Right wingers launch “British Tea Party”
The Tory right is getting a British Tea Party movement off the ground this Saturday, aiming to build an anti-tax movement.
Its being organised by the Freedom Association, starring right wing Tory MEP Daniel Hannan.
As we will no doubt hear again and again, its a good moment for an anti-tax revolt.
After all, the 2010 British Social Attitudes survey shows public support for tax cuts and spending cuts has doubled since 1997, from 4% to 8%.
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A better way to reduce smoking
Rumour has it that the Department of Health is considering mandatory health warnings on all alcoholic drinks in the style of tobacco products.
I don’t know about you but I’ve never met anyone -not a single person – who’s ever quit smoking after reading health signs on packets of fags. Like, NOT ONE.
Introduced in the early nineties, warnings such as “Smoking kills”, “you’re gonna die” and “What a piece of shit you are for smoking” were made to cover at least 30% of a cigarette pack in 2003 – presumably a measure for the inattentive. Most recently, “picture warnings” have also been introduced, along with measures to “hide cigarettes under the counter”.
But with alcohol the contradictions will just be comedy material.
Here’s a government that makes a substance available 24/7, practically everywhere, but then goes apeshit that those bottles and cans don’t carry a clear enough warning that the same substance is bad for you.
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Do Tories know why their poll lead has dived?
An amusing activity to do while watching the Tory lead dive over the past few months is to read the comments over at ConHome. The sight of activists panicking and subjecting Cameron to angry tirades is a joy to behold.
But there seems to be very little discussion on why they’ve dropped like lead balloons. It’s not like New Labour has announced any major new policies, found a coherent narrative, got the press on side or even escaped bad news. Cameron just ain’t getting a luck break. What gives? Here’s some thoughts.
1) Bad policies.
The rollout hasn’t gone too well has it? The education policy meant that Carol Voderman was excluded from their own ideas, the crime policy lead to Chris Grayling being publicly humiliated and the ‘broken society’ narrative got punctured by a few misplaced decimal points. All in all, Cameron was doing much better when he was vague. The public either don’t like their big ideas or don’t like the incompetent way they’ve been presented.
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‘Pro Choice Happy Hour’ meet next week
The second Abortion Support Network ‘Pro Choice Happy Hour’ will be:
Monday 1 March
7-10 pm
This is a great opportunity to socialise and network with other pro-choice people, from long-term campaigners to pro-choice ‘civilians’.
Unlike our well-attended first Happy Hour in December, we will not be asking for a suggested donation.
Please RSVP to: info@abortionsupport.org.uk. RSVP preferred but not required.
Come along! Bring friends!
Abortion Support Network (ASN) is a volunteer-run organisation in London that provides accommodation for women living in Ireland who need to stay overnight when travelling to London for an abortion.
ASN also fundraises in order to give grants to help women cover the cost of paying privately for an abortion.
While other organisations campaign for law reform in both Ireland (Eire) and Northern Ireland, ASN is the only group on record providing women travelling for abortions with the thing they need the most: money.
The Old Bank of England
194 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2 LT
Map here
Harriet Harman isn’t Pol Pot: reply to Simon Heffer
I’ve always argued that the trouble with Pol Pot is that he was just too damn soft on the urban petit bourgeoisie, and I was pleased to learn this morning that Simon Heffer shares that assessment.
The Daily Telegraph pundit’s big problem with the genocidaire prime minister of Democratic Kampuchea is not so much his penchant for trivial workaday misdemeanours like the annihilation of a quarter of all living Cambodians, but rather that he tried to ‘impose fairness’.
Just like Harriet Harman and her ‘mad Equality Bill’, in fact. Unfortunately, Simon doesn’t quite clinch the parallel by nailing Hattie on her policy on forced agrarian collectivisation. But let’s not quibble; all but fools will instantly identify the immediately obvious basic underlying continuity of the two politicians’ inherently socialist thought processes.
All this and more can be found in the somewhat febrile if highly entertaining examination of Labour’s latest campaign slogan – ‘A future fair for all’ – to which Heffer devotes his column today.
