World Cup fever - 4 comments

Only 283 days to go!

Racist, holocaust denier, nutter, councillor - 5 comments

I recently posted about the blogging BNP councillor, Simon Smith, with a brief introduction to his ludicrous views.

Well, a bit more detective work has been done (actually, a lot), and the true Cllr Smith can be revealed:

'Steve Freedom' is the online alias used by Simon Smith, the newly elected BNP councillor for Great Bridge in Sandwell, on the white 'nationalist' forum 'Stormfront', which means that what you're about to read are some of the comments and forum posts that Simon has been making over the last five years (he joined the forum in 2001 and has made more than 2,100 forum posts to date), comments that strip away the carefully sanitised, voter-friendly image that the BNP has been at great pains to project in recent years.

Do read the whole exposé if you have a strong stomach, but these extracts pretty well sum him up:

The laughable thing is that modern "education" has become so perverted that even the "Auschwitz" myth , according to the "mainstream" isn't being properly promulgated. Presumably people have to read (etc) in order for them to spread this Zionist gospel around. Do we laugh or cry ? The NWO machine requires ignorance on the part of the population to succeed. When it succeeds, it finds the population has become so ignorant (because of the thrust of liberal Bolshevik education) that it can't spread its propaganda around !!!

and, on the subject of football:

... It's hard to say , but I want White Denmark to beat the mongrel "England" team...

1,278 people in Great Bridge ward (Sandwell MBC) voted for this man. But, hey, Tony Blair got a bloody nose.

Incidentally, the Conservatives didn't put up a candidate. They might want to rethink that decision in future.

Update: Bob Piper also has an article.

Update (5th June): More stupidity revealed here.

Brian Haw / Compass - no comments

A couple more interesting articles:

Paul Burgin's interview of Brian Haw, and

Newer Labour's Tom's introduction to Compass.

I'll add my own thoughts about Compass, when I can find a decent crop of publications, and can find some time. It seems they have a star-studded Conference in June, with more think tanks and interest groups than you can shake a stick at (oh, and the New Statesman), so we should try to cover that.

Alternative view - 1 comment

How do you like your syndicated B4L posts: three at a time, or 140 at a time?

I created this alternative view ages ago, but never found a way of integrating it with the rest of the site - which is basically a Blogger template with lots of other bits squeezed into it.

If you have favourite sites and are less interested in chronology, or you like to see images (the standard view strips these out) and longer extracts, you might prefer this view. Tip: click the "header" links to view multiple sites together.

Of course, if you can think of a way of integrating the two approaches, that would be even better.

Forums reminder - 1 comment

Just a reminder for Labour bloggers, activists, and supporters to register at our forum (there's a new link to this in our header).

All new users need to be approved before they are able to view or add to the forums, so please provide me with as much information as you can when you register. Your full name, and a URL of a blog or website would be helpful.

Smiffy - no comments

Via Bob, here's BNP Councillor Simon Smith from Sandwell MBC, known to friends as "Smiffy".

A sample of his views:

I believe that the ruling elites control the main parties. Their leaders have something to hide. As such, I believe they are in high positions of authority in order that they can be more easily controlled by the behind the scenes string pullers. I believe this may be true at local level as well. Those behind the scenes string pullers are the banks, corporations and media - different heads of the same monster.

I believe going into the 21st Century, the real struggle for humanity is one of Spirituality versus Materialism. I don't profess that either the BNP or myself are always right. I'm sure there are good people in other smaller parties. I reserve the right to respect good people in those parties - what ever they might think of me is irrelevant. I hope that the British National Party becomes more than a party, more than even a cultural movement. I hope it is in the Vanguard of a New Renaissance that can destroy the wicked, some would say satanic, Globalist-Materialist world order that keeps many new discoveries, inventions and knowledge undercover, ON PURPOSE in order to maintain control - we might look back on these present times as the "New Dark Ages".

Said the former teacher. Perhaps the people of Great Bridge would have been better served by his namesake, and lookalike (left).

More embarrassing namesakes here and here.

Euston launch - 4 comments

Apologies to anyone expecting a prompt appraisal of Thursday evening's Euston Manifesto Launch from this particular pen. Norm has a collection of many of the responses. There are plenty of photos of the event, but Tim Sewell's are magnificent.

