Reality, or something like it

Boriswatch: Caesar in London

2009-04-10T20:45:00.001Z

Almost as soon as the result of the London Mayoral election had been announced, the Conservatives hailed Boris Johnson’s Mayoralty as the template for a future Tory Government. They said that what London saw under Boris, the rest of the country could expect to see under Cameron. If this is the case, I would be very concerned.

My reason for this concern is simple – Boris Johnson does not believe that he is accountable to anyone and runs London as an autocrat, rather than the democrat he promised to be. The most recent example occurred on Thursday morning when he announced the resignation of Bob Quick as the head of the Metropolitan Police’s counter-terrorism division. He did this despite being asked by the Home Secretary and the Police to let the Met announce Quick’s resignation. Now, fair enough, he is chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority, but the Met is not just London’s force, it has a national role too, especially in counter-terrorism. Therefore, it should be answerable to the Home Secretary as well, but Boris decided he’d go ahead anyway. (As an aside, this isn’t just bad for accountability, it’s bad for the Met’s operational effectiveness – they need to have clear leadership on counter-terrorism, and not have the Mayor of London confusing their directions).

There are other examples too. Boris recently tried (and failed) to walk out of a Commons Transport Select Committee inquiry into London transport’s response to February’s heavy snowfall. His reason for this was that he didn’t like the questions and thought them partisan. And last year, when asked about charges against his Olympics advisor David Ross regarding Ross’ breach of financial regulations, his response was ‘lalala, byebyebye.’

From a man who promised accountability, this is simply not acceptable. When you are an elected politician in a democracy, you have to answer difficult questions. Gordon Brown can’t simply walk out of Prime Minister’s Questions because he doesn’t like the questions or thinks that the opposition are being partisan. This is called holding Government to account, and it’s clearly something Boris doesn’t believe in.

In a way, this is hardly surprising. Boris is a classicist and is famously a fan of the Roman Empire, so perhaps the fiefdom analogy is wrong, perhaps he sees himself more as a Caesar figure. Either way, his promises of greater accountability and greater democracy have come to nothing. This is what we can expect of a Tory Government. We know this, because they told us.

Shoes, China and the real disgrace

2009-02-08T17:49:00.000Z

Last week, something disgraceful happened in Cambridge. While Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was speaking at an event at Cambridge University, a member of the audience threw a shoe at him and berated the university for ‘prostituting itself with this dicator.’ The news of this event caused widespread outrage in China, with many calling it a disgrace. However, this protestor was the only one whose actions could not be considered disgraceful.

Indeed, those most guilty of disgraceful conduct were the other members of Premier Wen’s audience, who told the protestor to sit down and shouted ‘shame on you.’ What they should have been doing was applauding him. What they actually did was applaud Mr. Wen who, while he may be well-loved in China, is still the leader of a one-party state that denies its citizens basic freedoms, such as the ability to choose their own leaders.

While the shoe-thrower’s protest may not have been the most well-mannered, he did have a point. The Chinese government is still a repressive regime, and nowhere was that better shown than in the media response to the shoe-throwing. It is no secret that the Chinese media is tightly controlled by the government and criticism of the Communist Party’s monopoly on power is forbidden. One needs only think back to the row over Google’s decision to censor their search engine in China to see just how restricted the media is there. In response to the incident, the Chinese media, as well as giving fawning descriptions of Mr. Wen’s speech, suggested that the shoe-thrower might have ‘mental problems’ and that his actions showed ‘how deeply political nonsense has permeated into European awareness.’

Presumably this ‘nonsense’ includes such ridiculous ideas that the only candidates in their elections are those approved by the government, or that there is widespread political interference in the judicial system, or that punishments such as Hard Labour (called ‘Re-education by Labour’) still exist, or perhaps that places like Tibet are subject to repressive security regimes. All of the above nonsense I managed to find in a quick look at the Foreign Office’s political profile of China. Yes, even the usually moderate and diplomatic Foreign Office, an organisation which does not want to offend the Chinese, uses the word ‘repressive’ about the Chinese government.

China may like to pretend that all is well in the harmonious society, and it may complain that too many in the West like to criticise it unjustly while ignoring anything good about China, but the truth is there is a lot to criticise China for. For all its talk about progress, it is still a country where dissent is punishable by imprisonment, religious freedom is lacking and the democracy is absent. The real disgrace about last week’s shoe-throwing incident is not that it happened but that, among the cries of ‘shame’ and ‘get out’, nobody thought to shout ‘Hear hear.’

There is only one man for the job, and it's not who you think

2008-09-25T22:33:00.000Z

There is only one man suitable to lead this country over the coming years. Of the politicians available, there is only one who has the experience, the acumen and the moral fibre necessary to guide the British ship of state through the rough seas ahead. That man’s name is Gordon Brown.

I do not mean to say that he has not made mistakes, and will not make more, nor do I mean to say that his every policy is solid gold, for there are many that are not (the 10 pence tax debacle being just one of them). But, given the choice between Brown and Cameron, I would choose Brown any day of the week, and not just because I cannot stand the idea of David Cameron as Prime Minister.

Of course Brown is less inspiring than his Conservative counterpart, he does not play the media game as well nor is he as good an orator, but he has never tried to hide who he is, or what his beliefs are. And having spent an hour of my Tuesday afternoon listening to his speech to the Labour conference, I am convinced that he genuinely believes in helping the poor and the disadvantaged, the huddled masses that are at best ignored and at worst damned by the majority of the population. I am convinced that he believes in that most British of principles: fairness, and will do more than the Conservatives to make it a reality. And, in a week when George Osborne declared that the terrible effect the collapse of the banks was simply the workings of the market, I am convinced that he is the man to rebuild the British financial system so that it favours, not the miniscule number of bankers in the City of London, but the vast and overwhelming number of ordinary British citizens.
At the next election, we will be presented with a choice about what sort of country we want to live in. On the one hand, we will have Cameron’s meretricious Conservatives – a veneer of fine and principled words about fairness and global warming, but underneath the same reactionary, elitist, callous party they have always been. On the other hand, we will have the Labour Party – a party with a membership genuinely committed to fairness, with a leader whose morality, whose desire to do good, is unquestionable. I know who I would rather have in Downing Street.

Cameron's Masquerade

2008-07-21T18:50:00.000Z

Only the most callous of individuals could claim that nothing should be done to aid the poor, and so it is laudable that even the Conservative Party should wish to claim, as they did last week, to be the ‘party of the poor.’ Or rather, it would be laudable if the claim were not so false as to be insulting. Let us not forget that David Cameron has advocated the introduction of a social security system based on that previously attempted in Wisconsin. Under such a system , citizens would only be permitted to claim the pittance that is unemployment benefit for only two years of their whole life, no matter their circumstances, no matter their level of skills or education.

This was not the worst aspect of the Wisconsin system, nor do I have time or space to enumerate its countless failings. Suffice it to say, this is not the policy of the ‘party of the poor.’ It is, however, the policy of a party that does not care for the poor – whose support comes from the middle and upper classes where it is more electorally expedient to victimise the poor than to actually help them.

That the Conservatives tend to treat the poor as little more than criminals has been long established. One only needs to look back to the introduction of the minimum wage to see their wholesale opposition to measures designed aid those in dire need (every Tory voted against it, a fact that gives a new meaning to Boris Johnson’s claim that they are ‘leading the way on low pay’).

However, while this is standard practice for the Tory party, it is more surprising when it comes from a former champion of the poor – the Labour Party – who recently stated that they would not countenance increasing the rate of taxation on incomes over £100,000 in order to help the poor because it would ‘send the wrong message.’ What was wrong with the message that those who have money to spare should aid their fellow man and be responsible for the improvement of society was beyond me. One would have thought a Christian such as Brown would agree.

