IN THE WIDER WORLD

Bringing in God. The Guardian informs us that Tony Blair is determined to bring God into government. This can only be because he is running out of relevant political ideas and is panicking ahead of the next General election. to say the least. This supposed Christian was after all responsible for blowing one billion pounds on an upturned saucer instead of creating an international fund for the poor and needy as a tribute to the millennium which is what a Christian Prime Minister would surely have done? On top of which his version of Christianity is allegiance to a church that historically has had the arrogance to interfere in this county's right to self-determination and is currently facing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of law suits for compensation to the buggered victims of its paedophile priests—a church that believed or covered up the priests' wrongdoings while condemning the children as liars!
              There is no doubt that we want a moral input to government but leave God out of it. After all, what was the impetus to the Iraq war but nine eleven which was the result of warped people's interpretations of who or what is God? There is far more immorality to be found amongst practitioners of a concept of God than elsewhere. Using God as a pretext for inflicting wilful harm and chaos on nonbelievers has been the cry of insurrectionists since man, in his futility created the concept of God and do not confuse a denial of a concept of God as a denial of the spiritual aspect of Man. Far too many believers in God deny the everyday spiritual and there are many more holding spiritual values  who renounce the concept of God.
                   Bring moral values into government by all means, but make sure God stays in church. After all, what happened to our national transport system? What happened to appropriate penalties for speeding, such as losing one's licence, rather than money-grabbing additional taxes in fines so that the rich are free  to speed and maim? Where is the honest announcement in the stealth tax principles? Why did we not create affordable housing in the Dome instead of trying to save face and retain a white elephant? Why are we overcrowding the south-east instead of facing the problems and encouraging a population movement northwards? Why are we expanding airports instead of declaring a moral value to environmental pollution and being meaningful? Let us bring morality into government but leave various people's craven images where they belong, in their respective churches.

The Yanks Ahead as Usual. Rowan Williams persuades an openly but celibate gay candidate as Bishop of Reading to stand down, then the Americans vote into post an openly and active gay priest as a bishop! One saving grace on all this is that at Rowan Williams' enthronement a Cambridge academic was reported as saying (quoted on Radio 4's 'Today' this morning) that in Rowan Williams the church now had at its head the keenest intellect of any archbishop since the Reformation. Let us hope and pray that is indeed the case and he can win through. He may not command the worldwide communion of Anglicans as the pope may control Catholics but he is by tradition the senior bishop amongst them all. Therein lies a greater strength than the pope's autocracy. Rowan Williams leads by consent. His role is not to dismiss out of hand challenging views but to find ways to accommodating a diversity of views held within an even greater diversity of social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds worldwide. Additionally, those same social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds also operate within a contrasting element of those attributes, such as, for example, native-born Nigerians now living in London and raising families there in a more open and free-thinking social climate than their native Nigeria.
                One could follow this paradox further and look at many of Indian or Pakistani background and find them more deploring than the native English the lowering of the standards to which they were accustomed under colonial Britain. Did we have to lose our standards in losing our colonial attitudes or were the two concepts part of the same collective whole? After all, isn't that what America did when it threw off the British yoke? It developed its own standards, freer, loser, more down to the individual than the authoritarian state while the colonies that were handed their independence appear to have got stuck in a time warp?
                In America life improvement is more down to ability and individual use of opportunity than who your daddy was except of course the problem they had with the former black slaves and didn't the Americans create a new social hierarchy based solely upon money?
                Where do I stand on homosexuality? Frankly I am uncomfortable with it but in my twenties, when I first started writing what was to become a series of twelve novels taken to various stages of incompletion because the day job got in the way, I used such intentions to explore those aspects of society with which I had previously had no knowledge or experience.
                 When, bearing in mind this was thirty years ago when anyone being gay dared not display it, one seeks out and mixes with various gay people one learns to see gays as people first and only secondly as gay. Then one understands their loves, fears, proclivities as people who are being true to themselves and refusing to live a lie to the convenience of the other 90% of the population.
                  I still do not feel comfortable with openly gay people, but their condition is one to be recognised and accepted. If not, then all sense of equality on any plain, including that between men and women and the disabled or otherwise disadvantaged is knocked on the head.
                  One may counter-argue that accepting divorce led us down the slippery slope towards female economic emancipation which has led on to multi-family connections through serial relationships and the single-parent family. Are we better or worse off? It certainly makes understandable Islam's claim that the West is decadent. On the other hand, is Islam's desire to go backwards to the style of living of a Bedouin tribe any more practical and realisable? Yet the western world's profligate consumption of the world's economic resource raises questions of how sustainable is our way of life in the long term, especially if we accept our moral obligation to pull up to our standards the rest of the world?
                 In short, what lies behind the American appointment of an openly gay bishop is not just the challenge to the openness and honesty with which we conduct our lives today but raises questions as to how we should be living our lives tomorrow. Society is moving on. Society does not stand still. Tolerance, compassion, mutual understanding are key to our future society and the survival of any values at all. Those of religious or otherwise moral mien who would wish to maintain influence and guidance MUST adapt to the realities of the world as it is and bury themselves in pious chanting wishing the world was other than it is.

