Privacy - Public Figures & Mere Mortals

My mother was quite paranoid, probably with good reasons as she was German. She came to the UK in the mid 30's & had quite a difficult time in the war. She didn't want anyone to "know her business" & wasn't forthcoming, even to me. So I now realise there are quite a few questions I have about her life that I do not know the answers to.

Possibly as a result of that I have gone the other way & do readily answer personal questions about my life & my beliefs to friends & family. I don't think there are any topics I'm not prepared to think about my position on & discuss. 

But there are people who ask very intrusive questions. If a topic comes up in conversation that is different to being interrogated about very personal aspects of ones life. I think my view is that the questioner should respect that some things are private. I don't like being subjected to a "third degree". I don't tend to ask very personal questions myself & think that if someone wants me to know something they will tell me. 

I am very much an "open book".

I am not in favour of the current trend for people in the public eye to "bare their souls" in public. I get very irritated by celebrities & influencers who try to tell me what to think & do. I am tired of hearing personal confessions from these people. I don't know them, so their personal information & opinions mean nothing to me. I actually wonder why they think it is appropriate & am amazed that the public is interested. 

The point of all this is that I have found the press & media treatment of  Catherine Princess of Wales dreadful. Yes she lives a very privileged life in the spotlight because she married into the Royal family. She seems to me to deal with her duties remarkably well, given that unlike William she wasn't brought up to it. Personally, whatever the perks, it wouldn't appeal to me. I don't believe that her position gives the press & media the right to scrutinise her every word & action & speculate wildly on what they have been told. The rumours, speculation & criticism are completely unwarranted & must be upsetting. She is entitled to a private life as is everyone.

I am sure that she has a staff to protect & advise her. I hope that they shield her from the worst excesses of the "conspiracy theorists". I hope that she doesn't actually read any of the rubbish that is published about her. 

We all seem to be living in a "goldfish bowl" where legitimacy is given to an aggressive press & media who want us to believe that almost everything is in the public interest. At any time anyone may be unfortunate enough to be under their microscope & have packs of journos & photographers hounding us. I sincerely hope it never happens to me.

Catherine has been exemplary & is dealing with an extremely difficult personal situation. She is entitled to privacy to cope with it. But privacy is in short supply for anyone in the public glare in the 21st century.

Bridges v Walls

All the houses I have ever lived in have had hedges, fences, or walls marking out my land. We humans don't pee to mark out our territory, but we do seem to need to repel borders. It is very defensive. No moat & drawbridge, but the message is clear. 

The only 3 disputes I have ever had with neighbours as the owner of 6 houses & renter of 2, have all been about borders or noise. On the other hand, we bought one house in Gloucestershire which had a very long line of huge Leylandii trees between us & a neighbour, cutting out their light completely over a huge swathe of their garden. The previous owner had refused to even trim them. We agreed to cut them all down & my husband & the neighbour did all the work. There must have been well over 20. We gained garden & they could actually grow things all along the border. Leylandii are thugs, probably causing more neighbour disputes than other things. They also cause unhappiness, anger & despair. They take up a huge amount of water year round.

That made for a really good relationship with my neighbours, who I am still in touch with, even after moving 3 times. It immediately built a bridge. 

Trump wanted to build a wall along the US border with Mexico. The Israelis have built a wall between themselves & the West Bank. Both have been in the news & have caused huge issues. These two countries are not alone though, as this website shows clearly.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-border-walls

The longest border wall is the India-Bangladesh border wall at 2,030 miles. We Brits don't need a wall. We are an island & have the sea all around us. We are trying very hard to repel all borders though.

In the current climate, I find myself wondering if, instead of trying to stop population movements, the peoples of the world could work together to acknowledge the problems that beset us & solve them together for the benefit of everyone. Fighting wars to defend your territory seems to me to be a very masculine response. History shows us that actually no one wins a war. The cost is always too high.

So shouldn't we be trying to build more bridges? Shouldn't we recognise that everything we have been blessed with in this world belongs to everybody, to be sharded more equally? If you are starving, displaced & homeless, injured, orphaned, shouldn't everyone who has everything they need be doing all they can to help you? 

If more of us were bridge builders rather than wall builders, maybe we wouldn't be in the mess we are at the moment.

 

Swearing & Sex

Swearing - "use of language regarded as coarse, blasphemous or otherwise unacceptable in polite or formal speech in order to express anger or other strong emotion". To Swear on the other hand is entirely different - "to utter or take solemnly (an oath)" or "to assert or promise emphatically or earnestly". To swear by - "to place great confidence in".

I was helping in a day respite shelter for homeless people & people needing support yesterday. One of the clients used the f word continuously, but wasn't aggressive or a problem. Like many of the clients he probably has mental health issues. I'm an elderly woman & would normally think that use of the word was a measure of a paucity of language skills & unnecessary, reflecting poorly on the speaker.

