Libya and its oil: reason enough not to interfere?
One thing supporters of liberal intervention in 2003 did, as part of their campaign to convince the left they were right, was try and forget that it was a US neo-con Christian with a history in oil deals taking forces into Iraq.
For them, it didn’t matter who was going to take out Saddam Hussein, just as long as somebody did; their left wing credentials, they supposed, were still intact. Unfortunately for them they were wrong. So should there be similar concerns about Libya?
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Why even Conservatives should support Stella Creasy this Thursday
This Thursday a motion from Stella Creasy MP and Justin Tomlinson MP will be moved in the House of Commons calling for Government to give regulators the power to cap the total cost for credit.
In brief, the consumer credit (regulation and advice) bill seeks to integrate credit services with the post office network, impose a levy on consumer credit agencies to fund debt counselling and advice services, and give councils greater powers to regulate the amount of credit agencies in their local area.
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Support the UCL Occupation
The wry protest songs, satirical posters and occasional smiles on the faces of students involved in the occupation of UCL, Jeremy Bentham room, does not take away from the fact that the room is a place of constant work, intense planning, sporadic meetings and tweeting (something which Channel 4 have now congratulated the occupiers on).
One moment there is an English Literature lecturer admitting his flaws as a protestor and his dislike of filmic depictions of Maoists, and then even before you have time to put on a second jumper in the bitter cold, a group has formulated to discuss the next way of attracting media attention and capturing the hearts and minds of the public. continue reading… »
Coalition should be cautious about today’s GDP growth figures
Today’s GDP growth figures act as a Rorschach test; the coalition government and its supporters see growth at 0.8% in the third quarter of 2010, and growth for the last six months at 2%. What the opposition will see is a drop of 0.4% when between April and June growth was positioned at 1.2%.
Since growth was forecasted far lower than expected, many – such as Vince Cable, who was said to have a big smile on his face this morning, probably because it will make for easy smoke and mirrors. ‘Look we can cut and grow, it’s easy.’
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Pics from protest for Sakineh Ashtiani
In the Islamic Republic of Iran 150 people have been put to death by stoning in the last 31 years, according to Farshad Hosseini. Yesterday, a cohort of activists set up a stall in Trafalgar Square to protest the decision to execute Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani at the hands of the Iranian judiciary – and to show their opposition to stonings full stop.
Stoning is not only inhumane, but is apparently disapproved of OFFICIALLY in Iran. Before his death in 2006, the then Minister of Justice and spokesman for the Judiciary, Mr. Jamal Karimi-Rad, became the first Iranian judicial authority to comment in reaction to the Stop Stoning Forever campaign – formed of various women’s rights organisations to see stoning as a form of punishment for adultery in Iran abolished.
He denied that stoning took place in Iran, brushing aside examples where judge’s have sentenced it, often with little in the way of evidence.
Mr Jamal Karimi-Rad’s comments did demonstrate then an official disapproval of stoning, however flimsy it was, consistent with the ban on stoning ordered by the Head of Judiciary, Ayatollah Shahroudi, in December 2002.
It beggars belief. The thing that could knock some sense into Ahmadinejad’s regime in Iran is that the execution case is making Iran look bad – not that justice is being perverted in such a foul way. But, of course, for Ashtiani’s family, this reason is better than none.
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Castro criticising Ahmedinijad – has political balance been restored?
The world has turned upside down, at least that was what we thought. Tony Blair and George Bush were liberal heroes in the Middle East while some on the left back home were doing their best to excuse Islamic fanaticism as a response to imperialism.
More sense was being spoken by Sarkozy on the economy than many of our left-leaning economist MPs.
And while radicals such as Hugo Chavez and that Scottish hottie George Galloway were cuddling up to an Iranian president so seemingly nonchalant that a woman in his country could be stoned to death for a crime, proof of which would not fool a duck on acid, one wondered whether the world would soon burn up and implode.
But, behold, some sense has been restored.
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Cameron will fail in reviving Conservatism
American columnists speak at the moment of conservative “epistemic closure” to describe the debasing of modern conservatism’s glorious legacy, first used in this context by libertarian writer and Economist blogger Julian Sanchez as short-hand for “ideological intolerance and misinformation”.
The idea is to show that conservatism has hit a wall and is appealing to low, base politics of xenophobia or ad hominem attack, as opposed to its rich, great tradition.
British conservatism has had a fair deal of “epistemic closure” in recent years also, and it’s something for the left to consider when we vent our criticisms on the right wing.
