Charlie Kiss

Due to other more pressing matters in my life these days.. I’m abandoning this web log at least for the time being.

However I’ll still tweet and I’ll message on facebook..

So maybe I’ll see you there.

It might seem personal- it might seem trivial.

But the simple fact is the the Queen,. the monarchy have entrenched power in this country. The monarchy is at the very top of a major problem that persists in our society- the idea that ‘ you know your place’ that no matter how hard you work, you will never have influence unless you are born into the right family’

This attitude of deferrence is extremely strong. It’s reflected in the class structure of our society- and affects many insitutions- the House of Lords being another obvious example. How many children from poor backgrounds go to Eton?? The only way you go to Eton is if your family has inherited wealth..in the vast majority of cases.. And guess what. the next likely PM and Chancellor are both Eton Boys.

The Queen and her family influence so much more of our society- they don’t just cut ribbons,they interfere with democratic planning processes, influence our trade deals with countries. If we have a hung parliament in the next election - who chooses the next PM- not the people but yes..you guessed it the Queen!

There is just so much wrong. and it’s so serious..

No other country still has a monarch as the head of the established state religon- the Chuch of England.

We have MPs who are elected by the people of their consituencies. They should be answerable to us- but they’re not- they pledge allegiance to the Queen. as do the Armed forces..- there is a very unpleasant precedent in making armed forces pledge allegiance not to their country but to a person- Hitler of course.

Clearly the Monarchy presents us with a difficulty for we won’t have a written constitution until she goes because the moment you look at what’s right for the people of the country- there’s a blatent problem- an unelected medieval right that the Queen is the head of state.

Prime Ministers time and time again collude with this because of the simple reason that the Queen gives more power to Prime Ministers. There is no mechanism for a balancing of power for the PM. The Queen effectively gives rise to a presidential Prime Minister.

All the answers to the usual common arguments to keep the Monarchy

I don’t know why Britain has panicked and everyone gets told to pick up tamiflu.

I believe I had it last week and had it more or less confirmed by the Online diagnosis from NHS direct.

But the simple truth is that Tamiflu doesn’t cure Swine Flu- all it does is speed recovery by a day!
and this is only when it is taken within the first 48 hours.

Seeing as I didn’t realise I had swine flu for the first 3 days I didn’t think it was necessary to get it.
and by this report it is probably worse for everyone for those people who aren’t at risk NOT to take tamiflu.

What a waste of money- worse it could make the virus more resistant.

I must admit I was in two minds about Question Time and allowing Nick Griffin to speak on an equal platform as other politicians. Generally I believe in Free Speech however and so ultimatley felt that as the BNP now had two MEPs.. sadly the same as the Green Party (who should have many more!) then the BBC did have some justification in asking them on.

However.. the BBC has been inundated with complaints that the BNP leader wasn’t treated fairly!!
The main complaint appears to be that he was ’set up’ or ’staged’ but what these presumably infrequent QT watchers realise is that the questions come from the audience. Obvoiusly with Nick Griffin there, the questions were going to be about the BNPs policies.

Now I think he did appallingly.. especially when saying the Klu Klux Klan were non violent!! and that until recently he didn’t believe that the holocaust happned. In fact there were lots of occasions where he showed his true colours.

But how dangerous is it that so many people think he was unfairly attacked?? Dimbelby had a task which was pretty impossible- he had to show that he was unbaised but at the same time could not be seen to let Nick Griffin off lightly.

I fully appreaciate where Peter Hain was coming from when he wrote ” “This just reveals what I have said all along. This is not about the BBC exercising its charter duties of impartiality, as they maintain. This is about creating a great big beanfest of a show that rockets their ratings and they walk away leaving the BNP in pole position, absolutely ecstatic that it has received the respectability and credibility it has always craved”

I think it’s too early to say whether this airing has damaged or helped the BNP- time will tell. Either way.. I have to say that talking about Immigration and British Culture needs to be increased.. not silenced.
Population control is a delicate subject but does need to be tackled.. that said.. the far more urgent issue with regard to timing is of course climate change!

