2005 UK General Elections

Re: # 60

Zakkk

how do British-Pakistanis fare in the literacy rates as compared to other ethnic minorities such as Indians, Bengalis, Jamaicans, West Indians etc ?

since no moral justification was given in the UK, if any can be given at all, regarding war in Iraq do you feel it was necessary ?

Re: # 54

Arjun: As pointless as it is to argue with you..I shall give it a shot..the premise behind going to war in Britain was vastly different than the states..there was specific statement of a clear and imminent danger to the United Kingdom as a justification for the war..at NO time was a moral argument used. The premise was false...and as the decision to go to war effects millions of people it supersedes debates on education and health..

As far as literacy rates are concerned..there have been extensive debates on the topic some of which I have attended in Britain..and it has a lot to do with ethnic and regional variations..I could quote them to you..but I really wouldn`t wanna burst your Islamophobe bubble...

Re: # 54

Arjun

what about all the campaigning the british pakistanis did against saddam ? infront of embassies around the world, the US , the UK, there were massive rallies in London against Saddam ? how can you overlook that ?

#53 by Zakkk on May 9, 2005 10:56am PT


Why are Bangladeshis in the UK at the bottom of the South Asian Socio-economic ladder?


who said bangladeshis don`t care more about pan-Islamic causes like Iraq?


Bangladesh is a secular country and has not had a chronic rivalry with India either?


strawman...I never claimed India being secular or Pakistan having a rivalry with India was the cause for the state brit-pakis find themselves in....

This isn`t about their home countries....This is about the brit-pakis/hindus/sikhs...don`t you think it makes more sense for them to vote based on more important things...like education or health care? And if their votes on Iraq are driven solely by their concern for human suffering, why were they silent when saddam was butchering iraqis?

Re: # 75

Ozer

Thanks for the invite.I might do just that.My cousin lives in London, so i have a place to stay, and he has a house in Manchester too.Manchester has improved a lot, even from seven years ago.I remember it as a dreary place when i was a kid.I love the scenery in the UK, especially the lake district and Scotland.I`m going to Gangtok, Sikkim for a week`s vacation, en famille, to escape summer a little bit.I wouldn`t be surprised if the hotel room is wired for the internet,( even in the Himalayas) so i can still rant and rave on this site and get my daily dosage of porn.India is all `IT` and wired everywhere.Even the fruit vendor calls you from his cell phone , before he comes over to the home!!.Time is money for him too.How things have changed in Bharat.Cut and paste this link to pics of Sikkim state......you won`t regret it!.I chose Sikkim for my vacation after checking these pics.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=4089556#post4089556


cayenne

Re: # 74

cayenne

when the cards of the trip to london have been placed on the poker table give me a shout (my details including e-mail are on my profile) and we can partayy !

Re: # 58
Ozer K

You`re welcome.Pounds into rupees means party time in india for ye.I have a cousin , born in the UK, and i have visited there many times, tho` not in the last seven years.Started working!!.Actually, my cousin visits more often bringing with him a whole group of his limey friends and many of them never want to return , or do so reluctantly, after enjoying themselves here.With more private airlines operating from india, airfares should start coming down, so a trip to London is definitely on the cards for me.Right now it costs the same whether one flies from New Delhi to Cochin or to Singapore!!!.Guess where the janta will head?.

Well, back to the `serious` discussion of the Uk elections.For you!!.

cayenne

Re: # 55

Cayenne

Gracias a million times for your take on Mumbai`s nightlife. Sorry fellow participants, just this time my leaves wither away from the topic at hand, for Cayenne has given an exhaustive low-down on Mumbai`s nightlife, which merits a response.

Cayenne we may have started off on a wrong footing but you sound like me: a real party animal ! If you are in London we should get royally hammered as you can sip some of the finest cocktails here.

Seems that Mumbai`s impresarios excellently fling the hat of entrepreneurialism into the clubbing/nightlife scene. I guess apprehensions dissolve as you walk into an avant-garde floating bar named ``Suzie Wong``. Here in London we sometimes have ritzy boat parties
aboard the HMS Belfast, sinking into a prestigious boat-fest gala. Most boat parties leave from Westminster pier pass Embankment and end up at Greenwich.

