The following proposal is vile:

THE Home Office has quietly adopted a new plan to allow police across Britain routinely to hack into people’s personal computers without a warrant.

The move, which follows a decision by the European Union’s council of ministers in Brussels, has angered civil liberties groups and opposition MPs. They described it as a sinister extension of the surveillance state which drives “a coach and horses” through privacy laws.

The hacking is known as “remote searching”. It allows police or MI5 officers who may be hundreds of miles away to examine covertly the hard drive of someone’s PC at his home, office or hotel room.

Material gathered in this way includes the content of all e-mails, web-browsing habits and instant messaging.

Under the Brussels edict, police across the EU have been given the green light to expand the implementation of a rarely used power involving warrantless intrusive surveillance of private property. The strategy will allow French, German and other EU forces to ask British officers to hack into someone’s UK computer and pass over any material gleaned.

That’s the equivalent of allowing a policeman into every living room to listen to every conversation, without a warrant. The vagueness of the legislation simply invites abuse. Police may indulge in this espionage if they “believe” it’s “proportionate”; that is, whenever they feel like it. There is no check on this power, and so no check on its abuse.

And the idea comes from the EU Council of Ministers - which means, if previous experience is anything to go by, it’ll be quite hard to shift. Are they really trying to put the entire internet off the entire institution?

Excellent coverage of events from Al-Jazeera. The BBC instead opted to focus upon the low drama of the day, although the police setting themselves upon protestors making their way from the city centre to the Kensington Israeli Embassy is worth mentioning. Apparently Galloway was amongst the beaten, a few SWP members were hospitalised. Doubtless certain elements are applauding this thuggery.

Anyway, I turned up around half an hour late but things were still immensely busy. The turn out was quite simply massive, in the tens of thousands. We filled the entire square and then overflowed

I didn’t get to listen to many speakers (Galloway’s speech was forgettable and a young Palestinian/Briton declared Israel an “Illegal state”, but that’s about all I caught sight of) besides the purged man Rees, who was introduced as “The delegate to Cairo” since he was unceremoniously dumped from the SWP Central Committee. His speech conspiciously failed to mention socialism a single time, but the same was true of the few others I heard.

(more…)

Turning up hideously late to things is rather my calling card, as at least one of my collaborators is fully aware. Accordingly it was with some concern that I turned up to the protest against the recent and on-going Israeli action against the Gaza Strip, which was held for the second consecutive day outside the Israeli embassy, was agains yesterday at 2PM will be held for the fourth time at the same time.

The crowd was largely Muslim, with a heavy grouping towards the centre pressing against the police who seemed to be pretty much devoid of any other faction, excepting a single person waving a red flag marked with the hammer and sickle. I was in conversation with a late middle aged Asian man who wryly remarked “Which one?” when I mentioned the presence of the “Communist Party” the flag announced, alerting me to the fact I was speaking to a kindred spirit. Apparently he had been a part of a collectivist group in Iran, as well as one of the endless legion of left wing groups in Britain (I confess that I have forgotten the name of both, quite shockingly, although I believe the latter might have been the SWP).

He told me that he thought the reason no group would ever get anywhere was their excessive bureaucracy and absolute alientation with their membership. It is impossible to implement socialism, he said, without a democratic organisation attempting to introduce it.

Although they find it impossible to get anywhere beyond a miniscule groove the far-left groups in attendence also show a remarkable tendency to avoid death, as evidenced by somebody offering me an edition of Newsline. This, as I was told when asked, is the organ for the Workers Revolutionary Party. The WRP that still exists, that is, after for a time there was a split were neither was willing to lose either name and there were a pair of WRPs producing two Newslines.

I wasn’t certain if the survivors were the loyalists to the notorious molester embezzler who used to run the joint and probably should have asked.

