Daily Mail threatens blogger with libel over 2-year old post

by Unity    
June 23, 2011 at 4:49 pm

Kevin Arscott of the ‘Angry Mob‘ blog is a reasonably well-known figure in the British blogosphere, one of several bloggers who specialise in tracking and exposing some of the worst excesses of tabloid and mid-market newspapers.

This morning, a bit of a kerfuffle has broken out on Twitter after Kevin received a nastygram from the Daily Mail’s lawyers threatening him with a libel action if he didn’t remove a two-year old post from his blog.

Kevin took down his post, but it can still be read via Google’s cache.
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UKuncut offshoot to target U2 at Glasto

by Sunny Hundal    
June 23, 2011 at 3:46 pm

Art Uncut, a group of artists and musicians inspired by the action group UK Uncut, are promising a “spectacular visual display” during U2′s headline set at the Glastonbury Festival on Friday night.

They say they want to highlight the band’s multi-million euro tax dodge.

Spokesperson Charlie Dewar said:

U2′s multi-million euro tax dodge is depriving the Irish people at a time when they desperately need income to offset the Irish government’s savage austerity programme. Tax nestling in the band’s bank account should be helping to keep open the hospitals, schools and libraries that are closing all over Ireland.

While Bono is well known for his anti-poverty campaigning, Art Uncut say he is being hypocritical.

There is also a whiff of hypocrisy here with Bono being so well-known for his anti-poverty campaigning, since each year developing countries lose more in tax avoidance by multi-national companies and rich individuals than they receive in aid.

A whole raft of UKuncut copy-cat groups have sprung up in recent months, from WelfareUncut and NHS Directaction to ArtUncut and Takeback VAT.

UKuncut are gearing up for actions around the country on June 30th, to coincide with public sector union strikes.

Clegg’s idea for the public to get RBS shares is just bananas

by Richard Murphy    
June 23, 2011 at 3:22 pm

The Financial Times reports today:

Nick Clegg wants to give every British voter shares in the state-owned banks as the deputy prime minister looks to revive his battered image by creating a “people’s banking system”.

Mr Clegg told the Financial Times he had written to George Osborne and Danny Alexander at the Treasury this week, asking them to look into introducing a “mass share-ownership scheme” as part of the privatisation of Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group.

This idea is bad enough to be called bananas.
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Baroness: House of Lords isn’t undemocratic

by Sunny Hundal    
June 23, 2011 at 11:40 am

A bizarre row has broken out between Labour and the Libdems on reforming the House of Lords.

Yesterday the Indy reported:

The Coalition Government wants the 828-member House replaced by 240 elected members, 60 appointed crossbenchers, 12 bishops and a small number of appointed ministers. But Labour favours a 100 per cent elected second chamber.

So Labour is opposing the government’s piecemeal approach, which Clegg has attacked as “opportunism”. Hmmmm.

But here’s the oddest contribution to the debate (hat-tip Mark Pack):

Baroness D’Souza, convenor of the 183 independent crossbench peers, said the Bill would not improve the House’s performance: “I do not believe that elections are the only form of democracy. I do not think you can argue that this House is undemocratic when it so clearly acts in the public interest.”

Wait, what?!

What planet do these people live on?

Why is the government so secretive about its £1.4bn ‘growth’ fund?

by Paul Cotterill    
June 23, 2011 at 11:03 am

I’m highly suspicious of the government’s new Regional Growth Fund. I think it’s politically opportunitist, badly planned, and is likely to be largely a waste of £1.4bn.

Keen to know more about how the first tranche of this 1.4bn (being £350m) would be spent, I submitted a FoI request.

Yesterday, I received a reply to my request, stating it has been refused in its totality. This is outrageous for various reasons.
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Michael Gove told to help stop violence against women

by Newswire    
June 23, 2011 at 9:30 am

A coalition of women’s organisations across the UK today launch a new report calls on education secretary Michael Gove to embed prevention of violence against women in the education system.

