Mankind its own worst enemy.

 Subject: Mankind its own worst enemy.

 The blight in our public services is being laid bare more and more each day as the progressive cutbacks and the slashing of budgets has left all public services bereft of their purpose and unable to carry out all but a minimum. The councils are bankrupt, the hospitals, the schools, infrastructure (replacement and repair) are all perilously underfunded. 

If we were in Africa the hotchpotch of tarmac in the Main Street would flow no further than the chiefs kraal and be accepted as the bounty the chief demanded for his position but in democratically elected Britain each man or women is “chief” and in some way demands their slice of the cake.

The deliberate cutting back of public services and supplanting them with privately owned ones, a plan instituted by Thatcher and accelerated by Osbourne, leaving the patient without hospital care, hollowed and frail like a person emerging from surgery with half his inner‘s removed they are expected to resume work the following day.

The latest wheeze is that all patients are better off at home with a prescription for the chemist, it’s better after all, to die in your own bed so the argument goes surrounded by friends and family. But what if dying takes a year, two years what then as the ambulance makes repeated calls to A&E to boost the system with a saline drip. 

It’s macabre stringing out living with dying so the patient doesn’t know what stage they are at. 

The indignation at “assisted dying” for patients with acute and painful conditions, by parliamentarians who can afford the Dignitas Clinic, is I submit hypocrisy at the highest level.

The Rail Unions are once again clamouring for pay increase’s, that is the ones who were not included in the current settlement and are promising to go out on strike if they don’t get parity.

Is there a line in the sand which says the past is past and the future dependent on how we earn and spend our money. Do we not have to dial down on expectations and rein in the fat cats and reintroduce social aspirations by binning financial liberalism.

Of course in any contractual arrangement there is a price to pay for the service. If the price is too high the service either doesn’t get done or is rationed. If we were to continue rationing services so that only the wealthy could pay and the case made out for that fact to become the status quo, then the Thatcher/ Osbourne/ Cameron plan to reverse the Clement Attlee plan would have succeeded. 

As usual, mankind is his/her own worst enemy.

Out of step.

 Subject: Out of step.

It amazes me that the authorities in this land seem to be so out of tune with their electorate and human kind in general. Of course they don’t hold a candle to the authority in some nations. The Israeli blindness to what has become genocide in Gaza, a genocide which started as retaliation for the attack on the young enjoying a music festival, youngsters massacred as they fled the Hamas armed killers. The revolting scene of terrified Jewish teenagers as they fled across the field was startling and as the Israelis turned their army on the civilians of Gaza  we understood their need for retribution. Retribution has become something else by the continuation of the bombing and the ordering of the civilian population from one so called safe areas only to be killed in another area. The pinpointing of schools and hospitals as targets for their drones is without question a crime even if their claim that Hamas hide behind the sick and children is true this type of warfare particularly by a national which itself has suffered so much in the ghettos of Europe. It’s not as if their claim to only target the political/armed concentrations of the enemy but the skill and political will required to take out the leadership of Hamas or Hezbollah with such pinpoint accuracy means they have the means if not the will.

Whilst politicians here are too timid to speak out given they feel any disruption to our localised social and political set up is significantly far into the future, they would rather obscure the stated objective of some countries hoping the threat will dissipate as we the public acclimatise to change.  We are famous for falling into line, is it any wonder “the queue” is one of the things we are known for. The sight of the thugs taunting the police, the police backed up against a wall as the mob throw what ever they can lay their hands on at them, the bobbies virtually unarmed was sickening.

Rubber bullets, water cannon, pepper spray, tear gas would readdress the balance but we are still under the illusion that people are inherently peace abiding.

The internet and its trumpet call to action across the country is a game changer and whilst the willingness to throw the activists in prison seems to have had some effect it doesn’t give any attention to the underlying causes of disharmony.

Conciliatory words for some are the order of the day and Keir Starmer has weighed in against the far lefts old adversary, the far right. His inability to acknowledge any of the fears vocalised by the far right is a missed opportunity.

The social embroidery looked at from a distance

 Subject: The social embroidery looked at from a distance



Are the forces we see at play around us progressive or reactionary. Do they seek to progress human-kind or inhibit it with opposition to progress or reform and why for many is reform a dirty word.

People fear change especially if the change leads you into unknown territory and taking you out of your comfort zone can act as a stimulant, particularly in the way you conceptualise things. The social embroidery we carry with us from childhood comes under stress as our environment changes and pressure grows to re-examine previously un questioned beliefs. Some would call it a learning curve others the ever changing process of selling out of our values.

