Happy Hols - no comments

Don't think I'll get any more time for blogging over Xmas, so, to all readers, to Labour bloggers, to friendly Conservatives, in fact to all of you (yes, you) who have made blogging pleasurable over the past 12 months, have a happy Christmas, Chanukah, Yule, Noel, and Winterval!

I'll be back before New Year, but if you aren't, best wishes for 2006.

Saddam 'tortured' - 1 comment

The BBC reports:

Saddam Hussein has been beaten and tortured by the Americans, he has alleged at his trial in Baghdad.

"I have been beaten on every place of my body, and the signs are all over my body," he told the court.

Naturally he couldn't resist going into more detail in private: "I give them a 3 at best. These kwanii lack the imagination, the creativity, the real passion for their work."

The prosecution gave little credence to the former president's claim he had been tortured, saying he was being held in an air-conditioned room when some of Baghdad had no power.

Must be terrible to be a pawn in a political show-trial.

No, this isn't my last word before Xmas :-)

Xmas theme - 1 comment

Anyone who has ever been outside will tell you that snowballs drop from the sky in the week or so before Xmas, thickly coating the banner of magazines and comics worldwide, from The Beano to the New Statesman (and vice versa).

A few - still perfectly white, round, but with slightly Gaussian-blurred edges, and as fresh as when Santa himself dropped them from his sleigh (or such is my understanding) - have landed on the background of our blog, and will remain there either until Twelfth Night, or until some kind soul can suggest something more appropriate!

I hope you're feeling more festive already!

British Empire - 16 comments

I always find the whole "biased BBC" thing a turn-off, as, I suspect, do most on our side of the fence, but things like this makes you wonder.


The whole story?

It's an article about the British Empire - which the Fabian Society believes should be given more coverage in school history - which contains no references whatsoever to slavery, but which is illustrated (without explanation) by a picture of black people being whipped, as if that represents an accurate summing up of several hundred years of history spread across every continent on the globe. What a way to close off all interesting discussion in advance.

Maybe the Fabians could offer special lessons to BBC Online journalists? Update: Hmm, maybe that wouldn't be such a good idea...

End nears for Mac version of IE - no comments

If I can be allowed two techy posts in one day, the BBC say:

Microsoft has advised Mac users of Internet Explorer (IE) to switch to rival browsers such as Apple's Safari.

The advice came as the software giant formally announced the end of IE for Apple Macs.

Naturally many people are saying, "Thank god", but that's being a little unfair to Microsoft. The BBC seem to be quite happy to give the impression that the abomination known as IE 6 for Windows, the subject of endless whines from web developers, frustrated calls to Developer Support, and endless critical security patches, is the same beast as IE 5.2 for Mac, when, in fact, they couldn't be more different.

IE 5 for Mac appeared in 2000 which is, what, well over a year after IE 5 for Windows, and offered then-groundbreaking support for CSS and web standards, which put it well ahead of all rivals for probably 2 years, and helped kill off the decrepit Netscape Navigator. It continues to offer a unique, Mac-oriented user-interface (admittedly very much overtaken since Mac OS X's maturity), was developed by Microsoft's renowned team of Mac-lovers, offers features that no other browser has (Scrapbook, and Page Holder, to name just two), and is completely unlike its Windows counterpart in not having required security patches.

So, terribly dated, and deserving of the chop though it is, Mac users ought not to jump on its grave: curse Microsoft's pernicious influence on the Windows platform, not on the Mac OS.

Going back to the fairly feeble BBC article, there's this:

The only potential problem for Mac users could be with websites designed to work exclusively with IE.

In June, web-testing firm SciVisum surveyed 100 UK websites and found that one in 10 of them failed to work properly on the Firefox browser.

To be honest, I think this problem is exaggerated for Mac users. Though I spend most of my browsing time with blogs, I can't remember the last time I needed to use the copy of IE I have tucked away. Whereas on Windows, unprofessional web developers (and blinkered managers) occasonally perpetrate sites that only work on IE, this ignorance is normally felt by all Mac users, irrespective of their browser of choice.

