A website (which I am unable to locate) has been launched by two failed and discredited Cabinet Ministers, one a minor toff, the other a major chav, and both utterly unrepentant old Marxists from the days when it mattered. Its purpose is to make life difficult for Gordon Brown, and to try and encourage the ridiculous David Miliband to stand for Leader of the Labour Party. It really has come to something when the BBC describes Alan Milburn as a "heavyweight", or suggests that Miliband is a credible candidate for Prime Minister. Nick Robinson might be a Tory, but even so!
However, credit where it is due: Milburn does at least make Miliband look like a substantial politician (and that is quite a feat), a favour done to Milburn, in turn, by this new website’s apparent media cheerleader-in-chief, Stephen Byers. And only one figure is so lightweight and ludicrous as to make even Byers look statesmanlike. I refer, of course, to the man surrounded by the eye-poppingly undistinguished collection made up of Byers, Milburn, Miliband, Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell, Patricia "Mary Poppins" Hewitt, Tessa "Carmela Soprano" Jowell, Harriet "Tin of Baked Beans" Harman, Hilary "Eva Braun" Armstrong, Michael Levy, Carole Caplan (although she is positively Churchillian compared to any of the rest of them), and so forth, with the cake iced by George Bush.
Step forward, the nonentities’ nonentity, the late Tony Blair.
Wednesday, 28 February 2007
The House of Lords and The Attlee Test
Writing in today’s Guardian, Jonathan Freedland returns to one of that newspaper’s favourite themes: "How dare there be an aristocracy other than Us!" This is closely related to "How dare political parties be funded in any way that some glorified committee of Us cannot control!" and "How dare there be an electoral system which does not give Us the final say in stitching up a coalition!"
Both with the aristocratic social conscience and with organised labour, respectively embodied by the hereditary peerage and by the Labour Party’s trade union links, Britain has been more blessed than any other country on earth. The argument against either is the argument against the other. And we are now seen exactly how Freedland’s and his ilk’s bourgeois triumphalism is causing each to be replaced with something immeasurably worse.
On constitutional questions, we should apply the Attlee Test: if Attlee could live with something and make it work, then Blair and Brown should certainly be able to, and should attend, as Attlee did, to more pressing matters. On that basis, there was no need to alter the House of Lords in 1997, nor is there any such need today. And there is certainly no need for the probable "elections" from closed party lists.
Both with the aristocratic social conscience and with organised labour, respectively embodied by the hereditary peerage and by the Labour Party’s trade union links, Britain has been more blessed than any other country on earth. The argument against either is the argument against the other. And we are now seen exactly how Freedland’s and his ilk’s bourgeois triumphalism is causing each to be replaced with something immeasurably worse.
On constitutional questions, we should apply the Attlee Test: if Attlee could live with something and make it work, then Blair and Brown should certainly be able to, and should attend, as Attlee did, to more pressing matters. On that basis, there was no need to alter the House of Lords in 1997, nor is there any such need today. And there is certainly no need for the probable "elections" from closed party lists.
Ha Ha?
Tonight, if you are so minded, the people who gave you A Very Social Secretary (or Blind Man Has Sex Ha Ha) will give you Confessions of a Diary Secretary (or Fat Man Has Sex Ha Ha). 12 or 15 years ago, British satire was a nightly, primetime outpouring of the most hysterical abuse, directed towards the Major Government and all its works. It then stopped more or less entirely, immediately after the 1997 Election and the death of Princess Diana (its other favourite target). And now it seems to have come back as this. Will we ever have proper satire again? But then, did we ever really have it in the first place?
The Day Today
Natasha Kaplinsky informed us that “A cull of elephants is being planned in South Africa, to deal with that country’s increasing population of elephants.” That line would only have worked if delivered from the lips of Chris Morris, dear.
The Tories and Marriage
The Tories pro-marriage? Back in the real world, if any specific policy is ever formulated in this area, then it will doubtless propose payment in respect of any partnership that can be devised, no doubt even between those who are in fact legally married to other people entirely. For that matter, since the benefit system already pays out specifically for "polygamous partners", why imagine that any new allowance would be restricted to relationships of precisely two persons?
