Bel is thinking

A previously unheard-of Government Minister resigned today. David Cairns (for that is his name) is unhappy with Gordon Brown’s leadership, and feels that he can no longer serve under him.

I have just been reading his resignation letter, and, goodness me, what a frightening document.

Here are some excerpts:

“Dear Gordon,

As someone who has never uttered a public word of criticism of our Labour Government, far less ever cast a vote against it in the years that I have been an MP, the concept of loyalty to my Party and our Leader is at the very heart of my political beliefs.”.

Interesting. People go into politics for all sorts of reasons. Their intentions are oftentimes honest, although the underlying philosophy might be misguided. Some wish to alleviate poverty, improve educational standards, advocate greater personal responsibility, reduce the tax burden, and so on.

But David Cairns? Just read the above excerpt: at the heart of what he (without irony) refers to as his political beliefs is the self-serving, unthinking “virtue” of loyalty to party and leader. (I note without further comment his telling capitalisation of the word “leader”.) Loyalty no matter what. To this politician, it matters not what the party or leader may decide, he has no independent principles, no settled beliefs of his own against which to weigh those decisions. If it comes from the party or from the leader, then it’s good enough for Mr Cairns.

He states, as a matter of pride, that he has never cast a vote against the Labour Party in all his years as an MP. What David Cairns is telling us is this: that when it came to Parliamentary votes on serious decisions, decisions on which rested weighty issues such as life and liberty, he voted, not for the good of his constituents, but for the good of the Labour Government.

So the interests of the Labour Party were of primary consideration to him during the Parliamentary votes on detention without charge of suspected terrorists, the EC Treaty, and the declaration of war on Iraq? At no point did his conscience ever kick in to lead him to depart from the Government position. (Perhaps I err in my assumption that he has a conscience independent of the Labour Party.) Of course, I am not so naive as to think that politicians of all parties do not act in so partisan a manner. What shocks me is that, with his chest-beating declaration, he obviously sees such behaviour as a virtue, vainly puffed up in his arrogant mind.

Some more from the letter:

“For me it is an article of faith that the worst day of a Labour Government is better than the best day of a Tory or SNP one.”.

Isn’t that lovely? In other words, whatever an opposition party does or says is, prima facie, bad. To him, the Labour Party alone has all the answers. Truly saddening. What crime did we commit as a nation to deserve such representatives?

At least he has now resigned. Thank heavens for this brief moment of lucidity, but don’t expect it to last. His delusion has truly taken hold, as this letter plainly shows.

So Gordon Brown is now lecturing us to stop wasting food?

This from a man who, as Chancellor, threw away almost £2bn of taxpayer money every year on overpaid tax credits (see here and here). A man whose Government continues every day to create new ways to waste our money. (For a recent example, see the £2.7bn Crewe and Nantwich byelection bribe - a last-minute, unbudgeted expense, done for little more than political expediency.)

After all that he has done to our public finances, I am astounded that this man can stand there, and without shame, presume to lecture the British people about thrift.

This is even more galling in view of last week’s vote by MPs to continue, among other things, having their meals paid for by the taxpayer. We pay for their food and wine, and then they turn around to us, and, in between mouthfuls of the choicest fare, give us tips on how to make our food last longer. “Package it properly, put it in the fridge, plan your meals properly. Do all this and you will save £8 a week.” All this they tell us, while feeding themselves fat on the good of the land.

This is beyond ridiculous. What makes it worse is that these people seem not to realise the level of contempt in which they are held. Or maybe even more worrying, they do realise, but are past caring. They have been afflicted with that condition often seen among people who have held power for too long. They have become blind to all but themselves. Oblivious to every warning, they plough on in the single-minded pursuit of self-interest. In this regard, I am reminded of a verse in the Bible. It was used in a different context, but would be apt here:

“That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand.”

Blindness in part has come upon our “leaders”. How much longer until they fall into their self-appointed ditch?

According to the Daily Telegraph, Gordon Brown has appointed his eighth spin doctor of the year.

I wonder if Gordon Brown remembers the following words; he uttered them during PMQs on 11 July 2007, in reference to David Cameron:

“He can go for his PR—I will go for being PM, and we will get on with the job.”

Just to refresh his his memory, the Hansard transcript is here.

On the news that the Government faces a revolt on the 10p tax issue, a ‘Treasury source’ attempts to explain that compensation for those hardest hit may not be that straightforward.

Saith he:

“The Chancellor hasn’t any money,” … “There is no secret stash up his sleeve.”

Isn’t that part of the problem? The idea that the money belongs to the Chancellor in the first place, and if ‘his’ stash is running out, then ‘he’ can’t help.

Only when they grasp that the money belongs to the taxpayer will we begin to see any real change. For starters, if they recognised that basic fact (i.e that our money is our own), they wouldn’t take so much of it from the poor, and then force them to jump through hoops in order to get it back in the form of ‘credits’.

An interesting story in the Daily Mail today:

A Muslim store worker at Marks & Spencer refused to serve a customer buying a children’s book on biblical stories because she said it was “unclean”.

Understandable outrage from all quarters. Even, it would seem, from Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. However, here are his reported words:

He said: “This appears to be a very regrettable incident and the ‘unclean’ remark was clearly very offensive and unacceptable.

“Many Biblical stories complement the teachings of the Koran. We hope that M&S will investigate this incident.”

