Diary
Olmert’s decision is the right one - but he is no martyr
31 July, 2008
Blogs will be sporadic in August 'the sillly season.' Have a pleasant month.
So Ehud Olmert will not be Israel’s Richard Nixon. Yesterday’s announcement by the Israeli PM that he will step down after September’s Kadima primaries is certainly welcome. He would hardly want to be indicted of corruption while serving as Prime Minister, if indeed that is the outcome of his current predicament. Better that Israel is led by someone, anyone, who can focus single-handedly on the task of running the country without being distracted by such grave personal issues.
Many have argued (and in this column repeatedly) that Olmert’s failures during the 2006 Lebanon war, highlighted so glaringly in the Winograd Commission report, merited his immediate resignation. Other leaders, such as Meir and Begin, stepped down for much less following the controversial wars that defined their time in office. Olmert has therefore done the right thing.
Nonetheless to pretend that Olmert is some kind of martyr would be facile. He is a shrewd calculator who must have understood that he faced political wipeout if he remained in power much longer. He also had many opportunities in the past 12 months when he could, and should, have quit his post but decided not to. This tells us much about his ruthless instinct for power and very little about his sense of honour.
Indeed the timing of the resignation is apt. Olmert has just revealed that his ‘breakthrough’ talks with ‘the man of peace’ Mahmoud Abbas are unlikely to bear fruit by the end of the year. Jerusalem is allegedly the sticking point we are told. Well maybe, if one chooses to ignore the Palestinian demand for the right of return, the incitement from the PA, Hamas, an anti semitic education system and the Palestinian failure to ensure Israeli security. Olmert wanted a breakthrough peace deal to define his time in power. Instead its failure has come to embody the bankruptcy of the current administration.
But then Olmert’s administration has been pursuing peace at any price. True, the PM took a risky decision to fight Hezbollah two years ago and while the war was marred by mistakes, his decision still seems right today. He has talked tough on the Iranian jihadist menace – and with good reason. But then he has made overtures to terror regimes, such as Syria, and engaged in the most sordid and short sighted ‘corpses for terrorists’ deal with Hezbollah. No wonder his approval ratings are so low.
Israel needs a strong government that can deal competently with a multitude of threats – from Iran, from Gaza, from Syria and from Lebanon. Above all, it needs a leader who can gain the confidence of the nation in difficult times. In this respect, Olmert has manifestly failed. A new leader must do otherwise.
topThe Labour party is dying and not even Miliband can save it.
30 July, 2008
David Miliband is viewed by some as the potential saviour of his party. He is a brainy political tactician with a barely concealed Napoleonic ambition to lead the Labour party, an ambition revealed all too clearly by his article in today’s Guardian. Miliband knows that his calls for Labour renewal and for a new political vision will resonate with a multitude of backbenchers who fear for their future. He is shrewd enough to sense that this article will be viewed as the start of a concerted effort to unseat Gordon Brown and reach the top of the greasy pole.
Miliband may yet succeed Brown as Labour leader. But to think that a Miliband led Labour party would be enough to rescue the party from its current oblivion would be the height of foolishness.
Labour is suffering, not so much from a failure of leadership as a failure of credibility. Since 1997, Labour has simply promised too much and delivered too little. Blair and Brown have taken vast sums of money from private hands and poured them into public services, only for the money to be endlessly wasted in continuous, chronic inefficiency. The NHS and state education have not undergone the kind of transformation one would expect from the unprecedented cash injection given them in the last decade. Now, with economic conditions worsening and with taxes at penal levels, the Chancellor demands more of the same daylight robbery.
Government statistics tell us crime is falling, yet violence is endemic. The government promises to get tough on welfare, yet the numbers on incapacity benefit have gone up in the last decade. With promises vanishing like quicksand, no one can believe anything the government now says. A Miliband led Labour party would suffer from the same failure.
Of course Gordon Brown is a big part of the current Labour catastrophe. He has suffered from indecisiveness, a lack of courage and a failure to communicate with the British people. Above all, he has failed to impart any new vision of a political order beyond his obsessive belief in a nannying, interventionist state that controls more and more of our lives. But ending the Brown era prematurely will not be a panacea for the government.
