kidnapping soldiers."
Explaining his opposition, Boim, the construction minister, said Wednesday: "We needed, in my opinion, to take this opportunity to change the rules we were dragged into many years ago, which have led to many lopsided deals."
But the Israeli military said the deal drove home the Jewish state's deep commitment to its soldiers.
"This painful process exemplifies Israel's moral commitment to secure the return of all of their soldiers sent out on operational missions," said a statement Wednesday from the Israeli Defense Forces. "It demonstrates a compelling moral strength which stems from Judaism, Israeli societal values and from the spirit of the IDF."
Wednesday's exchange involved freeing a Lebanese militant convicted of what many consider to be among the most gruesome crimes inflicted on Israelis in their history.
Samir Kantar was sentenced to three life terms for killing an Israeli man in front of his 4-year-old daughter, then killing the little girl by smashing her skull with his rifle butt.
During the grisly attack, the girl's 2-year-old sister was accidentally smothered by her mother during a desperate attempt to silence the child's cries as the two hid in a crawl space.
For Israelis, the 1979 attack was a nightmare scenario feared by many in a nation living in a constant state of war: a terrorist breaking into their home in the middle of the night and kidnapping and killing a family.
Because of the visceral reaction, successive governments held off on including Kantar in any previous swap. Kantar was 16 years old at the time of the attack and he has consistently denied killing the girl, saying she died in crossfire.
That Israel paid such a high price for dead bodies could provide an incentive for militants to kill future hostages, said Yuval Steinitz, a lawmaker from the opposition Likud Party.
"This is a very dangerous precedent," he said. "We are telling them that they don't have to do their utmost to keep captive soldiers alive, to save them if captured."
Nor was the high price of the swap lost on ordinary Palestinians.
"Nobody would have expected that Israel would give up the likes of Samir Kantar. Hezbollah has shown that they are mighty people, and Israel is afraid of them and had to meet their demands," said Samar Mohammed, a 23-year-old architect in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Despite the criticism in Israel, the swap could provide a badly needed boost for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose grip on power is gravely threatened by a burgeoning corruption probe.
Olmert launched a monthlong war against Hezbollah in June 2006 in response to the servicemen's capture. His handling of the war was widely criticized, and he has been under considerable pressure to resolve the issue of the soldiers' fate.
Wednesday's swap closed a painful chapter from the war, and Israelis reacted to confirmation of the young men's death with a mixture of anguish and anger.
One of the soldiers' aunts sank to the ground in despair, and other mourners demanded revenge, chanting "Nasrallah, you will pay" — referring to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah.
2.Hezbollah prisoners freed in exchange for dead Israeli soldiers
2 days ago
BEIRUT (AFP) — Five Lebanese prisoners freed by Israel arrived to a hero's welcome in Lebanon Wednesday, hours after Hezbollah handed over the bodies of two Israeli soldiers seized by its guerrillas two years ago.
Among those freed in a prisoner swap greeted with triumph in Lebanon but anguish in Israel was Samir Kantar , who was sentenced to five life terms for a 1979 triple murder, including of a child.
The prisoners were transported to Lebanon late afternoon in a convoy of four International Committee of the Red Cross vehicles via the Naqura border crossing, where they were cheered and applauded by crowds of Hezbollah supporters who had been waiting all day for their arrival.
They were then flown by helicopters to Beirut, where they were accorded a red carpet welcome by Lebanese President Michel Sleiman, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, the entire cabinet and a host of lawmakers and religious leaders.
The five -- Kantar and Hezbollah fighters Khaled Zidan, Maher Kurani, Mohammed Sarur and Hussein Suleiman -- stood on a platform as Sleiman spoke and then shook hands with the politicians lined up to greet them.
"Your return is a new victory and the future in your presence will be a path in which we will realise the sovereignty of our territory and the liberty of our people," Sleiman said.
"I tell Samir and his companions that they have a right to be proud of their country, their army and their resistance."
Kantar kissed his mother, Siham Kantar, 71, after the meet and greet with the politicians as crowds and the media swarmed around him.
His mother had burst into tears while waiting earlier at the airport when she was told that her son had arrived in Naqura and was indeed free after more than 28 years in jail.
"I never gave up hope for a day," she said, choked by emotion.
"This moment makes up for 30 years of waiting. I want to hug and kiss him. My only wish is to see him."
The four freed Hezbollah fighters were captured in the July-August 2006 war which killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon and 160 in Israel were also freed. They and Kantar were the last remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah made a rare public appearance at celebrations attended by tens of thousands of people in the southern suburbs of Beirut Wednesday night.
"The period of defeat is over and the time of victory has arrived," Nasrallah said at the celebrations marking the success of emptying Israeli jails of Lebanese prisoners.
"This people and this nation and this country that gave a clear picture to the world... cannot be defeated," he added.
Kantar told the cheering crowds he thanked God for giving him the strength to endure his almost three-decade imprisonment, which made him the longest-serving Arab prisoner in Israel.
The five prisoners were released in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev , captured on July 12, 2006.
The fate of the two soldiers was not known until their bodies were returned to Israel Wednesday morning.
"Today we hand over Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev," Hezbollah official Wafiq Safa said at Naqura, as men placed two black coffins on the ground amid a crowd of onlookers.
The mood in Israel had been sombre as it waited to learn the fate of Goldwasser and Regev, whose capture in a deadly cross-border raid in July 2006 triggered a devastating 34-day war in Lebanon.
"Both soldiers have been identified," an army spokeswoman told AFP after forensic tests on the remains.
Goldwasser's family broke down in cries of despair when they saw the footage of Hezbollah handing over the caskets, while neighbours gathered around the Regev home, lighting candles and quietly shedding tears.
