‘The Scottish press conference’

A blasted heath, Westminster. Enter Milibeth, Thane of South Shields, stage centre-left.

Milibeth: Is this a throng of journalists which I see before me, their microphones toward my mouth? Come, let me brief thee.

Reporter 1: Lord Milibeth, are you plotting to become King?

Milibeth: We have got a King. We have got a good King who has got good values.

Reporter 2: But do you seek to force King Duncan out?

Milibeth: I’m not campaigning for anything other than a successful Scottish monarchy.

Reporter 3: Do you think Duncan will still be King at the end of the year?

Milibeth: His leadership has shown itself to be of strong value, and one which shows itself to have brought a team around it who are able to make a contribution. His Majesty will lead us forward and the rest of us have a contribution to make.

Reporter 2: Do you intend to kill King Duncan, though?

Milibeth: The starting point is not debating personalities but winning the argument about our record, our vision for the future and how we achieve it.

Reporter 1: But will you categorically rule out any attempt to kill His Majesty?

Milibeth: Well look, with all respect to you guys, I don’t think there’s much point in doing that. I’d previously categorically ruled out murdering Banquo, and nobody believed me.

Reporter 2: But Banquo was murdered. When will you own up to your role in that?

Milibeth: It’s true that sword crime is a serious problem – although I don’t endorse the scaremongering claims that we live in some sort of ‘broken society’ – but I mourn Lord Banquo’s untimely death as much as anyone else. As to the identity of the culprit, I’m afraid it would be quite inappropriate for me to comment on an ongoing police investigation.

Reporter 3: What of reports that you have been consorting with three vile witches to divine a path to power?

Milibeth: I have regular meetings with many party colleagues. Alan Milburn, Stephen Byers and Charles Clarke have government records they can be proud of, and I’m sure they have a positive role yet to play.

Reporter 1: But you haven’t even mentioned Duncan’s name!

Milibeth: Ah, haven’t you heard? It’s bad luck to utter the name of the Scottish Prime Minister. Now if you’ll excuse me, all I want to concentrate on is getting on with the job of being Foreign Secretary.

Exit, pursued by a barely concealed smirk.

Neo-colonial oppression by means of saying stuff

In a column on – oh, does it really matter? – Martin Jacques announces that Zimbabwe “hurts the British psyche”:

Because we suffer from an acute case of colonial amnesia, we seem to think that we have some unalienable right to lecture Zimbabwe on its iniquities.

Hmm. I’d have thought that it was freedom of speech that gave us the right to lecture whomever on whatever. And some might say that the lecturing is directed at Robert Mugabe, not Zimbabwe itself. Or that he spends far more energy ranting about us than we do about him. But no matter.

Jacques goes on:

Yet Britain's culpability for the country's plight - from tolerating Ian Smith's declaration of independence to the disgraceful land deal that guaranteed the privileged position of white settlers - is second to none.

Mugabe has been in power for 28 years. Britain is certainly culpable for the iniquities of colonial rule, and for bequeathing the colonial state and divided society that Smith then seized to rule over, but really. Mugabe’s had enough time in charge to bear the blame for his own mess. Other former colonies are in much better shape.

Defection

This has been a painful decision, but I feel I have to tell you that I’m switching parties. There comes a point, I’m afraid, where enough really is enough.

The Total Politics political blog directory had, until yesterday, listed Freemania under ‘Conservative’. So disillusioned am I with David Cameron that I have asked the nice people at TP to put me under ‘Labour’ instead. Which they kindly have.

Britain’s divided cities – nothing to do with us, guv

The Tories say:

New evidence has revealed the true scale of the social divide between rich and poor in Britain's cities.
…in Westminster, there are pockets of 100% child poverty right next to areas where no children live in poverty at all.

Hmm, something is faintly ringing a bell in the back of my head. Something to do with the Tories, Westminster Council, housing policy and relocating poor people. But it’s probably nothing. What matters now is that we build stable communities.

Lancashire not-plot

I mean, really:

A "Lancashire plot" against the Prime Minister appeared to be gathering pace as two backbenchers from the North-west of England urged him to step down and a third questioned his survival chances.

This “plot” consists of: (a) Graham Stringer – yes, the Graham Stringer – saying last Friday that Brown should go, something he’d previously said back in May; (b) George Howarth – yes, the George Howarth – saying over the weekend that Labour needs to think “long and hard” about the leadership, while denying media reports he was collecting names in support of Jack Straw; and (c) Gordon Prentice – yes, the Gordon Prentice – saying Brown should resign.

