Apr
2
It was a compelling moment of live theatre which redeemed all those lugubrious hours of panel guest economic doom mongery which litters the news coverage at “this difficult time”.
Mark Thomas, comedian and political activist, unhindered by the need to mince words, was relishing the chance to expose the choicer nuggets of political reality underlying the morass of modern capitalism.
With each successive point, sharply put, Thomas merely highlighted the feebly pragmatic, sincerity-grade spin of the government, represented by the likeable Douglas Alexander, Secretary of State for International Development.
The absurdity of the free market, with all its attendant abuses, was honed to a rousing climax as Thomas pointed out that even government buildings had been sold off and that the Home Office itself was owned by an offshore company.
“we’re all paying rent to tax dodgers” Thomas boomed.
Douglas visibly reddened, Paxman chuckled longer than he ought, and for a moment the dynamic tension of the Newsnight Studio summed up the whole sorry story of our politics.
Some say it as it is, some would like to but have a job to do, and so many of the rest are too cynical to do more than sigh, or snigger at the sparring.
Mar
31
Can doing God do any good?
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The 21st Century is up for grabs and there are many individuals or groups, thinkers and ideologues who would have us buy in to their own vision of how the current mass hiatus of certainty can best be addressed for the world’s future.
Compass, for example, the UK campaign group of the democratic left, has growing support from both high profile politicians and respected journalists, and has made steady inroads into the disaffected ranks of Labour or would-be Labour supporters since its inception in 2003. In a sweeping gesture of the group’s democratic principles, it has thrown its own policy-crunching process wide open in a review encouraging the submission and debate of progressive ideas, with a spectrum of contributors ranging from academics and wonks to NGOs and unaffiliated individuals.
The emphasis from Compass and its contributing thinkers is, as you would expect, on the development and encouragement of greater justice, equality and sustainability, values consistent with survival on a planet faced with unprecedented threats of overpopulation and diminishing resources.
Unfortunately, not all new movements staking their claim for a place on the global platform seeking influence in the times ahead are so rigorous, unpartisan and rational.
Having first done his own bit in the neo-liberalisation of the western economic system which has gone so awry, Tony Blair has now set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, and with so much damage already done from one sphere, now purports a radically different approach to world problems.
In a recent article in New Statesman, the ex prime minister worryingly suggested that religious faith “could be of the same significance to the 21st century as political ideology was to the 20th”. Well let’s hope not.
At a time defined by the hardening of religious fundamentalism and its tendency to impose itself suppresively upon social and political systems, the notion of humanising the globalised world which Blair invokes, would surely be better served by extracting personal faith from the business of running things altogether.
Contrary to this, however, the Faith Foundation seeks to promote religion as a force for good, convinced that economics, politics and society, together with the issues of globalisation and the environment all need more input from the faith community rather than less.
All well and good as far as the foundation’s relief programme is concerned, bringing different faith communities together to help tackle malaria in Africa. It’s the encroachment into educational circles which is more of a concern.
With both an interfaith schools programme and the establishment of a university course at Yale, which is now seeking to expand its presence elsewhere, the Blair-branded “we must do God” school of thought is very much up and running.
Thankfully, there are signs of a response to this mission creep from the theists. The recent launch of The National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies is a clear recognition that to be non-religious can be a considered position with a developed set of ideals and values, and in a world where the gains of the enlightenment can no longer be taken quite so for granted, these secular infrastructures are a crucial counterbalance.
In fairness, Tony Blair’s motivation is based on all the conviction and benevolence of a missionary. But the idea of using religion, however well-intended the efforts to create a multi-faith front, as a tool to overcome intolerance and extremism seems inherently contradictory.
A faith is a faith is a faith, and at least part of that consists in absolute and exclusive certainty of the cause. The modern day dilutions and polite accommodations of other beliefs and dogmas by western liberal countries are another expression of political correctness and strongly resisted by those who see themselves as staying true to the essence of their faith. Just look at the current Pope. For all the vatican spin and diplomatic gesturing, nothing can conceal the pontiff’s fundamental resistance to other faiths and instinct to discredit the opposition.
Blair’s stated position is that religion can be a force for good and that interfaith co-operation and initiative are the planet’s best hope, but the flagship of his own foundation is to be a London-based centre oriented around the three Abrahamic faiths. He insists that Abraham House will be open to all, but despite his talk of creative thinking, fresh action and deeper understanding, it is difficult not to feel the fearful breath of the Abrahamic God on your neck. The one, to quote Richard Dawkins, who is “arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sado-masochistic, capriciously malevolent bully”.
