Cameron aide pushes wacky ideas for growth
A top advisor to Cameron has advocated abandon worker and consumer rights in a desperate attempt to kick-start economic growth.
The front-page of the Financial Times tomorrow says Steve Hilton is leading a “crusade” against employment laws, maternity leave and consumer rights.
The story also contains this anecdote:
Steve [Hilton] asked why the PM had to obey the law,” according to one Whitehall insider of a meeting in March to discuss the government’s growth strategy.
“Jeremy had to explain that if David Cameron breaks the law he could be put in prison.”
Oh and he had this bright idea too…
While looking at ways to cut the deficit, he suggested abolishing hundreds of government press officers and replacing them with a single person in each department who would communicate via a blog.
It gets better…
“He also wanted to suspend all consumer rights legislation for nine months to see what would happen”
This guy is in the inner circle?
There’s no simple way out of this economic rut, for the left or right
The economy is stuck -we’ve had nine months of near stagnation and the prospects for the next two years look grim.
In many ways we now seem to be bouncing along on at the bottom of the ‘L’.Even excluding ‘temporary factors’ (warm weather, cold weather, tsunamis and royal nuptials) the economy only managed 0.7% growth in the past nine months – a pathetic recovery.
As the NIESR have noted this is an historically weak recovery – the only real precedent being the 1930s.
continue reading… »
Exclusive: NGO workers dispute allegations against Johann Hari
Interns who worked at an NGO and accompanied Johann Hari to the Central African Republic in 2007 dispute allegations made against him in Private Eye, the Times and the Telegraph.
The incident is central to the furore over the Orwell Prize award made to the Independent columnist in 2008. A letter has been sent by the two researchers to media outlets that reported on the incident.
Due to the sensitive nature of the work, neither Private Eye nor the Telegraph’s Damian Thompson named the charity. For similar reasons I won’t name the authors of the letter as it would identify the charity.
Private Eye reported:
Hari did not hire a translator, instead browbeating a charity worker into translating for him. He promised to give her his notes when they returned so she could file her own report on the war, and then broke his word. He continued to hold on to the notes even after she complained to Simon Kelner, the Independent’s editor. “The reason for this became clear when his article came out, as most of the content differed from what interviewees told us,” the aid worker told us.
Hari “completely exaggerated the extent of destruction in Birao”. He “completely invented quotes, in particular those of the French soldiers”. In one gruesome vignette, Hari had French soldiers telling a piteous story of how “children would bring us the severed heads of their parents and scream for help, but our orders were not to help them”. “They did not say this. I know because I was there and I did the translating for them.”
But the story is based on one source who apparently had a big falling out with Johann Hari over political issues.
A copy of the letter disputing the allegations made by Private Eye, and repeated by the Telegraph, has been passed on to this blog.
The letter states, in full:
Sir,
Your article ‘Orwellian Nightmare’ includes a number of inaccuracies regarding the actions of Johann Hari during a research trip to the Central African Republic in 2007. As we were present during the trip we know these allegations to be untrue.
Firstly, it is alleged in your article that a key quote from a French soldier that was reported by Johann was fabricated. Our recollection, expressed in an email to our colleague under two months after the trip, is that it was accurate. Johann specifically checked the accuracy of this quote with us after drafting his article.
Secondly, it is alleged that Johann exaggerated the extent of the destruction in Birao. 4 months before our arrival in Birao 70% of homes were burned during fighting. Although some reconstruction had taken place by the time we arrived we can confirm that the town was still in a shocking state whilst we were there, and a large proportion of the nearly 14,000 who had fled the fighting had not yet returned. Our photos taken during the trip confirm the terrible state the town was in. We do not believe that the destruction in Birao was exaggerated.
Finally, based on our collective memory of the trip, we do not believe that it is accurate to say that Johann was guilty of ‘browbeating a charity worker’. It is our view that Johann had a reasonable expectation before travelling to the Central African Republic that translation services would be provided by the organisation for which your source worked at the time.
There were, unfortunately, some personal disagreements between the participants in the trip, along with disagreements about certain aspects of the conflict in the Central African Republic. This may have contributed to the nature of the account that you have been given. We are aware that the Council of the Orwell Prize are considering whether to strip Johann of his prize in part due to these allegations. It is our hope that they will consider our account of these events before doing so.
We fully respect your decision not to name your source in order to protect the charitable organisation for which they worked at the time. As our names would also link this story to that organisation we respectfully request that you do not publish them either.
