ID cards 'to be made compulsory' - 13 comments

Maybe it's just that it's 5.00 am, but it's hard to respond to this with much more than monosyllables:

Identity cards will be made compulsory if Labour wins the next election, Home Secretary Charles Clarke has said.

Groan

"I would be very surprised if the next Conservative manifesto said 'stop the scheme'. It would be very difficult to do," he said.

Very principled (sorry, that's 5)

He said the opt-out had been introduced to allay fears expressed in the House of Lords that cards would be "foisted" on people.

But he added: "I don't think there is any benefit in opting out at all. Anyone who opts out in my opinion is foolish."

He declined to give further details of the costs, but ministers have already said the combined cost of a passport and ID card will be £93.

Sigh

[Lib Dem] Home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said: "Within hours of parading their so-called compromise the Home Office is already making it clear that it was little more than a tactical manoeuvre to ram this legislation through Parliament without any substantive change to the Draconian reach and financial costs of the ID database...

I think he's right - sorry.

Mr Clarke said he believed there was an "appetite" among the public for ID cards, which he said would bring "massive benefits" for banks, law enforcement agencies and "the individual citizen".

The scheme would "enable every citizen in this country, over time, to protect their identity from people who seek to defraud," he added.

Problem is that these same points have been rebutted at length, time and time again. Blogging lulls you into a sense of security: bloggers read, learn, respond, and only a minority continue to push views that have already been discredited.

It's pessimistic, but perhaps the new ID infrastructure has to completely crash and burn as a lesson for future Governments. Until then, much of the opposition can be portrayed as libertarian obsessives who don't inhabit the real-world communities - ravaged by the Evil that is identity fraud - that good old ordinary people do. Many dissenting voices are indeed libertarian obsessives, but as they're the only ones for whom 'free-from' rights seem to have any significance at all, that gives their argument a certain moral authority.

Update: just to clarify a point in the last paragraph, when I say "can be portrayed as libertarian obsessives", I meant it in an 'enabling' sense: "it is possible for some people - for example, the government - in reality, to portray the opposition as...", not in the "can legitimately, realistically, or fairly, be portrayed as libertarian obsessives". I hoped the subsequent and slightly tongue-in-cheek reference to the "Evil of identity fraud" (though I don't want to completely trivialise the issue - it happens, and can be serious), as well as the evidence of past posts on this subject, made it clear from which 'side' I am arguing.

Alternative lifestyle - 2 comments

Thursday:

0620: wake up as normal
0710: shirt ironed; be doing bathroom things wake up
0720: shirt ironed; perform 'required' set of bathroom tasks and, untypically, skip 'extra credit' programme, putting me in line for - at best - Commonwealth bronze-medal playoff
0729: leave house for 0741
0731: leave house for 0741
...
1935: home
2010: put coffee on (Tesco Java Sumatra, 6 'cups')
2020: exercise...
2030: drink coffee; make essential phone calls
2045: respond to bookmarked blg posts of the day; add comments sleep on couch
2200-0024: live life to the fullest, 'work hard but play hard'
0025-0135: wonderful Green Wing (repeat) on TV
0136: wake up
0230: planned: dinner/breakfast combination - with wine!
0245: planned: Ashes DVD (4th Test), while the world sleeps
0330: planned: respond to email; work on excuses for missed phone calls; keep Friday plates spinning...

I offer this evidence as a partial response to this post and this one.

Blair admits resignation mistake / 1994 and all that - 5 comments

It's only blogger's block that's stopping me post a roundup on our Tony, his imminent (or so it seemed) resignation, and the future of 'New Labour'.

Several great articles and roundups have appeared in the meantime - here's the latest - but I think there may still a little space for another view. I will try to perfect something today (Monday). Just bear in mind that some of us work for a living and that I've barely been able to add a word since last Wednesday.

While we're on the subject, I hear a lot from ex-Labour voters who have since gone off in all sorts of directions. I would be very interested to know whether or not we were comrades (sounds so sweet) in 1994 at the time of the last leadership election, and, if so, how you voted, and how your expectations have changed.

I think this is a lot more interesting than having people parrot the views of the particular faction/wing they have ended up in - I want to know what you were like, and how you changed. Also, if you've lost your faith in your fellow man, or the political system, how do you propose - if at all - recovering it?

There are a few people in particular I'd like to ask - the funky thing about blogs is that those few probably already know who they are and will comment accordingly, but if not, I may have to needle you :-)

Just for nostalgia purposes, I'm prepared to reveal that I voted for Margaret Beckett back in 1994. Why? She was seen as awkward-left to Prescott's crusty-left, and Tony was regarded - in those days - as young and "smarmy" (ha!). I vaguely recall - at an earlier stage - favouring long-forgotten Jack Cunningham. It's pretty hard to believe now - in a number of ways - but he did have a kind of rugged, Northern charm.

Councillors page - no comments

I mentioned last week that I was making improvements that would allow us to run special pages for councillors or other groups, for particular regions or locations, covering particular categories/topics, and so on. Well, most of this is now done, so here's our new page for councillors' posts (they will continue to be included in the main list too). Note that it covers 5 days, rather than the usual 2, and that there is an RSS 2.0 feed that tracks those posts.

