Unions demand BBC apology on ‘ballot rigging’
Eight National Unions want a retraction and apology from the BBC, to Bob Crow and the RMT, for unsubstantiated allegation by John Humphrys.
In the Today programme yesterday, in an interview with Bob Crow, he alleged vote rigging over member balloting.
John McDonnell MP said: How can a ballot conducted by the Electoral Reform Society be rigged? This was one of the most disgraceful biased performances of an interviewer and of the BBC itself in the history of the BBC and its treatment of trade unions.
The Court case in which the RMT dispute was discussed did not infer ballot rigging but errors in the ballot making process. Under law, union ballots have to be conducted by an independent scrutineer. This ballot was sent out, counted and completely run by the Electoral Reform Society.
Mark Serwotka, PCS General Secretary, said:
Rather than slurring the RMT the BBC should be examining why bosses and judges have the power to prevent unions taking legitimate industrial action to defend their members.
A full repeal of the anti-union laws introduced by Margaret Thatcher is long overdue. The right to strike is essential to any democratic society. If we forget that we are moving into very dangerous territory.
Doctor Who and the homosexuals of doom
It’s five years now since Doctor Who returned to the BBC, as the latest project from Russell T Davies.
When news broke that the man bringing Doctor Who back was the bloke who wrote Queer as Folk, the tabloids were up in arms. A man who introduced explicit gay sex to prime time TV? In charge of a kids show?
It’d be nice to say that the show’s success in the intervening years has put an end to talk like that. But the more bigoted part of the audience have spent the five years since in a state of constant bitching about Davies and his “agenda”.
Why does he insist on populating the show with gay characters? they demand. Why rub his sexuality in impressionable kids faces? Why does he have to stick his big gay oar in?
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Meow meow: Why our drugs policy is wrong-headed
So-called “mephedrone”, or “4-MMC” (to reflect its chemical composition) or “meow meow” (to reflect what gullible journalists will believe) has been causing a stir everywhere.
Pretty much every mainstream media outlet has run scare-mongering stories about 4-MMC, from the supposedly sensible-about-drugs Observer to the hysterically shrill ban it ban it ban it! Daily Mail.
Leftist bloggers with brains, like Left Outside and Septicisle, have been doing a stirling job of putting their heads in their hands and moaning softly about the unfolding Kafkaesque nightmare of epic stupidity and lies. (Read this and this, and then also these).
Something both have picked-up on is the possibility of a fourth drug classification, in which “new” substances could be put until proper scientific tests can be undertaken to ascertain exactly what they do.
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Drugs advisor quits! ‘Little or no discussion’ on drug
Another government adviser has abruptly quit the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs over the criminalisation of mephedrone.
In his resignation letter Eric Carlin said the council’s decision taken earlier this week to ban mephedrone was “unduly based on media and political pressure”.
He is the latest member of the body to resign, following the sacking of former chairman Professor David Nutt.
But more damningly for the government, Eric Carlin also said: “we had little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people’s behaviour”.
In other words the decision was once again taken on the basis of media pressure than evidenced based policy.
Eric Carlin’s full resignation letter was also posted to his blog:
Dear Home Secretary
Resignation from Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs
With regret and sadness, I am tendering my resignation as a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.
I was honoured to be appointed to this position and I had hoped that my substantial experience of managing drug prevention and treatment services might help influence the Committee, and thereby the Government, to think about drugs as more of a Public Health issue rather than focussing narrowly on the Criminal Justice aspects. This has not been the case.
My main interest and competence is in the field of prevention and early intervention with young people. I have grown increasingly disillusioned not only with the lack of attention paid to this by politicians and the media but also by the ACMD’s apparent lack of interest in the subject (with a few individual exceptions). At our meeting earlier this week, the update report on ‘Pathways to Problems’, published on the same day, received scant attention. Indeed, there was no time for questions on the report due to the haste with which we were being pushed to make a decision about classifying Mephedrone; this so that the Chair could come to meet with you later in the day and you could do a round of press announcements.
Re-Mephedrone; we had little or no discussion about how our recommendation to classify this drug would be likely to impact on young people’s behaviour. Our decision was unduly based on media and political pressure. The report was tabled to the whole Council for the first time on Monday; the Chair came to brief you before the whole Council had even discussed all of the report. In fact, I still haven’t seen the final version.
When, as Home Secretary, David Blunkett (note – should be Charles Clarke)announced that the entire classification system would be reviewed, I welcomed it and was disappointed when the idea was shelved. This needs urgently to be revisited. We need to review our entire approach to drugs, dumping the idea that legally-sanctioned punishments for drug users should constitute a main part of the armoury in helping to solve our country’s drug problems. We need to stop harming people who need help and support.
At the end of last year, I decided not to resign over the sacking of David Nutt, preferring instead to see how things panned out and to hope that the ACMD could develop a work programme which would help prevent and reduce harm, particularly to young people. I have no confidence that this will now happen, largely though not totally due to the lack of logic of the context within which the Council is constrained to operate by the Misuse of Drugs Act. As well as being extremely unhappy with how the ACMD operates, I am not prepared to continue to be part of a body which, as its main activity, works to facilitate the potential criminalisation of increasing numbers of young people.
Yours sincerely
Eric Carlin
Anti-strike decision is a blow to democracy
No doubt some Labour Party members will be delighted that the High Court has granted an injunction against the RMT’s proposed rail strike on April 6th.
