Author: David Landon Cole

New EDM for the Iraqi employees

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Lynne Featherstone has tabled a new EDM on the situation around the Iraqi employees. It reads:

That this House recognises the courage of Iraqis who have worked alongside British troops and diplomats in southern Iraq, often saving British lives; notes that many such Iraqis have been targeted for murder by Iraqi militias in Basra, and that an unknown number have already been killed, whilst many others are in hiding; further recognises that many Iraqis who have worked for fewer than 12 months for the UK are threatened by death squads; and therefore calls upon the Prime Minister to meet the UK’s moral obligations by offering resettlement to all Iraqis who are threatened with death for the “crime” of helping British troops and diplomats.

To date, it has been signed by eleven members of the Labour Party, two members of the Conservative Party, eleven Liberal Democrats, one member of the SDLP and one member of the DUP. The text of the EDM and the up-to-date list of signatories are on the Parliamentary website.

If your MP doesn’t appear on the list I link to above, please write to them asking them to sign the EDM. It’s number 401; there’s more information on EDMs in Parliament’s glossary. If you don’t know who your MP is, you can look it up with your post code on Write to Them. Their address is House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA. Be polite and be courteous.

Further information is on the indefatigable Dan Hardie’s blog.

xD.

A Blogger’s Manifesto by Erik Ringmar

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Erik Ringmar, a good friend of mine from the LSE, has written what, to my knowledge is a double first with his book, A Blogger’s Manifesto. It is the first academic study of blogs and it is the first book about blogging that isn’t about how public relations people should take advantage of blogging, how you can make money from your blog or presents a collection of articles from blogs.

For me, A Blogger’s Manifesto has three themes; one, that saying that ‘blogging is good for free speech’ only fits in with one of the three interpretations of freedom of speech; secondly, that the implications of blogging range far beyond the (somewhat self-important) political blog; and that blogging can make our world better, but that it requires people to be less sensitive and a bit more in touch with reality.

Erik has, unfortunately, experience of being ‘dooced’. The story is recounted on Wikipedia and The Guardian, but I would like to say again that I think George Phillip and Howard Davies massively over-reacted, damaged the LSE’s reputation and cost its students a good lecturer and a good teacher. It colours his interpretations, but not unjustifiably so. As I have said in the past, freedom of speech, if it means anything, means having to hear things you don’t want to hear. It also means that other people have to hear what you don’t want them to hear.

1. Three promises
Erik very succinctly describes three variations on free speech justification; the republican rights of man, the liberal against restriction of freedom and the radical that emphasises access to information as much as freedom of speech. The great improvement that blogging brings is not that anybody come say what they want, but that anyone has access to unmediated information if they want it; unmediated by politicians, companies, editors or anyone else. It requires an educated citizenry, but it offers the chance for people to find about what matters to them, be it transport policy or embroidery. It is a fascinating way of looking at free speech and implicitly asks what anyone who restricts access to information and the internet has to hide.

2. Blogging beyond politics
The political bloggers tend, I think, to overstate their own importance. We are on the verge of unseating the ‘dead-tree press’ and heralding a new era of political engagement. We are not there yet, and the changes will most likely occur from the bottom-up rather than by a decapitation of existing filters.

The modal average blogger is, it would appear, a teenaged girl and people blog about everything – literally, everything. Whatever it is that someone finds interesting, someone will be blogging about it. One of the things people do most often is work and so it is not surprising that work comes up a lot in peoples’ blogs, whether it be Petite Anglaise, Dooce or, indeed, Erik Ringmar. The way companies react tell us a lot about them; they seek criticism in general and blogs in particular as a threat to be jumped on. The case of the LSE is instructive. I did my undergraduate degree at LSE and had a great time. I would recommend the LSE to anyone. That does not mean it is perfect; there are areas where it could improve. Erik highlighted some of them; the response to his speech was instructive; the fact that someone would give a warts-and-all representation of the LSE made the good more believable. Consumers, as students are increasingly treated, can see through PR but find honesty appealing. This applies to all consumers, broadly defined.

3. Hear my voice
There are risks associated to blogging. It gives a platform to anyone, not just people we are willing to be heard. Not only does this allow this allow the deeply unpleasant to express themselves, it means that the vulnerable can be targeted. The answer to both problems is education. In the case of the vulnerable, it is education about the risks of the internet and, given that people tend to ignore advice, how to remain as safe as possible. In the case of the deeply unpleasant, the most effective countervailing force is an educated citizenry with the ability to critique information presented as fact; these are skills that should be developed in school but can be developed later.

