news in briefs – The Daily Opinion

Film Review: The Longest Day (and a D-Day Remembrance)

It’s fitting that I bring this movie up now because as I’m sure anyone who’s watched the news or read a newspaper this last week will realise, today is the 70th anniversary of this most indelible event.

6 June 1944. D-Day. The commencement of the Normandy landings and the subsequent Allied invasion of Normandy. It remains the largest seaborne invasion in history and it led to the restoration of the French Republic and the defeat of Nazi Germany.

With even the youngest of veterans from the Normandy campaign now being in their late 80s, it’s perhaps little wonder that the number of those making the pilgrimage across the channel this year for the 70th anniversary has prompted the Normandy Veterans Association to declare this their final official commemoration of the event. It plans to disband in November owing to dwindling numbers and the increased difficulty of its remaining members to travel. The association, which was set up in the 1980s, had 16,000 members by the 1990s however, five years ago that number had fallen to around 4,500 and now the number is closer to 600. And while this is sad but ultimately inevitable, I don’t imagine it will be the end of our commemorating this epic undertaking. And epic it was.

While The Longest Day may be a flawed movie, it does a fair job of depicting the scale of the operation. It was, after all, a multi-national effort on behalf of the Allies and required careful coordination between all three branches of the armed forces, as well as the French resistance networks. There are many threads running through the near three hour run time showing us as much detail of the operation as time allows. We see numerous individual companies and battalions tasked with their own objectives, the success of each one vital to the next. We see the efforts of the Resistance putting explosives to good use and we also get a perspective from the German side which shows us that some incompetence on their part undoubtably contributed to the final outcome. The truth is (and this is where there are literally hundreds of fascinating individual stories), if it weren’t for a whole host of other factors such as sabotage by the Resistance, misinformation (planned by an organisation called the London Controlling Section) and bad decision making by the Nazis the outcome could have been very different.

Indeed to properly appreciate the complexities of the battle of Normandy would mean to remember everything (and everyone involved) that happened from the moment a cross channel invasion had been given the go ahead at the Trident Conference in Washington in May 1943 to the Liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944.

But this film is limited to the 6th June. D-Day. The Longest Day.

One of the film’s tag-lines reads – 42 International Stars!

And it’s not difficult to name them as they appear on screen – Henry Fonda, Robert Ryan, John Wayne, Richard Burton, Sean Connery…etc, etc. The list really does go on. And on.

But for me, the stars (and let’s not forget some of them actually fought in WWII) are less important than the story itself. Having said that, if you want to watch a serious account of D-Day, you’ll really have to watch a documentary of which I’m sure there are plenty. You could even go one step further and plan a visit, take in a museum or two and put yourself on the same ground that saw that terrible action all those years ago. Trust me, it meddles with your emotions.

Okay, so this is part film review and part a salute to what was undoubtably one of the most important operations of the entire Second World War. But a film review it is, so…

With the help of four other writers, The Longest Day was adapted for the screen by Cornelius Ryan from his own book of the same name which had been an instant hit upon release in 1959. Ryan was an Irish journalist and author of several books on World War II whose interest in the D-Day invasion began during a trip to Normandy in 1949. He also wrote A Bridge Too Far in 1974 which was given the movie treatment in ’77.

The Longest Day had no less than five directors, each responsible for a particular section. Ken Annakin directed the British and French exteriors, Andrew Marton, the American exteriors, Gerd Oswald, the parachute drop and Bernard Wicki, the German scenes. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck was an uncredited fifth director.

Because it was made only 18 years after the actual events portrayed, many of those who participated were still alive and therefore the producers employed several generals and high-ranking officers from both sides as military consultants. Curiously, one of them was Lucie Rommel, widow of Erwin Rommel. It won Oscars for Black and White Cinematography and Special Effects and was nominated thrice more.

The film divides opinion. Some like it, some loathe it. There are others movies (and an excellent HBO TV series) that depict D-Day and they may be more explicit and graphic in their action but they aren’t as concentrated on that fateful day and therefore don’t quite capture the immensity of the event.

That these 80 and 90 year old heroes continue to return to the northern shores of France, to the scenes that shaped the rest of their lives and likely still haunt their dreams is nothing short of inspiring. Many of them are accompanied by their families and friends, younger people who will hopefully keep the spirit of the campaign alive for generations to come.

