Friday, July 09, 2010
by Daily Sport
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THERE was good news and bad news this week about the failing military efforts in Afghanistan. The good news is our troops are being withdrawn from the super-risky Sangin region and the government WILL bring all our troops back. The very bad news is that this won’t happen for five years! This is ridiculous. Whatever Ministers think they’re going to achieve with troops there, they need to realise we’re on a hiding to nothing. How can anyone seriously think we’re going to win in a country which no one has conquered, apart from the Afghans themselves? In effect, we have doomed our long-suffering soldiers to waging war in a hell hole against an opponent which can’t be killed and can’t be beaten. I’m proud Daily Sport has led the call for the return of our troops. Don’t be fooled by the hype you’ll get in some other papers which claim we’re making progress. When I speak to soldiers, they don’t feel we’re going to vanquish an adversary which just can’t be found and destroyed. Now we’ve all agreed our boys and girls need to get home, let’s get on with it. There’s no chance of victory —but a guarantee of more deaths.
AS the government grapples with drug abuse they have decided another “legal high”, NRG-1, should be banned. Like mephedrone, they reckon this potion can harm your health. For goodness sake, where will this all end? Is the Establishment going to simply keep banning every new substance as it comes along? Also, how serious are the health risks? Is it worse than smoking, or booze? I’ve long supported a change in law so hard drugs are provided on prescription. We should regulate other drugs instead of automatically banning them. After all, the most popular drug — alcohol —does far more damage to people, families and society than any of these others. And we don’t call the people who dispense your local tipple, pushers. We call them “barmaids.” Instead of running around trying to ban all these drugs, we need to grow up and educate people to understand the implications. You can’t stop folk doing silly things, but we have to accept that in a free country people have the right to make daft decisions. The right thing to do is protect others from the consequences. But trying to control drug abuse by banning them is like trying to make people less angry by banning shouting. Ministers ought to think again.
I BUMPED into that likeable fellow Ken Livingstone the other day. He’s one of the guys I could be up against if I end up standing for Mayor of London. Ken shook hands with me and said “ah, the enemy!” Pah! I’m nothing of the sort! Ken and I have known each other for years. We get on fine. By the way, some people accuse “Red Ken” of being as bad as the Devil himself. It’s nonsense. Whatever your political views. I think you’d really like him if you met him socially. So no, Ken, I’m not the enemy — I’m just a mate after the same job as you. May the best man win!
HOW do you make people angry for no reason? Tell them they’re not going to suffer government cuts — and then change your mind. That’s what happened when Education Minister Michael Gove announced the axing of around 700 school projects. There was also a list of projects which would go ahead. The only thing is, that 10 of those aren’t! That riled the schools who thought they’d been saved, but hadn’t. As a result, Minister Gove was told to apologise in person for the cock-up. Welcome to the world of the cuts. The error was actually smaller news than the fact seven hundred projects are being axed. I’ve said before, and I’ll say again, that when all this begins to happen in your area to your local services, you’ll be tempted to get tetchy about it. Hold your fire for now. This is going to happen —again and again. If you think the schools cuts are bad, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.
LAST weekend I participated in one of the strangest food TV programmes ever. 50 of us turned up and got fed… rubbish! The food had been prepared with stuff the cooks had found in bins — and frankly, it was rather good. Amazingly, we toss away 20 million tons of food a year in the UK. It’s crazy — but we all do it. Almost half the food we chuck out hasn’t even been taken out of the packet The message of the programme is simple — chill out about “Best Before” dates, and use your common sense about when food really is good to go. As an act of defiance, I ate a packet of anchovies which was Best Before September 2004 — and I didn’t die. Since I’m “between jobs” at the moment, perhaps I could save a few bob by trying the same trick. So if you see me looking into bins, I’m not mad. It just means Jane Louise Atherton is coming over for dinner.
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