5000 Police attend Royal Wedding, whos watching the crown jewels?

Published by calhoun on April 20th, 2011 - in Politics

Britain's Prince William smiles as he walks with his girlfriend Kate Middleton at RAF Cranwell, central EnglandAccording to the London Metropolitan Police force, on the day Prince William says,” I do”, there will be around 5000 police officers on duty to protect them and protect the day. The police force has already rejected requests from Islamic groups to protest outside Westminister Abbey on the event and Police are considering blocking their ability to protest at other sites in the area.

The police department has approximately 50K staff in total so 10% of the police force will be protecting Prince William on his big day – with an estimated £1.1 Million budget just for that single day which doesnt really consider that police are working already on securing the route that the Price will take to the Abbey.

With any luck the metropolitan police force will be putting more officers on active duty that day than just the 5000 that have been allocated to the wedding. If they do not then I can forsee a high risk of criminal activity taking advantage of the rather low presence of police through the rest of the London area.

By the way, if he proposed on a 3 month holiday to some exotic place, where does he go for the Honeymoon?

References
BBC News

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Nick Griffin votes NO to AV, will you join him or will you vote for change?

Published by calhoun on April 19th, 2011 - in Politics

Nick Griffin Votes No to AVWhat does Nick Griffin, David Cameron and Adolf Hitler have in common?

Thats right, they all supported first-past-the-post electoral system. They belive that a strong government where one party has most of the seats in the parliament is the only way to run a nation. Its true, Hitler had a very strong government, so strong in fact that anyone whom voted against him did not survive.

The No2Av campaign would have you belive that by voting for a new form of democracy, where the majority of people need to vote for their representative in parliament would only benefit the BNP. Why then is it that Nick Griffen as leader of the BNP is planing to vote no, along with the current prime minister?

The interesting thing about the split between parties of government is that senior labour political figures are on both the Yes and No campaign side. This is unprecedented in british politics – political figures that are standing up to be counted for something they belive in not the colour of the team they belong to. Perhaps the people of Britain might consider this when deciding where they should place their vote. After all, you wont be voting for the colours this time, you are voting to decide on the technical means of deciding who shall be elected as your local representative in parliament.

The No campaign have claimed that Clegg has switched side and suddenly now supports AV, naturally of course they have taken this completely out of context. He was likely refering to converting to proportional representation instead – AV is indeed a limited form of this so it is a comprimise either way its an improvement over first past the post.

References
STVaction
NoToAV
YesToAV
Daily Mail

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Blood Discrimination to be less discrimitory

Published by calhoun on April 12th, 2011 - in Politics

Blood Bank opens for Gays that havent had sex in ten years.Ministers have been debating on a change, yes, its quite rare but experts belive they do work sometimes. Although much like the ents, our political wisdom does not do anything worth doing, unless they can spend a long time to do it. The donation of blood by gays has been offlimits for a long time citing HIV as a root cause of this. Apparently Westminister needs to learn to count but they are trying.

With 60% of HIV Positive cases being from straight people instead of gays, they have limited gays to give blood to prevent the spread of HIV to the general population. New legislation will see that gay people are welcome to give blood, provided they have not had any sex for ten years, after all, gay HIV only operates for 9 years then magically dissapears unlike the straight HIV which lasts forever which is why it is safer to be a gay man than a straight man.

Wait a second, that makes no sense, I can hear you screaming HIV is uncureable. Well, that may not be entirely accurate either but thats another story for another time. I completely agree it makes no sense what so ever but that is indeed how our government works.

Activists have welcomed the suggestions as an improvement in the legislation but it still lies far short of treating everyone equally.

Refernces
PinkPaper
Scallywag & Vagabond

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Second referendum of the United Kingdom next month

Published by calhoun on April 2nd, 2011 - in Politics

Second referendum in the history of the United Kingdom Takes place on May 5, 2011You might be surprised to realise, I know I was, that a referendum has only taken place in the history of Britain. The Second one is due to take place next month which will see a decision being made on how we elect political figures.

Vote yes and you will declaring in the loudest voice in history, I want democracy in Britain.

Why should we change?

Well, have a look at the BBC Election 2010 Results. Put your post code in and see what the results are. Here our representative in parliament got a majority of 40.1% of all the votes – ie the Majority of us voted AGAINST the person representing us in the National Parliament. Surely then with such a huge percentage voting against the MP should not be there. Someone who is supposed to be representing their constituency surely must be representative of the people of the constituency they are representing?

I spoke with someone today who admited they didnt even know there was a refferendum comming let alone that it was such an important refferendum that will most likely be the most important vote that you will ever make in your lifetime. So on May 5th, get of your seat and tick the box for Yes. Make your vote count this time, and next time too , in fact, if you vote yes this time, your vote will count forever. You will have succeeded in helping bring Democracy to the heart of the United Kingdom.

