Militant Moderate

Moving On...

2007-01-19T00:42:00.000Z

Well, it's been a blast. It's been real, and all that jazz. But those of you who still pop in here can't have failed to have noticed the somewhat decreased frequency of posting here. If I'm being honest, I'm just a little bit bored with the Militant Moderate platform. So, to go into nice management jargon, I'm diversifying, specialising, and expanding my operations.

From henceforth, you can find me blogging at the following ventures:

From the Dustbin of History for my political content, and

HawkEye for my sporting content.

PLEASE NOTE: The URLs are not the same as the blog titles.

For those of you who are interested, here's a link to my mission statement at the Dustbin of History - in short, it's trying to look at politics beyond the electoral cycle.

I hope those of you who've enjoyed reading here will stay with me as I start my new ventures!

And to all of you who have read, commented, or otherwise engaged with my writing here, thank you all very much.

Christmas Charity

2006-12-18T14:56:00.000Z

One of the adverts currently playing on loop on TV is the Oxfam Christmas one. You've probably seen it - "You're Gorgeous" is the soundtrack, even though the juxtaposition of that song and a goat seems somewhat incongruous. (This man may disagree).

There is one thing I wonder about the amount of money spent by charities on advertising at this time of year, though. Is this really the best use of the donations given to them? After all, to advertise on national TV is very expensive, even assuming production costs are minimal. Regardless of what you think of any charity's work, the donations that are given are assumed to go to a charitable purpose, not for the promotion of the charity on advertisements.

Surely Oxfam has a high enough profile that it doesn't need to be wasting thousands of pounds on expensive TV slots? Surely the money fulfils the aims of the charity far more if it is directed towards aid?

Whatever Happened To Agency?

2006-12-15T16:22:00.000Z

The victims of the serial killer in Ipswich are, it goes without saying, the victims of a terrible tragedy. One can only hope the monster responsible for these crimes is identified soon, and put away where he can be no danger to the public.

In the last few days, however, there have been articles appearing in the Times that have focused on the heroin addictions of the victims of the murders. The women who were killed were prostitutes, and in most cases were out on the streets to feed a drug habit. Alice Miles and Mary Ann Sieghart, the Times columnists, have both written in the past week to use this as evidence that more money should be invested in drug rehabilitation, including the state buying heroin to help wean victims of addiction off it.

I have no doubt that drug addiction is an awful affliction, and heaven forfend that anyone close to me ever suffers from it. But to read Sieghart's plea for the "medicalisation" of heroin, it would seem as if it is a disease that you just catch, a bit like the flu, or cancer. "Drug addiction is a medical condition; it should not be treated as a criminal offence."

Well, I'm sorry, but it's a self-inflicted medical condition. You have to take the illegal drugs before you can get hooked on them. And what's more, heroin and cocaine are illegal. It's not as if this is unknown - vast amounts of money are spent by police forces spreading this message in schools to warn children of the dangers of using these drugs. There is clear personal agency behind drug addiction. It is not only a self-inflicted condition, but it is also a condition that should not occur in a law-abiding society.

And yet the taxpayer, through the NHS, funds drug addicts seeking treatment to a large extent. To a much greater extent, for example, than diabetics. When I was diagnosed over ten years ago, we had to use syringes for our injections. Never mind that people who used insulin pens spent less time in hospital per year. Never mind that 75% of teenage diabetics had been taken into police custody for carrying syringes on their person. The needles for an insulin pen were 0.001p more expensive than a syringe, and so the NHS wouldn't fund them. Meanwhile, drug addicts were given needles 4p more expensive at the same time.

Pen needles are now funded on the NHS, after much lobbying. But they are still not the best treatment available for diabetics. That would be the insulin pump - which is the most accurate means of simulating the work of the pancreas that is currently known. The cost of providing the insulin for a pump and for pens is not much different; but the pump itself is significantly more expensive. These costs are offset by the fact that better control means less need for other hospital care, which results from complications caused by diabetes. But common sense never seemed to play a role in health policy!

The fact is that people suffering from cancer, diabetes, heart failure, kidney disease and all kinds of other problems have not fallen ill because of their own, conscious choice to break the law. And yet in many cases, on cost grounds, the NHS refuses to give them the best available care. All the while, those who have chosen to take drugs and seek treatment to deal with their problems have a lot more cash spent on them.

Trying to turn drug addicts into victims because of the consequence of their own conscious choice removes personal agency from the equation. That should never happen. It is the same as condoning crime because of troubled upbringings. No matter what the circumstances, there is a knowledge that such actions are wrong. And it should not be the business of the state to provide a better standard of care for those who break the law than for those who are ill through no fault of their own.

What If... Diana Died Today?

2006-11-27T22:18:00.000Z

Stephen Tall and Iain Dale have both posted their musings on the death of Princess Diana, and the mass hysteria that followed. Stephen takes the hard-headed approach, and talks of his feeling of alienation at the time; Iain is more in touch with his emotions (perhaps), and openly admits to "howling" while watching the funeral. I must say that I sympathise with Stephen's approach.

From the news breaking, the whole world seemed to be turned upside down. Not that the news of someone dying in a car crash - tragic as it is - was of earth-shattering importance. Especially when the person dying did not hold elected office. No, the madness came through the public seeming to lose their senses.

Or, at least, that was what the media told us. Later in the year, a group of my friends sat around waiting for our language examinations. We tried to think of a single person that we knew who had signed the fabled books of condolence that had sprung up across the country. Between 10 of us, we couldn't name a single one. And my family were travelling at the time of Diana's funeral. No matter what the viewing figures tell you, the roads were unquestionably busier than they normally are on a Saturday morning.

If Iain Dale were to travel back in time to the first week of September 1997, I'm sure he'd feel like he'd been transported to a parallel universe. Why? Because the blanket media coverage was so unquestioning, and so relentless, that it squeezed out all other news. Including the deaths of Mother Theresa (unquestionably a more deserving figure of such plaudits) and President Mobutu of Zaire (which was emerging from a bloody civil war), and the awarding of the 2004 Olympics to Athens. Why was Premiership football on the Sunday afternoon cancelled? For the death of an ex-Royal? It was crazy.

Of course, one thing for sure would have been different. Tony Blair was responsible for much of the mass hysteria that developed. His "off-the-cuff", "People's Princess" speech was a masterstroke of spin. It pre-empted the development of the round-the-clock media coverage of "the nation's grief". And the Prime Minister speaking so eloquently on behalf of the nation allowed the media to take that as their theme for the rest of the week. That would never happen nowadays. We would doubt, rightly, Blair's sincerity. And the absence of a prominent figure speaking like that would somewhat have diminished the media's ability to major so strongly on the story.

But, ultimately, even if Stephen's blog had been operating in 1997, I doubt the blogosphere would have had any impact whatsoever on media coverage. It would have provided an outlet for people like myself to grumble, moan, or rant about the mass hysteria of the media, but it wouldn't have changed the coverage significantly. Why? Because in these situations, the media is scared. Scared of losing its customers. It is the same reason why the Holly and Jessica story dominated headlines for so long.

Once a paper thinks it is selling more copies, or a TV station thinks that it is picking up more viewers, it will continue to plug the story. The BBC will have been flooded with telephone calls about Diana, at the total expense of everything else. Now, this is, of course, a vicious circle, because so much of it is driven by the blanket coverage itself. But in refusing to cover the story, the media organisation runs a serious risk not only of losing market share, but in getting permanent damage from being criticised vociferously. If this is on a political matter, it can be justified. It's a different matter where widespread public grief is concerned.

That, of course, is the downside of the 24-hour news cycle. If nothing else is happening, then non-stories that tug at the heart-strings can dominate the news - and the feedback loop it starts off sees the story rise and rise up the cycle. And, regrettably, there's no reason to think it would be any different today.

True Tales of Oxonian Life

2006-11-27T21:20:00.000Z

Oxford's city centre is a mix of ambiguities. Tonight was a rather wonderful case in point.

Waiting for a friend outside the town hall, my earholes were regularly assailed by the Town Crier. Dressed in beautifully bright and ridiculous garb, he was vocally and heartily welcoming visiting dignitaries.

"Oyez! Oyez! Oyez! Members of the European Business Academy! Welcome to Oxford Town Hall, you are all most welcome!"

This delighted the visitors. Invariably, each arriving group would produce a digital camera and pose en masse. What a quintessentially English setting! Guests in black tie, posing outside the Victorian Town Hall with the Town Crier in his bright red jacket and all the frills. And driving into place right behind them, McCoys kebab van.

Digestable Blogging?

2006-11-27T20:47:00.000Z

Last Friday, a mysterious package found its way into my pigeon-hole. A welcome surprise, however, when I opened it up and found that it was my free copy of the Blog Digest 2007. Until that point, it had slipped my mind entirely that I'd cheerfully given rights for this post to be included, and possibly the labour of my first born son, too.

Quite apart from the fact that Justin McKeating had the good sense to include an effort from yours truly, it is a thoroughly enjoyable read. And a significant upgrade from Tim Worstall's "2005: Blogged" effort last year, too. Firstly, there are few presentation issues, especially in comparison to Blogged. Sometimes pages contain a little too much blank space, but the quality of the writing more than makes up for it. McKeating clearly has an excellent eye not just for pithy polemicists, but for genuinely high-quality writing, too.

The anthology is all the stronger for being divided by theme, rather than chronology. The danger of the latter approach is that the collection reads more like a journal of the year, where articles are selected for being the best comment on a given issue, rather than being the one of the best articles around. The Blog Digest, therefore, creates room for efforts from the Curious Hamster and Jarndyce, to name just two, that aren't related to any specific events, but provide a better overview (on Iran and reasons for invading Iraq, respectively) on their chosen subjects than no end of broadsheet column inches wasted on the same subject.

And, like all good anthologies, the Digest reads just as well whether you take it from start to finish, or you dip in and out randomly. If it would have any difficulty passing the "Page 69" test, then it comes in the fact that page 69 is the back end of a post, and no commentary at all on the quality of any given article.

McKeating does an excellent job of why the blogosphere has been doing so well in terms of media coverage. It's not because it's new and shiny, it's because it has the quality necessary to be worth reading. And ultimately, that is why the nay-sayers who think that the media has built blogs up only to knock them down later will be proved wrong. What it's done is unleash the beast. No-one can read Dr Crippen without being able to trust him more than Dr Thomas Stuttaford. And once people are aware of the quality that is out there, they will stick with it. And the Blog Digest 2007 is as good a start as any.

Spy Ring

2006-11-24T22:58:00.000Z

Those who may be tempted to write off the poisoning of a former spy as a one-off incident might want to look across the Atlantic, to Canada.

When Hampel was arrested, he was carrying what the Toronto Star has described as "the signature tools of a 21st century secret agent." Among the items seized: $7,800 in five different currencies, several bank and credit cards, three cellular phones, password-encrypted SIM cards, two digital cameras, a short wave radio and a fake Ontario birth certificate. And he was traveling under the third Canadian passport he had been issued since 1995.

Russia is doing its best to flex its muscles again. Or so it would seem.

The most interesting angle on this, however, seems to be the implications for the criminal justice system. The suspect is being denied access to some of the evidence against him on national security grounds. And the article linked to above suggests that the Canadian government may seize on this as justifying further legislation. I'll look into this further, and if there's anything in it, I'll write a bit more about it.

For now, though, the most amusing story I've heard concerning this is that Hampel was allegedly caught with a lot of Canadian cheat sheets. A primer in the basic facts of Canadian history. I suspect this guy might be, in the words of Andrew Mackinlay, a piece of fluff. Thrown up by the Russians to hide something a lot more sinister.

Stuart Barnes wants to kill the game of rugby

2006-11-12T11:51:00.000Z

Writing in the Sunday Times today, Stuart Barnes, perhaps the most pig-headed and ignorant of rugby commentators, has published his prescription for the death of rugby. The IRB has recently issued strong guidelines to crack down on stamping, and rightly so. One of the blights of the game is that when players are on the wrong side of a ruck, too many players consider it their right to jump in with their feet and give the offending player a good kicking. Not try and get him out of the way, you understanding, but to cause him maximum pain. Such an act, of course, is against the rules of rugby, constituting violent conduct, and as such is punishable by a yellow or red card.

Barnes considers this a "charter for cheats"; that if players aren't allowed to kick their opponents, then people will come in on the opponent's side of a ruck and 'kill the ball' with impunity. What he is essentially saying, however, is that he does not trust the referees of rugby to do their job.

The fact remains that killing the ball is against the rules; it should be blown up for a penalty every time the referee spots it. Moreover, referees are also instructed to look for repeated infringements by the same team, so that if a team, let alone a player, kills the ball three times during a match, the referee is entitled to send an offender to the sin-bin for ten minutes - and do the same for every repeat offence. A team that finds itself playing with men short for significant periods of time will struggle to win matches on a consistent basis. And, ultimately, that is far preferable than turning a blind eye to what amounts to thuggery.

For what Barnes forgets is that with TV cameras probing every angle of an international match, and increasing numbers of club matches too, such acts of thuggery will be broadcast to large numbers of parents who will consequently be highly reluctant to let their children play in such a violent environment. "The stud-torn shirt across the back, the pain of the iodine, was all part of the sport’s badge of honour," writes Barnes. A wonderful advertisement for a sport struggling to maintain numbers, with clubs going under on a regular basis, and with a desperate need for an infusion of youth outside of public schools. (To put this problem in perspective, consider that only 6 schools in the entireity of County Durham now play rugby at under-18 level. Four of these are private schools.) Rugby is a tough game, for sure. But it's a tough enough game without allowing out-and-out violence on top.

Barnes continues, "There were and still are a few thugs who stamp on heads, ankles, knees; areas that were deliberately targeted and a real risk to the health of the illegally located forward. Nobody has ever endorsed vigilante style justice." Unfortunately for him, vigilante style justice is exactly what he is endorsing. For there are more areas than heads, ankles and knees that suffer from a kick. How long before someone damages a kidney through what Barnes might term 'imaginative use of the feet'? And the thugs who will target those areas will feel emboldened by any acceptance of stamping - it will be increasingly difficult to draw a line between the stamp that is legitimate, and the one that 'just happens' to have caught someone's knee. The only way to secure player safety on the field is to clamp down heavily on any instances of thuggery.

While rugby is a sport that is associated with off-the-ball violence, it will struggle to attract the new players who are the lifeblood of the game. The solution to cheats lying on the wrong side of the ruck is to give penalties against them and sin-bin the offenders. Regulating the existing laws effectively is the best means of ensuring quick ball. Sanctioning one form of cheating to stop another form of cheating merely encourages lawlessness and violence.

Graham Poll, Jose Mourinho, and Making Tough Decisions

2006-11-10T23:41:00.000Z

Graham Poll has recently been at the centre of media attention regarding his refereeing. Not content with booking a player three times before sending him off at the World Cup, he's provoked the ire of Chelsea, disallowing a clear goal by Didier Drogba, and becoming very card-happy, allegedly saying they "needed to be taught a lesson".

Not prepared to retreat to the quiet life, Poll then sent Everton's James McFadden off on Wednesday for foul and abusive language. McFadden denies calling Poll a "f---ing cheat", although the fact that Everton haven't appealed his suspension does give grist to Poll's mill.

This has become a far more major controversy because Poll is rated as England's best referee; he has represented us at the last two World Cups, and he would normally be in line to referee the Manchester United vs. Chelsea match later this month. What has to be questioned now, though, is whether Poll is in a position to make the tough decisions that he will be called upon to make in such a match.

He was unquestionably right to send McFadden off if he used the phrase of which he was accused. Yet such is the media storm that surrounds him (one, I might add, that may not be of his own making), that he may feel unable to make a similar decision in such a high-profile match - one, indeed, that the Premiership season may depend upon. And that is reason enough for him to be reassigned for the weekend. A referee should never be the centre of attention; he is there as an impartial arbiter rather than as a focal point of the entertainment. Yet if there is a borderline tackle in the penalty area, will he really be seen as unbiased, whichever way he gives the decision?

The answer, quite clearly, is no. If he gives the decision one way, he is biased against Chelsea. If he gives the decision the other way, he is overcompensating because of media attention. There cannot be sufficient confidence in his decisions to give him the match.

Pinkerton for President!

2006-11-10T17:01:00.000Z

One of the more amusing aspects of the Sky News coverage of the midterm elections was the square-offs between their Republican and Democrat pundits. If ever you needed proof that the Daily Show's "Even Stephen" sketches were bang on the mark, this was it. The two pundits were so stereotypical as to be scarcely credible.

Particularly impressive was the sheer irrepressibility of Jim Pinkerton, the Republican. Every time there was a nanosecond's silence, Pinkerton would fill the void with an impressive, unhaltable rant, normally about the "tax raising Democrats". This had the amusing consequence of both pundits speaking faster and faster as the evening progressed. It's a good job for him that he was safely ensconsed in Washington, otherwise there may well have been a deputation from Oxford travelling to Heathrow to punch him in the face as a leaving present.

Particularly memorable was his comment on the Montana Senate race (I will paraphrase his argument slightly). "Well, our candidate may be known to have taken bungs and hang around with a known crook, liar, and cheat, but the Democrat wants to raise taxes!"

Anyway, I think it's now time to start a Jim Pinkerton Watch (with apologies to the Virtual Stoa's Tim Collins Watch). Any known sightings of your favourite Republican pundit, please let me know!

The Evening After...

2006-11-08T22:13:00.000Z

Well, last night proved thoroughly enjoyable and pleasingly successful. Election nights are always fun; there's nothing quite like diving around the Internet or other reference sources for latest results, past voting information and such like. It's even more pleasing when odious cowboy wannabes like George Allen appear to have been thrown out on their ass.

I can't say I'm a huge fan of the fringes of either party in the States, but I'm delighted to see the Democrats in control of both Houses. Why? Primarily because it will help rein in spending. Neither the President nor Congress wants to rein in spending approved by their own party; yet the US has the fastest-increasing deficit in living memory as a result of the fiscal mismanagement of the Bush administration. That needs to be controlled, fast, and can only be achieved with this administration by a situation that may well lead to legislative gridlock.

I'll post a series of other reflections on the election results over the next few days as the mood takes me.

Midterm Predictions

2006-11-08T00:38:00.000Z

I'm currently sitting in what has become my customary election night bunker watching the Sky News coverage of the US mid-term elections. I particularly like election nights because they allow me to indulge my fascination with political trivia without being made to feel like a social outcast.

Anyway, before I tuck in to my array of American-themed snacks, I thought I'd break my blogging hiatus (not by design, more due to the fact that there hasn't been anything I've particularly felt inspired to write about) to make some preliminary predictions for the evening.

To some extent, it's regurgitating conventional wisdom, but I expect the Senate to stay Republican and the House to go to the Democrats. Including the 2 independents likely to caucus with the Democrats, I predict the Senate going 51-49; and the House to have about a 15 seat majority for the Democrats. I will check in tomorrow for more detailed reactions.

Veiled Teachings

2006-10-15T12:15:00.000+01:00

The story of the Muslim teaching assistant sacked for wearing a veil seems to run and run. What we do see, however, is that the woman is a hypocrite. According to BBC News, "Ms Azmi later admitted she had taken the veil off to be interviewed for the job by a male governor." So what she is basically saying is that it is acceptable for her full face to be seen by adult males, but she doesn't trust primary school kids to not lust after her should they see more than just her eyes. Or, that religious principles only matter once you have a job.

What concerns me most of all is the symbolism of a teaching assistant wearing a veil, regardless of whether the children do or don't understand what she is saying. For at heart, it seems to suggest a singular lack of trust of the children in the classroom, or at the very least, a lack of trust of the other teacher. And yet the teacher-student relationship must, at its very heart, be based on one of trust.

While there is a need for the student to question the knowledge passed on to him, the student must be able to consider that the motives of the teacher are pure. Yet by continuing to wear the veil, the teaching assistant is suggesting otherwise. Quite apart from the fact that the teaching assistant is putting up a very visible barrier between her and the class.

I'm very pleased that Jack Straw has shown the courage to come out and raise the issue of the veil, despite the political risks involved (although he protests that he is surprised at the reaction, he must have known what invective was going to fly at him from predictable quarters). The veil is the most visible barrier imaginable to a common understanding that everyone seems to claim that they want.

Something's Not Right

2006-10-01T11:28:00.000+01:00

From the Observer, this morning:

The superbug Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), which can cause severe illness and death in patients who have undergone surgery, appears to be at unprecedented levels. ...

But there is still concern that not enough is being done, particularly as the hospitals have high bed occupancy rates. Bed numbers have fallen in recent years, but hospitals are carrying out an increasing number of operations and it is extremely hard for a chief executive to close a ward because of infections, because the other targets on waiting lists would be missed.

And yet the reason that private provision of healthcare is opposed by the unions is that the private sector would put profit ahead of looking after its patients!

To me, it doesn't seem to make much difference if there's a bed available for you in a hospital if you're going to contract a lethal infection as a result of occupying it. If the target culture we're in really does provide such a heavy disincentive to making sure that basic standards of cleanliness are met, then we know that any politician who tries to talk about "Labour values" is talking out of their arse.

