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What a week it has been, hasn't it?
Harold Wilson will be forever remembered telling us: "a week is a
long time in politics", however with all the pettiness we have to
suffer these days, it is fast becoming a long time for everyone in
the UK regardless of their occupation. We are living in the slow
motion of an occurring disaster.
Consider: the angels in children's school
Nativity plays may no longer have wings, mince pies have been
banned at school Christmas fetes, pantomimes are having to be
re-written into being unrecognisable and unfunny, there are calls
for our National Anthem to be changed, an elderly grandmother is
told off by a council workman for sweeping the leaves from her
front doorstep, a young mother is fined £360 for not keeping
her wheelie bin full of rubbish within her tiny (8 foot by 4 foot)
backyard where under the window the smell becomes intolerable
despite regular cleaning, the police were called to a shopping
centre because someone felt the schoolchildren performing there
were singing the Christmas carols too loudly, a butcher has been
banned from chopping meat after a new neighbour complained to the
council about the noise, and despite the country footpaths across
uneven grassy fields and moorland being non-negotiable safely by
the disabled in wheelchairs, the kissing gates and stiles which
allow access to them have got to be replaced with expensive cattle
grids - presumably so anyone in a wheelchair can then sue the
farmer for having a field that isn't perfectly flat should they
suffer a tumble!
I could go on and on, the list of
stupidities we live with today is seemingly endless, but I am in
danger of becoming suicidal. Who wants to live in a world like
this? What has happened to society? Why has: "love thy neighbour"
all too often turned into: "persecute thy neighbour", with people
wanting to complain and report somebody for simply living or doing
their job? Where can anyone today use some common sense and make up
their own mind about what they want to do, and what risks they are
prepared to accept in doing it?
Political Correctness and Health &
Safety issues have been around for quite some time but, whereas
once any new proposal used to be ridiculed and dismissed were it
not a sensible one, under these past ten years of Labour government
rules and regulations to ensure we all live in exactly the same
way, and that is in accordance to some insignificant people's idea
of an ethical code, they have totally run riot. The freedom these
prats have recently enjoyed is now detrimentally affecting the
lives of every sensible person, and their self-given right to
enforce their wishes upon the rest of us is at risk of soon
becoming the only freedom left in the land. In our everyday lives
we are not only being told exactly what to do, but when and how to
do it and even the way in which we should be feeling about doing it
- and all too often now these imposing rules become actual controls
and are backed up by some ill thought through law which will
penalise us and put money into either government or local authority
coffers should we not wish to conform. We live in a preposterous
world where our very own lives no longer belong to us. Give us back
our lives!
Individuality? In this Nanny State we live
in today, we may as well remove that word from the dictionary!
Anyway, judging by how well the UK fared in the report by the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD),
where in reading ability our 15-year-olds dropped from being 7th in
2000 to 17th today and now lag behind countries such as Estonia and
Liechtenstein, I doubt many could even spell the word! In science
the UK dropped from being 4th to 14th, but worse than that in
mathematics it was appalling news with the pupils falling from 8th
position to 24th, which for the first time places our children
below the international average. Having been brought up and
educated in a time when a UK education was the envy of the world, I
never thought I would live to see this day - I am ashamed for my
country!
Ed-you-Kay-shun? Ed-you-Kay-shun?
Ed-you-Kay-shun? Get it? No, despite all that never-ending spin, it
seems too few kids do these days! And that point needs to be
Laboured!
In an attempt to hide their shame the
government has tried to belittle the tests and performance tables
which are a part of the OECD's Programme for International Student
Assessment, however as they are the same criteria praised by Tony
Blair in 2000 as being evidence of how well we were doing at that
time, there is little credibility being given to their arguments.
Of course, those 2000 results would have been based on a time only
a couple of years after a Conservative government, so therefore
much of Labour's interference with their damaging policies would
not have had time to filter through the system, take effect, and
become apparent. Whoops! Get out of that one, Gordon Brown. With
apologies to the late and great Laurel & Hardy: that's another
fine mess Tony has got you into!
Another day, another disaster, and yet
another apology having to be begrudgingly spluttered out by the
sorry bunch we, for whatever reason, still call our government and
not the Crazy Gang. This one, following the Royal Air Force Board
of Inquiry report, by Des Browne the Defence Secretary to the
families of the 14 who died as a result of the 37-year-old
reconnaissance plane exploding over Afghanistan last year when
leaking fuel ignited moments after mid-air refuelling - probably,
it is thought, because the recommended fire suppression system had
not been fitted to the aircraft. The Nimrod, a museum piece yet an
aircraft so vital to the war, is only still flying because as part
of a package of cuts its replacement was delayed - so this report
by the Board of Inquiry goes a long way in giving credence to all
those vociferous military chiefs' complaints of a lack of
funding.
