I sometimes despair at the politically engaged in Britain. This is why I cannot watch Question Time without eating the settee. Take, for instance, the reaction of commenters to this story on the Times website:

"William Blake’s Jerusalem will no longer ring from the spires of Southwark Cathedral after it was banned by the church’s dean on the grounds that it was unchristian and too nationalistic.

Regarded by many as a paean to Englishness, it has over the centuries become an unofficial national anthem, sung at the last night of the Proms and by England rugby and cricket fans...

But the Very Reverend Colin Slee believes it is not “to the glory of God” and as such should not be sung by choirs or congregations at the South Bank cathedral, on of Britain’s foremost churches.

The ban came to light after the dean advised guests at a recent memorial service that it could not be sung due to its lack of religious content."

For those unacquainted with the poem or unaware of its full lyrics, they are here. It is fairly obvious that the Very Reverend Colin Slee is a prize muppet. He is also obviously unaware what a metaphor is.

Not that this is the first time that there has been a problem with singing Jerusalem in churches. From 2001, another vicar said:

"I enjoy it as a mystical poem, but it is not a prayer and it is not about God. Nor is it addressed to God, and nor does it contain any of the themes you would expect of God." He said people tended to interpret the poem in the nationalistic sense that England is best.

"We all want to be patriotic, but in a proper way, and this poem is just not appropriate. What it is actually saying is, `Wouldn't it be nice if Jesus had lived in England?' Yet we all know that he did not, so it is just nonsense. I can understand it being used at an army parade or something like that, but it is not suitable for a wedding."

If this vicar knew anything about history at all, he would be aware that the legend of Jesus visiting Glastonbury abbey dates from at least the time of William of Malmesbury in the twelfth century. Blake used this legend, added in a plea to return to nature, and ended up with a rather rousing lyric. And does this priest not believe that God created "England's green and pleasant land"? Sigh. Another Christian who does not understand what a metaphor is...

Anyway, I don't want to descend into a rant about ignorant clerics, tempting though it may be. Let's look instead at the response of some of the commenters on the Times article. These are people who, presumably, think they are well-informed and politically engaged. They are reading the Times website for a start, which suggests they are better informed than most. And they care enough to post a comment, an indication they think, care and have passionate viewpoints. Bearing this in mind, let's have a look at the comments.

One commenter asks:

Colin Slee are you sure you are a Christian and not a Muslim in disguise? (sic)

A remark that is stupid if meant seriously, and not funny if it is intended to be humourous.

Another brings up that old chestnut, political correctness:

So the PC Zealots have found something else with which to dowse the fire of English customs and Christianity!

In a discussion on British Politics, political correctness can never be too far away. The thought that a politically-correct liberal elite has been going round trampling on Britain's sacred traditions, banning hymns and blackboards, has been a staple theory of lazy right-wing thought for at least two decades. Whenever I talk to an aunt of mine about politics, it usually doesn't take five minutes before she brings up the issue of "political correctness".

Political correctness apparently developed in the mid-1980s, with various "banning-blackboard" type-stories invented by the Daily Express. And the myth took off. As Mark Steel wrote in Reasons to be Cheerful:

Much of the press got addicted from the fix of these stories, and like any addict, when the supply ran dry, they got desparate and made stuff up. The most famous loony left stories of the time - the council workers who couldn't say 'black bin liners' and the kids who had to sing 'Baa Baa Green Sheep' - were entirely fictitious. In any case, how was it that Thatcher had battered the unions, the miners and the Argentinian navy, but was powerless before the unstoppable might of the Haringey council gay and lesbian helpline unit?

Colin Smee is neither a Muslim nor a member of a politically correct elite. He is merely a fool. The notion of an "elite" is absurd anyway - in the same article the Church of England spokesman defended Jerusalem, saying the hymn "has its rightful place in Church of England worship". This is just the work of an isolated individual, not the work of an over-arching elite who wish to replace everything "sacred" about Britain's national heritage (whatever that is). 

The idea of a "politically-correct elite" is just one of a number of topics that continues to blight political discourse (especially discourse found in pubs, which as everyone knows is the only proper place to talk about politics). You just know, sooner or later, that someone will bring up "Iraq", and the chance to talk about things that might actually improve the lives of ordinary people has been postponed, for at least another couple of hours.

