Hong Kong government scraps Chinese patriotism classes

It is a salutary reminder that democracy, even in the limited version permitted in Hong Kong (both before it was handed back to China in 1997, but even more since then), is only possible and indeed sustainable with the active support of local people. The latest 'spat' involves plans to introduce from 2016 at the latest a mandatory [Beijing-sponsored] curriculum to be taught in all primary and secondary schools, designed it would seem to inculcate (aka 'brainwash') what is being described, probably completely accurately, as naked Communist Party propaganda. [Beijing-appointed] Hong Kong Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying had earlier rejected pleas to meet with protestors opposing the policy, but in an abrupt volte face has scrapped the mandatory aspect of the policy:

"The amendment of this policy means that we are giving the authority to the schools. "The schools are given the authority to decide when and how they would like to introduce the moral and national education."

I note the qualification "if" relating to the introduction of this policy is absent. Whilst it is pleasing that the pressure of public opinion has forced the Hong Kong government to reverse (or at least delay or weaken) its earlier stance, dictated by a largely pro-Beijing elite in the Hong Kong SAR which had supported the election of Mr Leung to his post in March this year, it is clear that it will require continuing vigilance on the part of brave citizens there to ensure that the existing semi-autonomy of Hong Kong is assured in the future.

(As a former resident of Hong Kong I retain a keen interest in developments there.)

How the fanatic eco-watchers lost their way - in a big way!

It is shocking to see the propaganda posing as 'humour' that some groups, in this case eco-fanatic group 10:10 (the UK wing is discussed here) feel justified in indulging. They have produced a video seeking to further their aims which they imagined would be 'funny', but which most right-thinking people consider to be a crude exercise in manipulation and intimidation:



- the mealy-mouthed apology which 10:10 have posted in their website is a classic example of insincerity, as I see no real sign that they understand the enormity of how badly astray they have gone, their 'apology' being a mere damage-limitation exercise:

Sorry. Today we put up a mini-movie about 10:10 and climate change called 'No Pressure’. With climate change becoming increasingly threatening, and decreasingly talked about in the media, we wanted to find a way to bring this critical issue back into the headlines whilst making people laugh. We were therefore delighted when Britain's leading comedy writer, Richard Curtis - writer of Blackadder, Four Weddings, Notting Hill and many others – agreed to write a short film for the 10:10 campaign. Many people found the resulting film extremely funny, but unfortunately some didn't and we sincerely apologise to anybody we have offended. As a result of these concerns we've taken it off our website. We won't be making any attempt to censor or remove other versions currently in circulation on the internet. We'd like to thank the 50+ film professionals and 40+ actors and extras and who gave their time and equipment to the film for free. We greatly value your contributions and the tremendous enthusiasm and professionalism you brought to the project. At 10:10 we're all about trying new and creative ways of getting people to take action on climate change. Unfortunately in this instance we missed the mark. Oh well, we live and learn. Onwards and upwards, Franny, Lizzie, Eugenie and the whole 10:10 team

- this kind of organisation really does need to stop and think what it is doing; its moral compass must be very badly out of order for it to have ever contemplated such a way of promulgating its message.
(thru the mr eugendies blog here)

The 'Dark Lord' speaks

'Lord' Peter Mandelson plugs his new book of 'memoirs'; I saw this advertisement on television a few evenings ago and almost choked on my supper!



How much do you think this will be 'remaindered' for in a very short period? Not much more than a Pound I should imagine.

The public and the private faces of Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown today shot himself and the Labour Party in the foot quite badly - it would be disingenuous of me to pretend that I didn't relish seeing the man exposed for the two-faced person he is. On the basis that nothing is more instructive than seeing and hearing what actually happened today, I am embedding the video-clip which Guido has kindly put up for all our 'edification' (and frankly, amusement):

- I watched the full exchange between Mr Brown and Mrs Duffy earlier today and indeed it seemed to be a friendly-enough encounter. She is obviously a long-standing Labour supporter (hardly surprising, I expect, in a town such as Rochdale) and her questions about the 'national debt' were obviously those of someone who has probably 'scrimped and saved' for everything throughout her life and is worried about the futures of her grandchildren. I share her concerns too abouut the profilgate expansion of the national debt that has occurred under Gordon Brown's 'watch'!

