The Debatable Land

Tomfoolery from the Labour Backbenches

Tom Harris's blog is a very useful creation. Now as it happens I don't think that parliamentary democracy is under threat because Damien Green was arrested, disgraceful though that arrest certainly was. Nonetheless, there's little doubt that this government has, time and time again and to an extent that may be as modern as it is largely unprecedented, ignored ancient parliamentary procedures and consistently demonstrated a contempt for "old-fashioned" concepts of liberty and the rule of law.

Thus Mr Harris's latest post is usefully illuminating. He writes:

As the right-hand man to Shami Chakrabarti the then Shadow Home Secretary, David “Remember him?” Davis, Dominic [Grieve, the Shadow Home Secretary] did a sterling job in defending the rights of terrorist suspects because he thought the government was being too, too beastly to the little darlings.

Note the sly insinuation that the Conservative party's heart and mind has been captured by a civil liberties group. Note too, the thuggish pretence that one is either "with" the terrorists or "against" them (even, especially before they've been charged.) And remember that Harris supports a government that wanted to lock citizens up without charge for 90 days and when it couldn't get that tried to push for a mere (but still outrageous) 42 days. To oppose this isn't to be in favour of encouraging terrorists to do their worst. It's the kind of rhetorical tactic favoured by the more rutish, less reflective, type of American Republican in the 2004 elections. A kind of tactic that, were it deployed against Labour, Mr Harris might well find somewhat offensive. Contra Mr Harris, one can be in favour of "law and order" while also being suspicious of handing the police ever-greater powers.

Then again, I suspect he would - rightly in my view - have been outraged had Tam Dalyell been arrested for receiving leaked information from Clive Ponting about the sinking of the Belgrano. That of course was a more serious affair since the information, rightly or not, was covered by the Official Secrets Act.

Once again, one decent test of having reached any sort of intellectual maturity is the ability to judge your own sides blunders (or successes) by the same standards you would use to evaluate those made by the other mob. (This, mind you, is a test that most of us fail occasionally). Still, I suppose it can't be any great surprise that Members of Parliament would fail this test consistently. But do so many of them have to?

Department of Hackery

One of the things that distinguishes a good columnist from the ordinary, run-of-the-mill shill is the ability to treat their own party's failings as severely as they would condemn the blunders committed by the other lot. Similarly, there's something to be said for the rigour that consistency demands. Polly Toynbee may be correct (though I'd wager she isn't) that Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling played a blinder on Monday, but does anyone imagine that if it was a Conservative government presiding over this recession she would write anything as, I don't know, cheerful and complacent, as this?

Even if unemployment reaches 3 million, that still leaves 90% in secure jobs. Most people will suffer not at all in this recession: on the contrary they will do well as prices fall and the real value of their earnings rises.

On the other hand, if La Toynbee is correct and this is indeed the moment in which Labour unfurled a moth-eaten banner proclaiming "social justice" then the result of the next election is not in doubt.

Is it 'cos he is black?

Like Clive Davis, I don't much mind that Peter Hitchens has some fun with the more extravagant claims being made for an Obama presidency. But then there's this:

I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America’s beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street* – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white. But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.

As I walked, I crossed another of Washington’s secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.

They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world...

And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?

Well! Let's just observe that I doubt Hitchens - Christopher's brother - would have written this dreary, bilious tripe had Barack Obama been white. I suppose we should be happy that the descent into the third world will be "long" and slow."

I wasn't in Washington on election night. Then again I didn't need to be to know that Hitchens is talking rot here. The immigrants - legal and less legal - in my old neighbourhood don't, you know, have any desire to reduce the United States to third world status. What would be the point of leaving the third world, if that were the case? On the contrary, it's precisely the idea of America that draws them from El Salvador, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Albania, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Korea and so on. They celebrated Obama's victory because a) they'd Democrats and b) for multi-coloured, polyglot America his election confirms the possibilities of the American Dream.

It's fashionable, of course, to deny the existence of any such dream but the mere fact that not everyone can, even with hard work and good fortune, make it does not invalidate the wider, more general point. After all, the existence of President Barack Hussein Obama rather makes the case for you. So the joyous street parties on U St and in Mount Pleasant were celebrating the idea of America, not saluting its imminent demise. This is not a difficult point to grasp.

Also, one has to admire Mr Hitchens' ability to determine someone's citizenship just by the colour of their skin. Then again, I guess h thinks the only "real" Americans are white and Christian and that Hitchens, like Melanie Phillips, is another casualty of this election season.

