I Intend To Escape ......................And Come Back

London Met: Common Sense Bites Back

Ever since the Vice Chancellor of London Metropolitan University, Prof Malcolm Gillies, spoke of the need to respond to the rise in numbers of Muslim students by reducing the presence of alcohol and portrayl of sex on campus, a backlash was due. I am pleasantly surprised at how sophisticated, and encouraging, it has been.

All of the quotes below are taken from the Times Higher coverage of the case, and in particular the comments area below the article. One interesting response, from the trades union the UCU, is to see Gillies intervention as softening up London Met for cuts, using some old fashioned divide and rule tactics:

"Gillies is currently selling off large sections of the university estate, including 'The Hub' - the student union facility (inc student bar) at the City Campus. The VC's comments need to be seen in that light - i.e., they are simply a convenient cover for reducing student social facilities."

Similarly it seems London Met is hardly awash with wall to wall drinking anyway. From Rob Thoyts:

"Alchohol is currently offered for sale in only two of the University's eleven or so buildings, the "two fantastic (Student Union) bars" according the the Londonmet website, "which are regularly featured in the London Time Out magazine". Therefore the only part of the University where the sale of alcohol could credibly be banned would be in these SU bars. Umpteen canteens exist in the University which do not sell alcohol, therefore any suggestion that students who may disapprove of alcohol have nowhere to go, is entirely false."

Prof Gillies claim that some female students attend London Met only with an escort from a  chaperone also met a firey response:

"I find the sight of women in headscarves and veils who have to be chaperoned everywhere by men offensive. However, I would not expect them to be banned from certain parts of campus so that my strong political and moral sensibilities can be protected."

What seems so needless about this story is that there does not appear to be any evidence  Muslim students are agitating for any ban or restriction on alcohol. Instead this change is being offered to them, (and imposed) on others by the management's interpretation of cultural sensitivity. This is Niall:

"A great lesson, if you want one, in how to foster resentment, division and confusion. Muslims and other minorities so often get the blame for being 'over sensitive' but it's the ridiculous policies of institutions and politicians that are stirring up problems. I really hope all Met students stand up against this hideous proposition."

Dr David however feels a policy does need to be stated: 

"To be fair having areas which don't serve alcohol seems reasonable. For instance you could serve alcohol in bars but not in the lecture theaters. Or the other way round."

Perhaps the oddest section in Gillies quoted remarks was when he decided to talk about sex. Or rather he didn't:

The vice-chancellor also said that London Met was "much more cautious" about the portrayal of sex on campus than universities had been 30 to 40 years ago. "Now we've got a younger generation that are often exceedingly conservative, and we need to be much more cautious about [sex] too," he said.

No sex please we're British (and Muslim!) All of this is too much for sadtoworkatLondonMet

"Under what circumstances is Londonmet "portraying" sex on campus. I can think of only two possibilities; discussion of sex-related issues in classes, and sexual health information provided to students. So, in both of these areas we are supposed to exercise greater "caution" (whatever that means) than would have been the case in 1972? Yes, very progressive Malc!"

All too often discussions about race and religion (especially Islam) leave almost any reader feeling depressed and isolated. I have to say Prof Gillies has removed that depression at a stroke.  Reading the Times Higher comments I feel both invigorated and hopeful for the future - there actually seems to be a silent, sensible majority out there, and when pushed, they push back.

For that at least, we need to thank the Vice Chancellor!

 

 

 

Terrorism and the Olympics: Let The Silly Season Begin

The first in a series commenting on media stories about terrorist and public order 'threats' to the 2012 Olympics in London.

An impressive one to start with from the Sunday Telegraph of 1 April (and no it was not an April fool). Firstly the Telegraph's David Barrett did have the basis of an actual story. He reports that MI5 believe Akhmed Zakayev, who styles himself as the exiled Prime Minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria,  is under threat of assassination in London. They understand his death has been ordered by Chechnya's Prime Minister Ramzan Kadyrov, and are attempting to deport a suspect, named only as E1, who was also involved in the plot. 

Then it gets silly. Firstly we have the move to attach Venessa Redgrave to the story, as she is apparently friends with Mr Zakayev. This leads to the tabloid style heading "MI5 warns of death plot against Redgrave friend", and a picture of Zakayev and Redgrave that corresponds nicely with Telegraph policy of having posh totty on the front cover at least once a week.
As a general rule of thumb I adopt the political position that it is nearly always correct to be on the opposite side, on any issue, to Vanessa Redgrave, so will say no more about the politics of Zakayev. What is noticeable however is that despite this being an explicity Chechen story - all those directly involved - Zakayev, E1 and Kadyrov being Chechens, Barrett decides that this is a story about Russia, and Russians in London.

This gets particularly silly when Barrett not only connects (albeit loosely) this alleged plot with the actual shooting of Russian banker German Gorbuntsov in east London last month, but worse, the Olympics. Try this nonsense on for size:

"And it comes amid growing concern among the security services over the number of Russians in Britain who could present a danger to security, particularly with the London Olympics, identified as the biggest single target for terrorists in British history, fast approaching".

No suggestion is actually made that Russian gunmen (or Chechen?) pose a direct threat to the Olympics - probably because to attempt to do so would make Barrett look even more silly. Instead possible targetted acts of violence amongst one or two exile communities in London are  placed in proximity to an entirely seperate issue - that of Olympic security - with the hope that readers will put two and two together and get 76.

There is now 114 days left until the Olympics. I am going to do my best to log and comment upon silly stories of this type - it surely cannot be long until the Evening Standard dusts off its usual scare stories about Anarchists and public order and places them somewhere in the direction of Stratford - and we can no doubt expect an English Defence League 'threat' to be hyped out of all proportion.

I would be grateful if readers could send me examples of silly season stories that you spot. David Barrett and the Sunday Telegraph have made the early running - plenty of other lame old nags will no doubt follow.

