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.

A blastocyst, from which embryonic stem cells are taken, is 0.1 - 0.2mm across - around the width of a human hair:

A baby:

Just saying.

There’s an excellent argument that the blastocysts used in stem cell research are due to be discarded anyway, but the problem with that is it’s secondary to the moral argument. I don’t think there is a moral argument, however. I see no definition by which a blastocyst counts as ‘alive’, and the potentiality argument is just ridiculous - you might as well say that people who decide not to have children are murderers. I’m not denying there’s a problem with deciding the point at which a baby begins, but I don’t see any reasonable way in which blastocysts are it. The Daily Kos article¹ does a good job of explaining the science behind stem cell research.

1. I didn’t directly steal their pics, btw, I went to Wikipedia to find equivalent images and found they’d done the same thing [↩]

Does anybody else think the media’s coverage of the Blair/Bush chat is a bit odd? GWB swore! How awful! The weirdest part is the interpretation of Blair’s “if [Condi] goes out, she’s got to succeed, as it were, whereas I can just go out and talk”. He’s a poodle! He’s fawning to the US! He’s desperate for a legacy! He’s leaning over the chair like a servant! Give me a break. Did anybody else interpret it more charitably? Tony Blair has the power and the political skills to talk to the most important people and could achieve a great deal, but he wouldn’t insist on walking out with a resolution and glory. Sure you can interpret this as ‘he wants the white house to get all the glory’, but it seems more likely he’s just trying to get it sorted out. Not demanding personal gain in everything seems like a virtue to me, but I’m clearly in the minority.

Is it me, or is everything a bit depressing at the moment?

• MPs and the police are fighting over whether yesterday’s arrest of Lord Levy was ’symbolic’. Reminds me of US police arresting Michael Jackson a few years ago and being forced to defend themselves against accusations of it being a smear campaign against MJ’s latest album. Because the police have nothing better to do than engage in symbolism and smear campaigns. Whichever way, one of the parties must be behaving ridiculously.
• Israel’s doing its thing, and as ever there’s no hope of any kind of reasonable solution because it’s all such an insane historical mess.
• There’s a huge amount of fuss over three bankers being extradited. I’m not saying whether I think it’s ok - I really have no clue - but I do wonder whether there’d be anything like as much fuss if the other party weren’t the US.

Good news? Well, Norway’s killed fewer whales than they intended.

I think I’ll just skip the news websites for the next few days.

A busy day in Parliament:

MPs have signalled their anger at Tony Blair over the extradition to the US of three bankers to face a fraud trial.

They voted by a majority of 242 to adjourn the Commons early in symbolic protest at the government’s extradition arrangements after a three hour debate.

So, let me get this straight: rather than actually trying to do something useful, MPs have voted to go home early. And, look ho, isn’t it a beautiful summer’s day? It certainly is symbolic. I’m going to now stage my own protest by having a nap.

Ok, so maybe they’re not all actually going off for a nice cup of tea, but have they any clue how ridiculous this looks from the outside?

Update: Kerron knows far more about what happened than I do - be sure to check the comments too.

There’s a fair amount of chatter regarding Claire Curtis-Thomas’ bid to place “lad’s mags” on the top shelf of newsagents. I’m still figuring out a logical way to approach the subject, but a side note of interest is this quote:

Ms Curtis-Thomas said descriptions of sexual acts in the ‘Dictionary of Porn’ in an April edition of Zoo magazine are “so graphic and repulsive I am prevented from quoting it on the floor of the House of Commons.”

I think this is more rhetorical trick than real statement - it seems unlikely she would have read them out anyway - but is there any truth to it? Are there things she wouldn’t be allowed to say in the House of Commons? If so, that’s stupid.

In related matters, Lord Tebbit thinks that Jonathan Ross asking David Cameron:

Did you or did you not have a wank thinking ‘Margaret Thatcher’?

is

an obscene attack on - and I use the word literally, obscene - on Margaret Thatcher.

I think some people need to lighten up. Also, it would help if they watched the interview and saw the context of the query. Interesting question, though: is it ever offensive to have somebody fantasise about you? Even if you’d rather they didn’t, or even if it’s in a stalker-esque manner, isn’t the act inherently flattering? Maybe if they were misrepresenting you, but then it wouldn’t really be a fantasy about you…Not sure. This links in with lad’s mags, in a way.

