Chicken Backup

Petition or attrition?

2008-02-09T08:35:00.000Z

I'm in two minds about blogging and signing this:

We, European citizens of all origins and of all political persuasions, wish to express our total opposition to the nomination of Tony Blair to the Presidency of the European Council.

Sure, if he gets the job thousands will very probably die and the continent will be finally arrive back in the Dark Ages, a time to where it is already hurtling.

But think of the time bloggers, writers, columnists, poets and other assorted tragedians would have. It'd be a golden age for world literature.

Cryogenic freezing sequence initiated

2008-02-07T16:07:00.000Z

Chicken Yoghurt is back.

And so, it's time to put Chicken Backup into suspended animation until his services are required again. A bit like Captain America. Or a tortoise being put into a cardboard box in the airing cupboard.

See you in other place.

The injured and the inured

2008-02-07T08:22:00.000Z

Some people really need to get out more:

Government plans to give the home secretary powers to remove juries from some inquests are "astonishing", an influential group of MPs says.

A little-noticed clause in the Counter Terrorism Bill would also enable the home secretary to change the coroner if deemed to be in the national interest.

'Astonishing'? Have they not been reading the papers since September 12 2001? I imagine less-sensitive and easily startled souls greeted this news with merely another weary shake of the head.

That these MPs should astonished is the astonishing bit. I mean, is there a legal process that government ministers aren't able to subvert on a whim? Habeas Corpus, corruption inquiries, the Nuremberg Principles. Rules were made to be broken after all, I suppose.

Why the Home Secretary is taking a political hit over this is anybody's guess. I suppose somebody somewhere is still impressed by such inane posturing. It's a show of strength and mock heroic cloak and dagger bullshit for someone or other.

The thing is, there's an easier way of doing it than explicitly derailing the legal process. Just carry on what they're doing already - underfunding the inquest system to such an extent that it grinds to a halt. It hardly ever gets reported on and nobody gives a stuff apart from a few greiving relatives and they're all against The War Against Terror anyway. Sorted.

Get Your War On #72

2008-02-07T07:42:00.000Z

Right here along with some exciting news for GYWO fans.

Behnam Zare’

2008-02-06T19:58:00.000Z

This is from the Amnesty International Project Blog email list:

We’ve just had word that a young man in Iran aged only 15 at the time of his offence will be executed in the next 72 hours unless urgent action is taken.

Behnam Zare’ has been convicted of a murder committed when he was 15 years old. He’s now 18 and is being held in Adelabad prison, in the south-western city of Shiraz. The order to carry out his execution has now been sent to the prison.

Amnesty is urging people to take action to help save Behnam at www.amnesty.org.uk/deathpenalty

The murder reportedly took place on 21 April 2005, when Behnam Zare’ swung a knife during an argument with a man named Mehrdad, wounding him in the neck. Mehrdad later died in hospital. Behnam Zare’ was detained on 13 November 2005; Fars Criminal Court sentenced him to qesas (retribution) on charges of premeditated murder.

Behnam Zare’ is one of at least 71 child offenders currently on death row in Iran. The country continues to execute child offenders – people under the age of 18 at the time of their offence – despite the practice being strictly prohibited under international law. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has twice urged Iran to stop executions of child offenders, yet since 1990 Iran has executed at least 24 such offenders. You can find out more about the issue at the excellent campaigning website www.stopchildexecutions.com and link to our blog on this case (and other issues like the USA’s use of waterboarding) here.

This is a genuinely urgent case where our actions can make a real difference. Hope you can help.

Takes five minutes to send the letter via Amnesty's website.

The enviable life of Jack Straw

2008-02-06T11:00:00.000Z

So, let's get this straight. Jack Straw was told last December that Labour MP Sadiq Khan was in a spot of bother (Khan, was bugged by the police during a visit to a prison). But didn't ask why or what for.

In a statement to Parliament, yesterday, Straw said:

I was aware, in December, of press inquiries from a newspaper concerning visits by my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting to Babar Ahmed, but at no stage before last Saturday was I aware of any information that the press inquiries concerned any covert recording or anything like that.

What an incurious soul he is, the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. At no point did it occur to him to ask just what kind of trouble Mr Khan might or might not have been embroiled in with Ahmed, a man 'accused of running websites supporting terrorism and urging Muslims to fight a holy war'.

You would have thought that Straw's sense for trouble might have been a little keener considering the nightmare his government has had in the last few months, but no. To think he studied law at univerity. He must have missed the lectures on the question of motive. He's clearly unfamiliar with the concept of 'why'.

Whether this is a quality (or lack of) we should be welcoming in our cabinet ministers is for higher powers than me to decide. It certainly seems odd behaviour in a human being, particularly one at the centre of one the most paranoid and media-manipulative political parties in recent memory. But then if Jack said he didn't ask, then he didn't ask.

It must be heaven being him, blithely unaware and unassaulted by the reasons behind the harsh realities of life. 'One of our MPs is in trouble, Jack.' 'Hmmm? Is he really? Oh, well.' 'We have to bomb Iraq, Jack' 'Hmmm? OK.' 'I'm leaving you, Jack.' 'Hmmm? Bye then.'

Taken for a fluoride

2008-02-06T08:13:00.000Z

It's difficult to know where to stand on the issue of water fluoridation. After listening to two days worth of pro- and anti- 'experts' shouting at each other on the radio, I'm still none the wiser.

Advocates insist that we need fluoride in the water if we're not all to end up with cakeholes like Shane MacGowan. Those who are against say better that than bone cancer. Either alternative seems to have a grotty, unpleasant outcome.

Health Secretary Alan Johnson insists that 'prevention is better than cure'. Fluoride in the water means fewer trips to the dentist. And with there being fewer and fewer NHS dentists these days, you can see why Alan might be keen.

When you think about it, adding chemicals to the water supply could cure all manner of ills. First, we should add Prozac to the water coolers on the floors of stock exchanges across the world, to stop the traders feeling gloomy and bringing about the self-fulfilling prophesy of a global financial crash.

Then it has to be LSD in the water supply for the general population - to make us all think we live in a magical wonderland where everyone is happy and performing their designated role with the optimum economic efficiency. Think of the money we could save on PR, spin doctors and all the other professional liars who are paid to tell us we've never had it so good and not to worry. Prevention is better than cure after all.

One of the side-effects of an excess intake of fluoride is apparently increased docility. Whether that's a good or a bad thing depends on where you stand. Personally, I hope Alan Johnson's hands don't shake when he's adding the recommended dosage down at the water treatment plant.

A comedy of manners

2008-02-05T16:01:00.000Z

New Labour's one woman ideas machine, Hazel Blears comes up with another cracker - information packs for the ill-mannered dusky hordes flocking to our shores. She'd like to teach the world to queue in perfect harmony:

The guidance is intended to illustrate the information local authorities could include such as details on how to access local provision like English language classes, waste and recycling services and employment services; practical information on rights and responsibilities including national laws and rules around paying taxes alongside background on social norms such not littering, not spitting and queuing in shops.

Sounds great. It's like a finishing school in patronising paper form. When's it being rolled out to the indigenous population then? The pack could also include chapters about not letting your dog shit in the street and not hitting your kids in Tesco. Thinking twice about your choice of tattoo. When it's acceptable to use depleted uranium munitions. When you think about it, the bloody thing's going to be six inches thick.

Like ID cards, surely this information pack is just an initial pilot scheme with immigrants being the guinea pigs. The plan must be to have compulsory good manners for everybody in Britain by 2012 or so, please? Then once we've cracked it at home, we can start exporting our good manners to foreign markets. It'll kick start a whole new knowledge-based economy. Imagine Gordon Brown declaiming that Britain is at the forefront of the battle against beastliness.

Let's bomb Helmand Province with copies of 'The Blears Complete Miscellany of Refined Deportment'. The whole shooting match will be all over in a week.

George Monbiot: This scandal makes it clear: for Labour, money trumps principle every time

2008-02-05T11:05:00.000Z

Taking money from Isaac Kaye defaces Peter Hain's only remaining conviction. When Hain became a Labour cabinet member and was obliged to ditch everything he once believed, he was allowed to keep just one political memento: his admirable record of opposition to the apartheid government. When he moved from South Africa to Britain he became this country's leading opponent of apartheid. The regime first tried to kill him, then tried to fit him up for a bank robbery. He was a brave and remarkable campaigner. But in 2007 he trampled his medals into the mud to get the money he needed.

This is the story of our political system, of most of the world's political systems. You enter politics with the highest ideals and end up grovelling to multi-millionaires.

Read the rest

Payback

2008-02-05T09:29:00.000Z

Remember Anna Mikhailova? She was the student journalist who, while on work experience, outed the Girl With A One-Track Mind.

Such resourcefulness has stood the cub reporter in good stead.

Joined up thinking

2008-02-04T20:38:00.000Z

Via James and courtesy of the New Statesman (what were they thinking?), you now have the opportunity via an online questionnaire to tell BAE Systems what you think of them.

There's a box at the end of the questionnaire for you to add detailed comments and a lucky responder drawn from the hat will have £1000 donated to a charity of their choice by BAE. I went for No More Landmines.

(I would have nominated Campaign Against Arms Trade but because being unhappy about people being bombed and shot is against the rules, the organisation is not allowed to have charitable status.)

Olbermann

2008-02-04T14:55:00.000Z

Will you and the equivocators who surround you like a cocoon never go on the record about anything?

Even the stuff you claim to believe in?

Silly me.

Outed at last

2008-02-04T11:56:00.001Z

Ah, but what flavour was it, true believers?

It says 'used to' but I still do occasionally slip on the old tights and cape and go out and give him a slap. I don't see him that often any more, if truth be told, not since his mum got ill. And then there was that unpleasantness when we were seen in the park together. Two men in tight clothing rolling around together in public is frowned upon in this less innocent age.

I've calmed down a lot since reaching my thirties anyway. It's more cats stuck in trees, VAT fraud and dog mess these days. Evil never sleeps.

A level playing field: treat everybody like scum

2008-02-04T08:07:00.000Z

There's a definite temptation to sum the 'Sadiq Khan was bugged' story as 'Member of Parliament treated like a prole, doesn't like it'. Nobody seems worried about the other people who may have been bugged while talking to Khan's constituent in prison. Presumably those conversations are fair game.

Surely, if Khan has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear, yes? What's he worried about? The same thought struck me when reading about the government wanting to use lie detectors to trap benefit cheats. I think there's a good case for hooking the microphones in the Houses of Parliament to the same technology. If no MP would ever stop so low as to lie to - sorry, mislead - his colleagues, how could they possibly object?

When you think of the cost, in both lives and money, recent misleading of parliament has cost us, surely there's a case for every political statement uttered to get a computerised thumbs up or down. Think of the money that could be saved. Much more than the £0.7 billion benefit fraud costs the UK each year, I'll bet.

And why are MPs barred from filing their tax returns online? If the system is insecure and a tabloid newspaper did get its hands on an MP's return, there'd be no trouble if the details were above board, surely? 'MP files timely and accurate tax return' isn't going to shift many editions.

And bugging could be a useful time and labour-saving device when it comes to MPs' expenses. If only there had been a tap on Derek Conway's phone. All that money he squittered on his sons would still be in government coffers.

What's that? MPs are entitled to their privacy? Oh, OK. As you were.

Just to put your minds at rest

2008-02-04T07:14:00.001Z

...Because I know you've been worried about it. After a period of uncertainty, a 'portrait of former Prime Minister Tony Blair has been put in place on the Grand Staircase of Number 10'.

From now on, the last thing Gordon will see each night as he toddles off to bed will be his nemesis. You can see why he might have resisted it for so long.

Needless to say, in his picture, Tony is gazing wistfully off to the right.

Treat yourself

2008-02-03T18:38:00.001Z

The Collings and Herrin podcast is ace.

Selling oneself in a democracy

2008-02-03T16:30:00.000Z

The estimable Councillor Bob has got me thinking and commenting about Members of Parliament versus the 'snouts in the trough' attitude about them that pervades much of the media and thinking of the public.

Apart from cases like Derek Conway, which looks indefensible whichever way you slice it, I think there is a way for MPs and politicians in general to win more hearts and minds. It's a naive suggestion and would probably be resisted by all manner of vested interests.

In short, the case should be made to politicians that, 'OK, we're paying you all this money, show us in ways we can understand what we're getting for it and that you're earning it'. It's not going to win everybody over particularly the partisan, the self-aggrandising and those with lucrative axes to grind. It's not even a direct call for accountability - that would surely follow with greater and more comprehensible (if not comprehensive) openness.

I think that for many people, politics is an opaque process, particularly when it comes to Members of Parliament. Most people read the papers and think 'snouts in the trough' and go no further. I wonder if those people have had very few dealings with their own member of parliament. This is an admission as much as an observation. I imagine people desperate enough (and I don't mean that disparagingly) to have had to ask for and received their MP's constructive help look at it rather differently.

