The NatWest Three

My mate isn’t the only person in the country angry about the NatWest Three, but he does wonder that some people seem to be angry about the wrong things.  We are talking about three guys who are being shipped off to another continent without a shred of evidence presented against them.  In comparison to that, lots of things sound pretty irrelevant like:

• Where they’re being shanghaied too.
• What you think of the American justice system.
• Whether Americans can be shanghaied in the same way as British people can.

And frankly, whether or not they’re guilty.  Let’s be straight about this: my mate doesn’t care.  They’re British Citizens and deserve to be better treated than this by their own government.

If you really want to be scared, consider this: there’s something like twenty-five other countries with whom Britain has similar deals.

Charles Clarke tries to change the subject

So, Charles Clarke wants to make the rules on deporting prisoners tougher. How much tougher exactly? Turns out, all he's saying is that if a foreigner commits a crime, we should presume he should go. My mate may be being stupid, but what's wrong with the idea of letting the judges decide whether or not they think someone should be deported. And here's a crazy idea: how about someone from Immigration actually considers the case on its merits?

Actually, once you start on crazy ideas, they just keep coming: how about someone from Immigration actually turns up and bothers to do something? Maybe if they fixed that, we wouldn't have this problem. My mate hates stuff like this, the problem isn't foreigners, the problem is incompetence. Of course, Charles and Tony don't want to talk about that, because a conversation about competence isn't what they want to have right now.

Let's not forget, we're not actually talking about immigration right now. This isn't about jobs or benefit cheats. We're talking about getting rid of people that a judge, in full possession of the facts of the case, said was an undesireable we don't want on our shores. If these people had been even considered for deportation, there wouldn't even be a story. It's a joke, but not one that many people are going to find very funny.

Bird Flu hits Britain

So, bird flu has hit Britain. My mate reckons that's a good thing. We haven't had a decent food scare in ages. As always, it's not as if these things are actually scary. It's not like bird flu is easy to catch. Any idiot can tell you that there's a vast difference between a disease birds catch and a disease humans catch.
So, there's no danger. Unless, of course, British people are vastly more likely to eat bird shit than people, in which case we've got a disaster on our hands. My mate isn't too fussed by this possibility. Of course, if he owned a chicken farm, he'd probably be terrified by now.
A friend of a friend says that the world is overdue a real killer flu. My mate still wants him to explain what on Earth "overdue" means.