The ThunderDragon

I am sorry that posts have been nonexistent recently. This is because I have recently moved back to uni, and don’t yet have the internet set up in my new flat. And the past week has been spent trying to set it, and me, up for the next academic year.

I should have the internet back soon… in about a week… but hopefully I will find the time to make a few posts before then!

Slavery and the Slave Trade in Britain were prevalent during the early years of the British Empire, when Africans were bought (usually from rival tribes who had captured them during fighting) and then transported overseas to be used as slaves either in the sugar plantains of the newly-colonised America or (though less often) back in Britain. Yes, the British Empire made much of use slaves. But (as this Wikipedia article shows) it was hardly the first time slavery had been implemented. Indeed, “[t]he trading of slaves has been carried on for thousands of years in Africa.”

The Atlantic Slave Trade was not exactly the high point of the British Empire, but slavery was also first fully abolished in Britain - through the 1807 and 1833 Abolition of Slavery Acts, and the efforts of William Wilberforce. And as soon as slaves were freed they were the equals of the rest of the British people - unlike in America, where it took until the 1960s and Martin Luther King to get this.

This is why, when I read that ‘Britain may apologise over slavery’ I immediately thought: Why? This is something that happened a long time ago, and whilst some may claim that the issue still reverberates today, you can say the same about any major historical event. Should we get an apology from the Normans for invading Britian in 1066? And what about the the Scandanavians for the Viking invasions? Or, as mentioned in the Telegraph article, the Italians for our enslavement by the Roman Empire?

The past is past. There have been no slaves in Britain for 173 years. Let it go!

‘Positive’ discrimination, that most oxymoronic word so overused in modern political thought does seem to have a downside to those who espouse it:

“A police force that rejected 108 potential recruits because they were white men has admitted positive discrimination and agreed to pay compensation.
Gloucestershire Constabulary said that it had been trying to increase diversity with its policy of selecting women and candidates from ethnic minorities. But at an employment tribunal in Bristol yesterday, the force admitted that its actions were unlawful.” (The Times)

Thus, it appears that the Commission for Racial Equality and the Equal Opportunities Commission aren’t as ridiculously PC as I had thought, since they “reported that the force had unlawfully discriminated on the grounds of race and sex.” And they really, really had from the stats in the Times article, which reports that:

“two thirds of white men who applied to join the force in last year’s recruitment drive had been turned down. Every ethnic minority candidate who applied had been invited to an assessment centre.”

This thus shows thatthere has to be some discrimination going on - there is no way that it is true that every ethnic minority candidate was good enough to get to the assesment centre stage. A lot, sure, but not all.

It is obvious that ‘positive’ discrimination is not positive, since it is still discrimination. Well, it is to anyone who believes that equality means just that: equal opportunities for everyone, no matter what race, gender, sexuality etc anyway. But it also nice to see it applied for white men, rather than just against them.

(Of course this is not the first time that this sort of discrimnination has been revealed, and ‘positive’ discrimination attacked (see here) and I doubt it will be the last. Yet we can still hope.)

The Liberal Democrats say that they want to be a serious prospect for government. Not a bloody chance. The Liberal Democrats will only ever have any power in the event of a hung parliament, and even then, as shown by the history of such events, minority governments are usually formed by the largest party in the Commons. Of course, minority governments are particuarly unstable, but the oppositional nature of our political system means that any coalition is just as, if not even more, unstable than minority government since the differing policies of the parties will automatically drive them apart.

Thus, the Lib Dems will never have “power”, will never be in “power”. Certainly not for the next generation.

Click here to see the Guardian’s cartoon: “Go home to your constituencies and prepare for death…”

Source: BBC

Abu Izzadeen, “a well-known Islamic extremist” heckled John Reid as he made a speech in which he called on parents to monitor their children for signs of brainwashing by extremists. Abu Izzadeen is “said to be a former spokesman for the radical Islamic group al-Ghurabaa, an offshoot of al-Muhajiroun - both of which are now banned in the UK” - so how he managed to get into the hall where John Reid was speaking is a concern in itself. In his interruption, Izzadeen said:

“How dare you come to a Muslim area when you have arrested so many Muslims in this area… I am furious I am absolutely furious - John Reid should not come to a Muslim area, we do not want to see him. John Reid, Tony Blair and George Bush’s crusade can all go to hell… You all know as Muslims that we are treated as second class citizens… How many Muslims have been arrested?”

So the Home Secretary should not come to part of Britain to give a speech because some Muslims were arrested on suspicion of being terrorists or planning terrorist actions? That is his job, to protect the British people - all of the British people - from the threat of being killed, be it by terrorists or any “ordinary” murderer. If any Home Secretary who had anyone arrested could not go to the area in whih the arrest was made, they would be able to go to very few places.

As to the second part, that Muslims “do not want to see him”, obviously some do, since they were in the hall to listen to him. Whether or not they agree what he was there to say makes no difference, they went to see him nevertheless.

Muslims are not treated as “second class citizens”; in many ways Muslims get preferential treatment because they are of a ‘minority’ religion, and make such hullabaloos about anything said which contravenes what they believe - such as the Pope’s speech recently. In Britain, everyone is equal.

