CentreRight

Robert Halfon MP: Action must be taken against the extreme Islamists who disrupted Remembrance Sunday

By Robert Halfon MP

Apart from a few tabloid newspapers, the attempted disruption by extreme Islamists on last week's Remembrance Sunday was barely reported.  Despite the threats to public disorder, it seems that these Islamists were allowed to burn a giant poppy, and desecrate this special day - almost with impunity.

Yet, just some days earlier, Cllr. Gareth Thompson, who made an extremist - and stupid - remark on Twitter, (about a Muslim journalist) was subsequently arrested, because of threats to public order.

It seems that we live in a kind of parallel universe, where only some of our citizens face punitive actions for offensive behaviour, whilst others do not.  It appears that the more extreme and more difficult a situation is, the more afraid the 'authorities' are in dealing with it.  How much simpler to deal with 'the easy case' - i.e. the Gareth Comptons of this world.

Last Thursday, in the House of Commons, I asked for a debate on this very subject.  You might be interested in the transcript below:

Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): Will my right hon. Friend agree to an urgent debate on extreme Islamists in the United Kingdom? As action was taken against Gareth Compton for his alleged threat to public disorder, does he agree that action should also be taken against the extreme Islamists who disrupted Remembrance Sunday last week because of their threat to public disorder?

Sir George Young: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, but the specific incident that he mentioned is a matter for the police and the Crown Prosecution Service. I think we all have a role in challenging extremism. We should all stand up for our shared British values and against extremists and their bigoted, racist and false ideology.

P.S.  You can read more detail about the Islamists' demonstration HERE and HERE or watch a video HERE.

Sir Humphrey's ingenious defence of First Class rail travel

Former Chief Secretary David Law's diaries are featured in today's Mail on Sunday.

There is a wonderful passage in which Mr Laws writes how he tried to control costs by cutting first class rail travel by civil servants (in the same way as has already happened for MPs).

The reply of the civil service was glorious: cutting first class travel would mean that the taxpayer subsidy to the train operating companies would have to go up!!! An ingenious response indeed.

You can read the story below:

"In a meeting with Treasury civil servants I threw in a few ideas of my own. Why should civil servants continue to take first-class travel, I asked, when MPs were now more or less banned from doing so?"

One civil servant said:

"But Chief Secretary, the revenue from first-class ticket sales goes to the train-operating companies, under their contracts. So if there were fewer first-class ticket sales, and the revenue fell, it might simply mean greater subsidy payments to the train operators to make up the difference. That would therefore save the Exchequer little or nothing. It could turn out not to be a real economy at all, Chief Secretary'."

It was an ingenious defence, worthy of Sir Humphrey Appleby, but not one I was prepared to accept. Yet I found that this savings proposal somehow always seemed to fall off the list of agreed cuts".

It is an even better response than that of our most senior Civil Servant, Sir Gus O'Donnell, justifying - to the Public Administration Select Committee - the many millions that the Civil Service spends on management conferences (because Microsoft also have loads of conferences!).

Robert Halfon MP: Is the Information Commission fit for purpose?

By Robert Halfon MP

Just what is the Information Commission for?

When the Google data harvesting was first exposed, the ICO indicated that there was little to worry about stating that:

"It is unlikely that Google will have captured significant amounts of personal data".

Only a few weeks ago, it subsequently emerged that Google had not only mapped people's personal Wi-Fi's, but also their email addresses and computer passwords. 

Yet, in a Telegraph newspaper interview last week, the Commissioner still just says "Hang on, what is the scale of Google's offence? The company was collecting information about the position of wifi networks to make their geo location stuff work".

It is true that following the Parliamentary debate on this subject, and sustained pressure from  Parliamentarians, the ICO has U-Turned on this position, suddenly announcing on 3 November, that Google had now committed a significant breach of the Data Protection act, would be subject to an audit and have to sign an undertaking to ensure that data protection breaches do not happen again. 

This was despite the fact that the ICO issued a statement on the Google Street View issue just two days earlier (1 November), stating that "we will not be panicked into a 'knee-jerk' response to an alarmist agenda"!

But this whole episode has exposed serious flaws in the working of the Information Commission and is why I tabled more than fifty Commons Questions about the workings of the ICO to the Justice Ministry. 

Some of the answers given thus far, raise even further questions:

Why is it that only one member of the Information Commissioner's Office has attended formal training on internet/computer related crime since 2008?