On the 'Eastern European immigrants' question, she expressed a pretty conventional view amongst many working-class people, those most affected by the large number of people from new EU member states to came to the UK soon after they joined, because the UK was one of the very few existing member states that did not impose a 'transitional period' of controlled movement for work on citizens of new member states. People like me weren't very much affected by the large numbers that came in, apart from being able to find people to do things like plumbing and carpentry more easily than before. I must also be completely honest here - I supported the decision to allow immediate free movement and deplored the decision of other existing EU member states to inhibit it. It was one of the very few decisions of the Labour government (along with our participation in the 'liberation' of Iraq from Saddam Hussein and his sons) that I thought good. Whilst I haven't fundamentally changed my opinion on either matter, I now accept that both had ramifications that I did not foresee at the time, in the case of the 'Eastern European immigrants' question probably affecting people like Mrs Duffy's family much more than people like me. In other words the much-touted core Labour supporters.

What today's incident laid bare is what Gordon Brown really thinks about the 'little people' who put Labour in Downing Street (nobody put Gordon Brown himself there, except the pusillanimous Parliamentary Labour Party). If the man had kept his mouth shut, or switched his microphone off, his 'sucking-up' to Mrs Duffy on-camera would have shown him in a very favourable light to those likely to vote for Labour next week, but his in-car comments revealed what he really thinks of people like Mrs Duffy. It is not attractive, but it is the truth. Nick Robinson, the BBC political correspondent, implied on-camera today that this side of Mr Brown's character is not a surprise to people who know him - here is his perhaps somewhat more considered assessment.

Labour and the 'truth' - not if you believe in 'fact'

Thanks to GuidoFawkes and his 'video production team' we have an excellent dissection of the eliding of truth and fiction that the Labour Party habitually tries to pass off as history, focussing on their 'Budget Day' party political broadcast earlier this week:



- as one of the first commenters in Guido's article, someone who styles him-/her-self 'jgm2', observes correctly:

"It really is pure 1984. It’s on a par with Kim Jong Il claiming to have invented manned flight. "It’s beyond parody. Emily Pankhurst banned from joining the Labour party ‘cos she was a woman? Yet Labour claims credit for the universal franchise and women’s votes?"

- as 'jgm2' observes in his final sentence, I too will be very surpised if left-leaning MSM outlets The Mirror and The Guardian have (or ever will) run a similar story lampooning the outright lies!

Keep religion out of medicine!

I have to say that if I was in hospital as a patient and some nurse or doctor tried to 'pray for me' or talk to me of religion I would be more than upset, I would be tremendously angry. The worrying and frightening thing is, though, that if I was very ill and in much pain I might be reluctant to voice my dislike for fear of possible 'repercussions' in my medical care.

In my experience some people with a strong religious faith simply do not understand that their ministrations are not wanted and can come across as, and actually be, 'pushy' in their efforts to 'help' a poor ignorant person like me who doesn't want them to peddle their religion in my direction. It is equally true that I have known a few deeply-religious individuals who were exceedingly discreet in their faith, without in any way hiding it, but they would never dream of imposing their religious views on others who did not wish to hear it; I certainly respect such people and would never belittle their faith.

For the avoidance of any doubt or confusion it should be left to patients in hospital to express a wish for some kind of spiritual guidance or support - and to the chaplaincy service to provide it. Personally I have no objection to a nurse or doctor wearing a small and unobtrusive crucifix (for example), but unless a patient seeing it asks them for support of a spiritual kind they must not take it upon themselves to offer this - and if I was not actually in extremis and such a thing happened to me I would like to think I would have no hesitation in telling the person who had done so to 'get knotted'!

Gordon Brown: "Of course I put an end to spin!"

This was the Prime Minister's irritated response to a question posed by Evan Davies a few moments ago during an interview on BBC Radio 4 'Today'. I regret to say that I consider that statement to be one of the most bald-faced pieces of misinformation I have ever heard from a public official. In fact his whole 'performance' this morning, and yesterday on the Andrew Marr Show on BBC 1, was blustering and entirely unconvincing. Evan Davies' interviewing style is rather more robust than poor old Andy Marr's (whom one always suspects to be a bit of a left-wing 'luvvie' himself); quietly persistent and with a better understanding of economics (and probably politics, too) than most, he elicited the statement I headline, from a Prime Minister pushed into a corner by unanswerable questions Davies asked repeatedly, for example about a Cabinet Minister (the Home Secretary) voting as recently as January this year to try and prevent release of MP expense data under Freedom of Information legislation.

