Walaa's Weekly Wrap-Up ~ January 25, 2014

Poor Libs, their troubles are compounding it seems. Not quite finished with Lord Rennard, now they have Mike Hancock’s sexual allegations to deal with. Their sex troubles are ongoing it appears. However there is a lesson or maybe two to be learned here.

One, don’t give something to an independent body to assess then disregard their findings, and two never, ever take sexual harassment allegations lightly, and not fully and timely investigate them.

Plus maybe Clegg could be a little more Tory and less liberal ‘fire first then ask questions later’ not the fairest of methods but it has the best media and public opinion outcome. From the start Nick should have been decisive and led from the front – because moments like this resonate with people.

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Delighted by the latest news, that the newly formed country of South Sudan has finally reached some agreement between government and opposition. Hope this is the end of the bloodshed and the start of a bright and prosperous future.

Africa cannot afford anymore wars; it needs peace, prosperity and better governance.

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Its official, the UK economy is recovering. We are seeing growth in most sectors of the economy and a drop in unemployment, especially youth unemployment. The government is doing the right thing and despite what the opposition wants us to believe, the government isn’t being complacent or overly jubilant. The recovery might be small but it’s solid and sustainable, however there is still a lot to do.

It is also good to hear the UK is winning back jobs from the Far East, jobs in textiles, software production and call centres are all coming back to Britain. These are jobs that left our shores five, six years ago and are now coming back because we are more competitive. We could become even more competitive if we reduce our energy costs which will in turn reduce the overall cost of production in many industries. And here is where fracking can make a significant difference to our future economic prosperity.

On the cost of living, Labour’s central economic theme, the PM is right, we are in recovery and pay-packets will gradually reflect that. From April of this year those who earn below £10,000 will altogether come out of paying income tax. But I have to agree with David Cameron on what he said about the leader of the opposition on Wednesday. “Ed Miliband is like an arsonist who goes around setting fires then complains the fire brigade is not putting them out fast enough. “ It took Labour 13 years to wreck the British economy and now they complain recovery, after only 3 years, is not fast enough!?

We all understand Labour is the opposition and it’s their job to oppose and scrutinize the government, but they need to put things in prospective if they are to be seen as a credible alternative and their opposition taken seriously.

But on the other hand what Labour is doing suits me just fine.

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I very rarely feel like an outsider who doesn’t have a clue what everyone is talking about when it comes to matters of news and current affairs. How can I? When I watch the news three times a day, and for diversity and balance, I get my news from Aljazeera, the BBC, CNN and Sky.

So when Nicolas Anelka, celebrated his goal with a ‘Quenelle’ gesture and it became big news. I had no clue what everyone was talking about! And did not understand how and why it was offensive. So did what any 21st century person would do and googled it. The beauty about Google is you never have to ask and let it be known you’re not up to speed with events – of course unless you later blog about it!

Now I know what it means and why it was invented. However, I still don’t understand why it is seen as antisemitic? Even if it’s an inverted Nazis salute, doesn’t inverting something disrespect it and therefore negate it?

Here’s Wikipedia’s explanation of Quenelle just in case ….

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Forget confused, I am infuriated. What is going on in India? A few months ago we had a bout of extremely disturbing random gang-rapes and yesterday I read about a village elder ordering a young girl to be gang -raped by villagers as punishment! Her crime was dating outside her tribe and her poor father was unable to pay the sentence, a fine of 50,000 Indian rupees.

13 men, neighbours and members of the young woman’s community passed the punishment and gang-raped the 20 year girl on the elder’s orders!

The villager elder might be sick in the head, but what about the 13 rapists? Do you mean to tell me that out of 13 men not one is man enough to say to the village elder what you are asking us to do is wrong, immoral, and inhumane?

Where is the Indian government?

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