(c)Filippo Venturi

With the general election looming, and to avoid feeling any more wrath from the public after the expenses scandal, Labour ministers and their Conservative shadow counterparts have refused the £1000 pay rise suggested by the Senior Salaries Review Body.

Joining in the outcry was the Conservative parliamentary candidate for Watford, Richard Harrington; “I just think it’s ridiculous to suggest this when there’s too much public criticism.” A pay rise at the present time would also be galling to the many unpaid interns who do the donkey work for MPs.

However, in the long-term something needs to be done about MPs salary. I realise it may not be a popular measure to call for but we need something lasting to address the abuses. Historically, the salary has been at the forefront of reforming Parliament. If Alan Duncan thought MPs today are “treated like shit” and “forced to live on rations”, he should cast his mind back to before 1911 when MPs received no wage at all. Wages were seen as a means to open up the Commons to those who didn’t have the benefit of family connections or wealth. Furthermore, it was also to reduce amateurism in Parliament and have committed Members of Parliament.

The introduction of the £400 wage in 1911 played a role in improving the professionalism and the independence of our parliamentarians. In the famous opera, HMS Pinafore, WS Gilbert wrote: “I always voted at my party’s call. And I never thought of thinking of myself at all.” Nowadays, supported by the salary and with a constituency support base, MPs are more rebellious. Notable backbench dissent during the Blair premiership over Iraq, university tuition fees, foundation hospitals and school academies testify to that.

With the proliferation of think-tanks, political interns and devolved powers, it is possible to be a career politician and have no job outside politics. The term has been derided in recent years but the rise of the career politician has led to an increase in backbencher independence. As Lord Philip Norton, Professor of Government at Hull University has commented, there were two parliamentary sessions in the 1950s when there were few career politicians, where not a single Conservative MP defied the party whip even once.

The reason why expenses became an issue in the first place is that Pps are spending more time on constituency business than 20 years ago. The joke in the Rik Mayall comedy, The New Statesman, about Alan B’Stard’s constituency association running a ‘Spot the MP’ competition, resonated at the the time with fewer MPs visiting their constituencies, let alone living in them as they do today.

Alongside the emails they receive from constituents, MPs receive more letters than their predecessors. Professor Norton adds that in 2003 the average amount of mail received by MPs was the highest since 1986.

Overall, we have more professional, independent and responsive MPs than in the past. There was no so-called Golden Age of Parliament. However, this should not detract from the abuse of expenses. Due to the constituency boundary changes, at the next election I may be served by an MP who claimed for a flat in Battersea for overnight stays when Amersham is not too far away from London.

At the present moment there is a divide between the Chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, Sir Christopher Kelly, and Sir Ian Kennedy, the head of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority. Sir Kelly has accused Sir Kennedy of watering down his proposals for expenses reform. Kelly wanted to ban MPs employing relatives; Kennedy has allowed them to keep them.

What neither expert has addressed is the salary. Parliamentary candidate, Mr Harrington, is bemused by this; “We must have a proper formula for the future and there must be experts in the long-term who can decide. I don’t see why it’s so difficult. There are comparable occupations to MPs. General practitioners, headteachers and higher civil servants. We have this situation where expenses are used to supplement income, which is unacceptable.”

Another paradoxical situation is local government. It was revealed two years ago by the Taxpayers Alliance that 818 local authority managers earned more than £100,000 and more than 100 council executives earn more than the Prime Minister. Local government officials have lost a lot of responsibility due to centralisation by both Labour and Conservative governments but they are paid more than MPs who have taken on greater responsibilities.

A higher salary would also help attract those from less privileged backgrounds. The Library of the House of Commons showed that after the 2005 General Election, the number of MPs coming from professional backgrounds remained at 40%. A significant number earn their income from second jobs. A ban on these would be illiberal and unfair as Harriet Harman suggested before Kelly’s inquiry.

Second jobs help make MPs less accountable to the whips and less prone to hanker after a ministerial job in order to increase their salary. However, those from professional backgrounds can make the use of contacts established before they enter Parliament which somebody from a less privileged background cannot. A higher salary would help an MP from that background be more independent from sectional interests as well as from the executive.

An easier and more transparent solution could be to follow the US Congress. There the salary is $174,000 (£116,000). They can claim taxpayer support for the expense of running their constituency offices which are present in different time zones, let alone different counties. Such an arrangement is bolstered by proper transparency through Freedom of Information and they make use of apartments in Washington. How they find second homes is up to them. It was suggested the Olympic Village should be used by MPs who live too far away from London.

“The balance is you don’t want a generation of rich people,” Harrington concludes. “But society has to decide on the salary so that the concept of public service is not lost.” A higher salary in the most important institution in the UK would help recover that aspiration.

