06.26.08
Posted in politics at 10:44 pm by Rob Fahey
The worst thing that has ever happened to British politics is the movement of both our leading parties to the centre of the political spectrum. With both the Conservatives and Labour occupying a centre-right position, the ugly face of centrist politics has been revealed. Devoid of strong ideals or leanings, centrist parties find themselves stuffed with politicians who don’t believe in a damned thing except gaining, and then retaining, positions of power.
On Labour’s benches, this much is perfectly obvious from the fact that the party has abandoned any concept of social liberalism. Stop and search powers, 90- and then 42-day detention without charge, increasingly harsh immigration laws and prison sentences, ASBOs, the reclassification of cannabis in the face of all scientific and social evidence… All things which fly in the face of what should have been the whole ethos of the Labour movement, but which have been convenient for a government keen to win headlines for being “tough”.
Earlier this week, perhaps the most utterly unpleasant Home Secretary the Labour administration has produced - yes, even more unpleasant than the arrogant, delusional and self-justifying David Blunkett - managed to come out with what is, to me, the single lowest ebb of everything this government has done from a liberal, progressive or even simply moral standpoint.
Do you see the picture on the right? That’s an image that was spread around the world in 2005, depicting two teenage boys moments before their execution in Iran. Their crime? They were convicted of being homosexual - the Iranians protested that they were “rapists”, by which they meant that the two boys had simultaneously “raped” each other. They were blindfolded, placed on the back of a truck, had nooses hung around their necks from above - and then the truck drove off. There are later pictures from this series, which I have not put here as they are, understandably, incredibly distressing.
Now here’s what Jacqui Smith, our delightful Home Secretary, had to say this week on the question of deporting homosexual asylum seekers back to Iran. “With particular regard to Iran… the evidence does not show a real risk of discovery of, or adverse action against gay and lesbian people who are discreet about their sexual orientation.”
Stonewall, a gay campaign group, reckons that 4,000 people have been executed in Iran since the 1970s for being homosexual. Jacqui Smith disputes that figure - but there’s little dispute over another figure which shows 140 people being executed under the current regime alone for homosexuality. Regardless, Ms Smith’s view is essentially that gay people in Iran are fine as long as they’re “discreet” - shut up, don’t talk about it, and hope every day that nobody with a grudge against you discovers your secret.
Of course, you may have spotted the essential logical flaw in her entire argument. Completely aside from being a disgusting thing for a public servant in a civilised nation to say, the whole statement misses the fact that by coming to the UK and seeking asylum on the grounds of sexuality, refugees from Iran have already given up the option of living “discreetly”. Besides which, if they could, they would - gay people all over the world choose to hide their sexuality in the face of repression because it’s more important to them to be with their family and friends. Those who run from Iran and other countries like it do so at great personal cost and risk, and only do so because they have been found out, or because the strain is no longer bearable - and in both cases, if they don’t face capital punishment for their sexual orientation before they leave, they certainly will upon their return.
Still - who cares about that, when there are headlines to be won in the Daily Mail and the Sun? Figures for the processing of asylum seekers make vital news in this era of focused xenophobia, when much of the population seems to make no distinction between economic migrants and those fleeing persecution. If the cost of making the Home Office - and by extension, this failing, morally bankrupt Labour government - look good is the lives of innocent people whose only crime is their sexual orientation, then so be it. They’re only Iranians anyway, the tabloids will probably assume they were gay terrorists.
By the way, the case that kicked this all off was that of a chap called Mehdi Kazemi, a young gay man from Iran who moved to Brighton to study English in 2005. In 2006, his boyfriend back in Iran (a nation in which Jacqui Smith maintains there is no “real risk of discovery or adverse action” against gay people) was executed for his sexuality - but not before naming Kazemi as his partner during interrogation (for which read “torture”). The Home Office’s reaction was to try to deport Kazemi back to Iran, and only an extensive public campaign on his behalf, as well as multiple legal appeals, made them reverse this decision.
Now Jacqui Smith wants to draw a line in the sand and prevent any more Iranians from escaping through the “loophole” which saved Mehdi Kazemi’s life from a brutal execution. The loophole which she wishes to close is that Britain has traditionally been a compassionate and thoroughly decent nation of people - and having destroyed much of that trust and decency within the nation itself, the next objective seems to be to snatch away any compassion in our dealings with the persecuted, vulnerable people who throw themselves upon our mercy at our borders.
