SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency) has launched today. No doubt they’ll lock up all the naughty criminals, probably without trial. In fact, they might just start detaining people at birth, or killing everyone with a padded jacket. After all, from a flashy (expensive) looking press-room, Mr Blair annoucned they’re going to make life ‘hell’ for ‘Mr Bigs’. The easiest, most-efficient way to do this is to shoot or detain everyone who looks a little bit dodgy. So that’s probably what’ll happen.

And they have a fantastically New Labour target: “To reduce harm”. Prove they’ve suceeded or failed at that!

But what about all the criminals who aren’t serious? What about those who are just killing people for a bit of a laugh? They’re going to thrive! Poisonous custard-pie throwings a-go-go! I think the government have missed a trick… and made an appropriate acronym: After all, crime is all a bit of a political sport to Mr Blair.

Mr Blair has apparently admitted that announcing that he wouldn’t serve a fourth term in office was a mistake. From the Beeb:

He said: “What happened when you get into your third term and you are coming up to your tenth year is that it really doesn’t matter what you say, you are going to get people saying it should be time for a change.

“This speculation, I think, probably would happen whatever decision you take.

“Now, it was an unusual thing for me to say but people kept asking me the question so I decided to answer it. Maybe that was a mistake.”

So is he finally admitting that he’s done something strategically wrong? Well, no. The PMOS has come out, all guns blazing, with a ‘What he meant to say’ statement:

What he had intended to say was, she said: “It was a mistake… to believe that the announcement would kill off the speculation as to when I would resign.”

Except, clearly not, as he had a fully formed sentence there already. But hey. The slightly ridiculous thing is that what Mr Blair says no longer seems to tally with, well, what Mr Blair actually says. Just a couple of weeks back, Nick Robinson discovered this problem. He looked through the official transcript of the Prime Minister’s monthly press conference to find when he had said this:

Look as you say I am hopeful we will get the vast majority of Labour MPs behind us, in fact I am absolutely sure we will get the vast majority. The question is whether we manage to get enough to get it through with Labour votes alone. But in a sense the issue is doing the right thing for the country, it’s what the country expects and of course I want to do it with Labour MPs in full support. Look I think this is a very, very critical issue for the Labour Party for its instincts, for what it’s about, for what it is trying to do.

He had said it, it was there on tape. But the official transcript said:

I think I have said what I have said on Guantanamo. And on the first part, you know if you look at the school system at the moment…

Now, there’s always a good place for corrections and clarifications. They’re an important part of everyday life. But when you are making them up (as seemingly with the first) or just not acknowledging that a change has been made (as with the second), you’re getting into very, very dodgy territory.

Last Tuesday, a little more than three years after the first strikes against Iraq, Mr Blair gave a foreign policy speech. I’m not one for deconstructing speeches at great length, but he has said a few things I disagree with.

the defining characteristic of today’s world is its interdependence

That, to be frank, is bollocks. Mr Blair isn’t interested in interdependence. In fact, he want to lose the interdependence that’s been foisted upon him, as he doesn’t want to have to rely on other countries for supplies of, well, anything – least of all, oil. And in many ways, that’s sound foreign policy. The world is an unpredictable place, you can never be sure that your friends today will be your friends tomorrow. So to start waffling on about ‘common global policy based on common values’ is utter rot. The peoples of the world are never going to have common values. People are always going to think different things; the challenge is to live alongside one another, not to try and make everybody adhere to the same ‘common values’.

He says we shouldn’t ‘extremism, conflict or injustice go unchecked’. Whose extremist, whose conflict, and whose injustice? We don’t have ‘common values’. One man’s extremist is another’s moderate. And if we’re not letting conflict go unchecked, who’s checking up on the Iraq war? And what’s injustice? There’s plenty of that in this country. Our value system says that treating the poor worse than the rich is less terrible than treating women worse than men. Perhaps those in the Middle East disagree. That doesn’t mean we should carpet bomb them, it means we should discuss (celebrate?) our differences.

The consequence of this thesis is a policy … that is active not reactive.