No, it’s time to face facts. The New Labour project, launched amid such sound and fury 11 years ago, is rapidly dying. The Glasgow East by election, which saw one of the safest seats in the country succumb to Labour’s enemies, showed that even the staunchest of Labour’s supporters were not prepared to sit idly by amid the ferocious winds of economic turbulence. A new leader will give New Labour a brief respite from poor headlines. Perhaps a Miliband or a Harman will stave off the final disaster for just a little bit longer, giving New Labour’s decaying body a short lived facelift. They will be unable to revive the corpse.
topWe had no right to know about Max Mosley’s sex life
24 July, 2008
The decision today in the Mosley case was both fair and relatively predictable. His privacy was unfairly invaded by a tabloid paper whose editor was intent on boosting its circulation, whatever the cost.
Certainly the revelations about Mosley’s colourful sex life caused ripples of indignation. There was the fact that a married man indulged in orgies with 5 prostitutes and showed enthusiasm for sado-masochistic activities. Then there were the ostensible Aryan references which appeared to have an even more sinister connotation.
Some might argue that these revelations about his ‘Nazi orgy’ justify the intrusion into his private life. He is, after all, the son of the former leader of the fascist Blackshirts, Sir Oswald Mosley, a man who hardly showed much disdain for European fascism. He has an important public profile as President of the FIA and is well known in sporting circles around the world. For many it is only fitting to expose Mosley’s apparent hypocrisy as well as his predilection for distasteful sexual practices.
Yet this is a thoroughly self serving argument. Firstly, whatever one thinks of his sexual antics, Mosley has broken no laws. Secondly, the News of the World has failed to expose any major hypocrisy. The Formula One titan has hardly based his career on claims of piety or of leading a virtuous family life, unlike a plethora of politicians during the Major years. Yet without laws broken or hypocrisy exposed, where is the legitimate public interest in revealing the man’s private life?
Of course, if one lives on publicity, one has to live with it too. High profile figures who routinely court the media all too often cry foul when their private lives are exposed. The rights to privacy and to free expression co-exist uneasily at the best of times. Yet it is also important to recognise the legitimate grounds for an invasion of privacy and when that intrusion is merely used to sell papers. This case, like others in recent years, has shown where these boundaries lie and when a person is entitled to enjoy a private life. It is time for the tabloid press, in particular, to follow those boundaries.
topTake nothing for granted on the economy
21 July, 2008
There will be few posts in the next week as I am on holiday.
Last week saw two developments that could contribute to a significant shift in British politics. The first was Nick Clegg’s pledge to cut £20 billion in wasteful government expenditure in order to reduce taxation for lower and middle income families. Struggling families, he announced last week, should pay less tax while the tax system as a whole had to become fairer. And he added for good measure that current levels of public spending were not ‘cast in stone forever.’
The second seismic development was the announcement that Gordon Brown and his hapless Chancellor were preparing to tear to shreds their hallowed Golden Rule. This piece of economic ‘prudence’ had long dictated that the level of government spending could never exceed 40% of British GDP. But with the credit crunch seeping into the real economy, all economic bets are off.
How are these two connected? Well, in one sense they reveal that in our current economic turmoil, nothing can be taken for granted. Take the Liberal Democrats. Two years ago, they were still seen as a party of tax and spend who were prepared to hit the highest earners with punitive taxes in order to fund public services. The Kennedy manifesto promised honesty and integrity; you couldn’t have your public service cake and eat it. Now Clegg has produced an Orange manifesto which no longer places his party to the left of Labour. In the best traditions of Gladstonian Liberalism, the Liberal Democrats want to be a rejuvenated party of tax cutters, cutting wasteful areas of spending to provide political value for money.
Of course there is a clever game of political positioning going on. Clegg is naturally aware that David Cameron has wooed Liberal voters to the cause of caring Conservatism and he is anxious to reverse this one way traffic. With both Labour and the Tories committed to the economic status quo, Clegg’s call for tax cutting is both original and innovative. It is a striking message that will resonate with middle England at a time when incomes are being squeezed by soaring inflation and high taxes.
As for Labour, they are finally waking up to the hole that they have dug for themselves. In the current economic climate, with low growth rates, declining tax revenues, the prospect of higher unemployment and a freeze on wage increases, the need for extra funds has seen prudence truly cast off her pedestal. The government is now forced to reduce public spending, increase borrowing or raise taxes. None of these options are palatable.