"Eldad! Eldad! What have they done to you?" wailed Regev's aunt Hana.
Many in Israel question whether the nation is paying too high a price for the return of the soldiers who are to be buried on Thursday, saying the swap risks bolstering its arch foes in the region.
Israel also was to transfer to Lebanon the remains of 199 Palestinian and Hezbollah fighters exhumed over the past week.
Among the first bodies handed over was that of Dalal al-Moghrabi , who led a bloody commando attack in 1978 that Israelis describe as the "Coastal Road Massacre."
She was killed in a battle with Israeli forces after her group blew up a bus they had hijacked on the road between Tel Aviv and Haifa, killing 36 people.
Lebanese television showed footage of a convoy of trucks crossing into Lebanon Wednesday evening carrying the bodies of the remaining fighters.
They were due to be transported to Beirut Thursday morning, Hezbollah said in a statement.
Israel's Jerusalem Post newspaper has billed the festivities in Lebanon as "a celebration of evil."
Israeli commentators warned the swap had given a propaganda victory to Hezbollah, setting a dangerous precedent for any future exchanges and possibly encouraging new attempts by militant groups to seize Israeli soldiers.
3 -my view- SO A Propaganda victory for hezbollah and Hamas rewarding them for their deadly acts - i hope Mr Olmert and his cabinet can live with the disastrous decision they have just made . Oh and also - the response by Mahmoud Abbas praising samil kuntar shows this man is no friend of peace -he is a supporter and lover of terrorism just like his former master Arafat-yet olmert deals with him -because Olmert likes giving in to terrorists as just shown
Friday, May 30, 2008
The Black Fightback against crime
unfortunately in places like London , it is the black community who has the disproportionate number of people who are victims from gun and knife crime and who are criminals . It has been a stereotype for too long now that blacks represent the left of politics , this article smashes this assumption into smithereens ,and shows that the answers to crime are conservatism.
EVENING STANDARD
A new breed of leaders can tackle knife cultureLindsay Johns29.05.08
document.write('');
Once again this week, London is mourning a teenage knife victim: Robert Knox was stabbed to death in Sidcup last weekend and four others injured by a young man wielding a knife outside a club. It is not surprising that Londoners are looking for tougher solutions to youth crime, such as random searches on the Tube by police using knife scanners. What is surprising is that Boris Johnson's main man in this task is black. Deputy Mayor for Youth Ray Lewis, who holds a summit on knife crime tomorrow, has already made it clear that in tackling street crime he has little patience with the kind of tired clichés about race that we used to hear on the subject from so many black community leaders.
Lewis's tough approach says much about the public mood on crime. But more than that, Lewis is part of an unexpected dividend of Johnson's election - the arrival of a new breed of black and Asian social conservatives in positions of power.
Those who accused the new Mayor of tokenism over Lewis's appointment have already been proved wrong: he has chosen Muslim academic Munira Mirza and the Sikh Kulveer Ranger as, respectively, his culture director and transport adviser. So much for the hue and cry during his campaign over the "watermelon smiles" and " piccaninnies" comments.
What Johnson is helping most here, though, is the emergence into the public arena of a new breed of socially conservative black men with "old-school" values and thinking. Lewis and the west London youth worker Shaun Bailey (Conservative parliamentary candidate for Hammersmith) are the highest-profile examples; others include Uanu Sheshmi, director of the London Boyhood to Manhood education programme. It could mean a new and exciting politics, especially in a city such as London, in which the tedious old polarities (black = Left, white = Right) are finally replaced by more nuanced and fundamentally more honest positions.
With their strong emphasis on the nuclear family, traditional notions of masculinity and respect, and the importance of higher education, such black men have decided their future lies with social conservatives as opposed to Leftleaning progressives. After years of publicly funded programmes and progressive failure, Lewis and Bailey have had the temerity to ask what the best social policy for sections of the black community really is - regardless of whether that means they end up supporting the Tories.
Part of that shift is the emergence of a black British middle class, for a long time beleaguered and cowering in the shadow of its more vociferous, workingclass big brother. And it is finally beginning to assert its own intrinsically conservative voice. Inspired by the US black middle-class centres of Atlanta, New York and Washington, black Britain is slowly catching up.
In the same way that Bill Cosby was for decades the voice of middle-class black America, hopefully Lewis, Bailey and others will now articulate the mindset of the nascent black British middle class, itself weaned on old-fashioned African and Caribbean values of discipline, religion and, most importantly of all, education.
In my work as a volunteer mentor on the Southwark Black Mentor Scheme's Leaders of Tomorrow programme, we employ similar "old-school" beliefs, aimed at helping our young people to confound stereotypes, not conform to them. We are trying to enable our young people to fulfil their potential intellectually, not just physically.
We want to nurture the next generation of lawyers, doctors, academics and politicians, not rappers, DJs or athletes - we have enough of those already. Working with young people in Peckham has convinced me that the liberal "softly, softly" approach achieves little, save disappointment and disillusionment, and actually engenders the opposite of respect.
That is why the days when black men who stood for public office felt the need to align themselves automatically with Left-wing causes are now gone. Be it the "boot camp" methods of draconian discipline as employed by Lewis in his Eastside Academy or the mantra of personal responsibility as articulated by Bailey, conservative values are key to their successes.
Yet Lewis, just like Bailey, has impeccable "black" credentials. Unlike figures such as former Big Brother contestant Derek Laud or Lord Taylor (who stood as Tory parliamentary candidate for Cheltenham in 1992), they are not being labelled as "coconuts" - the old accusation thrown at black people who dared to speak out against the liberal mainstream, that they were black on the outside but white inside.
