We are here because of the path that lies behind us

Conference season is all but over and the battle lines have been drawn for the run-in to the 2015 General Election. The papers today say too that the election campaign begins, but where are we?

David Cameron made a rousing speech fit for a Nuremberg rally as he followed on from Theresa May, outlining his intentions to dismantle the Human Rights Act, save the NHS and be the ‘trade union’ for hardworking people. This would be funny if it was not so serious and frankly disgusting. This is the man whose party smashed hardworking, trade union families in the 1980’s and who want to all but revoke a workers right to withdraw their labour and raise the threshold for ballots so high, that neither Boris Johnson, nor the Coalition government would have taken office with the same stipulations. This is the man who has seen thousands of people die after their benefits were cut by the cut throat, unqualified and inept assassins at ATOS and has overseen a cost in living crisis leaving 1 in 4 families described as ‘working poor’, over 1 million children in poverty and the resurgence of Victorian diseases such as rickets. It is quite literally banquets for the rich and food banks for the poor.

I think he meant what he said when he said we were the people that he and his party resented.

Further to this, the Tory party have continued unabated in the mass sell off of our NHS, built and paid for by us, our parents and grandparents, after first Labour opened the gateway with PFI contracts in their previous disastrous term in office. The NHS is safe in no ones hands but our own. If we leave it to these vultures we will face yearly prices hikes the same as we already do with the rail and energy firms. Families would soon be priced out of basic health care, a fundamental human right for all. Do not be persuaded or convinced that charging immigrants for use of the NHS is anything other than to get us used to the idea of getting our plastic friends out to pay for care. It is a classic tale of divide and rule.

Which brings me to the threat posed to human rights.

Time and again Theresa May, Cameron, Hague, whomever, tell us it is because of the threat posed to us by terrorists, hate preachers and other so-called undesirables that they wish to extradite but by whose definition will be determining the terrorists? In May’s speech she has outlined a vision of such Orwellian proportions, it left many aghast at how it could even be implemented. May’s vision is one of national censorship of extremists who use social media, yet when they have over 9000 domestic extremists on their list, people who make it their civic and moral duty to stand up to police and political corruption, fracking, TTIP, arms fairs, illegal Israeli state expansion, many without a criminal record. You can only begin to imagine just how dangerous things are getting for people who speak truth. The establishment at all levels have a very genuine fear of the social media, it used to be that we saw something on the social media and went to the mainstream news networks to confirm it, now we see something on the mainstream news and take to social media to disprove it. It is instant, live and connects us, for better or worse, in a way that they cannot abide. It is for these reasons that we are seeing clumsy and draconian attempts to break people’s faith in using it, for fear of ending up on the scrap heap or worse, in some form of censorship or detention. In the future only outlaws will be free.

The Sun manifesto Cameron

In the meantime The Sun takes credit for the potential abolishment of our human rights act and generally people don’t even bat an eyelid. A mate said to me yesterday (I am sure he won’t mind) that we could all already do what the Human Rights Act is supposed to guarantee for us long before they existed (such as the right to assembly, marry, practice religion, freedom of speech etc), but were we?

One example could be gay people’s right to marry the person they love, until recently it was still debated only getting as far as civil partnership, only with ‘gay marriage’ coming in the last 12 months. It is called ‘gay marriage’ or ‘same-sex marriage’, rather than as I call it – ‘marriage’, because to many it is still taboo. And they still face serious issues regards access to equal pension rights for their partners in the event something happens to one of them, parity with a ‘normal’ married couple is still beyond the law and that is just one example of how our so-called ‘civilised’ society doesn’t get it right even with a Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a foundation. What chance justice with a watered down bill of rights drafted by this inept bunch because they convinced us terrorists are on every street corner?

Taken from an article featured in The Telegraph, Tory plans will involve some of the following ideas:

  • Extremists will have to get posts on Facebook and Twitter approved in advance by the police under sweeping rules planned by the Conservatives.
  • They will also be barred from speaking at public events if they represent a threat to “the functioning of democracy”, under the new Extremist Disruption Orders.
  • Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will lay out plans to allow judges to ban people from broadcasting or protesting in certain places, as well as associating with specific people.
  • The plans — to be brought in if the Conservatives win the election in May — are part of a wide-ranging set of rules to strengthen the Government’s counter-terrorism strategy.

Universal…That word, universal, for all, because after two world wars in 30 years they realised the need for something resolute to hold tyranny to account and at bay, if 100 years more global war has taught us anything, is that human rights needs reinforcing, not disbanding. 

Remember nothing was given to us because we deserved it, it was given to us because we fought for it for generations. Ask yourself why they would really want to take something as precious as this away from us? Remember that we are not here because of the path that lies before us, but because of the path that lies behind us. 

‘Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people’ – Preamble of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

1984 George Orwell

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Newell News-round up, week 16

This weeks round up is quite simply a shocker.

We have had great sporting distraction completed, the British and Irish Lions won their first series for 16 years in Australia, the BBC told that Murray was the first Brit to win Wimbledon for 70 plus years, totally ignoring the achievements of Virginia Wade, the Aussies are taking a pasting in the cricket and David Moyes lost his first game in charge of Manchester United. T.V is god.

Health/Welfare

If the attack of the NHS was not obvious before it is now as the home of health care is being forced to shut by the Tories. Trafford General where the first ever NHS patient was treated is about to have its A&E department closed down as the grim reaper of health care Jeremy Hunt said patients could go to neighbouring hospitals.

The Daily Mail who makes its name in bashing immigrants and benefits scroungers is backing a call from the confused public for the Royal spawn to have a stay at home mum and dad. It is alleged that Wills is thinking of quitting his job to be with his child. They are lucky they have the choice! Most parents are having to work one or two jobs just to make ends meet and their ends are meeting as Eddie Murphy would say “Like a mother f**ker!” I believe that children need to have a stable environment with parents/guardians or whatever they are called these days, to help shape them but unfortunately for you and I we do not have that luxury with the cost of living and yet we are going to support these people in quitting their jobs to look after their children. If the BBC or Sky ran a story about a benefits scrounger you would be up in arms about it.

More UK service men and women took their lives last year than in the total number killed in action in Afghanistan during the same period. I have been asking for some time what the real damage of this war will be on the personnel deployed to fight the illegal wars. The Falklands war lasted a fraction of the time these illegal wars have and the post traumatic stress that came about as a result of the horrors they witnessed was astronomical.

Today the government continues its attack on the less fortunate as the £500 cap on benefits rolls out. MPs are on the verge of getting pay rises worth £6000, claim for their children to get more for themselves, come from families of millionaires (and are pretty well off themselves), are entitled to £450 a month food allowance and tell us about the need to tighten belts because we are all in this together. You couldn’t make it up but Iain Duncan Smith has decided he believes he is right so it must be true.

Politics/Human Rights

Theresa May finally got her man and Abu Qatada spent his first week back in Jordan awaiting trial. Sky News in particular pushed both May and PM David Cameron on whether the delay in his deportation will now mean tht they make moves to change or withdraw from the European Court of Human Rights. Neither of them said yes but then they did not say no either. These may be troubling and worrying times for the rest of us.

Nelson Mandela is said to be stable and may return home soon. We should be mindful when the time comes and the tributes pour in that there are Conservatives who once viewed him as a terrorist and there was a very real belief he should have been hung. This is not to say that people cannot change, but the surrounding evidence does not support that idea.

Economics

The Chinese economy is in the news again with the statistics showing that it has slowed between the period of April to June. Trade wars loom.

Mark Carney (head of the Bank of england) is to get a house costing us £11,000 a week. Another pig at the trough.

Rent in the UK is unaffordable for the low income families in a third of the UK. Wage deflation continues, cost of living increases and house prices are still floating in the bubble created at the turn of the century. Of course housing is unaffordable in over a third of the country.

Technology

NASA have tested a 3D printed engine part for the first time. 3D printing made a more controversial entrance into the mainstream media earlier this year when the blue print for a 3d printable gun went online.

With the announcement of a new Terminator trilogy Arnold Schwarzenegger could be replaced by a real life military robot. Built and design by an American Defense Department the drone wars are not as far away as we might think and at over 6ft tall and 23 stone with the ability to mimic human movements it might be a better actor than Arnie too.

World

Trayvon Martin, aged 17, shot and killed by a neighbourhood watchman George Zimmerman. Zimmerman was found not guilty by the jury and Barack Obama has appealed for calm as a sense of anger and injustice rose across the States. Much has been written, some in haste, over the events that led to the death of Trayvon Martin the end result is a young boy has lost his life and his family’s life ruined. Some will say George Zimmerman has a life now in pieces too but he made the decision to pursue a young boy, believing him to be up to no good based purely on the colour of his skin. Zimmerman made the decision to disregard the advice of police control not to pursue what may have been a dangerous assailant and the consequences of his decisions that night lead to Trayvon’s murder, yet somehow Zimmerman has been found not guilty and walked free from court. If a young white boy had been shot by a black man I wonder would the result have been the same? To put the curious law of stand your ground into some kind of context, an African American woman who lived with a man with a history of domestic violence used a side arm to fire a warning shot after a row broke out in the family home, the judge decided that she had not feared for her life and due to a slight variance in testimonies sentenced her to 20 years in prison. America and the world are divided. Some believe the acquittal was the only verdict, believing Trayvon to be the aggressor, others believe at the very least a man slaughter charge should have been awarded. Twitter has seen the various attacks, lead by none more so than Louise Mensch.