 

Why Trades Unionists Should Not Vote For Ken Livingstone

The quote below is taken from the Rail Maritime  and Transport Union's official history "Never on Our Knees: A History of the RMT, 1979-2006" (London: Pluto, 2006) by Mike Berlin:

"The issue of PPP became bound up with an increasingly acrimonious Labour party wrangle over the choice of candidate for the newly created office of London's mayor. The front-runner, former Greater London Council leader Ken Livingstone, was excluded from the post of Labour's candidate for the mayoralty by a mixture of chicanery and backroom manoeuvring and ran for the post and won as an independent on a ticket which explicitly rejected part privatisation of the London tubes. Livingstone's victory usehered in a year long battle with the government to stop the implementation of PPP in which the RMT gave him vocal support. It was even willing to work with Livingstone's transport czar, Bob Kiley, who had reputedly 'saved' the New York subway system but who also had a reputation for union busting and once worked for the CIA. The RMT gave fulsome support to Livingstone's camapign for the mayoralty and against PPP. Livingstone was to prove a false friend to the union, and on being readmitted to the Labour Party in April 2002 he moved rapidly to the right, calling on members to cross picket lines during the strikes on the Underground of July 2004." (p.139)

 

The Olympics Then And Now

From the interview in today's Sunday Times with Jimmy McColl, who played for the Great Britain football team at the 1948 London Olympics:

"For the 3rd/4th placed playoff with Denmark, the manager, Sir Matt Busby, asked the entire squad if those players who hadn't yet been picked could be in the starting XI, even if it was to the detriment of the result. Everybody, respectful of Busby's intentions, agreed with this, meaning we all had the chance to play at the Games".

For the record, Denmark won 5-3 at Wembley, to take the Bronze medal.

Wot No Anarchists?

The quote below is from today's Telegraph Review, where amongst the book reviews Dan Jones considers Paul Preston's work on the Spanish Civil War and its fascist butchery, The Spanish Holocaust.

Jones writes:

"Ernest Hemingway, George Orwell and the rest sent back graphic dispatches from the front line, and their work has left the historical impression that Europe's first open war between fascists and the combined forces of communism, socialism and social democracy was well covered and understood. Yet away from the eyes of the war reporters, argues Paul Preston, there was another Spanish Civil War, in which thousands of civilans were systematically murdered, and their deaths subsequently obscured".

Whilst accepting his latter point, the former is a re-writing of history. In this analysis, all those Anarchists in Barcelona and much of southern Spain must have been a figment of the imagination. I do hope that Preston's book is considerably better than Jones' summary above!

The Tommy Robinson Show

Some comments on last nights Proud and Prejudiced documentary on Channel 4, which profiled local Islamist Sayful Islam, and English Defence League leader Tommy Robinson, in their home town of Luton.

Whenever I want to know about events in Luton, I usually phone some of the old Class War members in the town. After the 2009 booing of the Royal Anglian Regiment by Al-Mujihiroun I was quickly told that shariah was not about to be declared in the town "its the same 20 idiots who have been giving out leaflets in Luton town centre for years".

The description of Tommy Robinson is also one that has stayed with me:

"The problem with Tommy Robinson is that you and me could do Tommy Robinson far better than he does Tommy Robinson" - in other words the act of merely being opposed to Islamist extremism is good, but not what it could be.

In last nights programme, he probably did Tommy Robinson as well as it ever could be done. At times his arguments were sophisticated - talking (albeit clumsily) about that must uncomfortable of subjects demographics for example. Claiming that multi-culturalism has not failed, it is just religion that has failed, outflanks at a stroke a whole series of political actors from David Cameron and Angela Merkel to Nick Griffin (who was grumbling away on Twitter about that very point)
The claim that multi-cultural society actually works pretty well save for areas like Bury Park is one with its adherents - all usually unrepresented by mainstream political discourse.  The difficulty is that including most EDL members in those with a broadly positive view of multi-culturalism is being generous.

Sayful Islam was interesting in that his focus was on his religion and obtaining shariah. We should be wary of those trying to style al-Mujihiroun and its successor groups as solely political actors - their goals and the core of their practice are religious, and they are just as much a part of British Islam as its nice, cuddly adherents that get invited inside the big political tent. Whether they remain a tiny minority remains to be seen - as on any issue it is all to play for in the future. 

There are plenty of criticisms to be made of Proud and Prejudiced. Whilst Robinson's racism eventually bubbled through the surface in his stupid comments about Anders Brevik or as he fled from to Limehouse to avoid arrest, the EDL's proposed hook up with those well know purveyors of multi-culturalism the British Freedom Party went unexplored. It is possible that may well be the death knoll for the EDL - social movements tend to lose some of their magic when they enter into the formal political arena.

Equally Tommy Robinson was allowed to make the curious claim he had been to a BNP meeting in 2004 but was unhappy at them not admitting black people (presumeably from Luton's football firm) yet the EDL's origins in those who provided security for Luton BNP meetings has been well discussed by the likes of Larry O'Hara in Notes From the Borderland magazine. Disappointingly Qadeer Baksh from Luton Islamic centre was styled as a 'moderate' - compared to how Sayful Islam presents himself he may be, but they could just as easily have been portrayed as  competing sides of the same Salafi coin. Indeed some of the deeply unpleasant views circulated from Luton Islamic centre are in the public domain.

I have long argued that the EDL are a distraction from what will become one of the big issues in British public life - the role - if any - for Islam in this society. Those debates will intensify - with or without Tommy Robinson.

 

The British Liberal and Religion: A Paradox

Battling through yesterdays Telegraph Review, I came across a two page feature on Lloyd Newson's "Can We Talk About This" a dance production scheduled to run at the National Theatre from March 9th to 28th.

Newson's work looks at the clash between Western values of freedom of expression and the rise of Islamism in the West, and covers the era from the Rushdie affair to the murder of Dutch artist Theo Van Gogh. What struck me about the article was how closely Newson's experiences matched some of my own, both around the British left and within academia. He states:

"A lot of my liberal friends are very happy to criticise Catholicism, Christianity and Judaism but when it comes to Islam, it feels as though all the same principles are disregarded."

And that is one of the great paradoxes of our age......

The 'Independent' Police Complaints Commission: An Apology of an Organisation

The quote below is a couple of weeks old, but nothing sums up the IPCC more than its practice.

As an entity, it should not have survived the De Menezes affair in 2005. It then proved itself incapable of dealing with the killing of Ian Tomlinson in 2009. Come the shooting of Mark Duggan by the Metropolitan Police in August 2011 - hey what a surprise, the IPCC was in over its head. To know why, we should perhaps consider the quote below, from Andy Halliday, the team manager of the GB Men's Hockey team. Halliday was formerly a public order training and firearms training instructor with the Metropolitan Police, and was part of the team of officers who shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell tube station in 2005.

Profiled in The Sunday Times on 22 January 2012, Halliday said this:

"It seems extraordinary, looking back, that I had my interview with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), where I expected a grilling for a number of hours on the Menezes case, on the same day in 2005 as I had my interview for the England hockey under-21 manager. I was in with the IPCC for about five minutes and I was with hockey for about an hour and a half thoroughly grilled by the performance director. "

So the IPCC spoke for just five minutes to an officer who entered the tube train where De Menezes were shot, and he faced tougher grilling for a job teaching jolly hockey sticks.

The IPCC should be abolished.

Egypt: Rewriting History?