The mantle of ‘the party of the poor’ is a noble target, but for the Conservatives to claim it at this juncture is laughable. Tragically, the same is true of Labour. We must remember that the poor are human too, and their lives just as sacred as those of the rich. They deserve better than either party is offering – better education, better housing and better opportunities. It is wrong to condemn them to more extreme penury, as the Wisconsin model would. Until then, Oliver Letwin’s comment is simply kicking hundreds of thousands of people while they’re down.

BorisWatch: Fear and Loathing in London

2008-05-30T15:38:00.002Z

It’s been almost a month since Boris Johnson became Mayor of London, so what has he done? The answer is: very little, but there are two significant measures he has introduced, both designed to tackle perceived problems with law and order (always a favourite with the paranoid right wing).

The first of these starts on Sunday and will see a blanket ban on the consumption of alcohol, or the possession of open containers of alcohol, on public transport. Boris has claimed that this will make people’s journeys on the London Underground more pleasant as they won’t have to deal with aggressive drinkers. I sincerely hope that I am not the only one that sees the massive problem with this statement, but for all those that can’t quite make it out (like, say, Boris), I’ll point it out. This policy would work if the cause of public drunkenness (which, I’ll concede, is not always edifying) were caused exclusively by people drinking on public transport. However, as anyone with a functioning brain cell will tell you, most people do not get drunk on the tube, but rather do it in the many pubs and clubs around London. Only then do they get on public transport and cause a nuisance, so how does Boris plan to deal with all of those people, who, I imagine, make up a more significant proportion of public transport users than people who drink on the tube, and are probably just as threatening.

So why is this a problem? Well, it isn’t per se, but coming from a party that claims to be against the authoritarian bureaucracy of the current Labour government, and a mayor that has frequently complained of the ‘schoolmarminess of Blair’s Britain,’ it seems just a little hypocritical to be introducing rules and regulations that will do little to improve public welfare. Not only that, but I’d prefer my Mayor (even if I didn’t vote for him) to actually implement productive policies, rather than mess about with symbolic but ultimately pointless and ineffectual gestures.

The second tactic is more frightening, more pointless and more counter-productive. They are, of course, knife arches. This is one of those policies that I hate mainly because it sounds so reasonable so people not given to close questioning of government policy, or are of the vaguely authoritarian bent anyway, but is, in fact, ridiculous. For those among you in those two categories, I’ll explain:

Firstly, on a purely organisational basis, this policy is simply impractical. Imagine the thousands, if not millions, of commuters who use London’s stations every day. Now, imagine the delay and chaos caused by making them all go through knife arches, especially as they are all guaranteed to be carrying something metal (keys, wallet, mobile phones etc. etc.). Of course, they could always use racial or some other form of profiling, it’s not as if that’s ever caused a riot…..

Then there’s the principle argument. When any one of us can be subjected to a search procedure on the whim of a police officer, without any evidence that we might be somehow guilty of a crime, we become mere objects of suspicion, with knife arches adding to our status as the most watched people in the world (and therefore, presumably, the most suspected). Oh, and for all the individuals out there who say that they don’t mind, they’ve got nothing to hide, I’ll go ahead and assume that you won’t mind having security cameras installed in all the rooms of your house, you know, just to make sure you’re not selling crack out of your kitchen. Hey, you’ve got nothing to hide.

To be honest, the worst thing about this is not the faintly authoritarian tone of the policies of a man who complained about just such policies when he was in opposition, it’s not even the fact that they’re pointless and intrusive policies. No, the worst part of it is that they are being implemented when the facts suggest that they aren’t actually necessary. While Kit Malthouse, Boris’ Deputy Mayor in charge of Policing, claims that there has been an increase in ‘death and injury caused by young people carrying and using knives,’ the Metropolitan Police’s most recent survey suggests that knife crime has actually dropped 15.7% over the past two years and that you’re twice as likely to be attacked on public transport in Perth, Australia (where many Britons go to flee the crime of their homeland) than you are on public transport in London. The first point this raises is the question: why is the Deputy Mayor not in possession of all the facts, or is he deliberately misleading the public (and if so, why?)? The second point is that, if Team Boris really wants to make Londoners feel safer, why doesn’t he tell us about these figures rather than instituting policies and making statements guaranteed to make us think the worst about our city? Surely he’s clever enough to know that it would be a better way to make us feel safer, or perhaps that Oxford education’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

The Kosovo Crisis

2008-02-18T21:44:00.001Z

At the beginning of another century, a crisis is once again developing in the Balkans and, once again, a nation’s desire for independence is causing concern among the world’s major powers. The problem facing today’s powers is that of Kosovo and its attempt to win independence from Serbia but before I talk about the details of this particular situation, I’ll give some background.

In the late 1990s, Slobodan Milosevic began to suppress the ethnic Albanian majority in Kosovo. While Kosovo was part of Serbia (and, indeed, is very dear to the Serbians and viewed as the cradle of their culture), Serbs only made up 10% of the population there. In 1999, the continued persecution of the Kosovan Albanians led to a series of NATO air strikes against targets in both Serbia and Kosovo. Since then, Kosovo was governed as an autonomous region under UN and NATO protection, although it was still technically part of Serbia. Then, on 17th February, Kosovo declared independence.

That is the story so far. Now comes the difficult issue of recognition. The UK, USA, Germany and France, among others, have all decided to recognise Kosovo’s independence (or are expected to do so soon). This is done under the principles of democracy and self-determination. The government of Kosovo under Prime Minister Hashim Thaci was democratically elected by the people of Kosovo, and the declaration of independence unanimously approved by the Kosovan parliament.

Opposing them are Serbia and Russia, among others, who claim that it is a breach of international law and outside of the original UN Security Council Resolution on the Kosovan issue. For Serbia, as I have already said, Kosovo is an important place historically and they have sentimental reasons for keeping hold of it. Russia’s angle is harder to judge. It is hard to believe that President Putin is the concerned with international law, it doesn’t fit with his track record. Perhaps he fears another pro-Western government near his borders, perhaps he wishes to provoke a confrontation with the West. It is hard to say.

What is certain is this, with Serbia’s declaration in November of 2006 that Kosovo could only be removed from Serbia by force, and their recalling of their ambassador to the United States, Serbia is not going to give in without a fight. The question is whether or not they will fight with force or diplomacy.

Fighting with diplomacy will not be a great problem, but the use of military force will put the Western world in an almost impossible bind. On the one hand, they will have to defend their credibility with regards to democracy and the defence of small nations, especially ones whose independence they support. On the other, they will have to use their already over-stretched forces to fight a European war, and there is a chance that one of the West’s opponents will be Russia.

It is absolutely vital that Putin’s Russia, with its state terrorism and authoritarian government not be allowed dominance of world affairs, which the weakness of the West would give them. As bad as the USA may be, that would be far worse. It is also vital that the Western World, especially the USA and UK, stand up for democracy when it is in its greatest need. The people of Kosovo have made a declaration of their will and we must not allow would-be Tyrants to crush that democratic spirit. Hopefully we will be able to accomplish this without resorting to violence. We must exhaust our diplomatic channels before fighting, but we must prepare for all eventualities. This is a situation that could easily descend into chaos and carnage, just as it did at the beginning of the last century. Hopefully the world leaders of today will have more sense than they did then, or perhaps the terrible prospect of modern warfare will restrain them. I do not know whether or not there will be a war, but we must hope and pray that there is not. We will probably not survive it.

Tough On The Poor....

