Was Labour 1997-2010 The Worst Government Ever?

Over on the Telegraph blogs Sean Thomas outlines the case and it is hard to argue with.

I suppose worst ever might be pushing it- the governments that presided over the Irish potato famine or appeasement might be worse- but Blair and Brown surely led the most incompetent administrations in British post war history.

It's not that other governments didn't do worse in particular areas than Labour in this era- it's that there was full spectrum failure in pretty much every department- the economy, defence, foreign policy, education, welfare, immigration, race relations, inequality and health care were all disaster areas when Labour left office.

Can anyone think of any substantive successes associated with the last government>

Is John Whittingdale Looking For A Job In The Media Industry By Any Chance?

I only ask because of this:

A report said that the UK music industry is a bright spot, but is affected by so-called 'pirates'. It accused Google of "notable" failures to suppress filesharing websites.
Committee chair John Whittingdale MP said that delays in the implementation of the Digital Economy Act were a drain on industry revenues. He said that if a voluntary agreement between the music industry and internet service providers is not reached, the only solution will be government enforcement.

....

The MP said that there is no reason why the web firms cannot demote or remove websites, adding that they already work with law enforcement on the removal of child abuse images.
This is not all the government wants, and also on its agenda is an increase in the maximum penalty for serious online "intellectual property theft". The committee thinks that this should be 10 years, or a penalty similar to that for real world crimes.

 Without wishing to deny the existence of intellectual property it is hard to believe that file sharing is a crime that merits 10 years inside or government control of search engines. However they are potentially lucrative industries to get a post political job.

It is actually speculative as to whether piracy does effect industry revenues in any case.

Speaking for myself, I sometimes download TV shows and music illegally and sometimes buy or rent it. However what often happens is that I initially watch something illegally then decide that I like it and buy it. Had the downloaded version not existed then the producers of Game of Thrones for example would never have had any money from me at all whereas now I've already spent £60 or more on Blu Ray box sets.

Also the defence of intellectual property seems somewhat selective- for example it's fairly obvious that Samsung ripped off Apple when launching the Android system (and Apple have ripped of smaller companies for years)- yet there disputes would never be considered a criminal matter.

If the Parliamentary Culture Committee thinks that who ever provided me with that deserves to spend more time in prison than some killers then it is hard to credit them with honourable motives.

The Lessons Of Iraq

One of the main reasons that Western governments have had difficulty getting support for military strikes against Syria over the use of chemical weapons is that the public don't trust claims about WMDs made by our leaders. This is because the claims made about WMDs in Iraq turned out to be complete bullshit.

It should have been known in advance that Iraq could not possibly have the resources to have a viable WMD programme that posed a threat to anyone- their wealth and technical know how was simply not enough.

However this principle when applied to Syria makes it abundantly clear to me that the Sarin gas attack on a Damascas suburb must have been carried out by the Syrian regime not the rebels as various people are claiming- including the Russian government.

Weaponising sarin effectively is clearly very hard to do. Consider the Tokyo subway attacks in 1995- despite the gas being released in a very confined space and thousands of people being exposed only 13 people were killed. This was after an attack that had been prepared by scientists belonging to the cult. Yet supposedly it's a toss up as to whether an incredibly effective open air attack that killed hundreds was carried out by a ragtag assortment of rebels or by the regime that has been running a chemical weapons programme for forty years. It isn't.

That is not to say that we should intervene in Syria- the rebels contain elements that are very dangerous- but there is no serious doubt that the Assad regime fired Sarin into a civilian suburb to massacre hundreds of innocent people.

Syria

It looks as though the USA and France will bomb Syria due to the Assad regime's use of chemical weapons. Given the public memory of the Iraq war this is a brave move by Obama and Hollande but there are a number of things to be apprehensive of:

• A lot of the Syrian rebels are bastards themselves who would make life intolerable for the country's religious minorities (Alawites and Christians).
• Bombing chemical weapons plants can have unforeseen circumstances- with the potential to leak gas much more widely than would have happened otherwise.

Still if those dangers can be averted and it punishes Assad's regime for gassing hundreds of people then I support their decision.

I've Always Wondered What This "Rape Culture" Is.

The principal's "no buns, bellies, breasts" rule had stoked the destructive flames of rape culture. 

Hmm ok then. Apparently it's "rape culture" for schools to tell female pupils not to expose their breasts in class while not giving similar warnings to the males.

When I went to school I can't recall ever seeing boys deliberately dressing to expose their bodies but maybe that's just my sexist memory.

Hate Crime Hoaxes

I've written before about the phenomenon of hate crime hoaxes, in which people fake attacks on themselves or their favoured group in order to drum up sympathy for themselves and hatred for their ideological enemies.