History is written by two groups - the victors, and the middle classes.

I am reminded of this following an interview/book review with Egyptian author Ahdaf Soueif, by Julie Tomlin, in the current issue of the Camden New Journal. Ms Soueif, who divides her time between Cairo and London has a book to promote "Cairo My City, Our Revolution" and talks wearily of the 'betrayal' of the Egyptian revolution by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF).

What did annoy me was this little quote from Ahdaf Soueif's interview, where she states:

"The fact that people could act with such unity; that a civilian population could, unarmed and non-violent, force the removal of the head of a corrupt and brutal regime was a general cause for optimism."

She was a lot closer to the action than I was. But anyone following the news this time last year could see that the Egyptian people were anything but non-violent. How else can you describe the pitched battles in and around Tahrir Square between Mubarak's supporters and those who wanted change? How else do we account for the presence and perhaps critical involvement of Egyptian football hooligans in the fighting in Cairo against forces loyal to the dictatorship?

The good news is that the anti-Mubarak forces won, at least in terms of the battles of Tahrir Square. As the dust settles, it seems probable that they won the battle but lost the war. But that is no need to re-write history. I do hope Ahdaf Soueif's book is better than the interview suggests............

 

Lets Hear No More From The Bishops

In 2011 we saw the Church of England divided about the issue of Occupy protestors on church land at St Pauls Cathedral. We have also seen the Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury criticise the excesses of the City and bankers.

Let us hear no more from these hypocrites in 2012, and let us loudly denounce those gullible fools, from Occupy to Terry Eagleton, who would include sky pilots in the struggle for a better world. Lets us consider yesterday's Evening Standard, and its excellent City Spy column which talks of:

...the Church Commissioner's investment strategy of an "acceptable level of risk" to achieve "the best possible total return for the shares" they own which are worth £3.2 billion. They hold another £1.6 billion in commerical property.

As with any good capitalist institution though, the Church of England now concentrates its investment abroad (those English workers want too much money!)

In recent years they have scaled down their holdings in UK company shares and invested more in global company shares and private equity.

With assests of £4.8 billion, the Church of England could wipe out poverty in Britain at a stroke. They don't - because they don't want to. Having a rich and a poor, having 'good' works to do, is for the religious actor as natural as day and night. And as such, it is high time we realised they are not part of the solution - they are part of the problem.

 

 

 

Don't Worry, 2012 Will Be OK

Amongst my Christmas gifts was a hagiography of Barack Obama for teenagers, written by Tim Alexander.

I am assuming 'Barack Obama Hope For The World: Everything you wanted to know about the President, and more!' (Orion, 2009) was written as a deliberate attempt to provoke heart attacks and haemorrages across the US right - it is impossible to see what other purpose it serves. Think of a combination between a Jackie annual and the manifesto of a student union candidate, and you are about half way there.

As we enter 2012, there are a lot of things to be fearful of. Take your pick from continued recession, debt, the rise of restrictive technologies and new laws, the lack of credible political alternatives to the Con-Dems, the prospect of conflict between Israel, the US and Iran, religious extremism, ongoing climate change and overpopulation. But, it seems I am being pessimistic:

"Behind us there stands years of war, global warming, economic difficulties and inequality. Ahead there is the hope of peace, freedom and a world where men and women of different colours, beliefs, and religions can live in harmony. A genuine change is taking place and we have a front row seat. One man has stepped forward to bravely lead the world towards our future." (p.5)

Not My Cup Of Tea

Leonard Zeskind and Devin Burghart have a big article on the US occupy movement in the November issue of Gerry Gable's Searchlight magazine. I think it best to use the term Gable's Searchlight, as we know that former Searchlight editor Nick Lowles is launching his own magazine in the new year............

Zeskind and Burghart cover what they see as as the threat posed to the occupy movement by the Tea Party, supporters of Ron Paul and the conspiracy theories of Texas snake oil salesman Alex Jones. What is noteable about this thesis is however just how overpowering an organisation as diverse (and some might say contradictory) as the Tea Party is viewed as being by the authors. Take the hyperbole of this opening:

"For the past two+ years, the Tea Party movement has had a death grip on the American political discourse. The Tea Parties strangled any move towards an equitable system of single-payer health care. They dominated the November 2010 congressional elections. They came within a hair's breadth of driving the United States itself into insolvency".

And there was me thinking Barack Obama had been President of the United States since 2009! Indeed many of his supporters were at one point insisting Obama had delivered on healthcare, and that this would be seen as the key success of his Presidency!
This approach is a classic example of how political commentators give the ruling elite a get out of jail free card. Any failure of Obama to deliver in the United States is not the fault of the man himself, the Democratic Party or even the US economic system - we can instead blame those on the right who are criticising Obama, for 'impeding' change!

As important as it is to be aware of the likes of distractor flares like Ron Paul or Alex Jones, it should not mean people take leave of their critical faculties. If the US neared bankruptcy, perhaps Obama (and Bush before him) should have spent a little more wisely and a little less on defence projects? And perhaps Zeskind and Burghart could consider where the buck stops in the American political system, rather than attacking easy targets?

Is it too hard to accept that if President Obama has not been 'radical' in office, it might actually be because he was never radical in the first place?

Anarchism: It's About Laughing and Crying

What else can you do when you read a statement like this:

"Turritopsis Nutricula is a multi-gendered, multi-cultural, multi-generational collective of individuals with varied sexual orientations, subcultural affinities and favourite foods.  We are a
Revolutionary household.  By this we mean that we are opposed to police, prison, borders, racism, sexism, heterosexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, ageism, body-policing, speciesism, fascism, capitalism and any other form of oppression."

Apparently this collective is a week in to a squatted occupation in Seattle. You can read more details here. Oh, and a Turritopis Nutricula is apparently a jellyfish. They look a little like this:

A Tribute to Socrates

The first World Cup I can really remember, and certainly the first World Cup where I watched the majority of the games, was Spain in 1982.

The highlight of that tournament was Italy's fabled 3-2 victory over Brazil, and the highlight of that match, to my twelve year old's football brain, was the Brazilian goal where Socrates beat Dino Zoff at his near post. Socrates seemed incredibly exotic. This was an era where English footballers were 'over the Brian' in interviews, our World Cup mascot was a bulldog that would not have looked out of place as an illustration in National Front News, and our two best players, Trevor Brooking and Kevin Keegan, injured more than they were fit.

