Chris Grayling MP, Shadow Home Secretary, is at the centre of a mini-controversy because he suggested that Christian B&B owners should be able to turn away gay couples.
We have been here before, and I have already formed my view. I don’t see any new information to add to the debate – just the opportunity to skewer an off-message politician.
Tag: UK (Page 17 of 21)
I’ve spotted a couple of references recently to the ‘perfect memory’ of the Internet and how it can come back to haunt you in later life. It breeds a peculiar form of self-censorship. First, the now-outed Girl With A One Track Mind says:
I wish my blog wouldn’t continue to bite me on the arse (not in the good way); I’ve held my finger over “Delete Blog?” button so many times.
I can understand why Zoe might want to start afresh, but this sentiment feels wrong and offensive – like book burning.
The other worry is for those who might want to start a political career. James Joyner at the Outside the Beltway blog discusses Philosopher Kings and the potential for a blogger-turned politician.
It seems to me that the chief barrier to bloggers getting elected to public office isn’t so much their typically introverted personalities or lack of access to money but the mere fact that we’ve accumulated a long paper (pixel?) trail of recording every fool thought that’s passed through our minds over the last several years. Even bright, thoughtful, decent types like [Ross] Douthat and [Ezra] Klein — and Lord knows, [Mickey] Kaus and [James] Joyner — have written things that would kill a campaign dead, dead, dead if it showed up in an attack ad.
We could certainly add Sri Hundal and the rest of the Liberal Conspiracy team to that list.
However, Joyner’s underlying attitude is defeatist. I prefer the alternative model, whereby blogging your thoughts allows you to spot holes, inconsistencies and hypocrisy in your own logic. This is Andrew Sullivan’s stated creed and I think it is this principle which sustains him as one of the most-read blogs, both in the USA and internationally.
In UK, the political ‘attack ad’ is still a concept in its infancy. That may change during the forthcoming election campaign, but the parties still seem above that sort of thing. In any case, attack adverts posted on YouTube, can be instantly countered with an ‘reply’ video which links to the context from which the offending paragraph had been pulled. Anyone who blogs is likely to have the skills to do this within the hour. I think that anyone who tried to smear someone with quotes from their own blog at, say, a public hustings, could be easily discredited. A politician who knew what he or she had written (and it is surprisingly easy to remember your arguments, once they have been typed and posted) could easily call-out such a smear or ‘gotcha’ question for what it really is – pathetic and lazy political opportunism.
However, this sort of approach only really works if you engage properly with comments and corrections on the blog. Selective deafness to criticisms only makes the problem worse. I know this is the frustration of people like Justin and Tim when trying to hold Iain to account.
Indeed, it is via Iain Dale that another example of The-Internet-Coming-Back-To-Bite-You emerges. Anna Arrowsmith is a Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, and a director of porn films. Since the Lib Dems tend to espouse “live and let live” style policies, I think this is relatively uncontroversial, but the BBC did a story on it anyway. Iain notes that Arrowsmith’s website also says something far more damaging:
Anna is liberal and open-minded but politically she supports The Labour Party, for all its sins.
Scandal!
Only, not really. The website is clearly several years old (it has plenty of <table> tags for layout, an archaeological relic in web design terms) and a quick peak at the Internet Archive shows the biography was written in 2004. Likely poor Ms Arrowsmith forgot to update her biography when she switched parties, which doesn’t make it any less awkward. A more practised blogger would have remembered when and where they endorsed political parties, and made a correction to the internet record at the right time. Nonetheless, its another example of how the Internet’s perfect memory often foils our best laid plans.
Ultimately though, I think that the wisdom of XKCD should see us through. Zoe Margolis, James Joyner and Anna Arrowsmith should all print this out and pin it to the wall above their computer screens. Then, stop worrying, and get on with being themselves as best they can.
Cross-posted at Liberal Conspiracy.
My speech at Goldsmiths was part of a wider campaign to make life easier for visiting artists and academics. The Manifesto Club, who produced the report ‘UK Arts and Culture – Cancelled, by Order of the Home Office‘ have today published a sequel: ‘Fortress Academy‘. This new report looks specifically at the impact of the points-based visa system on universities and their students.
Students were rejected by the UKBA for a variety of trivial reasons, including having written ‘Malaysian’ instead of ‘Malaysia’ under country, or for the colour of the background used in their photograph.
The view from the panel
Last Monday night I spoke on behalf of English PEN alongside Tony Benn at a meeting a Goldsmiths College Student Union, on the problem of the UK’s new points-based visa system. The system has caused hundreds of writers and artists to be refused entry to the UK, even for short-term visits such as a one-off gig or book launch. Academics and university support staff are particularly concerned with how the system affects relationships with their students: The system places new monitoring requirements on professors to log attendance at individual lectures and inform the UK Border Agency of any ‘suspicious behaviour’.
It was clear that, at Goldsmiths at least, neither staff nor students support the new measures. The general mood is that staff should boycott any extra tasks that the UKBA demands they perform. Many were frustrated that such a boycott is not already in operation. However, co-ordinating such action – which really amounts to a simple work-to-rule action, because there is nothing about surveillance of students in any staff contract – nevertheless requires organisation and a sense of momentum.
From the floor, we heard the story of a student who has been harassed and harried at every turn in her bid to stay and study at the college. She has spend over £2,600 in legal costs and ‘fees’ for processing various immigration applications. The university cannot give her much help, since they do not want to “act as solicitors”, and she even had to represent herself and an immigration tribunal. The ‘helpline’ she has been given to assist with her problems costs £1.20 per minute to call… and she is frequently put on hold whenver she calls.
Belle Ribeiro, the NUS Black Students officer, said that in general, international students do not get enough support when they come to study in the UK, despite contributing a huge amount in fees. The new rules that insist that foreign student carry an ID card will mean that BME students are likely to be disproportionately hassled to identify and justify themselves. And when ID card fraud inevitably occurs, it will be the overseas students who suffer.
My own speech was a jeremiad (hat-tip James Fallows for that word) on how this country was sending itself into a horrible cultural decline. The approximate text, corrected for grammar and general semantic sense, is reproduced below. You can check it against an recording. The Rt. Hon. Tony Benn was also on the panel: I’ve put an MP3 of his remarks online too. Continue reading
Unfortunately, a busy week at work meant that Blair’s appearance at the Chilcott Inquiry pretty much passed me by. After The Event news reports confirmed what we all expected anyway – Mr Blair refused to apologise or admit any wrong-doing.
My take: Put aside for a moment all the issues of legality, post-war planning, the monstrosity of Saddam’s regim, and oil. (They are huge issues, admittedly… but put them aside anyway). We are still left with a central dischord, which is this: Prime Minister Blair’s actual reason for waging to war, is not the reason we were told we were going to war. This is untenable in a democracy, regardless of the ultimate morality of the conflict, of the death we caused.
We, the people, know this.
Tony Blair knows this.
Moreover, we know he knows this. Moreover moreover, he knows we know this. And we know he knows we know. And he knows that we know that he knows. Ad nauseum. Yet, no apology. It is an insult to everyone’s intelligence.
The issue of Iraq clearly needs a Frost/Nixon moment, where the concerns of the public are at least acknowledged by the ex-leader at the heart of the controversy. This is unlikely to ever materialise, which is why this is an issue that will continue to fester for a generation, or more.