06-Jul-08
I have to say Osborne's defence when questioned by Andrew Marr on the BBC this morning appeared decidedly dodgy...
He insisted he didn't break anti-sleaze rules by taking between £5k and £10k, as well as complimentary flights and accommodation from the Jersey Institute of Directors.
His problem is that Tory guidelines clearly state:
'Shadow Ministers should not solicit fees for broadcuasting, speaking engagements and articles. Fees should not be accepted if the subject matter relates directly to your Shadow Ministerial responsibilities.'
Ironically, we know what those rules say thanks to Mr Osborne's previous rather questionable conduct.
They were made public a few months ago when wee Georgie faced an investigation by the House of Commons Standards Committee into donations.
Then, the Committee upheld the complaints against him.
Other Tory frontbenchers now facing similar conflict of interest claims include Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove said to have received a donation from the director of an independent boarding school.
And Gove's deputy Tim Loughton apparently earns up to £35k a year as director of a company that provides camera equipment for schools.
Will Cameron enforce his own rules, or will he back wee Georgie and the rest...?
What do you think?
the fact that he doesn't make clear to the general public, who are not massively interested for the most part in the plottings within the Labour Group, especially now that the electorate has rejected that corrupt group of scumbags for what they are, who he means, informs us that he still considers himself an insider. Well, good for him. In his place I'd be ashamed to admit it.
Another columnist in His Master's Voice is at least honest about that publication's role in the politics of Reading. She says "the council engages local media". It has done for many years, as its mouthpiece, but even the best efforts of its editor, Kent secondary modern boy Andy Murrill, couldn't save the Labour Group this time. Josephine Zim One Lovelock knows this and is likely to need hospitalisation for an injection of reality if the current state of affairs continues much longer.
The story of Ray Lewis' resignation was bewilderingly rapid. But given that his pugnacious 'deny everything' defence had made much of his probity as a justice of the peace, the Mayor had no choice but to sack his Deputy Mayor when it emerged that in fact he wasn't. (For Lewis to accuse his opponents of splitting hairs suggests a rather elastic relationship to the truth).
The resignation could seriously embarrass Boris Johnson. But some of those who are not friends of the new Mayoral administration will have been somewhat disappointed as well as surprised by these developments. Even liberals who found the strength of Lewis' focus
on discipline somewhat too emphatic agreed that his Eastside Young Leaders Academy experiment, if in its relative infancy, deserved serious study. And, while Lewis should be judged as an individual, on his own conduct, it is depressing that race has recently featured so frequently (if in rather different ways) in high profile resignations in London politics.
Lewis intends to clear his name. But - while I am not entering into any discussion of the particular allegations against Lewis - this episode highlights some potentialy important challenges to the Cameron project. The resignation has already generated increased scrutiny of whether the Conservatives are ready to govern. Boris Johnson and David Cameron may suggest they were unlucky: that they took a risk which backfired. But could this episode also cast the spotlight on what David Cameron's 'big idea' of social responsibility adds up to?
Administrative incompetence
The simplest issue is administrative competence. The Mayoralty heard about these allegations from the media. Though a Mayoral spokesman told the Standard that Lewis "has been through the strongest vetting process outside of MI5", that was evidently an untruth. The vetting proces appears to have been based primarily on the assumption that Lewis must have previously been checked out elsewhere. A Criminal Records Bureau enhanced check would have turned up the police investigation. Warnings from the Church in May appear to have ben overlooked or ignored. Given that Boris is Boris, this failure of due diligence reflects directly
on project Cameron.
Ironically, the favourite Cameron briefing
theme of the last month has been how much better prepared they will be for government than Tony Blair was. This is simply routine opposition media management, stolen directly from the Blair textbook. But the test of Team Cameron will come not in Templeton College, Oxford but in City Hall, London. The Conservatives themselves knew on May 2nd that these were the new rules. (Remember the Times' extraordinary heavily qualified endorsement, asking Londoners to act as guinea pigs for the nation).
However, the deeper challenge to Cameronism may be ideological rather than organisational.
The astonishingly high profile championing of Ray Lewis - from Cameron's first ever visit as party leader to the London Mayoral campaign and his appointment as Deputy - did not only reflect the Tory leadership's keen awareness of his potential value to the 'brand decontamination' project which has been Cameron's core leadership priority. Lewis has been so heavily promoted as the very model of a
modern civic conservatism because his project speaks to the content of Cameronism too.
