Latest news with #BenjaminDisraeli
The Citizen
23-07-2025
- Politics
- The Citizen
SA's military proves resilience despite the odds
Despite budget cuts and ageing equipment, the SANDF continues to perform with dedication and distinction at home and abroad. It was either American novelist Mark Twain or British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli who famously wrote that there are three kinds of lies; lies, damned lies and statistics, which proves just how difficult it is to get to the truth. It is easy to twist facts to fit convenient narratives, but for the truth to emerge, it is vital for these narratives to be tested against other truths. In the war for survival, the South African National Defence Force's (SANDF) greatest foe is disinformation in the battle for hearts and minds, not enemy soldiers taking aim at our members. There is no doubt that the majority of our key equipment is on average 40 years old, nor that our air force is struggling to maintain serviceable fighter capacity, nor that our navy has maintenance challenges. But what this narrative does not include is the fact that the threat that our country faces is of a very different profile from the insurgency war of liberation that ended 40 years ago and, indeed, of the conventional wars of invasion and attrition in the Middle East and Eastern Europe. This narrative also forgets that our prime mission equipment is very well maintained despite its age and budgetary constraints, as evidenced every year during our live fire all arms brigade-strength exercises at the Army Combat Training Centre in Lohatla in the Northern Cape. The doomsayers' narrative also ignores the fact that while the median age of all serving members might be as high as 40, the average age of those in our special forces and airborne is well within international norms and that these members conduct themselves in an exemplary fashion across Africa, winning the respect of other militaries. ALSO READ: From tiger to a pouncing police cat? Ramaphosa is remixing the 'corrupt' until a new caretaker arrives As for our navy, we have budgetary challenges with the mid-term refits for our frigates and submarines, but we have also made great strides through the construction and acquisition of our littoral multimission in-shore patrol vessels and the building and acquiring of SAS Nelson Mandela, the navy's new hydrographic vessel. Our air force remains a concern. We have severe constraints with our transport fleet while our Gripen fighter squadrons have well documented woes, because of a lack of budget. This is perhaps the crux of the matter. As successive ministers of defence and the chiefs of the various arms of service and the chief of the SANDF have said time and again over the past seven years, the SANDF is woefully underfunded by international norms. Prior to the ongoing conflicts in Eastern Europe which have pushed defence spend beyond 5% of GDP among Nato countries, the average norm was 2%. In South Africa, it's traditionally 1% or less and currently below 0.7% of GDP is budgeted for our defence needs. The biggest question that has to be asked before anyone starts any debate is simple: what kind of defence force should South Africa have? The second question is just as important: how much is SA prepared to pay for the defence force it thinks it wants? ALSO READ: 'A coup is not discussed on social media': Holomisa says no need to press panic buttons The fact that we have a functioning people's defence force that has smashed glass ceilings, created opportunities and does more and more with less is a story that should be told. It is easy to fixate on vehicle parks of redundant and superannuated equipment, but ignore the work being done every day inside our borders on humanitarian missions and beyond on peacekeeping missions, where there are no media or influencers to tell that story. For an organisation that works cheek by jowl with danger, deploying into perilous situations, our members execute their tasks commendably and most return safely afterwards. Critics would have you believe the SANDF is a shambles, wholly unfit for purpose and a waste of taxpayers' funds. Nothing could be further from the truth – and our proud record since our founding more than 30 years ago is stark testimony to precisely that. The SANDF and the department of defence do have problems. In typical age-old South African style, we have made a plan and it has got us this far. All we ask is that the critics take that into account when they step into glasshouses and pick up stones to lob. NOW READ: NPA to appeal bail ruling in case of 12 SANDF soldiers accused of killing Hawks investigator
Telegraph
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Disraeli should be on our banknotes. Sadly he won't be
