MoreMediaNonsense

2012-02-08T09:59:00.002Z

Why don't we deport Abu Qatada to Belgium ?

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

The Abu Qatada case rumbles on interminably. One of the odd aspects I've read is the fact that he is apparently wanted on a warrant from other countries such as the US, Germany and Belgium. Now, it seems the problem with deporting him to Jordan is that he may be up against a trial with witnesses against him that MAY have been tortured.

But if there is a warrant against him from Belgium why don't we just send him there ? I presume the ECHR doesn't think they torture witnesses. I've looked on the web for the possible reasons for this but apart from conspiracy theorists types saying that a trial there as opposed to one in the UK would bring out stuff that our security services might not like, can't find anything to solve the mystery.

I am not a lawyer, so this is mystifying me quite a lot, is there any one out there with more knowledge who can shed light on this issue ?

2011-12-12T16:21:00.004Z

Was the Milly Dowler voicemail deletion story dodgy ?

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

Oops - looks like the Guardian might have got rather an important story a bit wrong, see here from the Leveson enquiry today :

3.17pm: Garnham says it does not know how the Guardian came to report in July that "Met officers have approached Surrey police and taken formal statements from some of those involved in the original inquiry, who were concerned about how News of the World journalists intercepted – and deleted – the voicemail messages of Milly Dowler".

3.06pm: Neil Garnham QC, for the Metropolitan police, is now reading a statement about the latest evidence concerning the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone.

So the police have basically denied most of the story that started this whole media frenzy.

Meanwhile Nick Davies has got in his mea culpa (sort of) here. But the Telegraph has a different view on that :

But it emerged at the weekend that Surrey Police now believe that Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective used by the tabloid, could not have deleted the messages as he was only commissioned later.
The new disclosure was reported in The Guardian on Saturday and online late on Friday evening.

But the headline and opening paragraph made no mention of the climb-down.
It reported instead that “fresh details” had emerged and confirmed that the voicemail was hacked.

The fact that the deletion which gave the family false hope – and ultimately caused a national scandal – might not have been the fault of the News of the World did not appear until the third paragraph.

Critics accused The Guardian of burying the story.

Oh dear. I bet Nick Davies won't be getting many Christmas cards from NI folk this year.

2011-11-28T10:51:00.004Z

More Wikileaks "collateral damage"

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

There was a shocking story on BBC Radio 4 this morning about Wikileaks and the last remaining Jews of Baghdad (you can listen to it here).

Some more background here :

BAGHDAD — An Anglican priest here says he's working with the U.S. Embassy to persuade the handful of Jews who still live in Baghdad to leave because their names have appeared in cables published last month by WikiLeaks.

The Rev. Canon Andrew White said he first approached members of the Jewish community about what he felt was the danger they faced after a news story was published last month that made reference to the cables.

What has Wikileaks to say about it all ? Well according to this :

One of the 215,287 unredacted cables published by WikiLeaks (The site says it only published the cables after an encryption code for the complete archive was leaked by a journalist from the Guardian) provides biographical sketches of the 9 remaining Jews in Baghdad. In total, only 35 Jews remain of a community that dates back to 721 B.C.

Yes its all the fault of the Guardian ! That would be the same Guardian that was allegedly part of a "Jewish conspiracy" to discredit Wikileaks.

What a royal mess Wikileaks has turned out to be.

2011-11-08T10:24:00.005Z

They sure do things different in France

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

Where threats to free speech are concerned anyway. Look at how the French Left has reacted to the firebombing of the Charlie Hebdo offices. From France24 :

A demonstration in Paris on Sunday attracted hundreds of supporters, including some famous French faces, “in defence of the right to blaspheme”. Organised by the anti-xenophobia organisation SOS Racisme, the impromptu movement aims to fight “religious fundamentalism” and preserve democracy and secularism.

Sounds like good old fashioned standing up for secular values to me, the UK Left used to do that once as well.

Also here's how a French Left Wing paper reacts :

While the police continue their investigation into the fire, which they have classified as a terrorist attack, the magazine itself has been housed by newspaper Libération, which is one of a number of publications that reprinted the Mohammed cartoon in support of Charlie Hebdo.

But the left-wing daily faces the same fate as its adopted magazine. “If Libération continues publishing those cartoons, then we’ll have to deal with them as well” said Ekber.

Do you think the Guardian would do such a thing ? Answers on a postcard please.

2011-10-05T16:30:00.003+01:00

China's baleful influence on world politics redux

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

The Chinese state continues to demonstrate its baleful and unpleasant influence on world affairs.

In a move that will surprise no one the Chinese vetoed a UN resolution on sanctions on the Syrian regime.

China's UN ambassador Li Baodong said Beijing opposed the idea of "interference in [Syria's] internal affairs" and that sanctions or threats of sanctions "may further complicate the situation".

No doubt the STWC would approve. After all the US was in favour of it so it must be "imperialism".

And bowing to threats from Beijing the South African government denied a visa to the Dalai Lama, leading Desmond Tutu to fury :

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, visibly shaking with anger, compared the South African government unfavourably with the apartheid regime and threatened to pray for the downfall of the African National Congress (ANC) yesterday after the Dalai Lama said he was forced to pull out of Tutu's 80th birthday celebrations because he had not been granted an entry visa.

"Our government is worse than the apartheid government because at least you would expect it with the apartheid government," Tutu told a press conference in Cape Town. "Our government we expect to be sensitive to the sentiments of our constitution."

In a tirade that stunned South African journalists, he went on: "Let the ANC know they have a large majority. Well, Mubarak had a large majority, Gaddafi had a large majority. I am warning you: watch out. Watch out.

"Our government – representing me! – says it will not support Tibetans being viciously oppressed by China. You, president Zuma and your government, do not represent me. I am warning you, as I warned the [pro-apartheid] nationalists, one day we will pray for the defeat of the ANC government."

Meanwhile the regime continues its repressive habits at home as well, see here :

Chinese rights activist Hu Jia has criticised a proposed new law that would allow the secret detention of dissidents, comparing it to methods used by the former Soviet Union's KGB secret police.
Hu, one of China's leading government critics, was released from prison in June after completing a more than three-year sentence for subversion.

In a letter to a parliamentary committee considering the legal change, Hu said holding suspects in a secret location was a "painful torment" for the parents, wife and children of the person detained.

"This violates the minimum humanity of the suspect who is not yet convicted by the law and the innocent family members of his or hers," Hu said in the letter to the legislative working committee of the National People's Congress.

"Such KGB secret police-style Red Terror methods have been used not only on me but also a lot of people such as rights lawyers, dissidents, artists, petitioners and family members of political criminals."

Hu confirmed to AFP Thursday that he had sent the submission and also posted a copy on his new blog, forcivilrights.blogspot.com.

What a brave man.

2011-09-18T16:04:00.002+01:00

Amazing details on the lesser known Hackgate scandal

The Indy article here has some amazing details on the Steve Whittamore scandal that happened in 2003 (and no one seemed to care that much about at the time, certainly there wasn't a public inquiry or any arrests).

A former police officer has revealed how the authorities have known for more than eight years the vast scale on which media organisations employed private detectives to obtain the personal information of thousands of individuals, including the families and friends of murder victims .

The Independent has conducted a detailed examination of the files seized as part of Operation Motorman in 2003, and has been told by the lead investigator on that inquiry that his team was forbidden from interviewing journalists who were paying for criminal records checks, vehicle registration searches, and other illegal practices

The former officer says eg :

When we enlightened them with what we'd found I was subsequently told, within a few days, that we [the investigations unit] weren't allowed to talk to journalists and that he [the Information Commissioner] would deal with the press. It was fear, they were frightened

We told them what our plan of action was. We intended to put together 30 or 40 prosecution packages and then go for conspiracy, which would involve the blaggers, the private detectives, the corrupt sellers of the information, right up to the journalists.

When I mentioned the press, I still remember the words which one of them said: "We can't take them on, they're too big for us."

And what about this ?

I was not present at the Whittamore court case but I was told that the first thing the judge said was a comment about not seeing any journalists in the dock

This case involved journalists from nearly all the major press organisations.

But not Milly Dowler - is that the big difference ??

Unbelievable.

2011-07-13T13:56:00.003+01:00

The Hackgate firestorm - now becoming more and more political

Much as I as with so many others am enjoying Murdoch and co getting a good kicking, there are some aspects of thiis media firestorm that are becoming more and more typical of the OTT witchhunts our media specialise in these days.

Anyone listening to the police at the commitee yesterday will be struck by bow there is a reasonable explanation for why the police at the time did not take up 1000's of cases of phone hacking when they were also dealing with various terrorist plots, in that 1) there was some legal confusion about what exactly constiuted an offence and 2) well they had better things to do - rather obviously.

The latest media storm has mainly come about because of the Milly Dowler case, with all the attached importance that gives the scandal in terms of making it a big deal to the general tabloid reading public. Whether the outrage attached to that needs such an enormous response from the govt and opposition (both Cameron and Milliband have been photoed in meetings with the Dowlers) might be a moot point.

Also, with Gordon Browns' intervention yesterday the firestorm is becoming more and more party political. The Sun has said it did not illegally access Brown's medical records and it appears the Guardian eg ran the story about his son having cystic fibrosis at the same time the Sun did.

In relatiation for the all out attacks on NI, right wing blogs such as Guido Fawkes are now trying to eg get Piers Morgan involved in a hacking row, at this rate every journalist that ever used dodgy methods (I wonder how many that would be) will be in the dock at clogging up the courts for many years.

Or perhaps like all media firestorms which need to be constantly stoked with this one everyone will just get bored eventually - or realise that this is becoming an all enguilfing witch hunt that might end up catching everyone out.

2011-04-26T17:04:00.000+01:00

Why the UN can be no true champion of Human Rights

Yes I know its obvious but here we go again.

The UN report on the end of the Sri Lankan civil war details truly appalling human rights violations :

The panel, which did not have an investigatory mandate, blamed the victorious Sri Lankan forces for killing tens of thousands of civilians, and said there is "credible evidence" that war crimes were committed by both sides.

However what will now happen, can you guess ?

Because Sri Lanka is not a member of the International Criminal Court, the U.N. Security Council would have to vote to ask the Hague-based court to probe war crimes, since the government will not permit an investigation.

Russia and China, which both have veto power on the council, and India are opposed to formal Security Council involvement in Sri Lanka, diplomats told Reuters. Practically, that means there is little chance of an international investigation.

Oh well, move on, nothing to see here. Yet again a country gets away with horrendous crimes because of the obvious nonsense of Russia and China having vetos in the UN Security Council on this kind of issue.

Where is the international campaign to reform the UN on this issue ? It seems a pretty big HR deal to me, don't you agree ?

2011-04-07T19:27:00.002+01:00

Brainless Idiot Lefties in another futile gesture "happening"

An interesting piece here by the Director of the Policy Exchange Neil O'Brien who apparently has been a victim of a childish jape from some UkUncut type group.

UkUncut and the other Direct Action types of the Idiot Left are becoming a liabiliity to serious debate on the deficit and what sensible policies Labour should be following, Many of the issues that UkUncut is hassling companies for are dubious (see here eg) and anyway if there are real issues with tax evasion it's the government that should be being targetted re enforcement (why aren't they occupying the HMRC ?).

Alternatively they should be trying to get Labour to come up with vote winning policies on the issue (that they don't bother shows the issues are more complex than their agitprop stupidity can admit).

Basically these groups are just an excuse for some anti-capitalist "stick it to the man" nonsense and Labour should distant itself pronto before it all backfires badly.

2011-03-06T13:25:00.002Z

Gotcha - renegade Daily Star hack skewers Desmond and the tabloid world

I don't know if it should surprise anyone really but a Daily Star journalist called Richard Peppiatt has resigned from the Daily Star and sent a resignation letter where he makes various interesting remarks about British journalistic standards :

Daily Star favourite Kelly Brook recently said in an interview: "I do Google myself. Not that often, though, and the stories are always rubbish. "There was a story that I'd seen a hypnotherapist to help me cut down on the time I take to get ready to go out. Where do they get it from?"