We’re now admitting to bombing countries based on what they might do in the future. Whatever happened to that one ‘common value’ of innocent until proven guilty?

This world view – which I would characterise as a doctrine of benign inactivity – sits in the commentator’s seat, almost as a matter of principle.

Would we not rather benign inactivity than malignant activity, the logical conclusion of which is a world permanently at war?

The easiest line for any politician seeking office in the West today is to attack American policy. A couple of weeks ago as I was addressing young Slovak students, one got up, denouncing US/UK policy in Iraq, fully bought in to the demonisation of the US, utterly oblivious to the fact that without the US and the liberation of his country, he would have been unable to ask such a question, let alone get an answer to it.

And, perhaps, if we in this country had this ‘pro-active’ stance whereby we attack anyone we don’t feel quite fits into the ideals and values we hold true to ourselves, then Mr Blair may not have been able to mock such a student. Attacking a country provokes a response from that country and its allies. Hitler learned that around about 1935, when he decided that Poland didn’t quite fit into his world vision. When will Blair realise it? When will it ‘click’ for him that ‘pro-active’ warfare is nothing short of a race to world instability? And why does he feel he can engage in such activity, and yet roundly denounce similar action in the Israel – Palestine conflict?

Ministers have been advised never to use the term “Islamist extremist”. It will give offence. It is true. It will. There are those – perfectly decent-minded people – who say the extremists who commit these acts of terrorism are not true Muslims. And, of course, they are right. They are no more proper Muslims than the Protestant bigot who murders a Catholic in Northern Ireland is a proper Christian. But, unfortunately, he is still a “Protestant” bigot. To say his religion is irrelevant is both completely to misunderstand his motive and to refuse to face up to the strain of extremism within his religion that has given rise to it.

Yes, but you would call him ‘Protestant’, not ‘Christian’. Just as the KKK were the KKK, and not ‘Christian’. Why, then, associate a whole religion with the terrorists rather than being more specific? The answer is straightforward: The majority of the electorate identify with Christian values, and so to attack Christianity is to attack the electorate. Only a minority identify with Muslim values, and it’s politically convenient to associate a religion with the cause, rather than to deal with the underlying issues. You would never class the actions of that Northern Ireland Protestant as religious, but rather as political. To class the actions of Muslims as political gives them a degree of validity, which means they have to be argued against and tackled. That’s hard. Much easier to say ‘Muslim bad’, and demonise the set of people, then the majority, believing as they are told to believe, will support any action against ‘the baddies’.

I recall the video footage of Mohammed Sadiq Khan, the man who was the ringleader of the 7/7 bombers. … There was something tragic, terrible but also ridiculous about such a diatribe. He may have been born here. But his ideology wasn’t. And that is why it has to be taken on, everywhere.

But by ‘taking it on’, Mr Blair means criminalising it, killing it. Not reasoning with it. Not arguing the points on their merits. Is it wrong to say that the West persecutes Muslims? No, there’s evidence of it in the newspapers most days. Is the right response to attack Britain? No. But does that mean we should simply destroy the West-hating ideology, or that we should rather engage with it, tackle the issues, and move forward?

This terrorism will not be defeated until its ideas, the poison that warps the minds of its adherents, are confronted, head-on, in their essence, at their core.

Yes! Yes! Yes!

I mean telling them their attitude to America is absurd; their concept of governance pre-feudal; their positions on women and other faiths, reactionary and regressive;

No! No! No! You don’t ‘defeat ideas’ by telling people that they’re wrong. You explain to them. You let them make their argument, and you engage with it, recognise the kernel truths, and point out the flaws. Terrorists know Mr Blair finds their beliefs abhorrent – that’s the raison d’etre behind their terrorism. How’s that approach going so far?

It is the age-old battle between progress and reaction, between those who embrace and see opportunity in the modern world and those who reject its existence; between optimism and hope on the one hand; and pessimism and fear on the other.

This just returns to the original point: Why should all the world be the same? Why can’t we have some nations we would view as ‘progressive’, and some we wouldn’t? Who are we to cast judgement over the beliefs and values of those so far removed from ourselves?

