Money to burn in UK

The financial cost to the UK of the Iraq & Afghanistan invasions have now passed £20 billion. That figure does not include the wages of the troops and neither does it include the ongoing cost of caring for the wounded who must now be in their thousands although detailed figures are not released.

We are of course, still in Afghanistan with troops numbering over 10,000 and so the cost is ever increasing and not just the financial cost with the numbers of the military killed now reaching 300 wasted young lives.

As has been said by many people, not just me, this escapade cannot be won so if you find yourself in a hole the first thing to do is stop digging. We will get out eventually without a satisfactory conclusion, so why not do it now and save enormous sums of money that we cannot afford and lives too. Perhaps then it will not be considered so necessary to impoverish so many of our own citizens.

BP Get it in Perspective

Cameron has jumped on the Obama band wagon and critises BP over the oil leak off the US coast. That’s easy to do and yet another Prime Minister sucks up to the US instead of sticking up for Britain.

Let’s put it in some sort of perspective. Yes, it is a monumental environmental disaster, that is undeniable. Did BP want it to happen, of course they didn’t. Did they act promptly with more than one measure to cap off the leak? Certainly, it was amazing how quickly they manufactured the ‘cone’ and now this other device to trap a good part of the oil. At the same time they are drilling two new bores to take away the pressure to enable the fractured pipe to be sealed off and all at several miles below sea level. They are funding and organising a massive installation of booms to prevent as much as possible of the oil from washing ashore and that which gets through is being collected. Given the speed of events and the unique situation they should be applauded.

I’m certainly no supporter of greedy multi nationals but credit must surely be given when it’s due. As long as the world cries out for more oil when supplies are diminishing then oil extraction will become more risky and dangerous. We must reduce our dependency or live with consequences.

UK Citizen Surveillance Goes European

I have written many times about the ever increasing amount of surveillance and I won’t labour the point now but secret information has been revealed showing that EU wide co-operation in anti terrorism surveillance is being used in the UK to target lawful protesters who are exercising their legal rights and are being dubbed ‘Domestic Terrorists’. See report.

A Degree of Commonsense?

Why don’t they ever learn? Politicians I mean and the answer, I suspect, is that they have little or no commonsense and worse still they think that the ordinary voter doesn’t either.

Take the three main contenders for leadership of the Labour Party; all are white, male, in their 40’s, all read Philosophy, politics and economics and all of ’em did it at Oxford. I don’t know precisely but Cameron and Clegg did similar. I would like to suggest that all politicians must have a degree in commonsense but unfortunately I don’t think that commonsense can be taught, it’s something innate but develops through adversity which is something few politicians experience much of. Those that do rarely seem to rise to positions of power and perhaps why this should be so is a future topic.

The latest nonsense from Osborne and Cameron that they will ‘consult’ with the public over where cuts should be made. The public have commonsense to know that they will have no impact at all on what the government has already decided and the same goes for Labour’s ‘Great Debate’. Those in power though do not have the commonsense to see that the public sees straight through them.

Commonsense decrees that if the Soviet Union with hundreds of thousands of troops and little concern for delicacy could not defeat the Taliban then we wont so why do they continue to try at such vast human and financial cost.

Commonsense says that if we are bristling with nuclear missiles we can’t expect other nations not to want some to defend themselves against us. Commonsense says that if we get rid of them we will aid global nuclear disarmament and save ourselves hundreds of billions of Pounds into the bargain.

Commonsense says that if we stop waging war somewhere in the World, as we have done for hundreds of years, we will save more money and have less or no enemies and more friends.

If hospitals ‘under perform’ against some target and get fined for it then they will have less money for patients. Commonsense? I don’t think so.

Governments say that the top earners need huge salaries and massive bonuses as an incentive to work hard but that the rank and file can have a wage freeze or a cut to help the economy. Any commonsense there?

Commonsense said that Cameron is a much stronger character than Clegg and that if they struck a deal then big Dave would eventually walk all over Clegg and the Lib/Dems would suffer in the long run but he still went ahead. (time will tell if I’m right on that one)

I could go on but I’m sure you get the picture. What we need is a degree of commonsense but not a Degree in commonsense.