Thursday, April 30, 2009 

Scum-watch: It's all thanks to us!

There's a quite extraordinary leader in today's Sun (url will change). Extraordinary in that it is utterly shameless in claiming credit for two campaigns, one that it did indeed lead, and which has had negative consequences which will almost certainly affect social services for years to come, and another which it only jumped on on Monday. The paper of course doesn't personally claim credit; it instead claims that its readers are responsible, as it has in the past. This might be the case in the Baby P campaign, but is certainly not in the case of the Gurkhas. In any case:

WHO said people power was dead?

In one amazing day, TWO Sun campaigns result in triumphs for our readers.

GURKHAS win a crucial Commons victory against Government plans to deport them.

And BABY P social workers finally pay the price for their incompetence and arrogance.

Incredibly, the Sun can't even get the campaign concerning the Gurkhas right. The government has no plans to deport them; retired Gurkhas instead want the right to settle here. One would have thought that if the Sun had been covering the Gurkhas campaign since the beginning, it might have been able to get the key facts straight.

First, the Gurkhas...

Labour’s humiliation at Westminster over its shabby treatment of these brave men is a triumph for decency and democracy.

The Sun is proud to have led the crusade to let the Gurkhas settle here.

Gordon Brown has only himself to blame for his bloody nose.


Led the crusade? Prior to last Saturday, only Jon Gaunt had so much as mentioned the Gurkhas' campaign in the paper this year. Last year the paper made 38 mentions of Gurkhas: just once did it make the Sun's leader column, and then it was regarded as the least important issue of the day, below some completely inaccurate nonsense about the European Union and yet more woe from Helen Newlove. To be fair to the paper, Gaunt has at least repeatedly wrote about the Gurkhas, but one columnist does not make a paper leading the "crusade". Notable by their absence from this leader are the far more important individuals who genuinely did lead the campaign, namely Joanna Lumley and Nick Clegg, who obviously come second to the paper's noble leadership and the readers who did much to put down the motion which led to the government being defeated.

And why did it take Haringey Council so long to appreciate anger over their failure to sack those who betrayed Baby P?
I don't know; maybe they were following proper procedure rather than just deciding to instantly sack people based on what was written in Sun leader columns?
Four went yesterday without compensation, including social worker Maria Ward, her superior Gillie Christou and two bosses.

That would be the same Maria Ward who was driven to the edge of suicide by the Sun's targeting of her. Before the Sun shut down comments on its Baby P reports, readers had commented on the Sun's article daring her to do it. The paper had also demanded that another social worker, Sylvia Henry, be sacked. The council found that she had no case to answer. Doubtless she too suffered similar treatment to that which Sharon Shoesmith and Ward were subjected; if she was hoping for an apology, she'll be waiting a long time.
It’s good to see that public opinion can still count in national life.

As long as that public opinion corresponds with the Sun's views, naturally.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

4/30/2009 11:51:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 

How to tackle the BNP effectively.

Every few years, without fail, there is a scare regarding the possibility of the British National Party making a major breakthrough. By major breakthrough, this generally means winning the odd council seat, putting in an above average performance in an area where racial tension has been running at a high after some particular incident, or not losing their deposit when it comes to contesting seats during a general election. Compared to far right parties in other countries in Europe, some of which either share power, hold substantial seats in their respective parliaments or in the notorious case of 2002 in France, when Jean Marie Le Pen contested the French presidency against Jacques Chirac, come as close to seizing complete control as can be feasibly imagined, our rank of out and proud racists and fascists are a mostly feeble bunch.

This time round, the scare is probably as close to being justified as it has ever been. The BNP, despite having its membership list published online at the end of last year, is finally getting its shit together. Helped along by the economic situation, a backlash against "uncontrolled" immigration which has never been properly explained to the public, let alone the economic and political case argued for, the feeling of victimhood which followed the glee with which the leaked members list was greeted in some quarters, and the old grievances which the party preys upon, namely the immigrants/ethnics are talking all the jobs/houses/women then twists and fabricates further, support for the party seems to be growing exponentially. 800,000 apparently voted for them at the last European elections, while 238,000 crossed their box in the 2006 local elections. According to the email missives which regularly land in my inbox, after I signed up on the BNP website to argue with a knuckledragger who was linking here, BNP supporters have raised £300,000 for the European campaign, enabling them to send a flyer to every home in the country, as well as preparing a backroom staff more associated with the "major" parties. That's still £100,000 less than the Fuhrer himself, Nick Griffin, called for, but is hardly a figure to be sniffed at.

The latest to sound the alarm, as it always seems to be, is a Labour politician, even if Peter Hain has a well-established pedigree when it comes to battling against the far right. He worries that the BNP could win up to six seats at the European elections, which while hardly transforming British politics overnight, would mean that the party could claim up to £2 million in funding from the EU. That sort of money definitely would transform the party. At the moment, the BNP is restricted to running a mainly internet based insurgency: like organisations which, ironically, defend Israel, such as GIYUS, threads and comment pieces dealing with racism or mentioning the party are swiftly set upon, further giving the impression that there is a groundswell of opinion heading the party's way. Emails are sent out asking supporters and members to complain to newspapers which run articles the party decides are either inaccurate or which it simply decides cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged; one recent such campaign against the Independent resulted in the Press Complaints Commission receiving the most ever complaints about a single press article. The latest send out concerned the fear that the News Shopper was about to blame what even the BNP described as "major carnage" in Old Bexley on St George's Day on the party, which naturally, the party assures its subscribers "is utterly ridiculous and completely unfounded". According to this forum thread, the "carnage" occurred outside a known BNP pub, but was between football fans. In the event, the newspaper's article did not place the blame on the BNP.

While Hain is right to be concerned, he ought to know by now that members of the ruling party can only make things worse by writing such articles. Admittedly, the whole tackling the BNP policy is fraught with conundrums: does "no platform" mean that you don't just refuse to argue with them, but also completely deny that they even exist? However, this doesn't apply when it comes to the Labour party, and especially either ministers or former ministers. The example of what not to do was set by Margaret Hodge a couple of years back: don't predict the BNP is about to make a breakthrough, not only because such prophecies can become self-fulfilling, but because they alert the media to the idea, who descend upon said area, and even further potentially alienate the local population, especially if cack-handed idiots start asking whether they think they're racist as they're contemplating voting for the party. All it does is result in further publicity for the party.

The challenge in fighting the BNP has, instead, to be left to the grassroots and those who cannot be linked back directly to the Labour government. While the BNP seems likely to pick up some votes at the European elections from UKIP, whose vote seems likely to collapse, or at least plummet, Labour has to face up to the fact that the most defections will come from their supporters. This is not because, as some right-wingers love to argue, that the BNP is left-wing, and QED that means that fascists are also lefties, but because the BNP more than any of the other parties are prepared to get down and dirty with the actual voters themselves, reassure them that their concerns are not prejudices and that they will fight for them personally rather than the "outsiders". This is politics of the old school, in all senses, and it's what the other parties have increasingly abandoned. The white working class, for various reasons, feels this abandonment most acutely. In fact, the working class as a whole, regardless of colour distinctions, feels much the same. Labour promised them much and has not delivered sufficiently, and now they're the ones suffering the most while the others who benefited have far more resilience. The argument against the BNP then has to be made not just on policy grounds and on exposing their true, still disgustingly racist views, as shown by last week's party leaflet, but on the other facts: that the BNP make for the most part dreadful councillors and politicians, as the record conclusively shows. They also have to be personally argued against: the no platform policy has completely failed, and is now not principled, it's simply cowardly.

All this said, the BNP probably won't get those six seats, and if they do they'll only get them because of the European parliament's PR system, the same reason why the Greens will also win seats, and why many who would normally vote for the main three parties will switch their support. The BNP is not about to win parliamentary seats, which really would be a breakthrough. The party will remain one of the least successful relative far-right forces in Europe, and this country will also remain one of the most tolerant, least racist and least prejudiced in Europe. All of that should be remembered before we throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

4/29/2009 08:21:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, April 28, 2009 

Now for something completely different...

In lieu of an actual post, here are some completely random facts:

According to today's Graun, the Japanese Communist Party has over 400,000 members. The Labour party only had a similar number back in 2007, and now has less than 200,000.

The 1975 referendum on whether the UK should stay in the European Economic Community had a turnout of 64.5%, despite the fact that the previous year had seen two general elections. In contrast, the turnouts at the 2001 and 2005 general elections were 59% and 61% respectively. Interestingly, the only major newspaper to call for a "no" vote in the referendum was the Morning Star. How times change. As for whether the general election of 2010 will have a turnout higher than 65% remains to be seen.

Oh, and if you want something else to read, Rachel on the acquittal of the 7/7 "accomplices", Chris on the "Evil Poor" problem and Dave on the atrophy of the left are all worth a gander.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

4/28/2009 11:45:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, April 27, 2009 

Immigration and the Gurkhas.

Causes don't come much more righteous than the campaign for retired Gurkhas to be allowed to settle in this country. Following Friday's derisory if not downright insulting decision from the Home Office that would at most allow only 100 to emigrate here, the Sun and doubtless other papers are preparing campaigns, or in the Sun's case, a rather inaptly named "crusade" for their right to live here. Even the British National Party, which only last week talked of how other immigrants could never be considered British because they are of "foreign stock", supports their cause.

As could have been expected, the Gurkhas and their rights are being compared unfavourably with those who have also settled here in recent years who have not been welcomed with such open arms. The Sun lists, variously, those who slip in here to sponge off the taxpayer (mostly a myth), students granted visas to bogus colleges, the Afghan hijackers, and those who smuggle themselves in from France. The Sun, it should be noted, seems to have been rather kinder to the eastern Europeans who have entered the country to work since 2004 than the other tabloids, mainly perhaps due to it directly appealing to them in specially published papers. Nonetheless, no one could confuse the Sun with a paper that supports fully open borders, like say, the Guardian or the Independent.

