An ode to David Cameron
contribution by Max Burman
Down the river he sold the country’s heart,
One nation once, now two worlds apart.
A man in his Prime but a problem with debt,
Flanked by boy George and the Orange Clegg,
‘Working together in the national interest’.
“The damage was done over 13 years,
Don’t worry doubters I’ll compound your fears”
He said,
Just as long as the Liberals jump into my bed.
A budget deficit and no wealth creation,
So to benefit cuts he turned for salvation
As into two worlds he split the one nation.
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Favourite pictures from yesterday’s protest
This is my favourite picture from yesterday’s student protests. It’s positive and peaceful, but doesn’t detract from the fact that protests were taking place.
Police action yesterday was just short of totalitarian; but we shouldn’t rise to their bait. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Met put the van there deliberately.
Picture by blinkofaneye on Flickr.
User sabaithaime1 took this video of the students trying to protect the van.
And some more pictures
.
Both of these from an amusing Daily Mail article horrified that “this time women are leading the charge” (OMG! Why didn’t they stay at home like good girls!)
.
Picture by Jonathan Warren
The BBC News coverage was awful. An online report merely said this about the hours of forceful ‘kettling’ of young kids in the cold.
Hundreds of remaining protesters were gradually released by police throughout the evening.
Earlier a police van was attacked and barricades thrown as protesters tried to break through police lines.
Completely lame. BBC News coverage last night was as sensationalist as that of Sky News.
Why the student protests are unlikely to backfire despite the coverage
In the morning after perhaps one of the biggest days of civil disobedience in a generation, many will reflect on what it has achieved.
On the train on the way home last night, a woman opposite – very prim middle aged and upper middle class – surprised me by expressing her heartfelt support. But she asked the same question: will this all help you win sympathy for your cause?
While kettled in at Whitehall yesterday, I had a chat with group of students from an East London FE College who had the same concerns.
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Hughes still ‘undecided’ on tuition fees vote
Deputy leader Simon Hughes said yesterday he was still ‘undecided’ and consulting with fellow Liberal Democrat MPs over how to vote on a proposed rise in tuition fees.
He made the comments during an edition of Young Voters’ Question Time on BBC Three.
A source tells is that Southwark Lib Dems are trying to force Hughes to vote against fees rise.
Home Office u-turns on domestic violence pilot
The Home Secretary will today announce that the government has dropped plans to stop pilots of new Domestic Violence Protection Orders.
The issue was taken up by Ed Balls and David Miliband during the Labour leadership campaign, when it was announced the Coalition was going to drop the scheme.
They were first introduced by the then Home Secretary Alan Johnson in September 2009.
Last month Ed Balls sent a letter to the Home Secretary, with over 2,000 signatures, calling for the decision to halt the piloting of Domestic Violence Protection Orders to be reversed.
Ed Balls, Labour’s shadow home secretary, released a statement saying:
This is a very welcome reprieve for an important set of new powers first announced by Alan Johnson and the Labour government last year.
Over the summer the new Home Secretary Theresa May said the pilots were being halted because of the forthcoming spending cuts. But as I said at the time, the pilots should not be delayed. These orders have been proven to work in other countries and would give the police the extra powers they need to protect the victims of domestic abuse.
Yvette Cooper, Shadow Foreign Secretary and Minister for Women, called on the government to back European-wide action to combat trafficking of women and girls too.
Speaking on End Violence Against Women Day today, she said:
Thousands of vulnerable women and girls are exploited and made to suffer at the hands of criminal gangs. That’s why the government must back Europe wide action against trafficking to help stop this violent abuse.
It is good news that the government has put the safety of women first and u-turned on domestic violence protection orders. Now they must think again on trafficking and drop their opposition to the EU Directive.
The Prime Minister said he saw no reason to opt-in to the proposed European Directive because it “does not go any further than the law that we have already passed. We have put everything that is in the directive in place” (PMQs, 15 September 2010, Hansard, col 873)
But the EU Directive does include new measures, currently not covered in UK law.
For example:
1. support and protection for child victims of trafficking: The Directive requires child victims to have a special representative in court proceedings when their parents cannot represent them.
2. appointment of a Rapporteur on trafficking: The UK does not have a body which holds the government and current authorities to account on trafficking policies.
From a press release
She is free now, but the justice system still fails raped women
The woman sentenced to 8 months in jail after retracting her claim that her husband raped was released yesterday.
Lord Chief Justice criticised decisions to prosecute the woman but went on to call this an “extreme case”.
This is not an extreme case, however awful it may be. Women are consistently being portrayed as the guilty party in rape cases.
continue reading… »
Why Nick Clegg offers a recycled vision of society
contribution by Reuben
Last night Nick Clegg gave the annual Hugo Young lecture at the Guardian offices, and in doing so set out his vision of a just society.
In his speech – he sought to present the Liberal Democrats as the “new progressives”, in contrast to the “old progressives” of Labour and the left.
His starting point, that statism does necessarily equate to social progress, is something with which I would agree.
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We need to reclaim the true ideals behind civil disobedience
Every new generation of campaigners from the peace movement of the 1980s onwards has been through workshops which teach you how to make an impact and how to handle the police.
Non violent direct action (NVDA) has to be part of a wider, mass protest to be really successful, but from Greenham Common to Swampy and Greenpeace, it has as much a place in Britain’s cultural life as Glastonbury or a Royal Wedding.
If done properly, it can not only generate the right kind of publicity, but direct it against the right institutions.
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Clarke: no withdrawal from human rights
Yesterday Ken Clarke was asked whether he would repeal the Human Rights Act 1998 and withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights.
Here is his response (via ConHome):
The coalition Government do not intend to withdraw from the European convention on human rights, which was imposed by the victorious British on the rest of Europe after the war in order to establish British values across the countries that were recovering from fascism and was drafted largely by Sir David Maxwell Fyfe, who put what he thought were the best principles of British justice into it.
That effectively kills the the flagship Tory commitment to scrapping the Human Rights Act and replacing it with a British Bill of Rights.
I’m surprised the Tory right hasn’t erupted in a huge outcry over this.
It was only two years ago Cameron repeated his pledge to scrap the Act altogether and replace it with “tougher standards for British courts”.
Or a British Bill of Rights as he called it.
Anyway, we can chalk this up as a Libdem victory within the Coalition and should sincerely congratulate them on winning the internal battle. The HRA was an important piece of legislation and it would be madness to leave the ECHR.
Why Ireland should default on its debts and start afresh
There seems to some hesitancy on the Left and with Labour politicians on how to respond to Ireland’s crisis. Or at least, no one is taking a strident position. Only Alistair Darling seems to be around, while Pat McFadden (neither are in the shadow cabinet) seems to be supportive of the bailout.
This is politically and economically short-sighted; we should loudly oppose the bailout and say Ireland should, for its own sake, default on its debt and restructure them.
Here are some reasons why.
continue reading… »
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