It's a Rough Trade, Politics

The power of sand

2009-09-23T04:57:00.002+01:00

While over 2 million people have watched Kseniya Simonova's live sand animation portraying the German occupation of the Ukraine (if you haven't seen it, you should), few have picked up on this work of hers from a week ago.

Kseniya's looking for help:

LARGE REQUEST TO ALL!!! IF YOU HAVE SOME INFORMATION AS TO BE CONNECTED WITH GOOD SPECIALISTS IN THE REGION OF NEUROSURGERY (IN ANY COUNTRY) WRITE HERE, TO THE PAGE. Nika's diagnosis is a coma as a result of Meningoencephalitis. Here is the telefone number of Nika's Mom, Alina Vetchinova 8-066-906-37-00, but unfortunately she doesn't speak English, so write here. Thank you!

There's more comment on the YouTube posting.

The sheer pace of the piece, let alone the content, conveys the desperation she's feeling. It may not help, but please provide your own links to Kseniya's video.

ICC World Twenty20

2009-06-12T18:01:00.002+01:00

"I think England's best bet is to bat first AND second."

Rob from Newbury, by text during India v West Indies

Jack Straw and the Probation Service

2009-06-10T06:28:00.006+01:00

Jack Straw 'takes full responsibility' for the failings of the probation service.

Unfortunately (but not surprisingly) there's a considerable gap between what you and I might understand by 'takes full responsibility' and what Jack means. David Scott's excellent article in The Guardian.

Can Gordon hang on?

2009-06-08T14:14:00.005+01:00

A year or so ago, Gordon looked dead in the water, until he suddenly found himself saved by the global recession (surprising as that might seem). Now though he's obviously in deep trouble, with a considerable minority within the Parliamentary party wanting rid of him.

It's clear he's an electoral liability, and in most respects he has made a terrible Prime Minister, who has consistently made wrong judgement calls and been found out. Some of his ministerial appointments have been of talentless time-servers, presumably on the basis that they wouldn't call his policies into question; our recently departed Home Secretary being a case in point. And as for policies, there's ID cards, Trident, the shameful treatment of the Gurkhas, abolition of the 10p tax rate, and all the others where he appears out of touch with the electorate. Many of the ills of the UK economy are a direct legacy of his years as Chancellor. There's the MPs' expenses fiasco (not of his making admittedly) but he has displayed a singular reluctance to deal decisively over the issue, no doubt fearing too many of his colleagues would have to go. And that issue is particularly a problem for Labour (and Gordon Brown's brand of Labour) since it's a party that claims to stand for fairness and equality, not the accumulation of vast capital assets at the taxpayers' expense by a few MPs. Then there's his communication skills; set against him even the dull Jack Straw`appears positively charismatic. The strongest reason why Gordon should go though is the Damien McBride affair, utterly shameful conduct from a Prime Minister who promised us a Government 'free of spin'.

Set against that are the reasons he might yet stay. The first is that whoever replaces him will face irresistible demands for an election, and right now most MPs realise that they are going to take a terrible hiding - there's a good chance that they'll prefer to hang on simply because things can't get any worse, and might yet turn around. Then there's the economy. I have a feeling that the recession has bottomed out, and that another year might yet see sufficient improvement to limit the scale of Labour losses come the election. And there's a strong sense that the electorate hasn't yet bought into David Cameron's glib soundbites that pass for Tory policies these days.

The other problem Labour face is how they would go about choosing a new leader. They've tried the 'coronation' route, and that's why they've found themselves landed with such a catastrophic incumbent. If they want to find someone of genuine vision, with discernible policies, a contested election is vital. But the party constitution means that would take time, and the party would probably tear itself apart in the process.

One thing's for sure. If the party has lost faith in Brown, he will need to be told quite plainly and in private by a colleague. Clearly a job for Harriet, since she is the one member of the Government whose position in the party has been gained through a genuine election, rather than any form of largesse from Gordon. Since she has been staunch in her support, and repeatedly willing to stick her head above the parapet (unlike her colleagues) in doing so, her advice is all the more likely to be heeded.

My prediction? It's a tight call but I think that Labour will ditch Brown simply because events have acquired such momentum. However, they'll regret doing so when they face the electoral consequences since the party is likely to be decimated and may never recover.

MPs - repaying those expenses.

2009-06-01T10:34:00.007+01:00

The public doesn't want MPs just discreetly paying off those excessive claims under cover of darkness, they want to know they're doing it. Thankfully our 'Justice Secretary' has for once come up with the perfect solution:

Tony McNulty, another of the miscreants, is keen to join the queue:

Shamed

2009-06-01T08:41:00.004+01:00

Later in 2002, some months after MI6 sent its advice, the recently arrived British ambassador to Uzbekistan inquired urgently of the Foreign Office what its legal justification was for receiving information from Islamic dissidents who had been boiled alive to produce it. Craig Murray records his astonishment on being recalled to London to be told that the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, had decided that in the ‘War on Terror’ we should, as a matter of policy, use intelligence obtained through torture by foreign intelligence services. A follow-up memo from a Foreign Office legal adviser in March 2003 explained that it was not an offence to do so.

Gareth Peirce, writing on the UK's involvement in torture in this month's LRB.

She's doing a good job...

2009-06-01T05:53:00.006+01:00

"She's doing a good job", "she must be left to get on with her work" and other similar platitudes have characterised Gordon Brown's response to the relatively long-running saga of Jacqui Smith's Parliamentary expenses, as if that somehow justifies his failure to hold her to account for her actions. Similarly with Hazel Blears. Of Geoff Hoon's disgusting acquisition of a minor property empire (this is the arsehole who under-equipped our troops for service in Iraq we're talking about here) not a word. Nor on Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper. Or Tony McNulty. Or Alastair Darling. Or Jack Straw.

A seat round the cabinet table does not absolve MPs from personal responsibility for their own conduct when it comes to deriving financial benefit via the public purse. Nor does the fact that Gordon Brown long since ceased to have any credible reputation as an effective and honest leader left to damage excuse his woeful inertia over the whole affair, an inertia that has simply handed the moral high ground to David Cameron.

Is it right?

2009-06-01T05:26:00.003+01:00

I don't get shocked by much, but I was genuinely surprised by some of the things MPs are entitled to do and claim for. The question in MPs' minds as they submit expenses should not be 'can I get away with this?' Nor even 'how will it look?' Nor even 'is it within the rules?' But is it right?

Alastair Campbell, blogging about the MPs' expenses scandal.

Nadine Dorries, the Daily Telegraph, the Barclay brothers and freedom of speech.

2009-05-31T15:09:00.035+01:00

Nadine Dorries' main charm as far as this blog goes is I'm afraid an aesthetic one. I have little sympathy with her political views, and the perception of her as 'wacky' (as leaked from the Cameron inner circle) is not one I was entirely surprised by; it was not that long ago I described her as 'barking'. Nevertheless she has been more vocal than many coming out fighting against the way that the Daily Telegraph has been reporting on MPs' expenses, and suggesting with her inimitable almost surreal hyperbole that the newspaper's proprietors have their own political agenda in all this. She blogged her views (in terms that I find hard to believe anyone could take serious offence at) but has found herself on the receiving end of the attentions of the lawyers for the Telegraph and its owners, who persuaded her hosting company to take her blog down.

Given that the owners of the Daily Telegraph are those well-known supporters of democracy and tax payment Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay, who not so long ago were demonstrating their commitment to free and fair elections on the island of Sark, some of her comments are less than surprising. And there's a certain irony to be found when a newspaper owned by a couple of tax exiles starts hammering MPs for tax avoidance.

At the moment, Nadine's blog has returned, presumably with a different hosting company, with rather basic graphics and sadly (if I'm allowed to say so) a less flattering photo, but with the contentious post now missing. Nadine's caution this time around is understandable given the legal threats she has received, but as always in the blogosphere such threats simply lend credence and publicity to content that most people would otherwise have taken with a considerable pinch of salt. The post that appears to have caused the Barclay Brothers such grave offence is still easily read from the Google cache (the post in question is that for the 21st May Winners or Losers? also appended below); much of it is the usual bonkers nonsense one normally associates with Nadine of course (she is regarded as a singular bête noire among left-wing bloggers) but what the lawyers seem to have missed here is that hardly anybody takes Nadine Dorries that seriously anyway, so what's all the fuss about? If the Daily Telegraph are happy to dole it out they should be happy to take it too.

There is useful information about the legal shenanigans behind all this over on Dizzy Thinks. Nadine Dorries may spout a lot of nonsense but she is not alone; the Barclay brothers and their legal representatives seem to be doing their best to match her.

Hopefully Nadine will repeat what she has already blogged under Parliamentary privilege when the MPs return on Monday so that these absurd legal threats are neutered in the way they deserve. And the sooner this country gets laws that provide some protection for freedom of speech and political comment outside the Palace of Westminster the better.

This is the post that caused such grievous offence; would you take it that seriously?

Winners or Losers?
Posted Thursday, 21 May 2009 at 17:04

Just park a couple of facts for a moment, which you may not agree with but are factual.
The first is that MPs have always been encouraged, by whatever means possible, to draw down their ACA allowance in full. This is because it was upped in place of an appropriate pay rise.

The rules surrounding the ACA were deliberately sloppy in order to maximise the opportunity that MPs had to draw.
This was always felt to be the safest political method to remunerate MPs, rather than face the media backlash of a pay rise.

Parliament is in chaos. The public are angry. The Telegraph has upped its circulation.
There are 650 members of Parliament. In any walk of life, in whatever profession, you will find people who are dishonest. It will always be thus as long as we are all human!

The Telegraph are uncovering a few cases of fraud, but not enough, so they are more than slightly embellishing some of the stories. I write as a case in point.

Enter the Barclay brothers, the billionaire owners of The Daily Telegraph.
Rumour is that they are fiercely Euro sceptic and do not feel that either of the main parties are Euro sceptic enough. They have set upon a deliberate course to destabilise Parliament, with the hope that the winners will be UKIP and BNP.

A quick online check of the Barclay brothers and their antics on the Island of Sark is enough to give this part of the rumour credence.

Another rumour is that the disc was never acquired and sold by an amateur, but it was in fact a long term undercover operation run by the Telegraph for some considerable time, carefully planned and executed; and that the stories of the naive disc nabber ringing the news desk in an attempt to sell the stolen information are entirely the work of gossip and fiction.

These rumours do have some credibility given that this has all erupted during the European Election Campaign and turn out is expected to be high with protest votes, courtesy of the Daily Telegraph, or should I say the Barclay brothers.

Now, if this is all a power game executed by the BBs, how would they do that?
It is a fact that these men are no fools and are in fact self-made billionaires.
I would imagine and believe that if any of this is true, they know the British psyche well enough to whip up a mood of public anger, hence the long running revelations in the DT.

Where do I get this from? Well, at heart I am just a cheeky scouser. I like to go into the rooms of the faceless and nameless in Parliament, sit on their desk and ask pertinent questions like: who are you? What do you do? I've made friends with one or two. One in particular I am very fond of. He is a mine of very astute information; and whilst in his office yesterday, we chunnered over the 'what is this all about?' question.

He reckons this is all a power game. That the British public are being worked like puppets by two very powerful men. Whipped up into a frenzy to achieve exactly what they want.

His very poignant words to me were "if any of this conjecture is true, Parliament will become full of racists, fantasists, and has-been celebrities. We will be rendered impotent and may never again regain the authority to withstand the pressure, opinion and whims of the overtly wealthy."

Scary stuff!

http://blog.dorries.org/Blogs/2009/May/21#21

Somewhat predictably, and as a direct consequence of all the fuss, Nadine's rather silly post is already widely re-posted, more often than not by bloggers who wouldn't otherwise give her the time of day - Pub Philosopher, Dr Crippen over on NHS Blog Doctor - who gives a particularly good point-by-point rebuttal of Ms Dorries' arguments, Craig Murray (it's posted as a comment), and Mr Eugenides (ditto) among others; not one of these has the slightest sympathy with what Nadine says, only with the fact that she's been on the receiving end of some unpleasant and unnecessary bullying. Similarly here, indeed I think that the allegations about the motives of the Barclay brothers made by Nadine are total rubbish, and that it has been wholly for the good that the Telegraph has exposed so much self-centred financial cynicism and naked greed among those who purport to govern us.

Normal service resumes

2009-05-31T15:05:00.002+01:00

Apologies for my long absence. The lack of an internet connection and health problems have been between me and my blog for too long, but no more (hopefully!).

It's normal service on another front too. MPs' expenses, about which I've blogged more than once.....

Another day, another 'entirely within the rules'

2009-03-22T20:22:00.003Z

Tony McNulty has rather more in common with our Home Secretary than a passing acquaintance with the hash pipe. A rare facility with money (so badly needed right now) and a sufficient lack of shame when claiming Parliamentary expenses. Let's face it, Tony could cycle in from Harrow, let alone commute.

It doesn't matter whether these spurious claims for expenses are within the rules or not. It wouldn't matter if they were signed off by the Pope or even God himself. They stink, and the same goes for the rotten politicians who claim them.

Mr McNulty has made the point that he was claiming against the cheaper of his two 'homes', and moreover that he recently stopped claiming the allowance at all. With interest rates being so low he can now cover his mortgage payments from his Parliamentary salary, he reassures us by way of explanation. I suppose the gullible might buy that, even if they harbour the faint suspicion that he was primarily motivated by the fear of exposure. The cynical however would rather suspect the opposite. He hadn't realised that Jacqui Smith's success in claiming on her family home (because it brought in more) was allowed, and he was intending to follow her example as soon as possible.

The public interest

2009-02-24T18:40:00.004Z

Am I alone in suspecting that Jack Straw is not really quite the best person to be offering an entirely objective judgement on whether we should get to see the Cabinet minutes on the meetings that led up to the Iraq invasion?

Still, it's nice to know that he's been keeping on top of his data security brief and practicing what he preaches when it comes to data sharing.

Would you compare Allen Stanford to Nelson Mandela? No, honestly, I jest not...

2009-02-23T15:42:00.003Z

You'd probably have thought that Giles Clarke and David Collier would have been considering their positions at the ECB given recent events (don't hold your breath though).

One person who should certainly be considering his position is the BBC's 'sports editor', Mihir Bose. This bit of smarmy flannel takes some beating; Mihir's obviously first in line to replace Giles Clarke when that gentleman finally bows to the inevitable.

Alfie

2009-02-18T10:38:00.003Z

Unfortunately it is not possible to protect children from the stupidity of their parents, and the parents of both these children seem to have stupidity in abundance, if not worse.

The CPS may have decided that it's not in the 'public interest' to prosecute Alfie (although they don't seem to have even considered prosecuting Chantelle, the older of the two). How about prosecuting the parents? And, for that matter, taking their children into care?

That a predictable section of our media are bent on chucking money at the families in question is not only singularly unedifying but raises the possibility that this echoes the Karen Matthews case where financial gain was the motive all along.

Still plotting

2009-02-18T10:27:00.002Z

What's new? You read it here first.

One out, all out?

2009-02-17T18:26:00.002Z

You'd have thought that the WTA would have long since cancelled the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, given the refusal of a visa to Shahar Peer. Whatever happened to the much vaunted 'player power' that supposedly exists within the professional game? Best not to ask Venus Williams. "All the players support Shahar" she tells us for all the good that's going to do anyone.

Unfortunately Dubai hosts the richest tournament on the circuit, and (when it comes to professional tennis players) money talks.

Delivering best value for the taxpayer

2009-02-10T11:28:00.004Z

Jacqui Smith has become something of a favourite on this blog what with her inimical skill in raising one's blood pressure with every utterance and all. So one has to acknowledge her selfless commitment to her work where she is prepared to rough it round at her sister's rather than claim a large Parliamentary allowance for some spurious second 'home' like so many of her colleagues would do.

You know that an MP is unashamedly on the make as soon as they start claiming that they've 'broken no rules'. Ms Smith goes down that route adding the (somewhat ironic given the context)comment that her claim is "above board". She goes further though, claiming to have longstanding approval for her highly unconventional domestic arrangements. Well that's what she likes to imply, although the reality is somewhat different, "I have always been very clear with the authorities about the arrangements that I made. I specifically asked whether or not the home where my children live had to be my main home. I received assurances it didn't have."

It doesn't matter whether Ms Smith's allowances claim is within the rules; morally it is utterly corrupt. It is difficult to know why she should need a second home at all given that Redditch is within easy commuting distance of London anyway. It is MPs like our sleazy Home Secretary who lend the most strength to the argument that all MPs allowances should be ended, they're paid more than enough without them. Hopefully the voters of Redditch will take account of the stench of greed Ms Smith trails in her wake come the next election.

Should we join the Euro?

2009-02-04T15:14:00.001Z

If the'll have us, that is. Yes we should. The current rock-bottom value of sterling makes it all the more sensible, since it would mean that the UK would retain the economic advantage that we already have - our exports are cheap and imports will soon be quite expensive, which is a wonderful basis on which to trade providing we learn to stem our inate preference for imported goods.

