John McDonnell stands up for his constituents.

Galloway sticks up for him.

Inspired by Bensix I offer the following:

Aaronovitch: You should be very, very careful about comparing people to the Nazis. Incidentally, Hamas = Nazis.

Any party that can contain both this writer and this one is clearly worryingly divided (to put it harshly) and pleasingly diverse (to put it how I would). Unfortunately this rather supports the most biting criticism that has been made against the party: that they lack any core meaning or convictions.

I would suggest instead that the disparity is a consequence of the future of liberalism often being one of dour men who hated income tax  and therefore appealing to certain people with a historical understanding of the term. Meanwhile the immediate history of the party is that of being the one which advanced its vote substantially during the last election under an anti-Iraq and pro-tax on the rich platform.

In addition to this there is the rather curious history of the party, which came about as a fusion of the Liberals and the Social Democratic Party. The former are probably the type which Ms. Gore feels most at home in but the SDP were only moderates in their day because the Labour Party seemed likely to be taken over by a coterie of Leninists. We have degenerated so thoroughly in this country that presently being a committed social democrat (instead of the kind that implements social democratic policies only when forced to accept the abject failure of “pure” capitalism by the brute force of reality) is enough to render you on the “far left” of the Labour Party.

So its understandable the Liberal Democrats are ideologically at a loose end, and although I’d much prefer the present arrangement to their being two small parties constantly rowing over third and fourth place they will always strike me as aesthetically aberrant.

Does it really surprise anyone that the young ignore the government when it moralises against alcohol? The campaigns tend to be so patronising that they’re enough to inspire consumption as it is.

I drink, regularly. As a byproduct, I know how much alcohol it takes to render myself insensible; when it happens several time, you do tend to notice the pattern.

Anyone who drinks regularly should be the same. They have been drunk, several times, and so know how it happens to them. They don’t need to be told this by a stern poster spouting arbitrary figures at them; and no doubt do feel patronised by that poster telling them what they already know.

Likewise, they’re unlikely to be entirely unaware of the impact of drinking upon health. Anyone who drinks will at least know someone who’s hurled all that they’ve drunk and more into the loo, and will likely have heard graphic stories of at least one stomach pump. To throw up is to be ill, and most people know that’s bad. So we can assume most heavy drinkers are aware of some of the risks.

If a young person gets drunk, and does so frequently, it’s thus likely (logically) to be a more or less conscious decision. They know what they’re doing, yet do it anyway. And yet the government persists in pushing out campaigns that assume the young are ignorant of both the cause (hence stark photographs of bottles ominously marked “10″) and the consequences (hence “hard-hitting” portrayals of vomit stained youth drowing in their own filth) of drunkeness.

They know what they’re doing, and so presumably want to do it (and know this), for whatever reason. The government then shoves out propaganda that effectively claims they’re only doing it because they don’t know what they’re doing.

Who would listen to that?

…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)

Oh, and this worried me slightly:

More than a quarter of science teachers in state schools believe that creationism should be taught alongside evolution in science lessons, according to a national poll of primary and secondary teachers.

The Ipsos/Mori poll of 923 primary and secondary teachers found that 29% of science specialists agreed with the statement: “Alongside the theory of evolution and the Big Bang theory, creationism should be TAUGHT in science lessons”

I’ve little problem with the discussion of creationism. But the teaching of the doctrine is another matter. We shouldn’t teach creationism as a scientific point of view; it’s not, and doesn’t claim to be. The theory states that a divine being literally created life, the universe, and everything. As such, it’s explicitly based in faith, both in a god, and an idea of what that god might do. It isn’t an empicically tested hypothesis, as inclusion in a science lesson would suggest.

And yet that’s how it’ll be taken; because children expect what they’re taught in a Science to be demonstrably true. Far from challenging creationism, encouraging Science teachers to teach on it will simply lend it the perception of fact. We should teach pupils about creationism, and the debate that surrounds it - but in RS, along with every other belief system based in faith above empiricism.

Apologies for the lack of posting in recent days. A combination of sleep, procrastination, and tracking fluffy Siberian Tiger toys across the Northern Line have kept me occupied recently.

And now a lack of inspiration reigns. Very little springs to mind; beyond a brief and late comment that this is vile:

The government has been accused of trampling on individual liberties by proposing wide-ranging new powers for bailiffs to break into homes and to use “reasonable force” against householders who try to protect their valuables.

Under the regulations, bailiffs for private firms would for the first time be given permission to restrain or pin down householders. They would also be able to force their way into homes to seize property to pay off debts, such as unpaid credit card bills and loans.

What constitutes “reasonable force”? It’s rather open to interpretation. And, given the tendency of firms to employ bulky, muscular individuals of the temprament which allows them to ransack a home in perfect conscious, that’ll probably be a violent interpretation. This at a time when, with soaring energy costs and ugly mortgages (oh, and the rising unemployment, don’t forget that…), the bailiffs’ ire is most likely to fall on the cold and the old. Chicken Yoghurt puts it rather well:

It’s teaching all of us to never, ever, be poor. To never, ever, have a run of bad luck. Keep your head down and keep kissing the boss’ arse. Bite your tongue over your pay and conditions. Come in a bit earlier and stay a bit later. Don’t forget you’re the smallest of cog in this economy - a little fear should keep you lubricated and in good working order a little while yet.

It all makes glad I have few enough possessions at the moment. And worry slightly for when the government decides it wants the money for my education back…

I wonder at this:

Schools Secretary Ed Balls is getting together with Britain’s agony aunts for a “relationship summit”.

An “anguish of agony aunts” - the collective noun chosen by themselves - will advise ministers on how to support children facing family breakdown.

