Category: Politics

Things not to do when you’re sixteen points behind

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Number One – be divisive and pursue old vendettas.

There cannot be many things within the Labour party that would unite Luke Akehurst and Peter Kenyon. Charles Clarke has managed to find one. Strangely enough, ordinary Labour party members don’t think that now is the opportune moment, shortly before local and London elections, to start talking about a coup within the party. Charles Clarke seems to be doing the rounds, days before an election, and talking about getting rid of Brown.

I do not think, even if the upcoming elections went badly, that we should change our leader. Even if, however, I thought that was the case, now would be just about the worst possible time to broach the subject. It can wait a few days.

Luke makes a good point at the post I like to above: “prolonged speculation would be the worst possible scenario”. Indeed, as we saw over the election that wasn’t, prevarication is just damaging. I hope that Charles Clarke – if the story reported in the Independent is correct – is taken to one side and told in no uncertain terms that his day has passed. I wrote some time ago about Clarke’s antics – September of 2006 – and a bizarre hatred he seems to have for Mr Brown. It does no-one, least of all the party, any favours.

There is something going on around a suggestion from Calder Valley CLP that, when there is a vacancy for leader, the minimum number of nominating MPs should be reduced from 12.5% to 7%. I probably support the measure as it should be pretty bloody difficult to fire a leader and should certainly be out of the reach of a small group of malcontents (and just for once I don’t mean the Campaign Group) but choice shouldn’t be unnecessarily restricted when there is a vacancy. It seems that some of the promoters are from the John McDonnell campaign, although that doesn’t make much difference either way.

xD.

PS Thanks to Alice for spotting the silly error deliberate mistake in the title

The Counter-terrorism Bill and coroners

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Section 42 (4) (b) (ii) of the Counter-Terrorism Bill, as it seeks to extend detention without charge to forty-two days, has attracted some considerable criticism. Unfortunately, it is not the only part of the bill that is, at best, distinctly ill-considered and with considerable scope for abuse. Serious consideration must also be given to clauses 64 and 65, which can be found on page 50 of this PDF of the bill. Clause 64 allows the Home Secretary to issue a certificate requiring an inquest to be held without a jury or discharging a jury mid-inquest. Clause 65 allows the Home Secretary to discharge a coroner and appoint a coroner of their own choosing. The two powers can be exercised simultaneously; that is to say, the Home Secretary would have the power, if they thought the an inquest would embarrass the government, to discharge the jury and the coroner and have the inquest started again without a jury and with a coroner of the Home Secretary’s choosing.

Inquests are unusual in English law in that they are the only inquisitorial proceeding, as opposed to the adversarial form that every other legal proceeding takes.

It is worth remembering that there are two main objections to the provision for forty-two days’ detention provided for in S42 (4) (b) (ii). The first is deontological; the period of time that any entity or person acting under the law (ultimately dependent on Weber’s definition of the state) should detain anyone else should be kept to the absolute minimum as the potential exists that, before trial, the person is innocent and so their detention is unjust. It is the same logic that insists justice should be speedy; detention before charge should be speedy1.

The second is utilitarian. While I’m sure some people will disagree with me1, I do not think that the current government is an evil monster that wants to abolish all our civil liberties. However, I do not think that the current government should hand a carte blanche to every single, future government. The risks and potential harms of the 42 days’ detention, and the deeply unsatisfactory safeguards – that people could be taken off the street if they threatened a future government (say, 41 days before an election) and held incommunicado – far outweight any potential benefit. Liberty make that point very well in this briefing document (PDF).

I feel the same applies to S64 and S65. Firstly, the idea that someone in the executive should be able to wander into a judicial proceeding and change things is opening the process up to abuse. It is different from making provisions for national security – things can be heard in camera – and, in any case, it should not be possible to change things in the middle of the proceeding, but only a priori. Secondly, the risks are significant as they would allow interference, as I have said, and set a worrying precedent for expansion.

