GB meets GB

As I write this UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is meeting with US President George W Bush at Camp David.

It has been said that the only thing these two men have in common is their initials!

It is to be hoped that they find something more in common than just this. Whatever one thinks of the US President (and anyone who has met me or has read my garbage knows that I don't think much of him) the relationship between Great Britain and the USA is important. Any British Prime Minister should seek to maintain a good working relationship with whoever is the US President, but it is also important that it is not the kind of relationship enjoyed (if that is the right word) between "Dubya" and erstwhile Prime Minister Tony Blair.

To assert that Blair was Bush's "poodle" would be an understatement, and Blair's anxiety to please and to blend in with the Bush style (including the blue jeans and the cowboy swagger) was positively cringe-making.

I was amused the other day to read one journalist's view that Brown would certainly adopt a different style, including that of dress, in that he only had two Prime Ministerial modes of dress -
1. A suit.
2. A suit without a tie.
He was in mode No.1 in the Camp David golf buggy today, and so, in fact, was George Bush.

My hope is that Brown will pursue a tough line on a constructive Iraq exit policy. An Oxfam report out today states that hunger and disease are spreading in Iraq as violence masks a deepening humanitarian crisis. The charity said 28 percent of Iraqi children are malnourished, 15 percent of Iraqis regularly cannot afford enough to eat and 70 percent lack clean drinking water, all sharp increases since 2003.

"The terrible violence in Iraq has masked the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Malnutrition amongst children has dramatically increased and basic services, ruined by years of war and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people," Oxfam director Jeremy Hobbs said.
"The fighting and weak Iraqi institutions mean there are severe limits on what humanitarian work can be carried out. Nevertheless more can and should be done to help the Iraqi people," he said.

Two million Iraqis have been forced to flee the country since 2003, and at least as many have been displaced within Iraq. So much for deposing an evil dictator and rebuilding the country.

It ain't happening.

Floods

The UK is struggling to deal with the most serious flooding in living memory; the other week it was South and East Yorkshire suffering, now it is Shropshire, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, and Oxfordshire. Thousands of homes are under water, and ironically many of them are without water to drink because a water treatment plant has also gone under. The submersion of an electricity sub-station has compounded the misery for those who now find themselves without either water or power. The rivers Severn and Thames are still rising, with the worst to come, and many people near or in Oxford have been evacuated to a sports stadium. South-west London is said to be the next in line, as the Thames continues to rise. More heavy rain is forecast for the London area, exacerbating the situation, and this is set to combine with high tides.

All this coincides with a government announcement that they will still be going ahead with the planned development of hundreds of thousands of new homes in the south east to meet demand, many of which will be build in known flood plains. Of course it is now stated that building will only take place if proper flood defences and adequate drainage can be put in place.

Surely one solution when building in such areas would be to build higher footings, i.e., up to the damp course, say about 3 or 4 feet higher than is current practice. Why do our houses have to sit at ground level? Is this such an obvious and simple solution that nobody will put it into practice? Probably.

Anglo-American Special Relationship

I have just had the pleasure of entertaining two American friends for a few days and showing them some of the features of life in England. As I had been under the impression that we had become a more brutish and uncivilised society in recent years it was gratifying to be told by my American friends that in their opinion the opposite was the case. It was also good to know (considering the bad reputation we used to have) that our food and drink were quite acceptable!

I was brought up short one day with the question, "What, mainly, does Britain make?" Thinking about this I was faced with the unpalatable realisation that these days the answer to that question is "Not much".

In this connection it dawned on me when I took my friends to York that only a few years ago in this great City there was a beet sugar processing factory, three major confectionary factories, a railway engineering and carriage works, and a factory manufacturing glass bottles from recycled glass. All these have now closed. In other parts of the country we have watched coal mining all but disappear. The same goes with iron and steel production, and the small amount of steel manufacturing we still have is now owned by an Indian company. The British car industry has collapsed. We are still making good cars, but for companies owned by the Japanese or the Germans.

