David Cameron has just said that NATO is unprepared for a more challenging relationship with Russia. Well, who’d have thought it? What a surprise! This is the same David Cameron who in only 5 years of government has presided over the evisceration of the UK armed forces. He scrapped our (admittedly old, but serviceable) aircraft carriers, sold off our Harrier ‘jump jets’ and ordered a bunch of unproven (and so far undeliverable) American replacements for aircraft carriers that won’t be service-ready for another 5 years. He cancelled Nimrod, leaving us entirely without a long-range anti-submarine or maritime patrol capability, disbanded whole battalions of army – citing the need to shape our armed forces to address the world as it had then become – with a benign and newly best-friendly Russia. I seem to recall wiser counsel warning that things change very quickly in world politics, how right they were. If NATO is unprepared for a confrontation with a Putin-led Russia, whose fault is it? I’m no militarist but, really, Cameron must have a neck of solid brass!
Author: Andrew Gold
Gaza, Israel and Real-Politik
I hardly know where to start. Every night I shake my head in silent disbelief, and shame, at the news from Gaza and Israel. As I write this blog more than 1800 Palestinians who were living in Gaza are dead, killed by the agencies of the state of Israel in 4 weeks of bombing, shelling and ground assault. Almost 10,000 have been injured. Most of the Palestinian casualties are (were) civilians, many of them women and children. At the same time around 68 Israelis, almost all of them serving soldiers, have been killed. Before the present action there had been no Israeli casualties in the current period.
The Israeli justification is one of self-defence: this time they say they are responding to rockets fired into their territory from Gaza and, a more recent threat, tunnels under the border through which fighters from Hammas, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, infiltrate with the objective of killing their citizens. There is no doubt that Hammas combatants from Gaza do act in this way, their charter is openly anti-Semmitic and, arguably, a travesty of Islamic teaching, however it should be remembered that Gaza has been in a state of seige for years, that Hammas “govern” by right of having won elections in Gaza and that the Palestinians would also claim self-defence.
This is not the first time an assault on Gaza has been justified in this way, and each time it has been a response so hugely disproportionate to the threat, or actual harm, as to beggar belief. In recent years the image of young Palestinians throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, who respond with all the sophisticated military might at their disposal, has been a powerful modern representation of David and Goliath. If it weren’t so ghastly in its irony it would be funny. However, now some Palestinians have got their hands on real weapons and they intend to use them. We need to stand back from this and see where all this started. You might say it started with the 1917 Balfour Declaration, but it is well to remember that the declaration included the following: “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”. Post 1948, following a bloody and ruthless Zionist insurrection, an artificial “homeland” for the Jewish people was indeed created – carved out of land that belonged to someone else. It was perhaps made possible as an act of international guilt relief, redress for centuries of persecution, the obscenities of the Pogroms, Ghettos and culminating in the Nazi extermination camps of Treblinka, Auschwitz, Dachau etc. Actually it had also a hard real-politik core: the old colonial powers needed to have a loyal and powerful client state in the volatile middle-east. At the time the Security Council (the US and UK being permanent members) said,
“in the judgment of the Security Council, Israel is a peace-loving State and is able and willing to carry out the obligations contained in the Charter.”
The General Assembly then agreed, noting the declaration by the State of Israel that it “unreservedly accepts the obligations of the United Nations Charter and undertakes to honour them from the day when it becomes a member of the United Nations”
Whatever the rights and wrongs of all that, and the ever shifting geo-political context, the world looks on with discomfort at what it has created, supported, trained and unleashed. We have stood by while Israel annexed and continue to occupy parts of Palestine, Syria and Jordan in the name of self-defence. The world has acquiesced in the creation of the biggest concentration camp the world has ever seen; right-wing Zionist groups (who have representation at the heart of the nuclear empowered Israeli government) openly speak of extermination, of “finishing the job”, or leaving no Palestinian children alive. Why can’t these ultra-Zionists, indeed all Isrealis, see that every death creates tens of new militants in their place? Is it because they actually hope to create the conditions for a more general conflagration which would justify (in their minds) wholesale destruction and, perhaps, occupation of what remains of Palestine? Are they being suckered into it by Hammas who might also like to see such an invasion as a way of winning support from the wider world community. Either way, there can be no winners from this course of action.
