blog – Page 17 – David Landon Cole

In defence of the Archbishop of Canterbury

Posted on February 9, 2008January 11, 2019 by David Landon Cole

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, is in trouble over his comments on the incorporation of Sharia law into UK law.

It is my opinion that Dr Williams’ suggestions deserve reasoned consideration; that they do not require a change in the nature of the law; and that much of the opposition to them, implicitly, requires a very grave change in the law from defining what is illegal to defining what is legal.

I think it’s important to work out exactly what the most reverend Primate is saying. It has generally been reported as ‘sharia law is unavoidable’ along with cries of Londonistan and dhimmitude.

According to this transcript of an interview between the Archbishop and Jonathan Landau, what Dr Williams believes is that

“the application of Sharia in certain circumstances if we want to achieve this cohesion and take seriously peoples’ religion seems unavoidable”

What I intend to do in this post is briefly to sum up Dr Williams’ argument before giving my reasons for supporting it. I will then seek to show not only that the arguments used to oppose his comments are based on misconceptions, accidental or otherwise, of his opinions and that they, in fact, to a great deal to damage community relations in the UK. Finally, I will reflect on the implications of Dr Williams’ comments and the reaction they have provoked.

I apologise if it seems a bit pretentious to lay things out like that, but this is going to be a longer post than usual.

1. Dr Williams’ argument.

I am basing this section on the aforementioned transcript and the text of his lecture that can be found here.

Dr Williams can probably cast his eye towards Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, declining attendances and growing secularism and realise that, one day, the Church of England will be disestablished. He is, in essence, preparing the groundwork for the Church of England to retain some of its privilege and position when that occurs. Within that framework, I think that sharia is being used a shorthand for the principle of providing a statutory framework for the implementation of religious law, within bounds set by civil law, where all parties concerned consent.

The first things that Dr Williams says are; that sharia is misunderstood; that there is no single conception of sharia; and that he does not advocate the extreme interpretations of sharia that exist.

“far from being a monolithic system of detailed enactments, sharia designates primarily – to quote [Tariq] Ramadan again – ‘the expression of the universal principles of Islam {and} the framework and the thinking that makes for their actualization in human history’”

and

“what most people think they know of sharia is that it is repressive towards women and wedded to archaic and brutal physical punishments”

He is also at pains to point out that acceptance of sharia law categorically does not mean rejection of civil law. Indeed, the examples he gives are:

in modern times, the clearest articulation of this was in the foundation of the Pakistani state under Jinnah; but other examples (Morocco, Jordan) could be cited of societies where there is a concept of citizenship that is not identical with belonging to the umma

The implication of this is that someone can choose to submit themselves to religious law but (from the point of view of the Weberian state) has no choice but to submit themselves to civil law.

Williams goes onto identify three, specific implications of the concept. They are, in short, greater attachment to law based on personal belief than state-membership; effective persecution of the most vulnerable members of society being facilitated; and the lack of necessity of exercising legal rights to any or their full degree.

Williams openly accepts that some people claim religion as a defence for all sorts of odd actions:

A recent example might be the reported refusal of a Muslim woman employed by Marks and Spencer to handle a book of Bible stories.

His answer, simply, is to say that this is a cultural trait, not a religious trait. By the terms of Williams argument, this is a non-issue. While there is a debate as to what extent some things are cultural or religious and while there are primitivist interpretations of Islam , the general principle is that people cannot claim religion to explain their actions or lack of actions without reason behind it.

The second implication is that supplementary legal opinion-givers could be used to compel weaker people to accept their judgements. This is essentially a question about social pressure. Williams’ solution is prior consent. For what its worth, I find that unsatisfactory. I would prefer prior consent to the system and consent before each individual binding judgement; it is not a problem if it is in an advisory capacity.

The third point, here, is key. Under English law, I am entitled to file for divorce from any spouse I may have. That does not mean that I have to file for divorce at any given time, or at all. If I file for divorce, a (properly constructed) pre-nuptial agreement or parting on good terms may make things all pretty easy to decide. If not, arbitration can be used without the intervention of the state. All Williams suggests is that Islamic jurisprudence should be considered as a possible source of reasonable arbitration.

Unfortunately, Williams, in a somewhat academic fashion, comes round to his point by a circuitous route. He is essentially saying not just that people should be able to choose, where the choice is freely made, an arbiter in certain legal processes but that an Islamic arbiter could have an official recognition that makes it the source of arbitration of choice, increasing the extent to which its judgements are exposed to critical assessment.

At all times, civil law would retain its absolute, unqualified primacy; any body giving opinions under sharia would not be able to go beyond what is prescribed by law.

2. The weakness of the opposition

The opposition to Dr Williams’ comments comes, to my mind, in three forms. They are wilful misinterpretation, Christian traditionalism and republican culturalism.

To deal with the wilful misinterpretation, I turn to the great organ of the state, The Sun, which asks:

YOU THE JURY
SHOULD the Archbishop of Canterbury be sacked for his comments on Sharia law?

