The Debatable Land

Sign of the Times

Spotted at Edinburgh airport recently. Just in case, like, you weren't sure how to use a staircase.

Big Jacqui's Just Looking Out For You

All Home Secretaries are ghastly, of course. But Jacqui Smith may be an even greater nuisance than previous holders of the office. That's tough competition when you recall that the field also includes Michael Howard, David Blunkett and Jack Straw. The latter, of course, shopped his own son to the police. But here's the lie being peddled by the gruesome Smith today:

Jacqui Smith says public demand means people will be able to pre-register for an ID card within the next few months.

The cards will be available for all from 2012 but she said: "I regularly have people coming up to me and saying they don't want to wait that long."

Does anyone believe this? The sooner there's an election the better.

Further Adventures in Brave New Scotland

Can this really be true? Why yes my friends it can.

A teenager from Ayrshire who was caught posing with a sword on the social networking site Bebo has been fined £200 at Kilmarnock Sheriff Court.

Anthony Bowman, 19, pleaded guilty to displaying the image on Bebo between January 2006 and July 2008.

His case came to light after police conducted a trawl of the internet in a bid to cut crime and disorder.

Bowman was then identified by officers from the Strathclyde force's Violence Reduction Taskforce.

The teenager's case was reported to prosecutors as part of Operation Access - an ongoing campaign against violence.

Kilmarnock district procurator fiscal, Les Brown, said: "This case demonstrates the benefits of using creative investigative techniques to gather evidence of crimes of violence and anti-social behaviour.
   
"It sends a clear message that those responsible for such crimes cannot escape justice.

"During this operation, we have worked closely with local police divisions to ensure that cases detected through internet sites can be prosecuted effectively.

"Knife crime blights many local communities and we are committed to taking prompt and effective action to pursue those responsible and stop them in their tracks."

Ch Supt Bill Fitzpatrick, of Strathclyde Police, said Operation Access had been introduced to "crack down on youth violence and anti-social behaviour within communities across Ayrshire".

He added: "It provides us with an opportunity to identify young people who associate themselves with violence and the tools of violence.

"It is one strand of a very comprehensive strategy intended to bring about a reduction in violence by tackling it at source and in the most direct fashion.

"Youngsters who use social networking sites irresponsibly should be warned that their activities are being monitored and they may get a visit from the police."

Emphasis added, of course. Makes you proud to live in this country doesn't it? Apparently the poor kid was convicted of the pretty heinous crime of waving-a-sword-about-in-a-public-place (an being photographed doing so, of course). This is the kind of country we now live in. Happy times, eh?

Question for the lawyers out there: if the police were somehow to access, say, Facebook pages that had been designated "For Friends' Viewing Only" would that constitute an illegal search? And, for that matter, even if your account is "public" what grounds do the police have for mounting this sort of fishing-expedition?

When lunatics write...

I'd wondered how Melanie Philips - Britain's pop-eyed, vein-bulging answer to Andy McCarthy and Stanley Kurtz - might react to the election of Barack Obama. Happily, she doesn't disappoint:

Those of us who have looked on appalled during this most frightening of presidential elections – at the suspension of reason and its replacement by thuggery -- can only hope that the way this man governs will be very different from the profile provided by his influences, associations and record to date. It’s a faint hope – the enemies of America, freedom and the west will certainly be rejoicing today...

What this election tells us is that America voted for change because America is in the process of changing – not just demographically by becoming less white and more diverse, but as the result of a culture war in which western civilisation is losing out to a far-left agenda which has become mainstream, teaching American children to despise the founding values of their country and hijacking discourse by the minority power-grab of victim-culture....

Those who have for the past eight years worked to bring down the America that defends and protects life and liberty are today ecstatic. They have stormed the very citadel on Pennsylvania Avenue itself.  

Millions of Americans remain lion-hearted, decent, rational and sturdy. They find themselves today abandoned, horrified, deeply apprehensive for the future of their country and the free world. No longer the land of the free and the home of the brave; they must now look elsewhere.

Perhaps the Spectator could send her off to work for National Review?

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.

Tales from Brave New Scotland

Good grief. Needless to say, one of the more depressing elements to this story is the fact that it won't prove terribly controversial. That's to say, there won't be a fuss or a rumpus and you won't - alas - see any outrage from politicians in any party.

Pub-goers in Aberdeen are facing a drugs test before entering bars as part of a crackdown by Grampian Police.

Officers in the force will be the first in Scotland to use an Itemiser - a device which can detect traces of drugs from hand swabs in a matter of seconds.

The test is voluntary, but customers will be refused entry if they do not take part. They could be searched and even arrested if traces are found.

The device was trialled by the police force in the area earlier this year.

The Itemiser allows police officers or door staff to swab customers hands as they enter a pub or club. It can tell almost instantly if drugs are present - including cocaine, cannabis, heroin and ecstasy.

