It seems that Andrew’s holiday has come to an end and he is back to immediate fine form, having updated this even as I typed this much {to talk briefly and sardonically about the extreme social repressiveness of the Saudis} and already having made two thorough summaries of all he’s missed. The latter, you will note, is on Hillary and says much the same as me.

Given that this tendency, to mimic me a few days late, is also a phenomenon present within Johann Hari I should perhaps be grateful that I am not purely chubby London leftist but instead a cocktail of that plus NHS-baiting Ameriphile bear.

I shall endeavor not to imagine the features of their potential miraculous offspring…

McCain’s campaign isn’t over that lobbyist, apparently.  He looks to have survived the allegations that they slept together - but now they’re calling him corrupt.  Look:

The controversy now centres on the appearance that McCain may have lobbied on Paxson’s behalf. Paxson, who had made campaign contributions to McCain and repeatedly lent him his private jet, was keen to buy a TV station in Pittsburgh. But the FCC had delayed making a decision on the case.

McCain, who was then head of the powerful Senate Commerce Committee, wrote two letters asking the commission to hurry up its decision. The FCC then issued a written rebuke, calling McCain’s intervention ‘highly unusual’.

If anything, this is more of a problem for McCain than adultery would have been.  McCain has based his reputation, since before his first run in 2000, on being an anti-corruption politician.  If what’s being said here is true, then he’s very definitely behaved dodgily - and is manifestly a hypocrite.

And if the potential sex scandal was driven under by a tide of conservative vitriol, then this won’t be.  Where there’s only so much you can do to investigate sex allegations - interrogate both parties, hope one of them will tell - there’s a lot that can be done here.  Very much digging, and a chance that something will turn up.

And, of course, there’s the fact that his opponents know this could kill him.  So they won’t stop that digging.

Just look at the way his campaign’s shut down over this:

 ”After the news broke the traditionally press-friendly McCain campaign went into shutdown, cancelling a press conference and keeping reporters away from McCain except at designated moments.“

This worries them - deeply.  It’s not a sophisticated move on McCain’s part, just a blunt, self-imposed incommunicado.  It just looks like he wants to get away from the press, as fast as possible.  Whether that’s simply because he doesn’t need the torrent of questions now, or because he has actually done something wrong and needs time to concoct a convinving alibi, I don’t know.  But it looks panicky.

Ultimately, I suspect that this simply won’t kill McCain.  If other prominent Republicans started attacking him over it - maybe.  But they probably know by now that he’s their only chance of holding the presidency next term.  Who would they put in place if McCain’s campaign imploded?  Huckabee - who’s won a small minority of states, and who terrifies much of America?  Romney - who everyone just hates?

Much as they hate him, they need McCain - and so won’t attack.  They may even defend him.  And attacks from the left just aren’t going to put off Republican voters.  They may even help him - if their political foes hate him so much, then he must be doing something right, the line might go.

But, even if he doesn’t explode, this mud can stick.

 (The pose was too similar to miss.  Never mind the fact that Chamberlain was appeasing and she’s attacking.  Just look at the pose…)

Hillary should have realised that negative campaigning won’t work after her, “Change you can Xerox,” line flopped so badly.  People are drawn to Obama because he represents something different - a positive voice.  Turning nasty won’t win them over.  In atttacking Obama like this, it looks like she’s the one indulging in Karl Rove tactics - and thus a hypocrite.

Of course, Obama can’t really point this out.  It’d look like he was turning nasty then - indulging a sordid and petty row, sinking to Hillary’s level.  That wouldn’t look very good for him, given that it’s the very behaviour he stands against.  And so he hasn’t gone fully on the attack here - just denied the allegations.

That doesn’t stop others going on the attack on his behalf though…

Watch.

The wheels are coming away.

(This was floating around on the BBC site.  It required immediate defacing.)

This terrifies me. There seems to be no end to what the government wants - ostensibly to fight terrorism.

They cannot reasonably claim this is necessary. Measure after measure comes designed to curb terrorism, usually at the cost of one of other civil freedom. Does anything good appear to come of it? No. The government gets a fistful of data, and is surprisingly quiet about the terrorists. One would almost think that they hadn’t caught any.

I’m not going to make the claim that anyone is trying to create some sort of fascistic super-state. That would be to misjudge their motives, I suspect. But how anyone can see this sort of proposal and not shudder at the potential for abuse, I don’t know. Just look at it:

The scheme would work through national agencies collecting and processing the passenger data and then sharing it with other EU states. Britain also wants to be able to exchange the information with third parties outside the EU.

Officials in Brussels and in European capitals admit the proposed system represents a massive intrusion into European civil liberties, but insist it is a necessary part of a battery of new electronic surveillance measures being mooted in the interests of European security. These include proposals unveiled in Brussels last week for fingerprinting and collecting biometric information of all non-EU nationals entering or leaving the union.

All airlines would provide government agencies with 19 pieces of information on every passenger, including mobile phone number and credit card details. The system would work by “running the data against a combination of characteristics and behavioural patterns aimed at creating a risk assessment”, according to the draft legislation.

“When a passenger fits within a certain risk assessment, he could be identified as a high-risk passenger.”