Incidentally, JR’s (extremely good, imho) interview with DC is available on the BBC website, but the offending segment has been cut out so you should watch it here and here instead.

Why aren’t there any ministerial blogs? From my perspective, Labour seems to have a problem explaining its position. The Human Rights Act is a good example. The tabloid press despise the thing, and I rarely hear the opposite position, which surely exists. Despite occasional mutterings, Labour are surely in favour of it, but I don’t know where to look to find out why. Currently I’d turn to Labour bloggers for this. The major newspapers are no use, as decent explanation is difficult to find. There are some - David Aaranovitch etc. - who do a good job of properly investigating issues, but I don’t think it should be so hard to find. The Labour website carries little in the way of argument, instead concentrating on news and press releases. The Home Office website does a good job of explaining the law, but there’s very little argument in favour of ID cards, for example - there’s something about how good they’ll be, but nothing that addresses concerns I’ve seen elsewhere. I’m sure this already happens behind the scenes, and if I investigated enough I’d be able to find all the information I wanted. But, without meaning to sound lazy, it’s too hard. If only there were some way for the government to communicate without the filter of the media…

Ministers are busy people, but their offices could surely find somebody to run a blog. They could respond immediately to Tory arguments, or tabloid misrepresentation, and not have to worry so much about the newspapers taking one quote terribly out of context. The important thing would be to make it genuine; glorified press releases would be pointless. You want a Robert Scoble of the Labour Party - somebody happy to say ‘we screwed this up, but here’s what we doing to make it right’. Maybe that goes against the grain of modern politics, but I think it’s going to be necessary. Tony Blair’s great at explaining his position, but he’s not enough. The odd Guardian article or 10-word soundbite from other ministers just doesn’t cut it any more. I want to see John Reid tell me what the hell a respect squad would actually do. I want to see Patricia Hewitt explain why NHS redundancies are necessary. I want to see Alan Johnson point out the huge rise in school food standards, and be happy to acknowledge Jamie Oliver’s role in the affair. Would it be official government comment? Tricky. Would they allow comments? Probably not if they’ve ever looked at Comment is Free, but trackbacks maybe.

Sure, the majority of people don’t read blogs. But people who do (he says, tentatively) are often the people best equipped to communicate. An increasingly tech-literate younger generation is seeing a government that doesn’t know how to communicate with them. Blogging wouldn’t solve the problem of Labour’s increasingly out-of-touch image, but I think it would help.

Update: Hat-tip to Jo in the comments for pointing out David Miliband’s blog. He’s Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, and the blog certainly seems to be a good start. Should have done my research properly

Recent comments on a few Bloggers4Labour blogs have, in particularly caustic style, suggested that B4L bloggers should not discuss anything other than politics, and discussing anything else (particularly sci-fi) makes us look pathetic. These people happen to be your basic trolls, but more polite versions would raise three issues:

• The idea that discussing sci-fi / other ‘geeky’ topics is something to be ashamed of, and that others will laugh at us. I think I demonstrated my contempt for that particular theory here.
• The idea that personal posts have no place on blogs ostensibly about politics. Jo has an excellent response here: “What I’m trying to say is that this is my blog about my thoughts, my opinions and my life. I just happen to be a Labour activist.”
• B4L should only aggregate political posts. This, as far as I’m concerned, is entirely up to Andrew of B4L. He built the system, and can choose to aggregate whatever he likes. I like the community feel of B4L, as the inclusion of non-political posts makes it feels much more like a group of real people than just political pundits (edited - original phrase wasn’t really what I meant), but it’s really nothing to do with me. I’m not trying to pass the buck, I’m just saying that B4L is whatever he wants it to be. Wordpress blogs can supply category feeds, and if Andrew were to ask for a feed that only contains political posts (and I’m certain he’d be a damn sight more polite about it than random commenters) I’d be happy to supply it.