A story that stayed with me was that of Brian Sedgemore, former Labour MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, who defected to the Lib Dems during the last general election campaign. It was against human nature to expect Blair to laud Sedgemore's 22 years service as a committed constituency MP rather than someone the voters 'have never heard of'.

But Sedgemore's long, attentive service was remembered by some and with a degree of fondness. Just as us cynics refuse to believe that Derek Conway is the only MP of his ilk in the House, we must also force ourselves to think and hope the same of Sedgemore. It's just more verifiable evidence of either would help everybody, inside and outside of Parliament.

It's a question of making friends. Imagine if, for example, government websites were better designed, more accessible and user friendly. There would be those who would still resent the sums spent on the sites, but I'd bet it'd be a lot less than those who resents them now, in the age of the amateurism that passes for much of online government.

Imagine if Harriet Harman had stood by the promises and statements she made during he deputy leadership bid. Imagine if she hadn't automatically reverted to New Labour drone the second her victory was secured. Maybe she'd have found herself with more support when the tabloids came knocking. The amounts of money troubling her are trivial but there would be fewer calling for her head, or at least standing by silently, if she was demonstrably doing her job well.

If something is done well, impressively, on time, with efficiency, or whatever superlative you prefer, its cost is often, if not overlooked, then at least looked on more favourably. People are willing to pay for quality. It's why the 2012 Olympics are a disaster waiting to happen.

It has to be said though that it's for politician to court us, the public, not for us to hang around on the off chance one of them might look our way and we can be nice to them. They should show actively us they're worth the lavish sums heaped upon them. If it turns out we don't think - on the basis of the evidence - they are worth those sums then they need to up their game until they demonstrably are. Or they take a pay cut or go and do something else.

How you go about all this is for further consideration. It would mean a lot of changes to attitudes, procedures and prejudices. It starts to sound like a performance related pay scheme, doesn't it? Also, the political will drought, partisan cynicism and the insatiable drive for newspaper sales are very probably insurmountable.

Free Rice

2008-02-03T16:22:00.000Z

Free Rice: Improve your vocabulary and as a result have rice donated via the UN to world hunger programmes.

My vocab level: a miserly 46.

Operation Mirrorball: UNITApalooza

2008-02-03T15:47:00.000Z

Richard Bartholomew's Notes on Religion is excellent. Straight onto the blogroll and RSS reader.

One of his recent posts on the anti-Apartheid struggle is fascinating reading for those of us who were around at the time and had our politics shaped by those events. Some of the more minor protagonists are still around today, doing very well thankyouverymuch, and may be familiar to some of you.

In case anyone would feel the need to ask Richard to take the article down, I have - along with Alex Harrowell who has more on this - reproduced his post here in full. I would ask you to do the same, 'in the interests of public enlightenment' as Alex puts it.

***

The Libertarian Right and Southern African in the 1980s: Some Brief Notes

When Paul Staines was first threatening bloggers with libel actions last year over the republication of a 1986 report from The Guardian, not much was made of a second report from the following year:

...Between 6pm and 8pm tomorrow some 150 selected members of the Young Conservatives will be guests at the South African Embassy for a drinks party. According to the invitation, the host is the Counsellor at the Embassy, a Mr. C. Raubenheimer, and the shindig is to mark the departure of a Mr. P. Goossen...The invitation list was drawn up with the help of David Hoyle, chairman of the Conservative Student Foreign Affairs Group, who devotes a lot of his time arranging support for the Nicaraguan contras.

The paper names several of those who were invited:

...Andrew Rosendale, chairman of the Young Conservatives in London; Paul Delaire Staines, who once…[cut!] (1)

A couple of names here are spelt wrongly: "David Hoyle" is of course "David Hoile", who in 2001 managed to get the Guardian to retract a claim that he had once worn a "Hang Mandela" sticker – only for a photograph to emerge shortly after (Hoile is now a lobbyist on behalf of the Sudanese regime). "Andrew Rosendale", meanwhile is "Andrew Rosindell", at the time Chairman of the Greater London Young Conservatives and now a very right-wing MP in Essex. The GYLC had for a long time been supportive of South Africa: in August 1985 (just days before the notorious "state of emergency" was declared) it sent a delegation to the country (to meet "moderate" groups that claimed to be independent of the regime) (2), while the following November the vice-chair of the organisation, Adrian Lee, appeared in Tatler sitting under an "I (Heart) South Africa" banner (3).

One has to be extremely cautious when writing about this subject. While detractors claim that these kind of links amounted to support for the apartheid regime, the "libertarians" of the 1980s Tory right – and their American "Young Republican" counterparts – make an important distinction: they were, they insist, simply anti-ANC. Apartheid was abhorrent (and decried as "racial socialism"), but it only continued because of the Communist-backed and terrorist ANC. If South Africa were to enjoy greater support from the west, then apartheid would wither, so those wanting positive change in the region should support Chief Buthelezi and Inkhata in South Africa, Jonas Savimbi and UNITA in Angola, and the MNR in Mozambique – thus we see here Paul Staines posing with a pro-UNITA t-shirt next to a UNITA representative. Right-libertarians accused of having supported apartheid tend to threaten to sue; the left-wing blogger Charlie Pottins was at the receiving end of one such threat back in 2006.

Staines has entered into a bit of self-criticism over the anti-Mandela posturing of the era, writing in the libertarian Free Life magazine in 2000:

I never wore a "Hang Mandela" badge but I hung out with people who did. Why? What did we gain from doing so? Did we make ourselves more popular by calling for the death of a man who was fighting injustice by the only means available to him?

However, Staines doesn’t go so far as to wonder whether the right-libertarian movement as a whole may have been hoodwinked by a regime which knew that hard-right racialist arguments would no longer win South Africa support, just like some left-wing groups were manipulated by the Soviets. In 1995, the former South African spy Craig Williamson was quoted as saying that

We couldn’t convince Americans that apartheid was right. The only chance of manipulating things to survive just a little bit longer was to paint the ANC as a product of the international department of the Soviet Communist Party. (4)

The apartheid regime developed various "front" organisations, which were supposedly independent but were the secret beneficiaries of government funds. One of these was the National Student Federation (NSF), which developed close links with Republican students in the USA. This is explored in a book by Russ Bellant, who notes the role of one now-notorious American figure:

In 1983…Jack Abramoff went to South Africa as a chairman of the College Republican National Committee to begin an ongoing relationship with the extreme right National Student Federation (NSF). The NSF noted this as a "grand alliance of conservative students…an alliance that would represent the swing to the right amongst the youth in America and Western Europe." After an exchange of trips between College Republicans and South African student rightists, the College Republican National Council passed a resolution condemning "deliberate planted propaganda by the KGB," and "Soviet proxy forces" in Southern Africa, without mentioning apartheid or racism. (5)

In the UK, the NSF cultivated the libertarian Federation of Conservative Students. Searchlight profiled the FCS in 1985, and noted that

...at this year’s conference, there were two delegates from a new student organisation in South Africa, the NSF, and Mr Peter Gossen, a visitor from the South African Embassy (venue of several luncheons for FCS members last year). (6)

It should be noted that the NSF’s head, Russel Crystal, denies there was any link with the security services – or at least, if there was one, he had not been aware of it. Buthelezi himself was also part of the strategy: in 2006 James Sanders published a fascinating book entitled Apartheid’s Friends, which details the secret support given to Buthelezi through "Operation Marion":

The name of the operation reflected its deeper function: ‘marion’ was a shortened form of the English and Afrikaans word ‘marionette’: a ‘puppet moved by strings’. (7)

Abramoff also headed the International Freedom Foundation, which had a branch in the UK directed by a libertarian named Marc Gordon (now based in South Africa). South Africa was named as the source of its funding in Private Eye as early as 1987 (8), and later it was shown that the money had been channelled via the USA through Jack Abramoff and Russel Crystal (9). A 2000 report in Searchlight notes that

According to the former South African spy Craig Williamson, the IFF grew out of a meeting in 1985 at Jamba, the headquaters of UNITA, attended by right-wing Americans, Nicaraguan Contras, Afghanistan Mujahideen and South African Securiyy police. (10)

The British IFF also financed the Mozambique Solidarity Campaign, which, according to a 1989 report in the New Internationalist, shared offices with the International Society for Human Rights (11). The British ISHR was run at various times by Adrian Lee and by Paul Staines.

The British libertarian right’s links with southern Africa in the 1980s is a story that has never been told in full, and indeed I’ve had to self-censor some interesting details for legal reasons.

****

(1) Edward Vulliamy, "People Diary", in The Guardian, 24 September 1987.

(2) Stephen Cook, "Young Conservatives for South Africa", in The Guardian, 10 August 1985.

(3) Camilla Desmoulins, "Tory! Tory! Tory!", in Tatler, 280 (10), November 1985, pp. 166-167. I’ve seen a copy to check this, by the way.

(4) Quoted in James Sanders, Apartheid’s Friends: The Rise and Fall of South Africa’s Secret Services, John Murray: London, 2006, p. 189.

(5) Russ Bellant, Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party, South End Press: Boston, 1991, p. 82.

(6) "How the Libertarian Right Hijacked FCS", in Searchlight, May 1985, pp. 10-11.

(7) Sanders, Apartheid’s Friends, p. 266.

(8) See Private Eye (674) 16 Oct 1987 p. 9.

(9) Ken Silverstein, "The Making of a Lobbyist: Jack Abramoff’s start in South Africa", in Harper’s Magazine, blog 17 April 2006.

(10) Nick Lowles and Steve Silver, "Sound as a Pound?", in Searchlight (306), December 2000, pp.4-8. The Jamba conference was co-organised by Abramoff and Jack Wheeler, whom I blogged here.

(11) Paul Fauvet and Derrick Knight, "What is Renamo?", in The New Internationalist (192), February 1989. It should be noted that the very negative spin put on the ISHR in this article was disputed by its UK General Secretary, Robert Chambers, in a subsequent issue. As far as I can see the ISHR, while conservative, is quite respectable.

If Comical Ali had read 'Hello'

2008-02-03T09:33:00.000Z

Oh, what a heady whirl it is to be European Commissioner for Trade for Peter Mandelson! Bono, Bill, Gordon and Miliband major. Mwah, mwah. Peter could have danced all night. And still have begged for more. His favourite restaurant? L'Idiot du Village.

If he was honest, I bet Peter wishes he'd been born into the court of Louis XIV. The intrigue, the romance, the unbelievable balls. Then he could have worn a real powdered wig, a dab of rouge and one of those little beauty spots on his cheek. Instead of the metaphorical versions.

The threat of a good example

2008-02-03T09:15:00.000Z

I bet this guy's popular with his workmates tomorrow:

In a move that will challenge the secrecy surrounding MPs’ allowances, Ben Wallace has released detailed information about how he spends more than £152,000 of taxpayers’ money.

Still, you know what 'they' say: if you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear. Après Wallace, will it be le déluge or le dribble of like-minded honesty from his peers?

One for 2000AD readers only

2008-02-02T11:33:00.000Z

I've owned this book for years...

...but looking at it this morning, I've only now realised how Dredd found the courage to defeat the invading army of Sovs.

He was pissed.

And after all, he's our wonderwall

2008-02-02T10:27:00.000Z

All together now - Because maybe you're gonna be the one that saves me:

Tony Blair has been holding discussions with some of his oldest allies on how he could mount a campaign later this year to become full-time president of the EU council, the prestigious new job characterised as "president of Europe".

He's going to get this, isn't he? After all the death and destruction, lies and corruption, you just know he's going to get it. How's this for terrifying:

Blair, currently the Middle East envoy for the US, Russia, EU and the UN, has told friends he has made no final decision, but is increasingly willing to put himself forward for the job if it comes with real powers to intervene in defence and trade affairs.

Defence in this instance being the usual disgusting euphemism for attack, obviously. Him putting the words 'defence' and 'intervene' together has led to all kinds of scary places. And I like the tone of reluctance on Blair's part that these reports are giving off, like he doesn't really want to do it, but...

He's 'increasingly willing to put himself forward for the job if...' and he 'recognises he would need to abandon his well-paid, private sector jobs if he won'. It's as if he's all, 'For God's SAKE! Give it me then if nobody else wants it.'

And of course, none of this is absolutely nothing to do with continuing to fluff his sagging ego. No sirree:

Some Blair allies also say that he now recognises that as envoy in the Middle East he is not going to be allowed to become the key player in furthering Israeli-Palestinian talks this year, and will be reduced to a role of supporting political development in Palestine and boosting its economy.

The poor sod. His job of bring peace to the Middle East turned out to be less thrusting and important and yes, dammit, fun than he was expecting. He's going to be 'reduced' to a job looking after the Palestinians as if it were like looking after someone's cat on a weekend when there's a brilliant party going on somewhere else. Supporting Palestine's political development and economy is just so dispiriting and unglamourous compared to having your photo taken with important dignitaries.

