Not Little England

A week's worth of posts

2006-09-25T00:54:00.000+01:00

OK, maybe I won't link here for every post, some of them are simple link/discuss anyway.

I fixed the template (bloody flash menues hidden in a javascript file), took the piss out of the pope, linked to this excellent post by Rachel, did a bit on blogging generally, partizanship and the New Tory Labour promo that Tim is running for the Lib Dems. Then I found some cool wallpapers and turned a question from the tactical voting post into an explanation of how STV could work in Britain, with some advantages. I've actually got a speech from Lord Trimble saved, planning to go through it, he went through a massive set of reasons why STV is bad, all of them are reasons why I think it's good. A genuine case of YMMV on that one.

Ended the week with a story that repeats from this time last year; they've banned Walter Wolfgang from the Labour conference delegates area, despite him being elected to their NEC. Off to London tomorrow for the week, should be fun.

Tactical Voting: Myths and reality - Voting TaKtiX

2006-09-18T02:37:00.000+01:00

I've finally broken the block, here's the promised article on tactical voting:

When you vote, do you vote Expressively, or Rationally? Most party activists and committed partizans will vote expressively, and assume that voters do likewise. However, many voters will vote rationally, seeking to maximise the impact their vote will have on the result. It is this tendency, that most activists find hard to relate to, that leads to the phenomena referred to as “tactical voting”. Still with me? Good, let me explain…

Tactical Voting: Myths and reality - Voting TaKtiX

Technorati tags: voting, democracy, Coalition, tactical voting, rational voting, expressive voting

New blog home - Voting TaKtiX

2006-09-13T23:55:00.000+01:00

Right, it's not like I haven't been saying I was going to do it for months, but the new site is up and, sort of, running:

Voting TaKtiX: Because democracy needs an informed electorate

Still lots of work to do, and the template is giving me a headache, I've been styling it nicely all afternoon, it was beginning to look about right,t hen I looked at it in Internet Explorer. I mean, it still needs work, but, well, it's FUGLY in IE. Bill Gates must die for the horrors he inflicts on web coding. Anyway...

I need to change the feeds over, and do a few more tweaks, so in the meantime, I've set the feed from hereto 'full', and will link to any new posts, for a bit. When it's all up and running, I'll finally set this site down, delete the blogroll from here, etc. But for now, we're good. LJ users will find the new syndication here

Why change?

Well, I always did want to blog at my own domain, it makes a lot more sense and gives more control. Also, while I had planned to use the new blogger beta, I did a test install of Wordpress (I need to test it for work) and, well, it's so good.

Those promised substantive articles will follow, promise, I just decided to get re-started at the new place.

Technorati tagsearch: blogging

British politics after Blair

2006-09-08T22:16:00.000+01:00

From new blogger Sammy Morse:

Personally, I doubt Blair will last 12 months or anything like it. Until he goes, civil war will reign in the Labour Party. Unlike Blair, too many people in the Labour Party have an interest in not losing the next election for that to happen. Unless they're really, really stupid. And I don't think they are. ... Brown will be a disaster as Labour leader. If Brown really had the capacity to be leader, he would have become so after the Granita restaurant, after Blair was clearly out of step with the country on the war, after Labour lost 50 seats at the General Election, etc., etc. He didn’t because he has no killer instinct and no real leadership skills. Brown likes to skulk in the corner and avoid difficult issues

He goes on to analyse the state of the parties, the poll rankings, the likely effect on the next election, etc. It's one of those "I wish I'd written that" posts, well worth a read.

In addition, Caramel Betty asks "what's Charles Clarke up to?" and has re read his resignation speech:

However, I do not think it would be appropriate to remain in government in these circumstances and return to the backbenches, where I will be a strong and active supporter of this government and the leadership of Tony Blair for his full parliamentary term.

Do we detect a note of "well Gordon'll never give me a job" in the Safety Elephant's behaviour? In the meantime?

Keep an eye on Jack Straw over the weekend. Have fun in the Middle East Tony...

Technorati tags: Brown, Blair, Leadership, Infighting, NuLab

Taking Power - Tired Tony

2006-09-06T23:08:00.000+01:00

I'd forgotten this, oops. Um, online conference involving some bigwigs, cross party, looks like a good idea, started today.
Taking Power - Have your say about how Britain is run

Worth giving a look and getting involved in methinks.

I, um, spent the day with my grandmother, not even mobile phone reception in South Pool, 'tis a lovely place. We didn't turn the radio on in the car on the way back either. So, I'm currently catching up with the news. Initial reactions?

Go Tom! Agree with Bob's assesment. Tired Tony on his way out? Good. However, and this is important, look out for buried news. Blairwatch is already on the case.
I might be able to put together a more coherent reaction, but in the meantime? Yay!

Technorati tags: Reform, POWER, constitution

Brian Coleman AM: 'tedious cock'

2006-08-31T23:38:00.000+01:00

Well, Mark Thomas' demo seems to have gone ok, shame I couldn't make it. I'm so looking forward to moving to London. Anyway, how about this as a reaction?

But the protest has had its critics, with Tory London Assembly member Brian Coleman calling them "sad, mad and bad".

"Is this really the image we want to give of London - tourists whose income we rely on for the jobs and prosperity of our city?"

Well no you fool. That's the whole damned point!

Ye gods, this sort of thing is bad for the image of London because it highlights the absurdity of the laws that affect London. Remove the stupid law and you're fine. Gah!

As Liadnan puts it:

"Bugger civil liberties, think of the tourist trade?" And in what universe would the tourist trade be adversely affected?

What a tedious cock.

Still busy, distracted and not in the mood for serious blogging. Week off next week, might, hopefully, clear my head. In the meantime, I await the reports of the event from those that were able to attend.

Technorati tags: freedom, liberty, socpa, exclusion zone, lone protest

Book censorship on planes

2006-08-23T00:04:00.000+01:00

Craig emailed about this earlier, today, I just got around to following the link chain. Murder in Samarkand… Confiscated

Don't bother picking up a poiltical book if you're going flying now, they'll confiscate it. Can we hear it for exceeding authority? I think we can. I suspect the days when I could read Michael Moore on a transatlantic flight are gone (as are the days I could afford a translatlantic flight but that's another issue), we're only allowed populist pulp on board to read now, anything else makes us a security risk?

Or is this a case of idiotic airport staff in need of a good ~~kicking~~ disciplinary hearing?

Technorati tags: freedom, travel, censorship, craig murray

Amar Ashraf: Asian pilot banned from plane

2006-08-22T22:53:00.000+01:00

This is getting ridiculous. He works as an airline pilot, he checks in to his company's parnter airline, gets on the plane, falls asleep in business class. Then he gets woken up and told to leave the plane. Now, of course, he may be being paranoid, but when he gets off the plane, the police are there to question him.

He believes his removal was down to having a "Muslim-sounding name".

Mr Ashraf, 28, a British Pakistani who was returning to his job as a pilot for one of Continental's partner airlines in the US, will lodge a formal complaint with Continental Airlines, with whom he was travelling, as well as with the US authorities.

Mr Ashraf? Good luck. Told a friend in Canada about it. His reaction is here. Summary:

That's right, they dragged a guy WHO FLIES *THEIR* JUMBO JETS FOR A LIVING off a plane because THEY WERE AFRAID HE MIGHT DO SOMETHING BAD WHILE HE WAS A PASSENGER ASLEEP IN BUSINESS CLASS.

Hey, everyone who's afraid of brown people: Remember the terrorists?

They won, and you helped them do it.

Good job!

Tomorrow, when I go back into the office, I have to find accommodation for two lawyers planning to come study English with us for 6 months on an executive course. Normally, not a problem at all, executive long term bookings are sought after by our host families. Problem? They're from Kuwait. I shouldn't need to have to persuade people to let me pay them money, just because the client is from a muslim country; Kuwait is one of our major allies out there, right?

The politics of fear. I was bored of it. Now I'm getting fucking scared of it. One side wants to kill us "because of our freedoms". The other wants to deny us our freedoms in order to protect us. Excuse me? Why are we letting the terrorists win by default?

Technorati tagsearch: freedom, terrorism, air travel, politics of fear, Amar Ashraf, Islam

Deadly Baby Bottles and other liquid "threats"

2006-08-18T23:28:00.000+01:00

Still on the "it doesn't add up" schtick I'm afraid. This email sent to Interesting People is a good analysis, and Craig Murray has more on some of the other elements:

One aspect of the alleged bomb plot which has provided a tremedous boost to the atavists, is the so-called "Baby bottle bomb" ... there is nothing uniquely Islamic about infanticide. Indeed, in the last two days the news bulletins have covered prominently the stories of a British man who allegedly jumped from a balcony clutching his two children in Crete, and the inquest on a woman who threw herself under her train with her nine year old child.

Horrible? Yes. Have Muslims wreaked more horror on the World, either historically or in the last five years, than those professing other religions? No.

The leaks and spin coming from various "sources" bother me as well. If there is actually a plot, if there is evidence, have these guys got a chance of a fair trial? No. You know what that means? No conviction, we can't get the bastards. If they're actually guilty (and every day that if gets bigger), then we need to get them jailed. Trial by media is a bad idea, right?

Technorati tags: terrorism, arrests, islam

Blogging and stuff

2006-08-18T00:19:00.000+01:00

Busy, in case you hadn't figured. In the meantime, I've linked a few times to Steve, who it turns out is randomly a friend of a former housemate of mine and Paul's, although we've never met, small world. Anyway, he now writes for new blog/news site, The Slant, which I'm plugging because, well, it's good. His first article:

Thousands of pupils received their A-level results today, and amazingly the UK seems to be getting more intelligent than ever!

In the spirit of the occasion, the rest of this article will be multiple choice:

Seriously, go read the rest. For the record, he thinks even less of Ruth Kelly than me. Seriously, it is possible. Anyway...

What should I write next?

I've been busy at work (see terror alerts and false flags, all over the newspapers and below), but it's about time I wrote a decent, substantive article. I've got 3 in my mind, fleshed out to a point where I just need to find time to type them up. Which d'you want first?

The Cameron Project: What he's up to and why it should work
Tactical Voting: It's a myth, it doesn't exist (seriously)
House of Lords reform: I missed Lords Reform day on here, but put up a few links on my journal (Blogger went down), I could flesh that out a bit?

Anyone got a preference? Also...

Blogger Beta

I've been playing around with the new version of Blogger (via) here, it does actually seem rather good, so even though there isn't a 3-column option (yet), I'll likely switch when they'll let me, the good bits more than outweigh the bad. Category tags for a start, and easy feed displays &c. So expect a few weirdnesses as I do silly stuff to get it to work. I'm so not looking forward to going back to label every post.

Technorati tags: The slant, blogging, blogroll

Terror arrests timed under US pressure?

2006-08-13T16:28:00.000+01:00

MSNBC:

A senior British official knowledgeable about the case said British police were planning to continue to run surveillance for at least another week to try to obtain more evidence, while American officials pressured them to arrest the suspects sooner. The official spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

In contrast to previous reports, the official suggested an attack was not imminent, saying the suspects had not yet purchased any airline tickets. In fact, some did not even have passports.

(via)

Massive disruption to our travel industry, terror alert to "critical", airports at a standstill. Why? Because the US intelligence community wanted to arrest people early when there is no immediate threat.

The British official said the Americans also argued over the timing of the arrest of suspected ringleader ***** in Pakistan, warning that if he was not taken into custody immediately, the U.S. would "render" him or pressure the Pakistani government to arrest him.

British security was concerned that ***** be taken into custody "in circumstances where there was due process," according to the official, so that he could be tried in British courts. Ultimately, this official says, ***** was arrested over the objections of the British.

So, that could even cover arrested without due process and with the possibilty that a trial may not now be possible. I've deleted his name from the US based report as UK law is very strict about possibilities of prejudicing a trial.

I'm at work (see disruption to travel industry, above), so no analysis. Not sure I can be coherent about this one at the moment anyway.

Threats, attacks, terror and freedom

2006-08-10T23:34:00.000+01:00

Not in the mood to write about todays news. Not in the mood to analyse what's happened. I share Nosemonkey's cynicism about the timing of todays arrests and yesterdays speech by Reid. He knew it was happening. Bush got in on the act, making a blatent anti-Islamic speech, to which James L. Grant responded:

Almost 3000 people died September 11th.

They tell us to be afraid. I'm sure some of you recall that I often poke jibes at the bullshit society of fear here in the USA. It's been going on a long time, but it's been substantially worse since the towers fell.

They tell us to be afraid of Extremists for Allah. They tell us to be afraid of planes. They tell us to be afraid of buses. They tell us to be afraid of bombs. They tell us to be afraid of suitcase nukes. They tell us to fear death from above, fear the breown people, fear Islam, fear those who HATES TEH FREEDOM, fear the NAIL CLIPPERS and BOX CUTTERS, fear the MIDDLE EAST, FEAR MOTHERFUCKERS, BATHE IN IT, BREATHE IT, DREAM IT, BE BORN IN FEAR AND FUCKING DIE IN FEAR.

3000 people die of smoking-related disease every 3 days.

3000 people die in car accidents roughly every 29 days.

3000 people burn to death approximately every year or so, give or take some, in accidents involving smoke and fire. Every year, over and over.

And then one day you wake up and realize that you're less likely to die from a terrorist attack than you are from an infected wisdom tooth.

And you don't have to be afraid.

Right about then is when you take a look at the media and you get really, really pissed off.

Welcome to the fold, Rubix.

The Politics of Fear is getting to me. I grew up with the real and present danger of the IRA, and those nasty communists with their ICBM nukes. Now, in the absense of a new state based enemy, we're to fear "global islamic terror", and fear it so much that we're to give up a lot of the basic fundamental freedoms that make this country, and indeed much of the west.

The terrorist threats of AQ and other groups is real. But it's less of a threat to me, directly, than the threat of a car hitting me as I cross the road. I can directly control or stop neither.

That this plot has been caught, and stopped, within the existing framework of laws should show people that we don't need new laws and restrictions to catch the bastards, we need better resourced and trained officers within the existing framework. John Reid wants us to make more sacrifices in the name of security?

Fuck off John Reid. I won't give in to terrorism and abandon the basic principles of this country. That you are planning to shows that you have no principles whatsoever.

Technorati tags: Terrorism, freedom, threat levels, attacks

Threat Levels and BritBlog

2006-08-07T00:41:00.000+01:00

Following on from my aside mention earlier in the week, also worth linking to the more detailed analysis on of the Threat Levels bollocks on Europhobia. But Jack Thomas's version is much better.

Also, Tim's got the weekly roundup up.

Technorati tags: Britblog, blogging, Freedom, Intelligence, Threat Levels

Appeal Court tells Reid he's wrong

2006-08-01T22:30:00.001+01:00

John Reid? You just lost^*. Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips:

"We agree that the facts of this case fall clearly on the wrong side of the dividing line. The orders amounted to a deprivation of liberty contrary to Article 5.

"We consider that the reasons given by Mr Justice Sullivan for quashing the orders are compelling."

Putting someone under house arrest and only allowing them out between 10am and 4pm? Yup, that's deprivation of liberty. Restricting who can visit them and who they can associate with? Yup, that's deprivation of liberty as well.

Reid? Charge 'em or release them. You'd get cross party support to change the law to allow intercept evidence into court. Many other countries allow such evidence, yet in the UK, you simply want to lock away the nasty men without a fair trial. No thanks.

In related news, we welcome back The Politics of Fear (part mcmxvii). Love that domain name; Intelligence.gov.uk. An oxymoron for this lot, surely?

*I apologise to those of my readers that get that reference. Actually, I don't, but, y'know...

Technorati tags: Freedom, Liberty, Control Orders, Human Rights

What EU party should you support?

2006-07-29T21:21:00.000+01:00

Via Jon Worth, this neat little tool that he helped design a few years back. Given all the fuss over the EPP and similar for the Tory party, might be a good one to see where people stand on European issues. It's just a shame really that we don't, really, get to vote for the European groups directly, merely for the UK party that associates itself with one particular group. We know, for example, that there are some Tories that are very close to EPP policy, just as there are others who would be much closer to the UEN, etc. Unsurprisingly, I get Euro-Greens first, narrowly pipping the Liberal and Reform group, with the Socialists third...