Let me know if you have ideas for additions to that page. Other specialised pages/feeds will appear in due course.

Top Ten Political Dinner Guests, Past and Present - 3 comments

Paul Burgin has invited me to select 10 major party leaders since 1945 (living or dead) I might invite to dinner. Well, here's my list, and my reasoning.

By the way, for those in the list who died recently, I'm imagining them being, not their diminished selves, but themself as they were while they were leader, and/or in their prime. So, a 1982-era Roy Jenkins would turn up, a 1980 Michael Foot, a 1976 Jim Callaghan, a 1970 Wilson, though a present-day Hague and Blair - if that makes sense.

• Clement Attlee [1935-55] - A great man, with achievements outside politics, and a proud record of achievement from 1945-51.
  
• Winston Churchill [1940-55] - A legendary raconteur, and some other bits and bobs.
  
• Hugh Gaitskell [1955-1963] - Highly intelligent moderniser (that loaded term) - our Tony would have a few things to talk to him about.
  
• Harold Macmillan [1957-63] - The last Keynesian Tory PM?
  
• Harold Wilson [1963-76] - Beer, football, 'the establishment', and post-war politics.
  
• James Callaghan [1976-80] - I'd ask the 1976 Jim what his ideas were for Britain in the 80s and 90s.
  
• Michael Foot [1980-83] - Great anecdotes about the 1930s.
  
• Roy Jenkins [1982-3] - Could talk about the Jenkins Commission; plus, he's not one of the two Davids.
  
• Tony Blair [1994-date] - So many Why?s. Plus: are you a man or a kind of god?
  
• William Hague [1997-2001] - Could entertainingly discuss Enlightenment-era politics - with me, if nobody else fancied it.
  

I fear I would have to insist on no smoking throughout the evening. That smoking in a confined place is impolite and unhealthy is one of the first things dead political leaders of the past should realise when brought back to life and catapaulted forward to 2006.

For security reasons... - 2 comments

Having been given the chance to take (or rather, join) the moral high ground by declaring the names of people who have lent the party money, and the sums involved, the Tories have decided not to join Labour and the Liberal Democrats in doing so, claiming that they:

fear that ministers would be malicious and that public sector work that their businesses have might be affected unfairly.

This is no doubt music to the ears of those blogosphere-dwellers whose hatred of the government has twisted them into paranoia, but it's also a convenient evasion, which I can't believe the general public will accept.

The priority at the moment is that, with the bar having been raised, the Conservatives make all necessary efforts to reveal who, financially, is greasing their wheels. As I've argued before, money is not the only factor, and patronage and 'influence' will continue to be granted and accepted in all sorts of other ways that the public will never see. But it's still the 'correct' thing to do, is a useful start, and - however painful and embarrassing it would no doubt prove to be - the Conservatives will feel better for having done it.

If Ministers really penalised Tory lenders' businesses for such petty reasons, it must be revealed - it just sounds like a pathetic excuse.

According to a Tory spokesman:

"In respect of past loans, these have been audited and fully comply with Electoral Commission rules but it would not be fair to apply new rules retrospectively - especially without the agreement of the people who made the loans."

A high moral principle? Unfortunately for those individuals who lent anonymously, the need for accountability is a greater concern, and it was surely only a matter of time before the curtain was lifted.

Fantastic Spam - 3 comments

Buried in the text section of a HTML spam email I uncovered a remarkable automatically-generated message, designed to fool dumb email clients. Well it worked, as Gmail (sorry, Google Mail) allowed it through.

It's too long to include in its entirety, but here's a teaser, and a link to the full thing - don't worry, I created a new page and put the text in, so its spam days are over.

Another wrinkled pickup truck negotiates a prenuptial agreement with a food stamp over another sandwich. An optimal pork chop, a precise bullfrog, and the hole puncher for a cashier are what made America great! Any particle accelerator can find lice on a non-chalantly raspy cyprus mulch, but it takes a real blood clot to give lectures on morality to an oil filter living with a razor blade...

When you see a skinny carpet tack, it means that some cosmopolitan light bulb ceases to exist... A turkey takes a coffee break, and the sheriff hides; however, a power drill related to a chain saw eats the submarine. A minivan learns a hard lesson from the orbiting ball bearing...

[and on and on for 24 KB]

Vic Reeves meets Mark E. Smith, and it's occasionally hilarious. I haven't tried reading the whole thing - psychologically that might be inadvisable, which is perhaps also why I've never dared listen to all 140 minutes of this all in one sitting.

Labour GAIN from BNP - 4 comments

Good news, via.

Keighley West by-election

Labour 1,819 (47.37%)
BNP 1,216 (31.42%)
Con 627 (16.20%)
LDem 208 (05.38%)

Lab maj. 603 (15.95%) over BNP

Jo posted about the campaign yesterday, and The Guardian covered it too:

Sitting in the upstairs room of a terrace house, surrounded by leaflets and streetmaps, Angela Sinfield says she knows only too well what is at stake when she takes on the British National party in a byelection today.