The Archbishop of Canterbury serves at the pleasure of the Queen; I would have thought that The Sun would not want to encroach on HM’s remit.

Earlier, The Sun says

FOR many, Sharia law will forever be linked to the grainy images smuggled out of Saudi Arabia or Iran of people being beheaded or even stoned to death.

It is Rowan Williams’ belief (and it is one I share) that there is no one, singular, authoritative sharia. To conflate the extremes of Wahhabism with Dr Williams’ proposals is intellectually cheap and, to be honest, morally bankrupt.

Melanie Phillips’ has a slightly different misinterpretation. To be fair, I think that it is less deliberate; Phillips, while I disagree with her profoundly, is intellectually honest. Quoth the raven:

Either way, his proposal would also mean that Britain would simply abandon its female Muslim citizens whose parlous position in respect of forced marriages, honour killings and all the other horrors that follow from their second-class religious status would be institutionalised by giving sharia law official recognition. Dr Williams says such women should still retain the right of appeal to the English courts if their human rights were breached under sharia. What absurdity is this? It is the cultural assumptions which flow from sharia which lead to the oppression of Muslim women. How is the right of appeal to human rights law going to help women who are beaten and killed by men who do it in the name of religion? In order to protect our female Muslim citizens, we need to remove from them the yoke of sharia law, not institutionalise it with the seal of official approval.

Dr Williams does not merely say that there would be a right of appeal, but that there would have to be prior consent. Equally, there is a feminist current within sharia that Williams, I think, seeks to encourage. Certainly, I know a couple of observant, Muslim women who cannot be characterised as other than feminist in the Western tradition. They happen to bolt on to this the wearing of a veil based on a practical suggestion from the Koran – that men ogle women.

The next current of opposition is Christian traditionalism, for I which will turn to Danny Finkelstein.

As I argued in my column yesterday, this is a Christian country, even if (unbelievably) the Archbishop himself wishes it were not so. Everyone is entitled to worship any religion or none but this under British law and with due respect for the way that British traditions hold in public space.
Fortunately these traditions include remarkable tolerance for others, a welcome and interest in the practice of others and great generosity of spirit. But such values are not abstract one, conjured out of nowhere. They are rooted in this country’s history and practice as a Christian nation.

Which is, frankly, bizarre. It was Christianity that led to the expulsion of the Jews, for starters. It is Christianity that led to blasphemy being a crime that is still on the statute book. It is a subset of Christians who are trying to keep it there and keep it used. It was Christianity that led to persecution of Catholics because they were the wrong sort of Christian. It is true that Christianity also motivated (say) William Wilberforce or countless other doers of good works. To say that there is such a thing as monolithic Christianity in the UK is, frankly, ignoring several hundred years of inconvenient truths; indeed, there is a decent argument to be made that the strength of the Liberal Democrats in the far South West of England is due in no small part to arguments between Church and Chapel.

Finkelstein says:

“There are any number of places in the world where people can live under Sharia law. This isn’t one of them.
Nor should it be.”

In other words, he is saying that people cannot have a moral code different to the minimum enforced by the State so long as it does not go beyond the bounds laid out by the State.

This Christian traditionalism goes as far as to invent for itself a mythology. Ruth Gledhill’s article in the Times is accompanied by some pictures. Do please take a look at them; they represent one aspect of Islam out of many and I will say no more than that I do not believe that they help the debate.

Gledhill says that:

The Church of England was born out of an express desire to rid Britain of a foreign, ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Article 37 of the 39 says: ‘The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.’ Queen Elizabeth I early in her reign decreed that the Crown had restored to it ‘the ancient jurisdiction over the state ecclesiastical and spiritual, abolishing all foreign power repugnant to the same’.

Which is an almighty assumption. The Church of England was not born out of any one desire, but a combination of the spiritual and political desires of certain, militant clergymen with the financial wherewithal to visit parishes across the country, the King’s coveting of the monasteries’ wealth and the desire of Elizabeth I, in choosing the Via Media, to keep the country together. Equally, Henry VIII was not motivated solely by spiritual concerns but very temporal concerns, including, for instance, cosying up to the German Lutheran states in case of actions by the Holy Roman Empire in the form of Charles V.

Article Thirty-Seven of the Thirty-Nine articles does indeed refer to the Bishop of Rome. Sadly, Gledhill doesn’t quote the full article, which runs:

“The Queen’s Majesty hath the chief power in this realm of England and other her dominions, unto whom the chief government of all estates of this realm, whether they be ecclesiastical or civil, in all causes doth appertain, and is not nor ought to be subject to any foreign jurisdiction“Where we attribute to the Queen’s Majesty the chief government, by which titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended, we give not to our princes the ministering either of God’s word or of sacraments, the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen doth most plainly testify: but that only prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself, that is, that they should rule all estates and degrees committed to their charge by God, whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and evil-doers. The Bishop of Rome hath no jurisdiction in this realm of England.

“The Laws of the Realm may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous offences.

“It is lawful for Christian men at the commandment of the Magistrate to wear weapons and serve in the wars.”