Related posts:

1. The hypocrisy of expenses
2. Running out of time to Wright the wrongs of the expenses saga
3. Can the BNP capitalise on the expenses scandle?

(C) jimjay

Unless you have been in a media-free bubble in the last week (such as the one artificially created in the BBC’s new-David Mitchell-presented-comedy) then you will have heard that on 3 March, Michael Foot, former leader of the Labour Party, died aged 96.

Tributes and accolades have since poured in from political allies, enemies, pundits and correspondents alike. No matter what has been said, whether “good, compassionate and dedicated to his country,” as by Gordon Brown, or, “a great speaker, a fantastic orator, a beautiful writer,” according to David Cameron, the consensus is that Michael Foot, whilst an unsuccessful leader (particularly in terms of electoral success) was a man of stern conviction and passionate ideology. This from an age where even the mainstream divisions between left and right represented fundamental differences of opinion in how society should be structured.

Michael Foot was active as a parliamentarian during some of the most politically turbulent periods of the 20^th Century. In his book Guilty Men he demonstrates solidarity with Churchill when criticising the policy of appeasement towards Nazi Germany in the 1930’s.

Quintessentially Old Labour (though perhaps by default), his death in March comes two days before the anniversary of his first Cabinet level appointment as Secretary of State for Employment on 5 March 1974. In government he played a key role in relations with the trade unions, for which, rather ironically as Michael White points out in his article in the Guardian, he was criticised for acting as their “appeaser”.

However, Michael Foot’s history is very well documented and there have been innumerable obituaries written already; examples can be found here, here and here, for those more interested in a biography. However, in this article I would like to look at how, in his own subtle and I daresay at times accidental way, Michael Foot, during his short 3 year stint as leader between 1980 and 1983, may have helped to save the Labour Party.

To begin with it is striking to consider the context in which Michael Foot emerged as Labour leader. The political landscape was one in which his party was in turmoil. The Winter of Discontent and the Scotland Act 1978 debacle had prompted a vote of no confidence in Callaghan’s government, which it subsequently lost. Foot’s biographer, Mervyn Jones stated:

“When the Labour Party loses power, the sequel is a rigorous, and in some quarters venomous, examination of the defects of the fallen government. There are accusations of missed opportunities, broken promises, decisions and policies that outraged the tenets of socialism, and in particular indifference to, or defiance of the opinions of the party rank and file and the resolutions of party conferences”

The Labour Party, rife with internal squabbles, factions and polarised opinions, was a cumbersome and in electoral terms an unwieldy beast. The struggles between the right of the Labour Party (Denis Healey) and its extreme left (Tony Benn) demanded the newly elected leader, Michael Foot (upon his election in 1980) to arbitrate the rather brutal tug of war.

The conclusion ultimately saw the Labour Party in 1983 suffer one of its worst electoral defeats and led to its manifesto being dubbed the longest suicide note in history.

Despite being described as a communist and being generally considered to the hard left of the Party; Foot is in fact seen by many, including those within what used to be the Militant Tendency, as the principle architect that led to what they might describe as the death of socialism within the Labour Party.

In 1980, Tribune, the journal for the Labour left, wrote a scathing attack on MT, and its editor was a close friend of Michael Foot. Indeed, MT’s front man, Tony Benn, locked horns with Michael Foot for much of the period, the latter urging Benn not to contest the 1981 Deputy Leadership election. They were also at odds over the Conservative Government’s invasion of the Falkland Islands, with Foot being supportive of the action. His agreement with this policy is often cited as another key reason why Labour failed to be competitive in the ’83 election.

In his book on Foot Kenneth Morgan concludes: “For all Foot’s inadequacies, it was vital that he should vanquish Benn. With Denis Healey’s help, he did.” The rationale behind this view is that Foot was, by all intense and purposes, a liberal. Foot’s family background and heritage was one that was closely associated with the Liberal Party, his father having been a Liberal MP. Morgan describes in his book a certain feeling of obligation amongst those liberals, like Foot, who had joined the Labour Party after witnessing the steady decline of the Liberal Party, to re-brand themselves as socialists through and through. The resurgence of militant socialism in the 1970’s and the ability of trade unions to muscle Labour governments caused Foot to wobble into line, using a rhetoric that, arguably, he never really believed.

As Tony Benn moved further away from parliamentary process as the sole mean of enacting social change (making a similar argument to that made by David Moss in his article: The Future of the British Left), Foot moved the Labour Party, finally, towards the social-democratic party that his protégé Neil Kinnock, and later Blair and Brown, would fully realise. The new Party would firmly believe in parliamentary process (as did Michael Foot) and would eliminate the word “redistribution” from its lexicon. Indeed, in a fascinating letter that Tony Blair wrote to Michael Foot in 1982 we see the roots of the direction that the Party would take under his leadership.

