Archive for February, 2012
Yours Truly on 4Thought
Published February 21, 2012 Opinion 7 CommentsTags: atheism, Channel 4 News, Religion, Richard Dawkins
This week on 4Thought – those little films aired after the Channel 4 News – the topic is “Do we Need Religion“. My slot is on Thursday evening (23rd February) at 7.55pm.
Needless to say, I don’t think we do need religion any more – indeed, I wonder if we ever did. We managed to survive, as a species, before most of the “modern” mono-theistic religions were conjured-up. We managed to thrive, indeed. Perhaps part of the reason for our success was the ethical basis of our relations with our fellow human beings: reciprocal altruism, to lapse into Dawkins-speak.
Atheists and Humanists tend to be better at articulating ethics, these days, than people of faith. Part of the reason is that – as the evidence shows – free thinkers tend to be more intelligent. But, also, Atheists tend not to claim membership of a tribe or gang that assumes moral superiority over others. Unlike religionists, Atheists don’t have to sign-up to a tithe-based club, stick to a liturgy, or issue repetitive chants. Free thought is our only mantra.
Check out 4ThoughtTV to watch some of the previous episodes. I recommend Trevor Moore’s film. He does an especially good job at explaining that religion of the noodly appendage: The Church of the Flying Spaghetti. You’ll have to wait to later in the week to see mine. Or watch it on Channel 4, 7.55pm, Thursday. Let’s hope the edit gets my best side.
The DVANI should be closed as soon as possible and its services transferred to DVLA in Swansea.
When the vehicle licensing office opened a new office in Belfast a few years ago – at the revitalised Gasworks Business Park – there was a wonderful irony about the choice of location. Presumably the powers that be had some inkling that hordes of motorists would come visiting – to renew their road vehicle licences.
Warsi, Paterson and the “Holy See” – pushing against the tide
Published February 16, 2012 Opinion Leave a CommentTags: Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, Catholic Church, Christianity, Family planning, Holy See, Islam, Owen Paterson, Western world
Paterson meets the pope. Is that a good thing?
Earlier in the week the “Secretary for the Holy See’s Relations with States”, Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, hosted talks between the “Holy See” and a British Government Ministerial delegation led by Baroness Warsi. The delegation also included the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson.
A joint communique was issued at the end of the meeting.
It included the following statement:
Too many people are still hungry, too many people do not have access to education and to decent work, too many women die in childbirth. In view of these challenges we recognise a shared obligation to achieve a fair international financial and trade framework. And we will strive for a better future for all humanity, taking into particular account care for the poorest people in the world.
Indeed. However, in most cases the reason that too many people are too hungry, and that too many do not have access to education or paid work, is because of over-population and lack of birth control – and the institutionalised degradation of women. The Holy See’s failure to encourage the use of contraception and family planning – and abject failure to promote equality and equal status for women in some of the world’s poorest societies – has manifestly contributed to the very problems to which the joint communique alludes.
Baronness Warsi – a Muslim – was at pains to point out that “Christianity is as vital to our future as it is to our past”. Thankfully that’s not the case. Only a minority of people in the UK attend any type of church regularly. The United Kingdom is rapidly dispensing with religion. And, as for the Holy See, it’s an institution in crisis. It has failed to adequately address the issue of clerical abuse at its heart. The majority of its church members in the West ignore most of its core teachings. It has become the ultimate menu religion. Moreover, it doesn’t even represent Christianity – Christianity has splintered off in a myriad of directions, and has no unified voice on just about any social issue. Moreover, Islam is side-lining the Catholic Church in importance – it is by far the world’s fastest growing religion. In the period 1990-2000, approximately 12.5 million more people converted to Islam than to Christianity.
The British government needs to be much more cognisant of the growing public indifference to religion in the UK – and the inevitable marginalisation of all religions in secular Western societies. The Cabinet Office is pushing against the tide – and Baronness Warsi is alienating even her own cabinet colleagues (with the obvious exception of Owen Paterson) in taking part in these pointless and counter-intuitive delegations to failing, anachronistic, sexist dynasties.
More useful than the joint statement from Her Majesty’s Cabinet Office and The Holy See, is the following extract from the Science Summit on World Population – issued in 1993, and still as relevant today.
Millions of people still do not have adequate access to family planning services and suitable contraceptives. Only about one-half of married women of reproductive age are currently practicing contraception. Yet as the director-general of UNICEF put it, ”Family planning could bring more benefits to more people at less cost than any other single technology now available to the human race.” Existing contraceptive methods could go far toward alleviating the unmet need if they were available and used in sufficient numbers, through a variety of channels and distribution, sensitively adapted to local needs.
But most contraceptives are for use by women, who consequently bear the risks to health. The development of contraceptives for male use continues to lag. Better contraceptives are needed for both men and women, but developing new contraceptive approaches is slow and financially unattractive to industry. Further work is needed on an ideal spectrum of contraceptive methods that are safe, efficacious, easy to use and deliver, reasonably priced, user-controlled and responsive, appropriate for special populations and age cohorts, reversible, and at least some of which protect against sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS.
Reducing fertility rates, however, cannot be achieved merely by providing more contraceptives. The demand for these services has to be addressed. Even when family planning and other reproductive health services are widely available, the social and economic status of women affects individual decisions to use them. The ability of women to make decisions about family size is greatly affected by gender roles within society and in sexual relationships. Ensuring equal opportunity for women in all aspects of society is crucial.
