Robert Sharp

Barrister

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Gay pride in Israel and Palestine

7 November 2006 / / 1 Comment

I see that another gay rights march in Jerusalem has been given the go ahead.
Earlier this year, a planned World Pride march in Jerusalem was cancelled, due to massive opposition from both Jewish and Muslim groups.
My feeling was that Jerusalem could be a beacon of multiculturalism, and a World Pride march there could be a positive example for the future. The Intifada Kid begged to differ:

I disagree that holding this in Jerusalem, the Eastern part of which has been occupied by Israel since 1967, should be a cause for celebration. There is a growing movement against this idea, supported by progressive and informed activists for sexual rights based locally and globally. See: boycottworldpride.org.

I can understand how a boycotting of the march would follow from the idea of boycotting Israeli goods and travel to Israel in general, as a means of peaceful protest against the illegal occupation of Palestine. However, I wonder if larger (or, at least different) ideas are at work here, and whether an exception could have been made.
The acceptance of homosexuality is an anathema to all the Abrahamic religions, and the fundamentalists who seek to impose their world-view on others. Surely, therefore, the World Pride March acts in opposition to these people.
So, in reply to the Intifada Kid: Is an acceptance of homosexuality compatible with Zionism? If not, then allowing gays into Jerusalem would radically undermine that Zionism, no? Would World Pride in Jerusalem not be a temporary ‘liberation’ of the city?
(I supposed this argument could be reversed for the other side of the argument. If Islamic fundamentalists were the cause of the impasse, then a gay pride march undermines them, too. Of course, all this depends on an analysis of the conflict in religious terms, which is not a given by any means).
Not that any of this matters, really. As mentioned, the World Pride march in August never went ahead, and was replaced by a protest instead. That, in turn, was drowned out by the nasty conflict in Lebanon.

Political opposition in America

7 November 2006 / / 2 Comments

“Those stupid Americans.” This must be one of the most common and lazy stereotypes peddled by the patrons of pubs and bars the length and breadth of these British Isles. We chuckle at their fat parochial ways, and delight in the statistics saying that, what, only 0.001% of Americans have passports or something? Of course, President Bush is the most visible representative of his fellow citizens, and his brush finds and tars them all. Is it his plain-spoken, folksy charm, that does it… or the utter lack of discernible leadership and logic in his governing?
Its always worth remembering that the ideological fight against Bush has been led by Americans. Neither the 2000 or ’04 elections were hardly landslides, and the electoral maps broken down by county or congressional district paint a very different political picture from the ‘Red State vs Blue State’ analysis we are usually subjected to.
Justin at Chicken Yoghurt has been linking to Keith Olbermann’s special reports. These stinging ‘special comments’ call George Bush to account on a weekly basis, in a manner which seems to elude the Democrats at present. His seething indignity, as yet another liberty trampled upon, is compelling. By repeatedly using the word ‘Sir,’ as he directly challenges the President, he manages to show a respect for the office while displaying utter contempt for the man who holds it:

Your words are lies, Sir!

I don’t know the viewing figures for Olbermann’s Countdown, but MSNBC is a major network, so I imagine it has some degree of influence over public opinion.

Labour MP: "Please help me find something interesting to do"

3 November 2006 / / 0 Comments

Labour MP Austin Mitchell has a weblog. He has a ‘general ramblings’ spot, where he writes a light-hearted. His latest entry chronicles a set of missed divisions because he has forgotten ‘Whip-speak’, and finishes thus:

Having seen how much David Blunkett has got for his diaries I am doing mine for posterity. Please help me find something interesting to do. Any offers of seduction, sex, scandal, drugs, rock and roll, even promotion, would make life interesting.

I’ll tell you what, Austin. How about actually voting for the debate on the Iraq war, instead of just signing the Early Day Motion which proposed that debate? Or did you also miss that vote because you don’t understand ‘Whip-speak’? Instead of attempting to make money as the next Alan Coren, you could actually be holding the government to account, something that you are already being paid to do. Now that would be really interesting.

