Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Don't start what you can't finish, warn the top brass: Britain's leading military experts explain how the West should react to Syria By IAN DRURY, Daily Mail

PUBLISHED: 00:55, 27 August 2013 | UPDATED: 01:26, 27 August 2013

As Britain, America and France threaten to launch missile strikes against Syria, IAN DRURY asks some of Britain’s leading military experts what the West should do...

LORD WEST OF SPITHEAD

Former First Sea Lord and security adviser in Gordon Brown’s Labour government:

‘We have to be absolutely crystal clear in our own minds that the use of chemical weapons was by the regime. If it was, then I think we can persuade Russia to sign a UN resolution that condemns a head of state for using them against their own people. That seems to be the first move.

‘I’m very wary of military action, even if it is a limited missile strike. What do we hope to achieve? Where will it lead?

‘What if Assad says, “get lost”, and uses chemical weapons again? Are we going to escalate military action? I have a horrible feeling that one strike would quickly become more.

‘The region is a powder keg. We simply can’t predict which way military action will go and whether it would draw us, unwillingly, further into a conflict.’

LORD KING OF BRIDGWATER

Defence Secretary during the First Gulf War:

‘There are no good options, only the least worst ones. I’m very wary of getting involved militarily in the teeth of a major sectarian Sunni-Shia bust-up that could affect the whole region. That’s why it’s so urgent that we get around the table to find a diplomatic and political solution.

‘I’m all in favour of getting Iran [the world’s largest Shia nation] involved because it is vital not to rub them up the wrong way. It’s also important that the Russians are involved: they must not feel as though they’ve been pushed back into a corner.

‘It is imperative to find a solution, and it mustn’t be military. This is turning into such a conflagration that it’s becoming extremely dangerous. I am appalled by the idea that the regime, if that is the case as it appears, would use chemicals against its own people. But the difficulties in how we respond do not become any easier.

‘The idea of a military strike to express disapproval is fraught with problems. We would have to avoid hitting civilians, and if we attacked the chemical plants there is the danger of dispersal of those chemicals into the air. It is hugely important that the UN does show some leadership here.’

MAJOR GENERAL JULIAN THOMPSON

Ex-Royal Marines officer who led 3 Commando Brigade during Falklands War:

‘The attack in Damascus last week has altered the conflict dramatically because
it has aroused a considerable amount of odium around the world. It was a stupid thing to do because Assad has fired up people who, on the whole, were not inclined to do anything about him.

‘If we are going to retaliate – which I don’t think we should – then an attack by a submarine using cruise missiles is the favoured solution because you don’t have
to put troops on the ground and you don’t fly aeroplanes against Syria’s
well-armed air defences.

‘It is risk-free, but we have to get our targeting right because we don’t want to kill civilians. The problem is we don’t know what the consequences will be. Russia is certainly against it, as is China.

‘There is a perception that Assad is poking us in the eye; if we let him get away with this chemical attack, what will he try next? But I’m wary of acting if we don’t know what the consequences will be.’

Conflict: Men search for survivors amid the rubble of collapsed buildings after what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo's Fardous neighbourhood

VICE-ADMIRAL SIR JEREMY BLACKHAM

Former Deputy Chief of the Defence Staff in 1999:

‘I strongly condemn the use of chemical weapons, which is illegal, and the idea of
a punishment strike is not at all unreasonable: how else is international law to be upheld?

‘Ideally this should have support, or a mandate, from the UN or the International Court of Justice.

‘However, it would be most imprudent to do it without careful consideration of, and proper preparation for, the range of consequences which might follow. This is not
a very nice dilemma and the answer is not at all obvious.’

COLONEL RICHARD KEMP

Former Commander of British Forces in Afghanistan:

‘If the Syrian regime carried out a nerve agent attack, then a limited but
devastating surgical air strike is not only justified but necessary in order to send
a clear message to Assad.

‘It is essential that the US and UK base their decision on the best possible
chemical analysis, backed up by firm intelligence to confirm who was responsible.

‘Of course our governments will need to be prepared to follow up with a second, more severe, wave of attacks if Assad responds with another chemical strike or some other outrage. But we must not be drawn into a protracted campaign, either in the air or on the ground. It would not be long before all sides turned against us.

‘And while it will be possible – under the table – to square a swift and limited intervention with Russia, a wider operation would be much more likely to develop into a proxy war or worse.

‘Nor should we supply rebel fighters dominated by Islamist extremists with anti-aircraft or anti-armour missiles: they are sworn enemies of the West.’

GENERAL SIR MICHAEL ROSE

Former SAS commander and leader of United Nations Protection Force in Bosnia in 1994-95:

‘The credibility of America hinges on Obama doing something after he said use of chemical weapons was a “red line” that couldn’t be crossed.

