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When I was reading through what I posted yesterday about groups of people and nations being taken to war purely to satisfy the aims of a few, it was inevitable, especially as l live in Northern Ireland, that the use of religion to substantiate, or foster a political philosophy, had, and has, more than one aim. It is nothing new, the Romans used it in Judea, the Crusaders used it more as an excuse for pillage, than to spread Christianity. The list is endless, and it would seem that in the 21st century it is even more widespread than ever it was. In some scenarios the blame could be placed squarely at the door of the religious leaders in a number of religions, who for reasons of their own have set aside the commandments of the religion in order to justify some political end. The Conquistadors in South America, and the hideous Inquisition are blots on the religious landscape. The Pope, blessing the pilots of the Italian planes that bombed indiscriminately during the Spanish uprising, when in fact it was a forerunner for Mussolini to test his mettle for the next war, was something I never forgave. Our own dustup here in Ulster, ultimately became more to do with criminality than righting wrongs, and the religious divide, which was nothing new, has gone on to the extent that a young boy of 15 was recently clubbed to death just because he was a Catholic.

As far as I know, the religious doctrines of every religion follow roughly the same edicts as our 10 Commandments in Christianity, but this fact can be ignored in most religions when the political demands are such that the religious doctrines must be sacrificed for expediency. In a world, as materialistic as this one has become, religion becomes watered down to a point where it has little influence for good, when the religious leaders can talk themselves hoarse and nobody reacts. It would seem that the proletariat in every country has become the silent majority, probably through frustration when they find that the power of the state makes it immune from censure. Political events over the last 10 to 15 years have proved this point repeatedly, and do so on a daily basis. Karl Marx said that religion is the opiate of the masses, but this is no longer true, religious values are now on the back seat, money and political expediency are what count, be it right or wrong.

I know that I am whistling in the wind, it will never happen, but that doesn’t mean that I’m wrong. By using the phrase ‘The league of gentlemen and gentlewomen,’ I am not referring to the upper-class, wealthy Sloane Rangers, but men and women throughout the world who have a gentle outlook, are not aggressive, nor are they appeasing, they just see no reason for war. Yesterday on television I watched the film that I had seen many years ago, made by the Germans for the Germans, entitled Das Boot, which translates to The Boat, and depicts the horrors experienced by U-boat crews towards the end of the war in Europe in ’44, when the British Navy had the upper hand in the Atlantic, and the chances of a crew member of the German U-boat fleet, being alive at the end of the war, was one in four. What did it achieve? Thousands of innocent merchant sailors were drowned, died burning in oil, or were maimed, because of the aggression of a few for their own ends.

I have rubbed shoulders with war in its various forms, from a father who was severely injured in World War I, to the London Blitz, to convoy duty, and in no way least, nearly 40 years of ongoing internicene terror, in which I took part as a combatant for two years, and have had friends and relatives fighting overseas in these recent years, because two politicians went on an ego trip. Millions of innocent people have been killed and maimed, the beautiful heritage of the past, throughout the world, has been bombed out of existence, at the whim or a few politicians with their own agenda. The man and the woman in the street, don’t think in those terms, the stress of living, and in these days keeping afloat, is enough for them. Those poor people throughout the world who are constantly being chased from border to border, and shot out of hand, by renegade armies at the behest of criminal leaders, are all the latest indication of the breakdown of political sanity. It is time that the man in every street in the world revolted, at any sign of aggression that is not essential by a so-called leader. In ’39, the Brits were unprepared for war, but the level of aggression by the Germans was unsupportable, and our whole way of life was disrupted for more than 20 years. If the German proletariat had been more cognisant of where Hitler’s aspirations were leading, and had learned from the experiences of World War I, knew the risks they were taking, World War II might never have happened.

That is my premise, and as I have said many times concerning the outpourings of our political leaders,’ don’t believe all they say, stop and reason for yourself , and if you conclude they are wrong, then fight your corner politically, and don’t let them get away with it ‘

It is amazing just how much our lives are being changed by the credit crunch. Some of it is desperately serious when you see the statistics of small companies that were once buoyant, if only just, now going to the wall. The whole thing is so totally unfair. Those responsible both in the financial world and in the political one, those who gambled, and those who allowed them to do so without restriction, seem to have got away without redress. The question a lot of us are asking is, why the financial programmes on television are reeling out figures of the daily rise and fall of the stock market, which seems contrary to what the uninitiated would have expected, when so many people are now being conservative with their finances, if they’re lucky enough to have any? Are we really now having the regulation that we should have had?

