The Massacre of the Innocents (again)

 Let me start by saying that I respect the decision of Americans to value the right to bear arms over the lives of children, the deaths of whom are an acceptable price for guns being available.  I just do not understand it. 

Another school shooting has taken place in the USA.  I am sure that there will be people who will blame this on issues of mental health, or transgenderism, rather than the issue of having decent gun controls. Living in the UK, we have legal firearms here. My job includes among other things, providing information on licences to the police who are responsible for the decision to issue them and I have no issues with legal firearms being used for hunting and also for sport.   

In the UK, in 1996, following a mass shooting killing primary school children and their teacher, a ban on handguns was imposed. Years before this, following a mass shooting in 1987, semi-automatic weapons had been banned. Since then, we have had incidents where the murder of more than one person has occurred, but these have been relatively rare, one example being, how Derrick Bird killed many innocent people, followed by the murderous rampage of Raoul Moat. But this was in 2010 and while mass murder has occurred since then on several occasions our most recent high profile case being in August 2021, we have lower rates of mass shootings than the USA. Gun crime exists here, but the rates are far lower than in nations like the USA, just like how the overall murder rate in the USA is higher than in other developed nations.

The call in the USA by many is for weapons like the AR-15 to be banned. Those who are against it cite the second amendment to the US constitution which allows the right to bear arms. But this was made in a time when a well trained person would take almost a minute to shoot three times. I have discussed this with my wife, and she is of the view that nothing will change in the USA. And to be fair, she may be right. Despite the murder of many young children in Sandy Hook, the AR-15 and similar weapons are still legal. This is probably due to the campaign contributions made by organisations like the NRA to protect the right of Americans to have them, though this has meant the continued murder of children in schools. Something that does not happen anywhere near as often outside the USA.

There is an argument for firearms to be used to defend schools in the USA, but they forget how Scot Peterson was the "Good Guy with a Gun" at the Parkland mass shooting affecting the Stoneman Douglas High School.

Basically, the only honest excuse for the USA allowing people to own more guns than the population of the USA is because guns are valued more than children.  I respect people who admit that, though obviously, I disagree with that equation.

And for those who point out the issues of knife crime in the UK, it is far easier to defend yourself from a knife than a gun.

Should the right to protest stop freedom of speech

I had been thinking about blogging about this in the past, but had got distracted and did not do so. Issues about this have been brought up by what happened in New Zealand last week.

A woman, linked to the Far Right, was meant to speak on matters relating to the areas where the rights of women and TransWomen collide and was prevented from doing so.  Allegations were made that violence occurred which have been denied by the side accused of this.  

This brings up an issue of where freedom of speech can be infringed by the right to protest.  This has happened in the past with Jacob Rees-Mogg (as well as others on the right). I will admit to laughing when Nick Griffin of the Far Right BNP was egged outside Parliament, and when Farage had a milkshake thrown over him. But such attacks are wrong and I understand why some subjected to this respond.

Basically, while I disagree with the far right, they have a right to free speech. Action taken by anyone to hinder free speech through violent protest, or drowning them out is wrong.  I would consider this wrong if anyone from the left was subjected to it, and the same applies to those I disagree with. 

While I agree that the anti-trans activist Kellie-Jay Keen-Minshull, also known as Posie Parker, should be allowed to speak I find it hard to be vocal in defending her as I would do with others, mainly because of her links to the Far Right.  While JK Rowling has spoken out against this violation of free speech, I am going to sit this one out.

There have been some calls for women in this situation to have men protecting them against those Trans-Rights activists who would engage in the same behaviour.  Sadly, I suspect that there will be members of the Far Right who would be happy to protect them.    

The bottom line is that we do have a right to protest and should be allowed to engage in this, but we also have a right to free speech and the right to protest should not infringe the right to free speech.  

Hustle

 An interesting film which my wife and I watched yesterday. To be fair, I would not have picked it, and she picked it thinking that it was a different film! 

Normally films about US sports are not that relevant to me. Fever Pitch was different, only because I wanted to see how it compared to the original.

This was actually a decent film. It is strange to see Queen Latifah and Adam Sandler in their roles. Ultimately if I had watched this after reading the reviews, I may have been disappointed, but watching it expecting the worst, it was quite good.  However, if you do wish to watch it, do not watch the trailer as it gives away too much. 

