Miliband and Cameron gender quarrel disguises true parliamentary failings

Labour leader Ed Miliband has criticised the lack of promotion of women by David Cameron's ruling Conservatives in a fiery Prime Minister's Questions session.

Describing the Conservatives as an "old boys' network", Miliband slammed a decision by the party to deselect long-serving Member of Parliament Anne McIntosh for the next General Election.

Embarrassingly for the Prime Minister, his front bench was full of male MPs for the session, while Miliband packed his front bench with women.

Miliband also noted that there are just as many members of David Cameron's cabinet from two fee-paying schools as there are female members. The ruling coalition has been criticised in the past for hindering social mobility, with the current cabinet the least diverse in years, if not decades.

There has been activity in all of the major UK political parties in recent years to promote more women to Parliament, occasionally controversially in the form of 'all-women shortlists' in some parliamentary constituencies.

The coalition parties have been wholly unsuccessful in returning women to Parliament though. In the aftermath of the 2010 General Election, 31 percent of Labour MPs were female, compared with 16 percent of Conservatives and 12 percent of Liberal Democrats.

This deficit has given the government a headache, as Labour has a broad pool of female talent to draw from. In contrast, promising female MPs on the government benches have largely fallen by the wayside.

Louise Mensch was part of the parliamentary committee charged with interrogating Rupert Murdoch over the phone-hacking scandal that engulfed his newspapers. Following that role, she suddenly stood down as MP citing family reasons and now writes for Murdoch's Sun newspaper.

Other promising female careers in the coalition government have also fizzled out, including that of Sarah Teather - now a regular rebel against government policy. Teather has announced she is stepping down at the next election.

Others, including Nadine Dorries, have also taken to frequently opposing their own party. Indeed, Dorries has also criticised the Conservative leadership, dismissing them as "posh boys."

However, there must inevitably be an allowance for the prospect that any MP, regardless of gender, may fail to fulfil early promise - at best serving as a good constituency MP. The problem for the coalition is there are still not enough female MPs to source talented potential cabinet members in sufficient numbers.

The true failing, it would seem, is not just the failure to get enough talented women into high-profile government roles, but getting them into Parliament in the first place.

London's railway workers take industrial action over jobs

London Underground workers have taken industrial action against Transport for London, following the authority's decision to cut around 1,000 jobs.

Union members started their 48-hour walk-out at 9pm on Tuesday (4th February) hoping that planned ticket office closures will be dropped.

The decision by Transport for London to close some ticket offices is in stark contrast to election pledges made by the chief of Transport for London, Mayor Boris Johnson.

British news outlets have been reporting that fans faced disruption to their journeys to watch Taylor Swift perform at Greenwich. Meanwhile, the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, described the strike as "shameful".

Union bosses claim that ticket office closures will lead to a decline in service to commuters and that the jobs provided are vital.

Every day is a bad news day under this government

Living in Britain at the moment is a tougher experience than we have been used to. While we continue to struggle to make ends meet, every day it seems as though there is another piece of news that is a slap in the face to us all. Each helping of gloom is supported by a source, which cumulatively are broad and inclusive.

Wednesday 27th February

Centrica, the private company that owns British Gas posts a tasty £606m residential profit in 2012 - up 11 percent on the previous year. In November 2012, the company put up gas bills by 6 percent.
Source: Which (consumer group)

Thursday 28th February

The bank that needed to be bailed out by the government, the Royal Bank of Scotland, made a pre-tax loss of £5.17bn. Many of the losses were due to PPI claims and fines. Bonuses remain set aside for staff. Astonishingly, the hapless organisation has been praised by the government.

Source: BBC

Friday 1st March

The pound plunges to a two-and-a-half year low against the dollar following a "shock" fall in manufacturing output. I place the word "shock" in quotations on purpose, for many of us would hardly be shocked by a fall in manufacturing under a Conservative-led government.
Source: Sky

Saturday 2nd March

From the file marked 'how to win friends and influence people', Philip Hammond, the Secretary of State for Defence decided to suggest that spending cuts should be made to welfare rather than his war chest. Great. We can all starve, but at least our military will be kept strong. Nothing like North Korea at all, of course.
Source: Independent

Sunday 3rd March

The Conservatives are now making noises about withdrawing from the European Court of Human Rights after the next election, in what is seen as a populist move as a knee-jerk response to some high-profile defeats for the government regarding the deportation of terror suspects. A move would put Britain in a minority of two, alongside Belarus – at present Europe’s only remaining dictatorship.
Source: Independent

Monday 4th March

Government policy to encourage banks to lend in order to breathe life into the economy is a catastrophic failure after banks and building societies slashed lending by £2.4 BILLION in the three months to December. The government’s “Funding for Lending” scheme was meant to encourage the banks to lend.
Source: Evening Standard 

Tuesday 5th March

In a slap in the face to all those struggling to make ends meet, George Osborne went to the European Union finance ministers’ meeting to fight the corner of the bankers by voting against a cap on bankers’ bonuses. He lost 26-1.
Source: Telegraph

 

And you wonder why Labour are 13 points ahead in the polls.

Time for everyone to calm down over McAlpinegate

I am sleeping fairly well at night right now. I have never written a tweet implying Lord McAlpine was a paedophile. (Note: tweet is a common definition of a micro-blog post. Additional note: Paedophile is a term describing those attracted to children typically below the age of 13, though in Britain the word is used a little more liberally to refer to anyone who legally is not expected to pay an adult fare on public transport.)

In fact, I have never written a tweet bearing McAlpine's name, prior to his unveiling as the poor bloke BBC Newsnight meant when implying some shadowy relic of the Conservative Party was abusing children.

And despite witnessing many tweets directly claiming he was a paedophile (along with four or five regularly alleged others), I believed it was unethical to "retweet" any of them. (Note for those not familiar with micro-blogging websites: Retweet is the Twitter term for copying someone else's tweet into your own Twitter page for other Twitter members to view.)

There was one notable tweet bearing his name that I may well have retweeted, but it no longer exists, for the author (a highly respected Guardian columnist) has apologised and presumably removed it. For that reason, it is no surprise that I do not even remember if I retweeted it! However, I best apologise just in case.