Names and contact details supplied, identities verified
In a speech a few weeks ago, Johann Hari admitted making mistakes and apologised for them. He said many people who criticised him over his mistakes were right do so.
However, he disputes the version of events over the Central African Republic affair and other allegations made against him.
He has also been asked by the Independent’s new editor not to make any public comment until its inquiry has reported in September.
[If you would like to appeal to Private Eye to run a correction, email Ian Hislop on Strobes@private-eye.co.uk]
Update: With regards to this specific incident, I asked the Media Standards Trust whether the Orwell Prize judging committee had considered this letter before making a decision. This is relevant because this article was the basis of the Orwell Prize. They said they won’t be making any statement yet on the issue further to what they’ve already said.
It also considered a representation by Johann Hari in its deliberation, and appropriate weight was placed upon it. The Council of the Orwell Prize is fully satisfied that it has adopted the appropriate procedure for an exercise of this kind.
The Independent has now requested that the Council consider further representations by Johann Hari before announcing the decision. However, it would appear that Johann Hari is not permitted to make any further representations whilst The Independent’s investigation is conducted.
(Emphasis mine)
How the UK could pay for its demographic “time-bomb”
Many of the headlines generated by the Office for Budget Responsibility’s recent report concentrated on the challenges of the demographic “timebomb” – the fact that we are living longer.
There will be undoubtedly be extra costs, but there is no need to give in to right wing calls to slash spending.
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Osborne’s time is running out, even amongst friends
It’s a gentle, fragile thing the new British economy. The old cliché used to be that when America sneezed, the rest of the world caught a cold. We do things differently now.
Unexpected, truly world-shattering events like the sun deciding to beat down in April meant that instead of 0.7% growth between April and June, we instead got 0.2%.
If George Osborne isn’t much cop at spearheading a recovery which doesn’t resemble the water in the Dead Sea, then he does at least have the invaluable skill of coming up with corny soundbites.
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Should the Guardian consider a paywall too?
Last year, I revealed that the Guardian newspaper was considering an exclusive ‘members club’ (an idea that doesn’t seem to have been pursued vigorously) to raise revenue. At the time, senior executive Emily Bell told Liberal Conspiracy:
No – we are not contemplating a pay wall, nor as far as I’m concerned would we ever….they are a stupid idea in that they restrict audiences for largely replicable content. Murdoch no doubt will find this out – even rudimentary maths suggests he will struggle with a completely free model to meet advertising revenue levels across the NI offerings.
But I suspect this position may be about to soften, and not just because Emily Bell has left.
continue reading… »
Fox TV: Oslo terrorist couldn’t be a Christian
Fox News’ top presenter Bill O’ Reilly yesterday evening attacked the characterisation of Breivik as a ‘Christian terrorist’.
He said: “No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder.”
He added: “The man might have called himself a Christian on the net, but he is certainly not of that faith.”
He said that the reason the media was calling Breivik a Christian was because “the left wants you to believe that fundamentalists Christians are a threat just like crazy jihadists are.”
Watch (via @cathrynfraser)
Yesterday, Melanie Phillips wrote:
Obviously, it is important to prevent any retribution against ordinary Christians, the vast majority of whom are utterly appalled at what has happened and who themselves live blameless, law-abiding lives. But what has happened has gone much further than that. The impression has been sedulously created that this act of Christian terrorism by a Christian man from Norway had nothing to do with nothing to do with the Christian community or indeed Christianity.
…
As for the BBC, it has seemed determined to wrench the spotlight away from the role of Christianity in these bombings and instead displayed an obsession with avoiding ‘Christianophobia’. Item after item on radio and television has dwelt upon the need to avoid blaming Christians for what happened, rather than addressing the hard questions to the community that cry out to be asked.
Oh wait, no.
That was Melanie Phillips talking about Muslims (I switched the words around) after 7/7. I think Melanie Phillips would call your attitude a ‘culture of denial’ Mr O’Reilly.
Telegraph ‘smoking gun’ on Piers Morgan falls flat
The Telegraph ran this excited headline last night: CNN’s Piers Morgan ‘told interviewer stories were published based on phone tapping’.
Oooh, that’s interesting! So he admits to phone-tapping? Erm, not exactly.
The Telegraph ripped the audio from this BBC Desert Island Discs interview (h-t @fieldproducer)
Here is how the segment goes:
Interviewer Kirsty Young: “What about this nice middle-class boy, who would have to be dealing with, I mean essentially people who rake through bins for a living, people who tap people’s phones, people who take secret photographs, who do all that nasty down-in-the-gutter stuff. How did you feel about that?”
