Category: Politics

Another Lib Dem broken promise

On By DonaldIn PoliticsLeave a comment

The new Lib Dem leader’s first pledge is to break another promise.

Sir Vince Cable was confirmed as the new Lib Dem leader when the time for nominations passed and he was elected unopposed.

He immediately announced that under his leadership, the Lib Dems will offer voters the chance to avoid Brexit – “to exit Brexit” as he put it – by promising a second EU referendum – despite the fact that he had previously dismissed such a move.

This goes beyond his earlier plea to give voters an opportunity to vote on the final deal negotiated.  It is a recommendation to reverse (exit) the first Referendum (Brexit), showing that Cable is no democrat.   It is EU thinking, which is not democratic but ‘we know what is best for you’.  This is exactly the complaint that secularists use against Christianity.

The first UK referendum was to find out what the country wanted.  This second proposed referendum is to tell them what to do – to change their minds – as happened with the second referendums in Denmark about the Maastricht Treaty in 1992-3, in Ireland about the Nice Treaty in 2001-2, and in Ireland again about the Lisbon Treaty in 2008-9.  The political methodology of beguiling voters to change their minds is explained here.  As usual, fear campaigns were used, exactly the complaint that secularists use against Christianity.

Vince Cable joins the long list of party leaders who promise one thing and do another once they have attained the leadership they crave.  Of all people he should remember the collapse in the Lib Dem vote after their U-turn about student tuition fees when they went into alliance with the Tories in 2010.

Cable has taken over the leadership after Tim Farron MP stepped down as leader following the recent General Election, stating that “I have found myself torn between living as a faithful Christian and serving as a political leader.”  Such was his hounding by aggressive secular journalists, that he gave the impression that a faithful Christian and a political leader are incompatible in modern society.  He added: “We are kidding ourselves if we think that we yet live in a tolerant, liberal society.”

However the Christian Party “Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship” has a national leader and a Scottish leader who are able ‘to live as a faithul Christian’ and serve ‘as a political leader’.  We need many more such leaders.

In Scotland, the leaders of the main political parties in Holyrood are all supporters of LGBT rights and three of them (Tories, Labour and Green) are openly homosexual, as is the Scottish leader of UKIP.  If this is not over-representation then I don’t know what is, and it is time for Christians to step up to the plate.

Equality and children

On By DonaldIn PoliticsLeave a comment

Highland Green MSP John Finnie wants to criminalise parents who smack their children.   However, social services are already over-stretched and already have too much power to intrude into family life.

He has launched a consultation, which closes on 4/8/2017, as a prelude to his planned Private Members’ Bill to ban smacking by parents.  It is being promoted under ‘equality’ between children and adults – another example of the inability of some adults to discern the difference between things.  The equality agenda and control freakery have run wild and this is a manifestation of the poor education that some politicians have received.  Undefined and nebulous equality is a new commandment in their secular religion, and it is doing a lot of damage, because many things are not equal and we cannot simply assert that they are.  Equality is also a feature of the Language Battle (whereby words are redefined and opinions changed), and his Children (Equal Protection from Assault) (Scotland) Bill assumes and asserts that parental smacking is assault.

There are already laws on physical assault and the Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2003 prohibits certain forms of physical punishment already, but permits parental smacking.

Finnie also wants to remove religious representatives from the Education Committee of The Highland Council, showing a lack of historical appreciation for the role of Christianity in Scotland’s development and its educational system.  However, in the past decade of SNP government in Scotland, Scotland’s children have suffered educational decline, reckoned to be about two years behind children educated in England.

Who will stand up for Christian principles in The Highland Council?

The Green Party, to which Finnie turned when the SNP changed its policy on NATO, was instrumental in provoking the SNP administration to redefine marriage in Scotland, and the Lib Dem Party played the same role in England through Nick Clegg in coalition with David Cameron’s Tory Party.

Further, when discussing Israel with John Finnie MSP, I asked him why he was opposed to the only democratic state in the Middle East.  He responded: “Is it?”

Is this the same man who supports Palestinian causes against Israel?  What does he think about Palestinian children being taught in schools named after suicide bombers?  This goes far beyond parental corporal punishment.  What name does he give it?  Where does it fit in his spectrum of equality and assault?

Update:

4 Jul 2017: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is a physical, psychological and sexual abuse well worth highlighting and combating.   NHS England has recorded 5391 new cases in the past year.  Will Finnie show the same zeal against this?  There have been no convictions in the 30 years it has been illegal in Britain.  Further, what about abortion, the ultimate physical assault on helpless children?  Has Finnie spoken out against this?

Signs of the Times

On By DonaldIn Bible History and Archaeology, Biography, Church history, Church reform, History, PoliticsLeave a comment

We are living in interesting and significant times, with a number of notable anniversaries co-inciding.

31st October 2017 is the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation and the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration.

Martin Luther unwittingly commenced the Protestant Reformation when he posted his 95 Theses for discussion on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenburg, Germany.  Europe and the world benefitted from the liberation of Christian conscience through the recovery of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

The Balfour Declaration is a paragraph in a letter by the British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour on 2/11/1917 informing the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland of the decision of the British War Cabinet in London, which on 31/10/1917 took a final vote in favour of establishing a Jewish National Home for the Jewish people.  By the evening of the same day, the charge of the Australian Light Horse was completing the victory in the Battle of Beersheba, the first victory in the campaign of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) to re-capture Jerusalem and Israel during World War I.  On 11/12/1917 British General Sir Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem, without a shot being fired, becoming the first Christian to control the city in centuries, and being the first time since the Jewish Diaspora that a friendly power occupied the land.  It was of immense global significance and British Prime Minister David Lloyd George said: “The moral effect of the victory was tremendously important. It was an earnest of the fulfilment of the Balfour Declaration.”