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How the Mail and Telegraph undermined children with special needs
On July 22nd I wrote a small blog entry on my website about a dodgy article in the Daily Mail about children with special educational needs.
In my entry I asked: “[a]t what point do we suppose the Daily Mail not only dislikes the inclusion of young people with special educational needs in schools, but doesn’t think special educational needs exist outside of the 2% once designated before the Warnock report of 1978.”
Of course the article in the Mail doesn’t explicitly say there is no such things as Special Needs because in doing this, not only would they be wrong (this shouldn’t phase them too much), they’d open up the grounds for a whole campaign and would alienate a large amount of people (even if those people are Mail readers).
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Gone! BNP legal eagle tells Griffin he quit
Lee John Barnes, the subject of much fun for many anti-fascist bloggers, will no longer act as legal director for the British National Party.
In his resignation letter he despairs at the “avoidable court cases” the BNP have become involved in under the orders of “Nick Griffin and Jim Dowson [who] have repeatedly chosen to break the most obvious of laws”.
Those cases, LJB cites as:
- The Marmite Case
- The use of stock images from a photoshop company during the European Elections
- The EHRC court cases
- The sacking of Michaela Mackenzie
- The suspension of Peter Mullins and many others
LJB has accused Griffin of ignoring his advice, then later referring to him in an Employment Tribunal as a ‘crank’.
During the conclusion of his rambling resignation (3000 words in length), LJB admits that he:
cannot remain as the Legal Officer of a party that acts unlawfully towards its own members, that rewards years of party loyalty with unlawful suspensions and expulsions, that covers up serious allegations of sexual abuse by senior officers, that expels long standing members who ask for financial transparency within the party and that refuses to act to protect its own officers when they are threatened with violence by other senior officers.
He finishes up by saying: “[s]uch a political party cannot be trusted with political power in our society.”
On his blog, LJB accuses BNP officers such as Griffin, Andrew Brons, Simon Darby and Andrew Moffat, of “going around telling people [he] was ‘expelled’ and that [he] did not resign.” He goes on to explain how “[t]hey are paid to lie – to the members and the public” and that he does “so despise liars and idiots” and who he calls “the Griffinite idiot squad.”
Clues of an unsteady relationship between LBJ and other members of the BNP hierarchy had been present for some time. Griffin, notably uncomfortable talking about LJB, told Iain Dale during an interview for Total Politics, that he is “a very strange and complex character”.
Dale wondered why Griffin continues to employ “someone obsessed by Jewish issues to hold national office in the BNP” to which Griffin replied:
As I say, if you look at his blogs and his arguments with people in the round, you will see that he’s one of the people who’s taken the obsession with Jews out of the BNP. It was there. But he’s one of the ones who’ve taken it out by putting it in context.
Reading what LJB has said before about Jewish conspiracies, it is difficult to place what “context” Griffin is talking of here; but then this is a man who thinks the English Defence League are run by Zionists and who has authored a book called Who are the Mindbenders? about the Jewish dominated media – perhaps not the greatest authority on the subject.
We all have our favourite LJB moments, whether here or here, and now that he has stopped pulling his hair out over the stupid BNP, no doubt he will have more time to appeal to his Norse Gods and troll websites seeking out undercover Jewish plots – though he will not be welcomed.
Peter Tatchell, Nick Griffin and his foul-mouthed sidekick
Yesterday human rights activist and campaigner Peter Tatchell threw himself in front of BNP leader Nick Griffin at the Westminster BBC studios, while Griffin spoke to the press about his letter of invitation to the Queen’s garden party – which had been withdrawn.
Tatchell called Griffin “a gutless coward” and pressured him to apologise for the BNP’s history of anti-semitism, homophobia and Islamophobic views, before Griffin left the site and two of his bodyguards pulled Tatchell away.
One of Griffin’s entourage may seem familiar to the eagle eyed: Tony Gladwin (wearing blue) was once the British National Party Parliamentary candidate for Southend West.
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» What do we want from the BBC?
» The coming crisis of Conservatism
» Others should follow the Cooperative in boycotting Israeli settlement goods
» What’s the point of these justifications for the ongoing war in Afghanistan?
» The alternative: why Greece should NOT abandon the Euro
» For Cameron, looking weak is a bigger problem than being unpopular
» Most women don’t need counselling before abortion, shows study
» With Caroline Lucas stepping down, how the Greens need to change
» Advertising Standards Authority vs Archbishop Cranmer
» The far left versus the far right: French election part deux
» Our mental health services are a mess; can Labour change it?
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