2008-02-08T21:16:00.000Z

There must have been a coup. It seems we all missed it, but the government of the United Kingdom must have been overthrown and replaced by the editorial board of the Daily Mail. This can be the only explanation for the latest anti-poor policy to be announced by the supposedly socialist Labour government.

Caroline Flint, the housing minister, has proposed that those living in social housing, something which is designed to make sure that the most disadvantaged and vulnerable in society are not forced onto the streets, should actively seek work as a condition of their tenancy. The idea behind it is to use fear as a method of fighting unemployment rather than, say, improving training and education for the disadvantaged. And, as a further benefit for the government, they can threaten the working classes with the stick of homelessness and hence please the Daily Mail.

This policy will not help the problem of unemployment among those living on council estates (which is currently at around 50%). The problem does not stem from laziness and so cannot be solved with fear. The problem is caused by poor education and no amount of threats will overcome the fact that these unemployed lack the skills to help them into work. This punitive policy is designed simply to make the government look tough on the poor – something that is oddly popular.

The result of this policy will not be reduced unemployment but increased homelessness. Single mothers will have to leave their young children alone (which will, of course, do wonders for their upbringing) or face the terrible prospect of being without shelter for themselves and their children. The members of society who are least able to look after themselves will be driven further into poverty, and for what reason? It is time the government abandoned populism and started to think.

As Some Day It May Happen That A Victim Must Be Found

2008-01-10T20:42:00.000Z

As some day it may happen that a victim must be found,
I’ve got a little list, I’ve got a little list
Of society offenders who might well be underground,
And who never would be missed, who never would be missed.

So sings the Lord High Executioner in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado. In 1992, Peter Lilley MP (whom I am ashamed to say is an Old Alleynian), suggested at the Conservative Party Conference that, among those society offenders who never would be missed could be included “welfare scroungers” and “young ladies who get pregnant just to jump the housing queue.” This belief pervades middle class opinion beyond all reasonable degree. The idea that people on benefits are simply scroungers and that the poor are poor because they’re lazy and therefore don’t deserve benefits has become almost axiomatic in British politics. Indeed, such a view has been one of the tenets of the Conservative Party ever since Mrs. Thatcher decided she didn’t like poor people. Worryingly, it’s starting to infiltrate that former bastion of Socialism and defender of working class rights, the Labour Party.

The Conservative Party have never really been comfortable with the government helping people. I’m not quite sure why they have an aversion to helping those in need, but they are perpetually on the lookout for ways to get out of giving money to the people that need it most. David Cameron, the allegedly ‘Compassionate Conservative’, recently announced a tough new policy on incapacity benefit. He wants to force all of the 2.64 million recipients of incapacity benefit to prove that they are actually disabled. As support for this policy, he cited the ‘fact’ that there are 200,000 people who are pretending to be disabled in order to receive the pittance that is incapacity benefit (about £80 a week at most, clearly a fortune). Where he got this figure, no-one is quite sure, although I have an idea that it may have come from an orifice not usually associated with good ideas.

This ridiculous pronouncement is hot on the heels of another, equally ridiculous one, that the Conservatives would follow the Wisconsin model for benefits. For those that do not know, the Wisconsin model entails mothers of infants being forced into work, the privatisation of social security (which led to incompetence, corruption and general lack of decency in welfare distribution) and, as if that isn’t enough, you were only allowed to claim 2 years of benefits throughout your whole life. No provision was made to enable the unemployed to be retrained and given skills that would get them at least acceptable jobs so that they didn’t have to resort to benefits. No, as far as the leaders in Wisconsin were concerned, the poor were worth precisely sod all.

Just to put things into perspective, receiving benefits is not a comfortable or good position to be in. Unemployment benefit (or Jobseeker’s allowance as it has been pointlessly renamed) is £46.85 a week for those between 18 and 24, and £59.15 for those aged 25 or over. As a guidance, the poverty line for 2005/2006 was £108 per week for a single adult (that is after tax and housing payments have been deducted). Obviously people don’t live on unemployment benefit alone, but even so, it does not provide anything like a comfortable amount of money for these so-called scroungers. Living on benefits entails living in appalling conditions in the most run-down, crime-ridden areas of the country. If you think this is a rare occurrence, think again. 13 million people in this country live below the poverty line, that’s a fifth of the population. It rips apart self-respect and leads to human misery on a scale unimaginable by the likes of the Conservatives who believe an estate is something with fields and a large house.

Yet this is the Conservative view of Britain. A nation where the upper and middle classes pay less tax and the poor suffer. A nation where the misery of poverty is compounded by a draconian welfare system. The further destruction of the welfare state started by Clement Attlee in 1945. He sought to build a New Jerusalem here in the UK, a new promised land where suffering was unknown and people could get the help they needed without being subjected to abuse and suspicion.

With 13 million people in this nation living in poverty, one would think that every political party would seek to help them out of it. Especially as poverty breeds the criminality that Middle England is so afraid of. But, instead of improving education, both for adults and children, instead of helping people raise their aspirations beyond becoming the most powerful drug dealer on the estate, the Conservatives want to get tough on the impoverished, probably because nobody ever lost an election going after the poor.

The day has come and the victim has been found. It is the British poor, and David Cameron is the Lord High Executioner.

An Unholy Mission

2007-12-08T21:48:00.000Z

What matters more in this world, Catholic dogma or the well-being of the people who live in? Cardinal Cormac Murphy O’Connor, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, seems to think it is dogma. The Cardinal, in his crusade to impose hardline Catholic doctrine on social policy, has recently issued a code of medical ethics which states that doctors must not offer any service that conflicts with the Cardinal’s quasi-Medieval (and downright dangerous) beliefs regarding healthcare. Therefore, they must not prescribe contraception or offer abortions or IVF treatment. The General Medical Council has deemed this code to be unworkable, but despite this the Hospital of St. John and St. Elizabeth in north London is expected to implement it in the next few weeks.

This intrusion by hardline religion into social policy represents a direct threat to healthcare and puts Catholic values above patients, an abhorrence for the medical profession, which is supposed to put patient care above all else. Never mind the fact that absence of contraception doesn’t prevent people form having sex (and, in fact, increases unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases), and that abortions may be necessary to save the life of a woman, Cardinal Murphy O’Connor is determined to see that Catholic dogma is the writ that runs in this nation, and damn the consequences, though they be disastrous.

This is not the only time that the Cardinal has sought to impose his extreme version of Catholicism on this nation. Last month, he tried to block laws on embryo research by lobbying Catholic MPs. Not caring that such research could save millions of lives in the future and provide cures for some of the most debilitating genetic diseases, the Cardinal tried to force Catholic MPs to choose between his hardline beliefs and public good. He has also led an attempt by extremist Christians to prevent homosexuals from adopting, basing his case not on evidence or rationality, but on bizarre arguments derived from a few lines of the Bible, lines which many others do not believe.

Religion is fine, I have no problem with religion, even extremist religion, as long as it is observed in private. As soon as it invades public policy and men like Cardinal Murphy O’Connor attempt to impose it on others, it becomes dangerous and must be resisted by anyone with a social conscience.

Free Speech Standing in Oxford

2007-11-24T19:10:00.000Z

The views of Nick Griffin and David Irving are abhorrent, disgusting and absolutely wrong. For this reason, it is right that the Oxford Union Society has invited them to speak there.

By sending these invitations to the leader of the BNP and one of the most notorious holocaust deniers currently masquerading as an historian, the Oxford Union is providing us with an opportunity to destroy their ridiculous views and defeat them in public debate. This is the reason that we have freedom of speech, it allows us to deride the views of people like Griffin and Irving and hence make sure that on-one else believes them. This is what inviting them to speak at the Oxford Union will do, it will not legitimise their views and it will not give them a platform. It’s difficult to look legitimate when you’re being torn to shreds by students.

