Trump’s An Idiot, But Let Him Speak

I see there’s a petition going round to ban Donald Trump from entering the UK because of his anti-Muslim views. I refuse to sign it.

I don’t agree with Trump and never will, but he’s entitled to his opinions and to express them, however repellent they are. That is what free speech is. Banning someone from speaking is wrong, it will give him spurious legitimacy. It’s also childish. Let him speak, then criticise him, debate, argue, show him up for the ignorant bigot he is.

Censorship is no answer to this. It’s yet another example of “free speech is OK, but”. No, there are no buts. Continue down this road and soon we won’t have free speech. It’s supposed to be one of the core western values. We should not circumscribe it so readily.

So Long, It Hasn’t Been Good To Know You

The recent news of the departure Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s controversial chief executive John Van de Laarschot was very welcome and long overdue. It wasn’t a surprise: the council changed hands after the May 2015 elections and new leader Dave Conway was a frequent critic of Van de Laarschot while in opposition.

The departure was a costly one. After several weeks on fully paid gardening leave, he was given a Golden Fuck Off of almost a quarter of a million pounds. And this after a five year tenure that wreaked havoc on the council, ruining successful services and causing staff to leave in unprecedented numbers. This obscenely overpaid and arrogant little man should have been sent packing years ago – there were opportunities, but former leader Mohammed Pervez lacked the balls. Better late than never, I suppose, and good riddance to extremely bad rubbish. A pity it took so long and cost us so much.

Conformity Is Not Freedom

I read that there is a campaign to have a TV presenter sacked for not wearing a poppy. It turned up on my Facebook feed the other day, and I immediately blocked it. This is not normally an issue I have any problem with, but this year, in solidarity with others, I will not be wearing one either.

I have never heard of the presenter in question, and do not know her reasons for not wearing the poppy. But that surely is her choice, and as such, is no one else’s business. To suggest that she be sacked for it is obscene. But you have to, people whine, otherwise it’s disrespectful of those who died in wars, who died to protect our country and its way of life. Really? Have we really become that intolerant and stupid?

I’ve studied history, so am well aware – perhaps more so than some of the campaigners – of what my grand-parents’ generation did in World War II. Our way of life faced an existential threat, and they fought to protect it. That is not in dispute. However, these campaigners seem to have little real grasp of just what “our way of life” actually is. Surely what was fought for was our freedom, and that must include freedom of thought, speech and expression. If it is qualified to being only free if you conform, do what everyone else does, because it’s expected, the “done thing”, then that is not freedom. Where is the freedom to dissent? That is an essential part of living in a free country.

Let us not forget that it was service personnel in 1945 who played a large part in electing the Labour government, on a radical platform to transform society. That generation had fought and now wanted payback for their sacrifices. Did they really fight so everyone must unthinkingly conform and be penalised for not doing so? I certainly hope not. To suggest otherwise, as these campaigners are, is to do their memory a disservice. It is they who are disrespecting the fallen, not this TV presenter. Shame on you all.

The Living Wage, How Does It Work?

The campaign for a living wage is one I support. Too many employers are allowed to get away with paying workers poverty wages. What I don’t understand is how it can be set at a set figure, so one size has to fit all. If it was say £7.50/hr for areas outside London, how would that work? It might be enough for a single person in a council flat, but how could it fit with someone who has children or who lives in expensive private rented accommodation (and let’s face it, it’s all expensive). Shouldn’t it really be set at a level where someone can support themselves without having to claim benefits?

If your wage is sufficiently low that you have to claim benefits (like tax credits if HB) in order to make ends meet, then it’s not a living wage is it?

Pro-Business? No Thanks.

Now we are are again into the long tedious run up to an election. All the usual Daily Mail nonsense is getting thrown around about immigration, benefit scroungers, the EU etc etc, yawn yawn.

In addition to having to be tough on immigrants and the poor, politicians have to be pro-business. Business creates jobs you see, it’s so much better than the nasty, union-infested public sector, filled as it is by overpaid lazy jobsworths. It must be comforting so see life in such simple terms.