We should of course have joined the Euro from day one. Yet again we find ourselves outside a club that one day or another we'll end up joining, almost certainly on considerably less favourable terms given the delay. We'd certainly have been hit less hard by the current recession if we'd been in already.

Politicians from both the major parties have claimed that our economic cycle doesn't coincide with that of Europe, and that is why they are opposed to us joining the Eurozone. Now we can see how wrong they were; never has it been more obvious that our economies coincide with a vengeance.

British jobs for British workers

2009-02-04T14:52:00.002Z

At best Gordon's ill-chosen pledge showed him to be a Little Englander. At worst, it pandered to the xenophobic tendency of too many of the public and the ugly press that feeds off that. The BNP didn't need Gordon to go recruiting from them and he shouldn't have done so.

Digital switchover

2009-01-30T16:12:00.002Z

Much as I enjoy John Redwood's blog (I find it quite stimulating, particularly on economic theory) it's a rare day that I agree with him. However, I'm happy to endorse this post 100%.

He could usefully have dwelt on Andy Burnham's plans for libraries while he was about it though.

Good money after bad

2009-01-28T10:48:00.003Z

It long since ceased to be good money after bad. If our nation has any money left at all (very doubtful) it's a case of good money after good money after good money after good money after bad. And all with not one jot of an effect on the economic recession. More likely it's made it even worse.

How come? Well, mainly because the Government is chucking cash into the hands of institutions that have no incentive to stimulate the economy, but plenty of incentive to reshuffle whatever so-called toxic debt they've found themselves landed with, and writing off the sums they have thrown away investing in fraudulent pyramid financial schemes that have involved them moving vast amounts of money outside the UK. Writing off these major debts leaves balance sheets appearing deceptively healthy and those at the top of the financial heap that is The City creaming off more bonuses. Given the state of the UK economy you can be pretty confident that those bonuses will be heading offshore even as I type this post.

Since the Government is throwing such vast sums into some impenetrable black hole it is clear to everyone outside the UK that as a nation we are well on our way to bankruptcy meaning that whatever money is circulating in the world's financial markets will be giving us as wide a berth as possible, compounding our problems.

£85bn should have been more than enough to fend off the worst of the recession and protect our economy for the long term. But money should have been sent to those who would spend it in a form that obliged them to do so. Businesses are saved by having customers, not by endless state handouts.

So £85bn has been spent destroying the remnants of our economy. And now Gordon and Alistair are supposedly planning to spend more. Where on earth do they think it's going to come from and why do they suppose that they'll be any more successful than they've managed this far?

Those minutes

2009-01-27T17:58:00.000Z

I'm not going to hold my breath.

Jack Straw again

2009-01-27T12:34:00.004Z

I'm afraid Jack has scarcely paused for breath after scrabbling around in the dirt hoping to find Cardinal Newman's earthly remains (not that it did him any good). Now it's the Coroners and Justice Bill, presently being debated by Parliament.

Jack Straw is of course the Justice Secretary, whatever that means. Jack's notions of justice are not what you and I think of as justice though. More important to Jack that the Government be spared public embarrassment than that the families of soldiers killed in Iraq or Afghanistan get justice. More important that the Government be spared public embarrassment on anything come to that. More important that MPs be spared embarrassment. He tried again a couple of weeks ago.

But there are bits that have been included in with the Justice & Coroners Bill that are not even directly relevant to justice. Data sharing has nothing whatever to do with justice nor for that matter with coroners, so Jack has included clauses that allows the Government to share our personal data with anyone it feels like. In his role as Justice Secretary Jack has responsibility for Freedom of Information; I think he takes this to mean that the Government should be free to do whatever it likes with information about us (unlike us even getting information about them).

I'd like to pick up on one of Jack's other ideas. Ministers who misled Parliament obout the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Make them wear orange bibs emblazoned with 'I LIED ABOUT IRAQ'. That'd be some sort of justice at least.

Barcelona and the Holocaust

2009-01-24T16:43:00.004Z

Barcelona has cancelled Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremonies in response to the current situation in Gaza. However terrible some people think Israel's current conduct, it in no way alters the horror of what happened in Nazi Germany where 11 million people died, and Barcelona's decision is an appalling insult to their memory.

The BBC and the aid appeal for Gaza

2009-01-24T16:27:00.002Z

It is almost beyond comprehension, the BBC's decision not to air an appeal an emergency appeal for Gaza on behalf of our Disaster Emergencies Committee. Almost but not quite since the BBC is indulging in one of those periods of navel-gazing that inevitably follows any crisis such as the recent (fully justified) furore over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand. So that's what we get this week, the return of JR on his obscene salary and the refusal to help the citizens of Gaza where £6m would prove of a lot more use.

Thankfully, our other broadcasters have now decided to take a different line.

The ceasefire in Gaza

2009-01-24T10:25:00.002Z

How quickly the news agenda moves on: Gaza already gone from the headlines and Zimbabwe (where things continue to worsen) all but forgotten.

Many supporters of the Israeli actions complain that those who so vociferously condemn Israel's recent conduct are reluctant to criticise Hamas whose firing of rockets into Israel is what sparked the crisis. Not me, I regard Hamas as an exceptionally unpleasant organisation who disregard all the basic values of human existence when it suits them to do so. But I do have higher expectations of Israel, a country which shares the democratic and broader ideals which mark the post-enlightenment West. However difficult their position, resorting to actions which indiscriminately harm Palestinian civilians simply means they sink into the same moral cesspit already occupied by far too many in the Islamic world.

Israel has the greater problem in that she is a small country surround by neighbours harbouring various degrees of hostility. Should the situation move to all-out war, any victory she achieved would be worth little since it would just harden attitudes among the other Arab nations. While her immediate neighbours may not yet possess nuclear weapons Pakistan certainly does, along with a volatile political landscape and an Islamic population not totally averse to terrorist action.

There is a depressing spiral of blame where each side in the current dispute claim the other is the instigator. It serves no purpose, sooner or later the two sides have to find a solution acceptable to both and that can only be achieved by diplomacy not by bombs.

The West should have been playing a far more prominent role in finding a settlement than it is but its hands are too tied by its dependence on oil sourced from countries with which it would otherwise have no truck politically. Britain and the US have the additional problem of severely tarnished reputations post-Iraq.

Ofsted performance assessments

2008-12-17T13:38:00.004Z

Given recent events in Haringey, it is difficult to know how much value (if any) can be placed on the publication of Ofsted's annual performance assessments. Given that Haringay were given an 'adequate' rating, it means that this year's markings leave considerable cause for concern.

It seems extraordinary that the top brass at Ofsted has not yet met the same fate as Haringey's Director of Children's Services. I suppose that means no more than that they've not had the tabloids on their backs rather than us having a Government that simply doesn't care about such things.

The First Test

2008-12-15T15:35:00.003Z

So, England lost by six wickets. A terrible final day, after making a decent fist of things up to that point. Poor decisions by KP and poor bowling led to what would (before the game started) have been a predictable result.

I'd like to say that the real victory was over the terrorists who attacked Mumbai, with our brave lads refusing to be cowed despite the obvious risk that they would be the next target. But I can't. They should have made clear from the outset that if the Indians wanted the game to go ahead they were up for it. Instead they headed home and prevaricated until they finally worked out that invites to join the IPL would be pretty thin on the ground for those who chickened out.

They scarcely acquitted themselves any better at the Stanford Super Series when their undisguised greed and pre-match whingeing was an embarrassment, and the result was exactly what they deserved. But their response to the Mumbai massacre was shameful, and the ECB should never have indulged the players the way they did.

Brown joins in

2008-11-29T10:15:00.000Z

He would say that, wouldn't he?

Freedom of information and Jacqui Smith

2008-11-28T14:42:00.006Z

It's the fingerprints of our dangerously libertarian Home Secretary that are to be found all over the preposterous arrest of Damian Green, a politician whose name had been quite unknown to the general public until yesterday.

Sometimes our Government seems to have a death wish, and Jacqui seems keen to be seen at the front of the queue as always. You'd have thought Gordon had more than enough problems right now without any intervention on Ms Smith's part.

At least she kept a well-judged sense of proportion in ordering the arrest when she decided to use the anti-terrorist squad; Mr Green will be grateful that he's still alive. Honestly, you'd have thought they had enough work keeping on top of all the terrorists crowding our country (if Ms Smith is to be believed) without 'taking out' opposition MPs who manage to cause ministers a little embarrassment now and then.

I've spoken here before on the misuse of the anti-terrorist laws, and this latest farce reinforces my belief that politicians start abusing such legislation almost before the ink's dry. If only we already had our identity cards; that would certainly have scuppered Mr Green's criminal conspiracy before it even got going, wouldn't it?

What do you mean, the Government weren't consulted ahead of Mr Green's arrest? Everyone else seems to have been.

The budget that wasn't a budget

2008-11-26T14:23:00.004Z

It would be an understatement to say that I'm underwhelmed by Alastair Darling's latest tinkering; for reasons I've discussed many times, I don't think that the solutions on offer are going to save the world's financial institutions, merely ensure that Britain owes them an inconceivable amount of money.

What would I have liked to have seen? To the extent that money being put into the economy may at least cushion the worse of the recession, I would have liked to have seen the return of the 10p tax rate, and extending further upwards than before. Since those with low earnings are the most likely to spend their money it would tend to boost trade too. But doing that would of course require the Government to admit that they had been wrong to abolish it in the first place.

As far as possible, I'd have funded the tax cut by getting rid of most of the allowances and other mechanisms that enable the wealthy and big businesses to avoid paying taxes. An end to offshore subsidiaries selling 'services' to their UK parents for starters. An end to trust funds whose primary objective is to transfer property down succeeding generations of a family without the inconvenience of having to pay death duties. A firm clampdown on tax havens.

I suspect those two measures alone would fund the tax reductions, and have a far greater effect in reducing inequality in our society.

While we're about it, bin the ludicrously expensive, pointless and unwanted Identity Card scheme. If the Government were prepared to admit they'd got it wrong on that one they'd be able to save a few bob, that's for sure.

Trident. Do we need to renew it? No of course we don't.

VAT? Forget it; bringing it down to 15% is little more than pissing in the wind. Laughable. Some things are best left alone.

If our economy picks up, it will be because other rather better run economies have improved rather than the result of any efforts on the part of our Chancellor. He'd have served us far better if he'd looked for a way forward that called time on our credit culture once and for all. Even allowing for the unpopular nature of such a route, I'm not sure Mr Darling has even grasped the need to consider it.

Illegal immigrants and the need for an amnesty

2008-11-22T11:52:00.004Z

Boris Johnson has been advocating an amnesty for illegal immigrants for some time, and is now planning to increase the pressure for change by setting up a study to assess how it would benefit society.

He's quite right of course, so it's singularly disappointing to see the responses he's had so far from the Immigration minister among others. Cracking down hard on immigrants plays well with what remains of the Daily Mail element of the Government's support (did such support ever exist?) but all too frequently politicians seem blind to the law of unintended consequences.

One obvious example has been the growing reluctance to allow seasonal migrant workers to come here in the crop-picking season. Has that meant that such work has been taken by underemployed 'British Workers'? Of course it doesn't; it means that large quantities of fruit and vegetables have been left to rot, which is one of the factors in rapidly rising food prices.

There are many jobs that are both unattractive and low-paid that won't get done unless people come and do them outside the framework imposed by taxation and employment legislation. I doubt if James Purnell is going to pursuade the great unemployed to take them on either. Our Government is not alone in publicly denouncing illegal immigrants whilst at the same time using them to prop up the comforts of an affluent society.

Boris Johnson is right on this, and Gordon Brown, James Purnell, Phil Woolas et al. should have the courage to say so rather than pandering yet again to our unpleasant tabloid press.

Spending our way out of trouble

2008-11-11T09:08:00.002Z

It’s curious how a major financial crisis has been the saving of Gordon Brown, regardless of his own role in precipitating it. A month or so ago, you’d have got something approaching even money that it would have been a toss up for who would be forming Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition come the next General Election, the Lib Dems or the SNP. Now though Labour have coasted the Glenrothes by-election, and the latest opinion polls suggest that the electorate agree (as does much of the world) with Gordon’s recent assertion that this is ‘no time for a novice’. Certainly not for George Osborne, whose reputation will not recover easily from his schmoozing with that Russian oligarch.

Vince Cable on the other hand is looking very much the man. Every major step the Government has taken has been proposed beforehand by Vince, and the LibDems are appearing foolish only in that they preferred the hapless Nick Clegg as party leader. A week or so ago, he was the object of Labour sneers over his proposal to cut taxes but already it appears that the Government are now about to do just that, with cuts targeted at those most likely to spend the money when they get it.

So what is it that is actually happening? To me it appears like this:

The banks run out of ready cash after years of reckless, unsustainable lending (this one at least seems inarguable).
The Government bail out the banks, at massive cost, by borrowing the money to do so since it has none of its own.
Since this solves nothing, the Government now give people money to spend, once again borrowing the money to do so since its already up to its ears in debt.

This they hope will bring us right back to where we started; property prices rising, the banks lending lots of money, people spending money they don’t really possess at all, but with one major difference. The Government has placed itself in the self same position as everyone else; owing lots of money with no reasonable prospect of repaying it. The last time this happened (with somewhat different historical causes) was when Harold 'you've never had it so good' Macmillan was occupying Number 10, and leaving the incoming Labour government to pick up the pieces.

The Government was of course already deep in debt, not least from its fondness for PFI schemes, which represent a 'buy now, pay later' approach to public finances popular in part because the consequent debt is conveniently hidden when it comes to the balance sheet.

Is cutting taxes the answer to our problems? Of course not, it just defers the day of judgement ever further. Since the people who pay taxes are in the main those who already have money, they are the ones least likely to be having problems. What we do need though is a realignment of our tax system so that the obscenely wealthy pay a higher proportion of tax, and those on low salaries pay less. This has beneficial knock-on effects that might not be immediately apparent. For example, if a City trader had paid considerably more of that end-of-year bonus in tax, he would have had somewhat less left to spend on property; that would have reduced the inflationary spiral of property prices not only round London and the home counties, but across the country as a whole as demand for second (or third, or fourth) homes would have been reduced.

When Gordon Brown took over as PM he promised a Government of 'all the talents'. If he still holds to that, he should get down on his knees and plead with Vince Cable to join the Cabinet as Chancellor. Unlike his Labour counterparts, Mr Cable doesn't hold back from saying the unpopular, that the only way to justify tax cuts for the low paid is to increase them for those who earn above the norm. In the end public services (and other debts) have to be paid for and by the public, not by paying derisory wages to those who work in the sector.

In the meantime, Gordon's decision to scrap the 10p tax band is looking increasingly foolish.

Lord Saville and the Bloody Sunday enquiry

2008-11-10T16:13:00.003Z

Lord Saville's enquiry into the events surrounding Bloody Sunday makes the Lady Diana Spencer inquest seem the absolute model of brevity and commonsense. Now the news is that he has postponed his report for another year.

His enquiry actually has a remarkable similarity to Diana's inquest in that just about everyone knows what happened, and consequently the conclusion that is likely to be reached. It would have saved a lot of time and money if our Government, which has certainly known all along what happened, had simply owned up and apologised. All the more remarkable that it didn't, given that in general the only mistakes Tony Blair wasn't prepared to apologise for were his own.

The enquiry stopped hearing witnesses four years ago yet it has proved a continuing gravy train for members of the legal profession. Even now, when you'd have thought that there was little left to fund beyond a supply of quill pens, ink and paper it is costing more than Jonathan Ross' BBC salary (the one he was getting before he was suspended that is).

You can keep up-to-date with Lord Saville's progress in some detail through the enquiry's own website. Unfortunately, you will also need considerable telepathic powers to do so since the website has not been updated for several years now.

I'd like to save Lord Saville time and effort (he could have had my advice ten years and £182m ago if he'd asked). Some members of the Paratroop Regiment opened fire on demonstrators without good cause, and 14 innocent people died as a consequence. Given all the circumstances during the 'troubles', it is surprising that this was in most respects a unique event. Lord Widgery's report was a shameful whitewash. The families of those who died should be offered an unreserved apology (and compensation if that's what they want) and we should move on.

You're having a laugh...

2008-11-06T17:52:00.001Z

The age of comedy is not yet dead. Don't believe me? Try here.

Dust to dust

2008-11-06T13:09:00.000Z

There's a certain satisfaction to be had from knowing that the Pope didn't exactly get things all his own way.

Hazel Blears: bloggers and cynicism

2008-11-06T10:30:00.008Z

Hazel Blears (one of the more obscure members of the Cabinet, I suspect her main responsibility is providing the tea and biscuits) has denounced political blogging, accusing it of feeding a climate of cynicism towards the political process in this country.