But these two developments are connected in another way. They both spell difficulties for a Tory opposition which has abandoned its own conservative message of economic prudence. Instead of promising to reduce the size of the state and thereby reducing taxes, or reduce taxes to create greater economic growth, Cameron and co are committed to maintaining government spending levels for 3 or even 5 years of a Conservative administration. On Sunday AM, Cameron even refused to rule out raising taxes, so fearful was he of being accused of undermining the NHS and schools.
But then this is the natural corollary of hitching Tory policy to the Labour bandwagon. Yet the prospect of a conservative administration having to raise taxes is bad news for hard working families who are feeling the effects of the current slowdown.
By any account Gordon Brown has completely undone his reputation for economic competence. His fiscal rules lie in tatters leaving him to adopt emergency measures to sustain his tax and spend programme. The Tories want to slam his failures (rightly) and reveal the rot at the heart of the New Labour message. But if they can barely offer a credible alternative, the potency of their message will be somewhat diluted.
topThe US joins the grovelling circus
19 July, 2008
In the last few days the US has signalled loud and clear how it intends to deal with the Iranian nuclear menace by sending a senior diplomat, William Burns, to engage in nuclear talks. Having previously denounced Iran’s theocracy as part of the axis of evil and having sought to isolate its hatemongering regime, the Republicans have now dangled the hope that diplomacy may finally win out after all. But already the Iranians have sent a clear and defiant message: there will be no suspension of uranium enrichment, despite this being the precondition for Western largesse.
What else were we to expect? Ahmadinejad and co are playing for time as they have been all decade. For more than 5 years, the EU3 have grovelled incessantly to the Iranians, offering one economic carrot after another in the vain hope that they might see sense. The process got us nowhere and helped bring to power the intractable President Ahmadinejad, the man who stated so defiantly that his country would join the nuclear club for ‘peaceful’ purposes. The EU3 were shown up as lily livered appeasers who would do anything to please their foe.
Now it seems America too is joining this pathetic, grovelling circus. Having lost its political capital over the Iraq war, the Bush administration now seemingly lacks the stomach even to tough talk with the Iranians. Instead of pushing for a tough sanctions policy or warning of the possibility of military action, they have decided to attend a fruitless round of talks that will go nowhere quickly.
Just what does President Bush expect from this charade? Does he honestly believe that there will be a public change of heart from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the man who holds the strings of power in his country? Hardly likely. It seems that the President, in the last lap of his ‘lame duck’ year, has bowed to the sceptics in Washington who deprecate any use of force over this issue. Dispatching diplomats to nuclear talks sends the signal that only Israel will be initiating attacks in the near future, not the Americans. What a way to treat your friends!
At a time when Iran’s menace to the region grows stronger by the day, the West should be providing a more resolute defence of its interests. They should be acknowledging that even though a limited war would be horrific, a choice of last resort, a nuclear armed Iran would be catastrophic for the Middle East and the world as a whole. This latest retreat only proves how divided and lethally irresolute our leaders have become. And don’t the Iranians know it.
topA bad deal for Israel; a day of triumph for Hezbullah
17 July, 2008
After two years of agonizing uncertainty, the families of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev will finally have the chance to bury their loved ones. The families must long have suspected that the men were killed during the Lebanon War and that Hezbullah's deliberate silence was part of an unspeakably cruel game of power politics. Now they have their answer in the most horrible fashion. For Israel, the return of the two soldiers, dead or alive, has long been a priority. After all, it was their kidnapping that sparked the conflict in 2006 and which subsequently led to the deaths of over 100 Israelis.
In return for the release of Regev and Goldwasser, Israel has had to return 5 live Hezbullah terrorists and the dead bodies of nearly 200 more. Many will see this asymmetric swap as a horrible, painful but ultimately correct decision.
This view should be resisted. For sometimes there is just too high a price to be paid for even the noblest of causes. As part of the deal with Hezbullah, the Israelis have released Samir Kuntar. In 1979, this Lebanese militant carried out the brutal murder of 3 people, a policeman, and 31 year old Danny Haran and his 4 year old daughter. Even by the standards of Middle East terrorism, the callous killing of a defenceless child was particularly horrific. Kuntar, who has never shown remorse for his crimes, rightly received 4 life sentences, yet now he is free.
