Trouble in Ecuador

New austerity laws have left Ecuador rocking with an uprising of the police and army protesting at the withdrawal of their benefits.

Around 150 members of the air force stormed the main airport, other soldiers and police officers set light to tires and began looting while others still confronted the President in a tense stand off at the regimental barracks.

The Guardian reports the President said during the confrontation ""I'm not taking one step back. Gentleman, if you want to kill the president, here he is, kill him if you have the guts." The rebel officers responded with shouts, stones and teargas canisters, prompting Correa's bodyguards to spirit him from the scene."

"The protests were triggered by a law passed by congress yesterday on Wednesday that would end the practice of giving medals and bonuses with each promotion. It would also extend from five to seven years the usual period required for promotions."

The FT reports that later President Correa, who was trapped in a hospital, said “It is a coup attempt led by the opposition and certain sections of the armed forces and police. Whatever happens to me I want to express my love for my family and my homeland.”

They report that "Civil society groups joined the government in vowing to free Mr Correa, before marching on the hospital where he was cornered by protesting police officers."



Some in the government are saying that the majority of the army and police are loyal and a coup is not about to take place, others are beginning to mobilise to prevent a coup. It's certainly true that the President has been attacked and hundreds of armed forces personnel are on the move.

Unions decide leader of the Labour Party

And so it came to pass, the person who got the most votes from the members didn't win the Labour Leadership selection. Welcome Ed Miliband, the brother whose smile leans to the left, as the new opposition leader.

As predicted it was a toss up between Ed and David Miliband, but the nature of the electoral college system where three colleges (MPs/MEPs, members and unions and affiliates) each count for a third of the vote each.

David won more MPs/MEPs *and* more party members in the vote but because the unions gave their support so heavily to Ed it was the younger brother that won. Well done him.

Final round results;

David Miliband 49.35%

17.812 from MPs/MEPs, 18.135 from members, 13.40 from unions and affiliates

Ed Miliband 50.65%

15.522 from MPs/MEPs, 15.198 from members, 19.934 from unions and affiliates

For those who are interested in the breakdown you can find it here. You wont be surprised to hear that Diane Abbott was first to fall, then Andy Burnham and in third place was Ed Balls.

What was more interesting was that Diane came last in the members' vote, which was always the one she was going to have to crack if she was to do well. You will not be shocked to know that Andy Burnham did not do well with the unions.

What the implications of this election will be is any one's guess. Labour members will hope that a more soft left posing Miliband will help rejuvenate their vote - but let's see how they take on Post Office privatisation, the ongoing occupation of Afghanistan and trident replacement.

Green Party Launched in Spain

I've often wondered why there was no Green Party in Spain, and by often I mean I once wondered it. Well I need wonder no longer because they've decided to set one up.

Spain has an active environmentalist movement but the government sadly is not always sympathetic, for example they abolished the environment ministry two years ago subsuming it within the department of agriculture.

Alexander Sanchez, head of SEO Birdlife and Juantxo Lopez de Uralde, former head of Spanish Greenpeace (pictured right doing something weird) made the announcement this weekend and ICV, a Catalonian Green Party which receives 9.5% of the regional vote and has Parliamentary seats is backing the initiative towards a national party.

Greens have certainly stood at elections but have previously been part of the United Left which has disappointed many environmentalists by backing subsidies for new coal power stations. It looks like there's a reasonably friendly parting of the ways and with a ready made, if modest, electoral base and well known figureheads they certainly have potential.

El Pais says that the party will be of the left, but not necessarily of the traditional variety. De facto leader Uralde also pointed out that the party would occupy a unique political space as the only party to oppose bullfighting, or with a commitment to renewable power.

Uralde says that years ago ecology was just about seals and whales but now it is a far broader political project. He went on to say "La aventura puede ser loca, pero los aventureros estamos cuerdos", which I'm loosely translating as "It might be a crazy adventure, but we adventurers are level headed."

