Kelvin MacKenzie worse than Richard Littlejohn?!

Yes you heard it here first, unless you were listening to the 'World Tonight' last night.

In the discussion with MacKenzie he clearly gave his support to vigilantism with regard to the James Bulger case to which his 'opponent's' fantastic retort alerted the former Sun editor to a piece Littlejohn had written in the Sun at the time of the killing. In it Littlejohn (uncharacteristically) criticised the calls for 'stringing up the pair from the lamposts' but nevertheless this very much belittled any type of argument Liverpool's no. 1 enemy could muster in his whole 10 minutes!

Labour Pull Two Electioneering Stunts in the Same Week

Labour have quite clearly begun gearing up for the forthcoming election as has been seen by two stunts in the last few days which do little more than get a little media attention at the expense of innocents.

Firstly, Gordon Brown went over to see the troops in Afghanistan to say 'thanks'. I'm not sure about you but this sounds more than a little like a goodbye, perhaps GB knows he won't be coming back to the warzone he leaves behind. Anyway you look at it, a vist to see 'our boys' is even for the least cynical voter nothing more than an appeal for votes. This is not what the army is for.

Meanwhile Jack Straw has agrred to meet the mother of James Bulger, Denise Fergus, but I fail to see what this will achieve. The Justice Secretary cannot reveal what Venables has done and to do so would be a breach of law. The release of such information would only lead to the lynch mobs of the red-top newspapers dragging the ocuntry into disrepute and there would undoubtedly be another case before the European Court of Human Rights. The locus of Denise Fergus with regard to the case has ended and Jack Straw knows this. The minister is tapping into the public fury and the vulnerability of Fergus for votes.

There you have it then, the lengths this untenable government will go to stay in power. How anyone can help them do so is beyong belief.

University of Westminster Protest - A Response

Firstly, major apologies for the lack of blogging activity. Nearly a month since my last blog ffs! I can only put this down to my own laziness to research issues when I finally get a break from my dull law degree.

Anyway, mentioning uni, there's some absolutely insane protest going on against the wholly necessary cuts which we have to make. Of course at the sign of anyone's job getting "slashed" it seems inevitable that the stereotypically student-left jump on the bandwagon. How a campaign can claim to have legitimacy when it has fewer supporters than jobs actually being axed is beyond me but that obviously doesn't concern them.

The reason I've decided to blog on this petty attempt at student activism is because now events have gone a step too far. On the 1st March the protesters stormed the board of governors meeting and have since been in occupation of the vice-chancellors office. Resorting to violence and causing fear and panic across the rest of the university is not something that should be tolerated and it is of little surprise that the campaign has recently added to its demands that "no student or member of staff involved in actions against job cuts faces any repercussions or reprisals"; me thinks our rebels are feeling post-revolution guilt.

The accusation thrown against the university is that the governors are trying to make it run more like a business; well heaven forbid! The campus is based at the top of Regent Street, one of the foremost business areas in London and the world. They continue that because of this and the ensuing cuts that education will suffer. I doubt this somehow. Clearly if there is some sort of thinning down in areas it will be done in an appropriate way so as to not lose business. If the governors were to go too far then no one would go to the university at all and there would be no 'business' left to run. The governors are the best people to know the best ways to save money and indeed the university has in the past had financial trouble and needs to cut back.

Furthermore the government has in the past year or so shown more reluctance towards funding universities across England and with tuition fees set to rise surely the best way to prevent this is to cut back in non-essential areas. Personally I hope that more universities take note of the good work done by the governors and deal with any wannabe revolutions appropriately.

Picture courtesy of Sky Yarlett
www.flickr.com/worldofsky
www.worldofsky.wordpress.com

The Pope's Position Represents True Liberty

An issue has arisen regarding a confliction of liberties but on what side can we truly say that autonomy of the individual rests? I speak of course, of the Equality Bill which would have allowed homosexuals to apply and, more importantly, be considered for positions in Catholic faith schools.

Both Catholics and homosexuals are minority groups within their own rights and each has an undeniable right to practice their lifestyle choice. We therefore have to consider which lifestyle is truly being impinged upon here.

True liberty encompasses a right to choose. To choose what you think, to choose what you do and to choose how to live your life. A free-market capitalist society is the best example of this right to choose as it is often forgotten that taxes are an affront to liberty and laissez-faire capitalism almost entirely removes this burden. In fact the only taxes which would be paid would go towards the police/army...to defend liberty.