The No to AV people will try to convince you that this change is not good for the UK after all parties like the BNP will get a higher position, well, you know what, BNP is already the 3rd largest party in some constituencies BECAUSE of the First past the Vote system. Think about that, at the next election are you going to vote For the MP you want to represent you , or against the MP you hate like they did in Barnsley recently leading to the BNP taking such a lead.

Vote Yes

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Toxic fumes rise from the cooling tower but no one notices the dangerous Coal Power

Published by calhoun on March 20th, 2011 - in News

Nuclear SymbolJapan has seen itself hit with many problems all at once and despite what the media implies, they are doing a great job handeling three rare occurring that happened simultaneously. Critics have jumped on the bandwagon and are already claiming that the Nuclear Power station idea is insane. But really, if we step back and take a truely honest look at the numbers would their claims be in agreement? I suspect not.

What they seem to be looking at is the worst case scenario - a full scale catastrophic nuclear explosion.  Of course in the event of such an explosion it would indeed be a worst case nightmare. But how likely is that really?

The International Nuclear Event Scale is graded with 7 levels, and having a look through them the few major incidents that exist seem to have a consistent issue.

Chernobyl, Level 7 Major Accident: Radioactive Steam Released into Atmosphere.
Kyshtym, Level 6 Serious Accident: Radioactive Steam Released into Atmosphere.
Three Mile Island, Level 5 Accident with Wider Consequences: Radioactive Gasses Released into the Atmosphere.

So the conclusion is there has never been an nuclear explosion at a Nuclear Power Station in the history of Nuclear Power it is just toxic gases being released into the atmosphere and that brings us on to a related subject, another form of power also releases toxic gas into the atmosphere: Coal Power stations.

Each year, thousands of coal miners lose their lives trying to pull out the black rocks from the ground which comparatively suggests that Coal is a much more dangerous form of energy production than Nuclear Power. It is also a finite resource which means it is running out. If we start abandoning nuclear power because of freak accidents, we will exasperate this reduction in coal availability and ultimately leave thousands of people without any form of power.

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The ents shall not go to war this day

Published by calhoun on February 19th, 2011 - in News, Politics

Sad looking ent In JRR Tolken’s Lord of the Rings after seeing the forest abused by Saruaman the Wizard, giant tree like creatures known as the ents rage war against him toppling him from his fortress.  It has echos of the government plans to sell off the forestry commission which has faithfully protected the remaining forests of the UK from activities that would see them stripped of their trees.

The attempt to sell off the commission and forest has led to widespread anger towards the government. Leading the campaign 38Degrees has declared victory for the ents without having to bring the fortress of Westminster crashing to the ground.

Listening to the complaints, environmental secretary, Caroline Spelman has made an announcement declaring “we got this one wrong”. Many others too I am certain. It likely did not help her to have David Cameron declare that he was disowning the policy most likely this humiliation did more for her plans being cancelled than 38Degrees campaign has.

A number of infulential people have got behind campaigns to prevent the sell off such as Dame Judi Dench and the Archbishop of Cantebury. I never thought I’d be able to reference him in a positive way.

Boultonandco at Sky have suggested that if people start realising that the protesters have been successful people may start protesting more widely about government policies in particular the budget cuts. This is likely if people start believing protesting will lead to the government doing a u turn on issues that they do not agree with. Only a positive step for democracy can come from this.

The people at 38 Degrees may be celebrating today, but tomorrow what will be their next campaign and will it be as successful? You can help them out in future campaigns and perhaps embarrass David Cameron some more! What more of an incentive do you need?

References
38Degrees
The Independant
Sky News
Boulton&Co

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Cameron: I am the Law.

Published by calhoun on February 16th, 2011 - in News, Politics

David Cameron British Prime MinisterIn a train of thought that disturbingly rings an echo of Chancellor Palpatine with his solemn declaration that he is the Senate in the final star wars film or third dependent on how you want to look at it, David Cameron has really been showing his true colours since taking power of the parliament.

Justice, Legislative and Administrative, three distinct branches that make up the way our nation works. One should not interfere with each other and the prime minister should know and respect this. He does not however, he is the prime minister which put the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom up for consideration for to be scrapped. A serious decision that would return the power of the most powerful court of justice in the entire country return to the fingers of the house of lords. This should never be allowed to happen. It took the better part of a decade to finally separate justice and legislative branches of power and it must maintain this way. Cameron has been quoted stating things that show he does not wish this to be the case: “once again a ruling by a court that seems to fly completely in the face of common sense.”  in reference to the sex offenders registry.

