Tag: politics

News in Briefs 11/03/12

This has been a pretty boring week for the news if you were just watching the mainstream news feeds. But that doesn’t mean that we have nothing for you this week because even if politicians and morons (those two are pretty much the same thing) are not in the public eye it doesn’t mean that they haven’t been humiliating and embarrassing themselves just as much as usual.

Political Oops of the Week

It’s never nice when a few Islamic militants have you at gun point in a hostage situation. But this situation was made much more uncomfortable this week when British Special Forces attempted to rescue two hostages, one British and one Italian, in Nigeria. The problem was that they didn’t bother to tell their Italian allies about the rescue operation.

Surely this should have all been forgotten about, though, because the point is that the hostages are alive? Oh, wait. They’re not alive. They’re not alive because when the firing started the militants killed the hostages. If everything had gone well then this political embarrassment could have been forgotten about, but the fact that Britain attempted to demonstrate the size of its figurative balls by doing it all on its own just makes it even worse.

Rightly, the Italians are upset about all of this. But Foreign Secretary William Hague just made things worse when he was quoted as saying: the short amount of time we had to act “constrained how much we were able to consult others.”

So things were that urgent that you couldn’t have given the Italians a quick phone call? Exactly how long does it take to enter a simple phone number into your mobile phone? About ten seconds, twenty seconds if you’re Eric Joyce, and maybe even thirty seconds if you’re Boris Johnson. You didn’t necessarily have to coordinate with the Italians, but you could have at least given them a heads up about it.

It’s a good thing Berlusconi isn’t there anymore because he may have just slept with all your wives in retaliation!

David Cameron
So you say you didn't manage to dial the right number?

 

The Painful…

Everybody loves a news story they can relate to. This is another one of those stories as Richard Dale Fox killed his girlfriend in his California trailer home with a homemade cannon. Don’t worry, Richard, because we’ve all been there where we’ve accidently set off our homemade cannons and almost killed our loved ones, haven’t we?

His girlfriend died of shrapnel wounds as the projectile came through the window. Sadly, the authorities wouldn’t reveal exactly what the projectile was, or even how the cannon was made, but they did reveal that it was fired by using the same powder found in fireworks. Richard Fox was also taken to hospital with severe leg wounds as the cannon exploded when he fired it. This sounds very similar to the guy who tried to blow up a plane a few years ago but only succeeded in burning his own bollocks off. Maybe they are friends?

Cannon
What a perfect way to surprise my girlfriend!

 

…And the Pointless

David Cameron revealed something monumental this week. Ready for it? That’s right, David Cameron likes to play the game Angry Birds in his spare time. And, yes, this was reported on BBC News. It just makes this writer wonder exactly what the point of anything is anymore.

In most cases, it would be a case of me thinking that “Hey, it doesn’t matter to have a bit of light-hearted talk sometimes.” But what was particularly irritating was the fact that this was in the middle of a Government meeting. After a bit of digging, this was actually a part of some initiative where it gets children to report the news on the BBC website next week.

What a complete and utter waste of time and money. Why is this going to be of any use whatsoever? The children are going to be reporting on news that they really don’t know anything about. Do the BBC still think that people are attracted to the prospect of having some snotty-nosed bundle of irritation reporting on the news? The people I know who visit news websites are there for one reason: they are there to get the news quickly, simply, and easily. Not to have to wade through all the childish dribble which the BBC are going to be spreading all over their website.

News should be the news, children’s channels should be for children. It really is that simple.

The so Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

Vladimir Putin is Russia’s new president, for the third time. Whether you’re a fan of Putin or not, though, you have to admit that the results of the election were a tad dubious when looking at some of Putin’s tactics this time round.

The exit poll predicted that Putin would win the election with at least a 60% majority vote, which he did, but the fact that some of his supporters were caught ferrying his supporters to vote at multiple polling stations does make it seem like it was a little rigged. And the fact that international overseers even admitted that the election favoured Putin doesn’t seem to have bothered any world leaders at all.

