Rick Perry

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” – Matthew 7:12

“And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.” – Luke 6:31

“Don’t be a cunt.” - Me

Rick Perry’s latest campaign advert, “Strong”, has gathered some rather negative criticism since being posted to Youtube yesterday. It is easy to see why:

Why should it matter what the sexuality of someone is? Doesn’t the Republican party want people to just get on with their lives with less government intervention?

It is appalling that Perry can think he can run for “pressedent” based on such mindless homophobia. But he goes on – not only are teh gayz ruining the country, but those godless liberals are too. And who else is behind it other than the biggest Muslim, Non-American, Godless, <insert populist bogeyman adjective here> of them all, Barack Hussein Obama. That’s right, the openly-Christian incumbent President is waging a war on religion.

These words sound to me like the last desperate cries of a man whose campaign is about to go up in smoke. How Rick Perry can still advertise himself as a “man of faith” on the same video, whilst promoting homophobia and xenophobia all through a soft-focused lens and reconcile all this in his head as a Good Thing ^TM is beyond my comprehension.

The Republican Party needs to ditch this bunch of losers who have somehow made it to the big time fast – and America can demonstrate this by not voting Republican, by throwing them out of every singly office they still somehow cling hold of.

It’s Political Correctness Gone Sensible!

The Daily Mail likes to target the BBC. They are too left-wing, they waste taxpayer’s money. Now I believe the BBC do try to be more inclusive and remain balanced. I accept they do get this wrong from time to time – and sometimes very wrong. Mistakes are made. Live TV, editorial pressures and personal prejudice affect the ability to remain balanced; but they try. It is much easier to maintain an ideological position and, in the words of Richard Littlejohn, “throw bottles”. This is what the Daily Mail does.

Sometimes, the target is because of a perceived editorial stance, or some decision (such as cancelling Last of the Summer Wine). Other times, they simple make stuff up.

Yesterday, the Daily Mail ran with the following front page (cached online version here):

A follow-up to the original article (cached again here) bleated:

“Andrew Marr says he will ignore BBC diktat to stop use of BC and AD.”

Take note of the language. The BBC has apparently forced its staff to stop using the AD/BC date format in favour of the secular terms CE/BCE – “to avoid offending non-Christians”. The articles contain some quotes from religious figures (the Christians say they are offended at the removal, the others say they aren’t offended by AD/BC) as well as the typical Tory rent-a-gobshites. Given that the Daily Mail is a horrendously Islamophobic newspaper – by non-Christians, they mean Muslims. They are again using the ‘them and us’ rhetoric, that implicitly racist position that other religions are coming here and imposing their values on us, to stir up a shitstorm.

For those not familiar with the way the Daily Mail writes articles, allow me to give you a tip. Don’t read the headline; just read the last paragraph. Let’s do that now, as it contains a quote from the BBC on the matter:

“Both AD and BC, and CE and BCE are widely accepted date systems and the decision on which term to use lies with individual production and editorial teams.”

Oh. That matches the headline, doesn’t it?! There is a whole can of worms relating to this writing technique, and how the PCC refuses to regulate this kind of article, where the headline is deliberately contradictory and incorrect. It is a disgrace to journalism and insulting to the readers. To me, it is like saying ‘we are going to lie through our teeth whilst obfuscating the truth to scrape through the regulatory procedure.’

Does the BBC quote say they have ‘turned their backs’? No. Did they issue a “diktat”? No. This is simply made up drivel.

The regular munch bunch of Peter Hitchens, Melanie Phillips and James Delingpole are quick to point out the liberal elite Marxist conspiracy at work here, eroding the rights of the Christians. Get real. If there really is a liberal elite ruling us (not in the economic sense, obviously) – then I suggest they should go and do some investigative journalism and find some stuff out, rather relying on made up shit to justify their incoherent, albeit well-remunerated rants.

This ‘attack on Christianity’ leads me right into another narrative. Political correctness gone mad! The use of politically-correct language, very often meaning secular language, is used as to not cause offense. We don’t say ‘nigger’, ‘paki’, ‘faggot’, ‘pikey’ or ‘spasticated’ – they are deeply offensive terms. Privilege is a bad thing – especially when based on illogical and ideological grounds. Whites, men, heterosexuals and abled people are still more privileged than their counterparts. Why is this the case? Why should any group feel a sense of entitlement, and have it reinforced through dogma, bigotry and stereotypes? Politically-correct language is aimed at a common, neutral ground. It is an attempt at showing an understanding of our differences. Secularism is about ensuring no religion has any privilege over any other religion, or over no religion at all.

In America (a country built upon wave-upon-wave of immigration) it is customary to say ‘Happy Holidays’ rather than ‘Merry Christmas’. Dates too, have cultural significance. We all know of 9/11, but that’s not how a British person would format that date. There are loads of well-documented cultural differences regarding the passage of time. Why should we continue to use a religious convention, when we have a perfectly good secular system? We don’t even know if Christ was born in the year the AD/BC system implies!*

if you believe, truly believe, that your privileges should be reinforced in our culture in favour of others, please leave a comment and say why. I genuinely want to know.

* For more fun on the year 0 and its implications – see Wikipedia.

Migration Statistics

The latest migration statistics have been released, and so the seemingly-perpetual “the foreigners are taking over” story hits the front pages of the media once again.

The Mail screamed Immigration soared by 20% last year – making a mockery of Government pledge to bring it DOWN. The Express ran with Immigration soars 20% in a year. The stories weren’t just restricted to the right, either. The Mirror and the Independent jumped on the “Immigration up 20%” bandwagon. Others such as Sky News and the Evening Standard joined in the fun.

The problem is – that is not what the statistics show.

The ONS report actually describes net migration – the number of incoming immigrants minus the number of outgoing emigrants. Net migration was estimated at 198,000, it was actually 239,000 – a 21% difference. Two further key points explain why net migration has risen:

• “Emigration is at its lowest since June 2005".
• “Immigration remains steady at 575,000”.

So what the report actually says is that the reason net migration has increased is that less people are moving out – not more people are moving in.

Funny – that’s not the impression you get from the headlines above. Read the articles, however, and they all talk about net migration. It seems the headlines do not match. Let’s see what our regulators say about that. According to the Press Complaints Commission’s Editor’s Code of Practice (not that it means much anyway):

“1 i) The Press must take care not to publish inaccurate, misleading or distorted information, including pictures.”

Furthermore:

“1 iii) The Press, whilst free to be partisan, must distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact.”

Are these newspapers doing the above? No. Will anything be done about this? No. According to the PCC:

“Given that headlines are usually only a few words in length, it can be quite challenging for newspapers and magazines to summarise what are often quite detailed or complicated stories. The editor will have to decide how much prominence to give to particular aspects of the story; some parts may be omitted from the headings altogether. The PCC's approach to headlines is that a headline should be read in conjunction with the text of the article before considering whether or not it is misleading.”

It seems fair enough that a headline should be read in context of a story, but the above advise does not reflect that a headline can be physically separate from an article. After all, the front page of the newspaper only has a shouty statement rather than a full article. A passer-by or a skimmer will pick up the headline, but not the article. How are they meant to judge if the headline is misleading? The logic is flawed. But in the eyes of the PCC this is fine. Clearly the article content undid the damage caused by the headline, just look at the comments under the Daily Mail’s online article:

As a result of the PCC’s total inability to handle the ongoing phone hacking scandal, it seems as if they will not be around in their current form for much longer, so hopefully whatever replaces it will have the strength to be able to enforce its rules, and make sensible rules in the first place.

The reason why these things matter can be found on our streets. The perpetuation of the fear of immigration is one of the causes for the rise in far-right groups such as the BNP and the EDL. Constant demonising of Muslims and immigrants in general has led to the immortal phrase “I’m not racist, but”. Immigration was one of the hot topics of the 2010 General Election. In the first live TV debate, the on-screen Tory approval ratings shot through the roof when Cameron started talking about imposing tougher border restrictions.

