More light finally shed on the allegations against Julian Assange
With the beginning of the extradition proceedings against Julian Assange, we finally get to see exactly what the allegations against him are.
Gemma Lindfield, for the Swedish authorities, told the court Assange was wanted in connection with four allegations.
1. Miss A said she was victim of “unlawful coercion” on the night of 14 August in Stockholm. The court heard Assange is accused of using his body weight to hold her down in a sexual manner.
continue reading… »
PCC admits: Richard Littlejohn is a bullshitter
A couple of months ago, Primly Stable put in a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission over what, for Richard Littlejohn, appears to have been a typically ill-informed and misleading rant in which he claimed that ‘”any Afghan climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover goes automatically to the top of the housing list“.
Littlejohn’s claim is not only wildly innaccurate but relates to an issue on which the PCC has previously seen fit to issue additional guidance to editors as follows:
“The Commission – in previous adjudications under Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code – has underlined the danger that inaccurate, misleading or distorted reporting may generate an atmosphere of fear and hostility that is not borne out by the facts.”
So you’d imagine that Primly’s complaint would be something of a formality and lead, almost automatically, to Littlejohn getting a bit of slap on the wrist.
But no, this is what the PCC has actually had to say:
The complainant considered that the article falsely stated that “Afghans climbing off the back of a lorry in Dover” were given precedence in the allocation of council housing.
The Commission acknowledged the complainant’s concern over the statement; however, it had to consider the remark in the context of the article in which it appeared. The article had been clearly presented as a comment piece, in which the columnist expressed his concern that a soldier who had served in Afghanistan had not been granted a council house. The Commission considered that the columnist had exaggerated and simplified the example of housing immigrants for the purpose of stressing his assertion that the “system of government exists simply to punish those who do the right thing”. It emphasised that the newspaper should take care when using such rhetorical methods of expression that readers would not be misled into understanding that they reflected statements of fact.
In this instance, on balance it considered that readers would be aware that the columnist was not accurately reflecting the government’s policy on the housing of immigrants, but that he was making an amplified statement for rhetorical effect. It was therefore the Commission’s view that, on this occasion, readers generally would not be misled in such a way as to warrant correction under the terms of Clause 1 (Accuracy) of the Code of Practice.
So what the PCC is saying, once you cut through all the waffle is that, in its opinion, Littlejohn is such a prolific bullshitter that even the Daily Mail’s readers cannot be expected to take his opinions seriously.
Now I’m not sure that’s entirely true, but then I’m also not inclined to underestimate the stupidity and ignorance of the typically Daily Mail reader.
It is, nevertheless, quite an interesting innovation on the PCC’s part, albeit one that should, in the interests of clarity and transparancy, be full reflected in the text of the PCC’s Code of Conduct.
I suggest the PCC put in place is an official register of bullshitters, a formal list of media columnists and commentators whose opinions are known to be so routinely unreliable that the PCC will no longer entertain complaints about the accuracy of their remarks on the grounds that their status as a prolific bullshitter is a matter of common knowledge.
The Elephant in IDS’s Room
Watching Iain Duncan Smith doing the morning sofa circuit today, perhaps the most striking thing about his pitch for universal credits that ‘make work pay’ is the bland acceptance of his reponse when asked the $64,000 question – where are all the jobs going to come from?
The market, according to IDS, will provide, a mantra that been blindly repeated by politicians of all parties for the last thirty years even in the face of concrete evidence that, for many people in Britain, the market has actually failed to do anything of the sort.
To illustrate just one of the problems that politicians have been steadfastly ignoring for the last 30 years, let’s look at some of that evidence… continue reading… »
Dorries Still Whining About Expenses
Under the headline “MPs fear being ‘torn apart’ for criticising expenses regime“, Epolitix are reporting yet another spectacularly misconceived bout of whinging by the Honourable Member for Mid-Narnia, Nadine Dorries.
Nadine Dorries has warned that another expenses scandal is coming at MPs “like a train” due to the inadequacies of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA).
While lobbying the House of Commons Backbench Business Committee for a debate on the new expenses system, Dorries claimed that MPs were ‘frustrated, angry and despairing’ at the current system because…
“IPSA have been refusing a large number of claims which MPs have been putting forward, not because they are inappropriate claims, but because they have missed out a field on the form or incorrectly completed a form,”
Not the kind of complaint that will elicit much in the way of sympathy from anyone who’s ever submitted a claim for welfare benefits or wrestled with a tax return.
In response to a parliamentary question, at the end of October, IPSA revealed that of 5,256 claim forms submitted in September, 162 were still awaiting payment, adding that this was because the claim form had not completed correctly or because the MP had either failed to provide sufficient supporting evidence for their claim or submitted a claim which had given rise to ‘some other query’.
Most small businesses would be overjoyed if 97% of their credit accounts were settled within 30-60 days, but this is seemingly not good enough for Members of Parliament, even if the fault lies largely with their own inability to submit the correct paperwork.
The main thrust of Dorries’ argument to the committee, which was also backed by Tory MP Adam Afriyie, seems to be that the rejection of a small number of inadequately presented claims by IPSA will inevitiably by misinterpreted by the media as evidence of further impropriety, giving rise to another expenses ‘scandal’. The argument, one presumes, is that it would, therefore, be preferable for IPSA to go back to the old system of rubber stamping MPs expenses claims without asking too many awkward questions and take it on trust that MPs have now learned their lesson, in order avoid feeding more ammunition to the Daily Telegraph.
