More Redistribution Required

The Chancellor has decided (with the collusion of the coalition!) that the 50% tax rate for those earning over £150,000 should be reduced to 45% because the government underestimated the lengths that rich people would go to in order to avoid paying tax and so less revenue has been made than expected. But just because the monetary elitists can play the fiscal game doesn’t mean that we should give in to them! Let’s reduce the tax threshold even further so that people who earn over £100,000 need to pay 50%. I mean at which point does anybody that rich need to worry about tax?! So George Osborne is a capitalist fanatic, devoted to economic competition regardless of right or wrong; no surprise!

Lookalike

I don't usually write simple jokes on my blog, but I wish to point out that BBC rugby presenter John Inverdale bears a bizarre resemblance to the character Calibos from the original 'Clash Of The Titans' film. Judge for yourself.

Sell Your Soul

“Life is pain … Anyone who says differently is selling something.”
That’s a quote from the film ‘The Princess Bride’; even though it’s generally a feel-good family film, that line is borne out by reality. The people who tell you that no matter what happens in life, things will turn out alright in the end are nothing more than glorified salespeople. So…
1. Christianity and Catholicism promise you eternal peace and luxury in a perfect heaven.
2. Islam under certain circumstances offers many virgins (comfort for the wife, eh?!).
3. Hinduism and Sikhism grant you reincarnation into a new life and soul.
4. Judaism tries to complicate the afterlife as much as possible so that you’re even too bemused to think about it - seriously, you should check out Jewish views towards the afterlife on Wikipedia, they’re difficult to figure out (almost as if they don’t want you to be logical!).
And, 5. Jehovah’s Witnesses think that death is the price for sinning. What the fuck?!
Like I said, glorified salespeople.

Counterproductive!

Len McCluskey, the Unite (a major trade union) general secretary has suggested that civil disobedience could be timed to coincide with the Olympics. This is a bad idea.
In the winter of 1978-9 (the winter of discontent), unions disrupted Britain to such an extent that the majority of the voting public decided that Margaret Thatcher was a necessary Prime Minister. Her seeming ability to restore order to a chaotic situation was more important to people than workers’ rights. But the British public cannot be blamed for this; if bin bags are piled high in the street, gravediggers won’t dig, and the NHS is only open for emergencies, then of course people will lose faith in the current system. This may seem like an extraordinary analogy, but nowadays unions are much more easily condemned than they used to be, so it is vitally important to preserve the public faith.
I personally am not a fan of the Olympics; I would prefer to see millions of pounds spent elsewhere. But there are a significant number of people who are delighted that the Olympics has come to London, and this section of society cannot afford to be isolated. If they are, then how long will it be before the majority of people resent the unions and begin to feel that right-wing governments are necessary for orderly preservation? Then we will see another government like Thatcher’s! The one that made greedy, materialistic capitalism an acceptable aspiration. We must never promote that again to such an extent!
So please, for the sake of socialism and equality, do not strike during the Olympics.

Mind Your Own Business

After undercover reporting from the Daily Telegraph, an inquiry has been launched by the Department of Health into disturbing claims that some doctors in Britain are carrying out abortions on the grounds of sex selection. Obviously, this inquiry is necessary; an abortion based solely on whether the unborn child is a boy or a girl is grossly unethical and drifts into the dangerous territory of eugenics.
However, what was uncalled for after the inquiry had been announced, was input from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (Spuc). Its communications manager, Anthony Ozimic, said: “This investigation confirms the reality of eugenics in modern British medicine … Sex-selective abortion is an inevitable consequence of easy access to abortion, a situation to which the pro-abortion lobby has no convincing answer.” Well then I’ll give you an answer, Mr Ozimic! All this investigation confirms is that some doctors (almost certainly a small minority) have broken the rules and will soon be accordingly punished. A minority of rule breakers does not confirm the reality of eugenics because most doctors take a very ethical stance towards abortion and follow the law. Very few things in this world are inevitable, and tight regulation of pregnancy terminations (such as two doctors having to agree that an abortion is necessary before it can be carried out) will ensure that sex-selective abortion never becomes widespread in Britain.
The reactionary Mr Ozimic went on to say: “The government needs to cut its ties to … abortion rights organisations, as they are complicit in sex-selective abortion domestically and internationally." The reason that the government has ties to abortion rights organisations is because women need rights to abortion in order to prevent unwanted childbirth that could be damaging to both mother and baby. And as long as an organisation is not condoning sex-selective abortion in any way, then it is not complicit in anything! So I suggest that the protection of unborn children is left to medical experts, politicians and mothers.

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!

Important Principles

Two issues have caught my attention this week.
First, Fabio Capello has walked out of his role as England football manager. I admit that I’m not the biggest football fan - there’s too much dissent to the referee and deliberate foul play for my liking. But an important principle is at stake here: innocent until proven guilty. After John Terry had been accused of racist conduct, the first mistake that the Football Association (F.A.) made was to postpone the trial until after the Euro 2012 championships. My understanding (and again I’m no expert in football) is that part of this postponement happened due the urging of Chelsea football club. But we need to know whether Terry is a racist before he plays for England again; at which point did the F.A. think it was wise to put club politics before the issues of prejudice and discrimination? Then the F.A. made the further mistake of stripping Terry of his England captaincy even though he’s legally innocent. No wonder Capello felt the need to resign.

The second issue I noticed this week was that of Councillor Clive Bone of Bideford Town Council, who won a legal battle to prevent other councillors from conducting Christian prayer before meetings. My first instinct was to think that Mr Bone was being a little petty in taking legal action in the first place against what seemed to be freedom of conscience, but then I realised that ‘Prayer’ was actually on the formal agenda for each meeting meaning that every councillor was obliged to witness it. This kind of enforced worship is a good example of how religious rights can impose themselves too much onto parts of society that should remain secular (i.e. neutral). So well done to Mr Bone for standing up for the rights of secularists, and well done to the court for acknowledging them.
Finally however, let’s not get too carried away with these issues, important as they may be. Perspective is still required when you consider that genocide is currently being carried out in Syria, while Russia and China refuse to do anything about it. Bastards.