On the frivolous side, from where I sit, we are being short-changed, because those in the entertainment world, and especially Skye, are cutting the suit to suit the cloth. While the advertisements have risen in quality, but unfortunately also in quantity, the entertainment products offered, are below par . They are giving us films that they dredged up from the archives, now virtually unwatchable, as the whole industry has moved on, and which haven’t been watched in generations, because they were so bad. Repeats go on for ever, quality is often replaced, by hysterical hype It is also noticeable that members, once at the top of the entertainment industry, whom we respected and admired, are now being used to persuade us that certain insurance products, and financial companies are operating to our advantage. Have these celebrities the nouse and done the research to qualify to give those who trust them an honest appraisal? I have often found that the people who need the help most, are the ones most trusting.

On the home front, the big enterprises, that still seem to make the profits, are offering inducements to increase sales, at a level that the shop on the corner couldn’t match. In my lifetime I have seen such a change in shopping habits that could never have been predicted. Now that I am chair-bound, no longer able to drive, I miss the shop on the corner, or the shopping area within walking distance that was so common when we were young. A combination of the car taking the place of public transport, big business in the world of domestic shopping, and large housing estates without a single shop have wrecked a change which will be hard if not impossible to reverse

The Internet holds a very fine history of the relationship between the British Indian Army and the Gurkhas, and later their relationship with the British Army. 200,000 of them fought in World War I, they were in Burma in World War II, and I always thought that the British nation as a whole not only held them in high regard, for their probity and their loyalty, but because they were part of the fabric of the British Empire. As someone who lived in the Raj as a child, I am fully aware of the relationship between the indigenous populations and the Imperial civil service. So I also am pretty sure that while some may refer to the Gurkhas as mercenaries, they were never paid as mercenaries, were never paid at the level of the equivalent ranks of the British Army, nor thought of themselves as mercenaries, but still they served us well. I can only speak personally, and I come from a generation where the British Empire was lauded, and where a lot of the indigenous people of other nations within the empire, were not always at variance with the system, and especially in the subcontinent, where I believe they felt part of it up until World War II.

Hence, I was pleased to see that more than some of the older men were taking up the plight of the Gurkhas as a whole. I suspect there will be a lot of hurdles in the way, but when we are supporting nations across the world that are in difficulty, I still believe that charity should begin at home, and I believe the Gurkhas have a place in our society.

When you get to my age, if you are a hoarder, you can become unpopular with the rest of the household, as they think they can see a day when they will be turfing all your rubbish into a skip. In consequence I have started to part with things that I have treasured, but that, to be honest, have really outlived their usefulness, because progress has made them redundant. The list is endless, those beautiful fountain pens that you received at Christmas, at great expense to the giver, that wrote elegant script; Groves concise dictionary of music, and practically all the rest of my books, except the Idiot’s Guides.

On the 29th of September, 2007, under Random Thoughts 40, which is still available, I wrote about the changing demands on the public library, and the way in which reading books has been severely overtaken by the Internet. I have probably about 600 hardback books, most of them non-fiction, which today are virtually worthless, not only because the information is out of date, but because one can find practically anything by a flick of a switch. As a child I read books that were for adults, and have been reading ever since, seeking knowledge, or just enjoying a level of English prose that to me anyway, is like music. When I was at school we had to read a large number of the classics, and miles of poetry, some of which was a total bore, but some, even to a boy, had beauty of thought and description. I write this because I wonder if the children of today, with their computers in school, their high-tech approaches, will ever have time to read what I read, or something of equally high-quality. The 60s changed a lot of the mores that we had lived by, and advances in the entertainment industry, at the same time, introduce a crudeness our parents would never have stood for.

I suppose one could say that I’m a Job’s comforter, a miserable killjoy, not moving with the times, but to my old eyes so much of the standards that we enjoyed have a been denigrated. British policeman rarely whacked the public, even at the times of those huge strikes. Young women in company were not heard to mouth foul language, whereas today it seems that this is the smart thing to do. We are so insular today, so high-tech, that we are divorced from the sort of association we had in the past. We used to buy across the counter, or from a stall, instead of serving ourselves, we went to church, our youngsters joined clubs, with the result that we not only rubbed shoulders with, but communicated with people mostly from every class and every walk of life. This was a university, where we learned communication skills, compassion, and respect for the other person. I hope that I am wrong in believing that the majority are leading not only an insular life, but to some extent a sterile one, bolstered by other people’s choice of what they see and hear, rather than broadening their outlook by their own choice. If this credit crunch has told us anything, it is that when the chips are down, not only our well-being, but our aesthetic is diminished. Cheap and cheerful seems to be the order of the day.