Technorati tagsearch: europe, parties

Open letter to John Reid re Rachel North

2006-07-26T21:31:00.000+01:00

Update

From the comments, mission succesful; although whether we had any influence I don't know. Regardless, excellent news.

Original post

At Justin's suggestion, I have just sent the following email to John Reid, Home Secretary:

Dr Reid,

I know that you've met the author of the Rachel in North London website, a victim of the July bombings and organiser of Kings Cross United. You may or not be aware that her passport was either lost or stolen at the memorial commemoration, and she is due to be leaving the country at the end of this week.
http://rachelnorthlondon.blogspot.com/2006/07/lost-my-passport-losing-it-generally.html

If you are able to use any influence whatsoever in your position, given her status, a large number of people around the country would very much appreciate it; I'm sure that I will personally still disagree with you politically, but it would certainly up my respect for you personally.

Best regards, Mat

(full name, full address, full contact details as per formal letter)

Please write something similar to:

homesecretary.submissions@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk

A few minutes of your time. A much needed break saved. Special treatment? Who cares, she's gone through enough.

Technorati tags: Rachel North, John Reid, Passport renewal

Alibhai Brown - missing the point and conflating the issues?

2006-07-26T00:13:00.000+01:00

Swamped, again, so a little behind. Yesterday at lunch I read my Independent as usual. In it, a rather, well, mis-informed and ill conceived rant by a certain Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. I'm never quite sure where to place her as a commentator; sometimes I find myself agreeing, other times she simply wants to make me scream in frustration. Yesterday was such a day.

I thought at the time that by the time I got home it would have been given more than a few fiskings, but I was only able to start looking for them tonight. The best? This shouldn't surprise anyone; Dave at the Ministry.

first we really ought to see what Yasmin’s whining about…

… which, sorry, doesn’t really amount to much.

His analysis is spot on, go read. I'm not sure I buy into Tim's opinion that it's a conspiracy, I suspect it's more a case that, as Deek Deekster observes, the proverbial chattering classes have noticed that the internet is allowing us poor normal citizens to share our opinions with each other, debate, deconstruct and critique opinion columns, etc.

Are we simply "wasting our time"?

I think not (obviously). We may not get the biggest readerships compared to columnists, but what is Yasmin's opinion peace from yesterday? The cause of a bit of discussion, and now, mostly, the proverbial chip wrapping. I can read, get to know, debate and discuss ideas with people across the country, most of whom I've never met. We can come to a consensus, agree to differ, work together on issues of common import and, at times, continually, vehemently, disagree.

It's a bit like the days of the pamphleteers of yore, but I can do it all from the, ahem, comfort of my pokey little flat. I can even share my opinions on Ms Brown's column draped in a towel and dripping wet from the shower.

Isn't free debate and democracy wonderful?

I think so, anyway. As does Deekster, a blog new to me:

In the past these true journal-ists would have been writing in isolation, but we contemporary writers are blessed with the modern miracle of interactivity - and frankly this is something that scares the Gucci pants off most hacks, whose idea of interactivity is submitting to an axe-wielding editor.

The beauty of "blogging"? (and what is a blog if not simply a style of managing a website, a different type of publishing tool?) Interactivity, commenting, discourse, analysis.

I can read an article elsewhere, challenge the views put forward, add cogent facts to the debate, link in extra points, question the author on points. And others can do the same here. By being questioned, we analyse. That analysis both improves our ideas and our ability to explain them. I've certainly learnt a lot in the 10 months we've been running this place.

"Waste of time"? Perhaps. But then, some people waste their time watching Eastenders, reading the DaVinci code or even, *shudder*, writing opinion columns on national newspapers. In 3 months time, my opinion on Yasmin's article will be there, on this site, cached in Google, found in search engines. Her article on blogging? Locked behind a subscription firewall on a piss-poor website and, being recycled.

Bloggers may have little legs Yasmin, but we have a much longer tail. Besides which, a number of your colleagues on the paper are also bloggers. Some of them are quite good. Maybe, y'know, you could find out more about what it's really about from them?

Update

Justin on the same subject, rather good in an overall blogging analysis kind of way.

I promise to try and write a substantive article soon. Maybe Thursday. Not sure which Thursday. In the meantime, linkage good, right?

Technorati tags: Yasmin Alibhia Brown, Blogging, The Independent

A warning to bloggers when commenting...

2006-07-23T23:53:00.000+01:00

Mat gets comment notification. Mat replies, then realises he hasn't looked at said commenters frontpage for a bit, so clicks the link commenter has left. Ends up here:
Mega site of Bible studies and information

Andrew? Better be careful with that url, some, um, interesting types have register blogPSot.com

Enterprising, innovative. Can't design a website for shit, but, y'know, can't have everything. Ye gods, if you're going to go to the effort of trying to hijack bloggers like that, at least design a site that doesn't make me want to scream at you, that's worse than my first efforts, and I suck at web design...

Technorati tags: Andrew Bartlett, blogpsot, religious loons, very bad web design

The Monarchy -reform or replace?

2006-07-23T20:12:00.000+01:00

At The Sharpener, Andrew has an interesting idea as to what could replace the Monarch as ceremonial head of state. This follow on from an excellent discussion at Robert Sharp's a few weeks back, but rather than rehash my old posts, might as well simply link to them. Why I converted from Republicanism to constititutional monarchism, and why we need a constitutional convention to sort this, and all the other messes, out.

Why is it all the interesting stuff happens when I've been busy?

Technorati tagsearch: reform, Monarchy, Constitution

Following the money - Blair, Levy and Dromey

2006-07-23T17:08:00.000+01:00

On the subject of the Lords as an accident waiting to happen, we have two interesting post. Garry Smith shows that the loans were probably not, really, on commercial terms, and were really donations in disguise.

In fact, the loans are actually only repayable six months after the lender specifically asks for them to be repaid. If the lender does not do so, the loan might conceivably never be repaid. It's almost as if the terms of the loans have been specifically written so that they could be turned into donations at a later date.

In the meantime, Shaun Rolph has all the evidence pointing that Levy and Blair acted illegally if they did withhold details of the money to the elected party treasurer, Jack Dromey (via).

anyone who, with intent to deceive, concealed from Jack Dromey (i) the amount of any donation made to the party, or (ii) the person or body making such a donation, has committed a criminal offence.

It's probably a good thing for tired Tony that he knows a few decent lawyers, right? When I wrote that post, I didn't even think to dream he'd be out because he broke a law he himself wrote.

Technorati tagsearch: Blair, Levy, Dromey, party funding, corruption, NuLab

Pledgebank- Jack Straw, the House of Lords, reform and accountability

2006-07-23T15:28:00.000+01:00

Jack Straw - Cretin?

Right, it's fairly well established around these here parts that we don't think much of the current Government. However, we now have conclusive proof that Jack Straw is an idiot:

we have a problem in the House, which is called researchers trying to prove a point and the result of these websites called TheyWorkForYou which simply seem to measure MPs' work by quantitative rather than qualitative measures.

Apparently, that MPs are getting their researchers to make themselves look good is the fault of a website dedicated to informing people what MPs get up to. On the face of it, he may have a point, but the site itself makes it clear the best way to judge an MP is to get to know them, stats are simply a metric not an end in themselves.

Tom Steinberg, head of MySociety, in a comment at RecessMonkey:

For anyone who wants to help us tweak and improve the data that TheyWorkForYou publishes so that it makes MPs do more good things (like answer constituency mail) and fewer dumb things (like table pointless questions) we’re holding a public meeting on November 7th to discuss the options. Please email beta@theyworkforyou.com to reserve your place, as space is limited. Someone please ask Jack if he’ll come to say something more constructive

Both of which leads us to this new pledge. As Guido puts it:

TheyWorkForYou, PublicWhip and WriteToThem.com shine a spotlight on what our parliamentary shysters get up to. You can see what they say, how they voted and who is giving them bungs. In addition what freebies they take, what vested interests they are close to and where they have been are all in the register of interests online. The websites also enable you to communicate with your representative easily. They are tools for democracy.

Guido thinks we need to play closer attention to Jack Straw and what he is trying to keep out of the picture.

Go sign up.

Reform the House of Lords

James, it seems, is on a roll, for he's also got another pledge going that has me interested; a year ago, I signed the first Elect the Lords Pledge, the results of which are here (and looking back, boy has my writing improved over the last year of blogging), so the new one is welcome. I restate my belief that direct election isn't the answer, and prefer a hybrid chamber made up partially of representatives from lower levels of elected representation such as Holyrood, County Councils, the London Assembly, etc and also partially of citizens selected by lot from the electoral register. It seems I'm not alone in this preference, and it even has a name, Sortition:

In 1998, Anthony Barnett, a Senior Research Fellow at London University, wrote a pamphlet in connection with the ongoing reform of the House of Lords entitled The Athenian Option, in which he advocated random selection as a method of election to the new upper chamber.

The current House of Lords is an accident waiting to happen, and the corruption scandals surrounding the Prime Minister at the moment are largely linked closely to the way it is composited. Change is needed. As I said before:

I've already argued here and here, we don't need an elected Lords, we need an effective Lords. We need to sort the constitution out.

Pledge to reform the lords

Technorati tags: Pledgebank, Jack Straw, TheyWorkForYou, Parliament, House of Lords, ElectTheLords, New Politics Network, Charter 88, Constitution, Reform

Israel Vs Lebanon: Ceasefire now

2006-07-20T00:23:00.000+01:00

When we set up here, we decided we'd avoid foreign policy. Partially because we wanted to focus on domestic + EU, partially because, well, quagmire. Especially when our Government seems intent on invading the entire Muslim world and supporting Israel regardless of circumstance. Generally, I agree with Garry (as usual). Specifically, I agree with Ming Campbell.

On domestic policy, I still have disagreements with the Lib Dems. On foreign policy, I've been broadly in agreement for as long as I can remember. On this, Ming's approach seems spot on. Shame the US is intent on giving Israel all the time it needs to (re)destroy a struggling, nascent state.

As I said in a comment on Garry's post:

If faced with similar circumstances, there's not a country I can think of that wouldn't pursue a legitimate armed response. Why should Israel be expected to behave any differently in that regard?

It shouldn't. Thing is, it isn't.

this isn't a legitimate armed response. It's overkill and then some. The Lebanese Govt is new, barely established and far too weak to control the militants directly. Israel knows that.

Legitimate reponse fine. Disproportionate overkil?

No way.

And, although I disagree with some of his take on it, Richard at Leninology has a good selection of coverage not being picked up by certain elements of the media. Given I don't actually watch TV, how are the various channels managing tog et all sides across?

Technorati tags: Israel, Lebanon, Conflict, Campbell

What was John Prescott's greatest achievement?

2006-07-18T22:20:00.000+01:00

Further to my earlier question (thus far unanswered), 24dash.com has a rather amusingly biased poll on PRescott's acheivements. Apparently, he was responsible for:

Creating more affordable homes

Delivering sustainable communities

Urban regeneration

Tackling poverty and social exclusion

Apparently, anyway. They provide no evidence there, but the results of the full poll are worth a look.

Yes, it's nasty. I've seen comments elsewhere that the constant Prescott attacks are "classist" or "snobbery". Bollocks, the man's a pathetic failure without a decent policy success to his name. That's not snobbery, it's fact.

Technorati tags: Prescott, John Prescott, NuLab, failure

Presidents Vs Parliaments - Accountability wins

2006-07-18T01:35:00.000+01:00

At some point, I plan to write a nice article on how Parliamentary Governance is far superior to Presidential (and other directly elected Executive) systems. I did a fairly big case study on it once, and my opinion has only hardened since then, despite the abuse Blair has put to the UK system. But, as I'm still swamped at work*, this article in the New York Times is a good start:

a leading scholar on democratization, warned of the “perils of presidentialism.” Presidents, he argued, made for a “winner take all” politics and tended to see themselves in dangerously “plebiscitarian” terms as the living embodiment of the nation’s will and deepest interests. Linz’s special concern was Latin America, which (like the Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea and much of Africa and Central Asia) has followed the model set by the United States. To his mind, Europe’s more accountable prime ministers — and their parliamentary counterparts in countries like Canada, Japan and Australia — represented a safer institutional alternative.

Reading it requires registration, but that's free, so worth the effort. Interesting real world analysis to back up my academic interest in the subject; essentially, America set the standard for Presidential systems, but got lucky, because the early Presidents were all great statesmen with experience in government already. For most countries, especially emerging democracies, too much power in the hands of one person, especially one who can claim a rather spurios "mandate" is dangerous, as numerous coups and pwer grabs the world over have shown. Parliamentary systems may be flawed, and open to abuse, but in the long term, they're both more stable, more democratic, and contain their own checks and balances.

Time, of course, to rebalance the British system.

Liberty Central is on hiatus currently, most of us involved are far too busy*, but when it relaunches, that full article should be one of my early efforts I think.

*Today, I finished work at 6.30pm. Yesterday, I finished at 11.30pm. Yup, 11.30pm on a Sunday, in a nominally office job. It starts to calm down from now on, I'll be human in August, if the heat goes away.

Technorati tags: Governance, Executive, Presidentialism, Parliamentary Government

Alan Barrett - Innocence lost?

2006-07-15T16:34:00.000+01:00

Via DK I encounter this, worrying, story of an increasing trend in British public life; absolute paranoia when it comes to children and "innapropriate behaviour". As Chris puts it:

This is unspeakable, seriously. As we withdraw physically from one another and see dangers and threats around every corner, so we become yet more obsessed with "sharing" guilt and grief in an increasingly embarrassing manner, whilst others value the lives of others as nothing more than a punchbag for the culmination of a drunken night on the piss.

We are becoming a nation paralysed by paranoia, seeing "paedo's" behind every door and, in the meantime, our social services turn a blind eye to little girls being beaten, tied up in baths, sexually assaulted and murdered by their own relatives.

What I found most worrying was the report of the diocesan spokesman for his Bishop (Lichfield):

The conclusion that Mr Barrett had acted inappropriately is not a finding of guilt or negligence, but recognition that in today's climate, previously acceptable innocent behaviour is now subject to misunderstanding and suspicion.

"As the complaint and subsequent police investigation demonstrates, the simple act of a kiss on the cheek - a common greeting throughout the world - has potentially damaging consequences.

Right, a common greeting across the world now has "potentially damaging consequences". Let's get this straight, if a young kid, known to me, comes up to me very happy with something (s)he's done, and I, as my parents and grandparents were wont to do, kiss that child on the cheeks, it's "potentially damaging"? Because an overly suspicious parent, fed on a diet of tabloid scare stories and misinformation, is convinced that anyone who actually likes children is a potential abuser?

As Paul and I discussed a few months back, the biggest threat in all of this is fear itself. Most abuse happens away from the public eye, behind close doors, and is perpetrated by someone known, not only to the child, but to the parents as well. The idea that a vicar and school governor should be investigated by the police and his diocese for simply congratulating a young girl with a public display of innocent affection is simply wrong.

If, as the spokesman says, this sort of behaviour is now subject to misunderstanding and suspicion, then we need to do something about this. When thugs start using the Cross of St George or the Union flag as part of their racist reportoir, the correct response is not to proclaim such items as racist, but to reclaim them, and assert that they are not racist, that they are worthy symbols. When people use the word "ghay" (pronounced gay) as a synonym for rubbish, the correct response is to reject such homophobic stupidity and assert that being gay is not rubbish.

If people misunderstand public displays of affection, presumably because they are so rare, the correct response is not to promise not to do it again; it's to do it more often, and ensure that innocent affection is allowed towards children, for without it, their innocence will truly be lost, wrapped up in a safety blanket that hinders their progress.

Technorati tagsearch: Peodophilia, freedom, Alan Barrett, nanny state, Tamworth, Staffordshire, Child Protection

Racism, 'No platform' and ASBOs

2006-07-15T01:07:00.000+01:00

Too tired to write substatantive posts, but when I can link to stuff like this at the Ministry of Truth then, well, that's good enough. He's managed to capture my attitude to No Platform ideas completely; counter productive, and in the long term damaging to the idea:

there are many who still try and hold to the idea of ‘No Platform’, a tactic that I long ago concluded was ultimately counterproductive as efforts to ’silence’ the National Front, BNP and others and prevent then getting their message out only serve to contribute to the false mystique they try to create around their appaling ideas and values in order to convey the impression that they are somehow dealing in ‘forbidden knowledge’ rather than errant, pig-ignorant, bullshit.