Future Posts - 6 comments

I've had to take steps to prevent B4L-syndicated blog posts from hogging the top three places because they've been published with a date that is many hours in the future. I'm not rapping knuckles, but it is kinda annoying...

The B4L software really shouldn't be doing this: it knows the post's date is wrong, but has no authoritative way of knowing what it should be. Generally, the problem is caused by the blog's author writing in Britain under the rule of GMT, but publishing under some US time zone (generally PST), which their blogging software appears to achieve by blindly adding 8 hours on to local time (NB. If we had any California-based bloggers, they'd be quite right to use PST). However, we have absolutely no way of knowing what the blogger's time zone is. We might intercept something set 5 hours in the future, which could either be a brand new post published under a Central Asian timezone (unlikely) or something published under PST, which the blogger worked on for 2 and a half hours and which didn't actually reach their Atom/RSS file for another half an hour.

The right course of action is for bloggers to check/update their publishing settings, but in the meantime we'll use a couple of new (much better, but still imperfect) rules to make things better:

• If we encounter anything set more than 3 hours in the future, we'll assume the blogger is publishing in Blogger-default PST, and we will subtract a full 8 hours.
• Anything less than that, we'll shift it back by enough hours to make it either now, or in the past.

Hopefully that'll do the trick (it seems to be working now) without causing problems for anyone who is posting in the correct time zone.

Fourth Term / Yellow Peril / Notting Hell - 3 comments

Fourth Term is a new blog devoted to Labour winning yet another General Election in 2009/10. That's a slightly unsettling thought, if only to imagine how old I'll be then. Too old for anything any good, that's for sure. Anyway, here's their introduction:

The philosophy of this site is simple - we don't think the Labour government has never made a mistake but we do think it has worked hard and deserves credit for the huge and positive changes it has made in our country.

But we also know that the Tories aren't the only people trying to undermine the Labour government - too many on the left seem to think the purity of opposition is preferrable to the responsibilities that come with government.

We've been here before. In 1979 too many Labour Party members thought the party needed time in opposition. The price for that mistake wasn't paid at the dinner tables of Hampstead or Morningside, but by millions of ordinary working people: let's not make that mistake again!

The people behind this site also run Yellow Peril, an unashamedly anti-Liberal Democrat blog (complete with a huge yellow lemon).

Fianlly, a mention for Notting Hell, a new blog that sticks it to David Cameron and his 'set'.

Books to Iraq - no comments

Is a new organisation committed to the rebuilding of Iraq:

Aid appeal launched for Pharmacy Education in Iraq

In addition to the recent conflict and the continuing violence, two wars and twelve years of sanctions have had a crippling effect on Iraq's pharmacy education and practice. These events have severely affected access to information resources such as books and journals, and imposed a total isolation from the scientific community.

Iraq has an important position in the history of pharmacy. Baghdad was a prominent centre for science and culture; enlightened Caliphs created an atmosphere where Arab, Jewish, Alexandrian and Indian scholars could all contribute to intellectual life. Talented scientists translated and preserved ancient Greek, Persian and Indian manuscripts. In the 9th century, one Baghdad institution, Bayt al-Hikma (House of Wisdom), translated a vast number of medical texts, including the works of Galen. In future years, the lost Greek knowledge was re-established in the Western world, through the introduction of Latin translations of these Arabic texts. Yet, Baghdad did not merely hold this knowledge in safekeeping; it was added to, and Latin translations of Arabic medical texts were used in Europe for centuries.

Books to Iraq has been created by Iraqi and UK pharmacists in order to help raise funds for the supply of new academic textbooks to the eight Schools of Pharmacy within Iraq. We wish to help support Iraqi Pharmacy educators and students, and by their efforts the nation of Iraq.