Foot’s Labour was a battleground that saw the emergence of a whole other Party in the SDP and that came to set Labour back on the path to success. Some would argue that far from “save” Labour, Michael Foot destroyed it, basically setting the foundations that would rid it of any powerful socialist voice.

Of course, I would not argue that Foot ever masterminded a grand putsch by Machiavellian means. Indeed, I believe that many of the events happened by accident. In lots of ways Foot did see eye to eye with the left of the Labour Party (his strong links with CND), however, the left-wing nature of the 1983 manifesto and the subsequent disastrous electoral defeat made the Party understand that it needed to move more towards social democratic policies in order to come back into office. Foot was full of passion, ideals and his time as leader stabilised the party and paved the way for its modernisation.

His legacy, however, for better or worse, is New Labour.

Related posts:

1. The Rime of the New Labour Party
2. New Labour: not new and not Labour
3. Hurtling towards defeat: Norwich North reflects the woes of the Labour government

(c) Bruce

I was one of those who suppressed a significant inward cheer when I heard of Duth MP Geert Wilders’ visit to the UK last week. Freedom of Speech 1, The Home Office 0. Wilders’ struggle against political correctness and what he terms ‘cultural relativism’ marks him out as a key figure among libertarians across Europe. He has subtly and intelligently exposed the growing impotence of government to the twin challenge of fundamentalist Islam and rampant left wing apologism, which has led to the Party for Freedom (founded by Wilders in 2005) being on course to win a majority of seats in the next Dutch Parliament.

Wilders is often accused of many things. The label ‘far right lunatic’ is applied to anyone these days who does not appease the politically correct movement. Wilders however, is far removed from those on the right he is incorrectly and unfairly linked with. The far right is made up of control freaks, nationalists, conspiracy theorists and anti-semites who believe in state control. Wilders’ party favour economic liberalism and a smaller state, support Israel and its war on terror, and favour tax cuts. It is against the existence of Islam in Holland, which you would understandably identify as quite extreme and disagreeable. And of course Wilders recently showed his film Fitna to a group at the House of Lords, inviting debate and discussion on the subject-matter.

Lord Pearson was just one who disagreed with the idea of banning the Koran, but the point is, extremists are intolerant of their opponents. Wilders is not against the expression of opposition to his views. Unlike those on the far left who have railed against him (and who come across as far more extremist than Wilders or his party.)

The mistake often made is to confuse strong opinions with extremism. The People’s Freedom Party you could argue, is tactless and blunt. They are not far right. Yet there is a tendency to label anyone who doesn’t dare to sugar coat their words with niceties and vague mentions of commitment to utterisms such as ‘diversity’ or ‘equality’, as an extremist. Then there is the film. Fitna.

There were various possible reactions to the film, which caused such outrage in Holland and beyond. A sensible move would have been to express agreement/disagreement or another nuanced position, such as the belief that banning the Koran might unfairly curtail the rights of free thinking and innocent Muslims. But to then point out that Wilders is entitled to his views and as they don’t encourage violence or hatred, that he has the right to express them. And if some people want to get upset about that then perhaps they must learn to be a bit less touchy. Of course you might disagree with their views, but no one forces you to vote for them (unlike actual parties of the far right and left when given power).

Unfortunately that didn’t happen. Precipitated by the Equality Gestapo, Wilders was castigated as an intolerant nationalist. But what is he really saying? ‘One century ago, there were approximately 50 Muslims in the Netherlands. Today, there are about 1 million Muslims in this country. Where will it end? We are heading for the end of European and Dutch civilisation as we know it.’ So he believes Holland is on course to be overrun by Muslims.

Factually he’s not wrong. It’s a fairly obvious trend. Immigration + giving birth = growing ethnic groups. Whether this is a bad thing or not is where you can become divorced from reasoned opinion and dive into racism.

You may think more Muslims coming into your country is not a bad thing, they enrich you culturally, or you quite like how things were and don’t want them to change. You might be an intolerant racist who can’t cope with more than ten coloured people in your life. What Wilders is trying to prove though, is that it’s possible to oppose Islam without being an opponent of Muslims. To Wilders, Muslims aren’t the problem. It’s their religion. He could be wrong (as I believe), but there is no law against being wrong. Or against being offensive. And Holland, the famous bulwark of liberalism with its lenient moral stance on most things, has come to somehow oppose the genuine expression of free opinion.