This “them and us” culture is a difficult one to tackle, especially when those who spread these stories have no concerns of retribution. Even when the PCC does wrangle an apology out of a newspaper it is never given equal prominence. These stories are spread like wildfire on forums and social networking sites, but the retractions and apologies never fully percolate the minds of the public.

Politicians tap into the fears of the public to gain power. We cannot say that the fear of immigration elected a Tory-led coalition, but I’m sure it contributed something. It’s time we stopped creating boogeymen and viewed the world in a different, more factual way - maybe then we'll have a better society.

The Danger of Social Media is also its Strength

In the wake of last week’s riots across the UK, David Cameron announced on Thursday that the government would look into banning people from using social media “when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality”. I think this is a ridiculous, ignorant and impossible position to uphold.

What can already by done?

Social media services are provided by private companies, and by signing up to those services you agree to abide by their rules. You do not have the right to freedom of speech on their services. It is very often the case that “private” messages are rarely private – there is money to be made in mining your data and handing it over to advertisers. This kind of policy exists so that administrators can remove hate speech and graphic content.

Looking at the terms of use of Facebook, Twitter and RIM, it is pretty clear that all three services have clauses allowing them to hand information over to the authorities. Facebook asserts:

“We may disclose information pursuant to subpoenas, court orders, or other requests if we have a good faith that the response is required by law.”

Twitter similarly states that:

“We also reserve the right to access, read, preserve and disclose any information as we reasonably believe is necessary to:

(i) Satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request

(v) protect the rights, property or safety of Twitter, its users and the public”

Finally, RIM

“Reserves the right to review materials posted to or sent through a Communication Service and to remove any materials in its sole discretion.”

Furthermore,

“You hereby authorize RIM to co-operate with (i) law enforcement authorities in the investigation of suspected criminal violation”.

All of these services will aid law enforcement authorities with their enquiries – which is in their commercial interests as by doing so they will be seen as responsible organisations who do not want to promote criminal activity.

But, David Cameron was not just talking about having these companies hand over information; he was talking about going further and banning people from these sites altogether. So, let’s take a look at whether this could actually be implemented.

The Implementation

As this was just a general speech, not a lot of details were discussed on how such a policy would be implemented. There are a lot of questions to be answered; these are a few of the big ones that come to my mind:

• Will banning be a proactive or a reactive task?
  • If done proactively – how is this reconciled with the presumption of innocence?
• Will this be a blanket internet ban, or a ban on specific sites?
  • If a blanket ban is in place – how can you guarantee that person cannot access the Internet from another machine?
  • If a social media ban is in place:
    • What is the definition of a social media service?
    • Who will keep track of what social media services exist?
    • How often will this be updated?
  • Who will enforce this ban?
• When will users be allowed back on the Internet/services?
• What is the process of appeals?

This is quite a difficult area to be wrangling policy in, as actually enforcing such a ban would incur a massive and ongoing cost to the state, would require the full co-operation of all parties involved, and verges on the impossible. BBM, for example, is encrypted. To actively police this network would require the ability to decrypt a message and identify the origin, in addition to catching the criminal with enough other evidence to prosecute.

Chris Morris’ excellent film Four Lions shows the main characters communicating through a web service called “Puffin Party”. The reason I bring this to your attention is to state that not all social network activity is carried out via the larger services. Once you start heading into the obscure, you suddenly find yourself dealing with hundreds, if not thousands of places in which communications could be taking place. When Twitter and Facebook were blocked in the Middle East uprisings earlier this year, people turned to dating sites to communicate. People even get around the so-called ‘Great Firewall of China’. These systems are never perfect.

Neutral

During the riots there were various rumours going around on Twitter that riots had started in several cities when they hadn’t. Some police forces were very visual on Twitter to dispel these rumours. There is a risk in such a fast-moving story that these rumours might gain some traction and people would take to the streets, but this is not an exclusive feature of social networks. It is good ol’ scapegoating to say that social media was the cause of the riots. Sure, it might have been one of or the major means by which the message spread, but we must also consider the flipside.

Users of social media regularly use the service to do good – by linking to charities, or important stories, or in context of this article, organise a community cleanup operation (see the #riotcleanup hashtag feed). Tom Watson MP was correct in calling this technology “neutral” as the technology does not encourage this kind of behaviour. Social media is unique in that is has the ability to spread information on a scale never seen before – that is one the whole a good thing that we should not want restricted because of some bad apples.

To me, it seems as if this part of David Cameron’s speech is nothing more than populism, with the intention of gaining small-term favour from the public, and ensuring they remain in control of the media cycle by looking ‘tough’. There is clearly a fine line between the need for the Police to be able to effectively police our society, and acting in an oppressive manner. Whilst this does mean that the Police will have to adapt to new technology, we should always be wary of how much power we hand over. In times of crisis – keep a watchful eye on the government, and think critically about what they want to introduce into law.

Scum

This week, I blogged about how we don’t really know what caused these riots. Is it a response to austerity, unemployment, phone hacking or the stock market crashes? I think now is the time to start asking questions. Why did these riots happen? Why now? Why in this particular manner? If we start to open our eyes and minds to these questions, we stand a chance of improving our society.

Based on the bile spewing forth from certain sections of the Internet, it seems as if this is not happening. Rather, I’ve seen people calling for the user of rubber and real bullets, water cannon, the army, and for more out-there punishments including removing benefits. The Government are warming to these ideas too, with David Cameron expressing that rubber bullets and water cannon may be used, and that they would ignore “phoney calls about human rights.” I despair at how rapidly we call for an escalated violent response from the State in order to quell violence.

Some think that wanting to understand the causes of the violence means you condone the violence, that you are an apologist, or a sympathiser. These are mutually-exclusive states. Of course any sensible person doesn’t condone the violence, and one expresses extreme concern for the people who have been affected directly by the riots, whose houses and businesses have been burnt to the ground. Since the police have been deployed in larger numbers, there have been more arrests and less violence – something which will improve in the coming days. We have a rule of law, and I am a firm believer that those responsible for their own actions should be brought to justice.

I cannot see the logic in calling the rioters scum. It serves no purpose other than demonising, dehumanising and forcing these people further underground. Behind these calls lie ignorant assumptions, such that the rioters are all benefit claimants – something totally unsubstantiated. In my mind, by referring to people as “scum” you are essentially condemning these people, taking their actions out of their own hands and placing them on their ‘class’, if you can call it that.

Put this all together, and you get the potential for a government to enforce further crackdowns on civil liberties, backed by ‘popular opinion’. We can’t let that happen. Whilst the past few nights have been terrifying for all of us, we must remain focused on building a better society for all of us – not just the few. One step towards that is to stop calling these people scum, holding them to account, and ensuring this never happens again.

London’s Burning–Don’t Let Our Rights Burn With It

London seems to be a pretty dangerous place as of late, as I’m sure you’ve heard. It seems rather difficult to identify why people are rioting and looting – even more so for me because I’m out the country with limited internet access. The media are yet again whipped up into a frenzy, all ready with explanations that miraculously fit their ideological narratives.

I don’t think it is as simple as that.

The protests started in Tottenham over the mysterious death of Mark Duggan. That may have been the spark that kicked things off, but I don’t think it is possible to say this public disorder happened because of this reason, and this reason alone. We just don’t know. Whilst we might try and understand these events in a sentence, or a soundbite – what we have is a mix of mob behaviour, anger, opportunism and confusion; mixed together with a media frenzy, competing rationalisations and an overwhelming sense of information overload. With all of that going around - how can me make full sense of what is going on?