Maybe I should answer that one. I made it up. Not that it was my choice; I was told to. At 6pm and staring at a blank page I simply plucked it from my arse. Not that it was all bad. I pocketed a £150 bonus. You may have read some of my other earth-shattering exclusives.

'Michael Jackson to attend Jade Goody's funeral'. (He didn't.) 'Robbie pops 'pill at heroes concert'. (He didn't either.) 'Matt Lucas on suicide watch'. (He wasn't.) 'Jordan turns to Buddha.' (She might have, but I doubt it.)

Great. Well I suppose if you read a paper like the Star you get what you pay for but isn't even it supposed to be under the scrutiny of the PCC ? It seems if no-one complains then our papers can print whatever they like.

Peppiatt is also ashamed of this part of his role at the Star :

I nearly walked out last summer when the Daily Star got all flushed about taxpayer-funded Muslim-only loos.

A newsworthy tale were said toilets Muslim-only. Or taxpayer-funded. Undeterred by the nuisance of truth, we omitted a few facts, plucked a couple of quotes, and suddenly anyone would think a Rochdale shopping centre had hired Osama Bin Laden to stand by the taps, handing out paper towels.
I was personally tasked with writing a gloating follow-up declaring our postmodern victory in "blocking" the non-existent Islamic cisterns of evil.

But there's two sides to this story and guess who else is involved :

Not that my involvement in stirring up a bit of light-hearted Islamaphobia stopped there. Many a morning I've hit my speed dial button to Muslim rent-a-rant Anjem Choudary to see if he fancied pulling together a few lines about whipping drunks or stoning homosexuals.

Anjem Choudhary eh ? Who would have thought it. Surely a devout Muslim like Mr Choudhary wouldn't want to be involved with a saucy rag like the Daily Star ?

2011-02-21T22:50:00.002Z

Just make people angry, forget about the facts

There's a fascinating thread here on Liberal Conspiracy where various well informed commenters take a part a lot of the current overwrought stuff about corporate tax evasion specifiically the hoohah the Guardian stroked up about Barclays last week. Suffice to say the situation re Barclays is nothing like as clearcut as the Guardian and the UKUncut lot made out. Also some of the accounting paractices the Guardian vilified have been used by GMG as well - oh what a surprise.

All very interesting, also it shows how useful blogs can be when informed people get involved.

PS - on Pickled Politics here Rumbold also notes that the Barclays claims have been debunked.

2011-02-06T22:11:00.000Z

Norm nails it again

An excellent piece here by Norman Geras about the seriously screwed up state of much of the Left in the West :

At the risk of startling you, or some of you, but not just for that effect – rather in order to register my own conviction that here is a way of being a Marxist that no longer recommends itself – I am sorry to say that to be a member of the Marxist left today is to be part of something, a body of opinion, a political current, that is accursed. Steady on, you may think, that's a bit strong, isn't it? Accursed? Why that? And why now? In view of the history of the Soviet Union, or of the international communist movement that supported and excused it, or of China under Mao (to mention only those sorry examples of Marxism gone wrong), how has the Marxist left become accursed only today and not long before that?

I will not shirk the question, which is fair. This is my answer to it. It is partly personal, but also partly general. Like everybody else, I was – I am – of my generation. I was inducted into Marxism already knowing about Stalinism and all its horrors; but knowing also that that experience didn't exhaust the totality of Marxist thought or, as I thought and hoped, of Marxist possibility. Stalinism had been one grossly distorted realization of Marxism's anti-capitalist project, embarked upon under maximally unpropitious historical conditions, but other better realizations were still possible, and under the watchword this time of socialist democracy. Furthermore, what I knew in this regard, or at any rate hoped, I knew and hoped in the company of large numbers of others on the Western left, people not at all indulgent towards the crimes of Stalin. We were a part – for those who remember the 1960s and 1970s – of a new left, a left that had learned the lessons of the historic tragedy that the Stalinist experience had been. So, although there was even then a section of the Marxist left that one could aptly regard as compromised by an ugly past or indeed present, apologists for the crimes of Stalin and/or Mao, this was not the Marxist left as a whole, as we knew it.

Today, in the light of what has happened in the first decade of 21st century, it is not so easy, if you believe in human rights and the importance of the fundamental civic and political freedoms that we owe to historical liberalism, to find a Marxist left that is worth belonging to or being broadly identified with. In both its organized and its looser, more amorphous forms the Marxist left is a place of the most disgraceful apologetics and ambiguous or worse than ambiguous alignments. What makes this a matter for especial regret and criticism today, by those of us who still think of ourselves as Marxists in either or both of my first two senses but feel no identification with, and eschew membership of, the Marxist left as such, is that this is a Marxist left that can make no further appeal to historical 'innocence'. It already knows the consequences of undemocratic organization, the absence of liberal safeguards, the elevation of the great leader; and of turning a blind eye to all this so as, supposedly, not to give comfort to enemies on the political right. It should know better, but it doesn't.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about a Marxist left from within which after 9/11 there came voices ready to make excuses for an act of mass murder that the whole left should have forthrightly condemned. And which, more generally, is always free with forms of 'understanding' of terrorism – by another name, murder of the innocent – in a shallow root-causes sociology of grievance, alienation, poverty or what have you. And from within which there have been people willing to march side by side with radical Islamists – that is, anti-democratic and reactionary theocrats – and to shout 'We are all Hezbollah' (also not an organization renowned for its commitment to Enlightenment or, for that matter, Marxian universalist values, to say nothing of liberal and democratic ones). And within which there are still those who will sing the praises of Cuba as a post-capitalist society, its harsh way with political dissent notwithstanding. And those who will turn out in Camden to give a warm welcome to Hugo Chavez, just the latest in a line of adored leaders whose merit seems to be that they are from somewhere else. And who will speak up even for the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or the Chinese leadership where there is a matter of some criticism directed at them by Western politicians who enjoy the moral advantage of being leaders of countries with free electorates and free elections.

-------

I anticipate, as one possible response to all this, that these ideas and activities may be features of a small fragment, the 'far left', but that it is too quickly generalizing on my part to treat them as any more widespread than that, or as typifying the Marxist left in general. I am familiar with this response and I don't accept it. To put it briefly and bluntly, I read. I read what goes on in the opinion pages of the national press, and so far from these tropes being confined to the far left, the SWP and its like, they extend even beyond what I have referred to as the more amorphous Marxist left, into broadly 'progressive' circles that would not willingly own to the name Marxist. This is, if you want, an ironic and distorted coming to fruition of the notion of Gramscian hegemony. Even with Marxism as a body of thought in overt political decline, some of the most lamentable apologetic tropes and moral compromises of Marxism's least glorious realization have taken hold more widely amongst the left-liberal intelligentsia.

I do not say, just to be clear about this, that there are no distinctions within the body of opinion that I have here evoked, no gradations. Distinctions and gradations there certainly are. There are the 'hard' crowd: the out-and-out 'we-are-all-Hezbollah'-niks; unashamed apologists for terrorism, dressed up this in the obscuring language of 'the right to resistance' and of 'revolutionary violence', as if either formula could justify murdering the innocent; the apologists for Cuba, or China, or Iran. But there is a softer version too, offered by the practitioners of the mumble and evasion where authoritarian movements or regimes are up for assessment and possible condemnation; democrats to a man and a woman, and as insistent as anyone on the importance of basic rights when some misdemeanor of a Western government is under scrutiny, but much more 'nuanced' when patently undemocratic polities or organizations are the object of critical attention.

A despicable state indeed and there will only be a Left wortth belonging to once these gross distortions are finally removed from intellectual and political discourse.

What is the reason for the distortions of thought described above, well there are many but in my view sadly much of it is just a decadent form of dislike of one's own society, something as childish as cheering any team against your sworn pet hate. Such visceral and tribal dislikes have more place in politics than most of us like to admit.

Of course defending or being "nuanced" about China, Cuba or Chavez for such reasons or for "anti-imperialist" rabble rousing is vile in itself but what is unforgivable is that such people give succour to tyrannies. Still who cares about that when there's Gitmo to worry about and a big anti-war rally coming up for your sect to sell papers at.

2011-01-07T23:19:00.003Z

Plus ca change ?

This post has been croos-posted at Harry's Place

I'm a great fan of the Victorian novelist George Gissing ("the English Zola") and one of George Orwell's favourites. Many of his books are out of print but thanks to Project Gutenberg all can now read his collected works on-line.

Reading "The Crown of Life" (a lesser known work from 1899) just now, I came across this striking passage about the City of London which might be worth quoting in this time of banker and bonus bashing :

He did not love her less; she was the same power in his life. This sinking of the heart, this menace of gloom and rebellion, was treachery to his better self. He fought manfully against it.

Circumstances were unfavourable to such a struggle. Work, absorption in the day's duty, well and good; but when work and duty led one into the City of London! At first, he had found excitement in the starting of his business; so much had to be done, so many points to be debated and decided, so many people to be seen and conversed with, contended with; it was all an exhilarating effort of mind and body. He felt the joy of combat; sped to the City like any other man, intent on holding his own amid the furious welter, seeing a delight in the computation of his chances; at once a fighter and a gambler, like those with whom he rubbed shoulders in the roaring ways. He overtaxed his energy, and in any case there must have come reaction. It came with violence soon after that day at Malvern.

The weather was hot; one should have been far away from these huge rampart-streets, these stifling burrows of commerce. But here toil and stress went on as usual, and Piers Otway saw it all in a lurid light. These towering edifices with inscriptions numberless, announcing every imaginable form of trade with every corner of the world; here a vast building, consecrate in all its commercial magnificence, great windows and haughty doorways, the gleam of gilding and of brass, the lustre of polished woods, to a single company or firm; here a huge structure which housed on its many floors a crowd of enterprises, names by the score signalled at the foot of the gaping staircase; arrogant suggestions of triumph side by side with desperate beginnings; titles of world-wide significance meeting the eye at every turn, vulgar names with more weight than those of princes, words in small lettering which ruled the fate of millions of men;—no nightmare was ever so crushing to one in Otway's mood. The brute force of money; the negation of the individual—these, the evils of our time, found there supreme expression in the City of London. Here was opulence at home and superb; here must poverty lurk and shrink, feeling itself alive only on sufferance; the din of highway and byway was a voice of blustering conquest, bidding the weaker to stand aside or be crushed. Here no man was a human being, but each merely a portion of an inconceivably complicated mechanism. The shiny-hatted figure who rushed or sauntered, gloomed by himself at corners or made one of a talking group, might elsewhere be found a reasonable and kindly person, with traits, peculiarities; here one could see in him nothing but a money-maker of this or that class, ground to a certain pattern. The smooth working of the huge machine made it only the more sinister; one had but to remember what cold tyranny, what elaborate fraud, were served by its manifold ingenuities, only to think of the cries of anguish stifled by its monotonous roar.

Looks like the evils of the City of London, like the poor, have always been with us.

2010-12-09T22:57:00.004Z

Tea Party "Christian Conservatives" lose the plot in Texas

See Fox News here :

The race to lead the Texas House of Representatives has taken a religious turn, with some conservatives in the state suggesting that the speaker of the House, who is a Jewish should be replaced by a "Christian conservative."

Some Tea Partiers try to explain :

Felicia Cravens, founder of the Houston Tea Party Society, said "intellectual laziness" may be to blame for the controversy.

"I think people have been intellectually lazy in using 'Christian' and 'conservative' interchangeably ... and there's a lot of that in Texas," she said.

A depressing story, but in some ways I suppose its quite reassuring that Fox put this on the front page in a basically critical take.

