Poll: voters don’t rate Osborne
Mark Reckons has the goods on the new YouGov poll of marginal constituencies:
Very interesting finding from the latest marginals poll by Channel 4/YouGov today. They asked the question:
“Who would make the best Chancellor after the election”
The answers were:
Vince Cable: 27%
Alistair Darling: 17%
George Osborne: 15%
This is pretty damning stuff for the Tories and ties in with what I have been saying for a while. Osborne is a liability for them.
It’s great to see Vince getting the recognition he deserves. It is so difficult for spokespeople in any portfolio to get recognition for the third party so his achievement here is even more incredible.
Cutting spending: the BBC warning
The BBC’s proposal to cut 6Music and the Asian Network is, I fear, a portent of coming cuts in government spending – because it shows that when a top-down organization makes cuts, it does so on the basis of power, not efficiency.
Put it this way. If the BBC were to restructure itself according to public service broadcasting principles it would abolish BBC3 (£115m a year for a pile of crap), privatize Radio 1 and possibly Radio 2 , and stop paying huge salaries for “talent” – though the fact that Anne Robinson gets £3m a year suggests this word is used very elastically.
So, why does it leave all these alone and target instead two radio stations which seem to fulfil the public service remit by offering things which the commercial sector probably wouldn’t? continue reading… »
US Defense dept warns of danger from climate change
In January this year the US Department of Defense, that bastion of socialists, published its Quadrennial Defense Review Report.
The report not only implicitly accepts climate change but also points to the dangers it poses to national security.
It’s worth reading how it expects climate change to impact the armed forces:
Crafting a Strategic Approach to Climate and Energy (pg84)
Climate change and energy are two key issues that will play a significant role in shaping the future security environment.Although they produce distinct types of challenges, climate change, energy security, and economic stability are inextricably linked. The actions that the Department takes now can prepare us to respond effectively to these challenges in the near term and in the future.
Climate change will affect DoD in two broad ways.
First, climate change will shape the operating environment, roles, and missions that we undertake. The U.S. Global Change Research Program, composed of 13 federal agencies, reported in 2009 that climate-related changes are already being observed in every region of the world, including the United States and its coastal waters.
Among these physical changes are increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening growing seasons, lengthening ice-free seasons in the oceans and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows.
Assessments conducted by the intelligence community indicate that climate change could have significant geopolitical impacts around the world, contributing to poverty, environmental degradation, and the further weakening of fragile governments. Climate change will contribute to food and water scarcity, will increase the spread of disease, and may spur or exacerbate mass migration.
The review also offers examples of how the US Military has reduced its carbon foot-print and secured energy supplies
By 2016, the Air Force will be postured to cost-competitively acquire 50 percent of its domestic aviation fuel via an alternative fuel blend that is greener than conventional petroleum fuel. Further, Air Force testing and standard-setting in this arena paves the way for the much larger commercial aviation sector to follow. The Army is in the midst of a significant transformation of its fleet of 70,000 non-tactical vehicles (NTVs), including the current deployment of more than 500 hybrids and the acquisition of 4,000 low-speed electric vehicles at domestic installations to help cut fossil fuel usage.
The Army is also exploring ways to exploit the opportunities for renewable power generation to support operational needs: for instance, the Rucksack Enhanced Portable Power System (REPPS). The Navy commissioned the USS Makin Island, its first electric-drive surface combatant, and tested an F/A-18 engine on camelina-based biofuel in 2009—two key steps toward the vision of deploying a “green” carrier strike group using biofuel and nuclear power by 2016.
The Marine Corps has created an Expeditionary Energy Office to address operational energy risk, and its Energy Assessment Team has identified ways to achieve efficiencies in today’s highly energy-intensive operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in order to reduce logistics and related force protection requirements.
An LC reader wrote in to say: “With the Pentagon acknowledging the reality of global climate change in the latest Quadrennial Defense Review Report, this surely puts the neocons with their ‘greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people‘ at odds with their own Generals and Admirals.”
A few weeks ago Left Foot Forward reported that a leading Navy commander said climate change could be “the tipping point to cause conflict”
Michael Foot: a tribute
The Labour Party has lost a true hero. Michael Foot was a parliamentarian held in the highest regard. One of the most outstanding orators this country has ever known and a man who defined the notion of principled politics. Tributes have been pouring in, from Gordon Brown, Tony Benn and a fitting tribute was made in the House of Commons by Jack Straw after a frankly embarrassing Prime Ministers Questions, the depressing nature of which was put into sharp focus by the news of Foot’s passing. But more on that in a moment.
