Rolled-up Trousers

The preposterousness and absurdity of the BNP

It's been warned throughout this time of economic crisis, that rising unemployment could lead to a rise in racist tendencies.

But these last few weeks, rather than the country turning in on itself, it has been our MPs that have borne the brunt of anger from a united public. A persecuted and vilified minority they have become!

However, once this has died down a bit, it has also been predicted that the disaffection brought about by MP expenses could lead to a surge in support for the BNP.

I find this logic somewhat warped. Understandably, trust in Parliamentarians is at an all-time low. Everyone is talking about politics, so much so that Question Time was brought forward to a 9pm prime time slot this week.

But what would make anyone think that voting for thugs now wearing lipstick would make things better? The BNP hadn't even got into second gear before they were caught out lying on their election leaflets. Pictures of happy families, OAPs and British workers were found to be actors, and not even British ones at that.

MPs aren't getting it

More revelations on MP expenses today. It keeps on coming.

It is horrific, but I also can't understand why weeks into this affair, MPs are still being undone by this.

Today, it's not like David Cameron's Etonian pal Bill Wiggin, or Geoff Hoon, have been caught unawares. They've had more than ample time to review their records and come clean before this was dragged out by the Daily Telegraph.

Surely any spin doctor would have told them that it's better to release news on your own terms rather than have someone else expose it.

But clearly they and many other MPs who we've still to learn about, haven't learned the lesson. What the public are looking for is honesty and transparency.

Today's lot, and tomorrow's, have sat around hoping that the Daily Telegraph wouldn't notice them. 

Sarwar expenses response criticised

Media Release - 20 May 2009

Glasgow Central MP Mohammad Sarwar has come under fire for his response to the expenses controversy engulfing Westminster.

The Labour MP, who was fifth most expensive in the House of Commons last year, broke his silence on the matter by reacting to a statement from SNP Westminster candidate Osama Saeed (below), replying that he would publish his expense claims on his website at a later date.

However, questions have arisen on why there should be a delay on this when the House of Commons authorities gave MPs a copy of all claims in April, with some MPs already having placed the documents on their websites. Sarwar also did not comment on the legitimacy or otherwise of his expenses.

On Monday, he said on his website: "The current controversy over MP's expenses has, quite rightly, raised both concern and anger. I can confirm that once all details are made available by the Fee's [sic] Office, I will be publishing them in full on this website".

Commenting, Osama Saeed, the SNP's Glasgow Central candidate said:

"I welcome Mr Sarwar's prompt response to my request and his undertaking to publish all his receipts. However, he really needs to explain why there should be any time lag before publication.

"The House of Commons authorities have made copies of the documents available for well over a month now, with MPs taking the opportunity to redact information. If there has been no wrongdoing on his part at all, he should say so. At the same time, if mistakes have been made, it is better to be upfront and honest rather than dragging this out.

"Given the level of concern, anger and disgust there is amongst the public right now, constituents deserve to know the exact state of play with their MP."

[ENDS]

Dividing the colonies to extract the oil

The new revelations contained in the Times contain more than a whiff of the 'divide and rule' mentality. It's absolutely extraordinary that a proposal could seriously be floated in Whitehall to stoke up independence movements in Orkey and Shetland in order to redraw maritime boundaries all the better for London to take in North Sea oil revenues.

The tone of the proposals and the fact they could even be aired displays once again the utter contempt in which Scotland has been held by successive London governments. Scotland is seen as nothing short of a cash cow, only for us to be further mocked by being told that we’re too poor to be independent. In reality, they knew back then that had we been independent, we’d be running ‘chronic surpluses to a quite embarrassing degree’.

This is no small matter. These deceits have meant that where we could have invested in our national public infrastructure with substantial oil revenues for thirty years, we’ve instead got some of the poorest areas in Western Europe. We could be infinitely better off right now, and it is making Scots angry. 

Bashir Ahmad: Judged by the content of his character

Four days after Bashir Ahmad’s death, I’m still finding it difficult to think of much else.

Glasgow Central Mosque was jam packed for his funeral which took place only half a day later. It’s customary in the event of someone’s death to pay tribute to them, so it’s difficult to convey exactly what made him so special. There is a reason why literally everyone’s comments about him are to do what his manners and gentlemanliness though.

He came from a culture which puts great stock on hospitality, but from this background, no one excelled him. He had an old school quality. Speaking to people, I’m amazed at how many folk have been dined and plied with food at his house. Mangoes had been delivered to farflung places of the country, where Pakistan’s king of fruit had never been before. Even his family appear to be taken aback by the sheer volume of people telling them how some of his kind words had made them feel special.