With the news this morning that funding has been withdrawn from a number of projects including developing an artificial intelligence hub in Edinburgh for which £32 million has already been spent on a building to house the computers.

The growth of AI is one of the key areas to sharpen our research capacity but  once more we have failed at the last hurdle to define whether we continue to spend on the social burden we have or change the emphasis on where we spend our limited resources.

Perhaps given the complexity and expense  of present day medicine we have to consider charging those who can pay. As  nation we are in a very different place from when the NHS was conceived to treated people in 1947 (when it came into being) and the present day. The diagnostic tools including AI have become so sophisticated and costly that a charge might be necessary to offset the spiralling cost of the overall medical package. The Pharmaceutical industry for-instance  is wholly run by private enterprise for gain with shareholders who expect a handsome return by exacting a high charge for drugs and is a major component in the final account.

For those with “the ability to pay” it covers most things in life. The comfort of your long distance flight, to the comfort and opulence of your hotel. The size and splendour of your home, to the food on your table are all a direct function of your disposable income.

Why should medical  treatment be different, should your life chances, when, you are sick be different to everything else which rates the depth of your pocket as the most important element.

Means tested medicine would drastically reduce our national imbalance to income, even a small charge to perhaps a larger one if treatment is self induced. In every other area of our lives we pay appropriately but it’s not considered appropriate if a person is struck down with cancer or hit by a car. You have to have insurance to cover others if you have an accident, why not a small insurance premium if you set off to climb or walk in a remote part of the country. The protesters would claim it’s a tax on the universality of our open spaces but at least it would fund and equip those who we rely on to come out for free when we get into trouble. From lifeboats to helicopters we assume a deaf ear for the service we receive and it’s part of growth in the number who now flock out each weekend the extra stress we place on rescue. When it was a small group of people who experienced and properly equipped and responsible the cost was minimal.

The growth in identifiable disease and mental disorders has expanded the diagnostic range for which the medical practitioners try to treat and clearly “free at the point of need” is unaffordable.

Six of one half a dozen of the other.

 Subject: Six of one half a dozen of the other.

A verbal statement has just been released in which a solicitor acting for the Pakistani brothers involved in a fracas in Manchester Airport in which a policeman is seen kicking one of the brothers in the head whilst he is prostrate on the floor having been stunned by a laser gun.

Our immediate reaction was of horror that an officer of the law should breakout one of the principles of law and order policing given the schoolboy ethic, “never kick a man when he is down”.  More video footage showed events leading up to fracas showing the brothers actively raining blows on the police, both men and women officers. The guy who was eventually kicked should have been in the Olympic boxing team so effective were his punches the police seemed for a while on the back foot and loosing control until they used the laser.

I have mentioned before in the past the police used to be respected with one Bobby a lone able to control a crowed by the authority his uniform.  Not so today, he has become fair game, with the court offering no deterrent to the thug who’s “Brief” has the a plethora of legislation to back him up.

The Mother of the Pakistani family had had a torrid time on her flight back to the UK from Pakistan having been, according to her statement racially  abused by a fellow passenger, she had received no assistance from the flight crew and one can understand the exasperation and frustration within the family as she landed in Manchester.

The scene is set for a tinderbox event with racial epithets from the police (un - collaborated) kicked in and the melee occurred.

The facts are, you don’t take your frustration out on the police.

You don’t violently attack the police

The rules of engagement are the Courts but unfortunately the Courts are proving ineffectual, (clogged up in celebrity libel cases) the trust in authority is at an all time low. The violence we see in our streets, not only the current rioting but the knife crime which has infected our young is phenomenal. I have never seen the number of deaths through knife fights and it come’s, in part, from the castration of police numbers under the Tories and their failure to retain good men and women. ‘Bobbies’ are as rare as hens teeth particularly in the town centres and the multitudinous constraints put on the police makes their job almost impossible.

A comma out of place, a statement given out side the sterile jacket of procedural propriety and an otherwise watertight case is thrown out. It’s as if we intend to lend all leverage to that evil, dangerous contingent in our society in the pious hope that the world is watching and applauding us for our ethical stance. There was a time when we could afford to be magnanimous, when the jails were half empty and rudimentary jobs available. Now everything stands on a knife edge, politicians are haunted by quotes made under very different conditions, the funds to rebuild our depleted infrastructure are non existent and a new government held to ransom by financial exactitude.