For Lewis, Bailey and the new breed are not just black - they are ¸ber black, in the sense that their backgrounds and lifestyles cannot be besmirched so easily by black detractors. Both are firmly rooted in the community; both are engaged in mentoring projects with inner-city black youth; both have dedicated their professional lives to improving the lot of black British people.
If further proof were needed, Lee Jasper himself, that old firebrand of the Left and Ken Livingstone's former race adviser, welcomed Lewis's appointment.
Both Lewis's and Bailey's conservative stance on the underlying causes of knife crime - the glaring lack of positive black male role models, the abrogation of parental responsibility and working-class over-reliance on the "benefits culture" - embodies views that, more than ever, we should heed.
The MTV Base generation, with their pimp-roll swaggers and their perverted notions of masculinity and faux respect, urgently need taking to task. Men such as Lewis and Bailey can do it in a way no white politicians can: they are not afraid to speak in a hideously un-PC language that is anathema to white liberals when it comes to issues such as black parenting.
That marks an important shift for black conservatives but it says something almost more surprising about white Britain. After decades of prejudice, it seems Britain is finally ready to accept them. It no longer sees black conservatives as the ultimate oxymoron, the jester-pariah figures living the white man's dream, to be scoffed at behind their wannabe-white backs.
But myself, I am just relieved that Britain is finally ready to allow these courageous old-school black men to step up to the plate and make their contribution. At a time when black and white boys alike are being cut down in the streets, God knows we need it. Here's hoping that the only coconuts we see in the future will be in the fairground or in the Bounty commercials, not on the political stage.
EVENING STANDARD
A new breed of leaders can tackle knife cultureLindsay Johns29.05.08
document.write('');
Once again this week, London is mourning a teenage knife victim: Robert Knox was stabbed to death in Sidcup last weekend and four others injured by a young man wielding a knife outside a club. It is not surprising that Londoners are looking for tougher solutions to youth crime, such as random searches on the Tube by police using knife scanners. What is surprising is that Boris Johnson's main man in this task is black. Deputy Mayor for Youth Ray Lewis, who holds a summit on knife crime tomorrow, has already made it clear that in tackling street crime he has little patience with the kind of tired clichés about race that we used to hear on the subject from so many black community leaders.
Lewis's tough approach says much about the public mood on crime. But more than that, Lewis is part of an unexpected dividend of Johnson's election - the arrival of a new breed of black and Asian social conservatives in positions of power.
Those who accused the new Mayor of tokenism over Lewis's appointment have already been proved wrong: he has chosen Muslim academic Munira Mirza and the Sikh Kulveer Ranger as, respectively, his culture director and transport adviser. So much for the hue and cry during his campaign over the "watermelon smiles" and " piccaninnies" comments.
What Johnson is helping most here, though, is the emergence into the public arena of a new breed of socially conservative black men with "old-school" values and thinking. Lewis and the west London youth worker Shaun Bailey (Conservative parliamentary candidate for Hammersmith) are the highest-profile examples; others include Uanu Sheshmi, director of the London Boyhood to Manhood education programme. It could mean a new and exciting politics, especially in a city such as London, in which the tedious old polarities (black = Left, white = Right) are finally replaced by more nuanced and fundamentally more honest positions.
With their strong emphasis on the nuclear family, traditional notions of masculinity and respect, and the importance of higher education, such black men have decided their future lies with social conservatives as opposed to Leftleaning progressives. After years of publicly funded programmes and progressive failure, Lewis and Bailey have had the temerity to ask what the best social policy for sections of the black community really is - regardless of whether that means they end up supporting the Tories.
Part of that shift is the emergence of a black British middle class, for a long time beleaguered and cowering in the shadow of its more vociferous, workingclass big brother. And it is finally beginning to assert its own intrinsically conservative voice. Inspired by the US black middle-class centres of Atlanta, New York and Washington, black Britain is slowly catching up.
In the same way that Bill Cosby was for decades the voice of middle-class black America, hopefully Lewis, Bailey and others will now articulate the mindset of the nascent black British middle class, itself weaned on old-fashioned African and Caribbean values of discipline, religion and, most importantly of all, education.
In my work as a volunteer mentor on the Southwark Black Mentor Scheme's Leaders of Tomorrow programme, we employ similar "old-school" beliefs, aimed at helping our young people to confound stereotypes, not conform to them. We are trying to enable our young people to fulfil their potential intellectually, not just physically.
We want to nurture the next generation of lawyers, doctors, academics and politicians, not rappers, DJs or athletes - we have enough of those already. Working with young people in Peckham has convinced me that the liberal "softly, softly" approach achieves little, save disappointment and disillusionment, and actually engenders the opposite of respect.
That is why the days when black men who stood for public office felt the need to align themselves automatically with Left-wing causes are now gone. Be it the "boot camp" methods of draconian discipline as employed by Lewis in his Eastside Academy or the mantra of personal responsibility as articulated by Bailey, conservative values are key to their successes.
Yet Lewis, just like Bailey, has impeccable "black" credentials. Unlike figures such as former Big Brother contestant Derek Laud or Lord Taylor (who stood as Tory parliamentary candidate for Cheltenham in 1992), they are not being labelled as "coconuts" - the old accusation thrown at black people who dared to speak out against the liberal mainstream, that they were black on the outside but white inside.
For Lewis, Bailey and the new breed are not just black - they are ¸ber black, in the sense that their backgrounds and lifestyles cannot be besmirched so easily by black detractors. Both are firmly rooted in the community; both are engaged in mentoring projects with inner-city black youth; both have dedicated their professional lives to improving the lot of black British people.
If further proof were needed, Lee Jasper himself, that old firebrand of the Left and Ken Livingstone's former race adviser, welcomed Lewis's appointment.
