Why Should We Care About Scottish Independence?

The title above was the topic of this evening's programme 'Dinner with Portillo' on BBC4 - watch it on the BBC iPlayer here for the next week. Interesting in some ways, but mostly tedious. Maybe it's just the guests [who agreed to be] present tonight. Or something. The independence supporter (the 'chippy' plump one - Michael Fry) was especially weak.

Does anyone in England, or indeed Scotland, care very much about this issue? I tend to think not. Barring, of course, the relatively few wacky individuals who support in toto the aims of the Scottish National Party and the in many ways even wackier individuals who support the CEP.

Now, who have I [not] upset this evening? Quite a few no doubt, but probably not a huge number in any part of the UK, because frankly there simply aren't too many of the wacky individuals I referred to above. Now if the SNP actually do win 30+ seats in Westminster at the next General Election then one would have to take the whole issue of the break-up of the UK in the near future very seriously indeed, but almost nobody thinks this is even a remote possibility. As for the English, well the vast majority of them simply don't care either and are perfectly happy, as am I, to continue within the framework of the UK. Yawn ... I'm British, end of story. I'm sure both Scotland and England could each work quite well as completely separate political entities, but broadly-speaking we've rubbed along pretty well together for a very long time, too. Unless one has some deeper issue with the whole concept of 'unity' then I find it difficult to fathom exactly what is the problem.

The Pope tries to justify his support for inequality ...

Such false words from the holder of what is supposed to be one of the world's great religious organisarions in support of policies designed to marginalise whole sections of the community:

"Your country is well-known for its firm commitment to equality of opportunity for all members of society. "Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, the effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. "In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

- the temerity of this odious creature in professing to be a 'Christian' appals me. I suspect strongly that 'the Son of God' (if you believe in this particular 'sky fairy' myth, which I don't) would have folks like the present Pontiff slung out of the temple if He came back amongst us.

As anyone who reads my blog knows I am not exactly a supporter of our present Government, but I acknowledge readily it is they who have brought more equality to the LGBT community than any other in our history.

The Pontiff tried the same kind of pretty crude pre-election progaganda in Spain early in 2008 prior to the last General Election there, to express his [tediously predictable] opposition to the marriage law brought in to allow gays and lesbians to marry by the present ruling Party a few years ago. Needless to say even a staunchly Catholic country such as Spain traditionally is, wisely chose to ignore the views of this dreadful old bigot when it came time to vote.

I certainly don't want my taxes used to pay for this visit!

Gates Foundation pledges USD10bn over 10 years for vaccine research

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has today pledged to provide USD10bn over 10 years for vaccine research, in a speech at the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting. Amazing - and pretty wonderful, too. It is good to know that there are positive things going on the world.

I'm currently watching (as I have been since 9.30am) former Prime Minister Tony Blair give his evidence before the Chilcot Inquiry; I'm not so sure any of this exercise is particularly 'helpful', other than as a political 'point-scoring' exercise.

Hell becomes Paradise - memories of the Holocaust

I've just been watching a very moving testimony from one of the survivors of the Nazi Holocaust of WWII on BBC4. Told she was about to be shot, then told to return to the ghetto (which she had hitherto considered 'Hell' - one can only imagine the conditions she had already experienced there), this was instantly transformed into a 'Paradise'; the stark and calm way in which she expressed her feelings at the time was tremendously impressive. How thankful I am that I have never been faced with such Hellish (and I use the word advisedly) choices and experiences. The lady in question, Holocaust survivor Alice Sommer Herz, is now 106 years old, although the programme was filmed when she was 98 years old. This lady, still playing her piano wonderfully at age 98, is a living testimony that evil does not triumph.

Labour never worked, "Labour isn't working", Labour never will work!

Watch the latest amusing video-clip from Guido News (courtesy Guido Fawkes) with some harsh facts about the economic competency (not) of the Labour government. I knew all these facts already, indeed any person who is not a totally-blinkered Labour 'drone' cannot be unaware of them either in my view, but it still startles to see it all laid out quite so explicitly:

"Brothers & Sisters" - new run starts tonight on More4

I started watching Brothers & Sisters two or three years ago and quickly became 'addicted' to it - series 4 of the show is about to begin this evening on More4 at 9pm (with repeats at midnight, next Monday at 11.05pm and on Tuesday at 3am). It's great to see it is coming back!

In fact a couple of weeks ago, before this week's issue of Radio Times came out (geddit? - lol) I had already been searching around on YouTube for clips of the new series, which has already aired in the US, and there are quite a few to choose from, but I won't spoil it for other fans by including any of those here, but here's one of my favourite scenes from an earlier series, when Kevin (Matthew Rhys) goes down on one knee to propose to Scotty (Luke Macfarlane):



- I kind of knew already that Luke is Canadian, and a jolly attractive one, but it had inexplicably escaped my attention that Matthew is not American, but Welsh, until I read a preview of the show today in the Telegraph; according to the interview with both actors on which the preview is based, Luke said that Matthew is a very talented mimic and is able to pass himself off not only as American, but as several different kinds of Canadian, too, with their different regional accents, even down to specific hockey teams - perhaps there was a little hyperbole there? No matter, they are both talented actors and very 'pleasant on the eye'. Apart from this 'gay' interest, there are a lot of other talented and well-known actors in the show - Calista ('Sex in the City') Flockart, Sally Field as the 'mother hen' of the Walker clan, Rob Lowe as the [erstwhile] love-interest for the character played by Calista Flockart and Rachel Griffiths (who plays 'Sarah' - formerly of the equally-magical 'Six Feet Under').