Sounds like Mumbai`s party aficionados promenade into the inviting hospitality of the Resto Pub Onyx, Enigma and Athena. The caviar-like rarity of Mumbai`s eclectic boho chic crowd and the themed Olive venue, as well as Goa surely summon titillating tribes of party aficionados from far a field.

I usually spend time tasting the rarest champagne with chums at various London hot-spots, namely The Light Bar, Fifty which is a casino/2 restaurants V and Rama and private members club. Worthy of mention are also the Kingly Club, Number 5 Cavendish Square, Pangaea, Noble Rot, Aura, Embassy, Penthouse with a scenic view of London from its 8th floor and bespoke Sketch.

I would relish the opportunity to one day visit Mumbai and mingle with the Fashionista tribes and new-media heavy-weights flocked and cavorted unabridged and uncensored to soulful funk tinged with desi vibes ?

Converting Pound Sterling into Rupees probably means guzzling down the finest cocktails in Mumbai without having to shell out astronomical sums. The party scene in Bharat sounds like a refreshing gem as compared to the trashy tourism throw-away clubs mushrooming in and around Leicester Square.

They shall only be a crude map of disheveled memories a few months down the line.

Ozerkhalid

Don`t you think the way every discussion on this site ends up in a hindu-muslim trashfest, tawdry?.

In addition to interact #50, i left out the LIBRARY BAR at Taj President hotel and RESTOPUB ONYX a great drinking-eating-partying venue.There`s also GEOFFREY`S in Back Bay.`SUZIE WONG`` is the only floating bar in Mumbai.You can catch a boat at H2O Water Sports Complex and get there.Great views of the Mumbai skyline..The best pastime in mumbai is to buy booze at your local liquor store and head out with friends and get wasted, ofcourse.In India all recreation is available at reasonable prices or what the pocket will bear.Goa and Kerala are the two party states of india, due to the beautiful climate, beaches ,pubs/clubs and tourist traffic from all over the globe.Cut and paste these links and check out Mumbai.......

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=198981&page=5&pp=20

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=164579

cheers

cayenne

Re: # 57

Vivek you raise an interesting point. Just as an addendum to your comment herein lie the ``official`` benefits brought to the UK by Tony Blair and his navigation of the Labour Party . Do not buy into his ``sailing-skills`` wholesale, for at times he has pirated the seas akin to Captain Jack Sparrow, especially on Iraq, though there is a dosage of truism in a lot of these oceanic achievements:

Labour.org.uk

Labour`s top 50 achievements since being elected in 1997:

1. Lowest inflation since the 60s
2. Lowest mortgage rates for 40 years
3. Introduced the National Minimum Wage
4. Record police numbers in England and Wales
5. Cut overall crime by 30 per cent
6. Record levels of literacy and numeracy in schools
7. Best-ever primary school results
8. Funding for every pupil in England to double (since 1997) by 2007-08
9. Lowest unemployment for 29 years
10. Written off up to 100 per cent of debt owed by poorest counties
11. 78,700 more nurses
12. 27,400 more doctors
13. Brought back matrons to hospital wards
14. Devolved power to the Scottish Parliament
15. Devolved power to Welsh Assembly
16. Banned anti-personnel mines
17. NHS Direct offering free convenient patient advice at any time
18. New Deal - helped over a million people into work
19. Local government funding has increased by a third in real terms
20. Equalised the age of consent for gay men
21. Free entry to all national museums and galleries
22. Overseas aid budget more than doubled
23. Restored city-wide government to London
24. Child benefit up 25 per cent since 1997
25. Created Sure Start to help children from low income households
26. Introduced the Disability Rights Commission
27. £200 winter fuel payment to pensioners & extra £100 for over-80s
28. The biggest rolling stock replacement programme ever seen on our railways
29. Negotiated the historic Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland
30. Over 28,000 more teachers in England schools
31. Implemented the Freedom of Information Act
32. All workers now have a right to 4 weeks’ paid holiday
33. Record rises in the state pension
34. 700,000 children lifted out of relative poverty
35. Introduced child tax credit giving more money to parents
36. Banned handguns
37. Cut long-term youth unemployment by 75 per cent
38. Free nursery places for three and four-year-olds in England, Scotland and Wales
39. Free fruit for all four to six-year-olds at school
40. Free school milk for five, six and seven-year-olds in Wales
41. Record police numbers in Scotland
42. Implemented the Human Rights Act
43. Cleanest rivers, beaches, drinking water and air since the industrial revolution
44. Free TV licences for over-75s
45. Banned fur farming and the testing of cosmetics on animals
46. Halved maximum waiting times for NHS operations
47. Free local bus travel for the over-60s and the disabled in Wales and Scotland
48. Record number of students in higher education
49. Extended the Race Relations Act so that all public bodies and functions now have a duty to promote race equality
50. Five, six and seven-year-olds in class sizes of 30 or less