Foot was the mind of the Labour Party. A remarkably intelligent writer who went from Fleet Street to Westminster with the same principles and values underpinning all his endeavours, values which were unashamedly, unapologetically socialist. Without a doubt Foot was a visionary politician, to some extent an idealist, but was one who admired, if not idolised, as perhaps the greatest pragmatist British Politics has ever known.
Reading Foot’s biography of Aneurin Bevan will have influenced, I hope, the rest of my life. It is for this, perhaps monumental impression on my future, that I am truly grateful to Michael Foot. His bringing to life of Bevan’s spirit, character and politics inspired a love of socialism and the Labour party that I would find, now, impossible to shake off. Foot was a master of the written word which framed the life of his idol, and now mine, beautifully. I would urge anyone with a political interest to devote a weekend to reading it, it will not disappoint.
Amongst the tributes that have poured in for Foot I have, however, noticed a worrying trend. continue reading… »
Dutch elections: gains for liberals, greens
Reports of Wednesday’s Dutch elections in the British media were all about the gains made in two cities by the far-right Freedom Party, who came second in the capital and first in the city of Almere. This is part of a narrative about how the anti-Islam far right is gaining strength across Europe.
But the real results are much more interesting, as Radio Netherlands reports.
The elections saw major gains for the free-market liberals of the D66 Democrats and the Green Left party. The D66 Democrats topped the poll in Leiden, Harlem and Hilversum, with the Green Left top in Utrecht and Nijmegen. Across the country, Labour was top with 16%, just ahead of the Christian Democrats and conservative VVD parties. However, 28% of the votes went to independent candidates.
So rather than swinging to the right, the Dutch electorate backed alternatives to the main parties of government, from free-market liberals to environmentalists to independents. Fewer than 1% voted for the far right, who only stood in two cities and still got the bulk of the media’s attention.
There are national elections coming up in June after Labour withdrew from the government and called for Dutch troops to come home from Afghanistan, so these elections are an important predictor of what might happen then.
But even if you are not particularly interested in Dutch local government, there is an important message here. In these elections as in the European elections here in the UK, the far right gets disproportionate coverage compared to its actual level of support, and non-racist smaller parties get less coverage. Across Europe, free-market liberal and environmental left parties are making gains at the expense of the traditionally dominant parties of the right and left.
Digital Economy Bill: Why Amendment 120a isn’t our enemy
There has been a lot of fuss about the Digital Economy Bill online for months, rightfully so. However the current topic that is particularly concerning to opponents of the bill is the latest amendment, 120a, tabled by Lib Dem and Tory peers to replace the vastly more dangerous Clause 17. Clause 17 was the one which it’s argued could give dark Lord Peter Mandelson – or any future Secretary of State – unwarrantable powers to change British copyright law.
If you can’t remember the problems with Clause 17 then you should take another look and be thankful that due to yesterday’s controversial amendment getting through such measures are being weeded out.
I am certainly not saying the bill is good, or even adequate, in either it’s original or it’s amended state; indeed once the bill is passed to the commons I intend to go through it on Liberal Conspiracy in detail. There is a lot more that is bad about the bill than just the file sharing aspects, areas that will unlikely be debated properly in the commons as they have barely been touched in the Lords, and unfortunately barely touched in public opposition. But there are some things that need to be understood about where we are now.
1) Things like this amendment (120a) are not fundamentally bad, certainly not so much that we should spend all of our efforts on them compared to the much greater risks to personal freedom present in the bill.
2) We need to be careful not to over-react because we are ourselves making assumptions about the language used.
3) There has to be a distinction between the law and the practicing of law, and a realisation that no legislation on an issue like this can cover every eventuality.
So, why isn’t this amendment quite as bad as people are saying? continue reading… »
More lefties selected by Labour
In recent parliamentary selections, local Labour members selected lefties to stand for Wansbeck and Leyton & Wanstead.
Ian Lavery, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, has been selected in Wansbeck, where Labour have a majority of 10,581. In Leyton & Wanstead, they selected John Cryer, who was MP for Hornchurch from 1997 to 2005.