• Why did the ICO not send experts with technical training to Google to investigate the data breach?
• Why have the ICO felt the need to spend £13 million in the last ten years on PR/Marketing/Communications - but can't find the right resources to investigate breaches of our data protection?
• Why did the ICO feel the need to spend £10,000 on 'refreshments' in 2008 or the Management Board need to spend £10,000 plus on taxis in the last two years?

The ICO describes itself as "the UK's independent authority... promoting openness for public bodies and data privacy for individuals".

As the Google Street view saga has shown, the organisation has failed in this lamentably.  It is no longer fit for purpose and needs fundamental reform.

The influence of extreme Islamists on our body politics is increasing

The Phil Woolas fiasco should not blind us to one important fact:  The influence of extreme Islamists on our body politics is increasing and ought to be diminished.

Not for nothing does the MPAC claim it has now 'decapitated' four Labour MPs for their apparent support for the Iraq war and apparent 'Zionist' sympathies.

As the MPAC website states: "Operation Muslim Vote has not only produced stunning victories for the Ummah, it has shown us a glimpse of a better future insh’Allah."

In MPAC's particular world-view, both Gordon Brown and Tony Blair are deemed racists:

"Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, both stirred the political pot of religion and racism, the latter wading in to Jack Straw’s niqab row with gusto. It seems every Labour minister was scrambling over the backs of others to attack Islam and Muslims."

"Meanwhile, the enemies of Islam are still circling in politics and the media. They are trying to force Muslims to adopt an Islam which is servile to the West, a designer Islam that can be picked up and taken off like a pair of Jimmy Choos."

But MPAC's influence was not just felt at the last election:  In 2005, MPAC were also well known for their campaign in unseating the then Rochdale MP, Lorna Fitzimons, unhappy at her views on the Middle East.  (You can read more about this in the All-Party Parliamentary Group on anti-semitism.  Paragraphs 140-143 make particularly interesting reading).

If it were just MPAC, that would be dangerous enough.  In London's Tower Hamlets however, we have just witnessed the election of new Mayor Lufthur Rahman - described in the Evening Standard as allegedly having links to the Islamic Forum of Europe.  Expelled by the Labour Party (to its credit) - but inevitably supported by Ken Livingstone - Mr Rahman's election shows the influence of extreme Islamism at its most effective.  Without doubt, MPAC, Respect movement and a host of other organisations, will be extremely active in the forthcoming London-wide election and the fundamentalist drum will be beating hard.

In 2015, candidates in marginal seats will face this ever increasing threat from the likes of MPAC. Make no mistake, they will be even better organised, and better financed than ever before.  If you doubt that, just read their websites and forum pages.

Robert Halfon MP: The implications of the Phil Woolas case

By Robert Halfon MP

The Phil Woolas Case - whilst controversial - will have profound implications for the conduct of future elections. Candidates will have to think twice before putting out deliberate misinformation.

Throughout the last election, the Labour Party put out numerous leaflets which were designed to scare the wits out of pensioners, mothers and cancer sufferers.  In Harlow - as in other marginal constituencies - leaflets/letters were sent out suggesting that Tories would cut cancer treatment, close down Sure Start Centres, and take away free bus passes and the winter fuel allowances for pensioners.

Despite denials from Mr Cameron during the debates - and the embarrassment of Gordon Brown - millions of these kinds of leaflets were still given to voters all around the country.  Some of them were even endorsed by 'celebrities' and 'soap stars', with the aim of giving them an additional air of authenticity.

Election after election, it has been far too easy for Labour to frighten the most vulnerable in our society.  Mr Woolas's actions were no worse than what his party has been doing for many years. His case will at least make those who peddle falsehoods during election campaigns think twice before doing it again.

Robert Halfon: The latest example of the EU backing a loser and frittering away taxpayers' money on a grand scale

What's the worst mobile phone operating system (OS)? Which one has mobile phone companies deserting in droves? The answer is Symbian - primarily used by Nokia. Whilst most consumers have gravitated to Android, Apple and Blackberry, Nokia has been losing sales because of its outdated Symbian OS (phones like the flagship N97 and N86 were riddled with bugs and the company suffered real damage to its reputation).

Unsurprisingly both Samsung and Sony-Ericsson have announced they will no longer use Symbian, preferring Android/Windows or their own OS.

So guess which mobile phone operating system the EU has decided to give €22 million to in the form of an EU grant? The answer is of course Symbian.

According to Mobile News:

"The EU project will become known as SYMBEOSE, meaning ‘Symbian – the Embedded Operating System for Europe’. Under the terms of the agreement with the EC, the Artemis initiative will match the investment made by the consortium, providing the other half of the required funding in order to meet the full cost of the SYMBEOSE development project".

