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 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?
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 can probably guess the Express headline. Ready?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."
'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.
Continue reading "'Fury over plan to teach Koran in schools'" »
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.
Continue reading "Latest poll makes it neck-and-neck in Glasgow Central" »
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.
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.
I'm really looking forward to getting hold of a copy of John Esposito's book "Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think".
The data was pulled together with the aid of polling organisation Gallup, and blows apart the normal theorising about Muslims from a distance. It should come as no surprise that Muslims, like anyone else, want to live in freedom rather than despotism. But it will come as a shock to some.
Now we need a foreign policy aligned with this thought in mind. Stop encouraging rancid dictators like the King Abdullahs, Gaddafis, Mubaraks and Musharrafs of the world.
Ali Abunimah on the differing reactions to Palestinian deaths and background on the Jewish seminary that the shooting happened at this week:
... Israeli deaths are "terrorism," while Palestinian deaths are merely an unfortunate consequence of the fight against "terrorism." But the two are intricately linked, and what happened in Jerusalem is a direct consequence of what Israel has been doing to the Palestinians for decades.
Let me be clear that the killing of civilians, Israeli or Palestinian, is wrong, repugnant, and cannot bring this one-hundred-year war caused by the Zionist colonization of Palestine to an end. There will be an Israeli propaganda effort -- as always -- to present Palestinian violence as being simply motivated by hatred, and divorced from the context of brutal occupation that Palestinians live under. What greater proof could you need than an attack on religious students, devoting their life to the study of the Torah?
We cannot expect much analysis in the media of why the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva might have been chosen as a target. Was it mere coincidence that the school, named for Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, and led after his death by his son Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, is the ideological cradle of the militant, Jewish supremacist settler movement Gush Emunim?
Why is Martin Amis still viewed as a serious commentator? Here he is in an interview with Johann Hari regurgitating nonsense about Muslim birth rates and how they pose a threat to Europe.
Despite this, he was on This Week chatting on the sofa with Andrew Neil about the US primaries. Mind you, they also had Jade "poppadom" Goody on the final segment of the programme, so maybe some researchers were having a bit of fun.
I took part in a debate last week organised by the Cordoba Foundation on "Has political participation failed Muslims?".
Apparently the event caused a bit of controversy in the East End of London because one of the panelists was the head of Hizb-ut-Tahrir Britain, Abdul Wahid. Indeed, David Cameron has since picked up on this, claiming that somehow HT were set to financially benefit from this event, which is complete nonsense.
Anyway, I was blown away by the level of cynicism about the political process from the audience. I thought these kind of debates had been put to bed years ago - we need to be involved. Maybe it's a geographical thing - certainly Lord Nazir Ahmed who was my fellow opponent of the motion, thought things would be different in Rotherham too. In the end, the motion was passed 78% to 14%. I didn't demand a recount.
Continue reading "Has political participation failed Muslims?" »
Israel's UK ambassador Ron Proser was in the Scottish Parliament yesterday as part of his offensive in Scotland which will also take in Sunday's JNF dinner.
Full marks on diplomacy for labelling the Scottish Jews for a Just Peace "smart arses" for calling for dialogue with Hamas, in line with sentiments expressed by Israelis themselves.
He said that anything the Gazans are feeling now is no worse than what the British inflilcted on Germany in the Blitz, feulling the idea that Israel are somehow up against mighty Nazis, and forgetting that it was one of his own country's defence minsters that said they were inflicting a 'shoah' on the Gazans. What they have done in Gaza over the last few days is many times more deadly than what its claimed to be in response to - rocket attacks on towns like Sderot. The Palestinians can give such comparisons too.
Continue reading "Israeli ambassador compares Gaza attack to British bombing of Nazi Germany" »
Strange story on the front page of the Scotsman today. They've got Samantha Power, one of Barack Obama's people, calling Hillary Clinton a "monster":
"We f***** up in Ohio," she admitted. "In Ohio, they are obsessed and Hillary is going to town on it, because she knows Ohio's the only place they can win.
"She is a monster, too – that is off the record – she is stooping to anything," Ms Power said, hastily trying to withdraw her remark.
Now to me, that comment should be off the record. The Scotsman put in an explanation at the bottom of their article saying that this disclaimer only works if it's stated at the beginning of an interview that this will be the nature of the conversation. However, in practice I've seen it work plenty of times that a conversation is fully quoted but if someone wants to go off the record for a moment - and they say it quite clearly - that this is respected.
I suspect that if this had been a Scottish politician, the Scotsman wouldn't have gone to town on it in quite the same way. The fact that they will not be getting regular access to the Obama camp anyway led them to take the decision they did.
Interesting piece by Newsnight's Stephanie Flanders on Sovereign Wealth Funds. It's estimated that these funds from the big Middle Eastern oil kingdoms and the Far East have trillions of dollars to invest, and are becoming increasingly influential in the West given the turbulent economic times.
