With friends (and MPs) like these…

There’s a big furore here over the potential bugging of a conversation between an MP and his friend and constituent. This MP happens to be my MP. This constituent lives within easy walking distance from my house. That is he lives there when he’s not in jail – on terror charges.

Sadiq Khan is at the center of a controversy about whether his jailhouse conversation with Babar Ahmad should have been taped without his knowledge. Doubtless, all of Mr Ahmad’s conversations are bugged (except probably privileged conversations with his lawyer) – given that he is, in fact, a terror suspect awaiting extradition to America. It’s all so very complicated why he’s to stand trial in the US and not in the UK. But what appears to not be in dispute is that the man helped raise money for the Taliban.

He raised money for them, but this wasn’t a crime in the UK at the time he was doing it because the Taliban wasn’t a proscribed organisation at the time. Not that we didn’t know they were nasty pre-9/11, just that they weren’t outlawed.

From the Washington Post:

In late 1996, while a 22-year-o.ld undergraduate at Imperial College in London, Ahmad launched a Web site dedicated to promoting Islamic fighters in Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan, according to U.S. federal prosecutors. Dubbed Azzam.com, in honor of Abdullah Azzam, a Palestinian who served as bin Laden’s spiritual mentor, the Web site rapidly became a prominent and influential English-language platform for Islamic militants.

…snip…

“It was the very first real al Qaeda Web site,” said Evan Kohlmann, a New York-based terrorism researcher who has tracked Azzam.com since the late 1990s. “It taught an entire generation about jihad. Even in its nascency, it was professional. It wasn’t technically sophisticated, but it was professional looking, definitely more professional than any other jihadi Web sites out there.”

…snip…

According to a U.S. indictment filed in October, Ahmad used Azzam.com to
solicit donations for Chechen rebels and the Taliban, and arranged for the
training and transportation of Islamic fighters. Among the specific charges is
one alleging that Azzam.com posted messages in early 2001 containing specific
instructions for supporters to deliver cash payments of up to $20,000 to
Taliban officials in Pakistan

And I blogged about this two and a half years ago (post has links to US extradition request).

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Now, Sadiq Khan, MP feels aggrieved because there is an established convention that MPs’ conversations won’t be bugged. I guess I can understand that, though it was Mr Ahmad and not Mr Khan who was the explicit subject of surveillance.

But in news story after news story Babar Ahmad is listed as both a constituent and a friend. They did grow up in the same area, so childhood friends they may be – and I’m sure we all had playmates who turned out not as well as might be hoped. But Mr Khan should consider whether he really wants friends like Mr Ahmad. And Tooting constituents should consider whether we want an MP with friends like that.

Unhypothetical

“It won’t be hypothetical if and when it occurs. We are not legislating now on
the basis that we are bringing it in now for something that might happen in the
future; we are bringing it in now for something that might happen in the future;
we are bringing in a position for if it becomes unhypothetical. If,
unfortunately I and many other experts are right and we do need it in the future
it is in place.”

Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary, securing her place in history. Sadly, only in the book of ridiculous political quotes.

I heard this on the radio while still lying in bed unfreakin’-believable. Iain Dale posted the words.

About the quote:

Jacqui Smith wants new legislation which would allow the police to hold “terror” suspects without charge for 42 days. (I use “terror” in quotes not because I don’t believe that there are real and legitimate threats, but because I worry that the Government will use terror charges without real and legitimate threat.)

Not in good conscience

Londoners were treated to a Channel 4 Dispatches expose on the methods and madness of our dear leader, Mayor Ken Livingstone. Among the charges:

• violating electoral rules – appointed staff working on his re-election campaign while being paid from the public purse – on his orders.
• spending vast amounts of money on thinly justified foreign junkets
• allowing millions of pounds to be funneled to sham companies owned by cronies and fellow travellers
• drinking on the job, not just at his desk, but brazenly drinking whisky at council meetings and at “town hall” style question time with the public
• appointing inappropriately skilled cronies to high paying jobs

Really, this is more than enough to not only turn the man out of office – this is enough to start criminal investigations. Any one of these alone represent a bad sort of politics, but together render the man wholly unfit to represent perhaps the finest capital city in the world.

