Applause and a standing ovation at the end of the final PMQs - both fully justified if you ask me. There were no snarky comments or hurling of insults at the other parties; it was dignified and impressive. I think I saw David Cameron waving his arm to demand his party rise, which is cool.

I don’t know enough to comment properly on Tony Blair’s politics - others Bloggers4Labour will no doubt do a great job - but I agreed with him more than I didn’t. BBC2 cut away during the final thirty seconds of the speech, which was annoying as hell, but once I saw it I thought the final tribute to politics was worthy and well spoken. I think only Bill Clinton compares when it comes to gravitas, or quality of leadership.

Having said all that, it’s always embarrassing watching the House of Commons in action. I don’t care if it’s century-old tradition - the roars, cheers and boos are just pathetic, and I cringe every time. Not, however, quite so stupid as anti-war protesters. What kind of moron thinks yelling ‘war criminal’ from the gates of Downing Street is a clever thing to do?

Gordon Brown will no doubt bring interesting change. Exciting times.

I’m not a Labour party member and haven’t been particularly following the Deputy Leadership elections, but there’s been plenty of discussion amongst B4L members. The Labour Humanist Group recently questioned each candidate on a series of issues of interest to humanists. Roughly paraphrased, the questions were:

#1 - What is your stance on faith schools?
#2 - What do you think of schools that declare their intent to ‘nourish’ religious children and ‘challenge’ non-religious children?
#3 - Would you repeal compulsory Christian worship in schools?
#4 - Do you support religious organisations taking charge of employment and other social services, if they would use their position to promote their own religious beliefs?
#5 - Do you support a fully-elected house of lords, with no religious privilege?
#6 - What is your view on assisted dying for the terminally ill?

I haven’t seen these questions asked elsewhere - good work, LHG! So, how do the various candidates compare?

Hilary Benn

#1 - answers oddly - his sentence is either badly constructed or deliberately worded as to be ambiguous. Wouldn’t scrap them, though.
#2 - blah
#3 - no, because more debate is needed as we ‘live in a Christian state’! WTF.
#4 - thinks religious discrimination is bad except ‘where this is part of our long standing culture’. See, it being long-standing makes it ok.
#5 - is in favour of fully-elected HoL, but doesn’t mention Bishops.
#6 - not yet persuaded due to potential abuse of system, although can see there is a strong case.

Hazel Blears

#1 - big fan of faith schools.
#2 - blah
#3 - flat out ‘no’, without reasoning
#4 - no - all should be ‘equitable’.
#5 - thinks there should be more faiths in the HoL (no comment on 100% elected) and adds she doesn’t support disestablishment of the CoE.
#6 - blah

Jon Cruddas

Blah #1-6. Says nothing at all. Well, maybe that he supports a 100% elected HoL, but that doesn’t really answer the question.

Peter Hain

#1 - result! Suggests faith schools perpetuate ’sectarian division’. Says parents have ‘right’ to send their children to a school with a particular ethos - interesting choice of word, I think - but standards of curriculum must be upheld. Closest to an anti-faith-schools position of all candidates
#2 - hmm. Says ‘parents have the right to determine whether or not their children are taught particular religious beliefs at school’. Depends on definition of ‘taught’ - as general knowledge or as indoctrination? I’m unconvinced parents have any more ‘right’ to decide on the former than they do whether their child gets taught maths.
#3 - doesn’t believe it is for the state to compel acts of worship. Yay! This says nothing about individual schools, of course, but is nevertheless pretty good
#4 - no. ‘Everyone is entitled to equal access to all services’. Ruled out all faith-based exemptions in Ireland, too.
#5 - in favour of 100% elected. No comment on bishops.
#6 - blah.

Harriet Harman

#1 - seems to be skeptical, but makes a classic mistake in placing discrimination against religious belief on a par with discrimination against gender, race, age and disability. Religious belief is just an idea and doesn’t deserve such protected status. Your race, age, disability or gender say nothing about your ideas or opinions. Your religion does, and you can change it at will. Giving it special status is like allowing discrimination against people who dislike nuclear power, or vote Conservative. But she seems to broadly have the right idea, and wants to ensure faith schools wouldn’t divide the community.
#2 - same as Peter Hain. Unclear.
#3 - same as Peter Hain. Doesn’t believe it is for the state to compel acts of worship. Yay!
#4 - no place for discrimination. Didn’t think Catholics should get an opt-out on adoption agencies.
#5 - supports 100% elected HoL. No direct comment on Bishops, but says all ‘unquestionable rights’ are bad, religious or otherwise.
#6 - supports assisted dying! Only candidate to say this.

