Suella Braverman - sacked as Home Secretary (p394)

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'Who choose to top up their wages with benefits'. I wasn't aware that I could choose benefits too, well I choose them, right now, and yes, I know I earn what I earn, but I choose them, and I want them.

They are just trying to appeal to the lowest level of their audience, those who believe that the government isn't responsible for anything, but benefits claimants are, immigrants are, the EU is...it really is embarrassing, and dangerous.

The benefits she is referring to are because wages are lower than their threshold. Wages shouldn't be, of course, but they also oppose unions that fight for better terms and conditions for employees. Meanwhile, members of their own front bench are using tax havens to hide their personal wealth from HMRC.
It's the politics of envy, when the rich envy the poor.
 
Boring woman. She’s supposed to be a lawyer but proves that she doesn’t understand the law.

Our own Brexit bill put paid to sending people back, being a founder member of the ECHR makes it impossible to do anything other than accept an application, whichever way that comes.

Sad twats who play to the crowd but have absolutely nothing to back it up.

For those who voted for getting rid of migrants, the Tories are failing you.
 
Boring woman. She’s supposed to be a lawyer but proves that she doesn’t understand the law.

Our own Brexit bill put paid to sending people back, being a founder member of the ECHR makes it impossible to do anything other than accept an application, whichever way that comes.

Sad twats who play to the crowd but have absolutely nothing to back it up.

For those who voted for getting rid of migrants, the Tories are failing you.

Also fails into account the the Geneva Convention of 1951 - breaking that is not breaking international law in a limited and specific way
 
Just been checking what the Triratna Buddhist Community (formerly Friends of the Western Buddhist Order) get up to.

Their practices seem to combine those that are found in both the Theravada and Mahayana traditions (two umbrella terms that categorise various forms of Buddhism):

"Order members teach two practices: (a) "The mindfulness of breathing" (anapanasati), in which practitioners focus on the rise and fall of the breath; and (b) "The metta bhavana", which approximately translates from the original Pali as "the cultivation of lovingkindness". These practices are felt to be complementary in promoting equanimity and friendliness towards others."

Both of those are standard Theravada methods. Metta-bhavana involves the cultivation of loving-kindness, first of all inwardly towards oneself, then towards someone that it is easy to feel this way about (a relative or close friend), thirdly towards someone you may actively dislike or regard as an enemy, and finally towards mankind in general.

In general, and to cut a long story short, years of this practice are ultimately meant to produce a state of non-dual awareness, in which the sense of separation that you feel between yourself and the outside world dissolves. You would come to perceive others as no different from yourself.

In all forms of Buddhism, the most basic moral principle that is meant to be adhered to is that of ahimsa or non-violence to all living beings (i.e. those in possession of 'prana' or 'breath'). This would include psychological as well as physical violence. There is also a teaching about Right Livelihood, which makes certain jobs off-limits to Buddhist laypersons, specifically those that involve harming living beings in some way.

Obviously, given the history of the faith (Buddhism was, for example, adopted by the samurai and certain other teachings were deployed to justify what would normally appear to be morally reprehensible actions on the part of some of its gurus on the grounds that - as spiritually advanced beings - they did not have to adhere to conventional Buddhist morality), its track record has often been no better than that of the other major religions.

But I doubt very much that Braverman has such a nuanced grasp of her faith, one that involves an appeal to teachings like that of ‘skilful means’ (upaya kausalya), according to which a normally binding ethical precept can sometimes be set aside on pragmatic grounds.

So if I was interviewing her, that's what I would go for: the apparent lack of consistency between her faith and her politics. And I would be very direct about it: ‘How can you call yourself a Buddhist and yet fantasise in the manner that you have about migrants?’

Interestingly, the former barrister and judge Christmas Humphreys was a Buddhist too, and even published several books on the faith, including a standard introductory work that was available in many years in Penguin paperbacks. This is what the Wikipedia says about him:

‘In 1950 he was appointed Senior Treasury Counsel, in which role he led for the Crown in some of the causes celebre of the era, including the cases of Craig and Bentley, and Ruth Ellis. It was he who secured the conviction of Timothy Evans for a murder later found to have been carried out by John Christie. All three cases played a part in the later abolition of capitalism in the UK.

So Braverman is not even the first person with this kind of legal background to seemingly fail to exhibit Buddhist virtues in their professional life.
 
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