‘I am not against a military strike, but the intelligence has got to be good and the target has got to be very specific; so specific that it identifies the unit that carried out the attacks.

‘If not, we will be seen to be siding with the rebels – and that should not be the business of the Western powers. We don’t know what the outcome is going to be, and we could end up with people in power who are worse even than Assad.

‘We need to be imposing an arms embargo and a no-fly zone, which would reduce the level of the violence. This is a total lose-lose situation for the people of Syria. But however terrible their suffering is with Assad and his brutal ways, the end result of an escalating arms race will be to make things worse. The suffering will only be greater.’

Monday, 26 August 2013

Views, Visions and Values.: Christian Marriage & Dating

Views, Visions and Values.: Christian Marriage & Dating: http://blog.christianconnection.co.uk/i-was-wondering-about-playing-against-type/ * I made a decision, some time ago had to re-post...

An unholy war in the Guides and why we must ALL fight the secular bigots By MELANIE PHILLIPS

PUBLISHED: 23:10, 25 August 2013 | UPDATED: 00:51, 26 August 2013

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Like a poorly knotted woggle, the attempt by the Girl Guides to rope in the new generation is now steadily unravelling.

In June, the Guides announced they were changing the historic promise made by all Guides and Brownies from ‘to love my God’ to ‘be true to myself and develop my beliefs’.

They would also drop the pledge to serve ‘my country’, which was to be replaced by ‘my community’.

According to the Chief Guide, Gill Slocombe, the old promise, which included 'to love my God', put some girls off because they found it 'confusing'. The new formula, she said, would be easier for Guides to make and keep

According to the Chief Guide, Gill Slocombe, the old promise put some girls off because they found it ‘confusing’. The new formula, she said, would be easier for Guides to make and keep.

The change — which comes into force in six days’ time — was received with horror and outrage by Christians, and left many others bemused and uneasy. It seemed to be just a crude and shallow attempt by the Guiding establishment to rebrand itself as modern, by dumping timeless values.

Much worse was to follow, though. Guide groups in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, rightly dismayed by the proposed change, announced last week that they would encourage their girls and leaders to continue to use the old promise.

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In a letter written jointly with a local vicar, they insisted the movement had to keep ‘God at its core’. Impeccably fair-minded and inclusive, they also proposed to offer the new promise to anyone who might prefer that form of words.

Yet in response, Ms Slocombe said such rebels ‘need to accept this change’, and even suggested they could be forced out of the movement altogether if they did not.

So much for diversity!

For with this not-so-veiled threat, the true intention of the movement’s leaders has been laid bare. A move they claimed to be more inclusive has turned out to be entirely the opposite.

The change in promise seems to be just a shallow attempt by the Guiding establishment to rebrand itself as modern, by dumping timeless values. Girl Guides from East London, in 1957, pictured

Indeed, it now stands revealed as being actively discriminatory, and far from pulling down any (mythical) barriers to joining the movement, the Guide leaders are actually putting them up.

Under the spurious guise of encouraging membership by atheists, or (inexplicably) those with an aversion to serving their country, the Guides are now threatening to expel those who wish to express a religious belief.

A belief, moreover, which forms the basis of the Christian values in which the Girl Guide movement is rooted, and on which its identity rests.

Yet this movement is now actively discriminating against those who wish to proclaim the continuation of those religious values at its own core.

Having dumped God and country altogether, it is now actually forbidding Guides — on pain of excommunication — to promise to serve anything beyond themselves. Is this not beyond perverse?

Under the spurious guise of encouraging membership by atheists, the Guides are now threatening to expel those who wish to express a religious belief

For there is no reason why the new promise needs to be exclusive of any other. After all, the Scouts apparently intend to offer atheists an alternative promise rather than abandon the existing one.

Other institutions have long done something similar to accommodate both believers and non-believers. When you swear to tell the truth in court, for example, or take the oath of allegiance as a new Member of Parliament, you are given the choice to swear on the Bible or to affirm.

Just imagine if you were forbidden to give evidence in court or take your seat in Parliament if you insisted on swearing on the Bible! Of course this would be utterly unthinkable. And yet that is precisely what the Guides are now doing. As church leaders have pointed out, this is nothing other than secular totalitarianism.

There is thus a weary absence of surprise upon learning that the Guides’ chief executive, Julia Bentley, formerly headed an abortion and contraception group. For it is hard to think of a background which more powerfully symbolises merciless and doctrinaire individualism.

Indeed, to Ms Bentley the Guides are the ‘ultimate feminist organisation’ but — tsk! — ‘too middle-class’.

