lord of the blog

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Saturday, October 30, 2004

Gambling

So can I have some views on gambling please? I am not opposed to it but I’m not sure if we have got the balance right in this legislation.

Comments please.

Sunday, October 24, 2004

Prince Harry and the newspapers

Why can’t press photographers recognise that Prince Harry needs a bit of space? If you know that someone’s mother was killed while trying to avoid the pursuing photographers you don’t have to be too sensitive to give them a bit of space.

It is the same editors who pay for these photos who conceal their own private lives and don’t even allow their names to go on their newspapers.

Who should we blame? The pusher or the user?

Keep sending me information about these people and note how much money they pocket when they push their sales up with these stories and pictures.

Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail got £20 million in share options a couple of years ago but he doesn’t like to read about it!

Heaven knows how much his colleague Veronica Wadley of the Standard gets but she is not exactly stuck for a cheese sandwich! She’s not too keen on publicity about her private life either.

Rupert Murdoch is thought to have a penny or two as well but for some unknown reason any scandals about his private life end up in the ‘news in brief ' column.

Curious isn’t it?

Responses

I can’t keep up with all the comments!

Fathers4justice.
Fathers4justice certainly produced some strong feelings though I don’t think exchanging abuse adds to the sum total of human enlightenment! It is however helpful to me to pick up some of the additional arguments flying around.

Germany.
Tavis Pitt reminds me of a group of German local authority members I saw back in the 1980’s who were visiting Docklands. Michael Heseltine had over ruled the councils in that area and the German councillors couldn’t believe it. They said “We wouldn’t be allowed to do it because of the Federal system and you imposed that on us!”

Germany really has done well though and I have to say Ingrid, that Siemens is not run by the same people who supported the Nazis. We really do have to distinguish. Just as we would not want to be blamed for transporting slaves in the past. We have to keep things in historical context. If we don’t, we end up allowing past memories to determine the present. Look at Northern Ireland or Kosovo for examples of that.

Sudan, the AU and failing states.
There’s some better news coming about Sudan, Ingrid. We were discussing in the Parliamentary Labour Party plans to deploy AU forces funded by the EU and supported by British logistical and military planning assistance.

Many of the comments touched on the vexed question of failing states and corruption. Watch out for Kofi Annan’s report in December.

British pride.
Peter J thinks we can’t take pride in British achievement. It is true we run ourselves down at times although I think I would rather do that then go round boasting about everything. A recent report showed a majority of British people didn’t know we had invented cloning, jet engines, computers, radar, TV and so on.

That is a bit depressing and I think it stems from the way we don’t flag up the origins of the industrial revolution in Britain. We started doing the pomp and circumstance which went with being the superpower of the 19th century and somehow forgot the force that drove that, namely industrialisation.

I suspect that Peter’s frustration comes from not being able to talk about Empire without getting into arguments about the down side of Empire. It is difficult to get that balance right soon after the event. I suspect the Han Dynasty, the Mughals in India and the Romans had similar arguments! I wish I could blog into their views at the time!

One of the reasons I set up the Mary Seacole Memorial Statue Appeal was to remind people that attitudes were far more complex then we think. Why is it that returning troops from the Crimea organised three days of concerts and fund raising to keep Mary Seacole in comfort till her death and yet we airbrushed her out of history in the late 19th century? And how come there was at least one black sea captain in the Royal Navy?

The Empire could only have worked with a degree of consent but that shouldn’t be allowed to blot out the bad bits.

See you at the High Commission, Dan – I will expect a heckle or two!

Thursday, October 21, 2004

Germany today

Recently I heard the German Ambassador talk about Germany’s image in Britain.

I have an enormous admiration for Germany’s achievements since the Second World War. They came out of the war utterly defeated and carrying an enormous burden of guilt. Yet they have now built one of the most successful and democratic societies in the world.

In Britain we tend to focus only on Germany’s Nazi period. Obviously that was immensely important and our role in defeating that was crucial. It could not have happened without us. But why do we leave it there? Our role in post war Germany was also critically important. The new German constitution was largely written by Britain and many of the institutional bodies that govern German life were also heavily influenced by us.

