Tag Archives: Private Sector

Opinion – Tony Blair: force is necessary in struggle against radical Islam | Politics | The Guardian – John Gelmini

January 17, 2015 By in Accountability, Business Administration, Defense Policy, Foreign Policy, Politics Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment
Tony Blair at the 2007 G8 summit, Germany

Tony Blair at the 2007 G8 summit, Germany (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Pentagon has already submitted a plan to President Obama telling him how to defeat ISIS but he has rejected it.

He does not want “boots on the ground” and is interested in toppling Syria and appeasing Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, who are the financial paymasters of ISIS.

Dr Alf’s question relates to Tony Blair, who is respected in America, however, the armaments manufacturers on the Washington “Beltway” and the jobs they create plus lobbying from our own BAE Defence Systems are an even more powerful voice who want to sell arms to the same people who are financing ISIS.

For the time being, the Obama calculus may very well be let ISIS, Boko Haram and others rampage but put no boots on the ground until he is ready to leave office in November 2016, after which the problem is someone else’s.

If in the meantime, Syria falls and the next domino on the Middle East chessboard, Iran remains in the cross hairs, then so much the better for Obama who can argue that he has no mandate from a war-weary US public to put “boots on the ground”.

The reality is that the money does not flow to ISIS directly but goes via a Turkish bank in London and then to Turkey which is in league with ISIS by supplying logistics, using its hospitals and doctors to treat ISIS fighters.

Other money for ISIS comes from looting and plundering the areas they conquer, the application of taxes on the conquered populations (the ones they don’t kill) and from sales of oil.

Like Tony Blair, I think these people are at war with us already, and our response has been and still is limp-wristed and inadequate.

However, Obama is a man who vacillates and dithers, so I expect him to play the waiting game, wash his hands of the affair in latter day Pontius Pilate style and drive off on his golf buggy into the Californian sunset in 2016.

John Gelmini

Opinion – Britain’s Success Story – NYTimes.com – Paul Krugman – John Gelmini

January 4, 2015 By in Austerity, Central Government, Defense Policy, Education, Energy Policy, Fiscal Policy, Foreign Policy, Growth, Healthcare, Immigration, Liberal Conservatism, Local Authorities, Local Government, Neoliberal, NHS, People, Politicians, Politics, Public Services Reform, Reform Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dr Alf makes an interesting point.

What austerity there was should have been time limited for 2 years, as was the case with Eire and Canada, and really put much of the public sector to the sword. What there was, was too little and for too long, with much of the public sector still left unscathed and unreformed.

Austerity should have been accompanied by measures for growth and exports rather than measures to force people to do almost any kind of work and in many cases on zero hours contracts. Without exports and growth the UK cannot create the private sector jobs that replace the lost public sector non jobs.

The public sector needs to be “broken to the fist”, not given tax raising powers and the ability to steal and waste even more money than it does already.

MP’s need to be reduced in number to 200 and we do not need 43 English County Councils,constabularies and fire commands.

Any extraordinary costs caused by mergers need to be borne by councils reducing headcount and wasteful processes not from the public by way of increased parking fines and other imposts.

Adult Social Care needs to be merged into the NHS which in turn needs to be restructured on German and French lines plus a greater emphasis on personal responsibility on the public for their own health.

Districts and Boroughs need to be abolished and their services outsourced and the Welsh,Northern Irish and Scots each cut loose,given true independence and no more Barnett Formula bankrolling.

John Gelmini

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