Personal Blogs

At the moment I am finishing a B A (Hons) Philosophy Politics and Economics (PPE) and have always thought from the beginning of entering this area that there is one P missing from PPE, and that is the P for Psychology. Without psychology none of it makes any sense whatsoever, you are expected to be rational and logical, I don't think many of us are either rational nor logical. You might think you are, but you are seriously not. In fact I even think that to think that you meet the criteria of being either rational or logical confirms my hypothesis.

The answer is that everybody ought to be forced to study human behaviour, what makes us what we have become, and that nobody under forty ought to be allowed a university education. Ceteris paribas of course. In fact for economists ceteris paribas rules, ok.

I am afraid Susan that you are wrong. What has happened is that pension funds which held government bonds have taken the money offered by the government. They have effectively sold them to back to the issuer of the bonds. Now what they have is a whole load of cash on which they are getting little or no interest.

What the investment managers are doing is finding another home for the money, namely the stock market, which is why the stock market has risen so much. The pension funds are buying in to the market, which then raises prices and then draws in other purchasers, eventually however those who wanted to sell their assets have sold them, and the pension funds which wanted to purchase the shares now have no more money having invested all their money which they got from the sale of their gilts.

So, come November there will be no more money to invest, so prices will start to crash and of course the government cannot allow that to happen so they will try to pump more in to the economy to save the bankers and the pension funds only there will be no more money. It really will all have gone. Disappeared like puff the magic dragon, the cash for clunkers scheme will leave us with just that, a load of clunkers. And we all know who has the biggest clunking fist don't we!

I have a problem which I hope some of your commenteers might just be able to help me with. Now back in March April 2006 we had that prince of the realm, Harry 'we do bad things to bad people', on our screens saying that he wanted to be with his men on the front line (in Iraq) and that if he didn't go with them then he felt he would be letting them down and that he would have to leave the army or say refuse a posting to Germany (I paraphrase). Now I think that his comments were tantamount to refusing orders and therefore he should have been courts martialled.

What happens? he was sent to Afghanistan, in secret with the collusion of the British media where he is shown calling up an air strike on a computer and we see the result of the attack. We also see him with a heavy machine gun and walking through towns well surrounded by other personnel, the towns having probably been well swept for IEDs. So, where is Harry now, where is prince William now. That's right training on helicopters, why aren't the 'choppers on the front line where they are needed. I will never forget William (Bill to his military friends like the heroes in WWI were Bill, or Bert, good honest English name) taking time out from his training to get to his girl friend for a week-end away.

I find it hilarious the way in which William and harry can just disapear for months on end. What exactly is the point on training them, they will do nothing, the front is now much too dangerous for Harry, it was possibly due to his presence that the occupation has escalated to the extent which it has.

Afghanistan is a disaster, it is time to withdraw, what exactly have we been doing since 2001 when we had some sort of moral authority to be there, but now, I'm sorry we have lost, time to retreat and to leave the collaborators to their fate. What exactly has happened to the police and soldiers which we are meant to have trained. Just like we have abjectly failed to protect those ineterpretors who are in severe danger in Iraq because we have just dumped them. Worst of all though I hope that massive sums of money have not been squandered on equipment which we have just handed over to the Iraqis, whilst our soldiers continue to suffer from lack of equipment.

and how are things in the good old US of A, now that they have forgotten all about extra-ordinary rendition and enhanced interrogation techniques how is that car scrappage scheme going. I've heard through my grapevine that all is not well with the 'Cash for Clunkers' scheme where the money has nearly already gone. Probably those bankers have been waiting for the scheme before getting cars on the cheap.

Over here of course we have had 'cash for honours', we have had 'cash for loans' and 'cash for MP expenses', I do prefer the term 'Cash for Clunkers'  which can be applied to anything and everything. The new cry on the street, 'Cash for Clunkers'.

may I show an extract from John Hutton said in parliament on the 26th February 2009 column 394 in respect of detainees:

Hutton continued, 'for the initial stages of the campaign in Iraq, we also had in place a memorandum of understanding with the US and Australian Governments covering arrangements for the treatment and transfer of detainees'.

