UK

The soaraway Sun: touchingly incompetent with Photoshop or just plain racist? You decide.

Not only has The Sun removed the skipper on the left, they’ve also removed the boat’s engine. Prince William, drifting around the Caribbean during a hurricane. Extra laughs:

Prince William’s campaign to try on every uniform Britain has to offer is a wow - next week it’s baker, then butcher, then cub scout, before a week as a traffic warden in Slough, then a few days as a Beefeater before ending the summer as a lap dancer.

HT: The Daily (Maybe)

BA should have scheduled the grand opening of Terminal 5 for 1 April, since - to nobody’s great surprise - it’s been a joke. Personally I like a joke, but not when people have to pay for the privilege of being the butt of the joke in question. The front page of the British Airways website has this prominent sign:

This is very moving - that plane looks positively distraught as it turns away from our accusing eyes - but it’s not entirely clear what they’re sorry for. Are they merely sorry for the inconvenience to passengers, a casual expression of solidarity which extends as far as a 260×140 pixel graphic on their website? Or are they more deeply sorry - perhaps filled with sorrow at being so utterly incompetent - an existential cry for forgiveness from the gods of aviation?

Willie Walsh, BA’s Chief Executive (but not for long *cough*), had this to say:

We are sorry for the disruption and inconvenience caused to customers whose flights have been cancelled or whose bags have been delayed.

Question answered. Slap a graphic on the website and pray those 400 “volunteers” show up to sort the 15,000 bags we’ve got in “temporary storage”. The gods of aviation can suck my - I’m sorry, is this microphone still on?

What burns me up is that the chaos at T5 may jeopardise the chocolate fountain that I was promised by Executive Club Manager Sarah Keyes in a personal email to me. Let me add that this was only the latest in the long string of personal emails that we have exchanged, and leave it there. Never let it be said that I allow my personal feelings to affect my harsh but fair judgment on the affairs of man.

Easter Sunday passed without incident here, mainly since it was only Easter for the Catholics, and everybody ignores them. Oh, except I worked out how the Shroud of Turin was formed - Jesus must have been under for 3 weeks rather than 3 days, because my filthy bedlinen has definitely taken on the print of my body.

Too much detail.

Anyway, religion was on my mind last week as I joined the discussion on euthanasia at Cranmer and OurKingdom - and thanks to everybody who contributed to those discussions, particularly David at Britology Watch. As I said in my original post, this is one of the few areas where the religious insist that their views on life be taken as the standard for everybody else, but to their credit most of the commenters on those other threads presented credible non-religious cases against legalising euthanasia.

Paying a visit to Britology Watch, I revisited the “controversial” statements by Bishop of Rochester Michael Nazir-Ali following Archbishop Rowan Williams’ prolonged bout of stupidity “controversial” statements. Have you noticed that comments by the clergy only get labelled as controversial when they try to say something about politics? That’s probably because of the separation of church and state that we have - no, wait, that’s the US I’m thinking of.

In an interview with Bishop Nazir-Ali, I was greatly amused by these lines:

The real danger to Britain today is the spiritual and moral vacuum that has occurred for the last 40 or 50 years. When you have such a vacuum something will fill it.

That “moral vacuum” metaphor should be put out of its misery as soon as possible, since it manages to be simultaneously banal and meaningless. Read the rest of this entry »

People who take the idea of Eurabia seriously are almost as dull and pointless as people who take the idea of one world government seriously, and few are as dull and pointless as Mark Steyn, a man who makes me ashamed to wear a beard. However it’s not enough to ignore people like Steyn, because they poison the well of public discourse, undermining our opportunities to really talk about critical issues such as identity and immigration. On the always-interesting Demography Matters blog, Randy McDonald tears down the rich fantasy world which people like Steyn (and more mainstream figures like Mitt Romney in the United States) long to inhabit, and explains why this is a problem:

What’s the problem with all this? For people like ourselves, interested in researching population trends here at Demography Matters and elsewhere, this sort of rhetoric creates yet another set of myths that have to be debunked. It is interesting to trace out some of the likely population futures of different regions, countries and continents, as is determining the different factors operating in different communities within a given territory. Turning a field that could be filled by an ongoing stream of productive research into an endless cycle of disproved popular mythologies would be boring. More to the point, the constant repetition of myths like the ones enunciated by Romney — that the European continent is declining, that Europe is threatened by foreigners — poisons public discourse by legitimating ever more radical statements. If Europeans at large are concerned about the extent to which communities of recent immigrant origin are or are not acculturating to the norms of a wider society and want to influence public policy accordingly, how likely will the debate be calm and rational if many the people who participate seriously believe things scarcely more sophisticated than “OMG the Muslims are going to P3WN Europe”?