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Why Tories are deluding themselves over Brown’s gold sell-off
If the Tories had won the 2001 election, would Britain’s fiscal position been in any better shape? Spending would have been less, but we might have had huge tax cuts instead, a bigger housing boom… Or, instead, if they had cut the deficit, would rates have been lower, the housing boom even more out of control?
Only the truly idiotic would think that Brown bringing in the FSA somehow led to the financial crisis. But you still read it from time to time.
However, one piece of counterfactual history is SO easy that the Right can seldom resist bringing it out against Brown, and that is the Decision to Sell the Gold. Leading from this Times’ article , Tim Montgomerie at ConHome can barely contain his gloating on the subject (hat tip LeftOutside).
But I think LO’s attempt at a defence – continued on here on LibCon – does not go far enough.
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They want us to be weak and silent
Last week Tim Luckhurst was upset that Rod Liddle is not going to be be editor of the Independent. Although I can understand why he is annoyed that something he wants to happen is not going to happen, his ire against the “Liberals” who foiled Liddle is somewhat bizarre.
He wrote:
Rod Liddle will not be editor of the Independent. The screechingly intolerant campaign of hostility directed against him by metropolitan critics has done its job.
They call themselves liberals. If they are right then the word has come to have as little meaning as its common counterpart “progressive”. Sincere liberals do not censor opinion, still less should they caricature it in order to intensify hostility. True liberals oppose arguments they despise by demonstrating the greater value of better ones.
In his people’s red tunic Sunny Hundal has mounted horseback and set loose the dogs of Facebook to trash Liddle’s chances of editing the Independent.
Tim argues that having an opinion, registering that opinion publicly and taking action to see it realised is illiberal.
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‘Bullygate’ fails to shift narrow Tory poll lead
The Conservative party’s lead in the polls is narrowing day by day despite (or perhaps due to) unveiling a raft of policies.
A new poll published today by the Sun newspaper shows both Conservatives and Labour falling by 1pt. More worryingly for CCHQ however, their lead stays at a paltry 6pts.
Conservative – 38 per cent (down 1)
Labour – 32 per cent (down 1)
Lib Dem – 17 per cent (no change)
Other – 12 per cent (up 1)
The change is within the margin of error.
However, a raft of polls show that the Conservative edge has narrowed massively from the 14pts – 17pts they were at recently. Yesterday a Guardian/ICM poll put the difference at 7pts.
YouGov also polled top voter concerns and found:
Which two or three issues will be most important to you in deciding who you vote for in the coming election?
1. The economy – 56 per cent
2. Immigration & Asylum – 43 per cent
3. Health – 34 per cent
4. Crime – 30 per cent
5. Tax – 27 per cent
… to which ConservativeHome suggested that immigration should be played up as an issue.
Perhaps they could unveil the ‘Are You Thinking What We’re Thinking?‘ poster campaign again.
PR voting demanded as top reform by public
A demand for proportional representation was voted as the top Parliament reform by popular choice, the Power2010 campaign group said today.
The most popular proposals that will make up the ‘Power Pledge’ will now be: PR, the end of ID cards and government data hoarding, an elected House of Lords, English votes on English laws, and a commitment to drawing up a written constitution.
Over a 100,000 votes were cast on the Power2010 website, which also conducted deliberative discussion events across the country.
Power2010 Director Pam Giddy said:
This campaign sends the clearest possible message to the political classes that it is time to listen to the people’s demands. 100,000 votes were cast – and we expect many thousands of people across the country to pledge their support before the election.
We’ve taken the campaign to towns and cities across the country and everywhere heard the same thing: it’s time to fix our political system, not fiddle it.
The next phase of the campaign will see voters asked to commit their support to a majority of the proposals – at least three – and then challenge every candidate at the next general election to support them too.
A network of regional campaigners, supported by high profile partner organisations and a national marketing campaign will also be used to push the campaign forward.
Pam Giddy added:
We’re going to keep up the pressure until election day to make sure the people who want to represent us in parliament take these results seriously and back our campaign for change.
The campaign is backed by the Joseph Rowntree Trusts and is supported by a wide coalition of organisations and individuals.
www.power2010.org.uk
From a press release
MPs slams News of the World on phone-hacking
Rupert Murdoch’s media giant News International could face a judicial inquiry after a highly critical parliamentary report today accuses senior executives at its top-selling newspaper of concealing the truth about the extent of illegal phone hacking by its journalists.