The fact that the EU seeks to use €22 million hard-pressed taxpayers money to subsidise a mobile operating system is bad enough.  What makes it even worse is that it has chosen to subsidise the De Lorean of systems. 

How can it be right for the EU to waste our money in this way - and choose to give a taxpayer subsidy to promote one mobile phone system over another.  Surely this is an anti-competitive measure against other mobile phone companies?

Now, you may read the above as something just for geeks to consider.  But it is much more than that.  The EU's huge grant to Symbian, is yet another example of how the organisation is choosing losers and frittering away taxpayers' money on a grand scale.

We must stop the conveyor belt to terrorism

For the past few days we have been pre-occupied with the horrific bomb plots involving cargo planes.  Thanks to the effort of our intelligence services, mass murder - planned by extreme Islamists - was thwarted once again.

When the terrorists fail, we are always reminded of the chilling IRA statement (made after the Brighton bomb):

"We only have to be lucky once, you have to be lucky always".

Despite the efforts of the Intelligence Services, the conveyor belt to Terrorism remains all too strong.  Extreme Islamism is being appeased on our campuses for example.  The 'underpants' bomber in Detroit, was 'nurtured' at UCL.  As highlighted in the November issue of Standpoint magazine, a recent UCL inquiry into the bomber, attempted to white-wash the issue, rather than confront Islamist extremism at the University.

Unless we can deal with the conveyer belt to terrorism: controlling fanatical Islamists in our Higher education groups, outlawing extreme Islamist groups and banning known Islamists from entering the UK, we will not succeed against the terrorists themselves.  You can't deal with the one without the other.

Fortunately, the Home Secretary Theresa May has shown real awareness and understanding of this problem.  Despite the best efforts of some senior civil servants in the Home Office - who believe appeasement is an adequate solution - this Coalition government has made real concrete moves to try and get people off the conveyer belt.  No longer will Britain be a safe haven for extremists like Al Qaradawi or act as host nation for Hezbollah or Hizbut-Tahrir.

My question to the Home Secretary is below:

Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con): I commend the security services for doing a remarkable job, but does not the incident involving the Detroit bomber show that other parts of civil society, such as our universities, are failing to get a grip on Islamist extremists? Does the Home Secretary agree that, for our fight against terrorism to succeed, we need to deal effectively with the conveyor belt to terrorism, just as we must deal with the terrorists themselves?

Mrs May: My hon. Friend has raised an important point. I hope that I can reassure him that, alongside our work on the incident at the weekend and on reviewing our counter-terrorism legislation, we are also looking at the development of extremism and the process of radicalisation. It is important that we ensure that people do not get drawn into a radicalised agenda that leads to extremism, violence and terror. That work is ongoing.

Most Whitehall departments don't know how much they spend on conferences.... and those that do spend a small fortune

In July 2010, I tabled a series of written questions to every Government department, asking how much they had spent on Government conferences since 1997. Most departments replied:

"This information is not held centrally and could be provided only at disproportionate cost."

In other words, their accounting processes are poor, and are not designed to promote cost control or transparency, for this kind of expenditure.

If the Minister and Permanent Secretary do not know centrally how much is being spent on conferences, how can they manage that cost?

Of those departments which did provide me with the data, some of the costs were astronomical.

For example:

• The Department for Work and Pensions spent £115 million on "management conferences" between 2000 and 2010.
• In the last six years, the Home Office managed to spend £43 million on "conference-related expenditure".
• The Department of Business, Innovation, and Skills, spent £28 million in just seven years.

Clearly there are two major problems.

1) Most Government departments apparently do not know what they spend on conferences.
2) If they DO know what they spend, the sums are astronomical

Yesterday, at the Public Administration Select Committee, I asked senior Mandarins Sir Gus O'Donnell and Ian Watmore whether or not such spending on 'conferences' could be justified.

I was astonished by what I was told.  Whilst there was acknowledgement of the need to cut costs, Mr Watmore argued that the amount spent on management conferences by the Department of Work and Pensions (£115 million) in the last ten years, was a very small part of a huge administrative budget of that Department!

Sir Gus then made the case for the need for conferences and for people in Government to get together. He then made a parallel with the amount of conferences companies like Microsoft may hold.

I replied that at least Microsoft was not using taxpayers' money.

And we wonder why costs within Government are so difficult to control.

Should other economic think tanks receive some of the money the IFS gets from the taxpayer?

I have no problem that the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), takes a centre-left approach to the CSR of the Coalition Government.  In fact it is healthy for our democracy for economic and public spending to be debated in this way.  But is it right that the IFS takes such a large proportion of its income directly or indirectly from the Taxpayer?

