Guantanamo and Alan Johnson
Alan Johnson, not the Minister and Trade Unionist but the Professor at Edge Hill University, lays down a
challenge to the 'left'.
It seems some facts can never come into focus for the left. Gitmo recidivism is currently running at 11%.
Some people have suggested that the 'left' can't focus on these figures because they are untrue, and point to a report by the Seton Hall Law Department (press release
here) as undermining both Johnson's 11% figure and Johnson's recidivism claim .
It is possible that Johnson was unaware of the
report, but another, which I suggest might be closer to the truth, is that he is directly challenging its findings. This is why he says 'some facts can never come into focus' before asserting a figure in which he believes, and explains the timing of his article (the report came out last month). Unfortunately, and something that will come as a surprise to readers of his authoritative journal,
Democratiya, he provides no footnotes or backing for his claim, or counter-claim, whichever it is.
I will email him to ask for more details.
Labels: Bush, Decent Left, Obama, usa
Money and mouths
For us Decentologists, the new Decent project, the
"£100/$200 club", announced on the pages of
Decentiya, is a Godsend. The main benefit of joining is that you get your name listed in a roll of honour, and it allows us to see the current runners and riders.
Aside from that the fact that figures such as Aaronovitch and Lloyd, Cohen and T, have all agreed to splash out £100 pounds in order to keep the magazine afloat is inspiring. I have long noted that given the importance Decents attach to these projects - the Euston Manifesto was 'vitally important' to the future of the left, and apparently the existence of
Decentiya 'secures the futures of hard-headed internationalism' the fact that so few seemed willing to expend any of their income in keeping it going was strange. For example you still can't sign the Euston Manifesto
directly (as you once could until it was overtaken by spam), I believe for a lack of resources in designing a robust website.
Compare and contrast the Taxpayer's Alliance website. The obvious explanation is that the TA is funded by rich or well-off men (one assumes). But many of the leading Eustonites fit that category. Anthony Julius was Princess Diana's solicitor, and The Guardian claimed as long ago as 1999 he was earning £250/hour. Even if he has had no earnings increase since then (which is unlikely) that means he is one of the highest earning people in the country, and that he could pay for improvements to the Euston website in less than one working day. To focus on Julius might be unfair - he does allow Eustonite projects to use his offices, I believe, so perhaps there are donations behind the scenes we do not know about. In general though it seems people are keen on these things until it costs the slightest amount of money.
ps But perhaps not Nick Cohen! From the Standard: "In another sign of tension the NUJ is acting on behalf of [New Statesman] former columnist Nick Cohen (he also writes for the Standard) who alleges that his pay was cut by the [New] Statesman without him being told."
Labels: Decent Left
Marko Attilia Hoare and Ayaan Hirsi Ali
On his
new blog, Marko Hoare says of Ayaan Hirsi Ali:
There is nothing ’extreme’ about Hirsi Ali’s position; she does not argue that Islam should be banned, nor that its followers be persecuted. She simply sees it as a problem, and wants to free Muslim women from the abuse inflicted upon them in the name of Islam.
I don't think this is sustainable given her stated comments. She said in an interview with
Reason, these kind of things (my italics):
Hirsi Ali:
Only if Islam is defeated. Because right now, the political side of Islam, the power-hungry expansionist side of Islam, has become superior to the Sufis and the Ismailis and the peace-seeking Muslims.
Reason: Don’t you mean defeating radical Islam?
Hirsi Ali:
No. Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace.
Reason: We have to crush the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims under our boot? In concrete terms, what does that me
an, “defeat Islam”?
Hirsi Ali: I think that we are at war with Islam. And there’s no middle ground in wars. Islam can be defeated in many ways. For starters, you stop the spread of the ideology itself; at present, there are native Westerners converting to Islam, and they’re the most fanatical sometimes. There is infiltration of Islam in the schools and universities of the West. You stop that. You stop the symbol burning and the effigy burning, and you look them in the eye and flex your muscles and you say, “This is a warning. We won’t accept this anymore.”
There comes a moment when you crush your enemy.Reason: Militarily?
Hirsi Ali: In
all forms, and if you don’t do that, then you have to live with the consequence of being crushed.
....
Reason: Here in the United States, you’d advocate
the abolition of—
Hirsi Ali: All Muslim schools. Close them down.
----------
"At war with", "crush", "close down schools", not allowing "westerners to convert to Islam". This is an "extreme" position by anyone standards, surely?
Labels: Decent Left, Islam
Did Henry 'Scoop' Jackson regret his enthusiastic support for internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII?
