Obsolete

The same old new politics.

2010-02-08T21:28:00.004Z

At times during the expenses furore, which continues to flicker, further fuelled by David Cameron's denunciations of Gordon Brown today, I sometimes felt like the only person in the country not enraged by the graft and misappropriation of public money. That was what, when you reduced the entire fiasco down to its very bare bones, it was all about. It wasn't, as the Tory MP notoriously complained, that people were envious or jealous of his "very large house", but he was in the right area. It was instead that these already generally well off individuals were feather-bedded to the extent that they didn't even have to pay for their food or to furnish their houses. If you want to be pretentious about it, it was a microcosm of what our society itself has become: a turbo-economy where those, whether either rich or extremely poor, are to a certain extent protected against the effects which the rest are beholden to, with the result being a sometimes justifiable sense of grievance against them. Where wealth is everything, don't be surprised if the bitten occasionally bite back.

The mood was, and still is, profoundly anti-politics. It isn't anger directed at one political party, but at politics itself, which is why Cameron's attempt to try to associate Gordon Brown directly with those MPs who have been charged with false accounting is unlikely to succeed. It also overlooks that even though no Conservative or Liberal Democrat MP was charged with a criminal offence, of those who had to pay back the most, 5 of the top 6 were Conservatives, including Liam Fox, Cameron's defence spokesman. As also previously argued, the attempt, mainly by politicians themselves as well as the ex-broadsheet media excluding the Telegraph to turn the anger into a case for constitutional and parliamentary reform also seemed to miss the point of the rage: those who wanted the equivalent of heads on pikes or an immediate general election weren't interested in slow and steady changes to fix how parliament works; they just wanted the MPs who had abused their expenses out. That also hasn't changed over time, and while Cameron is to be commended for keeping up the pressure for change, it's hardly likely that many votes for the Tories are going to be picked up on the back of reforming the current lobbying system.

It's difficult not to think that Cameron personally attacking Brown might have something to do with Brown's mentioning of he who must not be named: Lord Ashcroft. Ashcroft is also the spectre hanging over Cameron's entire speech: he wants anyone sitting in parliament to be a full UK taxpayer in the United Kingdom, yet he can't even confirm that the deputy chairman of his party is just that. He wants to "shine the light of transparency on lobbying in our country", yet if you donate £50,000 a year to the party you can join "The Leader's Group" and gain personal access to "David Cameron and other senior figures from the Conservative Party at dinners, post-PMQ lunches, drinks receptions, election result events and important campaign launches".

The entire speech is one that just screams of either never coming close to being implemented or coming back to haunt them. At four separate occasions he claims that "we are a new generation at ease with openness and trust". Really? Would this be the same Conservative party that seems to be imposing top-down control on MPs and prospective MPs use of blogs and social-networking sites? This is a party that even as it denounces Labour's past use of various spin doctors employs the likes of Andy Coulson and Steve Hilton, the former accused at an employment tribunal of leading the bullying of a journalist who suffered from depression. It's an easy allusion to make, but it really is all so reminiscent of Tony Blair: the repetition, the claims of being entirely clean, a new break, yet even while it sounds good, it's next to impossible to believe almost any of it. In that sense, it's Blair at his very worst: trying desperately to convince of his good intentions whilst failing to do just that. Even Blair at his worst though wouldn't have made such stonking great errors as talking up parliament as formerly being an unimpeachable institution once famous for "radical legislation, elevated debate and forensic scrutiny of laws"; has it really been anything like that since the 60s? Nor would he have made the mistake of claiming that a monologue exists where parliament talks and the country listens; parliament may well talk but the country either doesn't listen, or as the Heresiarch suggests, it jeers.

The only part that rings true is also the funniest and most puzzling. At the end he desperately appeals to the media to change its attitude as well, a part worth quoting in full:

But this change also needs something else. It requires a change in the attitude not just of politicians, but of the media too. I want to see a whole new culture of responsibility from those who report the news. You are the lens through which people view the actions of this Parliament. That gives you a great duty to our democracy.

I want to see a proper distinction between honest mistakes made by good, decent people whose intentions were honourable and those who set out to deliberately mislead, swindle and deceive.

Most people who pursue a career in politics do so because they want to serve and because they want to do good. That should be recognised. Parliament does important and effective work, yet it is barely reported.

And remember when you’re putting good people down, you could be putting good people off from entering politics. I’m not telling you how to do your job. I’m just saying that if you want to change politics as much as I do, this is something we’ve got to do together. We have a shared responsibility.

The idea of certain parts of the media treating any politician other than the very few it decides it likes in such a way is hilarious. This though is someone who has been treated up till now by the vast majority of it in a completely timorous, even sycophantic fashion, in difference to how those outside it have routinely ridiculed him. He surely doesn't believe that this will change anything, and in any event he uses them just as much as they use him; why then make the appeal at all? Is it for public consumption, although again few are likely to read or have seen his speech in full? Just as you don't believe for a second that Cameron has any real truck with what he calls "social responsibility", the idea that the media think they have any wider responsibility other than to their shareholders or owners is ludicrous.

It is instructive though that the one real reform that would truly redistribute power to the people is the one that the Conservatives refuse to trust the electorate with: Brown's sudden conversion to the alternative vote may be cynical or have ulterior motives, and it may not be proportional, but it would give voters something approaching a real choice over who governs us. A new politics sounds good, but it will remain the same old politics unless you genuinely feel you can make a difference. Starting with the electoral system itself would make the most sense, and would still fit in with the actual anti-politics mood, enabling you to vote the equivalent of none of the above and still make a point. Anything else is likely to fail to make an impact.

Fits of morality (as well as hypocrisy and cant) part 2.

2010-02-06T22:14:00.004Z

Attacking the cant of the Daily Mail might be the equivalent of drowning a kitten in a bag, both sad and easy, but the paper really does seem determined to wind itself up to ever greater levels of phony indignation, not since Sachsgate having been able to ride the high horse of morality in such an absurd and precious fashion. When the BBC was forced into acting over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross's prank phone calls to Andrew Sachs, the Mail screamed that it had "woken up to decency". Today it bellows its thanks to "Signor Capello", having taken just ten minutes to sack the man "who shamed England". That, as the Guardian reports, this "family man" never did anything similar while he managed teams in Italy despite his players acting in a similar fashion to John Terry only ever so slightly damages the image of this new moral colossus, his compass working to the order deemed righteous by Paul Dacre.

And as could have been predicted, the paper's already got the first hits in on Rio Ferdinand, bringing up more of his past than even I did, who doubtless will now have to watch his every step between now and June lest he trespass against the peccadilloes of those without sin, willing as ever to cast not just the first stone, but to desecrate the corpse afterwards as well.

BAE and Saudis finally brought to book.

2010-02-05T23:17:00.003Z

Away from the country's obsession with what's happening in other people's bedrooms, BAE Systems was today finally forced into admitting what we all already knew: that its deals involving both Tanzania and Saudi Arabia were sweetened by massive bribery and corruption. Not that it was our dogged and determined investigators at the Serious Farce Office that managed to get the company, which may as well be nationalised considering just how closely it works with the government, to own up to operating a massive slush fund which enriched the already filthily wealthy Saudi royal family, but instead the far more tenacious US Department of Justice.

Blair of course forced the SFO into dropping its own investigation to the Al-Yamanah deal, on the grounds of national security, based on spurious but outrageous threats from the Saudis, and also on deeply questionable claims that there was no guarantee of a successful prosecution resulting from the inquiries. The opposite was the case: the SFO had just succeeded in persuading the Swiss to give them access to bank accounts which would have provided prima facie evidence of the payments from BAE to the intermediaries of the Saudi royal family. As the statement from the Department of Justice makes clear:

"BAE agreed to transfer sums totalling more than £10m and more than $9m to a bank account in Switzerland controlled by an intermediary. BAE was aware that there was a high probability that the intermediary would transfer part of these payments to the [Saudi] official."

To call that an understatement would be superfluous. It is though a withering indictment of both of our legal system when it comes to combating corruption and also our willingness to interfere with what ought to be untouchable: the rule of law itself. The Americans, whom we often sneer at, are both more prepared to stand up to threats from bullies and also to prosecute their own than our craven and opportunist equivalents are. New Labour has been responsible for many disgraces, but this really does rank up there, along with Iraq, as one of their very worst abuses of power.

Fits of morality (as well as hypocrisy and cant).