The Bank of England has asked the public's help in designing its new bank notes and suggesting which historial figures should grace them. Having worked as a professional historian for over 40 years and as the author of over 100 books, I venture that I am rather well qualified to offer advice. Indeed I was the historical adviser to the Royal Mail for the set of stamps they issued to mark the millennium. There is one standout candidate who should be honoured by the Bank of England: Benjamin Disraeli. His head on a banknote would be very welcome. It would be a true celebration of Britain's almost unparalleled genius for integration. Disraeli was a highly talented man of Jewish descent, born way outside the purlieux of the elite. This outsider became party leader, prime minister and Peer of the Realm – the Earl of Beaconsfield. A politician able to write effective novels about his country and national heritage, Disraeli believed in and sought to implement modernisation and continuity. He was Edmund Burke transposed into power and policy. Disraeli also helped save British politics from the course that was to wreck so much of Europe in the first half of the twentieth century, that of blood and soil conservatism counterpointed by socialism. Instead, his was a conservatism that rested on the values of an imperial community and a politics of prudence. Moreover, in contrast to William Gladstone's grim, humourless self-righteous Puritanism for the people – think Gordon Brown plus a sideline in assisting fallen women – Disraeli had elan, style and sympathy. Disraeli represented Britain when it was great, tackled international problems with aplomb, and kept the ship of state proudly and powerfully afloat. That all explains why there is no chance Disraeli will go on a banknote. The reasons tell us much about our decline, and loss of sound purpose. The fact is that the new inclusiveness, the politics of Diversity, Equality and Inclusion or DEI, clearly does not apply to Jews any more – if it ever did. DEI is generally thought to permit discrimination against just two groups: white people, especially middle-aged males, and Jews. Disraeli also suffers as a Conservative, indeed the founder of modern Conservatism, for that is not a heritage that is now acceptable in the ' never kissed a Tory' age. It will not help that the great statesman's new biography will be by Andrew Roberts who is a Tory Peer as well as the country's ablest public historian. Recognition of Disraeli will also be rejected due to the prevailing modern opinion that Britain before the appearance of modern socialism was a vicious colonialist oppressor, monstrously cruel both to its own people and any others with whom it dealt. We see this constantly, as with the pejorative use (this occurred in the Commons just this week) of the word 'Dickensian'. The past has always been contentious, but I did not have these problems when advising the Royal Mail just 25 years ago. Since then almost everything prior to 1945 has been peeled away and thrown aside. We all suffer from this. Disraeli would never have made this mistake. He was honoured by contemporaries and should continue to be recognised and honoured today.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
How the war of the sexes is changing politics forever
In his 1845 novel Sybil, Benjamin Disraeli coined the term 'two nations' to refer to the divide between the rich and the poor. But in British politics today, increasingly the two nations are men and women. The easiest way to predict how someone voted at this month's local elections was their sex. On the Left, nearly 60 per cent of Green voters were female. On the Right, three out of five Reform voters were male. Nor is this purely a British phenomenon. Political divergence between men and women is a worldwide trend, detectable in the United States, Germany, South Korea and beyond. In Britain, as elsewhere, the gender divide is particularly extreme among the young, notably Gen Z born between 1997-2010. In the 2024 general election, men under 25 were more than twice as likely to vote Reform as young women. Young women, in turn, were almost twice as likely to vote Green as young men. The new divide is all the more remarkable in that it inverts a norm that has existed since universal suffrage. After they gained the vote in 1918, women – who tended to be more religious and socially conservative – were a reliable bulwark of Tory support. Had only women voted, the Conservatives would have won every general election from 1950 to 1992. Not until 2017 were women more likely than men to vote for Labour. Now, global political gender dynamics have been transformed. Women have not merely moved to the Left of men; in many countries, the voting gap between the sexes is now larger than ever before. 'Generations tend to move together – not go in different directions, across gender lines,' says Prof Bobby Duffy from King's College London. 'This is a new development. There's a very unusual trend of a split within a cohort, Gen Z.' Traditionally, age and class were the two main cleavages in British politics, explains Luke Tryl, the UK director of the polling company More in Common. Now, these have been replaced by two new interrelated divides: gender and education. Today, 57 per cent of UK higher education students are female. There are now four female graduates for every three male graduates. Differing levels of education are driving the sexes apart at the ballot box. Young people almost invariably lean well to the Left of older generations. But Reform is now the most popular party among non-graduate young men: 26.1 per cent of men under 25 without a degree support the party. Just 10.7 per cent of young men with a degree support Reform. Yet only about half the gender divide is