EU CHAOS LEADS TO NOBEL PRIZE !

For some reason known only to themselves, the Nobel Committee has decided to award this year's Peace Prize to the European Union.

 

The Peace Prize has always been the most contentious award, often given for vague and doubtful socialist reasons to people more connected with war, aggression and conflict than with peace. More recent awards have become ever more strange, with the award to Barack Obama a couple of years ago, before he'd been in office long enough to achieve anything, being a particularly odd occurrence.

 

Even given what has gone before, the award to the European Union has to be one of the most ridiculous of all. Apparently the Prize Committee has said that the EU has helped to transform Europe "from a continent of war to a continent of peace". Clearly, in their isolated ivory tower, the Committee has failed to notice the chaos currently within Europe, largely brought about by the actions of the same European Union. The member states of the EU, and particularly those unfortunate enough to have chosen to use the disastrous 'Euro' currency, are now facing their biggest crisis for decades, with recession and social unrest threatening to tear the whole organisation apart.

 

While it may be true that the creation of the EU came about as a consequence of WW2 and a desire to try to ensure that there would never be another European war, the reality is that the current increasingly centralised structure of the EU is more likely to lead to another war than to prevent one. At least some member states are at each other's throats and there is constant dissension between almost all. How this can have led the Peace Prize Committee to arrive at its decision has to be one of the greatest mysteries of all time.

VOTES AT 16 ? WHY NOT FROM BIRTH ?

The nonsense about giving children the vote has reared its ugly head again and there seems to be some signifiant chance that this actually become a reality. Apparently, Alex Salmond is close to gaining agreement that the referendum on Scottish independence will be opened to 16 year olds, without the matter being discussed in Parliament; any such move would, inevitably, lead to almost irresistible pressure for a general change. That it would be a ridiculous extension of the franchise seems to pass many politicians by, in such desperate a search for support as they are.

 

While those who are born into rich and influential families and attend the countries 'posh' schools may well be educated to understand the ways of the political world, it is my experience that the vast majority of today's 16 year olds are still children, in every sense of the word. Their general behaviour is infantile and their interest in the wider world largely non-existent. They are governed by fshion and seem inseparably linked to their 'i-Phones' and other such devoices. They spend their days in endless and pointless exchanges of text messages and Facebook posts; they are undisciplined and disruptive. Worst of all, many have a level of education far below that of their parents and grandparents.

 

When children left school at 14 and had to find work, they were forced to enter into the adult world and grew up very quickly. Today's generation of children remains at school or in college or university until they are aged at least 18 and often until 21 and older. They have no experience of the realities of the adult world, being protected at every stage from any interference from those who would seek to teach them any manners or discipline. Today's school leavers may be more physically mature than those of earlier decades but they are psychologically far inferior, with this inferiority extending for many well into their 20s. 

 

The oft-expressed argument that this or that group has not had a chance to 'have their say' on this or that issue doesn't hold water. Our world is always governed according to rules laid down by an earlier generation and this argument, at its extreme, would lead us to give the vote to ever younger children until such time as all new-borns are also on the register. Every generation, in its turn, has the opportunity to change whatever laws it wishes, or introduce new ones, but only once they have achieved a proper degree of understanding of the world around them. To give them the power without the knowledge to use it would be irresponsible to say the least.

 

The teenagers of my experience have little or no interest in politics and even less understanding. It has been stated that few in the 18 to 24 age group vote now, so what would be the point of extending the franchise to those aged 16 and 17 ? Presumably those who favour this are driven by an expectation that a majority of those who do vote would be on their side, so it is unsurprising that it is the socialist wing which is most enthusiastic; young people are generally thought to be more left wing in their views. However, any increased support for the left would surely be diluted by the reduction in the overall turnout, which would fall as a result of the general apathy of teenagers. The legitimacy of governments and councils would be further eroded, something by which serious politicians would be worried and of which the population at large should be terrified.

 

We can only hope that sanity eventually prevails

JIMMY SAVILLE; A LESSON TO BE LEARNT

I never did like Jimmy Saville and I always found his 'touchy-feely' behaviour on his television programmes a bit nauseating, but I did not think of him as a serial child molester and rapist. The recent revelations about his activities over a period of more than 40 years have, therefore, come as something of a surprise.

 

While surprise is obviously one feeling, shock, disgust and disbelief follow swiftly. How on earth did this man manage to carry on his perverted behaviour without anyone in positions of authority knowing ? Why did none of his victims complain decades ago, when they were first assaulted ? Who else in his circle was acting in a similar fashion ? 