Technorati Tags: asylum, Daily Mail, immigration, Jacqui Smith, Labour, Mehdi Kazemi, politics, The Sun
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06.16.08
Posted in politics at 7:09 pm by Rob Fahey
No, not the aftermath of George W Bush’s presidency - I’m not sure my webhosting plan, generous and economical as it may be, comes with enough storage for an in-depth discussion of all the issues arising from that particularly dark eight years in our recent history. (Eight years - can you believe it? I’ve lived in Britain for the vast majority of my adult life, and for all of that time, Dubya has been US president. I can distinctly recall, in my last year in Dublin, being told by a friend that Dubya was likely to be the next US president, and reading some of his quotes online. We both laughed. I think my laughter was a little more naive.)
Rather, the aftermath of George W Bush’s visit to London, from whence he departed today. Did you know he was here? Or rather, did you know that he was coming? Today’s press conference - and yesterday’s dinner at No.10 - were fairly high profile events, but compared to the incredible level of hype and pomp over the visit of French president Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this year, Bush’s arrival was preceded by a deathly silence.
Today, the only sign that the “Leader of the Free World” has been in London is a mess of metal barricades, police tape and left-over traffic diversions. Whitehall is covered in barricades that have yet to be collected, and the whole area around the U.S. Embassy at Grosvenor Square is a disaster of traffic diversions, heavy-handed police cordons and yet more metal barricades.
Over the weekend, Londoners were not only denied access to one of the city’s major thoroughfares (Whitehall, which is an artery for many extremely heavily used bus routes), but were also treated to a constant barrage of noise pollution thanks to the helicopters that circled over the centre of the city. Worse, however, is the fact that Londoners were also denied, once again, the basic right to protest and be heard.
Ostensibly, the blocking off of vast sections of the city was for security purposes; and certainly, one can see why putting Bush within bomb-blast radius of the crowds wouldn’t be a great idea (although I’d be more worried about the security of the innocents in the crowd than I would be about the man himself, a security concern I rather suspect the authorities don’t share). This, however, does not justify placing the man and his excessive entourage not only out of reach, but also out of sight and out of earshot. This was not security, it was a PR exercise - an attempt either to shield Bush from the proof of his deep unpopularity with the British people, or perhaps more likely, to prevent the world’s press from having a chance to point their cameras at a juxtaposition of the reviled leader’s “Farewell Tour”, and the crowds for whom his farewell can’t come soon enough.
Never mind the deep inconvenience that this trip caused for the people of London (especially compared to the visits of other national leaders, which are usually a cause for celebration and a festive atmosphere in the city centre) - the way in which the whole trip was handled by the police and security forces smacked of the American idea of “Free Speech Zones”, one of the most appalling additions to the lexicon of the neo-conservative movement in recent years. The right to peaceful protest is, I believe, absolute - it can be restricted for extremely clear and well-elucidated reasons of security, but to restrict that right simply for the purposes of PR and image-control is a shocking abuse of the powers this Government has gathered to itself.
Sorry - another shocking abuse. I suppose we should be getting used to them by now.
Technorati Tags: Bush, George W Bush, London, politics, policing, security
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06.15.08
Posted in politics at 11:56 pm by Rob Fahey
Ever since Ireland voted “No” to the Lisbon Treaty late last week, there’s been all manner of pot-bashing and shouting from the Eurosceptic lobby here in the UK about the result. This, apparently, is proof that the British public (in common, presumably, with the public of every other nation in Europe, bar Ireland) are being hoodwinked and deprived of their rights by not being given a referendum on the treaty. The inference is that our politicians know that the public would defeat the treaty, so they’re passing it through the backdoor instead.
At this juncture, it’s worth saying a few basic things. Firstly, the Eurosceptics are right. Secondly, they’re right for the wrong reasons. Finally, the proponents of the European ideal have, on this occasion, debased themselves with a shoddy campaign and a shoddier piece of legislation which skirts dangerously close to justifying the xenophobic, insular viewpoints espoused by the Eurosceptic lobby.
Why are the Eurosceptics right? They’re right because, inevitably, this treaty would have been defeated if it had gone to a referendum in the UK. They’re also right because the Government quite clearly chose not to have a referendum purely because it knew that the treaty would have been defeated. On many other issues, Labour is desperately out of touch with its electorate - on this one, however, it’s perfectly in touch with them, and choosing to ignore and bypass them because of it.
So why are they right for the wrong reasons, then? All you need to do is look at how the “No” campaign in Ireland was conducted - and the manner in which it won the vote - to realise that there was never going to be a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, even if the government had called such a referendum. Of those who voted “No” to the treaty in Ireland, most were not voting on the content of the treaty - they were voting based on mis-information, manipulated fears and false beliefs.
