Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

I HAVE NO RIGHTS

I have no rights. No divine rights; I read the bible most days and have never found reference to any right that I have been granted. Opportunites and choices, plenty - but no rights. No natural rights; I look at nature and do not see any rights prescribed by the laws of the universe: does a tree have rights, the tide, a cow? I don’t think so.

So where do all these rights come from that we hear so much about? Only 2 places: either from a specific contract that you enter into as an individual containing rights enforceable in the courts.

Or from the law of the land. And that’s the trouble. We have now grafted into UK law a load of nonsense that has blown in from the planet political correctness. The Convention on human rights, an international treaty entered into by many countries just after WW2 was designed to stop the holocaust and other atrocities from ever happening again. We all support that. These principles stand alongside traditional English freedoms built up over many years: a right to a fair trial, free speech, no imprisonment without trial etc

But the Convention has grown and contorted itself over 50 years into a do-gooder’s charter that meddles where it has no business to and is now part of UK law.
Everyone seems to have a right to everything: a house, a job, the right of foreigners not to be deported back to your own country or to health treatment here. All of this mush gives real human rights – which do matter – a bad name.

So what is the solution? It is no good just talking about it, action is required. We should pull out of the Convention on Human Rights and go back in again only signing up to the core provisions, such as torture etc. We should scrap the Human Rights Act. We should stick up signs at every port of entry saying: “wherever you come from if you commit an imprisonable offence in this country, when you have done your time you will be deported back to your own country, irrespective of conditions there: you have been warned.”

Can all of these things be done? Yes, there is not a single convention or law that our sovereign Parliament cannot undo or scrap. Is it cruel to do it? No, it is plain common sense and I shall be advocating it at Westminster.

posted by Nigel on Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

DEVONPORT DOCKYARD

Does Devonport dockyard have a future? Asking that question 2 years ago would have been daft, but seismic plates are shifting beneath our very feet. The coming together of three apparently unconnected events could yet produce for us an economic and political earthquake.

First, the government is changing the way it procures and maintains military assets, including ships and submarines. After years of encouraging competitive tendering to drive prices down, it now wants the defence industry in this country to re-structure itself in a more cost effective way, coming up with maybe one organization only. That is not necessarily wrong, it depends on the impact. The industry has got the message and all sorts of talks are going on between the defence contactors and shipyard and dockyard owning companies to meet the new challenge.

Second, the government is (rightly) considering whether we still need a nuclear deterrent (I think we do) and if we do whether it should continue to be submarine or aircraft borne. The outcome of this decision is obviously huge in itself for a dockyard whose core business is to maintain the submarine fleet that currently carries our deterrent.

Third, Devonport Management Limited is partly owned by an American Company called KBR Inc, which is in turn owned by global giant Halliburton that plans shortly to float its subsidiary company on the New York stock exchange. So what? Well, according to the financial press, this has led to the American directors of KBR focusing on their forthcoming flotation and not pitching in quickly enough to develop the UK corporate strategy that is in the best interests of DML and its workforce. It seems that our rivals, especially Babcock and Vospers Thorneycroft are in poll position to strike a deal that could leave us out in the cold.

There is a lot more water to flow under this bridge yet, but I have seen enough to be worried that the revised UK defence industry could just treat Devonport Dockyard simply as a graveyard for nuclear submarines. This is not acceptable. This doomsday scenario is some way off, but it is crucial to act now to avoid it.

Does it matter? At 4,500 jobs DML is still our largest local employer. The dockyard remains the engine room of the local economy and provides endless contracts for other regional firms. Yes, it matters.

Come on Ministry of Defence and DML – action required this day to avert disaster!

posted by Nigel on Saturday, May 13, 2006

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

SPRING AT LAST

At last spring is here, the trees and fields are parading their glory once again; a timely reminder that despite all of the challenges, we live in the best part of the country.

And a welcome compensation from a week of grim political headlines. In the early days, I would inwardly rejoice in the misfortunes of our opponents – but not any more. Each politician’s steamy affair is a family and personal disaster. As someone who believes passionately in marriage, I hate the thought that another one bites the dust, especially late in life when the hard work has been done.
And every major governmental cock-up is to the detriment of the country, or in this case, the victims of unnecessary and avoidable crime. So no champagne corks popping there either.

Plus: whenever there is another Westminster scandal we all get tarred with the same brush, and the popular respect for those elected to govern slips further; cynicism grows, and future turnouts at all kinds of elections plummets.

So what’s the answer? Our Westminster village must rediscover the culture of taking responsibility and resigning. It would go a long way to restoring credibility. If I make a huge mistake as an MP, or do my job consistently badly, it is fair enough to let the electorate decide whether to send me back to Parliament or not. All MPs are entitled to submit themselves to the ultimate jury: the 70,000 people who send us there in the first place.

But when we are ministers (as I was at the tail end of the last Conservative government, a thousand years ago) we should be ready to resign when we fall short of the standards required of us, either in the way we carry out our job, or if we bring our government into disrepute through our personal misconduct. Yes, I do think having a secret affair with a civil servant in your own department and then seeing the sordid details dragged through the press is grounds for resignation. I am actually old fashioned enough to think that if you cheat on your wife, you may cheat on your country and it should affect your ministerial career – although I accept my view is a minority one.

But the primroses are coming out in force; the swallows, those magnificent, chattering, swooping aviators are back and Jan’s new foal, Bertie, is haring around the field like a lunatic. All is not lost.

posted by Nigel on Saturday, May 13, 2006