I fear that Tim Ireland might have been right on this all along. Have we finally found our anti-Christ? It's a short hop from President of Europe to General Secretary of the UN. And then we're all boned.

Soaking up the leaks

2008-02-02T07:16:00.000Z

Still not so worried about ID cards and their attendant massive database? Then how about this. This week's Private Eye publishes extracts from Nick Davies' Flat Earth News, '[a]n explosive expose of the corruption entrenched in today's media:

Reporters from the Mail to whom I spoke independently agreed that they had bribed not only police officers but also civil servants. For example, they targeted officials who had access to the massive database of the social security system, which registers the personal details of every British citizen with a national insurance number and every foreign national with a right to work in Britain - some 72 million private citizens. One reporter who has now left the paper recalled: 'We used to use the social security computer as if it was an extension of the Daily Mail library. You phone your contact, have a chat, say you're looking for such-and-such a guy, this age, rough location - is there any chance? Keep chatting. He says, "Oh, we've got five people of that name." You say, "Well, givegive me all five." You get home addresses, phone numbers, maybe workplace too. They get you information off the database, and you reward them with a dirty great meal or an envelope.'

Now, under the terms of the Identity Card Act 2006, if a person with access to the Identity Register who 'provides any person with information that he is required to keep confidential' can face 'imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or [...] a fine. or [...] both'.

Why aren't similar safeguards in place for the social security database? If not, why not? If they are, why aren't they being enforced or acting as an adequate deterrent? Unless these provisions are made to provide the illusion of security for the public (see also, the towers of anti-terrorism legislation). There do seem to be measures of some sort in place. Davies again:

At one point, according to one Mail source, a reporter in the newsroom was bribing a Ministry of Defence police office who could access several databases, including Scotland Yard's. Mail reporters separately claim that they also had regular access to what is arguably the most sensitive of all confidential information, the health records of some of their targets. As one Mail veteran put it to me: 'If the Mail' go for you, they get every phone number you have dialled, every schoolmate, everything on your credit card, every call to your phone and to your mobile. Everything.' Even if it is against the law.

My emphasis. This isn't rocket science. Proper security would merely mean having to log every access to the database. That will take huge amounts of computer storage but, frankly, tough. Do it right or not at all. Then, if a person complains that their personal details have reached the public domain, it's a simple procedure to review the access logs to see who's been looking at that person's details.

If the accesser doesn't have a good reason, then it's suspension, a trial and possibly 'imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years or [...] a fine. or [...] both'. You could sketch this idea on a napkin and have a small prototype system running in an afternoon. I should be in management consultancy.

The vital ingredient in this plan, of course, is political will. The will to implement the measures. The will to provide the resources to monitor and enforce the measures. And the will to prosecute transgressors. Oh, and a newspaper or two having the balls to a) shun these practices and b) blow the whistle on law-breaking rivals. Good luck.

Remember all this the next time you see a government minister defending the overall safety of our personal information. And remember all this the next time you see the Daily Mail bleating about the government losing our data and it maybe ending up in the wrong hands. We now know whose hands some of that data is ending up in.

Ooh, you are unlawful

2008-02-01T13:30:00.000Z

I like this phrase 'acted unlawfully'. You only really see it used when someone important has been up to something a bit dodgy. Today, it's Jack Straw who...

...acted unlawfully by failing to provide some prisoners with access to courses to show they were safe for release, appeal judges have ruled.

Why is it never said that [insert cabinet minister] 'broke the law'? Why did they not say that Harold Shipman 'acted unlawfully' when he murdered all those pensioners?

Not that I'm equating Straw's illegal detention of prisoners with Shipman's illegal killing of old people, obviously. It's just that this looks like a soft pedalling of language to me.

Cabinet ministers don't break the law, they act unlawfully. They're not punished. They 'review the judgement' and 'consider an appeal'. The implications and consequences of their actions are softened along with the language.

Usually, its only prisoners or asylum seekers (Straw is something of a recidivist) that suffer, so not many people are that bothered. It'll be interesting to see what happens should Straw ever get around to inflicting himself on a middle class journalist.

Support Tim Ireland

2008-02-01T11:23:00.000Z

Right here:

Recently, I wrote an article about Paul Staines (you know him better as 'Guido Fawkes') stealing images and bandwidth. Now I'm getting threatening emails from his lawyer, Donal Blaney (you can't see those, but you can see my replies).

To put it bluntly, I suspect that I am being targeted not because of what I said, but because of who I am.

Blaney appears to be very closely aligned to Staines personally, professionally and politically. He also appears to be an odd choice of lawyer for a libel case (if indeed one is truly in the offing), as his specialty/background is tax law.

Via Donal Blaney, Paul Staines has been badgering me to reveal my home address or retain the services of a lawyer in an effort to bully me into silence without true recourse to law.

It's The Alisher Usmanov Affair all over again.... and I'd appreciate your support. Again.

After all, if some jumped-up blogger with a lawyer for a mate came after you, I'd be in your corner and slugging it out without hesitation.

'Guido Fawkes' was silent on the matter of the Alisher Usmanov business. Why was that?

Oh, and 'Guido Fawkes' stole my photograph as well.

You what?

2008-02-01T10:00:00.000Z

Obviously I lack the mental capacity for high politics. That's why I'm typing this in my pants and Gordon Brown gets to shake hands with dictators.

So, could somebody please explain to me the logic of this reply from Gordon Brown at Prime Minister's Questions this week:

Mr. Wallace: Why do the people of Wales have a full-time Secretary of State, while our armed forces and the Scots must make do with a part-timer?

The Prime Minister: The new Secretary of State for Wales has responsibilities in addition to his responsibilities for Wales. He is overseeing the British-Irish Council, he is responsible for the joint ministerial committees on devolution, he is the Minister responsible for digital inclusion, and he is responsible for data security and information assurance. Those responsibilities are in addition to his responsibilities as Secretary of State for Wales.

Now, to my un-Machiavellian mind, the point Mr Wallace ((Lancaster and Wyre, Con) is making is that Scotland and the armed forces are getting a bum deal by having a part-time secretary of state. The Prime Minister parries by saying, by my reading, that actually your question is wrong clever-clogs, Wales are also getting a bum deal because they have a part time secretary of state as well. Nyah, nyah, nyah-nyah, nyah.

Now, why would Gordon Brown regard that as game, set and match to him? It's trivial I suppose, it's just I'm jealous that I'm incapable of such mental gymnastics. A man can clearly go places with those kinds of abilities. It's bordering on a super-power. At the very least, when he retires, Gordon Brown should write batshit science fiction novels like Philip K Dick.

See Saw Marjory Straw

2008-02-01T08:25:00.001Z

The government's plans for super 'Titan' jails holding up to 2,500 prisoners haven't gone down well, it seems. Ann Owers, Chief Inspector of Prisons, said:

[I]f we look across the Channel we see the French who built one of these kinds of prisons in the 1980s and have never done so again.

Jack Straw dithered, Gordon Brown didn't.

It occurs to me that the next step would be to wall in a town like they do in Escape From New York. Look out for it being announced soon as the parties try to outdo each other in the run up to the next general election.

One of the concerns about Titan jails is that all the money is spent on building the things and funding for other programmes could be lost. Programmes to cut the unbelievably high levels of re-offending for example.

In his interview on Radio 4 the other morning, Justice Minister Jack Straw had this to say (8 minutes 30 seconds in) about re-offending:

There's a serious problem about prisoners who are sent to prison for less than 12 months because they're not given the supervision they need and we wan to try and change that when we've got the resources.

Well, it seems, after 48 hours of will-they-won't headlines about Titan jails, he's found the resources:

The justice secretary has said fresh prison reforms will cut reoffending rates, reduce drug use in jails and give more skills to offenders.

Very good, and a welcome and useful sop to liberals and Chief Inspectors of Prisons everywhere. In his written statement to Parliament, Straw says:

The announcements I am making today signal a major drive to overcome some of the barriers to the rehabilitation of offenders. Our primary aim in doing so is further to aid the work we are already doing on cutting reoffending. These measures are focused on tackling drug use among offenders and providing opportunities for offenders to learn the new skills which might help them to a life away from crime outside prison.

Like I said, all very welcome. There's no mention if prisoner serving less than 12 months will be included in the programmes, or indeed, who will be included specifically.

It's also odd that Straw didn't brag about these new resources and measures on the radio when he was being slapped about by John Humphreys on the subject of re-offending rates. Was he anxious not to alienate the hang 'em/flog 'em mob that forms so large a slice of New Labour's constituency these days? Or is the ink on this idea still wet?

Let's hope this isn't a simple reannouncement of an existing policy (it wouldn't be the first time under this lot). Let's also hope that Straw's 'fresh' prison reforms are different and more successful than ones announced in the past.

So yes, good idea Jack. Well done. But that's all it is at this stage, an idea. And it's a shame you slipped this out in a written statement to Parliament when a brave man, proud of his new idea, would have toured the radio and television studios boasting of how this new measure is going to make the country safer, save the taxpayer a bundle and fire the erogeoneous zones of liberals. Done right, this is a crowd-pleaser and no mistake.

But then, Jack's be-nimble approach is only to be expected when policy on such emotive issues has to be formulated with one eye on the tabloid press. It wouldn't do for a Justice Minister to flash a soft heart at those looking for red meat.

Update: How are current rehabilitation services and access to them going? Erm...

Jack Straw acted unlawfully by failing to provide some prisoners with access to courses to show they were safe for release, appeal judges have ruled.

The Court of Appeal said because the justice secretary had not given those on indeterminate sentences such access, their human rights were violated.

Tech support

2008-02-01T07:57:00.000Z

Labour MP Tom Watson's been promoted to the Cabinet Office in the recent reshuffle. He has some responsibility for government technology projects and is canvassing for ideas on his blog. Who knows if he'll listen but the forum's there, on the record.

If it were down to me I'd pretty much scrap nearly all government websites and start again. The Hansard site, for instance, is a disgrace, considering it's the central repository for the record of our democracy. Have you tried using its advance search feature? It's unbelievably awful and next to useless. TheyWorkForYou shows how it should be done.

In the meantime, there are plenty of tweaks that the existing sites could be given to at least give the visitor a little more confidence. At the minute, as I said in a piece for Liberal Conspiracy a little while back, the casual browser is very likely being put off at the outset and the serious information seeker needs tenacity bordering on monomania.

Not good for a government paying lip service to greater public engagement in the political process.

Democracy in action

2008-01-31T12:12:00.000Z

The Daily Heil's Benedict Brogan:

Good news for No10: there's a move afoot to stop greasing backbenchers clogging up his diary by requesting pointless meetings with the PM.

Define 'greasing', 'clogging' and 'pointless'. I take it these meetings aren't to discuss last night's football but rather to discuss the concerns of constituents. You know, voters.

All very dull for a thrusting political journalist, I'm sure, but then he probably doesn't need to call on his MP very often. If you ask me the Prime Minister could do with being a little more 'clogged up' in 'pointless' meetings with 'greasing' MPs. You know, to remind him why he's in the job in the first place.

Mummy, I'm frightened

2008-01-31T09:48:00.000Z

We're boned, aren't we?

Financial dunce writes again

2008-01-31T07:59:00.000Z

As I explore the strange and unfamiliar landscape of global finance, I find myself feeling like the newborn Bambi. I beg information of the more worldly creatures around me but they just laugh at my questions.

How about the unfortunate Jerome Kerviel. The lowly trader wipes out £3.7 billion belonging to France's second largest bank and is now under investigation by the police and on bail.

What a dick. He made the classic mistake of being a lone rogue trader instead of running with the flock. Jittery traders wiped £77 billion off FTSE share prices last week. But in this instance, they were all allowed to go home to their wives and Porsches. It was the rest of us who were told we're in trouble.

And how about public sector workers? They've been told not to expect inflation-busting pay increases and warned that their demands threaten the economy. They haven't been called 'the enemy within' just yet but give it time. A Sun headline screeching 'TRAITORS!' can only be days away.

Conversely, the gas and electric companies have announced inflation-buggering price rises. And yet their profits are astronomical. Quite right too: passing those profits on to the consumer would be madness and very probably communist. Being good capitalists, there's no question of the privatised power companies threatening the country's well-being. Gordon Brown isn't saying they're threatening financial stability so obviously they can't be. Customer disconnections are up mind, but it's probably only poor people who are suffering and they no doubt deserve it.

Thanks God for privatisation. It's been a boon. A few pensioners might freeze to death as well with a bit of luck, freeing up NHS beds and (if they're in the nick) much-needed prison places. The fish doesn't rot from the head down in this country, attrition starts at the bottom. We all know it, we should just have the guts to be honest about it.

