Double standards

Of course we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons but let's try and look at it from their point of view then we might get somewhere. Israel has a nuclear arsenal (which it denies - so we shouldn't get upset about others lying should we?) and the means to deliver the weapons on Iran. It has threatened air strikes on Iran and I don't recall the USA in particular giving them a good slapping & telling them in no uncertain terms 'no way'. Israeli aggression over the last 40yrs has been jaw dropping. Terrorist attacks on Israel are not an excuse. Imagine the reaction, especially in America, if we had blown up Catholic housing estates in Northern Ireland after an IRA bomb in Manchester. When we invaded Iraq, Israel had been in breach of more UN resolutions, and for longer, than Saddam. It is not anti-semitic to point out that there is a double standard of truly gargantuan proportions here. If you were an Iranian would you not want your own bomb?

Where is UKIP

I was under the impression that UKIP was against overseas & foreign interference with our sovereign Government & democratic process. I therefore look forward to hearing their howls of protest at the blatant intervention of the Unelected President of the World via his so-called newspaper in the forthcoming General Election.

Carrot & Stick

Once again teachers, anybody but the parent of the bully, must do something & be accountable. Can no one see what impossible nonsense this is? Schools have anti bullying strategies which quite rightly focus on trying to get to the bottom of why kids bully and sort out the problem, more often than not successfully. But in any population there is always a hard core who refuse to respond- and I mean 'refuse'. It is not the methods, dedication, psychology or what have you that fail. We don't want to admit it but some people are just determined to be bad. To capture their attention we need to stop using human rights in the way that was never intended i.e by protecting the perpetrator rather than the victim. Teachers property has been vandalised and they have been beaten & even killed intervening in bullying incidents. Parents of bullies threaten teachers - one even drove his car at a teacher. No one, let alone a teacher, is allowed to use the force that is necessary to restrain the determined bully. For a minority of thugs we need to bring back corporal punishment. They might then be receptive to rehabilitation. Right now they see the 'punishment' that we are allowed to dish out as a joke and an ASBO as a medal. Before anybody gets too excited at this such evidence as there is suggests that only something like 5% of young offenders would need this hardline. It is the gesture of last resort but it should be there.
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BBC telescope to the blind eye

When all the NW MEPs took up their seats in the European Parliament the BBC NW & National news chose to feature Nick Griffin & no one else. I complained & got the BBC party line about having to be impartial. Now we have Griffin on Question Time & I complained as follows "Once again we get the same old excuse about obligation to be even handed to a legitimate political party. Fair enough but does the BBC have to be in such a hurry to give Griffin air time? Chris Davies, Liberal Democrat MEP for NW England, has just started his third term in the European Parliament. This was not mentioned on the News when you reported on Griffin taking his seat. Chris knows about the workings of Europe. Griffin knows nothing. Chris is a controversial figure especially over his support for the Palestinians. He has also led the EU Parliament on some important environmental issues. He would make a lively panelist. Yet Chris has never been invited. So much for 'balance'& 'impartiality'". The BBC's reply to this complaint refers me to the programme editors blog & quite deliberately misses the point.

News or no news?

James Murdoch is reported as saying that the BBC's 24hr news channels  and web site
were inhibiting the ability of commercial competitors to invest in news. The variety of interpretation of words within the English language is one of its' great strengths. I have been exposed to the concept of 'news' within the Murdoch Empire in Australia & the USA, as well as in Britain and I confess I struggle to equate them with my understanding of the word and thus I have difficulty in understanding his concern. Indeed the arguments he uses for constraining the BBC are precisely those that perhaps could usefully be applied to his own empire.