If nothing else, connections will be made between a stroppy Oxfordshire coroner, a move to Gloucestershire for repatriating the bodies of people who have died in Afghanistan and Iraq, a stroppy Gloucestershire coroner and then this bill; it does look as if the Government is trying to cover its tracks.

xD.

1 – the definition, not the blogger.

Nadine Dorries on abortion

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Nadine Dorries has posted another attack on an MP who supports abortion encouraging people to vote solely on that issue; this time, it is Barbara Follett.

In order to receive funding they have to support Labour party values, and be pro-abortion

This means that any potential candidate of faith, ie, Jewish, Christian, Sikh, Muslim or Hindu would not qualify, which makes the list discriminatory

Correct me if I’m wrong, but that says that every person of religious faith opposes abortion. Quite apart from the insult to every religion other than the five mentioned (id est is never the same as exempli gratia; they mean ‘that is to say’ and ‘for the sake of example’ respectively), it ignores the reality of the situation. It is quite remarkable that Ms Dorries has listed only five of the top ten religions in terms of adherents. There are (according to the Christian Science Monitor) 324 million Buddhists (about the population of the EU), along with 6.1 million members of the Baha’i faith, 5.3 million followers of Confucius, 4.9 million who identify with Jainism and 2.8 million people who go for Shinto.

Let’s look at the five religions that Ms Dorries mentions.

1. Judaism

It doesn’t take long to realise that to say that being pro-abortion is incompatible with Judaism is rather foolish. The Mishnah (Oholot 7:8) says

If a woman is in hard travail, one cuts up the offspring in her womb and brings it forth member by member, because her life comes before the life of her foetus. But if the greater part has proceeded forth, one may not set aside one person for the sake of saving another

There is debate about whether the second sentence prohibits abortion after half-term or until the baby is half-delivered; there is no debate about whether abortion can be permitted under Jewish law. More specifically, the Rabinincal Assembly’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards< endorses the position of Rabbis Bokser and Abelson:

[A]n abortion is justifiable if a continuation of pregnancy might cause the mother severe physical or psychological harm, or where the fetus [sic] is judged by competent medical opinion as severely defective

The Union for Reform Judaism says that

any decision should be left up to the woman within whose body the fetus is growing

I have highlighted Judaism because it is the first on the list and it very neatly shows that within all religion and, indeed, all belief systems there is variation.

2. Christianity

Thomas Aquinas and Popes Innocent III and Gregory XIV said that until the mother could feel the baby kick and move, the baby had no soul and could be aborted; after the quickening, it could not. Current Roman Catholic teaching is mostly opposed to abortion. The Southern Baptist Convention only came out against abortion in the early eighties.

The Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (USA), United Church of Christ and United Methodist Church all have statements in favour of abortion.

3. Sikhism

Sikhism doesn’t directly deal with abortion – at least, the Guru Granth Sahib doesn’t – and the practice of abortion in parts of India, particularly if the foetus is female, suggest that there is no block there, either

4. Islam

The traditional Islamic view is that abortion is permitted up until 120 days, I believe; alternative views are 40 days or ‘quickening’. Depending on which date you choose, that is when the soul is given to the baby. Islam allows for abortion

5. Hinduism

I don’t know much about Hinduism, and therefore will merely provide this quote from Hinduism Today:

The Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University does not take a formal unchanging political or religious stance on the issue of abortion. They advise that each case requires unique consideration. The final decision will be based on a long series of choices made by the woman on her lifestyle, morals and values. Usually, the choices that created the unwanted pregnancy in the first place have been irrational or emotional ones, not the mature commitment motherhood needs. The Brahma Kumaris counsel those facing an abortion decision, both man and woman, to understand that by abortion they do not escape responsibility for their actions. When both the parents have fully understood the seriousness of the choice, the University would support the right to make their own decision.