Tony Martin is now appearing more widely in the media. His problem is open honesty which means he comes across, or is too easily interpreted as coming across as callous and cold-hearted. There was a time when, whatever one felt, one expressed oneself within certain 'norms'. Now, one simply expresses oneself. Is this more honest or is this lack of 'basic courtesies' a further inroad into the very fabric of a civilised society? Or does he come over as callous simply because he is himself and we have become so inured with the spin doctors and image-makers that those who are regularly in the public eye are never themselves but only what the image-makers determine we should see? In other words, are we shocked by Tony Martin not for his 'brutal' honesty but because he is himself and not a conforming media image? WE need no spin doctors and we need no image makers. We need people in the news who are themselves then the Tony Martin's of this world will be understood as real people dealing with the realities of life far too many members of society, especially politicians are all choosing to ignore because they raise the fundamental question that society is indeed going to the dogs.

Continuing Incompetence of the money-grubbers. It appears the UK is vulnerable to power blackouts. The reason? Money-grubbing private enterprise chose to pocket profits rather than manage prudently so there is no 'spare' capacity for emergencies. Once more private enterprise grabs money for itself but is damned if it will earn it. Private enterprise simply does not understand the rendering of service which is the be all and end of all of all in the public sector. Apparently it is the consumer's fault for demanding cheaper power. No! The consumer has never been offered 'guaranteed service, price 'A' or unreliable service price 'B'. Once more lack oh honesty as well as honest endeavour is coming to the fore. What the consumer wants is performance and failing to provide for emergencies and meeting unexpected demand or unexpected loss of supply is failing to perform. That means we require a government to either fine suppliers for any failures, as with the railway culture, or to ensure we get a reduced charge for non-performance. Anyone with sense will pay the price for guarantee of supplies. It is bad enough altering all the clocks and timing mechanisms throughout the house just to recognise the change from winter to summer. To do so without warning 'upon the instant' is far too much hassle. Are we really expected to put in emergency uni8nterutpable supply resources in all our homes to ensure life continues as we the paying public require it?

Not so Nutty! I have continually opposed the hunting with hounds bill because it did not go far enough. It did not deal with angling for sport or pleasure as opposed to the need for eating. I even raised the question that we should not be meat eaters at all. Now, a report by Jeremy Rifkin indicates that scientists in many countries have been carrying out wide-ranging research into animal emotions and have found conclusive proof that animals have a far greater empathy with ourselves as beings than had been previously imagined. Ironically, much of this research has been funded by food chains like McDonald's, Burger King, KFC! Essentially, animals do grieve, suffer emotional stress and seek company and empathy.
               The Guardian in its article (Saturday 16th August) claims this authenticates the animal rights brigade's emotional responses as being scientifically valid, regarding animal experiments, conditions in which animals are sent for slaughter and even if they should be.
               Questions are beginning to be raised in courtrooms and in legislation around the world. Today, Harvard and 25 other law schools in the US have introduced law courses on animal rights, and an increasing number of cases representing the rights of animals are entering the court system. Germany recently became the first government in the world to guarantee animal rights in its constitution.
                  If it is time to persuade us all to be vegetarians does this require us to review our opinions on GM products, making them more essential—or that going vegetarian makes us more vulnerable so they should not be allowed?

