Bel is thinking

I must say, I’m rather surprised by the less than sympathetic response to John Prescott’s revelation that he has been suffering from bulimia for many a long year (see, for example, here and here).

Could it be that one man can inspire such loathing that even the revelation of his deep suffering fails to invoke the normal human sympathy people take for granted?

Or could it be that it is not so much Prescott that is loathed, but rather all that he stood for in his time in office? Perhaps Prescott is a convenient focus for the anger and helplessness people feel as a result of the policies of his Government?

Whatever the answer, sympathy for Prescott appears to be a rare thing today. I hope, for his sake, that he doesn’t read those comments.

Beginning to stir from my long blogging slumber. And a deep slumber it has been. Nothing seemed to rouse me, not even the increasingly desperate state of affairs currently obtaining in the United Kingdom. However, the time approaches for me to return, even if gradually, to the world of political blogging.

First things first, I have upgraded this blog to Wordpress 2.5. After reading of Tyger’s upgrade experiences, I decided not to attempt it myself. Justin of Webbleyou kindly sorted it out for me. He has helped me out on numerous Wordpress matters in the past, and I am really grateful to him. I don’t know what it is with me and Wordpress. I can take anything Movable Type throws at me, installation, upgrade, you name it. The same goes for Joomla!. But the very thought of upgrading a Wordpress blog, and I want to lie down and take my vitamins. So thanks, Justin.

I hope you’ve all been doing fine. More later, definitely.

An interesting story in the Daily Mail today:

A Muslim store worker at Marks & Spencer refused to serve a customer buying a children’s book on biblical stories because she said it was “unclean”.

Understandable outrage from all quarters. Even, it would seem, from Inayat Bunglawala, the assistant secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain. However, here are his reported words:

He said: “This appears to be a very regrettable incident and the ‘unclean’ remark was clearly very offensive and unacceptable.

“Many Biblical stories complement the teachings of the Koran. We hope that M&S will investigate this incident.”

I’m sorry, sir, but you’re rather missing the point. It is immaterial whether or not Bible stories complement the teachings of the Koran. What the store worker did was unacceptable, full stop. Is Mr Bunglawala suggesting that, if the ‘offending’ item was a book that did not complement the Koran’s teachings, then the store worker would have been within her rights to refuse to sell it?

It appears to me that Mr Bunglawala does not really condemn what this store worker did. His support for the Christian customer is implicitly qualified. It is conditional upon her buying something that does not (in his opinion) contradict the Koran’s teachings. I am not sure I am encouraged by his words.

A gradual return to blogging.

Sorry for the silence. Emigrating from the UK is no easy matter, but here I am now, observing UK life from the relative calm of The Hague.

I will try to blog more regularly, but kindly bear with me just now.

Sorry for the silence, dear readers. I’m working outside the country, and haven’t yet sorted out proper internet access. I hope to be back blogging soon.

The Labour Party has been receiving donations from a wealthy businessman. Only he didn’t wish to donate in his own name, so he made the donations in the names of two of his employees.

This illegal practice has now been brought to light, and the General Secretary of the Labour Party has resigned.

According to him, although he knew of the arrangement, he wasn’t aware that it was illegal.

Really?

Not saying he isn’t telling the truth, but I find it hard to believe that he didn’t even take the precaution of checking first. That would have been the prudent thing to do. Following on from the whole ‘cash for honours’ allegations, where gifts to political parties were disguised as loans in order to circumvent the disclosure rules, one would have expected a diligent General Secretary to be on his toes, so as to avoid any further trouble of that kind.

The issue in this case is the same as that in the case of the disguised loans: people taking steps to disguise the fact that they have made donations to a political party. Surely the General Secretary should have seen that, recognised the similarity, and heeded the warning signals.

If he is telling the truth, and he didn’t know that this was illegal, how utterly, utterly inept of him. I suppose that’s the best that could be said of the matter.

UPDATE. Denis MacShane on Sky News trying to use these events to make the case for state funding. These politicians are shameless.

Australia now has a Labour Government.

Poor souls.

I wonder if they’ll still be jubilating ten years hence.

At least no one can blame Gordon Brown for this one.

I’m speechless at this latest episode of incompetence by a Government department.

As others have remarked elsewhere, given what has happened today, is there any reason why we should trust the Government with our data under the proposed ID cards scheme?

I recognise that argument, but I’ve always been rather cautious of it. When arguing against ID cards, I prefer not to base my opposition on Government competence (or otherwise). That, to me, would be a false argument. As if to say that if only the Government could be trusted not to lose our data, then it would be OK to have ID cards. My opposition to ID cards is based on civil liberties grounds, and as such, will not change even if there were a cast-iron guarantee that our details would be secure.

Having said that, today’s news can only make the public more sceptical of the whole ID cards project. If so, that can only be a good thing. If ID cards are scrapped because of public scepticism over Government competence, I for one will not quarrel with that. I suppose, in the end, it matters not how the victory is won.

Ex-convict Jonathan Aitken has been asked by the Centre for Social Justice to serve on a policy review commission on prison reform.

Adam Boulton’s blog reports the following reaction from Government Whip, Tom Watson:

This is a return to the disgraced, scandal-ridden Tory past.

What can we expect next from the Tories?

David Cameron should go all the way, bring in Jeffrey Archer to run a truth and reconciliation committee, draft Neil Hamilton in to advise him on parliamentary modernisation and scrutiny, and bring in Shirley Porter to overhaul his housing policy.

Hmm. Interesting. And here I was thinking that the Labour Party was into rehabilitation of wrongdoers and all that.

This is my view: Jonathan Aitken committed a very serious offence. He was duly punished, and he served his sentence. He has also publicly repented of his crime. As such, he should be free to contribute to society in any way that he can. If he has something to contribute to prison reform policy, then by all means, let’s hear it.

This issue reminded me of something that happened on this blog some months ago. I was taken to task by some people for allowing John Hirst, otherwise known as the Jailhouse Lawyer, to comment on my blog. The argument was that he had committed a very serious crime, had shown no public remorse, and so should not be permitted space on any decent weblog. Some people threatened to boycott my blog until I barred him. I refused. Part of my reasoning was that he had been punished for his crime, and that if he had something useful to say, I was interested in hearing it. I must say that almost all the supportive comments and emails I received were from people on the Left of the political divide. Maybe they understand instinctively the whole rehabilitation thing, I don’t know. However, for many reasons, I was very much cheered by their support.

Back to Jonathan Aitken. I wonder if Tom Watson would be making these comments if a non-Tory ex-offender had been appointed instead. Take the the Jailhouse Lawyer: he was in prison for a very long time, challenged the prison system in court, and is very well-versed in many aspects of prisoners’ rights. He has a lot of interesting insights into prison reform, and would no doubt have so much to offer to the debate, if asked. If the Jailhouse Lawyer had been invited, and had accepted, to serve on the panel, I wonder if Tom Watson would have condemned the appointment.

Of course he wouldn’t have condemned the appointment. The only reason he has criticised Aitken’s appointment is because Aitken is a Tory. That is the simple truth. I wrote a few days ago about principled bloggers, those who praise or criticize policy based on principle, regardless of whether or not the policy in question was advocated by their political allies or opponents. I know that Tom Watson is a party political man who owes much of his career achievement to the Labour Party, but that is no reason to eschew principle. If you believe in the rehabilitation of ex-offenders, particularly those that have shown remorse, and indicated a desire to serve, why should that principle change just because the ex-offender in question is from a different political party to yourself? Or maybe Tom Watson does not believe in rehabilitation at all, in which case, his comments are completely consistent. Somehow I doubt that.