In such a society the right to choose extends to businesses and thus it becomes clear on which side of the fence I fall. If I run a business, be it a school or a multi-national firm, I retain the right to choose who I employ and as it is my business it is my prerogative. Similarly the man on the street has a right to choose to apply for a job, or not as the case may be.

However I cannot force him to work for me in the same way that he cannot force me to employ him (or in this case force me to consider his application). Why should the gay community, or anyone for that matter, be allowed to enforce themselves upon the job market?

I'm not quite sure why the mainstream media has come out (excuse the pun) against the CAtholic community so much. As far as I can see it is because the gay rights movement has come so far so fast in the last 40 years and this is seen as a natural continuation. Frankly they are wrong and I am glad that Harman has backtracked.

REVIEW: What Difference does Political Blogging make?

I got to the Monk's Exchange last night at around 7.15 but there was already a decent crowd ready for the Westminster Skeptics panel discussion. At the bar I got talking to Amanjit Jhund (Labour PPC for Windsor) who introduced me to some of his friends on the left including Shamik Das, assistant editor of 'Left Foot Forward'. I also met Karen Lee, editor of BBC 2's Culture Show.

The Panel Discussion began with Nick Cohen (Observer journalist and author of 'What's Left?') stating the case for journalism. I wanted to try and see his point of view so as to get a balance and not be so automatically predisposed towards blogging but I found his argument somewhat disjointed and non-effective. Of all the panel responses it was Slugger O'Toole (Mick Fealty) who gave the best account for the bloggers with a sensible speech about the important role played by such blogs as his own in opening discussion of stories up.

The Q&A session was slightly more disappointing with both questions and answers being rather prolonged. Nevertheless some important points were raised about the hostile nature of a lot of blogs and also about the possible future of journaslism. Particular insight was from Jonathan Isaby who famously moved from working at the Daily Telegraph to become editor of Conservative Home.

The evening came to a close with conversations with both @WhosLobbying and the legendary Thomas Byrne who will be relieved to hear I won't be revealing details from our slightly drunken conversation!

Are You 'AV-ing a Laugh?

In what can only be described as a pathetic election ploy and nothing more, Gordon Brown has announced his desire for a national referendum on replacing the British first past the post (FPTP) electoral system with the alternative vote (AV) system used in places such as Australia.

It seems to be a continual tactic of the Labour party to try and back the Tories into a corner by trying to announce another fix-all policy and when the opposition sensibly point out the pitfalls of such crackpot ideas they are accused of regaling on their promise to be the 'party of change'. This time Brown has gone too far and his attempt at electioneering is plain for all to see. Labour have had nearly 13 years to instigate such radical change with more commanding majorities (thanks to FPTP) so why wait till now? Well as I was taught in A-Level politics, this is the classic sign of a dying government.

I mean, just think what AV would mean electorally for Labour. They would undoubtedly pick up a lot of '2nd' votes from Lib Dem supporters as well as from the Greens and other parties on the left. Meanwhile the Tories would most likely only pick up such 'sloppy seconds' from parties on the right such as UKIP.

I'm not here to necessarily defend FPTP and I'll admit it has disadvantages but, then again, so does AV and all electoral systems. If there was a 'perfect formula' then all democracies would be using it by now.

I do believe though that the advantages of FPTP will become prevalent in 2010. If David Cameron achieves a healthy majority come May then the Conservatives will be able to lead Britain back to growth unencumbered by the desperate politics of New Labour.

Cricket in the Empire

It's no secret that the reason cricket is so popular in places such as Australia, India and South Africa is because of the influence of the British Empire. In fact it's hard to think of a nation with test match status that hasn't had a British influence.

This looks set to continue into the modern day with Afghanistan becoming a real force on the cricket pitch. Only nine years ago the team consisted almost entirely of refugees and were struggling in the second tier of Pakistan's domestic league but now have full one-day international status and only missed out on a place in the 2011 World Cup by a narrow margin.

Arguably their biggest success to date came last Sunday when they beat the Irish (who are no pushovers themselves) by 7 wickets in a multi-day game. This will undoubtedly set them up nicely for next week's ICC World Twenty20 game qualifiers in the UAE.

I'm not sure if there is any political metaphor to make here but good luck to the Afghans. I believe it was Julius Nicholson in a Thick of It Special who said that 'cricket makes the troubles of the world seem so far away'.