<< Jun 2009 A first for the Red Arrows: Another first for women Wednesday, May 13th, 2009 - 10:14 pm
A century after Thérèse Peltier became the first woman to fly as a passenger in an aeroplane, it has just been announced that the Red Arrows would be getting their first woman display pilot.
Flt Lt Kirsty Moore is set to join for the 2010 season.
All the very best Kirsty and well done the Red Arrows, they really have shown some "Éclat". Will John Demjanjuk finally face justice? Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 - 2:43 am
John Demjanjuk is a "suspected" and "convicted" war criminal who has been deported to Munich to begin his trial.
He was deported to Israel in the 1980s and later sentenced to death for war crimes, based on his identification by Israeli Holocaust survivors as "Ivan the Terrible", a notorious SS guard at Treblinka, who committed murder and savage acts of violence against camp prisoners.
His conviction for crimes against humanity was later overturned in 1993 because of reasonable doubt.
He was put on trial again in 2001 on charges that he had served as a guard at the Sobibor, Majdanek, and Flossenbürg on charges of accessory to 29,000 counts of murder.
He is an old man and frail, nevertheless he must face trial, so that justice must be done, for all the victims of the Holocaust. Chris Woodhead: A modern Mr Gradgrind Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 - 12:55 am
Just read an article about Chris Woodhead, former head of Ofsted, and his forthcoming book.
Sorry to hear that he is suffering from motor neurone disease, one of my schoolfriends' mother had it and it was incredibly sad.
However, reading the interview with him in the Guardian, brought back horrible memories of what he and Labour have done to education in this country.
I remember Carry-On-Teacher stories about the time he frolicked with teenage girls in his underpants. How in the spring of 1976 he supposedly confessed to having an affair with one of his sixth formers in Portishead.
It's ten years back that he actually said that teacher-pupil relationships could be "experiential and educative".
On top of that, are his antediluvian and regressive opinions on education in general. He asks "Why do we think that we can make [children] brighter than God made [them]?", utter tosh! Surely that is the whole point of education, to get the best out of each child, to excite, to amaze, to inspire a sense of wonder and curiosity, to teach individuals how to think and how to question what they see and hear.
He also says that "the genes are likely to be better if your parents are teachers, academics, lawyers", this sort of eugenicist nonsense would be laughable if it were not out of the mouth of someone who has been so influential on Labour and Tory educational policy.
Poignantly he says that, "Life isn't fair. We're never going to make it fair." No, you're wrong Mr Woodhead, our duty is to make the world a much fairer place, rather than entrenchning and worsening that inequality by making money out of private education and endorsing the educational apartheid of grammar schools. Roxana Saberi Freed Monday, May 11th, 2009 - 11:27 pm
It was really good news to hear that the Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi who had been arrested in Iran back in February 2009 for working as a reporter without press credentials, has been released.
In April this year, the Iranian government charged her with espionage, and she was subsequently sentenced to eight years in prison. An appeals court reduced the charge from espionage to possessing classified information, and reduced her eight-year prison term to a two-year suspended sentence, and she was released earlier today. Obama still cool! Sunday, May 10th, 2009 - 12:19 am
Just seen the videos of President Obama's White House Correspondents' Dinner. What a hoot.
My favourite?
Dick Cheney was supposed to be here but he is very busy working on his memoirs, tentatively titled, "'How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People". Packer shows True Grit Saturday, May 9th, 2009 - 11:29 pm
I'm sure that like everyone else who watched the news today we were all amazed, astonished, and astounded by Major Phil Packer's achievement in finishing the London Marathon, thirteen days after everyone else had finished.
It took him 52,400 steps, that is 52,400 more than doctors predicted he would ever walk.
This was not only a magnificent personal achievement, but a shining example for the rest of us.
He showed that there are people who can still find the courage to face the challenges of another day.
After he broke the finishing tape, he said that "somebody walked with me every step, be it a dinner lady, taxi driver, or police officer."
All of which shows that rather than Britain being a "broken society" as the Tories would have us believe, there is hope. Hope for him, for us, for Britain.
Well done Major Packer, I salute you. Britain's income gap widest since the 1960s Friday, May 8th, 2009 - 1:53 am
Britain under Labour is a more unequal society than at any time since modern records began in the early 1960s.
The incomes of the poor fell and those of the rich rose in the three years after the 2005 general election.
Remember this is Labour we're talking about not the Tories, we expect inequalities to rise under the Tories (and they do), but Labour?
They seem to have abandoned their commitment to halve child poverty by 2010. It's outrageous that so many children continue to miss out on the basic necessities most take for granted. For those left to languish in the misery that poverty inflicts is a tragedy.
