The Bewilderness

Ignatieff the Contender

Michael Ignatieff was a public intellectual in Britain for many years and has now returned to Canada and will run as a contender for the Liberal leadership. Although he is running within an establishment party, the candidate seems akin to Jesse Venture or the Gubernator: an outsider gathering support beyond the hallowed grounds of politics and subverting the rules of the game. Ignatieff is an interesting character, an internationalist with Blairite overtones, a policy wonk who has imbibed the third way, and a perceptive politician who refutes the simple partisan rage of the Left:

“There is a kind of anti-Americanism that I understand, but it renders people so enraged that they cease to see some of the moral consequences of their own position, namely that they’re going to leave millions of people inside a jail with Saddam Hussein. To which they then would reply, ‘Well, isn’t this worse?’ And I won’t even deny that. But the thing that I felt so strongly, about the decision to go, was that the left, particularly in America, only talk about the costs of the military operation. And in some senses they got that right. But they have no sense of the cost of doing nothing.”

This is a quote that could just as easily have come from Aaronovitch or other proponents of the 'muscular Left'.

Ignatieff understands that he faces an uphill struggle puncturing the sanctimonious principles of the liberal left in Canada whilst detaching them from the amoral class warriors who have allied with Islamic reaction, exchanging the red for the green flag.

However, he is proving controversial. Rivals have drawn attention to alleged gaffes (and to the Gaffinator) whilst political inexperience has led to accusations of flip-flopping. A fascinating clash of intectual thought and the  mires of politics. Will he survive?

Prosumers

One word that has recently meandered across my radar is prosumer media. It stood out at IT Conversations and led me to the entry at Wikipedia. There are dangers in viewing every unfamiliar word on the new economy as of recent coinage.

Prosumer was first thought up by Alvin Toffler in 1980  and was picked up by other  forward looking commentators.  It is a simple combination of production and consumer. However there are now a number of senses: Producer and Consumer; Prosumer as Professional Consumer; and Prosumer as an activist that excludes corporate production.

That, in a nutshell, incorporates some of the current directions of the internet: a mash-up of production, consumption and independence.

Kennedy was lured by Camelot

The Times is currently serialising the biography of Charles Kennedy. One of the less surprising surprises is that co-operation between the Liberal Democrats and the Labour parties continued after the departure of Paddy Ashdown.  Greg Hurst explains this  co-operation through a shared  acceptance on the part of Blair and Kennedy that progressive politics failed when two parties divided the votes.

It is clear that policy co-operation or local co-ordination were out of the question, due to the constraints  placed by party activists. However, both parties shared similar campaign aims, with teh goal of placing Labour back in power:

Blair and Kennedy agreed to co-ordinate their national campaigns to maximise the electoral damage both could wreak on the Conservatives. Blair nominated Charlie Falconer to execute the agreement, Kennedy proposed Tim Razzall. The pair met weekly with Razzall, always alone, visiting the grand room in the Cabinet Office occupied by Falconer. On occasions Falconer would be joined by Pat McFadden, Labour’s election organiser, or Douglas Alexander, its campaign co-ordinator, who was close to Gordon Brown.

At these meetings the two sides discussed the broad outlines of their campaigns and what policy themes they would introduce on which days, with Razzall several times changing his planning grid so as not to get in Labour’s way. Such co-ordination continued throughout the campaign, as Falconer, from Labour’s headquarters in Millbank Tower, and Razzall, in Cowley Street, would talk every evening by telephone.

If there is such co-operation, are not both parties morally bound to reveal this to the electorate, so that they may fully understand the aims of those they are voting for? In reality, pigs may fly, but elections are still based on the available information and secret deals skew the results, lessening the  effect of each voter by ensuring that their  decision is based on incomplete or deliberately misrepresented information.

If Gordon Brown and Menzies Campbvell are both leaders at the next election, then such co-operation will be forged again. If it is, then the pact should be open and above board.

Another Use for Carbon Nanotubes

The CCLRC (Council for the Central Laboratory for the Research Councils) runs a number of laboratories including Daresbury, Rutherford Appleton and Chilbolton Observatory. Daresbury has run a research project in tandem with  US universities to improve the versatility of body armour through the application of nanoparticles.

Current body armour relies on a stiff and relatively heavy layer of ceramic material to absorb ballistic impact.

This makes body armour heavy and unwieldy.

The CCLRC Daresbury Laboratory team are evaluating new nanocomposite materials, which can be woven into fabrics to provide greater flexibility as well as better ballistic protection.