The tweet in question did little more than question some of the dubious things written about McAlpine on the Internet, but I suspect in the current climate the author will be in trouble over that.

That author apologised in the form of a tweet and linked it towards a more detailed apology. I decided to retweet his apology to my followers - you know, just in case. I hope Lord McAlpine accepts it and that is the end of the matter.

Now that is clear, I add a caveat or two to the above summary of McAlpine vs Twitter. Firstly, I fear that having won the goodwill of the public in light of some rather diabolical allegations, McAlpine (and more significantly those representing his interests post-McAlpinegate) risk overplaying his hand. Secondly, even if McAlpine's response is legally tenable, it is very much in the context of laws that have not caught up with the demands of print and broadcast media, let alone the online variety. First, I shall deal with the former point.

I personally think McAlpine's response is understandable. If I had been subject to the allegations he has faced, I would be on television too, auditioning my croakiest voice and reminding the audience how devastated I am by the allegations. I would have been demanding the BBC justified its research. No question - I would have sought some compensation from the broadcaster.

Having said that, I also think McAlpine has already done very well. His settlement with the BBC must surely be some sort of precedent for dealing with libel through innuendo and cryptic messaging.

I dare say if the BBC was not so on its knees in the fallout of this and the Savile fiasco, they may have had more of a stomach for a fight. They wanted the episode over as quickly as possible and who can blame them?

So you would think that Lord McAlpine would be happy with the settlement for a mischievous report that caused a lot of harmful gossip, and a clear message sent to the world that he is not a paedophile.

No sooner had the BBC surrendered, his legal team outlined their plans to pursue up to 10,000 Twitter users over the publishing of defamatory tweets in what is described as potentially a libel action with the largest number of defendants ever. The response is hardly a surprise when the first defendant (the BBC) settled out of court despite not actually mentioning him by name, instead allowing public gossip settle that matter. I too would be trawling the cyber and the tangible trying to find my next catch.

His next catch seems to be ITV, who broadcast the segment where Phillip Schofield handed a list of paedophilic names to David Cameron. He (McAlpine, that is!) was believed to be on that list and it is rumoured a camera picked it up. (Note the deliberate use of 'believed to be' and 'rumoured' in that sentence.)

I would be absolutely fuming if I was on Schofield's camera-shot list, and understandably McAlpine must be fuming about it. However, has anyone actually seen names on the list? It may have been caught by a camera, but was that particular camera part of the broadcast feed at the time?

These are crucial questions, because as things stand, despite an apology aired on This Morning, nobody seems to have produced the offending screen caption. I would have thought with the millions of feral Twitter users, ready to shine a light on predatory paedophiles at any moment, the offending screencap would have been doing the rounds within minutes of the broadcast ending. I have not seen any image, and I practically live on Twitter at times!

We were told viewers might have seen the list. It seems nobody has seen it. Someone should tell Lord McAlpine. This time, he is in the clear!

Except nobody will, as his legal team looks towards holding anyone and everyone to account. It is an approach that risks McAlpine losing the goodwill he has earned in the aftermath. I do not have the biggest Twitter feed in the world, so it is not a representative tapestry of views, however I have noticed a change of mood among those I follow.

When BBC Newsnight originally apologised, there was a mixture of sympathy for McAlpine and irritation that a story about child abuse had been superseded by poor journalism. The sympathy towards McAlpine has fallen away on my Twitter feed, and I wonder if he should retreat from further action while he is ahead.

His reputation has ironically been enhanced, as a weak and feckless media (in part brutalised by arcahic libel laws) made huge steps to apologise to him and stress that he is not a paedophile. Many people were quick to sympathise with him.

My second point regarding the post-Newsnight fallout is that I feel that libel laws in the UK need to catch up with the reality of the Internet, or it is going to destroy what is good about websites like Twitter.

Twitter enables lay members of the population to debate, discuss, talk, have a laugh, sometimes troll, sometimes troll aggressively and sometimes troll unlawfully. It is a big room where everyone can shout at anyone, with the rather obvious drawback that whatever is shouted is rendered into cyber-memory. Those words are there forever.

I am no legal expert, but my understanding is that British law is often cast through precedent. There will be many precedents needed in light of McAlpinegate if we are to prevent an online crisis of communication.

First of all, there will need to be an acceptance that although journalists and writers publish on Twitter and other sites, so do people who are not used to their copy being checked by lawyers before they hit the send button. (Note: Journalists have their work checked, and yet they have been known to wrongly accuse – the Chris Jefferies case springs to mind.)

Any developments of law that see thousands of people with a few dozen Twitter followers going to court will be to the detriment of ordinary people, many of whom who already have enough to worry about in day-to-day life. Lord McAlpine certainly would not have the same anxieties and worries that they face.

There is going to need to be a clear post-multimedia agreement governing Internet use which does not penalise ordinary people. I cannot offer much help to those who are directly tweeting allegations about people. As I already said, I am not a legal expert, but I am now old enough to know by now that to call someone a paedophile requires a stack of irrefutable evidence.

I can offer suggestions for those who have retweeted, or wrote implied comments. By letter of the law, it would seem that those who retweet gain responsibility for taking that tweet to their followers, but how many people know this? Any retweet is clearly marked with the original author's name. Ignorance being no defence is a harsh principle to reply here. This is not as black and white as knowing that violence or sexual abuse is legally wrong.

This is important, because there may be no end to this. Courts could find themselves being a revolving door for trivial Twitter actions, with judges having to rule on who retweeted someone else's innuendo. The fact of the matter is that people could potentially be sued for retweeting a comment by a respected Guardian journalist originating from a rather dubious news report by the respected (but heaven knows why!) BBC.

That is the reality, and it seems wrong because it is wrong.

I would suggest that judges become familiar with the Twitter architecture. It is clear how the site works. If someone tweets something potentially libellous with 100,000 followers in tow, then it is obvious that it is going to be spread much wider. This puts the onus on the original author to get it right. Retweeters do so with the original source of their tweet clearly marked, and those retweeters who are clearly not media-savvy should not be punished for not knowing the rules of engagement. If some of those who are media-aware (and legally-aware) cannot get their Twitter activity right, what chance the rest of us?

