A series of moral dilemmas
POLITICS these days is just a series of moral dilemmas.
Take last week. It began with Shamima Begum, who left London four years ago with two pals to join the so-called Islamic State group in Syria.
She now wants to come home to the country the group has carried out a series of horrific terrorist atrocities on.
At the root of her desire to return is the fact she has just given birth to a third child.
Her first two have died and she wants to give the third a better chance of survival.
A bit of repentance from her, you might think, would not have gone amiss but to begin with.
Not a bit of it, saying in a TV interview the Manchester Arena bombing was “justified” as a retaliation for attacks on IS.
Post interview I stuck my head out of the window to witness the resultant aurora borealis of fury generated by the millions of homes up and down the country which watched the interview too.
As a civilised society we have to accept everyone has rights, even someone attached to a murderous death cult whose idea of courtesy is to kill someone quick.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid rejected her pleas to return, probably unlawfully as she is a British citizen - which will most likely mean in the end she will be allowed back.
Perhaps by then I will have re-discovered my tolerance.
Dilemma No 2 came with the formation of The Independent Group, so far made up of eight Labour and three Tory MPS after quitting their respective parties.
The Labour lot split from the party because of, as they put it, Jeremy Corbyn’s ineffectual response to anti-semitism and not throwing his weight behind a second EU referendum, the so-called “People’s Vote”.
Within hours of its formation one of their number, Angela Smith, referred to members of the BAME as having a ‘funny tinge.’
She later apologised for “any offence” caused – that awful passive-aggressive phrase which shifts responsibility for the offence caused to the person taking offence – claiming she was tired, not racist.
Her friends assured us she was not racist either.
Yet they, like her, are white so what gives them the right to decide whether Smith is racist or not? It is for the members of the BAME to decide and they made their feelings clearly known.
Yet how many ‘Independent Group in racism storm’ headlines were there?
Different rules apply to them obviously, as evidenced by the third dilemma and the TIG’S refusal to agree to by-elections to allow their constituents to decide if they agreed with their decision to form a breakaway group. A people’s vote, if you will, as they are sanctimoniously demanding over EU membership. Not a chance.
New politics? As their friends in France who are still in the EU might say, ‘plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.’
The more things change the more they stay the same