Iraq has given the world a great legacy of pharmaceutical and medical knowledge and the world can, in return, help them rebuild their knowledge and infrastructure. Your donation can help replenish the knowledge that Iraq held for humanity in the past.

http://www.bookstoiraq.org.uk

Seven things - 2 comments

Jo tagged me for this a little while ago.

Seven things to do before I die

1. Share an indulgent, after-dinner sweet with serious actress, Gillian Anderson (or, if unavailable for any reason, Newsnight's Stephanie
   Flanders).
2. Write a worthy or insightful political tome.
3. Be elected to public office.
4. Perform some genuinely useful action for the community.
5. Go to New York.
6. Be an underground music star and attain "street-cred".
7. Own dogs and cats.

Seven things I cannot do

1. Get up at the weekends.
2. Play either my guitar or my Yamaha AN200 properly.
3. Speak any foreign language to an even reasonable level.
4. Juggle.
5. Drive a car.
6. Remember very much of my Economics.
7. Name more than one two left-wing Scottish bloggers.

Seven things that attract me to my spouse Instead: Seven favourite darts players

1. Martin Adams.
2. Mieke De Boer.
3. Andy Fordham.
4. Ted Hankey.
5. Colin Monk.
6. Phil Taylor.
7. Tony West.

Seven Five things I say most often

1. "What's the message for today this week, Tony?"
2. "If I get a chance..."
3. "I'm bored."
4. "I've got this great idea for a..."
5. "Yes, the service from Hove is very good."

Seven books (or series) I love (at this precise moment)

1. Jeeves series (PG Wodehouse)
2. Blandings series (PG Wodehouse)
3. Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis)
4. A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter M. Miller)
5. The Manual (Cauty/Drummond)
6. Principles of Political Economy (JS Mill)
7. Contemporary Political Philosophy (Kymlicka)

Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over if I had the time)

1. [TV] The Simpsons
2. Fight Club
3. Manhattan
4. Sleeper
5. Things to Come
6. This Is Spinal Tap
7. Lord of the Rings trilogy

Seven Four people I want to join in, too (who might have the time and inclination to do this)

1. Jonathan
2. Kerron.
3. Neil.
4. Paul.
5. Can't think of anyone in particular - just go ahead.

I think that's enough memes for this year...

God: read and be saved - 5 comments

Neil's been taking on all comers (OK, mainly Blimpish) on the subject of religion, or, more specifically, on the existence of 'God'. I was going to leave a comment, but decided there might just be enough in it to warrant a non-meme post.

Atheist I may still be, but whether I could have been this way if I had been socialised into a community of zealous believers, instead of being brought up as a lapsed, liberal CofE, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it is a myth, but if it were true that the CofE clergy were less committed to their cause than others, and assuming they've been granted no greater insight than those of other religions, perhaps the problem is with them, and not the cause?

I'd also add that, while it's great to be an atheist and have a sound, moral code (if it's really that different from Christianity without the god, and assuming you trust me when I say it 'works') it seems obvious to me that, for some people, believing in something like 'God' would be better for them than believing in nothing. That's why, when I hear about the decline in mainstream church attendance, and notice churches disappearing from the skyline, I don't necessarily feel that science and rationality are filling the gap. Quite the contrary.

Now I generally only buy the New Statesman once a year (at Christmas), which is only slightly less frequently than I buy The Guardian (though this is largely due to my inability to read on the train in the morning, and not for political reasons), but it did allow me, back in 2002, to catch John Gray's essay, The Myth of Secularism, (taken from his book, Straw Dogs) which should be pretty tough reading for atheists (and I remember it being so). Here's an extract:

The need for religion appears to be hard-wired in the human animal. Certainly the behaviour of secular humanists supports this hypothesis. Atheists are usually just as emotionally engaged as believers. Quite commonly, they are more intellectually rigid. One cannot engage in dialogue with religious thinkers in Britain today without quickly discovering that they are, on the whole, more intelligent, better educated and strikingly more free-thinking than unbelievers (as evangelical atheists still incongruously describe themselves). No doubt there are many reasons for this state of affairs, but I suspect it is the repression of the religious impulse that explains the obsessive rigidity of secular thought.