And how about Shell's newly announced annual profits, eh? Wowee! A new record for a British firm apparently. I don't know about you but I'm swelling with patriotic price this morning. It now costs £40,000 to drive a mile. Or something like that. Looks like war in Iraq was worth every penny, no? If you're an oil executive, I mean.

Now don't get me wrong, we have to price people off the roads for the good of the planet and poor people seem the best demographic to start on. Attrition*. They don't vote, they smell, they squabble amongst themselves and don't threaten the rest of us unless we're foolish enough to stray into their enclaves.

No wonder they drink, they're so poor. Sorry, reverse that. No wonder they're poor, they're so drunk. This blog's compassion valve is leaking again, sorry. No, just think of all the Vauxhall Novas and Ford Fiestas we're taking off the roads, freeing the highways and byways for school-running** 4x4s.

I don't know why we don't simply ban poor people from buying petrol outright and make them dump their money in a huge bucket marked 'Big Oil'. The effect would be much the same and the rest of us would get to feel a little more superior about our own shitty little lives.

This is all very hectoring I know and I don't wish to come across as the little boy pointing and laughing at the naked emperor. If for no other reason than the emperor isn't in the all-together. He's kitted out with the finest ankle-length mink coat, Savile Row suit and diamond-top cane. You want to see the size of his cigar. And his grin.

* Bless you.
** A new insult. Scowl at your neighbour as she loads her foul offspring into her tractor to drive them half a mile to school. She's an enemy of the state. Not a drug-runner or a gun-runner, but a school-runner.

Testing times

2008-01-30T10:26:00.000Z

I'm not sure why there's all this fuss about McDonald's being given permission to offer 'A-level style' qualifications. I'm going to get myself one pretty damn quick.

I mean, look at the way our civilization's going. We have an ascendant, under-educated and over confident aristocracy, a descendant under-educated and over confident underclass, institutionalised idiocy, and looming war, disease and financial meltdown. In the scattered ruins surviving the impending cataclysm, people with burger-flipping diplomas are going to be the philosopher-kings of our society. I want to be on that gravy train.

One thing that did go unreported when the announcement was made that a fast food corporation is going to be allowed to educate our children was that I've been given accreditation to award diplomas as well.

The first will be 'Cynicism and Pessimism PgDip'. You too can be never disappointed but very, very occasionally surprised. The course will run over a number of months and consist of a series of questions about the issue of the day. The first exercise begins now.

You will require: A pen and paper, 10 minutes and 35 seconds of your time, and the patience of a saint. You may begin.

Listen to this interview with Jack Straw denying the charge that the UK prison system is at breaking point. He talks of the expanding prison population and the building of huge 'Titan' jails.

Question: How many times in the course of the interview does Straw use the word 'rehabilitation'?

Take your time. Write down your answer and put it somewhere safe.

Pens down.

Democracy on the march

2008-01-30T10:13:00.000Z

As Donald Rumsfeld (remember him?) used to say, 'freedom is untidy'. And messy.

The upper house of the Afghan parliament has supported a death sentence issued against a journalist for blasphemy in northern Afghanistan.

Pervez Kambaksh, 23, was convicted last week of downloading and distributing an article insulting Islam. He has denied the charge.

Still, at least it's improvement on the Taliban. Under that lot Kambaksh probably wouldn't have even got a farcical trial before they killed him.

Nasty, brutal and long

2008-01-29T18:23:00.001Z

Talking of long versus short, how about this:

Elderly and disabled people in England are increasingly being denied social services, a report says.

In 2005, I gave up smoking, oh how I miss it. In 2008, I've yet to have a single alcoholic drink. It's proved easier than I expected, I'm not missing it, actually enjoying it and part of me wonders if I'll drink again.

And then I read the above and I think, what's the bloody point? I'll have a thousand Camel Lights and a Jeroboam of Absolut, please landlord.

Those of us found wanting by the Blairite meritocracy don't want to be any more of a burden to our children than anyone else. Conversely, maybe paradoxically, I think my kids should work for themselves and not expect to inherit anything. Which is just as well, really.

My legacy to my kids will - hopefully - be shit-hot bullshit detectors and coping strategies for life in a world where simple compassion seems to be going the way of the dodo. They will, it seems, inherit one thing however. Me, aged 75, to look after. Soiling myself and drooling and frightening their kids all because I was selfish and gave up fags and drink in my mid thirties.

The long and the short of it

2008-01-29T16:05:00.000Z

There was a spectacular display of false consciousness on Radio 4's Today programme this morning. It happened between Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling and his interviewer Edward Stourton:

Stourton: Could you not at the very least try and introduce some kind of structure which would encourage bankers to think in longer terms? In other words try and ensure the way they make their money stretches over a longer period so you don't have this phenomenon of people thinking well, you know, 'by next Christmas, with my bonus, I'll be in the Maldives for the rest of my life and I don't really care what happens afterwards'.

Darling: I'm not sure, if you look across the banking industry, it is packed with people who have that sort of attitude. But I do agree with you, whether you're the board of directors of a bank or you're a govenrment or anybody else, you want people to look to the longer term and indeed, right across the world, you want governments that are prepared to look to the long term, which is what we've been trying to do for the last ten years and will continue to do.

Where to start with these statements so at odds human nature, history, experience and perception? Let's move swiftly over Darling's whacko assertion that the banking industry isn't 'packed with people who have that sort of attitude'. If it wasn't, you wonder why so many people want to work in it. At least, unless I've missed the announcement proclaiming the banking industry is now a paragon of altruism and profligate selflessness. Just because they're civil to you over drinks, Alistair, doesn't make these city types Mother bloody Theresa.

It's all very well Darling waxing lyrical about the 'long term' but he's been at the heart of a government for the last ten years that's barely looked beyond tomorrow's headlines and certainly very rarely any further ahead than the next general election.

One of the reasons that this government is so comprehensively in the toilet right now is that it's spent all the money. It hasn't saved for a rainy day. Or even a sunny one. Not one brass razoo. At least not for anyone other than incompetent bankers.

The government wants the rest of us to save for later life but itself has been spending for the last ten years like Viv Nicholson. Don't get me wrong, I love public investment - we're not allowed to call it 'spending' any more in case it upsets people. I just wish we'd invested less in the lavish lifestyles of management consultants.

But really, it's an expression of staggering naivety to expect people to think of the long term. None of us do really. In the long term we're all dead. That Stourton would even voice such a water-headed concept marks him more fitting for a job presenting the Cbeebies channel than the BBC's flagship radio news programme.

No, each and every one of us lives in the short term at the expense of someone else. Resisting instant gratification is extremely dangerous for the economy and thus equivalent to treason. It's called capitalism and it must have its many losers or else conservatives and libertarians would have nobody to sneer at. Poor people can't hit back, at least they can't if you hide behind your desk.

The banker this morning moved some money from here to there and took a step closer to buying his yacht. Long term be damned. That his decision puts someone out of job is neither here nor there. He makes no apology. There must be a loser. There must be a sucker born every minute. Our way of life kills people everyday, we've just reached an accommodation with that fact. I'm not happy about but it to suggest even small changes in the systems by which we live is to invite people to shout at you. I'm not an idiot.

The banker is no different from the rest of us. I, this morning, was on my hands and knees looking under the sofa to see if there were any coppers so I could buy a pie for my breakfast. There was. Long term be damned. By moving money from here to there I took a step closer to my pie. Well, I was tuppence short, but the man in the shop was very understanding. That I've inconvenienced my future self today instead of waiting until I was really hungry is neither here nor there. I make no apology. There must be a loser. There must be a sucker born every minute. Up yours, future hungry me, I've reached an accommodation.

You see? We're all the same. Banker, wanker, Member of Parliament, thief. Except that it's only the lowly that should have consciences. The dole scrounger earning a bit of cash on the side must be hounded, a punished and a penitent man. Such earthly considerations are not for the banker and the politician, however. I wonder if they have some kind of lobotomy before entering their professions. Prozac patches? It's a noble sacrifice, whatever their methods of emotional disconnection. They do, after all, have high, weighty concepts such as 'finance' and 'democracy' to worry about. You know, the real stuff.

You can't expect these titans to give a shit about how you put food on the table or whether you're going to die of cold during the winter of 2030. I mean, what are you, some kind of mental defective? I bet you work for the human rights 'industry'.

Big boys don't cry

2008-01-29T12:12:00.000Z

Guido Fawkes has got his lawyer out again. Bless. What would he do without his chequebook?

Charlie Brooker: A rogue trader loses £3.7bn. Further proof that the stock market is nothing more than a fantasy world

2008-01-29T11:14:00.000Z

As you may have gathered, I don't understand the stock market, because it's so boring my brain refuses to get to grips with it. Say the word "economics" and I reach for my pillow. But even I know enough to realise it's largely an imaginary construct: abstract numbers given shape by wishful thinking. If the traders suddenly stop believing it's healthy, millions of people lose their jobs. Maybe one day they'll stop believing in it altogether; they'll collectively blink and rub their eyes, and the entire global economy will vanish, like a monster under the bed that turns out never to have existed in the first place, or an optical illusion you've suddenly seen through. And on News at Ten that night they'll say, "Business news now ... and, er, there is no business news. It's gone." At which point we'd better come up with some kind of replacement barter system, pronto. Let's hope it's not based on sexual favours, or a simple trip to the supermarket's going to be downright harrowing.

Read the rest

Right but no right

2008-01-29T09:51:00.000Z

This guy is almost entirely right in what he's saying. It's just that he's got absolutely no right whatsoever to be saying it,

Fifteen places at once

2008-01-28T14:12:00.000Z

I think it's time we faced up to a terrifying possibility. He's had himself cloned, surely? Or he's undead.

How can anyone want money this badly?

Polishing turds

2008-01-28T08:17:00.000Z

So, Suharto got the funeral 'they' thought he deserved. Personally, I thought it would have been more fitting if his corpse had been fed to a pack of wild dogs and the footage put on YouTube, but that's just me.

Sure, like everybody else, I've tried to see the sunny uplands of the cuddlier aspects of the old butcher's personality, but the view was obscured by piles of bodies.

Still, it goes to show again that if your personal standing is flagging, all you need to do is die to give it a real boost. Or get a serious disease. I'm quite looking forward to getting cancer. Sure, there'll be terror and screaming and having bits of me lopped off, but I'll never be more popular.

Say whatever else you like about cancer and death, they have the beneficial side-effect of curing all manner of personality deficiencies. Reputations have a near 100% survival rate.

Update: '[T]here may be some controversy over his legacy,' said Cameron Hume, the U.S. ambassador in Jakarta. Feel that understatement. If only they would bottle it. Just imagine what you could get away with just a few swigs of Bush Administration Patented Rhetorical Restraint.

Sunday morning fever

2008-01-27T09:19:00.000Z

I can't shift this new tune by Nick Cave:

Cave lives in Brighton. I can help thinking that he's seen me out and about because he's definitely stolen my moves for this video.

(Via Warren Ellis)

Haji Muhammad Suharto 1921 - 2008

2008-01-27T08:37:00.000Z

So, another one cheats us all. At least Suharto, when he reaches the same Circle of Hell where Augusto Pinochet is having a pitchfork repeatedly inserted by some minor demon, can comfort himself with that.

'We ask that if he had any faults, please forgive them,' said his daughter. That's an 'if' as big as the Ritz. He had somewhere in the region of 200,000 faults. A third of the population of East Timor.

Like many I imagine, I cut my political teeth reading about what successive American governments got up to in Central and South America in the second half of the 20th century in the name of democracy. You can't read those histories without also reading about what went down in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran (we helped with that one)...

And, yes, in Indonesia. We help with that one as well: '...a little shooting in Indonesia would be an essential preliminary to effective change,' said Sir Andrew Gilchrist of the FCO at the time of the coup that led to Suharto coming to power.

In Western Democratic terms, Suharto was 'our boy'. Let us mark his passing.

Marina Hyde: The war on obesity must be won round the cabinet table

2008-01-26T10:56:00.000Z

The cabinet will begin by being weighed and photographed in underwear for one of those cruelly lit "before" photos, which will be placed on a website. There must be video clips, naturally, so perhaps Trinny and Susannah and their satanic 360-degree mirror could be drafted in at this stage. "Come on Des, you've got great boobs, but that neck bulge must be swaddled at all times!" All ministers will submit to a diet and exercise regime, and keep meticulous food diaries. Each week everything they have consumed will be laid out on a trestle table, and Gillian McKeith drafted in to sneer at it. "Oh Jacqui, you disgust me, you really do. How can you be snacking on a kebab at 5pm? Why not try my reasonably priced seed munch?"

Read the rest

The silver lining

2008-01-26T09:58:00.000Z

Ok, so the 'Guido Fawkes is Tory Stooge' dog wouldn't hunt - all we found out is that he's not a witting Tory stooge. But there's always an upside.

Thanks to Guido we now know that if you send an email to DailyLobby@conservatives.com, all the parliamentary lobby journalists get your email via the Conservative Party email system.