The release of Kuntar is wrong on at least two grounds. First, it will serve as a boon to Hezbullah at a time of heightened tension in the region. This terrorist has long enjoyed iconic status among the Lebanese militants. By implication, it will also embolden Syria and Iran whose leaders regard Hezbullah as their most valued proxy. Second, it will also encourage other fanatical groups, such as Hamas, to carry out more kidnappings in the hope of achieving similar rewards. This is the 'moral hazard' inherent in any deal with terrorists, namely that if a country gives in once to their demands, it invites certain reprisals.
If that terrorist enemy senses you are ripe for capitulation, they have powerful ammunition to repeat their dastardly crimes. Their blood curdling appetites can never be satisfied by the other side being reasonable. Thus more Israeli soldiers are now in danger of suffering the same fate as that of Regev and Goldwasser.
Of course, Israeli's decision was a hard one; few would deny that. But any deal that can cause more pain to more families in the long run must be questioned.
topThe Irish must vote again
15 July, 2008
Well it just had to happen really. President Sarkozy is reportedly demanding that the Irish vote again on the Lisbon Treaty. The Irish, remember, voted against ratifying the treaty some weeks ago, a decision that threw the entire constitutional treaty into jeopardy. It was they who decided not to be bullied by an arrogant European elite that insisted Ireland faced immeasurable disaster if its people voted the ‘wrong’ way.
But nothing can be allowed to stand in the way of the EU juggernaut, certainly not the expressed democratic will of the Irish people. So the only solution is to get the electorate to vote again, making sure they vote correctly this time. How dare the voters give the EU the wrong answer! What cheek!
Declan Ganley, who led the Irish no vote, has already given his reaction: “This typifies the anti-democratic nature of what's going on in Brussels.” But Ganley is also a Euro enthusiast and wants Ireland to remain wedded to the EU project in the future. Indeed he voted for the Nice treaty in 2001. How will Ganley react if Sarkozy offers amendments to the treaty, such as a guarantee that Ireland would keep its EU commissioner? After all, this was one of the main issues that drove the no vote in the first place.
However the Irish vote on the second, third or fourth occasion, the EU elite will find a way to implement their beloved integrationist project. If they can’t bludgeon the electorate to vote for a treaty, they will force the electorate to change their mind. If that doesn’t work, they will change the treaty and ratify it themselves. It is the ultimate democratic deficit. It is the ultimate arrogance.
topWith the world divided, who will stop Iran?
11 July, 2008
On Question Time last night, former Conservative leader, Iain Duncan-Smith, talked of the nightmare scenario of a Middle East war involving Iran. He warned that the ramifications of an Israel-Iran conflict would spill out across the Middle East and that Britain, America and other key nations, would get sucked into the whirlpool. But the nightmare he focused on involved an Israeli attack on Iran, rather than on Iran itself.
This is to rather misrepresent the issue. Duncan-Smith, who has long taken a pro Israeli stance on most issues, was effectively saying that the world had to prevent an Israeli unilateral attack to safeguard Western interests whereas in reality, it is Iranian belligerence that has underpinned so much of the region’s recent instability. It is Iran’s decision, in the teeth of international pressure, to continue its nuclear programme that is causing global jitters, not Israel’s desire to defend itself. Perhaps this is what Duncan-Smith really meant, though he did not say it.
This may sound like trivial semantics but it does highlight something of fundamental importance. This issue is not simply an Iranian-Israeli squabble but one between Iran and the West. For decades the Islamic Republic has been aggressively pursuing its dream of regional hegemony against Western interests.
In recent years, its Republican Guard has armed and supported insurgents in Iraq (and reportedly in Afghanistan), resulting in the deaths of dozens of British troops. It has financed and armed terror groups which menace not just Israeli security but that of other nations in the Middle East. It is therefore not for America or any other Western nation to prize the two nations apart as if this was an international version of a playground fight.
But it seems America is pursuing precisely that strategy. As Gerard Baker writes in today’s Times, much of Washington’s political establishment is resolutely opposed to using force against Iran:
‘The military leadership is opposed. Last week Admiral Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that an Israeli strike would open up a “third front” for the US - after Iraq and Afghanistan - and suggested it could break an already stretched military. The political leadership at the Pentagon is opposed. Robert Gates, the Defence Secretary, rarely misses an opportunity to caution in private about the risk associated with an attack on Iran. The Treasury is opposed. Hank Paulson, the Treasury Secretary, not only fears the damage to the US economy and markets that a strike would have as the price of oil rose to at least $200 per barrel. And of course the State Department is opposed.’