95% of their £5.1 million funding comes from "research contracts", but detailed information for these "research contracts" is not published in their accounts. However, 90% of their Funding Bodies are Government, the public sector, think tanks, or charitable organisations.

IFS major clients include:

• The BBC
• The European Commission
• Her Majesty's Treasury
• Department of Work and Pensions
• Government Equalities Office
• Department for International Development
• Department of Health
• Department of Trade and Industry
• Department for Education
• Department of Finance and Personnel for Northern Ireland
• Inland Revenue
• Food Standards Agency
• International Monetary Fund
• Low Pay Commission
• Office of National Statistics
• Office of the First and Deputy First Minister for Northern Ireland

In 2009, the IFS received a substantial part of their core funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), worth up to £6.8 million over five years. ESRC in turn is funded by the Department for Trade and Industry.

Is it fair that the IFS is subsidised by the taxpayer in this way? And in particular, does this public subsidy create an unlevel playing field for other economic think tanks, who don't have access to taxpayer's largesse, and may take a different point of view?

Conservatives should reform First Past The Post

Are we Conservatives right to set our face against reform of the First Past the Post (FPP) voting system?

Despite FPTP being better than a proportional system or even AV, it does have one major flaw.  There are too many constituencies where an MP can get elected with just less than 50% - or even 45% of the vote.  Does this matter?  If you accept that a parliamentary majority requires +50%, then surely a constituency MP should be elected by a majority.  Democracy must by its nature be majoritarian, provided it is subject to the rule of law and minorities have genuine ‘input’ into the political process and the right of redress.

Accepting this point does not mean one has to be in favour of Proportional Representation or even the Alternative Vote.  We know that PR - as has been shown by the European Parliamentary elections - destroys the constituency link and ensures that individuals depend primarily on the support of party activists to maintain a good ranking on the electoral ladder. Similarly, the Alternative Vote places an artificial construct on voter's intentions, forcing them to make second preference choices - before they actually know the result, which inevitably would disproportionately favour the Liberal Democrats as being the 'centre' party.

So, how to square the electoral circle. The answer is what is termed as ‘The Second Ballot’ (TSB) system, as used by France (for both Parliamentary & Presidential elections), the Czech Senate, Lithuania and Hungary.  Austria, Finland and Slovakia use TSB for their Presidential Elections.

The beauty of TSB is both its fairness, and simplicity.  Instead of having an 'Alternative Vote' and artificial second preferences, a ballot is held a week or two later in which the top two candidates slug it out for pole position.  Not only does this give electors a few extra days to consider their options based on the first result, it ensures that they are not forced into making a 'saccharine' second choice (which AV would force them to do), before they know whether or not their first preference candidate will get over 50% of the vote.

It also preserves Constituency representation and usually guarantees strong Government.  Of course there is a greater cost, because there are two elections - but these are not as great as might be supposed.  According to an analysis by the House of Commons Library, the cost of the French TSB Parliamentary election in 2007 was approximately £2.30 per voter.  In the UK, the estimated costs of the 2010 General Election was £1.75 per elector. Not a huge difference.

TSB, if introduced in England, would preserve the FTP principle, but ensure that every MP in every constituency had a majority of over 50%.  Unlike AV, it does not give undue weight and influence to the second preference votes of minor parties, but could signficantly change electoral behaviour.  Because voters would know there would be a strong likelihood of a second ballot, the evidence shows that there is a wider spread of voting intentions.  Moreover in some instances, it encourages bigger parties to build alliances with smaller parties, in order to attract their voters in the second round. To win this battle of the referendum on AV, Conservatives should not be closed to some reform of First Past the Post. I accept it is the least worst system we currently have, but why not make it even better?

We know that the electoral reformers are very determined people. The choice is between improving FPTP or ending up with something very different. If we do not make FPTP even better we risk its critics trying again and again to replace it with something much worse. If we introduce The Second Ballot my belief is that we will protect the best of First Past The Post and guarantee faith in its continuation.

The world must support Israel, as if she goes down, we all go down

One of the most astonishing - and destructive - political phenomena in recent years has been hostility to the state of Israel and all she stands for. If it were just confined to the extreme left - and extreme Islamism - that would be bad enough. But this is a virus that has spread beyond the fringes to much of the soft left, to sections of the media and even the chattering class’s dinner party circuit.

