http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/13/uk-britain-militant...
"What David Cameron said actually seems perfectly reasonable if you're a comic book supervillain."
https://twitter.com/BrigonChomhgail/status/59882827345232691...
Though not the finest hour in word choice; The old idiomatic antithesis "The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law" is in effect what he probably meant.
George Orwell, 1984
Have you noticed a change in the air since the referendum? It seems to me that people are pretty sour about the outcome, it's the second time in a row that Scotland has voted almost unanimously against the Tories and still ended up with a Tory government.
I'm seeing even staunch anti-independence voters start to reconsider their positions.
The rUK has swung decisively to the right (e.g. UKIP 12%), the Conservatives have a majority on their own without the moderating influence of the Lib Dems - which is fine as we are a democracy but the people of Scotland clearly have wildly different views (SNP 50%, UKIP 1.6%).
Then of course there is the prospect of BoJo as PM - which I think would pretty much guarantee a rapid dissolution of the UK.
For those who don't know what we're talking about: this map of the recent UK election results should illustrate the huge divide between Scotland and England:
https://flipchartfairytales.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/scre...
They are two very different cultures.
Being disenfranchised with Westminster is far from a Scottish phenomenon: the SNP's success one can easily argue comes in significant part from the fact they've managed to position themselves as a viable winner in a large number of constituencies, not least through leading the Scottish Government since 2007, as a large proportion of voters end up voting for one of the two largest parties in their constituency given a single-winner system. Convincing the electorate a vote for your minor party isn't a wasted vote is a major part of the challenge of making a small party a real challenge in a large number of constituencies.
http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03297/2010-vs-20...
>They are two very different cultures. //
You might be able to show that but not with these election results - is Edinburgh a different culture to the rest of Scotland (well it is, but not any more than Glasgow is different to Aberdeen), is Orkney & Shetland a different culture (same thing applies)? Bradford and Bridlington [2 conurbations in the region of Yorkshire in the UK] are probably more culturally diverse than most random pairs of Scottish and rUK places.
Really? Having lived in Scotland, Wales and England this doesn't seem to be true.
The swing to the right I think is in part due to apparent immigration pressures and in part [much more speculatively] a selfish response to poverty (someone has to be poor make sure it's someone else and not me).
Scotland doesn't have the same immigration issues as other parts of the UK as far as I can tell in this [1] map you can see the areas with major cities are clearly home to more migrants - Glasgow, Edinburgh and I'm guessing that's Dundee and Perth and Aberdeen [which might be skewed by oil workers?]. Same in England and Wales except that some areas have seen a huge increase in migrant populations [2] indeed in 2012 the migrant population in Scotland was ~7% vs ~13% in the rest of the UK [3].
[Note I'm trusting the stats here, please provide corrections if they seem wrong.]
Personally I don't think that Scotland will react more gracefully with similar immigration patterns. Indeed if Scotland secedes from the UK and is successful in gaining entry to the EU then they will be outside the Schengen Area [4, it's been agreed that all new applicants will be accepted as outside the Schengen Area]. That would mean Scotland would likely get a big increase in immigrants too and I suspect the response would be similar.
>Then of course there is the prospect of BoJo as PM - which I think would pretty much guarantee a rapid dissolution of the UK. //
So there's not much difference between BoJo and SNP then? /s
- - -
[1] http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ampp3d/immigration-map-britain-...
[2] http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/data-and-resources/...
[3] http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/global-in...
So why have 50% of Scots voted for a political party with notably different policies to UK-wide parties? Presumably if we thought the same way as everyone in the UL (excluding NI) we'd have picked Labour or Conservative like the good old days?
So, you can't use "voted SNP" to prove your point. SNP policies seem largely coterminous with the underlying politics of a mix of other parties? I'd be interested in a refutal of that if you have one.
Indeed there was a joke around the time of the election that many in England would have voted for Sturgeon if they could have; it seemed grounded in some reality, as most jokes are.
Suppose that most people voted selfishly this time around, whatever would net them the most cash at the end of the day. SNP worked for Scotland, Tory worked for England. The whole of the UK could just be equally selfish and not care a hoot about anything other than the cash in their pocket. This perhaps isn't the case but I think it helps to demonstrate that different voting doesn't necessarily bely a cultural schism.
Was it just a loss of face or pride thing?
