Go North, Young Man!
Thursday, September 29, 2005

Up North for a few days having a pow wow with the tribal elders. Back Monday.

Be good while I'm gone.
New Labour: A Home Fit For Heroes
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

As I said yesterday, this wasn't a conference, this was a rally. An ugly, self-serving, demagogic rally. Conference implies dialogue. New Labour members are merely the oil in the cogs, the envelope stuffers, the door knockers. They'll shut up and do what they're told or there's a big bloke nearby who can teach them a lesson. There's your culture of respect right there. As Tony Blair said in his speech yesterday:

Respect is about more than crime. It's about the loss of a value which is a necessary part of any strong community; proper behaviour; good conduct; the unselfish notion that the other person matters.

The other person didn't matter today though, did he? I'm sorry but I'll crawl on broken glass before I take lessons in morality from these people.

Age, it seems, is no barrier to being intimidated. Expect the wall of plausible deniability to come up immediately. This will be some minor party official's fault. So sorry. But somebody sent the message out that the likes of Straw are so robust in their sensibilities, so sure of their methods that they must be protected by men who would physically assault 82 year-old Walter Wolfgang.

Assault, by the way, is "a hostile act that causes another person to fear attack." It doesn't even have to involve physical contact and is a crime punishable summarily by up to six months in prison.

If I went up to Walter in the street and started dragging him about, I could expect to be sitting in a cell very soon afterwards. Don't expect the sad bastard, sorry, brave soul who pulled and pushed Walter around in order to protect Jack's honour to be treated in the same way. Punishment for such behaviour is for the proles, not party thugs hired to stamp on dissent. "Proper behaviour" and "good conduct" are for the Great Unwashed. Know your place.

How about this, from today's Guardian Backbencher email bulletin:

The strange thing is that, while the heckling could be heard from the hall, it was impossible to hear on the television coverage. The microphones have been set up so it wasn't recorded. Mr Straw just looked briefly uncomfortable on TV.

See, the rally isn't even about the people sitting in the audience. The delegates are there to make the slaw-jawed electorate think Straw can work a crowd. They're Astroturf. This is about making the likes of the highly charismatic Jack Straw play well on the TV.

Hollow, bullying, preening, vain and morally corrupt. New Labour. Did I tell you they run the country?

UPDATE: "Police later used powers under the Terrorism Act to prevent Mr Wolfgang's re-entry, but he was not arrested."

My partner and I control the quantity of sweets my daughter eats because we know that, at five years of age, she lacks the maturity to regulate her consumption by herself and would end up risking her health if given free rein. She has to learn there is a time and a place for sweets.

Now, there may be some who will disagree with me and I'd enjoy seeing them make the case, but this use of the Terrorism Act, to prevent this man's re-entry to the conference is an abuse of those powers. They are there to prevent terrorism not stifle dissent or intimidate old people. It's not the first instance of such abuse and it probably won't be the last. New Labour lack the maturity to regulate the use of these powers - they're very handy when you want to get into a dick-swinging contest with an octogenarian.

As Charlie Whitaker said the other day: Is this frog boiling?
The Guardian: Britain 'agreed in secret' to expel Saudis during £40bn arms talks
Britain has already agreed to expel two Saudi dissidents during secret negotiations on proposed arms purchases by Riyadh worth up to £40bn, a Saudi government source has claimed.
And another thing...
Wednesday, September 28, 2005

In his speech yesterday, Blair said this:

"For eight years I have battered the criminal justice system to get it to change."

Battered. Battered as in fish or battered as in wives, I wonder? What mental image was he trying to conjure with that, and what mental image did Blair himself have as he said it?

Did he see himself kicking a defenceless old lady around a room, perhaps?

And what was with the beatitudinal, "They rise by the patient courage of the change-maker"?

The change-makers are patient, are they? Does that mean we can expect Blair to disband his whips office and take the time to persuade rebellious MPs on the merits of his polices instead of using threats? Can we expect the use of the guillotine in parliamentary debates to be abandoned by this government allowing those debates as much time as they need? How about, allowing ID Card protesters their say? After all, if the argument for the cards is so strong, why not have some patient courage and resist the need to stifle dissent?

Or is it just Gordon Brown who has to be patient and, in the face of his dismal aspirations rushing down the toilet, courageous?

UPDATE: Uh huh, oh yeah.
Poetry and flowers, pretty words and threats
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

I missed Blair's speech at the Labour Party conference so, steeling myself, I sat down and attempted to read the transcript.

Blair's avoidance of verbs is something of a cliche these days; those punchy verbal bullet points. His diction is like that of an IT recruitment consultant with ideas above his adequacy. Really, I'm the last to call anybody on their English, spoken or written, but Jesus.

Look at Britain’s cities. A decade ago in decline.

...

Muslims, like all of us, abhor terrorism. Like all of us, are its victims.

...

If people have a grievance, politics is the answer. Not terror.

...

Street fighters in local politics. Utterly unserious on the national stage.

What. Is. It. With. Those. Interminable. Bloody. Pauses. Between. Half. Sentences. Like. A. Policeman. Shooting. A. Brazilian. In. The. Head?

(Having recently studied shorthand, I have a theory as to why he. Talks. Like. That. It's so all the listening journalists who generally have a shorthand speed of around 120 words per minute can. Record. Every. Word. Blair. Says. And accurately consign them to the history books.)

Are these speeches supposed to be picked over? I'm genuinely intrigued. (As Marina Hyde says in today's Guardian, they're certainly not designed to be memorable.) What about the factual errors and the bending of the truth? Yes, yes, I know all politicians lie and none more than Blair, but if these speeches are just to engender a sense of well-being in the party faithful, why doesn't he do away with the ball-ache of preparing the speech and just buy a bloody big round of drinks instead?