Want to comment on the list? Please call us on 08705 900200 or email info@new.labour.org.uk

Re: # 57

vivek

surely the UK does not depend entirely on the US for its bread and butter? what about its allainces with the EU, and the Commonwealth, its own home-grown industries, its imports and exports ?

do you not feel that tony blair was acting as a lap dog for the US and was coerced into war ?

Re: # 57

vivek what do you feel blair has brought to the table ?

thunder,
It is the duty of a govt. to first worry about its country`s self-interest and if that self-interest gets directed against some other country then the govt. has to do it. Tony Blair didn`t really have much of a choice. UK does depend on the USA for its daily bread and butter, so he had to join the war on Iraq. I don`t think it was a decision that he did with conviction, and I am sure any other person as PM of UK would have done the same thing. So if I had to judge Tony Blair, I would judge on things other than this issue. In short if I was a British voter, I would have voted for Tony Blair inspite of my opposition to the war on Iraq.

ozerkhalid,
The manifesto looks good to me. But then I don`t live in UK so cannot say for sure if they really have achieved what they have claimed to have achieved.

thunder,
Britain seems to have an uneasy relationship with EU. Seems like if the crunch point comes when they have to choose between EU and USA, they almost always choose USA. I guess its because they share the same heritage.

spiritualgypsy,
Tony Blair seems to have done a decent job with everthing else. I mean look at their NHS. It does not seem to be as bad some in the press have made it out to be, and if it had been left to the conservatives, they would have sold it out.

#60 by Zakkk on May 9, 2005 4:34pm PT


and as the decision to go to war effects millions of people it supersedes debates on education and health..


Education policy and health policy effects millions...millions of brits...including brit-pakis...this is absolutely about pan-Islamism...Most brit-pakis are against the war in Afghanistan too...


I could quote them to you..but I really wouldn`t wanna burst your Islamophobe bubble...


Umm...why don`t you quote them and actually burst the bubble...

and another thing...pakistan is not the same as islam...saying brit-pakistanis are more prone to terrorism is not the same as saying brit-muslims are more prone to terrorism...nice try tho...

#61 by ozerkhalid on May 9, 2005 4:52pm PT


Has your head been buried so deep in the Saharan sand that you did not take heed that Brit-Pakistanis, Brit-Hindus, Indian and Pakistani diplomats campaigned head-strong round the clock and relentlessly for years to push forward multi-lateral legislation against Saddam and his brutalities: to cite but a few concrete examples:


The odd brit-paki diplomat working against saddam is not the same as the vast number of brit-pakis marching in the streets..or voting primarily based on that issue...

I`m sure there were some brit-paki diplomats who worked with blair on the dossier or whatever lies he used to push the war...should we take that to mean the vast majority of brit-pakis were in favor of the iraq war?

Tell me how many brit-paki parliament members sponsored resolutions against saddam hussein when he was killing iraqis?


Please be informed before waxing lyrical.


Please post some links on brit-pakis making saddam`s opression or the genocide in rawanda the number one issue when that happened...

I`ll repeat so it`s clear: The vast majority of brit-pakistanis didn`t care when saddam was murdering iraqi mothers and children....or when rawandan mothers and children were being murdered....when that happened, it wasn`t their number one issue....

So please excuse me for not believing that brit-pakis were motivated by concerns for the sufferings of their fellow humans...