Praise for Liberal England

As Lord Bonkers would say, I am not one to blow my own trumpet. But in all the nominating for the Lib Dem Blog Awards and the Total Politics list, I have spotted some praise for Liberal England.

Paul Linford: "Well-written, funny and wistful, it's about time Jonathan Calder (Lord Bonkers) achieved wider recognition."

James Graham: "Still a great staple for commentary and odd miscellenia."

Mark Valladares: "still churning out great work. Besides, as Lord Bonkers' diary secretary, he should be preserved for the nation."

As Lord Bonkers would say, people are Terribly Kind.

August: Time to put missing children on the front page

It's August so it must be time for little Maddie to return to the front pages. Yesterday the Daily Mail had The 48 questions Kate McCann wouldn't answer - and the one she did. Today Metro has Girl told shopkeeper: My name is Maddie... And tomorrow's Daily Telegraph has Madeleine McCann 'was snatched by paedophile ring to order' on the front page. These stories are all nonsense. They all contradict one another. And tonight I heard the McCann's spokesman say that their daughter was always known as Madeleine within the family, not Maddie. But then as the Bulger case, where James became Jamie, the press is happy to rename a child to make them a more fitting victim. And there is no end to it. Last Friday there was a report that remains had been found on Saddleworth Moor. Immediately newspaper websites sprang into action with speculative reports and photographs of Ian Brady, Myra Hindley or Keith Bennett, the only one of their victims whose body has not been found. The Daily Telegraph excelled itself and pictured all three. Later the same day it was established that the remains were those of a sheep. Keith Bennett disappeared 44 years ago.

David Cameron was warned about Watford Tories

From A Lanson Boy:

I was ... in Watford for a visit by Ming Campbell a couple of years ago. Mr Oakley and a large number of other Tories tried to disrupt the visit. So far, common enough - if regretable. But their actions that day went well beyond what might be considered fair game. Their yelling and screaming was massively abusive and had no place in our politics. They constantly tried to disrupt every media interview and were obnoxious beyond belief.

After that visit, Ming wrote to David Cameron asking him to take action about Watford Tories. Unfortunately, Cameron ducked that opportunity to investigate and simply replied that such behaviour was what party leaders should expect.

Doubts about Uighur terrorism

My first reaction on hearing of the alleged bombing in Xinjiang was to wonder whether it had really happened. It was so convenient for the Chinese authorities that they should be seen as the victims of terrorism while the eyes of the world are on them.

Craig Murray shares these doubts - "It is entirely predictable that the Chinese government is responding by organising 'terrorist incidents' to try to blacken the Uighurs as part of Al Qaida. Do not be taken in by this rubbish" - and also explains the geopolitical background to the situation in Xinjiang :

The Uighurs are one of a swathe of Muslim peoples across Central Asia, who fell into the thrall of foreign Empires between the middles of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are at least eighteen of these identifiable and mostly Turkic ethnicities, running from the Chechens in the West to the Uighurs in the East.

About half the groups who fell under Russian, then Soviet, rule are now in "independent" republics named after Turkic ethnicities. But their political, cultural and religous freedom is still generally repressed as a consequence of continued domination by Soviet apparatchik elites who cling to power through ruthlessness. Meanwhile both Russia and China keep down the Turkic ethnicities within their borders through fierce and relentless brutality.

Writing on Comment is Free, Jason Burke is less dismissive but still has his doubts:

The East Turkestan Liberation Organisation appears to be a new name – and an odd one given its 1960s nationalist, third-world sound. Claims of responsibility, videos full of boastful rhetoric and the occasional attack do not reveal much of the reality of what is going on in Xinjiang.

Nor, sadly, do the claims of government officials.

Iain Dale brings forward voting deadline

If you have not yet nominated your Top 10 blogs, you now have only until Friday of this week to do so.

Iain Dale explains why he has brought the deadline forward.

Former Tory PPC for Watford convicted of hate campaign

The BBC reports:

A former Tory candidate has pleaded guilty to a campaign of harassment against his Liberal Democrat rivals.

Ian Oakley, who quit as a prospective parliamentary candidate in Watford last month, admitted five charges of criminal damage and two of harassment.

Oakley, of Ryeland Close, West Drayton, west London, asked for 68 other offences to be taken into account.

Sal Brinton, the Lib Dem PPC and one of the chief targets of Oakley's campaign, gives further details on Lib Dem Voice:

This campaign of intimidation included slashing of car tyres, graffiti (sexual and racist) sprayed on cars, homes, fences and posterboards, distribution of false and defamatory leaflets purporting to come from the Liberal Democrats and a range of other criminal acts aimed at intimidating Liberal Democrat supporters, councillors and candidates.

These incidents were of such a persistent and systematic nature that it became clear they were part of a sustained campaign, and that it appeared to be intended to influence and subvert the democratic process. Virtually all the targets lived in wards where we had made gains from the Conservatives.

