Engaged with the world

I found some old notes today, typed hurriedly years ago whilst I was reading My Trade: A Short History of British Journalismby Andrew Marr - a good book for anyone interested in journalism, journalists and how their work interacts with and mediates our world. I remember reading on climbing forum a couple of summers ago someone asking "why is everyone talking about riots?" This person wasn't interested in the news; cynical about all politics, she had made a conscious decision simply not to watch or read any, and as a result was unaware that there were major incidences of public disorder breaking out across the UK including, if I remember correctly, in the centre of the city where she lived. Whilst this struck me as misguided, it also seemed an almost heroic decision to make - it must take quite some mental effort to ignore all news, not to absorb any. I feel I get news, and hence am engaged in politics, almost by osmosis these days - what you eat, how you travel around, using a library, paying a bill all seem to be political acts in some way as a result. Anyway, Marr writes:

I know people who barely read a paper and who think most broadcast news is mindless nonsense. I think, however, they are wrong. They might go through their weekly round, taking the kids to school, shopping, praying, doing some voluntary work, phoning elderly relatives, and do more good than harm as they go. But they have disconnected themselves from the wider world; rather like secular monks, they have cloistered themselves in the local. And this is not good enough. We are either players in open, democratic societies, all playing a tiny part in their ultimate direction, or we are deserters. (p.63)

Sometimes it is nice to switch off; to go for a walk in the mountain, for a ski in forests - but switching off forever? Is Marr right that this is desertion?

Billy Bragg on the Dirty Digger.

I've not got much to say about the whole New International farce, besides told you so. I might often disagree with their editorial line, but having been a "Guardian reader" since I could read and wanted to, well its easy to be smug currently.

Take it away Billy.

BILLY BRAGG - NEVER BUY THE SUN from Billy Bragg on Vimeo.

Must all good things come to end?

I just listened to the last episode of Politics UK on the BBC World Service. This program has been one of the victims of the cuts happening across the british government currently; the World Service is funded by the Foreign Office and they are having their budget cut just like the rest of the public sector. Politics UK has been perhaps the best programme on the BBC about british politics across all the radio channels both domestic and the World Service: half an hour long giving time for real interviews where people could really make a coherent argument rather than just knock out a few sound-bites. The final guests on the programme are typical of the sort of heavy-weights with decades of experience that have typified the voices that have been heard on Politics UK; Lord Hennessy - Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary, University of London; Lord Howe - former Chancellor of the Exchequer, foreign secretary and deputy prime minister under Margaret Thatcher and Lord Donoughue - former adviser to Labour prime ministers Harold Wilson and Jim Callaghan and a minister under Tony Blair. And all agreed that the Foreign Office and BBC were shooting themselves in the foot cutting such an obvious 'weapon' of UK 'soft power'.

I for one will miss it, and want to thank the team at the BBC who have made such consistently good programme/podcast over the years.

Glass houses, stones and all that.

Republican Congressman Peter King is very very angry, and thinks that Wikileaks should be classified as terrorists. It's worth listening to Mr King as he knows a lot about terrorists, after all for many years he vocally supported one terrorist group and was involved in one of its overseas support organisations that according to the the US and UK government channelled money to that terrorist group for weapons. In fact, Mr. King has been "paling around with terrorists" -drinking in pubs with them for example- probably more than any other US politicians, so should know a thing or two about them.

Radio Open Source » Jill Lepore: Tea Party Time… and the Death of Compassion

I have been a bit remiss in blogging this week, but if you are interested in the rise of the Tea Party in the US, then I heartily recommend listening Radio Open Source's interview with historian Jill Lepore: Radio Open Source » Blog Archive » Jill Lepore: Tea Party Time… and the Death of Compassion It is one of those great example of the uses and misuses of history.

Slightly confused small government conservatives.

On a related note, it is interesting as well listening to some American coverage of the UK's spending review. On Slate's Political Gabfest for example, they seem quite amazed by the whole process - noting that American conservatives, especially the Tea Party, talk all the time about wanting to shrink the government but can never identify what they would shrink, whilst actively wanting to spend more on defence.

The first draft history

Some clever spark once said that journalism is the first draft of history. If you've been following the British general election saga, this week's "The Report" from BBC Radio 4 is fascinating listening and will be a source for future historians on how the coalition negotiations took place. Right down to Lord Mandelson texting his mate on the other side of the table to avoid his own team knowing what he was saying.

"Don't worry lads, I have a cunning plan..."

Time to vote folks

I started writing so much more, but I'll just let Gordon speak for himself:

Have a great election day everyone in the UK - whoever you vote for.

MyDavidCameron.com

My house is something of Star Wars fan zone these days due to younger members of the family, and having watched Clone Wars this evening (just an elongated episode of the TV version really - disappointing) this tickled me by connecting up to the earlier UK politics flavour to my day.



