Cameron speeches, Islamic extremism, Corruption etc.

Mr. Cameron set out his stall with a long and complicated speech today, on the subject of Islamic extremism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33590305

We would expect political motives and signals within such a major 'set piece' speech by the Prime minister. Quite a strong speech, with points and opinions not everyone will agree with, testing for reaction perhaps. I only heard part of the speech, has anyone taken much notice?

Yes. Mainly the Muslim community at which it was generally aimed. In other words  - stop hiding behind your religion and be forthcoming about just where your loyalties lie. Here in the West religion comes 'after' the State, not before it. It is a 'freedom' allowed under the State's provisions and does not (nor should it ever) dictate the laws by which one lives and responsibilities of the individual to each other and the communities within the State. Your responsibility as a born or naturalized citizen is first and foremost to the State which providing it has not been usurped to curb those basic freedoms is sacrosanct at all times. Your duty to the State/citizens is to ensure those freedoms prevail and each should make the effort to promote the same and to work towards those ends. In other words - are you with us or against us - it's make up your minds time.

The speech is on youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1s-9VDzxYk

Whilst advocating British values, Mr.Cameron is critical of things that are now an everyday part of British life.

The public have been given mixed messages about multiculturalism and cultural sensitivities. Things they have been expected to accept, absorb or ignore in previous years he lists as unacceptable.

A fair summing up of the situation as he sees it, or wishes to present it. Probably an opening speech in a longer term "battle of ideas".

Opinion in the Guardian newspaper takes a jaundiced view of Mr. Camerons speech, saying -

Quote - "Diet, smoking, alcohol, loneliness, the slow collapse of the NHS, child poverty, air pollution, traffic accidents, lack of exercise, even the wrong kind of bedroom slippers are likely to kill far more people in this country than Islamist terrorists." - End quote.

We are told the security services are foiling terrorist attacks on the UK on a regular basis, is this Guardian type complacency due to living a sheltered life? I will be bearing this comment in mind next time I'm shopping for bedroom slippers.

Time the 'Guardian' lived up to its name.

The list they give is 'life', the ordinary day to day perils one would expect to have to live with. It's a far cry from 'premeditated mass murder'. One is accidental or unintentional the other 'very intentional indeed'. Scale and priorities. Not an equitable argument, in fact, somewhat naive.

As for the 'Guardian' or any so-called reporter actually knowing what our Intelligence Services actually do is a joke. The day of the real 'news-hound' went out with the advent of the computer. They spend more of their time now trawling the web for whatever they can get their hands on then re-vomit it as 'news' and 'scoop'.

As you can gather I have very little time for the majority of them that purport to be news reporters or investigative journalists. Bunch of hacks in the main.

There is some reaction to Mr.Camerons' speech, with such a long and complicated speech about contentious issues, there seems to be something for everyone to disagree with on some level.

As for the 'battle of ideas', people should be free to think what they want, although a re-think is often a good idea, but have to suffer the consequences of their actions. People and organisations commiting warcrimes should be brought to justice for those crimes, hopefully a principle on which there is general and international agreement.

Just as sheep turn to avoid getting their feet nipped (you never see the sheep dog rip the throat out of the sheep) so ISIS (or whoever) apply minimal force and we turn in panic in the direction they wish us to go. In Tunisia, ONE attack has seen the country's economy destroyed because we have turned and run from the nipping teeth.

Does the dog know it is all a trick - that if the flock he controls turned and faced him he would be overwhelmed?  who knows, but we fall every time for the same tactics.

Which is the true tactic of guerilla war. Strike without warning and melt away. Split the enemies forces into a multitude of directions thus dissipating and blunting the effects. Confusion and terror.

It behoves us however to think that to those who have the ultimate responsibility to fight off this countries enemies and keep the majority of us safe are stupid enough not to know the tactics being used or for us to think they would be detracted from their main purpose by the same.

