The Idea

Captains and Pirates: SOPA and all that

2012-01-17T07:50:00.007Z

Online piracy is actually a problem. Music has been hit hardest: fewer breakthrough artists than ever over the last few years.

Film is suffering too. Hollywood is blighting us with more and more sequels - and why? Because sequels are so less risky - and when revenues are being squeezed because potential customers are getting it for free, risk is something investors and producers are looking to reduce. The flipside is that great, popular films like Zombieland might not get sequels at all because of piracy (warning: that link is a rant).

It's a massive issue in the gaming community too. And the book publishing industry will be the next victim.

The Wrong Law

But certain captains of industry in the US are trying to roll back to some imagined Halcyon days when they could control how their content is used. A bill called SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act - US bills need to market themselves in the political culture over the pond) is soon to be debated which will give copyright owners crippling power over websites which just link to allegedly copyright material. (I say allegedly because, as I read it, little due process will be required to block a site.)

The bill will allow for control of DNS entries in the US, so that access to a domain name can be removed. It will stop that domain name being accessible - buit in actual fact all you would then need is the IP address in order to access the site. So it would make piracy harder, but not by much. I'm sure tools will be created two help 'pirates' - for example bookmarks will record IP addresses so you can get back to a site even when its domain name has been blocked. It's as if the government could delete a contact in your phone - but all you need to get back in touch is to know their phone number.

Wikipedia is protesting it, and Obama's apparently on their side, so hopefully this particular law won't get through. But it's not the only piece of wrong-headed legislation that will come out.

Protect and Pay Creativity

But I said 'piracy' (a phrase which interestingly has negative and positive connotations depending on whether you are rich or poor) needs to be dealt with.

Although it's nice for us 'consumers of content' that we can get free stuff, we need to have a realistic long-term view. If musicians, actors, directors, authors and artists don't get paid - well, some of them might carry on creating the pieces of art that we love, but it won't bring them their daily bread.

Perhaps you'd argue that it would be a great loss if those artists who are in it for the money stopped working. But do you really want your favourite author behind a till in Asda, publishing online for free because only a few hardcore fans are willing to pay them to write?

Piracy's a problem, but laws like SOPA are the wrong solution. This is Hollywood and the music industry trying to control the content, when really they should be just making sure their artists get paid for it.

Dear Captains of Industry,
There are alternatives. For example, set up agreed royalties with an organisation like PRS, and send providers a bill for royalties. Those giving away your content for free will soon need to work out how to make it pay.

Work out how to change the culture of young people. It's difficult for them to link the artists' hard work with a product which is an electronic file - work out how to do that.

Make everything freely available on legitimate sites, with enough advertising to pay for it - as TV on demand already does. I know you're maximising revenue of DVD sales and the like, but get with the program, make friends and not enemies of your potential customers.

Sincerely,
Sam

Go and vote! #referendum

2011-05-05T08:34:00.000+01:00

Whichever way you've swung, I urge you to vote today.

I will be voting Yes. Not because the Alternative Vote is perfect, but because First Past the Post is a broken system and we need change.

If AV is all we're being offered, I vote for reform.
------------------

Voting Reform 12: A spoilt ballot for a spoilt system? #referendum

2011-05-04T23:11:00.001+01:00

I know a lot of people who are not for AV, and therefore voting for FPTP. That's because there's been no debate about different systems.

We're only being offered a choice of two. you might say we're not exactly being spoilt for choice when it comes to voting systems...

If neither AV nor FPTP are your cup of tea, when you vote tomorrow, you can always write your preferred system at the bottom with an 'X' by it.

That'll be a spoilt ballot, but you'll have voted with your convictions!
------------------

Voting Reform 11: Another name for AV... #referendum

2011-05-04T13:09:00.001+01:00

The better name for AV is Instant Run-Off voting.

In the first round, everyone votes for the candidate they want to win. If no one gets an outright majority of 50%, there is a second round.

The definite loser is eliminated, and essentially everyone votes again (it's 'instant' because we only need to go to the polls once). If your candidate was last, you vote for your second preference. If not, your vote remains with your first.

So in each round you vote for your first candidate unless they're no longer in the race, in which case you vote for your next preference, and so on.

It carries on like this until someone wins properly - not just with 25 or 30% of the vote, as can and does happen now.

We go to the polls once, but all of our votes are counted as many times as necessary for one candidate to win with a majority. Everyone's votes are counted in each round!
------------------

Voting Reform 10: How complicated is AV? #referendum

2011-05-04T09:01:00.003+01:00

The Alternative Vote is accused of being overcomplicated.

There are three ways a voting system can be complicated:

1. In the booth
On the day, the only difference is marking one candidate with an X, or numbering the candidates in order of preference. AV is really not that complicated - the Yes campaign's slogan 'AV is as easy as 1, 2, 3' is correct.

2. On election night
True, some results under AV would take longer to count - which some argue will take the drama out of our traditional election night. Candidates can still win on the first round, which will take exactly the same amount of time to count. Those which take longer are taking the time necessary to work out who is the most popular candidate, which is a worthwhile task.