Alan Johnson

#1 - Thinks faith schools provide good education and services to community. When he mentions government policy he is supportive, but his own opinions suggest he wants them heavily regulated. Only person to really mention staffing discrimination issues - says schools must prove that staff need to be religious. Adds that he opposes religious exemptions generally.
#2 - Same as PH and HH. Unclear.
#3 - blah. Risky to read between the lines, but seems to think that allowing children to be withdrawn is sufficient.
#4 - blah.
#5 - Wants 80:20 split. Mentions Bishops and thinks it would be difficult for them to stay ‘in their current numbers’. Unclear what this means. Close to blah.
#6 - is skeptical.

I think Harriet Harman comes out top on Humanist issues, very closely followed by Peter Hain. Hazel Blears is at the bottom, and Jon Cruddas doesn’t get to play as he didn’t answer the questions.

Update: the BHA points out a proper writeup on Comment is Free, which happily comes to the roughly the same conclusions as me.

Michael Meacher dropped out of the Labour leadership race. This is sad. It would have been fun:

Why weren’t fighter jets sent up? Why wasn’t the laptop examined? Why were the hijackers seen with stormtroopers only days before? Exactly the sort of person we want running the country, wouldn’t you say?

Incidentally John McDonnell appears to think that copyright protection should be extended from fifty years to ‘the whole of their life plus a further 70 years’. Not as bad as being a 9/11 conspiracy nut, nor quite so funny, but a bit 1985.

If taxes go up: typical Labour tax and spend EVIL. Poor value for money…Many are asking where the money is going.

If taxes go down: an obvious bribe from the future PM. How stupid does he think we are?

If taxes stay the same: not brave enough to make any changes. Pathetic.

So apparently the Guardian printed something nutty today. I don’t think anyone’s had the strength to fisk the whole thing - every few paragraphs there’s something jaw-droppingly stupid - but Shuggy, Ophelia and The Labour Humanist have good responses, mainly concentrating on the idea of ‘fundamentalist’ atheists being as bad as ‘fundamentalist’ religious crazies who like blowing things up.

I’m rather tired and shall try to read the article properly tomorrow, but right now I fail to see how this made it past the editor’s desk:

Neuberger is to take on Hitchens, Dawkins and Grayling when she speaks at a debate against the motion We’d Be Better Off Without Religion next month. The debate has been moved to a bigger venue. “What I find really distasteful is not just the tone of their rhetoric, but their lack of doubt,” she says. “No scientific method says that there is no doubt. If you don’t accept there’s doubt in all things, you’re being intellectually dishonest. ”

This is a thought taken up by Azzim Tamimi, director of the Institute of Islamic Political Thought. “I refer to secular fundamentalism. The problem is that these people believe that they have the absolute truth. That means you have no room to talk to others so you end up having a physical fight. They want to close the door and ignore religion, but this will provoke a violent religiosity. If someone seeks to deny my existence, I will fight to assert it.”

Tamimi’s words also resonate with what the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, said last November: “The aggressive secularists pervert and abuse any notion of diversity for the sake of promoting a narrow agenda.” They also parallel the chilling remarks of Richard Chartres, Bishop of London: “If you exile religious communities to the margins, then they will start to speak the words of fire among consenting adults, and the threat to public order and the public arena, I think, will grow and grow.”

Quote complete crap all you like, but some kind of reasonable response would be nice. There’s no counter-argument pointing out that the whole point of everything Grayling, Dawkins or Hitchens say is that there is doubt. Or even mentioning the tiny bit of irony in the above quotes.

The author starts from an H.L. Mencken quote:

We must accept the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.

And comes back to this throughout the article:

The gay adoption issue also outraged many non-believers, among them philosopher AC Grayling, author of Life, Sex and Ideas: The Good Life without God. “These groups are trying to be exempt from the effort to be a fair society, and we are faced with the threat of a possible return to the dark ages. We are trying to keep a pluralistic society, and elements in the Christian church and other religions are trying to destroy it.”