In summing up his vision for the 21st century, Tony Blair speaks of spirit, ambition, social justice, conscience and the common good as if all these noble human characteristics would be compromised without a “full and proper recognition of the role that the great faiths can and do play”. That will be the Abrahamic faiths then. The ones with the scary God, as described above. In which case, God save us all….
Feb
22
The wistful fell runner - a cheerleaders view on the Carnethy 5, 2009
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As we all know, winters are not what they used to be. Even the uplands rising beyond the Forth valley in Central Scotland rarely see any snow worth mentioning these days and in recent years, the scheduling of an ever expanding calendar of organized outdoor events have inched further into traditionally less clement months without much need for worry about the risk of cancellation.
But this year’s snowstorms and freeze ups have provided a sharp reminder of our northern latitude and for all those participating in the Carnethy 5 hill race over the Pentland range south of Edinburgh, on the second weekend in February, it was the white stuff that was most likely to define the memories.
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1
Most of the route was white, though becoming as it eventually did, after the battering of a thousand traction-craving boots more a mucky line of brown porridge than anything pure and driven, as it rose, fell and twisted over the terrain.
I had traveled into the competition zone as mere cheerleader and documentarian for two friends who were taking part, having previously noted the harsh weather and declined the opportunity to participate myself. Given the sombre majesty of this winter’s day, with large sections of two reservoirs below the route still sheeted with thin bluish ice and the sequence of snowy tops running away into the mottled distance of Lanarkshire, I rather wished I had signed up after all, and was at that moment pinning a number to my windproof smock and limbering up for the off from some draughty marquee at the start point.
As it was, I cycled along the icy reservoirs to the Howe, a lonely house marking the furthest point of vehicular access and just main below the route’s final summit. Competitors would shortly be running, or stumbling, along this narrow section of glen before veering sharp right and upwards, following the shreds of tickertape wrapped round gateposts, tied to exposed bits of heather or staked into the ground, and marking the last climb up onto Carnethy hill.
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1
Today the Howe was a rather bleak spot. Race officials sat hunched in a landrover, Red Cross men glowed fluoresecent yellow from inside their white van and further along the flat bank of the burn, a solitary figure manned a tripod, with a large lens angled expectantly towards the hillside, soon to be dotted with descending hill runners careering headlong with reckless expertise. I later learned this was the outdoor film unit for BBC Scotland’s “The Adventure Show”. It was a compact team indeed.
I plodded up the track leading to Carnethy, indented at this point only with a handful of footprints and prepared to catch some pictures of the weary line as it beat its way upwards through soft snow for the fifth and final out of five times that afternoon.
Even as I gazed admiringly across the undulating route, from Scald Law and south west along the ridge to the tops of East and West Kip, the race leaders came into view just a few metres away. These two figures, comfortably ahead of the field, presented an impressive picture of outdoor winter endeavour as they moved steadily upwards across the snowy tussocks and on towards Carnethy summit.
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1
Looking down the short gulley from where the frontrunners had emerged, an unbroken line of multi-coloured figures snaked on backwards through the dirty snow and round the shoulder of the hill. Like refugees they came, in a variety of moods and bodyshapes; some animated and good-humoured but a great many just silently bent and enduring the task in hand. This was, after all, a 6-mile trek covering a total ascent of 2500 feet and in especially awkward underfoot conditions.
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1
For all that, the field was 500 strong and a striking testament both to the growing popularity of such elemental challenges, and the breadth of their appeal. The winner Rob Jebb crossed the line in 53 minutes, but some 100 minutes later, a sixty something also successfully completed the course and in so doing brought the 2009 event to a close.
And in truth, from behind my thermal layers, with a banana and an ipod safely stowed in in my knapsack should the need for sustainance or audio entertainment become urgent, I was a little jealous. Nature, I have always found, is best enjoyed live, unplugged, and even a little uncomfortable.
A Cheerleader’s View - The Carnethy 5, 2009 from jon Pullman on Vimeo.
Feb
11
Government goes all E-Queasy, again.
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In his rather flippantly titled article “Equasy” David Nutt, new chairman of The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, refers to “equine addition syndrome” and it’s responsibility for 100 deaths every year.