It is not my belief that the Queen is ordained by God, as article XXXVII suggests; equally, it is as much about saying that the singular Catholic authority had no power, as it claimed, in either the temporal or spiritual affairs of England. Firstly, that is a fiat. Secondly, it was written in 1563 and as such may not be completely adequate for today’s world. Thirdly, they have never been universally accepted; indeed, the Archbishop of Armagh said, as long ago as 1643, that

Some of them are the very same thing that are contained in the Creed; some others of them are practical truths, which come not within the proper list of points or articles to be believed; lastly, some of them are pious opinions or inferior truths, which are proposed by the Church of England to all her sons, as not to be opposed; not as essentials of Faith necessary to be believed by all Christians ‘necessitate medii’, under pain of damnation.

The argument I have most often heard for maintaining the position of the Bishops in the House of Lords is that they can do the detailed thinking on moral issues for a predominantly Christian country. The debate on the issue has been reduced to hectoring and invalid heuristic by not just the gutter press but by papers like The Times, the newspaper of record, with a heavy dose of wilful ignorance of and outright hostility to Islam because it is the fashion of the day.

We then have what I term republican culturalism. That is to say, the promotion of an official state culture with what are, essentially, republican goals on the French model. The most succinct example I have found of that so far is on Donal Blaney’s blog:

The maxim “when in Rome, do as the Romans” springs to mind. If muslims want to live under sharia law or a caliphate they are of course free to do so – outside Britain. Our country is based on the rule of law and equality before the law. If these extremists who so hate Britain want to leave, maybe we ought to offer to pay their airfares. For if we truly want social cohesion, the adoption of sharia law is the worst thing we can do.

I reject, in the very strongest possible terms, the maxim that Blaney cites for two reasons. There are many things about our polity that I dislike and I do what I can to change them; I consider it to be an obligation on a citizen. Sadly, most people do not, and I would not like people to let their beliefs slide and not try to enter into debate around them; that is moral cowardice. Secondly, the Muslims in question are British. They are, at any rate, at least as British as George III was. Although he said, in his first speech to Parliament, that

born and bred in this country I glory in the name of Briton

he was the son of immigrants, the first Hanoverian to be actually born in England and was also a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire and latterly King of Hanover. I reject the territorial assertion of nationality; it is a much more complex, nuanced matter.

It may well be that some people who confess the Islamic faith wish to do live under a caliphate. I do not; however, I believe that they have a right to argue for Britain to become a caliphate. I believe that if they want to use the provisions of English law in new, innovative and legal ways, they should be congratulated on their ingenuity, wished the best and made it clear that I won’t stop saying that I disagree with their choices.

These are not people who hate Britain; they can, quite easily, go to other countries. However, the many advantages of living in Britain mean that they would rather stay here. All that Dr Williams has suggested is that we might, within the existing spirit of the laws, make some accommodations. I will return to this theme in my closing remarks.

3. Effects on social cohesion

As I have said, I believe that some people have deliberately misconstrued Dr Williams’ words. The effect is to suggest to the readers of, inter alia, The Sun that there is a realistic possibility of Saudi-style sharia becoming the primary source of law in the United Kingdom and that the Primate of All England supports the idea. That raises a hostility that becomes misdirected from its misbegotten birth.

What Dr Williams has suggested is that the strict delineation that some seek between ‘Western’ or ‘Christian’ sources of law and ‘Eastern’ or ‘Islamic’ sources of law is not in any way helpful as it leads to unnecessary tensions between culture, religion and citizenship. His argument is that these can be ameliorated by, as occurs with the battei din, accommodations within the existing legal framework. This goes on an informal basis, but formalising it could improve the situation by increasing transparency, visibility and accountability.

Let me turn to the comments of one of my favourite bloggers, Iain Dale:

I don’t want any form of Sharia Law in this country at all. Ever. That is not being Islamaphobic. It’s my opinion and it’s one shared by 99 per cent of the British people, as well as, I suspect, by the majority of British Muslims.. Sharia Law has nothing in common with British values and parts of it could fairly be desribed as downright evil. Anyone who believes that women and men are equal in the eyes of society and the law could not countenance it.

Let us replace sharia law with Jewish law, and see how that sounds. The battei din exist and get on with life without the approval or otherwise of Mr Dale. Even Nye Bevan, who declared in no uncertain terms his views on Tories:

No attempt at ethical or social seduction can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party

did not seek to ban Tory rule. I would have hoped that Iain – as someone broadly within the liberal tradition – would have recognised that I can live my life as I see fit and, so long as I remain within the law, his opinions matter not a hoot. What is being proposed by Dr Williams is the same.

It suggests to me that a great deal of the problems around Islam in the UK at the moment is due to the rampant paranoia expressed by some commentators, aided and abetted by a general anti-religionism (and no, I don’t mean anti-clericism) of the Dawkins variety.