They admit that this is a massive intrusion into people’s lives. They know full well that they’re demanding intimate, personal details which you wouldn’t give to certain acquanitances - let alone a beureaucrat with a mind to put them on file, just in case you do something to upset them in future years.

They know that this could go wrong. They want the details to monitor people, to create a profile. So, they use the details, and compare them to a model they’ve constructed on paper. You use your credit card a certain way, you use your phone a certain way. They decide that, looking at a model, a terrorist uses their phone and card that way. You must be a terrorist. You’re nothing of the sort, of course, this is how you’ve always done something. But they arrest you anyway. There’s a long, tortuous court process spreading out over several months and involving the shedding of yet more personal details into a pan-European computer system. You’re found innocent - and are sent on your way, having spent a considerable amount clearing your always innocent name. There is no compensation, as this was all for the sake of security, and we don’t want to go soft on terrorism, do we?

They know that, on an individual level, this is a very, very bad idea.

This shouldn’t be happening in the EU. The very point of open borders, of freedom of movement between members, of European citizenship was that there wouldn’t be these restrictions. You wouldn’t have to fill in a form to hop into another country. You wouldn’t have to scribble all your details down in black ink, block capitals, in triplicate. You wouldn’t be watched by border officials intent to monitor and prevent your movement. It was undoubtedly one of the best things to come out of the EU.

And this would stop all that. Am I the only one who can’t help but feel that, not only are we sleep-walking into a police-state - but that we’re doing it backwards?

EDIT: Although, I suppose, today hasn’t been all bad on the civil liberties front. Proposals for a national DNA database terrify me even more than this. I really would have considered emigration…

…it occurs to me that, actually, Mugabe’s confidence may not be entirely based in his foreknowledge of repression.  The opposition vote is quite possibly going to be deeply split this election.

The MDC has been split for a while now - since 2005, more or less.  That, rather obviously, benefitted Mugabe.  Not only was the opposition vote split, but its support dropped.  Disastrously so.  Even then, a prominent MDC Mp felt that:

“In the next presidential election where every vote counts, we face a Zanu PF victory without them having to resort to rigging.”

And now the opposition vote faces being split even further.  No-one, as far as I can tell, really knows how Simba Makoni’s candidacy will affect the election.

Originally, Makoni had stood as a Zanu-PF candidate claiming to run for change, rather than against Mugabe.  With allies in and outside the party, he’d been painted as a compromise candidate who could challenge Mugabe from within.

But he’s been expelled now - as was expected.  With that, he now is running against the Zanu-PF candidate in Mugabe, whatever he claims.  If he’s able to retain the support he had within the party while existing outside it, that may not be a problem.  He may still be able to siphon votes from Mugabe, weakening him.

But if that’s not going to happen - if he can’t persuade people that, despite the party expelling him, he still stands for their values - then he simply becomes another opposition candidate.  If that’s the case, then he’ll either sink - or siphon their votes instead.

The opposition vote could be dangerously split at this point.  Perhaps conditions are so bad by now that it doesn’t matter - people just want rid of Mugabe, and want that soon.  But it’s a risk.

Of course Mugabe’s, “confident,” of winning a sixth term.  He knows the polls are rigged.

Really, if the BBC is going to attempt any form of reportage on Mugabe planning to win the election, that needs to be mentioned - and not just as the statement of the leader of the opposition.  The last presidential election in 2002 occured in a climate of heavy imtimidation and arrests.  Amnesty suggested that as many as 1400 opposition agents were arrested during the election period.  It was neither a free nor a fair election.

Similar doubts have hung over almost every recent election in which Mugabe has been involved.  Logically, this should be stated alongside Mugabe’s stated intent to win: he has stated this intent before every election, and has taken them all in a similar way.  There is no reason to suspect why he should not do so again.

I always found the Census’ claims that 70% of Britain were atheists to be rather bizarre. I have found it increasingly impossible to consider this claim valid, but chided myself for perhaps placing too much weight upon the anecdotal, especially considering that I live in London.

However a new piece of research suggests that my impression may not have been so presumptuous after all: it would seem that two thirds of Britons now lack any faith.

Not that I think it is a deficit to “Lack” irrationality, mind you. Quite on the contrary: as a hoary young anti-theist I relish this trend and am glad that the Atlantic of this month bears an article suggesting that this could be something of a global trend.

I had noted that although certain usual suspects {Italy effectively rigged a vote over IVF for the unmarried by staging it on a national holiday and it is likely that one of the reasons for the recent collapse of its coalition was a Catholic lap-dog party kicking up a fuss over its social leftism} are still in the sweaty palm of the Church its word has had no impact upon Spain’s embrace of gay marriage et al, neither did it prevent Brazil launching massive free-condom distribution drives upon Valentine’s Day.

Meanwhile the success of the new wave anti-theist in the form of Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins et al suggests that there are an increasing number of people unwilling to let people labour under the misapprehension of divine prominence in existence. It’s not exactly a movement, but it’s a start.

Linked from that Atlantic article is another fine one, referring to the surprisingly lenient treatment of Saudi gays. Still, room for improvement.