BETTER TO LIGHT A CANDLE THAN CURSE THE DARKNESS Chinese Proverb

"Call me Dave" has been at it again, just when you think his very special brand of knee jerk politics has got him and the country into enough trouble he goes and proves us wrong, and this time it is the Chinese who are laughing deeply at all our expenses.

Having failed to engage brain before opening mouth so often recently Dave has now made us the friend of oppression after calling for a close down of the Social Media network in times of unrest. He told Parliament that we need to:

“stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”.


"Hear Hear" shout the Chinese government pleased with their latest convert to censorship. Despite century's of Britain's being on the side of freedom of speech and expression we are now standing shoulder to shoulder with the dictators and despots who want to silence the people.


And if you want a measure of the man then lets look at what he said just a few months back during the Arab Spring and the Internet led uprisings in the Middle East


"[The movement] belongs to a new generation for whom technology - the Internet and social media - is a powerful tool in the hands of citizens, not a means of repression."

This respect for human rights and freedom of Internet traffic also until a few days ago seemed to  include China for Dave as well in 2010 when speaking in Peking University when he said

“There is no secret that we disagree on some issues, “especially around human rights. We don’t raise these issues to make to us look good or to flaunt publicly that we have done so. We raise them because the British people expect us to, and because we have sincere and deeply held concerns.”

Not so deep now they seem as Chinese government officials fall over themselves to praise their new convert to electronic censorship as the Chinese media declared that:

'Britain's new attitude will help appease the quarrels between East and West over the future management of the Internet. As for China, advocates of an unlimited development of the Internet should think twice about their original ideas.'"

Such praise from such a source should not be taken lightly. nor should it be welcomed

Well Done Dave, uturn if you want to, but the interweb is not for turning.

If I fail to blog in future days expect to find me under political arrest for crimes against the state!

"TIME TO TAKE STOCK"

Just who writes the Prime Minister speeches? Whoever it is they are either having a laugh at his expense or they need a dose of Conservative moral discipline. He began this mornings speech, speaking in his Oxford constituency with the following nugget of wisdom

"It's time for our country to take stock"

all this against a dodgy background of graffiti painted hoodies peering at him from behind.

Well I think someone forgot to tell "Call me Dave" that that's just what parts of Britain did last week during the riots, they took all of Curry's stock and that in PC World, as well as that from many small convenience stores! Hardly a wise choice of the lexicon Dave

He also re announced his war on gangs and talked of even tougher measures being taken against those involved as well as those not involved but who fits his picture of Britain's Moral Decline.

He wants American super cops telling us where we are going wrong, despite every police chief in Britain saying he is wrong, he wants benefits withdrawn from the families involved, and he has even suggested evicting families from their council homes if a member of the family is involved (so if you are going to loot, you better get on the property ladder)

Now whilst all this may go down well with Daily Mail readers and the far right, do any of us really think it is the answer to the problem? Will the evicted families who lose benefit be more inclined to crime to survive or less? Is it remotely affordable?, and even more important is it the answer?

Someone somewhere has to put a stop to this "tough talking" before things really get out of hand and before the government creates it's own riots off the back of using lasts weeks unrest for their own warped political purposes.

Ursula Nevin wasn't involved in the riots, she did as was suggested and stayed at home in Stretford, Manchester during the unrest looking after her two children aged 1 and 5, unfortunately for her her flat mate Gemma Craven was involved and bought looted clothes back to the flat. Ursula took a pair of £3.50 shorts from her flat mate and was arrested and charged with receiving stolen goods. Despite her previous good character and lack of police record the Judge decided tough justice meant she should be locked up for 5 months! 5 months imprisonment for receiving a £3.50 pair of shorts! Of course she was in the wrong and of course she should be punished, but how are we helping her or her two children by slamming her in Prison for 5 months, and how much will it cost the state to look after her children in the interim.

If "Call me Dave" is serious about his all out war on gangs and his tough love approach to Britain's moral malaise then he needs to get his cheque book out. He needs to scrap cuts to the Police who will be needed in greater number to fight his war. He needs to reverse the decision to reduce prison numbers so he can lock up more Ursula Nevin's and he needs to order local government to abandon it's cuts to social care and intervention services on the state as Councils ace the brunt of his tough stance.

We are all angry at those who carried and perpetrated these dreadful crimes on our streets, and we need to hold an inquiry to help us develop policies that work in dealing with the cause of that unrest, but knee jerk responses from the same man who wanted to hug the hoodies when it suited his political agenda will only fuel further unrest.

Meanwhile Dave, sack the speech writer.