I wonder, therefore, in what way is our economy "booming" (terrorist bombs aside, that is) for apparently it is "booming". Have we just turned into a successful giant "Theme Park" for tourists? Apart from that, then the rest of our success seems to be mostly down to financial services.

Anyway, this is all depressing me, and I want to be optimistic about the future, and remind myself that the two Americans who came to see us, and who gave us such a memorable and pleasurable time, enjoyed their experience of my country.

Khalil Ahmed - should he burn in hell?

Khalil Ahmed, one of the two men who tried to drive a mobile bomb into Glasgow Airport's terminal building, and then set fire to himself, is now in hospital suffering from a life-threatening level of burns. Some might say serve him right if he dies, but in my opinion It is devoutly to be wished that his life can be saved.

He (and others like him) want to die, therefore I want him to live and suffer the consequences of his actions.

UK Floods

The horrific flooding experienced this week in South Yorkshire, the Midlands, and other parts of Britain has been described by some as an "Act of God". It is no such thing. It is an Act of Man.

For decades we encouraged farmers (with financial grants and subsidies) to rip out hedgerows to make bigger fields, and to put in subsoil land drainage systems.

Result? Faster rainwater run-off.

At the same time the River Boards of the 1960s and 1970s went on a mad spree of environmental destruction in the interests of Land Drainage, turning meandering river systems into straight, vegetation-free, drainage canals resembling aquatic motorways.

Result? Faster movement of flood water from A to B.

Whilst all this agricultrual mayhem was going on, town and country planners were merrily permitting housing and industrial development in flood plains, against the advice (in earlier days) of the same River Boards that were destroying the rivers' natural ability to balance the discharge of flood waters, and against the advice (in more recent times) of the Environment Agency.

In the older suburbs of our major towns and cities that were built before the age of mass car ownership you will also find people rooting up their front gardens and converting them into paved areas to accommodate one, two, or sometimes three cars.

Result? Additional surface water run-off to overload inadequate storm drainage systems.

At last, though somewhat too late I fear, farmers are considering the re-planting of hedgerows, and the Environment Agency talks about the desirability of allowing agricultural grassland to be given over to floodwater balancing. More voices are being raised by politicians and others about the need to take seriously the matter of building houses, factories and offices in areas known to be prone to flooding.

We have only ourselves to blame for many of our so-called environmental disasters.

Stirring up English Nationalism

I'm all in favour of devolved government to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the Blair Government has made a complete pig's ear of the exercise by totally ignoring the gaping hole in their scheme which is ENGLAND!

The English are a fairly laid-back kind of people who are prepared to be kicked about a bit, but only up to a point. Take them beyond that point and they turn up the heat. I believe that we are fast approaching that "tipping point".

Already we have one sore point regarding medical prescription charges: in Wales prescriptions are free. If you live just on the English side of the border you pay the normal charges; if you live on the Welsh side you pay nothing.

Then there's the question of university tuition fees - in England students pay them and get into debt; in Scotland they don't.

Now the Scottish Executive is conducting a review of medical prescription charges, and they have also recently proposed that the size of primary school classes should be reduced.

All this is perfectly fine, and in many ways I have always found the Scottish approach to social affairs to be generally more agreeable than the English, and in any case with devolved government one expects there to be some diversity of political actions across the UK. So far so good. What I object to is the fact that England has no such devolved government; we are controlled by the UK's Westminster Government, and what makes that so unfair is that the MPs from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland sitting in the House of Commons exercise their votes on legislation covering English domestic affairs whilst English MPs have no say whatsoever over equivalent matters in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Then we should also consider that much of the devolved administrations' social programmes are made possible by the fact that they are receiving significant subsidies from the UK government, which means that social benefits being enjoyed by the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish are partly paid for out of taxes paid by the English.

I am heartily sick of this half-baked devolution, and at the next General Election I am going to cast my vote for any candidate who supports the notion of (ideally) an English Parliament, or (at the very least) a restriction on MPs from outside England voting on our affairs.

