Women and Parliament
Just a quick post but this is a wonderful graphic from the electoral reform society which exposes quite how poor our record of getting women into Parliament has been. Many constituencies have never had a female MP, let alone don’t have one at the moment and there are whole zones of the country like the rural north, much of East Anglia, most of central and northern Wales, the outskirts of London and rural Scotland that appear never to have had female MPs at all. The fact that this map could be put together is a disgrace and symbolises in a very accurate form the vast distance we have to go until we attain full equality between the genders. Three cheers to the Electoral Reform Society for putting it up: its about time that this situation changed for the better. Otherwise we are perpetuating a situation in which we miss out on half the available political talent out there- and that can’t be a good thing for anyone.
Why concentrating on scandal misses the point
Political blogging is young even in its mother country, the United States. In the United Kingdom it is barely out of the cradle and murmuring its first words. Political blogging here insofar as it has come to the attention of mainstream journalists has come to their attention because of a couple of sites- notably that of Guido Fawkes. Guido writes about political scandal all the time. If you want the latest word on Peter Hain or Wendy Alexander or Harriet Harmon, head over to his blog and he’ll be sure to enlighten you. He doesn’t write about policy because he says its boring- he’d prefer to concentrate on the juicy scandals.
But he is wrong. Because its my case that even if politicians are as venal and horrible as Fawkes says, that doesn’t matter so much compared to the harm that they do with their policies. And it is precisely the kind of politicians that Fawkes believes exist that are most likely to adopt faulty policy ideas and carry them out in stupid ways.
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What will heating up the world do?
The Global Warming debate often goes on with lots of people confidently asserting lots of different things about sea levels- and obviously should the planet continue to warm the consequences with ice melting, sea levels rising and the flooding of large populated areas would be disastrous. But the planet warming would have other consequences that might be as bad if not worse than the results of the flooding of London or the destruction of Bangladesh. An interesting paper published in the online journal, PLoS Medicine, focused on January 15th on a disease that most of us rightly think is a footnote from history- the Plague. The Plague is one of the ancient terrors of the world- from Athens in the 5th Century, to Byzantium in the 5th Century AD, to Europe in the 15th Century and China in the 19th- it has had dramatic consequences upon the history of human kind and has been one of the leading killers amongst the epidemics. It still kills around 1-5000 people a year, though 90% of those deaths are in 6 African countries, one of which the Democratic Republic of Congo has just emerged from a bloody civil war. Like with most diseases, plague thrives within places that are subject to war and have bad systems of government and healthcare.
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The Moral Case for Low Taxation?
Having read Sunny’s post below, I thought it was about time we discussed the central principles of what it is to be liberal and leftwing. I think one of those central principles is that state action can help as well as hinder people and that we should be worried about the negative effects of the market on freedom. A couple of posts on the new rightwing blog Centre Right illustrate this problem really well- and also the intellectual advantage that the left has when discussing freedom- an intellectual advantage that we should press home every time it comes up in conversation on the internet and in real life.
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Impossible Picks
Danny Finklestein suggested Al Gore as a possible VP pick for Barack Obama. Its not an implausible pick for Obama to wish that he could make- but there is a reason that noone has done three terms as Vice President- the job frustrates and infuriates its occupant more often than not. John Nance Garner- FDR’s Vice President- famously quipped that the job wasn’t worth a ‘pitcher of warm piss’ and few since him have repudiated his judgement. Furthermore having run for President once and turned down a good chance of the Democratic nomination this time, why would Al Gore want to run for Vice President again? If he really wanted a career in Washington he would have run for President- it strikes me that the chances he will run for Vice President alongside Obama are minuscule. Equally implausible is that John McCain (who don’t forget needs to shore up his Republican base and whose health will be an election issue) would risk picking a liberal Democrat (on some issues) Joe Leiberman as his running mate.
There are people who look credible VPs at the moment- Jim Webb, Evan Bayh might be good Democratic names- but the paucity of good coverage in the UK press is reflected by the fact that when British journalists do talk about the possible VP picks of Presidential candidates they tend to suggest people like Leiberman and Gore who realistically are unlikely to be the second name on either ticket in November.
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Equality under the Law
At first sight, readers of the Liberal Conspiracy might dismiss this article on the way that MPs are reembursed their charges for rubbish collection from their allowances as typical Tory muckraking- it comes from one of those identified often amongst the usual suspects of conservative skulldudgery and looks like a petty accusation. Actually though what Dizzy has identified is an abuse of power and he is quite right to label it as such- furthermore on this cause for both pragmatic and principled reasons liberals of any hue ought to be allied with conservatives in objecting to special treatment for leglislators.