I turn to the effects of Dr Williams’ proposal by looking at one particular aspect, mutah. I do not present myself as expert, so let me explain that I understand mutah to be a concept within the Shia interpretation of Islam that provides for temporary marriages which, for the duration of the marriage, lay certain obligations on both parties analogous to a ‘full’ marriage and whereby any offspring cannot be disowned by either party after the expiration of the body of the arrangement. It is, in fact, a contract, as is marriage. Making an allowance for a contract of this nature would (it can be contended)

4. Implications

If I have a contract with someone and we wish to renegotiate that contract, there is no obligation for that renegotiation to have any recourse to the state. English law says what is illegal, not what is legal; there is no prescription of the ‘good’ life. Therefore, I can conduct myself, within the law, in any manner I see fit. If someone has a problem with that, they are welcome to polemicise and to remonstrate, as am I. From this principle, we have arbitration. In (say) a labour dispute, parties can accept the binding judgement of a third party as to what is ‘fair’. If we change that, we are fundamentally changing the nature of liberty in the UK.

I find it deeply worrying; people who set themselves up as defenders of liberty are, in fact, falling on half-understood interpretations of religious texts from some centuries past in what is, in effect, the result of the fear of the unknown.

These are sensitive issues; sobriety is needed. The reaction of many sections of the press – to put words into the Archbishop’s mouth that are quite different from what he said – inflames tensions in the name of money. God and mammon, indeed. The assertion of Christianity, tradition, history and cultural norms I find repugnant as it is an appeal to the dead and not to reason. Equally, the assertions are based on misinterpretations, which makes me think that they are phobic of Islam; they have an unreasonable, pathological fear. There are, for instance, sections of Islam that would shut themselves off from all who don’t agree with their interpretation of the world. Making any generalisation about contemporary Islamic practice on the basis of such a group is like comparing the Church of England to the Exclusive Brethren. I would add that the official Christian tradition in England is, at least since the first Elizabeth, that of the Via Media. It is a tradition of accommodation and delaying unnecessary conflict in the hope that it dissipates.

I state the point again, because it is important. The right to arbitration exists already; formalising it could actually improve some of the problems with extremists in British Islam at the moment.

If people want to go to arbitration, they can choose whichever arbiters they like, whether I’m happy about it or not. Equally, to suggest that looking at alternate sources of law is totally unreasonable – particularly when the call comes from a religious figure who presumably wants some sort of Christian law – and not even worthy of debate is a little strange; after all, we have a mix of sources of law in the UK already, statute and precedent.

I suppose you could say if Mohammed will not come to the magistrate, the magistrate will have to come to Mohammed.

xD.

1 – I recommend Eamon Duffy’s The Stripping of the Altars for more on this era

PS I have written this at a rate of knots, and so apologise for any offence I have caused by by mode of expression; it is unintentional.

Why I intend to vote for Ken Livingstone

Posted on January 29, 2008January 11, 2019 by David Landon Cole

The issue that affects me most on a day-to-day basis that falls within the Mayor’s power is transport. It is my experience that transport – mainly the buses – has improved. There are more buses; they are new and clean; night provision has improved; and there are more routes.¹ The Oyster card has worked brilliantly, the only opposition to it coming from some mainline train operators; apart from being quicker to use, it offers good value, particularly considering daily rate capping.

Beyond that, there is a vision for London’s transport; Crossrail, the Croydon tram, the cross-river tram, support for cycling & walking and the aforementioned Oyster card are examples of a decent, integrated multimodal transport system. London Overgrouns, though, has to be one of the best things to happen to transport in London for some time. When the project is complete, the London Borough of Hackney will actually have tube stattions, for one thing, but it is also a remarkably effective way of loadsharing as the first step towards an orbirail system. By highlighting on the map the existence of these lines and shifting from a timetable to metro system, ridership and accesibility is increased with minimal laying down of track.²

The congestion charge was incredibly controversial when it was brought in; it has been so successful that even Mr Johnson talks in abstract terms of reform and efficiency but not of scrapping it. Again, Mr Livingstone had a positive vision for London that he offered to London and implemented successfully before standing on his record.

The next thing that concerns me is housing. Whatever protestations Boris Johnson may make, boroughs controlled by his party do worst in terms of building affordable housing. Wandsworth successfully built three units in 2007. Where Messrs Johnson and Paddick say they wish to cooperate with the boroughs, Mr Livingstone is rather more in touch with reality by looking at how the boroughs actually behave.

A large reason for me for voting for Ken is ‘equalities’. That covers a multitude of different issues – race, disability, gender, sexuality, religion, income &c. – but it is essentially the answer to the question “what kind of city do I want to live in?” The answer, for me, is one where I can do what I want so long as it doesn’t stop anyone else doing what they want and where anyone else can do what they want so long as they don’t stop me doing what I want. That, after some philosophical studies at LSE, is the best definition of freedom I’ve come up with. It requires not just the absence of racism or the silence of homophobes, but an active recognition that diversity is needed for London to continue as a preeminent cultural and financial centre. It requires, beyond that, an acceptance that diversity is good in and of itself. It also requires practical support for people at the bottom of the pile; the Mayor’s steps to address transport poverty suggest to me that he has a good grasp of what’s going on.