The Prime Minister is chairing COBRA tomorrow. Some on Twitter seem adamant the army will have to intervene in the situation. This may be due to the glamorising of the violence by the media, genuine concern, or a lust for dramatic events. Context is difficult to ascertain in 140 characters. Whatever happens, I hope that we remain aware that there is a disparity between rioting and legitimate, legal, protesting. Any sweeping crackdowns must try and remember that, and not restrict further our ability to hold our lawmakers to account. But this - what is happening right now - is not the way to do it. Stay safe.

Death Penalty

Guido Fawkes is using the government’s new, fantastically broken e-petitions site, and their pledge to consider for debate the most popular petitions, to try and re-introduce the death penalty.

I’m sure he doesn’t think this will actually go anywhere, because it won’t. What this will do is help distract from the Tories messing up in almost every single aspect of government, and from the phone hacking scandal. This seems to me like a couple of idiots stealing the limelight during the Silly Season, rather than a “real” issue.

When discussing the death penalty, one of the major points you frequently hear is that “the murderer took away the victim’s human rights!”. You also hear “It will act as a deterrent!”. The problem with both of these arguments is that when you take a good step back from the situation, these arguments aren’t aren’t the most important ones.

The death penalty is wrong, because our judicial system is not perfect. Neither is our politics, and neither is our media (who are frequently found guilty of contempt of court over their demonising of suspects). To be able to condemn somebody to death, with 100% confidence that they were the guilty party, is moronic and impossible. To have such complete confidence that all those cogs are in perfect working order is just plain silly when you think about it. Any crack in this theoretical perfection leaves room for an irreversible false conviction – it has happened before.

Looking at recent events, we know there is a problem with corruption in the police. The phone hacking scandal revealed News International regularly paid the police for information – and both the Met Police Assistant Commissioner and Police Commissioner have resigned. A police officer during the UK Uncut Fortnum and Mason protest tricked the occupiers into leaving and heading into a planned arrest. Since then, 109 of the 145 cases have been dropped. We know about police spies and what they get up to, and then there is also the well-known case of the police killing an innocent man, and using the media to spin the event in their favour.

Whilst I accept that the police are necessary for the protection of the public, you cannot deny that they are not perfect – not by a long shot. Until then, claims about whether the death penalty will work are irrelevant in all but hypothetical terms; and hopefully it will forever stay that way. We are not savages.

Superin-joke-tion

After a Twitter account revealed the (potential) details of a superinjunction, an injunction with the added clause against revealing any details, with a footballer and a Big Brother contestant a frenzy has erupted that I think is dangerous.

Twitter went crazy with people tweeting about the names of the parties involved, and eventually the press joined in as soon as their lawyers thought they could get away with it.

These injunctions exist as a way of enforcing the right to privacy under the Human Rights Act. The concept of the ‘superinjunction’ itself is being made a scapegoat here, with the media salivating at the lucrative details waiting to be published. The issue I take is that is that newspapers are a business – they exist first and foremost for profit. They know what sells, and what sells en masse. Daily Mail hysteria, tits in the Sun – these are what get the punters in. Where a famous person is sticking his dick is of paramount importance – to them.

I feel as if the public has been used. By repeating the details of the injunction, could there be a case for the injunction to come down, as it is potentially not enforceable anymore? MPs looking for political gain by abusing parliamentary privilege to embrace this name-and-shame creates a frenzy, and brings further into question the validity of such an injunction existing in our legal frameworks.

At a time when the News International phone hacking scandal is once again picking up steam, as even more allegations against corruption are being raised, questioning just what interests the media serves (itself) and what the standard of ethics they possess (very poor); there is now the perfect distraction, as Alastair Campbell pointed out.

Superinjunctions have been previously used in the past, notably by Trafigura to cover up environmental abuses. These laws are designed to protect the vulnerable from real danger – not for the rich and powerful to maintain a public image. By breaking the law and revealing the details of these injunctions, I fear we are playing right into their hands by bringing down the tone of the debate. This can’t end well.

A is for Apathy

The noes have it, the noes have it. I don't think anyone expected otherwise.

We've put voting reform on the backburner now, possibly for another generation. All because the disgraceful multi-millionaire-funded No to AV campaign spread nothing but lies and disinformation on a massive scale.

AV is not one person one vote! AV means dead soldiers and babies! Losers win under AV! It's not fair! It's too confusing! No-one likes it! Nick Clegg!

The Yes campaign barely addressed these claims, and instead went on a mindless emotional plea, based on more exaggerations.

Referendums are supposed to be times for debate, where we can actually make progress on a subject, and even improve something. But we're going to get our first impressions on the subject from the official camps, because we're the public, we're not electoral reform experts. This is why I can't blame people for repeating the misleading claims.

To preserve a status quo when faced with a genuinely positive reform - you don't educate (that will detract from your cause) - you lie. This puts the reformers on uneven footing. If they lie, the public perceive the reform as a con. So they have to counter the lies and also educate. In these situations the public becomes overwhelmed and will infer the status quo is a simpler option. That's where their vote will go.

What I feel deeply depressed about is how people still suck this stuff up. Don't get me wrong, this doesn't come as a surprise to me, having seen people truly believe that the evil atheist immigrants are causing monthly wheely bin collections.

I've been through university and always been of a scientific nature. I've always been someone who checks things out. If I'm proved wrong on something, I change my opinion to fit the facts. There's no shame in it.

The difference between voting systems is fact. First past the post falls apart when there are more than two candidates: the winner cannot necessarily say "more people voted for me than didn't." AV addresses this, but again it has it shortcomings, in that it reinforces two-party systems and isn't proportional.

Whether we should switch to AV is opinion. Whether you think we should switch to AV or not does not necessarily have a relation to the facts. So when people say that losers win under AV, it's just an opinion - and a wrong one at that.

This is my problem. Why, as a public, we haven't seen through this, is beyond me. We have an amazing resource in the Internet. It takes 5 minutes to verify claims. We haven't done that.

I'm positive that this referendum is designed to induce apathy in the Yes voters. They weren't funded by multi-millionaire Tories, and they now know that money has again prevailed.

I'm feeling pretty apathetic now. I'm not sure what happens next.

Referendum Mail

The AV Referendum is edging ever closer, and both the Yes and No campaigns are in full swing. While the Yes camp are making some logically-unsound conclusions, the No camp are spreading downright lies, with talk of a potential legal challenge over Conservatives repeating these misleading claims.

One of the methods used by both camps is to release promotional material. I thought in this post I’ll take a look at the claims made by both camps in these pamphlets.

The No Camp

“The cost of AV is £250 million.”

Blatant lie. The most dastardly part of this figure is the claim that £130 million will be spent on voting machines. As confirmed by the Electoral Commission, AV votes will be counted by hand.

“Instead, that money could provide…”

Yes, putting a price on democracy – always a good tactic. As the £250 million claim is a lie, so are these figures.

“The second or third best can win under AV.”

Not true. This claim is based upon differing definitions of “best”. Under FPTP, best is the one who gets the most votes. Under AV, best is defined as the candidate who gets more that 50%*. The second or third best cannot therefore win under AV, unless you want to compare apples to oranges in a deliberately-misleading manner.

The example the No camp use to try and blur the fact they are comparing apples and oranges is to show an election where in the first round, candidate A has the most votes, but due to further rounds of counting, candidate B wins. Of course, in round one, this picture shows that more than 50% oppose candidate A – which is exactly why people want electoral reform.

* Under AV it is possible for a candidate to win, as under AV you can still just tick one box. In the worst-case scenario, where everyone votes in a FPTP-manner under an AV system, AV performs no differently to FPTP.

“Under AV, the votes of the least popular candidate can decide who wins the election.”

A claim from the No camp is that AV is not “one person, one vote”. That’s also a lie, everyone has one vote – that vote being an ordered list of preferences. AV actually reinforces a two-party system as minor parties have little chance of reaching the 50% mark, and so are eliminated. Their votes are then transferred to, typically, major parties. Baroness Warsi claimed on TV that AV would lead to more extremist parties being elected, despite the fact that the BNP and UKIP oppose AV. As AV is still “one person, one vote”, any logical conclusions drawn from AV not being that are incorrect.