The German people came through that awful period and have now become a model for other countries. It is no accident that Germany now plays a full part in funding and training people in other countries who are either trying to create modern democratic systems or who are emerging from dictatorship.

There is a very important lesson for all of us in Germany’s experience. Modern Germany is living proof that we can all change and learn from our past mistakes. That we can build new societies on the ruins of dictatorship. That lesson is still very relevant today. It may be a painful experience but countries can emerge stronger and better out of the ashes of defeat. That is why I find it so sad that some British people can’t praise Germany for its post war achievements.

If we only remember Germany for its Nazi period and if we talk about them as though they still wanted to dominate the world then we are not giving them credit for the very changes that we helped bring about. So we end up being deeply unfair to them and also devaluing our own contribution.

Generosity is an attractive part of human nature. So let’s be a lot more generous to the achievements of post war Germany and start feeling proud for them as well as for us.

The two go together.

Thursday, October 14, 2004

Responses

Blogshares.
Wow! I’m worth £1.65! And cheap at the price I say. Thanks for the information on blogshares - you learn something new everyday.

Africa.
Dan, my point is that you dismiss Tony Blair’s Africa Commission as a farce and of no value. If that was true then African leaders would ignore it and they don’t. You also say we don’t do anything for Africa. Yet we are the biggest donor second to the US and we don’t tie our aid to British goods. The same applies to AIDS. There are so many examples of good links and although they don’t cancel out the problems or things we are getting wrong I do think that we have to balance the argument.

Fathers4justice.
I think Fathers4justice are not arguing their case well and I really do not believe that the type of stunts they use presents a good image of them. In times of heightened security climbing on Buckingham Palace is a bad idea and whether you agree or not it smacks of irresponsibility.

It is also not true that the issue is ignored. There has already been one report on it and others will be done.

I believe people on either side of this argument need to think hard about how we can best deal with family breakdown in situations where the adults can’t agree about the children.

There is a case for more effective mediation and there is a case for trying to find ways of preventing parents ignoring a Courts ruling. This is the point Richard refers to in his question to me. It is not an easy area of policy but simplistic abuse or creating security scares is not going to win the argument.

The vast majority of parents who separate come to an amicable agreement about children and do put the children’s needs first. The problem is a minority of parents who for good or bad reasons can’t manage this.

Sunday, October 10, 2004

BlogShares

What is this?!

I typed in my name on Google and low and behold third up was BlogShares. When I checked it there was a “valuation” B$30,190.22. It also gave my links in and out. How do they know? And what is this valuation? Am I up for sale without my knowledge or consent?

If I am sold do I get sucked into my computer and launched into cyberspace? I’m sleeping with my copy of the Hitchhikers Guide under the pillow!

Can anyone enlighten me?

Responses

It’s taken a while to catch up with all the comments.

I hope the chapter on the politics of the family published on my sidebar serve as a response to those who think I am just moralising about sex. I’m not. The issue is the quality of parenting and the way parents resolve or fail to resolve their disputes. (Thanks to Jennifer in Canada for help on publishing and to Dan for advice).

Marilyn Powdrill makes the most important point and one that I referred to previously. That is the problem of the mother who defies a court order. That is where we need to give the Court more powers and there is a lot of support for that in Parliament. My guess is it will happen in the not too distant future.

Dan I do think you go over the top at times. The Africa Commission won’t solve the problems overnight but it all helps focus the world’s attention on the issues and could be instrumental in getting more significant movement next year. You are very critical of the EU and rightly so in the way it hangs on to the CAP but Britain wants to get rid of the CAP.

The reason we are having difficulty is that so many European countries rely on subsidy to keep their farmers going. Poland has close to 40% of their work force in farming. Take the subsidy away and the cries of anguish will be heard in Brussels big time!

France also loves farm subsidies and don’t we Brits love all those nice little farms in France which make their countryside look so pretty? It’s subsidy that keeps them in business and it is at the expense of African farmers.

A lot of people myself included, want Kerry to win in the USA. But has anyone heard him calling for an end to subsidies? The hard fact is that there are jobs involved and both Bush and Kerry will not be campaigning on an end to subsidies.