There have been three major question marks about this civic renewal agenda.
Firstly, how much deeper than political repositioning does any of this go? I don't doubt at all Iain Duncan Smith's integrity and commitment to these issues, though my own interpretation of social justice is rather different. But many on the right remain motivated primarily by the ideological project of rolling back the ‘failed state' and enabling lower taxation I don't think addressing poverty and inequality has become the Conservatives' core mission in politics. (If it were, we would expect
a detailed critique of why poverty and inequality increased so much when they were last in power).
‘Social responsibility' could also be designed to offer a convenient alibi for compassionate conservativism in power. If Cameron's central message is that important problems must be sorted out by society, not government, perhaps he thinks that 'mid-term blues' could be turned around and redefined so that Ministers gets to express their disappointment in the electorate!
Secondly, even if sincere, the Conservatives have yet to provide any evidence that this is more than wishful thinking. They say they will proote ‘progressive ends' without the state, but they do not tell us how. Conservatives struggle when asked to provide examples of civic renewal from below.
Lewis is a black conservative who believes the answer lies in the simple truths which the right fears may sound too old fashioned. This captures how the Cameron-Duncan Smith social justice agenda combines a rhetoric of modernisation with traditionalist conservative principles and arguments, which often predate the creation of the welfare state. Thinking about how to facilitate and develop
leadership in communities is a good idea. But championing charisma is not a substitute for policy.
The (almost solitary) prominence of Lewis's academy as an example of what they support reflects both the scarcity of good examples and the strong element of 'magic bullet' thinking which persists despite this. And yet this focus on inspirational individuals is allied to a breezy optimism about how easily this can be replicated. Take the argument of Lewis' own 'From Latchkey to Leadership' pamphlet for the
Centre for Policy Studies.
In her foreword to the pamphlet (PDF file), on page vi, Kathy Gyngell - anticipates that, if rolled out nationwide, we should anticipate that four Ray Lewises would succeed for every failure.
A rule of thumb is that while 80% of new businesses fail after five years, 80% of franchised businesses succeed. If that ratio holds true in the world of social entrepreneurship, then in the near future we can expect to see Young Leaders' Academies opening in other London boroughs and in the other great cities of the UK. As with all franchises, the franchisees will have to show great commitment, will need great energy and will face many_challenges. It will not be easy.
Leaving aside why these rates should ‘hold true' in the different sphere of social entrepreneurship, these claims for the successs of franchising do not stand up to scrutiny. This is why the academic literature has long referred to these inflated claims as the troubled dreamworld of franchising.
David Cameron is promoting a similar ‘troubled dreamworld' vision of social policy, if this sort of rule of thumb is the evidence base for the civic conservatism project. (Gyngell is a Research Fellow for the Centre for Policy Studies, working closely with both Shaun Bailey and Ray Lewis on their CPS pamphlets, while also chairing the addictions group for the Centre of Social Justice's flagship Breakdown Britain project).
The third and most important question mark is about the effective use of public money in this troubled dreamworld.
Fraser Nelson tells us that the first Bill which a Cameron government puts on the Statute Book will be to enable 'Free Schools'. The pitch is that any group of parents, or religious group, or social organisation, or business who wants to start a school can have £6000 from the state for every pupil they can attract. Let a thousand flowers bloom. And I can see the appeal. Free them from the deadening hand of the state. As long as child protection is locked down very firmly. Might it be a good idea to inspect for educational standards too? Personally, I wouldn't want the state to fund the teaching of extreme religious views without regulating the curriculum; could we think about how to avoid that?
So the right's claim to achieve 'progressive ends by conservative means' will remain deeply flawed while it is rooted centrally in the claim that the state has failed and should withdraw. Can the New Conservatives point to any countries which have achieved greater social mobility and reduced inequality through shrinking the overall size of the state? Finland? Sweden? The USA? At the top and bottom of the social mobility league, the evidence points starkly in the opposite direction.
A question for the left and right
The question which both right and left need to answer is how the state and civil society can best cooperate to deliver effective social change. Any enduring agenda must deal with the intrinsic tensions around the system of public regulation within which public support for grassroots social experimentation could work. No doubt, the public will want less control in general, and more control if ever anything were to go wrong. Perhaps
Dumbing down. It's not just a buzzphrase, it's a fact of modern life - at least in the world of education.
