Missiles ≠ Love

I've been doing a little soul searching recently. Not the kind that George Osborne wants me to be doing, necessarily. But then it is hard to believe that George Osborne wants much in his life, other than to chastise the working classes for economic gain. The type of soul searching I've been doing has indeed led me to 'contemplate Britain's role in the world,' but the eventual conclusion that I have reached is probably antithetical to that which the Chancellor might have wanted.
In response to the British Parliament's blocking of the movement led by David Cameron to hypothetically support the US with intervention in Syria, my soul searching has yielded some fruits:

Firstly, and notwithstanding the huge complexities in the Middle East and Levant regions at the moment, Syria's neighbours must make an effort to intervene. The Arab League has decisively blamed the Assad regime for the chemical attack of the 21st August, yet declined to intervene. The Arab League consists of key global and regional players, with a huge military power, largely supplied by UK and US manufacturers. They have the capacity, and the necessity, to intervene. Yet they refuse. 
Jordan, an AL member, has seen a huge influx of refugees from Syria, placing huge strain on their finances and infrastructure. It is in their interest to see a resolve. Perhaps one spanner, however, is the support coming from Hezbollah to the Assad government; A key player in the Syrian government's recapture of Qusayr, Lebanon would not support any military intervention unless aimed at empowering Assad's regime.

Saudi Arabia has an upper hand in the region. The oil rich nation has access to a modern infrastructure of weaponry - something that it was keen to show off during the Bahrain uprising. This nation has huge power. But for years now it has been in a diplomatic melange: one of the US' key allies in the region, it is also one of the largest state sponsors of terrorism and supported the Taliban whilst it was receiving ground support from Al Qaeda. Nevertheless, it has supported the rebel-led opposition - if only verbally- and reports surfaced in the British Telegraph that they were colluding with Russia to offer a favourable oil deal if support for the Assad regime were dropped. Considering our arms ties with Saudi, there may or may not exist a stronger economic argument for the UK to support Saudi in a tactical military intervention. Saudi, after all, has more historical and social similarities to Syria than us. Not to mention more money.

My point is that it is almost pointless even considering any role in this region whilst diplomatic relations in the area are based on money and power. It is absolutely heart-wrenching to watch victims of Sarin, and more recently Napalm (or napalm like substances) suffering in makeshift hospitals, it honestly is. But We, the United Kingdom, are not responsible for any of this and as such have limited responsibility over it. It occurs to me that there are at least 3 types of rationale for intervention: rationale based on historical ties, on proximity or on morality.
I was in favour of French intervention in Mali: as an old colony, maintaining relations and accepting some degree of responsibility is of vital importance to the stability of certain regions. Britain, with its huge array former colonies, would do better to focus on improving relations with these countries, many of whom are ravaged by terrorism, diplomatic instability and poverty.
Yes, there is a moral argument for intervention in Syria. And I am not against the concept of any action in Syria. But it occurs to me that none of the parties with historic or proximate ties are taking their share of responsibility over their region.

Britain is a key global player, true. But sometimes it looks to me to be a jack of all trades: we want economic power, we like having London as a global financial hub, we like having influence and trade links and historical ties and giving aid. We also like to maintain military prowess. We are not the world police. We can no longer be a part of Team America. We must free ourselves of the notion that we still have colonial powers and realise that, if 190 members of the UN are not taking any responsibility for a country in the midst of one of the worst civil wars in decades, it is futile that 60% of the P5 tries to police the world. I do feel a heartbroken when I watch these people and their suffering, but I do believe that their neighbours are in a strategically better position to make a meaningful intervention, whether militarily or diplomatically.

So, George Osborne. I have been doing some thinking. And yet again, with regret, I believe that you are wrong.

Stop me smoking: Government U-turn on Plain Packs

Earlier this week, I visited the Doctor. After going through my questions related to my ailing body (yes, I am falling to bits at the ripe old age of 22), she asked me if I was still a smoker. I answered truthfully, which is quite difficult for me as even now after 4 years of on-off smoking, I’d still not recognise myself as a ‘smelly’ smoker.  Perhaps just a casual, ‘clean’ one?