I can only apologise; this blog is unashamedly cynical. Despite what Ms. Blears might think, that is not because I have been reading other political blogs, in fact quite the opposite. My cynicism stems from politicians who are all too often incompetent beyond measure, who are prepared to lie and cheat when it helps them get legislation passed, and who suffer a collective blindness when it comes to their assault on our civil liberties. Far too many keep their snouts firmly in the trough, in politics not for what they have to contribute but for what they can get out of it . Beyond that, we have a voting system that as often as not denies voters the opportunity to believe that they might actually influence the outcome of an election. Right now we have a Prime Minister who was not chosen by the electorate, who holds no electoral mandate for his policies, and who sits in what would (until recently) have been regarded as one of the safest Parliamentary seats in the country. He is able to choose the date of the next election when he judges it to be most to his advantage. He can only be sacked by an unelected monarch. No grounds for cynicism there then, is there?

I blog partly as an outlet for my frustration at feeling disenfranchised by the form of Parliamentary democracy we enjoy here. Partly because I enjoy exchanging views with others (and not necessarily those who share my political sympathies either). And partly because I know that blogs like this get right up the snout of the Hazel Blears of this world.

The very fact that someone like Ms Blears has a seat round the Cabinet table - that alone is reason enough for cynicism I would have thought.

Hey, hey, LBJ...

2008-11-05T10:56:00.005Z

It's been a long and exciting night listening to the Presidential election ending of course with a result that is clearly welcome far beyond the US borders . One of the things that struck me most was how the electorate appeared far less polarised than I have ever been conscious of before, which seems to bode well for democracy and not just inside America.

Over here President Johnson is largely remembered for the terrible obscenity that was the Vietnam War. So it's worth remembering the very significant contribution he made to confronting the racial discrimination that was so deeply entrenched in the US in the 1960s; in many ways that period provided the springboard for today's historic event.

Voting intentions

2008-11-04T15:19:00.002Z

Much is being made of the likelihood that Barack Obama will attract less votes in today's US Presidential election than he would have done otherwise because of his colour. To the extent that happens it's sad since reflects the deep-rooted nature of racism, but should we be unduly concerned?

I rather doubt it. Regardless of colour, the process by which voters in any democracy choose their preferred candidate is (to say the least) complex. Much has been made of John McCain's age by his opponents, and those who reject him on those grounds could reasonably be accused of ageism; it is not as though he is yet of a time of life where he might be expected to shuffle off this mortal coil.

Then there's the gender issue. One of the most bizarre aspects of the election is reports that some feminist voters, erstwhile supporters of Hillary Clinton, are prepared to vote Republican for no other reason than that they've put up a female candidate for VP. That Sarah Palin's neaderthal political views are diametrically opposed to those of Ms. Clinton seems to be of no concern to them; explain that one if you can.

Few of us vote solely on the basis of politics and policies. Voters all carry prejudices into the voting booth, and it is the mark of a democracy that those are tolerated, even where we disapprove.

The buck stops here

2008-10-30T14:12:00.001Z

Mark Thompson, Director-General of the BBC

Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross and Jack Straw

2008-10-30T10:40:00.005Z

One certainly doesn't have to be a Daily Mail reader to agree with their view of those answaphone messages. The 'humour' the two served up was of the sort that would appeal only to the sort of morons so lacking in decency that they would find entertainment in watching a YouTube clip of a man urinating on a dying woman.

As it happens, I'm someone who has enjoyed JR's Saturday morning radio show over several years, but hopefully no more. The BBC, equally at fault over all this, have been shamefully slow in confronting their misjudgement; hence thankfully the sheer scale of the public anger. Hopefully when Ross departs (as he surely will) the notion that any entertainer justifies an £18 million contract will go with him.

Over on 'Comment is Free', Jack Straw has been sharing his opinions. Yes, that Jack Straw. The one who resigned so promptly as soon as his "cynical premeditated" statements about WMD in Iraq were shown to be just that. I'm afraid Jonathan Ross is not the only public figure who should "no longer be paid a penny by the rest of us."

The cost of policing in Norfolk

2008-10-27T15:06:00.005Z

I have long been of the opinion that my local constabulary would struggle to apprehend burglars even if they all wore striped jumpers and black masks whilst carrying large sacks over their shoulders labelled 'SWAG'.

It's gratifying to learn that this is finally being tackled.

What can Cameron do?

2008-10-27T11:19:00.002Z

Private housing has become a compensation for the increasingly gross maldistribution of income. Inadequate incomes mean that large numbers of people don’t have access to the style of life that has always been the ultimate justification of neoliberalism and to which, reasonably enough, they now believe they have a right. What does give them access to it (in the short term) is credit. But credit has to be secured, and that’s what housing does. However, it works only if house prices keep rising and people have enough income to repay debt. When prices stop going up and people can no longer repay what they owe, the financial system begins to disintegrate. This is what has happened; and it has happened because we have replaced something like social democracy with credit democracy, or universal access to credit, and credit is a thoroughly inadequate substitute because sooner or later it has to be repaid. Which means that people’s incomes have to be sufficient to repay it, and in many cases they aren’t. What we have put in place is a dynamically destructive cycle. The number of houses is rationed in order to force up prices; people buy houses in order to secure credit on the strength of those prices; this encourages a heady belief in perpetual profit and thus both risky lending and risky borrowing; this renders the banking system unstable; and lending both to individuals and among banks then collapses.

Ross McKibbin's excellent LRB article.

City bonuses - big Government clampdown

2008-10-22T10:04:00.000+01:00

Maybe.

Elegantly Dressed Wednesday

2008-10-22T07:47:00.005+01:00

Post-hippie social worker chic? So where's The Guardian then? It's not clear if this is before or after she dropped her knickers.

Memo to Paul Flynn

2008-10-21T15:24:00.011+01:00

Maybe you followed my recent spat with the MP for Newport West. Well, it seems he has a soulmate of sorts. In fairness, Mr Flynn's comments policy looks singularly liberal set against that of Tory sexpot Nadine Dorries. There's one thing they definitely have in common though (beyond being good looking of course) - neither likes to admit to being wrong.

Aside from her shameful trashing of Dr Ben Goldacre, Ms Dorries has been in a bit of trouble over her use of the Parliamentary Portcullis logo, first by using House of Commons stationery for political purposes - the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner found against her in June 2006, and again this year for displaying the same logo on her (political) blog.

You'd have thought that any MPs previously confused about the rules would by now be quite clear as to what is allowed and what isn't; it's not as though the bonkers MP for Mid Bedfordshire keeps a low profile on this (or anything else for that matter, she's plain barking). It's simple, blogs that contain political comment are not allowed to display the Portcullis logo.

I'm afraid that one or two (well, one at least) of her Parliamentary colleagues still haven't quite worked it out yet. Maybe Paul should get in touch with Nadine and ask for advice.

Nadine blogs here. Unfortunately she seems to have taken the post about her knickers down, I can't imagine why.

Osama Bin Laden traced to Iceland

2008-10-17T13:53:00.003+01:00

You may well sympathise with our Government seizing the assets of the failed Icelandic banks. Their use of anti-terrorist laws to do so is a different matter though, since it is entirely at odds with repeated assurances that such legislation will only be used in cases that do indeed involve terrorism.

If there is no other legal means of carrying out such action (and I'd be surprised if there isn't) then maybe the Government should consider bringing some forward. Unless of course the collapse of the Western world's banking system is because Al-Qaeda has seized control of it; in that case giving banks large sums of public money is likely to be somewhat counter-productive.

I've never believed any assurances our Governments have given with regards to legislation that impinges on our civil liberties, but I take little satisfaction from finding my cynicism justified.

Stumps...

2008-10-14T15:37:00.005+01:00

I'm sorry to learn that the Political Umpire has raised his finger and even as I speak Fora is heading for the pavilion and probable retirement. His blog has been, indeed remains, one of my favourites, and not just because the Umpire and I broadly share values and enjoy robust debate when our opinions differ.

To those who have yet to discover Fora, I can say no more than that there is a wonderful range of earlier posts to discover there. Hopefully this will yet prove no more than a rain delay; in the meantime go and enjoy the blogging equivalent of Headingley '81.

Peace and quiet

2008-10-14T15:00:00.003+01:00

Sometimes I wonder if the first of April has arrived early, but no. More likely 'Andy' Burnham (our so-called Culture Secretary) decided that a second one was called for this year in order to lift the mood of gloom that has engulfed the nation before making this announcement.

Mr Burnham could usefully come to Norfolk and visit my local library. McDonalds haven't quite moved in yet but just about all the other changes that he is so keen to see have already been implemented, entirely to the detriment of those of us who think that there are still places in this world where little children should be seen but not heard, mobile phones neither seen nor heard, and where books and computer keyboards remain entirely free of the sticky residue left behind by fizzy drinks and chewing gum.

It's bad enough that they lend out computer games; that children use the library computers to play them (with considerable accompanying noise) only rubs salt in the wound.

That's before you consider the morning crèche and the afternoon crèche; the young lady who runs those has a singular enthusiasm for the collective singing of nursery rhymes. Then there's the regular 'Community Policing' meet-and-greet; wouldn't they be better off pounding the beat or even trying to catch the occasional villain?

There are still a few books on offer, and even a (rather slim) choice of newspapers - one broadsheet and the local paper - so all is not quite lost yet. But Mr Burnham will do his best to finish the job no doubt.

42 Days

2008-10-14T10:59:00.005+01:00

"There could be compulsory cricket training for members of the Barmy Army."

No, correction. I'll make that imperative rather than speculative. There must be compulsory cricket training for members of the Barmy Army. 42 days worth of it, Thursdays to Mondays, should just about cover a summer's Test cricket. A full annual refresher would of course be mandatory.

Failing that, the early return of National Service might well address the problem.

Our planet...

2008-10-08T10:08:00.002+01:00

Some stunning photographs (via Norm)

Unfortunately, since posting this link the majority of the photos (but by no means all) have been taken down. Yann Arthus-Bertrand's own website is worth a visit, although it's not the easiest to navigate.

The European Arrest Warrant

2008-10-04T10:53:00.005+01:00

The case of Dr Gerald Fredrick Töben, he of the singularly unpleasant opinions arrested at Heathrow on Wednesday, raises serious concerns about the way in which laws that apply in one EU member state can be pursued in another. Indeed, our Government is one of those in the process of signing up to a scheme where people who have been tried in their absence in one country can be extradited from another providing their conviction is for a crime that carries a prison sentence. There's some pretty odd 'crimes' scattered across the EU so I suppose there's a risk that sooner or later I'll find I'm being extradited to Italy and banged up for five years in a cell with Sabina Guzzanti (oh, the hardship), and all because I've said something nasty about the Pope.

As for Dr Töben, I can only endorse the views of Chris Huhne. Decline him an entry visa and let that be the end of it.

Apocalypse Now

2008-10-04T10:13:00.002+01:00

I’ve restrained from posting on World Depression II so far, rather feeling that I’d covered most of the main points in my earlier series of posts on the Northern Rock fiasco. But now thankfully the US Congress has agreed to George Bush’s plan to save capitalism by sending every US citizen a very large tax bill. There will be many who will be thinking that at least he’s good for something, but I’m afraid that I’m not among them.

The one thing on which everyone is agreed is that far too many financial institutions have made far too many reckless loans (on which there are likely to be defaults), and that this is the cause of the problem. Certainly savers with the Bradford & Bingley will feel they’ve had a narrow escape now they’ve realised that their money was being advanced on mortgages where the bank wasn’t even taking the basic step of confirming the applicants incomes.

What worries me is that there is still a failure by the politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to grasp quite how our economies have become dependent on this false credit. Indeed the argument being put forward goes something like this: If we don’t let people carry on using their credit cards, sales will slump. That is of course quite right, but they forget the other side of the coin: If we let people carry on using their credit cards they’re going to owe even more money that they haven’t a hope in hell of repaying.

Excessive credit (of which there has been far too much for the last twenty-five years) overheats an economy and produces a false illusion of wealth. In this country it has manifested itself particularly in sustained property price inflation, with all the negative effects on society that entails. Our Government (and for that matter the one that preceded it) is quite as guilty as that of the US for presiding over an economy financed to such an extent on false credit, and for claiming the economic credit for doing so. Economies are pretty much like credit cards in that sooner or later the bill arrives, and you can only put off paying it for so long. We've had the boom, we've reached the bust, and now it's time to pay. The economic price is recession, and painful as it will be we will need to go through it if we are to emerge with a restructured economy fit for the 21st Century.

As individuals and as a country we have been living far beyond our means and we are going to have to learn to do otherwise.

The most interesting commentary on this crisis can be found on the ever reliable John Redwood’s blog (far too many posts to link individually). He is now struggling to maintain his normal ideological consistency, but I suspect that he was always in something approaching a minority of one with his conviction that much of our current problems have been caused by excessive banking regulation.

Pots and kettles

2008-10-03T14:12:00.002+01:00

Our Government, keen to keep all those overstretched banks in business, raise their guarantee on protection of saving from £35,000 to £50,000.

The Irish Government was presumably somewhat keener, since its own guarantee is unlimited. Mr Darling is reportedly not very happy.

I must be missing something here. Other than in scale, surely there's no difference between these schemes whatever.

Maybe there's justice sometimes?

2008-09-30T18:17:00.002+01:00

I'm very pleased at the court judgement in favour of the Gurkhas who want a right to settle here, particularly for the robust arguments used by Mr Justice Blake in supporting them. Whether Jacqui Smith quite gets the message I'm not so sure.

It's difficult to believe that the Chagos Islanders will enjoy quite the same success when their demand for a right to return home reaches its conclusion with the Law Lords judgement due next month, but I hope they do.

Elegantly Dressed Wednesday

2008-09-17T10:50:00.005+01:00

Classic Italian looks and style. This young lady has had one or two rather pertinent things to say about the Pope recently. Sadly it looks as though she might just be in a spot of bother.

Birmingham bash

2008-09-09T10:52:00.003+01:00

It's hard to understand what rationale could conceivably have generated Gordon Brown's decision to hold yesterday's cabinet meeting in Birmingham.

Ed Miliband told the Today programme that it "would enable ministers to learn more about events affecting people's lives outside the capital. I do not see it as a cheap gimmick. If you are saying to me, is this going to win us any votes, I don't particularly think it will," he said. "I just think it is the right thing to do. I think it is important for government not simply to spend all its time in London."

Did I miss something? Was it a public meeting at some community centre, or a get-together in the saloon bar at the Kings Arms? Was policy made on-the-fly as they ambled round the Bullring, catching up on their shopping at the same time?

I'm afraid it says a lot for the intellectual powers of at least one cabinet minister that he can't even grasp that a cheap and utterly pointless gimmick was just that.

Charles Clarke: Labour is destined to disaster

2008-09-04T13:35:00.005+01:00

Ever the optimist, my local MP. I'm afraid my own views on Mr Clarke are pretty similar to those of Rachel North and her father.

Charles Clarke's article in today's New Statesman isn't inhibited by the need to retain a seat in government like David Miliband's Guardian piece was, but there's scarcely any more substance.

"Everyone in Labour needs to stop obsessing about the past and to start obsessing about the future", he says at the end of the introduction, before talking at length about the past and coincidentally reminding us that he played a significant part in it. Beyond calling for a change of direction (and indirectly for a change of leader) he proposes no direction whatever. "Many of us who were proud to be members of Tony Blair's government had differing approaches even then, and certainly propose differing prescriptions now." That's as maybe, but there's none of them actually prepared to put their neck on the line (least of all Charles Clarke) and give us a prescription right now be it good bad or indifferent.

Labour doesn't need a change of direction in the slightest, it needs a direction, period. Right now it's not only directionless, it's rudderless. Charles Clarke could have taken this opportunity to tell us the direction he was advocating but he didn't, and it's easy to see why. He's as constrained as Miliband was, it's just that he's got his eye more on the future. Either he's planning to run himself, and doesn't want to give any potential rivals the edge by showing his hand too soon, or more likely he's simply hoping to be part of whichever campaign turns out to be the winning one and find himself suitably rewarded as a consequence. Proposals of his own might just queer his pitch on that one, better just to knife Gordon, then wait until the lie of the land becomes a bit clearer.

More on grave-robbing

2008-09-04T10:11:00.005+01:00

Newman was, of course, unaware that he might one day achieve sainthood. But he was mindful that the church might, after his death, seek to intervene in determining the placement of his remains. Although a modest man, he was conscious of his international status as a cardinal and an esteemed Catholic theologian. He feared there might be attempts after he died to transfer his body to a mausoleum. That is why Newman three times added notes to his instructions to his executors which, according to the scholarship of the Christian historian Alan Bray, variously "confirm", "insist" and "command" that he be buried with St John.

Nothing could be clearer. Newman was absolutely insistent that he should be buried for ever alongside the man with whom he shared his life and home.

No Catholic tradition, dogma or ritual about cardinals and saints can justify the Vatican's heartless, self-serving decision to violate Newman's categorical, unambiguous instructions. No one gave the Pope permission to defy the cardinal's wishes. It is an act of shameless dishonesty and personal betrayal by the homophobic Catholic Church.

Peter Tatchell, writing on CIF today. I've made my own views clear already.