The report entitled ‘A different world is possible: A call for action to prevent violence against women and girls,’ makes wide-ranging recommendations to government, public bodies, local authorities and schools to take urgent action to prevent violence before it happens.

The End Violence Against Women report specifically calls for:

• Education Secretary Michael Gove to tell all schools that preventing violence against women and girls is a national priority;

• head teachers to lead a ‘whole school approach’ on the issue, ensuring that sexist language and behaviour are consistently challenged, and that a culture of respect is created;

• the statutory National Curriculum to address violence against women with all children receiving sex and relationships education which explicitly discusses sexual consent and respectful relationships;

• teachers to receive training about all forms of violence against women and girls including domestic and sexual violence, sexual exploitation, forced marriage and female genital mutilation;

• schools to link with specialist local women’s services to provide support for girls who are experiencing abuse;

• national and local governments to run ongoing public awareness campaigns.

The report also profiles 15 innovative grass-roots ‘prevention programmes’ which have raised awareness, challenged attitudes and encouraged bystanders to take action on violence against women in schools and other settings. Some have found this work to have a knock on effect in improving overall behaviour and attainment in schools. The End Violence Against Women Coalition is calling for more research into exactly which of these kinds of interventions are most effective and for them to be rolled out across the UK.

An Early Day Motion calling for violence against women and girls to be prevented through education has been tabled by Jo Swinson MP in the Westminster Parliament with cross-party support.

More information about what action supporters can take can be found at www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk.

Once again, ministers ignore evidence of low benefit fraud

by Richard Exell    
June 23, 2011 at 9:02 am

How much Tax Credit fraud takes place? As of yesterday, we know the answer to this question.

In 2009/10 no more than 1.9% of tax credit entitlement was accounted for by fraud. 1.4% was a more likely figure. What is more, this figure was down from 2.3% in 2008/9.

Once again the government is nowhere to be seen in appreciating how low this figure is.
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Line-up revealed: LC at Compass conference

by Sunny Hundal    
June 22, 2011 at 7:22 pm

Liberal Conspiracy is proud to announce an excellent line-up for our event at the annual Compass conference this weekend.

The one-day conference will feature nearly a 100 speakers and over 40 sessions covering a wide range of topics.

Details on the LC session:
From Discussion to Strategy: which debates does the Left need to win over the next 5 years?

11:15am / Room 541 (fifth floor)

I decided to focus on related topics (activism / environmentalism and development economics), while leaving other groups to focus on their area of expertise.

These speakers aren’t going to bore you with long talks. They will focus on how activists could take campaigning forward; what the strategy could be; how other activists have mobilised hundreds of people and achieved victories.

Speakers

ANNA ROSE is co-founder and Chair of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC). She previously worked with the National Union of Students (in Australia) across 37 Universities to win clean energy victories. As she saw campus after campus reduce energy and enact ambitious climate change policies.

She co-authored the book ‘Future by Us’, is a former editor of Australia’s largest student paper and is a Fellow of the International Youth Foundation. She was named one of Sydney’s 100 Most Influential People by the Sydney Morning Herald and is currently traveling in the United States, UK and China on a Churchill Fellowship researching innovative climate change policies, social movements and progressive movement infrastructure.

JOHN CHRISTENSEN is a development economist and former economic adviser to the UK and Jersey governments. John has researched tax havens and tax policy for many years. He was a collaborator on the highly acclaimed book by Nick Shaxson – Treasure Islands.

John has also played a leading role in campaigning for tighter regulation and control of tax havens and offshore finance centres. He is a fellow of the RSA and is based at the New Economics Foundation, London.

JOSS GARMAN joined the environmental movement at 14. He has since been arrested over 20 times and was a founder member of the group Plane Stupid.

He is now a campaigner for Greenpeace UK and described as one of the “50 people who could save the planet” by The Guardian and as a “champion of the green movement” by The Sunday Times. In August 2007 ahead of the Camp for Climate Action, he was named in a High Court injunction by airport operator BAA in a bid to prevent environmental protests at Heathrow.