I am quite sure that Ms Dorries is aware of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice. If not, it pretty much ‘does what it says on the tin’. Here’s their membership list:

Rabbinical Assembly; United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism; Women’s League for Conservative Judaism; The Episcopal Church; American Ethical Union National Service Conference; Society for Humanistic Judaism; Presbyterians Affirming Reproductive Options (PARO); Women’s Ministries; Washington Office; Reconstructionist Judaism; Jewish Reconstructionist Federation; Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association; Central Conference of American Rabbis; North American Federation of Temple Youth; Union for Reform Judaism; Women of Reform Judaism, The Federation of Temple Sisterhoods; Women’s Rabbinic Network of Central Conference of American Rabbis; Justice and Witness Ministries; General Board of Church and Society; General Board of Global Ministries, Women’s Division; Unitarian Universalist Association; Unitarian Universalist Women’s Federation; Young Religious Unitarian Universalists; Continental Unitarian Universalist Young Adult Network; American Jewish Committee; American Jewish Congress; Anti-Defamation League; Catholics for a Free Choice; Christian Lesbians Out (CLOUT); Church of the Brethren Women’s Caucus; Disciples for Choice; Episcopal Urban Caucus; Episcopal Women’s Caucus; Hadassah, WZOA; Jewish Women International; Lutheran Women’s Caucus; Methodist Federation for Social Action; NA’AMAT USA; National Council of Jewish Women; Women’s American ORT; YWCA of the USA

I think that shows, pretty effectively, that religious faith does not necessarily entail opposition to abortion. However, even if there was only one religious person in the entire world who honestly believed that abortion was acceptable, Ms Dorries would not be able to say that their faith was lesser or wrong. To do so would be, in her own words, discriminatory.

Moving on, Ms Dorries says of Ms Follett that

72% of her constituents want the upper limit reduced to 20 weeks

That’s interesting. On her previous post, Ms Dorries said that “as many as 72 per cent, wish to see the upper limit at which abortion takes place, reduced from 24 to 20 weeks”. Unless a survey was carried out that focused on the voters of Stevenage, it seems hard to say that 72% of Barbara Follett’s constituents want the upper limit reduced without making a statement that is statistically invalid.

Ms Dorries then asks

Will she represent their views at the next vote, or her own?

As I said on my previous post, an MP’s job is not to act as a proxy for the aggregate views of their constituents. As Edmund Burke said, “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion”.

One last thing:

“Barbara Follett is the founder of Emily’s list”

No, she isn’t. Emily’s List was founded by Ellen Malcolm in 1984 in the United States of America. Barbara Follett founded Emily’s List UK in 1993. A small issue, but worth flagging. Congratulations to Barbara Follett.

As I have said before, I respect Ms Dorries’ position, although I do not share it. I have been branded a religious fundamentalist in the past for saying, in my SU meeting, that there were legitimate objections to abortion. I still believe that. However, I find Ms Dorries’ way of presenting the argument to be based on flawed logic, assertion and obfuscation.

xD.

Update 2045: Unity at the Ministry of Truth has noticed Nadine’s post as well – I recommend it!

Edmund Burke on Nadine Dorries

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid Beds and doyenne of the anti-abortion movement in Parliament, has been pressing for further restrictions on abortion for some time. I have no doubt that she sincerely holds those beliefs. However, it does seem that the strength with which she holds those beliefs is clouding her judgement. As various bloggers, including Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads, Ben Goldacre of Bad Science and the Guardian, Book Drunk, Devil’s Kitchen and Unity from the Ministry of Truth, have pointed out, Ms Dorries has played fast and loose with facts and statistics and seems – as I am a charitable sort – to be demonstrating confirmation bias over this issue.

On her website1, Ms Dorries says something that is not just wrong-headed, but dangerous:

As a result of a number of polls, we know that the majority of the public, as many as 72 per cent, wish to see the upper limit at which abortion takes place, reduced from 24 to 20 weeks. Many MPs, however, choose to use Parliament as a place to pander to their own preference, or ideology, rather than to represent the will of the people.