I explained that I go through prolonged periods of abstention, followed by even longer periods of non-abstention. The doctor explained that I might need some support to kick the habit (because 2 months at a time is not really being a non-smoker, though could perhaps be considered semi-smoking?). “No”, I thought to myself, “What I really need is the packets of cigarettes that I love carrying around to be covered in dead people and black lungs and under-developed babies.”

And so then to today’s news from the government, that they will be waiting for at least another year to ban branding on packets, because the Australian introduction of this law is now acting as a trial for the British government.

What a useless excuse. We are not a reactionary country, based on statistics. We are a country based on morals. As a (semi-) smoker, I’d love nothing more than to have cigarettes branded in black. I would immediately quit. Whilst we still have red stripes on packets, I will continue to pretend I am the Marlboro man.

It seems, then, that the government has given in to the lobbying and soft-power marketing being dropped into packets of cigarettes. The companies that pushed so hard to ban black branding in Australia clearly have much more power in the UK. So whilst the tax goes up on cigarettes in the UK to the 2^nd highest prices in Europe, people are still attracted to smoking.

The government is at risk of creating a taxed fashion accessory. There is a theory in luxury, that the more exclusive or expensive an item is, the more attractive it is and thus the more people consume it. And they consume it openly, in order to attract attention. This theory is known as conspicuous consumption, and with cigarettes verging on £10 a packet; this surely will become a factor. There are only so many people who will quit smoking; the others will continue. And as a luxury image develops around these cigarettes, they will smoke more openly and attract more attention and smoking will quickly become what it was in the 60s: a luxury hobby (albeit deadly).

The only way to stop this from happening, to remove the fashionable image of cigarettes, is to remove the branding itself. Until the government gets out of bed with the Tobacco companies who unethically tempt us (me included) into inhaling their products that will - essentially, kill us - prices may rise but the sexual allure of cigarettes attracting young children to smoke will remain. Today’s youth are image conscious: make something look bad and they will abandon it.

I’ll stop when branding goes black. Until then, as the British Heart Foundation put it: thousands of people are at risk. 

Thought of the Day

If Saudi Arabia funded the Taliban, who used jihadists from Al Qaeda, who consisted at least partially of Saudi citizens (nb. 9/11 suicide bombers), surely the real problem was never Afghanistan?

7 Questions on Egypt

The events in Egypt are a concern worldwide, and they are not something that I am going to pretend to know a lot about. However, with the toppling of Morsi and Blair's declaration that what is now being seen as a coup d'état being justified and necessary, I do think it's important to ask some vital questions:

1. Why was the flawed electoral system that allowed the Muslim Brotherhood to gain power on 10% of the vote, allowed in the first place? Even the contentious First Past the Post system in the UK has a higher success rate that is more proportionate of the electorate's views. 

2. Accepting that this form of democracy was agreed upon, why were the Muslim Brotherhood not supported by the International Community in leading a complex and turbulent nation? Surely a multilateral coalition would be able to advise and guide the Muslim Brotherhood, who apparently have lots of nice ideas but very little knowledge in implementation (except economical ones).

3. How can Blair possibly support a coup d'état? Well, Blair does support Saudi Arabia and Israel and wars with no grounding whatsoever. And he makes a killing from it. So Tony Blair can do what he likes, really. 

4. How can a coup d'état possibly bring peace when the Muslim Brotherhood are the officially elected party? Surely the only new option is further elections. Though perhaps a different voting system may be able to swing the election in the direction the Army want. 

5. What's going to happen to Morsi, who is now in Prison for doing, essentially nothing? Being in Prison for doing nothing sounds like a nice Thatcherite policy. 

6. What direction does Egypt really want to go in? There are large divisions between the MB and their opposition. But there are risks that islamic extremists can seize this opportunity to exploit the electorate to try and demonstrate that the premise of their revolution- democracy, is not going to work. 

7. What happens next? The International Community will care about this, even if they're going to have to leave it up to the Army to sort it out. 