 

The police have said that that they have now received many allegations against Saville and are pursuing 120 lines of investigation. They have also suggested that others, presumably figures in the same entertainment world inhabited by Saville, may also be implicated. Whatever horrors are eventually uncovered, this story should serve to remind us all to be on our guard against complacency when it comes to flamboyant and apparently caring and generous people. 

BENEFITS CUTS SHOULD TARGET IDLE AND PROFLIGATE

David Cameron and his glove puppet, George Osborne, have been making comments about the need for more spending cuts and the welfare budget seems certain to be attacked again, along with 'the rich'.

 

Neither Cameron nor Osborne ever identifies who is included in the nebulous realm of 'the rich' but it is much clearer whom they have in their sights regarding cuts in welfare spending. It is the scroungers who have never worked, young people who don't want to continue living with their parents but can't actually afford to move out without assistance, and those who are jobless but still produce hordes of children. I say "It's about time".

 

The benefits system, including the egregious 'tax credits' invented by that arch incompetent, Gordon Brown, positively encourages people to keep their working hours to a minimum or to avoid work altogether. My own investigations on behalf of friends has taught me, to my utter astonishment, that for anyone on a relatively low wage there is no point in working more than the minimum hours necessary to qualify for tax credits; working longer results in immediate reductions in housing and council tax benefits which take away almost all of the extra income, and the following year's tax credits are reduced in order to reduce the individual's total income to roughly what it was before all of the extra efforts were made. In consequence, my friends work only the hours needed to qualify for tax credits even though more hours are available; why work for the money if the state will give it to you for doing nothing ? The answer is simple - if the hours are available, you don't get the benefits.

 

For the rest, why should the country pay for many younger people to have a home of their own when there's no reason for them not to live with their parents as every past generation was obliged to do ? That it's inconvenient or restrictive is irrelevant; let them find a job, save some money rather than spending it on cigarettes, alcohol and generally having a good time, and then find a home of their own which they can pay for. Only then, once they are settled is it time for children; the whole notion of girls producing children whom they cannot support without massive state intervention should be anathma to any civilized society and yet it seems to be the norm in the United Kingdom of today.

 

That this lunacy exists is a shocking indictment of the system invented by the Labour government under Blair and Brown and it must be dismantled. Our society has become bloated and lazy, living on a vast range of state benefits that we cannot afford; it is time that things changed and Messrs Cameron and Osborne must change them if they are to have any chance of saving our nation from ultimate catastrophe.

RPI CHANGE PROVES OLD ADAGE

It's been reported today that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has started a consultation on potential changes to the calculation of the Retail Prices Index (RPI).

 

The Government has already changed the measure which it uses for the uprating of a range of benefits and pensions, largely in an attempt to reduce the apparent rate of inflation and consequently to reduce Government spending. This latest reassessment of the RPI is another attempt to do the same, as the probable outcome is to produce a new-style RPI which increases more slowly than does the current measure.

 

For a simple person such as myself, inflation is, surely, inflation. To have different measures and different methods of calculation is nonsense. Some chap on the radio has just 'explained' that there are many problems with the calculation of what might be called real inflation and the ONS is merely trying to find a better formula to use.

 

One wonders why the new formula will be any more accurate than the old. We all know that certain costs are roaring ahead - petrol, fares, food, etc. -  and for the ONS, which is simply an agency of the Government, to try to con us into believeing that inflation is lower than we know it to be is disingenuous in the extreme.

 

The old adage about 'lies, damned lies and statistics' has never been more appropriate and no Government has ever been more duplicitous in its actions.

ABORTION : MINISTERS MISS THE POINT.

Today's spat about the time limit for carrying out abortions really is a bit of the old, old nonsense revisited.

 

Years ago, when contraception was poorly understood and abortion was simply a) illegal and b) not medically sensible, women often went  to someone in a backstreet who carried out a variety of dubious and dangerous procedures in order to get rid of the unwanted foetus. It was commonplace for women to spend much of the time between their late teens and early 40s in a state of pregnancy, many children being miscarried, others dying during childbirth or in infancy, and the mothers themselves often losing their own lives at a young age.

 

In today's Britain, contraception is not only freely available but is promoted to small children as the way not only to avoid pregnancy but also to prevent the passage of an assortment of nasty diseases. Abortion has been available virtually on demand for more than 40 years with the current time limit being set at 24 weeks, although a few babies have been known to survive from a still earlier stage of development.