He is currently on trial in Holland for provoking racial hatred, likening the Koran to Mein Kampf, and calling for it to be banned. I don’t agree with him but I’ll defend his right to the death to hold an opinion that does not incite hatred. He has made it clear that he does not have a problem with any individual Muslim but with the Koran. Wilders is anti-violence, and pro liberty. He has identified the Koran as the source from which suicide bombings and Islamist violence originates. Of course this is too simplistic a view – there are many, indeed a majority of Muslims, who have contributed great things to our society and without whom we would be poorer.

But what precisely is he being charged with? Being tactless? Well I don’t think I’d be straying too far from the truth to suggest that those who oppose Wilders and his right to express his non-violent views and arguments are woolly lentil eating lilly livered surrender monkeys. But I don’t think that I should be charged for making such a statement.

Wilders though, in being charged, is simply able to make a clever, subtle and key point. He’s being charged on the grounds that his film Fitna, might cause racial hatred. His argument is that logically, therefore, the Koran should be banned because it too, might cause racial hatred. Intentionally or not, it is a set up that his opponents have fallen for spectacularly. And it demonstrates the self defeating point of the prosecution. By charging Wilders, they are supporting his very argument against the Koran. Of course in reality, where liberty has some kind of intrinsic social value, neither should be banned. To outlaw them both, or even either, would be the draconian measure.

Wilders has exposed the hypocrisy and naivety of those who seek to quell any objection to extremist Islamists. Of course we should make every effort not to smear the majority of decent Muslims whose religion is abused by extremists. But the increasingly authoritarian masses on the left who support the suppression of any view which might be deemed as offensive need to lighten up. And I would also suggest that they are the ones who need to be more tolerant.

The attempt to label anyone who dares to voice an opinion which is critical of Islam as an extremist of the far right is a vicious slur which threatens to quell disagreement from concerned moderates. It is a shameful way to conduct a debate when there is a worrying rise in tensions between the far right and far left that is a concern for the rest of us.

Any individual has to be comfortable with their own tolerance,and tolerance doesn’t mean not offending those who are different. Tolerance means accepting jokes and criticisms about our differences. The politically correct crowd seem most uncomfortable with themselves and it strikes me they aren’t entirely confident of their tolerance and seek to over compensate. That is why we constantly hear politicians going on about tolerance and diversity. Being committed to such values should go without saying and going on about it smacks of insecurity.

I know I’m tolerant of all colours, faiths, religions etc, and I can do this at the same time as expressing reservations about the appeasement of those Islamists who want to destroy the Western way of life. I’ve frequently taken advantage of being Jewish to make the kinds of jokes that some wrongly feel they cannot make about Jews. It’s not an offence to mock aspects of our religion, nor any other. It is not intolerant to speak out tactlessly against those people based on what they believe in, as opposed to who they are.

And this is why Wilders’ fight is an important one. We should fight for freedom of speech and the right to criticise and denounce ideas, theories and ideologies with which we disagree. We should accept the genuine objections to Wilders where they arise, but we must never acquiesce to the attempt to suppress the real and harmless freedom of thought that his party seeks to encourage. Wilders’ fight is a fight against intolerance and if we value our right to free speech we should join him. You don’t have to agree with Wilders to defend his right to his views.

Related posts:

1. Should we support the right to die?
2. The perils of immigration
3. Labour offers support, not symbolism, for families and couples

(c) altemark

Hello and welcome to my weekly round up of what you need to check out on the intertubes…

Avaaz.org

Avaaz.org is a new global web movement with a simple democratic mission: to close the gap between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want. Across the world, most people want stronger protections for the environment, greater respect for human rights, and concerted efforts to end poverty, corruption and war.

Technology and the internet have allowed citizens to connect and mobilize like never before. The rise of a new model of internet-driven, people-powered politics is changing countries from Australia to the Philippines to the United States. Avaaz takes this model global, connecting people across borders to bring people powered politics to international decision-making.

Brain food: does activism make you happy?

Marching in the drizzle against wars in far-off countries, writing letters protesting the government’s latest reactionary policy, sitting through interminable meetings that keep sprouting Any Other Business. It may be noble, but political activism is hardly a barrel of laughs. And yet it makes you happier.

Bad Journalism News Hunt Results

Last week, we hosted a News Hunt for Bad Journalism, to identify news reports and opinions with serious flaws — stories that we found inaccurate, biased, irresponsible or superficial.

We also took great care to feature stories representing political viewpoints from the left, right and center. What we wound up with is not a “worst of the worst” list, but a roundup of stories from a variety of media that our staff and community found to be examples of bad journalism.

