Horrific Attack in Nigeria

There was a horrifying attack yesterday in Nigeria, 16 people were gunned down on Bayero University campus in northern Nigeria. They have been attending religions services when small bombs went off inside the church. This drew them outside where they were shot by armed gun men. Before the police had time to respond the assailants had left the area on motorcycles. Although no group has claimed the attacks, the tactics are similar to that of the radical Islamist group, Boko Haram.

For years sectarian warfare has torn Nigeria apart, the north is predominantly Muslim and the south is predominantly Christian. The sectarian strife takes hundreds of lives every year as people fall victim to increasingly radicalised groups. The rise in the number of Christians over the past half century has helped as Islam is now contested as the prime religion of Nigeria, the current president is a Christian. Nigeria’s democracy is weak and could easily collapse if enough pressure was put on it.

Attacks are common from both sides of Nigeria, with churches being the primary target. Unfortunately it marks a trend in the increase in sectarian violence across Africa, we must help the Africans to overcome their differences and try to adopt a Sierra Leone attitude continentally (Sierra Leone has one of the highest levels of religious tolerance in the whole world). International companies must try and re-invest in the communities whose resources they are plundering, especially the oil companies.

Democracy Struggle in Michigan

This week in Michigan a huge blow has been dealt to democracy, there is a particularly unpopular law in Michigan (which I will come to later) that many people want overturned. It’s not the only US state with laws that many people want to overturn, in Maine and Ohio voters  rejected legislation that had been passed by their Republican led State legislators, in Arizona the most powerful Republican in the state was recalled from office due to his ‘papers please’ law. In Wisconsin, Republican governor, Scott Walker, faces a recall election on the 5^th of June. To get a law overturned in American states you must provide a certain amount of signatures (it varies state to state), if you have enough verified signatures  then the law gets put to a public vote. In Michigan the process was followed, people opposed to the legislation returned enough signatures to have the law put to a referendum (which is 5% of the number of people who voted in the last election), they even had more, 40,000 extra signatures were handed to the correct authorities who confirmed that the signatures were legitimate.

Despite this a challenge was brought by a group calling themselves “Citizens for fiscal responsibility” claiming that correct process had not been followed. So what horrifying, terrible thing had the petitioners done that this recall must be stopped? The font size was apparently too small. I’m not joking. This challenge was put to the Board of Canvassers who voted  along party lines, the two Democrats voted no to the challenge (and therefore yes to the recall) and the two Republicans voted yes to the challenge (and therefore no to the recall). What is important to note is the identity of one of the Republicans, Jeffrey Timmer, he is one of three partners at a Republican consulting firm that helped to bring the font size challenge to the petition. Clearly there is a conflict of interests here, he is both the defendant and the jury, voting on something that he has helped bring to the board of canvassers. It is a disgrace. Yet thankfully the petition is not dead in the water and the challenge will be brought to the courts where a final decision will be made.

The particular law that is up for recall is a very, very radical law. It is called the Emergency Manager Law basically it takes away local democracy in struggling towns and cities. The state of Michigan has the right to take away power from local elected officials such as mayors or councillors and give them to one person who has unilateral control over the municipality. This is a horrible attack on democracy and it is a law that should never have been passed. Many areas have already been taken over by emergency managers such as Pontiac and Flint, these towns have substantial African-American populations and have lost their voice in Michigan.

The USA has been a beacon of democracy for years, yet laws like these threaten to undermine the very reason why America is great. This law must be overturned.

Back in Recession

The UK has slid back into recession, making it the second time in four years. This means that it is the worst peace time recession in over a century, worse than the Wall Street Crash of 1929. After that the UK economy was shrinking for about three years, but recovered on the fourth and there was no double dip.