Pragmatically, one of the best reasons for decreasing government expenditure is the perception that government actually works not for those who it should serve- the public- but for those who run it- politicians and civil servants. Government’s purpose is to serve the whole community and not merely those who work for it. If you establish that it doesn’t do that- that’s a very good reason for suggesting that government is a true burden for the rest of the economy and the population. This kind of action taken by MPs suggests that that perception is true- that government is something that ‘they’ run for ‘themselves’ and that ‘we’ ought to be in favour of reducing.
Lots of things are pragmatically bad ideas- some of them though are on principle good ideas- spending money on asylum seekers doesn’t get votes, but should be done anyway. But this is on principle a bad thing too. Its a bad thing because any leglislator ought to be in a position where they could be subject to the law that they pass. Obviously some laws few legislators will ever be subject to- one thinks of unemployment benefit for example- and some laws have to have exemptions for leglislators- laws say limiting access to particular buildings for security reasons. But in general the privileges of office ought to be minimised- MPs and others ought to bear the same costs in so far as is possible as ordinary citizens bear. There ought be no exempted groups when a law is passed- as such exemptions created legally privileged classes and undermine the principle that equality before the law is a vital component of modern democracy.
Sometimes its all too easy to dismiss Tory attacks on this present government as motivated by political advantage- and I’m sure often they are. But its worth remembering that as in this case, sometimes they can get at something- a principle and a pragmatic reality that liberals ought to be concerned with to. Exemptions for MPs for laws that they pass ultimately harms the arguments for government intervention in the lives of citizens and also is contrary to the general principles of a liberal state. Dizzy is right: ministers ought to withdraw this allowance- MPs like everyone else should pay their rubbish collection charges from their normal salaries.
Thinking about the Children’s Crusade
The Children’s Crusade happened seven hundred and ninety five years ago. The latest research upon it concludes that we know very little about it. We know the names of only three individuals who took part- Stephen of Cloyes, Nicholas of Cologne and an Otto. Some historians doubt that any children were involved at all- though again the most recent research suggests that they were. We have almost no evidence as to numbers. We think that the movement such as it was was split and had different objectives- with a French and several German branches. We are sure that it petered out and it seems to have had no impact on contemporary history. Furthermore it is hard to imagine today that a movement of shepherds and apprentices could start and stream over the Alps and down to the coast of Italy on a quest to attack Jerusalem, aided by a conviction that when they arrived at the coast the Lord would, as he had in Egypt, make the seas part so they could march through the Meditereanean to rescue the True Cross. Embedded in Medieval history, the Children’s Crusade, you might think has little to teach the modern left. You would be cataclysmically wrong.
The Children’s Crusade, as its most recent chronicler Dr Gary Dickson, Emeritus Fellow of History at Edinburgh University declares, was a single instance of a much more widespread phenomenon in medieval society. Throughout medieval history one comes up against crusades which came from below- Europe was afire throughout the Middle Ages with crusading fervour. In some areas- the Chartrain where the crusade of 1212 originated- frequent tours by preachers bred a receptive population who dwelt firmly with the conviction that they had an obligation to redeem the Holy Land. Often these movements, springing from below, were not what their instigators expected. Dr Dickson beleives that the inspiration for the Children’s Crusade was a tour of the Chartrain to collect men to go and fight in Spain, not to wander off to Southern Italy in search for passage to Jerusalem. The elites of the time were terrified- a crusade of young men (possibly it would be better to call this crusade the adolescent’s crusade) coming uncontrolled through Germany and France into Italy was not what they had in mind. Furthermore such crusading undermined the authority of parents, it undermined the authority of the church and the state to decide what avenues religious fervour ought to pursue.
Those questions seem medieval but in reality they are not. They are central to how we understand stability in the modern world and particularly terrorism. Lets abstract them a little for a second from their context. Essentially the Children’s Crusade proves a couple of things- or shows a couple of things in action. The events of 1212 demonstrate that religious messages of conflict will not neccessarily be received by those who hear them in the ways that the speakers design. Whether its Papal attacks on Islam or Saudi attacks on America, the literate minded recipient of the information will most likely interpret it in their own way, no matter what a more politique leadership might suggest that they think about it. That means that whereas the specific ends of the policy from the Papacy or the Ulema is unimportant, its vocabulary is vital. In a society like medieval Europe in which information was strictly rationed, that vocabulary conditioned the ways that people behaved politically. Consequently with a movement like the Children’s Crusade- a variety of motives, economic, intergenerational and others were all expressed in the medium of an eschatalogical crusade. Rhetoric from the top influences but does not control the way that popular anger is expressed- Spain might have been the Papacy’s preferred destination but the children didn’t hear about that, they heard that Jerusalem was in danger and went on the march.
