Ethical Companies – The Blog

On the matter of Britain: 10 things NOT to like.

I spotted the above article on the Anna Raccoon blog recently, followed from a link on another blog (can’t remember which, sorry). Some of the “dislikes” are not specifically British things, whilst some are British and understandable (Jonathan Ross !) However, being in a positive mood today (must be something in the water) I wondered what my “10 things I like about Britain” list would be like, and some are purely selfish on my part, some trivial, some you will agree with and some you won’t agree with:

1. I like the way that realistically you can drive to most places in the country and home again within a day. None of this trudging across country staying at motels, catching flights and so on, like the USA. Ok it’s not perfect, a trip to John O’Groats and back is a long day but the point is it’s “doable”.
2. The weather. Don’t snigger …. We get a wide range of weather in the United Kingdom, from snow to blistering hot sunshine, and that’s what I like, the VARIETY. Ok, so I don’t like days and days of snow, or weeks of heatwave sunshine, but that’s what you get in some countries isn’t it ? No wonder the Inuits have so many different words for “snow”
3. The “benefits” service. It’s far from ideal, but the fact is for a lot of people it’s absolutely necessary to ensure they maintain a life whilst looking for employment. The fact remains that despite there being a lot of jobs on the market we still have very high levels of unemployment, and benefits provide the necessary “safety net” for those people who can’t find employment, and then there’s the disabled, the elderly and so on. Don’t listen to the hype, the vast majority of people on benefits are not “scroungers” and aren’t “milking the state” but get by, thanks to our benefits system. It’s easy to sneer when you’re working and complain your taxes pay their wages, but there “but for the grace of God goes you”, you might need that safety net yourself one day, walk a mile in their shoes ….
4. The NHS. More or less “ditto” on the above entry about benefits. Least you don’t have to sell your house or go bankrupt when you need a major operation in the UK, like you do in the USA.
5. The food. It’s far from ideal in some places, but we have a very eclectic range of food in Britain, and some of it is world class and outstanding as programs like Rick Stein’s Food Heroes have shown us. You can now get decent Chinese, Indian, Italian, Thai and French food here, as well as traditional British eateries and even great fish and chips !
6. The countryside. It’s mostly green and “pleasant”, no deserts here.
7. The history. Great Britain has stacks of it.
8. The seaside. It’s never too far away !
9. Individual freedom in speech and action. Ok, it’s far from perfect, but we have more than many countries.
10. Variable geography. Forests, fields, hills, mountains, flat bits, wet bits etc.

Not everybody will agree with me, but I think there’s a lot worse places to live than Great Britain.

Steve

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As you may already be aware (and if you weren’t you soon will be) that the Daily Mail website, amongst its articles has little “mini polls” where you can click yes or no in response to a topical question. Questions such as “Does Britain still have a special relationship with America ?” After selecting yes or no you get to see the results.

You may also be aware that I don’t believe in banning the burka, from my recent posts on the subject. So on this article here: The burka empowering women? You must be mad, minister. I spotted a poll (presumably some of the polls on the specific pages are contextual and bear a relationship to the article surrounding them) entitled “Should Britain ban women from wearing a burka in public ?” and voted no. Here are the results at the time of writing this article:

Now maybe I just don’t “get it”, but do 88% of British people really want to ban the burka in Britain ? I just don’t understand the problem here. I get the whole thing about possible coercion into wearing them and the idea they are a “walking coffin” (in some people’s minds) but do 88% of British people (well 88% of the Daily Mail readers who do polls at least) care one way or the other about burkas ? Is banning them not just replacing one form of control with another ? Maybe I’m just stupid, but I really don’t see what all the fuss is about. If you’re one of the “yes” crowd then please explain what the problem is you have with them.

Thanks in advance.

Steve

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‘Wicked’ woman who cried rape is jailed for three years despite being seven months pregnant.

A young woman who ripped her clothes and gave herself a black eye to support her rape lies was yesterday jailed for three years. Leyla Ibrahim, described as wicked by a judge, is seven months pregnant and will give birth in prison. Her false rape claims started a £150,000 police investigation in which four students were arrested and subjected to humiliating examinations. They were questioned for nearly three days during which time one attempted suicide. They were later victims of public abuse, and one has since left the area. But the 22-year-old woman had invented the whole incident in order to teach her friends a lesson after they abandoned her at the end of a night out, a judge said.

Words fail me.  The damage this “woman” (I use the word very loosely) has caused to these men’s lives is utterly disgraceful.  Yet more fuel to support the argument that men accused of rape should be granted anonymity UNLESS they are actually convicted of the charges.  How many men have had their lives destroyed by false accusations of rape and/or ended up in prison for a crime they didn’t convict ?

The four wrongly accused – two of whom were under 16 – are still suffering as a result of the stigma caused by the false allegations, Carlisle Crown Court was told. All were ’subject to name calling and abuse in the street’ following their arrests, with one describing the ordeal as torture. Another said he was devastated by the harrowing experience and had been unable to eat or sleep. One suspect complained: ‘We were treated like s*** and not a stint (sic) of an apology.’

Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty” ?

Even the doctor in the case described the examinations as ‘intimate, embarrassing and uncomfortable’. A senior police source said the four were still ‘really struggling’ with the aftermath of the case. Detectives had initially taken Ibrahim’s account that she had been raped or sexually assaulted on her way home from a night out seriously, launching a massive manhunt involving 40 officers.

The frilly dress and leggings she had been wearing had apparently been ripped in the attack, clumps of her hair had been hacked off and she had a black eye and scratches to her breasts and legs. But police became suspicious, and tests showed the Libyan-born former children’s holiday rep had ripped her own clothes and inflicted the injuries herself to back up her fabricated claims. After failing to withdraw her allegation she was charged with perverting the course of justice and convicted. Judge Paul Batty, QC, told her such false allegations made it harder for women who genuinely had been raped to secure their attacker’s convictions. ‘Not only did these false allegations have an effect on four young men, but also a considerable effect on your own family,’ he said. ‘You were convicted on clear and compelling evidence of wickedly fabricating a grave crime, causing countless anguish to all involved. Your behaviour was thoroughly irresponsible and some may say wicked. I’m entirely clear in this case that you craved attention and wanted your friends to think they left you and you were then attacked. You wanted to teach them a lesson.’

So, when the “game was up” and she had a chance to withdraw the allegation she still carried on with these charges ?

Ibrahim, who had been denied bail following her conviction, smiled and waved at her family as she was led into the dock. Her mother Sandra covered her face with her hands following the sentence, calling out: ‘It’s OK darling, we’ll always be with you.’ The family insisted they would ‘fight forever’ to clear her name. Ibrahim, who came to Britain from Libya with her family when she was nine, worked at a petrol station at the time of the supposed attack in Carlisle on January 4 last year. She had argued with a male friend who refused to lend her the money for a taxi home after a night out drinking. She told police two youths had knocked her to the ground and assaulted her as she walked home. She claimed she grabbed a pair of scissors from her handbag, only for one of the pair to snatch them and cut off a clump of her hair. Crown prosecutor Linda Vance said: ‘This sort of case, where someone fabricates an allegation of sexual assault, and continues with that allegation, is very rare.’

Really Linda ?  I wonder how rare it really is ….  It may be rare in actual reported cases, but I’ve known at least half a dozen women over the years who claimed to have been raped and not reported it, and in some of those cases I had serious doubts as to how truthful they were.  For some women is it not simply a cry for attention (albeit an evil one) ?

I’m glad to see this woman sent to prison, but only 3 years ?

Steve

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Calls grow for burka ban in Britain as French outlaw Islamic ‘walking coffins’.

Britain faced growing calls to ban the burka today after French MPs voted overwhelmingly to outlaw full-face veils in public. Politicians in France united yesterday to ban Islamic veils that cover a woman’s face, which some described as ‘walking coffins’. Deputies in the country’s 557-seat lower house, the National Assembly, voted in favour of the ban by 335 votes to one.

I guess French politicians have nothing important to be dealing with …. Oh, you know, like national deficits, unemployment, recession and so on …. Let’s ban burkas instead …. Hmmm.

Support for a ban in Britain has come from Tory backbencher Philip Hollobone and the UK Independence Party. Mr Hollobone has tabled a private members’ bill which would make it illegal for anyone to cover their face in public. The Kettering MP, who has previously likened full face veils to ‘going round with a paper bag over your head’, said: ‘It is unnatural for someone to cover their face and it not a religious requirement. ‘We are never going to have a fully integrated society if an increasing proportion of the population cover their faces’. His Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill is the first of its kind in Britain, and is one of only 20 private members’ bills drawn in a ballot for the chance to make it into the statute books.

And long may he stay a back bencher ! As for it being “unnatural” to cover your face there is no law against it. So if I want to go out of the house with a paper bag over my head (I’d make some eyeholes), or with underpants on my head and pencils up my nose (can you tell I like Black Adder ?) or even wear a pink bra as ear muffs, then I WILL DO SO.

The bill, which had its first reading in June, stands little chance of becoming law due to limited Parliamentary time and a lack of support from the main political parties.

Oh dear, what a shame, snigger.

Mr Hollobone has insisted that his bill has widespread public support: ‘People feel that something should be done about burkas, but so many are afraid to speak out for fear of being labelled a racist.

Really ? Let’s do a snap poll on the streets and I bet the resounding response most British citizens would give to the query “should wearing burkas be made illegal ?” is “who cares what they wear, it’s not my problem, and utterly unimportant to me”.

‘Part of the British way of life is walking down the street, smiling at people and saying hello, whether you know them or not. You cannot have this everyday human interaction if you cover your face. ‘These people are saying that they don’t want to be part of our way of society.’

You should try walking down Tottenham Court Road in London Mr Hollobone (see previous post below), I didn’t see that much smiling, just people going about their business.

