The weblog of Norman Geras
Stephen Pollard posts under the heading ‘Michael Howard – a disgrace to politics’, and says:
As of now (4.45pm) I have heard from 7 Conservatives, every one of whom has told me they were ashamed of Michael Howard’s performance in the Commons. One told me he cheered Blair on so foul was Howard’s display.
…..
He’s not fit for his own office, let alone No 10. Shameful.
Quite.
The Democratic contenders, as judged by their hair:
Take a look at the line-up of Democratic presidential hopefuls battling it out in [yesterday’s] crucial primary. One factor unites these, the brightest and best of the Democratic party: really bad hair.
Jess Carter-Morley compares and assesses them all.
According to this report in the Telegraph:
Saddam Hussein bribed his way around the world, buying the support of presidents, ministers, legislators, political parties and even Christian churches, according to documents published in Iraq.
The list of those who allegedly benefited from Saddam’s largesse spans 46 countries.
Via Harry’s Place. For those who read French: Harry also links to this piece in Le Monde; and one of his commenters, Martin Adamson, to this, which has the most detail.
I don’t want to be droning on too long about something that’s past, but there are people who feel that Jenny Tonge has been unfairly treated, and I believe it’s important to be precise about this issue. Here is what Janice Turner wrote in the Times (as quoted in the Guardian on Monday):
How has this attempt to identify terrorism’s underlying cause been conflated with justifying or condoning it? It is like suggesting that all academics analysing the socioeconomic conditions in 1930s Germany that fostered the anti-semitism that led to the Holocaust must be Nazi sympathisers.
If this is the parallel one chooses, I’d say, instead, that it’s like suggesting that the following would be a morally dubious public statement for a liberal MP, in a contemporary democracy, to make:
I can understand… I think if I had had to live in that situation, and I say this advisedly, I might just have considered [here insert some expression for participating in Nazi crimes against the Jews] myself.
Would Jenny Tonge have been widely condemned had she said she might just have considered torching a synagogue, beating up Jews, participating in a shooting squad in Eastern Poland, herding people to their deaths, and so forth? She surely would have. At the same time, it is probable that she spoke carelessly – her ‘advisedly’ notwithstanding – and that she really meant to say only that she sympathized with Palestinian sufferings and undestood the grievances resulting from them. But then Tonge had the opportunity to correct herself and she didn’t take it. In these circumstances, it was right for Charles Kennedy to remove her from her position.
There’s an exchange here between Pip Hinman and John Pilger. It’s very short but also very revealing. These are two of Hinman’s questions and Pilger’s answers:
Do you think the anti-war movement should be supporting Iraq’s anti-occupation resistance?
Yes, I do. We cannot afford to be choosy. While we abhor and condemn the continuing loss of innocent life in Iraq, we have no choice now but to support the resistance, for if the resistance fails, the “Bush gang” will attack another country. If they succeed, a grievous blow will be suffered by the Bush gang.
Shouldn’t this supposedly endless “war on terror” make us feel rather gloomy about prospects for peace?
I don’t know about “gloomy”. I don’t think we have time to be gloomy: too much to do! The US warmongers fear public opinion, because they must pay lip service to a semblance of democracy. We must give them good cause to go on fearing it.
‘[W]e cannot afford to be choosy’. Hmmm. This is a form of words covering the random killing of Iraqi civilians, to say nothing of Red Cross and UN personnel – despite Pilger’s profession of abhorrence for the loss of innocent life. For the Iraqi ‘resistance’, which has had no scruples about those whom it targets, must be supported, he says. Why? To stop the ‘Bush gang’. Well, that expresses the primary motivation clearly enough. In Pilger’s second answer, note how ‘democracy’ functions. It starts out as a ‘semblance’, but one sentence along it is plainly more than just a semblance.
(Via this chain: Bargarz, Daimnation, WhackingDay.)
That’s how Huw Edwards summed up Lord Hutton‘s verdict in a question to Andrew Marr, with the latter assenting. And it’s exact. If, before the event, you’d tried to imagine the outcome Tony Blair wanted, this would have been it, no? You can be sure that, had it gone against Blair by so much as the width of a fingernail, those who want his head would in no time have been stretching this narrowness to reach across the land. But now just watch for the effort of minimization. It began immediately, with the response of Michael Howard in the House following Blair’s impassioned speech of vindication. Formally accepting Hutton’s judgement in a grudging sentence, Howard went straight on to try and reassemble the case of which Blair and his government had been cleared… in that same judgement. It wasn’t merely foolish and ungracious; it was lamentable.
In the same (minimizing) corner of the park, Simon Hoggart has a delightful report (as ever) about yesterday’s vote:
But it was only when Tim Yeo, shadow education secretary, rose to declare “after that utter humiliation… ” that Mr Blair finally cracked. He laughed and cheered and smiled a smile that probably met at the back of his neck.