My thoughts exactly. Imagine if, in the real world, every discussion you tried to have was dominated by somebody who did nothing but shout in your face about how it was all the Muslims (or Jews, or Hispanics, or blacks - take your pick). It would be utterly unbearable, and people would eventually stop talking about those issues because they couldn’t face the prospect of being harangued by a incoherent belter. That’s Steyn, right there, riding his hobby-horse and protesting that he’s just misunderstood.

These are interesting and important issues which need a healthy public discourse, see? Specifically, what it needs is more people like Randy and fewer people like Steyn, otherwise we’ll all end up like the poor benighted souls that Johann Hari wrote about in his classic piece on The National Review cruise. While acknowledging that Johann was always going to be biased against the sort of people who would go on the cruise on the first place, he wasn’t making any of that stuff up:

But facts, figures, and doubt are not on the itinerary of this cruise. With one or two exceptions, the passengers discuss “the Muslims” as a homogenous, sharia-seeking block – already with near-total control of Europe. Over the week, I am asked nine times – I counted – when I am fleeing Europe’s encroaching Muslim population for the safety of the United States of America.

Look, it’s 2008 - forget about my jetpack, all I want is an internet that isn’t an echo chamber for people who would previously have been confined to their bedrooms, where they could safely fulminate about how their genius has never been recognised by ignorant fools such as myself. They were better off there, and so were we.

I’m sorry, but what the hell did you just say?

But Dr Williams said an approach to law which simply said “there’s one law for everybody and that’s all there is to be said, and anything else that commands your loyalty or allegiance is completely irrelevant in the processes of the courts - I think that’s a bit of a danger… There’s a place for finding what would be a constructive accommodation with some aspects of Muslim law, as we already do with some other aspects of religious law.”

No there isn’t. People who predict the Islamopocalypse are barking idiots, and my problem isn’t with Williams’ saying that we should accommodate aspects of Muslim law into our legal system. My problem is his assumption that religion has any place in our legal system at all, apart from in measures to protect the freedom to pursue those beliefs - and protect others from those beliefs. Without that separation, the entire legal system is undermined, as we all merrily pursue our own ideas of what the law should constitute and who it should cover.

Of course, that’s a completely separate question to why Rowan Williams, the head of the established Church of England, feels the need to advocate for Islamic law. Perhaps he misread the job description?

UPDATE: I find more intelligences more subtle and profound than I writing about the same issue at Cranmer and Our Kingdom, while Stumbling and Mumbling emphasises that “civil society” has a place in this discussion that goes mostly unnoticed.

As any fule kno, Dan Hardie has been leading the blogging campaign to change the British government’s policy on how we deal with our ex-employees in Iraq. He’s been like an unholy cross between a workhorse and a terrier on this issue, and even though the blogging has been quite light in the last few weeks, he’s continued to lobby and network on the issue.

So far, the campaign has resulted in the Government changing its policy - but the changes weren’t comprehensive enough and are not being implemented quickly enough to make a difference to many of our former employees. So there’s a need to keep up the pressure on the government in order to secure further changes and a more rapid response. Dan has therefore proposed the following:

Your MP’s address is The House of Commons, Westminster, London, SW1A 0AA. His or her email address is probably SURNAMEINITIAL@parliament.uk (eg BROWNG<at>parliament.uk ). Please use the talking points below to send an email and a print letter to your MP, and chase them for an answer. And be courteous: an insulted MP will not raise this matter with Ministers, and that will lead to more avoidable deaths. When you get an answer, email me at danhardie.blog<at>gmail.com and let me know what they said.

I agree that it seems egocentric for me to ask you to put your MP in touch with me: but what alternatives do we have? I am in direct contact with Iraqi employees pleading with me to do something to help them. I cannot help them. Members of Parliament- including David Miliband- need to read what these Iraqis are saying.