And the Independent – yes, the Independent – reckons this amounts to a hill of beans. Welcome to summer.

If you want a little more intelligence, you could check out Hopi arguing that Team Brown have been performing badly but that semi-public plotting (Lancastrian or otherwise) is only likely to make things worse, or Don Paskini’s ten terrible pieces of advice for Labour, or Septicisle suggesting that the worst piece of advice of all might be for Brown to keep buggering on.

Meanwhile, outside Westminster…

Like all decent people, I can’t help but obsess over opinion polls and the options facing the Labour Party. But over the weekend, something else had the nerve to happen. Labour’s National Policy Forum talked about, well, some policies. I know, it’s disgusting, isn’t it? But I suppose that’s the sort of thing we have to put up with when the National Personality Forum is in recess.

Anyway, my thoughts on the leadership situation haven’t really changed in two months: the dangers in sticking with Brown are apparent every time he comes on TV, but the costs and benefits of changing are pretty much unknowable. So I thought I might highlight a few things to come out of the NPF (as reported here and here):

• Lower the voting age to 16
• A wholly elected second chamber
• Make the full adult minimum wage available to 21-years-olds (currently you have to be 22)
• Improved redundancy pay
• Extend the right to seek flexible working
• Extend unpaid parental leave rights to parents of children up to 16 (the current age limit is five)
• More preventative health check-ups
• Help with study and training for 18- to 25-year-olds with fewer than two A levels
• More power for hospitals to terminate cleaning contracts with external providers.

Sketchy, obviously, and far from a full programme for government. But there they are. Good? Bad?

Oh, who really cares when we could be out in the sun, or more importantly debating which of Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon should speak first when they go to tell Brown that he should step down in favour of a Miliband-Johnson dream ticket…

(I am actually now going out to sit in the sun. While I’m there I’ll mull over what colour tie Ed Balls should wear when he rules himself out of the running.)

These are two of my favourite things

Eddie Izzard riffs animated with Lego:

Late-night petrol station shopping

Do you have a flag?

Cake or death?

Death Star canteen

Andrew R does McGonagall

To put Labour’s Glaswegian travails into verse
Is a blogging development that is most assuredly none for the worse.

Except, of course, that Andrew’s Ballad of Glasgow East is so very much better:

'Twas in the early hours of July 25 2008
That Scottish Labour met its grisly fate
For that was the night that the SNP were elected in Glasgow East
A momentous and politically damaging event to say the least

Perfectly crafted. I bet it’d even make Brown laugh out loud. Go read the whole thing.

“Dear Prime Minister… er…”

Labour’s 26th-safest seat, Glasgow East, has gone west. Now what?

We are writing this private letter as a group of MPs first elected in 2001, all of whom have been involved in the party and the wider Labour movement for a long time.
…
We have always believed passionately in the same kind of modern, progressive, electable Labour Party that you do.
The permanent advancement of this kind of dynamic, electorally persuasive Labour party is, and always has been, our project as much as yours. And it remains so.
We can and must win the next general election. To do otherwise would be, unforgivably, to fail in our duty to the party and the country.
…
Sadly, it is clear to us - as it is to almost the entire party and the entire country - that without an urgent change in the leadership of the party it becomes less likely that we will win that election.
That is the brutal truth. It gives us no pleasure to say it. …
But we believe that it is impossible for the party and the government to renew itself without renewing its leadership as a matter of urgency.
As utter Labour loyalists and implacable modernisers, we therefore have to ask you to stand aside.

This letter, sent in September 2006 by a group of normally loyalist Labour MPs, helped to prompt Tony Blair to announce his coming resignation.

At the time, Labour was worryingly unpopular. Of the 30 published polls in May to September 2006, Labour was behind in 28 – and in three of these, the party was as much as 10 points behind the Tories.

How things change.

Of the 23 published polls since the start of May 2008, Labour’s best performance (in fact in the earliest poll in this period) was trailing by 11 points. In 11 of these 23 polls, the party has been 20 points or more behind the Tories.

And while, in September 2006, 65% of people thought Blair was doing badly as PM and 31% thought he was doing well, last month the equivalent split against Gordon Brown was 78% to 16%.

So, what lesson should the anxious Labour MPs learn? That changing leaders wasn’t the answer in the first place? Or that changing leaders is now more vital to their survival than ever before?