US banks for example have been bailed out to the tune of $70bn recently for example. If Northern Rock was to have a saviour, it was likely to come from the Middle East.
Flanders lists the biggest of these funds, with number one being Abu Dhabi's. Can you guess who's second? Saudi? Kuwait? China? Wrong, wrong and wrong again - the second largest in the world may raise some eyebrows - Norway at $380bn.
They've only been saving since 1996. Flying in the face of all logic, I wonder if any of Scotland's unionists are still going to tell them their oil wealth is unsustainable. Despite stashing some cash away, Norway has six times in a row been listed as the best place in the world to live by the UN. All of these sovereign wealth funds are in effect 'rainy day' funds for their countries. Scotland doesn't have such a legacy, despite having as much oil as Norway, and indeed I heard recently more than somewhere like Dubai.
Maybe this is what Scotland could have done if it had been allowed its chronic surplus to a quite embarrassing degree.
The video above was shown at Sunday's Islamic Relief dinner in Glasgow. The emergency event for Gaza was called at short notice in light of recent events, but still managed to raise £85,000. Well done to all involved. Today, leading charities came together and said that the humanitarian situation is worse than it has been for 40 years.
Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon spoke at Sunday's event, noting that while Israel says it was going after terrorists, children aren't terrorists. She also condemned the hypocrisy of the US and British governments in claiming to support democracy, but bringing about this current crisis by their rejection of the Palestinian election results.
Amongst all this, the Israeli ambassador is in Scotland this week.
On Sunday, he'll be attending the annual fundraiser for the Jewish
National Fund, which appropriates land that Arabs are denied access to.
Everyone is being urged to protest outside the Hilton at 5pm.
Right-wingers were delighted when Seumus Milne stopped editing the comment page of the Guardian. What it seems to have meant though is that it's allowing him more time to write incisive opinion pieces of his own. And what a joy they are!
Mosey on over to Comment is Free to read his analysis on the latest in Gaza.
Israel's deputy defence minister, Matan Vilnai, has said on army radio:
"The more Qassam [rocket] fire intensifies and the rockets reach a longer range, they will bring upon themselves a bigger shoah because we will use all our might to defend ourselves."
The little media coverage there has been of this comment (imagine it was the other way round), has concentrated on some kind of future warning Vilnai is giving. To me it sounds as if he is describing that what Israel is putting the Gazans through now is a holocaust and a "bigger" one is to come.
It comes the day after 31 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks, nine of them children, including one six-month-old baby.
Read more at the Electronic Intifada.
I'm back! Got into Scotland a few days ago, and have been catching up with work while dealing with simultaneous jetlag and some kind of bug which has been knocking me out.
Internet access was not at a premium in the US, so didn't blog as I went. I will instead hopefully be posting up dispatches in the days and weeks to come.
For just now, I thought I'd share this from February's Emel magazine. It was an article by Robin Griffith-Jones, Master of Temple Church, writing excitedly in advance of a series of events he had planned around Islam and English Law. The first one would have the Archbishop of Canterbury speaking at what we now know was an ill-fated venture:
There can be no better place for these discussions than the Temple Church in London. It was built in 1185 by the Knights Templar, who were charged with the protection of pilgrims during the Crusades and were vital to the viability of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem. In past centuries the Temple represented the gulf between Christendom and Islam; it is time for this beautiful place to help heal the divisions it was built to foster.
Best laid plans and all that!
I've been following the news about Archbishop Rowan Williams and his comments on shariah. While I've seen the headlines, it's only from speaking to people that I'm getting a full sense of the furore.
Which makes it sound even more silly. The country's media organs get into a tizzy over another non-story involving Muslims.
Shariah already exists in the country - I'm married under it, eat meat slaughtered by it, and bank according to it. In some cases, the law even had to be changed to accomodate this e.g. the removal of double stamp duty for Islamic mortgages. Obviously Williams was talking about such simple matters.
Firstly, what a play by Eli Manning and what a catch by Tyree!
Who says I don't integrate quickly?
Got into the US without too much hassle. Was taken aside by Homeland Security, not so much for a random search but because my name "popped up". Was asked what I was doing here, what I do, whether I'd been to Pakistan and was then sent on my way.
I've been meaning to write about the primaries and caucus season for a while now. I'm finally putting finger to keyboard while coverage of Super Tuesday results coming in plays in the background in my hotel room.
Focus internationally has been on the foreign policy planks of the various candidates. Obviously, this matters. The US sets the agenda for international relations, and as we have seen over the last few years, if this is wrong, it will lead to disasterous results. US Presidents spend a lot of time on foreign policy, not least because of the restrictive conditions they work on when it comes to domestic issues like health and eduction (by contrast, our prime minister has a full hand to play on these fields, so quite what excuse Tony Blair had for the amount of time he spent abroad is for him to answer).
