This week yet another embarassing story for the goverment has emerged. It appears the Prime Ministers must’ve either walked under a ladder, broke a mirror and had an army of black cats march in front of him as his misfortunes just dont seem to be reducing, either that or he’s just incompetent. Suffice to say we all know which one he is. This time is over a young Binyan Mohammed who was tortured in Guantanamo Bay. This is an issue of civil liberties, something that happens to be closer to my heart than just about any other.
The story goes the UK government was complicit with the Americans in torturing a terror suspect in Guatanamo. As we have a so called “special relationship” with the States, we were handed sensitive information that contained details of what happens there. The case of Binyan Mohammed was taken to a British court where a judge ruled it would be in the “public interest” to have details of the case published. One UK-US red phone call later, the Foreign Office Council were made an ultimatum by then secretary of state Condoleeza Rice from the Bush adminstration that should the court’s ruling be carried out, they would effectively cut us off by refusing to share anymore intelligence with us!
Is this what America calls friendship? Call me a simpleton, but friends aren’t supposed to bully and make threats to the other, and in the political terms, expect one’s executive to break the separation of powers exercised following Baron de Montesquieu’s philosophy by interfering in court proceedings!
Our Courts, in this country ruled that it was in the public interest to have information involving serious torture that hasn’t been practiced since medievil times (such as water boarding which apparently simulates effects of drowning and use of razor blades amongst many other methods of torture) be put in the public domain, so we know what exactly our government has been upto behind closed doors with “our” money and resources. They ruled that it is important for us to understand this in order to be able to uphold democratic ideals of accountability. How can we know who we want to lead us if we can’t understand what sort of leadership they make. And yet and I quote they(the court of appeal) felt there a a threat to national security, essentially meaning bullying of the courts by this government following threats made by our best mate, the US.
Again I ask, is this what they call friendship? Is this the true meaning behind our special relationship? Lets be clear what the implication of these threats are. Ending the sharing of intelligence could indeed pose a threat to British national security. Vital information that could lead to the procurement of a terrorist attack could be held back over this! And so it would seem our “friends” across the pond are prepared to allow loss of British civilian life through utterly horrific circumstances in order to protect “politically sensitive information”. In layman terms, let them die if that what it takes to make sure we keep winning elections here, after all none of them is worth a single vote us!!!
But wait there is more. Upon his inauguration, Obama stated “...we as democracies reject having to accept the choice between our safety and ideals” and vowed to restore rule of law. And it now it has become apparent that the new US government no longer holds such an expectation for this to be carried out. Yet oddly, the Right Honourable David Miliband MP(our foreign secretary) insists that the information remains a secret anyway and that during his visit to the States a few days ago, the issue wasn’t discussed all. In the midst of all the public shoulder brushing with Hilary Clinton, the foreign secretary didnt even bother asking if the Obama administration felt it be permissable for Britian to join the crusade for the restoration of the rule of law (and when did we get to a stage where we needed such anyway?)
This clearly begins to question the level of complicitness on behalf of the British government. As it stands, there have been no specific requests from Obama for such to be the case any longer yet Brown et al are holding that the ruling to not have the “vital information” be publish so we can have this vicious business put behind us once and for all. As Reagan stated, “those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on a downward spiral”. Well friends, we are certainly on it and do note, freedom is never more than one generation away. If we are going to escape this spiral, we need to deal with our past in a just manner so we can able to move away on from it.
Let us also be clear with another point, everything that happen in Guatanamo Bay with the compliance of this Labour government is completely unacceptable and it cannot be good moral, policy nor law to carry on with it. The civil liberties that Labour has been blindly dismantling are ones that we have spent over eight hundred years trying to construct. This type of politics is disepicable and deeply dismaying. The can’t fix the economy, the broken society and crime and so they take an existing danger, exagerate it and pretend they are going to save the world from it! And the result? Young people like Binyan Mohammed, could be anyone, even you or I, are taken and have there lives destroyed forever by the very people we trust to protect us! In doing so not only does it lead to social divisions and racial tensions here, but but it gives those who threaten our way of life through terror the platform to justify themselves by making claims such as the “West wishes to destroy Islam”. Thus leading to the rise of so called home grown terrorist that we have seen.
What our government needs to realise is that what constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence is not our frowning battlements, the guns of our war machines, or the strength of our army. Nor is torturing random middle eastern muslims in the hope they turn out to be terrorist going to serve justice. These are not the reliance against the resumption of tyranny in our fair land. All of them may be turned against our liberties, without making us stronger or weaker for the struggle. It should be our reliance in the love of liberty which men and women shed blood to plant in our bossoms. Our defense is the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as the heritage of all men and women, in all lands, every where!
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Friday, 6 February 2009
Calamity Brown and the G8, that is the Guilty 8
Six months later and the recession that Labour almost swore was never going to happen has indeed occured and keeps biting harder and harder. Brown et al. want us all to believe it has nothing to do with them and his sympathisers join him in pointing it is a global crisis that started elsewhere and he had no control over.