In my eyes, and with a heavy heart as a part-Jew with friends in Israel, I have increasingly come to see the star of David, insofar as it represents Zionism rather than Judaism, as interchangeable with the swastika. Quite how it is possible for the world to tolerate this offence against humanity is beyond me. Historically the astute Israeli military-political complex has acted when the rest of the world was divided and distracted. Preoccupied as we are with Russia and Ukraine, Syria, and Libya the Secretary-General of United Nations has nevertheless spoken in the strongest possible terms about the repeated killing of civilians hiding in known and identified UN shelters: he has described it as a “moral outrage and a criminal act” and called for the “madness” to stop. The US administration has tried hard to avoid doing the same, especially in the early run-up to the next Presidential election, but it is becoming increasingly difficult for them to play both sides of this issue. America and the EU have united to apply economic and political sanctions against Russia and yet does nothing against Israel; why?
Well, interestingly, hidden away on an aviation news website I find that Israel has now, under pressure from the US, agreed to stop supplying Russia with unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and related technology – is this part of the bargaining that is undoubtedly going on behind the scenes: “if you stop selling stuff to Russia, we’ll be a bit softer on Gaza.” I wonder, but while publicly wringing its hands the US government has just voted through another $230 million for military aid to Israel.
Be that as it may, Israel has consistently ignored the UN, its charter, and many resolutions passed against it. In my opinion it is time that “the west” pulled on the choke chain of the rottweiler it created, and a first step would be to promote a resolution in the Security Council which faces Israel with expulsion from the UN if it continues to default on its promises and obligations as a member.
P.S.
This morning, two things happened.
First, Israel began to withdraw its troops from Gaza in support of an Egyptian brokered truce. Remember that the Egyptian government is no friend of the Muslim Brotherhood, and therefore neither Hammas, so how long that will last is anyone’s guess.
Second, Baroness Warsi (until recently a minister in the UK government responsible for the UN, Human Rights etc.) resigned. She cited the morally indefensible UK position on Gaza and her inability to defend, to herself, decisions she has been party to. This is a courageous move, but in her letter of resignation she expressed concern at the loss of expertise and experience at the Foreign Office in the recent cabinet “reshuffle”. She especially speaks highly of the outgoing Foreign Secretary, William Haig, and fears a radicalisation of Muslims in the UK as a result of UK policy. I wonder if it also hints that the clearout of ‘moderate’ Conservative politicians heralds a ‘radicalisation’ of policy as well as leaving a vacuum at this critical time for UK foreign policy. Watch this space (metaphorically).
“Memento Memo”
The writing group was challenged to write, in ten minutes, a story linking two or more previously unseen objects from a tray placed in front of them. The objects I can recall were a small silver picture frame with a photo of a baby, a pen, a Swiss Army penknife, a flower, a notebook, a sealed envelope, a British Legion enamel lapel badge, a paper clip, a pair of small scissors and, of course, the tray itself.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Cecille looked at the small envelope laying on the hall tray with emotion somewhere between fear and excitement, but definitely emotion After all, she had been anticipating such an envelope for 43 years. She picked it up cautiously, surprised that it didn’t weigh more given the probable import of its contents. She turned it end-over-end through her fingers, studying the writing, and then walked slowly to her drawing room where she sat at her secretaire.
Her late husband’s penknife, the one he brought back as a retirement keepsake from his office in Berne, seemed like the appropriate tool to open the letter; the violence of a finger or thumb ripping through the flap wouldn’t do. Carefully she inserted the blade, slit open the envelope and prized open the pouch. Inside was a small piece of folded lavender coloured note paper. Cecille drew it out and, as she opened the fold, a small photograph fell to the floor which she bent stiffly to retrieve. It was faded, but clearly of a small child holding a doll. The writing on the paper was also small; neat and tentative.
“Dear Cecille,” it said, “If you recognise this picture, or even the doll, I think I may be your daughter. If I am, and you would like to meet me, please write back.”
Cecille’s eyes filled. She stretched across to a small vase of flowers, cut a bloom with her desk scissors, and put it into one of her own envelopes. Then she took her pen and a piece of paper and began to write.
“Wheelie Bin Collection Day”
For 11 July the writing group was asked to write 500 words, or fewer, about Wheelie-bin Collection Day.
“Wheelie-bin Collection Day”
“Shh. Shh, be still.
