September | 2009 | Liberal Conspiracy

SECTION

Public support for BBC increases

by Newswire
September 5, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Viewers and listeners are rising levels of trust in the broadcaster and increased public support for the licence fee, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today.

An overwhelming majority, 77%, think the BBC is an institution people should be proud of – up from 68% in an equivalent ICM poll carried out five years ago. Most, 63%, also think it provides good value for money – up from 59% in 2004.

Since the previous poll the BBC has come under fire for the standards of its journalism, after the Hutton inquiry and during the scandal involving fake phone-in competitions on high-profile programmes and wrongly edited footage of the Queen.

But public confidence in the corporation’s output has grown. Asked if the BBC is trustworthy, 69% now say yes, against 60% in 2004. Only 26% disagree.

…more at the Guardian

22 Comments ¦ 5th September

Mayor of Doncaster and the Taliban

by stroppybird
September 5, 2009 at 1:33 pm

Yep, apparently we could all learn from the Taliban:

Peter Davies, who has made it his personal mission to rid Doncaster of political correctness, said that under the Taliban, Afghanistan had an “ordered system of family life”. By contrast he said social policies which disregarded the importance of the traditional family had “created mayhem” in Britain.

Under the Taliban, women were banned from working outside the home, studying in schools or universities, from talking to men who were not family members, and from wearing cosmetics, high heels, or clothes made in “sexually attracting colours”.

They were stoned to death if caught having sex outside marriage, and whipped for not covering their ankles in public or being unaccompanied by a suitable male relative in public. Despite these shortcomings – which Amnesty International concluded “virtually confined women to the home” – Mr Davies said the Taliban’s rule did have some advantages.

WTF, it is like saying the trains ran on time under the Nazi’s, so lets not worry about concentration camps. Sometimes a regime is so oppressive that nothing can be added to the equation as an ‘advantage.’
continue reading… »

26 Comments ¦ 5th September

Richard Littlejohn caught looking stupid

by Sunny Hundal
September 4, 2009 at 5:45 pm

Another day, another uninformed rant by the Daily Mail’s Richard Littlejohn.

He says today:

Beyoncé belief
Reader Nick Paterson-Morgan drew my attention to the following announcement in The Times:

My first reaction was that this must be a wind-up, probably placed for a bet by someone at the swine flu hotline with nothing better to do. We rang The Times advertising department and they assured us it was genuine.

There’s no mention of a Mr Pong, or any father’s name for that matter. If true, which I still doubt, somewhere out there in Shropshire is a single mother called Kate Pong with quins, variously named after an American pop singer, a model and the U.S. President.

You couldn’t make it up.

Actually you could make it up. MacGuffin at TabloidWatch points out that Littlejohn’s team, typically, didn’t bother checking their facts properly. Kate Pong is a labrador.

He says ‘we’ rang the Times, which suggests he couldn’t even do that himself either. And notice how he even includes a snide remark about single mothers. In a story about a dog.

And there’s plenty of other rubbish research in the article too. See TabloidWatch.

35 Comments ¦ 4th September

Dan Hannan given top Euro job

by Sunny Hundal
September 4, 2009 at 3:16 pm

With a heavy heart Daniel Hannan MEP says today: “Until now, I have hung back, reluctant to do anything that might legitimise a rotten system. But times change.”

Times do change. You move to Brussels. You take on a job within a rotten system. You start representing the party which claims that it does not agree with you on major policy. Etc.

Hannan goes on to say:

In particular, we finally have a Group – the European Coservatives and Reformists – that represents that large majority of European voters who oppose closer integration. The creation of the ECR has brought an unprecedented mood of unity to Conservative MEPs: I’ve remarked before on the gracious way in which Geoffrey Van Orden and Timothy Kirkhope behaved over the leadership election. In short, what with everyone else chipping in, I felt it would be churlish to stand aside.

So I have become the party spokesman on legal affairs, and its representative on the pertinent committee.

One part of that remark is amusing. He says Timothy Kirkhope behaved graciously. According to Paul Waugh, this is what he said of Hannan after his comments about the NHS:

I certainly asked my chief whip to have a word with him and try to illicit from him the basis on which these remarks were made.

He added that the whip would “at the very least have to remind Mr Hannan of his role – I don’t know what further steps may be taken. It does worry me a little bit that an impression is being given in the United States about the views of David Cameron and the Conservatives party which is not accurate.

I would not like them to think in the United States that the Conservative party is in any way hostile to the NHS – quite the revserse.

Miaow! That’s very gracious behaviour I’m sure you’ll agree.

