Hail the people’s Gordon!

by Alan Tyers

It’s all hands to the pump for Gordon Brown as he attempts to save his sinking ship. Yesterday, we learned details of the forthcoming Queen’s Speech - a set of deliberately political, populist measures including putting the boot into bankers, snuggling up to the elderly, getting tough on knife crime and, for all we know, free jam for every reader and death squads for paedos.

Today, Brown is further playing to the gallery by suggesting that we might get the hell out of Afghanistan - something that the British public are polling very strongly in favour of.

It’s funny, now that this Government is in (presumably terminal) decline, it’s suddenly all about listening to what the punters want.

With British soldiers now dying in a hail of media attention, the PM reckons we should consider “a security handover” to the Afghans - i.e. sneak out of there as discretely as possible.

It was probably a bad idea to go to war there in the first place, but we decided to, and then we decided to stay. The situation does not appear to be getting any more, erm, secure - so why is it suddenly a good idea to get out?

There can be only one logical answer: Labour needs some quick political wins. What else can we expect between now and the general election? Anything populist and headline-grabbing, no matter the long-term implications, is my guess.

Let kids be kids

by Greg McDonald

Shame on Victoria Beckham for using her children as photo-op props - but shame on the public, too, for failing to shun child exploitation in all its forms and instead allowing children to be children.

Victoria’s willingness to thrust oldest son Brooklyn into the destructive public spotlight, with his first “public charity engagement” and gossip magazine cover splash, is deplorable, whatever spurious platitudes she may spout about children inspiring hope, promise and so on.

But sadly the Beckhams are far from alone. From Madonna’s latest designer adoption to exploitative TV circuses like Britain’s Got Talent humiliating minors in acts like Stavros Flatley, the public is happy to acquiesce in turning vulnerable children into freak show entertainment.

But while it may ever have been thus - from Britain’s freakiest show, the Royal family, downwards - it shouldn’t be. Children, as Gordon Brown noted in a thinly-veiled Conference speech attack on David Cameron’s willingness to put his own kids in front of the cameras, “are not props, they’re people”.

In wider society, children have never been materially better off, but in many ways the modern childhood experience of TV screens and Tesco Christmases is an impoverished thing.

If Victoria Beckham truly believes “every child deserves an equal start”, her charity ought to begin at home - with a press release telling the media her kids are off-limits. Children do not exist to be exploited, but to be children.

Brown letter day

by Alan Tyers

The ignoble sport of bear-baiting is alive and well: Gordon Brown has lurched into yet another crisis and his enemies at The Sun are getting stuck in.

The PM hand-wrote a letter to Jacqui Janes offering his condolences for the death in Afghanistan of her Grenadier Guardsman son, Jamie.

Brown managed to spell her name incorrectly, and made several other spelling (or handwriting) mistakes in the letter. Then - cringe, cringe - he phoned her up to say sorry, she recorded the conversation and handed it to The Sun. Manna from heaven to the Tory-backing boys in Wapping.

Personally, I think it’s a low blow: he wrote to her and phoned her personally and privately. I couldn’t argue that it’s not a matter of public interest, but it still seems a bit mean to serve him up to the unlovely red-top attack dogs.

Still, it certainly reveals a lot about the Prime Minister and his current state of mind. A lack of attention to detail, the inability to admit a mistake - “I think I was trying to say Janes, as your right name” - a total failure to communicate.

A more gifted politician and manipulator than Brown - Tony Blair, say, or Bill Clinton - would have played the card that he too has lost a child; or maybe even alluded to his disability and failing eyesight. It’s arguably to Brown’s credit that he didn’t. About all you can say is that he shouldn’t have written the letter if he can’t write her name correctly. It seems a modest amount to ask from the leader of the country.

Instead of grovelling, Brown tried to debate her on issues that she obviously knows a fair bit about, but is never going to bend on. That her son died because of underfunding is fixed 100% in her mind.

It’s not an argument he could ever win, and even if he could - who wants to defeat a grieving mother with stats and policy detail?

Berlin should inspire us all

by Greg McDonald

As world leaders gather in Germany today to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, the miracle of reunification should embolden us to believe that bold, peaceful, democratic progress is possible when we have the courage to act as if it’s so.

