Category: current affairs

I couldn't agree more with this EUObserver comment piece, there are just too many reasons that neither the EU or Turkey are ready for full Turkish membership.

I'm just about to put Bill Clinton's “My Life” away on the bookshelf and there's two quotes I thought might interest readers. I enjoyed the book much more than I anticipated, particularly given some of the reviews, but pretty much end to end I was fascinated by the man's journey.

I had… a fascinating visit with Dole… [his opponent during his second election to Presidency]. He came to see me with a little toy for our cat, Socks, which he said was from his dog. We discussed the election, foreign policy and budget negotiations. The press was still buzzing about campaign finance abuses. Besides the [Democratic National Committee], the Republican National Committee and the Dole campaign had committed some violations. I had been criticised for inviting supporters to spend the night at the White House and for hosting morning coffees with administration members, supporters, contributors, and others who had no political ties to us.

I asked Dole, based on his years of experience, whether politics and politicians were more or less honest than they had been thirty years earlier. “Oh, it's not close,” he said. “Much more honest today.” Then I asked, “Would you agree that people think things are less honest?” “Sure,” he said, “but they're wrong about it.”

I don't know how that stands up given the current Republican hoo-ha over funding.

The second quote concerns George W Bush. The whole book is very interesting on the Bushes, Clinton genuinely seems to like Bush Sr but he hated the result in 2000 and hated even more the way it happened. Still he acknowledges George W has some political talents but can't help to put the knife in here., albeit indirectly…

The next day President-elect Bush came to the White House… We talked about the campaign, White House operations, and national security. He was putting together an experienced team from past Republican administrations who believed that the biggest security issues were the need for national missile defense and Iraq. I told him that based on the last eight years, I thought the biggest security problems, in order, would be Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; the absence of peace in the Middle East; the standoff between nuclear power India and Pakistan, and the ties of the Pakistanis to the Taliban and al Qaeda; North Korea; and then Iraq. I said that my biggest disappointment was not getting bin Laden…

He listened to what I had to say without much comment, then changed the subject to how I did the job.

then John Simpson's latest column will change your mind

I was just saying to my wife the other day that it's when the older generation become activist that middle England often takes notice. I'd had a long chat with a refreshing lady who felt very strongly about privacy, ID cards and so on. When young protesters cause a fuss somehow they are more easily written off. But when some grey hairs stand up, you know they're fuming and they're not doing it just to cause trouble.

Cue today's story 73 year old Sylvia Hardy has been jailed for refusing to pay part of her exorbitant council tax. See the Guardian's story for more.

I think people wouldn't mind (so much) the high and every growing council tax they have to pay if they felt the money was well spent. But local democracy is pretty much broken, in England at least. I've been inspired by small towns in Canada and France where mayors and councillors have taken real care in protecting and nurturing their communities.

This isn't to say that English councillors don't care – I know the Green councillors in Brighton care very much – it's just that they are virtually powerless. One you factor in statutory targets and arcane funding formulas the limited powers are reducing to barely nothing. Additionally when councils can't afford to enforce their own authority, due to exorbitant legal fees, firms know they can operate with impunity.

What more, most councillors are paid an absolute pittance and with taxes as they are who can blame them for avoiding giving themselves a raise to a decent salary level? But if we want our towns and cities to be properly run then as well as reforming their powers we need to create a professional class of local politician – and that needs living wages.

I regard myself (rightly or wrongly) as fairly clued up on issues to do with the environment, food quality, globalisation and all that. I've read Naomi Klein's No Logo, George Monbiot's superbe Captive State, Noam Chomsky, Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation and many more. I'm an active member of the Green Party as well as on and off I've been involved with Friends of the Earth, the Soil Association (the pre-eminent organic association) as well as Greenpeace. I've watched the documentaries on TV as well as, of course, Super Size Me.

None of these prepared me for The Guardian's Felicity Lawrence and her book Not On The Label. What's unique about this book is how it comprehensively addresses food safety and quality, migrant labour, environmental degradation, globalisation, quality of life, health, culture, urbanisation and much more. Precisely and cleverly these huge issues are woven together so that one minute the reader is considering 'fresh' ready-made lasagne and the next they are wondering at how frozen food has higher nutrient levels than many 'fresh' items. Next thing one is in the packhouses learning how employment law is dodged to let supermarkets buy prepared fruit and veg at absurdly low prices with no contractual commitments. The list goes on.

Truly we are in serious, serious trouble as a society. I don't really know where to begin – but the book is a good place for you all to start – save me typing the whole thing verbatim in my fervour. I've already filed a LinuxUser column heavily influenced by my reading of the book.

Really it comes down to bread… I love baking bread but I haven't been that satisfied with my results. I was waiting for my wife and slipped into Borders, dangerous territory for a book lover. I, by pure chance as I leafed through a shelf of books, came upon a chapter purely about bread in Lawrence's book. Holy crap. Bread is made in a really sick way these days. And I think the problem with my bread is the use of 'Quick Yeast' which doesn't develop the dough properly over time. The book was bought and now I'm more furious than all the Soil Association and Friends of the Earth magazines ever managed.

What's just so incredible is that I've been feeling a very strong dissatisfaction with British society, food, bread and so on… I've been chatting about this with people for quite a bit but the feeling has got so unbearably strong recently. This book was just the straw that broke the camel's back, I have to change things now.