A few issues dominated the No vote in Ireland, all pushed forward by relatively fringe political groups (the extremist Catholic movement, Sinn Fein and various others). Fearmongering from these groups convinced parts of the electorate that the Lisbon Treaty would introduce abortion to Ireland “through the back door”, along with legal prostitution and a relaxation of the drug laws. More insidiously, the Lisbon “No” campaign preyed on the ugly side of the Irish national character which has emerged in recent years - the extraordinary xenophobia and blatant racism which has confronted people from the new EU states who have moved to Ireland to work.
If you thought our right-wing press were doing a good job of treating Polish immigrants like shit in the UK, you’ve seen nothing yet. Ireland, lacking the UK’s background of immigration (although that’s no excuse for a country which was itself one of the world’s most prolific sources of immigrant labour for centuries), has reacted ferociously and disgustingly to the people who have entered the country to work. Much of the Irish “No” vote was a vote against immigration and against “foreigners” - the fury of small-minded people being cleverly directed by political campaigners morally corrupt enough to turn racism to their own ends.
In fact, I’ve only heard one honest, genuine and informed reason for voting “No” in the referendum thus far - from voters who simply did not understand the treaty, having made the effort to do so, and chose to vote No rather than accept a constitution-altering document whose small print they could not fathom. I’ll come back to this in a second.
Under these circumstances, can you see what would happen if the UK had a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty? There’s no way in hell we’d actually get a vote - or even a debate - on the merits of the treaty. Instead, we’d have months of scaremongering, with the usual suspects sprinkling fear, uncertainty and doubt into the minds of voters not over the treaty, but over Europe itself. The Sun, the News of the World, the Daily Mail and the Express would have a field day, stirring up every bit of xenophobic, anti-Europe sentiment they could muster, repeating tired lies over European legislation (they still haven’t got over the “bendy bananas” and “metric martyr” stories, both of which have been conclusively debunked) and muttering darkly about foreign influence taking our sovereignty away. The delicious irony, of course, is the arguably the most powerful man in UK politics is, er, Rupert Murdoch - a foreign national who wields his power, and disseminates his dislike of the EU, in this country through his tools of foreign intervention, the Sun, the NOTW and Sky News…
A referendum on the Lisbon Treaty in the UK would be defeated, not because of any problem with the treaty, but because of the emotive, manipulative and dishonest campaign which would be waged by the Eurosceptic lobby. That’s why we’re not getting a referendum, frankly - and it’s a terrible shame and a massive democratic failure, because frankly, there are tons of problems in the treaty which should be aired, which should be the topic of a national debate and which should, ultimately, be put to a vote.
This is where Europe is failing its citizens. Even as a huge believer in the ideal of an open, co-operating and unified Europe, I have misgivings about the Lisbon Treaty - but more than that, I am appalled by the manner in which the treaty has been created, presented and pushed through ratification.
The reason why debate in Ireland was dominated by scaremongering, and part of the reason why the same thing would happen in the UK, is because the Yes campaign simply didn’t have any ammunition to throw back. The treaty, as a piece of legislation, is utter rubbish. It is vastly over-complicated and completely unreadable to anyone who wasn’t directly involved in the negotiation of the document. It is an appallingly bad piece of law, a testament to the horrific belief that all law must be obfuscated by unnecessary verbiage and constant references to external sources and documents.
In other words, there’s nothing there for people to relate to - nothing that governments can point at and say “look, read it for yourself - this is the structure of the new Europe we’re proposing”. Instead, we’re asked to take lawyers, politicians and civil servants at their word when they tell us that some very clever people have drafted this document, and here’s what it does, and to ignore all the people who say it’ll do anything else…
Law doesn’t have to be this way. Look at the constitution of the United States of America - or better again, and closer to home, look at the constitution of the Republic of Ireland. These are simple, plain-English documents which define and rule over every piece of law ever passed in those nations, but they’re so simple that they can be taught to primary school children. In Ireland, in fact, the constitution IS taught to primary school children - I recall it bring printed on the inside cover of one of our textbooks, and having to learn passages from it for homework.
What the EU has done here is to take a fundamental document defining the future of Europe, obfuscate it so that nobody can read it, then shove it through national parliaments without public consent. This is shoddy, non-democratic and frankly insulting to the electorates whom these people serve. Here in Britain, it’s typical of our present batch of politicians, who seem to think that fearmongering or simply doing things behind people’s backs are a better way to proceed than standing up for the principles of the actions they’re taking. Take the Human Rights Act - a piece of legislation which is a fundamental protection of our freedoms and rights, but which our politicians seem happy to watch being eviscerated by the howling right-wing press, too afraid, apparently, to take a stand in the defence of such an important piece of law.
