Why do we need to wish them well?
One story I didn’t get a chance to add my tuppenceworth to, over the vacation, was the news that Iris Robinson MP is to step down from her parliamentary position as a result of, “an ongoing battle with severe depression” (BBC). Robinson is a DUP member, wife of the current leader of that party, and is probably most famous in British politics for her hateful remarks about homosexuality.
What interested me about this story was the outpouring of well-wishes from Iris Robinson’s colleagues at Stormont and Westminster. Danny Kennedy, David Ford, Shaun Woodward, Nigel Dodds and others have held forth on their wishes for a speedy recovery and/or admiration for Robinson as a “dedicated” parliamentarian. I’m curious as to how honest they are each being.
It is rather expected that, when someone from the opposition is ill or suffers a bereavement, you wish them well. But how many of these wishes are genuine? I certainly don’t wish Iris Robinson well; I’d happily see the entire DUP dropkicked into the Atlantic Ocean. Indeed were she gay, and not such a vigorous gay-basher, there’d probably be some obscure Free Presbyterian Minister claiming her ill-health was vengeance sent by God.
continue reading… »
After Abdulmutallab: the media outcry
Odds are that the 278 passengers on board the Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day represented a reasonably random demographic.
I’m guessing entirely, of course, but it also seems reasonable to assume that there will also have been quite a few Muslims on the plane. Statistically speaking, the numbers involved even make it quite likely that those travelling on the Airbus A330 included one or two of the kind of people who habitually resort to such formulas as ‘refusal to condemn’ when discussing terrorism that they would classify as anti-imperialist.
There is an old joke that runs ‘just because you are paranoid, it doesn’t mean the bastards aren’t out to get you’. Unfortunately, the same consideration now applies to sane, rational, left of centre civil libertarians.
However morally outraged us lot get when the US blitzes an Afghan wedding party to Kingdom Come, it’s a fair bet that Osama bin Laden and his mates do not reciprocate our sincere Guardianista indignation when their team clocks up a home run.
continue reading… »
Dictatorship of the Brummies?
We are desensitised to the idea of being ruled by Eton and Oxbridge elites. But would it be the same if Britain was like this instead?
There’s been some debate recently over the fact that the Mayor of London, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister all went to Bournville School, Birmingham and that almost the entire Cabinet did their university studies in Birmingham too.
When we turned the question to the public, we registered overwhelming resentment. The idea of being ruled by an unrepresentative lot, both geographically, socially and culturally doesn’t seem to be perceived as either popular or fair.
“It’s absurd that all our leading figures went to the same school and had exactly the same background. They’re all from the same Birmingham school. And how bad is it that we have an actual Mayor of London who grew up in a Birmingham council estate? It doesn’t make sense!”, told us Ariel Painin-Diaz from South Kensington.
continue reading… »
So, We Can Engineer a Mass Movement to Hack the Christmas Pop Charts, but We Can’t Agree on a Global Climate Change Treaty?
The schadenfreude becomes stale quite quickly, doesn’t it? No sooner had the whoops of glee at Simon Cowell’s failure to reach the Christmas Number 1 spot for the fifth consecutive year, and the many ironies of the Rage Against the Machine campaign were clear for all to see. First amongst these is the fact that R.A.t.M.’s angry Killing in the Name and Joe McElderry’s saccharine version of The Climb were Sony Music records: Joe is on Simco Records (i.e. Simon Cowell) “under exclusive licence to Sony Music Entertainment UK Ltd” while Rage Against The Machine’s label is Epic, a subsidiary of Sony.
The campaign put a small dent into Simon Cowell’s sales figures. Last year, Alexandra Burke’s Hallelujah sold 576,000 copies in the week before Christmas, while this year Joe McElderry only managed 450,000. But this hardly suggests that Cowell’s business model is on the wane – Leon Jackson only sold 275,000 copies of his single, When You Believe in 2007. Cowell knows that a bit of controversy is good for his bottom line. He knows that the label ‘Christmas Number One’ is an entirely relative marketing concept anyway, and modern music history is littered with classic hits which never reached that false summit.