Two years ago her teenage daughter, who had been groomed for sex by a local gang, was used by the far-right party to whip up racial tension in her home town of Keighley. The BNP portrayed her daughter's case as an issue of race and religion - Asian men preying on "local" white girls - and the fallout saw the far right make its first breakthrough in Bradford, winning four seats on the city council. Since then Keighley has become known as a BNP town, with BNP leader Nick Griffin singling it out as his number one target in last year's general election.

But today Ms Sinfield, whose campaign against grooming inadvertently let the BNP secure a foothold in the Yorkshire town, will do her best to drive the far right out. "I've never thought of myself as a politician, but why not stand up to these people? I'm a local woman, I know a lot of people and I know what damage the BNP are doing round here," she told the Guardian.

Also covered here.

Update: The previous results are here. I can't give you a swing, as three councillors were elected in 2004, and this is a by-election for one seat. The BNP only put up one candidate in 2004 - she came top, but with only 14.57% of the total votes. Labour came second and third, with a total of 23.34%.

Can't blog / Election 06 - 2 comments

It's very frustrating - I've been working on two big posts for the past few days, neither of which seems to be any closer to completion. I don't know if readers of this blog expect posts to be of "a certain quality" (perhaps it's arrogant to even think that), but I do, and as one become aware of it, it really sucks the natural/free-and-easy/here's-my-two-cents/just-entertain-me-for-five-seconds side out of blogging. Perhaps being picked up by The Guardian's Comment Is Free on Thursday was partly to blame - bourgeois delusions of grandeur.

Anyway, until such time as my proper posts appear (born sideways), I'll try to gently ease back into the groove. This is interesting, and a tantalising prospect: Tories braced for shock snap election. Great quote too:

An apparatchik at Tory HQ confirmed the mood. She said, "Before the last election, the place was a mess and there was very little faith that we had campaigning skills in depth. Now Conservative HQ is like a machine and it's hard to believe we can lose".

On what evidence? Name one single instance in which the Conservatives, nationally, have achieved a victory. Not one single, paltry by-election gain.

The Tories may sense the wheels coming off the New Labour project but they are faced with a formidable Chancellor who has no intention of being a short term Prime Minister.

That's the spirit!

Budget Responses - 9 comments

Will appear here later - sorry, that's all you're getting until tonight.

Here's two articles to be getting along with. Staying on economics, this is also useful.

Update (23/03): I haven't finished my piece yet. To be honest it only vaguely touches on yesterday's Budget, but I thought it was worth going on about anyway.

Nice To Have - no comments

I'm making a few changes to the B4L software over the next couple of nights, which will give us the ability to do new, cool things. Like, for example:

• Have a page that syndicates (OK, 'lists') all Welsh B4L posts from the past 2 days (or as far back as 5 days, depending upon the likely number) in one place.
• Likewise for blogging councillors.
  
• Have a page dedicated to posts on a particular subject (based upon the WordPress/TypePad, etc. category tags).
• We could even produced specialised XML feeds - though I don't want to go quite that far straightaway...
  

Basically, once I've made the change, it should be trivial to set up new, specialised pages like the ones suggested above.

If anyone has a particular use in mind, perhaps something I haven't thought of, please get in touch or leave a comment. Come what may, I should have an example of this in action by the end of the week.

I want to believe - 1 comment

No fewer than 16 visitors (for us, that's a lot) came to the site today looking for information on the Bradford fish girl story - the girl who was miraculously turned into a 'fish' after kicking a Koran. Hopefully, having seen what can best be described as a childish lump of misshapen rubber lying on a table, they left feeling slightly foolish, as well as duped.

Sadly, for the person who arrived looking for "what do you call a female house under age 4", I can offer little help in your quest... a houselette, perhaps? A houseling?

Party Funding - 12 comments

Have I got to post about party funding? OK... here we go - groan.

I'm not sure I have anything particularly radical or innovative to say, but the most obvious bit of bandwagon-jumping so far has - only slightly conveniently for us - come from the Tories. Their latest proposals seem to be concerned entirely with the appearance of the system, rather than improving scrutiny and enforcement of existing rules, with some arbitrary restrictions on the size of donations, and a populist boot aimed at the backsides of MPs (a reduction from 646 to less than 600 - which I can't think of any good reason for) and special advisers. What's the sense in instituting an arbitrary cap of £50,000 on the size of donation? It's a pretty huge figure for a one-off donation, but it could either be used effectively or used badly: a donation doesn't constitute a deliberate election- or public opinion-altering ploy merely by being over a certain fixed amount.

Additionally, there's no recognition at all that individuals and organisations do not necessarily require money to gain influence: what about the role of class, social networks, personal friendships, sexual attraction, ideological commitment, and even the power of persuasive articles and arguments? All of these things can sway policy-makers, sometimes morally, sometimes immorally; sometimes for what turns out to be the public good, other times not. So the obsession with financial donations totally misses the point of what constitutes political power. It does - conveniently for some, predictably, and unhelpfully - boost the public perception that politicians are solely "in it" for the money.