The contamination of the racial mix, not by doctors and nurses but by centuries old customs and religious propriety is now played out as sides are formed and prejudice spews out from both sides only relieved by the thin line of bobbies place themselves at tremendous risk in between.

Who on earth would want a policeman’s job.

Toleration

 Subject: Toleration.



There are so many conflictions in our lives some of which these days are down to the priority given to minorities. Iwas not always so. The public sphere, in which we all live has many variations,  from mental health to physical health, from gender dyspraxia and the unfairness of trans people (effectively biological males) competing in female sports) to the ranking of immigration rights with an established populations right to scarce resources.

Since the 60s the rights of the ‘individual’ overtook ‘societies’ right to exhibit what it would called ‘normal practice’. A plethora of minority rights has skewed our understanding of a homogeneous society to one in which minorities now seem to carry more influence but of course, society has never been homogeneous, it’s full of quirks. Ability quirks, religious quirks, gender quirks, and many more, a problem arose when the call for equality began to formulate the Human Rights Act by trying to give equal equality rights to everyone by shoehorn people into being recognised as the same which common sense tells us we aren’t. If you display a physical disability then no amount of tinkering with the environment will make it equal.

Athletics and ‘trans’ people (males) competing against females is obviously wrong and the sports authorities have shied away from common sense for fear of upsetting minority rights but in doing so have created a mess. The solution, to create a new class of athlete, ‘trans athlete’ which exists alongside male competing with males and female with female. I suppose the argument then moves on to defining who is trans and who isn’t. Genitalia used to be the cut and dry distinction but now testosterone and even the chromosome distinction of YY versus YX doesn’t seem to clinch it and we are back to how a person feels about their gender. Perhaps the authorities they that the trans lobby will claim discrimination, that their rights of self determination are being interfered with.

As with so many issues our society these days, is scared to go against the shibboleth of human rights. From cultural rights to religious rights, minority rights  to gender rights often these rights clash with one another and then it’s a case of which group carries the most clout. So rights then become negotiable, not a physiological  argument but an ideological concept differently interpreted by different people. In this country because we have traded away what we called uniform common-sense in our attempt to appeal to everyone we have landed our citizenry in a morass of conflicting, often non-negotiatory issues.

Weakness and conciliation are the hallmark of successive government in this country and it’s only the patience of the citizenry (now seen frayed by street battles) which somehow negotiates a route between the tolerant in our society and everyone else.

Of course our TV screens show the sheer thuggery of what is calledFarRight disaffection but in reality was classed a few years ago as football thuggery when football fans travelling to have a punch up on the oppositions turf. Today’s violence is supposed to be about the problem of too much  immigration  which affects people by placing a strain on resources  and our national ability to House, Employ, and look after people Medically. Of course our real problem is a lack of real willingness to expand and build to accommodate the expansion.

One man’s thug is another’s man’s freedom fighter and of course as the Prime Minister lists the groups who fear for their existence, the nonwhite, the Muslim but little mention is made of the deep grievance within many towns about the dissembling of a more traditional way of life. We have been persuaded that we are our far too parochial, too introverted and we have to undergo re-education to understand the value immigration bings.

Most of us understand there are many things we gain from by involving ourselves in societies much older than our own, we travel to different parts of the word to see at first hand the ruins of great civilisations  but of course being old is no guarantee of being better. Listening to the hectoring tone of the ex SNP leader Humza Yousaf last night  doesn’t help neither, to be honest, the tone of Keir Starmer who’s homily seems to come from the observer class than those affected.

At least the ‘War of the Roses’ cut through Baronial influence and was home grown, this questioning of multiculturalism has been blatantly ignored by many in our national executive.

So speaks for the disadvantaged

 Subject: So who speaks for the disadvantaged

And now it’s the GPs who are holding the nation to hostage, threatening to limit patient access because they say their surgeries are underfunded by government which of course means tax receipts. The junior doctors have just secured a record breaking rise on their claim that their hourly pay in the region of £15 ph, is ridiculously low given the time spent preparing to be acknowledged as equipped to exercise any sort of medical expertise. The nurses similarly suffered, under the Cameron/ Osborn austerity regime as  year on year their pay slipped down the cost of living statistic as did so many reliant on public service increases. So whilst as a nation we simply didn’t improve our productivity but instead insisted on withdrawing from our by far our largest market, the EU we were seduced by the rhetoric of the ideological school who insisted we could go it alone irrespective what the economic statistics told us.