Cory

Ken Livingstone or Boris Johnson. Come May, one of those two (sorry Brian Paddick) will be Mayor of London. Maybe this is someone’s idea of a sick joke.

 

Neither candidate is particularly inspiring. Livingstone, the incumbent, has been fairly decent. The congestion charge is controversial, but is probably the best centre-left policy enacted in Britain since the minimum wage. Under Livingstone, London has cemented its position as a financial hub and, at the time of writing, no other banks have fallen into receivership this week.

 
There have been well-documented allegations of drunkenness and financial irregularity against him, but they have not damaged his poll ratings. Indeed, one allegation alleged by Channel 4’s Dispatches was that a clique of Livingstone’s wanted to turn London into a socialist state. However, most people are already aware that “Red Ken” is slightly left-wing, and these revelations have hardly damaged his reputation.

If you think that voting for Ken Livingstone despite his flaws is a special case, take a look at Boris Johnson. An Independent survey of London’s business leaders found that 57% think Boris isn’t serious enough, 40% don’t think he has a clear set of policies and 53% think he’s a buffoon. But 60% of respondents would still vote for him.
 
 
 

Here is my "satire column" for Redbrick. I will write something positive about Labour when I think of something.

Another week, another government computer system goes tits up.

 

Last week Channel Four reported that the £4 billion MOD computer system was “not fit for purpose” (John Reid’s phrase is seemingly here to stay). The Defence Information Infrastructure (DII) was meant to be online by the end of March this year. It is supposed to allow the army to order supplies more efficiently, for instance. Despite costing billions of pounds, DII is eighteen months behind schedule.

 

The MOD chose a consortium called Atlas to implement DII. At the head of Atlas is EDS, a company that has already screwed up the tax credits system which shelled out over £5 billion in overpayments. It doesn’t take great insight, surely, to realise that DII was always going to go wrong. It’s like putting Harold Shipman in charge of an old people’s home.

 

Back in March, you may remember, thousands of junior doctors’ details somehow made it onto the internet. These details included their criminal records, sexual orientation and religious beliefs. Then Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt said that MTAS, the online application system used by those applying for their first hospital position, “had not been an unmitigated disaster”. So that’s alright then. As long as it’s only a slight disaster, that’s good enough for Pat.

 

Incredibly, an even bigger loss of personal data happened this week at HM Revenue and Customs. Computer discs containing the personal details of everyone who receives child benefit have been lost. That’s over seven million families and 25 million names.

 

25 million?! That’s a stupid number. It’s more than three times the population of Switzerland. How can you possibly lose that many names?

It seems that the discs were put in the post, not by recorded delivery as is usual procedure, and never appeared at their final destination (the National Audit Office, for those who are interested).

 

This is an incredible piece of incompetence. There is probably more care taken over delivering a book by Amazon, than there is over the names, addresses, bank account details and National Insurance numbers of 25 million people.

 

The discs are password protected, and according to Chancellor Alistair Darling, the discs haven’t “fallen into the wrong hands”. But this was still a breach of data protection (this sort of personal info shouldn’t just be bunged in the internal post) and the head of HM Revenue and Customs, Paul Gray, has resigned over the issue.

 

It’s nice to see the head of an organisation taking responsibility and resigning for once. Unlike, say, Sir Ian Blair. When a string of operational procedures goes wrong and an innocent man is shot, Sir Ian does not see this as a resigning issue. What is the point of paying the head of something lots of money if they can’t be arsed to take responsibility when things go wrong?

 

The scariest thing about all these computer systems failures is that the government wants to set up an even bigger computer system. The national database for ID cards would be humungously (yes, I’m sure that’s a word) large, with personal details and even biometrics on them. It’s not just names and addresses, but people’s eye scans and fingerprint details too.

 
There are those who argue in favour of ID cards from the point of view of: “If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.” This is a ridiculous position anyway, but let us give it the respect it doesn’t deserve. If your personal details and bits of your eye are on a database, and there is a very big chance that this information could be lost, or accidentally leaked onto the internet for everyone in the world to see, than I think we do have a reason to fear. Don’t you?

Cory

Before I get into this whole question, I feel that I need to set out my stall as it were.
1. I am not a Labour supporter (gasp, shock horror).
2. I disliked what Tony Blair did in some things (NHS, Iraq) but think that some things he did alright in (Northern Ireland)
3. I do however, think that, currently Labour are probably the best of a bad lot. The Tories offer little policy, being stuck, as they are, on the right wing. The Lib Dems, if we are honest make up numbers, to make it seem like Britain is not just a two party state. Being fair to them, the seat on which they would like to be sat is currently straining under the weight of New Labour. Labour occupy the centre ground, and as such will appeal to the fickle British public the most.

