Updates from India: Updates from India 70

Not many photos this month but will try harder next month.

Please read the comments below, we both feel so strongly that our country is sinking into totalitarianism.

What is happening to the UK?

Those who know me will wonder have I gone all right wing here, no I have not. But I am deeply concerned for the UK, and what it is becoming.

Is there freedom of speech in the UK?

Eamon O'Kelly Jan 11, 2016

No, the UK no longer has freedom of speech. Paul Mainwood lists in his answer many of the types of restrictions that government may now impose on speech in the UK. I would like to supplement this by providing some examples of actual, recent cases in which disfavoured speech was subject to criminal investigation and/or prosecution:

An atheist was convicted for placing sexually explicit images of religious figures in the Liverpool Airport prayer room. Atheist guilty over cartoons left at Liverpool airport

Five Muslim men were tried in Derby for distributing anti-gay leaflets. The Crime of Leafleting

A student was sentenced to jail time for posting racist comments on twitter while drunk. British Freedom of Speech Endangered

A Scottish TV personality was subject to criminal investigation for on-air remarks during the Ebola crisis. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-30641705

A college diversity officer (oh, the irony!) was prosecuted for anti-white comments. Silly English Woman Is Being Charged for Tweeting Rude Things

A reality TV star (whatever that is) was convicted for advocating the killing of children born with Down Syndrome. Tv star who said anyone with Down's Syndrome should be 'put down' faces jail

A singer was arrested for performing "Kung Fu Fighting" at a beach bar on the Isle of Wight. Man arrested for singing 'Kung Fu Fighting'

These criminal enforcement actions cannot be redeemed by saying that they involved speech that is "offensive." The whole point of "free speech" is that it protects expression that the majority of people disagree with or find offensive. There is rarely any demand for banning inoffensive speech.

Which gets us to a second problem: Who defines what is "offensive"? In an age that is characterized by "trigger warnings" and "safe spaces," almost everything is at risk of offending someone with a sufficiently thin skin. The "Kung Fu Fighting" case illustrates this perfectly (well, perhaps the song offends against musical good taste, but that's a different issue!).

It is the situation in the UK, then, that almost anything you say could cause you to be subject to a criminal investigation, prosecution, and possible imprisonment, as long as someone, somewhere decides to be offended by it. It does not matter that most people can get away with offensive remarks without being hauled into court; as long as some people are investigated or charged (and these actions are made public), then everyone will be moved to self-censor to some extent. As further reports of criminal investigations and prosecutions surface, this "chilling effect" becomes increasingly acute.

Neither does it matter that in many of these investigations the defendant is never charged or, if charged, is not convicted. For most law-abiding people, the stress and expense of defending against criminal charges, as well as the damage to reputation and career, will be punishment enough. In short, to suppress free speech, the sacrifice of just a few Muslim leafleters or drunken twitterers will suffice pour encourager les autres.

The UK no longer has freedom of speech.

Some other posters have contrasted the current speech regime in the UK with that in the US, where freedom of speech is protected by the First Amendment. It is important to recall that when the American colonists rebelled against Great Britain, they were motivated by what they saw as the suppression by a tyrannical government of their ancient rights and liberties as Britons. Foremost among these were freedom of speech and religion. In the debates surrounding the adoption of the constitution, advocates both pro- and anti- appealed to the authority of British free speech traditions and thinkers such as John Wilkes and John Stuart Mill. The so-called anti-federalists were concerned that the proposed constitution did not go far enough to protect the people's traditional British rights. It was to mollify such objections that the first amendment to the constitution expressly protected the freedoms of speech, religion, association, and the right to assemble peaceably.

The modern concept of free speech originated in Great Britain. It was exported to the colonies, whence it spread (however imperfectly) to other parts of the world. It should be a cause for universal concern that free speech is now being strangled in the land that once was its cradle.

Tommy Robinson why he was arrested? Source Fb Tommy Robinson.

The judge stated that Tommy reading the names of the defendants was contempt of court and risked the trial collapsing.

Tommy read the list in the livestream from a BBC article which was already out in the public domain. The list of defendants is publicly available on the court website! If you search google for that particular case you will find pictures and details of the suspects already printed by nearly every national UK newspaper. So what did Tommy do exactly that nearly every other reporter has not already done?

You have to ask yourself the question - why would one reporter outside a court case reading a charge sheet already publicly available across a number of sources suddenly risk collapsing the case?

Have you ever heard of another case where someone was arrested, tried, sentenced and transferred to prison all within the space of 3 hours? No, because it has never happened before.

Is this our Britain anymore? I may not agree with what someone says but I will defend the right to say it. If it offends then I'm sorry but it seems to me that if you say ‘you have got big feet’ someone will be offended. Our society has become super left super delicate and wrong! Will it help if I say I'm offended by the behaviour of our government?