I knew Ingrid would be pleased about the visit to Sudan. Things are beginning to move and slowly Africa is building up interventionist techniques. We are rightly giving help there too although I suspect Dan will see it as neo colonialism!

I note the statistics of Iraqi dead are being posted on my site presumably because they think I might not know or care. They are wrong. Like most MP’s I do constantly revisit the decisions I take. It would be good however if the group who do the counting had started when the UN took the authority in 1991 to stop the genocide, torture and killings. They didn’t and nobody counted because it wasn’t on TV.

Their friends and relatives were coming to my constituency though and like so many people from these countries they would say “Can’t you do anything about it?”

That is the real challenge and we ducked it in Rwanda and it went wrong in Somalia. In North Korea we all stuck our heads in the sand while one million died. The figures hardly got noticed because it was another of those particularly brutal dictatorships

Sad isn’t it?

Wednesday, October 06, 2004

Fathers4justice

Further to the posts and responses on Fathers4justice I have now put a chapter written by me in a book called Rewriting the Sexual Contract edited by Geoff Dench on to my side bar.

I wrote the chapter in 1996/7 and the book was published by Transaction Publishers in 1999. ISBN: 0-7658-0466-2.

Yours magazine and mispent youth

I have just read a report from the magazine ‘Yours’, claiming the majority of people brought up in the 1950’s feel that life was better in those days. I suppose all generations tend to think their time was better and I suspect youngsters brought up today will say something similar in 50 years time.

All I can say is that my experience of the 1940’s and 1950’s was not so good. At best it was a boring time and at worst there was a crushing conformity that also concealed some pretty nasty behaviour.

Wife battering was tolerated much more then it would be today as was bullying. So was racism and sexual abuse of children was simply called incest and regarded as something that rarely if ever happened. In fact it happened a lot and quite possibly as much as today.

Was discipline in schools better? Not in my one. The cane was used frequently and the woodwork teacher use to make you bend across the bench and hit you with a plank of wood. One poor teacher was driven to a breakdown and would chase boys round the classroom lashing at their legs with the cane. It was not a pretty sight!

The one and only French teacher returned to France after just a couple of months because every time she came in the class room there were drawings of her without any clothes pinned to the board and she was greeted with leers and jeers. I could go on but you might begin to think that I spent my formative years in an Approved School as the young offender’s schools were called!

There were certainly some advantages. There were fewer cars on the road so you could ride your bike in reasonable safety. Drugs were rarely available and gun crime unusual. But some people who idealise the past have forgotten the razor gangs with their gratuitous violence and the Hammersmith Palais vied with the Ilford Palais as the place to go if you wanted a fight.

It is very easy for the older generation to see all teenagers as raving psychopaths especially when they are behaving badly. But by and large I am impressed by today’s youngsters. Obviously we have to intervene and stop bad behaviour when we see it and perhaps we don’t do that enough. At the same time I don’t want to forget what I did when I was young.

Next time you hear an older person criticising all young people ask them what they got up to at the same age – and beware of the “Whatever happened to the crispy bacon we use to get before the war” syndrome!

Friday, October 01, 2004

Tony Blair and current events

I welcome Tony Blair’s statement confirming he would like to serve a third term (electorate permitting). It was sensible to say this at the same time as announcing the hospital appointment otherwise the speculation on him staying or going would have taken off.

There are, of course, no guarantees in politics and all Prime Ministers ride a stormy sea or, as Macmillan famously said “Events dear boy, events”.

The Hartlepool election was a very interesting result. I don’t see how the Tories can regain support across the political spectrum unless they come up with more voter friendly policies. I also don’t think their current stance on Europe is helping them as much as they think. The British are very ambivalent about Europe. Many of them are not enthusiastic about membership but they are not too keen about being on the margins either. This is difficult for all politicians but especially Tories.

Meanwhile I note Fathers4justice threw purple powder over the woman Liberal Democrat candidate at Hartlepool even although she had just lost. Why choose to throw it over the woman? Is it just my suspicious mind that wonders if the guy has difficulties with woman?

This thought should start a storm!