All subjects are equal, but some are more equal then others

Michael Gove, the Shadow Schools Secretary has suggested various reforms in the educational system. Mr Gove has suggested ending the measure of GCSE performance that judges a school on how many pupils gain five A to C grades, which according to him, puts too much emphasis on students who were on the borderline between a D and a C grade pass. He proposed a system that would have a set number of points for an A*, fewer for an A, and so on.

Sounds fair enough and sounds like usual straightforward and logical Conservative thinking. However further reading in to this and I found out Mr Gove doesn't want to end it there. Michael Gove proposes that points are awarded according to how hard or 'soft' a subject is.

Which, frankly is rather offensive. An A grade is an A grade is an A grade. The assumption that each subject must conform to a degree of mundanity or academic snobbery is in my opinion archaic and far from the progressive Conservatism that the party now esteems itself on.

Change is important and key to a progressive society. However change for the sake of change is dangerous, as we've seen from the Labour Party. Sometimes the best changes are the smallest. Or perhaps we've entered an era where everything must be supersized to be noticed?

Bestowing Britishness on the British people

Britishness is an area that I'm very much interested in for one reason or another. There are several lessons that we need to learn, too many to list in just one blog. So I'll spread it out.

Today's lesson is- You can't prescribe Britishness

There's been seveal proposals from varying people in politics to encourage, or what I see as to prescribe Britishness on people. For example having an additional bank holiday to celebrate Britishness and another to have children pledge allegiance to our Queen.

Now, what these people don't understand is that you simply can't prescribe, or bestow upon people Britishness. Britishness is an experience related to identity and an identity related to experiences. The best way to promote 'Britishness' as an identity is to make it a positive experience being in Britain.

To have a National British Day is all well, to hand out flags and get people to wave them about but people won't feel British for waving their flag, they'll wave their flags for feeling British.

So let's stop bestowing Britishness on people. Let's give people opportunities, prosperity and a constructive lifestyle; they're all things which will help people love Britain and feel British.

Turkey voting for Christmas? An alternative view on Turkish accession to the EU

When there are discussions about allowing another country to join the European Union there are always heated discussions and opinions based on underlying prejudice and alarmist rhetoric. Turkey certainly is no exception to this fallacy.

For Eurosceptics the overwhelming consensus is that Turkey must not join the EU. The opinions amongst these Eurosceptics vary from geographical, economic or simple racial/religious paranoia. Maybe I’m hanging around with the wrong kind of people, but the latter is worryingly the most common.

As someone born in Turkey I know there’ll be forum trolls or strokey beardists who will jump on my back and think what a surprise he’s defending Turkey. Let me make my position clear. I was born in Turkey, but I live, breath and will die in Britain. I may be staunchly pro-Britain and absolutely anti-EU however that does not mean I will ride on the racial/religiously-phobic train.

Now let’s have a look at the two most common arguments against Turkey’s accession to the European Union. Firstly; is the alarmist point that Turkey is an Islamic state. Wrong. Turkey is a secular country which is not governed by religion. The peoples of Turkey have fought long and hard to ensure that religion does not hinder the country from being a progressive one. Yes the majority of Turkey’s inhabitants are Muslim, but it does not make the country an Islamic state. Usually I’d tend to agree that this is pandering to petty rhetoric nitpicking, however I’m not so stupid to be blind to the fact that people who use the old Turkey is a Islamic country argument are purposefully trying to tar it with the same brush as Middle Eastern countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq etc.

Turkey is a secular country which does not allow itself to be governed by religion, particularly Islam. For example the government banned a movement which wanted to bring Sharia law into the country and the government also banned the headscarf at universities. So for people to use alarmist headlines like “80 million Muslims head to Britain” shows them to be the phobics that they are. To quote a Greek friend of mine who dislikes ‘all Turks’; “I know the Greeks and the Europeans complain about Turkey joining the EU but let’s be fair, if I had to choose from all the predominantly Muslim countries to be near our country (Greece) or to join the EU I’d have to say Turkey would be my choice.” Let’s remember, beggars can’t be choosers. So when there’s a lone predominantly Muslim inhabited country like Turkey which is as secular and progressive as it is, we shouldn’t beat it down with a stick.

