|
|||||
|
Reported in the Observer
June 15th, 2008 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
 I do not believe, as Ministers continue to insist, that there is some trade-off between our liberties and the safety of the realm. What makes us free is what makes us safe, and what makes us safe is what will make us free. – Increasingly loveable leftie Diane Abbott MP, who was unfortunate to be trumped by David Davis’s melodramatic flourish. June 12th, 2008 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Now the counter terrorism bill will in all probability be rejected by the House of Lords very firmly. After all, what should they be there for if not to defend Magna Carta. But because the impetus behind this is essentially political – not security – the government will be tempted to use the Parliament Act to over-rule the Lords. It has no democratic mandate to do this since 42 days was not in its manifesto. Its legal basis is uncertain to say the least. But purely for political reasons, this government’s going to do that. And because the generic security arguments relied on will never go away – technology, development and complexity and so on, we’ll next see 56 days, 70 days, 90 days. But in truth, 42 days is just one – perhaps the most salient example – of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms. And we will have shortly, the most intrusive identity card system in the world. A CCTV camera for every 14 citizens, a DNA database bigger than any dictatorship has, with 1000s of innocent children and a million innocent citizens on it. We have witnessed an assault on jury trials – that bulwark against bad law and its arbitrary use by the state. Short cuts with our justice system that make our system neither firm not fair. And the creation of a database state opening up our private lives to the prying eyes of official snoopers and exposing our personal data to careless civil servants and criminal hackers. The state has security powers to clamp down on peaceful protest and so-called hate laws that stifle legitimate debate – while those who incite violence get off scot-free. This cannot go on, it must be stopped. And for that reason, I feel that today it’s incumbent on me to take a stand. I will be resigning my membership of the House and I intend to force a by-election in Haltemprice and Howden. – David Davis MP Quite unprecedented. An MP – and a privy counsellor – quitting in order to draw attention to loss of liberty (and he used my phrase, “the database state”. A meme whose time has come, I hope). Update: now the official text rather than Sky’s slightly mangled transcript. June 12th, 2008 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
Robert Man from the European Commission speaking on this morning’s Farming Today:
He was talking about proposals for simplifying EU produce classification regulations. In the interests of the poor chap keeping his job, I feel I should emphasise it was a very relaxed, friendly interview, and that this latitudinarian idea was clearly being examined hypothetically as a way of reducing waste, and no impression was given that it formed part of current Commission plans. Nor did Mr Man imply that the ‘simplification’ proposals are completely settled. The Commission proposes, but member states dispose; and Mr Man was careful to point out that not all member states are yet convinced by the bold libertarianism inherent in simplification. So for the moment you should be reassured that the full EC Marketing standards continue to apply to: Apples, Apricots, Avocados, Cherries, Grapes, Kiwifruit, Lemons, Mandarins (and similar hybrids), Melons, Oranges, Peaches and Nectarines, Pears, Plums, Strawberries, Water Melons, Artichokes, Asparagus, Beans (other than shelling beans), Brussels sprouts [of course!], Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflowers, Celery, Courgettes, Cultivated mushrooms, Garlic, Leeks, Onions, Peas, Spinach, Salads, Aubergines, Chicory, Cucumber, Lettuce endives and batavia, Sweet peppers, Tomatoes, Hazelnuts in shell, Walnuts in shell, Flowering bulbs, corms and tubers, Cut flowers and foliage. Though I know us Samizdatatistas are apt to be rude about regulators, I think it is important to recognise the merits of these noble public servants occasionally. Younger and foreign readers will not appreciate how much suffering the EC Marketing standards have saved. British television viewers no longer face peak-time magazine shows featuring vegetables with an amusing resemblance to genitalia. June 11th, 2008 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
The FT today carries a piece from Timothy Geithner, We can reduce risk in the financial system in which the president of the Federal Bank of New York asserts:
The FT itself kindly translates: “NY Fed chief in push for global bank framework”. Is this merely one more piece of assumption by a US government agent that running the entire world according to US government standards is an unquestionable good? Or is such a fearsome regulatory cartel genuinely likely to come about? June 9th, 2008 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I know that ID cards will help me to prove more easily who I am – Rt Hon Jacqui Smith MP, the Home Secretary, proving to us what she is. June 9th, 2008 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Over at ConservativeHome there’s a survey suggesting the social conservatives are doing the Guardian’s work for it by trying to make one’s position on abortion a party-political issue in Britain. The next generation of Conservative MPs support a lower time limit for abortions says an email questionnaire to 225 candidates, answered by just under half. I’m as irritated by this sort of spinning of some very doubtful evidence as I am by the contrary stuff – to the same effect – from the Guardian, which has recently started to suggest (as a measure of its desperation) that no-one who favours abortion choice should vote Conservative. What really winds me up, though, is the mendacious presentation of their position by the proponents of this staged debate. The legal position of abortion in Britain is the sort of muddy compromise people with a clear ideas about the question are quite right to resent. But the approach of many abortion-banners (as they actually are) is anything but frank, and reminiscent of the step-by-step strategy of the anti-smoking lobby. For every principled (usually religiously principled) pro-lifer, there is someone who secretly shares their conviction, but makes the case for just a little cut in the time-limit now “because science tells us that babies of that age can now survive outside the womb”. It’s nonsense. Without a lot of help a two-year-old can’t survive outside the womb. And the prospect of those few born at the limit of current paediatric technology surviving uncrippled to live a normal life is tiny even with a massive input of medical and nursing resources. But worse, it is mendacious nonsense – they don’t care about “viability” in the slightest. What they want