Clarke on the Rampage

The political thriller known as the Labour Party goes on. This time it is Charles Clarke's turn to go on the attack. His target Gordon Brown. His motives are unlclear, does he want to get into someone's good books, get the leadership for himself or just get Gordon?

Gordy's Macbeth moment

As pressure mounts on Blair and the minnows have traded their jobs for 5 minutes of fame it is time for Gordon Brown to make his decision. Should he strike now or wait it out?

Of all the political commentators who have tried to guess what Brown is thinking, I feel Bill Shakespeare has it best:

Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.

Murdoch strikes again

Murdoch has been close to Blair since Blair's 1997 election victory. It seems fitting and almost inevitable that Murdoch and therfore The Sun would be the first paper to tell of the end of Blair, or at least the scheduled end of Blair. May 31st 2007 we are told.

The 'leaking' of this date to The Sun, if orchestrated by No. 10 shows how Murdoch and Blair's relationship is used to their mutual advantage. Murdoch get's a solid date to quote on the front page of his newspaper, ensuring they'll be a best seller. Blair on the other hand gets a reprieve, or at least that is what he and his advisors hope. He has fed the ravenous party wolves a scrap to keep them at bay, yet has done so without himself committing himself to a specific date. In short, Blair has his cake and eaten it.

No wonder he was smiling at his speech today.

Blair has learned from Thatcher's mistakes. Thatcher never said when she would step down, she seemed permanent and unmovable, so her party got rid of her. Blair saw he was in a similar situation so said very publically he would not serve another term. I thought it was clever then and I still think it was clever now. Those in the Labour party who wish to see Blair gone remember Thatcher's toppling too, they remember the damage it did to the Tories. The end is in sight, Blair will be gone, it is only a matter of time. And the Labour rebels won't further jepordize their marginal seats to oust him a few months sooner.

Nothing really has changed, Blair still hasn't told the public when he will be stepping down. It is the press, Murdoch specifically who has decided when Blair is to step down. Murdoch's end date, right or wrong, I feel it is enough to appease those Labour MPs who this morning were contemplating revolution; for another few months at least.

The Case Against Israel

With the Qana bombings described as war crimes by Human Rights Watch and some activists already trying to get Israel referred to the International Court, I thought I'd use the Rome Statute to see how much of Israel's actions could be referred to the International Court as war crimes.

1)"Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are
not military objectives".

Israel's initial air strikes which destroyed bridges, roads (including the main road to Damascus) and airports could fall under this as there seemed to be no military reason for their destruction, this supported by Israel's chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz, who uttered the famous soundbite "we will turn Lebanon's clock back 20 years."

2)"Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause
incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or
widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which
would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military
advantage anticipated."

While Israel claims it has tried to minimise civilian 'collatoral damage', the Guardian yesterday quoted the number of Lebanese civilian deaths at 515, Lebanese military deaths at 21 and Hizbullah deaths at 38. If Israel are targetting Hizbullah they don't seem to be very accurate.

Even if Israel's air strikes in general do not fall foul, there is growing consensus that yesterday's attack on the village of Qana does. As the BBC reported "The Israeli air strike on the southern Lebanese village of Qana in the early hours of Sunday killed at least 54 Lebanese civilians, mostly children." and "The UN's emergency relief co-ordinator was highly critical of Israel's strike in Qana, calling it "indiscriminate and excessive"."

3)"Employing weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare which
are of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which
are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed
conflict"

There have been reports of Israel using white phosphorous bombs in Lebanon, violating international law.

4)"Intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or
vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in
accordance with the Charter of the United Nations, as long as they are entitled
to the protection given to civilians or civilian objects under the international
law of armed conflict"

The bombing of a UN outpost caused much outcry, Kofi Annan innitially calling the attack seemingly deliberate.

Why I agree with Ken Clarke (a bit)

The Tories, being the warm fuzzy liberals they are, have been calling for a Bill of Rights, a written constitution for the UK. Wonderful you may think, a libertarian policy coming from the Conservative party, who would have thought. However, the Tory policy essentially gives with one hand and takes with the other; while enshrining many rights in this 'constitution' the Tories have also stated they would repeal the human rights act, at least in parts. While the Conservatives claim otherwise, the way Cameron is treating the European parliament, ordering his MEPs to break from their moderate coalition in search of more Euro-sceptic partners, also hints Cameron may see a UK Bill of Rights as a way of going over the head of the current EU Convention on Human Rights. So apart from being a possible smokescreen behind which the Tories could attempt to repeal human rights legislation without appearing authoritarian and uncaring, why else would we need a Bill of Rights?