explained by women attending university in greater numbers, Tryl estimates. The other half is rooted in different cultural and social attitudes. Even when young men are as well-educated as women, and earn as much, they still tend to be more Right wing. The contrast can be explained by differing priorities. Men tend to be anti-immigration, perhaps because working-class men feel particularly under threat from low-skilled migration. Men are also generally less motivated by climate concerns. The #MeToo movement, and feminism more broadly, are sharply polarising issues too. Indeed, by some metrics young men are more anti-feminist than older cohorts. Worldwide, the pollsters Ipsos found, 57 per cent of Gen Z men agree that 'we have gone so far in promoting women's equality that we are discriminating against men', compared with 44 per cent of male baby boomers. 'There's possibly a backlash among younger men,' says Rosie Campbell, a professor of politics at King's College London and an expert in voting behaviour. 'This attitude to gender equality is something new.' For all the focus on young men shifting Right, women have shifted Left by at least as much. 'Young women have moved to the Left over a very long period – it's happening more in every generation,' Campbell explains. The rise in female education and employment, and declining religiosity, has driven women to the Left. Being unmarried is also more correlated with having Left-wing views for women than for men. Increasingly gendered media consumption threatens to exacerbate these divides. For most of democratic history, men and women have largely used the same mainstream news sources. No longer. The Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast by an American comedian and mixed martial arts commentator, rallied young men to Donald Trump in the US election. His listeners supported Trump over Kamala Harris by a margin of two to one. The Joe Rogan Experience is also top of the podcast charts in the UK; around 80 per cent of listeners are male, with the majority under 35. Even the types of media that people consume are gendered. YouTube and podcasts are more popular among men; social media, including Instagram, has particularly strong appeal to women. 'If you're a young woman, the algorithm thinks that you're going to [vote] Green. If it sends you anything about politics, it might be on that side,' Campbell observes. 'And vice versa for young men.' The struggling economy multiplies such differences. The poor jobs market encourages men and women alike to see progress as a zero-sum game, in which opportunities for one gender come at the expense of the other. 'When you have more economic pressure on cohorts, it does sharpen the sense of division within them,' Duffy reflects. This divide is being seen around the world. In the US last November, Kamala Harris won women voters by 8 per cent. This advantage was more than cancelled out by Trump winning male voters by 14 per cent. The same trend was detectable in three other countries this year. In Germany, in February, the Right-wing populists AfD won 27 per cent of men aged under 25 but only 15 per cent of young women, Ansgar Hudde of the University of Cologne has found. Die Linke ('The Left') won 35 per cent of females under 25, but just 16 per cent of males. In Canada, Mark Carney's victory in April was powered by the female vote. Even in an election dominated by Trump, the parties were polarised along gender lines. The gender voting gap is likely to have been the largest in Canadian history, says Elizabeth Goodyear-Grant from Queen's University, Ontario. A poll before the vote showed the Conservatives leading by five points among men while the centre-left Liberals had a 25 per cent lead among women – an overall 30 per cent gender gap. Women were central to Anthony Albanese's re-election in Australia this month: pre-election polls found that men aged 18-34 were 10 per cent more likely to vote Conservative. The strongest predictor of seats with a higher Green vote was a greater number of university-educated women, Dr Intifar Chowdhury from Flinders University has found. Nowhere is the gender divide more extreme than South Korea. There, on top of the underlying forces driving the sexes apart elsewhere, two particularly toxic issues deepen the political gender chasm. South Korea has the largest gender pay gap in the developed world – 29 per cent – creating anger among highly educated women. Men, in turn, are angry by the requirement to do 18 months' military service. 'Especially after the 2008 economic crisis, you have huge competition for jobs,' says Heejung Chung, who grew up in South Korea and is professor of work and employment at King's College London. 'Opportunities for young people in general, both men and women, have significantly declined. 