The Henry 'Scoop' Jackson Society
claims he did:
In America, Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson initially believed the internment of Japanese-Americans to be a necessary action in the fighting of the Second World War, but he later realised that this action was a mistake.
Oliver Kamm (who possibly could be getting his information from the H'S'JS page, or be the contributor) also
believes this:
I have a suspicion that you refer to his support for the shameful injustice of the internment of Japanese Americans in WW2 because it may be one of the few things you know about him. Yes, he was wrong, and he regretted it.
Others aren't so sure. Robert Kaufamn, in his biography of 'Scoop', makes no
reference to any 'regret'. And David Neiwert, who has written a
book on Japanese/American internment, has noted on his blog that:
In all my research, I could, however, find no evidence that Jackson ever expressed any regret for his wartime activism against Japanese Americans, even as reparations were being discussed late in his career. He remained mum, hoping no one would remember his own role in the affair.
Anyway, it'll be far easier to prove he did than he didn't (if he did), and so I've emailed the head (Alan Mendoza, a Conservative councillor in Brent)
of the Henry 'Scoop' Jackson Society asking where their information has come from and hopefully this matter of historical fact can be cleared up quite quickly.
Labels: Decent Left, Henry Jackson Society, Pollard
When you get to the top (nearly but unquestionably) there's nowhere else to go but down
James Rogers, who famously two years ago
declared that Britain was 'unquestionably the world's second strongest power' seems to have been a little
unnerved by recent developments, and is demanding more EU military co-operation.
Given the geopolitical changes under way, what seems crystal clear is that Britain's power and authority in the world is going to decline in the coming years, as an expansive China, a growing India, an increasingly wild and truculent Russia and a myriad of regional powers assert themselves on the world stage. And as the United States becomes more concerned with Asian politics and security, Europeans are likely to be left on their own
.
Have faith, James! Also
please note despite appearances, this is his personal view and not that of the H'S'JS.
Labels: China, Decent Left, Scoop
Two years since Unite Against Terror
It's just over two years since the internet campaign, "Unite Against Terror", was launched. The
site seems pretty moribund now, although I think they have renewed the URL for another year.
On the face of it the campaign sounded a good idea. Britain had just experienced its worst terrorist outrage, killing 52 people from London and elsewhere. Unfortunately, the aims of the project were never clearly stated, and for reasons that are still unknown, some of the leading figures to sign the petition got the impression it was a campaign against "the left".
Nick Cohen
called the left morons, failed to condemn the bombings, and added, "What we have witnessed is a sinister attempt by liberal opinion to deny legitimacy to the very liberals, feminists and socialists who have a right to expect support. The authentic Muslim has become the blood-crazed fanatic rather than the reformer. The authentic liberator has become the fascist rather than the democrat. This is a betrayal on an epic scale which casts doubt on whether it is now possible to have a decent left."
Stephen Pollard
raved that the "The Guardianista fellow-travellers of terror, who stress its supposed causes, are the useful idiots of the Islamofascists" and in language that I can scarcely believe even two years on, declared that there was an 'enemy within', which "it is imperative that those of us who believe in democracy and liberty stand up and fight. Not just against the obvious enemy, but also against the enemy within - those who claim to be on the Left, but whose views have nothing in common with the decency for which the Left ought proudly to stand."
Peter Tatchell, bizarrely,
declared that the left should not pretend to be upset by the bombs, and "We are witnessing one of the greatest betrayals by the left since so-called left-wingers backed the Hitler-Stalin pact and opposed the war against Nazi fascism. Today, the pseudo-left reveals its shameless hypocrisy and its wholesale abandonment of humanitarian values."
To quote the last is a little unfair of me, as Tatchell subsequently apologised for the language, proving, perhaps, that there can be a decent Decent left.
Labels: campaigns, Decent Left, Iraq, Nick Cohen
Bernard Kouchner, Nick Cohen, Oliver Kamm & Neil Clark
In today's Observer, Nick Cohen
turns away from moaning about the plight of the 'less fortunate' couples on £100,000 a year and turns to Bernard Kouchner, the new French foreign minister. And promptly gets a lesson in the facts from Conor Foley (also - did Jacques Chirac really support Iran's efforts to get a nuclear bomb?).
Oliver Kamm
criticised Neil Clark over Kouchner earlier this week, with the latter claiming he was in favour of the Iraq war and the former saying that he wasn't. I think Oliver is probably [1] right in that the exact words Neil used were wrong, as he talked of Kouchner's 'welcoming' the Iraq war, ie before it happened, and that is not correct. However the wider story is it's certainly true that Kouchner was in favour of the war after it had happened, as he told Robert Graham of the Financial Times in early 2004 - "it was right to intervene". The FT link isn't working, but here's one from Norman Geras's
blog.