The so-called experts, including administrators, policy-makers and inspectors, have brought about such a devaluation of education that "fuck off" is deemed worth marks at GCSE, people who wouldn't have passed O-levels 30 years ago can get A-levels, and university degrees are awarded to boost institutions' positions in league tables.
Now young people can (dubiously) achieve GCSEs, A levels and degrees, only to belatedly discover when they leave the education system that they are worth precisely fuck all. Because when they submit application forms, cover letters and CVs to potential employers that are as borderline illiterate as this comment (at Dave Osler's), from a supposedly "aspiring student" who has "jst (sic) completed his alevels"), they will immediately be put where they belong - in the circular file. For how can someone with such a poor command of the English language possibly meet the requirements of even the most basic office job?
Below-mediocrity is all that has been expected of 'streets_disciple' by the modern education system. That's because it has been ruined by leftist egalitarian ideologue fuckwits.
If you are so fucking stupid as to be taken in by the leftist dogma of egalitarianism - that everyone is equal in potential and in capabilities, then it is hardly surprising that when you somehow find yourself in a position to control education; control how kids are taught based on that idiot dogma, then everything turns to utter shit.
Why is it, I wonder, that the real experts - the teachers, not the overpaid apparatchiks who got to where they are by learning to spout ideologically correct crap until they started to believe it, deplore the state education finds itself in (pun intended). To Miss With Love; Scenes From The Battleground; Frank Chalk (2)*. All of them say essentially the same thing. From Snuffy:
Basics are what we all need. Noble knows it. And now his kids know it. So why the hell does our Government not know it...? If only they did, what a different world the inner city would be.I guess it's obvious to most of us. It certainly seems to be obvious to the teachers whose blogs I have linked to today. Education has been ruined by leftist ideologue fuckwits who believe that everyone is equal, and that the more teachers pander to and patronise their charges, the better things will be. Wake up call, morons - It hasn't worked, and it won't work. It's a race to the bottom, and there are no winners.
Making 'discipline' a dirty word; letting disruptive kids' behaviour give those with potential little chance of learning anything; and giving out qualifications that sound good but mean precisely fuck all in the real world - that's the fucking scandal of education in Britain. Fortunately for the British economy, the poison of egalitarianism hasn't yet reached the world of employment - that doesn't stop some from trying to fuck that up, too...
* Before you start commenting, telling me I'm talking rubbish, read all of the linked posts. And then fuck off.
Paul Evans suggests buying a friend some lager would be a better use of your wonga than coughing up for an Ali Campbell porn story. An average week in politics...
Bevan Above
Walking past Westminster Abbey on Wednesday, I noted large numbers of Police officers and road cordons. It transpired that the church was hosting a service to mark the 60th Anniversary of the founding of NHS. It seems odd to be celebrate socialised medicine by praying – and much more sensible to mark it by blogging. Likable geek Alan Williamson had words of praise for the NHS, having [...]
Driving me crazy?Small hauliers took direct action this week to protest at the rising fiscal burden, which some say will soon force them out of business. Perhaps predictably, John Redwood railed against fuel taxes and Vehicle Exercise Duty. He reckoned that this weekÂ’s protests would be a wake-up call, writing:
“…it is likely the government will come to understand finally that it has driven the motorist into sullen [...]
As a consequence of this decision its likely that there will be some increase in the already staggeringly high murder rates in the Washington area, but according to popular expectations, this will be largely in the form of Black on Black crimes in selected areas of the city.
However, it got me thinking about an article I read years ago on the net by an Australian author, which said that most violent US crime wasn't black on black, or white on black but preponderantly Black on White. The author claimed that the US was in a state of low level domestic race war, with Black males killing Whites at a rate of 20 to 1 each year (or something like that) and totalling some 25 million white victims since the end of the second world war.
Its hard to credit figures as large as that going unreported, even in a PC media such as that US, and even a tenth of that would be very large.
To be honest these kinds of stories often are slanted, and when all factors in crime are taken into account, these apparent glaring anomalies are often explained away, but even so, I remember being struck by the story as it had a sort of 'kernal of truth' to it, even with figures that were hard to attribute, and its possible that its because it plays on fears that gives it the feel of credibility.
The article was allegedly written by Paul Sheehan, and is said to have appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, on May 20, 1995, as one of a small series of articles that he alleged the US Media were too frightened to print whilst he was in the US.