Anyway, enough from Blair. A couple of Grauniad folks have had their say on the speech, and they know rather more about these things than I. Dan Plesch, like me, thinks he’s wrong. Harry Hatchet thinks he’s right. Perhaps I’m wrong, and Harry’s right. I’m really in no position to judge.

But something that’s clear to me is that this is all political bickering. It’s undoubtedly essential bickering, deciding the future foreign policy of the country, but, as with most policies in politics, it’ll be changed by this time next year. One thing that won’t change is the reality of the situation for people who’ve lived it. People like Karzan Sherabayani. For him, Iraq isn’t a three-year problem, it’s a thirty-year one.

One of the most powerful pieces of television I’ve seen in a long time is his seven-minute report on his return to Iraq, after exceptionally cruel treatment under Saddam’s regime. It was first shown on More 4 News on Monday, then on Channel Four News on Tuesday. You have the ability to watch it any time, here. Please, please do watch it. Iraq shouldn’t be about politics, it should be about people. And Mr Sherabayani really brings this home.

It appears that Mr Blair will, this evening, get his education reform bill through the Commons. Lucky him. He’s also not going to see anything like the huge rebellion some think he will – as far as I can see, he’s not going to have any huge haemorrhage of support. That seems hugely unlikely. He’ll certainly still get a majority of his party – more like two-thirds, if not more.

Of course, if David Cameron wanted to play nasty, he could have some sudden epiphany, and do a complete U-turn, and not support the bill. Then there’s a reasonably high chance that it would not be passed (though that would still take a Labour rebellion of 35), and Blair would pretty much be forced to resign. It’d do some damage to the Conservative party temporarily, but a limited amount, especially as it would barely make it into the news cycle if Blair resigned. But I very much doubt he’d ever do that, or even that he could – a lot of Conservative MPs are very much in favour of the Bill, and probably wouldn’t stick with a change in party line.

So this crucial vote isn’t really so crucial. Only if forty or so Labour MPs rebelled would it cast doubt on Blair’s leadership, and that’s not going to happen. At least, I highly doubt it. We’ll find out in a few hours, I guess.

Update
Heck, I didn’t think he’d get 40 MPs rebelling, and it turns out he had 51. Shows how much I know. But he did get his timetable proposal through, so that somewhat lessens the blow. Probably not in the Mail, though, I’d imagine.

The Times’s Ann Treneman has successfully diagnosed the problem with our Health Secretary, Pat “crazy lady” Hewitt:

PATRICIA HEWITT is suffering from a medical condition in which she says the opposite of what is true. Those close to the Health Secretary accept this and have learnt to cope. So when Pat says “the sun is shining” they know that, in fact, it is bucketing down and to take an umbrella.

Yesterday she tackled Sir Nigel Crisp’s abrupt departure from the NHS by heaping praise on him. Hearing this, we all assumed he had been pushed.

She spoke of him in the kind of hushed tones that many people would reserve for an extraordinary pet: a parakeet that could knit jumpers, for instance, or dog that could speak Japanese. “Under his leadership,” she said, her voice lapping upon us like the gentlest of waves, “we have seen extraordinary improvements — record improvements — in the performance of the NHS.”

This made us realise things were worse than we had thought. MPs exchanged looks of incredulity. The Tories were rustling like rats in a pantry. “Retired! Retired!” they muttered, eyes wide with wonder. Ms Hewitt pretended this wasn’t happening.

She has now perfected the art of acting like all three wise monkeys at once: she sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil. If she isn’t careful, she might get a reputation for being vacuous.

Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, was spluttering. Mr Lansley looks a bit like the mild-mannered Barney Rubble from The Flintstones. Yesterday, though, he managed something approaching anger as he tried to extract the truth out of Ms Hewitt about the ever rising NHS yearly deficit.

This proved as difficult as getting a tooth taken out by an NHS dentist. Ms Hewitt was wearing a giant fake flower on her lapel. All new Labour women have these (I assume a mail-order catalogue is involved) and the Health Secretary owns several. Yesterday she had on a pink peony that was as large as a bread plate. As she came under attack from all sides of the House about the deficits, the peony began to tremble with outrage.
We knew the finances were out of control because she kept insisting she was getting a grip on them. Mr Lansley charted the deficit in remorseless detail. First she said it would be £200 million.