The main argument in favour of a Bill of Rights is that Britain has no written constitution, thus there is no limit to a government's power and also we the citizens of Britain do not have our rights enshrined in a written constitution. Tackling the latter part first, there is no need in my view for a written constitution to protect our human rights. We have our human rights clearly stated and protected by both the human rights act and the EU convention of Human Rights. Indeed article 3 of the first protocol of the EU convention does protect Britain's democracy; something that many claim is as yet not guaranteed: "The High Contracting Parties undertake to hold free elections at reasonable intervals by secret ballot, under conditions which will ensure the free expression of the opinion of the people in the choice of the legislature"

The other main line of argument is that the powers of government have to be controlled and that a bill of rights that Cameron suggests should need about 70% of the House of Commons to vote in favour of change would achieve this. It is perhaps true that recent anti-terror legislation has been too authoritarian yet is a bill of rights needed to change this? Already the EU Convention has given judges the ability to challenge government over its breeches in civil liberties. However, what is perhaps more worrying is the government’s attempt to bypass parliament, notably through the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill, the dangers of which are best summed up here. I would argue that a Bill of Rights would not stop bills like this from being passed and indeed it may make such bills easier to stomach, after all the Bill of Rights would protects us right?

It is instances such as these that convinces me that we don't need a Bill of Rights, what we need is a stronger parliament. At the moment, parliament is nothing more than a rubber stamp to the government’s legislation. A stronger parliament, more independent of government would protect the civil liberties of this country far more than a Bill of Rights would, especially if the Bill of Rights replaced the current Human Right’s act. This would not be especially difficult to achieve either; electoral reform and proportional representation (STV+ if I had my way) would whittle away any majority, if any, a government had and so making it harder to pass controversial legislation. Increasing the powers of select committees would be another way of curtailing government power.

I doubt either Labour or the Conservatives would have the courage to propose something that would damage their political dominance, yet I do not see the Bill of Rights as an acceptable compromise. In this country, we have both an independent judiciary and an independent monarch to safeguard our civil liberties. Until we have an independent parliament these will have to do.

Friday Night with David Cameron

Famous comedian come chat show host David Cameron interviewed rising politician Jonathan Ross this evening, or was it the other way around?

It was an interesting interview to say the least. Jonathan Ross certainly tried to raise his game, inspiring some question time style rounds of applause for his comments on legalising drugs and the Iraq war, yet he was no Jeremy Paxman. This was probably one of the reasons Cameron and his team decided to appear on the show.

While an obvious popularity stunt, Cameron and his team have to be admired for trying to reach out to the large proportion of the electorate who does not follow politics in depth. Anything that brings politics out of the houses of parliament or even the rather niche question time and newsnight slots and into mainstream viewing has to be commended.

While Ross tried to raise his game, Cameron had to try and strike a careful balance between laughing at Ross’ jokes and being a ‘normal person’ while also appearing as a statesman-like prime minister in waiting. I think Cameron did quite well, he came across as a likeable person who was willing to play along with Ross’ jokes. At times Cameron did try and force his political points through Ross’ barrage of jokes, almost making it seem he believed in something himself.

The main reason for watching however was to see the Tory leader squirm when asked whether he had a pin-up of Margret Thatcher as a teenager. The answer was a disappointing no, as was the answer to Ross’ follow-up question “so you didn’t imagine her in stockings then?”

Balance of Power

Iranian Fans celebrating
The world cup must be one of the only international events that America doesn’t dominate one way or another. The thing about football is it isn’t about wealth, how much a country can spend on developing the sport. Brazil is not the richest country and yet their football team is arguably the best in the world. Football unites people in a way not many other things can. At club level, fans often cheer foreign talent for example. Football could even be seen as educational, how many Briton’s knew what a metatarsal was before Beckham or Rooney
broke one? It is not an English sport as arguably
cricket is, it is truly international. Only Zimbabwe and North Korea don’t try for qualification.

Despite its almost universal appeal, most Americans don’t know the world cup is happening. Remembering the Kyoto treaty, perhaps America naturally shys away from international events that either in the case of Kyoto mean a sacrifice, or in the case of the World Cup, they do not dominate. The UN is another example, US domination is hardly complete and what degree of control they do have over the UN is probably the only incentive they have to stay in.

What if the UN was more like the world cup? No, I don’t mean dominated by Brazil but what if the UN was more international and less dominated by America? What if America wasn’t allowed to veto almost every resolution that put pressure on Israel? What if America couldn’t pressurise the UN by threatening to withhold funding to the UN because it recognises the democratically elected Palestine government? What if America could be shown a red card when she plays dirty?

As it stands African nations are better represented in the World Cup than in the UN and the Iranian football team is more likely to meet the USA in the knockout stages of the world cup than Iranian leaders are to sit down to face to face negotiations with Bush & co.

Sure all this happening is as likely as England winning the world cup, but we can dream can’t we?