What Ms Dorries is saying there is that MPs should be proxies for referenda on every issue. Quite apart from the weaseling of ‘belief’ into ‘preference’ and ‘philosophy’ into’ ideology, this notion of ‘the will of the people’ or ‘the general will’ is a dangerous one indeed. It should be easy enough to see how Ms Dorries’ stance could be parlayed into ‘preference’ or ‘ideology’, quite apart from the problems in identifying this ‘will of the people’; certainly, it is not Ms Dorries alone who may choose the will of the people. She would do well to remember Edmund Burke’s words in his Speech to the Electors of Bristol:

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

MPs are elected to legislate and to scrutinise based not on the whim of the people, but based on easier access to more information, the time and will to process and use that information honestly, and to come to a reasoned decision. Equally, an MP should not encourage dog-whistle politics. No matter how important you might consider abortion to be, regardless of your position in the debate, you cannot say that it is more important than every other issue combined. That is, however, what Ms Dorries is encouraging people to do:

Each day, I am going to highlight MPs who may need to think very seriously when voting on the issue of reducing the upper limit to 20 weeks, because if they don’t, they may see their majorities wiped out at the next election.

Although the issue is serious, the manner of expression – this above and to the exclusion of all else – cheapens political discourse and will lead to ill-considered judgements if Ms Dorries’ is successful in her aim. It favours fanatic who obsesses over a single issue rather than someone who would take the broader view; it encourages people to vote with their hearts and not their heads. It is, in short, an abrogation of an elected representative’s duty to make an appeal to base instinct rather than reasoned judgement

The full text of Burke’s speech is available courtesy of the University of Chicago. It is short, at a little over six hundred words, but is well worth reading.

xD.

1 – it is not a blog. A blog allows comments; Dorries’ website, even the bit that’s updated regularly, does not allow comments. Interestingly, Burke says something about that too, after a fashion: “it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents”.

In response to Dave Hill

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Having been in the ‘set’ position for some time now, the starting pistol has fired and the candidates for Mayor are away. Unfortunately, Dave Hill – a blogger that I like and have a lot of time for – makes the mistake of thinking that Boris and Ken are somehow close on policies:

as a battleground of ideas it’s fairly small.

There is much more at stake here than emphasis, nuance and weighting.

Transport is a real issue that differentiates Ken and Boris.

The big divide so far has been over bus conductors; Boris wants them reintroduced, Ken thinks putting £100m on bus fares is not a good idea, particularly for those suffering from transport poverty. Ken has the vision and track record of pushing forward new, innovative transport policies – like the C-charge and London Overground – that will continue to improve London’s transport.

Affordable housing is a real issue that differentiates Ken and Boris.

The issue on housing is, essentially, how to deal with recalcitrant boroughs that don’t want to build affordable housing. Where Ken would compel, Boris wants to ask nicely and hope. That doesn’t mean riding rough-shod over local views, but accepting that the interests of the city as a whole have to before those of a given borough.

Carbon charging is a real issue that differentiates Ken and Boris.

Where Ken has made concrete improvements on London’s carbon output by promoting hybrid-drive and fuel-cell buses, the LEZ and congestion charging, Boris Johnson praised bush for “scrumpling up” the Kyoto protocol, has called ken’s low emission zone “punitive and draconian” and would scrap the western extenson zone of the C-charge itself.

Competence is a real issue that differentiates Ken and Boris.

The hole in Boris’ budget is important in how the mistake came about. He assumed that every bus route in London was similar to the two heritage routes that have conductors. They are not; it is fairly obviously a wrong assumption that shows a lack of understanding of London. Boris’ tendency towards gaffes could also damage London; a repeat of the Liverpool incident on a trade mission could do real damage to London plc.

What similarities there are between Ken and Boris are in no small part due to the manifest successes of Ken’s programme over the last eight years. The C-charge was met with howls of protests but, now, Boris cannot say that he will scrap it (although he would reduce its size, as I mentioned). It is completely wrong to think that a vote for Ken and a vote for Boris will make no difference four years down the line. There are concrete, policy differences that will make a big difference; equally, the tone of the Mayor can make a difference to London, both in terms of promoting cohesiveness within the city and promoting the city overseas as a place to visit, work and invest.

xD.