The obsession with "rich businessmen" isn't constructive either. As I said in an earlier comment, people don't become immoral/corrupt simply by becoming rich businespeople - many will be as motivated by memories of a good education/NHS investment/support for international democracy as those who can't so conveniently be caricatured. Yes, the amounts may be larger, but one should gauge corruption via corrupt, or erroneous outcomes, not merely by making assumptions based upon the occupation of donors.

So what about state funding of political parties? I seem to remember supporting this in principle many years ago - which no doubt coincided with the election victories of the then-big-spending Conservative Party. I'd throw out the argument that we'd be faced with the unpalatable prospect of funding parties we don't like as a matter of course, but I guess I don't like the idea that people with no interest in politics find themselves having to pay parties, giving them yet another axe to grind - as well as the feeling that it 'institutionalises' parties, giving them a recognition by the State and the Exchequer that their ideological battles make them unworthy of. Besides there would, uniquely, be no scrutiny of how effectively this public money was spent.

All in all, I think the main priority is that political decision-making be made more transparent, so that - whether policy changes because an adviser just happened to read the latest and greatest article, bumped into just the right economist at a drinks party, or saw £100,000 go into the Party's account - there is either an explanation for the change, or at the very least the public/the media are able to see the kind of information (donated amounts, lists of advisers, their CVs, etc.) that would allow them to watch changes in a more informed manner.

Once we have a system like this in place, arbitrary rules on the size of donations, loans, rates, and the kind of people who can contribute, can be done away with. OK, there ought to be a limit, below which ordinary people can contribute to their preferred party without having their names in the papers, but we'd be talking more like £1,000 than £50,000.

David Miliband blogs - 12 comments

Thanks to Andrew for bringing this to my attention.

Yes, David Miliband - MP for South Shields, and Minister of Communities and Local Government - 's blog is well and truly open to the public. In fact, he's been blogging internally since January.

I haven't had time to look through it yet but it's a very encouraging move. As is his link to Norm!

Seven Bloggers - 4 comments

In commissioning Glenn Reynolds, The Guardian appear to believe that they've entered the blogosphere at the crack of dawn, and helpfully introduce slow-witted readers to seven bloggers, out of the tens of millions, that we might like to check out.

Not necessarily the same seven bloggers we're always told about, but it's a pretty standard selection and, hey, isn't seven enough for you? How much dissent can your puny brains possibly accommodate?

"Tales of the blogosphere" in the mainstream media continue to irritate me intensely, as do blog awards, talk of elites and hierarchies, comparisons of UK and US bloggers, discussion of whether group X are more political, less techie, or whatever, than group Y. From the comments:

Technology wise Britain has been lagging behind the US by about 2 years - 18months particularly in terms of broadband adoption and that 'might' have something to do with it, i.e. we are still seeing the first stages but then there are a wide variety of topics covered by a wide variety of people.,,

The reason that the US blogosphere is so active compared with ours is that they feel they are much closer to a crisis than we are. The Republican party is currently driving the US over a cliff...

What a big yawn, and, of course, the roundup wouldn't be complete without a few people plugging their friends' blogs.

Free at last? - 5 comments

Chomsky dashes off another bit of ideological small-arms for professional anti-Americans in his piece in the Guardian today yesterday:

The US-dominated world order is being challenged by a new spirit of independence in the global south.

The prospect that Europe and Asia might move towards greater independence has troubled US planners since the second world war. The concerns have only risen as the "tripolar order" - Europe, North America and Asia - has continued to evolve.

Every day Latin America, too, is becoming more independent. Now Asia and the Americas are strengthening their ties while the reigning superpower, the odd man out, consumes itself in misadventures in the Middle East.

Let's see which countries Noam lionises for their refusal to "bow down" to the USA.

China, unlike Europe, refuses to be intimidated by Washington...

To all intents and purposes, a single-party state.

In January, Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah visited Beijing, which is expected to lead to a Sino-Saudi memorandum of understanding...

An absolute monarchy/theocracy.

Already much of Iran's oil goes to China, and China is providing Iran with weapons that both states presumably regard as deterrent to US designs.

Iran, which can be generously described as an "elective monarchy" - alternatively a theocracy, characterised by state-sponsored anti-Western and anti-Jewish propaganda...

The key is India-China cooperation... left-centre governments prevail from Venezuela to Argentina...

OK, not a problem.

Cuba-Venezuela relations are becoming ever closer, each relying on its comparative advantage. Venezuela is providing low-cost oil, while in return Cuba organises literacy and health programmes, sending thousands of highly skilled professionals, teachers and doctors, who work in the poorest and most neglected areas, as they do elsewhere in the third world.

A beautiful sentiment, but once again, a one-party state, and democracy denied. I'm sure we'd all hope that a democractic Cuba would continue to behave in such a way, but until it is so, how can these actions be judged legitimate? If Cuban resources are being used - without the will of the Cuban people - to prop up other South American governments, how too can they claim to be legitimate?