“How many Muslims have been arrested?” I have no idea. Do you mean for suspected terrorism planning, or in general? Within what time span? Within that area or within Britain? Whatever you mean, Mr Izadeen, I am sure that those who have been arrested were for a reason, and on the same basis as any other person in Britain. And if they were wrongly arrested, they will be freed like anyone else.

Sources: The Times, BBC

With riots in Hungary and a military coup in Thailand, is democracy coming into a period of crisis? Despite Fukuyama claiming the “End of History” it is clear that democracy is not universally accepted, in it’s practical form at least.

Despite the Thai General Sondhi saying that sovereignty will be “returned to the Thai people as soon as possible”, the fact that the Thai army felt the need to stage a coup - and then actually carried it out - shows an underlying distrust in the democratic procedures of representative democracy. No matter what may happen - however fast the military may return power to a civilian government - democracy has been dealt another blow in Asia.

The Hungarian situation is different. The Prime Minister has been shown to have lied, with extracts of his speech including:

“[W]e f***ed up. Not a little, a lot. There is no other country in Europe that has shown such stupidity as we have … Obviously we lied throughout the past one and a half, two years … [W]e have done nothing for four years. You cannot tell me of any significant government measure we could be proud of … If we need to give an account to the country what we have done for four years, what will we say? … I almost died of having to pretend for the past year that we were actually governing. Instead we lied day, night and evening …”

Not a clever thing to say. And not a very clever thing to do, either! Why didn’t they do anythin over four years in power? Why is there nothing that you can be proud of during your government? If you believed this, why did you stay in power?! Opposition leaders say Mr Gyurcsany has jeopardised Hungary’s faith in democracy and must step down. And they are right. These sort of conditions bring nothing good to a country or to democracy.

The problem with democracy is that it needs to be fully entrenched before it works properly. It must be entrenched in “the people” and in the political elite. If either of these groups harbours doubts about democracy, it will be weak, ineffectual, and prone to breaking down. Transition of power through elections are the ultimate tests of democracy, and both in Thailand and Hungary it needs to be swiftly and well. Or it will all be swings and roundabouts yet again.

A: It gets toad away!
Sorry for the bad joke, I just saw a bus being towed on my way home from work and found it amusing…

The IPOD Generation (Insecure, Pressured, Over-taxed and Debt-Ridden) “will have to hand over almost half their salary to the taxman, according to a report which shows the escalating financial pressures facing new graduates. Rising taxes and the overhaul of the pension system mean that students starting at university this year will be spending 48 per cent of their income on tax and other payments until they are 35″ reports The Times.

Labour has thus screwed over my generation. We “pay the cost of the welfare state without being able to expect many of the benefits” - and it is completely unacceptable. Labour taxes more and more, but few benefits from this extra money are ever seen, and the few that are certainly do not represent value for money. Not only will young people get taxed to unhold the standards of the current pensions, but also to create their own under the proposals of the Pensions White Paper.

The Class of 2006: a lifebelt for the IPOD generation report concludes that:

“tuition fees and student costs are one of the biggest burdens. New undergraduates can expect to pay £33,512 — including fees, rent, living and travel costs — to fund a standard three-year degree course, a 17 per cent increase on last year’s figure.”

I graduated from university this summer, and I am lucky in that respect. I avoided the ridiculously large tuition fees undergraduares are now charged by universities - £3,000 a year!!! And I thought that the £1,200-odd I was charged for each of my three years was high! My younger brother, however, was not so lucky - he starts uni this month. My fees for my postgrad course are even higher, at £3,168, and there is no Student Loan available for me. I can only afford to do it because I work during my holidays, and my parents can afford to help me. I know of many intelligent people (cleverer than me) who wanted to do postgraduate study but could not because of the cost. Charging extortionate amounts for higher education can damage the quality of those who do it.

Quite frankly, the high taxes created by this Labour government threaten to bankrupt the nation. maybe not yet, but soon. Like the report, I ask the Conservative Party to examine the issue in the policy review - find a solution, please!

The Conservative Party will offer specific tax cuts before the next general election, reports the Daily Mail:

“David Cameron has agreed to endorse a radical ‘road map’ to tax cuts that will allow the next Tory government to slash rates for business and offer relief to low and middle-income earners.
The Conservative leader will publicly back proposals to lower tax and simplify the tax system drawn up by the Tory Tax Commission, chaired by Lord Forsyth.”

Like Martine Martin (from whom I found the story) I always expected that a pledge to tax cuts would emerge before the next general election, since that is a major part of traditional Conservative thought.

David Cameron is going about things in pretty much the right way. I am not a natural supporter of David Cameron (I voted for David Davis to become leader), but I understand what he has been, and is continuing to, try to do to revitalise the Conservative Party. It is necessary, I think, to try to change the way in which the public views the party and its policies before reiterating the basic principles of conservatism.

But it is nice to have the reassurance.

I just came across this excellently done take on the “Dave the Chameleon” advert. Very amusing!