Liberal humanists repress religious experience - in themselves and others - in much the same way that sexuality was repressed in the strait-laced societies of the past.

These may be easy targets, but not many atheists seem to have progressed beyond the "how can 'God' exist as a living being, and where?" argument, the thoroughly anal "Can 'God' create something he cannot control?", or indeed the classic, "Why does a benign god inflict suffering upon mankind", which any keen student of moral philosophy ought to absolutely lap up. Lame argument it may be, but I bet even I could give an answer from a religious perspective that could trump any from the secular side.

So what's our real enemy: is it theism, religions (or, indeed, particular ones), all non-scientific belief systems (including political ideologies), faith, the hierarchies of organised religions, its perceived conservatism, or the political power and moral influence wielded by those religions that the State has bestowed special privileges?

Would disestablishment of the Church of England (which I moderately support) pull the rug under the CofE, liberate more children from the tyranny of school assemblies and foster atheism, or liberate the organisation from being the "provider of last resort"?

Slow Sunday: Man's Man - 1 comment

Via Kerron, and Norm. According to The Bem Sex Role Inventory Test, I am:

Masculine
You scored 63 masculinity and 40 femininity!
You scored high on masculinity and low on femininity. You have a traditionally masculine personality.
My test tracked 2 variables[.] How you compared to other people your age and gender

You scored higher than 50% on masculinity
You scored higher than 8% on femininity

If you ask me, the toilet seat question is a bit of a giveaway...

Wikipedia - 1 comment

The Blogger's saviour. Every time I make a query (I do this from Mozilla's address bar, not from their own search form) I can see all the queries I've made from the past god-knows how many months. It isn't easy to collect a list of all of them, but with a bit of manipulation I was able to generate a list of my recent Wikipedia reads.

Could be the birth of a new meme, or perhaps just an indication of the issues I knew nothing about and now claim to know something about. Anyway, the list:

1 Canada Square, A.J.P. Taylor, Alois Brunner, Aneurin Bevan, Annette Bening, Anthony Crosland, Aphex twin, Atom (standard), B Traven, Banbury (UK Parliament constituency), Barry Took, Base64, BBC Sports Personality of the Year, Ben Tillett, Bernard Montgomery, Beta Israel, Beyond Our Ken, Bill Hicks, Borax, BP, British Sea Power, Canaan Banana, Canary Wharf, Category:1883 deaths, Category:1936 births, Category:1979 deaths, Civil Rights, Clement Attlee, Cobalt, Coca-Cola formula, Coke Zero, Common good, Congruence (geometry), Congruent, Cross of St George, Democratiya, Double Fantasy, Douglas Cole, Dreyfuss Affair, Duncan Hallas, Ed Balls, Ernest Bevin, Fantasy Football League, Faust (band), Field Marshal Montgomery, Flying Spaghetti Monsterism, Francois Mitterrand, Gail language, Galatia, Gamble and Huff, Gaul, Gerald Bull, Geriniol, Gerrard Winstanley, Gilette, Gulag, H.G. Wells, Hanns Eisler, Harold Laski, Henry M. Jackson, Hex (game), Highgate School, Ho Chi Minh, Ho Chi Minh City, Hove (UK Parliament constituency), Ian Mikardo, Ian Stewart (mathematician), Imperial Preference, Isaac Deutscher, J.K. Galbraith, Jack Douglas, Japanese Red Army, Jason Lee (footballer), Jean-Paul Sartre, Jiang Qing, JK Galbraith, Joan Armatrading, John A. Gamble, John Forbes Nash, John Herbert Chapman, John Lilburne, John Stuart Mill, Jonathan Meades, Josef Stalin, Judy Geeson, Jules Guesde, Kabbalah, Katayama Sen, Keir Hardie, Kenneth Horne, Krautrock, Labour Party (UK), Labour Party of Sine Saloum, List of news aggregators, Little black sambo, Lod Airport Massacre, Louis Althusser, Luis Bunuel, Madagascar, Main Page, Mao Zedong, Maxim Gorky, Michael Meacher, Mitterrand, Mo Mowlam, Monday Club, Monetarism, Mossad, Munich massacre, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Krupskaya, Nash equilibrium, National Union of Students of the United Kingdom, Neil Marten, New Coke, Nicos Poulantzas, Non-Aligned Movement, Norman Johnson, Normanton (UK Parliament constituency), NUS, Olof Palme, OpenCola, Operation Moses, Operation Solomon, Orson Welles, Osugi Sakae, Paso doble, Paul Hirst, Penumbra, Pierre Bourdieu, Polari, Public Goods, Ranavalona II of Madagascar, Rational Expectations, RDF Site Summary, Really Simple Syndication, Richard d. james, Robert Conquest, Robert Skidelsky, Robin Cook, Roland (disambiguation), Roland 303, Roland 909, Roland Corporation, Roland TB-303, Round The Horne, RSS (protocol), Section 28, Selected Ambient Works 85-92, Sergei Prokofiev, SHA-1, Ska, Snuff, St. George's Cross, Stafford Cripps, Stephen Pollard, Syria, The Fall (band), The Frost Report, The Gillette Company, Tony Cliff, Trac II, Tragedy of the commons, UNC, Universal Naming Convention, Verlan, Victor Grayson, Willy Brandt