John was a member of the Socialist Campaign Group while he was an MP, while Ian was profiled by the Times as an “unforgiving class warrior who condemns party for selling out“.
Many MPs who are currently members of Labour’s Socialist Campaign Group are standing down from parliament, but the selection of Ian and John continues a trend of Labour’s stronger areas of support picking lefties as their candidates.
Why does algebra reduce teenage conceptions?
I don’t usually do requests, but at the prompting of Watchman in comments, this is part four of my trilogy of posts on teenage pregnancy, and this time we’re looking at whether educational performance makes a difference.
I’ll keep this one short and sweet.
To try and answer Watchman’s question, I went back to the area data for local authorities in England (using data from 2007) and mapped the conception rates and percentage of pregnancies ending in abortion, for women under 18, against GCSE grades, using standard DCSF categories, e.g. the percentage of school levers gaining 5 GSCEs or better at grades A*-C, etc.
The main results are pretty much what most people would expect.
There is a positive correlation between conception rates and the percentage of young women leaving school without any qualifications at all, although the Pearson coefficient (PMCC = 0.4) indicates that the link here is not, perhaps, as strong as many people would expect.
For young women leaving school with at least some qualifications to their name, the correlation between educational performance and conception rates is a bit stronger (PMCC = -0.5 to -0.6) for most of the performance categories.
In general terms, areas with better GCSE results have lower conception rates in women under 18, although the link is a fairly moderate one.
There was, however, one very interesting result in the analysis. continue reading… »
Can Patriotism Combat Islamophobia?
Last night the Muslim Council of Britain held a special closed-meeting of parliamentarians, journalists, police, public servants, community representatives, academics and, erm, me. The topic of discussion was Tackling Islamophobia: Reducing Street Violence Against British Muslims.
The event was timely. “Since 9/11 anti-Muslim hate crimes appear to have become more prevalent than racist hate crimes where black and Asian Londoners are the victims.” (PDF) Testimony from a range of academic experts and politicians substantiated the claim that street violence against Muslims is rising.
Speakers stressed that there are “tangible links between Islamophobia or anti-Muslim bigotry in both mainstream political and media discourse…extremist nationalist discourse, and anti-Muslim hate crimes”. Peter Oborne – a journalist on the Conservative right by his own admission – described how after 7/7 he became aware that journalists in mainstream newspapers got away with telling lies and distorting facts about Islam and Muslims on a regular basis. Indeed he collected his findings and took them to Channel 4, who turned them into a special episode of Dispatches. This sort of dishonesty – he said – would not be tolerated if it were directed at any other minority group. Yet the smearing of British Muslims, usually playing on fears of terrorism, is standard fare in the British media.
continue reading… »
London’s radical bookseller takes on Amazon
Fifty years ago, in the aftermath of World War Two, a group of pacifists opened Housmans radical bookshop in London’s Kings’ Cross.
Ever since, Housmans has worked hard to continue its mission of promoting ideas of peace, human rights and a more equitable economy by which future wars, and all their inherent suffering, might be avoided.
Now, Housmans has launched its own online bookshop to rival Amazon. Although still prioritising their stock of radical interest and progressive politics, the site is also able to provide around half a million general titles.
They say the biggest threat to independent bookshops has been the rise to dominance of the online bookseller Amazon.com.
What is wrong with using Amazon?
In 2001 the Guardian first reported on the poor working conditions in Amazon’s warehouses, and nothing much has changed since.
In December 2008, a Sunday Times reporter went undercover to their Marston Gate warehouse near Milton Keynes and discovered that staff were required to work seven days a week and were punished for taking sick leave, even if they had a note from their doctor.
According to Unite the Union, Amazon continues to see trade union representation as illegitimate.
Amazon’s dominance of the market means that publishers have little choice but to comply with their demands. Aside from the ethical considerations, this affects readers in reduced output from small presses, and diminished availability of radical titles.
Co-manager Nik Goreck says:
This year Housmans celebrates fifty years of trading from our Caledonian Road address, but in order for us to be here another fifty years we have to stand up for ourselves, and trust in ethically-minded book-buyers to support independents.
The staff at Housmans has fought many battles over the years for causes we believe in, and this is one battle we can’t afford to lose. Please support the shop that supports your campaigns!
www.housmans.com
From a press release
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