Saturday, October 07, 2006 

Scum-watch: Blaming a religion and community shamelessly.

Despite all that's already happened this week, the Sun's not prepared to allow the exasperation of some die down. Today it splashes on its front page with the claim that a house which soldiers were planning to move into was vandalised by "Muslims", with threats being made to them over the phone.

MUSLIM yobs who wrecked a house to stop four brave soldiers moving in after returning from Afghanistan sparked outrage last night.

The house in a village near riot-torn Windsor had BRICKS thrown through windows and was DAUBED with messages of hate.

Four young Household Cavalry officers who had planned to rent it were also the target of phone THREATS.

They were yesterday forced to look elsewhere to live — after top brass warned them against inflaming racial violence near the Queen’s Windsor Castle home.

Note that these weren't Asian yobs, Pakistani yobs, Indian yobs or other brown-coloured yobs; no, these were definitely MUSLIM yobs.

The young officers — from the same regiment as Prince Harry — had planned to use the four-bed house for rest and recuperation after months risking their lives on the frontline.

Louts struck two days after the four arrived in uniform in an Army Land Rover to view it.

The source said: “A gang of local Muslims set about keeping them away. They hurled bricks through the windows and then wrote offensive graffiti across the front of the house.” The vile messages included one in 4ft letters on the drive — warning: “F*** off”.

Sources inside Windsor’s Combermere Barracks — where the officers are based — confirmed Muslims had made calls threatening the men.

In other words, only circumstantial evidence that the vandalism was even linked to the soldiers looking at the place. None of the "vile" messages, which the Sun kindly censors so you can't even properly see what was written, seem to be racially or politically motivated. The only evidence that MUSLIMS were involved is from an unnamed source at the barracks, and that's from what could be entirely unrelated phone calls.

Police hunting the vandals confirmed: “One line of inquiry is that it is racially aggravated.”

A spokesman for letting agency Kings, who are marketing the property, said: “It was an isolated case of vandalism. We do not know the reasons behind it.”

The Sun and police differ over what constitutes a race riot.

It's not surprising that police are keeping an open mind. Since the beginning of the week there have been clashes and skirmishes in a suburb of Windsor which contains a Muslim-owned dairy in a predominantly white suburb. Reports differ and are confused over how it started, although tension appears to have been rising over plans to also use the dairy as an Islamic centre. A woman speaking to the Windsor Express alleges that after going to the dairy to check on her son, who had been involved in a previous altercation, that she was attacked by a group of up to 20 men, armed with "pitchforks, baseball bats, lead pipes and blow-torches". She also maintains that they smashed up her daughter's car, as well as beating the backs of her legs. A separate report states that a 15-year old boy and his mother suffered minor injuries. Sardar Hussain, the owner, claims that his security guard was the first to be attacked. Despite claims by some newspapers that the incidents amounted to race riots, the police have denied it, and it seems to have been more about local issues than directly related to race. Nevertheless, with this happening in the vicinity of the house that was vandalised, it would be daft for the police not to be considering that it may be in some way related. A dispersal order has now been granted, enabling the police to remove gangs of youths from around the dairy.


The Sun however decides that a front page article directing anger at MUSLIMS isn't enough, and so dedicates its leader column to discussing Jack Straw's comments about the veil, or rather the MUSLIM "anger" directed against him:

THE knee-jerk anger directed at Jack Straw by a section of the Muslim community is offensive.

There is not a racist, Islamophobic bone in his body.

For 27 years he has represented admirably a constituency with the third highest proportion of Muslims in Britain.

His constructive observations about veils have sparked an absurd overreaction from some Muslims for whom even the mildest criticism of any aspect of their religion amounts to a declaration of war.

When the Pope quoted dispassionately from an ancient text about the Prophet Mohammed, his effigy was burned in the street. One lunatic demanded his execution.

Mr Straw is the new hate figure.

Complete and utter unadulterated bullshit. Let's have a look at some of these absurd, angry, overreactions:

Islamic Human Rights Commission chairman Massoud Shadjareh said: "It is astonishing that someone as experienced and senior as Jack Straw does not realise that the job of an elected representative is to represent the interests of the constituency, not to selectively discriminate on the basis of religion."


Rajnaara Akhtar, who chairs the organisation Protect-Hijab, suggested the "appalling" comments showed "a deep lack of understanding".


Reefat Bravu, chair of the Muslim Council for Britain's social and family affairs committee, said yesterday that Mr Straw's comments had exacerbated existing tensions. "We had John Reid first and now we have Jack Straw ... This is going to do great damage to the Muslim community, again we are being singled out by this government as the problem. Women have a right to wear a veil and this is just another example of blatant Muslim-bashing by this government."


Nahella Ashraf, chairwoman of the Manchester Stop the War Coalition, said: "Obviously we want to send a loud and clear message to Jack Straw about what he's said. We don't agree with what he's said, it's just completely out of order.

"The idea that after representing Muslims for 23 years, he's now come out and said that a cloth over someone's face is stopping him from interacting, is just absurd."


Halima Hussain, from civil liberties group the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, asked BBC News 24: "Who is Jack Straw to comment on negative symbols within a religion that is not his own?"


