Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

School Milk

David Cameron has moved fast to shut down this absurd proposal from one of his junior ministers. This was an insensitive gaffe from a faction of the government that sees cuts as a virility symbol. Of course we have to have cuts, but  taking the milk from little children is politically barmy. If it is that bad, the vast majority would say bring the troops home and save the money (and brave lives),  if we cannot afford to nourish our toddlers. 

Any minister who cannot see that, should not only get out of the government, but get out of politics as well. As for this ridiculous phrase ‘there is no evidence to show….’ It is meaningless. You can use it the other way round. ‘There is no evidence to show that milk does not do little children good’.  Dear me.

Disaster and Conflict

For a while the media has been full of worldwide bad news. Not only have we had the continuing reports of security failures and deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also the terrible suffering of those caught in the floods in Pakistan and  China, to which we can add the huge disruption and toxic smog from the fires in Russia. We must not forget either the Gulf oil leak.

The scale of the resources needed to bring relief to the suffering caused by accident or freak weather events is sometimes almost beyond imagination. The sight of frightened children soaked and shivering in homeless abandon, beyond the reach of large scale aid, invites a feeling of inadequacy among the world wide audience of these daily pictures of distress. The view of Moscow shrouded in a poisonous cloud recalls a sci-fi horror movie.

This extraordinary contrast between the ability to cope with natural disasters in a timely fashion, while at the same time employing extraordinary resources to maintain military adventures, which become disasters of our own making, is sobering. It is also important to notice that the most efficient country in helping its own population in crisis is China.

There are lessons here for us all. As time goes on, weather patterns change, populations increase and vulnerability of finely balanced ecologies produce epoch making events, we will have to learn that the greatest priority of national organisation of states all across the world will be, not to ratchet up spending on warfare, but to spend instead on humanitarian aid mobilisation on a global scale, in order for all countries to be ready to pitch in to help each other. None can tell who may be next in the line of need.

Praise for Cardinal O’Brien

It is not often that the blog steps forward to defend and applaud a church leader, let alone a Cardinal, but the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland is greatly to be admired for his comments criticising the American attitude to the Lockerbie bomber. In an outspoken attack on America’s’ thirst for retribution and vengeance he has called upon them to turn their gaze inwards in one of the sharpest put downs of the United States that I can recall.

These are precisely the sentiments expressed previously by my posts on this blog and in my book 2010 A Blueprint for Change. It is very unfortunate for America that there has been the hysteria about BP (as opposed to the disaster) and the agressive attacks upon the Scottish justice system.  Add to this a cavalier disdain for the independence of Scotland’s Ministers as well as the naive lack of understanding of the limits of U.S Sovereignty and you have an image of a rather nasty bully, who is getting on everybody’s nerves. Especially the nerves of her friends.

America has very few true friends left in the world. She cannot afford to lose any more.