Socrates seemed improbably, impossibly exotic. The idea of a footballer who was also a Doctor was in the English context, unthinkable. But a footballer named after a Greek philospher, and who chain smoked when not on the football pitch? This interview, with Mancunian journalist Andy Mitten, not only gives us the mark of the man, but the following examination  of Brazil's defeat to Italy:

"Our loss to Italy was not simple," Socrates says. "It was like achieving the conquest of the most beautiful woman in the world, but then being unable to do what matters with her. But it can happen, in life and in sport. "Some say that we were the greatest side never to win the World Cup. They tell us that to this day ... People remember our team because we lost, not won. But nobody tried to copy Italy, the pragmatic team which lifted the World Cup. The beautiful team, with the art and creativity, lost."

 

LSE Interns: Where Gadaffi's Money Did Not Go

The London School of Economics Middle East Centre is recruiting for an intern.

This is a person required to provide administrative support, handle enquiries about the weekly public lecture series, write articles for a forthcoming blog and and help prepare a conference. Applicants will need to have a strong interest in the region, and will have the opportunity to interact with world renowned experts on the Middle East.

So far - so good. Now we get down to the brass tacks.

"This position will involve 10-15 hours work per week, 7 hours of which will be paid."

There are only two explanations for this. Either times really are hard at the LSE, and everyone is expected to take home half their pay, or the LSE Middle East Centre is looking to exploit its interns.

 

Saving Dale Farm? Do Not Expect Morality From The State

Amongst the coverage of the Dale Farm eviction yesterday, I was struck by this quote from Jake Fulton, which appeared at 1503 on the Telegraph's live blog:

"They're torturing people up there. We are trying to resist peacefully."

I am assuming Jake Fulton was one of those activists 'locked on' to the tower that was constructed by the travellers supporters. Locking on, often using bike locks, has been a common method on environmental protests for years. A workshop covering it is shown in the recent Just Do It film about environmental direct action, and it is standard tactic when occupying buildings, or trying to prevent evictions.

Locking on is a stupid, dangerous tactic that places the security, health and safety of the individual in the hands of their supposed enemy - the police and bailiffs. Anyone with a basic knowledge of pressure points or who remembers how to do a 'chinese burn' from childhood, will be able to inflict severe pain on the individual who has 'locked on'. Is this the 'torture' to which Jake Fulton refers? If so, he and a few others need to wise up, and actually start believing their own hype about police riot squads and court appointed bailiffs.

I can't imagine too many Irish travelling men would voluntarily lock themselves in a position where they can be made to suffer by the police. Quite why environmental activists are putting themselves in that position, on their behalf, is beyond me. It is easy to portray such activists as naive, gullible middle class dreamers, because in cases like this, that is how they behave.

Do not expect morality, or fair treatment, or the Queensberry rules, from riot police. Because if you do, you may end up being 'tortured'.

Cameron and Faith: Where Is The Big Society Going?

An interesting insight into the vision David Cameron has for Britain comes from an article he has written for issue 68 of Keep The Faith magazine.

For the uninitiated, Keep The Faith styles itself, according to its blurb on Google, as 'Britain's leading magazine about black faith'. Personally I am not sure how 'faith' can be black or indeed any colour, and I feel rather perturbed by the suggestion that it can be. Then again I have always been a staunch atheist, so what do I know?

In a way, Cameron's approach to Keep The Faith is far from unique. Issue 68 is devoted to a series of condemnations of this summers riots, and Cameron makes it clear that he sees faith as a way of countering such violence. Underwhelmed as I was by the political content of the riots, it is hard not be reminded of the way the 1980s urban clashes were followed by politicians embracing multi-culturalism, community leaders and religious figures in the inner-cities - all to buy off future problems. Put simply, the Prime Minister does not want to see young black kids on street corners, but in church. Here Christianity remains in its traditional role as far as British political leaders are concerned - it is for civilising black people.

What is also interesting, and deeply disturbing, is how Cameron sketches the big society to this audience. Consider this quote:

"I don't agree with people who say there is no place for faith in society and public service. Just look at the good work of faith schools - including the one my own son and daughter attend - or the work of Street Pastors and the Salvation Army. In every town and every city, there are charities and voluntary organisations of all faiths doing teriffic things. And through the new Localism Bill, they are freed up like never before to transform their local communities. This revival is at the heart of what I want to achieve."

The privatisation or reduction of public services, with religious organisations filling the gap, was envisaged in the US by the neo-Conservative right and by George W Bush. In Britain, it picked up pace in London with Ken Livingstone's funding of East London Mosque's welfare programmes, and is set to continue with the big society. On this issue at least, the right, the left and the centre-right appears in harmony.

Several problems emerge with this approach. Firstly, what about those who don't want their local community 'transformed' by the church down the road? When Cameron praises faith schools, is he really unaware of the division they have fostered in Northern Ireland, and to a lesser extent Scotland? Why is their promotion in England going to be different, especially when we already see significant differences between, to take one example, Muslim and non-Muslim communties in places like Birmingham and east Lancashire? What if traditionally antagonistic faiths compete for influence in the same area, both looking to 'transform' the community?

Writing for Shift magazine in 2010, I warned that the big society was likely to end up as an Islamist beanfeast. The reality now appears worse - a beanfeast for any religious current going.

 

Meg Hillier: Now Representing Hackney South?

A curious tweet earlier today from Meg Hillier, MP for Hackney South and Shoreditch, who lost her place in Ed Miliband's shadow cabinet re-shuffle:

"Thank you twittersphere for kind comments. I have freedom to speak for Hackney freely for first time in five years"

I am sure those who elected Meg Hillier in 2005 and 2010 will be interested to know that her Ministerial and then Shadow cabinet careers came first, her Hackney constituents second.

Brendan O'Neill On The Conservative Party Conference

This article from Spiked is easily the best summary I have found discussing the never-never land of contemporary British politics, as evidenced by the party conference season.

Whilst the economy continues to go down the plug-hole, Cameron was to be found styling himself as a sort of PC version of England's 1982 World Cup mascot Bulldog Bobby, demanding we show some pluck. When O'Neill writes of Cameron's apology to women for perceived laddish language, we see a commentator who actually grasps what is happening in the world:

In effect, he was bowing to pressure from minuscule numbers of influential women – primarily highly paid newspaper columnists and expert pollsters – who have been warning him to speak in a way they consider to be ‘appropriate’. That such a dinner-party spat can take centre stage at a party conference in an era of recession is a searing indictment of the hermetically sealed nature of modern British politics. This unedifying clash between professionals over how the fairer sex should be addressed brings to mind the old court system, in which mannerisms of speech and the depth of one’s curtseying were also treated as the be-all and end-all, elbowing aside burning political issues. The return of speech ritualism is further evidence of the isolation of the political class.

More please.