I've already sent mine and even the bounced emails are full of useful information, email addresses and what-not. Get yours in before they fix the loophole. Cheers, Guido!

(Heads up via Larry.)

An unholy alliance?

2008-01-25T13:15:00.000Z

The week started off badly for Guido Fawkes with him peddling an old story about a famous journalist's love life that nobody much seemed to enjoy apart from the neo-Nazis.

That was followed by an appearance on Newsnight last night where he showed himself to be a pundit of considerable weight if not depth. During his appearance, he received exactly the right amount of credit he deserves for bringing Peter Hain down. That is, none whatsoever.

And this morning it was revealed that all this time, it looks as if he's been part of a secret alliance. An elite, if you like. Is Guido Fawkes a Conservative Party puppet?

(More from Tim and Kevin Maguire.)

Update: Tim gets some corroboration from the Telegraph:

The good folks at the Telegraph have answered my question in response to an email I sent them. The header shows the email coming from an address that Guido has used as a 'contact me' address on his website, but the label on this address is 'On Behalf Of Guy Fawkes'. OK, that's their side of the story filled out to sensible requirements...

Update 8PM: Oh ho! An 'hilarious' 'wheeze' after all. Doesn't stop him being a fat tit and a deeply unpleasant human being, mind.

Ginsberg's Theorem* again

2008-01-25T08:37:00.000Z

The next time the Prime Minister or attendant flunkies tell you that ID cards are not going to be compulsory, just remember that, yes, they won't be compulsory if you're one of the 20% of us who doesn't want to travel abroad.

And they won't be compulsory if you're a student who doesn't need a student loan.

The document says: "We should issue ID cards to young people to assist them as they open their first bank account, take out a student loan, etc."

You have to admit it's brilliant. 'We're not forcing you to have one,' said the minister, 'just forget about that holiday or degree'.

What they should do is say that none of us will be permitted to breathe without an ID card. 'Well, there's certainly no element of compulsion,' the Prime Minister's spokesman will say, 'but we find that ID cards would help in the provision of respiratory services'.

* Which is:
1. You can't win.
2. You can't break even.
3. You can't even quit the game.

Don't mess

2008-01-25T08:15:00.001Z

All hail Techno-Viking.

More shared values

2008-01-24T20:37:00.000Z

Anyway, another one of Britain's favourite bastards comes to town tomorrow. Pervez Musharraf doesn't meet with Gordon Brown until Monday so we can only surmise he'll be spending Saturday and Sunday chucking around hard cash in Harrods and Fortnum & Mason. How he must hug himself when he thinks of how far he's come.

'One upon a time,' he must muse, 'I was just some poor schlub with a massive army backing me up, now I'm the bullet-proof figurehead for a coalition of Western interests who can't let me be toppled no matter how big a bastard I am for fear of who might replace me. Yes, life is sweet.'

On Saturday (26th January), Amnesty International is taking to the streets with a demonstration outside Downing Street. The event is being led by lawyers in support of their colleagues in Pakistan and starts at noon.

The Counter-Terrorism Bill 2007-08

2008-01-24T16:28:00.000Z

The Counter-Terrorism Bill 2007-08 is 90 pages long with 56 pages of accompanying explanatory notes. By the time you've managed to wade through it, deciphering its many sub-paragraphs and exclusionary language, the bloody thing will be law.

I'd be very interested to know how many MPs - the loyalists and placemen at least - will or won't read all 146 pages before debating and voting. Under the whip system, I don't suppose they really need to, voting largely being a matter of being simply allowing oneself to be herded through this or that door.

One thing of interest about the bill is that the government's definition of terrorism is the one laid out in the Terrorism Act 2000. That is, before September 11 2001. It's interesting to say the least that, despite the supposed changing nature of global terrorism, the government have resisted the temptation to tinker with this one fundamentals.

The BBC give a useful breakdown of the bill which is just as well because I for one am otherwsie completely defeated by the structure and wording of the bill in the raw. I wonder how many people could make a positive engagement with this legislation directly even if they wanted to.

Yet another reason to resist the hammering of the BBC. In this instance at least, it's a valuable buffer between the public and an enforced, institutionalised ignorance created by the state.

(More on this, maybe, later...)

Can slain Hain drain strain?

2008-01-24T12:43:00.000Z

He's gone then.

(Still, look on the bright side. Who's interested in shonky counter-terrorism legislation and Treasury twisting over capital gains tax now?)

Update @ 4.20pm: Oh, cack. James Purnell got Work and Pensions. Good news for the arts, I suppose, but I wonder if we'll look back on Hain's time as a golden age. Or at least a bronzed one.

Update 6.45pm: I take it back. It's not good news for the arts.

The feedback loop of fear

2008-01-24T09:32:00.000Z

There's been some talk in the media about us getting another bank holiday each year. But for what reason? To commemorate the founding of the NHS, suggest some. How about Remembrance Day, say others. Or St George's Day and others.

I'd like to suggest Counter-Terrorism Bill Day. These bills come round with frightening regularity (much more so than terrorist atrocities) so it seems only right we should mark the day each year.

That way, all of us can sit around in our pyjamas and wallow in the mendacity, sophistry and stupidity wheeled out by the Home Secretary of the day with which to defend his or her case for further authoritarianism. We can relax and reflect upon the contribution made by the people who have made this country the freak of the civilised world it is today. Us bloggers could just change the date on the same blog post and republish it annually - the arguments never seem to change, after all.

Who, for instance, has had the time to luxuriate in Jacqui Smith's squirming and squirm-inducing appearance (RealPlayer required) on Radio 4's Today programme this morning? Hardly any of us will have had the time to revel in the hearty yet bitter and scornful laughter that her performance deserved.

She couldn't or wouldn't answer the question of why she wants 42 as the number of days the police can hold a person suspected of terrorism. Even a child could tell you that that figure was arrived at by a thought process no more sophisticated or analytical than haggling. The government, for reasons they can't or won't explain, want a higher number but know they won't get it. They've gone high to lure their opponents away from their lower figure. Any move upward away from 28 days is a victory for the government - they're that little bit closer to their magic number and get to portray the rest of us as appeasers of terrorists. Which is a hell of a lot of people when you see the simply massive coalition of opposition ranged against the government on this.

And how about this feat of rhetorical contortionism at the 3m 30s mark in the interview:

Jacqui Smith: If in the future, in exceptional circumstances, a case could be made that there is an operation, an investigation, a number of multiple plots, a really difficult situation in which the police and Director of Public Proscecutions want to be able to apply to a judge to decide whether or not they could hold somebody for longer, that we need to find a way to facilitate that in those circumstances.

~~Sarah Montague~~ Carolyn Quinn: If that's not a hypothetical case, then what is?

Jacqui Smith: It won't be hypothetical if and when it occurs, that's precisely the point. We are not legislating now on the basis that we're bringing it in now for something that might happen in the future. We're putting in a provision for if it becomes unhypothetical. If unfortunately I and many other experts and right and we do need it in the future it is in place in legislation.

Listen for ~~Sarah Montague~~ Carolyn Quinn laughing. We're not legislating against the hypothetical, we're legislating against the hypothetical becoming 'unhypothetical'. I think. 'Unhypothetical' is not a real word incidentally. Smith is quite literally making it up as she goes.

How about this from, not-all-scare-mongering Home Office minister Tony McNulty:

As an extreme example, imagine two or three 9/11s. Imagine two 7/7/s. Given the evidence we've got and the nature of plots so far disrupted, such scenarios aren't fanciful.

Imagine, imagine, imagine a story. Where are these plots? Where's the evidence? The government and police haven't been shy in coming forward when they've discovered these plots in the past (even if most of them turned out to be unfeasible bollocks dreamt up by halfwits and the deluded).

If, if, if, if, if. Take a look at a dictionary definition of 'if' and tell me if that isn't a word firmly rooted in the hypothetical. 'The rules of the game have changed,' Tony Blair famously said. He was right, not least in the underpinnings of how the English language actually function.

Forty two days. Six weeks. Does anybody have a job with a holiday entitlement that runs that long or a boss willing to hold your job open for such a time? What about a bank manager or creditor whose patience will run to that? And you must have heard of Parkinson's Law by now. We are, need it be stressed, talking about locking up people who are suspects. You know, that quaint concept of innocent before proven guilty? Prefixing 'suspect' with 'terrorist' is merely an attempt at implying guilt where it may or may not exist in order to plant a prejudgement in the public consciousness. Nobody gets locked up for six weeks if they're innocent, do they?

And it continues to get worse. According to The Guardian:

The detailed legislation is expected to be tougher than originally trailed, with no legal definition of the seriousness of the alleged offence that could trigger an exceptional period of detention beyond the current 28 days without charge.

They can't even tell us exactly what they want to lock people up for. Sure, we're clinging onto the values that we hold dear in the face of implacable terrorism. It's just that these values seem to be from the 12th century or thereabouts. Why not just throw Muslims in a pond and see if they float? Talk about sinking to Osama's level.

I've said this before but most people in Britain will roll along with this due to a failure of imagination. They cannot picture themselves falling victim to these laws. They think these laws are designed to trap unknowable, generally brown-skinned, cranks and murderers and not used against nice Christian white people. That may or may not be true, if you've never heckled a political rally or read aloud the names of the dead at the cenotaph, but the lack of empathy for others still has the power to disgust even a cynic like me. The innocent get released without the fanfare of their arrest, so we don't have to feel too bad.

All this would be (slightly) easier to swallow if we were treated as having any degree of intelligence. You have to come to the conclusion that the government's argument can't be put in any other way than patronising illogicality because it falls apart when subjected to even the most cursory of intelligent scrutiny. So, it's got to be hyperbole and stonewalling, obfuscation and contempt, and all the other ingredients needed to make the laughing stock palatable.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Home Office had a cage full of Sun readers and X-Factor viewers who every policy has to be run past before publication. If the proposed legislation doesn't cause the subjects to shit themselves in terror and bash their screaming heads against the bars then it has to be reworded until it does.

What a day it will be when a government minister can sit down and talk to us like we weren't dropped on our heads as children. An adult debate held between adults with at least an attempt at mutual respect. That'd be worth a bank holiday.

Another twist in the downward spiral

2008-01-24T08:31:00.000Z

I know I keep saying it's all over, but now it's a little more all over.

(Via Warren Ellis)

World Finance 101

2008-01-23T15:57:00.000Z

Of course, criticising (or even straying slightly from the accepted wisdom of) world capitalism isn't a sensible thing to do these day. At best you'll be called a fool. At worst someone with the proper sense of perspective will lump you in with the Nazis. A right-wing libertarian, or one of those New Labour zealots who think you're weird if you don't want to turn everything for a profit, will happen along and use the word socialist in the same tone of voice as paedophile.

Still, here goes. Watching the global financial meltdown and people running hither and thither screaming about the end of the world, several voices popped into my head. The first was Ben Elton, before his plummet from grace, reading from his first novel Stark:

At the beginning of the day a factory full of jars of jam might be worth a thousand pounds. At the end of the day; a day of 'good trading'; a day of 'rallies' and 'confidence', we might be told that the same factory is worth two thousand pounds.

What has happened? Only a few hours have passed. The factory has not changed. There is no more jam in it than there was. There has been no time for the new slogan 'Let him dip his fingers into something fruity, Mum' to take effect. The slimmers' version still tastes bloody awful. Nothing has happened and yet the factory is 'worth' twice as much. Where has the extra cash come from? Nowhere, that's where. It doesn't exist. It is entirely theoretical and if people choose to dispute the theory, if they all choose at once to say 'but that's impossible. All right then, give me the cash...', the money would instantly disappear, like the puff of smoke it is.

And then Guinan from Star Trek: The Next Generation piped up (yes, I'm using quotes from Ben Elton and Star Trek to illustrate what I see as the absurdity of global finance. Sue me, all the posh books you like to quote from were popular culture once):

When a man is convinced he's going to die tomorrow, he will probably find a way to make it happen.

Then the voice of my mother, her wisdom floating in as if from years ago:

If your friend jumped off a cliff, would you?

Five Live's financial correspondent Pauline McColl was on the Midday News yesterday spilling the beans on how ECONOGEDDON is down to nothing more than the hunches, guesswork and herd instinct of stockbrokers. That five minutes of the programme is mysteriously missing from the Listen Again option on the BBC website. No doubt an urgent meeting was held in a smoke-filled room somewhere and the message was sent to the BBC ordering them to expunge the dangerous intelligence that McColl had dared utter.

I think about this often. Far be it for a fascist like to me - hellbent, as I am, on the ultimate impoverishment of all - to question a system that has made so very many deserving souls so very rich for so very long, but our financial institutions are basically built on bollocks, aren't they? It's voodoo. I've lain on my bed on many, may occasions trying to make things happen by willing them to be but so far I've had no joy. It's not fair.

