Fun Online Polls: Boris Johnson, Saudi Arabia & Migrants in Germany

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

UK Foreign Secretary criticised Saudi Arabia for starting proxy wars in the Middle East…

This is a terrible breach of diplomatic convention and he is endangering our weapons exports to a valued regional ally - 2%
Well said, that man! - 32%
He should have gone a lot further and mentioned their human rights abuses - 62%
Other, please specify - 4%

Top comment Pensieve: It's about time that someone told the Saudis we know what they're doing (even if we are beholden to them for a lot of our oil). Well done, Boris. PS I ride a bike and use a woodburning boiler for heating, so stuff your oil!

Good, I was with the majority on that one, thanks to everybody who took part, a good turnout with 99 votes.
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This week's Fun Online Poll:

What percentage of the 1.2 million Arabs who arrived in Germany in the last two years are in gainful employment?

Enter your guess HERE or use the widget in the sidebar.

Once you've entered your guess, you can check your answer here. The paragraph starting "On the bright side" is rather ironic, methinks.

Fun Online Polls: Whose responsibility is integration & Boris Johnson's comments on the Saudis

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

Whose responsibility is 'integration'?

Immigrants - 99%
Citizens of their chosen host country - 1%

A good turnout with 97 votes, thanks to everybody who took part, and not much more to say on that.

Top comment: H: The correct answer is no one's. It is certainly not mine, and it is only yours if you chose to assume such a responsibility. But you don't offer this as a possible answer… Why are we so worked up anyway? Everyone seems to think it's sweet that there are Welsh people in Patagonia still speaking Welsh, or funny that Brits in Saudi get bladdered in their compounds. The problem, I am guessing, with muslims is that some actively promote an alien ideology.

Fair points (except the Welsh in Patagonia, they have been there as long as Spanish speakers). Of course, there are degrees of this. IMHO, as long as people don't actively seek to overturn/completely ignore whatever traditions and systems are in place in their chosen host country or demand special treatment, then I'm not that fussed. I certainly wouldn't expect them all to start playing cricket and doing Morris dancing.
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From The Guardian:

A defiant Boris Johnson told friends he had no intention of apologising for his outspoken comments about Saudi Arabia during a trip to the Gulf and hit out at party critics who said he might be better suited to another job in government.

The foreign secretary delivered a carefully crafted speech in Bahrain on Friday evening, playing up the economic and strategic links between London and the Gulf States, while allies said he would be “open, honest and moral in his approach” regarding political issues in the region.

On Thursday, Johnson was rebuked by Downing Street after it emerged he had accused Saudi Arabia of being among countries engaged in fighting “proxy wars” in the Middle East, breaking the Foreign Office’s convention of not criticising a key UK ally in the region.

Johnson seems to go round saying stuff at random, most of it rubbish but inevitably he hits the nail on the head every now and then.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll - what do you think?

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Fun Online Polls: Angela Merkel's ultimatum & The price of crude oil

The results to last fortnight's Fun Online Poll were as follows:

How will Cameron respond to Merkel throwing down the gauntlet?

Continue to waffle on about renegotiating terms with the EU for as long as possible - 97%Hold a referendum as soon as possible - 3%

Cameron's gone awfully quite about it since, hasn't he?
'Nuff said.
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There was am excellent article in today's City AM, worth reading in full, but here's the gist:

... at last I’ve found a conspiracy theory I can get behind: the whispered secret accord between the US and Saudi Arabia over the geopolitics of energy policy seems to me to be the real deal.

One thing is for certain; the Saudis are behaving decidedly oddly. While the price of oil has fallen off the map, having dropped below $80 per barrel to its lowest level in four years (in late spring it was perched at a lofty $115), the petro-kingdom has done absolutely nothing.

So that's this week's Fun Online Poll:

Is Saudi Arabia deliberately pushing down the price of crude oil?

I trust that nobody will find this amusing or even ironic...

