Trayvon Martin

I must confess that I did not follow the whole court case. However there are some things in this case that really stand  out to me. 

Firstly, I believe that the prosecution over reached itself. As I do not believe it was murder case but more like manslaughter and if the prosecution had gone with the  manslaughter charge maybe they would have secured a conviction.

Secondly now that George Zimmerman has been found not guilty he is now apparently allowed to get his gun back. Now if this is really the case then rest assured as soon as the dust as settled on this case George Zimmerman will try his luck  again and claim self defence.

Thirdly Trayvon Martin did not come from the "perfect family" I.e. married parents and 2.3 children and he may not have been the perfect teenager. But he should be afforded the same rights as every other human being in the US.

I remember the 1990s was not good for race relations in the US it was the Rodney King case  and the UK it was the Stephen Lawrence case. 

I for one do not want to go back to those days where the legal system was seen as biased against people of colour.

I was hoping that both the UK and the US had moved on but it is cases like Trayvon Martin case that make me realise that we have not really moved on.

However I continue to be cautiously optimistic that as awful as the verdict sounds for people of colour. We have  to continue to believe that legal system works for us well. If people of colour stop believing in the legal system it would not help our cause.

Lastly George Zimmerman maybe legally free but in his mind he will never be free as ultimately it was his gun that ended Trayvon Martin's life.

PMQ review 10/07/13

Today's PMQ's was all about party funding and Ed Milliband did not hesitate ask David Cameron questions about Tory funding. David Cameron sidestepped most of Ed Milliband's questions and instead focused on how much political influence unions have on the Labour Party.

As it is questions to the Prime Minister it was evident that David Cameron had not answered any of the questions put him by Ed Milliband and therefore Ed Milliband was the clear winner. My problem with focusing the entire PMQ's on funding is that voters have real concerns about their jobs and standard of living.

Tory backbenches also asked questions about Britain's influence in the EU and the unions. Whilst Labour backbenchers asked about Tory donators like JCB allegedly  having influence over policy. I sincerely hope that  in the last PMQ of the year next week Ed will go back to fighting the rights of squeezed middle and leave David Cameron to talk about union influences.

However for this week it was imperative that Ed Millliband stood firm on this issue of union donations and even suggesting a cap of £5000 on political donations because if he hadn't then Tories would have accused him of being indecisive and weak.

 It remain to be seen whether fighting about donations moves votes either way however what Ed Milliband doesn't need is voter antipathy as this will discourage them from going to the polls and voting in 2015.

Ed Milliband Union Reform

Ed Milliband made a historic speech yesterday on the Labour Party links with the unions. I applaud Ed for taking this initiative especially as it could have some serious financial implications. It shows that Ed is not afraid to take on challenges no matter how serious they are.

If Ed wants to be the next PM he has to be seen as a man that has no fear when it comes to taking on challenges. The fact that Ed's speech was applauded by both Tony Blair and Len McCLuskey goes to show that Ed is working hard to unite the different factions of the Labour Party.

As Ed is aware that if he did not take the initiative then David Cameron would have seized on this opportunity and would have described him as weak and an ineffective leader. Now I hope that  Ed will take the real argument about party donations to David Cameron.

Prime Minister's Questions review 03/07/13

Today PMQ's started off fairly nicely with Ed Milliband asking about the UK government responses to the clashes in Egypt. David Cameron provided a nice considered response about how the government was liaising with the Egyptian government and how President Obama had spoken to President Morsi.

However when Ed Milliband asked David Cameron about primary school places that's when Cameron became defensive and started his usual "its all Labour's fault". Today Cameron went a step further and most of his responses to the Labour MPs was embedded with "they are all here because of Len McCluskey"

Cameron responses were a little interesting at first but then just got repetitive and boring and he came across to me as quite desperate as well. Cameron is clearly gearing up for the next election and he thinks that it can be fought on painting Ed Milliband as a die had trade unionist.

Cameron was asked various questions ranging from food banks to bedroom tax and his standard response was either it is all Labour's fault or the Unite union is pulling the strings of the Labour party.

I thought Ed Milliband did quite well today in raising issues that are affecting families up and down the country. Whilst David Cameron does not come across as a man who understand the daily struggles of families in the UK.

Spending Review 2013

The coalition government has two more years in power before the next general election. The economic situation in the UK is serious as unemployment stands at 2.4 million and growth is about 0.3% annually.

In 2010 David Cameron promised that he would be able to balance the budget by 2015. Now in 2013 Cameron has yet to admit that the deficit is actually going up and not down.

George Osborne’s spending reviewing included the following:

·         No more welfare cuts.

·         People currently claiming job seekers allowance would now need visit the job centre on a weekly basis.

·          Making it prerequisite for new claimants who do not speak English to learn it.

·         Automatic pay increases in the public sector would also come to an end 

·         Increase the number of free schools.

Mr Osborne has spent the last three years tackling the deficit and yet it is widely known that the UK deficit has risen. By this time next year it will be abundantly clear to all whether or not Mr Osborne economic policy has been successful. Which in turn will determine whether or not this coalition government will be re-elected in May 2015.  

Prime Minister's Questions

In this weeks PMQ's Ed Milliband mainly focused his attack on the lack of banking regulation. Whilst David Cameron claimed that Labour had done nothing to regulate the banks when in power.

However the most interesting point of this weeks PMQ was when a Labour  MP asked David Cameron what he was going to do about the rise in child poverty.

Mr Cameron responded that he was trying to reduce the national debt. At this point Speaker Bercow interrupted and told Cameron that he was going to move on to the next question as he (the Speaker) not responsible for the national debt.

It's the first time I have seen the Speaker tell off David Cameron and Cameron looked very embarrassed. 

So PMQ's this week was not a classic but Speaker Bercow telling off David Cameron made it a little more interesting.

PMQ's review

I was a little disappointed in PMQ’s  this week as I thought that Ed did well last week but he was little too cautious today. However Cameron was in full flash man mode today and even to the point that his attacks on Ed Miliband started to sound like he was laying the ground work for the general election. 

Cameron was courteous when it came to discussing Syria but that soon disappeared once Ed started talking about the standard of living in the UK going down.  Then Cameron went on the attack and again and started obsessing about Ed Balls and the deficit. From a policy point of view I hope that the UK does not arm the Syrian rebels as this happened with Afghanistan in the 1980s and look how that ended up!

As for the standard of living, where I live you just have to look around to see how these government cuts are affecting everyone and three years ago I had never heard of food banks now I see them advertised in the local shops. So PMQ’s left me feeling a little unfulfilled this week but I’m hoping Ed will do better next week.