“Under our present system, the one who comes first is always the winner.”

This is also true under AV, but again, this is comparing apples to oranges. AV and FPTP have different definitions of ‘coming first’, as explained above. The illustration they use again shows that candidate A was elected with less than 50% of the vote.

“AV is not a fair system. That’s why only three countries in the world use it: Fiji, Australia and Papa New Guinea.”

Sorry to again talk about comparing apples and oranges, but guess what this is? The number of countries who support a system has no correlation with the fairness of a given system. Using this kind of logic implies we should drive on the right-hand side of the road, because most of the world does that.

“The winner should be the one that comes first.”

This is true under AV and FPTP, just they have different definitions of coming first.

The Yes Camp

“The system we use to elect or politicians means most MPs don’t have to.”

“Vote no for more of the same – eg the expenses scandal.”

The Yes camp, rather than throwing a pile of shit, have thrown one single piece – and guess what, that’s wrong too. There is no correlation between safe seats and expense claims. There is no evidence that AV will end safe-seat culture (as I said above, it will reinforce a two-party system at Westminster).

Summary

The No camp leaflet is laughable – it is possible to find lies and misinformation in every sentence. They either seem unable to understand how the Alternative Vote system actually works; or they know fine well, and don’t want you to understand how it works. I’m going with the latter, given that the likes of Cameron, Osborne and Warsi are blindly repeating their claims on TV. The No camp is treating you like you are stupid, and are trying to frighten you with the prospect of change, and dead soldiers and babies.

The Yes camp have put all their eggs in one basket, and that’s wrong too. They are trying to appeal to the public outrage at the expenses scandal. They hope this will stir up a “stick it to your MP” attitude that will cause a yes result. I think it was a dangerous move for them to do – their claims are illogical, and it shows they can play dirty politics too.

I’m Still Voting Yes

I can only see one valid reason to vote no, whilst still wanting vote reform. This is that AV is not a proportional system. I think to vote no for this reason is a tactical mistake. If we wait for the perfect system, whilst opposing any changes which move the country a step closer to that perfect system, it is obvious that this perfect system will not arise.

The wording of the question on the referendum ballot paper is important. It is asking if you want to change the voting system to AV. It is not asking if you want voting reform at all. A no result will be incorrectly interpreted as support for First Past The Post, and justify the following argument whenever voting reform is brought back on the table:

“we tried it, and people said no.”

Now that is a misleading claim, but politicians always use misleading statistics to voice opinions. Why give them another piece of fuel?

I agree that AV is not the perfect system. I’d much prefer a proportional system rather than a system in which swing constituencies decide elections. But I also want this country to show that we are prepared to accept change, if it is change in the right direction.

In this referendum I think we should put aside the dirty politics of the Yes camp, and the even dirtier politics of the No camp. We should use a very rare opportunity to show the government just who’s in charge: us.

As an aside, take a look at the brilliant Fact-check website, who have been running a series of fact-checks on the claims made by both campaigns, the political parties and the media. They’ve went in far more detail than anyone else to my knowledge.

Discredited, on Dubious Grounds

Yesterday I blogged about the #march26 demonstration. In this world, things move quickly. 24 hours on, I feel a follow-up is necessary.

Front Pages

Sunday’s front pages were not all entirely about the demonstration – something you may find shocking until you realise the Z-list celebrity-obsessed Daily Star Sunday and News Of The World were writing about Jordan and her cohort. From the front pages, the narrative being pushed indicates the march is being discredited, overshadowed by the violence. Photographs of riot cops in full gear surrounded by an air full of flare smoke sells. It looks like hell. Today’s front pages show (aside from the Evening Standard scaremongering over the Royal Wedding) the issue was not salient. It’s old news.

The press doesn’t have much time to get their opinions out there. They are competing to get articles written which fit their pre-chosen narratives, squeezed through the editing process and out onto the printing presses in time for the morning rush hour. They don’t have the time for detailed analysis – if the issue is dropped by them, it will die quickly. Of course, this is why I like the blogging and tweeting platforms – the discussion can continue.

Boris Alert!

Boris Johnson wrote in the Telegraph (istyosty link) that:

"The sad thing is that in spite of their crocodile tears, Balls and Miliband will feel quietly satisfied by the disorder – a token, they will tell themselves, of the public feeling that is out there to exploit.”

This is nothing but flamebaiting party politics, the “us and them” logic that so often plagues discourse in the media. His views are warped. The event the Leader of the Opposition attended, like 99.996% of the 500,000 protestors, was entirely peaceful. It was a family event. Boris's comments are part of the discredit narrative – and they didn’t go down too well.

On the actual day of protests, when he didn’t have a Torygraph column to fill, this is all he had to say:

This is the same Boris, of course, who Political Scrapbook asserts is prone to violence himself. The well-publicised antics of the Bullingdon Club, an exclusive club of which Boris, Cameron and Osborne were members of, comes to mind.

In an urgent question session, the Home Secretary Theresa May refused three times to comment on Boris’s article, whilst blaming Yvette Cooper (whom raised the question) for her partisan questioning. Of course, more party politics. She also praised the demonstrations of the Countryside Alliance back in 2004. Of course, those didn’t involve a House of Commons invasion, or riot cops attacking protestors. I’ll come back to this question session in a moment. We need a bit of context first.

UK Uncut

The simultaneous protests caused the media a bit of a headache – trying to establish an accurate version of events in real-time is extremely difficult. Whether deliberately or accidentally, the portrayal of the violence with the peaceful occupation of UK Uncut has gifted them with negative attention from both sides. They are also (incorrectly) being attributed as the violent ones. Anthony Painter on Labour List had the following to say:

“How dare they unilaterally decide to conduct their own protest and divert attention from the main event.”

This view, whilst acknowledging UK Uncut were not responsible for the violence, questions why everybody shouldn’t just shuffle around in a queue. People have a right to protest, and this can be expressed in many ways. UK Uncut’s action was targeted not as a diversionary headline-grabber, but as part of a wider-scale response to the government’s claim that there is no alternative to their ideological cuts.

Likewise, Charlie Beckett condemns the timing of UK Uncut’s actions, which may be valid, although the BBC did possess leaflets regarding the situation hours before it happened. They had a chance to get their story straight. Joe Cox argues that UK Uncut partake in frequent occupations – to cherry-pick a particular event without the context of the others is misleading.

The police announced that 201 arrests were made. 145 of these arrests were on non-violent UK Uncut occupiers – 138 of which were charged with aggravated trespass. Shocking footage released by the Guardian shows that UK Uncut’s claim that occupiers were tricked into leaving with promises of not being arrested stand up to what happened in reality. The police have some serious questions to answer.

Eyewitness Reports

Eyewitness reports have been pouring in since the demonstration began. Laurie Penny’s New Statesman post was one of the more popular ones, however has been the source of both valid and unnecessary criticism (check out the comments on her article). Adam Ramsay described his arrest, and Dominic Campbell’s account goes into detail about the events at Trafalgar Square, where Black Bloc protestors became intermingled with other ongoing protests; mentioning the disproportionate police behaviour.

Eyewitness accounts, and I don’t mean to discredit them here, can be subject to hyperbole. They can even claim to see things that didn’t happen, or not see things that did. However, they are useful to get an on-the-ground view of things, and provide some more context for what I want to actually talk about.

