The pheonix rises from the ashes

Ok, I’m back. I’m still angry and I’m still full of News Rage. For a while there I just got jaded and couldn’t bring myself to watch or write about any more news. The straws that broke the camels back were the ‘expense row’ followed by speculation that Blair was going to be the EU president. Both sickened me to the extent that I considered life on a boat.

However, thankfully Blair got nowhere near to the role that would have taken him and his repugnant other a step closer to world domination than any of his previous war mongering had done. The ‘expense row’ rages on and appears as though it might now ravage local government which in my opinion can only actually be a good thing when one considers that some LA chief execs earn up to double what the PM earns before expenses.

However for the time being I am not going to focus on publishing news releases from the government or the political parties like I was before. I may do again in the future, but for now, I will concentrate on publishing articles from campaigners and charities and my own view on things that happen in the news…but only if I get angry about something!!!

I am still very keen to hear from anyone who may wish to consider contributing and comments are always welcome.

Super Nanny to Solve Problems in Gaza

I was visiting one of Brentwood's more sophisticated Turkish dining retrieval establishments last night waiting for my grilled delicacy to be prepared when I happened across a publication called the Sun. Now I used to be a bit of a paper snob and for a while would have only used the Sun for one thing alone (imagination suggested at this point). Recently, however I have started to think that news from any view is valid particularly when it is regarded by huge numbers as the Sun is.

I was in good spirits until I happened across a two page spread about the situation in Gaza with a photograph of a father crying over the bodies of his two young sons and a cousin, all of whom looked no older than 5 years old. It was one of the most upsetting pictures I have ever seen in my life. Three children lay dead on the ground. They looked like they were sleeping...but they were dead. They were innocent. They would've had no interest in religious extremism or politics but that's what killed them. Just to make things clear, I think that both sides of the conflict are as evil as the other.

I have grown up in an area where jews and muslims live side by side in peace, go to school together and do business together. I don't think there are too many marriages between the two but then that cannot be expected from hundreds of years of ingrained prejudice and racism against each other. Nevertheless, they don't kill each other. In the middle east however, they wage war like fighting children who when confronted and questioned about their actions, argue with a "you started it!"..."no, you started it!" mentality which frustrates any attempt to get them to the negotiating table.

The year 2009 like so many others has begun with death in large numbers, not as a result of terrorism but as a consequence of equal evil and malevolence and it is time that the world did something positive instead of the passive approach that has been taken to date to stop this mischief once and for all. If both sides want to kill children and innocent people and then blame the other side like a child would then it is time for an adult response.

Israel needs to be sent to the "naughty corner" and made to stay there until it learns that it cannot go on indiscriminately killing and humiliating its neighbours. Super Nanny tactics are needed to tackle this most extreme childish form of national if not racial ethos.

The Palestinians need to be educated and safeguarded from the likes of Hamas, but it cannot and must not be a job for Israel or the US to do. Their neighbours, Iran, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia must be made to take responsibility for "their own" and if they fail then they should be sanctioned as well. Believe me, if you hit the Saudis or any of the other fuel rich states in the middle east in the pocket every time there is a terrorist attack in Israel or the rest of the world, then terrorist acts emanating from that region would soon come to an end.

One way or another the violence needs to end and Jews and Muslims need to be held to account for their support of the political administrations they both choose to stand behind every time the killing starts.

Cam & Ozzy: Stan & Olly

As may be quite obvious, I am a bit of a Tory. I detest everything about the New Labour movement that there is to hate and I do so with a passion. Endless failure and scandal after scandal has marked the government since Blair first stepped into Downing Street and I will be glad to see back of them covered in tomatos or spoiled root veggies when they eventually go.

Their going however is now seeming to be potentially much further away than I was beginning to think and rejoice over. David and George, the fabulous bluo duo are actually doing worse in the polls at the moment than the architect of our financial woes, Gordon Brown and his Darling poodle. How can that be? How is it that everyone trusts Gordon? This is a man who has been in bed with the city as the recipient of good hard fiscal screwing on behalf of the British people since his rise to power with Blair. This is a man who has spent all the money he ever had and then got himself...well...actually us, into serious serious debt. How is it that David and his team can't capitalise properly on this situation and bury the New Labour Abomination once and for all?

