EDL decline invitation to extremist US pastor
The US pastor who planned a mass burning of the Qur’an on the anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks this year will not be attending a far-right rally in the UK, it emerged tonight.
The English Defence League said at the weekend it was “proud to announce” that Terry Jones would be speaking about “the evils of Islam” at its rally in Luton in February.
However it issued a new statement on its website today saying Jones was no longer welcome because it had “reservations” about some of his views.
“The EDL can confirm that Pastor Jones will not be attending the English Defence League demonstration against sharia in Luton on 5 February,” it read.
EDL spokesman Guramit Singh said the decision had been taken after the group carried out “further research” on Jones and discovered he held some “homophobic and racist” views.
Warming denier Richard North on racist ‘jungle bunnies’ rant again
A couple of weeks ago Left Foot Forward and Liberal Conspiracy highlighted how prominent global warming denier Richard North, regularly feted in the national media, went on a frothing rant about ‘jungle bunnies’.
He subsequently tried to scrub evidence of his racist rant but failed because Joss Garman had captured screenshots.
Now he’s less shameless about it. He wrote last week (hat-tip Joss at LFF):
The starkest fact of the week – according to Booker – is that, while the stoods are being stuffed for £2.9 billion to keep the education budget down, £2.9 billion is precisely the sum we are being forced to dole out to the jungle bunnies so that they can buy windmills, solar panels and new Mercedes cars for their rulers and their entourages.
Earlier too he referred to the “Jungle Bunny Climate Bribe”.
This idea that most global warming deniers oppose action because they want developing countries to become richer is frankly, crap.
Their real motivations are laid bare by Richard North himself – prominently linked and praised by the likes of Iain Dale and James Delingpole. This is nothing more than old-fashioned racism dressed up as scientific inquiry.
Richard North occasionally contributes to the Telegraph and Daily Mail on global warming, and is invited by the BBC to comment on related issues.
More than once, newspapers have had to apologise profusely for articles he has written.
Why local and national referendums are a really bad idea
contribution by Paul Evans
In the not too-distant, we are going to be offered a referendum to decide which voting system we prefer in the UK and Northern Ireland. This is the equivalent of being offered a trial-by-combat to decide who should be awarded a peace prize.
Referendums have very little by way of respectability in terms of making voting fair. Nor are they widely seen as a means of forming good policies. Yet they have gradually slipped into the British constitution in recent years without much by way of discussion.
continue reading… »
Ken criticises Boris for ‘smearing’ protesters
Ken Livingstone has written an excellent article for the Evening Standard today attacking Boris Johnson and others for ‘smearing’ student protesters.
He says:
David Cameron and Boris Johnson are playing a dangerous game when they say we must stop talking about the violent protesters as if they were a minority. “I don’t think we can go on saying a small minority were there,” the Prime Minister claimed on Friday. He was echoed on the news bulletins by the Mayor.
This is an attempt to criminalise and smear the opposition to the Government’s austerity measures. In fact the overwhelming majority are peaceful. To avoid violent disorder we must isolate the violent minority, not pretend that peaceable protesters are the same as them.
He goes on to criticise them for not ruling out water cannons.
He also said much of the blame was down to poor planning on part of the Mayor and the police:
Ahead of the likely May Day violence in 2001 we worked relentlessly to make sure the public understood how to demonstrate peacefully, pointing people away from those activities we thought would lead to trouble.
…
Yet the Mayor was nowhere to be seen on this matter until the violence started. Indeed, City Hall should have pressed the different legitimate protest organisations that there should be one, unified demonstration — not several with different focuses — to help give a clear framework for policing to help avoid a risky fracturing of the protests.The dangerous cocktail of factors that contributed to the violence around Parliament Square has to be reviewed. Why was fencing with concrete block weights left in Parliament Square, to be used in some of the most terrifying incidents on Thursday?
The experiences of peaceful demonstrators who were kettled for hours must be considered.
Ken will today join students on the march in support of Education Maintenance Allowance.
The face of our cause isn’t my brother Charlie Gilmour, but Alfie Meadows
contribution by Heathcote Ruthven
A Facebook hate group summed up a brother of mine quite well – “Charlie Gilmour is a Cnut”. Charlie is far more likely to harmlessly scream commandments at the ocean as King Canute famously did, than to maliciously offend or disrespect .
