As one half of Britain languishes in its inflated house price bubble, the other remains with negative equity a constant threat.
Recent figures suggest that 53% of houses in the UK are still worth less than in 2007.
So what about the proclaimed economic recovery, where is all the growth we're supposed to be celebrating, and where did all that free cash, otherwise known as quantitative easing, go to?
Well isn't that a silly question - only an imbecile, or a Tory beneficiary, would say such a stupid thing, for we all know who the real benefits scroungers are, in modern Britain.
Having brought our economy to the point of bankruptcy, our financial services elite continue to extort tribute from the population at large, with our tacit consent and seemingly unbounded approval.
The New Feudalism of this sorry century, which sees greed rewarded and honesty punished, is just one more factor in the shameful and lengthening list of causes for the imminent cataclysm.
Thursday 28 April 2016
Sunday 17 April 2016
UK: So what do muslims really think?
After the much anticipated, and confidently predicted backlash to Trevor Philips' TV documentary on the state of muslim integration into British society, it's been back to business as usual.
The die-hard liberals have screeched about his racist poll, while the more open-minded among them, although slowly waking to the awful truth, still seek rational and politically acceptable options for dealing with, or at least explaining, the dire situation in which we find ourselves.
Muslim lobby groups have wheeled out their islamophobic band wagon, if indeed it was ever put away. But this time they do have a point, because it is undeniable that there was much wrong with the ICM poll.
The ability of statistics to mislead is well known, though it's not the skewed results that I protest, but the notion that an entire section of humanity can be described by the answers of a small portion of their number, to an even smaller set of questions.
The truth is that many muslims do adjust and adapt to Western society, just as, even in islamic states, many do not adhere to islam's exhortations to murder Christians and Jews. For example, in the Middle East today, the overwhelming majority of soldiers fighting against IS are themselves Muslim. We can easily point to the disenfranchisement and exodus of Christianity in the region as a contributory factor, but the fact remains.
Clearly, the conclusion that most of British society, both muslim and non-muslim, had already made, needed some measure of 'scientific' legitimacy to be aired on mainstream TV, but just what another bunch of "Do you support the imposition of Sharia in the UK?" type of questions was supposed to show, is still a mystery.
Complicity with terrorist ideology is fairly consistent globally, even if some countries are more committed than others, there is a relatively large proportion of the world's population gravitating towards violence, and it is getting larger.
So, a questionnaire which simply acknowledges and localizes that reality, without also attempting to link these global attitudes with their global causes, might do more harm than good, in the way that a person hearing a warning alarm might be concerned that they are being burgled, only to be reassured by the observation "Don't worry, it's only the fire alarm" and then to settle back to whatever they had been previously doing.
We have become accustomed to the notion that recognizing the symptom was the first stage in finding a cure, but recent experiences are less comforting and we should be very wary of complacently expecting our increasingly incompetent governments to do what is right and proper and to protect us from even the most imminent danger.
However well-intentioned or intelligent we believe ourselves to be, we cannot hope to find the right answer if we do not first ask the correct question.
If Channel 4 and Mr. Philips decide to follow up on this latest exercise, perhaps they will embark on a more relevant examination and provide us with answers that most people do not already know.
Let us hope they'll call the next episode:-
The die-hard liberals have screeched about his racist poll, while the more open-minded among them, although slowly waking to the awful truth, still seek rational and politically acceptable options for dealing with, or at least explaining, the dire situation in which we find ourselves.
Muslim lobby groups have wheeled out their islamophobic band wagon, if indeed it was ever put away. But this time they do have a point, because it is undeniable that there was much wrong with the ICM poll.
The ability of statistics to mislead is well known, though it's not the skewed results that I protest, but the notion that an entire section of humanity can be described by the answers of a small portion of their number, to an even smaller set of questions.
The truth is that many muslims do adjust and adapt to Western society, just as, even in islamic states, many do not adhere to islam's exhortations to murder Christians and Jews. For example, in the Middle East today, the overwhelming majority of soldiers fighting against IS are themselves Muslim. We can easily point to the disenfranchisement and exodus of Christianity in the region as a contributory factor, but the fact remains.
Clearly, the conclusion that most of British society, both muslim and non-muslim, had already made, needed some measure of 'scientific' legitimacy to be aired on mainstream TV, but just what another bunch of "Do you support the imposition of Sharia in the UK?" type of questions was supposed to show, is still a mystery.
Complicity with terrorist ideology is fairly consistent globally, even if some countries are more committed than others, there is a relatively large proportion of the world's population gravitating towards violence, and it is getting larger.
So, a questionnaire which simply acknowledges and localizes that reality, without also attempting to link these global attitudes with their global causes, might do more harm than good, in the way that a person hearing a warning alarm might be concerned that they are being burgled, only to be reassured by the observation "Don't worry, it's only the fire alarm" and then to settle back to whatever they had been previously doing.