I've changed my mind on the EU : I like healthcare reimbursements

I rarely state that I am wrong. But in the last 8 weeks, since returning from France, I have realised that I have been. Once.

In France, whilst  studying at the prestigious ESSEC (which means nothing to people outside of France and Singapore, where there is a campus) I took classes on the European Union. A boring module about parliaments, treaties and agreements named after otherwise insignificant places, the teacher, a typically arrogant Frenchman, argued dirtily when I took issue at his opinion of the British and prodded his ego like a caged monkey when I told him that the French had a secular system that was based on flawed and partisan Christian values. France did not, I explained, take time off for Eid despite taking time off for Easter : Not very secular.

But despite this teacher's inability to engage with the British psyche, the ignorance he displayed when he didn't understand why we'd want out of the EU and the lack of comprehension of the way of life on our islands, I feel compelled to make a single statement: I was wrong.

Now you may think that I could have changed my mind about the EU when they started providing me with a free education in France and throwing copious amounts of money to support this treacherous experience. But no. I did honestly understand the reason we may want out of the World's largest trading bloc and economy. Like bendy bananas and human rights, for instance.

You may also think that the time I managed to get around the entire of Europe without a passport might have convinced me. But I always do enjoy reading the pretentious proclamation on the front page, reminding me that the Queen will always look after me.

When I got hit with £35 of import duty for a pair of swimming shorts from Australia, I was almost convinced. But then clearly that diabetics are hypothetically banned from driving is much more important than a free trade agreement.

Today, however, I received a phone call from the Department for Work and Pensions: my medical expenses that I'd forked out for over a year ago in Paris were being refunded to me. I suddenly realised that, more than being a European citizen, being a British citizen of the EU lets you export the best parts of British culture and take it with you in a flask of NHS elixir. Fish and chips are of course excluded from this list, but in reality the EU does let the British maintain our identity whilst being part of a real global, free-thinking and innovative wider society. Great, I thought. Apart from one thing - I'm going to have to accept that I was wrong.

Fry's missed the mark with Eye Spy.

Every time I return to my family home in Devon, I am shocked at how insecure and threatened the residents of my leafy and dreary village feel. Isolated from society, they feed on tabloids of hyperbole as if it the most nourishing and representative portrayal of modern society. I spend a good proportion of time talking to friends and family, explaining that despite to their beliefs, people do not walk openly around cities armed with machetes instead of handbags (well, why carry a purse when you can just decapitate the shopkeeper?)

Stephen Fry's Eye Spy is an attempt to reassure the public that contrary to what the tabloids would have us believe, society is not drowning slowly from the selfishness that - depending on your political persuasion - is a direct result of either capitalism, immigration or communism. The Daily Mail's seemingly sole purpose to bolster the hardliners and tempt us blindly into a sense of hatred and bitterness that has become as much of a British stereotype as fish and chips and tea and biscuits. The Mirror exists purely to blame Margaret Thatcher. For everything. Ever.

But Stephen Fry has missed the mark. For, as much as this programme is a blessing to me as educational material on society that I can recommend to my Mail-reading grandmother in a desperate attempt to satisfy her that Britain is not the hornets' nest of crime that she has been convinced to sincerely believe, it is no less farcical than the X Factor and Britain's Got Talent.
Just as a 4 year old Jazz dancer is not possibly as talented as a 22 year old world champion in Samba, a 6 year old being challenged not to eat a marshmallow does not prove that society is moral any more than someone's ability to look after a goldfish without killing it. My sister at the age of 6 would not be able to restrain herself against the sugary allure of a marshmallow for more than 8 seconds yet she is someone I always look to for moral guidance. And even now, she cannot be trusted with a goldfish.

It is the constant stream of headlines about Britain's emerging moral black hole that scares people into believing that we are 'going to the dogs'. My grandmother, who is the epitome of the grey voter, has begun locking the back door whilst she's in the kitchen in case the village's sole Nigerian resident decides to pop round and savagely end her life whilst simultaneously assuming her identity and stealing her credit cards. Midsomer Murders, in my grandmother's mind, is more a portrayal of ITV News than an ITV Mystery Drama.