I have dug around and found that story referred to or reprinted on several sites, ranging from 'white supremacist defence' sites, to those who are refuting it. I can't remember where I actually saw the story, it certainly wasn't in any of the links below, but its been around a while (over a decade) so it could well have been on a main stream site.
In the interests of balance, I have linked to a few sites that reflect the story as it appears on the web ...... The First site link is to a page which appears to mainly reprint the article with no comment, but is probably linked to a supremacist site so if you are sensitive to this be careful.
And the Second site link has what it says is the full article, plus back up statistical evidence to support its premise, and is obviously in the "Storm trooper" kinda ballpark, so be warned if its not your cup of tea. The Third site link is a critique of the whole story.
The truth, as usual, is likely to lie somewhere between the two, but I doubt that it will ever come out in the main media, being as it is mired in the treacherous waters of race, PC politics, and factual denial by the great and the good, who are terrified of any fact that disputes the "Mass Immigration, multiculturalism is good for the West" version of post war history, that they all peddle.
Still, there will be a lot of interest on the first Washington crime figures published after the gun control has been lifted, to see where, and upon whom, any increase in violent crime (if there is one) falls.
Maybe not a surprise given the the strength of feeling in the US over the right to own a firearm, but nevertheless this maybe disappointing for those who would want to see some reduction in gun related deaths in the US.
Now given that I have already covered this subject in the blog linked above, and that a welcome contributor Burnt Toast gave us a view from the US, I don't intend to comment further directly on this subject. However it will be interesting to note if the number of gun related deaths, rises in the Washington DC area after this court decision is implemented.
One thing is for sure, the figures won't drop.
... I a guest blogging over on Jim's excellent The Daily (Maybe) with a piece about why I chose to discuss early 20th-century peasant rebellions in Southeast Asia, rather than listen to Ariana Huffington - it is all about thinking about how the future might look (and how we might come to view a steady state balanced economy, rather than a growing one, as a positive thing - as the human race has done throughout much of history.
(And in his commentary Jim has my hat situation summarised just right....)
... and on Blogcritics I'm reviewing Tim Butcher's Blood River, about a journey through the modern Democratic Republic of Congo which provides an easily digestible introduction to that poor, blighted country.
I don't need to write much - just point you over to Alexandra Lee's excellent summary and note that the debate has been set for July 14.
I have to restrain myself from throwing things when I hear the latest Labour politician sprouting the nonsensical line "Britain is an international leader in the fight against climate change" ... and here's the unarguable figures:
...figures revealed last week in an obscure government report - snappily entitled Development of an Embedded Carbon Emissions Indicator - tell a much more sobering story. Produced by the Stockholm Environment Institute and Sydney University for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), it concludes that Britain is responsible for 200 million more tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year than official figures admit, an increase of 37 per cent.
And whereas Britain has been officially reporting that its emissions have declined by 5 per cent since 1992, the report says that the true picture reveals that instead they rose by 18 per cent.
And there's more bad news from Australia - about five minutes after the drought declarations were lifted, 65% of NSW is again in drought - and the locusts are on the way.
I'd publish the text, but I didn't prepare a text:-)
Anyway, the ViktorFeed is a development of basic python scripts I've been using for some time to collect data on certain aircraft movements through Sharjah and Dubai Airports. Both of these place all movements on the Web, but neither of them provide anything like an RSS feed, which is why I began scripting, in order to save checking them myself. (You can read about this phase in the Political Pathetic Python posts on this blog.)
The current version works as follows: the web pages involved are loaded and BeautifulSoup instances created for each one. If a page fails to load and an IOError occurs, this stage is skipped for that one and a default message added. Data is extracted using BeautifulSoup's find method in list comprehensions. Each flight is represented by a tuple of values in a list. For each flight, the tuple is unpacked and each item in it assigned to a standard variable. If the airline name is found in a whitelist, the tuple is discarded. Otherwise, various standard items - for example, the name of the airport the flight arrived at or departed from - are added, the time variable is processed to provide both a readable time and a time in seconds since the epoch, and a database is queried to provide the geographical locations of the source and destination.
In the event that a location is not given or not found, a default value is specified and a message added. The default location is in the Bermuda Triangle, thanks to Soizick. The values are reassembled as a dictionary and appended to a list. When all pages have been processed, the content of this list is decorated with the time values in seconds since the origin, and sorted into reverse chronological order. This version is then undecorated, and the individual flights are used to create a Simple GeoRSS file through Python string formatting, which is encoded as Unicode and written out to disk.