Yesterday a TV reporter asked one of the veterans why he feels the need to keep coming back and as the old soldier’s voice cracked and his eyes pooled, he replied that he comes back to pay his respects to the friends that fell beside him and all those others who didn’t make it home.

God bless them all.

News in Briefs 24/06/12

Greek elections bringing about pretty much the same stuff as before, education changes, coalition splits, more chuntering from Ed Miliband, and a Syrian Civil War that people have stopped caring about. It’s been a busy week so it’s time to get started. Although I hope this column won’t include most of that stuff, if I’m lucky!

Political Oops of the Week

Away from Syria and the same old stuff from the Eurozone, we now move to Egypt once again. It’s been a long time since much of relevance happened in Egypt, but after the military rulers dissolved the entire parliament last weekend things started to move forward again. So this week they then introduced new powers for themselves. To put it simply, they can now control the budget, implement new legislation (as governed by themselves), and the president now doesn’t really exist in any real capacity despite the fact the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood won fair and square.

This pretty much reminds me of how most dictatorships are created. The military tends to always back a dictator and this is how they do it. The only difference is that the military happens to have a ruler from its own brotherhood, as opposed to an outsider leading it.

On the plus side, at least that bed-ridden bastard Mubarak is about to go to the great hospital bed on Satan’s right nipple.

The Painful…

This was quite a recent YouGov poll conducted in the US. It basically said that 63% of all high level Republicans still believe that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) when they invaded it in 2003. This was compared to 15% of Democrats. So you’re telling me that the most powerful country in the Western world should be governed by a party like the Republicans who have a majority of people that believe that WMDs existed in Iraq in 2003? And this is despite the fact that solid evidence consisting of first-hand accounts are arguing for the opposite.

I don’t like to believe that all Americans are complete and utter morons, but the politicians certainly are. Not only do they operate a system that favours only the multi-millionaires, due to the lack of any controls on campaign spending, but it’s an example that a lot of rich people really do live sheltered lives. I hope for the sake of the entire Western world that Obama receives a second term in the White House. But the problem is I honestly do think that he will get voted out, and we will all be left regretting that.

…And the Pointless

Zimbabwean MPs have decided to undergo circumcision as part of a campaign to reduce the prevalence of AIDS in the country. In 2009 Unicef reported that around 14% of the adult population had either HIV or full-blown AIDS. I can understand that the National Trust says that you can reduce AIDS by up to 60% by getting circumcised. However, what gets me is how we prevent the same problem in the West. We don’t mutilate our own cocks in order to prevent it. It just seems to be extreme and unnecessary. Surely a better idea to reduce those Unicef statistics would be to just use a little common sense and just stop having so much sex with strangers? Those statistics will go down by themselves if people just use a little responsibility and common sense.

Oh wait, common sense is in short supply these days isn’t it?

The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

Jimmy Carr is the subject of this section this week as his story really is fitting. Let’s look at the facts. Jimmy Carr utilises a legal yet slightly unethical loophole to bring his tax bill down to single figures, when realistically it should be nearer 50%. For those who don’t understand how he did this, I’ll explain the general process. This scheme, which many figures like the members of Take That are using, is all about creating an off-shore company. The way it works is that they send the money to the company and they then have it loaned back to them immediately. When it comes to loans there’s no tax attached to them so he’s essentially getting the same amount of money without paying any tax at all.

So this week he apologised. I watched his shows and he did get heckled quite a bit, but the most surprising thing is that he was actually being cheered for everything despite the fact that what he did was still blatantly wrong. He never had to pay back any of this money and now the matter is supposedly closed.

It really does amaze me how fickle some people are. We’ll complain about bankers and multinational companies doing this sort of thing for hours and hours on end, but when Jimmy Carr does it then all it takes is a crap apology and that’s the end of the matter. Come on!

Anyway, maybe next week won’t be as bleak and irritating after all…

News in Briefs 17/06/12

Well this week was a week for keeping fear alive. I haven’t seen this much scaremongering since 9/11, and even that wasn’t talking about the global meltdown of the capitalist world. But it’s not a very good campaign of fear as I don’t really feel scared. I sort of feel like ‘meh’. And even in the face of all of these carefully constructed arguments for why we are on the precipice of destruction, I still find that I’m not that scared.

