I don't need encouraged to marry

On the news today I heard a Conservative MP said "We should be encouraging people to marry, through the tax system".

Now I don't know about anybody else but I certainly don't look across the room and see someone and think, "Wow! That person is my ticket to a tax break." But then maybe this is only an attitude for millionaires who can afford a private accountant and one day harbour hopes of safe seat in the Lords for live after a few terms as a Conservative MP.

I know it is not something that any of those seeking marriage equality have placed high on their agenda. The married man's tax allowance, (yes note it was only available to the man) was discontinued in 2000, therefore over 5 years before same-sex couples were even allowed to have a legal recognised relationship status. Those of us who want marriage equality want it on the grounds of equality, but seeing as we have been denied equality for so long we don't what that equality to disadvantage others.

You see there would have been men in the past who would have lost their married man's allowance if their wife had run off with someone else, they may even have had to pay maintenance for their children. By talking about men and unfaithful women I am not being sexist, merely because there was no married women's allowance the women were already losing out, if they were the larger earner, this is merely a statement of fact. Also widows and widowers would have lost out on the marriage allowance at that vulnerable time at which they lost a loved one. So if you'd looked across the room and seen the tax break of your life, you would have lost it when death parted you.

You see above how mecahnical and clinical a married persons allowance is. There are those that claim that the marriage tax allowance is to support those who are the worse off in our society. But bear in mind that a married couple will have two incomes to pay all the bills, it it those who are single, who don't have the extra buying power to lay down a mortgage and are living in rental accommodation who are actually those most in need of a tax break when times are tough economically. So what are the Government doing about that?

Well actually they will be increasing the personal individual's tax allowance to £9205, this is up from the £6,475 that it was at the time of the General Election. That gives a married couple (or in fact any couple) a tax break of  almost £5,500 in the last three years. Almost giving them a whole other person's personal allowance over what was available to them on 6 May 2010.

So the arguments about encouraging people to stay get together in marriage to help the worse off is a fallacy, everyone is better off, £2,730 of their income has been lifted out of income tax. The result is that they are paying £600 a year less in tax (£1,200 for any couple where both earn over the threshold and less that the higher band).

People are not to be encouraged to stay married because they have a tax break, there was divorce in this country before 2000. People are not going to be encouraged to get married simply to have a little extra money in their pocket. People get married for one reason only, love. That is also the reason that we need marriage equality to recognise that love that a couple have for each other, a love that is the same whatever the make up of that couple.

Tax breaks neither make nor break marriages. Love is love and equality is needed for that love. When you call something by a different name it is not recognising it as the same thing.

So the Question is...

Should Scotland be an independent nation?

Yes or No

Yes the phrasing that the SNP wanted "Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?" was ruled by the electoral commission as possibly leading and not neutral. So the shorter more neutral question above is now the one that Nicola Sturgeon has agreed that she will recommend is adopted for the referendum.

Scottish Electoral Commissioner John McCormick commenting on the issue of the all important question said  he wanted voters to have confidence in the result of the referendum. Adding:

"We have rigorously tested the proposed question, speaking to a wide range of people across Scotland.

"Any referendum question must be, and be seen to be, neutral. People told us that they felt the words 'Do you agree' could lead voters towards voting 'yes'."

The Electoral Commission have also agreed that the spending limits for the Yes Scotland and Better Together campaigns also be increased from £750,000 to £1.5m. While the caps placed on political parties spending on this issue remains as it was.

So now that the people of Scotland know what will asked of them at some point in 2014, it is on with telling them what the consequences of those decisions means.

The Alliance Party share vision for future

OFMDFM say that releasing the Cohesion, Sharing and Integration strategy, that has been ongoing, through consultation on the draft then review, almost as long as I have been back in Northern Ireland, at a time that all three are breaking down is the wrong timing. However, today the Alliance Party have issued they vision of what that shared future should be.

The main points, as highlighted in The Executive Summary, that they look to cover are:

• Economics of a Shared Future
• A Shared Approach to Education
• Sharing the Spaces in which we Live, Work and Play
• A Shared Culture

Yes flags are part of what they have to say but they have placed it after the economy, our young people and their education, housing and public space.