Lobbying vs Spam

When I hear a politician saying that "lobby groups are becoming a nuisance" I have to say my first instinct is to think "Good! That's their job." A campaign group that is comfortable and uncritical with the great and the good is not helping shape the political agenda.

However, the awful truth is that Conservative MP Dominic Raab has a point. Spamming politicians is extremely ineffective.

The campaigning website 38 degrees has generated a bit of news for itself when Raab asked to be removed from their automated emailing system - a request that has been widely misreported as an attempt to prevent constituents from emailing him, which is clearly false.

Having seen the results of these automated systems from the receiving end (not me, people I was supporting) it's clear that dozens, or hundreds, of identical emails all coming from the same website do not influence candidates in the least. You will at most receive a standard cut and pasted response to your standardised cut and pasted email, and I'm not sure you deserve any more than that anyway.

During the election I saw automated emails on such unanswerable questions as whether the candidate opposes cancer, is in support of children or believes in road safety. Each and everyone of these emails were far more about the organisation sending the emails attempting to feel important than they were about influencing policy.

The emails that do get taken seriously are the ones that are written from scratch addressing a question shaped by the constituent not a lobby group. This correspondence gets read and responded to properly in a way that the junk organisations like 38 degrees sends out cannot dream of.

If organisations want to influence MPs they need to understand that spam is not simply a very weak form of communication, it's likely to actively bring you into disrepute because of the massively pointless inconvenience it creates for the receiver. I don't want public money going on the salaries of people sitting laboriously replying to emails that the sender couldn't even be bothered to write - it's hardly a sign that the sender cares about the issue that they let a robot do their thinking for them.

Email spam is different from demonstrations, petitions and other forms of mass communication with your MP because spam takes no effort, it is no longer a meaningful form of communication. More-over as time goes on and more people are able to programme their site to send out this stuff it becomes even *less* effective because politicians get in the habit of ditching automated emails straight to junk.

Improved web technology has also spawned the habit of constituents sending emails to every elected person they can think of, so they'll fire off emails to their London Assembly member, both their Mayors, all their councillors and their MP on issues that sometimes aren't even the responsibility of any of them, let alone just the one.

Effective lobbying needs to targeted, meaningful and specific. Asking someone if they oppose cancer is pointless (and there were at least three organisations sending these out), asking them if they support a new cancer ward in their local hospital is not.

If an MP receives three written letters on a particular subject they outweigh three hundred identical emails any day of the week. Just because you can programme your site to do something does not mean that the human being at the other end is going to be anything other than annoyed at your stupid organisation.

Democracy Turfed Off

It's so long ago it gives me a little warm glow of nostalgia, but time was that New Labour tried to ban the largest demonstration in British history, all for the sake of some grass. No, no, no - not the sort Ministers stuff into their crack pipes, the grass in Hyde Park of course.

The demonstration, which eventually attracted over a million people, making it the largest mobilisation in the history of the UK, was to be cancelled because the grass issue may also mean "People can get crushed, people can break their legs - there are a lot of things that happen at this time of year and it would be very unwise of us to take such a risk" which, as an official statement, reads more like a local mafioso saying "Shop windows can get.... broken... if you're not careful."

This all flooded back to me when I saw that Boris Johnson had made these comments about the eviction of the "Democracy Village" camped outside Parliament. "I think it's wonderful that as a city we can protest. But it is nauseating what they are doing to the lawn."

Quite correctly Johnson has identified that democracy is a lovely idea, but not when it comes at the price of a nice bit of the green stuff. You need to pamper your pampas, after all. (Evening Standard has pics of the great grass massacre, here)

However, while I have little sympathy for the argument that grass has more rights than people, I am slightly more concerned about the rights of individuals to permanently rob everyone else of common land. It's not simply the uber-hierarchical model of moralising protest that Brian Haw typifies, it's also the fact that if you're opposed to, say, privatising public property, you shouldn't then claim personal ownership over common land yourself.