Why this departure from tolerant, if nicely ironic, Menckenism?

Yes, why? How strange that anybody would want to fight against bigotry using strong language. How strange that in a world where people who spout such vile opinions are taken seriously by newspaper columnists we should fight back with everything we have. How strange that we would be considered rude for doing so.

I was doing ok for a while, but this bit of commentary tipped me over the edge:

One example of this growing conscientiousness is a recent paper for the new public theology think-tank Theos, in which Nick Spencer concluded that in the 21st century, liberal humanism would face a challenge from an “old man” - God. “The feeble and slightly embarrassing old man who had been pacing about the house quietly mumbling to himself suddenly wanted to participate in family conversation and, what’s more, to be taken seriously.” Indeed, in Britain’s ethically repellent consumerist society, even some atheists might consider it would be good to hear from the old man again, if only to provide a moral framework beyond shopping.

Oh, grow up. I’m going to bed.

Finally:

David Cameron is set to back new laws to force Catholic adoption agencies to consider gay couples, the Tory leader revealed today.

The Conservative leader signalled his personal support for the new regulations but promised fellow Tory MPs a free vote on this issue, which he said was a matter of conscience.

His reasons are a little fuzzy,mind:

“I shall vote for the regulations, because I think it is right to have in this country clear rules against discrimination,” said Mr Cameron.

“On the issue of the Catholic adoption agencies, I don’t think personally that it is right to give them a block exemption from the law, because otherwise we will have other people wanting block exemptions from the law.”

Clever. He doesn’t actually make any comment on the validity of the exemptions other than in the broad sense. To be fair it’s possible he said more and it’s not reported here. What do you think to the chances of his party agreeing?

Mr Cameron’s frontbench colleague, David Davis, has already signalled his opposition to the proposals and said over the weekend he would “almost definitely” vote for an exemption to the Equality Act, for Catholic adoption agencies.

Not all that high, I suspect.

The Progressive brings up something interesting regarding the adoption debate: where is David Cameron? The Conservative Party are notable by their absence. Fun as it is to make fun of David Cameron, he has been good at (at least appearing to) present reasonable arguments at times like these. Yet there was no mention of it at yesterday’s PMQs, and I’ve seen no official comment.

The blog points out that an Early Day Motion expressing concern over proposed exemptions has currently been signed by 101 Labour MPs, 19 Lib Dems and 1 Conservative. The MP in question is John Bercow, who has publicly expressed his support. The only other Tory comment I’ve heard was on the radio this morning, where the MP¹ said gay couples could go to different agencies if they wanted. Charming.

Given the Prime Minister’s apparent vulnerability in this area, the silence is telling.

(update: EDM link fixed)

1. I only heard a highlight, so don’t know who it was or which show. I’ll update if I can track it down. [↩]

A large organisation has today signalled its support for the Catholic Church in demanding exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation. Is it the NSPCC? Childline? Save the Children? Non-Catholic Adoption agencies? Perhaps a letter from a large group of philosophers, arguing for the inherent goodness of discriminating against somebody on the basis of their sexual orientation? Who would possibly want to be seen standing up for bigotry? It is of course the Church of England.

It’s all to do with ‘rights of conscience’, you see. Imagine if the fire brigade said they wanted to refuse employment to homosexuals - ‘freedom of conscience’ wouldn’t wash for a minute. There’s a petition on the Downing Street website asking the Prime Minister to implement legislation as it stands, without exemptions. I don’t know whether these kinds of petitions are all that useful, but I’ve signed it. Pass it around.

I was interested to see yesterday’s letter from Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s letter (thanks to Tom in the comments for finding a copy) as I wanted to know whether he attempted to justify his position. He did. The key paragraphs are:

We place significant emphasis on marriage, as it is from the personal union of a man and a woman that new life is born and it is within the loving context of such a relationship that a child can be welcomed and nurtured. Marital love involves an essential complementarity of male and female.

We recognise that some children, particularly those who have suffered abuse and neglect, may well benefit from placement with a single adoptive parent.