One logical conclusion is that people will not just be sued for tweets and retweets, but they will also be sued for mentioning the names of high-profile people who are tweeting potentially libellous material elsewhere on the website. For example, Sally Bercow has come in for a lot of unfair criticism for also being little more than careless about who she saw "trending" on the website (McAlpine, since you ask). Assuming her tweets are deemed unlawful, what fate could befall anyone who simply tweeted the text “I wonder what Sally Bercow is up to today?"

Most of the "chattering classes" know who Sally Bercow is.

To find out what Sally Bercow has been writing, she is well-known enough to be the first twitter result if anyone enters "Sally Bercow" into the search box.

If I wrote a tweet "I wonder what Sally Bercow is up to today," there is the argument that I am effectively signposting people to her page containing lots of questionable tweets.

This could happen to a lot of other people too. This is why the law as it stands cannot work.

I also fear what the consequences of these issues could be for opinion. A lot is written about high-profile Members of Parliament, for example, Nadine Dorries, who has recently been a resident of a jungle somewhere on the other side of the world. Dorries has always attracted a lot of criticism from those on both the left and the right because of her unconventional approach to public office.

Nobody can expect to be sued for describing her as a ghastly, awful woman, as it is an opinion that is not necessarily damaging. However, some may feel that Dorries has gone on a TV show to boost her own profile. They may argue that she is deserting her constituents while doing that. They may believe she is not fit to be an MP on that basis.

My fear is that Dorries may consider those viewpoints to be damaging and contest them on that basis. If a portal is opened to sue people for expressing such sentiments on Twitter, then the whole principle of debate is at risk.

Admittedly, criticising someone's fitness for office is not comparable to calling someone a paedophile, but the recipient could still fight the Twitter membership on the basis they feel it is damaging to their future employment opportunities and reputation. There are stakes here that are much bigger than context of one accusatory episode where this is located. The law must reflect that.

For now, I believe everyone has to calm down a little. We must cool down with the feral accusations. I can understand why feelings are running high though. I used to think, and still do to some extent, that Brits are extremely paranoid and irrational when it comes to the issue of paedophilia.

The Sun mixes up coverage of right-wing politics, international affairs and celebrity gossip with regular titillation stories from the courts about paedophile activity. If the stories look peculiarly out of place outside of the context of a local newspaper, it is because they are. In some ways, the newspaper's obsession with the issue is borderline creepy.

It has been known for innocent people to be attacked in the street because they happen to resemble a paedophile mugshot published in the tabloid press. This is not on.

I do believe though that Britain has a bigger paedophile problem than I originally thought. In some ways, the Internet has flushed them to the surface in much the same way as rain brings out slugs. Without being rumbled by an eagle-eyed computer repair engineer, Gary Glitter would still be enjoying regular paedophile holidays to the Far East, unchecked.

Shouting out the names of presumed paedophiles on Twitter is not the answer. We need to apply pressure to get these high-profile child abuse cases re-opened and re-examined, so the offenders can be brought to justice.

It is not just ordinary citizens, many of whom are worried parents and people with good hearts, who need to cool down though. A little understanding needs to be shown by those who are trying to control what is published on the Internet.

Let us not forget the public was wound up by this story by the very classes now trying to stamp down on Twitter activity – those in the media. The wind-up process started earlier in the day of the Newsnight report into the child abuse scandal, when someone connected to the report tweeted to tell people it was likely to be screened and involved an old Tory.

The idea may not have been to cause feverish speculation, but it had that effect.

When the news report went out and (quelle surprise) nobody was named, that raised anger levels further. Bearing in mind Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards paedophila, this outcome should not have surprised anyone, apart from maybe the most moronic of TV executives.

So whereas the Twitter community needs to calm down a little now, so must also those who are the most condemning of us.

Government workfare policy almost wrecks Queen's jubilee celebrations

The Queen's jubilee celebrations provided much joy for members of the British public of all classes. They defied the rain and the cold temperatures to pay tribute to her lengthy service. However, the sceptre of spiteful Tory policy is never far away. Their workfare policy, which encourages young people to work for nothing to gain 'experience', provided an uncomfortable backdrop which threatened to tarnish the memory of the Bank Holiday weekend festivities.

In this outstanding piece of research by Shiv Malik, it was revealed that young people were bussed in to London from other areas of the country with pockets of deprivation, including Bristol and Plymouth, to provide security for the jubilee pageant. Their coaches arrived too early, at 3am, and they were left camp under London Bridge. Yes - in 2012, the young poor found themselves in a situation that could have been straight out of the history books of Victorian Britain. They were unpaid slaves. Having spent hours cold and wet under a bridge, they worked for nothing, as royalty flowed down the river in a golden boat and hoards of royalists watched on, expressing their pride in being British by waving flags.

This is a completely unacceptable state of affairs. Instead of forcing young servants to work for nothing, the long British summer should be used as a means to provide economic opportunities for these people. The Olympics, the jubilee celebrations, and the prospect of perhaps a warm summer, should be opportunities to provide paid employment - not another means for the wealthiest to exploit the poorest. It is another example how those holding currency in this country do not want to share any of it with the nation's poorest. Unemployment will not go down while the so-called wealth creators know they can employ people for nothing.

There are a few counter-arguments to this position, largely surrounding the idea that the jubilee events were a privilege to be involved in and young people agreed to participate to get experience. So let us consider some of these arguments.

1. "They agreed to it"
One of the counter-claims is the young people agreed to the unpaid work. Whether they have agreed to it or not is a moot point - nobody should be made to feel they should work for nothing for a chance in life. Some knew they were not being paid, but felt they had to go along with it or maybe lose their welfare benefits. Others were allegedly bribed with the promise of work at the Olympics. None of them expected to be treated like peasants, dumped under a soggy bridge and left to sample Cardboard City life from the Thatcherite 1980s.