3. Before you vote
Stepping back a bit, what FPTP supporters fail to mention when explaining the counting systems of AV, is how complicated it can be working out who to vote for under FPTP.

Experienced voters in this country are used to looking at last election's figures to work out whether they can afford to vote for their preferred candidate or not. Often voters want to stop a particular party from winning, so end up voting for the next most popular, regardless of whether that's the candidate they want.

This is tactical voting, and is basically eliminated under AV. AV will allow us to go and vote first for the candidate we want to win, simply and honestly.

AV would remain a simple, paper-based system. It would take a bit longer to count some seats, but that is a worthwhile investment to find the right candidate.

The main complexity is in deciding now whether the system is preferable to FPTP. Once you've decided whether it's a better system, you don't have to think much about the tactical element of voting - just vote 1, 2, 3, and leave it up to the counters to figure out who the people have chosen.
------------------

Voting Reform 9: The Best Argument for First Past The Post #referendum

2011-05-03T22:13:00.003+01:00

I was happy with the result of the 2010 election.

Why? The country got the government it voted for, more or less. The nation's mood was definitely against Gordon, but many were still against the Conservatives (Thatcher inspired long memories). After the first TV debate, everyone agreed with Nick - so we ended up with a coalition built on compromise.

But it was all a bit of an accident. The Lib Dems actually got 23% of the vote, not far behind Labour's 29%, but had 57 seats, compared to Labour's 258. Yep: 201 more seats for an extra 6% of the vote. Gower's Weblog discusses the historical figures in more detail.

No2AV's best argument is that AV would result in more coalitions. It's probably right - because that's what people would vote for if they voted honestly instead of tactically.

But, they say, coalitions are weak! This government shows that a coalition can govern strongly. Unfortunately, governing strongly is not the same as governing well.

FPTP's 'strong' government are often minority governments, in the sense that a minority of voters choose them. When they tell you that AV will result in more coalition governments, they're telling you that they don't want a majority of people to decide on a government. They're happy with a minority deciding, as long as it's a 'strong' one.

'I believe in First Past The Post and I will be voting yes to AV as I think the post should be at 50%.' (Ray Wilkes, writing in to The Independent.)

Voting Reform 8: Isn't there another way? #referendum

2011-05-02T11:04:00.001+01:00

Sunday Times: 'Roy Jenkins, whose Jenkins commission in 1998 recommended AV supported by a proportional 'top up', said that AV by itself could make any election outcome as 'disturbingly unpredictable' as the current system.'

If 'AV+' was the system recommended by a Parliamentary commission, why on earth is it only a 'miserable little compromise' we're voting on?

It's simply because that's all that was on the table when the Con-Lib coalition was formed. This is in many ways a false debate - we're not even discussing a set of options.

Ostensibly the referendum is as a choice between AV and FPTP. Actually I think it's a choice between reform and no reform. A No vote will effectively kill any chance of voting reform for our generation.
------------------

Voting Reform 7: Would MPs be less accountable under AV? #referendum

2011-05-01T18:45:00.002+01:00

One argument for a No vote is that AV makes coalition governments more likely, and coalitions are weaker and less accountable.

As I've said, this particular coalition is not a weak government. It may be incompetent and inexperienced, but not weak. This government has suffered from its members' lack of experience and its parties' long time in the wilderness. But strong leadership and genuine compromise have lead to swift action.

A friend of mine argued that coalition compromises are often just a good excuse for politicians to break promises.

Clegg's unfortunate / poorly judged tuition fees stance was a large compromise and sacrifice for the coalition. And is Clegg going to be held accountable?

In the 2005 election I lived in a heavily student-based constituency: Headingley in Leeds. Greg Mulholland was elected there, taking the seat from a retiring Labour candidate.

His seat is in great jeopardy now - students in a fee years time (or sooner?) will look at their Student Loans Company statements and take out their anger on their Lib Dem representative. Labour will return and Clegg will receive some payback for his betrayal of students.

This will happen under AV just as much as FPTP - perhaps even more so, as the candidate needs wider approval, and Lib Dems in this example are less likely to receive second preference votes from students after the tuition fees debacle.

Accountability will be just as strong under AV.
------------------

Voting Reform 6: Do we need an active vote? #referendum

2011-04-30T21:34:00.001+01:00

Further to my last post, the only odd scenario I can find is where a vast majority put the last-place candidate as second preference.

So no-one wanted them as their first choice, but actually everyone's happy with them as a second choice. But they can't be elected because they're eliminated first. Better everyone's second choice than half of the voters' first choice?

There is a system which would elect that candidate. It's called 'approval voting', and was recently chosen as the best voting system at a conference of psephologists.

Basically, voters just put an x next to as many candidates as they approve of - whoever receives the most approval votes wins.

It's a good system, but that's not really an active vote - it relegates the role of the voter somewhat.