They have said that public space does not mean neutral space, in that there should not be no go areas for anyone. Now currently for those that are respectful of other cultures, and that is something that the document also points out there being more than two, are able to freely go about wherever they choose. Of course the Belfast Agreement allows anyone to identify as British, Irish or both (there has since been an increasing growth in those that identify as neither).

On the subject of cultures the Alliance Party lay out that:

The language of "two communities" or "both communities" always ignored people who either could not, or would not, be simply labelled as unionists or nationalists, Protestants or Catholics. Some come from mixed marriages, are part of ethnic minorities, or simply choose not to be described in such terms, preferring a more complex, multicultural and pluralist self-identification. Many Protestants and Catholics, and unionists and nationalists, often have more in common with people across the perceived 'divide' than they do with each other. Above all, violence in support of the 'two communities' idea has forced generations of people into choices about security which have embedded hatred and condemned others to silence and marginalisation.

Our community is becoming increasingly diverse. The old simplicity that there are two sorts of people here, where Protestant = British = Unionist, or Catholic = Irish = Nationalist, can no longer be the basis of progress. The emerging vision of a united community, based on both equality and good relations, allows for a society at ease with its diversity. We recognise within this context that some people may adopt multiple identities. The increase in the numbers of people describing themselves as 'Northern Irish' in the 2011 Census is indicative of this rapid change.

The arrival of new minorities has changed the visible face of our towns and cities and brought new opportunities and challenges. The emergence of other identities, such as the vibrant Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community, which cut across the traditional divide, has marked a clear and positive shift in attitudes, and the importance of change to address issues of disability now shapes public policy and
expectations. Society stands to benefit in a situation where people can hold open, mixed and multiple identities, can experience different cultures and express their individual creatively. We now have a new opportunity which we cannot afford to miss.

Therein lies an issue that the majority of our parties do not find it easy to step away from. Their politics, and political thinking has been defined in purely them and us opposites. But I know from being part of that LGBT community most especially that in order for those types of situations that do not fit into the historic them and us situations that people are able to work together to achieve what they need to.

This should apply to the lack of jobs in our inner city working class areas, whether on the Newtownards Road or off the Falls Road. The should apply to housing which has become ghettoised since the late 60s. Growing up in the area of Bangor I did with a Catholic Church and school nearby and Catholic neighbours meant I knew they were no different from me. They bled from football injuries, just as they would go in hard for the tackle like us. They also served in the RUC (as was) just like my great grandfather had in the RIC in often tense situations where their lives where in danger sometimes from their own community.

Some things are certain though. If we cannot work out a way to live together, we cannot maximise our economic potential. If we cannot live beside each other, we will only further entrench our fears and not move on from our past. If we cannot let our children learn beside each other before they turn up at University, it will be another generation that reaches adulthood in ignorance of the diversity of culture that we live in.Without respect for our differences we are nothing.

King William coming to a nation near you

 On 23 November 1890 Netherlands last work up being reigned  by a King, since then there have been a succession of Queens. However, there are rumours that the announcement due from the House of Orange at 18:00 GMT is that Queen Beatriz will abdicate as her mother and grandmother did in favour of her heir apparant, who for the first time in over a century is male. Update in her speech on Dutch Television it has been confirmed that this will happen on 30th April.

Our own Queen Victoria was on the throne when a 10 year old Wilhelmina learnt of the death of her father William III. He had been 68 when his only surviving child was born William the eldest of three sons by a first wife had died the year before the birth, Maurice had died age 7 some 30 years before and Alexander who had become Heir Apparent when his brother died passed away when his half-sister was 4.

She was also born third in line behind the King's brother Prince Frederick but he too died just after she turned 1. When her father died her mother Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont served as her Regent until she came of age to rule in her own right.

In 1895 the longest reigning monarch of the United Kingdom Queen Victoria met the women who would become the longest reigning monarch of Netherlands. The elder Queen said of the younger:

"The young Queen ... still has her hair hanging loose. She is slender and graceful, and makes an impression as a very intelligent and very cute girl. She speaks good English and knows how to behave with charming manners"

She married in 1901 Prince Henry of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and she was soon pregnant but miscarried, before giving birth nine months later to a still born son, another miscarriage followed in 1906. However, high in the line of succession was a cousin whose mother had married into a German royal family giving her a Germanic title, which was causing the Dutch aristocracy some concerns until in 1909 she gave birth to a child, Juliana. She was to reign through both World Wars, in the first being neutral though part of the Allies blockade of German ports. There was also some civil unrest at the end of the war sparked by the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. However, her own popularity helped to restore stability.