Professor Nutt, may be making a valid statistical point about the relative dangers of consuming ecstasy and horse riding, but his comments can only distract from the more serious issues of what is always a febrile and deeply polarising debate.
In this case, after a considerable amount of research and discussion from a thirty strong, and politically independent group of experts, the ACMD are recommending the downgrading of Ecstasy from class A, home of Heroin and Crack Cocaine, to class B, where it would join Cannabis, Amphetamines and Barbiturates.
On Monday, Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, led the all too predictable outpouring of clamorous censure at Nutt’s remarks, directing nothing less than a schoolmasterly scalding at the academic from the safety of the House of Commons, where she was guaranteed the warm glow of overwhelming support, and rendering the veto of the Council’s sage advice nothing more than a formality.
Defenders of the status quo refuse to acknowledge the obvious parallels with, say, speed limit offences, where punishment for contravention increases to reflect rising hazard. Indeed there is no other comparable political subject where reasoned thinking is so non-negotiably traded for the imperative of popular perception.
Above all, the government consistently falls backs to the “mixed messages” argument, somehow deciding that young adults, though trusted enough to vote, cannot distinguish between different categories of drugs. And it is, after all, only the categorisation of Ecstasy which is the matter in question here.
When it comes to the patronisation of “young and vulnerable” drug users, the voices of authority seem to want it both ways. In a recent radio interview, Ian Johnston, President of the Police Superintendent’s Association for England and Wales referred to the lack of sophistication of clubbers as a reason to avoid any downgrading of ecstasy, without considering that the very same naivety might lead to all Class As being regarded as equal. That I would suggest is a far greater danger.
In essence, evidence-based policy appears to be meaningless in such politically-charged territory as the misuse of drugs (the illegal ones at least) and with the latest dismissal of its findings, now begs the question of the ACMD’s very existence.
Feb
5
If there is but one thing in the post 9/11 world used to justify not just the piecemeal erosion of British civil liberties but the relentless dilution of its moral integrity, it is that piece of string of indeterminate length called “national security”.
First, a capitulation to the sneaky sheikhs of misogynistic, human-rights-free zone, Saudi Arabia over investigations into arms sale corruption with Bae Systems, and now, worse still, an unconditional surrender to the US over the revelation of torture evidence. In both cases, the threatened sanction for defiance being a suspension of supposedly vital intelligence cooperation.
Of course, any government’s prime duty is to protect the interests of the nation which it serves. In terms of the provision of jobs, this principle is under some scrutiny in the UK currently, with the contract tender scandal in Lincolnshire, the subsequent debate over European employment law and its ultimate impact on the welfare of indiginous workers, especially at a time of depress…err recession.
National security, however, is an altogether easier political matter to package up and sell. So much so, in fact, that people are assumed to be acquiescent in any executive decision making that claims to safeguard it. At the same time, the notion that truth and justice might carry some weight in the counter argument does not seem to be considered at all. Yet even Barack Obama himself, in his inaugural presidential address, mentioned the importance of not sacrificing ideals for security.
And from a US perspective why be so sensitive in any case. It’s a dog eat dog world after all. Alpha nations vie with each other for geopolitical advantage and control, and when the crunch comes, human rights, even moral decency, goes out of the window. Do the US authorities, whose remit, like that of all aggressors, be they totalitarian or imperial, includes recourse to state-sponsored cruelty really believe that a legal record of such will so inflame their enemies or so compromise the goodwill of their friends and allies that they must resort to such crude and manipulative forms of “diplomacy” to prevent its exposure?
Meanwhile, in it’s enforced assistance with America’s efforts to avoid political embarrassment, the UK government is left to invoke the same old theme. National security is that which cannot be contradicted, questioned or denied, but surely even a declared rationale behind how it is evaluated or a proper definition about what constitutes a threat (as long as this doesn’t weaken national security of course) would be something.
Jan
21
There are few issues I have witnessed on BBC’s Question time more emotionally polarizing than the most recent Israeli bombardment of Gaza. Even the normally robust chairmanship of Jonathan Dimbleby was briefly unequal to the flurry of rising hackles and bad-tempered heckles from the studio audience.
I can understand a contrary position if you are a fundamentalist Christian and therefore have a vested interest in watching biblical prophecy unfold (“have you not read your bible” was the retort of one Question Time audience member last week).
But that, and the blind holocaust sympathy vote aside, the readiness of decent, honest British citizens to proffer justifications for clearly disproportionate, and in some cases illegal, acts of warfare against civilians which in any other context would be condemned, quite baffles me.