Both Lewis's and Bailey's conservative stance on the underlying causes of knife crime - the glaring lack of positive black male role models, the abrogation of parental responsibility and working-class over-reliance on the "benefits culture" - embodies views that, more than ever, we should heed.
The MTV Base generation, with their pimp-roll swaggers and their perverted notions of masculinity and faux respect, urgently need taking to task. Men such as Lewis and Bailey can do it in a way no white politicians can: they are not afraid to speak in a hideously un-PC language that is anathema to white liberals when it comes to issues such as black parenting.
That marks an important shift for black conservatives but it says something almost more surprising about white Britain. After decades of prejudice, it seems Britain is finally ready to accept them. It no longer sees black conservatives as the ultimate oxymoron, the jester-pariah figures living the white man's dream, to be scoffed at behind their wannabe-white backs.
But myself, I am just relieved that Britain is finally ready to allow these courageous old-school black men to step up to the plate and make their contribution. At a time when black and white boys alike are being cut down in the streets, God knows we need it. Here's hoping that the only coconuts we see in the future will be in the fairground or in the Bounty commercials, not on the political stage.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Left Wonders why Israel doesn't talk to Hamas , this bulletin on Palestinian Media Watch gives a pretty good idea
disabled and handicapped" Jews to avoid having to care for them, according to a Hamas TV educational program. As much of the world prepared to commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, Hamas TV presented its latest sinister twist on Holocaust denial.
The Hamas TV educational program, broadcast last week, taught that the murder of Jews in the Holocaust was a Zionist plot with two goals:
1- To eliminate "disabled and handicapped" Jews by sending them to death camps, so they would not be a burden on the future state of Israel.
2- At the same time, the Holocaust served to make "the Jews seem persecuted" so they could "benefit from international sympathy."
Amin Dabur, head of the Palestinian "Center for Strategic Research" explained that "the Israeli Holocaust - the whole thing was a joke, and part of the perfect show that [Zionist leader and future Israeli prime minister] Ben Gurion put on." The "young energetic and able" were sent to Israel, while the handicapped were sent "so there would be a Holocaust."
click here to see video
The following is the transcript,
Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas) April 18 2008
Narrator:
"The disabled and handicapped are a heavy burden on the state,"
said the terrorist leader, Ben Gurion. [Zionist leader - Israel's first PM]
The Satanic Jews thought up an evil plot [the Holocaust] to be rid of the burden of the disabled and handicapped, in twisted criminal ways.
[Picture: Holocaust death camp, dead bodies]
While they accuse the Nazis or others so the Jews would seem persecuted, and try to benefit from international sympathy. They were the first to invent the methods of evil and oppression."
Amin Dabur, head of the Palestinian "Center for Strategic Research":
"About the Israeli Holocaust, the whole thing was a joke and part of the perfect show that Ben Gurion put on, who focused on strong and energetic youth [for Israel], while the rest- the disabled, the handicapped, and people with special needs, they were sent to [to die]- if it can be proven historically. They were sent [to die] so there would be a holocaust, so Israel could "play" it for world sympathy."
Narrator:"The alleged numbers of Jews [killed in the Holocaust] were merely for propaganda."
-- i thought the left were appalled by Holocaust deniers ,and that they shouldn't be legitmised , i suppose this changes for them if their an enemy of israel
The Hamas TV educational program, broadcast last week, taught that the murder of Jews in the Holocaust was a Zionist plot with two goals:
1- To eliminate "disabled and handicapped" Jews by sending them to death camps, so they would not be a burden on the future state of Israel.
2- At the same time, the Holocaust served to make "the Jews seem persecuted" so they could "benefit from international sympathy."
Amin Dabur, head of the Palestinian "Center for Strategic Research" explained that "the Israeli Holocaust - the whole thing was a joke, and part of the perfect show that [Zionist leader and future Israeli prime minister] Ben Gurion put on." The "young energetic and able" were sent to Israel, while the handicapped were sent "so there would be a Holocaust."
click here to see video
The following is the transcript,
Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas) April 18 2008
Narrator:
"The disabled and handicapped are a heavy burden on the state,"
said the terrorist leader, Ben Gurion. [Zionist leader - Israel's first PM]
The Satanic Jews thought up an evil plot [the Holocaust] to be rid of the burden of the disabled and handicapped, in twisted criminal ways.
[Picture: Holocaust death camp, dead bodies]
While they accuse the Nazis or others so the Jews would seem persecuted, and try to benefit from international sympathy. They were the first to invent the methods of evil and oppression."
Amin Dabur, head of the Palestinian "Center for Strategic Research":
"About the Israeli Holocaust, the whole thing was a joke and part of the perfect show that Ben Gurion put on, who focused on strong and energetic youth [for Israel], while the rest- the disabled, the handicapped, and people with special needs, they were sent to [to die]- if it can be proven historically. They were sent [to die] so there would be a holocaust, so Israel could "play" it for world sympathy."
Narrator:"The alleged numbers of Jews [killed in the Holocaust] were merely for propaganda."
-- i thought the left were appalled by Holocaust deniers ,and that they shouldn't be legitmised , i suppose this changes for them if their an enemy of israel
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
No Need For Fathers , Abortion on Demand
As the title suggests , this is what the second part of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill will create in the UK or at least solidify it . I am not a christian or jewish fundamentalist , so i dont come from an extreme relgious agenda ,its just i believe in a society where life is respected and fathers play an equal role . This will create a strong society and in the words of Iain Duncan Smith a leading figure of the right in the Conservative party and also an important member of the Centre of Social Justice a move from Breakdown Britain into Breakthrough Britain . This Bill encourages Breakdown Britain , and therefore it is my duty, whilst i cant vote on the Bill , to oppose it anway i can.