"Who does Jack Straw think he is to tell his female constituents that he would prefer they disrobe before they meet him," says Respect MP George Galloway. "For that is what this amounts to. It is a male politician telling women to wear less. When put like that, there's no one who would be considered part of the civilised political spectrum who would have anything but contempt for Straw.

"Yet, because this is about Muslims, we are seriously being told this is about breaking down the "barriers to community cohesion". It is not women choosing to wear what they want that is sowing division in our society. It is poverty, racism and the despicable competition between the Tory and New Labour front benches over who can grab the headlines as the hammer of the Muslims.


Dr Daud Abdullah of the Muslim Council of Britain said individual Muslim women could choose to remove part of their veil.

"Even within the Muslim community, the scholars have different views on this.

"Our view is that if it is going to cause discomfort and that can be avoided then it can be done."

Dr Abdullah added, however, that covering hair remained "obligatory" for Muslim women.


Out of all those remarks, perhaps 2 could be construed as being angry rather than being concerned, worried or defiant, and one of them was from the white George Galloway, the other from the notably radical Muslim Public Affairs Committee. Jack Straw has hardly been turned into the new hate figure overnight. The Sun's grasping at straws is so desperate that it brings up the completely unrelated reaction to the Pope's quoting of a Byzantine emperor who said that what Mohammed had brought was "evil and inhumane", which understandably caused offence, even if the reaction to it in some quarters was completely unjustifiable and wrong. It fails to mention that the burning of his effigy didn't occur in this country, or that the referred to lunatic, the extremist idiot Anjem Choudrary, only suggested that the Pope could be subject to capital punishment, rather than calling for it.

The Scum continues:
Some Muslim men and women queued up to heap bile on him for attacking their way of life.

Some plainly had no idea what he’d actually said. From their reaction you’d have thought he’d demanded Islam itself be outlawed.

Where are these Muslim men and women? They certainly weren't in Blackburn, where the Guardian asked 6 people to comment on Straw's views, none of whom heaped bile on anyone. If anything, the debate on Straw's comments has been civil, understanding and interesting. The only people who have been trying to profit out of it are the far-left likes of Respect (the appearance of Lindsey German on Newsnight was cringe worthy) and the far-right likes of the Sun and the BNP.

It is perhaps understandable if Muslims feel under siege at the moment. That is the unhappy and unfair consequence of Islamic extremists bringing terror and death to the UK and the world.

But our mainstream Muslim community can help itself simply by getting a grip.

And accepting that, in Britain, no religion should be above criticism.

They feel under siege because of how they suddenly appear to be under constant attack. John Reid a couple of weeks ago talked nonsense, warning parents that their kids were in danger of being "brainwashed". The Sun itself has had more than a hand in this siege mentality; their story on Thursday on the Muslim police officer being excused service was blown out of all proportion. The Sun has repeatedly demanded that Muslims as a whole condemn violence, as if they are entirely responsible for what some who claim to follow Islam do in their name, and now today they focus on an isolated case of vandalism by claiming that MUSLIMS were definitely responsible.

Everyone accepts that there are detailed, difficult and necessary debates to be had over multiculturalism, integration, immigration and extremism. However, these debates cannot be conducted while there is a near constant state of media hysteria, along with newspapers seeking to apportion blame, as well as exaggerating what are far from open and shut cases of either political correctness or racism. Jack Straw was right to raise his concerns, and they have been thoroughly debated in a much calmer way than the Sun claims. When the Sun stops blaming an entire community and an entire religion for the actions of a few, it might then be the time for it to be listened to. Until then, it should be shown up as the hate-filled right-wing rag that it is.

P.S.

The Diana Express's front page, claiming that 97% want veils banned, is based on phone calls to their 25p a time voting line, rather than from a properly conducted and weighted opinion poll. Not only do you have to be completely stupid to register your state of mind by giving yet more money to Dirty Des, but it seems that the majority that do also happen to be authoritarian and deeply intolerant. There's no connection between the two things, obviously.

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10/07/2006 05:22:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, October 06, 2006 

Take the veil.

Jack Straw's comments about Muslim women and headscarves have inevitably opened up a huge can of worms - there have been 5 posts alone on the matter over on Comment is Free - and it looks as if the debate could go on for weeks.

It's worth examining what Straw actually said in the first place. In an article for the Lancashire Telegraph, he wrote mainly from the perspective of a constituency MP with a large Muslim population, in that he found it much easier to talk to Muslim women wearing the full niqab veil if they removed it. It's only at the finish that he voices his fears that the full veil, covering all of the face except for the eyes, can make relations between two communities more difficult, and can be seen as a visible statement of separation and of difference.

Firstly, there shouldn't be any problem with Straw requesting full veiled women to remove when they go to his constituency surgery, as it is entirely of their own volition whether they do so or not. That is uncontroversial. What's been at the heart of much of the discussion though has been the headscarf itself.

Much of this stems directly from the ignorance of the main population of the varying types of Muslim dress. It's only in recent years that we've grown more accustomed to talk of shalwar kameez, burqas, hijab, jilbab and niqabs. It's doubtful that many know the difference between them or why they are worn in the first place, and various Muslim scholars disagree on which headscarf is appropriate, some even believing that wearing one is unnecessary.