What caused the UK to go into growth was two successive quarters with negative growth. In the figures for the first three months of 2012 released yesterday it was revealed that the UK economy had shrunk by 0.2%, pushing us into recession. One of the major reasons for this shrink is the collapse in the construction sector in the first part of 2012 as well as fears of the Eurozone and the continued failure of the government’s economic policy. Yet there are no signs that the government plans on changing course for austerity, with some Conservative MPs calling for the cuts to go deeper and happen faster, they don’t seem to have got the point. When a policy is so clearly not working, it will not work by doing more of it. What’s even more worrying is that the majority of cuts are still to come which will drive up unemployment and possibly keep the UK in recession for the rest of the year. As I have written before, the policy of severe austerity is not working anywhere in Europe, shrinking or stagnating of economies is what is characteristic of Europe at the moment. The Dutch government has just fallen due to a disagreement in the ruling coalition over cuts, the Czech government could topple any day now and France is looking set to elect a socialist as president who will oppose the harsh cuts. What many on the left in Europe are looking at is the success of America, Obama has managed to recover the US economy to above its position before the crisis, while the UK is sitting 4% below the 2007 level.  Unemployment in the US is shrinking and confidence in the markets is growing, unfortunately centre-right politicians in Europe are ignoring both history and current events, they seem blind to the facts.

 The British government is looking increasingly incompetent, the budget was extremely unpopular, the economy is shrinking and they’re embroiled in a scandal with the Murdochs. What will happen next is anyone’s guess, I don’t believe that the UK government is close to collapse but if the current string of embarrassments continue it would be perfectly conceivable that the coalition could fall apart.

Regardless what will happen, yesterday’s news is extremely disappointing for the UK.

Revenge of the Murdochs

Today James Murdoch made an appearance at the Leveson Enquiry and released some explosive information. He has basically accused Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, of being corrupt. We all remember the scandal surrounding the Murdoch Empire that erupted last year, one of the effects of it was that News International stopped attempting to purchase a majority stake in BSkyB. Prior to this, Jeremy Hunt had been tasked with deciding whether or not the takeover would be fair and maintain a balanced media. Hunt was supposed to be acting in a quasi-juidicial fashion, taking a neutral stance and deciding whether or not the bid could go ahead based on evidence provided. What James Murdoch has revealed is that he had a huge amount of contact with Hunt throughout the whole process, with Hunt providing information that should have never been leaked.

Jeremy Hunt is facing calls to resign

The Conservative hierarchy in Downing Street have rallied around Hunt, especially the Prime Minister. They claim that the contact used by Murdoch is not trustworthy and that he was simply lying to make him seem like a big player to his boss, James Murdoch. Yet there is one big piece of evidence that throws the spanner into the works of this theory, an email from the contact to Murdoch on the 24^th of January 2011 explained how he had had a meeting with JH (supposedly Jeremy Hunt or one of his staff) in which they discussed the details of an address that Hunt would give the House of Commons the following day. In the email quite precise detail is revealed about how Mr Hunt was to reject calls for a review over the BSkyB bid, which would have slowed the process down for at least a couple of months.

Hunt is known to be a fan of the Murdochs, on his own website Hunt claims that the Murdoch Empire is essential to the health of British Media.  It may not prove his guilt but it does reveal that Hunt could not have approached this from a quasi-judicial perspective and should never have been chosen for this job.

Both Harriet Harman and Ed Miliband of Labour have called for Jeremy Hunt to resign over the scandal in a statement made yesterday Ed Miliband said: “He should resign. He himself said that his duty was to be transparent, impartial and fair in the BSkyB takeover. But now we know that he was providing advice, guidance and privileged access to News Corporation. He was acting as a back channel for the Murdochs.”

Although I do believe that the Labour Party should hold off calling for Mr Hunt’s immediate resignation I also believe that Cameron should not say he backs Hunt. Both should wait until all the evidence is in about this scandal, Hunt need time to reply to the allegations and Murdoch needs to provide more evidence of the alleged corruption.

Furious with the current coalition government for abandoning them the Murdochs' have taken their first revenge strike against the government. What is more important is that the tomorrow it is Rupert Murdoch's turn at answering questions at Leveson.