The parties’ woolly thinking is putting our human rights at risk

Human rights do not prevent the punishment of those who are found guilty of a crime after a fair trial: rather, they defend all of us from summary justice, which is no justice at all. The very essence of human rights is that they are universal and inalienable. To suggest that they must be earned by good behaviour would fly in the face of every historical and international precedent.

Osama Bin Everywhere

An intriguing film that follows two intrepid explorers on a mad mission of blood, sweat and tears as they attempt to discover the sunnier side of Islam.

Armed with just a video camera and a laptop, junior doctor Farrah Jarral and filmmaker Masood Khan travel across the Muslim world in search of people who share the name Osama, finding out about their lives and asking each one, ‘What do you love?

My Daughter Grew another Head and other True Life Stories

The phenomenally successful True Life magazines, read by over 11 million each week, feature stories that are moving, bizarre and downright unbelievable.

Who is the first man in the UK to have a bum implant and why did he do it? What’s it like to be a friend of a jailed cannibal and why does he insist on sending recipes to his friend, who’s a chef?

Brain Gain

But it’s not the mind-expanding sixties anymore. Every era, it seems, has its own defining drug. Neuroenhancers are perfectly suited for the anxiety of white-collar competition in a floundering economy. And they have a synergistic relationship with our multiplying digital technologies: the more gadgets we own, the more distracted we become, and the more we need help in order to focus. The experience that neuroenhancement offers is not, for the most part, about opening the doors of perception, or about breaking the bonds of the self, or about experiencing a surge of genius. It’s about squeezing out an extra few hours to finish those sales figures when you’d really rather collapse into bed; getting a B instead of a B-minus on the final exam in a lecture class where you spent half your time texting; cramming for the G.R.E.s at night, because the information-industry job you got after college turned out to be deadening.

Related posts:

1. Best of the web 09/10/09
2. Best of the web 06/10/09
3. Best of the web 01/09/09

(c) World Economic Forum

The headlines over the last few weeks have been filled with allegations that Gordon Brown has bullied his staff. The publication of Andrew Rawnsley’s The End of the Party has stoked the speculation. The book, published this week,  contains allegations that the Prime Minister has physically abused his staff.

The story quickly escalated and before long the director of a national anti-bully charity had said they had received complaints from Number 10 staff. Then the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, spoke about the “forces of hell” being unleashed on him in August 2008 after he suggested the recession would be the worst for sixty years.

Darling seemed to implicate Brown’s inner circle of close advisors, apparently taunting Damien McBride when saying: “I’m still here and at least one of them is not.” Inevitably, this has focused the media on Gordon Brown’s leadership style, and whether these allegations make him unsuited to a high stress job, like that of Prime Minister.

Indeed, Gordon Brown’s premiership has been dogged by accusations that he has mistreated staff. In April 2009, a series of stories surfaced which accused the Prime Minister of throwing mobile phones at staff and even pulling a secretary from her seat. In June 2009, a series of Cabinet ministers resigned with some citing Gordon Brown’s behaviour as a reason for resignation. Most memorably, Caroline Flint said Brown had treated female ministers as “window dressing” and had blocked them out of important decision making.

For some, especially in the Conservative party, the stories are a laughing matter. Conservative blogger Iain Dale has made a list of ‘Gordon Brown’s top tantrums’. Actually numbers four and thirteen are really very amusing. There was also a question asked during Prime Minister Questions by Conservative backbencher Stephen Crabb; he asked what the Prime Minister woul be doing about bullying in the workplace, given reports of a senior whitehall boss throwing around phones and shoving his staff.

The question hit the mark perfectly. A visably irritated Brown stood up and gave his wooden reply: “Any complaints are dealt with in the usual manner.”

But for all the fun and games this is a deeply serious matter. For instance, back in 2007, Brown’s campaign for the Labour leadership was aiming to prevent any candidates standing against him, an ambition the campaign achieved ruthlessly.

There was speculation that John Reid might stand. Ultimately, he pulled out after a story in the Mail on Sunday accused him of sexually harrassing Dawn Primarolo when she was a new Member of Parliament in the 1980s. Primarolo, who in 2007 was Paymaster General, a junior Treasury minister, remains a loyal supporter of Brown. The article noted how John Reid’s “enemies in the Labour Party were queueing up to reveal why they considered him a liability.”

Ivan Lewis was dealt the same treatment. The Bury South MP and Health minister had suggested on several occasions in 2008 that Labour may have to review the leadership issue. He held onto his ministerial portfolio but not his reputation. Stories in September 2008 appeared which accused him of sexually harrassing a civil servant. Writing in The Observer, Nick Cohen argued that Brown’s allies had smeared Lewis as revenge for the veiled criticisms on Brown.

And who can forget the ‘smeargate’ scandal when the Downing Street aide Damien McBride was acused of fabricating smears to be used against members of the Conservative party.