 

Despite the free availabilty of contraception and the endless sex education lessons given to our children, vast numbers of women still manage to become pregnant every year and then demand an abortion to rid them of the nuisance. The state pays for a large number of these, usually claiming that the procedure is necessary for the health of the mother or because the foetus has some form of abnormality, although the truth is probably that many of these claims are are of debatable validity.

 

We now have 2 government ministers making comments to the efect that the time limit for abortion should be reduced, one saying to 12 weeks and the other to 20. Apparently, the Prime Minister is also in favour of a reduction, though only referring vaguely to a 'small reduction', whatever that might mean. Inevitably, various 'pro-abortion' groups have immediately complained that any new restrictions will impinge on womens' rights, though they never mention the rights of the unborn child.

 

To my mind abortion is always wrong unless there is one of three specific reasons for it; either the foetus has a severe abnormality, the mother's life is at risk or the pregnancy was a result of rape or incest. One of the reasons currently relied upon in many cases, that the mother's mental health may be harmed by allowing the pregnancy to continue, is a nonsense and should be discarded forthwith.

 

These views are not driven by any religious beliefs nor by any particular belief in the sanctity of life; they are a result of nothing more than the application of a bit of simple logic. Given the amount of resources committed to making contraceptives and sex education freely available to all, there is surely no reason why any woman should ever become pregnant when she doesn't want to, barring rape or incest. That the nation squanders untold millions of pounds on carrying out hundreds of thousands of abortions every year is a disgrace. Nationwide, around 50% of all abortions are carried out on women under the age of 25 and something like 25% of women under the age of 25 who have one abortion will have at least another one before that age, another shocking statistic; the vast majority of these abortions are carried out within the first 13 weeks of the pregnancy, suggesting that the principal reason for the termination has nothing to do with foetal abnormality or the mother's health, but is most likely to be a 'lifestyle choice'.

 

The comments of the various government figures are irrelevant to the real issue. Abortion should not be seen as a form of contraception; time limits should have little or nothing to do with it. Genuine medical issues or the circumstances of the conception should be all that matters.

MILIBAND HAS NOTHING NEW TO SAY.

Ed Miliband's speech to the Labour Party Conference seems to have been more of the same old socialist claptrap dressed up in pious language.

 

While telling the audience how much he believed in 'one nation', he also made it clear that the party's policy under his leadership would be to soak those who had anything in order to squander it on yet more wasteful government spending. An assortment of ideas to help the supposed poor and young while ignoring the real problems of our society were trotted out with no mention that it was a period of Labour government, of which Miliband was a senior member, which had brought us to this sorry state in the first place. Everything was the fault of the current failed administration, even though it's only been in place for a little over 2 years.

 

Apparently the speech went down well in Labour circles and has been considered to be one of Miliband's best performances since he assumed leadership of his party. That may well be so, but heaven help us if it convinces anyone to vote again for a party, and a leader, which left our country on the point of financial meltdown.

STATUTORY RAPE IS STILL ON THE BOOKS.

A child named Megan Summers has apparently run away with her teacher. The couple were caught on CCTV and have been in France, though now captured and Megan, at least, has been returned to the UK.

 

That this was a truly newsworthy story is debatable. Many young girls 'take up with' older men and few are pursued with the determination that this couple were deemed worthy of. The 'child' is aged 15 and I dread to think what proportion of 15 year olds are sexually active with the tacit approval of their parents, guardians and others, notwithstanding that engaging in sexual intercourse below the age of 16 remains a criminal offence.

 

There was a discussion on BBC television this morning in which various participants discussed the rights and wrongs of naming people, particularly teachers, who have been accused of wrongdoings, specifically when it involves young people. There appeared to be a view that teachers should be accorded some special status as they were very open to false accusations which could ruin their careers and even their lives. The suggestion also seemed to be that the teacher who'd run away with Megan Stammers was being unfairly treated, being publicly named and shamed in the press and other media.

 

Without being drawn on the main subject here, it seems that this man has effectively been his own worst enemy. He is a person who had responsibility for the child and he used that responsibility inappropriately. No one has yet mentioned the unmentionable fact that sexual intercourse with a minor is illegal and deemed to be 'Statutory Rape' under the UK's criminal law and yet the assumption must surely be that this couple have been involved in such activity; why else would they have run away so far ?

 

Of course, the escapade may be entirely innocent though the chances that this is the case appear slim. There is no doubt that the teacher did accompany the girl to France without the knowledge or agreement of her family and that constitutes a prima facie offence of child abduction; as such the guy is guilty as hell and naming him makes no difference. It's not as though it's one person's word against another's. 