So although the Facebook campaigners for Rage Against the Machine were successful, I can’t help thinking that there is something confused about the campaign and its aims. They say:
… it’s given many others hope that the singles chart really is for everybody in this country of all ages, shapes, and sizes…and maybe re-ignited many people’s passion for the humble old single as well as THAT excitement again in actually tuning in to the chart countdown on a Sunday.
In taking this line, the campaigners seem to be endorsing the Singles Chart as an appropriate indicator of good and popular music, when it is manifestly nothing of the sort. Yes, they reclaimed the ‘excitement’ for a single week… but they did so with a seventeen year-old song which was chosen precisely for its contrast with its competitor. That is entirely different from what the campaigners have nostalgia for – new music from good bands, battling it out. Former chart battles were essentially a positive contest, with music fans buying their favourite record. The 2009 campaign had an entirely negative “anyone by Cowell” message, which is unsustainable.
False Metrics
Modern internet campaigns often seem to fall into the trap of chasing targets based on false metrics. The campaign for Gary McKinnon (the computer hacker in danger of extradition to the US) seems to be a victim:
lets make #mckinnonmonday ‘trend’ – TWEET4GARY NOW !!! please tweet ALL #american friends and ask them to help #FREEGARY #garyMckinnon
- @cliffsul
The aim of #mckinnonmonday is to make Gary McKinnon trend #garymckinnon Pls RT
- @dandelion101
Shouldn’t the aim be to generate anger and interest in the Gary McKinnon story? How helpful is all the constant RT’ing if it doesn’t translate to bodies at the protest, letters in the politician’s in-tray.
And it is not just impoverished grassroots campaigners falling into this trap, either. Here is a recent tweet from a Cabinet Minister:
Support #welovetheNHS, add a #twibbon to your avatar now! – http://twibbon.com/join/welovetheNHS
Admittedly, sending the tweet is hardly a burden on Mr Milband’s resources, but its odd and disturbing that politicians and political campaigns have started to relate to us in this way. The idea that the NHS is something to love is presumed, and the campaign becomes about forming a huge group of people around a slogan for a fleeting moment only. Did anyone capture the e-mail addresses of those who tweeted #welovetheNHS? If not then it seems like a wasted moment.
And as for Twibbons? This innovation seems to me to be a hugely reductive exercise, shrinking political debate to a space 100 pixels wide.
Now, lest you assume I am engaging in pure snark, I should point out that I am as guilty of this hashtag chasing as the next person – perhaps more so. I helped the Burma Campaign devise their 64forSuu.org project, which was, frankly, all about the hashtag. And only today I’ve written a press release lauding the fact that PEN’s Libel Reform petition has just reached 10,000 signatures, a figure that will something only if it serves to light a fire under either Jack Straw or Dominic Grieve.
Its very easy to raise ‘awareness’ of any given issue, but that’s not the same thing as establishing a consensus that what you are proposing is right. And in turn, that is not the same thing as actually motivating people to action. It would be a great shame if “taking action” became synonymous with simply sharing links and joining endless Facebook groups, because when that “action” fails to translate into meaningful change, we will only find that another generation have been turned off politics, disillusioned. The Obama campaign has been criticised recently for its rather top-down approach to twitter, which didn’t really engage in conversation with supporters. But nevertheless, he actually inspired people out of their houses and into the campaign HQs. Did some of us think that Twitter could start a revolution in Iran? Not quite (as Jay Rosen points out). While the #IranElection tag on Twitter has been a useful tool for the protesters and for those reporting on the crisis it is clearly the people on the ground that will really put that regime under pressure (and we hope that the passing of Ayatollah Hoseyn Ali Montazeri will provide inspiration to renew that pressure).
All of which is to say that George Monbiot’s sanctimonious article this morning had the ring of truth about it:
For the past few years good, liberal, compassionate people – the kind who read the Guardian – have shaken their heads and tutted and wondered why someone doesn’t do something. Yet the number taking action has been pathetic. Demonstrations which should have brought millions on to the streets have struggled to mobilise a few thousand. As a result the political cost of the failure at Copenhagen is zero. Where are you?