I believe in Europe - and as such, I don’t want to see Europe progress through hidden channels, back-room deals and treaties signed into law by politicians without consulting their people. I want a vigorous debate on Europe, a chance for the Eurosceptic lobby to be shown up for the frauds, xenophobes and liars they really are, and for the principles of European co-operation and the value it has brought to the lives of British people to be brought into the light for all to see.
That’s not what we’re getting, and it disgusts me - and for that reason, as painful as it may be to stand on the same side of the fence as the Eurosceptics, I sincerely hope that the Irish “No” vote sends this whole sorry shambles back to the drawing board.
Technorati Tags: Daily Mail, EU, Europe, Eurosceptics, Lisbon Treaty, politics, The Sun, racism, referendum, Rupert Murdoch
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05.27.08
Posted in politics at 7:19 pm by Rob Fahey
Writing in the Guardian this week, Charlie Brooker makes a typically self-deprecating comment which, in fact, astutely sums up a large part of the problem - and pointlessness - with party politics.
During the London mayoral election, I had two main fears. The first, obviously, was that Boris was going to win. For weeks I repeatedly voiced that fear to everyone I met - to no avail as it turned out. But the second fear, the one I kept tucked away somewhere near the back of my head, was far more sinister. It was this: what if Boris won - and then turned out to be really good at his job? That might force me to question my cherished anti-Tory prejudice, which is so ingrained and instinctive it feels like something hand-stamped on my DNA.
This leapt out at me because it describes exactly why I have such difficulty in debating politics with, or even having a friendly discussion with, anyone who unswervingly devotes themselves to a political party. There’s a basic illogic to it - it comes with baggage which prevents you from recognising the benefits on the other side of the fence, and you end up twisting your world-view to suit your support of the party, rather than moving your political affiliations as your world-view changes. It’s deeply unhealthy to hitch yourself to a monolithic, bureaucratic body whose sole aim, ultimately, is to gain power - the contrast being those who support individual policies, ideals, or even politicians, of course, all of which are healthy parts of the political system. The parties themselves are merely parasites within that system which, sadly, are necessary for the functioning of our type of democracy.
Anyway, that’s why the phrase - with its perfect summing up of the closed-mindedness engendered by party politics - struck a chord with me. It came back to mind earlier today, however, because Boris’ actions as Mayor came back to the fore. Frankly, I don’t think Charlie has much to worry about regarding Boris turning out to be really good - not if th evidence thus far is anything to go on.
What has Boris Johnson done so far as Mayor of London? Two things. Firstly, he brought in a new rule which banned consuming alcohol on buses, tubes and trams in the city. While this doesn’t actually affect me in any way, and won’t affect most people, it’s clear that it’s the worst kind of gesture politics. People who drink on the tube aren’t the problem where anti-social behaviour is concerned; in fact, your average tube journey is so short that even if you downed half a bottle of wine at the beginning, you’d be off the tube at the other end before it started having any major effect. The problem is people who get onto the tube incredibly drunk and proceed to act in an anti-social way - banning drink on the tube won’t fix that in any way.
The ban also didn’t actually come with any additional budget for enforcing it, so fuck knows who’s meant to do that. In other words, it’s a tiny, largely unimportant freedom that’s been removed from us not for any practical reason, but because a politician wished to make a statement. That’s not a good way to set the scene for the rest of Boris’ tenure as Mayor, is it?
Well, if that’s worrying news, consider his next move - details of which were shuffled out of the Mayor’s office on the Sunday of a Bank Holiday weekend. Boris (or rather, Boris’ Tory Party minders - I doubt sincerely that he’s making these kind of decisions for himself) has elected to end London’s deal with Venezuela, which saw the city’s transport network being fuelled with cheap Venezuelan oil in return for a fairly significant return of expertise and knowledge back to the developing South American economy.
The deal was controversial, largely because some saw it as exploitation of a poor South American country by a wealthy European city - and, of course, because the US media and their cohorts deeply dislike Hugo Chavez himself. (One oft-ignored fact is that by cutting out oil companies and middlemen, another aspect of the deal which enraged parts of the media, London ended up paying Venezuela directly and the country didn’t do all that badly out of the deal, even before considering the value they got from the imported expertise we returned to them.)
However, what the deal did on the ground was simple - it provided half-price transport for Londoners living on Income Support. That covers a wide range of people, including a large number of those with disabilities - a great many of whom aren’t eligible for the Freedom Pass scheme, so this deal made a fairly significant impact for them.