Yet another high profile example in the United States has occurs. The interesting thing about this case is that people in internetland have been pointing out for months that it was an obvious hoax, while the established media was still cluelessly citing it as an example of right wing hate.

When they keep falling for the same trick you have to wonder whether there is some kind of agenda.....

Sometimes It's Hard To Be A Woman.

Take a look at the Guardian's page of columnists, which features all the regular writers along with their latest columns.

If you break down the demographics there are 12 males and 8 females.

Of the dozen males the topics covered varies from sport to conspiracy theories to the economy. There is quite a substantial range of topics. In contrast the eight female writers cover a slightly different range of subjects:

• Hadley Freeman complains about the unfair burdens women in show business have to put up with.
• Barbara Ellen says about the sexist treatment of Andy Murray's mum and the unfair burdens that women in sport endure.
•  Zoe Williams writes about the royal family- while noting that "that squeamishness around discussing the female pudenda is rooted in a deeper hatred of women"

So three of the eight writing about how hard it is to be a woman.

On the front page of the Guardian's Comment Is Free section there are ten articles by women, including the one by Hadley Freeman. Others include:

•  Rhiannon Cosslett on the unfair burdens of a female royal.
• Ellie Cosgrave on sexual assault (an admittedly more serious issue than the other).
•  Nancy Cohen on women voters and the "Tsunami of anti-woman legislation".

Two of the other pieces are by ethnic minority women talking about the unfair burdens of being black.

So out of 17 different female writers, 6 are writing about sexism and 2 about racism. It seems that almost half the output of female columnists is self obsessed identity politics.

Go Away, 'Batin.

A few years ago I parodied the last government's determination to ban things with a proposal to ban masturbation. David Cameron is trying to make this a reality- with moves to make people apply with their full name and contact details as they ask their ISP if the can watch pornography. Not child porn, but consensual adult porn.

Forcing people to make details of their private sexual behaviour known to their broadband providers is intrusive to an extent that is hard to overstate.

Cameron says it's about protecting the children, but his obsession with stopping teenage boys having a wank looks positively Victorian and is downright creepy. At least the Victorians turned their anti-masturbation zealotry to invent good stuff like Cornflakes.

Justice In A Tribal Society.

The Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case fascinates me because it shows how fragile the rule of law is even in an advanced democracy.

 There was quite clearly no evidence that George Zimmerman was guilty of a crime and he was found not guilty, but even so the fact that he was tried at all and the US government is still investigating him is an affront to justice.

The fact that so many people are willing to publicly denounce the verdict despite not actually being able to explain what evidence the prosecutors presented that showed that Zimmerman was a murderer is also shocking. It seems that the US Department of Justice is still trying to lynch Zimmerman by making it a civil rights case, despite a complete lack of evidence for any racial bias on the shooter's part.

What makes so many people lose their minds, lie shamelessly and dispose of the rule of law?

Tribalism.

By turning a tragic event into a racial issue- despite the fact that there is a lot of evidence that Zimmerman is no racist- the media have ensured that the question wasn't "did Zimmerman kill Martin" but " are you on the side of Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln and Rosa Parks or are you a KKK sympathiser".

It's not an approach that is likely to uncover truth but is sells papers and enables idiots to preen self righteously and pretend to care about a dead kid (although not enough to actually look at what actually happened).

Liberalism Versus Democracy

The protests in Egypt as well as Turkey are a symptom of a wider struggle between the modernism and reactionary Islamism. Both Morsi and Erdogan are pushing an authoritarian Islamic agenda despite the objections of more liberal factions in society.

However both of them won free and contested elections in order to obtain power. They have democratic mandates. There is a similar clash between authoritarian populists and a liberal middle class in other countries in Thailand and Russia.

In other words liberalism and democracy are in direct opposition rather than being bedfellows as is widely assumed. In the west we have developed a system of more or less pluralistic, liberal democracy but we only got here hundreds of years of a slowly widening franchise-. If we had enjoyed full democracy from the 17th Century onwards when the country was populated by superstitious peasants then we probably would not have that.

"A 19th Century Barbara Cartland."

A couple of articles by feminist writers have criticised the likely appearance of Jane Austen on Bank of England notes in the near future and the general lack of women on the notes.

Austen is apparently not radical enough, a 19th century Barbara Cartland, whose place should be taken by someone more radical like George Elliot or Mary Wollstoncraft.

They've got a point, we need a more radical female on the £10 note than Austen. Someone who upset the apple cart, tore down gender barriers and accomplished more than most men in her position. We do of course need Margaret Thatcher on the tenner.