*Actually, it's 16th St that runs north from the White House and to the extent that there's a frontier between black and white Washington, it's moved east to 10th St or so now. But why quibble?

Jon Snow Tries to Get Me To Hope for a McCain Miracle

Channel 4 News' anchor, Jon Snow, has just been talking about how electing Barack Obama means "America has come of constitutional age". Yes, really. Apparently none of those previous elections were legitimate. Now of course Snow's program tilts even further to the left than the BBC so you might expect him to say something like this. But there will, alas, be much more of this sort of nonsense.

Now in one sense, it's clear what Snow means: after all, there are many people who do not expect to agree with Obama politically who appreciate, nonetheless, that his victory is a splendid and significant moment in American history. But Snow's smugness, indeed his condescension, is another matter altogether. It's rather as though there exists the presumption that the millions of Americans voting for John McCain today can only be motivated by their fear - conscious or not - of a black man becoming President. Alternatively, it's like taking the kids to the zoo so they can see those strange Americans. Look, some of them have opposable thumbs!

Over at the Confabulum, James Poulos has a fine post reminding one that it is important to reject this tripe.

It’s impossible (for me) to doubt that whatever happens, either today or over the next four or eight years, Obama will be much better for America culturally than politically. But it’s ridiculous to hold Obama’s election over the heads of those who would dare to vote against him: taking away every nonwhite kid’s shot at true self-esteem! HOW DARE YOU?!?! etc. And indeed, I’ve heard it put this way — not just a matter of inspiring black kids (which of course is an awesome idea that all of us should be more involved in), but "hispanic, native American…"... People who won’t vote for Obama because they disagree with him aren’t shattering anyone’s dreams. If that’s what politics has become in this country — you annihilated my future! – then we really do need a long collective night in the drunk tank.

Still, don't expect this view to prevail in much of the foreign media, particularly the left-wing overseas press.

Iran-Iraq War Replayed in Glasgow

Anyone whose had to spend much time in the company of Scottish football journalists and members of the Scottish Parliament could only hope that a "charity" football match between the two groups could end in serious injury, fiasco and with both sides losing. In that last sense, then, it's just like the Iran-Iraq war. Happily, in a story I missed earlier this week, this seems to have been the case. More or less.

A football match between politicians and journalists was called off after tempers boiled over, it has emerged.

The match was stopped after 55 minutes following a number of contentious challenges between the MSPs and the sports journalists they were facing.

BBC Scotland broadcaster Chick Young was taken out of the game by what he called an "evil" tackle, after which the MSP John Park was sent off.

John Park, sir, along with the rest of a grateful nation, I salute you.

Concerned about Obama?

Via Yglesias, here's a charming leaflet from the Republican Jewish Committee that helps demonstrate just why the GOP deserves - even needs - to lose on Tuesday.

Nice touch too, that the photograph used shows Barack Obama speaking in Germany. Obviously Obama is, rather oddly, Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain.

Equally obviously, it scarcely needs saying that Neville Chamberlain was not in fact to blame for the Holocaust.

New GOP Campaign Strategy: McCain More Than A Mere Man

Kudos to Frank Foer for alerting one to this priceless passage from David Gelernter's most recent article in the Weekly Standard:

Granting the importance of the topic, the difference in moral stature between presidential candidates has rarely been as enormous as it is today--not (or not only) because Obama's is so small but because McCain's is so large. There is no single English word for McCain the hero, the moral entity. But in Hebrew he would be called a tsaddik--a man of such nobility and moral substance that he approaches holiness. If this assertion sounds crazy, that only shows how little we have thought about the issue.

OK, we'll have to go away and think about it. Mr Gelernter concludes:

"Who shall ascend the mountain of the Lord? Or who shall stand in His holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart" (Psalm 24:3-4). Whether you like or dislike his politics, that is John McCain all over. If he wins this election, it will be a come-from-behind surprise. But in larger American terms, it will be no surprise at all.

I mean, Jesus. Really. Extraordinary.

UPDATE: Commenter JHB has a terrifying question. Terrifying, that is, if it were ever answered in the affirmative: "Now here's a challenge: do you think you could find someone who feels that way about Gordon Brown?"

Limbaugh's Recipe for a Democratic Majority

This won't surprise everyone but it turns out that Rush Limbaugh is an idiot. To wit:

Going after moderates, independents, and all these yokels is not the blueprint.  The blueprint’s there, 1994, taking back the House, the blueprint’s there.  Why are these people ignoring it?