There, that’s better. Didn’t help to struggle, did it? Nice and tidy. See, practice makes perfect.
I didn’t mean the first one. I was sleeping rough under a flyover in London; some tosser came at me with a knife over a can of ‘Special Brew’. Must’ve thought I’d be easy, being small like. Ridiculous thing to die for really, only a mouthful left in it. It wasn’t much of a scrap, two tours in Afghan saw to that; training kicked in, like his head. There was this row of big bins, so I thought “why not?” ‘Course I didn’t hang about afterwards. I was three weeks and a hundred miles away when he was found. No I.D, I’d made sure of that. Nobody missed him, so the police didn’t try too hard. To be honest I got a buzz out of recycling the man-trash he was and getting away with it.
Now, where’s that plastic sheet? Ah, here we are.
Then there was Marcia. I found her crying in a park; she was having trouble with her boyfriend, beating her up and that. She wanted him out of her basement flat, and I wanted somewhere off the street for the winter: seemed like a fair trade. She got him well drunk, and took a bit of a bashing doing it, but after he passed out I put a plastic bag over his head and fixed it on with this Duck tape.
Good and tight.
There was a skip two streets down, roof extension just started, so we heaved him in there under some old carpet. You know what it’s like with skips; sat for a month with other people filling it up, then someone set fire to it. ‘Course, she had to go too when I left in the spring; couldn’t risk her grassing me up. She went under the floor boards. Bare earth, so easy dig even for me, but a bit tricky ‘cause the joists were close together and she wasn’t exactly a size 12, if you get me. It’s an Asda now. They didn’t find her so I think she’s still there; maybe under cold meats, eh?
Last bit now.
I still had my passport, and a few quid from Marcia, so I bought a flight here. Did a bit of bar work round the iron ore mines. It was OK for a while. ‘Course it was illegal, no work visa, and very blokey, but they liked having a pretty face around. Good money, mind, but too dirty and hot for me, even after Afghan. And the flies! Jesus! Like flying raisins, bloody millions of ‘em! How did you cope? That’s why I came into Perth. Found you and your lovely clean bathroom. It’s a bit more anonymous in a city too, lots of transients, and more wheelie bins.
There, all done.
It’s a good job you had air con isn’t it? Silly me, I forgot to ask when your collection day is.”
Andrew Gold©
11 July 2014
500 words
PS After I had written the first draft of this story I discovered that disposing of bodies, victims of murder usually, in this way is not at all uncommon!
- 1991 – Transgender killer dumps former lover in bin – funds foreign travel on stolen cards
- December 1994 – Glasgow man thrown from a window and dumped in a wheelie bin.
- March 2006 – Manchester 11 year old killed by 15 year old – dumped in wheelie bin in park.
- October 2008 – Edinburgh man kills father – body found in bin 7 weeks later.
- June 2009 – Couple murder man’s girlfriend – body in wheelie bin for 3 weeks.
- June 2011 – Woman murders on/off lover – helped by friend to dump in a wheelie bin.
- March 2012 – Man killed in Wigan – dumped in wheelie bin.
- November 2012 – Southampton man murdered and dumped in wheelie bin. Killers arrested trying to move body to a skip.
- March 2013 – Cambridgeshire serial killer dumps first of 3 victims in wheelie bin.
- March 2014 – Man killed in south London – dumped in wheelie bin and bin set on fire.
- July 2014 – Man killed in Northern Ireland – body found in wheelie bin.
- Several cases in Australia, including a lesbian ‘triangle’.
A shedload of (in)sanitaryware – a tale of customer quality control.
The point of this rant is that buying online often results in extended and complicated contractual relationships which make service difficult to achieve when things go wrong. It clearly also exposes the weakness in quality control when the person you order from is just a mouthpiece for the actual makers, and has no resource to check the quality of product except through customer feedback.