These protesters made the Square unusable for everyone else, and they hoped to do this on a long term or permanent basis. Is that democracy or simply giving yourself property rights over land that was held in common? Is it wrong for the State to sell off public property but ok for a self-appointed group of randoms to rock up and claim our land for themselves?

Even those poor little blades of grass were part of the common treasury until this small squad of elitists squatted on them. I'm not entirely sure I 100% approve.

I'm certainly not saying that these issues are not complex and, usually, require some sort of negotiation but I am saying that democracy is not just about everyone being allowed to do whatever they like, no matter how anti-social.

Zac Goldsmith interviewed on Channel Four news

This is absolute gold - do watch! New Tory MP Zac Goldsmith was on C4 News to be grilled over his potentially dodgy election expense returns, but in 13 minutes of interview he spends the almost entire time trying to skewer Jon Snow on some minor point of scheduling that no one cares about.

When he does get round to speaking about the issue in hand he utterly bungles it, and it's clear he knows he's on very dodgy ground. In my view he'd have been hard put to come across more like an aristocratic baddie even if he had a duelling scar and a henchman hovering just behind his right shoulder.



Goldsmith is clearly a man who regards the media making legitimate enquiries as total impudence.

Philip Hollobone MP is a toad

I'm not impressed by Philip Hollobone's private member's bill aimed at banning the veil in public. Thankfully it's unlikely to gain majority support or much Parliamentary time but people like Hollobone think nothing of fueling the fire of anti-Muslim opinion with stunts like this.

At least he doesn't dress up his suggestion as somehow protecting women by criminalising them, which some do. No, he falls back on the bigot's old faithful "the British Way of Life" which includes regulating what we can wear, apparently.

I must have missed that ancient tradition. I think he must be referring to those old traditions of being bloody horrible to foreigners... perhaps he could clarify.

He justified his Face Coverings (Regulation) Bill by saying "I think it's inappropriate to cover your face in public, whether it's a burka, a balaclava or anything else." Brilliant. Almost every motorcycle crash helmet banned at a stroke. Clearly this is his real agenda - he hates Jerey Clarkson and the 'Stig'.

This is why you need health and safety

This is why you need health and safety at work. What is it with racing and sadomasochism? First we had Mosley with his extended spanking and dungeon settings and now the owner of RPM Motorsport, an ex-motorcycle racing champion Robin Mortimer has been found dead at an S&M club in Belgium, 'Torment Towers'.

Two women, Mistress Lucrezia and Mistress Juno, have been arrested although it looks like the authorities do not suspect that they meant to kill him, which only really leaves the possibility that some sort of violent session got out of hand and was not conducted in a safe manner.

According to the prosectution he may have choked on a rubber ball or died after taking an anaesthetic designed to prolong sadistic sex sessions. Legalised brothels and proper health and safety legislation and it's all so much safer.

Is there something about petrol or high speeds that encourages this sort of thing - or is it just a coincidence?

Mark Thomas wins pay out from police

Just noticed that Mark Thomas has won over a grand off the police after he was stopped and searched for looking "over confident" after speaking at an anti-arms trade rally. According to the Guardian;

"The Met paid £1,200 for "falsely imprisoning" Thomas for 12 minutes. He said: "£100 a minute is slightly more than my usual rate. If over-confidence is a reason for a stop-and-search Jonathan Ross should never leave his house.""

Nice. I also note that "The officer who carried out the search had received "formal words of advice"." I can't be the only one wondering what they words might have been...

Those Primark Bikinis

I don't know if you've seen the news that Primark have stopped selling padded bikinis for children (pictured) but this mini-moral panic has thrown up some really interesting issues to my mind.

On PM tonight (about half an hour in) they covered the fact that Primark had taken the item off sale and donated all profits to a children's charity.

Shy Keenan, an advocate for child protection, had been part of the campaign against the bikinis and made a very clear case against. Whilst I appreciated her tone, for example she repeated a number of times that she did not want anyone to live a "risk averse" life, I do think that a few of the things she said was less helpful than they could have been.

