Blair Brown Leadership ZZZzzzz..z...

I have to say I thought I'd enjoy the last days of Blair's premiership more than I am. The truth of the matter is that it is all so boring. It could drag on and on. Its certainly dragging. Not sure I can face watching Newsnight tonight.

• Brown should have acted last may and many times before.
• Blair should have resigned over Iraq WMD - and Brown should have refused to stay in govt with him - as Robin Cook did. Lets hope they both wind up in court one day to answer for all this.

Neither of them has the leardship skills or integrity to be prime minister. They are both kept in power by a party that appears organised for the government goodies its members, supports and fellow travelers can get their grubby hands on.

Orderly transition of power - that's just poor spin designed to anesthetise Labour's less savvey voters ( they must have plenty of those ).

No wake me up from my slumber for the next General Election when we get the chance to throw this discredited and failed NuLabour party out of government. That's what I'm looking forward to.

(Less we forget - Brown was in the government and a senior member of the government for all the time Mr Blair was ).
Update:

By not watching Newsnight I saw Northern Irelands fantastic 3 - 2 victory over Spain. Well done lads - I cheared almost as loudly as I would for a fantastic England goal on the third going in.

On multiculturalism and Islamic faith schools

Patrick Sookhdeo, International Director of Barnabas Fund, has said the following ( full article via this link ) in an article published in the Evening Standard newspaper, London, 4 September 2006.

I believe Islam needs different treatment from other faiths because Islam is different from other faiths. It is the only one which teaches its followers to gain political power and then impose a law which governs every aspect of life, discriminating against women and non-believers alike. And this is ultimately why a naive multiculturalism leads not to a mosaic of cultures living in harmony, but to one threatened by Islamic extremism.

Is he right ?

If he is I'm not sure what can be done about it. It certainly looks like something that Labour are going to ignor, and I suspect doesn't fit the Conservatives agenda either. But in the long term, if and its a big if, Dr Sookhdeo is right then we will not be able to ignor it.

Further:

Worth checking out Drinking from homes viewing notes here on Islamic objectives by Terrorists.

Army 'just' coping in Afghanistan

The BBC reports Sir Richard Dannatt as saying:

The new head of the British Army, Sir Richard Dannatt, has warned that his soldiers can only "just" cope with the demands placed on them by ministers.

Speaking before 14 personnel were killed in Afghanistan, he told the Guardian troops "are fighting at the limit of their capacity".

Foreign Office Minister Kim Howells said he did not think that the British Army was overstretched.

Meanwhile, one UK soldier was killed by a suspected suicide bomber in Kabul.

Gen Dannatt, who took over from Sir Mike Jackson last week, said: "We are running hot, certainly running hot.

"Can we cope? I pause. I say 'just'."

Since Sir Richard has to get along with his new political master and has typical British understatement a little bit of translation is needed here - my understanding of what he says is this:
Things are very serious. The army is over stretched, under and poorly equipped and unable to maintain this level of effort with out serious consequences soon.

Other bloggers like EU Referendum have been going on about this for some time. Reporters return from being with our troops Afghanistan glad to be alive and fuming about government pronouncements. Now what Dr Reid said about how peaceful this task would be is being respun.

The only people who can make this government wake up are Labour MP's. As they are the only ones the government can't ignore. They must act and the Conservative opposition must hold them too it.

See also Robert Fox in The First Post today who starts by saying - Too few forces, too little support and too little time. This is war on the cheap.

Steve Irwin is a sad loss - but at least he contributed to mankind

Been watching the various stories about the tragic death of Steve Irwin, Australia's Crocodile Hunter. Here in the UK there is a hint, especially on the BBC, that he interacted with the animals too much and wasn't a proper wild life presenter.

I see parallels with the prevailing risk averse view of life. Nature knows best - don't interfere - don't let man do anything - just restore the natural state. This represents a loss of collective confidence. Steve Irwin to me represented the reverse. Respect for nature - but with his human curiosity and courage to do things in tact.

He was no doubt a great man who gave a proactive view of his field of work. Something we could all do with more of.

He will be rightly missed.

Update:
But not by Germaine Greer it seems - her comments are put in the rightful context ( ie torn up ) here.

Book your seats/ dig your shelter for Gulf War 4

Just how does anyone think Israel is going to put up with a Nuclear armed Iran under its current head banging leadership ?

The failure of a conclusive end to the Hezbollah Lebanon war means that less than entirely sane Iranian Leader has now really got his tail up ( Check this from the Washington Post).

