How Sez Sees It

Due to the anniversary of  tragic events of ten years ago I have taken a look at why the western world has been so despised by other nations.  Can we look at our society and be totally  surprised by the views of other nations? The attacks themselves were sickening, disturbing and totally inexcusable.  Thousands of people were killed in horrific and terrifying ways and many thousands more have had to go through the last ten years missing a spouse, partner, child, parent, etc.  There are no excuses for what happened at all (just to clear up my stance). Is it a surprise we (along with the Americans) are almost detested by some areas of the world?  Here are some of the things that have happened since that fateful day: War in Afghanistan - actually something both good and evil I suppose.  On the one hand it brought freedom from an oppresive regime, the right to free vote, for education (especially for women) and the chance to rebuild a country that w...

The Independent has reported that RBS (that is Royal Bank of Scotland) has finally severed all ties with the manufacturers of cluster bombs.  This after the same newspaper reported that they were connected to manufacturers in the first place. For those of you who don't know, a cluster bomb is either dropped from the air or ground detonated and when they explode they send out smaller munitions or 'bomblets' to cover a large area and cause maximum damage to buildings and (sadly) people in the surrounding area.  A convention was signed and ratified by 108 and 60 states respectively in Dublin in 2008 that came into force in 2010 to ban the use of these weapons because of the cripplingly destructive nature of them to innocent people. It has long been known that bankers and investment companies have links with weapons manufacturers.  How else would the Western World be able to accuse people of having weapons unless they actually fund/sell the weapons to them in the first pl...

It has emerged that Andy Coulson was paid a six figure pay out by News International when he left and this was paid in instalments while he was being paid by the Tories.  Not only this, but he had a company car from them and access to their health care.  It also transpires that he was having his legal fees paid by NI until last year when he left the Tories. This is all a conflict of interest and apparently may count as an unregistered contribution to the Conservatives.  The sort of information he would have been privvy too raises a huge amount of questions as to whether or not Coulson was passing on information.  How this could not have flagged up is beyond me and probably any other right thinking person. The Tories claim that they did not know that Coulson was receiving any payments from NI while working for them.  Can they be serious?  Why were no checks done on this?  Coulson caused controversy from the moment he was employed by the Tories....

When I left college six years ago I was excited to be going off to university.  The university I was going to was brilliant and building a good reputation after becoming a stand alone uni from somewhere else.  There were pleanty of places at the uni and I know that many people were able to get in as an insurance choice or clearing.  This week, that same university is having to turn away even some insurance places and there is no chance of it going into clearing. Yes the reputation of this particular uni is even better now than it was before, but the reason this uni and so many like it are inundated with applicants this year is because more people are determined to attend before the fees go up in 2012.  This is the main issue, but the figures are just crazy. Currently there are 189,992 A-Level students eligible for 29,409 vacancies.  There is no chance that the majority of these people will be able to get into uni this year and they may be put off by higher f...

George (who from now on will be called Gideon...look it up) Osborne is apparently surprised that the economy has stalled.  He is surprised that there are thousands more unemployed than before.  Why? There is a problem that public services are being cut and therefore people are losing their jobs.  These people are all becoming redundant and this is contributing to unemployment figures.  Then there are the private sector jobs that have all been lost, these people also cotribute to the unemployment figures.  The public sector workers were supposed to take all the private sector surplus jobs, but there are not even jobs for the people even in the private sector.  Then there is the case that there are people like my boyfriend who graduated a couple of years ago, but have so far only been able to get part time work, so they are not earning full time. Gideon's other big plan was to raise VAT.  This I still do not understand.  If you want to ensure gr...

Over the weekend David Starkey was quoted as saying that the riots were a part of  'black culture'.  What on earth does that even mean?  He claimed that white teenagers had adopted the black, Caribbean patois and as a result had effectively lessened their chances in life.  He was also banging on about Enoch Powell being right when he originally said immigration would lead to 'rivers of blood'.  I can't even begin to establish how much this angered me.  I mean honestly.  There were a mixture of factors that led to the rioting.  It included; lack of trust in the police, poor education, poor parenting (in a minority of cases) and general opportunism!  It certainly did not seem to me that it was a result of 'black culture'.  In fact you cannot say that when almost all the people I have seen leaving court have been from white households and the ones who have spoken have not done so in that fake Caribbean way.  There have been millionai...

I do not claim to be an economist, but I do take an interest in what is going on around me in terms of the recent economic news.  (Disclaimer is done...) On with the opinion.  Well not so much the opinion rather an open questions to others.  Now you can correct me if I am wrong, but am I right in remembering that it was predicted around 10-15 years ago that the Western World would cease to be the super powers in terms of the economy?  I know there is an exception in the fact that Germany appears to be doing rather well, all things considered, but the rest of Europe and the USA appears to have gone down that route.  It is a strange thing, but I only remembered this first thing this morning.  I know that even China has had its wobbles and so have other parts of Asia, but India and China appear to be doing rather well by comparison.  This was all predicted, along with a potential crash so long ago.  Why then are we so surprised by this?