Planes to make Trespass a Criminal as well as Civil Offence are to be welcomed. It is typical that the Open Spaces society gets on its high horse and assumes that anyone inadvertently wandering off a legitimate path will be liable for arrest. What I am concerned about is that those people who will not exercise the common decency and good manners to respect a 'Private Property No Parking' sign may now become criminally liable for parking their car on someone else's property denying the owners the use of their own space. This is a problem many people around me are suffering. Taking civil action is simply out of the question.
             Cynically one wonders if the motivation is the intrusion into Windsor Castle or the intrusion upon Tony Martin's land, or are they both being equally thought about?

Still Confused! Apparently the government road show about the benefits of the euro has taken place, according to the Treasury (The Times) August 11. According to the Foreign Office the road show has not yet started, but will some time after the summer recess. Then Denis MacShane, the Minister for Europe, said that it was never meant to be a literal road show. From this abysmal shambles we can deduce two certain facts—that we still have a Labour government and Tony Blair is still Prime Minister!

Continuing to be Confused. In 1973 a report was commissioned on the effect of population. It concluded that Britain should try to manage a stationary population figure which it managed to do for the next twenty years. Of late the Labour government has been encouraging immigration. Now it thinks it ought to find out the effect that is going to have! Sense, surely, would have determined that if you have a report recommending a stable population you first determine what the updated effect would be to increase it before encouraging the increase. But then, we do have a Labour government and Tony Blair is Prime Minister!

The Microcosm and the Macrocosm Again. Running parallel with my 'In the Home Counties' current report, The Sunday Times headlines today's issue with 'Goodbye speed cameras, hello a spy in every car'. The Civil Liberties groups are of course jumping up and down and The Sunday Times itself starts its article by saying 'Even George Orwell would have choked'.
               First, let us remember that Liberty is the successor to a civil liberties group (National Council for Civil Liberties) that quite bluntly refused to support any individual against any trades union's arrogance and domineering carte blanche in the work place before the Thatcher legislation, so any idea that Liberty really understands the meaning of liberty is always suspect.
               As secretary to Berkhamsted's Youth Council I was once confronted by a Social Worker from County proclaiming there was a positive drive to promote  awareness of Children's Rights. I pointed out that I was happy to support Children's Rights AND Responsibilities but I was not prepared to support a one-sided promotion. She insisted that Rights' come first, then Responsibilities. I persisted that both came together and we ended up with her not fulfilling her mission and me on a campaign of my own to ensure that Rights are never promoted without a comparable understanding of Responsibilities.
                Likewise with controlling drivers. Let us start from square one. Why are there speed limits? Simply because it is impossible in law to argue any one person's interpretation of what constitutes 'due care and attention' at any given time. Consequently, by agreeing the maximum safe speed in average or peak conditions it is possible to determine scientifically the fact of exceeding the 'safe' speed limit. This does not, of course, mean that it is safe to travel at that speed. It may be more appropriate to drive slower, but it will never be safe to drive faster.
               To make it easier and more cost-effective to detect law-breakers we have speed cameras. These, it has now been established, must be highlighted so they stand out as even more than an eye-sore than they are by their mere presence. The unexplained reason would seem to enable law-breakers to be protected from their misdemeanours by clearly announcing in advance that they will be caught, so they can adjust their speed for that brief moment and not be caught. I do not understand the logic but there we are.
                The 'spy in the car' would dispense with speed cameras. Hurrah, less street furniture to crash into and a little better understanding of the street scene and greater sympathy for the lived-in environment. Where is there any problem?
                 Well, there is one problem. We all make mistakes and incur a moment's lack of concentration. I know. I plead guilty. I recently borrowed a friend's car, a far superior car to my own and the sort of car in which it is possible to drive at ninety and think you are doing seventy—on a motorway.
                 Nonetheless, the key aspect is that we all conveniently forget when getting into the car to visit relatives or drive down the road to the shops that we have taken charge of a lethal machine that has the ability to kill. How often do we get in and fail to do what we were taught to do to pass our test? Check mirror, brake, gear, etc. For that matter, how many of us walk round our car before getting into it checking the tyres and looking for any sign of dripping oil, brake fluid, coolant etc?
                  I know I don't because I have just been very punctilious in doing all these things ONLY because I have been driving someone else's car.
                   The point at issue is that we should all do it every time. The fact that we do not places us liable for the consequences, which are unavoidable in just the same way that by travelling at five miles an hour over the limit consequential injury is more serious than it would have been if we had obeyed the law.
                    We must demand of ourselves what the law demands of more professional drivers but which is somewhat more lax with the amateur—competence to drive.
                     This 'intrusion on civil liberties' argument neatly ignores the civil liberties of those outside the travelling car who have a right to respect, due care and attention and a legally competent driver. What about their civil liberties being infringed by those denying them such safety? The debate re-awakens the argument about identity cards.
                    I have fiercely resisted ID cards on one fundamental principle—the unique history of this country and its unique facility for being able to 'lose oneself if one wished. This is nothing to do with evading the law but everything to do with our unique history, our unassailable right to absolute independence and freedom.
                       During the last war we gave up many of those freedoms to retain the fundamental freedom of our own sovereignty against Hitler's domination. We are at war again with diverse ill-defined groups and I am now, with great difficulty, beginning to accept that we must once more be prepared to give up some freedoms to hang on to the greatest freedom of all—the rule of democratic law in a free society. We must defeat the terrorist, the criminal and the illegal immigrant, and the health service swindler. For that, we must be prepared to make some sacrifices.
                         My fear remains that given the misfortune of a terrorist or other attack, too much power is retained in too centralised a form too easily accessible. We must recognise that living is dangerous and all life is vulnerable to degrees of risk.
                          Linked, however with this is the major change society must make—to recognise that with Rights come Responsibilities and until we start being personally accountable for our actions and the consequences of those actions in the wider context of 'society' our quality of life will only get worse. We must see our personal accountability in the context of the effect all our actions have in our private life upon our neighbours, both near and far and upon the environment.

