Barry Stocker on Liberal Vision looks at the ideas of the American liberal philosopher John Rawls. He is a blind spot as far as I am concerned: I am more of a Mill, Popper and Rorty man.Lynne Featherstone writes about the Coalition government's decision to outlaw wheelclamping on private land: "As soon as I became a Home Office minister with wheel clamping as part of my portfolio, I was deluged by letters from other MPs (representing their constituents) asking when we would do something about rogue clampers."
"The Russians call it Kompromat - the use by the state of sexual accusations to destroy a public figure. When I was attacked in this way by the government I worked for, Uzbek dissidents smiled at me, shook their heads and said "Kompromat". They were used to it from the Soviet and Uzbek governments. They found it rather amusing to find that Western governments did it too." Craig Murray thinks he knows what is behind the accusations against Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
Blood and Treasure harvests the insights of Listening to Britain, a compilation of reports on domestic morale produced by the Ministry of Information in 1940: "Mr Attlee’s cap is depressing picturegoers." "Amongst all classes, dislike of Belgians is growing." "Glasgow is generally bewildered."
England's batting collapse this morning has little consequence for the Ashes this winter, argues The Corridor. Phew!
Liberal Burblings marks the passing to two veteran television series from Yorkshire: Last of the Summer Wine and Heartbeat. I never found the former very funny, but grew to like the latter if only for the chance of hearing a Spencer Davis Group rarity. Heartbeat was also interesting when it started as in those days the legacy of the 1960s was a subject of contentious debate.
England is not Scotland, so Lynne Featherstone's argument that in England ticketing illegally parked vehicles will work and that residents and businesses will set up barriers just as has happened in Scotland doesn't automatically follow. Lynne's blog has collected a huge amount of evidence, some of which is being followed by formal submissions (and it seems that the quoted consultation by the previous govt didn't reach the parts affected). Start again, Lynne, please.
ReplyDeleteA very long time friend of my family (now sadly deceased) lived in Last of the Summer Wine's patch - my mother, who knows the area very well, watched it avidly while still capable, so true to life there. (Yes, much of my family is sadly deceased without issue - we are dying out.)
That Craig Murray post you link to is certainly not his finest hour.
ReplyDeleteHe doesn't seem to appreciate the irony of trying to blacken the character of one of the women involved by telling us that among other things she is "a feminist lesbian who owns lesbian night clubs" when he himself was the victim of baseless sexual smears.
I don't appreciate the irony either, because I don't think that two wrongs make a right (since Assange was treated shabbily by Expressen, Mr Murray seems to think he can treat this woman shabbily). I don't know about the UK, but in Sweden it is bad press ethics to provide irrelevant details such as skin colour or sexuality about people involved in a criminal investigation.