I mean how about this: "I will never return us to selection aged 11 in our schools."

In response, given the opportunity, I'd say: "What the Hell are you talking about? Look at this huge list of grammar schools. Selection at 11 never went away."

Practically every delegate in the hall must have known that, even that old dear with the fizzy knickers they interviewed on BBC News 24 after the speech. Like I said, if the speech was designed to rally the faithful in a general sense, why go to all the trouble of putting in misleading specifics?

"I will never allow the NHS to charge for treatment." What if you're a, to pick an example completely at random, a victim of the London bombing needing specialist prostethic legs not available on the NHS? You've got no choice but to pay, if not the NHS, then somebody else for your treatment. His half of the story and my half come together to tell a tale that wouldn't do on the floor of the rally. It's a rally. If you thought it was a conference, as in "the party high command conferred with the rank and file", then you are either dumber than you look or Alan Milburn.

The section of the speech on crime should have put the wind up anyone with even the smallest affection for civil liberties, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary.

The whole of our system starts from the proposition that its duty is to protect the innocent from being wrongly convicted.

Don’t misunderstand me. That must be the duty of any criminal justice system.

But surely our primary duty should be to allow law-abiding people to live in safety.

It means a complete change of thinking.

It doesn’t mean abandoning human rights.

It means deciding whose come first.

The significant word in the passage is the "but". "Complete change of thinking" is also unsettlingly pertinent. Who comes first? Not, it would seem, the innocent suspects facing miscarriages of justice. They're a bit like dead Brazilians - you've got to expect a few in this age of modern policing.

No, it's the Daily Mail reader with his or her overinflated fear of crime that Blair has in mind. I say overinflated, as Blair says himself in the speech, "crime overall is down, burglary and car crime by big numbers." To protect the innocent, we must increase the risk of banging up the innocent.

He also wants "a radical extension of summary powers to police and local authorities to take on the wrong doers". Looks like Sir Ian Blair is going to get at least one thing from his wish list.

Looking eastward, Blair gazed upon Afghanistan:

Ten days ago, after years of struggle, finally in Afghanistan, six million people voted freely to decide their own future.

...is a pretty accurate statement without context, although the use of "freely" was pushing it a bit. But then Blair probably didn't read the report in the Boston Globe the other day:

As voters choose among democratic activists, former Taliban officials, tribal elders, and local celebrities, election specialists say the electoral commission made only a symbolic effort to vet candidates and left the worst suspected criminals on the ballot.

"This is mind-boggling," said Roxanna Shapour, communications and advocacy manager for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, a private Kabul-based think tank. "You're not disqualifying the big bad boys with the drugs and the guns."


Joanna Nathan of the International Crisis Group, said of the Afghan electoral system:

What this system has stopped is the formation of new democratic forces, parties that force people to appeal to a wide base.

It's a question that will perplex both political analysts and philosophers for years to come: If an Aghan person casts a vote, is it democracy?

For Blair, it's the mere physical act of voting that is the key. Oversight and accountability? Don't be so bloody greedy.

It's the same in Iraq. It's enough that "eight and a half million Iraqis showed which future they wanted when they came out and voted in January’s elections". Reports of intimidation and rigged ballot boxes are merely teething troubles, as if Blair would tolerate them on his own turf.

I could go on all night. How about the this flawless logic, oh mighty Aristotle? It has an inbuilt redundancy of some elegance:

How dare the terrorists justify their campaign of hate by claiming they are angry about Afghanistan? Was it better under their Taleban?

To which us affluent Christian crusaders, nodding along after a nice lunch, inwardly yelled, "No!" Osama, needless to say, takes a different view, which is the whole point. I think him and his mates really are quite cross about Afghanistan, hankerings for a caliphate aside. Unless he is at this very minute saying to his closest aides: "That's it lads, off with the beards. It's management consultancy for us from now on," Tony's argument is, well, a bit duff.

If you've stayed with me this far, you'll have realised that this particular barrel is thrashing with fish. It's not a question of bullets running low, more that the smell is starting to get to me. I should have used a blunderbuss not a derringer.

And we still haven't talked about Charles Clarke and his vow/aspiration/vague hope/hostage to fortune to have "eliminated anti-social behaviour" by the time of the next general election.

That's another big squirming barrel. Praise the Lord and pass the...careful now.
Open-mic ranting at The Sharpener
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Opinions, as everyone knows, are like arseholes: You must be careful to who you show them and, in the end, they'll embarrass you.

Get over to The Sharpener and put yours on display.
Now watch very carefully. Try not to blink
Tuesday, September 27, 2005

The Guardian: Blair in secret Saudi mission

Tony Blair and John Reid, the defence secretary, have been holding secret talks with Saudi Arabia in pursuit of a huge arms deal worth up to £40bn, according to diplomatic sources.

Defence, diplomatic and legal sources say negotiations are stalling because the Saudis are demanding three favours. These are that Britain should expel two anti-Saudi dissidents, Saad al-Faqih and Mohammed al-Masari; that British Airways should resume flights to Riyadh, currently cancelled through terrorism fears; and that a corruption investigation implicating the Saudi ruling family and BAE should be dropped. Crown prince Sultan's son-in-law, Prince Turki bin Nasr, is at the centre of a "slush fund" investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.


I must have missed the news that BAE has closed down its sales and marketing wing. With two such experience shills as the Prime Minister and Secretary of Defence on your side, why would you need it?

