Hey, Ho, time for me to critiscise someone whom I have felt the need to support over the past couple of weeks. Our young wren, captured by the iranians. Sorry my dear, but what the hell possessed her, to sell her story to the "News of the world"!!!!
It has been bad enough, the stream of unfounded critiscism which has been aimed at the captives and at women in the military over this matter. But selling your story to the gutter tabloid press takes the biscuit. This has given the "anti" brigade a fistfull of amunition and I am sorry to say, does her cause no good at all.
The decision to allow her, as a serving member of the armed forces, to sell her story, should result in an instantaneous court martial, for whomsoever allowed it!. Whatever did they think they would gain? Whilst I do not doubt her story at all, surely the MOD would have been far better releasing a joint article by all the hostages to explain to the public their ordeal. Thus negating the levels of critiscism levelled at them. To go it alone in this manner has done the "senior service", a great diservice and if any fee has been paid for the story and the interview with Trevor Mc Donald on TV, I feel that all this money should be immediately donated to the armed forces charities, who help those maimed and disabled in combat. Having spoken to some active serving personnel about this whole affair, (both male and female) there is a certain level of disgust about this whole affair, which I feel can do nothing but harm morale and damage relations between men and women serving in the Royal Navy.
The hand of Blair!, seems somewhere to be present in this sorry tale of spin and propaganda I wonder what instructions where given by the government to those who pull the strings at the MOD, in an effort to regain some political standing for "his royal blairness?"
Whilst the way in which we are told the captives were treated, is not up to the standards we would expect. I do not think the way in which we support the Americans treatment and torture of captives at Guantanamo Bay, allows us any moral high ground to critiscise the Iranians for their treatment of our troops...however much I feel their seizure was wrong, we have played a crooked game of international chess with the Iranians for many years and meddled in their internal affairs, been involved in coups and all sorts of skulduggery, so unfortuanately this and incidents like it were always going to happen.
Let us hope that the MOD review its methods and ROE to avoid embarrasing situations like this occurring again.
Big Ian
Showing posts with label local politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label local politics. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
More local bullshit akin to a Roman Conspiracy
Well well, what a long time since my last Blog! , i've been festerin away in my little hole and now I have popped out to get some sun and put pen to paper. Our local chamber of trade and commerce is trying to get a "farmers market" running in Budleigh, just to take some trade away from the hard working local shops that sell the same produce as the market would. Being all in favour of "fair and equal trade" this sucks, so, pen being mightier than sword I decided twas time to draw quills and enter the fray once more. lets see if it gets published in the local paper. (Exmouth Journal)
Dear Editor,
It was with interest, that I read the article “Rumpus over farmers market” in this weeks Journal and felt minded to comment. It seems that the furore over the proposed market is entering the realms of some power struggle akin more to the Roman Empire than to a sleepy east Devon town! Local butcher Chris Coles; Ceaser like, seems to be the target of the sharpened daggers of the conspirators, aka the market steering committee, who seem intent on not “losing face” by trying every trick in the book to push through the market. It would appear that “people have been lobbied” and “plans railroaded” by those miscreants who dare to oppose the will of “The committee”. I beg to ask, why should people not be lobbied? Or counter opinion allowed to flourish? Do we not live in a democracy? Those keen to push for the market with their claims that it will “bring trade to the town”, say they “are not prepared to let others influence against it” and they are “pursuing two unnamed alternative sites”, my word the conspiracy thickens! oh for open and free thinking local politics. Statistics are yet again quoted. 95 traders were sent a questionnaire, 77 responded, 18 perhaps were asleep, closed for the winter, or couldn't be bothered with joining the revolt! Then of the valiant 77, we are told, “more than 80% were in favour”. I ask, “why, more than”, were the committee unable to report the true percentage? Or does it sound better to say “more than 80%” rather than, say, “81%”? Let us assume that 81% support the market and that would equate to 61.6 traders out of 77. Then, ask ourselves how many of them would be in direct competition with the farmers market? On the basis that the market would sell meat, game, perhaps fish, vegetables, cheeses, breads and speciality “designer foods”, I would say that perhaps 8 or 9 town traders would face direct and unfair competition, from “non rate paying outsiders”. This only goes to show that the other traders, who support the market, seem quite happy to betray their fellows for the “sake of an extra shilling!” I was always under the impression that the chamber of trade, were there to promote all that is good about Budleigh and the services that it offers, not to push for unfair competition against its own members. They would better serve them, by promoting what we have in the town and its variety and quality of service, rather than allowing others to have a slice of a “rapidly diminishing pie” Perhaps, they should look at some of the empty shops in the town and try to see those filled with quality, self sustaining business’s, with a far greater priority than pushing for a farmers market.
Ian Woolger
Dear Editor,
It was with interest, that I read the article “Rumpus over farmers market” in this weeks Journal and felt minded to comment. It seems that the furore over the proposed market is entering the realms of some power struggle akin more to the Roman Empire than to a sleepy east Devon town! Local butcher Chris Coles; Ceaser like, seems to be the target of the sharpened daggers of the conspirators, aka the market steering committee, who seem intent on not “losing face” by trying every trick in the book to push through the market. It would appear that “people have been lobbied” and “plans railroaded” by those miscreants who dare to oppose the will of “The committee”. I beg to ask, why should people not be lobbied? Or counter opinion allowed to flourish? Do we not live in a democracy? Those keen to push for the market with their claims that it will “bring trade to the town”, say they “are not prepared to let others influence against it” and they are “pursuing two unnamed alternative sites”, my word the conspiracy thickens! oh for open and free thinking local politics. Statistics are yet again quoted. 95 traders were sent a questionnaire, 77 responded, 18 perhaps were asleep, closed for the winter, or couldn't be bothered with joining the revolt! Then of the valiant 77, we are told, “more than 80% were in favour”. I ask, “why, more than”, were the committee unable to report the true percentage? Or does it sound better to say “more than 80%” rather than, say, “81%”? Let us assume that 81% support the market and that would equate to 61.6 traders out of 77. Then, ask ourselves how many of them would be in direct competition with the farmers market? On the basis that the market would sell meat, game, perhaps fish, vegetables, cheeses, breads and speciality “designer foods”, I would say that perhaps 8 or 9 town traders would face direct and unfair competition, from “non rate paying outsiders”. This only goes to show that the other traders, who support the market, seem quite happy to betray their fellows for the “sake of an extra shilling!” I was always under the impression that the chamber of trade, were there to promote all that is good about Budleigh and the services that it offers, not to push for unfair competition against its own members. They would better serve them, by promoting what we have in the town and its variety and quality of service, rather than allowing others to have a slice of a “rapidly diminishing pie” Perhaps, they should look at some of the empty shops in the town and try to see those filled with quality, self sustaining business’s, with a far greater priority than pushing for a farmers market.
Ian Woolger
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