2. "They are paid state benefit, so in theory had been paid"
Anyone who has been on state benefit knows the income it provides does little more than buy food and pay the bills. It is not a means to live an active and sociable life. The conditions of state benefit include actively seeking work and demonstrating a willingness to do this, so it is not a payment without conditions in its first instance. The purpose of benefits is to help counter the effects of poverty. Welfare payments should not be a means to justify blackmail. This kind of blackmail potentially affects millions of people out of work at present. Despite the void of millions of jobs needed, this blame culture continues, with the poor being ordered to get on their bikes to find work - or in this case, a coach.

3. "Others were camping out just to get a good position to enjoy the event"
Well good for them. How very deferential. If anyone was camping out to be there, I hope they had taken the necessary safety precautions, and I hope they enjoyed their day. The slaves were never going to enjoy the day in quite the same way. They were on duty. They had to work. They had to deal with any problems that arose. They had to deal with colleagues, and take instructions. And they should have been able to do this without the stress of having arrived at 3am and left to fend for themselves. As a side note, it is also worth mentioning that if it was a mere "logistics error" (as the manager of the private firm responsible for the security colourfully described it), what else was not done properly? Were those unemployed people plucked to provide security (of all things) sufficiently security-checked themselves? Would we have known if they were terrorists?

Those who think the centre-left, led by Lord Prescott, are being typically difficult about workers' rights and blowing this issue up out of all proportion, here is some food for thought. It is just as well that the debate is "merely" about the employment rights of young people. If someone had been seriously injured or killed as a result of negligence, the debate would have been far more critical, and the jubilee weekend would have been wrecked thanks to this inept government and their rotten employment policies.

This incident is typical of the problems we face in 2012 under a callous government. Although our society's problems cannot be compared to those in Syria, it is difficult to wonder how we can consider setting anyone else free when sections of our society are not free. A minimum wage should mean a minimum wage for all. That means no more unpaid internships, and a termination of the workfare policy.

Would it really cause great hardship to companies to pay all workers who wish to learn their trade with them? There are enough mechanisms for employers to rid themselves of staff who struggle to grasp the work thanks to our lightweight employment laws. They could take a chance on these young people and pay them what they deserve. Their own lack of economic consciousness mean that many companies are unaware of the fact that they also need paid staff for the economy they rely on to function, An economy that provides liquidity to the poorest is in the interests of all but the very wealthiest of companies. Staff who are unpaid for their labour cannot be consumers. Until the consumers are given the resources to participate in economic life, the economy will continue to stagnate. Sadly nothing will change unless this government changes course, or a sensible government is elected to replace it.

Warsi or Hunt?

I have pledged not to write much more about BSkyB, the Murdochs, the Leveson Inquiry and those Tories who have damaged their own personal reputations with their own roles in the grubby affair (and I include the Prime Minister in that). The reason is that the evidence is now so public that those involved must simply await their fate. However, the contrast is clear between the way the Prime Minister has treated the transgressions of Jeremy Hunt, the Murdochs' cheerleader, and Baroness Warsi, who he has ordered an investigation into for allowing a business partner to accompany her on an official trip to Pakistan.

The error-prone Prime Minister described Jeremy Hunt as handling the BSkyB bid 'wisely and fairly'. Despite some very ambiguous evidence, we will have to give him the benefit of the doubt that he was handling the bid fairly. There is no justifying any suggestion that Hunt handled the bid 'wisely' though. There is nothing wise in accepting the role overseeing the BSkyB bid, when you have previously sent messages to Murdoch HQ congratulating them on having their bid cleared by those democrats in Brussels. There is nothing wise in most of the messages he sent them.

The difference between Hunt and Warsi though is that Hunt is a great human shield for David Cameron, who has seen most of his inner-circle arrested because of their involvement with News International. Warsi, on the other hand, has always been a performer promoted way above her level in a cynical Tory attempt to pretend they are inclusive and transcend class and race. She has repeatedly been sent out as the public face of the Conservative Party, and repeatedly given performances that are more likely to lose votes rather than gain them. It is speculated that this is why it was easy for Cameron to refer Warsi to be investigated for breaking ministerial rules but not Hunt. It would seem Warsi is more disposable than Hunt, but surely neither can last much longer.

Vote 2012 review, complete with some risible myths

Almost 72 hours have passed since David Cameron's bleakest hour, which saw his party suffer heavy losses in the 2012 local elections. His Con-Dem partners, the Liberal Democrats, sustained a second round of heavy losses following a similar mauling twelve months ago. For the junior partners in the Con-Dem alliance, there was little in the way of comfort. The only comforting factor for Cameron seemed to be re-election of Boris Johnson as the Mayor of London.

However, this good news tidbit for Mr. Cameron may be a slight myth. If Cameron is rejoicing Johnson's victory in public (and Cameron needed something to be seen to cheer about), then privately he must be alarmed as to how Johnson has maintained such a level of popularity. Johnson's narrow victory over influential rival and seasoned campaigner Ken Livingstone was an impressive one in light of the level of animosity towards the present Tory-led government. Some may see this as a silver lining for Cameron, but the rise of brand Boris is something that has the potential to be troublesome to the Prime Minister in the future.

Another myth the Tories and their Con-Dem partners are trying to promote is the election result was a typical "mid-term kicking" being given to the governing parties. Not only is that claim highly disrespectful to all of those who exercised their democratic right to vote, but the opinion polling over recent weeks do not reflect these claims in any case.

Over recent months, Labour and the Conservatives have been closely matched in the polls. Many voters were uncomfortable with the speed and the scale of government cuts, but while the Tory-led Con-Dem government were able to coherently argue a desperate need for cuts, supporter numbers held up. Then came the budget which put money into the pockets of millionaires, the problem that is Jeremy Hunt, the under-reported assault on the NHS and various other acts of incompetence. Polls started revealing a shift towards Labour, giving them anything up to a 12 point lead. The Guardian's ICM poll had the Tories ahead by 3 points on the 18th March of this year. By the 22nd April, the same pollsters had Labour a comfortable 8 points ahead. Thursday's vote reflected the emerging gap, as the overall vote share suggested a 7 point triumph for Labour over the Tories.