Of course, as Daniel Larison points out, the GOP won in 1994 in large part because it was able to appeal to many more independent voters than it had in 1992. (Clinton's less than stellar first two years in office obviously also helped). As I have suggested, once a party's brand has become contaminated - as was the case with the Tories in the mid-1990s and the GOP now - you cannot simply retreat to first principles and assume that the public will forgive and forget your sins. It doesn't work like that. And, again as the Tories discovered, once the brand has been contaminated the base is no longer enough to win. When the electorate moves, political parties that are truly interested in winning move too.

The concept is not, actually, all that difficult to grasp: to win elections you need to persuade people who did not support you last time out to switch their allegiance this time around. Simply presuming that the electorate has taken leave of its senses and will eventually return to the fold is a recipe for years in opposition. Mind you, talk radio thrives on anger and is, therefore, better suited to opposition than government. So perhaps Limbaugh is simply looking out for himself.

UPDATE: David Frum argues that Limbaugh (and his followers) are leading the GOP "to disaster - and beyond disaster, to irrelevance." 

Sarah Brown emulates Sarah Palin

Campaigning is underway in the Glenrothes by-election. Yesterday Sarah Brown, the Prime Minister's wife, made her election debut, knocking on doors in, of all places, bonny Cardenden. How did that go? Not so well, it seems. My friend Stephen McGinty has a fine, entertaining account in today's Scotsman:

SHE was supposed to be Labour's secret weapon, but Sarah Brown ended up being so "secret" yesterday that no-one from the press was allowed to ask her any questions.

It was clear from the moment she arrived in Cardenden to campaign on behalf of the Labour Party that she was not there to speak to the ordinary members of the public. The Prime Minister's wife was instead there to be seen to speak to ordinary members of the public...

During her 30-minute walkabout, she spoke exactly nine words to the press pack that included three camera crews, seven photographers and a dozen reporters. "I'm very pleased to be supporting Lindsay Roy today," she said with a weak smile that quickly curled into a grimace...

HOWEVER, when television reporters tried to do pieces to camera with the Prime Minister's wife in the background, the Labour Party people tried to hustle them out the way. "Move the camera – move the camera. Get the camera off the pavement. You have to let her pass," they said.

Journalists who then found themselves walking beside Mrs Brown struggled to avoid being tripped up as party members muscled in, trying to form a protective phalanx.

Then came the most extraordinary piece of control freakery of the day. "I want you guys on the green," said the man from the Labour Party. "There will be six or seven guys with guns who will keep you away from her. You may be shot and then it won't be my problem."

Good stuff, this. Reporting that, you know, actually reports what happened and doesn't agree to play the game by the politicians' rules. Clearly, this applies beyond the Kingdom of Fife too. So: a modest success for once.

[Via SNP Tactical Voting]

The Last Throes

It's over. How so? Because campaigns that have a chance of winning don't perform stunts like this:

Please join our campaign for a conference call at 11:30 a.m. EDT, with former CIA Director Jim Woolsey and McCain-Palin Senior Foreign Policy Adviser Randy Scheunemann to discuss recent news stories about which candidate terrorists would like to see in the White House in 2009.

[Hat-tip: Marc Ambinder]

UPDATE: Dave Weigel, bless him, has more.

Things Fall Apart

Now I may have actually heard it all. Ralph Peters offers an unintentionally hilarious tour round the globe predicting famine and pestilence and death should Americans be mad enough to elect Barack Obama next month. Apparently America will be fatally weakened and the world will fall apart. I mean, you do realise that Obama will be responsible for losing Bolivia, right? Are you prepared for that?

Chavez client President Evo Morales could order his military to seize control of his country’s dissident eastern provinces, whose citizens resist his repression, extortion and semi-literate Leninism. President Obama would do nothing as yet another democracy toppled and bled.

Hat-tip to Daniel Larison who has some fun with the rest of this laughable - but enjoyable! - poppycock.

Obama-McCain. Part 3.

And so, weary campers, the end is in view. Tonight's debate is the third and final tussle between Messrs McCain and Obama. A victory on points won't help Mr McCain; it's far from certain that even a knockout defeat can really hurt Mr Obama. Anyway, I dare say I'll try and live-blog the thing again. So what does Mr McCain have to do? Here are some helpful tips from National Review Online:

Advice to McCain    [John J. Pitney, Jr.]