Growing popular movements, primarily in the south but with increasing participation in the rich industrial countries, are serving as the bases for many of these developments towards more independence and concern for the needs of the great majority of the population.

Look, that's great, but organising countries based entirely around political opposition to the USA, and turning a blind eye to trivial things like democracy and self-determination, or if you prefer to use their ciphers - greed, decadence, and exploitation of people and the planet - then you condemn to silence those you wish to save.

Once upon a time, though, I'd have loved this article, and I'm sure it has stirred the sinews of many.

Lego cannot lie - 3 comments

As we know, Lego represents (pretty well) all that is finest about the World, and Anthony Cox has chosen to express the ideals of the upcoming London March for Free Expression, and solidarity with Denmark, in the medium of the plastic pieces that hail from that very country:



Author not pictured.

Comment is free - 2 comments

The handful of B4L bloggers who don't loyally buy The Guardian (I'm guessing...) may not yet know, but a new "collective comment blog" has been launched by the editor of that journal, which collects together new comments and analysis from the dead tree version's contributors, rather than the team who work on the existing blog pages.

So, you can read articles from respected writers of the calibre of Jonathan Freedland, George Galloway, Polly Toynbee, Gary Younge, and many others, on a nicely laid-out site, and you can even leave comments.

Question: would anyone be interested in B4L syndicating these stories alongside other blog posts? They could show up with the familiar blue background that denotes non-partisan news, or potentially another colour altogether: a world of possibilities.

We could, for example, monitor the most recent articles across the board, or just a selection of, say, 3 or 4 of your favourite writers - except Galloway.

Let me know what your preferences are and I shall make it so.

Update: Hmm, not much enthusiasm so far. Perhaps articles like this, attracting comments like this, don't help:

Zionists, like Nazis in the past will be brought to their knees. Zionist sympathisers are nothing more then devil worshipers (sic), they like to suck your blood dry.

You mean they like to suck the liquid content out of one's blood, leaving behind just the corpuscles: red and white blood cells, and platelets?

Update 2: Stephen Pollard reports that some comments of this ilk, which The Guardian have already adjudged to be "offensive", are still on the site, despite assurances that they would be taken down.

Freedom of speech and all that... on the other hand, if there is a policy it should be adhered to, and I must say the amount of bigotry and spite I've seen this week is quite remarkable. But what do you expect when you invite people like Galloway to be a regular commentator, with his hostile views and poisonous band of ant-Zionist (cough! cough!) groupies?

Update 3: Can't believe what I'm reading:

As for the "sane" nuclear powers in the region, let us take the case of Israel. One may lose count of how many wars Israel has provoked or initiated since its creation in 1948. Leaving aside the so-called war of independence and even the expansionist drive of 1967, Israel has been nothing but a constant threat to its neighbours.

[...]

It is true of course that Ahmadinejad frequently uses a most undiplomatic and politically incorrect language, especially his absurd denial of the Holocaust...

[...]

I am personally opposed to nuclear weapons and all forms of WMD but I would perfectly understand why any zealous Arab or Muslim ruler in the region might do exactly what the Iranians have been doing...

And from the comments:

The Israeli's themselves are guilty of Holocaust Denial in that they are segregating and persecuting a people they seem to regard as sub-human, just as Hitler did to Jews and others. A classic case of the abused becoming the abuser!
To criticise Israel is not anti-semetic...

I wouldn't say I was particularly sensitive to this kind of thing, but this is despicable. Either I've gone mad this week, or The Guardian has!

One meme for the week - 6 comments

Via Geraldine. Sorry, I couldn't resist this one. Pick a band/artist. Then answer these questions using only titles from the band/artist's songs.

1. Name of band/artist: The Fall
2. Are you male or female?: Carry Bag Man
3. Describe yourself: Spoilt Victorian Child
4. How do you feel about yourself?: I Feel Voxish
5. Describe your ex girlfriend/boyfriend: Victoria (or Bad News Girl)
6. Describe current girlfriend/boyfriend: There's A Ghost In My House
7. Describe where you want to be: Bourgeois Town (or The Steak Place)
8. Describe how you live: Paranoia Man in Cheap Sh*t Room
9. Describe how you love: I Can Hear The Grass Grow (not Yes, O Yes)
10. What would you ask for if you had just one wish?: Garden (or Immortality)
11. Share a few words of wisdom: Who Makes the Nazis?
12. Now say goodbye: Clear Off!

Come to think of it, I already live in a bourgeois town.

Milosevic - 2 comments

Not a lot of coverage of Milosevic's death (or indeed his appalling life) on our blogs - despite the part our government played in hastening his downfall.

On what I unashamedly call the side of sanity, we have Oliver Kamm and, indeed, the content and tone of the BBC coverage.

On what can best be described as the side of insanity, we have Neil Clark:

Milosevic's only crime- as I have said no many occasions, was getting in the way of The Empire. For doing that, he has paid a very heavy price. May he Rest in Peace.