If there is more information out there, it is more likely to concern any given person or organisation; this seems to explain the paranoia among some companies and the raft of PR companies offering services for blogging and other social media. The message that comes through for me from Erik’s book is that blogging is not ‘there’… yet. It is growing and finding its voices – and it’s voices in the plural, not voice. The utilitarian justification for free speech that Mill outlines in On Liberty stands and organisations would do well to foster constructive criticism. They have much to gain.
Erik has an engaging style of writing and his breadth of knowledge and natural inquisitiveness, coupled with some sour personal experiences and the resultant support, make it a book that starts firing t. I thoroughly recommend that anyone interested in anything more than the superficie of blogging read this book. It is available for free download on Erik’s website and is published by Anthem Press and is available on Amazon.

xD.

PS – I declare a relevant interest here, as I sent information to the author for the book and was firmly ‘on his side’ during the disagreement at LSE.

Political party funding

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Sunny asks four questions.

1) Is Labour still the vehicle for liberal-left ideals?
2) Or is that only because it is in power?
3) What should be the future for party financing?
4) How can any grass-roots liberal-left movement have impact?

Here are my answers.

1. Is Labour still the vehicle for liberal-left ideals?

Yes. It has the history, the recognition and the systems in place. If we look at one of the alternatives that has been mooted on LC, the
Green Party, we see that it is only starting to make serious headway in electoral terms and that it continues to struggle with finding a
consolidated public voice.

Equally, the emotional attachment to Labour for many people is strong. Some people have the opposite emotion, and would quite happily go to a
Respect or SWP, while some would go for an Orange Book flavour of LibDem. There can be no doubt that trying to change vehicle would lead
to the liberal/left going in lots of different directions and giving the Tories almost free rein.

It does not mean that it cannot be the only body, but the single issue campaigns that I suspect many of us identify with stand a better chance of having effect with a single party to promote them at Parliament.

2. Or is that only because it is in power?

The Government is starting ? just starting ? to give the impression of being in Government but not in power. However, devolution to Wales,
Scotland, Northern Ireland and London, and to a lesser extent local councils, means there are other things for which to fight. I would say
that it is a lot easier to make changes when in power than when out of power. Even if Labour were out of power at Westminster, it would remain the best chance of regaining it.

3. What should be the future for party financing?

I am not an expert on the law, but I’ll give some thoughts; they largely follow on from Hayden Phillips’ report.

Firstly, there must be a hard cap on expenditure; donations are a trickier issue, but the arms race that drives the search for donations
could be limited and so make concentrating on a strategy of more, smaller donors more attractive. Labour would like to see less corporate donations to the Tories, and the Tories less to Labour from the Unions. As these are red lines that the parties won’t cross, it seems to me that the funding issue is only going to move slowly and with tinkering at the edges; expenditure is a different matter.

Secondly, if there is to be further state funding, it must be on a capped, donation-matched basis. I remain very dubious about the effect
that state funding has on preventing political parties dying out and being formed.

Thirdly, spending outside of elections must be included in a cap. It is too easy to saturate an area before a Parliament is dissolved.

Fourthly, the parties must realise that they are going to have to change their advertising strategies and see that they will not have
the financial wherewithal to run campaigns like a commercial organisation would. This means less money on billboards and more on
supporting local parties to go door-to-door.1

I was Treasurer of my CLP for two years and had to report certain donations if they fell above a given value. It is a time-consuming job
and one consideration must be for any changes to be practicably implementable by volunteers.

Ultimately, it must be connected to a cultural change in campaigning for it to have effect.

4. How can any grass-roots liberal-left movement have impact?

The grass-roots liberal-left movement should be the Labour Party. I think there is a degree of putting the cart before the horse on this
one. The question is one of engagement; how does the Labour Party get more people to give small amounts of money? I would say that
The Labour Party probably can’t, but that the Anytown Constituency Labour Party can. Achieving this requires members of the
Labour movement – the Party, the Co-Op movement, the Unions – to turn up to meetings, to take an interest in internal party democracy and to show that there is a ‘market’ for this. It also requires people nearer the top of the Labour Party (and here I’m thinking of the elder
statespeople of the PLP) to convey both the message and the weight behind the message.