To date, all world leaders have acknowledged Putin’s victory, and Obama even phoned him personally from Air Force One to congratulate him. It does make one wonder exactly why nobody seems to be up in arms about this. But there’s no denying that the only reason Putin was out of the presidential office to begin with was because of the Russian constitution stipulating that you can only have two consecutive terms in office.

But, then again, when you look at the fact the Communist Party finished 2nd, you start to see exactly why a little bit of corruption has perhaps done at least some good on this occasion.

A Positive Outlook for the Week

One item on the agenda which does look like it’s coming to an end is the Rangers FC administration case. The administrator stipulated on Friday that there was a Friday deadline for all buyers to put forward their bid to buy the club. This means that it looks like we will be seeing an end to this sorry saga quite soon. What’s more, the fact that the senior players all decided to take massive pay cuts means that Ranger won’t be going anywhere, so now Scottish Football won’t be made completely meaningless and pointless next season. Although, this writer still won’t be paying any attention to it.

As for everything else, the fact that there was very little going on this week leads to speculation that next week should be awash with lots of interesting news.

So maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…

Will You Still Need Me? Will You Still Feed Me?

A bit of bad news plopped through my letterbox this week. It was a letter from the Pensions Department stating that I won’t get my state pension until I’m two months shy of my 67th birthday. I had known it was going to be delayed until I was 64+ some months, ago but this new development is the result of the government’s latest plan to raise the retirement age.

I’m not looking for sympathy (well, a little bit) and I moan and bleat about it whilst knowing that lots of other people have far worse problems. It’s just that growing up to think you’ll retire at 60 and then being told otherwise at this late stage feels like a low blow. But I hear lots of men shouting at their computers now saying, “ But you women wanted equality!” Yes, we did….and we should be equal at some point in terms of retirement age. Hey, women live longer anyway! However, many women of my generation gave up working for years to raise a family and our pension prospects consequently suffered. Is this what my older sisters (symbolically speaking) burned their bras for?

If only I’d been born a couple of months earlier…or years. Okay, I’m moaning again.  I’ve taken this very badly, I’ll admit. The next generation will grow up with a different mindset, I’m sure and previous generations had to work ‘till they dropped. There was no welfare state to send them into a blissful halcyon of gentle leisure in the twilight of their years. As the rules stand now (unless the Pension Campaign can create a revolution) my children will get their pension when they’re 68. Alas, what will it amount to anyway? I urge any young people reading this to get that private pension sorted now….don’t delay…put that cup of coffee down, turn off the Hollyoaks omnibus and do it now.

The thought of old age is scary. We don’t know what’s ahead of us. Old age with good health and faculties intact is a whole different ball game to old age without those advantages. I know, I know, 50 is the new 40 and so on. 80 is the new 70, ha ha. The fact is there is a vast range of 70 year olds and 80 year olds. The retirement age could go creeping up more and more and who knows where it will come to rest? Many older people are amazingly sprightly in mind and body…and some are not.

Have we thought this through? Does a 69 year old really want to be plastering or mending a roof? We don’t all sit in nice warm offices and even those that do will have to cope with new technology as it rolls out and it will keep coming because it always does. This isn’t meant to be patronising, just realistic. Thousands of older people will cope with whatever is thrown at them, but many won’t and whilst I’m in the mood for brutal facts, here’s another one.

Why are we doing this? The reason the government is doing this is because we’re living too long. Someone has to pay for this. Something has to be done. This, unfortunately, might be a temporary situation. Go into any city centre late at night and you’ll see an astonishing capacity for alcohol. Fat and salt drenched processed food and lack of exercise will do the rest. There is a whole generation, unless they can be persuaded otherwise, doing everything they can to not live to a ripe old age. Brutal but true. Obviously, this is a worrying situation and an unwelcome antidote to the problem of caring for an ageing population.

So, here I’ll be, still working at nearly 67, or maybe they’ll put it up again. And again. And again. I’ll just slave over my keyboard, messing up the keys with my drool, until my arthritic fingers can’t take anymore and my brain longs for respite. Then they can put me out to pasture. It used to be all fields round here y’know…..

