It seems that a £billion is what it takes to keep Gordon from falling even flatter on his face..
Such is the amount that will be heading to Northern Ireland to bolster their Assembly's coffers, and it was the support.. and only of the 9 Members of the Democratic Unionists that carried his Bill to extend the length of time a suspect charged under the Terrorism Act to 42 days without charge and without appearing before a Magistrate.
And while, truth be told, there appeared to be public support for the Bill, those in the Legal, Judicial, and Law Enforcement Agencies were unanimous in their opposition to it.. quoting Civil Rights that date back to the Magna Carta..
One must smile. Those who commit terrorist acts have indeed frightened us, to the point we are willing to abrogate those Rights and Freedoms which defined this country.
Shame.
It begs the question: how many, controlling so much, can be brought to ignominious
breaches of Civil Liberties, by so few..
It is a dangerous indication of what we will allow in the future, to 'guarrantee' the safety of our comfortable lives. It demonstrates that rather than commit ourselves to eradicating the source of this global unrest, we would sooner retract further into a protective shell, and that is certainly not the mindset our society was built upon..
Not to wander too far off point.. but one could easily discern the motivation which drove us pell mell into Iraq.. while an even more insidious dictator is killing his own citizens in Zimbabwe. There would be little profit for us to commit to removing Mugabe, whereas the establishment of another foothold in the Middle East was of paramount importance. But this demonstrates the methodology, the reasoning, behind the Wests stand as the 'policemen of the world'.
It will be interesting to see what the new regemes in London and Washington will do with the legacy they're going to be left..
Whatever it is.. we will, and count on this, be told to 'be afwaid..be werry afwaid..'
And the problem is, we will have good reason to heed this advice, because we are, of necessity, going to be looking at a future far less comfortable, far more restricted, and far intimidating, than that which we enjoy today.
Imagine oil stabalising at about $150 a barrel.. a loaf of bread costing £2.25.. the average wage buying less and less, while the equity one had thought to have accumulated for old age, steadily reducing in value until in some cases, retirees find themselves in negative equity positions..
And it's a process that absolutely nothing is going to stop.. until we've gone through the worst of it. Hopefully during that timespan, we'll have had the sense to elect a government or two, dedicated to changing the economic dependencies we've developed over the past century or so..
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..There's a little Samuel Pepys in all of us..
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