after exploding at the thought of the Saudi ambassador taking part in a march in support of the the right to free expression two days after his country gave Raif Badawi the first 50 of 1,000 lashes (and 10 years in prison) for the crime of exercising his right to free expression.
Category: politics
Dear Mr. Farage…
I understand that recently you were made to feel uncomfortable by hearing people speaking in a foreign language on a train. Yesterday, I heard three non-English languages being spoken in the course of a short tram journey.
Here’s the thing, though: my life was not adversely affected one iota by it. I think that may be because I’m not a fucking xenophobe.
Pardoned? What for?
So, Alan Turing gets a Royal Pardon. What is he being pardoned for? Being gay? Being persecuted by the state for being gay?
There should be no pardon: being gay should never have been a crime. What is needed is the recognition that the crime should never have existed and that everybody who was convicted under it should be considered to have no such ‘stain’ on their character. A pardon implies forgiveness, but if there was no wrong, there is no forgiveness.
That still leaves the persecution by the state, of course. Nothing we do can amend that, but we can continue to to work towards implementing real equality for everyone, so that the need for this retrospective action does not occur again.
Royalty, privilege and the ear of government
I see from today’s Grauniad that ‘[a] former Tory minister has defended Prince Charles‘s right to have secret meetings with members of the government’. Apparently Tim Loughton says that the unelected parasiteprince had ‘always come across as “well briefed and knowledgeable” in their meetings’.
an old grey dog 