How Strong Are Your Ethics?

Sometimes, as we go about our daily lives trying to look after our families, the grander ideas are not thought about. Every now and then a conflict will arise between our ethics and our desires. This is when ethics may become expendable.

The strong forces that drive us – love, sex, money and power – tempt us to compromise or even do a complete U-turn. Personal relationships and careers are put on the line. Truth is a hard currency to deal in when there is a conflict of interest.

 

There’s three minutes to go and your team needs a winning goal. Do you take a dive to get a penalty kick? Will the glory be tainted by guilt? Sport is a minefield of ethical conundrums. For me, it’s still the beautiful game but marred by cheating and dissent. Children’s football matches echo what’s happening on Match of the Day. Role models are few and far between and it’s bad boy behaviour that gets the media attention.

 

Some would say that one’s loyalty should be to your teammates and the fans and this consideration is of a higher order, placing it in front of any other moral code. Well, isn’t that convenient. Thinking like that will bring selfish rewards, all dressed up in some warped rationale.

 

Bobby Moore led England to victory and was a national hero, not just because of the trophy but how he conducted himself. He won and lost with equal grace. In contrast I heard Roy Keane on TV the other day giving his insight as a pundit. Talking about a player on the losing side missing the chance to stop his opponent from scoring, he said, “he should have fouled him, he should have taken the yellow card”. The presenter, Adrian Chiles, did not pick him up on it.

 

Performance enhancing drugs seem to be endemic. How many of us sigh with cynicism when the latest track or swim or cycling record is broken. If I were holding my gold medal (it ain’t going to happen), I’d be thinking about the 10 year old kid in the stands who pasted my picture on his bedroom wall. Throwing matches and shaving points leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Greed sometimes makes us cross lines we never imagined we’d cross.

 

You know the words – “what did you do today to make yourself proud?” Most of us shift the goalposts to varying degrees. Have you ever taken the credit for a colleague’s idea to get promotion? Do you hand it back when the shop assistant gives you too much change? Do you pilfer (notice how pilfer sounds less serious than steal) stationery or fiddle your expenses? Are you economical with the truth on your tax return?

 

But surely our leaders can give us inspiration? Yeah, right. We all know what’s been going on lately. We all know who could successfully hide behind a spiral staircase. It’s not just greasy pole climbing politicians that lie for a living. Some public relations and advertising people wear deceit as a second skin. They try to bamboozle us with unsubstantiated facts, half-truths and distorted visions of reality, all to sell a dream and false hope.  We work all week and we’re rewarded with bread and circuses. Don’t draw back the curtain; the wizard isn’t there.

How ethical am I? Well, that would be telling! Is the erosion of ethics getting worse? I think it’s too complex for a yes or no answer and there was never any golden age of innocence. Rather, lots of wrongdoing is covert now. Being the baddie has become more sophisticated. We know “the cost of everything and the value of nothing”. We win at any cost and we try to have it all at any cost. Does the human race have a collective portrait of a decaying Dorian Gray? If so, heaven help us because we all know what happened to him.

 

 

News in Briefs 26/02/12

It hasn’t been a good week for interesting news as all we have been stuck with is more news on Syria and yet more fights over the NHS. But while the main stories of the week have been as plain and boring as Ed Miliband making a political speech, if we dig below the surface then we can find some hilarious and interesting stories.

Political Oops of the Week

This is a bit of a premature time to be doing specials, but this week we have two stories which share this title.

The first story is about Labour MP Eric Joyce who was arrested and charged with common assault this week for flying off the handle in a House of Commons bar. Reportedly, the MP for Falkirk started shouting and insulting the Tories, dumping drinks over members, dancing terribly, and then directing his head into the face of Tory Pudsey MP Stuart Andrew (twice).

This is not only extremely embarrassing for the Labour Party, but it’s extremely embarrassing for British politics because how can these drunken idiots lecture and patronise the common folk of the country when they are flying off the handle? Essentially, it’s the equivalent of a bar fight on a Saturday night, but in an upper class manner. However, don’t expect any jail time for this MP, they play by different rules, remember?

