Denial, and Hypocrisy

Two news Items have caught my eye this week. The first is that Islamic extremists in Basra have been killing women for not wearing the hijab, or even for wearing lipstick. There has been a spate of such killings since British troops have withdrawn from the city. The British government is in a state of denial over the whole sorry business of the invasion, and it's aftermath, and seems to believe that our troops have left Basra in a better state than they found it.
The second item was the strongly worded report of the Complaints Audit Committee of the Home Office. It stated that asylum seekers, and failed asylum seekers were being physically abused by the private security firms whose responsibility it was to care for them whilst in detention. The complaints procedure is a complete farce, with those responsible for the abuse investigating the complaints. With the exception of the Today Program on Radio Four, the media has not highlighted this scandal, although they were quick to highlight the fact the the Home Office were employing illegal immigrants as security guards. Taking actions to bring to justice the perpetrators of these criminal acts, and to institute an independent complaints procedure are not seen as a high priorities by the Home Secretary because there are no votes in it, but it shows the hypocrisy of a government that professes to be concerned about human rights.
15th November 2007

Just another example of this governments lack of compassion

It has emerged that Iraqis who have acted as interpreters for the British army, and who as a consequence are at great risk of being murdered by extremists, are not given any priority when they attempt to apply for asylum. Our government makes it very difficult indeed for anyone to legally apply for asylum, and when they resort to illegal methods it is used against them as a reason for refusing the application. One Iraqi interpreter seeking asylum was turned away from the British Embassy in Jordan without even the courtesy of an interview. The Defence Secretary, Des Brown on the Today programme this morning was so mealy-mouthed that I wanted to be sick. It is likely that there will be a "U" turn due to pressure from back-benchers and others but the fact remains despite this governments protestations that they are caring, there is a nasty streak in New Labour, more concerned with power, ambition and survival, than with morality and ethics.

OUR COMPASSIONATE GOVERNMENT

The Home Office, carrying out the policies of our compassionate government is returning to Malawi some failed asylum seeking families stricken with AIDS. One such family includes a seven year old child who have lived here for several years in conditions of near destitution. Since being informed that their application has failed they have been refused treatment by the NHS, and deportation, due to take place any day now will condemn the family to death. The parents will die first leaving the little boy an orphan until he too succumbs to the disease. This will be inevitable consequence due to the lack of treatment facilities in Malawi.
Home Office statements that rules are rules, and no exception can e made are hypercritical in the extreme. They put expediency, and toadying to a certain section of "public opinion" before ethics or compassion, and this is not worthy of a government, many of whose members profess to be committed Christians. All I can say is if they can square Home Office policy with their Christian beliefs, I'm glad I'm an Atheist.

TRIDENT NUCLEAR DETERRENT

The Commons has voted today to upgrade our nuclear weapons and submarines at vast expense to counter some as yet unforeseen threat some time in the future. This at a time when we are threatening Iran with sanctions because they are suspected of having a program to develop a nuclear weapon. At the present time the big four nuclear powers have about 1400 nuclear warheads, each one of them more powerful than the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the Second World War. Even if you accept the these weapons of mass destruction serve a useful purpose, why do we need so many of them?
It is not generally known that in signing the 1968 Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Britain declared its intention to "Achieve at the earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms race, and to undertake effective measures in the direction of nuclear disarmament. In addition, the Labour government stated in July 1998 its goal was the global elimination of nuclear weapons. (Strategic Defence Review) The government may pay lip service to this but have you heard about any serious initiatives in this direction since Labour came to power; I certainly haven't. In all the debate in the last few weeks leading up the the Commons vote I have only heard the words Multilateral Nuclear Disarmament mentioned once. Why don't we make strong efforts in this direction first, before we think about upgrading Trident? Is it because Blair thinks his buddy George Bush would just laugh at him? At least if we had a bloody good try, we would have the moral high ground, sadly something we don't have at present.

Mental Health Act

The government want to lock people up who have not committed any crime, and who are not suffering from a treatable mental illness. In other words people deemed to have a psychopathic personality disorder, on the basis that they might (in the opinion of so called experts) be a danger to the public, or to themselves. The legislation has been defeated in the House of Lords, and now goes back to the Commons.
This is just one more government attack on civil liberties. Quite apart from the impossibility of accurately predicting the future conduct of people with psychopathic personalities, the number of preventable murders committed by this group, although high profile, are relatively small.
Doctors and psychiatrists therefore become jailers for people they can't treat!
If the government's objective in this was purely to save lives, there are other areas in which they could legislate that would save more lives without infringing our civil liberties.
Their true objective is to appear tough on crime, because they think it a vote winner, and their concern for the victims in our society, and their compassion, is highly selective.
20th February 2007