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.

Rapture

Ooh, look, another guy screaming “the end of the world is nigh!” and gaining worldwide media attention. Well, as I write this it is currently half-ten in the pm in the UK. So that means Australia and Japan are already well into May 22nd and guess what? No Rapture.

I personally think the concept of The Rapture is entirely disgusting and in fact unchristian. How can floating into the sky and watching everyone who doesn’t follow the same religion burn fit with love thy neighbour? It demonstrates how some are compelled to think terrible things about others; just because of what they believe in.

This end of the world stunt will be laughed off in the media for the next few days. It’s already started:

Doomsday-declarers will simply move on to the next prophesised judgement day, and never speak of this again. But if we look beyond the surface of this stunt, it gets truly depressing. Like always, these come with a human cost.

I don’t blame people for believing this stuff. That’s what faith is about, isn’t it? Why not be on winning side of Pascal’s Wager, just in case? It doesn’t make any sense, but we have stupid monkey brains whose prime instinct is for survival. People who believe this aren’t dumb – they’re misled.

Religion means something very personal to people, for whatever reason that may be. This belief is used and abused by people around the world to push their own self-interests into the public eye. The true meaning of what a religion stands for is distorted beyond belief, even so that it is contradictory to the fundamental pillars of that religion. But at what cost? There’s always a human cost. People go broke, people get ill, family connections are shattered beyond repair. People die. We’ll do good to remember that.

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.