Met some rather nice people too (in order, and as I recall): the aforementioned Tim, Clive Furness, Dan, Dúnadan, Richard and Neil from Little Atoms, Nick himself, and the guys from Fisking Central. It seems I managed to miss a number of other bloggers entirely, including Scribbles, which just goes to show how busy it was.

So, lots of people came, some excellent speeches were made - Alan Johnson's (from Democratiya) was particularly good - lots of money was raised, and mobile phones were collected for the trade unionists of Iraq. Questions were asked by the audience, and answered by the panellists on behalf of an organisation that puts its principles first, and which is happy to discuss and engage with people as to the best way to put these into practice.

Meanwhile, the number of signers continues to rise - 1674 at the moment.

Which is why it's a shame that some critics - who've turned down the opportunity to ask constructive questions, or to attend the public meeting - insist on dismissing the Euston Manifesto as "dull" or "anodyne", as if they had gone to the trouble to either challenge the principles behind it, offered a more exciting alternative, or accepted those principles and offered to help shape the movement.

Take this piece, which tackles the Manifesto as follows:

We stand for an internationalist politics and the reform of international law – in the interests of global democratization and global development. Humanitarian intervention, when necessary, is not a matter of disregarding sovereignty, but of lodging this properly within the "common life" of all peoples. If in some minimal sense a state protects the common life of its people (if it does not torture, murder and slaughter its own civilians, and meets their most basic needs of life), then its sovereignty is to be respected. But if the state itself violates this common life in appalling ways, its claim to sovereignty is forfeited and there is a duty upon the international community of intervention and rescue. Once a threshold of inhumanity has been crossed, there is a "responsibility to protect".

Which is precisely and totally the wrong way round. First we should seek to put in place a legitimate system of international law. We could start with insisting that the hegemon agree to bind itself and its citizens under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. No action ought ever to be encouraged that breaches this general case, barring exceptional circumstances. The duty upon the international community of intervention and rescue, if it is to be valid, ought to be embedded in and conditional upon that. Egg first, then chicken. To seek to grant that permission in advance, to hand out carte blanche for unilateral political violence without any knowledge of the hypotheticals or counterfactuals, is the real lunacy of the Euston Manifesters.

Lunacy? A legitimate system of international law would be a wonderful thing. For me, such a system would prompt condemnations of mass murder, genocide, and breaches of human rights as they happened, not when they're politically expedient, and action would not be delayed by concerns over upcoming elections, trade, alliances, or those ideologies that paint some participants as beyond the pail. Such a system would reflect liberal, universal moral imperatives, or it would be useless - mere bureaucracy. As Norm puts it:

But if this ideal doesn't exist and isn't brought into being by institutional reform, and if the UN therefore fails to intervene effectively in 'conscience-shocking situations', then 'concerned states may not rule out other means to meet the gravity and urgency' of these situations - as the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty concluded in 2001. Is there a third way? Yes. Genocide or mass slaughter just goes ahead, and the words 'never again' remain an empty phrase. One shouldn't pretend there's an easy way of escaping these options.

Eustonistas want this legitimate system of international law - help us achieve it. In the meantime, if the (or, indeed, any) legal mechanism is a travesty of morality, let us put the latter first, and ask for participants' actions to be severely judged on that basis. I don't see how any alternative could be worth entertaining.

You may, of course, take the view that "humanitarian intervention" is a "thoroughly insidious euphemism that can be used to justify any act of imperialism". In which case, you might as well sit the rest of your life out in a hole and not distract others with your cynicism.

People miss the point - Euston isn't a party label, and it's not about "capturing" people to its own side, just as agreeing with the Manifesto doesn't represent uncritical, hypocritical acceptance of any abuse carried out in or by the UK, USA, etc. Its success can be judged by the number of people who surrender the use of anti-Americanism, anti-Westernism, or "liberal decadence" as the basis for their personal politics, for one thing, and the number who reject the idea that equality and freedom of speech are insensitive, inappropriate, racist, or conspiracies by powerful "enemy groups".

Final point: I remember inflicting upon at least two people my theory that the Union Chapel (where the Euston Manifesto was launched) was the venue for the scene from the edifying and educational 1982 film Who Dares Wins ("one of the most right-wing films ever"), where one of those stereotypical left-wing, CND-supporting, "hip" vicars arranges an anti-nuclear rock concert in his church, only for right-wing thugs to interrupt his sermon to the teenagers, and the whole thing to turn into a riot.