More Powers

In the urgent question session, Theresa May said that she is prepared to look at granting more powers to the police. These powers seem to indicate the pre-emptive banning of people from protests, and the power to remove face masks. It will be interesting to see what Fitwatch makes of these powers. It will be additionally interesting to see how these powers stand up to the presumption of innocence and the right to protest. Comparing these powers to laws regarding football hooligans is like comparing apples to oranges: there’s a difference between banning people from football matches and removing their right to protest. In my mind this is reminiscent of sweeping legislation introduced by the Blair Government, such as the Serious And Organised Crime And Police Act 2005, which helped further erode our civil liberties and restricted the conditions upon which we exercise our right to protest. This coming from a Tory-led government who campaigned against Labour’s legacy of civil liberty abuse, and who have already taken positive steps into removing controversial databases (the ID card database). This is an intriguing test for the government.

Conclusion

It’s been a difficult three days to try and consume and analyse the amount of information that’s been streaming onto the internet, in a very fast moving story. I am hoping that a full debate is heard within the House of Commons with a full, independent report relating to the police tactics being on the table. The Met have questions to answer, which, when combined with their seemingly-dubious involvement News of the World phone hacking scandal, brings their credibility into question.

Whilst the violence on the day has been largely condemned and in the short term may allow the Tories breathing space to go on the offensive again, I believe that the anti-cuts message will percolate through once the cuts start to really kick in. Only time will tell – it’s just a shame we have a government willing to gamble with the lives of millions to find out whether they have the right medicine.

The Narrative Prevails?

Yesterday saw the March 26 demonstrations, a half-a-million strong anti-cuts march across London. The route, organised by the TUC in conjunction with the Met Police, was stuck to by the vast majority of people. It was peaceful, successful, and very well policed.

These protests were advertised as a family-friendly event, and that it was. The police upped their game, allowing Liberty (the legal observers for this event) into their control rooms. The TUC had employed stewards to co-operate with and assist the police. All fine, and commendable behaviour.

The Plot Thickens

Now famously, the BBC cut away from Ed Miliband’s speech to show a group (whom had diverted from the main protest group) deploying hit and run tactics, smashing windows of banks and the Ritz hotel. Sky News did a similar tactic, and the #shameOnBBC and #shameOnSky hashtags quickly did the rounds on Twitter. The nature of 24-hour news means such action was inevitable. Editors at the BBC (and Sky, in theory) must balance the need for a fair, representative coverage events with being the first to break the story. In this case, I think the BBC made an incorrect decision – and they knew it. The BBC were largely fair and representative outside of these ‘breaking news’ events, continually stressing that the ‘Black Bloc’ protestors were an extremely small minority, however, which is worth pointing out here.

When the Black Bloc broke off, suddenly the news coverage was covering two events. This later again became confused with a third simultaneous protest – that of UK Uncut’s occupations of tax-avoiding companies, including a secret occupation. At the speed these events were unfolding, it became difficult for the media to portray and understand what exactly was going on. UK Uncut’s secret occupation turned out to be at Fortnum and Mason. The store was inundated with occupiers. Video footage from the event showed that, from the inside, the occupation was largely peaceful (although no doubt extremely stressful and scary for the shoppers caught in the middle).

In came the riot cops. The entrance was blocked, with many of the UK Uncut activists being photographed, cuffed and arrested. UK Uncut is a peaceful, although sporadic and chaotic movement – a fact many on Twitter defended. Look at previous footage – they don’t destroy, they occupy and educate.

The narrative was blurred even further. The Black Bloc became confused with the UK Uncut activists at Fortnum and Mason, and additionally with the large rave going on at Trafalgar Square, organised as a 24-hour protest by the Education Activist Network. The police made 201 arrests (141 of which were at Fortnum and Masons), although the crowds at Trafalgar Square weren’t cleared until 2:45am.

Protestors I knew managed to break the police lines and escape via Charing Cross station. Others weren’t so lucky and were kept within the containment zone. The police were very often surrounded, and attacked. They also did their fair share of fighting too. Footage shows questionable force used for an arrest that I can’t seem to justify from the context of the video. Policing an operation of such a scale, with such variance is inevitably going to be hard work.

2 Cents

In my (outsider) view, the police didn’t do enough to remove the Black Bloc threat early on. Aerial photographs from the rolling news cameras showed the police attempting action, and retreating. The Black Bloc movement was highly mobile, violent and evidently difficult to police. I have no doubts in my mind their actions were deliberate to avoid being caught in a kettle. Whilst I condemn their actions, it is not them, nor the police who are the real enemies. There was violence on both sides, a riot cop punched a woman in the face live on BBC News. The Police would do well to remember they work for the people, something demonstrated in Wisconsin, where the police joined the protest. Questions will be raised about the kettling tactic again. It does not work.

That said, I also disagree with the new style of protesting brought in by the Blair Government – that of shuffling down a pre-arranged route in an orderly queue. That’s why there were simultaneous protests, each in solidarity over the government’s cuts. The protestors have a right to protest. With hindsight, it is clear that smashed windows and graffiti mean nothing to heavily-insured multinational conglomerations – although the images last. These images will (but shouldn’t) detract from the TUC’s message. They do not detract from the sheer anger people from all demographics are expressing towards the Tory’s purely ideological cuts.

Of course, the course of events has put the alternative message back on the defensive. Yesterday, the Tories could only muster Francis Maude and Matthew Sinclair to defend the establishment on BBC News. Francis Maude warned we should be wary of placing the blame for the deficit on one person, whilst in the same sentence blaming it on Gordon Brown. Am I back in May 2010?! Matthew Sinclair, head of the TaxPayer’s Alliance (a supposedly neutral pressure group, but in reality a group of out-of-touch Tory rent-a-quotes) belittled the protest, calling it a folly and out of touch with the vast majority of the public.

The strategy undertaken by the Tories is to claim there is no alternative to their cuts. Yesterday, this argument was shattered. Whilst political parties and unions are still devising their concrete alternatives, hundreds of thousands showed that there is another way. Whilst initial news reports indicate the Government don’t intend to change their course of action, I believe that change is in the air. As the new tax year starts and the brunt of the cuts begins to bite, more and more people will lose their jobs. More and more will become poorer, watching big businesses get richer as starving the beast reduces their taxes. This anger will surely be felt at the ballot box, but public opinion goes further than that. The Government will no doubt be aware of a growing movement against them. They’re only adding fuel to the fire.

For those who say protest doesn’t work, I direct you to the civil rights movement, and to the revolutions in the Middle East. To those who say protest doesn’t work in this country, I direct you to the poll tax riots, to the Suffragettes. The 26th of March march was bigger than the poll tax riots. Protesting is in our nature.

AV Referendum: Yes or No, But Don’t Abstain!

The Alternate Vote system is currently used by Scottish and Northern Ireland by-elections, although you may be more accustomed to its workings in the Labour leadership contest. Londoners use an offspring of the AV (Instant Runoff) system called the Supplementary Vote to elect the Mayor of London. On May 5th, a referendum will be held, asking the following question:

“At present, the UK uses the ‘first past the post’ system to elect MPs to the House of Commons. Should the “alternative vote” system be used instead?”

The campaigns have kicked off, with the polls showing that it’s still pretty neck and neck.

I’m Voting Yes

Looking at the election data from the 2010 General Election, notice the following:

• Conservatives, 36%, 307 seats won.
• Labour, 29%, 258 seats won.
• Liberal Democrats, 23%, 57 seats won.

The first thing I notice is that the difference between 23% and 29% is 201 seats. The Conservatives have the major power advantage in the Coalition Government, outranking Lib Dems by over 5:1. It is for this reason that Labour have recently been calling the government Tory-led. To look at why this is happening, it is important to understand that Labour has traditionally held strong vote shares in urban constituencies; the opposite being true for the Conservatives. Looking at the proportional map on the BBC site I linked to above highlights this for the 2010 data. The Lib Dem support is more spread out, meaning that it translates less of its vote share into seats. This is why I believe that a proportional system is needed.

But wait, AV isn’t PR! You’re right - it’s not. The No2AV campaign, when they’re not releasing misleading statistics and publishing offensive and plain incorrect adverts, make the point that people are only using this referendum as a springboard to change the voting system to some Proportional Representation system (there are many). I think that is quite a reasonable statement actually.