We’ve been developing our small garden for a while and have reached the point where we really need a shed to store ready-for-use tools and so on. I’m more than happy to put one together from a ‘kit’, so we trawled the net for something suitable and found one offered by a firm called ‘Greenfingers’. Greenfingers is a portmanteau company, mostly marketing products made by others, so our chosen shed was really made by another company – Mercia Garden Products, based in Nottinghamshire. Greenfingers seem to be in Scotland, or so I discovered once I had to deal with their customer service team. The shed arrived, late, and the kit parts were not constructed from the material described in the brochure, nor were they properly put together. I complained and, to their credit, Greenfingers promptly refunded us by cheque. However, getting the unwanted shed removed has been a real hassle. Because it is not Greenfingers who made and delivered it, Mercia have to take it back. Mercia agreed to come on Saturday last but, as is the way of these deliveries, declined to say what time. Conserquently we waited in all day for someone who didn’t come. Later, in conversation with Greenfingers (with whom we had contracted), I discovered that Mercia’s carriers claimed they couldn’t find the address: odd, given they had delivered it in the first instance.
We also have been embarked on a major upgrade of our bathroom and cloakroom. Being an expert customer I ordered everything we needed online from a well know national supplier of sanitaryware and fittings. There have been repeated instances of manufacturing defects: poor ceramic finishes, casting errors, chrome finish failures. The suppliers have a well oiled customer services team, so getting replacements (even multiple replacements when the replacements themselves proved faulty) has been a fairly straighforward process. However it has not been a straightforward project: the goods were ordered 6 weeks before work was due to start but the delays caused by having to replace items has caused the programme to go off the rails and resulted in additional cost due to out of sequence, uneconomic, working by the plumber. It has caused other trades, like electrician and carpenter, to be reprogrammed too. Yesterday we bit the bullet and asked for a refund on one item to enable a replacement to be bought locally. Meanwhile the ceramic tiling has also gone wrong. Tiles bought through a local firm were different from the samples we used to select from. These tiles are a special order item so, although replacement was easily agreed, another delay resulted. The tile company sent the wrong number of extra tiles, and they gave us a box of completely wrong tiles occasioning more delay. Since completion of the work we have replaced the shower screen seal with one sourced separately, from a specialist, because the item ‘bundled’ with the screen didn’t work properly.
This last demonstrates that even if you visit, and buy from, a local specialist shop, and have a relationship with that shop, there is no guarantee that the product will be as you expect. The amount of time, and transport resources, that must be being wasted across our consumer economy is scary: huge trucks travelling the length of the country (or in the case of some of these products, across Europe) carting defective, and then replacement, produce. When I worked on a major construction project, in my former career, I travelled to the manufacturers to carry out my own quality control. Big businesses, with multi-million pound turnovers, who market product they don’t actually make, ought to do the same. In the end it isn’t good enough customer service to just offer replacement. When you leave the customer to be the quality inspector of the goods, often at the end of an extended or fractured supply chain, you leave your business (and I would argue the environment) exposed to disaster, and the customer with a shedload of hassle.
“The Key”
A ten minute writing group exercise on the subject of a, or the, key.
The Key
It was 11 in the evening. The baton twitched at the bottom of the upstroke, tired grips imperceptibly tightened on 80 instruments, the timpanist crouched forward ready to strike. The baton swung up…and the 16 year old artiste said “What key is it, again?”
The murmur that rippled round the string section was barely audible, not so the frustrated clatter of the leader’s bow onto his music stand.
The conductor looked heavenward, then through the window into the control booth at the sound recordist but all he could see was the bald patch on the top of his head as he banged it off the mixing desk.
Turning to the spotted youth, with all the patience left to him, he said “Well, what key would you like?”
“I dunno really, same as my last record, only louder.”
“And what was that? I don’t think your agent mentioned it.”
“Keep me up all night”, big hit, top 40.”
Well, what key was that in?”
I dunno. Me manager told the maestro; he hums a few bars and I follow on, like.”
“Well, do you think we could ask him to do that for us now? Is he here?”
“Nah, he’s in Florida, but we could ‘phone ‘im.”
A few minutes later the batton twitched again. Marlon XC stood confidently at his microphone, iPhone in one ear, and looked at the conductor. “OK, guv, Key of Haitch. 3, 4 time. When you’re ready lads. A 1, 2, a1, 2, 3, 4.”
Andrew Gold©
247 Words
16 May 2014
“Finishing Touches”
A ten minute exercise at the writing group on the subject of Finishing Touches.
Finishing Touches
She looked peaceful, if a little unreal; the lines etched by years of worry, pain and disappointment, had melted away. Whether it was just the relaxation of the facial muscles, or the artfulness of the embalmer, Tommy couldn’t say but it just didn’t look like her.