The problem with the emphasis on the Gurkhas is that it means even less attention for those already here that are suffering under the vagaries of our asylum and immigration system. Almost everyone agrees that not allowing those who are awaiting the decision over their status, as well as those who are designated to be "failed" asylum seekers to work is a ridiculous situation which impoverishes all involved while contributing to the "black" economy and so robs the exchequer of tax revenue. Then there's today's little short of horrifying, if not in the least bit surprising report from the children's commissioner regarding the detention of children at Yarl's Wood (PDF). Mark Easton provides a summary:

What sort of country sends a dozen uniformed officers to haul innocent sleeping children out of their beds; gives them just a few minutes to pack what belongings they can grab; pushes them into stinking caged vans; drives them for hours while refusing them the chance to go to the lavatory so that they wet themselves and locks them up sometimes for weeks or months without the prospect of release and without adequate health services?

It highlights how we have completely different attitudes when it comes to outsiders. Even though we have one of the highest child incarceration rates in Europe, we would still regard the locking up of those charged with or convicted of no crime as being abhorrent. Yet this does not stop us from doing it to those whom, in the vast majority of cases, were genuinely fleeing oppression and then find their families experiencing much the same in a so-called civilised country. Undoubtedly, some are out to take advantage of our hospitality, and some are simply economic migrants claiming asylum, but even then their children are not complicit in or responsible for their actions. There has to be an alternative.

To get some sense of perspective, the number of Gurkhas that might take advantage of the full right to settle here is estimated at around 36,000. The Sun uses the word "just" before that number. The number that sought asylum here in 2007, by comparison, was 23,430. You can't imagine for a moment any tabloid newspaper using "just" before reporting that figure. Indeed, the hysteria at the beginning of the decade, when asylum applications hit a high of over 100,000 a year was such that the clampdowns which are now in effect were introduced, with targets for how many "failed" asylum seekers would be deported each year the main innovation. Such targets make no allowance for the personal situations of those who are abitrarily decided to be the next to go, including the likes of Ama Sumani, who was sent back to Ghana regardless of the fact she could not receive treatment for her cancer there. She was dead within two months. The Lancet called it "atrocious barbarism", and it's hard to disagree. Not treating with respect those who fought for this country might be described similarly, but surely we also owe a debt to those who come here seeking sanctuary to at least treat them with more than an ounce of humanity.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

4/27/2009 10:15:00 PM | | | links to this post

Saturday, April 25, 2009 

Weekend links.

A slow weekend, apart from the news that we're all shortly to die of pig flu. Oh, and Nadine Dorries, showing once again what an utterly revolting, hypocritical, shameless coward she is.

On the blogs then, Lenin comes up with a simple solution to the huge deficit we will shortly have, Craig Murray, blogging more than ever, has pieces on Hillary Clinton and Pakistan, as well as one person's evidence that waterboarding was specifically used by the US in an attempt to get intelligence linking al-Qaida to Iraq, Paul Linford thinks it's all over bar the shouting for Labour, Shiraz Socialist attacks the idea that we're a totalitarian politically correct state, rhetorically speaking deals with Paul Dacre's hilarious claim that the Daily Mail was never against the MMR vaccine, Laurie Penny responds to the Orwell prize winning blogger's post on the "Evil Poor", and finally the Daily Quail does his rather good Littledick impression.

In the papers, Matthew Parris rightly calls for some more definition from Cameron, Peter Oborne decides he was wrong about Gordon Brown, Sarfraz Manzoor wonders what Muslims have to do not to be all tarred with the same brush, Janice Turner thinks the rich are complaining too much, Andrew Grice also believes Labour are doomed, and Patrick Cockburn, another Orwell prize winner, discusses how well the Iraq war was reported.

Lastly, a clear winner in the worst tabloid article of the weekend award, which simply has to go to Lorraine Kelly for putting pen to paper and stating that you don't need diet pills, you just don't have to eat junk and regularly exercise. Thank you so much for that insight, Ms Kelly.

Labels: , ,

Share |

4/25/2009 09:50:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, April 24, 2009 

The budget aftermath.

As always happens with budgets, regardless of the party or the individual who delivers them, within hours they begin to unravel. No can genuinely envy Alistair Darling his task, except perhaps for Ed Balls, and there is much to be said for Darling's apparent calmness and unflappable nature, one of the very few to be around since 97 to not have become in some way tarnished by the travails of office. Such were the constraints on what any chancellor could have done given the circumstances, he did pretty much all he could, knowing full well that extensive cuts or extensive tax rises would doom his party to certain defeat. In perhaps the only comment that might be remembered, apart from the 50p rise in income tax for those earning over £150,000, he was clear that you cannot cut your way out of a recession. That much is obvious.

Likewise, his predictions that the economy would shrink by 3.5% this year, recovering to 1.25% growth next year and then growing at 3% plus afterwards were marked not so much by their infeasibility, but that he had to be optimistic for political reasons. Surely, for Labour to have any chance whatsoever of winning a fourth term next June, the economy needs to have began to recover by the turn of the year, at which point the government can say that they were right to be optimistic, to not have to wielded huge cuts so quickly, instead waiting to see if the fiscal measures taken had begun to work and that even though they may have wrong about many things, they were right when it really mattered. For there to be any chance whatsoever of this fantasy scenario becoming reality, today's GDP figures needed to be bang on the predicted 1.5%, or even better lower, reflecting the slight encouraging signs which some have suggested have started to become evident. Instead the drop was 1.9%, which means that it only needs a further drop of 1.6% in the second quarter, certainly not out of the question, for Darling's predictions to be already ruined.

Those figures, it should be noted, are provisional, and based only on the first two months' activity, meaning they could be revised both downwards or upwards, as the last quarter of 2008's were. Nevertheless, we have to go back to the third quarter of 1979 for worse figures. For all the hyperbolic, ridiculous talk of returning to the 70s this week, on this measure the analogy is undeniable. Add into the mix that the Institute for Fiscal Studies believes there's a £45bn hole in the budget, almost certainly to be filled by savage cuts to spending rather than tax rises, again the most severe since the dreaded decade, and the bleakness seems to be all enveloping.

For all the accusations flying Darling and Labour's way regarding dishonesty, as usual they cut both ways. No one can begin to pretend that Wednesday's budget was inspiring; it was rather all that could have been expected. Although putting off the real pain until after the election is pure politics, it's also the right thing to do. The same is the case with the 50p top rate of tax: it won't raise much, but it is equally absurd to call it a "return to class war", and not just because under Thatcher for a long period the rate was even higher. It is undeniable that an over reliance on the City, the laissez-faire attitude towards financial regulation, and New Labour's sickening sycophancy towards the filthy rich are the main causes of the current crisis. The public sector did not create this disaster; the private sector did. True, if Brown hadn't borrowed so much during the good times, we would not currently be facing such a monumental deficit, but we would almost certainly be facing a recession regardless, probably one only slightly less severe than the one we're experiencing. Things could be even worse if the Tories were in power and had carried out their promises to even further slash regulation, and as Stephanie Flanders points out, the last election was fought over little more than £12bn in public spending. That's a drop in the ocean to the amounts we are now boggling over. Even if it is purely a symbol, as Shuggy and Chris agree, the 50p rate is perhaps what the country wants to hear right now. You can argue about the unfairness of that, or the precedent it sets, but not the motivation.

For all the impressive rhetoric delivered by both David Cameron and George Osborne, and even if you revile the politics behind it, Cameron's response on Wednesday was probably one of his best moments as Tory leader, their plans for how to deal with the economy should they enter government next year are even more hollow than Labour's. All they have told us is that they would be making cuts now; they refuse to illustrate where, and how harsh they would be. Again, the politics behind this are obvious: no opposition party is going to present their own budget a year before they are actually going to deliver it, but they have to at least give some idea of what their intentions are. All we know is that they're not going to step into the trap of promising to repeal the 50p rate, and that somehow and incredibly, they're still going to find the money from somewhere to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £1m. As Chris again suggests, now would be the time to be taking a larger proportion of unearned wealth, not less.

Similarly, the claims that this budget means the final death of New Labour are also wide of the mark, and based on a misreading of what New Labour was about. The thing about New Labour is that there has never been an ideology behind it; instead it has always been about pure populist opportunism. This has not always tallied into truly populist policies, otherwise they would have slammed the door on east European migrants being able to come and work here, but on almost every other measure they have followed not their actual supporters' values, but those which they believe are both popular and superior. Sometimes they have relied on newspaper headlines and the demands of tabloid editors and their shadowy backers, but they have also relied extensively on focus grouping, which sometimes offers different results, such as the 50p top rate of tax, opposed by the right-wing rags they usually obey, but supported by the public at large. To now introduce such a popular measure is fully in keeping with what they have repeatedly done. Meanwhile, nothing will change whatsoever as regards to triangulating, the thinking behind the policy making that truly defined New Labour. New Labour's true demise might be only a year away, but the living dead are not yet fully exhausted.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

4/24/2009 08:26:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, April 23, 2009 

Iraq, the insurgency, and the capture of Omar al-Baghdadi.

There have been many false dawns in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, none more so than the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, although the group was more properly known as the Mujahideen Shura Council at the time. Although the insurgency in Iraq was always far more varied than just involving Zarqawi's group, which was renamed al-Qaida in Iraq after he pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, having formerly dreamt of building his own rival terror organisation, over-the-top media coverage and Zarqawi's brutal tactics, especially the beheading of foreign hostages, some of which he supposedly carried out himself, meant that his death was given far more significance than it was probably due. Reports of the capture of al-Zarqawi's self-proclaimed successor, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, do little other than suggest that there will still be life in the Iraqi insurgency for some time yet.

