THE COAST AS A BIRTHRIGHT
or Miliballs on stilts

JUNE 19 2007
I had always thought David Miliband was a highly intelligent man. I thought how lucky we were to have men such has him in politics. Then he comes up with a load of utter tripe about us being an island nation and everyone having the right to every inch of our coastline. Quite apart from this theory being a metaphor and a figment of his imagination rather than a fact, he should know that every 'principal' which confused human beings invent as being the ultimate truth on which some series of social or scientific propositions depends, if taken to its logical extreme, becomes nonsense. If he hasn't understood that by his age he probably never will. Then there are the actual practical issues in this particular case, too numerous to mention. It is quite pointless for a large number of people to walk round the UK on the beach or coastline, just as it is pointless to make it possible for a small bunch of obsessive nutters and the inconvenience of millions - for that is what it would certainly mean. Miliband has clearly not studied nature and how it achieves its miraculous journey. He has clearly not understood Tennyson's "...Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.". He has clearly understood nothing significant at all that would qualify him as a man to whom we should entrust any part of our collective heritage. In short, in spite of his obviously well functioning brain, the man has a massive deficit in his education and as a result his understanding. I have noticed that this can happen to people with considerable mental talent. I am afraid he has totally blown his chance of ever being taken seriously again, and I deplore this as he has championed, and been able to explain coherently, many policies of which I have been entirely in favour.

While on the subject of blown credibility, David Cameron has blown his totally in his claim that to champion individual freedoms we must oppose what he calls 'top down initiatives' such as ID Cards. The essence of the ID Card scheme is precisely so that we can allow a very high degree of freedom. When we do this, we must be able to deter those who would abuse those freedoms from so doing, as this is what causes freedoms to be withdrawn in the name of security, safety and other requirements and interests of those charged with the relevant regulatory responsibility. To do this, do give individuals a good measure of privilege and freedom, we have to know who they are. They have to be identifiable so that they can be allowed to pass without let or hindrance and, if they abuse it, this privilege can be temporarily or permanently limited or withdrawn.  People will value their identity as a citizen and it privileges and responsibilities. The world we are moving into has more privileges for the humblest individual than were available to a monarch a century ago. As individuals we should acknowledge this. Mr Cameron claims to be a champion of the individual. Unfortunately he doesn't have the slightest clue what he is talking about.

JUNE 28th 2007
David Miliband is now Foreign Secretary. This is a strange appointment for one so young. I see it as aimed at the domestic audience. Since what we have to do is to get the UK public to understahd policy with respect to Europe, the MIddle East, Climate Change etc. this could be a most ingenious appointment. The government's problem over the past 10 years has been taking the public with them on their policies, bith at home and abroad. Brown has stated that we can get nothing done wthout getting it together at home.  This makes sense,