CentreRight

"Holocaust"

Israel's Deputy Defence Minister made a statement this morning in which he remarked that Israel would intervene militarily in Gaza if rocket attacks continue.  The remarks were widely reported by English language media as having included the threat or promise of a "Holocaust" in Gaza if such a course of events took place.

I don't speak Hebrew.  But Tom Gross wrote a strong piece over at the National Review, in which he stated that the Hebrew word "shoah" means "disaster", rather than "Holocaust" - for which the word is "HaShoah". 

You don't have necessarily to agree with Gross's conclusion that the mistranslation was perhaps deliberate to realise the gravity of such a mistranslation.  As a result of his piece, I gather that a number of outlets pulled the term "Holocaust" from their headlines.

Whilst, as I say, one needn't accept the notion that the initial mistranslation was deliberate, the continued retention of the term in online articles when the controversy has been made clear obviously is deliberate.

I therefore find it interesting and telling that, at the time of writing, a full news day after Gross's piece was posted, the BBC has pulled its "Holocaust" headline (so obviously knows about the issue) but is still stating in the body of their article on the issue that the the Minister's remark can properly be translated as him having promised a "Holocaust."

Hat tip: Jeremy Brier

It's as if Tony Blair never happened

Britain's best mainstream media blogger - Benedict Brogan - has noticed that red is back in a big way at Labour's Spring conference:

"The hall is decked in red, the fonts are red, the backdrop is red, the chair of the NEC is in a vivid red dress with a spangly necklace, and Hazel Blears has red hair, red cheeks and a hunting pink jacket. The message? Death to the racist, right-wing Tory toffs. Of course, I'm paraphrasing her speech a bit, but if you ever start believing this new politics nonsense, have a read of what she had to say just now. It's not just the stuff about Boris being a "nasty right-wing elitist" with "criminal friends", it's her riff about a string of Tories - Howe, Pickles, IDS, Hague - which is turns into a rant against Gordon's new friend Margaret Thatcher and her achievements. "The Tories haven't changed, they're the same tax-cutting, service-slashing, anti-European right-wingers they always were".

Other proofs:

The biggest nationalisation in British history.

Labour MPs singing The Red Flag outside Parliament last week.

Hazel Blears' nasty attack on Boris.

Class war against the Conservative leader.

Labour MPs signing an EDM praising Cuba.  With Harriet Harman leading the way.

It really is as if Tony Blair never happened.

Scary Stuff

In a final effort to try and salvage her faltering Presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton has gone on the air with what must be the scariest ad of this Presidential cycle:

Will it work?  Probably not.  At this stage, however, anything's worth a try...

Westminster politics needs radical change

Today's call by 27 of the 2005 intake of Conservative MPs to allow voters the power to recall and sack wayward MPs is very encouraging.  It suggests that the Conservative party in Westminster is beginning to "get it".

Westminster politics, and many Westminster politicians, are hopelessly out of touch.  A supine Commons, stuffed with Whips' sycophants, is monumentally useless at holding the executive to account.  "Men-in-tights" debating rules favour seniority over originality.  How can it be right for our country to be governed by a cosy gentlemen's club?  Is it not precisely because the Commons is so dozy that it has allowed real power to drift away from it?   

Let's not stop at a right of recall to eject useless MPs.  In order to allow the people to hold their politicians directly to account, we need proper open primaries, so that there is political competition, even in "safe seats".  Why not have a right of initiative, so that the voters can have a direct say in what politicians vote on?  Instead of giving yet more taxpayers' money to big, corporate party machines, why not force politicians to use the web to commuicate more and raise their funds?      

Here is a coherent and credible agenda - and a new, anti-establishment Conservative party would do well to adopt it.

Could the public’s sanctioning of their MP represent a tyranny of the majority?

In the interests of democracy, and a much needed reconnection between the people and their Parliament, I can understand why ConservativeHome has given weight to new “ideas to control underperforming politicians between elections” and supported the 27 MPs of the 2005 intake who want consideration to be given to constituents having the power to "recall" Members of Parliament between elections. However, this thoroughly American suggestion comes with major flaws, most notably, that the removal of “underperforming” or “unethical” MPs will ultimately be led by a majoritarian public view, which is not always the right view. Will it feed into what John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville argued would be “a tyranny of the majority” in democratic culture?