The really sharp will even be able to tie some of these searches to articles I've recently written or comments I've made, but, hey, it's your Friday night :-)

Pinter: Infantile Insanity - 1 comment

Almost nobody could be expected to stay up to watch the execrable Carry On England (rated 3.5/10 by IMDb) on a Wednesday night. But, being nearly Christmas, it being well past 11, and my given feelings of nostalgia for the 'saucy' Carry-Ons, I thought I should return ever so briefly to 1976 - the Golden Age of my birth, when cinemas inflicted British films upon the British people, when the ineffable Judy Geeson was Britain's answer to Goldie Hawn, and when it wasn't about getting it up, but keeping it up.

So imagine my surprise to find, instead, a gravel-voiced Harold Pinter, lip aquiver, as he delivered his Nobel acceptance speech from the comfort of a bath chair in a London TV studio.

Would be fascinating to see a transcript, as it was pretty ripe, albeit entirely predictable: the evils of the United States, with its mass poverty, sanctimonious leadership, and network of gulag-style prisons; their holding of the world to nuclear and conventional-military blackmail (the "infantile insanity"); the pathetic citizens of the world whose only role is to be blown-up by the great powers; the supine, grovelling Britain (sheep, lamb, poodle, etc.); the conspiracies of silence; the religious zealotry of Bush and Blair ("God is great; Bin Lay-den's god is evil").

It was vicious, morbid stuff, but to which I could perhaps give credence if it didn't come from (no, not from such an effective communicator, and, yes, of course it's 'life-or-death') someone within whom anti-Americanism hasn't so clearly festered, and who seems incapable of offering a word against genocidal dictators lest it soften his case against George W. Bush by even an iota, and who has lost the ability to campaign for anything positively.

David Cameron - 6 comments

So he won - what a surprise. According to David Davis, the leadership race "had made the party look thoughtful and mature". Well, seven months of silent introspection and complete detachment from the rough and tumble of day-to-day politics does give that impression, doesn't it?

Now the Conservatives might have chosen some pretty bum leaders of late, but they hardly had a bumper crop to choose from. They've sensibly chosen someone who at least looks like a winner, and who seems to offer the prospect of putting up a fight.


Crucial differences between Cameron and Thatcher.

Some news-hounds have been desperately looking around to build up a picture of what Cameron stands for, other than being a bit posh, and the BBC offer a glimpse. The Pub Philosopher is distinctly underwhelmed by the whole thing, and Neil's article is the most in-depth assessment I've come across, so far. Unfortunately a number of the negatives Neil cites seem to me to be positives:

So, if you disliked Blair mainly because of his decision on the Iraq War. Remember that David Cameron made exactly the same decision and backed the war. He justified it by saying we can't let George Bush down. David Cameron also supports Student Top-Up Fees, Foundation Hospitals and Private Finance Initiatives.