Anti-Semitism and the Green Party

2008-09-03T15:30:00.002+01:00

Many people who are not members of the Green Party, and who would not at this time vote for it either, nonetheless feel sympathetic towards it and regard it as a valuable element on the political scene (I am myself such a person). They think its concerns are important ones, and they wish it well, in a general way. So it is an important matter if this Party, which aims to become part of the mainstream of political life in the UK, is unwilling to do what's needed to ensure that its commitment to anti-racism is a genuine one. If, instead, it turns into an institution that only rejects racism directed at the groups which it politically favours, and regards with complaisance discrimination and racist discourse targeting other groups, then that general well-wishing will (and should) evaporate.

I can add nothing whatever to what Eve Garrard says so eloquently over on normblog.

Down's syndrome, teenage pregnancy, Paul Flynn and the courtesies netiquette requires

2008-09-02T15:54:00.050+01:00

Over on Read My Day, Paul Flynn offers his visitors 'solid blogging'. As MPs' blogs go it's not that bad (still quite stodgy though). Mixed in with the usual garden fêtes, community centre openings and astonishingly upbeat assessments of the Government's performance he does offer some off-message political opinions, and he's always ready to trade blows with his visitors through the comments.

Yesterday evening a Ms Rebecca Burt left a comment on the previous days post 'Obama's Palin Bonus' which struck such a chord with Paul that he quoted it in full in his subsequent post 'Some good news' (Rather than link here, I'll do so later, for reasons that should become apparent). Here, recovered from my internet cache, is what Paul actually posted:

Madam President Palin

This comment came into my blog this evening from Rebecca Burt. It’s, perfect, I would not want to change a word.

'Let's see...an ex-beauty pageant winner...with an undergraduate degree in Journalism...who does not believe in global warming...who does believe a woman should have no control over her own body and for 9 months should be viewed as nothing more than a baby container...who's main attributes seem to be stubbornness and vicious competiveness... who has had next to no experience in government...who has a currently very messy family situation given that she had recently given birth to a downs syndrome baby, has a 17 year old daughter who is unwed and pregnant

and is facing investigation for using her political office to smear her ex-brother-in-law and get him fired (he is in a custody battle with her sister)...who seems to be in bed with big oil...who is running for VP...whose running mate is 72 and is a cancer survivor...who has no foreign policy background and in fact has only been out of the country twice...who may become President of the country I love at a time when it faces the most complex foreign policy issues, economic issues and domestic issues it has in decades...Why does this sound like a totally unbelievably bad novel???? I for one am terrified and cannot understand what Mr. McCain was thinking!!!!'
Posted on September 01, 2008 at 08:34 PM Permalink
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Note that "It's, perfect, I would not want to change a word"; I think we can take that as a pretty ringing endorsement of everything Ms Burt's had to say for herself. I was somewhat surprised since she chucks in a lot of comments that have nothing whatever to do with Ms Palin's fitness for office; the reference to her older daughter is at best juvenile, that to her baby with Down's syndrome frankly offensive. Ms Burt clearly likes to think herself a feminist, but at the same time resents Ms Palin having a career outside the home let alone allowing a 17 year old daughter to get pregnant (you'd have thought she'd have approved of that) . It's certainly not the sort of view I'd expect to find a Labour MP agreeing with (or an MP from any party come to that). So I left the following comment:

I think that there are one or two issues Rebecca Burt raised that you should have wanted to change, Paul. Maybe you could elaborate on why you think that having a young child with Down's syndrome, or for that matter a 17 year old daughter who is 'unwed' and pregnant (shock, horror!) should in any way disqualify Ms Palin from running as the US Vice President? Why should the fact that she is an 'ex-beauty pageant winner' be of any account?

Ms Palin's political background & beliefs and her lack of experience are a different manner, but I am surprised to find you endorsing Ms Burt's astonishingly offensive critique of her 'very messy family situation'. Unless of course the two of you really think that a mother's place is in the home.

Presumably Paul agreed with me, and hopefully felt suitably ashamed, since he carefully went through and erased all references to Ms Palin's baby with Down's syndrome; from Ms Burt's original posting, from his repost, and (rather clumsily) from my own comment. However, he then posted a follow-up comment which pointedly avoided all reference to his having made these edits, instead responding to my own as if his edited version were what I had written.

Pleased as I was that Paul had taken on board my criticism, I was somewhat annoyed by his failure to acknowledge the means by which he had done so since it left my edited comment strangely blunted set against his subsequent response. "Perfect, I would not want to change a word" is still there, even though it's now patently untrue. I've left a follow up suggesting he may wish to edit that too but although he's seen it he's chosen not to so far.

I would have thought it a matter of the most basic politeness to at least acknowledge when you have chosen to alter a comment left on your blog, particularly since you may well have changed the intended meaning or emphasis. I certainly would, and I'm disappointed Paul didn't.

Here's the link to Paul's amended post. Sadly, Rebecca Burt left no link back of her own.

Update: I've now had an exchange of emails with Paul about this. He claims that he sent me an email at the time, although it certainly never arrived. However, this is what he now says:

The health of politicians' children is not a proper subject for political controversy and I have deleted all reference to it from the contributions I had. In your case the only point you made was about the disease, so it had to be deleted. All other postings had deletions.

None of this addresses why it was that Paul chose to repost Ms Burt's reference to Down's syndrome in the first place given that it was so self-evidently offensive. Nor why he presumably still regards the pregnancy of Ms Palin's daughter as a proper subject for political controversy. Or for that matter why his post is still (at this point in time) making that "perfect, I would not want to change a word" claim.

Further update: Another exchange of emails. This is what Paul now has to say:

When someone tried to make a political issue of that one factor, it was then I decided that this was not a fit subject for a political wrangle. It would have with hindsight been better to remove the reference to the original letter. The same policy apples to the families of other politicians. As ALL references had been removed, there was no point is stirring up controversy by publishing your contribution. You have mis-informed the readers of your blog. You were informed on the address you provided.

So what he seems to be saying if I read him right is that it was ok for him to mention the baby with Down's syndrome until someone called him to account over it. Which means it was all my fault. That's alright then, all as plain as day.

Not quite sure what Paul understands 'misinformed' to mean. I certainly didn't leave him the wrong email; here it is from a screenshot taken just after I left my last comment on Paul's blog (it enters automatically since I ticked the 'remember personal info' box on an earlier occasion).

Looks like the same email address that you'll find if you use the 'Email me' link in the sidebar to me.

Shameless. That's the word I'd use.

[this issue is also being discussed over on Fora; if the comment posted there has indeed been left by Paul Flynn, then shameless is a considerable unerstatement.

I'll summarise what I've said there. This is not a political row. It is a row over whether Paul Flynn displayed poor judgement in endorsing wholesale as he did the views of a very immature young girl, and whether he then attempted to conceal that poor judgement by editing not only his post but several comments. He is not even well informed about Down's syndrome, it is not a disease. Such, I fear, is ignorance.]

It might as well rain until September (or maybe November).

2008-08-28T07:24:00.006+01:00

I'm not sure quite how many last chances a Prime Minister can hope to enjoy. There's always the old adage about a cat having nine lives I suppose.

If there's a problem for Labour, it's that they've come to realise that settling for a 'coronation' doesn't guarantee a halfway decent leader let alone a great one, and it certainly doesn't guarantee any sort of subsequent loyalty from disaffected MPs, particularly those fearful of imminent unemployment. Brown may be long since dead and buried, but it means that at some point soon Labour will have to turn up not one but two credible candidates if the competition to find a successor is to have any meaning whatever. David Milliband has pretty much ruled himself out already - a Guardian article so short of substance as to be laughable, and then events in Georgia very publicly highlighting his continuing ineffectual performance as Foreign Secretary. There have been many who've been advising Brown to sack him for disloyalty but a canny PM would leave him be. He's in his own hole and he just keeps digging.

Since Jack Straw is a no-hoper of the first order it looks like Alan Johnson is the only realistic opponent for the lady. Bring it on.

There's no such thing as bad publicity

2008-08-27T23:26:00.023+01:00

Another day, another blogger being threatened (or on this occasion taken down entirely). All pretty much a mirror of the problems faced by Dave Walker at the Cartoon Church blog I covered in an earlier post (and which I intend to return to at some point). This time a complainant appears to have threatened proceedings against the blog hosting DNS and gained the dubious benefit to be had from our absurd libel laws. I picked up on this through normblog, where Norman Geras has been highlighting the offensive and depressingly active antisemitism within the UCU over a considerable period.

So once again some blogging solidarity. This is the post that is believed to lie behind the dispute, which comes from 'Harry's Place' (sorry, no link as Harry's completely down as of now). You can find more elsewhere by now of course.

UCU and the David Duke Fan
Posted by David T August 22nd 2008 5:58 pm

The University and College Union maintains an email list for its activists, which is administered and monitored by the union. As Harry's Place readers know, the email list traffic is dominated by political extremists and almost entirely given over to their obsessive and nasty campaign to boycott Israeli academics.

The extremists are countered by a small number of Jews and anti-racists, many of them supporters of Engage. They are routinely defamed as racists, imperialists, Apartheid supporters, liars and conspirators. Quite a few of the Jews and anti-racists have been chucked off the list by the UCU administrators, arbitrarily, and usually for making public their complaints about the racism on the list.

There have been complaints to UCU about racism on its activist list. UCU has dismissed them all as baseless.

One of the formal complaints was made in relation to a series of particularly poisonous and nasty emails written by a Sheffield-based UCU activist called Jenna Delich. That complaint was also dismissed.

Yesterday Jenna Delich wrote the following message on the activist list in order to support a boycott of Israeli academics:

John,

In support to your link this may be a long but also an interesting reading:

http://www.davidduke.com/general/humanitarian-disaster_595.html

No comment necessary. The facts are speaking for themselves.

Jenna

JENNA DELICH

The website which she links to is the website of David Duke, who is the former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and perhaps the most notorious racist and anti-semite in the world. The article itself was originally posted on an extremist conspiracy nut website, but appears only on David Duke's website. It is therefore reasonable to infer that Jenna Delich reads and takes her information on world events from neo Nazis.

So, in a nutshell, the position is this. The UCU refuses to take action against viciousness against Jews and anti-racists on its own activist list, and endorses their exclusion from that email list when they defend themselves. Meanwhile, the UCU is circulating links to David Duke's website on behalf of Delich.

What a wonderful institution UCU is.

For reasons of strict accuracy I have amended the caption for the photo - it originally said 'Sheffield-based academic, Jenna Delich - links to far right websites associated with the Ku Klux Klan'.

Jenna Delich and her supporters do not dispute that she sent the email in question. They say however that it was private (despite being circulated to around 700 UCU members and associates) and that Ms Delich did not appreciate the significance of the site she linked to. My own view? It's politics, if you give it out you've got to be prepared to take it.

By way of update: Harry's Place has returned with a somewhat braver hosting company I'm pleased to say. So you can see all the posts relating to this discussion (and the comments they have drawn). In republishing, the post above has been retitled 'UCU and the David Duke Link', the photo and caption have been removed. At this moment in time there are 352 comments on the post and they certainly make for lively reading.

Disturbing the Dead

2008-08-26T03:22:00.009+01:00

There have been several reports in the press recently of the planned move of Cardinal John Henry Newman's mortal remains from the grave in Rednal, Worcestershire where he was buried alongside his closest friend over one hundred years ago at his specific request, to a 'resting place of honour' (now surrounded by steel railings because of the likelihood of vandalism, so much for 'honour') closer to the centre of Birmingham. Why? At the request of the Vatican, who are moving towards his canonisation as a saint, a process that apparently demands just such a relocation.

As you may well realise, I regard the whole notion of sainthood as ridiculous, but even so I feel that the Church is showing a considerable contempt towards Cardinal Newman and his wishes, and by extension a lack of respect towards the dead in general with this ghoulish scheme. If he has as is claimed been working miracles (absurd as that might be) he has had no difficulty doing so from his present location in Rednal. Pilgrims who wish to visit his grave would surely appreciate the experience all the more for having to take the time to seek out the existing one rather than expending no more effort than might be required to attend a pop concert at the National Exhibition Centre.

Normally it is illegal to move human remains from a graveyard to a church tomb, but it is no surprise that the feeble Jack Straw and his Justice Department have set that aside entirely in granting the Vatican's request. I'm inclined to agree with Peter Tatchell who feels that the move is at least in part intended to overcome the Church's embarrassment resulting from Cardinal Newman's preferred double grave and all that might be thought to imply.

The Vatican do not own John Henry Newman's body and should have been told so.

Elegantly Dressed Wednesday

2008-08-13T10:11:00.009+01:00

Right lady, right location of course.

I couldn't decide about that jacket at first. Has she had decorators in recently? Been indulging the children with a bit of action painting? Finally got it though. Liberation by MC Escher. Love it, just love it.

Now a word of caution, so pay attention, girls. It's all very well to burn your bra when you're young, but it may not look to have been such a wise decision when you find yourself approaching 60. Oh well, never mind.

Rewriting History

2008-08-12T18:30:00.003+01:00

Over on Fora, the Political Umpire posts from time to time on aspects of the Great War, in which he has a particular interest. Among his posts have been several where he has discussed the issue of those who were executed for cowardice, desertion, and who were given a collective pardon two years ago in Parliament. He didn’t agree with that decision, although I did. I posted several comments about this, and he was kind enough to put up a detailed response to which I am finally responding in turn, hopefully clarifying my own views.

Firstly, a little history. The Umpire’s original posts on this subject were The Past is a Foreign Country (June 2006), Private Farr Again (also June 2006) and Private Farr is Pardoned (August 2006). I read those in reverse order, and my eye was caught by a point in the earliest one:

It is fashionable these days to disdain our forebearers; our ancestors whose world was unimaginably different from our own. Here is another press letter I had published earlier this year in which I sought to stress that well-known saying of LP Hartley in The Go Between which I have adopted as the title for this post.

Trevor Harvey is right to infer that we should not attempt to pass judgment on events in our distant past such as the execution of Pvte Harry Farr for cowardice during the First World War. Already the case has taken up valuable judicial resources, as indeed have other recent reviews of long ago cases such as Derek Bentley, Ruth Ellis and James Hanratty. In all of these cases judicial proceedings only came about because of the accident that each of the deceased had living relatives. We should not expend public resources on cases which turn on that happenstance.

Debating whether the likes of Pvte Farr suffered shell-shock is a matter of interest for medical historians but we should hesitate long and hard before presupposing to pass judgment on events as far removed as the Great War. It is fashionable to dismiss the generals of the day as ‘donkeys’ and to rail against the supposed brutality of shooting for deserters. But it should also be recalled that of all the armies which were involved in the war from the outset, only the British did not suffer a severe collapse of morale at any point as well, of course, as emerging victorious.

What had caught my eye was the point about ‘the British not suffering a severe collapse of morale at any point’ before in a discussion of the same matter on The Times website (I drew the line at registering with The Times in order to respond there), but now I thought that I could well have encountered the original author.

My comment:

The logical conclusion of what you say here is that injustices from the past should not be pursued, nor should judicial resources be wasted, even given the 'accident' of living relatives. We would live in a very sorry society indeed if injustices such as unsolved murders were simply abandoned once they were considered past their 'sell-by date'. The existence or otherwise of living relatives is in one sense irrelevant to the moral proposition you put forward; on the other hand such relatives are surely entitled to have their feelings and hurt considered. "Of all the armies which were involved in the war from the outset, only the British did not suffer a severe collapse of morale at any point" Are you suggesting that what maintained the morale of the British troops was the knowledge that they faced execution if they displayed cowardice? To me, the Home Secretary made exactly the right decision in making no judgement whatever over individual cases, but accepting the likelihood that some executions were unjustified.

The Umpire responded to my comments with a fourth post Mutiny Again where he answered my points thus:

The total number of murders that have been committed is obviously very great indeed. Judicial resources in the present day, as ever, are scarce and very expensive. We cannot possibly investigate every supposed past injustice. Where the convicted person and everyone else involved in the case are dead, and all the surrounding circumstances have vanished, that has to be a very strong reason - albeit not necessarily decisive - against re-opening cases. I appreciate that where there happen to be living descendants, they may feel strongly about the stain on their family history - but there are many present-day people behind bars and facing trial who should have first call on the resources of the state. The fact that some cases in the past involved defendants who have living relatives is the only reason that they are now being investigated; it does not seem to me compelling that that should be so. It might be that wrongly convicted men remain convicted because they lack living relatives; I am not sure that in the grand scheme of things the existence of (say) a great-grand niece should have anything to do whether the state chooses to reopen one old case as opposed to another - or rather, as opposed to not opening old cases at all.