He just stood looking, wanting to touch her hand, kiss her goodbye once more, but afraid of the cold feeling and the possibility that his lips might taste something.
The chapel of rest was, of course, quiet. Not as the grave, but that silence which defied you to breathe in case it were overheard.
Of all the things he wanted to say, he had forgotten to say “I love you”. It was understood between them, at least he had thought so. But now he thought perhaps he hadn’t said it as often as he might have, so he just mumbled, placed a small flower across her chest, turned and walked away.
Andrew Gold©
157 words
30 May 2014
“Stage Fright”
This week the writing group was asked to write 500 words or fewer including, or inspired by, the words “Bring a mallet”.
“Stage Fright”
Jinky and Arthur slid through the opening they had forced in the verger’s office window, and dropped onto the old, cold, stone floor. They waited, crouched, catlike, waiting to see if their intrusion had been detected, but Jinky’s abrupt exhalation announced they had not been seen crossing the churchyard, nor heard breaking in.
“Phew. See? There’s nobody around in the week.” He tugged on Arthur’s sleeve, “Come on, we haven’t got long, it’s nearly 12 already.”
The wrought iron door latch clattered up, the sound causing Arthur to wince, as Jinky eased back the door into the side chapel and generations of beeswax and incense enveloped them. It didn’t bother Jinky, but Arthur had been a chorister so the heavy sepulchral silence, and perfume, troubled him, raking across his fear of divine retribution like a fingernail scratching down a school blackboard. The hairs stood erect on the back of his neck as he shouted a hoarse whisper, “Jinky, I don’t like this. I want to go home.”
But Jinky, the older and bolder of the two, was already tiptoeing down the central aisle. “Don’t be such a wus. We’ve come this far, let’s do it and get out of here. Gi’me the bag.”
The light from the full moon flooded through the stained glass oriole window above. Framed by the polished altar pieces lay an open leather-bound bible, the gold leaf letters gently glowing, and there before the altar stood the object of their intent: with a single brass candle stand at each corner, a coffin rested on a trestle.
The lid bore a brass plate with the name of the occupant, Nicolae Enescu. At the foot, an easel carried a black and white photograph of an old man with protruding teeth, and a brief biography: Nicolae, had been a renowned magician and escapologist. He had been discovered by the Red Cross after the war, a child living in a packing case in a ruined Romanian monastery, and brought to England.
Jinky gushed. “See, he’s even from Romania. I knew it, I told you he was one!” He swept a wreath from the top of the coffin and rooted around the toolbag for a screwdriver.
Arthur, even more un-nerved by the church clock striking twelve, implored again. “That don’t prove nothin’, you might be wrong, anyway it’s sacrilege. Please, let’s go.”
But Jinky, still ignoring him, had already removed the lid of the coffin and was looking in. Enescu, looking younger than he expected, was laid out in his stage clothes: a long tailed dinner suit, winged collar and cape. Jinky shivered, then took a deep breath. He felt inside the bag for the wooden stake, found it, then rummaged again with increasingly desperate urgency. “Where is it Arthur? You dipstick, I told you to bring a mallet.”
But Arthur was nowhere to be seen, and when Jinky looked back to the coffin his gaze was returned, and a smiling mouth purred:
“Good evening, how nice of you to come.”
Andrew Gold ©
11 June 2014
500 words
“It was the best of times”
The writing group task for this week was to write 500 words including, or inspired by, the Dickens opening to “A Tale of Two Cities” – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”. I took the instruction fairly loosely, choosing to write 500 words of dialogue, as follows:
It was the best of times…
Pass me the make-up remover, will you. God, look at me, I’m a wreck: mascara everywhere. I look like Morticia Addams.”
“Here. I know you’re upset now, but it was the best of times, wasn’t it?”
“Hah! For you, maybe; it was the worst of times for me.”
“That’s not fair, we had great times.”
“You had great times with your fans and record deals. I was barely hanging on, picking up the crumbs when you could be bothered to look my way, but you didn’t notice.”
“What about that weekend in New York then? That was a blast for both of us, I know you had a good time there.”
“Yes, a good time, pretending to be Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan up the Empire State. The rest of that weekend I spent in the hotel suite watching TV while you did, well, whatever it was you did. Even the bellboy took pity on me and tried it on. Cheeky young sod. You know, I worked it out: an hour and a half out of 48 for us. Our ships never even got a chance to pass in the night, I was tied up in dry dock while you roamed the wild main. Pass the moisturiser.”
