This week we became not so much legal experts as moral judges. It is strangely reassuring that at a time when there are hyperactive journalists who worry about the moral state of Britain, so much public condemnation has come the way of a footballer who took out a super-injunction to hide his infidelity.
The actions of those who have spent the past few weeks passing on the identity of the culprit on Twitter show that people feel when someone has been 'found out', their behaviour should then be exposed.
The footballer at the centre of the controversy clearly failed to read the situation as well as he can read a game of football. By ramping up his legal activity this week with legal threats to Twitter, he is only serving to further agitate Twitter users angered by his behaviour.
The player in question may be a force to be reckoned with on the pitch, but his mid-life crisis seems to have come very early.
The people who have suffered most are his wife and children. It makes us wonder who the player was keeping the secret from with his little injunction.
The club's fans? Possibly. However, the fans are a forgiving bunch. His team-mates have been forgiven for various atrocities over the years.
The wider public? Most likely. This is backfiring though, because of the easy access of information on the Internet.
Other potential mistresses? Most worryingly, if only for the player, is that other mistresses or opportunists may come forward if and when his identity is finally revealed in the lucrative press.
Wife and children? Most disgraceful if so - nothing else to add.
So what have we learned about this week's protagonists?
"Sir" Fred Goodwin: There is not a lot we did not know already, but a dishonourable mention goes to this banker, who was named in the House of Lords as having taken out an injunction to suppress a story about infidelity. The sceptre of financial and moral bankruptcy is never far away from him.
Imogen Thomas: The lady at the centre of the footballer's super-injunction. Who knows what is true and what are attempts to discredit her and make her appear a sex-crazed gold-digger? All that matters is she is beautiful and a married footballer fell for her charms. We all know that anyone whose name begins with the words "Former Big Brother Contestant" should come with a danger sign. What has happened is the responsibility of the footballer though - not Imogen.
Footballer: Proves what we already know about those who play football at the highest level. The sport would not happen without those who have the talent, but also these players are leeching from the sport. They are overpaid and personify greed. Many of our present top-flight players are a good advertisement for bringing back wage caps.
Sunday 22 May 2011
Sunday 15 May 2011
Women: "Slut Walks" or self-preservation?
Women should enjoy the freedom to wear whatever they want. It is what differentiates our culture from those where women are influenced to believe it in their interests to cover-up all their features, separating themselves from other people in society in the process.
Conversely, it is their right to be able to cover up as well. There should be no rulebook on who should wear what. This is why the thoughts of Michael Sanguinetti, of Toronto's police force, notably the comment "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised," should have been kept to himself.
As a consequence of Sanguinetti's loose talk, a protest movement called "Slut Walks" has emerged in North America. Women (and many men as well) are marching in protest, dressed sexily, and displaying various messages in order to make a statement of defiance.
Most decent folk are capable of self-control. They do not view females in minimal attire as those to be manhandled, violated and victimised. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks like that. This leads to an uncomfortable truth, and that truth is women who rightly took offence to Sanguinetti need to consider the deeper meanings behind his moralist and prejudiced rhetoric.
What follows is not another dose of 'victim blaming' - nobody deserves to be victimised, regardless of what they wear. But for too long, debates such as these have been framed in gendered terms - and it has to be remembered that some radical feminists reject the body exhibiting culture which is socialised into young women by the media.
The fact is that if something is easily accessible, the risk of that something being violated is higher. It is simply wrong to suggest that encouraging women to dress more conservatively is male patriarchy in action, while men can live without boundaries.
If men go out and get stupidly drunk, then the risk of violation of them is increased as well, particularly through theft or attack.
If men carry expensive items visibly, they are at a heightened risk of robbery.
And so if women lower their security, they too run the risk of violation. That is the world we live in.