[1] I've edited this to add 'probably' as there were certainly people -- one being of the calibre of
John Lloyd in this whine - who at the time thought Kouchner was in favour of a war.
Update: Matthew 'unquestionably the 2nd most powerful country in the world' Jamieson
says that Kouchner was the most senior French politician 'to support the Iraq war' - I think that's game over for Neil Clark.
Labels: Decent Left, France, Iraq
Amis & Blair
I would say an odd couple, but they seem perfectly suited. Anyway as the British military attache
tells Chatham House the surge isn't working, apparently Martin Amis of these views' fame:
There’s a definite urge—don’t you have it?—to say, “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.” What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation—further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan.
was travelling with him :
Accompanying him was Martin Amis, the novelist who is writing about Mr Blair's final days in office. Downing Street declined to say whether Mr Amis's work was of a biographical nature.
It must have been quite a trip for Martin. Almost everyone in Iraq 'looks like they're from the Middle East' - his urges must have been unbearable.
Labels: Blair, Decent Left, Iraq, Martin Amis
Stephen Pollard
Following on from the last post, I wonder about Oliver's views on Stephen Pollard' blog. Oliver said:
The blogosphere, in short, is a reliable vehicle for the coagulation of opinion and the poisoning of debate
and of course Stephen Pollard, in his infamous Maida Vale Manifesto, which only appeared in blog format, said:[1]
The mainstream Left has demonstrated clearly which side of the battle to preserve Western civilisation and freedom it is on. The Left, in any recognisable form, is now the enemy.
Coagulation and poisoning of debate. Is there a better example?
[1] This was a competitor to the Euston Manifesto. That has about 3000 signatories, a year on. The Maida Vale manifesto has less than 6 in the same time period.
Labels: Decent Left, Pollard
Paul Wolfowitz
As Nick Cohen noted, there is no quicker way of silencing a London literary dinner party than telling a story about Paul Wolfowitz. Unlike Nick's story, however, the one in which Wolfowitz became the boss of his girlfriend at the World Bank and then got her repeated pay rises is
true.
I think I was vaguely in favour of Wolfowitz's World Bank appointment, on the grounds at least it meant the Bush Administration would take it seriously. It has not, however, been particularly distinguished, and I can't see any reason he has for staying in the position. First, this matter concerns him directly - it is not as if he is being asked to take responsibility for the organisation's failings. Second, his defence seems incredible. He correctly noted the relationship to the board, and so her supervision was moved away from him. But then he interfered directly, in her pay - anyone, without knowledge of any rules, would see that was improper. Finally, the World Bank needs to be tough on corruption, and it is hard to do that when you are compromised in this way at the top.
Labels: Decent Left, economics
Martin Amis - the official angle
Regular readers will known that Martin Amis has some wacky views on Muslims and people who 'look like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan'. In short he has an urge to curtail their freedoms, have them strip-searched...well read it all
Here’s a definite urge—don’t you have it?—to say, “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.” What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation—further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan. . . . Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children. . . . They hate us for letting our children have sex and take drugs—well, they’ve got to stop their children killing people.
When I last wrote about his repugnant views, I expressed scepticism that it was possible to 'deport' a British Muslim citizen, as they are after all British, and there is nowhere to deport them to. However Amis is a celebrated novelist, and so presumably had some grounds for suggesting that, so I asked the Border & Immigration Agency whether it was possible. A very kind spokesman, called Ms Newman, has replied:
Please be advised that it is not possible to deport a British Citizen
from the UK.
So this confirms the difficulty in what Amis is suggesting. There seems a number of options. It could be that he is unaware that deportation of British citizens from Britain is not possible, but that seems unlikely. It could be that he is talking of only those Muslims who live here but are not British citizens, but that doesn't fit in well with the mention of the 'Muslim community' or that they have children. I suppose he could be demanding an Act of Parliament, though the practical difficulties of the deportation (to where?) suggest this too is not what he meant.
Labels: Decent Left, Martin Amis
The Shame of the Left, part XIVIII
Next week's
Evening Standard column brought to you this week.
What kind of moral sewer has relatavism got our left-wing academics into when they can
describe the execution of Saddam Hussein as "one of the worst days of my life.I was just so upset, even on the verge of tears". And did you know Kate Winslet can't get a parking space at 9am outside Fresh & Wild in Islington? And why didn't Gordon Brown's budget do more for the hard pressed couple on £100,000 a year?