Talking to al-Qaeda

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Jonathan Powell has indicated that we should talk to al-Qaeda, making a comparison with Northern Ireland.

In Ireland, it was fairly straightforward, if not to identify, to delimit the people who controlled the IRA. The brass was known and there were contacts throughout the eighties between the governments of both sides of the Irish Sea and the paramilitaries. There were times when the parties were so far apart that they were totally irreconcilable. However, changes in all parties meant that there was the potential for discussion and cooperation. Without lines of communication, it would have been a lot harder to gauge the attitudes of the opposing sides.

The buzz-acronym around the military is C4ISTAR. That is command, control, computers, communication, intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaisance. It describes the functions that a military must cover to carry out a given operation or set of operations. While some of it does not apply to some or all of the Troubles – computers being the obvious example – it is not hard to see that, within the constraints of reality, the IRA approximated the British army in its function-set.

Note that it does not include mission definition or objective quality. It does, however, indicate that there is a command structure; not just that people lower down the chain will do as they’re told but that they will not do anything unless they are told to do something.

The very fact that contacts took place in this manner with the IRA shows the difference when dealing with al-Qaeda. It is a network of organisations and of networks, that act in different manners depending on the situations in which they find themselves. While there may be a common eschatology, there is no equivalent of the army council with which to deal. Rather, different bits can draw on the philosophical motivations and practical resources – planning and materiel – as they see fit.

Talking to one’s enemies makes sense. The ‘red phones’ between Moscow and Washington is probably the best known example, but NATO is talking to the Taliban in Afghanistan. The most common examples, however, are embassies, legations and foreign missions.

There is no equivalent of the Army Council in al-Qaeda; there is no one controlling body that can order a ceasefire or a truce. As I said, al-Qaeda is an ideology and perhaps a methodology and, although it might seek to be, is not a polity. However, there are polities and groups under the al-Qaeda umbrella with which you can deal; as I mentioned, some elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan are being engaged but this will not affect other conflicts where different grievances lead to the ideology and methodology combining in different ways. This means that there will not be co-ordination and the benefits of scale for al-Qaeda-inspired groups, but that there is no, one unit that will end things. Given that some of the techniques of asymmetric warfare are very widely known, it is not hard to see that the advantage here is with the many-headed hydra.

There is an interesting comparison of no particular significance other than illustration between the IRA and al-Qaeda and Catholic and Sunni hierarchies; the Pope can give orders that are followed the way down, while a given imam is one of many sources of influence and authority. I don’t think this post particularly revelatory or that Mr Powell would disagree, but it is worth stressing both that the parallels between IRA and al-Qaeda only go so far and it would be not only wrong but dangerously wrong to see al-Qaeda as a single campaign.

xD.

Bendy buses

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I have described myself in the past as a critical friend of the BBC. I find it really very annoying when Auntie Beeb can’t be bothered to do its research. Indeed, the BBC News website says that Ken, should he be re-elected, will not be ordering any new bendy buses. That much is true; what is manifestly false is that he has not announced this recently. The Beeb says that

The mayor of London has revealed that he will not be ordering any further fleets of bendy buses. Ken Livingstone said they were only introduced for a small number of routes and there were no plans to put more on the roads.

which manifestly ignores the many statements from Ken about having introduced bendy buses on a few routes where they were appropriate. To say that new bendy bus routes were ever planned is, frankly, wrong on a simple point of fact. I admit here to a bias. My balance is bad – clinically bad – and I find it difficult to use the upstairs on buses. Not impossible, but difficult. On the Routemasters, it was impossible; the advantage of having modern double-deckers is that everyone can use them, even if their mobility is particularly restricted.