So, am I right? Any information gladly received. Don't bother looking through IMDB, though, I've already done that. And please don't watch the film.

Two stops from Euston - no comments

I'll be at the Euston Manifesto public meeting this evening, in Islington. Hope to meet/catch up with some of you either there, or after the event.

Rumours abound that it's one vol-au-vent per ticket, so a little bit of extra muscle has had to be called in...

Just some links - no comments

In lieu of a proper post, here's what I'm reading at the moment (in no particular order):

Fry and Hitchens on blasphemy/religious tolerance
Fundamental Attribution Error
The Even Further Right in Blackburn
Energy and the nuclear debate
Spiked backing humanity shock
The role of choice in abortion law
Just a lump of steel?
Women Blogging
Slightly unsettling...
Political theory online

Not in control / Immigration - 11 comments

I had intended to post this on Wednesday night, but hopefully it's still relevant. Think back to the heady days of early last week, when illegal immigration was 'out of control', and Tony Blair's response to Conservative taunts was to get tough. This is how the BBC covered it:

The vast bulk of foreign prisoners should be deported whatever the dangers in their home nations, says Tony Blair.

Mr Blair told MPs he was prepared to change the law to ensure most foreign prisoners were deported automatically.

Downing Street later said some prisoners could avoid deportation in "very few exceptional cases" such as a known threat to an individual.

That isn't being in control - it's cravenly, thoughtlessly advancing down a wrong and damaging road that appeals to bigots, and disregards more imaginative solutions, a few of which are set out below.

OK, maybe the authorities are generous, and perhaps many of those who claim to be at risk in their home nation are pulling a fast one, but why should we allow people who may be able to offer this country all sorts of advantages be condemned to punishment in less enlightened countries simply so that politicians here can maintain the fantasy that they are able to control access to a highly attractive economy and society, using staff who aren't motivated, and who don't believe the task is feasible?

Let's face it, we're not really prepared to live with the consequences of erecting a (squiggly) ring of steel around the country, and why should we? The economic case as outlined here and here (do check the comments though) for opening borders - allowing free movement of labour - is very strong. Even stronger if it allows the Home Office and immigration apparatus to be dismantled.

Politicians seem to believe that their countries really are islands, and that deporting foreign criminals is a simple and effective way of reducing domestic crime. Few seem to be imaginative enough, to have a sound enough commitment to universal human rights, or indeed sufficiently capable of resisting bigoted, nationalistic public and press reaction to regard the loss of a murdered citizen in a criminal's home country to be equal to the loss of a British citizen. National police forces should co-operate internationally, tackling crime wherever it is committed, and punishing criminals as close to where the crime was committed as possible - providing the country concerned conforms to the appropriate standards regarding the treatment of prisoners - rather than foisting the problem on the home government. That's the correct approach now, with our porous borders, and once this system works, one more objection to the full opening of borders is lifted.

Wouldn't that give other governments the incentive to open their prisons and shoo their undesirables over to the UK, as suggested here? In theory, yes, but there are ways around that. The first thing you can do is, rather than open your border unilaterally, sign agreements with other governments that start the ball rolling by bringing down internal borders, as per the Schengen Agreement, but extending the agreement to new countries over time. It ties each government together in public, eliminating the incentive to cheat. Alternatively, immigration authorities could operate under central management, so that no country's border watchers may be taken advantage of for one government's advantage.

Chris Dillow raises the issue of whether economic migrants ought to be granted 'claim' rights in addition to the 'liberty' rights that all inhabitants of a 'free country' must expect. For example: access to social security, and access to free primary and secondary education for one's dependents. At least in the short term the economic advantages from immigration would be greater for a country that didn't grant these rights by default, and it might even grant popular legitimacy. But why have claim rights at all, if it wasn't to save people from starving to death on the streets or in some darkened hovel, resorting to crime, or activities that no human being ought to be forced into doing? We expect economic migrants to be smart, hardworking, and optimistic enough to stand a good chance of making a success in their new country, but not all will succeed, and with few assets, and perhaps no family at all to help them, the slide into crime and the black economy could be a very rapid one. If we deny economic immigrants rights to benefits that we give to UK citizens purely on the basis of their citizenship, and irrespective of their hard work and contribution to the economy, either because of the perceived cost (disregarding the evidence that such migrants are generally substantial net contributors) or because of the antagonism of other groups, then that weakens our claim to support universal human rights.