News Quiz needs our help

At the end of Feedback just now Roger Bolton was interviewing Ed Morrish, producer of the impeccably left-to-far-left-of-centre News Quiz. When asked why there weren't any "right-wing" (not "centre-right or "conservative" mark you) panellists, Ed admitted that he wasn't at all worried about political bias on the programme, but just picked the funniest people - writers or comics.

Of course, it all rather depends on what Ed finds funny. We were treated to a lame clip of Mark Steel reading out a list of outreach events from a Liverpool students' Christian Union which was presumably hilarious because it was, er, Christian. As ever one waits in vain for the Beeb to find anything funny about Islamism, but Ed, it can be done.

Ed needs help. To be a little more specific, he says he cannot think of anybody from the right who is funny enough for the show. My opening bid is Quentin Letts. If he wanted his meat a little stronger he could try Richard Littlejohn. James Delingpole might be worth a punt.

Any other ideas, anyone? Ed needs us. He said so. Let's oblige him.

Should sceptics worry more than non-sceptics about climate change?

In today's FT, Paul Klemperer argues that those that are sceptical about climate change models should be even more worried than the orthodox concerning the potential dangers of human-induced climate change.

Klemperer's argument is that if we consider standard climate change models subject to great uncertainty, then that means that things might be much worse than the standard models predict, just as much as that things might be better.

Something for the weekend

Light relief on a Friday: try this fabulous website. "Beautiful Britain" offers wonderful free wallpapers, for desktops and various sizes of laptops, of glorious shots of the British countryside. Photos vary seasonally and they have photos of the day and of the week. Highly recommended.

The ridiculous Mr Clegg

ePolitix is today reporting that one LibDem MP is refusing to back down over wanting the public to have its say on the EU referebdum.

Dominic Lawson, in today's Independent, offers a metaphor for Nick Clegg's ridiculous insistence on an in-out referendum vote:

"Nick Clegg is so angry that he has started hurling metaphors.  Following the Speaker's decision not to allow a Parliamentary debate on his party's suggestion of a referendum on whether to leave the EU, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats has declared: "It is like allowing the British public to choose their mode of travel without asking whether they actually want to continue on the journey at all."

Well, if we are to descend to metaphors, here's another one: Imagine you are at a restaurant with some friends, sharing the bill. You have all eaten two courses and are now discussing whether to order some pudding. Suddenly one diner says that the debate should actually be about whether it was a mistake to have eaten the previous dishes.  When he is politely told not to be so silly by his companions, he walks out of the restaurant.

This, it seems to me, is a reasonable description of the Liberal Democrats' behaviour as they stagily stalked out of the House of Commons after the Deputy Speaker declared that their suggested amendment really had nothing whatever to do with the contents of the Lisbon Treaty bill, and therefore would not be put to a vote."

Click for the full article.

Barack, Borgs and democracy

In inviting CentreRight contributors to a champagne get-together this evening Sam Coates said we were like buses or Borgs in the way we all seem to post at once. For some strange reason Sam, I decided to google 'Borg' and 'all or nothing' tonight.... And the extraordinary thing is that the one of the top links was to a site on CentreRight-favourite topic Barack Obama - is he a Borg?! It makes compelling reading, for conspiracy theorists and insomniacs.

However this does raise the much more serious issue of transhumanism - the 'enhancing' of humans through artificial intelligence. You're not all talking about it yet, but in 2004 Francis Fukuyama called it the worlds most dangerous idea, so you will be. Barack might just not be a Borg, but if we continue merging technology and humanity [I call it the other inconvenient truth], will mere mortals be allowed to stand in Primaries? Or only the immortal....

Healthcare free at the point of need

In the 1990s I lived in New Zealand for a while.  Whilst there, I had a health insurance policy through my company (and the same policy was available to all the employees, including those working machines on the factory floor).  It was a Southern Cross Ultracare scheme.  Southern Cross had less extensive schemes for those whose companies paid (or who themselves paid) less.  This was the top scheme.

My Southern Cross Ultracare policy enabled me to take my voucher and present it at a Southern Cross clinic, to receive treatment without parting with cash.  If I attended another health clinic I claimed back from Southern Cross (and for larger amounts I could arrange to have Southern Cross pay directly).  Here were a few features of my experience:

Barack Obama: Foreign Policy Lightweight

In recent days, Barack Obama has been attacking John McCain on Afghanistan.

The United States, Obama argues, has taken its "eye off the ball" in the country, thus allowing Al-Qae'da forces to flourish in the mountain range bordering Pakistan. 