I think it's probably better to have the candidate who has a combination of a strong base of supporters (first preference votes) plus a decent approval rate among non-supporters (second preference votes). That makes AV a middle ground between approval and FPTP.
------------------

Voting Reform 5: Who's votes are counted twice? #referendum

2011-04-29T17:06:00.001+01:00

The biggest potential issue I can see with AV - the thing that is most puzzling at first - is the assertion that the votes for extreme minorities are the ones which are recounted first.

So I've been playing with some numbers, trying to come up with a scenario where the fact that the last-place candidate is eliminated first and their votes redistributed first makes a difference. I can't find one.

You eliminate the definite loser each time, redistributing votes starting with the smallest number. If the smallest number of votes plus the largest (the leading candidate) make more than 50%, all the other votes combined must be less.

Whichever way you look at it, because the winner needs a 50% majority, the only result you can get is the right one, with majority support.

Or can anyone come up with a scenario where it doesn't work?
------------------

Voting Reform 4: Why extremists don't want AV #referendum

2011-04-28T22:53:00.003+01:00

So small parties would benefit from AV. What does that mean for extremist parties like the racist BNP?

It's often reported that the BNP are against AV. This is telling, but not a proper argument for AV in itself. A lot of BNP members like ice cream; that doesn't mean we shouldn't like it.

Now, it might just be that they're showing their conservative side and supporting the Great British Institution of First Past The Post. But it could be that they're acting in their own interests - because FPTP is more likely to see them getting an MP.

Under FPTP, a party can win with only, say, 30% of the vote. On a national level, this often happens. In constituencies, the MP elected often has a bigger majority, and many in safe seats win with large majorities.

For extremists, this means they can focus on the one element of the population who might agree with them. For the BNP, that means they could get elected in a seat like Barking, which the BNP focused on in 2010, despite the large ethnic minorities in that constituency, almost none of whom would list the BNP candidate as an option to represent them.

With FPTP, the response of ethnic minorities to a BNP presence is to gang up under the leading candidate - in this case a Labour candidate.

Under AV, the BNP would need to seek not only first preference votes from disenchanted right-wingers, but also secure some second preferences. As an extremist party, voters either love or hate the BNP. Voters are pretty much going to list extremist parties as their first preference, or not at all.

As far as I can see, extremist parties are much less of a threat under AV.
------------------

Voting Reform 3: Weak Governments? #referendum

2011-04-27T08:32:00.001+01:00

A two-party system could be said to lead to strong governments with large majorities in Parliament. Unfortunately, this is usually off the back of a minority of the vote: 30-40% usually.

Conversely, proportional systems are often criticised for producing weak governments who fail to implement their policies - or in the case of Belgium, fail to even form a government.

However, there are many factors that impact on the strength of government - in the intricate UK system, the Prime Minister is a central figure who needs to be a good broker between her Cabinet ministers. In Belgium, it is the ethno-linguistic division in the country - i.e. 'Belgium is not a real country' - which has produced their standstill. Arguably FPTP would be worse as it would lead to a swing between the two extremes.

So proportional systems like AV often lead to coalition governments which are forced to compromise with their former opponents in the country's best interests - or abandon their manifesto pledges for a shot at power, depending on how you look at it.

Does it follow that coalition governments are weak, lacking political will? After a hectic year of coalition politics, I think weakness is not one of this government's many flaws.

Voting Reform 2: Two-Party Systems #referendum

2011-04-26T20:33:00.003+01:00

The referendum is not just a question of to 'AV' or 'AV' not. It's also a vote of on the present system, First Past The Post.

One of the main problems with FPTP is the tendency towards a two-party system. Where only two parties have any real chance of power (as is usually the case in the UK), there are disenchanted voters and low turnouts.

Will AV break the back of the two-party system? In theory, yes. All those tactical voters, who would otherwise vote for a candidate who will come third, will be able to vote just how they want. They'll back up their vote with a second preferences, knowing that they will be counted in later rounds if it turns out that their candidate was a non-starter.

In practice, it's difficult to say what will happen, there are so many variables in play. Voters have never been asked for their second preferences, so all projections are sketchy.

One projection guessed that the result of all the postwar elections would have been pretty much the same. But you can't take each election in isolation and then claim that it wouldn't make a difference in the historical trends. For example, the Lib Dems would have more votes, making them a more viable party. They could have then, over the years, built up a stronger base of MPs, giving them the experience and pool of people necessary to make a more effective coalition partner.

The fact is, AV changes the rules of the game, and makes it easier for third parties to win, simply because, it allows us to cast our votes more honestly.

Voting Reform: What's wrong with FPTP? #referendum

2011-04-25T22:50:00.005+01:00

Firstly, this lovely video gives outlines some of the problems of First Past The Post:

Voting Reform

2011-04-24T12:24:00.004+01:00

Every day between now and the referendum on 5th May, I'll be posting here about the referendum on the voting system to elect MPs.

It's so important that we get this right now - scrapping one system for another is a major undertaking, and this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for us to say our piece on how the country is run. The consequences of a 'yes' vote are obviously big; but we need to remember that a 'no' vote will effectively kill any major electoral reform for a generation. We all need to work out what we want and vote accordingly.