‘No platform’ also leaves us wide open to the charge that we are censorious and acting as the enemy of free speech, sometimes with some considerable justification, and all too easily leads us into hypocrisy.

He then goes on to cover a specifi case in generality over how racists can abuse the ASBO system. The basic principle of a method of dealing with genuine anti-social behaviour is a good one. But the blunt and open to abuse intstrument we've been granted is not a good way to go about it. Especially when it's this open to abuse.

Technorati tags: Freedom, BNP, No Platform, ASBOs, racism

Threat Levels and the Home Office incompetence

2006-07-13T00:18:00.000+01:00

On Livejournal, there's a community called Metaquotes, wherein LJers quote stuff they found funny elsewhere in LJland. No such facility exists in blogspot or similar, so, instead, I'll just point everyone at Nosemonkey:

Today's colour-coded "Labour idiocy threat level" stands at Puce (middling to high idiocy), a slight decline from last week's Prescott-inspired Vermillion and the weekend's ID-card and Super Happy Fun Public Terror Threat Indicator prompted Burundy alerts.

However, for a more serious analysis of the latest addition to the politics of fear, I give you Robert Sharp. Go read.

Technorati tags: quotes, NuLab

Censorship, Freedom of Information, the Foreign Office and Uzbekistan

2006-07-12T21:39:00.000+01:00

Right, Craig Murray's Book is out. To support the assertions he makes in it, he published all the documents on his website. Most of these documents were released under the Freedom of Information Act. Unfortunately, they're also covered by Crown Copyright. That means that you can only republish extracts. He's been threatened with legal action, which will need the price of a London house to defend in court. So he's taken them down. They're mirrored elsewhere already (links below), but those mirrors will also be forced down, as copyright is covered by the Berne conventions. So, there are ways of getting around it. One is a lot of people publishing separate extracts (we'll work on that), the other? Chris Lightfoot:

If one person can get hold of documents under the Freedom of Information Act, then so can anybody else, simply by making a request to the relevant public authority. Rather than trying to face down the FCO and its lawyers, a better response would be to draft a fill-in-the-blanks Freedom of Information Request, which anybody could email in to the FCO to get their own copy of the key documents perfectly legally. That's certainly less convenient than simply downloading them off the web -- in particular, most government departments make sure they send responses no earlier than the maximum twenty working days permitted under the Act -- but there's a limit to what the government can do to wriggle out of its obligations. If Craig can provide information identifying each document to be used in such a request, I'll happily build him a website which will allow anybody to send in such a request at the click of a button.

As Chris is one of the MySociety people, and I've yet to see a site of his that didn't impress, this is a damn fine offer.

Assuming it does happen, links to it will of course follow. As will links to the extracts. Now, go buy the book already (seriously, I'm skint, and I've no time to go into the library for at least another two weeks).

Mirror sites known as of 22.24BST 20060712:

If you haven’t seen the documents, they’re available here, here, here, here, here, here, and as a bittorrent here.

(via)

Technorati tags: Craig Murray, Samarkand, Uzbekistan, censorhip, Crown Copyright

Prescott: What has he ever done for us?

2006-07-11T20:28:00.000+01:00

Following on from my earlier post, Peter at Liberal Review has more on the Thames Gateway project, and has also prompted a thought. In a very Monty Python Romans vein...

What has John Prescott ever done for us?

He, personally, has been in a very senior Govt office since 1997. I'm trying to be charitable, I listed a number of his major failures, but he must have managed to implement one policy well, right? He must have got a success somewhere, something he's got right?

Right?

Can someone, anyone, tell me what it is? Bob? Paul? Anyone?

Technorati tags: Prescott, John Prescott, NuLab, failure

When loosing is winning

2006-07-10T13:28:00.000+01:00

So it looks like the Attorney General will not be making any changes to the sentence of paedophile Craig Sweeney. This has, of course, been greeted with dismay by many people, but actually it's fair enough. Y'see, the problem is that the sentence itself was not illegal or incorrect - the Attorney General is quite right in saying that if he tried to argue the case out, he'd probably loose. What needs to happen now is a reassessment of the sentencing guidelines to see whether or not we are happy with the current sentencing laws (as I believe I've said before.)

Once again though, the issue looks likely to get overwhelmed by calls of an individualistic nature focussed solely on this one particular case. And yes, it's an awful thing to hear that a man like this may be free again in only five years. But the point is that we need to get the laws changed for everybody - slapping a longer sentence on Sweeney may make a few people happy, but doesn't affect the many others whose crimes haven't made the front pages. So maybe, actually, we need to let our feelings for this specific case settle a little, with the longer goal of altering the guidelines for everyone found guilty of these crimes.

I guess it's a good thing when injustices hit the headlines, in that it focuses he public's attention and forces the issue with the politicians. However it's also easy to get carried away with the specifics rather than looking at the bigger picture - the bigger picture which in the long run will be the one that really matters.

Technorati tagsearch: reform, freedom

John Prescott should be out, here's why

2006-07-08T23:15:00.000+01:00

My dislike of the Labour leadership is a sense of betreyal. I voted for the bastards before, and I'd like to be able to vote for them again. But, currently, I can't. Prescott is by no means the only fault, but his perpetuation in office by Blair is completely beyond me. Others, howver, have no sense of betrayal, and have always hated him. Tim Montgomerie at Conservative Home has created a list of reasons to dislike Honest John's term in government, since the very beginning. Given that many of the policy areas he claimed for himself at the beginning were issues I felt strongly about, and in cases still do, his absolute failure to implement anything decent is worthy of comment. So, using Tim's list as a starting point, here's mine:

Council Tax rates have effectively doubled for most people in the last ten years, and the short term bribe in the 2005 budget for pensioners was abolished this year.
The Standards Board for England is an anti-democratic monstrosity that puts those we elect at the control of quangocrats. Ken shouldn't have been suspended; it's teh electors job to fire him, no one else's
Postal voting has been pushed and pushed and pushed. Make no mistake, the facility for the frail and housebound to vote by post is essential. But everyone else should go to the polling booth. Fraud allegations are perpetual, and very worrying.
Integrated transport policy? Anyone remember this one? We were going to cut car use (its risen), improve railways (um...), improve availability, etc. Me? I'd love to travel by bus instead of driving most mornings. Not going to happen, even with a half price bus pass from work.
Strategic Rail Authority. Yes, well, enough said there, when Transport was removed from his control (let's face it, he wasn't up to it), Darling abolished the waste of money that it was.
The Thames Gateway city project. Combined with the demolish half the north project. Very little has effectively been done to encourage people to live, work, set up offices in, etc in areas outside of the SE. The SE can't handle more people effectively, water supplies are limited, housing density growing, etc. The North? Emptying. The SW? Full of second homes, holiday homes, etc. Empirical evidence for the latter? There is no way that my I could, even if I doubled my salary, afford a mortgage on the house my father was born in. Why? Holiday homes. Honest John's fault.
The England Problem. A perpetual topic on here, but John was given the task of sorting out devolution in England. What did we get? Devolution from the centre? No. We got another local government reorganisation offered, with virtually no devolved power, a White Elephant. The boundaries he's using are over 50 years old and outdated, based on bureacratic, treasury need rather than local lines. Horrible mess. The worst is he's effectively killed off any arguments for decent, genuine devolution from Westminster to any form of regional or provincial assemblies, which would be a genuine (and to my mind good) solution to the West Lothian Question.
The Casino at the Dome. Let's face it, this is the big one. It appears, on every face, to be genuine corruption, and it's not just Honest John that it tars. But John is their designated scapegoat.

He's going to go, and soon. I, like Snoo, do not care who he's slept with. It's gossip, tittle tattle, salacious fun. It does raise a concern (did any of them deserve their promotions?), but, ultimately, sex scandal, I care not.

He's corrupt, incompetent and an utter failure. He has betrayed the principles of his party, he has betrayed the principles he was elected on, and his botched implementation of vital policies has done lasting damage to this country. Time to go John.

On the other hand

Clive at The UK Today:

Now I agree that something doesn't add up, by I'm more concerned about what is going on elsewhere in Government while Prescott acts as a lighting conductor for all the flak being aimed at New Labour. It may be crediting Blair with too much foresight, but it seems very convenient that John has been kept around in spite of Tracey Temple and croquet on the lawn at Dorneywood.

Prescott seems emminently suited to the role he is now fulfilling, the bumbling leftie northerner who is out of his depth; the fall guy who can be blamed for any number of ills given the wide remit the ODPM used to have.

John? Given most of it isn't your fault, can you stop being a scapegoat and take Tony with you?

Update:

From the comments, A rather good selection of Prescottisms

Technorati tags: Prescott, failure, incompetence

The British Govt supports torture and repression

2006-07-07T01:47:00.000+01:00

I've said it before, I say it again, self publicist or not, the story has to be told. Now, you can read all about it in glorious print. If 20 readers buy the book following that link, then I can afford to buy a copy myself. Go on, y'know you want to...

Yes, I've spent the evening since getting in from work following the Prescott fuss. No specific links, just keep reading the Ministry of Truth and Iain Dale's Diary. So, no real blogging tonight. Then again, 14 hour days aren't good for a man.

Technorati tags: Craig Murray, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Bin Laden for Bush?

2006-07-06T01:04:00.000+01:00

Chris covers the story that Bin Laden's famous videotape intervention in the 2004 Presidential Election may have been aimed at getting Bush to win:

This does have a kind of logic to it, after all as a global revolutionary leader why wouldn't you want your most powerful opponent to be run by a guy that would lose a general knowledge contest with an Aubergine.

To be honest, I'm quite surprised it took the CIA that long to figure it out, seemed obvious to me. Ah well.

Technorati tags: Bush, 2004, Bin Laden

Prescott, Anschutz, the Dome and a Casino Licence

2006-07-06T00:41:00.000+01:00

Ministry of Truth - Follow the Money:

What is is about is a government that has a direct pecuniary (i.e. financial) interest in seeing AEG get the super casino licence, and one compounded even further by the fact that it is the same department (Culture, Media and Sport) that made the deal with AEG for the use of the Dome, that will now issue the licence for the super casino.

The BBC has all the facts, covered it on Newsnight, but didn't make the link. Dave had already done so, and has now written it up.

What was Prescott doing there? Why? What's the Govt role in visiting rich, evangelical, science denying American businessmen?

Also, Blognor Regis: Dome pays its way at last...

Technorati tags: Prescott, Anschutz, planning policy, casino, Millenium Dome

Blair: Negotiation is for the weak

2006-07-04T23:36:00.000+01:00

Blair is an arse shock. Interesting discussion at Simon's, my comment here:

You can't defeat the ideology of extremist Islam by saying we half agree with your grievances but you're wrong to deal with it that way

That's my big problem with the statement. We "defeated" the IRA by recognising the legitimate grievances of the population supporting them. "We" managed 2 Palestine ceasefires by acknowledging legitimate grievances, etc...

"represion: creates the water for the terrorist fish to swim in..."

First said of Franco's Spain but true everywhere.

Do we "half" agree with the grievances? Are some of the complaints legitimate? I say yes, we do, and some are. Given this, why can't we ameliorate those complaints to reduce the resentment that fuels the extremists? We already know it works FFS.

You don't need to talk to Bin Laden, but you could help deal with the iniquities that he feeds off of.

Addenda:

Justin has more on a different aspect:

“I am probably not the person to go into the Muslim community,” said Blair today. How does he know? If walking into Leeds, Dewsbury, Beeston or Rawthorpe nude but for a sandwich board with “I’M SORRY” painted on it dissuaded just one potential bomber, wouldn’t it be worth it?

Garry Smith:

This is possibly the least helpful thing I've ever heard our moronic Prime Minister say, and that's really going some.

I think he's right, on both counts. Jamie Kenny:

Only when people stop opposing my foreign policy can terrorists be defeated. Got that one cleared up, then.

Technorati tags: Blair, leadership, terrorism

Prescott: Abuse of priviledge, junkets and 'charity'?

2006-07-04T21:40:00.000+01:00

Mr Eugenides:

Just to recap: a minister whose department is in charge of planning applications for casinos receives free hospitality from a tycoon bidding to build a supercasino. Minister stays night in tycoon's ranch with "a small number of civil servants" (including diary secretary?) and makes charity donation to cover hospitality. Donation paid for out of public purse.

The abridged version: Prescott spends night on Colorado ranch relaxing/sipping martinis/banging his mistress, and gets you to pay for it.

Guido has more (including the news, revealed by Iain Dale, that the Daily Mail may be planning to run a story ~~revealing~~ alleging that DPM was having an affair with an unnamed Labour MP. Needless to say this story is not true and no-one should imagine otherwise, certainly not R**** W********'s lawyers).

The debasement of ethical standards in public life is almost complete.

I said before that it was a smokescreen and I didn't care who he slept with. I suspect the rumours to be true, it piques my interest in a salacious way, but ultimately, I care not. But the idea that he's off on junkets to ranches owned by people bidding for contracts he has power to grant?

"Honest" John really ought to go now. On his own, or with the tired man.

Technorati tags: Prescott, Winterton, Anschutz, planning policy, casino

London Bombings: Public Enquiry needed

2006-07-04T20:40:00.000+01:00

Public Service Announcement

Rachel from north London: Give Us Our 7/7 Inquiry

Read. Now. That is all.

Technorati tags: 7th July, London Bombings, Public Enquiry

90 Day Detentions (again)

2006-07-04T01:10:00.000+01:00

I agree, completely, with Tim Worstall, and it's not often I get to say that, so here's the link:

Apologies for this outbreak of crudity but the one eyed Goblin King can fuck right off. *

What is the point of taking away our liberties in order to fight those who would take away our liberties?

DK goes a bit further and R-M has some outraged reactions. To think I nearly put some complimentary stuff in my previous post about him. We're screwed, the Labour leadership wants constitutional reform, but only to give them more power, the Tories are giving the name "stupid party" even more meaning.

90 days is not an answer

Look, Gordon, we've gone through this one before. As Rachel so eloquently put it:

I am not surprised that terrorists seek to do what they can to attack my democratic society, to threaten my liberties, to spread fear, to seek to divide us.

I do not expect my democratically-elected government to do the same.

Her words summed up all our reactions then. They remain true now. Gordon? 90 days without trial? Fuck off.

Technorati tags: Gordon Brown, 90 day detention, freedom

The West Oxfordshire Question and Tory Hypocrisy

2006-07-04T00:31:00.000+01:00

Right, first of all the partizan silliness, courtesy of Alex Wilcock:

So, let’s recap: it’s wrong for Liberal Democrats to point out Four Jobs Bob isn’t local to Bromley because he lives somewhere completely different – which is a statement of fact. But it’s all right for the Conservatives to say the leader of a country that’s a union of different nations can only come from the bit that the Tories have all their votes in, ruling out Scots not because of their ability or their ideas but simply because of where they live. Which is a wholly negative opinion that Scots should be second-class citizens in the Britain made up of all of us, based on their being not ‘local’ to England.

Yup, to run for election as an MP while not being local is acceptable, but to run for election as British Prime Minister while living in Britain, being British and married to an English wife isn't if you're not local to most Tory MPs (ie, Southern England).

But, the more important link. Ministry of Truth:

If, by excluding Scottish MPs from voting on English bills, parliament is left with left with a government that lacks a Common’s majority on English issues, how is fair that that government retains control of the legislative programme and timetable for England.

This is of course all linked to the Conservatives desire to not appear to be "too radical" and instead implement something that sounds right, and simple. Except of course, it isn't right, it isn't simple, and it's a lot more radical than either of the three other main solutions. Gareth outlined a list of objections and questions back in March. While I disagree with Gareth's proposed solution, his is at least both honest and intellectually coherent. EVOEM is neither.