Another argument that's raised is that we denude the infrastructure of 'donor' countries by 'taking' their highly skilled workers to fill our own vacancies. I don't think this is too difficult a point to win, however. There are a number of points to be made:

• Economic migrancy is not necessarily permanent: skilled workers may well return, with experiences they would not have been able to gain at home. They can pass these skills on to others.
• The home country is helped even before that: money is sent home, and foreign language skills can be passed back. A new communications channel is opened.
• Donor countries will not be as squeamish as we are in a 'host' country. Provided money and skills gained are sent home, countries with few other marketable assets should not be denied the opportunity to trade their human resources with the rest of the World.
• Specialisation: the economic value of a skill depends entirely upon its context. Nursing is a worthy calling - and Malawi 'produces' them, eager for experience, in great numbers - but their economic value is derived from the unquenchable demands of our NHS. Malawi's health needs are far more pressing - in a human sense - than are our own (life expectancy at birth: 41-42 years) but their problems would be better served through immunisation, technology, organisation, and tackling HIV/AIDS, not more nurses.
  

The economic case for immigration does seem to be pretty clear - a consensus even, as Owen argues. But what about social factors? It's easy for economists to talk about a free market in immigration, such that the levels of immigration wax and wane according to the demand from host countries and supply from the 'donor' countries, but much immigration is the consequence of failed states, absolute poverty, and human rights abuse. If these issues can be tackled, that part of migrancy that is needless dislocation - and mass exodus - can be reduced.

Social disruption in host/recipient countries cannot be ignored either. Cultures - not amorphous 'national' cultures - but ones based around particular regions, quarters of cities, neighborhoods, occupations, and informal social groups, don't grow up overnight, and when they are fractured they can cause long-lasting social problems. So the ebb and flow of population movement - which absolutely need not relate to different races, religions, or even nationalities - that economists welcome may cause damage on the ebb that cannot be repaired in kind on the flow. Something is lost, and some cultures may not be easily recreated. Pub Philosopher has covered this here. What solutions can the left offer to tackle the social dislocation that migration causes, other than ridiculing the BNP, or abandoning economics in favour of tabloid headline-grabbing?

I haven't seen a lot of blog coverage of these issues, but bowblog's article is excellent:

The lesson is one we've failed to learn before: social change, when it comes, hits working class communities hardest. These communities have no buffer, no wiggle room and nowhere to go. Prosperity, once you've got it, provides insulation from nasty stresses of all kinds...

Poor communities just have to put up with it. As for mass immigration, big populations have been moving around the planet for economic reasons for hundreds of years and the poor have always held the role of unappointed welcome committees in pressure cooker communities like the North Side of Chicago, London's East End and the housing estates of suburban Paris.

[...]

Our effort, in the wealthy world, (where, let's face it, immigrants are going to continue to arrive in large numbers if we're to remain wealthy) must go into improving the capacity of our reception communities (Barking, Keighley, Burnley and all the rest), boosting the resilience of the bottom social tier, taking working class grievances seriously and easing the pressures produced by ineluctable change. The goal must be to build social solidarity, to neutralise the embitterment and disconnection that feeds the fascists.

Lance Knobel, David Aaronovitch, Matt at Dirty Leftie, and Tom at NewerLabour are also have also been talking about this.

Well, that's it for now.

The only vote that matters - 2 comments

More fun for your Friday afternoon. The Thimble and Norm both cover the New Statesman's Heroes of our time list, which is suitably wacky.

Says T:

No.7 in the NS poll is Noam Chomsky, who is to academic rigour what Dan Brown is to literary fiction. Tony Benn, Hugo Chavez and George Galloway fill spots in the top-50 too which indicates the Euston Manifesto may have a point about the moral bankruptcy of sections of the Left. With heroes like these who needs bogey-men.

And says N:

John Pilger comes fourth. Margaret Thatcher comes fifth. George Galloway comes somewhere, would you believe it? Nineteenth, in fact. Which means that he beats Amartya Sen, Desmond Tutu, Bob Dylan, Toni Morrison and Andrew Flintoff, among others. I have seen the light - polls, I renounce them.