Where do we go from here, do we cripple ourselves by becoming more indebted to the sovereign funds who often represent political states which we arbore, do we trim back the money spent on social improvement or limit, in a distinctly troubled world our defence expenditure. We seem to have a pathological obsession in not investing in the bright ideas which our academics develop and would rather do a two step with nations who will invest in us, but on terms which benefit  them.

Where are the UK manufactured of wind farms, ships, railway stock, all of which we have to buy from nations who are our competitors. We had the skill base only 50 years ago but frittered it away long before the Chinese arrived on the scene but by a refusal to invest in our ‘trade collages’ we  converted them instead into dodgy universities peddling even more dodgy degrees. We, or should I say, our business leaders, are the author of our demise

whilst they take their seats in the House of Lords to reminisce about the time they made a killing on the stock market we riot on the streets of predominantly northern towns desperate to be heard in a world that has no place for them.

Of course there is an element of thuggery amongst them but there is also a cry to have been let down as to them the last straw is the sight of swelling immigration which culturally and economically displaces them from the very towns they call their own.

This was foreseeable. Having grown up in Bradford the mill owners rather than compete with the Taiwanese and their modern equipment instead used the oldest tool in the box they imported cheap labour from the subcontinent and expected the people of Bradford to assimilate. A few days ago I broke down in the centre of Bishops Stortford.

Parked behind me was a taxi driven by an old Indian chap. I approached him to ask could he take me home but he explained he was out shopping with his wife and not for hire. Anyway to cut a long story down he agreed and as I settled. Into the back seat alongside a lady his wife he explained that she didn’t speak English even though they had lived here for over 30 years.

Assimilation is in some communities a myth especially if the religion separates women from the normal occurrence such as the freedom to leave their home and integrate with others then the possibilities are few.

The riots are a miserable reflection of the waste land which has occurred and is a blind refusal of our politicians to garner as much remorse for their own electorate as they do for other nations. When I see Yvette Cooper the new Home Secretary voice her disgust of the violence, I see a middle class woman whole sole preoccupation has been towards minority and female issues wholly sidestepping the resentment brewing in working class towns and It’s not so funny to see our country as a whole now reliant on the police, a force which has been described as institutionally racist and misogynistic but on who we now place all our hope to face down the misogynist/racist on our streets.

Hope they don’t follow the lead of the junior doctors and go on strike but of course they can’t, they are constitutionally bound to protect us or more to the point the property interests of the influential.

Rowlock ambassadors

 Subject: Rowlock ambassadors

I remember watching the London Olympics which the highlights were shared between track cycling, on the water with rowing and of course, the track and field events.

The rowing was particularly thrilling as each race unfurled along the course the rowers eking out the last bits of energy right to the line.

They became over the event time household names and personalities in their own right, particularly the broad smiles and exuberance of the women sitting in their boat having accomplished, through years of training the right to represent their country. It seems to me that, particularly the women are the great ambassadors in what they say and the way they present themselves in interviews.

Of course in London much was made of the enthusiasm of the crowd they were unstoppable as they cheered and cheered our contestants and now it’s the turn of the French to show their patriotism. In the pool the supremacy of Leon Marchand has mesmerised the crowd like Michael Phelps used to do in years past

The woman’s archery was fascinating. The sight of the porcelain-white faced Chinese women, their impassive faces made even more stark by the smudge of red lipstick with which they kissed the flight of the arrow before releasing it on its way to the target. They looked ‘out of this world characters’ with their impassivity, more like the image of a Geisha than the spontaneity of athletes generally.

Images are fed in my mind of the male swimmers walking on out to the start their event. Each encased in duvet style full length coats to keep warm, they stroll/saunter like gangsters towards their starting plinth to do battle. Cocky, they seem out of tune to the adulation from the spectators, its more like a "godfather" meet, faces grim and determined and very different from the girls who grin from ear to ear and wave to the crowd.

There’s so much to appreciate and whilst mentioned the thought of the hours training on the road or in a boat at 6am in the cold drizzle far from the bright lights of today.

‘Track and field’ are just getting going and the focus really starts on the national gold medal tally.

Who said nationalism should be put to bed and only multi nationalism allowed to flourish. Of course between the athletes themselves each respects the other and even amongst nations who glare at each other across a no man’s land of barbed wire, in sport these antipathy’s are laid aside and mutual respect breaks out.