For Berlin owes much of its success to precisely that spirit: manifested in the bravery of ordinary Germans who faced down a seemingly unbeatable foe, and to sage German leaders who put long-term security ahead of short-term advantage.

In Berlin today, however, world leaders should recognise that peace and prosperity in a united Germany did not happen in a vacuum - but as part of the wider European miracle, which has given an otherwise historically bloody continent 64 years of relative peace.

And, reflecting on the iconic images of Berliners’ triumph over fear and division 20 years ago, we in Britain would do well to reflect on how fortunate we are to be a part of that Europe - and, for all the European project’s defects, how essential it is that our future is at its heart.

The German miracle is so inspiring because so little is easier in life than saying “I can’t” - and, when it seems that way, still acting as if “I can”. Or in Gandhi’s formulation, to “be the change you wish to see in the world”.

Recalling the fall of the Wall, we can take heart that humanity constantly produces seemingly miraculous triumph over unbeatable odds - as anyone who saw David Haye’s Goliathan boxing victory this weekend will testify - and feel emboldened that progress is always possible if we act like it’s so.

Who is David Cameron?

by Alan Tyers

PM-in-waiting David Cameron screwed Britain for the first time this morning: it probably will not be the last.

In September 2007, Cameron wrote in The Sun: “I will give this cast-iron guarantee: if I become PM a Conservative Government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations. No treaty should be ratified without consulting the British people in a referendum.”

That seems pretty clear to me.

Today, he has backtracked from that referendum promise and is attempting to sugar the pill with some tough talk about how he won’t let those nasty Eurocrats tell us what to do.

In a cunning stroke, Cameron has managed to make himself look like a weasel and a windbag.

Handed the biggest open goal any politician could dream of - putting the hopeless, unelected Gordon Brown out of his misery - Cameron has today given an unpleasant snapshot of what life will be like under his Tories.

I’m sure I’m not alone in being unsure what Cameron stands for or what his policies are. Is he a Eurosceptic? What will he do about our national debt? Will he cut taxes? What will he do about crime? How will he extricate our forces from Afghanistan?

I think it’s fair to say that most people are not clear. He needs to let the electorate know what his plans are once he comes to power, and try and convince people that he will stick to those commitments.

At the moment, the impression is of an opportunist who will say what he needs to say at any given time - and this u-turn doesn’t do anything to dispel that.

No denying climate change

by Greg McDonald

The news that the Arctic ice could melt and become open sea by 2020 should shock world leaders at December’s UN Climate Change Conference into radical action to address the man-made crisis which threatens human existence.

British polar explorer Pen Hadow predicts that the Arctic’s summer ice cover will be entirely lost, destroying species, warming the planet, raising sea levels, creating millions of refugees, and threatening human life.

There is no doubt now, among scientists, politicians or the public, about global warming. It’s real, we made it, and its catastrophic threat to continued human existence is imminent.

Yet while the tools to deal with climate change exist, and public support for their use is overwhelming, our leaders are failing us.

The best chance for the planet is the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December, at which scientists will demand radical and immediate action to alter the energy economy and rebuild ecosystems, warning that soft targets and delays will have disastrous consequences.

Hadow’s revelation of the shocking disappearance of the Arctic in our lifetimes must silence the madness of climate change deniers and end the greed of polluters alike, and spur our leaders at Copenhagen to understand that inaction is inexcusable.

Crazy for Jesus

by Alan Tyers

Leilani Neumann, 41, of Weston, Wisconsin, told the court: “We are not crazy religious people.” She and her husband were both sentenced to six months for second-degree reckless homicide.

They had let their 11-year-old daughter, Madeline, die on the floor while they prayed around her, certain their God would heal the child, refusing to get her medical attention.

Madeline, who suffered from an undiagnosed but treatable type of diabetes, had become so weak she could not speak or eat. She died on Sunday at the family home while her mum and dad and members of their Bible group prayed for her to be healed.

The first reaction is anger that anyone could be so incredibly stupid. It’s a great shame that people as dim as the Neumanns have managed to produce four offspring. The other three kids are presumably praying they don’t get ill.

