Wiki leaks - a Different Question

I'm not going to defend Wikileaks. There is always some information which it is being wrongly withheld from a wider audience but there is also some which it is not constructive to disclose. However when we look at the list of locations of facilities that the USA considers vital to its' security and you find a snake ant-venom laboratory in Australia listed you have to ask a question about dangers to the world created by US paranoia.

The price of power

The Governments proposals on higher education funding and student finance etc. are to be debated on 9th December. The two briefing notes on this, available on the House of Commons website, run to 37pages. It is a measure of the failure to communicate the content of these proposals that tuition fees have grabbed all the attention. Liberal Democrat MPs at last seem to have sorted out how they are going to vote in this debate. That question should never have been allowed to grab so much air time. Those Lib Dem MPs in the Government should vote with the Government or resign from it. The rest can do as they please. This simple rule should apply to all issues and should have been in place ages ago thus preventing all the 'will you won't you' dithering & bad publicity. We are having an enormous problem going from a party of protest to a party of power. It is much easier to be a party of protest and most Lib Dems feel very comfortable in that role. Almost 50yrs ago when asked about the pressures that forced pragmatism to compromise principle Harold McMillan replied : "Events dear boy, events". Of course in Scotland since devolution, and in many Town & County Halls across the land, hundreds of LibDems have had to cope with the conflicts created by power both shared and by themselves but it is very new to the Parliamentary Party. Let's hope they learn & make a better job of it in future than they have this time.

Show a little dignity Mr Woolas

Phil Woolas was, and still is, shameless over his teams General Election campaign. The Court ruling against him does not represent the death of normal political rough & tumble nor will it 'chill political speech' as he claims.It simply requires election literature & political statements to have a nodding acquaintance with that old fashioned concept called truth and some tenuous understanding of the word 'fact'. The opposition in Nevada prior to last weeks election were told that the incumbent supported using tax money to give Viagra to sex offenders. Fox News told Americans that President Obama's trip to Asia would cost Taxpayers $200m a day. Both of these are blatant lies. $200m a day exceeds the cost of US activity in Afghanistan - as Fox News must well know. Do we REALLY want to import this kind of politics? And by the way we had better give total support to the BBC which is under attack from guess who owns Fox News.

Road safety

On November 7th some 550 cars, all built before 1905, will travel from London to Brighton to celebrate the raising of the speed limit to 12mph. With all the speed restrictions in force today it is worth noting that in 1935 with only 2.3 million vehicles on the roads some 7000 people died in road accidents. June 1st this year was the 75th anniversary of the introduction of a driving test in order to get a licence. Today, with well over 30million vehicles on the roads the number of deaths is about 3500. Whilst every death is a personal tragedy we might actually get on better at avoiding them if we celebrated the achievement of drivers in keeping this figure so low instead of demonising them.

Liam Fox speech to Tory Conference

The Tory faithful gave one of its few spontaneous rounds of applause during Liam Fox's speech to the news that there will be a Trident replacement. Yet in his shopping list of all the threats & theaters of conflict in which we might find ourselves and with which he opened his speech [setting aside ritualistic Labour bashing] there was not a single one for which Trident would have been of any conceivable use whatsoever. This is an issue where Liberal Democrat MP's and activists must march with their feet into lobbies and polling booths and say NO. Any such action will not bring down the Coalition. It will send a powerful message that there are some compromises that are a step too far.

Strategic Defence Review

The right wing of the Tory Party will bring down this coalition & cut David Cameron's throat without blinking as soon as they think it might provoke a general election which they can win & only they can afford. The leaked [how convenient] letter from Liam Fox could be viewed as a first opportunity & skirmish in this process.

In truth the country does not need any form of Trident replacement. Since we can't fire the missiles without approval from Washington it was arguably a nonsense when it was first built all those years ago.[I had some minor personal involvement in those days]. We don't need tranche 3b of Eurofighter - nor does BAE Systems. The future is Unmanned Ariel Vehicles (UAV) & BAE is putting huge effort into those (just as Fylde LibDems were arguing they should during the 2005 General Election). The CVF Aircraft carriers? Well as an island nation we do need to be able to build big ships but it's doubtful if these are the right ones. I have been following the progress of these vessels through the politics, design & procurement for best part of five years & to be brief they are already massively over budget & years behind schedule and have serious questions about endurance.

If these 'ego polishing' projects were cut or massively re-worked, combined with pruning of the hugely overweight MoD Civil Service and Senior Officer ranks, there would not be a need for more defence cuts. Indeed it is probable we could give more numbers, equipment & support to the 'poor bloody infantry' that are so marvelously doing the last Labour Governments dirty work on the ground & still save a stack of money.

The private life of media bosses.

If I had the money I would love to spend it on 'investigative journalism' and 'sting' operations into the private lives of the movers and shakers in our great & glorious media. Have none of them ever visited prostitutes or had extra marital affairs? Does any one remember the almost total absence of comment in the organs of News International when the great Rupert was getting his divorce? Does anybody actually care (except Mrs Rooney of course) what Wayne Rooney might have done with his sex life? Aforesaid movers & shakers might claim that they are not public figures & thus their private behaviour is not a matter of public interest. What rubbish. They wield more power than any politician & should be subject to rigorous & continuous scrutiny in the public interest that they profess to care so much about.