Another argument commonly banded towards being against Turkey joining the EU is on geographical grounds. Turkey, for those people is tectonically challenged. It’s interesting to note that the ones who use this argument never seem to be geography experts, but rather arm-chair commentators. Part of Turkey is in Europe. Full stop, no question about it. Ah not enough of it though they say. So where is it in the European Union constitution that specifies a percentage quota of land that must be tectonically viable? Also have these people not looked at a map? The capital of Cyprus is further away from Brussels than Ankara is. So it’s fine for Cyprus to be tectonically challenged but not Turkey?

Those of you reading this will still probably think I’m for Turkey joining the European Union. I am not. I just rather feel sufficiently strongly about it to want to bring together intelligent arguments and to quosh phobic arguments which simply trivialise the matter. I will present my arguments on why Turkey should not be joining the European Union in an article to be published later on today.

EU Commissioner admits that the "Lisbon Treaty has been designed to stifle debate"

It’s worrying enough when it’s only the Eurosceptics can smell the stench that is the Lisbon Treaty, but when EU Commissioners also turn their noses up then something must certainly be up.

Karel de Gucht, EU Commissioner from Belgium has gone on record to admit that the Lisbon Treaty was specifically designed to prevent people from understanding it in order to prevent real debate. He goes on further to say that the European Council made sure that the Lisbon Treaty was unreadable so that no real debates could happen.

It indeed has been a pleasure watching Irish politicians squirm in their seats when asked direct questions about the Lisbon Treaty. Speaking to family from Ireland they certainly were unimpressed by their politicians’ obvious inability to be open about the treaty.

It appears that people intending to vote YES has dropped a few points whilst the NO side has increased its support. I’m not holding out for much hope though. According to the Sunday Times the YES side are outspending the NO side by ten to one; 2.4 million to 270,000.

One thing I am confident about however, is that within 5 years those that voted YES will be regretting ever doing so. I’ve offered a drink to anyone in the Irish side of my family who votes YES and is still happy with their decision in 5 years time.

My prediction is that like in the UK, far right parties like UKIP and the BNP over here will find close cousins in Ireland gathering a lot of support and very fast too.

EU Working Time Directive; breaking down the broken NHS

From August of this year the EU have implemented its ironically named Working Time Directive. I say implemented, I mean enforced. Even the most sceptical or politically aware of us probably wouldn’t have seen this coming 10 years ago, when it was first rubber stamped in Brussels.

Britain was more than happy to be strung along with head buried in sand that the Working Time Directive (WTD) would never come in to force. The time has finally come up for the country to have stopped being strung along and now for it to be strung up.

We all know the NHS is struggling to provide patient care. Population explosion along with the swine flu epidemic and the recession have all knocked holes in to the NHS. Will the WTD be yet another hole in an already sinking ship? Time will only tell, no pun intended.

The WTD, like a skulking predator came to us slowly, bit by bit, by stealth that the EU would be most proud of. Initially it was junior doctors that were first affected in 2004 when their maximum working hours were reduced to 58 hours, than reduced to 56 in 2007 and again to 48 this year. A 10 hour cut in just 5 years.

A pity that the then Health Minister John Hutton gave the EU such benefit of doubt or assumed logic would ensure on their part in assuming that working hours would not include time spent asleep. How wrong he was. In 2000 the meddling European Court of Justice ruled that time spent in residency on call, including time spent asleep, must count as working time. John Hutton’s naivity showing when he remarked that “it certainly was not within the intentions of the United Kingdom Government when we signed up for the Directive that time spent asleep would somehow magically count as time spent at work”.

Maybe he didn’t study history or politics, or had his head buried in the sand along with the rest of Britain in the 1970’s when we signed up to the common market that it would somehow magically, to the extent that Derren Brown himself would blush, count as the common political climate also.

So what will the Working Time Directive cost Britain? Open Europe estimates that it costs over £3.4 billion every year to be enforced. Did someone say recession?

The Identity Crisis Facing British Muslims

Whatever way you want to look at it, British Muslims are facing an identity crisis. I myself still haven’t decided what label to give myself. I could harp on about how labelling of groups is wrong, but in this case it is important.