And this is before taking into account that the man acts like an ass. That he refuses to answer legitimate questions from friends and foes alike – the key means of accountability for elected officials. That he bullies, blusters and evades. That he name calls like a child in the playground.

And this is all before you take account that he associates with some rather nasty characters like Qaradawi and seems to overtly endorse a radical, political Islam. And anyone who questions his association with Muslim Brotherhood fronts and members is called an Islamophobe.

The worst thing about all of this is that dear old Red Ken is likely to get away with it. His jocular bluster seems to sway large parts of the electorate. And in this country Socialist is not a dirty word, so his association with the Socialist Alliance doesn’t sound so bad. Never mind that they don’t practice the kind of socialism that’s essentially benign -no – it’s that deconstructionist, let’s destroy everything that’s good so somehow, some way a new society will come rising from the ashes – meanwhile we’ll wander around drinking champagne and totter around on our hind trotters unless our snout is in the trough type socialism. And folks seem blind to the difference.

I know a lot of people don’t like Boris Johnson. I know his manner is odd and his hair is wild and he’s a master of the self-deprecating. I know that Mr Johnson hasn’t yet really communicated his vision for London – and he must do that. But please, Londoners, you cannot in good conscience re-elect Ken Livingstone.

At least he made the buses run on time

While the American readers will be focusing on an election months and months away (ok, I know the primary season is upon us), the London electorate have a campaign coming up in May. For London mayor.

It’s Boris v. Ken – and it should be interesting. And just based on the names, if you didn’t know the characters involved, you’d be surprised at which one of them has nasty Trotskyite tendencies.

It’s no secret that I really, really, really hate Ken Livingstone. I hate his Marxist style empire building amongst the London boroughs. I hate his divisive politics under the name of cohesion. I hate the cozying up to the Islamist elite.

Apparently there’s to be an expose on some of his political shenanigans on Monday night through Channel 4’s Dispatches programme.

Check out a little foreshadowing here at Harry’s Place.

I hate Gordon Brown

I haven’t been following Gordon’s premiership as closely as might – but I hate him. He’s full of dumb ideas. He’s spiteful and petty and controlling and not as smart as he thinks he is. He comes up with dumb policies. He did this in his old job and he’s doing it now.

Jen has a rundown.

Grave policy implications

More seasonal policy pronouncements. This time about the disturbing trend of making graves safe by absolutely ruining them, laying headstones flat or tying them to giant dowel rods hammered into the ground. The idea is that some people somewhere were killed by falling headstones, and so local authorities must test the stability of all stones (using a topple testing machine) and then make them safe.

Finally someone’s standing up to the topple tyranny; John Mann, a Labour MP for Bassetlaw.

John Mann says no-one has been killed by falling headstones in churchyards in the past 10 years. Yet families are being forced to pay for graves to be made safe in local council graveyards because of “inaccurate” risk assessment tests. Headstones are made safe by a process known as “staking”, in which wooden stakes are driven into the ground next to the headstones to prevent them toppling over.

The Local Government Association states that most councils pay to make graves safe themselves, but where grave owners are charged to make graves safe the costs are reasonable. I’m not sure what reasonable is, but our local cemetery manager told us the cost and it was somewhere around £200 or £300 ($400-$600).

I’d say that roughly between 70% to 80% of graves in our local cemetery have been staked.

And as Mann points out, these aren’t necessarily the old graves, but rather ones less than a decade old. He paid for a topple test and claims that 95% of the staking is unnecessary.

These things simply don’t fall on people. There is much more chance of people dying on their way to church,” added Mr Mann.

New health and safety guidelines for gravestones were issued in 2004 after reports of five deaths caused by falling headstones. But Mr Mann said councils were being “tremendously over zealous” in their application of the rules and “a whole industry” had sprung up around “topple-testing” of graves. He said the graves being tested were often too small to topple over and cause injury let alone death – but they were still being “staked” by private contractors, at a cost of “hundreds of pounds” to berieved families.

Oh yes. We had a run-in with one of these contractors back in March.