I am beginning to think that there is nothing worth-while left in politics or in deed politicians any more if political capital can't be taken against a government who has managed its own and the country's finances and resources in such an appaling way. I can't help but think that perhaps David doesn't have what it takes and that perhaps he couldn't organise an anti-social alcohol fuelled rampage in Croydon, Romford or Wakefield city centre. I am beginning to think that there is a very strong chance that Labour might win a fourth term in office.....and that really really makes me mad!!! Bring on Boris the Giant Killer and lets have done it once and for all.

Non Binge-Drinkers: Kiss Your Rights Goodbye Too.

Anyone with an incling of interest in their fundamental freedom will of course have been concerned by the missuse of terrorism legislation since it was introduced by our Labour government. As well as being used to combat what we're force fed to believe by the government to be an omnipresent terrorist threat, the legislation has been used to curtail the right to protest and assembly. It's been used to increase detention powers of the police despite a total lack of justification and it's been used by local councils to investigate ambitious parents wishing to send their children to certain over-achieving or even just over-subscribed schools.

It should also then be of great concern to many that under proposed legislation to tackle binge drinking and presumably alcohol related anti-social behaviour in general that the government is proposing to allow the police to stop and demand ID from people on the street without any suspission of a crime being committed whatsoever. Presumably those "viz their papers in order" will be allowed to continue to go about their presumably sobre business. What worries me is what would happen to those "vizout their papers in order".

The net effect is that one could be walking along the street minding one's own business and doing nothing wrong, could be stopped and arrested or maybe fined for not having ID. If arrested, one could then be held under terrorist legislation for up to 28 days without charge. Now I don't know about anyone else but in an environment where targets are imposed on our police force by the government in a bid to prove to us, the public that things are actually being done, this has the potential to shift the balance of freedom even further away from us and that makes me livid.

Guaranteed Wrongful Dismissal in Harringay

I was really pleased to hear that the outcome of the inquiry into the death of baby P resulted in a shake up in Harringay. Thankfully two of the three removed went on their own accord and have done the right thing. One, an odious being was sacked and presumably because she refused right to the end to accept that she had blood on her money grabbing hands.

The thing that makes me sad in this is the cruel death of an innocent child at the hands of week, evil people which happened as a result of systemic and opporational failure in the council that was supposed to protect the vulnerable. The thing that makes me mad with anger and disgust is the refusal by one woman to accept any responsibility for what happened on her watch. I will be phisically sick if this worm decides to take legal action against the council for wrongful dismissal which unfortunately I think I can already accurately predict. If she cannot see and understand what has happened, which I think has been demonstrated by her refusal to resign then I think that she will have the audacity and no qualms in suing for millions in compensation.

I hope when she does, the courts refuse her claim and that she crawls away to the dark and shaded part of suburbia I presume she comes from.

The Great Pretender - Don't Be Fooled!

I'm usually quite a passive kind of a guy but there are certain things that make me mad and I'm talking about jump up and down, thump your fists in the air kind of mad. One such thing is when people take over...lets say...a project while the project is beginning to do well. They run the project and take all the credit for its success...claiming that that project could never have been as good as it is without themselves. In effect they steel credit for something they haven't done.

Then, if the project begins to fail they start to blame just about everyone else under the sun for the demise except themselves. Not only that but when they actually do some work and put badly planned and considered knee-jerk provisions in place to save the project (or in fact their ego) they then claim credit for saving the project which in actual fact wouldn't have been failing had they done their job properly in the first place. When these badly thought out provisions fail, they again revert and continue to blame everyone under the sun except themselves.

Now as an employer, I would not be happy employing such a person and in fact I do and have actively avoided these people like the plague because they are usually wholly dishonest and can add nothing of value to an organisation. I wonder how Gordon Brown would feel should anything like the above mentioned example happen whilst he was in power. I am sure that as the prudent and shrewd operator we know him to be, he would not stand for it either and make all haste to remove such a person from any positions of trust and responsibility for the good of the country and its people.

Broken Silence: Broken Economy

I have been away for a bit which has meant that I have neglected this site to an extent. However I don't think that I have been as negligent as some (in power and in finance) have recently been so I'm going to let myself off and er... what the hell, I'll give myself a sizable pay rise, bonus, fantastic perks and a holiday too!!!