We’ve been tweeting #hashtags and adding #twibbons to our avatar, George. Get with the programme, yeah?
This is cross-posted on my own blog. I’ve also just added a counter-point to all this, ‘In praise of 100px Campaigns‘. It would be great to have comments on that side of the debate, too.
The most bigoted candidate in Britain?
If you were at all under the impression that Nick Griffin is the most viscerally unpleasant and bigoted individual to have yet announced his intention to stand for election to parliament at the next general election then think again and allow me to introduce you to Richard Carvath, the self styled ‘independent PPC’ (i.e. nutter with £500 to burn) for the new constituency of Salford and Eccles, which Hazel Blears is due to contest.
Unconfirmed reports suggest that Carvath may have been, at one point, a member of the Conservative Party, but was expelled early in 2008 for being ‘too right-wing’ for even the Tories to tolerate (see Arthur Allen’s comment on this post) and it’s because of an appallingly bigoted attack on the Tories newly selected candidate for Salford and Eccles, Matthew Sephton, that Carvath has come to my attention. Sephton is, it appears, gay and makes no secret of his sexuality, all of which has prompted Carvath to comment on his selection, on his own blog, in the following, utterly reprehensible terms:
[UPDATE - Cllr Iain Lindley (Conservative PPC for Worsley and South Eccles) has cleared up the question of Carvath's membership of the Tories by confirming that he did apply for membership of the party in 2008 but his application was refused]
The Conservative Party has just selected homosexual Matthew Sephton as their candidate for Salford and Eccles.
As a rival [and pro-heterosexual!] candidate I welcome Matthew to the contest for Salford and Eccles.
Matthew’s own blog is heavy with pro homosexual pervert content: see here, here and here…
…
I very much doubt that the vast majority of the Salford and Eccles electorate will want to be represented by a prominent homosexual activist – and one who neither lives nor works in the constituency.
If the sole choice on offer was between Sephton and Carvath then I think even I’d vote Tory.
The most difficult job in the world
Imagine you land a job where you get paid £161-50 a day for each day you turn up (even if you stay for, like, 20 minutes) plus £86.50 a day for food, drink and taxis, and an additional £75 for office costs, without producing a single receipt.
And you can’t resign even if you wanted to. What sort of workplace would let you do that?
Some people would tell you that your boss is either a saint or an idiot of the highest degree. Everyone at work takes the piss and the whole shop functions like a joke, with average attendance rates standing at just over 50%.
Until one day, under pressure from auditors, the board, or sheer financial hardship, your gaffer decides to see sense and announces he’s going to tighten the belt.
‘Course you’d expect the “reforms” to bring in more scrutiny on costs and expenses (i.e. producing receipts) as well as a wage freeze or even a pay cut.
But no. You turn up to work (it’s not even compulsory, there’s no attendance levels, you see) and, much to your delight, you find out that the dreaded toughened up rules are so tough that you wage is actually higher – from £161-50 a day to £200!
More, you also get £140 a night for accomodation expenses and you’ll still be spared from submitting receipts, as long as you declare you’ve performed “appropriate duties”, whatever that means. Sure, now you’ll be required to clock in, but a couple of hours will do, so no worries if you get bored or your colleague’s annoying voice is getting on your nerves.
Dream job, right?
Well, welcome to the world of Unelected Peers in the House of Lords. And you know what the Senior Salaries Review Board people said (those who drafted the reforms)? “We are sending a strong signal: if you’re swinging the lead, don’t do it.”
Needing real Labour: Skelmersdale
Reposted – the site that this post links to was down on Friday.
Over the last little while, yours truly has been spending time talking to people who need public services, but feel (and often are) excluded from the lofty political circles that will decide the future of those services.
From today, we’ll publish excerpts from these interviews and links to the full articles on a new site.
First up is the West Lancashire town of Skelmersdale – an old ‘new town’ badly in need of regeneration. Poverty is an issue for some Skem locals. Fury at their powerlessness is another. Everyone I spoke to was a Labour voter. I spoke to some Labour councillors. Tory councillors have refused to talk to date.