A slightly more condescending, but more virtuous message could have gone something like this:-
The best we can do as individuals is to manage the risk. People, male or female, should go out in groups when being social during rather unsocial hours. Non-essential valuables need not be exhibited. If you feel you may be at risk, it is basic self-preservation to use the means to reduce it. That involves - sadly - covering up a little if necessary. Not only that, but arrange lifts from people you know, as even licensed taxis are no guarantee for they are effectively driven by strangers.
As this argument shows, the need is to put a safety message, not make moral judgements and call people sluts.
Conversely, it is their right to be able to cover up as well. There should be no rulebook on who should wear what. This is why the thoughts of Michael Sanguinetti, of Toronto's police force, notably the comment "women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimised," should have been kept to himself.
As a consequence of Sanguinetti's loose talk, a protest movement called "Slut Walks" has emerged in North America. Women (and many men as well) are marching in protest, dressed sexily, and displaying various messages in order to make a statement of defiance.
Most decent folk are capable of self-control. They do not view females in minimal attire as those to be manhandled, violated and victimised. Unfortunately, not everyone thinks like that. This leads to an uncomfortable truth, and that truth is women who rightly took offence to Sanguinetti need to consider the deeper meanings behind his moralist and prejudiced rhetoric.
What follows is not another dose of 'victim blaming' - nobody deserves to be victimised, regardless of what they wear. But for too long, debates such as these have been framed in gendered terms - and it has to be remembered that some radical feminists reject the body exhibiting culture which is socialised into young women by the media.
The fact is that if something is easily accessible, the risk of that something being violated is higher. It is simply wrong to suggest that encouraging women to dress more conservatively is male patriarchy in action, while men can live without boundaries.
If men go out and get stupidly drunk, then the risk of violation of them is increased as well, particularly through theft or attack.
If men carry expensive items visibly, they are at a heightened risk of robbery.
And so if women lower their security, they too run the risk of violation. That is the world we live in.
A slightly more condescending, but more virtuous message could have gone something like this:-
The best we can do as individuals is to manage the risk. People, male or female, should go out in groups when being social during rather unsocial hours. Non-essential valuables need not be exhibited. If you feel you may be at risk, it is basic self-preservation to use the means to reduce it. That involves - sadly - covering up a little if necessary. Not only that, but arrange lifts from people you know, as even licensed taxis are no guarantee for they are effectively driven by strangers.
As this argument shows, the need is to put a safety message, not make moral judgements and call people sluts.
Time to acknowledge Manchester United's classic season
Manchester United's achievements have been grossly understated all season. With the 2011 Premier League title in the bag and a Champions League final to come, will the pundits finally admit Manchester United are having an extraordinary season?
Equally as irritating is the constant 'best club side in the world' tag which is lazily hurled at Barcelona because they have arguably the world's best player, Lionel Messi, on their books and the football they play is a joy to watch.
I look forward to seeing Barcelona play the Premier League champions on the 28th May to see how they fare against England's best football team.
Equally as irritating is the constant 'best club side in the world' tag which is lazily hurled at Barcelona because they have arguably the world's best player, Lionel Messi, on their books and the football they play is a joy to watch.
I look forward to seeing Barcelona play the Premier League champions on the 28th May to see how they fare against England's best football team.
Sunday 8 May 2011
Electoral reform for our benefit? No!
The AV decision was a tough one for me. In the end, despite the disgraceful 'no' campaign, I used my own judgement and voted 'no'. It was close. If I had been a constituency and not an individual, the exit poll would have been 51 percent 'no' to 49 percent 'yes'.
Ultimately, the 'yes' campaign failed to make a good sell. Their key arguments - less safe seats and making MPs work harder for votes - had little impact.
Explain to me how a seat where the lead party already has over 40 percent of first preferences is going to find the seat any more difficult to win under AV. Then explain why that would give the MP an incentive to work harder.
The gerrymanderers in government are presently embarking on an undemocratic process of fewer parliamentary seats and fixed five year terms. Good luck if you want to get rid of despised politicians.