It is a bafflement that only deepens in the context of Israel’s behaviour since it’s inception in 1948 and the religiously-sourced, supremacist ideology on which the state is built.
Defensive action taken by a nation to protect territorial integrity and the safety of its people is a legal right that few would dispute, but as the decades of defiance towards the UN, illegal settlements, and piecemeal annexation proceed, it becomes ever clearer that Israel seeks more than just the security of it’s internationally agreed borders. The raison d’etre of the Israeli state is predicated on a claimed historic entitlement to all of Palestine and it is this, not such feeble attempts at resistance that the Qassam Rockets of Hamas fighters represent which drives that country’s military agenda.
The overwhelming fact that demands to be acknowledged and which is frequently, knowingly, and therefore quite scandalously buried amid all the finger pointing and trading of blame for outbursts of violence is that Israel is an occupying power which remains in contravention of International Law.
While the world’s diplomats endlessly manoeuvre, and the initiatives come and go. While otherwise respectable politicians excuse the inexcusable and the aid agencies continue to plug what gaps they can, more West Bank settlements are built and become consolidated, and the slow strangulation of the region’s Arabs goes on.
Until the truth of Israel’s larger project is given proper focus, the agony of Palestinians will continue, it’s angriest people will persist in acting out what futile forms of resistant it can muster, and the propaganda-fuelled polarisation of public opinion will continue to rage.
The support Israel receives from the US and Britain may well perhaps reflect a deeper, darker instinct for solidarity with a supremacist agenda. It is this which has, after all, shaped the growth and prosperity of both these nations. But at least the conversation on such an intractable problem should take place against a background of knowledge not ignorance, of widespread familiarity with the reality and not the fog of deceptions and propaganda.
The US clearly stand as the biggest obstacle to such clarity and it is the sheer weight of it’s Israeli lobby, and it’s pervasive influence in those heady places of money and power that most determines America’s acquiescence in the behaviour of what is essentially a rogue state. A state which, as recent events show, can more or less act as it chooses, with impunity.
Such influence may yet lead to the future annexation of Palestine and an expanded American-backed militarization of adjacent Arab states, but there is some reason to hope, after Obama’s inaugural speech invoking ideals and principles as well as military might, that the core issue of the middle east will be properly acknowledged, its facts elucidated to the public at large, and an aggressive Israel dealt with for what it really is.
Nov
9
Lest We Forget - the universal battlefield from jon Pullman on Vimeo.
In October of this year, i took my elderly parents to Belgium. Like many of his generation, my father, having lived through a world war, retains a keen interest in the events and stories of both the global military conflicts which have come to define the 20th Century.
We shuffled round the war museum in Ypres, trudged through a stretch of surviving trench in the fields beyond the city, and with dusk falling, wandered silently between the gravestones of a cemetery dedicated to the fallen of the Great War.
Having visited these places, taken the pictures, and gathered the footage I decided to put together my own reflection on World War I, or “the war to end all wars” as it became known.
As often with projects of this sort, the scope widened out from the originating idea and become a more general observation on warmongering.
The means to conduct battle may have become more sophisticated, and the legal justifications to wage it more ideological, but the aberration in human collective behaviour which resorts so readily to killing other people as a way of resolving conflict persists. It is an instinct which shames us all, and especially so after the visceral horrors of our recent history.
At a time when we are encouraged to remember the particular sacrifices of our own countrymen in the defence of a perceived good, there is also an urgent need to consider the loss and waste of all the victims of war, and to recognise the reality of the greater battle; one which goes beyond patriotism and politics.
May
10
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Apr
30
Life in occupied Edinburgh
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1Today, a few words about a supermarket.
TESCO DOESN’T LOVE THE PEOPLE OF EDINBURGH!
I was instore at Tesco metro on Clerk street yesterday. More check-in than checkout, the till queues stretched backwards and deep into the aisles, where shoppers had to negotiate lines of lightly snoozing customers, and a basket-strewn floor to select the least guilty-looking Israeli pepper. The alarm system at the door exit was oversensitive, obliging the uniformed security man to further detain those lucky enough to have paid for their stuff and almost got clear of the place, only to have their bags subject to a further rummaging. But the long wait, parked beside toiletries and pre-washed salads provided adequate time to scrutinise the various suspended ad boards, urging you to save more efficiently, spend more conveniently, and, with the money that’s left, get insured with Tesco Finance.