However, Catholic teaching about the foundations of family life, a teaching shared not only by other Christian Churches but also other faiths, means that Catholic adoption agencies would not be able to recruit and consider homosexual couples as potential adoptive parents.

I’m finding this strangely difficult to get my head around. Firstly, I think he’s saying that marriage is always preferable, but he doesn’t back this up with anything. Then he says marriage is always between a man and a woman because only a man and a woman can have a child, which doesn’t follow. That’s just an arbitrary definition; ‘two people who love each other’ would make more sense. It has the insidious implication that same-sex couples cannot love each other as much. He then says that sometimes it’s ok to put a child with a single parent, despite the lack of ‘marital love’. Finally there’s the ‘I think this because I think this’ argument, without any attempt at justification - why should we listen to ‘Catholic teaching about the foundations of family life’ if you can’t explain the reasonings behind it? I’m not in your club! As justifications go, it’s pretty pathetic.

The Archbishops of Canterbury and York today sent a letter supporting the Cardinal. It makes no attempt to justify bigotry, instead resorting to…well, let’s see.

Many in the voluntary sector are dedicated to public service because of the dictates of their conscience.

In legislating to protect and promote the rights of particular groups the government is faced with the delicate but important challenge of not thereby creating the conditions within which others feel their rights to have been ignored or sacrificed, or in which the dictates of personal conscience are put at risk.

The rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well meaning.

Bullshit. Everybody acts according to the dictates of their conscience, but the problem is that people contradict each other. If somebody thinks it’s fine to murder people they don’t like, would the Archbishops argue for freedom of ‘conscience’ there? If not, why? How is it different? Presumably because there would be demonstrable harm that justifies taking action against them. Everybody would agree (including them, apparently) that unfair discrimination against homosexuals constitutes demonstrable harm, but their counter-arguments show no such evidence of harm to themselves. What would actually happen if Catholic adoption agencies gave children to same-sex couples? Who would suffer? The churches have provided no evidence at all that this would harm anybody, aside from baseless insinuations that children need the love of both a man and a woman. Even they don’t have the nerve to come out and say ‘it offends God’, because they’d be rightly ignored. Instead they come up with this ‘rights of conscience’ nonsense, which is just ‘I want to behave like I do because I just do’, and in this case is a thin veil for ‘I don’t like gay people’. There are no ‘rights of conscience’ - they made them up.

On numerous occasions in the past proper consideration has been given to the requirements of consciences alongside other considerations contributing to the common good, such as social need or human rights - the right, for example, of some doctors not to perform abortions, even though employed by the National Health Service.

So what? Mistakes would never be rectified if precedent were a valid argument. Good to see that human rights are at least something to be weighed against freedom of conscience, though, even if they lose out in the end.

It would be deeply regrettable if in seeking, quite properly, better to defend the rights of a particular group not to be discriminated against, a climate were to be created in which, for example, some feel free to argue that members of the government are not fit to hold public office on the grounds of their faith affiliation.

Ah, we should stop criticising Ruth Kelly. I’m not criticising her because of her faith affiliation, I’m criticising her because her arguments make no sense. Again, we’re meant to assume that criticism of arguments from faith is in some way shameful, when it’s actually completely reasonable. But I wouldn’t say she’s not fit to hold public office - she gives every impression of being a very intelligent and competent woman, it’s just that the evidence seems to suggest she has a blind spot when it comes to faith-related matters.

As you approach the final phase of what has, until very recently, been a careful and respectful consideration of the best way in which to introduce and administer new protection from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in England and Wales, we hope you, and cabinet colleagues, will do justice to the interests of the much wider grouping of interests within the nation that will be affected.

There are more of us religious people than there are gay people! I’m not actually sure that’s true. How many people are gay? About 1 in 10? And how many people are practicing Christians? Only 7% of people attend church regularly, and how many of them are actually as homophobic as their leaders? I’m not convinced the wider grouping of interests isn’t being served perfectly well, although that hardly matters - what’s important is that the arguments make sense.

It is vitally important that the interests of vulnerable children are not relegated to suit any political interest.

Political interest? What? This is just emotional blackmail.

And that conditions are not inadvertently created which make the claims of conscience an obstacle to, rather than the inspiration for, the invaluable public service rendered by parts of the voluntary sector.