I'll be looking at the issues one at a time - from the pros, cons and intricacies of both systems, to the likely outcomes of an AV system. Hopefully this will all help you understand what you'll be voting for and against, and make an informed decision either way on the day.

Banking with thieves

2009-11-25T14:37:00.003Z

So, the banks win again. This is the first case I've read about our new Supreme Court handling, and it's not a great first impression. After being bailed out by the taxpayer, and continuing to pay themselves massive 'bonuses' (it would really help their PR if they called a 'bonus' what it is – commission), the banks have won an appeal against paying people like me back the £30 to £50 a time we get charged when our accounts slip into the red, or over our overdraft limits if we have them.

Apparently the banks say that "these unplanned overdraft fees could be avoided" – but I've never been offered a choice of account by HSBC or Nationwide (both of whom I bank with) which gave me the option of having payments blocked if they would take it over the limit. HSBC just charged each time I went over, and let me go quite far over the limit. Nationwide charge once, then don't let me go any further, which is much worse!

Nationwide once refused a payment, charged me £30, and the outsourcers who collect payments on behalf of my insurance company then charged me another £20 because they had to collect the payment again a few days later. Beset by thieves on all sides, I am. And let us not forget that these are the very thieves who only last year posted record profits of $17bn.

I hope they can't all be tarred with the same brush – and the Cooperative certainly seems to be better than most. I think it's time to switch.

Somalia: Winds of change in the horn

2007-01-13T13:58:00.000Z

After independence in 1960, Somalia suffered some classic postcolonial problems. In 1969 came the military coup which installed Siad Barre, who became embroiled in the chess-game of the Cold War. He took Somalia into a war with Ethiopia to annex the Ogaden, a border region where many ethnic Somalis live. The state collapsed as the Cold War ended, and Somalia embarked on a period of civil war and chaos. For fifteen years Somalia has had no effective government and no guarantee of security. The north of the country has some limited government in Somaliland and Puntland, but the south, where the capital, Mogadishu, is, has been in a worse condition.

Recent events have been quite complex, though the United States' relatively minor 'war on terror' operations are overshadowing other, more important and more surprising developments. At least three types of group have been involved in vying for control of Mogadishu and the country. First of all, the Islamic Courts Union, commonly referred to in western press as "the Islamists", wrested control last summer from the warlords who had divided the city between themselves since the Somali state collapsed in 1991. The Islamist's rule was short, though reportedly characterised by relative calm and order, even if there were some reports of "Talibanization".

Then over the last couple of weeks, the Transitional Federal Government, heavily backed by the Ethiopian army (one of the largest in Africa), drove out the "Islamists" and took control of the capital and the third city, Kismayu. Since then the transitional government, internationally recognised and formed by negotiations in 2004, has been moving towards imposing order and asserting its authority. It has a transitional charter to implement and a lot of negotiation and compromise to achieve if it is to garner the cooperation of the warlords and the moderate elements of the Islamic Courts Union in — necessary if the transitional government is to build peace and security, which is the primary aim at the moment.

For the future, the transitional government is probably the best hope for peaceful development in southern Somalia, though a problem remains regarding the north. The transitional government's charter is committed to a unified Somalia: they hope that the northern regions, particularly Somaliland, will be amenable to joining with the south as they did after they gained independence from Britain in 1960. However, it is doubtful that Somalilanders will want to be governed from Mogadishu again, after the experience of being ruled by Barre. Indeed, 97% of the population voted in favour of independence in a recent referedum, and many would rather fight than rejoin the south.

Somaliland, "a home-grown democracy", is campaigning for international recognition of its reconstitution within its 1960 borders, prior to unification with Italian part of Somalia. With the second-largest city, Hergeisa, and an important port at Berbera, Somaliland is an economically important region, so the transitional government may not give up its hopes of unification easily. Unfortunately, the international community is not easily persuaded to accept border changes and new nations, so even if peace is established in the south, civil war may be a possibility.

Ethiopia and Kenya no doubt hope that a friendly government will abandon its historic claims to border-lands and so maintain peace in the Horn of Africa. The United States has been increasingly concerned about Somalia — a Muslim country — being a haven for terrorists and a money-launderer's paradise. Events are going in a direction which is good for most of the international players involved, but it remains to be seen whether it will be good for Somali people.

For the moment the transitional government's authority, and any possibility of security, is only guaranteed by foreign troops. Those who call for Ethiopian troops to leave as soon as possible, including the EU commissioner responsible for relations with the region, are right in arguing that a continued Ethiopian military presence could end up stirring up resentment among Somalis. The possibility of an "Iraq-style insurgency" against the foreign military presence has already been suggested by The Economist and others. We might also compare the Somalilanders in the north, with their aspirations for independence, to the Kurds in northern Iraq.