“I had no idea you were feeling that way. You’re right. I’m sorry. Sorry’s a bit lame isn’t it, but I am sorry. I suppose it’s too late to say that, anyway.”
“I think we’re way, way past sorry. We’re in self-harming territory here. Why do you think I got tangled up with Ricky, it’s not as if he’s really my type. All spray tan and white teeth. There, that’s more presentable, the mirror’s all yours.”
“Thanks. Well, why did you?”
“It wasn’t sex, if that’s what you think. Well, not all of it. And it wasn’t to make you jealous, you couldn’t be made jealous because you didn’t care enough. He just showed me some affection, that’s all; some comfort when I needed it. You were off on another one of your promo tours, I was stuck here looking after the house and the dog. If it hadn’t been him then it would’ve been someone else, eventually. We were already not we any more.”
“I was going to choose a new sofa for us today. I tweeted about it. You should see how many re-tweets there were. I s’pose I’ll have to tweet about the split too now, before the press come doorstepping; they seem to hear about this sort of stuff before it’s happened.
“How can you do that? Isn’t ‘OK’ magazine enough? Most of our life is public property already, why tweet about this?”
“So what do you want to do, move out? Are you moving in with him?”
“No, that’s finished. Never started really. I’ll pack some stuff tomorrow and move in with my mum until I can get set up with another flat. She’ll be happy having a man about the place again, even if he is gay.
Andrew Gold©
500 words
29 May 2014
Move to the right in threes – quick march!
Those of you, dear readers, who know anything about the British military will recognise the title of this post as an order to march off in a particular formation.
It seems, after this week’s European elections, the body politic is about to march to the right, and probably with enough unison so as to appear in formation. In France the election was ‘won’ by the far right National Front, in Britain by the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and across the other states (with the exception of Greece) similar progress, if you can call it that, was made by other nationalist groups. It is all frighteningly familiar, reminiscent of the pre-1933 rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Hitler, and the Nazis, rose to power in a staggeringly short time against a background of unemployment and depression, of a feeling resentment of the impotence engendered by the Treaty of Versailles. In Germany they fed off this and blamed the jews, whereas we are less specific – blaming our economic and social ills on a generalised “immigrant” population. I have this cartoon image in my head of the figure of UKIP Brittania, with her union flag shield, in long flowing classical robes, the hem of which is protecting the less savoury trolls of fascism, anti-semitism and xenophobia. In UK we have just returned MEPs with only one third of the electorate actually voting: UKIP polled 28% of the 35% who voted. I am truly worried that we may sleep walk into a situation where only 10% of the electorate democratically elect a trojan horse whose hidden cargo will not liberate, but imprison, us. Or worse. Look at what is happening in Ukraine just now. Prince Charles has raised a few hackles by, allegedly, comparing the actions of V. Putin with A. Hitler. I think he’s right, and PC isn’t the most left-wing person on the planet. V. Putin is happy to let the so-called pro-Russian militias, separatists, destabilise Ukraine by commiting violent or murderous acts while keeping his hands clean. If he invades (further – already having annexed Crimea) he will claim that he is acting to prevent bloodshed, to protect the ethnic Russians, in Eastern Ukraine. Anyone remember the Sudetenland?
We had a UKIP leaflet through the door which mentioned the word “immigration” several times but was curiously silent on other issues. You have only to hear the statements of British electors, on behalf of UKIP, saying things like ” immigration is out of control, we want our country back” to know UKIP is getting its message across by tapping into a strong undercurrent of racism. As the weeks go by to the next UK general election I fully expect to see Clegg, Milliband and Cameron all trying to Out-UKIP UKIP and there are plenty of right-wingers in the Conservative Party who will feel emboldened and encouraged to think their time has come. I am reminded of the following, from Rev. Martin Niemoller, speaking about the rise of Nazism in pre-war Germany:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.
To that list you can add travellers, gays, lesbians and transgender persons, Indians and Pakistanis (in fact any easily identified immigrant minority), liberal thinkers, CND (who must be against the Army – Help for Heroes) anti-frackers, and so on. Wake up and vote with your head, but above all VOTE.