Author Archives: Li-Teck Lau

Opinion: Protesting about policy issues by lay-people is inane sloganeering

By Li-Teck Lau | Sat 26th September 2009 - 11:05 am

I happened to walk past a small protest the other day occurring before the steps of a local town hall. The subject was climate change, and one protestor apparently had the wit to write ‘Gordon Green, not Gordon Brown’ on a large piece of paper. In total, I would guess there were 15-20 people – a local affair in which the protagonists’ children made up some 30-or-so per cent (I’m presuming present to symbolise that the issue is of protecting future generations, as opposed to implying they too believe in the cause).

But wait a moment; who are these people again? I’m …

Posted in Op-eds | 8 Comments

Opinion: Freedom of speech should not be filled with wrong-speech

By Li-Teck Lau | Mon 31st August 2009 - 4:00 pm

OK, so basically, I will confess to enjoy reading the Daily Mail because it’s full of hate, and hate can be fun to read. Third world (or however you may wish to call it) debt, access to clean water and human rights abuses etc, are all very noble issues, but, at the same time, can get rather boring. Once you’ve read about one genocide, you’ll soon discover they’re all really quite similar.

I got to reading a wonderful Saturday commentary page by a certain Amanda Platell (I understand that she also writes for the Guardian giving a ‘right wing perspective’ on Wednesdays, but I have yet to waste time on it) titled ‘This baby boom will make us all go bust’, referring to the recent publication of birth and death rates . She starts off her piece stating,

Soaring immigration – and a migrant baby boom – has sent Britain’s population rocketing over the 61 million mark. We are now the second most densely populated country in the world, something that will be all too apparent on the roads and trains this bank holiday weekend’.

Ignoring the flame-stoking use of language for the moment, the second sentence claim that Britain has filled up to the point that it is now the second most densely populated country in the world, apparently in an attempt to shock the average housewife sitting in her flower-embroidered sofa into believing she will imminently be accommodating this influx in her garden, is only outdone in its disgracefulness by its shear wrongness.