Firstly there is the abortion part of the Bill . Now i know of hardly anyone in the UK , who wants to take the dogwhistle of the American Religious right and call for an outright ban on Abortion. Much as i find Abortion horrid , i realise that it is needed to be legal , so we dont get the situation which we had in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s ,where woman got abortions through back door clinics and had their lives put at risk . However neither do i want a situation which we have today , where the abortion limit in this country is too high at 24 weeks ,and has encouraged an Abortion on Demand Culture , where Abortion isn't the last resort , but the first readily available option .Additionally Science has shown a foetus in the womb , has many human symptoms at 18 weeks , and can be born from this period. Recent research, such as that by Professor Sunny Anand from the University of Arkansas, has shown that fetuses are well enough developed to feel pain down to 18 weeks gestation. Surely all those mothers therefore must be in incredible distress , if they have an abortion after 20 weeks, it is a traumatic and unecessary operation . Furthermore the limit has created an abortion on demand culture , figures highlight this as the number of abortions carried out between 20 and 24 weeks has been rising in recent years. Lowering the limit to 20 weeks for normal babies will save almost 2,300 young lives per year. Science has made it possible to save lifes after 18 weeks , this is therefore why the limit should be reduced to 20 weeks , and that is why i am Supporting the Conservative MPS Nadine Dorries Amendment. After all the average Abortion time limit in the rest of Europe is 12 weeks . It seems a case to me of science advancing and the law not advancing with it . The 24 week abortion limit was created in 1990 , since then Britain has some of the highest levels of Abortion in Europe ,and technology has moved so lives from 18 weeks can be saved -if the limit was lowered it has been estimated over 2500 babies now being aborted could be saved . Im sure most people would agree that it is the Government's job to help save lives , not the other way round
There should also in my view be made amendments to make Abortion less attractive . Alternative options such as adoption need to be given more credence . At the moment Adoption is to hard , for example it is crazy that a white family , can not adopt a black child and vice versa - stuff like this needs to be made easier so adoption can be chosen over abortion and a life saved.
Another part of the Abortion part of the bill i fundamentally disagree with is the abolition od the requirement that you need two doctors to advice the women having the Abortion before the decision is made, and secondly that a nurse instead of a doctor can perform the Abortion . Abortion is an incredibly hard decision ,and therefore independent advice is needed to be given ,and this is what the two doctors provide , there role shouldn't be removed. A nurse's job is not to perform difficult operations or procedures on patients , this is a doctor's ,giving the termination process over to a nurse to me reduces the importance we place on the actual carrying out of abortion.
Then there is the other Ludicrous part of the Bill , to make it legal for fathers not to be consulted with IVF treatment and to be involved in IVF treatment and for it to be made legally binding for lesbian couples to have IVF treatment in replacement for this, in other words a single mother or a lesbian couple could have an IVF with no father figure . Now im not opposed to IVF , i think it has been a great scientific breakthrough , which has meant many families have been able to have kids, which otherwise would have been impossible . However i do have a problem with fathers being cut of this important decision , this bill would remove the requirement for IVF clinics to consider the needs of the father. If this bill did the same thing in relation to the women ,there would rightly be an outrage, therefore there should also be with fathers being removed,they are equally important to a baby's life as the mother is. No Mother can replace the father , so therefore it is necessary for a father to have a say in IVF . There shouldn't be discrimation against fathers , the rights of the child to have a father should be paramount. Babies could be produced without any biological access to their father , they would have no right to the father , the role of the father wouldn't be recognised, and it would be hard for them to track down their fathers. Figures from the Centre of Social Justice have recently shown that whilst there are thousands of Single Mothers doing a great job , those who have a mother and father comitt less crimes,and are more likely to have a better quality of life . This is why the amendment made in the 1990 bill towards IVF talking about " the need for a father " shouldn't be removed. The Archbishop of York was right when he said The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, did not agree saying that the Government was seeking to put the 'right to be a parent over the welfare of a child'. He said the proposals would mean the 'removal by design of the father of the child'. Baroness Deech is right when she says removing the clause would 'ignore the contribution made by half of the human race towards the upbringing of the next generation'. 'I know that plenty of children are brought up well without two parents but in an ideal world you need a mother, which is implicit in the law, and a father". To me to sum up on my opposition to this part of the bill , it undermines the importance of the father ,and will lead to further social breakdown in Britain.
I have no problems with Lesbians , what they do in there private life is none of my business , they can get married for all i care. However it is my sincerely held belief ,that the best position for a child is to have a father and mother - it's called traditional parenting . This doesn't even have to be done through marriage. From my personal experience -my parents are divorced , i have benefited greatly from still being able to see my dad on a regular basis . I dont Lesbian couples , unless there is a father figure should be allowed to bring up children , a kid with two "mothers" will become confused , the two women cannot play both the mother and father , it is simply not natural and detrimental to the child . This is therefore why i believe the amendment to make IVF much more open and easier for Lesbian couples should be voted down. For me it would be far better to keep the father's involvement in IVF there. This is why i back david Cameron in his stance when he says "Lesbian couples should be blocked from having IVF treatment unless they agree that a father figure would be involved in the upbringing of their child".
To conclude , this bill is rotten , it will lead to more social breakdown , and abortion on demand , no one wants this , so support in anyway possible those brave MPS who are voting against the bill.