Political Oops of the Week

This week it has to be that old bitch Theresa May who has now unveiled plans for web monitoring. To put it simply, she wasn’t content with making the police force want to hang her from the Tower of London so she now decided to annoy every taxpayer. The plans will involve internet companies holding onto all email messages, web histories, and basically everything else that goes on on the internet for up to one year. In other words, she is part of the move for the state to take over the freedom of the internet.

The only defence she has given for this is that it will help stop crime. What a load of putrid donkey vomit! Those who carry out crime on the internet will easily find a way around it, and even those who are not dealing in crime will still find a way around it. Take a look at the ban they put on The Pirate Bay in the UK. I was around that ban within five minutes and I can still access that site now. All it will do is damage the privacy of the novice computer user. And in all honesty this obsession with crime is going too far as now we are sacrificing all privacy and all freedom in the name of the law. It’s just not worth it.

With any luck there will be such overwheming opposition when the bill eventually goes to parliament that it will be rejected like America’s latest SOPA act. Oh, and did I mention that these plans will cost the taxpayer £1.8 billion to implement?

The Painful…

There was a show called The Men Who Made Us Fat on BBC2 this week, and my god it just showed how deluded the large majority of people really are. Now, I’m not saying that you should start by going off to watch it and then you should come back and tell me what you think; there would be too much blank space on this blog whilst I wait. Just look at the title. It’s already blaming others for the fact that people are so fat these days. If everybody was fat then that would be perfectly acceptable and it would be somebody else’s fault, but it’s not.

The fact is that lots of people managed to stay fit and healthy, so why not everybody else? We really have to start taking some responsibility for ourselves as we have blamed others for too long. A few years ago we blamed McDonalds for making our kids fat. No, it’s your fault your kids got fat because the only way they can get that food is if you got it for them. “Oh but what if my kids got it on the way home from school?” Well they obviously got the money from you in the first place. If your kids are fat then it’s your fault because you’re a bad parent. End of discussion.

It really is painful to still see the media and so many others blaming the people who make the food. Haven’t they heard of supply and demand? If there’s a demand then they’ll keep making it, and that’s what they are doing. You don’t have to buy it.

…And the Pointless

This week Tony Blair came back into the news whilst he was in Hong Kong giving a lecture on faith and globalisation at the Hong Kong University. He made the news because Tom Grundy, a 29-year-old Briton living in the country, attempted a citizen’s arrest on the former PM. Of course, he only really managed to heckle him as his men and a crowd of photographers kept him a few meters away from the stage, but he said the move was symbolic.

Regardless of how you feel about the Iraq War, you can’t help but think that it was a completely pointless and half-arsed attempt at doing something. People won’t remember this move a few weeks from now at all. In fact, he (Blair) probably couldn’t care less either. People need to start letting these things go because no government has declared him a war criminal and he’s not a wanted man. If he’s not a wanted man then that’s the end of it. It might not be a popular decision, but that’s how it is no matter what anyone else thinks.

Although he did bring up a point about how his faith is meaningless since he angered the whole Muslim world. If he’s a Christian, which he is, then if he angered the entire Muslim world then surely history tells us that he should be made a saint?

The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

It has to be Euro 2012 and the fact that UEFA still think that holding the tournament in Ukraine and Poland was a good idea. Ok, I admit that the problems have mainly emanated from Poland, but neither country is free from blame. Let’s list just some of the problems that we have seen so far.

Before the tournament began the Dutch team were racially abused during their training session in front of 20,000 people.

Mario Balotelli racially abused in both of Spain’s games, as well as having a banana thrown onto the pitch.

Russian supporters attacked stewards and sent a few to hospital after their win against the Czech Republic in their first game.

Russian and Polish supporters fought running battles through Warsaw during Russia’s national day, as well as a flag that said: “This is Russia” somehow making it into the ground during the game.

Multiple flares thrown onto the pitch during Croatia’s game against Italy, which actually stopped the game for a few minutes.

And this is just the group stage of Euro 2012. We haven’t even made it to the end of that yet and only four teams have been officially eliminated so far. Surely this tells you that Eastern Europe isn’t yet fit to be hosting a major tournament. This is not racism on my part either, all of these incidents have been caused by supporters from Eastern Europe. It makes you wonder why so many Western supporters have refused to attend the tournament doesn’t it?

Anyway maybe next week won’t be so bleak and irritating after all…

News in Briefs 10/06/12

One story has dominated the news this week: Syria. So that means we had to dig under the media hype to find some other story to find some good content this week. The only thing I’m thankful for is that the Leveson Inquiry stayed away. Seriously, when does that damn thing end?