Good News for Green Energy

We all know that fossil fuels are limited, one day they will run out, as well as that fossil fuels are getting harder to extract as the easily-accessed supplies are being drained fast. As well as this global warming, accelerated by man, is a major reason for more renewable forms of energy. So for fellow greens, good news came yesterday as the US and UK agreed to invest in floating offshore wind farms. This news came after the end of a meeting held in London on clean energy and was attended by representatives from 23 countries.

The UK has massive potential in wind farms, about one third of potential offshore wind farms in Europe are in British waters. Up until now there have been two major problems with offshore wind farms, the first is cost and the second is the difficulty of placing turbines in deep waters, which is also where the wind is fastest. The floating turbines are much less costly than those attached to sea beds as no foundation work on the sea bed is required. Repairing the turbines is also easier as the floating turbines can be brought to land to be repaired, whereas those attached to the sea bed must be repaired at sea.

The UK already has more wind turbines on in its waters than any other country in the world and the government's continued support for it makes it the most attractive market globally. The news today will make it all the more lucrative for companies, floating wind farms are already being built by Norway and Portugal. The US Department of Energy is creating four sites in American waters to help move America into the clean, green age of energy. The project in the UK is part of a wider attempt to significantly increase the amount of off-shore wind energy the UK consumes by 2020. Off-shore wind farms pose two massive benefits to the UK, firstly it's clean so pollution is lowered and the energy is not affected by fluctuating fuel prices due to a troubled Middle East.

We must sever our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil, otherwise we will be left behind in a new world.

Major House of Lords Reform

A government report has called for massive House of Lords reform. What the report suggests is a reduction in the membership to 450 peers, 80% of which would be elected and 20% of which would be appointed along the lines of the current system used for the whole house. The new peers may be called 'senators' and thus the reformed house would be called a 'senate'. Although I am totally in favour of House of Lords reform and I want greater democracy, I also believe that to maintain our culture and heritage it should still be called the House of Lords and those elected or appointed to the house should still be peers.

The proposals have cross party support, the Labour Party considered it during their time in office, this is a Liberal Democrat part of the coalition agreement and the Conservative hierarchy have supported it. Yet there is significant disquiet amongst many back bencher Conservatives who believe that such a monumental change to British governance should be put to the electorate in a referendum. This idea is a bit bizarre, the majority of the country support House of Lords reform, so they would almost certainly lose. Also a referendum is very expensive and would distract the government from the more important tasks at hand like the international and internal economic situation.

In my opinion this House of Lords reform (if passed) would mark the end of an incredible journey of reform of the upper house. The Liberals were the first to start the process with the Parliament Act of 1911, this act removed the veto power of the House of Lords. Labour would continue this progress with the Parliament Act of 1949, this reduced the amount of time the Lords could delay a bill by. In 1999 Labour continued with the House of Lords Act 1999, this got rid of the majority of hereditary peerages, for the hereditary peers that were left the peerage would expire upon their death. An elected chamber is what is required to complete our journey to better democracy. I urge the government to push ahead with the promise of reform and to ignore Conservative opposition.

Sarkozy Set to Lose

The exit polls from the French Presidential election show Sarkozy losing the first round by one percentage point. Coming out on top is his socialist rival, François Hollande.

François Hollande

For weeks opinion polls had predicted that the first round of voting would be close between Hollande and Sarkozy, with Hollande being just slightly ahead of the incumbent President. Sarkozy's followers believe that, because the men came so close in the first round that Sarkozy could manage to win in two weeks time when the French go to the polls again. But it is also important to note that as well as predicting a tight win for Hollande in the first round, they also predicted Hollande trouncing Sarkozy in the second round of voting.