If Labour gets re-elected, I wonder what chance there will be of Prime Minister Gordon Brown (who is a Scot representing a Scottish Constituency) addressing this issue. I am guessing, not much. Is there a case for hoping that David Cameron's Conservatives might be more sympathetic, considering the Conservative Party in Scotland is almost wiped out these days?

June is rusting out all over.

The Full Waterproofs

This delightful picture of an under-water blogger is published in connection with a couple of recent posts: one relating to a canal boat holiday that was promising to be a washout (it wasn't) and the other relating to the exorbitant prices charged by some specialist shops for wet weather gear.

Two of my internet friends insisted on having sight of the full gear in use. Since the canal holiday was surprisingly free from torrential downpours I've had no reason to model this chic little outfit; until now, that is.

After a long, warm and dry spring, June has turned out to be depressingly cold, wet and windy, and last week the UK had to put up with severe weather leading to serious flash floods in many parts of the country. I had to put the full waterproofs into service just to put the bins out last Friday morning.

Today is overcast, with more rain promised for this afternoon, but I am at present being cheered up by the song of a thrush in full and enthusiastic voice in my back garden.

George Bush in Albania

Apparently the Albanians were hugely enthusiastic about George Bush's recent flying visit; they gave him a rapturous reception.

I recall that the Albanians were similarly infatuated with Norman Wisdom.

Madeleine McCann's parents

The other week I posted a plea for the return of 4-year old Madeleine McCann who was abducted from a Portugese holiday resort, and said my thoughts and prayers were with her parents at this time.

A friend of mine who reads this blog got quite fired up about the fact that the McCanns deserved no consideration because they were guilty of neglect, in that they went off to a nearby restaurant in the resort leaving their children unattended.

Well, yes - to a great degree I also felt they left something to be desired in the way of child care, and yet looking back on my own years as a parent I know that there were many times when I was less than a model parent, and I suspect that this is true of many of us. Most of us have not had to be reminded of our periods of neglect because we were fortunate enough to be on the right side of the statistical fact that the chances of someone abducting our children are in fact very remote.

Certainly I can say that my wife and I never left our children unattended in a hotel or holiday cottage room whilst we went out, but I am sure we were guilty of other kinds of parental neglect from time to time.

Many people find the McCanns guilty of gross negligence, but these two professional and intelligent people have already found themselves guilty and are overwhelmed by an unbearable burden of guilt that will be with them forever.

I make no apology for praying not only for the safe return of little Madeleine, but also for strength to be given to the McCanns.

Cruising the Rochdale Canal with Shire Cruisers - http://www.shirecruisers.co.uk

I have just returned from a narrow boat holiday on the Rochdale Canal in West Yorkshire, and living as we do in an age where society appears to thrive on complaint and litigation I feel bound to add some counterbalance to this culture by unreservedly praising and recommending Shire Cruisers of Sowerby Bridge. http://www.shirecruisers.co.uk

In terms of customer service, quality of boats, and the comprehensive level of pre-cruise information and training, they surpassed anything we have previously experienced in fifteen previous boating holidays on various parts of the UK inland waterways system. So I am happy to place this on record (and no, they haven’t offered me a free holiday to get me to publish this on the Web!)

To describe the Rochdale Canal I can do no better than to reproduce the introductory piece from the well written Pearsons' “Canal Companion – Pennine Waters” ..

Reaching Sowerby Bridge, the Calder & Hebble Navigation goes into a telephone box, puts its underpants on outside its trousers, and emerges as the Rochdale Canal, Superman of the inland waterways, fully equipped to take on the tyrannical Pennines.

One is treated to the glorious scenery of Calderdale, the steep wooded hillsides, the craggy granite outcrops of the Pennines, and the towns that not only nestle in the valley bottom but climb up the hillsides in a stone-terraced display of gravity denial; then there are the banks of wild rhododendron, yellow iris at the water’s edge, the singing birds in the trees, the ever-watchful herons silently standing in anticipation of a fish supper, and flotillas of ducks and geese.