If you want to take part in this campaign, then you may find the following information useful. However I urge you to read up on the situation for yourself and make your own judgement - this is important not just for individual lives but for the precedent it sets.

• On October 9th David Miliband announced that the British Government would assist former employees in Iraq, so long as they had worked for it after 1st January 2005 and for 12 months or more. That abandons several hundred Iraqis who have been targetd for murder because they worked for the British before that date- and in 2004 fighting between the Mahdi Army and the British was at its peak- or because they worked for less than that period, often leaving their jobs at the end of a British battalion’s six-month tour. The British Government must help Iraqi employees on the basis of the risk they face, not according to an arbitrary time stipulation. This only affects a few hundred Iraqis, whom we are well able to shelter, and for whom we have a direct moral responsibility.
• Even those Iraqi employees who qualify for assistance are not being properly assisted. Iraqis in Basra are not able to apply via the British Army in Basra Interational Airbase, since it is ringed with militia checkpoints. Iraqi ex-employees in Damascus are being screened by Syrian policemen guarding the British Embassy and delayed by lengthy bureaucratic procedures when they apply for asylum, although many of them are illegally overstaying their Syrian visas and face deportation back to Iraq.
• A blogger called Dan Hardie is directly in touch with a number of Iraqi employees via email and phone. He is willilng to brief MPs- as concisely as possible- either over the phone or via email. He can be reached at danhardie.blog@gmail.com.

With all that in mind, what exactly is at stake here? Who are these people that we’re campaigning for? Below the fold, you can read about some of the discussions that Dan has had with former UK government employees in Iraq who have been affected by this situation - and who are not being helped by the current government policy.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you want an update, read the post below. If you actually want to do something about ensuring that Iraqi employees of the British government have the opportunity to protect the lives of their families and themselves, you should do the following (courtesy of the unstoppable Dan Hardie).

Bear in mind that letters, faxes and phone calls to MPs do work. You can get all the contact details for your local MP from theyworkforyou, and you can write to them online at writetothem. Tell other people about this at church or at work, wherever, or write a letter. Here are some bullet points for a letter - don’t send it unchanged, you can edit it so that it reflects your own views. If you write to your MP, include your full address (including the postcode) to indicate that you are a constituent.

Bullet points:

• David Miliband’s Statement on ‘Iraq: Locally Recruited Civilians’ of 9th October stated that Britain will help to resettle- in the wider Middle East, or in the United Kingdom- Iraqis who can prove that they have worked for this country’s soldiers or diplomats for a continuous period of twelve months.
• Hundreds of Iraqis have been targeted for assassination for having worked for this country. Some have worked for a period of twelve months exclusively for the British and can prove this. Some have not but have been pinpointed for murder anyway. We have a responsibility to save these people from being murdered for the ‘crime’ of working for the British.
• There are a lot of local employees who fled their jobs before 12 months precisely because they had been targeted, or who did a 6-month tour for one British battalion and were then told to go and work for the Americans, or who did 12 months or more with interruptions, or who the Army didn’t give proper documentation too.
• Iraqi staff members must be given shelter not because of their provable length of service but according to whether they have been identified for murder by local death squads. This can be investigated on the spot by Army officers and referred rapidly to London: the process needs to start now.
• Mr Miliband’s statement did not mention the families of Iraqi employees. As Iraqi militias also murder the families of their ‘enemies’, we must resettle our employees’ families as well. Mark Brockway, an ex-soldier who hired many Iraqis, estimates that we are talking about a maximum of 700 Iraqis to resettle: this country admits 190,000 immigrants net every year.
• Iraqis have already been targeted for murder for having worked for this country. We will be shamed if we allow more to be killed for the same reason. Our soldiers, who are angry at this betrayal, and our diplomats, will be placed at risk if they gain a reputation for abandoning their local helpers.

There’s a form letter below the fold here. You can make a difference, so do it today.

Read the rest of this entry »

The relationship between an employer and an employee is like any other relationship. For example, if you went to your best friend and said, “Mate, I really need your help - I think somebody’s trying to kill me!” and they told you “Sorry, but we’ve only known each other for 7 months”, you probably wouldn’t be sending them a Christmas card.