English Votes on English Matters is so unworkable and prejudiced towards Scotland that it will inevitably lead to a constitutional impasse so great that an English parliament will be the only solution. But at what cost? The alienation of Scotland; the break-up of the Union; an end to the principles of parliamentary democracy? Can we have a union in which MPs are barred from the top-jobs because they represent a non-English constituency?

Like I say, I disagree with the solution he proposes. England has to be represented, but given that England and Wales share a law code, you need a Welsh element at times. The Westcountry has different needs to the Home Counties, both are different to Yorkshire.

I'd like to see some sort of Provincial arrangement, each province being approximately 4 counties or so, big enough to have "clout" and to make cross border planning, but small and local enough to reflect local needs (Foot and Mouth and the failure of Whitehall and the absolute need for a Kingskerswell bypass are too issues that Westminster messed up). You'd need a method of having England taken into account, perhaps a monthly meeting in Westminster hall of Provincial AMs, maybe with English MPs in attendance?

Whatever we come up with, it'll be a fudge. The UK constitution, on paper, simply doesn't work, it makes no sense. But in reality, we know it has worked for centuries. Squaring the circle of competing demands is difficult. Trying to brush it under the carpet as the Tories are doing isn't the way to deal with it. Cicero:

Dangerous nonsense!

Liberals and Liberal Democrats always supported home rule for Scotland and Wales on the basis that the result would be a Federal Britain. Only Federalism answers the so-called West Lothian question. What is now needed is a full constitutional settlement- which means restoring the lost powers of local government and making the current Scottish and Welsh systems self sustaining.

If England chooses a Parliament of its own or chooses regional assemblies, or makes the existing Counties more powerful (after all many of them are larger than several member states of the EU) then that is a matter for them.

What they can NOT do is to minimize or exclude Scottish or Welsh members from the only body that unites us: The national Parliament in Westminster.

The rest of that post gives a very strong reason for why I'm actually fairly happy within the Lib Dems; they actually address the issues and don't hide from policy or constitutional impact. Y'see, while I've long been convinced the current "settlement" is anything but, I'm pretty sure the Tories are only really coming on board because

They can see some votes in it
They haven't got many Scottish MPs

Yet why haven't they got many Scots MPs? Is it because they don't get many votes? Nope, they normally get more votes up there than the Lib Dems, but the Lib Dems get a fair few MPs up there. If the Tories would just wake up, they'd see the solution to their problem would be solved by supporting a decent electoral system. Of course, they don't see that being a predominantly Home Counties shire set party is a problem, and they don't seem to mind not having any MPs in our main provincial cities, despite getting a fair few votes there.

Petty partizanship is all I can really see in the Tories EVOEM proposals. That and the break up of the Union. For the Conservative and Unionist party to come up with a policy that will, inevitably, create a constitutional crisis, means they have utterly forgotten what they're supposed to stand for.

Let's have a real debate, acknowledge what the problem is, and call together a convention to resolve it.

Technorati tags: England, Devolution, English Parliament, Constitution, Reform

Open Thread thingy - template trouble again

2006-07-03T20:48:00.000+01:00

Right, I blame Paul Burgin. He mentioned Tracksy.Com as an alternative to Statcounter, so I thought I'd try it. Stupidly, I used their auto-blogger-install. D'oh! So, Tracksy tells me that at approximately 50 people have tried to read the blog today. Um, sorry there was nothing to see since at some point on Saturday evening.

Next time, I'll stick to hard coding amendments myself. Good job I had a template backup, even if it's not recent enough. Unfortunately, Google has spidered so I've lost my presence completely, so it'll be a few days before I go back to getting top results for random searches and Shakespeare quotes. Life/work related, if anyone cares, succesfully dealt with the busiest day at work for years yesterday, but left the office at 1.30am. Still recovering. Still, The Famous Grouse was on offer in Tesco...

In the meantime, I've no energy to write about anything, despite the Tories committing themselves to a policy doomed to failure, Blair showing he's all mouth and no action over Make Poverty History et al and Gordon being boring as usual. Anyone got anything they want to talk about?

Technorati tagsearch: blogging, template, tracksy.com

Deaths in Iraq: Just more statistics on a slow news day?

2006-07-01T20:59:00.000+01:00

Garry Smith:

When I write 7/7, you'll know exactly what I'm referring to. A year on, the tragic deaths of 52 people in London is still very much in people's minds and rightly so.

In Iraq, attempting to identify the deaths of civilians by the date on which they occurred would be entirely pointless. Today, on 1/7, a car bomb has killed at least 62 people in Sadr City. This time next week, 1/7 will mean nothing to you or I.

When London was attacked, 52 people dies, many more injured, the whole world new, there was massive coverage in media everywhere. It was an unusual event, ergo it was news. It was a horrible event, and therefore it made people scared. Yet when more Iraqis die in terrorist attacks on a regular basis? It's no longer news, it's no longer unusual. It's just statistics.

Perhaps, one day far in the future, Iraq will become a peaceful democratic country. But, three years on from the invasion, with conservatively tens of thousands of Iraqis dead and no sign of the violence abating, if it does, it will be no thanks to the two men who instigated the violence whilst having not the slightest idea how to stop it.

Technorati tags: Iraq, 7th July, terrorism

Feeds, syndication, insults and the Tories

2006-07-01T17:31:00.000+01:00

It's hot, I'm tired, my downstairs naighbour is playing music loud enough to drown mine out (again) and I'm exhausted after a loooong week at work (in which the VPN and mainframe crashed, twice - busiest week of the year, thanks guys). Yup, I'm writing about blogging instead of actually, y'know, covering some issues. Normal service will be resumed when I can summon either some vitriol or some energy to think. In the meantime...

Meta-blogging

The server logs tell me that many of you, my lovely readers (and infrequent commenters) come here from some sort of syndication service. The most popular three at the moment are Bloglines, NetVibes and Livejournal. That last may have caused some to stop; isn't Livejournal a blogging platform? Well, yes, sort of, but the main innovation for it is the "friends page" which effectively works as a feed reader for all your LJ 'friends', which in LJ speak is basically "blogs wot I'm watching". It's how I started, and while I'm not exactly keen on the (mis)management of the new owners (more here and here), I do still like the basic platform. Netvibes is very cool, but the AJAX platform is, like most AJAX platforms, bandwidth intensive. Dial Up user, 'nuff said. Bloglines is OK, but I dislike the way folders are only ever organised by feed.

LJ has the advantage that I can read it from anywhere, it pre-fetches everything, and I can sort all my respective feeds into different views. Setting up a feed in the first place can be annoying, but I've done it enough now to do it quickly. Thing is, once a feed is syndicated to LJ, everyone that wants to read that feed subscribes to the same account, named by the initial creator. Most of the ones I now read I created, but initially, some of my favourite blogs were found via someone else's listed LJ subscription. Sometimes, that account has a sensible name, (egs robertsharp, timworstall, nosemonkey, bssc_world) and there are some naming conventions that seem to work (for example, TheyWorkForYou feeds are mostly mp_name_constituency_fd, and all the Comment is Free feeds I set up are all cif_author_fd - here's Sunny's). Othertimes, you search for the account, and the initial creator wasn't exactly complementary. Most amusing?

Tory_bollocks

The Conservative Party official newsfeed. Always cheers me up when I see that, reminds me that for all that my brain says I have have to not hate them, they're still Tories at heart. Best bit of LJ? You don't even need an account with them to log in, you can have a "friends page" by logging in with your TypeKey profile or any other OpenID supporting service. Utterly pointless, but I'm not currently in the practice of promoting LJ accounts, just observing how useful it can be.

Meh, enough pointless introspection. Francis Maude is using Conservative Home as part of the analysis of the by-election results (didn't they all do badly?), which is, hopefully, a sign that the big politicians are finally "getting" the idea that the internet can be used to engage directly with people in a good way. Hopefully.

I'm off to get another bowl of ice cream.

Technorati tagsearch: parties, conservatives, blogging, livejournal

Safe seats? Blaenau Gwent lost, Bromley recount

2006-06-30T02:49:00.000+01:00

What's the point of being a candidate for one of the big two parties in their safest seats? You only ever lose them. Bromley has gone to recount, I was going to stay up, but I'll await the morning news.

To get close is impressive, to take it to recount? Looks like Labour lose their deposit there as well. Blair's odds of lasting the year out look slimmer. And if Bromley is as close as reported then I wouldn't want to be Dave in the morning. Shot in the arm for Ming though.

On the "we're screwed" thing, it's looking like the only chance we've got is an incredibly strong Lib Dem performance next few years. Damnit, I hate being partizan! Dave's crap, Labour is falling to peices, Ming's our best hope. We really are screwed.

~~G'night all...~~

Update:

Neill wins Bromley for the Tories, with a majority of just 646. From what I've seen of the campaigning there though, I agree with James, not the sort of politics I like to see, anywhere, from any party.

Technorati tags: Blaenau Gwent, Bromley, by-election

Home Office: Burying the news every month

2006-06-29T02:17:00.000+01:00

Dan "d-squared" Davies:

Tomorrow is the last Thursday of the month, a date upon which it is traditional for the Home Office to dump a heap of undifferentiated output from its research department on the world. It is suspected by many, including me that this practice is carried out in order to make it more difficult for there to be adequate scrutiny of the Home Office's performance, because there is limited analytical resource available to have a look at these things before the story goes cold.

That's the idea behind the Nightcap Syndication Research Thursday Project, which I am plugging here again. All Comment is Free readers and contributors (subject obviously to a baseline requirement of "knowing what you're talking about") are invited to have a look at the Home Office What's New page early doors tomorrow, pick a document that looks interesting to you and write a couple of hundred words about the main themes. I will be posting my piece on Comment is Free, my own blog and on the Nightcap site. If we can get a decent summary and a few bits of rough analysis of all the major documents up early enough in the day, it ought to make it much easier for the interesting pieces of research to get the publicity they deserve.

Swamped at work, can't do it this month nor next, but it's a great idea. If the Home Office would follow the example of the other departments and stop burying all the stats on one day, it wouldn't be needed. But as it's "not fit for purpose" and this easily fixed problem still hasn't been done, we need to highlight the issue. So, if you've time this fine morning, go here and join in.

Technorati tags: Home Office, Research Thursday, Nightcap Syndication

Bogdanor on Cameron

2006-06-29T00:56:00.000+01:00

Yesterdays Telegraph:

And what did Prof Bogdanor say in his Magna Carta lecture this month about Mr Cameron?

"I fear that I was not very successful in teaching him the importance of preserving human rights in a democracy."

Even his old tutor thinks he's got things the wrong way around.

Better luck next time Dave.

(via)

Technorati tags: Cameron, Bill of Rights, Human Rights Act, HRA, Vernon Bogdanor

Cameron's rights plan: another badly spun mess?

2006-06-27T23:01:00.000+01:00

Hmmm...

Get elected leader of Conservative party
Appoint a respected elder statesman to lead an enquiry into renewing British democracy and the constitutional settlement
Make a speech proposing a significant constitutional reform
Completely forget to even mention it to said elder statesman and thus undermine his whole efforts.

Well done Dave. You impress me less and less every day.

Mr Clarke said the Tory leader would find it difficult to find lawyers who would agree with his plan to replace the Human Rights Act with the new Bill.

Despite heading a Tory task force on constitutional issues, Mr Clarke said he was not forewarned about the plans.

Not the best of plans methinks. In fact, given that the speech itself was completely half baked, I'm given to drawing the conclusion that he didn't think this one through very well at all.

Mr Clarke said: "In these home affairs things I think occasionally it's the duty of politicians on both sides to turn round to the tabloids and right-wing newspapers and say 'you have your facts wrong and you're whipping up facts which are inaccurate'."

Said they should have elected him leader. We're screwed, arent' we? To get rid of Blair's New Labour, we need to get people to vote Tory. How can we do that when Dave just hasn't got a clue and plays to the gallery?

Technorati tags: Cameron, Ken Clarke, Bill of Rights, Human Rights Act, HRA

Charle Clarke: Blair's Howe?

2006-06-27T22:22:00.000+01:00

Hmm. Just finished listening to Charles Clarke on On the Ropes (again) - always worth a listen anyway, but this one had added comedy value. From the BBC coverage, David Davis said Mr Clarke's comments were a Blairite version of Sir Geoffrey Howe's attack on Margaret Thatcher in 1990, something that Simon predicted nine months ago. Also, I really like this comedy quote:

Education Minister Jim Knight said ex-ministers "bitching" about Mr Blair were doing Labour "no favours".

Well no Mr Knight, they're not, but then, neither is tired Tony.

Are we getting there d'you think? Is Simon right, is this the beginning of the end?

Addenda

:Is it possible this was timed to minimise the damage instead?

Technorati tags: Charles Clarke, NuLab, Blair, Leadership

Dave's Speech, a Bill of Rights?

2006-06-26T22:59:00.000+01:00

Ok, I'm swamped at work, and Dave goes and makes a speech promising some radical reform. Except that, well, he seems to have fluffed it. I've been trawling around; does anyone have anything good to say about it? Blogsearch gives me nothing. Best I've found is Liadnan at NM's:

I am, nevertheless, hopeful, that this could turn into serious thinking on constitutional matters in general. I see it as a major problem with this Government's reforms that they have been piecemeal and incoherent.

It appears to me it's miss informed posturing and playing to the gallery. Obsolete has an excellent summary of the principle objections. Of course, a decent, enforcable Bill of Rights would require a new constitutional settlement. Something I'm wholeheartedly in favour of. With both Brown and Dave posturing on the issue, and the LibDems completely committed to such an endeavour, is it possible that the parties may start competing on who can do the best job of fixing the constitution?

I'd love to think so. Odds? Hmm. "This is your captain speaking, we do apologise for the turbulence, this was caused by a flock of pigs getting caught in the engines..."

If anyone does find someone that both knows what they're talking about and thinks Dave is on the right lines, throw me a link?

Technorati tags: Cameron, LEadership, Reform, Consitution, Bill of Rights, Human Rights Act, HRA

LabourHome - economic illiteracy and a strange type of liberalism?

2006-06-24T14:17:00.000+01:00

Well, Alex has finally got it working. Labour Home is launched, to compete with Conservative Home and Liberal Review. It looks ok, and it's something I thought was lacking awhileback (even mentioned it's lack in a thread at B4L). He's also got a team of writers lined up. Shame that one of them seems to have both a poor grasp of economics and a very weird definition of liberalism. Ben Furber:

My point is that Liberalism means that liberals trust the state and trust that economists (in other words people with more knowledge than me), know how to spend money better than the average Joe.

No Ben, no, that's not what liberalism means. Liberalism means that you don't trust the state, you don't trust the centre. Liberalism is about making your own decisions, and empowering others to make their own decisions as well. Campbell-Bannerman:

"I should say it means the acknowledgment in practical life of the truth that men are best governed who govern themselves; that the general sense of mankind, if left alone, will make for righteousness; that artificial privileges and restraints upon freedom, so far as they are not required in the interests of the community, are hurtful; and that the laws, while, of course, they cannot equalise conditions, can at least avoid aggravating inequalities, and ought to have for their object the securing to every man the best chance he can have of a good and useful life."

JS Mill argued for a small state, for individual freedoms, for personal responsibility and for workers co-operatives. That's what liberalism is about. Not big state nannying; that's corporatist centralism, the very antithesis of a liberal agenda.

Of course, he's talking about the LibDem tax cutting plans; what he, and of course, most others, seem to miss, is that a 2% cut in income tax nationally would be combined with local income tax, which would be avaraged at about 3%. Looks like an increase in income tax to me. Given it would replace Council Tax, that sounds like a fair plan.

Nice site idea, here's hoping that it can concentrate on what Labour (in all it's various shades) is for rather than simply launching ill-informed partisan attacks.

Technorati tags: Labour Home, NuLab, LibDems, parties, liberalism, blogging

Bob Neill: Bromley Tory may have lied?

2006-06-23T21:08:00.000+01:00

It appears that Dave's bloke for Bromley may have a bit of a problem. Appears he may have lied on his nomination form. Appears that one of his many jobs invalidates him from standing for election. Electoral law of this detail not my forté, anyone know more?

