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Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Tourists

I love the various reports about the Chinese tourists views of Britain. Apparently Big Ben translates as the Big Stupid Clock and Oliver Twist as Foggy City Orphan!

I tried learning Mandarin once and failed miserably! I can pronounce many of the words quite well but I just cannot identify the four different tones when I am listening to speech. I can't sing either!

Monday, June 27, 2005

Zimbabwe

Even more depressing! South Africa and the surrounding states urgently need to review their policy. There is little anyone can do without their co-operation.

Meanwhile I hope and expect the deportation policy of our government to change - even if quietly with an end to nearly all deportations. We can't justify sending the present asylum seekers back.

Watch the Daily Mail and the Tory Party however. They will continue to press Labour to end deportations and then start attacking the asylum policy when the numbers go up again!

Iran

It would be easy to get seriously depressed about the election result in Iran and it certainly raises the temperature a bit.

I have a funny feeling however that the lurch back to a fundamentalist state won't work. Too many Iranians have bad memories of the 1980's and know there is an alternative.

Cross your fingers time!

Responses

Thanks for the various comments on a range of issues from Family Courts to blogs.

Paul. I do make it clear on on my sidebar (Contact) that I will only respond within the constraints of time. It's changed a little now that I am no longer an MP. I will have to restructure this after I take my seat in the Lords in about two weeks time.

Dan. Adam Ingram did not lie to the Commons. If you look at the comment posted by Andrew Price you will see he apologised when he discovered that the US had misled him - hence my comments to Andrew. Incidentally Andrew I do occasional fun runs - usually over ten miles but I get to choose the charities!

Andrew B. I do try and answer points but the problem as I've discovered is the extent of detail I'm able to go into without writing a book. That is why I offer to see people occasionally when I think they feel extremely strongly about an important issue. Again that offer has to be limited.

Could C. Briggs please post Heathrow comments either on the Heathrow blogspot site or on my Heathrow post. I get notified by Typepad of comments on earlier posts which is very helpful and there are healthy discussions still continuing on a variety of matters especially Family Courts.

To answer your point however I am not aware of suggestions that oil will run out within a couple of years. I think that is extremely unlikely given the new fields coming on tap. There is a global warming problem but as I say in my Heathrow speech (see sidebar) moving flights from Heathrow to continental airports will not change that. We have to have a global response.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

Blogs

As some of you will have seen 'someone' is still trying to take over every post rather than focus his arguments in a way that leaves others space to talk about issues of concern to them.

I could deal with this by going to a password system but it's not my first choice. The other alternative is to leave his comments on and only delete selectively. That is my preferred option but I'm not sure what people think.

The real problem here is that it will put people off blogging if they know that an individual who feels so strongly on one particular issue can dominate a site.

This doesn't just affect politicians but anyone trying to involve a wider public in general issues ranging across a number of policy areas.

Does this matter? How should the blogging community deal with it? And what would people prefer me to do on this site?

Friday, June 17, 2005

Responses

Paul. I am torn on the Tory party leadership! Am I looking for someone who is likely to keep them in opposition or someone who will provide a good opposition?

As a Labour Party member I would go for Liam Fox because I think he is unelectable! As a democrat I would go for either Cameron or David Davies.

Donnell. You will have seen my comments below on misuse of blogs. A number of people have been giving me lectures on how not to allow abuse. I'm trying not to learn this lesson but I think I have to!

Andrew, I haven't seen the information you refer to but I accept your word on it so it looks like I was wrong. I do think the US is bad on peacekeeping largely because their armed forces are like ours were prior to the 1960's, that is, they are essentially a war fighting army.

Having said that I still take the view that it is important that we make a clear distinction between democracies and dictatorships. To take an extreme example, we all had reasons to criticise Churchill but when it came to the crunch you knew what the difference was between Britain and the dictatorships. Which is why the Labour movement having initially fought against re-arming did an about turn and then backed Churchill.

Iain Muir - thanks for the information on Craft House. Did I really open it and forget - how embarrassing?!

Iraq

I spent an hour today with a delegation from the Iraqi Islamic Party. It was led by the Secretary General Tarik al-Hashimi. and there were 12 members in total.

Most of the questions to me were about how political parties could create policy that held their membership together but also allowed them to reach out to other groups in society. How to use the media. How to have inclusive policy debates and yet still allow leaders to make decisions and other related matters. We also discussed the question of negotiating and lobbying other decision makers including  political parties.

We often think of these things as self evident but if you start trying to organise it you very quickly realise how difficult it is in reality which is one of the reasons democracy can fail in a nation emerging from dictatorship

The Iraqi Islamic Party is  a Sunni party with a history going back to the 1950's. They aim to be an inclusive party respecting individual freedom and the rights of women. I was impressed by their determination to organise the Party on a modern agenda despite the attacks on them in recent times.