Straw's main ire was directed against niqabs, but he has since stated that he would rather that veils were not worn at all. Again, nothing particularly controversial. He is entirely entitled to his opinion, and it's one that I share, but with caveats that Straw doesn't seem to have. The main reason for the wearing of the headscarf is modesty, which in our modern day society seems an almost regressive, repressive, choice of dressing. I'm reminded of a Private Eye cartoon in which a man dressed in a suit is looking at two women dressed up in attire that would make Jodie Marsh blush, covered in tattoos, bellowing at him "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE LOOKING AT?" Our culture has become so desensitised both to men and women being dressed either scantily or outlandishly that to see Muslim women wearing the niqab has become shocking; it jolts our thinking, and makes us wonder what possible reason a woman living in Britain in the 21st century has for being so, well, insulated and protected against the outside world.

This is mainly down to the wrongly held belief, which has been increased by the reporting of honour killings and the contempt with which some writers feel men from the Middle East treat their wives and daughters, that the wearing of the veil is down to it being demanded by men. As Straw writes in his article, that is almost always wrong. Almost all Muslim women make the decision about what veil they wear, if any, completely independently. Indeed, some Muslim teenage women, rather than abandoning the veil, have taken to it almost as part of a counter-cultural reaction. Whether this is down to what they see as persecution against Muslims, a statement of difference or simply individual fashion concerns or not, we should respect their decision. This doesn't mean not questioning it, or wanting to understand the reasons behind it, as Straw himself explains. What we should not be doing is demanding that women disrobe.

This is where Straw's arguments come into slight difficulty. As mentioned above, some communities will undoubtedly feel threatened, or concerned about women walking around covered from head to toe, just as a large majority of people feel anxious about groups of teenagers wearing hooded tops. Where I take issue with Straw is that the veil is a visible statement of separation and difference - that may be so, but why should that be a problem? The problem many seem to have with multiculturalism is just that, that these communities are different to "ours". What makes it difficult for me to understand such arguments is the simple fact that difference is what makes us what we are; life would be deeply boring if we were all one homogeneous lump, having few differing opinions. The crushing of "difference" and individuality is associated, rightly, with totalitarian regimes. Any dissent is viewed as a threat to everyone, rather than just as a matter of personal choice.

Rather than wondering whether the veil is a barrier to good community relations, Straw should be reassuring people that the fear or disgust shown towards veil wearers is irrational. What he is right on though is that veil wearers can bring trouble on themselves. Last year on Newsnight, one of the reporters was talking to a jilbab wearing Muslim woman in Luton in the aftermath of 7/7 when a young white youth approached them, and apparently unaware of the camera, proceeded to rant angrily about "bombers", making various racist remarks for good measure. While such experiences should by no means encourage women to abandon their veils out of fear, they should perhaps revisit their own philosophy on why exactly it is they wear one. The matter though should be on the choice of the woman, and the woman alone. The very last thing we should import is the strict French ban on religious symbols in state buildings, which was an attack on personal freedom.

More troubling is the way in which all these issues and debates about Muslims seem to have suddenly piled up on one another. Last night BBC News led with Straw's comments, then the police officer excused guarding the Israeli embassy, while later in the programme there was a report from Frank Gardner on extremists recruiting on university campuses, as well as a short story on the incidents which have been occuring in Windsor involving a Muslim-owned dairy. The editor should have perhaps seen that so many items were complete overkill, and the fear, rightly or wrongly, is that the public is getting the completely wrong view that Muslims appear to be demanding to have different standards applied to them, or that extremists are far more prevalent in their communities than they actually are. This is playing completely into the hands of the extremists on both sides. These debates are both necessary and welcome, but they cannot be conducted when there is a constant climate of hysteria.

An example of the current double standards seems to be the complete silence in the national press and media on a raid on Colne, Burnley in which two men, one an ex-BNP member who stood for election for the local Pendle council in May, have been arrested and charged with possessing what is being described as a "record haul" of chemical components. One of the men is reported as having a rocket launcher. You can only imagine how high up on the news this would have been had the men been Muslims rather than white northerners.

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10/06/2006 06:42:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, October 05, 2006 

Scum-watch: A reporting Foley?

Everyone knows Rebekah Wade's views on paedophiles, or as the Sun often refers to them, paedo-pervs. Hardly a day goes by without the Sun reporting some horror story, either about a sick evil scumbag being convicted for possessing child pornography, or some other similar less than pleasant act, accompanied with the accused being referred to with whichever disgusted adjective picks the writer's fancy, with "beast" being one of the recent favourites.

It's with this in mind that I wondered how the Sun would be reporting the case of Mark Foley, the Republican congressman who has been exposed as being lecherous towards underage teenage runners at the House of Representatives. Even more delightfully for a tabloid newspaper, Foley had been at the heart of a recently passed bill which attempted to crackdown on "internet predators". Not only has the man been found metaphorically with his pants down, he's a horrible hypocrite to boot. There's no way the Sun could have passed up such an open goal, right?

Imagine my shock then on searching the Sun website that there doesn't seem to have been a single story about Foley's online chats with his young helpers. This wouldn't have anything to do with Rupert Murdoch's hardly hidden support for the Republicans, and especially the Bush administration, would it, similar to how the newspaper buried Abu Ghraib? I'm sure they've just been busy with other things, like the below post. That would explain it.

