Shot British peace activist dies.
I don’t know how I feel. Sad, angry, frustrated.
I hope Sophie and her family are coping - well, coping as well as you can in this situation. The only thing I can say with certainty is that (knowing Sophie) this will not be the end. If there is anyone who will fight for justice for Tom, it is Sophie and her family.
More details:
I admit that until recently I’d regarded the American scramble to the White House as largely uninteresting. Bush will probably get back in (thanks to finding Saddam in a hole), and the Democrats will slink off and get back to blaming all their problems on Ken Starr.
Well, that was my opinion until I read a recent speech given by Howard Dean, the front-runner as the Democrats head towards the caucuses and primaries. I’ll quote part of it here:
“In 1968, Richard Nixon won the White House. He did it in a shameful way - by dividing Americans against one another, stirring up racial prejudices, and bringing out the worst in people.
They called it the “Southern Strategy,” and the Republicans have been using it ever since. Nixon pioneered it, and Ronald Reagan perfected it, using phrases like “racial quotas” and “welfare queens” to convince white Americans that minorities were to blame for all of America’s problems.
The Republican Party would never win elections if they came out and said their core agenda was about selling America piece by piece to their campaign contributors and making sure that wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of a few. To distract people from their real agenda, they run elections based on race, dividing us, instead of uniting us….
In America, there is nothing black or white about having to live from one paycheck to the next. It’s time we had a new politics in America - a politics that refuses to pander to our lowest prejudices. Because when white people and black people and brown people vote together, that’s when we make true progress in this country”
Wow. If this man means and does what he says, he *could* make a real difference.
So, any Americans out there - vote Dean!
Some great news to end the year with: Israeli soldier held over shot Briton. I’ve been following this story ever since Tom Hurndall was first shot whilst working as a peace activist in Gaza in April 2003. One of Louise’s best friends at university, Sophie, is Tom’s brother.
The arrest of an Israeli soldier over Tom’s shooting is fantastic news - news that I was very sceptical I would ever hear. A positive note to end 2003 with.
Recently, the governmnent has announced plans for all new university students to be charged up to £3,000 per year for their tuition. This money would not be paid up-front, but retrospectively as part of a “graduate repayment scheme” once the graduate is earning above a certain threshold (probably about £15,000pa).
They claim that this is a fair system. Well, I’ll agree it’s certainly fairer than the current system (where students are required to pay annual fees of £1,150 up-front). That system (which I was subject to) has offered no incentive for young people to enter higher education. An A-level student knows that were they to decide they wanted to go to university, they would be required to find £1,150 a year (unless they were lucky enough to fall under the government’s definition of a ‘poorer student’, in which case they would pay less). I fail to see how that can help to increase the number of students - another of the government’s targets.
The Liberal Democrats have proposed that instead of a graduate repayment scheme, higher education should be funded by a 50% top rate of income tax for those earning in excess of £50,000. The government says that students should not be entirely funded through general taxation, as the majority of people in this country did not attend university, and it is unfair to expect them to pay for those who do wish to go.
Excuse me? Is this a Labour government or a Tory one? It certainly sounds like something the Tories would have proposed in the mid-nineties. I believe it is entirely fair for the general public to pay for the increases in higher education funding. It is they who will benefit. Everyone needs a doctor. A doctor is a graduate. Everyone will need a lawyer at some point in their lives. Lawyers are graduates. Everyone wants a television. Televisions are designed by electronic engineers, who are graduates. Everyone wants clean water, which is produced through systems designed by civil and chemical engineers. Again, all graduates.
If the government feels that an increase in the number of graduates is needed in Britain, there must be a reason. Presumably because the general population needs these graduates to fill job vacancies. In that case, it is entirely proper that the general public should pay (through general taxation) for the increased funding required to achieve this.
Of course, Labour won’t do that, because they’re too worried about going into the next election with a reputation of taxing and spending. The possibility of being a modern, progressive, Socialist government, committed to education being free at the point of delivery seems to be eluding them.
Clement Attlee must be turning in his grave…