From The Daily Mail:

A woman who defied a driving ban on female motorists in Saudi Arabia has died in a car crash. Another was hurt in the crash in the only country in the world where females are banned from getting behind the wheel. A police spokesman said that one of the women was killed instantly but the other had to go to hospital to be treated for her injuries...

Weston-super-Mare is like Saudi Arabia

Story One: A primary school in Weston-super-Mare has been criticised for banning Valentine cards to save pupils the "emotional trauma" of being rejected. Children at Ashcombe Primary School were stopped from exchanging cards because the head teacher said they were not emotionally mature enough to cope...

Story Two: A Saudi official says policemen are inspecting shops for red roses, heart-shaped products or gifts wrapped in red, and ordering storeowners to get rid of them... Saudi Arabia bans celebration of Western holidays such as Valentine's Day, named after a Christian saint said to have been martyred by the Romans in the 3rd Century.

Maybe I should invite Johann Hari or Yasmin Alibi-Brown to explain how brilliant it is that they are putting up a fight against Western consumerism and over-sexualisation of children, oppression of women etc?

Oh, the irony ...

Here's one I overlooked from last Saturday's Times:

After vigorous criticism from the European Union (1) and a series of scandals, culminating in the notorious BAE Systems case in which a Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation was halted on government orders, Parliament is due to pass one of the most comprehensive laws in the world to stamp out the use of bribes, kickbacks, gifts and corporate corruption to secure contracts, especially overseas (2)... Britain’s tough new legislation will make it an offence for any company to use agents who try to bribe potential customers.

OK, (1) the EU are hardly ones to complain about back-handers and (2) it's the self-same Parliament which halted the BAE case which is now passing a law that would have prevented it from halting the BAE case (which IMHO was quite innocuous in the grander scheme of things). Now, I don't approve of people paying back-handers to government officials to drum up business (it being the thin end of the corporatist wedge) - the problem is how to enforce it/punish it.

Spotting it is relatively easy, of course, if a particular industry benefits disproportionately from a particular piece of government legislation, then alarm bells start ringing. Ah, here we go...

Law firms, accountants and consultants have been quick to seize the market opportunity. The big accounting firms — PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst & Young — are offering courses and seminars to warn their clients of practices that could be illegal. Eversheds, a large law company, has devised an online briefing pack that its clients can customise and install on each employee’s computer...

The symbiotic/parasitic relationship between these large 'professional' firms and the government and the Labour and Tory parties is well documented of course (here's a nice pamphlet from Unison tearing into their involvement with PFI, for example) and apparently law firms derived nearly a quarter of their income from the state, but this is just taking the piss.

As if to ram the point home, right next to it (in the print edition) is an article written by "Robert Wardle ... the former Director of the Serious Fraud Office, who is now a consultant to DLA Piper, the law firm"

"Seized tanker anchors off Somalia"

There's probably more to this story than meets the eye, and we can only begin to guess at what sort of behind the scenes negotiations take place between the Saudis, the pirates and the oil, shipping and insurance companies, but apparently it is quite easily to hijack such a ship.

It is also apparently normal for a ransome to be paid for return of ship and crew, but isn't this just inviting more attacks? If a relatively small, poorly equipped gang of pirates can hijack a ship several hundred miles out at sea, surely it can't be too difficult for anybody else* to take control of it again, now that we all know exactly where it is?

Yes, it would be a tragedy if the crew members came to harm, and if they did, seamen's wages might increase in future, but if NATO or the Saudis managed to wipe out the entire gang of pirates as a warning to others, that would surely reduce the likelihood of future attacks and hence reduce insurance costs by an equal and opposite amount.

Just sayin', is all.

* Whether that is NATO, the Saudis, mercenaries acting on behalf of the shipping or insurance company, or indeed yet another gang of pirates is neither here nor.

"Reduce rip-off mortgage fees, Darling tells banks"

Following The Goblin King's voluntary humiliation at OPEC, it appears to be The Badger's turn today.

King Canute must be turning in his grave...

Saudi Arabia

We are supposed to be allies of, and supplier of weapons to these bastards.

Dude, WTF?