Items in the file consist of the time and data group, in the title field, the source, destination, airline, and flight number in the description field, a GeoRSS Line tag with the source and destination geocodes, and the current time and date in the pubDate field. This data can be visualised in Google Maps more than simply. The test version was served from my laptop, using the SimpleHTTPRequestHandler and ForkingTCPServer methods and port forwarding.
Things to do: get it going on a permanent Web presence, refactor the code into a slightly less ugly mess, keep all the flights in a database, make it possible to query past movements.
And they are, too; even if the live demonstration of the ViktorFeed didn't happen due to the lack of a routable IP address (or even working connectivity for that matter), there was the loan of another laptop when OpenSUSE didn't want to speak to the projector. When I'd finished the show and dealt with all the questions, I was faced with at least two offers of colocated server capacity, and the services of at least three professional software developers, as well as an interview for the BBC World Service, a spare USB key, and a pint of lager. All of which would have come in handy the night before, when I foolishly attempted to change something in the code after midnight and borked the whole thing, forcing me to get up at six the next morning to fix it.
As it turns out, having met Francis Irving, I'm probably going to be assimilated by MySociety, or at least my project is. I was also very interested in some of the green/geek crossover projects - I missed the session on solar power and IT, but I did get to the AMEE presentation on their automated carbon dioxide profiler and Hotmapping's show of their IR surveying work, intended to classify buildings by the rate at which they lose heat. Apparently they'd already found one urban cannabis farm.
And BT Osmosoft's TiddlyWiki - a wiki in a single file - may not sound all that much; but I really liked the idea of a zoomable, pseudo 3D interface for wikis. I'm quite keen on the idea of using this to organise contacts - who puts their friends in alphabetical order after all?
" Eighty-six years ago, in December 1922, the Curragh Camp was the scene of a terrible tragedy; it was the execution, by firing squad, of seven young men in the Military Detention Barracks, now the Curragh Prison. The full story of the events of the week from 13 December 1922, when the men were arrested, to 19 December 1922, when they were executed, is not now known. All of the people involved are dead, and with them their stories. It appears that all official records of the executions have been lost or destroyed....."
(From here)
FOR THE RECORD.....
Between 17 November 1922 and 2 May 1923 , seventy-seven Republican prisoners were removed from their prison cells and shot dead by order of the Free State administration . In this post we name those 77 men and list where each man was executed and the date of same : we do so in the hope that , after the search engines have archived this information it will be retrieved by those who , like us , are of the opinion that these men should not be forgotten.
1922 :
James Fisher , Dublin , November 17.
Peter Cassidy , Dublin , November 17.
Richard Twohig , Dublin , November 17.
John Gaffney , Dublin , November 17.
Erskine Childers , Dublin , November 24.
Joseph Spooner , Dublin , November 30.
Patrick Farrelly , Dublin , November 30.
John Murphy , Dublin , November 30.
Rory O Connor , Dublin , December 8.
Liam Mellows , Dublin , December 8.
Joseph McKelvey , Dublin , December 8.
Richard Barrett , Dublin , December 8.
Stephen White , Dublin , December 19.
Joseph Johnston , Dublin , December19.
Patrick Mangan , Dublin , December 19.
Patrick Nolan , Dublin , December 19.
Brian Moore , Dublin , December 19.
James O' Connor , Dublin , December 19.
Patrick Bagnel , Dublin , December 19.
John Phelan , Kilkenny , December 29.
John Murphy , Kilkenny , December 29.
1923:
Leo Dowling , Dublin , January 8.
Sylvester Heaney , Dublin , January 8.
Laurence Sheeky , Dublin , January 8.
Anthony O' Reilly , Dublin , January 8.
Terence Brady , Dublin , January 8.
Thomas McKeown , Louth , January 13.
John McNulty , Louth , January 13.
Thomas Murray , Louth , January 13.
Frederick Burke , Tipperary , January 15.
Patrick Russell , Tipperary , January 15.
Martin O' Shea , Tipperary , January 15.
Patrick McNamara , Tipperary , January 15.
James Lillis , Carlow , January 15.
James Daly , Kerry , January 20.
John Clifford , Kerry , January 20.
