8th April 2006

Prince Harry

He apparently celebrated the end of officer training with a visit to a lapdancing club

And why not?


06 April 2006

The Blair and Brown Show

There is not a lot of gravitas in their present behaviour and others will presumable pay the price in the forthcoming May local elections.. They behave like teenagers and perhaps should be treated as such. Maybe a couple of ASBOS would be in order.

01 April 2006

Friendship

Our local Priest announced at the end of Mass that he was moving to another parish. He explained that it was not the consequence of an argument with the organist or that he had fallen out with the choir or any of the usual reasons. He said he had been called to his present church by Jesus and Jesus was now calling him to his new parish.

The mass terminated with us all singing with some enthusiasm - ' What a friend we have in Jesus '.

31 March 2006

Loans to Political Parties

The ludicrous and disingenuous statement that rich lenders made loans at commercial rates to Political Parties needs to be closely examined. The commercial rate will to a large extent be determined by the capacity of the borrower to repay. Given the parlous state of the finances of all political parties I would be surprised if any banker in his right mind would lend anything to them at Bank Rate plus 2%.

24th March 2006

Ryan Air

There is almost something charming about the flight that went to the wrong airport. At least the pilot like the Irish Government was going in the right direction. If only a few flights in the United Kingdom bound for Heathrow ended up at Gatwick.

23 February 2006

Royalty

The revolutionary HRH The Prince of Wales has found a new constituency. He has an opportunity to Lead those that wish to have it both ways. His wish to be a voice of dissent and also enjoy the privileges (but not the responsibilities) of his position is untenable. He could of course reasonably pursue the former if he gave up the latter

2 February 2006

Numbers in Political Parties

The extent to which Leaders of the main political parties should pay attention to the views of their members is debateable. The membership (for instance) of the Labour Party is less than 200,000 where as there are about 44,000,000 registered voters in the United Kingdom. That is to say members of the Labour Party represent less than half of one percent of those registered to vote at a General Election. The position in the other main parties is no better.

Accordingly the strategy of Leaders paying lip service to the dinosaurs in their respective parties is understandable. To have any hope of winning policies should be attractive to the majority 99 per cent of the registered voters.

01 February 2006

What worries me about Mr Blair, Mr Straw and Mr Bush is their concept that we can deny Iran or anyone else access to nucleur technology when we retain the right to have it ourselves. I know the legal position and the so called intellectual arguements but so long as we possess the technology it is difficult to offer an acceptable arguement that others should be precluded from possession. I suspect that the arguements being used by our Leaders bear a resemblance to those used when gunpowder and the self loading rifle were invented.

The solution I suspect, as usual, is to stop digging the hole we in the West appear to be in. We need a more relevant Western Foreign Policy for the Middle East.

There are some sound bites that strike a chord. The comment, on the State of the Union address by President Bush, that to say so was not the same as to do so seems apposite. It seems to me as a confirmed supporter of most things American and a disillusioned member of the UK Labour Party that we owe it to our friends in the USA to encourage them to come up with a more relevant solution to the present debacle in the Middle East. The possible denial of development aid to Palestine whilst at the same time continuing the present level of aid to Israel is perhaps one policy that should be re-examined.