Almost on my doorstep is a company that is being wound up, after being in business for 45 years, and surviving through the Troubles. The whole workforce is now in a sit-in, because it was made redundant, with terms that were totally unfair, and it would seem, by the way the discussion is progressing, that there may be some legal reason in their favour, for claiming they are being treated unjustly. I quote this, because it is regularly on our news, and must be replicated right across the country.
Throughout the land there must be young people, middle aged, and old, who are receiving termination notices. Some are being sacrificed on the altar of pragmatic accounting, some because the whole company has gone into receivership. Most of these people are hard working, loyal and competent, had a future they thought they could rely on, only to find that they appear to have no future at all.
The situation is the result of nothing more nor less than gambling. The boards of the banks certainly permitted, if not actually sponsored the most risky form of gambling that there is. With a bookie, you’re betting small sums on a positive outcome. In the case of gambling on the stock exchange, you have Bull and Bear markets where you can bet that the price will rise or fall, and the amounts that these people were handling, belonging, as much of it did, to the customers of the bank, must have been prodigious. What I find alarming, as everyone else does, is that they were doing it unheeded by the regulating authority.
Where this business is so unfair and so illogical, is that the banks, the instigators of the crunch have been bailed out, but the very people who were innocent of any misjudgement, to put it mildly, are not getting bailed out, and are now finding themselves in a financial situation where many of them have no idea just what awaits them. I was made redundant by the RN upon demobilisation, and was made unemployed later in life, and I know the stresses that this can bring, but I had an extended family; so many of those affected today, are on their own, facing losing everything.
There should be some mechanism which cushions the blow to these people, protects their homes, and gives them time to redress. When you read about the quantity of the money paid out to the building societies and banks, it makes one wonder how this would compare with paying some of the interest on the mortgages of those made redundant, and giving additional help when needed, in order to cushion the blow on the innocent, so that unlike me, as a child, being farmed out around the family in a similar situation, the families can stay together and have time to review their own personal situation, and perhaps come to a temporary solution that is equable if not perfect.

Accountants will probably say that I’m stupid, and they could be right, I just feel that the balance of who qualified for the help and who should be receiving it, is totally out of kilter, and unfair.

I don’t think I am being chauvinistic when I say that I believe the British Armed Forces are equal or better than any in the world. I can remember men telling me of the excitement they experienced in the First World War when whole batches of them went to the recruiting centres, it was like an hysteria. In the Second World War, when I was too young to join up, I got into every group connected with the war that I could, and I waited impatiently for my turn to come. The fact that the realisation is not up to the imagination never seems to filter down to the next generation.

I have always railed against the fact that our government has to get our men into the forefront of every conflict that is going at any time. Presumably it is the ‘leading the world syndrome’, a throwback from the days of the Empire. Now with a credit crunch, with young men throughout the world, having their futures made insecure, having difficulties in finding suitable work, we have an opportunity to build, under the auspices of the United Nations, an International Legion, which is supported financially by the wealthier nations, and can go to hotspots like so many areas in Africa and the rest of the world, putting down corrupt governments, for the sake of their people, tackling terrorism, fighting drug trafficking – need I list more? In fact, upholding reason, compassion and the rule of law. If they’re not fighting, they can be called upon to help with any emergency throughout the world.

One thing I would not want to see is conscription, as psychologically it is counter-productive in the long run. I firmly believe they would have an opportunity of selecting the very best candidates, because the supply, at this time, will more than outstrip the demand. Nations across the world would then be more closely tied in with the United Nations, which has developed from its original glittering ideal, into a weak talking shop, and perhaps, thereby, giving it more backbone.

I would be taking a very serious exception to Brown’s broad brush. Not only would I take it as a personal slight, I would object to the fact that he is telling the world, whether truthfully, or making a general statement, that I, and the rest of my colleagues are thieves.

When I was young we knew nothing of millionaires, they were so rare. We respected what we then referred to as ‘our betters’, the doctor, the clergy, the Lord of The Manor, our MP, and even our Councillor. They were rarely taken to task by the press, and we were too preoccupied with our own living to take much notice of what they were doing. I still believe that the average person is honest, truthful, and trustworthy, and for this reason I believe that the great majority of MPs are behaving with probity. Brown, by his sweeping changes, is telling me I’m stupid. I have a mantra that says ‘if it ain’t bust don’t fix it’, and if the system or expenses in Parliament has being alright up to two years ago, and the press in an urge to increase sales has recently done some serious digging, and exposed a few miscreants, I feel it is totally unfair to tar so many with the same brush.