Piers Morgan: “To be honest, let’s put that in perspective as well. Not a lot of that went on. A lot of it was done by third parties rather than the staff themselves. That’s not to defend it, because obviously you were running the results of their work.
Not exactly a smoking gun.
Listen the audio segment
As the Guardian’s Oliver Burkeman points out:
In short, @piersmorgan appears to agree he ran stories based on the work of the *kind* of people who hacked phones
Last night CNN issued a statement on his behalf stating:
There is no contradiction between my comments on Kirsty Young’s Desert Island Discs show and my unequivocal statements with regard to phone-hacking. Millions of people heard these comments when I first made them in 2009 on one of the BBC’s longest -running radio shows, and none deduced that I was admitting to, or condoning illegal reporting activity. Kirsty asked me a fairly lengthy question about how I felt dealing with people operating at the sharp end of investigative journalism. My answer was not specific to any of the numerous examples she gave, but a general observation about tabloid newspaper reporters and private investigators. As I have said before, I have never hacked a phone, told anyone to hack a phone, nor to my knowledge published any story obtained from the hacking of a phone.
Again, I hate to defend Morgan but this isn’t a smoking gun.
If other tabloids were involved in this practice – there should be a proper investigation by the police or another body. There is nothing definitive here at all. Once again Guido Fawkes has been talking up a story that has fallen flat.
BBC goes along with govt spoiling tactic on disabled people
contribution by Steve Griffiths
Every month the Dept for Work and Pensions put out statistics purporting to show that few benefit claimants are ‘unfit to work’, with a juicy quote from a minister saying how terrible this is.
Today, the timing is immaculate: the BBC give it a higher billing than the report scathing about the Work Capability Assessment.
‘Only 7% of people claiming sickness benefits were unable to do any sort of work’, the BBC claim that ‘new figures have shown’. This is a monthly press release.
continue reading… »
Compare Phillips now to her writing after 7/7
You may have noticed that Melanie Phillips wrote a reply to my news piece earlier about how she was mentioned and quoted by the Oslo terrorist Breivik.
Phillips took time to go through Liberal Conspiracy to dredge up other times we had mentioned her, but didn’t even bother reading the front-page. She isn’t the only one I mentioned from the manifesto of course – we also pointed that the English Defence League was admired by him in internet postings.
I also pointed out that the manifesto frequently links to and mentions people such as Robert Spencer, another person that Phillips has quoted approvingly in the past. On Twitter I have pointed out links to several other groups such as the Hindu far-right in India.
Anyway. Yesterday, Melanie Phillips wrote on her blog:
After all, we don’t even know yet whether Breivik acted alone. We don’t know whether this ‘manifesto’ was indeed written by him or indeed what it is: as Mark Steyn observes here, it reads like as weird kind of cut-and-paste job. If it is indeed the work of a psychopath, it doesn’t bear examination for a single minute.
And yet the words of a deranged individual are being cited by people like Hundal who are taking them entirely seriously. Since when did people ever use the ravings of a madman in public debate?
Odd. Melanie Phillips wasn’t so afraid to ask questions and link the actions of a few ‘madmen’ (a term offensive to some) to Muslims straight after the terrorist attacks of 7/7.
Here is what she said then: (h-t Chris Brooke):
Above all, this poses the most urgent questions about the Muslim community from which this monstrous act has sprung. It is absolutely essential that we all find the answer to such questions if we are to have any hope at all of preventing further such atrocities.
…
In doing so, it has been taking its cue from the Muslim community itself which seems to be in the deepest denial. Yes, it has certainly condemned the atrocity in the strongest terms. But in the very next breath, its leaders have effectively washed their hands of it by repeating like a mantra that anyone claiming to be a Muslim who commits such an act is not a proper Muslim, because Islam is a religion of peace.
She also wasn’t averse to using that tragedy to attack the left broadly:
These lies emanating from extremists in the Muslim world have been further inflated by support from those in the wider community in Britain – mainly on the left – whose obsessive repetition of such falsehoods and disproportionate attention to the misdeeds of the west while ignoring Muslim atrocities have helped turn grievance into hysteria.
Breivik didn’t act alone – he had plenty of people agreeing with him on what the problem was and who was causing it.
Melanie Phillips’ response yesterday reminds me of this widely circulated poster on Facebook
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