They are working together with researchers from Tuskegee and Florida Atlantic universities in the USA.

The scientists have found that incorporating spherical nanoparticles of silicon or titanium dioxide or carbon nanotubes in a plastic or epoxy matrix offers improved ballistic resistance together with greatly improved flexibility.

Another use for Carbon Nanotubes.

Brown's Long Division

Gordon Brown's dilemma is now clear: his thirst for power through a secure succession is so great that he has become a louring presence over Westminster. Observers face an endless parade of Brownites shooting across the bows of the Prime Minister  with strong  hints that his time  is up and he may wish to use the  emergency exit.  Yet, every Brownite that stands up and repeats the message  contributes to the  impression of a divided party, as they are  rebutted by Blairites and accompanied by the  jockeying for spoils amongst the  older and younger generations. The latest intervention from Don Touhig, Brownite MP for Islwyn and sacked at the last reshuffle, reflects this well:

The Islywn MP also repeated Welsh first minister Rhodri Morgan's recent warning that the leadership wrangling will cost Labour in next year's devolved elections.

"It just adds to the impression we are a divided party and divided parties do not win elections," Touhig said.

"Next year we have assembly elections in Wales, local elections in England and parliamentary elections in Scotland and I am very concerned that we will be punished in those elections because of this uncertainty over the leadership."

Yet he was quick to warn John Reid off:

"I don't think John would stand and I don't know what degree of support he would enjoy in the parliamentary party should he stand," Touhig told ePolitix.

"I think John probably has enough on his plate at the Home Office at the moment, which is not in a good state."

We will face a pattern of stand-up and rebuttal from the elite factions of the Labour Party. This, is turn, flows across the faultline between the rebellious Left and the stalwart pragmatists who accept reform as the price of electoral victory. Now that the unions have acquired financial dominance over the party, the factional infighting feeds impressions of division, although actual power is tilting dramatically away from both Brown and Blair towards their paymasters.

UPDATE: Another day, another pol pops up warning and perpetuating division. Charles Clarke provides a knowing wink in the New Statesman.

Hey Mr Taliban,

Whilst Britain's NATO partners, Germany and the Netherlands, have ruled out committing troops to the south of Afghanistan, the Taliban appears to have lost much of its local support. A British official was quoted by Reuters:

"So far the Taliban have been drawing very heavily on the locals in the south ... This is beginning to change," the senior foreign ministry official said.

"More by way of foreign fighters ... jihadists, are beginning to appear," said the official, who was authorised to speak to reporters on condition he not be identified.

A senior defence ministry official, at the same briefing, played down the presence of foreign fighters, saying there were limited signs of foreign involvement.

Neither official would estimate how many foreign fighters were in Afghanistan.

The heavy attrition rate that the Pushtun Taliban have suffered leads to a drop in local support or recruitment. This is the first sign that the Taliban are more reliant upon foreign jihadists, based in Pakistan, and transparently revealing the  bases held in the Tribal Areas.

Brown's Hymnals

Danny Finkelstein namedrops Pollard. but argues about the tone and future failures of Gordon Brown:

Which brings me back to Brown and Blair. It is often suggested that Gordon Brown is old Labour. This is quite wrong; in fact completely ridiculous. He is 100 per cent new Labour: as new Labour as Mr Blair. But their visions of new Labour are subtly different. Mr Brown, like Crosland before him, is committed to his party’s traditions, wants them to help him to shape new ideas, while Mr Blair is not remotely interested in those traditions. Mr Brown wants to go on modernising the Labour Party. Mr Blair wanted to abolish it.

So the next time you hear Gordon Brown wax nostalgic, or Tony Blair casually talk about “political cross-dressing” it may appear mere mood music, but is in fact quite fundamental.

And like Crosland before him, Mr Brown will find that socialist tradition propels him to a dead-end.

It brings all to a dead end, eventually. Will Brown recant?

The Sin of Omission

The sin of omission is an important part of any columnist's ammunition. Without selection, facts cannot bolster the direction of the argument. A new maestro of this tool is Dr Steven Harris of Al-Jazeera whose new column is dedicated to rubbishing Blair's foreign policy.

Who would be the first to defend Blair's foolish efforts to support the United States? Not me, although they have the unforeseen bonus of alienating other EU members. Look for that silver lining as my mother told me.