In canceling the scheme, Boris has removed that half-price travel. The last half-price passes, which are valid for six months, will be issued in August - after which those on Income Support, including the disabled, will essentially see their transport fares double.
The Mayor’s office says that its concern here is for the poor of Venezuela - although how exactly this is going to help them, or when exactly Boris Johnson and his aides became so concerned for them, is not explained in any way. The reality is that the Conservative party in the UK has major problems with Chavez’ regime, and rather than acting in the interests of the people of London - especially the most vulnerable people in the city - Boris has just toed the line and done exactly what he’s told by his party and his advisors.
So there we have it. Two moves from the new Mayor - one removes a part of our freedoms in order to make an empty gesture, the second directly hurts the city’s most vulnerable people in order to toe the party line (and make an equally empty gesture). Further government intrusion, illiberal policies and snatching money from the hands of the poor and the disabled - is Cameron’s idea of making the Conservatives seem “compassionate”? I think Charlie Brooker need not worry; four more years of this and nobody will doubt who was in the right at the last Mayoral election.
Technorati Tags: Boris Johnson, Charlie Brooker, Hugo Chavez, politics, London, Venezuela
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05.20.08
Posted in politics at 11:24 pm by Rob Fahey
Parliament has just voted against all of the amendments which would have restricted access to abortion. Both the odious Nadine Dorries’ 20-week amendment, and the Cameron-backed “compromise” position of 22 weeks, have been struck down.
I’m no fan of our incumbent government, but suffice it to say that I’m very happy to see the progress of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill has continued through these two difficult days without hitting the roadbumps that many of us had feared. Busy week for me this week, but I think I might tip back a glass at the weekend to the MPs who saw the course and listened to the science and the reason rather than the enticing baying of the right-wing.
Technorati Tags: abortion, BBC Parliament, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, Nadine Dorries, stem cell research
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Posted in politics at 8:31 pm by Rob Fahey
Back to my BBC Parliament screensaver today.
Yesterday, as I commented, was a pretty good day for science, medicine, and Parliamentary democracy. Amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill which would have forbidden continued research into stem cells and “hybrid” embryos (which aren’t really anything of the sort) were defeated by a hefty margin in the Commons, defeating the hardline religious stance and giving hope to countless people whose chronic illnesses could be cured in future by this research.
Today is even more contentious. Today, we have votes which directly affect IVF for same-sex couples and single mothers, and the abortion laws.
The first set of votes have already gone through, and once again Parliament has rejected the religion-influenced stance of its more hardline members. New clauses which would insist on the presence of either a), a father and mother; or b), a nominated father figure, have been rejected. What this means, in essence, is that there is now no legislative protection for discrimination against lesbian couples and single mothers at IVF clinics.
I’m cautiously glad that these amendments didn’t pass. My own personal views on IVF are deeply unpopular - while recognising the power of the biological urge to reproduce, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of people spending tens of thousands of pounds on expensive medical fertility treatments when millions of children each year (and hundreds, if not thousands, in the UK alone) need secure, loving homes to raise them. Adoption seems, to me, to be the moral choice - if perhaps the harder path to follow.
On the other hand, if we’re going to allow unfettered access to IVF to straight couples, then it’s absolutely fair that lesbian and single-parent couples should enjoy the same access.
The next set of amendments is being debated now - the controversial abortion amendments, which seek to reduce the limit from 24 weeks down to 12, 14, 16, 18, 20 and 22 weeks, or to add clauses forcing women to look at womb scans before making a decision. There’s really no science to back this up, so we’re instead getting the spectacle of a debate where the proponents are either banging on about “science” they don’t actually understand or can’t substantiate, or are appealing to religious morality in high-pitched, holier-than-thou voices.
It was kicked off by Edward Leigh (Con), whose speech mostly consisted of apologising for suggesting nonsense (as well he might, the pillock) and has since descended into all kinds of ear-grating madness. I had to switch off when the amendment proposing that women be forced to stare at pictures of the foetus before making a choice was being expounded upon by some vile harridan from the Labour benches - all that ran through my mind as this smug individual made her ill-supported appeal was this somewhat heart-wrenching article about a similar policy in Oklahoma.
The fact that we’re even discussing this in 2008, half a century after the introduction of abortion, is astonishing. Bear in mind that only a tiny percentage (under 2%) of abortions take place in the last few weeks of the existing term, and then only for serious medical reasons - religionists on both sides of the house want to see that taken away, removing from women the freedom to choose, but also putting their lives and the health of any potential children into serious danger. (Plus, if you actually want to reduce the number of late-term abortions, the best way to do it would be to remove the requirement for two doctors to authorise an abortion, which presently holds up many of the procedures. There’s an amendment on the table to do that, but it seems unlikely to pass.)