So, Senator Obama, as the the Chairman of the Senate Committee on European Affairs responsible for the oversight of NATO operations in Afghanistan, what have you done about it?

Nothing.

British media go silent on Europe

It really was a test of how inane and daft our modern media culture has become – with the liberal media (notably the BBC) taking the lead – when the key media actors failed to address, cover and talk about the real issues on the Treaty of Lisbon parliamentary debates.

Yesterday, members of Her Majesty’s Official Opposition attempted to put up another fight inside Parliament with some serious amendments to the Treaty. Was there any visual/written coverage of an acceptable standard on this event that you can find? Don’t bother looking – take it from me, they were not covered.

Anti-politician strategy the right way forward

It's become a bit of a cliche to describe a blog entry as "must read", but in the case of Guido's post on David Cameron's strategy, it's true. Readers who have followed the TPA's polling will notice some familiar themes - taking a stand against Westminster, running from 'outside the beltway'. Take a look at slide 48 from our September 2006 conference poll. If this turns out to be part of a longer term strategy, the Conservatives are spot on.

Those interested in the evolution of this debate should also read this paper by Dominic Cummings and James Frayne who wrote it while running the successful No campaign in the referendum on the North East Regional Assembly in November 2004 - the only electoral test so far of a political campaign using the "anti-politician" message. Dominic Cummings is now an adviser to Michael Gove MP.

Obama's philosophical inspiration

Hat-tip: Andrew Bolt.

E-Day

Remember how the BBC cancelled Planet Relief?  Well, they didn't cancel it all the way.

The twenty-four hours from six this evening are E-Day.  We're supposed to try and save energy, turn off devices on stand-by etc.  BBC News Online covers it in glowing terms here and supposedly environmental charities, electricity companies and religious leaders are all behind the effort.  The National Grid have been recruited to compare their 'business as usual' prediction of electricity use (which has to be pretty accurate or we get blackouts) and calculate E-Day's saving.  Right now things aren't going very well.

That's absolutely hilarious.  We're actually using more electricity on E-Day!

Of course, it doesn't mean anything.  British carbon dioxide emissions are close to irrelevant in global terms (the only important terms with global warming) and the portion electricity generation is responsible for is even less significant.  The drive for tiny efficiences in electricity consumption is the preserve of the sanctimonious hair-shirt brigade.

I'm liveblogging E-Day on Sinclair's Musings.  How long will they keep the meter going?

London Pride

"What have you done today to make you feel proud?" sang Heather Small. Well, I've just returned from a Council meeting at Hammersmith Town Hall in King Street where I voted to cut the Council Tax for residents in Hammersmith and Fulham by 3%. The second year running this will be achieved. The hard work in finding the savings was carried out by colleagues more senior than I am. The Council Tax is still much too high, still much higher than Wandsworth. But I am still proud for my part in reducing the burden of this hated, pernicious tax which falls most heavily on the poor.

The Labour councillors spoke against the measure with great synthetic moral outrage. But sensing the popularity of what we are doing abstained when it came to the vote. Why did they bother turning up? Perhaps they were inspired by Frank Maguire, the independent republican MP from Fermanagh and South Tyrone, who turned up in Parliament to "abstain in person" in the 1979 motion of no Confidence which brough down the Callaghan Government. If they really believe the savings that have made the Council Tax possible to be so wicked how can they look at themselves in the shaving mirror after abstaining? Goodness knows what Heather Small would make of them.

Bush: a good man in Africa

That's the headline Time magazine gives on its European front cover to an article by Bob Geldof, who has been travelling with President Bush in Africa.

Elsewhere, it is reported that Geldof believes that President Bush "has done more for Africa than any other President". I can't find this week's Time article on line, but I have just been browsing at the King's X newstand whilst waiting for a train, and it's well worth reading. See here for an earlier article in Time magazine a few weeks ago, which contains some bullet statistics.

As someone who still believes it was right to invade Iraq, I entirely accept that mistakes were made which cost  many lives. It would be good to see some more of President Bush's critics, in and beyond the media, acknowledge the other side of the ledger - that he has helped save many lives in Africa. The picture isn't perfect - of course it isn't - and Darfur stands out in particular. But credit is due to the President, and the good news from Africa is being ignored.