I'm reminded of the Ron Suskind essay, Without a Doubt, about The War Against Terror, and the faith- versus reality-based 'communities'. I can imagine a champion of capitalism sitting me down and giving the same pitying lecture:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

I'm not the first person to think like this - there's probably an asylum for us all somewhere. There'll be a knock on the door soon, I imagine.

But if you were to run your life on the basis of rumours you'd heard down the pub, you'd soon find yourself chased down the street by a man in a white coat with a big butterfly net. You'd be skint, divorced, homeless and dead in short order. And yet the guys with braces sold billions as quickly as they could and then bought billions as quickly as they could yesterday on information little stronger than gossip.

You don't need to be Derren Brown - these people are some of the most suggestible on the planet. If any of them are reading this, send fifty pounds to my Paypal account (my email address is at the top of the page) and I'll tell you which way the market's going to go tomorrow.

Try going to Sainsbury's and saying to the checkout person, 'A hunch tells me that the price of Stella is going to fall. Here's 37p for 4,000 cans' and you'll end up thirsty. But go to work in the City, say 'I think the price of Global Megacorp shares are going to fall', convince enough people of the same and KERSPLASH! Global Megacorp is in the toilet.

It's not as if I'm entirely ignorant of the mechanics. My degree dissertation (for which I got a first) was an examination and evaluation of the various predictive methods you can employ in order to derive 'buy' and 'sell' signals from stock market data. All of them rely on historic data in order to give a 'hint' of the future. All of them come with the health warning that, despite the cliche, history is not doomed to repeat itself.

Unless the methods have changed radically and new predictive systems have incorporated chaos theory in the last 15 years, I can't see past how all this isn't just one big faith-based initiative. That the future of every last one of us is in the hands of a small group of (mostly) men who are at the mercy of their moods and whims. Putting Prozac in the water coolers on the floors of the world's stock exchanges is an idea I wouldn't sniff at in the current climate.

Most people will say that that I'm unwilling or unable to face up to accepted reality. I would retort that they are merely slaves to a prevailing orthodoxy. Still, that's just me. Must get back to polishing my jackboots in preparation for the ultimate triumph of world socialism.

Economic Apocalypse Roundup

2008-01-23T13:48:00.000Z

Mark Steel:

Even more confusing is why the livelihoods of most people on the planet seem to depend on the actions of share dealers. One day the traders spend all day selling instead of buying, and this means we could be on the edge of a global slump. How do they get to be so influential?

The Daily Mash:

Evan Davies, the BBC's economics editor, said: "The world’s stock markets are like a finely tuned barrel of eels.

"As they plunge, sea levels rise, leading to a fall in the price of dogs. Even if cat prices remain stable a recession then occurs. No one knows why."

Davies added: "People often ask me why they have to lose their job and their home because a man in an expensive shirt made some terrible decisions. I tell them no-one knows."

And...

Meanwhile, Fed chairman Ben Bernanke urged people 'to just buy shit and worry about it later'...

The numbers game

2008-01-23T13:02:00.000Z

Good to see the police exercising their democratic right:

An estimated 18,500 police officers are marching in central London in a protest over pay.

One question, however: will their colleagues policing the march be underestimating the number attending as is traditional on such occasions?

Liveblogging Prime Minister's Questions

2008-01-23T12:05:00.001Z

12:05 - The Prime Minister asks his first question.

12:13 - The Prime Minister asks his second question.

12:14 - The Prime Minister asks his third question.

12:30 - And that's it. Three questions again from the Prime Minister. It's a formula that seems to be working, but how long before his opponents get the measure of him?

Warning: cheap shot ahead

2008-01-23T11:14:00.001Z

Peter Hain wields the big stick:

We have identified areas that require immediate action. Living together fraud is now the single largest element of fraud in income support and we aim to make significant savings by stopping these cheats.

Yes, benefit cheats. Scum of the Earth bringing the country to it's knees and far, far more morally reprehensible than, say, the non-domiciled super rich.

The thing is, what if some of these undeclared co-habitees have made an honest mistake? What if they've simply forgotten to declare their change of status? What if they're guilty of nothing more than an incompetence? Surely they don't deserve to be punished?

Decoupling

2008-01-23T10:56:00.000Z

The Independent's website has had a makeover. It's all right, nowt flash, and certainly better than the previous monstrosity. And let's hope it's a bit more robust than the last one which was up and down like a bride's nightie. (Yes, I know I'm one to talk but then I'm not a multi-million pound media outfit).

There's just one thing. The Indy's web designers, in their wisdom, have changed the structure of the site's permalinks again (they did the same with the last revamp as well). This means that any previous deep-linking from blogs or other sites to articles on the Independent's website no longer work. Idiots.

Cameron spells it out

2008-01-23T10:14:00.001Z

Working class? Blunt elbows? Not willing to lie to priests? Tough tit, says the leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition.

Video killed local engagement

2008-01-22T11:15:00.000Z

You know, I'm dead keen on improving political engagement, it's just that I'm not sure this is the way to go about it:

Why does he keep smiling, seemingly at random? Why don't the old ways of engaging with people - public speeches, leaflets, and going to doors and talking to people - work any more? And isn't that the sound of someone shooting themselves at the 55 second mark?

Uranium rights vs human rights

2008-01-22T10:45:00.000Z

Here's something to bear in mind should the bombs eventually hit the fan.

The United Nations Security Council's five permanent members and Germany are due to discuss remaining differences on further UN sanctions against Iran.

There are already two UN resolutions demanding that Iran cease uranium enrichment - 1696 and 1747.

The thing is, with everybody running around screaming over Iran's nuclear ambitions, certain other factors get overlooked. Have gander through those resolutions and see if you can see the words 'human rights'. Take your time.

Anything? No. Indeed, the UN's Human Rights Council saw fit last year to 'discontinue the consideration of the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran'. And apart from those of one or two bloggers, no one turned a hair, at least not the coiffures of the men meeting in Berlin today.

(I wrote about the Human Rights Council's predecessor, the tawdry Commission on Human Rights, back in the day. Time to catch up with the less than sparkling offspring, I think.)

The thing is, as we're probably all aware by now, human rights only really come in to play in high politics via expediency and the need to manipulate. When Saddam gassed the Kurds at Halabja in 1988, Tony Blair, Geoff Hoon and Jack Straw weren't interested in signing the Early Day Motions condemning the atrocity. Fifteen years later, when needing to build a case for war, they wasted no time in waving the corpses at us.

So, remember when the time comes and we're asked to give a toss about the human rights situation in Iran to make us all feel better about bombing the place. Keep an eye out for the emotional appeals to our decency.

Remember that Gordon and George and the rest didn't give a sod until the the time was right and they needed another page in the dossier against Iran. We're not too bothered about the Iranian government enriching its society as long as its not enriching uranium.

Those of us who do give a sod should probably be doing something right now. If it has to take Gordon Brown or George Bush appealing to our consciences on such matters, it's probably already too late.

Today's whacky idea: DIY parenthood

2008-01-22T09:26:00.000Z

Oh, boo hoo...

The government has abandoned plans to impose a pre-9pm ban on junk food TV advertising when it unveils its new anti-obesity strategy tomorrow, safeguarding more than £200m a year in TV advertising revenue.

No doubt there will be those who are upset, though I'm not sure why. Anyone who thinks they can appeal to an advertising executive's sense of morality clearly needs to see a doctor.

You'd have more joy asking it to levitate above Birmingham than expecting the advertising industry to set aside the entrenched hatred of humanity that allows it to be so successful. And as for expecting this government to raise our kids, well, it's doing such a good job with everything else, isn't it?

So, what's the solution? I'm afraid most people aren't going to like it. Don't want your children watching adverts trying to sell them an early death? Then don't let them watch the channels showing those ads.

This might come as a surprise to some but there are television channels out there that don't show adverts. Apart from that one that shows the Fantastic Four cartoon and Captain Scarlet, the commercial channels aren't really worth watching anyway, are they?

Take some personal responsibility (remember that?). The kids nagging for a mechanically recovered burger or a bucket of antibiotic-and-abscess chicken? Say no. Go on, try it. Advertising execs aren't forcing you to watch the adverts or buy the slop. They're just laughing themselves sick in swanky bars while you and your porcine brood are blaming everybody but yourselves.

Twittering again

2008-01-21T16:05:00.000Z

Anybody else out there twittering? Sound off in the comments and I'll add you to my list. Recommendations of other twitter feeds to sign up to also gratefully received.

Worthing Wood

2008-01-21T14:09:00.000Z

Just been over to Worthing to see the guts of the Ice Prince.

Even standing on the beach it's difficult to take in the incredible amount of wood that's been washed up and which stretches off to the vanishing point. I doubt the photos do it justice (click on them to see larger versions). Despite being thoroughly waterlogged, the wood still gives off the scent of pine resin.

It's like a huge art installation. I wouldn't be surprised if someone bought a load of the wood to try and recreate the spectacle on a smaller scale in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall.

They're fencing off the beach at Worthing to prevent public access while the clean up goes on. So if, for some reason, you want soaked, smashed up and dangerously splintery planks of cheap pine, head for Shoreham where there's much less wood but also less surveillance.

Icebergs in the Stream

2008-01-21T12:14:00.000Z

So anyway, I've been thinking about this:

An armada of robot submarines and marine sensors are to be deployed across the Atlantic, from Florida to the Canary Islands, to provide early warning that the Gulf Stream might be failing, an event that would trigger cataclysmic freezing in Britain for decades.

I'm not denying the technology isn't clever and who can sniff at the amazingly cool idea of robot submarines patrolling the ocean floor? At least there'll be someone left to tell visiting aliens what happened to our shagged-out planet.

Future generations will regard us as the selfish bastards who beat them to the bathroom and used all the hot water. The theory is O-Level Geography with a dash of eschatological sci-fi stirred in:

Without the Gulf Stream, the UK would be as cold as Canada in winter. Ports could freeze over and snowstorms and blizzards would paralyse the country. An extreme version of this meteorological mayhem provided the film The Day After Tomorrow with its plotline.

So far, so terrifying. I'm not looking forward to being chased to the library by a tidal wave, for starters. Although we might have end up being more competitive at the Winter Olympics.

But what's the robot system's practical application? The article doesn't say if there are any plans to attempt to reverse any failure of the Gulf Stream that the system might flag up. No mention of asking Mexico to leave their hot taps running or anything.

It looks like Rapid Watch is going to be a warning system whose warnings we can't or won't act upon. Will there be a sliding scale of warnings, as the temperature plummets, like MI5's terror alerts?

And like the terror alerts, just how useful to the general public will such information be? Maybe, unlike the terror alerts, the Rapid Watch alerts could offers practical advice as well as inform us how terrified we should be. How about...

Level 5: Put on a pullover
Level 4: Burn your furniture
Level 3: Watch the Kill it, Cook It, Eat It polar bear special
Level 2: Get your leaders to their helicopters
Level 1: Envy the dead

Wouldn't the £16 million that Rapid Watch is going to cost be better spent on scotch and revolvers?

A brush with destiny

2008-01-21T10:02:00.000Z

I have to say that I like the newly unveiled official portrait of Tony Blair. That the artist took the commission, took the money, and still stitched his subject up in the newspapers is an added bonus.

Of the painting itself, I'm very taken by the way Blair seems to be fading away, leaving only the blood red of the poppy and a pair of baleful eyes. You could say he's doing a Cheshire Cat except, in a final twist, that famous grin has gone as well.

Scotland Yard to investigate Tony Blair and ex-Attorney General Peter Goldsmith for war crimes

2008-01-20T19:33:00.000Z

About This Video.

Press Release: Scotland Yard to investigate Tony Blair and ex-Attorney General Peter Goldsmith for war crimes

(Video permalink)

(Video permalink)

(Video permalink)

(Video permalink)

Press Conference,
Room C, 1 Parliament Street
Tuesday 15th January 2008 3pm

John McDonnell MP, Chris Coverdale: International War Law Expert and Annie Machon of the Campaign to Make War History brief MPs and the media on allegations of war crimes committed against the people of Iraq by Britain's former Prime Minister and former Attorney General.

Officers from Scotland Yard have commenced a criminal investigation into the deaths of Iraqi citizens killed during the armed invasion and occupation of Iraq. The Metropolitan Police are acting in response to crimes reported by peace activists from We Are Change UK and The Campaign to Make War History. In an unprecedented step, the case was handed to the War Crimes division of the Counter Terrorism branch who are now investigating allegations of 14 criminal offences committed by Tony Blair, Lord Goldsmith and others. The offences are under the International Criminal Court Act 2001, which came into effect under English common law, just two days before 9/11.