The votes start tonight at ten. Fingers crossed for another stinging defeat for the religionistas.
Technorati Tags: abortion, BBC Parliament, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, Nadine Dorries, politics, stem cell research
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05.19.08
Posted in politics at 11:13 pm by Rob Fahey
BBC Parliament this evening has taken on the role of a strangely soothing screensaver - muffled conversation, tiny moving blobs of colour shuffling around, and occasionally a loud voice shouting “Order!” before announcing relaxing, positive news in a cut-glass English accent. It’s wonderful.
This, for those not in the UK, is the BBC’s live broadcast channel for the Houses of Parliament. When the House of Commons is in session, it broadcasts everything that happens live - and it’s available for free on just about every TV service in the country, be it cable, satellite or digital terrestrial. It also broadcasts the House of Lords on occasion, along with recordings of select committee sessions (which hear evidence on a variety of topics and eventually report back with a view to informing the legislative process) and even of meetings of the London Assembly with the Mayor. Mostly, it’s as boring as it sounds, but occasionally it’s absolutely fantastic to have a window into these proceedings, and I (being quite boring myself) find the whole thing fascinating.
(If you wake up feeling mildly hung over, playing “count how many old codgers in Lords are asleep” is quite a good distraction, too.)
Anyway, this evening’s business in Commons is regarding the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill - and the reason it’s so relaxing is that after several weeks of debate, tonight I’m watching amendment after amendment to this vital bill being struck down. Pretty much all of those amendments have been tabled by MPs on religious grounds - objecting to continued stem cell research, the selection process for saviour siblings, and so on. All of them are being defeated by huge margins.
This is good news on several grounds. Firstly, because this research is important and could change (and save) the lives of millions of people. Secondly, because to my mind those MPs who have objected on religious (mostly Catholic) grounds have betrayed their duty as MPs in doing so. They are elected as representatives of the people, and to act according to their personal religious beliefs rather than acting in the best interest of those people is a disgraceful act. The fact that so few of them are doing so, even in the face of what has been a hugely scaremongering and uninformed media campaign from certain quarters, is a heartening sign.
There are more votes to come tomorrow - one in particular, on the question of whether the time limit for abortion should fall from 24 weeks to a lower limit, is extremely contentious. There’s no hard science to support such a change, and the campaign for a lowering of the limit seems to be fuelled once again from the religious lobby, who view a small reduction in the limit as a step on the way to much bigger reductions down the line. I hope that’s transparent to most MPs, and results in another resounding defeat; once we’ve taken the moral decision, as a society, to allow abortion, the question of the medical limit on that procedure should be based on strong scientific evidence, not vague “ethical” standpoints based on books that were written before we knew the first thing about foetal development. (The charge to a lower limit is being led by one Nadine Dorries, a Tory MP who has spun an astonishing web of barefaced lying and deceit on this topic in the past few weeks - it’s worth doing a google search on her name and finding some of the better rebuttals to see just how low the anti-abortion lobby in the UK will sink to try and make themselves relevant.)
We’ll see what happens. For tonight, though, I feel a little bit good about British politics for the first time since before London’s public transport shunning outer suburbs lumbered the rest of us with an anti-libertarian bigot for the next four years.
Technorati Tags: BBC Parliament, Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, Nadine Dorries, politics, abortion, stem cell research
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02.20.08
Posted in politics, work at 3:19 am by Rob Fahey
It may be old news to you that the Daily Mail is a despicable organ of hate and intolerance, but regardless - this little gem is definitely worth reading, and forwarding to that misguided Daily Mail reader in your life.
As standard practice, journalists use a variety of services which send out bulk emails to their lists requesting information, sources or review products for features that are in the pipeline. This is a normal service - for example, if your magazine is planning a feature on most expensive Easter Eggs, you might send out a mail saying so, and seeking responses from department stores or specialist chocolatiers who have products that might feature. It’s quite a handy function, although not one I’ve used myself previously. All perfectly above board and legit, anyway.