Luke thinks it’s the economy, and Conor thinks it’s the lack of a clear narrative. There’s certainly truth in both views – but can Labour get through this politically with Brown in charge? And if not, how to get rid of him without making the party look even worse? Whom to replace him with? What the hell to do next?

Mugabeconomics

Last week I pointed out the absurd practicalities of buying a load of bread with Zimbabwean money. Now, it seems, this problem has been (temporarily) addressed by the issuing of a new Z$100 billion note:


As you can see, to make sure nobody mistakes this for real money that’s actually worth anything, they’ve cleverly printed ‘Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’ on this specimen.

The UK’s Top Ten Political Bogs 2008–09

(Apropos of nothing much.)

It’s that time of year again when Freemania, in association with the National Trust and Cillit Bang, brings you the annual UK Top Ten Political Bogs Competition!

The rules are the same as ever: our panel of experts has toured the UK bogosphere, narrowing down the contenders for the crown to just nine. But which is the best? You can vote for your favourite, and also nominate one not listed to win the ‘readers’ choice’ place.

Who will win the coveted ‘Bog Standard’ award? Only you can decide!

The shortlist of nine, in alphabetical order, is:

Ballynahone Bog is a raised bog, situated in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on low-lying ground immediately north of the Moyola River. It is one of the largest lowland raised bogs in Northern Ireland. Ballynahone played a pivotal role behind the scenes in brokering the deal that saw Iain Paisley’s Democratic Unionist Party join Sinn Fein in the Northern Ireland Executive.

Cors Caron is a raised bog in central Wales. The Cors Caron covers an area of approximately 816 acres, and provides a habitat for the endangered red kite, which was once nearly extinct before making a dramatic resurgence in the area. Its tireless campaigning on the issues of post office closures and arms exports have won it admirers as far afield as Merthyr and Aberystwyth.

Crymlyn Bog is a nature reserve and a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest of international significance, near Swansea. It is the largest area of lowland fen in Wales. Commentators of all political stripes have praised Crymlyn’s sure-footed first year as Shadow Secretary of State for Administrative Affairs.

Matley Bog is an ancient woodland bog in the New Forest, Hampshire. It is notable for the presence of the rare ant, Formica candida, sometimes called the shining bog ant. An internationally recognised authority on data security, Matley has been the driving force behind the Government’s proposals to conceal the whole population’s personal records on the sports pages of the Financial Times.

Max Bog is a 10.6-hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest west of the village of Winscombe, North Somerset. It has made headlines in recent months with its bold proposals for restructuring the military, with a controversial emphasis on merging the Navy and RAF, and using the cost savings to develop a giant death ray in orbit around the Earth.

Moseley Bog is a nature reserve in the Moseley area of Birmingham. Following its re-evaluation by English Nature the site was denotified as a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1992, but remains a locally designated Site of Importance for Nature Conservation, which is much like getting a prize for effort. Named after celebrity racist Sir Oswald Moseley, the bog is notable for sucking only dark-skinned people to their deaths, which has sparked a productive debate on multiculturalism in the West Midlands.

Portlethen Moss is an acidic bog nature reserve in the coastal Grampian region in Aberdeenshire. This wetland area supports a variety of plant and animal species, even though it has been subject to certain development and agricultural degradation pressures. Portlethen stood as the ‘Anti-Iran War/Hang Welfare Cheats’ candidate in the Haltemprice and Howden byelection, coming in 24th place with 17 votes. Nobody knows how it managed to get on this list.

Red Moss is a wetland bog in Aberdeenshire, noted for its biodiversity and undisturbed character. The elevation of Red Moss is 113 metres above mean sea level. As Director of the left-leaning Policy Mire think-tank, Red Moss is widely seen as setting the agenda in a range of areas that nobody else cares about.

Yanal Bog is a 1.6-hectare calcicolous lowland mire just north of the village of Sandford, North Somerset. Underlying the site are gravels and clay alluvium. Above this sits a layer of peat. This results in a high water table, creating a distinct domed landscape feature. This shape inspired the Millennium Dome, a fact about which Yanal is still laughing. Yanal is tipped by Westminster insiders as the likeliest challenger to Gordon Brown.

These are the shortlisted candiates – now you get to pick your favourite. Plus, of course, there’s a tenth place open for your own nominations.