Except the George Bush bit, obviously. So perhaps I should wait for someone to really stick it to Cameron, or else do my own research for once. Think I'll trawl the conservative blogs tonight to see if anything more than the scent of power is getting them going.

Meanwhile, Tom at lets be sensible gives our own Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP a thumbs-up. Could he (Benn, that is) ease into Tony Blair's carpet slippers when the time comes, slamming the door of Number Ten in Gordon Brown's face?

2005 Weblog Awards - no comments

Here are the finalists in the UK blogs category:

The Policeman's Blog, Pepys' Diary, Londonist, London Underground Tube Diary, Melanie Phillip's Diary, Oliver Kamm, Harry's Place, The Daily Ablution, Biased BBC, Tim Worstall, normblog, Bloggerheads, Europhobia, Samizdata, Slugger O'Toole.

How many do you read?

I wouldn't say I was a very wide reader of blogs (especially as I barely get any time in the week, these days), but I only regularly look at Harry's, Oliver's, and Norm's. Occasionally The Daily Ablution and Samizdata, but that's about it. I didn't even know Bloggerheads was still going... No Sharpener? Well, it's impossible to satisfy everyone, but I'm still not a fan of blog roundups or of awards.

As for the hundreds in all the other categories, I doubt I read more than one or two. Even the American liberal blogs seem a world away - so much for internationalism.

My choice for this year? I'd probably go for Harry's as best blog. As a new category, recognising those individuals who have best mastered the art of blogging, penetrating journalism, and challenging ideas, I'd perhaps whittle the shortlist down to just Norm, David T from Harry's, Scott / Daily Ablution, Justin / Chicken Yoghurt, and Unity / Talk Politics, with honourable mentions for many more.

Links - 2 comments

Favourite articles from the last week or so - no time to post about all, individually:

• Should Saddam Hussein be put to death? OK, that does warrant comment. If the death penalty option is the will of the Iraqi democracy, then that decision should be respected. On the other hand, we should all be making the case, if we really believe in liberal democracy and its universal application, for an end to the death penalty worldwide, irrespective of any religious or cultural arguments (of course Bush has other ideas.). The "closure" argument may be stronger than normal in this particular case (assuming it can ever realistically be achieved); on the other hand the "deterrent" argument can hardly apply. We may be able to sell the idea of democracy, but a liberal political culture? Well, isn't that the whole point of our reshaping of the Iraqi polity?
• Blognor Regis on the secret childhood shame of British bloggers (no comment here).
• Demos on how the Tories could regain public trust, and reassure wavering middle-class liberals, by tackling the issue of business ethics. It may well work, but it would eventually require involve them to break the habit of a lifetime and defend the legitimate actions of trade unions.
• Tom on burglars and "disproportionate force".
• Music: spot all 75 bands in the picture.
• Alcohol's health benefits doubted: La-La La-La La-La La-La La-La

And a belated mention for the Little Atoms radio show - "Rationalist, Pro-science, Atheist, Humanist and for the progressive Left".

I'm due in Portslade tomorrow, at the ungodly hour of 10 a.m., for a Candidates Training Day for wannabe 2007 Labour Councillors, but I'll try to make it...

That Summer game - no comments

What a difference a few months makes. Back in the Summer all sorts of people were blogging about cricket (if somewhat prematurely), relishing England's tussle with Australia, and the historic Ashes win.

But barely a peep has been heard about England's 3-Test series in Pakistan, where England currently find themselves (play on the final day begins in 6 or 7 hours) battling for the right to come home with a 1-0 defeat rather than a likely 2-0.