2010-12-04T14:46:00.003Z

Moazzam Begg - man of mystery ?

Just when you thought the Wikileaks revelations couldn't get any more interesting we get this re the controversial Cage Prisoner Moazzam Begg :

The US has made a startling U-turn over the former British Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg, heaping praise on a man it accused only a few years ago of being a terrorist.

An American ambassador in Europe applauded in a leaked cable Begg's campaign to persuade European countries to take in remaining Guantánamo detainees

Cynthia Stroum, ambassador to Luxembourg, acknowledges the irony of lavishing praise on Begg, who was alleged by the US to have been an instructor at an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan. In a cable labelled "To Hell and Back: Gitmo ex-detainee stumps in Luxembourg", Stroum wrote that Begg was "barnstorming" through Europe. In January this year, he met the Luxembourg government and spoke at a public meeting.

"Mr Begg is doing our work for us and his articulate, reasoned presentation makes for a convincing argument. It is ironic that after four years of imprisonment and alleged torture Moazzam Begg is delivering the same demarche to GOL [the government of Luxembourg] as we are: please consider accepting GTMO detainees for resettlement."

"doing our work for us" ? What is going on ? These revelations get more and more worrying. Who is and who is not an agent of the Zionist-CIA cabal ?

Dangerous times indeed comrades.

2010-11-06T09:35:00.006Z

Paul Mason on the picket line

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

The BBC journalists strike (which has had very little effect on anyone apart from Today and Newsnight addicts) is about how one BBC union (the NUJ) is still holding out against pension reform that all the other unions have accepted.

Who is the right person to stand up for the striking workers ? Step forward Paul Mason, Newsnight economics editor and SWP poster boy. See here :

Paul Mason, Newsnight's economics editor and union FoC for the show, criticised the BBC for "systematically disparaging their own work force". Mason suggested another solution to the pension dispute would be for the BBC to sell assets, securitise them, or spend less on programmes.

"We're sorry to the British public, who have to rely on Rupert Murdoch and Richard Desmond [for their news today]," he said.

That's right - to save the pension pots of its employees the BBC should spend less on programmes. A typical loony far Left view of public spending.

Not all the workers unions agree with militant FoC Mason :

He [Mark Thompson] pointed out that only the NUJ, out of five BBC unions, had rejected the revised pension offer and said its members only made up a "very small percentage" – 17% – of the corporation's total workforce.

Mason is a far Leftist with connections to extremist idiot Left sects like the SWP and Workers Power - but no one seems particularly bothered.

Now if the BBC had a BNP supporter as its "Diversity and Communities" editor (eg) questions might well be raised (probably by the NUJ). But it seems far-Left supporters are just "cuddly Trots" as far as most of the media is concerned.

How and why is that still the case ?

2010-09-26T13:30:00.002+01:00

"One man twelve votes" - Labour needs to sort this out.

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

Ed Milliband has won the Labour leadership with a majority of the union/affiliate votes but no majority amongst party members and MP's. Personally I think he's likely to be a disaster and one of the reasons will be the perception he's the unions' man and won in a skewed and bizarre process

The oddest aspect of Labour's current leadership process is the way some people get multiple votes for being members of affiliates (not just via being in a union but also via membership of the Fabians and other groups).

As was pointed out this morning on the Andrew Marr show this system is absurd. From the Guardian blog :

On the Andrew Marr show, my colleague Polly Toynbee has just said that she knows one Labour MP who had 12 votes in the leadership contest because he belonged to so many organisations affiliated to Labour. She said it might be time to rethink the "dotty" system.

The issue is not of affiliate representation per se but why should some people get multiple votes. Give them one vote yes but not more.

I don't know if its possible to work out how this nonsense might have affected the election of Ed but if comes out that multiple voters skewed this result in Ed's favour that is a really big problem.

Even without that something needs to be done about this.

2010-09-09T19:22:00.004+01:00

Claudy bombings - when will there be justice for the victims ?

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

NI Deputy First Minister and self confessed Derry PIRA second in command in January 1972 is likely to be facing more questions about what he knows about the Claudy bombings (July 1972, also in County Derry) after his confession he "forgot" having met suspect "very bad man" priest James Chesney. He was obviously having a bad day then when he told the BBC in 2002 he had never met Chesney.

Why McGuinness has now fessed up to his lapse of memory is a bit of a mystery in itself, there are suggestions it was to pre-empt press investigation. What is certain is that McGuinness has questions to answer about the PIRA role in this atrocity especially now that he has admitted meeting Chesney :

Ulster Unionist councillor Mary Hamilton, who was injured in the Claudy bombings, said she did want to meet the deputy first minister because she had questions to put to him.

She said that if he had forgotten his meeting with Father Chesney it was possible he had also forgotten "other things".

"If we were all sitting around a table talking to him maybe we would be able to jog his memory...because I really can't believe that was eight miles down the road and didn't know what was happening in Claudy."

Ms Hamilton added that he "owed it" to the victims' families to sit with them and answer their questions.

Compare and contrast the level of investigation into this case and that of the long running Bloody Sunday inquiry. Whan are the Claudy victims (most of whom were also Catholic) to get a proper investigation ? Its time for McGuinness and any SF'ers who were active at that time in the area to open up fully on all they know on this one.

2010-07-30T22:11:00.006+01:00

"White Liberals" - perhaps - general f**king idiots more like

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

Talk about timing.

As if by magic I've spotted a prime example of the kind of “Left” madness currently a big topic on HP.

On that well known home of "Idiot Left" buffoons “Stalinist Lunacy” we have this :

The story is Salma Yaqoob condemns the Iranians over stonings (hurrah !). Well that's actually welcome but its not so simple comrades, as one thinker says :

“Salma achieved over 3,000 Council votes and over 10,000 Parliamentary Votes this year – it is possible to criticise another countries laws or religious practices and not be a racist after all , isn’t it?”

Hey guys – some right on Muslim woman is anti-Mullahs. Perhaps we can criticise Iran now ?

And then there's this :

It might pay dividends if Salma wrote an open letter to the regime on the issue calling for clemency and for the release of Sakineh. The people will trust an unequivocal anti-imperialist.

Enjoy.

2010-06-24T19:02:00.005+01:00

Mehdi Hasan takes on Liberal Conspiracy

Specifically Conor Foley that is, here.

Hasan blunders into the discussion halfway through (comment 44) and needlessly disses Conor and his generally correct views on the Afghan war.

Subsequently even Sunny Hundal hits back.at his previous favourite (well anyone's Sunny's mate when he's having a go at HP).

Talk about making a fool of yourself.

2010-06-09T18:38:00.004+01:00

Moral Multiculturalism in action

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

In Bolivia the lower house has just voted to allow "indigenous communities" (ie the majority Amerindians) to adminster their own justice

The Bolivian lower house of Congress has approved a law giving indigenous communities the right to administer their own justice systems.

The government says the measure, which now goes to the Senate, will allow indigenous groups to settle disputes according to their own cultural values.

But opposition parties have warned that it could lead to mob rule.

Last month four policemen were lynched by an Andean clan in the name of indigenous justice.

Their bodies were handed over to relatives at the weekend.

"according to their own cultural values" - there you go, bye bye to those oppressive Western values, far too imperialistic. No doubt its all part of "Bolivarism" and "21st Century Socialism" so the idiot Left will be jumping to a defence.

Nearer to home no doubt such multcultural valueism on law and order would also be welcome by some in the Falls and the Shankill, in fact some of them were trying a bit of it last week. I didn't hear many misguided Leftists supporting the UVF on that one, though of course if it was Hamas or Hezbollah it might well be "understandable".

What a lovely place the intellectual failures of the last 50 years have brought us to..

2010-06-02T22:37:00.002+01:00

Why does the UK Press censor what we can know ?

Looks like you have to go to Canada to find out what happened in Cumbria today ?

See here :

"A bitter family row over a will may have been the catalyst for one of the worst mass killings in British history on Wednesday.

Derrick Bird, 52, is thought to have gunned down his twin brother, David, and a local solicitor at the start of a five-hour massacre across rural Cumbria that left 12 people dead and another 25 in hospital.

Bird, a taxi driver, who had armed himself with two weapons, also targeted colleagues with whom he had a row the previous night.

He had warned them: "There's going to be a rampage tomorrow," before returning to the cab rank in Whitehaven the following day where he shot three taxi drivers, two of them fatally.

Over the following three hours, he fired on dozens of people in 30 locations before he shot himself in woodland in the Lake District National Park.

Police were last night trying to establish what turned the quiet father of two into a mass murderer.
One of the central lines of inquiry surrounded the theory that a row had developed over the will of Bird's mother, Mary, who is ill with cancer.

The solicitor - Kevin Commons - may have been advising the family.
It was also reported that Bird had initially armed himself with two guns on Tuesday night, but was disarmed by a friend.

Bird is then believed to have sought medical help at a local hospital for his fragile mental state, only to be turned away.

Detectives are trying to establish whether Bird had a licence for his shotgun and rifle, both of which he is believed to have inherited from his father.

The massacre is thought to have started Wednesday morning when Mr Commons and Bird's twin brother, David, were reportedly shot dead near Bird's home in Rowrah.

Bird then headed for Whitehaven, where he killed the two fellow taxi drivers before speeding across the county, taking other victims including a young farmer who was shot at close range, an elderly woman out shopping, a cyclist and a retired man making his regular trip to the betting shop.=

In the village of Seascale, he beckoned people to his car before shooting them."

WTF ???? Why don't we know this ?

2010-05-19T23:28:00.000+01:00

Complete and utter "Balls up"

Eddie Mair did him up like the proverbial, I've never heard a politician make such a fool of himself.

Listen here starting at 50:54

2010-05-16T16:52:00.001+01:00

Chomsky and co rue Obama's drone "war crimes"

According to this from the AFP :

NEW YORK (AFP) – US actors and liberal intellectuals joined a list to be published Friday of nearly 2,000 people accusing President Barack Obama of allowing human rights violations and war crimes.
"Crimes are crimes, no matter who does them," the statement reads over pictures of Obama and his predecessor George W. Bush due to appear in the New York Review of Books.

The statement, published as a paid advertisement, accuses Obama, who was elected in 2008 with the enthusiastic support of US liberals, of continuing Bush's controversial approach to human rights in Iraq and Afghanistan, and in domestic security.

It takes aim especially at Obama's decision -- reported by US officials -- to authorize the killing of a radical Islamic cleric and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who is accused of ties to Al-Qaeda in Yemen.

"In some respects this is worse than Bush," the statement says. "First, because Obama has claimed the right to assassinate American citizens whom he suspects of 'terrorism,' merely on the grounds of his own suspicion or that of the CIA, something Bush never claimed publicly."

Look at the famous names on board :

Among the signatories are linguist Noam Chomsky, "L.A. Confidential" actor James Cromwell, actor Mark Ruffalo and prominent Bush-era anti-war protestor Cindy Sheehan. By midday Thursday there were 1,804 signatures.

Well at least this lot can't be called hypocrites. I wonder if the Guardian and BBC will be on to this like the doughty fighters against the over mighty US war machine they are ?

2010-04-26T21:50:00.003+01:00

Latest on Gita Sahgal and AI in the Observer

An interesting article here.

She has a good number of supporters it appears :

After seven years in Amnesty championing women's rights, Sahgal felt deeply compromised by the platform afforded to Begg. She says many UN specialists, lawyers, philosophers and influential figures in the global women's rights movement have jumped to her defence since her suspension.

Some have threatened to cut their association with Amnesty, the world's oldest human rights group. Others are said to have withdrawn donations to the charity in support of Sahgal, who left the organisation two weeks ago.

Among the groups that have stepped forward to support her are the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Women Human Rights Defenders Coalition, Women Living Under Muslim Law and Inform, a Sri Lankan human rights organisation. Amnesty, which has 2.2 million members, has faced few stickier periods since it was was founded in London in 1961 to support prisoners of conscience.