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10/05/2006 08:46:00 PM | | | links to this post

 

Scum-watch: The sky is falling!

You know it's a slow news day when such an utterly ridiculous, prejudiced story makes all the headlines. This morning's Sun, in typically outraged and sensationalist fashion, screams "COP OUT". The story written by the piss-poor crime editor Mike Sullivan (who has past form, having a hand in the laughable terror camp school reports and the house of horrors that wasn't) alleges that a Muslim officer was excused guarding the Israeli embassy on "moral grounds" because he objected to the bombing of Lebanon by the IDF.

THE decision to excuse a Muslim cop from guarding the Israeli Embassy was last night branded “the beginning of the end for British policing”.

Critics slammed the decision. Ex-Met Flying Squad commander John O’Connor said: “This is the beginning of the end for British policing.

“If they can allow this, surely they’ll have to accept a Jewish officer not wanting to work at an Islamic national embassy? Will Catholic cops be let off working at Protestant churches? Where will it end?

“This decision is going to allow officers to act in a discriminating and racist way.”

Mr O’Connor added: “When you join the police, you do so to provide a service to the public. If you cannot perform those duties, you leave.

“The Metropolitan Police are setting a precedent they will come to bitterly regret. Top brass granted his wish as they were probably frightened of being accused of racism. But what they’ve done is an insult to the Jewish community.”

Another angry policeman said: “This decision beggars belief. It goes against everything the police should stand for — providing a service to the public no matter who they are.”

PC Basha, attached to the Met’s Diplomatic Protection Group, asked for special dispensation not to work at the embassy in Kensington Palace Gardens, Central London. The officer, in his late 20s, has taken part in recent anti-war protests.

As usually happens with self-serving moral outraged articles printed by the Sun newspaper, the whole basis for the Sun's story has began to fall apart:

The decision not to deploy a Muslim police officer to guard the Israeli embassy in London was taken on "risk and safety" grounds and had nothing to do with political correctness, a senior Metropolitan police officer said today.

The Met's deputy commissioner, Paul Stephenson, insisted that PC Alexander Omar Basha's alerting of superiors about his reservations to being deployed at the embassy "during the height of the Israeli/ Lebanon conflict" in August was encouraged by force policy.

He also added that the service's officers "put their duties above their political, religious or ideological views" every day and that the impartial policing of all communities was fundamental in Britain.

"In all its personnel management issues, the MPS encourages officers to be up front and honest to highlight any matters that may impact on them conducting their duties," Mr Stephenson said. "At the height of the Israeli/Lebanon conflict in August this year the officer made his managers aware of his personal concerns, which included that he had Lebanese family members.

"Whilst the Israeli embassy is not his normal posting, in view of the possibility that he could be deployed there, a risk assessment was undertaken, which is normal practice. It was as a result of this risk assessment - and not because of the officer's personal views, whatever they might have been - that the decisions was taken temporarily not to deploy him to the embassy. The public would expect us to conduct such a risk assessment and review the suitability of any firearms officer undertaking such duties.

"This is not about political correctness. I want to make it clear that this decision was taken on the basis of risk and safety."

Whoops! Nowhere in the Sun article, now even that it's been updated, is the fact that his wife is Lebanese and his father Syrian, or the possibility that he could have relatives out in Lebanon where the Israelis subjected the south to nearly a month's worth of bombing, resulting in the deaths of over 1000 civilians. Neither is it mentioned that the Israelis in the last few days of the war with Hizbullah launched hundreds of thousands of cluster bombs, of which as many as 100,000 did not explode, a military decision which the UN called "completely immoral". If one of his relatives had been killed in the bombing, it seems highly unlikely he would have been given such an assignment on compassionate grounds.

The inference from the Sun article is clear. If Muslims can't be trusted to guard sensitive areas, then why should they be in the force at all? That they seemingly attempt to smear him by saying that he has attended anti-war protests, with the unwritten but obvious point being if you go on those marches, you're obviously either an extremist or a Marxist pacifist wet. This is made even less subtle by the linking in of a long forgotten Palestinian bomb attack on the building in 1994, which thankfully didn't kill anyone. The article as a whole is typical of the Sun's tactics in attempting to divide and rule, while claiming that it fully favours integration. You can't imagine the Sun dedicating its front page to a case of a policeman refusing to perform duty at a gay pride parade. Indeed, a recent case involving 9 firemen who refused to distribute fire safety leaflets at a gay pride march in Scotland, some of whom objected on "moral grounds" has not garnered a mention in the Sun newspaper.

The reality of the case is that the officer was worried not by moral issues, but by what could have happened to him if he was seen guarding the embassy during a time of strain between the local communities. The Sun is the first to remind us of the danger of fanatical Islamists - it's not hard to believe that they wouldn't take kindly to the idea of a Muslim guarding what is by definition Israeli territory at a time of war, especially as his wife herself is Lebanese. The BBC reports that the man is now back on diplomatic protection duties, and has no problems with carrying out his job.