But it’s not just Brown and the Labour Paty that resort to this kind of character assassination. Remember those stories about Steve Hilton’s arrest following a dispute at Birmingham New Street after the 2008 Conservative Conference? Suggestions that these may have followed an argument at the top of the Conservative party mean that Hilton could have been on the receiving end of the Conservatives’ own smears. This led Tim Montgomerie, editor of ConservativeHome, to tweet “Another day, another anti-Steve Hilton story. Someone is out to get him.”

In his book, The Political Animal, Jeremy Paxman describes the whips, those charged with keeping discipline in party ranks, behaving in ways that would be criminal were it outside parliament. Take, for instance, this anecdote:

“… he [Paul Marsden, Labour MP] found himself increasingly uneasy at the way the Blair government was aligning itself with George W. Bush’s military campaign in Afghanistan. In the course of trying to explain why Marsden was wrong, Armstrong [Hilary Armstrong, Labour Chief Whip] said or shouted, according to Marsden, ‘those that aren’t with us are against us’, ‘war is not a matter of conscience’, ‘it was people like you who appeased Hitler in 1938’… The verbal assault was followed followed by a whispering campaign suggesting that the cause of Marsden’s anxiety about the war was simply that he was insane. A few weeks later, he defected to the Liberal Democrats.”

Most of the time, the whips rely on offering treats to loyal MPs; places on fact finding missions to the Bahamas or perhaps a knighthood. However, Paxman details cases where the whips turn to little short of bribery, blackmail and even verbal or physical abuse to ensure MPs vote the right way. Often enforcing tight discipline where there is no manifesto commitment, or even in contradiction of the manifesto.

Political parties need loyalty from their members, but taking this too far can stifle debate and paralyse accountability. It’s impossible to see how reasoned argument or logic can ever triumph when the bruisers can smash their plans through parliament.

Just as troubling is the proliferation of smearing. Briefs against senior members of the same party jeopardises proper decision making at the top of government, even at Cabinet level. The danger is that governments may not even be able to hold themselves to account or properly scruinise their own actions.

This website is filled with contributions from young people, most of whom are passionate about politics. On one hand, it’s important for us to know what we’re getting into. But we can’t let ourselves be dragged into that model. We can never lose sight of the need to change the way that Westminster conducts itself.

Related posts:

1. Gordon must go!
2. The curse of the fag end PM
3. The phoney debate in Westminster

(C) D.M.

The recent split in the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), with party giant Lindsey German and 50 supporters leaving the party, continues a predictable pattern for the Left. Swiftly following the division of Respect into the mainstream Galloway/Yaqoob group and the SWP bloc, by now any leftist can write the expected follow-up in their sleep. “Why must we focus so on theoretical purity, rather than practical unity?… An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory!… [Obligatory call to arms]!” (more…)

Related posts:

1. The Debate: the future of British education
2. A bright future for India?
3. Fortress Britain? The danger of British isolationism

(c) DVIDSHUB

In Sun Tzu’s ‘The Art of War’, a revered treatise on military strategy written in the 6^th century BC, there is a proverb which still resonates today: ‘If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss’.

With Allied forces recently launching a major offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, Operation Moshtarak, do we have reason to be positive that this mission will be more successful than its previous incarnations; have we finally understood the ‘enemy’?

Since Operation Enduring Freedom began in October 2001 the language of success and failure has monopolised the market for discussion of the war. The Sunday Times recently remarked that if all goes well the latest offensive could ‘mark the beginning of the end of the insurgency’.

This paradigm of winning or losing fundamentally misunderstands the Afghan conflict and what we can hope to accomplish. There will be no grandstand finale, no declaration of total surrender or cordial signing of treaties to end the fighting. Media reporting to the contrary offers false hope and a path to disillusionment.

General Sir David Richards, Chief of the General Staff, commented in an interview in August last year that Britain’s mission in Afghanistan could last up to 40 years. His remarks were hijacked by some to support arguments for immediate or sharp withdrawal. Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, retorted at the time that such a commitment was unaffordable. This response misunderstands the General’s comments.

Sir Richards was making the case for a significantly reduced force – much like that which remains in Cyprus today 30 years after the Turkish invasion of the island – to support the political process, infrastructure projects, the provision of aid, and so forth. As unpalatable as the General’s prognosis might be, it is one of the most sensible things to have been said about the Afghan conflict by anyone involved.

There is a much clearer thread of logic behind the purpose of Operation Moshtarak than what we have seen in the preceding eight years. We have moved on from just ‘killing terrorists’, as Michael Williams recently described it in The Guardian. The endgame is now visible on the distant horizon. We have what banks lending capital to new enterprises refer to as an ‘exit plan’. That it has finally come, so despairingly late, is little comfort to the families of dead Allied soldiers and Afghans alike.