Anyway, I have been going out of my mind with anger and rage recently about all this business to do with the economy and the stock markets. I have to say that I think that a great deal of the problem and the rising lack in confidence in the UK and world wide economy is a result of the constant 24hr jabbering of the media who appear to be in something of a feeding frenzy at the moment. However, irrespective of the media slathering at the prospect of planetary economic meltdown, governments actually seem to be panicking at the thought of recession and are running around like headless chickens trying to be seen to be "prudent" in solving the problem.

All governments including that of the UK who previously and apparently had no money are all bending over backwards to pump money into the banks to remedy the problem. This, I think is a fundamental mistake and should be avoided at all costs. Why? The money will disappear and it will not solve the problem. Regardless of any money old Gordon throws at this, we are going into recession and any attempt to stop the inevitable natural cycle of the economy can only be likened to attempts by King Canute to hold back the tides.

The fact is that the present government has for years, unnaturally prolonged the boom part of the cycle and in so doing have claimed economic mastery and genius. Gordon and Tony revelled in good figures like swine in swill for years and our current incumbent actually believes that he was and is a top economist. In his desperation to keep this reputation in tact he is in danger of pushing the UK into the worst and longest recession in history and instead of dealing with the problem logically and rationally he is addressing the problems from a popularity point of view.

Rather than looking at what caused the problem (and in truth a lot of the problems in our society) he appears to be set on reinforcing and restoring policies and practices that caused the problem in the first place. The problem is greed accompanied with a means. It's wrong to blame bankers for the problem because whilst they have undoubtedly been acting like wolves the whole time, it takes two to Tango and in fact it actually takes three. People without any financial security or appreciation have been exposed to cheap and readily accessible credit and have been allowed to borrow without full understanding of the risks and consequences. This has been encouraged by the banks absolutely and it seems encouraged too by the government who have allowed its people to live beyond their natural means and whose regulatory institution, the FSA has done nothing to fulfil their statutory mission. The fact is that all of the players involved have been blinded by greed and all are equally to blame.

This being so, if the banks are given cash to stimulate more borrowing then nobody will learn any lessons and the problem will crystallise in the future. The solution also goes against the laws of natural selection, capitalism and democracy. If banks have misbehaved then they should go to the wall. If people have irresponsibly over borrowed then they should also face the consequences and learn lessons. Government both central and the FSA should also be made to pay. Gordon and cronies will undoubtedly and finally face the firing squad over the next year and a half depending on how long they manage to stretch things out. The FSA in reality has failed, perhaps even worse than the Child Support Agency and should be scrapped, reinstating the statutory regulatory bodies that existed prior to its inception. We need to realise the extent of the mess that New Labour has left this country in and find a way to unpick the tangle that has been created. Not sure if Dave is the man to do it because he seems to be backing the government in some weird attempt to look as prudent as the PM perhaps (who got us into this mess in the first place).

All things said and done, we have to accept that the recession is coming. Like a snake sheds its skin to grow so too must the economy. What is vital is that we accept the loss of things dead in life. in order to go forward. If we don't then we will become constricted or worse become stagnant and infected. Nature must be allowed to take its course.

The Week's Shiny Bits

Funny things happen in politics every day. Some things make you feel frustrated, some things laeve you confused, some things make you mad and sometimes, only sometimes things really make you smile. This week has presented the whole spectrum of feelings for me.

Frustrated...with the refusal and silence of Thabo Mbeki over the elections and violence in Zimbabwe. Frustrated also by a pittyful show of gesturing and posturing by world leaders. Everyone seems to be very keen to condemn Mugabe but as usual, nobody seems to be in any rush to actually do anything...Quelle surprise!!!

Confused...by the Nelson Mandella concert in London last night. I think the idea was actually brilliant but I was enraged by the decision by the TV channel that aired it to intersperse the music with inane interviews by inane presenters with inane artistes (some of whom could hardly string a sentence together and I would be very surprised if they were even aware of things like the Sowheto uprisings). I was enraged by the fact that every time someone farts on TV on Saturday night, they bring out the same prepubescent looking slip of a lass (Fearn Cotton) to jump all over the place, ask crap questions and oversell the occurrence almost to the point of orgasm. Surely this style of presentation would be better suited to children’s TV, QVC or ITV’s This Morning. Coincidentally I believe that’s where the other presenter of the evening cut his teeth.

