Today – Page 20 – General History

The Election campaign 20N

The campaign: a low blow from the CIS

With nearly 4 months to go before the general election, the two major parties are beavering away in the political river. The PSOE is building a dam designed to prevent a positive tsunami of revelations concerning their negative governance since 2004. The PP is making every effort to knock down this dam, so that those Spaniards who wish to look and listen might at last know the truth about what really happened (a) at Atocha, Madrid on the 11 March, 2004; (b) in the Bar Faisan in 2009; © in the Constitutional Court (2011) which permitted ETA’s representatives to occupy government offices in the Basque Country and Navarra; and (e) in Andalucia during the last few decades of massive local corruption etc. etc. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-08-01T10:15:06+00:00 August 1st, 2011|Today|0 Comments

120 kph/110 kph/120 kph

Just about the last ‘reform’ ordered by Mr. Pérez R. as Minister of the Interior was the return of the maximum speed limit on Spanish main roads and autoways to 120 kmh. The limit had been reduced to 110 kmh. for only four months. Having orchestrated this spectacular reform, Mr. P. resigned all his cabinet appointments to become official candidate with the PSOE in the next general election (this September? November? Next March? When?). Naturally Candidate Pérez could not combine being Interior Minister and First Vice-President with an electoral campaign which promises to be every bit as scurrilous as his previous ones. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-07-18T10:26:36+00:00 July 18th, 2011|Today|3 Comments

Encounters of the socialist kind

Since earning the right to, I used to vote if I voted at all, for the Labour Party. I was young and thoughtful, and Fabian ideas seemed correct to me for half of my life. What happened to change my ideology was not a St. Paul-like conversion, but a gradual realisation that Socialism was a very necessary ideal that evolved in the 19th century, became essential in the Europe of the first half of the 20th, and redundant in the second. In the 21st century, as has been proven, it is no more than an excuse to gain power. The reasons are many, but the most important is that Socialism, like the Church, is based on sensible required ideas, erroneously interpreted by human beings. The difference is that Socialism is the means by which men and women seek power without opposition or debate, whereas the Church is, or should be a means to an end – the end meaning a quiet and reflective death with one’s conscience at peace. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-05-24T11:06:11+00:00 May 24th, 2011|Today, World History|0 Comments

The Oldies of Great Britain

People live much longer than they used to. When I was a child, just before the beginning of the 2nd Punic War, it was rare indeed to have a grandparent even in their seventies. The last time British people had so many people in their eighties still dominating them was late in the 19th century; I do not know why . . . something to do with Victorian stickability I suspect.

An article in a leading English periodical inspired the following few words about the still influential over-80s. I do realise that other European countries also have many shining examples of elderly winners, but this article is about Britain, so there.

The Queen: Elizabeth, Queen of Great Britain and Canada, is 84. She has reigned since her father’s death in 1952, was crowned in 1953. This formidable woman still undergoes slightly more than 500 official enagements per annum. She has survived a difficult but loving marriage with a difficult but engaging man. She has survived the eccentricities of her difficult but entertaining children. She has one of the most acute senses of humour even seen in a British monarch, at least since Henry II. Like him, she has needed it, and the British should cherish it (the sense of humour), and her. It is hard to see where she has put a foot wrong in nearly sixty years. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-05-01T10:42:02+00:00 May 1st, 2011|Today, World History|0 Comments

Don’t do anything

This government doesn’t do much either; while the public is prohibited from everything except paying taxes, Mr Zapatero’s crew have discovered a wonderful way to force legislation on an unwilling public – without the bother of a debate in the Congress first: it is called the Decreto Ley. I will explain it. All they do is come from the parliament-paid flat in the official black Audi and have a get-together of Zapatero’s cabinet; agree on a new Law and declare it law later at a press conference, skilfully avoiding any democratic nonsense about Parliament being the lawmakers. (more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-04-28T11:29:14+00:00 April 28th, 2011|Today|0 Comments

The 2012 London Olympics (what the IOC didn’t want you to know)

London entertains the Olympics / taiwantoday.com

Our faithful internauts might want to know that without any help from Mr. Julian Assange, the British weekly The Spectator has just published what they call ‘an international sporting equivalent of the WikiLeaks cables’. To what is hoped to be the deep embarrassment of the International Olympic Committee, The Spectator has winkled out ‘the complete, contractually binding and previously confidential set of demands made by the 115-member IOC on poor old London for the 2012 Olympic Games’.

(more…)

By Dean Swift| 2011-01-31T12:00:10+00:00 January 31st, 2011|English History, Today, World History|5 Comments