Forty billion clams make a lot of gravy. How easily can Tony and John make these teeny, tiny flies in that gravy disappear? About as easily as a Saudi security agent can make a stun baton disappear up a dissident's rectum, perhaps?

Let's hope so, eh readers? BAE's shareholders are close to destitution. Arms to oppressive regimes don't just flog themselves, you know.
Reporters Without Borders: Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents
Reporters Without Borders has produced this handbook to help them, with handy tips and technical advice on how to to remain anonymous and to get round censorship, by choosing the most suitable method for each situation. It also explains how to set up and make the most of a blog, to publicise it (getting it picked up efficiently by search-engines) and to establish its credibility through observing basic ethical and journalistic principles.

(via the SpinWatch email newsletter which is a cracker this month for injecting some piss and vinegar into the summer-lulled dander.)
Watching them watching us watching them shooting us
Monday, September 26, 2005

So the message is sent: Do not fuck with us.

Seeing as we were only ever going to get any truth from the investigation into how Jean Charles de Menezes was shot eleven times was via leaks, it's probably time to shut up the shop and gives us the "shit happens" explanation we're all expecting.

What bothers me, and what went under-reported at the time of the leak, is how the IPCC are botching their own investigation without any help from the Met:

She [witness, Sue Thomason] says two IPCC investigators who interviewed her were equipped with a map of Stockwell tube which had key features in the wrong place. This initially led them wrongly to challenge her account.

In an email of complaint to the IPCC she wrote: "If the people investigating such a serious matter... can't even get the plan of the station correct for interviewees to point out where they were, then what chance does the rest of the case have?"

She also says a key detail she gave of the number of shots and the interval between them was missed from her final statement until she insisted it be included: "I'm not anti the IPCC, I just want them to get it right."

What she said about the number of shots was:

"The shots were evenly spaced with about three seconds between the shots, for the first few shots, then a gap of a little longer, then the shots were evenly spaced again."

Which, if true, certainly gives lie to the statement that Tony Blair gave to a supine-even-for-him Andrew Marr yesterday morning: "I wouldn't describe it as a shoot-to-kill policy. They're not deliberately going out to kill people."

"[T}he shots were evenly spaced," sounds pretty deliberate to me.

From the Prime Minister, this can be shrugged off by the simple of expedient of remembering that he is mentally ill. He believes that when he says something, it becomes true whatever the provenance. Some pitiable creatures still take him at his word but, fortunately, the bubble of artificial reality in which he exists is contracting and may suffocate him yet.

Blair (Sir Ian) has made another, similar, mental shift whereby he now considers his career, those of the man who pulled the trigger and those that gave the order, more important than lives, transparency and accountability. Don't look for comfort from him. He wants a private army. (And you don't have to be an Iraqi shot by undercover British soldiers or a grieving parent trying to get to the bottom of what went on at Deepcut Barracks to know that, if anything, the army are even less accountable than the police.) The investigation into a shooting by his force is still ongoing and he says he wants ex-squaddies cocked, locked and ready to rock on the streets of London.

So, as they say, who's watching the watchmen? And, to be honest, we could also do with someone to watch those who are supposed to be watching the watchmen? Whoever made the original leak, whatever their motives, did the cause of transparency and accountability a favour. But we can't expect any more leaks now the frighteners are on.

Again, I could be wrong, but the investigation sounds as if it's being conducted with the utmost incompetence. It is not, however, for the likes of the humble tax payer and those of us who believe that a man shot in the head eight times deserves a scrap of justice, to be party to such lofty matters.

(Thanks to Andrew for the link.)
The Register: No2ID ejected from government's ID roadshow

Four No2ID campaigners were ejected from Gateshead Metro Centre yesterday, after their attempts to protest against the introduction of a national identity register and identity card were deemed "inappropriate" for local shoppers.

...

No2ID argues that the Home Office is rigorously excluding opposing views from the tour. The campaign group complains that the details and locations of the tour are not being made public in advance, and that the public is only being given one side of the story.
Carnival of the Britblog Roundup # 32
Monday, September 26, 2005

Tim Worstall pans for gold once again in his Britblog Roundup.
Women and children first
Sunday, September 25, 2005

Ha ha. That'll be Gordon Brown, Saviour Of The Party, will it? I wonder how many more party activists tore up their membership cards after reading that. Alan Milburn must have had a bone this morning that would frighten an alsatian.

I can't wait until the local elections in May. New Labour are going to get nuked.
Hell is (happening to) other people
Friday, September 23, 2005

Charles bent down to slip on the boots. As he did so, the pressure on his stomach forced his breakfast to repeat on him. "Hmmmm," he thought, "bacon, fried eggs, sausage, fried slice thrice, mushrooms, burgundy, tea, coco pops, roast potatoes, porter, kedgeree, kippers, scrambled eggs, toast, weetabix and swan."

Although they were very tight, the boots slipped on easily. They were very new and needed a little wearing in. He'd been hoping to be given David's pair after David had left. They had been very soft after much use but David had wanted to keep them. "As a souvenir," he had said.

Still, these new ones were very special. Polished black leather, up to the knee. He gave a practice stamp on the polished wooden floor. A report like that from a Webley revolver echoed around the high-ceilinged office. Not bad for starters. David had been able to go off like the Royal Artillery but Charles would get there eventually.

"I never want to take these off," Charles murmured aloud, lost in a reverie. Slowly, he started to sing, in a soft, wavering falsetto.

"These boots were made for walking and that's just what they'll do..."