Whereas on the other side we have - AI management and some ranting halfwit bloggers and commentators whose main interest in the affair appears to be the support for Gita from Nick Cohen and the "Decents" (oh and she went to Murdoch so must she be lying and/or "hysterical".)

When will AI learn to pick the right friends ?

2010-04-20T18:09:00.001+01:00

Where will Clegg stand on Thursday ?

As in will he be in the middle or at the side ?

Cos that could be really important. Being in the middle means the other guys can have a "real go" at him. Very important that, could determine the election and the future political history of the UK.

I think I'm getting to think more and more like this commenter on Cif yesterday :

bugbeer 19 Apr 2010, 3:53PM

This is actually quite depressing... all it proves is that a large chunk of the electorate knew fuckall about the Lib Dems because they never bothered to learn anything about politics, and are now suddenly embracing him as 'that nice young man off the telly' while still knowing fuckall about his policies.
They should really consider proper voting reform - restrict it to the 10% of the population who actually know anything about the issues.

All a bit depressing really....

2010-04-08T16:19:00.002+01:00

Can ElBaradei bring change to Egypt ?

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

Cif has an article about recent events in Egypt where former UN nuclear inspector Mohammed ElBaradei is causing a bit of a storm as he attempts to take on the crippling autocracy of Mubarak and the moribund Egyptian regime.

Perhaps encouraged by ElBaradei's recent publicity there was a demo outside the upper parliament in Cairo this week the violent result of which is well described here.

One of the issues of course regarding Egypt is the worry that the end of the generally US/Western supporting autocracy would let in the vile Muslim Brotherhood, also that a more popular government might be also be more radically anti-Israel. Well that might be but normally elected democratic governments do not got to war with each other and it appears the Muslim Brotherhood is losing ground in Egypt (see an interesting article here)

A pro democracy push led by a relative moderate like ElBaradei is to be welcomed and is worth keeping an eye on.

2010-04-07T10:46:00.001+01:00

Top article re where we are on AGW

Here in der Spiegel. An excellent survey of the main issues and where we are now.

2010-03-31T15:18:00.001+01:00

Simon Jenkins mans the barricades

Simon Jenkins, the ex Standard and Times man now at the Guardian mainly because of his hatred of Blair and the invasion of Iraq has a column up at Cif bemoaning the Chancellors debate and demanding "a real Labour voice to slam this City-fearing trio"

He says we would have been better off nationalising the banks, guaranteeing customer deposits but putting the rest into bankruptcy :

More plausible, a Labour party would argue that Darling should have properly nationalised the ailing banks, in a version of what he did to Northern Rock the year before. He could then have secured ordinary deposits, up to any limit, ringfenced business lending (as the Treasury did when it nationalised banks during the war), and put the casino divisions into bankruptcy administration, dumping their worst debts on the vulture fund market. He could then have rebuilt good and bad banks, and eventually resold them.

The impact would have been traumatic, and much of the money now being extorted from present and future taxpayers would have been lost to them in some other way. Insurance and pension funds would have taken a pounding as defaults cascaded through the financial system. But much of the burden would have fallen on those who had benefited from the bubble in the first place, and the racketeers would have been hung out to dry.

Note that last bit - it would have been bad but "the racketeers would have been hung out to dry.". I see - there would have been tens of thousands of job losses in the City (a major problem for the economy of the South East of course) but at least the vengeance of the people would have been served so that's all right.

Ths rabble rousing nonsense which sounds like a cross between Seamus Milne and some mad free marketeer is taken apart by many in the comments eg :

Given that Simon Jenkins has spent most of his journalistic career cheerleading for the destruction of Old Labour, it's difficult to know whether to laugh or cry. [PeterGuillam]

and

Simon, will you please go back to writing about the glories of English churches and leave finance alone? You just make yourself look silly.

Darling said in his Autumn statement that the cost to the public of the bank bailouts had been downgraded from £50bn to £10bn. Tjhe £170bn a year deficit we are running is nothing to do with bailing out banks. It is to do with a profligate government running an unaffordable public sector in the face of falling corporate (and personal) tax revenues occasioned by the downturn.

Bank profits are recovering faster than expected. The £10bn cost is probably now close to zero, and when "our" shares are sold back into the market it would take a government of extraordinary ineptitude not to show a healthy profit on the whole exercise.

And yes, I'd buy back some of those shares right now: the upside is irresistible. The downside is virtually non-existent. [stevehill]

Lloyds Bank share price is now at 62p with govt break even at c74p. The shares have gone up c30% since mid February after the company said it would be back in profit this year a few weeks ago.

Jenkins is a joke and another reason not to buy the Guardian - but it seems GMG doesn't mind - at least he was with us on Iraq eh chaps?

2010-03-25T17:46:00.001Z

Sold for a song

So the Indy and Sindy have been sold for a £1. It will be interesting to see what Lebedev does, some options are discussed by Roy Greenslade here

So what's in store for the Indy and Sindy? It would appear that Lebedev has several choices, though all of them involve a risk. He could cut the price by, say, 50%, and then continue with national circulation. My hunch is that Rupert Murdoch would not allow The Times to be undercut on price, so it might restart a costly price war.

He could, of course, imitate his Standard initiative and turn it into a free. Murdoch would be unlikely to follow suit. But distributing a free title nationwide seven days a week would be enormously costly.

He could do as Associated's free morning, Metro, does and restrict distribution to major cities and conurbations. That would put him into a head-to-head battle with Associated, his landlords in Kensington and minority partners in the ownership of the Standard.

He could distribute the Indy free in the London area and make it a paid-for title in areas outside, say, the M25 ring.

He could turn the Indy into a London-only free, offering a quality paper in the morning to match his quality paper in the evening.

He could close the Sindy, of course, though I rather imagine he would want to avoid making such an unpopular decision.

As to the editorship, Greg Dyke has been mentioned as has Jeremy Paxman. Rod Liddle who would have been something new and different at least has apparently been spiked by the po-faced Facebook campaign against him organised by the likes of Liberal Conspiracy and Diane Abbott..

Whatever happens I hope the new owner and editor move the Indy away from its "Daily Mail for those who recycle" doom-mongering and right-on platitudinising. The current paper readership is so tiny (90,000 full price readers according to Greenslade) that I reckon they could and should be mainly ignored if a major change of direction is decided on.

Interesting times !

2010-03-19T11:29:00.001Z

Brave Cuban women

See here :

Hundreds of Cuban government supporters have heckled members of the "Ladies in White" rights group marching in protest through the streets of Havana.

The women - wives and mothers of jailed dissidents - are staging a week of protests on the anniversary of Fidel Castro's 2003 Black Spring crackdown.

They are demanding the release of some 50 government critics still being held.

AI to their credit are on the case :

Amnesty International has urged Havana to ensure the safety of the women, saying some alleged they were beaten by police following Wednesday's arrests.

Cuba has lashed out at the criticism, saying the dissidents are common criminals who are paid by the US to destabilise the government.

What a piece of work the Castros are.

Meanwhile the UNITE union who are atm still wanting to go ahead with their futile strike at BA still maintain proud membership of the government supporting Cuba Solidarity Campaign. Look at the sickening excuses for the jailing of dissidents this bunch like to come up with :

This sentence is relatively minor compared to the sentences, ranging up to 28 years, that were handed down to the 75 opposition figures convicted in March 2003 of "having received funds or materials from the U.S. government to carry out activities that the authorities consider subversive and damaging to Cuba," as recognized by AI, which is a serious crime in Cuba and any country in the world. Here AI cannot escape an obvious contradiction: on the one hand these people qualify as "prisoners of conscience" and on the other it admits they committed the serious crime of accepting "money or materials from the U.S. government."

28 years eh ? No problem comrades - they were lucky not to be shot.

UNITE's support for the human rights abusing Castro monarchy in Cuba is a total utter disgrace. Why do so few on the Left seem to notice ?

2010-03-16T13:38:00.003Z

BBC "incorrect" on Iraq - again

In February there was an infamous interview on the BBC Andrew Marr show when Alastair Campbell got a bit upset. One of the main reasons was that Marr was exaggerating the Iraq casualty figures saying 600,000 died according to "internationally accepted UN figures".

The BBC's "mistake" on that is confirmed here in response to a complaint :

Dear ***

Thanks for your e-mail regarding 'The Andrew Marr Show' as broadcast on 7 February.

Firstly, I should apologise for the delay in getting back to you. We realise that our correspondents appreciate a quick response and I'm therefore sorry that you've had to wait on this occasion.

Your issues were raised with the Editor of 'The Andrew Marr Show', Barney Jones, who has advised that Andrew was incorrect when he attributed the estimate of 600,000 casualties to the UN. He was in fact referring to a widely quoted survey undertaken on behalf of Britain's most prestigious medical journal, 'The Lancet'. During the interview, Andrew said that "an awful lot of people died". And when Alastair Campbell questioned the exact number, he repeats that phrase, saying again that "an awful lot of people died". Andrew also says during the interview that we will never know how many would have died had the invasion not gone ahead. There are many different estimates of the number who died, and we will never know the precise figure.

Barney Jones is grateful for the feedback which helps the production team enormously when they are planning future editions of the programme.

I can assure you that your complaint has been registered on our audience log. This is a daily report of audience feedback that's circulated to many BBC staff, including members of the BBC Executive Board, channel controllers and other senior managers.

Thanks again for taking the time to contact us with your feedback.

Regards

***

How on earth did Marr make this mistake ? Was he let down by researchers ? Did he just make it up ? Given the total untruth of the allegation (the UN has never given official casualty figures for Iraq as far as I can see) this is a serious inaccuracy.

Its sadly typical of the BBC to come up with such stuff on Iraq, they really can't get over the Hutton inquiry it appears. Pathetic.

2010-03-13T06:09:00.000Z

On holiday atm - back blogging next week

2010-02-22T21:30:00.000Z

Sad situation in Malmo

From the Telegraph here :

Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes
Sweden's reputation as a tolerant, liberal nation is being threatened by a steep rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes in the city of Malmo.

...

In 2009, a chapel serving the city's 700-strong Jewish community was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated, worshippers were abused on their way home from prayer, and "Hitler" was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.

"I never thought I would see this hatred again in my lifetime, not in Sweden anyway," Mrs Popinski told The Sunday Telegraph.

"This new hatred comes from Muslim immigrants. The Jewish people are afraid now."

Malmo's Jews, however, do not just point the finger at bigoted Muslims and their fellow racists in the country's Neo-Nazi fringe. They also accuse Ilmar Reepalu, the Left-wing mayor who has been in power for 15 years, of failing to protect them

....

The mayor insisted to The Sunday Telegraph that he was opposed to anti-Semitism, but added: "I believe these are anti-Israel attacks, connected to the war in Gaza.

"We want Malmo to be cosmopolitan and safe for everybody and we have taken action. I have started a dialogue forum. There haven't been any attacks on Jewish people, and if Jews from the city want to move to Israel that is not a matter for Malmo."

How depressing. The mayor sounds like a total disgrace.

2010-02-19T14:49:00.000Z

"Lenin" (and the SWP ?) come out of the shadows

Richard "Lenin" Seymour of the SWP has been given a post on Liberal Conspiracy here. Quite surprisingly he is also answering questions from the mostly negative comments. There's some interesting stuff though as he appears to be very much rowing back from the mistakes of allying with the likes of the MAB. Is this a sign of a new openness of behalf of the SWP in a desire to get out of their ghetto or (more likely) a desparate last attempt to get sympathy from others on the Left before they completely implode ?

2010-02-16T10:10:00.002Z

The "anti-imperialsm of fools" - some Leftists get it

There's an interesting interview here on the AWL site with Marxist academic Moishe Postone from the University of Chicago. The main subject is the hole the "anti-imperialist" Left has gotten itself into with regard to anti-semitism and support for Islamists and other vile anti-Western forces.