Many suspect Ethiopia's intentions, not least Somalians themselves, who have little reason to trust their neighbour. But just as maintaining military operations in Iraq is proving costly for the American and British governments, Ethiopia will not relish having direct control of the volatile and hostile region that southern Somalia is to them. Their best hope, and the best hope for Somalia, is that they can leave quickly and the transitional government can establish peace and security in Somalia with the aid of an international force drawn from other African nations, not least so that children can go to school and people can live their lives.

(Edited 16 January 2007; thanks to Peter Low for his comments.)

Historical labyrinth

2006-12-17T12:50:00.000Z

Pan's Labyrinth is superb. It has fairies, it has gore, and the acting and production are top notch. But I'm not going to go on about the film here: I want to talk about the historical background. The Spanish Civil War looms over their recent history as the Second World War looms over Britain and most other European countries. It began in July 1936 with General Franco's military uprising against the republican government, and ended when his forces took Madrid and Valencia in March 1939. At the end of the war, thousands on the republican side were put to death and Franco ruled Spain as a dictator until his death in 1975, when the country finally began the transition back to liberal democracy.

The film is set in 1944 in a remote mountain base where Franco's forces are combatting republican guerrillas, who are still hiding out after the war had been over for five years. The desperate position of these remnants is clearly portrayed, and any notion of the situation in Europe in that period only strengthens that picture. To the west, Portugal had already come under a right-wing dictatorship in the late 1920s; to the east was Italy where the fascism had begun under Mussolini even earlier. Franco was a military dictator who'd had material support from Italy (who had sent thousands of troops) and Nazi Germany (who had, among other things, tested out their bombing methods at Guernica). Six months after Franco took Madrid, Britain and France were at war with Germany.

The only allies the republicans had abroad were the Soviets. But with Soviet arms came Soviet orders: the Communist Party were to be in control and the republican resistance was to be centralised as a "People's Army" instead of the decentralised Popular Front. These imperatives led to the Barcelona May Days, when divisions came to a head between the Communists on the one hand and the anarchists and democratic socialists on the other. These events are recorded in a first-hand account by George Orwell and a 1995 film by Ken Loach.

Anyone living under a dictatorship in the twenty-first century would have the hope of escaping to somewhere liberal and tolerant — today, any western European country fits that description. But in 1944, France was the place for Spanish republicans to escape to, despite the fact it was under Nazi rule. Many escaped north over the Pyrennees from 1936 onwards (including Manu Chao's parents) but that avenue was gradually restricted. It is rare that any country will willingly accept massive numbers of refugees, and in this sense civil wars can become complicated international affairs.

After the unequivocally fascist governments of Germany and Italy fell, Franco's Spain (which shouldn't be described as fascist, but was more aligned with fascists than anyone else) was very isolated internationally, but Franco and his cronies, the Franquistas, ruled until his death in 1975. After that, Spain's King, whom Franco had groomed and named as his heir, ensured that democracy returned to Spain: there were political prisoner amnesties, a new constitution ratified by a referendum, and the long-banned Communist Party were allowed to campaign for election again (only to be stubbed with less than 10% of the vote). The test of this return to democracy came in 1981 when there was a coup attempt: it failed when the King declared, in a televised address, support for the elected parliament.

For me, knowing this history clarified and sharpened Pan's Labyrinth: the brutality of the Captain, the desperation of the guerrillas and the hopelessness felt by Ofelia, a little girl longing to escape a world where things "aren't so good", all make so much more sense.

How white is white?

2006-04-08T20:00:00.000+01:00

The front page of this weekend's Guardian sports a picture of the "non-white" British National Party candidate for a ward in Bradford, one of the northern towns which suffered race riots in 2001.

That's him, Sharif Gawad, to the right. His name sounds foreign, certainly, but he looks pretty "white" to me. But, no — as the Guardian put it, he's the Greek-Armenian "grandson of an asylum seeker". He's "ethnic".

The BNP leadership puts it somewhat differently. He's the grandson of a "genuine refugee" (the use of that term by the BNP might be a first) who came to Britain fleeing "Muslim persecution". He is "of Christian origin" and "the sort of chap" who'll attend BNP demos "whatever the weather".

It's interesting to see the reversal: the Guardian — revelling, I think, in a bit of BNP-baiting — pointing out his grandfather was an "asylum seeker", and the BNP — on the defensive — referring to that same person as a "refugee". Part of the distinction seems to be that Gawad's grandfather was a Christian fleeing Muslims: I wonder if the same arguments could apply to, say, Christians of Darfur fleeing Arab persecutors?

Whatever justifications their leadership can come up with, the Guardian reckon the BNP rank-and-file is upset by Gawad's candidature. The party admits that "his name alone" could "give rise to confusion". They suggest that "in hindsight" it might've been best not to put him up as a candidate. Apparently the lesson is that someone with a Muslim-sounding name shouldn't be a BNP candidate. It's okay, though, he's "known for his strong anti-Islamic stance".

This is the point: the BNP is at the moment focusing on Islam as the malign force invading our great nation. Their strategy is to capitalise on and/or create anti-Muslim feeling based on Islamic terrorism (New York, Madrid, London), making it a fight between the good, Christian west and evil Muslims from the east. Widespread lack of knowledge about Islam and a skewed conception of Muslims due to these recent events contribute wonderfully. (George Galloway is playing the same game from the other side: he is capitalising on Muslim reaction to anti-Muslim feeling.)