In the 15th & 16th C the F word was a familiar word for sexual intercourse, but today it's use is very controversial, but is used liberally by many. The Guardian has even done a recent article about swearing 

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/feb/09/is-swearing-still-taboo

 

It is interesting that the majority of swear words are related to sex or the genitals. According to Pinker, an experimental psychologist who combines it with neuroscience, there are 5 types of swearing - dysphemistic, idiomatic, abusive, emphatic, and cathartic.

 https://www.openculture.com/2012/08/steven_pinker_explains_the_neuroscience_of_swearing.html

We each have to decide whether we want to swear & also how we want to react to others swearing. I have been known to swear in extremis, but never using the F or C words. We have to make a personal choice about what is offensive & what is just vulgar. Sometimes a swear word just pops out in the heat of the moment, I certainly don't make a habit of it. There is a tendency to think that men can swear, but women cannot. In the interests of gender equality I would challenge that. However I do think that swearing has become far too commonplace. I don't really want to be in a shop, on a bus or walking along the street & hear conversations liberally spattered with the F or C words. But it does seem to be the norm.

However I do realise that I may well be in the minority, because I also don't see the necessity to see people on the lavatory or graphic homosexual or heterosexual sexual intercourse in dramas. I'm perfectly capable of imagining that & do feel that it demeans the actors who do it. I simply don't see the point, or the difference between drama  & "soft" pornography. It seems to me to be the Hans Anderson folktale "The Emperors New Clothes" for the 21st century. 

The Arms Trade & War

The Arms Trade Treaty was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 2 April 2013 and entered into force on 24 December 2014 - https://thearmstradetreaty.org/treaty-text.html?templateId=209884  One of the principles is "The responsibility of all States, in accordance with their respective international obligations, to effectively regulate the international trade in conventional arms"

To my simple mind, selling arms to counties who either invade other countries illegally, or to countries run by despots & dictators, who wantonly wage war on their own people, is immoral & should not be allowed to happen. Selling arms to intermediaries who then pass on arms to those countries & people should also be stopped. What is the point of a principle if it is not enforced?

To be clear, the countries in the arms trade should be supplying Ukraine with the arms it desperately needs, in a timely way, in order to defeat an aggressor, Russia, who invaded the country with no reason other than enlargement. If Russia wins it will directly negatively impact Europe, because Russia will not stop at Ukraine. Conversely, countries in the arms trade should not be supplying arms to Israel because of the illegal way they are behaving in Gaza. The ready availability of weapons and ammunition leads to human suffering, political repression, crime and terror among civilian populations.

 Joint Enterprise is secondary liability, a legal doctrine that applies where persons assist or encourage another to commit a crime. I fail to see why the worlds arms traders are not committing joint enterprise by supplying arms to countries breaking international law or committing civil war, as Syria has been since March 2011, when popular discontent with the rule of Bashar al-Assad triggered large-scale protests and pro-democracy rallies across Syria, as part of the wider Arab Spring protests in the region.

The global arms market, was valued USD 308 billion in 2015. In 2022, the UK Government issued 13,200 SIELs, ( SIEL to make shipments of specified military or dual-use items to a named consignee and/or end user) of which 11,100 (84%) were for permanent exports. The total value of UK SIELs issued was £70.6 billion in real terms (at 2023 prices). Since 2015, the UK has licensed at least £474 million worth of military exports to Israel. The UK provides approximately 15% of the components in the F-35 stealth bomber aircraft currently being used in Gaza. In May 2023 the UK still deemed it acceptable to sell weapons and arms to the Government of Russia - despite Human Rights abuses.

If we do not control the arms trade effectively we are complicit in the death, maiming & destruction of human lives & infrastructure. If we put profit & jobs above the devastation caused by war we are condeming other people to unimaginable horror. 

Privatisation Versus Public Ownership

We Own It - 10 Reasons why Privatisation has failed & will always fail - https://weownit.org.uk/privatisation 

Harvard Business School 1991 - Does Privatisation serve the Public Interest? - https://hbr.org/1991/11/does-privatization-serve-the-public-interest

What emerges are three conclusions:

1. Neither public nor private managers will always act in the best interests of their shareholders. Privatization will be effective only if private managers have incentives to act in the public interest, which includes, but is not limited to, efficiency.

2. Profits and the public interest overlap best when the privatized service or asset is in a competitive market. It takes competition from other companies to discipline managerial behavior.

3. When these conditions are not met, continued governmental involvement will likely be necessary. The simple transfer of ownership from public to private hands will not necessarily reduce the cost or enhance the quality of services.

" It (Privatisation) has proven expensive for the public and a bonanza for comparatively few investors, often overseas". https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/22/the-guardian-view-on-privatisation-the-god-that-failed -

Who owned Britain in 2018? https://neweconomics.opendemocracy.net/index.html%3Fp=2472.html  You can bet that 5 years on the picture is even worse. How logical is it that Airports, the NHS, Social care, Public Utilities & Transport are privatised.

We have outsourced vital services. We have sold the "family silver". 

Billionairs control huge wealth & have massive power & influence. There are 25 UK billionaires with fortunes over £3 billion. Top 10 in 2024;-

1.1 1. Gopi Hinduja And Family - €35 Billion  -  Indian conglomerate with interests in the automotive, energy, and financial services industries.