Postone seems to have a very clear and sensible view of the idiocies of the majority of the modern Left, see especially here :

Q. You have argued that the USSR and similar systems were not forms of emancipation from capitalism, but state-centred forms of capitalism. It follows that the general attitude on the left of siding with the USSR — sometimes very critically — against the USA was self-destructive. You have indicated parallels between the sort of anti-imperialism today which sides with political Islam as the counter-power to the USA, and the old Cold War. What do you think are the common features of those two political polarisations? And the differences?

A. The differences are that the older form of anti-Americanism was tied to promoting Communist revolution in Vietnam, Cuba, etc. Whatever one may have thought of it at the time, or may regard it retrospectively, its own self-understanding was that it promoted an emancipatory project. The United States was sharply criticized not only because it is the United States and a great power, but also because it was hindering the emergence of a more progressive social order. That was the self-understanding of many who were in solidarity with Vietnam or with Cuba.

Today, I doubt that even the people who proclaim “We are all Hezbollah” or “We are all Hamas” would say that those movements represent an emancipatory social order. At best what is involved is an Orientalist reification of the Arabs and/or Muslims as the Other, whereby the Other, this time, is affirmed. It is yet another indication of historical helplessness on the part of the left, the inability to come up with any imaginary of what a post-capitalist future might look like. Not having any vision of a post-capitalist future, many have substituted a reified notion of “resistance” for any conception of transformation. Anything that “resists” the United States becomes regarded positively. I regard this as an extremely questionable form of thought.

Love the last bit and totally agree.

Also this is important : "the inability to come up with any imaginary of what a post-capitalist future might look like". What is the vision now of the Left ? There are no practical existing alternatives to Western democracy that are not economic or human rights basket cases and no amount of ridiculous cheer leading for China or Chavez can disguise that.

"What's Left ?" - indeed.

2010-02-10T13:29:00.001Z

Interesting R5 Live interview with Mohammed Atif Siddique

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

See this interview by Victoria Derbyshire with newly released "very silly boy" Mohammed Atif Siddique on BBC R5 Live this morning.

Some highlights :

At 00:16:00 and 00:18:15 she asks Atif what "youthful curiosity" of his was being satisfied by looking at jihadi bomb making videos and other "propaganda", Atif can't answer and his mouthpiece lawyer Aamer Anwar has to butt in.

At 00:23:05 Victoria quotes a text from someone claiming his girl friend had to drop out of a class she was in with Atif because she genuinely thought Atif was a suicide bomber after he showed her a video of beheadings and said he was going to blow himself up in Glasgow. Again Anwar has to butt in gabbling about hearsay.

At the end (01:49:00) some guy from the Muslim council of Scotland comes on and says "every young Muslim with a beard was suspected" after Atif was sent to jail. Victoria is somewhat speechless.

You could almost feel sorry for Atif until you realise what he was up to. It is a bit inexplicable seeing how unarticulate and shifty he sounds that he wanted to be interviewed. I reckon it was his lawyer Anwar who put him up to it, thinking he'd get the kid glove treatment that the BBC is sometimes guilty of.

2010-02-09T11:15:00.001Z

Amnesty and universal human rights

The furore re Amnesty International and their treatment of Gita Sahgal for questioning AI's relationship with Mozzam Begg and Cage Prisoners brings to sharp relief the question of AI's general attitude to human rights.

As has been noticed before (most notably in the Euston Manifesto) there is a real issue with AI spending so much time campaigning against Gitmo and other abuses inflicted on those caught up in the War on Terror. Now there is no doubt that there have been HR abuses committed in the War on Terror but they are numerically relatively a small number. Compare this to the abuses suffered by millions throughout the rest of the world under dictatorships, tyrannies and other unsavoury regimes. Which should be the biggest issue for the human rights activist ?

Surely they should be spending vastly more time on bringing to light and campaigning against HR abuses under extreme HR abusing regimes, is that not self evident ?

Aparently to some it's not - some hysterics would say bringing up these issues means you are a "neocon" or similar with "suspicious motives", ie that you don't want US/UK HR abuses ever investigated. Such name calling is typical of those who seem to treat the likes of AI as sacred cows never to be criticised.

I have a modest proposal - AI should think of splitting into two parts. One could call itself "Amnesty for the victims of the so called "War on Terror"", the other "Amnesty for the millions suffering sustained and gross Human Rights abuses worldwide"

I know which one I'd give most of my money to. I also reckon I know which one many of the so-called Left would rather support.

2010-02-04T15:48:00.001Z

Rod Liddle comments on politics and MSM at Socialist Unity

See here. He claims he's just an old fashioned Leftie as well :

This is the first time I’ve responded to any of this rubbish and do so here because of a sympathy with the general political standpoint, if not with the rodliddleisatwat agenda which is boring and diversionary. Just for the record, I believe in higher taxation, a higher minimum wage, state control of national utilities (and railways) and for all british people to be treated as equal. My opposition to the free movement of labour from eastern Europe was that it undercut the wages of the indigenous working class while subsidising the middle class. My opposition to Islam is based upon what I see as its authoritarianism, homophobia and misogyny. I may not express things the way you like, but I am not right wing, and neverhave been.

My my.

He also says :

Sunny Hundal, meanwhile, is a bourgeois idiot.

Class War !

2010-02-03T19:05:00.003Z

ClimateGate - Guardian on the case (at last)

Even the Guardian is now on the trail of Phil Jones and the team at CRU see here for example. As for green loon extraordinaire George "Moonbat" Monbiot he's positively fuming :

This is a tough time for climate science. The Guardian's new revelations about the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia might help to explain the university's utter failure to confront its critics. They could also explain why the head of the unit, Phil Jones, blocked freedom of information requests and proposed that material subject to those requests be deleted. He has been spared a criminal investigation only because the time limit for prosecutions has expired.

Perhaps George should start a campaign for people to perform a citizens arrest on Jones instead of wasting time with his pathetic attempt to smear Tony Blair as a war criminal.

Meanwhile also in the Guardian arch AGW proponent and all round humourist Sunny Hundal has a very popular piece on Climategate. Read all the comments to find out what Cif-ers now think of their once favourite columnist - its truly hilarious.

2010-01-29T12:32:00.003Z

Interesting article re West Bank Settlers and Palestinians

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

From Haaretz :

Not all settlers and Palestinians want each other to disappear

The article is about a group of West Bank settlers trying to reach out in dialogue with their Palestinian neighbours :

The group is headed by Shmulik Klein of Neve Daniel, Nahum Pachnik (of the "unlawful" settlement outpost Sde Boaz) and Eliaz Cohen. The group aims to carry on a dialogue with the Palestinians, religious at its root but political in its evolution. They believe that only a conversation held between these two poles, settlers and Palestinians, can bring about a sustainable peace, the kind that cannot happen under international threat or the terms of a UN resolution. The role adopted by the settlements in this discourse is to be "the fingers spread forth for peace," as Rabbi Froman is wont to say.

The initiative is still very much in its infancy :

Right now it is still a small group, whose members are trying to navigate their way through unmapped terrain - afraid, on the one hand, of what the settlement people will think of them. They fear being construed as traitors, of having a "pulsa denura" curse invoked against them (like a threat made to one member when she tried to publicize in the local newsletter the fact that the sessions were taking place). On the other hand, they are afraid that publicizing the meetings will torpedo them and panic the Palestinians. Therefore they have opted not to reveal the name of the village where the get-togethers were held, nor the full names of the Palestinians who have taken part in them.

Some quotes from the participants :

Members of the group, and the dozens of settlers who have taken part in its meetings, do not subscribe to any one political orientation. They want to defer talk of a political solution to a later stage. But the direction is clear: a binational state, which Eliaz Cohen openly preaches, and which even Amrussi prefers over the other options; or a Palestinian state in which the settlers will remain as citizens bearing equal rights, according to Pachnik, or even as people "under the protection of" - an idea attributed to Rabbi Froman during his contacts with Hamas.

and :

The solution, as proposed by one member of the group, is the settlers staying where they are, under Palestinian rule. "It is important that there be a Jewish democratic state, and if there were a binational state, it would be vague and distorted," explains this individual. "I believe that when we live under Palestinian rule they will very much respect us and accept us."

The idea that the settlers could stay under a Palestinian state may seem far fetched but what other option would be open to them ? It seems obvious Israel will have to give up military protection of the settlements at some point and if the settlers don't want to stay under Palestinian rule Israel will have to remove them en masse.

The initiative above may show some realisation on the part of the settlers of their situation and as such is welcome. Lets hope such dialogue continues.

2010-01-28T17:00:00.003Z

HRW certain on Hamas war crimes

Hamas is at last having to face up to evidence of its war crimes from Human Rights Watch :

Human Rights Watch has rejected claims by the Palestinian militant group Hamas that it did not target civilians during the war in Gaza a year ago.

Hamas ludicrously denies its rockets are aimed at civilians but HRW is having none of it :

"Hamas' claim that rockets were intended to hit Israeli military targets and only accidentally harmed civilians is belied by the facts," the New York based group said.

"Civilians were the target, deliberately targeting civilians is a war crime."

Now Hamas had been firing rockets into Israel since 2007 and yes HRW did condemn them but I don't remember them (or the media in general) calling for war crimes trials, in fact what they mainly said was Hamas should please stop it.

One good thing about the war crimes discussion now and HRW coming out so strongly is if Hamas start up with the rockets again HRW and co will surely have no choice but to accuse them immediately and unequivocally of war crimes.That might make some difference.

2010-01-27T13:43:00.000Z

Goldsmith changed mind re Iraq action after analysing UN Res 1441 and deciding wording meant no further resolution required for use of force.

And that's about it. End of.

2010-01-25T11:18:00.001Z

Ken Loach gets it (almost) right on Iran

He's not going to the Tehran film festival :

*We wish to withdraw our film Looking for Eric from the Tehran Film Festival. We recognise that many governments, including our own, have committed acts of aggression, broken international law and ignored human rights. However, this boycott is called for by Iranian film makers and artists to protest against the violence against those who oppose the regime and the many abuses of human rights documented by respected bodies like Amnesty. We support this boycott as we support the boycott of cultural events sponsored by the Israeli state. We regret the difficulties this will cause the festival's organisers.

Of course he was still wrong to boycott the Edinburgh Film Festival for the flimsiest of reasons.

He's also wrong to talk the usual boilerplate rubbish about the exaggerated sins of "our own" governments. I'm surprised he ever shows his films anywhere to be honest - what does he think of film festivals that get UK government money ?

Hat tip - Pickled Politics

2010-01-22T14:36:00.003Z

The dangers of following Mail on Sunday and Liberal Conspiracy bandwagons

Some hysterical newspapers and bloggers have been getting very upset about Rod Liddle's putative move to editing the Independent. There was even going to be an EDM in the Commons.

Or not. Apparently Paul Flynn has backed down :

Flynn told me today that he regretted blogging so quickly after the Mail on Sunday's allegations of "racist" posts on a Millwall supporters' website, which is not connected to the football club.

Liddle has claimed that some of his comments have been taken out of context and that some were posted by other people using his password (which would not have been a difficult code to crack as it was "Millwall"). Liberal Conspiracy website carries a long list of the quotes and some Liddle responses, while Stoners.org also lists some quotes and says: "MonkeyMFC - Let's stop the demonising and get some focus."

Flynn said of his reversal: "Following the Mail on Sunday agenda is a mortifying experience."

The MP has removed his anti-Liddle blog post and has clearly decided that Liddle's defence has some merit. Flynn now says that the decision about whether an early day motion goes ahead is entirely in the hands of Diane Abbott. Over to you, Diane.