In 1940 when the Germans invaded she was determined to remain in her country, but was persuaded to take exile and fled to the UK. She called Hitler the Arch-Enemy of mankind and broadcast messages to her people over Radio Orange. She visited troops in southern Netherlands in March 1945, before the end of the War, and after the official end decided not to return to her Palace but to a Mansion in the Hague.

In late 1947 poor health caused her to temporarily cede the throne to her daughter Juliana, she wanted then to abdicate permanently, her daughter urged her to try to reign for 60 years like the Queen she had met in 1895. She tried but again ceded the throne in 1948 but on 4 September she formally abdicated after 57 years and 256 days on the throne. She lived on in retirement to 1962.

Queen Juliana

Juliana was 39 when she succeeded her mother. She had married a German Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfield in 1937. At the time of her marriage as with her birth there was increasing militarism of the German state over the border. On 31 January 1938 she gave birth to Beatrix, in August 1939 a second daughter Irene was born. On 12 May 1940 during the invasion of the Netherlands she was taken to the UK, the day before her mother was persuaded to also follow, but after a month she decided to take her young family to Canada where they stayed throughout the war. In January 1943 her rooms in the Ottowa Civic Hospital were declared extraterritorial and exclusively Dutch so that her third daughter Margriet could be bron with sole nationality and remain eligible for succession. She set sail for Scotland in June 1945 after making donations of tulip bulbs to the city of Ottowa and its hospital, but listed her last permanent address on the passenger manifest as London England.

Upon her return to Netherlands the princess became pregant once more, but during the pregnancy caught German measles so when the child a fourth daughter Christina was born she had cataracts in both eyes, almost totally blind in one eye and severely damaged in the other.

When she took to the throne she was often seen dressed in ordinary clothes and riding her bicycle. After the 31 January 1953 when there were 30 breaches in Dunes and Dykes the Queen put on an old overcoats and boots and waded to devastated areas to help hand out aid. In 1964 her second daughter had without consent converted to Catholicism and married a Spanish Prince, some saw her as losing control and calls started for her abdication.

Queen Beatrix

But this was nothing compared to the constitutional crisis that she face the following year where her eldest daughter announced her engagement to Claus von Amsberg a German diplomat who had been part of the Hitler Youth and the Nazi Wehrmacht. There were no calls for her abdication as then the reason for the public anger would end up on the throne. But the Queen's personal popularity soon overcame the nation's unrest.

Thus it was that she was able on her 71st birthday on 30 April 1980 hand over the throne to her daughter Beatrix. The day is celebrated as Koninginnedag, Queen's Day, ever since.

Beatrix went to public primary and secondary schools in Canada and the Netherlands before going on to Leiden University, from where she graduated in 1961 with a law degree. On Koninginnedag 2009 she faced an assassination attempt when a man drove his car into a parade towards a bus carrying the Queen and members of the Royal Family. Five members of the crowd died instantly at the scene, two more and the assailant Karst Tates died later that day and another of the injured passed away within the week.

The announcement that the will abdicate on Koninginnedag this year after she turns 75 later this week, will mean that her son Willem-Alexander will become the first King to rule the Netherlands for 123 years.

Future King and the Queen thereafter? of Netherland

So who is the man who will probably reign as William IV?

He was born on 27 April 1967, so will become King mere days after he turns 45. He has an interest in water management issues being a patron on the Global Water Partnership, set up by the World Bank, UN and Swedish Government, as well as Chairperson of the United Nations Secretary General's Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation.

He served as Patron of the Dutch Olympic Committee until he became a member of the IOC. But he has already expressed support for celebrating the centenary of the Amsterdam Olympics by backing a bid to bring the Games back in 2028. But he has actually taken part in both the New York marathon and the Frisian Eleven Cities Ice Skating Marathon the Elfstedentocht in his native land.

As can be seen in the picture he along with his wife and three daughters were enjoying the Olympics here in London last summer. So the Dutch people may only have a short time of having a King as a Queen may well be coming along in years to come.