Incidentally, just as a matter of fact, the old Married Couple’s Tax Allowance was unrelated to having children, or not. Child Benefit is about supporting children. The Married Couples Tax Allowance was about supporting marriage.
Incidentally, just as a matter of fact, the old Married Couple’s Tax Allowance was unrelated to having children, or not. Child Benefit is about supporting children. The Married Couples Tax Allowance was about supporting marriage.
Tuesday, 27 February 2007
Down On The Farm, The Best Place To Be
Though the farmers' demand that the supermarkets pay them properly is obviously welcome, they need to ask themselves why they have for so long remained attached to a party which, contrary to its own history, long ago embraced the "free" market so destructive of agriculture in this and numerous other countries. But, of course, what alternative have they had in recent years?
The farming interest in this country may be small, but it is very well-organised, and it is as conservative as it is social-democratic (whether or not it likes the term), as it is patriotic, as it is Christian, as it is independent-minded, as it is utterly non-metropolitan. It therefore deserves to be a major force in the coming replacement of the existing bankrupt, memberless, identically unpopular political parties. And the rest of us therefore need it to be just such a force.
The farming interest in this country may be small, but it is very well-organised, and it is as conservative as it is social-democratic (whether or not it likes the term), as it is patriotic, as it is Christian, as it is independent-minded, as it is utterly non-metropolitan. It therefore deserves to be a major force in the coming replacement of the existing bankrupt, memberless, identically unpopular political parties. And the rest of us therefore need it to be just such a force.
Monday, 26 February 2007
So There
As the BBC puts it:
The UN's highest court has cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide during the 1990s Bosnian war. But the International Court of Justice did rule that Belgrade had violated international law by failing to prevent the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.
Bosnia brought the case and would have sought billions of dollars from Serbia in compensation if successful. The case is the first of a state being charged with genocide. Individuals have been convicted of genocide in Bosnia. The Bosnian Muslim leader expressed disappointment at the ruling, but a senior Bosnian Serb official hailed it.
At least 100,000 people died in the 1992-1995 war, triggered by the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Bosnia's Muslims and Croats wanted to cut ties with Belgrade, a move opposed by Bosnian Serbs.
The case, Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Serbia and Montenegro, began a year ago and a panel of judges has been deliberating since hearings ended in May 2006. Bosnia argued that Belgrade incited ethnic hatred, armed Bosnian Serbs and was an active participant in the killings. Belgrade said the conflict was an internal war between Bosnia's ethnic groups and denied any state role in genocide.
In the ruling, the president of the court, Judge Rosalyn Higgins, said: "The court finds that the acts of genocide at Srebrenica cannot be attributed to the respondent's (Serbia) state organs."
However the court added that the leaders of Serbia failed to comply with its international obligation to prevent the killings and punish those responsible.
The court also rejected Bosnia's claim for reparations. "Financial compensation is not the appropriate form of reparation," the ruling said. The war crimes tribunal in The Hague has already found individuals guilty of genocide in Bosnia and established the Srebrenica massacre as genocide.
Under a 1995 peace accord, Bosnia remained a single state, but power was devolved to a Muslim-Croat federation and a Bosnian Serb Republic. The Bosnian Muslim member of the country's tripartite presidency, Haris Siladzic, told the BBC there was "disappointment" at the ruling among Bosnian Muslims. However he said he was pleased that the court had "ruled that Serbia and Montenegro had violated the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by not preventing or punishing the perpetrators of the genocide". In the Serb Republic, Krstan Simic, a senior member of the governing ruling Union of Independent Social-Democrats, said he was pleased that the judges had taken "real facts " into account.
The ruling also comes with Serbia still facing challenges linked to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Admission talks with the European Union have been stalled over Belgrade's failure to hand over war crimes suspects for trial. It also faces final talks with the United Nations on the future of Kosovo, with the province heading towards near-statehood despite Serbian opposition.