... and the most popular comments at the BBC's "Have your say" forum, where at least the top 26 (by "recommendation" entries - I had to stop counting) are supportive of the despot, with opinions ranging from the obseqious to the unhinged, through racist and paranoid:

I wish we had him on our side in Europe, as our nations fall under the trample of muslim extremists murdering European Citizens. The man was on trial for simply not being a pushover...

The greatest anti-terrorsist warrior and defender of christian values on Balkan dies...

However much western media and puppet politicians try to vilify this man, he will remain a hero to millions the world over. He simply wanted to maintain his country's rightful boundaries. Perhaps British political leaders will be meek and accepting one day, should Muslims decide that they want to partition, say, Bradford as their own separate state...

He was the victor's "War Criminal" of choice - they fail to indict Western Allies like Croatian President Franjo Tudjman who was also a "War Criminal". Shame Bush and Blair can prance around the world without being called "War Criminals" which they are...

Here was a man who saw his people under threat, promised to defend them from attack [from armed muslim terrorists within the nation's borders] and for that was branded a 'war criminal'. His actions were nowhere near as catastrophic as those of bush/blair, who illegally invaded a sovereign nation that was NOT in the process of harming their people, killed tens of thousands of civillians, etc. So, the question is : when will we see the more deserving war criminals facing justice in the Hague? ...

Islam in its present form is the biggest threat to this world peace,& Milosevic was its brave victim.RIP,Slobodan...

Frightening - just goes to show that some people's ethnic/religious/racial hatred is so strong, or political views so warped, they are prepared to tolerate mass-murder to support "their man" against "the other man". Europe is free of his spectre, though not of the views that brought him (and his ilk) to power.

As for the method of his passing, Harry's Place and Jon Worth are watching the conspiracy theories develop.

Fish Girl - 2 comments

Via Tom, a sensational story of the power of religion. Sorry, idiocy. It's said to be a video of a fish - you can watch it yourself - which is what a Bradford girl turned into as a result of kicking a Koran (or some variation of this story). Unfortunately the cameraman left the lens-cap on whilst the girl was undergoing her metamorphosis, so all that's fit to watch is the 'fish' lying flat on its back, very still, on a table.

I think 'fish' is pushing it a bit. I'm not sure what the jejune lump of mottled rubber is meant to be, but I'm sure I remember Doctor Who fighting a few of them back in the Seventies.

Only 5 out of 20 of those polled were prepared to say the story is "not real".

P.S. I'm posting this from Google's Blogger Dashboard Widget for Mac. Very cool.

The same species - no comments

Today is International Women's Day, first observed on 28 February 1909 in the United States following a declaration by the Socialist Party of America.

Here's Antonia's summing-up:

I think it's worth repeating today of all days that feminism isn't about what choices we make for ourselves, but the freedom for all women to make those choices. We know that women's choices are still constrained by assumptions about their traditional roles and by their caring responsibilities. Feminism isn't about me, my choices, my empowerment, my right to earn a million pounds; it's about us, building a society where our daughters can say "but why did there need to be laws to make sure women didn't earn less than men, mummy?"

And here's an excellent article from Will:

[...]

International women's day (the clue is in the word international) deserves to be exalted. Not because of bourgeois ideology about equality of opportunity or a myriad other pieces of crap (that all seem to resolve around making comfortable petit-bourgeois lives easier) but because there happens to be - in our own societies in the west and to a much greater degree those societies in the non-west - a situation where woman are still regarded as another species altogether. This day should remind us all that poverty and oppression exists, is important to combat, and that the struggle against both is an international one.

In complete contrast, from a comment left at Dave's Part (and, reassuringly, given short shrift by other commenters). Square brackets are mine:

What is wrong about an alliance of the left and the disaffected Muslim community [as represented by RESPECT]? There may be issues about attitudes to women and homosexuals, but surely, there is always a need to reflect and consider positions on these. Who are we as western socialists to tell Muslims how to think? Perhaps with dialogue we can find agreement.

Somehow I don't find the idea of compromising on the rights of women and homosexuals to be an attractive one.

My links with the Stars - no comments

The much-loved Sarah Teather, Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East (enjoy it while it lasts), newly promoted today to become her party's education spokesman, used to live in the same 'block' as me, just two floors above where I lay my hat.


Teather - once lived above B4L

How do I know? Because we still get her mail! Bizarrely, the only organisation that seems to be confused about her new role is the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, which merrily sends its mysterious communications to her long-departed address, despite knowing enough about her to append the "MP" suffix. I would have though "c/o Houses of Parliament, London, England" would be a better bet. If any ALDC people are reading, please update your records.

One of these days I'll come home to find a a blue plaque on the wall, and a stonemason with dusty overalls and looking vaguely like Fred Dibnah, stepping back to admire his handiwork.

Two sides to the story / Commenting policy - 3 comments

Hmm... one the one side B4L broke its all-time hit record today, previously set - not too surprisingly - on May 5th last year, when well-intentioned people would have been searching the blogosphere looking for coverage and analysis of the General Election results.