The government can, and often do in an
effort to convince us they are providing adequate funding, produce
figures to show they have increased the money allocated to the
Armed Forces year on year, however what they don't like to admit,
or perhaps are too incompetent to appreciate, is that these
increases are on an already severely cut defence budget - one that
was something like halved years ago in tune with the more peaceful
times. Since those happy days we have entered into two lengthy
conflicts, and our commitments have magnified to breaking point -
and all without even reinstating the original budget of yesteryear.
The increases we are being told of today, when seen in those real
terms, become plainly pitiful!
It seems neither Gordon Brown nor his
predecessor, or anyone in the present government, has realised that
the minute a country declares war or enters into a military
conflict, if it really means business and wishes to avoid
prolonging the action, it needs to write a blank cheque for its
Armed Forces. When our lads and lasses are putting their lives on
the line for us they must have EVERYTHING they need to do the job
we ask of them as safely, as quickly, and as efficiently as is
possible. To provide them with anything less is criminal, and to my
mind today we have a government of criminals. Our engagements in
both Afghanistan and Iraq have been plagued throughout by stories
of a lack of equipment and resources.
These stories have not gone away. Far from
it, many have been substantiated by investigative journalism and
television documentaries. I doubt I was alone in feeling ashamed of
my country when at one point in the Iraq conflict it was revealed
on a television documentary that it was only possible to have just
one creaky, old Nimrod aircraft in operation as all the rest,
having been cannibalised to keep that one airborne, were grounded.
Talk about going to war on a shoestring! Our military lads and
lasses have been performing miracles! But perhaps I shouldn't have
said that, it might encourage the government to ask them to walk on
water to get to the next conflict - and there goes our navy!
Our troops have enough to do fighting the
enemy, they should not at the same time have to fight their
government for rifles that do not jam, suitable field weapons and
the ammunition for them, enough flak jackets to go round, the
correct camouflage, the (available) technology to protect them
against roadside bombs, enough helicopters (embarrassingly, in
Afghanistan there are stories we had to borrow some from other
nations!), reconnaissance and attack aircraft, and all the other
many items they need, but which have not been readily provided or
are easily obtainable.
If anyone should think these are all
acceptable situations for our service personnel to suffer and
overcome, I beg to differ!
Finally, the Times newspaper's revelation
that it has found more than a 100 websites offering for sale the
fullest details of many thousands of the UK's bank accounts,
including those of a High Court Judge, with some of the rogues even
providing "free samples" to whet the appetite, is nothing short of
frightening. The newspaper claims it was able to download the
banking information of 32 individuals for free. Apparently one of
the sites has 30,000 British credit card numbers for sale for as
little as £1 each - which, as serious as this is, posed a
comical question for me: how would anyone buy them? Few would be
silly enough to pay for them with their Visa, would they?
Strangely nobody has attempted to link
this data with either the widely reported two discs recently lost
by HM Revenue and Customs, or the subsequently learned about but
less widely reported others - those of an unknown quantity and
length of time missing, but which apparently contain similar
unencrypted information, and have been similarly "misplaced" by
different governmental departments.
As if all this potentially damaging and
confidential information being for sale on the internet isn't bad
enough, perhaps equally as frightening is the spokesman for Richard
Thomas, the Information Commissioner. After confirming the data
these websites are offering appears to be for currently active
accounts, this person went on to explain that if it had been
acquired fraudulently, or by theft, the matter would be passed on
to the police as a criminal inquiry. Hmm . . . Really? That is
considerate of them!
Now I don't class myself as a simpleton,
but maybe I should for I cannot for the life of me think of a way
in which these details that are subject to all the laws on privacy
could appear openly for sale on a public website without an
infringement of some law occurring somewhere along the line. Why
does the Information Commission want to waste time looking to see
if fraud or theft has been involved when so obviously the police
should be brought in immediately in an attempt to protect the
British people, their personal identities, and their money? Do they
intend sitting on this for months, scratching their heads and
throwing their hands in the air as people's bank accounts are
emptied? Am I missing something here?
I shall just have to hope it is not soon
going to be the Royal Mews millions, won't I? With difficulty, I
suppose one possibly could learn how to survive without having a
batman - but without an occasional Robin? Have a heart - the weeks
would feel unbearably long!
Holy abstentions!
"The Bitch!" 6/12/07.
About the Author
"The Bitch!", a weekly UK News Review
column, is hosted by the author and columnist Michael Knell. These
articles appear on the Blackpool Gay Directory website, but are not
usually specifically gay in content. More information on the
author: http://www.michaelknell.com and on the directory:
http://www.astabgay.com.
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