- Gordon Brown, who said today that the criticism he received for visiting Afghanistan a day after giving evidence to the Iraq war inquiry was “incredibly unfair”. During his Chilcot inquiry appearance, Brown had mounted a robust defence of his record as chancellor, saying he had never refused a request from the armed forces for equipment or resources.  However, within hours, two former chiefs of the defence staff, Lord Guthrie and his successor Lord Boyce, had challenged that view.  (full story HERE)

Thanks largely to the efforts of a few bloggers, you are now back home following a stint in Forest Bank jail in Pendlebury.  A huge amount of credit for this must go to Anna Raccoon and Old Holborn, who rallied to your cause and did some seriously speedy fundraising in order to secure your release through delivering £8,664.50 to your prison’s doorstep.  No doubt you are flattered and delighted that complete strangers dipped into their pockets for you and your family due to their enormous sense of grievance at what happened to you.  Even so, my mood is far from jubilant this morning.

The backstory to your prison sentence is a sad tale.  You were jailed for non-payment of a fine that was originally imposed for a ‘mass smoke-in’ on the day the smoking ban came into force in 2007 in your pub, the ‘Swan and Barristers’ in Bolton, which you no longer own.  You were fined again when council inspectors walked into your present pub and discovered a group of customers smoking, even though you weren’t on the premises.  The fines bankrupted you, and you went to court intending to argue that you could not afford the £500 a month payments demanded by the council towards their £10,000 bill for prosecuting you (although you had managed to pay off £1,600).  In response to your non-payment, the court gave you a 6-month jail sentence instead.  This left your wife to manage the pub and left you unable to earn the money which would ensure your release.  Your poor wife was not able to speak to you after you were sentenced and was merely informed of where you would be jailed.  I can imagine that the whole experience was very frightening and disorienting for her.  In short, you objected to the smoking ban and hosted a small demonstration against it on the day the ban came into force, and you paid a heavy price.

As Anna Raccoon said, “Nick was jailed as an example to us all, that when the State barks ‘jump’ you only question ‘how high’. He didn’t. He said ‘Why’? …The fact that so many of you responded is a powerful message from the voting public that politicians would be well advised to heed.  The Blogosphere will not be controlled by politicians, bound up in regulations, throttled by impenetrable legislation. It is not a single target that a ‘D’ notice can be fired at. We are not beholden to advertisers. We are the authentic, unfiltered, voice of your electorate.”  I’m sure you would agree that your release from jail has shown how quickly a small group of supporters can be mobilised to help someone, which is encouraging in itself.  However, I still have a heavy heart as I write this letter because I fear that even though the blogosphere has won the battle, we have not and will not win the war.

The relentless attacks on our civil liberties over the past 13 years will not be forgotten quickly by many bloggers, but it has gone largely unnoticed by many voters.  To most people, DNA databases are nothing but an abstract headline, 42-day detention was supported by many, ’stop and search’ is unlikely to affect them, wheelie bin computer chips are little more than an irritation and ‘benefit snoopers’ from the local council will never need to call at their house.  You don’t have to tell me about ‘first they came for the communists etc etc’ because I get it, but bloggers should never forget that we are all here because we care – many other people do not.  I am always amazed and even amused by the way that mainstream journalists talk about events in Westminster politics as if anyone other than a handful of voters actually give a crap.  The vast, vast majority of people in this country simply don’t have the time or energy or inclination to care about what the government does, and tragically that extends to civil liberties too.  Some of them even support draconian measures like ID cards because the government have such a powerful voice and can deceive and lie to their heart’s content about why they are doing things and what effect their plans will have.

I would love to think that your release from jail would be a turning point regarding the influence of the blogosphere on the world outside and on policymakers, but I know deep down that it isn’t.  Anna Raccoon felt that the help you received sent a “powerful message from the voting public that politicians would be well advised to heed”, but they won’t.  Politics has concentrated power into the hands of literally 10-15 people at the very top of the political tree, regardless of which party is in charge, and they have no reason to fear the electorate or bloggers as we have so little genuine power over them.  Yes, we can protest and yes, we can kick up an almighty fuss, but I wonder how much more we have to offer besides being a right royal pain in the arse.   I can only hope that a Conservative Party, which still contains the likes of David Davis and a few other staunch defenders of liberty, will start to roll back the tide of destruction that Labour have overseen on our liberties and freedom.  Sadly, I fear that ‘hope’ is all we can do.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory 

2. Constantly Furious has found an excellent way to get rich quick.

3. 13th Spitfire thinks Britain should tell the EU to Foxtrot Oscar.