What demeanor should McCain display tonight? Angry doesn't work. Solemn doesn't work.  ake-smiley doesn't work. Instead, McCain should go back to his roots and unleash his inner smart-aleck. If Obama accuses him of being erratic in a crisis, he should say: "So I'm erotic in a crisis? Who knew?"

This approach has a couple of advantages. First, it enables McCain to show the more appealing side of his personality. Second, it throws Obama off his game. His handlers have surely anticipated every possible attack line about Ayers and Wright. And as a good liberal, he's waiting for the chance to say, "Have you left no sense of decency?" But he'd be hard put to defend against ridicule. The One can't handle the jokes.

So to get ready for the debate, McCain should lay aside the notes, crack open a beer, and watch Animal House.

It really is hard to see what could possibly go wrong with taking this approach. As another doomed candidate once-never-quite-said, "Crisis? What crisis?"

42 Days: Jacqui Smith

Here's video of Jacqui Smith's contemptible performance in the Commons last night. Basically, she says that if you don't support giving the police carte blanche then you're on the terrorists' side. At the very least, if you dare to question the government you don't care about security. And of course all you yoghurt-munching civil liberties pansies also don't care about the liberty of "not being blown up". Seriously. As I say, contemptible.


Note too the bald-faced lies she tells. Apparently every security expert supports the government's proposals. Not so. Former policemen and, as I say, two former heads of MI5 opposed the government last night. So too, one should note, did two former Labour Lord Chancellors - Charlie Falconer and Derry Irvine. Lord Morgan, a former Labour Attorney-General also opposed the government.

They Haven't Gone Away You Know

The issue of whether the state can lock-you up indefinitely  for up to 42 days without even the courtesy of telling you why is back. Happily, the House of Lords seems certain to reject the government's plans, sending them back to the Commons where, again hopefully, they will finally die. Here's Labour MP Tom Harris, however, explaining that if you opposed giving the state these powers you're a "civil liberties" (feel the sneer with which he writes these words!) nutcase and if there's another terrorist attack on Britain, it will be your fault...

It’s no secret that, along with the great, wise majority of our nation, I support a radical extension of the length of time the police can detain terrorist suspects without trial. I don’t see it as a civil liberties issue at all - more of a civil protection issue. I won’t rehearse all the issues now because, unfortunately, most people have made up their minds about where they stand, and aren’t going to change their minds now. Not yet, at least.

So the Lords will knock it back to us in the Commons, and we’ll have another vote on it, which I hope we will win. However, given the arithmetic in the Commons, that’s not guaranteed. If it falls in the Commons, then it’s game over. But only for now.

Because events, sometimes terrible events, happen. At some point in the future, the government will receive enough support to extend pre-trial detention to 42, or even 90, days. I hope it is done at a time where the arguments can be aired and analysed in a calm, rational atmosphere.

My greatest fear is that if the current proposal falls, the next time we debate extending pre-trial detention will be in the aftermath of another terrorist outrage. Undoubtedly, that will be called scare-mongering, as were all the warnings that were heard in the run-up to 7 July 2005.

So, yeah, that's something to look forward to, isn't it? It's no secret that the government have failed to make their case for this change in the law, so all that's left to hope for is a massive bomb just so that Labour backbenchers and government ministers can say "I told you so". So, yes, this is scare-mongering and, of course, emotional blackmail of the lowest kind. Equally, oppostion to the government's plans is indeed based upon a calm and rational appraisal. It's the people supporting this measure who want to whip up hysteria and madness and fear and panic.

UPDATE: Of course, Labour MPs don't "want" a terrorist attack. They'll just use one as a cudgel with which to attack anyone who thinks the state should be expected to tell you promptly why you are being locked up. The current 28 days detention is reprehensible as it is; extending to the plucked-out-of-thin-air 42 days, utterly unjustifiable. And remember: these people originally wanted it to be 90 days. Anyway, the Lords said No by 309 votes to 119. Oh, and a reminder: if you think these powers might not be abused or extended from obvious terrorism cases, consider that the UK government seized Icelandic assets last week using anti-terrorism laws.

McCain and the Ignorance of Crowds

I've been down on John McCain for quite a while (but, heck, so have a lot of people!) but despite the ugliness of his campaign he shows the better side of his nature in this film. Then again, it's hard not to be struck by the boos that greet him. Boos, of course, from audiences of rock-solidly partisan Republican voters. It's hard not to think that people like this bloody deserve to lose: