Bel is thinking

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.

A muslim woman in a headscarf applies for a job as a hairdresser. She tells the potential employer that she has to wear her headscarf at all times. Predictably, she is turned down for the job. She is now suing the hairdresser for discrimination.

Why do I say ‘predictably’? It’s because no hairdresser with any business sense would employ a stylist whose hair the customer cannot see. If I, as a customer, cannot see what the stylist has done to her own hair, why should I trust her with mine?

The case continues. I only hope common sense prevails. By all means, wear a headscarf if your religion mandates you to do so (doubtful, but let that pass); but don’t expect to work in a field where we need to see your hair.

Just wondering: if her religion really demands that she go everywhere with her hair covered, and given that no-one would trust a stylist with concealed hair, perhaps the logical (even if absurd) conclusion to draw is that perhaps Allah never intended for his women to work as hairdressers in the first place? I wonder if she’ll think on that.

I don’t know about you, but I feel totally underwhelmed by the Queen’s Speech. Not because most of the measures had already been announced by Gordon Brown months ago. I think it’s simply that I’m totally fed up with the cynicism and dishonesty of politics.

I am not blaming only the Labour Party here, but of course, being the party in Government, their acts are more to the fore. In particular, I am thinking of promises that are made with no intention of being kept - you know the type, those that are forgotten as soon as they leave the lips of the speaker.

I am thinking also about the way this Government has encroached on our civil rights, even as, with stony face, they maintain the impression that theirs is a Government committed to defence of the same.

I am thinking also about the dire state of our public services despite insane levels of public spending in the past ten years - it is widely accepted that the money has made relatively little difference.

I am thinking about many other things besides, none of which fill me with hope for the current or future leadership of this country. We are being ill-served by a Government that has run out of ideas, and is committed to nothing more than hanging on to office for as long as possible.

So I didn’t pay particular attention to the Queen’s Speech. As to the promised legislation, let’s just wait and see, shall we? We can safely assume that none of the ‘goodies’ (if any) shall materialise as promised. And as for the more worrying ‘promises’ (such as raising the school leaving age), let us hope that decent and principled MPs will gather together to defeat such plans. If they do so, and the Bill fails, well and good. And if they don’t, and the Bill passes into law, we should examine ourselves and consider whether we did after all get the Government we deserved.