4. Daniel1979 produces some helpful graphs to explain why the Conservatives are a bit rubbish.

5. Heresy Corner discovers that some Lib Dems have interesting *ahem* tastes in films.

- a comment by the French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche, as rumours that Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy are both having affairs gain momentum in France.  The rumour first emerged on Twitter, and was followed by a report in the Sunday edition of Le Journal du Dimanche.  The first ‘tweet’ claimed that Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy had become romantically involved with Benjamin Biolay, a musician and a winner at France’s recent Victoires de la Musique awards.  It then claimed that Sarkozy had swiftly found solace in the arms of his 40-year-old ecology minister Chantal Jouanno.  French web magazine suchablog.com alleged that Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy had been a close friend of Biolay for many years and was now unofficially living with him at his flat in Paris. The same story has also been reported by other established news sites including Yahoo News France, Le Post and Agoravoxtv, as well as TV news channel i-Tele. (full story HERE)

It’s been a rocky few weeks to say the least, although you seem to be just about keeping your head above water in the national and marginals polls.  Today Gordon Brown will make a speech about the economy at the same time as more bad news pours in.  I’m not a fan of negative campaigning at the best of times, but I wonder whether stoking (fully justified) fear amongst the public is the best tactic that you have available.

In a major speech in London today, Brown is expected to outline the action that he thinks is necessary to secure the recovery, focusing on job creation in the UK and further reforms to global economic governance.  ”We are at a turning point, a crossroads, for our domestic economic recovery,” he is expected to say.  “We face crucial decisions. The stakes are high. We dare not risk the recovery. We are weathering the storm and now is no time to turn back. We will hold to our course and will complete our mission.”  He is likely to warn of further “bumps in the road” and say equally tough decisions will be needed as were taken by Labour at the height of the financial crisis.  “There are substantial risks ahead. I believe the only way to overcome them is by displaying the same strength and resolve as we did during the crisis.”   The Treasury is also expected to confirm, in a written statement to Parliament, that Chancellor Alistair Darling will deliver his much-awaited pre-election Budget on Wednesday 24 March.

Unfortunately your early election campaign has been typified by firefighting rather than trailblazing but there is still time to change all that, and yesterday provided plenty of ammunition.  There were warnings Britain’s credit rating is under threat as Brian Coulton, head of global economics at ratings agency Fitch, condemned Labour’s pledge to halve the deficit in four years as ‘too slow’.  To make matters worse for Labour, the head of Marks & Spencer added his voice to demands for a clear plan to cut the deficit.  Sir Stuart Rose said people were ‘not stupid’, adding: “They know effectively we are over-borrowed and there is medicine to be taken.”  Furthermore, the pound has fallen over the past three months against the dollar, plus the ONS reported a 6.9% fall in sales of British goods abroad in January, the largest monthly drop for more than three years.  The slide came despite a steep plunge in sterling, which was trading as low as $1.4936 yesterday but rallied later in the day.

I don’t think it takes a genius to work out that the international financial markets are extremely nervous and that the economic recovery has not got off to a flying start (assuming that it has started at all).  Gordon Brown has also now made the crucial decision to hold a Budget this side of the election, which poses two major risks.  First, Alistair Darling is insisting on trying to cut the deficit whereas Brown is looking for a ‘giveaway’ budget.  Ironically, both of these scenarios could be turned against Labour.  Second, the next set of GDP figures (including the miserable January) will be announced just before a May 6th election, and a bad set of figures could potentially show the UK slipping back into recession – which would be the end of Brown.  To be honest, I’d let the PM talk himself up as much as he wants.  Just sit back and relax, safe in the knowledge that you have some time to get your own ship in order before launching a blistering attack on Brown’s economic record to finish him off for good.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