Sir Ian Blair's decision to launch an inquiry, when it's already obvious that simply talking to the officer involved and those who made the decision would have revealed the truth, shows how sensitive he is to claims that the police now goes out of its way to be politically correct. This is the same police force which only 6 years ago was called "institutionally racist" by the Macpherson; claims that it's gone too far in the other direction are laughable, as shown by the contempt that has surrounded the police's response to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes (septicisle passim ad nauseum), as well as the smears and distortions which followed the arrest of the Koyair brothers, which by a strange coincidence mainly featured in the Murdoch press.

The article doesn't take in to account Israeli sensibilities either. Muslim countries that offered to send troops to perform peacekeeping in Lebanon were unceremoniously told that they were not welcome.
It seems unlikely if those in charge on the Israeli embassy were informed of his familial line and relatives in Lebanon that they would have been too pleased with him guarding the place, especially during the conflict itself. Some might call such a move paranoia, but Israel has always wanted to be safe rather than sorry.

The whole issue then is as MPA member Peter Herbert put it, a "fuss over nothing" and a storm in a teacup, a piece of news which filled the vacuum on an otherwise slow day, the only other big story being Cameron's speech at the party conference, which the Sun's page 3 girl adequately covered, as Bloggerheads notes. It's little surprise that the Sun opened its mouth before being informed of the full facts, something that Rebekah Wade has been noted for in the past.

Related posts:
Big Stick Small Carrot - Those Evil Muuuuslems
Andrew Bartlett - Leak and Spin
Ministry of Truth - It woz The Sun wot spun it…

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10/05/2006 07:20:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, October 04, 2006 

Zzzzzzzz...

Watching David Cameron being interviewed yesterday evening on Newsnight, I was struck by something I never expected to feel about a serving Tory leader. It suddenly occurred to me that this man isn't a complete and utter git. Michael Howard, Iain Duncan Smith, William Hague - all unspeakable wankers. John Major was a charisma free-zone, but at least he had something of the normal person about him, even if he was utterly hopeless and a git in private, as claimed by some.

There are of course reasons for this. Cameron has tried as hard as possible to be seen as this carefree, youthful, up to date leader, and more than that, he's also not faced harsh questioning by any interviewer yet on a matter of great importance. He hasn't had to sit in front of a braying bunch of servicemen's wives, or sceptical Question Time audiences that booed him before he had even sat down. He also doesn't get off entirely scot free, as it's obvious how he was born with the proverbial silver spoon in the mouth, attending Eton, going onto Oxford, marrying a suitably fragrant and wealthy woman, etc etc . Even so, you don't get the urge to instantly switch the television off when his voice starts wafting over, as you do as soon as William Hague opens his obnoxious mouth. His accent is neither too posh or common enough, an almost perfect balance for a politician who wants to appeal to everyone.

In essence, Cameron is probably the best the Conservatives are ever likely to get. Unfortunately for everyone else, he's just a facsimile of Tony Blair. Everything about his speech today at their conference exuded Blairism. It even had the verb less sentences that Blair constantly converses in. Unlike Blair however, there was hardly anything in the whole of the speech that you could instantly vehemently disagree with. At times he veers into Mrs Brady, Old Lady territory, rhetorically saying something and then almost absent-mindedly adding yes to the end. In the first part, he talks of substance, or rather his lack of it. His Tories, like John Reid, are sure of one thing, and that's that they believe in social responsibility. This is meant to show how Cameron and his party have moved on from believing solely in the individual, that there is such a thing as society, and that we're all in this together, but the manner in which he reacts to this criticism suggests that rather than wanting to come up with some policies, he'd rather have the current situation stay as it is; after all, despite having no fully recognisable pledges, his party is still ahead in the polls.

He goes on, juggernauting through tax, then the economy, saying nothing that would have been out of place at a Labour conference speech by Blair circa 95-97. They won't take risks with the economy, challenges of globalisation, flying the flag for British business etc. This is though the same Mr Cameron that said that he wasn't a big fan of isms, socialism, republicanism, capitalism, which also at the time seemed to contradict his argument for backing business, that not a big enough case was being made for the creation of wealth.

Next up is the NHS, which seems to have been seized on by the Conservatives as their way of damaging Labour, and they've picked an open goal as their target. Despite all the past bluster of his party, the decades of under investment, the championing of private healthcare, Cameron has decided, quite rightly, that's it the one thing that unifies the public. For all his blustering however, he says nothing about what he would do to make the service better, apart from stopping the pointless reorganisations. Would the hugely wasteful private finance initative continue? Would the private centres that are being paid huge amounts of money despite not carrying out the number of operations they're meant to continue to exist? Is he prepared to commit the NHS to staying in the public sector? He doesn't tell us, probably because he would either change none of the above or go even further. The right-wing press is full of stories of how a private insurance system would be better, how billions are being wasted. Much like the rest of Cameron's agenda, his complete belief in the NHS is an act of political opportunism.

More evidence of which is in the next paragraph, where he pledges to support Labour when it does the right thing. He praises the minimum wage, which is strange, as the Tories at the time, along with the CBI, claimed that it would cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. It didn't, and is still barely a living wage.