Some of the comments are hilarious. This about Chomsky, for instance:

An international intellectual figurehead for opposition against American hegemony. The incredible accuracy of his work shows a man who is dedicated above all to the truth.

And this, about Castro:

He has survived 47 years of onslaught by the various terrorist governments of the US and managed to provide his people with proper education, health and public services, despite an illegal blockade.

And who could this be about?

He uses his fame bravely. He has brought attention to so many distressing situations in the world. He is the voice for those whose voices are not heard.

Bono, silly.

A bit more unintentional humour (my emphasis):

I were [Chancellor Gordon] Brown and I were, in the argot, seeking to renew the Labour Party, I'd be disturbed that not a single reader of this magazine considered my work and purpose to be in any sense heroic.

No, there's only one vote that counts this weekend, and it's here.

Yes, Eurovision fever is sweeping the continent once again. I've only missed one show in the past, god, 15 years or so, when I briefly had a life during the late 90s. I have cleared the diary for Saturday, and will sit there with a pen and paper, reviewing each entry. Other fine minds will be watching, and hopefully cheering on the Finns (pictured after receiving President Putin's hamper - allegedly):

Cute things in need - no comments

I know I've reneged on promised blog posts before, but there really is something substantial on immigration inching down the slipway, so to speak. However, it's 0300 hrs, which is pens-down time even for me.

In the meantime, Paul Bell has come up trumps with news of cute, but poorly animals:

I support the Indiana Coyote Rescue Centre and the latest appeal is for Jack, an abandoned baby coyote who has developed some physical problems. He is off to the vet tomorrow where the cost could be high. Can you help him?

Please click HERE to visit the Indiana Coyote Rescue Centre website. You can donate via Paypal. Any gift no matter how small will be appreciated.

Jack: "I wub you..."

Anyway, migration tomorrow (social, economic, and philosophical issues). I may also have to take Compass to task, time permitting, having recently read their founding statement.

A-list - 4 comments

The Conservatives' A-list of candidates has reached 100!

Nick "Newsnight" Boles has been shifted down to 10th, though Hove and Portslade Conservatives must still be biting their nails after his lousy campaigning effort in 2005 (ah, memories).

Maria Hutchings is still in there. I could have sworn she was a mere "Disabled Rights Campaigner" before (may just be my memory), well she's a "Disabled Rights Champion" now. Not an opportunistic bigot. No. I haven't plucked up the courage to investigate yet, but my last post about her coincided with a rash of visits from deep within the murky world that is the BNP discussion board. I wonder what it could mean. Update: at least their cyber-unit isn't attacking us!

And many other revelations.

If the Tories wanted to convince us they were genuinely forward-looking they might try employing a system whereby candidates were matched to constituencies based upon the relevance of their skills to the key issues faced in that locality, rather than simplistically choosing a candidate who fits the area's demographics, or going with the current norm where those perceived to be the smartest, and the chummiest to the leadership clique, are the ones who end up with the smallest majorities to overturn. Sure, they're "useful" people to have around after the election, but they stick out a mile and are easy prey to a "streetfighter" from one's opponents. Why take the risk? Alternatively they could forget about the C-list celebrities, the careerists, and the "great and the good", and concentrate on selecting dedicated, local candidates, whose desire to serve the community should express itself in ways that reflect the needs of the local community.

Blair takes stand on animal tests - 19 comments

From the BBC:

Tony Blair has defended animal testing and accused anti-vivisection extremists of stooping to "appalling" depths.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, he said companies with links to animal testing may be allowed to keep details of their shareholders secret.

Quite right too.

He also said he would sign the People's Petition in support of animal testing in the UK, saying he wanted people to "stand up against the tiny group of extremists threatening medical research and advances in this country".

Snap.

But Alistair Currie, Campaign Director for the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection, said the prime minister was "backing the wrong horse".

"The reality is that animal experimentation is old-fashioned science - it may have been useful 50 years ago but in the 21st century we have a lot of techniques that we can use instead," he said.

Fine: use any lawful and ethical technique modern science puts at your disposal in order to test as thoroughly as current knowledge will allow, and use each one according to its proven applicability and effectiveness, with a view to minimising distress if it must be caused. Testing should not be driven by sentimentality, or by one's fear of being victimised by domestic terrorists who believe that an association with animal rights grants them popular legitimacy.