Labels: Decent Left, Iraq, middle class, Nick Cohen
The Shame of the Left
May I pre-empt
Nick Cohen by noting that with the
honourable exception of the Social Democratic Party and the Green Party,
no-one on The (German) Left has denounced
the decision of a German judge to not grant a women a quick divorce because violence was to be expect and allowed as noted in the Koran (English mini-translation
here).
Labels: Decent Left, Europeans, Nick Cohen
The Shame of the Left, part XXVIX by Nick Cohen
Apparently, except for bloggers, only
Human Rights Watch and
Amnesty International [1] have been protesting 'here' [2] against the jailing of Egyptican blogger Abdel Karim Suleiman, which apparently backs up
Nick Cohen's book which argues that the liberal-left (with a special focus on Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International) have turned their backs on the poor world in gruesome alliance with Islamists [3].
[1] Reporters without Borders certainly
have to, but I suspect their Frenchness ruled them out.
[2] 'Here' I think means the UK, which is a little odd as I thought Human Rights Watch was based in the United States.
[3] Aside from this ridiculous argument, I agree with most of the post.
Labels: Decent Left, Nick Cohen
James Rogers
James Rogers, who we last heard of declaring that "Britain is unquestionably the second most powerful country in the world" now
writes (in an article that reminded me of the old story that Berwick upon Tweed was once at war with Russia) that:
[Russia] has an economy little larger than a European city like Paris or London
How can a man with so many academic qualifications be so ill-informed? I thnk that might have almost been true of GDP statistics about a decade ago, when the economy was at rock bottom and the rouble undervalued. But even then the comparision would have needed some explanation. Today, it's far from the truth. As of 2006 the IMF estimates that Russian GDP was $975bn, with UK $2.4 trillion. This makes London's GDP about $400bn, ie just over 40% of Russia's. For 2007 the estimate for Russia is nearly $200bn more, for London just $20bn. That mean's Russia's economy is not 'a little larger', it's a lot larger. PPP estimates, which have at least as good a claim to accuracy in this (and often a better guide to the future) are $1.7trn to $1.9trn, making London about $320bn, or 1/5th the size of Russia.
Labels: Decent Left, defence, economics
Martin Amis
I wanted to return to these
comments by Martin Amis:
There’s a definite urge—don’t you have it?—to say, “The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.” What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation—further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan...Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children.
I am surprised, and disappointed, at the lack of outrage over these comments. Let's look in some more detail at what he is saying he has 'definite urge' to happen. He is demanding 'curtailing of freedoms' and 'discriminatory stuff'. More specifially, he wants to ban Muslims from travelling.
Where would this lead? It's not rocket science. Obviously, a lot of Muslims would not be able to do their jobs if they were not allowed to travel. Thus you would have a increasingly impoverished community, ever more reliant on state handouts to remain alive. They would also be increasingly angry, as to this he wants to add 'strip searching people who like they're from the Middle East or from Pakistan'(this section, as
Mukul Kesaven notes, puts pay to the idea that this is only about Islam). And what would they be searched for? The Koran?
Finally, 'down the road', we have 'deportation'. Given the travel ban, this might be difficult, but more is the point - where do you deport a British-born Muslim man to? Presumably not the EU, as then they could come right back. Other countries aren't going to willing play Amis's game. Obviously you can't, unless Amis plans to find an empty island somewhere. This is chilling stuff.
I think this particularly shocked me as I was quite a fan of some of Martin Amis's earlier works, and also because I am going on a trip (to the United States) with a friend of mine who happens to be a Muslim, in a month's time. Amis not only doesn't think he should be allowed to go, but he wants to make him suffer if he remains in the country.
As I said, there should be more outrage. Does the
Jewish Chronicle know what it is paying to put on? Does Manchester University know who they are about to employ?
ps I should say, as I did last time, that I retain some hope that Amis was misquoted. That he has made no effort to correct this, or inform his best mate Hitchens before he quoted it, suggests not, but it remains a possibility.
Labels: Decent Left
Am I Decent or Not?