In addition to those old timers though there was also a group I’d never heard of, and if there’s a British far-lefty group I’ve never heard of its generally because they haven’t existed for a very long time. That is certainly true of The Commune, who were founded in August/September (”There were only ten…” was the excuse given). The person handing me the leaflet described himself as a “Libertarian Socialist”, a term I had only ever heard as a euphamism for “Anarchist”. He rejected that term due to its connection to historical ideologuary, wanting to steer clear of “Bakunist faction”, “Proudhon faction” stuff, which is a tendency I often share and can appreciate entirely.

He was friends with a member of AWL, a group he left after being expected to recant his “Troops Out” views, presumably under the tenants of Democratic Centralism. His friend knew well Robin, another member of the AWL who I’d met in Cambridge during a dire Marxist note reading session which I’d expected would be more of a talk on the socialist take on global warming (something that actually interests me). Anyway, point is: the far-left is a small world.

(I could tell you about my encounter with a New Communist but to be honest they aren’t too interesting. Besides their celebration of a new Mao Museum their paper was Stalinism at its least shocking and least amusing. The man I spoke to told me that his Communist Party was the only real Communist Party, didn’t have much of an answer as to why a party with that name that had been around since 1977 hadn’t changed it yet and described Zimbabwe as “A difficult one”. Does any of that really surprise you? No, didn’t think so.)

Making my way to the other side of the protest I came across the Jews Against Zionism, a rather striking bunch given the context, but perhaps undeservedly so. Before we can get onto them, though, I should deal with the crazies:

Anything involving Israel involves the Jews and when the Jews come up certain people are utterly insane. There were four examples of this, the first being a 9/11 truther who was possibly not all that anti-semitic but was certainly a nut-job. He told me that “It was an inside job” and when I asked how exactly that was relevant to the matter at hand he replied “War on Terror”. I pointed out that the Gaza attacks were not per se part of that at all and he replied that they certainly were and…Well, it was all one big inter-connected tapestry that I couldn’t see properly. He sprouted a view events (1977 Israeli attack on USS Liberty, 9/11insidejob, Gaza attacks) and expected me to draw links, which is rather a minimalist approach to conspiracy theories really, or perhaps just a little lazy.

The second was trying to insist to a rather bemused Muslim man that they use a slogan which told the “Ruling class” Jews to return to their homes, their homes being Eastern European. Apparently having converted in the 7th century they weren’t real Jews and had no claim to Israel. He had a photocopy of an Encyclopedia Brittanica page which demonstrated as much.

The third was perhaps the most obviously deranged, wearing a rather twisted looking depiction of Christ crucified on his back dropped an early hint of this. He handed out a leaflet asserting that the “leechers” were responsible for all the wrong doing in the world and featuring on the front page a black and white photo of the IDF bundling away a crying Palestinian child. The back made a rhyme about how the “leecher usurers” had killed Christ. When I asked him to define the word “leecher” he played it coy and asked me if I knew what it meant, before saying that they were someone that would “Drain the life out of you” and that I could well be a target.

The fourth was engaged in trying to convince one of the anti-zionist jews that the bankers had caused all the woe of the world, and met with some resistance both from him and me. I pointed out that if this was all some elaborate scheme it clearly wasn’t running on course given that the financial sector is presently imploding and she replied that there are a lot of people making a lot of money out of it.

Eventually we warded her off and got talking. The perspective of the anti-zionist was that until the coming of the Messiah Jews have no claim to be the ruler of any nation. He argued that atheist zionists had “brain-washed” people into falsely believing otherwise and stated that what jews should do when people wished to purge them was to send their elders to try and convince the leaders of the area otherwise or else submit and depart.

The jews were a little aloof from the rest of the protest, in their own separate sphere. They were clearly not unwelcome though, and their presence confounded the notion that these affairs are a gaggle of frothing mouth jew-haters.

Things were not entirely peaceful, with flaming cones (filled with Socialist Workers? an AWL member speculated) being passed to the front and then promptly extinguished. But there wasn’t blood on the pavement or anything. I also suspect that the chant of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” which broke out briefly, but broadly, unsettled the two staters present.

