Mexican Drug Cartels

Dozens of mutilated bodies have turned up in Mexico, it epitomises the tragedies that have been occurring over the past six years of Mexico’s drug wars. Since the crackdown on illegal drug cartels in Mexico in 2006, 54,000 people have lost their lives, 16,000 last year alone. What the government is trying to do is stop the illegal trafficking of drugs from Latin America, through Mexico and up into the United States. Due to the geography of the Americas, all land-based drug routes to the USA have to pass through Mexico.

Despite the heavy losses incurred by both sides, successes have been recorded for the government, since the crackdown began over 120,000 cartel members have been detained and 8,500 people have been convicted, but it is not good enough. To properly defeat the massively powerful drug cartels Mexico is going to need help, and not just from the United States, there must be massive amounts of money flooded into the Mexican authorities if these drug cartels are to be defeated. It won’t be easy and it won’t be done overnight, but it can [and hopefully will] work.

The United States is already helping Mexico out, the US has recognised the benefits to America if drug trafficking from Mexico can be reduced, US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton said in 2009 “Our [America’s] insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade” and that “the United States bears shared responsibility for the drug-fuelled violence sweeping Mexico.”

The Mexican War on Drugs has not been easy but the government must continue its “war” if Mexico is to move closer to being a fully developed nation, it’s already well on its way.

Coulson & Brooks at Leveson

The past couple of days will have been hotly anticipated in number 10, the former communications director for No.10, Andy Coulson appeared at the Leveson Enquiry on Thursday. Rebekah Brooks, former CEO of News International and good friend of David Cameron appeared yesterday.  Unfortunately they were not able to talk about phone hacking as they are both on police bail after being arrested in relation to the hacking scandal.

Coulson is particularly important as he was hired by David Cameron to be the communications director for him; he was sounded out by George Osborne. He told the enquiry that his hiring was not part of some grand scheme to get Cameron closer to the Murdochs, although I’d be extremely surprised if this never crossed Cameron’s mind. What is important to note is that Coulson had £40,000 of shares in News International, something he should have declared when he took office in the government, yet he never did claiming he was ‘too busy’ and didn’t notice the personal benefit to himself if News International did well, making him totally inappropriate as the government’s communications director. Coulson told the enquiry that even after the hacking scandal was blown wide open by the Guardian David Cameron, nor any other member of the government, questioned him on his knowledge of phone hacking despite the widening public interest in his part.

Rebekah Brooks caused more problems for the government, she told the enquiry that how after she was arrested she received messages of support from No.10, No.11, the Home Office and the Foreign Office. This reveals just how close the Murdoch press got to the very heart of government. She admitted that David Cameron had indirectly contacted her with a message that went along the lines of “I would have been more loyal to you had Ed Miliband not been on my tail”. What was even worse for the government was an email recovered from Brooks’ smart phone from Fred Michel [the PR man for News International] that read:

“Hunt will be making references to phone hacking in his statement on Rubicon this week. He will be repeating the same narrative as the one he gave in Parliament [a] few weeks ago. This is based on his belief that the police is pursuing things thoroughly and phone hacking has nothing to do with the media plurality issues. It’s extremely helpful… He [Hunt] wants to prevent a public inquiry.”

This is clearly bad for Hunt, Ed Miliband is already calling for his resignation (again). The email seems to suggest that Hunt was asking the Murdochs how he should handle the phone hacking scandal. I do not see Hunt being able to stay on for much longer due to this scandal.

European Woes Continue

Europe’s economy is going from bad to worse to awful. According to recently released figures the EU’s economy is expected to not grow at all over the next year whilst the Eurozone’s economy is expected to go through a mild recession. Spain is the latest centre of the European crisis, the government of Spain has done a review and has given a €30 billion bailout to some of its biggest banks. Yesterday one of the country’s largest banks, Bankia, was part-nationalised (45% of the bank belongs to the government now) this is putting a serious strain on the Spain’s finances as Spain has massive debts. The cause of most of Spain’s woes is very similar to what happened in Ireland, there was a gargantuan property bubble that burst, there are now vast wastelands of uninhabited apartments and home built by developers but never purchased. Bankia, lent €38 billion to property developers, €32 of which is currently problematic and Bankia may never receive the loans. In the entire banking system there is a colossal €184 billion of bad loans, with Spain’s unemployment rate at 25% and the youth unemployment rate at 50% austerity is going to cause massive pains for Spanish people. So will Spain need a bailout? It’s too early to tell at this stage but there is a chance it will, if it does need a bailout then it will become the fourth European economy that has received one. The problem with Spain is its economy is significantly bigger than the Portuguese, Irish or Greek economies and a Spanish bailout may put too much strain on the system

The problems in Greece are continuing there has been no government since Sunday and there isn’t going to be one until new elections are held. The third placed party PASOK tried to get a coalition going but failed, so now new elections are going to have to be held. What some of the centrist parties, and Brussels, are hoping is that after voting in the extremes on Sunday people will move back to the centre. If the polls are anything to go by, this will not be the case, the second placed party, SYRIZA will win more than any other party as it is polling 27% of the vote. If it does manage to get this amount of the vote then there is a serious chance that it will be able to form a coalition and thus a government. The problem. SYRIZA opposes the bailout, if it does manage to form a government and Greece goes bankrupt, this could have devastating effects on the global economy.  One of the biggest worries I have is the rise of Golden Dawn, hopefully their vote share will go down, but I fear this is wishful thinking.

Obama Backs Gay Marriage

“At a certain point I’ve just concluded that, for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that same sex couples should be able to marry.”