With the top echelons of American might so aghast at the prospect of a military showdown, President Bush seems to have accepted that a mixture of tough talking and economic sanctions will help to unravel Tehran’s long standing nuclear ambitions. Perhaps content that his legacy now includes a (relatively) stable Iraq, with Iranian blessing, Bush has taken his eye off the region’s biggest threat and its greatest single troublemaker. This is the true legacy of his $3 trillion war.
If Bush thinks sanctions will work, he is deluded. There is no chance of new economic sanctions working because they will be watered down by China and Russia. And the existing sanctions have scarcely deterred the Mullahs in Tehran who are pushing ahead with their enriched uranium programme. For them it is a question of buying time, which they are being rapidly granted.
So where does all this leave the Israelis? As Baker points out, Israel cannot act alone to remove the threat from Iran’s nuclear facilities. Her planes would need the logistical support of the United States to attack Iran, given that they would be crossing US controlled airspace in Iraq and they would require support helicopters to be based in Iraq. The US would have to give more than its moral blessing to any air strike. So either the Israelis would have to devise a new strategy that bypasses Iraq, which seems militarily difficult, or hope for a change of attitude in Washington, or hope for regime change in Tehran or acquiesce in Iran's long term plans. None of these options appears viable.
Of course there are plenty of reasons for caution. War would involve a dramatic escalation of instability, both inside Iraq and Lebanon, while the economic consequences in terms of higher oil costs could prove especially painful. But a failure to act, leaving Iran in possession of the world’s worst weapons, would be a regional catastrophe. It would allow a bullying regime to assert its control and dominance of the region in the knowledge that outside powers would be powerless to intervene.
This issue is not one of ‘War or Peace’ but one of ‘War now or war later.’ It is a question of when we act against the Islamic Republic, not if we have to. But on this issue, the West has shown terminal irresolution and an instinct for appeasement for far too long. Still, at least Ahmadinejad is laughing. Oh, and his friends in Damascus, Gaza and Beirut.
topMuslims are not the new Jews
08 July, 2008
In yesterday’s Dispatches documentary, ‘It shouldn’t happen to a Muslim,’ the Daily Mail’s Peter Oborne claimed that Britain was now a frightening place for this country’s Muslim population. He claimed that the community was suffering a backlash from the terror attacks of 9/11 and 7/7, much of it emanating from the ‘irrational’ hostility of the British media. Labour MP Shahid Malik spoke of a growing wave of Islamophobia that was unfairly targeting his community because of the actions of isolated terrorists. A study by the Cardiff School of Journalism found that nearly 70% of headlines in recent British papers that dealt with either Islam or Muslims contained a negative perception of the faith.
It is undeniable that incidents of Islamist violence have received high media exposure in recent years. It is also true that tabloid headlines have, at times, been rather irresponsible in their coverage of these issues, though that says more about tabloid style than their editors’ alleged Islamophobic prejudices. But for Oborne, this is proof that the media have declared open season on Britain’s Muslims who are now (he says) the latest in a long line of minority groups to suffer demonization and opprobrium.
Oborne’s argument is obviously flawed because he assumes that all of Britain’s minorities are in an identical position. While it would be grossly unfair to tarnish the Muslim community as a whole with the charge of supporting extremism, there is a growing minority that has been radicalized. A sizeable minority of Muslims supports the Islamisation of this country, whether through violence and coercion, and demands the implementation of Sharia Law. Among this group are up to 4,000 people under active surveillance by the intelligence services. It is hardly surprising that issues to do with the global jihad receive such widespread press coverage.
One of Malik’s more outlandish claims was that British Muslims felt targeted like ‘the Jews of Europe,’ before the war. He said: ‘In the way that it was legitimate almost – and still is in some parts – to target Jews, many Muslims would say that we feel the exact same way. Somehow there's a message out there that it's OK to target people as long as it's Muslims.’ He made it clear that he was not drawing a comparison with the Holocaust.
But the comparison is offensive and absurd. In the 1930s, the ‘sturdy bands of Teutonic youth’, as Churchill referred to the Nazis, attacked Jews without mercy because of their perceived inferior racial status. They were not targeted for their religious background or because of any disagreement with the tenets of Judaism. They were singled out because of an odious, ill informed racial ideology that depicted them as lecherous, depraved vermin. Translated into public policy, this led to Jews being sacked from the teaching profession and the civil service and stripped of their citizenship.
