Someone Is Wrong On The Internet
Sorry the netcast is a bit late today, folks. I got caught up in emailing Woman’s Hour and lost track of time. As always, tips to the usual address (although we give no guarantees you’ll be included) and hope you find something of interest in this.
Paul Walter has a handy précis of ConHome’s “How to become a Tory MP” guide. Essentially it involves throwing lots of money at it. *I* thought that was supposed to be the *Labour* way…
Lynne Featherstone calls people who don’t support Harriet Harman’s proposal to allow positive discrimination “Tory Boys”. Thank, Lynne! I assume the penis and blue rosette must have been lost in the post…
Lee Griffin is a Tory Boy like me, then. I particularly like this rabid right-wing point: “If schools want more male teachers then incentives are necessary to increase numbers, not putting a worse teacher in charge of educating our children for the sake of some equality figures.”
Anthony Hook thinks that the age discrimination proposals might be ill-thought-out too. continue reading… »
This week’s think-tank roundup
As promised last week I’ve ditched the classification into left & right and decided to break things down slightly differently into three sections – I’ll highlight any formal reports and publications issued, articles / briefings or blogposts from their own sites or in the MSM and finally public events or debates that might be of interest.
If there are any significant personnel changes among the major players I’ll highlight those as well.
Reports & Publications…
- The Centre for Policy Studies published a paper by Tony Lodge, ‘Wind Chill’, on the limits of wind power in terms of plugging the UK’ energy gap.
- The Institute of Economic Affairs published ‘Sixty Years On – Who Cares for the NHS’, a fascinating paper on the risks politicians face proposing anything remotely radical about the NHS – “Elite opinion does not, as yet, warm to a free market in healthcare. Although aspects of a market-based system are accepted, ideas of ‘market failure’ loom large – especially amongst the political class. Nevertheless, the author shows how some groups of opinion formers are prepared to be more radical. These groups, she believes, may in time be effective in promoting a vision of a market in healthcare that is free from government interference and from the stifling power of government-granted professional monopolies”
- The IPPR published a paper by Jane Midgley on ‘How the UK should respond to food policy challenges’
- Two publications from the New Local Government Network worth highlighting. The first – “Healthy Places: Bonds that bind local government and primary care trusts” looks at the options for further devolution within the health service and how it could improve service delivery. The second – “Directly Elected, Direct Results” – calls for an expansion in the directly elected mayoral model with powers over local police, transport and health services. (joint venture with the IPPR)
Fighting for our civil liberties, post Davis
The Green party has put forward a candidate in the by-election against David Davis. Left of David Davis? Check. A left / progressive candidate? Check. Wants to push for even more civil liberties? Check. So the Labour and lefty bloggers must be rising up in support? Erm… well, there’s Neil Harding… and a lot of tumbleweed rolling by.
[update: non-Greens support also from: peezedtee, Dave Cole, Stuart Jefferey, Socialist Unity, Unbeliever, Pamphlet Labour]
Yes, it really does look like many lefties really will cut off their noses to spite their face on this issue. Well, I’m not sitting here praying David Davis fails miserably because the outcome would a vindicated Gordon Brown willing to push it through with the Parliament Act if the Lords reject the 42 days bill as expected.
continue reading… »
Even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day
It’s a dark day for me as a Liberal, but I find myself in agreement with the Daily Fail. I despise the Mail, and pretty much everything they stand for, but Harperson’s Equality Act definitely has a sting in the tail.
In my view, Positive Discrimination is still discrimination and it is wrong. Even in this limited way, endorsing discrimination perpetuates it, rather than eradicating it. It adds vast amounts of resentment for little perceivable benefit.
continue reading… »
The next step for fighting 42 days
It’s time to stop the bullshit, we’ve now been sitting around for about a week and a half doing little more than bicker about the integrity of a single person while standing around gawking.
The question now should be: what can we do, and can we do it, in a way that can unite those that support and loathe David Davis’ stance?
