The economy

There is not a lot you can add about the sorry state of our economy. I was a young child during the end of the last Labour Government and I remember spending advent huddled around candles during nthe frequent black outs during the winter of discontent. As a kid it was quite exciting - it was advent after all- but the fact was that for our country it was an utter disaster and soon after the Labour Government was thrown out. This had been preceded by the then Labour Chancellor running to the IMF to beg for money to bail them out. Well, there are two differences now; firstly the IMF does not have enough money to bail us out and secondly we are not having power cuts. However, the really difficult thing is that our economy is in greater peril than it was then and, like then, Labour has borrowed more than we can possibly afford to pay back.

Zimbabwe

There are three international issues that the world needs to face up to. The first of those is Zimbabwe. We cannot let Mugabe stay in power and the UN needs to find resolutions that will enable him still to withdraw from the precipice. If not, then I fear a humanitarian issue that will darken the next year.

A new President

Th other two international issues are ones that Obama is going to have to deal with and the world watches to see whether he has the will to add to his rhetoric. The problems are Iran and Russia. The fact is Russia is building its military forces and looking acquisitively towards the Arctic as it next source of natural resources through which it can hold the world to ransom. The importance of economic power is being replaced by the importance of the power of energy.

Personal thoughts

This has been a tough year. Business has been tough and the attempts to sell my house to move to the Yeovil constituency have proved impossible. You currently appear not to be able to sell houses at any price. The real problem is that no one wishes to buy houses at the moment - or at least they don't have the money to buy. But through all this I remain optimistic about the New Year. Economically we may be suffering but personally I feel fitter and more able to cope with the future challenges than ever before.

Still, let us forget the gloom for the Christmas period and look forward with hope.

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Here's a good example. Whilst all the furore was raging about the ramblings of the Archbishop (a man who has no control over Government policy) there was a not very widely quoted story about a Government Minister (Phil Woolas - a man with power) who wants Muslims to stop marrying their cousins..

"whereby a lot of arranged marriages are with first cousins, and that produces lots of genetic problems in terms of disability [in children].”

Has their been much debate about this? Not much...but then should there be...?

There was also a story I reported, that did not seem to pick up much coverage but then is also very closely aligned to these two stories - Multiple wives, multiple benefits

Anyway, the point of this post is to discuss two very important announcements that came out within hours of each other. The first is announcing the NHS rolling out a cure for Type 1 diabetes - the most difficult form of diabetes usually present at birth and not related to diet etc.

Pioneering 45-minute treatment for diabetes holds prospect of cure | Society | The Guardian

The second announcement concerns a very important breakthrough in the fight against prostate cancer. I was not aware, probably to my shame, that prostate cancer is now the third largest killing cancer. There are some 10,000 men who die each year.

See the Independent report on this.

Understandably there have been cries from the church about how he has been misunderstood and misinterpreted. However, he is the most senior member of the C of E and has a press office that should understand what the consequences of even discussing issues such as this, might well be.

In fact, the Archbishop tried his own version of political spin on this. He appeared on the Today program, prior to giving the speech, to tell everyone what he was going to say.

He said in that interviews that Sharia Law in the UK "Seems unavoidable" and that it is "not as if bringing in an alien, rival situation". He does talk of internal religious law but also uses the example of divorce being settled under Sharia Law and not British Law.

He also says: "Saying there is one law for everyone is a bit of a danger".

I can not agree with this at all. We are discussing the fundamental collapse of Britain as a cohesive multi-cultural society if we really believe that not having one law, under which we all abide, is the only method by which we can live together.