We were on a short break (less than a week) and were therefore only able to travel westwards from Sowerby Bridge as far as Todmorden before turning round, but the somewhat tame distance of about 12 miles was transformed into a marathon by the existence of 18 manually operated locks raising us by about 200ft on the westward journey, so by the time we had returned to base our aching muscles testified to our completion of 36 lock operations.
We moored up in Hebden Bridge for several hours and were amazed to find that the town was closed! What kind of enterprise society is this, where all the businesses get together and say, “Hey, lets not make any money on Tuesdays!” To be fair, I was told that the shops do open on Saturdays and Sundays, but it still seemed a bit odd to turn up in the middle of the week to find everything battened down. We did, however, manage to get a good lunch at Moyles Restaurant.

We had no time to investigate Todmorden because in our attempts to turn the boat around we got stuck. Water levels were down a bit so turning the boat tended to be more of a mud wrestling exhibition. By the time a number of willing helpers had pushed, pulled and shoved, we finished up in the same direction as before and decided to go through one more lock to find another turning point. This decision introduced us to the first lock with a “guillotine gate” at the lower end, and an ambiguously-written British Waters notice drawing our attention to the fact that although the gate was electrically operated, the paddles (i.e., the valves for draining the lock) were manually operated from a control box “opposite this control panel”. I looked behind me to see what was opposite the control panel and found a smart looking metal box on a post. This turned out to be a repository for dog shit! The paddle controls were on the other side of the gate.

Todmorden was described by Susan of Shire Cruisers as the "Frontier Town" being right on the border between Yorkshire and Lancashire. The town is administered by Yorkshire but has an Oldham (Lancashire) Post Code. The poor dears are therefore totally confused.

A short way beyond this lock was our turning point, but again we needed willing land-based helpers (of which there never appeared to be a shortage) conducting a tug-of-war with the sharp end of the boat whilst I did the business at the blunt end with my head all tangled up with overhanging tree branches. After much heaving, reversing, tiller waggling, and a ruined hair style, the boat was now heading back east.

The meteorological office had forecast several days of the most appalling weather so we were tooled up with all the wet weather gear, but as it turned out it was a mixture of sunshine and showers, and not too much of the latter. By comparison with the forecast we felt we had been handed a bonus, making us grateful for the fact that weather forecasting is a somewhat inexact science.

Water above me, water beneath me.

Good news for my half dozen readers! It's a blog-free week coming up. My wife and I are off on a narrow-boat holiday on the Rochdale Canal. We aim to cruise from Sowerby Bridge to Todmorden and back. We shall have to negotiate more than 30 manually operated locks, so the opportunities for hard physical exercise and loss of weight are enormous, but there will also be opportunities to put the weight back on in canalside pubs!

Those nice people at the meteriological office are forecasting a week of cold winds and rain (thanks guys!) but at least being forewarned is being forearmed. Since these boats are driven by standing in the open at the stern (the blunt end), yesterday I equipped myself with full waterproof clothing, i.e., hood, jacket and leggings, during which I came to the conclusion that specialist sports shops are rip-off merchants par excellence. As I browsed through my local sports shop I thought "They're having a laugh aren't they?" .. £120 for a packable waterproof coat and £90 for waterproof overtrousers? I don't think so! I went to a general utilities and clothing store in the next town and got the lot for £25.

Fish Funeral

This morning I conducted a fish funeral. The largest of my three ghost carp died last night after gracing my humble fish pond for twenty years.

There was a very poor attendance at the funeral; no other fish turned up, and I acted as grave digger, pall bearer, chief mourner and priest. I consigned his earthly (watery) remains to somewhere beneath my shrubbery and despatched his spirit (if he had one) to meet his Cod.

Who's taken Madeleine?