Eric Joyce

But the Coalition Government fared no better either as our second story emerged on a BBC video of Nick Clegg having a humiliating slip of the tongue. Is this a window into his darker thoughts or just an accident? The rumour mill is out in full force!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17113209 (skip to the 20-30 second mark for the slip)

The Painful…

Whilst there are tonnes of painful moments from around the world, we will try and keep it relatively civil. And no, we won’t be providing any pictures or videos of their injuries you sick people!

This week the story involves a Harrogate teacher who set himself on fire in the school car park because he felt under pressure to obtain good exam results from his students. If this is not a message that teachers are under too much stress then what is?

In Case of Fire

As someone who was reportedly suffering from depression, and constantly on edge about coursework and exam results, Mr. David Charlesworth set himself on fire in the car park of the school and died of burns that destroyed 79% of his entire body.

Surely this has to bring up a point about the stress teachers are put under? Teachers are forced to make their students obtain high grades, but have they ever thought that the reason some students don’t obtain good grades is just because they are absolute morons who have no interest in education? You can’t teach what doesn’t want to learn.

…And the Pointless

The 26th of February 2012 marks the day where Rupert Murdoch releases his latest creation to the British public, the Sun on Sunday. Ok, so the Sun is now joining the Sunday News battle, but I just have one question for Rupert Murdoch, the British public, and the British media. Who cares?

Who Cares?

The Sun on Sunday has been spoken about as if it’s a new and revolutionary invention which has never been seen before. The newspaper is the same rubbish which is printed every other day of the week, but with a special Sunday title. Ooooooooo…

Looking at the amount of coverage this unveiling has received, it really does make you realise how dry the news has been this week because it’s so irrelevant. Ask your friends, your family, and the creepy guy at the bus stop this question: “Do you care about the new Sun on Sunday?” I guarantee that 90% of these people will reply with one of two lines: “The what?” or “No.”

The so Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

Some stories just make you want to strangle the people involved. But 14-year-old British teenager Sammy Booth crossed these boundaries when she recently wrote a letter to a judge in order to save her drink-driving mother from jail. In the letter she wrote such lines as “My mum is a very good mum.” and “I’m scared for my mum and I’m scared for myself”

In normal circumstances this would be a heart-wrenching story, but her mother, Julia Cairns, was involved in a high-speed car chase with police after refusing to pull over. I’m sorry, but why should someone be spared from jail after endangering the lives of hundreds of people just because she has a kid? And more importantly, why should she get away from the normal punishment when the daughter is clearly telling lies in her letter?

I would lock her away and throw away the key because why should it be one rule for some and one rule for others? I mean, seriously, she’s not even an MP! This is not a criticism of the child because she’s too young to fully understand the law, but the mother is scum. And what’s more, the ones who were taking care of this case should be absolutely ashamed of themselves.

Maybe I should make sweet, sticky love with my neighbour’s dog, take a dump on their bed, and kill their kid only to write a heart-wrenching letter to the judge after I’m hauled before the courts? Using this logic I should get off with about 70 hours of community service and a police caution. British justice: exactly where is the justice here?

Drunk Woman
No, really, my mum is a good mum.

 

A Positive Outlook for the Week Ahead

As for the week ahead, there are some positive things to look forward to. If we take a look at sport we will see that the Carling Cup Final between Cardiff City and Liverpool is today, which means that tomorrow we will either have back-page headlines of an underdog overcoming one of the giants of football or the story of the resurgence of Liverpool under a legend of both the club and English football.

The NHS debate has been raging for weeks now, and we have made absolutely no progress this week. Call it a hunch, but I believe that we will either see some progress or the NHS debate will fade away for a while this week. Some new and exciting news will hopefully replace it.

A few newspapers have also reported that the Leveson Inquiry into press standards will release its results this week. This is good news for two reasons: first of all, we will get to see some results from this long and drawn out process and, secondly, we will see the end of this inquiry which has dominated the press for months now.

So maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…