2010-02-05T22:31:00.005Z

One of those wonderful quotes which will never lose its sparkle was the observation by Lord Macaulay that "[W]e know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality". These days, it's more accurate if corrected very slightly, exchanging public with media. It's difficult to feel any sympathy for John Terry, yet his deposition as England captain sets a truly ridiculous and regrettable precedent: a role which should be all about what occurs on the field and Terry's ability to lead his team, one which no one questions he would have been able to continue to do regardless of his antics off the pitch has suddenly become a question of morality rather than of who is best for the job. It's not even as if Terry would have been required to work with Wayne Bridge, the man caught in the middle of the faux-outrage: only if Ashley Cole is injured is it likely that his services will be required.

Terry though didn't have anything approaching a chance. As Tabloid Watch notes, Terry or a story connected with his alleged infidelity has appeared on the front page of the Mail every day since last Saturday, as compared to the number of times it featured the earthquake in Haiti (0). The decision was made not so much by Fabio Capello as by the nation's tabloid editors, who made it next to impossible for him to come to any decision other than stripping him of the captaincy. If he hadn't, you can bet that the issue would never have been dropped and would have overshadowed everything else in the build up to the World Cup in South Africa.

Still, at least we now have a captain with a truly spotless reputation. Rio Ferdinand has never been accused of being unfaithful; that he's been banned from driving on four separate occasions, including for being over the legal drink-drive limit, not to mention that time he "forgot" about his drug test and instead went shopping is clearly on a completely different moral plane to Terry's playing away from home (groan). It does though never cease to amaze just how powerful the press remains in this country, even as sales apparently inexorably decline. Those adding another notch to their bedposts tonight will not be footballers, but those other dashing, completely incorruptible and always faithful figures: journalists.

Diana in outrage hell.

2010-02-04T21:44:00.006Z

We all know how much I love Twitter, which reading back now, seems to be one of the most staggeringly hypocritical and self-fulfilling statements that I've ever put together here:

... it's a glorified instant messaging service where every stalker and sad sack can follow your ever so fascinating immediate thoughts ...

Err, yeah. Doesn't describe me at all. Sorry.

This though is hilarious (via Anton), although it's doubtless already spreading around like an online version of the clap. The Express, that journal which dedicated itself to keeping the memory of Princess Diana alive by splashing almost every Monday with a new conspiracy theory fresh from the fevered imagination of the owner of a certain fuggin' Knightsbridge department store, has discovered that someone is besmirching their favourite dead ex-royal by pretending to tweet as Diana from heaven. Cue the outrage:

A SICK prankster has set up a social networking website as Princess Diana.

The macabre Twitter page pretends the messages come from heaven. One says: “I can’t talk about Dodi (Al Fayed) for legal reasons.”

The fake Diana criticises the small numbers turning up to her memorial fountain in London, claiming nobody realises it was filled with the Queen Mother’s gin. Referring to the site of her fatal car crash, she says: “Now looking down at Pont de l’Alma tunnel. Bigger turnout than at Memorial Fountain.”

Alan Berry, co-founder of the Diana Appreciation Society, urged Twitter to ban the page. He said: “It’s sick that some people can pretend to be Diana. What respect is that showing?”

Twitter allows people to impersonate others as long as it is clear it is a joke but last night the firm failed to respond to questions about the Diana page.

It seems that @dianainheaven is in the wrong business. Pretend to be someone dead in a humourous fashion on a social networking site and you're sick; pretend to be a journalist and you can become the royal reporter on the Express.

Piecemeal reform will still result in contempt.

2010-02-03T21:15:00.005Z

There are two questions you should always immediately ask when an otherwise completely unexpected political proposal comes along, in this instance Gordon Brown's sudden apparent conversion to an ever so slightly fairer system of voting. Firstly, why now? Second, who benefits?

Well, all right, that's what every cynic will consider. To be fair to Brown, he did ascend to the Labour leadership on the promise of carrying out constitutional reform, which has mostly been either forgotten, watered down to the point of near worthlessness, or handed to Jack Straw to think as shallowly as possible on those much vaunted rights 'n' responsibilities. As everyone knows, Labour has been promising a referendum on proportional representation since 1997, back when Blair was flirting with Paddy Ashdown as he feared not winning an outright majority. We all know what happened next, and despite still setting up the Jenkins commission, which recommended the alternative vote system with an additional top-up element to make it somewhat proportional, there has been no movement until now.

Why then now? Despite there being some voices at the height of the expenses scandal last year calling for a referendum on PR to be held on the same day as the general election, like most of the proposals for reform floated at the time it had come to nothing. While it would be lovely if Brown had suddenly had a epiphany in which he decided that the innate unfairness of the first past the post system means that many votes are all but wasted, and that it's an insult to democracy itself that a party can be elected with a workable majority when it received the support of only 22% of the electorate as a whole, a far more compelling explanation is that it's another last ditch attempt at shoring up the Grauniad-reading core vote whilst also appealing to erstwhile Liberal Democrat supporters. It's also impossible to rule out that it's not a throwback to the thinking of Blair in 97: despite everything, a hung parliament at the moment is a real possibility, and a far more plausible outcome than it was back then. The Liberal Democrats, otherwise regarded by the main two parties as a joke suddenly become incredibly popular, and while it's difficult to imagine them making a deal with the Conservatives, one of their demands in exchange for entering into a coalition would almost certainly be voting reform: by holding out the promise now of a referendum on AV, which they could negotiate into a vote on PR-proper, there's already a basis on which the two parties could work together.

This has the added bonus, and this also falls into the who benefits category, of showing the Conservatives up as opponents of progressive (yes, that word I loathe) reform, a trap which they're more happy to fall straight into, as Eric Pickles' bone-headed performance on Newsnight yesterday showed. According to him, the Alternative Vote system was "unfair"; unfair perhaps if you win the largest share of the vote on the initial count but fail to win an overall majority from all those entitled to, which as the Graun's leader points out not a single one of the current members of parliament has, and then lose after the votes have been re-assigned, but an improvement over FPTP it certainly is, even if only a slight one. There's no doubt whatsoever that self-interest informs both Brown's manoeuvring and the Tories' opposition to any form of PR, but even if Labour's motives are hardly pure, the Conservative position is not down to anything as principled as a belief that PR makes for weak governments, but because of their certainty in getting a large enough majority in which to dominate parliament in a similar way to Labour has for the past 13 years, even if its backbenchers have rebelled against the party whip on an unprecendented number of occasions. The "elective dictatorship" which some have railed against is suddenly no longer a problem when you're inside the tent pissing out rather than the one getting wet.

If that answers why now, then while it's assumed that Labour will benefit under AV or a proportional system, it's not necessarily as clear cut, as while in 2005 most Lab/Lib supporters would have voted tactically to keep the Tories out, the opposite might now be the case, with voters determined to get Labour out of office. There is one thing we haven't considered though: what if this isn't in fact a grand ruse to damage AV and PR with Brown's reverse Midas touch? Key is that any referendum would only be held in the event of a Labour victory, and that's if it manages to rush the legislation through parliament in time, itself difficult with Tory opposition and with less than 2 months before an election will have to be called if the vote is indeed to be on May the 6th. Doing this now only encourages the cynical view Brown will do anything to stay in power, even if it doesn't affect the actual vote this time round. It also distracts attention from that other unresolved constitutional issue increasingly affecting parliament: the West Lothian question, where this time round it could be Scottish Labour MPs which stop the Conservatives from gaining an absolute majority.

More fundamentally, the real reason why a referendum on just AV isn't good enough is that it doesn't allow the electorate to make the decision for themselves on just which electoral system this country should have. Why shouldn't we be allowed to choose a fully proportional system, even if it involves the scrapping of the current constituency system? What's the point of AV when the single transferable vote is very similar but actually proportional? Why not lay all the options out, or aren't we considered intelligent or interested enough to be able to make an educated and informed choice? All Brown is offering is the illusion of change, knowing that he almost certainly won't still be around to implement it. The lesson that should have been learned from the expenses fiasco is that the public both demands the right to know and to be able to act; until parties offer that they are likely to continue to be held in contempt, piecemeal electoral reform or not.

Short shrift for Chilcot.

