In October I blogged on the Council spending £28,000 on a trip to Shanghai for the World Expo next year. I argued then that we should be using that money to deliver basic services in Wirral, such as re-instating the school crossing patrols that were axed, or refurbishing Linear Park in Moreton. I still believe those alone are compelling reasons not to spend council taxpayers money on a trip to China for Council Officers.
However we now have what I believe to be another, perhaps even more compelling reason, the disgraceful and totally unacceptable behaviour of the Chinese State executing Akmal Shaikh. Read more on that by clicking HERE and HERE. I believe Wirral Council should lead by example, and make it clear that they will not tolerate China’s total disregard for human rights and withdraw from attending the World Expo next year.
Although China’s poor record on Human Rights is well known, I’m not certain which aspect of this particular case it applies to.
61 countries, including the United States and Japan, still use capital punishment.
Akmal Shaikh was unable to provide any tangible evidence of his medical condition other than the re-appearance of estranged relatives offering anecdotal evidence of “odd behaviour”. Seems to me that, if that was to be accepted as evidence in this country about a foreign national, there’d be an outcry.
I’ve got mixed feelings about this case but, in some ways, it contrasts strongly with the PC-do-gooders ‘two fat ladies’ approach taken by the UK, in which criminals seems to have more rights than victims. Maybe a sensible line somewhere between the two is what’s needed.
Wirral’s presence at next year’s Expo will be as insignificant as Brown’s intervention in the Shaikh case but I’m not convinced that the two should be compared – or one used against the other.
[...] to spend over half a million pounds on catering over the next three years, that on top of the £28k it is spending on Council Officers going to Shanghai. All of this at a time when school crossing patrols have been slashed, childrens play [...]