I’ll be heading on the journey over to London today for the Liberal Conspiracy gathering and hope that this subject can be explored in more depth by those that attend.
continue reading… »
Where will blogging go from here?
An editor at a paper asked a question the other day – given that in all likelihood Labour was going to be out of power at the next General Election, how was the left going to get used to being out of power. And how would bloggers react?
It’s an interesting question. I think there are a series of questions we should be thinking about now.
- Once New Labour goes out of power, it will be enveloped in furious infighting to resolve its future direction. What part can bloggers play in influencing the narratives and supporting various groups (factions?).
- Can the web be used to build grass-roots activism? Isn’t that the future of the liberal-left when a right-wing government is in power?
- How can we facilitate and have the discussions about taking the liberal-left forward?
From Total Politics to Total Burnout
Is there a blog we should be reading, or a post that you think we should link to? Email us your tips to tips@liberalconspiracy.org
Iain Dale’s Total Politics site has launched, and revealed its editorial team. It’s actually quite interesting, and appears to be very well funded too… Why no, these grapes are sweet and tasty, why’d you ask? (Hat tip, Mark Pack at LDV). Oddly they don’t appear to have linked to us from their political blogs directory, but then, as a top ten political blog we’re hard to miss, and the blog directory is so badly-constructed, it’s possible they have linked to us and I just haven’t found the link
Andrew Rilstone writes about how a writer’s writings are distinct from and yet linked to the writer as a person and that person’s political views. Brilliant post (and not just because he says The Shadow Over Innsmouth is better than The Call of Cthulhu), but does contain rude words: proceed with caution.
PC Bloggs turns her ever-acerbic eye onto government in the latest of her occasional series on 21st Century Policing. If I could make PC Bloggs a Home Office advisor…
Political Betting are wondering if the Labour Party will lose their deposit in Henley.
Lynne Featherstone is a big blubbing girly – and this entry is so lovely it turned me into one too. Get your tissues out, and I won’t tell anyone that you needed them.
BluJay posts in the cheerfully-named So Very Doomed group blog about the difficulties that we in the developed world will have obtaining food if things don’t change drastically and soon.
Slightly Warped posts pictures of a fire in a cave in Uzbekistan that’s been burning for 5 years (so far) and is known as the Door to Hell. (Hat tip: Neil Gaiman)
Reframing the debate on asylum and refugees
In case you didn’t know, Refugee Week starts today. While The Guardian has been doing an excellent job of countering the anti-immigrant bias in the media, this excerpt from Mark Haddon’s piece on visiting the Migrant Resources Centre in Victoria, London particularly drives home for me how far we have slipped in this country:
How did we end up treating human beings in this way?
Mario, the MRC’s legal adviser, came to the UK in 1978, with his wife and sister-in-law, after escaping from Colombia, where the government had 68,000 of its opponents behind bars. They were terrified and knew nothing about asylum law. All the immigration officials who dealt with their claim, however, were helpful, courteous and surprisingly knowledgeable about Colombian politics. The three of them were granted temporary admission. The following year they were given full refugee status. ‘I can only be grateful to the UK for the protection offered to me and my family during those difficult days… After nearly 30 years here, I have two children and one granddaughter. We feel British. When I come back to the UK after visiting my elderly parents I always feel as if I am coming home.’
Mario’s is not an isolated case. I’ve spoken to a number of refugees who arrived in the UK 10, 15, 20 years ago. Most were impressed and surprised by the warmth of the welcome they received, and none of them went through the demeaning experiences that many of today’s asylum seekers go through.
What happened during those intervening years? Of course, there has always been racism and intolerance, but only in recent times have these sentiments been allowed to drive and shape official government policy.
Let’s see if the right-wing press will take a one-week amnesty, at least, from their racist/xenophobic anti-immigrant reporting. (Recent headlines: “Has mass immigration wrecked Britain?”, “Do you think immigration is to blame for rise in violent crime?”, and a classic – “Immigration out of control”. Meanwhile last week the Daily Mail served up this dehumanising headling: “Father of four finds 12-strong colony of illegal immigrants living in his LOFT”.)