The process of evolution involves making small, incremental changes, which over a longer period time constitute a larger-scale change. The phrase “Rome was not built in a day” comes to mind. The AV voting system is certainly not proportional, but it means that in any constituency the person elected can command an actual majority (i.e over 50%).

Under First Past The Post, the majority wins. Consider the Cardiff North constituency, which in the 2010 election voted as follows:

• Conservative – 37.5%
• Labour – 37.1%
• Liberal Democrat – 18.3%
• Others – 7.1%

The Conservatives won with a majority of 0.4%. In FPTP that’s a seat to the Tories, even though 62.5% of the constituency did not vote for Jonathan Evans. It’s hard to predict what the results would have been under any other voting system (and be dubious of anyone who tries!), but regardless, it is clear that FPTP is not giving us “strong, stable governments”, but the illusion of such.

That is why I will be voting yes – sure, it’s not the voting system I want, but it’s miles better than what we’ve got.

The Real Message: Get Out and Vote!

Regardless of your voting intentions, whether you agree with me, or David Allen Green’s New Statesman post on why he’s voting no; please vote. Don’t abstain. National-level referendums are rare, and they’re a chance for your own voice to be heard in Parliament, regardless of which party ‘represents’ your constituency. Don’t just join the #mehtoAV crowd, please use this opportunity. This referendum will affect the future of our Parliament. If we all abstained then we’d never get a referendum again (that’ll piss of the right-wingers who want a referendum on Europe!).

And hey, if Yes wins, you can still vote FPTP style under AV .

Not Giving Them Money

New Statesman blogger Steven Baxter, or as he’s also known, Anton Vowl, recently published a post called “Don’t Click on the Daily Mail!”. The crux of the argument is that the Daily Mail (and they are by no means alone in this) encourage millions of webpage views using a utility-belt of tactics, and we should avoid them at all cost. Some of these tactics are:

• Flamebaitery – Offensive columnists such as Richard Littlejohn, Melanie Phillips and Jan Moir attack homosexuals for being in public, dead and homosexual. Outrage drives page views.
  
• Lots of pictures – Oh my this is offensive! Let’s post lots of pictures to show you how offensive this is from every angle! Oh yeah, the offensive thing might be underage, too. Or it might be an upskirt shot that was kicking about on our image database.
  
• Celebrity Drivel – Whether they dye their hair, or you have an image of a thin woman who you want to call fat – all of it builds up into traffic-heavy non-stories.
  
• Insult Muslims – Unfortunately, these stories are far too common, far too contrived and far too easily believed by bigots. Idiots shout the loudest, and it all contributes to their traffic.
  
• Insult Facebook – At least 10% of the Mail’s traffic comes from Facebook. It is a massive revenue stream, but it’s something their older readership won’t necessarily use or understand, so it makes perfect sense to say it gives you cancer (like a lot of things, apparently). That’s one way to get a news article to virally spread across a social network!

I hate to say it, but they know what they’re doing and it’s paying for them big-style. But can we fight back? I’d like to summarise some of the tools out there that you can employ to starve their revenue streams, have a laugh at them, and avoid them altogether.

Journalism Warning Labels

Tom Scott created a set of warning labels that can be printed and stuck onto newspapers. The Newscrud tool lets you add these to websites! You can even attach a rebuking blog post or information source, which is awesome. This then gives you a newscrud link which you can send to peers, rather than the plain old Daily Mail link. However, I think this still links to the Daily Mail within an iframe, but there’s a way around that too.

Istyotsy

Istyotsy lets you view the Daily Mail, Daily Express etc by proxy. Istyotsy stores a copy (a cache) of their articles on their own servers, and provide an istyotsy web link you can use. When this link is accessed, the cached version of the article is displayed, rather than going off to the original source every time. This reduces the number of page views to one! Huzzah!

When an istyotsy link is combined with newscrud link (give the istyotsy link to newscrud; the other way around won’t work) – you attack the weak point for massive damage.

Furthermore, Istyotsy strips adverts, doesn’t perform tracking, doesn’t index to search engines like Google and Bing; so cuts off as many page view streams as possible.

AdBlock and Tracking Cookies

The AdBlock extension for Firefox and Chrome is amazing. It pre-filters web pages to reduce the amount of adverts you see online. The built-in filters work well and are regularly updated. You can create custom filters, and even make exceptions. It’s worth getting for general internet browsing.

Advert revenue can be generated in several ways:

• Revenue is paid on a per-click basis.
  
• Revenue is paid per page view.
  
• Both of the above.

AdBlock reliably denies click revenue, but won’t stop page revenue unless the adverts perform some clever trickery to check if they’re not being displayed; which is why I’ve previously suggested istyotsy .

Next up are tracking cookies. Cookies are essentially text files which store information that websites can use. Cookies are the basis of how your shopping basket is stored, or how you can automatically login to websites. They’re not evil, but can be exploited to perform tracking of your web browsing sessions. Tracking isn’t always malicious either, a website may want to track which products you’re viewing to suggest recommendations. Tracking cookies can also go and look across web sites, or even across multiple uses of your web browser. Some search engines do this to improve their search listings.

Your web browser’s options has cookie-related preferences so you can tweak how cookies are handled. If you have the option to clear all data when you close your web browser, do it. You can turn off cookies altogether, but it becomes annoying as you then have to log in to every website manually. It’s a trade-off that can take a bit of tweaking to get right, or you can get extensions to help you .

Google has released advertising opt-out cookie extensions (here and here), and the Disconnect extension for Chrome automatically blocks the big players. This can go a long way to stop websites gaining information from you which can be used to their advantage.

When In Doubt, Laugh

Comedian Chris Coltrane launched the Polljack twitter account, which suggested to its legion of followers various Daily Mail polls to hijack, for the sheer fun of it. This often produced hillarious consequences; but be warned, the Polljack account was retired after Chris realised this was driving ad revenue to them.

Abstinence

For times when someone gives you a plain old Daily Mail link, you have the choice to click or not click. I always advise not clicking, but what if you do? Don’t worry, I have your back.

Chrome users can get the Istyotsy Chrome extension, which automatically displays the article through their proxy. Handy.

Firefox users can get the Tea and Kittens extension, which automatically redirects you to teaandkittens.co.uk if you try and visit the Daily Mail or Daily Express. I hope more newspapers are added soon!

Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far, I hereby declare you King / Queen / Non-Gender-Aligned Monarch of the Internet. You can avoid giving as much money to unregulated, racist, homophobic, ableist, sexist, ill-informed, manipulative scumbags as much as possible, like a boss.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this (rather long) post as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it – even with the immense chest pains I’m having right now. I better see to that.

Star Wars is a Great Bullshit Detector

Star Wars is such a fascinating franchise. Whored to death of course. But what really intrigues me about these movies is that the context of the story is entirely dependent upon whether you watch it in its broadcast order (4-6, 1-3), or its intended order (1-6).

Episodes Four to Six

Watching the original run, we jump into a fully-fledged universe (of which I am always a fan of). The backstory is revealed eventually, but the key is that the mystery is not shown. It is up to the viewer to form this. The effect is great, you get the story, you get the inspiration for the viewers to imagine, and you get a franchise. Ker-ching.

Episodes One to Three

Let us ignore the significant drop in quality of the movies. What I find interesting about these movies (apart from the fact that filling in the backstory removed the inspiration for imagination in the audience – no wonder people got angry!) is that when you look at the overall narrative, it completely changes from a story about Luke to a story about Anakin – it has always been about Anakin.

We’ve seen the same context-switching structure in Lost – we initially think the story is about the struggles of the survivors of Flight 815. We later find out that the story is actually about the war between Jacob and his brother, with the survivors being the last battle.