Absurdities Continue. It is considered by Oftel that the best way to make directory enquiries cheaper is to give the public a choice of 15 options, not at the same time, not on an immediately comparable basis but purely by rota pot luck. The most obviously memorable (118 118) is the most expensive, 18p above the original BT price. Oftel thinks this is the best way to reduce costs, so The Sunday Times claims.
                  Apparently some services put your call through to India or the Philippines where they are apparently unfamiliar with UK geography and need the name spelt out, thus lengthening the call and your cost for their incompetence. Not surprisingly Oftel does not explain how dialling 6 numbers instead of 3 is quicker for the enquirer.
                   What is surprising is that BT UK has the same number as 02 UK, which I assume is a mistake by The Sunday Times and that the number BT puts in its advert is correct (118 500).
                  For some inexplicable reason the bookies think that the company that will draw the most business is BT (understandable) and The Number which is the most expensive (according to The Sunday Times trial). Why on earth would anyone go for the most expensive unless it is a total con—and a con manipulated by Oftel at that!?
                   Perhaps it is Oftel that was responsible for stopping BT doing the obvious that any sane person would have expected, to have 118 192. Bluntly, I totally resent not being able to dial 192 and will do my best never to use directory enquiries on principle. I'll go web for any enquiries or use email.

Evading Accountability—murder of paedophile Catholic priest. I have previously stated that the way to handle bad drivers is not to fine but to remove their licence and those that drive without licence or insurance imprison. However, the 'spy in the car' (discussed above) provides a very good way of handling the irresponsible driver and well worth the price we have to pay for that supposed invasion on our civil liberties.
                  For the same principle of retribution the murder in prison of paedophile priest John Geoghan is to be bitterly regretted. Not just for those who still had law suits pending against him which would undoubtedly have been won and added further to his years in jail but for being given so easy a cop-out. It is the one reason I have been ambivalent about the death sentence.
                    On the one hand a length of rope is a damned sight cheaper on my taxes than interminable years in jail while death, especially with the change of attitudes over euthanasia, is often a blessing to be welcomed.
                 Taking the Christian view, there is always hope that the sinner will repent. Should we deny the murderer's chance of atonement before meeting his Maker? Is there no greater hell than the hell one creates for oneself, when one comes to recognise the enormity of one's guilt and is plunged into the bottomless pit of remorse, from which there is no escape but the absolution that can only come from the forgiveness of the victim, yet can only be meaningfully received when contrition has been acquired?
                     Who ever murdered John Geoghan served only John Geoghan. The murderer did not serve justice. He denied justice to those whom Geoghan had abused and whose living lives he had destroyed, adding further to their torment and snatching justice from them. Most importantly of all, Geoghan's murderer snatched from Geoghan's victims the affirmation that they were indeed not to blame, as the Holy Roman Catholic Church has been so assiduous in making out, that it was the victims who were at fault, not their precious priests. Further trials and convictions would have given them some peace to hold on to, providing them with an independent adjudication validating the truth of their innocence.

