Watch: Osborne – we represent ‘progress’
As part of a speech yesterday, shadow chancellor George Osborne said the Tories represented the part ‘of progress’.
More Bad Science from the Greens
Cast your mind back a couple of months and you may recall that Martin Robbins raised a number of pertinent questions about the Green Party’s views on science and on evidence-based policy making.
At the time, Martin was pretty forthright in identifying the main problem that the party faces. It’s open and democratic approach to policy-making in which any member can put forward a policy, call for vote and get the policy accepted into the party’s manifesto if it prove popular with members too readily militates against evidence.
A prime example of just this kind of problem is currently to be found in Southampton and South-West Hampshire where members of the local Green party are behind a campaign that is attempting to overturn a recent decision by the local Strategic Health Authority to use legal powers conferred on it by the Water Act 2003 to compel the local water company to fluoridate the local water supply.
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A face and a name come to light
Is she as you imagined her? The slackened jaw; the furrowed brow; the baffled, vacant expression. Does she fit the image you had of the callous, ‘sex-obsessed slob‘ who puffed smoke, glugged booze and watched porn whilst her boyfriend & lodger tortured her son to death?
Ultimately, of course, it doesn’t matter. It won’t bring Peter Connelly back, won’t prevent further abuses from happening, won’t stop other helpless little boys & girls from being murdered by the people in their care. All it satisfies is some short-lived curiosity for a face & a name.
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Kaminski caught lying on Jewish apology?
Did Polish MEP Michal Kaminski, from Poland’s Law and Justice party, lie about charges of anti-semitism?
The Tories have been trying to push back at accusations against him, made recently in the New Statesman by James Macintyre.
That lead to a war of words between Tory MEP Dan Hannan and Macintyre, detailed here.
Michal Kaminski is a key member of David Cameron’s new grouping in the European parliament and is an important ally. In his support Stephen Pollard recently wrote in the Daily Telegraph:
A further accusation is that, in an interview, he [Kaminski] said that he would apologise [for the Jedwabne massacre] only if someone “from the Jewish side” apologised for what “the Jews” did during the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland from 1939 to 1941. Mr Kaminski flatly denies this, and no one has produced a shred of evidence to contradict him.
But Toby Helm at the Observer chased up this claim and writes on his blog:
Kaminski does indeed deny this. But perhaps he should stop denying it. Here is the evidence. In 2001 Kaminski gave an interview to the Polish weekly paper Nasza Polska. Three weeks ago he flatly denied to the Observer that he ever gave the interview. In fact he said he had never spoken to a journalist from this paper, which often carries – how can one say it – pieces that would not always delight Jewish people. So the Observer emailed the editor of Nasza Polska, Piotr Jakucki, to see what he had to say.
A few days later, Jakucki replied, confirming that “Kaja Bogomilska made an interview with deputy Michal Kaminski in person”, making him aware she was from Nasza Polska.
The issue is no longer just about charges of anti-semitism, says Helm, but “about honesty and judgment. Kaminski’s honesty and Cameron’s judgment.”
Will Kaminski own up? Will Tories stop defending him and crying ‘smear’? We’ll have to wait and see.
Exclusive: Guardian considering charging for “members’ club” (updated)
Senior executives at the Guardian newspaper are considering launching a “members’ club” for newspaper readers.
The move, as you can imagine, is being considered to boost revenue at the liberal-left newspaper.
This follows Rupert Murdoch’s own plans to install paywalls across News International’s websites.
A survey sent out to registered members by the Guardian yesterday stated:
The Guardian is considering launching a members’ club which will provide extra benefits in return for an annual or monthly fee.
These benefits might include, for example, a welcome pack, exclusive content, live events, special offers from our partners and the opportunity to communicate with our journalists.
The members’ club, the survey added, would be put in place to “support the Guardian financially”.
It wanted their opinions on the “members’ club” and asked what would entice them to sign up.
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’100 days to reform’ countdown launched
The electoral reform campaign group Vote for a Change has launched a widget for blogs and websites to put pressure on the government.
The widget counts down a 100 days to the Queen’s speech when electoral reform may be unveiled.
In a mailout to supporters yesterday they said:
In the States, a President’s first ’100 Days’ is synonymous with change. It’s an opportunity to break with the past – to prove that politics and politicians are still capable of suprises.Well if any country ever needed a break from the past then it’s Britain.
Today we start our countdown to our very own 100 Days. 100 Days to ensure that real voting reform makes it into the Queen’s Speech. This will be the first since the expenses crisis, the last of this parliament, and potentially the last by this government. This is their last chance.
In 100 days we’ll know if politicians are prepared to throw the rule book of politics in the bin, along with safe seats and jobs for life – by delivering a referendum on the voting system. They can either spend the time ahead confronting the crisis at Westminster head on, or waste it rearranging the deckchairs.
But today you can help spread the word with our countdown widget. Pop it on your site, on your blog, and get your readers to sign up.
You can get the widget (below) from this page.
Vote for a Change can also be found on Facebook and on Twitter.
Is she the Google – Tory link?
