Archive for February 2011

Armed and Dangerous

One morning recently I stumbled off of my morning train to London and, just after exiting the station, passed two members of the police openly carrying automatic weapons. There may have been more but I wasn’t curious enough to stop and look. So far as I can tell though – and there has been nothing in the news concerning it that I could find – they weren’t there for any particular reason.

Which got me thinking.

If nothing was happening then why the show of force? Living as I do in a society where very few people are legally allowed to own a firearm and where the police do not routinely walk around displaying weaponry, the sight was not – to my mind – very reassuring. Why? Because my first thought was “where’s the danger?”

If there was something going on that required armed police then I’d have expected that the area to have been sealed off. If there wasn’t then why bother standing there holding them? My terminus hardly counts as a high value target, being as it is amongst the smallest in London, so why armed police when it usually doesn’t get any attention whatsoever?

Robert A. Heinlein said that ‘An armed society is a polite society’ but what about a society where only a small number of people can openly carry guns? Are those people there for my protection or for my suppression?

Given that the state has taken the role upon itself the answer should be the former but I can’t say that I’m comfortable with it. It could all too easily become the latter… and then we really would be screwed.

No sex please, we’re British

Political lobbying group and some time parenting site Mumsnet has been forced by its members to back track on its support for censoring pornography on the web. Needless to say this hasn’t pleased the new Conservative MP Claire Perry the “won’t someone think of the children” authoritarian nut job who is apparently the current cheerleader in parliament for such a scheme.

Why the change of heart?

It seems that pressure came from two directions. Firstly, the more technically savvy members threw their children’s toys out of the pram over the site’s bandwagon jumping, pointed out that as a result of the law of unintended consequences the site itself could well be filtered and downed tools – an action that resulted in no technical support for those in need. Secondly, a few members mentioned the obvious issue: that it is not the job of the state to raise children.

Strangely the second one didn’t appear to fly with one of the site’s founders:

“I think there have been some really valid points about workability raised here but the “this is the thin end of the wedge on censorship” one doesn’t make sense to me. We already censor loads of things in the name of child protection on the internet and elsewhere. Of course there are valid concerns about where you draw the line but you can’t deny that we do draw the line already all over the place – we censor illegal images, we rate dvds, we have a tv watershed.”

Who, unsurprisingly, completely misses the point. Don’t want young children to see pornography on the internet? Then don’t let them have a computer, x-box etc in their bedroom. Set up an account for them on the computer in the communal area that has proper filters in place to stop them seeing it. Don’t know how to do that? Then ask a friend, neighbour etc. Use some bloody initiative rather than expecting the state to act as backstop for your stupidity!

/takes blood pressure tablets and calms down.

Ahem.

Eventually however Mumsnet did decide that perhaps it had acted too hastily and the same person who posted the previously stupidity said:

“We are not going to back any solution… what we are interested in is protecting children online. However, everything we do on Mumsnet is a conversation and our opinions evolve with our users.”

Translation: We got our fingers burnt and next time we will talk to the membership before leaping on any passing bandwagons.

We aren’t of course out of the woods as yet. The government, in the shape of Culture Minister Ed Vaizey as well as the aforementioned Clarie Perry, is already talking to ISPs about getting them to filter the web. Perry, writing in the Telegraph, explains that she would like to see “a home network level ‘opt-in’ filter for internet porn”. Additionally the head of Ofcom (that government quango) said that, “given the technological convergence, if the ISP industry does not come up with a workable opt-in solution, regulation may be the only answer”.

Safermedia – a Christian charity (fake charity status unknown) also campaigning for internet filtering – said about the proposals:

I am surprised that parents would be critical of the campaign because the idea is to help parents. If internet users have to opt in to view pornography parents don’t have to worry about protecting their children from it… I think there has to be censorship to protect children. If you’re over 18 you won’t be censored [under the proposals]”

For crying out loud, when will you fools get it? You’ve recently been berating various countries like Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia for closing down the internet in order to try and stop anti-government protesters. You frequently complain about China locking down the internet and employing an army of thousands to police content as well as companies such as Google who have bowed to the regime there and acted as censors.

Even after all of that you want to employ similar tactics in this country? And all because of the emotive rallying cry of “Won’t someone think of the children”. In the name of the children we have the Criminal Records Bureau, the Independent Safeguarding Authority and others. Have they made children any safer from the paedophile that would otherwise be living under every bed and stalking the corridors of our schools, youth centres and any other place where children might go? No, of course they haven’t. All those bits of paper have done is ensure that innocent people are dismissed from their jobs and that children are being taught to fear all adults.