He clearly things it is good to have people on the sex offenders list for life, really now is this the kind of world we want to bring people up in, when before the law sees children as being legally responsible they could be tarnished with being a Sex offender for the rest of their life? At 10 and 11 years old, surely the young boys cant seriously be considered to be as dangerous as repeat offending pedophiles? With a hint of common sense it is foreseeable that when they grow up and understand what they done  their attitude might be a little different.

Meanwhile, Nick Clegg showing a spark of intelligence admitted that the safety of the public will be unhindered by allowing sex offenders to appeal against being on the list and if deemed to be safe to society they shall be removed.

References
Daily Mail
Mirror

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Has the age of democratic reform came to Africa?

Published by calhoun on January 29th, 2011 - in Politics

Today we March, Tomorrow we Vote, Democracy is coming.If you have been following events in Africa, you by now will likely be aware that Democratic reforms are finally comming. Is it possible that this decade will be the year that Democracy finally takes grip of Africa?

If events of the last month are anything to go by it certainly looks possible. The overthrowing of the Tunisian government recently seems to have sent political shock waves through North Africa.

Today a concert is to be held in the Tunsian capital city which less than a month ago, the artists were banned and likely arrested for crimes against the state by trying to sing such songs.

“We live in suffering/ Like dogs/ Half the poulation is oppressed and living in misery/ President of the Country/ Your people are dead,”

They are singing in direct reference to the former president. Whom was recently forced to flee the country or face the mob! The singer, El General states that the concert is being conducted in memory of those who sacrificed their lives to enable this new age of opportunity in Tunisia.

But this could just be the beginning of great change, the Egyptians are following suit with riots and uprising against the government there. The foreign and commonwealth office has set a travel advisory to Egypt recommending avoiding all but essential travel to many cities in Egypt. Despite not currently advising people to withdraw from the country, thousands of people have flocked to the airport already seeking to escape.

Anonymous, the hacking group most famous for causing disruption to people’s daily shopping ventures and causing instability in credit card payment processors have been interfering in the events in what may be a positive move by helping bring democracy to the countries in question.

References
AFP
FCO
The Canadian Press
Gaurdian

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Its Official: UK Economy Down 0.5%, well done Conservatives

Published by calhoun on January 25th, 2011 - in News, Politics

Economy declines under the conservatives.If you’ve been reading my blog, or for that matter really any political blog, you’ve undoubtedly seen the predictions of doom and horror for the UK under the Conservatives budget cuts of everything under the sun , and a little then.

Statistics released today appear to have confirmed our worst fears, in the build up to Christmas, a period when one might ordinarily expect the economy to do well with everyone buying random things for friends and family they haven’t seen since the previous Christmas. Well, this time we dropped into a negative growth-  a recession for Christmas.

Thank you must of course go to the wonderful leadership who every day seems less and less trust worthy as a government and more like a chaotic random numbers factory.

The chancellor in his infinite wisdom just had a vague comment of it being disappointing. Disappointing, this coming from a man whom is supposed to be figuring out how to deal with the UK budget one of the most core parts of the economy. Surely he could come up with an explanation why his actions failed so miserably, or better yet, accept responsibility for it and resign.

Looking at the graphs this is a very concerning trend, the drop that would represent the general recession seems to have been much less of a drop initially. Experts seem to think the effects of the budget cuts have not even yet fully materialised and next quarter could be set to drop even further. The government may want to reconsider the plans to scrap everything and think about means of getting the economy kick started again.  Undoubtedly however they will be too proud to admit it so we might as well start saving for the other side.

References
BBC News

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Just how involved was David Cameron in the telephone hacking

Published by calhoun on January 24th, 2011 - in News, Politics

Police Commisioner and David CameronCould David Cameron be trying to cover up his involvement in the conspiracy of the telephone hacking that seems to have spread through many senior members of parliament.

Certainly if he was hoping to hide the whole situation it looks less than likely that he will be able to do so. Likewise the metropolitan police commissioner may want to keep his head out of the limelight for a while.

MPs are demanding an independent review of the police investigation which will most certainly ruffle some heads of the senior police and the heart of the government.

According Andrew Grice and Mark Hughes of the Independent, Son and Heir to the Rupert Murdock media empire, had a “private” dinner with Prime Minister Cameron. This just days after the Prime Minister striped Vince Cable of his power to decide upon weather James Murdock’s News Corporation to purchase the remaining 61% of BSkyB – which would give them total ownership.

The now resigned director of communication for downing street, Mr Coulson’s departure was hoped by many in the government that the whole matter would simply disappear.

The possible connection to the news empire and the prime minister could seriously jeopardise the trust and respect of the prime minister whom should have an aura of responsibility and neutrality about him.

References
The Independant

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