If your conscience tells you that there’s something wrong with being gay, I’m perfectly happy for you not to work in the voluntary sector. But you can, of course, do what you like as long as you have reasonable arguments to back it up. It’s nice, being able to do what you like, don’t you think?

I’m warming to the petition. 753 signatures so far.

Does anybody know whether there’s a public archive which might have a copy of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor’s letter to the Cabinet? It apparently says:

We believe it would be unreasonable, unnecessary and unjust discrimination against Catholics for the Government to insist that if they wish to continue to work with local authorities, Catholic adoption agencies must act against the teaching of the Church and their own consciences by being obliged in law to provide such a service

but I’d be interested to see the whole thing…

I felt sorry for Ruth Kelly over her child’s schooling furore - just because Labour aim for state education to be the equal of private doesn’t mean it actually is, or that somebody should support it at the expense of their child, imho - but trying to get Catholic adoption agencies excluded from anti-discrimination laws is just appalling. They’d rather close down than place children with same-sex couples? These people are charged with looking after children - how dare they behave like that! Can you imagine their reaction if an adoption agency refused to give children to Catholic families¹? There’s no basis for their argument other than scripture, and that’s no way to decide anything.

It’s blackmail, and puts the government into a horrible position. It’s all very well my and other secularists saying that in the long term it’s better for everyone, as well as being morally correct, but that doesn’t help the kids in the system now who would be negatively impacted. It’s hard to believe that the Catholic Church’s apparent obsession with harmless sex trumps their concern for children’s welfare, but if they follow through with the threats it seems to be a logical conclusion. Ophelia and Antonia are worth reading. Harry’s Place have a piece on a Muslim police officer refusing to have body contact with male colleagues that touches on similar issues:

People must realise that while it is fine to hold beliefs that restrict their behaviour, it is not up to the rest of society to accom[m]odate those self-imposed restrictions. If you want to limit your range of action and interaction, then you have to accept that [there] are consequences for yourself that you cannot transfer to other people.

Quite. I’m always intrigued by the dividing line. If I, as a Pastafarian, demand to converse only in pirate-speak, I’d obviously get kicked out of the police without a moment’s hesitation. But how many people do I need to convert before I go from raving loon to man with beliefs deserving of respect²? Hundreds? Thousands?

Happily, the press reports seem to indicate that the rest of the Cabinet are sensible enough to reject the exemptions. Do you think that twenty years from now we’ll have trouble believing his debate ever happened?

1. on the basis that it’s bad for the children to be exposed to insane views on homosexuality, presumably. Hmmm. Interesting. [↩]
2. in the eyes of a hundred Comment Is Free columnists, anyway [↩]

Stephen Colbert isn’t impressed with the midterm election results:

Tomorrow you’re all going to wake up in a brave new world. A world where the constitution gets trampled by an army of terrorist clones, created in a stem-cell research lab run by homosexual doctors who sterilise their instruments over burning american flags. Where tax-and-spend democrats take all your hard earned money and use it to buy electric cars for national public radio and teach evolution to illegal immigrants. Oh, and everybody’s high.

He forgot replacing Christmas with Celebrate Our Monkey Ancestors Day. Crazy people whose opinions aren’t actually far from the above are reported to be crawling back under their rocks.

Yesterday Lynsey and I went to a talk by BBC Six O’Clock News-reader George Alagiah. I didn’t know the subject matter beforehand, and found out just before entering that he’d be discussing his book: A Home from Home. It sounded like an autobiography, but turned out to be rather more. At age 11 he was moved from his home in Sri Lanka to a UK boarding school. The book’s subtitle is ‘From Immigrant Boy to English Man’, and he has a particular interest in the idea of what it means to belong to a country. His book’s subject is immigration and multiculturalism in modern Britain. He proved to be a good public speaker and I’m sure tales of his life experiences would have been interesting, but I was happy to find that his talk was more about putting forward his views on race within current society. I like this - I like to hear people who can eloquently articulate their opinions, even if I disagree.

While not quite a polemic, there were nevertheless large gaps between the lines. He suggested that the idea of multiculturalism, while noble in itself, has not been well managed in reality. Schools with classes containing almost all Sri Lankan children from the same province, education policies which teach children their ‘native’ language and reduce English to a secondary subject, or segregated cities with different rules for different cultures, all drew his ire. He sees immigration as a wonderful thing, as he believes everybody can learn something from other cultures, but that the well-intentioned policies of the last 30 years have veered off course.