Two Members of We Are Change UK and a representative from the Campaign to Make War History were interviewed for six hours at Belgravia Police station on the 20th December 2007. Evidence was provided to the police relating to the crimes of:-

• genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and conduct ancillary to these crimes under Sections 51 and 52 of The International Criminal Court Act 2001.
• a crime against peace and complicity in a crime against peace under Articles 6 and 7 of The Nuremburg Principles.
• murder, incitement to murder and conspiracy to murder under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861.
• conspiracy to commit genocide, a crime against humanity and war crimes under the Criminal Law Act 1977.

(Thanks to Hannah.)

Incongruity

2008-01-20T14:16:00.000Z

'Michael Barrymore is to return to the limelight playing Spike Milligan in a stage drama about the comedian's life,' according to the BBC.

What next? OJ Simpson as Nelson Mandela?

Well that's all right then

2008-01-20T14:13:00.000Z

Andrew Rawnsley in the Observer:

Most of our politicians are not bent. They may be vainglorious, foolish and incompetent, but the vast majority are not crooks.

I feel much better. Don't you?

Grandstanding

2008-01-20T13:34:00.000Z

There's no denying that the Beijing National Stadium is an impressive building. Gordon Brown certainly seemed to enjoy his press conference there over the weekend.

The thing is, I can't say I'm taken with the colour of the stadium as it is. It's a sort of dirty grey. How did they get it like that? Was it Beijing's smog (that Gordon mentioned it in passing during his photo opportunity)? Maybe the builders mixed into the concrete the ashes of their colleagues who've been killed (that Gordon didn't mention in passing during his photo opportunity) during construction?

I don't know about you, but dead builders seem quite a high price to pay for a bit of running and jumping about. The Chinese regime obviously think it's a price worth paying to help rehabilitate its international reputation.

I suppose Peter Hain is too old to start digging up sports pitches again?

The Curmudgeon: Energy Efficiency

2008-01-20T10:18:00.000Z

'The number of people living in fuel poverty is at its highest for almost a decade. This no doubt accounts for the price increases announced by British Gas and its competitors, all of whom plan to raise their bills by between fifteen and twenty-seven per cent, thus continuing the combination of low prices and efficient service which is the hallmark of privatisation and competition in the free market.'

Read the rest

Brave new world

2008-01-19T13:54:00.000Z

I see Guido is using once again more tittle tattle of a sexual nature as a battering ram against the gates of the 'mainstream media elite'.

All fair enough, I suppose, if you get a rise out of that kind of thing. You know, dragging a kid into your self-promotion.

Except. There are gatekeepers of the new media elite who are also reluctant to open up. People with long memories will remember, a while back, a group of bloggers attempting to 'dish the dirt on their own' thinking 'it would be of huge interest to the public'.

Across blogs, in London and Brighton pubs, it has been common knowledge for years. This blogger is at the heart of the politico-media nexus that constitutes the new disintermediated class.

The blogger who's skeleton from his past the group attempted to ventilate ran for his lawyer and threatened them with legal action. When attending an interview to talk about the matter, the blogger took along his daddy[1] for moral support (the blogger is 40).

Can anyone remember that blogger's name?

[1] Update: Or was it granddaddy?. Maybe Guido could clarify for us.

Also, this is from Guido's 'about me' blurb:

Any kind of reference to Guido's family [...] is deleted without hesitation.

Couldn't you just slap him?

The Peter Principle strikes again

2008-01-19T10:46:00.000Z

Lashings of gravy for former health secretary Patricia Hewitt:

She will work as a special consultant for pharmacy group Alliance Boots and as a senior adviser for private equity firm Cinven, according to information released by Whitehall's advisory committee on business appointments.

Has anybody seen the share prices of those two companies since this announcement was made? When you remember Hewitt's apocalyptic record as heath secretary, you have to wonder if it was Alliance Boots' and Cinven's rivals and competitors who were popping the champagne corks. I bet they sent her flowers.

Jack Handey

2008-01-18T22:26:00.000Z

If, like me, you worked in an office a few years back, you probably got the email that did the rounds back then full of the Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey. Maybe they're still doing the rounds even now. I wouldn't know - I don't work in an office any more having given it all up to hunt vampires.

Anyway. I googled Handey the other day for want of something better to do and Wikipedia has a list of the columns he wrote for the New Yorker. Enjoy. This is No Game is ace.

Matthew Norman: Why not let MPs go on strike for more pay?

2008-01-18T09:48:00.000Z

If Brown really wants to revive his approval ratings, he should demand a pay, pensions, expenses and allowances freeze for a decade. He should argue, with all the passion he can muster, that entering Parliament is one of the most lustrous privileges this democracy can confer, that attempts to compare the role of self-allegedly altruistic MPs with a career in the private sector are specious and self-serving to the point of nauseating. He should thunderously proclaim that if serving the electorate isn't enough enticement for bright and able people to stand for Parliament, our democratic system is corrupted beyond endurance.

Should all that fail to embarrass them into jettisoning the usual nest-feathering – and shaming the pathologically shameless is never easy – he could challenge the dissenters to go on strike, and so put their curious faith in the indispensability of politicians to the test. If the Belgian model is any kind of reliable guide, they'd have the shock of their plushly cushioned little lives.

Read the rest

Twitter again

2008-01-18T09:11:00.000Z

I'm having another play with Twitter. I used it a bit back last summer but fell out with it after it mangled my posts from holiday and made me read like I'd had a blow to the head.

Anyway, if anybody's interested, the twitters (tweets?) appear in the bottom of the sidebar on the right.

(It was Mike Power's idea. It's only fair after I cajoled him into getting some interactivity on his blog.)

The Chuckle Brotherhood

2008-01-18T08:08:00.000Z

It's about time:

Ministers have dropped the term "war on terror" and will refer to jihadis as "criminals" in an attempt to stop glorifying acts of terrorism.

I always preferred the term The War Against Terror anyway. The thing is, this eye-catching initiative announcing the demise of another eye-catching initiative doesn't go far enough. Chris Morris, as ever, leads where everyone else must follow:

Terrorism isn’t about religion, it is about berks.

Imagine Osama bin Laden combing boot polish through his beard. Picture Richard Reid trying to light his shoes. Watch that great steaming cork Omar Bakri Muhammad funding his 'jihad' by collecting coppers in his enormous novelty Coke bottles. You have to wonder about the knobs who allowed themselves to be persuaded by him. There's John Smeaton righteously 'banjoing' the mouth-breather who thought setting himself on fire was the way to blow up Glasgow Airport. Does Kafeel Ahmed still get his virgins even though he died a month after his botched 'suicide' attack?

Savour the irony of scourge of the West, Hasib Hussain, visiting one of its foremost outlets of decadence (McDonalds) in the hours before his crime. And how do we attempt to square Islamic extremist foot soldiers' burning homophobia with their love of the oiled-up musclemen of Hollywood action movies without sniggering?

Even the ultimate aim of al Qaeda is inherently comedic when you think about it. A pan-continental Islamic caliphate? I'd put good money on bin Laden getting the idea after one too many Boxing Day Bond movies. We all know about Guantanamo Bay's infamous orange jumpsuits. The irony is, if bin Laden had only pushed his cock-eyed vision a little further, all his hangers-on would be wearing them anyway.

And does the al Qaeda high command really strike you as the organisational types? I don't imagine hopping from cave to cave on the Afghanistan/Pakistan border gives a good grounding in government and bureaucracy. You can imagine the glazed faces around the table the first time it's announced that the sewers are blocked or there's a pot-hole needs filling. You'd want to be a fly on the wall when they debated VAT on tampons.

The world under al Qaeda would make Britain under New Labour look like Rome under Marcus Aurelius. The solution to rising energy prices isn't to blow shit up. George Bush has learned that the hard way. Suicide bombers don't make very good doctors, teachers or traffic wardens. Or so I imagine. Come the day his dream were to come true, Osama'd better hope there's still a film-making industry because he seems to have talent for little else. Victory for Osama means career suicide.

When they come to write the history of TWAT, I hope that one of the questions asked will be, amongst the horror and the grief, why we didn't we do a bit more laughing. We are, after all, up against sexually-repressed, quintessential goons whose successes, while terrible, have been largely down to ludicrous plots (most far more idiotic than this one) and dependent on luck against astronomical odds.

Dig the new breed

2008-01-17T18:18:00.000Z

Today marks the tenth anniversary of American blogger Matt Drudge breaking the story of the Monica Lewinsky affair. Things were never the same again. The world was rocked to its foundations by the astounding news that older men like getting their knobs sucked by younger women.

There were many crimes committed by the Clinton Whitehouse. However, I don't think there are many sane people in the world who think Bill getting a nosh from an intern was one of them. Or at least one of the major ones. How the odd happy finish from Monica impeded the Clinton presidency before right-wing prurience attempted to derail it has never been adequately explained to me.

Still, we are where we are. In his paean to Drudge, Guido Fawkes somewhat prematurely hails his hero's coup as the end 'once and for all [of] the gate-keeper ability, if not the mentality, of the mainstream media elite'.

Guido's love letter to his mentor is interesting in that it fails to offer a qualitative judgement of how things have changed. How much Drudge earns and where that income allows him to live seem to be the essential yardsticks rather than any explicit estimate of whether what he produces is any good. That people in large numbers are prepared to consume a product is not always the most reliable gauge of quality. It's a thought that's kept the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Bernard Matthews and Noel Edmonds warm for many a year.

It's also interesting how little change has actually been brought about despite the breathless talk of a paradigm shift. Guido talks of an 'mainstream media elite' without seemingly being overtly aware that he and his role model have had to largely appropriate that elite's methods to gain what they judge and measure as success. Is there any true innovation going on?

Guido exhorts would-be one-man newsmakers to 'go get the story' but beyond the phone calls he makes which (unwittingly or not) come across as the transcripts of a radio show prankster, it's difficult to see what 'getting' of stories he actually does. Drudge's big moment, let us not forget, was publishing a story that a mainstream magazine had baulked at. Guido, between rare forays into editorial, presents a diet largely consisting of mainstream scraps and off-cuts. Happy (for Guido) coincidence dictated that he also made his name by publishing a story of where another prominent politician (in this case John Prescott) was putting his penis. A story, like Drudge's breakthrough, that the mainstream media elites had deemed unpublishable.

As such, you'd be forgiven for regarding both Guido and Drudge as mere conduits; alternative venues for other people's legwork. There's very little 'making' beyond the ability to string a sentence together. It's repetition and reaction. It's blogging.

Guido talks of his contact with and reliance on mainstream journalists but it seems to me more of a parasitic relationship rather than a symbiotic one. Like the unfortunate Monica, it sounds like he's had to suck a lot of cock to gain his notoriety. The loyalty of the press can be rented but not bought. And like an exploited woman who talks of empowerment when really she's just being used, I wonder if Guido is fooling anyone else but himself. Guido's medium is the message - journalists are happy to report on his antics and caperings rather than highlight what he's saying. You can see why the likes of the Guardian's Michael White might snigger at him - the lone wannabe walking the high wire without a safety net.

I'd argue that all we're seeing is the emergence of another albeit smaller elite - not the tearing down of some great edifice. Guido is nothing if not just another monied Westminster villager only with a maverick spin. He gives off the same air of the privileged insider privy to access and esoteric knowledge forbidden to the rest of us. But this new elite lacks the inherent quality control (sub-editing for instance) that make the 'mainstream media elite' even vaguely tolerable. It's just as well that Guido gives his stuff away for free because you wonder how loyal his readership would be if he was charging for it.

Of course, Guido earns his money indirectly via advertising on his blog. He doesn't or daren't put a price or a value (financial or qualitative) on his product. It's a new model, if only a cheap knock-off of the old model, down-sized and the corners cut. Despite copious evidence to the contrary, I sincerely wonder if Guido is truly happy about that. Like a self-taught painter trying to copy an old master, surely it's a melancholy matter of pale imitation and disappointment.

(Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy.)

SOCPA (a submission to the Home Office)

2008-01-17T13:10:00.000Z

Tim Ireland outdoes himself once again. I think you'll go a long way to find a better demolition of the idiotic ban on protesting around Parliament[1].

* And not just because I have a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo.

Smell the glove

2008-01-17T10:00:00.000Z

Right here:

Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money is being wasted by officials who overpay private firms to do the simplest tasks like installing a new electric socket or replacing a lock, the National Audit Office reveals today.

An investigation into £180m of public money spent renegotiating private finance initiative contracts to build and run hospitals, schools, prisons and courts in 2006 reveals 10-fold differences in payments for similar tasks. With PFI being Gordon Brown's favourite way to fund new public projects - it now accounts for £44bn of public spending - the NAO is calling for much tighter controls over any changes to the contracts, which often run for 30 years or more.

The report cites Royal Blackburn Hospital as the best and worst example of saving and wasting public money. It qualifies for the cheapest and most expensive cost for replacing a key - £4.26 to £47.48. It also qualifies for the most expensive bill to fit a data point - £398.30 - and the most expensive lock change - £486.54. The cheapest lock fitting was in Calderdale Royal Hospital in Halifax at £30.81. The cost of supplying and fitting electric sockets varied from £302.30 in schools in the Wirral to £30.81 in schools in Kirklees.