And in response to my query as to the suggestion of a link between morale and executions:

No, not at all. The point related not to the case of Pvte Farr specifically, but to the general context of popular perception of the incompetence and injustice of the First World War as a whole. You may have seen numerous posts I wrote on the Great War last year attempting to set something in the balance against the idea that the Generals were all callous butchers. One of the authors whom I drew upon, Gordon Corrigan, has investigated some of the executions in detail and concluded that it was by no means clear that any injustice had occurred (bearing in mind, among other things, that the death penalty was still in force and still used in those days for civilian murders). And of course a lot of soldiers were sentenced to death but the penalty was not in fact carried out, which goes against the idea that a load of commoners and Irish were being topped as a lesson to the rest. Certainly I was not suggesting that the British army survived due to the threat of execution (the French army had rather more of those and did indeed collapse as an offensive force). Rather I was pointing out that it cannot have been led as badly as the likes of Oh What a Lovely War or Blackadder IV might have one believe.

I commented:

It's almost impossible to know where to begin in responding to this. But I'll offer the following as a starting point: If we don't examine alleged wrongs from the past, we won't learn from them. And if we determine that a wrong has been committed, and it is a wrong that can (at least in part) be righted, aren't we failing in our moral responsibility if we chose not to do so? The greater the wrong, surely the more important that wrong is corrected, if it is within our power to do so? For example, it matters not one jot in 2008 that John Smith was given a parking ticket in 1942, but surely that does not mean that victims of the Holocaust (or their descendants, through the 'accident' of being alive) should be denied justice? Injustices that involve the state taking an innocent life are not casual matters that should simply be cast aside; indeed, it is the mark of a civilised society that it does not do so. Even within the timescale you appear to contemplate, relatives not only suffer the 'accident' of still being alive, but may well have been alive at the time of the event you focus on. It is entirely conceivable that siblings (siblings, not great-grand nieces) of executed soldiers from the Great War may still be alive; where do you place their rights? There is a complex balance to be struck, but I doubt if your rationality would justify the wasting of international military resources (particularly given the current situation) on searching for the corpse of Keith Bennett on Saddleworth Moor. He died 44 years ago; nothing we do now will bring him back, Myra Hindley is long since dead, and there is no prospect of an insane Ian Brady ever being released from Ashworth. So what about Winnie Johnson? Is it no more than an inconvenience that she is 'accidentally' still alive? And does our obligation (society's obligation) to find Keith Bennett's body disappear at the point that his mother dies? Rather the opposite; to the extent that we would have failed Mrs Johnson in her lifetime, our obligation would be all the greater. Is Winnie Johnson the only person to be considered anyway? What obligation do we have (for example) to the jurors who had to listen to those appalling tapes? Or to their children, who saw a parent irretrievably scarred by what they had heard? It's true I know, there are terrible cases involving children who are still living, children we have some hope of saving. But I very much doubt if your humanity would allow you to tell Winnie Johnson that there are more important priorities than finding her son, let alone that you believe the use of public resources in that search to be wrong. Moral judgements are absolute, however much we recognise that attitudes have changed with the passage of time. If homophobia is wrong now (and we both agree it is) it was wrong fifty years ago. How much more so the loss of an innocent life at the hands of the state.

And the Umpire responded with a final post Alleged Past Injustices Again:

Regular commentator Stephen of It's a rough trade, politics and I have had a disagreement on the pardoning of WWI soldiers shot for cowardice or desertion. I have done a few posts and comments on the subject, but given the vehemence of Stephen’s disagreement (unusual, as he has already observed), I thought I would attempt to set out my position in slightly greater length. Also some of the comments I have made have been rather sloppy, and this post therefore constitutes a tidying-up effort.

Of course in principle righting historical wrongs seems a worthy cause, but matters are not that simple.

The first question which might arise is whether we should be investigating past injustices when the victims and the convicted person are long since dead and the circumstances under which the offending arose have long since vanished. None of the officers who charged, prosecuted, convicted and executed soldiers are still alive, and the events took place over ninety years ago in a Europe that has changed out of all recognition as has the British army.

Two obvious points flow from that: first, it would be an expensive use of scarce judicial and other public resources to investigate any of the more than 300 executions. It is my belief that those resources should concentrate on resolving present-day crimes; the judicial system is straining to cope as it is. It is not unusual for a person charged with murder to be remanded in custody for a year or more awaiting trial. Many people currently serving life imprisonment think they have a case to be reviewed; their cases should logically have priority.

Secondly, with no witnesses left alive and all records nearly a century old, the chances of us being able to be confident in reviewing past cases has to be correspondingly low. That has to be a factor to be taken into account when deciding how to distribute the inevitably overworked resources of the judicial system.

At this point I should counter a red herring that Stephen raised in a comment. He writes impassionately, and unarguably, that we retain a duty to find the body of Keith Bennett on Saddleworth Moor, a victim of the Moors murderers. I agree. But that is not raking over the past to satisfy our changed morals and ideas; it is solving an unsolved case. It bears no relation to reinvestigating and judging what our forefathers did when they thought they were doing the right thing by the actions of the time. Of course if a dead child of a living parent has not been found we should continue the search.

There is a further distinction of importance. Some past convictions we would now denounce as we disagree that they involved a crime at all; homosexuality between consenting adults being a quintessential example. I would have no problem for a retrospective pardon in those cases. But the Shot at Dawn campaign concerned men who were tried for cowardice in the face of the enemy or desertion or similar offences; these remain crimes to this day. The objection has to be either to the conviction of individual defendants or the imposition of the death penalty, not to the crime itself with which they were charged. I accept that the state could declare that all those executed should have had a different punishment, although by abolishing the death penalty in toto it has implicitly already done this. But the fact of the death penalty is not sufficient to conclude there was particular injustice in the shot at dawn cases, since that was the standard punishment for murder and some other civilian crimes in Britain at the time.

It is, moreover, not as if the 306 executions* were the only occasions in which the judicial and/or military system of 1910s might have produced a different result to what would obtain in comparable circumstances under today’s mores. I am sure many died in industrial accidents, for example, that would have resulted in severe punishment of their employers nowadays.** None of these potential injustices have been investigated nor is there any suggestion that they should. I remain unpersuaded about the reasons why we should choose the shot at dawn campaign and ignore the rest - particularly those found guilty of transgressions during wartime but received lesser penalties. Their reputations would have been stained just as would those executed. The mere fact that approximately 3,000 death sentences were passed but only about 10% carried out indicates that the story is more complex than brutal officers ruthlessly and cruelly executing the innocent merely as an example to the rest.

World War II provides examples of other potential injustices, such as those whose farms were confiscated for failing to meet production targets. Had that been wrongly done, it would have been a wrong with direct economic as well as other consequences for persons still alive today.

Des Browne, the Defence Secretary who pardoned the executed, reasoned thus:

"I believe a group pardon, approved by Parliament, is the best way to deal with this. After 90 years, the evidence just doesn't exist to assess all the cases individually.

"I do not want to second guess the decisions made by commanders in the field, who were doing their best to apply the rules and standards of the time. "But the circumstances were terrible, and I believe it is better to acknowledge that injustices were clearly done in some cases, even if we cannot say which - and to acknowledge that all these men were victims of war."

But 'second guessing the decisions made by commanders in the field, who were doing their best to apply the rules and standards of the time' is indeed the very thing Mr Browne has done. And in so doing he has brushed aside one potential injustice and replaced it with another - a slur on the officers who dutifully and in good faith conducted courts martial in the way they thought best, and a pardon for some soldiers who may not have been deserving. It is not clear that all of the executed were in fact innocent; in an army of millions it would be astonishing if there were in fact no deserters or cowards whatsoever.

The report from which the above quotation is taken also includes the following, with which I agree:

Correlli Barnett, a military historian, said last night that the mass posthumous pardon was "pointless" after all these years. "These were decisions taken in the heat of a war when the commanders' primary duty was to keep the Army together and to keep it fighting. They were therefore decisions taken from a different moral perspective," he said.

"For the people of this generation to come along and second-guess decisions taken then is wrong.

"It was done in a particular historical setting and in a particular moral and social climate. It's pointless to give these pardons. What's the use of a posthumous pardon?"

Those who were shot for cowardice or desertion were by and large treated fairly, according to the standards of the time, he added.

Indeed, as I pointed out before, Gordon Corrigan's investigations show that it is not at all clear that there was a litany of injustices committed, to the extent that surviving records enable us to judge. Even if we did find procedural faults with the courts martial, that is not the same as finding that the executed were in fact innocent. This is the point which is key to the misunderstanding and misinformation put about by the press in the wake of the quashing of the conviction of Derek Bentley some time ago. He was not, contrary to the screaming headlines, declared 'innocent'. All that was found was that there were defects in the trial judge's summing up: a common enough occurrence that routinely leads to convictions being quashed and new trials ordered. If Bentley was alive today that is precisely what would have happened - a retrial.

The point about Bentley is made in this article by Francis Bennion, with which I agree. Its conclusion is apposite for this post as well:

Our generation needs to be reminded of that pregnant saying of L P Hartley's in The Go-Between. The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. Or to put it even more succinctly: you can't change history, and you shouldn't even try.

We can - and should, indeed must - learn from history; we can in so doing debate whether things were done right or wrong in the past. But official rewriting is another matter. Niall Ferguson is a professional historian of a similar view:

Retrospectively pardoning First World War deserters, then, is as empty a gesture as retrospectively condemning Second World War conscripts. Harry Farr and Günter Grass were simply two tiny cogs in the monstrous mincing machines of total war. That is why the real question children should ask of veterans is not "What did you do in the war, daddy?" but "What did the war do to you?"

* From the Ferguson article: 266 British and colonial soldiers were shot for desertion, 18 for cowardice, seven for quitting their posts and two for casting away their arms: 293 in all. The other executions were for offences of a different nature, such as murder.

** Ferguson again: "If you are against the death penalty in principle, you may well ask why a few hundred Tommies have been singled out to be pardoned. Many of the crimes for which young men were hanged in the 18th century, for example, were mere petty thefts. Today, most such young offenders would face nothing more painful than a caution or an anti-social behaviour order. Shouldn't we pardon the hanged sheep-stealers while we are about it?" Of course if it was purely the death penalty that was the objection, then a pardon would be inappropriate; a lesser sentence would be formally passed, for all the good it would do.

Coda: From Wikipedia: It seems I was misinformed to an extent:

The pardon was enacted in the Armed Forces Act 2006 which came into effect on 8 November 2006. However section 359(4) of the Act states that the pardon "does not affect any conviction or sentence." Since the nature of a pardon is normally to quash a conviction or to commute a sentence, Gerald Howarth MP asked during parliamentary debate: "we are entitled to ask what it does do."^[2] It would appear to be a symbolic pardon only, and some members of Parliament had called for the convictions to be quashed, although the pardon has still been welcomed by relatives of executed soldiers.^[3]

What was the point of all that then?

Enough history.

I'm going to do my best to pick off the main points here as far as I am able in some sort of rational sequence. The first two are interlinked. Should we be pursuing cases from so long ago in our distant past, and is it right that doing so is dependent on the existence of living relatives?

It depends of course what you mean by our distant past. What is distant to a youthful Umpire is by no means so distant to those of us who are of more advanced years. However, neither the cases of Private Farr nor Derek Bentley were pursued by distant relatives "(say) a great-grand niece" several generations hence; Private Farr's case was at the behest of his daughter Gertrude, who was born two years before the start of the Great War. Derek Bentley's sister Iris was the one who campaigned to have his conviction overturned (assisted by her daughter), although of course she died shortly before it was. In both these cases it seems wrong to complain about the 'accident' that the relatives are still alive, as if it were some unfortunate inconvenience. Given that those executed are unable to argue their cause further, it is neither surprising nor wrong that relatives who feel that there has been an injustice should do so on their behalf. If Derek Bentley had been imprisoned, he would almost certainly have been alive (aged 65) at the time his conviction was quashed in 1998. But of course if he had been jailed he would long since have been released anyway.

In another post, Harry Partch and the unheralded victories in the Great War the Umpire asks why the only names etched into the public conscience are those of the defeats, or stalemates, or seemingly pyrrhic victories for the allies: the likes of Loos, Verdun, Gallipoli, the Somme, Passchendale and Ypres. His conclusion: I suspect, however, that the main reason is that the Second World War, just two decades later, began more or less as a reprise of the First. That he needs to ponder the question at all shows that he views the Great War as 'history' and of course it is for the young. But those names were etched into the public conscience well before the start of the Second World War and the evidence for that is easy to find; the War Memorials that seem to permeate Britain were almost without exception erected at the conclusion of the Great War, and it is out of respect for those who gave their lives that rather than celebrating victory we choose to remember where so many died. The names etched into the public conscience from the Second World War are even more grim. Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

There is an issue of proportionality to all this. In time, historians will mark little more than our success in winning the First World War, and possibly even the Second, but it is to be hoped not; more important surely to remember the Holocaust and man's terrible capacity for evil. Regardless of the outcome of Private Farr's case, it is likely that his death would have ceased to be an issue before too long since all those directly affected would indeed be dead; but they're not, and it isn't mere history to them.

Is it appropriate to pardon people long dead merely on the basis that they received what is now regarded as an excessive sentence, but wasn't at the time? It can be. A pardon isn't a way of saying that someone was innocent of the crime that they were charged with; sometimes they clearly weren't. A pardon is an expression of forgiveness which provides a sense of closure to those such as Gertrude Harris who felt her father was wronged.

The case of Timothy Evans is probably relevant. Hanged for a murder he didn't commit, but initially denied even a pardon since whereas no jury would have found Evans guilty in the light of what later became known there was no certainty of Evans' innocence (R A Butler). Correlli Barnett would presumably not even have considered whether there was certainty or not, given the pointless nature of a posthumous pardon anyway. Thankfully Roy Jenkins was of a different mind. But a pardon doesn't quash a conviction and Timothy Evans remains convicted of the murder of his daughter. Mary Westlake (his half-sister) has campaigned to get that conviction quashed, but her court case ended when the judges, while acknowledging that Evans was entirely innocent, took the same line as the Umpire and said that the cost and resources of quashing the conviction could not be justified. Personally, I'd have thought it better justice if the judges concerned had just got on and quashed the conviction there and then given all the circumstances.

Derek Bentley's conviction was quashed of course, and since his execution has precluded any possibility of a retrial I think it's important to remember that a man is innocent until proved guilty. Francis Bennion's article however raises interesting points well outside the scope of this discussion, so maybe I'll address those elsewhere in the fullness of time.

If there's a shortage of judicial resources I would prefer to look first at the call on those resources made by the wealthy. I'd far rather see a court quashing the conviction of Timothy Evans than preoccupying itself deciding whether Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones had been hard done by because their wedding pics had ended up in the wrong celebrity mag. And that brings us back to the collective pardon for those executed in the Great War. Des Browne agreed entirely with the Umpire that judicial resources were better devoted to other matters. Parliament agreed with him. History has not been rewritten, but we have forgiven the men who were executed. That's the point.

We are all Dave Walkers now.

2008-08-06T11:55:00.012+01:00

I first found out about the events I'm posting on here through Rachel from North London, who linked to the Ministry of Truth (both linked on my blogroll).

Given my antipathy to any form of religion, and that on offer from the C of E in particular, you may be surprised to find me posting on events concerning the SPCK (The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge) bookshops. But there is far more to this than religion. The SPCK had a considerable chain of bookshops offering a broad range of religious books; customers tended to be those who had a serious interest in such matters and the shops were not evangelical in nature. It became apparent some time ago that the shops were losing money and were facing closure, and Dave Walker, a Christian cartoonist and blogger started a 'Save the SPCK' campaign. The campaign appeared to have been successful when the shops passed into the hands of another charity, St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust (SSG). However what had appeared to be the saving of the shops proved to be anything but. Two brothers from Texas, J Mark Brewer (a lawyer in Houston) and Philip Brewer were trustees of the SSG, and considerable changes were made at the shops which caused immense disquiet among the staff, many of whom resigned. Soon stocks had been run down, the remaining staff found themselves facing redundancy, and Mark Brewer is currently attempting to take SSG into bankruptcy in a Houston court, claiming that SSG is a limited liability company, not a charity. SSG currently have considerable debts in the UK, not least redundancy money owed to former staff, while considerable sums have nevertheless been taken out of the charity for purposes such as Mark Brewer's legal retainer.

Dave Walker covered these events in some detail in his blog in a very reasonable and informative manner, but then found himself in receipt of a 'Cease & Desist' demand from Mark Brewer, who alleged defamation and threatened legal proceedings against Dave in the US. Dave felt that although his posts were not in the least defamatory he had to take them down if only to bring an end to the threats. So I (like others before me) am linking to available sources of Dave's original posts to show solidarity and to emphasise that honest bloggers should not be subjected to the sort of threats favoured by Mr Brewer.

Incidentally, Dave was cartoonist-in-residence at the Lambeth Conference; he will not have found himself short of material I am sure!

Dave's entire collection of posts can be found on Cease and Desist, or are available as a pdf download, courtesy of Matt Wardman, The financial and legal aspects of this affair are covered in considerable detail at Ministry of Truth. Sam Norton reposted much of Dave's material, and has now himself been on the receiving end of one of Mr Brewer's 'Cease and Desist' demands. SPCKwatch have some excellent material, this post being a good place to start, as do SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info.

The posts that follow are some of Dave Walker's originals. As always they should be read from the bottom up. I have copied them 'as is' and some links may not work as a consequence.