Can such a scheme even work? Well the Australian government under Prime Ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard have been trying to do the same for some years now without success (as yet). It has been dogged by controversy with banned sites so far including such horrors as a dental practice and various education sites – quite amusing given that Stephen Conroy, the idiot charged with trying to implement the scheme, has said that it would be “100% accurate”. An opinion poll has suggested that over 90% of the Australian public don’t want the scheme and even children’s charities out there have dismissed it as a waste of money that could be better spent elsewhere.

In the end though it is not about the children – that is just a convenient hook to use and one that can be hard to argue against without being smeared as someone who supports child pornography and other such nonsense – but about control. The internet, allowing the rapid dissemination of information, is a threat to governments around the world regardless of how democratic they appear to be and for that reason they want to place limits on it.

Such behaviour must be resisted at all costs.

Beefless

An ‘And finally’ piece on a radio 2 news broadcast yesterday concerning a small football club Gloucestershire football club, intrigued me.

The club in question, Forest Green Rovers, have taken the step of banning red meat from the menu – not just for the players but also for staff and fans. With regards to the former it was as a result of nutritional advice but it was decided to extend the policy to the entire club grounds. So far, so entirely up to the club. Their property, their rules.

It is the justification and the fluff added to the BBC piece that raises eyebrows.

The club chairman, Dale Vince (a vegan), said:

“If red meat was not good enough to feed our players, then it wasn’t good enough for our staff, fans and visitors too.”

Really? I can perhaps see that there is a performance reason why a sportsman might avoid red meat but why extend to same logic to those who aren’t?

“At its worst it means once every two weeks watching a football game without being able to eat red meat.”

Translation: ‘Suck it up, you murdering carnivores’.

“Anybody that really needs it can bring a ham sandwich or something if they wish – that’s no problem.”

Well at least you aren’t into confiscating someone else’s property.

The Vegetarian Society (no agenda there then) added their two pennies worth:

“A diet lower in meat, particularly red meat, and higher in plant-based food is lower in fat, higher in fibre and higher in trace minerals.

“Anything the British population as a whole can do to reduce their reliance on meat has got to be positive.”

Sod off. I’ll eat what I bloody well want to and people like you tend to put me in the mood for a large, medium rare fillet steak with chips and mushrooms on the side.

Who Rules?

On Thursday the House of Commons partook of a discussion and division on the issue of voting by convicted prisoners. The result of this vote is not binding on the government being as it was simply a backbench motion allowing members to express an opinion on a matter that has yet to be formally presented to the house by the government. In the free vote that followed the debate the motion was passed by 234 to 22. A roll of honour/list of shame* is available. Those on the government payroll and the Labour front bench abstained.

That the matter was under discussion is the ‘work’ of John Hirst, a thug convicted of the manslaughter** of his landlady with an axe, who sued the UK under the Human Rights Act because he was not allowed to vote whilst he was detained at Her Majesty’s (dis-)pleasure. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled in his favour and asked the UK government to look again at the issue.

Predictably there has been a lot of outrage at the thought of the likes of Hirst being allowed to play a part in democratic elections whilst in gaol with one opinion poll putting support for the idea at only 9%. David Cameron has been widely quoted as saying that the idea makes him ‘physically sick’.

The whole issue however is somewhat of a red herring, a trifling concern. According to the most recent breakdown of figures that I could find (2010-08) there are 31,630 convicted people in prison serving 4 years or less (excluding under 18’s and fine defaulters but including the unsentenced). By the same criteria there are only 11,433 serving less than 12 months. Those numbers aren’t enough to form a constituency of their own. Split evenly across the 600 constituencies (come the 2015 election) that equates to 53 or 19 each (assuming an even split). Those sort of numbers aren’t going to affect the outcome of a general election.

Rather the issue here is one of sovereignty: is Parliament – elected by the population of the UK – supreme or does an external institution take precedence? MPs like to maintain that they are still in charge – and today’s vote has no doubt resulted in lots of back slapping amongst the Eurosceptic wings of the big parties – but they aren’t and haven’t been so for some time.

Unless Cast Iron Dave uses the result to find himself a spine and finally gives the public the in or out referendum*** that all of the big three political parties have offered at one time or another then it is meaningless. Justice Secretary Ken Clarke has already said that the UK would ‘do the minimum necessary in order to comply’ with the ruling and something tells me that said stance will not have been altered by what went on today.