What is most surprising about the race is the amount of the vote that the far right candidate, Marine Le Pen, attracted. She managed to get almost 20% of the vote (nearly one in five French voters), this progress made by the far-right in France is extremely worrying. So why have the French voted en masse for a far-right candidate? Some of her policies are quite appealing to many French people for one, she has been anti-globalisation, which is also a characteristic claimed by Hollande, she also has managed to tap into the fear that many French people have that French culture and heritage is being eroded by immigration and European integration. France is one of Europe's, and the world's, oldest countries having existed in some form since around the 5th/6th centuries and French people are very proud of their heritage and identity. I really hope that when people voted for Le Pen they forgot that at the heart she is racist. For you cannot be far-right and non-racist, it isn't possible. Since the 2007/8 economic collapse and subsequent recession far-right groups have made significant progress across Europe, in Germany I have written about the rise of the Immortals and other far-right groups. The far-right is also gaining in debt-stricken Greece and the Norway massacres shocking the country to its core. With recovery on the horizon it is possible that the rise of the far-right will be quelled and the fears of a pre-WWII Europe will be gone.

The likely outgoing
Nicolas Sarkozy 

Despite the rise of the far-right, it looks like France will have its first socialist president in 17 years. Electing a socialist president will be a game-changing on the French, European and world stage. Hollande will challenge the cuts that Sarkozy, Merkel and Cameron have been supporting and will probably look towards an Obama stimulus package for growth. If he wins I wish him good luck, I hope he wins as we need some left-wing views on the European stage.

Romney the etch-a-sketch

As Rick Santorum has dropped out of the race Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee for President. In the Republican race this year Romney was forced to run to the right of Santorum and Gingrich to ensure he won the nomination. This hard right turn could cause him problems with independents in the General Election in November. When his campaign spokesman, Eric Fehrnstrom, was aled this question he replied by basically saying that Romney is like an etch-a-sketch, that he could shake everything up and start again.

What the spokesman was saying is that the 'promises' Romney made to Republican voters at the start of this year and at the end of last year will broken. During this period he said many things that many voters find controversial. Which of these views will he abandon in coming months? During the primaries he has been very anti-gay, he said that is he became President then he would amend the United States constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman. This would ban gay marriage, not only at the federal level but in every state that has already passed same-sex marriage such as New Hampshire and New York. Previously Romney took every opportunity he could to mention how anti-gay he was. Yet yesterday he was making a speech in North Carolina on the eve of a referendum The referendum is basically the same as what Romney supposedly wants for the whole country - a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. With this in mine it is bizarre that Romney made no mention of today's vote. it is the first hint of a whisper that Romney may be preparing to etch-a-sketch his views on gays that he had held for the past few months.

Another controversial issue which Romney may want to perform an etch-a-sketch on is that of his views on immigration. Prior to now Romney said he supported many anti-immigrant measures that state legislators proposed, an example is Arizona's 'Papers Please' bill. Like the gay rights issue, there is the first sign that Romney may renegade on this issue. The man behind many of the anti-immigrant legislation, Kris Kobach, and a hard-liner on immigration issues,was an informal adviser for Mitt Romney on his campaign. Yet in a list of advisers that the Romney campaign released, Kobach was missing from it. When the campaign was contacted about whether Kobach was still and adviser or not, they replied that he is a 'supporter'. I think that's a no. This is also just a whisper but nonetheless it is still a sign that Romney may 'change' his views in time for the general election in November. It is also important to not that currently only 20% of Latinos (one of the largest immigrant group in the states) back Romney for President. It is estimated for him to win he must get around 40% of the Latino vote. To do this he will need to hold off with anti-immigration stances.

So what else could he change his views on? Romney clearly needs to get his support with women up otherwise he will certainly lose in November. Will he go back on his promise to illegal use abortion and take a less hard line stance on contraception? Almost certainly. What about his support for killing Medicare as we know it, causing pain and suffering for millions of elderly people or getting rid of the Department for Housing and Urban Development (aka HUD) which will result in many military veterans being made homeless.

The fact is that Romney is going to have to etch-a-sketch some of these issues otherwise he will certainly lose in November. This puts Obama in a good position, he can easily accuse Romney of being a flip flopper extraordinaire without facing the same accusations. Unlike Romney, Obama has not had to fight in the primaries and go after the party's base before changing for the general election.