Don't Do It

There is little doubt about the most understated publicity campaign of the year so far. Step forward posh girl environmentalist Emily James:

"JUST DO IT lifts the lid on climate change activism and the daring troublemakers who have crossed the line to become modern day outlaws. Emily James' film follows these activists as they blockade factories, attack coal power stations and glue themselves to the trading floors of the international banks despite the very real threat of arrest."

Apparently a nationwide day of campus screenings is planned for October 18.

As one old comrade used to say, I'm pro cheese, pro coal. Count me out.

Tower Hamlets: Does Martin Bright Know Something We Don't?

The current Jewish Chronicle has an odd piece of analysis by editor Martin Bright.

"Ken needs to show a profound change" presents the hardly startling argument that Ken Livingstone needs to greatly up his game, dropping his alliance with Islamism, to win back voters who abandoned him in the last Mayoral election.

More curious though, is Bright's analysis of Ken's chum, Lutfur Rahman, Mayor of Tower Hamlets. Discussing Ken's appearence at the Mela in Tower Hamlets, Bright states:

"...he appeared alongside the highly divisive Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman, who left the Labour Party for Respect, a body which brings together the socialist hard left and the Islamic far right.
Ken has calculated that backing Mr Rahman's brand of Islamism-lite will win him enough support to justify sacrificing the votes of Jewish, gay or more moderate Muslim Londoners."

I don't have any problem with the second sentence - I suspect that is exactly how Ken Livingstone's mind works. But Martin Bright greatly weakens his case by getting into a terrible muddle over Mayor Lutfur. Rahman certainly left the Labour party, but with the block vote of East London Mosque behind him, actually stood as an independent. There was no need for him to join Respect - the section of the mosque vote that had previously gone to Respect rather than Labour would follow him, and the leftists who made up the minority in Respect would follow as soon as they were told Labour's opposition to Rahman was based on Islamophobia. He remains an 'independent' to this day.

As for Bright's description of Respect bringing together the 'socialist hard left and Islamic far right', it is a neat soundbite. Placing some of the actors involved in this process however is slightly harder. Islamist politics in Tower Hamlets may well find individuals on the left on economic issues and the right on social issues (perhaps mirroring Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party more than the very far right)
As for those 'socialists' in Respect, the likes of Carole Swords and Kevin Ovenden long since shelved notions of class to cheerlead Islamist actors full time - be it Hamas and the Palestinian 'resistance' internationally, or East London Mosque locally.

Placing such individuals on the left/right scale is tricky - perhaps the best historical analogy is the old West European Communist parties during the Cold War. If you were a member of the French Communist Party in the 1970s, your job, by and large, was to support the Soviet Union. The role of a non-Muslim member of Respect is to 'support' the Muslim community locally and the ummah internationally.

Is that too nuanced for Martin Bright to understand?

Who Writes Nick Fielding's Captions For Him?

Catching up on some back reading, I have been flicking through Eye Spy magazine.

The March/April 2011 issue 72 had a four page piece by Nick Fielding 'Kidnap of the Godfather' about the 2010 kidnapping and murder of Brigadier Sultan Amir Tarar - Pakistan's 'Colonel Imam' a long term conduit between Pakistani intelligence and the Taliban. The British journalist Asad Qureshi was also kidnapped in the same incident, but escaped with his life.

Reading Fielding's piece it is not clear who his sources are for this article. It is very clear however that he has been badly let down by whoever writes the captions for Eye Spy. Beneath a picture of the Red Army in Afghanistan, on p.45, are the words:

"Russian soldiers pictured during Moscow's withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. The Taliban now ruled"

This is so bad it is hard to know where to start. Firstly the Soviet Union was a lot more than Russia. The Soviet Union left Afghanistan in 1989, not 1988. The government they had been backing, that of President Mohammed Najibullah, actually outlived the Soviet state, surviving until 1992. As for claiming the Taliban 'now ruled', they did not even exist as a distinct entity at the time, with most analysts charting their rise in Kandahar in the period 1994 to 1996, thanks largely to a mixture of local conditions and Pakistani support.

I am assuming a writer of the status of Nick Fielding knows all this, so the question has to be - who proof reads Eye Spy, and in particular who writes the captions?

Thank You Wills and Kate

Amongst the explanations for stagnant levels of political growth on Wednesday, was this little gem in the Telegraph:

"The royal wedding was said to have cost the country £1billion in lost economic growth." 

My opposition to the royal family is ideological, not economic. No one has the right to reign over me, especially not an aristocratic family who have never been ever elected to do anything. We have heard far too much over the years from those who would lecture us on the economic benefits the monarchy brings to Britain, tourist booms, what good value the Queen is, or how other alternatives are worse.

Read that quote again. It comes from a Conservative newspaper, perhaps the most staunchly royalist in England. Wills and Kate - your overdraft to the British people now stands at one billion pounds. Time to get grafting............

 

 

 

The Hatred That Dare Speak Its Name

This little gem comes courtsey of Adam Deen, a former presenter on the Islam Channel, who now styles himself as an Islamic philosopher.

On 21 July, Mr Deen tweeted:

People talk about immigrants costing this country money What's draining this country is the cost of policing our chav population.

 

Adam's other tweets this week include a complaint that women are so brainwashed they go to the gym dressed as strippers (although it is hard to see what business it is of his what women wear when they exercise) Clearly he is more bigot than philosopher.

Still, as long as he only attacks white working class people, he will go far.

And Freedom Means?

Browsing the programme for the Socialist Workers Party's forthcoming Marxism festival, I was entertained by this little snippet:

Kemal Abu Aita to Speak at Opening Rally

Kemal is a leader of the Egyptian tax collectors' union - the first independent union to be founded in Egypt for decades. Kemal has been a lifelong opponent of Mubarak and supporter of the Palestinian struggle.

I am not sure what it tells us that the first trades union to be tolerated in Egypt is one for tax collectors, but it sure as hell tells us something!

 

 

Class War Chanelled and Reinterpreted?

Way back in 2006, Robin Ramsay of Lobster magazine beautifully pulled the rug from under David Icke's feet.

Ramsay started with this quote from Icke in The Observer of 22 January 2006:

"In 1989, before the European elections, I was asked to go on Sky News. I went into make-up and sitting next to me was Ted Heath. He turned and scanned me and the whole of both his eyes went jet black. Was he part of the reptilian cabal? Absolutely."

Ramsay then added:

"1989 it should be noted, was two years before Icke had his encounter with the 'channeller' which began his journey towards the alien reptile thesis. He is reinterpreting his earlier life in the light, not of experience, but of his more recent beliefs"

I am reminded of the tendency for people to do the above, when reading the article by David Harvie about Class War on the Freely Associating blog. Harvie was one of those involved in Leeds Class War in the mid-1990s, and writes of the split in Class War in 1997:

"In short, we decided that Class War was incapable of making sense of the changed social and political terrain of Britain in the 1990s. It was incapable of understanding new movements, such as Reclaim the Streets and the anti-roads struggles more generally, not to mention the problematics and possibilities opened up by the Zapatistas."