I was also perplexed as to why poor Nelson was sat in what appeared to be a darkened tent on his own except for the company of Gordon Brown!!!???.... possibly one of the most boring men on the planet. What I mean to say is that Nelson, 90 years old and celebrating his birthday at a massive rock concert in possibly one of the most exciting places in the world was sat with possibly one of the most boring people in the world, a failing politician who probably only wanted to be there for his own image or to pester him for some kind of overt sign of public support, affection or endorsement. It would be like popping into Macky Dee’s or Thornton’s with your personal trainer or watching sex on TV with your parents; it just isn’t fun.

Disheartened...by stories from Italy that they re proposing to fingerprint every gypsy in the country so that they can keep control over them in some way. I find it a wholly shameful thing that what the Italians are planning to do is absolutely reminiscent of what the Nazis did to the Gypsies and the Jews before they made them wear badges, put them in ghettos and then liquidated them (ghettos then inhabitants). Where’s the condemnation from the leaders of Europe and the rest of the world on this one? Bloody nowhere!!!

Happy...about the resignation by the crook Wendy Alexander. It is bout time she went for the good of the country. Lets hope that her boss takes a positive lesson from her example and does likewise...sooner rather than later.

Strange Things Afoot With the Conservatives Methinks!!!

What on earth is going on with David Davis? I understand that he and the rest of his party might be a little upset with the outcome of the vote in parliament the other day, but why would anyone from the Conservative party resign over it. It would be understandably thatsomeone from the Labour party might consider stepping down if in disagreement but the Conservatives are in opposition. This logically means that they will oppose the governments stance and will be defeated on certain issues. If they resign, and risk by-election everytime they are defeated in the commons there is no chance they are ever going to gain any ground. Apart from everything else it almost seems a bit like Davis is throwing his dollies from the pram.

When I heard the news, I started thinking that this was a gesture by a politician who actually has morals and ethics; that he actually feels so strongly about this that he is prepared to give it all up for his beliefs. The longer I thought about it though, the more the nagging doubts and cynicism started to tug at me. David Davis is a man who has on two or three occasions so close to running the party that I can't help thinking that nothing he does is without careful planning and strategic political advantage. It didn't take me long to forget all possible altruistic possibilities (and there is only one) in favour for the possibility that this move can only be politically motivated. The problem I have is that for the life of me, I cannot figure out what the motive is!!!

The first idea was that he was simply doing it to prove that the conservatives were a party of conviction and that the positive vote was so bad that resignation was the only reasonable option. Then I realised that this was not right. The only reasonable option would be to stay put and campaign agaionst the government and defeat them at the next general election.

The second thought I had was that the conservatives wanted to force a by-election based on the vote in parliament which would give the people a chance to tell the government what they really thought about their terrorist and extended detention without charge policies. However any result would be negated by the fact that David Davis would presumably be campaigning for re-election in a safe conservative seat so there is no way that anyone could saliently argue that a win would be a knock at the government. They could be trying to keep up some kind of momentum in terms of beating Labour by-elections and thus try to force a general election but I don't think that Gordon is going anywhere near the polls until the last possible second and will not be pushed.

I wondered if Davis was looking for an opportunity to resign from the shaddow cabinet without making the party look divided and this provided him with the perfect opportunity. It is possible perhaps that Cameron wanted him out and rather than sack him, gave him an opportunity to go with dignity and without tearing the party to shreads.

Whatever the reason, I'm not sure I will ever find out. I cannot even wirk out who benefits and who suffers in this. One thing that seems to be emerging is that it hasn't done the conservatives any good. On the other hand, I'm not sure if it has done them any bad either. All that has happened is that I'm totally confused (doesn't take much to do that though!!!)

Tony Blair, Saint? Or Just Planning Future Memoirs

So I was reading the paper the other day and I came across an article that said Tony Blair now wants to dedicate his time to uniting the major religions of the world. “How funny is that?” I thought to myself and then I started to get angry. Now I probably shouldn’t because the idea of all the major religions of the world burying the hatchet and living in peace and harmony is fantastic. It is about one of the best things that could happen. Not however if Blair has anything to do with it and I’ll tell you why.