I’m sorry, sir, but you’re rather missing the point. It is immaterial whether or not Bible stories complement the teachings of the Koran. What the store worker did was unacceptable, full stop. Is Mr Bunglawala suggesting that, if the ‘offending’ item was a book that did not complement the Koran’s teachings, then the store worker would have been within her rights to refuse to sell it?

It appears to me that Mr Bunglawala does not really condemn what this store worker did. His support for the Christian customer is implicitly qualified. It is conditional upon her buying something that does not (in his opinion) contradict the Koran’s teachings. I am not sure I am encouraged by his words.

A muslim woman in a headscarf applies for a job as a hairdresser. She tells the potential employer that she has to wear her headscarf at all times. Predictably, she is turned down for the job. She is now suing the hairdresser for discrimination.

Why do I say ‘predictably’? It’s because no hairdresser with any business sense would employ a stylist whose hair the customer cannot see. If I, as a customer, cannot see what the stylist has done to her own hair, why should I trust her with mine?

The case continues. I only hope common sense prevails. By all means, wear a headscarf if your religion mandates you to do so (doubtful, but let that pass); but don’t expect to work in a field where we need to see your hair.

Just wondering: if her religion really demands that she go everywhere with her hair covered, and given that no-one would trust a stylist with concealed hair, perhaps the logical (even if absurd) conclusion to draw is that perhaps Allah never intended for his women to work as hairdressers in the first place? I wonder if she’ll think on that.

The 19 suicide-bombing hijackers are today marking their sixth anniversary in hell.

Poor souls, and they thought they were set for paradise. Six years of torment done, ages more to follow.

Still, they have forever to get used to it.

(Sorry folks, some days, Christian compassion is hard. Especially for murderous people like that.)

The Daily Mail appears surprised that a couple who have been running what it calls ‘an x-rated fetish website’ have not been banned from attending their local church.

But why should they be? I would have thought that these were precisely the sort of people one should be welcoming into a church. The church was never set up to be a meeting place for saints, but rather as a place where everyone is welcome. Everyone. Especially those whom the Daily Mail would regard as sinners.

Reminds me of a story in the Bible. Jesus, not really one to turn down a good feast, went to the house of a tax collector, where he ate and drank with people of dubious moral fibre. The ‘righteous’ men of the day were shocked, and muttered amongst themselves. When Jesus realised their displeasure, this is what he said:

They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

So yes, the x-rated fetish-loving couple are welcome in their local church, and with open arms, too. That’s the way it should be. Reminds me of an old saying among Protestant circles, and one the Daily Mail writers would do well to keep in mind:

‘There is no such thing as a perfect church. However, if you ever find one, don’t join it, as you would ruin it.’

How I wish the ridiculous Lord Ahmed of Rotherham would stop peddling the line that Salman Rushdie should not have been given a knighthood because, amongst other things, The Satanic Verses was insulting to the Lord Jesus Christ. A pathetic and vain attempt to drag Christians into his disgraceful crusade.

Leave us out of it. The thing is, as a  Christian, I don’t care. Salman Rushdie may insult whomever he likes. Knighthoods are conferred by men, and not by God. It therefore seems strange to me that religious considerations should be brought to bear in the matter. According to the Bible, God gives his own ‘honours’ and rewards as well, most commonly at the end of one’s life. In doing so, he may consider whether or not Rushdie insulted him, and then decide whether such a one is deserving of an honour. I am content to leave that matter for God. There are more important things to think about.

So please, Lord Ahmed, leave Christians out of your distasteful battles. I for one do not care whether or not Rushdie has blasphemed my religion. And even if he has, I do not intend to do anything about it. As I always say, if you believe your God is real, then you do  not need to fight on his behalf.

I see radical islam is up to its familiar ways. Salman Rushdie is being threatened with death (again). This time it is for having the temerity to be granted a knighthood by the Queen.

Four issues here for me.

First, if this is such an insult to muslims, why is it Salman Rushdie being threatened? Why not threaten the person who conferred the honour upon him? Despite widespread allegations of cash for honours in the political sphere, one is almost sure that Rushdie did not ask or pay for this honour. If there is any blame, it should not lie with him. True, effigies of the Queen have been burnt, but if the anger is because this man is being honoured, and if death threats should be made as a result, perhaps the Queen (or the civil servants who draw up these lists) would be the logical target.

Second, has the islamic world been in a deep slumber for the past few years, from which it has only just been awakened by news of the knighthood? They act as though they have been suffering from some collective amnesia, and have only yesterday remembered Rushdie’s ‘grave insult’ to their religion. If Rushdie’s ‘insult’ was so great as to warrant him being killed, I fail to see why honouring him would make him any more deserving of death. So, after the initial fuss, why no loud protests all these years as the ‘infidel’ lived amongst us? Why only start baying loudly when he is knighted? It is a desperate attempt to get cheap publicity, or even worse, to bully the West to conform to islamic values. It is, after all,  already a few months since the last islamic ‘outrage’, that involving Pope Benedict and his candid words about islam. About time for another outrage, then.

Third, perhaps, just perhaps, Rushdie’s honour was conferred on him in recognition of his life’s work, and not just for Satanic Verses. Even if we were to accept (which I do not) that insulting islam is such a terrible thing, are these mad mullahs suggesting that one man’s life be judged solely on the basis of one act? That is a very stupid and ignorant way to think.

Fourth, this is not an islamic country; we can honour whomever we choose, in accordance with whatever values we think fit.