Michael Brosnan , Kerry , January 20.
James Hanlon , Kerry , January 20.
Cornelius McMahon , Limerick , January 20.
Patrick Hennesy , Limerick , January 20.
Thomas Hughes , Westmeath , January 20.
Michael Walsh , Westmeath , January 20.
Herbert Collins , Westmeath , January 20.
Stephen Joyce , Westmeath , January 20.
Martin Bourke , Westmeath , January 20.
James Melia , Louth , January 22.
Thomas Lennon , Louth , January 22.
Joseph Ferguson , Louth , January 22.
Michael Fitzgerald , Waterford , January 25.
Patrick O' Reilly , Offaly , January 26.
Patrick Cunningham , Offaly , January 26.
Willie Conroy , Offaly , January 26.
Colum Kelly , Offaly , January 26.
Patrick Geraghty , Laoise , January 27.
Joseph Byrne , Laoise , January 27.
Thomas Gibson , Laoise , February 26.
James O' Rourke , Dublin , March 13.
William Healy , Cork , March 13.
James Parle , Wexford , March 13.
Patrick Hogan , Wexford , March 13.
John Creane , Wexford , March 13.
Séan Larkin , Donegal , March 14.
Tim O' Sullivan , Donegal , March 14.
Daniel Enright , Donegal , March 14.
Charles Daly , Donegal , March 14.
James O' Malley , Galway , April 11.
Francis Cunnane , Galway , April 11.
Michael Monaghan , Galway , April 11.
John Newell , Galway , April 11.
John McGuire , Galway , April 11.
Martin Moylan , Galway , April 11.
Richard Hatheway , Kerry , April 25.
James McEnery , Kerry , April 25.
Edward Greaney , Kerry , April 25.
Patrick Mahoney , Clare , April 26.
Christopher Quinn , Clare , May 02.
William Shaughnessy , Clare , May 02.
The above-listed 77 men did not take up arms in the belief that they were fighting for the establishment of a morally-corrupt so-called 'half-way-house' institution , nor did they do so to assist the British in the 'governance' of one of their 'part' colonies : that which those men and many others fought for remains to be achieved . You can help present-day Irish Republicans to achieve that aim.......
LEST WE FORGET...Thomas Ashe, Kerry, 5 days, 25 September 1917 (force fed by tube , died as a result).
Terrence McSweeny, Cork, 74 days, 25 October 1920.
Michael Fitzgerald, Cork, 67 days, 17 October 1920.
Joseph Murphy, Cork, 76 days , 25 October 1920 .
Joe Witty, Wexford , 2 September 1923.
Dennis Barry, Cork, 34 days, 20 November 1923.
Andy O Sullivan , Cork, 40 days, 22 November 1923.
Tony Darcy, Galway, 52 days, 16 April 1940.
Jack 'Sean' McNeela, Mayo, 55 days, 19 April 1940.
Sean McCaughey, Tyrone ,22 days, 11 May 1946 (hunger and thirst Strike).
Michael Gaughan, Mayo , 64 days, 3 June 1974.
Frank Stagg, Mayo , 62 days, 12 February 1976.
Bobby Sands, Belfast , 66 days, 5 May 1981.
Frank Hughes , Bellaghy (Derry), 59 days, 12 May 1981.
Raymond McCreesh , South Armagh , 61 days, 21 May 1981.
Patsy O Hara , Derry , 61 days, 21 May 1981.
Joe McDonnell , Belfast , 61 days, 8 July 1981.
Martin Hurson , Tyrone , 46 days, 13 July 1981.
Kevin Lynch, Dungiven ( Derry) ,71 days, 1 August 1981.
Kieran Doherty , Belfast , 73 days, 2 August 1981.
Tom McIlwee , Bellaghy (Derry) , 62 days, 8 August 1981.
Micky Devine , Derry , 60 days, 20 August 1981.
"Dear Christ! the very prison walls
Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
My pain I could not feel."
('The Ballad of Reading Gaol', by Oscar Wilde, written after his release from Reading prison on 19 May 1897.)
I have been blogging a population control discussion on socialist unity, very good to see this response from Phil...have a look at what he is saying, I think that population control politics can end up being pretty nasty.
More than 200,000 people in rural Peru were pressured into being sterilised by the government of former President Alberto Fujimori, an official report has revealed.
The Health Minister, Fernando Carbone, said the government gave misleading information, offered food incentives and threatened to fine men and women if they had more children.