'Women are going into higher education in higher numbers. A lot of young men feel like, 'We're actually in a worse state than women.'' In the 2022 presidential election, the Right-wing candidate Yoon Suk Yeol particularly courted young men. Yoon claimed that men were being treated like 'potential sex criminals', and denied the existence of systemic discrimination against women. While men and women over 40 showed minimal voting differences, Yoon won 59 per cent of men under 30, yet just 34 per cent of young women. As president, Yoon discontinued funding for programmes aimed at addressing sexism and removed the term 'gender equality' from the school ethics curriculum. And at 10.27pm on December 3 last year, Yoon declared martial law. Four days after the declaration, a nationwide rally demanded Yoon's impeachment. Yet crowds were overwhelmingly female. Only about one tenth of all pro-impeachment protestors were men. The greatest determinant of how people viewed the most seismic event in South Korea since the introduction of democracy was their gender. Now, on June 3, these divisions will surface once again. South Korea is holding its next presidential election, brought forward by Yoon's removal from office. The vote is likely to see a similar gender gap on Left-Right lines to previous elections, Chung believes. South Korea offers a stark warning, pointing to a future in Britain and around the world in which, rather than young people of both sexes prospering together, they increasingly see their interests at war with each other. The consequences of such gender polarisation go far beyond politics. A chasm between the sexes in the ballot box is also bad for the future of humanity itself. Today, South Korea has the world's lowest birth rate: just 0.72 births per woman. This is almost certainly the lowest birth rate in any country in peacetime in human history. Births are even less common in Seoul: the capital's birth rate is 0.55, the lowest of any city in the world. Korea's population is projected to halve by the year 2100, creating a financial and demographic crisis. The government has spent more than $250 billion on programmes to encourage people to start families, to little avail. One third of women say they do not want to get married, compared with only 13 per cent of men. Remarkably, only 34 per cent of women aged 25-29 say that they want to have children. 'More women are saying that having a marriage or having children is not a prerequisite for a good life,' Chung observes. 'That makes men angrier.' It turns out that men and women divided by politics have little wish to couple up – or to reproduce. Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Time of India
25-05-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Memorial Day 2025: History, wishes, quotes, and what's open & closed
Memorial Day 2025, observed on the last Monday of May, will see government offices and banks closed, while most retailers remain open with sales. Travel is expected to surge, with AAA projecting over 45 million Americans traveling, primarily by car, despite ongoing air travel concerns due to recent accidents and delays. Costco will be closed. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads What's Open and What's Closed on Memorial Day 2025: Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Memorial Day 2025 Wishes: 'Wishing you a meaningful Memorial Day. Let us honor and remember our heroes today and always.' 'On this Memorial Day, we salute the brave men and women who gave everything for our freedom.' 'May we never forget the cost of liberty and those who paid the ultimate price for it.' 'With pride and gratitude, we remember all who served and sacrificed for our nation.' 'Let us keep their memory alive—with silence, reverence, and a renewed commitment to peace.' Memorial Day 2025 Quotes: 'Our flag does not fly because the wind moves it. It flies with the last breath of each soldier who died protecting it.' – Unknown 'Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them.' – Franklin D. Roosevelt 'The legacy of heroes is the memory of a great name and the inheritance of a great example.' – Benjamin Disraeli 'Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.' – G.K. Chesterton 'No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.' – Gen. Douglas MacArthur Once observed on May 30, Memorial Day became a federal holiday in 1971 and is now marked on the last Monday of May. Originally set aside to honor America's fallen military heroes, the day has evolved into both a solemn tribute and the unofficial start of its roots remain sacred, the long weekend has also become one of the busiest for retail sales and travel across the state, and local government offices—including post offices, courts, and public schools—will be banks and the U.S. stock markets will be closed on Monday. FedEx and UPS will suspend most pickup and delivery services, though limited express options may still be will close its doors for the holiday, staying true to tradition. However, most major retailers will remain open and are expected to roll out significant Memorial Day sales. Check local hours, as they may Day weekend marks the unofficial launch of summer travel. AAA estimates more than 45 million Americans will journey at least 50 miles from home—up 1.4 million from last year. Of those, about 39.4 million will hit the road, setting a new record since AAA began tracking in travel is also expected to rise slightly, with around 3.61 million flying over the weekend. While fuel prices have dropped (currently averaging $3.18 per gallon, compared to $3.60 last year), air travel remains under scrutiny following a recent midair accident and ongoing flight delays caused by staffing shortages and technical issues.