Tories continue with the claim they are suffering for "cleaning up the mess they inherited" (they still do not realise this phrase is a vote-loser).The aforementioned polls suggest this is a complete fallacy, for it is those calamities involving Jeremy Hunt, the Murdochs, a self-inflicted fuel crisis and the budget that co-incided with plummeting poll ratings - all of which had more to do with creating mess rather than cleaning it up.

Some old-fashioned but highly influential Tories have complained Cameron is not 'conservative' enough, not right-wing enough and too liberal. Their argument is that parties like UKIP will continue to grow if the Tories do not move rightwards (unless your name is Warsi, then you imply that UKIP are mopping up estranged BNP voters). Some bitter backbenchers are delivering similar criticisms, and worryingly that means commentators are now actually taking the outbursts of Nadine Dorries seriously. Cameron himself has declared he will continue as he is, continuing to make those "tough" decisions, and presumably continuing to slide down the poll ratings.

His Tories could not even win in Chipping Norton. Labour's success in this area was laughed off as something ironic given the area being synonomous with Cameron and his News International pals. I would suggest the result is more reflective of the absolute embarrassment felt by local residents of the way their corner of the world has been brought into disrepute over the past twelve months. Also, as should be the case with local elections, there are also local difficulties that contributed to the result.

Cameron's management of both party and country does not lend itself to winning new voters anytime soon. Moving towards the right will not help either - voters already think their economic policies are too extreme and favour the top of society's food chain. That means Cameron's run of not being very good at winning elections is liable to continue. This is quite the opposite to a certain Boris Johnson, who for whatever reason seems to be well-regarded in London. The best advice for the Prime Minister should be to keep looking over his shoulder.

Murdoch crisis has exposed Cameron's unelectability and Tory dependence on his press

Whatever the outcome of the Leveson inquiry into media standards, and the many other investigations into the conduct of News Corporation, one thing for certain is the Tories will emerge with their reputations battered. Although David Cameron's asserts that all parties got too close to the Rupert Murdoch machine, there is no doubt the Tories are coming away with more muck on them than the others. It is hardly a surprise - they have showed themselves to be the party of the few and out of touch with the many.

The phone-hacking scandal and the subsequent fallout relating to Murdoch's undemocratic influence in Britain, is the gift that keeps on giving. This week, the Prime Minister resorted to personal jibes in the House of Commons, targeting veteran MP Dennis Skinner with a legally dubious remark about his age. This is because he had no robust defence of Skinner's question about Jeremy Hunt being given more employment protection by the PM than the average worker gets.

Past Labour Prime Ministers may have tried to gain some of that Murdoch stardust, but this is hardly surprising given the supposed impact his populist paper had on their 1992 election defeat. However, it is becoming clear some serious back-scratching must have occurred for Cameron to get such Murdoch support for the 2010 election (not to mention the fact the BBC and Sky News coverage of the election was also very unfriendly towards Gordon Brown). Cameron's Tories certainly need these media giants: the unelectable one still could not win an election off the back of almost universal media support, and had to beg Parliament's biggest bunch of chameleons to form a working majority. Embarrassing.

The list of Murdoch-related calamities so early in his tenure as PM reflects badly on Cameron, and he knows it. Firstly, Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, was recruited by Cameron, despite having to resign due to phone-hacking concerns as early as 2007. Following his necessary resignation as Cameron's communications director, he was arrested by police investigating the phone-hacking scandal.

Secondly, there is the question of David Cameron's own links with the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks. It has now claimed that he DID discuss the BSkyB bid with James Murdoch - something that had been repeatedly denied.

Thirdly, Cameron is developing a fast-growing reputation as notoriously inefficient when it comes to sacking ministers who are clearly on borrowed time. First Liam Fox, now Jeremy Hunt - it is not good enough. Jeremy Hunt's office faces an onslaught due to its underhand support for the Murdoch's bid for BSkyB. The way Vince Cable was shifted from his role in assessing the BSkyB bid in favour of someone whose office have apparent Murdoch sympathies is suspicious to say the least.

Finally, it has emerged today that four Conservatives wasted their time sitting on the Culture Committee to question journalists. They refused to endorse the report that followed, dismissing it as "partisan" because it reached the conclusion Rupert Murdoch "is not fit to run not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company". This is the same Murdoch who either would not or could not do anything about systematic phone-hacking at one of his newspapers. As the Coulson example above demonstrates, the phone-hacking has been in the background since at least 2007. This will do nothing to extinguish the heat that is rising against the Tories, or the suspicion that they represent the wealthy, the elite and powerhouses like the Murdoch machine. It simply adds to the distaste of the saga.

Hopefully voters will find recent Tory performances equally as distasteful on May 3rd.

Cameron taking us all for fools - We must all fight him harder

"You're taking everyone for fools" - that was one of David Cameron's regular digs at Gordon Brown back in the days before the Condem coalition. If that was true, then not enough people were taken in to offer Brown another term in office. David Cameron however has had no difficulty taking people for fools.

This week, in Questions to the Prime Minister, Cameron explained how reforms to the welfare system were necessary in order to manage Britain's economic deficit.

His government's menu of ideas include tinkering with the NHS, pricing young people out of education, taking child tax credits out of the homes of those young people who depend on it, and making young people go and work for wealthy corporations for free. It's like we are going back to the future - and the future is 1812 rather than 2012.

At the same time, there are suggestions that the 50p tax rate for high earners may be on the way out at the next budget. On that note, I am not sure how that helps the nation's books, but I am confident it will not lead to an increase in revenue. Maybe there are a few more pounds left to shake out of the pockets of our young. The one thing he will not be able to do is take is their school milk - his mentor already plundered that a generation ago.

How can all this eternal assault on the nation's children be explained? It is quite simple. One one hand, wealthy business people donate to the Tories; on the other hand. many young people do not vote. The young and the poor have been battered by the Tories throughout history, but somehow the party's vote continues to hold up.

The Liberal wing of the Condem axis have paid the greatest price in terms of lost votes. This is understandable as they promoted a worthless manifesto in 2010 which tricked many people into voting for them. Their worthless campaign involved lying to students on university campuses about changing university fees. When I say 'changing', I refer to their promise to eliminate them. I wonder what happened to that one.

