Unfortunate positioning

Sorry about this post - if you have a sensitive disposition, it's probably best to look away now.

There are two political comment pieces in the Independent today which, taken together, conjur up the most appalling image.

Mark Oaten: I know what Max Mosley has been going through.

Michael Brown: A Brown exit is Cameron's biggest worry.

First make the connection...

Getting away with murder...

Cath Elliot has a piece in today's Guardian, where she argues that the forthcoming changes to the murder laws are a victory for women, in that the old defences of provocation and diminished responsibility are to be reviewed. Essentially the new reforms (although these are still in consultation) will tighten the law of provocation to make it harder for husbands to claim provocation for adultery, nagging and so forth. Quite right too. The law of homicide is a ridiculous mess.

However, fiddling about with the defences is the wrong approach. With the exception of self-defence (which is a full defence), the main homicide defences of diminished responsibility and provocation are fudges. One calls for a 'sudden and uncontrollable impulse' and the other for 'temporary mental disorder'. Neither of these are accurate depictions of what happens - they are convenient legal fictions.

The correct response would be to remove the mandatory life sentence that a conviction of murder attracts, and use the defences of provocation, diminished responsibility as mitigating factors in sentencing, rather than factors in determining charge. It's not really a gender matter as such - more a legal and moral one.

Quentin Davies-watch

Still feeling like the right decision? No scintillas of doubt over which leader possesses moral fibre? Not beginning to feel like a complete and total tit yet?

The strange death of Labour England

Ten years after winning an enormous Parliamentary majority over a Tory party that was both tired and ideologically split, Britain's ruling party was demoralised, increasingly impoverished and ruinously split on matters of foreign policy. The party suffered a split between its two factions, and never again formed a Government.

I love the smell of historical analogies in the morning. And to be fair, the circumstances that led to the death of the Liberal Party have not been repeated - thank God, seeing that the principle factor was the First World War. Nevertheless, it is instructive in that parties of the centre-left have died in the past, and there is no reason why they should not do so again. Last night's by-election defeat, in Labour's 25th strongest seat no less, could be seen not as a turning point but as confirmation that the turning point has already been reached. Wherever Labour has been forced to face the decision of the electorate - the local elections, the Mayoral elections, Crewe, Henley and Glasgow East - the results have been disastrous. Not merely bad but terrible. The worst ever results in the local elections, the first loss of the mayoralty, losing Crewe on an 18% swing, coming fifth in Henley and losing their deposit and now losing Glasgow East on a 22% swing. These are shattering numbers - the latest opinion poll deficits predict a seat share of Con: 410 Lab: 167 LD: 29. Mind blowing stuff.

And there's no reason why these numbers are going to improve either. The economic situation is going to get worse before it gets better - and even if it does improve Labour should remember the Tories' 'voteless recovery' in the late 1990s. Brown's real problems are innate and not a result of exterior forces. He cannot communicate, he has no sense of where he wants the country to go and he cannot run an effective cabinet. Brown is not going to be able to pull this one back. But on the other hand, there is no-one waiting in the wings who is likely to be any better. And even if they did go for broke, recognising that this time things really can only get better, any new leader will be faced with precisely the same situation - and with even less democratic legitimacy.

David Cameron recently said that the Tories have spent the last two years 'earning the right to be heard'. The problem for Labour is that they have effectively lost it. They have reached the stage when people turn the radio off when they here a Labour voice. The Labour Party are going to go down to a very heavy defeat in the next election. They will do this regardless of whether they go to the country now or hang on until June 2010. They will do this regardless who leads them. They will do this regardless of the economic situation - though the scale of the defeat will be affected. The really interesting question is what they will do next.

Is that really all that frequent?

Now, FAQs are generally not enormously helpful. So I guess it's a good thing that the Chinese embassy has tried to cover all the bases. But really, how often do they get this query?

I wish to organize a small acrobatic troupe to perform in China, what type of visa can I apply for?

Is there a lot of that going on just now?

Progress in Zimbabwe?