Much of the criticism of Ken, including the Despatches programme, falls, I think, into two categories; criticism of the LA and criticism of the office of the mayor. In the first instance, it refers to the failure of AMs to push their work locally – local papers, groups and so on. Quite a lot of the blame I direct at those AMs who have two full-time jobs. The other criticism is effectively that the Mayor doesn’t have enough power, and so can’t tackle issues like education and waste. I have strong sympathies with both these arguments, as does Mr Livingstone with the second, but they are not the subject of the upcoming election. The irony is that the first criticism would mean a return to the GLC and the second means the same and shows that the Mayor has been effective in persuading people to work together.

The GLA has other competences – fire, development, crime, improving deprived areas, the environment and so on. I may well return to them in future; the above are my, positive reasons for voting first preference for Ken Livingstone.

xD.

1 – the bendy bus and Routemaster are red herrings; there aren’t many
2 – objections around privatisation don’t hold up as the contracts can be unwound and there is no transfer of ownership

Opposition response to the state of the blogosphere address

Posted on January 24, 2008January 11, 2019 by David Landon Cole

Like Paul Evans of Hot, Ginger and Dynamite, I hail from Somerset but live in London. Paul has given a ‘State of the Blogosphere’ address in advance of President George W Bush’s final State of the Union address. In anticipation of the final opposition response to a State of the Union address by Bush, this is my opposition response to the State of the Blogosphere address.

Mr Speaker,
Mr Vice President,

Mr Evans began his State of the Blogosphere address by saying that

“Today, we are regularly advised that the blogs are the new fifth estate of British politics.”

The term ‘fourth estate’ was coined by Burke, according to Thomas Carlyle. Prior to the rise of the newspaper, people relied on the priest and the pulpit for news. The power of the fourth estate came from being able to report, independently and verifiably, the news of the day, principally from the galleries above the Houses of Lords and Commons. Here was something genuinely powerful; no longer could time, distance and obscurity protect the powerful in Westminster and Whitehall.

Or so we thought.

Power is not confined to a few acres along the banks of the Thames. It lies also in company boardrooms, and sure enough we see companies – into which I include charities – not only influencing politicians directly but also subverting the press, sometimes with the collusion of members of the press, to promote their agenda, be it sales, policies or influence. Equally, power is not confined to a few acres along the banks of the Thames. It lies also in town halls, devolved assemblies, political parties and any pub or front room where one person sits down to convince someone of something.

News reporting, though, is difficult. You have to check facts, interview, probe and search but most of all, in today’s competitive world, you have to cover an awful lot of ground. While blogs may well be able to highlight what’s going on at the council, they’re not going to be able to say what’s going on in a municipality on the other side of the world; they won’t know if something important is happening. What they can do, though, is act as a filter. I could read, in the New York Times, for instance, about what’s going on in New York city and highlight it for my readers. That is only a worthwhile effort, though, if I say why it’s important or, more generally, why I’m interested in it and why they, the readers, should be as well. Immediately, it is commentary and is filtering (despite the protestations of some about getting rid of the filters) and is biased. None of these things are bad, but they do mean that we should and, I think, do take them with a pinch of salt.

If it is commentary that it is valuable – if it is argument that can change the world – and not reporting the reported, there seems to be little point in half the UK blogosphere linking to a BBC News article on Peter Hain’s resignation. Tell me what you think, tell me why it matters but don’t be surprised if I don’t bother reading your blog if you just tell me that it happened. It would be even better if people wrote intelligently.

‘Intelligence’ comes from the Latin intellego, meaning ‘I understand’. If someone understands the situation, they would, I hope, do more than simply say ‘I like’ or ‘I dislike’. Swearblogs are one of the worst for this; while an acid tongue can help get a point across, many would do well to realise that vitriol is not invective and impudence is not satire.

I therefore question the assertion by Mr Evans about the state of the ‘left’ part of the blogosphere. The Euston Manifesto is changing thinking, for one thing, and I would venture that, as a general rule, more thinking by bloggers, at the moment, goes on towards the Labour end of the spectrum. This is not to say that all is well, or that all is bad on the right; that would clearly be false.

The great poverty of the Conservative-leaning blogosphere is that it did start first, and so it had a few stars at the beginning. Quite why people try to emulate Paul Staines in ‘breaking’ ‘stories’ is beyond me, as he, it seems, blogs more-or-less full time, which most people can’t do, and the stories he breaks are often inconsequential or plain wrong. There wasn’t a second email system and whether Brown picks his nose or not is of supreme indifference. Unfortunately, people seem to be taking the commenting habits of those early blogs as well. What good are fifty posts congratulating an author on a post? If it is a new, struggling blog then, yes, by all means congratulate, but don’t just say ‘good’ or ‘bad’; don’t resort to shorthands like ‘NuLab’ or ‘GuF’. If that’s all you have to say all the time, develop your ideas or get one page on a free host and shut up.