All I would ask is that the government publishes without any amendments, or blanked out lines, the memorandum. Surely the printing of such a document would possibly negate the need for any inquiry into claims of 'torture'.

listened to Ivan Lewis on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning in respect of allegations of Britain being complicit in torture.

Now then let us agree that a soldier signs up to serve their Queen and Country, that they do not believe in Harry and his 'we do bad things to bad people' the cap legend which Harry had when he secretly served in Afghanistan, and which was the subject of a media cover-up. So, they also sign an oath of allegiance and that they will follow all legal orders, without complaint and do as they are told by their superiors, and that there is accordingly a chain of command, and that because actually we are the good guys in all this that the officers, right to the very top will always give legal orders.

But what if you are in an occupying force where some of the officers are not like your officers. That they do extra-ordinary rendition, and that they use enhanced interrogation techniques, and that this other country uses regimes to do their torture for them, and they treat prisoners with contempt and inhumanely, and that some of these prisoners are sent to Guantanamo Bay, for reasons of our safety and national security.

So, my point, surely a British soldier will do his bit whilst he is out there, he will not let down his mates, his pals, his friends, the regiment. But what if he knows that by following his orders he is acting against his own moral beliefs, that it is not that he is refusing orders from a British officer, but that he will not take any longer orders from this officer of another country. I think that that soldier is right, that we as a nation are diminished by the activities of our so called allies in the war against terror.

Hutton has agreed in parliament that we have detained people who have then been handed over to a third party where we do not know what has been to them, I think you will find it in Hansard. He said, and I paraphrase, previous ministers who denied this were not aware at the time that they had been incorrect in the answers which they gave to parliament, other holders of the post include Geoff Hoon.

There must be an independent inquiry, and please do not give me the rotten apple apology for the action of some of our soldiers, the ends do not justify the means, by our actions we are judged, and I think that in due course millions will have to paid in compensation, only that will not salve my conscience. Parliament, this abject parliament has allowed this to reach the stage where we have lost hearts and minds throughout the world, we are just as guilty by not naming names as those that do the deeds, in our name. The ends justify the means is the mantra. Would our soldiers in 1945 have taken orders from a Nazi officer in the army when they saw the concentration camps, of course not. However, did our soldiers respect the German soldiers in WWI, well the evidence from two of our true veterans would say that they did. We are not at war in Afghanistan, we are an occupying force, just like the Nazis were in France in WWII, it is not the war which is the problem, it is the occupation. The French in 1945 treated those who colluded with the Germans as collaborators, how are the Afghans any different, it is their 'country' we are the invaders like so many in the past. How would you treat somebody who was trained by a foreign army to protect your country so that the soldiers of the occupying force could leave you to the 'new model army', the collaborators of today. 

I listened to the government person on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning, Phil Woolass I think, when he was being interviewed. What I noticed was the new way he was stressing two words in particular, one citizenship, and the other migration. Now I am not a citizen, nobody in this country is a citizen, we are subjects of the Queen, until the government changes the law then I am a subject. Soldiers take an oath of allegiance to the Queen, or King, and MPs also take an oath when they enter parliament, unless of course they cross their fingers, or they do not treat the oath seriously, that could be one of their problems, I think that many MPs are actually amoral, in respect of their behaviour.

Again the use of the emotive term immigrant will now be replaced by migrant. We all migrate, Brown is a migrant, he is Scottish yet he now operates mainly in England, he is a migrant, much less of an emotive term. I am a migrant I moved from Plymouth to Exeter via many other places, I migrate for various reasons, but I am not an immigrant. As for the patriotic argument, I am sorry but is that not the last bolt hole of traitor.

T

I watched the retired General Sir Mike Jackson being interviewed by Ms Flanders on the Andrew Marr Show this morning and was appalled. He actually answered his mobile phone twice when being interviewed and seemed more interested in looking at his text messages than listening to questions about the appalling situation which has been allowed to develope in Afghanistan, with all the deaths and injuries, not only of British soldiers but also the local population. In respect of compensation to injured soldiers I wonder if the general would like to tell us what his pension is now that he is retired, and it will increase when he gets his Old Age Pension. I must say that in respect of the good General I wish that he would just fade away, as in the Who tune from the old days.