This is a problem for Zimbabwe and for Britain. When I first heard that Tsvangirai had entered into talks with Mugabe (even if these were merely the sort of 'talks about talks' that Ian Smith conducted with Britain on HMS Tiger and Fearless) I thought, with Travelgal, that a stitch-up was in the process of happening and that Tsvangirai would follow Nkomo into a neutered accomodation with ZANU-PF that left Mugabe and, more importantly, Mnangagwa, Mujuru and Chiweshe with their hands on all the levers of power. Under the Zimbabwean constitution (altered by Mugabe in the 1980s) there is an executive Presidency that controls nearly all the functions of the state.

The position of deputy President is a meaningless one - the current incumbents are 85 year old Joseph Msika and the delightful Joice Mujuru, wife of Solomon Mujuru the former head of the army. Previou incumbents included Joshua Nkomo - after he had renounced all ambitions for ZAPU. There is no Prime Minister in the Zimbabwean system - the President fulfills both roles.
So, unless there is a significant constitutional change, there is only one meaningful office in the Zimbabwean government - President. All other jobs are irrelevant. On that basis, talks between MDC and ZANU-PF are a waste of time - unless Tsvangirai blinks.

If he does, and accepts the role of Vice President - presumably allowing the senescent Msika to shuffle into the twilight - then what there will be is an accomodation in form but not in substance. This would bring the scenario depicted by David Blair into being - how far should Britain recognise the new regime?

There is, however, an alternative - that the constitution is redrawn, allowing for an executive Prime Minister and a constitutional head of state. This is pretty much what the state of affairs was when Zimbabwe became independent - with the late lamented Canaan Banana as President. The problem with this version is that it envisages Mugabe relinquishing power in return for a titular headship of state. It might be the best way out of this mess from an outside perspective, but I doubt that is how the old tyrant would see it.

There seem to be three possibilities here: either there is no real progress with the talks and Zimbabwe continues on its current path; or Tsvangirai accepts a meaningless settlement and the opposition in Zimbabwe is neutralised; or there is real change in Zimbabwe and Mugabe negins the process of reconciliation as he is eased out. The third is obviously the most desirable - it's also surely the least likely.

The thing with UKIP...

Now, as I'm sure you know the blogfather himself has recently put himself up for selection as a London MEP for UKIP. I'm a big fan of Tim's, and his blog was one that, more than any other, persuaded me to take the stuff up a couple of years ago. I'm also sympathetic to the whole Euro-nihilism shtick. But there's the thing with UKIP, which I seem to remember saying a while back:

The less good reason, and one I'm not proud of, is that most of the UKIP people I've met have been rather odd. I'm excluding from this the obviously delightful DK and Trixy of course, but most of them have been, well, peculiar.

Well, since then the DK has moved on but I think the point still stands. If you want a little more evidence of this, have a look at the former Tory MPs who have left the party and joined UKIP:

Seven joined UKIP: Roger Knapman; Jonathan Aitken; Neil Hamilton; Piers Merchant, Theresa Gorman, Sir Richard Body, and Bob Spink.

I mean, honestly! Does anyone out there really think that the Tories didn't get the better bargain when that lot quit?

Does Glasgow East matter?

So, the bye-election's on Thursday. The only specific poll, though showing a 17% Labour lead, wasn't exactly a good guide to opinion on the ground. The on dit has swung from an SNP victory to a narrow Labour one. Does any of this really matter?

The spotlight that has been shone on Glasgow East has been salutary in exposing a modern-day rotten borough, drawing plenty of headlines about life-expectancy, welfare dependency and substance abuse. It may even have been helpful to Labour's new welfare to work policy. But I'm not sure that Glasgow East will be an epoch-making bye-election. Firstly, although I wouldn't be astonished by a Labour defeat there (Labour really are plumbing the electoral depths at the moment) a victory for them is still the most likely outcome. Even with a drastically diminished majority, Labour will grab hold of victory with both hands, and try to use it to draw a line under their disastrous year and start again.

But lets imagine that the SNP do manage to pull off an unlikely victory - what then? Labour's position is so dramatically awful at the moment, that their MPs seem to have succumbed to cataleptic shock. They are frozen in place staring at their impending doom, and none can stir themselves to take any action that might mitigate. Even if defeat in Scotland is added to defeat in London, Crewe and much of England there will most likely be no serious move to dethrone Gordon Brown.