 

The much bigger issues here are those that involve the behaviour of youngsters, particularly those who seem to believe that they are much more 'grown up' than they really are. Girls of 14 and 15 have been indoctrinated to believe that virginity is something to be despised and they willingly give in to the boys who can't wait to 'shag' every girl in town. Few of these so-called relationships produce anything lasting except those which produce a child, usually left to be dealt with by the girl and her parents.

 

This Stammers child running away with her teacher is a consequence of the modern society which has created such opportunities. The girl is an idiot and the teacher should be in prison, but they are far from being the only such couple. Our society is a mess and will remain so until someone shows the balls to buck the trend and sort it out.

WHO WILL SAVE US FROM MILIBAND ?

Listening to Ed Miliband this morning makes one fear for our futures. Interviewed, if that is the right word, by Andrew Marr, Miliband gave a clear indication of his pretty extreme left-wing agenda for the future - rob those who have anything and destroy our businesses.

 

Miliband talked grandly of all manner of things that are simply aimed at gaining votes, with no real consideration of the impact of his proposed policies. Imposition of higher taxes on the so-called 'rich', introduction of a 'living wage' rather than the 'minimum wage' paid for, of course, by employers, reversal of the current government's changes to the NHS and so on. Where the money for all of this will come from and what effects it will have on inflation, interest rates and our general economic health were ignored, by both Miliband and his interviewer. He did say that he would retain 'iron control' over public spending, but we all know how brittle raw iron can be when stressed.

 

Miliband is clearly of a generation which knows little of the socialist mess of the 1960s and 1970s (he was only just 10 at the end of 1979) and sees nothing mistaken in returning to the policies of those days. He was a member of the Blair and Brown Governments which destroyed our economy in more recent times and now he wants us to elect him so that he can do it all over again in his own name.

 

As a an atheist I can't really pray for deliverance from this man and his madness, but I'd still like to hope that there's some greater power which will save us all from him. Sadly, I can see no sign of anyone riding to the rescue, least of all the present boys in power, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, and so a Miliband Premiership continues to look a genuine possibility from 2015.

 

 

CAMERON FAILS LETTERMAN TEST.

Why a serving British Prime Minister would demean his office by appearing on a chat show is a mystery to me. That he should choose to appear on a satirical show in the United States is even more inexplicable. I know that other senior figures have previously been guests on the same show, but these were not serving Prime Ministers. Cameron's appearance could only have been matched by a US President choosing to be a guest of, say, Jonathan Ross, something which I don't think ever has, or ever will, happen.

 

Cameron must be largely unknown to the population of the US and his appearance can have done nothing to raise his profile; Letterman's audience for the programme has been reported as being around 3 million, hardly enough to make Cameron a household name across the 'Pond'. Presumably his motivating force waas the recent appearance of his arch-rival, Boris Johnson, on the same show, but Boris is a natural televisual performer whereas Cameron is not.

 

While our PM apparently answered questions about the world situation competently, he also seems to have failed miserably when quizzed on a few historical facts. I've known that 'Rule Britannia' was written by Thomas Arne, not Edward Elgar, for more years than I can rememebr though Cameron did not. While I did not have the benefit of attending Eton, where I presume the 'Classics' are still a requirement, I certainly had no trouble with the English meaning of 'Magna Carta' which is, of course 'Great Charter'; how Cameron, who must surely have taken Latin at school and studied every aspect of politics ever since, did not know this is beyond my understanding. Boris, as he often demonstrates, uses odd Latin phrases regularly and with aplomb, and I bet he knew about 'Rule Britannia' too.

 

The one thing that this appearance has shown us is that Cameron is not as well educated or clever as he'd like us all to believe. He may have gone to Eton and and gained a first in PPE at Oxford but when it comes down to a bit or knowledge about the real world, he doesn't have it. Cameron is simply another rich kid whose money, rather than any talent, has taken him to the top of the greasy pole.

 

Compared to Boris, Cameron is staid, dull and pedestrian. Boris is sometimes mad and frightening but he has real brains and ability. If he truly wants to be Tory leader and Prime Minister, all he has to do is whistle; "You do know how to whistle, don't you, Boris ? You just put your lips together and blow !"

ANDREW MITCHELL; A PERFECT CHIEF WHIP !

Why is it that so many of our politicians seem to be so 'accident-prone' ?