As the BBC doesn’t seem to want to report it, I will. Boris Johnson’s transport policy has two holes in it. One totals £20m – that’s twenty million pounds – while the other comes in at a remarkable £100m – that’s one hundred million pounds. This doesn’t come from Ken’s campaign, but from independent parties. There is a great, big hole in one of the candidates’ accounting that said candidate has simply failed to explain. That is the same candidate who, when talking about educating his children in state schools, said

because we live in Islington, I extracted them

which, if nothing else, is an almighty insult to a teachers in Islington.

One of the Mayor’s duties is promoting London overseas as a place for investment. I do not think that someone who wanders in with such clumsy offensiveness is necessarily the person that we would want promoting London abroad; Boris is far too likely to cause a diplomatic incident, with the result for London being lost investment.

xD.

Interview with Ken Livingstone

Posted on by David Landon Cole

I was able to interview Ken Livingstone this morning following the launch of his transport manifesto. Unfortunately, announcements kept coming over the tannoy, hence the odd cutting and jumping.Dave Hill also spoke with Ken, and his interview is available here along with thoughts on the Mayor’s transport manifesto here. There is more on the manifesto from Ken’s own website.

More tomorrow.

xD.

Liberal criticism of the BBC

Posted on by David Landon Cole

As I have said before, I am fan of the BBC. That does not mean it receives my unqualified support.

I’m afraid I think that the arguments of the ‘Biased BBC’ et al. are rather mean-spirited. Although I disagree with it very strongly, there is a perfectly respectable argument against the BBC’s existence. You could, for instance, say that for a government to have its own broadcaster is dangerous or that it gives the state control over the EM spectrum that would be better dealt with as private property. Although I disagree with them, they are serious arguments that bear consideration.

There is also an argument to say that the BBC is biased. I know Labour activists who consider the BBC to be anti-Labour at the moment (having been anti-Tory during the Thatcher years). There are, as we know, people who feel the BBC is incorrigibly left-wing. These are both arguments for change or reform, but they do not address the rationale behind the BBC’s existence. Funnily enough, I know people in the Labour party who are convinced of its anti-Labour bias; Cameron’s comments are picked up more readily than Brown’s, Andrew Neil and Nick Robinson are there as commentators and the BBC really had it in for Blair over Iraq. Some of the criticisms of the pinko-liberal-Guardianista-limp wristed-vegetarian BBC as trying to force multiculturalism down our throat may be defused by the ‘White’ series that is about to start; we shall see, but you cannot say that the BBC does not grasp the nettle. To try to remove something you don’t like by running it down rather than honestly expressing your arguments is, if nothing else, profoundly undemocratic and expressive of a despair of convincing others of your opinions.

It also makes it harder to constructively criticise the BBC. There are some specific criticisms I would make.

One of the great things about the interweb in general and blogging in particular is that anyone can say what they want, run it up the flagpole and see if anyone else salutes it. It allows for personal, intellectual development, communication and entertainment. That doesn’t mean that everything, much or anything that’s said is worth saying. Much like the end of the film version of Fahrenheit 451, it is impossible to make out a single book because everyone is talking. On the internet, real estate is cheap or free, so it doesn’t matter. BBC News 24 has a grand total of twenty-four hours per day; broadcasting time is limited. Given that I can find out what Barry from Bognor thinks by looking on the internet or ‘pressing the red button’, I fail to see why newscasters feel the need to read out the blitherings of people trying to make a soundbite.

I have a particular complaint against newsreaders. The key there is reader; someone who reads from a prepared script and, if the VT fails, might have to apologise and come back to that story later. They are not there to interview; some of the questions they come out with are particularly uninformed. Why would they be anything else? I am happy to hear a correspondent’s opinions because they specialise in a subject. My concentration span is not so short that I need a thirty-second spot broken up into sub-bite-sized chunks.