Had the government lost the vote, it would of course have been a complete humiliation.
Update 5 minutes later: Gavyn Davies, BBC chairman, is to resign.
I was in London yesterday and attended a meeting about MPs and blogging, organized by the All Party Group for e-Democracy (which is administered by the Hansard Society). The meeting – announced here and here – took place in the Grand Committee Room at Westminster Hall and was addressed by Tony Benn, Tom Watson MP, Clive Soley MP and James Crabtree, Director of the Work Foundation’s iSociety. This was followed by a brief question and answer session before the MPs hurried off, just before 7.00, to vote on tuition fees. I found the meeting interesting, but won’t attempt to summarize it all. Bill Thompson has posted an account of what the speakers said. My main thought on the subject echoes a point which Tony Benn – with whom I don’t always agree – interjected during the discussion session. He said something along the lines: now that the technology is there, the thing will certainly happen. That’s my feeling. There may be needs particular to the blogging MP which other bloggers don’t share or even know about. I don’t have anything useful to say about this; it’s an issue the All Party Group for e-Democracy will likely focus on. But I don’t think it’s going to take a huge or special effort for the start that’s been made by Tom Watson and Clive Soley – possibly others I don’t know about – to be followed. My hunch is that this will sweep forward. Trying to push it along, though it can’t do any harm, may be a bit like trying to help the tide come in using a bucket.
A personal footnote. I was glad to have the opportunity while in London of meeting some people whom I’d hitherto only communicated with electronically and/or by phone. I had lunch with Oliver Kamm, and then went off to have a drink with Jackie D, also bound for the meeting at Westminster Hall. Jackie introduced me to her friend Paul, supporter of a certain football club in the Manchester area. These encounters and conversations covered blogging-related matters, naturally, but amongst much else. I was also able to say hello briefly to Tom Watson as the Westminster meeting was dispersing. I returned home after a very pleasant day.
I’m away from home till late tomorrow, so will not be posting again till then. Some reading matter.
> Fred Inglis, Professor Emeritus of Cultural Studies, University of Sheffield, apropos some reactions after September 11, 2001:
The postmodern intelligentsia should be reproached not for their irony, still less for ‘pseudosophisticated relativism’, but rather for self–righteousness, self–referentiality, and an impregnable sanctimony only made to tremble by the danger of speaking with strong and spontaneous feeling about circumstances of such deliberate horribleness.
The failure was one of thought, thought charged to the utmost with the actuality of experience and the feelings inseparable from living it.
Who, for example, could take seriously someone who talks like this?
“This, strictly speaking, is de(con)structive pedagogy. Like all good teaching in the humanities, it is hopeful and interminable. It presupposes and looks forward to a future anterior of achieved solidarity, and thus nurses ‘the present’. In the strictest sense, then, (para)logical: morpho–genetic (giving rise to new ways of reading, writing, teaching in the strongest sense) without terminal teleological innovation. Its ‘present’ is a field of value–coding …”
Read the whole thing. (Hat tip: SdeW.)
> Mick Hartley takes a critical look at Robin Cook’s view of why Tony Blair supported George Bush over Iraq.
> Tim Burke has a post up about evil which you should read. (Hat tip: Gary Jones.)
This isn’t a post about Polly Toynbee being tired; neither is it about anyone being tired of Polly Toynbee. No, it’s about me being exhausted by my labours on collating the results of the favourite movie poll. And who have I to blame for that?… I hear you saying. Yeah, well, I know. But a person doesn’t like to blame himself.
So I’ll change the subject, and say that it’ll be a good while before I initiate another one of those. Even then, I may go for something that’s unlikely to arouse too much interest – like favourite chess grandmasters, maybe. (I’ve always liked the style of Bent Larsen myself.) This is just an example, OK, not the announcement of a poll. The problem is that there’s an upward curve here that’s putting a strain on the Geras Polling Organization: 29 entries for the Country Music poll (August 19); 45 entries for the jazz albums poll (October 13); 105 entries for the Alternative Big Read (November 26); and now 151 entries for these favourite movies. You see the problem?
Anyway, I’ve got a bit of a Movielanche going on this evening. That’s not like an Instalanche, but it’s very noticeable all the same. I’m gratified by the interest. The work has not been in vain.
Some loose ends.
First, there were a paltry five responses to my invitation to predict the top three movies. Poll fatigue out there as well perhaps. Of these five, none came close. Three people predicted Casablanca would win, is all; but one of these was my daughter Jenny, and she’s disqualified. I therefore need to donate to a charity congenial to the other two of you and will settle on which by emailing you both.
Second, my two favourite movies of all time, Psycho and The Wild Bunch, each polled three votes. Three votes out of 151 for two cinematic masterpieces! What were you all thinking of?
Third, you might like to compare this list (hat tip: a commenter, Keith, round at Crooked Timber).