We have become accustomed to see so called “Palestinian Solidarity” marches around Hyde Park, with demonstrators carrying banners reading “we are all Hezbollah now”. We have seen the likes of George Galloway salute Saddam Hussein and the Syrian Assad leadership. We have watched the populist left, such as Ken Livingstone, invite and embrace Islamists like Sheikh Qaradawi (a man who provides the “intellectual justification for suicide bombers”) to the United Kingdom. These people represent a long standing strain of the left. The far left, which for years justified Stalinism, Castroism and appeasement of communism, has now come to support totalitarian Islam. Call it conviction politics if you will - the extreme left’s extremism knows no bounds.

But when virulent anti-Israel politics reaches mainstream society - particularly amongst the media and Labour backbenchers (to be fair, a view not shared by Gordon Brown and Tony Blair), when our broadcast media feeds us a daily diet of partisan coverage on the Middle East, now is the time for free-thinking people on the right to stand up and be counted. It is time to the make the case for Israel.

Israel, in her sixty years’ existence, has been at the front line of freedom. It has faced down dictatorships, secular terrorism and now extremist Islamism. It’s very existence is under threat from Iran’s fundamentalist regime, which is close to having nuclear weapon capability. When Israel faced a daily barrage of suicide bombing from Islamists (courtesy of Hamas and Islamic Jihad), few understood what this signified: a worldwide assault on freedom.

After September 11 - and when extreme British Islamists organised a wave of suicide bombing in London, many on the right woke up to the battle that was being waged. The Islamists who attempt to destroy Israel, are not just waging a battle against the Jewish state, they are trying to destroy Western values as a whole. Eliminate Israel and you wipe out a country that is in the vanguard against totalitarianism - and encourage the whole of the Middle East to be engulfed under fanaticism. The modest steps towards liberalisation made by some Arab countries would be extinguished overnight. Of course, the mainstream left will argue that the Palestinian issue is the reason for Islamist fundamentalism.

Immigration Officers deserve the Golden Jubilee medal

Why is it that Immigration Officers have been denied the Golden Jubilee medal, awarded by the Queen to those in emergency services?  Immigration officials are clearly in the front line, protect our nation against terrorists entering the UK and do their part to make our country safe. Whenever there has been a crisis, such as the hijackers at Stansted Airport, it is immigration officers who have been called on to deal with the resulting emergency. 

It was only two years ago that a Labour Minister apparently described them as "shits".  They seem to be taken for granted and have become the forgotten service. Their work in keeping our borders secure - against great odds - deserves to be recognised.  Just as Prison Officers and the Police have received Jubilee medals, so too Immigration Officers have a right to be rewarded for their dedication and commitment to Britain. Qualifying Officers should belatedly receive the Golden Jubilee medal, so as to ensure that they are in line for the next medal awards in 2012. Our Immigration service should be forgotten no longer.

I'm supposed to be a Thatcherite but I feel a Bennite when it comes to Cadbury's

I know I am supposed to be a Thatcherite but I feel somewhat of a Bennite this morning after hearing that Cadbury's have succumbed to the Kraft takeover.

Cadbury's was not just a company but a truly unique British Institution.  At its hey day, Cadbury's was at the forefront of great philanthropy and social responsibility - providing a much better version than its modern PC corporate responsibility variety as practiced by the Body Shop et al (who can forget the sale of Body Shop to corporate L'Oreal?).

Cadbury's Bourneville Village was a genuine triumph of social responsibility. Its aim was to provide a clean environment and decent homes for workers - many of whom never had anything to do with Cadbury's. Even today the village has homes for 25,000 residents.

What Cadbury's did for industrial workers in the nineteenth and twentieth Century for industrial workers was revolutionary in its own way and a model of genuine philanthropy.  It is not hard to see why this family and community focused company won the affections of the British people, even if it did make mistakes along the way.

Now, as it is about to be swallowed up by giant corporate Kraft, and, as we lose yet another historic British business, we see a powerful example of the casualties of the free market.

Licence-fee payers should have had a say in deciding whether Nick Griffin should have been on Question Time

Have we all the missed the point about the debate on the BNP appearance on Question Time?

The issue is not whether the BBC should have invited Mr Griffin. The issue is that the licence-fee payer had no right to make a decision either way.  In fact the licence-fee payer was disenfranchised from this decision.

I have argued before on CentreRight that licence-fee payers must be given the chance to vote on major decisions made by the BBC (including programming quality, executive and celebrity pay and the level of the licence fee).

Each licence fee payer would be given a vote via a Pin number, in which they could register their voting intentions on various issues.

Recent major controversies that the BBC has been involved in (Jonathan Ross, the Gaza charity appeal and now the BNP), have been all the more controversial, because the decisions made have been decided by senior management alone.