Norman Geras says that he doesn't like the term "Decent Left" and that it should be left to the 'sneerers'. It is of course a strange term as it is used both by the Decent Left, and those who oppose them. Here is a handy guide to some leading pro-war figures and their use of the term Decent. There are three categories. "Approvingly" means that they have referred to the "Decent Left" (or very similar) and done so approvingly, ie they haven't said "That Decent Left love a good war". "Self-describe" means that they have described themselves as being on the "Decent Left". There are three options here, Yes, No, and 'Implicit'. The latter category is where (in my opinion, but I've been quite strict) the writer is implying that they are part of the "Decent Left". Really, I don't see how someone who considers themself on the Left, and that there is a "Decent Left" (and thus a non-Decent one), would not consider themselves on it, so there should be more YESs in that category than I given.
| Name | Approvingly | Self-describe |
| Nick Cohen | YES | Implicit |
| John Lloyd | YES | NO |
| David Aaronovitch | NO | NO |
| Norman Geras | NO | NO |
| Oliver Kamm | YES | NO |
| Harry's Place | YES | Implicit |
| Alan Johnson | YES | YES |
Labels: Decent Left
There was that Falklands difficulty, but nonetheless
The problem with being dead if you can't really complain. Is the Henry 'Scoop' Jackson Society considering a name change to the
Jeanne Kirkpatrick Society?
Labels: Decent Left
Surely Hitchens isn't that confused?
I intend to add more soon on that Martin Amis quote on what he would like to see done to Muslims, as it has been troubling me, and because I think it is an example of why the world 'Islamophobic' has some value. Meanwhile via
Oliver Kamm I see that Christopher Hitchens is to have a chat with Amis as part of Jewish Book Week. The blurb,
here, declares that:
Christopher Hitchens left the UK for the US in 1981 where he is columnist and contributing editor at Vanity Fair. Both an atheist and anti-atheist...
Hitchens' recent work has not, I think it's fair to say, been his best, but surely he's not that confused? Maybe they mean 'anti-theist'?
Labels: Decent Left
We told you this would happen
A letter in today's Guardian (in a collection responding to Martin Kettle's review of
Nick Cohen's book:
The dimension Martin Kettle entirely ignores is the economic one. Britain now is a profoundly unequal society. However, nationalisation proved in the end to have been a failure in extending democratic advance, and the cooperative movement has never really take off . But without economic democracy political democracy has no muscle.
All power to Alan Johnson as he tries to steer a new course, and Billy Bragg as he tries to gather the scattered remnants of a forgotten national identity. But it will take more than Bragg's exhortation, and Johnson's efforts to ensure that history is properly taught, to revive the ideals which have animated the lives of those of us who still call ourselves socialists.
Wendy Mantle
London
Does she mean Alan 'Not the Minister' Johnson, or Alan Johnson, the Cabinet Minister and Trade Unionist? I'm genuinely not sure - in a way Alan 'Not the Minister' Johnson is the more obvious candidate, given I wasn't aware Alan Johnson was trying to steer a new course. But then again he is the Education Minister, at least presumably for a few more weeks until John Reid resigns, and so he would be in a position to 'ensure history is properly taught' (or at least attempt that). But then again Alan 'Not the Minister' Johnson is a co-founder (with Nick Cohen) of the
Euston Declaration and is a lecturer, so it might be him.
This confusion was easily avoided, and we did say so.
Labels: Decent Left, newspapers, Nick Cohen
Liberal racism
Most
worrying news about "liberals", that most evil section of our society, from the Henry 'Scoop' Jackson Society. But there is good news too!
Thankfully, most British people are instinctively repelled by this strain in contemporary liberalism. The Guardian, a publication particularly incapable of making pro-freedom judgments, is losing sales faster than any other newspaper in Britain - some achievement.
Is The Guardian
really losing sales faster than any other newspaper? Or is this more of the usual not-letting-facts-get-in-the-way of a Decent argument?
ps This is a better article, about the
'death of idealism'.
Labels: Decent Left
Martin Amis
Still no word on whether his Nasrallah quote was ever quoted by anybody, but in the meantime I can't remember reading this before from him, and I still can't quite believe he
did say it - surely there must be some context that is missing?
What can we do to raise the price of them doing this? There’s a definite urge – don’t you have it? – to say, ‘The Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order.’ What sort of suffering? Not letting them travel. Deportation – further down the road. Curtailing of freedoms. Strip-searching people who look like they’re from the Middle East or from Pakistan… Discriminatory stuff, until it hurts the whole community and they start getting tough with their children
Labels: Decent Left
Martin Amis
The
readers interview in the Independent with Martin Amis is quite funny. Also, and not so funny, it contains this statement:
Well, make the most of being Hizbollah while you can. As its leader, Hasan [sic] Nasrallah, famously advised the West: "We don't want anything from you. We just want to eliminate you."
I can't find any source for this quote on the internet or in UK newspapers since 1991 except Amis himself. The New York Times never mentioned it. I am not in anyway suggesting he has made it up (though he's clearly not telling the truth about it being famous - maybe he means infamous?), it is probably the case that he has just got the quote wrong in some ways (ie say it was destroy not eliminate (it's not though)). Can anyone provide the source?