Bizarrely, some commenters see an equivalence between animal testing and foxhunting, while others take a view of animal rights that no doubt mirrors their view of geopolitics: because every human interaction with animals - and, indeed, "nature" as a whole - must be exploitative (as is every interaction of The West with The Rest), the only solution is for a kind of divorce. Wacky.

Update: minor edits.

Cut the crap! - 1 comment

Via Recess Monkey.

As some of you may have noticed, certain parts of this site use an automated swear-word-bleeper, through which we pass anything we pick up (post or comment) from another site and display ourselves. There is one good reason, namely that we send out newsletters based on these posts, and one blogger's casual expletive could result in many recipients' emails being rejected by spam or content filters. The other reason was that I just fancied adding it.

Now it seems the Conservatives have one of their own, except that where ours represents the First Mate of an Arctic trawler in electronic form, theirs is more like a vicar's wife from a vicarage with lead pipes.

How like them to allow: "Diseased Minds: Once again, we see the diseased mind of Socialism rearing its ugly head", but turn (I assume) "the lower middle class" into "the lower middle cl***", and "to scrap the HCI with no notice" into "to s****the HCI with no notice."

For the curious, here's the regular expression we use ourselves (\\b represents the start of a word):

We then simply replace the operative vowel with a single asterisk.

Bloggers4Labour Forums - 1 comment

A bulletin board has been set up for the use of all Labour-backing bloggers, so do pop along and register. It's Stage #1 in our plan to provide a better service to the Labour blogosphere, and encourage activity, so it makes sense to sign up even if you only fancy looking around.

It certainly doesn't represent a "withdrawal" from blogging - far from it - it provides an opportunity for structured debate, and the chance to say things you wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable saying in public, but it will - I feel - foster more, and better blogging.

For the time being the board will be routinely policed by yours truly, and - for your security - all new users will need to be approved before they are able to view or add to the forums. If you register with a name or an email address I don't recognise your submission may well be rejected, so please keep things simple.

Quick note about the lovely flag on the site: I just thought it had a retro charm - simple as that.

Enough from me. Register away and we shall meet "on the other side".

Shameless opportunist seeks Party - 5 comments

The Ministry of Truth has covered the announcement of the so-called elite group, or "A-list", of Tory candidates for the next General Election. Here's the BBC's relatively uncritical coverage. Among the trivia:

Ex-Coronation Street actor Adam Rickitt eco-campaigner Zac Goldsmith and author Louise Bagshawe are all on the A-list, the BBC understands.

Maria Hutchings, a mother who famously confronted Tony Blair on live television, also joins the elite group.

Conveniently, David Cameron is able to boast that:

More than half of the 100 first names on the list are women and 10% are from ethnic minorities

That should go down a storm within the party, but read on for some essential background.

The white, vaguely aristocratic Cameron - who coincidentally happens to be a former PR guy, once described as a "poisonous, slippery individual" - belives he has grounds to spin this as an overturning of the established way of things:

...some white middle class men would be disappointed not to be on the list.

Cameron's way of politics, suggested by his recent speech to the Business in the Community Annual Conference, is cut to pieces over at Stumbling and Mumbling. The real Cameron is not a principled individual with a command of theory, principle, and practice, and the drive to enact the policies that must be enacted, but a sanctimonious, woolly-minded, bleating, baa-lamb. In his rush to become the reincarnation of Princess Diana, for whom human feelings were powerless within a cage of privilege and aristocratic genetics, what hope can there be that:

• Cameron will maintain an adult conversation with the electorate?
• He'll challenge those who need to be challenged, even allowing himself to be made unpopular?
  
• He has any understanding of economics, and will use the full range of tools at his disposal, without resorts to mere moral crusades?
  

Let's not forget Maria Hutchings, who we covered briefly last year. The sky is the limit if the BBC's special profile of her is anything to go by.

She describes herself as an "Essex girl through and through", so let's hear what she had to say in an interview, last year, with David Aaronovitch:

Then there was Mrs Hutchings' invocation of MMR. As all of us who have watched this stupid saga unfold know, there is no evidence whatsoever linking MMR to autism and every evidence that the scare campaign about it is leading to epidemics of mumps and the return of measles.