Our guardians should know, from previous recent experiences, that this 'terror' war cannot be won by overwhelming force of arms (boots on the ground) and thus must await events in order that the political forces arraigned in the area have settled into a cohesive (trusted) bloc to which we must then give tacit support by way of military arms and personnel in order for the 'war' to be satisfactorily ended or at least suitably contained. For us it is mainly a game of intelligence and waiting. Meanwhile there will be some collateral casualties as there always are.

The sheepdog analogy is a good one, Islamic state do act strategically, trying to move the flow of events to their advantage. However, as this is a dog which will rip out your throat, the analogy only goes so far.

We need a sense of scale and perspective, the 'nip' in Tunisia was 38 people machine gunned, not many casualties compared to the thousands killed elsewhere, but too near to home and, added to the other uk casualties of Islamic attacks, too devastating not to take as a serious, potentially escalating threat.

There is so much we don't know and aren't aware of, but protection of innocent civilians has to be a priority in any case.

The vast majority of the general public don't want to know. They can't handle the truth. It would be too traumatic to have to face reality head-on. That's why we have the State to take on the mantel of overall protector which sometimes means they have to act in such a manner as would not be acceptable to 'God-fearing people'. Which brings us back to 'secrets in the short term' and their absolute necessity etc etc etc. But you can be rest assured that they will do a reasonably good enough job in order to keep the State secure - the rest is 'life'.

There doesn't seem to be much positive reaction to Mr. Camerons' speech on tackling Islamic extremism. A few slightly miffed Muslims, and a bit of general grumbling.

Of course not. Why would there be? To take on the mantel of 'Lord Protector' requires more than courage these days. Islam wants to keep things quiet and peaceful - they are not strong enough yet in this country to rattle their chains. As for we - 'the indigenous' - all most of us want is a quiet life also. We have kids and responsibilities to see to first.

Seems a pity that Mr. cameron and his scriptwriters must have put in a lot of work covering a lot of ground in his speech on Islamic extremism, and not got much response.

In his speech on international corruption, he made it clear he understands what a huge amount of property in London is owned by international criminals.

They can all talk. That's what they do best. Talk - cheap as chips. Action - oh dear me didn't really know how to go about that. He (cameroon - hmm nearly got that right) hasn't a chance. To do anything at all regarding the slush funds/laundry baskets/ brown envelopes he will first have to wade through his own party mandarins with a hatchet the size of a London bus and sieve out the Met. It ain't gonna happen children.

All that talking must be quite wearing, but in the case of Mr. Camerons' speeches, it is interesting and well delivered, more than can be said for a lot of political speeches.

So many ministers and members of parliament um and er and stutter and ahem avoid the question and don't seem to be much good at talking.

Getting things done is of course a different matter.

Tax avoidance and evasion. Bribery and corruption. Pig-troughing and laundering. All require a robust and targeting with intent. None - I repeat - None will be seen to with anything like the attention they need in order to remove them or even deplete them. It is not in the nature of the capitalist system to rock the boat that underpins. Turning to socialist policies in order to remove the top level only shutters the level down to the 'new' level whose predilections to graft and corruption are no less than the top levels with the result that nothing happens to enrich the lives of the many. It's a broken arrow. The truth is that there isn't a 'peaceful' system within which to re-distribute the wealth of the nations. Revolutions produce nothing on balance due to the damage done along the way and the power structures formed anew who revert to pig-troughing and all the rest as they 'grow' in power.
Looking on the bright side. Take what you can whilst the going is good - for we all die eventually.

A speech is just a speech, but like anything else, it can be done well, or not. Mr Cameron delivers a speech well, body language etc is all very coherent. Could do with better speech writers perhaps, but that's a different department.

Yes, we all die after a while, it's inevitable, but is that a motivation to get what you can while you can? One boat we are all in together is life, while it lasts.

Oops-a-daisy, Mr. Cameron is under fierce criticism this morning for describing the swarm of refugees at Calais as a "swarm". Looks like he failed to consult his political dictionary, words beginning with sw, like swamped and swarm, are best avoided.

