Happy St. Andrew's Day

A bit late I know, but I've had a really busy day and only got home half-an-hour back.

I was in the magistrates' court today, really busy with many interesting cases.
Then a meeting with council officers, and finally a Lib Dem Group meeting in preparation for Wednesday's Council meeting.

Finally, home, a cup of tea, and a glass of whisky before bed.

I know it's not Burns Night but I couldn't let the opportunity pass for a verse of A Man's A Man for A' That, from the Bard:

Is there for honest poverty
That hangs his head, an' a' that
The coward slave, we pass him by
We dare be poor for a' that
For a' that, an' a' that
Our toil's obscure and a' that
The rank is but the guinea's stamp
The man's the gowd for a' that

Slàinte Mhath

The rusty legacy of the Iron Lady

I was watching HIGNFY earlier tonight and there was an item about Mrs. T visiting No. 10 to unveil a new portrait of herself commissioned by the Prime Minister.

It struck me as a bizarre thing to do. Namely, to voluntarily, without pressure or coercion, of one's own free will to invite THAT WOMAN back to Downing Street, and to have a picture of her hanging in the study that Mr Brown uses for meetings with foreign dignitaries.
Curiouser, and curiouser.

It was on this day in 1990 that she finally ceased being Prime Minister, and Britain started on the long slow and arduous trek to recovery.

Her eleven years in power left Britain "more spiritually bereft, more restless, unhappier even". She ushered in a brutal, destructive, and selfish society. She brought more machismo, bravado, and braggadocio to politics and we still suffer the consequences.

She and her whole Tory government destroyed whole communities, especially in the North, Wales, and Scotland, communities that have not recovered to this day.

She was probably the only Marxist Prime Minister we have ever had, inasmuch as she understood clearly the class structure, and to her shame she used that knowledge to exploit and utterly subjugate the working classes.
She set suspicion and greed loose, it was every man for themselves and devil take the hindmost.
She encouraged xenophobia, prejudice, and paranoia, she saw fifth columnists and betrayal everywhere.
Even her supposed strength, namely that she was a conviction politician, was ultimately a weakness, because she refused or was unable to see when the game was up.

I'd like to raise a glass to her, well her having left the political stage. Unfortunately, like the bum penny or the ghost at the wedding she keeps coming back.

I really, genuinely, honestly do not believe in personalising politics, but for Mrs T, I'll make an exception.

The cost of Free Speech

Nick Griffin's disastrous appearance on Question Time landed taxpayers with a £143,000 security bill.

That's how much police spent dealing with protesters outside BBC Television Centre, closing roads, and using a helicopter to keep the nutty neo-Nazi numero uno safe.

I think that most sane people will be horrified to find out that so much public money has been spent giving the no-Nazi party their best-ever publicity.

However, on balance I think it was money well-spent to show everyone, what an odious little tic the man was and how his neo-Nazi party is really the heir to Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists.

"I'm not an extremist. I'm a national socialist".
"I read Mein Kampf... there are some really useful ideas there".
And my all-time favourite: "Yes, Adolf went a bit too far... It just creates a bad image".

Wishing all Muslim readers Eid Mubarak

Today is Eid al-Adha or the "Festival of Sacrifice" which is a holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide to commemorate the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac as an act of love for/obedience to God.

In Iran it is known as the Eid-e Ghorban and is celebrated with the sacrifice of an animal.

Those that can afford it, have open house and make a concerted effort to see that no poor person is left without food during the three days of the festival.

Spastic Island (?!)

Just finished watching Cast Offs on Channel 4.
It's brilliant.
Well-written, superbly acted, funny as anything, and poignant without being sentimental.

I love Mat Fraser.

In defence of the poor

I'd like to congratulate our Keighley MP for supporting a Lib Dem Early Day Motion opposing the Government’s proposed cuts for the poorest tenants.
The people who would lose out under this proposal are poorer than those who would have been hit by the 10p tax debacle, and will be hit harder.
Worse still, the Government will not actually save any money by clawing back these payments. All they will achieve is switching the money directly from tenants to their landlords.
These unfair changes were sneaked through in the last budget and the Government clearly hoped they would be swept under the carpet.

They now have a fight on their hands, with many MPs and campaign groups, including the housing charity Crisis, opposing the plans.

This week, the leader of the Lib Dems challenged Gordon Brown directly over the issue at Prime Minister’s Question Time.

I would like to assure you that the Lib Dems will continue to do all we can to oppose this latest Government assault on some of the very poorest families in the country.

