Temperama

Brown's First Hundred: Day 35

Pig in shit situation, or what? This morning the talk was still of the chemistry with Dubya and whether or not tiny divisions had appeared: our troops' "overwatch" in Basra compared with the Baghdad "surge"; the PM calling the less politically-damaging Afghanistan the terror "frontline" when the Holy Potus was saying it's Iraq; Gord talking of terrorism as "crime" whereas for Bush-boy it's still all about "ideology." How can this not play well back home? He's edging away from a lame duck liability without rubbishing the nation the duck leads (I wonder if he thought George was a pushover? Whose idea were the suits and ties, by the way?). Same goes for his speech to the UN, where the Beeb says he looked much, much happier.

Meanwhile, Young Dave is in shit too. But he's no happy hog. Just when he's finally wheeling out some weighty policies - pretty right-wing ones, too - the suicide sleeper cells in his own ranks are exploding everywhere. And he's not putting the fires out all that well. Claiming on Today that egomaniac Ali Miraj had only slagged him after being refused a peerage sounded like telling tales to teacher. It wasn't dignified. Far better to have dodged the issue before dumping the trouble-maker as he's done this evening and leaking the peerage story afterwards. Nick Assinder thinks the attacks show "signs of a coordinated campaign." Still, Political Betting is asking if the Brown bounce might be ending. Clutch that straw, Bullingdon boy. Clutch that straw.

Tony Wasn't Working

From The Guardian:

"The government's use of indeterminate sentences today suffered a further blow today after the court of appeal ruled there had been a 'general and systemic failure' in the sentencing of a sex offender. David Walker, who was convicted of a sexual offence in 2005, contested the controversial indeterminate sentence for public protection (IPP), which was introduced two years ago. The sentence binds a prisoner's release to completion of rehabilitative courses to prove he or she is no longer a danger to society.

However, Walker's lawyers argued that the conditions of his indeterminate sentence were unrealistic because the prison in which he was serving time did not offer any parole courses. Many prisons do not offer the proper courses, which means some prisoners are left to endure indefinite sentences beyond their tariff.
The appeal ruling will be seen as a victory for prison advocacy groups, prison staff, inmates and judiciary members who have opposed IPPs. Only five out of 147 people serving IPPs had been released by the end of April 2007. Most had exceeded their tariffs, which ranged from one to 18 months.

Today's ruling, if upheld on appeal, could leave ministers facing a multi-million pound bill as they are forced to plough cash into prison treatment programmes."

It's an ill wind, as they say. Full story here.

Buggered BNP

We all know what the word "cottaging" means. But perhaps there will now be a rival definition.

Bug Tropicana

Ouch, bastard! Yes, it's a mosquito, another new feature of English summers. Norfolk is the best place to get bitten by one, apparently.

More Britishness Business

Britishness? What is it? If we want it, how do we get more of it? I'm sceptical about bigging-up the usefulness of Britishness per se, however inclusively defined, as a means of nurturing civil society. That's the theme of my latest CiF piece responding that recent ICM survey of young British Asians. Sunny Hundal has thoughts on the Britishness question too:

"The problem with the ‘British values’ debate is that...these can never be uniformly practiced or even be prevented from dying out as cultures evolve. This is the main reason why the Gordon Brown inspired debate on British values is not going anywhere - no one is sure what values are being talked about. A British constitution offers us codified and easily accessible political values, which we can build a shared civic culture around. Political values such as strong democratic institutions, a commitment to freedom of speech, clearly laid out civil rights and more, which can be adopted by all citizens without them having to be forced to support Andy Murray or watch re-runs of Only Fools and Horses."

I've long been sniffy about the value of a written constitution, suspecting it to be chattering class thing. But maybe I'm persuadable. The rest of Sunny's piece is here.

ID Cards On R4

With the first government tenders for ID cards anticipated soon, File On 4 investigates the viability of the scheme tonight at 8.00. Sounds promising.

Troops In Northern Ireland

As promised two years ago, Operation Banner will end at midnight tonight. When British troops were deployed to Northern Ireland in 1969 some had been serving in Aden so recently that, as Kevin Connolly has reported this morning on Today, some of the posters they displayed asking rioters to desist were written in Arabic. Today, soldiers who've served in Northern Ireland are preparing to get out of Iraq. Is there a moral to this story, I wonder?

Brown's First Hundred: Day 34

Did you notice Gordon hanging on to the seat of Dubya's golf cart? Did you see how huge he looked in that suit when he brownbounced (new verb) off the plane to meet the Holy Potus? Weird, this bonding and signalling. The press pack has been poring over every twitch, stitch, dot and comma. The verdict seems to be that George fawned all over Gord while Gord kept his distance, though that was mostly to demonstrate a symbolic distance from Showbiz Tone. Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. You see, we're quietly edging away from Basra - a soldier on WATO said our troops would vacate the palace soon - pursued by yet another report about how desperate life has become for the people Tony and his Best Friend In All The World said they'd set free.

Someone said earlier that Iraq is Brown's poll tax - if he can kill it as an issue he'll break an unwanted link with his predecessor, as John Major did with Maggie T's most ruinous policy. Back home, though, there's a connection he seems determined to maintain. He may regret it. A parliamentary committee has found there's no more evidence supporting the case for longer terror suspect detention now than there was when Blair was knocked back on the issue. The Tories' Dominic Grieve was sounding very crisp about it on WATO. Would further curbing suspects' liberties work in Gordon's political favour, as he has surely calculated it would? If the Opposition gets it act together, it might end up quite a close call.

Scottish Colours

If UK government buildings in Scotland are required to fly the Union flag every day, Scottish Executive ones will be free to run up the Saltire instead. This was the reassurance given by Justice Jack on behalf of Britishness Brown the other day. Interestingly, culture secretary James Purnell remarked:

"The Union flag is a powerful symbol of both our heritage and modern, diverse Britain. It brings us together in solidarity and shared identity."

Except when it doesn't, that is.

[Subversive Saltire image lifted from here]

Asians & Britishness

A new ICM poll of British Asians for the BBC leaves obscure far more than it clarifies. No change there: surveys designed to measure relationships between particular ethnic groups and their identification with the nation in which they live are always mired in confusion because the terms they trade in mean such different things to different people. Here's one question that was asked:

"Thinking about your nationality, to what extent do you feel British?"

The answers received were that 28 percent felt "completely" British, 31 percent "a lot" British, 27 percent "a little" British and eleven percent "not at all" British. BBC Online duly announced that "more than a third of British Asians do not feel British," which is one way of describing the statistical glass (another being that it is two-thirds full). But what does feeling British signify to British Asians in the first place? Some of those Asians questioned might have taken it to signify being resident in Britain and having a British passport. To others it might have denoted certain long-standing customs, such as eating roast beef on Sundays or drinking too much beer. And so on. Responses would surely vary according to what each person questioned thought it meant to "feel British", a notion so abstract and subjective that it defies most peoples' efforts to pin it down, whatever their roots or ethnicity.

It's all nonsense anyway. The media and politicians' preoccupation with bigging up Britishness is a populist distraction from the more important business of building social solidarity. Patriotism and good citizenship often overlap but they are not the same thing. Some of the vilest and most divisive people in these islands boast loudly of their love of country. Give me fellow citizens who pay their taxes, lend me their hosepipe or feed my cats while I'm away and I couldn't care less how British they feel.