Not the best description - better he had gone for disparate-groups or intermittent waves, swarm tends to give an impression of collectively all at the same time - which has not been the case.
Perhaps he wanted to use terminology that would arouse the 'tree-huggers' and take on their crass utopian dreams. Who knows. What I do know was he wasn't scathing enough.

Mr. Cameron was looking a bit jet-lagged when he made his 'swarm' comments somewhere out in the far east.

Public and media reaction to his and his governments handling of the Calais debacle is strongly negative. Maybe he is busy looking after the economy, but appears to be making a series of damaging political blunders.

With a media and social-network prepared to jump on every word he issues and given his schedules and timetables necessary to keep up with everything it is hardly surprising his 'guard' against such trivialities drops every now and then. It is a back-breaking job which very few can do with ease. Any idiot would know what he meant and only PC blinkered cretins would make a scene about it. Ten of those cretins wouldn't make one of him.
Gaffs are par for the course. The only perfect person I know of was eventually nailed to a cross. So let's not go there shall we for fear of being tarred with the holier than thou label of a PC cretin.

Perhaps they would prefer Pink Farage or Red Ed or Scarlet Corbyne. Then they really would have something to bleat about. Pick for me the world's most equitable, satisfied and happy society/country and we will all take up the banner and go there - always providing they haven't got a bar of some sorts on immigration -!!! The British are never happy unless they have something 'negative' to groan and complain about - so what's new?

It's possible that not every idiot would understand the meaning of the word 'swarm'. English is an always complicated and now fragmented language.

When Harriet Harman appeared on TV saying Mr. Cameron should not compare humans to insects, she was adressing that sector of the population, (idiots as you imply), presumably including herself, who think 'swarm' means insects. This sector of the population are not necessarily idiots, just of a modern type education.

Mr. Cameron with his more traditional education would mean 'swarm' in the sense of an overwhelming movement of people. Anyway, from now on we will refer to swarms of migrants as 'flocks of migrants', and keep it sheepish.

One new thing for Londoners at least, to grumble about is the effective loss of much of the county of Kent,

Why? They only ever went there for a cheap holiday. They certainly have never appreciated it other than good for beer making materials. I'm not going to waste time on the woe is me trials and tribulations of the south-east or London. They've done bugger all for the rest of the country other than inflate everything required for a basic living for the rest of us and soak up any monies that should have gone to the regions. Like wasps to the jam pot (that the south east is) they will naturally attract the undesirables, as they have come to be known. They've got all the money - they can extricate themselves with it and see how the other half have to live in the process.

By "London" I mean much of the south east of England, London has grown into a megatrollop. We may not miss Kent, it's inaccessible on the other side of London now, but last I heard there were still some Kentish people living there.

More razor wire at Calais isn't a brilliant idea. Mr. Cameron might open his holiday newspaper to see what happens when a panicking crowd presses into razor wire. We are short of any other political leadership, but this approach to dealing with the migrant issue isn't properly thought out.

Mr. Cameron may be suffering from the emperor has no clothes syndrome. Confidence in him was good with the recovery from the banking crash.

The idea of sending 'smoke signals' about reducing benefits and conditions for asylum seekers has a logic to it, or would have if it was done months ago and more convincingly.

Is there no-one in cabinet who could see what was on the agenda, were they afraid to speak up? The political 'smoke signals' people are reading both at home and abroad now are about an amateurish, unrealistic and contradictory government response.

The problem we have is one of fragmentation of political unity within all the parties. We now see the uncomfortable results of 'personal' freedoms (without real sanction) that obliges the political leaders to spend half their time on strategies to remain in power. Given there is only a five year term, which itself is not guaranteed, that only leaves two and a half years of 'real' political endeavour in which to enact/react/contract (and any other act you can think of) suitable effective policy. The country remains in limbo for as long as the country prevaricates over its future. Nothing worthwhile can be done given no one knows in which direction we are heading.
So - is it any surprise that proactive measures are not put in place even when those measures may have been apparent. We may well have a government with a majority (small as it is) but it is one that has been neutered from the onset by its own internal instability. Cameron or no Cameron.