Vote early, vote often! And remember: this top ten really matters. And so, by extension, do I.

(No offence, Iain…)

The (comm)unionisation of feelings

Reader, you are a useless piece of crap so lacking in decency, intellect and humour that you’re not fit to rub ointment onto the genital warts of a rabid cockroach.

Have I offended you? Have I hurt your feelings? Well, hopefully not. But if I have, then that illustrates my point: your feelings are not entitled to legal protection.

Except…

Three straws in an increasingly pungent wind:

(1) Last month, Bushra Noah was awarded £4,000 damages for “injury to feelings”. She had been turned down for a hairdresser’s job that she had applied for on the grounds that she wore a headscarf covering her own hair. She claimed this was religious discrimination, and took it to an industrial tribunal.

Sarah Desrosiers, owner of the salon and cougher-upper of the four grand, said: “I never in a million years dreamt that somebody would be completely against the display of hair and be in this industry.”

(2) Last week, Lillian Ladele, a marriage registrar working for Islington council, got a tribunal to rule that she need not conduct same-sex civil partnership ceremonies, on the grounds that her Christian faith holds that marriage (and apparently also secular civil partnerships) should only be between a man and a woman. Requiring her to do that part of her job would be discriminatory.

She said: “Gay rights should not be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their religious beliefs.” But religious beliefs most certainly should be used as an excuse to bully and harass people over their sexuality.

(3) And now, Constable Graham Cogman is taking legal action against Norfolk Police (via Brett):

His complaint stems from a circular email sent to officers in early 2005 encouraging staff to wear a pink ribbon on their uniforms during Gay History Month. After receiving the email, PC Cogman sent a reply to his fellow officers featuring biblical quotations about homosexuality being a sin. He objected again the following year when a similar email was again sent to officers. He was subjected to a disciplinary tribunal and fined 13 days' pay.

Pc Cogman says: “The blatant support for homosexual rights in Norfolk Police makes being a Christian officer extremely difficult.” (That’s “blatant support” for the law. From the police.)

Norfolk Police says: “The force will not tolerate any form of homophobic behaviour.”

So there you go. If you have membership of a ‘faith group’, then your feelings – if they are related to how your religious beliefs are treated – can get legal recognition. Hurt feelings, especially in the workplace, are increasingly becoming theologically unionised. But these rights can only be claimed by people declaring themselves part of one of these unions (or rather, communions). If your feelings as a believer have been offended, then you’ve been discriminated against. And where there’s blame, there’s a claim!

It’s a curious blend of individualist self-assessment and communalist badge-wearing: you get to decide for yourself when your religious feelings have been hurt, but in order to do so you have to be a member of the right kind of group. Interestingly, the other members of your group don’t have to endorse your pain nor even share the belief that you claim has been attacked. But the group and the supernatural dogmas do have to exist – you can’t just say you don’t like poofs cos they’re dirty.

Brett argues:

It seems it is increasingly impossible for the government to manage comprehensive non-discrimination policies and make space for personal conscience and freedom of association. The only compromise I can think of is this separation of public and private spheres [the public sector must have zero tolerance of discrimination for any reason whatsoever; the private sector can discriminate however they like]. Anyone have a better idea?

There is a better idea: don’t compromise. People, religious or not, shouldn’t apply for jobs that they have freely decided that they ‘cannot’ perform properly because of their prejudices.

That religious people feel that their beliefs need special protection is pitiful; that many of these beliefs veer into bigotry means we have a social menace on our hands.

(And sorry about the cockroach thing. I didn’t mean it.)

Genocidal bastard banged up

Radovan Karadzic arrested in Serbia.

(But Omar al-Bashir laughing in Khartoum.)

Obama jokes (we’ll miss Bush when he’s gone)

Liam raises the pressing issue of how hard it is to make jokes about Barack Obama. The trouble is that he’s a bit solemn and not very funny (Obama, that is, not Liam); see here for some efforts that are based on this fact.

I’ve tried to do my bit (have used some US spellings for authenticity):

Barack Obama walks into a bar. It was a bar to fulfilling the hopes and aspirations of millions of America’s children.

Two nuns and Barack Obama were having a bath together. While in the tub, they discussed the vital role that faith can play not only in the individual’s moral betterment and the binding together of a family, but also in the political and social life of our great nation; this inspired the nuns to set up a voter registration program for disadvantaged young people in their neighborhood. And they conserved precious resources by sharing the hot water.