In April this year, Double Jeopardy, or the legal principle preventing people being tried twice for the same crime, was abandoned by the Government. According to the BBC:

The Court of Appeal can now quash an acquittal and order a retrial when "new and compelling" evidence is produced.

So when the Algerian men who had been exonerated ("They went through a six-month trial where they saw all of the evidence and where the jury exonerated them," said Gareth Pierce, lawyer for three of the seven detainees.) in the Kamel Bourgass ricin-ring-that-never-was farce, were rearrested last week, you would have been forgiven for thinking that "new and compelling" evidence had come to light.

Gareth Peirce, lawyer for some of the defendants, said yesterday the government had simply repeated the original allegations against the men as the reason why they should be expelled from Britain.

Clever, eh? It's a neat twist. Instead of going to all the trouble of testing the law now that double jeopardy is no more, examining evidence, putting to a jury again, all that tiresome stuff, the men are to be simply deported back to Algeria.

Alongside the violence committed by the Islamic armed groups over the last decade are numerous documented allegations of human rights abuses by the security forces and state-armed militias, including the enforced disappearances of at least 4,000 people, abductions, torture and extra-judicial killings.

The UK Government continues to urge the Algerian Government to comply fully with all its obligations under international human rights law, including the investigation of human rights violations, and to grant a visit to Algeria by the UN Special Rapporteurs on torture and on extra-judicial killings. The UK with EU partners has also raised a number of cases with the Algerian authorities.
Foreign Office Country Profile of Algeria

But there's no need to fret. The Government is in negotiations with their Algerian counterparts to draw up a "memorandum of understanding" in which the Algerians will agree not to be horrible to anyone being deported back from the UK. The talks probably went something like this.

Foreign Office Johnny: Now see here, my good man, if we send these fellows back, will you promise not to be beastly to them?

Johnny Foreigner: Ok.

It'll all be fine in the end. If even if these men do disappear once back in Algeria and find themselves in a basement having their fingernails pulled out, who's going to know or care? Not the government who want this embarrassing episode under the carpet. Not the media who have coke-snorting models to fry. Not the public who have been convinced that there must be something dodgy about this crew.

Just what do you think the Government will do, on the slim chance they discover these men have been "disappeared"? Bomb Algiers? Instigate ecomomic sanctions? For a bunch of battered and bruised wogs? How about a strongly-worded statement expressing concern? Don't push your luck.

All this, of course, is law-making and enforcement as public relations. How many times have you heard a legal expert say, "we already have laws to prosecute those who would conduct or encourage terrorist acts". It's just that our current list of crimes are just so unsexy. They don't instill the requisite amount of fear in the public, making them realise how close to armageddon they actually are. We need new, scary, laws and then Charles Clarke or Tony Blair or Hazel Blears can go on the telly or the radio, point to the long list of new laws and say they're really, really honestly doing something.

Incitement to violence is quite a frightening term but we've become used to it. It conjures up an image of some weedy dick in a pub cowering behind his mates, screaming, "'it 'im, Bazza!". No, we need much more scarier terms so the public know it's really, really bad people we're talking about here. "Glorifying terrorism" is the hot one. You can be arrested and prosecuted for "glorifying" any terrorist act committed in the last 20 years.

Which is fortunate. Imagine if the period was longer. The King David Hotel in Palestine was bombed on the orders of Menachem Begin, future Israeli prime minister, in 1946. 91 people were killed. Nelson Mandela's reign of terror was brought to an end in 1962. Robespierre had the sense to hang up his guillotine in 1794.

You say freedom fighter, Charles say... careful now.

But familiarity will breed apathy. We'll soon get used to people being "charged" with glorifying terrorism so we'll need increasingly scarier crimes enshrined in law to keep the public interested. Supercrime. Ultraviolence.

Once the "incitement of terrorist acts" has lost its power to terrify, look forward to "incitement to irradiate the gold at Fort Knox in order to corner the world's gold market", "incitement to destroying cities with a satellite made from diamonds" and "incitement to destroying the sun and plunging the solar system into an eternity of darkness".

Cue Tony Blair saying, "look, people are very welcome to come and live here, but if they're going to incite people to make the moon crash into the earth, they can jolly well go and live somewhere else." Blair must long for the Sixties when they had a better class of supervillain.

(Blair's been banging on again about rights having to come with responsibilities. I'd like to take this opportunity to say that Laurel must come with Hardy, eggs must come with salt, and Tony Blair must come with nutrition-free, chanted platitudes. But what rights and what responsibilities? Couldn't we have a written list of what they are, for easy reference? We could call it, oh I don't know, a constitution?)

It's just that, these new laws are supposed to inspire confidence in the public. But, for those of us who can drag ourselves away from Eastenders, they do the exact opposite. Take this new idea that the police should be able to hold suspects for up to three months without charging them. Forget whether it's internment by another name and consider the practical implications.

Policemen, it is alleged, are human like everybody else. When I was at university and was given six weeks to do an essay or a piece of coursework, do you know how long it would take me to write that essay or piece of coursework? Exactly six weeks. Sometimes, to the minute.

When I was working in IT and the team had a deadline to complete a project, did we ever get the project in early? In a pig's eye we did. We dicked about for the first few weeks and then soaked up masses of overtime later on to get the job done in time. The systems always went live on the day stipulated and not a second earlier.

So, in some cases, you run the risk of innocent men being held for three months and then released without charge. Will the scheme run like jury service, do you think? Will they pay your expenses and order your employer to keep your job open so that, when they find out you're a web designer from Dunstable and not one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, you can go back to your life? Or will you just be another political embarrassment to be forgotten? You missed Xmas, your son's first day at school, your daughter's first steps and the final episode of Lost. No job. Are you eligible for benefits? What about the mortgage? You'll have been arrested in a blaze of publicity but the police won't make quite the same fuss over your release, meaning the cloud of suspicion will hang over you. Hey, get over it.