Political Oops of the Week

There’s only one winner this week. It has to be Syria. Ok so we’ve now had another Syrian massacre. Unsurprisingly, the government blamed armed terrorists for the plot, when really they should have been referring to themselves. However, this is not about the fact that we’ve seen another massacre, it’s everybody else’s attitude to it.

The UN once again demonstrated how inept it is by refusing to actually do anything more than monitor the situation and send the Syrian government angry letters. The only reason that they are not doing anything is because China and Russia don’t want to lose one of their major allies in the region. So why don’t they just do it anyway? Since when has the US cared about things like international law or doing what somebody else tells it to do? If the US decides to go into Syria then Europe will follow. What do they think is going to happen? Russia and China won’t start a war with the West over this. All they will do is send some angry letters.

Yes, China and Russia have massive armies but they’re inferior to the armies of the West. They know that and so does the West, and that’s why they won’t go to war over this. If they truly care about the Syrian massacre or anything else then they will grow some testicles and get in there. You can’t just join in as and when you feel like it, in the same way as they did in Libya. The UN really is like the old League of Nations organisation.

And before some smart-arse tries to tell me that this is a different Syrian massacre, I know.

The Painful…

For some painful news it has to be the racism storm circling the Euros. According to Dutch captain Van Bommel and a number of other players, there were monkey chants coming from the stands as they trained in front of a crowd of over 20,000 in Krakow. The painful thing is that some people in those countries were obviously dropped on their heads at birth. I’m especially surprised at Poland as you would think that after the Holocaust they would have had enough of racist views in society.

To make things even worse UEFA initially denied that there was a racism storm at all. They actually denied that any racism had occurred and that it must be the supporters voicing their displeasure at the fact that Krakow didn’t get any major Euro 2012 games. Now, although I can understand why such a major city would be upset, I don’t recall monkey chanting acting as a form of protest. But UEFA just made things worse when later on they admitted that it did happen and they were going to look further into it. So in other words nothing is going to happen at all.

…And the Pointless

Did you watch the Diamond Jubilee celebrations on the River Thames on Sunday? I did and I have to say what a massive disappointment it really was. I would have thought that the BBC would have tried to capture the essence of the event and explain actually what some of the boats were. Instead we got a load of airhead reporters talking to lots of irrelevant people watching it. It’s ok to talk to a few of them but why all the time? There’s nothing that they could possibly say that particularly adds to the coverage, and we were proved right.

“How do you feel, random bystander?”
“I’m so happy to be here, I camped out all night…blah…blah…blah.”
“Great, that means a whole lot to the people at home.”

Yes, we get it, some people are obsessive.

The reporters obviously had no idea what they were doing. They knew nothing about the boats or the history of them. In fact, the smartest person who appeared was an expert on London, and he only appeared for a few minutes. Either most people are now at the pinnacle of human stupidity as to warrant such dribble or the BBC thinks that people are now at the pinnacle of human stupidity. I’m not sure which one is right, however I do hope for the sake of the country that it’s the latter.

Queen Elizabeth — That about sums it up.

Although the Diamond Jubilee pageant did fizzle out about half way through as the Queen clearly became bored, it would have been better if we actually had some entertaining coverage. What shocks me is that all the people involved were praised by the company for their hard work and world class reporting.

The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

Have you heard about the Golden Dawn (Greek Nazi party) member who punched a communist politician on live TV this week? Well if you haven’t then to sum it all up the female communist politicians brought up the fact that he was accused of an armed bank robbery in 2007. At this he flipped, threw a glass of water over one of the women, and then gave the old one-two to the other one. I know that street thugs tend to always be street thugs but this is ridiculous.

Nazi flag — I joined Golden Dawn and all I got was this retarded swastika.

If you are a politician you have to learn to ride things out like that. Of course the women were trying to rile him by bringing that up, but that’s what politics is all about. The opposition will always try to rattle you. If you are so immature as to not be able to cope then you should go back to playschool as you are clearly not cut out for that sort of industry.

More importantly, why didn’t he simply say that he wasn’t convicted and that’s the end of the matter? He might have incredibly narrow-minded views but he’s not a convicted criminal, or at least he wasn’t until now.

Sort it out, meathead!