Anyway, Dan Hannan goes on to say:

For the first time in a decade here, I have found something that I’m truly proud to be part of. I speak, obviously, of the ECR: I’d vote to abolish the Parliament itself tomorrow.

Of course Mr Hannan. Of course.

The Conservative high command is clearly not keeping Daniel Hannan at arms length as they claim to be.

9 Comments ¦ 4th September

What is the left-wing position on immigration?

by Carl Packman
September 4, 2009 at 1:05 pm

Recently blogger Left Outside noted, in his entry on Dan Hannan’s praise for Enoch Powell, that:

Discussing immigration is difficult in this country, often it descends into one side calling the other racists. Or more commonly, a writer beginning a piece by stating that it is no longer possible to discuss immigration in this country, without being accused of being a racist. I don’t think that this is a particularly healthy way to conduct debate.

Not healthy indeed. But who is lagging behind? Dialogue on asylum, immigration, migration is very important, but little is said by the left on the subject other than to denigrate the position taken by the BNP.

But to leave a void instead of valid ideas, leaves the issue in the court of the far right and does nothing to counter the argument that the leftist attitude towards migration is anything other than mere contrarianism.

In today’s current political climate especially, there can only be one thing as bad as a policy where all immigration and asylum is curbed (more or less in line with how the BNP stand), and that is an open door policy. For this is the sort of argument sympathised by libertarians and hardcore free marketers of the Milton Friedman ilk who embrace a pick of the workforce for as little payment as possible, and a constant wave of unemployment just in case that cheap worker gets silly.

Another reason why the left needs its voice heard on immigration is because who a country accepts or denies as being legitimately in need of political asylum may be wrong.
continue reading… »

176 Comments ¦ 4th September

Cayman Islands collapse: why it matters

by Paul Sagar
September 4, 2009 at 10:09 am

The Cayman Islands are insolvent. Broke. Unable to make ends meet. Government staff are going unpaid, and the Island authorities have written a begging letter to the UK pleading for a bailout. Our Government has said no, because it doesn’t think Cayman can pay back the debt [PDF]. The world’s 5th largest banking centre, with 80% of the world’s hedge funds, is bust.

Cayman is one of the world’s most important tax havens – or as they are better termed, secrecy jurisdictions: places where banking and trust secrecy is enacted for the primary benefit of non-residents. In Cayman, financial secrecy is so extensive it is illegal to even ask for some kinds of financial information.

This sort of financial secrecy is a global menace. It enables massive tax avoidance, and facilitates tax evasion, the easy flow of illicit funds, terrorist financing, money-laundering by criminal gangs, and mass capital flight out of the world’s poorest economies. It is also at the heart of the financial order which collapsed so spectacularly last year, with very tangible consequences for millions of ordinary people.

The significance of Cayman’s problems is far-reaching.
continue reading… »

91 Comments ¦ 4th September

Tories: ConservativeHome too right-wing for us

by Sunny Hundal
September 4, 2009 at 9:42 am

In the clearest sign that many Tory modernisers find ConservativeHome’s editorial policy too right-wing, they are launching a new project.

“Conservative modernisers are developing a comms offensive geared towards wooing a new breed of Tories as the general election approaches. Party insiders are developing the Bright Blue project in a bid to pull in floating voters,” reports PR Week magazine.

Part of that strategy involves a new website which, according to David Singleton, is being masterminded by Jonty Olliff-Cooper, a former aide to Tory strategy director Steve Hilton.

‘It’s definitely not for the traditional rank and file,’ said Olliff-Cooper. ‘We’re primarily aiming at people who are not sure for which party they would vote.’
…
Olliff-Cooper said a new website would be ‘part of the mix but not the most important part’.

He added: ‘ConservativeHome doesn’t always reflect accurately the genuine opinions of everybody in the party or around the party. But it’s really good and we wouldn’t want to copy it or usurp it – we’re working with it.’

Heh.

Well, there is Fiona Melville’s Platform 10 but that hasn’t really taken off. The Conservative Party’s own The Blue Blog also lies bereft of readership or comments.

I suspect the problem for Tory modernisers is that ConservativeHome regularly runs polls of readers who inevitably offer opinions to the right of Thatcher. These polls are regularly reported in the helpful right-wing press and end up putting pressure on Cameron from the right, while putting off centrists.

Once the Tories come to power this will be even more potent, with the press looking to jump on any poll that looks even slightly critical of the leadership. The website will turn into a regular headache.

The comments of one source are telling:

ConservativeHome is seen as too right wing – it jars against the modern, progressive Conservatism for which David Cameron stands. There needs to be a place for progressive Tories.

What, all five of them?