Technorati tagsearch: Bob Neill, Bromley, by-election, parties, conservatives

Austin Mitchell: A New Labour sense of purpose

2006-06-22T19:57:00.000+01:00

Austin Mitchell MP:

News Flash. Now government is being turned into a front organisation for The Sun implementing Rupert's policies, principles and economics, three new initiatives are to be announced to show that New Labour has, after all, a sense of purpose.

One. Following John Major's exciting Cones Hot Line, the Judges' Hot Line with call points in every court will allow consumers and observers of judicial softness to register their complaints, have sentences doubled and judges chastised.

Two. The extension of Pay and Display to all graveyards will provide an extra source of revenue for local government. Private contractors will be authorised to dig up and impound stiffs that fail to display and overstayers.

Three. The names and addresses of all convicted paedophiles in each ward will be automatically provided for a fee to all parents, vigilante groups and branches of the National Front. Paedophiles will be identified by a large yellow phallus sewn on all clothing. Stocks and ducking stools will be made available by the private sector for their treatment on PFI contracts.

All three policies will be registered with the new Policy Patenting Bureau to prevent political larceny by the Conservatives.

It is wrong that it sounds almost believable, right? I'm not deluding myself?

Technorati tagsearch: parties, Austin Mitchell, NuLab, Rupert Murdoch

Working late, yup, in the office, I just love the summer...

Decline in "traditional family values"? Blame the "normals"

2006-06-21T00:04:00.000+01:00

Bookdrunk has been reading some official statistics:

Those who choose the religious practice of marriage are in a clear minority, even though discussion of marriage in the media is dominated by Christian ideals.

People aren't getting married, and when they do, they're not getting married in religious ceremonies. People are increasingly living in single households (sound familiar? does to me) or with their parents. I particularly liked this comment:

I also enjoy how marriage can be both the natural bedrock of culture throughout time and still fragile enough to be destroyed by the occasional lesbian wedding.

Go read, it's worth it

Technorati tags: marriage

Shrink the state for better planning law

2006-06-20T22:33:00.000+01:00

Chris at Strange Stuff:

Where the power to control these decisions lying with the borough then the people of the borough would have a far greater importance in the decision making process. A single voter is of far greater importance at a local level where each individual makes up such a larger percentage of the total vote, and the money that large organisations can funnel into campaign funds to bribe politicians is no longer such a powerful weapon. Politicians do not need the massive amounts of money for mass advertising to reach a mass audience when operating at a scale where they can go around to each potential voter and personally try and persuade them.

Linked to my previous post on planning, far too many planning decisions are taken at the national level. In 1997, I took a new job as deputy manager of my then employers Exeter branch, and moved back to Devon from Salisbury. On my first day in the new job, it was announced that the owners of the shopping precinct we were in (Princesshay) had announced plans to bulldoze the place and redevelope, as it was, essentially, a rather ugly waste of space. I worked there. It was. There were those locally who objected the plans. It got appealed. It went all the way to Westminster. John Prescott made a decision. He said no. So it got redone. And redone again. Eventually, the developers got a plan that John liked, and the work started. Last year. EIGHT YEARS LATER.

Decentralise, make local councils, accountable to local people, make the decisions. Westminster should have nothing to do with local building projects and their rejection or approval. What, exactly, does the MP for Hull know about Exeter needs? Maybe a bit, but I guarantee it's not as much as Exeter City Councillors or Devon County.

Localise please.

Technorati tags: Planning, localism, centralism

Quality Towns? Anyone know much?

2006-06-19T21:48:00.000+01:00

A friend of mine is involved in an anti-phone mast campaign, and discovered that one of his neighbours, as a local councillor, isn't allowed to get involved in said campaign due to Our John's Local Government Act 2000 and that wonderful Standards Board. He asks:

Apparently Edenbridge is the first town in Kent to be made a Quality Town, or have a Quality Town/Parish Council.

I was curious, so I looked it up...
Has anyone else heard of or experienced this scheme in their local town/village/parish?

I hadn't up until now (Torbay is, currently just a unitary), so wondered, before he spends time digging all over the place, if there's anyone out there that can provide more info?

It does look like another of those centralising, you've ticked all the boxes so we'll be nice, targets schemes, on first impression, anyway.

Technorati tags: Phone masts, DEFRA, Quality Town, Kent, Edenbridge

Blair: Markets are a bad thing

2006-06-19T21:17:00.000+01:00

Look at what the populist is up to now:

Football players' wages are ridiculous, Tony Blair has said, as he became the latest armchair football fan to air his views on England's World Cup line-up.

Yes Tony, they are, but not because they demand too much, nor because they are in some way undeserving. It's because people keep buying their 'product'. Think "your" team pays its players too much? Stop buying the merchandise. Stop paying Sky the subscription fees for the sports package. Stop watching the matches that the sponsors pay so much for.

Think footballers should be paid wages closer to your level? Support local teams, support small clubs. The Premier league pays its players a fortune because the customers keep coming back. That's it.

Following a football team as "yours" is an irrational instinct. Especially in the big leagues. But complaining the players are paid too much? It's you who's giving them the money.

Me? Pah. No thanks. 22 grown men on a field chasing an inflated ball of leather? This interests me why?

The prime minister attacked football stars' pay rises but said there was nothing he could do as capping them would only send players overseas.

Well, yes Tony. That's how markets work. If you genuinely wanted to do something, you could persuade people to switch their attention to smaller, more local teams, and rebuild league and conference football to a level where everyone's got a local team they can be proud of. You use tax breaks and encouragements elsewhere in teh economy, right? You're not going to though, are you. No, you just want an easy headline.

Technorati tags: Blair, NuLab, Football, market economics

Marriage revisited: reform, retain or replace?

2006-06-19T01:00:00.000+01:00

Ahileback, I posted on marriage and the Law Commissions proposals. The Pedant-General in Ordinary made a few comments that challenged my views. I typed a reply, but Blogger kept eating it, so I saved it meaning to get back to it. I forgot. So, rather than post it now, given his was a good comment, I thought I'd put the debate back on the front page.

Exactly what is wrong with marriage as traditionally defined, such that it is not the answer?

The large number of people having kids and living outside of it should answer that one. Marriage, it seems, has an image problem. It's too associated with religion, and costs are high at beginning and end. If marriage is to be the norm, it must be seen as relevent. Currently, it's not, to a large number of people.

Kids are for life, not just for Christmas.

Oh, right. I'm 31, my parents happen to still be together. If they'd split up, say, ten years ago, would I be any worse off now? Kids are for 18 years, after that, they're adults. If I thought my parents weren't happy together now, to find they were still together for my sake, after I've moved out completely? No thanks. In addition, I'm personally in contact with a few relationships which have arrangements designed around the children, but aren't themselves monogamous marriage. "split houses" and similar; it can work, well, and is much better than divorce &c.

I'd rather see two people commit to raising kids properly, but not necessarily live together the whole time, than see two people try to stay together and divorce while the kids are still kids.

not if you are going to have - or risk having - children. The purpose of marriage is to bring forward and expose the protagonists to the reality and seriousness of the commitment BEFORE children appear on the scene.

Maybe. Maybe it was, maybe it is, maybe it should be. But many many people don't think that way. Maybe that's a bad thing, maybe society is adapting and evolving to a new perspective. Maybe the desire to "protect marriage" is preventing the desire to reform it in such a way as it's perceived as relevent to people planning to, or accidentally managing to have, kids.

That successive governments have done their level best to undermine marriage as an institution - an error to which we can pin much of the breakdown of social order in general - is a damning indictment of government, not of the institution of marriage.

Maybe. But, y'see, that horse has already bolted. Divorce Act was passed way before I was born. Given that, effectively, the battle is lost, marriage (or something else), needs to be made relevent again.

Personally, redefining it, stating the objectives, removing the religious element; that's a pile of sensible objectives.

Giving couples expecting kids a half way house that they can sign up to quickly, establishing legal rights and responsibilities to the kids (not each other necessarily) would be a good thing.

That's what I think. But I'm old-fashioned like that.

I'm not. I'm a reformist. If it's stopped working (which it has), fix it. If it's possible to fix it by returning to exactly what was, great. But in this case, I don't think it is.

To clarify; I'm not opposed to marriage, but I know from experience that increasingly people are not inclined to marry, even if they have kids. Given the legal rights non-married fathers have (ie, very few), that's something I plan to avoid if I ever have any. But I don't, personally, like the connotations of marriage in it's traditional sense. I'd rather a contract of some sorts that set out permanent rights and responsibilities (ie to kids and their financial support), but also did not require a permanent commitment to the partner. Supporting kids is one thing, continuing a doomed relationship is another.

Anyone else have strong views on the subject? Is marriage something that Govts and sociey shoudl return to as the norm, is it completely unnecessary, or should a middle ground be found? If so, is my proposal something you could relate to?

Technorati tags: marriage, partnerships, reform

Party funding: democracy versus centralism

2006-06-18T21:18:00.000+01:00

Well, party funding is in the news again. Apparently, the leader of the House of Commons "has called for a permanent cap on the amount political parties are allowed to spend". Hmmm. Good, I think. Or maybe not. At what point do you control things? Mandatory spending limits? Not very, well, liberal, is it? Except that, well, I've called for such limits before. Most certainly, they can't be along the lines that "The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have proposed an upper limit of about £50,000". So, if you have a huge fundraising drive, and manage to persuade everyone in the coutnry to give you, say £5, you still can't spend it all? What do you do with the rest, bank it?

No. As Tristan observes in the comments to the above post:

We do need totally open funding of parties, but it should always be up to the individual to choose whether they give money to a party and it should be given directly, not through taxation.

Perhaps the threshold of disclosure should be lowered and all loans and their terms disclosed.

How about: Parties can only spend money that they've declared as having raised, from declared sources. Any member contribution of over, say, £50(?) per year must be openly recorded (and perhaps such donation could be tax-deductible, would beat state funding), no loans except on an openly reported commercial basis.

Parties that can't raise the money from a broad base of member support aren't, by nature, broad based political parties. The problem is, as Rawnsley observes in today's Observer:

The message from the leaders to their members is that they can't be trusted. Tony Blair has always been frightened that the Labour party might suddenly go berserk on him. David Cameron doesn't trust Tory members to get with his modernisation programme, so he has to hand down to his associations a centrally selected A-list of parliamentary candidates.

There's a lot of other good stuff in there (must remember to read more of his stuff, I really like his Radio 4 spots). Essentially, party democracy, and party involvement, are essential if people are to remain engaged. The Lib Dems, to their credit, allow members very strong involvement; in fact, "allow" isn't the right word, I think they rely on it, the party wouldn't exist without member involvement and OMOV on pretty much everything. Cameron's push towards primaries strikes me as a strange move, for two reasons

The American model of democracy is deeply flawed, and worse in many ways than ours; personality politics doesn't engage, it cheapens.
It devalues party membership, why join (and donate) if you can have a vote (by texst message?) anyway?

Of course, the biggest flaw in British politics is (currently) the flawed, choice denying, electoral system. But next up is party managerialism: centralism, control freakery, leader worship. Rawnsley again:

For long-serving governments, especially those with a very dominant leader, it is a particular hazard that the party will be hollowed out. Asquith and Lloyd George, the two great Liberal Prime Ministers, effectively destroyed their party. Margaret Thatcher's reign was marvellous electorally for the Tories, but it was ruinous for the Conservatives as an organisation. As is the way with messianic leaders, she came to believe that Tory success was down to her magic rapport with the people. The party owed the leader, not the other way round, for her three election victories. So she believed, as surely so does Tony Blair.

If funding becomes centralised, going directly from the state to the party machines, then party loyalty becomes more and more important. As Chris observed back when we last discussed it:

it is independence of view that is important in politics, not robots following the party line.

Without a plurality of views opinions all you get is an echo chamber with everybody reinforcing each others mistakes. The best ideas can never be found if it is not even put forward for debate.

IF we're to have state support for parties (and that's a BIG if), then it has to be on the POWER model, giving funds to local parties based on local voters ticking boxes for the party they want tos ee get the money. I'd rather parties sorted themselves out, re-engaged with voters, and rebuilt broad membership bases.

Centralised state handouts will damage democracy and further devalue debate. Reject them completely.

Technorati tags: Party funding, campaign finance, reform, Power enquiry, parties

Britblog Roundup #70

2006-06-18T17:29:00.000+01:00

Right, Tim's away this week, so the weekly Best of British is (finally) up at the public schoolboy's place. It's not finished at time of writing, but there looks to be some good stuff. As always, if'n you see anything really good over the next week, on any British blog, email britblog at gmail dot com with a link. You know you want to...

Technorati tags: Britblog, blogging

Goodsearch & Political Theory Daily Review

2006-06-17T15:02:00.000+01:00

Via James, I've finally got around to setting a new homepage for my browser: Political Theory Daily Review. Let's face it, having your PC load up a search engine bar on start up is a bit pointless if your browser has multiple engines built in anyway. Talking of search engines, via Samizdata, I found Goodsearch last night, interesting experiment, you search, they give a small amount to charity. Powered by Yahoo!, it has a Firefox plugin, so now when I do comparative searches I can give money to Mozilla from Google and money to charity from Yahoo!. Current choice is Amnesty, subject to change, naturally.

Technorati tags: News, blogging, Firefox, Google, Yahoo!, Goodsearch

British Pride in a liberal nation?

2006-06-16T00:49:00.000+01:00

How could I resist linking to this? Jonn Elledge:

conspicuous displays of British patriotism are most likely to come from boozed up sports fans and UKIP politicians. Perhaps this is the biggest challenge to liberal patriotism: our national icons have been hijacked by the right ... None of those things of which Britons are supposed to be proud relate to my experience of this country. John Major’s warm beer on the village cricket green sounds suspiciously like a world that vanished decades before I got round to being born ... I’m not saying that there isn’t much in Britain’s history to be ashamed of: Suez, Dresden, and the fact we unleashed both the concentration camp and Jim Davidson on an unsuspecting world, to name but four.

He goes on to list a few of the things that he is proud of. As a flag waving liberal socialist, I guess I ought to contribute a few ideas as well. How about...

The BBC - despite its flaws, the Beeb remains a great institution, a fine example of (mostly) impartial(ish) news coverage that is beholded to no advertising vested interests and isn't cowed (directly) by the Govt. It also gave us Doctor Who, need I say more?
A history of radicalism - From the Levellers through to the Chartists, the Tolpuddle martyrs and the Greenham Common campaigners, Brits have never been afraid to stand up for what they believe in, regardless of the Govt. We may disagree with them, but the Brian Haws and Maya Evans of this world are part of what makes this country what it is
Acceptance of evolutionary change - There's no great plan to Britain, no founding document, no "manifest destiny" hyperbole. We just get on with it. If it works, we keep going, if it doesn't, we (eventually) fix it. We've come close to revolution a few times, but since 1707, Britain hasn't actually had a radical change of Govt, just many, many gradual improvements to the way we're governed. It may sometimes take awhile for Parliament to catch up, but it gets there, eventually.
Parliamentary Democracy - none of this separation of powers, all power to an elected executive claptrap that some new democracies go for; Parliament allows for a pluralist system, and one that does keep the executive in check in a mcuh more effective way than any President with an independent mandate can manage. That the electoral system creates minority Govts with overwhelming support in the House is a different issue
Science Fiction - think about it. Arthur C Clarke, H G Wells, Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, China Miéville. Brits, all of them. Sure, other countries have decent sci-fi, but Wells started it all, and Clarke led the hard science way. Geostationary communications satellites? Online newspapers? Yup, our ideas
The World Wide Web - The Yanks may have created the Internet, and Gore may have pushed the enabling legislation through Congress, but it took a Brit to make it actually usable to the avarage non-techie. And his initial browser assumed user generated content, so we can claim Web 2.0 as well, all at the same time!
Dissident thought and socialism - seriously, while authoritarian centralists may have hijacked the ideals and created statist monstrosities, the analysis of alienation and the need to give power to the working man were valid concerns. We let Marx into the country, alongside many other political exiles. That we've a proud traditition of allowing dissidents to speak freely is something I find enlightening, even if, at times, they are crackpot loons
English - a language with no effective rules, a mess of a grammar structure, a mongrel hybrid that picks up words from everywhere, constantly. Theoretically, it's one of the hardest to learn, reality is, it's the global language of commerce, and some of us make a living of the worlds desire to learn to speak it better. We've never felt the need to codify it, and find, for example, the French desire to 'protect' their language somewhat quaint. Although, let's face it, we do wish the Americans would get it right. Al-Yoo-MIN-EE-um. It's not hard.
Philosophy - OK, we can't claim to have really created it, but what would modern thought be without John Locke, Isaac Newton, JS Mill, Thomas Hobbes, Adam Smith et al?