Far-Left groups such as the Communists joined president Nicolas Sarkozy’s ruling UMP party in voting for it, although Socialists and Greens abstained. Communist MP Andre Gerin said yesterday: ‘Talking about liberty to defend the wearing of the full veil is totally cynical – for me, the full veil is a walking coffin, a muzzle. ‘The result follows months of heated debate during which immigration minister Eric Besson also described the burka as a ‘walking coffin’, while prime minister Francois Fillon accused wearers of ‘hijacking Islam’ and displaying a ‘dark sectarian image’. Recent polls suggested that more than 80 per cent of French people wanted the burka banned, including some of the country’s five million Muslims. Under the terms of the bill, anyone caught wearing a burka, which covers the entire face and body with just a mesh screen for the eyes, or a niqab, which has a slit for the wearers’ eyes, will face a £117 fine.  Men caught forcing a woman to wear a burka or a niqab will face a year in prison or a £25,000 fine.

The garments are seen as undermining women’s rights and a threat to France’s secular status. The proposed legislation, which is colloquially referred to as the ‘anti-burka law’, is officially called ‘the bill to forbid concealing one’s face in public’. The draft bill backed by Mr Sarkozy’s government will now pass to the Senate upper house where it could be ratified in September to become law. But it could be shot down by the European Court of Human Rights and France’s constitutional watchdog, the Council of State, which has warned that the bill may be illegal because it does not allow freedom of expression. This would be a humiliation for Mr Sarkozy, whose government has devoted much attention to a bill that only affects around 2,000 women in France. It could also dampen efforts in other European countries to outlaw veils. Belgium and Spain have begun the initial stages of burka bans. The main body representing French Muslims fears the ban will stigmatise the religion, which it says does not require women to cover their faces anyway.

A French tycoon is setting up a fund to help Muslim women pay ‘burka fines’. Muslim businessman Rachid Nekkaz has pledged to sell property worth 1million euros to finance the fund.

I’m glad that the motion to introduce an anti burka law in the United Kingdom is unlikely.  I mean really, if these women choose to wear them then let them.  If they want to burn them (and possibly burn their bras at the same time) then let them.  We are supposed to be a tolerant society, yet we have this sort of nonsense proposed.  Our government has far more important things to be worrying about, let’s deal with those instead and scrap the idea of banning burkas and save a few quid in the process ….

Now, where did I leave my pink bra ….

Steve

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“Economists say Britain faces the deepest spending cuts for a generation as it tries to plug the £ 167 billion black hole left in the public finances by Labour” – Spotted today here.

Ouch.  That’s a lot of “cash”.

Steve

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In many ways not a “pleasant viewing” type of movie, A Clockwork Orange is based on the book of the same name by author Anthony Burgess.  For 27 years the film was effectively “banned” in the United Kingdom and it was difficult to get to see it.  The ban was enforced because of the sexual and violent content.  After the director Stanley Kubrick died the film became more widely available and appeared first in cinemas and eventually was released to VHS and DVD by Warner Home Video.

I first saw this film at university (during the “ban”.)  The lecturer who showed the film was a well known social psychologist who had worked on cases where the issue of “video nasties” had arisen, and the effect of the “video nasties” on the guilty party.  This is, of course, an old debate and it has been discussed countless times whether exposure to violence on TV/video games will cause children to act out the content they’ve seen.  However, we’re not here to discuss social psychology ….

The film tells the story of Alex DeLarge (played by Malcolm McDowell), a gang leader, who with his “droogs” (his fellow gang members) steals/rapes/commits acts of violence in an urban setting (we’ll assume it’s London.)  Alex is eventually caught and spends 2 years in prison before undergoing “The Ludovico Treatment”, which is a process in classical conditioning (a la Pavlov’s Dogs) designed to rehabilitate Alex by creating associations in his mind which will deter him from sexual and violent acts.  We can only assume, that as the novel was written in 1962 that the author was influenced by the anti psychiatry zeitgeist prevalent in the 1960’s and was commenting as to the efficacy of such “treatment” (see also Pavlov’s Cats.)

As such the film is a social commentary about gangs, psychiatry, youth gangs, and antisocial behaviour set in a dystopian Britain; as well as commenting on the evolution of language (the gang use a form of manipulated English not dissimilar to what you can hear grunted/texted on today’s high street.) The film also has an impressive soundtrack featuring many classical pieces and ending with “Singing In The Rain.” You will also see passing references to A Clockwork Orange in other programmes including in The Simpsons where Bart dresses as a gang member.

It is an interesting film, but not a “brain off” or family entertainment type of film. I give it 6 out of 10, and note it may be of particular to students of psychology, sociology and philosophy. It’s currently under a fiver on Amazon.

Steve

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Broadband Britain – how far down the league ?

Apparently Great Britain is 31st in the global “broadband league.”

Can’t say as I’m that impressed with my 50mb Virgin Media cable connection.  It strikes me it ought to be significantly faster than it is.

31st: that’s just pathetic.  Come on Virgin etc, get it sorted out.

Steve

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