Jack Straw unveils Bill of Rights
A new British bill of rights and responsibilitilies outlined yesterday could enshrine entitlements to welfare, equal treatment, housing, children’s wellbeing and the NHS, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, said yesterday. He likened the bill’s potential impact to Magna Carta and the 1689 Bill of Rights.
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McNulty, hypocrisy and the Westminster bubble
It’s not often that my faith in the British press soars quite as much as it did yesterday, when the story broke over Tony McNulty MP’s claming of £60,000 as ‘expenses’ on a second home in Harrow, where his parents currently live. Yes, that Tony McNulty, Purnell’s lapdog. The same Tony McNulty who believes that crushing poverty is an important incentive to persuade benefits claimants into jobs that aren’t there. The same Tony McNulty who believes that the Welfare Reform Bill – voted in last Wednesday, albeit with some important amendments – is an appropriate strategy to bully the workless back into below-minimum-wage jobs. He claimed as much as £14,000 per year on the home, on top of his considerable MP’s salary and additional expense claims.
It has been pointed out numerous times, not least by McNulty himself, that the money he claimed – equivalent to the entire salary of many of his constituents – wasn’t against the rules. I’m sure it wasn’t. I don’t however, give one solitary iced damn if the Queen gave him the cash in a gold-plated envelope scented with the royal perfume, it’s still a tooth-grinding piece of hypocrisy.
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Abolish Seditious Libel
There’s a chance that the outdated law of seditious libel could be abolished today. Dr Evan Harris, the Liberal Democrat MP, has tabled amendments to clauses 5 and 37 of the Coroners & Justice Bill. The move has support accross party lines, is welcomed by campaigning groups like Liberty, Index on Censorship, and English PEN, and by campaigning comedians Mark Thomas and Rowan Atkinson.
Unfortunately, there’s a chance that MPs may not get to vote on the amendment, since only a short time (45 minutes, I believe) has been allocated to debate such things.
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Barnet: a case in outsourcing disaster
With more than two million people unemployed, house repossessions on the rise and falling incomes – health, education, housing support, welfare and job support become ever more important. Local authorities are already reporting a rise in demand for debt counseling, housing advice, employment guidance, community finance and business support. The DWP has had to take on extra staff to cope with growing demand.
So this is hardly the time to play private sector lottery with funds meant for the public sector. And yet, public sector leaders continue to promote the lie that private provision of public services is cheaper, more efficient, and inevitable. Pity too, that the public isn’t buying it.
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Nationwide
Brown plans global scrutiny of tax havens
Shoppers need clear labels to stop ‘greenwash’
Course to teach imams about cohesion
Conservatives in disarray on tax promise
International
Outrage at South Africa’s ban on Dalai Lama
Terror fears force India to abandon cricket plans
US seeks investors to buy $1trillion bad assets
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DAILY BLOG REVIEW / by Jennie Rigg
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Will Rhodes, James Graham and Chicken Yoghurt are all discussing the database state today, their own inimicable ways. I like Chicky Yog’s pithy post best, but they are all worth reading.
My fiancé is a terrorist. I am very pleased that Gordon Brown is now referring to it as The War Against Terror again, by the way. The acronym is SO appropriate.
Hagley Road to Ladywood is incensed by the fact that hate crime doesn’t get any attention when it’s homophobic hate crime.
Jonny Wright is mildly disbelieving of Patricia Hewitt’s newfound advocacy of assisted dying.
Bad Conscience is amused by the Tories squabbling over Inheritance Tax.
The Art of Restraining Power examines the blogosphere’s react to Obama’s Iranian speech.
Debi Linton has a Very Important Appeal for twitterers and non-twitterers alike. The subject is one close to my heart, so I hope you will do what you can.
And if you hanker after more linkage, this week’s Britblog Roundup is at the very pink Suzblog, or you can browse through previous Netcasts
Propaganda and the media: Counter-Jihad and the ‘Decent’ Left
Over at the Yorkshire Ranter, Alex Harrowell comments on the ongoing story of Glen Jenvey, who featured as an anti-terrorist ‘expert’ in a Sun story about threats, which it now appears he posted himself, against public figures on a Muslim web forum.
It’s a very good question just how many terrorism stories (especially ones that have the “Internet” flag set – it means “stuff I don’t understand” to a lot of editors) are the work of these people, whether the upscale, Decent version or Jenvey’s Comedy Gladio.
There are indeed some interesting connections between the kind of right-wing “CounterJihad” networks represented by Jenvey and the so-called “decent left“.
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Greens need to learn how to grow
Last week Sian Berry, the Green candidate for London Mayor, picked a fight with some of the Grand Old Men of the green movement over their ambivalence about nuclear power.
On her blog, she referred to the Grand Old Men as: “…chaps [who] have a few physical and biographical characteristics in common, largely a tendency to be over 45 with the haircut of a WW2 fighter pilot and the experience to know better than play so crudely into the hands of an industry on the make.”
This drew a spectacularly bitter response from George Monbiot, who announced that he was so cross at this “stupidity” that he’d have to think very carefully about whether he could bring himself to vote Green in the future.
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Top Stories and Blog Review – 23rd March
Nationwide
Brown plans global scrutiny of tax havens
Shoppers need clear labels to stop ‘greenwash’
Course to teach imams about cohesion
Conservatives in disarray on tax promise
International
Outrage at South Africa’s ban on Dalai Lama
Terror fears force India to abandon cricket plans
US seeks investors to buy $1trillion bad assets
A web site’s for-Profit approach to world news
DAILY BLOG REVIEW / coming later
Report: Govt has lost control of database state
A quarter of all databases are fundamentally flawed and must be scapped, says a landmark study out today.
The first ever comprehensive map of Britain’s database state today reveals how the database obsession of government has left officials struggling to control billions of records of our most personal details and almost every contact we have with the agencies set up to serve and protect us.
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Barclays tax evasion: ‘Nice work if you can get it’
A reader writes in, anonymously, to give some thoughts about the Barclays tax evasion schemes.
When I worked in investment banking at Barclays, I happened across the SCM team a few times. My impression is thus: they recruited unbelievably sharp, quiet accountant wizards (quite a few Indians!) who seemed to spend all their time going through the latest accounting and tax regulations with a fine tooth comb, figuring out how to exploit the loopholes and keep one step ahead of the regulators.
They were seen as the guys making the real money and had a bit of an air of mystery about them.
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