is a plausible excuse to cut the availability of abortion just a bit. So I have a test to flush them out. It is provided by that ghastly muddy compromise. Britain doesn’t in law permit women to choose abortion, unlike most rich countries. It is an extraordinary construct of bureaucratic paternalism. What British (mainland) law does is to permit pregnant women to petition doctors to give them permission to abort on the grounds that it will be bad for their well-being to carry the baby to term. With two doctors assenting to this opinion in writing (that is, as the doctors’ professional opinion – the woman’s view doesn’t matter in law), you may have an abortion. Where the ‘time-limit’ comes in is that those two doctors can only approve an abortion to preserving the patient’s social or mental well-being before a certain point. After that terminations may only occur where there is a substantial risk to life or health, or in cases of severe foetal abnormality. So in practice, in the UK you have a choice only if you approach the right doctor armed with the right argument. A naive or poorly educated, woman who seeks help from her GP when the GP happens to oppose abortion, or who mistakenly calls a pro-life charity canvassing itself as offering help to the unexpectedly pregnant (as opposed to one of the pro-choice groups who do the same thing) may never find out how to get an abortion, or at least not until it is too late. The late abortions themselves aren’t occuring as a lifestyle choice – which is another mendacious narrative element in the pseudo-debate. My test is this: Next time anyone says they want the time-limit for abortion cut to because “science shows” the baby can survive outside the womb after X weeks. Say, “And of course you support changing the law to allow abortion on demand before that date, don’t you?” Then watch them flounder. June 7th, 2008 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am out of tune with the spirit of the age. My first reaction was to laugh out loud: The grandson of prominent anti-gun campaigner Pat Regan has been arrested on suspicion of stabbing her to death. It is not just the paradox. It is the way such an incident – horrific in reality though it no doubt is – puts the lie to all such sentimental campaigns. Children are not angels corrupted by contact with mundane implements; they are social animals, small brutes that will grow into large brutes unless civilized. A civilized man ought to be able to carry a gun without offering to shoot anyone under any provocation short of violence offered. A brute will assault you with whatever comes to hand if he feels slighted, and the last thing society needs is for him to have is greater self-esteem. [(1) – (2)] Fetishising mere tools just further exculpates violent people in their own minds. Am I too cynical, or too idealistic? June 2nd, 2008 | 75 comments - (Comments are closed)
I never thought I would find myself agreeing with anything written by Johann Hari, but in today’s Evening Standard he has a piece deploring the rehabilitation of Mary Whitehouse. I agree that she was a dangerous evil old woman, not remotely funny, not a gentle eccentric. However, there is in the piece something that does not ring at all true, viz –
If that is true, it is appalling. Not actually a mark against Whitehouse (which illustrates why Hari is untrustworthy – Whitehouse cannot be held responsible for every item of content in a programme she allegedly liked), but appalling nonetheless. Dixon of Dock Green was a top-rated show, and one criticised in the 60s and 70s for its rosy-tinted view of East End police-work. So if a sentimental prime-time show really did show domestic violence as accepted by the police (whether it was in reality or not at the time), then the social attitudes endorsed by the BBC in the early 60s were even more alien than I thought… Except, as someone who takes and interest in cultural change, I would have heard about it before now. And the clip would be familiar from dozens of documentaries, would it not? Is my education very lacking, or is Hari just making this up? If not, where has he got it from? Who else makes the claim? Is there an incident in Dixon of Dock Green or some other contemporary drama that has been so interpreted as to have directly or indirectly given rise to the tale? May 27th, 2008 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Meaning is a bit like happiness, the more you go looking for it the less you find – The incomparable Lucy Kellaway May 25th, 2008 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
In some countries an interest in ideas, and history, even quite recent history, can get you arbitrarily arrested. It can happen even if you are an academic whose research is being paid for by the government of the country.
What sort of place has ‘illegal documents’? And how would you get one? In this case the document obtained by the masters student in question was published by the US government, and simply downloaded from an official website. – China? Russia? In the country concerned, the term ‘illegal document’ does not actually appear in any legislation. It is not, in theory, illegal merely to possess any document there – except for some unusually broad and harsh laws about indecent images. What sort of place is it that the police make up the law as they go along, and threaten academics for having the intention to read about the subject they are studying? – Saudi Arabia? Egypt? → Continue reading: Freedom of speech? How about freedom to read? May 25th, 2008 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
In a piece of character assassination on Cherie Blair in the Observer (one so comprehensive that she would almost certainly describe it as ‘misogynistic’, if it came from a male writer), Catherine Bennett makes at least one palpable hit. Forget the inane boastfulness and obsessive self-justification against every suggestion of venality:
I wonder, though, whether it is not even worse than that. It is possible that the Blairs might have withheld the information, not out of genuine concern for their family’s privacy (effectively discounted by the present revelation, as Bennett points out), nor out of pique at the press, as in Cherie Blair’s current account, but for political reasons: that they preferred to keep silent, and thereby to encourage the spread of dangerous infectious diseases against which they had quite properly protected their own infant, in order not to cross the noisy anti-vaccination lobby. Since we saw them use family events to political purpose at much the same time, it would be entirely consistent with their known behaviour. The Blairs have never avoided telling other people what to think when they stood to get a tactical political gain, or when they believed it necessary for their great projects for the world. But concealing an actual belief in vaccination looks like sacrificing other people’s children to calculation of the most self-regarding kind. May 18th, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||