dom.blog

Ken Livingstone suspended for four weeks.

Oi! Give us back our mayor!

I’m really quite angry about this. He was rude and offensive to a journalist. An annoying prick of a journalist who was making an arsehole of himself. And clearly someone who can give it out but cannot take it, which is a hypocrisy I cannot bear. Why should he apologise for hurting his feelings? Go cry at home Oliver Finegold. Being Jewish doesn’t exempt you from insult, and it’s actually quite offensive to others that you believe you can use your religion\race to duck behind your own shortcomings as a human being. Fuck you.

(Incidentally – I’m aware it wasn’t the Evening Standard that brought the action. But they turned it into a story when there wasn’t one in the first place. So the point remains.)

Just to remind you why some unelected body has seen fit to remove our democratically elected mayor for a month:

Ken Livingstone was recorded asking reporter Oliver Finegold if he is a “German war criminal”.

The mayor then says: “Ah right, well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren’t you?”

Anyone who thinks that’s racist, or an insult directed at anyone other than Mr. Finegold and the Daily Mail group have a very limited intelligence. Come Back Ken!

I’m obviously delighted and very relieved that Sue Axon today lost her case to force doctors to break confidentiality if a teenager wants to have an abortion or even just seek contraception advice.

Of course it’s much preferable if the parents can be informed in the case of an abortion. The current guidelines make it very clear that doctors should try and persuade them to do so or at least confide in another close family member, because it is in their best interest to do so. But to force doctors to do so – and take it out of their professional decision – would have been a disaster. People like Ms Axon who seem to believe that parents have a divine right over their children don’t live in the real world.

Not only would it be wrong – but it would also discourage girls from going to their doctor in the first place, because they wouldn’t be able to trust them. The result is children placed at greater risk, particularly of backstreet abortionists, who are thankfully not as common as they were before the initial legalisation of abortion.

In the case of simple contraception advise… there shouldn’t even be the expectation that the parents would be told!

(The title of this, btw, is a Doctor Who reference. Sorry.)

So there will be a free vote on the issue of a smoking ban. And Patricia Hewitt will vote against official Government policy, says the BBC. And if the fox hunting vote is any guide, the Commons will take the complete ban over the compromise ban which left out pubs which don’t serve food and private clubs. It needs to be so, and here’s why.

Firstly, one must be convinced of the need for some sort of smoking ban at all. Now, I believe that criminalising self-harm is a mistake. It doesn’t work (see what happened to drugs?) and you’re treading on extremely dodgy ground civil liberties wise. But this has never been about self-harm – it’s about the very real threat of passive smoking.

You might think that exempting some places from the ban would therefore be a good compromise – because people could choose whether to put themselves at risk or not. The trouble is that the staff still have to work there, and for much longer periods of time than you will. Not to mention the fallacy that there will necessarily be another pub conveniently located nearby.

If the Government’s version was passed, these are the dangers:

• You encourage pubs to stop serving food, which is exactly the opposite of what we should be encouraging given the binge-drinking problem.
• You complicate and confuse the legislation and the message.
• You promote cynicism about your eventual goals anyway. It’s no secret that the Government was planning a ‘review’ in a few years time, or that a future Government would inevitably head this way.
• Our legislation look like a fudge compared to Scotland, Wales, Ireland and others.
• You simply leave open too many loopholes leaving bar and waiting staff vulnerable.

A partial ban would still have been better than nothing, but now that we’ve got the chance to do the real thing, let’s go for it.

My Maths teacher wondered that today. David Cameron is working fast to ditch decades of Tory opposition to redistribution, universial NHS healthcare and – well bascially everything Labour has always been right about. If 1994 was “How I learned to stop worrying and love social democracy” for the Labour party the Tories seem to be undergoing a similar experience now. They might be ditching conservatism instead of socialism, but it’s the same difference. Hooray!

Oh, and to hear the howls of anguish from the right. They didn’t think Cameron really meant change, they thought he meant a new logo and a smiling face on top of scummy old policies like the Patient’s Passport. (Also known as the ‘we still hate the NHS’ policy.) All the more extraordinary that he isn’t doing just that given that he wrote the damn manifesto only last year.

You have to feel sympathetic for Charles Kennedy in all this. He’s a capable politican but honestly, the Liberal Democrats are not where the action is. Surely the internal pressure to move right to occupy the Conservative space will grow now that Cameron is marching leftwards? I don’t know – but it isn’t looking good for them.

I have to mention George Galloway joining the Big Brother house. Ever since he phoned up Nic and shouted at him for something I wrote on DomSez I haven’t been too well disposed to Georgie so I’m a little sorry it isn’t I’m a Celebrity but oh well, this is good enough.

I checked out RESPECT’s website to see if they would mention it, but no, it’s a whine about London’s public transport. (How original.) This article annoys me especially because it’s utterly misleading – prices may be rising for paper tickets but are actually falling for Oyster, which is, uh, the whole point of the scheme! As for making ‘the City and Canary Wharf’ pay – how exactly would one accomplish this? Oh, it’s not even worth it. Enjoy your stay in the Big Brother house George. I hope you pay your own bus fare to get there.

On Monday, the first gay weddings (OK, ‘civil partnerships’ – but that’s not going to last long) were performed in Belfast. Already, it actually seems a bit silly to mention it. Was it really just 20 years ago that Thatcher declared “children … need to be taught to respect traditional moral values” versus being gay? (And she was relatively liberal compared to some in her party, believe it or not!) Well yes it was, but in the meantime there’s a new generation who don’t have time for moral values of any description (we’ve got coursework to do people!) and would rather get all this civil rights stuff over and done with before supper time.

About 40 people staged a protest, which is a rather pathetically sad thing to do. Just because you weren’t invited doesn’t mean you have to be a prick. Thankfully two comedians infiltrated the gang holding “BRING BACK SLAVERY” and “EARTH IS FLAT” placards. Good job! (And was I the only one to wonder what on earth an anti-sodomy sign is doing at a lesbian wedding in the first place?)

So yes anyway, now that God is staggering around drunk after a gay wedding reception, it’s the perfect opportunity to push him out of the science classroom. And in America too! I’m so proud

Of course, ‘intelligent design’ will be back. The challenge now is to recognise the new name creationism will take (I recommend ‘Supper Happy Funtime Theory’ or ‘Amazing Magical Smiley Hour’) and then fight it again. Perhaps get a Supreme Court decision or two just to make things clear.

In the meantime – the zealots might want to start looking out for the Rapture. Oh look, there it is! Oh no, sorry, that’s just your President in a bit of trouble with fulfilling the law (Romans, 13:10)