2010-02-02T21:34:00.003Z

To approach Clare Short's evidence to the Chilcot inquiry properly, you have to know just how much the New Labour true believers around Blair hated her. She was, according to Alan Milburn, a "political bag lady". John Prescott called her "fucking mad". Alastair Campbell couldn't stand her, and throughout his diaries expresses his contempt in the usual understated fashion. As for Blair himself, he felt that he had to keep her on board as a sop both to the left and the few remaining Old Labour dinosaurs, even whilst he became exasperated at her for failing to "keep on message" as everyone else was expected. Most famously she was slapped down after giving an interview in which she commented on the possibility of the legalisation of cannabis, which she felt was an issue worth considering.

She was, and still is, one of those few politicians that dares to be something approaching an actual human being. That the public tend to like politicians that step out of line every so often or who are indiscreet was doubtless one of the reasons why as time ticked by the Blairistas turned even further against her. The one drawback of being such a person is that it can encourage the belief that you personally are the conscience of an organisation, and it was one that Clare certainly fell into, as perhaps even she would admit. Her failure to resign despite the feeling that the Iraq war was going to be a disaster is now something held against her by anti-war critics, but she was hardly the only person to either be deceived by Blair or who, despite agonising over whether to vote for it or not, made the wrong decision. Many who either abstained or voted for now regard it as their biggest ever mistake in politics; few however will ever get their revenge in as forcefully as Short did today.

It took her just eight minutes before she directly accused Blair of lying, after he told her in September 2002 that he was not planning for war with Iraq. What followed was evidence which contradicted much of what the inquiry has been told so far. According to Short: there was no real discussion of the policy towards Iraq in cabinet; Lord Goldsmith misled the cabinet when he presented his third and final opinion on the legality of the war on March the 17th, which Short alleged he had been lent on to change, even if she had no evidence to back up her claim; she confirmed that Gordon Brown was another of the ministers to be "marginalised" in the run-up to the war; and that she felt she had been "conned" by Blair's promises on the creation of a Palestinian state and the reconstruction of Iraq, pledges that stopped her from resigning at the same time as Robin Cook. In one of the most damning exchanges, Short made clear that she believes Blair was "absolutely sincere" in his policy on Iraq, so certain that what he was doing was right that he was willing to be deceitful in order to achieve his aims. This is almost certainly the best explanation as yet given to the inquiry as to why we went along on the coat-tails of America: Blair believed, and still does, that getting rid of Saddam was so important that he would do almost anything to achieve it, and did. He may have lied to get us there, but to him they weren't lies, or even untruths: he was simply making the strongest possible case he could.

With Robin Cook sadly no longer here to provide an alternative account of what really happened in cabinet in those months leading up to war, Short's evidence is as close as we're likely to get to the perspective of someone not completely on board or supportive from the beginning. It also seemed to be one which the inquiry itself didn't particularly want to hear: we've had criticism from others over how the war was planned for and conducted, but all in diplomatic language and scholarly or lawyerly tones, without anything approaching emotion. She hasn't blown open anything approaching a conspiracy, but she has finally given colour to an otherwise sepia-tinged, plodding spectacle. And with it, she's also got her own back on all those unprepared to say to her face what they really thought of her.

Does she know something we don't?

2010-02-01T21:34:00.004Z

One of those slightly strange not quite spam messages that very occasionally falls into your inbox:

Hi there,

I visited your website for the first time last night ( http://www.septicisle.info/labels/Gordon%20Brown.html ) and I noticed that you had some condolence/sympathy and funeral related resources within it. You've done a great job of organizing and listing helpful information and I was wondering if you would consider listing my website as a resource for your visitors?

Obituaries Help is a completely free resource for a person looking for condolence/sympathy and funeral related examples and resources.

...

Melanie Walters - Webmaster

There aren't too many who feel much sympathy for Gordon Brown. Does Melanie Walters then know something we don't on the funeral score? I think we should be told. Mel, do get back in touch. Unless you're going to send the same message again, in which case don't.

Modern media values.

2010-01-30T20:15:00.007Z

Not going to bother with a weekend links post this time round; not much on the blogs to link to, the papers aren't much better, and I'm sure you get tired of me linking to the same shit every Saturday anyway.

I do think though that nothing quite sums up the modern media's values as much as today's front pages. On all the tabloids, and even the Telegraph, footballer shags other footballer's ex-girlfriend. The others, oh, some bloke called Tony Blair was before some panel preaching.

Naturally, it's an important victory for freedom, according to the Sun: you have the right to know when a man with all the charm of a house brick turns out to, well, have all the charm of a house brick. What a breathtaking revelation. To quote the paper:

But if, as a married man, he is behaving in a manner many might find unacceptable with his position, the public has the right to know.

Didn't the public then have a right to know that ex-Sun editor Rebekah Wade's relationship with her then husband Ross Kemp was either breaking or had broken down? Well no, because then News International executive Les Hinton phoned round all the papers begging them not to mention it, which they duly abided by. The only freedom which the tabloid press recognise is the freedom to make money, regardless of the facts and regardless of the morals which some attempt to shove down the throats of their readers.

The last Blair show.

2010-01-29T19:34:00.006Z

As it happened, you didn't need to bother paying any attention to Blair's performance before the Chilcot inquiry; you could instead have simply read it in this morning's Guardian. All Blair's main lines of argument were ready summarised and disclosed to Patrick Wintour, almost as if Tone himself had phoned up the paper's political editor and advised the hack on just how he was going to present his case. Surely not, doubtless the paper will protest: instead it was Blair's "friends" that had informed them of everything. It is though remarkable just how close his evidence was to that briefed to the Graun, especially on the September dossier: the paper said he'd now admit that they should have just published the joint intelligence committee's assessments, and lo, so it came to pass.

If Blair was initially nervous, his hands shaking as the session began, as some have claimed, then it's unclear what he was so worried about. He certainly shouldn't have been of the questioning, which varied from the obsequious and deferential all the way to the mildly troubling, like a small dog trying to hump your leg, embarrassing at first but easy to shake off. Around the only moment he faltered during the morning session (which I didn't see) was when asked about that Fern Britton interview in which he made clear that he would have attempted to remove Saddam even if he knew that Iraq didn't have any WMD. His explanation? That even he, with all his experiences of interviews, still had something to learn, and that in any case, he didn't use the words "regime change". It wasn't then that in a moment of weakness he had for once actually given an honest answer, but that he had, perhaps in that modern lexicon of politicians and celebrities, "misspoke".

This led me onto thinking that maybe we've approached this whole inquiry, if not the modern way in which we expect politicians to be interviewed and interrogated in the wrong way entirely. After all, it's not Blair's first slip to a "soft" interviewer: he previously said to Michael Parkinson that God would judge him on Iraq, which again, might well be what he truly believes. Instead then of having a panel made up of historians, mandarins and other peers of the realm, we should of had the thing chaired by dear old Fern, assisted ably by Davina McCall, Graham Norton, Alan Carr and Coleen Rooney. If nothing else, Carr asking about the legality of the war and the wording of UN Resolution 1441, and what difference there was between "consider" and "decide" when it came to what happened if there was a "material breach" by Iraq might have been amusing for oh, 5 seconds at least.

As the afternoon session drew on, and as it became clear that even Sir Roderic Lyne, the only panel member who has even been close to forensic in his questioning whilst also drier than dry in both his wit and ill-disguised contempt, wasn't as much as laying a finger on our esteemed former prime minister, you could sense that Blair was almost beginning to enjoy himself. The whole world used to be his stage; now the closest he gets are corporate junkets where he spouts platitudes and walks away with a massive cheque, which although doubtless pleasing on the bank balance, just isn't the same. He quite obviously misses being a politician, and although you can say what you like about his politics, and this blog has plenty of times, he remains untouchable at what he does. If David Cameron is Blair's heir, then he doesn't even come close, or hasn't as yet; the air-brushed pretender to Blair's possibly Botoxed brow.

And as it went on, the higher Blair's flights of fancy flew. Why, if we hadn't confronted Saddam in 2003 then by now he would likely be competing with an attempting to go nuclear Iran. It didn't matter that Iraq, being almost completely disarmed in 2003, with even his slightly out-of-allowable range missiles being dismantled by the UN inspectors, would have had to spent those years, still impoverished by sanctions which were never likely to be lifted rebuilding his army from the bottom up. You had to wonder just how he wanted you to re-imagine history: should we be thinking as if the UN inspectors were never allowed back in at all, or as if we'd backed down in March 2003 and given them more time? In the first instance the crippling sanctions would have continued, and in the second eventuality it would have been discovered that Iraq didn't have the WMD stocks which Blair and the intelligence so forcefully stated that they had. In either case Iraq would have been left as the weak link, with Iran the most to gain.