The talk was peppered with anecdotes from his time as the BBC’s senior foreign correspondent, which were fascinating. I liked that he didn’t temper the language or subject matter for a Saturday afternoon crowd, too. There were a couple of odd moments in which the word ‘pompous’ flashed into my head, but it was an instinctive response rather than an accurate description. GA was discussing his own life and the remarkable achievement of ‘a foreigner’, as he put it, ending up presenting the BBC News. He inevitably trumpeted his achievements at times, and I don’t think it was unreasonable or really avoidable, given the subject matter. It was still surprising, however.

Although not expressly stated, there was an subtext that questioned the idea of nationalism. What does it mean to be British, or Sri Lankan? At one point he said that the only people who ask ‘where do you belong?’ are bigots, which I think startled some of the audience. When you think about it, that’s not an unreasonable point. I think there’s the problem of language - it’s meaningless to ask somebody whether they feel that they are British or Sri Lankan, as it’s just more complicated than that. You can be both. It’s like asking me whether I’m an agnostic or an atheist - those particular words don’t define reality well enough to be useful without further explanation. GA put forward a question that seems to have merit in discussions of whether somebody is ‘part’ of a particular country: what do you contribute to a country’s economy/society? If you do indeed contribute something, are you not a part of that country? Why can’t somebody then ‘belong’ to more than one place?

After he finished speaking the lights came up for a question and answer session. I was fascinated to see what would happen. Although only a vague description, Solihull is frequently described as predominantly white and conservative. Most of the audience were pensioners, and I couldn’t help wondering how many of them would have something contrary to say about immigration. As it turned out, none. GA was asked his opinions on the causes of ‘home-grown’ terrorism, and whether Islam was a major cause of the problems. The former he said was very complex and not his speciality, the second he refuted absolutely (to the possible consternation of the questioner).

As ever with Q & A sessions, a couple of people rambled for a few minutes before finally getting around to their question. One person mentioned The Phrase We Must Never Say Around Pensioners: political correctness. There was an immediate rumble of growly grumble. This made me laugh. I have my doubts as to whether ‘political correctness’ actually means anything at all, but I’ve certainly never heard anything to convince me it’s the horrendous evil some claim it to be. Anyway - I thought the reaction was funny. The question ended up having nothing to do with ‘political correctness’, so GA said nothing about it.

There was a question regarding the role of political journalists as opinion formers rather than simply reporters. GA asked for specific names, and Nick Robinson was mentioned. GA said he felt there was a need for opinion - indeed, that the public seem to clamour for it - but that it should always be labelled as such. He didn’t agree with the Fox News style of biased journalism. There was a related question regarding Barbara Plett, the BBC reporter criticised for crying at Yasser Arafat’s final departure from the West Bank, to which GA said that he felt emotion could be a part of journalism, and, as an aside, that impartiality isn’t always possible - where is the middle ground between the rape victim and the rapist? In hindsight I think there was an interesting further question regarding political journalism arguably concentrating too much on the methods and personalities of politics rather than the policies themselves. I’ve certainly read some Bloggers4Labour who have criticised Nick Robinson in this regard. I didn’t think of it at the time, however, because I was considering asking about another topic.

The penultimate question asked whether he thought foreign policy was linked to terrorist attacks. GA said he couldn’t answer that. As a journalist and representative of the BBC he feels his job is to be impartial with regard to current policy, at least in a public venue. Talk to him one-to-one and he’d reply, he said. Then came the question I’d been wondering whether to ask: given his views on the separating of different cultures, what did he think of faith schools? He said that, again, he didn’t want to answer questions on current policy. But. Given, he said, that we want a society in which different cultures can freely mix in an atmosphere of tolerance, and allow a reasonable exchange of different ideas between people without hostility, does it seem like a good idea to separate children of different faiths at the age of six? He gestured to the audience to reply, and there was a resounding ‘no’. He smiled and said ‘you said it, not me’. I honestly hadn’t known which way he was going when he started the sentence, but I was, unsurprisingly, happy with the result.