Furthermore, it is a reflection on the haphazard planning of the Afghan mission since its inception that our primary goal is now the responsible withdrawal of our troops in the short to medium term. The invasion of Afghanistan was a rushed response to the atrocities of 9/11. It was poorly planned and predicated on the paramount importance of capturing Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts.

Since then we have endured a litany of supposed reasons to justify our continued presence. The latest – and thus far most enduring – posits that by removing the Taliban and providing security for the nascent Afghan political institutions to take root we are denying a training ground to potential terrorists. We are being proactive in the security of our citizens, the Government dutifully chants.

The July 7 bombings were carried out by four individuals of Pakistani and Jamaican descent raised and educated in Leeds and the surrounding area. And those convicted of the attempted bomb attacks on July 25 2005 were of Eritrean, Somalian, and Ghanaian heritage. The July 7 bombers explicitly cited the British Government’s involvement in the Iraq War as justification for their actions.

The fight for our security is not to be had in the dusty dunes of Marjah. Those who choose to travel to Afghanistan to receive training have already been radicalised elsewhere. Far from being a preventative force our continued presence is a source of resentment to Afghans and the Middle East as a whole.

Winston Churchill was a war reporter for the Daily Telegraph in Afghanistan in 1897. His final correspondence proved alarmingly prescient: “Never return to fight again in Afghanistan or the whole Muslim world will turn against the British.”

It’s not a case of the war being unaffordable or obscenely expensive, but of a misallocation of resources. Why and where are young Muslims being radicalised? How can we identify them sooner and effectively tackle their potentially malign intentions? These are the questions to which we should be devoting our efforts towards understanding and answering.

Conventional warfare is a dated concept held by those desperately longing for a return to the days when the bad guys wore one colour of uniform and the good guys another. We need to refocus our efforts where they can be most effective in preventing the cancerous growth of radicalism. Operation Moshtarak can only bring success of a limited nature because ultimately it is looking in the wrong place.

Related posts:

1. Lessons from Iraq: What the successes and failings of the surge suggest for Afghanistan
2. The Vibe Debate: Operation Cast Lead, a year on.
3. Afghanistan and the role of India

(c) Tom Raftery

The question of how to deal with unethical business is back on the   agenda. Last week brought to the fore the ongoing controversy over British based aluminium company Vedanta Resources’ plans to build a bauxite mine on an Indian mountain top, to the detriment of the livelihood and health of the resident Dongria Kondh tribe.

Damage has already been done. The accompanying aluminium refinery which Vendanta have built at the foot of the mountain has caused air and water pollution which has been documented by the local health board. Amnesty International has provided testimonies of local people in the Lanjigarh area who no longer bathe in the water supply after having experienced rashes and blisters.

Such health implications are only one of the ways in which Vedanta has shown gross disregard for the humanitarian consequences of their project. If the mine goes ahead the livelihood of the Dongria Kondh could be in jeopardy. They depend on the hills surrounding the mountain for crops and water. This threat has prompted many activists to call Vedanta’s project a human rights violation.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation is the latest in a string of high profile investors to pull out of Vedanta’s project as a result of human rights and environmental concerns. The Church of England, Norwegian Pension Fund, and investment managers Martin Currie, have all sold their stakes on ethical grounds. Joanna Lumley added celebrity weight to the cause, narrating a video about the Dongria Kondh’s plight on Survival International’s website.

Thanks to the growing public awareness of this case, not all hope need be lost for the Dongria Kondh. But in an age of so-called corporate social responsibility, cases such as these remain plentiful, and many are less successful at generating popular condemnation in the West.

The catchphrase of 21^st century business, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) draws both applause and derision. CSR encompasses taking responsibility for the impact of business development on local communities. This can include creating education facilities for local employees’ children, guaranteeing fair trade, or giving aid to local organizations. But it is difficult not to take a cynical approach to companies which band about their good-guy credentials as they rake in the profits across the globe. Many companies are accused of engaging CSR for dubious motives, particularly as a means of distracting the public from the company’s ethical breaches.

What to do with a company like Vedanta, who doesn’t even think it worth their while to engage in CSR on this project for the publicity? Certainly, withdrawal of investment from companies such as Martin Currie sends out a powerful message. But as a FTSE 100 company, this may not be enough to make Vedanta reappraise its approach.

The Guardian’s Seth Freedman has suggested that companies that breach ethical standards be subject to similar regulation as those that breach market regulations: i.e. their shares are suspended. In the anti-big business atmosphere of the post-financial crisis, this is an idea that would certainly have popular backing. It is difficult however to envisage government support for such a proposal, particularly, I might venture, under a new Tory regime which, according to some candidates, promises to “trust the individual, not the state.”