All pro-business means to me is removing all regulation and law that protects workers, the environment, or makes it pay tax. Allowing it to do with the hell it likes with absolutely no come back, in other words. (Funny how businesses gets away with millions in tax avoidance but if some poor sod allegedly commits benefit fraud, they go to jail. Who are the real scroungers here?)

And politicians go along with this, surrendering more and more of their power to unelected and unaccountable business. Who do you think really benefits from selling off public services so cheaply? Not us taxpayers that’s for sure. Politicians are put there by us to represent us, to look after our interests and the country’s interests. Yet they sell themselves to business, regardless of our interests or the country’s. Well, there’s a word for that: traitor.

Yes, jobs may very well be created by business. But it’s sad that so many are Mcjobs: mostly part time, not paying a living wage, or worst of all, a zero hours contract. And that’s all people can get, and so still have to go through the humiliation of claiming benefits to top up the wages.

If it’s anti-business to want better worker rights, better pay, better terms and conditions, an end to zero hours contracts and an end to the obscene salaries of CEOs, then I’m anti-business. And what’s more, I’m proud of it.

Time to Vote, But For Whom?

Michael Sheen’s recent fascinating documentary about the massacre of chartists in Newport in 1839, and in parallels to modern day voter apathy, ended with the caption:

On May 7th 2015, there will be a general election.

Will you use your vote?

The answer to that is simple: yes, obviously. It was a right fought for and should not be wasted. However, there remains the question of who to vote for, as I share much of the discontent with politics and politicians. If I end up voting Labour, it will be – as it was in 1997 – not out of any conviction, but more of a tactical thing; a desire to get shot of the current shower of bastards in the hope of getting a hopefully less odious shower of bastards.

The problem I have with Labour is twofold. On a local level, my MP was parachuted into the safe Labour seat with no previous connection to the area; and secondly, I don’t feel the party has much connection with what should be its core base: what you could call, at the risk of sounding patronising, the ordinary person in the street. Someone doing a normal job, perhaps struggling to get by on part time hours (or worse, on a zero hours contract) and poor pay; or someone forced through no fault of theirs into the pseudo-Victorian morality of the benefits system. Let us not forget it was a Labour prime minister (the odious Blair) who was proud that we had amongst the weakest labour laws in the western world. His government continued the previous Tory government’s policy of stigmatising those claiming benefits, and the current party echoes the even harsher language used about this by Cameron and co.

And of course, the party is – and it’s not alone in this – far too full of professional politicians. The sort of affluent type from the metropolitan elite who gets a PPE degree from a good university, works for a party then gets a safe seat. No experience of the “real” world at all. I’m sure many go into it with the best of motives, but I’m equally sure many do it simply as a career choice. (There aren’t that many jobs where you get to decide your own rates of pay and terms and conditions, rights denied the rest of us).

Then there is the question of the relation to business. For that, read big business. They are currently being attacked for being anti-business, or not pro-business enough. For me, pro-business means getting rid of regulations so business can do what the hell it likes with no accountability, and to get away with not paying their taxes. I would expect a Labour government to close tax loopholes, improve worker rights and make business behave in a socially responsible way. But will they? Sadly, I rather doubt it.

I’m not sure just where this leaves me. I suspect I will be still pondering this as I walk into the polling booth in May.

Women Bishops? About Bloody Time.

It’s good that the Church of England has finally consecrated its first woman bishop, a mere 20 or so years after women were allowed to be priests.

Shame someone protested at the ceremony, and on the dubious grounds that such things “are not in the Bible”. Just like bishops generally, churches, and rather a lot of what the Church does in ceremony and so on. I’m sure the objector – a vicar himself – would not wish to see some things that are in the Bible, such as stoning stoning people to death, crucifixions, or daughters getting their father drunk and having sex with him. It’s no wonder the Church is considered an irrelevance by many, with so many reactionaries in its ranks, clinging to the morality of 2000 years ago.