What is interesting however is that, if you are boring like me and you observe politics in as many countries as you can, you will find the leader of just about every country in the developed world(with economies exposed to the international market thus in economic decline) is repeating this very same mantra, even Bush was at it right to the end. This does begin to beg the question, who actually in charge of this world?
The trouble with apportioning blame in situations like this is that it is difficult to pin point who is responsible for what?! So lets be clear with matters, Gordon Brown did not cause the recession! However that doesn't mean to say he is clean in all this. It is true that unscrupulous bankers have cut holes in all our pockets and left us in a mess. However just like it is the Prime Minister's job to clean up the streets(reduce crime), so is it his job to steer us away from the mess we are in, and evidently Brown has failed and is continuing to do so by failing to carry us out of it.
In this world, there are 7 men and one woman who sat by and addressed their nations branding themselves are the untouchables of modern economics! Not to insult our allies, but the Presidents and Prime Ministers of France, USA, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, Italy along with Britain under Gordon Brown. These nations and they alone collectively had to power to stop this or sway it from its current severity at the very least. They didn't.
Yes, hindsight is a great thing and it would have been hard to foresee all this, but then again being Prime Minister, well apparently that IS hard! So where does our Prime Minister and his short comings come in to contribute to this? For years he came to dispatch box ever so arroganting stating he had written the laws if economics and abolished boom and bust. How his words are choking him now. At the 2005 general election, Michael Howard in his manisfesto stated this unprecedented public spending built on borrowing should be put to an end as it could have perilous consequences and Vince Cable couldn't have screamed louder to warn our PM, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Did he listen?
Instead, Labour took on vitually every Tory reform, rebranded them as though they were they were their own, for instance, foundation schools are essentially grant maintain schools brought in by Thatcher, Private Finance Initiative are just a continuation of Major's Public Private Finance initiative, Sure Start, Lyndon B. Johnson Head Start(1965) etc the list goes on, from marketisation that has led to a more efficient NHS and education system to ways of tackling with crime that have seen crime levels reduce. Yet Labour has all this listed on their 50 greatest achievements! If all this was painting a picture to go on facebook I think the appropriate caption would be "WTF". All he has done is taken a collection of brilliant and taken it a step too far by borrowing too to fund it all at once. So much for prudence!
Mr Brown wants us all to feel it is rather unfair to pin all this on him, is it? Was it the Americans who gave the Bank of England independence, albeit a good idea, but stripped it of its powers and responsilities which where devolved to the FSA, an organisation that doesnt have statutory powers thus all they can do is say, "naughty naughty you bankers"? Was is the Americans that drafted budget after budget giving Britian the fourth largest budget deficit in the world?(the others being Egypt, Hungary and Pakistan) Was it the Americans that derregulated the British banking sector leaving bankers with windows of opportunity for greed and resulted to the collapse of banks, such as Northern Rock?
Today the time he once described as the golden age, he now describes it as the age of irresponsibility. Yet calamity Brown seems not to have become anymore competent. Just a few weeks ago, he said Britain was best placed to ride out this recession. Lies! According to the IMF we aren't. Being indepedent and neutral, they have no political gain from saying so, its simply the truth. He claimed his £12.5b tax bombshell would stimulate the economy out of recession. Lies! Today French President Nicholas Sarkozy joins the club to politicians around the world rubbishes all that. Founding members include German Finance Secretary along with many from within world of finance, many of whom by the way according to BBC business correspondent think Brown is an idiot and doesn't know what he is doing.
Brown also attempts to give the impression Tories are at odds with everyone else in finding solutions to this problem. Even more lies! It's not so much stimulate the economy that Conservatives dispute, the Tory government in 1992 did the same thing(DC worked at the treasury at this time I may add), it is more where the money is allocated and how it is raised. Indeed many countries are borrowing to spend their ways out of the recession. However none of them had the such a large deficits and therefore are in a better position to opt this. Just because someone else is able to borrow X amount doesnt mean you are as well. If you maxed out your credit card, would you get another one to cover it? Or would you go home and see what you don't really need, cut it out in order to raise the money to pay your way out? And what causes further dismay especially for me as an 18 year old is that I'll be coffing the for the bill, to repair the mistakes that have nothing to do with me! So much for fairness. He then says Tories are the do nothing party, does this look like nothing to you Mr. Brown;
What is interesting however is that, if you are boring like me and you observe politics in as many countries as you can, you will find the leader of just about every country in the developed world(with economies exposed to the international market thus in economic decline) is repeating this very same mantra, even Bush was at it right to the end. This does begin to beg the question, who actually in charge of this world?
The trouble with apportioning blame in situations like this is that it is difficult to pin point who is responsible for what?! So lets be clear with matters, Gordon Brown did not cause the recession! However that doesn't mean to say he is clean in all this. It is true that unscrupulous bankers have cut holes in all our pockets and left us in a mess. However just like it is the Prime Minister's job to clean up the streets(reduce crime), so is it his job to steer us away from the mess we are in, and evidently Brown has failed and is continuing to do so by failing to carry us out of it.