Robert Halfon: It's time to support our atomic test veterans

By Robert Halfon

After the Gurkhas, there is another group of veterans that strongly need our support.

During the 1950s, members of the armed forces were told to watch atomic test blasts in the South Pacific. As a result, many of these veterans subsequently suffered varying degrees of sickness, most probably linked to radiation and three veterans a month are now dying.

Although for many years they were denied the right to compensation, in a landmark ruling in June this year, these veterans were given the right to take legal action to claim compensation from the Government - and a chance to get an acknowledgment of both their suffering and regret for having had to endure the atomic tests.

Astonishingly, the Government has opposed the veterans' actions, arguing that they had waited too long to claim compensation - despite the fact that their efforts of some years had been rebuffed. This is despite the fact that other countries - most notably the USA and Canada, which undertook similar tests - have accepted that it was a mistake to conduct such tests.

The Government is now appealing against this decision, trying to kick this into the long grass.

Time and time again, this Government has demonstrated cavalier treatment of our armed forces. They only acted on the Gurkhas after tremendous public pressure.

They should now recognise that the atomic test veterans deserve justice.

Instead of penny pinching and legal sophistry, they should act without  delay and give these former members of our armed forces the compensation they deserve. Let us hope the Government will act before being pushed once again by public opinion.

The story of Microsoft is the story of the failure of Brownian Government

With most computers running a version of Microsoft, and so many businesses using the company for their commercial activities, the idea seems fanciful. Impossible even.

Yet, it seems to me that Microsoft is on the decline. Where once almost everyone depended on the company for a decent computer operating system, that is no longer the case.  This has happened for a number of reasons.

First the advent of smart phones.  Because mobiles have become - in essence - pocket computers, with powers of internet, word processing, photography et al, it means that people can carry out necessary tasks (like email etc), without having to rely on a mainframe computer.  In the same way the advent of the car liberated individuals to go exactly where they wanted to, when they wanted, so smart phones have provided a similar form of freedom.

There is no longer any need to carry a bulky laptop, or be tied to a desk monitor in order to have computing powers. Blackberries, iPhones, Google Android and Nokia Symbian mobiles have rescued people from the hold of Microsoft. Consumers can now email when and where they want to, and, use a host of computing powers, without ever needing recourse to a Microsoft machine.

Spirits crushed and spirits restored

Last night I saw one of the worst films I have ever seen.  It wasn't because it was bad. Far from it. In fact the story was accurate, the acting too real and the scenery entirely on location.

So, what was the matter?

I say it was one of the worst because the story was a tale of profound human misery - of man's inhumanity to man.

This film was called Shooting Dogs - about a particular and desperate episode, during the Rwandan genocide, when thousands of Tutsis were massacred at famous school in Kigali known as L'Ecole Technique Officielle.

I happen to know this school, having visited the buildings and walked around the classrooms.  I have seen the markings of Machetes on nearby trees.  The trunks were used for weapon sharpening, before the Interahamwe (the extremist Hutu Militia) went into into the school to slaughter the Tutsi innocents.

So I knew the backdrop to this film and I was aware of what had happened.

We shouldn't invest too much hope in Iran's Mousavi

Although I yield to no one in my enthusiasm for ‘the Twitter Uprising’, we should not get too carried away with the idea that Presidential Candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, is some kind of Ghandi type figure, about to bring unbridled freedom in Iran.

It is true, he supports some domestic reforms, and some relaxation of strict Islamist laws (all of which is welcome), but the question is, where does he stand on the fundamental issues?

The signs are that Mr Mousavi, would not be much different from what has gone on before.  He helped create the feared Ministry of Intelligence and Information (which ruthlessly targets oppositionists).    There is also a fair amount of evidence that he helped found Hezbollah and was on its leadership Council during the 1980s – including arranging funding.  Unsurprisingly, Mr Mousavi has been a major proponent of calling for Hezbollah to be used as an attack force against Israel, and his views on Hamas are not thought to be much different.

It is worth remembering also Mr Mousavi, was Prime Minister of Iran during the purge of 1988, when many thousands of ‘political’ prisoners were killed, on the orders of Ayatollah Khomeini.

Mr Mousavi’s term as Prime Minister saw renewed hostility towards America and his establishment of the Iranian chemical weapons programme.  His government brought nuclear centrifuges on the ‘open market’ thus setting in train the nuclear armament programme that is close to completion today.  I mention the above, not to put a dampener on the remarkable events in Iran, just to show that the outcome may not be quite what we wish for.

Did you know that the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the BBC?

At a time when the economy is in freefall and all of us face ever increasing bills and higher taxes, it seems wrong that the BBC are planning to increase the licence fee.