On the other, most of this bubble has been from idiotic commenters posting things like this:

Will this "political education" involve torturing people who disagree with your views, or will you outsource it to the Uzbeks?

PS - are you paid to be a torture collaborator, or do you do it out of love?

Ha! Vichy!

Certainly this website seems to have a touch of the Vichy about it... What's really funny is that Nu Labour have finally cottoned on to the fact that it's now embarrassing to admit in polite company that one is a signed-up member of the Labour party :0)

How do you think the Uzbeks feel about being boiled to death by Jack Straw's pal Islam Karimov?

Might it be best to try and get all the killings out of the way before the next Euro elections? Don't want all those dead Iranian kids to have too great an impact on the Labour vote now, do we? In twenty years time, do you think you'll be proud of what you did or do you think you'll have to lie about it? What will you tell your kids? Will you want them to know, or will you try to hide it from them? Do you ever wonder what it must have been like to have been a minor official in the Vichy government?

in response to this. I've decided to keep all comments that were added to that particular page, if only to stop them spilling over onto other pages, but remove variations that turned up elsewhere.

The commenting policy at B4L is - still - that I won't just let anything go. If comments fail the racist, sexist, or homophobic test, then they may well be summarily deleted, entirely at my discretion. In general, though: if people I don't know posts something that is neither relevant, nor constructive, nor even humorous, then it'll be deleted as valueless, a waste of my bandwidth, and a waste of readers' time.

Obviously events in Uzbekistan and Iran are important, but there's no chance of a sensible conversation arising out of the above, and I don't believe that is even the intention.

There's no political motivation to this, and no B4L participant, or indeed 99.5% of the other bloggers I have encountered over the past few years, need be concerned. Even anonymous commenters are often well-intentioned but - let's face it - we know junk when we see it, and if people want to make pathetic jokes, I'm more than happy to remove them, one by one.

Political Education - 6 comments

I was re-elected this evening as, get this, Branch Political Education Officer, having given up my two other posts. I won't say exactly which branch, or how many votes I won, for fear of giving succour to the enemy, but it could be construed - somewhat appropriately given my new role - as a Soviet-style election result.

Let's just say that there was some doubt about the value of a Political Education Officer to the local branch (two wards, that is), given the likelihood that I won't be called upon to don a KGB uniform and read aloud from the 18th Brumaire to a gymnasium full of shaven-headed Red Army cadets - and the post was very nearly discontinued.

Seriously, what should a Political Education Officer do in today's CLP? Does anyone else have one? There's this blog, of course, but that's not very focussed. There was a local blog too, but it lacked the official backing needed to get it properly promoted to ordinary members.

Well, I'll think about it, but in the meantime, any ideas would be appreciated.

Labour Supporters Network - 11 comments

Apologies for cribbing almost entirely from another blogger's post, but Skuds' post on the Labour Supporters Network is worthy of more publicity. It vaguely reminds me (I have a mind like that) of something I read at Progress during the summer, and which I can no longer find - though this piece is close. Anyway, on with the story:

When I first heard about this Labour Supporters Network idea I was a bit suspicious, but it does look like being worth a try. Supporters are a sort of halfway house between being a regular voter and a member.

While we were out canvassing this morning we signed a few people up. There are several reasons why supporters may not want to become actual members - maybe they just don't want to join a party, maybe they support the local party at either ward or constituency level, but don't agree with the national leadership, or maybe they just can't afford it.

Whatever the reason, we are finding supporters willing to register as supporters who would not be prepared to join.

One thing that has not been discussed is what we do with these supporters. I don't think we should be ignoring them except to ask them to help delivering stuff at election time. I think we should be inviting them to meetings and events at ward and constituency level.

One problem with that is that official party meetings are only open to party members, but that can be got around. I used to go to Putney Labour Party meetings when I was not a member: not the regular ones, but special ones with guest speakers from Nicaragua or wherever.

Bearing in mind that a branch party does not have to hold 'official' meetings every month, there is no reason why we could not hold differently structured meetings, open to supporters as well as members, making sure they are a lot more tempting than the usual routine.

I am going to try and make sure that any supporters we have in Broadfield are given every opportunity to take part in anything we do.

One benefit for the supporters is that they can be kept up-to-date without having to make a commitment in time or money. There must be a hope that some will decide to become members late on so they can influence things more by voting and being nominated for posts, but just being able to identify where supporters are will be a help to the party.

To join the Labour Supporters Network, either visit the website. call 08705 900 200, or contact their local Labour Party. The benefits include (I quote):

1. Early notice of Labour Party events
2. Up-to-the minute news and views from the Labour Party
3. Specialist news and views according to your interests
4. Access to specialist networks on education, health and other issues
5. The chance to have your say on Labour's policies
6. Opportunities for us to make change together.

Anything that builds links between local parties, their members, and their community should be encouraged, and if this allows people who broadly support Labour to feel part of the political process without feeling that they must sign up to the complete programme, or feeling that they've let the side down because they can't attend meetings or Saturday morning stuffing-sessions (!), then that's a positive step.