Had the invitation been withdrawn, as some of the more stupid and short-sighted groups and individuals in this country have demanded, and among them a member of the Cabinet, the effect would have been disastrous, it would have been the exact opposite of what those who call for Griffin and Irving to be silenced want. It would have made them martyrs, the sole defenders of freedom of speech. Not only this, but it would have meant that a golden opportunity to destroy them would have sailed by. If we continue to forbid people like Griffin and Irving from speaking in public, nobody will hear the counter-arguments. Not only will the BNP be martyrs, they will also be more able to convince people of their lunacy because they will be unable to argue against them. By refusing to engage these abhorrent people in debate, we do not contain them, but allow them to spread their views all the more effectively.

Fortunately, the Oxford Union voted to invite Griffin and Irving. The students of the Oxford University will not be swayed by their bigotry, they are far too intelligent for that. Instead, they will crush their arguments in five minutes flat and we will be a little further on the way to finally getting rid of this cancer in British politics. Because of actions like this, we will be a stronger society. Without actions like this, we would be a more vulnerable one, at the mercy of fear, intolerance and hate.

Shirking Our Responsibilities

2007-10-30T21:56:00.000Z

Saudi Arabia is a nation that still administers public floggings, sometimes consisting of thousands of lashes. This is not the worst of Saudi Arabia’s vicious excesses, and I suspect that it may not even be the most barbaric. Even so, Britain does not seem to care, as has been seen by the welcoming of their King.

When it was Zimbabwe, Gordon Brown was not so willing to shake the blood-soaked hand of a brutal dictator. Indeed, he made it a matter of principle to boycott a conference that he was scheduled to attend, claiming in an article in the Independent that “We will not shirk our responsibilities.”

He cited as the reason for his refusal to meet with Robert Mugabe that “There is no freedom in Zimbabwe; no freedom of association; no freedom of the press.” It’s interesting that, if you replace ‘Zimbabwe’ with ‘Saudi Arabia’, the sentence is no less true. Indeed, the similarities between the two nations are remarkable. Neither is a democracy, neither has any semblance of human rights or common decency and neither has any sense of Justice. In fact, the only difference between the two regimes is that Britain doesn’t need anything from Zimbabwe.

While Zimbabwe gives us nothing except an opportunity to show off just how much we care about human rights throughout the world, Saudi Arabia gives us oil, and it seems we didn’t care so much about global human rights after all.

The truth is Brown’s posturing on Zimbabwe was a front, a pretence in order to fool the British people, and perhaps the rest of the world, that Britain was serious about human rights, that we cared about the plight of people in far off lands, who have been deprived of the rights that they ought to have simply by being human. Apparently, we only care when it’s politically convenient, so much for Brown’s alleged morality.

We should support human rights, everywhere. We should support democracy, everywhere and we should support liberty, everywhere. Even when it may be politically difficult to do so, it is our duty as a free and powerful nation. We must not shirk our responsibility, as Brown has so disgracefully done.

The Duty of a Nation

2007-09-27T19:33:00.000Z

England may have its flaws, but reading the newspapers today, these flaws are irrelevant compared to the vast, unimaginable and often fatal suffering endured by the citizens of other countries.

I refer, of course, to Burma, where the soldiers of the vicious military Junta that usurped the democratically elected government of that country are beating to death Buddhist monks and other citizens protesting against that Junta. For conducting a protest, an act that we here may exercise without fear of severe beating, these most courageous people are being murdered by a regime hell bent on absolute power.

And this is not the first time such a terrible act has occurred. In 1988, troops opened fire on demonstrators. Thousands died, and the regime lived on. Many analysts now fear a repeat of this most barbaric act of violence.

From our peaceful land, it may be difficult to comprehend the sheer scale of the violence that has been perpetrated by the Junta in Burma. Not simply violence against the person, but violence against their human rights, rights that we hold to be inalienable. The Burmese people have been stripped of their rights, their liberty and, in many cases, their lives, because they are, in the words of Gladstone, a nation struggling rightly to be free. For this reason, they must be supported by the free nations of the world in any way possible.

President Bush has already encouraged sanctions, although these are likely to be of limited use. Sanctions usually only impact the poor members of society, while the government remains strong, and this is not what we should be doing. Action must be taken, and it must be decisive action. We must give our full support to the protestors, and it must be practical support. If necessary, it must be the support of a rifle.

Current events in Burma are an excellent example of why we should fight to defend our freedoms, and a terrible sign of what may happen if we don’t. But it does not only show us why we must defend our rights at home, it shows us why we must defend liberty for all the peoples of the world, for all those who are oppressed and beaten, as the people of Burma are in their brave attempt to assert their basic human rights. It is our duty as free and powerful nations to fight against the injustice and inhumanity of such regimes, and this is a duty we cannot afford to be neglectful of.

Greed Is Not Good

2007-09-02T21:02:00.001Z

Over the summer, the financial services industry came to a shocking conclusion: lending a lot of money to people who could never pay it was a very, very bad idea. This conclusion was shocking purely because it took them years to realise this fact which, to the layman at least, would appear to be obvious.

However, the markets will recover and the men in the city will continue to make ridiculous amounts of money out of all proportion with what they actually do. The real crisis does not lie on Wall Street or in the Square Mile, it lies with the hundreds and thousands of ordinary people who have been dispossessed or bankrupted by the sheer unadulterated greed of the bankers who lent them the money and thought only of the money, rather than the lives that they were about to destroy.

The truth is that the men in the city live only to make money. They lack morality, compassion and decency and have taken to heart the now infamous words of Gordon Gekko: Greed is Good. They don’t care that their machinations can and very often will bring the ruination of the ordinary man, as long as they get their money, everything is fine.

It isn’t just the bankers though, the politicians are also to blame. Only now is President Bush finally attempting to do something to stem the tide of repossessions, but nothing he can do will erase the fact that, when the politicians needed to protect their people, they failed. The relatively laissez-faire attitude of the governments along with the easy credit given out by the banks has conspired, however unwittingly, to destroy the lives of thousands of people. They have been left without homes and without funds, all thanks to the greed of the city.

Business is fine, I have no problem with business, but when money is put above people’s quality of life, it is not business, it is banditry. In future, the stock brokers and the bankers must think less about their wallets and more about the people they are dealing with, for Gekko was wrong, greed is not good.

A Private Attack on Public Freedom

2007-08-04T20:34:00.000Z

There is so much wrong with BAA’s current attempt to restrict the rights of environmentalists protesting against the expansion of Heathrow that it is difficult to know where to begin. Do I begin with the injunction itself, a vicious attempt to further shred a right to protest already in tatters while targeting a vast array of people, regardless of their intent? Do I talk about BAA’s lawyer, Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden, a man who has made a living ripping chunks of flesh out of the body of British civil liberties while insisting that he is a democrat that believes in the right to protest? Or do I talk about the fact that such an injunction, if granted, would lay down a legal precedent of allowing companies to bully the protest groups, so vital to the functioning of our free society, with impunity?

The right to free protest is one of the most fundamental to society. Protests raise awareness about an issue, as well as creating a PR issue for either the government or the company being protested against, a point even more vital in today’s media-centric world. Through this, and the amount of support a protest demonstrates, action can be forced upon the government or a company. In a democratic society, the people must be free to express their will.