The Bullshit Detector

We are constantly spoon-fed series of events which are revealed out of full context, so that they can fit a convenient period of time in a broadcast, a number of lines in a newspaper, or an established narrative. Without the full context, we must be aware that our imaginations will fill in the gaps; we will misinterpret.

Take the ‘political correctness gone mad’ narrative, which over time has carefully been interwoven with the ‘health and safety gone mad’ narrative. A lot of the stories reported in the press – such as councils banning the display of England flags on taxis – are reported and then virally spread. The councillors are not being racist, or denying patriotism. They are acknowledging that a taxi is a place of work, and more specifically a service. Health and Safety law applies. If you were to fly a German flag, you may be set upon by a drunk in a taxi rank, especially if you were flying that flag on the night England lost to Germany. Oh, injured at work? In goes a claim against the employer’s insurance – you could sue someone for something you caused, because they failed to prevent it.

The decision is therefore preventative, not just for the sake of health and safety, but for the sake of reducing insurance claims (which increase as a result of successful claims), the time spent in court and the cost to the public.

The issue of the rules and regulations regarding advertisements on taxis also arises. Again, the flag flying is a potential breach of those rules and so a preventative decision is taken to reduce the cost if the advertisers complain.

This suddenly changes the entire context of the story, and ridicules hooligan organisations who report such stories as more evidence of the Islamification of Britain.

Next time you’re being fed a narrative, such as Winterval, remember Star Wars.

Questions Raised About the Browne Report

The Browne Report, the framework responsible for the new tuition legislation being rushed through Parliament, has been brought into question.

Read it in full.

The main claim is that most of the research money was spent on one opinion poll. The comments on the article seem to describe the situation brilliantly.

Of course, not all of the Browne Report is being implemented. Universities can charge up to triple the current rate rather than unlimited (oh thank you, kind Government!). However, it is pretty obvious this has not been thought through, both by those involved in the creation of the report and by the MPs who decided to vote ‘yes’.

Abstain

You can read the full debate online. The results from the first House of Commons Vote on these proposals are as follows:

Yes: 323 No: 302

The results show that 6 Conservative MPs and 21 Liberal Democrat MPs rebelled, whilst 2 Conservatives and 8 Lib Dems abstained. This resulted in a cut of the government’s majority to 21, although it is hardly going to stay at that level.

Given the situation – how unpopular this, how biased the report is, the cries for more evidence – the option to abstain is not a get-out-of-jail card for any MP who tries to pull that trick. When you’re not sure of something, don’t walk out of the vote, vote no. It really is that clear. I suspect the whips were encouraging the indecisive to abstain rather than vote no (as is the LibDem’s prerogative in this particular vote).

More Protests

All this whilst outside there was widespread anger. The protests had spilled onto Parliament Square (although you couldn’t hear anything from inside Parliament), there were outbreaks of violence and the Camilla got poked with a stick. Read Laurie Penny’s account of her time in the Parliament Square kettle, if you can.

Of course, the media turned this into widespread OMGZ, forgetting some of the earlier names they had called Camilla. This further detracted from what was again a largely peaceful, nationwide protest. Although once again I believe the real anger that is on show at the heart of these protests is something the media will not be able to percolate. Having the complete definition of privilege drive through the middle of a protest against ideological cuts manifested that anger in a way that will hit home for many people.

Later that night, the police decided to employ their good old kettling technique again. This time on Westminster Bridge. Look at that picture. Clearly this is not an appropriate amount of space to squeeze that many people into, yet for the police this is fine. This caused a senior doctor to come out and say this could have caused some serious damage on a Hillsborough scale. If somebody had fallen off that bridge…

End Result

The end result is the same old. We were promised this and that by this party and that party. New new new, get rid of the old. Change not indecision. Blah blah blah. Broken promises and everything stays the same. Of course the government weren’t going to be defeated on this one, but a widespread, nationwide campaign of disruption helped cut the government’s majority and stirred up memories of large-scale demonstrations from the last time the Tories were in power.

The media tried to dismantle this, they have too much to lose going against the government now, and they couldn’t break the protestors. The police tried to dismantle this, and they couldn’t break the protestors – they kept coming back.

I’m a firm believer in gradients of change. These plans aren’t the end of the world, nor are they the worst possible situation. However they are the start of something horrible, and once that snowball has been pushed down the hill… well, let’s just say that’s how the apparent need for cuts myth percolated into everybody’s minds. These campaigns, which will no doubt be joined by teachers, doctors and nurses, and even police officers in months to come as cuts deepen, all form part of an anti-cut movement which is going to define a generation.

Remember Remember

… The 23rd of April 2010.

David Cameron went on record:

"We have absolutely no plans to raise VAT. Our first budget is all about recognising we need to get spending under control rather than putting up tax."

The Conservatives were saying that a VAT rise is an unacceptable tax on the poor *.

Previously they had published the following on their website:

During the election, remember the Lib Dems running this poster?

Now

Today, the VAT has risen to 20% under a Coalition government of Conservative and Lib Dem MPs. Funny that.

Footnotes

* Be slightly wary of the figures, they're from the Tax Payer's Alliance, who are known to do a good old bit of twisting. This doesn't distract from the fact that Conservative Home were talking about a VAT rise hitting the poorest hardest.

Merry Fucking Winterval

Although, seeing as this post is rather late into the night, I hope you’ve had a merry implausible birth day. I hope that you’ve got sufficiently pissed, enjoyed Doctor Who, laughed at the ridiculousness of the Queen’s speech this year, and stuffed yourself so full that tomorrow’s toilet session is going to hurt.
More importantly, I hope that you have enjoyed your time with your family. That’s all I can really say about that, I hope you make up the rest.
My issue with Christmas is twofold. First and foremost, it can be accurately be summed up by the following image:

(Yes, there is some degree of lulz to that statement).
Secondly, it is the way the press report that Christmas is being diminished by a holiday, to be banned by people who don’t have the authority to ‘ban’ anything, all in favour of tolerating other people’s cultures. The main manifestation of this is the Winterval myth.

Winterval

The Winterval myth is something that has been annoying Birmingham City Council workers ever since its conception: a month long celebration to promote a wide variety of events, all with the idea to create one large, generic campaign. This was dubbed Winterval. It happened in 1998.
I want to get this out in the open now. Winterval did not replace Christmas. Primly Stable has evidence of this. See how large ‘Christmas’ appears on that brochure, with respect to the positioning and the size of the Winterval logo?
This hasn’t stopped politicians, journalists, far-right groups of football hooligans and even the Fucking Pope from turning this into an outright attack on Christianity itself. Once this ball is rolling, references can be made to other stories (“it’s like WInterval all over again!”), casually building up into a loony left politically-correct muslim-friendly health and safety-mad Christmas-hating wheely-bin stealing bunch of council workers who give everyone benefits.
It’s truly shocking how these things snowball.

There Is Another Way

So, you have a choice. You can take the red pill, and follow DiCaprio:

To begin the fight against this bullshit that is blighting our society, I highly recommend reading Kevin Arscott’s (Angry Mob) Winterval essay in its entirety.
As well as Angry Mob and Primly Stable, I’d also recommend following these blogs on a regular basis:

• Anton Vowl’s Enemies of Reason
  
• Tabloid Watch
  
• Minority Thought
  
• Five Chinese Crackers
  
• Wrestling Emily Dickinson
  
• Daily Mail Watch
  
• Express Watch
  
• The Sun - Tabloid Lies

Merry fucking Winterval!

The BBC Fucked This One Up

Jody McIntyre

Jody McIntyre is a 20 year-old man who has cerebral palsy and has to use a wheelchair. He attended the most recent student protests with his brother, who was pushing his wheelchair. The Police, in any situation, are supposed to use force which is proportional in response. Take a look at how the police dealt with McIntyre, and see if you think the response is proportional:

(This is an edited version which has been lightened for clarity)

According to McIntyre, this was his second encounter with the police, with the office from the first encounter running over to join in with the events in the video above.
McIntyre was ‘interviewed’ on BBC News, which I’d advise you watch in full:

BBC Interview

McIntyre handled himself well with a hostile interviewer, he got his point across and made Ben Brown seem like a ranting fingers-in-ears type of guy.
Ben Brown’s ‘argument’ revolves around two main points:

• You said you were a revolutionary.
  