Really, though, you just feel despair that in the 21st century, in the developed world, people are still in thrall to this sort of mumbo-jumbo. And don’t be saying: “Only in America…” We have our own religious nutters here, who think that decapitating their children for perceived infidelity is the way to go.

I met a woman recently whose husband has become estranged from his family, because he does not share their Jehovah’s Witness beliefs. The situation came to a head when he asked: “If, hypothetically, I were to be in a serious road accident and needed a transfusion, what would you do?”

His mother said: “I would not allow the doctors to give you a blood transfusion, because blood is sacred.”

Him: “So you would, effectively, be condemning me to death?”

Her: “But a death with JESUS.”

We’re trying to have a civilisation here. We have art and literature, and double helixes and heart transplants and iPhones; other people have praying over their dying kid. These people deserve punishment, not tolerance.

Cameron naked on Europe

by Greg McDonald

David Cameron’s refusal to be straight with his party or the country on the question of a European referendum has revealed the future PM to be a naked emperor.

Of course, refusing to give a straight answer has been standard politics since Adam told God that the real question wasn't whether he had eaten the apple but whether, in a very real sense, there had been the projected above-0% statistical rise in fruitative easing.

What Adam meant was: “I ate the damn apple.”

And what Dave means is: “I’ve dropped the damn referendum.”

Yet trying to be all things to all men can be a dangerous game. Indeed, it's unfortunate for the Conservatives that on the day they announce cuts in help for the sick, a bunch of East-European Nazis calling themselves For Fatherland and Freedom have turned up at Conference.

But it’s not the Tories’ international alliances which endanger their electoral chances, so much as their leader’s brazen refusal to give a straight answer on Europe.

For when it came to being modest with the truth, at least Adam had a fig leaf - Emperor Dave is starkers, and even Boris Johnson sees it.

But with government mere months away, the question this week is whether the Tories are willing to wait before saying what they see.

Forever young?

by Greg McDonald

If you’re planning on doing anything risky before 2028 you might want to reconsider, because those of us still here in twenty years are going to live forever.

Yes, according to American scientist Ray Kurzweil, technology is accelerating at such a rate that we’re just two decades away from immortality as nanobots first halt and then reverse the ageing process.

And if you imagine Kurzweil is a crack-pot whose mum still irons his Star-Trek pyjamas, beam this up: twenty years into our mortal past the world laughed at some of the professor’s other crazy predictions: mobile phones, the collapse of the USSR, and the internet you’re reading this blog on.

It doesn’t stop there either: Kurzweil’s immortal cyber-men run fifteen minute Olympic sprints without drawing breath and dash off novels in minutes.

And if talk of modified super-beings sounds crazy, look around you – from Madonna to dear old Anne Robinson, technologically modified eternally youthful immortals already walk amongst us.

And it’s not just celebrities: at the UN rumours abound that Gordon Brown’s Youtube smile was actually a programming error in early nanobot technology, while leading members of the EU fear Peter Mandelson has already drunk the blood of eternal undeath.

So there it is. Start saving ready to put your nano-feet up on Jupiter as we enter the immortal age. Just whatever you do, don’t get hit by a bus in December 2028.

Nuclear option

by Alan Tyers

Britain's plans to cut its nuclear capability are encouraging, but we should go further.

Gordon Brown is to tell the UN that Britain will cut its nuclear submarine fleet by 25%. Interestingly, guess how many subs that actually means? Just one. We have four; soon we will have three.

The Government has also announced plans to cut its stockpile of Trident nuclear warheads from 200 to 160. These moves, proponents say, will prove to other countries that we’re serious about moving towards a nuclear-free world; and specifically, it will show Iran that we are not being hypocritical.

That’s the plan anyway.

But we will still have a lethal nuclear arsenal even after these cuts, so how Britain can honestly claim the moral high ground over any country that’s developing nukes is lost on me.

It might be that there’s a country or sub-national body insane enough to launch a nuclear attack on Britain - but I can’t see that nuclear stockpile would actually be any deterrent against what would have to be a religious or ideologically-driven suicide mission.

In short: if Iran, say, is going to try nuking us, it will do so whether we have missiles or not.

Might we be better off spending the money on current problems - Afghanistan, for example - that we can actually influence?