This, however, was not what had the Aaronovitch pachyderm quivering on top of a small stool. It was Mrs Hutchings's sense of grievance coupled with her feeling of entitlement. 'With an increasing number of immigrants and asylum seekers,' she told one newspaper, 'then the pot is reduced for the rest of us.' This, of course, is inaccurate as far as immigrants go, but I've interrupted her. She went on: 'Mr Blair has got to stop focusing on issues around the world such as Afghanistan and Aids in Africa and concentrate on the issues that affect the people of Middle England, like myself who pay the taxes which keep the country going.' Then came this line. 'I don't care about refugees. I care about my little boy and I want the treatment he deserves.'

So many questions:

• How long has she been a Conservative Party member?
• Did she keep her mouth shut at her selection interview?
• Was she even put through a proper selection process, or did the Tories think that a woman with right-wing instincts was too sweet a plum to turn down?
• Does David Cameron approve of her contempt for the needs of the world's genuinely down-trodden?
• If he was aware of her views, are we seeing a BNP-tolerating streak in this Queen of Hearts™ of a leader?
• And if so, can he so confidently claim the moral high ground over Tony Blair, someone who has committed his Government to dealing with international issues.
  

We shall await DC's explanation with interest.

A number of people have picked up on the "A-list"/Hutchings story: Bob Piper, PoliticalHack, Lee Gregory, and Stephen Newton, who has been following her progress for some time.

Updates / Better use of the web - 4 comments

I've carried out the unenviable task of updating our list of blogging councillors.

A number of standing councillors were defeated, some had stood down, and there were a handful that were even more out-of-date, or else had broken links. As far as I know, the only two addititions are Antonia and Miranda, but please get in touch if you have more information.

The old total stood at 38; it is now 26. A few rather discouraging statistics:

• We have three blogging councillors in the South (outside London), only two of whom can be classed as active.
• We have five in London (population 7.4 million) - as many as we have in Wales (population 2.9 million).
• Unbelievably, we have none in Scotland.

I don't have the answer at this precise moment, but there has to be a serious effort by Labour and its activists to make better, and more mature, use of the web, bringing activists and representatives together, so that people can see what works, and also making it as easy and stress-free to publish. Surely Bloggers4Labour must have a role here.

Gareth and Stuart also have thoughts, and here's the BBC's coverage of Tony Blair's recent words on the matter.

All I have to say for the time being - have quite a lot on my plate...

Update (7th May): Make that 27 councillors (and three active in the South), as fellow B&H-er, East Brighton councillor Warren Morgan has joined our ranks. That's great. The slight concern is that - no, you may not think that Bloggers4Labour is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but - for the sake of consistency, and publicity, it makes sense that new Labour bloggers know about this resource sooner rather than later.

It still surprises me that I come across Labourites who have been loyally and assiduously blogging away for a considerable period of time without the support and the contacts we can offer. There ought to be a few people within Brighton and Hove who know both Warren and B4L, but the one organisation that really ought to know is our good friend, the Labour Party. We really need to work together so that (a) any elected representative can start out with our help from Day 1, and (b) we reach out to all elected representatives and ask for one good reason why they shouldn't take the blogging route.

Of course 2006's blogging technology isn't perfect. It may even be obsolete by the time we reach the next General Election, but the technology is a mere detail. The key factors are: communication - keeping up with an electorate that can't necessarily make a public meeting at 6 pm on a Tuesday evening, answering genuine questions and explaining issues; advocacy (of issues) and education; and establishing your own voice as a thoughtful, independently-minded, hard-working, and trustworthy figure in the community. Blogging can help, and B4L can help with that.

Reflections - 13 comments

Just some quick points, now that the polls have closed and I sit here waiting for something to happen.

Why is it that the Labour Government appears, on the face of it, to be "tired" in the way the Conservatives seemed to be after twice as long in power?

I'm not sure I agree with that, and I probably don't disagree in the way you're expecting. The Conservatives did seem to be adept at reshuffling, something that was eased by the replacement of their leader, the ideological battles within the party, as well as the many scandals. My chief problem with the Tories from the mid-90s onwards was not that they showed the same old faces, but that the younger faces that appeared (Liam Fox comes to mind, though there are others) seemed to be more ideological, harder, and more right-wing. It wasn't their tiredness that bothered me, it was their actions, and the possibility of more action.