Poor indigenous people in rural areas were the main targets of the compulsive family planning programme until 2000, when Mr Fujimori left for Japan amid mounting corruption allegations against him.
Mr Carbone said there was evidence that Mr Fujimori and a number of high-ranking ministers could be held responsible for "incorrect procedures" and "human rights violations".
Thanks, Derek for posting a link to my articles. They were a slightly hurried attempt to summarise the situation and to suggest that a socialist alternative needs to address the issue of resources, without falling into the traps of the population controllers. I should add that I have been criticised for not concentrating enough on how population control programmes are an attack on women and their right to control their bodies. This criticism is probably justified. What is interesting in reading population controllers stuff is that the racism and class prejudice jump out at you (e.g. the quote from Jonathon Porritt from the Ecologist on Africa, for example), but the underlying context of arguing for a programme to control women is (of course) never made explicitly and it is fairly easy to "miss the wood for the trees".
Since writing the article, I have read Matthew Connelly's book "Fatal Misconception" on the development of the population control movement from the 1800's. Its account of the Indian and Chinese programmes has led me to be even more convinced that there is no such thing as a "voluntary population control" programme, in the sense that, if there is a government foreign agency or NGO advocating/organising such a programme, it will inevitably end up using using coercion, or at the least bribery - and pretty early on at that.
The interview with Betsy Hartman is interesting too: in fact it was this interview that led me to start looking into the latest round of population control propaganda (and its new context, climate change), but I had forgotten that I had read it! So it is useful to be reminded of its existence!
Some words on the Optimum Population Trust. I recommend visiting their web site. These people are not on the fringes of society, as a look at their supporters and officers shows. I debated population with a member of the OPT at the recent Campaign Against Climate Change conference in London. The workshop was obviously self-selecting, in that it was only likely to attract people who thought population was a burning issue, but I was shocked at how closed many of the participants' minds were on the issue. None of the advocates of population control addressed my arguments. A member of the Green Party held up a map of the diminishing land per head in Africa over the last forty years (or whatever), making it clear that the problem was "too many Africans", without addressing at all questions of land ownership (including for women, who do most of the agricultural labour), crops for exports and that labour power could be used to rebuild the environment in Africa. He then stated that the eugenic practices of the Nazi era were over: I pointed out the Fujimori had had sterilised 200,000 native Americans in Peru in 2000. Of course, this outlook is not the official policy of the greens (now).
If people are interested in reading about reactionary environmentalism, I can recommend TC Boyle's novel The Tortilla Curtain. This curtain refers both to the US-Mexico border and the class divide between middle class eco-reactionaries and the super-exploited immigrants of California.
Great weekend of sport started by 14 year old Laura Robson, first British Wimbledon champion since Annabelle Croft...
Just switched to the Gentleman's Final thankfully delayed by rain almost until the chequered flag at Silverstone...
Already Rafa Nadal has already won a break of serve from Roger Federer in the opening games.
Can the Spaniard knock the Swiss off his perch?
Would certainly be good for tennis and I'm cheering for Nadal.
Whovever wins, looks like we're in for one of the great finals...
Enjoy.
The students at Essex rioted in 1968. One of my lecturers, who was a student at the time, told this story. During the heat of the rebellion, one student leader announced that this was their moment. It was time to march into Colchester, go to the Army barracks, take a tank and drive to Westminster.
To say the place had a reputation for being left-wing is perhaps an understatement. When I arrived the Sun had an editorial suggesting that the University would be better off in the North Sea.
There were some Conservatives there who argued for Thatcherism and a brand of libertarianism. They were led by John Bercow.
The political arguments were robust and passionate with people rarely holding back.
According to yesterday's Independent, Ian is reported to have made a remark to George Osborne during the debate on MPs' expenses. I haven't seen Ian for a number of years so have no idea how true this is but the alleged comment was "f-off, you toff".
If true, I suppose one can only conclude that you can take the boy out of Essex University but you can't take Essex University out of the boy.
WHATS NOT HELPING THE KIDS IS PEOPLE MAKING EXCUSES ABOUT THE RACE. IN SOME CASES INFACT MOST IT MIGHT BE HARDER BECAUSE YOUR BLACK BUT THEY ARENT GOING TO BE DETERMINED TO SUCSEED IF THE ROLE MODELS THEY LOOK UP TO ARE SAYING THIS AND THAT CAN HAPPEN BECAUSE YOUR BLACK.