A brief note; over at Liberal Conspiracy, there is mention of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act. It has only a few lessons
for the UK because candidates rather than parties attract funding in the US; because of the winner-takes-most effect of the presidential
system; and because of the Supreme Court’s ability to overrule decisions made by the Congress. There is also greater public acceptance of large donations. The main thing to learn, as McCain said at the time, is that it is not possible to ever come up with a definitive set of laws as people are always looking for loopholes. Vigilance and adaptability are key.

xD.

1 – I think measures to reduce the distortion towards marginal seats would be useful, but that is a different kettle of sustainably-caught fish.

The Oxford Union, a Racist and a Holocaust Denier

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The Oxford Union is a private debating society; only members can attend its proceedings. Its appeal for speakers is in being able to influence some of the top minds in the UK and the world and, of course, being recognised as worthy of such an opportunity. It does not matter a hoot whether people outside the intelligentsia have heard of it, particularly as it is frequently confused with OUSU, the Students’ Union, and that its finances are secure thanks to the formation of the Oxford Literary and Debating Union Trust.

The invitation to Nick Griffin and David Irving were not ever about free speech; they were about raising publicity for the current administration of the society. There was no facility for Messrs Griffin and Irving’s comments to be disseminated; consideration was not given to those who would speak against this pair of pukes – viz. an email from Luke Tryl of October 15th – beforehand.

Equally, Griffin and Irving are the worst people to choose to argue for freedom of speech; not because of their repulsive politics, but because they are too easily open to arguments against the person rather than the arguments they propose. Furthermore, they well know that few people at the Oxford Union will give two hoots for anything that a thug of a politician and a poor historian will say; however, the boon to the BNP and its fellow travellers will, I think, be substantial. If the Oxford Union wanted to have an informative debate for its members on freedom of speech, I would have thought that John Gray, Inayat Bunglawala and Ayaan Hirsi Ali would have been better speakers; controversy for its own sake is a poor substitute for radical thought and honest learning.

I said at the beginning of this post that the invitation was about publicity, not free speech. Perhaps that is unfair, and I should attribute it to incompetence rather than malice. Either way, I hope that Mr Tryl, who appears to have a nascent political career, takes a step back to consider the effects that the actions he and his associates have undertaken will have. The message that will be taken away from this is that a bad politician and a bad historian are people who are worth listening to.

Oxford Councillor Antonia Bance has one take on it; Skuds has a rather different one.

xD.

Letting them die

Posted on by David Landon Cole

As many people will be aware, the Government has made only the barest of concessions towards helping Iraqis employed by British forces in Iraq who are being hunted down by death squads who view them as collaborators. Regardless of your opinion or lack thereof on the war in Iraq (for the record, I opposed it), Britain has a responsibility to these people that it put in harm’s way. I’m asking you to read this post, blog about it yourself and write to your MP.

Dan Hardie, the campaign co-ordinator, has had emails from three people claiming to be Iraqi former employees of the British Government. The ISPs confirm that one email was definitely sent from Damascus, the others from satellite networks serving the Middle East. He have spoken to two of them on the phone, using Iraqi telephone numbers. A Times journalist in the region tells Dan that two of them are certainly authentic: she has been in contact with them herself. The other has sent Dan scanned copies of his British Army IDs, and photographs of him with smiling soldiers. I believe all three are who they say they are. All three say that they and their former colleagues are still hiding from the death squads or dodging Syrian policemen.

The most eloquent arguments come from the Iraqis themselves. Here’s an email exchange between Dan and one of the Iraqis.

1) Are you still in Iraq? (I know that this information must be kept secret so that you are not put at risk.)
‘Yes, I’m still hidden in somewhere in the hell of Basra.’

2) Is there any reason you cannot travel to the British Army base at Basra Airbase to ask for asylum?
‘Of course, we cannot travel to BIA (Basra International Airbase) due to the militia keep watched all the ways to BIA and they got their own fake check points there although, we claimed for asylum through the internet (we sent our application to the claim office at BIA) . But we afraid that the British are going to take a long time to process our claims also we are very worried if they will offer just some money instead of asylum, please sir inform all the British people that we looking for asylum and just the asylum will save our lives, also we can’t travel to Syria anymore to claim for asylum there as the Syrian government issued new conditions for Iraqis who want to travel to their country.’

