In this morning’s Thought for the Day” on Radio 4 the speaker, the chief Chaplain to the Forces, quoted from King George VI’s speech to the nation and empire on the actual D Day as the Allied forces landed on the Normandy beaches. The King claimed they were fighting evil in order to create a world in which “goodness and honour” would prevail
There is sadly very little of either goodness or honour in our election campaign so far, and certainly not in Tuesday’s “debate “ between the two competing to be our leader.
Sunak appeals unashamedly to our selfishness and lowest instincts. He claims repeatedly to have a plan, but doesn’t say what it is apart from falsifications of his record, and will cut taxes so we have more of our money to spend of ourselves, ignoring the fact that our public services are almost without exception desperately in need of extra expenditure. Seemingly out of the air he waves a figure of the rise in taxation we might expect if there is a Labour victory, and warns us to “start saving” if we expect one.
How marvellous it would be if Starmer had the courage to say “Yes,” a Labour government will increase taxes, fairly, so that the increases fall on the shoulders of those most able to pay, because the NHS, prisons, local government services etc. are in desperate need of repair after 14 years of needless austerity. But no. Wisely, because he is well aware of the mendacity of most of the media, he allows himself to be manoeuvred into the corner of accepting Tory spending rules.
The one honourable glint of light in the whole “Debate” was that, when asked if they wold abandon their policies on immigration if they were found to be illegal by the ECHR, after Sunak had said “No.” Starmer said “Yes!” – a Labour Government would obey international law.”
Thank goodness we have at least one candidate for the premiership prepared to uphold the “rules based liberal New World Order “ the D-day invaders fought to create.
Sir Keir Starmer does not support the rules based international order. He joined and remained a member of the Labour Party which in government illegally invaded Iraq.
ReplyDeleteTrue, but that was then, this is now. I suppose you could argue that on this issue it is now "reformed Labour" as well as "changed Labour." I hope that if and when they're in power they'll also reform on "austerity."
ReplyDeleteLabour Government would obey international law.
ReplyDeleteYou do realise there’s no such thing as ‘international law’, right? There’s no ‘international government’ to pass such laws and there are no ‘international courts’ to rule on them, and even if there were there is no ‘international police’ To enforce those rulings.
There are only treaties, between sovereign states, and a sovereign state can withdraw from any treaty at any time, and the only consequences are whatever the other signatories have the political will to impose.
Well, call them International Codes of Conduct if you prefer. Britain played a leading roll (yes we really did in those days) in setting them up, signed to submit to their jurisdiction, and is represented on the bodies (ICJ ans ICC) with determines breaches. So to cal them "foreign" courts is yet another distortion of the truth by Sunak
ReplyDeleteWell, call them International Codes of Conduct if you prefer.
DeleteWhich is a very different thing to a law. For instance we could quite easily decide that it is not any longer in Britain’s interest to subscribe to any particular code of conduct and therefore resile from it.
Britain played a leading roll (yes we really did in those days) in setting them up, signed to submit to their jurisdiction, and is represented on the bodies (ICJ ans ICC) with determines breaches.
We did, but the institutions have changed quite a lot since then: see the ‘living instrument’ doctrine. It would be quite reasonable for us to say that although we helped set the institutions up and agreed to the principles they would operate under then , that we disagree with the ways they have changed and no longer have faith in them as they are now, and therefore withdraw our support.
The only institution where having entered into it once commits you to stick with the other party forever, no matter how much they might change, is marriage. Any other relationship — including an international treaty — if the other party changes too much from what they were when you signed the agreement, you can call it off.
So to cal them "foreign" courts is yet another distortion off truth by Sunak
No, ‘foreign’ simply means ‘outside the UK’. The courts are clearly outside the UK and therefore ‘foreign’ is a perfectly accurate description.