Unlike 'Sex and the City', which I found wet in the extreme (sorry to its many fans out there!), I think Brothers & Sisters has a somewhat wider audience appeal. Of course everyone in the show, male and female, is attractive or charismatic and it deals with people in a comfortable middle-class setting, basically obsessing about themselves - although their finances have been on a roller-coaster at various times none of that sordid detail is allowed to get in the way too much of their fundamental narcissism. Basically it's a great deal closer to my life-experience than some other shows I might mention, if of course shallow. But I don't, frankly, want to see how people live on 'sink estates' in an entertainment show as I really don't have anything in common with the people they portray - I'm happy enough to watch shows featuring such realities in documentaries or 'reality' shows, but on my time off I want something easier to identify with - and which gay man would not want to identify with 'Kevin' or 'Scotty'? Sigh ...

PS/ I neither know, nor do I care, whether Luke Macfarlane and/or Matthew Rhys are 'gay' in real life, but I do think they play the roles assigned to them very well, whatever their personal circumstances - they are actors. No-one should confuse a TV show with real life.

So inflation is kicking-off is it? Not a surprise given the idiotic policies of our Government!

Today it has been revealed that there has been an 'unexpected' rise in inflation. Unexpected by whom? Certainly not by me! And in my view this is merely the beginning of what will be a VERY difficult period, probably several years in length, when real values are going to be savagely eroded. I'd like to believe the underlying not-too-terrifying (i.e. a very different thing from being in any way 'optimistic') message which this Bloomberg article postulates, but I'm afraid I really don't.

As I have written here before, none of this is accidental - it is the whole purpose and and planned-for result of the mad policy of 'quantitative easing' that our mad Labour Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Excehquer and Government has been championning for the last 18 months or so as the coup de grâce to follow on from the reckless borrowing they have been indulging in since they came to power in 1997 to fund their redistributional policies and various kinds of credits in order too buy the loyalty of their increasing client state, not to mention the deliberate sabotaging of one of the soundest private pension industries in Europe and probably the world. This is the only way that individual and national debt can be reduced to less-dramatic proportions, given that neither Labour nor indeed the Conservatives seem prepared to confront the fact that public spending needs to be slashed much more severely than either is prepared publically to suggest is required, for fear of the electoral consequences one presumes. If you work for the 'State' the effects have been quite different - because, let's face it your salaries and pensions are paid by the taxes and skills of the productive part of the economy and if that part of the economy fails to keep up the payments, well then the 'State' has the law and all that backs it up on its side to force the issue. Private sector pensions have mostly been destroyed for anyone under 50 and for many over that age and nearing retirement age the effects of Labour's spiteful policies have either left them with a heavily-reduced pension or none at all. In contrast, this April Basic State pensions are likely to increase by about 2.5 per cent (just in time for the General Election), whereas anyone receiving a pension not from the public payroll is likely to receive (to borrow a phrase from our illustrious [not] Prime Minister) a "0 per cent increase", if they are lucky - some will probably be awarded a 'negative increase' - boom, boom! See, I haven't lost my sense of humour entirely, even if it is of the gallows variety!

Well, now the chickens are beginning to come home to roost.

Naturally enough politicians from the Labour Party (and shamingly from the Conservative Party too) will be attempting to promise the majority of the electorate that they will be 'protected'. Stuff and nonsense.; Inflation is going to destroy a lot of lives in the next decade, just as it did in the 1960s and 1970s. And just who do you think caused the problem then? Why Labour of course, which was in power for most of those two decades (1963-1970 and 1974-1979)!

It's going to take a Conservative government many years (assuming they are elected in May/June this year) to begin to sort the problem out, but the folly and myopia of the British electorate must never be underestimated. It took the Thatcher/Major governments almost 20 years to put the UK economy back on a sound footing and it was painful and ended up by leaving them deeply unpopular amongst a majority of British people, who fell for the old Labour lies once more and elected them in 1997, since when Labour has succeeded only in reversing, in spades, most of the gains the Conservatives had so painfully coaxed the British public into accepting.

It gives me no pleasure at all, indeed I am filled with considerable apprehension, when I write - I told you so!

For perspective, a few articles from this blog from the past few years:

18 June 2005 - We're all doomed ... at least potentially ... no, seriously!
16 August 2007 - Investment markets - to stay in or to sell...
16 July 2008 - The financial 'crisis' - to blog or not to blog
16 September 2008 - Bill's off again ... back to Spain (the title is relevant, trust me!)
30 October 2008 - What's really going on in the economy
10 November 2008 - Interest rates cut. Tax to be cut? Borrowing to go up?
15 December 2008 - Far from alone
28 February 2009 - The inflationary bubble that is being constructed
2 April 2009 - G20 result in summary - 'global quantitative easing'
1 July 2009 - Mr Gordon "0% increase" Brown
8 September 2009 - Labour forced to come clean over budget deficits