But despite all those garish invitations to help manage our lives, and ease us through the labyrinth of consumer choice, Tesco doesn’t love us really. It loves profits and passing trade and opportunities for self promotion, but it doesn’t love us. It doesn’t give a monkeys about local traders, be they in booze Britain or South East Asia, but it does have time for local council planners, and pliable government officials. It does of course like docile Clubcard holders (an analysis of spending habits is, after all, a great way to get to know somebody better), but it really has a problem with anybody who dares think ill of their manners or motives, and worse still, gives vent to them. All of which simply encourages the subversive in me. How soon after starting to parade along the shopping forecourts of Tesco outlets with a placard denouncing the company’s muscular intolerance to criticism or handing out fliers with some politely stated facts and figures about the ramifications of its actions, and attitudes, before the corporate legal might of this global grocery giant raises its great clunking fist, in the conviction that it simply has no other option but to sue, and to sue BIG.
http://www.seapabkk.org/newdesign/newsdetail.php?No=852
Then onwards to Edinburgh’s west end. And oh, urban dislocation most magnificent! The sheer abeyance of the city’s main thoroughfares under the full assault of the current road works has become so bad that it’s actually rather good fun. I can think of no greater restriction on vehicular or pedestrian progress currently in force at the end of Princes Street than a full US occupation. With America having already invaded Scotland on account of its part in the long-suspected UK-wide incubation of Islamist terror, one could imagine the barriers and fencing along Shandwick Place and half of Lothan Road to be a security measure in an attempt to curb the upsurge in sectarian violence. Although intermarriage between Catholics and Protestants is not uncommon in recent times, the tensions aroused by a conspicuous and sometimes cavalier military presence seems to have stoked old enmities. Yellow-jacketed private security men, (with alleged links to Tesco) armed with plant machinery and very long bits of piping now patrol the buffer zones in between Russel Square and Queensferry Street, while overall control is being co-ordinated from the golf clubhouse at Murrayfield, the palatial headquarters of Edinburgh’s Green Zone.
Sitting on a window stool at Pret a Manger watching the steady stream of pallid faces sliding by, I am reminded of the exceptional stoicism of the Scottish people. And as they silently, grimly manoeuvre themselves from pillar to post, past all the chaos of a city they once called home I wonder if the promises of the coalition authority (under the auspices of TIE) will ever deliver effectively for a population it supposedly descended upon to liberate from its own penny-pinching resistance to change. A succession of platitudinous viceroys and medal-encrusted military chiefs have publicly committed themselves to infrastructure improvement in general and to the “That’s Right, Another Money Scandal” (TRAMS) project in particular. But it could be a long time coming and the final cost is anybody’s guess. The occupation it seems, could be with us for many more years yet, but as the defenders of such interventionism are prone to say, be it about the progressive policies of Margaret Thatcher or the West’s re-engineering of unfriendly countries, history will be a kinder judge. I Can’t wait.
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Apr
28
Cluster bombs, commercial imperative and the conundrum of national pride
Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
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So, one moment Gordon wants us all to salute the union flag and get a warm glow about Britishness, and the next you know he’s flying the St Georges Cross from outside his house in deference to English nationalism. Thing is, ignoring the Prime Minister’s desperate attempt to bat for both sides, whichever symbol or logo or ritual we gather around as a unifying statement of our collective identity, the object of our loyalty must surely first be something we are proud of.
While struggling with this concept, I have often reflected on the good fortune of having been born a Brit and it is true that, in the great scheme of things, we are remarkably prosperous and free and that the vast majority of alternatives are, by a variety of measures, quite shocking. But it is always worth remembering that this is despite, not because of the establishments of the day. It is only people of principle, energy and conscience who over the generations have sought to overcome the conforming pressures of blind patriotism and deference to tradition who have forced social progress and curbed the worst instincts of the powerful.
Various accidents of history, culture and geography have left us largely self-determined, well-fed and safe, but we should guard against trying to take too much credit for this. In response to the objection that Britain is only great off the back of centuries of bullying and exploitation, it could be pointed out that if we had not asserted ourselves in this manner, then somebody else would have instead, a similar argument to the one for selling arms to the Saudis. But while it may be true that we were the first to get the boot in, it doesn’t mean we should celebrate the fact. Defeat of Hitler might be an honourable exception, but then it’s the Russians who deserve the greatest thanks for that.