I was already having doubts about Eye Spy: it's nice to have a comforting night in with a hot chocolate watching people affirming your faith in humanity, but is this a real representation of Britain today? Would people actually react in the way Channel 4 would have us believe? Then my friend told me that in one of the restaurant scenes, two of the people who reacted badly to the contentious waiter-character that no-one would ever take seriously, spouting out ironic and lazy racist insults at a mixed race couple, were from his drama school. They had been asked to come and eat at a restaurant. They knew they were being filmed. They responded accordingly.

It seems to me that, although providing me with some nice light entertainment that feels like it's been dreamt up by some communist dictator to make people be nicer to each other, Eye Spy is about as real as the ingredients of the marshmallow placed in front of the naturally disobedient children. Britain is not that bad, and racism is generally frowned upon. But actors don't need to convince us with that: Britain is a multicultural and diverse society. We have our problems but we have exceptional strengths also.

What Britain needs to hold it together is community, not Channel 4's soft power exertion that looks like a new format of Supernanny's special selection of material for Cbeebies. Stephen Fry would do better to educate us, than patronise us into being nice.

HS2 vs Technology

Since returning to the UK 8 weeks ago, I've spent far too much time on the rail network. Having lived in France for a little over a year, I've become used to travelling by TGV. So you'd think I'd be excited  that plans for HS2, the high speed rail network to run between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds are being cooked up. But not so. 

It takes no genius to see that, unlike Britain, France is a country with a vast geography: The distance between Paris - the capital, and Marseille - the 3rd biggest city, is 774km. In contrast, the distance between London and Birmingham, the city to benefit first from this new superfast infrastructure, is just 188km. In fact, there will be a measly 30 minute saving on journeys made by train between the two cities once HS2 is up and running. 

The cost of the new railway is being estimated at £42.6bn. For the benefit of 30 minutes on journeys, I'm sceptical that this investment will be recuperated in any reasonable period of time, if ever. The works undertaken to the countryside and the repossessions of land will change the face of the Midlands. This would be fine, if the economic benefit could outweigh the ecological cost. However, I'd like to make one proposition that would save the government several billion pounds: upgrading technology. 

One thing that France and Japan did not have when their TGV and Shinkansen were developed was mobile technology: people needed to get between cities quickly and affordably. Nowadays, people have constant access to the internet. They can work when and where they like. Except between Plymouth and London, and Sheffield and York - as recent journeys have revealed to me. The train network is suffering from a lack of investment in technology. 3G is hard to find between major hubs (I often find myself desperately downloading and replying to emails in the 5 minutes that I'm afforded in each station) and WiFi, if available at all, requires a sign-up and hefty fees that don't represent the flexibility necessary for a modern workaholic. 

If we could invest heavily in technology and lower the cost for passengers, it would enable businessmen and women to work efficiently on the train. Rather than reducing their journey time by mere minutes, their efficiency and productivity could be increased significantly between offices. The benefits to local communities close to train lines would be profound also: the Countryside Alliance has been vocal about rural mobile signals. If we enabled 4G along the rail network, rural towns and villages could stand to benefit greatly. 

I'm concerned that we've missed the train when it comes to High Speed. Perhaps forward-thinking, rather than spending money on reactionary and negligible public transport infrastructure, could see this country excel in this, the 21st Century. 

Family murder-suicide in Spain is proof of care failings

A British man, his Irish wife and disabled daughter have been found dead in Spain, in what is being labelled as a suspected 'murder-suicide.' It is the latest in what is becoming all too frequently a family affair involving disabled children. The family reportedly left a suicide note suggesting that their daughter's disability had become too much to cope with.

An occurrence that is no longer a rarity, struggling families with disabled members often find themselves pushed into a corner of society where they are forced to struggle alone with the effects of having a vulnerable adult to care for. Often subjected to abuse, and almost always left without adequate support, each harrowing case highlights the tragedy of having to care for a loved one with a disability.