There's also a weird strain of Protestant Unionism that is stuck in the 18th century but seems just below the surface (and on the surface when the Orange Order are marching)
Nonetheless I think in general, as a UK citizen myself, that the British (ie UK citizens, the nomenclature gets convoluted!) consider the Union to be central to UK strength as a nation in terms of society and business and much else (education, sport, language, identity, history, position on the world stage, defence, ...).
Dissent grows though - once the Pandora's Box of the West Lothian Question had been opened and it started to sink in, and we saw that many in Scotland wanted to ditch the rest of the UK and make a run with what they perceived to be vital resources, that I feel rather unsettled people. Why shouldn't the rUK have voted at the same time whether to kick Scotland out of the Union too - that would have only been fair.
Her Majesties government certainly made efforts to retain Scotland in the Union, that could well be key.
I can see that there is an impact in defence - Trident is based here and the Scots have always been over-represented in the UK military. The rest just sound like potentially damaged pride to me...
"consider the Union to be central to UK strength as a nation"
Really? Scotland is a small and relatively unimportant part of the UK. What possible direct impact could our gaining independence have on the rUK apart from damaged pride in that whoever is PM at the time would get made fun of at the next G8 summit for losing part of his/her country?
I'm British and have lived part of my life in Scotland, I don't consider it another country, it's part of our country and my relatives who live there are the same nationality as me.
It's a visceral, and probably illogical, thing to a certain extent - like feeling attached more to family members than to other people.
Also Scotland ain't that small, it's population is that of Yorkshire, it's geographic size is pretty big as a proportion of the UK (~1/3 I think).
Which clearly differ from other parts of the country.
OTOH, the Scots really should be careful. At the rate they are going the next time there is a vote we will open it up to all voters and the rest of us will get to decide if we want to kick out Scotland. For now the beat-down SNP gave Labour will make it much easier for us to claw back some of those West Lothian subsidies in bits and pieces.
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/05/scotching-a...
*As in, will give interviews to the media.
>The details are still not clear and won't get much clearer until the Queen's Speech – or probably afterwards. But we do know three things: 1) that the definition of an extremist is being expanded 2) that the process for how someone is officially designated as an extremist is shrouded in mystery, and 3) that the list of restrictions which applies to them once they have been designated an extremist is now extremely broad and intrusive.
>What is an extremist?
>Towards the end of the last parliament, Theresa May started expanding the definition of extremist to include 'non-violent extremism'. Those who spread or incite hatred on the basis of gender, race or religion were included, as were those who undertook harmful activities "for the purpose of overthrowing democracy". Groups which sought to "undermine democracy" or "use hate speech in public places" were also included.
>This morning the Home Office sent me this statement, which is similar but different. "The government defines extremism as 'the vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs'. We also regard calls for the death of members of our armed forces as extremist.”
>How are we designated extremists?
>Extremists will find themselves on the national extremism database. This database is shrouded in secrecy. We know it is managed by the Met police, and there is no judicial oversight over who is put on there. We know the security agencies are very secretive about who is on it and what is held about them. There was a long battle between Big Brother Watch, the Met and the Information Commissioner's Office over simply releasing details about how many people were on the database and what information about them was held.
>What we do know is that it includes people who no rational person would consider an extremist. One Green councillor who organised a public meeting about the transportation of animals from Calais to Dover is understood to be on it. Jenny Jones, the green peer, is understood to be on it.
>What happens when you’re considered an extremist?
>The proposals going into the Queen's Speech next month will be very broad. Police will be able to apply to the high court to limit the "harmful activities" of extremists. These "harmful activities" include anything with a risk of public disorder, a risk of harassment, alarm or distress, or creating a "threat to the functioning of democracy".
>In response, the high court can grant a ban on broadcasting or a requirement for the so-called extremist to submit all publications for the web, social media or print to the police in advance for authorisation.
The government defines extremism as 'the vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs'.
then surely
For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens 'as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone'.
is by their own definition extremism.
