Why are all Pakistani men are being smeared in the sex-grooming cases?
contribution by Iman Qureshi
The coverage of The Times’ investigation into the sexual exploitation of young girls—the majority of whom were revealed to be white—has snowballed into a debate on racial sensitivities, as it transpired that perpetrators were almost exclusively of Asian — more specifically, Pakistani — origin.
It is no surprise that this story was promptly picked up by the Telegraph, the Daily Mail and the Sun, enabling right-wingers and nationalists to smugly say that these statistics prove that Nick Griffin has been right all along.
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Watch: Libdem MP shoves student protester
A reader sent this video link in with this comment:
Have you seen Lib Dem MP Gordon Birtwhistle manhandle a tuition fees protester [on Wednesday]? She is very slight and he a big burly man. Ungentlemanly or common assault ?
How does it stand with the Lib Dems policies on civil liberties and freedom of speech?
She wasn’t even shoving her small sign in anyone’s face: she was just carrying it peacefully behind Clegg.
My introduction at Netroots UK today
Today, Netroots UK brings together a new generation of left activists, working and discussing politics online, with the veteran institutions of trade unions and many others.
Our plan isn’t to have long-winded discussions, but create useful spaces where people can discuss strategy drawing on their experience of local campaigns: what works and what doesn’t.
Some people have asked whether this is an event just to celebrate how great blogging, Twitter, Facebook or social media generally are. That would be absurd.
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US demands Icelandic MP Tweets on WikiLeaks
The US government’s demands in its witchhunt against WikiLeaks are getting more absurd.
Tonight, an Icelandic MP posted these two messages to her account:
First she posted: (via @tenpercent)
just got this: Twitter has received legal process requesting information regarding your Twitter account in (relation to wikileaks)
and then this:
usa government wants to know about all my tweets and more since november 1st 2009. do they realize i am a member of parliament in iceland?
How utterly bizarre and draconian.
Birgitta Jónsdóttir says about herself: “Member of Parliament for the Movement in Iceland – Tibet – IMMI – Saving Iceland – Collateral Murder – Poet – Activist”
She told others she was going to speak to a lawyer.
Update: On her website she says that before joining the Icelandic Parliament in April 2009 she worked as a writer, artist, activist, web developer, designer.
She has added tonight:
I have nothing to hide and have done nothing wrong – i have no intention to hand my information over willingly to DoJ.
She told another Twitter she suspects the US Dept of Justice wants her tweets “because of my volunteer work and support for wikileaks”.
Update 2: The Guardian are also reporting on this now:
Jonsdottir told the Guardian she was demanding a meeting with the US ambassador to Iceland. “The justice department has gone completely over the top,” she said. She added the US authorities had requested personal information from Twitter as well as her private messages and that she was now assessing her legal position.
…
Jonsdottir was involved in WikiLeaks’ release last year of a video which showed a US military helicopter gunning down two Reuters reporters in Iraq. US authorities believe the video was leaked by Private Bradley Manning. Adrian Lamo, the hacker who reported Manning to the authorities, indicated that Manning had first contacted WikiLeaks sometime in late November 2009 – a time period covered by the government’s request for Jonsdottir’s tweet history.
How a ‘free school’ will deliberately exclude poorer pupils
Plans for a new ‘Free school’ in Wandsworth will include pupils from households from rich households, but deliberately exclude students from poorer households, even though the latter are 0.2 km nearer to the selected site.
The ‘Free schools’ policy has been loudly championed by Conservative minister Michael Gove. It allows practically anyone to get state funding to set up a school.
Tory controlled Wandsworth Council plans to spend £13m acquiring the school site at a time when there are spare places at existing secondary schools in the borough.
It also comes after millions have been slashed from planned funds for much needed repairs for these schools. The school will require further public funds to turn it into a school and will cost in excess of £6m from public funds a year to run it.
But in a press release today, the GMB union say its catchment area primarily includes rich households south of Clapham Junction railway where incomes are around 185% of the London average.
The average annual household income in an excluded area located north of the railway line which is nearer the site is 76.2% (£33,280) of the London average.