The Israelis are now rumoured to be planning for the rematch - or so The Times reports.

All those who clamoured for a ceasefire may soon have to (re)learn at what cost appeasement is bought.

My guess at the US/Israeli time table is as follows:

1) Diplomacy up the US mid term elections.
2) Rapid heating up of the pressure on Iran just afterwards. Large tankers of aviation fuel start to head to US bases.
3) War - in time to be over for the next US presidential election.

Maybe this is why the French were so reluctant to put their troops in harms way in Lebanon. (They are not cowards - just see the stuff they get involved in with Africa - or for that matter stupid.)

Of course the problem with all this is that Iran is a modern country with some competent military people and strategic thinkers. They can work this out and will try to disrupt the timetable. The question is how ? I doubt we are going to like it very much.

On the bright side making money on oil derivatives is going to be easy. You just may not be around to spend it.

PS Guess where Armageddon is ?

Tags Armageddon Gulf+War+4 The+Times

Just catching up - well done Boris !

Just catching up on events post holiday came across this rousing article by The Boris .

Here's an extract - but read the full thing. Perhaps you have already, I'm only playing catch up here. But in short - well done Boris. We need to keep this up. Its time for justice for England and I for one would rather have it from a free Conservative government than a celtic NuLabour attempt to calculate the bare minimum to keep them all joined with their ministerial salaries and perks after the next election..

....Gentlemen of England now abed, here is the position. The Scots have free nursing care for the elderly — subsidised, under the Barnett formula, by us, the English — while we cannot afford it in England. The Scots have the luxury of refusing to charge their students top-up fees — since they are subsidised by us, the English — while English students have to cough up. Now we learn that the Scots have free cancer drugs — subsidised by us, the English — while we in England are told they are not cost-effective.

And all this injustice is provoked by a fundamental constitutional imbalance. It was because of devolution that the Scottish equivalent of Nice was able to decide that it no longer needed to obey the rulings of this so-called "National" body. It is because of devolution that Scots are able to make their own health arrangements, in the comfortable knowledge that Whitehall will bung them an extra couple of hundred quid for every Scot. It is because of devolution that the numerous Scottish MPs, with their small constituencies, are able to vote on questions that affect England, while English MPs have no corresponding say over healthcare in Scotland.

It is just not good enough for Alistair Darling or John Reid or Charlie Falconer or Gordon Brown or any one of these smooth-talking Scots to say, as they do, that the only answer to the West Lothian question is to "stop asking it".

A sense of proportion

Hat tip to Englandism.... and Tommy English were I first saw this

The loss of Nimrod air personnel in Afghanistan and cost to the families.

Having been on the beach in Nairn and watching an RAF Nimrod training over the airfield on Wednesday this all has some resonance.

When I was a boy my father was stationed at RAF Lossiemouth - just as it was changing over from a Naval Airstation and I attended the local school on the hill over looking the air station. One day we were in the play ground and noticed thick black smoke coming from the edge of the airfield. Some of my friends said a navy Gannet had crashed just short of the runway. At the end of the break the twins from the end of our road whose father (in the Fleet Air Arm) we knew flew in Gannets where first in line to go back in. That evening our mother came by to tell us he had been one of the casualties.

The impact was that they lost not only their father, but a way of life and his widow close contact with the friends in the services. They left the house to travel back south soon afterwards.

You can only guess that the same thing is happening again here. What makes these services deaths extra hard on the family is that they loose not just their husband/father, but also their house, social network and perhaps feeling of belonging which comes with the services. Many service wives will have given up on careers to follow the rapid postings around the country and world and may have less than many other people to fall back on.

I'd like to think the MOD will look after them well. But I have my doubts. Are we short changing the very people we should be most supporting ?

Back from north of the boarder

Just back from 2 weeks visiting She who must be obeyed parents and 10 nights camping in Oban and Nairn. I was tempted to blog quiet a few times - just picking up the Glasgow Herald tends to raise the blood pressure of an Englishman a bit. But that wouldn't be having a holiday. So instead I leave you with a pictures of the wonderful beach at Lossiemouth and the Buccaneer service station outside Elgin.
PS Normal service is just about to start.

By random coincidence I have a model of XV530 sitting in my shed with me - the same aircraft as at the Elgin service station (its the only model aircraft honest - it was to be a toy for Boy in a Shed - but turns out to be to delicate for a toy).

Tags Lossiemouth Buccaneer XV530 Glasgow+Herald