What he also did was to answer the phone but when finished reading it and just threw the mobile aside, I heard it clatter on to the floor. Now if he acts like that during an interview on national television, with his treatment of expensive equipment does that not indicate an attitude which is not to be ignored. If I was Ms Flanders I would have said directly to him would you like me to stop the interview so that you can answer your mobile. He was just so rude.

Finally, I wish that he had been asked how the situation had been allowed to deteriorate in Afghanistan since the initial occupation began in 2001. We should also be told of all the 9,150 soldiers now apparently in Afghanistan how many are actually fir for front line duty. The problems with helicopters being unfit for purpose would seem to extend to the Personnel Unfit for Duty, too much pud maybe and not enough exercise.

I am listening on Radio 4 to the testimony of a very brave veteran who was exposed to radiation from our nuclear testing in the fifties and early sixties.

Sometimes I feel ashamed for being English. May I suggest that your commenteers obtain a copy of the transcript of the programme which was relayed at about 9:30. I am very angry, and if there is anything I can do then I will research this, and get involved. These personnel followed orders, they could not refuse them, and they also had to sign the Official secrets Act. If the government feels so confident that they are in the right and that they owe no obligation to these men, then take them to the courts for breaching the Official Secrets Act, which has no limitation as far as I know, accordingly, are these men liars, or are they not intelligent enough to understand that standing pretty close to a nuclear device being set off is seriously not a very good idea.

Please note that the scientists seemed more concerned about the fish and the birds than about the human beings involved. This period is a stain on our nation, and must be rectified. The trouble is who set up the nuclear weapons programme why that wonderful immediate post war labour  government. As for Gordon Brown if he had not pushed through the programme of GBP20 billion then the whole programme would now be dead, because it was parliament which authorised the expenditure.

As for the 'scientists' then without this funding they would be unemployed, then what they do? Sometimes I seriously do wonder how some of these people can live wth themselves. What have they done, but it is still the government and parliament which has blood on its hands. Without the money then none of this could happen. What have they done not only to their own generation but future generations as well. Historians will look back and wonder, how did it happen, what drove human beings to do this to fellow human beings.

in all probability I think that a large percentage of the population have realised that the Met Office have manifestly over-egged the long range weather forecast for the British summer. Can we please accept that the Met Office is part of the wonderful, we always tell the truth, Ministry of Defence.

The same Met Office (MoD) which gives us global warming and climate change. The same Met Office which gives us Global Warming/Climate Change which at the same time organised a conference in Exeter where scientists from all over the world were flown in to discuss the terrible effect which air transport has on the climate.

the Iraqi government has not renewed the agreement for British troops to remain in Iraq, so we have been thrown out. This is shameful. we now know that all those lives and injuries have been a complete and utter, total waste of time. So much for leaving with honour.

We have been involved in extra-ordinary rendition; we have been involved in enhanced interrogation techniques; we have been involved in what many regard as being an illegal war, our occupation has been a disaster and now this.

Brown promised an inquiry as soon as the our soldiers have left. Well now they are all gone. The inquiry must start immediately, the lessons must be learnt now, before more of our men and women are lost in Afghanistan. The same will happen, we will leave with our tails between our legs. When is the parade for the Iraq boys going to be held Brown, surely that has not slipped your memory.

I do have a petition on the Number 10 web site deamnding an Iraq inquiry and now an Afghanistan inquiry. There are 34 people who have signed for the Iraq inquiry and so far one other for Afghanistan. I think that both will grow the more the truth of our abject failure in both theatres becomes apparent. Harry Patch was right 'war is murder'.

just listened to Radio 5 Live and the retired General Sir Mike Jackson who complained that he had been refused compensation for ear damage. In the meantime would the good General like to tell us how much he actually receives in pension from his service to the country, and furthermore, does he or does he not work as a director/adviser to a company which supplies contractors in war zones. Just a simple question which I do not expect an answer to.

There are cases where soldiers leave the army, join the contracting firms , then get injured and though the MoD is the commissioning agency, there is no liability to provide compensation. I notice that yet again Jackson refers to a review, why must we always wait until a review, again one which will not convene until so close to the general election which must be held by June next year! Mustn't it?