On the average day, I read about 250 blogs, forum entries and extracts from magazines and papers. Thank the Lord (or curse the Devil if you wish) for RSS and Bloglines for making this possible. Of all that I generally find some 10-12 items really interesting and a further 30 that have something about them as to merit a fuller IT search or hard-copy checking. The remainder consist of what I classify as totally unworthy waste of my electricity and fleeting attention. Difficulty is there is no way of determining in advance just which is guaranteed good stuff and what is unworthy of even being torn into small rectangles and hung on a nail in the servant's quarters lavatory.
Of recent times there has been little difficulty in knowing what to avoid. Almost anything that contains 'Cameron, Nick or Labour is just a waste of time. We have suggestions that we all spend our time volunteering to do good works we find pleasing and someone proclaiming that the ideas and standards developed since the 1832 Reform Act. Why do we need such a massive revision? In round terms we were doing nicely thank you until the madmen took over the asylum some 13 years back. Even there, some of their ideas were well founded; it was the manner of their introduction and implementation that was so wrong.
We had an example of the wide spread of opinions as recently as yesterday when we learned that we have to give sanctuary to foreigners planning terrorism in this country. Why - it was feared they might be harmed if they were returned to their country of origin. In our Newspaper Of Record were two articles - one from a proponent of the attitude that the rights and liberty of the individual are paramount regardless of their personal conduct and a former police officer who points out that we are our own worst enemies.
Former PM Brown tried to justify our continued presence in Afghanistan that this was necessary to deny AQ terrorists a base from which they could again bring death and destruction onto the streets of the UK. The events of 7/7 and the latest terror plotting showed how wrong an idea that was. Sadly, the same excuse is being trotted out by the Tory group of our new Parliament. If one can rise beyond the weird theories that 9/11 was an inside job, that again is an example that terrorists can reside inside their target area. The bomb-making manuals are readily available to anyone with a pc and Internet connection. Our gallant service personnel are held in a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah in pursuance of this flawed argument.
The Com Res poll found that 77 per cent wanted troops to be withdrawn from Afghanistan, while more than half thought that the presence of troops there put British streets at greater risk from terrorism.
But the three main parties fought the general election on programmes which include backing for the NATO mission against the Taliban. Between them, the parties’ general election manifestos run to around 80,000 words – but Afghanistan is mentioned only 19 times between them. Labour’s manifesto included the most mentions, 11, followed by the Conservatives' on five and three for the Liberal Democrats'.
The Don't Deport decision attracted very much less media panic than one might expect of a population engaged in the opposition. They just do not care if they have no relatives or loved ones actually involved. Yet, it is this same population that is expected to surge forward as volunteers for some as yet inchoate initiatives. To set Government aside and set up swathes of New Ideas. If the nation has not risen in rebellion at the sort of things we have sustained, what makes anyone really thing there is any interest in getting involved. For every citizen who wants to organise Grow Your Own on Allotments, there will be one who complains of the smell of the fertiliser. And they will not be able to blame The Government. No one has been able to tell me what the members we elected will be doing whilst we have this National DIY mania.
And wanting something does not mean one gets it. Every time there is a gruesome murder we get calls to bring back hanging. But Government does not have free voting and it will never be brought back, The last public hanging at Tyburn took place in 1783; not so far away from that Reform Act of 1832 that Nick wishes to revisit. I am quite convinced that not so far back, public opinion would have been that hanging was too good for the Cannot Be Deported terrorists. Not so far back, Mussolini's body was quartered and exhibited. Just why should we care what happens to those who had a wish to dish out death and maiming in our country?
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