Perhaps this covert understanding lies beneath a certain reluctance of the English to overindulge in Morris dancing or other similar behaviour, yeomanly bastions of the green and pleasanter places aside, when it’s own national day arrives. Even St Patrick is more indulged than St George on English soil, although this may be more the result of a commercial conspiracy involving Guinness rather than any intrinsic merit or admiration of the Irish. France has its bastille day, and Scotland has its Burns but these countries do have some cause to celebrate an act of defiance here , or a liberation from oppression there without accusations of supremacism or the creepy hint of triumphalism. Certainly, there is a default stability to our lives, and for that we must be thankful, but the small print on each renewal of our contract with the State is always worth studying, lest we sign away too easily what has been centuries in the making. And it is vigilance to this, rather than mutual congratulation on the status quo which I suggest should exercise us most.
The abolition of the 10p taxband, to those who cared to think it through, always seemed unduly harsh on the hard up, and the government is now appearing ingenuous in its “whoops, didn’t really notice that, but look how we are prepared to listen when it is pointed out to us…” approach to an enforced and embarrassing reconsideration. There’s a horrible suspicion that the most likely losers of this tweak in the national housekeeping were not considered electorally significant, besides which they were assumed to be too busy keeping body and soul together, or struggling to understand English, to even notice. Ministers could not have expected their fellow party MPs to champion the cause of the poor with such determination.Not in these days of corporation-friendly New Labour. And now it’s the turn of the nation’s well-heeled financial speculators to feel the pinch. But paying off the banks to soften the rebounding blow of their own headlong avarice with taxpayers money might be even trickier to negotiate with the defenders of fair play.
Then there’s our steadily ebbing justice system. Even a Times correspondent usually more than happy to express his contempt for the berobed peddlers of political Islam was moved to dismay by the recent incarceration of London-born sparky turned ranting apologist for Jihad, Abu Izzadeen. Regarding the latter, anybody who heckles John Reid cant be all bad, and I have considerable sympathy with his indignation about the sacking of Fallujah, among other acts of monumental US heavy-handedness, but the idea of an undemocratically imposed caliphate right here in the UK is a major point of disagreement between myself and the moslem radical formerly known as Trevor Brooks. Still, however distasteful and misguided the man, his only “crimes” were of thought and speech, and for what he said, and for how he said it, he has now been landed with a four and a half year prison sentence.
But just as the law must be dispensed overzealously in order to protect national security, so for the same cause it must also sometimes be suspended, it seems. The Serious Fraud Office, the Attorney General, BAE systems and Prince Bandar should all be tied up together in a large sack, but the full implications of their corruption stramash are grave indeed. If judgements of the highest figures within our judiciary, whose independence from the executive is, after all, an absolute cornerstone of our democracy, are considered dispensable on matters whose legitimacy is finally determined by government, then the wheels are well on their way to coming off the constitutional wagon. Apart from the astonishing deference to blackmail as a means to manipulate the laws and policies of another sovereign country, experts have poured scorn on the notion of Saudi Arabia being in the habit of sharing intelligence with us in any case. If it did, 9/11 should surely not have? Which leaves us with good old commercial interest at the bottom of it all.
And of all the current examples of this country’s venality, its prioritisation of economic interest and its mollification of corporate will, the arms trade is probably the least defensible. Even if you accept the role of modern government as an amoral facilitator of economic growth, a mere rubber-stamper for UK plc, lethal weapons of war, especially the more indiscriminate ones, should be handled with care. And certainly, when a global movement takes wing to phase out, or ban the worst of these, one ought to expect Britain, a country, after all, whose leader exhorts us to be proud of what it represents, to be part of it. Unfortunately this is not the case. A conference in Dublin next month will seek to sign off a treaty banning the use of cluster bombs, and the UK, together with a handful of other western countries is currently seeking to weaken the terms of its application.
Cluster munitions are supposed to be deployed only in combat areas free of civilians but however well intentioned the armies of those that use them might be, the reality is that modern warfare is largely undertaken in civilian environments, and that given the high rate of undetonated bomblets, this is ordinance that effectively amounts to uncontrolled mine laying. As such it continues to kill innocent people long after the end of “legal” hostilities. On this occasion, one can only grimace at the militaristic impulse which continues to define every stitch of the flag, be it the St Georges cross or the butcher’s apron itself, and wish the MoD and its agencies anything but the best of British in seeking exemptions for continued use (and sale) of this awful weapon.
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