These bigger constituencies will make safe seats even safer. If anything, there should be far more MPs, paid less and presiding over smaller and more volatile constituencies.
The current Westminster reform plan will see less competitiveness - all in the name of electoral reform to supposedly please the public. Nice.
Ultimately, the 'yes' campaign failed to make a good sell. Their key arguments - less safe seats and making MPs work harder for votes - had little impact.
Explain to me how a seat where the lead party already has over 40 percent of first preferences is going to find the seat any more difficult to win under AV. Then explain why that would give the MP an incentive to work harder.
The gerrymanderers in government are presently embarking on an undemocratic process of fewer parliamentary seats and fixed five year terms. Good luck if you want to get rid of despised politicians.
These bigger constituencies will make safe seats even safer. If anything, there should be far more MPs, paid less and presiding over smaller and more volatile constituencies.
The current Westminster reform plan will see less competitiveness - all in the name of electoral reform to supposedly please the public. Nice.
Bin Laden's death and excessive liberalism
BBC's Question Time ought to come with a health warning. Not a week goes by without the programme raising my blood pressure, often due to my irritation with intolerant right-wing panelists. This week's death of Osama Bin Laden led to an unusual changing of sides, whereby I found myself allied to the panel's neoconservative.
There were mitigating factors. The liberal element of the panel were represented by the unusually erratic former Liberal Democrat leader, Lord Ashdown, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Alibhai-Brown is highly intelligent, but her delivery makes it difficult to warm to her. It was not helped that both took the position of arguing that as with all criminals, Bin Laden had human rights and should not have been killed.
As they discussed his rights to having a fair trial, I suddenly found myself trapped alone, with an equally difficult to warm to neoconservative, in the real world.
In this real world, my limited knowledge of the rule of law and terms of engagement were over-ruled by a sense of relief that Bin Laden no longer walked the earth.
In this real world, I felt that Bin Laden's right to a fair trial was pointless convention. What was he going to do? Plead not guilty to the atrocities he has frequently boasted about on tape?
In this real world, I realised that dead or alive, Bin Laden was a huge trophy that would have sent blackmailers into overdrive?
In this real world, the comparisons between Nazi war criminals and Bin Laden were false comparisons because the nature of the conflict is different. When the Nazis surrendered, the game was up for them. Al-Qaeda is something more fluid and evolving. Nazis on trial did not inflame their dead ideology. Bin Laden on trial would have been a massive wind-up.
The fact of the matter is those leftist intellects mean well, but often find themselves in the position of defending the indefensible. As someone also coming from the left, my kindness does not stretch infinitely and sometimes I wish I could shake some of the others.
I admire the ideals coming from many writers of columns often seen in The Independent, The Guardian and The Observer, but often their thoughts are simply not palatable to the public. If they were, then perhaps they would sell more than a few hundred thousand daily papers. Trying to sell the idea Bin Laden was a man with rights is a difficult one.
The last word should be with Barack Obama, who I believe when he said Bin Laden's death makes the world a safer place. It will be safer, but not entirely safe of course. There will continue to be risk, but I find it hard to believe that Bin Laden being alive today would be of help to anyone. I am not even convinced it is what Bin Laden himself would have wanted.
There were mitigating factors. The liberal element of the panel were represented by the unusually erratic former Liberal Democrat leader, Lord Ashdown, and Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. Alibhai-Brown is highly intelligent, but her delivery makes it difficult to warm to her. It was not helped that both took the position of arguing that as with all criminals, Bin Laden had human rights and should not have been killed.
As they discussed his rights to having a fair trial, I suddenly found myself trapped alone, with an equally difficult to warm to neoconservative, in the real world.
In this real world, my limited knowledge of the rule of law and terms of engagement were over-ruled by a sense of relief that Bin Laden no longer walked the earth.
In this real world, I felt that Bin Laden's right to a fair trial was pointless convention. What was he going to do? Plead not guilty to the atrocities he has frequently boasted about on tape?