OK, enough. I admit some of the above are daft, but then, Jonn lists Doctor Who; can't argue with him on that one either. The comments to the post are worth it; Greenwich Mean Time, Darwin, Blackadder, the Roundheads and the Bill of Rights.

None of this mythical "thousand years" claptrap, no false appeals to "king and country" or "faith, flag and family" - let's be proud of what has made this country great; the people, in all their eccentricities, with all their disparate backgrounds, from all corners of the world. The British Isles are the original melting pot, from pre-Roman times onwards people have come here and added to the place. That's what makes me proud to be British; we just get on with it.

Technorati tags: Britain, patriotism, liberal Britain

Lib Dems and the Internet (again)

2006-06-15T01:50:00.000+01:00

The times, they are a changin'. Awhileback, I reviewed the campaign sites for the LibDem leadership contenders. Like in the election itself, Ming Campbell won. Well, he's taking that impetus further. Two specific areas. Firstly, he's been interviewed by some prominent Lib Dem bloggers, each of whom has written up their meeting with him in a different style. Secondly? He's gone and got himself a proper blog:

We will utilise the unlimited potential of the internet: two thirds of Britons have the internet but only 60% of them vote. We will build up a supporters’ network from the millions who vote for us. They will be consulted on policy, brought into campaigns and asked to contribute their ideas. We will connect our Party directly with those who vote for us.

Powered via Wordpress, it is, like Boris' site, a collection of his speeches, articles, etc combined with news releases and events. It's allowing comments, and trackbacks. He's not running it himself (appears that Martin and Will are involved in some way; guys?), but it's showing a genuine commitment to engage with the voters directly using modern technology. The main party website has had a bit of a revamp and more is promised, and the supporters network idea looks interesting (nothing from it yet, but it's early days).

Of course, opposition parties have a much greater incentive to improve their competiveness and communication abilities, the Conservative website looks very good these days, and I'm sincerely hoping that Liberal Review can do a similar (no, better) job than Conservative Home.

Really must get around to finishing off my usability articles for political sites. Maybe after the summer is done. Of course, given the way Labour is lagging behind on this (a World Cup blog by Campbell? Please...), healthy opposition engagement, regardless of party, is a good thing. May the best ideas win...

Technorati tags: Ming Campbell, Leadership, LibDems, Political Weblog Project, blogging

Finishing your sentences

2006-06-14T18:17:00.000+01:00

This whole mess is actually over something quite simple, so here we go:

Life means life.

Now let's be clear about this, I'm not talking about changing sentences, I'm not talking about increasing sentences, and I'm not talking about how awful our legal system is or isn't or anything like that. All I'm asking for is for criminals to get given a sentence, and then actually serve it.

Simple eh? Don't call it life it is isn't going to be life. And if that means that we give murderers ten years not life, that's ok, because at least they get what they're given. If that means that we then have to decide whether we're ok with the idea of giving murderers only ten years in jail, that's fine, but let's get to that bridge later, right?

What we really don't need is someone getting life, but being told they might be out in five years. Probably won't, but might. It doesn't send a clear message at all - even though they may never leave prison, everyone else thinks they'll be out in five. That doesn't help, it really doesn't.

Whether or not our legal system is a complete mess or not, is absolutely not the issue here. The issue is as simple as saying one thing when we mean another. Get that sorted first, and a very large problem is solved overnight. Thing is, once this mess is out of the way, you can get to the heart of the sentencing debate and start to look at the really important issues like mandatory minimum sentences and what we should really be doing with dangerous repeat offenders.

It's only a small step, but boy, what a necessary one.

Technorati tagsearch: reform, civil liberties

The Future of Europe

2006-06-13T01:40:00.000+01:00

Via new blog Escalate, I'm pointed towards a speech given last week on the future of the European Union. Given by

a firm believer that Britain's place is in the European Union ... someone who wants the European Union to succeed

it contains much that I agree with completely. I have some reservations, some disagreements, but overall, it's a very positive approach that identifies the key failings of Blair's EU policy and also sets a strong direction for where to go next. Some highlights:

On the future of "ever closer union"

Europe is at a crisis point. The assumptions of the last fifty years no longer hold true. Where once the priority for Europe was political harmony it must now be economic dynamism, and here ... Britain is well placed to lead and challenge some orthodoxies of recent decades that are now so clearly failing. We must replace the habits of heavy regulation and rigidity with freedom and flexibility. The attempt to create an ever more politically united Europe was a response to the problems of the twentieth century. Now it is time to advocate a Europe of decentralisation and diversity in the spirit of the twenty first century.

On Blair's failure

In 2000 Tony Blair said that Europe did not need a Constitution. In 2002 he said: 'we do need a proper Constitution for Europe'. By 2003 Peter Hain was saying it was just a 'tidying up exercise', and not important enough for a referendum. But later that year Tony Blair said that holding a referendum would be 'a gross and irresponsible betrayal of the true British national interest' – in other words it was too important. Despite that he was soon in favour of exactly such a referendum - 'to resolve once and for all' where Britain stood in Europe, but the French voted no. This vital mission went the way of every previous statement on this subject. Seven different policies in five years, and all of them based on evasion rather than vision.

I fear this Labour Government is going to repeat the mistake it made when the Constitution first appeared on the agenda. It has no vision for the EU. It therefore reacts rather than proposes

On Britain in the EU

I am a firm believer that Britain's place is in the European Union, a strong player in Europe, not at the margins. But that does not mean that we should abandon our critical faculties in examining the EU's predicament.

We need a realistic assessment of the EU's successes and failures to decide what the EU needs to do more of and what it should stop doing.

On Enlargement

It cannot be doubted that the EU has been a major force in securing democracy and the rule of law in many countries that were new to those freedoms. We have seen the EU's effectiveness in the last quarter century in the Mediterranean, we have seen it in the new members from central and eastern Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall and we see it now in the Balkans and Turkey. Enlargement has been a triumphant success.

EU membership is a sign that you are a decent, trustworthy member of international society ... to those whose countries in the past have been regarded as corrupt or unstable it is a great goal to pursue. There is also the promise of comparative wealth – the EU requires a functioning market economy – and of new freedoms and opportunities to travel and find work.

These are powerful incentives to change one's country so that it can join the EU ... We want to see that part of the world stable, democratic, rich and peaceful. We know that offering EU membership is the best incentive to persuade countries to make the hard political decisions that mark the road to that end.

On the Single Market

The other area where the European Union has had some conspicuous success is the Single Market. The success can be described in figures - it is widely accepted that the Single Market makes a contribution to the EU's GDP of 1.8 per cent a year, worth £20 billion annually to Britain and an average increase of wealth in a European household of £3,800. But it can also be described in terms of the real difference it makes to people's lives: whether it is cheaper telephone calls, internet connections and air travel or the ability to work and travel freely across Europe. These achievements are worth cherishing and people's lives are better for them.

On 'economic patriotism'

There is talk of 'economic patriotism' and 'national champions'. We do not stop our partners' companies taking over their British counterparts, and we benefit from the infusion of investment and expertise. Yet there is too little reciprocity. The Services directive too, which could have done so much to enrich Europe's economies and make life easier for people and businesses, is only making it through in an anaemic form.

On economic decline

Europe is in the grip of a slow burning crisis. Many of Europe's economies are performing poorly and the continent is in relative economic decline ... The Lisbon agenda ... was supposed to be the answer. At the time the Prime Minister proclaims a 'sea change in European economic thinking', marked, he said by 'concrete measures with clear deadlines'. It was yet another bold Blair assertion that does not correspond in any way with any observable reality. Romano Prodi described the Lisbon agenda as a 'big failure'. He was right.

On the priorities for the future

With the right priorities the European Union can open up freedom and opportunity for our citizens, a mutual support in the age of globalisation ... This also applies to the development of the EU's structures. We need to recognise that Member States have a variety of ambitions in the European Union, political and economic. In Britain and some other countries we want the EU to do a great deal less. Others, like the Dutch, want the EU to do less in some areas and more in others while those like the Belgians see a need only for increases in the EU's power.

On the failure of the Constitution

One can argue that the French vote was in part a protest against that country's current domestic ills and a register of a fear of economic liberalisation, but the Dutch vote was a clear rejection of an EU that is too powerful, too unaccountable and too wasteful of European taxpayers' money.

Regrettably, I do not see a widespread recognition of that fact in the current debate.

On relevence

The old rigid model is out of date. The European Union must make itself relevant by giving its peoples the freedom and flexibility they need in the twenty first century.

Europe's crisis demands more than paralysis from the British Government. It requires fresh thinking and a reinvigorated approach. If the party in power is not capable of providing that it is yet another reason for a change of government.

Like I said, I disagree with some of the content (on that, a follow up post when I've time to think it through) but, overall, a very nice, constructive speech from someone who obviously both knows what they're talking about and is staking a claim as a pro-European. So, what's the problem?

William Hague. Can it possibly be true? Have the Tories really woken up and decided to make a positive case for a reformed, decentralised EU? Has Mr "24 hours to save the pound" Hague finally decided to try and win the case for membership domestically and for reform at Brussels? Looks like it.

Mr Morningstar sir? About that central heating contract...

Technorati tagsearch: europe, constitution, parties, William Hague, Conservatives

Incredulity

2006-06-11T09:38:00.000+01:00

Ok, I've not posted for a while, but seriously, get a load of this.

In the frankly deranged mind of Guantanamo Camp Commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris, the suicide of three Guantanamo inmates is not a tragic loss, or indeed the result of years of legally unsound imprisonment. It is, in fact, an act of Asymmetrical Warfare against the United States.

Well, there you have it. I mean, how do you win a war against a enemy who kill themselves before you get the chance? Frankly I reckon the US might as well throw in the towel right now...

Yes, ok, if we're talking power relations in a Foucaldian sense then you could suggest that the prisoners have used their only real power over the guards (the power to kill themselves) as a final act of defiance against the decadent West. Or you could use a bit of perspective and look at the conditions these people have been kept in for however many years and the awful sense of uselessness that must invoke, and see any suicide or attempted suicide as simply an act of desperation against boredom, fear, uncertainty and oppression.

But anyway, back to the stupidity - let me suggest a new slogan for the war on terror - Kill all the terrorists, before the evil bastards kill themselves!

Technorati tagsearch: freedom, guantanamo

Political advertising and subversive humour

2006-06-10T16:24:00.000+01:00

I've never liked negative campaigns. The demonisation of the opponents, the personal attacks, etc. I prefer to see debates on the issues, genuine engagement, open discussion. Of course, that's not to say that negative posters, etc don't have a place, but the over-emphasis of them in recent years has, to my mind, been part of the degradation of political discourse that has lead to the widespread apathy that we're all aware of.

Sometimes, however, there's a point to it all. Sometimes, it's nasty, vituperative and yet still downright funny. In this case, Iain Dale reads B3ta, so poor dial up users like me can get the good bits.

There's another good one, found by the reboubtable Jack Thomas, but it's a rather large animation that doesn't compress well, it's definately worth a look though. There is, however, a slightly more serious point to be made here, the excellent Liberal Review takes on board this (actually reasonably good) advice on rebuilding your local Party association on Conservative Home and finds a point of disagreement:

Vote Blue, Glow Green

Like I've said before, my utter horror at the idea of Nuclear Power has lessened into a "not sold, we've got to cut emmissions somehow but..." perspective, but when Cameron is trying to sell his environmentalism, not sure promoting visits to Nuclear power plants is the best way to build up the party membership...

All the above images are small versions, Blogger uploaded larger versions (click on them), or follow the links to the originals...
- Mat

Technorati tagsearch: adverts, humour, parties, libdems, NuLab, conservatives

Open letter to Tony Blair - Tim Ireland

2006-06-09T00:03:00.000+01:00

Tim Ireland:

I am coming for you, and I will not stop.

Your time is up, your goodwill is shot to hell, and your plans for further reform are doomed to failure.

Further; the longer you hang on, the easier it will be for me to tie your political heirs to your poisoned legacy.

I will soon be coming for them, and I will not stop.

This is not a vendetta... it is a necessity; I simply cannot allow those in power to continue to cynically exploit the threat of terrorism for political and financial gain.

As your staff have read Bloggerheads, they will no doubt be aware of my clear position on violence... so they will know that I mean you no physical harm, even when I say the following:

I plan to pursue you to the end of your political career and beyond. Further, I have taken a solemn vow to one day piss on your grave. You lying, torturing, murdering bastard.

Cheers

Tim Ireland

It won't surprise any of our regular reasons to learn I pretty much endorse Tim's campaign 100%.

Blogger's playing up and not even letting me post comments. I'm swamped at work. Paul's got a new job and is busy. Updates may be sparse. Bear with us, we'll be back up to speed as and when...

Technorati tagsearch: parties, NuLab, Tony Blair

Khamenei: Nukes are against islam

2006-06-05T21:23:00.000+01:00

From a speech by Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei of Iran on Sunday, transposed in full by Juan Cole:

We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules.

That's right. The supreme leader of Islam in Iran says that using Nuclear weapons is against Islam. Yet what are our governments doing? Sabre rattling.

Garry Smith:

The Islamic republic, for all its many abuses, has never started a war and their Supreme leader yesterday said that they never will. He also said that the use of nuclear weapons is un-Islamic and it's probably fair to say that the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran takes his religion really rather seriously.

These facts do not sit well with the narrative currently being constructed by the US and UK governments. Perhaps journalists would be better employed reporting the salient facts rather than using selective reporting to amplify and enhance the dubious pronouncements of government.

I'm not a fan od the Iranian regime. It has a dubious democracy, dodgy attitudes to rights, and relies on a theocracy for its legitimacy; this liberal atheist is always worried when political leaders justify a position via a belief in any god. That's Mr Bush, Mr Blair and most of the Iranian leadership all lumped together then.

Advantage of blogging; we can cut through the media spin and find the truth. When such a truth is found, we should spread the word. Didn't plan on writing about Iran much, still don't mean to. But sometimes, something needs to be given great publicity. Back to Khatemai:

"You speak about human rights. You speak about being against terrorism. How the hell can an administration that has Guantanamo Prison and Abu-Ghurayb Prison and crimes like the Haditha crime and the recent crime in Kabul and dozens and hundreds of other such things on its record dare to speak about human rights?

What was it Boris was saying the other day? They're using our own actions against us now?

Wonderful.

Technorati tags: Khamenei, Iran, Nuclear Weapons, Islam

Cameron's Clause IV: Electoral Reform?

2006-06-05T20:26:00.000+01:00

Robert Philpot (via):

Bale's solution is simple: the Tories should come out in favour of PR. As he correctly argues, the Conservatives' hitherto staunch defence of the current electoral system rests on a mix of "parochialism, idealism and self-interest". Indeed, the principal attraction of First Past the Post for the Tories is that throughout the 20th century it more often than not delivered majority Conservative governments. With the exception of 1945 and 1966, the Conservatives were clear beneficiaries from the current electoral system at every post-war general election, up to and including John Major's victory in 1992.

What's now clear, however, is that political, socio-economic and demographic change has made First Past the Post a much less reliable friend of the Tory party than it once was: at each of the last three elections it left them badly under-represented. Last year, for instance, the Conservatives held a 50,000-vote lead over Labour in England, but still ended up 92 seats behind them.

As the Conservatives are no doubt aware, First Past the Post will require them to substantially outpoll Labour in order to achieve relatively modest goals at the next election.

[snip]
One further political consideration should impress Cameron. As an analysis of the 2005 general election by Conservative Action on Electoral Reform (CAER) indicates, a more proportional electoral system would see the Tories losing some seats where they are currently over-represented (Surrey, Berkshire, and Hampshire, for instance), while gaining seats in not only Scotland and Wales, but also just the kind of northern and urban areas - like Merseyside, Greater Manchester and Tyne and Wear- that Cameron appears so keen to boost the Tory presence in. And, as CAER notes, "there are still plenty of Conservatives in the big cities, just a shortage of Conservative MPs to represent them".