Eventually once things ended I headed with the protestors who still seemed keen on protestors, who got edged by the police down the street. For about half an hour ample opportunities to block off the whole high street abounded and were all missed. We eventually moved down the High Street until finally a combination of riot police and horseback mounted coppers (along with the standards) got us boxed in against a shopfront and refused to allow us to leave.

Robin took the opportunity to being discussions with some Muslims, including a white convert. He struggled to understand how someone not indoctrinated from birth (indeed, a former atheist) could believe such stuff. “Look around you, this is God’s creation”, we were told. We looked around us and saw a circle of policemen hemming us in.

Some idiot through a firework at the coppers but fucked it up, an Iranian film crew with an Indian presenter was harassed by the youths, implictly for being a woman (”Come on, show us your emotional side…”) and explicitly because “Mumbai was a inside-job”. After numerous attempts she finally managed to get a decent take done and was loudly applauded by all present save the police.

Eventually we were filmed, had personal details taken down, were thoroughly searched and allowed to leave. In some database or other there is now film of me asking under what pretext I could be arrested if I refuse to be filmed, which strikes me as quite delightfully meta.

Then off to the pub. With popcorn, a libertarian socialist, two Allied Workers and (sadly, but predictably) zero Muslims.

Protests for this week are as follows, please do come along:

• Wednesday 31 December, 2 - 4pm outside Israeli Embassy

• Thursday 1 January 2 - 4pm outside Israeli Embassy

• Friday 2 January 2 - 4 pm. Outside the Egyptian Embassy, . 26 South Street, London, W1K 1DW. Call for Egypt to open the border immediately.

• SATURDAY 3 JANUARY. DEMONSTRATION AND RALLY. Assemble 2pm Parliament Square, W1. Nearest tube Westminster

…please leave the internet alone:

Film-style age ratings could be applied to websites to protect children from harmful and offensive material, Culture Secretary Andy Burnham has said.

They won’t work. Cinema age-ratings work only because cinemas sit employees outside the entrance to check whether those going into a film look old enough. Video age-ratings work sometimes because shop-staff can refuse sale to those who look too young, and sometimes because parents can decide whether or not a child should watch it.

Neither of these can be said of the internet. To enforce website age-ratings, you would either need to sit a particularly patient policeman in front of every computer, ready to pull the plug at first sight of “naughtiness” or simply institute a blanket filter of certain material nation-wide; because, of course, the internet can’t judge the age of those using it.

The former of these options is simply undesirable. Who wants a state-employed busybody sitting in their living room - and who’d be willing to pay for one to sit in every living room? The latter, though, is just as bad. A blanket filter would affect not just children, but adults who have every right to decide what they should read.

So, Mr. Burnham, when you say:

“It’s not about banning or stopping people having that freedom of expression. It’s simply about clearer signposting, more information, so people know where they’re working.”

You are, of course, lying. Any possible attempt to enforce your ratings would require intervention into the lives and choices of every dweller or user of the internet. This is, in itself, an assault on the user’s freedom of expression; control over what you read or watch matters as much as control over what you say. The liberty to do both springs from the same idea that rational individuals have a right to their own minds, and this would clearly impact their ability to use those minds.

Moreover, to set yourself up as the supervisor of the internet further sets you up as moral supervisor to the entire nation. You decide what’s suitable for whom, and at what age individuals are to be judged mature; the clear implication being that they can’t decide this for themselves, and need protection in the meantime. An assault on their independence, at the very least.

Burnham, you’re not my mother. I already have one of those. She’s considerably less controlling than you have apparent aspirations to be, and I love her a great deal more for it. Perhaps you ought to learn from this…

(Hat-tip, as I just hadn’t read the news very well today: Jennie)

Rupert has a plan:

I think I have a pair of slightly mouldering size 12s which should just fit the parcel. Gordon may expect a package shortly, once the post sorts itself out…

I may have spotted this a little late in the day. Worth putting up, though:

FREE THE SHMINISTIM – ISRAEL’S YOUNG CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS. The Shministim are Israeli high school students who have been imprisoned for refusing to serve in an army that occupies the Palestinian Territories. Join Ronnie Gilbert, Adrienne Rich, Robert Meeropol, Adam Hochschild, Rabbi Lynn Gottleib, Howard Zinn, Rela Mazali, Debra Chasnoff, Ed Asner and Aurora Levins-Morales and show your support by contacting the Israeli Minister of Defense.