Well Diane doesn't seem very interested either, see here on Liddles blog :

Diane Abbott MP
January 20th, 2010 4:07pm

Actually no EDM about you has been tabled. Surely you should have checked the order paper before you wrote this post? You are going to have to show a little more regard for accuracy if you really want to edit a national newspaper.

It just shows what can happen when you follow ill thought out press/blogger campaigns (especially shrill po-faced ones led by Sunny Hundal). Personally I don't care if Liddle becomes Indy editor, the idea that the Indy is "Left Wing" seems to be because it was against the Iraq war ie its the same kind of "Left" as the cringing relativists at the Guardian. Liddle may be crass and annoying but he's also sometimes an interesting controversialist and at least he says what he thinks without worrying about PC nursies.

2010-01-17T20:49:00.000Z

Bombshell revelations re Sinn Fein in Irish Sunday Tribune

See here, absolutely shocking. This could be the very bad news for the Shinners.

This is also on the ever excellent Slugger O'Toole but can't see on the BBC or other UK news sites - why is the MSM so behind on these things ?

2010-01-14T17:19:00.002Z

More disgusting "blame the victim" garbage in the Guardian

Look at this this total garbage on Cif. Simon Tisdall tells us about the shocking violence happening in the Muslim world against Christian minorities ie the Copts in Egypt getting attacked and the burning of churches in Malaysia.

But who is to blame ? See if you can guess :

Yet hostility also arises, in a fundamental sense, from Muslim perceptions of western aggression against Islam, be it the war in Afghanistan, domineering western economic and cultural behaviour, attempts to ban veils, offensive cartoon caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, airline and immigration profiling, or systemic, unchecked and arguably worsening discrimination and harassment of Muslim minorities living in western nations.

That would be the war in Afghanistan where the vast majority of Afghani Muslims support the US and NATO forces and hate the Taliban would it ? As for the rest its the usual boilerplate lies and excuses that sounds like it could have come from Anjem Choudhary.

Anyway its mea culpa obviously - but what should we do ?

To have a chance of overcoming this widening gulf, the west may have to put its own house in order first. One proposed path is wider adoption of Karen Armstrong's new Charter for Compassion, a "spiritual document for the world", whose guiding idea is that while almost every religion has a history of intolerance, all have traditions of compassion that rise above hatred.

OK right yeah that'll sort it. Words fail me.

This is pure appeasement of the violent mixed with grotesque self hatred. Tisdall is cringing halfwit Guardian man personified.

2010-01-11T11:51:00.005Z

Better news from Afghanistan

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

A new BBC poll which shows how most Afghanis hate the Taliban and support US forces has just come out, see here :

Most Afghans are increasingly optimistic about the state of their country, a poll commissioned by the BBC, ABC News and Germany's ARD shows.

Of more than 1,500 Afghans questioned, 70% said they believed Afghanistan was going in the right direction - a big jump from 40% a year ago.

Of those questioned, 68% now back the presence of US troops in Afghanistan, compared with 63% a year ago.

The other significant theme which emerges from the figures is growing antipathy towards the Taliban.

Ninety per cent said they wanted their country run by the current government, compared with 6% who said they favoured a Taliban administration.

Sixty-nine per cent believed the Taliban posed the biggest danger to the country, and 66% blamed the Taliban, al-Qaeda and foreign militants for violence in Afghanistan.

I wonder how the "anti-imperialist" Left will try to spin this poll. Probably they'll either ignore it or claim its been done by neocons ie the usual fact defying garbage.

The likes of Respect who continuously depict the Afghan war as against Muslims should read this evidence and hang their heads in shame.

2010-01-10T15:57:00.001Z

Choudary groups to be banned ?

The NOTW has a scoop here :

AN EXTREMIST Islamic group planning to march through a war heroes' town will be OUTLAWED this week.

Home Secretary Alan Johnson will use his powers to smash warped organisations run by hate-preacher Anjem Choudary.

He is expected to impose anti-terror laws as early as tomorrow to ban al-Muhajiroun and its latest offshoot Islam4UK.

The move will make it a criminal offence - punishable by up to TEN YEARS in jail - to become a member or to attend or address any meetings.

Sounds like a very good idea to me.

2010-01-08T15:11:00.002Z

Are Nuclear fears overblown ?

Simon Jenkins (yes I know but wait) has an interesting article on CiF. He reviews two books one about the OTT attitude to nuclear radiation :

The first book, Radiation and Reason, is by an Oxford professor of physics, Wade Allison. It narrates the history and nature of nuclear radiation, culminating in an attack on the obsessive safety levels governing nuclear energy. These overstate the true risk, in Allison's view, by up to 500 times, thus rendering nuclear prohibitively expensive

For example even the worst of nuclear disasters Chernobyl has not had lead to the nightmare scenarios some thought :

Allison analyses successive studies into the only serious nuclear accident since Hiroshima, the Chernobyl fire, which killed no more than 60 people, all in close contact with the fire. Other than some thyroid cancers caused chiefly by a failure to distribute iodine tablets, long-term cancers in survivors were below the regional average.

The other book is "Atomic Obsession" by John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University who thinks the risk of nuclear terrorism has been much exaggerated :

He points out that nuclear bombs are extremely hard to make, let alone deploy, and their destructive power and radiological aftermath are grossly overstated.

Now it appears Mueller is is a bit of a sceptic in general when it comes to the threat of terrorism but his views are interesting. Anyone who wants to know more of the details of his argument can read them in this paper.

I must admit as someone who has been freaked out by the idea of nuclear terrorism I found this stuff quite reassuring. Of course that's not to say we shouldn't be clear about the nature and threat of Islamic terrorism but given the ramshackle nature of the latest plots can you really see Islamists jihadis managing to get it together enough to deploy a nuke ?

2010-01-06T17:15:00.001Z

Time to give lame duck Brown the old heave ho

The announcement of Hoon and Hewitt's mini coup against our hapless PM is surely the last chance of Labour to get rid of the sad old vote loser before the election. I mean what do they have to lose ? No one could be worse than Brown with the electorate who are still not that enamoured with slimy old Etonian Cameron. Surely they could find someone better ?

2010-01-05T08:30:00.004Z

More Media Nonsense

FFS lets not give this clown any more publicity.

2010-01-04T14:29:00.005Z

When will the far Left finally wake up and get rid of the Stalinists?

Recent blogs at Socialist Unity by Andy Newman equivocating about the struggle for democracy in Iran bring into sharp focus why the far Left in the West is so unpopular.

Newman of course has to be equivocal about Iran as his leader in Respect George Galloway is also somewhat conflicted about getting rid of the Mullahs as 1) he works for the Iranian govt Press TV and 2) he is a cynical power loving tankie scumbag.

The kinds of positions we get on SU supporting the Mullahs range from "they keep down food prices" to "they are anti-imperialist" (ie anti-USA) to "the forces for change are twittering middle class students" Sound familiar ? Why yes - guess what its the same old Stalinist pro Soviet Union lines we got from some on the Left in the Cold War.

When will the far Left learn ? Even now they STILL allow apologists for Stalinism to steer debates on the Left.

The only way the far Left will ever return to the political and intellectual mainstream is to effectively no platform the Stalinists. Galloway, Newman and the rest of the intellectually bankrupt "anti-imperialist" crowd need to be permanently booted into the nasty foul smellling corners of history from whence they come.

2009-12-18T12:29:00.000Z

BBC picks up on Hoffman video

The BBC has picked up on the story of what happened to Jonathan Hoffmann at SOAS here :

Footage has emerged of a man being told he is "not welcome" after revealing his Jewish name at a School of Oriental and African Studies debate on Palestine.

The film shows Jonathan Hoffman ask why Soas university allowed a man condemned as an anti-Semite by the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHR) to talk

Upon revealing his name there are boos and shouts of "Jewish!" Anti-racism campaigners called it "chilling".

A spokesman for the London university said nobody broke hate speech rules.

The event, entitled The Case for Sanctions and Boycott [of the nation of Israel] was organised by the School of Oriental and African Studies' [Soas] Palestinian Society.

They invited South African trade unionist Bongani Masuku to speak.

The SAHR has condemned Mr Masuku for "hate speech", saying his comments "are of an extreme nature that imply the Jewish community are to be despised, scorned and ridiculed".

This unpleasant tale was highlighted at Harry's Place a couple of days ago and the video is also at YouTube.

I'm not sure why this is now getting coverage on the Beeb but its quite right it is. The overarching and inappropriate targetting of Israel amongst the scumbag "Left" in general and UCU in particular is a disgrace. Who knows why they do it -it could be stupidity or just pure anti-semitism - but whatever the reason is it's a scandal.

2009-12-16T18:01:00.006Z

Has the BBC gone mad ?

This post has been cross-posted at Harry's Place

Liberal Conspiracy has picked up on this shocker from the Beeb :

A BBC Have Your Say Debate asks: ‘Should homosexuals face execution?‘

It starts by saying:
Yes, we accept it is a stark and disturbing question. But this is the reality behind an Anti-Homosexuality Bill being debated on Friday by the Ugandan parliament which would see some homosexual offences punishable by death.
After describing the contents of the Ugandan bill it ends by saying:
Has Uganda gone too far? Should there be any level of legislation against homosexuality? Should homosexuals be protected by legislation as they are in South Africa? What would be the consequences of this bill to you? How will homosexual ‘offences’ be monitored? Send us your views.
Unbelievable.

Some of the commenters are saying this should get as much publicity as the Jan Moir scandal. We will see.

So what is the Beeb thinking ? Is it some kind of issue with wishing to achieve "balance" ? There is an issue there, because obviously giving balance can only go so far. You don't give the same air time to people who want to "kill all Gypsies" as those who don't do you - surely, some principles are beyond debate.

Whatever the reason this looks like an almighty cockup.

UPDATE :

The Beeb have changed the debate title to “Should Uganda debate gay execution?”, not much better IMO. Talk about a question to which the only answer is no.

2009-12-15T10:17:00.002Z

A Serious Man

This post has been cross posted on Harry's Place

The latest Coen brothers film really is a tour de force but it's as bleak as you can imagine and definitely not a feel good experience.

The story concerns a middle aged Mid West physics professor and the disasters that beset him seemingly out of the blue in mid Sixties Minnesota. The action is all set within the local Jewish community so much so that the only non-Jews are peripheral (sometimes red neck) outsiders.

The customs and ceremonies of immigrant Jewish life are observed with (to put it mildly) a jaundiced and humorous eye to such an extent that it could be said to approach mockery. Think Woody Allen on turbo charge.

But this is also a philosophical and intellectual study on religious belief, causality and morality at an engaging and complex level. Its also (delightfully) a meditation on Jefferson Airplanes' "Somebody to Love".

Quite a film in other words. Definitely one to see.

See also here, here and here for some of the UK reviews.

2009-12-14T10:23:00.001Z

Asset price bubbles - who is to blame ?

There's an interesting article by historian Roy Foster about the Irish economy on Cif. The swinging cuts in public spending in the recent Irish budget are a direct result of the collapse of the house price asset bubble that engulfed the Irish economy even more there than here in the UK.

One point I would take him up on is the conclusion :

How far the "people" forgive the government for the way it has treated them remains to be seen.

Isn't it just like here in the UK though "the people" need to take responsibility for the debacle as well. When house prices are rising strongly and many people (not just property developers) are making money from property price rises we're all in on the scam to some extent. Imagine the headlines we would have had if the govt had stepped in to stop the bubble and caused a collapse - it would never have been forgiven. But many were saying house price rises were not sustainable at the time.

I think sometimes we need to stop blaming the politicians and look to our own fondness for making a quick buck as a major cause of the present economic crisis.

PS anyone interested in the Irish economy issue should also read "Gambling all for a prize not worth winning" by Fintan O'Toole about the NAMA asset bank solution.