Except, of course, when this kind of thing comes across the wire…
PUBLICATION: Daily Mail (Request for personal case study)
JOURNALIST: Diana Appleyard (staff)
DEADLINE: 14-February-2008 16:00
QUERY: I am urgently looking for anonymous horror stories of people who have employed Eastern European staff, only for them to steal from them, disappear, or have lied about their resident status. We can pay you £100 for taking part, and I promise it will be anonymous, just a quick phone call. Could you email me asap? Many thanks, Diana
HOW TO REPLY:
Email: mailto:dianaappleyard@aol.com
That’s how journalism works at the Daily Mail, you see - a disgustingly xenophobic and racist agenda that they don’t even bother to conceal properly. If this doesn’t get you into a rage, try replacing “Eastern European” with “black”, “Asian”, “homosexual” or even “female”, and see how comfortably it sits with you then. Then consider how many people would be willing to make up a story for a hundred quid, given the promise of anonymity? Make no mistake - this is hateful bile masquerading as journalism, and nothing more.
Of course, you probably knew that about the Daily Mail already - but for those not convinced, or for those who know someone that needs a little convincing, this little example of How Journalism Works at that publication is well worth illustrating.
(Grabbed from Liberal Conspiracy.)
In other, finer news, the issue of Disposable Media I mentioned quite a while back has finally hit the shelves - or rather, the download queue. I wrote a piece about Battlestar Galactica for it, which was fun - it’s a bit out of date now since the release of Razor and various other developments, but still amply explains my love for what I’m still convinced is the best thing to happen to TV in the last ten years. You can grab the new-fangled PDF mag right here (about 20mb).
Technorati Tags: Battlestar Galactica, Daily Mail, Diana Appleyard, Disposable Media, journalism, politics, racism, workblog
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01.31.08
Posted in games, politics, writing at 1:44 am by Rob Fahey
A couple of weeks back, Britain’s embattled (and increasingly forlorn-looking, as fellow closeted BBC Parliament fans will have noted) Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, took up the standard of the battle against the single threat to our country’s youth. Not the erosion of their civil liberties, or the crumbling of the economy that’s meant to sustain them; not even drugs, or alcohol, or terrorism. This vile and pernicious threat is, of course, videogames.
Brown parroted elements of the spiel of his repellently false opponent, David Cameron, in calling for videogame makers to ban knives from their games - essentially saying that they should accept responsibility for the recent spate of highly-reported knife crime among youths in Britain’s cities, especially around London.
I wrote a fairly lengthy feature on the matter for GamesIndustry.biz, which pretty much sums up my own view on it. In the wake of that, I was contacted by the Evening Standard, who wanted me to write a short piece outlining my perspective on the debate.
Although I spent quite a while working the piece into the word counts they requested, they didn’t publish it in the end - and rather rudely, didn’t even bother dashing off a quick mail to apologise for wasting my time. Being that the Standard is an odious, biased and unpleasant rag at the best of times, I’m not entirely surprised - I got the impression that they had contacted me purely because I was one of the few game writers who made a point of seeing both sides to the whole Manhunt 2 banning story, and were disappointed to find that this doesn’t translate to being enough of a fool to think playing videogames is what’s making members of violent gangs stab one another in South London.
Anyway, in case anyone is interested, here’s what was going to be published. Shame, really - I was quite looking forward to slagging off old Gordy in the national press. Some other time, maybe.
It’s very disappointing that Gordon Brown would try to make videogames into a scapegoat for London’s youth crime. It’s a cheap political trick to point the finger at a soft target like videogames, instead of accepting responsibility for the difficult, complex roots of this problem.
I don’t think for a moment that a politician as experienced as Mr Brown really believes that we’re going to solve violent crime by taking some videogames off the shelves. He knows that what’s really needed is to tackle the thorny questions of deprivation, social integration, drug policy and policing - but videogames make for a nice, distracting soundbite and take the heat off for a few days.
There is definitely a debate to be had about violent videogames, but Mr Brown’s comments aren’t helpful. We need to look at the enforcement of age ratings, and make sure that retailers are sticking to them. We need to make sure that parents know what their children are playing, and can control their access to unsuitable material.
The research into the effect of violent games on people’s behaviour is very inconclusive - but even in the absence of a clear answer, I think most people, including those inside the games industry, agree that children’s access to violent media should be controlled. We already have a great age rating system, but there’s a lot of work to be done on that, and the Government needs to be working with the industry to ensure that children are protected, rather than just pointing fingers.
The tragedy of knife and gun crime among young people in London shouldn’t even be part of this debate. There’s no evidence of any kind of link with videogames - but plenty of evidence that links these crimes to social problems like drugs, underage drinking, poverty and poor social integration. London needs to hear Mr Brown’s plans to tackle those problems - not just empty allegations of blame and cheap soundbites.
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01.07.08
Posted in politics at 11:02 am by Rob Fahey
First post of the new year - hope you all had a good holiday, and are feeling sufficiently refreshed after your break to put up with some utterly ridiculous nonsense from the nation’s media and would-be leaders.