Like with Zarqawi and with the other man who may well be the real leader of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, Baghdadi has been presumed both dead and captured before, but for now it does seem as if he has been arrested. This itself may come as a surprise to some within the US army, who have claimed repeatedly that Baghdadi does not actually exist, instead a phantom that gives an Iraqi leadership to a group which has always been regarded by others in the insurgency as being of foreign origin, but photographs of the man have supposedly previously emerged, showing someone who looks to be suffering from pattern baldness.

How much influence or control Baghdadi actually had over the organisation is impossible to know. Apart from irregular audio messages issued as videos, none of which Baghdadi has formally appeared in, unlike the gregarious al-Zarqawi, all of which give credence to the idea that he is simply a puppet to the formal "Minister for War" al-Muhajir, he doesn't seem to have done anything other than contribute to the war of words which ultimately led to the split between the insurgent groups and with it the rise of the Awakening councils, almost completely composed of former insurgents, although few were members of al-Qaida, or the ISI. The recent rise in violence in the country, although nowhere near the levels of 2004 to mid-2007, attributed by some to the dissolution of the Awakening councils in certain areas, reflects the difficulty with which those who have been ostensibly fighting for the last six years will be reintegrated into Iraqi society. Contributing to the problems is that a Shia government is simply not trusted by the Sunni fighters; their sudden dissolution threatens to be a repeat of the disbanding of the Iraqi army, almost certainly the biggest factor behind the rise of the insurgency.

From controlling almost all of the so-called "Sunni Triangle" at one point, the Islamic State of Iraq has been pushed back into the provinces of Diyala and Mosul, where the Salafist jihadist groups, which also includes Ansar al-Islam, are still reasonably strong. It's difficult to know just how much of an effect al-Baghdadi's arrest might have on the groups and their supporters, especially considering how unknown his power has been, and while al-Zarqawi's death was actively mourned by jihadists, it will still be some sort of a setback to the group. The suicide bombings today, which are almost certainly coincidences rather than the group striking back, show that the ISI still has the capability to carry out devastating attacks, but on a far reduced scale. The insurgency in general, which has been in decline since its high point at the heighth of the civil war which al-Qaida in Iraq did much to foment, seems to be shifting up a gear, if the number of videos released by the groups is a measure to go by. The real problem in Iraq though remains reconciliation between the Sunni and Shia, which despite some reasonably encouraging results in the recent elections, where secularists appeared to win out against the religious parties, seems as far away as ever. Al-Baghdadi's arrest will do nothing whatsoever to alter that.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

4/23/2009 09:08:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 

The government should be in terror, not the people.

3 years ago, after the police had conspicuously failed to find anything more dangerous in the Kamal family's house in Forest Gate than a bottle of aspirin, a "senior police source" told the Graun that "[T]he public may have to get used to this sort of incident, with the police having to be safe rather than sorry." For the most part since then, most of the major anti-terrorist raids, while scooping up some innocents along the way, have resulted in prosecutions rather than the authorities emerging with egg on their faces. Instead, the most objectionable thing that has characterised the arrests has been the febrile briefing of the media with the most outlandish and potentially prejudicial, as well as exaggerated, accounts of the carnage which would have taken place had the attacks not been foiled. These leaks, despite the self-righteousness of former Met chief anti-terror officer Peter Clarke over the stories which appeared in the press concerning the plot to behead a Muslim soldier, appear to have came from all sides, with the police, security services and the government all involved.

Along with the leaks, we have become wearily accustomed to politicians commenting on what are after all, criminal operations, with no apparent concern for whether their remarks might subsequently influence a jury. The apogee was reached when John Reid famously said that the disruption of the "liquid bomb" plot had prevented "loss of life on an unprecendented scale", something that the jury in the first trial decided not to agree with. Their second trial is still on-going. I can't recall however any politician making similar comments to that which both Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith did about the raids in Manchester and the north-west two weeks ago where those arrested were subsequently released without charge. Politicians may have defended the police after the Forest Gate raids, but at no point did they appear to specifically say that a "very big plot" had been disrupted as the result of the police's actions. In the case of the ricin plot where there was no ricin, much which was inflammatory was spoken by politicians and the police, but in that instance Kamel Bourgass was at least guilty of murder, as well as stupidity in that his ideas for using the ricin that he wouldn't have been able to produce would have failed to poison anyone.

The only reason why there doesn't seem to far more deserved criticism of this latest fiasco is that it's been overshadowed completely by the budget. From getting off to one of the most inauspicious starts imaginable, things have in actuality got worse. If we were to believe the media's initial reports, if the men arrested had not been taken off the streets, there would now presumably be hundreds if not thousands dead, up to six places of varying interest and importance would have been badly damaged if not destroyed, and new anti-terrorist legislation would almost certainly be back on the agenda. Instead, 11 Pakistani students are going home far sooner than they would have anticipated, and no one can explain adequately how the position changed from there being an attack imminently prepared to there being not even the slightest evidence that there was anything beyond the murmurings of one.

Not that anyone from the very beginning even managed to get the facts straight. Variously the targets were meant to be two shopping centres, a nightclub and St Ann's Square, or Liverpool and Manchester United's stadiums. Then there were no targets, as the planning had not reached that stage, then they were photographs found of the places previously briefed, the only real piece of circumstantial evidence which seems to have been recovered and then finally there was no plot at all. Depending on who you believe, the men had either been under surveillance for some time, or the intelligence had only came in very recently. Like with the claims that the men arrested at Forest Gate had been under surveillance for up to two months, it reflects rather badly on the police/security services if the case is the former. Having hoped to find something more explosive than bags of table sugar, the police turned to desperately searching the suspects' computers and mobile phones. After nothing incriminating enough to bring any sort of charge was found on those, they seem to have declared defeat. We should be glad for the small mercy that the police seem not to have tried to string out their detention for the full 28 days allowed.

That will of course not be any sort of comfort for those who now find themselves in the custody of the Borders Agency, their studies disrupted for no good apparent reason. The BBC is suggesting that their cases will be considered by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission, which meets in secret and hears evidence which is inadmissible in the normal court system. Presumably this means that the very intelligence which resulted in their arrests, despite being proved either downright wrong or speculatory at the least, will be used against them. It also happily means that none of the men can talk directly to the media about their experience, something which in the past has led to embarrassment all round, whether it was the person released without charge who described this country as a "police state for Muslims", or Hicham Yezza and Rizwaan Sabir, both arrested after Yezza had printed out an al-Qaida manual for his student, which he had downloaded from a US government website, with the intention that Sabir was to use it to write his MA dissertation. In a bizarre reversal of fortune, after Gordon Brown had lectured Pakistan on how it had to do more to combat the terrorist threat, it's now the Pakistan High Commissioner who's doing the honourable thing, offering legal assistance to the men so they can continue with their studies. As Jamie says, it takes some nerve to call Pakistan the failed state in all this.

As previously noted, it was from the outset strange that such a imminent threat should emerge considering the way that the head of MI5 and the government had begun to downplay the threat for the first time since 9/11. When you bear in mind how the previous head of MI5 scaremongered about "the evil in our midst" just three years ago, it instantly suggested that something substantial had changed. It's not unknown for surprises to be sprung, but this one seemed to be too outlandish to be accurate. That within 48 hours it was already becoming clear that no attack had genuinely been disrupted should have rung alarm bells then in the minds of the media, but still they kept with the fallacy for the most part that something would turn up. Only now that it hasn't will questions be asked.

It has to be kept in mind that intelligence work is not an exact science. It often turns out to be wrong, or just too unreliable to be used to carry out the sort of arrests which we saw two weeks ago. As the senior police source didn't quite say, it is better to be safe than sorry, but this is beginning to become a habit. At the very least, if such raids are to be carried out, then politicians should keep their mouths closed and the media should not be used to put completely unsubstantiated rumours into circulation which then can colour a person for the rest of their life. We have however said these things before, and no notice whatsoever has been taken. After the incompetence of the patio gas canister attacks, both Smith and Brown seemed to be keeping to their word not to exaggerate things in the same way as their predecessors so copiously did. The irony of this is that as politicians continue to use security threats as a way to justify their serial dilutions of civil liberties and the imposition of ID cards and databases, the public themselves become ever more cynical when these threats turn out to be nothing more than hyperbole with a motive. It also surely isn't coincidence that today of all days MI5 shows the Sun their brilliant invention that can stop a "suicide truck bomb" in its tracks, as long as the driver keeps the speed below 40. That terrorists have shown no inclination whatsoever to use such bombs in this country, when explosives are incredibly difficult to obtain and where the next best thing, such as TATP, is even more difficult to produce in such quantities is neither here nor there. This we are advised will be part of the government's "Fortress Great Britain" counter-terrorism strategy, where more or less every public building may well be reinforced in case it becomes a target. This is not just a colossal waste of time and money, it's a colossal waste of time and money with the intention of scaring people. The quote goes that governments should be scared of the people, not people of the government. Despite its almost certain imminent electoral demise, this one doesn't seem to be. That may be what needs to change the most.

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Share |

4/22/2009 06:22:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 

Spinning and kicking while down.

One of the things that newspapers specialise in is kicking people when they're down, usually after they were the ones that were primarily responsible for building them up in the first place. A recent case in point was the sudden deflating of James Corden and Mathew Horne, having been ridiculously over praised for the middling Gavin and Stacey, who were little less than assaulted over their film, Lesbian Vampire Killers, their piss-poor eponymous BBC3 sketch show, and a charity appearance which was deemed to be little better.

More pertinently politics wise is the way that Damian McBride has been set about since the "smeargate" emails emerged of him batting about ideas for a blog in which Tories had their private and personal lives appraised for gossip value. The latest example is in today's Graun, where McBride is linked to an "infamous incident" back in 2004, so infamous that this self-confessed politics nerd has no recollection whatsoever of it. More astonishing than the fact that McBride was fingered as the person responsible for leaking details of the meeting to the Sunday Times is that a "secret investigation" was launched in which phone records and presumably security assets were used to find the culprit. It says more about Downing Street's paranoia and fury at the slightest criticism at the time than it does about how much of a "wrong 'un" McBride always was.