The Lib Dems have argued that they did not win the election and can only negotiate concessions in the Tory-led decision-making processes. This may be true, but I am not sure I have ever witnessed more of a spurned opportunity in the history of British politics. They have leverage to be far more disruptive than they are currently being. Rather than just waving policy through, how about scuppering a few Commons votes, just to let the Tories know that this Condem coalition lark is not going to be all easy?

Not only have the Lib Dems spurned the chance to show the power their casting vote gives them, they have also spurned the chance to set a more contrary convention for coalition governments. Where was it written in the rules that coalitions have to be so collegiate? A bit of antagonism would not suddenly bring down the coalition government, so they should give it a go.

At the moment the Lib Dems are being taken for fools. Then again, at the moment the whole electorate are being taken for fools.

Diane Abbott on "white people dividing and conquering" - a case of racism, context and hypocrisy

I often take my place at the front of many so-called anti-racist 'witch-hunts'. When speaking out against those who I feel allow their masks of racist disguise to slip, I can usually rely upon my allies of the left for support. You cannot beat a bit of frothing at the mouth, pitchfork in hand, ready to dish out some anti-racist justice - fantastic!

However, the case of the Shadow Health Minister, Diane Abbott has seen me alone, fighting alongside an unreliable slurry of right-wing conservatives, whose calls for Abbott's resignation are probably driven more by political point-scoring than genuine outrage.

Meanwhile, instead of articulating a consistent message on racism, many on the left are using the 'context' argument usually deployed by the right to defend racist language, while accusing the right-wingers of hypocrisy. Yes, we have hypocrites calling people hypocrites.

This latest deployment of the context defence is despite the fact context is often misunderstood by those who lean so heavily on it when it suits their needs. After all, many on both the left and the right never quite 'got' the Alf Garnett joke because they did not understand the context it was located in, notably the mid-twentieth century wave of migration and differing attitudes between the archaic thinkers and the more enlightened. The right-wingers applauded the character as a sage, and the left rejoiced when his character ran its course.

So, enough reminiscing about the great racism debates of yesteryear. What has prompted this latest outrage? Yesterday should have been a great day for race relations in the UK as the two of the killers of Stephen Lawrence were finally brought to justice and sentenced. The Stephen Lawrence case is the singular example of racism at its very worst, with the added ingredient of gross injustice. It is a symbol of the worst that can happen to those victims of racist language. The vile words that fall out of the words of those racists, who often fall on the contextual understanding defence, are the same words that Stephen Lawrence would likely to have been subjected to by his attackers.

It is why the defence of Liverpool footballer Luiz Suarez prior to his eight-match ban for using racist language towards Manchester United's Patrice Evra never held much weight with me. His defence was that his repeated use of the word "negro" was in the context (yes, that word again) of the sort of language acceptable in Uruguay, and was meant in a friendly manner. This was rightly discredited by the video evidence witnessed by an independent commission to investigate the incidents.

I cannot see anything other than racism in a situation where one individual is constantly reminding a man of his skin colour as part of an acrimonious exchange. In this case, there is no place for context as an excuse.

Diane Abbott used the words "White people love playing 'divide & rule'" in a Twitter rant. Her defence? Her remarks have been 'taken out of context' (yes, that word again) and part of a Twitter debate following the Stephen Lawrence murder trial. She later added:-
"Refers to nature of 19th Century European colonialism. Bit much to get into 140 characters."

The 140 character defence is barely more persuasive than the Suarez defence. The last time I used Twitter (earlier today, as it happens) it was still possible to follow a posting with a posting, to clarify anything that could have been misunderstood. Does Abbott not review her tweets as she posts them? She has shown herself in Parliament and on the small screen as being intelligent, so I believe she is more than literate enough to understand how her tweet could have been understood. Or has she suddenly admitted being guilty of social incompetence? Maybe if she is not too racist for the shadow cabinet, then she is a little too incompetent.

Little over 40 of the 140 characters at Abbott's disposal were used saying "white people love playing 'divide & rule'", leaving her with around 100 characters to diffuse any potential explosion arising from a phrase she ought to have realised would be highly inflammatory. She chose not to at the time, and this is why as a Labour party member I share the view of leader Ed Miliband that the content of the tweet was unacceptable. Hopefully this will be food for thought for the leader at the next reshuffle.

Not that the Labour leader needs a great deal of food for thought. Abbott is unfortunately prolific at making statements about skin colour liable to those dastardly contextual misunderstandings, which often require one of those now worryingly regular clarifications at a later time. Sadly, entering "Diane Abbott go to the wall" on Google only returns articles of her previous transgressions, such as this one from sources including the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, and sky.com.

So it seems that not only have some leftists have left their well-used moral compasses in the backpack on this occasion to defend her, but the publications that often inform the left have gone strangely silent on her past contextual misunderstandings, such as "West Indian mums will go to the wall for their children," or describing David Cameron and Nick Clegg as "two posh white boys". The latter point about the coalition leaders is technically correct, but is risky in a society where people are still suspicious of the use of racial adjectives to characterise. At the very least, it is now time for Diane Abbott to realise that the precautions people are expected to take in communication apply to her as well.

For reasons that are clear, this latest incident surrounding Diane Abbott comes as no surprise to me. Sadly, neither does the crude politicking by those who condemn or defend because they have already taken their political sides prior to the incident. By casting politics aside and analysing the discursive actions performed by her on Twitter, I have been witness to a pattern denied by others on the left.

Feltham and Heston by-election review

On Thursday (15/12) a by-election took place in the parliamentary constituency of Feltham and Heston. It offered voters in West London the opportunity to cast their verdicts of over eighteen months of the Con Dem nation. The voters chose to overwhelmingly reject the coalition, with both the Tories and Liberal Democrats taking a massive hit.

Unsurprisingly, the broadcasters opted to make the lousy turnout of 28 percent the story of the election. One could almost sense their disappointment that they had to concede the poor turnout was due to stormy weather and the proximity to Christmas, when a big story about political disengagement throughout the public would have been more desirable.