Update: Ah, maybe Amis has got his leaders wrong. Mark Steyn (yes, I know, this isn't a good source) says "In the words of Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah: ''We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.'"
Update II: The mystery deepens. Amis has clearly got the wrong person. Only Mark Steyn has quoted Massawi in the UK press over the last four years, but in 2001 this
guy quoted him. You'll note that it's not clear now he is advising the West. So anyone find a reference before 2001? And who is this Massawi person - Wikipedia has never heard of him.
Update III: Maybe they mean former Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi (not that similar a name, I admit). He was killed by the Israelis in 1992. But no-one links that quote to him.
Update IV: Chris Brooke suggests, persuasively, that they mean
Husayn Al-Musawi, who whilst not a leader of Hezbollah was a 'prominent member'. I can't find any reference online or in the searchable UK news database (or on the NYT) linking him to that quote or a version of it, the nearest I've found so far is "In the future, we will wipe out every trace of Israel in Palestine". I've emailed the academic referred to in Update II to ask what his source was, but so far I have had no reply.
Labels: Decent Left, England
Friends of Nick
Watch our for the (rather amusing, it must be said) plugs for
Nick Cohen (the famed author of "why it is right to be anti-American" - it's ONLINE, it's ONLINE!) book from various people. Oliver Kamm mentioned the idea behind it:
I have in front of me a bound typescript of Nick Cohen’s book What’s Left?, to be published in Feb. The author says it’s part of the publisher’s “viral marketing campaign”, whereby – ahem – influential people can go to dinner parties and say “I’ve just read a brilliant book by Nick Cohen”, and thereby make everyone else feel envious and out of the loop for not having a copy. If we are not invited to dinner parties, then Mrs Kamm and I must wander the streets of Hove looking out for dinner parties in strangers’ houses, crash them, and say “we’ve just read a brilliant book by Nick Cohen”.
So I’m writing to let you know that I’ve read a brilliant book by Nick Cohen. It’s called What’s Left?, and it will be published in February. There is a fantastic section on Gerry Healy, which I’m pleased to say I prevailed upon the author to leave in when he was wondering whether to take it out on grounds of its esotericism.
Now John Lloyd in the FT also mentions its "brilliance":
It has not conquered because it still has doughty opponents. One such is journalist Nick Cohen, whose book What’s Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way appears next month. If it does not have a profound effect on the political debate, I will be surprised and disappointed. It is an essay of wide reference and great brilliance...
I don't, btw, doubt that they do think it's brilliant.
Labels: Bloggy, Decent Left, Nick Cohen
Gerard Baker
So at the risk of finding myself in the dock with him [Tony Blair] when the modern elites have their Nuremberg, let me take issue.
In
The Times. Do you think he might take himself a bit too seriously?
Labels: Decent Left, defence, England, Iraq
Blair and buggery
Jamie links to a Blair speech in which the Prime Minister
warns the Army about cowardice. As Jamie says, Blairs farewell is essentially: "We’ve all let him down in our various ways, and we should all be thoroughly ashamed of ourselves."
Jamie
also links to the
new searchable online database of Old Baily Trials. He finds the ones involving animal buggery. I found the
sad case of George and Basil Blog, who had their gold watch nicked.
Labels: Blair, Bloggy, Decent Left, defence, England
Trident
I'll post a
comment I made over at Jamie's:
I'm strangely optimistic about Trident's replacement, or moreover, it not happening. A lot has been made about the lack of controversy over replacing it compared with that of the early 1980s. But there seems also a lack of controversy about scrapping it too. This might reflect general political apathy, or just that the support/opposition for it is spread more evenly across the polical classes.
In the end I think it'll be like ID cards - popular (ish) until the cost is known, and then given a choice of the carriers or the subs they'll go for the carriers.
Labels: Decent Left, defence, England, Nukes, Taxation
Live Blogging - AaroWatch
I've got a lead here on the (briliant) boys at
Aaronovitch Watch. I've just watched (in fact it might still be on - it certainly seems like it) a programme celebrating that pretty dull programme,
University Challenge. Anyway, as you might imagine, it's terribly self-congratulatory, and given Ian Hislop and Steven Fry are two of the talking-heads (and I've just seen the Private Eye team, Hislop, Wheen, Booker (Brooker?) and the other one -
Stars by Simply Red for someone who can come up with worse people to be stuck in a lift with), at times almost unbearable. On the other good hand it had Aaro trying to defend his unfunny stint on the programme, when I think he and his team answered every question with the name of a member of
Marx Brothers (he is still going on about it being an attack on the Establishment or something like that, which is interesting from someone who today is one of Britain's most Establishment journalists). The exciting bit, and forgive the bad photographs of my TV screen, is the picture of Aaro as a young man! Here's Old (note he's not wearing some strange Invisible Man mask in real life, I'm not sure where that's come from) and Young Aaro!
ps My god, it
is still going on. They're raving about a film version now.