On Blogging

2006-09-28T00:52:00.000+01:00

Richard North over at the EU Referendum blog is kicking up quite a fuss regarding the British blogosphere - and questioning just how far the media's use of blogs really reflects their reputation for being the workings of ordinary people. (He's backed it up with a few other implicit digs thereafter, too). Perhaps unsurprisingly, there's a number of people who have attacked North for this, including Matthew Sinclair, Iain Dale, the Devil's Kitchen, and Mike Ion. The consensus, not unfairly, is that North is talking a crock of shit.

Nevertheless, he does have a point on some issues. The way blogging is viewed by the media is very much to focus on a select number of blogs, and in particular the great self-publicists like Guido, Tim Worstall or Tim Montgomerie. And fair play to them - they've managed to carve out their own niche and are having a roaring success as a result. Then again, there are a huge number of blogs that are just total dross, and not really worth anyone's time of day. And a journalist working to a tight deadline is going to go to the sites with reliable, regular posting, and who fit into an easily defined position.

Why is John McDonnell so popular in the press at the moment? Because he wants publicity for his leadership campaign, he has the consistent position of being opposed to the policies of Tony Blair, and so he'll trot out a quote at a moment's notice. Would journalists be expected to trawl through thousands of delegates at the conference to find the most intelligent comment? Of course not - working to deadlines makes that impossible. So you're going to find people who fit your prejudices.

And, of course, pretending political independence is highly rich coming from Dr North in any case. He chastises Kerron Cross and Jonathan Roberts for holding positions in the Labour Party, despite the fact they are fairly minor positions. Perhaps bloggers would care to take a look at the website of the Bruges Group, a virulently anti-European think tank. A look at the "About" page will demonstrate pretty clearly the sorts of supporters it attracts. And then, lets go and look at the "Commentators" page. Who do we find? Oh yes, Richard North and Helen Szamuely, the two editors of EU Referendum. So much for their political independence, eh? North's article can be summarised thus: "I like the fact the media pays attention to blogs, but I hate the fact they don't pay any attention to be".

Of course, North has his own view of what blogging should be. Ignoring the fact that the main reason that anyone would invest so much time in a blog is for one very simple reason - it's fun. Whether we want to spread gossip (something I dislike), swear (something I dislike, but is sometimes amusing), or put out serious, measured articles, there's no point in spending so much time at a computer screen unless we enjoy it.

And for most people, hammering out a daily rant or so gives them the political satisfaction they want. There will be very few people around who really think that blogging is the biggest contribution they can make to the political world. Heck, for most of us printing a stack of leaflets and delivering them through doors in our neighbourhood would have a bigger impact. The beauty of blogging is that it is what the writer wants it to be. And trying to impose a detailed, activist role on every blogger simply won't work.

Not Borne of Anti-Americanism

2006-09-26T20:03:00.000+01:00

I spent a happy weekend thoroughly enthralled by the Ryder Cup. The standard of golf was terrific; the crowd was genuinely electrifying, and it was a sporting occasion that was carried out in the best of sportsmanship. Of course, part of the excitement of the Ryder Cup is that it is more or less the only event in golf where partisanship plays a leading role; you are following a corporate entity, not a favourite player or two. It is held infrequently enough that the novelties of teams and matchplay add to the sense of occasion. This sense of occasion leads to truly memorable sporting contests - when was the last forgettable Ryder Cup?

Simon Barnes suggested in yesterday's Times that the passion for the Ryder Cup is inspired in Europe out of hatred for America:

Nor is the alliance about Latvians, Greeks, Dutch and Belgians. It’s not about who we are, it’s about who they are. And if, thank God, much of the poisonousness that attended the event in 1991 and 1999 has been washed away, the essence of the rivalry is simplicity itself: that the Americans need taking down a peg.

In so doing, he demonstrated a lack of understanding for the politics of golf, and, indeed, the politics of life.

In golf, there is a genuine corporate European identity. The top golfers on the continent, by and large, compete on the European Tour. Now, this identity is strengthened by anti-Americanism, but with good reason. The world ranking system, for example, for many years had been skewed towards American players. In a vicious circle, PGA Tour victories were given the highest points, and as these were largely contested by an American field, it was the US who rose to the top of the rankings. Then, when rankings were determined by the strength of field, it was the American events, with the American players, that reinforced the superiority through the system. This is not to say America did not, or does not have the best players in the world. It did, and it does today - Woods, Mickleson and Furyk are rightly ranked 1,2,3 in the world. And now there is some balance; there are four Europeans ranked ahead of the next American.

But there was always a superiority complex about the PGA Tour; the same sort of arrogance that allows the winners of a domestic competition to style themselves "world champions". Europeans were inferior to the US; they had to have their own competition because they couldn't compete. It was golfing politics that lay behind the intensity of feeling in the Ryder Cup through the 80s and 90s. Some inequities still exist - the Masters, for example, disproportionately invites US players. But changes have happened. Now that more Europeans are competing in America, more Brits are serving their golfing apprenticeship in US universities, and now that the ranking system is more equitable, the strength of feeling doesn't exist so much. Yet the meaning that was given to the tournament in the last decade still lingers on.

What Barnes also forgets, though, is that no identity on the earth is defined solely positively. He may not feel European, but there are very strong reasons why Europe's best golfers would - at least in golfing terms. And there's a very good reason why the Ryder Cup didn't expand to include Africa and Asia. There's already a tournament between USA and the Rest of the World (in a non-European sense). The lack of any unifying feeling of the Rest of the World team makes it devoid for meaning; it's a made-for-TV spectacle that doesn't have anywhere near the emotion of the Ryder Cup. Why? Because even in a very loose way, people can identify with the idea of Europe. Expanding it any wider doesn't work.

But the ties that bind us to any identity are partially positive, partially negative. Members of the Labour Party demonstrated today that they are motivated as much by hatred of the Conservatives as they are by belief in their own party. Why do we club together? A large part of it is because we want to identify ourselves as separate from something normal or something we dislike. It's why the Liberal Democrats' attempts to claim to be positive in politics always ring hollow, and they end up with moves like the Great Repeal Act - supporting one agenda is always motivated by rejection of another.

It's the same with the Ryder Cup. There are good reasons to want to knock the Americans down a peg or two - their control of much of the game's money and a majority of the game's majors, for starters. The fact that it's a great chance to demonstrate some superiority where it counts, out on the course. But it wouldn't mean anything like what it does if there wasn't a European identity to go with it. Sure, it's informed by rivalry, and a sense of the other. But it's also formed by a sense of togetherness. You can't create a team spirit that is as successful as Europe's without a common bond that extends beyond the negative.

John Reid, Under The Radar

2006-09-26T00:21:00.000+01:00

I wonder if this party conference is being set up to provide John Reid with the platform for a run at the leadership. It's well-known that Michael Howard dictated the terms of the Tory leadership election deliberately to prevent David Davis from taking the leadership. Some of the comparisons between Howard and Blair are striking.

According to Conservative Home, Davis had been circulating a petition to force a vote of confidence in Howard's leadership, which is what precipitated Howard's decision to resign, but only after a protracted period to allow potential challengers to emerge to the seemingly inevitable coronation of Davis. Notice the similarities between Blair's announcement he'd stay on for a year after Brown tried, cack-handedly, to launch a putsch?

Now, Reid, apparently, doesn't want to become Prime Minister. That's what the political journos on Newsnight were saying. But I'm not so sure. His handling of the airline terror threat seemed designed purely to win himself headlines at a time when the people who normally steal the limelight, Messrs Blair and Brown, were away. And by talking tough on terror, he's quite clearly presenting himself as a man who can be trusted with national security.

Why, then, would he want to pretend he doesn't want the top job? Well, for starters, unless he's sure he can win, then he wouldn't want to risk his comfortable position as Home Secretary by pissing off Brown in forcing a contest. Reid is one of the ex-Marxists in the Party who seem motivated more by hanging on to power than acting in the interests of any particular principles, and he wouldn't want to jepoardise his job unnecessarily.

Moreover, I'm sure one of the reasons Brown is taking a hammering in the polls right now is that he so obviously is desperate to move into Number 10. That never plays well with the voters. Sure, he's on a charm offensive, trying to show his human side, trying to set out his firm belief in his Presbyterian ethic. But at the end of the day, we know that he wants the keys to the Cabinet room, he wants to get there as soon as possible, and he probably wants to get there without a fight. Blair's popularity dropped when he became seen as grasping for power, and that his "whiter-than-white" schtick was nothing more than a veil. Brown doesn't have the advantage of being seen as a man of principle to start off with - although this may actually be unfair.

Reid has now got the benefit of a glowing report from Frank Luntz behind him - the same pollster who worked wonders for David Cameron just before the Tory Party Conference last year. And I notice from the speaking order posted at Guido's blog that Reid has effectively been given the last day of the conference for his own speech (let's face it, Jowell, Hain and Prescott are laughing stocks). The other leading potential rivals to Brown, David Miliband and Alan Johnson, not only speak on the same day as each other, but also will be overshadowed by the presence of Bill Clinton (Blair: "hey, look, I get on with nice Americans too!"). Reid is given a free run of the press coverage, in a similar way to the Tory candidates last year each getting their own day for their own speech.

Reid, therefore, has a chance to boost his own profile this week whilst not being part of the personality maelstrom that can only attract negative publicity. All the while, he's professing to be the tough nut whose ambitions go no further than sorting out the Home Office (and, a cynic might say, removing any remaining civil liberties in the process). This sounds to me like he's preparing an under-the-radar campaign in cahoots with Blair - to emerge as a standing candidate only when he's seen as the saviour to save Labour from Brown, who isn't the leader the old guard had hoped for. Whether it will work is a different matter. But the parallels between Howard screwing Davis, and Blair's rift with Brown seem to be quite noticeable here.

Emotional Claptrap

2006-09-25T23:46:00.000+01:00

Just come across this post at the Magistrate's Blog:

Harriet Harman, the Department forConstitutional Affairs minister, is launching a consultation paper today on plans to allow relatives of homicide victims to address the court, either in person or through a representative, post-conviction but before sentence.

Well, if she cares to consult me, I shall tell her that this is nauseating tabloid-driven claptrap.

On the case of it being nauseating claptrap, then I couldn't agree more. It irritates me intensely to see the interviews on TV with the families of murder victims, complaining that they haven't received justice for their son and such like. This isn't to say that I don't feel for the pain of their loss, or understand their feelings. Of course they're angry. Of course they want to track down the murderer and rip their guts out, or at the very least make sure they're deprived of their freedom for life. In some cases, they may even be right.

But we have a justice system so that we don't descend into the law of the jungle. It works by taking emotion out of the system, so that facts are assessed rationally, and the evidence scrutinised carefully. Then, the judge is called upon to use his own judgement as to how best to punish the offender - striking a balance between the need to punish the perpetrator, the safety of the community, and the hope of rehabilitation. This isn't to say we shouldn't be shocked by vicious crimes like murder or rape, but that we have to treat them rationally and not succumb to the baser instincts of human nature.

That, of course, is fine in theory. Yet some people are allowed to make emotional appeals in court - those accused of crimes, who then have their lawyers present detailed cases on their troubled history, and the emotional stresses that may have led them to commit such heinous acts. What I'd like to know is this - how is it fair for the perpetrators of the crime to make an emotional appeal to downgrade their sentence, when the other party who has a direct emotional involvement with the case cannot do the same in converse?

Unless there is credible evidence a person was suffering from serious mental disorder, then mitigating circumstances shouldn't come into it. We have to accept there are rights and responsibilities; and that the law is there to be observed at all times. The crime and the guilt of the defendant should be processed in as emotion-free a manner as is possible, given the nature of a judicial system. That means no emotional appeals to the sentencing authority, no matter which side they come from.

Birthday No 2

2006-09-24T00:10:00.000+01:00

It's amazing how quickly I seem to be growing up! Although I suppose you can still tell my youthful years (blog-wise, at least!) by the fact that I still continually get mistaken for a Lib Dem.

There's not an awful lot more I can say to expand on the sentiments I expressed this time last year.

It's nice to think my random scribblings are able to find somewhat of a wider audience. I hope I'll still be thanking you in a year's time!

For those of you still coming here - thank you once again!

Jumping The Queue

2006-09-21T23:10:00.000+01:00

I was irritated to see the images of John Reid's speech on the news last night, but for once, it wasn't the Home Secretary who was the main target of my ire. The two Islamic gentlemen (I use the term guardedly) who decided that their views were so important that they had to be heard in the middle of John Reid's speech were the ones who raised my blood pressure. Just like the Greenpeace protestors who climbed on to John Prescott's roof, these men seem to think that they can jump the queue; that simply by shouting the loudest they will prevail. It is a worrying trend, and one that should be put a stop to.

That won't happen, though, while the actions of our media remain the same. I listened to Jeremy Vine's Radio 2 show this lunchtime, where a man named Anjem Choudury was arguing very angrily with a young Muslim female, and Mr Vine to boot. It wasn't until I turned to Laban Tall's blog this evening, however, that I realised that Mr Choudury was one of the men who had jumped up to shout abuse at the Home Secretary.

This really surprised me, because when anyone tried to interrupt him on the show today, he complained that his "freedom of speech" was being denied. Never mind the fact that he didn't feel he was imposing on the freedom of speech of the Home Secretary yesterday. Nor did the irony of his statement that "the Home Secretary should be free to talk anywhere in this country" strike him, when yesterday his chum had shouted "how dare you come to a Muslim area?" The man, quite simply, is a hypocrite and a boor, and the BBC shouldn't be giving him the time of day.

At heart, the political ideology espoused by this man is poisonous. He admitted that he considered his loyalty to fellow Muslims to be stronger than that to the law of this country - so that if bomb plots were being hatched, and he knew about it, he wouldn't go to the police. He attacked the woman who had been put on the show alongside him, saying that she was obviously non-practising because she hadn't covered herself, and had come on to the show "half-naked". The point was swiftly rebuked by Vine as well as the panellist, but that didn't seem to stop Choudhury labelling the woman a "sinner".

These men, quite simply, are scum. They espouse political views that are totally abhorrent to what we believe in a free society. They claim the mantle of democracy and freedom of speech when it suits them, but their words and their actions show that they don't actually believe anything of the sort. They're not prepared to face up to community responsibilities - they believe only in the imposition of sharia law, and they will take on any mantle they can to further that aim. They claim to believe in human rights, such as the freedom to spread bile left, right, and centre, but when it comes to, say, allowing women to wear what they want, then their strength of feeling dissipates.

As much as it pains me to agree with John Reid, he was absolutely right when he asked parents to keep an eye on the activities of their children. The fact of the matter is simple - the terrorist threat is one of Islamic fundamentalism. When you get the vox pops with people asking questions like "why aren't they saying the same things to Christians, to Jews, to Hindus?" people seem too scared to give the simple retort. Only Muslims are blowing themselves and countless others up. And if the Muslim community isn't prepared to play its part in stopping that, there are serious, serious problems ahead.

An American Revolution, Sarbanes-Oxley Style

2006-09-21T19:51:00.000+01:00

The Pub Philosopher reports on the regulatory creep of the US with regards to business legislation. They're once more claiming jurisdiction over the actions of British companies.

A foreign legislature in which Britain has no representation has imposed burdensome regulations on British businesses. Its inspectors demand the right to scrutinise companies on British soil and could potentially bring criminal charges against British executives for non-compliance.

Isn't that the sort of thing that led the Americans to declare independence?

Fat Sam's Bungs

2006-09-20T22:45:00.000+01:00

I wonder if this is one of the key reasons Sam Allardyce didn't get the England job. Even if it's only rumour, it's difficult to appoint someone tainted by allegations to such a high profile role.

Talking Television Cameras

2006-09-20T17:09:00.000+01:00

Middlesbrough and its Robocop Mayor, Ray Mallon, are once again courting controversy from civil liberties bodies by introducing "talking CCTV cameras". Seven cameras in the town centre have been equipped with loudspeakers, so that those engaging in anti-social behaviour can be chided from above. The bad citizens of Middlesbrough now face public attention being drawn to them when they act aggressively or throw litter around.

It all sounds like a scene from 1984. The idea that you are being spied on is somewhat strange. Then again, the only change that this introduces is a direct sanction for those misbehaving on the streets. I worked out that during a typical day of mine in Oxford, there is a very limited time when you couldn't work out where I am. Colleges are rigged up to CCTV in all corners; I have to check into libraries with my university card, where data can presumably be collected; even if I'm just out innocently on the streets, many of the places I visit will be recording my activities. CCTV is now a fact of life.

Does it make a difference, then, to have a voice talking to you, rather than a security official just reclining in his chair watching you? Yes - it marks a change from passive to active observation. There's something more creepy about having someone ready to chastise you at all hours than there is about being recorded on videotape that will only be used if an objectionable incident takes place. That should make people more uncomfortable - for such an interventionist approach can lead to a slippery slope where it is the town council and the mayor that decides what is acceptable behaviour.

Nevertheless, my overwhelming reaction to this is one of sadness. Why should it take an invisible functionary to tell kids to stop throwing litter, or to intervene to prevent aggressive behaviour? That, surely, is the sort of thing that the other people on the street should be sorting out. The problem is, they feel too intimidated to do anything about it. (No doubt the lack of bobbies on the beat, and their inability to administer a quick clip round the ear, has something to do with this state of affairs). It's worrying when behaviour that most people agree is unacceptable is allowed to become commonplace because people won't stand up for a safer community, and look to the state to help.

My request to the civil liberties organisations that are complaining about the new scheme is this - take some responsibility yourself. Civil rights can only exist in a functioning society when they are coupled with a population prepared to face its responsibilities. If the operatives don't want to walk in fear of being chided for their actions, then they need to stand up for their streets, and tackle those who throw litter, those who act aggressively, those who want to make our communities unpleasant places to live. Because unless people take responsibility themselves, it's going to be intrusive government measures that find a degree of popularity.

A New Tory Tactic?

2006-09-19T17:10:00.000+01:00

The Liberal Democrats have, in the past, been masters at pandering to the student vote. Anyone currently or recently at university in Britain will be familiar with the industrial quantities of paper sent to them extolling the virtues of their stand on tuition fees and the Iraq war. Indeed, were one to rely solely on the literature sent by the Liberal Democrats, a student in Britain could be forgiven for thinking that the third party in the UK had policy on only two areas, and that they'd occasionally pipe up on ID cards to boot.

Many Tory bloggers have already pointed out that the new Lib Dem tax plans will hit the poor and families with young children pretty hard. It's quite ridiculous to assume that families can easily switch to public transport. If they want to hit at gas-guzzling SUVs, fine - but these plans hit drivers of Mondeos to the equivalent of around £800 a year. But I think that the new plans may well open up another opportunity for the Tories to position themselves well among young voters.

A car is one of the most eagerly-awaited benefits of a teenager reaching adulthood. The ability to drive allows children much greater freedom from their parents; the ability to go out more freely, and in a time when many are complaining about a 'loss of childhood', also serves as a real and tangible rite of passage.

Such a rite of passage comes at a price, however. A car does not come cheap to a 17-year-old, nor does the insurance for a newly-qualified driver. The Lib Dems seem to want to stack a hefty tax bill on top. Now, I haven't studied the specifics of the plans in great detail, but it seems to me that this is going to adversely affect young people in that they will be presented with a new tax bill upon buying their first car. The mobility of driving is essential in many parts of the country - in the North East, for example, if you don't have a car, your ability to fulfil many jobs is diminished. Public transport simply isn't good enough (that, of course, is another problem of the 'green tax' plans - they won't go to infrastructural investment, but rather to funding tax cuts elsewhere).

This to me seems a great marketing opportunity - "the Lib Dems pricing you out of a car" or some other appeal to the young. After all, the Liberal Democrats have been negatively targeting youngsters for a long time, appealing to their self-interest. Why shouldn't the marketing people at CCO try the same trick in reverse? If the electoral fortunes of the Tories are to be turned around, then they need to attract the young votes. This seems like a pretty good tactic to use to me!

Ming the Meritless?

2006-09-18T22:29:00.000+01:00

The party conference season is now underway, and once again, "lazy journalist syndrome" is in evidence. I moaned a couple of days ago about the fact that the media trots out the same story every year regarding exam results. The conference season is pretty similar - every conference has some sort of pre-prepared narrative, that leads to two possible outcomes, success or failure.

Sometimes the storylines are played out with pantomime regularity. "Gordon Brown places a strong challenge to Blair" on the Tuesday of a Labour conference; "Blair hits back at critics with barnstorming speech" on the Wednesday. The broader implications of a conference - policy discussions; a sampling of fringe events; the energy and vitality of the delegates - get left to the 'geek pages' that only political nerds like me bother to read.

Stephen Tall, recently crowned Lib Dem blogger of the year (deservedly so - not least for his willingness to listen to me talk at great length about the American Revolution in Pennsylvania the other night), challenged the media before the start of the Lib Dem conference:

I travelled down by train to conference today, together with three fellow Lib Dems. The issues we discussed ranged widely: the 50p debate, land value tax v local income tax, replacing Trident, the size of school sixth forms, compulsory voting, waste recycling. Ming’s leadership wasn’t mentioned once.

Mr Assinder is in one sense right. The issue of leadership is hanging over the conference – but that’s because it’s the only issue the media can be bothered to pay any attention to. Personality politics is easy to report; any fool can do it.