If the injunction were granted it would further reduce the right to freedom of protest from its inviolable position as a human right to a privilege, something that you’re allowed if you’re good and don’t make too much noise. That is not the point of the process. BAA want the injunction because they think a protest would be too “disruptive”. This is part of the point of a political protest, but if the protestors do cross the line into criminal territory, then there are adequate laws to deal with it and there is no cause to prevent law-abiding citizens from carrying out a peaceful protest. If the judgement expected on Monday is in favour of BAA, a major blow will have been struck against the rights of the individual citizens of the country, against people like you and me. Not only because our rights will, once again, have sustained severe damage, but also because it will have been at the hands of a private company. If the injunction is granted, it will set a precedent that will allow private companies to suppress the rights of the people. Forget about the sovereignty of Parliament or the people, we will have the sovereignty of shareholders.

What Britain requires is a law guaranteeing our rights to freedom of speech, freedom of protest and all the other freedoms that are vital to a functioning liberal democracy. Only this will provide cast-iron protection against private companies that wish to curtail the public’s freedom.

Then there is the lawyer. Timothy Lawson-Cruttenden has made a living out of finding ways to limit the right to protest. He has protected many varied organisations from the hassles of protestors, including animal testing laboratories and arms manufacturers. Whatever the rights and wrongs of these causes, he has profited from stripping British citizens of their rights.

And while he does this, he claims that he believes in democracy and human rights, saying “My thesis is that protest in a liberal democracy should be conducted peacefully and lawfully.” Of course protest should be peaceful and lawful, but there was no real suggestion that the majority of protestors were going to be anything other than this. After all, these are members of the National Trust, not the National Front.

Mr. Lawson-Cruttenden also operates the lawyers ‘taxi-rank’ principle, whereby lawyers never turn down work in their field, he is an “intellectual prostitute”, as he calls himself. It’s odd to find someone who is willing to admit that they prefer prostitution to principle.

Drug-Induced Madness

2007-07-20T16:52:00.000Z

First the Conservatives and now Labour have queued up to pay tribute to that bloc of reactionary idiocy known as “Middle England”. I refer, of course, to their recent pronouncements regarding cannabis. Iain Duncan Smith (yeah, I though I’d seen the last of him too) and Gordon Brown (although in more guarded terms) have called for the re-classification of the drug, generally assumed to mean from Class C to Class B, making possession an arrestable offence once more and hence wasting hours of police time arresting and processing essentially harmless stoners instead of, well, people that actually pose a threat to public safety (like murderers and terrorists, for instance).

This argument is made on a couple of points which are. The first is that cannabis today is stronger than it used to be, and therefore the lower classification is nonsensical. This is simply not true. Studies carried out be the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction have shown that “the effective strength of cannabis consumed in Britain has remained stable for the past 30 years” and that high-potency varieties of the drug have always existed, thus rendering the groundless.

The second point is that cannabis poses a health risk. Quite apart from the fact that deaths in this country due to cannabis register at literally zero (compared to the umpteen smokers and drinkers that die each year), the claim that cannabis causes psychosis is greatly exaggerated. While in a tiny minority of cases it can induce psychosis (and then usually in those that were prone to psychosis anyway), for most it does not have this effect. Indeed, one of the chemicals in the drug, cannabidinol (or CBD), reduces psychosis. In fact, it is better at doing this than the legal anti-psychotics currently available on the NHS. It may even be possible to grow cannabis that contained high levels of CBD. However, this is impossible under prohibition and without regulation provided by law, this will not happen.

British drugs policy has always been a mess. Under the current situation, cannabis is illegal while tobacco and alcohol, both deadly, are legal. Indeed, the House of Commons itself, in a report published by the Science and Technology Select Committee admits this. And yet, come the time for re-classification, MPs will, sheep-like, head for the Aye lobby, for they are too afraid of the ignorant, reactionary, conservative horde of Middle England, a dark territory, unknown to reason or logical thought. Such is the way that good policies are destroyed. And, as a result of this, teenagers will be locked up for something that is completely harmless.

None of our Business

2007-07-20T16:51:00.000Z

Two whole pages of today’s Times were devoted to it and yesterday’s free London papers shouted it from their front pages – the Home Secretary has confessed to smoking cannabis at university. In other news, the Pope confessed some Catholic tendencies… Anyway, despite cannabis being relatively harmless (see above), the papers were full of reports that various cabinet ministers had confessed to this “crime” (although oddly enough not one of them enjoyed it).

First, a point of pedantry – it isn’t a breach of the law to smoke cannabis, or, indeed, take any other drug. Possession is illegal, dealing drugs is illegal, but consumption is not.

Second, a point of principle – it is none of our damned business. Even politicians are entitled to private lives and if it doesn’t effect how they do their jobs we do not have a right to know about it. If Jacqui Smith, or any of her cabinet colleagues, were still taking drugs, it would definitely be in the public interest for papers to report it, but the truth is she isn’t and hasn’t for a quarter of a century. Now, I may not be an expert, but I’m fairly sure you can’t be stoned for 25 years.

Acts of Journalism (Part VI)

2007-06-27T21:08:00.000Z

Blair’s Broken Promise

By the time you read this, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair will no longer be Prime Minister. He will become one of those rare creatures, an ex-Prime Minister (of which there are only two other examples alive today) and he will leave behind a Britain that has, without a shred of doubt, changed.

Ask the man on the street what he thinks Tony Blair’s legacy will be and it will almost certainly contain the words “Iraq”, “spin”, “NHS crisis”, “human rights abuse” or “liar” (or, if they’re more inclined to the far-right, “immigration” and “multiculturalism, said in tones of disdain). However, is this fair? Has Blair’s premiership been an entirely negative thing, and are all of these criticisms justified? While the public perception of the Blair years has been clouded with these accusations, some of them justified, Blair’s leadership has not been the unmitigated failure that most appear to believe.

However, I shall begin with the justified criticism. Under Blair, Britain has seen its people disengage from politics. This can be seen by the sharp decline in voter turnout. In 1997, the year of the Labour landslide, voter turnout was around 71%. This was only very slightly below the average for the previous ten elections, and approximately the same as the turnout that re-elected Margaret Thatcher for the first time. However, in 2001, turnout plummeted to 59%, only increasing to 61% in 2005. This cannot be attributed to mere disillusionment as may be expected with any government. Since the war, voter turnout has not dropped below 70%, with the exception of these two most recent general elections.

This disengagement, which has perhaps allowed the Blair government to push through measures that would, in other circumstances, be violently opposed by the people, must have a cause, and part of that cause can be found in the “spin” that emanated from Downing Street over these years. Spin is certainly not a new thing; it is only natural that governments attempt to put a positive light on their activities. However, under Tony Blair, it appeared to reach new heights (or depths, depending on how you look at it). The Labour “spin doctors”, most notably Alistair Campbell, attempted to control the media in an entirely new way, keeping a tight leash on information and access to it. Even the Prime Minister’s monthly press conferences in Number 10, the first of their kind, were tightly managed with reporters eager not to anger the spin doctors.

For most, this spin reached its zenith with the “Dodgy Dossier” and the Iraq war. This dossier, especially when proved to be almost totally untrue (and, in fact, the whitewash that was the Hutton Report) only served to increase the mistrust of government and politics, a mistrust compounded most recently by “cash-for-peerages”. This mistrust, and the ensuing disengagement from politics, is certainly a legacy that Tony Blair will leave behind.