Why did Barack Obama cross the road? Because for too long, we have allowed our ambitions to be dulled by circumstances not of our choosing, our dreams to be stifled by the inherited constraints of what seems possible, and our noble efforts in every just cause to be diverted, so subtly, into the cheerless management of the day-to-day. But we are the ‘Walk’ sign we’ve been waiting for. Can we cross the road? Yes we can!

Communication skills

More cheering news about young people in this BBC headline:

18% of 16-to-17s 'doing nothing'

This means that an impressive 82% of them gave their parents a proper answer.

Zimflation

Think we’ve got high inflation in Britain? No, no, no. Because in Zimbabwe, the only thing worth less than your vote is the money in your pocket. Inflation is now estimated at 12,500,000%. A loaf of bread costs nearly Z$100 billion (hat tip).

This means, assuming you’re using billion-dollar notes and that it takes you half a second to count one out, that by the end of the 50 seconds it takes to hand over the cost of a loaf, you’ll actually owe another Z$3.3 million for it.

Why trust your own experience when the headlines can tell you what to think?

Crime is down. Again. Violent crime is down, too. But what about public perceptions of crime?

According to the survey [PDF], 65% of people think crime has increased nationwide over the last two years, but only 39% of people think crime is up in their local area.

The difference is even more striking when you distinguish between those who think crime has gone up a little and those who think it’s up a lot. The figures for crime going up a little are pretty close: 26% think this is true locally, 31% nationally. But just 13% of people think local crime is up a lot, while 35% think crime is nationally up a lot. In areas that they don’t have first-hand knowledge of, people are far likelier to think things are going to hell in a handcart.

The conclusion from this is that people’s perceptions of crime nationally – which are influenced far more by the media than by personal experience as compared with perceptions of local crime – are absurdly overinflated. Society isn’t ‘broken’, but the media are. Politicians who feed the frenzy and then base their policies on the resultant ill-informed public fears are doing us a disservice.

Intervention in failing religions

Tony Blair, 1999:

The most pressing foreign policy problem we face is to identify the circumstances in which we should get actively involved in other people's conflicts. …the principle of non-interference must be qualified in important respects. … When oppression produces massive flows of refugees which unsettle neighbouring countries then they can properly be described as "threats to international peace and security".

And today:

The Pope is leading an unprecedented drive by the Roman Catholic Church to prevent the fragmentation of the worldwide Anglican Communion…
A decision has been taken within the Roman Catholic hierarchy that it is in its interests for the Anglican Church to maintain unity. Despite speculation about a group of conservative bishops breaking away to the Roman church, senior Catholics say such a move would be "premature", and that they are not encouraging defections. …
Some Roman Catholics fear that unless divisions over issues including homosexuality can be healed, they will act as a forerunner to a similar battle in Rome.

Funny old world, innit? Mind you, the last time the C of E had ructions about becoming more liberal, the Vatican was swamped by theological asylum seekers such as Ann Widdecombe, so maybe it makes sense…

In other news:

Key elements of Christian doctrine are offensive to Muslims, the Archbishop of Canterbury has said in a letter to Islamic scholars. … Discussing differences between the religions, Dr Williams acknowledges that Christian belief in the Trinity is "difficult, sometimes offensive, to Muslims".

I mean, really. Imagine reading: ‘Discussing differences between the parties, Mr Brown acknowledges that Labour’s belief in redistribution of wealth is "difficult, sometimes offensive, to Conservatives".’ If your case has anything that an outsider could recognise as merit, then you can just make it, and engage in debate, and see any such ‘offence’ caused in your opponents as a sign that their own case lacks merit itself.

Williams goes on:

What we need as a vision for our dialogue is to break the current cycles of violence, to show the world that faith and faith alone can truly ground a commitment to peace which definitively abandons the tempting but lethal cycle of retaliation in which we simply imitate each other's violence.

Now, do you see me asking for him to apologise for the ‘offence’ this passage gives to atheists and agnostics, in saying that we can’t be “truly” peaceful? No. I take it on the chin, point out its falsity and utter ungroundedness, and get on with life.

Grave matters

The Guardian is running an online poll: “Should Margaret Thatcher have a state funeral?”

Fine. I’ll fetch my shovel. Where do you want the hole?

‘But it’s not-’

Quote of the day, from Scott Adams:

As you know, fairness is a concept that was invented so that children and idiots could participate in arguments.