This report on the BBC this morning effectively illustrates the extent to which immigration has become a meaningless, pointless political football. I’ll spare you from having to read it - in summary, it’s about a memo which was circulated in the Immigration Service saying that students who have marginally outstayed their visas should be given some leeway, unless they have broken some other laws.
The example given is of a university student from China who had to resubmit her application due to an error in the first form she sent, which brought her a couple of days over the expiry of her original visa. Under new rules, the immigration service was preparing to deport her, but the agency’s chief executive stepped in to prevent this, and has now issued a guideline saying that in similar circumstances, leniency should be applied.
Hands up, anyone who has a problem with this? Come on, nice and high where we can see them! No, didn’t think so. We’ve probably all had friends who are overseas students in the UK - the concept that they would be deported from the country for making small clerical errors on their forms, or sending them in a little late, is abhorrent, just as it should be. We all despise unhelpful, jobsworth style behaviour, and it should be nice to see the chief exec of a civil service agency doing her bit to make her agency more friendly, more helpful and more willing to treat people as human beings.
Well, not if you’re the Daily Mail. It’s hardly a surprise that the Mail is willing to jump on this story, and the nation’s most hateful rag is quick off the mark with some lovely unsourced statements to set the tone of its article.
“Last night insiders in the service said hundreds of thousands of students - including many who never had any intention of studying - could be staying on illegally and were effectively being granted an amnesty,” it breathlessly reports. Now, this is typical Mail journalism. It’s a contentious, unpleasant statement, which isn’t backed up by any kind of figures or research - but is passed off as legitimate (and put right at the top of a prominent news article) by attributing it to “insiders in the service”.
This is the kind of sneaky trick which I despise in journalism. Note that there isn’t an “insider” being directly quoted here; it’s a statement being made by the paper, but attributed without quote marks to someone else who conveniently can’t be named or identified. They’re claiming, in essence, that this is the gist of what they were told by some people they won’t name - and intriguingly, they haven’t bothered looking up any figures to confirm it. This line changes students who’ve messed up their forms or forgotten to send them in on time into evil, scheming immigrants who are here to steal all our jobs, benefits, women, etc. - and it does so without actually giving a single shred of evidence to support that picture of things.
You expect that from the Mail, though. You also expect the utterly disgusting rent-a-quote Andrew Green to say something foul and bigoted in an article like this, and he helpfully supplies a quote. But what, might I ask, is David Davis doing keeping company like this? Why, he’s electioneering, that’s what. David Davis is intelligent enough to know that an immigration service, like any other civil service, must have priorities and must be willing to be flexible under reasonable circumstances. Sadly, he is also unprincipled enough to say exactly what the braying, selfish masses who consume hate rags like the Daily Mail want to hear, even when he knows it to be untrue, unfair and downright cruel.
Not, of course, that our incumbent government are any better on this issue. Lin Homer, the immigration service chief exec, wouldn’t have had to intervene in this case were it not for ill-conceived new Home Office guidelines demanding stricter, harsher application of the laws in all cases - an utterly unreasonable demand on the Immigration Service, and an utterly unreasonable way to treat people who have come to the UK to study. The accusation that the Home Office is effectively legislating off the pages of the Sun and the Mail seems to hold more water with each passing day, as the gaping flaws in the logic in new legislation and guidelines become increasingly clear.
Stories like this one make it clear that there really is no immigration debate in the UK - all there is is an ill-informed, bigoted and unpleasant shouting match, in which any reasoned voice is sadly being drowned out. The demonisation of illegal immigrants (one of the most exploited, un-protected and ill-treated segments of our society, who are deserving of our pity, not our hatred) is complete; now the deep undercurrent of distrust and racism which sadly underlies much of the British population has moved its sights on to legal migrants, and even students.
This despite the fact that the economic case for migration is overwhelmingly positive, despite the fact that the figures regularly trotted out by the anti-immigration lobby have been proven time and again to be dishonest, despite the fact that every month brings a new disgrace for anti-immigration activists who are shown up as racists or members of racist groups.
In a debate, these things would matter - in a shouting match, they don’t. In the meanwhile, those who have come to the UK to study, to work, and to legitimately build their lives in this country, are the ones who suffer.
(As an interesting thought experiment, imagine the reaction of the Daily Mail and its ilk if there was this kind of unpleasant furore, thinly veiled racism and all, about British people emigrating to the United States, or the Far East, or Australia?)
Technorati Tags: BBC, immigration, politics, Daily Mail
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