Legislating morality
In the aftermath of the horrendous wave of crime that spread across many cities in Britain last week, we are starting to see something even more despicable: the ever-present threat of “morality legislation”. I know lots of people have written about the government’s response to the riots and I’m a little nervous about joining the crowd, but I feel I need to add my voice to the clamour. In a speech on 10th August, our nation’s leader said this: The problem with that is a complete lack of responsibility. A lack of proper parenting, a lack of proper upbringing, a lack of proper ethics, a lack of proper morals. That is what we need to change. Mr Cameron, I say this: How dare you? How dare you dictate to me or the other people in my...
The spectre of Section 28
You may have heard today that a school has successfully destroyed plans for a new opera, Beached, written by Lee Hall of Billy Elliot fame. Their claim is that the lead character being clearly homosexual is “inappropriate” for the 300 primary-age children taking part in the performance, and organizers Opera North have supported the school in this decision. Regular readers of my blog (hello!) will probably agree with me that this is, of course, an obnoxious bigoted viewpoint that the school is perpetuating, but it got me thinking about the legality and, in particular, the ghost of Section 28. Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988 was a piece of Conservative-era legislation created in response to a bit of Daily Mail hatred about a book called...
Towards a Federal Europe
When asked for my national identity on the 2011 Census form, I put European. Why? Because I am not proud to be a member of this state, specifically, but I am very proud to be a citizen of Europe. Europe, historically, has been at the forefront of technological and social evolution. Many of the world’s most important discoveries and inventions originated here, and many of our member states had huge empires to their name in the days when that was the done thing. But most importantly to me, we champion civil liberties before anywhere else. The abolition of the death penalty throughout the Council of Europe (of which the EU is a subset) and the advancement of LGBT rights are the two that come to mind immediately. If the EU is treated as a single federal nation,...
Fascism, immigration and the English language
The BNP and other right-wing groups I loosely term fascist (although some may, legitimately, disagree with my use of the term) are always talking about making sure Britain stays “British”, and keeping its population “indigenous” so that our culture is not polluted by those of the immigrant nations. Here’s a representative quote from the BNP web site1: Immigration is out of control. Britain’s population is now over 60 million and rising, solely due to immigration. Not only is Britain increasingly overcrowded, but the fact is that a country is the product of its people and if you change the people you inevitably change the nature of the country. We want Britain to remain – or return to – the way it has traditionally been. We accept...
NHS dentists; or, how I learned to start worrying and hate my teeth
I’ve just come back from having the second of two fillings put in at my new dentist. Why did I need two fillings, you ask? Well, this dentist is the first dentist I’d visited in over ten years. Why did I stay away for so long? I’m not really the squeamish type: I don’t have a problem with jabs, blood tests and so forth… I went ahead with a circumcision given an on-the-spot choice about having it that day, for heaven’s sake. No, I stayed away because the NHS dental system itself set the ball rolling on the cumulative fear process. The cumulative fear process, as I call it, is that process that occurs when you put something off because you’re scared of it, but the longer you put it off, the scarier it becomes, which of...
Why is bin Laden dead?
So. Osama bin Laden is dead. I think we’ve all noticed that by now. Thankfully some of the media and public figures have started to decry the celebration and chanting following his death. It is still the death of a human being and this is not cause for jubilation. What I’m more concerned about, however, is why he’s dead at all. We’re told there was a “firefight” and that “no Americans were harmed”. We’re also told that he “tried to hide behind women”. This doesn’t sound like an all-out battle to the death to me. It sounds like they cornered him and then killed him anyway. There’s a name for this: summary execution. It’s illegal under the Geneva/Hague Conventions. And with good...
Leeds-based non-binary nerd and sewist. I won't break my streak on Duolingo for anyone. 
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