Gordon Brown thinks that people like this are 'the best people' to see the country through the economic and political crisis we are undergoing. Do we really want a man like him proposing and carrying though his choice of 'reforms' to our constitutional systems that we need? Sorry, Mr Brown, if you genuinely believe this then you are completely out-of-touch and unfit to be or to remain Prime Minister for a moment longer! Otherwise you show yourself quite blatantly to be the master of spin that most people believe you are, despite your attempted 'spin' to the contrary. The idea that Gordon Brown is 'the right man' to sort out our economic woes, with or without a General Election, is so absurd it makes me splutter. This from the man whose economic policies ever since May 1997 have been so disastrous; he may not single-handedly have caused our particular piece of the global recession, but he played a pretty major role in it. He has to call a General Election and let the real power in this country, the electorate, have their say. Who knows, they might vote Labour back in! Bill goes off cackling and guffawing to get breakfast ...

(Now, just before I pushed the 'publish' button, I heard Nick Robinson saying that 'there is no sign yet that Gordon brown is cracking up' in his media appearances in recent days. Have I been hearing/watching the same interviews as Mr Robinson?)

Scottish 'Government': more money than sense!! And peddler of 'propaganda'?

Where to begin with this?

Today I received a envelope, addressed to 'The resident', sent to one of my residences (OK, so shoot me! - lol) with the envelope helpfully marked 'THIS IS NOT A CIRCULAR' and bearing the legends of 'The Scottish Government' and 'NHS Scotland. Inside I find a letter which addresses me as 'Dear Sir or Madam'. There are two other enclosures within the envelope: firstly, and excitingly (I being of the 'Vicky'-type, aka 'Little Britain') a 'High Street Gift Voucher' for £5.00 (GB5.00) and a leaflet put out by something called the 'Scottish Centre for Social Research' and entitled 'The Scottish Health Survey'. We'll return to this a little later, never fear.

For the moment I want to focus on on the voucher for GBP5.00. It is headed up 'Love2shop' - they've got my number obviously! In any case it appears to be a perfectly valid voucher, which it seems I can spend at a variety of high street outlets (mentioned on the voucher are: Principles, HMV, Homebase, Boots, Virgin Megastores, Iceland, Woolworths, Wilkinson, River Island, Warehouse, WHSmith, H.Samuel, Focus, New Look, Carphone Warehouse, Halfords, Adams Kids, Comet, BHS, Mothercare, Waterstone's, and JJB) - it's even got a holographic logo on it and serial numbers on the back so I plan to go spend this money in the next few days; if these idiots are mad enough to squander our money (my taxes) in this way I'm unapologetic about recouping a very small small portion of this squandered money, To be quite honest I've never heard of a few of these outlets, but there are quite a few of the outlets named locally, so I won't find it too difficult.

Now, back to the leaflet accompanying the letter and shopping voucher! It explains that earlier surveys have been carried out in 1995, 1998 and 2003 and that from 2008 it will take place yearly. Apparently around 6,000 adults and 2,000 children are invited to take part each time. According to the letter I will be visited (or at least one of my addresses will be visited) in the 'next few days' by a named interviewer (whom I do not name here; she is, after all, just a 'paid lackey'). In any case the 'objectivity' of this whole exercise may be judged by perusing the 'Did you know?' section:
- A third of men and women think that their general health is 'very good';
- Around 1 in 5 men and women and just over 1 in 10 children eat five or more portions of fruit and vegetables a day;
- Around 3 in 10 men and women smoke cigarettes, smoking rates have been steadily declining since 1995;
- Younger adults are more likely to smoke, but older people who smoke tend to smoke more cigarettes per day;
- About 1 in 4 men drink more than 21 units of alcohol a week and about 1 in 6 women drink more than 14 units;
- Men spend an average of 7 hours per week being physically active and women spend and average of 5 hours;
- Men are more likely than women to take part in sport while women are more likely than men to do heavy housework;
- Three quarters of boys and nearly two-thirds of girls aged 2-15 spend at least an hour a day doing physical activities;
- About 2 in 5 men and women have a long-standing illness, this rises to 2 in 3 of those aged 75 and over.

Some of these statements may appear intrusive or controversial (many are both in my view) and the 'What are the questions about?' segment are, in my view, both facile and patronising.

I have not yet decided whether I shall meet with the person who is scheduled to visit me in the next few days. Meantime I must register my protest at the Scottish Executive's profligacy with taxpayers' money'- I doubt I am the only one who believes the Scottish Excecutive (aka 'Scottish Government') must have far too much money available if it can afford to send out GBP5.00 vouchers to all and sundry to try and persuade them to allow such intrusion and self-exposure to its agenda - ultimately it is taxpayers (such as me) who are paying for this largesse so it seems, apart from anything else, rather a 'circular' way of going about its business.

Are we helots or free individuals?

The UK Goverment has announced that it favours changing the law to make a presumption of consent to harvesting of human body parts after death, unless specific prior opposition had been registered or the deceased's family objects. At present only those who who have given prior consent may have their organs harvested after death, although this is sometimes thwarted, I understand, by the objections of family members. See (*) at the end of this article, too.