There are gigantic credibility issue here with old Tony. Firstly, this is the man who has alienated the Muslim world. He has started and supported two wars in Muslim countries which have had dire consequences upon world peace and stability. He lied about the reasons why Iraq was invaded and conquered and failed all objectives of the exercise other than removing Saddam Hussein from power and this life. He has blood on his hands and lots of it.

He has also spent 10 years running the UK into the ground. He delivered on none of his promises to the people he has been leading and if you ignore the propaganda, the standard of life has deteriorated consistently and measurably during his regime. He is hot air and no substance.

I think he is probably tired of being Condoleezza’s PA in the Middle East, where as far as I can see, he has achieved nothing either. This is not a man who can deliver. This is a man who likes to pose for cameras and tell people what they should be doing because he says its right. He is obsessed with his legacy and realising that he has done nothing for the world other than give it war and misery, he appears to have finally tipped over the edge of sanity and into total fantasy (which I would like to add, he always appeared dangerously close to).

If this was anyone else saying that they wanted to unite the religions of the world, I would probably be a little bit inspired. With Tony, I fear that all it is however is an excuse to jet around the world at our expense meeting celebrities and world leaders to provide him with enough material for another biography. Like Jordan and the Beckhams, I think we are going to be subjected biographies every couple of years from Blair as he continues to try and reinvent and repackage himself in order that we should love and worship him. Can we not just save a bit of money and let him have a big statue somewhere for a couple of years so we can finally see the back of him and can someone noteworthy and at least halfway credible (nobody pictured above need apply) please get involved in his plans before he inadvertently brings forth the Armageddon.

All I Hear is Radio Ken Ken

Rocky, Rambo, Indiana Jones, they all have something in common. They are all heroes who have made comebacks. They were all popular characters who made millions of dollars around the world. So what does this all have to do with Ken Livingstone? Well in reality nothing. Unlike the afore mentioned characters of the big screen, Ken was defeated by his villain. He was not that popular (he lost after all) and he has wasted millions of pounds across London for years. He is not even making a comeback really, he is just refusing to go.

LBC have given him a job presenting the afternoon phone in show whilst Jeni Barnett is away on holiday. I have to say that I am not surprised. LBC loved Ken and is gagging for Boris to fail. I suppose the LBC is the only propaganda machine left for the old mayor now that Boris is canning his London Paper. I wonder if Ken will be speaking to his listeners in the same way as he did to the London Assembly. I wouldn't think so for a minute but one thing I must insist on is that he at least gets the chance to interview Boris from time to time. I think that would lead to hilarity beyond the norm.

Shame on you LBC but with judgement reserved in lieu of a good old head to head please.

MPs Have Lost Their Morals & Ethics on Abortion & IVF

I think it is now official. Our MPs on both sides of the house are stark raving mad and wholly removed from the society the represent. This has been confirmed by the results of voting on the various life topics covered by the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which has gone through Parliament this week.

I was surprised when they allowed human/animal stem cell research. This was always a contentious subject with arguments fully entrenched in religion. I’m not sure that the religious argument was ever the strongest but it was always well supported.

I was shocked that the term for abortion remained the same despite very strong public support to the contrary. The cause for shortening the term has been strengthened over the years by numerous examples of babies at 20-24 weeks being born and surviving. There appears to be strong evidence that the foetus begins to feel at this stage of the pregnancy and has developed enough for viability. We are totally out of touch with the rest of Europe on this. We are in fact the abortion capital of Europe with somewhere in the region of 200k abortions a month. People in fact travel to the UK because they cannot get an abortion in their home countries. It strikes me as being wrong that we are pouring resources into abortion instead of general health care or the promotion and education of responsibility. If abortion was a bit harder to procure then perhaps kids would be a little smarter about how they spent their evenings and weekends. The government it seems must have a reason for ignoring public opinion on this one but what that reason is precisely is a mystery to me at the moment.

