Author Archives: Jamie Kenny

About Jamie Kenny

Jamie is a journalist from the UK.

the long awaited Jamie Kenny endorsement

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Outsourced to Porter: 

The party will introduce a freedom bill, regulate CCTV, reduce local council surveillance, restore the right to protest, protect free speech, offer guarantees to investigative journalism, scrap ID cards, end plans to spy on email and internet connections, scrap ContactPoint, reduce pre-charge detention to 14 days and scrap secret evidence. The Lib Dems go much further than the Tories on the DNA database and offer wholehearted support for the HRA. 

On civil liberties, the Lib Dems win hands down.

I’m not a Lib Dem. I’m really just parking my vote there. I’ll probably vote Green once the crusties are ready for prime time. Good luck to the folk further left, but I don’t do movements. I’m a retail politics guy. 

Meanwhile, if you think that this stuff matters you should vote for it when it’s offered by a major party, especially since we’re now at the stage when it clearly doesn’t matter to either the government or the opposition. It’s way past time that social authoritarianism stopped being a cost free political option. And voting Lib Dem is the only realistic way I can see that you can at least try to make that happen.

specialness news

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The Tory manifesto calls for a “special relationship” with India, apparently combined with a “strong and effective” relationship with China. This is an exact copy of US policy, even if our special relationship with them isn’t so special anymore. We’re going to be special on our own. 

This obviously raises the question of what side Britain would take if Sino-Indian rivalries got really serious. The obvious answer involving potential conflict between nuclear powers that account for one third of the world’s population would be to encourage neither side to do anything drastic. And that would be difficult to do credibly if one of the countries involved is “special” to you. 

Also, does that mean a Tory run Britain would take the Indian view on Kashmir? Because that ain’t the view of British Kashmiris, presumably including the ones in the Tory Party. 

Interestingly, the Tories also want the other two BRIC countries as permanent members of the UN Security Council, which among other things would give them all an excellent opportunity to caucus together.

pirate republic

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Iceland is proposing radical new laws that will create a safe haven for investigative journalism and therefore the release of this kind of shocking footage, which exposes a cover-up, as well as the true nature of a war where a superpower deploys its weapons on a third world country, in this instance cutting down, among others, two people working for Reuters. The Icelandic Modern Media Initiative (Immi) will allow organisations likeWikileaks to provide the strongest possible protections for sources and whistleblowers releasing sensitive material that big business and secretive states want to suppress.

 Having flown from Britain last Tuesday where our disreputable Parliament was about to pass the Digital Economy Bill with virtually no scrutiny and certainly no concern for freedom of expression, it was remarkably refreshing to read the following from the official website of the Immi, which, incidentally, is supported by all parties here. "The goal of the Immi proposal is to task the government with finding ways to strengthen freedom of expression around the world and in Iceland… we also feel it is high time to establish the first Icelandic international prize: the Icelandic Freedom of Expression Award." 

To get the cynicism out of the way upfront, one suspects a plan to market the country as a haven for well-heeled geeks. The “Icelandic Freedom of Expression Award” is brochure stuff, like those economic freedom ratings which consist of counting the yachts in the harbour. 

 And why not? There’s a both a corporate and state-level landgrab on data and virtual space going on and so the logical outcome of Iceland’s policy would be to provide a physical safe haven for people who resist or fall foul of it. 

 Henry Porter suggests that the yanks aren’t pleased by all this. I suggest the following response: 

damn ye, you are a sneaking Puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by Laws which rich Men have made for their own Security, for the cowardly Whelps have not the Courage otherwise to defend what they get by their Knavery; but damn ye altogether: Damn them for a Pack of crafty Rascals, and you, who serve them, for a Parcel of hen-hearted Numskuls. They villify us, the Scoundrels do, when there is only this Difference, they rob the Poor under the Cover of Law, forsooth, and we plunder the Rich under the Protection of our own Courage; had you not better make One of us, than sneak after the Arses of those Villains for Employment?"

reaching out

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Per the last post on election speak and the discourse of mental illness, only 13% of the electorate think that Nick Clegg is reaching out to them, but 42% think the Tories want to take them in the right direction. However, voters seem concerned that Gordon Brown is leaving them sobbing and confused on the ledge of the multi-story car park overlooking the town centre.

put the knife down

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I was trying for a bit of cheap election snark by comparing what we’ve heard so far from Brown, Cameron and to a lesser extent Clegg to the speech patterns of schizophrenics. It doesn’t really hold up. Schizophrenic speech is free in the most fundamental way, full of random association, stuffed with neologism, repetition and the bizarre juxtapositions generated from crossed synapses and odd biochemical combinations.

I got the wrong end of the stick. Current political speech is more like that adopted by people talking to schizophrenics, and, in particular, trying to get them to co-operate in some way. There’s nothing internal about it. It’s concocted rather than originated. The aim is basically negative: to close down neural pathways and opportunities for mental association and to shepherd the listener down the desired pathway – to a future fair for all, for instance, where we are all in it together. Just get down from the ledge and get into the ambulance…that’s right…one step at a time…this way. Don’t worry. We have plans for you. We are in the future business.

Vince gets it right

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Businessmen on inflated salaries lecturing the rest of Britain on how to run the country are "utterly nauseating" and "being used" by the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman, Vince Cable, says today.

via.

Not that this is particularly hard to get right, and that the businessmen are probably more users than used. And note that this critique has now been delegated to the party that will definitely not form a government. The Guardian adds its own spin:

Cable's condemnation comes as study by the Guardian found that bosses at 10 of the largest companies to have endorsed Cameron's tax plans would be forced to take a combined £74m cut to their pay and bonus deals if they worked in the public sector, where the Conservative leader intends to impose stringent pay caps.

Good point. Except that it specifically refers to a comparison between public sector bosses and their private sector peers, rather than anyone lower down the totem pole – to the people who decide to spend their local authority’s recruitment budget in the Guardian rather than the people who execute the decision, for instance. Maybe Vince is making a head fake in that direction.

Tibet, trade and consumer nationalism

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On April 24, nine EU commissioners flew into Beijing, where according to Der Spiegel their mission will be to balance Tibet and trade. What this seems to amount to in practice is Peter Mandelson calling on the Chinese government to unequivocally come out against the wave of boycotts promoted by the fenqing and targeted primarily at French hypermarket Chain Carrefour. Some have been pretty spectacular.

France became the particular target for nationalist ire in China after scenes of disabled torchbearer Jin Jing wrestling over the Olympic flame with a pro-Tibetan protestor were heavily covered in the PRC. Another factor may also be in play.

According to China’s new leftist scholar Wang Hui, modern Chinese nationalism is basically a middle class phenomenon – consumer nationalism, he calls it – built around the idea that imports to China are a sign of the country’s increasing wealth and power. It recalls the old idea of barbarian nations bringing tribute to the Middle Kingdom. A Chinese nationalist doesn’t “buy Chinese”. He or she is more likely than others to prefer foreign goods, especially high end goods, as a sign of personal and national prestige. Contra Orwell, it’s the rich, rather than the poor, who are more national in China. It’s a notion confirmed by the anti-Japanese riots a few years back. These were focused on Shanghai, a city whose per capita income is five times the national average. So the country’s prominence in the luxury goods sector makes it especially vulnerable to a consumer boycott by Chinese nationalists.

Rupert Murdoch once described that Dalai Lama as an old political monk shuffling round in Gucci sandals. Given Sarkozy’s rush to mend fences with the Chinese government, the real problem here might be that he doesn’t have a set of Louis Vuitton suitcases to carry them around in.