Fracking

An independent report today has effectively given the green light to Fracking in the UK. The claim by companies like Cuadrillo Resources that Fracking is safe isn't really based on much evidence. On the other hand the dangers of Fracking have already been experienced. In Lancashire two earthquakes have been due to Fracking, this is what cause all Fracking programmes in the UK to be suspended. The USA is the first place in which Fracking has been commercially exploited. In one small town in Ohio they have recorded 14 earthquakes since Fracking began nearby. Yet Fracking carries another potential danger, the poisoning of water supplies. What happens in Fracking is that a drill is forced into the rock and then cracks the rocks around it. After this water and chemicals are forced into the cracks to loosen the gas. The water is then taken back up, but only around 50% actually returns. The rest is lost and the companies don't know where it goes. This water could very easily make it into drinking supplies, and considering it's got harmful chemicals in it, this could cause serious health problems.

Regardless of safety, we should be looking towards finding greener sources of energy. It would be better if more money was spent on green research and the building of renewable power stations, including massive wind farms in the North Sea areas.

The dangers of Fracking would suggest that it should not continue but unfortunately the oil and gas companies are very powerful and have a habit of getting their way...

Breivik on Trial

The trial of the Norwegian terrorist extremist, Anders Breivik has begun in Oslo, Norwat. Breivik took the lives of 77 innocent people, mostly teenagers. His first attack, in the Labour government, killed eight people in Oslo. After this he drove to Utøya island, to a youth camp and open fired on children. The evil man believed that he was doing good, that he is a foot soldier in a war against Islam and multiculturalism. It is his belief that his attack was the first in a war that will drive Muslims from Norway and Europe.

Besides admitting to having carried out the attacks he denies first degree murder and claims self-defence. He began his case with a salute to the far right.

Although Breivik will almost certainly be convicted, the trial does have one potential benefit for him, as a platform to air his views. To limit this Norwegian authorities are restricting cameras in court to minimise any effect of his words.

Breivik is such an extremist that his words may not touch many but he only needs to inspire one that can kill many more people. We must suppress his voice, he should not be heard.

More Taliban Attacks

The Taliban have struck across Afghanistan today in co-ordinated attacks. The majority of the fighting took place in Kabul, here the Taliban targeted embassies, including the British and German embassies as well as NATO headquarters and the Afghan parliament. The Taliban claim that this is the beginning of their 'Spring Offensive', if so then maybe they should call off the rest of any planned attacks. The attacks were largely unsuccessful as there were few casualties on the defending side. Also important is the fact that it wasn't NATO soldiers who primarily fought off the Taliban, but Afghan soldiers and police. After many stories of Afghan soldiers turning on the people who were training them and killed NATO officers, it is a welcome relief. It gives us some hope that the lives of allied servicemen were not wasted and that Afghanistan will not return to the failed state it once was.

The Titanic 100 Years on

100 years ago today, on the 15^th of April 1912, the Titanic sunk in the Atlantic Ocean. 1,517 people lost their lives because of the sinking, most of which were in third class. Without a doubt, the sinking of the Titanic is the most famous sinking ever, but why?

The Titanic and her sister ships Olympic and Britannic were the largest ever built at the time. Harland and Wolff, the company that built the ships, had to demolish three slip ways and replace them with two in Belfast, Northern Ireland to accommodate the giant ships. The Titanic’s fame has been helped by films such as Titanic and A Night to Remember. The ship is connected to many cities, it was built in Belfast and registered to Liverpool, it launched from Southampton and picked up passengers in Cherbourg, France and Cobh (formally Queenstown), Ireland. The ship was destined for New York City and had many American passengers.

The reason for the Titanic being designated "the unsinkable ship" isn't as absurd as it sounds. The reason for this is that the ship's exterior was built with lots of compartments along the hull. If the hull was breached in one compartment then the ship would not sink as only that compartment would be affected. What happened with the Titanic was that the iceberg hit the side of the ship and ruptured the hull in numerous compartments, this caused these compartments to flood with water. With so much weight on one side of the ship, the Titanic began to lean to one side. From there on in the Titanic was doomed.