The liberals or the lefty amongst you will probably whince at such a thought but take a moment to reflect. In the media and amongst members of the public, British Muslims are seen as two dimensional beings. They’re either Muslim or they’re not. This in turn tars every single British Muslim with the crude brush of scorn. So when the Captain Hook tribute, Abhu Hamzar says death to America what happens is that this racist and bigoted view is applied to every Muslim.

Which poses a problem. Hence why I believe we should be careful not to generalise Muslims in to one dumping ground of scorn or opinion. So what are these types of Muslims that we have in Britain? Firstly we have the Islamist. A wonderful caricature which suits both the media and angry little men brigade just fine. An Islamist simply wants to Islamify the world. Everything in the world from politics to law must be governed by Islamic beliefs according to them. These people simply have no place in a democratic and multi-cultural country like England. They are not willing nor are they able to tolerate anything or anybody apart from their small minded Islamist views.

Now I’m not demanding that we ship these people out or witch hunt them all. After all we do live in a democratic country where people are entitled to their opinions, aren't we? We can further break these Islamists down to two more categories; literal or militant Islamists or idealist Islamists. It is the literal Islamists that are a danger to society and to everything this country stands for, whilst it is the militant literalists who are the biggest threat to Britain’s security. They are different from idealist Islamists in that they will act on their Islamists views. Worst still, they see it as their God given mission to embark on some sort of Jihad. So to make it clear an idealist Islamist is one who would, ideally like the world to be Muslim and governed by Islam but will not act on this idealism.

I know the angry little men brigade will read this and think that they do not exist. They do exist. Not every Islamist is a ruck-suck wearing, beard wielding, hate mongering criminal. Whether you like it or not.

Next up we have Secular, Progressive Muslims. A category I attribute myself to. Secular & Progressive Muslims are completely compatible with British society and culture. They are not Islamists, they do not seek to Islamify the world nor do they see Islam as an idealogy. They see Islam as what it is, a religion. These secular and progressive Muslims tend to be born in Britain, however there is still a significant amount who have come from other countries. They believe in living in a democratic society, one which is not governed or dictated by religion or religious idealism but by liberty and democracy. This group of Muslims make up a significant portion of the Muslim population of Britain. Whether the angry little men brigade like it or not.

I have trouble coming up with a catchy name for the final group. I think the best name for them are what a friend of mine said when someone said to him ah you have a Muslim name, are you a Muslim? To which he responded, well by name I am. Muslims by name. In this group we have British Muslims who have been born in to, or have relatives or have a family cultural background related to Islam. So by name they might be Muslim, or see or call themselves Muslims but they either do not adhere to the religion at all or are selective about which parts they do adhere to or believe in. Even with these three main types of Muslims we have in Britain there are certainly some overlaps and differences. For example I’d say I’m somewhere between ‘Muslim by name’ and Secular & Progressive. It is important that we distinguish between the different groups of Muslims in Britain for several reasons. The most important of all being that we don’t force them in to the militant Islamist category. The angry man brigade are professionals at doing this. Claiming all Muslims are war mongering anti-western individuals and to say anything else is political correctness gone mad. In fact some of these belonging to the angry man brigade seek to directly goad Muslims in to a reaction, in to becoming militant to justify their damaged views.

An example of this is when I came across an unfortunate fellow who is still a branch chairman in UKIP, who upon meeting me for the first time absolutely tore in to Islam calling it a war mongerers religion and that I wasn’t a Muslim because I didn’t follow his stereotype of what a Muslim should be in his damaged little mind. I could tell from his body language and his rhetoric how badly he wanted me to react, to which I asked him to let me know when I’m meant to interrupt him and declare a jihad or issue a fatwa. As a British and a Muslim I believe Islamism is not only wrong but completely incompatible with Britain. The literal interpretation of Islam is a dangerous one, as is a literal interpretation of any other religion or idea. If people truly want to rid this country of fundamentalism and people intent on Islamifying everything then all of us collectively have a duty to be careful with our rhetoric and be more specific to whom it is aimed at. Otherwise we’re simply adding another brick in the wall between Muslims and Britain.