Eendracht maakt macht; L'union fait la force; Einigkeit macht stark

The above is the national motto of Belgium, and means "strength through unity".
A few years ago, the then Belgian PM Guy Verhofstadt said, “Belgium is the laboratory of European unification”.
I have long had great respect for Belgium, and her contributon to the European Project. As a student of the history of the EU, I well know the hard work and vision of people like Paul-Henri Spaak, Jean Duvieusart, Victor Leemans, and Jean Rey amongst many others.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Belgium herself is an "artificial" construct, where the Francophone Walloons and the Dutch-speaking Flemings, have been living together in relative harmony for nigh on 180 years.

Her contributions to international peace is well-documented with Nobel Prize winners like Auguste Beernaert, Henri La Fontaine, and Georges Pire.
Belgium's artists have been very important, writers like Maurice Maeterlinck, and Georges Simenon, painters like René Magritte and James Ensor, architects like Victor Horta and Henry van de Velde, musicians like Adolphe Sax and César Franck, and of course, my hero Jacques Brel.
I won't even mention sportsmen and sportswomen like Eddy Merckx and Jacky Ickx, Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin, and of course the great Ivo Van Damme.
Whoops I just did.

I've never bought into the anonymous grey boring Belgian thing, the "Name Ten Famous Belgians", "Tin Tin, Plastic Bertrand, ... er that's it!"

The point I'm trying to make is that somehow it is meet that earlier last night, Herman van Rompuy was chosen to be the first full-time President of the European Council. He had unanimous backing from the 27 EU leaders, and is a consensus-builder who brought stability to Belgium after months of uncertainty.

The whole point of the European Project is to pool sovereignty, to move forward by debate, discussion, and negotiation.
Our traditions are different from the US model of presidential politics of seeking a Messiah, which is why (amongst many, many other reasons) Tony Blair was such a bad idea.

Bon chance/Veel geluk/Good luck to him. Van Rompuy, that is, not Blair!

I'm going to listen to Brel's live album, Olympia 1964, especially the first track, Amsterdam.

Mercenary Prat's Joke Log!

On the whole, I am an incurable optimist with boundless faith in the human condition.
Rarely does a news story upset me!
Anger me? Yes.
Fire me with passion? Yes.
Make me laugh? Yes!

Today, thanks to an FoI request we've found out that the Ministry of Defence spent the equivalent of thousands of hours taking part in stunts for the tv show Top Gear.
I find that astonishing.

I'm not a fan of lads' tv, not a fan of Top Gear, not a fan of Clarkson et al. He reminds me too much of the minor public school bully braying in the quad with a gaggle of equally witless side-kicks, think Molesworth's St Custard's, or Grayson (School Bully) at Graybridge in Ripping Yarns' Tomkinson's Schooldays.
He revels in his oafishness, under the pretext of being "anti-PC" (read red-neck reactionary). He's had a go at the PM's disability, found murdering women working as prostitutes side-splittingly funny, and he is a bigot and xenophobe whether towards Koreans or Germans.

To find that the MoD is wasting, frittering, squandering 141 days of military and 48 days of civilian personnel's time, pandering to this self-satisfied buffoon is beyond belief.
The stunts included a helicopter gunship trying to get a missile lock on a sports car driven by Clarkson, trying to avoid sniper fire while testing another car, and racing a car against an RAF Typhoon, the list goes on ad nauseam.

The MoD's response, that showcasing their people and equipment on tv "raises public awareness about the work of the armed forces" and encourages "support for our troops", is nonsense.

In fact, worse than that, by actively encouraging "Top Gun" fantasies of the armed forces, it actually helps delude youngsters as to the realities of war, and the sacrifices being made in Afghanistan amongst other places.

The title? It's an anagram!

We're on course for catastrophic 6° rise

An article in today's Independent about the catastrophic impact we humans are having on our beautiful blue planet.

A group of scientists, led by Prof. Le Quéré of UEA, say we are heading for catastrophe because the CO2 emissions from industry, transport, and deforestation have increased dramatically since 2002, and are now running at treble the rate of the 1990s.

Next month's Copenhagen conference is probably the last chance to stabilise climate levels in a smooth and organised way, however, if the agreement is too weak, or the commitments not respected, then we will get a 5C/6C temperature rise by the end of the century.

What the impact could be is best described by Mark Lynas's book "Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet".The most recent climatic comparison is the Cretaceous period (144m-65m years ago) which ended with the extinction of the dinosaurs. Before that, at the end of the Permian (251m years ago), similar conditions led to 95% of species being wiped out.