But the BNP is still an organisation committing to "shut[ting] the door" on immigration (including refugees, assuming they can find safe refuge in places other than Britain). It is a party that wants to want to "strengthen the traditional family" — that is, the patriarchal one. They are in favour of corporal and capital punishment (for "petty criminals and vandals" and "paedophiles, terrorists and murderers", respectively). Not to mention its economic policies which would, to put it frankly, cripple our economy.

The BNP claim to be defending British "traditions and values" — but I can think of at least one they are assaulting, a tradition of ours of which I am proud. The British tradition of providing a safe haven and openness to immigration is, despite tabloid hysteria, a long-running, beneficial feature of our society. A quote from the memoirs of a Russian who fled the Tsars in 1876 will suffice to illustrate this:

As I went to the steamer I asked myself with anxiety, "Under which flag does she sail, — Norwegian, German, English?" Then I saw floating above the stern the union jack, — the flag under which so many refugees, Russian, Italian, French, Hungarian, and of all nations, have found an asylum. I greeted that flag from the depth of my heart.

Remember, remember

2006-04-06T00:41:00.000+01:00

"Excuse me. There seems to be some sort of mistake. I bought a drink and some popcorn and now I have no money."
— Black Books, series 1, ep. 5

Tonight, I went to the cinema. But, heeding the warnings implicit in Bernard's bewilderment above, I took my own popcorn, freshly made. It's so much cheaper. Alas, it seemed a petty act of rebellion next to the explosives on screen.

We saw V For Vendetta, the latest comicbook-made-film from Hollywood. I've read the comic, but I won't pretend to be a superior geek — I read it when I heard they were making a film about a British Orwellian dystopia with an anarchist hero of sorts. My cup of tea, I thought. And it was: Alan Moore's comic is a brilliant work, and I know its not only those of us with a soft spot for anarchism and a crush on George Orwell who appreciated it — my girlfriend loved it too.

After Sin City, I had high hopes of how a comicbook film could look, and with the Wachowskis scriptwriting, expectations were higher still. Those hopes have not been dashed: The comic is, to oversimplify, "a blend of 1984 and Batman", and the film takes that and builds on it, sticking to the comic's imagery, making the story "relevant" and, well, just making that story.

As with any adaptation, it's not a question of whether it's been changed or how much, but simply how. I expected not to have quite as much Shakespearean monologue or deeper philosophical explanation from V; I was even braced for a bit of sexualisation of the characters, perhaps a broadening of the relationship between V and Evey. Thankfully, the imagery and the relationships between characters didn't stray far from those of the graphic novel, making for an impressive identification of the two: in my mind, the train scene near the end plays out in the frames just as it does in the panels.

As well as the Shakespeare quotes, which were integral to V's original character, I loved the references to Emma Goldman and the Sex Pistols — but particularly I enjoyed the way the Wachowski's have updated the story in its detail, but not in its form. As the comic did, the narrative mentions "the way the meaning of words changed" — but the Wachowski's have used the more recent euphemisms "collateral" and "rendition" for their examples.

The TV-footage-style flashbacks and clips that illustrate Britain's slide towards fascism blend the ranting-on-a-podium imagery which is so ubiquitous in dystopian film with eerily familiar-sounding news reports. Images of "America's war", for instance, or the reference to people being "interned at Belmarsh", gave the film an urgency it would have lacked if the setting had been less contemporary. The effect was enhanced by the fact that, as a Brit, seeing any film based in this country is a relief amidst the domination of American cinema. Just seeing motorways instead of freeways lightens my heart.

V For Vendetta stirs all sorts of political and philosophical debates: about V's nihilism; where power lies; the ethics of political violence and revenge. I hope this film gets more people to look at today's situation — broadly, the "war on terror" — from a different perspective. There is an ever-present threat of tyranny in any democracy, and the swift transitions to tyranny that we can see in history are quite alarming. Today we have two camps: the complacent majority that hardly notices the government's creeping authoritarianism, and the 'lefties' who cry 'fascism!' far too frequently.

I'll leave you with the one line that stuck with me from the comic, and which I think and hope will stick with others walking out of the cinema: "people should not be afraid of their governments; governments should be afraid of their people."

The wikiworld will come

2006-04-03T12:57:00.000+01:00

By now I suspect most web users have heard of wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that recently celebrated its millionth article. I used to edit it quite a lot, but that's no great distinction: it had hundreds, thousands, of editors then and it has more now.

There's no doubt in my mind that wikipedia is a wonderful project. Whether it is a platform for cranks or a reliable reference source, it is the most interesting development the web has brought us yet. True, many of its other inventions are more popular to participate in — music and film downloads, social networks starting with livejournal and culminating in myspace, and, linked to the latter, blogs.