I am posting this picture here in the optimistic hope that the more it is circulated the better the chance of somebody seeing 4-year old Madeleine McCann who was abducted a week ago from a Portugese holiday apartment.

Has she been taken by some sad deluded woman who can't have a child of her own, or is this yet another example (and I can hardly dare entertain the thought) of a paedophile's sick and evil mind?

My thoughts and prayers go out to her parents.

I know they are getting a lot of support, and several high-profile business people and football stars have combined to offer a huge reward for information leading to Maddy's return.

'Bye Tony - Hi Gordon!

Well, now it's official: Tony Blair has given notice of his intention to resign as Prime Minister and Labour Leader on 27th June.

Gordon Brown has commenced his campaign to be elected as Leader, and thus Prime Minister. (A foregone conclusion)

Conservative Leader David Cameron has described the Blair Government as The Government of the Living Dead.

Cameron's shadow Foreign Secretary William Haigh has called for a General Election immediately following the succession of Gordon Brown to the Premiership, conveniently forgetting that when John Major succeeded Margaret Thatcher after whe was pushed out by her Party no such General Election took place then!

Those of you who remember the 1950s boys' comic The Eagle featuring Dan Dare, Pilot of the Future might agree with me that William Haigh is actually an alien from outer space and in a former life held a position as The Mekon - leader of The Treens. During a 1997 reincarnation as one of the many Conservative Leaders (before Iain Duncan Smith, Michael Howard and the current David Cameron) I published this photograph on my website to support my belief!

I have mixed feelings about Tony Blair's departure. In many ways he was a great Prime Minister and his government introduced the National Minimum Wage, Devolved Government (though sadly only for Wales, Scotland & Northern Ireland - not England), Family Tax Credits, independence for the Bank of England (no more politically inspired interest rate adjustments), high employment, more money into education and the NHS, a stable economy, pensioners' winter fuel payments and pensioners' free local bus travel. His greatest achievement by far was to achieve the impossible, i.e., peace in Northern Ireland with a devolved government in which hard line Protestant Unionists and Catholics and ex-IRA terrorists have resolved to work together for a peaceful and democratic Northern Ireland. The Ballot has replaced the Bullet.

The supreme tragedy is that all of this potentially great legacy has been totally buried by Blair's gravest error of judgement, namely the Iraq debacle. It is for this that he is remembered and for which the British people will not readily forgive him.

Florida-style Voting Chaos in Scotland

The elections held in the UK on Thursday 3rd May were a farce. Hundreds of thousands of votes in Scotland were taken out of the system because new electronic scanners failed to recognise accurately what voters had written on their ballot papers. There is now to be an inquiry. I suppose that until or unless it is decided what to do with those votes we cannot be sure that the final outcome is wholly what the voters wanted. If the unused votes confirm the pattern of the used votes then it is clear that Tony Blair has been given a big kick in the backside and the Scottish Nationalist Party has emerged as triumphant, now enjoying the rare experience of being the largest Party in the Scottish Parliament. To achieve a working government, however, they will still have to create a Coalition with another Party or Parties. The SNP's declared intention is to hold a Referendum by 2010 on whether or not Scotland should secede from their 300-year old union with England and become an independent Country.

Adding to the farce cause by the high-tech counting system was the confusion over two different ways of registering a vote on a single ballot paper: for the Scottish Parliament you had to place a cross against one candidate as constituency MSP, and another cross against a regional Party List candidate. For the Scottish local council votes the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system was being used, so on this part of the ballot sheet voters were expected to write 1,2,3 etc. etc. against candidates in order of preference.

Labour also did badly in the Welsh Assembly elections and the Welsh Nationalists (Plaid Cymru) put on a reasonable showing. To continue in power Labour will have to form a Coalition with another Party or Parties.

In England the local council elections produced major losses for Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but only modest gains for the Conservatives.