Labels: Bloggy, Decent Left, England, politics, TV
2006 Review of Matt T Blog year - Jan to June
Truth be told, not a vintage year. Here's the first half.
January 2006Nothing, sorry.
February 20062nd:
Alcohol aides night drivers, declares a 1950s textbook.
5th: Dan's favourite singer, Mick Hucknall, discusses
politics.12th: I
transform Tony Blair using a new face-transforming website.
March 20068th: I attack an
Alice Thompson column as the 'most self pitying' I have ever read.
18th: And then
Gerard Baker comes along and beats her.
29th:
I take issue with Oliver Kamm's positive obituary for Casper Weinberger, and argue that Iran-Contra negates everything else.
April 200612th: "As if I were a black trying to purchase food in a Mississippi diner in 1955" -
yes it can only be Carol Gould trying to buy a drink in a London pub. 18th: The Euston Manifesto arrives! I
create a handy cut out and keep guide to which project each British Decent has signed up to, and criticise the manifesto on two grounds - first the whinge about a lack of media coverage given many of them are senior people in the media, and second, their criticism of other people for spending more time attacking the domestic left and not enough time helping Iraqis, given this seems exactly what they do. Looking back I think this latter criticism is really why I could never give it a chance - I am still shocked by Nick Cohen, Stephen Pollard and Peter Tatchell's reaction to being asked to 'unite against terror' and I think it says a lot about them (though Tatchell did apologise subsequently for his).
30th:
Pollard goes one better, declaring in his Maida Vale Manifesto, which still has less than 10 signatories, that "The mainstream Left has demonstrated clearly which side of the battle to preserve Western civilisation and freedom it is on. The Left, in any recognisable form, is now the enemy". I ask whether he is calling for the arrest of leading left-wing figures.
May 20069th:
YouGOV pay me my £50!
17th: In Rome, and I tell the hotel receptionist "Excuse me the phone in our room doesn't work". She replies,"This is Italy. Many things don't work."
30th: I
prove President Bush is not as unpopular as the polls suggest.
June 200612th:
I show that the Serie A is not the goal desert commentators think it is.
Labels: Bloggy, Decent Left, England, Iraq, Review of Year, Web
Iraq
Timothy Garton Ash's
excellent column on the disaster in the Middle East can be summed up in that stump speech of Al Gore's - all the things that should be going up have gone down and all the things that should be going down have gone up.
Labels: Decent Left, defence, Iraq
Christmas Frenzy of War
You can always rely on
Melanie Philips to trump everyone. Her hysterical reply to the Baker report on Iraq declares that the issue for G W Bush "who, until now, has operated through consensus" is now:
In the dying fall of his presidency, does he have the wherewithal to go for broke? On this lonely and frail figure the fate of the free world now depends.
I'm not sure about you but I get nervous when people start advising world leaders, particularly ones who are C-in-Cs of large armed forces to 'go for broke'. I think 'going for broke' is always a bad idea if being broke is a disaster, and as we are talking about the 'fate of the free world' here, I think it would be. Basically she wants him to declare war ('confronted and defeated') on Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Labels: Decent Left, defence, Iraq, Melanie Phillips
Iraq
Do we stay or do we go? The Sunday Telegraph declares, and gets its two star columnists, Niall Ferguson and Matthew d'Ancona, to 'reach very differing conclusions on the recommendations on the Iraq Study Group'.
They're differing in what they think the recommendation is, but not in what purpose they think it serves, and really what they want to see, which is continued American presence. Niall Ferguson
believes it is a bit of media manipulation designed to make the American public think they are withdrawing when in fact they are going to stay in Iraq, but do it better. He thinks this is good. Matthew d'Ancona
thinks it is a bit of media manipulation to make theAmerican public think they have won, when in fact they have lost. He thinks this is bad.
Ancona repeats the criticism you hear from people like
Christopher Hitchens, that James Baker is the last person anyone, particuarly if they think they are progressive, should listen to on Iraq (note The Dupe is consistent here - he didn't support the liberation of Kuwait from Saddam Hussein when James Baker was going around the world advocating it as secretary of state.). There seems to me three obvious replies to this. First, after spending the last four years telling us how wonderful G W Bush -
G W Bush - is, the sudden distaste for very right-wing men from Houston might have come a bit late. Second, it's a measure of the scale and scope of the disaster in Iraq that people like Hitchens have helped shat us into that people like James Baker (and the dictators of Iran and Syria) might have to shovel us out of (this
Michael Kinsley article is worth reading though) and finally, whilst I don't think much of the plan, it is a least a plan.