3) Can you tell me how and when the militias threatened you?
‘In 2006 I have threatened by militia that hated me because I work and help coalition forces in Iraq, I told my bosses about that but they said we can’t do anything for you because we have nothing to do with civilian and we don’t have any army rules or orders to help you, then I continued my daily work with British army, few days later the militia attacked my house trying to catch me but I was at the work at that time, they beaten my family and told them: we want your son or we will kill all of you!!!!

Since that day I decided to leave my job and change my home place but until this moment the militia trying to find and kill me, I’m always changing my place trying to hidden from them, they know that I left my job but they don’t care, they just want to kill me they called me collaborator and traitor and they asked everybody know me about my place, they told them: anyone know anything about [name] he should tell us immediately and also they said: we will never give up until we catch [name].

‘They work for ministry of interior so they controlled most of government departments and they work under that cover.’

4) Do you have any family members who are also threatened by militias or who depend on you? If so, how many of them are there and how old are they?
‘Of course, my family depends on me especially in the finance side as I’m the older son between seven sons and daughters they got, on other hand my parents cannot working as they are very old.’

5) Do you have written testimonials from British Army officers saying that you have worked for them? What are their names and what Regiments do they come from? Can you send me scanned copies of the testimonials? What date in 2003 did you start working for the British?
‘Yes, I have recommendations from high ranks British army personnel and I will send it for you in the next few hours and you will see in your eyes all the details you need.
I started in the beginning of the war with Commandos (in 30 of March 2003) then continued with 23 Pioneer Regt, and in 08 / 07 / 2003 I have joined the Labour Support Unit (LSU) as an office Manager.’

Another employee is in Syria, and is applying for aid from the British Embassy in Damascus. He can prove that he has worked for the British for over 12 months, after the magic date of 1st January 2005. But he isn’t safe, either. He is staying illegally in Syria, having considerably over-run the 15-day visa on which he entered the country. He tells me ‘If I see any syrian officer i really get fear , becuase of my expired visa.’ Colleagues of this man are also hiding in Damascus and are even worse off than he is, because they don’t meet the perverse and arbitrary time stipulations. The British Government, which asked us to accept that it was invading Iraq in part because of its horror at the brutality of the Ba’athist dictatorship, is now perfectly happy to leave its own former employees to the mercies of Syrian Ba’athists. One of his emails follows.

‘I know 4 former interpreters worked less than a year (for the British: DH), but they went to the embassy and they filled the paper with out telling the guards we had worked for less than a year. The syrian guards have got instructions from the embassy (British Embassy in Damascus: DH), that (they) do not give that form to any interpreter who worked for British less than a year or any former interpreter who worked in 2003 and fled to syria before 2005.’

You’ve heard this before, but it’s now more important than ever. The last round of emails, letters and pestering meant the Government acknowledged the problem exists, but its response was ill thought-out and grossly inadequate. It only takes a moment to contact your MP. Below are some talking points that you might like to use in an email and/or print letter; do chase them for an answer. Remember to be polite and courteous; an insulted MP will not raise this matter with Ministers, and that will lead to more avoidable deaths. When you get an answer, email Dan at danhardie.blog@gmail.com and let me know what they said. Dan is in direct contact with Iraqi employees.

Your MP’s address is The Houses of Parliament, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA.
His or her email address is probably SURNAMEINITIAL@parliament.uk (eg BROWNG@parliament.uk ).

Talking points:

  • On October 9th David Miliband announced that the British Government would assist former employees in Iraq, so long as they had worked for it after 1st January 2005 and for 12 months or more. That abandons several hundred Iraqis who have been targetd for murder because they worked for the British before that date- and in 2004 fighting between the Mahdi Army and the British was at its peak- or because they worked for less than that period, often leaving their jobs at the end of a British battalion’s six-month tour. The British Government must help Iraqi employees on the basis of the risk they face, not according to an arbitrary time stipulation. This only affects a few hundred Iraqis, whom we are well able to shelter, and for whom we have a direct moral responsibility.
  • Even those Iraqi employees who qualify for assistance are not being properly assisted. Iraqis in Basra are not able to apply via the British Army in Basra Interational Airbase, since it is ringed with militia checkpoints. Iraqi ex-employees in Damascus are being screened by Syrian policemen guarding the British Embassy and delayed by lengthy bureaucratic procedures when they apply for asylum, although many of them are illegally overstaying their Syrian visas and face deportation back to Iraq.
  • A blogger called Dan Hardie is directly in touch with a number of Iraqi employees via email and phone. He is willilng to brief MPs- as concisely as possible- either over the phone or via email. He can be reached at danhardie.blog@gmail.com

xD.