But all this bother is reserved for shifty-looking immigrants, isn't it? It's not for the likes of us comfy middle-class types, is it? We've nothing to hide and therefore nothing to fear. David Mery could probably disavow you of such complacency. Mery went through a very frightening ordeal at the hands of the police, but I imagine he also reflects that it could have been much worse. Imagine if the mercenary legion that Sir Ian Blair has a hankering for had been prowling the streets that day. (There is no shoot-to-kill policy on the streets of London, says Charles Clarke. Any connection between people being shot in the head and them dying is purely coincidental.)

Outsourcing, that's the thing. Soldiers for the shooting, accountants for the financial investigations, and Jensen Button for the hot pursuits. You could get a medium to ask Richard Nixon to consult on the cover-ups. Why not hire a Milo Minderbinder figure to orchestrate terrorist outrages. I mean, if terrorists are going to bomb us anyway, why not cut out the middle man?

But if you do find a) yourself wrongly arrested, b) your possessions confiscated with no promise of return, your DNA on the Police National Computer for all time and the details shared with Interpol, or, c) yourself dying of lead poisoning on a tube train, just keep saying, "I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear, nothing to hide and nothing to fear." It's for the greater good, after all.

We believe in the Greater Good. We all must work for the Greater Good.

Unfortunately, the Greater Good isn't a concept, it's a very exclusive club that runs the country.

We must strive for it.
Trevor Phillips is anti-American
Thursday, September 22, 2005

Such foam-flecked bigotry from the Chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality is gut-churning.

Until New Orleans held up the mirror to the USA, Americans, too, prided themselves on having found the holy grail of integration, with black millionaires, academics, business people and politicians alongside the sports and entertainment stars.

But in New Orleans the truth broke the surface. It showed us a society in which the average black child still attends a black majority school. A society in which the average white person returns home at the day’s end to all-white suburbs, where they won’t see a non-white face until they go back to the city the next day. A democracy in which black politicians, with a few notable exceptions, represent black districts, gerrymandered in order to provide the minimum of black representation. An economy in which black businessmen sell their wares largely to a black middle class. And an education system in which most black academics are teaching at all-black colleges or in urban institutions disproportionately packed with ethnic minority students.

When can we expect condemnation of Phillips, a man who is clearly full of hate for America and gloating about about its troubles?
Are you local?
Wednesday, September 21, 2005

I will vote, at the next election, for the candidate most likely to oust Celia Barlow, Hove Labour MP, if she votes for ID cards but only if 500 other Hove voters will too.
Back after these messages
Monday, September 19, 2005

You'll notice to the left an advert, perched like a jaunty party hat on Michelangelo's David.

It's a one off to give Tim Worstall's book a push because a) Tim's a very nice chap and I'd like to see the book do well, b) it'll be good for bloggers and blogging in general and, c) I'll get a tiny commission if you buy the book via the link on Chicken Yoghurt. For sundry expenses, like.
Carnival of the Britblog Roundup # 31
Monday, September 19, 2005

The strapping Tim Worstall gathers rosebuds once again, in his latest Britblog roundup.
We've all been there
Monday, September 19, 2005

A true story.

It was during the summer holidays and I was about nine or ten. A group of the neighbourhood kids got together and had our own Superstars championship (this was back in the day when Superstars was ace).

One of the events was a race around the block and I was up against Jason, an older and considerably cooler boy. As we tore down the pavement, I was ahead of my rival right until the last bend when he put on a burst of speed and beat me convincingly.

At the finish line, hands on hips and breathing hard, I wanted to impress this fine figure of a man, to talk to him as an equal, to be accepted and received into his circle of cool.

"Fucking hell," I said, "I thought I was going to win."

The rest of the team gasped. It was a more innocent time and I had used a word of great power.

Unfortunately, my younger brother witnessed the scene and promptly grassed me up to my parents.
Today, in your Soaraway Sharpener...
Monday, September 19, 2005

...I have a new piece up, wherein I discuss Tony Blair's proposed cure for homosexuality.
Who wants to see a Milburn hair?
Thursday, September 15, 2005

A question that's been exercising me today is this: was Alan Milburn dropped on his head as a child?

After his Forrest Gump attempt to run New Labour's General Election campaign, I expect Labour activists of all stripes were relieved when he was finally ushered back to his cage and a blanket thrown over the top of it. Surely his keeper knew what would happen if Alan was disturbed. Sure enough, a stray shaft of sunlight has woken him up and true to form he's crapping in his hands and flinging the faeces at passers-by.

Just what he thought his article in the Guardian would achieve I'm not quite sure. Who was he trying to make an impact on with his arse-wittery? I guess it was Labour party activists but, too lazy and contemptuous to slog round party meetings, it was clearly easier to have his words recorded by the Guardian SO THAT THEY MAY NEVER BE DESTROYED. Us non-Labour types just have to suffer along with his intended target like civilians in a bombing raid. He's like the dad who says to his two kids, one of who has misbehaved but won't admit it, "I'm going to hit both of you so I know I've got the right one".

"[T]he only credible prospectus for the Labour party in the next 10 years lies not in turning our back on New Labour but rather in moving further in that direction."

Was he expecting a collective slap of the forhead from Old Labour stalwarts? "My God, the bouffanted, privateering shitwit is right! What were we thinking?" Or was it a concerted attempt to encourage more activists to burn their membership cards? At least it'll make Michael Meacher's investigation into why New Labour has shed 200,000 members since 1997 much easier. The report could just consist of two words: Alan Milburn.

