lord of the blog

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Friday, September 03, 2004

Responses

Thanks for the various responses. Alas, poor Mr/s anonymous still fears the light of day! I’m not sure if it’s lack of confidence or lack of commitment but I hope I never have to hide behind anonymity on issues of this type.

On the question of mobile phone masts I would worry much more about holding mobiles to your ear then I would worry about masts. As we live longer and healthier lives then ever it might be wise to keep these matters in proportion. I think you are more likely to die of worry then you are from mobiles and if I’m wrong I’ll be dead soon!

Thanks to Iain Muir about Acton High. It did do well but did you see the school in East London where they offered all pupils who got more then 5 GCSE’s at A to C level £200? The success rate went up by 50%! Now there’s a middle class value for you!

Your desire to use local history for names Iain is something I agree with and as a politician I plead never name a block of flats after me! I would accept a tree!

Peter Kenyon asks if it brings the Labour Party into disrepute to put a conventional branch resolution on the web. Of course not! Why do you even ask?

On Sudan I don’t think I can say much more without repeating myself. Do note Jack Straws speech yesterday. It dealt with the UN and the need to find ways of intervening earlier with failed and failing states. That is my agenda.

Ingrid and Dan make some good points although I would say to Dan that although Iraq has damaged our credibility it is a mistake to think that Arab and particularly African states can’t see the positive side of British policy and attitudes. Africa gets more help on Aids from the UK and US then any other states. The organisation of African States got a lot of assistance from the UK to deploy the monitoring troops in Darfur. Many Africans and Arabs will praise Britain but that doesn't mean they agree with everything we do. They know that many of their problems are home grown.

It is also worth remembering the underlying factors. Mozambique and Angola joined the Commonwealth with full British support because they appreciated the British and Commonwealth role. And as I’ve pointed out before a significant number of Arab states accepted the deployment of British military in their countries.

This is not because they want Western intervention but because they know they have a problem and they were scared witless by Saddam Hussein. Why else would Syria have allowed us to fly RAF aircraft across their territory in the run up to the conflict?

The world is a bit of a mess and there are no simple answers but lots of contradictions.

Clive, I think that if the Arab states that allowed (were pressured into?) British deployment on their soil because Saddam frightened them, they are probably even more scared by the creation of a failed state on their doorstep, a state that has transformed into a breeding ground for a multitude of fanatic groups that did not exist before the Iraq War. This mess - a major new source of geopolitical instability - was created on the premise that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had to be dismantled for future regional and global security. But the WMDs don't exist.

This is why the Arab world in particular will find it hard to trust the West - particularly the US and the UK - ever again. The British government has lost much of the leverage it had to intervene when it really did matter - ie Darfur.

Russia, on the other hand, still maintains its credibility in the developing world. Africa was perhaps the only place where the Cold War was won by the Soviet Union. Mozambique and Angola - two countries you credit for joining the Commonwealth - are ruled by parties once supported by the Soviets and which once battled with the US/Israel/South Africa-backed Renamo and Unita. In the minds of many Africans, Russia backed black liberation, while the British and Americans backed reactionary tribalism, white minority despotism and apartheid. You cannot erase the scars of history. When Africans see how the British and Americans behave in the Middle East, they doubt their motives. They will trust the Russians over the British.

Instead of acting unilaterally and side-lining Russia, the Putin administration - vile though it can be - should be at the forefront of peace efforts, along with France, which has recently won some respect for assisting regional efforts to stabilise countries such as Cote d'Ivoire. The opinion of other members of the UN Security Council cannot be dismissed and sneered at, as it was before the Iraq War. Only with multi-lateral agreement will the Darfur situation be resolved.

If you want African support for your foreign policy agenda, you have to work in partnership with the African Union (Clive: the OAU no longer exists) and the Arab League. That means respecting regional frameworks and not resuming the kind of gung-ho policy which created the disaster in Iraq. It means learning from the mistakes of past British and American interventions in Africa.

Clive - you wondered why I asked about posting resolutions. You have obviously missed the sensitivity around this subject arising from Save the Labour Party's offer to publish any CLP/BLP resolution; let alone one that might be deemed to be critical of the Party.

More critically, in the course of our research into current membership we concluded that there were grounds for seeking clarification from the Labour Party's auditors about the method use to report membership to the Electoral Commission. In the absence of a reply we sought advice from the Commission informally. "Put it in writing, we will treat it as a complaint, and launch an investigation," we were told.

We are still trying the normal channels to get a considered response, rather than expose the Party to overt public scrutiny.

So, would STLP be at risk of being accused of bringing the Labour Party into disrepute if it went ahead and lodged a query, which would be treated as a complaint? Or would the Party officers concerned?