Of that period, Lynas says that:
On land, the only winners were fungi that flourished on dying trees and shrubs. At sea there were only losers. Warm water is a killer. Less oxygen can dissolve, so conditions become stagnant and anoxic. Oxygen-breathing water-dwellers face suffocation. Sea levels rose by 20 metres, and the resulting "super-hurricanes" hitting the coasts triggered flash floods that no living thing could have survived.

As the ice-caps melt, hundreds of millions will also be forced to move inland due to rapidly-rising seas. As world food supplies crash, the higher mid-latitude and sub-polar regions would become fiercely-contested refuges. The British Isles, indeed, might become one of the most desirable pieces of real estate on the planet. But, with a couple of billion people knocking on our door, things might quickly turn rather ugly.

The government, must be bold and take the initiative in Copenhagen, and lead by example.

Interfaith week

Here we are at the start of "Interfaith Week’, a government-funded project that aims to strengthen good inter-faith relations, to increase awareness of the different and distinct faith communities in the UK, and to celebrate the contribution they make to their neighbourhoods and to wider society.

While on the surface these are all very laudable aims, I am nevertheless deeply concerned that the government is taking the wrong route to community cohesion by focussing almost exclusively on the ‘faith’ element of people’s identities.

My concern is that by supporting ‘faith groups’ over and above other groups in the voluntary and community sector, they are helping to promote the fallacy of distinctive ‘faith communities’ that somehow stand apart from wider civil society.

However, given that one of the aims of the week is to increase understanding between religious and non-religious people, I shall be attending one of the events later on in the week.

I look forward to a more inclusive approach next year!

Let's hear it for Social Services

This afternoon, I had the huge honour and profound pleasure of attending a party for adopted children and their parents held by Calderdale Council.

It was an incredibly fun event, well put together and thoroughly satisfying.

It is important to remember that at a time when vilifying social workers has become a national pastime, spurred on by the red tops, that the overwhelming majority do a mighty fine job most of the time. It is only when things go wrong, as they sadly do at times, that they impinge on our consciousness, and then all hell breaks loose and we let slip the dogs of war.

People are mostly ignorant of their day-to-day travails, and seeing the dozens of smiling faces, parents and children, that today of all days (National Adoption Week) I wanted to thank them and their profession for ALL the good work they do.

THANK YOU!

p.s. as an example of how much fun I had, during a game of pass-the-parcel, one lad turned to me and said, "You're not my dad, but you're still embarassing".

White Ribbon Campaign Walk

In an hour or so, I'll be off into the town centre for an event called, These Heels Were Made For Walking Charity Walk.

I and about fifty other men will be slipping on pairs of high heels and strutting our stuff on the mean streets of Hebden Bridge.

The White Ribbon Campaign is the largest effort in the world of men working to end male violence against women.

This is part of a series of events in White Ribbon Week and the lead up to White Ribbon Day on the 25th of November.

Whilst Mayor of Hebden Royd last year, I managed to get the Town Council to sign up to become the first White Ribbon town in the UK, thanks to Chris Green and my fellow councillors.

I'll post after the walk, if I haven't twisted my ankle!

Tories' amnesia over their dire record on poverty

David Cameron’s speech on Tory ideas to tackle poverty should make interesting reading!

When they were last in power they stood idly by as child poverty doubled. Why should anyone believe that they are now the right people to abolish it?

The reason unemployment has risen so rapidly in the UK is not because folk have suddenly become workshy, but because the jobs are not there.
Tory plans for benefit reform will not do anything to change that.

Blaming unemployed people for not finding work will be cold comfort to many facing Christmas on the breadline.

The priority must be to invest in creating new jobs that will bring lasting benefit to Britain and help the country out of recession.

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month

This morning I shall be at the War Memorial in Keighley to pay my respects to all those killed in the two World Wars, and indeed all conflicts past and present.

I shall of course observe the two-minutes silence to commemorate Germany signing an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railway wagon outside Compiègne.

When I was a young lad, one of my friends had his granddad living with him, and this old feller had fought on the Western Front, but of course as a child that meant little to me. I was reading Biggles, and The Victor and Hornet comics, and so as you can imagine my impressions of the War, ANY war was a little warped to say the least.

Well anyway, one year round Remembrance Sunday, I must have been wittering more often than usual when this chap suddenly starts shouting telling me to be quiet, how I didn't know what I was talking about, and finally finishes off by saying how he had nothing but contempt for the leaders, both political and military at the time.

Eventually, he calmed down and said that his main grievance was that THEY must have decided on the ceasefire at least a few days before declaring it. In addition, even in the last few hours before 11 o'clock on that Monday many soldiers were still shot and killed. For that reason alone (if any others were needed) he had no respect for anyone who wanted to make a "grand gesture" at the cost of other people's lives.

"Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,"

This from Dulce et Decorum Est, the poem written by Wilfred Owen in 1917.

At the going down of the sun we shall remember them...

Just how low will Rupert Murdoch's loathsome organ droop?

Last night I was at Rossendale's Festival of Rememberance Concert at the Bacup Leisure Hall, featuring the Haslingden & Helmshore Band.

During the penultimate number, Elgar's Enigma Variation IX (Adagio) "Nimrod", a projector to the right of the hall started showing a slide show of the service personnel who had died since the last year's Remembrance Sunday.

It was incredibly poignant and utterly moving, and I don't mean that simply as a pacifist.

One of the photos was that of Grenadier Guardsman Jamie Janes, so it was absolutely disgusting that the Sun was using one mother's grief to mount a personal attack on Gordon Brown.

I cannot imagine how painful it must be to lose a child and the maelstrom of emotions one is engulfed in, but for the Sun to somehow pretend to be outraged at the PM's spelling is beneath contempt.

The Sun must be the only paper that aspires to CLIMB into the gutter, and once there, actually makes the sewage filthier.

As the new editor, Dominic Mohan must be pleased with himself, and David Cameron overjoyed to have the Sun batting for him!

Shame on you!

Freude, Frieden, Freiheit

Where were you twenty years ago?
I was in the Clarence in Manchester with a group of friends totally amazed, awed, and almost in tears at the euphoria about what was going on in Berlin.

Something that at that time I didn't think would happen in my lifetime. How eventually a ghastly symbol of the Cold War was eventually pulled down without a shot being fired.
Just goes to show how indomitable the human spirit is.

Going to put on Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and sing along.

The words above?
Joy, Peace, Freedom.

Lib Dem Conference in York

Had a long and fun day at Lib Dem Regional conference in York today, elected Deputy Chair of the region, many thanks everyone who voted.

Very disappointed that Keighley Branch's motion on helping people with disabilities in the jobs market was defeated by ONE vote.

This evening was at St martin's Church in Brighouse for a wonderful gig by the Yorkshire Youth Choir. They were tremendous.

Should really comment on the fact that today is the anniversary of the glorious Oktyabrskaya revolyutsiya (October Revolution). I'll come back to that at a later date, I really must go to bed.

Dave's "cast-iron" guarantee turns to rust

So Cameron's zwischenzug on the Lisbon Treaty finally ran out of time, now that the Czechs have finally ratified.

It was always a hopeless ploy, promising a referendum when every other country in the EU had already ratified.

I'm fed up of the shenanigans of the Tories, and to a lesser extent the Labour Party, over Europe.
I am an internationalist, and believe that co-operation amongst states is the best way forward for everyone on this tiny blue planet of ours.
I am a huge fan of the United Nations with all its faults and shortcomings.

I am an even bigger fan of the "European Project".
Think about it, a continent that twice in the last century through terrible wars was brought to its knees, and also brought much of the rest of the world into ruin, is finally at peace.

The idea that we could ever go to war with Germany again or that we would witness the sight of German tanks at the Eiffel Tower is frankly ludicrous.
For that alone the EU and our contribution to it is worthwhile.

Not to mention the fact that it has stabilised militaristic and fascistic regimes in Greece, Spain, and Portugal.
And as we come to the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, democracy has spread and been firmly rooted in the former Eastern Bloc countries, thanks in large part to the European Union.

I am fed up of the "little Englander" mentality that automatically assumes that everything that comes out of the mainland is a threat rather than an opportunity.
I'm fed up with Tories wanting to "protect" us from Europe rather than "promoting" us in Europe.
I'm fed up of the right-wing media constantly distorting the truth about Europe, whilst all their editors, senior journalists, and multi-millionaire owners have property in the Dordogne, or Chiantishire.

We are in Europe, we are of Europe, and I want us to be leading Europe rather than sniping from the sidelines.

Maybe Nick Clegg's proposals for a wider referendum on whether Britain should remain in the EU, is the way to go.

Tories' plan £5bn tax breaks for richest married couples

According to the Telegraph, Tory plans for tax breaks for married couples would cost nearly £5bn/year and benefit richer couples most.
The figures were obtained by us Lib Dems in a parliamentary written answer.

They show that THREE out of FIVE couples would NOT benefit at all from the Tory proposal because both husband and wife work.

Lord Oakeshott our Treasury spokesperson has quite rightly asked, “Why should mothers who go out to work and struggle to bring up a family pay more tax to support women who don’t?

The biggest tax break is going to the best off.
Cameron and Osborne are Robin Hood and his merry men in reverse, robbing the poor to pay the rich.