The ViL pointed to the staked marker at our feet. The plastic straps weren’t even touching the headstone, which was one of those low lying ones that barely rose 12 inches from the ground. Sure it was at risk of crumbling – if you jumped on it, a bunch – but the stake rising from the ground at a 45 degree angle posed a greater safety hazard.

In a radio interview yesterday, Mr Mann also claimed that the stakes themselves were a greater risk to health and safety, being trip hazards. I’d concur. I’ve seen headstones that stood no more than ten inches off the ground staked – with the stake standing dangerously high over the marker.

a martyr to health and safety

Mr Mann further states that trees and branches are a bigger hazard to the cemetery visitor. Certainly in our local cemetery many branches hang hazardously from old and cankered trees and the footpaths are dangerously uneven – an elderly person might easily fall and break a hip.

Really. This staking is just plain insane, especially when one can spot greater risks with an untrained eye. And how this fits in with the policy recommendation to make better use of these dead spaces is beyond me.

Too old

The leader of the Liberal Democrat party, Menzies Campbell, has resigned. And although it’s all over the UK news, American readers will be forgiven for not knowing or caring. The political equivalent in the US would be Dennis Kucinich dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination. It would be Who, Who Cares, and Just how do you pronounce that anyway? (As far as I can make out Menzies is pronounced Ming – like the Dynasty).

But what is interesting about the whole thing is how this came to be. For a long time, almsot since he took over the party leadership 18 months ago, critics inside his own party and the chatterati have been saying he’s too old to lead the party and would be too old to fight a general election. It’s true that the guy looks about 80, but he’s actually only 66. And while 66 is pretty old, really, it’s not exactly ancient – and there are many, many successful politicians that age and older.

Now my personal opinion is that the guy was just lame. It wasn’t that he was too old, he was just wrong. Maybe his slightly quirky, fuddy-duddy manner is a winner inside the Lib Dems, but to everyone else, he just seems dull as a cardboard sandwich.

So why is everyone ducking the issue of his incompetence and lack of charisma and blaming it on age? Are baby boomers trying to push out the last remnant of the pre-1945 generation? Do folks think that somebody’s too old is somehow nicer than saying they just can’t cut it? Maybe Menzies Campbell is too old to be fooling himself about his abilities.

Snap back

Last week, I’d barely posted about the possibility of a snap election and Gordon Brown ruled it out. There won’t be an autumn election, after all. I guess it shows how much I’ve become acclimatised to political life in England. I couldn’t fathom the notion of an autumn election. Oh, pounding the pavements (the sidewalks) in the waning light, the slick layer of damp autumn leaves underfoot, knocking up voters in the gathering gloom. (American readers – that merely means knocking on their doors and asking them to vote.)

But of course, in America we do have Autumn elections. In November – gloomy, gloom, gloom. But it’s a lot different when all you have to do is mail your ballot in on time. Even the campaigning we do as expats (there are at least a quarter of million votes in this country) is largely over by the end of September and is darn right wrapped up by the time we lose daylight savings.

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Speaking of gloomy, gloom, gloom- the press now senses weakness in the Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He was accused of bottling it by calling off the election. And then this week, in the pre-budget report (a sneak preview of the budget announcement later on), the new Chancellor Alistair Darling announced tax policies which had been proposed a mere days earlier at the Conservative Party Conference. The tiniest of tweaks and it’s Government policy. Now one could say that this was Darling’s doings – as he’s supposed to be in charge of matters financial. But no one believes that Gordon Brown, who until recently held that same job for 10 years, doesn’t retain complete control over his old domain.

Now, I don’t mind – because on one policy I’m fairly neutral (a poll tax for non-domiciled residents) and on the other (a rollback on the inheritance tax) – I’m in favor, though it’s not likely to benefit me given the crap financial position of my in-laws. But it does look like blatant political plagiarism – and since these same tax cuts could have been part of an election budget, well it looks like Labour has run out of ideas of their own. And for once the press called them on it.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne used the announcements to goad Gordon Brown about his decision to abandon thoughts of a snap election.

He said: ‘We all know this report was brought forward so it could be the starting gun for the campaign, before you took the pistol and fired it into your foot. (Metro, 9 October)

Of course, they still seem to have got away without many commenting that it’s a set of measures that will actually raise taxes over all. It’s a strange political magic this Government seems to have, I don’t know how they do it.