My twin brother, a sufferer of autism and bipolar amongst other things, has been in care since the age of 8. We took the difficult but necessary decision to place him into care as his behaviour became progressively harder to manage. Other families, through no fault of their own, feel they cannot make this step. And I can't blame them: the care system today is fundamentally flawed and often morally void. It is true that there is no better unit to care for a disabled person than the family unit, however often the strain of looking after somebody with distinct care requirements and - in the case of my brother - challenging behaviour, becomes too much for one family member to be able to bear.

It is the tragedy of the social care structure that these people do not receive adequate support in their choices, whichever they may be. Faced with the prospect of being placed into a care system which has given us the Winterbourne View abuse scandal, people are sceptical and highly suspicious of the care network. The Care Quality Commission is one cog in this complex network of agencies, and has been described as "not fit for purpose" by Stephen Dorrell, the chairman of the Commons health committee.  The government have announced a series of reforms to the watchdog. But what families really need to see is drastic changes to the entire care system. Transparency, an efficient regulator and family rights over the care of their respective family members are necessary to demonstrate the safety of the industry to service users and their support network. It is true that the people who know each individual best are the people who have been there for them throughout their life, not profit-making care providers and agencies with multiple case loads and a high staff turnover.

For families wanting respite, it should be provided to them without the fear of entering into a system which could prove harmful and ultimately destructive for the unit that each fights so hard to protect.

For families who simply can no longer cope with the daily care needs of the vulnerable adult, they need the peace of mind that their loved-one will be safe, secure and happy.

For families on the edge, they need to know that there are people there to help.

All of these are changes the government needs to make to reestablish a genuine support network to restore trust in the care system. Without such changes, trust in placing a loved one into the care system will remain low, and I fear that the tragic events that have unfolded in the last few days will continue.

Obama's African Tour

Barack Obama has today started his African tour in Senegal, the Francophone country in the Sahel. Visiting Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, he will miss out the birthplace of his Father - Kenya, most probably because Uhuru Kenyatta, the President, is wanted by the ICC for war crimes.

What Obama's visit to Senegal displays most tellingly is that Language barriers need not hold back a new wave of foreign direct investment: Senegal played a key role in supporting French troupes in Mali during the conflict earlier this year against AQIM and is being seen as a driver of stability in the region. 

Whilst China, Malaysia, Brazil and India have been undertaking massive investments in African states and sponsoring governments to further their business interests (the China International Fund is sponsoring the building of a major new airport in Luanda, Angola as well as new infrastructure projects across the continent and even the African Union building in Addis Ababa), the West have fallen by the wayside in adopting a strategy to see long-term growth in Africa. It seems that despite Bob Geldof rescuing an entire continent from malnutrition, donating goats to rural families is no longer a viable option for these oil, diamond and uranium-rich nations. 

Yet there are fears that Chinese involvement could lead to exploitation in the region: already corrupt politicians are swayed easily by the promise of a new palace (or in the case of Equitorial Guinea's dictator, President Obiang, a new capital city) and are willing to give countries who invest, large stakes in their natural resources.  What Obama has started to demonstrate is that, despite the lack of promises of sparkling new buildings, FDI coming from Western nations need not necessarily mean a raw deal. 

In return for investment, the West have the capacity to offer real security (Niger has already allowed the US to establish a drone base in its capital, Niamey) and long-term, controlled growth with minimal exploitation. Countries who are still managing their own development and struggling with the socio-economic changes, it can be argued, will care less about the stability of the countries that they are investing in. 

Whatever the outcome, Obama's first stop on his tour is clearly more than just a geographically-useful one: West Africa is hurting under the pressure of Islamic militants and groups such as Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Nigeria's Boko Haram. Sensible and controlled long-term investment in business, government and security in this region could pay off in dividends. Literally. 

A Man's World

It is a curious state of affairs in the International Community, when the LGBT population of the US gets DOMA repealed, on the same day that Julia Gillard gets ousted from the Australian Labor party. It appears that the new global (or at least Western) political cause du jour is gay rights: celebrities and politicians everywhere have "come out" in favour of equal marriage, against DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act) and DADT (Don't Ask, Don't Tell), and in favour of gay adoption. Australia has proved that, far from being ready to join the 21st Century, its politicians are still sat firmly in the 19th.