The Independent newspaper reports on the woman most likely behind the increasing closeness between the Conservative Party and Google.
Accusations that the firm has an influential advocate inside Conservative Party headquarters (CCHQ) have emerged because one of David Cameron’s most trusted advisers, his chief strategist, Steve Hilton, is married to Rachel Whetstone, Google’s vice president of public policy and communications.
The importance of Mr Hilton to Mr Cameron’s operation can not be over-emphasised. While communications chief, Andy Coulson, deals with the day-to-day traumas of political life, it is Mr Hilton who Mr Cameron consults over longer-term policy plans. And Mr Hilton is always close to the Tory leader, occupying an office next to that of Mr Cameron inside CCHQ.
… read more at The Independent.
But where will they send me?
As if it wasn’t bad enough that despite being a British citizen I’m apparently incapable of ever passing the British Citizenship test (numerous goes at the various online versions have ended in complete and humiliating failure), now it looks like the knuckledraggers who post on the white-nationalist-fascist-scum Stormfront forums want to have me deported.
During a recent discussion over there about the Norwich North by-election one of its more evolved members, that is, a Nazi who can not only use a keyboard to spout bile on the Internet but who can even add links and shit too, decided to post my piece about the lies the BNP had been printing in their election leaflets: The BNP’s lies in Norwich North. On top of that, said Nazi also decided to post a piccie of my good self to illustrate the article, one that he nabbed off my Facebook profile.
Now after a minor panic about how the hell he’d got hold of a photo I’ve only ever used on Facebook, and after taking some advice from friends about Internet security (cheers Sunny), I decided to remove my FB profile from public view.
I hadn’t actually realised that doing that would have a knock-on effect anywhere else, but I’m delighted and amused to report that this action has led to my photo on the Stormfront forum being replaced by a generic faceless avatar.
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Tory MEP: homophobia doesn’t exist
According to Pink News the Tory MEP Roger Helmer believes that homophobia is a “propaganda device”.
Writing on his blog Roger Helmer said recently:
And while we’re mentioning semantic issues, let me point out that the neologism “homophobia” is not so much a word as a political agenda. In psychiatry, a phobia is defined as an irrational fear. I have yet to meet anyone who has an irrational fear of homosexuals, or of homosexuality. So to the extent that the word has any meaning at all, it describes something which simply does not exist.
“Homophobia” is merely a propaganda device designed to denigrate and stigmatise those holding conventional opinions, which have been held by most people through most of recorded history. It is frightening evidence of the way in which political correctness is threatening our freedom.
Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill told the Independent that Helmer should meet the families of Michael Causer and Jody Dobroski, two gay men who were beaten to death.
On the blog, titled Straight Talking, Helmer also defended Michal Kaminksi, who has been accused of homophobia and anti-semitism. In a television interview in 2000, Kaminski, a Polish Law and Justice Party MEP, was heard to call gay people a derogatory term that can be translated as “fags” or “queers”
The Conservatives have yet to respond.
On the blogs, Laura Woodhouse at The F Word said:
his rather feeble justification for his assertions is that, etymologically speaking, “homophobia” is an irrational fear of homosexuals, and no one irrationally fears homosexuals, so it’s all a load of cobblers designed to stop people with, um, really reasonable views using said views to inform really, er, progressive, liberating and humanitarian laws such as that banning homosexual marriage. The bastards.
Julian Ware-Lane at LabourList added:
The Conservatives in Europe now have links with people whose views can most kindly be described as questionable. This latest statement will not dispel the impression of a lurch to the right. I hope that David Cameron will condemn Mr Helmer and his ill-conceived outburst.
Lammy ignoring London’s “deficiencies”
David Lammy MP’s recently repeated call for open primaries for the London Mayoral elections was first mooted on Liberal Conspiracy a year ago.
Nevertheless, not everyone is convinced. Writing on MayorWatch, Martin Hoscik says his call, “ignores London’s real democratic deficiencies”.
Not a single utterance on voter’s inability to reject a specific party placeman on the list of ‘top-up’ candidates while still supporting the party, not a word on increased powers for the Assembly so they can hold the Mayor to account, not a thought on ways to help voters understand how the various components of the Greater London Authority actually work, not a glance towards recall powers which would allow Londoners to hold future Mayors and AMs to account.
No, what apparently matters most to Londoners is that parties ape the X Factor and hold a series of beauty parade selection processes.
Earlier in the day, Dave Hill, writing on Commentisfree instead challenged Ken Livingstone’s viability:
it’s true that Livingstone has a strong personal following and also true that his reputation for being a “Zone 1 mayor” helped Johnson become a rallying point for suburban discontent. In practice, it might be trickier: Livingstone has declared his interest in becoming mayor again, but as yet shown no sign of adjusting his 2008 strategy.
All this strengthens a pragmatic case for Labour in London embracing the open primary idea when, after the general election, it decides how to choose its candidate. If, as Lammy suggests, candidates had to make their case to voters in every London borough, from leafy Barnet to hard-up Tower Hamlets, they’d have to fashion solid policies accordingly.
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