Of course we'd hope that supporters eventually became fully-fledged members, but this would allow people to dip a toe in the water (so to speak).

Morning Out(r)age - 3 comments

Sorry for the lack of posts on site this morning - it looks like 20six is down, causing all seven of the blogs we have there to cause us nasty network problems and block anything else coming through.

I've had to temporarily disable those seven so that everything else can work, but I'll keep an eye out for when their host comes back to life...

I suppose it makes a change from Blogger/Blogspot causing trouble.

Free Expression March - 8 comments

Steve from Pub Philosopher has asked what the feeling is among Labour supporters about the upcoming Free Expression march.

To be honest I haven't found much evidence either way. Norm has mentioned the venues for the various worldwide marches, and the other entry I remember seeing among our blogs is no longer available to the public.

I suspect it just hasn't had the publicity - though there's plenty of time before the 25th March. No shortage of Labour bloggers reacted on to the "cartoons business", with perhaps half those who contributed - if I recall - backing publication, a quarter backing publication in principle, though not those particular things, while perhaps the other quarter of posters criticised the motives behind publication and could not support those who backed it. So there shouldn't really be any absence of supporters for those who feel the issue is worth marching over.

The statement of principle is hard to fault:

The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas are capable of giving offence, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offence in their time. The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticise and mock. We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same. We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them.

You do get the impression, though, with these things (i.e. any geopolitical issue) that it's a case of "our lot" and "that lot", and that some will regard this is a bash for the "Decent Leftists and their new friends on the Right", with an anti-Islam and anti-Muslim subtext. Sure, there's an awful lot of anti-Muslim hatred and contempt in the blogosphere at the moment (Steve has a stronger stomach than I for it), but why should the extremism of one class of dangerous idiots - British Nationalists, white supremacists, etc. - distract us from opposition to another class of dangerous idiots - theocrats and book-burners - especially when one's own government seems too swift to forgive the latter?

Britain had called for the EU to show regret over the publication of the 12 cartoons...

I'm not really a marcher, but I'm interested to know what others think on the issue.

P.S. True, the somewhat-creepy, and suspiciously-awful-website-operators The Freedom Association are backers. On the other hand, so are Democratiya, the National Secular Society, and the guys behind the enquiring Little Atoms radio show, whose shows you should all be downloading.

Blogging Minister? - 1 comment

Via Norm, The Times reports that David Milliband is apparently going to "set up a web log in which he will publish views that go beyond his ministerial brief."

Given that this is likely to encroach on the territory of other ministers, and - if it's to have any value at all - horrify civil servants too, the chances are that it'll never happen. The first two series of Yes Minister, that I have been devouring over the past week or so in DVD form, tell me this. Would be interesting if it happened, if he wrote it himself, and if he really wasn't constrained.

Miliband, who at 40 is one of the younger Blairite ministers, has taken up internet technology before and has participated in online chats on the Labour party’s site.

The Internet's been mainstream in the UK for a dozen or more years, but if one senior government politician can make his first few faltering steps, then we should be thankful for small mercies.

Update: Harry's Place has this, too.

Normless - and other date problems - no comments

It looks like certain Atom feeds have changed in the last week or so, with the result that we have been unable to determine the time at which their posts were made, information we pretty much depend upon. So the following five blogs - the first four of which are on TypePad - have not been showing on B4L for, perhaps as long as a week:

Norm, Rob Newman, Rhondda Today, Panchromatica, and Geoff Bridson.

Very sorry about that - I wish I'd noticed earlier. Anyway, I've switched the first four over to RSS 2.0 (which can do no wrong), and put in a fix for any other Atom user who finds themselves in that position.

All five blogs are now working fine.

Throw them a fish... - 17 comments

I'm amused by those who get themselves worked-up by things like this:
Blair 'prayed to God' over Iraq, the BBC's answer to slow blog day. I first encountered the story last night, and thought "let a thousand blog posts bloom!"

As The Silent Hunter puts it: Man prays to God before taking difficult decisions - shock! Huggy also has the right idea.

What the article tells us is that:

• Tony Blair feels personal, not just professional, responsibility over the sending of British troops to fight in Iraq.
• Tony Blair wanted to make the right and moral decision, and felt that religious assurance (not being religious I can't say I know how this is granted) would be the clincher.
  
• Bloggers inhabiting this comfortable BBC/Guardian world of ours have no comprehension of the motivation, or the modus operandi, of the millions of practising Christians who, today and throughout history, have invoked their God's judgement on all matters major and trivial. It might be irrational (which does not, in itself, mean less rational than the alternative), but perhaps an inkling of understanding might give us a better idea of what makes the vast majority of the world's population tick.

Of course a grasp of the perfectly good moral arguments for intervention would have made Blair's appeal for his deity's assistance completely unnecessary.

Meanwhile the inevitable result of the BBC alerting bored bloggers (not me - I was busily fixing an XML serialization issue) and rent-a-quote politicians, to provocative pieces like these, is self-righteous indignation, which is, after all, what the Iraq debate is about for most people.<