I have no personal objection to donating my organs and indeed have carried an organ donor card for many years, although I have not added my name formally to any 'Organ Donor Register' as this is presumably a centralised register and I have deep misgivings about the whoe concept of centralised registers for this or any other purpose (e.g. Personal Data Register, NHS online centralised records).

Now I learn that the Scottish Executive (aka 'Scottish Government') is sympathetic to the change suggested by the UK Government.

My position is very clear. I think I have the sole right to decide what will happen to my body parts after I die. I resent strongly the notion that if I were to object to the harvesting of my organs after my death (which as it so happens, I don't) that I must make a positive declaration to that effect. My body belongs to me, not to the State and the presumption is and should remain that no harvesting of body parts can occur without my specific prior consent. Similarly I will choose if and when I wish to end my life (since 1961 suicide has no longer been a crime), provided I am physically able to carry it out (assisting another to commit suicide remains a crime).

The reasoning behind criminalising assisting another to commit suicide is that there is a risk that the person's 'loved ones' might collude in a suicide because they may have a material interest in the person's death, or otherwise gain from it (for example a carer who is member of the family would be 'free' to pursue his/her own interests if there was no longer a requirement to care for the fmaily member who wishes to commit suicide). There is also the fear that 'loved ones' might tacitly, or even explicitly, encourage a relative to commit suicide or cause the person to feel they were doing the 'right thing' by committing suicide.

I'm afraid that whilst I think the effects of this law are sometimes harsh, specially when the person who wishes to commit suicide is physically unable through disablement or infirmity to carry it out without assistance it is probably a necessary precaution in most cases to prevent abuse. Notwithstanding this, I believe that the Swiss organisation Dignitas does valuable and worthwhile work; the link is to the part of the site which is designed to inform people from the UK about the organisation, as the main site is in German. A BBC article about this organisation is here.

To get back to the subject at hand, I think there is the potential for abuses with the harvesting of organs. Of course, we are told that body parts would only be harvested upon death (excepting the case of organ donations made of ogans which are in pairs (e.g. eyes, kidneys) where the donor can survive on one remaining organ, but what if the person was very old, or severely disabled, whereas the potential donee was young and otherwise physically fit? What if the person being looked at as a donor was regarded as in some way less worthy then the potential donee? Far-fetched, you may argue, but it is only a couple of weeks ago that the Prime MInister suggested that people could be refused treatment on the NHS if it was felt they should lose weight, stop smoking or take exercise. The fact that such people were most likely helping to pay for the NHS through their taxes seemed an irrelevant detail! How hard, in such circumstances, would medical personnel try to keep a potential donor alive, specially if the official attitude of the government is to make a presumption that body parts may be harvested unless the donor had lodged specific objection beforehand.

Many will say I am being alarmist. However, it is only a few years ago that it was discovered, accidentally, that for years doctors in various hospitals around the country had been taking organs from dead infants for medical experimentation, without the permission of parents, a matter which was discovered only when the body of an infant had to be exhumed after burial and it was found to be missing most of the vital organs. I think the scandal, when it was exposed, happened to involve a hospital in Liverpool, but was later found to have occurred elsehwere, too.

Basically what all this boils down to is individual liberty. This Government seeks to take unto itself the power of life and death over all citizens. However, the Government is only granted temporary powers by citizens at an election. I think the Government, indeed Parliament itself, would be going way beyond its mandate to change the law to permit post-mortem abstraction of body parts without the specific approval of the donor or, in some curcumstances, members of the deceased's family.

(*) A horrid aspect of this whole issue is the way that the Government's proposals are framed is to imply that a person is somehow lacking in civic-spiritedness by declining to agree to donate body parts after death, by stressing the long waiting-lists of potential donees awaiting body parts and organs. I may feel, and in fact I do feel, that it would be humane on my part to permit my body parts or organs to be taken after my death, if they could help someone else to live longer or in better health. However I would absolutely refuse to feel in any way guilty if I chose not to have this attitude and I object strongly to the moral blackmail being pushed down our throats by the government and the way this is being reported in the media, particularly the BBC, in its reporting today on this matter! It really is just like some of the public 'hate' or 'love' sessions described in George Orwell's novel 1984, where citizens were expected to follow the latest policy changes of 'Big Brother', however quixotic. On this subject in general a lot of the news reporting on the BBC of late has veered away from the delivery of news to the promulgation of propaganda on behalf of the government under the guise of 'manufactured' news stories.