What happened to Tony Blair, (courtesy Al Jazeera and the White House).
Tony rides high
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Category Archives: On another planet
The celebrities have it
The U.S. election campaign for 2008 is characterised by videos and spoof videos. Sometimes it is difficult to spot the difference. I can’t be bothered to make links, it’s too tedious. To be quite honest the front runners for me, Obama and Clinton, I wouldn’t want either after watching this crap.
Meanwhile back home the local press is obsessed with the elected mayor issue. They brought Robocop to Birmingham, Ray Mallon from Middlebrough. Dick (Sir Richard) Knowles, former leader of Birmingham City Council was mightily unimpressed. However the Mail presses on with its campaign to get enough signatories for a referendum. Meanwhile we have a new appointee to oversee the Wst Midland region in the form of Liam Byrne, Labour MP for Hodge Hill. He’s planning to bang a few heads together to get the New Street Station rebuild. We can’t even get the proposed Metro system in place!
Well is that it? We are talking about a region which should be promoting itself as “heart of the nation”, a hub around which everything revolves. Considering the huge amounts consigned to London: St Pancras, the Olympics, Wembley along with the transport systems spawned in their wake, to ask for a little more than a station rebuild seems not too much to ask.
The problem if New Street is rebuilt, and it certainly needs it, but the tunnels that feed it are winding and constrict traffic flow, as do the two tracks between Coventry and Wolverhampton. These cater for the new fast Virgin service, local trains and freight traffic. If anything happens then the whole thing comes to a grinding halt. Rebuilding New Street might help for 10 to 15 years, but we need alternatives to flying to Europe across the U.K. not just from the South East.
Gordon Brown got round to visiting flooded trouble spots and announced help by offering relief funding. At the same time cuts are on the horizon for more cuts in flood defences, following those Gordon oversaw a few years back. With climate change predictions for seas rising and the unseasonal rainfall we have just experienced this seems strange to say the least. It’s Trident missiles what will save us according to this ( and any other foreseeable) government.
Brown’s performance in parliament looked on the face of it different to Blair. War, he said, could no longer be declared without parliament and our rights and responsibilities will be subject to debate before legislation. Well, er, not exactly, there are provisos like allowing the P.M. to act if he thinks the country is in exceptional danger. Didn’t Blair make just that case backed by the dodgy dossier? More spin. More of the same, but I didn’t really expect any difference. There may have been personal differences but Brown was up to his neck with New Labour and is continuing with more of the same adherence to privatisation of everything in sight. Cuts to key public services, including flood defence, continues apace. Anyway Mr Brown also seems to work on the basis of celebrity by bringing (or trying to) the great and the good, non elected for purpose, into his government
Have I not got news for you
A news reader in the U.S. was so angered at the choice of lead story that she tried to destroy the script refusing to read it out. With all the things going on the choice was about Paris Hilton leaving jail. She tried tearing it up, setting light to it and finally shredding it.
” ‘I have an apology,’ presenter Mika Brzezinski told the host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme, ‘and that is for the lead story. I hate this story. I don’t think it should be the lead.’ “ She continued:
Israel’s identity crisis
In my mailing from Jewish Voice for Peace the question arises “just where is Israel?” Geographically it’s in an area called rather loosely “The Middle East”. A few years ago my friend worked at Heathrow Airport in the days of BOAC (aka “Better On A Camel) the airline covering the region was known as “Muddle East Airline”.
In terms of continents I’d been taught to believe Europe ended at Instanbul which was divided between Europe and Asia. On the other hand next door Egypt is actually in Africa (there appears to be doubt about this judging by the way the topic of “Ancient Egypt” is dealt with in schools). Well it seems that Israelis see themselves as essentially European, as white people, surrounded by despised Arab and Asian people. Certainly Israel is involved in matters European like the Eurovision Song Contest, which it won in the year the event was held here in Birmingham. One thing it does have in common with Europe is a firmly entrenched racism, institutional and all.
Own your own prison
Now you have the chance to have shares in a prison. The UK, with already record numbers incarcerated, is desperate for 8,000 more places. This comes at a time when there have been scathing attacks on the state of prisons and failure to address rehabilitation.
Pauline Campbell, who as a parent whose child died within the dysfunctional “system”, drew my attention to the Independent report above, and to the following:
We need at least three planets to sustain our demands
The sight of Blair and Brown now acting to save the planet provokes the response “at last”. Instead of embarking in costly and deadly wars, given the steady stream of warnings, a start could have been made a lot sooner. Still we are intent on replacing Trident, but precisely who do we intend to target with it? Bin Laden?