I wonder, though, if part of the focus on personality stems from the fact that Ming has not been an impressive leader so far. That if he had come out as an impressive performer, and attached more direction and leadership to the party after the Kennedy debacle, then the key question would be more about the new policy direction the Lib Dems were about to embark on. If he wasn't constantly trying to present himself as a man of the people, people wouldn't be wondering who Ming actually was. If he could sit through a pretty soft interview with Michael White (sample question: tell me about your parents) without being visibly nervous, questions about leadership wouldn't arise.

(A note to Ming's advisors: having watched the Q and A with Michael White today, don't get Ming to talk about his background again. He comes across as a relic from a past time.)

A further rumination makes me wonder whether the nature of the Liberal Democrat party causes some of this instability. No policy can be decided upon without being ratified by conference - in principle a good idea, but it means that any leader has to show a force of personality. The leader's role in such a system is somewhat constricted - his job is to put the best possible spin on what the policy decides, and he isn't given sufficient leeway to steer the party himself.

The problem with Ming Campbell is that his public performances up till now have been nothing short of atrocious. He couldn't afford to make a pig's ear of PMQs so often. IDS wasn't rejected by the Tories because of his policies; he was rejected because as a person, he didn't have the charisma or the intellectual ability to lead. It is noteworthy that he has carved a highly respectable niche for himself with the Centre for Social Justice - it is not that IDS didn't have talents, it's that he isn't a leader. If you can't present yourself well in public, then there will always be questions over leadership. And conversely, it is the fact that David Cameron is a masterful media manipulator that has meant he has been able to dodge many important questions.

If Ming had been given the freedom to announce certain policies (to be ratified later by conference), then maybe he could have stamped his own indelible mark on the party and on the public consciousness. Instead, the force of personality has been the only force he's been able to unleash. And, let's face it, it's been far, far less than impressive. If the Liberal Democrats are going to make a mark on the political landscape, they need to force journalists to take notice of them. That's not easy when lazy journalists want to turn everything into an either-or dichotomy. With an uninspiring leader like Ming, the publicity the Lib Dems need will not be forthcoming.

The Need for Coursework

2006-09-18T16:44:00.000+01:00

Coursework has become one of the most maligned aspects of our regularly-maligned exam system. Stories abound of people 'playing the system' - teachers giving assistance above and beyond what can reasonably be expected (to the extent of giving pre-prepared quotes lists to all students); parents writing their kids' assignments; the spectre of readily-downloadable essays on the Internet. One of my fellow students at school is rumoured to have copied his GCSE creative writing assignment from Rumpole of the Bailey. Surely a system so open to abuse must be wrong?

Simply because a system can be circumvented, however, doesn't mean that the system is, at core, wrong. The reason that such widespread cheating happens is because the exam system isn't rigorous enough to check each and every individual. Even a sufficiently high level of random cheating - with stern penalties attached to teachers and students found to have cheated - should provide a pretty strong incentive to keep a fair system. Schools may receive bonuses if they rise in the league tables - but if there's a chance of losing your job and being struck off teaching because you tried to fiddle the system, then the teacher involved has a harder choice to make.

It is vital that a more rigorous checking system is put in place, because an effectively policed coursework system is vital in making Britain's public examination system as rigorous and effective as possible.

A system that is based entirely on examinations, whether taken as modules or as a final act of education, can only test a limited range of skills. The ability for instant recall of information, for example, is prized above other skills. In a short time, too, an examination answer rewards the person who can bulldoze through an argument. Hitting the point quickly, and drawing together the necessary facts to support your answer are all that is really possible in (say) a 45-minute essay.

A coursework project, on the other hand, demands that the student consider a wider range of evidence, and construct an argument with far more care, than can possibly be tested in any single exam. Moreover, it allows the chance for more rigorous source analysis and application of further contextual information. The ability to construct a more detailed piece of work, that requires greater depth to the argument, is absolutely vital to any system. That is why the thesis is an essential part of many university courses. It allows skills that are less to the fore in timed examinations to be assessed as part of a candidate's overall merit.

The argument applies equally to sciences, too. The recall of information, and the ability to solve unfamiliar problems are crucial in succeeding in a science. At the same time, however, there is a practical element to this knowledge that needs to be tested to gain a full picture of any candidate's ability.

Coursework is maligned because we have an exam system that does not have sufficiently strong procedures in place to identify where cheating has occurred. Because at heart, coursework assignments strengthen an exam system. They prevent candidates from being assessed on too limited a number of skills; they demand that a candidate is able to construct an argument in detail and of a far wider scope than can be answered in any single examination. It adds a fundamentally useful aspect to our exam system; if it is considered too easy to step around, it is the marking process that should be tightened.

Knee-Jerk Reactions

2006-09-16T22:26:00.000+01:00

One of the stories that I haven't yet commented on is the usual kerfuffle over exam results that kicks off every August. Journalists must love that month - any who aren't already on holiday simply dust down their laptops and dig out the story they wrote last year. Change a few names, maybe replace a quote or two, and they've got a story ready to go.

Two of the most frequent complaints predictably drew comments from the Tories. The first is that all children should be made to do a language at GCSE - this year's cohort being the first that did not have such a requirement. The second is that coursework is a "soft option" that invariably leads to grade inflation. Both statements, to my mind, are completely wrong-headed. I'll deal with one today, and come back to the other tomorrow.

Firstly, the idea that all children should learn a language. I speak here as someone who took French and German at A-Level, and I feel embarrassed whenever I travel to a country where I am unable to speak the language. As far as I am concerned, the more students who learn languages, the better. It should be a source of national shame that at many schools in Wales, A-Level Welsh is a more popular option than French or German. We cannot break down a "little Englander" mentality unless we have the ability to converse more effectively with our neighbours. Human contact is the best way of breaking down artificial barriers; without an ability at languages is one of the best ways of facilitating this.

But if politicians really think that a language GCSE is the best vehicle for achieving this, they ought to think again. In percentage terms, it is one of the easiest GCSEs in which to achieve top grades, and yet the amount of language knowledge needed is, to all intents and purposes, trivial. You could order drinks in a cafe, talk briefly about your hobbies, and be able to buy a rail ticket (or fix a flat tyre!), but in terms of striking up a conversation with a passing German, then it's not especially useful. And most certainly not if people are only passing at grade C.

A far more important study would be one that showed the proportion of those getting good grades across the board without taking a language. The argument of the Tories holds up for high academic achievers. But, in many ways, a language is a luxury, not an essential skill for most jobs in this country. At the same time, no-one can doubt the fact that Maths and English are essential.

Yet there are children up and down the country who struggle to make the grade at these core subjects - far more vital to our country's future, I'd contend, than learning a language. Why should we waste valuable teaching time on skills that will be little used and little valued in the future, when subjects that are vitally important don't receive enough attention?

Additionally, aren't we just forcing kids to tilt at windmills when they have to grapple with the structures of a strange language when, in many cases, they can't understand their own?

Of course, what this highlights is the dangers of a one-size-fits-all system. The attention and teaching required by those who struggle to make the 5 A*-C benchmark is totally different to that required by high-fliers who will achieve a string of top grades. So suggesting that everyone should take a language GCSE totally misses the point. We should be equipping people with a top-class education. But it is often said that the best is the enemy of the good, and so it proves here.

In an ideal world, every school-leaver would be fluent in a foreign language. That, however, is an unrealistic goal, albeit one that sounds nice. What we have to do is prioritise in the education system. For some children, that means introducing them to as wide a range of subjects as possible. For others, that means concentrating damned hard on a small number of subjects, making sure they're equipped with the core skills they need. But a nuanced approach doesn't get headlines - after all, the journalists only want a quote they can trot out from year to year.

A knee-jerk reaction doesn't create a sound education policy. There are good reasons why many students should be learning a language. But there are equally good reasons as to why many students shouldn't. We're not going to get the world-class education system we need in Britain until politicians of all shades are prepared to look beyond the headlines.

Guess Who's Back?

2006-09-16T22:22:00.000+01:00

Well, after a long time of being fairly uninspired by the news, I've decided to return to this blogging lark. Partially, this is in response to having been at a party last night where the fact that I am Iain Dale's 31st favourite Lib Dem blogger became a source of great amusement. Quite possibly due to the fact that I'm not actually a Lib Dem...

A Tragedy From Iraq

2006-08-18T00:07:00.000+01:00

Just under a year ago, I found myself outside the door of the United Nations (yes, without realising). Given that I had little else to do that afternoon, I decided to go inside and have a look round. Understandably, security at the complex is tight and access is limited. I was able, nevertheless, to have a good look round a few displays into the history of the UN and its work, before resisting the temptation of sending a postcard with a United Nations stamp and postmark.

The displays were a PR masterpiece. One in particular sticks in my mind. It was a collection of photographs of various children in developing countries. A boy from the favelas in Brazil; a girl who wants to escape the sex industry in Thailand by becoming a cook; a child in Africa who has lost much of his family to AIDS. Each picture had an explanation of its place in the child's life, coupled with an explanation of the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

The use of pictures to illustrate progress on these goals is very apt. After all, pictures can show whatever you want them to show. Bloggers have demonstrated that quite aptly in the past week with their juxtaposition of BBC and Channel 4 reporting from Lebanon. How much the Millennium Development Goals have translated into real action affected the lives of the children depicted, I don't know. But the UN definitely talks a good game.

International institutions have not covered themselves in glory in the last five years, however. Since 9/11, the UN has proved utterly incapable of making progress on key international issues. After the genocide in Rwanda, the UN admitted action should have been taken more swiftly, and vowed "never again". Yet when crisis struck in Darfur, nobody was able to organise the necessary action to create the sort of force to prevent massacres there.

Iraq, of course, was the archetypal issue that proved how organisationally weak the UN is. Far from being able to achieve any settlement, instead the selfish interests of both sides saw an institution paralysed. The need for both Bush and Chirac to posture in front of the world's media prevented the chance of any compromise, or any UN-sanctioned plan for future progress in dealing with Saddam's regime.

It's a pattern that has been repeated yet again in the UN's handling of the current crisis in the Middle East. Pious calls for both sides to end the fighting have been heard, many heartstrings have been tugged at, but when it comes to cold, hard, action, it took over a month for any sort of plan to be agreed to.

Then again, when you think of Kofi Annan being the Secretary General, it's hardly surprising, is it? He comes across as a bit of a granddad figure. A pleasant chap, who doesn't offend anyone. When it comes down to it, though, no-one is really going to listen to him when it comes to a plan of action. His respect, you see, doesn't come from his actions. It comes from having been promoted in an organisation out of an ability to make friends.

Tony Blair, on the other hand, has staked his personal and political reputation on the line when it matters - and as a result, his character has been crucified. His chances of retiring from British politics to take up a position in charge of an international organisation are now slim to none. Iraq has poisoned his reputation so much that he could not command the respect of the UN organisation.

Yet if you were appointing someone to be the Chief Executive of a business, would anyone in their right mind appoint Annan over Blair? Annan is a grandad, moaning down the pub that "these bloody kids these days, they do nothing but hang out on street corners causing trouble", but lacking the desire or the commitment or the ability to make a positive difference to the community. Blair, for all his faults, would get something done - organising and running a football team, for example. Sure, he might be a teensy bit sanctimonious, but at the end of the day, communities - neighbourhood or international - need people like him.

Governments need people who aren't necessarily popular, but get things done, and get people to talk to each other. It is a crying shame Peter Mandelson is currently causing trouble in Brussels - for he is a man who will get intractably opposed groups talking to each other. That's why his appointment as NI Secretary was a masterstroke of Blair's. Blair is a similar character. He won't shirk from a fight, but his commitment and his passion (which are undoubtedly evident in foreign affairs) mean that he will try every last avenue to get things done. Whereas Annan would stand impassively by, trying desperately to pass the buck.

Nice words do not get you anywhere in the arena of international diplomacy. A well-presented statement may attract media coverage, but it won't effect necessary change. What's needed is someone who will force people to sit together and lock them there until they come out with a settlement. Who's prepared to forego diplomatic niceties to get something done. Blair could have been that man. Unfortunately, Annan's successor will likely be someone else insipid and uninspiring.

A Sledgehammer To Crack A Nut?

2006-08-10T16:35:00.000+01:00

It's not surprising that passengers have borne the huge delays at airports today with good humour. After all, given the choice between a large explosion on your plane and hefty delays at the airport, I know which one I'd choose. However, I can't help but feel that part of the reaction of the government is akin to using a sledgehammer to crack an admittedly large nut.

It's about time some restrictions were placed on hand luggage - increasingly it's been used as an excuse to up the baggage allowance rather than taking essential items for the journey. But the restrictions placed today by the Government seem to be excessive. Banning liquids and electronic devices makes a lot of sense. But why should people be prevented from taking a book, or a magazine or two on to a flight with them?

And perhaps more to the point, what's going to happen to all the shops after the security checks?

No Excuses

2006-08-06T14:38:00.000+01:00

The latest victim culture in Britain is springing up around Wayne Rooney. So used to being heralded as the saviour of English football, it seems as if he's starting to believe the hype. Whenever a red card is brandished his way, he suddenly plays dumb and looks disbelieving. Worse still, he's got an army of cheerleaders - led by Sir Alex Ferguson, no less - who seem determined to try and absolve him of any blame. The sad truth is, he doesn't deserve it.

There is no doubt Rooney is a fantastic talent. His greatest skill of all, moreover, is the one that is picked up least frequently by the media. Quite simply, his positional sense for someone so young is outstanding. In Euro 2004, I can't remember an instance where he wasn't in the right position for the rest of the team. Supplying a quality player is made even easier when he knows exactly where to be.

The downside, however, is that he has a brattish temperament. Playing for England in a friendly against Spain, he became so impetuous he had to be substituted early to avoid what was surely an inevitable red card. Any substitution is met with a very public display of throwing the toys out of the pram (or, more accurately, the water bottles from the dugout). And the scowl on his face when the referee blows the whistle against him isn't one of frustration, it's one of hate. He has an anger management problem, and if he's not careful, he's going to go the same way as Roy Keane. A fantastic player who couldn't stop his competitive streak boiling over - and who ruined his career as a result.

The other similarity, of course, is that Ferguson is prepared to defend Rooney to the hilt, as indulging his ego is vital to the well-being of the team. A sulking van Nistelrooy can be dispatched to Madrid; a sulking Rooney would rip the heartbeat from the Red Devils. But it's about time Ferguson told Rooney to stop being an impetuous brat, and to stand up and take some responsibility for his actions. For someone who has allegedly asked Steve McClaren to make him England captain, Rooney is an extraordinarily selfish player.

His sending off in the Amsterdam tournament, just like his dismissal against Portugal, was a thoroughly deserved card caused by needless, reckless violence. He knows full well he stamped on Carvalho's testicles; that's why he didn't make an apology (it would have been very easy for him to say "I didn't mean to make contact, but if the video shows I have, then I'm sorry"). Likewise on Friday - his arm was so far away from his body, it took some effort to connect with his opponent. If he has a reputation, it is deserved - he is a hothead who will lash out unnecessarily at any perceived injustice.

Yet while the apologists, both in fandom and in the media, continue to herald him and overlook his glaring faults, he will never have the impact that he should. There's a time when you have to grow up and shoulder the responsibility that your talent demands. While Rooney is allowed to consider himself a victim whenever things don't go according to plan, we stand to see another fantastic talent wasted.

The Campaign For Real Wicketkeepers?

2006-07-31T23:25:00.000+01:00

Jonathan Calder exhibits great delight at the selection of Chris Read for England ahead of Geraint Jones, heralding it as a victory for the purist.

I'm not immediately convinced. Not that I'm saying Geraint Jones is a quality 'keeper - far from it. But it is only knocking three centuries this season for Notts that has Read back in the England team. His wicketkeeping has little to do with his inclusion.

More to the point, when Read first made the England team in 1999, his keeping had one serious weakness - going at everything with his hands first, rather than trying to move his feet into the right position before taking the ball. I haven't had a real look at his glovework since, but it will be interesting to see how well he fares at Headingley, traditionally a bowler-friendly ground. I suspect that James Foster may well have been a smarter choice.

It WAS Too Good To Be True

2006-07-27T19:19:00.000+01:00

I thought it was suspicious that Floyd Landis could ride so well given his dying hip. Perhaps I should have been more alert this lunchtime when I noticed a large number of my hits were coming from people searching for "Landis doped".

All I will say is this (I had more, but it has been lost somewhere in Blogger): cycling clearly has a systematic doping problem. Even riders like Lance Armstrong who vehemently deny doping have shady links. Having thrown out riders connected with a Spanish drugs probe, le Tour still hasn't been able to prevent its top performers from doping. Sports, as a whole, are too congratulatory when they return many negative doping tests. Often, they may prove nothing other than a weakness in the testing system itself. The prevalence of masking agents, combined with the knowledge of when many testing programmes target athletes, means that there are many loopholes to get around.

The other question that must be asked is - does banning the drugged athlete solve the problem? Drugs are only effective in combination with a specialised training regime, and behind every instance of drug taking is a specialised trainer and medical team. If the people behind the offence are not punished, then surely the problem is just passed on elsewhere?

The Bishop of London, Iain Dale, and the Community

2006-07-26T16:52:00.000+01:00

Like Iain Dale, I frequently despair for the Church of England. It seems to have lost the moral clarity that is necessary for it to offer true guidance. Of course, this is partially down to the fact that it is a state religion, and the whittling away of the royal prerogative means that elected politicians, rather than clergymen, play too great a role in deciding the upper echelons of the Church. It also needs to stop beating itself up over the issue of homosexuality - the sooner the Church realises that it can have a far greater impact on the world through encouragement rather than fire and brimstone, the better.

Nevertheless, Dale misses the point when he criticises Richard Chartres, the Bishop of London (who, remember, was too traditional to be acceptable as the Archbishop of Canterbury), for saying that flying is a sin.

I could scarcely believe what I was reading on the front page of the Sunday Times today. IT'S A SIN TO FLY SAYS CHURCH. Now I think I've got a good grip on the definition of sinning (no comments please!), but I can't see where in the bible it mentions air travel, or driving an Audi (as I do), being in need of repentance. The Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Richard Chartres disagrees...

The crucial message of the Bible, surely, comes through the commandment of Jesus that you should do unto others as you would have done unto you. In other words, the crucial objective of a good Christian is to behave decently towards others. That in itself requires working in the community to make it a better place. For all that the truths of God are meant to be absolute, we cannot divine the true nature of their meaning as humans - we can only do our best to approximate. The greatest way for man to have a beneficial impact on Earth, however, must surely be to work within the community to make it a better place.

Now, the question then comes as to what sort of impact actions such as driving a gas-guzzling car or a trans-Atlantic flight has on the environment. If you do believe that they have a negative impact on the environment that will lead to humanitarian catastrophe in the future, then it is a tremendously selfish act to continue to use them - and, indeed, a symptom of sin. That, of course, is a matter of interpretation. But if the Bishop of London believes in the negative impact of these, then he is surely well within his rights to issue sermons on the subject?

Why, then, is it a symptom of sin? Because if you believe it causes irreversible damage to the planet, but continue to act in such a way, then you're placing your own convenience ahead of the needs of the community, both in the present and in the future. In the present, because you're unnecessarily using up resources; for the future because of the damage you will cause. Putting the interests of yourself above the interests of community is precisely the sort of selfishness and materialism that leads to a breakdown in society. Being a good Christian is not just about a personal relationship with God, it's about living your life to make a difference to your community.

Dale may disagree about the effects of his Audi on the environment, but that doesn't mean that Chartres is bowing to political correctness.

Alan Johnson and Private Schools

2006-07-26T13:59:00.000+01:00

I never thought this day would happen. Finally, a Labour Education Secretary has made some positive, realistic noises about Britain's education system. Far from seeing the destruction of the private schools as a socialist shibboleth, Alan Johnson actually recognises the benefits that they provide to many:

He said: "I don't think it is betraying the human race to send your child to private school.
"But I do believe we have to want the state sector to be as good or even better."

The furore has been caused because Johnson assisted one of his constituents in finding a private school for her son - "She just doesn't have a suitable school close at hand and he is a very bright boy who wants to do science." To me, the assistance Johnson has given is entirely right, and what any responsible MP should be doing.

Private education, of course, is one of the remaining bugbears of the socialists. Gordon Brown famously railed against Oxbridge accepting private school students in the numbers they do - despite the fact that the example of "bias" he picked turned out to be anything but. Yet despite their supposed belief in the state sector, Labour MPs seem very bad at trusting their local state schools with the education of their children. Oliver Letwin was chided when he said he would go out on the streets and beg rather than send his children to a Lambeth comprehensive, yet MPs like Harriet Harman, Tony Blair and Diane Abbott are all prepared to send their children to selective or fee-paying schools.

It is a peculiarly British mentality that aims at the destruction of its best schools. The iconic schools, like Eton and Harrow, do command unimaginable resources. But there is a quality to their education, too, that is something that the state sector should aspire to emulate. The question should not be "how can we destroy good schools?" but "how can we make our bad schools more like the good ones?"

Too Good To Be True?