It would be nice to hope that this is the straw that finally broke the back of the proverbial camel but I doubt it. Our elected representatives are, generally, too wedded to the idea of further political and economic integration no matter what the cost. Indeed I doubt that many of them realise that the PR exercise which is the Referendum Lock promised by the collation government will have no affect on the ongoing transfer of sovereignty to European bodies.

* Delete according to your belief.

** During the debate various MPs referred to him in other terms but unlike them this blog is not protected by parliamentary privilege and therefore cannot be so blunt.

*** Yes, I am well aware that the ECHR is a Council of Europe body, not a European Union one but given the amount of overlap that exists between the two and being aware that provisions exist on both sides for integration, withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights would (hopefully) mean expulsion from both entities as membership of each requires the the Convention to be ratified.

On Max Mosley, Sex and Privacy

The FT on Friday carried an interview with the former head of the FIA, Max Mosley, ostensibly to discuss his case in the European Court of Human Rights regarding the right to privacy – a follow up to his victory in the High Court against News Group Newspapers Limited.

As I’m sure most of us remember the case made headlines thanks to the ‘unconventional’ nature of the sexual acts that were going on and the Nazi imagery which the News of the World falsely claimed was present – imagery which of course had added spice given who Mosley’s father was.

Although I personally couldn’t care less what Mosley – or anyone else for that matter – does for pleasure so long as all of the parties involved are willing participants it would seem that I am in the minority. The old adage that ‘sex sells’ is still a true one as, for a country with a supposedly liberal attitude to sex, there is indeed a good deal of school yard tittering that goes on whenever someone is revealed to have tastes that extend beyond the missionary position with the curtains closed and the lights out. The only weird thing to me is the prurient fascination with what other human beings do for pleasure – though I suppose it can probably be considered second- or third-hand voyeurism.

Our interviewer here seems to be of the majority persuasion however as she candidly admits that one of the questions she wanted to ask was ‘Why was MM drawn to S&M?’ Is the question even relevant given the matter at hand? No but it doesn’t stop her asking it or indeed trying to draw a link between his BDSM activities and his slightly odd childhood. Kudos to Mosley though for managing to respond to the attempts to define his activities as strange in a matter of fact way

I think it’s like being homosexual. It’s a quirk in your character. People have to be adult and simply say, well it’s sex and sex is very strange. Even ordinary sex is either very funny or disgusting, or both. That’s how it is, we’re animals in the end.

even though he says later on that

It’s embarrassing to talk about. I feel that sex should always be private. If people hear that so-and-so does such and such, the reaction shouldn’t be: Oooooh! It should be: Oh, for God’s sake that’s sex, don’t even discuss it.

Although not agreeing with Mosley that sex should be a taboo subject I am, as I have said, in agreement with him when it comes to not being interested in what strangers do for fun. The only time it is relevant is when they are guilt of hypocrisy by saying one thing and doing the opposite.

Not though content with letting sleeping dogs lie Mosley has filed an application with the ECHR claiming that his rights where violated because the News of the Screws did not have a legal duty “to notify him in advance in order to allow him the opportunity to seek an interim injunction and thus prevent publication”.

This is where I have a problem.

I can see why, given the media in the UK, people would want a strong privacy law. But does the problem entirely lie with the media? There is apparently no shortage of prominent or ‘famous’ people who are willing to invite the press into almost every aspect of their lives (often in return for money) because they want the resulting publicity that it brings. Can we therefore fault journalists for taking the logic step of digging into the lives those in similar positions who aren’t media hungry because they believe – rightly it seems – that such stories are wanted by the section of the populous what care X, Y or Z get up to in their private lives?

Does then an individual have a right to privacy, to not have salacious details of their lives that they did not themselves reveal spread across various newspapers and magazines? No, I do not think that they do. A privacy law means that state force is being used to suppress information – however irrelevant it may be – and that goes against Libertarianism as I see it.

If a publication however prints false or malicious allegations then the subject of their hatchet job has every right to sue. The only shame is that it is can be expensive and time consuming to do so as a recent piece over on Anna’s and some of the comments it generated showed.

In the long run the only way I see things changing is when people finally grow up and stop encouraging such behaviour by not purchasing the papers and magazines involved.

Given the falling circulation figures for the dead tree press it seems we are, perhaps, heading in the right direction.