I was as active as anyone in Class War in that period, and barely missed a London CW or national Federation meeting. It simply is not true to say that people fretted about 'the problematics and possibilities opened up by the Zapatistas'. The issues cited were not present in the debates at that moment in time. If anyone had wanted to hear about the anti-roads movement, they could have spoken to the London CW members active in Leytonstone in the campaign against the M11 link road.

David Harvie is reinterpreting his earlier belief, in the light of his more recent experiences. Rather like David Icke.

 

A Question For Anti-Fascist Historians

I am currently reading, and greatly enjoying, Diary of a Man In Despair by Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen. Regarded as the classic Conservative critique of Nazi Germany, the diary runs from the 1930s through to 1944, a few months before the author's execution in Dachau.

One particularly intriguing line raises an interesting nugget for those with an interest in anti-fascist history. On 9 September 1937, Fred Reck wrote of Munich:

"The outlying districts of Haidhausen and Giesing, Munich's lively and alley-filled versions of Whitechapel, have for some time been made unsafe by a group of adolescents banded together under the sign of the 'Red Anchor', who have launched a campaign of terror against all wearing Nazi uniforms. Providing one does not break the taboo against speaking north German dialect here, he can with a quiet heart traverse Giesing wearing a fur coat and top hat, and he will not be troubled - the 'Red Anchor' lays hands only on uniformed Nazis, and especially members of the SS. All this is in no wise to be dismissed as harmless rowdyism, since the 'Red Anchor' is said to be responsible for a number of killings". (p.65).

I have never heard of the Red Anchor. Such a description may fit with the Edelweiss Pirates, but the timescale is not really correct. Does anyone have any further information on anti-fascism in Munich in this period, and the Red Anchor in particular?

 

LSE Cancel David Held Ralph Miliband Event

The London School of Economics events series brings together a succession of speakers on subjects as diverse as contemporary politics, religion, climate change and economics.

It is hard not to giggle however at the news that the 10th May event, with Prof Homi Bhaba and Prof David Held has been cancelled. Held, the foremost realist theorist in the field of international relations, was an academic advisor to Saif al-Islam Gadaffi, and has been one of the most compromised academics in the LSE/Gaddafi scandal. And why is next months lecture "Cosmopolitanism: Ideas and Realities" , billed as a special 'Ralph Miliband dialogue and book launch' cancelled?

Because of 'unforseen circumstances'. Unforseen indeed! Although had the LSE listened to Fred Halliday, they may well have been avoided!

Spare Us............

"I am no doubt not the only one who writes in order to have no face. Do not ask me who I am and do not ask me to remain the same: leave it to our bureaucrats and our police to see that our papers are in order. At least spare us their morality when we write"

Michel Foucault "The Archaeology of Knowledge" (London: Tavistock, 1972) p. 17.

How Hackney Police Receive Protest?

The charming quote below comes the Safer Neighbourhoods Spring 2011 newsletter from the Metropolitan Police's De Beauvoir Team.

"This ward has a factory that receives and distributes fur products. This factory is continually targeted by anti-fur protestors. We have researched and located many of the protestors and will be targeting them when they are next on the ward. The protestors are very vocal and disturb many local residents with their protest."

I can't say they have ever disturbed me, although the rather sinister picture of the officers on the front page of the De Beauvoir Team Newsletter (see pdf on the link above) and the language used about protestors does.

Why Gary McKinnon and Babar Ahmad Are Not The Same

On Wednesday the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee published written evidence on its website concerning the case of Babar Ahmad from Tooting, who is awaiting extradition to the United States on terrorist charges which include running the Jihadist website Azzam.com

Babar Ahmad's father has submitted a letter to the Committee in support of his son, who is described as a 'prominent member of Britain's Muslim community'. It is co-signed by what can only be described as a sample of some of the great and the good of UK Islamist and/or Jihadist circles. Politically the statement takes the familar one-dimensional approach in responding to UK Jihadis - ignore their alleged actions and beliefs, and instead focus solely on unfair treatment they may have received. Ahmad has waited a ludicrous amount of time on remand - some six years. His alleged offences were mostly committed in this country (although the letter conveniently ignores the international nature of them, and that they were allegedly made on US based websites) and he was badly beaten up upon arrest.

If convicted, I hope the Territorial Support Group officers who battered Ahmad serve a long time in prison, even if, given the beliefs expressed on azzam.com, he is perhaps a hard person to feel sorry for. A review of the UK's lob-sided extradition agreement with the United States is also long overdue.

It is galling however to see Ahmad's case compared to that of computer hacker Gary McKinnon. Ahmad senior writes to Parliament:

"There cannot be two parallel system's of justice wherby some British citizens facing extradition to the US are afforded rights that others are deprived of, regardless of the seriousness of the allegations. We also note that the Home Secretary has recently frozen the extradition to the US of computer hacker Gary McKinnon (whose case is similar to Babar Ahmad's) and that Prime Minister Cameron has held talks with President Obama regarding that case"

Gary McKinnon suffers from aspergers syndrome, and hacked into Pentagon computers looking for evidence of UFO's. Babar Ahmad allegedly ran one of the most significant Jihadist websites, is accused of money laundering and conspiring to kill Americans. To describe them as 'similar' is ludicrous. Such a line plays well with those pushing theories of Muslim exceptionalism and Islamophobia, but is ridiculous to anyone who takes the trouble to look behind such verbiage.

Gary McKinnon is not therefore Babar Ahmad. Whilst McKinnon was busy looking for little green men, this is how azzam.com responded to the 9/11 attacks. The screenshot below comes from 16 September 2001:

 

The WRP: When They Are Bought, They Stay Bought

The Workers Revolutionary Party (WRP) has long held the dubious accolade of being by far the vilest of the United Kingdom's Trotskyist parties.

Most shamefully their history includes, in the 1980s, passing photographs of Iraqi Communists in London to the regime of Saddam Hussain. It is not hard to imagine the consequences of those actions. A similar, although perhaps not as deadly, relationship with Libya appears likely. As conflict in Libya rages between pro and anti-Gaddaffi forces, the Colonel's former friends in high places in London, Paris, Rome and Washington appear to have deserted him.

The WRP however, remains steadfast:

it is the duty of the working people of the world to defend Libya and its oil reserves, to oppose any plans to either partition or conquer it, and to be unconditionally for the victory of the Libyan government, armed forces and people under the leadership of Colonel Gadaffi.