2006-07-23T23:59:00.000+01:00

Every year, the Tour de France allows amateur enthusiasts the chance to ride one of the toughest stages of le Tour under race conditions - that is, with roads closed and support stations for refuelling. In a fit of sadism, sports editors from publications across the world seem to be sending their journalists on this gargantuan task. With some relish, no doubt, given that this year's chosen stage involved the climb up L'Alpe d'Huez, considered the holy grail (ie hardest) of mountain climbs.

And without exception, the journalists attempting it have found it a hellish task. One was a former pro cyclist himself.

This year's Tour has seen the victory of Floyd Landis in one of the most remarkable comeback stories known in sports. Having seized the lead on l'Alpe d'Huez on Tuesday, Landis then struggled to cope with the pressure, and seemed to fly out of contention the day after, losing eight minutes in a single day. His team was by no means the well-oiled machine of Lance Armstrong's (a team, incidentally, previously augmented by the skills of Landis himself), which meant that his struggles could not be bought off with effort from his team-mates. His Tour looked over and done.

On the following day, however, with 130km in the stage to go, Landis made a solo dart for glory. A successful one at that; he pulled back 7 and a half minutes of his deficit, and made the remaining time up in a time trial on Saturday. Today's final stage ended up as little more than a victory procession for him, crowned as winner in Paris.

The story is all the more remarkable because Landis has a degenerative hip condition that means his hip is slowly dying. That makes it impossible for him to walk without a limp, cross his legs, or mount his bike with his left leg first. Apparently after three or four hours of cycling he is in tremendous pain. Yet he could still summon up the reserves of energy to mount an unbelievable, monumental, solo comeback.

Is that a story that sounds too good to be true? Can a man in that condition really win such a gruelling event in such breathtaking fashion without artificial aids to performance?

The question I really want to ask, though, is - does it make any difference?

There is no doubt that merely to complete the Tour de France is an act of no little sporting ability, and huge powers of self-denial. Those are facts that are not changed by doping. If you pumped my bloodstream with EPO, I wouldn't suddenly be able to climb L'Alpe d'Huez at speeds that could see me challenge for a yellow jersey. And to be honest, those who can - even without taking drugs - are probably doing some serious harm to their bodies in the process.

Certainly, there is a moral minefield to be navigated in legalising doping in sports. In particular, young athletes must remain banned from taking drugs until their bodies are developed enough to cope with the events. But the drugs scandals that seem to envelop cycling every year suggest to me that doping is rife in the sport. And pretending it isn't means that only the unlucky or the scrupulously honest are published.

Regardless of whether Landis was doped or not, the triumph of his victory was remarkable. He is unfortunate to live in an era where the smell of drugs will forever linger over any successful cyclist, as there will always be cynics such as myself who suspect chemical enhancement. But I try to keep in mind the greatness of the achievement regardless of whether drugs are used or not. Because to beat a field on such a tough course, over such a prolonged period of time, takes a huge amount of effort. If we can't stop people using drugs - and increasingly, I think we can't - we might as well allow ourselves another chance to marvel at their achievements.

Abrogating Responsibility - Again

2006-07-21T17:56:00.000+01:00

The Commons Standards Committee absolutely defies belief. Apparently, although John Prescott broke the ministerial code in not declaring his cowboy visit, he won't have to ride off into the sunset because he's admitted to having the visit and has declared it. Is the Standards Committee of this world?

If that logic is applied, then stealing shouldn't be a problem - provided that the moment you are caught, you return the stolen items to their original owner. The whole point of the ministerial code, surely, is that it removes the need for a culture of suspicion, because the public are aware of the extra-curricular meetings and dealings with interested parties. A truly transparent - whiter-than-white - government doesn't cover these things up. Would Prescott's behaviour have been acceptable if he hadn't been found out by the press?

Blair, of course, won't take any action that might precipitate a high-profile election within the Labour Party. He knows that any election to replace Prescott as Deputy Leader would make his position entirely untenable, as it would emphasise his lack of support among his own troops. But not to sack someone for breaching the ministerial code completely breaks the point of having it in the first place. Making good on an error is not good enough - Prescott was trying to keep the meeting secret from the public, and if he hadn't been found out we'd still be none the wiser.

How can 30% of the country still believe this shambles of a Government deserves to be re-elected? Time after time after time, Blair keeps treating the country with contempt. He realises that short of a military coup, he can do whatever the hell he likes and get away with it. We have to call him out. The Government is full of crooks and liars. And crooks and liars who refuse to take responsibility when they are wrong.

What we are seeing today is a manifestation of Blair's inability to answer the question at PMQs. All he continues to do is say that the Tories were bad when they were in government. That was nine years ago - it will not do. Where there have been problems, they have had more than enough time to fix them. If new problems have arisen, it is their fault. Yet all they ever do is harp on about the Tory record. They can't escape accountability forever.

Abrogating Responsibility

2006-07-20T18:47:00.000+01:00

John Reid is trying to prove himself to be the hard man of the Labour government. All that he actually proves is that the Labour government has horrendously mismanaged the Home Affairs brief - in just about every single area it is responsible for. The scale of rebuilding faced is entirely down to the Labour government. If there had been these problems one term into their reign, then maybe we could have given them more time. Now, however, they have turned a department into a total mess - and they cannot be allowed to wriggle away from the electoral consequences.

The plan to turn the Immigration and Nationality Directorate into a semi-independent agency must also be stopped forthwith. Good government rests on accountability - which means that there must be some path through which the politicians involved can be held accountable for their actions at the ballot box. (Incidentally, this is another reason - apart from incompetence - that John Reid should not be Home Secretary, for no English voter can hold him accountable for his actions).

If the IND is siphoned off to be merely an agency, then no doubt the Government will treat it as something at arms length, and any hope of trying to deal with matters such as the backlog of asylum applications, or the number of illegal immigrants in Britain, will be lost in a trail of unaccountability. Future governments won't be held responsible, as we will just be told that "it is in the hands of an independent organisation". If government is to work, it needs people to stand up and be counted, and to admit when they are wrong. Taking things away from ministerial control is not the answer.

A Worrying State of Affairs

2006-07-18T19:12:00.000+01:00

There seems to be a culture change that is occurring among the political class. It begins with the campaign to cancel Third World debt. It's a policy I've always been opposed to - the biggest problem in Africa is corrupt governance that embexxles money away from the people and spends it on presidential palaces and weapons. That's why the loans weren't successful in the first place. And to me, there is something seriously wrong with allowing people who have entered into a serious agreement to back out of it. Would a court in this country allow someone to get out of repaying a bank loan because they later decided they couldn't afford repayments?

Unfortunately, the answer now appears to be yes. There's been a new addition to staple TV adverts recently. Alongside the ambulance-chasing lawyers, there are now adverts from companies like "DebtMatters" who claim to be able to help sort out financial crises - "using government legislation that allows you to freeze up to 75% of outstanding commitments". I don't know the nuts and bolts of all of this, but it seems like the government is legislating against people taking responsibility for their own affairs. Far from forcing people to face up to the fact they live beyond their means, instead the government seems to encourage profligacy.

Thus it shouldn't be a surprise that political parties are now trying to get the taxpayer to bail them out for their own financial mismanagement. It's not the fault of the public if the political parties can't engage the public enough to fork out some cash to pay for their activities. Political parties don't have a right to exist in and of themselves. It seems to me as if Labour have been living well beyond their means in an attempt to shore up their power - and if they can't back it up, then they should have to suffer the consequences. Not expect to find some convenient location for someone to write a blank cheque for their incompetence.

Lines I Wish I'd Written, #1

2006-07-18T18:55:00.000+01:00

Jim White, yesterday's Telegraph:

Like the 70mph motorway speed limit, the foil on KitKats or Margaret Beckett, the fact that it was still there, long after it had served any useful purpose, will be enough to induce mass mourning.

Why Political Correctness Goes Mad

2006-07-16T16:19:00.000+01:00

A letter from yesterday's Telegraph:

Sir - A colleague brought back a box of loose tea from his holiday in Sri Lanka. When it came to the office juniors' turn to make real tea, they had no idea how to do it, and ended up putting the tea leaves in what they called a "tea sieve" and pouring the water through it into the cup.

This important British ritual should be taught as part of the National Curriculum, before it dies out.

Jonathan Yardley, Wolverhampton

I hope this letter was written with tongue somewhere in cheek. But knowing the usual lack of grip on reality possessed by most Telegraph correspondents, it seems entirely plausible that Mr Yardley genuinely believes the words written in his name. Even if they don't, they are indicative of a broader attitude that ultimately leads to the state of affairs the right complains so bitterly about - the old dictum of "political correctness gone mad".

How far this can be said to be true, of course is questionable - and I will return to the theme. But here, there is a quite simple formulation employed by the writer. Situation A is something that is a desirable characteristic in people - therefore it should be enforced by the state. Regardless of what situation A is, the basic formulation of looking to the state to guarantee its adoption is all too common.

Why should children be forced to learn how to make a cup of tea? Surely if the taxpayer pays for their education, there are far more useful skills that could be passed on? Some that actually have some relevance to the modern world, for example.

But all too often, the Government is the repository of action in the minds of people. If an attitude like that prevails, the state will inevitably reflect the interest groups closest to power. Only a spirit of greater vigilance over the operation of government can preserve our liberty.

Get Your Snobbery Right

2006-07-13T01:46:00.000+01:00

Arrogance and a haughty attitude are what we have come to expect from Jeremy Clarkson. Sadly, his sneering tone has now adopted that terrible fashion of the English middle-classes - outright, hypocritical hatred of America. I say hypocritical, because far too many of the criticisms of America made by Brits would be seized upon as insufferable, intolerable American arrogance if the two positions were reversed.

Jeremy Clarkson's article in the Sunday Times this weekend proved nothing except for the fact that he is a bilious, hate-filled man, and that he must walk around England with his eyes closed.

And I really don’t like the way that every small town looks exactly the same as every other small town. Palmdale in California and Biloxi in Mississippi are nigh on identical. They have the same horrible restaurants. The same mall. The same interstate drone. Live in either for more than a week and you’d be stabbing your own eyes with knitting needles.

I wonder when Clarkson visited an English small town for the last time? If he did happen to stroll around the town centre, I reckon we could all have a fair stab at what he would see. A Pizza Hut, and/or a Pizza Express, probably. WHSmith would undoubtedly be the biggest newsagent. If he wanted music, a Virgin or an HMV wouldn't be too far away. Or a Marks and Spencers, a Debenhams, a Boots, a BHS, a Carphone Warehouse, a Waterstone's, a Borders, a Caffe Nero, a... well, you get the drift.

Indeed, it was an article in the Times itself a year or so ago that made the point most forceully. With a headline along the lines of "Are all British towns the same?", it had a photo of a typical high street. At first glance, I thought I recognised it as Oxford. Later, I realised I was wrong - it had all the right shops, but in the wrong order.

Do Brits seem to think it is all that terrible that Newbury and Darlington, Swindon and Cambridge, Middlesbrough and Derby are roughly interchangeable? Does living for more than a week in any one of them drive people to "stab their own eyes with knitting needles"? Of course not. But that doesn't stop Clarkson from indulging in the fashion of knocking the Americans. We might like to feel superior to our more powerful cousins across the pond, but it really isn't doing any good. It's like one of Clarkson's hated lard-arses pointing out other fatsos in the street, when if he looked in a mirror, he'd soon realise he needed to start exercising as much as those he criticses.

A Little Word Can Say A Lot

2006-07-13T00:52:00.000+01:00

The Labour Government's cowardice in bending to the harassment of the US legal system is a huge scandal. The primary duty of the Government is to protect its citizens. That's something the Government spuriously claim when it comes to ID cards, yet the minute it comes to actually protecting someone's freedoms and liberties, that principle seems to go out of the window.

The so-called Natwest Three have not been tried in Britain for their alleged offences because the Serious Fraud Office and the CPS couldn't find enough evidence to bring them to trial - despite their repeated pleas to be tried in England. Yet our Attorney-General sees sufficient reasno to allow them to be sent to the US to be tried for the same matter. If that really is how our legal system operates, it is scandalous.

The Government cover-up and spin operation is equally disturbing. Leaving aside the nonsensical notion that the UK should abide by a bilateral treaty that has not yet been ratified by the other country, they try to deny the treaty gives Britain a raw deal Every Minister, including the Prime Minister, who has spoken on the matter has tried to argue that the extradition treaty puts "roughly equal" burdens of evidence on the US and the UK. The key word, of course, being roughly. Or virtually, or analogous to, or any of the other phrases that have been used. Not a single person has been able to say that they are the same standards - because they know that would be a flat-out lie.

A Government that truly cared about protecting its citizens would end this nonsense immediately. Instead we get all sorts of insulting comments from our Government, who seem to think they can pull the wool over our eyes - whilst sending people who couldn't even be tried in Britain to face trial in America. And in the meantime, known terrorists are apparently harboured in America, who refuse to send them for trial here. The system is a nonsense, and our Government is a pure, unadulterated disgrace.

Going Nuclear

2006-07-12T01:38:00.000+01:00

I'm delighted today to see that the Government is proposing to build a new wave of nuclear reactors. Opposition to nuclear energy has always been one aspect that makes it very difficult for me to take the environmental movement seriously. After all, if pollution of the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels is going to lead us to environmental catastrophe, then surely all viable alternatives must be used as far as is possible?

The fact is that there is neither the reliability nor the popular will to transfer all energy generation to renewable sources. Were wind farms sufficiently able to supply Britain's energy needs, I would happily see turbines in place of reactors. Could we utilise HEP more effectively, I'd be arguing for cascades. But the fact remains that trying to rely on renewable energy sources cannot meet Britain's growing energy demand. And if we want to stop the more heavily polluting sources of energy, building new nuclear sites seems the only responsible means of fulfilling demand.

Sometimes I do wonder what planet the environmentalists live on. The fact is that renewable energy sources cannot, in the short-term, help the aim of substantial reduction in carbon emissions. And it is that, after all, which is supposedly the major problem. Nuclear reactors have their risks - but at the same time, do we have reason to doubt their management? Do we really staff them with Homer Simpson clones who don't have a clue what they are doing? 19% of our electricity supply today is nuclear, and we haven't had a meltdown in Britain yet. Is it just a matter of time, or do the environmentalists throw about the word Chernobyl in a spate of fear-mongering?

Fear-mongering, of course, is the stock-in-trade of the green lobby. No-one doubts that searching for reliable renewable energy is highly desirable. The capability right now doesn't exist. By the time new reactors are built, it would still seem doubtful. Either we can meet the rise in demand through nuclear energy, or we can look to fossil fuels again, or the environmental lobby can piss off every single person in this country by demanding compulsory energy shortages until scientific advances are made. And yet again, they'd be engaged in a self-defeating process. Is all they want to do to crow from the sidelines? If not, then they'd better start making more positive contributions to the debate. I'm getting sick of their endlessly negative tone.

Meritocracy, not Quotas

2006-07-10T21:52:00.000+01:00

The Guardian, as ever, proves that it is totally incapable of enjoying an event for what it is. Over on the Comment is Free blog, Martin Jacques has written a remarkably miserable piece about this year's World Cup. Those of you who thought it was a worldwide festival of football are, apparently, wrong. Instead, it's a manifestation of racism - with white teams dominating the way at the expense of our poor, oppressed African brethren.

That's right, the event that actually creates a global interest in the Ivory Coast and Togo is actually just a rigged competition against the poor nations of the world. What a load of tosh.

Firstly, Jacques gets some of his facts plain wrong.

In the last sixteen there was only one African side and no Asian. In the last eight, there were six European and two Latin American: the last four was a European monopoly. (Compare this with the last World Cup, where there were only three European sides in the last eight and just one in the semi-finals.)

That's only true if you don't count Turkey as a European side. But, of course, for footballing purposes, they are. Their club sides compete in Europe; they participate at the European Championships; their qualification is predicated upon their being a member of UEFA, the European football association. How on earth that doesn't qualify as European beats me.

If we want to take matters further, of course, we could look at how exactly South Korea managed to get as far as they did - courtesy of two absolutely appalling refereeing decisions, both of which denied European sides the right to get there. Their victory over Italy was refereed by an Ecuadorian, and the victory over Spain by an Egyptian. So was their success in World Cup 2002 simply a result of the oppressed fighting back against the oppressors?

The sad thing is that Jacques would think this was justified. Jacques argues that in 2002's quarter-final, England fielded 5 black players, and this year they only fielded two. According to him, this is a lack of progress. Evidently ethnic over-representation is only an issue where whites are concerned. According to the 2001 census, 92.1% of the English population is white. Only 2% are black. The ethnic group most under-represented in the England team is white; blacks are overrepresented. This isn't, of course, a problem. Places in the England team are won on merit. Yet it is a sad indictment on Jacques that far from celebrating the talent of England's black players, instead he would seem to want quotas. Perhaps he should look at South Africa to see the recrimination they bring about.

His guilt is not simply assuaged there, however. He argues that there should be more African teams at the next World Cup, preferably at the expense of Europeans. That could be a decision predicated only on politics and not on merit. If any continent deserves to lose places to the Africans, it is North and Central America. Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, and the USA all finished bottom of their group having failed to win a single match. Nor did the Africans exactly cover themselves in glory. Despite Jacques lauding of the Ivory Coast, they only won once. Togo lost all three games; Angola and Tunisia similarly failed to win. There's no basis on results this time to suggest the quality of the tournament would be enhanced by adding more African teams. And certainly not at the expense of European sides.

Jacques, of course, bases his argument upon the fact that Nigeria and Cameroon, traditionally two of Africa's strongest sides, completely failed to qualify. Again, of course, he ignores the fundamental fact of football. You have to beat the sides on the field. And in the case of Nigeria and Cameroon, they couldn't beat the sides they were up against. In the case of Nigeria, that involved finishing behind Angola; in the case of Cameroon, the Ivory Coast. Neither were teams who progressed beyond the group stage.

There's much to celebrate in the development of African football. Most African players now play in European leagues - at a higher quality of football that is resulting in better performances from the national sides. The number of African players in starring roles at top clubs similarly continues to grow. Arsenal get many of their youth players from African academies; the European club champions, Barcelona, feature Samuel Eto'o, a Cameroonian, up front. Such exposure to quality play will continue to raise the standard.

The drawback, of course, comes from the shambolic organisation of African football federations. The African Nations' Cup earlier this year was plagued by disputes between players and federations. Just looking at African football news now shows the problems of political interference and poor organisation. Liberia are currently threatening to withdraw from African competition. And at the World Cup itself, Togo's manager resigned - only to be later reinstated - when his players withdrew from training over a pay dispute. Management and organisational problems are what plague African national teams.

That is a problem that would be worsened by unnaturally promoting African teams to positions in the World Cup that their merit would not necessarily entitle them to. Africans have achieved the most when they have found their way into European teams. This they have done on their own merit - the top European teams have little interest in damaging their results by playing sub-par players. It is when they return to their nations and find the troubles caused by bad infrastructure that they do not perform so well. The answer, of course, is reform in Africa, not meddling from Europe. If only Martin Jacques could leave his middle-class guilt behind.

Sick To The Stomach

2006-07-09T22:39:00.000+01:00

I was really looking forward to the World Cup Final this evening. Zinedine Zidane had proved at this World Cup his genuine quality, and kept a place for himself as one of the all-time great footballers. He may have lacked a yard of pace, but his vision for the game and his unsurpassed touch were a delight for any fan of the beautiful game.

He should have secured his legacy tonight. The World Cup Final - in what was his last game - was the perfect stage for a man of his talent to bow out. Instead, he decided to waste his legacy in a fit of pique, headbutting Marco Materazzi in the chest during extra-time. Following his inevitable sending-off, he left the French team to be ignominiously defeated on penalties.

I feel sick to the stomach now. If France had been defeated by a better Italy side, it would have been alright. They weren't; France were by far the most inventive side, and had Ribery had better positional sense (a harsher critic might say all-round ability) then they would surely have won. But for France to have lost due to a moment of pure selfishness from Zidane feels, well, it feels like he's headbutted me in the chest.

Tonight should have been the crowning glory of one of football's greats. Instead, Zidane has secured a far less appealing legacy. One whose temper got the better of him; one who sacrificed the team to the self. Despite the fact that all through his career his greatest skill was making the players around him better. A football match that ends in penalties is always a let-down. One that sees the disgrace of a legend is far, far worse.

On The Forest Gate Raid

2006-07-07T17:40:00.000+01:00

I know it's a little while since it happened, but I was caught up with other things at the time (I'd like to say revision, but in reality it was more to do with watching the World Cup). However, it now seems to be a touchstone in news reports, especially those analysing attitudes in the Muslim community on the anniversary of the London bombings. The consensus seems to be that it has damaged relations with the Muslim community - and yet, somehow, I find it hard to be especially outraged over the raid. And it has nothing to do with the involvement of that sanctimonious cow Gareth Peirce, either.

The other staple news story regarding the London bombings in the last couple of weeks has been the "police were given a tip-off about the bombers, but didn't act on it" one. The implication being that if the police and intelligence services had noticed the significance of certain names in advance, the bomb plot may never have come to fruition. The fact that these tip-offs were usually very small in their nature doesn't seem to matter.

