We need to tolerate the extremists
David Cameron packed what he himself described as ‘a really trashy novel’ for his 10-day holiday in France. By contrast, my choice to read on Brighton beach last week was rather more serious.
Ed Husain’s ‘The Islamist’ is controversial autobiographical account of the author’s involvement with the Islamist far right in Britain, and ends with a call for some of the organisations at that end of that spectrum to be subject to suppression by the state. Tony Blair is berated for offering such a pledge in 2005 and then not making good on it.
That line of thinking probably appeals to quite a wide range of opinion. It is unlikely that the English Defence League and Casuals United – the self-professed football hooligans who staged a demonstration against Muslim extremism in Birmingham on Saturday – have drafted anything resembling a detailed statement of coherent political philosophy. But no doubt they would favour a ban on Hizb ut-Tahrir and Al Muhajiroon.
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Climate Rush hit Mandelson at home
Protestors from the environmental action group Climate Rush chained themselves to Mandelson’s home today.
The direct action stunt was carried out to support wind power and the Vestas workers at the Isle of Wight.
The Climate Rush demonstrators chained themselves to the railings and planted miniature wind turbines at the front of the house in Regent’s Park.
Ellie Robson, 21, a history undergraduate at Cambridge University, said she wanted to expose the government’s hypocrisy over climate change as she chained herself to railings outside the business secretary’s house.
She said: “Less than two weeks after announcing the government’s plans for a low-carbon Britain, Vestas shut down because there’s no demand for wind turbines in this country.
“Mandelson, the man in charge of the nation’s purse strings, jets off to Corfu and ignores the Vestas workers’ occupation.
“If we’re going to have a low-carbon Britain then we need our government to support these workers, rather than forcing the closure of their factory and the loss of their jobs.”
Climate Rush activists have also been involved at the Isle of Wight – trying to get food to the protesters.
An Evening Standard report added:
The Yes Men, Andy Bichelbaum and Mike Bonnano, protest by pretending to be powerful people and spokesmen for prominent organisations. They create fake websites similar to ones they want to spoof, and then they accept invitations received on them to appear at conferences and on TV.
They have posed successfully as representatives of oil giant Exxon Mobile, the American government’s department of housing and urban development and the World Trade Organisation.
Their documentary, The Yes Men Fix the World, will be released tomorrow.
The demonstrators vowed to stay outside the house until the First Secretary and Minister for Business and Enterprise returned from his holiday in Corfu.
Climate Rush can be followed on Twitter here and on Facebook.
The Tories don’t know their Adam Smith
On Sunday morning the Telegraph brazenly declared that “The Conservatives are studying plans to increase VAT to 20 per cent if they win power at the next election as part of an ‘emergency’ package to pull Britain out of the red”.
But within hours this was being denied. Reuters reported a Tory spokeswoman saying: “There are absolutely no plans for such a rise and there’s never been any discussion about it.”
What to make of it all? It could be that the Tories do want to put VAT up to 20%…but want to keep this possible vote-loser quiet ahead of an election. Alternatively, the Tories themselves may be divided: some want a VAT rise, some don’t.
In either case, the Conservatives should be dissuaded from putting up VAT. I’ve written before about why VAT is an undesirable regressive tax. But such arguments are likely to have less traction with those on the political right.
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Is David Lammy planning to run for London mayor?
contribution by Michael Gray
Is David Lammy MP slowly positioning himself to make a bid as the Labour candidate for Mayor of London? Dave Hill thinks he is. I would guess it is a real possibility.
David Lammy, who I’ve heard speak several times, is an intelligent and articulate minister. But he has three problems. He is close to New Labour and consequently has a terrible voting record (cabinet ministers have to toe the line despite personal opinions) and this is unlikely to attract the left-wing grassroots.
Second, he is seen as a lightweight because he has not fleshed out his own agenda and a strong personality. New Labour was always good at keeping peronalities in check.
His third problem is that he lacks name recognition.
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The witchhunt
Lousy news from the trade union front, people:
The New Labour-loving horrors who run the public sector union Unison have stepped up their campaign to purge their Labour affiliated union of all grassroots socialists and leftwing activists.
We on the left are not pleased.
The union has just banned four of its best grassroots activists – Glenn Kelly (Bromley Unison branch secretary), Suzanne Muna (Unison’s Tenant Services Authority branch secretary), Onay Kasab (Greenwich Unison branch secretary) and Brian Debus (Hackney Unison chair) – from union office for three (Kelly and Kasab), four (Muna) and five (Debus) years.
Their crime? – well, that depends on who you ask, and how highly that person thinks of Labour.
I’m one of the many who believe that Kelly, Kasab, Muna and Debus are being strongarmed out of Unison because they are Socialist party members. They are passionate critics of New Labour, passionately opposed to this government’s privatising of public services, and – and this is doubtless the kicker, as far as Unison’s New Labour lubbers are concerned – galvanising grassroots enthusiasm for Unison to break its formal funding ties with Labour. continue reading… »
The bizarre journalism of psychologist Oliver James
contribution by Zarathustra
The psychologist Oliver James – author of Affluenza, The Selfish Capitalist and innumerable what-does-it-all-mean think-pieces in the press – has recently been churning out a series in the Guardian entitled Family Under the Microscope. Each week James offers a stunning revelation about the psychology of family life.