The 167-page report by a cross-party select committee is withering about the conduct of the News of the World, with one MP saying its crimes “went to the heart of the British establishment, in which police, military royals and government ministers were hacked on a near industrial scale”.
MPs condemned the “collective amnesia” and “deliberate obfuscation” by NoW executives who gave evidence to them, and said it was inconceivable that only a few people at the paper knew about the practice.
The culture, media and sport select committee was also damning of the police, saying Scotland Yard should have broadened its original investigation in 2006, and not just focused on Clive Goodman, the NoW’s royal reporter.
Update: The Libdems have released a statement demanding a judicial inquiry:
This report blows a gaping hole in the News of the World’s line that only a sole rogue reporter was involved in illegal hacking of phones, and reveals enormous worries about the feeble response of the Metropolitan Police in investigating what was clearly widespread illegal activity.
There are very serious issues at stake here for the privacy of the citizen and the report highlights deep concern at the weak reaction to these illegal intrusions by News International, the Press Complaints Commission, the Met and the Information Commissioner.
The only alternative to get to the bottom of what actually went on at the News of the World is a judicial inquiry so that a judge can insist on information and can draw out the lessons if we are to avoid such wholesale abuse of privacy again.
Update 2 Benedict Brogan puts his tin-foil hat on and starts spinning.
Tom Watson MP hits back in the comments:
If you’d wanted to know when I knew about the bullying claims, why didn’t you call or email before you wrote this blog post?
I knew at the weekend about Mr Rawnsley’s book. Frankly, I’m out of the loop these days – not remotely interested in the usual Westminster conspiracy theories like the one you cast above.
The reason the amendment was tabled was because of the complete difference in approach to the employment issue between Mulcaire and Goodman (jailed for criminal offences yet paid off by News International before an employment case) and poor old Matt Driscoll (bullied at work and had to fight all the way for a record compensation). If you read the report in full, you might understand the context.
Ands if you’d bothered to ask me, I would have told you why I moved the amendment. You’re a professional journalist not a ham blogger. Next time, at least check before you make these insidious suggestions.
Update 3: The full report is now online (PDF). The phone-tapping bit starts at page 96.
This from page 100:
422. Mark Lewis also told us that, during his conversations with the Metropolitan Police at the time of the Gordon Taylor case, a Detective Sergeant Maberly had put the number of people affected by the phone tapping at 6,000. Mr Lewis went on to say that ‘it was not clear to me whether that was 6,000 phones which had been hacked, or 6,000 people including the people who had left messages’.389 Assistant Commissioner Yates, however, referred to only a handful of victims,390 while Detective Chief Superintendent Williams told us that: “I suppose the honest answer is we do not know”.
Subsequently, in answer to a Freedom of Information request, the Metropolitan Police confirmed that there were 91 individuals whose pin numbers were recorded in the material which they had seized. This does not however prove that only 91 individuals were targeted; how many of those pin numbers were accurate, and the number of individuals with default pin settings which might not be individually recorded, is not known.
The request came from the Guardian, which also reported being told by three mobile phone companies that they had traced over 100 customers, from numbers passed to them by the police, whose voicemails had been called
And more later:
439. We have seen no evidence that Andy Coulson knew that phone-hacking was taking place. However, that such hacking took place reveals a serious management failure for which as editor he bore ultimate responsibility, and we believe that he was correct to accept this and resign.
440. Evidence we have seen makes it inconceivable that no-one else at the News of the World, bar Clive Goodman, knew about the phone-hacking. It is unlikely, for instance, that Ross Hindley (later Hall) did not know the source of the material he was transcribing and was not acting on instruction from superiors. We cannot believe that the newspaper’s newsroom was so out of control for this to be the case.
441. The idea that Clive Goodman was a “rogue reporter” acting alone is also directly contradicted by the Judge who presided at the Goodman and Mulcaire trial. In his summing up, Mr Justice Gross, the presiding judge, said of Glenn Mulcaire: “As to Counts 16 to 20 [relating to the phone-hacking of Max Clifford, Simon Hughes MP, Andrew Skylett, Elle Macpherson and Gordon Taylor], you had not dealt with Goodman but with others at News International.”
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