The concept of conscription is one I find abhorrent. The state exists to protect and enhance the freedom of every individual. And yet to compel any individual into a situation where they might have to kill, and might be killed is surely the greatest possible infringement of liberty. Especially when this compulsion targets a particular section of society that has only just gained the ability to influence that state through the vote.

(Hat-tip: BenSix)

Quoth Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy:

A cabinet minister has called for progress to be made on ending the 300-year old legal ban on Roman Catholics succeeding to the throne.

Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy, himself a Catholic, said he would like to see the 1701 Act of Settlement changed as it was clearly “discriminatory”.

Well, quite. But isn’t monarchy a little more discriminatory than that? The 1701 Act of Settlement states that only the Protestant heirs of Sophia, granddaughter of James I, can become King or Queen. So, no-one outside of a narrow aristocratic line can become head of state. Nor do they have any active or regular say in which of that narrow aristocratic line becomes head of state.

We don’t need to worry about the exclusion of Catholics from the succession. We need to worry about the very principle of succession.

First a word from Penny Red:

I rarely talk about American politics on this blog, and even less so since the hype has ramped up over the November election. Part of this has been because I believe that voyeuristic obsession over a political event with which British voters are relatively uninvolved exacerbates British political apathy.

Eloquently put, as ever. But also a policy which (as is most likely clear to our regular readers) which this blog has never followed. The reason is that although the democratic structures in place remain rigidly national, the economic and diplomatic ones are far less adherent to such localistic restrictions. Hence we became fantastically wealthy off of the internet bubble (with the internationalist elements blatantly obvious here: observe companies such as Amazon simply colonising with a .co.uk url) and then slumped once it burst, we became bloated courtesy of property markets and then were dashed against the rocks of Sub Prime (I was one of the few British victims, primarily the practice of mortgage selling is an American one).

Jonathan Freedland outlines this argument after joining Anatole Kaletsky in being an American writer who has become targeted by American right-wingers after writing an article that attracted their ire. The results were tiresomely predictable to any accustomed to their ilk:

I love it! A pansy-ass limey Brit begs the US to do his bidding while his own country slips further towards total Islamic rule.

As ever the American Right’s line on Europe can be summed up in a word: “Muslims”. As far as they are concerned Europe is socialist, thus needs a young workforce and as the only workforce available is the dreaded Muslims they are doomed to be taken over completely. So far as can be determined this is all the view they have of the Europeans, since their eschatological view of the outcome of immigration allows all other facts to slide into insignificance.

Unfortunately there seem to be an awfully large number of these cretins, with most of them being vocal to a disturbing degree. For the most part they congregate on The Times’ website (which seems to host an extraordinary amount of Americans) but that they found their way onto the Guardian’s comment section and into Freedland’s inbox fails to surprise me.

His response to the shout-down is also entirely correct: you can not establish yourself as a world power and expect none to be concerned about your leadership. If you begin intervening with the affairs of other nations they have a considerable stake in your government, as it is exerting an influence upon them regardless of whether or not they have an opportunity to hold it accountable.

But this also leads to a rather grim consideration: in many ways the American election matters significantly more to Britain than does the British one. Consider: the next prime minister will either be atlanticist interventionist Gordon Brown, atlanticist interventionist David Cameron or perhaps avowed atlanticist interventionist David Miliband. Now does it truly matter more which shade of poodle will trot along obediently with the American line, or is the dichotomy between McCain or Obama more important?

With regards to Iran, the difference between the potential Prime Ministers is minimal. Americans get a real choice and the American President is who matters when it comes to British foreign policy. Just one reason amongst many that the run-up to the presidential election is worth watching.

(Note: Originally posted at Liberal Conspiracy.)