Thus she revealed herself to be just another politically correct zealot, standing for the secular sectarianism of group rights. For far from serving the whole of society, each such interest group exists to gain power over everyone else — and damns anyone who stands in its way.

Indeed, this is why ‘political correctness’ is not remotely liberal at all, but viciously oppressive. It is simply a mechanism for re-ordering the world according to a particular dogma — and thus inescapably stifles all dissent.

Innately hostile to traditional morality, it paves the way for a secular Inquisition in which today’s Torquemadas are the ideologues of such group rights — and it is Christians and other religious believers who are the heretics to be silenced by force.

'Political correctness' is not remotely liberal at all, but viciously oppressive. It is simply a mechanism for re-ordering the world according to a particular dogma - and thus inescapably stifles all dissent (file picture)

It is, indeed, the principal weapon of unholy war wielded by the forces of militant secularism, which are intent upon destroying the Judeo-Christian basis of western morality. It supplants traditional morality and the concepts of right and wrong, truth and lies by a creed which says in effect, ‘Whatever is right for you is right’.

It also seeks to replace patriotism and service to one’s country by serving ‘the community’.

This is yet another slippery concept, which today can simply amount to membership of just such an interest group which is in the business of elbowing out other interest groups in the greedy clamour for entitlements.

So the new Guiding promise is all about being true to me, myself and my beliefs, whatever they may happen to be. It represents the antithesis of duty to others. It says, more or less, ‘I promise to serve myself’.

It is a promise for a narcissistic, self-centred and morally vacuous age.

this is the Girl Guides we are talking about, for heaven’s sake!

They have now managed to embody the aggressive secularism and hyper-individualism that the retiring Chief Rabbi, Lord Sacks, talked about yesterday when he told BBC Radio’s Sunday Programme that British society was ‘losing the plot’.

As he said, religious faith underpins the existence of trust. When religion breaks down, trust breaks down. When society becomes secularised, the collapse of trust and the rise of individualism mean the breakdown of social institutions such as the family.

Worse than that, by replacing God with an ideology which brooks no dissent, individualism is a mechanism for illiberalism and even tyranny as these groups get their way through tactics of insult, professional ostracism or outright banning.

Now, though, some Christians are fighting back. Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, said that he hoped ‘many others’ would join the rebellion by the Harrogate Guide groups.

And now some churches are saying they will deny the Guides the use of church halls, which hitherto hundreds of their groups have used for free.

As the Rev Paul Williamson, vicar of St George’s church in Feltham, West London, has said, it would be hypocritical of the Guides to expect to use the church’s premises after abandoning its core beliefs.

That’s the spirit! Such responses show that, faced with the kind of secular intolerance that is now in danger of pushing Christianity to the very margins of society, the Church is not altogether on its knees.

Churches should deny the Guides use of their premises. Guide groups should offer the old promise, and people should refuse to join those that do not.

Only through such mass resistance will the secular zealots who have hijacked the Girl Guides be faced down, and a great institution be restored to the defence of a decent society, rather than hastening its demise.

Western Christianity’s Biggest Problem: the Bible?!

How to Guard Your Flock, Even From Other Christians

Sunday, 25 August 2013

The Money Shop's owner Dollar Financial says tough new curbs for payday lenders could cost it up to £10m a year By NEIL CRAVEN, FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY

The Money Shop's owner Dollar Financial says tough new curbs for payday lenders could cost it up to £10m a year

By NEIL CRAVEN, FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY

PUBLISHED: 22:16, 24 August 2013 | UPDATED: 10:30, 25 August 2013

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Britain’s second largest payday lender says that years of soaring growth have ended after an overhaul of the market by the Office of Fair Trading.

US-based Dollar Financial, which owns The Money Shop and internet lenders Payday UK and Payday Express, said turnover from online lending in Britain fell 2.9 per cent in the three months to the end of June. That compares with a rise of 34 per cent in the same period in 2012.

The lender told investors that tighter controls will cost it up to £10million a year. It said that the halt in growth had come from tighter limits on who can borrow and for how long.

Tighter controls: The Money Shop's owner, Dollar Financial, says new rules cost it £10m

The number of times customers can roll over loans into larger debts has been limited to three. However, Dollar Financial also told investors in a conference call that the drop had been compounded by aggressive marketing from rivals.

Executives said that such rivals were among those expected to pull out of the market, but in the meantime were trying to grow the size of their loan book ‘in an effort to acquire as many customers as they can before the Sword of Damocles falls on them’.

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Dollar Financial’s British operations are second only to Wonga in size. Cash America, which operates QuickQuid and Pounds to Pocket, is the third largest.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has been one of the fiercest critics of payday lenders, describing their interest rates as ‘usury’.

