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Welcome to my Friday Magazine post.
Almost half of British troops often think of leaving the forces. So says a survey by the Ministry of Defence itself. Slashed in numbers over recent years, and two wars to fight, British forces have more enemies than you would think.
The government is often enemy number one.
As well as declining numbers, equipment and pay is often appalling. Then there’s many in the British public, who seem to blame the soldiers for wars caused by politicians.
But uppermost is the need to fight two wars at once, with inadequate manpower and equipment. The primary role of government is defence. The primary means of doing this are our troops. That they are so shoddily treated is a disgrace!
Tory leader, David Cameron, has gone all moral.
The next Prime Minister of Britain – once Brownski is kicked out – he has spoken out about ‘moral neutrality’ and the inability of people to judge what is right and wrong, presumably in terms of lifestyle and position.
Excuse me, politician, shut up! You’ve caught the NuLabour bug of thinking politics and morality mix. Sorry, morals are nothing to do with you. Keep out of it! But there has always been an unspoken party line on this form of responsibility.
The left thinks everything is society’s fault, whilst the right thinks if things go wrong, it’s all the fault of the individual. Whereas the reality is, responsibility falls into both areas.
Poverty is a perfect example. The left tries to make society equal, redistributing wealth to close the poverty gap, which invariably fails. The right rewards initiative, usually blaming the poor for not being good enough to make it.
The commonsense answer, to me, is to have a society that rewards initiative, but has an excellent safety net to save the poor from destitution. But the moment a politician begins placing blame, he has left politics behind, and entered the realm of the dictatorial scoundrel.
Next Magazine post, Monday. Have a great weekend.
© Anthony North, July 2008
MY BLOG
Hello again! It seems an age,
welcome to my blog home page;
The latest post, it has arrived,
sit down, read, you’ll be surprised;
Drink in my thoughts, my poems, my tales,
food for thought, my holy grails;
While you’re here, have you met my tags?
Boisterous, true, but there’ll be no snags,
if you let them play their games with you,
you’ll end up doubting if what you’re told is true;
This is the house of curiosity,
with plenty to think about during tea;
But here’s a warning, if you dare,
visit my archives, ‘cos they will snare,
they’re full of nightmares. Are they true?
Tales of horrors, crimes, to frighten you;
Will you come out of there alive?
Well …
Do call again … if you survive.
(c) Anthony North, July 2008
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MY OLDEST FRIEND – Fiction
They say never trust anyone, and its good advice in this game. But when your oldest friend lets you down …
The cell was cold, dark, damp. How long I was in there before I escaped, I have no idea. There was no indication of night and day, and the only ‘routine’ was the occasional putrid meal and the ‘interrogations’. Ha! I’d get that sadist one day. Of that I swear.
I blame my oldest friend for getting me in there. I knew the score. I sharpened my teeth back in the days of the Cold War, working out which intrigues were down to the Soviets, and which were down to the western Puppetmasters, always looking for an angle to increase their power.
Now the enemy had changed. Al Qaeda was subtle, manipulative, but which plots were theirs and which …
Well, the Puppetmasters never went away, forever conspiring to …
Work it out yourself!
Suffice to say, I escaped. After all, I’m alive, aren’t I? And then I had a Mole to find. And I knew that, once I’d caught up with him, I’d also find my oldest friend once more.
My investigations went on for a month. At first, the scars, the bruises and aching bones forced me on, a vendetta to fulfill, but even when the physical scars had healed, a powerhouse of anger worked on me from somewhere deep inside. And in the end it was down to two.
I ‘arranged’ for them both to be in the same place at the same time – with me.
It was obvious the game was up by my line of questioning, the sudden realization that must have appeared on my face when I worked it out. And that milli-second before he acted, I intuited intention in his eyes.
He was dead before he could raise his gun, a single red hole on his forehead. And as I returned my gun to its holster and turned my back on the scene, I knew my oldest friend – my instinct – had returned.
© Anthony North, July 2008
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