Not many birthday cards, then, for Gordon Brown or David Miliband’s from our Iraqi employees. This post could get a bit long and I could get a bit ranty, so I’m just going to focus on the main points here:

1. An assistance package has been offered to some Iraqi employees, the nature of which is not clearly defined, but seems to be limited to financial assistance. That’s the positive part, but it goes downhill from there.
2. The package will only be available to staff “who have attained 12 months’ or more continuous service”. I’m not convinced that the militia that are targeting those working for the British government are using length of service as a criteria for selection, and the government should not either.
3. In addition, the statements make no mention of the families of these staff, who are equally at risk. The offer should be automatically extended to include any members of family that staff also believe to be at risk.
4. Staff are also able to apply for exceptional leave to enter the UK or to apply through the Gateway programme for resettlement in the UK. A number of people have pointed out that this is utter bullshit - essentially the government is saying that they can apply for refugee status, a right which they already have. The point is not simply to recognise their rights, but to act on them, and quickly.
5. Former and contracted (as opposed to directly hired) staff may be covered by this offer, but the government makes no commitments in this regard. Once again, I’m not sure that the militias will make this distinction - they tend to be quite inclusive in their death-dealing.

In order to have any impact, this offer needs to be made as widely as possible - the criteria of 12 months should be withdrawn, families should be included and all categories of staff eligible. Of course this sets a problematic precedent - should any future staff also be covered by this, and will that then lead to people applying for jobs solely in order to get out of the country? Luckily I don’t have to worry about stuff like that, because I’m not the one who’s got to implement the policy.

I’m glad that the government is acting on this, but they need to act quickly and comprehensively if this is going to have any impact. As well as the rumbling of the blogosphere, the meeting at Parliament apparently went very well, the Times has been carrying sterling coverage, the BBC has weighed in, the British Army Rumour Service are on it, and there’s a MySociety-style website called weoweittothem. Even the Heavy Metal community is involved, sort of.

I knew this post would go on longer than planned. You probably stopped reading about eight paragraphs ago, didn’t you? So I’m going to break this off and tell you what you can do in a separate post. After a slice of burek and a glass of yoghurt, of course.

So where are we on the whole Iraqi translators issue?

Let’s put it this way - they’re still dying. There was an interesting podcast on Iraqi asylum from 5Live the other day, which you can listen to here courtesy of Ministry of Truth. The podcast has words from Dan Hardie, the co-ordinator of this campaign, and Mark Brockway, a former UK soldier who hired many of the people who are now persecuted for their employment. It’s fairly depressing stuff, but what will be more depressing is if the UK government fails to live up to its most basic obligations as an employer.

The US Senate has now acted on the issue of allocating visas for Iraqi government employees, much to its credit (and against the efforts of the Bush administration, but now probably isn’t the time for scoring cheap points). Meanwhile the British government is still failing to respond to calls from various campaigners (yes, including the bloggers) to take similar steps for their employees and ex-employees from Iraq.

So the meeting at Parliament will be going ahead on Tuesday October 9th, to call for the British Government to recognise its responsibilities and give shelter to the Iraqis endangered by their work for this country’s troops and diplomats. If you want to support this campaign - and you should, because it is literally a life or death issue - Dan Hardie has a guide to how you can invite your MP, and a form letter you can use to invite them.

Although this is a complicated issue (in terms of what it implies about the situation in Iraq, and setting precedents for refugee claims) it’s not a particularly difficult one from a moral point of view. Let’s hope that this meeting starts to shift the Home Office towards taking some action - or we can expect to see a lot more dead Iraqis whose only crime was to take up a job offer.

(Details on inviting your MP beneath the fold.)

Read the rest of this entry »

I met Simon Ostrovsky in Berlin, where he sold me a bike that only had one pedal and then disappeared. I forgave him because he makes really interesting documentary shorts, like the recent North Circular Stories that aired on Channel 4 two weeks ago. Obviously I missed them - we don’t get Channel 4 here - but they’ve now been uploaded onto something like YouTube.

The films uncover an underworld of Eastern European migrants in London living in abandoned houses on the city’s infamous North Circular Road, and forming a tight-knit community of Latvian and Lithuanian menial workers, freeloaders and students alike.

I love this format - basically these are the documentary equivalent of pop videos, with three minutes to tell the story and a tendency to get under your skin. There’s no time to present an argument or squeeze a moral out - what you get is people’s lives, edited.

Perfect for our information-saturated culture. Without further ado, I give you - North Circular Stories.