2. Laban Tall thinks Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is a self-centred hysteric.

3. Real Street is annoyed at the bastardisation of the word ‘equality’.

4. John Ward cannot believe the degree of self-interest shown by the trade unions.

5. The Last Ditch discusses the political exploitation of the Jon Venables case.

- a spokesman from the Communication Workers Union, after it was announced that Royal Mail staff will receive a 6.9% pay rise over three years and will work shorter hours – down from 40 to 39 hours a week.  In addition, Royal Mail has agreed to keep 75% of the workforce as full-time rather than part-time staff, and full-time workers will get extra payments worth up to £1,400 when all the agreed changes to working practices have been made. (full story HERE)

I hope you enjoyed your International Women’s Day.  Now that the likes of Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman have been put back in their box, temporarily at least, following their crass remarks yesterday, I thought it was only fair to give your manifesto for “21st-century feminism” a bit of blog airtime.  Mind you, as soon as I read that it aimed to ”begin to organise for real equality”, I knew I was in for a fun ride.  Here is your manifesto in full, along with my *ahem* observations:

• Globalisation and neo liberalism have had a profound effect on the lives of millions of women. Capitalism itself has created new forms and manifestations of women’s oppression. – globalisation has indeed had a profound effect on the lives of millions of women.  Better wages, better healthcare, better education systems, better life expectancy, better access to medicine… need I go on?
• Women’s oppression is a product of class society which has existed for thousands of years. It was only with the development of capitalism that large numbers of women developed a consciousness of their position and the ability to do something about it. – Wait a minute, I thought you just said that capitalism was the problem, not the solution?! And what evidence do you have about women’s “oppression” being a direct result of class?  I would say that religion could be just as relevant, as could a few biological inconveniences, like having children, which has inevitably had a huge impact on human civilisation throughout the ages.
• Women have been drawn into the workforce in millions but working in factories, offices and shops has not led to an improvement in women’s lives far less to liberation. Women suffer exploitation at work as well as still shouldering the double burden of family and childcare as well as paid work. – Not led to an improvement in women’s lives?!  Tell me, have you spent anytime in a Third World or developing nation recently?  How unbelievably stupid of you to suggest that women going into the workforce has been a bad thing, and since when were women confined to “factories, offices and shops”?  What century are you living in?  I’m fairly confident you’ll also find women in schools, hospitals and goodness knows how many other places.  Where is your evidence of exploitation at work?  Since when did men not contribute to childcare costs and bringing up their family? 
• Women’s traditional role as wives and mothers has not disappeared but has been reinvented to fit in with the needs of exploitation. They are now expected to juggle all aspects of their lives and are blamed as individuals for any failings in family or work life. – What the hell does “the needs of exploitation” mean?  Everyone has to juggle different parts of their lives, but I’m sorry to say that men can’t (yet) have children so there are some things that men can’t help with.  To suggest that women are blamed for problems in the family or at work is unbelievably warped.
• The talk of glass ceilings and unfairly low bonuses for women bankers miss the point about liberation, which is that liberation has to be for all working women and not just a tiny number of privileged women. – I never said women got paid unfairly low bonuses.  I think you’ll find that most bonuses are paid on the basis of performance, so maybe men justified their higher bonuses by performing better?  Is that really so far beyond the realms of possibility?
• Although all women suffer oppression and face discrimination, their life experiences are radically different. Women are not united as a sex but are divided on the basis of class. Middle and upper class women share in the profits from the exploitative system in which we live and use this benefit to alleviate their own oppression. Working class women are usually the people who cook, clean and provide personal services for these women, receiving low wages and often neglecting their own families to do so. – Since when is cooking, cleaning and providing services restricted to working class women?  I think you’ll find that men perform these tasks in huge numbers, certainly in London.  Your suggestion that middle and upper class women share in the profits of exploitation is just bizarre, as it’s more than likely that some of these women have successfully juggled bringing up a family and having a job, which is precisely what you were suggesting led to exploitation of the women in question.  This is just confused nonsense.  Presumably using profits to “alleviate their own oppression” can be translated as ‘women spending the money that they have earned’?
• Women are more than ever regarded as objects defined by their sexuality. The commercialisation of sexuality with its lad and ladette culture, its pole dancing clubs and its post-modern Miss World contests keeps women being judged as sex objects as if nothing has changed since the 1950s. – yes, because women would never ever ever objectify men or stare at them in magazines or go and watch a show where men take their clothes off….
• This objectification, alongside women’s role as supposedly the property of men, leads to domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse. This abuse is under recognised and under reported. It was only in the 1960s and 70s that these issues began to be viewed as political. – I think you’ll find that domestic violence, rape and sexual abuse have existed since the dawn of mankind.  Where is your evidence that there is a causal link between objectification and these acts?  If you want to talk about under recognised and under reported abuse, shouldn’t you be discussing domestic violence against men as well?
• To control their own lives, women must control their own bodies and sexuality. – women already do have control, it’s just that some women choose to flaunt their bodies on a Saturday night down the local high street rather than stand up for your faltering cause.
• Capitalist ideology prioritises the family and the subordinate role of women and children within it, while at the same time forcing individual members of the family to sacrifice ‘family life’ because of the pressures of work and migration. – ah yes, the classic ‘women are forced to stay at home and look after the children’ argument.  With all due respect, every survey that I have seen in the last few years shows beyond any doubt that many women want to stay at home rather than return to work after having children.  Capitalism has nothing to do with it. 
• The priorities of the profit system and the existence of the privatised family means that women’s oppression is structured into capitalism. Any genuine liberation has to be connected to a wider movement for human emancipation and for working people to control the wealth that they produce. That’s why women and men have to fight for liberation. Socialism and women’s liberation are inextricably connected. – I love that, a “privatised family”.  You mean a family who don’t want you telling them how to live their lives, right?  Working people controlling the wealth they produce also has hints of Marxism about it, which is not exactly encouraging.
• We will not win without a fight. Every great social movement raises the question of women. In the 19th century the movement for women’s emancipation took its name from the movement to abolish slavery. In the 20th century women’s liberation took its name from the movements against colonialism around the world. 21st century women’s liberation has to fight to change the world and to end the class society which created oppression and exploitation in the first place. – *roll eyes* so even though capitalism and freedom has presented women with more opportunities than ever before in the history of women’s rights, you want to destroy it?  Oppression and exploitation are such wonderfully loaded words, as if women are forced into work, forced into having children, forced into sacrificing everything for men, forced into jobs they don’t want etc etc.  Maybe you come and chat to the women that I work with and tell them that they are exploited?