Firstly there is the abortion part of the Bill . Now i know of hardly anyone in the UK , who wants to take the dogwhistle of the American Religious right and call for an outright ban on Abortion. Much as i find Abortion horrid , i realise that it is needed to be legal , so we dont get the situation which we had in Britain in the 1950s and 1960s ,where woman got abortions through back door clinics and had their lives put at risk . However neither do i want a situation which we have today , where the abortion limit in this country is too high at 24 weeks ,and has encouraged an Abortion on Demand Culture , where Abortion isn't the last resort , but the first readily available option .Additionally Science has shown a foetus in the womb , has many human symptoms at 18 weeks , and can be born from this period. Recent research, such as that by Professor Sunny Anand from the University of Arkansas, has shown that fetuses are well enough developed to feel pain down to 18 weeks gestation. Surely all those mothers therefore must be in incredible distress , if they have an abortion after 20 weeks, it is a traumatic and unecessary operation . Furthermore the limit has created an abortion on demand culture , figures highlight this as the number of abortions carried out between 20 and 24 weeks has been rising in recent years. Lowering the limit to 20 weeks for normal babies will save almost 2,300 young lives per year. Science has made it possible to save lifes after 18 weeks , this is therefore why the limit should be reduced to 20 weeks , and that is why i am Supporting the Conservative MPS Nadine Dorries Amendment. After all the average Abortion time limit in the rest of Europe is 12 weeks . It seems a case to me of science advancing and the law not advancing with it . The 24 week abortion limit was created in 1990 , since then Britain has some of the highest levels of Abortion in Europe ,and technology has moved so lives from 18 weeks can be saved -if the limit was lowered it has been estimated over 2500 babies now being aborted could be saved . Im sure most people would agree that it is the Government's job to help save lives , not the other way round
There should also in my view be made amendments to make Abortion less attractive . Alternative options such as adoption need to be given more credence . At the moment Adoption is to hard , for example it is crazy that a white family , can not adopt a black child and vice versa - stuff like this needs to be made easier so adoption can be chosen over abortion and a life saved.
Another part of the Abortion part of the bill i fundamentally disagree with is the abolition od the requirement that you need two doctors to advice the women having the Abortion before the decision is made, and secondly that a nurse instead of a doctor can perform the Abortion . Abortion is an incredibly hard decision ,and therefore independent advice is needed to be given ,and this is what the two doctors provide , there role shouldn't be removed. A nurse's job is not to perform difficult operations or procedures on patients , this is a doctor's ,giving the termination process over to a nurse to me reduces the importance we place on the actual carrying out of abortion.
Then there is the other Ludicrous part of the Bill , to make it legal for fathers not to be consulted with IVF treatment and to be involved in IVF treatment and for it to be made legally binding for lesbian couples to have IVF treatment in replacement for this, in other words a single mother or a lesbian couple could have an IVF with no father figure . Now im not opposed to IVF , i think it has been a great scientific breakthrough , which has meant many families have been able to have kids, which otherwise would have been impossible . However i do have a problem with fathers being cut of this important decision , this bill would remove the requirement for IVF clinics to consider the needs of the father. If this bill did the same thing in relation to the women ,there would rightly be an outrage, therefore there should also be with fathers being removed,they are equally important to a baby's life as the mother is. No Mother can replace the father , so therefore it is necessary for a father to have a say in IVF . There shouldn't be discrimation against fathers , the rights of the child to have a father should be paramount. Babies could be produced without any biological access to their father , they would have no right to the father , the role of the father wouldn't be recognised, and it would be hard for them to track down their fathers. Figures from the Centre of Social Justice have recently shown that whilst there are thousands of Single Mothers doing a great job , those who have a mother and father comitt less crimes,and are more likely to have a better quality of life . This is why the amendment made in the 1990 bill towards IVF talking about " the need for a father " shouldn't be removed. The Archbishop of York was right when he said The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, did not agree saying that the Government was seeking to put the 'right to be a parent over the welfare of a child'. He said the proposals would mean the 'removal by design of the father of the child'. Baroness Deech is right when she says removing the clause would 'ignore the contribution made by half of the human race towards the upbringing of the next generation'. 'I know that plenty of children are brought up well without two parents but in an ideal world you need a mother, which is implicit in the law, and a father". To me to sum up on my opposition to this part of the bill , it undermines the importance of the father ,and will lead to further social breakdown in Britain.
I have no problems with Lesbians , what they do in there private life is none of my business , they can get married for all i care. However it is my sincerely held belief ,that the best position for a child is to have a father and mother - it's called traditional parenting . This doesn't even have to be done through marriage. From my personal experience -my parents are divorced , i have benefited greatly from still being able to see my dad on a regular basis . I dont Lesbian couples , unless there is a father figure should be allowed to bring up children , a kid with two "mothers" will become confused , the two women cannot play both the mother and father , it is simply not natural and detrimental to the child . This is therefore why i believe the amendment to make IVF much more open and easier for Lesbian couples should be voted down. For me it would be far better to keep the father's involvement in IVF there. This is why i back david Cameron in his stance when he says "Lesbian couples should be blocked from having IVF treatment unless they agree that a father figure would be involved in the upbringing of their child".
To conclude , this bill is rotten , it will lead to more social breakdown , and abortion on demand , no one wants this , so support in anyway possible those brave MPS who are voting against the bill.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Supporting the Labour Party is like supporting Watford FC
Allow me to explain. For 12 years I have been a supporter of Watford FC a football club who seems to have more ups and downs in the past 12 years than a jack in the box. This year it was a new season , a fresh start for watford in the championship. And for the first three months or so , just like the start of Gordon Brown's premiership , everything went great , Watford were 9 points clear they were in command , just like the start of Gordon Brown's premiership Watford could survive easily whatever the opposition threw at them . Then it got to the big game for Watford against West Brom ,and the big decision for Gordon Brown , should he have a general election or not he panicked and decided not to a sign of weakness . At the same time the whole entire watford team panicked and got beaten 3-0 by west Brom . After this both teams - team Labour and Team Watford Lurched from disaster to disaster , Watford it seemed couldn't buy a win at home , The Labour party it seemed from the Iraq War to the losing of Millions of people's child benefit data to EU (ahem ) reform treaty or the abolition of the 10 p rate of tax, everything it seemed go wrong . Then for both it comes to a defining moment , Gordon Brown can show his strength and bat down the 10 p labour rebels of whom some are in their cabinet , Watford can get there promotion bid on track with a win against Crystal Palace at home. Unfortunately both blow it , Gordon Brown does a U -Turn promising a bumber deal where the poor will get lots of money , and Watford succumb to a two nil loss.