Unlike others who, if not exactly chastened by appearing before the inquiry, have at least admitted that not everything went according to plan and that they had regrets about their involvement, Blair was as rigidly certain as ever of the righteousness of all that he had touched. If things went wrong, it wasn't Blair or the coalition's fault: it was everyone else's but. It wasn't that the planning for after the invasion had been inadequate, it was that al-Qaida and Iran had actively opposed the Iraqi people's rightful safe passage into a post-Saddam era. Despite admitting that Iraq had no links al-Qaida, Iran and al-Qaida as the day wore on grew increasingly inclusive, until finally Blair suggested that the two had been actively working together. Considering that the Mahdi army and the other Iranian-backed groups fought against the Sunni militant groups which sprang up in the aftermath and that this reached its peak during 2007 when civil war and sectarian cleansing of entire parts of the country was taking place, this was something of a revelation. To top that, Blair had to go some, and he managed it with his beyond chutzpah quoting of child mortality figures in the first three years of the decade, as compared with now. That those mortality rates are in part almost certainly attributable to the sanctions regime was something that no member of the inquiry felt like bothering him with.

Asked whether he had anything else to say as the session drew to a close, he simply replied in the negative. Lord Goldsmith, giving evidence on Wednesday, took that opportunity to imply in diplomatic language that even if he had decided that the war was legal, in difference with all the advisers in the Foreign Office and almost every other lawyer versed in international law, it didn't necessarily mean that he thought that it was right, or that it had gone well. Blair could have used it to express his discomfort for all those that have lost their lives, and indeed, continue to do so as a direct result of our actions, even if not at the hands of the coalition. Despite this, you almost expected Blair's interrogators to rise to their feet and applaud, just as Cameron attempted to get the Tories to do on his last prime minister's questions. Delusional to the very last, but still religious in the fervour of his belief that he did the right thing, never has there likely been such relief that Gordon Brown is now our prime minister.

The party's over.

2010-01-28T22:37:00.005Z

Unlike a lot of other teenage revolutionaries, I successfully resisted the temptation to join one of the random far-left groupings that still, despite everything, manage to keep themselves going even as the members doubtless inexorably age. It isn't difficult though to still find affection for groups that believe the shrinking proletariat will, despite all the signs to the contrary, eventually become a revolutionary vanguard with the power and means to overthrow the ruling class. Whether a dictatorship of the proletariat will then follow remains to be seen; that's one of those things that modern Trotskyists never manage to agree upon.

Reading Dave Osler's survey of the potential for a far-left breakthrough at the general election is to re-read the annals of socialist sect history over more or less the last 20 years. Without placing the blame at any particular grouping, the failures are obvious: a complete inability to work together when only an alliance could so much as begin to threaten the Labour party, a shocking lack of leadership material, and that which there is tends to be egotistical and controlling beyond belief, an obsession with fighting yesterday's battles while ignoring the changing nature of modern British society, and most importantly of all, thinking that the electorate will connect with you rather than you having to connect with them.

The spectre which once only haunted the socialist left is now hanging over the left as a whole. The left has just failed to take the greatest opportunity to be handed to it in a generation: a crash which many predicted but which it has been unable to take advantage of. Even as governments turned to Keynes, the left's response has been either muted or non-existent. Just when an alternative has been most needed, as those who have never experienced a recession have had to get used to the feeling of being surplus to requirements, the explanation for why this cycle is doomed to repeat has been almost wholly lacking. Left economists may have been those whose advice has been turned to, but no grouping has built upon this to turn it into a critique of where we went wrong and what has to be changed to even limit the effects should it happen again.

Undoubtedly we can put some of the blame upon a Labour party which has never looked so moribund. It seems determined to spend its few remaining days in power, when not sulking about still being lead by Gordon Brown, showing the poverty of thinking which has condemned it to its current position. All it offers now is the chance for you to keep up with the Joneses, the shallowest, most limited vision of aspiration imaginable. This isn't just down to Brown's intellectual inadequacy when he moves off economics, failing to articulate the "good society" which Blair in flashes painted in his famous verb-less speeches. It's a direct result of Labour's obsession with the dead centre, the triangulation which inhibits its every statement.

Who though is waiting for their chance to prove they could do better? Alan Johnson? One of the Miliband brothers? Harriet Harman? Peter Mandelson? Every single one is dedicated to the continuation of the current policies, with slight changes at the edges. This is the biggest problem facing not just Labour, but the left at large: there are no new potential leaders waiting for their opportunity, rather just the same old bunch of either politicos, trade union dinosaurs or uninspiring if competent incumbents.

Take, just as an example, the "Progressive London" conference being held this weekend. Not content with continuing to use the word "progressive" as if it still means something, it's Ken Livingstone also failing to realise that despite all he's done, for which he deserves praise, he's now yesterday's man and ought to put his dreams of returning to the Mayorship behind him. Look at the panel on "the cost of war" and try not to either smash your monitor or throw up on it: what can Galloway, the political editor of the fucking Morning Star, CND and the Stop the War Coalition say which they haven't already and which hasn't already driven away those who once protested? To take one gathering which isn't completely shooting fish in a barrel, there's Stopping the BNP - no concession to the far right, which features such luminaries as that guy out of that band which made that "Heavyweight Champion of the World" song, alongside an union regional secretary and someone from Love Music Hate Racism. When perhaps discussion on why people vote for the BNP should be foremost in the minds of the left, and how to win back supporters that have crossed the political divides, the first people I know I'd turn to would be someone from a good cause which everyone can get behind but which changes nothing and a guy who's made one hit record. There are a couple of promising panels, such as the one on electoral reform and homes and planning for London's future, something which is actually practical, but the rest is the left banging on about the same old things without ever moving forward, which, unless I'm much mistaken, is what progressive is actually meant to mean.

Even if the left and the Labour party separated some time ago, the massive victories of 97 and 2001 resulted in a lengthy period in which minds went unfocused and everyone pretended that much was fine. Since then it has, quite reasonably, focused on foreign affairs but in doing so allowed domestic politics to rot away. The biggest indictment of the left, if over anything, has been the continuing rise of the BNP, and through its refusal, both to even countenance debating the organisation but also in accepting the new orthodoxy that immigration was fine before but it is out of control now and needs to be tackled. The response at this year's European elections to the biggest far-right electoral threat of modern times? To split the vote away from the Greens, with Bob Crow's hopeless and reactionary No2EU organisation and the 80s throwbacks the Socialist Labour Party both on the ballot alongside all the other non-entities. Just when it needed to come together to fight the greater enemy it fractured just as it has in the past.

Where does the left go from here? The best case scenario is that it gets the rude awakening of its life come 6th of May; although a Conservative majority of the size of Labour's first and second terms thankfully seems unlikely, a victory which is large enough to concentrate thinking is the best possible outcome. It doesn't just need to rebuild; it needs to examine whether it has to demolish and start again. The party's over, and whether it starts again depends entirely on the reaction in the coming months. If, as Chris so accurately describes the prospect, of a government run by the children of the rich for the children of the rich doesn't reanimate the corpse of a dying ideological bent, nothing will.

Crap.

2010-01-27T21:52:00.003Z

These last few days I haven't really known what to write about - nothing that unusual, some days I don't, and only settle on something after browsing the blogs to the right or punishing myself by reading the tabloids. More out of character though is that after that I've still had to push myself to get something down, and the post on Monday I re-wrote a number of times and I'm still not even approaching semi-satisfied with it. Running out of things to say, when news hasn't exactly been slow, is probably a blogger's nightmare, although it hasn't stopped me before, ho ho ho.

I'm going through one of those faux-existential or crisis of confidence (confidence, hah, that's a joke on its own) moments that fog my mind every so often - not just is there any point to this, but whether there's any real point to anything at all. I've managed to convince myself in the past that there is, otherwise surely, as pointed out, I wouldn't have been spouting this constant stream of bilge for approaching 5 years. Increasingly though, I wonder whether I'm right. And the more I think about it, the more I'm certain I'm not.

The VIP treatment.

2010-01-26T21:46:00.004Z

Here's one of those especially crass Sun articles written with the type of feigned ignorance so prevalent in the tabloids:

ILLEGAL immigrants are getting the VIP treatment when booted out of Britain - with personal security escorts costing almost £500 each.