I had hoped this was the type of post that 'someone' would have liked to make a less vitriolic response to. I don't think he can and my patience is running out. His anonymity, the refusal to acknowledge that others are entitled to hold opinions different to his own and the desire to prevent other people using this blog in the way they wish to means that this is the last chance. If things don't improve then I will have to block 'someones' comments. It's a pity but I probably have allowed it to go on too long.

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Responses

Andrew Jackson. OK for questions on North Korea. If it's not urgent send them to me at the House of Lords about mid July. If it can't wait then send them to the House of Commons and put please forward on the envelope. I may not be able to deal with it quickly.

Jo on blogs. The main constraints for MP's blogging are time and whether or not it reaches sufficient constituents. Most experienced MP's won't be put off by fear of saying something that is thrown back at them later - if you can't deal with that you shouldn't be an MP.

In any event things you write in letters or are in Hansard come back to you.( See Andrew Jackson's request for information on my North Korea statement from 20+ years ago!)

Some MP's may be judging blogs just by the number and type of comments we get without realising that there are many other readers as well - between 800 and 1000 a week for mine and thousands for Tom Watson's more engaging style.

Dave. Collective blogs is an interesting idea but I certainly wouldn't want to be held responsible for what some of my ex colleagues would have said and I think they would say the same about me!

'Someone'. I have deleted your comments on blogging because you are trying to hijack other peoples topics. Please re post them if you wish on an appropriate Middle East type entry. There is another one coming soon - I bet you just can't wait!

I have to say I think you are doing more damage to your cause by responding in the way you do. But it's a matter for you.

Wednesday, June 15, 2005

Blogs (Response)

That is an interesting suggestion Dan. I will give it some thought.

Meanwhile the Hansard Society is still carrying the flag for blogs and politics.There is another conference coming up soon:

"What role do blogs have as a campaigning tool ? This topical seminar is the result of a collaboration between the Hansard Society, NCVO and homelessness charity, Crisis. From our first-hand experience we will present blogs as a simple but effective way of giving grass-roots organisations a valuable campaigning tool.

The event, to be held in Parliament on the evening of July 13th, will take Jamie’s Big Voice as the main case study for further debate and we hope to highlight this as an example of how charities, etc can unlock debates on issues and empower individuals.

At the same time we will launch a short highly practical pamphlet acting as a ‘Guide to blogging’ for use by organisations, activists and politicians. We are currently pursuing a platform of speakers that should include a representative from the Hansard Society, NCVO and Crisis as well as someone else with experience/opinions on campaign blogging."

See http://www.hansardsociety.org.uk/node/view/368

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Blogs

Since the election I have been thinking about another discussion on political blogs - perhaps when I get to the House of Lords. There was a useful meeting at the House of Commons about a year ago.

One of the issues is how to widen the influence of blogs.

I don't have a particular agenda in mind but feel it might be useful to range over the issues. Any ideas?

Monday, June 13, 2005

Responses

Fathers for Justice. Matthaus. I have deleted your comments because it is not a good idea to give personnel details of yourself especially identifying numbers.

If you need help try either your MP or a lawyer/advice centre in your area.

Dave Mortimer on the same topic be careful of allegations against another individual. If there is a formal inquiry against him then that's fine but if there isn't then he would have a strong complaint against you.

As for the issue itself I am not aware of the case you make and as I am no longer an MP I'm not really able to look into it. I'm not in the House of Lords yet and won't be for over a month so again you should contact your MP.

Iran. Dan, I was talking about the people rather then the Government. It is difficult to measure public opinion in a country without elections so what I said was based on reading and talking to Iranians.

Peter Fitzpatrick raised my analogy on intervention in countries like Iraq and our old approach to domestic violence which I used in the media and in my paper (Fabian 2 - see sidebar on this blog).

As you will know I am an interventionist. Although I recognise the importance of the nation state I don't think there is anything morally acceptable about putting the state above the individual but in our world as it is we have to adjust to what is possible as well as what is desirable.

Iraq was a special case because there was a ceasefire signed with the UN and Iraq was in breach. That doesn't mean I wouldn't want to intervene in other cases or that I wouldn't want intervention here if we fell under the control of a despot.

I think South Africa may intervene in Zimbabwe as the situation deteriorates. North Korea is a classic example of the difficulties we face until the rule of law does have international acceptance and there is a way of enforcing it other then relying on the great powers of the day.

It is morally repugnant to leave the people of North Korea in the grip of a particularly brutal tyrant but intervention without Chinese co-operation is unreal and China itself has some way to go before it becomes an open and free society.

So the short answer to your question is that I think the analogy does hold and judging by your comments I think you support that but rather like the domestic violence situation 50 years ago occasionally the police did intervene but more often they didn't.

The law had to be changed to achieve that (with a lot of resistance on the basis of the state not having the right to enter into a someones home to deal with domestic disputes).

In international terms recognition is growing that intervention is justified but when, how and who by, poses real dilemmas complicated by the fact that there is no international police force.