2009-12-12T17:08:00.002Z

Our idiotic and embarassing Libel Law is making us a laughing stock

Norm says it all :

In this land of ancient liberties, the press can be gagged from printing stuff that is freely aired in its country of origin:
Tiger Woods has won an injunction banning the English media from publishing new details about his personal life, after instructing London-based lawyers to take legal action.

The move, described by lawyers as "unbelievable", prevents the media from publishing material that the US media would be able to publish, prompting further anger about the ability of foreign litigants to take advantage of repressive English laws.

Please consider signing the petition here. (Thanks: MK.)

2009-12-09T09:26:00.000Z

Oh dear - looks like the Respect/Green alliance is having problems

GREEN PARTY TO CONTEST RESPECT’S TARGET SEATS IN LONDON

Tower Hamlets Green Party has voted to stand a candidate in both of the parliamentary constituencies being contested by Respect, i.e. Bethnal Green and Bow and Poplar and Limehouse.

Apparently a minority of members from Green Left voted against standing in Poplar. Green Left itself voted to leave the decision to the local party at the request of local activists there.

This is an understandable deciSon from the local Green Party, as their main interest in that region is the two all London elections for the European parliament and the London Assembly, and they will see the need to maintain their minority vote even in the Westminster elections where they are not a contender.

Although Respect and the Green Party are both progressive parties with policies who overlap in many areas, their electoral interests will not always coincide.

From the comments :

So much for the concordate between the Greens and Respect. Neither Birmingham or Brighton cost the Greens or Respect anything in reality. London was much more of a real test and it has failed at the first hurdle. Still its what George/ Salma and the majority in Respect wanted, this new Green alliance (rather tan a Red one, whilst castigating the rest of us and most outside as “ultra lefs” (used as a term of abuse ofcourse at the Respect national conference).

Give me the ultra lefts any day!

Comment by Neil Williams — 8 December, 2009 @ 5:44 pm

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

I wonder if this is anything to do with Andy Newman's infamous attempt to defend the characterisation of Peter Tatchell as an Islamophobe ?

2009-12-07T14:33:00.003Z

Climategate - scientific consensus ?

This post has been cross posted on Harry's Place

The Climategate issue is getting more attention in the MSM, there was an interesting piece last Friday on the Today program and this morning John Humphrey's first questions to Ed Milliband were on it.There is obviously going to be more to come.

The reaction of Gordon Brown this weekend talking about flat earthers was a risky strategy, in fact making this issue a political one will be a disaster for the Left if he is proven wrong. If the whole edifice collapses as some sceptics (see retired prof Philip Stott here) think, the consequences will be profound for politics as well as science and just blaming the scientists will not work.

Ed M's argument this morning to the questions was that "there is a vast scientific consensus on this issue" but more scientists seem to becoming sceptical eg see here for a withering letter various top US physicists are sending to the American Physical Society.

Why do Leftists want to believe in AGW so much anyway ? Cutting back on global growth is going to hurt all economies and make the world poorer, we should only being doing it if we are totally sure it is absolutely necessary.

This is much more of an open scientific issue now and politicians would do well to butt out until after all the various inquiries re Climategate are over.

2009-12-02T11:01:00.001Z

Not all Iraqis love the Bush shoe thrower

Here on the BBC

Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former US President George W Bush has found himself on the receiving end of a shoe-throwing attack.

Muntadar al-Zaidi was speaking about Iraqi war victims at a news conference in Paris, but managed to duck in time.

Media reports said the attacker was an exiled Iraqi journalist who defended US policy and accused Zaidi of "working for dictatorship in Iraq".

2009-11-30T11:24:00.003Z

SWP condemns Respect "princes of darkness" and "reformist misleaders"

This post has been cross posted on Harry's Place

There's lots of interesting stuff here in the SWP pre conference bulletin about the SWP and the Respect debacle, eg on page 45 :

"Instead of mobilising more radical younger Muslims against these reformist misleaders, Respect often helped re-enforce these leaders' control over Muslim youth."

"misleaders" - is that a new word ?

Then on page 29 :

"Galloway may have been our preferred demon, with a couple of treacherous princes of darkness thrown in, but the whole project was so indelibly linked in the public mind with the SWP that it was our name that was besmirched in the eyes of people we relate to at work and in wider political contexts."

"treacherous princes of darkness" ? Who are they ? Anybody got any ideas ?

2009-11-27T13:10:00.001Z

More on the Ramallah stadium

Looks like there's more info on the Ramallah stadium issue on which I posted a few days ago here :

Settlers petition to tear down nearby Palestinian stadium

A West Bank settlement has filed a petition to the High Court of Justice demanding the demolition of a nearly-complete stadium in the Palestinian city of El Bireh, near Ramallah.

The Psagot settlement and the Regavim advocacy group petitioned the court on November 2 to order the defense minister, GOC Central Command, the IDF's Civil Administration and police to tear down the El Bireh stadium and three apartment buildings being constructed near the settlement. The court ordered the respondents to answer within 30 days

The petitioners warned of the possibility that "10,000 inflamed Palestinians would rise up after a soccer game and vent their anger and/or frustration and/or frenzy on nearby Psagot. Suffice it for each one to throw 10 stones at the settlement for Psagot to be under an attack of 100,000 ballista balls.

Lets hope the settlers get nowhere with this.

2009-11-25T12:07:00.008Z

A riposte to the civil liberties paranoiacs

This post has been cross posted on Harry's Place

There's an excellent piece in The Times here by Sean O'Neill where he makes the case for the modern police methods so feared by swivel eyed Cif ranters and the likes of Sunny Hundal :

If the civil libertarians, the conspiracy theorists and the Conservatives had their way, Abdul Azad would probably never have been caught. Azad was convicted of a brutal stranger rape in Stafford in July 2005 after fragments of his skin were recovered from under his victim’s fingernails and yielded a DNA profile matching his record on the national database.

Read the whole thing - its excellent and the conclusion is powerful :

We should, of course, be wary of the authoritarian tendency to extend draconian powers of surveillance or asset seizure from the police to local councils, quangos and other ill-equipped bodies. But to tell detectives investigating murder, rape, kidnap and other crimes of violence that they cannot harness the full power of DNA, CCTV or phone-tracing is senseless.

Far from sleepwalking into a surveillance society, we are marching, mad-eyed and paranoid, into a situation where those who would seek to protect us from the most dangerous criminals would be denied the ability to do so.

2009-11-22T20:28:00.005Z

Why does Israel do things like this ?

This post has been cross posted on Harry's Place

What is the point of this pettiness ?

Israel halts football stadium construction in West Bank

Israel has ordered construction work on an internationally financed football stadium being built for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to be halted.

Palestinian municipal authorities in al-Bireh, near Ramallah, have been told they lack the correct permit to build.

This is because Israel has designated some of the plot for the planned stadium as under its exclusive control.

If Palestinian officials do not comply with the order, Israel could demolish the arena.

This kind of thing just needlessly aggravates world opinion for no purpose.

PS - more in Haaretz :

The question is: Why, all of a sudden, more than three years after construction of the entire project began and 10 months after construction of the stands started, has the Civil Administration decided to halt the work?

Ziv Nishri, the Israeli contractor who built the field, said in a telephone conversation: "The army knew about the project because it's impossible to do anything without the Civil Administration's approval. FIFA is the body dealing with the foreign minister. Without the umbrella of the Foreign Ministry, the army and the Civil Administration, nothing would be happening here."

When Nishri heard about the stop-work order this week, he was very surprised. "The plans for the stands are at least two years old. Even before we started on the project, I had the general plans for the stands, because we designed the field to fit them."

Officials at Al-Bireh city hall see a connection between the stop-work order, and the Palestinian refusal to return to the negotiating table as long as Israel does not freeze construction in the settlements, as well as the recent announcement by Prime Minister Fayyad of the planned consolidation of various Palestinian state institutions. The officials and local activists agree with Samih al-Abed when he says: "This is a typical kind of Israeli pressure, which means: 'Either you go back to negotiations or we'll punish you. We'll do whatever we can to upset your lives.'"

2009-11-21T18:53:00.000Z

"ClimateGate" ?

The MSM has reported the leak of emails from the Climate Research Unit at UAE in fairly factual details but the AGW sceptic blogosphere is all over it, see here for a good summary of the controversial emails. The mainstream AGW site RealClimate.org which is mentioned in some of the emails is mounting a robust defence, ongoing at the moment. And as always the site ClimateDebateDaily provides good summaries from both sides of the argument.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out.

2009-11-18T11:34:00.009Z

Bea Campbell goes Green as well

This post has been cross posted on Harry's Place

Leftie arch feminist pin up Bea Campbell has today announced her defection from the Left to the Green party here.

Look at some of this stuff :

I remained a communist until 1989, when it was all over. I was part of the anti-Stalinist, Euro-communist wing. We were clever, caused trouble, caught the imagination, but we lost. Or maybe we failed.

But it was feminism that clarified the unsustainability of state communism. Macho, manic productionism relies on force, it valorises conquest of nature and other humans. It marginalises the means of reproduction – how societies sustain themselves, breathe, give birth, grow and rest, clean up; how people take care, give pleasure and co-operate. Barbara Taylor's revelatory book, Eve and the New Jerusalem, published on the crest of women's liberation, told the story of industrialisation and socialist politics, utopianism and the co-operative movement. And it tells the story of these radical movements' defeat – by working men organised in their own interests as men.

The sexism – and destructiveness – of modernity was not evolutionary, it was a bitter political struggle. The outcome: men's movements masquerading as egalitarian and socialist.

Green ideology represents the reconciliation of production and reproduction – that is what yields sustainability.

So what do we have ? The modern world of getting and making, industrialisation and the commercial world is all just too nasty darling, I mean look at all those rich men in their offices and nasty roads and buildings. Something must be done, or undone rather. And all would be fine if women like me were in charge.

Needless to say most of the comments on Cif are suitably sarcastic, my favourite so far is :

AllyF

18 Nov 2009, 10:53AM

When Peter Tatchell joined the Green Party, I seriously gave thought to signing up. If it's good enough for him, I reckoned...

When I learned that Beatrix Campbell was also a member I realised I could never join.

Any party that is home to an instinctively authoritarian, dogmatic, anti-rationalist ideologue like Bea is no place for me.

With the recent move of Respect towards to Greens as well I reckon we're seeing an interesting trend. The old Trots and Marxists are becoming ever more of an irrelevance and failing fast and any ideas of "a lurch to the Left" in the Labour party seem still born as well.

All good as far as I'm concerned, get all the failed far Lefties in one place and keep them there so we know where the enemy is.

2009-11-15T12:48:00.006Z

From the Respect conference

This post has been cross posted on Harry's Place

Reports are now seeping through from the Respect conference and apparently there has been a major "move to the right" (hahaha) according to Neil Williams :

George claimed at conference that Respect was four times bigger and more than all the other groups. Now this is clearly not true. Respect at best has about 800 members and in many parts of England (let alone wales and Scotland) does not exist. The new right faction that now control Respect say we should think of nothing else than electing three Respect MP’s and in George’s words “the other groups will then come knocking on our door”.

How short sighted, shallow in thinking in its responce. What, just what does George and Salma and friends think will happen to Respect if we win no MP’s in the next election and have made no attempt to link up with others on the Left for the fight against the cuts whoever wins the election? - it will leave the members domoralised and Respect totaly isolated in Socialist/Labour movement.

Respects future I am afraid does not look good with this type of politics and I am afraid it may not exist in six years time. However I am in a minority on this in Respect but one that I think did represent about 1/3 of the Respect conference and many who have been active since day one.

Comment by Neil Williams — 15 November, 2009 @ 12:14 pm

Basically it looks like Galloway and Yaqoob have decided to kick out the Trot leftist types and abandon any idea of going towards an alliance with the sects and Bob Crow's No2EU effort. Instead they think that if they get a couple of MP's next May they will so much more important than the rest of the sects they can just ignore them.