Both have leaders who looked so good - Watford with Aidy Boothroyd, and Gordon Brown with the Labour party. However at the moment both look like they couldn't motivate a guy on cloud 9 such as Joe Calzaghe at the moment . Both seem to be making baffling decision , Aidy Boothroyd with his decision to not use substitutes till 10 mins from the end , Gordon Brown with his decision not to sort out Northern Rock and then making a decision where the taxpayer faces all the risk . Both have made dodgy appointments or for watford transfers , Watford with the arrival of Collins John -who is continually injured and couldn't give a damn for the club -Nathan Ellington -over 3 million pounds what a waste of money , Mart Poom -what's the point of buying a goalie who sits in the reserves , Matt Jackson -i've seen a geriatic grandad run faster, and now to Gordon Brown's appointments Ed Balls, his right hand man - Every time he talks , people on the street think what a thorougly arrogant nasty man he is David Milliband - supposedly like Nathan Ellington the future of the team , both look about as confident in their jobs as i would dancing , and David Milliband also has the persona of a snivelling child , hardly a requirement of a Foreign Secretary , Tessa Jowell , Olympics Minister - how much is the Olympics going to cost now , have you lost count, or Mark Malloch Brown -a foreign minister , one of the goats , fiercely anti american , - great just what you need in a british diplomat not , Digby Jones -actually i like this guy , but he dont seem to like the Labour party , about as committed as Watford's Collins John.
In conclusion , the future for both at least for this season looks as bleak as George Bush chance of having a poll making him best statesmen of all time. Maybe that's telling people something , maybe the man at the top should be sacked.
Both have leaders who looked so good - Watford with Aidy Boothroyd, and Gordon Brown with the Labour party. However at the moment both look like they couldn't motivate a guy on cloud 9 such as Joe Calzaghe at the moment . Both seem to be making baffling decision , Aidy Boothroyd with his decision to not use substitutes till 10 mins from the end , Gordon Brown with his decision not to sort out Northern Rock and then making a decision where the taxpayer faces all the risk . Both have made dodgy appointments or for watford transfers , Watford with the arrival of Collins John -who is continually injured and couldn't give a damn for the club -Nathan Ellington -over 3 million pounds what a waste of money , Mart Poom -what's the point of buying a goalie who sits in the reserves , Matt Jackson -i've seen a geriatic grandad run faster, and now to Gordon Brown's appointments Ed Balls, his right hand man - Every time he talks , people on the street think what a thorougly arrogant nasty man he is David Milliband - supposedly like Nathan Ellington the future of the team , both look about as confident in their jobs as i would dancing , and David Milliband also has the persona of a snivelling child , hardly a requirement of a Foreign Secretary , Tessa Jowell , Olympics Minister - how much is the Olympics going to cost now , have you lost count, or Mark Malloch Brown -a foreign minister , one of the goats , fiercely anti american , - great just what you need in a british diplomat not , Digby Jones -actually i like this guy , but he dont seem to like the Labour party , about as committed as Watford's Collins John.
In conclusion , the future for both at least for this season looks as bleak as George Bush chance of having a poll making him best statesmen of all time. Maybe that's telling people something , maybe the man at the top should be sacked.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
The Millitant NUT leadership and it's selfish teacher strike
Before you criticise all teachers from the NUT(national Union of Teachers) , lets get one thing straight , the strike wasn't voted on in a democratic way . The strike was passed by a majority who were there to vote on the issue , but there was only one third of the people in the NUT vote. In other words a minority of a majority have voted for this strike -the rest are apathetic. This doesn't sound much like democracy at all . In fact it just seems a way the leadership led by trotskyist Christine Blower can force through its ludicrous strike. Lets not criticise all teachers either. After all the NUT represents only about 1/3 of teachers , the NASUWT and the ATL , the other Teacher's unions , know as the more moderate unions are not striking -as A -they think the public dont support it , and B -they dont see the point .
Then the reasons for the strike , teachers dont get enough pay. OK the pay is below inflation, but so is everyone's at the moment be it in the public or private sector due to the UK being in the economic downturn , at least unlike the police the government accepted the independent arbitration pay rise given to teachers of 2.5%. Where do you think the government is going to get the money from to pay for an above inflation pay rise ,people are already highly taxed so not much manouvre there , the national debt is way to high so they cant borrow to much , to spend for teachers to get an above inflation pay rise. Im sure any maths or economic's teacher could tell you this , the NUT leadership though it seems , thinks you can get pay rises in an economic downturn from thin air. Also what other job , guarantees you 14 weeks Holiday a year - not any job i can think of . As part of the public sector they get an extremely good pension deal - much better than their counterparts in the private sector. Another reason given for the strike is that teachers work incredibly hard. Ok yes it's true ,and it doesn't help the amount of bureaucratic measures from a centrally controlled National curriculum telling them what to teach .However at the end of the day , the government has increased regulations for nearly everyone bar bankers in the public and private sector in the last 10 years ,and all people who are working generally work hard - because if they didn't , they would get sacked -thus the argument that teachers work too hard is null and void. The teacher strike also handily doesn't mention that over the past fifteen years , they have been receiving above inflation pay.