Incidentally, any UK readers seeking inspiration on this issue from across the Atlantic could do worse than checking out the fairly recently-launched blog The Sanctuary.
The anti-BBC whingers strike again
When, a little under two months ago, a prominent ‘truther’ by the name of Dr Nicholas Kollerstrom was found to have published articles and comments on a ‘revisionist’ website which claimed that the only gas chambers at Auschwitz were those he supposes to have been used for delousing bedding and that conditions at the camp were something akin to those of holiday camp, it was the political left who took on the task of exposing his prurient and ahistorical views to public scrutiny.
It was Quarsan, at Blairwatch, who broke the original story, ably supported by Rachel North and Johnny Void.
I got involved after Kollerstrom protested about being labelled a Nazi sympathiser and starting making noises about possible legal action against Blairwatch, demonstrating that irrespective of how Kollerstrom sees his own political views, every single piece of source material on which his writings on the Holocaust are based was derived from source material written by Holocaust deniers with known and well-established links to far-right groups and organisations.
continue reading… »
In the interests of balance: Why we shouldn’t support David Davis
What David Davis did today was not unprecedented, but it was something quite rare. However, I would urge caution on rushing headlong to leap into bed with him and give him our support.
continue reading… »
Sorry, you mean some bloggers aren’t white men?
Sunny’s recent post about writing for the bearpit that is Comment is Free – and the attendant issues about the abuse slung at women and minorities – raises a lot of interesting points, most of which this white, Cambridge-educated Yorkshireman isn’t all that qualified to answer without sounding like a complete dilletante.
Still, I’d like to think that there are one or two non-moronic observations I can make.
continue reading… »
My Own Little Bunny Rabbit…
Welcome to Casting the net, Liberal Conspiracy’s daily web review. As always, please feel free to share your own recommendations in the comments.
Brad Hicks and Meral Ece have two contrasting reactions to Hillary’s concession of the Democrat candidacy. Brad is full of righteous anger, Meral was more inspired.
The BBC reports that some MPs have realised that ID Cards could threaten privacy. In other news, the sky is blue, and the pope shits in the woods.
Over at my blog, a reminder of what we are actually talking about with the 42 days detention plan. Especially depressing in the light of the ICM poll that we reported here yesterday.
Jonathan Calder has tactical suggestions for Lib Dems on how to deal with David Cameron – we should hug him, and stroke him, and cuddle him, and sing to him, and call him Dave; PeeZedTee, meanwhile, has advice for Gordon Brown.
Lynne Featherstone, the relentless reformer, wanted to lower the voting age to 16; the Tories had other ideas.
And finally, Neil Gaiman and Philip Pullman are both getting involved with a campaign to say no to age banding on children’s books.
The battle for Obama’s presidency
Now that Obama is the nominee, the real election fight starts. In many ways McCain is different from previous Republican candidates in that he has intentionally tried to stop political attacks becoming too personal. For example, he intervened and criticised a right-wing talk show host who, in an introduction, repeatedly emphasised Barack Hussein Obama to make obvious connotations.
Nastiness
On Scribo Ergo Sum, one writer says:
Regardless, this is shaping up to be a deeply thrilling race, yet also one of far more calm and maturity than the whirlwind of hallow nonsense which raged around the last one. That the repeat of 2004 which would surely have been triggered by the {not so long ago seemingly entirely ineluctable} contest of Giuliani-Clinton has been entirely averted is something that we must be immensely thankful for.
No. This is going to be by far the nastiest presidential race you have ever seen and will ever see.
continue reading… »
‘Lefties attack themselves too much’
Cowley says that over the past 10 years, the left has expended too much energy attacking itself, in a Press Gazette interview. “Many arguments have been taking place within the party over Iraq and other matters, with many leading left-wing commentators being denounced as neo-Conservatives. Maybe it’s time for left-leaning journalists to concentrate their fire on Cameron and his Eton Rifles.”
Reefer madness: an interlude
Shock, horror, disaster! Call the riot boys, summon the G8! Get your placards out! Cannabis causes brain damage!