I won’t contest the benefits of a stable childhood. But consider the role of an agony aunt. They receive letters from those who consider themselves to have a problem. Some might therefore have some insight into those caught up in family breakdown perceive their trouble; but a very specific group of those, who might consider opening their private lives to that most public of forums, the tabloid newspaper.

Nor does the receipt of letters necessarily guarantee that the replies will be of any use. The agony aunt’s position doesn’t require them to dish out advise that’ll work, but that sounds plausible to the reader. And so play to whichever prejudices and conceptions they feel their readers might have of family breakdown. Nor do we have any means of seeing whether any find their Aunts’ advice useful. They hardly make themselves open to feedback forms; and given that most write for a newspaper with wider content, aren’t subject to the vagaries of an open market which might demonstrate how well their advice went down.

So, we’ve no idea whether they’re worth much at all, and have no means of finding out. Way to find a potential cul-de-sac? Listening to those involved in break-ups would seem a surer start…

In which I find an excuse to ramble about ideology. At length.

On Liberal Conspiracy, a rather vicious comment-war has begun over Nick Clegg’s recent speech on why he was a liberal. I won’t comment on the piece as Sunny has done; it looks more of a speech about Clegg’s own ideology than party policy.

So I’ll comment on that, instead. Or, at least, the section which most exercises my irritation:

Liberalism believes fairness, fulfilment and freedom can be best secured by giving real power directly to millions of citizens.
Socialism believes that society can only be improved through relentless state activism, a belief driven by far greater pessimism about the ability of people to improve their own lives.

A liberal believes in the raucous, unpredictable capacity of people to take decisions about their own lives.
A Socialist believes in the ordered, controlled capacity of the state to take the right decisions about other peoples’ lives.

A liberal believes a progressive society is distinguished by aspiration, creativity and non conformity.
A Socialist believes a progressive society is characterised by enlightened top-down Government.

Bollocks. To associate all socialism with a particular mode of state-control is at best unwise and at worst an actively misleading lampoon of Reagan or Thatcher. Both liberalism and socialism move from a similar origin; an egalitarian concern that individuals should be as free as possible.

Classically, liberalism seeks to achieve this through an abscence of restraint. It accepts, though, the need for some state intervention; individuals will, understandably, pursue their own interests, and so occasionally come into conflict. One individual might see, for example, that they could do well for themselves by turfing another off their land and using it for themselves. This exercise of freedom comes at the clear cost to the freedom of another. An arbiter between these interests, in the form of the state and law, is thus necessary to ensure the wider freedom of all. Liberal ideologues as far back as Locke have accepted this principle. So long as the state treats all individuals as equals, and so applies its laws to the benefit of all, then its existence is less of a tyranny than the potentially endless conflict of absolute freedom. From his Two Treatises of Government:

IF man in the state of nature be so free, as has been said; if he be absolute lord of his own person and possessions, equal to the greatest, and subject to no body, why will he part with his freedom? Why will he give up this empire, and subject himself to the dominion and control of any other power? To which it is obvious to answer, that though in the state of nature he hath such a right, yet the enjoyment of it is very uncertain, and constantly exposed to the invasion of others: for all being kings as much as he, every man his equal, and the greater part no strict observers of equity and justice, the enjoyment of the property he has in this state is very unsafe, very unsecure. This makes him willing to quit a condition, which, however free, is full of fears and continual dangers: and it is not without reason, that he seeks out, and is willing to join in society with others, who are already united, or have a mind to unite, for the mutual preservation of their lives, liberties and estates, which I call by the general name, property.

Logic dictates that no individual should harm another, as if individuals have an equal right to individual liberty, then to assault another’s liberty is to concede that others can assault your own; a state Locke terms “the law of nature.” Yet a brief observation of reality highlights that this law has no means of enforcing itself, and so the prospect of actually enjoying your absolute freedom varies. Rational individuals might thus come together in a community to ensure the freedom of all is protected.

Socialism merely extends this principle, and accepts that freedom can come under threat from more than just a particularly malicious individual. To live without education would be to risk freedom; how can you compete with those lucky enough to know more, or even advance your own understanding of the world, without one? A universal education provided by civil society thus clearly advances freedom. Conflicts in the exercise of freedom likewise take place on a wider scale than liberalism in its purest form might allow for. An individual, or rather a small collection of individuals, might quite legitimately gain control of an essential service; say, the delivery of electricity. They would be perfectly free, once they did so, to drive up the prices of electricity beyond the point required to cover costs; a drive which would prevent many from heating their homes, or cooking, or indeed living, as they might otherwise. A clear exercise of freedom on the part of a few at the expense of the freedom of many. Surely better, then, for a state under the democratic control of all to control the distribution of electricity, thus guaranteering the wider freedom of all those who need energy?

The state exists in socialism as a means of guaranteeing liberty, as it does on a lesser scale for liberal ideology. But where its intervention isn’t necessary to preserve this freedom, some socialists at least would argue that it does not need to become involved. And where its intervention actively impairs liberty, then a socialist should oppose it; hence the opposition of many who’d consider themselves to be socialists to ID Cards.

This form of socialism is a far cry from that described in Clegg’s speech. Where’s the endless regulation of every individual relationship in every sphere implied in “the ordered, controlled capacity of the state to take the right decisions about other peoples’ lives?” It isn’t there. Liberal ideology and socialism aren’t the mutually exclusive behemoths of Clegg’s imagination, but nuanced and varied systems springing from similar concerns.

Some particularly statist socialists might be considered outrightly illiberal. Likewise a neoliberal fanatic who describes themselves a liberal would be considered an outright enemy of wider freedom by most socialists. But, surely the question here is not whether this makes liberalism and socialism as a whole incompatible, but whether those ideological parodies really qualify as what they claim to be? If egalitarianism can be considered the root of both ideologies, then I would suggest not.