Martin Luther King said that he dreamed of a day when people would be judged, not by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character. And this is exactly the basis upon which Uncle Bashir was loved.

Bashir Ahmad MSP RIP

The news has come through this evening that Bashir Ahmad MSP has died of a heart attack.

He was at home with his family. The suddenness has left us all stunned. People with him at work only an hour or two earlier say all seemed fine. From God we come and to Him is the return.

Uncle Bashir, as we called him, was a great man. The best. People admired him because he had those characteristics we all need - exemplary manners, a great nature, warmth and hospitality.

He was a history maker - Scotland's first ethnic minority MSP, its first Muslim MSP.

DEC appeal farce: Comment of the day...

.. goes to Adrian Wells of Sky News. Announcing his channel's solidarity with the BBC, he said:

"We have to, as an international channel, focus on our primary role and that is to report the story and not become the story."

Mission accomplished?

You can tell how unpopular the decision is even within the BBC. The 10'oclock news and Newsnight both showed clips of the advert in their news items about the episode, with website and phone number clearly on display in the bottom-righthand corner.

BBC must air the DEC appeal

The BBC have royally messed up with the farcicial decision not to broadcast the Disaster Emergency Committee's appeal for Gaza.

Thirteen of the UK's leading charities have come together to do a joint iniatiative for the region which was already a humanitarian catastrophe, even before the three week bombing by Israel. 80% of the people there were dependent on UN food because of the twenty month Israeli siege, with the UN running out of food in December.

Since then, 1300 dead, many more thousands injured, even more homeless. These agencies want to tackle this. For the BBC to question whether aid can be distributed, and in effect accuse the country's leading charities of lying about their abilities, is extraordinary.

The main reason the BBC have cited though is the impact this would have on their impartiality. I'm afraid that's totally shot to pieces now, but I don't think anyone can ever feasibly argue again that it's in favour of the Palestinians. It's bad enough they have contributed through their (lack of) reporting to a climate where they clearly have no recognition of the situation in Gaza. To now not just ignore the suffering, but to stop urgent assistance from being collected, is disgusting.

Anyone that would have complained to the BBC because they broadcasted the DEC appeal, would have been an inhuman voice not worth listening to. Pandering to the worst elements of society is an abdication of backbone and principles. Surely the BBC has better guidelines than that.

Bush and the neocons have gone. Time for Al-Qaeda to depart stage-right too.

If you were to plan out Barack Obama’s first few moves for him, rolling back the excesses of the Bush years would be the obvious moves. The closure of Guantanamo and other torture sites is welcome, as his statement that the choice between safety and values that we’ve been presented with by Bush, Blair and others over the last few years is a false one.

There is an ‘eye for an eye’ going on and it is making the whole world blind

Yesterday's vigil for Gaza in Glasgow’s George Square was unbelievably well attended. Hundreds came at just 24 hours notice in a remarkable mobilisation. Similar events took place at the same time all over the world.

The strength of feeling amongst people about this is as strong as anything I’ve seen since the Jenin massacre in 2002 - even more so than with Lebanon a couple of years ago.

I'm back

2008 has not been a rich year of blogging for me, with the latter half of the year in particular yielding no posts at all.

I'd managed two to three years pretty consistently before that, and even picked up a few awards and accolades along the way.

Centre for Social Cohesion

This is an extended version of my article which appeared in yesterday's Sunday Herald.

We officially launched the Scottish-Islamic Foundation this week, with warm words of encouragement and congratulation from three of the country’s four main party leaders and the head of the Catholic Church for what may well be the most innovative, ambitious and forward-looking programme ever laid out by a Scottish Muslim organisation.

At the same time, we were baffled by a briefing put out by the gloriously named ‘Centre for Social Cohesion’ warning people against us. They don’t have as wide a remit as their name suggests, a quick scan of their website shows almost everything is on the topic of Islam and Muslims, and very few escape their wrath.

Their “research” was in reality nothing more than a quick Google job, and a negatively screened one at that. The tactic of these kind of hatchet jobs which emanate from London is to smear by association. Attaching Muslims with someone controversial is like the “six steps to Kevin Bacon” test. It’s a modern day McCarthyism.

42 days later

There seems to be some despondency amongst activists regarding the 42 days result, the cynicism of the DUP, and the betrayal of some on the Labour benches who said they would rebel only for them to lose their spines at the eleventh hour.