However, although the radio interview was conducted fairly sensibly she did say in The Sun "It never fails to amaze me just how many High Street household names are now prepared to exploit the disgusting 'paedophile pound'." In case people think The Sun might have made this up this is a phrase taken directly from her website.

I don't believe there is any phenomenon that is properly described by the phrase 'paedophile pound'. There are some rather tacky and stupid items like lap dancing kits for kids that pop up occasionally but the objection to these is not that they are bought by paedophiles but that they encourage kids to sexualise too early and in a very distorted, commercialised way.

I also believe her statement is intended to give the impression that you can't go into any of these 'many High Street household names' without seeing goods designed for sale specifically to paedophiles. This is not the case at all. It's dangerous hyperbole in an area where we need to encourage a measured response.

I don't want to get too pedantic over the radio interview because, in fairness to her, she may well have been grappling towards saying something that she didn't quite articulate the way she would have wanted, but never-the-less I think it's worth looking at the claims she made about these bikinis.

Here is the most controversial sample;

"We shouldn't be doing anything to help and facilitate [paedophiles] just don't dress your child up like a sexy adult, it's not terribly helpful."

[She was asked whether she thought there was a link between these bikinis and paedophilia.]

"There are paedophiles everywhere, you are never going to find areas where there are children where there aren't paedophiles. I'm suggesting again you have to live a risk averse life but I don't think you have to do things to encourage their attention and certainly a child dressed in extremely sexualised outfits would attract their attention."

Now, it seems to me there are some factual errors here. We can look at the bikini and make a decision about whether we think the pic above is an example of "extremely sexualised outfits". Unwise, yes. Tacky, yes. Extremely sexualised? That's a real stretch and, I think, more a product of her perspective on the issue than objectively true. It seems to me that she's reacting against her idea of the product not the product itself.

Secondly, it is just not true to say there are "paedophiles everywhere". It is not responsible to say everywhere you find children you will find paedophiles. Perhaps she was trying to make a more general, moderate point - possibly - but the effect is to cast a shadow over all adult-child relations whilst ignoring the extremely basic point that "stranger danger" is not the key issue when it comes to child protection, but those adults with direct responsibility for a child's safety.

The key phrase that made my ears prick up here was the idea that the way you dress your child "may help and facilitate" paedophiles. This is a new version of the idea that women who wear short skirts are somehow partially responsible if they get raped. This is plain wrong.

Those who abuse children are not enticed into abusing by kids dressing like adults. They abuse kids because they have a sick and distorted sexuality that makes them focus sexually on children. They are neither helped nor facilitated by a parent's choice of their kids clothing.

Like the ridiculous media furor over the "panic button" for a Facebook we have these campaigns for things that will have absolutely no effect on the number of kids that get abused whilst simultaneously raising the fear of abuse in society and distorting people's view of society as one that is full of dangers and those dangers are other people.

I'm not sad to see these silly padded bikinis taken off the shelves but it is quite wrong to imply that the cause of child abuse is children behaving and dressing like adults. Kids are not to blame if they've been abused, no matter what they wear.

Digital Economy Bill: Wrong and Stupid

So MPs have been debating the Digital Economy Bill which has been rushed through at the fag end of this Parliamentary cycle without proper scrutiny, not that any bill ever gets proper scrutiny - but this one has even less proper scrutiny than all the others ones that have been inadequately scrutinised.

The bill was passed with a majority of 142 votes (189 votes to 47) because Labour MPs, who know they should know better, are essentially a bunch of spineless supine careerists. Which is ironic as many of them are reaching the ends of their careers.

The debate was characterised by people not understanding that if someone illegally downloads a tune that is not a lost sale, nor has someone's property been stolen - it is simply someone extra having access to that tune.

The bill, which brings in legislation to further control the internet, has a number of problems. There are certainly concerns that there may be freedom of speech issues and has a hammer to crack a nut approach, but its main problem is that it assumes guilt and then forces people to prove their innocence - reversing centuries of the legal system.