Straight after my last rant about Journalists, I then have my faith restored!

An excellent article by Nick Davies appeared today in The Guardian about the inflation ( Gross inflation and exageration) of the numbers of Traffiked women into the UK!

So much tut has been written about sex work and the trump card is of course that XX % of Prostitues are trafficked- in other words co-orced.. raped in fact.. by the fact that they have been forced into this.
But despite a year long campaign with all the UK police departments, resources thrown at the problem. It turns out that the number of actual traffikers is less than 20 and even this can be taken apart further!

This article is very important. It was also debated on Newsnight.

Inquiry fails to find single trafficker

My opinion of journalists is really rock bottom at the moment (It’s never been that high). It seems to me that they are mostly employed to rant about their own prejudices. They rarely properly analyse or even do basic research.

Recently Jan Moir in The Daily Mail wrote a vile article in which she insinuated that Stephen Gately died becuase he was gay! She has marched off on one. Not even done basic research on how often young men die unrelated to drinks/drugs. It’s so offensive. She even says that this proves that Gay Civil partnerships aren’t on a parr with Heterosexual marriages.

Needless to say. on this one, partly due to the power of the internet, there has been concerted action:

Advertisers have been inundated and requested to more their adverts from next to the hateful article and its worked!

Companies pull advertising

Another example of an article written recently was about how women are supposedly so much unhappier than they were before the 70s- Inuenndo- that they should’ve stayed in the kitchen!
( incidentally women were never in the kitchens until the 50s, they were working in the fields or in the factories, or arms factories - just for less money)

Here is a brilliant response to this:

Are women Getting Sadder?

I’ve suspected this for a while just by noticing a different generation of men. A new book out which relies on qualitative studies of athletes and fraternity members shows that as cultural homophobia had decreased, Younger men (around the ages of under 25) express decreased racism, sexism and masculine bullying.
As Eric Anderson, the author demonstrates, men who value inclusive masculinities are also shown to be more likely to bond in emotional relationships with other men and to embrace a variety of behaviors once seen a feminine, including certain same-sex sexual behaviors

The changing nature of masculinites

I knew some things that Obama did would be good for the world. as this is one of them.

Very pleased.

Obama abandons so called Missile Defence System

I read today about a grandfather being told he couldn’t take photos of his grandson in goal in a football match. The boys were about 11 years old. He was told he’d have to ask all the parents of the other boys in any photos.

The interesting slant here, is that this grandfather was a policeman and so was quite taken aback that people would think he could be a pedaophile but the truth of the matter is that all men are suspects which is crazy. This particular policeman was also the officer in charge connected with the Soham Murders.

I can’t smile at a kid without it being assumed that I’m a threat. This is spectacularly strong in this country. What made everyone so hysterical?
The new regulations won’t prevent child abuse as the soham police offer says in The Times today:

Soham Police officer attacks Gonerment new vetting scheme

We’re going the wrong way about this totally.

This is Polly’s article

Polly’s Toynbees’s article

Found out today that Friedrick Hayek, Thatcher’s favourite economist shares a common policy idea with The Green Party. I would be pretty certain this is the only area where the two political philosophies meet! (Heyak generally believes in a total unregulated free market economy)

This is the excellent idea of a Citizens Income.
In this newsletter, it’s clear that he supports it.

The Citizens Income is a basic amount that everyone receives, whether in employment or not. This would mean the effective eradication of the poverty trap. People would have an incentive to work, as they wouldn’t be worse off (or the same) they would be better off. People could choose to study and work or just to increase their income.
Full reasons are here.
They’d be no more means testing of course. It is estimated that income tax for the vast majority of people ( the low paid) would be reduced.

More about this excellent Green Party policy is here

and a full explanation with answers to questions is here