Iraq, and the “Special Relationship”, will be another. The Special Relationship (for which read “slavish support of the US Government”) damaged Britain’s credibility abroad. Not only is Britain seen as nothing but the “poodle” of the United States (there is a reason why this dog is given Mr. Blair’s face in many political cartoons), but also as reactionary, with our support for “extraordinary rendition” (the euphemism the Pentagon has given to kidnapping and torturing terrorist suspects without recourse to such tiresome encumbrances as due process and courts of law), non-opposition to Guantanamo and failing to stand up to America over pretty much anything, we have lost friends in Europe and the Middle East (where we had few friends to begin with), made our local Muslim communities ripe fields to be harvested by the terrorist recruiters and lessened our diplomatic status in the world.

Meanwhile in Iraq, the greatest foreign relations disaster since Suez, our troops are fighting a battle they have little hope of winning while every day an insurgency grows stronger. Perhaps the situation is not entirely Blair’s fault, but he (and his cabinet) voted for the war and he has turned a deaf ear to reports of the situation worsening while blundering on, putting British soldiers (and civilians) at risk. This will be the most significant item of Blair’s legacy, and rightly so.

Finally, Mr. Blair has left an authoritarian stamp upon British society. As well as creating over 3000 new criminal offences, the Blair government has instituted detention without trial (at least until it was struck down), ASBOs that are applicable for just about anything, a ban on the right to protest in Parliament Square, stop and search powers, as well as introducing a bill (the hideously dull sounding Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill) that would allow ministers to amend laws without consulting parliament at all. All this, in addition to numerous other affronts to the basic liberties of this country, has resulted in an incredibly authoritarian government. Again, Mr. Blair will be remembered for this, and rightly so.

However, it is not all bad. For example, despite constant criticism of the NHS, it has not, contrary to public opinion, been an absolute disaster. While many trusts are facing financial problems (which is to be expected, with such a huge public organisation), the idea that care is all sub-standard is simply unfounded. There are still more beds than there are occupants, waiting lists are down (although this may be a branch of the aforementioned “spin”) and, most significantly, 92% of hospital inpatients rated their overall care as “Good” or better. While I could now digress and pontificate on the virtues of socialised healthcare, this article is about Mr. Blair, so I shall merely say that there has been an increase in government spending on the NHS in addition to the things mentioned above.

While speaking of government spending, I must briefly mention the British economic state. One of the greatest achievements of Blair’s early years was the granting of independence for the Bank of England, resulting in interest rates being set according to what was good for the economy, rather than what would gain votes. This should be viewed as a success, as should the fact that Britain has seen steady growth and reasonable inflation. While this may be more due to the Chancellor and incoming Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Mr. Blair’s government will leave this behind and it must be considered in any evaluation of his premiership.

However, Mr. Blair’s greatest achievement has to be the great leaps he has made towards peace and reconciliation in Ireland. Beginning with the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 to the ceasefires, peace talks and, finally, the disarmament of militant elements in Northern Ireland and the formation of a power sharing executive for the province, Blair has achieved what many Prime Ministers before him, from Gladstone to Thatcher, failed to achieve.

Had we not gone to war in Iraq, it is likely that his achievements in Ireland (which, after centuries of bloodshed and hatred, were no small deed) would have been the thing that marked out Tony Blair’s tenure as Prime Minister. Indeed, we could have seen great success, with public spending increasing, healthcare improving, more people going to university, Britain becoming richer and quality of life improving. When Labour won a landslide victory in 1997, they were given their greatest chance to make an impact on British society since Attlee won the 1945 election. With a huge majority in the House of Commons and a massive mandate from the people, the Labour Party had so much potential. However, they became mired in scandal, spin and foreign policy disasters and now, while Tony Blair searches through the rubble of that first hope for a legacy, the potential has been wasted. Instead of being a force for great reform and an improvement in social welfare, Mr. Blair did not fulfil this potential. Ultimately, his legacy isn’t Iraq or authoritarianism, those are merely symbols of the greater Blair legacy, that of disappointment, failed potential and frustrated hopes.

[Originally published in the Political Economy Review, 10th edition- 2007]

Only in America?

2007-06-01T17:42:00.000Z

It turns out I should have delayed writing that last article, for no sooner had I written it than I heard Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh’s ridiculous pronouncement comparing abortion to the Dunblane massacre (where 16 children were gunned down in Scotland). In his tirade against a woman’s right to choose, he said that

“We are killing -- in our country -- the equivalent of a classroom of kids every single day, he said. Can you imagine that? Two Dunblane massacres a day in our country going on and on.”

Of course, the good Cardinal conveniently ignored the fact that, while Dunblane was a cold-blooded, unprovoked and vicious massacre without reason or logic, abortion is not so unfounded and unthinking. In comparing abortion to a massacre, Cardinal O’Brien sought to arouse revulsion and shock, what he has done instead is to callously ignore all the women who, without abortions, would now be dead and insultingly compare their actions to the work of a homicidal maniac. He has disregarded the manifold medical and social reasons behind abortions. Reasons, I might add, that in this country, two doctors have to certify. This is not abortion on demand, this is not cold, unthinking, unreasoning murder and it would appear that the good Cardinal is seeking to place the life of an unborn child, who would not live without the mother, above the life of that mother. It would appear that he does not care that, if abortion is illegal, many will still seek it, and it will be dangerous, even fatal, to the mother.

In this, we see some of the worst of the American Christian right - something once dismissed with the words “Only in America” - rearing its hideous head in this country. The topic of abortion, which has divided American opinion since the Supreme Court gave women the right to choose, is now being raised by our own particular set of Christian fundamentalists, although surprisingly, they belong to the Catholic Church, rather than the fringe evangelical groups that one finds in America. Only public opinion is not, in this case, on their side, as it is not with homosexuality. While the Christian right may scream loudly and attempt to impose their version of morality upon us, a version that denies basic rights to many, we must remember that the silent majority is on our side. I wish they would be more vocal.

Cardinal O’Brien was backed up by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, England’s top-ranking Catholic Prelate and a man who recently hit the front pages demanding that the government not end homophobic discrimination in adoption. Now this holy pair is seeking to deny communion to any pro-choice politicians attending Mass. They are forcing Ministers like Ruth Kelly (who still hasn’t said homosexuality isn’t a sin) to choose between Christianity and Politics. I hope that the disproportionate influence of the religious right is resisted, and I hope that such ministers and members of Parliament choose public opinion, rights and safety.

The Thin Veil

2007-05-30T17:20:00.000Z

First, something amusing. According to Reuters, the Polish government is going to initiate an investigation into the Teletubbies. Yes, you did read that right, I did mean to write the Teletubbies. Now, the question is, why? Why would anyone want to investigate the Teletubbies? OK, they’re annoying and they don’t speak English, but that’s no reason for a governmental investigation. Apparently the supposed homosexuality of the programme is grounds for a probe, though. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Polish government’s children’s rights watchdog wants to start an investigation to out the Teletubbies.
This very same idea was raised by the late Jerry Falwell, a US evangelist. Something makes me shudder whenever I hear the words “US evangelist”. I presume it is because of what usually follows. The now familiar diatribe of hatred, mixed in with a healthy dose of fire and brimstone and a condemnation of the populous’ apparent moral bankruptcy. We all know the score.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Christianity is being used by a set of ultra-conservatives professing membership of that religion to justify all sorts of hatred. Seemingly forgetting the part about “love thy neighbour”, the extreme Christian right campaign vigorously against rights for homosexuals. They are joined by the usual conservative suspects, who campaign because they don’t’ want homosexuals to have “special rights”. Since when is equal access to housing and education a “special” right? Since when is the right to raise a child a “special” right? Since when is the right not to be discriminated against, not to be attacked and victimised in the street a “special” right? In their all-consuming hatred of homosexuality, the conservative/Christian alliance has forgotten that these people are human beings. They have forgotten that their religion was based, in the main, on altruism, on helping your fellow man.
This became particularly apparent in the Catholic Church’s campaign to prevent homosexual couples from adopting. They claimed that they were not fit to raise children, because children require two loving parents, conveniently forgetting that we let single-parent families raise children, and that often these children do well in life.
They claim that it is offensive to their religion, that their God forbids it, and it is therefore wrong. It isn’t religion, there are many good, decent Christians who do not take this hard-line, what it is, however, is good, old-fashioned ignorant bigotry, covered by a thin veil of religious doctrine, religious doctrine that has moved on from being based on a book written back when it was acceptable to sell your daughter into slavery (as condoned by the Bible), when it was acceptable to execute people for working on the Sabbath (as condoned in the Bible) and when it was not acceptable to eat pork (as forbidden in the Bible). I don’t see many Christians complaining about this.
This problem is becoming increasingly prevalent, not just in the USA (where there are already purpose-built conservative Christian colleges), but in the UK. The Principal of Wycliffe Hall, a theological college of Oxford, believes that said conservatives should “capture” the theological colleges and hence influence future generations of the ministry. We have a government minister who not only is a member of an extremist Christian sect, but refuses to say that homosexuality is not a sin.
Make no mistake; such policies will lead us backwards, into a world of inequality, of hatred, of division. If we allow such things to take root, it will destroy every step towards a better society we have taken since we stopped burning heretics.

