Is now the time to ban spitting in football

In 2013 we this blog advocated a worldwide ban on spitting at football matches.
https://www.kevilldavies.com/2013/08/spitting-in-football-open-letter-to-fifa.html

Is now an opportune moment to ban the heinous practice of spitting in football matches. It should be prohibited everywhere in public but now, with the covid19 epidemic it would make sense to take advantage of the new health awareness in football stadia to introduce a yellow card for spitting and a red for nasal discharging.

Shopping centres for sale?

Intu Properties, owner of a large number of shopping centres including Lakeside in Essex, The Trafford Centre in Manchester and the MetroCentre in Gatehead, has called in the receivers.
It is to be hoped that this Company with its massive real estate portfolio does not fall into the hands of a foreign Company as has happened with much of central London. I can envisage that this would be an attractive proposition for a Saudi Arabia that needs to diversify as oil revenues fall.

Are children born 'racist'?

The ex footballer Dion Dublin recently maintained on television that children are not born 'racist'. Really!
I presume by 'racist' he means those who hate people of a different tribe as opposed to those who just prefer the company of their family, friends and community.
In the first place I suggest each and every one of us prefer the company of family and friends. I suggest this preference is hard wired into our brains as a security measure according to nature's survival of the fittest rules. See:

https://www.kevilldavies.com/2014/05/is-it-normal-to-be-racist.html

This blog has already considered the question of whether children are capable of being born evil See:

https://www.kevilldavies.com/2014/05/souls-and-innocence-of-children.html

I suggest that Dublin is wrong. Children are born to be naturally aware of strangers. Their final character, however, is shaped by nurturing. Those brought up by parents, fearful of strangers and people of a different colour and/ or culture, will more likely exhibit 'racist' tendencies.

Boris at the despatch box

Now recovered from his illness, the electorate have an opportunity to observe the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, in action against a competent leader of the opposition, Sir Keir Starmer.
He has his own style full of bluster and rhetorical pause but it cannot hide the fact that he doesn't have full command of the detail of his brief. It is clear that he sees his role as a leader, a delegator, who leaves the minutae of each department to his Secretaries of State and this leaves him exposed when questioned in detail, his notes his only back-up. It contrasts markedly with the consummate performances of his predecessor, Theresa May; imperious at the despatch box but without the 'presence' of a Commander -in- Chief.

In the United States, however, the recent performances of their C-in-C at the lectern, ahead of elections in the Autumn does not augur well for him. Recent revelations in Bolton's book and his less than sincere posturing at press conferences will not convince an electorate that senses change. The Bible might not save him.

Destruction of monuments

There are many calls from mainly the ethnic community to take down historic memorials of men involved in the slave trade.
Many of the memorials or statues were erected when very few men and women with ethnic backgrounds lived in the UK and were erected as the response of a grateful public for philanthropic largesse. They were symbols of respect by the populace for acts of generosity. At that time slavery was not considered to be so barbarous as we suppose it is today.
The situation is different today; slavery, banned by the United Nations, is considered to be heinous trade, a view widely held by the population of the UK including and especially the several million people of black African and other ethnic backgrounds. These, relatively new, inhabitants of the 'sceptred' isles, resent the presence of these memorials and seek to have them removed despite their being a record of the Nation's past history. It's as if they say: Thank you for allowing us to live here and affording us a better way of life but you really ought to do something about those memorials. They offend us.
It's not so far removed from the Muslims coming to the UK for a better, safer life and wanting the UK to adopt Sharia Law as the legal system. Conquerers can do it; the Romans and Normans could demand change, to the victors the spoils, but surely this does not apply to immigrants. Should they not  accept the norms and idiosyncreties of the host nation with good grace?

Today's generation might care to think of what their lives would be like now if their ancestors were not taken, always bearing in mind that not all slave owners were bad. Todays black elite in the US and UK might reflect that if it had not been for the suffering of their ancestors they might be living in a mud hut economy in the jungles of sub-Saharan Africa. They might also like to ponder on the African participation in the slave trade where one tribe would sell captured or kidnapped  other tribespeople. Also it was a common means of getting rid of felons and other undesirables in countries that had no prison system.  In this respect slavers were looked on favourably by some tribal kings.
Few white people ventured into central Africa because of disease and murder and rarely took active part in the taking of slaves from their homes. It was the work of indigenous Africans. Black on black.

Much is said of 'respect'. In pulling down these statues, where's the respect for the people, long dead, who felt it important to erect these monuments. Respect has to be earned. The current 'woke' reaction will not attract it.