SHAK HAD ROBBED ALOT OF PEOPLE AND WAS A MEMBER OF A GANG...FACT....NOW LIKE I SAID NO1 DESERVES THIS BUT HIS VICTIMS DIDNT DESERVE WHAT THEY GOT.
RIP BUGZ. MY THOUGHTS ARE WITH YOUR FAMILY. ITS SUCH ASHAME YOULL BE FORGOTTEN ABOUT IN A FEW YEARS WHEN IF YOU WAS ALIVE YOU COULD OF TURND YOUR LIFE AROUND AND BEEN A HAPPY PERSON.
she was goin to meet him but she brought them boys to beat him up.
Posted by: me, pettswood on 2:29pm Fri 4 Jul 08
"i am a mum of a 15 year boy ,i cant bear it when he gos out ,i am scared to death."
I don't think Iam the only one who is forever on the phone to check and make sure they are alright.
The fear of god goes through me when one of them is late in because they were having a good time..
My children don't lead normal lifes in this country and many other youths do not due to the way the streets are here."
Posted by: A concerned Mum, Orpington on 12:12am Sat 5 Jul 08
" I am also a mum of an 18 year old I hate every weekend not being able to sleep until I hear the door close behind him. "
Murder map here. SW London looks the safest. See also this post.
As you will know if you've read previous posts relating to trees and/or the city council, I have little faith in a lot of what they do and decide on, particularly with respect to trees. I've signed the petition to save Grove woods and sent in an objection to plans. Thought I'd also pass on details about this protest against the council decision to allow 27 trees to be cut down (albeit a bit last minute!)."Mourn for decision to destroy 27 trees" tomorrow.
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=35773226840&ref=mf
This begs a question…does the Labour party's own rules permit Curran from putting herself forward. Thinking about this in a logical fashion it was on Friday evening that Labour members were due to carefully consider which of the three candidates they would select.
That meeting was 'postponed' when one of the potentials failed to turn up citing 'family reasons'. From this we must be able to assume that nominations to become a candidate had closed prior to the Friday meeting. In which case…how can Curran be put forward? Surely its got to be a straight run-off between the two remaining candidates on Monday evening.
A wee look over at LabourHome and it seems that there are folk within the Labour party who, like me, think Curran being able to go forward after the nomination process had ended as being more than a little dodgy.
'Topcat' a former Labour candidate and selector says that "Now, and someone should correct me if I'm wrong, but in Glasgow East 3 candidates were shortlisted by the NEC by-election panel. Please correct me if this was the longlist. If they were shortlisted then the NEC panel believed all three were good enough, and if, as happened, one candidate (whoever he/she is) doesn't turn up for the members' selection meeting, then the selection proceeds from the remaining candidates. Obviously they wouldn't have chosen two weaker candidates to go up against a strong, favoured candidate - that would never happen, would it?
If they were not deemed good enough, they shouldn't have been on the shortlist.
By-election selections from an original shortlist of 2 have happened before, in the Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election, for example. So giving the Glasgow East members 2 members to choose from cannot be argued as being too limited a choice for members, unless the rules have changed.
What has happened has let the cat out of the bag as to the real processes and procedures at work.
That we now have the process where 'others' are allowed to enter the fray following a shortlisting and advertised members' selection meeting is laughable."
Another question I have (and I`d be grateful if someone knows the answer) is would Curran be able to stand for the post since she is already an elected MSP under Labour party rules. Cast you mind back to January 2006 and the Dunfermline West by-election. In that contest Labour's candidate was Catherine Stihler MEP. Labour's NEC waived a rule which would have prevented her from standing as their candidate without first resigning her seat in the European Parliament.
Has this rule also been waived for Curran? And surely if it has Labour should go on the record and say so.
As 'topcat' observes on LabourHome "The By-election and late NEC selections processes are seen and now proven by the Glasgow East nonsense to be completely lacking in integrity and, worse, are part of the processes whereby a small coterie of people at the top of our party arrange the admission of their mates and annointees to that number; it then becomes a self-fulfilling process. It's A Very Labour Coup."It goes without saying that both Labour and the Lib Dems think Osborne's idea is rubbish (until they steal it). However, the AA think this policy is long overdue and I'm sure that the vast majority of the public will agree with them.
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