* * * * * * * * *

There are many other sessions being held by other organisations that will cover a range of other topics.

These include sessions by: Action Aid, Centre for Responsible Credit, Child Poverty Action Group; Compass Youth, CORE, The Co0perative Party, 38 Degrees, The Electoral Reform Society, The Equality Trust, The Fabian Society, Friends of the Earth, The Green Party, Greenpeace, Human City Institute Index on Censorship, Jubilee Debt Campaign, LabourList, Left Foot Forward, Liberal Conspiracy, New Political Economy Network, nef, NUT, NUS, One Society, Oxfam, Philosophy Football, Progress, Red Pepper, RSA, Searchlight, Shelter, Robin Hood Tax Campaign, Social Liberal Forum, Socialist Health Association, Soundings, UK Feminista, UK Uncut; Unlock Democracy, War On Want, World Development Movement

We hope you’ll join us this Saturday.

Four reasons why this financial crisis is worse than we think

by Guest    
June 22, 2011 at 4:49 pm

contribution by David Malone

The Greek government has won its confidence vote.  Stock markets will rally. Crisis averted? MarketWatch think so. They’re already talking about this being see as the moment when Greece avoided default.  But they are wrong.

Step back and ask yourself why, after two years of virtually zero percent  Central Bank interest rates and trillions of Dollars, Euros and Yen pumped into the worlds’ banks and financial system, are we still having one moment of crisis after another?
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Labour MP fiercely critiques ‘Blue Labour’

by Sunny Hundal    
June 22, 2011 at 4:12 pm

It’s titled simply: ‘Tradition and Change: Four People’, but Labour’s spokesperson for Justice has launched the most comprehensive attack on ‘Blue Labour’ in a pamphlet published today on Liberal Conspiracy, calling it “drum and trumpet jingoism”.

Helen Goodman, MP for Bishop Auckland, says that while the ideals of solidarity and reciprocity emphasised by Blue Labour are significant, they are not enough to deal with modern challenges.

She was invited on to BBC Newsnight last week to debate on the issue.

In the pamphlet she says:

Blue Labour’s thesis is that having lost the election, we need a thorough re-examination of our ideas and a return to concepts and practices prevalent at the founding of the party.
…
This approach strikes a real note of relevance, because many people feel their lives are insecure and that social ties and obligations have been undermined by globalisation. Sometimes the state institutions set up to tackle problems descend into bossiness and bureaucracy, leaving people feeling frustrated and powerless.

The Blue Labour thesis: ‘Politics of Paradox‘, edited by the academics Maurice Glasman, Jonathan Rutherford, Marc Stears and Stuart White, was published online a few months ago, with a foreword by Labour leader Ed Miliband.

But Helen Goodman told Liberal Conspiracy she was worried that Blue Labour, “will be hijacked by those whose real agenda is to destroy the welfare state on which so many people depend”.

She examines the thesis from the perspective of two communities: the hill farmers of Teesdale and the Durham Miner’s Gala and the needs of the former coalfields.

To deal with deep-rooted problems in both cases, she says only government “can take the national and international action they need”.

My grandmother collected insurance subs for the ambulance, after the advent of the NHS this wasn’t necessary. You could of course argue that this community building activity was lost, but most people would prefer to dial 999 in an emergency.

She also takes exception to Blue Labour’s criticism of women’s independence and calls for a feminist analysis of the future.

Secure communities with strong ties are important, but Labour’s tradition is richer than this- equality, justice, democracy and liberty need to be woven into the fabric.

Goodman told Liberal Conspiracy she wants to inspire debate within the Labour Party and to create discourse about future direction of policy. “I hope that my critique of Politics of Paradox will provoke a discussion about the ideas I have presented and encourage others to add their views.”

The pamphlet – Tradition and Change – can be downloaded from here.

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