This last statement might sound desperate. Dan attacked those who declared 'the status quo is not an option'
here (and
here) on the effective grounds that the status quo cannot be worse than the status quo, whereas doing something often was, but in this case there really is no status quo other than the empty mantras of 'stay the course' and 'we will prevail' and so it has become far worse than doing nothing. Criticism of the 'realist' school of foreign policy clearly have a lot to go on, but they seem to compare it with a version of neoconservativism that exists only in their heads, and in which the bloody evidence of the last three years has been completely ignored.
There are probably hundreds of better ways to attempt to fix Iraq, but much as David Aaronovitch scorned those who were waiting for the 'Nelson Mandela Peace Corps' to invade the country, I'm afraid the Euston Manifesto Group isn't going to be allowed to suggest one. There are only two on the table - the one from the right-wing Texan with the initials JB or the one from the right-wing Texan with the initials GB - and the latter's hasn't worked.
Labels: Decent Left, defence, Iraq
Melanie Phillips on Britain
Today she links approvingly to a piece that says Britain 'indirectly abetted the Holocaust' and that it is now 'outsourcing' the murder of Jews to Islamists. She also declares that Britain is 'morally bankrupt'.
Labels: Decent Left
To the ends of the Earth...and beyond
I'd missed
this article by Tim Hames on the Iraq war in which he says that it does not matter how bad an idea any American foreign policy adventure would be, he would still insist on British troops joining in. You'll note he is not offering to join in himself, so these are other people's lives he is throwing away for no reason. The example he gives (which might seem in jest, but as it is making his main point, can't be) would mean certain death for the Parachute Regiment and not a single gain, except perhaps gratitude on the part of a about to be electorally-destroyed government.
I am a neo-American. I think that when US foreign policy is wise Britain should back it to the hilt and when it looks wayward we should be in the thick of it so that we can be a potential influence. So if the Americans opted to liberate Pluto tomorrow I would think to myself (i) that is a little odd, (ii) is it worth the effort when the place is not formally a planet anymore? and (iii) how can we ensure that there are seats in their spaceships for the Parachute Regiment?
Labels: Decent Left
The absurdity of the Left
I've managed to get a sneak preview of Nick Cohen's latest
masterpiece, "What's left? How Liberals lost their way".
Here's an excerpt where he tears into a particularly idiotic left-winger:
I was brought up to believe that being left-wing was to be good. Now I'm not so sure. Some people who claim on the Left appear to believe the strangest things. A good example is an award-winning journalist who wrote in the late 1990s and early 2000s for a number of impeccably liberal publications. He supported CND, who wanted to get rid of our nuclear weapons despite the overwhelming nuclear strength of a hostile Soviet Union. In February 2000, in the New Statesman (not much of a surprise, you might say) he declared that the best definition of 'terrorist' was also the best definition of the British "political class and security establishment". On June 17th 2001 he declared that "Bush is destroying international agreements and pushing potential rivals who fear American military dominance of the planet through the militarisation of space into a new and unnecessary nuclear race".
Was his complacency shook by the horrific events of September 11th 2001? Not a bit. In those dark days after the atrocity, he argued that British intervention in Afghanistan - where the perpretators of that wicked act were based - 'endangered' its citizens, and declared that its Prime Minister's 'indiscriminate love' for the United States and meant Britain was 'American's poodle'. Worse still, he criticised those liberals in the media who were prepared to stand against Afghanistan as 'demented' and declared that standing shoulder to shoulder with our American allies had 'pinned a large target sign on this country'.
As America continued to recover from the horrors of September 11th, on January 14th 2002 he wrote a piece in the New Stateman titled, 'Why it is right to be anti-American', declaring that "The determination to destroy the Kyoto agreement, International Criminal Court and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty says in effect: "We are not content with our dominance. We want more." American unilateralism is contemptuous of the rest of the world, and the rest of the world can't be blamed for responding in kind." He concluded, "there is little about modern America to be for." In March 2002 he declared there were no links between Iraq and Islamic terrorism: "The CIA and MI6 have searched for them for six months and found nothing."
In August of that year he criticised the great lawyer Alan Dershowitz as a "blood-lusting fantasist" for advocating torture, and arguing that such a policy could not "be excused as an understandable but transient overreaction to the slaughter of innocents. The suspension of civilised standards has become settled policy".
Labels: Decent Left