We have here two views of blogging. The one says that politics is best measured by noise; the other says that politics is complex and not measured by a single metric. Mr Evans concludes by saying that “The litmus test of the political blogosphere will be its capacity to sway opinion in the country at large”. On that basis, it will fail. There are too many blogs; they must be aggregated. If it is done by the media, Mr Evans’ thesis falls. If it is done by large blogs, they act in the same way as the media, and Mr Evans’ thesis falls.

Litmus is a crude indicator. Universal Indicator differentiates more finely than lichen extract, and allows us to judge the effects of the political blogosphere not just by its capacity to sway opinion but to improve opinion, to foster debate and hopefully – and this is a lot harder than throwing mud – increase, if not turnout at polls, engagement in civic society. That is something worth blogging for.

And may Tim Berners-Lee bless the netizens.

xD.

PS – The text of Carlyle I mention above, the Hero as Man of Letters, can be found here. Much of Carlyle’s work can be found here on Project Gutenberg.

Stop the War Coalition and Channel Four

Posted on January 14, 2008January 11, 2019 by David Landon Cole

A group has been set up on Facebook called (in capitals, so it must be important) ‘Vote Stop the War Coalition for Channel 4 News Award’. It reads rather like the headlines of spam emails and the content of the group is similarly inaccurate. The award in question is ‘most inspiring political personality of the last decade’ and the Stop the War Coalition are not (repeat: not) up for the award.

Stop the War Coalition logo ‘Anti-Iraq war protestors’ are up there along with Tony Blair, Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness, Ken Livingstone, Alex Salmond and the Countryside Alliance. Have a look on the Channel Four website. The fact that the award goes to a rather nebulous group of people rather than one of the organisations behind the protests is interesting. It suggests that the brand identification of the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) is negligible and Channel Four have to copy Time Magazine‘s ‘person of the year 2006’¹ in going for a non-entity. This is rather surprising, given that the Stop the War Coalition’s logo is really rather good – easy to remember, easy to identify and easy to reproduce – and its message was supported on a grand scale.

Why, then, has the StWC declined from public view?

Part of the answer is in a previous post of mine:

If the Stop the War Coalition was going to continue as a meaningful force, it needed to attract and retain the soggy left of the ‘Various People Against Nasty Things’ variety. Providing placards that said ‘Victory to the Resistance’ was, at risk of being controversial, not the best way of building a broad coalition. It was a very good way of alienating the people who don’t consider the Socialist Worker newspaper to be some of Fleet Street’s finest editing and putting the few remainders a short step from carrying SWP banners.

although now I would add ‘We are all Hizbullah’ to ‘Victory to the Resistance’. In short, the aim was not to build a mass movement, but to increase the number of members of the SWP, StWC and RESPECT. If the hitrate for long term, useful members was (say) one in a thousand, that would still have yielded two thousand members from the Day X march alone. It made sense to the SWP; given that they believe we are in a permanent arms economy anyway, the war going ahead or not would have been largely immaterial.
Equally, the StWC didn’t represent all of the anti-war movement; it was one of three organisations, the others being CND and MAB, that called the protest. A lot of the people who opposed the war and marched under the StWC’s roundel never felt any particular attachment to it as the representations made by Lindsay German et al. never really resonated with the Chelsea tractor drivers. The messages were about imperialism, when what people felt was either that Britain was a client state or that it was just a wrong decision, badly taken. Imperialism – the desire to cow the Iraqi people – didn’t enter into most people’s opposition because they didn’t believe it to be so.

I am not sure of this point, so forgive me if sounds a bit strangled, but the StWC also sought to forge links with the Muslim communities in the UK. The questions there are which Muslim communities? and who’s linking to them?. Had the StWC really been about preventing a racist backlash in response to the Iraq war, it would have done a lot more to bring groups together. It didn’t, the evidence being the quite common anti-Muslim sentiment we see expressed in the press. I’m not blaming StWC for racism, but I am saying that they failed to do as much as they could have done because they were more interested in building a political movement that wasn’t there to be built.

There was never single set of ideas behind the brand; in essence, there never was a brand. The StWC had an organisational role that it could have used to advance political knowledge in the UK. It squandered the opportunity so that, a few years later, all people remember is that a lot of people were quite annoyed about …something.

There is, at the time of writing, no mention of the award nomination on the Stop the War Coalition website.

xD.

1 – I’m thinking of including ‘Time person of the year 2006’ on my CV.

The fourth plinth

Posted on January 13, 2008January 11, 2019 by David Landon Cole

The shortlist for the new installation on the Fourth Plinth have been announced. They are The Spoils of War (Memorial for an unknown civilian) by Jeremy Deller; Something for the Future by Tracey Emin; One and Other by Antony Gormley; Sky Plinth by Anish Kapoor; Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle by Yinka Shonibare; and Faîtes L’Art, pas La Guerre (Make Art, Not War) by Bob & Roberta Smith. Clicking on a link will take you to the relevant page on the London government website.

Models of the pieces are on display at the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square until 30 March.