July 8th, 2008
My silence

I’ve been aware that this has been a sad week for many readers of the Cartoon Blog. Many of those visiting have been mourning the death of Steve Jeynes, the Worcester bookseller, who, judging from the comments posted on this site was loved by many. In the circumstances the usual nonsense that I write on this site has not seemed appropriate, hence my silence.

The memorial service for Steve Jeynes took place yesterday. The Worcester News has a report: Tributes paid to exceptional man. Doug Chaplain was there and has written about it. See also on the SPCK/SSG blog: Steve Jeynes: A Life Remembered.

This will be one of the last former-SPCK-related posts that I expect to do until September as I am away doing one thing and another. I have one more bookshop-related thing that I need to post about which has arisen as a result of a comment (not yet visible) on this site on Sunday morning. I will hopefully do that post today (Tuesday) or tomorrow (Wednesday).

The place to go for former-SPCK-related posts for the next month or two is SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info. [Aside to Phil: hopefully you will post Plans Coming Together for New Christian Bookshop in Cardiff on the SSG/SPCK site when the time is right - a post well worth sharing.]

I hope to post a bit more on this blog this week, including an announcement about my new book and plans for Lambeth.

Posted by Dave at 1:06 am on July 8, 2008 and filed under Blogging, Save the SPCK.

5 Comments

July 3rd, 2008

Memorial service for Steve Jeynes

The memorial service for Steve Jeynes is now to be held at Worcester Cathedral at 3.30pm on Monday 7th July, followed by refreshments at Worcestershire County Cricket Club.

There is a news item in the Worcester News today, and another in the Worcester Standard. Update: Also Worcester News: Hundreds expected to bookseller’s memorial

Many tributes have been left in the comments of my previous post and on other sites linked from there.

Image: the former SPCK shop in Worcester

Posted by Dave at 7:57 am on July 3, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK.

No Comments

June 27th, 2008
SPCK / SSG: Tragic news from Worcester

There is some tragic news from the Worcester Diocese. This note was sent out today to clergy within the Diocese by the Communications department:

I am very sorry to tell you that Steve Jeynes, has been found dead, apparently having taken his own life. Many of you will know him from his work at the SSGT (ex-SPCK) shop in Worcester, from where he was made redundant two weeks ago.

Please hold (the) family in your prayers, together with the many friends whose lives have been enriched through Steve’s loving generosity in serving the Lord.

Details of the funeral arrangements will be made available in due course.

Doug Chaplain has posted here: In Worcester the SSG / SPCK saga turns to tragedy

Please remember Steve’s family, friends and all affected in your prayers.

Update: A service of Thanksgiving for Steve’s life will take place on Monday 7 July 2008 at 3:30 pm at ~~All Saints’ Church, Deansway, Worcester~~. The Thanksgiving Service has been moved from All Saints’ Church to the Cathedral at 3.30pm on Monday 7th July followed by refreshments at Worcestershire County Cricket Club.

Further tributes have been posted here and here.

Posted by Dave at 5:53 pm on June 27, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

65 Comments

SPCK / SSG bookshop news

A couple of things:

New website
Phil Groom has set up a new group blog on the subject of the former SPCK shops. It is here: SPCK/SSG: News, Notes & Info. If you’re interested in SPCK/ SSG updates please bookmark this site and/or subscribe to the feed. I do intend to continue writing on the subject on this blog, but during July and August in particular I will have very little (if any) time to devote to writing on the topic owing to my preparation for and participation in the Lambeth conference and being away from home for various other reasons.

If there is anyone who would like to contribute to the new site please contact Phil directly.

Staff pay
An update to my last post - some staff have now been paid. I have made an update to my last post to reflect this and will update again if it emerges that all staff have now been paid.

News reports
Bookseller: SSG tribunal claims mount
Chester Chronicle: Union action to support sacked Chester bookshop workers
Lincolnshire Echo: ‘Sacked’ shop staff in court action

Posted by Dave at 9:09 am on June 27, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

3 Comments

June 25th, 2008

SSG: Bankruptcy papers received, employees not paid

Bankruptcy papers received
Some people in the UK have been receiving papers relating to the SSG ‘bankruptcy’ from the US Bankruptcy Court of the District of Southern District of Texas. There will apparently be a ‘meeting of creditors’ on 22 July in Houston.

Having done a quick search I notice that there was, on 18 June a ’status conference’ for St Stephen the Great LLC in the bankruptcy court (this can be found on a cached Google page saved here). Information on the chapter 11 bankruptcy process can be found via this page: Chapter 11 - Bankruptcy Basics

All of this must be seen in the light of Usdaw’s statement yesterday, now available on the Usdaw website:

Usdaw firmly believes that the bankruptcy proceedings in the US have no effect in the UK, because this is a UK company with entirely UK-based assets and activities.

Also, from John Hannett, the General Secretary of Usdaw:

These loyal staff are being given misleading information about these US bankruptcy proceedings and the effects this may have on their rights to take legal action in the UK. Our fear is that the Brewers’ actions may be an attempt to move assets away from the business and out of the reach of our members with legitimate claims.

“We will carry on as before with the claims against the Brewers who are accumulating wealth whilst riding roughshod over hard working employees. We will continue to assist all our members affected by this messy situation and work to rectify it as soon as possible.”

Employees not paid
On a related note some (all?) of the people who work or worked in the shops have not been paid today (the 25th) as they would usually be. See for instance these blog comments. [Update: some employees have now been paid]

Telegraph blog post
Christopher Howse (who wrote Saturday’s comment piece) has written on his Telegraph blog about the Orthodox church in Poole: Orthodox Exodus. As others have pointed out this isn’t new information, but I thought I’d post the link anyway.

Posted by Dave at 3:05 pm on June 25, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

13 Comments

June 24th, 2008

Usdaw press release about the former SPCK shops

Usdaw fights for mistreated bookshop workers
Shopworkers’ union, Usdaw, has submitted 15 employment tribunal claims against the Brewers, US-based brothers who have taken over a chain of UK bookshops and were seeking to impose a new contract on staff, drastically reducing their contractual rights. The Union has over 50 members at the bookshops and is expecting that the number of employment tribunal claims will rise.

The Brewer brothers were gifted the St. Stephen the Great Christian bookshops in 2006 by SPCK. The chain includes 23 bookshops, many of which are historic buildings in prime retail positions.

Following the change of ownership, a new contract was drawn up increasing the working week from 37.5 to 40 hours with no additional pay, turning all part-time staff into casual staff with no guaranteed hours every week and taking away all rights to company sick pay.

Now, virtually all Usdaw members have been dismissed with no notice, some by email, and have received little or no information about what this means for their rights and their pay.

The Brewer brothers have now filed St. Stephen the Great for bankruptcy in the US. Usdaw firmly believes that the bankruptcy proceedings in the US have no effect in the UK, because this is a UK company with entirely UK-based assets and activities. Staff have been told that they can apply for jobs with ENC Management Company, which is also owned by the Brewers, but that they no longer have jobs with St. Stephen the Great.

Usdaw is also aware that the Charity Commission has been alerted to these actions because of its role in regulating the activities of the linked charity, St. Stephen the Great Charitable Trust.

John Hannett, Usdaw General Secretary, stated:

“It is clear that staff, many of whom have been long standing loyal workers, have been mistreated and many are understandably very upset and concerned. We are very concerned at a new company (ENC Management Company) being set up in these circumstances, while our members are losing their jobs. These loyal staff are being given misleading information about these US bankruptcy proceedings and the effects this may have on their rights to take legal action in the UK. Our fear is that the Brewers’ actions may be an attempt to move assets away from the business and out of the reach of our members with legitimate claims.

“We will carry on as before with the claims against the Brewers who are accumulating wealth whilst riding roughshod over hard working employees. We will continue to assist all our members affected by this messy situation and work to rectify it as soon as possible.”

Ends

St. Stephen the Great shops at which Usdaw members are affected:

§ Cambridge
§ Carlisle
§ Chester
§ Exeter
§ Lincoln
§ Newcastle
§ Norwich
§ Sheffield
§ Worcester
§ York

Usdaw is the Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers

Update: This press release is now available via the Usdaw website: Usdaw fights for mistreated bookshop workers

Posted by Dave at 8:13 am on June 24, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

34 Comments

June 21st, 2008
Former SPCK bookshops in the Telegraph

Christopher Howse: The bare and desolate SPCK bookshops

Posted by Dave at 9:57 am on June 21, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

5 Comments

June 20th, 2008
Today’s former SPCK bookshop news

From the Chester Chronicle: Christian bookshop sacks staff by e-mail

From the Eastern Daily Press: Christian bookshop stripped of stock

From the comments below:

The article in the Eastern Daily Press concerning the Norwich shop mentions three potential future tenants.
One of the bids is from the Norwich Christian Resource Centre, a new Community Interest Company with six directors from various denominations, all with a wealth of business experience.
They are giving their time and talents free of charge and are all passionate to re-establish the centre that had become such an integral part of the community of Norfolk and beyond, as quoted in the article.
The company would run as a non-profit making business and strive to return the centre to it’s original ethos, offering the widest breadth of stock, knowledgable staff, a high level of customer service and the ‘best capuccino in town’.
Prayers for this venture very welcome.

Also, from the comments yesterday, this by ‘concerned dad’:

My daughter applied for holiday work via an agency in Newcastle and took up a job in the Newcastle shop - we were completely unaware of the situation. She is expected to work completely on her own for 6 hours a day several days a week, somebody else does the other days - both are temps, no permanent staff, no training or guidance. She has creditors and people chasing book orders ringing up but no information to be able to respond to them. She is employed and paid by the agency (that is the theory anyway, will be interesting to find out what happens on payday!) If we had known about the situation we would not have got into this, but the agency were not very forthcoming with details about the shop until it was virtually too late…. So Newcastle is open - after a fashion, but far from satisfactory situation.

Update (lunchtime) Phil Groom has posted: SPCK/SSG News Archives. (I’ll try to say something about the blog idea later or over the weekend.)

Posted by Dave at 8:18 am on June 20, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

6 Comments

June 19th, 2008
Website updates

The SPCKonline website is now the same as the Third Space books website. Details of most shops have been updated. Some, like Salisbury (above - thanks to ezlxq), are on very limited hours and appear to be relying on voluntary labour. I’m aware that I need to keep updating the shop roundup page - updates appreciated.

The entry for the Norwich shop says ‘You are not authorised to view this resource’. That is probably because there is no resource to view - I am informed that a removal firm packed up all the books, fixtures and fittings and was taking them to the Chichester shop today.

Meanwhile the St Stephen the Great LLC website has been updated today “Last Updated ( Thursday, 19 June 2008 )“, but there is still no mention of the ‘bankruptcy’.

I have updated the Church Times blog with a list of news reports and letters about the former SPCK shops.

Melanie, the former manager of the SPCKonline site has written an interesting comment on Phil’s bookshop blog.

Posted by Dave at 5:43 pm on June 19, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

5 Comments

June 18th, 2008
Norwich / York

Norwich

Network Norwich has the following: Norwich Christian bookshop closes its doors

Meanwhile, from the comments section of this blog:

In 2003 I was taken to a city centre deconsecrated church by Stephen Platten, then Dean of Norwich. We both thought how splendid it would be to relocate the SPCK Bookshop, it’s decrepid premises huddling in a side street, to this magnificent medieval building.
In January of the next year Bishop Graham James officially blessed the vision along with representatives from virtually every denomination.
After many trials and tribulations and delays of several months, the centre opened on 13 July 2004. I had been privileged to help plan the layout and the concept.
Over 180 people attended the rededictation of the church to it’s new use in on a Friday morning in October 2004!
Within 3 years the loyal team had doubled the turnover of the previous shop and provided access to thousands of visitors from the Christian faith or none, to be offered an exceptionally broad range of product, a place to meet and be refreshed in the cafe.
We held events on a monthly basis. Highlights included: a lecture by Bishop Tom Wright attended by 350 plus, an Advent evening with Ronald Blythe during which three Salvation Army bandsmen managed to ascend the spiral staircase complete with trombone and play from the balcony, debates between bishops and humanists; Professor Brian Thorne and Ian Gibson MP and a Fawlty Towers evening!
This morning I visited the centre with my two sons, on the last day of trading. It was in fact open after 11-00.
To describe it as semi-vandalised would not be overstating the sight of half-empty boxes relocated from the London shop several weeks ago still blocking the porch and what is left of the stock lurching across the shelves.
Visiting the church on a regular basis over the past months I have been moved from frustration, to anger, to sadness, to disbelief as to how such a thiving resource could be laid to seed.
Today is a very sad day for the ex-staff, all but one of whom have yet to find new employment and the Christian community, who are voicing that ‘their’ centre has been lost - a high compliment indeed.
I count myself blessed to have been offered an alternative position within the Christian retail environment and have thus stayed in touch with so many of my customers who had become friends.
However, it’s never over until the Canary sings as we say in Narwich, so please keep praying for an unlikely resurrection in the not too distant future.
‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’

York

‘Richard and Gill’ on Flickr have a recent picture of the former SPCK shop in York.

Meanwhile, I found this blog post written in Chinese on June 16. It sounds as if it is by someone working in the York shop. Google translated it as follows:

I should be very fortunate, at least in this area to work, to York the second week, it began a career Part-time job. However, this is not so much a subjective initiative, I found, than to use a blind cat encountered more aptly described as dead mice. At that time, purely in the City Centre Luancuan, Okay, I admit that, in fact, I had lost. The results of the accidents that have been in SPCK work.

This is one in the entire United Kingdom has 28 Chain stores of the Christian Bookshop, a harmonious working atmosphere, have fixed the breakfast 11am and 3pm the afternoon tea time and all the break are paid. However, however, however, but, boom is not long, SPCK be acquired. A U.S. company called SSG took over the bookstore this. British indeed are born of hatred of Americans, the shop all the old staff have left, but Fortunately, the Manager of new people is pretty good. I want to go to the SSG, also by the nature of the work before the development of a simple cashier to accountant, gradually began to contact the bank’s work. Sense of accomplishment that is not an ordinary Youranersheng ah.

Boom is not really long, SSG recently went bankrupt, another bookstore was an American company take over. David and Olga have left, I left the bookstore on the people. Optimistic, I am now boss hey. Pessimistic, I really do not know Bookstore will close on this, I have on unemployment.

SPCK in the UK with my life is inseparable from, I Baijia all have come from the capital where wages. However, it also sacrificed a lot with my family Dear Amanda travel out of time. Switzerland, Rome, Prague, Barcelona, Fuluolunsa I have no time to. My dear SPCK, you can see in my youth to take all the copies to you, will not be so quick to close OK. You, and so I kept enough money to the United States, Greece, the Netherlands, Sweden, the Arctic Circle, and so I kept enough money to buy Chanel, Dior, Fendi, Prada to the temporary close it, but I travel back and so on, then opened the door for ah

This might or might not mean that the York shop is open.

Posted by Dave at 11:28 am on June 18, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK.

3 Comments

June 13th, 2008
Charity Commission to investigate SSG

News reports

From today’s Church Times: Ex-SPCK shops ‘bankruptcy’
The Bookseller says that the Charity Commission is to investigate SSG: St Stephen the Great files for bankruptcy
~~I think the Church of England Newspaper will have a report~~ (Just opened my online copy - nothing there as far as I can see. I thought there might be as I was telephoned.)

Closures and openings

We think that the shops that have closed since the bankruptcy announcement are:
Birmingham, Canterbury, Chester, Exeter, Newcastle, Norwich (closing on June 14) Worcester, York. These may be temporary or permanent.
Salisbury is now open again.
I’m still attempting to maintain a complete list here.

New map

On the Third Space books site (Is Third Space books bankrupt or not? Not sure.) a new map of the SSG shops appeared on June 7. Bristol, Carlisle, Lincoln and London have been taken off. Cardiff remains. ‘Leichester’ (not on the old map) has been added.

Posted by Dave at 8:20 am on June 13, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

11 Comments

June 11th, 2008
Former SPCK bookshop closures

I have been attempting to update my SPCK bookshop roundup page. Please take a look and tell me whether I am being accurate.

In the last few days I have been told that the following shops have been closed, but some of these closures might be temporary:

Chester (Local news report: Christian bookshop closes in Chester city centre)
Exeter (Notice on door says it is due to reopen - photo above)
Newcastle
~~Salisbury~~ Now open again
Worcester
York

Posted by Dave at 6:11 pm on June 11, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.

19 Comments

Elegantly dressed Wednesday

2008-08-06T09:36:00.002+01:00

Aliens do exist

2008-08-05T21:53:00.006+01:00

...and were out and about in Canterbury. Weird creatures arriving from all corners of the galaxy for some utterly unfathomable exercise in introspection. Since nobody agreed with anyone else and there was no prospect of them ever doing so they ended up just forming small groups round the Archbishop for their souvenir snapshots before they all headed off back into outer space.