Family wise, things were relaxing, mostly. It did involve a bit of cleaning and some paperwork but we had a chance to relax at the end of the day at least. 

Dogma

 My daughter and I watched this last night/early this morning. I have seen it before and loved it, I think, that despite her ideal wishes, my daughter liked it as well.

I understand why some considered this to be blasphemy but, I love the way it portrays God and religion. It did lead to an interesting discussion about the existence of God between us. My faith is easy to have considering how lucky I am in life, unlike the lead character in the film.

If you liked Clerks and Mallrats, this is a must see. If you did not, then avoid this like the plague. 

Anyway, back to the family. My wife took my daughter to Aylesbury to shop, my son staying at home with me before he met up with friends in town.. I had intended to catch up on work but needed to rest.

Let us see what tomorrow brings…

We need another investigation into Partygate

As has been posted before, there are concerns that Sue Gray was biased in her report into Partygate.  I do not think that is the case, but I agree that we should look at things again.

I had thought that the only person to have been fired as a result of this was Allegra Stratton (though technically she resigned). She had not attended the event in question, and when it came to jokes being made in the mock news conference, she was not the only person to be involved.  It later turned out that there was a quiz held at Downing Street, though as you can see from this link, it was claimed that there were no drinks. That claim unravelled when it was seen that there was a bottle of sparking wine present. 

I have since been reminded that there was another resignation, this being Shaun Bailey who resigned after breaking the rules by being at a work party.  

So while I had previously said that the only person to resign was a woman who had not attended a party, it turned out that a black man did so as well after attending one.

Boris Johnson has stated that he had been told that there were no parties. It later turned out that there was a garden event at Downing Street where people were asked to bring their own booze in May.  There had been one before on the 15th of May, but it could be more reasonably argued that although mixing was taking place, it was a work event.  

On the 18th of June, a work event took place with alcohol and a karaoke machine. The following day, the Prime Minister was ambushed with a cake.  While a violation, again I would have to say that this was a silly but more excusable breach of the guidelines. 

The most interesting one is the party of the 13th of November.  The PM had denied that an event took place when asked over a year later, but later it came out that he had attended it (though this may have been for a very short period of time) and the photos came out.

And of course, there was the quiz in Downing Street after all this.   

Yesterday there were people defending Boris Johnson saying that he had not misled Parliament.  Today he admitted he had done so, but did so in good faith.  I doubt that the Metropolitan Police would accept that excuse from someone who is black. 

Considering the lack of people being held accountable for this, I do think that this should be investigated again, and those who advised Boris Johnson that he was not breaking the law should be sacked for incompetence.

Yesterday was a busy day

My wife had a good day yesterday.  Last year, the children had not got her a card, this year, things were better as she got flowers, presents and a card. In work today, I have talked to other mothers and some had a great day, others not so much.  After my wife got her card we went to the Red Dog for breakfast and later had an amazing lunch at The Three Horseshoes. On getting back after lunch, she got her flowers and the children gave her the present they had got.

I had to miss the football as lunch was a late lunch but after, we went to see some friends and I got to watch some of the highlights of the victory of Arsenal against Crystal Palace.  I think that Palace were insane to fire Patrick Vieira before the match as with him in charge, the result may have been different with him being a former player.  We are now 20 points ahead of The Scum and eight points clear of The Team That Rhymes With City.  And with each game, I am actually becoming more nervous.   

Stand By Me

It has been an eventful twenty four hours. Last night, my wife and I watched Lucy Porter who was at the Colchester Arts Centre. She was great and watching her talk about being middle aged and her past put things in perspective for both of us. The music before the show was soundtrack’s that we grew up with. If anyone has not watched her I would recommend doing so, especially if you are above the age of 40!

During this, she talked about the film Stand By Me. I remembered bits of it from when I had watched it in the past, my wife had never seen it. So when we got back from seeing our parents, we watched it. My Mum had not seen the kids this year. She was meant to see them at New Year’s, but that did not happen as she had declined to see us. Things have been busy since then and while I saw her last weekend, today was the first time in a while. She told them about what was going on in her life, which is quite a bit as she has been spending her retirement keeping her mind and body very active. My parents-in-law have not seen the kids for a while as well, having just come back from being abroad. My kids noted that their grandfather was being more affectionate than normal and my son loved getting a late birthday present.