Barmy as such sentiments are, you have to hand it to the WRP. Whilst figures as diverse the London School of Economics, Peter Mandelson and William Hague are all backing away from the Gaddaffi's, the WRP stands firm. When the heirs of Gerry Healey are bought - they stay bought.

 

From Gaddafi's Green Book

"...the people have the right to struggle, through the popular revolution, to destroy instruments which usurp democracy and sovereignty and take them away from the masses. They also have the right to utter the new principle, no representation in lieu of the people".

Since Nick Griffin stopped handing them out, the Green Book has been comparatively rare in the UK. You can however read it on-line here, and it is reproduced as an appendix in Gaddafi's book "My Vision", with French academic Edmond Jouve. If only the Libyan uprising had not occurred, who knows one of the Gaddafi's may have been writing books with Anthony Giddens or David Held!

Multiculturalism: The Left Stands Divided?

The little gem of a quote below appears in this weeks Socialist Worker.

The SWP have reacted with horror to Searchlight suddenly discovering what many working class people (and interestingly much of the Anarchist movement) have been saying for years - that the Islamist right can be just as unpleasant, bigoted and dangerous as the fascist right.

In response to Searchlight's line "A plague on both their houses":

"Anti-racist activists have launched a petition, "Defend Multiculturalism, don't let Cameron divide us", and are raising funds for an advert in the Guardian newspaper."

Pure comedy gold - what better way to prevent the working class being divided than by an advert in The Guardian? Might it be better, and more realistic, to say it is the last century left that stands divided, and at least Searchlight appear to be waving, whilst the SWP is drowning on this particular issue?

Time To Give Women Control

Naturalist and TV Presenter Chris Packham came out with this in The Telegraph magazine on Saturday:

"I recently became a patron of a body called Population Matters, along with David Attenborough, and I will tweet and blog about the desperate need to regulate the human population".

No need Chris. Just allow women to have control over their own bodies, and the issue may well just take care of its self.....

Stephen Timms MP: Ouch and Double Ouch

Last November I commented on the case of Roshonara Choudhry, convicted of the attempted murder of her MP, who she stabbed at his constituency surgery. Choudhry, who was a fan of the American Jihadist Anwar Al-awlaki, appears to have been motivated by Timms support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and her own support for Jihadist causes.

One thing missed in the press coverage at the time was this eye watering quote from Timms, which originally appeared in a Muslim Labour Movement leaflet in 2007:

"As Labour Party chair responsible for liaison with faith communities I warmly welcome the establishment of Muslim Labour Movement (MLM). Faith is a great starting point for political action. I look forward to MLM providing a good bridge between the Labour Party and the Muslim community, helping to build better understanding and partnership between us, and ensuring that many more Muslims feel fully part of the Labour Party, able to shape our policies for Britain".

Ouch.

The MLM appears to have sunk without trace. Whether Stephen Timms still thinks faith is such a good starting point for political action is also unclear......

Happy New Year

The BBC's economics editor Stephanie Flanders has blogged on todays economic figures:

"....real household income in the UK at the end of 2010 was lower than it was 5 years ago. And there will now be further hits in 2011 from rising prices, higher VAT and real pay cuts and job losses and in the public sector."

That is certainly true of my household, and those of many people I know. Sadly there are plenty of others for whom that is not the case - starting with senior BBC employees and moving across to the banks and the city. The words 'we are all in this togther' have a pretty hollow ring..........

Daily Star Readers Support The Rioters!

Flicking through yesterday's Daily Star I spotted this little quote, in a piece by political editor Gary Nicks:

"Daily Star readers remained split last night over whether the students were right to riot, with 54% saying yes and 46% saying no"

In terms of political science the Daily Star is actually quite an interesting paper as it is believed to be the only national UK daily where most of its readers do not vote. Copies of the Star are not believed to sell out in student union shops by lunchtime, so we can safely assume that very few students voted in the Star's poll. 

If this degree of public support exists for direct action now, what will it be like when the Con-Dems cuts begin to bite in other areas? 

Birth, School, Work, Death

This little gem comes from an angry editorial in The Spectator, as France rises up against President Sarkozy's proposed changes to the welfare system:

"The world is left to wonder what it is about the constitutions of the French that makes it perilous to their health to work to 62, when all around them are countries where people work to 65 and beyond."
The Spectator 16/10/10 p.5

Perhaps a few people in France have better things to do with lives than work?

The Olympic Borough With No Sport

It has taken five years, but the reality of London 2012 for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets is crystal clear. 

London's 2012 bid relied in part on London's reputation as a multi-cultural city, and the need to regenerate some of our poorest areas. And London's poorest borough is Tower Hamlets, a mere javelin throw from the Olympic Village in Stratford. As the East London Advertiser states in its current issue:

"The decision to reroute the marathon out of east London means Tower Hamlets is now ironically an 'Olympic host borough' without a single event to host. Back in 2005 when Britain jumped for joy after beating Paris to host the 2012 Olympics, Tower Hamlets was set to hold three major events - the basketball, the walking race and the marathon. 
But over the last five years the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) has slowly chipped away the borough's involvement"

Until it is zero. Zilch. A big fat nothing. 

If Tower Hamlets is no longer good enough to host any Olympic event, can we assume that Tower Hamlets council tax payers will not be required to fund any part of the Olympics?  And that any money that has already gone towards the Olympics will be returned? 

The board of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games can be seen here. It is the usual mixture of the 'great and the good' - former athletes, an under employed royal, businessmen, council leaders and even the chairman of the board of trustees of Tower Hamlets famous East London Mosque, Dr Muhammad Bari. If he is not able to bat for the East End on this Committee, what is he doing there? 

Such individuals probably do not visit Tower Hamlets very often. When and if they do, lets hope people tell them loudly, and very clearly, what they think of them. 

A Depressing Drift?

"It's sad when I see what has happened to Oldham over the last few years. It has always been an area with a lot of different nationalities and that has never been an issue for me. I am upset about the way the kids are going now and what motivation they have got. No one seems to want to tolerate the other races any more, which is a real shame. We just got on with our own thing and race was never really a problem." 

Former Rugby League star Barrie McDermott, on his home town of Oldham, in his autobiography Made For Rugby (p.18) 

Ging Gang Goolie To Go!

When you consider political splits, disputes and simmering hatreds, it is perhaps instinctive to think of the left. 