In this world, there are 7 men and one woman who sat by and addressed their nations branding themselves are the untouchables of modern economics! Not to insult our allies, but the Presidents and Prime Ministers of France, USA, Germany, Russia, Japan, China, Italy along with Britain under Gordon Brown. These nations and they alone collectively had to power to stop this or sway it from its current severity at the very least. They didn't.
Yes, hindsight is a great thing and it would have been hard to foresee all this, but then again being Prime Minister, well apparently that IS hard! So where does our Prime Minister and his short comings come in to contribute to this? For years he came to dispatch box ever so arroganting stating he had written the laws if economics and abolished boom and bust. How his words are choking him now. At the 2005 general election, Michael Howard in his manisfesto stated this unprecedented public spending built on borrowing should be put to an end as it could have perilous consequences and Vince Cable couldn't have screamed louder to warn our PM, then Chancellor of the Exchequer. Did he listen?
Instead, Labour took on vitually every Tory reform, rebranded them as though they were they were their own, for instance, foundation schools are essentially grant maintain schools brought in by Thatcher, Private Finance Initiative are just a continuation of Major's Public Private Finance initiative, Sure Start, Lyndon B. Johnson Head Start(1965) etc the list goes on, from marketisation that has led to a more efficient NHS and education system to ways of tackling with crime that have seen crime levels reduce. Yet Labour has all this listed on their 50 greatest achievements! If all this was painting a picture to go on facebook I think the appropriate caption would be "WTF". All he has done is taken a collection of brilliant and taken it a step too far by borrowing too to fund it all at once. So much for prudence!
Mr Brown wants us all to feel it is rather unfair to pin all this on him, is it? Was it the Americans who gave the Bank of England independence, albeit a good idea, but stripped it of its powers and responsilities which where devolved to the FSA, an organisation that doesnt have statutory powers thus all they can do is say, "naughty naughty you bankers"? Was is the Americans that drafted budget after budget giving Britian the fourth largest budget deficit in the world?(the others being Egypt, Hungary and Pakistan) Was it the Americans that derregulated the British banking sector leaving bankers with windows of opportunity for greed and resulted to the collapse of banks, such as Northern Rock?
Today the time he once described as the golden age, he now describes it as the age of irresponsibility. Yet calamity Brown seems not to have become anymore competent. Just a few weeks ago, he said Britain was best placed to ride out this recession. Lies! According to the IMF we aren't. Being indepedent and neutral, they have no political gain from saying so, its simply the truth. He claimed his £12.5b tax bombshell would stimulate the economy out of recession. Lies! Today French President Nicholas Sarkozy joins the club to politicians around the world rubbishes all that. Founding members include German Finance Secretary along with many from within world of finance, many of whom by the way according to BBC business correspondent think Brown is an idiot and doesn't know what he is doing.
Brown also attempts to give the impression Tories are at odds with everyone else in finding solutions to this problem. Even more lies! It's not so much stimulate the economy that Conservatives dispute, the Tory government in 1992 did the same thing(DC worked at the treasury at this time I may add), it is more where the money is allocated and how it is raised. Indeed many countries are borrowing to spend their ways out of the recession. However none of them had the such a large deficits and therefore are in a better position to opt this. Just because someone else is able to borrow X amount doesnt mean you are as well. If you maxed out your credit card, would you get another one to cover it? Or would you go home and see what you don't really need, cut it out in order to raise the money to pay your way out? And what causes further dismay especially for me as an 18 year old is that I'll be coffing the for the bill, to repair the mistakes that have nothing to do with me! So much for fairness. He then says Tories are the do nothing party, does this look like nothing to you Mr. Brown;
- We will freeze council tax for two years by reducing wasteful spending on advertising and consultancy in central government
We will abolish Stamp Duty for nine out of ten first-time buyers and raise the Inheritance- Tax threshold to £1 million. Both of these changes will be funded by a flat-rate charge on non-domiciles.
- We will provide tax cuts for new jobs with a £2.6bn package of tax breaks to get people into work, funded by money that would otherwise go on unemployment benefit
- We will cut the main rate of corporation tax to 25p and the small companies' rate to 20p, paid for by scrapping complex reliefs and allowances
- We will introduce a £50bn National Loan Guarantee Scheme to underwritebank lending to businesses and get credit flowing again
- We will give small and medium-sized businesses a six-month VAT holiday, funded by a 7.5% interest rate on delayed payments
- We will cut National Insurance by 1% for six months for firms with fewer than five employees, paid for from the above changes to the company tax regime
- We will encourage a new culture of saving by abolishing income tax on savings for everyone on the basic rate of tax and raising the tax allowance for pensioners by £2,000 to £11,490
These really are tough times and great uncertainties, but whatever the future may hold, one thing is clear, Labour isn't part of it.
By Augustine Chipungu
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