It means that if your ISP address is one that is thought to be involved in illegal file sharing then your net access could be completely removed. Well, goodbye internet cafes then. Goodbye university web access. Farewell to natural justice as families get cut off because one individual has downloaded a few files. What utter idiocy.

This is a very dangerous piece of legislation which is, of course, their starting point on this issue. Who knows where the next government will take us because both likely contenders for largest party supported the bill.

I'm sure public whip will tell us who voted how on the bill when the info comes through, and you can check out on this site whether your MP showed up or not.

The sweet aroma of justice

Sergeant Smellie has been acquitted of assaulting a protester at the G20 after the key witness failed to show up at the trial.

According to the CPS "Smellie lost his self-control because of Fisher's irritating, aggressive and confrontational actions."

Good to know. The next time the police are irritating, aggressive and confrontational (which apparently does happen occasionally) you are perfectly within your rights to slap them in the face and then whack them about the legs with a piece of metal. It's all good, the CPS says so.

Footage at the Guardian of the incident shows that the police were refusing to allow protesters to leave an area in a particularly aggressive way and had, moments before, used physical force against one person who, I believe, had actually been accidentally caught in the quarantined zone.

The protester who was attacked had stepped up to the Sergeant to remonstrate with him about the police behaviour and was certainly agitated, but Smellie's defense that he was frightened of being attacked by her appears laughable.

However, the fact that the officer was acquitted should come as no surprise when the woman at the center of the controversy, Nicola Fisher, seemed more interested in embellishing her story than seeking justice. Not only did she hire the publicist Max Clifford in an attempt to make money out the episode she also clearly embroidered the truth to make it more sensational, for example saying that she was attacked out of the blue rather than after she'd shouted at the officer.

Clifford said. "She sees it as a total miscarriage of justice. She was convinced that she wouldn't get justice." Well, you wont if you lie to the papers but don't even bother showing up in court. How was the prosecution meant to make the charges stick without the victim of the assault there to give evidence?

Only Fisher knows the real reason why she didn't show up in court. Perhaps she was intimidated, perhaps she's ashamed that she'd exaggerated to the press or perhaps she's just gutless but it's difficult to see the acquittal of Sergeant Smellie as a flaw in the justice system when she did not show up in order to give evidence and face cross examination.

John Lewis Payout to Staff

John Lewis may be a large chain but it's also a workers' coop. I've always wondered exactly how that works and still don't really know.

What was interesting was the news today that John Lewis made a large profit last year, proving that you don't have to be owned by a Mexican billionaire in order to make any money.

Just to nail home the point, that surplus is distributed to all its employees - amounting to a 'bonus' of two months wages. Two months! I bet there are 70,000 happy John Lewis workers right now.

I'm not saying John Lewis, which is 146 years old, is the model for a new society but surely it says something that a little bit of fairness can work out for everyone.

Asylum seekers should be welcome here

Another tragic reminder of the human cost of our government's policy on refugees and asylum seekers. Three people dead by their own hands because of the unnecessary cruelty and bureaucratic nightmare that they were forced to go through.

I hope their deaths can go some way to moving public opinion to force the government to take a more humane approach towards those seeking shelter and a new home. It doesn't matter which side of any line on a map you were born. People are still people, unless perhaps they work for the Home Office.

Haiti: nine links

• Clare Durham of the Red Cross explains why they don't want goods.
• Oxfam encourage you to write to the IMF to drop Haiti's debt.
• Socialism or your money back describes it as an unnatural disaster.
• Andy Kershaw in the Independent demands we stop treating people like savages.
• The London Progressive Journal looks at Venezuela's response.
• The whole thing has made Cruella think about God.
• Madame Maiow has darker thoughts.
• Pambazuka presents its own fact file.
• Adam Ramsay looks at the historic legacy of Haiti.
  