The most infamous reason for the loss of so many lives is the lack of lifeboats and the fact that many were only half full. What is not widely known is the fact that the tragedy could have been far worse, due to a coal miners strike the Titanic was significantly under capacity. Excluding crew, the ship had capacity for 2,566 passengers whereas only 1,317 actually were on the ship. This meant that there were 1,239 spaces on the ship! If the ship had been full to capacity then the death toll could have been closer to 3,000 people! At this time it was very unusual that a ship leaving Britain for America would have been under capacity, if it hadn't been for the strike then it almost certainly would have been full.

Unfortunately the last survivor of the disaster, Millvina Dean, died in 2009 at the age of 97 (she was only nine weeks old when the Titanic sunk). With the final human connexion to the Titanic gone the ship can begin to fade into memory. Yet it will never disappear, the Titanic is hugely important to the revival of Belfast, the new Titanic museum came at a price of £100 million and is aiming at attracting 400,000 people annually. It is also a horrible human tragedy, one of worst cases of accidental death in history. The romance and mysticism surrounding the Titanic will also never go away and it will continue to amaze people for generations. Supposedly the last song played on the Titanic is "Nearer my God to Thee", the hymn has been immortalised by tragedy, the bravery of many of the crew and others aboard the Titanic is beyond touching. The band that played to the end, the captain of the ship and the men that could have survived but let women and children go first. These people will never, and should never be forgotten. Lest we forget.

RMS Titanic

North Korean Embarrassment

Yesterday North Korea was humiliate in front of the whole world when their rocket launch failed. The rocket was up in the air for only one minute before it broke up and fell into the Yellow Sea. Unlike normal, Western media was allowed into the country to record the whole thing. The reason for foreign journalists being allowed into the country is that North Korea wanted to prove to the world that its launch was solely for peaceful purposes. Despite this the launch was condemned by the world as North Korea is banned from rocket launches. Many countries believe that this launch was a disguise for a missile test for an intercontinental ballistic missile. Japan and South Korea both stated that if the rocket strayed into their airspace that they would shoot it down.

A UN Security Council meeting has been called to discuss the event with tighter sanctions likely to be the result. It will be interesting to see how the closest country North Korea has to an ally, China, reacts.

The embarrassing failure comes on the first official day of North Korea's new leader, Kim Jong-Un. In Pyongyang today two gargantuan statues were revealed of Jong-Un's predecessors Kim Jong-Il and Kim Il-Sung (who are his father and grandfather respectively). Some people believe that in an attempt to recover some pride and respect, Jong-Un will test a nuclear weapon, which will scare North Korea's neighbours and the rest of the West. When so many people are dying of starvation it is hard to see how the North Koreans put up with the expensive military, statues and space programmes. North Korea is one state where brainwashing truly has worked.

Cameron visits Burma

Yesterday David Cameroon became the first British Prime Minister to visit Myanmar (formally Burma) in over 60 years, and the first time since independence in 1948. The historic visit is in the context of the opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, being elected to the Burmese parliament. Cameron has called for EU sanctions to be suspended, in recognition of the government's move to a more democratic country. It is important to note that he has asked for a suspension, rather than a lifting of sanctions. This is to show the military leaders of Myanmar that if they renegade on their promises that the sanctions will return. The opposition leader has welcomed Cameron's calls and showed willingness to engage with her oppressors.

David Cameron has also invited Aung San Suu Kyi to visit the UK in August. She has not left her country in over two decades, so this would be another historic occasion for her.

In a country that 1/3 are in poverty, democracy and the lifting of sanctions will hopefully result in a direct benefit to the people of Myanmar.