Even if you agree teachers get a raw deal , i thought teacher's job was to help and teach children. This strike is at a time when students are coming up to GCSE'S , AS , and A-Levels , when they need all the teaching they can get , they can't afford a day off school right now. How can they still claim to be commited to childrens' education. It is not the children's fault for teacher's pay , or the amount they work , yet they are the one's who are getting punished and to me this seems incredibly unfair and detrimental to their education. It is expected 1/3 of schools across the country will be thrown into chaos by the teacher's strike , the chaos doesn't effect the government who they are trying to pressure , it effects students and children. This makes people across the country less likely to support the teacher's position. It's not often i agree with Ed Balls , the government's education secretary , but he got it correct when he said "I'm on the side of parents who will be disappointed if their children's education is disrupted on Thursday because we have decided to accept an independent pay review"
As the Daily Telegraph says "The only way that substantially more cash could be made available for teachers' salaries would be through the introduction of the sort of structural reforms that the NUT has consistently fought: cutting out expensive central and local government bureaucracy, and allowing schools to control funding and determine their own pay levels".
Here the times , have what the other teaching unions think of the NUT strike - not a lot really . John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Lecturers, said: “I am disappointed that the NUT has voted in favour of strike action over a pay award that represents a good deal for teachers in the present climate.”
Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said: “The majority of members recognise that, compared with other public sector workers, they have fared relatively well.” Maybe just maybe if you've not got the support of the general public or even a majority of teachers , you should realise the strike is pointless.
The acting secretary of the NUT said the strike is a last resort .All the above suggests it isn't , after all the other 2 unions , with teachers in the same boat , dont think that it has got to a position where they need to strike. The NUT leadership are known as the nutters , there latest action is living up to this name.
Then the reasons for the strike , teachers dont get enough pay. OK the pay is below inflation, but so is everyone's at the moment be it in the public or private sector due to the UK being in the economic downturn , at least unlike the police the government accepted the independent arbitration pay rise given to teachers of 2.5%. Where do you think the government is going to get the money from to pay for an above inflation pay rise ,people are already highly taxed so not much manouvre there , the national debt is way to high so they cant borrow to much , to spend for teachers to get an above inflation pay rise. Im sure any maths or economic's teacher could tell you this , the NUT leadership though it seems , thinks you can get pay rises in an economic downturn from thin air. Also what other job , guarantees you 14 weeks Holiday a year - not any job i can think of . As part of the public sector they get an extremely good pension deal - much better than their counterparts in the private sector. Another reason given for the strike is that teachers work incredibly hard. Ok yes it's true ,and it doesn't help the amount of bureaucratic measures from a centrally controlled National curriculum telling them what to teach .However at the end of the day , the government has increased regulations for nearly everyone bar bankers in the public and private sector in the last 10 years ,and all people who are working generally work hard - because if they didn't , they would get sacked -thus the argument that teachers work too hard is null and void. The teacher strike also handily doesn't mention that over the past fifteen years , they have been receiving above inflation pay.
Even if you agree teachers get a raw deal , i thought teacher's job was to help and teach children. This strike is at a time when students are coming up to GCSE'S , AS , and A-Levels , when they need all the teaching they can get , they can't afford a day off school right now. How can they still claim to be commited to childrens' education. It is not the children's fault for teacher's pay , or the amount they work , yet they are the one's who are getting punished and to me this seems incredibly unfair and detrimental to their education. It is expected 1/3 of schools across the country will be thrown into chaos by the teacher's strike , the chaos doesn't effect the government who they are trying to pressure , it effects students and children. This makes people across the country less likely to support the teacher's position. It's not often i agree with Ed Balls , the government's education secretary , but he got it correct when he said "I'm on the side of parents who will be disappointed if their children's education is disrupted on Thursday because we have decided to accept an independent pay review"
As the Daily Telegraph says "The only way that substantially more cash could be made available for teachers' salaries would be through the introduction of the sort of structural reforms that the NUT has consistently fought: cutting out expensive central and local government bureaucracy, and allowing schools to control funding and determine their own pay levels".
Here the times , have what the other teaching unions think of the NUT strike - not a lot really . John Dunford, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Lecturers, said: “I am disappointed that the NUT has voted in favour of strike action over a pay award that represents a good deal for teachers in the present climate.”
Chris Keates, the general secretary of the NASUWT, said: “The majority of members recognise that, compared with other public sector workers, they have fared relatively well.” Maybe just maybe if you've not got the support of the general public or even a majority of teachers , you should realise the strike is pointless.
The acting secretary of the NUT said the strike is a last resort .All the above suggests it isn't , after all the other 2 unions , with teachers in the same boat , dont think that it has got to a position where they need to strike. The NUT leadership are known as the nutters , there latest action is living up to this name.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Ken has no good policies , so he steal's boris good policies
Boris Johnson had an excellent idea called the mayoral fund to encourage a giving culture in london through charity and at the same time encourage entrepreneurship. Ken Livingstone then criticised it in hustings on tv and not on tv and in newspaper column's . However now in a feat no more amazing than Lazarus's return from the dead , Ken has suddenly decided - it's a great policy , and im going to steal it - and you know unlike Gordon when he steals policies off the tories , Ken is not going to hide and say ihe didn't do it , he will be honest and say yep stole it. Just one thing Ken - doesn't that mean you've just been lieing to londoners in recent debates about what you are going to do for London - after all you said u didn't want a mayoral fund and now you do.
here's the evening standard article on this issue. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23479499-details/
here's the evening standard article on this issue. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-mayor/article-23479499-details/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)