Anyway you never know, maybe next week won’t be so bleak and irritating after all…

News in Briefs 03/06/12

Seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twel…damn there’s a lot of boats on the River Thames today. I hope one of them doesn’t sink, although I admit that I do have my fingers crossed. Still, it’s better than listening to more garbage from a banker/politician/some random civilian. I just wish that the BBC would reveal to me the news for today.

Political Oops of the Week

This is going to sound awful, but I laughed at the Syria massacre this week. Now, I know what you’re thinking, but you are wrong. I wasn’t laughing at the fact that many people were slaughtered by armed terrorists, or as the rest of the world call it: the Syrian Government. I was laughing at the fact that the UN is so inept and is so useless that it’s laughable.

Instead of actually taking action this week all they did was repeatedly condemn it with meaningless words on the news channel, as well as promising action that will never come. But it’s not just because what happened this time, it’s because it happens all the time. If you are really so “outraged” then surely you should be doing something about it?

You know I consider this a political oops because it shadows the failed League of Nations from the early 20^th century. And we all know what happened when the failure of that organisation grew and grew. We ended up dealing with the single biggest conflict in human history. I’m not saying that the Syria massacre is going to cause that, but it really does highlight the failures of the organisation when it comes to actually enforcing its will across the globe.

Fire planet — This will be your fault, UN. Condemn that!

The Painful…

The fact that Piers Morgan hasn’t been assassinated yet, the unfortunate truth that people are starving all over the world, but nothing was more painful than what I had to witness on Saturday night. Yes, England v Belgium. That was perhaps the single most painful thing I’ve had to watch in very recent memory. If England honestly believe that they stand a chance against any relevant teams then they are sadly mistaken.

What the game last night showed was that sometimes football can be the most mind numbing experience on the planet. England simple held their shape and waited for Belgium to give them the ball, and when they had the ball they just passed it around without making many incisive movements. The only good part was the end as that’s when they actually decided to play football.

Crusader — That about sums up England's authenticity.

All England v Belgium showed was that the team is still weak. It’s still a team of individuals playing for themselves. And they are still inferior to many other countries on the planet. The English league might be the best league in the world, but that’s certainly not because of the English players.

…And the Pointless

We’ve all seen the story about the British woman who was caught smuggling cocaine in Indonesia; the Bali area to be exact. Rachel Dougall was the woman involved in this. She was arrested at the airport with over 4kg of cocaine in blocks, and that’s about £1.56m in street value. And all she could do was try to defend herself by saying that she did it for her sons who were under threat from bad people in Britain. Well boo hoo!

The fact is that you are guilty. You have been caught smuggling cocaine into Indonesia. The authorities were right when in similar terms they expressed that they couldn’t care less and it makes absolutely no difference. She did it. End of story.

What irritates me is that the BBC is acting as if she is the victim here though. She is not the victim. She is a felon and Britain can’t help her as she has broken the laws of that country. And now we are listening to stories about how she’s losing her mind in the police holding cells. Good! That’s how it’s supposed to work, it’s called prison. Just because our prisons are softer than a caramel-covered marshmallow doesn’t mean everybody else’s is. You are guilty. You are going to die. And you have nobody to blame but yourself. Now please just end the almost-daily coverage of her, please.

The So Outrageous that it’s Borderline Hilarious

Do you know when some lard-packing doughnut master walks down the street and you just think to yourself: “What a fat bastard.”? Well if you act on it in the future then that could be a hate crime. Unbelievably, MPs were actually debating the idea on making calling someone fat a hate crime. What an absolute joke this country really is sometimes. If you’re fat, you’re fat. It’s not a hate crime, it’s the truth. If you can’t fit through the doors at your local fast food restaurant then you are fat; or you’re wearing a large costume.

If this went through then it would be on par with racism and being homophobic. So if you’re a fat bastard and somebody refers to you as such then you could get them arrested. But in reality there’s not even any reasoning behind this. With racism you are born the colour you are so you can’t change a thing. With homophobic remarks you have the tastes you do and you can’t change that. If you’re fat then you can probably change that. The problem is that you are too busy sitting down eating an extra-large curry and threatening to blow a hole in the sofa with a mini nuclear warhead coming out of your rectal launch sites.

I’m quite frankly tired of this idea that we have to make everybody feel great about themselves. Why a disgusting, overweight tub of goo should be made to feel great about themselves when what they are doing is on the level of self-harm is beyond rational thought. We seem to think slicing your wrists open in a dark corner of your black-painted bedroom is a problem, so why not binge eating and making yourself into the second coming of Godzilla?