So....

I will post something soon.

Oh yes.

Unite Against Fascism- Inciting Murder Since....

This is an interesting turn up:

ITV News has uncovered a video showing Woolwich suspect Michael Adebolajo speaking at a demonstration at Harrow Central Mosque in 2009. The event was organised as a counter-rally against a planned protest by the English Defence League. 

We already know that Unite Against Fascism is a front group for the far left rape cult, the Socialist Workers Party, but their links with Adebolajo are new to me.

UAF were endorsed by various mainstream politicians including the prime minister even though their whole method is to illegally and violently stop people they oppose exercising their freedom of speech. They represent lawlessness and taking matters into your own hands. It's hard to be surprised that some of their friends have similar ideas.

Murderous Lunatics Will Always Find Motives To Kill.

There is nothing unethical about considering whether our foreign policy was responsible for motivating the killers of Drummer Lee Rigby. However it is complete bollocks as a theory. One of the killers* was filmed taking part in the infamous Islamist demonstration in London back in 2007 in which placards declaring "Behead those who insult Islam", "Freedom Go To Hell" and "Europe- Prepare for the real Holocaust". What foreign policy actions had offended them to the point where there were on the streets of London lost in a vicious mood calling for murder and genocide? Was it civilian deaths in Afghanistan? The unauthorised use of force in Iraq? No, it was some fucking cartoons. Foreign policy may matter at the margins of terrorism, but the underlying cause is an insane, ignorant and chauvinistic death cult which needs to be eradicated. * They haven't been convicted but seeing as they were filmed with bloody weapons telling everyone why they did it, it seems silly to say "alleged" killers.

Another Sex Gang.

Yet another "Asian" gang has been convicted of grooming and raping white girls. Most people outside Guardian towers now accept that political correctness and fear of being branded racist played a part in the decision to abandon the victims to the crimes. Personally I wonder whether the police would have let Asian paedophile gangs run wild before they were MacPhersoned. Two other points are worth making. Among a subset of British Pakistani men there is a deeply unpleasant attitude to women and to non-Pakistanis. I do not wish to imply that all British Asians are like this- no doubt Nazir Afzal, the prosecutor who did so much to expose these cases is far more typical of British Asian men than the convicted child molesters. However it is clear that a significant minority do basically look on white females as slags. The other cultural issue is among the majority population, that is to say white British people. How have we got to a situation where in such a varied array of towns- Oxford, Rochdale, Derby... there are significant numbers of young children who are wondering the streets on their own without any adult care? Perhaps family breakdown plays a part, although I've heard from someone who works with the CPS that in the Derby case at least, the parents of some of the girls had tried desperately to stop their daughters going out at all hours of the day and night but were powerless to do anything.

Romanian Immigration & Crime

Romanians and Bulgarians will soon be allowed to travel freely throughout the EU, including to the UK. A few years ago most of the rest of Eastern Europe was allowed to join the EU resulting in large scale immigration to the UK, especially from Poland.

A few years ago I worked out the incarceration rates by nationality in the UK, these are the figures for the number of people in prison in England per 100000 people, for various nationalities of Eastern Europe:

1. Romania- 829
2. Lithuania- 366
3. Czech- 185
4. Hungary- 183
5. Poland- 113
6. Bulgaria- 64
7. Slovakia- 48

Whether it is good or bad, Romanian immigration will be very different from that which we have already experienced.

Update: There is an interesting observation in the comments from Stelucia (who I assume is Romanian):

Romanians have already the right to travel freely without a visa in all EU countries. What they don't have yet are full workings rights within EU, which is something completely different.
This policy of restricting workings rights produced a negative selection: honest, hard working people remained in Romania.

If you imagined a country where they selected British emigrants in such a way as to mostly get criminals you'd end up with a situation where the emigrants were not typical of Britain as a whole. Come to think of it, I think that I have just described Australia.

Israel Bombs Syria

So what is going on?

Are the Israelis intervening on one side of the conflict? Although Syria does back Hamas and Hezbollah the regime surely poses less threat to Israel than a potential Islamist run Syria.

Perhaps they just want to destroy Syria's chemical weapons in order that the rebels don't get control of them or so the regime doesn't try to give any of the weapons to one of it's terrorist clients.

The Votes Are In

The results of the voting should be taken very seriously by the government.

Despite being ridiculed in the media and generally being treated as nothing more than a set of overexposed tits with no real substance, the country has shown a real appetite to support the outsider with backing being won in the North, the South and the Midlands.

So congratulations to Helen Flanagan on being voted the sexiest woman in the UK.