It was also noticeable that damage to posters and vandalism was particularly targeted at houses on busy main roads, where the owners displayed Lib Dem posters at election time. The perpetrator would either leave behind a Lib Dem leaflet or poster board or write graffiti such as ‘F*ck the Lib Dems’ to intimidate people into not displaying posters in the future. Likewise, the false allegations appear to have been targeted at new and inexperienced candidates, with the apparent hope of discouraging them from pursuing their candidatures.

And Iain Sharpe points out:

It has been a sustained campaign of intimidation, aimed at subverting the democratic process - and which arguably has made the difference to the results of elections in Watford (we have failed to win seats by margins of 2, 3 and 47 votes in wards where our candidates and supporters have suffered criminal damage during the election campaign.

My own feeling is that no one who reads right-wing blogs will be that surprised by events in Watford. Some of the writers of those blogs, and many more of the people who comment on them, seethe with hatred and resentment of anyone who does not see the world their way. Perhaps the wonder is that we have not seen more of this sort of thing.

Sara Bedford repeats a number of blogs comments from the time Oakley was charged which sought to deny he had done anything wrong or make the whole affair a joke. I shall repeat one here, because it comes from a Tory PPC - Rachel Joyce from Harrow West:

‘Ian was nothing other than supportive, helpful and kind as a fellow candidate. The last few times I saw him he complained that he was having trouble with dirty LibDem campaigns. I would be amazed if he was really guilty of this but if it is true then I presume the stress of a nasty campaign would have got to him.’

In other words, it didn't happen but if it did it was all the Lib Dems' fault.

Our opponents like to accuse us of dirty tricks, so it is worth pointing out that we have been the victims in the two most outrageous cases to come to light recently - this one and the Miranda Grell affair.

Nor, as he admits, can Danny Finkelstein escape his share of the blame.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Dobbin goes to Henley

And so another week at the demi-Eden that is the Bonkers Hall Estate draws to a close.

Sunday

The tractor has made only slight inroads here on the Bonkers Hall Estate; for the most part I prefer to use shire horses to haul my agricultural machinery. One beast in particular has my undying admiration: after a full day’s ploughing, it enjoys nothing more than delivering Focus around the neighbouring villages. I will sometimes call by its stable in the evening for a word about the current political scene.

Why, I asked Dobbin, was Clegg not putting up a candidate in Haltemprice and Howden? If one of your chief opponents gets a rush of blood to the head and resigns from the House, you are under no obligation to smooth his passage back. Yes, we agree with him on 42 days and so forth, but then we agree with all sorts of people on all sorts of things. It does not stop us standing against them come election time.

Dobbin listened to all this with his head inclined and then replied: “Mr Clegg is a very clever man and I am sure he will decide what is best for the Liberal Democrats. All I know is that I must work harder for the party. Never mind Haltemprice and Howden . Tomorrow I shall be going to Henley to deliver lots more leaflets.”

It shows a wonderful spirit, of course, but I am not sure I shall give Dobbin my first preference this time if he decides to stand for the Federal Executive again.

Now read on...

Saturday: "Eeh! I could write a shuttleworth!"

Friday: Nick Clegg on the Lib Dem constitution

Thursday: The limits of wind power

Wednesday: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

Recess Monkey grabs Gove by the Nuts

I rather approved of Michael Gove's complaints about lads' mags yesterday. Their values are crass and it ought to be possible for a politician to criticise something without being assumed to be calling for it to be banned.

But now Recess Monkey had discovered that in April 2005 (in other words, in the run up to the general election at which he was first elected) Gove's constituency received a donation of £2000 from Red Fig Ltd.

And Red Fig is the company that helped launch Nuts TV.

A press release on its website gives a taste of the channel's output:

programming highlights include: Fit and Fearless, where young ladies, aided by spirit medium Ian Lawman, travel across the UK seeking out paranormal experiences and Britain’s Fittest Barmaid, which invites the Nation’s top pint pullers to show off their physical skills as they journey across the country.

Actually, that sounds rather fun. But let's leave the last word to Mr Gove:

"The images they use and project reinforce a very narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women. They celebrate thrill-seeking and instant gratification without ever allowing any thought of responsibility towards others, or commitment, to intrude. Thank you, a cheque will do nicely."

My latest New Statesman column

Another editon of Calder's Comfort Farm is up on the magazine's website:

Last time I visited the Statesman offices, Julian Clary was holding court. I elbowed my way through the crowd to congratulate him on the publication of his first novel.

Eyeing the broad acres of the inside back cover, I suggested he would soon be giving up his column.

“No,” he replied, “I like to keep my hand in.”