Yes, you read that right - the VIP treatment. I don't know what VIP means to you, but I somehow doubt that those who considered themselves such would put up for long with what the average failed asylum seeker or illegal immigrant faces prior to their deportation, often provided by the same private security firms. The last report into Colnbrook (PDF) immigration removal centre, ran by Serco (glossy corporate, touchy-feely everything is wonderful page), where many are held prior to their deportation due to its location near to Heathrow, found that it was struggling to cope and that safety was a significant concern.

That though is nothing when compared to the true VIP treatment when those lucky enough to be leaving are taken to the flights to return them to their home country. The reason why "personal security escorts" are used is twofold - firstly because there are few officials and staff within the UK Border Agency who are authorised to use force and as result many first attempts to deport individuals are abandoned because those whose time has come dare to resist - and secondly as many within the UKBA are not prepared to actually see the policies which they implement put into effect.

In a way, you can't blame them - the horror stories from some of the chartered flights are visceral in their intensity. On one of the first chartered flights back to Iraq a detainee smuggled a blade on board and slashed his stomach, while another concussed himself after banging his head repeatedly against a window. Those were probably the ones which weren't restrained, with others either handcuffed or even wearing leg irons. Charter planes aren't always used though - there was the notable case of a British Airways flight to Lagos where the passengers in economy class mutinied after seeing the plight of a shackled detainee who wouldn't stop screaming, with the supposed "ringleader" arrested and charged only to be cleared over a year later of "behaving in a threatening, abusive, insulting or disorderly manner" towards the crew.

Then again, you wonder what the Sun expects. After all, according to them we roll out the red carpet in welcoming immigrants and asylum seekers in the first place, and the commenters on the piece certainly agree. Might as well extend the gesture when we forcibly throw them out as well then, surely? It does though also prove that simply the government can't do anything right - let too many come here in the first place and spends too much when it gets rid of them, regardless of the much higher cost of keeping them detained here before their deportation - why it bothers when there is simply no political benefit in keeping up such brutal but also ineffective policies remains a mystery. Perhaps, just for the Sun, we could think up something that would negate the need to deport them at all; there are after all many lessons which we can learn from history...

Baby P to Edlington and angels to devils.

2010-01-25T19:52:00.005Z

Here's a very quick test of just how soon we forget: who wrote the following and about whom?

HIS bright blue eyes stare out at us beseechingly.

A gorgeous, blond-haired, blue-eyed tot with a heart-melting smile.

If you answered with anything other than the Sun and Baby P, or Peter Connelly, as he is never going to be known, then I'm afraid you're wrong. It does however already seem so long ago though, doesn't it? A furore where the fervour has dissipated often later seems to be unreal when it's recalled; were we really that outraged, that angry? After all, it's not us, detached from the case who end up being personally affected, just those with the misfortune to be connected, however tenuously, who find themselves trapped within the vortex of a nation's temporary indignation. Social workers are still getting used to the voluminous amount of new recommendations as advised in Lord Laming's report on Haringey's failings, not to mention the increased workloads after councils across the country played it safe and took more children into care than perhaps needed to be. As for the Sun, well, one of the front pages from during their campaign took pride of place in their 40th anniversary celebrations.

I've gone over this before, but one of the most telling contributions at the time was from Martin Narey, the head of Barnardo's, who suggested had Peter survived he may well have grown up to be the "feral yob" of tabloid nightmares, condemned and castigated without a thought as to what made him. It was part of a speech which was intended to provoke, which is what it did, but it has also now rung almost too true. The case of the two brothers who committed their crime in Edlington could almost be the inverse of the Baby P case: there, an innocent child killed and tortured by those meant to be taking care of him; in Edlington, two "brothers from hell" torture and almost kill two other young boys. On the one hand, the angelic, on the other the demonic. The biblical implications of referring to the unnamed boys as the "devil brothers" is not openly alluded to, but it is there if you look deep enough: "the battle" between good and evil itself seems to be only just below the surface.

And as then, a similar political battle appears to be under way. Both examples of our broken society, of the failure of the state to protect children, with a familiar number of opportunities to intervene missed. According to David Cameron, not just an "isolated act of evil". Michael Gove described it, while calling for the full serious case review to be released into how social services dealt with the family, as "unspeakable evil". The Sun in its leader calls for the review to be released as well, but perhaps there's a clue to its real motives in the actual report's first paragraph:

THE Government was last night urged to publish the full report into the "Devil Brothers" case and shame the bunglers who allowed the savage attack on two boys.

The bunglers? One of those awful words which only the media use, and one which was put into repeated usage to describe Sharon Shoesmith, head of child protection at Haringey council when Baby P was murdered. And there is the other obvious parallel with Baby P: like then, we have no actual names to put to the individuals whose actions we have read about it. Then it was because there was another court case going on at the same time involving Peter's mother and her boyfriend, with their identities needing to be protected to prevent prejudicing that separate prosecution; here it's due to the judge quite rightly concluding that there was no public interest to be served in the brothers being identified. One suspects that it might have been different had they "succeeded" in killing their victims, like how the fact that everyone knew that Child A and Child B had killed James Bulger perhaps influenced the removal of Jon Venables and Robert Thompson's anonymity. With everyone in the Edlington case behind a shroud, the same never applied. And hence, because we don't know who anyone is, there's no one we can personally blame. The social workers who failed Baby P then became the natural scapegoats, even though they were hardly the ones that personally killed the blue-eyed tot. Without names, it's impossible to keep the story going for long: by changing the emphasis from the "devil brothers" themselves onto "the bunglers" they might just give it a longer shelf-life.

Cynical? Certainly. The Tories' reasons for calling for the release of the case review are purer, but not by much. They know that there's political mileage in embarrassing the government yet again, even if it's unlikely that anything will be achieved by its full publication. It doesn't seem to matter that the NSPCC have recommended that while executive summaries of the case reviews should be released, they oppose their release in full "as sensitive information must be kept confidential to protect vulnerable children."

That we are so quick to ascribe evil to the actions of children is itself a cause for concern. This goes far beyond whether those responsible understand the difference between good and bad, which was so hotly debated during the trial of James Bulger's killers. It goes to the heart of our own relationships, our own feelings for our offspring, which have never been so conflicted. We seem caught, not between the dichotomy of angel and demon, but between small adult and friend, and inferior and threat. We hug our own tighter, while pushing everyone else's further away. Until we're willing to unravel just how we've become so insecure about our own successors, we're likely to continue refusing to admit that ultimately the blame, if we're going to lay it at the foot of anyone, is with ourselves.

Weekend links.

2010-01-23T20:55:00.002Z

Yeah, still no return to a proper post yet. Hopefully I'll have stopped my snivelling by Monday. In the meantime...

Lenin suggests that the Obama dream might have died already, Craig comments on Jack Straw's performance before the Chilcot inquiry, Paul Linford wonders if the "causes of crime" have come back to haunt Labour, Jamie takes Cameron's argument over the Edlington attack to its logical conclusion, Dave Semple examines Harriet Harman's speech to Compass on the supposed "Good Society", Neil Robertson quite rightly tears Zac Goldsmith a new one, the Heresiarch turns the hyperbole on slightly in coming soon: a rigged election while lastly Claude asks if "evil" can always be explained.

In the papers, Matthew Parris, having first told David Cameron to go to town on Gordon Brown, now thinks that he should put away the custard pies, probably because Brown has got the better of Cameron the past three weeks for the first time in ages, Janice Turner writes about the somewhat ignored, tragic case of Frances Inglis, sentenced to nine years for ending the suffering of her disabled son, whom the Graun also has an interview from prison with, Andrew Grice and Peter Oborne both comment on Brown and the Chilcot inquiry, with a difference of opinion over how dangerous it is for him (I side with Grice in that I don't think any revelation about Brown's role or not in going to war with Iraq is going to affect votes now), Howard Jacobson has a rather snobbish piece which features both Sunny Hundal and Anton Vowl, the latter quoted out of context repeatedly, while lastly Marina Hyde punctures those who concentrate on political gaffes in her customary style.

No worst tabloid article this week again, despite my worrying about the venom likely to be unleashed after the sentencing of the brothers convicted of the attack in Edlington. Closest is probably the Sun leader, which agrees with David Cameron that "Britain has become an "irresponsible society" with too much greed and selfishness". I can't even begin to imagine which publications and individuals could possibly have promoted such warped and twisted values.