Cameron continues in much the same vein, saying nothing controversial or of any real interest, until he eventually gets to the troops in Afghanistan, making a rather bogus claim that our mission there is a "moral responsibility", and conflates it with our presence in Iraq, which certainly isn't. He rather amusingly mentions Liam Fox, the defence spokesman, one who could certainly be added to the "git" list at the beginning of this post. Next up is terrorism, which gets the usual orthodoxies of being a far bigger threat than the IRA and also being unappeasable. Nothing particularly wrong with that, but there's certainly nothing profound about it either. He rightly brings up how wiretap evidence still hasn't been made admissible in courts in terrorism cases, then blots his copy book by once again repeating his idiotic British bill of rights plan. He claims to be the heir to Brown's soundbite "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", that Ronald Reagan and Thatcher defeated the Soviet Union (they didn't, the Soviet Union defeated itself), and to be a "liberal Conservative", despite writing the most right-wing Tory manifesto of recent years, voting for the Iraq war, against allowing gay couples to adopt and abolishing the notorious section 28. He supports faith schools, despite evidence that they contribute to the ghettoisation of Britain. Cameron's solution is that they should admit a certain proportion of children from either no faith or from different faiths, a curious compromise which would do little to nothing to alter it, instead continuing the status quo.

And so it goes on. And on. It's as if he's listened or watched Blair's speeches over the years, took notes, and then decided to rip out anything that might be slightly radical or uncomfortable for his party, but keeping the sincerity, or rather the lack of it that lies beneath all his sanctimonious words. As speeches go, it wasn't really a bad one. It was just lacking absolutely anything that identified it from the crowd.

This is Cameron's problem. He wants his Conservative party to be deeply average, just as Blair's revolution was deeply average but then turned into a war waged against the party's true believers. Cameron too has his war with the true believers, but unlike Blair he has yet to properly stick the knife right into them, and he has shown no sign of doing so. This is partly because the opinion polls could yet still change, or worse, stay the same. All three former leaders talked soft and then moved back to the right when the public's failure to believe them became manifest. For now, Cameron is winning that battle, but it leaves politics in this country completely unremarkable. There are no big ideas, just agreement or slight differences. The only speech from all of the conferences that was genuinely inspired was from the Lib Dems, with Nick Clegg's promise to introduce a bonfire of Labour's draconian legislation. None of the main two parties dare to suggest anything so radical. None want to bring the troops out of Iraq. None are diametrically opposed to conflict with Iran. This is why when someone speaks out of turn, as Boris Johnson almost did yesterday, the media ran with him rather than anything else from the deeply snore-worthy conference. Cameron might be a success, but the danger is that no one cares what he thinks, just that he's different to Blair. Hail then the two identical vacuums, the equivalent of voting for either Kudos or Kang.

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10/04/2006 06:36:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, October 03, 2006 

The modern gulag and Catch-22.

Two of the Tipton Three, held in Guantanamo for two years.

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others, wrote Orwell in Animal Farm, as the original principles of the revolution were gradually but surely eroded. A similar situation seems to have developed in the attitude of the British government towards the remaining nominally British detainees stuck in the legal limbo hellhole which is Guantanamo Bay. The Guardian today reports that the government has decided to more or less abandon 8 of them, even after months of wrangling over plans to repatriate them.

The one detainee they are prepared to welcome back, Bisher al-Rawi, was first denounced by MI5, who told the CIA that he was in possession of bomb parts. Now they've admitted that al-Rawi was in fact an intelligence asset, one who was involved in monitoring the radical cleric Abu Qutada, alleged by some to have been the spiritual leader of al-Qaida in Europe. Qutada himself, along with Abu Hamza, is now known to have at least been approached by MI5, hoping that they would help monitor extremists, in return for them being left alone. A Times article from 2004 alleges that Qutada was a double agent, who pledged to help MI5, but was in fact setting up his own terrorist network. Could it be possible that al-Rawi, having severely embarrassed MI5 by showing that they were involved in his rendition, now want al-Rawi back before he spills the beans about his spying on Qutada?

As for the rest of those trapped in Guantanamo, the United States is demanding that they be monitored 24 hours a day, and banned from meeting with "known extremists" or leaving the country. The UK, for its part, calls such demands ridiculous, knowing full well that a good majority of those still at Guantanamo are either innocent of all they are accused of, or those at the very lowest rungs of jihadiism.

Some of the allegations against those being held are both familiar and laughable. Omar Deghayes, who came to Britain with his family when he was 16 to escape Gadafy in Libya after his father was executed by the regime, is accused of "having a good relationship with Osama bin Laden" and being seen in a Chechen militant training video, similar to how the Tipton Three were accused of appearing in the crowd of those listening to a speech by bin Laden. Benyam Mohammad has both the most serious allegations and conclusive evidence against him, but also has indefinite leave to remain in the UK. Shaker Aamer, who knew Mozzamm Begg, also has indefinite leave to remain, and was seeking British citizenship while living in Afghanistan, where he was captured in fighting by Afghan troops. Jamil-el-Banna has refugee status in the UK, and was captured along with al-Rawi in the Gambia. He too had some association with Abu Qutada, but seems not to know enough for MI5 to care about him. Spain wants to extradite they say he has with a terrorist group. Ahmed Errachidi, who has indefinite leave to remain in Britain, had another allegation similar to those against the Tipton Three made against him, that he had been at a training camp known as al-Farouq in July 2001. His lawyers have the payslips and bank transactions that show that he was working in London at the time. Like other innocents who have turned up in Guantanamo Bay, he was captured by bounty hunters and sold to the US. Ahmed Belbacha, who has exceptional leave to remain in the UK, was vetted by MI5 in 1999 to work at the Labour party conference. The US alleges that he received training at a camp in Afghanistan and met the beard master himself, Osama bin Laden, twice. Abdelnour Sameur, who also has leave to remain in the UK, was captured in Pakistan shortly before the Taliban were overthrown. Accused of fighting in Bosnia and going to Afghanistan for further training, he rather humourously claimed to have had knowledge of the 9/11 terror attacks in an attempt to get a gunshot wound to his leg treated. Whether that contributed to his detention to Guantanamo is worth wondering about.