Thus all reproductive health services must be implemented as a part of broader strategies to raise the quality of human life. They must include the following:
Efforts to reduce and eliminate gender-based inequalities. Women and men should have equal opportunities and responsibilities in sexual, social, and economic life.
Provision of convenient family planning and other reproductive health services with a wide variety of safe contraceptive options. irrespective of an individual’s ability to pay.
Encouragement of voluntary approaches to family planning and elimination of unsafe and coercive practices.
Development policies that address basic needs such as clean water, sanitation, broad primary health care measures and education; and that foster empowerment of the poor and women.
“The adoption of a smaller family norm, with consequent decline in total fertility, should not be viewed only in demographic terms. It means that people, and particularly women, are empowered and are taking control of their fertility and the planning of their lives; it means that children are born by choice, not by chance, and that births are better planned; and it means that families are able to invest relatively more in a smaller number of beloved children, trying to prepare them for a better future.”
Government spending (Photo credit: 401K)
We want to hear about blatant, flagrant waste of tax-payers’ money – and we’ll expose it here on PolicyNI.
The Executive argues that it hasn’t enough money. But that’s hardly surprising when we have 12 central government departments and 26 councils – all to run a place with a population less than Greater Manchester. Never mind the myriad quangos, job creation agencies, community groups – all paid for by the public purse.
It's handy to have HM Treasury if the economy is like a cork bobbing in an ocean of debt.
The Deputy First Minister yesterday compared the Northern Ireland economy to a cork bobbing about in a raging ocean. He conjured this analogy as part of his announcement of £580m of public expenditure on public infrastructure – roads and hospitals. He indicated that rather than just “lie down” the Executive was committed to spend money to save the economy.
Last week I wrote a blog post suggesting that it was time for a new think-tank for Northern Ireland – dedicated to the idea of reducing the role of the public sector in Northern Ireland, and changing the nature of our politics.
In that post I asked people to contact me if they were interested in helping me – and I have been astounded just how much this idea seems to have resonated. I’ve received emails of support from people from all walks of life.
So to give some substance to the idea I have created a new website and have decided to call the new think-tank PolicyNI. There isn’t much content there as yet – but I’m delighted that a few people who contacted me have agreed to jot down some thoughts. Over time I’d hope that more perspectives will be published on the site. In time, we may even undertake some research and public consultations. However, it’s very early days.
PolicyNI is a new Northern Ireland based Think Tank and lobbying group dedicated to reducing the role of the public sector. We also want to establish a new type of political discourse focused on rationality rather than tribalism. We are not affiliated with any political party. So if this concept inspires you, please visit the site. You can register your support or volunteer your services – and by doing so you’ll get notified as and when we organise future events, or appear in the media.
Your Country Needs You: Why Northern Ireland Needs a Think-Tank Dedicated to Small Government
Published February 4, 2012 Uncategorized 5 CommentsTags: Government, Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is in the Red. Image via Wikipedia
Last year the Treasury published a consultation document seeking ideas as to how Northern Ireland’s economy should be rebalanced.
The document pulled no punches in defining the endemic problems of Northern Ireland’s economy and its massive over-dependence on the British public purse. It stopped short at pointing fingers at some of the underlying causes of this dependency culture – such as a stunted Party-political system and successive British governments that preferred to throw money at a problem rather than deal with the systemic disease. The troubles were part of the reason for the creation of a Potemkin economy – but not the whole reason.
However, the document at least details, in its ghastliness, just how sick our economy really is:
- Productivity remains low, with productivity per filled job being 85.3 per cent of the UK average, lower than all other regions other than Wales
- Low productivity is largely due to under-representation of high productivity sectors in Northern Ireland
- Levels of venture capital funding are lower in Northern Ireland than in all other UK regions – and the few VC firms that are ‘active’ are largely dependent on state funding
- Over the past five years business expenditure on R&D in Northern Ireland has averaged 0.69 per cent of GVA compared to 1.23 per cent for the UK as a whole. In addition, business expenditure on R&D in Northern Ireland is heavily focused on a small number of companies, with just 10 companies accounting for some 57 per cent of all business R&D investment in 2009.
- Over 30 per cent of all Northern Ireland jobs are in the public sector compared to a UK average of around 21 per cent
- Northern Ireland’s economic inactivity rate remains high at 28.4 per cent compared to the UK average of 23.3 per cent, and is the highest rate in all of the 12 UK regions.
The long and short of all of this is that Northern Ireland’s fiscal deficit is vast: equating to over £5,000 per person – which is some three times larger than the UK average.
And nothing, substantial, seems to be being done to address this. Yes, the consultation resulted in lots of submissions, but radical action needs to be taken to address the endemic problem.
In terms of addressing the problem the Executive at Stormont is not fit for purpose – nor are the Departments responsible for economic development. The political parties all define their effectiveness based on how much cash they can wrestle from the Treasury – thereby perpetuating the economics of hand-out. And there are no strong lobby groups arguing the case for the following:
- Active reduction of the size of the State’s involvement in the economy
- Intolerance for absurd State-funded hand-outs to people and groups who don’t deserve them
- Reduction in ludicrous and crippling local taxes – especially taxes on business and commerce
- Accountability of political Parties based on hard, tangible economic related outcomes
So I’m proposing creating such a Think-Tank, Lobby Group – whatever you think it should be called.
If you would like to get involved in this initiative please contact me by completing the little form below. I’d be keen to hear from you if you’d like to join a steering committee, write some blog posts, undertake some research or just lend your support.
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