Allenby entered the Jaffa Gate after dismounting his white horse and walked into the city for the official ceremony on the first day of the Jewish feast of Hanukkah.  He refused to enter “booted and spurred into Jerusalem where my Lord walked.”

14th May 2018 is the 70th anniversary of the rebirth of the nation of Israel – “Who has heard such a thing? who has seen such things? Shall the Earth be made to bring forth in one day? or shall a nation be born at once?” Isaiah 66:8.

6th June 2017 is the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem and flying the Israeli flag on the Temple mount.

 

Gmail disarray

On By DonaldIn Campaigning, Computers, Consumer affairsLeave a comment

Can anyone explain why editing an email in the Gmail editor may look okay when you send it, but the recipient may receive it with altered editing – font, font size, broken lines, etc?

This is a general problem known since at least 2011 but never solved by Gmail.  It is so unpredictable that one should not use Gmail for serious emails.

The only safe solution is to send important documents as an attached PDF, although one workaround is to compose the email in Google Docs then cut and paste it into Gmail.

Another suggested workaround is to select the whole email message, change the font size to small and then change it back to normal, and it is claimed that it will read properly in the recipient’s email.

It is astonishing that Gmail has never sorted this in six years.

 

RBS and the SNP

On By DonaldIn History, PoliticsLeave a comment

Can someone explain why Royal Bank of Scotland, bailed out by the tax-payer, is held accountable for shareholders losing their money after being duped by Fred Goodwin and co?

If RBS had not been bailed out, it would have failed and shareholders would have lost out.  Being bailed out by the tax-payer, it is essentially a different bank.  Why are tax-payers paying for investors being duped? paying once to rescue the bank and second to rescue those to whom they are not responsible?

The logic is similar to the SNP’s blaming Westminster for Scotland’s ills.  We remember Alex Salmond supporting Fred Goodwin in his disastrous and uncosted take-over of Dutch bank ABN-Amro after Barclays bank dropped out of the takeover battle.

The RBS bail out was not the only time that England helped out Scotland.  The Darien scheme was another financial disaster which contributed to the Act of Union so decried by the SNP.  But they had only their fellow Scotsmen to blame for it, just as RBS shareholders have Fred Goodwin and co to blame, not the tax-payer, to whom they should be thankful that they did not lose absolutely everything, although near enough.

Nor do Scottish schools teach our young people about England helping out Scotland at a critical stage in the Scottish Reformation, which led on to Scotland becoming the most literate nation on earth and contributing to the development of the British empire.  Scottish children are told only a selective part of our nation’s history, and although Germany has spent ten years preparing for the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s inauguration of the European Reformation on 31/10/1517, Scotland’s Reformer is unceremoniously ignored by its populace.

 

BBC Radio nan Gàidheal interview

On By DonaldIn Developing Christian Policy, Ideas, PoliticsLeave a comment

The full BBC Radio nan Gàidheal (Gaelic radio) interview with Dr Donald Boyd, the leader of the Scottish Christian Party for broadcasting on 19th May 2017, which was only partially broadcast on the day.

Dr Boyd was asked about the SCP vision for Inverness and the Highlands, and he was asked in conclusion what the SCP would do to promote the Gaelic language.

He pointed out that Gaelic road signs are unnecessary but of much more use would be to teach school children the meaning of the Gaelic names of the mountains on Highland maps, helping them to understand the geography of the Highlands and to increase interest in one of the main features of the Highlands.

He repeated his 2015 claim that the Scottish National Party has no specifically Scottish vision for Scotland and the Highlands, and this is the reason for voting for the Scottish Christian Party instead.

Jump to attention

On By DonaldIn Behaviour, Consumer affairsLeave a comment

Many public bodies think that their authority allows them to call the public to jump to attention.

Take the tax office.  One will wait weeks and even months to get a response from them, but they expect you to answer them within so many days, with the threat of penalties – even although you may be away from home when they choose to respond, or you have pressing business, etc.  You must jump to attention when they say so.

A business would soon lose its customer loyalty with such an attitude, and many do.  This attitude is common wherever there is authority.  Jesus spoke against this abuse of authority, but few people know nor pay any attention to what He says.  He said that we should use authority to serve, not to be served.  Authoritarians abuse their authority to give themselves a sense of worth.  Jesus gives a sense of self-worth without the need for abuse.

There are many areas of public life where the public are kept at arm’s length by those in  authority – the justice system, lawyers and police, the media, council officials, etc.  Most people do not realise this until those rare occasions when they must interact with them.  However the average person encounters it in their employment, from individuals at work, even if not from their employer as such.  It leads to much of the mental health issues and lack of productivity at work.

In fact it begins at 2 years old – the terrible twos – when little children want to control their little siblings and even their doting parents with screaming tantrums.  Some people never grow up and they continue to control and manipulate others as much as they can get off with.  What they don’t realise is that they must give account to Him Who has the ultimate authority.