Letter to the Guardian

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I am delighted to have had a letter published in today’s Guardian; it’s the second one down on this page. It reads

Your article (It was murder: the Chávez version of liberator’s death, November 17) neglects the importance of Bolívar’s last days to any interpretation of his impact on Latin America. Reviled by the educated classes and with just a few friends who remained loyal, Bolívar was leaving for Europe when he died. He considered himself a failure, believing that “those who have served the cause of the revolution have ploughed the sea”.
David Cole
London

First published letter. The original article is here.

xD.

Conspiratorial liberals

Posted on by David Landon Cole

As many people will have seen, some of the great and the good of the liberal/left of the UK blogosphere have come together to form an uberblog called Liberal Conspiracy, named with tongue firmly in cheek.

It’s raisons d’être are, I think, threefold: firstly, to give the liberal/left region of the UK polity a place to discuss things amongst itself without harping from the right; secondly, to come up with a set of discussion points to frame the former; and thirdly (I believe) to show that there is a problem with the blogosphere and to show a potential solution.

The problem is that an awful lot of comments on some of the bigger, better-known blogs are, frankly, inane. There is a lot of name-calling, fatuous remarking and not very much engaging with argument. In short, people want to rant but not to listen and try to convince without being prepared to be convinced. I had been thinking about writing that the best responses to posts were not in comments but in other posts that linked back to the original. Looking at Liberal Conspiracy, though, I begin to change my opinion. There is actual debate, with give and take, going on in the comments on each post.

I declare an interest here. I commented here about justifications for hate-crime laws on a post from Sunny of Pickled Politics and these comments were posted by Sunny on Liberal Conspiracy here. I’m delighted to have someone think my comments are worth reproducing and to have them on a blog like Liberal Conspiracy, so thank-you Sunny.

The name of the website reminds me of a mailing list amongst the right at LSE – the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, aka the Very Right-Wing Conspiracy.

xD.

Luke Pollard for South West Devon

Posted on by David Landon Cole

My friend Luke Pollard has been selected as Labour’s prospective Parliamentary candidate for South West Devon, standing against the Tory Gary Streeter. I’m delighted that Luke is standing in the county from where he hails. He’s a hard-working candidate with the experience, both professional and campaigning, to make a real difference to the area. His knowledge of all levels of political life will prove, I’m sure, invaluable.

His website is at lukepollard.net.

xD.

Tasteless money-grabbing

Posted on by David Landon Cole

The Tories have failed to prevent an £8.3m bequest to them being overturned on the grounds of mental illness. The details are unimportant; while I feel that it’s unfortunate that the Conservatives felt the need to contest what seems, prima facie, a clear, if tragic, case. It is not, though, the Conservatives that, in this instance, I am accusing of ‘tasteless money-grabbing’; rather, it is the system that forces parties to go after every last penny.

I am no advocate of state funding of parties, but the financial situation of the parties is parlous, opening them to undue influence from single individuals. A good start would be for the parties to stop advertising on billboards. Quite apart from, as Adlai Stevenson put it, that “the idea that you can merchandise candidates for high office like breakfast cereal is the ultimate indignity to the democratic process”, I’m not sure that it’s effective; the image a party presents is developed over the parliament preceding an election, not in the few short weeks leading up to it. It may even be self-defeating, as people are probably smart enough to realise that if political parties believe they can secure votes with a clever logo or a catchy slogan, they’re probably not going to be doing detailed, community-based policy formulation.

A rather better solution would be for the parties – all parties – to focus on membership. We could all learn a useful lesson from Howard Dean, who, with average donations of less than US$80 in the famously moneyed world of American politics, beat the previous Democratic record for single-quarter donations by US$4.5m (the previous record of US$10.3m having been held since 1995 by one William Jefferson Clinton). Beyond the financial factor, I am of the opinion that one friend saying that they are a member of a party and are voting for it is worth more than a party political broadcast and that a knock at the door – which requires motivated people to do the knocking – is worth more than an election address.

Of course, to do that, you have to show that it’s worth the party member’s while; I’d suggest, for various reasons that we’re all familiar with, that this is not happening at the moment.

xD.