• You must have given the police some valid reason for them to hit you, pull you out your wheelchair and drag you across the street.

I’d like to quickly address both of those points individually.

Revolutionary

So McIntyre said he was a “revolutionary” on a website. This is irrelevant to the events. Sure, it might make him on some form of a wanted list, but the police have other ways to remove these people. Being a revolutionary does not necessarily correlate to violence at a demonstration.

It Must Have Been You

Brown tries to force some form of confession out of McIntyre, using some form of backward logic in which McIntyre must have been the one to blame. The video makes it unclear what happens, as the camera turns to see another officer run towards McIntyre. McIntyre responds with an interesting response – how can a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy pose a threat to a group of armed officers? Clearly the proportional response is to drag him out of his wheelchair and across a street.

Littlejohn Alert!

<I know Littlejohn doesn’t work for the BBC; thankfully>

I found this little gem from Twitter user @clubofonedotcom. Richard Littlejohn, a proven compulsive liar, decided to air his take on the matter. The image is too big to display here, so I have directly linked and will quote below.

“Jody McIntyre is like Andy from Little Britain.”

Why? Because he’s in a wheelchair and has cerebral palsy? Are we sinking that low now? Oh, I forgot, it’s Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail.

“But if he’s looking for sympathy, he’s come to the wrong place.”

He hasn’t went anywhere, Littlejohn decided to hitherto condone police brutality by saying he should have been kept out of sight. In a kettle, there’s nowhere to go. We all know that Littlejohn is a lying reactionary cloaca, however he is just a puppet in a larger media campaign to belittle the efforts of the student cause.

EDIT: Thanks to @uponnothing (of Angry Mob fame), I've found the cartoon the Daily Mail associated with this Littlejohn bile. We can now safely establish that the Daily Mail institutionally does not like disabled people. I would say shame on them, but they won't give a shit. Neither will the PCC, although be my guest if you'd like to join in with the complaints.

How To Properly Report This

The Guardian does a better job, showing a longer video. However they are careful to protect their backs by saying the video does not show the moment McIntyre leaves his wheelchair (technically right, you do see the police drag him to the ground and then across the street, however).

I’m not sure what the correct way to report this would actually be. I can definitely say the way the BBC and the Mail have reported this is out and out wrong. McIntyre is speaking to a lawyer regarding making a formal complaint, and apparently has the officer’s ID numbers, so hopefully when this is settled (and if the police don’t decide to just let their officers off as with happened with Ian Tomlinson) we’ll see some better reporting.

In Other News

Another protester, Alfie Meadows, underwent brain surgery after protesting. His family claim this is due to a truncheon attack, and the Guardian are reporting the Police tried to move Meadows to another hospital, despite him needing urgent brain surgery.

Conclusion

It is hard to form any form of conclusion at the time of writing. Investigations are pending, after all. However some aspects of the media are clearly interested in reducing the student shouts to whispers and trying to justify allegations of police brutality. This should be totally condemned.

Update 27/5/2011

It turns out that the complaint against the police made by Jody McIntyre was rejected, and that an officer dragging him out of his wheelchair was lawful based on a perceived risk. Make of that what you will.

Those Bloody Students!

For the third time this month, the students of the country took to the streets to protest the educational 'reforms' proposed by the Coalition Government. Students are largely upset at the prospect of paying up to £9,000 per year in tuition fees as a response to the The Browne Report. The typical ill-informed, knee-jerk response goes along the lines of:

"I pay my bloody taxes for these bloody students to sit on their arses doing nothing at second-class universities, only for them to end up scanning my shopping!"

There's more to it than that. A lot more. This post will only attempt to scratch the surface on the web of lies and spin which have resulted in the protests.

First, the Benefits

I should point out some of the positives that the report brings to the table, for there are two sides to every story, and most of the time both bring worthwhile additions:

• The lowest bracket of repayment is suggested to be raised from £15,000 to £21,000. 89.1% of graduates currently earn over £22,000, according to Prospects.
• Part-time students will get extra support. This is something long overdue, and is especially beneficial to working, single-mother students whom have it hard enough already.
• The tiered system can potentially go a long way into making sure people contribute what they are supposed to.
• No up-front payments have been suggested. If implemented this would massively decrease the number of poorer students who could afford to attend university (although I still remain confident the Government will say they cannot afford to loan the full amount in an attempt to reduce their long-term shortfall).

Criticisms of the Browne Report

In a letter to the Telegraph, senior academics from across the country criticised the Browne Report and proposed an alternate method which has been well received and suggested elsewhere: a Public Commission. They argue the Browne Report is rushed, will be likewise rushed into Parliament, and poorly-implemented at that. Concerns of the Higher Education Policy Institute, that the long-term costs of this are ignored (we'll be waiting for a return on each now-higher student loan for a longer period of time) are echoed. The idea that the market can dictate courses through a supply and demand model is challenged. The The Guardian has concerns this will hit universities hard. The Welsh Assembly is willing to absorb some of the price rises to tuition fees.

Fib Dems

The Liberal Democrats, despite their pre-election pledges, have seemingly abandoned their principles in the presence of power. They have faced a lot of criticism during the protests, especially Nick Clegg. So much in fact they are on a PR (read "damage limitation") campaign to say that they are considering making sure their pledges to oppose increases in tuition fees are met by abstaining from voting. That act is not congruent to the promise, and will not go down will amongst the public. Interestingly, if our Deputy PM and Business Secretary (whom is also the Secretary of State responsible for universities) abstain, what does that say about a government whose upper echelons can’t even agree? No confidence comes to mind.

The Kyriarchy

The idea that devastating austerity measures are justified by the belief that the private sector will pick up the debris from a systematic mass public sector redundancy program, in order to recover from a recession caused by risk-taking bankers (who knew the Government would carry the burden of their risks and bail them out, of course); whom themselves operate as if it’s business as usual – has been widely rejected.

At a time like this, where we should be investing to stimulate growth rather than disproportionately hitting the poorest with ideologically-driven cuts, we should also be investing in education. Education has the ability to break all boundaries. The Browne Report is a miscalculated step to reducing government spend in the short-term, whilst ignoring the cost to the funds in the long-term; representing a major shift on a gradient towards America’s education model, where the kyriarchy keeps itself afloat at a disregard to the rest of society.

Where can this money come from? The tax avoiders, of course! Reports are circulating that Sir Philip Green, the boss of Topshop, paid his wife in Monaco a dividend of over £1 billion in order to avoid a massive tax. Protesters have voiced concern about this by demonstrating outside the Oxford Street Topshop branch. UKUncut claim this tax avoidance alone could pay for 32,000 students at £9,000 per year. Vodafone, whose antics in the tax field were first exposed by Private Eye, have been the victims of a series of protests across the country. Vodafone’s response was to close their shops, deny they are not tax dodgers (their £6 billion bill was 'settled' by agreeing to pay 1/6^th of that). Channel 4 has suggested that Osborne, our chancellor, has questions to answer about his tax status.

That money could be used towards education. Or allow the kyriarchy to continue its privileged dominance over society. We're all in this together.

Show Your Support!

Support is coming in from all sides. Paul O’Grady and even Noam Chomsky have come out in support of the protests and occupations respectively.

Support the protesters! Support the occupations! Ignore the media lies about them being thugs, these are our future doctors and lawyers fighting for what matters for society. The Tories cheer cuts, the students hold lectures.

Coming Soon

How a supposedly democratic and free country responds to peaceful protests.