The Massive Over-reaction of the Highly Paranoid

2007-05-14T18:26:00.000Z

It is not often that I comment on what would appear to be relatively minor incidents in foreign countries, but here's a little tale illustrating the terrible paranoia that can follow disasters, and must be guarded against. It is, of course, from America:

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, a boy was expelled from Clements High School in Texas. You may well ask what the reason was. Was he found carrying a firearm onto school premises? Was he taking or dealing drugs on school grounds? Was he victimising other students? No. His crime was to create, many years ago, a map for the internet game Counter-Strike based on his school.

The truth is I don't really know what I can say about this bizarre state of affairs. It should be immediately obvious to anyone thinking about the above paragraph for a minute to realise the utter stupidity of the school's decision.

Or so any right-thinking, sensible individual would believe. Unfortunately, it would appear that the school board directly responsible for Clements is not populated by right-thinking, sensible individuals. It would appear that it is, instead, populated by paranoid morons who cannot see the fact that making a map for a video game does not qualify as behaviour signalling psychotic predisposition. Now, I understand that after a tragedy involving a boy of a psychotic disposition (although this was not helped by his situation, as reported in the previous article) shooting many of his fellow students, schools are liable to be a little edgy, and I could understand if the boy had brought weaponry into school, or said that he'd planned to kill some people. But the fact is he didn't, he made a map for a video game. That's the security risk here. Apparently.

Now, to the school board's credit, they did organise a meeting to discuss the reinstatement of this unfortunate. Unfortunately, a quorum was not present as many of the board's members stayed away (for what reason I cannot be sure) including, and here's the surprise, the Board's President Steve Smelley, the man who called the meeting. Now, not attending a meeting that you've called is a pretty clear indication that you don't want that meeting in the first place, although again, I cannot fathom why.

Time was when you'd make a mistake, admit it and resign immediately.

Acts of Journalism (Part V)

2007-04-20T23:23:00.000Z

Before I post my article, I would like to extend my deepest condolences to those who lost friends and family in the Virginia Tech massacre. Words fail.

Nobody is Born This Way

We may never know what led Cho Seung-Hui to wake up one Monday morning and murder 32 people. We may be able to hazard a guess at what brought about this tragedy at Virginia Tech University. There are clues in the form of his “multimedia manifesto”, as it has been christened, but it is highly likely that we will never know for sure.
However, while following the reports of this tragic event, I could not help but think of another incident which took place in Littleton, Colorado. On the 20th of April, 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed twelve students and a teacher at the now infamous Columbine High School.
In the aftermath of such an event there was, of course, a desperate struggle for answers. Many reasons were proffered. While it is undoubtedly true that both boys (and, indeed, Cho) were mentally unbalanced, the question has to be “What made them that way?” There must have been something, there must have been a reason for this. One thing is clear: they weren’t born wanting to kill their classmates.
In the case of Columbine, various reasons were put forward. Those involving violent video games and aggressive music were the most commonly proposed. However, I believe that neither of these accounts adequately for turning shy kids into ruthless killers. Perhaps they were symptoms of their disturbed minds, but they were not causes. The most compelling reason, I believe, is that the society in which they lived did not merely react coldly to Harris and Klebold, but actively shunned them. According to various sources quoted in the Washington Post (in an article entitled “Dissecting Columbine's Cult of the Athlete” by Lorraine Adams and Dale Russakoff. I suggest you Google it) shortly after the massacre, there was a significant, blatant and fatally ignored culture of bullying, led by the “jocks” with whom we are so familiar. It was the sort of bullying, the sort of ostracising that leads to often crushing depression. And sometimes, this depression becomes something much, much worse. If you want evidence of the objects of Harris and Klebold’s rage, just look at what they shouted when they began their rampage: “All Jocks stand up. We’ll get the guys in white hats” (the “uniform” of jocks at Columbine was a white cap).
And now it has come out that Cho Seung-Hui was bullied at his school and taunted with various comments about his race and his shyness. If find the latter reason particularly bizarre. If someone is shy, why would taunting them about it make the situation any better? A split second after that thought came the answer: because they just don’t care. I don’t know what it is that makes people behave in this despicable, disgusting, disgraceful manner, but it is clear that they have no sense of decency or respect for the feelings of others.
If murder is the extreme result of such persistent bullying, what happens to the others? What happens to those who are not pushed over the edge to suicide (as one boy in this country was earlier this week) or even murder? It is clear from the experiences of those who have been bullied, and from the fact that some are willing to take their own lives to get away from it, that those that are bullied persistently, without mercy or remorse, kindness or compassion, suffer from intense and terrible depression. Depression that crushes souls, that leaves self-esteem, a most valuable attribute, annihilated, that causes people to cry themselves to sleep every night.
Most disturbing of all is that it is often regarded by its perpetrators as harmless, a “joke”. To suggest such a thing is both callous and insulting, and those who believe that because they could take it, everyone else can, are fools.
No, bullying does not always lead to murder, or even suicide, but it does lead to despair and depression. Anyone who fails to realise this and continues to bully, no matter how harmless they may think it, is ignoring their duty to their fellow man. That is what caused Columbine and Virginia Tech, and it is what has caused people to commit suicide. In the most recent case of an eleven-year old hanging himself, one of those who bullied him (an adult, no less), believed it was “just banter”. If the other person can take it, fine. If not, we should not taunt, or ostracise them, because nobody is born depressed and distraught, nobody is born wanting to take their lives or the lives of others – Nobody is born this way.

A Fatal Apathy

2007-04-08T14:23:00.000Z

In 2005, to a collective shrug of the shoulders, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act was passed. This apathetic response was, and continues to be, a surprise. Under Section 132, it has become illegal to conduct a demonstration, either on your own or with others, in a "designated area" without prior police permission. This "designated area" is, in effect, anywhere up to one kilometre from Parliament Square, ie. anywhere you'd want to demonstrate against the government.

Admittedly, the permission has to be granted. However, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan police may place limits on:

(a) the place where the demonstration may, or may not, be carried on,

(b) the times at which it may be carried on,

(c) the period during which it may be carried on,

(d) the number of persons who may take part in it,

(e) the number and size of banners or placards used,

(f) maximum permissible noise levels.
If, in his "reasonable opinion", the protest would pose a danger to public safety, public order or security. Things like that.