Jersey and other institutional abuses

Congratulations to John Hemming for establishing that children in care from Birmingham were sent to Jersey. He writes about the subject on his own blog, but the Mail on Sunday has more details:

At least five children were illegally placed in care on Jersey by Birmingham social services, which then lost track of them.

Four of the youngsters - who are now adults - are still on the island and have been traced by local police. But the whereabouts of the fifth, a male born in the Fifties, remains unknown ...

Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who discovered that his local city council had sent children to Jersey, believes other children from the UK 'were also placed in care there'.

The MP for Birmingham Yardley added: 'The Government has refused to order councils to check properly because it does not want to open a can of worms, on the links between abusers in England and Jersey.'

The newspaper goes on to say that Birmingham council discovered it had placed five children in foster care on Jersey because, at John's request, it checked old accounts. It found it made payments to Jersey for child care between 1960 and 1990. Yet a social work file survived on only one child.

Kevin Brennan, the schools minister, had told the Commons that checks are unnecessary because children from the UK cannot be placed in care in Jersey without a court order. Yet the five Birmingham children were sent to Jersey without such orders.

This blunt denial of the truth reminded me of the BBC investigation last week that found that sane women who were typhoid carriers were detained in a mental hospital in Surrey until as recently as 1992.

The report was impeccably researched and obviously true, yet:

The Department of Health told the BBC that there is not, and never has been, "a policy of incarcerating" anyone, in this context.

I suppose we should not underestimate the instinct of government to lie when its darker dealings are exposed to the light, but the explanation may be simpler than that. The workings of the state are now so vast and so convoluted that no one knows what is going on.

Now read Heresy Corner on Michael Gove's speech about the Conservatives' social policies:

It shouldn't be forgotten how much of the target culture started under the last Conservative government, which did after all introduce the national curriculum in schools, with its apparatus of centrally-controlled testing, and which also began the catastrophic culture of managerialism in the NHS.

It was the Tories, too, which emasculated local government, removing powers and imposing rate-caps. But all these trends have gone further, much further, under Labour.

And while the Conservative forerunners of such policies were means to an end, whether increasing efficiency or consumer choice, with Labour the opposite seems to be the case. Claims about efficiency and choice often seem to be mere excuses for the true motivation of ministers, the extension of state supervision into every nook and cranny of personal life.

Lib Dem Blog of the Year Awards 2008

Here we go again. Lib Dem Voice announces this year's Awards.

You have until the end of the month to nominate your favourite blogs in the following categories:

• Best new Liberal Democrat blog (started since 1st August 2007)
• Best blog from a Liberal Democrat holding public office
• Best use of blogging or social networking by a Liberal Democrat
• Best posting on a Liberal Democrat blog (since 1st September 2007)
• Best non-Liberal Democrat politics blog
• Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year

This blog was shortlisted for Blog of the Year in 2006 and 2007 but came up short both times.

And don't forget you have until 15 August to send Iain Dale and Total Politics your top 10 political blogs. Please mark your entries "1. Liberal England".

James Graham on Nick Clegg's leadership

Writing on Comment is Free, James Graham says:

I've been struck by how many people I have spoken to over the past few weeks – candidates, councillors and activists alike – who appear to be either demoralised or disenchanted with Clegg's leadership.

I wish I felt more motivated to disagree with him.

You will find James more often at Quaequam Blog!

Lord Bonkers' Diary: "Eeh! I could write a shuttleworth!”

Saturday

I was sorry to read of the death of the comic actor Hugh Lloyd: he was one of the Liberal Party’s celebrity supporters in the days when such creatures were indeed in short supply. What is now forgotten was that he had his own radio comedy – "Mind My Majority! – in which he played a hard-pressed agent.

Many young thespians – Maggie Smith, Albert Finney, Basil Brush, Rodney Bewes – first came to public notice in the show and, in its day, Lloyd’s catchphrases “Eeh! I could write a shuttleworth!” and “You’ll have the Acting Returning Officer to answer to!” were on the lips of every schoolchild.

Now read on...

Friday: Nick Clegg on the Lib Dem constitution

Thursday: The limits of wind power

Wednesday: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

BritBlog Roundup 181

Like a bird on The Wardman Wire.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn has died

BBC radio news is reporting the death in Moscow at the ago of 89 of the Russian novelist. Solzhenitsyn won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1970 and was an icon of resistance to the Soviet regime.

There is a self-penned profile of him on the Nobel Prize site.

Later. Monsters and Critics quotes the Russian news agency Interfax:

The world famous writer and historian had not been seen in public for months. He died from the aftermath of a stroke, according to unconfirmed information.

Solzhenitsyn's main work was the Gulag Archipelago in 1973, which described the years of Stalinist terror using thousands of details and individual cases.

The 1970 Nobel winner has reportedly been seriously ill for months.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: Nick Clegg on the Lib Dem constitution

Friday

In Westminster to settle some business before I leave for France, I come across Clegg in expansive mood.