According to Obama his views on gay marriage have been ‘evolving’ overtime and yesterday they reached an end-point. Obama finally came round to backing gay marriage, his vice-president, Joe Biden, had already declared his support for same-sex marriage over the weekend. Obama is the first sitting US president to declare his support for marriage equality in the United States, Liberal commentator (and lesbian) Rachel Maddow said it was the “icing on the cake” as Obama’s record on gay rights have been very good. He has constantly supported the ending of anti-gay measures and safe guarding the rights of gay people.

Obama has placed himself on the right side of history, since 2004 (when Massachusetts became the first state to legalise same-sex marriage) support for same-sex marriage has risen significantly. In 2004 around 30% were for gay marriage and 60% were against it, a recent poll shows that now 50% of Americans support gay marriage whereas 48% are against it. This has been a colossal victory for the gay rights movement and over the next few years it will only go up. Personally I think it was very courageous of Obama to declare his support for gay marriage considering that it is an election year and there is still a large proportion of the American population that vehemently detest the idea of gay marriage, but in reality these people are almost all in the religious right who wouldn’t have voted for Obama anyway. So no big loss.

On the other side Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential hopeful has promised to introduce a constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage across the country, including in states that have already passed it. Romney has put himself fully on the wrong side of history. 

Obama on ABC revealing his support for gay marriage

The NHS ISN’T safe in our hands

Today the government has proved to us all that despite the claims that the “NHS is safe in Conservative hands”, in reality, it isn't.

For the past 19 months the Labour MP, John Healey, has campaigned for the NHS risk register to be made public. The risk register is the government’s own report into the damages its reforms would do to the NHS. Today the cabinet exercised its rare right to veto freedom of information act requests and said that the risk register would not be made public. This has infuriated many groups opposed to the Health and Social Care Bill, in a statement today the British Medical Association said “We are disappointed that the government has decided not to publish the risk register in full. As we said well before the bill became an act, it’s vital that everyone involved knows what the potential risks might be so decisions can be made based on a full understanding of what the impact might be.”

Not only has the government vetoed the request but it has lost two court rulings on this, both times the courts have ruled in favour of making the risk register public. First time it was the information commissioner and the second time it was the first tier tribunal. Rather than take it to the upper tier tribunal, the government has simply vetoed the request. When asked about the veto, Mr Healey said “The government lost twice in law, yet still won’t accept that patients and NHS staff have the right to know the risks ministers are running with the biggest ever NHS reorganisation”.

But why would the government want to hide the risk register? Surely if their reforms were going to be as great as they have said they will be there would be not need to hide the risk register as it would prove them right. Most likely the risk register has highlighted the damages that it will do to the NHS and the government doesn’t want that to be made public.  If the public ever needed proof that this government has incompetently handled the NHS then this is it. 

French and Greek Elections

Elections in Greece and France have rocked Europe today, the markets turned down as the news of a socialist president in France came in. In Greece the majority of people voted for anti-austerity parties, yet the pro-austerity party New Democracy managed to come in first. Although New Democracy came first, they did not win a majority of seats so attempted to form a coalition but was unable to. As a result it is now up to the party that came second, the “Coalition of the left” to try and form a coalition. If no party is able to form a coalition then the Greeks will have to vote again.

The Golden Dawn Logo is
very close to the Swastika

What was more worrying in the Greek elections was the rise of the neo-Nazi party, Golden Dawn which got 7% of the vote. Golden Dawn opposes the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution and supports Hellenism and Greek Orthodoxy. This bizarre party is entirely legitimate and not a comedy party as you might hope. They genuinely oppose science, modern medicine and anything remotely modern, I do believe these people are beyond reasonable discussion and I hope their rise does not go beyond 7%.

Back in France Hollande has promised Europe and alternative to austerity and that there is hope for growth and restoration of Europe’s battered economy. Despite having a radically different viewpoint to Merkel they have both stressed the importance of the Franco-German relationship and that it will always remain amicable.  Most people do believe that even though Hollande and Merkel have difference opinions they will try and work together, after all both people only want to keep the Eurozone strong and continue with the European project… They just have very different views of how to get there.

The new face of France...
and Europe?

A day of Celebration for Labour

Labour + 823

Conservatives: -405

Liberal Democrats: -336

Greens: +11

Without a doubt Thursday was a resounding success for Labour. Labour gained Birmingham and Wales, retained Glasgow but did not win London. The Labour party gained a total of 823 councillors, the Tories losing 405 and the Liberal Democrats losing 336.

Prior to the election the Conservatives were trying to inflate what Labour should win, saying that anything less than 700 councillors would be a failure. At the same time Labour was trying to downplay what would a good result would be, saying that getting 300 would be a good night. In reality both parties were probably predicting around 500 councillors for Labour, the truth was far better than anyone had expected. Labour managed to gain over 800 councillors, which prompted Ed Miliband to proclaim “Labour is back”. This has devastated the coalition, many Conservatives believe that they are being punished for being too liberal and allowing UKIP to take their voters.

Without a doubt the Lib Dems had the worst night of the three main parites. They have been reduced to the smallest number of councillors since the party was created 30 years ago. Lib Dems feel that they are being punished for being too Conservative.

Neither party appear to understand what being in coalition means.

What the government will try to do is point out that the turnout was painfully low, around one third, and it therefore isn’t a good indicator for public opinion. They also have pointed to the disappointing result for Labour in 1999, yet Tony Blair still went on to win in 2001. Yet they forget that Blair was coming off the back of a huge victory and a growing economy when people went to the polls in 1997. The Conservatives on the other hand haven’t won an election outright since 1992 and the economy has just fallen back into recession, although it is much better than the Lib Dems, who haven’t won an election outright since 1910…

Labour managed to take 38% of the vote, 2% up from last year, the Conservatives took 31%, down 4% and the Lib Dems took a measly 16%, unchanged from last year.

I will now go into the election results in each of the four areas of the UK that voted in detail; England, Scotland, Wales and London.