 Evading Accountability—Yarl's Wood and Illegal Immigration. The trial relating to arson at Yarl's Wood highlights that even when in captivity illegal immigrants cannot be controlled. The inability of illegal immigrants to behave themselves in captivity illustrates how disruptive they would be as free agents in the world at large. However, according to this week's The Sunday Times government ministers have supposedly told authorities not to arrest illegal immigrants unless committing a crime in order to keep their recorded numbers down!
            If they are illegal immigrants then they are committing a crime by being here and a government minister is saying 'ignore their criminality' aren't those ministers guilty of aiding and betting their criminality and will we be seeing charges placed against such officials for their criminality?

IN THE HOME COUNTIES

Small Matters of Large Import. It is some time since I wrote in this column which does not mean there has not been much happening. On the contrary, a considerable sea change has taken place but I have been involved in it and there has been no time to write about it. On top of which, allowing for the fact this is supposed to be a 'gap year' for me anyway, I have been taking three weeks off (theoretically) plus a week's break in the middle, looking after someone else's house and cat.
             I am prompted to introduce this saga by a chance conversation yesterday after-noon. I had left home to walk to a church event but then decided that as I also wanted to walk to the other end of town to see said same friends afterwards it would be sensible to use my bike. I returned home to be confronted by the mother of a neighbour tending the small area of overgrown border garden that was her son's responsibility.
              She enquired about maintenance. The reason is that I am Secretary to the related management company. For some reason she was not aware that in taking over that particular property her son was responsible for either maintaining the small front border or re-turfing it so the company would once more be responsible. She clearly had not realised this but more to the point it appeared her son had not realised this either—yet he had bought the property!
                'Oh, well I didn't know that,' she said when she realised she was wrong to complain against the company. So went on to complain about the grass cutting.
                   Since the area in which we stood was the area where the mowers are required to collect the cuttings and had been neatly mown only a week previously I asked her what was wrong with it. I had the feeling that she was going to point out it was totally browned off and parched but at the last moment I think she suddenly realised, 'where was the water coming from and who was going to do the watering?'
                 She changed tack and said she had observed them cutting in the past, indicating a different area. 'Oh yes, clearly you have considerable experience in managing a gang-mower. What were they doing wrong?' At which point she chose to take umbrage at my countering her every question to which I responded that I usually found it helpful to research what I was talking about before I started criticising anyone.
                 I pointed out that no one had found fault with the grass cutting going back many years and if anyone felt it wasn't up to standard all they had to do was to propose someone else, declare the cost, be prepared to take responsibility and if the members' agreed then they simply got on with it. What could be simpler?
                 'Perhaps people don't have the time?' She replied.
                'I see, everyone else is very important and doesn't have the time but I do because I'm not so important, is that it?' I asked.
                 At which point she turned her back and walked away. 'That is the problem', I called after her. 'The moment people are invited to be involved and follow through with their suggestions they turn their backs and walk away.'
                 This was a clear indication of an increasingly prevailing attitude, that the moment it is suggested anyone should carry through with their own ideas and take responsibility for them, rather than simply suggesting that someone else should do the work, the ideas no longer seem so worthwhile.
                     This is an attitude in modern society that The Gazette in Hemel Hempstead seems quite happy to support. Therein lies the introduction to the major sea change I mentioned at the beginning. The matter is currently in the hands of the Press Complaints Commission and although their opinion will be part of the indicator of changing social traits it is only part of the problem of indolent, 'couldn't give a damn but it must be someone else who ought to be doing something and why aren't they?' attitude the local press seems happy to support, along with many others.