Well, sort of. Ish. We think. But it’s been days since the last teen stabbing and it’s a slow news morning, so let’s have a moral panic anyway. Cue headlines splashed with the latest drug trials that prove next to nothing about the effects of marijuana on the human brain, as if that were the point.
continue reading… »
Half a million for the transition team
From Beau Bo D’or
Cost cutting Boris’ “transition team” alone costs half a million. Also now at: BorisWatch, Bob Piper and Dave Hill. Where art thou, Andrew Gilligan?
Daily Mail and the knuckle draggers
Richard Barnbrook’s surprising description of some BNP members as “knuckle dragging junk” is very similar to Daily Mail columnist Richard Littlejohn’s description of them as “knuckle scraping scum.” However, a recent post on his Telegraph hosted blog shows that the Mail-Heil imitation doesn’t stop there.
Because when Richard Barnbrook wrote that we should ‘blame the immigrants’ there was some suggestion that he had broken the law on inciting racial hatred.
continue reading… »
In a free state, tongues too should be free
The Declaration of Human Rights (article 19) states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” Which looks like a reasonable starting point to me.
Except we’ve never held to this idea in its purest form. It’s generally accepted that it should be an offence to slander someone, to incite illegal acts, to distribute child pornography – most of us don’t believe people should be able to say anything they please regardless of the consequences.
continue reading… »
Thoughts on online campaigns, the left and the right
I was initially going to circulate this just internally but for reasons that become clear near the end, I’ve decided to discuss it openly.
The HFE bill debate and controversy over abortion and IVF parenting was a turning point for Liberal Conspiracy, I think. The issue won’t go away of course and neither have all the debates been resolves. But I think its worth looking at surrounding issues.
Coalition building.
The aim of this group-blog has always been to find ways in which different single-issue activists on the liberal-left could together on ideas and campaigns.
In that regard, the HFE bill campaign worked well. Lefty bloggers that normally would not write much on abortion joined up with (lefty) feminists to not only blog about the issue, but expose the agenda of one MP who tried her best to distort the debate (to put it charitably).
I still think there is still a lack of coalition building across the liberal-left (especially online) among various single-issue groups and to challenge the reactionary right, this needs to change.
continue reading… »
Exposed: Boris’s key adviser’s links with extreme group!
Just joking!
I’m out of town at the moment, visiting my mum, hence the recent paucity of posts. My time in the tiny internet shop I presently share with three Warcraft junkies and their loud crunchy sweets is mercifully short.
But I’ve had a quick read of this Evening Standard piece pointing out the misalignment between Mayor Johnson’s Tube booze ban and those of the Manifesto Club, which his culture director Munira Mirza was a found member of.
Imagine if she had been Ken Livingstone’s adviser.
Far from being a mere news story this information would have been seized on by a member of the Standard’s Get-Ken squad – especially the “lefties” among them – and inflated into a massive, oversold expose of a “key associate” having “links” with a “front organisation” for a “secretive libertarian cult” with roots in the far-Left Revolutionary Communist Party which supported Serb extremists during the Balkan wars and whose, erm, “shadowy leaders” have a 40 year history of assuming false identities and engaging in subversive political activities in an attempt to undermine the British state.
In fact, it would all be true, but not really terribly important – which is, ironically, what the Manifesto Club clique is so terrifically anxious to be.
You can read articles through the front page, via Twitter or rss feeds.
» Why don’t MPs pay back tuition fees instead of increasing ours?
» Obama is right to slam BP – and why capitalists should too
» Why does Phillip Blond see civil cohesion as a security issue?
» So what if the Labour candidates went to Oxbridge?
» Last night’s Labour hustings: will it get interesting or turn to torture?
» It’s now down to Ken to win London for Labour
» The Labour people need
» Blog Nation: what would you like to see discussed?
» The Labour leadership’s token contender.. and it’s not Diane Abbott
» In defence of these fraternal nominations
» Is this the end for the socialist left?
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