Their promise to make Britain a fairer place, where income doesn't affect a child's life chances, rings hollow.
In 2001, Gordon Brown referred to child poverty as a 'scar on Britain's soul'.
It's taking a hell of a long time to heal! The Thatcher era, three decades on Monday, May 4th, 2009 - 12:51 am
Hard to believe that it was 30 years ago today that the British electorate voted Margaret Thatcher in as the nation's first woman prime minister.
What a catastrophe she was, for the economy, for society, for Britain as a whole.
* Inflation doubled within a year and remained at an average of 8% throughout her “reign”.
* Indirect taxes (which disproportionately affect those on lower incomes) nearly doubled, VAT rose from 8% to 15%.
* Interest rates shot up, to more than 17%.
* Unemployment rocketed from 1.4m in 1979 to 3.5m by 1982, or one in eight people out of work, higher than anytime since the Great Depression of the 1930s.
* Long-term unemployment blighted an entire generation in Northern Ireland, Scotland, South Wales, the North East, and the North West, and of course huge swathes of Yorkshire.
* Industry declined in the North and the Midlands (remember coal, steel, ship-building); although there were new sectors like financial services in the South.
What prosperity Mrs Thatcher brought was selective and temporary. She left Britain in recession, with unemployment, inflation, and interest rates rising.
Mrs Thatcher said there was “no such thing as society”, and made the perverse observation that the only reason the Good Samaritan did any good was “because he had money”.
Above all, not only was she bad for Britain when she was PM, she continues to be bad for the country today. The causes of the present slump, unrestricted credit, deregulation, and too much financial speculation, all date back to the 1980s. No successive government dared reverse these decisions: a curse we all now share.
To paraphrase Auden's description of the 1930s, Mrs Thatcher's time in office was a, "low, dishonest decade." Euro Adoption Meeting in Sheffield Tonight Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 - 12:41 am
Must get some kip in, am off to Sheffield tonight (Saturday) for the last of the regional adoption meetings for the European Elections in June.
The theme of my speech will be that we need to sell the benefits of Europe even more than we have been already.
"'What has Europe done for us?"
1 The end of war between European nations
2 Democracy is now flourishing in 27 countries
3 Cheap travel and study programmes gives greater mobility for Europe's youth
4 The single market has brought cheap flights for all, and new prosperity for far-flung cities
5 Co-operation on crime, through Europol
6 No death penalty, it is incompatible with EU membership
7 Cleaner beaches and rivers throughout Europe
8 Greater protection for Europe's wildlife
9 The Regional development fund has aided the deprived parts of Britain
10 One currency from Bantry Bay to Bratislava, but not Britain Double First for Duffy: First Woman and First Scot Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 - 12:32 am
Great news about Carol Anne Duffy becoming first woman Poet Laureate, ever.
Apparently, she was in the running ten years back, but Tony Blair declined to make the appointment, worrying how her sexuality would “sell” in mythical Mail-reading Middle England. He should have had the courage to take on backward homophobic attitudes. Ho, hum.
I love her work, whether it’s ruminations on the very nature of art:
“Six hours like this for a few francs.
Belly nipple arse in the window light,
...
I shall be represented analytically and hung
in great museums. The bourgeoisie will coo
at such an image of a river-whore. They call it Art.”
Or the joy of becoming a parent:
“Light gatherer. You fell from a star
into my lap,
...
and now you shine like a snowgirl”
Or the inconsolable pain of a great love lost
“What do I have
to help me, without spell or prayer,
endure this hour, endless, heartless, anonymous,
the death of love?”
Congratulations, Carol Anne, and if you ever need any help with the sherry... Tragedy in Apeldoorn Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 - 12:11 am
Sorry to hear about what happened in the Netherlands, yesterday.
It seems that a driver had tried to ram the Dutch royal family but killed five onlookers instead.
My thoughts go to the dozen people who remain injured in hospital, and all the friends and family of those involved.
I’ll drop Nick Clegg a line tomorrow to offer him my sympathies, as his mum’s Dutch. Happy May Day (2) Friday, May 1st, 2009 - 11:40 am
Just as important, today I shall be celebrating May Day as International Workers' Day, to commemorate and celebrate the fight for the eight-hour day, and an end to the exploitation of workers around the world. Happy May Day (1) Friday, May 1st, 2009 - 11:30 am
I love May Day, I love the traditional rites and revels associated with the day, including Morris dancing, crowning a May Queen, and general merriment involving a Maypole.
It also really feels like that Spring/Summer has invariably arrived.
1 May 1707 was the day the Act of Union came into effect, joining England and Scotland to form the Kingdom of Great Britain.
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