The biggest problem we face in Western society is the proliferation of extremist conservative agendas in the halls of power. The only way to solve all the issues we face with extremism whether it be in the guise of Western conservatism, Islamism, Neo-Liberalism or anything other toxic ideology is to focus on tolerance and education. Western foreign policy (colonialism) over the past centuries has created the situation we find ourselves in. When you create the conditions for cancer to prosper then you have to deal with the consequences. Instead of altering our policies we double up on them and then wonder why people hate us. We create conditions where people have nothing to lose (for example Iraq/Syria) and their only options are to fall back into impulsive/conformist organizational structures because that gives them some sort of security and purpose. Too many people have been ostracized by the contemporary world and we do nothing to help them, instead our political policy is to kick them while they are down.
In my mind what David Cameron represents is as toxic as what ISIS represent however since it affects me much more in my daily life I would say it is a far greater danger to my way of life than ISIS will ever be.
True, but that's not always a bad thing. Some things that are pushed underground happen a lot less. Murder, for example, is banned. Instances of it are (often) vigorously investigated, and the perpetrators dealt with (to varying degrees of effectiveness). I suspect that if murder was not banned, it would happen a lot more.
Yes, that's how the rule of law works.
They are undermining the values we hold dear, and corrupting the youth with their hateful message! Obviously, we need to place certain limits on free speech"
What? Of course you have the right to free speech, as long as you don't misuse it!
Of course, it's not like a psychopath could lie convincingly so that he could proceed with his evil plans, so I guess they can't actually let anyone in, ever.
Sure, sometimes someone is suspicious because he's actually up to no good. But that doesn't mean detaining people on various subjective suspicions is a good idea.
Yes, and that's.. what? Not acceptable, but not resisted anyway? Do you think "putting scrutiny"[1] on people who support terrorism is fine, but imprisoning people for a tweet is not?
[1] Violating the right to free speech
What Western person in their right mind would proudly proclaim his support for actual terrorists? Do you think there are enough people in the UK to find that many people deranged in that particular way, or do you think some of them might be paid to act like it?
Free speech is limited in the US too, whenever it gets too inconvenient to the ruling class: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/07/14-speci...
One persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter.
The IRA, for example, was well funded through donations to give one of the most recent examples. The ANC is another one that springs to mind:
"'The ANC is a typical terrorist organisation ... Anyone who thinks it is going to run the government in South Africa is living in cloud-cuckoo land" - Margaret Thatcher, 1987
Going back a bit further, many European countries actively tried stopping recruitment to the International Brigades fighting against Franco in the Spanish civil war, up to and including imprisoning people.
Irgun is another example: A zionist military organization with several massacres to its name that was considered a terrorist organization by Britain at the time, as well as by some important contemporary Jewish organizations. Irgun is one of the direct predecessors to the Israeli Likud party, that has been part of most Israeli governments since th late 70's.
There's a long range of causes that various subsets of Western civil society have given support to that have been considered terrorist by contemporary authorities.
Some of them are still seen as terrorists in retrospect, some of them are seen as heroes and freedom fighters. Some are seen as either/both depending on who you ask.
Usually, a "terrorist" is anyone who poses a threat to the established ruling elites somewhere. But we're told we need to be very afraid of some desert loonies somewhere in Hellholeistan. Naturally then, we need governments to protect us by snooping in on everything we do anywhere. For safety.
Quite a lot, as it happens: The ANC did that.
Who in their right mind would proudly proclaim their support for an organisation that tried to blow up the UK cabinet?
Well, quite a lot of people proclaimed support for the IRA.
Who in their right mind would proudly proclaim their support for an organisation that attacks a village and kills over a 100 civilians?
Quite a lot, given that a lot of people from Irgun (Deir Yassin massacre) have been central to the leadership of Israel.
The thing is, a lot of atrocities will seem necessary, or at least excusable, to those who see themselves as freedomfighters, whether or not the future will be kind to them.
I don't expect the future will be kind to IS, and the past is littered with terrorist groups - and freedomfighters - who are still hated and detested, and many of the ones "we" tend to see as freedom fighters today still have dirty hands and/or are seen as terrorists by others, so who knows...
I agree with the second part of your comment, though. It's played up because it's convenient to have enemies. Doesn't mean I don't think e.g. IS needs to be countered, but I don't think it'll get countered by snooping - on the contrary, it will fuel the paranoia of those that are intrigued by their cause.