Understanding something like the Children’s Crusade- the way it both adopted and challenged the ideas of the elite- enables us to understand a bit more say about the thinking of terrorists in the West Bank or of the religious right in the United States. In order to work out strategies to defeat those movements, we need to think about their mindsets. I’d suggest that when we do, we look at the way that people involved in them interpret the world, using vocabularies supplied by those who provide them with information. It won’t neccessarily matter what say Iranian TV says about bombing America today if it tells people that Americans are evil every day. It might even be worth applying such analysis in the West- though the presence of more sources of information makes it more complicated. Even so its worth remembering that the influence of the media that we have is more important when it comes to our general framework in which we interpret the world, than our interpretation of specific events. We are educated ideologically by the news, we respond to events according to our understanding of that ideology. Obviously this can go too far- but its worth thinking about the Children’s Crusade and other events like it, when you analyse the way that information is disseminated through society. The importance of propaganda is often not in provoking a reaction to a particular event, propaganda provides the canvass and that largely governs the nature of the picture- even if its an alarming one for the rest of society.
Religious Bigots
The Muslim Public Affairs Committee is an organisation with a long history of odd behaviour- they have over the last few days excelled themselves. They published last week a call for the names of the researchers for Policy Exchange’s recent report to be given to them- they wanted Muslim activists to ring up their offices and tell them who these eight researchers were. MPAC accused these researchers- and the whole Sufi community in the UK- of being fifth columnists for a zionist neo con cabal who were intent on destroying Islam and then the world…… fill in the blanks. They suggested that these Quislings should be reported to them so that MPAC could ”dig deeper and expose every last detail of the Sufis who tried to destroy their own community.” Having been called up on this language, MPAC are now asserting that their interest was purely in the researchers’ credibility as researchers- given that they advertise this operation as being “A Hunt for 8 Sufi Zio Con Frauds”- I’m not entirely sure that their interest is in research methodology.
That’s particularly true given the rest of the content on their website. They have published articles which argue that Sufi scholars collaborate with the Pharoah of our time George Bush and that Sufism is a trend in Islam that promotes a passivity desired by the zio con forces of evil. They have also published articles defending Sufism but it definitely seems to me that MPAC beleives that this is a legitimate debate- its strange that they don’t have any articles saying that any other strands of Islam aren’t Islamic! Furthermore their official statement, ‘The Hunt’ supports the anti-Sufi case- they state there that the Sufis have been used throughout history as a weapon in the arms of Russian and British and now American imperialism. The slurs on Sufism are absolutely and completely ridiculous. Anyone who knows an iota of the history of Islam- obviously noone involved in MPAC can be listed in that category, knows that Sufism is an old and established trend in Islamic theology.
For the benefit of MPAC, it might be worth rehearsing some of the contributions of Sufism- and others can add to this- in stimulating Islamic theology and political thought. Plenty of sources see Sufic communities going back right to the beggining of Islam- into the eighth century. Muzaffar Allam in his study of Indian Islamic political thought argues that Sufis have been present in India since the 11th or 12th centuries. As Richard Eaton demonstrates in his studies of the growth of Islam in India- Sufi movements provided many of the missionaries that spread throughout India to convert communities to Islam. Indeed David Cook shows in his studies of martyrdom and Islam that Sufi movements were also central to the growth of Islam in Indonesia and in many other places around the world. Great Sufi poetry and art has animated Islam: think of the Persian/Turkish poet Rumi whose work provides inspiration for art in the middle East right up until today, where its often quoted in the novels of Orhan Pamuk. The thesis that Sufis have never done anything for Islam- implied by MPAC- is just plain wrong and perhaps the organisation would like to withdraw its slurs.
Quite frankly though this goes further than just that. Because MPAC in reality are saying something else. They are saying that they have the right to define what Muslims ought to do or be- Muslims can’t support say the invasion of Iraq. What utter nonsense! It is not for MPAC to define the essence of Islam. Muslims have been throughout history a group with a wide variety of beliefs just like Christians and Jews and Hindus and all other faiths. MPAC demands the names of these researchers because ultimately it wants to publish them and expose them- it doesn’t want to argue or discuss (afterall they are Zio Con quislings) it wants to condemn. It doesn’t want to examine why some Muslims might decide to help Policy Exchange- that they do convicts them and means they are irrelevant- they don’t need to be talked to, they just need to be condemned. That stance fits into a general pattern- whereby their rhetoric is violent and conspiratorial- they don’t seek to understand, they don’t take on other arguments, they just want the luxury of an easy assertion that everyone else is evil. Their rhetoric avoids unhelpful facts- how can the war against Islam be a verifiable fact when Tony Blair bombed the Serbs out of Kosovo. How can it be a verifiable fact when the West repeatedly attempts to do things for Darfur and when westerners put their hands in their own pockets to help victims of the Tsunami? Has MPAC ever looked at the amount of aid that the EU gives to Palestine? Have they ever considered the support that America has always given to Pakistan?