Cost-cutting at NHS Lothian

1 November 2006 / / 3 Comments

NHS ‘moles’ are like the Malawian Orphans of the British blogosphere.
Doctor Crippen and Devil’s Kitchen think they are soooo clever with their inside information, don’t they? The Doc reports on the persecution of junior doctors, by revoking their right to prescribe drugs; while the Devil has a bizarre story about nurses secretly performing medicals on asylum seekers.
Well, I’ve got one too (actually, I have five or six, but let’s not be boastful). I’ve been forwarded a particularly amusing letter from Mr Mike Grieve, University Hospitals Division, NHS Lothian. He is leading a financial recovery team to reduce over-spending, which is currently running at £1 million per month.

Our immediate task is to return to a position of month-on-month income and expenditure balance … Much of this is incurred in four areas of expenditure namely, the cost of doctors in training, bank and particularly agency nursing costs, clinical supplies and some medicines.

So, they need to cut costs in the areas of: doctors, nurses, medical supplies, and medicine! Is that not, like, everything that goes into making a hospital a hospital!?
To be fair, at least they are on the case, and trying to get back on budget. My source is not impressed:

Without bank and agency nursing staff the service would collapse. There is a high level of sick leave amongst nurses, due to high levels of stress, low morale, poor pay, shift working etc.. A ward not well staffed by nurses is not safe.
What is interesting is there is no mention of managers, the ones who clearly fucked up in the first place.

That’s fine, but I can’t shake the worry that this would be not so different if the running of hospitals were sub-contracted out to private companies. What’s to stop them cutting the same costs and services to maintain profit margins?
NHS lothian logo

The Point of Vanishing Interest

30 October 2006 / / 12 Comments

I have said before that the operative word in ‘citizen journalist’ is not the latter, but the former. Fay Young’s short, personal report on the happenings of an Edinburgh City Council meeting seems to be a good example of ‘citizen journalism’ and the importance of new Internet technologies. The happenings at the meeting were probably not newsworthy enough for The Scotsman or even the Edinburgh Evening News, so a reporter might not be paid to file a report on it. Now, Fay is an established journalist, but it was in her role of ‘citizen’ that she was present and able to post her report (“Hot air stifles climate change debate”) on her blog. More information for the rest of us, which we hope leads to a more accountable, participatory democracy.
Fay was not impressed by the councillors’ collective time-management:

The meeting rattles through some fairly important stuff about poverty … Then the meeting spends 25 minutes debating whether to replace or restore the old Davenport desks and chairs. Finally one Labour councillor protests at this waste of time when there is still a motion on climate change to debate, not to mention the capital city’s alcohol problem. Still they drone on, and it is another five minutes before they vote [27 to 29] to replace the old heavy mahogany with something that can be easily shifted and stacked when it is not in use.

I wonder if Fay Young has read C. Northcote Parkinson’s eponymous Parkinson’s Law? This is a fantastic compendium of satirical essays, first published in the Economist, and collected in book form in 1958 (I have a fourth edition from that year, which carries some delightful illustrations by Osbert Lancaster). In his essay, “High Finance; or, The Point of Vanishing Interest”, Parkinson describes a committee that bears a remarkable similarity to that which Fay witnessed last week. Finance committees are, he says, made up of people who know nothing of millions, but well accustomed to thinking in thousands:

The result is a phenomenon that has often been observed but never yet investigated. It might be termed the Law of Triviality. Briefly stated, it means that the time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved.

So, Fay’s experience seems all too familiar! Parkinson also presents an amusing essay on the ‘Coefficient of Inefficiency’, definied as the size at which a committee ceases to be of any effective use whatsoever. This he puts at somewhere between 19 and 23 members. It is interesting to note that the number of councillors voting at Fay’s meeting was more than double that estimate…
Whatever the accuracy of his theories, Parkinson’s Law is a great read, and a highly recommended stocking filler for the economist or policy wonk in your life.

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