Patriotism is a good thing

Our diverse football team won Euro 2025 defending their title. When it comes to patriotism, we should remember how our nation has been multicultural for a long time. It is through diversity that we gain strength, and those who cannot accept diversity want to make our nation weaker. 

The demonstrations in Epping have been taken over by too many members of The Far Right. While I do think stronger action is needed to prevent people crossing the channel, I do think that this should involve international cooperation on how refugees should be dealt with along with who should qualify for asylum. Most importantly, we need safe ways for people to come here.

British values are why people risk death to get here. British values reflect our multicultural history. And British values are diverse and due to this, will be contradictory. When I think of British values, I think of democracy, tolerance, resilience and how our nation has welcomed refugees throughout our past. Talking about this is important as it should be left to those who wish to make our nation weaker to own the area on patriotism.  There are so many images that reflect how patriotism is not a bad issue, as well as images of how there is diversity when it comes to what people consider to be British Values. 

 

The Summer I Turned Pretty

The family are together and the dog loves it!  I collected my son on Saturday from his grandparents and later took him to see my mother.  Before then, I had collected our dog who was very happy to see me and ecstatic to see my son, however, she was a bit delicate, which is understandable considering it has been two weeks without us.  So she spent Saturday night in our room (my wife and I) keeping me company.  She did whimper and woke me up when she trotted downstairs, I presume to check no foxes were trying to break in and kill me, and then woke me up again when she got back.

My wife drove back from France and when she and my daughter arrived, we were all happy that we were back together.  As a family, after the two travellers had time to rest, we watched The Summer I Turned Pretty, the third series. I had watched the two before with my son, while my daughter had watched it with my wife.  

Needless to say, I ranted a bit.  All in the house know I am not a fan of Belly (Jeremiah can do better), but to be fair, as my daughter pointed out, she has been a lot better in this series.  Anyway, it is great that we are all back together.  The house seems whole again.

Starmer and Palestine

There is a lot of pressure on Starmer to recognise Palestine. I suspect the reason he has not is trade with the USA.

Since my last post on Israel, the violence against Christians and Muslims is continuing and the crisis with food is worsening. A soldier who was involved in distributing aid with the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has spoken out against the murder of civilians. Macron has stated that he will recognise Palestine as a nation, Starmer is under pressure to do so from his own parliamentary party and Israeli politicians openly discuss ethnic cleansing. 

But, doing so will anger the USA, and thanks to the nightmare of Brexit, the UK needs trade with it more than France does.  Starmer has managed to strike up a surprisingly good relationship with Trump (for now) which may benefit the economy, and if so, economic growth may follow. 

Immigration and the UK

Do you know which nation has low immigration? North Korea.

Yesterday I was talking to someone who will have to leave the UK soon as his visa will run out and I said this to him. He works in a skilled occupation and more people like him are needed for the economic growth that will enrich our nation. With the USA becoming increasingly hostile to immigration, we have the opportunity to capitalise on skilled workers coming here.

Starmer made his infamous speech on immigration, but has since said how he ‘deeply regrets’ his island of strangers speech. It is importance to acknowledge that illegal migration is wrong, this including economic migrants who are exploiting the asylum system to come here. We need international cooperation to ensure that genuine refugees get help, but action to ensure that the system is not abused. We need international cooperation to ensure that refugees can be returned to their home nation in the event that serious crimes are committed. But we also need to make genuine refugees welcome and offer them a safe way of crossing the channel.

Most importantly, we need to stress the advantages of immigration. Brexit has harmed our nation, it has led to a brain drain, an example of this is in medicine. We should be limiting immigration, but we should limit some aspects of it and we should INCREASE it in other areas. 

The Thames Water board of directors is like a septic tank. The really big chunks rise to the top.

The water companies are back in the news again. A while ago, I discussed this matter on Twitter where nationalisation was discussed. My view is that we should let the companies go bust, and then take them over, rather than pay shareholders for taking them over.

Changes are to be made, not appreciated by all.  What I do not like about the record of Labour with water companies is how they started to saddle themselves with debt while paying out dividends before 2010. Fingers crossed, there will be less sewage in our oceans and rivers in the near future.

Palestine Action (again) and a comparison to The Far Right

What level of criminal damage is acceptable when it comes to protests? Does the level change depending on what cause is being protested? 

Palestine Action has been in the news again. There are many who have justified their actions which include criminal damage. I am going to just mention the issue of how their actions have aided Russia in the invasion of Ukraine as that is not my main concern.

In Epping, there have been protests against asylum seekers due to the allegations made against one. The protests have been tarnished by violence and we know what has happened to those encouraging such acts last year.

My question to the supporters of Palestine Action relates to The Far Right. I would argue that people engaged in lawful protests do not throw smoke bombs and fire pyrotechnics around innocent members of the public. If it is acceptable for Palestine Action to do so, is it acceptable for the same to happen with the anti-refugee protests in Epping? If it is acceptable for protesters to damage our military hardware, would it be acceptable to damage places where asylum seekers are housed? Should those in Epping who have damaged police vehicles have their right to civil disobedience allow them to escape prosecution? My view is that the same standards should apply to all. 

Trump posts about the Late Show cancellation: “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired,”

While I was in France, Stephen Colbert returned to the Late Show. It was more interesting than his return from other breaks because of his take on how Paramount reached a settlement with Trump over an interview with Kamala Harris before the election which we all know he won. The company made a business decision as it wanted to go ahead with a sale which it knew would probably get blocked it if fought the allegations of Trump, mainly because they would have beaten him. But the business decision is viewed by a few people as a bribe and Colbert is one of them. I remember thinking at the time that while it was a brave decision by him to comment on the matter, the ratings and advertising his show brings in would probably protect him. (Fast forward to two minutes if you want to hear the dirt.)

Anyway, soon after this, and probably unrelated to his speech (cough), Colbert announced the end of his show next year. 

I am sad as he is my favourite of the US late night show hosts. He and Seth Myers posted during the pandemic and their humour was much appreciated by me. I rated them with Colbert and The Daily Show being top, then Samantha Bee, Taylor Tomlinson, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel and finally Jimmy Fallon, Bill Maher and John Oliver being last but still very funny. 

Unless there is a change of heart, or unless Colbert is snapped up by another company, I hope that he will continue on YouTube, his shows must being revenue to the site.  But I do hope that none of the other late night shows are dropped due to political pressure.