He even has the gall to say:

The dream of the people who founded the Labour party 100 years ago was just this: a Britain governed from the bottom up, not the top down.

I mean, who does he expect to believe this crap? Does Tony know? He'll go ballistic when he reads that. Would Milburn advocate the return of the party conference to its democratic, policy-making roots? Would he shite.

He's a sad redundant figure. A lot like Galloway and Hitchens in that respect. Can't we just put them all in a zoo so people can go and see them if they want to rather than letting them pollute our collective consciousness? George and Christopher could oil each other up and go at it like Greek wrestlers. The sexual charge between them is palpable. It's like the Taming of the Shrew. I think they protest too much and really want to rut each other senseless - they can't keep away from each other for starters. Get a room, guys.

Anyway. "Doing things to people will no longer do. Doing things with them is the key," says Milburn. Does this mean New Labour will now, to continue the sexual metaphor for a second, be making love with us from now on? Can we forget about those frightening, grunting bunk-ups we've been used to? You know, the ones when you don't really want to but, if it'll make them leave you alone for a bit, you'll lie there and think of Sure Start? Alan, after all is promising the Earth:

So people would be equipped with the personalised support they need to prosper in the still more flexible labour markets needed to meet global competition. Those receiving benefits would be given control over their own training budgets. Employee share ownership and home ownership would be put within reach of millions to tackle the most glaring inequalities in society. Taxes would be cut for the low-paid. Every citizen, not just the better-off, would be empowered to make real informed choices over their schools, GPs, hospitals, childcare and housing. Care for the elderly and schooling would be personalised to meet individual need. Local police and health services would be elected. Community-run mutual organisations would take over the running of local services like Sure Start, estates and parks.

And I'll have a lager-flavoured pork pie with a raspberry meringue crust while you're at it, Alan. And a jet pack. Dammit, I'm still waiting for my daughter to stride home from school with her government-issue pedometer. As a trial run, Alan, bring a box of pedometers to my daughter's school. You could carry it gingerly and imagine you're delivering a utopian society for all.

Like I said, just what dragged him away from making a few extra greasy quid by exploiting the contacts he made while in the cabinet, only he must know. He added just a dash more pollution to my day, pissed off a few more grass-roots activists which the party desperately needs, and the New Labourites just nodded along. At least it'll give Roy Hattersley something to write about on Monday rather than why athiests hate poor people or whatever conceptual turd it was this week.

A nice story about ponies would have served just as well in the Guardian this morning. As, I've just realised, it would have done in this space as well.
Fuck censorship
Wednesday, September 14, 2005


UPDATE: For those coming in late.
My turn to sink down in the blue chair
Wednesday, September 14, 2005

It's Day 2 of me on the wagon. I had letters from Boris Yeltsin's people saying Boris was worried about me. There's an American defence contractor who wants me to leave them my liver when I die. Apparently it's so hard they think they could use it to develop a new kind of tank armour. And the insomnia and weird dreams aren't helping.

There seems much to be angry about in the news right now but this damn writer's block won't shift. Plus, my corner of the internet seems to have intellectualised something chronic: I'm starting to feel like the Ralph Wiggum of the class.

Time to go out for a bit. There's the first hint of an autumn cooling in the air in Brighton today. I think I'll put some whitebread MOR (Steely Dan and ELO are my guilty poison) on the iPod and step out.

A small windfall has come my way and I find I have a rare treat of 50 pounds to spend. I'm on the verge of buying these babies on the recommmendation of Jim Bliss - extremely tempting. But then there's series one and two of Ren & Stimpy on DVD. And Sin City is out on Monday as well which I've yet to see.

Help me dear reader, how best to spend my day and my cash, to lift me from my torpor? I'm off for a shower - suggestions by the time I get back, please.
PFI Schools: Serving only the best chicken guts
Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Back in March when Tony Blair and Ruth Kelly rode to the rescue and promised that our kids would be getting proper food at school, I said this:

So, when the government promises to "help empower parents to work with schools to raise standards", does that mean guidance on how to renogotiate or even terminate contracts with outside contractors and corporate behemoths like Scholarest?

It now seems that there's no need to empower some parents because the fix is already in:

The Guardian: 'No fresh meals' for PFI schools
[T]oday's report reveals that a quarter of schools covered by PFI had 'regeneration' kitchens, designed to only to warm up and serve food prepared elsewhere.

If the unseen hand of the market demands that school children eat warmed-up, mechanically-recovered lips and arseholes then they'll jolly well eat warmed-up, mechanically-recovered lips and arseholes. The profit motive has decided that children don't need healthy, fresh food.

It's a relief, I'll admit. I don't know what I was fussing about. The market has our children's best interests at heart. Until it decides our children need fresh food at lunchtime, they don't need fresh food at lunchtime.

Where can I get me some that PFI gravy? Those shareholders must sleep like babies.
Say it ain't so...
Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Farewell then, Shot By Both Sides. For one of the best of us to go out like this is no justice:

For those of you who lied, twisted, cheated and bullied until the least worst choice available to me was to close the site, congratulations. You've won. I hope it was worth it. It would be ungracious of me to hope that bad things happen to you in return, so I'll merely take solace in my knowledge that you have to go through life having a personality like that... Good work, fellas.

I just hope you shitweasels who made this happen have a glowing sense of well-being in your solitude this evening as you masturbate into your socks. As you catch your own eye in the mirror, you can congratulate yourself on a job well done.