MPAC want to define Islam and define certain people out of Islam. They seem to want Islam defined politically. Their politics is bizarre, conspiratorial and has a tangential relation to reality. But it goes further than that- in reality their conception of Islam excludes many Muslims from its definition. They basically argue that Sufis are quislings- they basically say that they would junk the entire tradition of Sufism because of the closeness of some present Sufis to politicians that they don’t like. They are apocalyptic in their language. They are aggressive in their abusive calls for the silencing of those that disagree with them. If there is one thing likely to make me sympathetic to Policy Exchange in this whole debate, its the attitude of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee. I still feel that there are legitimate questions about the reporting in Policy Exchange’s work and I have no problem with critiques of it: but as Liberals we should stand, as our enlightenment predecessors did, against religious bigotry. And religious bigotry is what MPAC peddles against Muslims who don’t back their political line and against plenty of others as well.
The Judgement of History
Political leaders and Journalists always make me laugh when they talk about history. (For a fine recent article which provoked this outburst see here.) Perpetually leaders talk about the judgements that history will deliver upon them, how for instance a Nixonian reputation for corruption will in the end turn into a Nixonian reputation for foresighted peace making (it is ironic that they don’t understand the two judgements can be true of the same person).
American historians unfortunately reinforce such hubris but compiling lists of great Presidents- evaluating Washington against Reagen (as though it were possible to compare a ruler of a small agrarion republic to the ruler of a vast multicultural complex state). One of the reasons that politicians make me laugh is that they claim that their reputations will be assessed by history- and that they will pass some grand examination in the future at which dons, sitting like schoolmasters, will award passes and fails.
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What blogging can and can’t achieve
Never Trust a Hippy has a good piece on what blogging can and can’t achieve over at his place. He suggests that blogging in the UK has only managed to do two things. There are rumour and scandal mongering blogs like Guido Fawkes- who are attempting to become a British Drudge report. Then there are blogs which lead intellectual discussion- Matt Sinclair, Chris Dillow and others come to mind. Its an interesting point and to be honest I agree in part with Paulie about this- the best blogging I have come across has not been partisan but has been the thoughtful bloggers who work on a more interesting brief than those digging up new email systems in Downing Street, dodgy donaters to any party or racist activists. All that stuff is to me of limited interest- it has its place- because of Watergate and subsequent events the political landscape is obsessed with scandal. Actually scandal is pretty boring compared say to the discussions about how we can and should govern ourselves.
So I agree with Paulie largely- but I differ from him in one perspective and its something I don’t think anyone in the UK blogosphere has really thought about. The Americans are obviously years ahead of us in readership and in the influence of blogging- and there are big differences in the market for political blogging- there is no Guardian website equivalent in the states- furthermore the British newspaper market has always provided partisan commentary in a way say that the New York Times or Washington Post in the States have never sought to provide. But the American example is fascinating- because its interesting to reflect for a moment on where and on what the blogosphere has had a real effect on politics.
To stick to one site on the left for a moment, consider Daily Kos. Kos performs a number of functions on the American left- but to caricature his biggest successes in terms of influencing politics have come in sponsoring or promoting candidates who are second tier in the states and have been neglected by others. You could think of Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign, you could think of Ned Lamont’s challenge to Joe Lieberman in the Connecticut senatorial primary, of Jon Tester’s run for the Montana senate and of a number of other races. Kos and others like him have been effective at promoting people who were second tier, not known much and creating a momentum behind them. The Democrats have raised vast amounts of money and got large numbers of volunteers to work through the web. You could say the same thing has grown on the right behind the ‘no hope’ candidacy of Ron Paul: Paul would be nowhere without the millions raised on the net, the volunteers that he has produced through the net and is now running in high single figures in New Hampshire and Iowa.
It is hard to see how that might work in the UK. Central party organisation means that there is much less space for a grassroots campaigning support for people on the web. We can overestimate the degree of centralisation in British politics- local campaigns can work (say in Wyre Forest) and on both sides millions have been donated directly to the campaigns in marginal constituencies particularly between elections. I’m not sure though how directly this model will work in UK politics- constituencies aren’t like states- politics in the UK is far more centrally directed than in the US. The donation of a thousand individuals might effect a local campaign, but they are nothing when compared to the money that a Mittal or Ashcroft can pour in to the central party coffers. Local MPs often lack identity beyond their position as lobby fodder- though again one can imagine mavericks or charismatic individuals getting support from the blogosphere which would help them in marginal seats. In general though the structure of politics is much less hospitable for bloggers in the UK- much more centralised, much more national than politics is in the US.
Obviously things can and might change- and will have to change if the British political blogosphere is to have more of an impact- but at the moment the British blogosphere is a pale shadow and imitation of its American cousin.
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» Why Quantitative Easing doesn’t make common sense
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