Catching up: five snippets

Posting has been slow for a number of reasons, so in an attempt to catch up here are five things that I reckon;

• Iceland: why should the government pay back the money lost in the financial crash and thereby immiserate it's population?
  
  The previous government mismanaged the economy and that's why it was chucked out and replaced with a left green coalition who oppose the policies of the neo-liberals that got us into this mess in the first place. Now the UK and Dutch government are whinging that a country with a population the size of Wigan should bail them out of the consequences of their greedy investment decisions.
  
  
• Islam4UK: I'm going to say it again. The media encourage the most anti-social ways of making your point. A tiny organisation pretends it's going to march through Wooton Bassett and become a national talking point for more than a week.
  
  If you represent a point of view that actually has support in this country you have to move Heaven and Earth to get your point in the papers.
  
  
• Rod Liddle: will he become the editor of the Independent? Dear God this country's depressing when this is even a possibility.
  
  
• Brighton: good article in the Independent today showing the Greens on course for their first MP. This sort of thing makes me worried!
  
  
• US: Lastly I thought this article of feminism and the US health care system was interesting.
  

Get in - we win!

Little things can still make you smile. Rage Against the Machine are the Christmas Number One.

This means that every Christmas office party from this year on will suddenly burst into life as the DJ with *full force of Christmas song rights* will start pumping out "Fuck you I wont do what you tell me." For decades to come it will *still* be a Christmas song. Sweet.

If you are as yet unaware of RATM's opus, I'd recommend you check them out more thoroughly. What better way to celebrate Billy Bragg's birthday could there be?

Springer singer harrassed by Christian Right

Just a quick one I'm afraid but I just saw this in the Independent about Wills Morgan the opera singer who played Jesus in Jerry Springer the Opera (my 2005 review).

It seems he's had a nervous breakdown and ended up living on the streets partly due to the nightly confrontations with the Christian Right who neither understood the play nor had any inclination towards tolerating those they despised in society.

Mr Morgan, who is himself a committed Christian, felt compelled to confront the protestors which became an exhausting nightly process.

“As a man of faith I had to challenge them because they were claiming an ownership of God that was inappropriate,” he said. “The fundamentalists just couldn't understand that members of the cast were also active members of churches.”

What upset him the most, he said was that the protestors had seemed to miss the opera’s real message. “Most of the protestors never bothered coming to see the production and had decided from the word go that it was somehow blasphemous,” he said. “Yet whenever people asked me what Jerry Springer: The Opera was about I said it was very simple. It is an opera about how awful television could be, not an assault on faith.”

Ultimately it's a good news story as Morgan is back on his feet and back in work. As he says “I guess my story shows how anyone, from any walk of life, can end up homeless – particularly during the recession which has forced so many people out of work,” he said. “But the flip side is that there is help out there if you’re willing to ask for it.”

I'm glad Morgan is back on track and working again. His story shows that whilst the unkindness of strangers can hit you hard if they catch you at the wrong time it also says that that as human beings we can be good to each other and when we are it can make a difference.

Things in the news

No time to post properly but here are three striking articles in the news that made me sit up, which takes a lot as I'm a habitual sloucher.

Fire arms police officer suspended. What for though?

Brighton bin strike called off. Chances of a proper settlement look good, shows what one article in the Morning Star can do.

After the horrific murders in Fort Hood by a US Army Major it is revealed that "Ft. Hood has had 76 soldier suicides since 2003". That's around one a month.

More Star Letters

Another letter in the Morning Star in response to my wise, wise thoughts. This one is utterly brilliant!

I would like to congratulate you on the recent article by Jim Jepps (M Star November 2) describing the degradation of the relationship between science and the new Labour government.

However this article does not sit well with your news subs' policy of describing all scientists, from archeologists to zoologists, as "boffins." Come on Star, leave that patronising language to Murdoch.

Bill Atkins
Powys

You might also like to know that today's paper also had one of mine - this time on why men ought to be grateful for feminism. Do keep those letters coming! lettersed@peoples-press.com.