(Regeneration plans for Skelmersdale have been threatened by Everton and Tesco plans for a stadium and retail park in nearby Kirkby (Skelmersdale is only ten minutes’ drive from Kirkby). West Lancashire borough council wanted to regenerate Skelmersdale by building Skelmersdale a retail centre of its own, but was unlikely to do so if a bigger retail centre was built in Kirkby. (Last week, the government rejected the Everton and Tesco plans)).
Below is an excerpt from the first of four interview sessions with Skelmersdale locals – everyday people who feel they’ve been abandoned by the political process:
Hazel Scully
Long time Skelmersdale council housing tenant Hazel Scully is pleased that West Lancashire borough council is planning a facelift for run-down Skelmersdale town centre – there’ll be a new high street, shops, cinema, library, sports centre, swimming pool, housing, and a lovely landscaped park to replace the spooky weedfest along the River Tawd that presently serves as Skelmersdale’s main municipal space.
It is just a pity, says Scully bitterly, that she won’t have much chance to enjoy the improvements.
She and everybody else who lives on the town-centre Firbeck and Findon estates will be removed from view as part of the upgrade. The council wants to demolish the estates, shift the occupants elsewhere in the borough, and build homes for private sale in place of Firbeck and Findon.
‘We don’t fit in,’ says Scully glumly as she fiddles with the lace pane that she has draped over the large table in her small kitchen. ‘We don’t fit in with their vision of a new, updated Skem.’
Others suspect an infernal Conservative agenda. ‘Is there gerrymandering going on?’ West Lancashire Labour councillor Jane Roberts says on Save Firbeck – ‘and you do start to wonder [about gerrymandering]‘ she says on the phone.
Read the rest.
The vision thing
Guest post by Matt Sellwood
“The very least you can do in this life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance, but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyed nor the destroyers.” – Barbara Kingsolver
British politics is in a mess. That much is obvious to anyone who has spent any time speaking to people about politics over the last year. The issue of expenses was simply an explosive symptom of a much deeper-rooted cause, rather than the cause itself.
The cause, simply, is that very few people are inspired by politics any longer – and even fewer believe that electoral politics has any transformatory potential to offer. This is not limited to the left or the right – politics as a whole is being damned by millions of people. The most common reaction that canvassers of all parties in my constituency receive is “not interested, mate”, followed closely by “what’s the point?”.
And who can blame them? British politics has, it seems entirely lost the understanding that politics is about vision. Its about improving people’s everyday lives, yes – but its also about being able to look to the horizon, and beyond, for a promise of something better. It’s about being able to identify with a party because that party embodies what you believe in – your ideals. continue reading… »
Reporting back from the Citizens’ Assembly
You’ve got to love London Citizens’ strategy. Stick a politician on stage in front of several thousand people, present him (and it usually was a “him”) with some wonderfully populist solutions to a bunch of devastating facts and ask, “So are you with us?”
The policies presented to the squirming politicians and business leaders at a choc-a-bloc Barbican last night were made all the more difficult to avoid because they were decided democratically. Over a thousand of London Citizens’ members were involved in developing the policies, which you can read here.
Despite some inevitable wrangling, representatives from all political parties committed to working with London Citizens on these proposals. Greg Hands said the Conservatives would introduce a cap on store card interest rates (although notably, he didn’t say what that cap would actually be) and a representative from the British Bankers Association, who was brought on stage straight after a heart-wrenching personal testimony about debt, was asked if he’d commit to help responsible lending. (He did). Stephen Timms said he’d hold a meeting with London Citizens and the OFT to discuss capping interest rates, and Andrew Altman, CEO of the Olympic Legacy Programme said he’d meeting with London Citizens quarterly to discuss their plans. (Damn I’d love to see officials’ faces when these bigwigs tell them they have to add these dates to their diaries.)
Although London Citizens does get a bit happy clappy at times, it would be pretty arrogant of the left not to think it hasn’t got a lot to learn from this movement. Besides the “stick ‘em on stage and see” tactic, I took away three other lessons:
Be prepared to risk anarchy for democracy. This organisation isn’t afraid to hand highly eccentric people the microphone, to put street dancers on stage or to ask the audience if they endorse their chair. Somehow, it works.