The Jews of pre war Europe also posed no threat to anyone. There were no subversive Jewish networks plotting a Hebraic jihad against Christendom, or plotting the downfall of Europe’s empires based on the Mosaic laws. Jews were targeted because of the malicious prejudice of others.
If a commentator or politician described Muslims in such odious terms or proposed draconian restrictions on their civil rights, they would be lighting the funeral pyre for their career (quite rightly), as well as facing charges of incitement.
Certainly, there are vile hatemongers who depict Muslims (and other minorities) in the basest terms; they merit our contempt. But for Malik to draw an analogy between Jews in pre war times and Muslims in our own is beyond perverse. Muslims are not the new Jews. The Jews are still the Jews and the Muslims, the Muslims.
The programme quoted an ICM survey which found that 51 per cent of Britons blamed Islam to some degree for the 2005 attacks. Meanwhile more than a quarter of Muslims now believed that Islamic values are not compatible with British values. But this is hardly convincing evidence that the once great tolerant British people are now in the grip of a racist fever as far as Muslims go. Radical Islam, the guiding ideology of the terror movement, is a plausible interpretation of the Islamic faith, backed by a number of leading imams and religious figures who quote chapter and verse to justify terrorist outrages. Islamist violence is not created in a vacuum.
All Oborne has done is produce a one sided documentary that accepts at face value the ‘victim centred viewpoint’ of leading Muslim figures. Yes, we should condemn any attack on innocent people and hope those responsible are brought to justice. But we must also stand with the victims of radical Islam, including moderate, law abiding Muslims, whose lives have been blighted by this most revolting extremism.
topBritain's Sharia judge
6 July, 2008
In February Rowan Williams created a furore by endorsing aspects of Sharia Law for Britain’s Muslim community. This calamity of a speech, which caused a torrent of critical headlines, ought to have scared off other potential advocates of Islamic law for Britain. Not, it seems, Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips. He has now become the latest high profile figure to abase himself before radical Islamists who are intent on the cultural surrender of this country.
In a speech to the London Muslim Centre, Lord Phillips denied that it was radical ‘to advocate embracing Sharia law in the context of family disputes.’ He continued: ‘Our system already goes a long way towards accommodating the archbishop's suggestion. It is possible in this country for those who are entering into a contractual agreement to agree that the agreement shall be governed by a law other than English law. There is no reason why principles of Sharia law or any other religious code should not be the basis for mediation or other forms of dispute resolution.'
Now let’s be clear. Neither the Archbishop nor Lord Phillips has argued for the complete adoption of aspects of Sharia Law. They have both said that it cannot be applied in criminal law where draconian sanctions are routine for theft, bigamy and rape. They have stated that Sharia law should be used by Muslims on a voluntary basis to help arbitrate in some civil proceedings, such as marriage, divorce and financial arrangements. And to justify this, both men have cited the precedent of the Jewish Beth Din courts which mediate on a variety of civil issues.
But there is a fundamental point lost on the Lord Chief Justice. Sharia is a wholly alien system of religious law which could never be compatible with British ‘secular’ law. Sharia permits a man to have multiple wives yet polygamy is obviously illegal in Britain. Under Sharia law, a woman’s testimony in court is worth less than that of a man, a clear form of legal inequality that is contradicted by our superior legal system.
Nor do Muslims and non Muslims have equal status in a Sharia court. As Robert Whelan of the think tank Civitas has put it: ‘There is not much doubt that in traditional Islamic communities women do not enjoy the freedoms that they have had for 100 years or more in Britain.’ In short, Islamic religious law is not compatible with the liberal, progressive and enlightened elements of Western secular jurisprudence.
Lord Phillips argues that a Sharia court should only operate on a voluntary basis i.e. without coercion. But does he really think that Muslim women would generally prefer to subject themselves to the humiliating inequality of private civil courts administering Islamic justice instead of being guaranteed basic rights which are part and parcel of British citizenship? Has he not considered that Muslim women, especially in traditional families, would be under severe pressure to ‘volunteer’ for a religious court, rather than seek justice elsewhere? Is this the new liberal mantra for respecting religious freedom? What a horrifying thought.