All the best, John.
Run Charles, run!
Tuesday, September 13, 2005

As we all know, this government can't see a bandwagon without tear-arsing after it for a bit of reflected glory, to be personally associated with it.

So, it's gratifying and entirely expected to see Home Secretary Charles Clarke huffing and puffing - the sweat blinding him, his large breakfast heaving in his gullet - after the cart in which the victorious England cricket team are riding into the sunset.

Not wishing to fall under the wheels and have his already shit-streaked reputation mangled any further, Charlie has granted British citizenship to Zimbabwe-born England cricket coach, Duncan Fletcher. After all, the British public are going to be interested in cricket for at least another couple of hours and Clarkie didn't want to spoil the parade and risk a few "New Labour persecute plucky cricket coach" headlines.

Congratulations to Duncan, who's waited 15 years for his wish to be granted. And it only took winning the Ashes to do it. If only he'd thought of it sooner.

Verah Kachepa must now be kicking herself. If only she had led a national sports team to victory, been a fast runner or paid money towards a government-sponsored white elephant and brought down a cabinet minister, she'd now be caressing a British passport of her very own and not facing an uncertain future back in Malawi with four children and a fiance who was injured while serving with the army in Iraq.

The lazy cow.
Drunk with power. Or just plain drunk.
Monday, September 12, 2005

The Devil's Kitchen has put a government in exile together; a blogger's cabinet.

I've been appointed to the Foreign Office and have submitted my first three policies. Get over there and demand my resignation.

My instant rebuttal unit is warming up...
Back from the abyss
Sunday, September 11, 2005

Very strange. My shiny new Belkin wireless router, gorgeous in every other respect, was blacklisting Blogger and preventing me from spreading my message of hate to all mankind.

A plot by the forces of darkness, I tells ya.

Anyway, a bit of a Googling here and a bit of jiggery pokery there and I'm back, spewing hastily-constructed self-indulgence into the ether at 54Mbps. My mission of righteousness, with the sword of ill-thought crap in one hand and the shield of petulant grievance in the other, shall not be thwarted.

Onwards. When my hangover's worn off.
Postcard from limbo
Saturday, September 10, 2005

I'm writing this laboriously from my mobile phone, not knowing if you will ever read these words, like a castaway throwing his bottle into the sea. I've just got connected to the internet via a wireless router and the firewall is blocking the Blogger website. Arse. Any help gratefully received. Otherwise, standby. Love Just xxx






Uzbekistan: A Chicken Yoghurt Special
Thursday, September 01, 2005

These days the people of Uzbekistan celebrates the 14th Anniversary of the Independence. On this happy occasion, I would like to extend my sincere congratulations and best wishes for the successful development and prosperity to amicable people of Uzbekistan.
Chang Hoon, Former South Korean Ambassador to Uzbekistan

[T]he population of Uzbekistan are poor, and getting poorer. There is, as you might imagine, widespread disillusionment with the government. But just as economically the reinforced Soviet system crushes the hopes of the aspiring, so the political system crushes all who oppose.
Craig Murray, Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan

Chicken Yoghurt: Ah, Uzbekistan. Land of contrasts. Its amicable, prosperous people. Its terrifying, blood-streaked prisons. Its corrupt, violent regime. Its strategic importance in the region.

Welcome to our special debate between two illustrious figures who know Uzbekistan best, Chang Hoon, former South Korean Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to the country. I'm also pleased to say we've been joined by British Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw.

Starting with you Mr Hoon, where do you think Uzbekistan fits in today's modern, globalized economy?

Hoon: I would like to mention that despite the plenty of natural resources, including oil, gas, gold and cotton, as well as agricultural products, Uzbekistan is much eager to attract foreign investments in contrast to other former Soviet republics.

Murray: But the climate for foreign investors is dreadful. In effect there is no respect by the government of Uzbekistan of private property rights or the sanctity of contract. The civil, just as the criminal, courts entirely lack independence and follow government instruction. I know of one British company which one morning found that its 60 per cent share in a joint enterprise with an Uzbek state entity, had been reduced to 30 per cent by a court case they had not been told was happening. Jahn International, a Danish investor, had approximately $1 million simply removed from its bank account as "excess profits". Another British businessman this year had his assets awarded to an Uzbek former partner, with the Uzbek court refusing to acknowledge British legalised documents showing the partner had sold out and been fully paid up.

The anti-trade measures, the lack of redress, and the petty and continual interference of corrupt officials thriving on massive over-regulation, make Uzbekistan a very poor investment prospect.

Hoon: I would also like to comment such important direction of democratization of social life in Uzbekistan as judicial and legal reform. Consecutive liberalization of this system, radical changes in criminal policy and law enforcement practice have positively effected social, political and criminal situation in Uzbekistan.

Murray: But on an everyday basis, there is also no way to protest. There is no freedom of the media, no freedom of religion, no freedom of speech, no freedom of assembly. A regime so harsh to the many, so luxurious for the few, rules only by the harshest of repression. There are not only exit visas, but still the propusk system of internal movement control. Almost all of those born on state farms are condemned to be, in effect, serf labour for life.

Straw: It's for the people to decide on a change of regime not outsiders. What you have to have however is a democratic process in which a change of regime can be decided if that is wished freely by the people of the country.

Hoon: Recently the parliamentary elections were held in Uzbekistan which become an important landmark in further democratization of the country. For the first time in the history of Uzbekistan a two-chamber parliament consisting of Legislative chamber and the Senate is formed.

Murray: There is no democracy in Uzbekistan. President Karimov's term in office has been repeatedly extended by rigged elections and referenda.