But Cameron does not have the luxury of a great deal of time to consider his options. After all, who would seriously wager a bet that, as he thinks ahead, the current occupant of No 11 Downing Street may not already be considering that a new pledge to honour Labour's commitment on PR might not be just the thing to give a fillip to his fledgling "progressive consensus"?

The Tories, by any sane analysis, need electoral reform just as much as the nation does.

Dave? Are you listening Dave? It's a really good idea Dave.

Technorati tags: PR, electoral reform, STV, Conservatives, Cameron, reform

Britblog Roundup # 68

2006-06-05T01:09:00.000+01:00

Yup, it's up again. A regular reader and occasional commenter here may be interested to know that this week he is the Best of British. A late announcement post from me, went to see V for Vendetta with some friends, hadn't got around to seeing it before. Really knocked into me the abuse that could be possible with some of the powers the Govt is legislating unto itself if put into the wrong hands.

Technorati tags: Britblog, blogging

The two faces of Cameronism

2006-06-04T00:12:00.000+01:00

Rob Knight:

The questison has to be asked: are there two David Cameron's, and why doesn't the nice one do something about the slimy narcissist who is ruining his reputation by impersonating him?

Everyman is losing the trust of the watchers. I want to see a sincere, liberal Tory, who really believes the stuff he's saying. What I see is Blair-lite, presentation politics with no real substance. Still, he's better than Blair.

Here's hoping Labour can sort out their leadership issues soon, so Dave gets a challenge from someone not utterly discredited and tired.

Technorati tags: Dave, David Cameron, Conservative Party, Tories, parties

Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 (US) Election Stolen?

2006-06-02T21:23:00.000+01:00

A rare US politics based post. Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?:

When ROLLING STONE confronted Blackwell about his overtly partisan attempts to subvert the election, he dismissed any such claim as ''silly on its face.'' Ohio, he insisted in a telephone interview, set a ''gold standard'' for electoral fairness. In fact, his campaign to subvert the will of the voters had begun long before Election Day. Instead of welcoming the avalanche of citizen involvement sparked by the campaign, Blackwell permitted election officials in Cleveland, Cincinnati and Toledo to conduct a massive purge of their voter rolls, summarily expunging the names of more than 300,000 voters who had failed to cast ballots in the previous two national elections.(55) In Cleveland, which went five-to-one for Kerry, nearly one in four voters were wiped from the rolls between 2000 and 2004.(56)

The whole article is four pages long, appears to be authoritative and, if true, damning. Bush didn't win the popular vote in 2000, and arguably didn't win Florida either. If this is correct, he didn't win in 2004 either, massive election fraud (and we're talking more than dodgy Diebold machines) secrued an illegitimate victory.

Update:

Rebuttals here and here (via). I suspect there likely was fraud, likely on both sides, but it's moot. The US needs to refrom its voting procedures though. Big Time.

Technorati tags: US politics, Rolling Stone, Ohio, Presidential Election 2004, Bush, Kenneth Blackwell, election fraud

Europe: Time for a multi-speed model?

2006-06-02T00:27:00.000+01:00

Europhobia: The EU - one size fits all?:

it is time ... to reject the one size fits all model. The very existence of the Eurozone proves that it can be done - and add to that the complex Venn diagram of European relations that brings in the Schengen Agreement, Council of Europe, EFTA and the like, you have the beginnings of a model that everyone could be happy with. A core Europe of Eurozone states who can happily push forward with political and economic integration whenever they please, with various decreasing intensities of membership on the periphery ... If the majority of Europe DOESN'T want political unification (which, for the forseeable future, will remain the case), why should that majority prevent the minority of countries that do want closer unification from so doing?

Pretty much agree with him here, I've never got the objection to a multi speed Europe, nor understood why France, Germany and BeNeLux can't create a federation within a greater unit if that's what they want.

Then again, the Schengen opt out for Britain still makes no sense to me whatsoever either.

Technorati tags: Europe, Constitution, Reform

Labour do not do...

2006-06-01T23:34:00.000+01:00

I don't, generally, like negative campaigning from politicians. Why should I vote for you rather than vote against the other lot. I've got lots of reasons to vote against the other lot, generally, you don't need to go on about it. And besides, I write enough about reasons to not vote for the bastards anyway, give me something positive, be for something. On the other hand...

Via Larry, who commented in this post at Iain Dale that his "one reader" is on holiday. Well, he now has two, and given the number of times his front page made me chuckle (mostly at Guido's expense)...

See, Tories are not only not evil any more, they can also do funny as well. I also liked the male modelling poster.

Technorati tagsearch: parties, funny, NuLab, conservatives

Terry Waite, Boris Johnson: Blair is letting terrorism win

2006-06-01T00:11:00.000+01:00

Terry Waite (of kidnapped and held as hostage fame) in Wednesdays Independent (not online):

I wish more people would take notice of...
The gradual and insidious restriction of personal liberties in this country as a result of the hype about terrorism. There is a tendency in this government to be reactive without thinking deeply. We're letting a lot of things slip by. If we allow that to happen, terrorism has won because it's deprived us of hard-fought liberties.

(my emphasis)

Boris Johnson:

I have been talking to Agnes Callamard, who leads a free speech charity called Article 19, and she tells me that wherever she now goes on her missions, she finds a shocking new phenomenon. She has just been to the Maldives, where the government is engaged in active repression of the press, shutting down radio stations and locking up journalists if they even carry quotations from the opposing MDP. When she remonstrated, she was told that any criticism was a bit rich coming from a British organisation, given that the British Government has just passed draconian new measures against incitement in the Terrorism Bill.

It was the same story in Nepal, where torture has been used regularly against opponents of the regime, and where there are similar restrictions on free speech. "A senior government official told us that they were only cracking down on terrorists, in the way that they do in the UK," said Callamard.

picking the exerpt to quote on that one was hard, go read the whole article; when I disagree with him, I respect Boris's writing style. When I agree with him (as in this case)? Brilliance.

It's reading Boris and similar that has led me to conclude that not all the Tories are evil bastards. That's still hard for a part of me to accept. But I'd rather have Boris in Govt than the current shower, at least he values the principles we're supposedly fighting the war on terror to defend.

Final word:

Of course these analogies are opportunistic and false, and of course there is no real comparison between Britain and Malaysia, let alone Zimbabwe. Thanks to the goodness of the editor of this paper, I can say more or less whatever I want, provided it is not too catastrophic for circulation. But what Blair fails to understand, when he promulgates this endless succession of new and ineffective Criminal Justice Bills, and when he curtails trial by jury and freedom of speech, and when he enacts all the other potential erosions of liberty that we have seen over the past nine years, is that he is handing a perfect pretext to the despots of the world.

Technorati tagsearch: Boris Johnson, freedom, civil liberties, Terry Waite, parties, NuLab, conservatives

Your Relationship And "The State"

2006-05-31T23:24:00.000+01:00

So, the Law Commission is investigating the status of marriage. Jonny Nexus:

Why? As far as I'm concerned, any relationship that I'm in is purely the business of me and the other person concerned. If we want the government to get involved in our relationship, then we will go to an office of that government (i.e. a "registry office") and formally register our relationship with the state, with all the rights, responsibilities and limitations that this implies (i.e. "marriage").

Now there might be a case for allowing an alternative type of registration for those who have a problem with the word/concept of marriage. But I really think there is a very important principle here:

The right to get married must also include the right to not get married.

Is he right? Is this just another nannying intervention to help those who refuse to help themselves (or are too stupid, and believe in that "common law marriage" myth)?

On the one hand, I utterly do not care about Melanie Phillips's "undermine marriage" objection, but on the other, I really don't like the idea that it's automatic. The whole thing brought to mined an excellent post on a similar subject by Natalie from awhileback, Why modern marriage is unrealistic, and what should replace it:

I’d suggest that instead, “marriages” should be five-year rolling contracts, to be renewed or adapted at the expiration of each period, by mutual negotiation between the parties. They might allow for periods of living apart (say if one person wants to travel for a year and the other doesn’t; they might allow for someone setting up their own space in the house to be restricted to them for a certain times … whatever works for the couple.)

The terms of what happens at the end of the period should be agreed at the start.

Personally, I much prefer this idea. Let's get the state out of regulating our personal lives, and let us determine how, and who, we want to give the legal status of "next of kin", with all that entails.

Any thoughts?

Technorati tags: marriage, partnerships, nanny state

Contact Alastair Campbell, artwork and BNP Cllr Simon Smith

2006-05-30T23:56:00.000+01:00

Three more links

Alastair Campbell on eBay in order to raise money for Backing Blair
A great bit of related artwork from Garry
A selection of quotes from Cllr Simon Smith of Sandwell.

That last is a biggie, and very well compiled as well. For those that haven't subscribed to Unity's feeds yet, do so; Livejournallers will find his syndication here. I really have to break my 'block' and try to write something for Liberty Central, so far he's done all the work.

Technorati tags: Alastair Campbell, Backing Blair, NuLab, Racism, BNP, Simon Smith, Steve Freedom

Linkdump - England and Nukes

2006-05-30T22:58:00.000+01:00

Apart from the posts I linked to yesterday, there's also a fairly good discussion going on here at the CEP newsblog, and Iain has a suggestion as to the possible boundaries for sub-England adminisitrative units here. Iain? The TV regions? No. Especially given that HTV covers most of Wales and also bits of Devon and Somerset. OK, better than the godawful treasury boundaries, but still. Constructaregion is a nice little tool for comparative analysis - personally, I'd like to live in Lyonnesse.

Also, an interesting collection of quotes culled from the New Statesman on Nuclear Power; some dodgy lefty had a habit of making a big fuss about what a bad idea it all is:

"What is unbelievably depressing about the government's response, is that they see, in the evidence about greenhouse gases, not an opportunity to promote environmental concern, but a chance to make the case for nuclear power... Having made a big issue of the greenhouse effect, it became clear that energy efficiency was the best way to deal with it, but... the government's position has been characterised by a malign reluctance to have anything to do with the notion of energy conservation."

The lefty in question? Anthony Charles Lynton Blair. As Jack puts it:

It's amazing how selling out on all the principles you once held dear and having a bunch of mates in the nuclear power business can do for your views on the world, even when everything you said about it came true. Ah Mr Blair, you care not for us, our land, the people or the earth but filling the pockets of your friends, you really are the shadow of man devoid of any moral fiber or shred of integrity.

Personally, I've gone from the "no, no way, not ever" position to the "do we have a choice, we need to cut emmissions somehow" position, but I'm not, currently, in favour. From what I understand, the concrete and transportation costs are going toemit just as much as yer typical gas or coal fired station. But, it's not my area to discuss it any further.

Technorati tags: England, Devolution, English Parliament, Constitution, Reform, Tony Blair, Nuclear Power, U-turns

English Devolution: how far?

2006-05-29T18:26:00.000+01:00

Bishop Hill has followed up on my post from Friday about the need for reform of how England is governed:

I reckon in fact that the advent of an English Parliament would be good not only for the English but also for the Celtic fringe, in that the loss of their subsidies will force them to embrace business in the way that their brethren in Ireland have done.

How then to square this with the ideas that I have put forward here and at Liberty Central (and that MatGB seems to share) for devolution of power down to the lowest practicable levels? What is the point of an English Parliament if all the power resides at community level? It's hard to think of many areas of policy which would sit naturally at an England level were this kind of constitution to be enforced

He follows up with a discussion of Bondwoman's excellent post at the Sharpener and concludes:

The answer then appears to me to be that there may in fact be no need for an English Parliament, because the constitutional imbalance can be righted and more local government delivered, without it.

This is, essentially, my position; we need to localise power. That it is, as Stuart observed in the comments, "for the English to decide how their country is governed, not the Scots, not the Welsh and not the Northern Irish" is unarguable. Where I disagree with him is his desire to see an English Parliament first. I want a Convention that will discuss how we are governed, followed by a preferendum to the people asking them how they wish to be governed. That has to be an essential cause that all reformers can agree on, regardless of what actual outcome we want, right?

I'm not closing comments on this post, but I'd like to keep them all together either here where I asked the questions or on Bishop's post here if possible? Danke.

Technorati tags: England, Devolution, English Parliament, Constitution, Reform

Mememememes

2006-05-28T22:55:00.000+01:00

I don't do memes here. Memes are done on my journal. Even when everyone else is doing them. So even though DK, P-G and Katy have all done this one, I've done it elsewhere instead.

Technorati tagsearch: blogging, memes

Britblog Roundup # 67

2006-05-28T15:57:00.000+01:00

The weekly best of British is up at Tim's.

Technorati tags: Britblog, blogging

Total Obedience Bill 2006

2006-05-27T00:46:00.000+01:00

This is brilliant:

As part of the Total Obedience Bill 2006, the new Home Secretary, 'Dr' John Reid, will be given a shiny leather jacket and sweeping powers to ride around on a Harley Davidson motorbike brandishing a shotgun to deal with any would-be miscreants. Complaints from civil servants will also be dealt with swiftly.

It's not all roses in the Number 10 garden though. Earlier this week, Cherie Blair and Alistair Campbell caused howls of indifference when they auctioned the head of veteran peace campaigner Brian Haw at a Labour party fundraiser. The head, which was still warm, had been autographed by Mrs Blair, Mr Campbell and Bono from U2, and was said to have fetched in the region of �400. Not even enough for a decent haircut but every little helps.

Go read, it's worth it...

Technorati tags: Humour, NuLab, John Reid, Tony Blair

This Royal Throne of Kings has a problem

2006-05-26T22:39:00.000+01:00

Was just prompted by a friend to pick up my copy of the Complete Works, hadn't looked at it for a few years. I was looking for Macbeth, but there was a page marked. Most certainly not a bookmark, just an envelope addressed to my address before last, keeping a page for reference. Which page?
Richard II:

John of Gaunt:
Methinks I am a prophet new inspired
And thus expiring do foretell of him:
His rash fierce blaze of riot cannot last,
For violent fires soon burn out themselves;
Small showers last long, but sudden storms are short;
He tires betimes that spurs too fast betimes;
With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder:
Light vanity, insatiate cormorant,
Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.
This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England,
This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings,
Fear'd by their breed and famous by their birth,
Renowned for their deeds as far from home,
For Christian service and true chivalry,
As is the sepulchre in stubborn Jewry,
Of the world's ransom, blessed Mary's Son,
This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out, I die pronouncing it,
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea
Whose rocky shore beats back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.
Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,
How happy then were my ensuing death!

So, England has a problem that needs solving. It's come up (again) in the comments on the previous post, so I thought I'd open a question for debate.

Squaring the circle. How do you bring power as close as possible to the people, recognise the existence of England as a unit, and ensure that a Parliament of 80% of the population does not destabilise or undermine the British parliament?

How is the need to take power away from the centre helped by creating a new administrative unit that is as big as England? How does this improve the way I am governed?

I ask this in the attempt to have a reasoned debate - can "nationalism" be removed from this discussion? Does "England", in and of itself, matter? England is nearly as big as Britain. If Britain is to continue to exist as an administrative unit, what will the England govt do? I've said before that a medium term objective of all disparate reformers has to be a constitutional convention, and in that, nothing can be ruled out or ruled in. I'm convinced that a Parliament for England is an irrelevence for as long as Britain exists, too distant and remote.

However, can we devolve power from the center into units big enough to be effective but local enough to be responsive? And can such a system also include an "English dimension" in some way?

Technorati tags: England, English Parliament, Reform, Devolution, Shakespeare, John of Gaunt

George Galloway approves of murder

2006-05-26T20:28:00.000+01:00

Garry Smith:

George Galloway, you are a fucking hypocrite. I'm sure I speak for the majority of people who opposed the invasion of Iraq when I say "shut your stupid indefatigable mouth, you odious egotistical fuckwit".

He doesn't represent my views. At all.

Dont' talk about Iraq and related stories much on here. Simple reason, no need to double up on what Garry's doing. For Galloway to say assasination is justified? No George, just no. I'm not exactly keen on tired Tony either, but still, no. Let's just say that again:

George Galloway, you are a fucking hypocrite.