No doubt the Lord Chief Justice believed he was doing some good by his speech to the London Muslim Centre. Perhaps he thought that by endorsing the vocal demands for Sharia, he would be ‘engaging’ with the Muslim community and driving a wedge between ‘moderates’ and extremists. But there is nothing moderate about living in Britain and seeking to live by alternative religious codes which inherently discriminate between the sexes and between different members of different faiths.
Lord Phillips is guilty of craven appeasement which will give further ammunition to all those who think we are rapidly surrendering our cultural values in the face of Islamist demands. And the more we appease the radical Islamists, the greater their demands will become.
topGeoff Hoon’s literary indiscretions
3 July, 2008
Labour ministers have been desperately playing down the significance of Geoff Hoon’s literary indiscretions, revealed yesterday in the Telegraph. They insist that the letter sent by Hoon, in which he thanks former Europe minister Keith Vaz for his support during the vote on 42 day detention, and hopes that in return for voting with the government, he will be ‘appropriately rewarded’, was merely a harmless joke between friends. It was meant with a faint whiff of irony, they are saying.
Of course suspicions are mounting that Hoon expected Vaz to receive a knighthood in return for helping sway Labour backbenchers to vote for 42 days. In other words, that this was just another grubby low in the endemic culture of sleaze that has been gripping New Labour for the last decade. Coming so soon after cash for peerages, this is a rather unfortunate new low for the government.
One could of course err on the side of generosity and admit that this is a hullabaloo over nothing. We can admit that Mr. Hoon would not have been so stupid as to deliberately re-ignite the furore over ‘bought’ honours, knowing that his letter could instantly leak to the press. One has to credit him with some political nous.
Still, this letter will vindicate those who think that shabby deals were done in order to secure the recent Commons majority over 42 days. And the incredulous reaction to this letter from David Cameron, among others, sums up even better the current state of Britain under New Labour; one in which those who scrutinize parliamentary procedure have a cynical disregard for everything ministers now say. Even if this letter was intended as a harmless joke, it is hard to see it that way.
After all, why on earth would anyone believe this lot after a decade of spin, lies and dodgy dossiers?
topAfrica unites – to praise Mugabe
01 July, 2008
Any illusions that Africa might at last repudiate the butcher of Harare were shattered yesterday at the AU summit in Egypt. Mugabe was treated to a hero’s welcome, lavished with praise by a host of kleptocrats, including Gabon’s President Omar Bongo. Despite the recent (and all too late) misgivings from some quarters, including a rather feeble criticism from Nelson Mandela, African leaders were simply not ready to ditch the old anti colonialist.
This then is the African solution to Zimbabwe’s problems - to respect a fake election and stand by an obscene tyrant whose autocratic rule has reduced his country to penury. Such is the aura of a man whose career has been built on a grievance industry of attacking white ‘imperialism.’ As long as Mugabe stands up to the West, all is well.
But this reveals a breathtaking level of hypocrisy, particularly in Southern African politics. During the apartheid era, black spokesmen called for the crippling of the white government via Western sanctions. They looked, not to their own Continent, but to the powerful leaders of Western democracies to put pressure on their country’s racist regime. In effect, they called for a Western solution to apartheid.
But now that a black leader is oppressing fellow black people, priorities have shifted. Now it is more important to oppose ‘colonialist meddling’ than to stop genocide and economic misery. This explains the outburst from Gabon’s President yesterday when he confronted Western criticisms of Mugabe: “What they've done is, in our opinion, a little clumsy, and we think they could have consulted us first." In other words, we can’t have interference from non Africans in our Continent’s affairs.
There is an obvious and disgusting double standard here, yet it is shared by some Western leaders. British governments have tolerated Mugabe out of a weird sense of post colonial guilt. They have imbibed the leftist lie that the British Empire was racist to the core, thus repudiating any proper challenge to a corrupt tyrant like Mugabe. Far better to avoid accusations of ‘racist’ imperialism than to prevent mass murder and butchery in another country. Now that Zimbabwe is a basket case, now that hyperinflation is causing an appalling level of mass starvation, now that people are being beaten for voting the wrong way, or not at all, perhaps we can drop this guilt once and for all.
There will be no meaningful solution to Zimbabwe via African politics, economic sanctions or power sharing agreements. The only way to dispatch a rogue ruler is to send in the military to overthrow him. Granted, our own armed forces are too overstretched at the moment in Iraq and Afghanistan. But let us not pretend that there is any other way forward for this country and its long suffering people. After all, tyrants rarely relinquish power unless they are forced to.
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