Bo Xilai Political Scandal

Neil Heywood's death has serious
consequences for China's leaders

The death of a British businessman, Neil Heywood is causing earthquakes in Chinese politics. Heywood was close to one of China’s most powerful men, Bo Xilai, a possible future leader of China. Until now. When Mr Heywood died in November last year, the cause of the death was given as alcohol poisoning. No autopsy was ever performed and his body was later cremated. Alarm bells started ringing when friends described him as “not a serious drinker”.

In the months that followed, a Chinese police chief fled to an American embassy claiming foul play in the Heywood case. Since this, Bo Xilai’s wife, Gu, has been arrested, strongly suspected of being involved in Mr Heywood’s murder.

The Heywood scandal combined with the upheaval of Wang Lijun incident have resulted in China’s greatest political scandal in over two decades. Xilai’s downfall comes just as a leadership change is about to occur, if it had not been for Xilai’s downfall he could well have been made leader. Xilai was viewed as the leader of the more extreme left of the Communist Party. With Xilai gone, the next leader will likely be a more pro-market communist. 

The West should pay close attention to what happens to China over the next few months, whoever replaces Hu Jintao as leader will have control over the emerging super power and can take the country forward or backwards.

Santorum Pulls Out of Race

Rick Santorum has pulled out of the Republican Presidential Race, effective immediately. This basically means that Mitt Romney is going to be the Republican nominee for the presidential election in November. Santorum was the only real contender for the nomination other than Romney, Paul and Gingrich have no hope of gaining their party’s nomination.

Santorum’s exit marks a turning point in the campaign, now Romney and the Republican Party can focus their attacks on President Obama. The Republican campaign has been torn apart by infighting which has lowered the party’s reputation nationally. With less negative ads between Republicans, they can now build up an attack machine on Obama.

The reasons Santorum gave for pulling out was that his daughter is very ill and the knowledge that he could not win. Talking to reporters in his home state of Pennsylvania he gave this message:

"Ladies and gentleman, we made the decision to get into this race at our kitchen table against all the odds. We made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race for us is over for me and we will suspend our campaign effective today. We are not done fighting."

Yet could there be another reason for Santorum ending his campaign? When he was asked a few weeks ago if he would consider being a running mate on another candidate’s ticket, if he did not win the nomination himself, he confirmed that he would. In leaving the race now, he can hold his head high, knowing he did well despite the odds (and dollars) being stacked against him. He could be a good running mate for Mitt Romney, but it’s too early to tell. If Romney chooses Santorum this would be a bad move for the Republican party as Santorum would have difficulty attracting votes from the key swing voters. Many in the centre view him as too far to the right on issues such as contraception, abortion, homosexuality, tax and religion.

Santorum has pulled out, but it won't be the last we see of him.

Christianity in the UK

The UK has a very complex connexion to religion. Our head of state is the head of the Church of England; England also has an established church (Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland do not).

Despite the position of the Queen, religious affiliation does not matter in politics. A person can get elected whether they’re Protestant, Catholic, Muslim, Jewish or atheist or anything else. This differs greatly to the US where religion is extremely important. This kind of secularism that we have is the right kind, where religious affiliation does not matter and the church gets no say in government (the five bishops in the House of Lords don’t have any real power). Yet there is a dangerous precedent being set by cases of ordinary people. People have been asked to remove crosses or other signs of religion from their bodies at work, this is not right. I believe firmly in both religious tolerance and religious freedom, I believe that people have the right to be proud of their religion and show their religion in public but do not have the right to harass people who are not of their religion. Wearing a cross to work is perfectly fine, on the other hand wearing a T-shirt saying “God is better than Allah” is totally unacceptable.

We have to find the right balance between religion and secularism in this country, the UK has a strong connexion to religion and we should not force religion out altogether. 

