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. 

In addition to this, the East Coast Mainline ran a profit when run by the state ten years ago. While the first video is a few years old, you should be able to understand the message it gives.

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. 

Israel and Iran

I used to be in favour of Israel taking action against Hamas in Gaza, that was until the civilian death toll became so high (let alone the numbers of civilians murdered, sorry, killed accidentally, since).  If anyone doubts me, remember how the IDF shot unarmed Palestinian terrorists who were pretending to surrender, only to find out they were unarmed Israeli hostages, something I doubt we would have found out about if they had not been Israeli.

I have not been in favour of Israel in the way that it is stealing land in the West Bank either.  

When it comes to the way Israel attacked the Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria, I have concerns over this.  Quite rightly, the world has spoken out over the issues with how an embassy should be protected when it comes to Mexico and Ecuador.  Put simply, killing the targets Israel wanted eliminated outside the diplomatic compound would have been acceptable to me, in view of the way that Iran helps Hezbollah attack Israel.    

Yes, Iran retaliated, but in a way that was able to be stopped by the several nations.  I actually think that this was a paper retaliation, in a similar manner to that on US troops after Trump had an Iranian general assassinated. The question now is if Israel will let matters rest here, or continue to attack Iran. 

Last of all, for those who do not think of Iran as our enemy, look at how they have treated Kamal Foroughi, Anoosheh Ashoori and Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I would be interested to hear any justification of this.

Dune: Part Two

First of all, I am sad that Arsenal lost. At least we are in second place, for now. But I doubt that the Team That Rhymes With City will drop more points than us, which means that the odds are, we will either stay in second or more likely, finish in third place.

The kids are continuing to revise, my daughter has two tests tomorrow, not her A Levels, but tests to get her stressed anyway.

And onto Dune: Part Two. I think that the first film was better. While I do not think that this was a masterpiece, it was a film which hit the right balance of amazing scenery, good effects, and retained decent writing, acting and directing. I guess my main issues come from the plot. Arrakis is a planet devoid of water, but can host a huge army. The suits that were worn in the film would not recycle the sweat that should have been on the faces of the characters (but also was absent). And the story had another hole in that a captured Fremen would break under torture and the bases would be found. 

But those issues relate to the original book.  If you liked the first film, the odds are you will like this, but I doubt anyone who is not interested in science fiction will like it.

Scoop

No, not the Netflix film, which I intend to watch, but rather a film from 2006. 

First of all, my kids are coming up to the end of their holidays and have been revising. I suspect one has been revising more than the other, but hopefully I am wrong. 

My daughter, is booking a holiday in Europe with one of her friends, and this is causing my wife some stress. At the moment it looks like she will be backpacking to France and Spain,

The film itself is interesting. It has loads of stars in it, but as the Twilight films show, having an all star cast means nothing. It has an unusual plot, almost that of a play rather than a film, but it improves after a dull start. I will say it is better than I thought it would be and was surprisingly enjoyable. I guess I would rate this slightly above average as a film. 

The Cass Report and drugs with children

The Cass Report has been widely reported in the media. I do agree that issues about gender identity should be explored, but I think that the report is wrong to say that puberty blockers are untested without pointing out that many drugs are untested in children. I also am concerned with the way the media are reporting that it is wrong for children who are Trans to be given these drugs. I think, that with the correct assessments, it will be found that there are some children who would benefit from treatment with these drugs. 

Sadly, waiting lists have increased across the NHS, not just when it comes to gender identity, but also with child mental health. Children, be they having issues with gender identity or not are being failed by our underfunded healthcare system. 

Tenfold rise in A&E patients waiting more than 24 hours for a bed

The headline is from the Guardian.  It is so sad considering how Labour managed to get the length of time people waited in A&E to low levels.  

Improving the NHS will take money, it will take time and like after 1997, it will involve having to use the private sector. 

Israel killing innocent people

This week, Israel has continued to kill innocent people, but the way they have done it has hit the international headlines more, because they killed Europeans.  An aid convoy was targeted and the aid workers killed, despite the vehicles being clearly marked, and even if they were not, the aid workers had been working with Israel so that the IDF knew where they were and where they were going.

Since then, other relief agencies have pulled out of Gaza to avoid being hit in similar attacks.  I am sorry to be cynical, but I do wonder if those on the right in Israel are glad that aid agencies have done so.

Israel have stated that this was a terrible mistake, but we have seen how cavalier the IDF are when they murdered some Israeli hostages who were trying to surrender to them just because they thought that they were Palestinian.

I was in favour of Israel taking action against Hamas last year.  I was wrong to be in favour of that.  Israel has shown some restraint in trying to avoid civilian casualties, but no where near enough.  When Russia kills Ukrainian civilians, we are rightly outraged. The UK only sells a small amount of weapons to Israel, while they are using them against the civilians of Gaza, we should stop this. What is needed, is a ceasefire months ago. The USA can force this on Israel by stopping aid to Israel, a country which should exist, but would not do so without aid from the west.

Hate, freedom of speech and JK Rowling (again)

Scotland have brought about an interesting law when it comes to hate crime.  JK Rowling has already been investigated because of this. There is no doubt in my view that there is too much hatred on Social Media, notably Twitter/X and this does include hatred towards women, the transgender community, Jews and Muslims amongst others.  

While I would welcome action being taken to address this, I have concerns that the law in Scotland may be something that has gone too far.  In some ways, the stand that JK Rowling has taken is an admirable one, in that she has put her head above the parapet to see where the line between free speech and illegality lies.  But she has also offended many due to this.  

Sadly, discussing this is hard as too many people are willing to rant and not to listen.  The Newsagents covered this matter earlier in the week and it will be interesting to read the comments that come about because of this.

I hope the fears that this will infringe free speech and regulate thought will not come about.  But while the law may be interpreted in one manner now, it remains to be seen if this continues in the future. 

April Fools

April Fools came and went. None of us played a trick on the other. I did get to watch the highlights of the Arsenal game. I would have preferred a win, but not losing was almost as important. Watching Match of the Day, I see that we have the harder end of season, which means that we are the least likely to take the title. But all the teams have to be played in the league which is why winning it is so hard. I did not think at the beginning of the season that we would be so close to taking the title which, for now, appears to be heading to Merseyside.

Earlier on the bank holiday weekend we had been to see my Mum, the parents of my wife and came 5th in the local pub quiz (we are getting worse). It has been relaxing and I hope that my batteries are sufficiently recharged now as Tuesday is going to be very busy. I also spoke to one of my brothers, have not spoken to him in a while. The other is in South Africa at the moment travelling the nation with his other half, who is from there.