Dave Hill's Big Britain

Dump ContactPoint!

I wrote in detail on this subject, a database on England's children, a year ago. Now you can sign a Downing Street petition against it. My latest for the Guardian explains why you should:

"ContactPoint, formerly called the information sharing index, also known unofficially as the "children's index", is a government database-in-waiting that will hold information about all 11 million children in England. It had been due to go live next spring but on Tuesday, seemingly mindful of those disappearing child benefit discs, children's minister Kevin Brennan announced a five-month delay to "enable the independent assessment of security procedures". Not before time, some would say. But they and others would go further. They'd say ditch ContactPoint for good. This isn't simply because they don't believe ContactPoint will be secure. Last year, the Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) produced a report for the information commissioner. Its experts in child protection, children's rights and IT security made a range of negative connections between the very existence of the database and the effectiveness of child welfare and protection strategies.

Eye Of The Beholder

I go past this brute of a block when approaching the southbound Blackwall Tunnel. Please note Canary Wharf tower in the background. I wonder to myself if whoever designed it believed, or talked themselves into believing, that it was lovely to look at: modern, bold, cutting-edge, something like that. Is it remotely possible to see the building in that way today? If not, is that fair? I mean, looked at a certain way it could almost be something out of Star Wars. Or am just a little short of sleep?

The Unknown David Abrahams

Never mind that you might be surprised to learn that Stephen Pollard once worked for the Fabian Society. What's interesting is that he knew David Abrahams at the time and thinks a lot of other Labour people did too. According to Stephen, Abrahams made sure of that:

"Far from keeping himself to himself, as is being written, Abrahams was about the pushiest person I ever came across in my time at the Fabians - and in politics, that is saying something. He would ring up the office asking about meetings and contact; at those meetings, he would make a bee-line for the most senior politicians in the room. He was, in short, keen to be noticed. There are some people who just give off a bad vibe. I recall a number of times when Abrahams offered us a donation. You get a nose for these sort of things (unless, it seems, you are Labour General Secretary or running for office within the party), and we decided at the time to steer well clear. As a member, he was entitled to attend various meetings, but we had no obligation to accept money or offers of work from anyone.

Everything about the current story smells. Abrahams' explanation of his behaviour makes little sense. Can he really have gone from being one of the pushiest and most self-aggrandising people I came across to being so afraid of publicity that he chanelled donations through other people? I don't think we have got remotely to the bottom of the Abrahams side of this story. As for the politicians, I simply do not believe those ministers and Labour officials who have been round the block for all these years who say they do not know Abrahams. It is inconceivable that they have forgotten him: he has a manner one simply does not forget. If his status as a donor was anonymous and no one knew who he was, how come he was in the front row of Tony Blair's farewell speech?"

Good questions. And there are more.

William Blake: Albion & London

I wander thro' each charter'd street, Near where the charter'd Thames does flow, And mark in every face I meet Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg'd manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper's cry
Every black'ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

More on the poem here. More on his life, work and 250th anniversary of his birth, here.

Oxford Union Debate: An Internal Q & A

Question: So, Dave, what do you think about the Oxford Union inviting Nick Griffin and David Irving to its debate about free speech?

Answer: Well, Dave, young Tryl and his chums were within their rights to do it. But I wouldn't have.

Question: Why not?

Answer: Two reasons: one, because they're a pair of turds who, given half a chance, would cheerfully deprive the likes of me of my right to free speech; two, because inviting them was bound to result in a media furore and a street ruck, both of which have enabled them to pose as martyrs while the actual debate has barely had a mention.

Question: But Dave! You're avoiding the key issue! Never mind how things turned out. Surely your priority should be to defend the right of people you despise to express their opinions, however revolting you find them!

Answer: If they're not inciting violence - which is, of course, a bit of a grey area - then I do defend that right. But, at the same, I and others have the right to express our disagreement with their views and the decisions of others to provide them with a platform that invests them with undeserved respectability. Free speech is a two-way street - something callow libertarians forget in their eagerness to stick up for the rights of scumbags while heaping scorn on those who exercise their right to remind people that scumbags are what they are.

Question: Hang on, though. Isn't it true that people are rarely given the chance to hear the views of such as Griffin and Irving? Shouldn't they be given that chance and left to make up their own minds?

Answer: Oh, do me a favour! The reason why lowlife like those two don't get much mainstream airing is not that they've been censored in some mysterious way but that their arguments have long since been exposed as pernicious crap. No one prevents them organising politically, writing books, pamphlets and blogs and generally using all the freedoms a democracy puts at their disposal to propagate their views. And guess what? Almost no one is convinced. Tough.

Question: OK, thanks. By the way, Dave, do you know what they say about people who talk to themselves?

Answer: Yes, Dave. And in my case it's probably true. But, hey, it's still a free country!

McLeish For England

Oh well, I suppose you can't blame him. Perhaps Salmond should insist on the next Scotland manager being a diehard Nationalist. How else to ensure a successful one isn't lured south of the border? Football is a metaphor for the Premiership gobbling up everything.

Talking About Freedom

Here's something I posted at Liberal Conspiracy yesterday. It argues that campaigns defending civil liberties will be more effective if they connect the principle with "common good" issues people can relate to in their everyday lives.

I’ve long had certain misgivings about boarding the civil liberties freedom train. It’s not that I object to its destination, more that the tone and emphasis of many of the arguments made for opposing the great gamut of dubious developments under Labour, from Asbos to ID cards to the proposed (or not) extension of pre-charge detention beyond 28 days, seem to be missing something.

Henry Porter’s campaigning pieces in The Observer have been a good example. The extended thread applause they unfailingly receive seems to me to be won too easily. Henry’s doggedness is admirable but his unfortunate joining in with the government’s crass campaign of last year to tick off veiled women for not being British properly exemplified how he sometimes comes at his subject in the manner of an affronted Tory, in this case seemingly unimpressed by the inconvenient assertion by some Muslim women at the time that to be veiled is be liberated rather than downtrodden. Similarly, it’s one thing to be appalled that Big Brother is everywhere but it will take more than quoting Voltaire to persuade a lot of people living on crime-riddled council estates that they’d be freer without CCTV than they, rightly or wrongly, feel with it.

Top Bottom

Pay attention now!

"People talk about your bottom sagging and dropping as you get older, and either I'm deluded or mine hasn't. It's still there. It looks quite pert, quite peach-like really, and I congratulate it."

Who said that? Chip Dale? Me? Wrong!

Pre-Charge Detention: Campaign Against Extending Beyond 28 Days

Sunny Hundal writes:

"New Labour is becoming addicted to authoritarian legislation and we need to actively challenge that. I’d like to start by exploring what part blogs can play in being part of a broader coalition to challenge the government on this issue. We could start by collecting information that supports our cause.

- What are the alternatives to extending [beyond] 28 days?
- Who opposes this extension and what have they said?
- Which journalists and commentators are also opposed?
- What other organisations are actively campaigning on this?
- What events are taking place to build support on challenging the government?

Any other ideas, readers?"

Leave yours here or at Sunny's complete post at Liberal Conspiracy. Robert Sharp has already contributed to the debate.

Loving America(na)

Pontiac for sale, Bisley, Surrey.