Of course, establishing just what counts as a breach of ethical standards is an enormous task. The OECD has done a great deal to try and regulate corporate behaviour over the last 30 years, and has issued its Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises in an effort to define a universal standard of ethical responsibility. But these are recommendations only, adhered to on a voluntary basis.

Much of the case against Vedanta seems to be unarguable. The fact that the company did not even conduct a consultation with the local community about their project is perhaps their biggest CSR failure. Similarly, endangering people’s health through polluting their water supply is a legal issue as well as an ethical one.

More difficult, however, is the delicate issue of whether or not there is an ethical duty to honour a people’s claim that trees cannot be cut or land cultivated at the top of the hill because they believe that their deity lives there, as the Dongria Kondh tribe hold about the mountain in question. If the project under scrutiny was a vital renewable energy plant, or a climate research centre, such cultural claims would, rightly, be more closely held up to scrutiny.

The point is that many aspects of ethics in business and CSR are easy to relativise. The content of any institutionalized list of standards to which all business must comply would be contested from the start. Of course, this difficulty should not prevent condemnation of the kind of abuse of people and planet which this Vedanta project is causing. But it looks likely that a change in culture can only come about through concentrated popular pressure and bad publicity on a case-by-case basis, rather than a one-size-fits-all rulebook.

Related posts:

1. The truth about Corporate Social Responsibility
2. Keeping Iran in the spotlight
3. NHStress?

(c)net_efekt

From February 22 to March 7 it’s Fairtrade Fortnight in the UK. This movement (or concept) has existed since the 80s and the FAIRTRADE label was launched in 2002.  You now see a wide variety of products on the shelves supporting the label and most people you ask will be able to tell you what Fairtrade is. The debate arises when we ask how much trust we can put in the FAIRTRADE label when companies that are frequently highlighted for their bad behaviour apply it to their products. (more…)

Related posts:

1. In defence of Trade Unions
2. Why green campaigners should focus on the developing world
3. Reform the UN for the sake of world peace

(c) altemark

Hello and welcome to my weekly review of what was good on the intertubes during the last 7 days.

Southampton man cut free after getting penis stuck in steel pipe

A MAN who got his genitalia stuck in a steel pipe had to be cut free by eight firefighters using an industrial grinder.

The heavy duty cutting gear had to be used to remove the three-inch long hollow pipe after medics were unable to release it.

Commons perk for disgraced ex-MPs

Such a perk — which was previously granted only to long-serving MPs — would be regarded as highly unusual in most working environments. Critics point out that a significant number of the ex-MPs are likely to be hired by lobbyists seeking to influence Westminster. This is borne out by documents released under freedom of information laws after a two-year battle between the Commons and Spinwatch, a pressure group that campaigns for transparency in lobbying.

The Coffee Party

MISSION: The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.

Under attack

Trapped between the shore on one side and the warm water on the other, sardines swim straight towards the enermy. They fall back to their instinctive defence mechanism and shoal together in a huge mass to confuse their predators. But the dolphins have a strategy which turns this ball of fish to their advantage.

How money can distort the democratic process

Labour Party activists will be alarmed to hear not only that the Conservatives have amassed a £10m fund to fight the coming election but that they have already spent an additional £6m preparing the ground in just 117 of the constituencies which are regarded as the key swing seats. The drive has been masterminded by the party’s deputy chairman, the Belize-based billionaire, Lord Ashcroft, who has bankrolled the Tories for the past three decades.

1 out of every 3 killed by U.S. drone in Pakistan is a civilian

32% of those individuals obliterated in northwestern Pakistan by U.S. drones over the past 6 years have been civilians, according to a recent report by the New America Foundation which compiled and analyzed the results of 114 drone strikes that killed over 1,000 people.

Why did a Chinese tycoon buy 5,000 copies of Cherie Blair’s new book?

It is a riddle which at first appears as baffling as the most inscrutable Chinese puzzle.

Why would a man with a fortune of at least £100 million spend his money on 5,000 copies of Cherie Blair’s autobiography?

That is precisely what Chinese property tycoon Miles Kwok has done, prompting bemusement in political and literary circles in Britain.

The Boy Who Heard Too Much

He was a 14-year-old blind kid, angry and alone. Then he discovered that he possessed a strange and fearsome superpower — one that put him in the cross hairs of the FBI

Related posts:

1. Best of the web 01/02/10 – 07/02/10
2. Best of the web 07/02/10 – 21/02/10
3. Afghanistan and the role of India