Emotive words are another bugbear. Part of the BBC’s remit is to report the facts; describing something with a phrase like ‘terrible atrocity’ attaches an emotive content that the BBC has no right to do. I similarly object to the hand-waving tendency. Watch any news broadcast, BBC or not, and you will see an awful lot of gesticulation. I fear that the reason for this is much the same as the emoting and interviewing; journalists want to be the centre of attention. Someone else cannot be allowed to take the screen during their face time and not only must their story be the most important but we must know that it is their story and we are privileged to receive their opinion. A competent telling of the facts is not enough for them. The genesis of this trend is obvious enough – the emotional impact of certain exceptional stories, like Michael Buerk’s reporting of the famine in Ruritania and the rise of celebrity newscasters. It would be entirely fair to say that I want the BBC to talk about ‘a dying child in the same tones as one would talk about the parts of an internal combustion engine’. The BBC has a strict duty to neutrality that the leader of the Labour party simply does not.

This is part of a general dumbing-down of news. I think the phrase is a little unfortunate; it is rather a dumbing-down of us, the audience, in the opinions of the news broadcasters. This is, I think, due in no small part to the baleful influence of the market’s tendency towards replication of successful models. While Sky News may well make money, they are a commercial organization that makes profit in a manner that the BBC does not. I would also raise the issue of Rupert Murdoch. It is true that the BBC cannot be biased and it is true that interference by the state in broadcasting is, at the very best, seriously problematic and at worst dangerous. However, if all the media subscribes to a given view or set of views, it becomes increasingly difficult to generate and sustain a reasoned debate. Rebekah Wade’s recent appearance at Parliament notwithstanding, I do not believe that Rupert Murdoch exercises no editorial influence over his large stable of media.

As I mentioned above, some of the criticisms made of the BBC are not unreasonable. It would be wholly wrong of the BBC to come out and say that Gordon Brown is the second coming or that David Cameron is like mayonnaise1. There is an implicit bias whenever private, emotional qualifiers are attached to a bare-facts story. This doesn’t mean that investigative shows cannot go on or that Paxman can press people on Newsnight. It doesn’t mean that people and their actions cannot be criticised by the BBC. It does mean, though, that the separation needs to remain and to be clear.

Alex Deane, in what can only be a portent of the last days, has said that there is something positive on the BBC: the Larkin Tapes. I think he accepts that this is a “good thing” that would not be provided by the market. I disagree with Alex’s sentiment inasmuch as I don’t think the BBC should just be producing things that are high-quality but not likely to be produced by the market (or programming for the middle classes); it should be, in the same manner as its news programming, be providing a spur to improve the general level of programming by closing the option of producing endless, cheap programming to commercial broadcasters. Now, it’s easy to see how that happens with David Attenborough. I am unconvinced that ‘What Not to Wear’, ‘Changing Rooms’ or ‘Airport’ meet that test as good value for public money. The amount of money that some presenters – notably but not exclusively Jonathan Ross, who earns £4.5m a year – earn is out of proportion to what could be bought with that money given that the BBC doesn’t need to compete in the chat show market.

In short, I think that the BBC could fulfil its remit more effectively by having less programming but programming that forces other channels to avoid a race to the bottom.
There is a similar debate to be had around sports. This may just be because I don’t particularly like most sport, but I don’t know that chasing after the top sports is a good use of public money given that it’s available on satellite television in (what seems like) every public house in the land. Equally, there is precious little coverage of teams lower down the leagues. If I think of the town where I was born – Yeovil – the football team3 is a major part of the life of the area. It’s the only decent football team for some distance around. Promoting it on the television would do more for the area and the team than showing a Manchester derby, for instance, particularly as there seems to be no shortage of coverage of the top flight. I suspect the same is replicated across the country and for other sports. Under its new Charter, the BBC has to apply a public value assessment that I am not sure this meets. The counter-argument – that this is part of our culture and so needs to be available to all – doesn’t hold up to even the most cursory glance and, in any case, applies as much to the first and second divisions as the Premier League.