Forward with the Gallowayite Muslim Popular Front ! Down with the "ultra-Left" splitters !

I suppose when your policy on Afghanistan is virtually indistinguishable from the BNP and your main raison d'etre is communalist politics "a move to the right" is not really a big surprise.

2009-11-13T17:07:00.000Z

Oh dear - Guardian nepotism backfires

Cifwatch has a bit of a scoop here, it appears Alan Rusbridger's daughter has been caught out in a bit of an embarassing manner while working in Daddy's office.

Nice bit of hypocrisy here, I don't remember the Guardian sticking up for MP's when they were complaining about measures to stop the employment of their family members.

Still given the shocking state of the Guardian's finances they probably need some cheap labour. Its a pity it often turns out to be dangerously inexperienced.

2009-11-13T11:55:00.000Z

Islington council tenants speak out on anti social behaviour

This post has been cross posted on Harry's Place

The recent nasty attacks on Muslim students at City University in South Islington have attracted much attention (some of it very knee jerk, see here for how the Trots got it wrong as usual).

The area of the university is surrounded on East and West by a large area of council estates which have had other trouble recently, for example there have been attacks on the new Islington museum which is situated in the library about 200 yards from the uni.

VANDALS have caused £15,000 worth of damage to Islington Museum - and a row has broken out over who is to blame.

The glass door and entrance panels to the museum, which is housed in the basement of Finsbury Library, in St John Street, have been smashed in recent weeks.

There are reports that kids as young as 10 are behind the attacks - but the Finsbury Estate Tenants' and Residents' Association (FETRA) says Islington Council is to blame for failing to listen to them when the proposals to create the entrance were up for discussion.

Sharron Kelly, chairwoman of the FETRA and a resident of Patrick Coman House, said: "It gives me no satisfaction at all to say - we told them so.

Fetra says residents predicted the proposals would create an attractive hangout space for young people, resulting in anti-social behaviour, noise nuisance and vandalism and added risk to the security of their homes.

Fetra even organised a petition against the council's plans, which was signed by 70 per cent of Patrick Coman House residents and 60 per cent of the whole estate. But Councillor Allan said: "It would be nice if Fetra concentrated on helping to identify the victims, rather than attacking the council."

This article brings up all sorts of issues. The residents seem to have no interest in supporting the cultural benefits of the museum or taking any responsibity for the actions of the kids who are vandalising. What do they want - the police and council to do all the child care ? Perhaps we should have curfews on such estates - would that be acceptable ?

This kind of situation is a real problem for Leftists, we are told we should bring more facilities to poor estates but what happens if the young residents are still just interested in running around in gangs and destroying facilities ? Perhaps only strong police action can work short term but then there is the issue above re the cooperation of the locals.

All very depressing.

UPDATE :

Here are some snaps of the offending "glass wall" at Islington Museum:

Museum Entrance (steps down)

"Glass Wall" from the side

View from across St John St

From City Uni main entrance

2009-11-10T19:01:00.000Z

Well done Bungler !

Hats off to Inayat Bunglawala of the MCB (still ?) for finally seeing the light and coming out without weasel words and condemning a vile Islamist fanatic in this Cif piece Muslims must combat hate speech.

Lets hope we don't hear any more idiot calls of Islamophobia from him the next time Harry's Place and other blogs like the admirable Spittoon alert us to Islamic Student Societies and other groups inviting video addresses from scumbag Jihadi maniacs. We will see.

2009-11-10T16:13:00.000Z

New Start

I've decided to relaunch this blog. In the last 18 months I've been getting articles published on the admirable Harry's Place (thanks David T !) but now I've decided its time to branch out on my own a bit. Hopefully I will be able to get some cross posts on HP as well though.

For the record here are the links to the pieces on Harry's Place :

A lesson for Respect - Islamophobe smears can backfire badly

Peace at any price ?

TUC dinosaurs still wrong on Cuba

Iraq faces up to Syria over terrorism - but who is really to blame ?

More dead tree media woes

Opposing "Cultural Universalism"

Sri Lanka triumphant in UN war crimes vote

Truly a broad church

Segregated education not an option

Truly an evil idea

Spooked by Al-Qaeda ?

Angry with the BBC

Regime change and unintended consequences

Revolting Autonomists ?

2007-02-07T19:15:00.000Z

How to become very important

Simple really - send some pyrotechnic material devices and wound some unfortunate people. Then you'll be all over the news and your "grievance" will get lots of publicity. You'll even get lead story on Channel 4 news ahead of trifles like Lords reform. Amazing eh ?

What a sensible and informative media we have.

2007-01-28T22:28:00.000Z

Bad news for used car dealer journos and Guardian types

Interesting article here about how AutoTrader magazine (which bankrolls the inexplicably unprofitable Guardian and Observer newspapers) is starting to lose market share to car dealers using Ebay to shift motors. What a pity if the Grauniad had to try to start making profit for a change on its own eh ? It might have to shed some staff for example. Or perhaps they could start by cutting some of editor Alan Rusbridgers' £487,000 reimbursement package ?

2006-12-20T21:34:00.000Z

Anti-politics journos an enemy to us all

Steve Richards piece in the Independent is excellent and sums up a lot of what is wrong with the UK MSM. Arch gossip monger, triviality merchant and general waste of taxpayers money Nick Robinson tries to hit back on his BBC "blog" here, however many of the commenters seem to have him well sussed out see eg "Jon Pollard" :

The BBC describe him [Nick Robinson] as a commentator, but I'd say a more appropriate title would be "Imagineer" or "Storyteller".

Just like a lot of the rest of them I would say.

2006-12-04T18:41:00.000Z

Thinktanks that think like us

The BBC gave a lot of time to a report from Demos today that apparently "accuses ministers of failing to engage Muslims over British foreign policy in Iraq."

Why do they choose that particular report to trumpet ? Could it be because it pushes the line that Muslims are rightly angry about the Iraq war and we should do what they want before they blow us all up ?

Surely not.

2006-10-04T19:34:00.000+01:00

Some US murders more interesting than others

The latest unfortunate events in the Amish country of Pennsylvania were all over the papers and TV here, front page news in detail in the qualities and first story on the broadcast news.

Why does the media insist on treating some crimes as news and others as nothing ? For example - as shown here, in another part of Pennsylvania - Philadelphia the murder rate is over one a day.

So why does the media cover one story with such overkill ?

I've got a clue - the killlings in Amish country involved a single madman and young females in a school. Eureka - that explains it !

Of course.

2006-09-04T21:07:00.000+01:00

A setback for the Doom and Gloomers ?

According to this the IPCC is going to downgrade its predictions of the possible affects of global warming.

Bad news for the climate change industry and its acolytes in the green sackcloth and ashes brigade then. Qualified good news for the rest of us though.

2006-08-31T21:05:00.000+01:00

DRAX protest a damp squib

The small collection of loons amd losers who turned up at this futile event seem to have got a lot of publicity.

The question here is why the MSM is giving this small demonstration such big publicity ? 600 people were there - that seems a pathetic number to me.

These people must have very good publicists.

Seems to me the MSM now like to pick up on greenhouse gas issues as they think its another way to attack Bush and Blair. If Bush had ratified Kyoto and it was mainly China and India holding back, we'd probably hear nothing about global warming on the BBC or the Guardian.

Mind you even then no doubt they'd come up with some other way to attack the US and self flagellate while ignoring the real arguments about global warming and what to do about it.

2006-08-21T19:01:00.000+01:00

Germans face terror threat too

Germany is on a high level of terror alert as a result of the failure of a very nasty terrorist plot.

This doesn't seem to have had the media impact in the UK you might have expected. Strange that isn't it ?

Perhaps its something to do with the fact that a lot of our media thinks all Islamic extremism is the fault of the Iraq war and Bush/Blair ?

I seem to remember Germany was very against the Iraq war. So much for pacifascist appeasement eh ?

2006-08-14T13:38:00.000+01:00

Wars we don't care about

The wall to wall media coverage of the Israel/Lebanon conflict is in marked contrast to that of the civil war in Sri Lanka where as can be seen here nearly 200 people have died since last Friday. Although there has been some coverage of this conflict there is nowhere like the comment and interest that the Middle East produces.

Why is that ? I suggest its because 1) our media hunts in packs, ie one outlet can't really be seen to out of step with the others on the big story and 2) the Middle East and the supposed sins of Israel are of far more interest to the MSM as a way to get at Blair and Bush.

Whatever the reason this constant preoccupation with the Middle East seems well over the top.

2006-08-09T20:39:00.000+01:00

Media/Politico Pacifascists urge pointless Parliament recall

PM on Radio 4 and Channel Haw Haw News had articles tonight on how apparently some 130 MP's have issued a demand for parliament to be recalled to debate the situation in the Middle East. Needless to say the goverment has said no.

This seems to me to be so abtuse as to be barely believeable. What is there possibly to be gained from such a thing ? The only thing I can think of is an excuse for pacifist Lefty Labourites and Lib Dems to beat their chests about the evils of the Zionists and perhaps for some creepy Tories to seek to try to embarasss the PM by playing to the gallery (while not having any policy on the issue that is clear to anyone).

Besides haven't these people ever heard of the other many nasty conflicts in the world that are killing innocents every day in Sudan, Sri Lanka, Columbia etc ? I don't hear them calling for recall of parliament to discuss any of these. Why would that be ?

For the politicos it's because they know the media don't discuss these conflicts and there's no airtime or votes in it.

What's the media's excuse ?

2006-07-31T18:35:00.000+01:00

Pacifascism in action

While its not surprising to see some on the so called left (I would call just call them anti-Westernists) coming out to support Hezbollah (see the disgusting George Galloway here for example), what really gets me is the way appeasers in the MSM and the BBC/Channel HawHaw Four love to wring their hands about the unfortunate death of civilians and use it as a way to attack Israel.

Lets look at some of the reasons that Israel is not being fairly treated here.

1. It is Hezbollah that is deliberately targetting civilians - there is no doubt of that, and they don't deny it.

2. In all wars there are civilian casualties (and friendly fire deaths for that matter). However if one combatant is deliberately locating its facilities close to civilian facilities as Hezbullah is who is to blame when there is a counter attack and civilians are killed ?

3. Hezbollah is a fascist Jihadi militia (see here) which cares nothing for its own people - in fact in line with all Jihadi thinking it probably welcomes martyrdom for them (whether they want it or not). It should not be judged on the same terms as Israel - it is an enemy of the West and should be treated like Al-Qaeda.

As my title says what we see in action in the media here is the use of pacifist hand wringing to appease fascism. There is no analysis of how Israel is acting differently from Hezbollah. All we see is propaganda footage of dead civilians and statistics about how many more civilians (and do we believe they're all civilians ?) Israel has killed than Hezbollah. As if that was a good indicator as to the rights and wrongs of a conflict anyway- I'm sure the Allies killed more German civilians in bombings than died in the UK.

There was one big difference in WW2 though - the West finally realised that fascism can not be appeased and we had to do all we could to defeat it. Perhaps one day again in the West the liberal-lefties in the MSM will realise that.

2006-07-10T13:30:00.000+01:00

Zidane the terrorist victim ?

The Guardian has its usual victimology myth making on show here.

Apparently someone at the Guardian at some point wrote that Zidane headbutted Materazzi because he called him called him "a terrorist". And the evidence - well Matt Foot's internal Guardian link doesn't mention the "terrorist" allegation at all !

Very odd - looks like they've pulled the original story ? One to keep an eye on !

UPDATE - they put the allegation back in the website article - I don't believe it ! See also my comments in the CiF discussion. See also the excellent latest comment by "milla".

2006-07-06T16:48:00.000+01:00

Video nasty

Good to see our media giving air time to the rantings of murderers like Shehzad Tanweer (here on the BBC for example). Must be nice for the relatives of the dead to see that all over the news.

And a chance to watch it on video as well ! Well I won't be. Will you ?