To take a personal example: In my youth I was member of a marxist group. The knowledge that Norwegian intelligence services carried out extensive surveillance of the members of lots of left wing organizations (highly illegally, as it happens - but while the extent of their illegal surveillance was first "discovered" years later, everyone in the organisations in question knew about it; just that nobody believed them) did not deter me. On the contrary: It made me more certain my decision was correct: It was evidence of the oppression I was against.
The organisation in question was (and is) fully legal, participating in elections, and does not (and did not) advocate violence in any way, but I don't believe the overall principle is different: If someone is considering a cause opposed by government, then surveillance will not stop most of them, but spur them on and prove to them that they can not trust their own government.
Well maybe they weren't in their right minds?
> If someone is considering a cause opposed by government, then surveillance will not stop most of them, but spur them on and prove to them that they can not trust their own government.
You can both believe in your cause, and distrust your government, but while being scared shitless of speaking out. So, I wouldn't say that surveillance works against governments.
There's a certain point before which awareness of mass-surveillance may cause negative sentiment towards the government, especially without being managed effectively with propaganda, but after another point.. you're in North-Korea.
It's also worth noting that governments don't give us our rights - they're inherent in our nature as human beings.
When a government declares that its citizens have the right to free speech, they mean it with the caveat of "as long as they're not a threat to our continued rule". The fact that's exactly how they operate can be seen throughout history.
Because I can point to US citizens spending time in prison for similar online messages.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/07/12/tech/social-media/facebook...
other arrests:
http://www.wired.com/2007/12/xbox-live-trash/
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/02/16/xbox-live-threats-lea...
Interestingly in the Boston area churches etc openly collected money for the IRA upto 9/11 and then perspective of what there money was supporting was clear.
But with ISIS, I do not think anybody can be in doubt about what any money for them is supporting.
Still laws be them TAX laws, have loop-holes and they get abused, not by the common people who they were done to protect but by those without ethics.
It would be the equivalent of Obama publicly stating on TV that Americans have been "getting a bit too uppity with the free speech" and "we are about to change all that!"
So... What Cameron is saying is that... too long have we been passively tolerant of people who are actively seeking to kidnap, shoot, and bomb us, just because they haven't broken the law. We need to reject that approach, be more careful and watch out. He is not advocating for an overbearing state as a social model in and of itself.
Myself, I think that quotes like this are the empty calories of politics, like Hilary's "what difference does it make" (which was about prioritizing embassy safety over discovering the perpetrators of the incident in the ultra short term) or Bush's "is our children learning" (which, if you haven't watched the video for that, was an awkward rendition of "that question is: are children learning?")
DISCLAIMER. (UN)DESIRABILITY OF AND ACTUAL IMPLICATIONS OF ANY POLICIES ARE LEFT AS AN EXERCISE TO THE READER.
A less tolerant government has never historically lead to a more tolerant populace other than in the very short term.
>He is not advocating for an overbearing state as a social model in and of itself.
What makes you so sure?
[1] http://www.theguardian.com/law/2012/jul/27/twitter-joke-tria...
There's also the position that they (the government) are somehow uniquely positioned to be able to do this better than anyone else, and yet keep failing at it.
These are crimes, and therefore they have broken the law. Conspiring or inciting others to commit crimes is illegal in the UK.
WTF? This statement doesn't have a modicum of sense in it. Seeking to kidnap or murder in the context of terrorism[1] is an inchoate offence[0] that is definitely against the law in UK.
I am at total loss why would you defend Cameron on that. I am not from UK and I've been able to find relevant statutes and laws in 5 minutes. I am really interested, can you elaborate?
Relevant precedent[1]:
R v Barot [2008] 1 Cr. App. R. (S.) 31. Conspiracy to murder. Appellant trained as a terrorist and proposed terrorist attacks in America and Britain. One attack contemplated in Britain was to fill three limousines with gas cylinders and explosives and detonate them in an underground car park with the expectation of causing hundreds of casualties. Guilty plea. A life sentence with a minimum term of 40 years should, save in quite exceptional circumstances, represent the maximum for a terrorist who set out to achieve mass murder but caused no physical harm. Minimum term reduced to 30 years.
[0]http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/h_to_k/inchoate_offences/#a01 [1] http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/sentencing_manual/solicit...
So skip the soundbites and the Two Minutes' Hate, as a rule; surely there's plenty to indict him with otherwise.
