Royal Waste

Okay, I’ll keep this short and sweet folks - well, maybe not so sweet. As far as I’m concerned (and yes, I realise that I’m in the minority as usual) the Queen’s diamond jubilee celebrations range from unnecessary pomp and outdated ceremony to an egregious waste of taxpayers’ money. Regardless that she brings tourists to this country, the amount of wealth that is spent on her and the rest of the royal family could be distributed to much more deserving areas such as NHS healthcare, public transport, reducing energy bills, building affordable accommodation, increasing the minimum wage, and on and on. I understand that some of the celebrations such as the Thames Pageant were funded privately, but the monarchy is annually awarded millions of pounds of government cash which is often spent on grandiose events like the diamond jubilee. I’m not saying we have to scrap the monarchy altogether (even though that wouldn’t particularly bother me), but at least scale down the expense to a significant degree considering the UK is currently going through a recession amidst a seemingly long-term global economic downturn. How hard-working people can applaud one family living in such financial heights is beyond me.

Nuclear Proliferation ... And Religious!

The UK has signed a deal with France regarding the progression of nuclear energy, i.e. more of our energy demands will be realised through nuclear power. It apparently strengthens co-operation between the two countries. However, putting aside the problems that Britain and France are currently having over Europe, this is still a bad idea. Eleven months ago, a tsunami swept into Japan and reached the Daiichi nuclear plant in Fukushima. The result was radioactive material being leaked into the air and sea; a twenty kilometre exclusion zone was necessary - can you imagine having to evacuate your home because something twenty kilometres away had blown a gasket?! Yet that could soon be the reality. Germany has become the example of nuclear correctness: they are going to decommission all of their plants in the coming years. But Britain and France don’t care about what other countries have been through. Please simply acknowledge this point: if a nuclear power plant is severely disturbed, it can cause inestimable results. The Chernobyl disaster created problems that lasted for years, if not decades. And as much as there is obviously no chance of a tsunami happening in Britain, the Japanese government didn’t see it as a likely threat either; any random event could possibly afflict us. Nuclear power just isn’t worth the risk - randomness can fuck us up too readily!

Addendum: last week, I wrote about Bideford Council’s right not to have to witness Christian prayer. Unfortunately, this week Eric Pickles, the communities secretary, has arbitrarily decided that the High Court made an “illiberal ruling”. He stated that the ruling was “striking a blow for localism over central interference”, but surely if he is now introducing a law opposing the High Court’s judgement, that is the epitome of central interference! Pickles said that “freedom to worship” was more important than “intolerant secularism”, but forcing councillors to pray to a god that they don’t believe in at the beginning of every council meeting is intolerant by definition and opposes freedom. The communities secretary is basically worried about losing Christian voters, rather than preserving liberty.











P.S. Don’t mess with David Haye, he’ll bottle ya!

Irony For The Unintelligent

The band James have just revealed the sleeve design for their upcoming album release; it features a baby playing with some toy building blocks and a gun. It refers to a recent incident in the good ol' US of A where a ten-month old child was legitimately granted a firearms certificate! The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK have banned this design from being featured on any billboards for fear that it may encourage younger people to use guns...What?! I ask you, how do these authority figures in the ASA get superior positions of employment with mighty powers of censorship when they can't even understand the use of irony? To anyone with more than three brain cells to knock together it's clear that the James album is anti-guns and is in fact mocking the ridiculously liberal (or should that be right-wing Republican) American gun laws. And exactly how stupid are the British youth in the twenty-first century meant to be? Does the ASA truly believe that gun crime originates or is vitally encouraged by billboard promotions? The contradictory madness of society never ceases to amaze me: while pacifist James fans listen to the pleasantly inspirational tunes and consider an ironic front cover that they weren't allowed to see advertised beforehand, they can be secure in the knowledge that a ten-month old child somewhere in America may grow up one day and become a little bit unbalanced by perpetual social repression just in time for him to shoot up a school and blame it on people who will refuse to listen; because that's how gun crime really originates.