But, after six months, she admitted it was closer to £620 million. So what was the real figure? Was it not now approaching £800 million?

She sat, lips pursed, peony poised for battle. Mr Rubble wasn’t letting her off the hook. Was she going to take responsibility for this? Or, he asked slyly, did Sir Nigel have to take the blame? “Perhaps he doesn’t yet appreciate to what extent he is going to pay a last service to the National Health Service, or at least to the Secretary of State, in acting as fall guy for the lack of financial control in the NHS.”

Her voice was deadly calm now. She praised Sir Nigel for being “outstanding”. (It sounds so damning when she says it.) Then, in what doctors are now saying is as close to a miracle cure as has been seen for her condition, Ms Hewitt admitted things were not utterly fantastic. The House erupted in hoots of laughter. Things are, obviously, very serious indeed.

I’ve always known there was something wrong…

Council Tax is rising by a predictable amount – probably as low as it could possibly ever rise by, given that it primarily funds people’s salaries.  But if one more person goes on TV claiming it’s a stealth tax, I think I’ll scream.  It’s by far the most publicised and debated tax we pay.  It’s forever in the media.  It’s about as stealthy as taking your pet elephant round Tesco, having previously taken it to get its hair dyed orange.  It’s not in anyway stealthy.  So to call it a stealth tax is positively ludicrous.

MPs have voted to ban smoking in all pubs and clubs in England. This is a tough one for me, because I’m very much on the fence on this issue. But, for the record, I don’t smoke, and I don’t like people smoking around me. That just doesn’t necessarily mean I want it banned.

As a healthcare (apparently) professional, I should be jumping up and down at the prospect of people not smoking in pubs and clubs, and raving about how this legislation will save people’s lives, and reduce the rate of lung cancer and other smoking-related diseases. But I have my reservations. Yes, this will undoubtedly stop some casual smokers from smoking, and possibly thereby stop other people who might start as casual smokers from ever starting. It will also protect staff from the effects of passive smoking. Some lives will inevitably be saved.

But what about the (stereotypical) poor household, where dad would wander down to the pub for a pint and a smoke each evening? Is he not now going to smoke more at home, and do more damage to his poor kid?

And what of the heavy smokers, who are those most at risk of disease? This legislation is unlikely to change their habits. And what of the little villiage pubs? Is the local PC really going to Plod round there and slap a fine on them for failing to ban smoking? Especially if PC Plod himself smoke, or the consolidation of police forces means that he’s out of a job and the nearest police station is fifty miles away? Will the problem not increase in these ‘underground’ pubs, where more people are potentially at risk as the pub serves as the hub of the community, and people are in there more often than the trendy wine bar in the city?

On top of all of that, it’s another government dictat, which are inevitably controversial, and shift the balance of power further away from the people who elected the government in the first place. My argument throughout this saga has been that if pubs are brave (like Wetherspoons briefly was), then they’ll ban smoking. If there’s such a demand for non-smoking venues, then their business will increase, and other pubs will be economically forced to follow suit – including the little villiage pub, who would be introducing the change off their own back, and so be more inclined to make the ban stick. This would be a gradual change, which would change the public’s and smokers’ attitudes to smoking in general, and would probably have more far-reaching effects than simply banning smoking in these areas. Smoking would become increasingly socially unacceptable, which is a powerful force in getting people to give up.

So, whilst the ban is clearly a good thing in that it will save lives, I’m still not convinced that it was the best way to tackle the problem. But it’s a way, and it looks like it’s here to stay.

Yesterday was a fantastic day for Mr Brown. Tony Blair’s stranded thousands of miles away, so the Crown Prince gets to make one of the most important speeches of the political season, get incredibly controversial legislation throught Parliament comfortably, and then get praised by nearly all the papers this morning. It seems too good to be true; and in politics, if it seems that way, it usually is.