“All those party committees. What is the point of them? When I decide it is a good idea to tell everyone how many sexual partners I have had, I don’t want a load of people in anoraks questioning my judgement.

"And what about David Heath? When I made up my mind to sack him for not abstaining on a referendum on the Nice Treaty because we wanted one on Britain’s membership of the European Union – albeit that we voted against one when someone else proposed it in the Lords – I just went ahead and did it. I didn’t want a lot of women with badges on telling me I was wrong.”

It is always a sign of danger when leaders get like this – and all do eventually, though it took even little Steel a few years. I recommend giving Clegg both volumes of The Open Society and its Enemies by my old friend Sir Karl Popper (he was Terribly Clever) to read.

And if that does not work we can always try hitting him over the head with them.

Now read on...

Thursday: The limits of wind power

Wednesday: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

Dudley Moore: Little Miss Britten

In the 1960s and 1970s it must have seemed clear that the two most important figures in the cast of Beyond the Fringe were Jonathan Miller and Peter Cook. Miller was in demand all over the world as a director of plays and operas, and Cook was an acknowledged comic genius.

The picture is not so clear now.

Miller is not much heard of now, and when he was interviewed by Radio 4 at the Millennium as a Great Man, he had no wisdom to impart. He seemed to be the eternal student, still picking holes in the question to show how clever he was.

Though Cook was at one time a prolific writer, his reputation among his friends seems to have rested chiefly upon his scintillating conversation. It is hard for later generations to understand quite why he was seen as such an important figure.

Meanwhile, Alan Bennett has been elected to the position of the nation's teddy bear, which fell vacant at John Betjeman's death. It is far more prestigious than the Poet Laureateship, which Betjeman also held.

And Dudley Moore was a brilliant musician who also became a Hollywood heartthrob.

Today's video is a parody of Benjamin Britten's folk settings for the voice of his partner and lover Peter Pears. It is written and performed by Moore with enormous skill, capturing both Britten's compositional style and Pears's singing style. Yet it also shows affection for its subjects.

It is also telling that a West End audience gets the joke so easily. It is hard to imagine a modern audience laughing so readily at a parody of Peter Maxwell Davies, Harrison Birtwistle or Thomas Ades, But then Britten, if not classical music as a whole, occupied a far more central position in British culture in those days. The first recording of his War Requiem was to sell 200,000 copies within five months when it was issued in 1963.

It is said that Pears and the notoriously thin-skinned Britten were offended by the title of this piece. And perhaps today we do detect a note of homophobia in it.

But attitudes change. Today, Britten's creative and sexual partnership with Pears would be celebrated, quite possibly to a tedious extent. While his habit of forming intense friendships with small boys would have landed him on the front page of the News of the World, if not in court.

Liberal England: Solid bronze

This blog has been voted the third-best Liberal Democrat supporting blog in the 2008 Witanagemot Club Awards.

It won't change my life.

Lord Bonkers' Diary: The limits of wind power

Thursday

One thing the aforementioned Dromgoogle was particularly keen on was wind power. I showed him the windmill on the Estate – it sits atop the highest hill, next to the Triumphal Arch celebrating Wallace Lawler’s victory in the Birmingham Ladywood by-election of 1969 – but he was not satisfied; wind turbines, he insisted, were the latest thing.

Well I had them installed and a fat lot of use they turned out to be. They cost a fortune to run – I hate to think what my electricity bill would have been if it were not for my treadmill and my hydro-electric plant – and I am not convinced that they made the wind a single jot stronger.

I had the thing demolished and Dobbin insisted on towing it to the nearest scrapyard (after he had finished writing a letter in praise of our then Leader to Liberal Democrat News).

Now read on...

Wednesday: Felicity Kendal's bottom

Tuesday: Irina breaks it off

Monday: Antibes Focus

Blogger gives me my blog back

Yesterday evening I logged into Blogger to be greeted with a message saying that Liberal England had been identified as a spam blog and would be deleted in 20 days if I did not request a review. In the mean time I could not post anything.

Surfing the net, it soon became clear that this was a widespread problem. The general theory was that Blogger's spambot had run amok and returned numerous false positives.

Blogger Buzz admits to the problem as follows:

While we wish that every post on this blog could be about cool features or other Blogger news, sometimes we have to step in and admit a mistake.

We've noticed that a number of users have had their blogs mistakenly marked as spam, and wanted to sound off real quick to let you know that, despite it being Friday afternoon, we are working hard to sort this out. So to those folks who have received an email saying that your blog has been classified as spam and can't post right now, we offer our sincere apologies for the trouble.

We hope to have this resolved shortly, and appreciate your patience as we work through the kinks.

The good news this morning is that I am allowed to post again, but the episode has brought home to me that I rely upon Blogger but have no control over its actions.