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Sunday, October 10, 2004

Responses

It’s taken a while to catch up with all the comments.

I hope the chapter on the politics of the family published on my sidebar serve as a response to those who think I am just moralising about sex. I’m not. The issue is the quality of parenting and the way parents resolve or fail to resolve their disputes. (Thanks to Jennifer in Canada for help on publishing and to Dan for advice).

Marilyn Powdrill makes the most important point and one that I referred to previously. That is the problem of the mother who defies a court order. That is where we need to give the Court more powers and there is a lot of support for that in Parliament. My guess is it will happen in the not too distant future.

Dan I do think you go over the top at times. The Africa Commission won’t solve the problems overnight but it all helps focus the world’s attention on the issues and could be instrumental in getting more significant movement next year. You are very critical of the EU and rightly so in the way it hangs on to the CAP but Britain wants to get rid of the CAP.

The reason we are having difficulty is that so many European countries rely on subsidy to keep their farmers going. Poland has close to 40% of their work force in farming. Take the subsidy away and the cries of anguish will be heard in Brussels big time!

France also loves farm subsidies and don’t we Brits love all those nice little farms in France which make their countryside look so pretty? It’s subsidy that keeps them in business and it is at the expense of African farmers.

A lot of people myself included, want Kerry to win in the USA. But has anyone heard him calling for an end to subsidies? The hard fact is that there are jobs involved and both Bush and Kerry will not be campaigning on an end to subsidies.

I knew Ingrid would be pleased about the visit to Sudan. Things are beginning to move and slowly Africa is building up interventionist techniques. We are rightly giving help there too although I suspect Dan will see it as neo colonialism!

I note the statistics of Iraqi dead are being posted on my site presumably because they think I might not know or care. They are wrong. Like most MP’s I do constantly revisit the decisions I take. It would be good however if the group who do the counting had started when the UN took the authority in 1991 to stop the genocide, torture and killings. They didn’t and nobody counted because it wasn’t on TV.

Their friends and relatives were coming to my constituency though and like so many people from these countries they would say “Can’t you do anything about it?”

That is the real challenge and we ducked it in Rwanda and it went wrong in Somalia. In North Korea we all stuck our heads in the sand while one million died. The figures hardly got noticed because it was another of those particularly brutal dictatorships

Sad isn’t it?

Clive: What I have stated is also the view of the leading INGOs, including Oxfam and Christian Aid as well as African solidarity groups such as ACTSA. I think it is wrong for you to dismiss me as going "over the top", when I am simply reiterating the very real concerns expressed by African governments and civil society about the EU's approach to global trade. I recommend that you read Christian Aid's document "Taking liberties: poor people, free trade and trade justice" (http://www.christian-aid.org.uk/indepth/409trade/index.htm) and "Coercion or Engagement? Economics and Institutions in ACP–EU Trade Negotiations" (http://www.ecdpm.org/Web_ECDPM/Web/Content/Content.nsf/vwSearchInternet/1098B04D025BE761C1256EAD0039100E?OpenDocument&Highlight=0,coercion) by the European Centre for Development Policy Management (ECDPM).

As for Blair's Commission for Africa, I think it is a farce, a side-show and a publicity gimmick. Blair heads the Commission, he finances it, he appoints the Commissioners, the Commission is based in a British government department and eight of the 17 Commissioners are not from Africa at all. The African representatives are nearly all members of government's who advocate the government's free trade agenda. And there are just two representatives of civil society on the Commission - one is a serious and experienced academic and activist and the other is a former member of a New Wave punk band.

The Commission for Africa will give the conclusions Blair wants to hear, just as the Joint Intelligence Committee concocted the "evidence" Blair needed to back the Iraq War. Blair can't be trusted to be impartial.

Clive - have you seen my postings in the discussion forum of Acton W3 & Ealing Today re dial 999 and get in a queue? You have no party political axe to grind now but the responses I'm getting back directly to me are all the same tales of woe re the Police. I'm not knocking the Police, although I am angry, but something is wrong when you are in a queue with a voice mail when you phone the police. I should explain that when 999 heard it was a burglary then they put my
cousin in a queue.

Hope you and your family are well

barbara