What has floored me though is the decision of MPs to remove the need of a male role model from IVF treatment. Words cannot begin to explain my anger on this decision. As far as I am concerned now, the government have officially lost the plot. On the one hand they are beginning to accept that it is the breakdown of the family in modern society that is to blame for the epidemic of anti-social behaviour that grips us today. Experts galore have been saying for years now that a fully functioning family, which means a mother and a father is vital to promote natural values and healthy development of children. What is the point of paying these experts to advise our government if the government is going to ignore them wholly and allow presumably single women of lesbian couples to pursue IVF without any form of male influence other that the sperm needed for the creation of life. As a man I think this is abhorrent. As a society this is precisely the type of thing we should be looking to put an end to yet here are our politicians saying that more children should be brought into this world without natural and correct biological influences in their lives; a matriarch and a patriarch. I suspect that in tune with pretty much all of this governments decisions, this comes down to money in some way shape or form and the fact that there are probably supporters somewhere who have been able to use their influence. Either that of someone told Gordon that it would be good for the economy and/or his image if he put his weight behind this vote.

I hope that the Conservatives who opposed this incredible concession will revisit this subject as soon as possible when they come into power after the next election.

Football: Curse of the Civilised World

I was sickened and appalled to see what happened in Manchester this week when Rangers fans ran riot. I cannot believe that in this day and age we still allow this kind of thing to go on. Police estimate that the trouble was caused by around 200 "fans" who had been drinking all day and went bananas when a giant screen decided not to work. This meant that these people who did not have tickets for the game could not watch the game and so they decided to destroy the place and take their frustrations out on the police and engineers.

There are several things that make me really angry about this. Firstly is that people in what is supposed to be a civilised country feel the need to revert to barbarism over the particular sport of football. What is it about football that turns human beings into scumbags willing to do violence against their fellow human beings. Are they scumbags already and football just gives them an opportunity or is football the cause? You don't see this kind of violence at cricket, rugby or tennis matches. You don't see this kind of violence in US sports. Football on the other hand goes hand in hand with violence the world over. The violence I think is part of a sport that has become blackened for decades now. The problem is the example set by those who play it and those who run it.

Football is not a sport anymore and has not been for a while now. It is a business. It is all about the money, lots of it and it is reportedly rife with corruption as a result. There is no discipline. There are no other sports where officials, referees, umpires are questioned or confronted in the way they are in football. Players cheat to win. They look for opportunities to dive in situations that are advantageous and are heralded for doing so. They spit and swear on pitch at each other, the referee and sometimes the fans. Many of them lead lives off the pitch which are no better than they are on the pitch but they are idolised by millions. Most do little to contribute to society in any way despite their constantly reported wealth and status. This being so, I think it is no wonder that football attracts the very bottom end of society amongst its supporters.

The next thing that winds me up is that I am going to presume that the city of Manchester will be picking up the bill for all the damage and mess that was left after the match was over. I saw the news reports after the match and in the morning and the mess was disgusting. If it was the city of Manchester who picked up the bill, as a local tax payer in Manchester I would be questioning why I am paying for swine to ruin my city at my expense. I would suggest that the city demands compensation from the Rangers FC for the tidy-up and that Rangers should also be banned from all European competitions for at least a couple of years.

Further to this and having seen the mess that was made in Germany at the last World Cup, I also think we need to deter any move by our government to even entertain the idea of staging any international competitions in the UK. I don't see why civilised people should have to pay for animals to enjoy themselves by destroying civilisation. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. I would not invite or pay for the privilege of having someone enter my house and misuse or destroy it so I don't see how we can allow it to happen in our streets and civic areas. There is a very small number of people who would benefit greatly if football were to come home, but the misery it could potentially bring to the wider communities it will effect would make any such proposals unethical.

Until these members of society can learn to behave themselves, anything that entertains them must be restricted. These are people who have not grown up properly. That being so, if they want to behave like children and persist in doing so then we need to treat them like children. We need to teach them that it is not acceptable to behave like this and if you do then there will be consequences. To ignore this is to live in fear.

Knife Crime, Boris, Ferrari and Institutional Victims.

It is impossible to escape knife crime at the moment. It seems like young men are dropping like flies and there is no suggestion or indication yet that these crimes will cease to continue. New mayor Boris has taken steps with the police and with the backing of home secretary Jacqui Smith to introduce measures for tackling the problem. Funding has been approved for more metal detectors and teenagers will be stopped and searched on the streets, at train stations and bus stops. I think that all McDonalds restaurants should also be added to the list of targets.

