Why Are We There?

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The incoming head of the British army says that the UKs commitment in Afghanistan could last for up to 40 years and that ‘nation-building’ would last decades. Good grief!

The British army death toll in Afghanistan has now reached 195 and one has to ask whether anyone in government has any clear idea as to why, despite more than a century of unwinnable wars in the region, we and NATO are still there and what is trying to be achieved.

While the politicians may theorise and discuss the pros and cons of numbers, tactics, equipment and why some members of NATO provide less support than others, British men are being killed.

Enough already!
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Next Time It Could Be A Child!

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Burmese pythons, once kept as pets and released into the wild when they get too big for their owners to manage are now a major problem in Florida’s Everglades. Some experts are now licensed to hunt and kill the creatures, native to Asia, which have flourished in Florida’s warm, moist climate and which are now threatening some of the area’s own endangered species by eating them.

Not interested in this? Too far away? Not a bit of it, for stories about these dangerous creatures keep popping up in our own country almost every year.

In 2003, a Sheffield family were said to be ‘overjoyed’ when their 11 ft Burmese python was found safe and well after it was found in nearby allotments after having been missing for two weeks. The following year a Burmese python attacked a collie in a sports field in Kent; fortunately, the dog escaped with just the loss of one eye, but the snake was never found. The next year a 12 ft Burmese python was found dumped in a Lancashire wood, and in 2007 a 9 ft Burmese python was found abandoned by the roadside.

Just last month, a cat named Wilbur was crushed and eaten by a 13 ft Burmese python kept as a pet by a Bristol man in his garden. While the cat’s screams were heard but the deed not actually witnessed, it seems that the moggie's microchip was scanned inside the python.

While the Dangerous Wild Animals Act of 1976 has many restrictions, it doesn’t include constrictor snakes. It should do, for next time it could be a child.
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I Hate Driving In London!

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I hate driving up to London and cannot think of a more intimidating and stressful experience for a driver. I was up there this morning and am glad I don’t have to drive there again for a while.

There are bus lanes that sometimes operate five days a week and others that work for six. There are changing speed limits, often for no apparent reason especially when you are on a three-lane road that stretches miles ahead. There are thousands of signs, many of them quite unnecessary or irrelevant, all of which have to be taken notice of while you drive along. And there are pinch-points and two- or three-lane roads that squeeze you into one lane.

There are pedestrians with suicidal tendencies who wander straight into your path and glare at you as if you are in the wrong. There are cyclists who believe that the normal rules for traffic are meant for other people and who ignore traffic signals and weave about without warning. And there are plenty of just bad drivers who are a menace to everyone on the road and who seem to get away with their bad driving without being caught.

There are closed circuit television cameras, bus lane cameras, speed cameras, crossing cameras and average speed cameras. Maybe there are more. Who sits watching all the stuff that goes on for heaven’s sake?

This was a Saturday morning. Lord knows what it must be like during the week! I’ve changed my mind. Bus and taxi drivers are worth all they get.

Next time I’m going up by train!
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A Sort of Justice

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The Justice Secretary has agreed that bank robber Ronnie Biggs can be released from detention just a month after refusing it on the grounds that he was ‘wholly unrepentant’ about his involvement in the 1963 robbery of a mail train. Biggs, who cannot eat, drink, read, write or talk, will spend the rest of his days in a nursing home having already spent many months in prison hospitals.

Contrast this with the case of the loan shark who lent one family £500 and who over the next seven years bullied them into repaying a staggering £88,000. This man, who the judge described as ‘beneath contempt’, was merely given a 51-week prison sentence, suspended for two years.

On the one hand, we have a man who escaped from Wandsworth prison and spent the next thirty years so cocking a snook at the British legal system that he became a sort of Robin Hood figure, albeit a rather sad one since he returned to the UK in 2000.

On the other, a man whose violent extortion racket caused a woman to have two strokes and a brain haemorrhage along with untold misery walks free from court.

Justice?
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No Shrinking Violet?

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Harriet Harman is the Leader of the House of Commons and seems to be doing her bit for the country while my friend ‘Bronco’ Brown is on his holidays.

Among other things she feels that men ‘cannot be left to run things on their own’. Even the former Deputy Prime Minister, ‘Jumbo’ Prescott, reacted to this and said she should ‘stop complaining and get campaigning’ after she suggested Labour should never again have a men-only leadership team.

Ms Harman has now announced that she is no ‘shrinking violet’. Yeah, right!
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A Bargain!

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A hoo-ha has developed over Speaker Bercow ordering up a £20,000 refurbishment of the Speaker’s flat in the Palace of Westminster.

Some of the changes are to make the flat more child-friendly, though it seems he has also treated himself to a new sofa suite costing nearly £7,000. I might be wrong, but I don’t think £20k is much for the new Speaker to spend on his flat. After all, Speaker Martin spent £725,000 of our money when he moved into the grace and favour flat in 2000.

Speaker Bercow is a bargain by comparison!
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A Breakthrough?

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In a postal ballot sent to 69,000 registered voters in Totnes in Devon, the 16.500 people who returned their forms have elected a GP, Dr Sarah Wollaston, to represent the party at the next general election.

Though the Tories have held open primary contests before, this is the first time they have polled all registered voters which William Hague said was, ‘... a way of opening up politics in a world where people want to be able to influence the decisions made on their behalf.’ Even the Labour MP, Frank Field, thought it was a ‘hugely important breakthrough’ though quite where it would lead he wasn’t sure.

Where it might lead ultimately is to a voting system that starts to reflect the declared wishes of local people, and it will be interesting to see if Dr Wollaston is elected next year in a seat where the Tories had a majority of less than 3,000 votes at the last election.

Judging from the performance of the present lot, the result is probably a foregone conclusion. One does hope so!
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