Some of these revelations are either dubious or just outright wrong. At times the reader is left wondering how much this says about psychology and how much is about Oliver James’ view of the world.
1. For example, James recently announced which demographic in the UK is most at risk of severe mental illness. Guess which it is. Homeless people? Single mums on benefits? Refugees from war zones? Nope. It’s middle-class teenage girls.
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So what is Tory policy on tax havens?
Left Outside recently wrote a solid deconstruction of the Conservative International Development paper, also cross-posted to LC. The conclusion? One World Conservatism is a well intentioned but fatally flawed scheme.
But I want to go further and ask what the Tory policy on tax havens is.
Tax havens – or as they are more accurately termed, secrecy jurisdictions – facilitate mass capital flight from developing nations. Capital flight is the number one reason developing nations cannot grow their economies and develop out of poverty.
It is, in turn, seconded and worsened by corruption (which tax havens also facilitate) and its effects exacerbated by a lack of secure, constant and domestically-accessible tax revenue (ditto).
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The Treehouse Gallery
There’s a great little project happening in Regents Park at the moment. The Treehouse Gallery is an ever growing collective of artists, designers, musicians and educators, who have constructed their own public space in which to hold exhibitions and events.
I’ve been following the development of the events schedule for a few weeks now, which is steadily filling up with workshops and other events, but I don’t see much in the way of debates programmed. Surely some LibCon readers and writers could get together to argue about something? Localism is a live debate at the moment, and would seem a perfect topic to discuss in a community-made space. CSJ? Fabians? Demos? SMF?
No, the TUC is not banning high heels
Nadine Dorries MP says on her blog:
Don’t ya just love the TUC? Apparently, at their forthcoming conference, they want to debate a proposal to ban the wearing of high heels in the office. Can you hear the collective sharp intake of breath and the no noo nooo from all of British office working womankind?
…
I’m 5ft 3 and need every inch of my Louboutin heels to look my male colleagues in the eye. If high heels were banned in Westminster, no one would be able to find me.
For those subjected to regular uninformed tirades by Dorries, who recently declared that Trident was not a weapon of mass destruction, this may not entirely be a bad thing.
The TUC is not looking to ban high heels in the office.
The news story originated with the Torygraph – which has long had a vendetta against trade unions.
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Nut-jobs compare Obama to Hitler/Stalin
It’s only been 6 months since he became President and right-wingers in America are already busy comparing Obama to Hitler.
The imagery below is published by LaRouche Pac, a lobby group in the United States organising against Obama’s health-care bill.
But lobby groups aren’t the only ones taking things to an extreme.
This week Rush Limbaugh, the unofficial leader of the Republicans and the popular right-wing talkshow host, compared Barack Obama to Adolf Hitler and Nancy Pelosi to Nazi leaders.
But while the US media and Republicans shrieked in anger when a MoveOn.org ad in 2004 compared Bush to Hitler, the response to Limbaugh’s tirade has been much more muted.
Elsewhere too, the Republican opposition to Obama’s healthcare plans is turning ugly.
Republican and pharma-funded lobby groups are organising Americans to attend meetings where politicans are talking about healthcare – to ‘send them a message’.
Angry scenes broke out in Florida this week when a large mob assembled in Tampa Bay to oppose Obama’s healthcare plans.
According to the Huffington Post:
Police officers were called to calm down an unruly crowd outside a health care reform town hall meeting in downtown Tampa, Florida on Thursday evening, according to local news reports.
…
Many of the hundreds of protesters said that they had been inspired by a conservative activist group promoted by Fox News host Glenn Beck and some received emails from the county
…
Several hours after this story was posted on Thursday night, the Tampa Tribune removed a reference to protesters carrying signs that depicted President Obama as the Joker. Yet one conservative blogger who attended the event reports seeing several people “with signs depicting President Obama as the Joker.”
But Obama’s critics, while not short of hyperbole, are having trouble deciding who exactly they should paint him as.
Some have obviously gone for Nazi symbolism. Others are trying their hand at painting Obama as a communist.
Is anyone going to denounce these nutters as ‘anti-American’? We’ll have to wait and see.
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» Revealed: govt to restrict abortion counselling despite Nadine Dorries vote
» Would raising the tax threshold actually help the poorest?
» To win London, Ken Livingstone has to step outside his comfort zone
» This trade agreement with India will destroy thousands of lives
» UK debt hasn’t hit £1 trillion – mostly because of QE
» The benefits of being a “burden” on society
» Today’s economic figures will simply confirm UK’s “lost decade”
» Have Labour realised the election is more than three years away?
» Violence in the office
» Want a more responsible capitalism? Reform how pensions work
» The world is entering the third phase of the crisis, warns ILO
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