MyDavidCameron.com | More annoying than you can possibly imagine

UK general election poll tracker

Jolly nice of the various pollsters/betting firms to let people embed this on their websites for free. So you can keep an eye on the up and downs of the parties over the next 2.5 weeks here on Northern Light.

Americans watching the British Election

There has been some commentary in the UK about how no one else around the world is interested in the UK general elections. I’m sure on the whole this is correct, the UK is a medium sized country with a struggling economy. Many continental Europeans see it as politically self marginalized in Europe due to its Euroscepticism and closeness to the US. Meanwhile the US doesn’t really notice it until it needs some more deployable and well trained troops or the political fig-leaf of a “coalition” to take some international action that many others will object to. In the UK worries remain that Obama in particular doesn’t like the British; perhaps with his Kenyan heritage us Brits shouldn’t be too surprised by this.

But the UK election campaign did get brief mention on a couple of the US current affairs discussions radio programmes I listen to each week. On KCRW’s Left, Right and Centre, host Matt Miller showed himself to be a completely incorrigible political junkie by having actually watched the first prime ministerial debate as it was live streamed. In Britain the debate was seen almost unanimously to have been won by Nick Clegg of the LibDems, but interestingly – perhaps showing how political cultures differ – Miller reckoned that Gordon Brown looked like the “only adult”. There was a longer discussion on the Diane Rehm Show’s international news round-up on Friday. Here one of the journalists came up with the frankly bizarre analogy of Nick Clegg as a “Ross Perot-type figure”. I suspect that neither Mr. Clegg nor Mr. Perot would be particularly happy with the comparison, and the British journalist on the panel was only half managing to suppress his guffaws. It does seem though that some non-Brits swallowed Cleggs “new politics” and “new party” rhetoric. It will be interesting to see how far this flies amongst the UK electorate. It is an attractive idea but considering the Liberal party was a ‘rebranding’ of the Whigs who go back as far as anything resembling political parties do in the UK (and arguably in the world), as a historical claim it is a bit of a stretch!

What do the EDL want to be?

Various bits of the British blogosphere and old media have been following with interest the development of and developments around the English Defence League (EDL). The best coverage I've seen has been in the ever superb Bartholomew's Notes on Religion. Much of debate has been around whether the EDL is the "far right" or not. The connections of this rather nebulous organisation's leaders have been one point of investigation down this path - particularly whether they have connections to established British far right groups such as the BNP or NF. I'm not actually sure how important that classification is. EDL leaders have stated they are not a racist organisation although their statements made in an interview (conducted, incidentally, by a visiting American Christian-right activist with a history of homophobia and with the EDL chaps wearing NI-paramilitary style balaclavas) give plenty of grist for anyone who wants to dispute this. There is a very obvious football casual culture and skinhead connection to the group as well, and I imagine that the Brum police will see a few known faces in the crowds from the national soccer hooliganism files. The organisation's mission is quite clear, they are against Islam in the UK - rather than having a more specific target of Islamists or radicals - so they don't seem very keen on any individual Muslims generally. Choose your own word to describe that.

What I found most interesting were two of the pictures that came out of the Brum demo: firstly, on the Daily Mail website, showing a bunch of shaven headed guys surrounded by cops, holding aloft the Israeli flag (scroll down). Pro-Israeli expression is now pretty common amongst far right groups and political parties across Europe, reflecting the centrality of their anti-Muslim discourse domestically. But also amongst the EDL crowd, other shaven headed young men were seen doing Hitler salutes, giving a very different impression. If the EDL attracts people of latter bent, they will alienate potential sympathisers in the former camp. This makes them an interesting British example of a tension in the radical right visible in lots of other European countries.

ABC's "Rear Vision" on Lockerbie

Rear Vision from ABC, the Australian national broadcaster, is a consistently excellent radio programme. It really is adult reporting at its best - find real experts on a subject, set the historical context, and let them talk.

Last week they re-ran their 2007 Lockerbie bombing programme with some updates reflect Megrahi's recent release. What comes out from the programme, particularly in the comments of Prof. Robert Black, was the systemic weaknesses in the set up of the Scottish legal process at Camp Zeist, and how that seems to have enabled outside parties - the US, UK and Libyan governments - to influence the trial. Whatever one thinks of both the conviction and release on compassionate grounds of Megrahi, it is well worth a listen. You can also subscribe to Rear Vision via iTunes.

On the same subject, also well worth reading is STRATFOR's piece on why the evidence for Megrahi's guilt is stronger than some suppose. Unfortunately Stratfor's writers specifically do not look at the reliability of Tony Gauci's evidence at the trial, questions about which are now central to those who have concerns over the safety of the conviction.

Dan Hannan - always backing a winner.

Americans should listen to Tory MEP Daniel Hannan because he clearly isn't a tit who has no idea of what he's talking about. Oh hang on...