Peter Wilby pointed out yesterday that prior to the last two weeks McBride had hardly been mentioned in the papers, his existence and apparently his dark arts of no interest to anyone when both sides were profiting from his dripping of poison. In 2004 the Graun mentioned McBride but once - and that was in a City diary. Even last year, at the apparent height of McBride's operations, he was only mentioned in dispatches 34 times, and 5 of those were in the little read online lobby column by "Bill Blanko", the rest mainly coming from reports concerning the defenestration of Ruth Kelly. As spin doctors go, you can hardly get more visible than Alastair Campbell, while it seems you can hardly get less visible than McBride was. Only once he had fallen on his sword did we learn about his work in the shadows, mainly briefing Tory newspapers, the ones so outraged by the smears which would never have emerged and seemingly never have been used if someone hadn't hacked Derek Draper's email account, with venom about under performing ministers. Almost every whisper about plotting by various pretenders to Brown's throne seems to have originated with McBride - either that or he's just a handy receptacle to now blame.

There is something in the argument made by various bloggers that the journalistic lobby at Westminster, because it is complicit in the spinning, cannot be trusted to tell us the whole truth about what goes on there. At the same time, the idea that blogs can be trusted to do just that is equally spurious, if not more so. However much bloggers denounce the MSM, the two are inseparable because they cannot operate without each other. Guido had to sell the emails to Sunday newspapers because they would have not gained the same coverage that they would have on his site, however much he and Iain Dale boast about their visitor figures. Gossip is well suited to the web because it requires few resources: just a few indiscreet individuals. Genuine investigative journalism however, such as that which brought down Jonathan Aitken, or more recently exposed the rendition programme or the Saudi slush funds needs constant backing up and funding. Even when it comes to videos which expose the truth, such as the one showing Ian Tomlinson being pushed over by a police officer, it requires the reach of a paper like the Guardian for it to truly spread quickly: if it had simply been sent up to YouTube or a blog like the dozens of others of the G20 protests, it would have taken days for it to reach critical mass.

Perhaps the biggest reason for the pique and faux outrage which followed McBride's resignation then is that it wasn't a blast against the spin culture, which after all cannot operate without the media's connivance, even as they decry it, but rather because one of their finest sources for muck had been forced outside of the circle. The motto was and remains, "don't get fucking caught". That applies to journalists and spin doctors equally.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Share |

4/21/2009 08:10:00 PM | | | links to this post

 

The plague has nothing on Blair.

Via Liberal Conspiracy, I come across the thoughts of the Independent's John Rentoul, one of the very few Blair-fanciers left on the face of the planet:

Just to prove my utter devotion to the finest peace-time prime minister, I confess my reaction when I read that the Tony Blair Faith Foundation Facebook page had been defaced with, among others, this comment:

"Tony Blair was about as good for Britain as the bubonic plague."

My recollection of medieval economic history is that the bubonic plague was good for Britain. By reducing the population, it increased wealth per head in a relatively stable society and forced it to improve agricultural productivity.

It was not just good for Britain, it was the basis of the economic pre-revolution that laid the foundations for this country to become the leading economic and military power of the world.

Just as, in a few centuries, Blair's creation of academy schools will again.

It's an interesting point. The analogy isn't quite apposite, as during Blair's tenure we didn't have to bury the diseased bodies of our brethren in mass graves, although we did have to do that to the bodies of millions of livestock, which rather than improving agricultural productivity instead decimated our farmers when vaccination against foot and mouth was another option which was rejected. No, Blair instead decided that the Iraqis, having already had recent experience with burying thousands of bodies were the best people to get back in the mood of the middle ages, and you have to admit, Blair succeeded on that score beyond even his wildest dreams.

You can't really argue with Rentoul's logic in any case. That he completely sidesteps the intended meaning of the barb, and then regardless decides to suggest that the plague was in fact good for Britain, if not so wonderful for the entire villages which were decimated, almost makes it seem as if he secretly accepts that Blair wasn't the greatest thing since sliced bread. Instead, as David Blunkett said, we can't seem to appreciate a prophet in our country; it'll only be in 200 years, when you and I will have long since turned to dust, that Blair will be truly feted. That unpleasantness in Iraq will be thoroughly overshadowed by Blair's fabulous constitutional reforms and the introduction of academy schools, turning out an entire nation equipped with the skills to function as call centre operators. Perhaps in 2209, when these septic isles are no longer known as the United Kingdom but instead Offshore Telephony Solutions #1 and #2, they'll truly admire the sage that we refused to acknowledge.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

4/21/2009 07:37:00 PM | | | links to this post

Monday, April 20, 2009 

I love the smell of propaganda in the morning...

If it's on the Sun's front page on a Monday, it's probably propaganda. This seems to be a rule of thumb which is well worth following. Previous examples have included claims that al-Qaida fighters in Algeria had contracted the plague (they hadn't) and that Nimrod aircraft flying over Afghanistan had heard Taliban fighters talking in "Brummie and Yorkshire" accents (unconfirmed, possible). Today's, also authored by John Kay, is more easy to trace direct back to source: the MoD have the exact same story up on their website. It's also a hoary old tale which while possibly true, is equally likely not to be:

MIRACLE soldier Leon Wilson told last night how a high-velocity Taliban bullet hit his helmet and missed his head by two millimetres — the thickness of a beer mat.

The Sun further embellishes the story by adding some extraneous detail:

Travelling at 1,000 metres a second, the bullet pierced the left side of his combat helmet, ripped through a forehead pad inside and exited the front without touching him.

At 1,000 metres a second! Not 999 metres a second, or 1,001 metres a second, but an exact 1,000! That's impressive!

A typical tale of derring-do follows on, tedious in its evocation of such heroism and bravery. There are two things that do cast a dampener on the story though.

Firstly, if we are to believe this isn't just an MoD stunt, desperate for some good news from Afghanistan, it isn't as rare as is being made out. Only last July a highly similar story was reported, without apparent MoD involvement, the soldier in that example being David Poderis, also shot through the helmet without being harmed. Secondly, another previous case, reported back in 2003 in Iraq, involving a soldier supposedly shot four times in the helmet and surviving, subsequently turned out to be a prank or hoax, depending on which you prefer, the Sun proudly reporting the soldiers' ingenuity. The author? One John Kay. Is history repeating itself? You decide...

Labels: , , , , , , , ,

Share |

4/20/2009 11:25:00 PM | | | links to this post

Saturday, April 18, 2009 

Weekend links.

(I forgot to mention, but yesterday's post was, believe it or not, this blog's 2,000th. I'm a very, very sad man.)

Another weekend, and another really bad one for the Labour party. Not that the leadership or the Blairites will care one jot about Alice Mahon resigning from the party she's been a member of for 50 years, but it might just help jolt the consciences of some that remain members themselves of just how far the modern party has deviated from its origins. If that doesn't, perhaps the almost certain selection of Georgina Gould, daughter of Lord Gould and all of 22 years of age as the Labour candidate for the safe seat of Erith and Thamesmead, where there have been continual accusations of foul play will. It's quite clear what the remaining Blairites are intent on doing: rebuilding the party entirely in their image. As the old lefties of the Campaign group gradually give up their seats or retire, in will come the safe, new school of right-on dead centrists, without even the slightest interest in the party's history or what it once stood for. With it will of course also come the complete removal of the already minimal differences with the Conservative party, except for cosmetic ones, and the lack of choice between the two will even further diminish democracy as a whole. That, it seems, will be New Labour's true legacy. David Semple and Bob Piper expand on both the latter and the former.

Elsewhere, the Torygraph has a profile of Guido Fawkes/Paul Staines which the man himself has called a hatchet job, which more or less means that everything in it is factually correct, and therefore well worth a browse, Flying Rodent looks at Staines also puffing himself up in the Times, while Paul Linford has an excellent all round post on "Smeargate", as does Dave Osler. Dave Cole covers the Derek Draper side of things additionally. Other blog posts worth browsing are Neil Robertson's take on the torture memos, the Heresiarch on the sad death of Marilyn Chambers, and John B taking on a CiF commenter's more out there views on how Labour has restricted civil liberties.

In the papers, "Smeargate" still dominates, with Matthew Parris, Peter Oborne, Michael Portillo, Geoffrey Wheatcroft and John Harris all following it up in various ways, while Shami Chakrabarti and the Indie's leader column focus more on the aftermath of Damian Green predictably not being charged with any offence, with Tom Freeman also providing something of a riposte to the Indie leader. Other newspaper comment comes from Robert Fisk, on the morphing of the Taliban into al-Qaida, Christina Patterson on getting old, Mark Lawson on those vile grassing up posters, Paul Kingsnorth on the downfall of Englishness, Phillipe Sands on the torture memos, and Hassan Juma'a rejoicing at the coming end of the occupation of Basra.

As for worst tabloid article, we have a straight fight between the two usual contenders, Amanda Platell and Lorraine Kelly. Such a straight fight in fact that we'll mark it up as a draw. Platell takes first honours, hilariously declaring that Brown's attack dogs hate women, when anyone reading her columns will quickly notice that Platell herself also appears to loathe her sisters, adding to the humour by further remarking on how "honourable" Nadine Dorries is, whilst Lorraine Kelly, equally without the slightest self-awareness, asks in the Sun why it took 96 people to die before football fans were treated with respect. They didn't of course instantly get respect: they first had to be smeared by Kelly's newspaper and accused of urinating on police officers and picking the pockets of the dead before that happened. Still, why bring up unfortunate occurrences like that when there's people you can suck up to 20 years later?

Labels: , ,

Share |

4/18/2009 10:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, April 17, 2009 

Torturers justifying to themselves that they are not torturers.

It turns out that I did perhaps speak slightly too soon in being disappointed that the Obama administration hadn't opened up the books on the Bush regime's involvement in both rendition and torture. Although the release of the four memos sent between the CIA and two different deputy attorney generals was "required by the rule of law", that certainly wouldn't have stopped the prior administration or some individuals within Obama's from doing the exact opposite.