Cynically, they will look at the timing and feel it benefits the Party; however, such a view is short-sighted and naive. It is the view of people whose obsession with the past is blinding them to present day realities. In the long this road leads to ruin because it obscures what makes this Party a *Labour* Party.
Bob Crow may not be the most affable character and it may be true that since the RMT is not affiliated it does not have the best interests of the Party at heart. Regardless of that no union can be subservient to the electoral interests of the Labour Party (just as the Party cannot be the same to the unions) because if they are they fail in their basic duty which is to their membership not the Labour Party.
Similarly, the Labour Party must stand-up for the wider interests it represents. But what happened in the courts yesterday is a blow against us all because it’s a blow against democracy.
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Help stop MPs moving to Lords after election!
A new campaign has been launched to stop MPs who are standing down at the election from moving to the House of Lords.
High profile MPs including John Prescott, Ruth Kelly, Ann Widdecombe, Michael Howard, John Reid and Des Browne are retiring from the House of Commons at the coming election, and are rumoured to be in line for peerages.
But democracy group Power2010 is fiercely opposing their appointments – saying it should be up to voters, not party leaders, to decide who sits in Parliament
In a few weeks’ time the party leaders will announce a list of names to be appointed to the House of Lords, and these MPs are expected to be among them alongside other ex-MPs and former ministers
Power2010 is calling on an immediate freeze on all appointments to the Lords under the rallying cry No More Lords.
The group wants to see a fully elected second chamber – no hereditary peers, no appointed peers and no Bishops.
It claims that the House of Lords, and its system of appointments, is one of the principal sources of corruption in British politics.
The campaign was launched in response to the recent lobbygate scandal involving former ministers Stephen Byers, Geoff Hoon and Patiricia Hewitt and Sir John Butterfill – an MP on record as saying a place in the Lords would help his career as a corporate lobbyist.
Power2010 director, Pam Giddy, said:
It is 2010 and we still have a Parliament in which the upper chamber is made up of appointed cronies, aristocrats who have inherited the right to rule, and 26 Bishops who sit in Parliament by right. It simply isn’t credible for the parties to talk about cleaning up politics whilst continuing to appoint new Lords, many of whom will expect to live out their retirement in the chamber at the taxpayer’s expense whilst blocking any kind of reform.
Earlier this month, a Power2010 poll found that almost two-thirds of adults asked – 65% – thought it was important or very important that anyone sitting in the House of Lords is elected. The same week more than 60,000 emails were sent by Power2010 supporters to the Bishops in Parliament, asking them to support the call for an elected second chamber.
More info to take action on this page
From a press release
Not-racists and the ‘England Is Full’ meme
I’ve blogged before on tactics that opponents of immigration use to portray themselves as motivated by factors other than racism, including faux concern for the working man (but only the British-born working man) and lies about pressure on public services.
Another popular one is “we’d love to take more people, but we’re full”.
An obvious retort to the definitely-not-racist [*] person raising this point is “err, the UK has the 51st highest population density in the world at 255 people/square km, behind Belgium, India, the Netherlands and the Philippines, and barely any higher than Germany or Italy”. This can be suffixed with “, you dolt” if required.
This is unlikely to convince most not-racist types.
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LC Mission Series Part 4: Welcome to the new Conspiracy
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about the future of Liberal Conspiracy while Sunny has been away. Before I hand back the editorial reins and he resumes editing the site, I’d like to set out my contribution to our mission series, and the changes which you can expect to see over the next month.
As Sunny explained, our aim is to become less of a blog and more of a platform. We want to offer news to lefties on what’s going on in the political world; offer thoughts on how they can get involved; and provide space for them to launch and sustain their own campaigns. The changes that you will see to the site reflect these aims.
1. New contributors
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Breaking: Simon Singh wins libel appeal
Fantastic news from the Royal Courts of Justice, this morning, where Simon Singh has won his appeal for the right to rely on the defence of “fair comment” in the libel action brought against him by the British Chiropractic Association.
According to one tweet, from Jack of Kent, the judgement cites both Orwell and Milton – If M’luds are breaking out Areopagitica as an authority in a case of this kind then this really is going to be the landmark decision that Singh’s supporters [including me!] have been hoping for.
Vote UKIP
contribution by Tim Worstall
You’ll have seen that loudmouthed rude man on TV recently: that Nigel Farage. Yes, he’s one of us, one of UKIP, the UK Independence Party.
The rudeness, well, when the country’s been sold downriver you’re likely to get that little irate, being loudmouthed in defence of liberty is no crime.
As to why you should vote for us: a vote for anyone else is wasted. You might as well rip up the ballot paper and use it to clean dog poop off the pavement: we’re the only people who think your vote should continue to matter.
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» The real agenda behind Telegraph’s abortion investigation
» How Scotland Yard monitors prying bloggers and journalists
» When disabled people want to work – employers can hold the back
» Revealed: the reality behind Workfare and why it doesn’t work
» Job snob? No, I’ve got the T-shirt
» Why country-by-country reporting matters to our wellbeing
» If Unions want to become stronger, they need to modernise
» Why work “reforms” in Spain are a warning for workers across Europe
» Five things you need to know about the NHS bill
» Bigger. Fatter. Gypsier. More Racist.
» Laziness levels in Britain getting lazier, wails government
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