'We spend more on cows than the poor.'[1]

[1]Gordon Brown

It's wild and woolly

2008-01-17T08:48:00.000Z

Is anyone else finding it almost impossible to drag themselves away from those videos of Tom Cruise?

I only turned away when a thought struck me: maybe this is The Cruiser's plan. While the rest of us are all staring wide-eyed at his pronouncements and chewing our knuckles, Scientology is on the march.

Oh, and get well soon to Larry. Hopefully real help will be along soon.

Shame on me

2008-01-17T07:54:00.000Z

Torchwood, fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, won't get fooled again.

Mark Steel: If you think Islam is medieval, look at Catholicism

2008-01-16T14:27:00.000Z

But maybe the most interesting side to Benedict's defence of his 17th-century predecessors is imagining the furore if a similar attitude happened within Islam. If the leader of the Muslim world declared it was reasonable and just to have sentenced one of history's greatest minds to execution, piles of commentators would be telling us this proved Islam was a medieval, ignorant creed incompatible with Western values. So why hasn't Martin Amis written a pamphlet full of such pompous twaddle as, "Within Galileo's studies of orbits lie you, me, our knowledgification, our triumphant cleverment. So as I consider this catechismic papal assault on braininess, I feel a soulful urge to squeeze every Redemptionista into a giant confession box and set fire to the bloody lot of them. Don't you?"

Read the rest

On thick ice

2008-01-16T11:18:00.000Z

Has anybody else read this comment piece in the Guardian by Andy Burnham, chief secretary to the Treasury and former ID card salesman?

He likes his metaphors and uses them liberally. He writes of 'a hard road', 'tinkering with the wiring' and 'the green light'. I'm very fond of metaphors as well. Thinking up new ones is one of the vestigial pleasures of blogging. Here's one.

I've skated up and down Burnham's article several times now but I can't see through the ice to his underlying meaning. I've struck the permafrost prose forcefully but it's proving impenetrable.

I suspect the piece is couched in so many euphemisms that Burnham is addressing a very esoteric audience indeed, one party to forbidden knowledge. I've spotted 'public sector reform' and 'the voluntary sector' at least. I've yet to pin down their true meanings but I doubt Burnham could give a pithy - or honest - summation either.

When Burnham exhorts 'commissioners of local services' not to 'wait for ever for an "evidence base"', it occurs to me that he's advocating an even more cavalier use of public money. Public spending based on hunches and 'common sense'*. But then I think, this government? Nah.

So, who is this piece directed at and what does it mean?

* '...a slogan of anti-intellectual conservatism' (Steven Poole).

Viva El Presidente

2008-01-16T08:30:00.000Z

One of the biggest threats to US security may now come from within Europe, US Homeland Security head Michael Chertoff has told the BBC.

Yes, but does he have a dossier cut and pasted from the Internet? Without one of those, all this is just so much wind.

When you think about it though, this could be a way out of trouble for Peter Hain. All he need do is defect to the Americans and spill the beans on our weapons of mass destruction programmes, our burgeoning nuclear ambitions and our links to rogue states in return for a pile of CIA cash and certain assurances.

Then, the humanitarian intervention going off without a hitch, the British people welcoming their American rescuers with open arms and flowers, and our natural resources (minor celebrities and buy-to-let landlords) liberated eight ways from Sunday, Hain can head the new puppet government.

It's perfect. We're saved from terrorism (one way or another), Hain salvages his career and the likes of David Aaronovitch, Nick Cohen, Melanie Philips, along with their attendant keyboard battalions and armchair artillerymen, can finally shut their big yap.

Update: Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Chertoff's gut:

Thanks to pro_tempore in the comments.

Opt in

2008-01-15T12:13:00.000Z

Become an organ donor.

Political expediency

2008-01-15T11:21:00.000Z

Police officers: Feeling betrayed and angry at Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition's shameful failure to rally to your just cause and help save you from the vindictiveness of the government?

Now you know how those Iraqis employed in Basra by our government feel.

Scotland Yard to investigate Blair and Goldsmith war crimes

2008-01-14T17:23:00.000Z

Press Conference, Room C, 1 Parliament St.
(just off Parliament Sq.)
Tuesday 15th January 2008 3pm

John McDonnell MP and members of the Campaign to Make War History will brief MPs and the media on allegations of war crimes committed against the people of Iraq by Britain's former Prime Minister and former Attorney General.

read the rest

(Thanks to Hannah.)

Gun sluts

2008-01-14T14:56:00.000Z

Things go from bad to worse in Kenya:

Human rights campaigners have urged the Kenyan government to stop an alleged shoot-to-kill policy against political protesters as the country braces itself for more demonstrations.

But where are the Kenyan government getting the guns? You don't have to look very far to find out:

Government figures reveal that the UK licensed more than £10m of arms exports to Kenya in 2007, including semi-automatic pistols, military utility vehicles, military helmets and civil body armour. The full-year total will be much higher, for the figures now available only account for three-quarters of the year.

You can see for yourself right here.

'The first priority is that the violence is brought to an end. It is unacceptable that lives are being lost,' said Gordon Brown. What did he think the Kenyan Government were going to use British weapons for? Paperweights?

Burning the negatives

2008-01-14T07:33:00.000Z

I've been tagged with a meme by the dastardly Mr Teabag. This one involves citing seven things of which I am in favour, in order to disabuse people of the notion that I am a 'negatavist' of popular legend.

Mr Challinor also provides an excellent list but rather shoots my fox when he says:

Any miserabilist with a modicum of low cunning can disguise a negative as a positive by subtly darkening the shades of meaning.

A shame. Apart from describing me to a tee, he's ruined my planned strategy. The first thing was going to be air-dropping pro-war journalists and bloggers on Basra - they can have their glorious liberation but they have to fight for it themselves.

Now I feel compelled - by Challinor's fine example - to play nice: a rather harder proposition. Here goes:

1. This.
2. This.
3. This.
4. This.
5. This.
6. This.
7. This.

I don't usually tag but I like this one - it's positive. So, those under no obligation are: Jim, Tim, Mike, Rachel, Eugenides, Bookdrunk and Mahmoud.

Monkeys and the organ minder

2008-01-13T18:00:00.000Z

The complaining about Gordon Brown proposing an opt-out organ donation system is great. Selfish, pig-headed and self-contradictory whining is always a joy.

Needless to say most of the umbrage is coming from the Right. They might as well be saying 'Gordon Brown can pry my liver from my cold dead hand' for all the sense they're making. They bang on about the 'murder' of foetuses by the 'abortion industry' but are seemingly willing to stand by and let walking, talking people die because their politics have been offended.

What it boils down to is putting your principles before the lives of dying people. And what's more, you'll be dead anyway and won't even get to enjoy the smug satisfaction of putting one over on Gordon Brown with your clever principles. Because you'll dead (did I mention that?).

Unless you believe in heaven, obviously, in which case I suppose you could look down and blow raspberries in Gordon's direction. If they let, smug, selfish, gloating pricks into heaven, that is. And unless you're expecting an Assumption, you can't take your guts to heaven either.

It seems that these people would rather take their organs with them to the grave or the crematorium out of some kind of spite. Even more amusingly, others are signed up to voluntarily donate their organs and they're still complaining. They're giving their organs when they die but they're still all 'Wah! The state wants to own my body! Wah!'

You could sort of see these people's points of view if there was an alternative use to which you could put a human corpse. I suppose some of the egos we're talking about would quite fancy being stuffed and put in a museum but they have to take your guts out to do that anyway.

Anybody planning to have their sweetbreads turned into pate to sell for the benefit of their dependents? No, you're going to have them burned or buried with you unless Gordon Brown extends a bloody claw and tears them from your still warm corpse.

I think this stems from two attitudes. The first one is that mature strand of reasoning that non-ironically equates the state with fascism. You see it a lot on the less fun blogs. Sure, it might be a good idea and think of the lives that will be saved, they seem to be saying, but it's Gordon bloody Brown's idea so it must be shit, the one-eyed mental nazi.

'It strikes at our relationship with the state,' they say. Well get this: You can't have a relationship with the state when you're dead. You can't assert ownership over your own corpse. Why? Because. You. Are. Dead. What other freedoms would you like to exercise after you've shuffled off? I take it you'll be putting your favourite songs on your iPod to take with you as well? It'll be as much use to you as your liver.

Do you really not have anything else to worry about? I'm more worried about the horrifying, demeaning death I'm likely to suffer at the hands of the NHS than what they might do to my corpse once I've screamed my last.

The second attitude is the weird way we regard dead bodies in this country; that they are sacred relics to be cherished rather than the empty shells of people who have gone. It's an idea you seen romanticised in films where the hero screams 'Noooooooo!' over the (beautiful) corpse of his deceased love.

Respect for the dead has always struck me as a strange idea particularly when you see how little respect we have for the living. The dead should have dignity we say, as if there's any dignity in lying around stinking and farting (just ask Chris Moyles.)

Both attitudes are perverse in the extreme and reflective of the implicit (rapidly becoming explicit) immaturity that's taking this country back to the Middle Ages at a dizzying speed. Maybe these people just haven't been shown enough footage of cute ickle children dying for lack of available organs. With a Snow Patrol song played over the top. That should sway them, surely?

Update: I like this. What's he going to do, come back as a zombie to stop them stealing his precious guts? Hunt the recipients down one at a time? How else to enforce this blogging bravado?

Update updated: Now cross posted at Liberal Conspiracy.

The Opulent Osbourne

2008-01-13T15:33:00.000Z

Putting to one side the matter of whether the Shadow Chancellor should have declared the money and how, the same question must be asked of him as of Peter Hain: what the hell did he spend the money on?

Four hundred and eighty thousand pounds to run his shadow ministerial office. And yet just about the only things to come out of that office since George Osborne's been in it have been a series of childish whines assassinating Gordon Brown's character and a policy on inheritance tax that must have taken all of an afternoon to draw up. What did he spend the rest on?

The Profligate Peter Hain

2008-01-12T16:50:00.000Z

Peter Hain has apologised for "the embarrassment caused by poor administration" but insisted that he wants to get on with his cabinet jobs.

Well somebody had so say it sooner or later. Iraq, MRSA, rampant anti-terror legislation, unaccountable government, myriad computer system cock-ups, the demonisation of refugees and all the rest - it's about time we had an apology. What's that? He's only apologising for his cock-eyed deputy leadership bid? That's a shame.

So what the hell did Hain spend it all on? Two hundred grand to be beaten in a popularity contest by Harriet bloody Harman? If I was him, I wouldn't be wondering if it was worth carrying on in politics, I'd be pondering whether it was worth carrying on living.

Hain has spoken in the past of his 'political journey'. That's a euphemism for changing from a person who was once vociferously against the terror of the state into a person who is vociferously for the terror of the state. That he should stray so far from his roots that he could be this blase about hundreds of thousands pounds, where they came from and where they went, shows that his journey is reaching its destination.

It would take the vast majority of people decades to earn these sums. Hain threw about more cash in order to polish his ego than a lot of people's houses are worth. He thought two hundred grand was a price worth paying to get people to like him a bit more than they did Hazel Blears. How hard can that be for God's sake? When you look at the breakdown of the deputy leadership vote, you'd bet Gary Glitter could have beaten Blears with no grander inducements offered than a couple of rounds of drinks and a bag of crisps.

But don't worry. The next time you're in a spot of bother paying the mortgage or trying to explain the overdraft to the bank manager, just say that you're embarrassed but it's all down to your 'poor administration'. I'm sure they'll be sympathetic. If not write to Peter and ask if he can back you up.

Update: Matthew Norman:

More poignantly, he will long be recalled as a poster boy for a political age in which remembering the beliefs that drove people into politics in the first place became an unaffordable inconvenience.

Update updated: Amen.

Get Your War On #71

2008-01-12T15:11:00.000Z

Right here.

Hello

2008-01-12T14:40:00.001Z

This blog post is being transmitted from Chicken Backup, the caravan in the driveway (update: photo here) that I'll be staying in whenever morlocks smash up the house. Renovations are in progress and it's hoped we'll be able to move back in soon.

Somebody else said to me the other day that I should be flattered to have the blog brought down again. And I suppose I would be if it was MI5 or the CIA playing silly buggers.

I'm hardly Gabriel Byrne in Defence of the Realm though. You can't imagine Gordon Brown slamming his fist on the table and screaming 'I want Chicken Yoghurt eliminated before close of play.'

When you bear in mind that the culprit is some small-minded, mean-spirited little prick with a modicum of technical savvy where his social skills should be, the story's David and Goliath theme is reversed. When all's said and done, we're talking about someone lacking the requisite skill to even send hatemail or make a tit of himself in the comments section. You have to worry about someone who gets so upset over a poxy little blog.

Anyway, I'm back again. Stand by.