It does seem that, in terms of Ministerial personnel, Labour is still overly dependent upon a team that dates from the mid-90s, and with no change of leader, and little ideological variation, the chances of the combination looking fresh and radical are greatly reduced.

I'm not saying that personnel is all-important. In fact you could make a case that as mere managers of complex departments comprising advisers and civil servants, Ministers are of very little relevance, individually. Nonetheless, there may be a brief period during which new Ministers do have some say over the direction of policy, it allows them to derive a fresh picture of how the department works, and - of course - it provides us with the hope that past failures can be avoided.

So much for quick points. OK, very briefly:

• Tony Blair has done some fine and noble things, and was a breath of fresh air. But however clear and unique his grasp of - particularly international - issues, loyalty to him stifles the progressive project, and allows his supporters to grow defensive and conservative, doubting that any successor can move his vision onwards. To those die-hard supporters, I suggest that the time to let go is nigh (if not now). Resigning in time for the Conference seems like the sensible thing to do.
  
• Charles Clarke needs to go (as is being predicted). How many reasons do you need? I may edit and update this section, but in the meantime I will defer to this.
  
• John Prescott also needs to be shuffled away from power. The argument that he could "keep the two wings of the party together" rings pretty hollow nowadays, and - engaging as he is in person, especially with activists (I attended one of his flying visits to Hove, last year) - the idea that he can keep the working class "on board" is also pretty hollow in the light of the reaction to his affair and - most importantly - the fact that the campaign against the BNP has, by any standards, been a complete failure. Sure, it is incumbent on all mainstream parties to challenge the extremists, but if the white working class are lost to mainstream politics, it'll be Labour who lost them, and failed to take on racism head-on.

I don't see these changes as earth-shattering, and I don't see any inconsistency with supporting Labour overall. The important point is to do whatever is required to further Labour's progressive agenda - social justice, economic justice, and extended democracy, both at home and abroad - whatever the personnel.

Sorry, this is a bit rough, but I wouldn't finish it otherwise.

Good luck to all Labour candidates - 4 comments

I do feel I could have done more (like, something) to help with campaigning for today's Council Elections, but having no elections in Brighton and Hove made it that much more difficult to become fully engaged this time around, I'm afraid.

Recent actions by our Ministers have hardly helped matters, but more on that later. I imagine the political blogosphere will be a hive of activity as soon as polls close. A huge amount of flak will be flying, but we should try to make the best of it, and make sure that Labour becomes the best, the most intelligent, the most imaginative, and the most radical, progressive force it can be, whatever the short-term difficulties and hurdles.

In the meantime, best wishes to all our blogging Councillors and to our aspiring, blogging candidates.

On not fizzling out - 3 comments

You may have noticed that the Euston Manifesto received its 1000th signature yesterday. The total now stands at an impressively-proportioned 1068.

Pleasingly, people are giving the document a chance, shrugging off the (rather boring) charges that it is empty, a media stunt, Blairite, navel-gazing, 'right-wing', or - most bizarrely of all - a product of a bunch of blokes that doesn't take account of women's issues (see this response).

Tickets to the public meeting on May 25th will almost certainly now have been snapped-up, but join the list of signers for details of future events. Can't promise anything, but it's my earnest wish that some future events will be held overseas.

Promise this'll be my last public mention of Euston until after Thursday's Elections.

Update (15th May): The Euston Group have found a new, much bigger, venue for the meeting on the 25th, so the chances are that you will be able to get tickets after all. Please check the site for the latest.

Hello, Cllr Moulton - 11 comments

Shocked - and woken from my 6-day-a-week blogging slumber - to discover that a former schoolchum of mine (well, it has been about 14 years) is a Councillor in my old stamping ground of Southampton, where Labour currently stand as the smallest of the three main parties in a City we ran from (if I recall) 1988-2000.

I won't tell you yet which party he represents - you have to guess:



You guessed it. Yes, Cllr Jeremy Moulton is one of three Conservative members for Freemantle ward. He even has a blog. What's more, he's up for re-election in two days.

I thought I might have a tough time persuading people to vote Labour on Thursday, but I never imagined how easy it would be!

I will post again before the big day.