For one thing there are no realistic replacements. Miliband is the obvious choice, but he is hardly blessed with charisma and has already run away from the leadership once. Who else? Jack Straw? Caretaker leaders are bad enough in opposition. Purnell? Balls? Hoon? There's such a dearth of talent on the Labour benches that Gordon Brown, for all his electoral toxicity, still looks the most plausible leader.

So, for what they are worth, here are my predictions. Labour will win Glasgow East, with such a shrivelled majority that extrapolations to the rest of Scotland make disastrous viewing. The steady chuntering of unhappy Labour MPs will get louder and louder over the summer, building to a crescendo at the conference - where no-one will actually do anything. Brown will remain as leader for the time being - which is pretty much exactly what David Cameron wants.

Wishful thinking?

There's a squalid little article in the Guardian today by Robert Fox, which takes as its starting point the following assertion:

Military intelligence said allies would crush the Taliban thanks to our superior firepower. So how are the Afghan rebels routing US forces?

Routing? That's a pretty serious term to use, meaning as it does utter and humiliating defeat. So, how does Fox back it up?

This week we have the news that a well-coordinated Taliban attack by nearly succeeded in wresting the US forces' outpost at Wanat in Nuristan province from its defenders. The Taliban attacked in strength with rockets, mortars and machine guns from several directions. They breached the perimeter of the outpost and it was some hours, apparently, before they were driven off leaving nine American soldiers and dozens of their own killed and wounded...they have abandoned their outpost and the Taliban have now occupied Wanat village.

Well, first things first. Nearly succeeded is the same thing as didn't succeed. To say that an unsuccessful attack, that left "dozens" of Taliban casualties, compared to nine American casualties, is a 'rout' of the Americans is just plain wrong. And as for the abandonment of the camp, a further look at the details of the attack put things in a rather different light as well.

The base was occupied by 45 US soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division and 25 Afghan soldiers. It was only two days old when it came under fierce bombardment on Sunday morning. Taleban fighters successfully breached the outer defences and were prevented from overrunning the base only after fierce hand-to-hand fighting

Just over half of the US garrison was killed or injured in the battle, with 9 US dead and 15 injured; a further 4 Afghan troops were also injured.

Afghan officials reported that the area was occupied by Taleban fighters after the US withdrawal. Privately, Western military sources told The Times that the Wanat Combat Outpost was poorly sited and overlooked on three sides by buildings in the village, which Taleban fighters from a force estimated to be around 200 strong were able to use as firing points.

So, a badly located camp was abandoned - no bad thing really. And 45 US troops fought off 200 Taliban. And this is a rout how exactly?

Yikes...

June's inflation figures are out - and they really aren't pretty reading.

CPI up to 3.8%, RPI at 4.6% - these aren't good figures. The blurb blames rising food prices and travel costs - which will at least allow the Government to continue their disingenuous blaming of the nation's ills on vague and ill-defined foreign problems. But the problem is that the Bank of England's remit is to restrain inflation, even though, with a stagnating economy, the requisite rise in interest rates is the last thing we need. Interesting times....

The politics of spanking, and other serious matters

Ignoring, for a while, the tiresome ephemera of foreign policy, European politics and the like, let us turn our attention to serious matters, namely Max Mosely's bottom. In case there are any readers who haven't yet seen said posterior, or at least read about it in salacious detail from any one of a hundred news reports, blogs and so on, there's not much of a story about it. Upper class Englishman enjoys being spanked, and also enjoys spanking girls' bottoms. It's not up there among the most surprising news stories of all time is it?

Spanking, and associated activities are indelibly linked to the English - the French know it as la vice Anglais. Victorian erotica is stuffed full of spankings and birchings and so on (apparently). You can try and psycho-analyse it if you like (locked away in boarding schools, the repressed English aristocracy came to associate punishment with pleasure as the only source of intimacy available and so on). Or you can say that sex is both fun and ridiculous, and frankly there are worse things you can do that get your bottom smacked.