Don’t be afraid to work across groups. London Citizens has got representatives from mosques, unions, churches, race-based organisations and schools. Sure they don’t agree on everything, but they agree on the important stuff.
Don’t be afraid to put morality, art and emotion into politics. It doesn’t water it down – it makes it come alive.
Citizens’ response to the economic crisis
Earlier this year, London Citizens asked its member organisations to come up with a ‘citizens’ response to the economic crisis’.
Thousands of people were involved in these discussions, and the following priorities were agreed:
continue reading… »
Blogging and PCC Regulation – A Collective Response
As you may have either seen on the Indy’s website, or picked up on from Mark’s commentary on her speech to the Society of Editors, Baroness Buscombe, the new Chair of the Press Complaints Commission, has been making noises about extending the PCC’s remit to cover blogs and blogging.
In the past, when this kind of thing has been mooted, the typical response has been one of lots of blog-shouting of the ‘you’ll have to take my blog out of my cold dead hands’ variety. This time around I thought we might take a different approach and write directly to the PCC setting out one of the key practical reasons why PCC regulation would be a bad idea – which of, us, after all, wants to be seen to working to the ethical standards of the MSM when, with a few exceptions, these are so much lower than our own.
So, with that firmly in mind, I’ve drafted a collective response to the Baroness’s suggestion for you all to chew over, one that any active bloggers can sign-up to by leaving your name (real or online) and details of the your blog (title/link) in comments.
Comments on the text and any suggestions for amendments or additional matters to include are, of course, welcome – this is a blog not a newspaper after all.
At the end of this week, I’ll transfer any sign-ups to the letter and get it shipped off to the PCC, DCMS and Commons CMS committee.
UPDATE – Oh, and don’t pay too much attention to the time-stamp on this post – it was actually posted at 11:49am on 17th November but will be time-shifted, over next few days to, keep it visible in the left-hand side bar on the front page, so don’t worry that a lot of comments might appear to pre-date the post.
<— Letter Starts Here —>
The Sun does cyber-stalking too
“So how was your day?” — It’s a question which must get asked millions of times a day. Some surgeons may celebrate a successful operation; some police officers may toast the closing of a case; some bartenders may have enjoyed an evening’s banter with their regular punters.
However, if you’re John Coles, Ace Reporter for The Sun, your response to that question goes a little something like this:
Oh, my day was GREAT! I went on Facebook and stalked a 24 year old that nobody’s ever heard of. THEN, out of revenge for his Dad’s ‘zany’ statements about drugs, I publicly humilated him in a national newspaper!
Yes, the minds of tabloid journalists operate a little differently to the rest of us.
image by Beau Bo D’Or
So how did Coles’ intrepid cyber bullying increase his readers’ understanding of the world? Well, we’ve discovered that Steve Nutt either smokes weed or roll-ups (or maybe even both!); we’ve found out that he sometimes makes risque & inappropriate jokes to friends; we’ve learned that he has a sister who once drank booze at 16, and a brother who was once NAKED! In Sweden!
continue reading… »
Lamenting 40 years of The Sun
“We’re celebrating our 40th birthday in style”, announced the Sun yesterday.
With a series of self-congratulatory quotes (i.e. from people like Simon Cowell), Britain’s own bible belters have kickstarted a series of “sparkling birthday features”.
It’s undisputed that the Sun managed to push its way to the forefront of Britain’s contemporary culture. From shifting the nation’s attention towards mammary glands, through their contribution to harmony and cohesion, and all the way to reasoned and fact-based news reporting, the Sun has indeed become the epitome of British phlegm, “a national institution” (according to the Sun itself).
But to spare the Sun the risk of sliding into self-important back-slapping mode, which would be soooo unlike them, we’ve decided to help them celebrate the rag’s history with a short roll of honour of some of its most memorable moments.
continue reading… »
Can Greeks lead the way for the left?
Where in Europe has the left has made a popular breakthrough, has a chance of making a real difference, even if in highly adverse circumstances, and has a policy that combines openness, democracy and sustainability? The answer is in Greece, but is the British left capable of taking any notice?