If the police had good reason to think there was a chemical bomb, or the materials and intent to make one, at the house in Forest Gate, then the only responsible course of action was to search the house. Can you imagine the reaction if a chemical bomb had killed thousands in London, and it was later found out that the police had intelligence on the plot and refused to act on it? Protecting us from these terrorist atrocities is a key part of the police's job.

As for it straining relations with the Muslim community - I will keep my remarks brief for now, but hope to expand on them later. The problem is one that is very much rooted in the Muslim community. But no matter what the reasons for alienation may be, committing terrorist outrages is wrong. Sadly, it is the Muslim community that is home to many of those that wish to perpetrate these outrages - and one in eight, according to recent polls, see those who commit such acts as martyrs. Yes, there is a need to build bridges. But there is a need to do so from both communities. Until it is realised that integration is a two-way process, then the underlying problems will never be resolved.

When Is A Select Committee Worth Hearing?

2006-07-03T16:04:00.000+01:00

Today's Select Committee report into the detention of terror suspects without trial reached the conclusion that the 28-day limit was 'inadequate'. Leaving aside the civil liberties issues for the moment, and the fact that as yet, no suspect has been held for the maximum period without charge, I am more worried by the reaction of the government.

Unsurprisingly, they are already trying to spin this as a vindication for their argument for a 90-day period - even though the committee also argued that they had failed to make the case for such an extension in the Commons debate. You'd think, then, that a Select Committee report would be good enough for the Government to pay attention to. After all, if they can cite it as evidence when they are in agreement, they must be effective counter-evidence if they disagree?

Not for this government, of course. The Education Select Committee published a report showing that there was absolutely no evidence to support the continued claim that increased funding leads to an improvement in GCSE results. Yet every week at PMQs, Tony Blair proclaims the wonderful goodness of increased education funding, and rails against the Tories for opposing it. Despite the fact the Select Committee believes this case is groundless. If the Government starts rethinking education policy in the light of this, then I will be more inclined to listen to their Ministers proclaim the need for a 90-day limit. It won't happen, of course - the Labour Party is still endemically filled with the political class; those who spend their time getting told what they want to hear.

Having A Wank

2006-06-30T01:26:00.000+01:00

So, Jonathan Ross has caused quite the indignant outrage over his questioning of David Cameron and his sexual fantasies. Of course the comments were crass, unappealing, and not the sort of thing you would expect the Leader of the Opposition to be dealing with. But, then again, what else is to be expected of the Jonathan Ross show? He's going to relish the opportunity to try and make Cameron squirm; he's going to do that by being flippant and rude, throwing questions from outside the political box.

David Cameron must love the righteous indignation of the political class over this one. The Mail on Sunday, which really aimed to kick up a storm, almost tried to blame Cameron for the words of Ross. As if that's a reasonable comment - then again, I suppose it fits the paper.

But tonight's Question Time panel was a joy to behold. All sorts of sour-faced politicos pontificated solemnly about how it was wrong for Cameron to appear on this sort of show. The contrast with the audience was remarkable, however. They were pleased to see Cameron trying to connect with a new audience, thought that the comments were what was to be expected from that sort of show, but ultimately on Cameron's side. If ever the idea of Cameron as a man of the people, fighting for a change from the Westminster village, was to be enhanced, Question Time tonight certainly proved it.

What I find hardest to understand is why people say Cameron shouldn't have appeared on the show. Journalists and the media are the first to blame politicians for not engaging with new, wider audiences. It's hardly any wonder when any politician who takes that step receives a whole load of flak for his effort. But let's face it, a politician being interviewed by Jonathan Ross will be seen by more people than a politician being interviewed by Jeremy Paxman. The chances are that he'll be taken more seriously by them, too, as long as he doesn't appear patronising.

And let's face it, if a man who wants to be Prime Minister can't deal with knockabout stuff with Jonathan Ross, he really isn't fit for the job. If he can't cope with a slightly uncomfortable question, then how's he going to cope in top-level negotiations where the fate of the country is on the line?

Charles and the Monarchy

2006-06-27T14:07:00.000+01:00

Prince Charles and Clarence House were yesterday triumphantly proclaiming that the Prince costs each person in Britain only three and a half pence a head. Good for him. Three and a half pence too much, as far as I'm concerned.

The question about the monarchy has nothing to do with whether Prince Charles provides value for money for the services he performs for the country (and, by the way, given that he has personal expenditure of £21 million, I somewhat doubt that he does). The question is whether it is right for someone to be so handsomely rewarded - from the public purse - for a position that he holds purely by the accident of his birth.

If Prince Charles truly represented value for money, then we would know that not only was Clarence House being run as efficiently as possible, but we would also know, beyond doubt, that Prince Charles was the best man to perform the public duties that he does. No-one can say this for sure, because he performs his public duties without having to worry about a better man coming along to take his job. He doesn't have to worry about being sacked, because his position as heir to the throne is held until either he or his mother starts pushing up the daisies. There is no way of the public ensuring that Prince Charles is not unnecessarily wasteful of their money.

In short, the actual cost per head is not the issue at hand. If three and a half pence per head was a suitable sum of money for one man because of who he is, why do we not all receive it? It's little more than a cheap point designed to head off concerns that the monarchy is expensive. Well, I see no reason why one man should be given £21 million for personal expenditure - and a man to put toothpaste on his toothbrush, for crying out loud! - purely because he was born as the eldest son to the Royal Family. Quite simply, it is an outrage against meritocracy. And if Clarence House was to represent value for money, we'd have a selection procedure that made sure we had the right man for the job.

On Not Paying Council Tax

2006-06-27T13:51:00.000+01:00

So, an old woman has been sent to jail in Derbyshire for not paying her council tax. Apparently she is unhappy at the state of her neighbourhood, in particular moaning about anti-social behaviour. Forgive me for having no sympathy with her.

Much of the sympathy seems to emanate from the fact that she is a pensioner. Her age, however, does not excuse choosing to opt out of the social contract that is vital for the maintenance of the services she feels are being carried out badly. Whether she feels the services are being carried out adequately or not, she still derives the common benefit from the services provided, and should make her contribution towards the provision. Does she really think that by starving the services of her money that she will make them better?

If you do not like the provisions offered by a democratically elected council, then there are other - legal - courses of action available to you. You can vote for a different party; if none of them offer the alternative, you can form your own and run for council yourself. If you can't get enough votes, then evidently the community as a whole doesn't share your views; if you don't want to run, either you admit other people are better equipped for the task at hand, or it is not sufficient of a priority of yours to sort it out.

But the Derbyshire pensioner evidently believes in a council, and believes it should be provided certain services. If that's the case, then she must abide by the rules. And if she wants to change things, she should operate within the system, not without.

Britain, Europe, and 4-4-2

2006-06-14T00:42:00.000+01:00

Further syndication from the Touchline Bawler - go and read, there's much more than what I'm posting here!:

In The New Republic's World Cup blog today, Zachary Roth observes a big difference between English football culture in 1990 and 2006:

And in reading All Played Out, Pete Davies's fascinating insider account of England's Italia '90 campaign, I've been struck by the way that the tactical debates of the day were dominated by arguments over formations. Specifically, 4-4-2 was just assumed in England, and I think elsewhere, to be brittle, defensive, and unsophisticated. After our slow start, Bobby Robson was pressured by fans, the media, and even his own players and coaches to switch to a sweeper system, which was seen as being more flexible, and more attacking-minded: in short, more continental. Today, things could hardly be more different. Brazil uses 4-4-2, as do many of the most creative sides in club football. When England plays poorly or unambitiously (not that that's happened lately of course) there's no belief that a sweeper system would change anything. How and why did this change, I wonder.

1990, of course, was a very different time for English football. There can be little doubt England were the poor relations of Europe at that stage. We had not emerged from the stain of hooliganism; the game was seen as vulgar in many quarters of English society, and its supporters worse still. In material terms, too, England was shut out, with its teams being banned from European competition following the Heysel disaster. Especially amongst those segments of the press who disliked the vulgar, violent nationalism of England supporters, 3-5-2 and its European sophistication seemed to offer a viable, presentable alternative.

(As a side note, those who did embrace 4-4-2 did so largely from the perspective of a little Englander - we're different, and we don't care. It's an attitude that still pervades. Mike Bassett: England Manager contains a wonderful scene where the normally hapless Bassett reverses his team's bad fortunes by taking on the media at a press conference: "England will be playing four-four-fucking-two!")

Fever Pitch, the increasing gentrification of the game and its increasing respectability as a middle-class interest changed much. The English league maintained its usual pace, but much of the violence of the play, and the archetypal midfield enforcer, began to slip from view. An influx of money meant that England didn't lose its best players to foreign clubs, but was competing in the marketplace to bring them to Britain instead. And the ending of the Heysel ban meant that English clubs were competing - and, towards the end of the decade, regularly beating - some of the cream of Europe. A sweeper system no longer had the mystical allure of the unknown.
I wonder if some of this sporting attitude towards Europe are indicative of the national mood of Britain, and its attitude towards Europe more generally. Football is the one major sport where Britain really does compete directly with Europe; can the unconscious attitudes of people in football reflect more conscious political activity?

The early 1990s saw a great ambivalence with Europe - the Major government flirted with the ERM, agreed to the Maastricht treaty, but was ultimately uneasy about the concept of the EU. Not opposed to it in principle, but there was a feeling that Britain was different. Can analogies be drawn between that and feelings towards 3-5-2? It was those who write in the broadsheet newspapers, or who write books about World Cup who supported a sweeper system; the more popular feeling invoked the "bulldog spirit". We play 4-4-2 - that's our way, and if the others don't like it, well, we don't care!

The increasing feeling that the English way could succeed - indeed, could attract leading footballers to its own league - reflects a broader change towards the outright hostility to "Europe" expressed by the majority of the population. The ideology espoused by UKIP is one of isolationism and a retreat from just about any political dealings. Breathtaking in its political naivete, perhaps, but indicative of a wider belief that England is great, and that it doesn't need Europe to be great, either. That there have been renaissances in rugby and cricket, too - two quintessentially British Empire games - perhaps is further evidence that England is more confident in itself.

Talking football, however, is now no longer just the preserve of the masses. It possesses a substantial middle-class following - a far cry from the dog days of hooliganism. Part of its renaissance, however, has taken on a peculiarly English character. The story of English football in the 1990s is the rejuvenation of English teams, English players, and an English spirit. Is it any wonder that a sense of Englishness has developed not just in the UK, but with regard to Europe as well?

Will Ghana Ruin The World Cup?

2006-06-13T00:19:00.000+01:00

Today's syndicated content from the Touchline Bawler:

Ghana had much reason to feel aggrieved today. Italy were clearly the better side, but the Africans showed real inventiveness, and passed the ball around with great efficiency. On several occasions the Italian full-backs were shown up horrendously by Ghanaian runs down the wing. Only the absence of incisive passing into the penalty box, the class of Alessandro Nesta, and the bizarre propensity for Michael Essien to shoot high, wide, and not-so-handsome from long distance prevented Ghana from making a decent fist of a contest.

Most egregiously of all, they were denied a clear penalty at 1-0, when their forward burst clear, only to clearly be fouled by the Italian defender. The referee can look forward to a nice boon in his bank balance courtesy of Gianluigi Buffon. And his surely certain departure from World Cup 2006 will no doubt be sweetened by a nice relaxing holiday in the Caribbean.

Nevertheless, the Ghanaian response to going 2-0 down was nothing short of shameful. Far from trying to fight back, they instead decided to lash out at anything in a blue shirt. Having already seen off Francesco Totti with a horrific stamp, and Samuel Kuffour scythe down Vinceto Iaquinta when through on goal (only the offside flag prevented a red card), Ghana then proceeded to go in hard and late on just about every single challenge. That no Italian was seriously injured owes much more to blind luck than good judgement.

That Ghana have a skilful team is not in doubt. Essien and Appiah play at a high level in Europe; most of their other players grace second-tier sides, and have some considerable skills. Had the team not seemed overawed by the occasion - a fact that manifested itself in poor defensive organisation and hasty decision-making in attack - then they could very easily have sprung a major upset on an Italian side that played with imagination but little width. To resort to dirty, cynical play demeaned Ghana.

Their style of play could quite easily adversely affect the remainder of the tournament, however. One thing often overlooked in World Cup predictions is the strength of the group. In Grand Slam tennis, the rigours of a five-set match mean that high-ranked seeds who get dragged into marathon matches lose their energy later in the tournament. If Holland, Italy and the like are not exhausted by having such tough groups, then they are resilient indeed.

The problem of playing high-intensity, high-level football is magnified further if squad resources are depleted by injuries. Time will tell if the injury to Jan Koller will affect the Czech Republic. He is by no means their key player - Nedved and Rosicky are the heartbeat of the side. Being denied the skills of a starting player, however, means the reliance on reserves is stronger, and, moreover, they will be play longer. No substitutions resting them for twenty minutes.

Should Ghana be outclassed by a quality Czech side - as may well happen - then the fear must be they resorted to kicking the man and not the ball. If that results in an injury to the aforementioned Rosicky or Nedved, the consequences for the tournament could be significant. It is like running into a Tongan rugby side intent on high-tackles and taking men out while in the air - recovering from just the bumps and bruises takes its time; and there's a fair chance something more serious happens.

Injuries are part and parcel of any major football tournament - and the truly great teams will have sufficient strength in depth, or tactical ingenuity, to overcome the loss of any one player. But if we were denied the opportunity to see the likes of Rosicky and Nedved in the later stages - as well we might miss the presence of Totti - then there could be no denying the tournament will be much the poorer for it. It is Ghana's first appearance at the World Cup, and it would be a real tragedy if rather than celebrating the skills of Essien, Appiah, and Asamoah (not to mention the wonderfully named Pimpong!), we are left bemoaning their willingness to lash out when beaten.

World Cup Blogging

2006-06-11T00:27:00.000+01:00

I'll be putting as much as I can up over on the Touchline Bawler over the next few weeks as the World Cup reaches fever pitch!

Iconography

2006-06-10T23:30:00.000+01:00

From today's letters page in the Times:

Sir, Your frontpage picture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (June 9) has handed terrorists throughout the world a publicity coup of immeasurable value. Never since the picture of Che Guevara became indelibly stamped on the minds of millions has there been an iconic image of such strength.
The War on Terror is not furthered by the US military releasing this picture.

JOHN WHITNEY
London WC2

I'm pretty sure I remember exactly the same thing being said when Uday and Qusay Hussein died, and the US military released the pictures of their bullet-ridden bodies. And yet now the incident is barely mentioned in mainstream media. Current events in Iraq are far more worrisome and important.

There is something sickening about the politics of death - but such is the nature of the media that debate on Iraq has become a question of who can market death more successfully. Pressure on Bush and Blair mounts with the death of each serviceman; to trade blows the US and the UK do not need to show that they are improving the quality of life in Iraq. Evidence of that sort ultimately becomes anecdotal in nature, and it's difficult to convince viewers in Britain that quality of life is improving when people are being blown up every day. Instead, victory over the insurgency can only be demonstrated by bodies on the ground.

Yes, it's a pretty sad state of affairs. No-one should take any joy in seeing someone else dead (that includes you, Tim Ireland), but Iraq is now a trading of iconic images. Will the death of al-Zarqawi have an effect? I guess so. As in Palestine, and as in Afghanistan, if you knock enough leaders out, there will be problems caused. Particularly in what seems to be a fairly loose operational command. Is that a long-term strategy for success? Probably not - you only need to look at the Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan to see that a new leadership corps can quickly develop.

But time is running out on Bush and Blair. If they can secure a positive legacy at all over Iraq, which seems doubtful, then they need to have visible successes now. Knocking al-Zarqawi off the scene is one of the best ways they could have managed this. Because that's one of the few ways they will get a positive headline. Will the image of Zarqawi be iconic? I doubt it - the iconic image of this year is Prescott playing croquet. What is certain, though, is that for all the distaste of the brandishing of photos of a dead terrorist, the political trading in death will continue.

A Boil Lanced?

2006-06-02T00:06:00.000+01:00

Today's report into the allegations made by L'Equipe seemingly exonerates Lance Armstrong from having used drugs during his first victory in the Tour de France. That's what the Armstrong spin machine has proclaimed, at any rate. On a further examination of the words used by the expert, it seems to me highly likely that the samples did indeed contain traces of EPO, a banned drug. The head of the report team certainly pulls his punches in many of his statements - "It may suffice for research purposes but as a valid doping result - no way."

For all the proclamations to the contrary, it is a technicality that exonerates Armstrong. A pretty hefty technicality - that is, that the way the sample was tested in no way correlates with the official doping policy of either the world cycling authorities or the World Anti-Doping Agency. Yet there isn't actually a denial that the samples contained EPO. That must surely be the acid test of whether the claims are valid or not? It may not qualify him for a ban, or other punishments. But the suspicion must surely still linger here - avoiding a negative dope test is a game of skill, not a game of keeping clean.

Perhaps more pertinently, should it surprise us that Armstrong was taking drugs? Should it surprise us that people in any sport would be taking drugs? The endurance and the sheer physical capacity needed to compete at such a level in the Tour de France is often described as superhuman. Not without good reason either - man is not made to compete at such speeds, such physical hardship, day in and day out. Cycling is constantly surrounded by doping incidents, with riders competing at a much lesser level to Armstrong convicted of doping. Is he really so much better than his opponents that he can beat them so thoroughly when they are doping and he isn't?

And, ultimately, does this matter? Can it be construed as 'unnatural'? The body still has to respond to the stimulus of the drugs to enhance performance - in exactly the same way that more traditional training techniques work. The way the current rules operate, it is only the honest and the stupid who lose out. If you've got a brand-new designer drug, or a pretty powerful masking agent, then you can escape the long arm of the sporting law. If some newspaper stories are to be believed, sometimes all you need is friends in high places. There's a culture of cheating in certain sports, and it's cheating necessitated a) because everyone's at it and b) the endurance/ability required to compete at the top level is nothing short of wildly unhealthy.

Can a baseball pitcher really throw a ball at 100mph 100 times every 5 days and not feel the pain over a career, without taking steroids to artificially strengthen his shoulder? Can American football linemen be bashed into repeatedly over a three-hour period once a week for four months without having unnatural strength? Can a cyclist haul his body over mountain after mountain for three weeks without needed an artificial stimulant? I doubt it.

Pretending that drugs only exist with positive tests is an attitude of breathtaking naivete. Why can't we accept that if there are artificial aids to performance, then people can take risks with them? Seek a doctor's advice and it should be safe. I would bet a fair amount of money that people are cheating in sport the entire time. Some get away with it, others don't. But the pious morality of the indignant journalists sticks in my throats at times. There's a real debate to be had about the role of drugs in sport, and it's about time we had it.

What Kind Of World Are We Living In?

2006-05-27T22:34:00.000+01:00

It's funny how it takes a degree of familiarity before the severity of a situation really hits home. Today's news, about the man fatally stabbed on a train, really shocked me - far more than the stories of fatal stabbings that seem to have peppered the news recently. Even the story of the fatal stabbing in my region. The reason, of course, is not that such an event doesn't shock me. The fact that a train journey is something I will make on a reasonably regular basis means that the news scares me.

But when I think about it, it is easy to see how such an event can occur. When I travelled home at Easter, I had taken the effort to reserve a seat, as standing for several hours is not something I particularly enjoy. When I got to my seat, I found someone sitting in it - who then proceeded to be exceptionally rude as I tried to put my bags away, and wait for him to remove his. His effing and blinding was the more shocking for the fact that he was with his family, including a young daughter at the time.

Rudeness is something that can almost be expected in these situations now. Talking to friends today, they had all experienced similar things. When there are people who cannot keep their self-control in such situations (after all, there are signs that tell you when a seat will be occupied), then bad things will happen. Bad things will happen to a worse extent when a culture develops that accepts carrying a knife. Whether we like it or not, there are sections of the population where it is barely remarkable.

I don't know what can be done to solve it. A knife amnesty seems pretty tame to me if people don't have a business carrying them in the first place. But I'm just shocked by the news today. Something has gone seriously wrong. And when Labour talk about the lesser risk of crime, does anyone believe a word they say any more?

Back

2006-05-27T22:31:00.000+01:00

I hate deadlines.

I also think my last post is a telling commentary on this blog's readership. I write what I think are well-thought-out, controversial, thought-provoking posts, and get nary a comment. I write a knockabout post about the Eurovision Song Contest and everyone posts in droves!

Praise the Lordi!

2006-05-21T00:18:00.000+01:00

Normally, with events like the Eurovision Song Contest, I like to make arguments about the cultural and political significance that is tied up in them. My interest in the desire of Lebanon to compete alongside Europe's, er, finest, for example.

What can be said today about the triumph of Lordi, then?

Firstly, despite their self-description, faithfully reported by the media, as "horror rock", if today really is the "Day of Rockoning", then there really isn't much to be scared about. It sounds pretty much like a pop-rock song by numbers to me, and the only thing remarkable about them is their costumes.

This brings me on to my second conclusion, which is that Finns are mad. What other conclusion can you draw from a country that hosts the world championships of air guitar, sauna sitting, wife-carrying, and mobile phone throwing? This isn't a stereotype; all Finns are quite possibly certifiable.

On another Eurovision note, was it only of interest to me to find out that Arsenium (yes, seriously), the Moldovan entrant, was a member of the truly excreable O-Zone, responsible for the Europop tragedy that was Dragostea Din Tei? Yes?