We should have a high regard however for Huntingdon Conservative Sir Peter Brown, agent to baby-faced Jonathan Djanogly MP, and unnamed senior Conservatives in the constituency. They have been sticking the knife into the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Justice Department. So alarmed was Djanogly that he hired private detectives to discover what local Tories thought of him. They were told: 

“He [Djanogly] works very hard not to give an opinion. He sits on the fence on every issue and nobody knows where he stands on anything. He is a wet fish and is constantly wriggling on the political issues of the day.”

And just as good:

“The only reason Jonathan was elected in the first place is that his father was close to John Major and so party members voted for him as a favour to John Major. He has been a disaster and we need to deselect him.”

More please!

Charity: Who Gains?

"I hated Comic Relief and I hated Live Aid, and I stand by that. It was the beginning of all that celebrity culture, and charity has always been a mask for self-indulgence. Live Aid also revived the career of fucking Queen, and there's no worse evil than that."

Alexei Sayle in the Daily Telegraph, 4 September 2010. 

Pawn To H6?

I have just finished David Edmonds and John Eidinow's history of the 1972 world chess championship match in Reykjavik between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky, appropriately entitled "Bobby Fischer Goes To War". 

It is hard not to feel slightly disturbed by Fischer, and that is being generous. Spassky emerges as a gentleman who acquiesces to most of the challenger's demands to simply allow the game to proceed, and who should really have walked out when, 2-0 down in the match, Fischer demanded to play the vital third game in a closed room. At times it is tempting to imagine that the Soviet report which concluded Fischer was a psychopath may even have had a grain of truth. 

In between the obsession with Jews, Communists and religious mania, what was in Fischer's mind? Living in Germany in the 1980s he spent time with the German grandmaster Michael Bezold, who states:

"He was obsessed with a game in the 1960s, and the question was whether or not to move the pawn to h6. This was the only question. And he said he'd been analysing this game for more than thirty years, and he couldn't figure out whether its better to play h6 or not. It was fantastic."

Anyone who has ever been fanatical about anything will either recognise themselves in that quote, or be blown away by its intensity. 

Edmonds and Eidinow were able to find to assemble a remarkable series of interviews for their study, from Cold War warriors such as Henry Kissinger to Spassky himself. Perhaps not surprisingly they did not obtain one with Fischer himself, who died this year, an exile from the United States. The first in what may be a series of new biographies, by Frank Brady, is scheduled to appear early next year. Whether this work will build on Edmonds and Eidinow's research into Fischer's family background (which interestingly was both Jewish and Communist!) remains to be seen. 

Even Brownsville Has Been Gentrified

From a fascinating piece on Mike Tyson's visit to Peterborough(!) in Saturday's Telegraph:

"It was a crime street when I grew up there but when I went back, there were white folks living there. It was smart. It was like my whole life there was a lie". 

Bakunin's Advice To The Liberal Democrats

I doubt that Deputy Prime MInister Nick Clegg has ever read any Bakunin. 

If he were to turn over a few pages however, he may come across this quote that a few Liberal Democrats may care to ponder over the next few months (I did not write years, as I am far from convinced it will last that long)

"All the experience of history demonstrates to us that an alliance concluded between two different parties always turns to the advantage of the more reactionary of the two parties; this alliance necessarily enfeebles the more progressive party, by diminishing and distorting its programme, by destroying its moral strength, its confidence in itself, whilst a reactionary party, when it is guilty of falsehood is always and more than ever true to itself". 

Mikhail Bakunin. Marxism, Freedom and the State. (Freedom, 1998) p. 54

The Ostrich Tendency: The Federation of Student Islamic Societies

The quote below is from a press release issued by the Federation of Student Islamic Societies on 29 December 2009. It followed an alleged attempted suicide bombing by the former President of University College London Islamic Society, Farouk Abdulmutallab. 

FOSIS argued:

"There remains no evidence to suggest that Muslim students are at particular risk of radicalisation or that university campuses are vulnerable to people seeking to recruit to this extreme ideology.”

It is hard to know whether to laugh or cry at the FOSIS statement. 

Yesterday the former President of the Islamic Society at London Metropolitan University, Waheed Zaman, was convicted of conspiracy to murder for his role in the liquid bomb plot. As is pointed out at the Harry's Place site, he was not the first ISOC official to be involved in serious terrorist offences. He follows Kafeel Ahmed (Queens University ISOC) who died in the suicide attack on Glasgow airport, 2007 and Yassin Nassari (Westminster ISOC) convicted the same year of smuggling plans for a rocket launcher into the UK. 

If you work or study at a UK University, the Islamic Society is very likely to be affiliated to FOSIS. They should be easy to spot, as they will look a little like this:

 

 

On This Day - 6 July 1983

"I am a socialist not through reading a textbook that has caught my intellectual fancy, nor through unthinking tradition, but because I believe that, at its best, Socialism corresponds most closely to an existence that is both rational and moral.
It stands for co-operation, not confrontation; for fellowship, not fear. It stands for equality, not because it wants people to be the same but because only through equality in our economic circumstances can our individuality develop properly. British democracy rests ultimately on the shared perception by all the people that they participate in the benefits of the common weal."

Tony Blair's maiden speech to the House of Commons, 27 years ago today.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit On........ Raymond Domench

I understand that everyone is an expert on football these days. 

Few would have expected 1968 student radical Daniel Cohn-Bendit to know much about the game (am I correct in thinking that the 'May events' occurred whilst a perfectly good football season was still in progress?) but flicking through a pile of World Cup soccer supplements, I came across this little gem from the Daily Mirror of 19/6/2010:

"Daniel Cohn-Bendit, head of France's Ecology movement said "Les Bleus did not play and had no love for each other or the game. Zinedine Zidane was right - Domenech isn't a coach, he's just a guy who puts players on the pitch."

First off - isn't Cohn-Bendit German? In which case why is he so concerned about the French team? 

Secondly, I wonder if his sudden expertise may develop a particular trend. Could we get the views of Tariq Ali on Fabio Capello? Eamonn McCann could have commented on Ireland but for Thierry Henry's handball, whilst Situationist Raoul Vaneigem, who famously abandoned the barricades in 68 because it was time for his annual holiday, could suggest some suitable destinations for those tiring of ITV's dreadful coverage of the tournament. 

Are there any further suggestions? 

On The Paradoxes of Multiculturalism

Earlier this week I picked up a joint leaflet from the National Union of Teachers and Unite Against Fascism.

Entitled "Use Your Vote To Stop The BNP" it contains the following quote:

"The BNP hates that our children learn and play together. Britain is a multicultural society, don't let the BNP fascists tear it apart".

All fair sentiment - now where do I sign up for the UAF/NUT campaign against separate Muslim schools (or those of any other faith group) as they do far more to ensure our children do not 'learn and play together' than any BNP campaign.