BBCi, the name for Auntie’s collective online offering, generally works pretty well it complements and isn’t trying to usurp the TV or radio. I hope that the revamp that will be happening soon goes well and isn’t too slavishly ‘Web 2.0’. My criticism of letting the passenger on the Clapham omnibus have their 160-letter text read out doesn’t apply as web real estate is very cheap and close to limitless. That having been said, I hope it remains a very minor part; most of the comments on the forums are, frankly, worthless. Moreover, I hope the BBC stays away from social media and similar

I am very supportive of the idea of the iPlayer and I hope it’s extended so that more of the classics from yesteryear are available. However, the Beeb has chosen to limit its iPlayer content to that you have to use Microsoft Internet Explorer on a computer with Microsoft Windows XP or Vista for full functionality. Anyone using an older version of Windows or any flavour of Mac or Linux is shut out. This is a reversal of its previous policy of platform agnosticism. DRM is controversial and, at best, deeply flawed. I will save rehearsing the arguments but will say that if the BBC insisted you used a (say) Panasonic TV to watch a programme in colour, we’d be up in arms. This is precisely what is happening with iPlayer. Quite aside from giving a commercial advantage to a single commercial company, it is a particularly bad company to have chosen. It has recently announced Service Pack 1 for its new operating system, Vista. There is nothing unusual in that, except that it might stop programmes working. An advantage of platform neutrality (and, but not necessarily, open source) is that it is much harder for a single actor to cause serious damage. Equally, Microsoft has courted controversy for its attitude towards free markets. Having just been fined €800m (yes, eight hundred million euro) for anticompetitive practices, Microsoft finds itself being hauled up by Neelie Kroes once again.

I hope that the basis on which I support the BBC is clear; it should not be a government-funded version of Sky News or CNN, ITV or UK Gold. It should be making things available that wouldn’t be otherwise and providing such things as might be available at a certain quality that provides a benchmark. The commercial networks don’t seem to achieve this. Channel Four’s unusual setup seems to work, but it does have a lot of misfires.

I have not addressed the World Service, which I think is wonderful; I wish that BBC News 24 were more like it. I hope the BBC continues; I just hope that it is not another source of dross.

xD.

1 – Rich, thick and oily2
2 – and smells faintly of eggs
3 – I declare an interest; my brother is a physio at Yeovil Town FC.

Dhimmitude

Posted on by David Landon Cole

Dhimmitude is a pejorative term that refers to people in the West who, in the opinion of users of the word, are guilty of surrendering to Islam. Islam, it would appear by reading the profferings of people who use the term, is the greatest evil out there and it seeks to insist that all non-Muslims under its sway live in conditions analogous to the worst varieties of dhimma; that is to say, subjugation for non-Muslims. As a dhimmi (as I understand it), certain rights were protected to varying degrees depending on the secular political situation but, in all variants, there was an exclusion from the political arena inasmuch as the decisions could only be taken by Muslims.

I mention this in light of the debate around my post on Liberal Conspiracy and, more broadly, the furore around Dr Rowan Williams’ comments on sharia. My favourites come from the Daily Mail website, which includes this gem from ‘Alastair’

What so many Muslims seem to conveniently forget is that Britain is not an Islamic country. If they want to live under Sharia law, they should go back to an Islamic country. If you live in Britain, obey its laws’

As I have tried (at length) to point out, sharia law is not necessarily a replacement for current law; it is not even a single entity. Rather, it is a manner of thinking. Much of the opposition to Dr Williams’ remarks is Islamophobic inasmuch as it is based on an irrational fear of Islam. Much of the rest, as above, is on this idea that you have to accept Britain as is and that the laws, as they are, are a positive expression of ‘Britishness’ and that any deviation from that is to be stepped on while people who want to live differently should be grateful for being able to associate with Britons. This unBritishness, according to the Bishop of Winchester, extends to homosexuality. Sounds a bit like… dhimmitude.

Earlier in the same thread, ‘David’ (no relation) said:

Oh yes, Lambeth Palace says the Archbishops comments are too academic for the population at large.

QED.

xD.