Scientology in Germany
A German minister has stated that he believes the religion of Scientology to be incompatible with the German Constitution. All the German Lander (states) have already banned the religion and it is now likely that there will be a federal (Central) ban on the religion.
Scientology undoubtedly has some strange beliefs including the belief that life did not evolve but was transported to the Earth by a space ship however it is my beleief that the unusual nature of any religion does not give the state the right to ban it.
Freedom of religion is an inalienable right and the only grounds for limiting religious freedom should be harm to other people. The German Minister is perfectly entitled to disagree the religion of scientology (I do myself) however if it is as bad as he says it is then he should use his free speech to argue against it and defeat it in a democratic manner.
Prostitution
It was announced today that the Womens' Minister is considering a ban on prostitution in England and Wales. Most people in Britain believe that prostitution is already illegal however whilst curb crawling, pimping and marketing sex in public are all illegal the act of selling sex is not.
The minister plans to visit Sweden along with another minister in order to learn from this country as it has itself recently implemented a ban.
On the face of it, it would appear to be a legal anomaly that prositution is legal in the U.K. However when you give the issue more thought it may actually be sensible. If a ban is implemented then will this not drive the issue underground, prostitutes that have been raped for instance will be unwilling to come forward because in order to establish that they were actually raped they may need to admit that they were enguaged in prostitution and therefore incriminate themselves. It will also mean that men who fail to pay prostitutes will be able to get away with not paying because prostitutes will be unable to use the legal system to recover money gained through an illegal act.
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Northern Rock
When is the government finally going to realise that there will not be a bid to buy Northern Rock that will be acceptable to its sharholders and finally concede that Northern Rock needs to be nationalised? The government pumps more tax payers money into northern rock each week, taxpayers are now responsible for securing 56 billion pounds (nearly the entire defence budget!!). If Northern Rock does go bankrupt, and if it isn't nationalised soon it will go bankrupt then it will cost the average taxpayer £2000 which could have been spent on schools hospital or even just giving 2 grand back to people as a tax break. If the government has all this money to spend on bailing out a risk taking bank then will it show the same generosity to our hardworking police men and women who do a really difficult job keeping us safe?
Liberal Democrat Leadership Race
The liberal Democrats yesterday annointed Nick Clegg as their new leader. The race which was noteable for the closeness of the oppinions of the candidates will now be remembered for the closesness of the result Clegg received 20,988 votes to Chris Huhne's 20,477. The candidates even had similar careers, both were Members of the European Parliament before they arrived at Westminster and both men went to the same school.
Nick clegg (3 Months younger than David Cameron) who is a spritely 40 years of age is now the youngest party leader at Westminster.
The result is seen by many in the media as a turn to the right by the Lib Dems, both Charles Kennedy and Sir Menzies Campbell were social liberals, they believed that in certain circumstances it was necessary for the state to interveen and restrict the liberties of some (the very rich) by taxing them more in order to prevent their accumulation of wealth from disadvataging the poor this is very similar to the view of the famous 19th century liberal John Stuart Mill who advocated utilitarianism or 'doing the greatest good for the greatest number of people' Mill was alrmed by the way rich people could use their wealth to entrench privelege i.e. by sending their children to fantastic schools whilst many of the poor sufred education that was very poor. Nick Clegg is likely to take a more free market view of liberlism.
Jacob Zuma Wins A.N.C. Vote
Thabo Mbeki is no loger the leader of the A.N.C. although he retains the South African Presidency he was beaten by his rival Jacob Zuma. The election was the first contested A.N.C. leadership election forn 60 years. Delegates at the conference where angry at what they percieved to be the failure of Mr Mbekis government to do anything to alleviate the poverty which exists in South Africa (the gap between Rich and Poor is biger than under aparthied and the poor are almost exclusively black). Some people believe the A.N.C. will now split into two parites. I beleive that this would be a good thing. South Afrika is a democracy but due to the lack of any credible opposition to the A.N.C. is effectivley a one party state, this means that there is no real choice at election times. If the A.N.C. split then South African voters would get a real choice of who to vote for.