When we got back, through terrible weather, after resting and eating my wife and I watched Stand By Me. I could remember bits, but not much, so really it was like watching it after seeing a trailer (I tend to only watch trailers of films I am not going to see, or of films after I have seen them). It is odd watching a film about people who would grow into straight white men, and I am not sure such a film would be made now, but it has to have no diversity considering where and when it was set. I have lost touch with most of my friend group from back then, but that was my fault. I will have to message one to see how he is.

Cocaine Bear

What an interesting film. The plot has a few holes, but as a gore fest with humour, this is great. I feel it balances humour and horror very well, and although the film has a few issues, this may become a classic along the lines of Braindead. 

Fulham 0 Arsenal 3

The weekend was tiring. I had a full day at work on Saturday, which in a way was a more tiring day than a normal day at work due to the way the day was set up.  In addition to this, I went to visit my mother yesterday.  She rightly got annoyed that I kept looking at my phone (another Twitter argument) but I did start to behave and stopped doing that. 

Watching Match of the Day was odd considering that there was no commentary and no analysis.  While there are those on the right who said it was better, it was not.  I did watch the highlights of the Arsenal game on Sky yesterday and it was great to see another victory.  Of course, I am getting more nervous as the season goes on as I pray that we will win the league.  Based on the highlights, the game was fairly one sided, but we need to keep winning against all teams and seeing us win was one of the many highlights to the weekend.  

I did get to spend some time with my son which was great.  My daughter who had friends round who apparently said that I was quite good looking when I was younger.  However the downside was that they also said that I aged very badly! 

Hitler and the right wing Nazi party killed those who were left wing

There is an argument, spread by those on the right that the National Socialist German Workers' Party, i.e. the Nazi Party were socialist. But they were not. Looking back on the interwar history of Germany, while they initially spoke against big business, they were against the works of Marx. I had posted on this back in 2017 but back then, I had forgotten the support that Nazi Germany gave to fascist Spain in the Spanish Civil War with The Condor Legion, support recorded by Pablo Picasso on canvas when it comes to the bombing of Guernica.

In addition to the support for the right wing forces in Spain, once in power, Hitler and the Nazi party cracked down on socialists resulting in many being sent to Concentration Camps where they would be allocated red triangles to distinguish them from other prisoners. I have seen threats against those on the internet who criticise the far right on the internet, a concern as if given the chance, I am sure they would lock people like me up for my political views.

This has been brought up again due to a right wing revisionist. I may be being unkind as they may not be aware of history as opposed to trying to rewrite it.

King Charles comes to town

King Charles came to town yesterday (or rather the city). My son was at school, but my daughter, being at the Sixth Form College, saw him as she waited in the centre and he passed by her. She, and her friends, waved at the snipers who were in town as well.  She wore a burger king crown and waved a flag. I found all this out when I had sent a text on the family group chat asking if she had been with the banner crowd or had been using the megaphone.

 

Many do not like the King, but I admire his views on Climate Change and also the deportation of refugees which he has has to remain silent in now he is our monarch. I do wish he had spoken out about the racist double standards his daughter-in-law had been subjected to however.

Issues about racism and refugees were in the news today thanks to a tweet by Gary Liniker. I think that a better choice of words would have made things clearer, but there is no doubt that the language used about asylum seekers is designed to incite hatred and has resulted in lots of the electorate blaming them for many issues in our nation.

In PMQs, the government reminded us how many refugees were taken in from Ukraine, Hong Kong and Afghanistan. But the fact remains that many crossing the channel to get to the UK, have no safe and legal route to get here. It would be easy to process applications in France rather than housing asylum seekers in hotels in the UK, and once there is a decent safe and legal route, then we can deport those crossing the channel. Instead many are now blaming this issue for the way the government have underfunded the NHS (and other public services).

Needless to say, issues of asylum and refugees were brought up in PMQs, the government who has failed to deport failed asylum seekers has been stating that it is Labour that are in favour of open borders. One thing that many Labour supporters will not like, will be the way that when this is sorted out when Labour come to power, deportations will take place.

Smokers are patriots

Smokers are patriots.  They are risking their lives to keep the tax bills of non-smokers down.