Julia Gillard, the ginger kangaroo-knitter from South Wales (the Old one, with sheep and rain and actual real Welsh people) ousted sly PM Kevin Rudd from office in 2010 in the 3rd favourite past-time of the Australian people (after Barbecues and Aussie rules) - the 'Spill.' Clearly a woman on a mission, the Australian media and political community set about trying to tear this unmarried, baron dominatrix apart. Particularly telling of the nature of regression in Australian society, however, was the way in which they undertook this task: rather than creating policies that were better for Australia and holding the Prime Minister to account, they broke her down in the only way their tiny chauvinistic minds would allow them.

So intrusive were the questions about her hairdresser partner's sexuality, the never-ending debate about this childless woman's ability to relate to normal Aussie families and cruel pranks played by the opposition - notably the Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail added to the menu at a fundraiser being organised by an ex-minister, which described the dish as having "small breasts, huge thighs and a red box" - that Gillard was forced into a corner where she cringingly opened up about her private life by taking part in a photoshoot, clad awkwardly with balls of wool, her cavoodle Reuben and a part-knit kangaroo that she stated was being made as a present for Wills and Kate's new baby. This was the end of the line. If the politicians had hated Gillard being a woman already, they hated even more her last-ditch attempts to integrate into the culturally-transcendent stereotype of a dull, menopausal housewife.

Rudd decided to win back his place in the top seat as voters realised how much of a desperate PR stunt Gillard had just engaged in. Which is a shame, because despite the almost-constant struggle of Gillard to single-handedly defeat sexism in Australia (and why not the World?), there was something us Pommies loved about Gillard. We will miss her falling over, her battlefield-worthy corridor walks with her ever-diminishing allies and her definitely-only-mildly islamophobic remarks which are now used across the world by right-wingers as the ideological political stance on immigration. Being called a bitch is something that no woman should have to endure, let alone by the leader of the opposition.

Payday Poverty

The government has a lot to answer for: cutting benefits and increasing the cost of education. The bedroom tax - which is supposed to increase the fluidity of larger properties for council and housing association tenants - has ended up inflicting poverty upon people and created a vacuum of small,  1 and 2-bedroom homes for people whose families have fled the nest. 

What it also has a lot to answer for is the increase in payday lending. It is surely no coincidence that the poorest people in society have their homes and livelihoods taken away from them and turn to a sinister, confusing, morally-void system of lending money to people. Stella Creasy MP is right; Payday loans are crippling the impoverished. And Wonga.com is offering rates of 5853% to borrow up to £400 at a time. 

This creates a dependency which is cyclical; if one month, a struggling mother needs to borrow some money to pay for food for her family (which has had its benefits drastically decreased and is being forced to fork out up to 25% of the rent they used to have covered by the state), she will likely see the allure of the payday lenders who use questionable tactics to lure their vulnerable victims into borrowing money at several hundred times the rate of a normal, high-street bank. Then the next month, faced with a £130 charge for a £400 loan, this poor single mother will be forced again to keep borrowing at several thousand percentage points. Embarrassed and desperate, she will continue this vicious cycle. 

And this may seem like a harmless way of raising money for some big-wig with his Bentley and mansion on the outskirts of London. But this is the sub-prime mortgage crisis for the working class. Debt breeds poverty, poverty breeds crime and hopelessness and crime and hopelessness are the cause of the disintegration of our communities. 

Shockingly, Wonga.com also operates in South Africa, a country with huge poverty levels and huge attributable consequences: gun crime, drugs, prostitution, HIV/AIDS. All of these are a result of the people of South Africa being exploited in a plethora of ways over a prolonged period of time. 

These companies, whether in the UK, South Africa or elsewhere are not lending a helping hand; they are lending a ticket into prolonged desperation. These are regulated loan sharks and they need to be stopped.