That’s one way of looking at it.
Another way of looking at this is to note that all three major parties operate their own centralised research facilities in the House of Commons, for which MPs pay an annual subscription fee.
If MPs can spread the costs of research in such a manner then its surely not beyond the wit of some of them to club together and hire a couple of competent accounts clerks, so as to ensure that their expenses forms are filled in correctly and that the proper evidence is submitted with their claim.
Vaz blames ‘racist shooting’ on video game
In a story you may not have picked up on over the weekend, Police in the Swedish city of Malmo have confirmed that an as yet unnamed 38 year old man has been arrested in connection with a series of gun attacks on people with ethnic minority backgrounds.
Prior to the arrest, local police had suspected that more than a dozen unsolved shootings over the last year, in which one person died and eight more were wounded, may have been the work of lone gunman. The man arrested at the weekend has now been charged with one count of murder and seven attempted murders.
Make of that story what you will, but what has piqued my interest here is not the story itself but an Early Day Motion (EDM 907) put down a couple of weeks ago by Labour MP, Keith Vaz, in relation to these shootings.
continue reading… »
Do abortion services really make a ‘vast amount of money’?
You may well have noticed that, amongst other things, Nadine Dorries has chosen to climb back on her favourite abortion hobby horse by giving a truly risible speech to parliament during an adjournment debate.
In the very first paragraph of Dorries’ speech she says:
Abortion in this country is an industry from which a small number of organisations and individuals make vast amounts of money.
Really? Vast amounts of money? Well let’s have a look, shall we.
continue reading… »
Woolas: Judical Review Rejected
In the last half and hour or so, BBC News have reported that Phil Woolas has failed in first attempt to overturn the ruling of the election court, which bars hims from holding any elected public office for the next three years.
Woolas went to the High Court, this morning, to ask for a judicial review of the election court’s decision, a move rejected by the court, which told him to take his case to appeal.
It’s not entirely clear, as yet, why and on what precise grounds Woolas sought a judicial review at this point in time.
Update 1 – 2:47pm:
While the application was rejected on technical grounds. various people on Twitter are saying that Woolas is seeking an oral hearing to renew his Judicial Review application. We’ll keep updating as we hear more.
Update 2 – 3:10pm There will be no new election until after judicial review application by Woolas is considered, says Speaker John Bercow.
Update 3 – 3:15pm Polly Curtis at the Guardian says it’s likely to go to the Court of Appeal.
The Slow Death of the DWP ‘Lie Detector’
More than a year ago, Liberal Conspiracy published a short series of briefings on a controversial trial of a so-called ‘voice risk analysis’ system by the Department of Work and Pensions.
Yesterday, the ultimate fate of these systems was revealed in a rather terse response to a parlimentary question tabled by the Tory MP for East Yorkshire, Greg Knight:
Chris Grayling (Minister of State (Employment), Work and Pensions
In 2008-09 a total of £1,734,314.07 was paid directly to the 24 local authorities involved in voice risk analysis pilots. There was no DWP funding for voice risk analysis in subsequent years. The pilots finished in December 2009. Local authorities can continue to use voice risk analysis at their own discretion and at their own expense.
Watch: Democracy, road to self-destruction…
From the file marked ‘who needs meds when you’ve got a camcorder and a youtube account?’ a good American Catholic explains what the real problem with democracy is and how best to fix it…
Tell you what, try watching the video here while I try to figure out why I can’t get the damn thing to embed properly.
(Via Pharyngula)
Making bogus research claims, the homeopathic way
With homeopathy rearing up its ugly head in the wake of Adam Grace’s well-founded criticisms of Caroline Lucas, I think its time for something a little different here on LC – a bit of more or less pure science blogging.
To be a bit more specific, what I’m going to do here is explain one of the more common ‘tricks’ that homeopathic ‘researchers’ use to generate bogus claims for the efficacy of their ‘magic’ sugar pill and water using nothing more than the abstract of a piece of ‘research’ published only a couple of months ago in a homeopathic journal.
The paper in question carries the impressive sounding title ‘Heparin-binding epidermal growth factor expression in KATO-III cells after Helicobacter pylori stimulation under the influence of strychnos Nux vomica and Calendula officinalis‘ and comes from the journal ‘Homeopathy’, which is published by Elsevier (publisher of both The Lancet and Gray’s Anatomy) – and don’t worry if the title seems like gibberish for now, I’ll quickly explain all the salient features of the research as we go along. continue reading… »
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» We’re turning The Spirit Level into a film: help us in that goal
» I love the counter-productive attitude of right-wing commentators
» Watch out for the TPA’s report arguing for more cuts tomorrow
» The resurgence of bigoted conservatism in Ireland
» What’s the point of being ‘British’?
» The tragedy behind the Sam Hallam case
» Will JP Morgan be able to walk away from billion dollar losses?
» Labour is now even more reliant on left-wing voters
» We need the minimum wage for under-21s to be raised
» Has Liam Byrne discovered his conscience over disability benefits?
» Why the jobs crisis is far worse than headline figures
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