There were few surprises in how the parties responded to the result. It gave Labour the chance to remind the public that Tory policies were "hurting, but not working". There is truth to that claim: Tory cuts, leading to more unemployment, less tax revenue and more benefit payments, therefore putting government finances under more pressure, will not help Britain in the short or long term.

The Tories' responses ranged from the very dignified speech by their defeated candidate Mark Bowen, who paid tribute to the late Feltham and Heston MP, Alan Keen, to the sour grapes from Baroness Warsi, who complained of the election being won with just 12,000 votes. That response is evidence in itself as to how bitterly disappointed the Tories are with the result. Off the back of a fortnight when David Cameron went on a European wrecking mission, much to the delight of the press and a reasonably Euro-sceptic public, little gloss can be put on the 8.4 percent swing to Labour.

Meanwhile, Simon Hughes, the straight-talking Liberal Democrat, somewhat arrogantly conceded the government losses are to be expected when in government. There was no suggestion of an inquest to find out why the voters are deserting the Con Dems, despite their repeated claim of how they are trying to clean up the mess they 'inherited' from the last government. (One of the things I learned from the Feltham and Heston by-election coverage is they still fail to realise the electorate is turned off by the 'inherited mess' line of argument. If I have realised that, why are party strategists yet to do so?)

Unless the Liberal Democrats are more prepared to look inwards at why they are losing so many voters, then the 5.87 percent they polled in Feltham and Heston will become the norm. There is no point being arrogant about the trappings of power, when a 'generation of voters' have been lost. The loss of a 'generation of voters' are not my words, but the words of Liberal Democrat MP, Adrian Sanders.

It is true that governments often fare badly in by-elections, but they usually have to become unpopular first. Labour continued to sweep up by-election post successes, even after their post-1997 election victory. The Feltham and Heston result suggests the Con Dem coalition is already losing the public, with Labour making a comeback.

Election summary; Feltham and Heston 2011: BBC NEWS

Analysis: How the England Riots split the left

This week the unthinkable happened - I was accused of being a Tory. I was not alone. In his excellent Friday night Talksport broadcast, leftist broadcaster George Galloway had the same absurd allegation levelled against him during an otherwise cordial exchange with a dissenting phone caller. Has left suddenly become the new right? And where are these cruel accusations coming from all of a sudden.

The explanation is as follows; the recent riots that occurred throughout England have created a point of intellectual separation between the liberal left and the more authoritarian left. By authoritarian, I do not mean the hardline position inspired by Stalin that the liberal left seem to be unaware of - remember, according to these types, the call for sanctions against those causing disorder is supposedly the preserve of Tories. Instead, I mean those who actually want to see the law applied substantively to the kinds of people who burn homes and businesses, attack and violate passers-by and, in some cases, commit murder.

The problem is there are some who believe that because the riots largely occurred in deprived areas, home to the impoverished, that in some way the perpetrators should be sympathised with. This position however represents an incorrect diagnosis of the cause of the riots as well as a misunderstanding of the character of leftist protesting and campaigning, both of which will be summarised in turn.

First, the diagnosis: This was not a confrontation against elites or capitalism. If it was, those rioters would not have been burning the cars and homes of their neighbours. Neither would they have been vandalising and looting corner shops, run by people working as many hours as possible to make ends meet. This was a confrontation against their fellow citizens.

Second, the position of the good leftist: It is virtuous for an active citizen to stand up for those who work hard for a living, as well as those who want to contribute to society but find themselves in a position of inequality, in turn lacking both financial and social capital. This is how workers' movements came about. It means supporting those who rightly condemned the riots, those who were killed and those who had their rather small enterprises torched.

To condemn the rioters as 'reliant on benefits' and without direction is not to metamorphisise into a Tory, nor is it to condemn those who face genuine need for welfare. Furthermore, this position of disapproval does not preclude the overlooking of the real social causes of the recent troubles, which should result in a review of youth unemployment and access to education.

It is dispiriting though that some people handle deprivation inappropriately, criminally and irresponsibly by becoming a predatory force upon those around them. Solidarity during these tough times is not defined by violating your own equals.

It is a shame those who are extreme liberal, or will stop at nothing to find an excuse for a scrap, cannot identify with this. Instead they choose to erroneously defend the actions of these rioters through the prism of left politics, blaming an admittedly incompetent government when these problems have been decades in the making. It is true however that Thatcherite politics resulted in the closure of many of the workshops of this once-great island. The jobs they created could help a few of the vast numbers of 18 to 24 year-olds currently out of work.

In the meantime, we have to deal with the predators and the rioters, safe in the knowledge that those in government setting the judicial discourse will have no objections to any accusations of them being Tories!

Thoughts about social backdrop of England riots

The English youth of today had many labels applied to them over the past week, including fickle, feckless, lazy, angry and violent. It has even been suggested, hopefully in jest, they lack the determination to sustain a riot for more than a couple of days. Whatever the labels, following last week's riots, the public have now taken a social role of judgement over the events.

As people try to make sense of what they witnessed, whether live or on the television, many questions are now being contemplated. Was there a cause behind the riots? Were the riots indicative of societal breakdown. Are particular age groups and races more implicated than others by what occurred? Many words have already been spilled, at times recklessly, trying to ascertain the answers.

The term 'riots' is being used as a blanket term, which covers a number of activities of variable severity. The riots followed a peaceful protest over a fatal police shooting. They included battles with riot police, the burning of cars, the burning of homes, the burning of small businesses, smashing shop windows, looting and murder. No doubt there were ringleaders, participants and those there to make up the numbers. It is not easy to sort the alienated in society from the scum.

Those who are definitely scum include thugs who murdered those protecting their property, who burned down retail outlets and smashed up homes. No amount of accusations that describing people as 'scum' dehumanises them will shift me from that position. These people are criminals, and their punishments must reflect their deeds.

The problem is what to do with those who committed lesser crimes of varying severity. One person has already been jailed for stealing bottled water, its seriousness being contextualised by the rioting that facilitated the theft. Then, the future needs to be dealt with and how to prevent more rioting.

Disorder has rarely had legitimacy in Britain as a means of bringing about change, even when the cause seems apparently clear, for example the vandalism that occurred on the same day as peaceful anti-cuts protests in London. When there is no definable cause, the chance of significant public sympathy may as well be zero.