The IDS Factor

2006-05-18T23:52:00.000+01:00

Much to the disappointment of Labour and Tory partisans everywhere, Simon Hughes has shown the first move towards sticking the knife in Ming Campbell's back. I can't blame him at all; had I been defeated in a leadership election only to be treated to anaemic performances every week at PMQs, to have disastrous council results, and to show little sign of coming within a mile of landing a punch on either Cameron or Blair, then I would want him out of the way pretty soon, too.

My sometime co-blogger, Richard, posts on his own site a defence of Campbell, and calls for him to be given more time:

Only in the Westminster bubble are problems like Menzies' fatal. The British public are remarkably forgiving and willing to let people grow into roles. I urge other Lib Dems to do the same.

The difficulty is that politicians operate within the Westminster bubble. I have written in the past (although Richard has since erased it from the web) about how the BBC coverage of politics is absolutely vital in moderating public opinion. Such is the distrust of politicians that it takes an independent, respected figure like Nick Robinson or Andy Marr to stand in front of the cameras and tell the public whether their latest ideas are credible or not. Failure to convince the lobby journalists is fatal for political figures.

What is notable, however, is how few Lib Dems have been willing to show their support for Ming Campbell publically. Iain Dale wrote a roundup a couple of weeks ago in which he looked at the muted, tepid response to local election results. In the meantime, I've been unable to find any Liberal Democrat who will give his full support to Campbell. Their responses, in fact, remind me far more of the reaction given to another recent political leader - Iain Duncan Smith.

If you asked Tories in 2002 or 2003, you would be hard pressed to find anyone who could give support. Almost from the outset of his leadership, he was considered a laughing stock, and every attempt to give him a personality, a vision, or just some sort of respectability abjectly failed. There have been few political moments as cringeworthy as his last party conference speech - "The Quiet Man is here to stay, and he's turning up the volume".

What you would hear, however, is a dogged determination to support the leader that the party had. "He's our man, we've got to stick by him". When presented with a list of other prominent party names, however, few were willing to say that they would perform worse than IDS. The same is happening with Ming (although as yet I haven't run through the LibDem front bench with people; the lack of talent may well show through in such an exercise).

Quite simply, I haven't come across anyone yet who can convince me that they believe Ming Campbell is the right man to lead the Liberal Democrats to further electoral successes. This isn't a question of being given time to settle into a role - it is a question of being taken remotely seriously. At PMQs, Campbell is visibly nervous, and no longer has the guts to stand up for more than ten seconds to explain the premises on which his questions are based. There's a credibility factor at stake here, and no-one takes Campbell seriously. Just the same way that no-one warmed to IDS.

Campbell's political death may be a slow, drawn-out process. No doubt there will be whispering campaigns, but too many people will be scared of being seen as the disloyal assassin. But continuing with him as leader will be an unseemly business for the Liberal Democrats. He is a figure that cannot be taken seriously as a political force. And until people are willing to say that openly, then their electoral fortunes will surely suffer. It can take a while to shake off that kind of negative momentum.

The Penalty Goal

2006-05-18T20:32:00.000+01:00

Last night's European Cup (sorry, Champions' League) final was not short of controversy. Jens Lehmann, the Arsenal goalkeeper, became the first person to be sent off in such an occasion, a decision that has caused some backlash. The problem came not so much from the decision to send Lehmann off, for it was a clear foul. The ball, however, ran to a Barcelona player, who then slotted the ball calmly into the back of the net. The early whistle of the referee prevented the award of a goal.

For a while, it looked as if Lehmann might have been a tactical genius. Arsenal were clearly the poorer side last night, and I doubt they could have won if they had fallen behind early on. Sol Campbell's goal in the 37th minute gave them the lead which they then held for almost half the game. Taking one for the team - Lehmann getting himself sent off to prevent a near-certain goal - nearly worked. Not quite; Barcelona outplayed Arsenal for most of the second half and in the end the superior fitness of 11 men playing against 10 told.

Nevertheless, the distinct possibility remains that Lehmann's professional foul could have counted in Arsenal's favour, and seen them walk home with a piece of silverware they had no right to claim. In short, the rules of the game need amending to make sure that blatant cheating is not rewarded.

In rugby, a deliberate foul that prevents a try can be punished by a penalty try - the awarding of five points, plus the chance to take a conversion kick from directly in front of the posts (ie the two bonus points are almost guaranteed, too). That way, things such as the temptation to trip someone up when a player is beaten, or the deliberate dropping of a maul that is moving too quickly to be stopped before it reaches the try-line are penalised not just through punishing the player responsible, but positively rewarding the team that had reached that position.

Should Barcelona have been denied a goal last night as a result of Lehmann's foul? Of course not; it was cynical, and Arsenal deserved to be punished by playing a man down. Football is not won and lost purely by the number of players on the field at the end of 90 minutes, however. Goals, ultimately, are the vital currency in the game. And if the undeniable skill of one team is denied by the foul play and cheating of another, then they should be rewarded with a goal. In practice, as in rugby, a penalty goal would be awarded infrequently indeed - it should only be used for a blatant foul like that of Lehmann's, or for a deliberate handball to block a goal.

In both the cases outlined above, only the illegal intervention of another player prevented a goal. Imagine if Lehmann's foul had been committed in the 89th, rather than the 19th minute - thus clearly depriving Barcelona of a rightful victory. The red card given to Lehmann wouldn't be much of a consolation then. Cheating should not get a reward; the only way to stop this is to allow the awarding of a goal when, in the referee's opinion, the intervention stopped a certain score. For an hour last night, Jens Lehmann looked a tactical genius. That to do so required a cynical foul is not right.

A Recurring Nightmare

2006-05-17T12:34:00.000+01:00

I keep waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Somehow, it is in the back of my mind that John Reid is Home Secretary and Margaret Beckett is Foreign Secretary. I thought this was some trick of the mind at first, but now I'm not so sure. Can someone reassure me please?

What's In A Name? Pt 1

2006-05-15T18:21:00.000+01:00

Major League Soccer has a new franchise - Toronto FC. There's been much discussion over at JABS, a Toronto sports blog, regarding the choice of the name. Some think that it won't catch on, and something more exciting was needed to attract fans. Others (including the author) disagree, arguing that it is a name that respects the traditions of football, and has the particular benefit of not been contrived in any way.

I have to agree with such an analysis. One of the difficulties that North America has always had as regards being taken seriously in world football is the fact that any attempt to market it has been in a recognisably "American" format, leading to bizarre team names like the Kansas City Wiz. That, combined with their calling the game "soccer", leads them to be viewed as slightly backward cousins (tying in with a regular stereotype of 'across the pond', of course). It's even worse when they try and can European traditions and place them in an American format. Real Salt Lake? Not a chance. What links does Utah have to the Spanish monarchy!

This, I think, is one of the problems that the US has in making greater strides in world football. Partly the problem is one of the locus of power, which rests firmly in the European club structure. Without exposure to European teams, then North American football will struggle, because it will be unable to test itself against the strongest teams. Moreover, a league system based on a salary cap, and marketing techniques that de-emphasise football itself as entertainment, means that players will only go to America for a lucrative pay-day at the end of their career. This is not to say that there is not a lot of talent in North America - far from it; the US played some of the most exciting football of the last World Cup and really only lacked a striker.

The choice of names for teams, however, is interesting in the way that it can reflect the culture that people want to create. Calling the new franchise Toronto FC suggests to me that there is a desire to place an emphasis on the key selling point, the football. No frills, no nonsense, just pure football. The thrill of the competition is good enough.

Mercy For Ming

2006-05-10T19:09:00.000+01:00

Guido has a wonderful image of Ming Campbell and Vince Cable juxtaposed with the Muppets. It is apt indeed; since becoming acting leader Campbell has been nothing short of a disaster at PMQs - the one time when the leader of the third party (no matter their pretensions) is publically visible. This reached its height last week, when Blair gave Campbell the political equivalent of a bitch-slapping despite the fact Campbell had chosen to ask about the Home Office - an open goal if ever there was one.

Guido writes of Campbell today:

Today Blair checked himself as Ming went off notes and mumbled his question, Blair struggled to suppress a smirk. So bad was the meandering question that Blair restrained himself and didn't counter-punch. Professional politicians on all sides recognised that as a merciful professional courtesy to a man in deep difficulties.

I beg to differ. Campbell is so bad that Blair does not want to beat up on him. As things stand, Campbell is possibly Blair's, and Labour's, biggest electoral asset. It does not take a vicious put down from the Prime Minister for anyone watching PMQs to realise that Campbell is an incompetent old buffer - or a "statesman" in Lib Dem code.

The greatest shift that occurred in British politics during the leadership of Charles Kennedy was the repositioning of the Lib Dems as the major opposition to Labour - often opposition from the left - in the urban centres of Britain. That resulted in some surprising results at the last election, including the wins of Manchester Withington and Hornsea and Wood Green.

With a resurgent Tory party, however, anti-Tory feeling among traditional Labour supporters will undoubtedly rise, and the Liberal Democrats will require strong leadership to convince those voters to continue to back them. It would surprise me if Ming Campbell could inspire the most frenzy-filled conference chamber, let alone sceptical voters who may not for much longer see his party as the "least-worst" option.

The fact is that a weak Lib Dem party is an asset for Blair; the disaffected voters who switched over Iraq, and liked the sound of a 50% tax rate are natural left-wing voters, and will try and keep the Tories out at all costs.

Blair wasn't being merciful in not sticking the knife into Campbell at PMQs today. He was protecting his strongest asset.

My First Day Campaigning

2006-05-05T16:35:00.000+01:00

Yesterday, I understood for the first time the real excitement of partisan affiliation in politics. Although not a party member, a good friend of mine was running for Oxford City Council, and so I spent much of the afternoon and evening hitting the campaign trail on his behalf. In my first stint, this mostly involved telling - pleasant, if uneventful.

It was in the evening that I was more actively involved, knocking on doors and generally persuading people to go to the polls. This meant, with barely an hour until the close of polls, being driven to the other end of the city in one last push for what was considered one of the closest wards.

Partially, it was the time factor, and the need for swift movement, that contributed to the excitement I got. Time was very much of the essence. But there was also a great feeling of satisfaction from managing to get just two households to vote. It was the second of these that provided the best story:

Me: "Hi. Sorry to bother you, I'm calling on behalf of the Liberal Democrats to remind you that today's the local election, and the polls are open until 10pm"

Old Lady: "My husband's been up since 4.30 this morning - he's been in London all day and he's only just got back in..."

Great. Just what I need - campaigning for a party that I'm not a member of, and I'm about to have a strip torn off me for disturbing people after half past nine in the evening.

"...but if you can get us a lift to the polls, then we'll go."

Will my experiences yesterday encourage me to find a party in which to hang my hat? I doubt it. As exciting as the experience, and as interesting as seeing the process of organising an election was, the crucial thing before pledging support is surely the policies they follow. In a city where one of the two parties I would consider supporting simply doesn't register, helping out one campaign is no problem at all. But would I have felt so easy about my campaigning efforts had I been getting out the vote against those wearing blue rosettes, rather than red or green? Certainly not.

But I can't help but have some regrets about that. I have a real sense of achievement about having given active support to two victorious campaigns, and working on a team with a shared purpose was great fun. Let's just hope by the next time I get involved in campaigning, I'll feel better about supporting any particular party!

And As I Watched Him On The Stage...

2006-05-03T12:10:00.000+01:00

Tony Blair's attempts to justify the chronic incompetence in the Home Office are nothing short of utterly pathetic. His only attempt at a defence is that the problem has been going on for a long time. That just doesn't hold up at all - Clarke was made aware of this problem a long time ago, and the problem intensified after he was made aware of it. Blair has to stop being allowed to get away with this argument - his party has been in power for nine years; it has had more than enough time to sort out problems within government, and it has manifestly failed.

I have been even more shocked by Blair's performance at PMQs today than I was yesterday when I learned that the man accused of the murder of a WPC in Bradford is one of those who should have been deported upon his release from prison for a criminal conviction. The only excuse for this seems to be that the man was a Somali national, and we do not return people to Somalia. What the hell is he doing in the country?

There are surely rules that any individual in society has to abide by for society to function properly. And if you do not have any intrinsic right, through nationality, to reside in Britain, then surely coming to this country to live implies a recognition of the laws that operate there? If you don't, then claiming any continued right to remain in the country must be blown out of the water. And failing to get rid of these criminals is a major stain on the government. Pretending anything otherwise is just a dereliction of duty.

If, as Charles Clarke has just admitted, there is a "systemic failure" in the Home Office, that has continued AND WORSENED beyond when he was made aware of it, then he quite simply has to resign. He is responsible for those actions, and his failure to act means that he has forfeited any public confidence in his ability to sort the scandal out. He has to go, now. Watching an attempt at a justification of this just makes me clench my hands in fists of rage. Satan's spell will continue to operate while the non-deportation of murderers and rapists is justified by the continuation of Charles Clarke in office.

Bawling My Heart Out

2006-05-02T11:58:00.000+01:00

There's been a flurry of activity at the Touchline Bawler this week, including ruminations on the NFL draft, Big Phil, and club cricket. Go and take a look...

A Letter to the Press

2006-04-29T23:40:00.000+01:00

Dear Tabloids (and others),

Congratulations. Congratulations for ruining the hard work of the FA, scuppering their interview process, and getting the leading candidate for the England manager to pull out of the running for the job.

When tournament time springs around, you are always keen to bill yourself as the "official" paper of the England team, or the "No 1 newspaper for all your World Cup news needs". It would be nice if for once you stopped just trying to talk a good game, and showed your support for the England team in your actions as well as your words.

How would you feel if your house was consistently surrounded by photographers and reporters hounding you for comments on your job? How would you feel if people started poking around in your private life to try and find some salacious gossip, totally unrelated to your job, to spread to as wide an audience as possible?

Does it matter whether Ashley Cole is gay? No, it's none of your business. Does it matter whether Wayne Rooney has run up massive gambling debts, or where Coleen does her shopping? Maybe to their bank managers, but it's no interest of the press whatsoever. And it certainly can't help England's World Cup chances, to test players mentally for no other reason than it helps you to sell a few newspapers.

And now you have shooed away the FA's chosen candidate for manager in your desperate thirst for the lowest common denominator.

For people who claim to support the England team in their quest for glory, you sure have a funny way of showing it.

British Icons

2006-04-28T14:59:00.000+01:00

There's been a further 21 additions to the pointless waste of time that is the Department of Culture's "English Icons" series. If the things chosen are quite so symbolic, they don't need official recognition, or a separate project identifying them. Nor should they have to go through an extensive nomination and selection process.

Of course, just about all the items added to the list today - including the flag of St George, the Lindisfarne Gospels, cricket, and the British pub - are in some way, shape or form, quintessentially English. Those that aren't, by which I mean the Notting Hill Carnival and Brick Lane, certainly merit some inclusion. (For those who wonder why I say they aren't quintessentially English, it is because I instantly think of other cultures - Commonwealth cultures - when I think of them. But they are certainly part of England's heritage, and in time will, I hope, become English heritage).

What I wonder, though, is what purpose this project produces other than to spill lots of ink and to waste lots of pixels commenting on what should and shouldn't be included in such a project. Isn't one of the wonders of England that trying to identify a stereotypical culture for it is darn near impossible? That cricket on the village green, overseen by regulars at the Red Lion flying the flag of St George is as much English as those quaffing port in subfusc in an Oxford quad, or having a cup of tea at a bridge drive? That the working mens club sits side by side along Buckingham Palace as representative of England and its heritage? To that end, trying to quanitfy 100 icons is counterproductive.

In Alan Bennett's play, The Old Country, he deals with themes of exile, but most pertinently with the themes of change in the old country, England. The two traitors living in the Soviet Union are both recognisably English, but are from very different Englands, and the play explores their feelings about exile - most comically when Hilary, the former civil servant, expresses the desire to appear on Desert Island Discs.

Towards the end of the play, the comment is made that "England isn't a noun, it's a tense". This struck me as a far better way of summing up the nature of Englishness than any number of icons. Englishness is a state of mind, it's about restraint and decency. It's about laughing at little jokes that aren't funny, the maintenance of friendships because being rude just isn't the done thing. It's the people that make England what it is; the pub, the cricket team and the artwork is just an expression of what we are and who we are. If, as a people, we are just a collection of icons, then we've lost our soul. And that's not very English at all, is it?

Prove Your Mettle

2006-04-26T14:01:00.000+01:00

A strange thing happened in the Conservative leadership election. Normally I would be in favour of the modernising candidate; the candidate prepared to take on the nasty shibboleths of the extreme wings of the party and to revamp the image of the party. Yet I didn't, and still haven't, warmed to David Cameron. There is something about him that seems too slick, too convenient, too unprincipled for me to want to back him to be leader of my country. So the really strange thing happened: I found myself warming considerably towards David Davis.

Davis seemed to conduct a campaign that was based far more on policy, on substance, than Cameron, who was and is primarily concerned with image. I hope that will change in the future. Davis's mantra, "people want to know what we mean. Not what we stand for, but what we mean" is something that I wish was shared by more politicians.

There is one key task for an opposition frontbencher, though, and that is to stick the knife in and twist it when something happens to the Minister in your portfolio. Throughout their time in opposition, the Tories have been resolutely useless at this task. Instead, Blair has, more or less, been able to shuffle his disgraced Ministers off quietly, once the story had passed over. Theresa May's abject handling of the Jo Moore "burying bad news" story, for example, failed to get rid of Stephen Byers. Despite the fact that this was as close to an open goal as anyone ever gets given in politics. Failure after failure, and yet the Tories have seemed like rabbits in the headlights when given the chance to finish a Minister off.

David Davis has had a better record than most on this count, of course, successfully demanding the resignation of Beverley Hughes, and keeping up pressure on David Blunkett until the Budd inquiry forced him out. If Hughes's case, involving the failure to track an immigration scam, was a prima facie case for resignation, though, the news about Charles Clarke failing to ensure the deportation of foreign convicted criminals (including murderers and rapists) must be an even more certain case for resignation.

Clarke, of course, is a far tougher cookie than Hughes. As much as I despise the anti-civil liberties agenda that Clarke has devised, every time I see him in the House I'm impressed by his performance. Disturbed by his content, yes, morally opposed to what he says, certainly. But if you were looking for a politician to sell ID Cards, then it would be Charles Clarke. And if he is prepared to face down the vocal and widespread criticism of that scheme, he will have the spirit for a fight to protect his position.

Clarke's failure to control his department is something that will weaken his authority dramatically, of course. When stories like this one appear, as they surely will in droves, people will now find it hard to believe the usual refrain that "instances like this are rare, and we will monitor all developments to find out what went wrong". It will contribute to an image that Labour is not in control of crime, especially violent crime, and that will be something that is damaging to a government whose most memorable soundbites refer to law and order.

The Tories, now, however, are up against the determination of Blair and Clarke, two of the most formidable men in British politics. Now, more than ever, is a test of their mettle and their political skill. This is a gilt-edged opportunity to seriously damage Labour. If Clarke goes, then their anti-terrorism agenda will be seriously damaged - there isn't another figure who could handle that so adeptly. The reason why Blair has not sacked Clarke is nothing to do with this specific case, it is all about the broader reform agenda.

Removing Clarke, therefore, has to be a priority. Now is the time for the Tories to prove that they are a government-in-waiting. Lord knows, there's enough that's going wrong with this country at the moment. The NHS is in a state of chaos; our civil liberties are being whittled away; education shows precious little sign of improvement despite the millions that have been lavished on it. If the Tories get rid of Clarke now, they get rid of someone upon whom Blair has pinned his hopes of securing a legacy. The resolve of Labour's backbenchers will likely be strengthened, too, which would give the benefit of Brown taking over as the champion of the old left, rather than part of an orderly succession.

David Davis, your moment in the limelight has arrived.

Change In Increments

2006-04-24T20:19:00.000+01:00

The way seems to be being prepared for a relaxation of Vatican edicts relating to the use of condoms, in what must be a huge shock for all those who considered Pope Benedict XVI to be a hopelessly wrong hard-liner.

"In his interview with the newspaper, Cardinal Barragan said: "Soon the Vatican will issue a document about the use of condoms by persons who have grave diseases, starting with Aids."
He said his department was studying the document, along with the scientists and theologians who wrote it. "

I hope that this is true. It is, of course, undeniable that the best means of preventing the spread of Aids is abstinence, and for sexual intercourse only to take place within a marriage. But there comes a point at which insisting on one policy only is playing ostrich. Sticking your head in the sand and ignoring usual practices is not a sound means of using the authority that the Catholic Church unquestionably possesses.

My suspicion is that this will be the first step in a near-total reversal of policy. Why? Because change of so fundamental a principle can only come in increments. For there to be a complete volte-face on a matter that the Church has doggedly stuck to in spite of heavy criticism would be seen as an unacceptable capitulation.

The broader questions this raises, of course, and to me the most interesting, are those of morality. Is it moral to proclaim one line that, because misused, leads to a perpetuation of suffering? Does the reluctance of the Catholic Church to make contraception available mean that the transmission of Aids has been faster than it otherwise would?