We have become accustomed to the notion that recognizing the symptom was the first stage in finding a cure, but recent experiences are less comforting and we should be very wary of complacently expecting our increasingly incompetent governments to do what is right and proper and to protect us from even the most imminent danger.
However well-intentioned or intelligent we believe ourselves to be, we cannot hope to find the right answer if we do not first ask the correct question.
If Channel 4 and Mr. Philips decide to follow up on this latest exercise, perhaps they will embark on a more relevant examination and provide us with answers that most people do not already know.
Let us hope they'll call the next episode:-
What does Islam really instruct?
Wednesday 13 April 2016
EU: Dutch are not stupid.
When results were returned from the Ukraine Association referendum, our politicians saw it as part of a general dissatisfaction with the EU, so we can probably rule that out straight away, because they so consistently get everything else wrong, we must wonder why this should be any different.
It is true that many wanted to make this a referendum on the state of our European Union, but would so many have voted against on those grounds alone?
The connection between Mr Poroshenko's assault on East Ukraine, and the downing of MH17 with 193 Dutch fatalities may have been the unspoken, but not forgotten, factor in such a decisive no vote.
The biggest questions about 17th July 2014 are still unanswered.
Coming the day after two Ukrainian SU-25's were hit by rebels, with one destroyed and the other damaged, there is every likelihood that anti-Kyiv forces shot the airliner down, but there is still no reasonable explanation as to why Ukrainian flight control ordered MH17 to descend towards such a dangerous area, a manoeuvre which could easily be interpreted by those on the ground as indicating an imminent aerial assault.
To suggest that a few showers prompted the request is ludicrous enough, especially given that photographic evidence shows a fairly benign day, and in any case, is it not the pilot's responsibility to request changes due to weather?
Another reason proposed, was that air traffic was particularly heavy that day, but as several airlines had already stopped flying over the region, and there were only two other passenger planes in the vicinity, this seems equally unlikely.
Reports that Ukrainian military jets were also flying in the area should not be discounted, just because they may not have fired upon the airliner does not mean they played no part in it's ultimate demise, having probably primed the rebel defence forces to expect an attack.
So it's vital we know, why was MH17 diverted?
The possibility that a 'government' which had installed itself by force (during a coup which replaced an elected pro-Russian administration with an unelected pro-American one of equal or greater corruptive capacity) and then set about bombarding it's own population, displacing a million or more ethnic Russians in the other migration crisis [the one that we never hear about], could also be capable of manufacturing a situation in which a civilian airliner was shot down to discredit their opponents, is no more unreasonable than the alternative 'explanations' on offer.
Whether we find the truth or not, there is real doubt, and despite the willingness of our governments to ignore the possibilities, the Dutch people have shown that there is no place in Europe for the sort of leaders of whom such a question can legitimately be asked.
It is true that many wanted to make this a referendum on the state of our European Union, but would so many have voted against on those grounds alone?
The connection between Mr Poroshenko's assault on East Ukraine, and the downing of MH17 with 193 Dutch fatalities may have been the unspoken, but not forgotten, factor in such a decisive no vote.
The biggest questions about 17th July 2014 are still unanswered.
Coming the day after two Ukrainian SU-25's were hit by rebels, with one destroyed and the other damaged, there is every likelihood that anti-Kyiv forces shot the airliner down, but there is still no reasonable explanation as to why Ukrainian flight control ordered MH17 to descend towards such a dangerous area, a manoeuvre which could easily be interpreted by those on the ground as indicating an imminent aerial assault.
To suggest that a few showers prompted the request is ludicrous enough, especially given that photographic evidence shows a fairly benign day, and in any case, is it not the pilot's responsibility to request changes due to weather?
Another reason proposed, was that air traffic was particularly heavy that day, but as several airlines had already stopped flying over the region, and there were only two other passenger planes in the vicinity, this seems equally unlikely.
Reports that Ukrainian military jets were also flying in the area should not be discounted, just because they may not have fired upon the airliner does not mean they played no part in it's ultimate demise, having probably primed the rebel defence forces to expect an attack.
So it's vital we know, why was MH17 diverted?
The possibility that a 'government' which had installed itself by force (during a coup which replaced an elected pro-Russian administration with an unelected pro-American one of equal or greater corruptive capacity) and then set about bombarding it's own population, displacing a million or more ethnic Russians in the other migration crisis [the one that we never hear about], could also be capable of manufacturing a situation in which a civilian airliner was shot down to discredit their opponents, is no more unreasonable than the alternative 'explanations' on offer.
Whether we find the truth or not, there is real doubt, and despite the willingness of our governments to ignore the possibilities, the Dutch people have shown that there is no place in Europe for the sort of leaders of whom such a question can legitimately be asked.
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