Excuses for the disorder ranged from stealing from the rich, getting goods from wealthy people that can be sold on, loose definitions of 'respect' and 'having a laugh'. Without a unified cause, it is difficult to see how their actions can be looked upon with anything other than contempt.

In the absence of an overall cause, the only consistent theme is the acquisition of assets. Whether it is youths hoping to sell on their gains or people rioting through general anger regarding the rich/poor divide, the concept of what someone does not have is the one which recurs the most.

This is a capitalist society built on desired goods, ownership and possessions. Owning particular goods are viewed as a benchmark of success, which makes those in possession more attractive to potential peers and partners. The youngest in society, trying to write their futures, are inevitably going to be the most ambitious in pursuing material goods to achieve their ends. It should be no surprise that when there are no jobs for them and no scope to further their education they begin to live their lives outside of the law.

The tough standards which this society is constrained by create much unhappiness. One columnist described the riots as being an England he "didn't recognise." Sadly, I recognised it very well. I recognise it from the jobs I have had in a public facing role. I recognise it from the unpleasantness I have to witness as a user of public transport at various times of the day. England has more of its fair share of nice people, but we have to accept we have some very nasty citizens in our midst as well who will stop at nothing to enrich their own lives and make the lives of others a misery.

Other observers are trying to frame last week's trouble in terms of colour in a cheap attempt to package the riots as a black problem. This is nonsense. An attempt to arouse the public into a race conflict is both dangerous and unnecessary. Nobody needs to be told that a significant proportion of the rioters were black. Instead, people need to be told the reasons a significant proportion of the rioters were black.

There are two immediate theories that spring to mind. Firstly, the ever-difficult relationship between young black people and the police. Secondly, and even more illuminating, is that the location of the riots were in the most deprived areas of the country - and these areas of deprivation have a high percentage of black people living there. These hard facts will not prevent knuckledraggers from continuing to force-feed idiots a fallacy that criminality is determined by skin colour.

The government response can hardly be said to be any more intelligent either. David Cameron is typically talking tough and has brought in respected American 'super cop' William Bratton to advise on dealing with the rioting. This move has been widely criticised as being disrespectful to British police forces. To that, criticism can be added that the riots have happened, were brought under control, and at the very least equal attention must now be given to social solutions.

Is there a strategy for making young people more active in society? Will there be a reversal of closures to youth centres and the scrapping of Educational Maintenance Allowance? What can be done to create more employment for our excluded youth? The answer is there will probably be no such strategy when it is easier to strut around and give indirect satisfaction to the prejudiced and the racist with promises of tough sanctions.

Phone hacking and our fickle tabloid friends

So now you know who your friends really are – and it is certainly not those at the British tabloid press.

They do not provide public service, though they might like to think they do. They do not act in the interests of the people, though they might say they do. They are there to make money by selling copies. They sell copies by digging out stories. They get stories by leaving their morals at the office door when they arrive for work.

The phone hacking activities revealed to have taken place at the News of the World were beyond contempt. Each revelation was worse than the one which preceded it. The newspaper, and around 200 careers associated with it, laid in ruins as owner Rupert Murdoch brutally closed down the beleaguered publication following a string of destructive headlines as the newspaper suddenly became the big story.

Phone hacking was always a scandal, even when the victims were ‘just’ politicians and celebrities. To learn that the phone of a dead Milly Dowler had also been hacked, as well as the phones of dead servicemen, is sickening. To cap it all off, we learn that the police were paid by News of the World journalists for information. As George Monbiot pointed out, when the dust settles, the police collusion will be equally as big a story as the hacked phones.

Make no mistake, the News of the World became more than a newspaper. It became a criminal network. Until the muddy waters clear, nobody knows who knew what, who is guilty, who is innocent, who will be charged, and who will be released. However, a law qualification is not required to realise the crimes listed above are serious enough to ensure someone is going to jail – and that someone will probably have more than just a few ex-colleagues for company.

The most depressing aspect of all this is the News of the World actually turned out to be the enemy of those it tried so hard to be a friend of. It was this newspaper that led aggressive naming and shaming campaigns of child molesters, often leading to its more uneducated readers to mistakenly attack the wrong targets. All the while, it campaigned on behalf of victims’ families.

I have no doubt the News of the World anti-predator campaigns had the best of intentions. But behind the scenes its investigators were violating the same families of those violated by the likes of Levi Bellfield and Ian Huntley. The newspaper, far from being the victims’ mate, added to the misery already heaped upon those families. It was the newspaper which promised so much, but could only deliver a pack of sordid lies.

Out of this darkness however may come light. The model of cosy relations between our party political leaders and the key people in the print media is now discredited. And while the allegations against the News of the World are strong and clearly with foundation when considering the defensive stance of its management, few people believe the News of the World was alone in unscrupulous practices. When considered as a whole, the days of a free press are over – and the loss of that freedom may not be a bad thing.

No longer should publications with such large circulations be allowed to tell people how to vote. This would bring it in line with broadcast media, where a plurality of views must be represented. This is the only way to cut the strong bond between politician and press. Headlines such as The Sun’s 1992 “lights out" if Kinnock wins must never happen again. A balanced democracy needs a balanced media with balanced levels of freedom as opposed to total freedom. Gone are the days when people can write whatever they like.

We must also take our share of the blame for legitimising the misdeeds of the press. We laughed, smirked and sneered when the complicated private life of a certain Ryan Giggs was released on websites, then in the House of Commons, then in the press – drip-by-drip. Will we ever know how all the incriminating evidence was collected? Given the events of the past week, it is not unreasonable to assume more than just a sprinkle of skullduggery.

Then there was the parliamentary expenses scandal. We applauded the ‘outstanding journalism’ which exposed Members of Parliament. We chose to overlook how the data came into the hands of journalists, because it was inconvenient to our collective sense of outrage at the time.

It is easy to full into the trap of thinking those who bring us the exclusives are our friends. They are not. They make money. They set the political agenda. They get Tories elected with the minimum of fuss. Now it is time for change.