Right. That's that.
Now onto the point of this whole thing.

I was looking through another blog, http://buls.org, and the question of Britishness is something which came up. Mr Brown, trying his best to look like someone who knows what he is doing, thought that appealing to 'Britishness' would be a sure fire way of winning voters for the election- that- never- was.
The trouble is, as far as I see it, that, very clearly is ground occupied by the Tories. Remember them? Those guys who talk about 'national' interests rather than 'international' concerns? Yeah, them. Now Labour can move to the right as far as it feels it can, but in doing so they will vacate a space which, subsequently will be filled by the Tories, or heaven forbid, the Lib Dems. Well. Maybe.

Anyway, returning to the question. What does it mean to be British?
Does it mean puffing out your chest whenever you hear the national anthem? Or enjoying fish and chips at the seaside?
Or is it far more indescribable than that? Is it a concept like love, or god which in reality is very hard to define? We can all clearly point to things which symbolise Britain, red phone box, double decker bus, even a dressed up bull dog. But that is not what being British is all about. Surely.
As an Englishman, yep, not a Briton (although for the purposes of this I will refer to myself as British), I take pride in my country, whilst maybe being a little hostile to those from Scotland or Wales, and even more so to those who enter the country to sponge from it (at this point I relate you to something I wrote a little while ago).
However, what it is I take pride in I am not quite sure. It certainly isn't the gum covered pavements of our towns, nor is it the hostility from chavs in the streets. I wonder what it is those who fought in the wars fought for. The stereotypical image of rolling hillsides and sweeping valleys. Maybe.
I didn't ask to be born here, but I am sure I would feel the same about it if I had been born in Australia, Tibet, or even Iraq.
I think I take pride in the history of it all the most though. The fact that the last time Britain was successfully invaded was 1066, the fact that we were the home of world industry, the fact that we have produced some of the best scholars, Newton and Darwin for example. All make me think we are in a special place. The point, I feel, is pride. Being able to take pride in your country for what it has done throughout the course of time, (even when it was invaded) is what I feel it means to be British. History is so very different to tradition. I do not observe every tradition, I am not particularly fond of fish and chips for example, but I bear in mind my history. The colourful past full of incident and character, that is what it means to be British. Being able to look at someone and say, yes, I am proud he did what he did. That is what it means to be British.
I am trying to sell patriotism here, and feel I am failing. However at this time of the year in particular, it is important that we as Brits (and some of us as Englishmen) remember what it is to be willing to die for your country. If nothing else, remember that.

Luke

I was asked to write a satirical column for Redbrick news. Did I succeed?:

No Harman-y

 

All this talk about Gordon Brown’s election problems is very boring. He may have had a bad Prime Minister’s Questions, but that doesn’t really matter. Nobody watches PMQs anyway. Or knows what his “Vision for Britain” is. Only that it consists of Gordon Brown being in power for at least another eighteen months or so.

 

Instead, let’s talk about Harriet Harman. You have probably forgotten who she is already – she won the Labour Deputy Leadership contest earlier this year. Which surprised me. As a Labour party member I voted in the election, and Harriet’s campaign seemed to be the worst. Worse even than Hazel Blears, and the sight of Hazel Blears on television usually makes me want to gouge my eyes out with rusty spoons. Harman’s campaign seemed to rest on two main planks. The first was essentially “Vote for me because I am a woman”. The second was to say that Labour ought to apologise for the Iraq war. She then denied saying this after she became deputy leader.

 
Therefore Harman comes across as a loose cannon, who is prepared to say just about anything to anyone in order to please them. In her campaign she claimed she had always “campaigned for equality and social justice.” In fact, when Harman was Social Secretary in 1997 she cut the benefit rate for unemployed single parents (something she had spoken out against in Opposition).
 
On last week’s Question Time, Harman again confirmed her “loose cannon” status. Asked whether Gordon Brown should have called an election (zzzz…) Harman said she thought that Parliament, not the Prime Minister, should decide when to call an election. Like many of Harman’s ideas, this seems well-meaning but crap. Parliament already has the means to do this, through a vote of no confidence motion. Having fixed-term Parliaments is, however, a separate and better idea.
 