These other trends weren't all that easy to predict, but they make sense. Who'dve thought we'd be downloading music instead of buying it in a physical form? Once the technology was there — particularly broadband 'net access — it was inevitable really. Music providers were slow to respond to the opportunity, so web users set out to do it themselves, uncertain about the legalities.

But who would've predicted blogs and, especially, journals? Blogs, once again, soared in popularity after the technology was up to scratch, once it was easy to upload articles and have them read. XML and related languages have really made that possible. But before that was all sorted out, people were already keeping public diaries. There may well be a theory that anyone writing a diary secretly wants it to be read, but to actually publish the daily events for all the world to see? Again, it wasn't easy to predict, but looking back it seems quite a natural development out of Usenet groups, discussion lists and the like.

Filesharing and discussion came together to form social networks — Friends Reunited was one of the important precursors to that, and now friendster and myspace are classic examples. I don't know whether livejournal's friends list function was a first, but it was definitely a forerunner to the lists people now create on other social network sites, with all the same worries about who to add and who not to add, just as party-throwers might agonise over who to invite and who not to invite.

But back to the wiki — who could have predicted that? Yeah, it would become obvious people would start using the internet to collaborate in various ways and to share information, and those are the main points about wikipedia. But to create a collaborative project open to everyone without exception? It defies expectation, certainly.

Someone quoted recently (on a livejournal community for wikipedians which I set up) that the problem with wikipedia is that it only works in practice — in theory, it can never work. People really did say it'll never work. They said it would fall to vandals, that the articles would be crap. There have been problems with those particular worries. Indeed, a number of contributors have left the project because of incessant vandalism, and I'm sure many potential contributors have been discouraged by the poor quality or particular articles.

But wikipedia has not fallen. It persists and improves, much to the surprise and bemusement of everyone, its founders included. Why should we care? Well, it is an incredibly useful site, providing systematic and easy-to-access information on a massive range of topics. It may need to be taken with a pinch of salt, and it can never be perfect, always being a work-in-progress.

What is important to realise is that wikipedia has a vision and a plan attached to it: the ultimate aim is to give "every single person... free access to the sum of all human knowledge". When the day comes that the wikimedia foundation distributes wikipedia affordably in all the world's major languages — then people will realise the very real impact this project is going to have.

Mislabelling liberals

2006-03-23T19:42:00.000Z

Liberals: the bogeymen of US politics. It's tempting, but condescending, to say that Americans don't fully understand what "liberal" means, but there is a better explanation for their 'misuse' of the word. In the US "liberal" means socially liberal, which conservative America can't handle. Economic and political liberalism, at least, is what that country is founded on, but for various reasons a large part of that nation has chosen to despise those among them who see abortion and religion as matters of choice.

BarryNYC's comment on this discussion of Belarus is an illuminating, though maybe not entirely representative, example. Notice that Barry isn't using liberal as an adjective, but a noun: He doesn't call Timothy Garton Ash "liberal", but "a liberal". This might seem like a petty distinction put in those terms, but what it reveals is a combatative attitude where 'liberals' can be pitted against... well, "conservatives" (it seems to be a positive word over the Atlantic), "patriots", and the like. "Liberal" doesn't appear as an adjective, as a property that could change, or one that might be 'in the eye of the beholder', but instead is seen as an essential category that Garton Ash belongs to, just as we might say he is a man.

This is the kind of language that George W. Bush, "The President of Good and Evil", is both a cause and a sympton of. It's the black and white world of "Us against Them", leaving little room for shades of grey — that is, serious debate. Demonising your opponents and making generalisations like that is dangerously divisive, and injects hostility into politics, as well as leading to ridiculous misunderstandings — according to Barry, liberals were fond of the Soviet Union. No, Barry, that's communists you're thinking of (and it's not even all of them).

But apart from the rhetoric of political battle, the major mistake made in the US in terms of labelling is that 'liberal' is too often equated with 'the left'. That is not what liberalism is. Since I started formally studying politics, I've became acutely aware what a great shame it is that the people of those most liberal countries (Britain and most of the rest of the EU, the US, Canada, etc.) don't even have a clear idea what liberalism is. Maybe I'm biased, but a lack of any political or philosophical education in (at least British) schools is a major and obvious flaw. People don't read or know about the classic arguments for freedom of speech and association, the tenets of liberalism, such as J. S. Mills' On Liberty.

I mentioned previously that Dr Frank Ellis, Leeds Uni's resident racist who's just been suspended, called the BNP "a little too socialist". That makes him seriously right-wing, doesn't it? Well, not necessarily. It puts Ellis to the right of the BNP, but the BNP aren't actually very right-wing. What they are is authoritarian and xenophobic — but I need not make arguments against the BNP here. The point is that this is another over-simplification: there is right and there is left, the two are mutually exclusive, and if you're on one side, the other is your enemy.

Politics is not simple. You can't see every party or politician as simply either left-wing or right-wing. That's not to say those distinctions aren't useful — they are, as long as you recognise at least one other dichotomy: libertarianism and authoritarianism, as politicalcompass.org shows. Even their grid isn't ideal in some cases, but every model is a simplification, and we use each of them as far as they are useful. We need to remember this, because the labels we derive from those models are always simplifications too, and sometimes they go terribly wrong.