It was certainly an interesting 90 minutes, and left me with much to think about. Many thanks to Lynsey for inviting me!

Bit tired, so this may make little sense, but I’m entertained by quotes from possible contenders for the Labour leadership. Alan Johnson, when asked if he will run for leader, says:

“There’s not a campaign team in place for anything, not deputy leader or leader. There’s no team in place,”

Which is a yes. John Reid, meanwhile, says he has:

“no personal ambition to attain any other high office”

Dude. I have ambition to be Prime Minister (not seriously, obviously). Doesn’t everybody? You’re a politician within striking distance, and you don’t want the job? I don’t believe you.

“Take a Bow”, from Muse’s new album ‘Black Holes and Revelations’, begins with:

Corrupt, you corrupt, bring corruption to all that you touch.

Hold, you’ll behold, and behold and for all that you’ve done.

And spell, cast a spell, cast a spell on the country you run.

And risk, you will risk, you will risk all their lives and their souls.

And burn, you will burn,
You will burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell.
You’ll burn in hell, yeah you’ll burn in hell for your sins.

Our freedom’s consuming itself.
What we’ve become is contrary to what we want.
Take a bow.

I listened to this yesterday and suddenly wondered whether it was political commentary about Tony Blair. I then decided I was reading way too much into things, and wondered why it had occurred to me. Perhaps because every news organisation in the country is blasting the same story 24/7? There’s apparently nothing else happening.

We’ve got ‘allies of Tony Blair’ making statements, we’ve got ’sources close to Gordon Brown’ making statements. Just now Defence Minister Tom Watson resigned, saying that it’s no longer in the country’s interest for Tony Blair to stay. Letters flying around. Counter-statements from cabinet members. It’s filling the news, and it’s all utter crap.

If you want Tony Blair to go because of Iraq, say so. If you want time for a successor to take control, say so. If you think he’s a liability in the polls, say so. But all this crap about ‘it’s not in the country’s best interests’, or ‘uncertainty is making us nervous’ doesn’t mean anything. Why, exactly? How does not knowing when Tony Blair is going to quit make any difference to the workings of government?

There may well be reasons, but it’s not like this is all that important, is it? Sorry to lapse into cliche, but there are still starving children in the UK, aren’t there? There’s actual work to do, and all this makes it look like the politicians are far more obsessed with themselves. Because that wasn’t the stereotype already.

From the outside it seems like half the Labour party are trying to figure out who to ally themselves with before the next election. Nothing here is in the country’s best interests, it’s entirely self-centred politicking. Yes, it’s important that the party have debates over leadership, but it shouldn’t supersede everything else on the agenda - it’s far more necessary that that there be a leader out there and working. If you’re a defence minister, isn’t that quite an important job? Why the hell are you resigning over something so goddamn trivial? What good does that do anybody? Maybe if he spoke out he’d lose his job anyway, and if so that’s insane, but resigning? It’s like running the country comes second to playground games.

It seems like every political party is incapable of doing anything related to the leadership without this kind of nonsense. Can’t political parties run themselves better than local golf clubs? It’s boring, petty and demeaning, and I’d hoped Labour would be above it.

The BHA, amongst others, are calling for a statement from Ruth Kelly, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, after reports that she is ’sympathetic’ to the idea of introducing Islamic ’sharia family law’ into the UK legal system. The initial report came from the very man trying to convince her of the virtues of such a system, so is perhaps not to be trusted. Especially when you hear that he said:

‘We told her if you give us religious rights, we will be in a better position to convince young people that they are being treated equally along with other citizens.’

I’m surprised he wasn’t kicked out of the building. I’m not Ms Kelly’s biggest fan, but I find it hard to believe she’s actually of the mindset suggested. A clear statement to this effect seems like a good idea.

‘Sharia family law’ is deeply sexist, for example: a husband may divorce his wife by saying the word ‘talaq’ three times (even if he says it in his sleep). Women may not. The husband then gets full custody of children, and the distrubition of money is heavily in his favour. That’s not to mention other elements of sharia law which seem to fall under the ‘family’ banner, such as men being allowed to marry up to four women simultaneously, physical punishment of wives being permissible, women needing to seek permission from the husband before leaving the house…It’s hard to find any element that seems like it could be part of a decent society.