Either way, it's neither peculiar or particularly unusual. However, it does make a great news story. The era of the smutty postcard and the Carry On films is not really gone, and one newpaper in particular embodies the puerile and salacious attitude towards sex and 'naughtiness' more than any other: the News of the World, or as Private Eye always calls it, the News of the Screws. It reports, with a generous mixture of fact and fiction, the sex lives of the rich and famous (and Big Brother contestants). It does so by bribing girls with loose morals and looser knicker elastic to snare footballers and TV presenters; it does so with hidden cameras and secret microphones; it does so with telephoto lenses: and it does so because the British love to read about bonking vicars and kinky childrens' television stars over Sunday breakfast.

It's a lovely story of breach of privacy, prurience and hypocrisy - all in pursuit of a story. And Mosley is suing, for breach of privacy. Now, it's hard to argue that this isn't a breach of privacy - it's not as if Mosley was bending over in the High Street - but the News of the World are arguing that this was a genuine story.

The newspaper's case was that the events were "truly grotesque and depraved", he added.

There is something marvellous about how hypocritical newspapers can be. The gleeful exposes of 'Tory sleaze', the outrage over MPs fiddling their expenses - all this was so hypocritical it made the eyes water. I rather doubt that the sex lives of Screws reporters are so puritanically spotless that none of them would qualify for the "grotesque and depraved" description.

Biffo Cowen

Talking about the Lisbon Treaty reminds me of the unfortunate new Irish Taoiseach, Brian Cowen. A pretty uninspiring man in most ways, he does, however, have the finest nickname of any serving head of state. He's known as Biffo Cowen - a name that has a certain something in and of itself. But it's when you find out what Biffo stands for that it's true genius becomes apparent.

Because the most exalted Irishman today has a nickname that stands for Big Ignorant Fucker From Offaly. Superb.

Conservative Foreign Policy

As the likelihood increases that 2010 will see a Conservative Government, it's probably a good idea to examine what that might entail. For all the bleating on the 'purist' right and the desperate left that the Tories have no policies, there is a lot of evidence on domestic policy for what a Tory Government would look like. But domestic policy is not the be-all and end-all of modern politics. Tony Blair's regime will be remembered less for its cautious domestic half-reforms and public-sector splurges than for its bellicose foreign policy and gung-ho interventionaliam.

So what does Tory foreign policy look like? Well, there are two eternals in British foreign policy: the 'special relationship' with the United States and the relationship with the European Union. On the first of these, despite Nick Cohen's assertions, there is no reason to believe that the special relationship will be damaged under the Conservatives. It is true that the Tories have closer links to the Republicans than they do to the Democrats, but even if Obama does win, both sides will realise that friendly relations are in their best interests. For all the talk of 'close but not slavish' relations, there will be little change in Anglo-US relations regardless of the incumbents.

It's the European angle that will be interesting. The old battles that split the Tories are over - the Euro-sceptics have won. While there is a question as to whether Hannan's first law of politics (that no party is Euro-sceptic in power) will hold, it is probable that a new era of Euro-fractiousness beckons. In most ways this is a good thing. The British population is becoming more and more scpetical about the benefits of a supra-national organisation, especially one that seems to be increasingly un-democratic, even anti-democratic. It is, therefore, appropriate that these views are shared by the Government. The question is not, however, what the basic tenor of Tory European policy will be, but rather what, specifically will they do?

The first and most obvious potential flashpoint is the Lisbon Treaty. If the Irish haven't been bullied into a new referendum by the time the Tories get in, the solution is obvious and, as far as the British are concerned, uncontroversial. Hold a referendum, and campaign for a No vote. Easy. It would be dynamite in Europe, but there is now a lot of scope for a British Prime Minister to play the moral high ground. Frame it as an attempt to reverse the democratic deficit, return power to the people - that sort of thing. The problems for the Tories begin if Lisbon has been ratified - then we'll see squabbles.

However, in all probability, Tory foreign policy will be determined by how they react to unexpected and unpredictable difficulties. No-one after all, in 1995, would have predicted that Tony Blair would take Britain into war five times. In other words, people who complain that the Tories do not seem to have a coherent foreign policy are forgetting that Britain is no longer a rain-maker in global politics - we are now a reactive power. Having an approach but not a policy is not an inappropriate response.