Dr Frank Ellis: illiberal nonsense

2006-03-18T14:40:00.000Z

I witnessed Thursday's protest against Dr Ellis. Students and staff were abundant, with Unite Against Fascism and the ever-present Revolution Society in attendance. I didn't count "more than 300" as The Guardian did; any more than the 200 counted by Leeds Student seems optimistic. However many of them there were, I couldn't help but think it was too many chanting "Ellis Ellis Ellis, out out out". They're meeting his illiberal nonsense with their own.*

In an interview a few weeks ago in Leeds Student he talked about his views on the 'Bell Curve theory' and talked about his dislike of multiculturalism and feminism. He's been quoted numerous times in the national press as saying that the British National Party are "a little too socialist" for his liking (they cite that as if it shows how extreme his views are, but that's only evident if you cling to the black-and-white left-and-right view of politics, where shades of grey only occur within a rigid linear spectrum).

I'm unsure how I feel about the whole affair. Ellis's views sound like ridiculous trite, but that on its own is certainly no reason to call for his dismissal. A large number of Leeds students have signed a petition advocating just that, and if they grounds for that dismissal is simply his racism and anti-feminism, then that's part of the illiberal nonsense I mentioned. If it's proven that Ellis discriminates between students on the basis of race or gender, then there would certainly be a case for sacking him — but no such evidence has come forward so far, as far as I'm aware.

What Ellis has done is publicise his views, which many have argued is an obstacle to equal opportunities, since it might, for example, discourage black and female students from taking Ellis's classes. That's the kind of issue the university will have to consider.

On a positive note, the protest shows that students do give a damn and do have political opinions, as LS editor Jessica Salter points out. Hopefully the controversy has brought Ellis's views, particular the dubious Bell Curve stuff, to a critical light: in Friday's LS, Gospel Ipkeme wrote about the Bell Curve and its critics. That's the kind of battle I want to see: winning the arguments, not the fights. Sacking Ellis for being racist would set quite a dangerous precedent.

*It's times like this I realise how important liberal tenets are, and how ingrained they are in our society. But enough about liberalism for now.

BSD: The Big-Screen Documentary

2006-03-12T10:37:00.000Z

I've just come across The Take, a 2004 film by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis (a Canadian couple, Klein is the writer of No Logo, Lewis is a journalist). It's about the workers' co-operatives that have sprung up in Argentina and elsewhere in South America, taking control of factories which had been abandoned by their owners during the economic crises in those countries.

The trailer begins with an evocative interviewer proposing that what the workers have done, having taken over "90 million dollars-worth of factory...for [their] own benefit", is called "stealing". Answering in Spanish with his Argentine accent, the worker suggests "there is another word: expropriation."

This idea of workers' control and ownership really interests me: it seems to be a very viable alternative to the current domination of corporate ownership in 'the means of production', to bring in the jargon. Hopefully, thanks to The Corporation, intellectuals like Noam Chomsky, and organisations like the one interviewing him at the page just linked to, CorpWatch, people will begin to realise that corporations are not a necessary part of an economy, though they do seem to be in today's world.

The co-ops seem to be doing a good job too, their products are reasonably priced and apparently their workplaces are democratic. The latter has always seemed a problem to me: while we have a good measure of democracy in the political sphere of our society, the economic sphere has remained an autocracy where the rich and powerful retain control. (Milton Friedman claims that the market is democratic, with people voting with their money, but that assumes that the rich deserve their money, and so their power, which is a very debatable point.)

The film's also an interesting part of another trend: "the Big-Screen Documentary". It follows in the footsteps of Michael Moore and the makers of The Corporation, shooting political documentaries on issues which often fall outside the usual political discourse. These films can never replace the academic rigour and detail that books and other reading sources provide, but they can bring the issues to the fore and frame a debate with often emotive images and language, but also with a balancing of arguments. And they're generally hopeful too: two-thirds of the way through The Corporation nihilism and suicide might seem like preferable options, but by the end of the film, light has emerged at the end of a dark, pessimistic tunnel.

All the above is true of another feature-length documentary which I finally saw recently, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. It's all about Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela, and the failed coup attempt against him in 2002. But that's another story, and a controversial one at that: the film's been attacked as a piece of propaganda on the one hand, and hailed with 'Best Documentary' awards on the other.

It's great to see these documentaries bringing information and debate from around the world. I'll write more about Venezuela soon, and hopefully I'll get to see The Take and give you a review. But for now, here's to more BSDs!

Anticipate

2006-02-17T16:37:00.000Z

You can expect to see posts here about any and all of the subjects that pop into my head. I will be galavanting on tangents about politics, philosophy, music, writing, amongst other, less predictable areas. I'm a student of politics and philosophy at Leeds University in the United Kingdom, and I'm hoping to give myself a voice while at the same time developing my writing skills and discipline and earning a little ad revenue to help pay for my studies. It's not the first time I've done this.