A brief word on the death of the Canadian-born economist and writer, John Kenneth Galbraith. Not that he had a short life..he was 97 after all, but doubtless there are few still alive today who could match his grasp on the political-economic scene.. his 'Affluent Society' should be required reading for anyone with a vote..
More problems with Tony's Cabinet... There are serious calls for the resignation of the Deputy Prime Minister after his affair with a secretary.. calls for the resignation of his Home Secretary over the release of more than a thousand prisoners who should have been deported immediately after serving their terms, a situation made far far worse by the re-offending of at least five of those let loose.. catcalls from those employed by the NHS, where millions have been spent while hundreds still face unemployment, or redundancy as they now call it.. The nurses are threatening strike action, and if that comes to pass, god help those who must be admitted to hospital..
Two points here. The one being that it is absolutely risible that we should expect our elected officials to be as 'pure as Caesars wife'.. that they are no more than any of the rest of us, with the obvious exception of the power they weild, power we gave them.. And while it has been an horrendous week for Tony, it's for the most part smoke and mirrors..
The release of those foreign criminals was indeed a reprehensible mistake by the Home Office, but that is in itself about the substance of all the media has been playing with..
And the second is somewhat of a non sequitur, in that it deals with the International response to the civil war in Sudan. We have George Clooney, for god's sake, walking about refugee camps in Darfour, begging for foreign money. The question is, would anyone give a damn, if Sudan wasn't sitting on oil reserves that rival those of Saudi Arabia?
George, Bush in this case, gave lip-service to the need to wean ourselves from petrochemicals, but the fact remains we are still 'addicted to oil', and no government legislation has yet to be presented that would take us in any other direction.