 

The current furore over what was actually said by the Tory Chief Whip, Andrew Mitchell, to a police oficer on duty at the gate to Downing Street is simply another in the long line of appalling gaffs committed by our Lords and Masters. Whatever Mitchell did ssay, he felt it necessary to issue a personal apology to the officer concerned and to make that apology public knowledge; this action on its own suggests that the man knows he's very much in the wrong.

 

It seems probable that Mitchell did swear at the officer and quite probably did refer to him as being a 'pleb', a contraction of the Latin word for the common folk but more often used these days to indicate that someone is a lowgrade idiot and not really fit to lick one's boots.

 

Although Mitchell has vehemently denied swearing or calling the officer a 'pleb', he clearly said something derogatory and offensive on being refused egress through the Downing Street main gate. Whatever happened, he was obviously angered by it and expressed his anger in words. This all leads me to the conclusion that the man is arrogant, rude and probably foul-mouthed; as such, he is probably a perfect Chief Whip for today's politics. However, where Mitchell has gone wrong is in letting his true personality out into the real world where people have much thinner skins than those who inhabit the corridors of power; the general public now know what he is really like and some, at least, find his behaviour unacceptable.

 

The remaining issue is whether or not he should now be forced out of a job he has been in for only a few days. In a perfect world, he would have recognized his blunder and resigned within hours; in today's political world, he will hang on for dear life and only go if the furore refuses to die down. My money is on the whole issue being drowned out by more important matters over the next few days and Mitchell will slink back into Parliament to vent his spleen on his party fellows.

CLEGG'S NAUSEATING APOLOGY IS LAST GASP OF A DESPERATE MAN

Hearing Nick Clegg make his apology regarding his party's failure to abide by its promise on student tuition fees will make most people feel one of 2 ways. Either they will feel that Clegg has shown himself to be the most decent and honest politician to walk the earth or they will see his abject apology as being one of the most nauseating and cynical actions ever perpetrated on a gullible population.

 

Given that no one, including Clegg, has ever really made it clear to the population at large that the fuss over student loans is really an 'Aunt Sally' invented for political purposes, one has to gravitate towards the second belief. Also given the extent of dissatisfaction with him in his own party, and Vince Cable's clear positioning of himself as a potential successor one has to wonder just how long Clegg has.

 

My guess would be that he might well be gone before next year's conference season though the chance of Cable being his successor is slim..

 

 

DEATH PENALTY HAS TO RETURN.

The brutal murder of 2 policewomen in Manchester was a shocking event. Everyone knows our police are unarmed and yet their murderer appears to have deliberately lured officers to a house by using the pretext of a hoax burglary report and then killed them in cold blood.

 

Norman Tebbitt. a long standing supporter of the death penalty, has suggested that this ultimate penalty should again be considered in cases such as this. Indeed, it is difficult to understand why the death penalty cannot be reintroduced given the advanced state of forensic examinationas available in this modern era.

 

The driving force behind the abolition of this sentence was the fear of making mistakes. Cases such as that of Timothy Evans were used to raise such terrors in the minds of some people that abolition became a 'cause celebre' ; when the left-leaning wets who govern so much of our lives took up the cause en masse, abolition became inevitable.

 

For many years after the abolition, friends and family of the 'A6 murderer', James Hanratty, argued fiercely that he was innocent and had been a victim of another atrocious miscarriage of justice. Eventually, the authorities agreed to an exhumation of his remains and the conducting of DNA tests, which the family were sure would prove his innocence; what the tests showed was that Hanratty was guilty after all. In other words, the justice system of the time had got it right.

 

If the system of 1962 could be right, even in such a high profile and contentious such as Hanratty's, how can it be argued that we cannot risk having the death penalty today when science and surveillance are so much more spophisticated ? Perhaps it is the case that this is no longer the principle argument against capital punishment and that it's now all about compassion and rehabilitation even for the most heinous of crimes; we are told that the death penalty is simply barbaric and not for use by a modern, civilized society.

 

What the murderer of those 2 policewomen did was vicious and cold-blooded; it was barbaric. Such a person has, in my view, forfeited their right to life and, if proven guilty, should be executed. Why should the state be required to maintain such killers for the rest of their lives, now likely to be many decades ? Killers such as Ian Brady and Myra Hyndley, Donald Neilson, Peter Sutcliffe, Fred West, Harold Shipman and many others have no place in our world and arranging their exit from it does all of society a serious service.

 

Being civilized does not mean being soft and stupid; it means making proper reasoned judgements. Lord Tebbitt should be listened to and his words acted upon.

IVF PLUS; MUMMY, DADDY AND WHAT ?

