Taylor Swift

Yesterday, we watched Taylor Swift. My son is to watch her in concert in June if all goes well, but yesterday my son was watching The Eras Tour on Disney+. I joined him for her singing All Too Well, then my wife joined us and my daughter joined us at the end. My wife recorded my daughter and I dancing (my son does not dance with me). It has been too long since we watched something together, and while we did not watch the full concert as a family, it was nice that we watched so much as a unit once more. 

Nationalising our railways

Labour have talked about nationalisation of at least parts of our railway system. Many people have commented that nationalised railways are terrible, but several of the companies who run, or ran our railways are already owned by state railway companies from abroad. 

Rwanda (again)

The government have managed to get the Rwanda plan to be passed in the Houses of Parliament.

I am in favour of it. I suspect that Germany and Italy have no or few concerns about this as well.

But only if we have a decent way for refugees to come to our great nation.

With refugees from Ukraine, we welcomed them to our shores even though they were in safe countries.

We should do the same with asylum seekers from other nations. We have an insane system where people who helped us in Afghanistan cannot get to our nation. That should change. 

In addition to that, we should enter into discussions across the globe with how refugees should be managed.  Too many nations (not us) bear a burden of looking after refugees and they should be aided in this. In addition to this, not all refugees need to leave their nation, instead for some of the ones I have encountered, moving to another part of their own nation would be appropriate. But while I have met some refugees whom I would not grant asylum (based on what they told me), I have met far more whom I would grant asylum. 

Bukayo Saka and being proud of England

I identify as many things, European, British, and English.

Too many people have allowed racists and bigots to claim our flag. Our flag represents our nation. Like Bukayo Saka, I am proud to be English. 

Jews walking across a march

A video has been widely shared on the internet, this being of a Jewish man trying to walk across a march against the slaughter in Gaza. People who have used this to bash the police forget several things. 

The first thing to remember is that there are many Jews who want an end to the murder of civilians in Gaza and many take part in marches about this.

The second is that the police will act to keep separate groups of people apart. Anyone who has been to a football match will be aware that the police like to keep certain groups of supporters apart, an example of this being Millwall fans being kept away from everyone else when possible. Other examples would be preventing someone obviously Muslim walking across an EDL march.

I think that instead to bashing the police, or insinuating that the UK bias against Jews, we should accept that the police have a hard job to do, that on occasion, someone faced with making a decision on the spot will get it wrong, and that they work to ensure that demonstrations are peaceful. 

Fascism and the boy who cried wolf

I read recently, that a danger with calling things fascism, is that people start of become desensitised. 

I have to agree.  I do agree that there are worrying signs with what is happening to our great nation.  At the moment, Islamophobia is more acceptable on the internet, this being before the appalling attacks by Hamas on Israel.  

Yes, our rights are being taken away, and when people are conditioned to accept the removal of even more rights that would happen if our nation withdrew from the European Court of Human Rights. 

Do I see concerning arguments on social media?  Yes.  Do I think that our government is flirting with Far Right ideas?  Yes.  Do I think that our government and mainstream media support fascism? No. 

Liz Truss and how things were not her fault

It is unbelievable that the woman who was Prime Minister for 45 days has no insight of the way she crashed the economy. 

Apparently, things would have been better if civil servants had not acted as a break on how she had wanted to things. 

Yesterday, The Newsagents and The Rest is Politics covered this. Once again, parody and reality are hard to keep apart.