Across the UK as a whole the results are a complete mish-mash and we now hold the distinction of having a greater variety of voting systems all operating at once than in any other country. I always said our "First past the post" system was undemocratic and should be replaced by something more representative - some form of Proportional Representation, or at least the Single Transferable Vote - but what Blair's government has come up with over the years is a hotch-potch of systems for different regions and different elections. On the 3rd May there were no fewer than four different voting systems in operation.

I wonder how much more stupid we are going to get.

Conservative Party Appeal to Voters (do they?)

Tomorrow (3rd May) UK electors go to the polls to elect Local Councils in England, and in Scotland and Wales it is a kind of mini General Election with elections for the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly. I'm hoping there will be a good turnout as political apathy is in danger of reaching epidemic proportions. What's the good of democracy if you don't use it? And what's the good of complaining if you don't vote.

I watched a Conservative Party election broadcast on TV the other night and Conservative Leader David Cameron was banging on about Tony Blair's record on the National Health Service. Forgive me if I'm missing something here, but by what stretch of the imagination do my local District Councillors have anything to do with the National Health Service?!

How sensible is it to make a judgement on who should run our local authority based on national issues that are the business of the Government? It's nonsensical, and if our political leaders are trying to persuade us to do that, then they are treating us like idiots (which is probably why so few of us turn out to vote these days).

The sad thing is that there are indeed many of us who will take the opportunity to give the governing Party a good kicking at these local elections, and we can expect to see a lot of Labour Councillors losing their seats based on voters' disillusionment over Iraq and the "cash for peerages" allegations currently being investigated.

Children's Playground - A Triumph of Civic Responsibility

The other day I commented on an attempt by a local businessman to purchase a right of way for an access road to his proposed housing development, which would result in the loss of up to 15% of the playing field area. The playing field committe were in favour of accepting an offer of more than £70,000.

Under the constitution of this registered charity it would require a 51% majority of residents attending a public meeting to approve such a deal.

Yesterday evening I attended the public meeting called to discuss the matter, and I was astonished to find the Village Hall bursting at the seams - standing room only, with some people standing outside listening through the side doors that had had to be opened. There were in excess of 300 people, ages ranging from eight to eighty.

In spite of feelings running high the debate was orderly, polite, and with plenty of good humour. One young lad (must have been around 10 or 11 years old) stood up and said his piece, saying that if they were going to finish up kicking a ball about near an access road and a housing development, balls might get kicked over the fence, damage cars etc., and it they went round to ask for their ball back "...they might - well - er - get killed or something!" This produced a good laugh and a round of applause.

I pointed out that up and down this country we have been selling off bits of playground and sports fields for housing development for the past couple of decades, and it was about time it stopped and we got a grip on our priorities: which is the most important - another batch of expensive houses that we don't need, or space for our children and grandchildren to play in. Regarding the playing field finances (often desperate) I said I was prepared to declare in front of the assembled public that I would be more than happy to contribute the huge sum of £1 per month by Direct Debit. I chose this ridiculous figure to demonstrate that if all these people who had filled the village hall did exactly the same it would provide an additional income of £3,600 p.a. This would more than cover the biggest annual outlay, i.e., the public liability insurance premium (nearly £2,000 p.a.)

When it came to the vote we were hugely amused to find that the committee had not printed enough ballot papers to go round. Since it had been clear which way the wind was blowing several of us suggested that we conduct the vote by a show of hands. This was agreed, and to make it even more significant, it was suggested the Chairman should frame the question in this way: Who is in favour of accepting an offer of £70,000? He did, and about four hands went up! Then he asked for the NO vote and a sea of hands shot up. Never mind a majority of 51%. This was a majority of 99%!

During the Annual General Meeting that immediately followed on, the Committee Chairman (a personal friend of the controversial businessman - but let's not dwell on that!) was (politely) given his marching orders. A new Chairman was elected, also a new Secretary and a new Treasurer.

There were over one hundred written pledges of regular donations to the playing field.

This was local democracy at its best in action. I was proud to be part of it, and it restored my faith in civic responsibility.