I’ve often had conversations, inspired partly through the Green Party’s citizens’ income policy [PDF], that governments would be better off with simple one-rate benefits payments and one-rate tax levels. Gordon Brown has been much criticised for all the various credits he offers on the basis that they’re so had to actually apply for few needy citizens really benefit. Complexity is the enemy of having a cheap government, helping citizens understand where their money goes and it is also the enemy of preventing fraud. Every wrinkle or exception in the tax-law is potential loophole to be exploited.

So I read the following with great interest in What’s Next (which I can highly recommend):

Flat tax idea

In 1994 Estonia became the first country in the world to adopt what is known as a flat tax system. This is essentially a system where there is just one rate of tax – in Estonia’s case, 26% for all individuals and companies. There is no schedule of rates and no exceptions. The idea proved so successful that seven other countries in Eastern Europe have introduced the idea and an eighth (Poland) is considering it. Critics who said that that the idea was unworkable have moved on to another objection, namely that it is unfair because it is not progressive (ie, everyone pays the same). However, while the amount is fixed there is nothing stopping countries applying a threshold (ie, exemption amount). The advantage of a flat tax system is its simplicity. Everyone knows how the system operates and administration and compliance costs are minimised. In the US the cost of running and regulating the tax system is estimated at between 10% and 20% of total revenue collected. That’s a sum equivalent to 25% to 50% of the US budget deficit.

Ref: The Economist (UK) 16 April 2005, ‘The flat tax revolution’. http://www.economist.com

Those final figures should be enough for even George W to take notice.

Last night an interesting accident of scheduling led to an excellent Dispatches on Chechnya over on 4 at 8pm before BBC 2's The New Al-Qaeda: jihad.com at 9pm. The Dispatches was quite superb and particularly poignant after having seen the Beslan piece they ran last week. There is quite a significant resonance between the Chechen story of today and Poland's suffering over the centuries, we don't seem to learn from our mistakes. The Poles and the Chechens both expected Europe to help them, yet we don't.

What is different this time is the Islamic extremist angle, hence the BBC 2 programme was an interesting follow-up. Filmed in a more stylistic 'spooks-esqe' format the piece had tracked down some extraordinary people to interview including an ex-CIA man and the quite disturbing Saudi exile in London who happily posted pictures of beheadings and bombings on his website.

I found the programme particularly frustrating in the way it breathlessly kept repeating that “now they can even read our email no matter where we are” as if this was a new development. Reality check – email is plain text, it's been the easy to intercept since Internet day one! This is precisely what Phil Zimmermann was arguing for back in the 90s. Email is like sending postcards, not even an envelope to protect your writings…

So despite the continuing massive discussion and innovation surrounding Free Software, the Creative Commons and so on we get news that our current 50 year copyrights will be extended to possibly 90 years. Think Beatles and Rolling Stones still be protected past 2050… Like it or not but Paul and Mick won’t need the money then.

The facile arguments presented are that this will allow record companies to earn more money to help them find and nurture new talent. What? A very quick search shows that in 2004 EMI reported group operating profit (EBITA) of £249.3 million, for example. Would, say, £9.3 million make a big difference to new talent in the UK – I think so. There’d still be a juicy £240m to play with.

Almost doubling the the copyright terms is about greed and fear of what the world would look like for the major labels when their most bankable records expire. Record companies are in a not very pleasant middle-man position. Instead of reinventing themselves they choose to cling onto the past and make us all suffer in the process.

Lessig and others have very clearly argued that copyright is a two-way deal, it’s not just for the benefit of the creators and their licensors. Society as a whole is supposed to benefit from copyright and patent law – where’s the upside for music lovers here?

UPDATE: Wired News now has an article on this

The EU Constitution's troubled journey towards ratification has created a higher quality of debate on the role of the EU then I can recall in a long time. We can be thankful for that if not for the content of the constitution itself!

I've had various thoughts forming on this matter, how rapid EU expansion and the race to the bottom in social and environmental protections are connected. But I hadn't quite honed my ideas into a coherent whole when along pops the now ex-MP Richard Allan with an exquisite post on his blog explaining matters just as I would have done. Hurrah.

Over the last two weeks I've been doing a clear out. I've unearthed all sorts of weird and wonderful things at home and in my parents' garage. And thanks to the wonders of eBay the usual market failures have been overcome and buyers have been found. Mostly…

My comic collection did apallingly with only two out of seventy items shifting. I also have been inundated with queries from Nigerians, particularly on high value electronic items like mobile phones. The stories are always about anniversaries or birthdays for wives, brothers, business partners and even pastors. The queries come from new users (often created the day my auction appears) with 0 feedback who want me to end the auctions early and send the item as fast as possible to Nigeria in return for a postal order. It's always dodgy. The one slightly legit Nigerian I had ended up not paying (before I sent the item, of course).

I'm not sure why Nigerians are the leading nation of eBay (and email) scammers. Every Nigerian I've ever met has been an outstanding individual. Yet they seem to be uniquely troublesome online – I've not seen a single eBay listing say 'No French bids' or 'No South African bids' but plenty say 'No' to Nigerians. Anybody have any insight into this phenomena?

As for the General Election. Yawn. I saw the BBC's Question Time special with the party leaders. A great shame they didn't go head-to-head which was what I was expecting. The sense I get from all these political programmes is somewhat like overhearing an office meeting where three senior managers fundamentally disagree on how to manage some process.

Where's the passion? Where are the big issues? I'm absolutely fanatical about watching politics but these days it does all seem too managerial. Shouldn't debates about the use of targets in the NHS be held by some Department of Health wonks?

On the Postal Voting front just the usual pre-results scaremongery. Alan Mather has suggested that the Government Gateway might be a quick fix to improving voter authentication. His idea isn't ideal but miles better than the total mess we have today.