Just to make good the EU Nurses going home through the threat of Brexit
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/nov/24/nhs-winter-crisis-thousands-eu-staff-quit
November 24, 2019
November 19, 2019
Human Rights; Bertrand Ramcharan
RSE – The Human Rights Idea in the Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment – 18 November 2019
Bertrand Ramcharan – One Time UN Commissioner for Human Rights – origin Ghana
A good active presentation – I wait to see the podcast
A few points in the meantime:
- Human Rights – as for the whole of humanity
- It’s Universality remains a worry
- Need for Responsibility and Voice of Conscience
- Long time in coming to fruition – Aesop’s fables
- Common Sense – not quoted but Thomas Reid
- Is a Western Idea? – No
- All nations bought in and confirmed recently (Date to be found)
- But have they touched the peoples of the world?
- Main problem will be AI – China and US
- The South China Seas are now in the Front Line
- Active problems: terrorism, rights of sovernty, Job Losses, Retraining people
- More generally the need to maintain / implement The Rule of Law
- Scottish Enlightenment as source of Human Rights
- Gershom Carmichael wrote it all including protection of Environment; against slavery, rights applicable to all humanity
- And BTW there was Hume with his Treatise of Human Reason
- Brody has reviewed it all
- US Constitution made use of the Ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment – but Thomas Paine helped
- Human Rights and The Future – very open – Impact of technology – ‘communications’
November 17, 2019
Looking for a Democratic Leader
The Leader in today’s Scotsman
“On the Remain side of the argument, the likes of Labour’s Keir Starmer, Anna Soubry, the ex-Tory who now leads The Independent Group for Change, and Dominic Grieve, the former attorney general, who had the Conservative whip removed and is now an independent, have stepped up to the plate.
But Starmer has to cope with his boss’s obfuscation on Brexit, Soubry’s profile has slipped since she quit Johnson’s party and a single independent will always struggle on the national stage.
However, when Grieve says Johnson is an “extremely troubling” individual and that he has “never experienced a politician in modern British history who is so elastic with truth”, there are lots of Conservatives who will take that seriously and be worried.”
Happy to go with Starmer, Soubry or Grieve. OK, these are all Remainers.
But there is no one on the Leave side that inspires anyway.
November 16, 2019
Scotland declaring UDI
I refer to my recent blog
https://derryvickers.com/2019/11/15/1461/
and I wonder, should Scotland declare UDI, whether the UK government would charge the SNP ringleaders with Sedition and issue long prison sentences on each?
More Tower Block Cladding Fires
I note that the fire in the students’ Cube at Bolton East looks like a replica of the Grenfell Tower though thank heavens no one seems to have been killed there.
I note that the Labour MP is Yasmin Qureshi but is not reported to be yet on the scene; if so this a grave omission.
But I note that Yasmin fell foul of the media by seeming to compare what is happening in Gaza with the Holocaust some 5 years ago.
She has since apologised.
But I personally feel that the comparison has some truth even though subsequently removed, as the wars of attrition continue unabated between Israel and Gaza. I note that only yesterday an Israeli plane killed a whole family in Gaza “by mistake”.
November 15, 2019
Clara Ponsati and Aamer Anwar working together
I support Catalonia and consider the prison sentences on members standing up and trying to set up an independent Catalonia should be withdrawn; the sentences are horrendous. But they knew what they were doing and what they might expect.
I don’t think Clara should be extradited to follow suit knowing what would await her if she returned.
Aamer Anwar is doing a great job at defending Clara’s extradition at, I suspect, much reduced fees.
And he gave a great Jimmy Reid lecture.
See the video at
Clara Ponsati with Aamer Anwar
November 13, 2019
The Modern Messiah
The Twenty Century Messiah.
Greta Thunberg: Called out by the presidential Pharisees
It was ever thus.
Mike Vickers' Blog 