Somebody called Mark left this comment on the below post about Doctor Who:

You are of course free to post about Doctor Who on your own blog.
However, my concern as with lots of otherposts on blogs listed on “bloggers for Labour” is the impression this gives to passing possible Labour voters and how it makes us look to our opponents.
At present it makes us look like sad geeks, our opponents must be pissing themselves.

I was unaware that passing possible Labour voters, as well as opponents, still think in moronic playground cliché.

When I was seven or so, somebody bought me The Ali Bongo Book of Magic. It was full of easy magic tricks using everyday objects. I loved it. Magic became my main interest. I’d practice card tricks and card sleights until I had them perfect. I discovered Davenports magic shop in London, and spent most of my spare money picking up wonderful little illusions. In hindsight, I wasn’t bad. I performed annual shows at my secondary school. I won awards at the borough talent show. I was on stage at the Midlands Arts Centre. I won the British Magical Society’s Young Magician of the Year award (not as prestigious as it sounds, but not bad), and performed for the BMS senior section. I really enjoyed being on stage and delighted in entertaining. Then, I hit puberty.

There’d always been people who made fun. That’s what happens at school. For a good number of years it didn’t bother me, but once puberty kicked in I began to care what people thought. I realised that people weren’t poking good natured fun, they were genuinely being spiteful. For anybody who said they liked the magic, there’d be two popular jocks who’d hurl insults as all their friends laughed. I began to take it to heart. It didn’t matter what anybody else said - these were the people everybody liked, the cool crowd, and they hated me.

It happened very slowly, such that I didn’t really notice it, but I began to associate the magic with being ’sad’, or ‘pathetic’. I stopped caring about it so much. I think my parents realised what was going on, but peer pressure is almost impossible to fight. My school magic shows in years 7 and 8 (when I was 13 and 14) were, in hindsight, pretty good. But years 9 and 10 were dodgy. I hadn’t put in the practice. On the final day of school I cut my least favourite teacher’s head off with a guillotine, and I entirely relied upon the illusion - the surrounding act wasn’t up to much. I remember hearing the abuse as I carried the guillotine across the playground after the show, and thinking that it just wasn’t worth it. After secondary school I dropped out of my fortnightly magic club, and never really took it up again.

It was odd. All through school I wanted to keep doing the magic, as I enjoyed it, but I became ashamed of myself for doing so. Even now when I pick up a pack of cards there’s a behind-sense of shame, that people will justifiably laugh at me, that I’m a bad example of how to be.

Sad geeks? For liking Doctor Who? Screw you. It’s seven years since I left school and I can see this attitude for what it is. The implication is that normal, intelligent people do not like Doctor Who, nor anything else that may be ‘geeky’. I should rid myself of my likes and dislikes and conform to some dreary grey gob of nothingness. But it’s not normal, intelligent people who think this. It’s people too brainless to see beyond their own perspective, or who are so afraid they might be missing something that they resort to I’m-more-popular-than-you insults. I let people rip the joy from being a magician, but now I’m older, wiser and stronger. I’m not going to pander to this miserable short-sighted crap, whether it’s from passing Labour voters, opposition readers, or Guardian columnists - and I strongly suspect that most of these people do not, in fact, think in the way suggested. You think my liking Doctor Who gives the Labour party a bad name? I think it’s that kind of attitude that belittles politics in general.

I like Superman, Star Trek, Doctor Who and Firefly. I like sci-fi novels, comics and fantasy. I like toys. I like cartoons and superheroics. I like computers, technology and science. If you think these are unworthy and something that should be mocked, the problem lies with you. Anybody who uses ‘geek’ as a term of abuse demonstrates their lack of thought. I revel in my geekery, and good-natured ribbing is fun, but cross the line and you reveal your own ignorance. To call such an attitude childish is an insult to children. It’s just stupid.

Perhaps Mark was genuinely trying to offer advice, but the last sentence sounds spiteful, to me. You want to criticise me for my political opinions? Go ahead. Want to argue religion? Fine. But attacking me for taking pleasure in that which I enjoy is pathetic.

Having been placed on a top-10 list of Labour bloggers, I feel that I should blog something political. So, here’s some political commentary…by monkeys!

I’m so going to regret this in the morning.