Last year, the BBC spent £15 million on taxi bills and £14 million on plane flights.  Many of its presenters are overpaid - look at the millions of pounds that Jonathan Ross gets for example.  Some BBC senior Executives get more than the Prime Minister in salaries.

When MPs salaries and expenses are rightly being scrutinised, why is it that BBC journalists and employees can seemingly spend taxpayer's money - also on expenses and allowances - without any kind of public examination?  Astonishingly, the Freedom of Information Act does not apply to the whole of the BBC.

I have argued before on CentreRight that we need to democratise the licence fee, so that every licence-fee payer has the right to vote on the level of the increase on the fee, how they think the BBC has
performed and on the hefty salaries that are paid to high profile presenters.

I happen to enjoy and admire much of the BBC output - and am willing to pay for it.  Like many voters, I just want a choice on how my money is spent and not to have to fund unnecessary increases, when it is possible for the BBC to cut costs from its bureaucracy.

The call by Shadow Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt yesterday for a freeze in the Licence Fee, was a necessary first step in putting the public back in control.  It is a great shame that Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs chose to be so frivolous with Licence-Fee Payers' money and vote for an increase.

Michael Martin is soft on terrorism

How is that the Speaker of the House of Commons has allowed a group of Parliamentarians, Clare Short amongst them, to host a live video link tomorrow, with a known terrorist, someone who advocates suicide bombings in Iraq and has been refused entry into the UK?

After all the recent goings on with the thwarted terrorist attacks – and arrest of a number of individuals in the North of England, what can possibly be the rationale for giving succour to such people?

Tomorrow evening, in Portcullis House, Khaled Maashal, a senior Leader of Hamas, who was denied a Visa, is instead speaking to an invited audience, through video.  If this were to happen outside Parliament, that would be bad enough, but to host a known and self confessed murderer in the Commons is beyond the pale.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, most people will be appalled that Mr Maashal is being given such a platform.  This is a man who is on the record, actively promoting ‘martyrdom cells’ in Iraq.  He has also argued that ‘Allah made a laughing stock of America’, urging for the world to submit to the ‘Arab Islamic will’.  This is not forgetting his role in supporting and planning a range of suicide attacks in Israel.  He is also regarded as instrumental in the Hamas coup in Gaza, which saw, Palestinian Authority members thrown off the rooftops, and 400 Palestinian Fatah members killed by Hamas fighters.

To the credit of Shadow Foreign Minister, David Lidington, he has contacted the Speaker, urging that the event be called off stating:

“We are seriously concerned at the proposed event in Parliament, in which a major Hamas figure will appear via video link. Hamas remains a proscribed terrorist organisation under UK. It would be inconceivable that Mr Meshaal would be permitted to travel to the UK in person to address Members of Parliament. I have written a letter to the Speaker, urging him to consider whether Parliamentary facilities should be used in such a meeting.”

If this event goes ahead, a strong signal will be given to Islamist extremists in Britain and elsewhere, that Parliament is soft on terrorism.  It will give a propaganda boost to extremists over Palestinian moderates.  Above all, it will demonstrate that all ‘means’ – particularly suicide bombing – justifies the ‘ends’.  And those ‘ends’ usually mean an Islamic caliphate and the destruction of the State of Israel.

Labour's Alan B'stard

Although only recently having reached the age of just 40, I remember well the last years of the Conservative Government, leading up to Labour's election victory in 1997. Far more damaging to the Tories - and much more deadly than anything Tony Blair did - was TV satire. Over the years of Government, House of Cards, Alan B'stard and Harry Enfield's Tory Boy, all gave the impression - however unjust and unfair - to the watching millions, that Conservatives were heartless, thoughtless and cruel. This image lingered long into the dark years of opposition, and it is to David Cameron's credit, that he has done so much to change this.

I thought of these characters as I watched In the Loop, this weekend. Instead of Tories being at the butt end of satire, it was Labour and the spin machine. A hapless Minister, a scheming Special Adviser, and two spin doctors, of the type that we knew about during the Blair years, and heard so much about over the past fortnight. In the Loop is all the more remarkable, because it achieves in mirror image what the programmes, I mentioned above, did to the Conservatives. The film, effectively destroys New Labour and exposes how the spin machine has corrupted government. It is so accurate, that, were it not for the black humour, you think you might be watching a documentary. Through entertainment and comic genius, In the Loop, does more to question the integrity of New Labour, than almost any other critique. Let us hope the DVD is out soon.