On Wednesday, in a sad attempt at humor, Gordon Brown pointed derisively to a petition on the Downing Street Website calling for an autumn election. It had only 26 signatures then. The next day it had over 8,000. Gordon, Gordon, Gordon – don’t call attention to things online that you’re just trying to dismiss.

Everything the PM does now just looks a little bit lame. I knew this would happen eventually, because he is a man of limited soul, a control freak who just isn’t as smart as he thinks he is and he hates fun. But the Labour party faithful are surprised. Surprised, but they’re noticing. Here Iain Dale highlights left wing faithful Polly Toynbee sticking the boot in to Gordon. Et tu, Polly?

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Although the Downing Street petition website does nothing and seems to influence policy not at all, I still think it’s a nice idea. As blogger-supreme Iain Dale once suggested, (if I recall correctly and I’m paraphrasing) it would be a fine thing if say the top ten petitions were presented daily or weekly to the Prime Minister. I agree. There needn’t be an obligation to do anything with the petitions, since these things are obviously subject to manipulation and internet chicanery – but yes, folks in power should be looking at these on a regular basis.

Can you imagine a similar thing for the White House or the Governor’s mansion? Power to the People.

Snap

Maybe I’m getting older and times moves faster, but it seems like we’ve hardly finished with one election before starting with another.

Of course, I’m also watching two cycles. Britain’s and America’s. So that doubles the fun.

The next big one due was supposed to be the 2008 US presidential race, but now we may be facing a snap election in the UK.

The Prime Minister has the privilege of dissolving Government and calling a general election at any time he or she wishes, but must call one every five years. And once parliament is dissolved there are 18 days until the next election. (Details from politics.co.uk at the end of this post)

So when they say snap, they mean snap.

According to political wags, PM Gordon Brown is holing up with his advisors this weekend to pour over polling data deciding whether to dissolve or not to dissolve. Political opponents and the press are taunting the PM. Call the election and it’s political gamesmanship, going now because he thinks his chance will be too slim in future when his policy chickens finally come home to roost. Don’t call the election and it’s because he’s a coward, too timid, overly cautious and afraid of losing.

If an election is called in the next couple of weeks, there will be an absolute frenzy of political activity. Lots of leafleting and canvassing and general electioneering. For myself, I’ve already started to think about how I can participate while dragging around a baby.

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Information about general elections in the UK

How an election is called:
Under law a Parliament has a maximum duration of five years starting from its first meeting following a general election. These means that a general election has to be held every five years, although the Prime Minister of the day can call one at any time within this five years. The current Parliament started on May 11 2005 so the Prime Minister has until June 3 2010 before an election needs to be called. Typically though, a general election is called well before it has to be by law. An election in 2007 would be unusual in coming just two years after the last general election.

After deciding to call an election, the Prime Minister will visit Buckingham Palace to ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament. A proclamation will then be published dissolving the current Parliament and calling a new one.

Once Parliament is dissolved MPs cease to be, even if they are standing for re-election. During the election period they are not permitted to enter the Palace of Westminster or use any of its facilities. However, they and their staff will continue to be paid up until polling day.

Unlike MPs, the Government will continue to be the Government until the election results are declared.

Election timetable
The election timetable runs for a total of 18 days, starting with the dissolution of Parliament on day zero and ending with polling day on day 17. Weekends and public holidays are not included as part of the timetable.

If the Prime Minister goes ahead with a November 1 poll, then the timetable for the general election will be as follows:
Day 0 – Tuesday October 9 – Proclamation and issue of writ
Day 7 – Wednesday October 17 – Last day to register to vote or for postal vote
Day 17 – Thursday November 1 – Polling day

This is important

Alan Johnson’s address to a Labour Party Conference Fringe event.

Ignore the jibber jabber like:

First, having the will and the resolution to promote that order and that society as non-negotiable normative ends. So enough with the apologetics for them and the self-hatred for us.

Just try to wade through it. This is the stuff wherein liberals (in the American leftist sense) and classical liberals need to get their act together and fight not just violence of extremist Islamism, but the ideas, too. You know, the old hearts and minds thing.