It's been clear since the first allegations emerged of mistreatment of detainees that just like all the other regimes which subsequently fell, with their secrets and misdemeanours exposed through documents, the Bush administration didn't just discuss what it was doing in secret and on a need to know basis: it left behind a distinct paper trail, of which these memos are just the latest example. The most notorious was perhaps the stress techniques which Donald Rumsfeld signed off with the pithy justification that considering he stood for 8-10 hours a day, why couldn't the detainees be forced to stand for longer than 4 hours? This sort of thinking and a general complete lack of concern at what they were ordering others to do is evident throughout the documents and memos that have so far been released.

The key document of the four released, although the others also have significant sections, is the August the 1st 2002 memo from Jay S. Bybee, then assistant attorney general to John Rizzo, the acting general counsel for the CIA. Rizzo was specifically asking whether 10 "techniques", including the most notorious, "waterboarding", would violate the prohibition against torture "found at Section 2340A of title 18 of the United States Code", as the CIA intended to use them against Abu Zubaydah, at that point the most senior alleged al-Qaida leader to be captured. The document, which recounts in minute detail just how the "enhanced techniques" would be used, is chilling. Of these, the most disturbing is the blithe way in which Bybee recounts that Rizzo had previously informed him that they would not deprive Zubaydah of sleep for more than 11 days, having already kept him awake for more than 72 hours, of how they wished to confine Zubaydah in a box, in which an insect would be placed, Zubaydah apparently having a fear of such creatures, while not informing him that the insect would be completely harmless, and finally of how they would waterboard him, where the simulated drowning would not last longer than 20 minutes, and sessions as a whole would last 2 hours.

Quite why Bybee doesn't just say immediately that he completely agrees that what Rizzo is proposing doesn't amount to torture is unclear, as the arguments he then details are simply pitiful. These amount to little more than the fact that soldiers that were trained in SERE techniques did for the most part not suffer any long-term side-effects as a result of being treated in the same way as they were proposing to deal with Zubaydah. This is akin to comparing apples to oranges: there is a world of difference between undergoing these techniques once or twice with friends and professionals that you trust so that if you are captured you both know what to expect and how to deal with it, and instead having them repeatedly used on you, by people you neither trust and who you quite reasonably believe have the intention and the means to harm you if you don't co-operate with them, despite not being able to comply with their demands.

This finally culminates in Bybee admitting that waterboarding constitutes a threat of imminent death, which directly breaches Section 2340A. This however is not a problem, as Bybee decides that "prolonged mental harm must nonetheless result to violate the statutory prohibition", and, judging by Rizzo's authoritative and extensive research into the long-term effects of such procedures on SERE students, no such mental harm has been recognised. If things were not already Orwellian enough, Bybee then continues onward, concluding that additionally, there has to be "specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering" for there to be a breach of the prohibition. Despite the fact that the CIA would be using such measures on Zubaydah deliberately in order to get him to talk, because of how they are using these methods in "good faith", and restricting themselves so that they are not abused beyond acceptable limits, there would be no such specific intent. This is no more and no less than torturers justifying to themselves that they are not torturers. It's the sort of thing which dictatorships indulge in; this is the land of the free and the home of the brave resorting to such methods after 9/11 swifter than the likes of Soviet Russia did.

The results of Zubaydah's torture were worryingly predictable. Differences remain between those who claim he was a significant member of al-Qaida and those that instead claim that he was on the periphery, but what is beyond doubt is that in response to his treatment he told his interrogators anything and everything, including details of numerous false plots and individuals, all of which came to nothing. Likewise, the far more senior Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who became so adept at being waterboarded that he impressed and gained the respect of his interrogators, talked himself into being possibly the most dastardly terrorist in history, the only detail missing from his claims being that he wasn't the one who fired the second shot from the grassy knoll. Even if you completely disagree with the argument that you shouldn't abuse the detainees you capture for moral reasons, the reason to oppose torture is that it simply doesn't work, illustrated perfectly by Zubaydah.

There is one other key passage in one of the other memos which perfectly sums up the hypocrisy and contempt that the Bush administration had when it came to international obligations regarding torture:
In other words: we know full well what we're doing is torture, but the fact that we condemn others for doing exactly what we are isn't going to stop us from continuing with it.

Obama released the documents saying that there would be no prosecutions of those responsible, and this should be a time for "reflection, not retribution". That's fair enough where it concerns those that actually carried out the mistreatment, although post-Nuremberg and indeed, post-Bush, it should be no excuse to say that you were only following orders. Those who should be held accountable however are the ones that wrote these documents, the ones above them that were the ones really pulling the strings, and especially those who both then and now continue to defend the use of such methods. Those who first proposed these techniques are those responsible for them being used routinely, as we saw at Abu Ghraib. As before though, it seems likely that once again it will be the little people that serve the jail sentences while the real war criminals can write their memoirs and parade around the lecture circuit.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

4/17/2009 09:40:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, April 16, 2009 

Damian Green and the state of the nation.

For what was meant to be an apology for the ultimate conclusion of spin, Gordon Brown's mealy-mouthed "sorry" was remarkably like a piece of spin in itself. While the press and the Conservatives have been whipping themselves up into a frenzy over something that Brown almost certainly knew nothing about, the decision not to charge Damian Green has been pushed down the news agenda, helped by Brown's sudden decision to express contrition to a camera.

It's a shame, as the Green case is far more indicative of where the nation is going as opposed to where the state of politics is descending. It's the combination of everything which New Labour has ultimately been building towards, encouraged by the pliant tabloid media which demands ever harsher authoritarian crime polices and by their flexible friends in the police, where national security and anti-terrorism supplant everything else, used opportunistically as the excuse for every little abuse of power and every little act of authorised bullying.

Some might question the link between the arrest of 114 climate change protesters before they had so much as thought of carrying out their plans for peaceful demonstrations, the deletion of a tourist's photographs on the grounds that you can't shoot any building, structure or vehicle involved in London's transportation system, the brutality shown towards some G20 protesters and Damian Green's arrest, but they are all representative of one thing: of an overbearing state which continues to grow in power while the individual continues to be diminished and patronised, with their complaints ignored or whitewashed. The key difference in the latter case was that both the police and government overestimated their power and overstepped themselves in imagining that they could arrest someone who was themselves in a position of power, diminished as it was, and not outrage that person's colleagues and as a result the media. A similar thing almost happened a couple of years earlier, except to the actual party of government with the arrest of Ruth Turner, but that was soon forgotten by those who themselves felt that they were still invulnerable.

Not a single person imagined for a second that Damian Green would be charged with anything. Members of parliament don't get charged when it comes to leaks; their stringers and the other little people involved are the ones that usually have to take one for the team. More surprising was that the Home Affairs Select Committee, especially one chaired by a loyalist like Keith Vaz, noted that despite the claims by the Cabinet Office and Home Office, none of the material leaked even approached breaching national security, something confirmed by the head of the CPS, an organisation which seems to be bucking the trend in remaining fiercely independent, first with Ken Macdonald and now with Kier Starmer at the helm. Notable also was that the police's actions were compared to the Keystone Cops, which isn't quite apposite, for the reason that Keystone Cops were meant to be laughed at. No one is laughing at what the police increasingly seem to be getting up to, as incompetent as their actions at times are.

Whether Jacqui Smith did or did not know that Green was personally going to be arrested, and despite my initial thoughts that I believed it was unlikely, I've now changed my mind somewhat, it's still indicative of how the Home Office has changed under Labour. Undoubtedly the change can be linked right back to the James Bulger murder and the consensus which emerged between the political parties that prison works, but the succession of ridiculously hardline politicians made home secretary began with David Blunkett and has continued since. In turn, each has been more ludicrous and more certain of themselves in succession, and all of them have also shared one political characteristic: they have all been Blairites. All have been dismissive in the traditional Blairite way of established procedure, whether it be populist in nature as it was when John Reid declared that his department was "not fit for purpose" or with Smith not apparently caring one jot that she to all intents and purposes wasted police time, still today defending that calling in Inspector Knacker was the right thing to do. None of her predecessors though were so completely hopeless at their job, so thoroughly discredited and as weak as she has become, thanks both to her expenses claims and other piling up failures. That she is still in her position itself is a miracle, and it is surely one which will not survive any coming reshuffle, although as in the past, she will undoubtedly be replaced by someone just as bad and just as opportunist; the job seems to now require those characteristics.

Few will disagree with Damian Green's statement that he could not think "of a better symbol of an out of touch, authoritarian, failing government that has been in power for too long". The Conservatives however offer no alternative whatsoever on the authoritarian front. If anything, they might well turn out be worse on that score when it comes to crime, and their promise to increase the police's powers of surveillance suggests that despite the clamour which is beginning to build regarding the casual dilution of civil liberties, they still don't understand that there has to be a step change in the relationship between the individual and the state. That it took the arrest of one of their own for them to begin to finally grasp that was an indictment of their own failure to read that mood was changing, and it's even harder to believe that once in power they will be any different to Labour in responding to the anguished cries of the latest tabloid headline. One of the things they could do which might encourage the belief that they will seriously examine just how powerful and unaccountable the police have become is to propose a royal commission into their tactics, as first argued by Martin Kettle. If they seriously want the public to believe they will not be as political as New Labour has been, and the signs from Boris Johnson are that they might even be more so, then it's the absolute least they will have to do.

Labels: , , , , , , ,

Share |

4/16/2009 10:26:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 15, 2009 

No smoke or fire.

It's now almost three days on from when those arrested last Wednesday were supposed to have launched their attack at the latest, yet surprisingly considering the scare stories which the press was full of last week it still remains the case that the most dangerous items to be found so far remain photographs of 4 separate locations, and after a raid by the bomb squad yesterday, a bag of table sugar.