Homelessness.

About homelessness, 57,890 households were accepted as homeless in England

Homelessness is devastating, dangerous and isolating. Source Crisis UK

On average, homeless people die at just 47 years old.

People sleeping on the street are almost 17 times more likely to have been victims of violence. More than one in three people sleeping rough have been deliberately hit or kicked or experienced some other form of violence whilst homeless.

Homeless people are over nine times more likely to take their own life than the general population.

What causes homelessness?

People become homeless for lots of different reasons. There are social causes of homelessness, such as a lack of affordable housing, poverty and unemployment; and life events which cause individuals to become homeless.

People can become homeless when they leave prison, care or the army with no home to go to. Many homeless women have escaped a violent relationship.

Many people become homeless because they can no longer afford the rent.

And for many, life events like a relationship breaking down, losing a job, mental or physical health problems, or substance misuse can be the trigger. Being homeless can, in turn, make many of these problems even harder to resolve.

How many people are homeless?

There is no national figure for how many people are homeless across the UK. This is because homelessness is recorded differently in each nation, and because many homeless people do not show up in official statistics at all.

Government street counts and estimates give a snapshot of the national situation. The latest figures showed that 4,751 people slept rough across England on any given night in 2017 - a 15% increase compared to the previous year, and more than double the amount in 2010.

Last year 57,890 households were accepted as homeless in England. In Scotland, 34,100 applications were assessed as homeless and in Wales 9,210 households were threatened with homelessness.

Food banks, The Trussell trust November 2017

586,907 three day emergency food supplies given to people in crisis in first half of this year, a 13% increase on the same period last year – 208,956 to children

Foodbanks in areas of full Universal Credit rollout for six months or more have seen a 30% average increase six months after rollout compared to a year before

Foodbanks report serious effects of six-plus week waiting period, poor administration and inability of the current advance payment system to support everyone on no income.

IS THIS THE BRITAIN YOU WANT?

Comments by Kris

May has been an interesting month, my birthday and our wedding anniversary, we plan to go out for a meal to celebrate later in the month when we can both relax and enjoy. The restaurant will be Wok by the Lake which serves authentic Chinese food and is very good, been before so know its yummy.

Prior to leaving the UK to move to India Chris made me a promise, that when we got settled and had some spare cash I could have a bathtub fitted in our home. Yey

The solar water heater has arrived

Well at long last we have a bathtub fitted, bathroom needs completing and tub needs to be boxed in but it is very useable. We have solar water heating on the roof and I never thought I’d say this but we have more than enough hot water for two or three baths a day at least. The best of it is the water is free, heated by the sun. We're having to put a cage around it to protect it when the monkeys jump over it on the roof

The large box is my bathtub

Solar water heater on roof

Solar water heater complete with a monkey cage

The first bath water was run and I had to wait over one and a half hours for it to cool down so I could use it the water is just that hot. We have a tiny en-suite bathroom so fitting a bath in it was always going to be a challenge, but Chris and a friend-sourced just the right tub for me. I can lounge in the bath and soak all my pain away its great.

I also received another gift from Chris a plastic duck and ducklings to go in the bath, a bit twee but now I have them I love them to bits. The dogs are not so sure especially when I make them squeak, they just don’t know what to make of them, very suspicious and nervous at the moment

The wood is to rest my bathtub on as it does
not come with any other fixtures

New shower so I can wash my hair in the bath

I was so excited to get in the bath at this point and
it was worth the wait, so relaxing

We plan to have Chris’s sister Amba and the family over on Sunday for food and drinks so that will be fun. 5 adults, 5 kids, 2 dogs and my 6 chickens should prove interesting. At the moment the kids all want to come with Amba when she visits so it will be nice to have them all here at once. We may put the sprinkler onto the garden so they can play in the water as its still mega hot here. There maybe incriminating photos in the next blog watch out Chris I may set the hose pipe on you for a change.

I keep thinking it’s that time of year when the exam results are out and people are applying for schools, colleges, universities and possibly jobs.

Does education matter, well emphatically I will say Yes but we have to accept that some people and kids will always be creative and practical rather than academic. I want to remind all parents that we should love and support the kids whatever their ability, and not place them under too much pressure to be something they are not. For many kids can’t take the pressure and may think the only way out is to kill themselves. Please don’t let your kids be in that position. I pray we value our children’s unique abilities, help them where we can but support them in their decisions and choices in life. I do believe emphatically in Education, but as a creative person I am lucky that I was into academics too which is quite rare, but I respect those that are purely artistic or practical also. I will always encourage our students to do their best and help where I can, but mental health is just as important as general health.