Rowan Williams, the Arch Bishop of Caterbury,
who today completed his final Easter Sermon as
Archbishop

Syrian Ceasefire Farce

The hopes of peace in Syria are in jeopardy due to events over the past few days. In the days leading up to the proposed ceasefire the government has stepped up their attacks on rebel held areas, the rebels claim that Assad’s troops have killed 1,000 people in bombardments over the past week. This has worried people over whether or not the UN-backed ceasefire would actually occur on Tuesday the 10^th of April. Today came more dismay arrived as the Syrian government released a statement saying that they would not pull out their troops unless they had written guarantees that rebels would stop the attacks, hand over their weapons and  pull out from the areas they hold. The statement also required that Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey stop supporting the rebels. This ridiculous statement makes a ceasefire seem like months away, not two days.

I always believed that the ceasefire was a farce, 99% of ceasefires are like that, Assad has promised them before, Gadaffi promised numerous ceasefires before he was finally killed last October. The demands of the government are never going to be met as the rebels are not stupid. The rebels do not hold many areas so will want to remain where they are. They also have very little weapons, without them they would be overrun by the government. Regardless of the plausibility of those two events happing, the requirement of a written guarantee cannot actually happen. The rebels aren’t one group; it’s difficult to know who the rebels actually are. In Libya the rebels had the NTC, there is no similar grouping in Syria; here all the rebels have with each other is a loose affiliation.

With all this in mind I am very sceptical of a ceasefire actually occurring in Syria, one day peace will come to Syria. It will not be Tuesday.

Will the Met ever get over racism?

It is more than a decade since the Metropolitan Police was branded as institutionally racist by the MacPherson Inquiry. Yet there are still accusations of racism within the Met, currently there are 21 people under investigation for alleged racist incidents and this is just the ones we know about.

To be fair to the police officers, the vast majority are not racist and the Met has made significant improvements since it was branded institutionally racist, yet it still has a long way to go. The Met admitted that after the summer’s riots it needed to work with ethnic minorities to build bridges between police and minorities. It is believed that distrust of the police by ethnic minorities as having aggravated the riots in the summer and helping to spark them in the first place.

The Met must try and work better with other communities, but the fact that in 2012 there are still serious problems with racism worries me. Indeed racism in the Met is declining, maybe some day the Met will have no more racists than any other organisation. 

Republican Presidential Race So Far

 So far 37 of the 56 states (including five territories DC) have gone to the polls in the Republican Presidential Primaries and Mitt Romney is streaking ahead taking 18 states, DC and four territories which gives him 591 committed delegates. Rick Santorum is a strong second having carried 11 states and 202 committed delegates. Newt Gingrich is currently third having won only two states and 133 delegates. Ron Paul is trailing behind having won only one territory and a tiny 27 delegates.

At this stage in the race it seems pretty clear to most people that Mitt Romney will be the nomination and after this month he will probably be closer to it. The more liberal states of New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Pennsylvania are the next states to go to the polls on the 24^th of April. They are likely to go Romney’s way. The exception being Pennsylvania as it is Santorum’s home state. Recently Newt Gingrich has halved his campaign staff numbers and Ron Paul seems to have largely given up. Although the race is not over yet it is hard to see how this could go anyone but Romney’s way. It is notable to point out that Romney has more committed delegates than the other three candidates combined, so even if they were to stand together, they still could not unseat Romney.

One of the big questions Republicans need to be asking themselves is which one can unseat President Obama. If they ask that question then they may as well not vote, the Republican Party is becoming unelectable for many of the swing voters. Since losing the 2008 general election the party has taken a hard, right turn and this has infuriated many ordinary people. In Wisconsin fury over stripping Unions of their rights could result in the re-call of governor Scott Walker, if voters decide to recall Walker then it will only be the third time that this has happened in American history. Across the states, Republican congresses have been passing anti-abortion laws which have struck a bad chord with many women. Some of the laws (although not all have passed) required doctors to lie to their patients and insert a probe into a woman’s vagina if they want an abortion, some people have compared this to state mandated rape.

All across America the Republican brand has been tainted and I don’t believe it can recover in time for the election. If things continue the way they are going, Obama will be president for four more years.

How the states have voted so far
Orange for Romney
Green for Santorum
Purple for Gingrich
Yellow for Paul