A short response to Edlington and David Cameron.

2010-01-22T22:59:00.002Z

I'm sure you'll forgive me for not writing anything too extensive tonight, although if you want to read my response to all the comments on the post below it's now there, finally.

What I will do is link you to Unity's post on the sentencing of the boys who committed the terrible crime in Edlington, my own post from when they pleaded guilty, which still stands up pretty well in my admittedly biased eyes, and which also makes me deeply anxious about the media response we're likely to see tomorrow morning.

And no, Mr Cameron, it is not responsible to describe the crime committed by those two brothers, however horrendous and wicked, as "evil". You, more than anyone else, should be careful with your words and remember that we are dealing with children here, not adults. Stop trying to make political capital out of terrible but extremely rare events, which do not in any way, shape or form show that society as a whole is broken.

Why am I such a fucking moron?

2010-01-21T18:48:00.003Z

I have written here before, although not very extensively, about suffering from depression. It isn't something that I want to characterise my writing, or something which I become identified for, even if only by the few remaining like-minded individuals who take their time to read my babbling. Whilst I have for the most part made a good recovery, even if I still have incredibly low self-esteem and am pretty much a shut-in, hopeless at social interaction, one of the other problems I have is a complete inability to be able to forget and let go.

I don't know whether this is because is I haven't managed to establish any meaningful relationships with almost anyone since I left school, although I'm willing to bet that's fairly high up there in the reasons why. I do know however that I really want to be able to move on, but for whatever mental limitation I have, I simply don't seem to be able to. This manifests itself in different ways: while I have successfully gone months without feeling the need to remind myself of what a completely inadequate, insensitive and fantastically brainless fool I am, I almost always end up at some point, usually in the small hours of the morning when my levels of resistance to causing myself and others even more unnecessary pain, anguish and inconvenience break down, being unable to stop myself from doing things that in the morning I always instantly regret.

It is though by then far too late, and the damage as always has been done. By my reckoning this is now the third time that I've broken my promise to stop being such a wet, annoying fucktard; as before, I can only offer my increasingly insincere apologies. There is, just as there has ever been, only myself to blame. The kindness that I have been previously shown, which I don't even begin to deserve, only makes the cruelty to which I have responded to it with even more inexplicable. I hope that this gives a slightly more detailed explanation as to why. The best psychological definition of why this keeps happening that I've come across is that coined by Dorothy Tennov, termed limerence.

I don't want pity; that isn't the reason for this post. I'm more than able to pity myself. It just appears right now to be the best way to try and help myself, while also trying to help others to understand why I'm such a hopeless, ignorant internet equivalent of a bad penny. I wish deeply I wasn't like this; I wish deeply that I could just for once respect the wishes of others. Wishing though is all that I have, and my wishes up to now have never come true.

The illusion of safety.

2010-01-20T23:41:00.002Z

Amid all the predictable over-reaction to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's successful attempt to set fire to himself, the first thing to go out the window was any sort of perspective. We are now after all fast approaching the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 attacks, which also marks the last successful attack by takfirist jihadists on a Western city. Not that al-Qaida and its franchises haven't tried to attack or haven't been plotting; it's just that all their attempts have either been spectacular failures or have been successfully prevented.

While America supposedly worries that this otherwise inconsequential island has the highest number of al-Qaida operatives in the West, they don't seem to have noted how, even if accurate, just how incompetent they are. First we had the 21/7 group, whose chapati flour bombs sadly failed to rise (surely explode? Ed), the liquid doom plotters, who needed to be tried twice before a jury was convinced that the main three were going to target aircraft, and where it has never been successfully proved that they were ever going to be capable of constructing a viable explosive, even if they had the necessary material, and then, and most humorously, we found ourselves threatened by two geniuses who thought that they could make a bomb by simply filling a car with patio gas canisters without realising that they needed either a detonator or an oxidiser to create an explosion that was going to actually hurt anyone. Instead, they, like Abdulmutalab succeeded in only harming themselves rather than anyone else.

No, instead we have politicians to do the harming for us. Admittedly, the "underpants" bomber's attempted attack was more serious than the Glasgow airport duo's failure, both for the reason that it focused attention on the deteriorating situation in Yemen, but also because he used proper military explosives, even if they also failed to detonate. It is though unclear whether even if he had created a successful detonation he would have managed to bring the plane down; he may well have killed both himself and some of those seated around him, but the plane could well have limped home, close as it was to its destination. The key fact is though that he failed, and that once such a method has been attempted, it's unlikely to be repeated. Not even the morons "who love death more than we love life" tend to repeat themselves once they've failed once; instead they somewhat innovate. Project Bojinka became the liquid bomb plot, similar but involving suicide bombers and with a different more obtainable explosive. Richard Reid's attempt led to Abdulmutalab's, and in turn will likely lead to a further attempt along the lines of the failed assassination of the Saudi prince Muhammad bin Nayef by Abdullah Hassan Al Aseery, in which the explosive might well have been inside his anal canal, although some have since suggested it was sewn into his underpants ala Abdulmutalab.

Is there any point then whatsoever to today's "package of enhanced security measures"? It seems doubtful, especially the ludicrous stopping of direct flights between Britain and Yemen, as if that'll somehow stop anyone travelling between the two countries instead of just inconveniencing them somewhat. It's also unclear just what use a "no-fly" list will be when almost all those who have attempted attacks in this country have either been British citizens, been here since childhood or here legitimately, such as the Glasgow attackers. As for the full-body scanners, Abdulmutalab went through rigorous security in both Nigeria and the Netherlands which failed to detect his explosives; as it simply isn't possible to go over everyone with a fine tooth comb there's still no guarantee that a bomber wouldn't get on a flight in similar circumstances. The only part of the proposals that might help is the further sharing of intelligence and the security services joint investigation team to be set-up.

In short, this is the same old illusion of safety that we've always had. If the intention is to do something rather than doing nothing, then the government has succeeded. If instead the intention was to increase the fear factor, then it might work amongst a few people; more likely though is that it will just further infuriate those who regularly travel. If al-Qaida in Yemen's real motive was to further discourage air travel they might have succeeded, although then again, the government seems as determined to do the job just as well for them.

The depressing political fight over binge drinking.

2010-01-19T21:39:00.005Z

There's little that's more depressing than politicians attempting to outdo each other when it comes to the latest social evil to have been sporadically identified. We went through it on gun crime, on knife crime, and now as we approach the election it seems we've decided on binge drinking as the next thing to be cracked down upon, at least until the new and even deadlier scare comes along, which looks at the moment to be shaping up to be mephedrone.

While it's often been the moralising tabloid press that has screamed loudest and longest about the damage being down to the centres of our towns and cities at weekends in the usual hyperbolic fashion, alongside the health workers who find themselves at the sharp end, it's been the Scottish National Party that started the arms race and which is attempting to legislating a minimum price for a unit of alcohol sold off-licence. It goes without saying that this is the equivalent of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, penalising everyone regardless of how little or how much they drink, a flat tax on booze if you will.

It is though the kind of policy that ensures you know where you stand. The same can't be said for either the government's changes to the current licensing conditions or to the Tories' counter proposals. Labour seems to be completely ignoring the fact that it isn't the pubs or clubs which are overwhelming flogging cheap alcohol to the masses, as anyone who visits either even casually will notice, but the supermarkets with their offers on cases of the stuff, usually with either 2 for a £10 or a similar slightly higher sum. The Tories admittedly have recognised this, with their new policy being to ensure that supermarkets can't sell booze at below cost price, but their other proposals are even more draconian than Labour's, and typically stupid. The idea that imposing extra tax only on strong lagers and ciders, as well as alcopops, which those drinking to get drunk rarely imbibe will have any effect when they can downgrade to the only slightly less strong "ordinary" beers is ludicrous, and seems more designed to sneer at those who drink them than anything else.

As always, the real reason why there's something approaching a drinking problem in this country is not mentioned. When quality of life is so poor that the one thing to look forward to is getting smashed at the weekend, or indeed every night to take away from the everyday nightmare of living and working, the problem is not with individuals or with the opiate, but with the entire philosophy of a nation and the modern nature of capitalism itself. We then further promote an immature attitude towards drink by denying it to teenagers as a matter of politics, while families across the countries connive in breaking the law to give it them. When politicians are not prepared to so much as consider the first as a factor, while continuing to regard alcohol as a terrible thing until we reach a certain arbitrary age, we're always going to be reduced to a political auction where everyone asks how much without considering why we're bidding in the first place.