Furthermore, she doesn’t seem to have talked to anyone before unveiling this idea. Gordon Brown has said nothing about it. On the Labour website there is nothing. Other senior Labour figures have said, you guessed it, nothing. Perhaps we should just put Harriet Harman and Ed Balls in a cupboard or something, and let them out after Labour wins the next election. They will cause less damage there.

 

End of the Ming dynasty

 

Liberal Democrat MPs make unlikely assassins, but they have now stabbed two leaders in the back within nineteen months. I feel sorry for Ming Campbell, whose only fault was not his ability or his views, but his age. Now their caretaker leader is Vince Cable, a man who looks like Ming, but with less hair and bushier eyebrows. Potential leaders have until October 31^st to throw their name into the hat.

 

For the moment, however, there is the usual claptrap that is spouted after a leader goes. Lib Dem MPs are continually praising Ming. Party president Simon Hughes, for instance, said that he had brought “purpose and stability” to the party. But if Ming was so good, why was his job “under discussion” - as the aforementioned Mr Cable said the day before Ming resigned? David Laws, Lib Dem spokesman for something or other, appeared on Channel 4 news to praise Ming. When asked who he thought should be the next leader, he replied that it was inappropriate to speculate at this moment in time. If you cannot speculate on who should be your new party leader when there is a vacancy, then when can you speculate?

 

Well, I am going to speculate now. The frontrunners are Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne. Nick Clegg is a trendy, David Cameron-type. But if you were going to vote for a David Cameron type, wouldn’t you just vote for David Cameron? Chris Huhne, by contrast, is boring. The Lib Dems need a vote winner, someone who the voters recognise. Which is why the new leader should either be Charles Kennedy or Lembit Opik.

 

By getting rid of Charles Kennedy, the Lib Dems lost their only electoral asset. Bringing him back would be embarrassing, but necessary. If that proves to be too embarrassing, then the Lib Dems should embrace Mr Cheeky Girl as their new leader. He at least is recognised by most of the general public, and this counts for more than policy in British politics today. As Alistair Darling as shown, if you don’t have a policy of your own, just nick the Opposition’s. With Labour and the Tories increasingly similar, there is a need for the Lib Dems to be distinctive. And how much more distinctive can you get than Lembit Opik?

 

And finally…

 

Laughing at the Lib Dems is harmless enough, but laughing at Tories is much more fun. They were left £8million in the will of Branislav Kostic. Sadly, he had been suffering from serious mental health problems, and was convinced only the Conservatives could protect humanity from evil spirits. This week a judge forced them to return the money to his family, and ruled that Mr Kostic would not have given to the Conservative Party “if he were of sane mind”. Well, who would?

Cory

There's this article in the Observer today:

Gordon Brown will make his most audacious bid to show himself as the unbeatable 'Prime Minister in waiting' this week with a remarkable series of meetings with foreign leaders and the launch of a groundbreaking aid initiative backed by the Pope.

In what one aide described as an effort to 'show what a Brown premiership will look like', the Chancellor told The Observer yesterday of his vision for an ' X-Factor' Britain. He said the reality TV music programme, as well as shows like Dragons' Den and The Apprentice, promoted 'aspiration, how anyone can achieve things' - key to the agenda he hoped to bring to Number 10.

Is there not a limit to how many different times one man can re-brand himself? First it was Africa-man. Then Arctic-Money man. Now this. And what the blazes is "X-Factor Britain". Urgh.

Not for the first time, I think I may just crawl into bed, and not re-emerge until Tony Blair resigns.

Cory

For those in the UK, the clocks go back today. An extra hour sleeping. Goody.

But will this last. Some council leaders want to shift the whole time system forward an hour, to save the lives of schoolchildren and cyclists.

However, this is rejected by (mainly) Scottish MPs, because they say if this would endanger the lives of schoolchildren.

Oh, I don't know who to believe. Sort it out between yourselves!

Cory

Ming Campbell wants troops out of Iraq:

"There is a moral obligation - even those of us who were opposed to the war accepted a moral obligation to the people of Iraq - but it can't be open-ended.

"It's got to be somehow reflected in Iraqi government and in the Iraqi people taking responsibility for themselves."