The men are stuck in a catch-22 situation. Men that are claimed to pose such a little threat that carrying out surveillance on them would be a waste of time and money are denied re-entry to a country where they have either been granted leave to remain or asylum. British officials also claim that human rights legislation means that they would be unable to deport them if they were allowed back here, but on what grounds would they be considered for deportation in the first place if they pose no threat? The US also faces the problem of sending them back to their countries of birth due to the supreme court ruling which Bush has tried his best to legislate around. Nothing they can seemingly do will free them from detention without charge, and an attempt to get the courts to force the government into repatriating the men failed, despite the judges recognising that there was a powerful political case for them to be freed.

All of this is rather shocking, especially when you consider that numerous ministers have now lined up to condemn Guantanamo, with the lord chancellor and the Dear Leader's ex-far from flatmate Charles Falconer calling the prison camp a "shocking affront to justice". Such remarks are exposed as the window-dressing, sop to the Labour party faithful and lefties that they are when the government he belongs to refuses to rescue men from constant uncertainty and petty abuse, which in some cases may well amount to torture. Doubtless, the Sun and the usual suspects would make a huge noise about "extremist fanatics" being allowed back onto British streets, but isn't Labour meant to be based around values and compassion, or does that only apply to the those who deserve it through their "responsibilities"? None of the previously released British citizens from Guantanamo have been charged with anything or posed a problem since being flown back here. Why should those still there be any different?

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10/03/2006 06:37:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, October 02, 2006 

Same old Tories.

As the Conservatives gather for the yearly sleep-in, much of the sheen appears to have worn off the expensively buffed Cameron silver. The problem isn't just the usual Tory problems of an MP leaving his cancer-striken wife to run off with another woman, Francis Maude being exposed as having invested in some top-notch hardcore pornography, or questions about their election spending, it's rather the gathering itself. Let's face it, the average Conservative just isn't well, sexy enough, or usually a part of the iPod carrying, shopping 'n' fucking Notting Hell set. The constituency card-carrying Tory has political views ranging from the foaming at the mouth to the certified rabid, and never is this more clear than at their conference. As much as Cameron tries, it's the equivalent of teaching an old dog new tricks: how on earth is he going to convince the party faithful that well, being wet, might well win them the next election?

David Davis, bless him, at least likes to throw a few bones while he's tightening the leash. Making his big speech as shadow Home Secretary, he joked about wanting to hug hoodies a little tighter than Dave might have had in mind. Jenni Russell notes how his audience responded, and for the civil libertarian who admires some of the Tories principles in standing up to this draconian Labour government, there's not much to be cheerful about, judging the faithful's reaction. Still, at least Davis appears to believe in what he says about opposing 90 days, denouncing restrictions on liberty and defending fundamental freedoms.

Much of the rest of the speech was an attempt to hand-wring about crime and punishment. The Tories are being out-muscled by Labour - Reid handing over the keys to the Home Office to Rebekah Wade and all - so where do they go? Going further right may please the Daily Mail and the blue rinses, but they're in opposition, so it's difficult to agree with everything the party adjacent to them says but then say they should go further, and if they did, that might mean having to sacrifice their occasional victories over a split Neo-Labour. Davis then takes the middle approach. He too wants to build more prisons, and he's going to fill them up as well. On immigration they're not afraid to speak out honestly (for which read these bloody foreigners should jolly well go home) unlike the Labour party, despite Ruth Kelly's promises of debate to follow two other previous discussions, as Gary Younge writes.

Davis's points about prison aren't entirely without merit. He's completely right that it's not working at the minute, but he's wrong that it can work at all. His idea for prison to suddenly become a rehabilitation palace, where the great unwashed will go in and come out ready to guide old ladies across the street is fine in principle, but rather difficult to actually put into practice. Prison is not suddenly going to go through a great culture change, where the emphasis is on reform rather than punishment overnight. Such a sea change would take years. Making prisons literate and places where inmates come down off drugs is very noble, but it faces the fact that even with more spaces available, overcrowding will always be an issue, as will the need for staff training. The biggest problem is the bad influence of prison itself - not everyone there is going to co-operate or accept the need to learn to read, or accept treatment willingly or otherwise - which is half of the reason why so many may go in for minor offences and come out as career criminals. This is why Davis's big idea simply won't work: treatment and rehabilitation have to be in the community, not in the gulag.

