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With the UK currently having the rotating chair for the European Court of Human Rights and David Cameron visiting it to deliver a speech to all 47 members with the theme of reforming the way it operates, there is a fluttering in the Dove Cots of the “European Elite” ever prepared to defend their entrenched positions of privilege. As with many things, the actual “truth” behind the operation of the ECHR and our own, one suspects, very badly drafted Human Rights Act may well be fairly complex and difficult to unravel if left only to the Lawyers.

However, the political reality is all too apparent as the recent decision that the radical cleric Abu Qatada cannot be deported to Jordan where he comes from, is a case in point. David Cameron or even Ed Miliband if he were the current British Prime Minister, cannot ignore the political realities even when you warn that “Hard Cases make bad laws…”

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The other day, David Cameron gave a speech on the “Crisis in Capitalism” as has every other ‘Party Leader’ in recent times as they “struggle to explain” just what went wrong with the UK and even the Global Economy in recent times.

The real problem behind all of this may well be, that politicians are confusing the ‘What Happened’ with the previous held “assumptions” based upon class and politics that frankly, no longer apply in any sense at all… the very idea that “Tories are for treading on downtrodden workers” is no more relevant than that Labour are all for “Nationalising everything”, the world has moved on…

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I suppose and in often strange ways, we sometimes discover “the fatal flaw” in most ideas. Having started my commercial life as a designer concerned with engineering and production, there was a very amusing story about a “new mousetrap”, I will not bore you with the tale but the ‘punch line’ was quite simple:

The basic concept behind the design was obviously flawed and when called upon to deal with this, the designer instead of having a total rethink, just “improved” upon or refined his own flawed original concept. To engineers, this was all very amusing because it was something that we had to deal with on a daily basis and knew that it was far too easy to be led astray. I have an awful feeling that Scottish independence is the same…

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The other day Ed Balls admitted that if Labour came to power they would not promise to reverse the cuts in public expenditure currently being made by the Coalition Government. Frankly, the only comment one can make to that is “About time !” The reality is if and when Labour next comes to power, the political weather and economic climate will have changed, inevitably.

Although right now both this and the World generally face some difficult financial issues, these are perhaps just symptoms of other problems rather than the core disease. For a country like the UK, we are probably looking at a long term decline that started during the First world War which coincides with the rise of the Labour Party. One could speculate that solving this decline could also coincide with its (Labour’s), decline just as Communism collapsed with the Berlin Wall.

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It is quite amusing to see the current furore in the Media over the SNP and a Referendum on “Scotland leaving the Union”. It is akin to the nonsense expressed by Germany and France over “preserving the Euro at any costs…”except apparently doing what is required immediately to do so. My question in both cases, keeping the Union with Scotland and keeping the Euro alive is WHY ?

If Scottish people are feeling so “inferior” to their English counterparts that the “only solution” in their minds is total Independence from the UK, then, so be it. If Germany is far too successful and therefore in effect impoverishes the “Southern Europeans”, why not split the Euro membership into two, it is only common sense after all. But politicians do get misled far too often for no doubt for well intentioned reasons but in the end mislead themselves…

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Every now and again and generally in the Telegraph, some daft old fool will prattle on about how “grammar schools were wonderful and just what the country needs today…” or some other such and similar drivel which would be okay if even slightly true but as it isn’t, it is not even worth a debate.

As a working class lad who attended a Catholic grammar school in South London during the late 50s, early 60s, I remember it with fondness and was grateful for the experience. However, one should not get sentimental over them, they were a product of their time and that time has now well and truly passed.

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Oh Lord, here we go again, yet another numb nuts politician trying to make a name for themselves by “Reforming the House of Lords”, this time its Nick Clegg. One day it might occur to the inhabitants of the House of Commons that just as a Liberal Government tried and failed prior to the outbreak of WWI, so too has every attempt since and for good reasons, the Lords works as it is.

This doesn’t mean that the Lords hasn’t been changed over time, it has and in many ways as is right and proper, like all living things, institutions need to continually evolve to survive and adapt to changing circumstances. The problem with the brainless reformers from the Commons is they want “radical change” so that they can say; “I did this…I bent this to My will !” How idiotic can you get ?

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Yesterday, there was a report published by a self appointed committee into the question of changing the Law within the UK to allow assisted suicide. The committee was headed by Lord Faulkner and was set up by Dignity in Dying, a lobby group, and paid for by the author Sir Terry Pratchett, who has Alzheimer’s disease and is campaigning for changes to allow assisted suicide.

To that extent one may rightly argue that it represents a bias and therefore taints its conclusions in the same way that a “Tory Think Tank” publishing a report recommending that people should vote Conservative would. However and within all this lies something else to my mind, the whole discussion holds up a mirror to what is becoming a Narcissistic society that has lost touch not just with religious values but with the values that have underpinned humanity throughout the ages and regardless of time and place.

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Although it started with a piece by by John Rentoul in the Independent on Sunday and him contemplating the shortly to open film on Margaret Thatcher starring Meryl Streep, it did set me to thinking about the whole concept of “Leadership” in a modern democratic society. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-rentoul/john-rentoul-a-missed-chance-to-tell-the-truth-about-mrs-t-6283694.html

It was a good article but if anything and looking at some of the comments posted to it which seemed to be rooted in past battles long since lost by the Left, my feeling is that it is far too soon to even make a half decent attempt to judge the significance of Margaret Thatcher or indeed any other recent politician. The reality is that if you try to do so, you are not debating “facts”, just unproven myths…

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For me, 2011 has been an interesting year with most of the excitement crammed into June when as I was about to depart for a month long trip to the USA, my grandson Mika was born up in Scotland, the day before I left. So June 2011 was to be a very intense month indeed !

Inevitably when I sit and write anything on December 31^st, I think immediately of my Father who died in 2007, if he were still alive, he would have been 91 today, his birthday. But I will think no sad thoughts, nor sing sad songs for we all have our time on this Earth and all eventually will leave it, the measurement being what we did with our time here, not the length of our stay.

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