Otago Daily Times
23-04-2025
- Politics
- Otago Daily Times
Dual heritage needs proper accounting
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. This phrase has been attributed to Benjamin Disraeli, but we could be forgiven for thinking about it when we hear Statistics New Zealand telling us who they count as Māori in New Zealand. Many decisions are made by the government and others in New Zealand based on race/ethnicity. Whenever the government divides us up into various piles it seems to have decided that ethnicity is the thing we most want to be defined as. Stats NZ, the government department charged with carrying out our official census, has struggled with the reliability of census data recently. There are also particular issues with making use of the official census data around ethnicity in New Zealand provided by Stats NZ. One source of unreliability comes from filling in the gaps where the census was not filled in by everyone. This is done using what they euphemistically call "administrative data". We have no idea of the circumstances around the use of the information used for administrative data. A second source of unreliability of data comes from what is done with the answers in the census around ethnicity. We were advised when filling in the 2023 census we could choose more than one ethnicity if more than one applied. While the ability to choose more than one ethnicity produces more accurate information on who we really are, Stats NZ have decided this produces too complicated an answer. So they have decided to get rid of this messy issue by making a minor reference to some people having more than one ethnicity then quickly moving to describing us in a singular way as having only one ethnicity. They have then counted 887,493 people (17.8% of the population) as Māori, and 861,576 (17.3%) as Asian people for example. The number of people who described their ethnicity as only Māori was 366,015 out of the total population of 4,993,923. The number who described themselves as European/Māori was 409,401, with another 50,000 or so describing themselves as of other mixed ethnicities including Māori . Therefore those who described their ethnicity as only Māori are less than 7.4%. Those who are of mixed (including Māori) ethnicity, are in fact over 9% of the population. Stats NZ, it would appear, has taken all of the people who said Māori was at least one of their ethnicities as only in the Māori category. For Stats NZ to put out information which denies people part of their ethnicity is, to be very charitable, misleading. It is particularly unhelpful when we have in good faith answered census questions allowing for answers showing mixed ethnicity which have been ignored. To add insult to injury, this government department has decided which of the ethnicities we have chosen as the one they will allocate to each of us. The organisations using the information provided by Stats NZ are, in many cases, attempting to target help and support to those who need this most. Instead there is an emphasis on whether people or groups of people are Māori and should be supported on the basis of their ethnicity. Or as it turns out part of their ethnicity. If we are looking for where polarising racist information is coming from, this may be a better place to look rather than blaming an attempt to get to the bottom of what the Treaty means. Inaccurate ethnic statistics will make it more difficult to sort out whether medical issues relating to ethnicity or race are as a result of genetic differences or social ones. Such singular descriptions cover up the difficulties in blaming colonisation for everything that is wrong. The blaming works best if it does not involve blaming some of your ancestors for failings by others of your ancestors. There are 366,015 people who describe themselves as only Māori, but more (about 450,000) are of mixed ethnicity. For those looking at statistics to understand how our history shapes us, it may be more helpful to compare those of mixed ethnicity with those who describe themselves as of only one ethnicity. Or with those of people who look like they are of a particular ethnicity and who may not be receiving the help they deserve because of the way they look. Whatever we are trying to achieve, we would do better to stop the potentially racist and misleading statistics which are being relentlessly produced under the guise of official statistics showing each of us as being of only one ethnicity. It cost $316.3 million to run the 2023 census. Before we gear up for the next census, we need some straightforward thinking about how to acknowledge, support and appreciate our mixed ethnicity. Then we could get back to the more important issues of supporting and giving a hand up to those at the bottom of the heap whatever their ethnicity. hcalvert@ • Hilary Calvert is a former Otago regional councillor, MP and Dunedin city councillor.