George Monbiot (Guardian 31/10/2006) gives his list of priorities on the grounds that Blair and Brown’s proposals don’t meet the demands of global warming.
Here in the Midlands we are still living in the past, certainly as far as transport is concerned. There are still plans to build a new coach station centrally. The Metro is facing longer delays and ideas of dealing with congestion have run out. Cllr Len “Gridlock” Gregory has set up a “congestion taskforce” which seems to rely on fiddling with a junction here and a junction there. That the problem is the sheer volume of cars coming onto the roads in the absence of even a half decent public transport system eludes him.
Gurdev Manku is set up
Friday 15th September and we’re called to Oldbury to hear an appeal by Gurdev Manku as to why he was excluded from the Labour Party panel of candidates. Bill Challis and I accompany him to give evidence on his behalf of his unstinting work for Labour over nearly 20 years as a Birmingham City Councillor. Here he held high office, including Chair of the Transportation Committee. Gurdev has been given a piece of paper giving one reason why the panel turned him down. He had failed to canvass or leaflet in Soho during the 2006 local election campaign. It was explained that Soho never canvasses either on the doorstep or by telephone. The councillors and officers feel it not necessary since it is thought to be safe for Labour.
At the hearing the case against was made by the chair of the interviewing panel which had turned him down. He laboured the point about Gurdev’s alleged crime. The ppeals panel read out a letter from the Chair of Ladywood Constituency who confirmed SOHO DON’T CANVASS. Nevertheless hsi accuser felt he should have used his own knowledge and experience to conduct a campaign. The pertinent question was asked ” who runs campaigns?” “The candidate and agent came the reply”. Gurdev pointed out thathe had regulalrly tried to persuade Soho to campaign, but to no avail. Usually he was busy in his own (the former Sandwell) ward in any case.
Obviously the prosecution felt they were cutting no ice with the appeals panel, so he then began to make two further allegations, the first of which claimed that Gurdev had been involved in a brawl. Was he a fit candidate? Our breath was taken away. Gurdev involved in violence? He’s the most unlikely person you could think of to behave in even a mildly threatening manner. The only incident I could call to mind having worked closely with Gurdev and Phil Murphy as close comrades on the City Council. Shortly after 9/11 Gurdev was waiting for a bus ib Cape Hill, Smethwick, when a passerby asked menacingly if he was a Muslim. challenged the questioner. Dharm Singh kept him engaged in a debate while Councillor Chaman Lal called the police on his mobile phone. After a while and before the arrival of the police, the man suddenly took off punching Gurdev in the mouth as passed by. At this point Gurdev was standing by himself at the bus stop not wishing to be involved. I next saw Gurdev at the A & E Department of Birmingham’s City Hospital at 1 o’clock in the morning. We spent the rest of the night waiting there only to be sent across to Selly Oak Hospital the next day to try to secure Gurdev’s loosened teeth.
Where had the information come from? The accuser said he must of heard it at the meeting he chaired, but there was no statement among the papers or reference to it thta the appeals panel could see. They ruled it out of order and forbade reference to it.
Next point. Gurdev had not been able to give an account of the executive/scrutiny functions following the “modernisation” programme of local government. Agai this had not been included on the feedback information. Indeed there did not appear to be a question asking about it. Gurdev confirmed that he had not spoken about it at the interview. Once again the appeals panel overruled the accusation.
Local Elections in Birmingham, 2006
Following my descriptions of the way the Labour Party in Birmingham has been hi-jacked by a group who have never previously had much to do with it, I get barmy comments posted saying I’m working with the Tories. Arjan Singh (alias Parmjit) was selected by the group two years back. Because of his track record the Regional Office stopped him standing again, so he immediately walked across to the Tories. Mike Whitby, Leader of Birmingham City Council, welcomed him with open arms. He stood against me and now I’m supposed to be working with him. I didn’t bring him in, but the group who did have now supplied another candidate. Are we supposed to believe she will be any better? She had been a member of the Labour Party for a full seven months when selected. And the guy who was outside the door ensuring attendance of their supporters was the same who brought forward Parmjit Arjan. Have they no shame? It’s going to be interesting though because mark 1 and mark 2 are up against each other!
Far from working with the Tories I have been Labour agent for Stewart Stacey, formerly Deputy Leader of Birmingham City Council in Kings Norton. This was until I had to enter hospital for an operation.
My track record as Councillor has been on the left of the party – old rather than new Labour I’m afraid. It shows that this new bunch know precious little about socialism. They know little about conducting an election campaign either judging by the appearance of their posters on any old road sign and outside the ward boundary.