Morality should never operate in a vacuum. Life is the most precious gift that we are given; that means we have to work within the world, not outside of it. Thus, to be truly moral may mean sacrificing certain principles in order to do the greater good of preserving life and alleviating suffering. I am pleased that the signals seem to be that the Catholic Church is moving that way.

Oliver's Army

2006-04-24T20:18:00.000+01:00

It's a good job that I had no aspirations to join the Chinese army...

Racist on Two Counts

2006-04-23T12:36:00.000+01:00

From the Sunday Telegraph:

Police forces should be allowed to fast-track job applicants from ethnic minorities, despite the practice being against the law, a leading officer has claimed.

Tim Worstall has his own take on why this is an incredibly dangerous statement (and one I am inclined to agree with).

My take on it is that it displays racism on two levels. Firstly, that it accepts the principle of discrimination on the basis of race, disadvantaging white people solely because of the colour of their skin.

More perniciously, however, isn't this also racist towards ethnic minorities? Are those from ethnic minorities really that much weaker that they need to be promoted on the basis of race, rather than on their own merits? Is the only way they can get into our police force by throwing out other applications based on subjective criteria? I don't believe that such a patronising attitude is positive at all. And if we want the laws upheld properly in our country, we need to have the best people in the job. Regardless of the colour of their skin.

Playing Away From Home

2006-04-22T18:38:00.000+01:00

I'm trying a new blogging venture; The Touchline Bawler. Don't fear, my regular diet of ranting and opinion will still appear here on a frequent basis. But one aspect of blogging that I enjoy a lot, and yet seems to get little coverage, is that of sportsblogging. The Touchline Bawler Presents... was the title of a column I used to write on a Wakefield RFC fan site a few years ago, and now seemed a good time to take that persona back off the shelf, dust it down, and bring it back better than ever.

Cross-postings will most likely occur, but I will be running a series of regular features over on the Touchline Bawler that I hope you think worthy of your attention. The first is my Diary of a Club Cricketer, where I bemoan the vagaries of the English weather. In the next week, too, expect the first of my World Cup previews, which I intend to do on a group-by-group basis.

Please take a look!

More Dave the Chameleon

2006-04-20T23:20:00.000+01:00

It seems as if Labour's attempt at an attack advert is going to backfire badly. Almost everyone I've spoken to about the Dave the Chameleon advert finds the idea hilarious, but then comes out of it thinking much more highly of David Cameron. According to Iain Dale's blog, this has happened because Labour was trying hard not to make the attack appear too nasty. I hope that's true.

Part of the reason that we don't have an intelligent political debate in this country at the moment is because personality has become a substitute for policy. It's got to the stage where despite the fact that Blair and Brown are wasting money hand over fist in our public services, the Tories have completely failed to capitalise, because they are too busy constructing narratives for their leading figures. This isn't to say any party deserves absolving from the blame.

The Labour Party have perhaps been the most vicious in their attacks over the last ten years, with their denunciations of Hague having nothing to do with policy and everything to do with personality; their treatment of Howard and Letwin at the last election following suit. But the Liberal Democrats have fudged policy for years because Ashdown and Kennedy were popular, relaxed figures, and the Tories' attempts at attacks have been emphasising the shiftiness of Blair more than the manifest failings of Labour policy.

There is a genuinely important debate to be had on many, many issues. The threat of global terrorism is changing the terms of foreign policy debate - more than that, it is changing the shape of how dividing lines are drawn. Labour's insistence on pouring money into public services as a panacea is coming under more and more strain, especially with NHS cutbacks being highly publicised, and yet there is little constructive debate on the direction in which public service policy should go, and what nature reform should take. And that in itself raises many questions about the running of the economy - but there is precious little debate to be found there either.

I hope that every single attempt at character assassination from here on fails. The only way to combat cynicism about the political process is to reintroduce policy; the only reason that it is so easy for our civil liberties to be washed away is because posturing as "tough" is considering preferable to making a case for change. It stinks, and it's about time it changed.

Is This Justice?

2006-04-20T23:02:00.000+01:00

I'm not normally a member of the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade. To my mind, prison should be used as a punishment of the last resort; efforts at rehabilitation, and punishments such as heavier community service orders are a sounder investment in the future. Well, that's what I like to think on my more positive days, at any rate.

I couldn't believe this story that I read today.

Kevin Hazelwood, 40, of Oriental Place, Brighton, Sussex, was told by Lewes Crown Court that he must serve a minimum of five years and seven months.

Last month he admitted six rapes, two attempted rapes, three sexual assaults and two indecent assaults.

He was on a sex offenders' treatment programme at the time of the attacks.

That's less than one year per rape, never mind the persistent attempts for other rapes on top of that. And this is how we punish someone who has been given the chance of rehabilitation, too! What penalties for a first-time offender with one rape?

If the principle of offering a second chance has any grounding in policy, it must be the carrot that is twinned with the stick. Offenders shouldn't expect the state to throw money at them time and time again - that's just throwing good money after bad. If they're given the chance to get their lives back on track, and there are many compelling reasons why they should be (after all, unless we make everything punishable by life imprisonment, they have to be let back out at some point, and I think it is immoral to use prison simply as a holding house for people to offend again), then it must be emphasised that there are penalties for more lenient treatment the first time.

Giving derisory sentences like that to repeat offenders makes a mockery of the justice system.

SportBlog Roundup Revived, #3

2006-04-19T16:56:00.000+01:00

Hello, and welcome once more to the SportBlog Roundup, which modestly attempts to get the best bits of blogging from around the world collated here in one manageable lump. The principle remains the same - you watch the sport at the weekend, write about it early in the week and let me know about it so I can include it here on a Tuesday.

All submissions are gratefully accepted, so please let me know about your work! sportblog at googlemail dot com remains the address.

First up this week is Stumbling and Mumbling. I'm a big fan of this blog, because Chris Dillow takes the time to find a new and interesting angle on what is currently in the news. He makes the cut this week for explaining just why conventional wisdom is not the best way of choosing the next England manager.

One thing that compiling this roundup has taught me is that blogging isn't just about the written word, and a great inventive use of video proves the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. This recreation of a classic World Series match using the RBI Baseball video game is a real gem.

In anticipation of the summer's World Cup, Sportolysis is conducting an interview with someone from every single participating country. Looks like a series well worth following; here is the edition on Iran.

Jenny Thompson is guestblogging at the Corridor of Uncertainty about her cricketing travels in India. As I look out of the window to be greeted with grey skies, I can't help but feel very jealous!

Eric McErlain at Off Wing Opinion has a statistical prediction of the NHL playoffs. He doesn't let his obvious enthusiasm get in the way of strong analysis.

Gaurav Sabnis at Vantage Point has the best description of Jason Gillespie's batting I have come across. Can't deny Gillespie his moment in the sun, but really, for him to be scoring 201 in a Test shows how including Bangladesh in official statistics devalues them heavily.

Complete Sports has an analysis of the quest to become NBA MVP, complete with rankings and some solid judgement.

JayWalk laments the virtual certainty of Chelsea winning the Premiership, but points out that Manchester United fans were a bit greedy if they expected to win 14 straight games to take the title.

Nigel Blues has a great report on Cardiff City's Good Friday clash with Sheffield United. Maybe not the most glamorous of matches, but underlines how commitment to a cause can translate itself into compelling blogging.

I'm not normally a fan of liveblogging, but Chris Young at JABS does a very good job of it in this piece. In particular he gets across the real fun that a sports addict living in the US or Canada can have by channel-surfing.

Still over the Atlantic, New Mexiken has a great joke about Barry Bonds.

Donutball writes from the perspective of a Spurs fan preparing for heartache.

The Realest talks about the biggest freaks in NFL Draft History.

Uncle Monty eloquently denounces idiocy in goal celebration.

Scrumbag has a good old chortle at the expense of poor old Matt Dawson.

With the start of the domestic cricket season underway, and club cricket around the corner, expect a fair bit of cricket blogging over the coming months. Assuming my performances are remotely worth relating, of course. To celebrate, a couple of cricket-related posts. First, some New Year resolutions of GH Hardy.

And finally, news of the most expensive cricket ball ever created. All I can ask is this - how long will it take before it starts to reverse swing?

Don't You Just Love Positive Politics?

2006-04-18T18:51:00.000+01:00

It's always easy to tell when a governing party is in serious trouble. Far from concentrating on its own successes in government, it has to point at its leading opponents and scream, in mock horror, "Oooh! Aren't they just horrid?"

That's the latest Labour tactic to deal with David Cameron. Despite the fact that many psephologists believe that the results may not be the good news that the Tories so desperately crave (mainstream thinking here seems to think otherwise, though), Labour are tremendously fearful of exposing the fault lines that are running through their party right now.

To me, that is what makes their Dave the Chameleon advert so wonderful. So many of the accusations they throw at Cameron could so easily be directed towards Blair, particularly if you consider the Tony Blair taking the reins in 1994. He said that he stood for a Third Way, distinct from the doctrinaire socialism of the past, in much the same way that Cameron is launching a rebranding exercise right now. And when he is suggesting that Dave will say what the public wants to hear, to hide his true beliefs, how can we help but think of the former Marxists who ended up as Blair's cronies?

Of course, I think this belies the real fear of Number 10 as things stand. The most vocal critics of Blairism at the moment are the socialist Labour backbenchers. And goodness knows how quickly the Labour party's stock would fall if they ever found themselves in the party ascendency. So, the only way to avoid the party from splitting apart is to go on a good old round of Tory-bashing. (Do I detect the hand of Gordon Brown behind such a campaign?)

Now, I have to say, I'm not the greatest fan of David Cameron. Just about every statement he's made is totally devoid of specifics, but the general commitments he has made suggest that he doesn't understand the scale of reform that needs to be made to our public services for them to become effective. It still rankles with me that almost ten years into Blair's government, there still hasn't been an effective articulation made of the point that more money means more chances to be profligate, and not better service. That said, having seen the Dave the Chameleon advert, I hope he has a resounding success in the council elections. If we are to combat the negative image of politics, then it is vital that positivity and constructive debate is rewarded, rather than which party shouts the loudest and has the coolest computer graphics.

Of course, therein could lie the genius of the advert. As with Blair in 1994, there is deep unease at the direction that he seems to be taking the party (I hope, but am not certain, that it is a short-term ploy designed to change the perception of the Tories) - although he doesn't have a Clause 4 moment waiting in the wings. At the same time, given the smallness of council wards, it is turnout that is all-important in securing seats. And demoralised Labour activists beaten down by Blairism are surely less inclined to pound the streets to prop up their enemy?

So Tory-bashing in the campaign will rally the troops. More subtly, however, the message of the Dave the Chameleon advert is that Cameron is attempting to shift the Tories, in a way that their activists won't like. True blues don't like those in their brightest yellow! So the pressure that is put on Cameron is to get his own side to see the advert, and ask "if he is a Tory, like he says, what bones is he going to throw us?" That may be a more difficult question for Dave to answer than a crass mudslinging cartoon.

SportBlog Delayed

2006-04-18T18:13:00.000+01:00

For those of you coming here to witness this week's SportBlog roundup, apologies. Things have run away from me today and I won't have time to trawl the blogosphere until later. Should be up tomorrow, however.

He Is Risen Indeed

2006-04-17T15:41:00.000+01:00

My father tells a story of his English lessons from his schooldays. A master asked a pupil to read a passage of Shakespeare, only to be met with a dull monotone. "Put some life into it, Peterkin!", he cried - but to no avail. The pupil was as uninspiring as ever. Eventually, at the end of his tether, the master pushed all the books of his desk on to the poor unsuspecting child below. Had I been in sufficient proximity to a stack of hymn books, that is what I may well have done yesterday at Westminster Abbey.

Easter Sunday is the day that life is put back into the Church. Despite it being arguably the most joyful occasion in the Church's calendar, however, and despite the fact that the Anglican Communion is an "Easter People" (as the sermon yesterday was so keen to point out), the best word I can think of to describe yesterday's sermon was, well, glum.

Glum, despite the fact that the resurrection of Christ is the story of the triumph of life over death. More to the point, it was glum, although there were up to 1,000 people at the service, many of them who must have been tourists, or people who rarely attended church. If ever there was a time that an uplifting, inspiring sermon was ever needed, then that was it. The church is really missing a trick when it gets services like that wrong.

Of course, Friday had seen something far more interesting - the "Manchester Passion", with the Easter story retold with the help of modern music. As can be expected with something like that, it met with some fairly sniffy comments in the newspapers. One letter that I recall bemoaned the fact that a service using modern music was the only Good Friday-specific programming shown by the BBC. I don't know if this is true or not, but what I do know is that the square in Manchester where it was performed was absolutely crammed full with people, and it didn't seem to be your ordinary religious audience, either.

Trying something different, like the Manchester Passion, seemed to bring out interested people in their droves. Moreover, it was performed very well, and almost certainly brought the message of Easter to a wider audience. The message of Easter isn't something to be proclaimed narrowly - it is a story of redemption for the whole of mankind. And in the light of repeatedly diminishing church attendace, those who want to spread the Gospel need to find new ways of getting the message out. If you gave me the choice of seeing the Manchester Passion, or listening to that sermon at Westminster Abbey again, I know what my choice would be. Only one of them has a hope of putting some life back into the church.

Snooker Rebellion

2006-04-14T00:47:00.000+01:00

According to the BBC, the world's leading snooker players are up in arms about sponsorship restrictions in place for the forthcoming World Championships. Since the end of tobacco sponsorship in Britain, the online poker casinos have filled the breach. Seems rather like fighting vice with vice to me, but then again vice is the prerogative of the individual.

In any case, 888.com are sponsoring most major snooker tournaments now, which prevents players sponsored by other gambling companies from displaying their logos during said tournaments. So not only has revenue decreased by limiting the potential pool of sponsors, but personal income is declining quite severely, too. Snooker is not the only sport that has been affected by such gambling restrictions. The ICC, and more recently the West Indies Cricket Board, have almost been torn apart by team sponsors demanding individual players give up agreements with rival companies.

It is my opinion that the organising bodies are dead wrong on this front. They shouldn't have sufficient power to restrict their players' earnings. That is the right of the players. Admittedly, the snooker dispute is not as serious as the West Indies' cricket dispute, because outside of the major championships the snooker players are free to be sponsored by who they wish. Nevertheless, it massively reduces the earning power of the players, and is bound to cause resentment.

Worst of all, it threatens the sorts of splits that can ruin a sport. Formula 1 seems to have perpetual crises with threats to form rival series. Darts is already split, so you have the anomaly of watching Sky and the BBC promote different "World Championships". If snooker tries to control the earnings of its players so closely, it risks a rival World Championship being created. And as Ronnie O'Sullivan, Stephen Hendry and Ken Doherty are rumoured to be among those most irritated, it is not as if such a tournament would lack credibility.

After all, the point of a world organisation for a sport is surely to look after the interests of its players? Blocking substantial income streams does not do that. Just as Matthew Engel criticises the ICC in this year's Wisden, so the World Snooker authority should be very wary of acting like an independent commercial body. The body would be nothing without its players - and if it continues to affect their earnings, nothing is very much what it might end up like.

NUT By Name, Nuts By Nature

2006-04-12T21:11:00.000+01:00

A teaching union's conference has, as usual, come up with some ideas that I hope are never taken seriously. This time, however, they are more pernicious than merely hair-brained. They call for a "skills-based curriculum" that would pretty much destroy the current syllabus as we know it. Out of the window would go history and geography, to be replaced with buzzword topics like "information management" and "learning and thinking skills" (what education, exactly, is not geared towards learning skills?).

The simple fact that they miss is that it is only a lack of imagination that prevents the development of an interdisciplinary approach in humanities subjects. History departments, for example, should work closely with English departments to make sure that students reading literature understand the historical value of learning contemporary thought. Reading Tom Brown's Schooldays, for example, will tell you a lot about Victorian society in a way that would be difficult to get across in a more direct manner.

Additionally, just about any subject that I can think of worth its salt incorporates a number of different skills that the proposed reform would place at the heart of the curriculum. Trying to divide a curriculum into different skill sets simply wouldn't work - academic study cannot be compartmentalised so easily, and the subtleties of each skill need to be drawn out in a 'traditional' subject by comparison with others.

I will write more in defence of the study of history in schools soon, but I think it is important that there is strong opposition to the proposed scheme. A school's overall teaching policy should be directed towards helping on each of these skills. But there is nothing in the existing structure of separate subjects that prevents an interdisciplinary approach, or the effective learning of any skills. And to try and suggest otherwise is nonsense. Teaching has to inspire kids - and trying to twist the curriculum to fit the current buzzwords of educational consultants is not the way to do it.

SportBlog Roundup Revived #2

2006-04-11T20:21:00.000+01:00

Greetings everyone, and welcome to the sporting extravaganza that is the SportBlog Roundup, now in its new, improved weekly format. All the best bits of the blogs about the sports that you love from right across the world.

As ever, submissions should be sent to sportblog at googlemail dot com - all submissions gratefully accepted.

First up this week is Sports Filter's "slap to the top corner in overtime", with an excellent essay on the woes of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Dayorama has an excellent aside on the more sedate nature of golf commentary.

Sportszilla analyses the late-season surge of the New Jersey Nets (this list of recent sporting events is also worth sticking with).

Mike's Rants has an in-depth look at the statistical likelihood of hitting streaks in baseball. A bit heavy for the casual viewer, but it's an excellent example of the in-depth analysis blogs can provide.

Stumbling and Mumbling looks at the economics of Wayne Rooney's gambling, while, on the same subject, Get My Coat points out that the business of football can provide some amusing little moments.

Danny Boy, on the other hand, praises Rooney's temperament under pressure. I'm not so sure - I can see English hearts being broken through Rooney seeing red in Germany.

Eric Thomas has an excellent rant against the "sport" that is NASCAR, and has some comments on Brett Favre's impending retirement for good measure.

On the subject of Brett Favre, The Cancer Blog sympathetically analyses what might be going through his mind right now.

The Big Picture laments the lack of big sporting events coming up in the US calendar. I was going to suggest moving to England, but unless you enjoy watching Birmingham City play football (I'm a fan, and I don't), then there won't be much here either. Maybe the end of the rugby season - but it goes on so long now that it feels like a damp squib to me.

Talking of rugby, Tabula Rasa covers Sunday's Powergen Cup final. Gwyn has a small report of the event, but the post is most memorable for the anecdote at the end.

Mezba has a superb post on the links between sport and superstition - how inexplicable they can be!

Karl, blogging at Mike on Cricket (go figure), has an entertaining round-up of how the Australian media have reported the difficulty of their batsmen to figure out those tricky Bangladeshi bowlers.

Rachel from North London describes the ritual of going to place Grand National bets.

And finally, Scott at the Corridor of Uncertainty has his own take on Australia's cricketers - and figures the situation could be even worse if Bangladesh had practice in those situations.

That's all for this week - catch you next week, same time, same place. They think it's all over... it is now!

SportBlog Reminder

2006-04-10T21:39:00.000+01:00

Any submissions for tomorrow's SportBlog roundup, email me soon please!

The usual address: sportblog at googlemail dot com

Wikipedia Birthday Meme

2006-04-10T14:33:00.000+01:00

Three events, Two births, One death:

October 7th

Three events:

1777 - American Revolutionary War: Americans beat the British in the Battle of Second Saratoga and the Battle of Bemis Heights.

1928 - Ras Tafari Makonnen crowned negus of Abyssinia by Empress Zauditu.

2003 - California recall: California governor Gray Davis is recalled from office and replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Two births:

1728 - Caesar Rodney, American lawyer and signer of the Declaration of Independence (d. 1784)

1952 - Vladimir Putin, President of Russia

One death (and one for luck):

1792 - George Mason, American patriot (b. 1725)

1967 - Norman Angell, British politician, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize (b. 1872)

30 years Ago... Young Liberal Cleared Of Robbery

2006-04-09T09:24:00.000+01:00

Today is the 30th anniversary of a Young Liberal anti-apartheid activist being cleared of bank robbery, after a dubious prosecution was levelled against him. The case was based entirely on the evidence of three schoolboys and a cashier, who thought they recognised him as the man responsible. The man concerned later wrote about "The Putney Plot". He would do well, on the 30th anniversary, to reflect on one lesson that it flags up.

In public debate on terrorism, there is a massive tendency to conflate suspicion with guilt. The rights of suspects to a fair trial and due process are regularly decried as "more than they'd give us". While I don't think I've ever caught a Government minister saying taht explicitly, there is a climate of fear which seems to justify treating terrorist suspects as convicted criminals, simply because the nature of the crime they're accused of is so terrible. The government's policy of detention without trial is implicitly based on this assumption, and measures such as the withdrawal of trial-by-jury appear to mesh with it.

Peter Hain (for it is he) should know better.

The Right Blend

2006-04-08T21:43:00.000+01:00

Sport succeeds as it does because it has an intoxicating blend of the traditional and the modern. Each generation brings with it a new approach to the game, whether through tactics, skills, or preparation techniques. Yet at the same time, a game is recognisably similar - keeping the same forms, and, by and large, the same rules.

A vital ingredient in the mix is tradition. Support for local clubs reaches its fervour because in supporting a team, you buy into its corporate identity. When you are watching Manchester United, you aren't just watching a team of eleven players - you are watching a continuity from the days of Matt Busby, Denis Law and George Best.