There was a Guiliani effect

Michael Savage of The Independent's Open House blog scoffs at Tim Montgomerie and Daniel Finkelstein for upholding zero tolerance policing as a success story worth replicating in the UK. Savage rightly notes that New York's dramatic decline in crime should be seen in the context of a national trend that began before Rudy Giuliani came to power and whose positive effects were seen in cities such as Boston and Chicago. Below is a graph showing crime plummeting across many American cities as the nation's prison population rocketed.

But the graph, produced using the FBI data source he links to, also shows that cities he mentions emphatically did not do as well as New York did in the same period. Below in table form are the changes in rates of violent and property crimes per 100,000 population since 1994, when Rudy Giuliani became Mayor (bizarrely, the chart Savage cites does not take any account of non-violent crime).

Castro EDM is shameful

As Daniel Hamilton has revealed, the news that 69 MPs, mostly Labour, have signed an Early Day Motion praising Cuba's retiring dictator Fidel Castro is stunning. But even more extraordinary is their suggestion that he has been a leader in the struggle for human rights. Those who have signed this have been reading too much Alice in Wonderland.

Let's get the facts straight. Independent trade unions are banned in Cuba, and trade unionists are jailed. Doesn't that bother the Labour MPs who signed this EDM? Cuba is like Poland in this regard, and in Poland change came when Solidarity, the trade union movement, decided it had had enough.

There is no independent journalism either, and at least 23 journalists who have dared to form an independent media are in jail. See this report from Reporters without Borders.

William F. Buckley remembered

Tim, one of my favourite lines about Buckley came from President Bush, playing up to his popular image as unintellectual and as having a somewhat wayward youth. I can't find it online at the moment, but I can remember it almost word for word:

"I see Bill Buckley is here in the audience. He and I have a lot in common: he wrote his first book at Yale and when I was there I read one. He founded the Conservative Party and, well, I went to a few parties myself."

I've not met Buckley and now I never will, but those I've met who have known him couldn't rave enough about his charm, his kindness and his brilliance. The world is a better, freer place because of the conservative movement he founded.

1689 and the Supremacy of Parliament

Bill Cash MP is discussing a number of important amendments to the Treaty of Lisbon in five minutes, demanding the supremacy of the UK Parliament.

The Conservative Party have nothing but meaningless variations of these amendments, which is why I would argue that the Cash amendments needed to be supported - although I know full well that many Conservatives will not bother to vote for them. After all, they only show that:

1. That the legislative supremacy of the United Kingdom Parliament is protected from the impact of the UK’s implementation of this Lisbon Treaty;

2. That nothing under the Lisbon Treaty will affect the United Kingdom’s Bill of Rights, 1689;

The reason I say all of this? The only logic of defending a referendum is if the Party understands the total threat of the European project on the UK - it is obvious that this logic is only complete when the Party offers a post ratification-referendum and promises (by amendment) to defend the UK Parliament from the provisions of this Treaty. The Party's lack of commitment on this issue and its lack of interest in the real debates makes me very sceptical of where they are going on Europe.

Please read the two amendments for yourselves:

Legislating against video nasties

Julian Brazier explains why he wants to shake up classification regulations on the Cornerstone blog:

"My bill aims to make the British Board of Film Classification accountable to Parliament. It would give a Parliamentary committee the power to review and veto key appointments and the guidelines the BBFC works to. It would also introduce a new Parliamentary appeal against videos - at the moment the only appeals allowed are by the industry in favour of them. In Australia anyone can appeal.

Of course pretty soon it will only be the internet which matters but - by suggesting ways of setting boundaries - my bill aims to start to role back our growing culture of violence and rape."

William Buckley has died

William Buckley founder of the National Review has died, aged 82.  NRO will be the place to visit over the next few days and weeks to remember his enormous contribution to American conservatism.

My favourite quote of his: "Liberals claim to want to give a hearing to other views, but then are shocked and offended to discover that there are other views.”

5.15pm: Read Danny Finkelstein's tribute.

Re: the Long Parliament

Douglas Carswell is right when he says Parliament needs reform. As somebody fighting to become an MP at the next election, I view with dismay a clubby, backwards system where the favour of the Speaker and "seniority", ie length of time in Parliament, govern how often a Member is called to speak.

The procedure has it exactly backwards. It focuses on the dignity of the MP as a person, rather than their constituents. Voters in areas with recently elected MPs have as much right to representation, with their MP getting an equal chance to speak on their behalf, as the constituents of the Father of the House.