Customers who get a green reading are allowed entry to the pub, those who get amber are given a drug information pack and those who get red could be searched by police.

Det Supt Willie MacColl, national drugs co-ordinator for the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement Agency (SCDEA), said: "This project offers an opportunity for collaborative working to implement an alternative intervention that will help change attitudes and reduce demand for controlled drugs.

"We hope that over time the model can be developed and used by community partnerships in other towns and cities across Scotland to reduce the harm caused by drugs."

Ch Insp Innes Walker, of Grampian Police, said that as a result of the trial period in October "people had a greater confidence that they could enjoy a night out without fear of encountering drugs".

So, no need for anything like probable cause, no need for anything as quaint as the presumption of innocence and, naturally, it will be a "voluntary" scheme unless you want a drink. So, not so very voluntary. But, sure, it's only the people with something to hide who have anything to fear, right? Wrong. Who needs ID cards when we suffer this level of intrusion anyway? (Though ID cards will, of course, only make matters worse). Ghastly.

Travels in Wingnuttia

There are loonies everywhere, of course. Still, Jon Swift's summary of some of the anti-Obama conspiracy theories that have swilled around the wingnut blogosphere this year is a treat. He introduces his post, thus:

Hampered by quaint, old-fashioned rules of journalism that require citing evidence and reputable sources, the mainstream media has failed to report a number of important stories about Obama and the conservative blogosphere has had to step up and do the media’s job for them. As a public service I have collected some of the most important of these stories in one place. Pulitzer Prize judges, take note!

Some of the stories below are shocking and even hard to believe, but they weren’t published on crazy, fringe websites. They appeared on some of the most distinguished and well-respected sites on the Internet. The bloggers and online journalists who published them have staked their reputations and their sacred honor on the veracity of these reports. To doubt the truth of their findings, you would have to believe that an entire segment of the blogosphere has suddenly been gripped by hysteria and gone collectively insane, which is a pretty unlikely scenario.

Do read on. It's a hoot.

[Via Andrew]

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." 

A Mad World, My Masters

Clive Crook pops back to Blighty and finds himself pining for the sanity and phlegmatic common-sense of life in the United States. Can't say I blame him. Consider this story, for instance: plans for a Christmas ice-rink in Bath have been abandoned after complaints that the temporary rink would be a magnet for paedophiles who could take advantage of it to "groom" children.

Seriously.

Not to get all Daily Mail on you, but not for the first, nor I fear last, time there's not much you can do except wonder what on earth is wrong with this country.

[Hat-tip: Mr Worstall]

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.

Behind the Security Theatre Curtain

Airport security? A complete joke. This has been apparent for some time, of course, but all the "security theatre" nonsense at least makes it seem as though something is being done. And that is the important thing, isn't it? The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg has a good piece demonstrating just how pointless the mania for "security" is. No chance of a return to sanity of course. That would mean the terrorists are winning.

Anyway, Goldberg successfully passes through the security checkpoints using a fake boarding pass:

We were in the clear. But what did we prove?

“We proved that the ID triangle is hopeless,” Schneier said.

The ID triangle: before a passenger boards a commercial flight, he interacts with his airline or the government three times—when he purchases his ticket; when he passes through airport security; and finally at the gate, when he presents his boarding pass to an airline agent. It is at the first point of contact, when the ticket is purchased, that a passenger’s name is checked against the government’s no-fly list. It is not checked again, and for this reason, Schnei­er argued, the process is merely another form of security theater.

“The goal is to make sure that this ID triangle represents one person,” he explained. “Here’s how you get around it. Let’s assume you’re a terrorist and you believe your name is on the watch list.” It’s easy for a terrorist to check whether the government has cottoned on to his existence, Schnei­er said; he simply has to submit his name online to the new, privately run CLEAR program, which is meant to fast-pass approved travelers through security. If the terrorist is rejected, then he knows he’s on the watch list.

To slip through the only check against the no-fly list, the terrorist uses a stolen credit card to buy a ticket under a fake name. “Then you print a fake boarding pass with your real name on it and go to the airport. You give your real ID, and the fake boarding pass with your real name on it, to security. They’re checking the documents against each other. They’re not checking your name against the no-fly list—that was done on the airline’s computers. Once you’re through security, you rip up the fake boarding pass, and use the real boarding pass that has the name from the stolen credit card. Then you board the plane, because they’re not checking your name against your ID at boarding.”

What if you don’t know how to steal a credit card?

“Then you’re a stupid terrorist and the government will catch you,” he said.

What if you don’t know how to download a PDF of an actual boarding pass and alter it on a home computer?

“Then you’re a stupid terrorist and the government will catch you.”

I couldn’t believe that what Schneier was saying was true—in the national debate over the no-fly list, it is seldom, if ever, mentioned that the no-fly list doesn’t work. “It’s true,” he said.

Whose interests are served by the security-mania? Not the public's for sure. The only winners are bureaucrats and, in some sense, the terrorists themselves. Clearly this means it's an indispensable sham.