Regardless of the fact that the botched arrests look likely to have been even more botched than they were originally by Bob Quick, a kind judge has agreed that the police can continue to hold 11 men for another week (one man caught up in the raids having already been released without charge and another turned over to the immigration authorities), although whether they're saying anything or indeed whether the police have even began to question them yet is open to scrutiny.

The plot though does seem to be thickening. Despite claims that the raids were only 12 hours away, having to be brought forward after Quick exposed himself (geddit????) other sources seem to have suggested that the plans outlined on Quick's briefing note were simply one option, that had yet to be authorised, and that it was likely that the "plotters" would have been left to incriminate themselves further if it hadn't been for the snapper in Downing Street. This would explain why nothing has been found, and possibly also opens the idea that Quick was seeking political opinion on what should be done. If this was the case, it still doesn't explain quite how wrong the intelligence seems to have been - both Jacqui Smith and Gordon Brown swiftly praising the police for swooping in the way they did and claiming that a "very serious" terrorist plot had been disrupted. There still might well have been a plot, unlike at Forest Gate, where there was nothing whatsoever, but it seems to have been nowhere close to being put into action, despite the predictable briefing of the media that doom was just around the corner unless they had acted.

The Times reported on Monday that the most likely course of action would be that all the Pakistani students here on visas would simply be deported, which though again is only speculation, seems to suggest that the intelligence was almost entirely wrong. As I wrote last week, this is the danger with relying on intelligence rather than good old fashioned surveillance, and while we should hesitate before second guessing the security services or the police over when such raids should take place, the danger is that you both alienate the communities where the arrests happen when no one is charged, while also creating cynicism about the scale of the threat and the political motivation behind the exaggeration of it. It was peculiar that so soon after the head of MI5 and the government itself had almost unprecedentedly started to talk down the level of threat from jihadists that such important arrests would be made, and the failure to find anything suggests that the prior assessments are still the ones that seem to be the closest to the truth.

Labels: , , , , ,

Share |

4/15/2009 11:38:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, April 14, 2009 

Spin, smears and faux outrage.

"Let's go to work."

Having finally been reconnected to the joyous environment which is the internet this morning (turns out it was nothing whatsoever to do with the East London cable outage, so it could have been fixed early last week if it wasn't for Tiscali saying to me that it was), I've been following the McBride/Draper smear "scandal" with something approaching detachment, which all things considered is almost certainly the best policy. All the adjectives you can use to describe the emails sent between McBride and Draper which mysteriously found their way into the (dirty) hands of Paul Staines, something which itself is curiously not being remarked upon, couldn't really begin to do justice to what is one of those stories which energises Westminster and the lobby hacks, and now also the insular world of "popular" political blogging, and which everyone else is just mystified and turned off by.

Probably the most ludicrous notion inspired by this faux outrage is that Labour could lose the next election because of it, and that the party has suffered "reputational damage" thanks to emails exchanged between a civil servant and a spin doctor handed the most poisoned chalice in current British politics. Labour will lose the next election because in the words of Roy Hattersley, the party is neither new enough nor Labour enough. Its one remaining claim to power was its economic record, a record which has since been flushed into the gutter. The only surprise of the last few months has been that the Conservatives have not built a bigger opinion poll lead, which is almost certainly down to just two factors: that the Tories' policies, those which they have, are only likely to make things worse; and that David Cameron has not yet sealed the deal with the electorate to the extent which Tony Blair did.

The other only slightly less ludicrous factor is the amount of sheer hypocrisy being exhibited by all of those involved. You would require a stomach of iron constitution not to feel sick at Staines describing the emails between Draper and McBride as "obscene"; this is the blogger who has variously implied that Mark Oaten was a paedophile, that routinely referred to the prime minister as the "prime mentalist", suggesting that he suffered from high functioning Asperger's syndrome without a scintilla of evidence and who has unmoderated comment fields where the invective and insults would be unfit to print on toilet walls. Staines' propaganda and self-promotion is that he provides the stories which the newspapers and "mainstream" media won't touch, but he is in fact as parasitical of them as any other blogger. The reality is that they give him stories and he gives them stories, all while claiming that he's about to blow the mainstream away. The sort of gossip and smears which are evident in the Draper/McBride emails is Staines' meat and drink, and he uses the old fallacy of urging those skewered to sue if his claims are false, hence the still unsubstantiated claims from him that John Prescott had an affair with Rosie Winterton, which you would have thought might have came out by now if it had happened.

At its heart, there is a fundamental lack of honesty from all those involved. The material which Staines acquired is the kind of gossip which most engage in, however untrue much of it is. Only last October there was the "scandal" involving George Osborne, Peter Mandelson and yachts, where we learned that Mandelson had dripped "poison" about Gordon Brown into the ears of his supposed political enemies. Osborne's error was to blab to others what Mandelson had told him; his comeuppance came when Mandelson revealed that Osborne might have attempted to obtain a donation from his host. The golden rule of all this is don't get fucking caught. These are not new developments; the briefing and counter-briefing is as old as politics itself. What is relatively recent is the venom with which the briefings are given, and that does originate with New Labour, although even John Major had his moments, such as his "bastards" comments. Both Brown and Blair surrounded themselves with such ardent followers that they would do almost anything to attack the other, hence we had Brown being described as "psychologically flawed" and it being put about that he was gay, while Mandelson, the master of the "dark arts", was himself smeared on various occasions. This is still continuing today, such was the rift created, hence Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn not hiding their satisfaction at McBride having to resign.

Again, if it wasn't so vomit inducing the Conservative response to this would be hilarious. Their attempts to pin this directly to Gordon Brown are understandable, although still repugnant. Yes, he kept McBride around, knowing full well what he was capable of and indeed what he had done in the past, but that he would have personally authorised the smearing of his opponents is nonsense. If anything, the Tories' efforts to paint themselves as completely above such tactics is setting them up for a fall in the same way as Labour did. Cameron has more or less done everything but pronounce himself a "pretty straight kind of guy" and that he will be "purer than pure". Let's be clear: if the Tories genuinely wanted to put an end to the age of spin, the very thing they would not have done is emulate Labour in appointing a former tabloid journalist as their chief media strategist. Say what you like about Alastair Campbell whilst he was in Downing Street, at least he never had to resign because of his journalism, or found himself accused of leading the bullying of those under him as Andy Coulson has. The Tories also know that they don't need to engage in such smearing to such an extent as perhaps they and their opponents have in the past: they now know they can rely on the likes of Staines and other malignant bloggers to do that for them. That those that can't write a sentence without using the word "cunt" or similar have been so celebratory over this "scandal" ought to tell you something about the sort of discourse which politics has now sunk to, which blogging has in many cases only made worse.

The only thing that has been got right by all involved is that Labour simply doesn't understand the internet and doesn't understand why it's so unpopular online. The broad reason is that those in government are always in opposition when it comes to the internet, as those opposed have more that unites them than unites the supporters, but the other main reasons are that the internet provides alternative voices not represented elsewhere, hence why libertarian blogs are so popular, and that British right-wing bloggers have taken their cue from the originators in America, like the Drudge Report. The Red Rag site which Draper was looking to set-up was meant to be an attempt to beat Staines at his own game, something which it was never going to achieve, and which also fails to understand that you have to fight gossip and intrigue not with more of the same, but with content and argument, which as Sunny points out is where the left in America succeeded. Draper's LabourList was an honourable attempt to do something similar, but was doomed to failure because Draper himself was involved, far too associated with the past and inextricably linked with the party itself. LabourList was and is simply not critical enough, while ConservativeHome, nicknamed Continuity IDS because of its to the right of Cameron stance, gets it right. Mr Eugenides recognises this, praising Liberal Conspiracy because it is the best attempt so far by the left to get organised and push things forward in a similar way to the American left. Its success is also though because while Labour supporters or sympathisers are contributors, it is completely independent of any party.

The biggest mis-step of all though was that Draper and McBridge imagined that those identified needed smearing. Nadine Dorries, after all, is possibly the biggest joke in British politics, and she has lied and mislead people on so many occasions that no one needs to make things up about her to show just how disreputable she is. Likewise, the idea that the public themselves will be turned off by such tactics is ignorant: they themselves call politicians every name under the sun, often quite deservedly, and the contempt in which they are held only continues to grow. You feel like telling all those involved to stop protesting so much whilst also suggesting that they get over themselves. This will be remembered not as another great New Labour scandal but yet another example of the Westminster bubble getting excited with itself while everyone else is just bemused and alienated.

Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,

Share |

4/14/2009 09:04:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, April 09, 2009 

Frustration and terror raids.

This week has been deeply frustrating, not having the internet at home, my entire phone line still being completely dead, although Tiscali have finally put BT engineers onto the case, because despite it being ostensibly a "holiday" week with parliament in recess, the news has hardly been slow, what with the emergence of the video footage of Ian Tomlinson being assaulted, the arrest of the two boys in Doncaster in what seems like a chilling echo of the murder of James Bulger, which the tabloids have predictably leapt upon, as have the equally shameless Tories (although only following Labour's own politicisation of the Bulger killing), with Chris Grayling reprising his somehow worse than Labour front on tackling youth crime, and then finally with the anti-terror raids in the north-west.

It's the latter that's most intriguing because of the way already in which the "plot", if indeed there was one, is starting to be downplayed. Yesterday the Sun was headlining its website with "BOMB PLOT TO KILL THOUSANDS", as it is wont to do, while now spooks' friend Frank Gardner is briefing that it had been at "the aspirational, rather than operational" stage. This is quite a change from yesterday: then sources had been claiming, to the Guardian in particular that the attack was expected to have taken place by Monday at the latest, and that the raids, triggered by Bob Quick's slowness had successfully disrupted a soon to come to fruition plot. Others talked, even this morning, of suicide attacks on up to four locations, with the Daily Star yesterday going out on its usual limb (or as usual simply making it up) claiming that Anfield and Old Trafford were potential targets.