Chins up though, this has still to go through the House of Lords, who will hopefully reject it and send it back to the Commons for them to think again. We must all then keep the pressure up.

Hassan Butt: I wasn't a terrorist

Astonishing turn of events chronicled by this Channel 4 video.

It turns out that reformed terrorist Hassan Butt isn't reformed at all - because he never had the links with Al-Qaeda he claimed to have.

A bit of questioning by the boys in blue had Butt singing like a canary.

He even arranged to have himself stabbed to show how he lived in fear from those he supposedly once fraternised with. This led Ed Hussain to write an article based on it:

In Manchester in April, Hassan Butt, a one-time jihadist who is now opposed to extremism, was stabbed and beaten for speaking out against fanaticism. He now lives in hiding. Why was this not reported in the mainstream media?

All of which must make us wonder - why would anyone want to make themselves out to have been an idiot terrorist? He and journalist Shiv Malik were planning a book about his 'experiences'. Must be some amount of money in this game.

Vote Ken

I'm by no means a stranger to London so I hope readers won't mind me giving a quick tuppence on the Mayoral elections today.

If Boris wins, it will be the most ludicrous result since Hartlepool elected a monkey as Mayor. At least there, the monkey had some connection with the town and had one fairly decent policy of giving out free bananas to schoolchildren.

Home Sec: terror threat "severe" and "growing"

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith appeared in the News of the World this week defending the need for 42 days by 'exclusively' revealing statistics on the level of threat we face. 2,000 individuals are being monitored, 200 networks and 30 active plots.

This all rings a bell, and that is because these are just about the exact figures that MI5 chief, Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller, released in November 2006. At that time there were 1,600 individuals, 200 networks and 30 active plots.

So in the last one-and-half-years, the good news is that there are no more active plots and networks, and when Smith says the problem is "growing", we'll accept that she means just on the lone individuals front rather than networks and active plots which she also mentioned.

Can we also ask that of these 30 active plots how 'active' are they? Why have these people not been arrested yet?

'Fury over plan to teach Koran in schools'

Here's a classic example of how it's not just irresponsible reporting about Muslims in sections of the press, but there's an industry out there looking for ways in which to deliberately pedal hatred.

The NUT called for the abolition of faith schools at their conference this week. I've lifted the following from 5CC:

A quote from the NUT General Secretary about the subject (from this Press Association article):

"I believe that there will be real benefits to all our communities and youngsters if we could find space for pupils who are Roman Catholics, Anglican, Methodist, Jewish, Sikh and Muslim to have more religious instruction in schools.

You could have imams coming in, you could have the local rabbi coming in and the local Roman Catholic priest. If there were opportunities where they all talked together to the youngsters, what a fantastic example that would be."

You can probably guess the Express headline.  Ready?

'FURY OVER PLAN TO TEACH KORAN IN SCHOOLS'.  Marvellous!

As you should be able to see if you click on that Daily Express article though is that they have deleted it from their website. It's still up at its bedfellow the Daily Mail though, as well as the Evening Standard.

Latest poll makes it neck-and-neck in Glasgow Central

The latest opinion poll of Westminster voting intentions have given the SNP a seven point lead over Labour.

When entered into Electoral Calculus, this puts the SNP and Labour neck-and-neck in Glasgow Central.

Further bad news for Policy Exchange

The Sun and the Daily Mail have taken down their reports of last year's dodgy Policy Exchange report which purported to show evidence of extremism in British mosques. It was exposed by Newsnight that several of the receipts used in the 'research' were faked.

The British Muslim Initiative is continuing dialogue with other newspapers who have not done the same. It was telling that they gave good prominence to their original stories, but despite the juiciness of Newsnight's revelations, they were not so quick off the mark in criticising the think tank.

We are also still waiting for Policy Exchange's promised legal action against the BBC. As they say, don't hold your breath.

Control Orders in tatters

Good interview on the BBC website with Cerie Bullivant, who was one of those that absconded a control order last year amidst quite a bit of publicity.

In December he was cleared of breaching the control order and in February, the control order was quashed by the presiding judge.

The judgements surely leave the government's strategy in tatters. Control orders effectively place someone under house arrest when there is not enough evidence to arrest and prosecute them. Given how widely anti-terror powers are defined, this must mean there is very little on them indeed. When the powers were introduced, we were told that this may because evidence was gained from bugging, which was inadmissible in court, or intelligence sources would be compromised.