Status: Enraged but Unsurprised

OK, this is from the Sunday Times so the usual weekend caveats apply. But a) this story does seem to be confirmed by official sources and b) it turns out it isn't actually April 1st:

Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.

Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase. Privacy campaigners fear it marks the latest government move to create a surveillance society.

A compulsory national register for the owners of all 72m mobile phones in Britain would be part of a much bigger database to combat terrorism and crime.

Although the Tories will doubtless give them a run for their money it is hard to imagine how any government could actually be more enraging than the present shower. Mr Worstall has some good, old-fashioned suggestions for what the government should do next. And no, despite what the government says, none of this is actually for your own good.

PS: How long before some government flunky tries to make the (absurd) case that "Well, if we just had Identity Cards we wouldn't need to consider plans such as these"?

"Ambition" is the new "Uppity"

Sarah Palin on Barack Obama and Bill Ayers today:

This pattern raises serious questions about Senator Obama's judgment.  It raises serious questions about his truthfulness.  But there is no question about his ambition.

Ambition explains launching your political career in the living room of an unrepentant terrorist.

Indeed. Because you too would start your decades-long conspiracy to steal the Presidency in the home of an "unrepentent terrorist". That's a sensible ambition! Who could possibly fail to see that? Doesn't Obama's association - no more than that - with Ayers undermine the "he's a secret terrorist-sympathiser" narrative? Or have we, I suppose, now reached the point where the GOP skips the "secret" bit and just calls Obama a terrorist who's so cunning he hides his terrorism in plain sight?

There's a bigger problem here. Even if this kind of tactic works an McCain pulls off an improbable victory, the manner of his triumph will poison his victory. There will be no goodwill or groundswell of support from the decent, patriotic middle for a President McCain. By contrast, a President Obama is going to enjoy enormous support and will be given the benefit of the doubt by millions of people who didn't actually vote for him. He will, I rather think, have a prolonged Presidential honeymoon. One that is likely to be extended the more people recall the nature of the desperate campaign he defeated.

And that means that these kinds of tactics, I think, will make the eventual Republican recovery a longer, slower, more painful affair than it would have been had the GOP lost with class and decency.

Financial Crisis: All Uncle Milton's Fault?

Will Wilkinson has some fun with Naomi Klein's latest nonsense.

Naomi Klein says [the financial crisis discredits neoliberalism]. Or she wants it to. She thinks it discredits Milton Friedman in particular, because for Klein not a sparrow falls without Friedman’s having somehow strangled it. Hers is a tiny intellectual universe containing, on the one hand, the things she likes and, on the other, the baleful influence of Milton Friedman.

Did you know, for instance, that Paul Bremer was a Friedmanite agent of mass destruction in Iraq? Apparently so!

The Littlejohn Vote

As expected, David Cameron's speech has been well received. In the Telegraph, Iain Martin says this was the moment Cameron "came out as a Conservative".  Indeed so. But amidst the sobriety and the resolution, there were moments of populist blue meat too. The BBC's mini-focus group particularly loved this passage:

For Labour there is only the state and the individual, nothing in between. No family to rely on, no friend to depend on, no community to call on. No neighbourhood to grow in, no faith to share in, no charities to work in. No-one but the Minister, nowhere but Whitehall, no such thing as society - just them, and their laws, and their rules, and their arrogance. You cannot run our country like this.

It is why, when we look at what’s happening to our country, we can see that the problem is not the leader; it’s Labour. They end up treating people like children, with a total lack of trust in people’s common sense and decency. This attitude, this whole health and safety, human rights act culture, has infected every part of our life. If you’re a police officer you now cannot pursue an armed criminal without first filling out a risk assessment form. Teachers can’t put a plaster on a child’s grazed knee without calling a first aid officer. Even foreign exchanges for students…you can’t host a school exchange any more without parents going through an Enhanced Criminal Record Bureau Check.

No, when times are tough, it’s not a bigger state we need: it’s better, more efficient government. But even more than that we need a stronger society. That means trusting people.

Exactly. When you hear about this sort of stuff, you do not need to be a Daily Mail reader to scream "What is wrong with this country?"  I'd assumed that this nonsense about criminal record checks had to be made up. But no, it's actually true. Then again, why should I be surprised? This summer a school-teacher told me that "Health and Safety" regulations meant boys could no longer practice in the cricket nets absent adult supervision.

Cameron may have (mistakenly) disavowed libertarianism yesterday, but this is fertile territory for the Tories, appealling to the British version of the Leave Us Alone coalition. There are plenty of votes out there in Why-oh-Why land. Heck, even Tom Harris, Labour MP for Glasgow South, seems to despair of the culture his party's government has fostered. As I say, this is a subject the Tories should return to time and time again. Are you mad as hell? You should be. Are you going to take it anymore? You damn well shouldn't...