Don't mess with our Children's Playing Field

My village has a children's playing field. A local businessman who is used to getting his own way by flashing wads of cash around is trying to get hold of a chunk of the playing field to make an access for some houses he wants to build.

He's waved a large amount of cash in front of the playing field committee and they've gone all starry eyed at the prospect of having badly needed money in the bank with which to maintain a smaller playing field.

I think what we have to consider is which is the more important: a grassy space for our children and grandchildren to run around in, enjoying the swings and slides, etc., or a bunch of expensive houses that the village doesn't need.

Up and down the UK in the past couple of decades we have been merrily selling off sports facilities and playing fields for housing development, whilst at the same time belly-aching about kids having nothing to do hanging around on our streets.

It's about time it stopped, and here is as good a place as any to make a stand. OK, so the income and expenditure on this field is running too close for comfort, but that is not a reason to sell off a chunk of it. Someone else could come along in a couple of years waving more money around for another bit of land. Where is the logic in accumulating more money in order to maintain a disappearing asset?

I'd be prepared to commit myself to £1 per month going into the committee's bank account. At this point, dear reader, you are probably saying "He's a generous bastard! Only £1 per month?" But that's my point - it's so little that anyone could do it, and all it would take would be a couple of hundred people making the same commitment (give up a few bags of crisps or the odd newspaper each month) and there would be a guaranteed income increase of £2,400 per year (which, as it happens, would pay for the public liability insurance premium - the biggest chunk out of the committee's budget).

There's a public meeting next week to discuss the proposed sell-off. Apparently it can't be done without 51% of those attending the meeting voting in favour of it. I shall be casting a NO vote. Developments will be reported.

200 million Guns!

The tragedy of the Virginia Tech campus shootings (over 30 killed) highlights the nonsensical approach to gun laws in the USA. The right to bear arms is so deeply ingrained in the American consciousness that every time some lunatic goes on a shooting spree the result is always the same: "How tragic. Something must be done." Then nothing is done.

There are, apparently, about two hundred million privately-owned guns in the USA. Guns and ammunition are easy to come by, with a minimum of checks made on the purchaser's credentials.

The National Rifle Association seems to have a stranglehold on politicians; speak out against the gun culture and you lose votes. Charlton Heston (President of the NRA 1998-2003) told the 2000 NRA Convention that they could take his gun "from his cold dead hands". Idiot!

I am tempted to offer to eat my computer if any new meaningful gun control laws come out of the Virginia tragedy.

Where have I heard that before?

WASHINGTON, April 13 — Senator John McCain said that the buildup of American forces in Iraq represented the only viable option to avoid failure in Iraq and that he had yet to identify an effective fallback if the current strategy failed. (New York Times)

Oh yes - I recall that this was the only viable option in Vietnam, another unwinnable conflict initiated by the USA with (albeit covert) British support. British Government political support, and practical under-cover assistance, for the hell unleashed in Vietnam back in the 1960s was kept a closely guarded secret from Parliament and the British people until recently.

In the case of Iraq our support for the US President has been out in the open. I wonder if that is a kind of progress?!

Whilst the Prime Minister and fellow apologists trumpet the downfall of a tyrannical dictator it is necessary to remind ourselves that during the past half century or more the British Government has aided and abetted in both the installation and support of many tyrannical dictators around the world in the course of protecting so-called British strategic and business interests.

Iraq is just the latest in a long line of dubious and/or illegal actions by the American and British governments. As with many other cases, we have been instrumental first in setting up the tyrant, then bringing him down when he is no longer seen to be serving our interests.

All we have achieved in Iraq is an escalating bloody civil war with very blurred lines, involving outside terrorists taking the opportunity of attacking US and British forces, and Iraqi religious groups attacking each other in the name of two different versions of Islam. (Is Islam a religion for people with a Sunni disposition or is it just a load of Shiite?)

Well done guys! Now, get the hell out of there.