The scheme seems to have widespread support from the communities in which it has been introduced. The communities are largely black communities because the victims are mainly black. There seems to be a positive resolution towards trying to solve the problem at least and that is a great thing. I was listening to LBC yesterday and this was a big part of the show for most of the day. Listening to this show was what made me angry.

The show which I think was presented by Nick Ferrari was awful. Firstly, the presenter in question is obviously itching for an opportunity (probably like the rest of the media) to give Boris a hard time about something, anything. Boris would have to be divine to escape his eventual and inevitable roasting at the hands of people like Ferrari. The presenter was baiting people to call in about the stop and search tactics the police will be using to try to combat the knife problem. He was looking for people who had had racist experiences with the police who he was also quick to remind us are institutionally racist (see Macpherson Report).

I became angry for a couple of reasons. Firstly, was the presenters negativity towards what seems to be a good idea in principle which also seemed to be supported by a number of people who I think are probably a tad (Airplane definition) more intelligent than himself. Secondly was the presenters insistence that pretty much every caller had not had a racist experience but simply a bad experience with the law. Now I know that Ian Blair had accused the media of being institutionally racist and I think that this was a shining example of what he probably meant. Here was a presenter asking inviting what would have been mostly black people with bad experiences to call him and then rubbishing their experiences and refusing to accept that they were anything to do with race. Nice one Ferrari, what a gaff! Hope Boris pulls you up on it.

The thing is though, it did start to make me think a little about the whole thing. After all, Ferrari, wrong as he was to do what he was doing in the way he was doing it, was I think to a certain extent right about things. The incidents did not sound racist. In fact they sounded like incidents that I know have happened to anyone regardless of race or colour. None of the callers could say anything that made me or the presenter think that there was any racism present although that doesn't necessarily mean that there wasn't. I did however start to think that whilst the police force is institutionally racist, there is also a possibility that some members of the black community are institutionally victimised.

Black people have been oppressed in one way or another for centuries, by the imperial Europeans to colonial Americans. They have been enslaved, impoverished, manipulated, segregated, ghettoised, marginalised and exploited as the world has developed. It could probably be argued that without the exploitation of the black man the world would not have developed at quite the rate it has. It seems nearly logical that having a history like this would influence the outlook of a certain number. If black people have been victims for centuries it follows that some will believe that they are still victims today especially if they are generally dissatisfied with life.

Racism for some people seems to become the reason for their frustration and failure to cope in situations which lead to mistreatment or disrespect or any unfavourable outcome. When bad things happen to some people and not just black people but Jews, Muslims etc, the issue of race is produced first as a shield and then as a sword to try to turn a disadvantage into an advantage and I think that there is something intrinsically wrong with that attitude because it induces alienation. People become frightened to say anything in case it can somehow be construed to be offensive and prefer instead to distance themselves and I think that this is part of the problem in the US and part of the developing problem in the UK.

The problem with knives is not new and I have seen programs on the TV for a good few years now about how school children and teenagers are scared because they know their classmates are carrying weapons for aggression or protection. We have also been watching the reemergence of gang culture on our streets for years. The problem is that the current government has refused to tackle the issues and reasons for the breakdown in society and have refused to do so because they are frightened of being shouted at by the small number of people who see themselves as victims. With regards to knife crime, I think part of the reason for the reluctance to act is that it would mean more police on the streets and therefore more money spent which I don't think they would be able to find. However the big reason is that they would have to reintroduce stop and search properly in the communities that are affected most heavily by this type of crime. This is a terrifying prospect for any government because it can only lead to accusations of racism, high profile mistakes in execution of the policies and maybe like the 80s clashes and riots in the streets. In short, this is a potential hornets nest but it is a nest that needs stirring if any progress is to be made. Headlines could be bad for any government making waves in this area, but the government needs to forget the headlines for five minutes and the opinion polls and actually get their hands dirty for a change. If they can do it they might actually leave a legacy other than war and maybe worth talking about.

Similarly, as a society we need to be able to stand up and talk freely and constructively about these problems and without fear of racist accusations otherwise nothing will change and the black man and those around him will be victims forever...and that's a bad thing.