The problem for the Tories is that setting up a blog isn’t just a matter of creating space – you also have to get the strategy (for promotion and discussion, and engagement with other bloggers) right. You also have to know the technology and be super-ambitious.

The failure so far of numerous Tory blog projects, and their online strategy in general (there’s a FT article detailing this I can’t find), suggests these qualities aren’t exactly abundant in their midst. Tim Montgomerie may be your typical neo-con but he knows better than most how to edit and promote a group-political-blog.

I doubt this will disturb the Tory online pecking order.

32 Comments ¦ 4th September

Needed: an exit strategy from Afghanistan

by Septicisle
September 4, 2009 at 7:40 am

Eric Joyce’s resignation as PPS to defence minister Bob Ainsworth is to say the least, intriguing.

Joyce is most certainly on the Blairite wing of Labour, and even under Brown until recently a major loyalist, and with little chance of influencing any sort of attempt to overthrow the prime minister, it seems his decision to go is based purely on his considerable discontent over the war in Afghanistan.

Joyce sets out, while clearly trying to be as non-threatening and as lightly critical as he can while questioning the entire current strategy, that the public is not so stupid as to believe or to much longer put up with the “terrorism” justification, that we are punching way above our weight in our current operations, and that we should be able to make clear that there has to be some sort of timetable outlining just how long our commitment is both able and willing to last.

All of this should be way beyond controversy, yet already we have the ludicrous sentiment from both Bob Ainsworth and the even more ridiculous Lord West that they don’t recognise the picture which Joyce sets out (“confused and disjointed” was West described it).

The only part which it’s difficult to agree with Joyce on is his criticism of the other NATO countries’ contribution: who can possibly blame France, Germany and Italy for not wanting to spend a similar amount of both their blood and treasure to us on a war in which they can’t even begin to claim as we do that it’s preventing terrorism on their streets?

The reason why it doesn’t seem right to truly coruscate Labour over the utter cowardice of their current lack of a policy is that it’s a failure of leadership which is shared across all three of the major parties. For all their protests and attacks on the government over Afghanistan, you could barely get a cigarette paper between both the Conservatives and Lib Dems’ own ideas on what we should be doing.

All still think, at least in public, despite doubtless their private misgivings, that this is both a war that is worth fighting and one which can be “won”, whatever their own idea is of a victory.

7 Comments ¦ 4th September

Scotland Yard hits back at Tory control claims

by Newswire
September 3, 2009 at 10:36 pm

Scotland Yard today hit back at comments by deputy Mayor that he and Johnson have their “hands on the tiller” of the Metropolitan police.

Kit Malthouse, the deputy mayor for policing, said that and would no longer act as a rubber stamp to whatever the force proposed, in a Guardian interview.

He said:

We slightly elbowed the Home Office out of the picture – you cannot have two captains on the ship.

Brian Paddick, the former assistant deputy commissioner said the Conservatives had politicised the force. He released a statement today saying:

If Kit Malthouse is claiming that unless senior officers do what their political masters instruct they will lose their jobs, it’s clearly politicisation of the police and a very dangerous move.

Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said:

I do not want anyone to be under the misapprehension that Scotland Yard or the Metropolitan Police Service is under the operational control of any political party. While the Home Office and the police authority have a right and duty to set priorities, budget and hold us to account, I set the operational strategy and direction for the Met.

All operational decisions are taken without fear or favour for any individual, political or other interest. I can reassure you that I have no intention or expectation of this changing now or in the future.

One Yard source told the Daily Mail:

This is nonsense. If you look at what the police have delivered in the past year that is all down to [Commissioner] Sir Paul [Stephenson] and nothing to do with politicians. Paul has been very robust with Mr Malthouse in recent months.

It is ridiculous to say he has wrested control away from the police. He is a local politician thinking he is a national politician. We recognise the Metropolitan Police Authority has a role to play but he is very full of himself.

The outgoing commissioner Ian Blair had earlier warned about increasing politicisation of the police force.

9 Comments ¦ 3rd September

Tories cheer UKIP leader against John Bercow

by Sunny Hundal
September 3, 2009 at 8:36 pm

Jonathan Calder picks up on the chorus of Tory voices cheering on UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who announced today he would stand against Speaker and Conservative MP John Bercow.

Nigel Farage’s announcement that he is to stand against John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, in his Buckingham constituency at the next election has excited the Conservative blogosphere.

“Yes He Can!” crows Tory Bear, complete with Obamaesque graphic.

“Go Nigel Go” cries Dizzy Thinks.

And Iain Dale says: “I’m glad I don’t live in Buckingham.” (I take this an admission that he would find it hard to maintain party loyalty if he lived in the constituency, rather than as a general assault on the this blameless Home Counties town.)