In this real world, I realised that dead or alive, Bin Laden was a huge trophy that would have sent blackmailers into overdrive?
In this real world, the comparisons between Nazi war criminals and Bin Laden were false comparisons because the nature of the conflict is different. When the Nazis surrendered, the game was up for them. Al-Qaeda is something more fluid and evolving. Nazis on trial did not inflame their dead ideology. Bin Laden on trial would have been a massive wind-up.
The fact of the matter is those leftist intellects mean well, but often find themselves in the position of defending the indefensible. As someone also coming from the left, my kindness does not stretch infinitely and sometimes I wish I could shake some of the others.
I admire the ideals coming from many writers of columns often seen in The Independent, The Guardian and The Observer, but often their thoughts are simply not palatable to the public. If they were, then perhaps they would sell more than a few hundred thousand daily papers. Trying to sell the idea Bin Laden was a man with rights is a difficult one.
The last word should be with Barack Obama, who I believe when he said Bin Laden's death makes the world a safer place. It will be safer, but not entirely safe of course. There will continue to be risk, but I find it hard to believe that Bin Laden being alive today would be of help to anyone. I am not even convinced it is what Bin Laden himself would have wanted.
Vote 2011 review - Lib Dems trounced
Who would be a Lib Dem right now? This week's trouncing in the local election is the latest in a string of calamities since leader Nick Clegg entered the coalition with the Conservatives.
Rocked by student protests, resignations from grassroots activists and the ongoing appearance of fronting unpopular Tory policies have led to the party's collapse in support.
Clegg had, up until now, pushed the argument that the Lib Dems 'did not win the election' suggesting it limited his options. While this is true to some extent, Thursday's results demonstrate the public dissatisfaction with their conduct.
The confusing part is the other mixed messages sent by the electorate. On one hand, the Lib Dems have been punished for what are, in effect, destructive Tory policies. On the other hand, the Tories actually gained seats. Some punishment that is!
It has to be said the British, or more specifically the English, have a peculiar relationship with the Conservative Party. Despite public unease about their policies, people keep voting for them.
It is little wonder the Scottish National Party has made great strides in Scotland. Perhaps the Scots are becoming increasingly sick and tired of being governed by Tories voted for by slavish Englanders and who can blame them? (I am English, by the way.)
So with the Tories emerging more or less unscathed, precisely why was it the Lib Dems suffered most? Political and social scientists will already be hard at work on this, but here are a couple of provisional theories.
Firstly, though there may be two wings of the Liberal Democrats within the party - a left and a more economically liberal right - many of the voters are (perhaps unsurprisingly) social liberals who do not support non-welfarist conservatism. In many affluent areas, the Lib Dems are the Tories' natural opposition. If they have a state-stripping coalition placed in front of them with near 100 percent collegiality, what motivation is there to vote Lib Dem in these areas?
Secondly, there have been some major Lib Dem calamities which have proven totally unforgivable to some voters. On a personal note, I spent three years campaigning to fellow university students that the Lib Dems was the party against student fees. The decision to go ahead with the trebling of fees devastated the Lib Dems' youth vote.
The outcome of this policy, which was to smash the Lib Dems to pieces, was a result beyond they wildest dreams of even the most tribal Conservative.
That is assuming the Tories did not already forecast the impact of forcing through the student fees legislation. As Vince Cable stated earlier today, the Tories are tribal. It would be no surprise if their strategists were canny enough to realise who would pay the political price for for increased student fees. Shame on the Lib Dems for falling for it.
For many students and former students alike, campaigning for the Lib Dems is now untenable. How can they expect to retain their vote? Nick Clegg and his band of dodgy policy salesmen cynically toured university campuses with a signed pledge to abolish student fees. In my view, this gave the policy more salience than a typically breakable manifesto pledge. There is no question the issue of student fees should have been a red line in the coalition agreement. The number of Lib Dem voters between the ages of 18 and 25 who are lost forever does not bear contemplation.
