Thursday 20 June 2013

'A Fleeting Moment'

The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, seems to have got himself in a bit of a pickle over his choice of words.

Earlier this morning, on LBC 97.3, the Deputy PM was asked is he would have intervened if he had been a witness to the incident between TV Chef Nigella Lawson and husband Charles Saatchi.

Mr Clegg's answer was: "You are asking me to comment on photographs everyone has seen in the papers - we don't know if it was a fleeting moment, so I'd rather not comment"

Now, I am certainly not Mr Clegg's biggest fan, but I'm hoping for his sake, it was just a case of choosing the wrong words.

To me a fleeting moment is raising your voice, or swearing, a fleeting moment isn't placing my hands around someones neck.

It's not the first Clegg has been in hot water this year thanks to Lord Rennard, who sexually harassed some Liberal Democrats' members, and even though he received the complaints about Lord Rennard, he didn't do much about it at the time.

I have to say I am completely shocked at Mr Clegg's response on LBC, especially as the leader of the Liberal Democrat, the party who wants equality for all, and the way he handled the Lord Rennard case before it came to the public's attention.

It seems to me Clegg doesn't want to treat everyone as equal, especially woman, to me, he comes across as a man who likes women as lovers, rather than colleagues and friends.

If I were Nick Clegg, I'd be doing everything in my power to prove otherwise right now.

Tuesday 4 June 2013

350 mile bike ride

On Monday the 27th May to the 2nd June I cycled from Paris to London with Help for Heroes, an event and charity I think politicians should probably get involved in, and not on a political stance, but on a moral one, so that they realise what war can do to our men and women.

I met some courageous people on this ride, and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world.

I met a triple amputee, double amputees, and single amputees, also met silver medalist paralypian Jon-Allen Butterworth.

When my shoulders and knees were starting to give way, or my backside hurt to the point I wanted to stop, a hand cyclist would pass me, and boy oh boy did it motivate me to keep going.

I think all politicians, especially leaders, should spend a day with these people, and ask them how they feel about the war in Afghanistan, and Iraq, ask them if we should intervene in Syria, ask them how it felt to lose their limbs because of 'their' decisions.

Tony Blair, and now David Cameron, have both tried to emulate Margaret Thatcher's glorious victory in The Falklands, and have both failed dramatically.

There is one reason why they have failed: All glory, no real reason for going out there.


I have to say meeting the wounded soldiers, some were from Canada and America, none of them said they regretted joining the armed forces, and were proud of their achievements, and so am I.

Blair and Cameron don't give off the same amount of pride of our armed forces that Thatcher did, and maybe they should spend sometime with these men and women without camera's, without any advisers, just them and our wounded heroes, and hear their voices, hear their words of pain, hear what they have put them through, or might put them through.

No politics, no camera, no advisers, just their ears and compassion, maybe they'd feel differently towards war.