A Blairite acquaintance languishing at the Labour Conference reports:

Conference is generally quite upbeat and behind Gordon. My less confident attitude hasn’t been too popular!

This just before another text asking me whether I’d seen yesterday’s poll in the Observer confirming Labour’s impending electoral annihilation. These delegates know how dire the situation is, and yet they refuse to act against it. A conference packed with loyalists.

Compare that with a confirmed socialist’s verdict:

Last night I went to a party, drank four glasses of free champagne and compared dresses with important political ladies for a set period of time before going outside to smoke with the other interns and attempt to throw up my own lungs in a paroxysm of horror. What on earth happened to the Labour party? What happened?

(I spent the rest of the evening shouting about the RMT to Boris’ transport minister and attempting to get people to stand on chairs with me and sing ‘the red flag’. I’m not sure I’ll be invited back.)

At every event they’re edging closer to coming out and admitting that Labour has abandoned the grassroots. Peering out from their glittering Westminster bubble, even the chummy delegates and media flunkies here in Manchester are starting to get a little bit worried. If they don’t mobilise, if they don’t involve the communities and do more to address the needs of the people who vote for them and buy their newspapers, the number of expensive dinners on their horizon looks to significantly dwindle.”

There we have it; “Labour has abandoned the grassroots.” Conference exists in a gossipy bubble which bears little relation to the outside world; ministers grandstand on stage to choreographed applause. And the only reports which make it out are of that gossip - who spoke to whom, where, when and how that won’t make any difference anyway as they’re all so scared the party will come crashing down around their ears. A far cry from the political extravaganza Diane Abbott recalls from her earlier days.

Party conferences exist as the democratic interface between the membership and the hierarchy. Members spread out across the country can’t play a daily part in a centralised national party; but they can ensure its accountability at regular, democratic meetings. They use Conference to vote on policy, and on those to articulate it, and the party should remain true to its membership.

Except that patently doesn’t happen at Labour Conferences anymore. The grassroots and delegates have little or no influence on most party business. They vote on motions, they vote for committees of now-questionable potency - and they listen to speeches. They have no means of holding those speakers to account, as they’re appointed by the leader.

And they have no realistic means of holding that leader to account, given the tortuous process whereby sufficient MPs must first squabble and acquire signatures before the general membership is even consulted. Power has accumulated into the hands of a small party elite, and that elite has gradually closed off any paths by which it might be challenged; leaving the grassroots with nothing.

Even sheer physical protest at this strangulation of internal democracy is difficult. At any time that matters, the Conference floor finds itself carefully managed to the point that even MPs cannot register their views. My friend (a minor staffer, for the sake of as much disclosure as he’ll allow me) informs me Siobhan McDonaugh attempted to lead a walk out of Brown’s opening speech; but her seat had already been surrounded by party staff to reduce its effectiveness to naught.

Labour Party loyalists inform disillusioned progressives that we must support this government, however much we hate it, or face a decade of Tory rule. But when we loathe so much of what that government has done, and have so little chance to influence it, what, really, is the point? The death of internal democracy signalled the death of Labour’s membership; there’s little point signing up to an organisation whose pronouncements you just can’t control. The party would do well to realise that if it ever wants its mass support back.

It should come as no surprise that the following prospect fills me with glee:

While the Foreign Secretary would survive the rout, his power base would be decimated, making it much harder for him to get elected in a party likely to have shifted to the left: cabinet allies James Purnell and John Hutton would have gone, along with senior Blairites Alan Milburn and Charles Clarke. Jacqui Smith, Ruth Kelly, John Denham, Des Browne, Geoff Hoon and Jack Straw are projected to lose their seats. In Scotland, the poll predicts the SNP will win next month’s Glenrothes by-election.

Good.

Does this blue tide fill me with dread? Yes. If it purges the party of this right-wing clogging shall it be worth it? Yes. Do Charles Clarke’s squirms as he comes to realise his fate of losing to a real left-winger please me? Yes. Do I still have faith in the “Miliband as Messiah” model? Yes. Can even Alan Sugar save Gordon Brown now? No.