Sunday Posts

Speechwriters never get the credit they deserve, but they have changed the course of history more than once. The metaphor of an 'iron curtain' or the uncertain promise of a 'tryst with destiny' etched in people's minds a concept that would become permanent by the power of imagery, even if the reality may have suggested otherwise. Fast forward to the society of ours where sound bites and TRP points trump any real experience, the speech writers are enjoying unprecedented powers to change destinies of nations: This comes with a huge responsibility that most are not even aware of.  So, for the future speechwriters, following the case of the person who would have made the Leader of the Conservative Party in Britain, David Cameron, promise to bring down immigration to 'tens of thousands' might be beneficial. Exploiting the resentment about immigration when an open-door policy had resulted in a surge of migration to Britain and the economy had just turned sou...

I received a leaflet on post yesterday urging me to vote NO on the 5 th of May, helping to keep Britain's First Past The Post voting system intact. There is a photo of runners on the finishing line, and the message that under AV, the person coming second may be the winner. Like everything in today's Britain, it is an appeal to my fear: It is based on the assumption that I can be fooled, and misled easily. This informative video from BBC will tell anyone that AV is not about the losers winning, which the right-wingers are trying to establish, but about public having more choice, elections producing results and candidates winning fairly and squarely. It is giving the public more say and MPs less to play with. It will reduce the premium on the kind of dishonest politics of fear that the NO camp is playing. I shall argue that AV reflects the realities of political life in the modern times. Rarely, it is a straightforward choice between two clear alternatives, but many shades of ...

I claim I can talk about what Britishness means with some sort of authority. It is always easier to talk about something seen from outside - I was not born British and only settled in Britain later in life - as, from that perspective, only the really distinguishable characteristics can be seen. For a nation, if Britain can be said to be one, it is a collection of people with individual characteristics from inside; from outside, the common eccentricities stand out and define the collective. All this is very relevant after David Cameron let the penny drop now and said that Muslims in Britain must learn Britishness . Now, it will be his responsibility to explain what it is, and he should get cracking possibly after he finished explaining his last big concept - great society - to the public. One can indeed make light of his recent statement and say that he was only trying to please Angela Merkel , the German Chancellor, who recently said Multi- culturalism has failed in Germany. David Ca...