It also fails to the recognise the fact that the school system currently fails so many, itself a major impact on crime, as is poverty. Prison needs to be there only for the most violent and the most dangerous, the repeat offenders who will not or cannot change their ways. No one should be failed, but unfortunately this is the way it is. The mentally ill, the young and ever increasing numbers of women are currently thrown away and forgotten about, when they would be better off not inside but outside, on the same programmes that Davis is advocating for jails. This would not of course though go down well with those in the hall, or the vast majority of ordinary voters, hence the compromise.

Davis also continues to support Dave's rave about the British bill of rights, a hopeless hodge podge when there's already a perfectly good law on the statute books, albeit one originally opposed by the party and loathed by the tabloids. Even Charles Falconer, not the most astute of politicians, realises that it's the best we're going to get.

Davis then has sort of missed a tick. He could have appealed directly to those who view the government's capitulation to the Murdoch agenda as utterly distasteful, promising to still be centrist but oppose the government nonetheless. Instead he and his party are left looking like the dinosaurs of old, waiting for eventual extinction. Nice party, said Dave, shame about the members. New Tories, new history repeating.

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10/02/2006 07:54:00 PM | | | links to this post

 

News of the Screws-watch: The biggest liar in politics?


Another Screws journalist not known for his honest methods.

The Murdoch papers, much like the Rothermere press, do not forget criticism. They take most unkindly to being exposed as the lying, traitorous, cheap whores that they are. It's little wonder then that Tommy Sheridan, having won such a huge battle against the Screws' gutter journalism, has once again made the front page.

Sheridan, former leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, and now leader of the newly formed Solidarity, is almost unknown south of the border. A firebrand Trotskyist, his party made a remarkable breakthrough under the proportional representation system for the Scottish parliament, winning six seats. In 2004 he announced he was standing down from the leadership, citing that he wished to spend more time with his family. Within weeks the News of the World in Scotland splashed lurid allegations across its front page claiming that he had had an extra-marital affair and had visited a massage parlour in Manchester twice. The resulting libel trial ended when by a seven to four verdict by the jury found in favour of Sheridan.

Yesterday's banner boost from the Screws screamed "THE BIGGEST LIAR IN POLITICS". Claiming to have a 40-minute video tape made by one of Sheridan's best men, George McNeilage, the tape purportedly has Sheridan admitting to McNeilage that he did attend the Cupids club in Manchester. An edited version of the tape, up on the Screws website, is predictably, incredibly difficult to hear. The Screws claims that the tape was recorded by McNeilage in November 2004, just after Sheridan had resigned. McNeilage said that he recorded the meeting with Sheridan so that he and the local Pollok group of activists would know "straight from the horse's mouth" the truth about why he had resigned. Why they wouldn't have accepted McNeilage's word isn't explained. The video itself does not show Sheridan's face.

McNeilage sets out his reasons for going to the Screws in his own article, which reads suspiciously like a standard News of the Screws subbed and re-written rent-a-rant. Claiming Sheridan is a traitor to the working class for calling his former comrades "scabs" and receiving £30,000 for his interviews with the Scottish Daily Record, he mentions that he's not a great fan of the Screws, but that what's most important is that the truth gets out to as many working people as possible. Why McNeilage didn't go to a different newspaper with his sensational tape if he dislikes the Screws so much isn't explained, especially as any newspaper would have taken such a story. It's therefore not unreasonable to wonder how much cash was involved. McNeilage also doesn't properly explain why he didn't bring the tape forward sooner, as in immediately after the ending of the case, nor why he felt that such compelling evidence wasn't needed at the trial, even if he considered it highly unlikely that Sheridan was to emerge the victor. It seems difficult to believe that the story has been worked on for weeks, or that the Screws would have sat on such a potential goldmine for so long.

The Screws claims that the tape has been authenticated by four different voice verification experts. Again, when you know that Rebekah Wade, former editor of the Screws, currently of the Sun, admitted to a parliamentary committee that the police had been paid for their leaks and indiscretions to the newspaper, then it's not so difficult to countenance the paying of experts either.

The Screws also has form when it comes to entrapping people. Mazher Mahmood, this blog's favourite journalist, has been caught out twice, over the Victoria Beckham kidnap plot that never was, and the more recent "red mercury" case. Why should we believe that the Screws has changed its ways over a man who it lost £200,000 of its propietors money to, without considering the damage done to its reputation and "journalism"?

The tape could of course be real. Sheridan's claims of striking out against gutter journalism were also rather hollowed by his acceptance of the money from the Daily Record, owned by the same company which produces the Screws-lite papers the People and the Sunday Mirror. Roy Greenslade argues that the Screws deserve support from the rest of the media, made more laughable by the fact that the Screws only believes in the freedom of the press when it makes Murdoch more money, as evidenced by its attack on both bloggers and George Galloway when Mahmood's photograph was to be distributed. Until proved otherwise, Sheridan is still the man cleared of wrongdoing, and the Screws is still the biggest liar. The announcement by the police that they intend to launch a criminal investigation into allegations of perjury at the trial, not apparently influenced by yesterday's Screws claims, only emphasises this further. As for being the biggest liar, someone lying about his sex life becomes rather insubstantial compared to the fabricator currently residing in Downing Street, with the blood of a huge number of Iraqis on his hands.

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10/02/2006 06:19:00 PM | | | links to this post

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