Today's news includes a story about the launching of a public consultation over a subject which has been dubbed 'three-person IVF'. This is a laboratory technique which would enable babies to be created in a laboratory using genetic material, DNA, from 3 different people.

 

According to a woman who was interviewed during the 'Today' programme on radio 4 this morning, all that the public needs to concern itself with is the ethics of the process as the science has already been thoroughly reviewed and found to be what she described as 'safe'. In her interview she refused steadfastly to be drawn on the science and wouldn't even explain why this three-person approach might be needed; presumably she didn't feel that the public either needed to know the 'why?, or that they wouldn't understand it if it was explained or that they would understand it and would decide to reject the idea. To me, it was a studied exercise in trying to manipulate public opinion in order to gain the desired outcome, i.e. a positive result to the consultation.

 

The woman who was so lacking in candour is currently head of the HFEA, the body which oversees such matters, Professor Lisa Jardine. Astonishingly, Profesor Jardine is not a scientist but a historian who has spent most of her life in academia and, in recent times, has been a member of a whole range of institutions, both public and private; she is a regular contributor in the media also, but despite all of this one has to wonder what are her qualifications for chairing the HFEA and, in particular, for taking such an arrogant stand in respect of this consultation.

 

The actual reasoning behind this 'three-person IVF' is to eliminate genetic conditions which derive from errors in the mitochondrial DNA of the mother's cells. Basically, an embryo is formed when the sperm from a man enters the egg from a woman, something of which most people will be well aware. The egg is a full cell containing not just a nucleus but also all of the surrounding material which is found in every other cell in a human body while the sperm is little more than a nucleus. Although most of the genetic material which is passed on from parents to their children comes from the nuclear material, a tiny proportion comes from the mitochondria, tiny organelles which are only passed on by the mother. In some rare instances, the genetic material in these organelles can become damaged and give rise to serious illnesses.

 

The proposed way to prevent such occurrences is to fertilise an egg with sperm in a test tube in a normal IVF procedure but then to remove the nucleus from the fertilised egg and transplant it into a denucleated cell (one from which the nucleus has been removed) obtained from a third party. This third-party cell would then provide the mitochondrial component to the developing baby along with all of the other material from outside of the nucleus. The resulting baby would therefore have its main features and heredity derived from its 'parents' although elements of its cellular structure, including its mitochondrial DNA, would be derived from the third party. One thought that occurs to me, and something which I have not seen mentioned as a possibility, is that the 'third-party' material could, in fact, be derived from the father's cells thus removing the need for an actual third party, though I don't know if this would be a practical solution.

 

I always become a little cynical, to say the least, when scientific types try to persuade me to accept some new technique but are unhappy about providing a proper explanation of the process or, as in this case, appear to consider that we are not even worthy to be told the facts. We are expected to accept what we are told without debate, simply taking the word of the scientific community and others with a vested interest on trust. As I stated earlier, in this case, the public are being canvassed only for their views on the ethics of the process, the science already having been 'approved'.

 

To my mind this all sounds a bit like Dr Frankenstein creating his monster, although it may be more scientifically reasonable. Over the centuries, scientists have often claimed something to be true or safe only for later generations to discover some other awful and real truth; antibiotics that no longer work, the dangers of X-Rays and nuclear radiation, the addictive properties of many antidepressant drugs, the supposedly beneficial qualities of smoking tobacco and the dangers of steroids. Thalidomide.

 

Scientists are not always right, indeed they are probably more often wrong. For the general population to be refused a proper explanation of this proposed new practice is unacceptable. For us simply to be told that the science has been confirmed as being 'safe' is unacceptable; the people who have drawn this conclusion are the very ones who will be using it and profiting from that use should it be approved. Ethically, I simply feel that this would be a step too far in creating manufactured human beings.

 

Overall, I don't like it and the general public should tell the self-appointed experts to forget it.

LEAVE AFGHANS TO KILL EACH OTHER, NOT OUR TROOPS.

For a reason only really known to our political masters, British troops remain in Afghanistan. Unsurprisingly, some get killed from time to time though it is pretty disgusting that most recent deaths appear to have been the result of actions by supposedly friendly Afghans.

 

Afghanistan has always been a disaster area and numerous invasions going back at least 200 years have all ended in failure. The tribal culture of the country is such that attempts at 'westernization' or even any form of civilization are doomed; for some reason, we seem to keep forgetting this and our troops keep dying.

 

Why on earth don't we just leave the Afghans to fight amongst themselves as they have done for countless generations ?