It is people like you who do far more harm to women’s rights than men ever could.  Your obsession with grossly unfair stereotypes, your failure to provide any concrete evidence to support your assertions (otherwise known as ‘Harmanism’), your appalling vindictive view of men, your disgraceful attempts to ‘play the victim’ at every opportunity and your shocking lack of understanding of freedom and liberty all combines into this confused, naive and generally dreadful manifesto.  The sad truth is that, as always, you have taken an issue that does need discussing and morphed it into a man-hating freedom-hating spiel that totally undermines your own credibility and ultimately undermines the very cause that you are fighting for.

Yours sincerely,

A.Tory

2. The Appalling Strangeness discusses (the lack of) neutrality at the Guardian.

3. Quiet Man finds that some people just cannot let go of the past.

4. Moments of Clarity thinks he has a rare example of a Government minister being correct.

5. Adam Collyer finds Labour in disarray over education spending cuts.

- guidance on Harriet Harman’s new Equality Bill, explaining why vegans and teetotallers amongst others are to be given the same protection against discrimination as religious groups.  The Bill makes it a legal requirement for public authorities, including schools, to consider the impact of all their policies on minority groups, but these groups include Scientologists and pacifists as well as vegans, teetotallers and many others.  The guidance has already caused controversy after warning that schools which force girls to wear skirts may be breaking the law because the policy apparently discriminates against transsexuals by breaching the rights of girls who feel compelled to live as boys.  Religious leaders have also condemned Harman’s equality laws for sideling religion to promote a false idea of ‘tolerance’.  (full story HERE)