I know nothing about the inner workings of Parliament, but from the outside it seems to me that a fairly large proportion of MPs, who are expected by their electorate to be dedicated and attend Parliament on a regular basis, will require a second accommodation in easy reach of Westminster, and the differential in expenses between members will be proportionate to their travelling expenses, if a sensible cap is placed on the cost of a second home. I can’t see what the fuss is about in general terms, and I object strongly to our country being held up to ridicule across the world, yet again. This whole business is like so many other problems, like football hooliganism, where the majority are painted with the broad brush of censure, because of a few. This government treats so much in this manner, without due care and attention, because, in my view, they’re dancing to the tune of the correspondent, they are trying to distance themselves, because of electioneering considerations, rather than necessity. If you really want to castigate the expenses of a governing body, the place to start is in the EU, where waste seems to be endemic.

Yesterday I watched a film made in the 80s, by Jane Fonda. As the picture unfolded I discovered that I was watching a prediction of this credit crunch in which we find ourselves. I sat through it enthralled, Sophie slept through most of it. It was broadcast early in the day, when I had recorded it from Sky Movies to look at later. Basically it was a murder story, Fonda’s husband was the victim, because he had discovered an incredible scam, perpetrated by some of the top people in the financial field. The film was called ‘Rollover ‘.

I won’t bore you with all the details of the film, sufficient to say that a mechanism had been placed in computer systems of a dealing room, or rooms, which hived off 5% of the value of some of the bigger deals that were in hundreds of millions. This money was converted into bullion, on paper, then sent to the Middle East. Jane Fonda had formed an association with a banker, and between them they uncovered the scam, but as a result of which the whole of the banking system of the world collapsed, when remedies were tried. The head of the scam turned out to be a member of the government control unit of the financial system.

This film raised for me a number of questions. The first is obvious, if in the 80s they could make a film which was as detailed and as a logical as this, then a large number of people at the top of the financial markets must know and have known how this scam could be perpetrated. So why was it allowed to continue from its outset? The fact of the film being made and exhibited away back in the 80s, should have alerted the financial sector to the possibility, and I would have thought that the financial sector would have been alerted, by word of mouth, that this film was on show. Perhaps like Sophie they were all asleep. Sophie and I are fortunate, in that, we are told that a certain portion of each of our savings is sacrosanct, presupposing that the government keeps its word. If I was a young man today, of honest and sober nature, who thought he had a future that was buttoned-down, and then discovered that through no fault of his nor his employer, his innovative and burgeoning firm had gone bust, I would be looking for a few heads to roll among the well off, who had perpetrated or allowed the scam to go on unheeded.

On April the first I wrote a piece, entitled Responsible Selection in which I tried to show the absurdity of journalism today, by quoting the case of the accidental expenditure claims by the Home Secretary, and which must have entailed considerable digging. Since then there has been a torrent of pieces in the press that are just purely grubbing in the gutter for sensation to sell papers. I would like to demonstrate that this is totally counter-productive.

There seems to be some dissatisfaction with our current leaders, and I would like you to consider the following. Place yourself as a person, above-average intelligence, highly qualified, who has created through their own endeavours a company that is now capable of running itself with little intervention from you, the managing director. You have arrived, at the age of 45, where you feel that you need a change of direction, and the opportunity has now presented itself. By word of mouth your condition has reached the ears of the chairman of a political party, to which you have been contributing in small amounts over the years. He comes to you with a suggestion that there is a vacancy in a constituency that they would like to put you up for. Crunch time! You are flattered, initially interested, and then you discover a spate of press articles, that are not something one would find casually, or even diligently, they have been researched at great depth, are relatively insignificant, but being of sensational nature, are worth publishing. You are going to leave yourself open to this sort of stress, you will probably give your salary to either the party or charity, claim reasonable expenses, and will be a backbencher until you know the ropes, and there is a re-shuffle, and you’re not sure that you would ever be in a position of considerable influence. If you were a person with this background, would you still be tempted?

When I look at the front page of the Internet, and see what they put on, as a daily diet, which must, by reason be what people want today, I find it totally light weight, in most cases frivolous, and I suppose in these days, escapist, and who can blame them. If I personally was placed on the condition that I just described above, wild horses wouldn’t drag me into public office. Allegedly there is some form of censorship, and people will tell you that you can sue, but this isn’t the solution. We are told the press regulates itself, but for the sake of us all and for the future, I think we need a strong deterrent for those who want to grub purely for greed, not information that will improve our system.