After twelve years in power there has been a sorry reversion to post-45 parochialism, except that an obsession with America has replaced the Empire as if singing the international meant dancing to the tune of the White House.
Of course, one reason for this is that social democracy is in ruins across much of the continent of its birth. But George Papandreou’s PASOK party, having just last month gaining a surprising absolute majority, is different.
It is working to adopt a form of progressive government that combines green development, democratic openness and international reconciliation. How does New Labour measure up when seen in this modest comparative light? It is a painful question.
continue reading… »
What is the future of social democracy?
contribution by Arjun Singh-Muchélle
When social democrats write about the future of social democracy, there is a conspicuous absence in their writing of ownership. They make references to elusive ‘social democracy’ and ‘social democrats’, without ever referring to themselves.
I am a social democrat, avowedly so. This offers my final cry on the future of our ideology.
Our ideology is in need of an intellectual renaissance. When the first and second ways of our ideology faltered, we created a third way, branded it ‘new’ and sold it, en masse. This however, was a momentary lapse in judgement. This third way has now failed, with its intellectual foundation in tatters.
It is our imperative, as social democrats, to dispense of this third method in to the dustbin of history.
continue reading… »
The DNA Database fudge continues
One of the motifs of the past few months has been that politicians of all colours “just don’t get it”. Ironically, when it comes to the continuing debacle over the DNA database, you rather imagine that they did get it and now they’re utterly bewildered at how things have turned out.
Here, after all, is what ought to be a standard tabloid outrage scandal: because of the “unaccountable” European Court of Human Rights, the government is having to change its policy on keeping all the DNA profiles of those arrested but not charged indefinitely, potentially raising the spectre of the guilty getting away with their crimes. The Sun, that flag-bearer of social authoritarianism, did originally raise its voice, but has since barely made a peep about the S and Marper case and its implications.
For a government that has so often treated with contempt the concerns of civil libertarians, with the full connivance of the vast majority of the tabloid press, the Daily Mail only recently deciding that it’s time to join the other side, it must be wondering where all those who believe if they’ve got nothing to hide they’ve got nothing to fear have disappeared to.
continue reading… »
Did the fall of the Berlin Wall kill ideology?
Most of the comment on the fall of the Berlin Wall has come from people who experienced life in the eras both before and after it came down, and for obvious reasons. So here’s something different: a reflection from somebody who doesn’t remember the wall, because they were 3 years old in 1989.
My generation lives, for all intense and purposes, without ideology. There’s plenty of ideology knocking about in the world, as we all know from the daily death count in Afghanistan. But there’s not much of it here in Britain amongst the under 25s. It’s a platitude that political parties have seen declining membership for years, and that apathy and disillusionment with politics has been steadily on the rise.
Yet it doesn’t follow that people of my generation are completely uninterested in politics per se. Most – I imagine – would tell you that Gordon Brown is a bad prime minister and needs to go. Most would say the recession is a bad thing that needs to be sorted out. Many – possibly most – will have other concerns: opposition to university tuition fees, the spectre of global warming, and so on.
Yet whilst there remain political beliefs and issues that the young are interested in, it’s rare to find a young person who holds all these issues and beliefs (should they be interested in more than a couple) to be unified by any under-lying and coherent worldview.
Rather, they are presented and held as broadly freestanding political preferences, which may connect with other preferences in some respects, but are essentially self-sufficient. In short: politics without ideology.
continue reading… »
Reforming English Libel Law
There is a growing consensus that English libel laws are not fit for purpose. The list of libel cases that seem to defy common sense grows longer every day. Bloggers are threatened by vindictive vested interests, and football fans on chat-rooms are bullied by their own clubs. Regional newspapers are intimidated into timidity, and publishers punt on commissioning the investigative journalism that is supposed to keep our democracy strong. Scientists who challenge the claims of alternative medicine are hit with writs.
And then there is the problem of forum shopping, or “Libel Tourism”:
Britain is a pariah state, shunned by its allies and exploited by the unsavoury. The state of English libel laws (Scotland’s provisions are a little better) is so embarrassing that a number of US states have enacted legislation to protect their citizens from our courts. London is the global centre of libel tourism. From Middle Eastern potentates to Russian oligarchs, the rich and powerful use our legal system to bully people who try to hold them to account.