Another dear friend of mine, the humble and witty Alfie Meadows, spent three hours in brain surgery after his skull was bludgeoned in when peacefully protesting in Parliament Square. The media at large have ignored these facts – the first drunkenly, the second morbidly.
There is a fundamental inhumanity in the British media’s decision to spotlight Charlie Gilmour over Alfie Meadows.
continue reading… »
Could Labour exploit the Coalition’s dangerous phase?
The Coalition government is being pulled in two distinct directions today, and there is a chance it could get real ugly.
The BBC reports that Davis Davis MP, now officially Tory rebel leader, has told of “widespread” disaffection amongst Tory MPs over the way they’re being treated by the Coalition leaders.
Former shadow home secretary David Davis said many of his colleagues thought Liberal Democrat MPs were allowed to do what they liked.
He said the “sheer degree of hostility” among Tory MPs had been “surprising”, which is probably why we saw so many of them rebel over the tuition fees vote.
continue reading… »
Labour signals a small break from free markets
The shadow Business Secretary, John Denham, has signalled a lurch to the left in the Labour Party’s industrial policy, setting out an interventionist approach to resuscitating Britain’s struggling economy.
Mr Denham, talking in his Westminster office, indicated that Labour will reposition itself under Ed Miliband’s leadership by aggressively drawing battle lines with the free marketeers of the coalition.
“Good government can create the right conditions for economic growth,” he said. “Vince Cable [the Business Secretary] has always been pretty much free market and against active industrial policy. The Government has no real view of how to create conditions for the successful growth of private companies and there’s no strategy for jobs.”
In an admission that Labour has moved away from the market-led years of Tony Blair, Mr Denham said that “the world moves around you but the principle is always that private business needs to succeed”.
‘Pro-liberties’ Coalition wants water cannons
Theresa May, the Home Secretary, has opened the way for water cannon to be used on the British mainland for the first time if future demonstrations escalate into uncontrollable violence.
Ministers will not stand in the way if senior officers wanted to use it, she said.
…
In a sign that the introduction of water cannon to the mainland is being seriously discussed in Whitehall, the Home Secretary, when asked about it, said she did not want to “give the game away about anything that might be done in the future.”
She told Sky News: “Whether or not they choose to use water cannon is an operation issue. I think it is right that we look across the board at all the options that are available.
Update: The Third Estate blog highlights how bad things can get when people are hit by water cannons.
Three good and bad arguments for tuition fees
The debate about tuition fees corroborates one of my prejudices – that in popular political debate, the arguments that are used are often weaker than the arguments that are not.
What I mean is that three arguments for higher fees are just nonsense:
1. “The nation can’t afford it.” But if taxpayers as a whole cannot afford to fund university tuition, then a subset of taxpayers can’t afford it either, especially as they will be paying higher interest rates than taxpayers generally.
continue reading… »
Get ‘Liar Liar’ viral to Xmas no.1; out today!
Liberal Conspiracy was the first to publish Captain Ska’s Liar Liar video in October this year.
It’s now gotten over 100,000 views on YouTube, and there’s a campaign to get the song as the Christmas no. 1. It is released today on iTunes.
The viral hit will go head-to-head against the X-factor winner for the number one slot.
All proceeds from the sale of “Liar Liar” will go to charities helping victims of the cuts. Assuming a 79p sale price,
Crisis (23p each time), Disability Alliance (23p), our campaign site False Economy (16.5p) and Women’s Health Matters (16.5p) will benefit.
A launch event for the single and the web-site “Captain SKA v the cuts” will take place tomorrow – Monday Dec 13th at London’s Vibe Bar.
Captain SKA and his crew will play a full set and will be joined by the foot stomping Hackney Colliery Band and DJ Jamie Renton (Chilli-Fried) Tickets are available from here.
Contact: Captska@gmail.com // Captain SKA on Twitter // Captain Ska “Liar Liar” for Xmas 2010 No1 on Facebook
Get the song on iTunes – it’s for charity!
The video again
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» Criticism of Obama for its own sake: a reply to Mehdi Hasan
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» Adrian Beecroft highlights mindset of Tory right
» The US is now a model for the Eurozone to save itself
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