AFGHANISTAN: THIS FUTILE WAR

The death toll continues to mount with the loss of more lives of British and NATO troops, and innocent civilians.
Continuing to prop up the corrupt puppet government is futile.

FIDDLERS IN THE HOUSE

Sir Thomas Legg says 390 MPs must repay £1,305,000 for the expenses scandal.

In fact, all MPs, including the current MP for Mid Bedfordshire Nadine Dorries, share the blame, whether or not they individually have been caught fiddling expenses.
They were ALL responsible for the expenses system, which condoned fiddling.
They MUST all have known what was going on.
And none of them did anything about it.
That's Labour, Conservative, Liberal Democrat.

They share the blame for this scandal which has brought ridicule on our parliamentary democracy.
These were the people elected to take major decisions of war and peace.
You have an opportunity on 6 May (or whenever) at the ballot box to let your voice be heard.

THE VENDETTA AGAINST MR SPEAKER

We all know how the present MP for Mid Bedfordshire loves to trivialise and personalise politics.
She's now busy waging war against the Speaker of the House of Commons.
She's up in arms because, apparently, the Speaker has stopped wearing fancy dress.
Now, most of us don't give a toss what the Speaker wears.
Not so Nadine Dorries.
Taking off his fancy outfit will mean millions of pounds lost each year from our tourism economy, she believes.
So what's she doing about it?
She's refusing to stand back to the wall and divert her eyes when the Speaker walks down a corridor.
I kid you not.
She accuses the Speaker of eroding the authority of Parliament.

In the real world, nothing has eroded the authority of Parliament more than the MP expenses scandal, which has destroyed trust in politicians. Whether or not an individual MP was personally culpable, the fact is they all knew the system, they all approved it, they all knew what was going on. And they diverted their eyes, till the cat was out of the bag.

SCIENCE AND THE MEDIA

The media, overwhelmingly, just don't get science.
They don't understand how science works. About the importance of probability.
So journalists (with a few honourable exceptions) create wild headlines out of every passing straw of scientific research.
This leads first to public confusion, then apathy, and eventually rejection of all things science.
An example is diet and food.
Another, which is starting to gather momentum, is climate change. The deniers sense a field day coming on.
I'll return to this important issue.

FRIENDS IN RESPECT

I took time out in Birmingham yesterday with Green Party colleagues.

For a couple of hours, before our Green Left meeting in Birmingham Metropolitan Community Church, we joined Salma Yacoob and Respect party members distributing leaflets in Sparkhill. It was bitterly cold, but a bright sunny morning.

http://www.salmayaqoob.com/2010/01/friends-in-green-party.html

Salma joined our meeting later for a discussion and chat.
She is inspirational and courageous.

BLAIR IN THE HOT SEAT

We have been able to witness Blair questioned today about his part in the war with Iraq.
I was going to say interrogated, but that wasn't the approach of the polite, courteous, fumbling enquiry.
Blair ran rings round them. It was the establishment v the establishment, and the establishment won.

I really can't see this enquiry getting anywhere. The best we can hope for is the demise of New Labour at the general election.

FAIRNESS

The fair way to cut carbon is through carbon quotas.

Abolishing VAT and tax havens are ways of making taxation fairer.