Equally, other stories claimed that those involved had been under surveillance for months; now the Guardian suggests that the intelligence alerting the authorities to the alleged plot had only arrived in the past couple of weeks, with the raids triggered because further intelligence had suggested that the attack was imminent. The only "incriminating" thing that appears to have been found so far is photographs of the Trafford centre, the Birdcage nightclub, St Ann's square and the Arndale centre, along with claims that officers watched and listened in as they took them.

It's enough to make you wonder whether already the police and security services are preparing for another "ricin plot"/Forest Gate style fiasco. This is the obvious problem when relying almost solely on intelligence rather than good old fashioned surveillance and police work; it tends, more than often, to be inaccurate. If the Guardian's take on the intelligence only coming in in the last two weeks is correct, it explains why both ministers and indeed the head of MI5 were up until very recently beginning to suggest that the general level of threat from terrorism had begun to diminish. If we assume for a moment that those arrested are at some level connected with jihadism, even if any attack they were planning was still way off, it does also suggest a step change in tactics. Until recently almost all those involved in past plots were either British citizens or had lived here for significant periods of time; only one of those arrested this time round is of British origin. Whether this is because those indigenous to this country had miserably failed, whether they be those involved in the fertiliser plot, the "liquid bomb" attacks or the Tiger Tiger/Glasgow airport patio gas canister debacle or because those at the top thought Pakistani student "clean skins" would have a better chance of going undetected, as well as being probably far better trained is unclear, but it does also suggest that the threat from actual Brits is declining, as suggested by Jonathan Evans when he said al-Qaida had no "semi-autonomous" structure in the country at present.

It could of course yet turn out to be everything which security sources initially briefed on, but as always it's equally difficult to know just how cynical to be, with Craig Murray getting his in early, especially regarding the coincidences regarding the Ian Tomlinson evidence and the continuing furore over parliamentary expenses. Always worth keeping in mind is that however much ministers and police attempt to exaggerate the threat, or what might have happened had a plot not been foiled, so far jihadists in this country have exposed their incompetence and ignorance on numerous occasions, while only succeeding once. The IRA used to say that they only had to be lucky once, which is true, but the odds are overwhelmingly, nonetheless, in our favour.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

4/09/2009 05:27:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 08, 2009 

Accidental death of a non-protester.

Both Shuggy and Chris Dillow are right in pointing out that the police treatment of Ian Tomlinson was far from shocking, as some others have claimed. If anything, the officer who violently pushed him over when there was no need whatsoever to do so was taking part in some of the less dangerous action with the protesters that day. As long as Tomlinson didn't hit his head, and from the video it seems that he didn't, a push like that is only likely to result in grazed or cut knees and hands, along with the temporary shock that comes from being bundled over when you're not expecting it. The cracking of heads which other officers were engaged in all day, causes far more potential for concern. If however you have a weak heart, as it seems Tomlinson did, the sort of altercation which he was involved in with the police can quite easily lead to the complications which he seems to have subsequently suffered.

The entire slow emergence of what actually happened as opposed to the police version of events is also not shocking; rather wholly predictable, following the same pattern as that of earlier events where the police have been involved in inflicting either serious injuries or even death on completely innocent bystanders. The first obvious example is Jean Charles de Menezes, where the misinformation if not outright lies which emerged from the Metropolitan police before leaks from the Independent Police Complaints Commission inquiry established that much of their story was entirely false. Confusion and different accounts of what happened are always likely to be the order of the day to begin with, and we should expect that over time that the story will change. Once the police realise however that their original statements about what happened are inaccurate, they should be quick to correct them. This was what they completely failed to do in the case of de Menezes, hence the continuing myths that he had run from the police and had leapt the barriers, amongst others. It's hard not to conclude that half of the reason why the police fail to do this is because they know full well that first impressions and reports colour people's attitudes and are hard afterwards to shift, meaning that those who defend them will have a far easier job. They must have known full well, for instance, that they had not been showered with missiles, let alone "bricks", as the Evening Standard had it while they tended to Tomlinson; as video has subsequently showed, at most two bottles were thrown in their general direction, and the protesters quickly demanded that be stopped. Equally, some of the officers must have known full well that Tomlinson had at least been pushed, if not further assaulted before or after then as others are also alleging. Instead all we heard was that his death was "natural causes", and even up until 6pm yesterday the BBC was still denying that there was any news in his death whatsoever, treating the Guardian footage as a parochial "London" story.

Perhaps even more instructive though as to how far the police will go in denying their involvement in occasionally brutal tactics is the treatment that was meted out to Babar Ahmed when he was arrested. Medical examination showed quite clearly that he had been seriously assaulted despite putting up no resistance, but the Met completely denied any wrongdoing, right up until six years later in the High Court when the commissioner had to shamefacedly admit what had happened so that the officers themselves did not have to give evidence. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the officers involved had a cache of complaints made against them, overwhelmingly from Asian and black men, the letters of which had mysteriously gone missing. None of the officers involved appears to have been disciplined.

Nice as it would be to establish a complete pattern, it still doesn't entirely fit. For while the policing at last Wednesday's protest was almost inevitable after the police themselves and the media had repeatedly hyped up the idea there would be violence, at other demonstrations it has been a different story, possibly because of the short notice the police have had of them rather than actual tactical differences. The Gaza protests in January for example were for the most part poorly policed, as well as poorly organised, as clearly no one had expected the numbers which turned up, and the disorder which happened could have been nipped in the bud if the police had stepped in sooner to arrest the troublemakers, for which they would have had overwhelming support to do. At the continuing Tamil protests in central London, the police yesterday foolishly rushed in to confiscate flags which they claimed were emblems of the Tamil Tigers, a proscribed terrorist organisation, when they were instead the normal Tamil flag. On the Gaza protests, the flags of Hizbullah, Hamas and some even claimed al-Qaida were swung, draped over backs and flown with no such intervention from the police. The lack of consistency is striking, and it has to be assumed that the police do what they do when they can get away with it and when they can't they fall back. Tamils it seems are easier targets than potentially hot head young Muslims.

Once you have stripped everything away, the responsibility for the policing of the protests does not however fall on the heads of the cops themselves: it rests with the state, or the government, itself. The practice of kettling, of riot police attacking protesters who were either sitting down or involved in the entirely peaceful Bishopgate climate camp is not just down to the police hierarchy but to the politicians who authorise or even encourage such tactics. As Shatterface pointed out last week on Liberal Conspiracy, during the 80s the left routinely referred to the police as Thatcher's shock or storm troopers. That applies just as much today if not more so, except now they're New Labour's first line of defence. Can the casual deprivation of liberties and the right to protest, such as the continuing ban on demonstrations within a mile of parliament really be separated from the actions of the police last Wednesday and across the country over the last few years? Last Wednesday was just the most visible demonstration of the contempt for the right to protest which has continued to develop. Those watching the scenes, whether of the lone band of idiots who smashed up the RBS branch or of those bleeding from their heads after accidentally coming into contact with police batons will have only taken one message from such pictures: that registering your anger in such a way is wrong, and that if you continue to do so regardless of that fact, then you've only got yourself to blame if you're left with a few bruises. Those who might have wanted to do something similar will have been deterred by the deprivation of liberty they would have undergone, unable to leave when they wanted to, and likely to be hit if they looked as though might be about to do something that they police arbitrarily decide is verboten. For both the government and police, it's a win-win situation.

The one very weak bright spot to take from the emergence of the video showing what happened to Tomlinson is that it has fatally undermined the supposed ban on taking photographs and video of police officers. No one can now argue that such measures are necessary when without such material the truth would have never been exposed. True, it won't stop individual officers from continuing to demand that material be wiped, but such abuse of power is still likely to be given short shrift. The video should also put pay to the idea that protesters with masks are inevitably up to no good; if they are, then the police who cover their faces, as Tomlinson's attacker did, should be subject to the same scrutiny. There needs to be a full, independent inquiry before blame is apportioned, but the Met is once again looking like scoundrels and blackguards, simply because it and the government can neither tell the truth or explain their true motives.

Labels: , , , , , ,

Share |

4/08/2009 03:52:00 PM | | | links to this post

Tuesday, April 07, 2009 

Argh.

Updates are likely to be light to non-existent until at least Wednesday evening, as I appear to be one of those lucky souls stricken by the major cable damage in East London, even though I'm a good 50 or more miles away and my phone line didn't go dead until late Sunday night. I'm sure you'll be able to amuse yourselves more than adequately in the mean time, although whether I will is another matter.

Labels: , ,

Share |

4/07/2009 04:20:00 PM | | | links to this post

Saturday, April 04, 2009 

Weekend links.

Either everyone's gone off on holiday, or everyone's tired out after the "excitement" of the G20, resulting in a fairly tepid weekend of blogging. Of that which there is, a reader of Liberal Conspiracy writes in to tell of how she's being evicted by the Labour party, Paul Linford struggles to answer whether all politicians are crooks or not, Justin has video of two of the protesters who saw what happened to the man who died at the G20 protests, Flying Rodent somewhat shoots fish in a barrel in his post on the fabulous Ayn Rand, A Very Public Sociologist has a round-up of all those G20 posts, Dave Osler comments on the return of homelessness, the Yorkshire Ranter notes the Telegraph's lack of journalistic standards and lastly the Quail covers the "movement" against Google Street View in his usual fashion.

In the papers, Matthew Parris, Peter Oborne and Polly Toynbee (in a rare decent piece) all cover the G20 and its aftermath, Marina Hyde correctly points out that without the BBC we'd quickly be in a race to the bottom (seriously, has anyone ever watched ITV2? It makes BBC3 look like BBC4 by comparison) and Howard Jacobson takes up the difficult task of somewhat defending Jacqui Smith and Richard Timney and makes as decent a fist of it as anyone possibly could.