The fact that it's not on terrestrial TV (only on Radio 5 Live Sports Extra in the mornings) can't help, nor the fact that we're lucky to get 75 overs bowled in the day instead of the full 90, nor the perennial moans about the quality of the pitches and the legality of various bowling actions, nor the fact that - despite a few centuries - England have under-performed and rarely threatened, and that in the battle between bat and ball, the bat seems to be streets ahead.

All the same, there have been some great individual performances: Trescothick's 193 and Kaneria's bowling in the 1st Test, Inzamam's 306 runs in his last three innings, and Mohammad Yousuf's 223 yesterday. Surely worth a mention.

Still, from an England perspective it does seem a bit dismal. I don't think they have a lot of competition for "Team of the Year" (nor, indeed, Andrew Flintoff for Sports Personality of the Year), but it would have been good not to to go out on such a flat note.

Especially when you consider how easily Australia brushed West Indies aside last week.

Comments update - 4 comments

Following on from this, we now have a page which lists recent comments left at B4L blogs.

http://www.bloggers4labour.org/comments.jsp

Sadly I could only find 8 comment feeds (7 of which are currently working), but perhaps as WordPress spreads, that number will increase.

Politics of Pension Reform - no comments

Via Mike Ion, the Fabians have a new publication: The Politics of Pension Reform:

* Too little consensus for major reform to last, warns former Pensions Minister John Denham.
* Increased basic state pension can provide foundation for broader reform package.
* 'Confused' compulsion controversy distracts from more important issues.

[...]

The government's strategy to reform pensions must recognise that 'getting the politics of pension reform right is just as important as the policy itself' argue former Pensions Minister John Denham MP and Fabian Research Director Richard Brooks in a new Fabian pamphlet, The Politics of Pensions Reform.This major report also contains responses and commentary from Digby Jones (CBI), Brendan Barber (TUC), Ian Naismith (Scottish Widows), Alison O’Connell and Chris Curry (Pensions Policy Institute), and Christine Farnish (NAPF).

[...]

'The pensions system must meet a set of "technical" objectives including the prevention of poverty, the provision of incentives to save, and affordability to the public purse in both the short and long term. But it must also meet a set of subjective tests by which the public is likely to judge it, including, "Does it work for me?" "What do I get out for what I put in?" "Is it fair to me and to others?" "Does it reward responsibility and discourage irresponsibility?" "Do I understand it?" These tests are just as important as any others.'

Talk Politics also has a couple of points to make about pensions, having actually read Beveridge.

Been asked to mention... - no comments

The following forthcoming debate, by the LSE's Comparative Ideologies Society:

The Big Debate
National Security vs. Political Expression: Where do we draw the line?
London School of Economics and Political Science [Directions]
6.30pm, 5th December, 2005
Room D602

ALL WELCOME!!!

Chair
Professor Lord Robert Skidelsky, Baron of Tilton (Warwick)

Panellists
Peter Hitchens (Mail on Sunday)
Brendan O'Neill (Deputy Editor, spiked)
Alasdair Palmer (Public Policy Editor, Sunday Telegraph)

Spiked? I remember posting something about them in a past blog life (lousy Google won't find it, though). I think I said something about them being Thatcherite in the way that only ex-Marxists can.

Also remember a few Uni lectures from Skidelsky, back in the old days. Honestly, you go to a University with a left-wing reputation and the Politics department is full of conservatives and Thatcherites (and that's just the students). Still, all good practice for the big, wide world out there.

New Blood Blog Roundup - no comments

Justin at The Sharpener is collecting new blogs (created on/after August 1st this year) in order to broaden people's circle of blogs and generally give the new boys and girls a bit of attention:

This isn't designed as a patronising, patriarchal pat on the head or beauty contest for the "little folk" from self-styled "big boys of blogging". It's a genuine attempt to broaden the circle of blogs that many of us are reading right now. There will be no judgements made and all recommendations will make the list. It'll then be up to everybody using the list to decide who's cool and who's fool.

If you're on our list, fret ye not as I've already mentioned all nine of you. If you can think of other new blogs, why not suggest them too?