Yet even as it did something progressive and forward looking, in the same week it also consecrated another reactionary as a bishop to minister to those who won’t accept the change. I can’t help but wonder if this attempt to “be all things to all men”, in the name of unity, is ultimately doomed. If the Church wishes to be modern and forward thinking, then it should declare itself as such. And the reactionaries can leave and form their own church, much good may it do them. I suspect however, the Church will try and muddle on as it always has, while the rest of us will look on as it argues with itself on complete irrelevances.

But Me No Buts: Je Suis Charlie

Some responses to the horrific events in Paris last week were sadly all too predictable. On the one hand, politicians speaking warm words about defending freedom of speech, while at the same time saying the police needed even more powers; and on the other, people saying “yes to freedom of speech, but…” No. But me no buts. This was cold blooded murder, and no qualification can ever justify it.

To say this suggests that the journalists asked for it, deserved it even, and that the violence meted out to them is entirely understandable. The journalists should have been more responsible and not provocative. This is shameful, and demonstrates the stupidity of such people. It’s up there with saying a woman deserved to get raped because she was wearing a short skirt. No.

Freedom of speech is a fundamental right that must be protected. Protected from governments using terrorism to justify further erosions of civil liberties, and from the morbid sensitivity that is now so widespread: the easy readiness to be offended and demand that things you don’t like are banned. Allowing this to happen does the terrorists work for them. People need to wake up.

Schools Scared of Islam Deny the Holocaust

I understand that some schools and universities have stopped teaching about the Holocaust. Apparently they don’t want to risk offending Muslims or be accused of Islamaphobia. Labelling someone an islamaphobe or racist has become a lazy way of stopping debate and blackening the reputations of those who disagree with you. And it’s one that is used far too often, even by people who regard themselves as enlightened and egalitarian.

However, to not teach the Holocaust is a denial of history. Holocaust denial is a staple of the neo-Nazi far right, and of Islamist extremists. It’s sickening that liberals, who rightly condemn the neo-Nazis, fail to condemn the Islamists, whose racist, homophobic and misogynistic ideology places them firmly on the far-right. In fact, they frequently ally themselves with islamist groups, and label anyone who disagrees with them as racist and islamaphobic.

I am neither, but I do not, and never would, deny the Holocaust. The gutlessness of these schools and universities disgusts me. It’s time the authorities took a long and very hard look at themselves. Islamism is a revolting ideology that has no respect for any of the values liberals purport to stand for. To deny the Holocaust makes them cowards at best and fascist fellow travellers at worst. They should be ashamed.

We’re All Too Easily Offended

I think we have gone too far in pandering to people who claim to be offended by things. I have heard of several cases now where people have been jailed for things they have put on social media. Things someone was offended by and wanted banned, and where the authorities were too willing to oblige. This is wrong.

One case was some fool who posted a comment that he was glad when two police officers were murdered. Offensive? Certainly, not to mention insensitive, stupid and distasteful. Did the man deserve jail? No. What he deserved was to be criticised and ridiculed for his remarks, but that’s all. People nowadays seem too ready to be offended and the authorites are too ready to ban, censor and imprison. Freedom of speech is a right fought for over centuries and is too important to be thrown away in a cloud of unjustified righteous indignation. Freedom of speech must include the right to offend as well as the right to respond to things you don’t agree with or find offensive. And that right should not include censoring or banning.

The only limit that should be placed on freedom of speech is where someone is inciting death or violence. Criminal sanctions already exist for this. Yet they seem to be applied unfairly. For example, protesters carrying placards calling for the beheading of those who insult Islam face no sanction, yet far milder comments on social media can lead to jail. There is something seriously wrong here. So much for equality before the law.

It’s about time the government took a lead in defending freedom of speech. And they can start by severely curtailing the offence of Offensive Conduct (s5, Public Order Act 1986), the provision used against social media posters. If they don’t, this unpleasant trend will only continue and accelerate. The result will be a media so scared of causing offence it will be unspeakably bland.

It’s time we grew thicker skins and learned to be more tolerant. Otherwise the only winners will be the extremists.