Dr Rowan Williams expression was in turns confused and anxious, until he finally settled for solemnity, rounding on those left behind and blaming them because the party hadn't been quite the resounding success he had intended.

Still, at least we now know why he's so attracted to the certainties offered by Sharia Law.

Normal service resumes

2008-08-05T18:31:00.001+01:00

I've not posted here for some time. Given my ironic interest in the Bishopric, I'd like to be able to say that it was because I was so gripped by the excitement of the Lambeth Conference, but in reality it was more mundane, I simply had other things that required my attention for a while. Anyway I'm back now, and in full working order again.

Ignoring a red light.

2008-06-28T14:06:00.002+01:00

Another interesting story from the Daily Telegraph.

It's difficult to see what possible rationale there can possibly be behind the Cycle Touring Club's claim that the Highway Code forces cyclists to break the law. Cyclists these days seem to regard the highway code (let alone the law) as an entirely optional extra without any official sanction anyway.

The only justification there could possibly be for legalising the crossing of red lights on pedestrian crossings by cyclists (I was knocked down in such circumstances last year) is that the law is so little observed as to be meaningless, and anyway it would free up the police to devote more time to catching real criminals. No doubt Jacqui will share her thoughts, along with whoever the Minister of Transport happens to be at the moment, before too long.

Rattled Tories feel the heat at last

2008-06-28T13:30:00.003+01:00

The prospect of Harriet as the next Prime Minister has obviously got the Tories worried; they're having to resort to publishing stories like this in the Daily Telegraph.

Lets pay women more to do less.

2008-06-28T13:12:00.003+01:00

And lets make employers give them the jobs. I'm not really sure who could have come up with such a vote-winning suggestion and persuaded the Cabinet to back it.

They'll obviously be a front runner in the upcoming Labour leadership election though.

Putting right the injustices of the past.

2008-06-27T11:36:00.003+01:00

Over on Fora I have (unusually) been having a difference of opinion with the Political Umpire over the rights and wrongs of pardoning the soldiers who were executed for cowardice during the Great War (I think the decision was right, he begs to differ). I will post on this here in due course, offering my views at greater length.

There is another injustice that demands correction though, and I suspect that the Umpire will agree with me on this one. Probably the most shameful act of Harold Wilson's premiership was his forced evacuation of the Chagos Islands in order to allow the US to take out a fifty year lease on Diego Garcia for a military base. The Islanders have been conducting a campaign through the courts against the UK Government for some years now, seeking the return of their home. At every stage the courts have upheld their right to return, and every time the Government has done its very best to thwart that right.

Next week the Government is appealing the decision to the Law Lords, and it is to be hoped that their appeal will be rejected and that they finally accept defeat. Even then there will still be the matter of the US lease on Diego Garcia. When the US took out that lease, I very much doubt that they ever intended to hand the island back. So lets hope that we have a Foreign Secretary who's prepared to tell them that their tenancy (due to finish within the next ten years) is not up for renewal, and that they should make sure that the place is clean and tidy before they leave.

It's just not cricket

2008-06-27T05:13:00.005+01:00

One day cricket scarcely qualifies for the name, but even that doesn't excuse Paul Collingwood's decision to confirm the appeal for 'run out'. It should not even have required time for thought, and his subsequent apology (welcome as that is) doesn't alter the perception that sportsmanship has long since been replaced by gamesmanship.

The big cricket story though rests with our Government, and the question of what to do about the Zimbabwe team. We know that the home series has already been cancelled by the ECB in response to a government request but there is still the thorny issue of the 20/20 World Cup, due to be held here later next year. That is organised by the ICC and since Zimbabwe are currently a member of the ICC they are entitled to attend - pretty much on the same basis as Robert Mugabe attending that UN conference in Italy a few weeks ago.

Those who follow cricket know that the ICC will shortly be holding a meeting where there is a good chance that Zimbabwe's membership will be suspended, thus solving the problem. But why wait? It would be far more satisfactory if the Government showed a bit of leadership rather than continuing to evade responsibility in the hope that others will get it out of a hole. Ahead of the ICC meeting they should state plainly that they are not prepared to admit sporting teams from Zimbabwe, and that their position is not negotiable. If that means that the ICC relocate or cancel the 20/20 World Cup, so be it.

It is quite conceivable that the next Government will face the same dilemma in 2012; how much better if our position is clear now.

The dangers the police face

2008-06-17T14:51:00.006+01:00

I had an email complaining about my last post, suggesting I was trying to score cheap political points from a policeman's death. The writer didn't understand what it was in Ms Smith's remarks I took exception to, so perhaps I'd better comment further.

The police face many dangers on our behalf and I readily acknowledge that. But it is not a danger that they face every day, nor should they ever have to face, that they are unwittingly killed by a colleague in a training exercise with a weapon that has been adjudged safe for use by the Home Office. Maybe Ms Smith is now approving weapons whose safety level is marginal as part of her campaign of increased toughness in going after those she considers villains, but more likely she's just too stupid to realise that the blame for this tragedy lies squarely at her own door.

There were two victims in this incident, and one has to feel for the officer who fired the shot. Police officers are entitled to rely implicitly on the Home Office in its judgement on issues of safety in such matters. On this occasion that trust was shown to have been seriously abused not by a criminal but by lax complacency in a Government Department overseen by Ms Smith. Since our Home Secretary is a lady who has made clear for some time that she doesn't even consider the police worthy of a reasonable pay rise, her sanctimonious remarks seem all the more contemptible.

Jacqui Smith again.

2008-06-10T18:30:00.003+01:00

I wouldn't have posted on this sad accident were it not for the nonsensical comment from our Home Secretary. In making it she insults not only our intelligence but also the memory of those police officers who have given their lives facing danger on our behalf.

Of course none of this takes away from the unnecessary death of Ian Terry or the grief of his family. I doubt that grief has in any way been assuaged by Ms. Smith's trite comment.

It wasn't me, honest!

2008-06-10T18:03:00.002+01:00

This blog unreservedly supports the statement on the banner of those rooftop protestors:
A father is for life and not just conception

Iraq: Good news for once.

2008-06-05T17:41:00.003+01:00

I suspect a degree of irony in that title. Just look here.

Recording Responsibility.

2008-06-05T16:53:00.002+01:00

It deflected from the main thrust of my last post so I'll say it here instead.

The reason that the Rt Hon James Purnell's name is found on the above report is because, despite all the weasel words, neither the welfare of the child nor the right to a father are of any great interest at the Department of Work and Pensions; the possibility of extracting child support certainly is though.

Human Fertilisation & Embryology: IVF - rights and responsibilities.

2008-06-05T15:02:00.006+01:00

The Government has just published a White Paper 'Recording Responsibility'. It can be downloaded here. As part of an upcoming Welfare Reform Bill, it is intended to impose a requirement on a mother when registering the birth of a child to name the father, unless it is 'impossible, impractical or unreasonable' for her to do so; should the mother consider her circumstances falls into one of those categories, she will have to persuade the Registrar that they do. The new arrangement is called 'joint registration' and is intended

to promote child welfare and parental responsibility.

It has a lot to say about fatherhood. Before one even gets into the paper itself, the Ministerial foreword tells us that

The role of both father and mother is important to a child’s development.

and goes on to say that

Fathers’ involvement in their child’s life can lead to positive educational achievement, a good, open and trusting parent-child relationship during the teenage years and reduce the risk of mental health issues for children in separated families. Engaging fathers around the time of their child's birth, including through being registered as father, is important in establishing that close involvement.

These fine words, with which I entirely agree, are purportedly written by the Rt Hon James Purnell (Secretary of State for Work and Pensions) and the Rt Hon Ed Balls (Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families).

The paper itself says

At the heart of our reforms is a desire to promote child welfare and the right of every child to know who his or her parents are. In most cases, a child's right to be acknowledged and cared for by his or her father should not be dependent on the relationship between the parents.

At this point I suspect that I'm not alone in wondering whether the Rt Hons Purnell and Balls voted against the proposals related to the registration of children to same-sex 'parents'. But of course they didn't, and the paper itself has a sting in its tale. It doesn't

cover... the changes proposed in the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill to allow a same-sex couple to be recorded as parents at birth.

Let's forget fathers for a moment, and suggest that the Government should consider 'recording' its own 'responsibility'. Our Government is a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that

children, whenever possible, have the right to know their parentage.

Now I don't think that when this convention was drawn up, what was meant by 'parentage' was the names and addresses of the people who were bringing a child up. What it meant was the two people who had each contributed half of a child's genes, the child's mother and father. Nature's inconvenient like that, continuing to insist that children get one of each, despite the best efforts of our scientists and politicians. And it has been very well established through the latter half of the twentieth century that children have a very strong need to find out about, and more often than not to find, their biological parents. Despite all that, the Government has now done something that it never countenanced with adoption; allowing the birth certificate to be no more than a lie, that records either, or maybe neither, of a child's parents without regard to nature or fact. Adoption has taught us more than that children need to know the facts of their biological parentage; Dr Barnardo's would not be alone in recognising the long term grief and anger that results from the telling of lies, and particularly those that have legal sanction.

I wouldn't dispute that same-sex couples are entirely capable of providing 'supportive parenting', and many already do, but that doesn't alter the unavoidable fact that at least one of them won't be the parent of the child. In that context, I find it impossible to consider IVF morally acceptable unless the couple concerned are the biological as well as the supportive parents; beyond that denies a child its most basic rights.

In the end, it's the same as the abortion debate. There's far too much talk of rights, far too little about responsibilities. The rights being talked up here are once again those of selfish uncaring adults (and are not really 'rights' at all); never are they those of the rights of the child. As for responsibilities, none of the supporters of the recent changes in the law seem to have regard for those whatever.

Human Fertilisation & Embryology: a woman's right to choose.

2008-06-05T11:09:00.009+01:00

I posted on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill prior to the Parliamentary debate, and then had an interesting discussion with the Political Umpire, through the comments attached to both my original post and his own on the same subject. In fact, I think I probably achieved greater clarity in those comments than in my first post. I said that I would return to the subject when the dust had settled, and it has so I am.

Re-reading my original post, I'm not sure whether my sense of priorities at the time was correct. The stem cell research proposals, horrendous as they seem to me, have such an uncertain outcome that it is difficult to be absolute in condemning them. Scientists will in the end disregard legal niceties anyway, particularly as the technology already exists. So I'm deeply unhappy, but have nothing to add to what I said at the outset. However the other two issues (abortion, and the need to consider the need for a father) were not covered as I now wish they had been, so I'll set down my thoughts on them in separate posts.

Abortion. As I said previously, I support the existing 24 week limit on obtaining a termination, and believe that they should be easily available. However undesirable it may be it is the lesser of two evils (unwanted, abandoned babies and the return of the back-street abortionist seeming worse). Nevertheless, I think that the limit is a subject that it is entirely reasonable to review from time to time.

Those who oppose abortion outright tend to do so from religious conviction, and are entirely entitled to do so. However the debate as to whether we permit abortion or not took place in 1967, and there has been no likelihood of abortion's opponents even beginning to approach a majority in the Commons since. This leaves a difficult problem in its wake, because when you have the secondary debate as to the point in a pregnancy where termination should no longer be permitted, it becomes skewed by the opponents always supporting the shortest period available as an option, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. It is a dilemma that is just about impossible to resolve, but it does mean that any final decision is likely to err on the side of caution, and that at least is no bad thing.

What struck me most about the debate itself though was the repeated invocation (by supporters of the status quo) of a woman's 'right to choose'. What on earth is this supposed 'right', and where might it come from? Women have clear rights with regard to pregnancy in this country, in particular the right not to get pregnant unless they wish to do so. They are not compelled to have sex, and if they should choose to do so they are not prohibited from using contraception (including a 'morning after' pill).

Pregnancy though is not a right it itself, rather it is a responsibility. A woman who chooses to get pregnant takes on a responsibility for her unborn child, to which her own rights are entirely secondary. Regardless of the law, she should not for example place the child at risk through the excessive use of alcohol or of other drugs; to do otherwise would be immoral and entirely to be condemned.

It is offensive that women claim a 'right to decide'. If they possessed such a right (and they don't) it would surely permit that they be allowed terminations right up to the point of delivery, maybe of infanticide beyond that. There is of course no such right, and those who claim that there is simply encourage women to disregard the immense responsibility that comes with conception.

I recognise that there are many unwanted pregnancies that arise from emotional and sexual immaturity, from lack of education, and sometimes as a consequence of non-consensual sex, and that there are many other valid reasons why a woman might need a pregnancy terminated. But if we talked less about rights and more about responsibilities, I suspect that the number of terminations would fall, regardless of the limits set out by the law.

The Israeli academic boycott

2008-06-04T07:53:00.005+01:00

Norman Geras over on normblog has a lot of strong words to say about this, all entirely justified.

If the University and College Union members weren't so hell-bent on pursuing this offensive and facile policy, they might have found themselves able to exert a positive influence in cases like this one.

42 days

2008-06-03T19:13:00.005+01:00

In 2003, there were far too many Labour MPs who voted to invade Iraq not because they believed it was right, but because they lacked the courage to say they believed otherwise. Next week it's going to be the same from the sound of things, and our illiberal Government will pursue its quest to deprive us of hard-won civil liberties with ever more vigour.

Since I'm deeply cynical, I suspect that most of the MPs who end up supporting the proposals will do so in the belief that they will never get past the Lords anyway, thus providing further grounds for knocking that institution, as well as for accusing the Tories of being 'soft on terrorism'. They're gutless far beyond contempt, yet they still don't understand why people are not going to vote for them next time around.

Mugabe and the UN

2008-06-03T18:52:00.002+01:00

Robert Mugabe's presence at the UN Food summit in Rome is an affront to civilization, and the UN should be held in as deep contempt as Mugabe for even contemplating inviting him, let alone doing so.

Mugabe is a murderous fascist despot and Italy should have told him that regardless of the diplomatic niceties of the UN's invitation he would be arrested with a view to trying him for crimes against humanity as soon as he set foot on European soil. As for our own Government, what on earth are they doing lending legitimacy to this farce by attending?

No internal armed conflict in Iraq

2008-06-02T07:26:00.004+01:00

This story raises several issues. It is however one of many similar that shows the capacity of our government for self-delusion. I doubt if many outside the corridors of power would doubt the existence of 'internal armed conflict' in Iraq, the trigger for which was the ill-considered 2003 invasion.

It is not entirely surprising that our unprincipled government should attempt deportations to Iraq, since the most basic notions of morality seem to have been abandoned entirely, replaced with an overwhelming desire to pander to the Daily Mail readership. The willingness of their lawyers and the judiciary to play with words in order to support them in doing so however does no credit whatever to our legal system.

Too cheap to meter

2008-05-30T04:52:00.004+01:00

Electricity. That's what they said all those years ago, and our politicians still appear to cling to the forlorn hope that it's true.

The context in which the Government is planning a new round of nuclear power stations is becoming clearer by the day. A succession of shutdowns recently has left British Energy with only six of it's sixteen facilities operating. The loss of Sizewell B meant that large numbers of homes were left without power.

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has just reviewed its estimate of the costs involved in cleaning up the UK's current nuclear facilities, and not surprisingly the estimate has increased by a very considerable amount, to £73bn, and admitted that there's a 'high probability' that costs will rise further.

Then there's Sellafield; if it weren't so deadly serious it'd be farcical. It's out of action more often than not, when it is 'reprocessing' it's not doing a very successful job - supposedly reprocessed waste is being returned as unsatisfactory; the Japanese recently sent back a batch of fuel that had falsified quality control documents. So Sellafield, far from making the promised profits, is needing to be propped up to the tune of £3bn a year. Because it's facilities are more often than not out of action, Sellafield is now running out of space for storing nuclear waste. This means that the AGR reactors are facing the possibility of needing to be closed until that problem is resolved.

If there's one thing that's for sure, it is that any nuclear power comes at a high price to the public. Any private company taking on such a project will do the same as we saw recently with the London Underground PPF deal - take the quick profit and then wind itself up when the expenses start to mount. The Government of course will be obliged to step in at that point, as it can scarcely leave nuclear power stations simply to rot.

In the end though the money is almost an irrelevance set against the environmental impact of our nuclear industry. The UK is one of the world's worst for radioactive pollution. Until Chernobyl pushed us into second place, Windscale was the world's principal source of radioactive contamination, and the 1957 fire the worst nuclear disaster. When the then Government responded to the aftermath of that catastrophic incident at Windscale, it was little more than to rename the site Sellafield in the hope that people would forget, and that just about says it all. It trivialises the surreal absurdity of it all to suggest the possibility that consultants would have been paid a very large sum to come up with that suggestion.

It may be that there is a way forward with nuclear power, although I very much doubt it. But the Government cannot continue to build their plans around the impossible dream that Sellafield will work as originally promised. It plainly doesn't and never will.

It's official. Harriet's hat is in the ring.

2008-05-24T09:21:00.009+01:00

Funny, isn't it. You wait days for a Harriet post and then, just like one of Ken's bendy buses, two come along at once.