The OFT has referred the entire payday lending market to the Competition Commission, as first revealed by The Mail on Sunday in June.

The investigation by the OFT has already forced 20 of the top 50 lenders to quit the market or wind down their businesses.

However, Dollar Financial executives predicted that more lenders would drop out of the market and it could recover next year.

They said tighter controls on payday lending will make it ‘inconceivable’ that smaller operators will be able to operate legally in the UK.

Chairman and chief executive Jeffrey Weiss said: ‘We think many of the other operators, including some of the larger ones, will struggle with the necessary implementation and self-monitoring activities.

‘That is why we are confident that we will emerge from this process with a significantly stronger position.’

Britain's child poverty 'social apartheid': Problems faced by the young are worse than 1960s claim researchers

The report was carried out by leading charity National Children's Bureau
Warns that Britain is at risk of becoming a place where rich and poor children live in separate, parallel worlds
The report compares data collected from a study called Born To Fail published in 1969

By TARA BRADY

PUBLISHED: 10:03, 25 August 2013 | UPDATED: 13:38, 25 August 2013

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A report has found that child poverty is now a bigger problem than during the 1960s

Child poverty is now a bigger problem than during the 1960s, a damning report to be published this week has found.

The report was carried out by the National Children's Bureau and warns that Britain is at risk of becoming a place where 'children's lives are so polarised that rich and poor live in separate, parallel worlds.'

It blames a 'failure of political will' has resulted in poorer children having fewer chances in life today.

The report compares children's lives with data collected from a study called Born To Fail published in 1969.

It found that around 3.6million children are now living in relative poverty today compared with 2million in the late 1960s.

According to the report, a child from a disadvantage background is less likely to develop as quickly by the age of four than a child from a more affluent family.

Children living in deprived areas are also more likely to be the victim of an unintentional injury or accident at home and are nine times less likely to have green spaces to play.

While boys living in deprived areas are three times more likely to be obese than boys growing up in affluent areas compared with girls who are twice as likely to be obese.

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It also notes that 63 per cent of children living in poverty have at least one parent or carer who is working.

The report reads: 'Today, although there have been some improvements, overall the situation appears to be no better, and in some respects has got worse.'

The charity says that if Britain tried to be more like other European countries, there would be less children dying from unintentional injuries, 320,000 more teenagers would be in education or training and nearly 45,000 11-year-olds would not be obese.

The report compares children's lives with data collected from a study called Born To Fail published in 1969

The charity is calling on the government to do more to stop the widening gap between children living in poverty and children from more affluent families.

The report says: 'The government made a commitment to protect pensioner benefits but there has been no equivalent commitment to protect children living in the poorest families or to tackle child poverty.'

Dr Hilary Emery, chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau, said: 'Our analysis shows that despite some improvements, the inequality and disadvantage suffered by poorer children 50 years ago still persists today.

'There is a real risk that as a nation we are sleep walking into a world where children grow up in a state of social apartheid, with poor children destined to experience hardship and disadvantage just by accident of birth, and their more affluent peers unaware of their existence.

'All our children should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential regardless of their circumstances. We cannot afford to let them grow up in such an unequal ‘them and us’ society in which the talents of the next generation are wasted, leaving them cut adrift to become a costly burden to the economy rather than a productive asset.

'This is a critical moment of opportunity to tackle the child poverty and inequality that has been a permanent feature in our country for five decades.

'Government has a major role to play in leading the way to address this but there must also be a wider mobilisation of efforts and resources led by politicians from every party and involving charities, businesses and communities all playing a part in having greater expectations for every child.'

Views, Visions and Values.

Tuesday, 27 August 2013

Don't start what you can't finish, warn the top brass: Britain's leading military experts explain how the West should react to Syria By IAN DRURY, Daily Mail

Monday, 26 August 2013

Views, Visions and Values.: Christian Marriage & Dating

An unholy war in the Guides and why we must ALL fight the secular bigots By MELANIE PHILLIPS

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this is the Girl Guides we are talking about, for heaven’s sake!

Western Christianity’s Biggest Problem: the Bible?!

How to Guard Your Flock, Even From Other Christians

Sunday, 25 August 2013

The Money Shop's owner Dollar Financial says tough new curbs for payday lenders could cost it up to £10m a year By NEIL CRAVEN, FINANCIAL MAIL ON SUNDAY

The Money Shop's owner Dollar Financial says tough new curbs for payday lenders could cost it up to £10m a year

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Britain's child poverty 'social apartheid': Problems faced by the young are worse than 1960s claim researchers

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this is the Girl Guides we are talking about, for heaven’s sake!

Sunday, 25 August 2013

The Money Shop's owner Dollar Financial says tough new curbs for payday lenders could cost it up to £10m a year

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