It's as good a Google Bomb of anything else I've seen recently.

Update

Peter Black:

Galloway is experienced enough and intelligent enough to have avoided an obvious trap. That he didn't says a lot about his lack of judgement. There is no room for personal animosity in politics and there is no justification for violence in any form. Galloway is a disgrace to his profession.

Technorati tags: George Galloway, Tony Blair, assasination, murder

John Reid: Dereliction of duty?

2006-05-25T21:41:00.000+01:00

Stuart Parr at Wonko's World may be onto something here:

The Home Secretary isn't planning to tell Scottish police forces to merge despite telling us that anything less than 4,000 officers in a police force puts us at risk of terrorism. Obviously this is unacceptable - either there is a risk of terrorism and the Home Secretary is guilty of dereliction of duty or the risk of terrorism is a lie and the merger of police forces is politically motivated.

He's right. Under the terms of the Scotland Act, policing is a devolved matter. But under that same act, Scottish Parliament can be overridden by Westminster. John Reid claims that the police force mergers that his predecessor was planning are partially to "fight terrorism". If it's such a threat to necessitate the merger of the England and Wales police forces, then why isn't it needed in Scotland? If it is needed in Scotland, why isn't it going to happen?

Technorati tags: Home Office, John Reid, Scotland, Police mergers, devolution, Great Britain

Admin: Talk to me! - BloggerHacks

2006-05-25T01:18:00.000+01:00

Right, I think I've sorted the template, thanks Pete for the analysis, the wrapper was itself the cause of the problem, and it looks better without it.

More importantly though, to the right (on the front page only) is a recent comments box. This is cool and something I was rather keen on when looking at Wordpress options. But, perhaps more usefully, from the same site, I also found a way to have a 'comment' box at the bottom of each post page. It's even got some formatting and link insertion options. Only works if you're running javascript enabled browser, but that's 98% of the readers. I've turned off the letter recognition thing to get it to work properly, but it's pretty cool even with that on; can, um, people test it out and see what they think?

Technorati tagsearch: blogging, admin, blogger, blogger hacks

The Constituency Link: Time to Cut the Umbilical?

2006-05-24T22:04:00.000+01:00

Must pay more attention. James, who I read regularly, also it seems writes at the New Politics Network blog, which I must have missed despite looking at the site a few times. Got there via Make my Vote Count (which I read at least once a week), and find this excellent article on the merits of multi-member constituencies:

Electoral systems that use closed party lists (such as the one we now use for the European Parliament) are often criticised because they don’t enable individuals to be held accountable. People are forced to choose between parties, not individuals. Yet the hard truth of the matter is, FPTP has the same problem ... the evidence we have from the other side of the Irish Channel suggests that some proportional systems encourage politicians to engage with the community precisely because they allow people a variety of different elected representatives from which to choose. The Single Transferable Vote system used there means that politicians not only compete against candidates from other parties but with candidates within their own: being able to demonstrate that you, personally, are doing a good job is therefore at an absolute premium.

I've said similar things myself here before, but James has summed up the argument incredibly well. One to bookmark for future reference methinks.

Technorati tags: FPTP, electoral reform, STV, New Politics Network

John Reid: The Home Office is crap

2006-05-24T20:56:00.000+01:00

Yesterday:

"I'm almost always defending the indefensible here. I do not think I have been given a fact or a figure in the past fortnight that has not been revised quickly in a very short space of time."

Today:

Home Secretary John Reid is said to be furious after he had to apologise to MPs for giving them the wrong figures on foreign prisoners

Well, yes John. It's crap. The whole thing is crap. You've inherited a job that may or may not have been

"fit for purpose when I left it in 1997"
-former Home Secretary Michael Howard

but it's most certainly falling to bits now. The more I learn, the more I'm convinced. When I linked to this before, it was with caveats. Now, I agree completely. The Home Office is an all-consuming monster^*, it needs to be broken up.

^*Yes, I am proposing that as a Google Bomb. Because it really needs it.

Technorati tags: John Reid, Home Office, NuLab

Brian Haw - raided in the early hours

2006-05-23T13:01:00.000+01:00

So, hidden down in recesses of the BBC front page, is the news that Brian Haw was raided this morning and has had most of his placards alongside much of his personal possessions removed and "dumped in a container".

Cllr Ayling is, rightly, outraged, not just at the action itself, but also that the coverage it has been given puts it so far down the headlines that you could blink and miss it (I did until a friend pointed it out to me). I'm not sure I agree, completely, with his take, but it does cause me some concern. Peter Black does, however, pose a much more important question:

If they did not want to give the impression of a Police state why did they not execute this act in broad daylight when we could all see what they were doing?

He's right, this was an ongoing dispute, Mr Haw was not a direct threat to anyone. He lost his case to remain untouched, and now has a very restricted protest allowed to continue. As much as we dislike these restrictions, the police are tasked with upholding the law. So how do they choose to do it? During the day, in daylight, peaceably and with an attempt to keep it amicable? No.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said officers removed the placards at 0235 BST

I'll just say that again

0235 BST

Nice one to the boys in blue there, really making it hard for those of us who want to think that you're doing your job despite concerns over the powers this government has been giving you. 2.35am? For a peaceful, non-violent protest?

Disgraceful.

Updates:

Tim has more on the fiasco, including picture of the confiscation of his bell last week. Spyblog reports it was 25 police officers sent (at 2.35am mind, think of the overtime payments) to do the dirty deed. Tomorrow am, given that Brian has had his bell removed, it seems timed to make sure he can't annoy Tony, there will be a protest as Blair turns up for PM questions, aiming to make as much noise as possible. A little far for me to drive, but if you're in the area?

Technorati tags: Brian Haw, Protest, Freedom, Serious Organised Crime and Police Act

Iran, Canada, anti-semitism and damn lies

2006-05-20T22:58:00.001+01:00

I don't think there's any doubt that the Government in Iran has a few anti-semitic tendencies. Unfortunately, because we know this, sometimes people who should know better fall for complete bull and swallow it whole. It's not just Chris though, it's also, um, the Prime Minister of Canada.

Iain Weaver has a good selection of links debunking the story. Iran isn't a nice place, the election process is flawed, the Govt plays to the gallery to acheive popular support, and dissenters are subject to serious legal controls. Unlike in Britain, those controls include being killed.

But when the press spreads lies and half truths, it cheapens the debate.

Technorati tags: Iran, Canada, Urban Myths, anti-semitism

Test

2006-05-20T17:41:00.000+01:00

I've mentioned I hate coding, Microsoft and when I mess things up, in that order, right? Bloody template is shot to hell, but ~~I can't find~~ the fault ~~now seems to have changed completely~~ is now fixed. It's not ~~supposed to~~ all be centered, ~~and the adsence frames appear to be eating up other content instead~~. ~~Giving up for a bit, at least it's readable~~.

Predicting Scottish elections

2006-05-19T00:53:00.000+01:00

Scottish electoral mechanics are always interesting to watch. South of the border, most seats are either safe or two-way marginals. Three-way marginals are rare, and tend to disappear over the course of a few elections, the third party squeeze / ratchet effect caused by Duverger's Law means that it becomes "irrational" as the economists put it to vote for the third place or below candidate. Yet in Scotland? They not only still have three way marginals, they also have some 4 way marginals. One party can gain a seat despite losing votes, as the first place candidate loses votes to the third place, but not enough for third to take the seat. Very difficult to predict results, but very interesting to study. However, as Holyrood (the glorified county council referred to as a Parliament) is up for election next year, Duncan is taking a stab at summarising the current state of play, and has an interesting selection of links, well worth a look over. I especially like this:

Personally, I buy the idea that in Scotland there is a clear anti-Labour vote and that whichever party between the SNP and the Lib Dems is in the best position to halt Labour will pick up the votes.

and my reading of the recent bye-election results leads me to agree with him. Labour's "Scottish Raj" have dominated elections in most of the country at virtually every level for quite some time. Next years campaign will be good to watch. And if, of course, Blair is still in office next May, and they lose Scotland? Especially if the LibDems gain seats as predicted despite being in Govt up there?

As I've said here (nice one Paulie, but a little too early methinks - I agree, once again, with Millenium):

If Blair lasts the year without at least announcing when he's going, I'll be amazed.

Best bet is he announces he's going to stand down next May, there'll be a leadership election to take place sometime over the winter, etc.

If Blair goes before next May, then maybe Labour can start rebuilding their credibility. If they dump some of their obvious stupidities as well, then maybe the "anti-Labour" vote will ebb. But if Blair is still there? Nicol Stephen as First Minister in a LibDem/SNP/Green coalition? Gordon would love that about as much as he likes his own MP...

Technorati tags: Scotland, NuLab, elections

In Our Time - John Stuart Mill

2006-05-18T21:39:00.000+01:00

BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - Home Page

~~Is on now~~ Was on at the time of posting The MP3 is downloadable from the above link, and is very worth it. I listed to it this morning. How can you not like the writer of On Liberty and On Socialism?

Thanks to Chris for the latter link, didn't know that, like the guy even more than I always did now. Liberal and socialist? A believer in markets and equal rights?

I'll do a Great Britons post on him when I've time, in the meantime, turn the radio on, or download the MP3.

Technorati tags: BBC, In Our Time, JS Mill, John Stuart Mill

incompetent authoritarian blair - Google Search

2006-05-18T20:41:00.000+01:00

Best one of the last few days:
incompetent authoritarian blair - Google Search
Well, yes, he is, I completely agree.

Well, my post midnight tweaks on the template last night seem to have not worked at all well. It's readable, but it hasn't acheived the desired objective and has messed a few other things up. More tweaking to follow over the weekend. In the meantime, if you're using Internet Explorer, and are on a screen resolution below 900px wide, then the main column is, I know, very difficult to read. Apologies. The coding problem is mine, but it wouldn't be an issue if Bill Gates' staff did their jobs properly. Do yourself a favour if it's your PC:

Get Firefox

Seriously. Internet Explorer is (currently) the modern equivalent of an old-style Skoda on the "information superhighway" - the new version is supposed to be quite good, but the one you're currently using, well, isn't. More than 60% of this sites regular readers agree completely, a significant proportion of the rest have no choice at work. Even that's changing though.

Technorati tags: incompetent, authoritarian, blair, NuLab, Google, blogging

Admin: New template & layout - Blogger problems?

2006-05-18T01:37:00.000+01:00

Blogger playing up?

Since yesterday, I've had no edit icons on my compose window, no preview, and the keyboard shortcuts aren't working. I use the plain text editor, not the WYSIWYG composer. Anyone else having similar? No image upload option either. I thought at first it was a problem with my other id, but it isn't. Also, I'm seeing a new favicon, the 'B' has been replaced by some pink effect blobs. Anyone else?

New site layout

OK, I've been aware for some time that the three column coding I tried didn't work properly in Internet Explorer at lower screen resolutions. ~~I hope I've now fixed it (as requested and promised)~~. Gaaaahhh! I hate hate hate Microsoft. Not only is it just as bad, but the fonts are all wrong as well. When is IE 7 coming out? Plan 'b'. Tomorrow night.

I'd been planning to use this template for awhile, but I hadn't finished it, it's a mix of three different templates and a lot of my own tweaking. Given I don't really know what I'm doing, trial and error is fun. So, firstly, Internet Explorer users, is it better?

Second, colour scheme; yellow headers better that that green that was there before? Sidebar boxes look better? There's a few things I need to finish off; the text padding seems to vary and I've tried to find them all. Also, following Duncan's lead, the vont should now be completely Verdana. I've probably missed something.

Admin point

I've added a new 'user', called TaKtiX. That's actually me, it's the admin account for my new site, and I keep forgetting what I'm logged in as, so posts from me using that are still me. The things we do.

Technorati tagsearch: blogging, blogger, admin

Human Rights - prohibition on torture

2006-05-17T23:56:00.000+01:00

Sue Welsh is writing a series on the Convention. Today's article is Article 3 - The absolute prohibition of torture

No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

There's no derogation from that one. There's no get out clause. There should never be a need for one. Why is the idea that we can't deport people who are under threat of torture at home controversial? Why is our Government, and it's principle ally, ducking around the issue and trying to justify why certain things aren't torture? What is wrong with the world?

Technorati tags: Human Rights Act, European Convention on Human Rights, ECHR

Cameron's little list - Pointless?

2006-05-16T23:19:00.000+01:00

The Telegraph:

David Cameron has no power to enforce his A-list of "elite" parliamentary candidates on local constituency associations, the party said last night.

Yup. Thought as much. The Tory party does have some form of local democray.

As many as six would-be MPs are ready to take legal action at being excluded from Mr Cameron's priority list of about 110 candidates.

Um, should I be laughing about this as much? Probably not.

Let's here it for pointless, headline grabbing publicity stunts! Got any policies yet Dave?

Technorati tags: Cameron, the 'a' list, leadership, Tories, parties

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill - Third Reading

2006-05-16T01:14:00.000+01:00

Amongst all the other things going on, had lost track of the Leg / Reg Bill. Fortunately, others have not been so lax. Listening to Today in Parliament I realised that the Bill is going through Reports today (Monday) and tomorrow. Fortunately, the Save Parliament blog has been paying attention, and has today managed a series of posts today liveblogging the debates in the Commons. They can't do tomorrow but will have an open thread for contributions.

It'll also be worth everyone giving the TheyWorkForYou transcript a good going over in their comments when their version of the debate goes live. As before, Save Parliament!

Technorati tagsearch: reform, Parliament, Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, Constitution

A constitutional note to Tony Blair

2006-05-15T23:47:00.000+01:00

Nosemonkey:

The way the British system works is that the legislature makes the laws, and the judiciary then applies them. If, as head of the executive (and therefore the person responsible for ensuring that new laws that pass through the legislature are well-written and clear in intention) you fail in your duty of providing good laws, then blaming the judiciary for applying them in the way set out in the legislation you are responsible for having drawn-up is pathetic buck-passing.

Go read the rest.

Technorati tags: HRA, NuLab, Blair, Human Rights Act

The Afghan hijackers - legal and human rights

2006-05-15T17:11:00.000+01:00

I've seen a few comments around various blogs hoping for a proper "lawyers" breakdown of the Afghan hijackers case. I don't have the legal knowledge to do such a thing. Fortunately, Tony Hatfield does:

It is often forgotten that the Stansted Nine were acquitted of all criminal charges arising out of the “hijack” of an Ariana Boeing 727 from Kabul in February 2000.

Read the rest, seriously, it's a very good breakdown of the legal case. Brian Barder:

This is dangerous populist grandstanding, deliberately intended to confuse the issues and to give the misleading impression that the legal position can be changed by amending the HRA. In fact there are two separate issues here.

Both highlighted on Unity's excellent post, in which he also observes:

there have been systemic failings in the workings of the Parole Board and Probation service, failings that are the direct result of a wholesale’ lack of competence in the area of Human Rights law compounded by a desire, at seeming all costs, to avoid cases being brought to judicial review, where they can be dealt with appropriately by a competent authority.

Which brings me to this excremental peice of dung:

But instead their kids and their wives have all been told they can come and live here in houses that most Brits earning a decent wage couldn't afford, and all without ever having to dirty their hands with work.

Does anyone have any experience of reporting such columnists to the PCC? I'd research how to do it from scratch but if someone has done it before?

(Thanks to Andrew in comments here for bringing the odious Ms Malone to my heretofore innocent attention)

Technorati tags: HRA, Afghan hijackers, ECHR, Human Rights, Freedom, Carole Malone

Admin: new Linklog and Britblog Roundup # 65

2006-05-14T15:40:00.000+01:00

OK, Mr Tim has his weekly roundup of the best of British up. In addition, I've been playing (again), and have added a linklog to the left sidebar, powered by del.icio.us, here's the RSS feed and LJ syndication. It means I'll be cutting back on the very short "go here" posts a little, but can link to stuff that I don't necessarily want to blog about.

All in all, very easy to set up (although I need to tweak the styling) and another good reason to use Firefox to read the internet, the plug ins for del.icio.us are very good.

Technorati tags: Blogging, Britblog, Admin