One and Other Antony Gormley’s piece calls for 8,670 people to stand on the plinth for an hour each over the course of the year. Off the bat, I rather like the idea. I’m not entirely sure why, but something about putting ordinary people on the plinth is attractive to me. People could do whatever they want (I would probably take a table, chair and pot of tea) but it also emphasises the person on the street amongst the heroes of Trafalgar Square, particularly as some of the heroes aren’t very well known¹.

There is also a comparison to be made with Tracy Emin. Gormley is known for his metal body casts that have been on the skyline around the Hayward lately, but moved on to come up with something new, particularly as something similar to the ‘Gormies’ had already stood on the Plinth – Ecce Homo. Ms Emin did not.

Something for the Future I am not a fan of Tracey Emin. I have no problem with conceptual art, but I think the concepts Emin chooses to explore are uninteresting and her methods derivative. In fairness to Ms Emin, I was probably biased against her from the start. The rubric for Something for the Future reads

For some years Tracey Emin has been interested in the social behaviour of meerkats, small mammals that live together in an egalitarian order in the Kalahari Desert, southern Africa. She has noticed that ‘whenever Britain is in crisis or, as a nation, is experiencing sadness and loss (for example, after Princess Diana’s funeral), the next programme on television is Meerkats United’. Emin proposes to place a sculpture of a small group of meerkats on the empty plinth as a symbol of unity and safety.

This is an example of selection bias, as there are events as tragic that affected one person that did result in the meerkat effect (the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, for instance). It also misses the fundamental point about meerkats – they’re permanently at risk and so are always on guard. Meerkats are an example of perpetual terror, danger and flight, not unity and safety and certainly not anything I would like to feature in my future. Meerkats also have a hierarchical society, with alpha males leaving their scent on subordinates so that everyone knows who is in charge. It is also effectively nicking the aesthetics of a previous statue on the Fourth Plinth, Ecce Homo.

Make art not war The Smiths’ piece could have been very interesting. Its size would rival Nelson’s Column and I like the idea of highlighting an anti-war message on a square named for a great battle and with statues and busts of military leaders, particularly as Trafalgar Square has been the culmination for several large rallies opposed to various wars over the years. I also like the idea of powering a dynamic installation with solar and wind power. However, it falls down on one significant point: aesthetically, it’s rubbish. It is displeasing to the eye and looks like a child has cobbled together some Meccano. I don’t see why it has to be in French, and the message could be slightly more subtle than ‘make art, not war’, particularly as the presence of a huge piece of art suggests that war isn’t preventing people from making art.

The Spoils of War is trying to do the same as Make Art not War, but isn’t (to my mind) as interesting. Where Alison Lapper Pregnant or Hotel for the Birds challenge preconceived opinions, I don’t think people, given the amount of televisual and pictorial reporting, think that war is not destructive. It is interesting, though, that the shortlisting committee chose two pieces directly related to war, which I suspect is because of Trafalgar Square’s return to prominence as a place of protest following its pedestrianisation and redevelopment.

Anish Kapoor’s Sky Plinth could work and could offer some interesting photos, but I feel that something less abstract is needed following Hotel for the Birds. I would add that a brief examination of the model did not reflect the ceiling.

Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle presses all the buttons for me. It is aesthetically both striking and interesting and has multiple layers of interest – the bottle, the ship and the sails, which will be made of designs based on batik. The sails are, apparently, presumed to be of African origin, when they are more accurately a product of the mix of cultures in London and it will fit in well with the history and name of the square. The ship in a bottle also appeals to me as something quirky, which seems appropriate for eccentric London.You can leave comments on the London government website as well as here. It will come as no surprise that my preferred choices are either Yinka Shobinare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle or Antony Gormley’s One and Other. I would very much like to hear what other people think in the comments.

xD.

1 – While everyone has probably heard of Horatio Nelson, James II and George Washington, I wonder how many have heard of Henry Havelock, Charles James Napier or Andrew Cunningham.

Photos from Paris

Posted on January 10, 2008January 11, 2019 by David Landon Cole

Alice and I went to Paris shortly after New Year for a few days and had a lovely time. Although a bit cold, damp and grey, we thoroughly enjoyed it. A few photos follow below for your delectation. Clicking on a photo will bring it up full-size.
The Louvre pyramid

The pyramidal entrance to the Louvre is fantastic. As well as being attractive, it works well as an identifying mark for the Louvre and is functional, pouring sunlight into the basement hall beneath. The reflection of the pyramid on the edge of the fountain caught my eye; it just happened to have been drained, showing what I think is polished granite.

Veiled statues

I peered through the wooden gate you can see at the back of the photo and saw this scene from behind, but couldn’t find a decent shot. I was delighted when I could get this from the other side. Despite the Louvre being quite busy, this seemed like an ocean of calm. The sign said that it was a set of statues that had been put there to protect them from flooding. There was something very strange about these statues; they almost seemed to object to their treatment.