You know, Harriet's a smarter girl than she looks, and she's played a very clever game over the past few months. She's got her own vision, her own policies - basically let women run everything, that's about it really. Oh well, they couldn't make a worse job of it than the current lot.

She's tested her policies with the party members already (who can forget the deputy leadership election?) and knows they go down well, even if they don't with her parliamentary colleagues. And she's always out and about, an endless stream of walkabouts meeting and greeting (all recorded in mind-numbing detail on her blog) so she's got a strong recognition factor with the public. She's been photographed patrolling with the police in her stab-proof vest (she should have hung on to that awhile) so she's sent the message out - she knows there's a problem, particularly with knife crime, and she'll make sure the police get the resources to tackle it.

Then there's her personality; strong but not strident. She doesn't indulge in the dreary hectoring so often associated with female politicians. Actually Jack & Harriet are pretty much the Richard & Judy of the political world. I can see it now - PMQ given the boot entirely, and 'Policy Club' on Channel 4 filling the very slot left vacant by R&J's departure. If she's not already made it to Number 10, there's a pretty good chance that the highlight of Labour's autumn conference will be Harriet's boob 'accidentally' bursting forth; that'll certainly play well with the tabloids and the male voters.

And then there's loyalty. Party loyalty is an unwritten essential when it comes to leadership elections, and Harriet has delivered loyalty in spades. All those promises she made during the deputy leadership campaign appeared to have been discarded as soon as Gordon offered her a Cabinet post (I took her to task over that more than once, now I'm looking rather foolish). And now, when her colleagues are bunkered down just hoping they'll wake up and find it was all just a bad nightmare, she's out there fronting up to the media. With style, too. "He's the right man to see us through this crisis", "I don't think that will happen" (that in response to suggestions of a move against Brown, although she acknowledged "discordant voices"), the classic "We need to listen more and address voters' concerns" and "He'll still be in Number 10 come the next election".

The Guardian, who described her as one of Gordon's key allies (she's not, they can't stand each other) accused Harriet in their leader of platitudinous burblings. Now the Guardian fancies itself as the thinking man's paper, so how come they missed the subtext? 'No way, no man's going to see us through this crisis. A woman might, though'. 'I don't think it will, I know it will'. Gordon wouldn't know how to, but I do'. 'Only if I put him on the domestic staff'.

Harriet has another terrific advantage. She's posh, seriously seriously posh. Middle-class voters go for that (particularly when she's already been pretty forthright in denouncing the tactics used in Crewe) and Dave looks rather like an immature schoolboy set against her obvious class and style.

So, you read it here first. I got 16-1 yesterday, but you'll need to be quick.

I've surprised you, haven't I? I bet you thought Harriet was just another 'yes' girl, but you were wrong. Obviously this blog has already declared for Harriet, and will in due course have a series of Back Harriet posts. I wonder if she'll give us an interview?

Impressive new schools and children's centres - North West and Yorkshire.

2008-05-23T08:20:00.019+01:00

Those who read my sidebar will no doubt have noticed that the lovely Harriet has now officially joined the team; I feel slightly guilty because I've been somewhat ignoring her since. However it's been a depressing week for politics (so far, at least) so it seems like a good time to make amends.

As impressive as all those new schools and children's centres no doubt are, it is difficult to believe that Harriet has spent more than five weeks hanging around Manchester, Bolton, Oldham and Sheffield being impressed. In other circumstances I'd think that she'd simply forgotten that a blog requires the occasional post just once in a while if it's to retain its loyal readership. Or more likely forgotten her new password. But of course she's rather busy right now making sure her campaign troops are on a full battle footing and ready to swing into action at a moment's notice. Maybe she's even planning to wield the knife herself.

I'm sure that she draws much of her inspiration from Maggie, and since she's considerably prettier than Maggie ever was it's a near cert that she'll be the next occupant of Number 10, probably before the summer's out. Think I'd better pay a quick visit to Ladbrokes while they're still offering odds.

Harriet, your hour has come. Your country needs you!

Crewe and Nantwich

2008-05-23T07:39:00.013+01:00

WARNING! THIS POST CONTAINS LANGUAGE OF A DISTINCTLY WORKING-CLASS NATURE. YOU MAY WELL BE OFFENDED BUT THE LABOUR PARTY DOESN'T CARE ABOUT THAT.

Even if our current Government were making a fair fist of things, which obviously they're not, they thoroughly deserved the good kicking they got yesterday. If only it had been even more severe; I'd have happily voted Tory myself if I lived in Crewe. Labour's negative and frequently xenophobic campaign seemed to plumb new depths with its willingness to 'play the race card' and resort to personal attacks on the Tory candidate that were knowing and outright lies (at the same time 'sexing-up' Ms Dunwoody by misrepresentations that defied credulity), anything it seems that evaded meaningful debate on Labour's record, let alone its policies.

It's hard to comprehend, but Labour seems to be sinking into the same stinking electoral cesspit as the BNP. Right now, they appear rotten to the core, and quite unfit to govern.

The irony of course is that the voters did exactly what Labour asked them to - they voted for the thoroughly decent local candidate and told the toff to f*** off back to Burke's peerage and her Welsh mansion. Good on them, I'd have done the same.

Human Fertilisation and Embryology

2008-05-18T13:29:00.009+01:00

There's been a fair amount said about this week's big parliamentary debate already, but not enough I suspect. Gordon Brown has offered his personal opinion in The Observer today, in an effort to drum up support from the uncertain for the uncertain.

I'm no pro-lifer, don't think myself unduly conservative on such matters, and have a certain amount of apprehension about the amendment to shorten the period in which women can obtain an abortion (apprehensive because I fear that it might be supported). But I object most strongly to the proposal that IVF should no longer require clinics to consider the child's need for a father. It's not that they're saying that a child has no need for a father (they'd have difficulty providing evidence for that proposition particularly as they regularly blame 'absent fathers' for teenage delinquency). It's this curious belief that in some way they're denying human rights to gays and lesbians. Whatever happened to the notion that it's the child's need that should be put first?

However my biggest anxiety is over the main focus of the bill, the proposal that scientists should be allowed to create animal-human hybrid embryos. Whether MPs are ever likely to have sufficient grasp of the scientific arguments is uncertain; For myself, I'm deeply suspicious of them. The scientists say (in effect) that if we permit this technique they'll solve all known illnesses before Christmas comes around. And that if the MPs reject the proposal they are condemning the ill to suffering and that would be immoral. It's an absurd argument, driven by scientists' desire to experiment regardless of consequence. The success of existing stem cell treatments is wildly overstated, and published research is about as one-sided as the stuff emanating from drug companies. But the politicians seem to have bought into this misplaced conviction.

Bad science always promises the moon; just look at the Nuclear industry. Governments are very reluctant to appear sceptical, they remain ever hopeful that those promises will actually deliver, and they will benefit electorally.

It worries me how the debate is being conducted not least with its undue haste, and it's all too reminiscent of the Iraq farrago from four years ago. Scientific breakthroughs are more likely to be made than Saddam Hussein's WMD were to be found, certainly, but only marginally. Gordon's zeal in pushing this through is not unlike Tony's was, and his assessment of the outcome is likely to be about as deficient.

There's worse though. "Britain is at the forefront of this research and responsible for much of the worldwide progress" Gordon writes. So that's what it comes down to. Money.

Telly Addicts

2008-05-15T10:03:00.011+01:00

You'd have thought that it was the job of the police to be out there catching criminals, and the CPS to be prosecuting them (or, all too often, deciding not to). Not one bit of it. In the West Midlands they have different priorities; they seem to fancy themselves as TV critics. Literally. Really.

It's a rather curious case that seems to have been rumbling on for some time now, where the West Midlands police and the CPS took exception to a C4 Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque. They referred the programme to the TV regulator Ofcom, and issued a very strongly worded statement accusing the programme makers of 'inciting criminal activity' through malicious editing of undercover footage. You'd have thought that they'd just have got on and prosecuted the broadcaster, given that incitement happens to be an offence in the UK. But not a bit of it, just a well-publicised press conference. Now the affair has finally reached some sort of conclusion, leaving several unanswered questions in its wake.

Presumably the police originally issued their highly critical statement because they preferred to turn a blind eye to what was going on in a few mosques in their patch, and weren't grateful to the Dispatches programme for screening fairly damning evidence. So who was it who took the decision to refer the programme to Ofcom, let alone issue that statement? It's hardly likely to have been PC Plod returning from patrolling the streets of Brum, far more likely Sir Paul Scott-Lee, the Chief Constable. And who from the CPS decided that they should lend their support? Most importantly, what are the police and CPS now going to do about those three preachers, and others of a similar bent? Don't hold your breath.

A very considerable sum from the public purse has been wasted on this scandalous exercise in evasion and resignations should follow. But they won't, of course; that sort of thing went out of fashion years ago. Sir Paul, prove me a cynic for once.

Will we learn from the Iraq invasion?

2008-05-13T08:21:00.005+01:00

I said in an earlier post that arguing about the rights and wrongs of invading Iraq amounts to little more than debating history; the important issue is what we should be doing now. We're where we are, and we can't turn the clock back.

But history is also important, not for political point scoring, but because we (hopefully) learn from it. And if mistakes were made in the way we decided to go to war we need to identify them. The current threat the (very unpleasant) government in Iran poses means there is a real risk that we will face a similar scenario; our actions at that point need to be informed by an acceptance of the tragic consequences of the Iraq war and a recognition of our moral culpability for them.

We do have a moral responsibility to do more than stand by in the face of evil; but our Iraq venture has been a disaster that we mustn't repeat.

Iraq: will we ever get out?

2008-05-13T06:58:00.000+01:00

We might, if only because of the cowardly way our Government is keeping its head down and hoping that no-one really notices when we do. But our coalition partners have a bigger commitment, and face a bigger loss of prestige from admitting the failure of the enterprise. Then there's Afghanistan, for somewhat different reasons another disaster; we're almost certainly trapped there for the long term.

The purpose of this post is to draw attention to this article in the New York Review of Books which looks at the reasons things went so badly wrong, and the policies of the three main candidates seeking the US Presidency; it is well worth reading.

Ann Clwyd and Tony Blair

2008-05-13T06:50:00.006+01:00

Ann Clwyd deserves respect, not least for her longstanding commitment to investigating and publicly denouncing the human rights abuses of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq. She supported the invasion of Iraq because of those abuses, and there was no doubt whatever that her position was consistent throughout, and that there was immense moral strength to her argument.

If only one could have said the same of Tony Blair. In 1995 Ms Clwyd was the Opposition Spokesperson on Foreign Affairs, only to find herself sacked for taking a trip to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq 'without permission'. The atrocities she had already exposed there were on an appalling scale, but the briefings from the Leader of the Opposition's office were to say that she was 'mad', and 'obsessed with Iraq'.

If Tony Blair had been a man of principle, he would have recognised that the position he took in 1995 left him looking hypocritical in his subsequent support of the US invasion, called into question his motives for doing so, and required that he resign. As a Prime Minister who was so happy to apologise for the failings of any Government bar his own, it's no surprise that he lacked even the decency to offer Ms Clwyd a public apology.

Operation Mavhoterapapi (where did you vote)

2008-05-09T19:59:00.002+01:00

It's depressingly predicable that Zimbabwe has just about dropped out of the news entirely; our press prefers to concentrate on one tragedy at a time.

Zanu PF are of course in their stride right now, conducting the predictable campaign of terror in order to 'encourage' the Mugabe vote. We're little more than helpless spectators here, although we should hope that the international community will do more to increase the pressure on South Africa to end their support for Mugabe's regime.

Jacqui Smith

2008-05-08T14:31:00.009+01:00

It's been a busy couple of days for the Home Secretary. Yesterday she was lecturing the House on the evils of cannabis and announcing it's return to category B status. Ms Smith has previously admitted that she used to smoke it herself when she was younger, and I can't help feeling she could do with the occasional spliff right now to be honest. Unsurprisingly she says that she's sending out a clear message to young people but she isn't of course. The message is to the same electorate who declined to vote Labour last week, and are unlikely to do so again before Ms Smith is long since gone. Drugs strategy (is there one?) is a mess right now, and this latest move hasn't made it any tidier. Jacqui likes to think it makes her look a lot tougher though.

If that weren't bad enough, today she's declaring "I want police and local agencies to focus on (persistent offenders) by giving them a taste of their own medicine: daily visits, repeated warnings and relentless filming of offenders to create an environment where there is nowhere to hide."

I'm not sure that any comment is needed beyond the obvious conclusion that Ms Smith hasn't got what it takes to be the cabinet's tea lady, let alone Home Secretary. It's something of a surprise that she didn't just come straight out and give the police a direct instruction to duff up anyone they took a dislike to; she can't resist playing to the tabloids and causes considerable damage to whatever residual respect this government commands in doing so. But she is not alone in sucking up to the tabloids unfortunately; the Tories and Lib Dems, fearful that it might prove popular, have already leapt in, "We thought of it first!".

I see that Alistair Darling is another of the 'I used to when I was young' crew. So maybe there is a case for recategorising cannabis after all. Far more so for the police to be giving these self-confessed former users in the Cabinet 'a taste of their own medicine'. Given the mood in the country right now, that last suggestion would probably play best of all with the third estate.

Anti-Americanism

2008-05-06T19:49:00.008+01:00

We reject without qualification the anti-Americanism now infecting so much left-liberal (and some conservative) thinking. This is not a case of seeing the US as a model society. We are aware of its problems and failings. But these are shared in some degree with all of the developed world. The United States of America is a great country and nation. It is the home of a strong democracy with a noble tradition behind it and lasting constitutional and social achievements to its name. Its peoples have produced a vibrant culture that is the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions. That US foreign policy has often opposed progressive movements and governments and supported regressive and authoritarian ones does not justify generalized prejudice against either the country or its people.
Article 6 of the Euston Manifesto, Opposing anti-Americanism.

In one sense it's right; the US is not the source of all the worlds ills and cold-war era lefties who think it is need their heads examined. But it is not true to say that it's problems and failings are shared to some degree with all of the developed world. It's enthusiasm for capital punishment, for detention without trial, for torture, for 'rendition' and it's contempt for the Geneva Convention are pretty much conspicuous by their absence in the rest of the developed world. It's one thing to oppose anti-Americanism; it's quite another to fail to judge it's government by the same moral criteria as we judge others less democratic.

US culture? Yes it's certainly vibrant, and no doubt the pleasure, the source-book and the envy of millions; count me among them. But I doubt if that's of any consolation whatever to someone being tortured in Guantanamo Bay right now.

Now they're all at it

2008-05-06T19:07:00.006+01:00

Gordon's pumping our money into sustaining house prices and risky mortgages as fast as he decently dare (only pausing long enough to promise the precise opposite, affordable housing for all). Despite all that, it's definitely not been a good week for him at the polls, and that's an understatement if ever there was one.

It could be worse. We could be living in the US right now. They only have two big mortgage companies writing new business, they're all so nervous about their housing market. Their currency's getting to be like Monopoly money, no longer the mighty dollar of old and unlikely to be so again. So maybe George Bush is starting to grasp that if you cut taxes too far, and give your wealthiest supporters tax breaks with loopholes big enough to drive Fort Knox through, however rich your best mates end up, sooner or later your economy is going to suffer regardless of the mortgage industry; if you haven't got the money, you can't bail anyone out, however much you want to, or your currency just keeps falling. So what's he doing about it? You'd scarcely credit it, but he's looking for the European Central Bank to pump money into propping up the dollar. This of course is the same Europe he lambasted not that many years ago because they considered his Iraq invasion ill-judged, and told him so. Why on earth should they help him out?

Well, help him out they probably will, because several European countries, France in particular, are worrying over the rapid decline in exports to the US. So we have an absurd merry-go-round, everyone propping everyone else up, money bleeding from every orifice; will it make a difference? Of course it won't. You can't buck the market, that's what they said not that long ago, and there's a lot of truth to that. Remember Black Wednesday? Norman Lamont making the same futile attempt to save the Tories from the consequences of a series of bad economic decisions? Right now our overheated economy is going from boom to bust, something Gordon promised to put an end to eleven years ago. Exactly the same for our coalition partners; since their economy is bigger the collapse is going to be more spectacular.

Only one thing can save us now. The sooner we get our hands on all that Iraqi oil the better.

Harriet's Blog returns!

2008-05-02T15:25:00.014+01:00

Those who share my bizarre enthusiasm for the blog of the Labour Party's deputy leader will be pleased to hear that Harriet's Blog is finally back online; they're reposting all the old entries even as I speak (I wonder if my comments will still be up?). Like the result of the London mayoral election, this had been expected some time ago (Harriet promised for Monday), but I expect it's taken this long for her to settle on a new password.

I've taken a further look back now, and most of the old posts are back, with the comments intact. She's taken her tribute to Gwyneth Dunwoody down for some reason. She definitely needs to sort out her html though; I left a comment just in case she hasn't noticed yet.

From my stats it seems that Harriet has actually paid a return visit here. Great excitement! I wish she'd leave a comment; I've left enough for her over the past months.