The Tory education class war.

2010-01-18T21:36:00.004Z

At the weekend Peter Oborne treated us to a treatise on how the Conservatives have put together the most radical program for government since Oliver Cromwell, or words similar to that effect. Cameron is far more prepared for government than Blair ever was, and he'd make Margaret Thatcher look like an, err, Conservative by comparison.

Back here in the real world, when you can put a cigarette paper between Labour and the Conservatives, it's invariably the Tories that have the more stomach-turning ideas, as well as those which are simply wrong-headed, or indeed those that are openly reactionary, somewhat strange for a party that claims to now espouse liberal conservatism, whatever that is. Hence we have the pledge to openly redistribute from the single, engaged and everyone else to the married, those who are truly the most in need. Or as today's launch of the party's education policies showed, somehow managing to be even worse than Labour at reforming our benighted education system.

After all, it really ought to be an open goal. Even after almost 13 years under New Labour, still barely 50% manage to get 5 "good GCSEs", a record so appalling that it can't be stressed often enough. There have been improvements made, although considering the amount of money pumped in it would be incredible if there hadn't been, and diplomas as introduced by Ed Balls with the mixture of vocational and academic work contained within is one of the few reforms which has been a step in the right direction, but on the whole Labour has been too focused on the league tables, the incessant examination of students and the continued reforming of schools purely it's seemed at times for the sake of it, with academies being the obvious example, which in equal measure have failed to raise standards while at the same time imposing the kind of discipline and rigidity which seems to actively sexually arouse certain individuals pining for the corporal punishment and being seen and not heard of their own childhood. Oh, and the lessons in working in call-centres, the kind of aspirational teaching that the Conservatives seemingly want to build on.

When Cameron then immediately decides that the most important thing which will decide whether or not a child succeeds is not their background, the curricula, the type of school or the amount of funding it receives but the person who teaches them, he's on the verge of talking nonsense on stilts, with Chris linking to some research which is in disagreement with that which Cameron quotes. Ignore that for a second though, and just consider Cameron's thought process: because the teacher is so important, only the very finest should be funded. How are we judging whether the teacher will be any good or not? On the basis of err, the university which they received their degree from and on the grade on the paper they received at their graduation. Surely if the type of school isn't important from the start, it also shouldn't matter which university the degree came from? Obviously not.

For a party which has been crying about Labour's piss-poor supposed class war, the thinking behind the proposed education policy is openly elitist, and also openly discriminatory in favour of the middle and upper classes: when only the top 20 colleges are likely to be considered good enough for those applying for the funding scheme and for their student loan to be paid off, colleges which are overwhelmingly populated by former private school students and which most state school applicants are actively discouraged from applying to for that very reason, this is the Tories' very own class war, their prejudices writ large in the same way as they claim Labour's to be. Even then it's contradictory: only a few months back Michael Gove wanted ex-service personnel to be fast-tracked into schools; now only the "best professionals with the best qualifications" need apply.

Others have pointed out that there is no correlation between the degree you get and the ability you have to teach. In fact, as Chris again suggests, the most academically gifted can potentially make things worse for those with lesser ability. I'd go as far to suggest that there are three groups of teachers out there: those that know what they're doing, those that can connect with those they're teaching, and that far rarer group, those that can do both. The exam results you get in your early twenties are no indication of how good you'll be at either of those things.

Not that the contradictions stop there: on discipline the Tories want to hand all the power over to the teachers themselves, ensuring that they can't be overruled by independent panels on exclusions, while at the same time wanting to ensure that schools can be held to account. Except on the former presumably? Alongside this, we have all the usual promises on cutting bureaucracy, on defeating waste, empowering everyone and all, as is likely, under the constraints imposed by cutting the deficit. Missing, as always, is the realisation that the number one thing parents want is a good local school which they can just send their offspring to in the knowledge that they will receive a good education, not the option to set-up a new one if it isn't good enough or they decide it isn't good enough. This however simply won't float when you can instead introduce your own pet projects, or prove to the newspapers that you're going to do something through even further shake-ups. Just letting the current system settle isn't an option when you've got to put your own imprint onto it, and if anything is likely to make things worse, Cameron's prescription is likely to be it.

Weekend links.

2010-01-16T20:48:00.003Z

Straight in as before. Paul Linford reckons the Iraq war inquiry is bad news more for Brown than it is for Blair, while Brown himself has been scraping the barrel with his piss-poor aspirations for the middle class, as noted by Chris Dillow, Dave Semple wants Melanie Phillips to meet Grand Ayatollah Montazeri, Dave Osler is clear that "new racism" can only be countered by a new class politics while lastly both Anton Vowl and Angry Mob tackle tabloid coverage of Terence Gavan.

In the papers, Matthew Parris suggests that to really tackle Blair over he needs to be hounded, Patrick Cockburn wonders whether the US is failing Haiti again, Andrew Grice thinks Gordon Brown has to stick to his promise and use the "c" word (not that one), Marina Hyde attacks the killjoy nature of Thames Valley police after officers were warned about their conduct after they went sledging with a riot shield while on duty, and finally David Nutt puts forward his case for his new drugs panel.

As for worst tabloid article of the weekend, we have a choice between the arslikhan of Peter Oborne over the Tories' plans which are far more radical than Maggie's, or the even more dire Howard Jacobson, who's a fine writer when he isn't either knocking on about terrorism or civil liberties. I think we'll go with the latter.

Hurrah for the Blackshirts!

2010-01-15T21:33:00.000Z

Via Next Left, it's 76 years to the day since the Mail declared its support for those ahead of their time left-wingers known as the British Union of Fascists. By coincidence, the latest far-right nutjob to be found in possession of "improvised explosive devices", joining the ranks over the last few years of Neil Lewington, Robert Cottage and Martyn Gilleard was today convicted and sentenced to 11 years.

Unlike the others, whom were either connected to different far-right groups or whose membership to the British National Party had lapsed, Terence Gavan was a fully paid up member of the party, as the last leaked membership list makes clear (XLSB), a Mr Gavan appearing on the list from West Yorkshire with the postcode WF17 7HQ, which covers Healey Lane in Batley. Indeed, Gavan wasn't just a normal member but rather a "Gold" member, having opted to pay the £60 fee in return for his spangly yellow party badge. Still, the BNP, despite being unwilling to admit that Gavan was what they call an "elite" member, with the news being strangely absent from their current home page, admitted that the charges against him were "serious" and that the sentence passed "correct". Whether the members themselves agree is another matter.

How to destroy the BBC without mentioning Murdoch.

2010-01-14T21:21:00.003Z

It's been obvious for some time now that the BBC under a Conservative government is going to be facing a vastly different climate to the one that it currently enjoys under a somewhat supportive Labour party. Facing not just the accusations from the usual suspects of an innate liberal bias, but also now the outright fury of the Murdochs for daring to provide a free to use news website, with many certain that the deal between Cameron and Murdoch for his support must involve some kind of emasculation of the BBC once the new Tories gain power, there still hasn't been a set-out policy from how this is going to be achieved. Thankfully, Policy Exchange, the right-wing think-tank with notable links to the few within the Cameron set with an ideological bent has come up with a step-by-step guide on how destroy the BBC by a thousand cuts which doesn't so much as mention Murdoch.

Not that Policy Exchange itself is completely free from Murdoch devotees or those who call him their boss. The trustees of the think-tank include Camilla Cavendish and Alice Thomson, both Times hacks, while Charles Moore, former editor of the Daily Telegraph and who refused to pay the licence fee until Jonathan Ross left the corporation is the chairman of the board. Also a trustee is Rachel Whetstone, whose partner is Steve Hilton, Cameron's director of strategy. Whetstone was also a godparent to the late Ivan Cameron. The report itself is by Mark Oliver, who was director of strategy at the Beeb between 1989 and 1995, during John Birt's much-loved tenure as director-general. Oliver it seems isn't a blue-sky thinker to rival Birt however; his plans are much simpler.