There is help for people to stop smoking, but for people to access that, they must want to stop smoking.  And let us face it, it is an addiction and many smokers do not see themselves as having a problem. 

Being a refugee is not a crime

I have heard plans that our government intends to crack down on those crossing the channel in boats.

Let me remind people that I am also in favour of this and deporting those crossing the channel to Rwanda. But only once we have an asylum system that works and that involves decent safe and legal routes to come here to claim asylum

The sad fact is that, as seen in the video, we do not have safe and legal routes for them to come.  

I suspect that the government is allowing a backlog of asylum applications to build up so that it can claim that the system is being swamped and that the action that is needed is to ignore claims and deport asylum seekers.  Yes, they are to process certain applicants quickly, and so long as this is done in a fair manner, that is a good idea. 

But let us look at how thousands of Afghans who helped British forces remain stranded by by inaction by our government and many journalists who face persecution are also being left as well. Last month, only 22 Afghans had been resettled in UK under a ‘pathway’ to help vulnerable refugees and many who have fled to Pakistan face injustice there. 

I am proud of how we welcomed Ukrainian refugees to our nation, many of whom were in safe nations outside Ukraine.  I am ashamed how we are not doing this for others. 

Edit - another video has been published showing that there is no safe and legal route for many asylum seekers to get to our nation.  

Young and Beautiful

We had our son’s birthday weekend this weekend. We could not do it next weekend as I will be working then. So yesterday was a day walking and shopping and enjoying decent food. We started with a posh breakfast, went shopping, did more shopping, ate market food, did more shopping and after a period of rest, had an amazing Spanish meal. This morning we had another posh but spicy breakfast and are now at home getting ready for the week to come. For me, this is ironing, for the kids it is homework, though my son has claimed that he is to tidy his room, something that has been happening for the last week or so.

On to Arsenal. Yesterday we saw loads of despondent Arsenal fans so I feared the worst. The family made sure I knew the score before we went for dinner as otherwise, I may have been in a sad mood. Watching the highlights on Match Of The Day, I think that we were lucky not to have been three goals down. It was great to win, but we need to defend better. What I am surprised by is that we have the joint second best defence in the league, along with Chelski and The Team That Rhymes With City. We are still top of the league, but with our defence the way it is, can that last?

Sue Gray and bias in the Partygate report

The right have complained that the Sue Gray report into the parties that Boris Johnson had is biased.  Personally, I think that she was too kind to him.  This has come about as she is to leave the civil service to take up a job with Labour.  

There was a great interview on Radio Four on the Today programme.  Basically, she made no allegations and had not attended any of the parties.  There also is an interim parliamentary report which appears to be worse for Boris Johnson, stating that there is evidence that he knowingly misled MP's over PartyGate. Which means that there is no reason to run the investigation again, even though Boris Johnson has pleaded innocence.  

Boris Johnson lied about the parties he attended.  And from what I can gather, only one person, a woman who had not attended a party, has lost their job over this.  

That absent ring of protection around nursing homes

Matt Hancock has had his private WhatsApp messages released despite an NDA agreement by Isabel Oakeshott, the partner of Richard Tice, the leader of Reform UK, a party which has campaigned against the lockdown's that saved so many lives.

I learned this thanks to Twitter and while I do think that a person should not be judged on who they are in a relationship with most of the time, I would have to disclose such a relationship in my Wednesday job.

After PMQ's the capacity issues that were faced were raised by the Conservatives in urgent questions.  To put it simply, there was not enough capacity to test all those entering nursing homes and the priority was to test as many as could be tested as they left hospitals.  Sadly, this was not enough as some were not tested and of those who were, results came too late to stop infections spreading.  

What was not asked was why we did not have enough testing capacity (the reason is NHS cuts before the pandemic) and why the lessons of Exercise Alice and Exercise Cygnus were ignored.  

If anyone needs a reminder of how funeral homes were overwhelmed, this is the words of a lady in the US who runs one.

PMQs and answering the question

Quick post on PMQs, I will post on the nightmare that is Matt Hancock later this week if possible.  It was good to see Rishi Sunak getting taken to task on not answering a question.  It is a shame that this has not happened on the other occasions questions have not been answered.  

While Starmer has asked searching questions, this performance today was not good for headlines and soundbites, his questions being detailed, but not short and to the point, like the answers the Sunak gives (even though inaccurate).