The problem with this is that the Commissioner's "reasonable opinion" could, in fact, be anything. This, and phrases like it, are to be found in various pieces of legislation that have been passed under the Labour Government. There are no checks, no balances, it is the Commissioner's decision, and the Commissioner's alone.

What the Act represents is a serious infringement of civil liberties in this country. The right to protest is one of the most important rights that we possess (or perhaps, used to possess). We ought to be able to do it without having to ask for permission from the authorities, who are free to place whatever restrictions they like on it (for remember, there are no test of "reasonable opinion"). With this measure, this right, which is so vital to our continued existence as a free, democratic society, becomes a privilege, a treat, something the government lets us have as long as we're good and behave ourselves. It is typical of the disregard for Liberty shown by various Western leaders in recent times.

As if this was not enough, the legislation is applied in a strict and unbending manner. One man standing outside Parliament with a banner saying "Freedom of Speech" was arrested under this act. He posed no threat to security or public order, not was he a hindrance to access to Parliament or Parliamentary business. But, because he had not asked for permission, he was arrested. The same happened to someone eating a cake with the words "Freedom of Speech" inscribed on it in icing. Even a man dressed as Charlie Chaplin carrying a sign saying "Not Aloud" outside Downing Street was arrested under this act. I kid you not.

But, it is not the behaviour of the Government that is the worst thing of all. No, it is the behaviour of the British people. The sheer apathy that has permeated our politics has even seeped into our concern about our rights. We did not care that our rights were being taken away, and we continue not to care. This disgraceful state of affairs will not only persist, but it will deteriorate for as long as we keep up this fatal apathy, this apathy is the thing that strips us of our rights, of our Liberty. If we want our rights, we need to fight for them. As the Korean War Memorial in Washington DC says, Freedom is not Free.

One final point. As the man dressed as Charlie Chaplin was arrested and bundled into a Police van, one person in the crowd shouted out "It's a free country, isn't it?"

Apparently not.

Maybe Private Schools are just Better.

2007-03-04T19:39:00.000Z

Today I read in the Sunday Times, under an article headed "Elite Public Schools Tighten Grip on Oxford", that last year, Oxford admitted twice the number of students from private schools than they had in 2001, while the number of state school admissions had barely increased. This revelation caused outrage in certain quarters. Of course, it must be the "old school tie" network at work once again, those damned private school people must be receiving preferential treatment, Oxford can't be encouraging state school children to apply as hard as they should be. These are the only explanations.

Well, I'm going to say something here that, while it may be unpopular, and may cause some people to brand me as an upper-class, public school elitist, I should say anyway, for balance:

Private schools might be better than state schools. True, there are many good state schools, St. Olave's, for instance. However, most of the top schools in the country are private schools, private schools are the ones that prepare their students the most for the interviews and the rest of the admissions process.

This is not to say that talented state school pupils shouldn't go to Oxbridge. Of course they should, everyone who can cope with the workload and benefit from it should go, and they should be encouraged to do so. However, there are two problems.

The first is that there are many people in state schools that just aren't up to it. Yes, it would be wonderful if our state education system made everyone good enough for a place at one of the country's top universities, but they don't and we should stop pretending that they do.

The second is that you can't force people to apply to Oxford or Cambridge. If they dont' think they can do it, or they don't want to, they won't. Now, perhaps more should be done to convince the ablest state school pupils to apply, but ultimately, the choice is up to them.

Ultimately, it isn't the universities fault that large numbers of privately educated people get places. To say so is ridiculous, of course there isn't this conspiracy against state school pupils to keep them down-trodden and enslaved to the bourgeoisie, or whatever Marx would have said. No, it's the governent's fault for cocking-up the state education system so badly while trying to encourage positive discrimination in universities. University places shoudl be offered on ability and ability alone and, to their credit, I believe that this is generally the case. We should stop caring about where the students come from.

As a final note, as a public school pupil, perhaps I'm a little biased, but I struggle to see how my socio-economic background means that I don't deserve a place at Oxford. In short, why the hell shouldn't Etonians go to Oxford?

SHAME!

2007-03-01T15:45:00.000Z

Well, in the last post we covered financially bankrupt, so I suppose it was only right to look at morally bankrupt as well. Today, I read the headline

"UKIP Bars Disabled Candidate from Prime Seat"

Could this just be the Independent going on about positive discrimination? No, it turns out that the reason was that the man, a Mr. Jack Biggs, was indeed rejected by UKIP because he was disabled. The local UKIP chairman, Vicki Sharp, wrote the following to Mr. Biggs:

"In view of your being registered disabled you will not be able to stand as a full candidate for Ukip." She went on to say that they would welcome him as a paper candidate (that is, a candidate whose name is on the ballot paper, but is not expected to win or campaign). Paper candidates are usually only used in unwinnable seats, but this was (tragically) a winnable seat for UKIP.

Now, had Nigel Farage, UKIP's leader, had half a brain, he might have said "Yes, this is a disgrace, I apologise on behalf of the party for the awful treatment of Mr. Biggs etc. etc." But he didn't, did he?

No, what he said was:

"He was trying to get us to say that he couldn't be a target candidate and to use that, and to try and blackmail the party into not standing against his daughter, who was a current serving councillor. I don't think he has behaved very honourably."

Honourably? What the hell does Nigel Farage know about honour? Not only does his party reject a candidate on the grounds of disability without so much as a murmer of dissent from him, he then goes and slurs said candidate's name in yet another pathetic attempt to portray UKIP as the long-suffering victims of other people's malice.

Please, could the Electoral Commission and the Courts hurry up and make them pay the £300,000 they owe so we can be rid of this shameful excuse for a political party.

Financially as well as Morally bankrupt

2007-02-25T15:55:00.000Z

It happened. Of course it would, every extremist organisation is eventually sunk by its own cock-ups. Every organisation that sets itself up as a moralising force of zealotsis eventually found wanting. Just look to the American Evengelical preacher who was found taking crystal meth and sleeping with male prostitutes.

I am, of course, talking about the United Kingdom Independence Party, who have suffered not one but two revelations about their finances.

The first was some two or three days ago, when it was revealed that the electoral commission was ordering them to pay back the £360,000 they received from a man who was not on the electoral register. A little legal point here, in order to legally donate money to a political party, you need to be on the electoral register and if a party accepts money from someone who isn't, they have to give it all to HM Treasury. This is what is happening to UKIP.

Of course, they claim that they're being victimised. Pity the poor euroskeptic fools, the government is victimising them by making them obey the law. Of course, the Government has had its own fair share of alleged dodgy deals (just ask Lord Levy), and the idiots in UKIP are using this to try and excuse their own behaviour. Well, yes, the government should be investigated, but whether or not they sold cash for peerages doesn't excuse UKIP's breach of legal requirements.

The second was a revalation regarding emezzlement of EU funds. It turns out that a UKIP MEP, one Tom Wise, stole £40,000 or so into his own private account, claiming that he was paying one of his staff members. Of course, the fact that his party is opposed to the EU "gravy train" didn't hinder him in his efforts. Oh no.

But this is not the only way in which UKIP takes advantage of the EU funds that they are so opposed to. EU rules forbid party workers from being paid with taxpayers money. So what does UKIP do? It hires party workers as "advisers" or "assistants" to its MEPs, allowing them to draw salaries of up to £40,000. Corrupt? I think so.

And one final point on the electoral commission's ruling. One woudl think that UKIP would be proud that, after spending money on things detrimental to the UK (namely their existance and electoral campaign), their funds were instead going to go to the Treasury, from where they can be used to pay for schools and hospitals and other things that are actually beneficial to the United Kingdom.