As long as soundbite as a talking point/ persuasion vessel doesn't misrepresent wider context of the statement(in this case it doesn't), I think it's fine to use them.
Don't you agree?
(In particular, I think this is about using intercept material to target people without letting it anywhere near a court.)
Well consider that Thatcher's "no such thing as society" quote was actually in the context of calling on people to take positive action to look after their neighbours and their community rather than waiting for someone else e.g. society to do it for them. Yet her opponents twisted it to imply the exact opposite.
What scares me about government, both in the US and abroad, is not the polarization of parties, but how quickly the dominant ideologies cycle from left to right. The pendulum swings to fast.
It was also the last peak for the left. The trend since then has an acceleration rightwards.
Don't forget the UK came close to removing a democratically elected prime minister in a right-wing coup - not just once, but twice.
The last genuinely left-wing prime minister resigned not long after the second alleged plot - and by a divinely-ordained coincidence his replacement was so utterly useless the electorate found themselves voting for the kind of right wing government the plotters had been working towards.
Do you mean Callaghan - my recent readings of the relevant histories (particularly those by Dominic Sandbrook) paint him in rather a positive light. Callaghan and the other "real" socialists were as appalled by the behavior of the unions then as everyone else.
Bernie Sanders and Warren are the closet thing we have to a "left" in the US. They aren't presidents have little more than a bully pulpit.
I will happily claim that the Progressives are socialists. The standing President is part of that clan within the Democratic party.
I think a large part of the problem is people in US politics really, really don't get outside the bubble of the US.
http://nation.foxnews.com/john-mccain/2011/02/03/mccain-obam...
Even Republicans have stated on the record that he is a centrist.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/david-cameron/94274...
> A second foreign policy adviser to Mr Romney said: “Cameron’s contacts with Republicans are really quite limited, and have been going back to when [George W.] Bush was president.” The adviser added: “In many respects Cameron is like Obama.”
Like, this whole "Democrats are leftists" is just a Republican meme at this point in almost all respects.
Statements along the lines of "well, you don't know what Left is if you think the Democrats are Left" don't apply. I don't even get what the point of that line is. Are we in the States supposed to look at entitlement expansion in the US and suddenly say "gee, I guess that is OK because it isn't as much as Europe"?. Is there an objective you're trying to get to? I could just as easily say "Oh no, you don't get it: what you call the Left is actually the FAR LEFT" and put you in the same position.
The whole meme that "Democrats are moderates and Republicans are extremists" is just an attempt at pushing populism into the mainstream.
That swing wouldn't inherently be a bad thing, if the parties on the right were more about the smaller government and more freedom that they market themselves with (at least in the US; I don't know if that's even part of the marketing message in the UK), and less about tearing down civil liberties.
Does the UK have any parties that are actually in favor of smaller government and preserving civil liberties? Does anyone pay attention to those parties, or are they mostly ignored like third parties in the US?
And when issues get to the Texas Supreme Court, politically it seems to almost always be various liberal groups sending in amicus briefs on the pro-civil-liberties side, and conservative groups sending in briefs on the pro-government side. The one exception is gun rights, where basically both sides are in favor (in Texas), but the right is more strongly in favor.
But most of the marketing is already done and widely perceived, even if it doesn't match reality. The expectation of many voters is that you vote left for more government or right for less. It's unfortunate that the reality is you'll get more government either way, and it'll just be used for different things.
I think you may be conflating shifts in fairly narrow political majorities with shifts in "dominant ideology".
The situation is pretty similar in countries with real multi-party systems, with big parties courting the center.
There are exceptions in exceptional circumstances (eg. Syriza).
All the children travelling to Syria? All the money being raised for terrorist organisations - from people who know the money is going to be used for terrorist purposes? The murder of English soldiers on British streets? The plot to kill other soldiers by a british teenager? The recent IRA plot to assassinate Prince Charles and Camilla? The fact that PREVENT is a "toxic brand" and widely distrusted?
There is a bunch of stuff happening that causes some concern to UK government.
Not a perfect solution by far, but this is not a perfect World and until you get a society in which people do not lock doors as no need etc, is when security becomes oppression.
Second is to do everything possible to reduce the income inequality that is ever expanding in the world.
Thirdly we also need to focus on education and tolerance.
The current establishment has proven themselves to be inept on all three counts. No other tactic has any chance of succeeding.