So, what about the failure of Bosnia's loudest backers to prevent or punish the ongoing crime of genocide against, for example, the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians of Iraq? What about the crimes of genocide perpetrated by such neocon darlings as the Holocaust-denier who re-created in 1990s Europe the full panoply of 1930s Fascism (Franjo Tudjman), the Wahhabi rabble-rouser who had been a recruitment sergeant for the SS (Alija Izetbegovic), and the filially black-shirted Wahhabi traffickers of the Taliban's heroin into Europe (the Kosovo "Liberation" Army)? What about the KLA's transformation, on the UN's watch, of putatively independent Kosovo into a Mafia fiefdom? When is anyone going to challenge Clare Short and Private Eye about their new-found opposition to the neocon-Wahhabi alliance after they cheered it on at the tops of their voices in Yugoslavia? And why does anyone still employ Stephen Pollard, Oliver Kamm, Johann Hari, David Aaronovitch, or any of the rest of them?
The UN's highest court has cleared Serbia of direct responsibility for genocide during the 1990s Bosnian war. But the International Court of Justice did rule that Belgrade had violated international law by failing to prevent the 1995 massacre at Srebrenica.
Bosnia brought the case and would have sought billions of dollars from Serbia in compensation if successful. The case is the first of a state being charged with genocide. Individuals have been convicted of genocide in Bosnia. The Bosnian Muslim leader expressed disappointment at the ruling, but a senior Bosnian Serb official hailed it.
At least 100,000 people died in the 1992-1995 war, triggered by the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Bosnia's Muslims and Croats wanted to cut ties with Belgrade, a move opposed by Bosnian Serbs.
The case, Bosnia and Herzegovina versus Serbia and Montenegro, began a year ago and a panel of judges has been deliberating since hearings ended in May 2006. Bosnia argued that Belgrade incited ethnic hatred, armed Bosnian Serbs and was an active participant in the killings. Belgrade said the conflict was an internal war between Bosnia's ethnic groups and denied any state role in genocide.
In the ruling, the president of the court, Judge Rosalyn Higgins, said: "The court finds that the acts of genocide at Srebrenica cannot be attributed to the respondent's (Serbia) state organs."
However the court added that the leaders of Serbia failed to comply with its international obligation to prevent the killings and punish those responsible.
The court also rejected Bosnia's claim for reparations. "Financial compensation is not the appropriate form of reparation," the ruling said. The war crimes tribunal in The Hague has already found individuals guilty of genocide in Bosnia and established the Srebrenica massacre as genocide.
Under a 1995 peace accord, Bosnia remained a single state, but power was devolved to a Muslim-Croat federation and a Bosnian Serb Republic. The Bosnian Muslim member of the country's tripartite presidency, Haris Siladzic, told the BBC there was "disappointment" at the ruling among Bosnian Muslims. However he said he was pleased that the court had "ruled that Serbia and Montenegro had violated the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide by not preventing or punishing the perpetrators of the genocide". In the Serb Republic, Krstan Simic, a senior member of the governing ruling Union of Independent Social-Democrats, said he was pleased that the judges had taken "real facts " into account.
The ruling also comes with Serbia still facing challenges linked to the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. Admission talks with the European Union have been stalled over Belgrade's failure to hand over war crimes suspects for trial. It also faces final talks with the United Nations on the future of Kosovo, with the province heading towards near-statehood despite Serbian opposition.
So, what about the failure of Bosnia's loudest backers to prevent or punish the ongoing crime of genocide against, for example, the Chaldo-Assyrian Christians of Iraq? What about the crimes of genocide perpetrated by such neocon darlings as the Holocaust-denier who re-created in 1990s Europe the full panoply of 1930s Fascism (Franjo Tudjman), the Wahhabi rabble-rouser who had been a recruitment sergeant for the SS (Alija Izetbegovic), and the filially black-shirted Wahhabi traffickers of the Taliban's heroin into Europe (the Kosovo "Liberation" Army)? What about the KLA's transformation, on the UN's watch, of putatively independent Kosovo into a Mafia fiefdom? When is anyone going to challenge Clare Short and Private Eye about their new-found opposition to the neocon-Wahhabi alliance after they cheered it on at the tops of their voices in Yugoslavia? And why does anyone still employ Stephen Pollard, Oliver Kamm, Johann Hari, David Aaronovitch, or any of the rest of them?
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