More worryingly, the decision on which areas to be included and excluded was entirely taken by a self-selecting group of parents who are behind the project.
The walking distance between the excluded Falconbrook primary school and the new site is 1.8km. By comparison, the walking distance beween the included Wix Lane primary school where average household income is 185.7% of London average and the new site is 2km.
Supporters of the Free School in Wandsworth, London, say they need the new school to deal with shortages of school places in other parts of the town.
Last month the leader of the free school claimed that the Head of Battersea Park School had agreed to divide up the area on a north/south axis.
The GMB union say the claim is not true, and say pupils from the ‘wrong side of the track’ will be excluded by a “self selecting group of local people elected by nobody and accountable to no one. GMB members with children in Wandsworth have had no input or say in any of this.”
Update: Gale Keller, headmaster of Battersea Park School told Local Schools Network that his name was wrongly used with the campaign.
The academic results, behaviour, attitude of students, curriculum offer, specialism and community involvement at BPS, lead me to believe and hope that BPS should be the school of choice for all students who live in the Battersea area.
I also believe all schools should be community schools in the heart of the community. For BPS this would include the whole of Battersea, some of Lambeth, and the areas close to us across the river.
More at the Balham people.
This is a sign of things to come.
The cowardly fudge behind the rhetoric of Control Orders
I was at the Nick Clegg speech earlier today. He took aim at Labour’s pretty poor record on civil liberties, suggesting that the previous governments were more systematic and less casual than prominent ex-Ministers would have us believe.
Although there were some fine words on Libel Reform and some interesting proposals on Freedom of Information, most of the discussion in the speech itself, and in questions afterwards, was on control orders and curfews.
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Another case where ‘extreme porn’ legislation is used to police morality
contribution by Pandora
To some extent, I’ve been blithely assuming that the “extreme porn” sections of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 wouldn’t have any real effect in law.
I was wrong. This week a dramatic local news article announced that this law was being tested in a “landmark trial”.
In one of the first cases of its kind in the country, Kevin Webster is accused of having “grossly offensive or disgusting” pictures, even though they are “fakes”.
Webster, aged 47, denies three charges of possessing extreme pornography depicting images likely to result in injury to a person’s breast and one similar charge depicting an act which threatens a person’s life.
Labour landslide in Cameron’s constituency
Yesterday there was a local election in Witney, at the heart of David Cameron’s constituency. It was caused by the disqualification of the Tory councillor after she failed to turn up to any meetings for six months.
The ward is usually a very safe Tory seat, last May they got nearly 60% of the vote, although the Liberal Democrats have also won elections held the ward in the past few years.
Last night, however, Labour won. With 67% of the vote.
The Tories decided not to put forward a candidate, so the government was represented by the Lib Dems. They did pathetically, just scraping into second place ahead of the Greens.
Labour’s landslide at the heart of Cameron’s constituency was caused by three things:
- the arrogance and incompetence of local Tories who couldn’t even be bothered to turn up to meetings or field a candidate;
- the fact that Tory supporters refused to vote for their Lib Dem allies;
- an excellent Labour candidate in Duncan Enright, with a team of Labour activists from across Oxfordshire who spent December in the seemingly unpromising activity of knocking on doors in the former Tory heartland.
George Osborne talked tough on bankers but didn’t deliver
Not long ago, our Chancellor George Osborne was talking tough on the banks that caused the financial crisis.
When it comes to the Government and the banks, surely the public are entitled to ask why the Government talk tough and make promises, but then fail to deliver. As we wait to see bonus payments over the coming months, we will remember the Prime Minister’s promise that the era of the big bonus is over.
Osborne will naturally expect his comments to be remembered now that, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, he can do something about it.
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Libdems fall to 7% in lowest poll rating yet
Libdem poll ratings have fallen to their lowest yet, as tracked by YouGov, to 7%.
The numbers were released tonight by YouGov.
They also showed approval ratings for the Tory-led Coalition falling to their lowest too: -20% (33% approving, 53% disapproving).
The latest poll ratings for the parties show: Con 39%, Lab 43%, LD 7%
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