1.2 2. Sir Jim Ratcliffe -€29.7 Billion - chemical industry / INEOS

1.3 3. Sir Leonard Blavatnik -€28.6 Billion - energy and media industries / Access Industries

1.4 4. David And Simon Reuben -€24.4 Billion - Real Estate

1.5 5. Sir James Dyson -€23 Billion - Technology

1.6 6. Lakshmi Mittal And Her family -€16 Billion - Steel / Acelor Mittal

1.7 7. George, Alannah, And Galen Weston And Their Family -€14.5 Billion - retail / Selfridges

1.8 8. Charlene de Carvalho-Heineken And Michel de Carvalho -€13.1 Billion - beer

1.9 9. Kirsten and Jorn Rausing -€12 Billion - packaging / Tetra Pak

1.10 10. Michael Platt -€11.5 Billion - hedge fund / Blue Crest

Money & Power - the two drivers of capitalism. Private companies "raison d'etre" is growth & profit. 

I wish someone could tell me in words of one syllable how Privatisation, Outsourcing & Capitalism is in the interests of the vast majority of people in the world. Consumerism & perpetual Growth seem to me to be at the root of so many of the problems we face today. The inescapable fact is that if public services are run for the profit of shareholders & senior management, then the people who use those services will have to pay more.

I can remember the 3 day week, the lights going out, riots in big cities, the miners & teachers strikes, the Cuba missile crisis....I thought that was as bad as it gets.

I was wrong. 

 

 

Politicians - Clowns or Champions?

This sort of message is harmful to democracy & people's confidence in politics. Yes, this government has failed on many fronts, been incompetent & actually lied. Yes, our "ya booing" commons is a disgrace. Several conservative politicians make me sick to my stomach. But there are many politicians who are trying to do a good job & are guided by decent values. People who mock should just think whether they would be able or prepared to try to run a country in these exceptionally difficult times. I wouldn't know where to start & I am very political. So we the public shouldn't be glib & make cheap jokes. We should try to do something positive to make democracy work better & support the good politicians.

What do UK MP's do?  

• Represent their constituents interests and concerns in the House of Commons. 
• Consider and propose new laws as well as raising issues that matter to you in the House. Including asking government ministers questions about current issues & those which affect local constituents. 
• MPs split their time between working in Parliament itself, working in the constituency that elected them and working for their political party.
• Some MPs from the governing party (or parties) become government ministers with specific responsibilities in certain areas, such as Health or Defence. They continue working for their constituency &, whatever their role in Government or Parliament, still hold regular surgeries to help their constituents.

When I hear MP's answering questions in the media I have 2 reactions - absolute fury when they don't actually answer at all but parrot what they have been briefed to say & admiration that they can remember accurately all the necessary facts & figures. Given the "churn" in ministers & senior politicians responsibilities & the complexities of running a department I simply don't understand how they do it. I sometimes also don't understand how they can live with the dissembling & avoidance of truth & fact. 

But this is the system we have got. These are the people we voted in. We have chosen. Or we have avoided making a decision & not bothered to vote. 

Unless everyone wakes up to the dire situation the world & the environment is in & recognises that the choices & consequences of those choices will be very hard if we are to survive & have a world worth living in, our tomorrows will be worse. This is election year in many places. 2024 will be a crucial decider in what tomorrow will be for our children & grandchildren. 

Democracy isn't working. Our Public Services are at rock bottom, especially the privatised ones. Oligarchs, dictators & despots are winning. The United Nations isn't working. We need NATO to be effective more than ever. 

Don't imagine that someone else will sort this out for you. Your voice & your vote count. Use them wisely. Don't sit on your backside this year or you will reap the consequences.

 

Intelligence & Common Sense - Navalny's Death

Intelligence - the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. 

Common Sense - the ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions. Sound, practical judgement concerning everyday matters, or a basic ability to perceive, understand & judge in a manner that is shared by nearly all people.

Oh boy, do we need more people to have both of these today.

We who are free to think, believe, speak, act, read, vote in free elections, need to use that gift effectively to stand up for those millions in the world do not have similar freedoms. 

Aexei Navalny is dead. He was 47 & had been held in “Polar Wolf” IK-3 penal colony in Russia's Arctic north. Conditions are unimaginable -  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-68322113  The likelihood is that Putin authorised a final successful murder. Equally likely is that the body has not been released to the family because the state wants to delay any opportunity to examine the body for evidence of poisoning by Novichok or other agent. It is very difficult to detect.  https://www.rferl.org/a/everything-you-need-to-know-about-novichok/30964840.html

Navalny was one of many brave people who fight for the freedoms we take for granted. Russian dissidents make a very long list. Wikipedia lists 88, which may not be up to date - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Russian_dissidents 

People are rightly appalled by the total disregard for human rights. We cannot say we do not know. It is all over the press & media. It has only taken me minutes to research for this Blog Post using reliable sources. We clearly know what is happening in so many parts of the world. We cannot remain silent & do nothing. We must use our intelligence & common sense to try to change things for the better in places where conflict is destroying lives  https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts  Dictators & corrupt politicians must be made accountable & stopped. 

If we don't do that what is the point of us? What is the point of being intelligent & able to think?