A rose by any other name

Talking of melancholy, this statue caught my eye. The grey days didn’t make for good photos, but you can just about see that the flower she holds is a live rose placed by someone. She seems to be choosing between love and wealth, judging by the dog next to her.

Colours

These three are just random colours together; the first is a stack of berets in a touristy shop near Notre Dame while the other two are from shops selling material in Montmartre.

xD.

Video killed the radio star

Posted on January 7, 2008January 11, 2019 by David Landon Cole

Tom Watson links to a fascinating article on Rolling Stone magazine’s website about the deleterious effects MP3s are having on the quality of music, both in terms of fidelity and whether it’s worth listening to at all. The article, which is worth reading in full¹, essentially says that people want to make music with more loudness² so that more people will listen to it (or rather, notice it) and, because of the technical restrictions on MP3s, this can only be done at the expense of sound quality. It is an interesting thesis, but it doesn’t quite give the full picture.

The problem started with MTV. Video may not have killed the radio star, but there’s pretty good evidence for GBH³. The first problem is the ‘tele‘ part of Music Television. Quite apart from television being a chimera of a Greek and a Latin word (and so no good could ever come of it), it is designed for speech, not music. This affects how the signal is modulated, transmitted, received, decoded and – most importantly – reproduced. The speakers on televisions are, as a rule, not of particularly high quality. They are more than adequate for speech programming, but they’re not going to faithfully reproduce every nuance of music; they’re not designed for it. As MTV grew, the ‘vision’ became the problem. A record label only has so much to spend and so an increasing amount is spent on the video; after all, that’s what the kids want, as they’re watching MTV. This means less spent on the recording and mastering. The easy (read: cheap) workaround to making your song good is to make it noticeable by increasing the amount of loudness.

There is another problem; music is played in pubs. I don’t object per se to music being played in pubs, but I object very strongly to music being played so loudly that I can’t have a conversation with the person opposite me without raising my voice or the choice of music being discordant with the surroundings. I have been in otherwise lovely, Victorian pubs with happy hardcore playing over the speakers. Whether or not you like DJ Sharkey, he doesn’t go well with a pint of stout. The result, though, is an increased demand for (and, through royalties, reward for) music that, in essence, sounds alright over okay-ish speakers in a loud room.

All this means that people come to expect a certain quality of music and are quite surprised by how rich music can actually sound. There is no desire to look for better quality because there is no awareness of its existence, and, where there is, no means to access it.

This process continued with the advent of the MP3 format, but it did not start the trend; indeed, one of the songs used to initially assess the quality of sound recorded as MP3 was Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega. Whether you agree with me in liking Suzanne Vega is irrelevant; Tom’s Diner is a detailed song. MP3 became popular because of limited storage space and download times; the sacrifice of quality for small size seemed attractive. This isn’t as much of an issue now – iPods and the like store huge amounts of information in a small box and a terabyte (a thousand gigabytes) drive is available for £150 – and so MP3s encoded at higher rates are more realistic. Sufficiently realistic, in fact, that Deutsche Grammophon are now offering MP3 downloads of their entire back catalogue. Given that DG place a high value on the quality of their sound recordings, I think it suggests that MP3 does offer viable, good sound quality.

However, people don’t have the means, as I mentioned, to access that quality. A good example of this is the habit some people have of playing music on their mobile phones on the bus. The speakers are rubbish and any sound that comes out (quite apart from the lyrical delights of Soulja Boy’s wonderful hit, Crank Dat (Soulja Boy), which exhorts us to watch him do before cranking it ourselves, possibly without the necessary safety equipment) will be offensive to the ears. It appears to be an increasing norm or in-group signifier amongst some subgroups to engage in this behavior. I’m sorry if I sound sanctimonious, but it is inconsiderate and ill-mannered behavior. If you’re playing your music on your phone, there’s no way for you to appreciate decent quality music. Equally, a lot of music seems to be written so as to go directly to the lucrative ringtone market; quality is not important but catchiness – loudness – is.

This process has been going on since before 1994. I hope that the advent of digital broadcasting, faster internet and larger, cheaper storage means that more people will become aware of how good sound can sound. A better solution than MP3 is FLAC, which aside from being open source (with all the benefits for free software, in both senses of the word) is lossless; it’s been taken on by EBU (the people behind Eurovision) for their radio broadcasts. I’d venture that DG isn’t offering FLAC because people aren’t familiar with it (yet) as MP3 stole a march.

xD.

1 – if for no other reason than that, on page four, it has scientific proof (illustrated with pictures) that the Arctic Monkeys are rubbish and that U2 have become rubbish.
2 – which is not the same as loud music; have a look at the Wikipedia entry on loudness.
3 – I know of at least one barrister who reads this blog, so I’d appreciate it if m’learned friend could correct me if I’m wrong on this, but I believe, although there was no intent, that as there was foresight and recklessness and the harm occasioned is particularly grievous, a charge of GBH is more appropriate than ABH.

New EDM for the Iraqi employees

Posted on December 5, 2007January 11, 2019 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 December 3, 2007January 11, 2019 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 November 29, 2007January 11, 2019 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.