That’s John Kampfner, former editor of the New Statesman and Chief Executive of Index on Censorship, introducing the Index/PEN report into English libel laws. The report is the result of a year long inquiry that took in the opinions of publishers, lawyers, journalists, novellists, NGOs and bloggers, and identifies ten challenges for libel reform.
First amongst these the problem of burden of proof, which in libel lies uniquely with the defendant. The report recommends reversing this, and requiring claimants to demonstrate falsehood and damage. We also recommend reducing damages in libel to £10,000 and establishing a low cost libel tribunal that would allow bloggers, and others of slender means, to defend libel actions without having to re-mortgage their children.
You can read the rest of our recommendations at www.libelreform.org, a new hub that will co-ordinate the campaign for libel reform, in collaboration with Sense About Science. We need to lobby MPs to sign an EDM calling form reform, and to pressurise both the Tories and Labour to join the Liberal Democrats and make libel reform a manifesto commitment. The campaign for libel reform has already attracted the support of writers such as Monica Ali and Andrew Motion, and makes bedfellows of newspaper editors Alan Rusbridger and Peter Wright. If you are fed up with the wealthy and big corporations using English laws to suppress free speech, then we urge you to join them, and sign-up to the campaign.
Why New Labour should pick a fight with The Sun
The conventional wisdom is that a political party shouldn’t pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel, even if it attacks them relentlessly. The White House has been pushing back at Fox News and yesterday Lord Mandelson said the row over Brown’s letter to the soldier’s mother row was being “orchestrated” by a paper that was actively campaigning against Labour.
For various reasons I think this is the correct position to take.
The left has to stop becoming scared of the media and push back.
Encouragng over-reach
I suspect that most sensible Britons will look at The Sun’s hysterical attack yesterday as politically motivated. Even some of his most outspoken critics were sympathetic. The Sun newspaper is, like its sister organ in the US, actively campaigning for the opposition and both have tied their flags to the mast. This means their audience already knows there is a political agenda, which somewhat neutralises them.
And both have been getting over-excited in an attempt to attack the governing party and that means further loss in legitimacy in public opinion. Pushing back even slightly, as Obama and Mandelson have done, will invite even further hysteria from them and make them over-excitable and lose more legitimacy and so on…
Bolsters the base
Neither Obama nor Brown have much to lose in potential voters since their opponents are already campaigning hard against them. But it does bolster their left-wing base that hates the media orgs passionately. It also helps develop a victim mentality which is needed to get the activists out and push back even harder. The Sun’s political influence on its voters is already over-stated and it has lost 35% of its circulation since 1997.
continue reading… »
But will do the Met police do something?
Friday last week the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA) convened a new panel to talk about policing in the aftermath of the G20 protests fiasco.
We received three accounts of the meeting and are publishing excerpts from each.
Helen Lambert — Police State UK
“Today is all about listening to you – we’re not here to speak for the Met, nor to defend them,” said Victoria Borwick, chair of the MPA’s newly convened Civil Liberties Panel, opening this morning’s open meeting.
The scope of the meeting – an evidence gathering session on public order policing, and more specifically the G20 demonstrations in April – had been unclear to some. Many people had brought questions demanding immediate answers, but instead their concerns have been ‘noted’, with no clear idea if answers will be forthcoming.
It may seem late in the day for a data-gathering session on the policing of G20. Photos, video footage, eyewitness accounts and the Climate Camp Legal report have been publically available for months.
But did this morning achieve anything more than a collective airing of grievances? The reach of the Civil Liberties Panel remains unclear. All this evidence will inform a report on public order policing to be released at the end of this year. The Panel seems largely sympathetic to the experiences of protestors, but the whole MPA has to approve its recommendations. Even the MPA are not involved with day-to-day or disciplinary policing issues, and can only advise on the overall framework of policy. Implementing change is a slow and frustrating process, each stage of representation more distanced than the last.
continue reading… »
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» How bad is the feline obesity crisis?
» 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 civic 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
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