Hoon: Uzbekistan firmly, steadily and consistently moves along its chosen path of democratic build-up and formation of the civil society, deepening market reforms and strengthening democratic values in minds of citizens.

Following criminal policy of the state, principles of humanism and equity President Karimov has signed the decree on abolishing death penalty from Jan. 1, 2008 as a punishment for especially grave crimes and replacing it with life imprisonment.

Extension of reforms in this sphere might be a Presidential Decree on transferring to courts the right to issue sanctions for arrest which, in my view, allows to considerably improve the effectiveness of the protection of the constitutional rights of citizens for freedom and personal inviolability.

Murray: I am not going today to produce an exhaustive list of human rights offences. I do not think the appalling human rights record of the Uzbek government is in dispute. There remain many thousands of political and religious prisoners, and torture and brutality remain the instruments by which the regime maintains its fierce grip. I came personally, very close to incidents and victims. When I had dinner with Professor Mirsaidov and other leading dissidents in Samarkand at the end of March 2002, some four hours after I left the house his grandson's body was dumped on the doorstep.

The lad was eighteen. His knees and elbows had been smashed by blows with a hammer, or perhaps a spade or rifle butt. One hand had been immersed in boiling liquid until the flesh was peeling away from the bone. He had been killed with a blow that caved in the back of his skull.

Straw: What we call for in all these countries is for the introduction of democracy. It's for the people to decide on a change of regime not outsiders. What you have to have however is a democratic process in which a change of regime can be decided if that is wished freely by the people of the country.

Murray: It was in my first few days in Uzbekistan that I was confronted with the pictures of Avazov, with Azimov boiled to death in Jaslyk prison. The University of Glasgow pathology department studied the detailed photos and concluded that this was immersion in, not spattering with, boiling liquid. There was a clear tidemark. The fingernails had also been pulled.

So how should the West react to this regime?

Straw: It's for the people to decide on a change of regime not outsiders.

Hoon: I would like to urge the international community to support initiatives by President Karimov on creation of nuclear-free zone in Central Asia, a common market with development of transport and communication, water and energy infrastructures of the region, as well as his proposals on maintaining stability in Afghanistan which undoubtedly are the important contribution to the security and economic development in Central Asia.

Yoghurt: Moving on. Mr Murray, you've led calls for sanctions to be brought to bear on Uzbekistan's cotton industry. Wouldn't they harm the ordinary people of the country?

Murray: The Uzbek cotton industry is a disastrous aberration created by Soviet central planning. Over 80% of the loss of water from the Aral Sea is due to irrigation for the Uzbek cotton industry, so it is responsible for one of the World’s greatest environmental disasters. On most agricultural land in Uzbekistan, cotton has been grown as a monoculture for fifty years, with no rotation. This of course exhausts the soil and encourages pests. As a result the cotton industry employs massive quantities of pesticide and fertiliser. As a result it is not just that the Aral Sea is disappearing, but that and fertiliser years, with no rotation. The whole area of the former sea suffers appalling pollution, reflected in appalling levels of disease.

The economy is heavily dependent on massive production of cotton, the revenue from which brings almost no economic benefit to the wretches who pick it in conditions of serfdom.

We should be seeking to shorten Uzbekistan's misery, not to extend it. It is the world's second largest exporter of cotton. Citing the use of child and serf labour, concerted trade sanctions against Uzbek cotton and textiles containing Uzbek cotton should be the way forward. Given the self-interest of the very powerful US cotton lobby and the new frost in US-Uzbek relations, this might even be achievable.

Straw: It's for the people to decide on a change of regime not outsiders.

Yoghurt: Thank you, gentlemen. We'll have to leave it there. Viewers wishing to know more about what is going on inside Uzbekistan would do well to head for The Human Rights Watch website and read the reports there. Strong stomachs may be required.

The Foreign Office's profile of Uzbekistan states:

The UK, bilaterally and with EU partners, regularly and repeatedly draws its concern about the human rights situation in Uzbekistan to senior level attention within the Uzbek Government. The Government has used the limited appeal of Islamic extremism as a pretext for repression. Torture is a particular concern. The UN Special Rapporteur for Torture visited Uzbekistan in November 2002 and said it was 'systematic'. Genuine opposition political parties are banned or prevented from registering. Independent human rights NGOs suffer similar problems, Only two - the Independent Human Rights Organisation of Uzbekistan (IHROU) and Ezgulik - are currently registered.. Journalists have been physically attacked and in some cases imprisoned. The press and mass media are subject to de facto censorship. There have been several 'show trials', at the end of which long sentences have been handed down. There are frequent allegations of fabrication of evidence; and 'disappearances' of alleged Islamic activists have been reported.

This hasn't stopped the Foreign Office approving export licences for "military, security and paramilitary goods and arms". Uzbekistan, after all, is the forefront of The War Against Terror. Terrorist suspects have been "rendered" to Uzbekistan by the forces of good for questioning. Confessions have been coaxed from prisoners by Uzbek official via the use of boiling water, beating and the extracting of fingernails. "They've been very helpful in helping fight the war on terror," said George Bush.

Today's broadcast was brought to you as part of the Blog for Uzbekistan pledge inaugarated by the Disillusioned Kid. Other broadcast outlets will also be featuring programmes on Uzbekistan on this, the anniversary of the country's independence.

Thanks again to my guests and thanks to you for joining us.

(These links may also be of interest: Wikipedia, New Scientist, Economist, Craig Murray. Mr Chang's words were taken from an article in The Korea Times, Mr Murray's from a speech he gave at Chatham House in 2004, Mr Straw's from an interview he gave on Radio 4.)