So maybe next week won’t be so bleak and irritating after all…

News in Briefs 27/05/12

The heat is on, literally, and quite frankly I can’t stand it. That’s why it took me a while to write this column without making use of the overused four-letter word on a repeated basis. I feel quite calm at the moment so I’m giving it a try. Anyway, the saving grace is that I’m not short of material to write about this week.

Political Oops of the Week

This week it’s all about the sport of football, and that’s not just because the European Championships are already upon us. We all know that Sepp Blatter is one of the most corrupt individuals in the world. I’m not going to act like a corrupt official is anything new, but what is shocking is just how corrupt and how biased he is. At least world governments try to hide it to some degree.

This week Sepp Blatter came out and said this: “Football can be a tragedy when you go to penalty kicks… Football should not go to one to one. When it goes to penalty kicks football loses its essence.” Fair enough, he’s voicing his opinion. But he lacks consistency as he said this about the World Cup in 2010: “If there is no winner at the end of 90 minutes of play, we would proceed directly to penalty kicks.”

And what’s more, he made things even worse by appointing a team headed by Franz Beckenbauer to come up with an alternative. Yes, that same figure who’s also the honorary president of Bayern Munich. The same team that just lost on penalties to the Premier League team that finished in sixth. Sometimes I wish that he would just come out and say that he hates English teams.

We can even go back to the decision to hold the 2018 World Cup in Russia. That was a good decision to hold it in one of the most racist countries in the world. Just look at the European Championships, only 3,000 England fans are travelling and some of the players have even told their relatives to stay at home due to their fears of racist attacks.

The Painful…

This week it’s the sun, that dodgy English summer. This is going to be quite controversial as many people seem to love the sun, but why is this such big news? Every year the news is filled with comparisons to other hot countries to show how we are hotter than them. I’m sure those in paradise are wishing that they were surrounded by a group of topless chavs in Swindon because of a slightly overcast day. And that brings me to my next point. What is it with British people and taking their shirts off when the weather turns like this? It’s made even worse as it’s always the fatties and the drug addicts who have to do it.

I can already hear your silent protests that our English summer allows you to have fun outside. Yes, it does allow you to have fun outside, but have you ever tried sleeping at night in this heat? You could sleep in a museum exhibition named ‘The Arctic Wasteland’ and you would still be watching as your testicles dissolve into a gloopy mess. This lack of sleep leads people to becoming hot and bothered, before they finally snap and everyone is praying that the rain and the clouds will come. It happens every year, and quite frankly I’m tired of it.

Summer 2012 — Filled with rain, storms, and an ice cream truck strike!

…And the Pointless

This week a Doncaster vicar came under investigation because he apparently used bad language on Facebook! Oh no! The sad thing is that some sad parasite actually reported him to…well everybody. They sent messages to the Bishop of Sheffield, the Bishop of Doncaster, the Right Reverend Peter Burrows, and a whole host of other figures. Of course, this coward decided to remain anonymous so everybody else wouldn’t know how much of a stain on the underwear of society they really are.

This actually made the news as well. What shocks me is how some people are so out of touch that they think that vicars don’t swear and vicars are beacons of morality when they are away from work. We all do it, your mother does it, you do it, David Cameron does it, and, evidently, he does it. The fact that this was made into a major issue just goes to show that either the news is getting boring or more and more people need to find a surgeon to get those metal rods out of their rectal tunnels. I just hope this Doncaster vicar walks free.

The So Outrageous That It’s Borderline Hilarious

The Highland Council’s Independent Group is concerned about low voter turnouts in the recent council elections. That’s understandable, I mean recent years have shown that it doesn’t matter if the people don’t like something because it will happen anyway. It sort of makes voting a little pointless, does it not? But it’s also important to mention that Scottish councils use the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system. This basically means that voters rank the candidates in their order of preference. Pretty simple, right?

Not according to this group who are claiming that people didn’t vote because the system is too complicated. Strangely enough, this was supposedly one of the reasons why people voted against the Alternative Voting system last year. But what strikes me is how can people find STV complicated? How can people be so stupid that they don’t understand such a basic system?

I would be spending less time complaining about the amount of people voting and more time complaining about a dire education system, if this is true. Of course, it could be just because people are disillusioned with politics, but if it’s true then George Bush would be considered a frickin’ genius if he lived in this country.

So maybe next week won’t be so bleak and irritating after all…