I have worked alongside dedicated grassroots Lib Dems. Some of them were worryingly too liberal for their own good, others more rugged, but all of them worked hard fighting Tories up and down the country. They would fight for every single vote. Every letterbox was an opportunity. Every doorstep was a point of access to a potential voter. All their best efforts lay in tatters because of their useless/useful* (delete as appropriate) idiot.
Their failings surfaced on Thursday for all to see. It was the day Britain returned to two-party politics (simply replace Conservative with SNP north of the border). In the unlikely event the Lib Dems gain enough seats to force another hung parliament, I cannot see them rushing into another coalition any time soon.
Rocked by student protests, resignations from grassroots activists and the ongoing appearance of fronting unpopular Tory policies have led to the party's collapse in support.
Clegg had, up until now, pushed the argument that the Lib Dems 'did not win the election' suggesting it limited his options. While this is true to some extent, Thursday's results demonstrate the public dissatisfaction with their conduct.
The confusing part is the other mixed messages sent by the electorate. On one hand, the Lib Dems have been punished for what are, in effect, destructive Tory policies. On the other hand, the Tories actually gained seats. Some punishment that is!
It has to be said the British, or more specifically the English, have a peculiar relationship with the Conservative Party. Despite public unease about their policies, people keep voting for them.
It is little wonder the Scottish National Party has made great strides in Scotland. Perhaps the Scots are becoming increasingly sick and tired of being governed by Tories voted for by slavish Englanders and who can blame them? (I am English, by the way.)
So with the Tories emerging more or less unscathed, precisely why was it the Lib Dems suffered most? Political and social scientists will already be hard at work on this, but here are a couple of provisional theories.
Firstly, though there may be two wings of the Liberal Democrats within the party - a left and a more economically liberal right - many of the voters are (perhaps unsurprisingly) social liberals who do not support non-welfarist conservatism. In many affluent areas, the Lib Dems are the Tories' natural opposition. If they have a state-stripping coalition placed in front of them with near 100 percent collegiality, what motivation is there to vote Lib Dem in these areas?
Secondly, there have been some major Lib Dem calamities which have proven totally unforgivable to some voters. On a personal note, I spent three years campaigning to fellow university students that the Lib Dems was the party against student fees. The decision to go ahead with the trebling of fees devastated the Lib Dems' youth vote.
The outcome of this policy, which was to smash the Lib Dems to pieces, was a result beyond they wildest dreams of even the most tribal Conservative.
That is assuming the Tories did not already forecast the impact of forcing through the student fees legislation. As Vince Cable stated earlier today, the Tories are tribal. It would be no surprise if their strategists were canny enough to realise who would pay the political price for for increased student fees. Shame on the Lib Dems for falling for it.
For many students and former students alike, campaigning for the Lib Dems is now untenable. How can they expect to retain their vote? Nick Clegg and his band of dodgy policy salesmen cynically toured university campuses with a signed pledge to abolish student fees. In my view, this gave the policy more salience than a typically breakable manifesto pledge. There is no question the issue of student fees should have been a red line in the coalition agreement. The number of Lib Dem voters between the ages of 18 and 25 who are lost forever does not bear contemplation.
I have worked alongside dedicated grassroots Lib Dems. Some of them were worryingly too liberal for their own good, others more rugged, but all of them worked hard fighting Tories up and down the country. They would fight for every single vote. Every letterbox was an opportunity. Every doorstep was a point of access to a potential voter. All their best efforts lay in tatters because of their useless/useful* (delete as appropriate) idiot.
Their failings surfaced on Thursday for all to see. It was the day Britain returned to two-party politics (simply replace Conservative with SNP north of the border). In the unlikely event the Lib Dems gain enough seats to force another hung parliament, I cannot see them rushing into another coalition any time soon.
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