Perhaps I’m just too cynical, but it seems rather suspicious to me that in the week that Mr Brown apparently steps up his campaign to take over as leader, and with relations between the PM and the Chancellor apparently smoothed over, he should get this golden opportunity. Just the other day, Charles Clarke came out with a carefully co-ordinated and calculated statement that the two neighbours were now sharing the Prime Ministerial role, then Mr Brown gets to make a hugely important speech on security which is, in reality, way outside his remit as Chancellor, and now he gets to head up one of the most important (though very clearly winnable) votes of the year so far. And anyway, in the event of the PM’s absence, surely it should be his deputy that steps into the limelight. That’s kinda what he’s there for. Not that tradition and the constitution normally count for much in the Blair world.

It even makes me somewhat suspicious about Mr Blair’s big loss of a few weeks ago. Labour doesn’t lose votes like this. Could it have been a choreographed attempt to show Mr Blair as losing control, in contrast to yesterday’s vote supposed to show that Mr Brown is well in control of the party? Stunts like this would certainly make the transition of power easier, and isn’t a smooth transition what they both want?

Some people have been getting rather het up (to say the least) over the publication of twelve cartoons of the Prophet Muhammed. But how can I, in good conscience, post something as potentially offensive as this, and then not post a cartoons like this? To do so would be to say that I respect the beliefs of Muslims above those of Christians, and that’s simply not the case.

I never post with the intention of offending people. So whilst I wholeheartedly apologise for any offence caused by the cartoon, but simply cannot apologise for publishing it here. I accept that it’s against the Muslim religion to depict Muhammed, let alone belittle him in cartoons. But it’s equally against the Christian religion to depict Jesus as a skimpily-clad camp guy doing a Gloria Gaynor impression. As much as it is the right of the holders of those beliefs to follow their relgion in their own way, I have the right not to follow the rules of their religion. If people are offended by my choice, then they equally have the right to challenge my saying it, and even to mock me if that’s what they want to do. But nobody has the right to stop me, or anybody else, from saying something they believe in order to stimulate debate and discussion.

In this particular instance, I’m merely using the cartoon to illustrate a point. I have to say that I think the imagery appears to me to be somewhat offensive. But that’s not stopped me publishing imagery which may be offensive to followers of the Jewish faith for purposes of discussion. In such cases, posting the image clearly does not imply agreement therewith, but merely faciliatates discussion.

As I’ve already said, I intend to offend no-one. That probably can’t be said for the writers of comments on this site, such as this. Clearly, I tend not to agree with the assertion that I am a ‘little shit’ or a ‘fucked up prick’, yet I don’t feel the need to censor the writer’s (misguided) beliefs, but merely debated the finer points of her argument. Was I able to do this without resorting to anger because I’m a really calm guy, or just because I’m certain of my beliefs? Perhaps if shakier beliefs of mine were challenged, then I would have more difficulty in responding, and so feel more angry towards the challenger. Whatever else is said, violent aggression from the defendent can only ever damange his cause – especially when that cause is a basically peaceful religion.

Update
After several requests, I’ve now put the full set of cartoons online here. Please feel free continue to use this page for discussion of them.

Update
For the sake of sensible, reasonable discussion, I’ve removed the cartoon which previously appeared on this page. Read all about why I’ve done that here, and rest assured that you can still view all of the cartoons on this page of the site.

Evidence has been revealed this evening that Mssrs Bush and Blair decided to go to war on January 31st 2003, despite the abscence of another UN resolution. Of course, we all pretty much knew that anyway, but it’s going to be on the front pages for a little while again, mainly because this is further evidence that Mr Blair lied when he repeatedly said no decision had been taken. And there’s the unfortunate photo, right, of them following the meeting where they decided to kill tens of thousands of people, which instead looks more like the engagement-announcement sequel to this.
Earlier this week, the 100th British soldier killed during this war gave his life for someone else’s country. The greater tragedy is that we’ll never know when the 100th, 1,000th, 10,000th, or 100,000th innocent Iraqi civilian was killed, because we never bothered even trying to count.