Of course, this is coming under threat, with the advent of a widely used transfer system, or rampant free agency in US sports. Teams resemble less and less the team the year before; a wealthy owner can transform the fortunes of a club not through anything happening at the club itself, but instead through buying in players. The connections with the community and the past are increasingly blurry.

One event that gets tradition just right, however, is the Masters. Part of its charm is its unique nature. It is the only major that is invitation-only; played on the same course every year, the feeling of continuity is inescapable. The fact the field is all-invites, though, ensures its quality. Despite the fact the course has changed, despite the fact equipment has changed beyond all recognition, there's much more a feeling that you can judge the best golf players with other eras by their performance at the Masters than at any other event.

People talk about how tough a test Augusta is. The truth of the matter is, though, that the beauty of the Masters doesn't lie in the challenge that faces the top players as they battle with the course. The Masters isn't about how tough Augusta is, it's about how rewarding it is for the best players. Unlike the US Open, there is a clear and obvious reward for good play. If you play a hole well, there is every chance of a birdie. The corollary, of course, is that bad play is punished by bogeys. And that's what means the tournament is so exciting.

That sounds strange, when I've just lauded the tradition of the event. But my title, "The Right Blend", emphasises how important the here and now is. For all that Augusta seems to be a land time forgot - refusing any product adverts on its ground; restricting TV coverage; allowing only four minutes of commercials in any hour of programming - it is the modern competition that makes it so compelling. We see the same form that we saw right through the history of the Masters - but the same ingredients that made it compelling then continue to make it compelling now. When you get to the back nine on the final day, if you play well enough you have every chance of winning. It rewards good play - but by golly do you have to play well. If you want me tomorrow evening, you know where to find me!

Indian Woes

2006-04-06T15:03:00.000+01:00

The England cricket team, despite their Test series heroics, have found one-day international cricket in India a different kettle of fish (or another pair of shoes, as the Germans would say). Today they were defeated for the fourth time in four matches, already surrendering the seven-match series.

I can't help but feel this add-on to the tour is counterproductive. The top players in the team have been either injured (Vaughan, Giles, Harmison), off the tour for personal reasons (Trescothick), or carrying a pretty heavy workload to compensate (Pietersen, and especially Flintoff). Most of the rest of the players simply aren't good enough for international cricket. Matt Prior is not a top-level player, Solanki barely is, and Ian Blackwell and Gareth Batty would be flattered if described as second-rate.

The team is a mixture of no-hopers and exhausted professionals, playing in sapping heat. The tour is not an exercise which will do any of the players any good. Indeed, the sole benefit is that it will make the BCCI, and probably the ECB, a fair amount of cash. But the effect on players, who need some rest before the Ashes tour this winter, will not be positive at all. The constant strain of permanent touring must be a drag on players, especially those with young families. And a pointless add-on to an enthralling Test series doesn't really do anyone any good.

The Sort of Headline That Riles Me

2006-04-06T14:47:00.000+01:00

"Sleepy Village Awakes to Bird Flu"

There has, so far, been a grand total of one animal in the United Kingdom to have died from bird flu. Across the world, I am as yet unaware of human deaths from bird flu that have not been caused by people living in extreme close proximity to animals - that is to say, it has not yet developed into a human-to-human transmissible disease.

Yet the news coverage of the Scottish swan that died from H5N1, typified by the headline I quote above, makes it out to be a huge threat. There is, rightly, concern about Britain's preparedness for a pandemic. But that is not what is being brought up here - it is pure and simple fearmongering. Short of one swan, the village is pretty much unaffected by bird flu at the moment, and I suspect that its human inhabitants at least will be pretty safe.

Why the need to be so alarmist?

SportBlog Roundup Revived

2006-04-04T19:35:00.000+01:00

Hello, and welcome to the first edition of the revived Sportblog roundup. Same as ever, really, except this time I hope to make it weekly, and the links will be even better than they were before!

The idea is that most interesting sport takes place over the weekend, so you get the chance to write about it on Monday to catch my attention by Tuesday evening - and then I give you all the best bits here. All submissions gratefully received; just let me know by emailing me at sportblog at googlemail dot com

First up this week is The Filter, and some ruminations on England's World Cup squad and the revival of B internationals. I for one welcome their reinstitution, and thoroughly endorse the criticism of Sven for letting the England squad be run by senior players too much (although I think that was a trend that started earlier).

Next up is the reliably informative Eric McErlain, with his musings on the gradual loss of regional identity as regards sports franchises in New York. I can't help but feel that loss of communal feeling weakens the franchise.

One of the most amusing April Fools stories I've seen comes from Forward Press, with spoof news from Toronto, and the Maple Leafs' latest signing.

Chris Young at JABS brought together a number of top Toronto sports bloggers to discuss the upcoming Major League Baseball season, which produced a set of three excellent posts. Well worth a look, as the issues they discuss go well beyond the Blue Jays.

The other big event in American sports has been the NCAA College Basketball tournament, also known as 'March Madness', which ended last night.

20 Second Timeout attacks the hype that surrounds the tournament.

The story of the tournament was the surprising run by George Mason University, not renowned for its basketball history - not that it stopped them from reaching the Final Four. South of the James talks about the boost it has given to black alumni.

The university, of course, is named after a leading Anti-Federalist, and one of the three members of the Constitutional Convention who refused to sign the final document. The Volokh Conspiracy gives a bit more information about him.

Sportszilla has the best overall roundup of the tournament.

Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, talks about (failed) efforts to reduce artificial aids to atmosphere at his teams' matches.

Munster and Leicester fans at Scrumbag talk about their aspirations ahead of the Heineken Cup quarter finals in rugby union. The Munster item is particularly good.

Meanwhile, The Bacchanalia shows that the experience of a sports fan is so much more than can be expressed in mere numbers.

The Googly has an interesting post decrying the use of helmets in Test cricket, believing it is responsible for the number of blows to the head now seen.

Game Supreme has an excellent statistical view on the importance of Irfan Pathan to the Indian cricket team.

A few posts regarding diving in football - the current hot potato in England at the very least. Didier Drogba is coming under a lot of fire, not least from GZ Expat, who thinks football has this problem because it doesn't have the violent self-policing of other sports.

Doncaster Road End has some witty thoughts on the same subject.

Last, on the subject of Drogba, if not diving, is Slack Pie, who thinks that Drogba may have been intentionally hung out to dry by the Chelsea powers that be.

El Despiole attacks Michael Owen for his own contributions to the unfine art.

Not entirely a blog post, but this story is great - apparently one in every nine beers is drunk because of football.

Ants Rants has an acerbic look at the minor sports in the Commonwealth Games.

Davey Dave, meanwhile, lauds the Games for its general spirit, if not its top-class competition.

Finally, I couldn't leave this roundup without a few posts about Opening Day in the Baseball season.

Baseball Analysts has an irreverent and in-depth look at Opening Day from a statistical point of view.

News Center 11 is feeling optimistic.

Dcat Blog, meanwhile, expresses enthusiasm at travelling to Arlington to see the Red Sox and their season opener.

Last, but by no means least, is this from A Fistful of Euros - a repeat of the old International Herald Tribune poem lamenting being across the ocean for the first pitch of the season.

And that's all till next week.

At Last!

2006-04-04T11:13:00.000+01:00

Some news that makes me more likely to vote for David Cameron...

The UK Independence Party is calling for David Cameron to apologise after he claimed its members were "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists mostly".

My Country, Tis of Thee...

2006-04-03T20:53:00.000+01:00

Via Eric McErlain, news of some, err, "interesting" stories from Houston. This links in with Laban Tall's comments on other, very similar stories. Put simply, Hispanic immigrants to America are claiming Mexico's "Cinco de Mayo" festival as their own, and celebrating it in a highly exclusionary manner - to the extent of threatening people of different ethnicities.

I was reminded of this when I saw pictures of the Brooklyn Bridge protest against the Sensenbrenner Bill currently going through the US Congress, which proposes huge restrictions on immigration. The number of Mexican flags seemed to massively outnumber those of the Stars and Stripes.

I'm going to link this to Eric's original story, concerning the change of the name of the Houston Major League Soccer franchise. Originally, it was going to be called the Houston 1836 - referring to the founding of the city of Houston. Now, obviously the history of Texas isn't all motherhood and apple pie. But naming a team after a founding year has a good European soccer pedigree (see 1860 Munich, Schalke 04, Mainz 05 and so on and so forth), right down to inventing a history for the club by pushing the 'founding' year principle to its very limits. Moreover, living in a city, you would expect its founding to be somewhat significant. No matter what the history, you would think the inhabitants of a city could rally around that corporate concept.

Not so in Houston, apparently. The name was controversial from the start, and MLS were forced to back down and rename the team the Houston Dynamo - along with a press release celebrating the dual cultures of Houston (English and Spanish) and how well they formed as a unit. Just like a dynamo. How funny!

It's the two cultures thing that gets me. If there is one thing that America is based one, it is a shared political culture. I am not saying it is a culture that is without flashpoints or without tension. But the Stars and Stripes, the Declaration of Independence, and the US Constitution are powerful symbols, powerful documents, and based on powerful principles. Powerful enough, in the past at least, to have united a pretty disparate country - visiting Texas is different to visiting California which is different from visiting Pennsylvania. It takes some pretty strong glue to hold them together.

If that's breaking apart because of immigration, then that's a pretty worrying thing. I'm not necessarily casting blame on one side or the other here, either, because I don't doubt that some of the harshness of immigration laws prevents an effective integration. But deliberately claiming divisive symbols as your own does make matters harder on the other side, too.

Sports clubs are very interesting filters through which to observe these cultural shifts - as, even in America, where they operate as commercial franchises, they are the biggest congregation place for inhabitants. Fans express their own identity through their team. And if the community cannot rally behind a team name supposed to celebrate the founding of their city, then it suggests to me that something is badly wrong.

Favourite TV Teachers

2006-04-02T19:27:00.000+01:00

Mike Baker, in his education column this week, asks about our favourite TV teachers. And in mentioning Goodbye Mr Chips and Clockwise, he mentions two of the great school-teacher performances in TV history. Mr Chips was particularly good, and ITV's attempt to revive it with Martin Clunes was worthy, but brought across none of the feelings of warmth that you genuinely felt in the original.

He fails to mention, however, what to my mind is the best school-based drama that has been made, which is "To Serve Them All My Days". John Duttine (now the sergeant in Heartbeat!) is, quite simply, superlative as Powlett-Jones, a Welsh socialist fitting into the English public school establishment. The portrayal of the change that the institution makes on him, and the change he makes to the institution, is a joy to watch. It's a shame it doesn't get more credit.

SportBlog Roundup

2006-04-01T17:01:00.000+01:00

Apologies for those of you who come to Militant Moderate expecting the SportBlog roundup. I just didn't have time over the last couple of months to keep it up. I enjoyed doing it though, and I'm hoping to revive it, starting this Tuesday.

So, if any of you have links for it, then please let me know:

sportblog at googlemail dot com

Welcome To Our Country

2006-04-01T16:02:00.000+01:00

In his book "Strange Places, Questionable People", John Simpson records a conversation he had while filming in Iran. Having watched a man on a soapbox deliver a speech full of venom directed at Margaret Thatcher, with the exhortation of "death to Inglestan", Simpson approached the speaker - despite advice to the contrary from his camera crew. "Good afternoon, sir", said Simpson, "I am visiting from Inglestan". "Good afternoon! Welcome, I hope you enjoy your visit to our country".

I can't help but think of this story when I read about Condoleezza Rice's visit to Blackburn being met by a continuous stream of protests. Rice has handled them very well - after all, protest is a right of the free citizen. But I do wonder what sort of message it sends out about British hospitality.

I know that people like Justin McKeating and Tim Ireland are able to separate their hatred of the Bush administration from their considerations on the American people. But there is a lot of anti-American feeling that may focus on Bush, but in reality is based upon jealousy, envy, and a total disdain for America. Take the stereotype of the American redneck. Or the people who mutter under their breath "typical bloody American" when a tourist in a restaurant starts protesting loudly about the quality of service.

On an international level, it manifests itself in the sorts of attitudes you see regarding America's failure to sign up to the International Criminal Court. When trouble started in the Balkans, European governments believed the US should come and commit their resources and help try and obtain a semblance of stability. They then want the actions of the US to be held up to their own standards. In short, they want to use US troops for their own ends, and complain when the US want to pursue their own goals.

The thing I find strangest about protesting the visits of Bush administration officials to Britain is that the normal criticism of American foreign policy is that it is unilateral and doesn't pay enough attention to the wider world. Yet as soon as George Bush or Condoleezza Rice set foot on our soil, we get idiots saying "we shouldn't allow him/her here". So much for British hospitality.

The Most Important Word

2006-03-31T13:28:00.000+01:00

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

So runs the preamble of the US Constitution. When considering this document in a modern political setting, however, one key word seems to be forgotten from this. The Constitution was not seen as the ending point for American democracy - indeed, Ben Franklin gave his support to the document on the somewhat lukewarm basis that he was "not convinced it is not the best". Perfection was something to be aimed at, but actually achieving it was far from conceivable.

It does not take an excessively detailed study of the Constitutional Convention to realise how far the US constitution is a compromise document. On almost all its key points, there was a need for rapprochement between wildly differing viewpoints. The famous Connecticut compromise, for example, which is responsible for the composition of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Equality of states in the Senate was the only means by which smaller states like Delaware would consent to a stronger union.

Even on slavery, the issue that was to blow the Union apart less than a hundred years later, there was a need for compromise. Being so vital to the Southern economy, representatives of the slaveholding states could not countenance an outright ban - but to prevent that from happening, they had to allow treaties affecting commerce to be passed by simple majority. This allowed them to be outnumbered by the North, potentially threatening trading access to the Mississippi.

The key determining factor for most of the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, when deciding to support its end result, was that it provided for a frame of government that was better than the Articles of Confederation which preceded it - a government that had some teeth, could enforce its treaties, and provide some security against popular uprisings in individual states. Its very ratification seemed doubtful for a fair amount of time. In short, despite the fact that the US could count on so many able people serving it in the Convention, there was no thinking that it was a perfect document.

I mention all this because I've recently been reading Alan Dershowitz's "America Declares Independence" - the sort of book that takes the constructionist interpretation of the constitution very seriously. That is to say, that it is important to consider what the Founding Fathers would have meant by each constitutional provision when deciding how the constitution should be interpreted. Never mind the fact that the Fathers themselves couldn't decide on the correct interpretation themselves - a quick look at the party spirit that developed in the 1790s is enough to demonstrate that.

And, of course, it's the sort of book that tries to place modern-day political debates back in the founding years of the early republic. Far from being a historical look at the origins of the constitution, it reads so much like a political polemic - reverential in its attitudes towards the Founding Fathers, without taking the blindest bit of notice of what they are actually saying, or to context. Fair enough, you might think, but this sort of "constructionist approach" to US constitutional law is shared by Supreme Court justices. It's a big influence on the way political decisions are decided.

My conclusion is an appeal for the proper study of history. Revolutionary Americans were well aware of the providential opportunity they were presented with, and the pamphlet literature of the time is crammed full of exhortations to consider posterity. But they didn't think that what they were established could be permanent or perfect.

Shrouding yourself in the mystique of the demigods who framed the constitution is no way of dealing with political struggles in the here and now. For many political debates, there simply isn't a context in which the understanding of the Founding Fathers can be understood. Their attitudes to elections, for example, were highly mixed - the conservatives believed civic participation in politics began and ended on election day. The Republicans today don't believe that at all, nor do the Democrats. So laws on the participation of extra-political organisations can't be referred back. Matters such as abortion or gay marriage weren't remotely on the agenda back then.

The most important word in the preamble to the US Constitution is "more". For all that they believed they were placing America on a firm footing to survive in the separate and equal station they were entitled to by the laws of nature, the Founding Fathers would never have looked 200 years to the past as the beginning and end of their quest for perfection in the political science. Hamilton, Madison and Wilson may have been excellent politicians, but they were not clairvoyant. And to pretend they were only damages democracy.

What's That On The Side Of Your Head?

2006-03-30T15:12:00.000+01:00

Today was the first time that a "headcam" - a camera that can be worn on the side of your head (much like sticking a pencil behind your ear!) - has been used to gain a criminal conviction by police. Devon and Cornwall police successfully captured images of an abusive woman when they were called to a fight in a block of flats.

This obviously raises important civil liberties issues. We already live in a world where a large amount of our movements are tracked digitally one way or another. Indeed, I've worked out that going around Oxford, there will be very little time when I am outside of my own room when my whereabouts are not traceable. Should police be allowed to use camera surveillance as part of their everyday business - or is it an infringement on our civil liberties?

The question is slightly clouded by the fact that there is very little that can be seen by the camera that would be outside of the policeman's field of vision. If he is doing his job properly, then it should be little more than an aide memoire. The real problem, therefore, is to do with the storage of data. The bobby on the beat will now be able to keep a full record of what goes on. This is something that is of great potential use, for example, in tracking animal rights protestors in Oxford - building up a pattern of when and where they protest.

That is the real problem with the storage of data in this way - it isn't simply a supplement to other means of data gathering, and far more reliable to boot. There needs to be serious guarantees about the way that the data is stored, how long it is kept for, in what circumstances it may be used. Surveillance powers should come under different remits.

I find it hard, however, to criticise its use outright - despite considering myself deeply committed to civil liberties. The use of these cameras, to my mind, is justified when police will find themselves in a situation where they need to exercise restraint, but would otherwise have difficulty proving that it was justifiable. Indeed, that was the situation used with the evidence for the conviction today. There's a danger that it becomes something the police use only to help them out, of course - but if it is used not as a general tool, but as a tool to provide a reliable set of eyes when police are called to potentially violent incidents, it may work. That said, its use would have to be tightly controlled.

49 or 50?

2006-03-29T23:14:00.000+01:00

I don't know how old Tommy Burns is. But I do know the BBC should be doing a better job of fact checking than they manage in this article, which gives two different ages for the same person!

Some Most Liberal Sentiments

2006-03-29T17:18:00.000+01:00

Some comments on history here, that fit in with a regular debate I have with friends about the merits of studying the recent past as "history". Taken from the Pennsylvania Packet, January 1, 1790:

"The study of history is at once pleasing and profitable -- It does not require intense application -- It may be taken up at a moment of leisure, and relinquished as oher avocations intervene -- and thus may be made a save all the scraps of time, none of which should be lost -- for, as has been observed, 'of all prodigality, that of time is the most shameful'".

So far, so good. This line may prove more contentious:

"It is difficult to account for the general sentiment, that History written at the period when the transactions recorded take place is partial, without stigmatising human nature; but the observation has been too often verified, to be denied."

But I'm sure we can all agree on this:

"History elevates the mind to a lofty eminence, from whence we take a prospective view of the transactions of the mind."

Should Have Said

2006-03-28T16:44:00.000+01:00

I frequently attend an improvised comedy group's performances. Of the many games they play, one is called "should have said". As their scene develops, a person standing off-stage can interrupt, saying "should have said", at any time. At that point, the person who has just delivered a line has to change it to say what they really meant. For example:

"How are you?"
"I'm fine."
*CLAPS* - should have said
"I feel totally and utterly crap. The world hates me, nothing seems to be going right, and I'm finding everything intensely irritating. Especially you."

I couldn't help but think of this in light of the storm in a teacup that has surrounded Norman Kember since his release. There has been much muttering on blogs about the comments of General Sir Michael Jackson, the consensus seeming to be that it smacks of a pre-planned attack to prevent Prof Kember from being able to criticise the UK government over its handling of Iraq.

One comment made to me by a friend was that your viewpoint over the incident depended almost totally on your views on the war. Those who supported the war were annoyed by Prof Kember; those who were against it believed that he shouldn't have been criticised in such a way.

I supported the war in Iraq, and still believe I was right to do so (this is a very crude statement of my opinion here). And it is probably fair to say I don't have an awful lot of sympathy for Norman Kember, for he surely knew the risk he was taking before he went out there. Indeed, he had said he would not want to be rescued if he was kidnapped. Nevertheless, I would have had a lot more respect for him if he had come out and said this more bluntly, with a statement something along these lines:

"I have not thanked the soldiers who rescued me, because I did not want to be rescued. My mission in Iraq was to attempt to bring about reconciliation between the different groups, who in mutual misunderstanding seem to be plunging the country into civil war. A message of peace cannot succeed through armed force.

It was evidently not my choice to be kidnapped. Nevertheless, if that was the way I was meant to go, it was the way I was meant to go. I believed, and still believe, that my chances of survival would have been greater through building a relationship with my kidnappers than through a potentially risky armed operations.

We risk losing sight of the message of peace that is the only way Iraq can build a future. Focusing unnecessarily on my fate only contributes to this. While I was being rescued, Iraqis were being blown up in car bombs. The country is in a state of lawlessness, and the presence of our troops, in heavily fortified garrisons, only acts as a running sore.

We cannot spread democracy at the barrel of a gun."

In that sort of statement, there would have been much I agreed with, and much that I disagreed with. I'd still think that he was hopelessly naïve - but I'd have much more respect for him for sticking to his guns.