This is a very important argument in my view and one that will pursue us throughout this century. See Darfur!

Saturday, June 11, 2005

William and Ellen Craft

There was an entry on my William and Ellen Craft post of January 31st 2004 from Betty Craft who is a direct descendant of William and Ellen.

For those of you who missed this they were  two black slaves who escaped from slavery in the US and came to Britain where they joined the campaign against slavery.

They wrote a remarkable tract called Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom. http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/craft/menu.html (I hope this works better then some of my other attempts at linking!)

Various attempts have been made to follow their movements in the UK but all I can find out is that they lived in Hammersmith while they went to speak at various meetings around the UK. There is a blue plate on the wall of Craft House which is where they lived although the original house has been demolished.

Does anyone know anymore?

Friday, June 10, 2005

EU Rebate

So do we give the rebate back? I think not. Mainly because I think it is being used as a way of diverting attention from the bigger problem of the economic direction of the EU.

Having said that it must go at some stage so if it can be part of a deal on economic reform that also deals with the CAP then that will do fine for me.

Thursday, June 09, 2005

Responses

Road pricing. Sam, I am in favour but the devil will be in the detail hence the importance of consultation and feedback. I understand it would replace road tax and it may also affect the level of fuel tax. I think the charge a driver was running up could be displayed in the car. The technology for that should be available.

Andy. Thanks for making the proper link to the Guardian article. I still screw up on my linking techniques! Why? What am I doing wrong?

Dan. You make some good points on Iran and my knowledge of the situation you describe is not that good. Having met and talked to various groups from Iran over the years I do get a feeling that after they recovered from the 1980 period they have been on a basically upward path.

You may think that is hopelessly optimistic and you could be right! But there is a generation that seems to recognise that democracy and the rule of law offer the best way forward and Iran is the super power of the region. I think they know that and it fits with their history but it won't happen without the freedom agenda.

Andrew B. Do look at the whole exchange with 'someone' to get a feel for how he handles things. I actually want to talk about Iraq and I do but repetition is not helping. You also need to ask why he keeps his identity secret. If you work that out you will also work out that he is no friend of democracy or the rule of law. He could put that right by saying who he is and who he speaks for.

Wednesday, June 08, 2005

G8 Summit

I am actually getting quite hopeful about the possibility of some progress on both Africa and global warming. Whatever else you think Tony Blair and Gordon Brown do seem to have set an agenda which is getting a real political response. It's too early to be sure so keep your fingers crossed!

Iraq

There is a well informed article in the Guardian (G2) today on suicide bombers and Syria's role in supporting them. http://www.guardian.co.uk

Friday, June 03, 2005

Heathrow

I hope people interested in this topic will use  http://www.futureheathrow.blogspot.com but a couple of responses to make here.

Global warming is very important but it can only be addressed on a global basis. Things like emissions trading will help but are not a full solution.

We are in an uncertain phase but with internationally agreed policies we can deal with global warming. We are not in a situation where we have to stop people flying and driving.

If I am right then we need a policy to address global warming and that might mean allowing some increase of emissions for some industries but trying to mitigate that with reductions elsewhere which is why I mentioned domestic wind power as one small but important example.

I do not believe that allowing Heathrow to decline while expanding continental airports would help solve the overall problem.

Benjamin is anxious to know about the funding of Future Heathrow. Frankly this is the hoary old chestnut of putting a money value on the argument. Even if I could put a value on each members contribution (and I can't) it wouldn't alter the fact that we do have a vested interest in the future of Heathrow.

For all members that vested interest is prosperity, economic success, jobs and quality of service to the public.

There are various groups opposed to what we are saying and some of them are well funded. Does it matter? No. I will treat their arguments with the same respect as I hope mine will get.

I have seen plenty of well funded pressure groups with poor arguments and plenty with good ones. Believe it or not it is usually the good arguments that win.

Responses

I think the economic reform of the EU is very much a Blair/Brown agenda and should provide the way forward. Economic integration is so far advanced I don't think it is reversible.

The French Left really does need to get its act together. I remember how frustrated I felt when they had to vote for Chirac to keep LePen out. They are still locked into a system which allows over 10% unemployment and seem blind to the dangers that creates.

I really have given up on 'someone'. I have tried answering questions and even offered to meet in order to allow him time to pursue the details. I have also ignored the more immature comments but as some of you have pointed out I ought to have made more use of the delete button!

So two final comments to 'someone'. Firstly anonymity doesn't give anyone confidence about your position especially when you claim to have fled from a Middle East tyranny - your real name suggests that is unlikely. Secondly please try and accept that people can honestly disagree. We do disagree both on analysis and on morality - that is not exactly unusual in life!

Europe

The more I read of the Dutch/French votes the more I think the Constitution is unnecessary in its present form.

Many of the things in the constitution should be done now such as ensuring all legislation is done in the public arena. The current level of secrecy in EU decision making just plays into the hands of those who want to see it as a giant conspiracy