He said the government needed to explain to Parliament and the UK public what was happening, as there had not been a debate on Iraq for two years.

I prefer, however, the view of the deputy Iraqi Prime Minister:

Iraq deputy PM Barham Salih said his country still needed the international community to help fight extremists.

"We need to work together to ensure that that day will come when Iraqis are fully in charge of security," he said.

The fact is, we've made such a massive pig's ear of the whole thing, that we cannot just abandon Iraq now. We must keep troops in Iraq until the country is stable enough to look after itself. For better or worse.

Cory

As this news comes from the Guardian:

Lecturers and university staff across Britain are to be asked to spy on "Asian-looking" and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence

This news comes in at more-or-less the same time:

Two terror suspects put under control orders to restrict their movements have gone on the run.

There are a few things we can say.

Firstly, assuming the Guardian story is true, what are they playing at? It is not the job of university lecturers to "spy" on their students. These plans are an intolerable intrusion into the lives of both lecturers and university students. You'd have thought that with tensions between communities as they are, especially with the veil controversy, we wouldn't see another "Muslims = Terrorists" style-assumption. It doesn't do much for the British public's perception of Muslims.

The other is, that even if it is proved a student society really is Al-Qaeda in disguise, and special branch rounds up all the members as possible terrorists... they'll only be allowed to run away anyway.

-posted by Cory

In my post entitled In Defence of Secular Dogmatism I said that:

We must back the liberal wing of all religions simply because we can then convince them of the merits of atheism afterwards. You can’t argue with a man wearing an explosives belt. You can argue with a man who has admitted to himself that he is human and therefore has his built in bullshit detector turned on, rather than forcefully repressed by blind faith.

And then a few days later in The Fraught Politics of Integration I opined:

A pragmatic approach to religion within the framework of a secular constitution would be the ideal. Whilst religion (which is often expressed in culture) continues to wield such power over people’s lives, the government should address it and the problems it creates

A element of pragmatism is essential to any political worldview. I have been shouted at and (foolishly) labelled as 'Reactionary', 'Thatcherite', 'Fascist' and 'Stalinist' for simply saying that seeing the world for what it is is itself a vital principle. Principles are important, and I would consider my opposition to organised religion and denial of the faith 'impulse' two of my most cherished. But principles must be accompanied with pragmatism, because if you do not see the world as it is but rather as how you want it to be then principles become meaningless.

It is all very well being opposed to all religion unremittingly, but at the same time a coherent and reality-based worldview must take account of the fact that very many people do believe this claptrap and, even more regretfully, have it at the centre of their identity. Ask a religious person to give up their faith and you are asking them to take a big knock to their pride. Expectations and policy views must then be adjusted accordingly to allow for this human stupidity.

In The Times today, David Aaronovitch takes this pragmatic view:

They are, even if they are anti-gay or backward on women’s rights. So, until very recently, was most of the British Establishment and almost all the churches. They are in, even if they hate my politics, excoriate Zionism, call me degenerate, loathe Darwin and want to build absurdly oversized mosques instead of social housing. To all of that we can say: “Very well, let the argument between fellow citizens commence.” All they — or we — have to do is obey the law. And in that regard the veil-wearer is far more a proper Briton than the veil-snatcher.

When I next blow on my birthday candles I shall wish that a million people would read Ian Buruma’s new book, Murder in Amsterdam, dealing with the killing of the Dutch controversialist Theo van Gogh by an Islamist terrorist. Exploring the impact of Muslim immigration into the Netherlands, Buruma concludes on the absolute necessity of making distinctions between who is an enemy and who needn’t be. It will be the Muslims’ choice, but, Buruma writes: “Such a choice depends partly on the way they are treated by the country in which they were born. And this depends on another choice: whether to accept an orthodox Muslim as a fellow free citizen of a European country.”

And of course, living in a free country means freedom of conscience, religion and speech. Obviously the veiling of women is a hideous thing, but trying to stamp it out a la France is only the road to more veiled women. No, as is always the case, the government should concentrate instead on facilitating the conditions whereby the debate within the muslims in Britain can be heard by all. This would neutralize the poisonous and quasi rascist rantings of Melanie Philips and Rod Liddle and also encourage the rest of Britain that muslims are genuinely talking about how their identity can be adapted for living in a free society. This argument will only have one result, of course. The reactionaries will lose and the veil will eventually come off; but it will take time.

-posted by Adam