Britain is crap/great

Britain is crap because it has the Daily Mail and people who will pay for it. Britain is great because it has Ben Goldacre on national prime time radio:

And the blog he mentions, The Daily Mail Oncological Ontology Project, really does exists. So that's two reason for Britain being great against one for crap, so great beats crap on points. Hurrah!

Billy few mates goes to Brussels

The Times reports on the newly elected BNP MEPs visiting Brussels to get things started. They haven't found enough support yet to form a grouping within the European Parliament; the Italian Northern League MEPs seem to be wisely steering well clear of them, along with Wilders and co from Holland and the Danish Peoples Party. But according to Nick Griffin, they have agreed to cooperate with the Hungarian Jobbik (and who wouldn't want to cooperate with a party so cool that it has its own militia with armbands, boots and everything?), the Bulgarian Attack Party and Belgium's Vlaams Belang. Are we seeing a pattern forming here?

Shooting at the Holocaust Museum

Being a political science geek, when I was in LA last month, I didn't go on any of the studio tours or 'homes of the stars' trips, I went to the Museum of Tolerance - part of the Simon Wisenthal Center. It is basically divided in to two sections, one is a Holocaust museum and the other is museum and discussion of racism in America. I walked there - very un-LA I know, particularly considering the 30 degree heat - confusing the guard slightly when he asked if I would leave my rucsac in my vehicle. On saying I didn't have one, he looked genuinely confused and asked "how did you get here?" On replying "I walked", he laughed and said "dude - you should be at the beach on day like this!"

I understood the reason for the security - full x-ray of bags and airport style metal detector - but it seemed rather sad and jarring at a museum of tolerance. But the shooting at the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC yesterday, show that the government's assessment of the likelihood of far-right violence against such targets was correct, necessitating such sadly intrusive security. It is tragic that the security guard at the DC museum, Stephen T. Johns, paid so heavily for doing his job protecting people. It could have so easily been the guy I chatted to a few weeks back.

It's even more disheartening that so quickly, bloggers - in this case, Sunny at Pickled Politics - managed to show that the murderer had gone to events where the star of the show was no other than North West England's newest MEP - Mr Nick Griffin of the BNP. The Economist also has an interesting angle on the shooting, particularly considering this is the second case of far right 'domestic terrorism' in the US in a short period after the shooting of Dr. George Tiller a couple of weeks ago.

If the BNP weren't a bunch of liars...

<--- this is what their election flyer would say.

I was tickled the other week to see that the BNP's flyer was rather easily shown to be deceptive and stuffed full of photos taken from photo agencies, rather than of British people who really are voting for the BNP. The one real Brit featured, a former soldier, in a photo on the flyer said he was outraged that they used his picture and that "they are scumbags and I'd never vote for them in a million years."

I'm not quite sure who came up with this wonderfully amended and rather more accurate version on the left - I saw it on Pickled Politics - but big up to whoever did the original art work; it is a work of art indeed. Click on the flyer to read it in full size.

UKIP - dodgy buggers

Westminster is still wallowing in its own do-do, but don't vote for UKIP in the Euro elections as a better alternative!

"The leader of the UK Independence party (Ukip), which wants to lead Britain out of the EU, has taken £2m of taxpayers' money in expenses and allowances as a member of the European Parliament, on top of his £64,000 a year salary."

Thanks to Nosemonkey via Twitter.

Who Brits should probably not vote for on June 4th

Euro elections are a comin'! It really isn't a very opportune time in the UK where politicians' stock has fallen further than at any point before due to the great expenses scandal of 2009. Minor parties were probably always going to do well in the Euros, as people all seem to vote on the basis the national situation, not the European one, but in the UK currently this effect is likely to be amplified. Protests votes are all well and good - but think about what you are voting for as well as what you are voting against. UKIP MEPs, on top of being nutters, seem to have tendency of actually managing to be more corrupt than all the MPs back in Westminster. Meanwhile the BNP might be trying to redefine themselves as the saviours of the working class, but remain the nasty racists they have always been.

The BBC versus the EU

The following story was recounted by an anonymous, but prominent, British political scientist about a meeting he had had with an unnamed senior BBC news executive. He had been asked to visit the BBC, along with some other academic experts on the EU, to discuss the BBC’s coverage of the EU. The Beeb thought they were doing rather well, to which the experts laughed in their faces and pointed out that whilst the BBC news covers congressional hearings in Washington for relatively lowly positions in the Obama administration, they hadn’t covered the hearings for the European Commissioners. The response to which was: “they have hearings for the commissioners?” Lets remember all; the commissioners produce laws that effect every one us Europeans on a daily basis.

At this point the academics showed the BBC chaps the data that shows that the BBC has less coverage of the EU on its evening news programmes than any other broadcaster across the 27 European Union members. Without missing a beat, and with a straight face, the unnamed senior BBC executive replied: “Yes, but that is because we are a very important country and therefore have lots more news to report.”

And yes, Mark Mardell and his Euroblog is an honourable exception to the rule of crappy BBC coverage.