As for the worst tabloid article of the weekend, it seems our usual suspect La Platell is away, but unfortunately the same could not be said for the equally abysmal Liz Jones, who is offended by the sight of people who both dress and think differently to her. Also worthy of mention is this Scum article on a school transformed when a group of gypsies moved into the local area, whereupon the good burghers astonishingly quickly removed their own refined offspring from it. Result: a failing school. We just can't have the mixing of the landed classes and the hoi polloi can we?

Labels: , ,

Share |

4/04/2009 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

Friday, April 03, 2009 

The media and spree killings.


There's now been at least six spree killings in the space of less than a month. For the most part I tend to be sceptical about claims of media influence, especially to the extent to which it might by itself trigger copycat behaviour or violence, but there does seem to be some reasonable evidence, at least where it comes to suicide, that sensationalistic coverage and especially emphasis on methods can lead to an increase in the number of attempts by those who already contemplating doing so or are otherwise depressed.

If there is a link, then it might well be because the media cover spree killings very differently to the way they do "normal" murders. A case in point was the Virginia Tech massacre, where Seung-Hui Cho did the work of the 24-hour news networks for them, sending an entire dossier, better described as a manifesto, to NBC, which they did the equivalent of ejaculating over. In almost no other cases would news networks allow killers to justify their crimes in such a way as Cho did, putting himself up as a secular martyr. The hysteria which followed Columbine, where everything and everyone was blamed other than those who had failed to spot the warning signs, succeeded in making Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris into anti-heroes, as the psychiatrist on Newswipe suggests, name-checked by Cho himself as previous victims whom he aspired to emulate.

There are of course other explanations, often that those behind such sprees have been planning them for some time and that the dates they actually chose to carry out their murders are simply coincidence. Certainly the current economic situation, which will increase the number who undergo utter desperation at their current lot, hardly helps matters. Other cases, such as the Oakland police shootings, just seem to be down to all those involved, including the shooter, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even so, that doesn't alter the fact that the media doesn't need to report these killings in the way in which the clip identifies. If there's even the possibility that such sensationalism can contribute to those who subsequently go postal, the media has the best possible reason for scaling back the coverage.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

4/03/2009 10:21:00 PM | | | links to this post

Thursday, April 02, 2009 

The G20.

In an incredibly rare example of coordinated thinking, or perhaps rather unimaginative subbing, both the Mail and Guardian tomorrow share the same front page headline - Brown's new world order. Whether the Mail's, with the addition of the exclamation mark, is sarcastic is unclear, but considering the closeness between Paul Dacre and Brown it wouldn't be surprising if even the Mail has decided to be positive for once.

Whether such positivity is genuinely warranted is equally uncertain. However much horse-trading went on behind the scenes is also impossible to know, but as Craig Murray points out, much of the "communique" which has been issued and which runs to a stonking 3,000 words, ensuring that few will read it, will have been all ready and set to go before many had even flown into London. Similarly discouraging, considering the emphasis which was put on the shutting down of tax havens and regulation of hedge funds is that the markets rose significantly today. True, the markets have been rising over the past week, but if those with so much dosh stashed away in the likes of Switzerland, Liechtenstein and the British Virgin Islands really feared the new measures put in place, they would have almost certainly taken fright. That they didn't suggests one of two things: either the economic situation has become so desperate that those with much to lose from the new agreements have decided that such sacrifices have to be made to avoid a slump into full depression, or that the new proposals aren't worth the paper they're written on. The smart money will be on the latter.

For the moment though, Brown will surely bask in the glory, once again, of being the self-proclaimed saviour of the world. Whether that glory will quickly turn, in masturbatory fashion, from euphoria to the deepest ennui and darkest depression remains to be seen. He must however be proud and thrilled with much that has taken place, probably the little things rather than some of the immediate greater achievements. You can't after all get much further from Bush calling Blair to heel in 2006 with his shout of "Yo Blair!" to Obama rather than Brown putting his arm across the prime minister's shoulders whilst in Downing Street. The "special relationship", however cynical and subservient a relationship it is, currently looks more equal than it has in years. Likewise, the communique itself will be a cause for celebration, written as it seems to be in the language which Brown and New Labour have long spoke in, note especially the early mention of the dreaded "hard-working families". To get the G20 also talking it and agreeing with it, however mediocre and mild much of the aims are, will be a source of pride, even if it shouldn't be.

As Craig Murray also suggested, there has been something for everyone to shout about so that no one goes home empty-handed. The French and Germans, who theatrically threatened to walk out if not enough was done on regulation, each got what they wanted, or have claimed to. Indicative of the pressure on him at home, President Sarkozy, who was elected on promise of wholesale reform of the French economy and nicknamed "Sarko the American" because of his enthusiasm for the country as compared to the more usual Gallic antipathy, raved about the promises for the changes on challenging the tax havens. The Chinese seem have to succeeded in their attempts to build up an alternative to the dollar as the reserve currency of choice through the IMF's special drawing right equivalent, which may be the first real signs of them exercising their coming clout over foreign policy. Probably the most significant and as a result under-reported achievement though was clinched yesterday, the pledged commitment between the Americans and Russians to reduce their nuclear arsenals. Any sign of a thaw in what was threatening to become a reprise if not a return to the war of words and threats of the cold war is to be welcomed.

Most vividly missing though was any mention of a global fiscal stimulus, which was never likely to be agreed but which Brown and his apparatchiks were still talking up until Mervyn King so rudely slammed that policy door shut last week. Equally missing was any genuine recognition that simply, things cannot return to how they were in the summer of 2007. Those who up until recently had believed that there was no alternative to neo-liberalism and that only the freest markets, uninhibited by regulation would deliver perpetual prosperity have not changed their minds - they've only changed their attitudes for as long as it takes for us to emerge from the recession of their very making. The world simply cannot sustain continuous growth, and the idea that we can protect the environment, cut carbon emissions to the extent to which we prevent run-away climate change and still slaver over the profits at the end of it is a false one. We shouldn't of course have expected the equivalent of turkeys voting for Christmas - but just the slightest recognition that even if not now, we need a serious re-examination of the very basics of modern economic orthodoxy would have been a step in the right direction.

This was Gordon Brown's last throw of the dice, for after this there's nothing left in the tank. There's no money for a further stimulus, the budget threatens to be a damp squib which will only underline just how bad the finances are and how wrong the government's predictions have been, although all predictions have been more or less worthless for some time now. He has to hope that some of the Obama magic has rubbed off, that the public has taken some notice of the praise bestowed on him by other leaders, and that even if little of this will make any difference to their personal finances whatsoever, that he has been demonstrably doing something in an effort to get the global economy working again. This credit, of which he will probably receive a little although not a lot, is still hardly likely to do anything whatsoever to lift the polls or his personal ratings. Far more influential will have been the weekend's revelations on expenses, which will have just underlined how much politicians are currently loathed. The only solace is that equally applies to the Conservatives just as much as Labour. In Westminster circles Brown might be on the up, but elsewhere the only place to go still seems down.

Labels: , , , , ,

Share |

4/02/2009 11:14:00 PM | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 01, 2009 

Just give me a black mask.


Two images sum up the G20 protests: the first superb one from HarpyMarx, and the other flashing all over the place showing the photographers lining up to snap the guy smashing the window of the handy local RBS building. Class them as hope and cynicism, if you like.

For the media got their riot, if you can call what was instead more of a skirmish along with the rather counter-productive looting of a bank a riot. The police and media warned for nigh on two weeks that the protests were potentially going to be extremely violent or very violent, with black flag brandishing anarchists from abroad coming to smash up our British streets. There was violence no doubt, but most of it was the police cracking the heads of crusties and assorted malcontents rather than the great unwashed stringing up bankers from the lampposts. Just as there are those on these protests that go along intent on causing trouble, there are some police officers who also live for these marches; most no doubt loathe them and wish that they were doing some proper police work like filling in paperwork back at the station, but there is a distinct minority who are overjoyed at the prospect of whacking jumped-up hippies and others whom they intensely loathe. It's not a new thing: it's been going on for decades, whether during the miner's strike, the poll tax protests or even the more recent pro-hunting demonstration where some officers showed that when it comes to protests, it doesn't seem to matter what the actual issue is, it's a wonderful opportunity to get your baton out and swing it through the air satisfyingly.

The media of course also adore it. Hence we have the by no means hysterical Daily Mail claiming that the City had been ransacked and that hordes of anti-capitalists were rampaging, when they were instead being mostly held against their will by the police who were intent on photographing and identifying everyone. As soon as around 20 protesters succeeded in smashing up RBS, all of whom had their collars felt, they'd got their story and started to lose interest, which was helpful, considering the Guardian reports which suggest that the police themselves then started some mini-riots of their own, attacking a sit-down protest and then sending fully-fledged riot police into the entirely peaceful, almost tranquil Climate Camp which was a world away from what was happening at Threadneedle street.

If I hadn't had work and then long ago had tickets reserved for the Young Knives tonight (who were as tight as could have been anticipated, even if they didn't play Counters), I might have gone, mainly to observe and perhaps shout the odd silly slogan. That seems to be what the vast majority were out to do, and also have fun at the same time as putting a message across; you can argue about the coherence of the message being sent, and also the quality of it, but both are always going to compromised when so many disparate groups and individuals join together. Fundamentally, demonstrations are for sending these messages; putting "messages" into law, as both main parties in this country are intent on doing, is not so laudable.

The Daily (Maybe) has easily the best round-up of all the reporting and bloggage, so I won't bother doing that, except to point you in the direction of a few that he's missed, such as Craig Murray, Laurie Penny, The Green Room, Derek Wall, the inimitable Daily Quail, Justin's more than humourous tweets and Abu Muqawama on how to properly use a baton.

Labels: , , , ,

Share |

4/01/2009 11:59:00 PM | | | links to this post

About

  • This is septicisle
profile

Links

Last posts

Archives

Email me
Syndicate this site (XML)
Powered by Blogger
and Blogger Templates