Clip below:

Something is going badly wrong in Afghanistan

One of the most brutal aspects of the extreme Islamism of the Taliban, was the way in which women were subjugated and treated as second class citizens. The West's invasion of Afghanistan was designed not just to deal with Osama Bin Laden, but also to help rid the country of Islamist Totalitarianism and restore a sense of civility to the country.

Now we find that despite a semblance of the mechanics of democracy, the Taliban spirit lives on, even under those who are seen as so called 'moderates'. Today's Guardian and Daily Telegraph, explain how President Karzai - in an effort to win votes from Shias, in advance of the forthcoming elections - has signed into law, legislation which, in effect, allows husbands to rape their wives. If this barbarism were not bad enough, the new law also refuses wives the right to work, to see a Doctor, or leave the house without their husband's permission. The United Nations has condemned the new laws, demanding to see the full legislation - which thus far they have been denied.

Whilst I was a full supporter of the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda (and remain so) - who couldn't be after 9-11 - I can't help feeling that something, somewhere has gone deeply wrong. What is also going on in Afghanistan today, is also an important reminder, that freedom does not just mean holding democratic Elections. It has has to be about upholding the rule of law guaranteeing property rights, and above all treating all human beings equally and with dignity. President Karzai has failed this simple test of genuine liberty.

The future of democracy by Walkers Crisps

What is the biggest vote currently facing the nation? Is it the local elections? The European elections. Fat chance.  Does the answer lies in crisp packets?

In the old days, when a company wanted to develop a new product they might have a few boffins create the idea, followed by focus groups and some marketing here and there. After, the new product would appear on the supermarket shelves. It would succeed by its advertising and by a bit of luck. 

Walkers Crisps have turned this approach on its head. Instead of centrally announcing a new flavour of crisps to a munching public, the company invited people to send in recipes which were then voted on - by the public via the text or internet. The winning flavours were reduced to just six.

The company then released these six flavours onto the market and, as crisp lovers will know, are available at most outlets.  But Walkers didn't stop there at this exercise in crisp democracy.  Every packet bought carries a coloured rosette and allows you to vote (again by text or internet) as to which of the six flavours is preferred. The intention is that after the voting ends, Walkers will introduce the extra flavour based on the voting public's final say so.

I expect many political die-hards will watch Walker's Crisp Democracy with cynicism at another marketing exercise. Yet the truth is that more people will know about this Crisp vote than who their MEP is or local MP for that matter.

A duty of care

Last Saturday I read an article by the Chief Rabbi, which talked about the need for a new moral basis to the market economy - to return to a time when if someone said "my word is my bond", they meant it. The Chief Rabbi's argument was that bankers had got away with making huge errors, not just because of failure by Government or the market, but through the weakening of social capital - of values that differentiated between right and wrong.

I thought about this as I attended a dinner yesterday evening. A famous Peer and tough self-made businessman (who started one of our most famous retail chains), began to talk about the concept of 'duty of care'.   His argument was that the main reason for the financial failures by the bankers was not because of greed (this vice had always existed and would continue to exist in the future) but because of a failure of 'duty of care'.  In contrast to nurses, doctors and teachers, bankers and City folk were not bound by a duty of care - and this had led to the disastrous decisions that had helped ruin our economy (alongside Gordon Brown).  Rather than regulating, establishing a duty of care, would solve the problem of bankers mis-managing assets and savers deposits etc. 

Duty of care is defined by Wikipedia as:

" A legal obligation imposed on an individual requiring that they adhere to a standard of reasonable care while performing any acts that could foresee ably harm others. It is the first element that must be established to proceed with an action in negligence......

Duty of care may be considered a formalization of the social contract, the implicit responsibilities held by individuals towards others within society. It is not a requirement that a duty of care be defined by law, though it will often develop through the jurisprudence of common law."

I think this businessman had a fascinating thesis - the question is how one would establish a duty of care for bankers et al, that would be supported and respected by the profession and recognised by the appropriate authorities?  Incidentally, this businessman also said that he had once offered to fund with substantial sums of money, a Chair of Economic Ethics for a famous University in London. His proposal was turned down by the Dean on the grounds that economics was a science and did not have an ethical dimension.

Why all the sniping at Steve Hilton, and about his salary too?

I thought it was only socialists who indulge in the politics of envy.

We should be thankful that the party can attract the best.

As Tim Montgomerie blogs, the role he has played in stopping the left caricature us as the 'nasty party' has been crucial to our recovery. 

Hilton's recent creation, the baby poster ad about Gordon Brown's debt is hitting home with voters. How better to have creative brains devising strategy  - in contrast to Labour.

Hilton's worth is shown by our poll ratings, which are not too bad at present!