A no vote is not always vacuous

Nicola Sturgeon in this morning's Scotland on Sunday says that a no vote in next year's referendum on Scottish Independence is a vote for nothing. This is rather big seeing as the SNP have yet to secure an Independent Scotland's future within Europe and to answer some leading questions on military, support for the arts, culture and leisure (currently covered by the national lottery) and other issues that severance with the rest of the UK would bring about.

Of course she pulls the line of toeing the line to Westminster Austerity cuts, has she forgotten that Scotland two banks and largest Building Society received bail outs from that same Westminster? Has she ever wondered what state Scotland would have been in had they not had the support of Westminster at that time? Maybe she should look at Greece and what is required there. Part of the reason that some of these cuts are required is because of the state that the Scottish financial institutions got us into, not all, but a sizable chunk. 

Of course there are many who believe that a vote to stay within the UK is in the best interests of Scots, there is the economy of scales questions of trans-British industry, there is security in a economy that despite the recession is still recognised world wide as a leader, there is certainty in freedom of trade and movement within Europe (yes even though David is promising a referendum on that in 2016).

You see what Nicola is forgetting to factor in is that the people of Scotland voted for a devolved Scottish Parliament within the UK. They also voted for tax raising powers with flexibility within parameters from the UK, powers that have yet to be exercised by any party in power in Scotland. So with the ability to do certain things differently that have not been exercised and others that have being taken, just what is this nothing that Nicola is talking about. Student fees, care for the elderly, prescription charges etc are all different in Scotland than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. That is hardly a nothing decision.

The other three main parties in Scotland all promised in the past to look at increasing powers for Holyrood, some may have taken a step back from that. However, the reason that this is on the back burner is because of the SNP insistence of taking this to a referendum and the decision to make it a single issue question of being part of the Union or not. The fact that parties like the Scottish Liberal Democrats do not want to muddy the waters does not mean that there will not be any further powers handed to Holyrood it is just that this is not something that the executive Government in Scotland are pursuing. You see it is Nicola and her SNP colleagues who are playing high stakes poker. They have gone all in on one hand, for them it is independence or bust. There is no get out, indeed there is no detail in what an independent Scotland will be, although Alex Salmond seems more that content to be dictator in chief, referee and player in his own referendum to anoint himself and his heirs and kings of Scotland thereafter.

Voting for the status quo is not always a vote for nothing, it can be a vote for stability as opposed to calamity. It can be a vote for prosperity as opposed to doom. Just because people do not want change does not mean that change is good or better. Until you can convince people that change is better for people they will vote for what they know.

The fact that the SNP are trying to scare people into saying a vote to stay in the UK is vacuous only goes to show that they have no real plan for the future. They have yet to convince me that Scotland is better apart from the UK, which is why I say we are Better Together, if I were to have a vote in the referendum I would be voting "No".

When Hubs Cry

Yesterday the Westminster Government announced their proposals for Equal Marriage legislation in England and Wales. Unfortunately for displaced Northern Irish LGBT persons such as I have been for most of my adult live should we get married in England or Wales and then return to Northern Ireland that marriage will only be recognised as a Civil Partnership even if the couple had never been civil partnered.

Therefore I have turned to Prince for the music to sum up my feelings about this.

When Hubs Cry

Dig if you will the picture

Of you and I engaged in a kiss

The minister pronounced us husband and husband.

Can you my darling, can you picture this?

I take you home to my mother

In part of the country we’ve wed

But the homophobes strike a curious pose

And you and I are only civil partnered instead

Maybe they just want the Union to feel part of a bigger club.

Maybe our Britishness don’t matter to them.

Being gay ain’t being British to them.

Maybe we’re just too demanding, saying our blood is not fine.

Wanting equality in marriage of all things

Is pushing section 72 over the final line.

Maybe we’re not really human, not natural at any rate

But in England and Wales you and I are married

Just in Belfast we will have to wait.

Why do they scream we're repugnant

Was it because of something we've said

Is it our smell, our sound how we feel?

Or it is the other sense instead?

Why can't they accept our love darling?

You and I alone in our room

It doesn't affect how they love their wives

Yet this is what it sounds like

When Hubs cry.

(To the tune of When Dove’s Cry by Prince)

Lance Armstong confession

Here is the opening of Lance Armstong's interview with Oprah Winfrey last night. It answers all the questions cycling fans like myself wanted answers to, the details came later.


I don't need to say anything else