(hidden from front page because they break the layout)

Continue reading ‘Monkeys Explain It All’

The BBC says there’s a Probe into ‘naked civil servants’. A probe.

Civil servants on Tyneside are under investigation amid allegations staff romped around naked in offices and had sex in toilets.

The Deputy PM’s office? No:

The RPA is part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Rural affairs.

The agency said it was investigating claims that staff leapt naked from filing cabinets, had sex in office toilets, held break-dancing competitions during working hours and fought in a reception area.

How exactly does one leap naked from a filing cabinet? Were they in the drawer, just waiting for somebody to open it?

Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Jim Paice, said: “This kind of behaviour is unacceptable in any office, but in a public service where they should have been processing long overdue payments for thousands of farmers it raises even more questions about managerial competence within the RPA.”

He added: “Oh dear, looks like a fax coming through.” He didn’t. I made that up.

I was just called a bigot, in reference to my post on Ruth Kelly. I met the guy last week and liked him, so I take the accusation seriously. Unsurprisingly, I disagree. I have edited one sentence that was very badly phrased, however. What do you think?

I’ve been head-composing a post about Ruth Kelly for a while, but Butterflies and Wheels puts it far better than anything I came up with:

It’s a bit like belonging to a Nazi party, or the KKK, or the God Hates Fags gang, and then trying to claim not only that of course one’s belonging to that organization doesn’t in the least mean one can’t “speak up” for the rights of Jews or blacks or gays, why on earth would it, but also that even asking the question is absurd and outrageous and indignation-worthy. It’s a bit like that, but to many observers it doesn’t look like that, because we’ve been so relentlessly trained to think of religious beliefs and teachings as in some profound way entirely different from political beliefs. But why would they be? Because it’s taboo to challenge them, that’s why - and that’s a terrible reason.

If someone said “I personally want to let children set fire to their teachers, but I won’t let that affect my judgement in parliament. I’ll just abstain from any votes about teachers, that’s all” would you make them education minister? There’s no difference between the two other than that the pyromaniacs haven’t spent 2000 years convincing brainwashing everybody into not arguing with them. The pyromaniacs haven’t spent 2000 years brainwashing everybody into not arguing with them, but the underlying argument is the same.¹

I don’t want somebody who thinks homosexuality is a sin having anything to do with the making of laws. They try to do things like this. I don’t care why she thinks it, or how hard she tries to avoid the topic by abstaining from votes; there’s no excuse for bigotry.

1. edited for hyperbole [↩]

Rolling Stone magazine appear to have just accused the Republican party of stealing the 2004 presidential election. This is their subtitle:

Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted — enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

Isn’t Rolling Stone a fairly prestigious magazine, journalism-wise? Blimey. I haven’t read it yet - it’s best printed out, I think - but I’m looking forward to it!

Catherine Bennett’s latest article on Comment is Free is bewildering and insulting:

A couple of months ago, an American robin, Turdus migratorius, made it across the Atlantic. News reports showed a long row of birdwatchers, waiting, with the utmost patience, by a garden wall in Peckham, London. Almost all of them were men. I wondered, at the time, if this - minus binoculars - is what a reception party of bloggers would look like. Now, thanks to the drafters of the Euston Manifesto, a pub-born project that has just launched as a real-life political alliance, the question has been answered. It is, indeed, what a reception party of bloggers would look like.

She goes on to laugh at people (men, she says) for having the audacity to discuss bikes, music and pretty much anything they enjoy. This is the attitude of the bully: let’s make fun of anybody with a passion. Ophelia is unimpressed, too.

The whole article is just sneering from on high. She makes some claim about the entire political blogosphere being full of unenlightened women-haters, then descends into this:

Will their virtual men’s room succeed in annexing the Guardian’s weblog? So far, the signs are positive. One candidate in the current competition for an official blogger’s role on Comment is free, who calls himself “mr pikebishop”, has offered a curiously ruddy-faced photograph for use as a picture byline to accompany his first contribution, about freedom of speech. This was pointed out. “I was a bit flushed in that photo … hehe,” responded the author. Such, presumably, is the sought-after democratisation of debate.

Which, as far as I can tell, makes no sense at all.

You know what? Don’t bother reading it. You have better things to do. Also, birds are great.