First of all, it is not common usage for the War on Terror to be known as TWAT, although cribbing Armando Ianucci for your Arab readers is a mental reaming that they may want to do without.

The major source of damage is the  representation of the British public as a  practical group,  who can see the link between foreign adventures and terrorism. Citing poll evidence, Harris argues that the British reject the foreign policy of the Blair administration and adopt a less deferential attitude to the United States. Yet, the use of such words as "invading forces" for the Afghanistan war gives the impression that Harris would have left the Taliban in place.

And this is the question that arises when the cause is portrayed in a sympathetic light that could legitimate terrorist action:

The government argues that to change policy in the face of a "terrorist" threat would be an act of moral cowardice that would put Britain in even greater danger. But that would only be true where the policy in question was both legitimate and necessary in order to combat terrorism or serve some other vital objective. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq posed any threat beyond their borders, and the main effect of British intervention has been to create an enormous terrorist threat that didn't previously exist.

Since Afghanistan provided state support for Al-Qaeda in its plots to attack the United States, the argument that it did not pose a threat beyond its borders depends upon a denial of terrorist activities. The rest of the article is riven with such fallacies and assertions.

Since the arrests on 10th August 2006 following claims of an alleged plot to commit ‘murder on an unimaginable scale’ (as claimed by the UK Home Secretary), the public has been treated to massive confusion at airports – although it is now clear that nothing was imminent and  few of the people charged even had passports. It has led one of the main airlines involved to sue the British government for millions of pounds in lost revenue, claiming the measures invoked were’ nonsensical and ineffective’. It seems likely at this stage that only around 12 of the arrested will actually be charged with act preparatory to a "terrorist" act and a few others have been charged with less serious offences and around a third of the original 24 arrests will be released without charge.

You see, the terror threat was just the police having a bit of a tizz. "It seems likely" that Harris has to second-guess since he doesn't actually know.

Curiously, it is difficult to pin down who Harris actually is or whether he is affiliated to a university/newspaper.

Salmond Fishing

The Holyrood elections take place next year and the Scottish Nationalist Party has established a shallow lead over Labour, but not over the Coalition parties combined. The poll is inaccurate as it does not take account of  second vote preferences and  shows support ebbing towards the SNP and the Lib Dems. Despite devolution, McConnell's administration has been tainted by Blair's failures. Given the reliance upon Scottish votes, this further strengthen's the Left's hands in the party.

Most bloggers have focussed on the headlines about the SNP seizing power and introducing an independence bill. The SNP will need to gain a far greater  lead and an outright majority in order to achieve this. Croila is more realistic. Salmond blows hard but he can't strengthen a soft breeze:

The poll shows 33% support for the SNP, nine points up from its first vote showing in 2003, while Labour is down five at 29%. The LibDems are up four points on 19% and Tories are seven points down on their election showing, at 10%.
     
However, the survey - commissioned by the SNP from Scottish Opinion - is not a reliable indicator of public opinion, as it only asked for "support", without asking about first and second votes. Those numbers also ignore the unusually low number of people who responded, with 42% not giving a preference.
     
The worry for Labour is that it supports evidence from more reliable polls that the party is in trouble, both at UK level and in Scotland.

        Alex Salmond, SNP leader, said: "The Labour Party is disintegrating before our eyes. Its crisis is Scotland's opportunity to break the control of the London parties over our parliament and our society."
     

  

One poll does not herald independence.

The Text Brigades

The Washington Post included an article on political mobilisation via SMS in the Philippines. This is not a new development, as these techniques were used to marshal protests against President Estrada. The article implicitly demonstrates that the development of cell based mobiles allows information to flow rapidly: both to organise demonstrations in a matter fo hours, rather than days, and to allow improvisation such as the selectionof alternative routes:

The technology is also changing the organization and dynamics of protests, allowing leaders to control, virtually minute-by-minute, the movements of demonstrators, like military generals in the field. Using texts that communicate orders instantly, organizers can call for advances or retreats of waves of protesters.

This tool has changed the balance of political power in places where governments have a history of outmuscling dissent. In April, Nepal's King Gyanendra ordered authorities to cut cellphone service after protesters against his absolute rule used text messages to help assemble street protests by tens of thousands of democracy advocates.

Such techniques are more valuable where the jurisdiction lacks an agreed consensus on how to handle protests and where the stakes for change are higher, such as Nepal. Such techniques are deployed in different contexts in Britain, since the focus of networks is to follow a celebrity or bully a victim.

(Hat Tip: Smart Mobs)