His chief recommendation (PDF) is that the BBC should focus on quality first and reach second. On paper this is a reasonable proposal: the BBC has for too long tried to be all things to all people, although its reason for doing so is that all of the people are of course forced to pay a regressive tax to fund it. Oliver's pointed recommendations on what it shouldn't be doing though give the game away: it shouldn't be spending money on sports rights when the commercial channels do the job just as well when they win the bids. Has Oliver seen ITV's football coverage, one wonders? About the only sport ITV has covered well in recent years was F1, and they decided to not bid for the rights the last time they came up because of the money they'd spent on the FA Cup. The other thing the BBC should stop trying to do is 16-35 coverage, which really drives the point home. The real proposal here is that by stopping catering for the youth audience, the hope is that the young lose the reverence for the BBC which the older demographic continues to have, even if if that has been diluted in recent years. There is a case, as I've argued in the past, for shutting down BBC3 and privatising Radio 1, not to stop catering for the young but because the money spent on both could be better distributed and spent elsewhere. BBC3 in nearly 7 years of broadcasting has produced at most 5 programmes of actual worth, and all of them could have been easily made for and accommodated on BBC2. Radio 1 is just shit, end of story.

Along with Oliver's proposal to end the spending on talent and on overseas programmes which the other channels would bid for, this removes the justification for the keeping of the licence fee right down to the public service credentials - in short, the BBC should do the bare minimum, stay purely highbrow and in doing so, would lose the support which it currently still has across the ages and classes. The first step in this process was clearly the Sachsgate affair, resulting in the stifling layer of compliance which producers now have to go through, and which is discouraging even the slightest amount of risk-taking or programmes which might cause anything approaching offence. If, after Sachsgate, the BBC was allowed to keep its bollocks, just not allowed to use them, then Oliver's proposals would complete the castration.

Oliver's other key recommendations involving the BBC include the abolition of the BBC Trust, which hasn't held the corporation to sufficient account even though it has put its foot down on a number of occasions, while also recommending the "bottom-slicing" of the licence fee, which as the BBC has repeatedly rightly argued, would end the special relationship it has with licence-fee payers, leaving it no longer able to justify itself fully to the public. Finally, a Public Service Content Trust would be set up, another quango to which the BBC would have to justify itself to.

The other two eye-catching proposals which don't involve the BBC are that Channel 4 should be privatised - after all, ITV is a shining example of the benefits of such a move, or the Simon Cowell channel as it is shortly to be renamed. Lastly, ownership and competition constraints should be relaxed in exchange for programme investment commitments, or as it may as well be called, the Murdoch clause. The vision which this report set outs is a media environment in which Murdoch's every wish comes true - allowed to buy ITV and Channel 5, those pesky rules on impartiality dropped, and a BBC reduced to a husk. Whether we should go the whole way and rename the country Murdochland is probably the subject of Policy Exchange's next report.

Rambling about the Naked Rambler.

2010-01-13T20:52:00.005Z

At the very best of times it's difficult to get a bearing on the workings of the criminal justice system. Without coming over all Daily Mail, there certainly are cases at times which result in cautions or very minor penalties that clearly deserved harsher punishment; to balance that out though there are often also trivialities dealt with in the courts which should have never got anywhere near coming up in front of a beak. One such case is that of Roger Day, prosecuted under the Army Act of 1955 for pretending to be an army veteran after he took part in a Remembrance Day parade in Bedworth wearing medals which he clearly could not have earned himself.

Day thankfully only received a relatively light community service order for his crime of fantasy. At the opposite end of the scale is the continuing stand off between Stephen Gough, better known as the Naked Rambler, and the Scottish authorities. Having walked from Land's End to John O'Groats on two occasions completely naked, both times being arrested repeatedly, and most often north of the border, Gough has only experienced freedom for a matter of minutes since 2006 after he was arrested for exposing himself on a flight between Southampton and Edinburgh. Since then Gough and the police have been involved in what is probably best described as the Pete Doherty shuffle, so named because of the police's constant pursuit of ex-Libertines drug addict: each time Gough finishes serving his last sentence, for either breaching the peace, contempt of court (for appearing naked in the dock) or public indecency, they immediately arrest him for once again stepping out into the open air wearing usually only socks, boots, a wristwatch and a backpack. Gough's latest arrest came after being released from Perth prison on the 17th of December. He was warned yesterday that he faced life in prison if he continued to refuse to put on clothes, with the same process continuing over and over.

Quite why the Scottish magistrates are allowing this charade to continue is unclear: it's obvious that this long stopped being about Gough and his belief that he has a right to be naked, and has instead become a battle between Gough and the authorities over their consistent re-arresting of him within seconds of him leaving custody. It's all about who's going to blink first, and for the moment it doesn't seem like either side is going to back down. Gough for his part continually argues that nudity in itself is not harmful or indecent, which it isn't. It's arguable whether nudity can be alarming, as suddenly come across a naked person certainly can be, but never has it been argued in Gough's case that his motives for remaining naked have been sexual in nature, nor has anyone made any complaint in that regard. Having undergone psychiatric examination, it's also fairly certain that Gough is not mentally ill, nor does he suffer from a personality disorder. His persistence in remaining naked seems to be based on completely rational justifications, as his letters to supporters suggest.

The cost of all this is difficult to estimate, but some have suggested that including his legal aid, his room and board at Her Majesty's pleasure and the successive prosecutions, he's run up a taxpayer-paid bill of around or over £200,000. All because the Scottish authorities seem determined to ensure that one man can't possibly be allowed to wander around naked, even for 30 seconds, lest someone be alarmed at a very shrivelled and tiny male member. The obvious solution would be to let him get on with it, but that seems beyond the comprehension of a system which can't seem to let someone who is determined to keep making a fool of it get away with it, even for as long as a minute.

Iraq inquiry groundhog day.

2010-01-12T21:03:00.003Z

It's difficult not to feel the sensation of deja vu when you see Alastair Campbell once again holding forth, defiantly as ever, before a cringing committee of the great and good tasked with supposedly wringing the truth out of him. That they'd have more chance of draining red viscous fluid from a hard inanimate object is ever the unspoken reality. It is also touching though, almost heart-warming to see just how loyal Blair's ever faithful spin doctor remains to his former boss. Blair after all feels no such compunction to keep up the pretence that Iraq was all about the weapons of mass destruction and not, in that famous construction of his following the 9/11 attacks, the re-ordering of things while the pieces were still in flux, admitting as he did to that noted Rottweiler Fern Britton that he would have invaded even if he had known that there were no WMDs.

Campbell in his evidence continued to deny even the possibility that, as one of the leaked Downing Street memos made clear, that the plan to invade had already been settled and that the "facts were being fixed around the policy". Christopher Meyer, the ambassador to Washington at the time, made clear in his evidence that he felt the government never resisted the march to war once it was clear that the US was going to take action regardless of anything or anyone else. Meyer himself sent back a memo in March 2002 (PDF) after a meeting with one of the architects of neo-conservatism, Paul Wolfowitz, in which he stated that "we backed regime change, but the plan had to be clever and failure was not an option". This was somewhat backed up by Jeremy Greenstock, who felt this was the case, but who was kept out of the loop, even though he was the person at the UN charged with trying to get a second resolution through. Campbell, for his part, later suggested that Meyer had been "glib" in not considering the consequences for the US-UK relationship in not supporting the war, with the implication that, as always seems to be the case, the illusion of the "special relationship" being maintained is always more important than the consequences of the alliance.

At points Campbell's evidence made you wonder whether his stubbornness to admit almost any mistake is not in fact borne of his continuing loyalty to Blair, or his own unstinting belief in his own righteousness, but in fact that he has to keep telling both himself and the world how he got everything right while everyone else has repeatedly got it wrong in order to convince himself that he is still on the side of the angels. Hence he'll defend "every single word" of the September 2002 dossier, while Andrew Gilligan's substantially confirmed report on the Today programme was a "dishonest piece of journalism", which is a quite wonderful example of projection, and almost anything which contradicts his evidence is a conspiracy theory, like the Guardian report of yesterday which suggested that he changed a part of the dossier to bring it into line with a claim made by Dick Cheney.

It is though perhaps instructive to compare how we conduct inquiries with the Dutch. Previously the government of the Netherlands resigned after a damning report into the Dutch military's failures at Srebrenica. By coincidence, their own inquiry today into their role in the Iraq war has concluded that it was illegal, as UN resolution 1441 could not be used as a mandate for armed conflict. Back here, we're still regarding Alastair Campbell as though he's a reliable witness. One suspects that the Chilcott inquiry's conclusions won't be anywhere near as incisive.