A few Scottish Labour hearts must have warmed last night at the early indications of what YouGov's massive (in terms of participants) poll contained, with the headline prediction of a result in Scotland practically identical to the 2005 election. Only four seats were predicted to change hands - admittedly these were all Labour losses. However, the detail of the poll released today paints a dramatically less rosy picture for Labour, and a very positive one for the SNP. Given that sampling was done only in selected marginal constituencies, there are no national vote shares available. However, it is possible to compare the parties' vote share in these constituencies with what happened in 2005. It's pretty much one-way traffic -
SNP up 11
Labour down 8
Conservatives up 1
Liberal Democrats down 6
If we assume a uniform national swing, that puts the SNP just two points behind Labour nationally. And whatever the individual constituency predictions (and YouGov's methodology there has been questioned by some) those figures put Labour perilously close to the territory where they would be in danger of losing a shedload of seats to the SNP.
The truly extraordinary finding (so extraordinary I'm inclined to doubt it slightly) is that the Conservatives - supposedly a party cruising to victory at UK level - are making no headway at all in the Scottish marginals. However, the Liberal Democrats' collapse is no surprise, given the giddy heights they reached in 2005 before foolishly jettisoning their greatest asset Charles Kennedy.
Also unambiguously great news for Plaid Cymru in this poll - a 4% increase in vote share, a 7.6% swing from Labour, and a projected gain of three seats.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Meanwhile, back on Planet Palin...
So in the end I needn't have worried - Obama's stardust didn't even come close to sealing the 2016 Olympics for Chicago. Completely predictable that the President's domestic enemies would try to score points over his part in this failure, but also completely misplaced - from what I can gather about the patterns of voting in the first round, delegates were to some extent voting in informal regional blocs. This placed Chicago at a natural disadvantage, given that the US has fewer natural 'tribal' allies than the other three contenders. But the stage where this political point-scoring goes beyond being merely misplaced and becomes...well, surreal, is the stage at which people start suggesting that Sarah Palin would have had a better chance of convincing the IOC delegates of Chicago's merits than Barack Obama.
The truly scary thing is I think they actually believe it.
Also worthy of note is this startling summary by 'consultant' Bill Mallon of what the rejection of Chicago tells us about the nature of the IOC itself -
"that reveals that they’re so euro-centric and international-centric, it’s ridiculous"
Euro-centric for sending the Olympics to Rio de Janeiro? OK...
But what on earth does 'international-centric' actually mean? From my limited knowledge of Ameri-speak, I can only deduce that it's supposed to mean that the IOC is 'centred' around the 96% of the world's population who live outside the United States. Heaven forbid!
The truly scary thing is I think they actually believe it.
Also worthy of note is this startling summary by 'consultant' Bill Mallon of what the rejection of Chicago tells us about the nature of the IOC itself -
"that reveals that they’re so euro-centric and international-centric, it’s ridiculous"
Euro-centric for sending the Olympics to Rio de Janeiro? OK...
But what on earth does 'international-centric' actually mean? From my limited knowledge of Ameri-speak, I can only deduce that it's supposed to mean that the IOC is 'centred' around the 96% of the world's population who live outside the United States. Heaven forbid!
Friday, October 2, 2009
Winning without stardust
I hadn't even been aware that today was decision day for the 2016 Olympic venue candidates until I caught about two seconds on the news this morning. So I had a quick rummage around on the internet in an attempt to ascertain which city is favourite. The first two results that came up - dated early September - said Tokyo is the favourite. The third and fourth results, from the last day or two, said Chicago is the slight favourite in a very close race, with only Tokyo now thought to be out of the running. That's quite a turnaround in the space of a few weeks, and I can't quite work out how it's happened. The only explanation I can find as to why Tokyo might not be considered suitable is that it's too close geographically to the 2008 host city Beijing - but wasn't that fact already known in early September?
Anyway, perhaps it's wrong of me, but my instinct is to hope that any city but Chicago wins, for two main reasons. The Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1984, in Atlanta in 1996 - is there some kind of unwritten law that the games have to be held in the US at least once every two decades? Given that no South American city has ever been host, yet another trip to the US really would seem like overkill. My second reason is the sight of Barack Obama arriving in Copenhagen to press the case for Chicago. How is Brazil, Spain or Japan supposed to compete with that kind of stardust? And more to the point, why should they need to? I could never quite understand how Tony Blair supposedly had such an impact in sneaking London's victory four years ago, given that a) London is London regardless of whether it has a PM with a winning smile (yuck), and b) he was never going to be PM in 2012 anyway, so any assurances he offered the delegates were fairly meaningless. (Some would say all Blair assurances were meaningless in any case.)
On the basis that it's South America's 'turn', I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for Rio tonight.
Anyway, perhaps it's wrong of me, but my instinct is to hope that any city but Chicago wins, for two main reasons. The Olympics were held in Los Angeles in 1984, in Atlanta in 1996 - is there some kind of unwritten law that the games have to be held in the US at least once every two decades? Given that no South American city has ever been host, yet another trip to the US really would seem like overkill. My second reason is the sight of Barack Obama arriving in Copenhagen to press the case for Chicago. How is Brazil, Spain or Japan supposed to compete with that kind of stardust? And more to the point, why should they need to? I could never quite understand how Tony Blair supposedly had such an impact in sneaking London's victory four years ago, given that a) London is London regardless of whether it has a PM with a winning smile (yuck), and b) he was never going to be PM in 2012 anyway, so any assurances he offered the delegates were fairly meaningless. (Some would say all Blair assurances were meaningless in any case.)
On the basis that it's South America's 'turn', I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for Rio tonight.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
ComRes : SNP close in on Labour
The ComRes sub-sample a few weeks ago showing a 16-point Labour lead in Scotland was probably an aberration, but for what it's worth the SNP have now slashed that lead to just three. Here are the full figures -
Labour 33% (-8)
SNP 30% (+5)
Conservatives 17% (-)
Liberal Democrats 10% (-7)
Greens 8% (+8)
Others 2% (+2)
ComRes sub-samples need to be taken with an especially large dose of salt, given their pitifully small sample size. I think we can safely assume that the Greens haven't really gone from zero to eight in the space of less than a month!
The big UK-wide stories to emerge from the poll are that Labour and the Liberal Democrats are now level-pegging on 23%, but also that Labour could still have a chance of emerging as the largest party at the next election if they switch leader. Curiously, David Miliband is identified as the potential Labour saviour, with even Jack Straw ahead of Alan Johnson - I'm somewhat dubious on that score!
Labour 33% (-8)
SNP 30% (+5)
Conservatives 17% (-)
Liberal Democrats 10% (-7)
Greens 8% (+8)
Others 2% (+2)
ComRes sub-samples need to be taken with an especially large dose of salt, given their pitifully small sample size. I think we can safely assume that the Greens haven't really gone from zero to eight in the space of less than a month!
The big UK-wide stories to emerge from the poll are that Labour and the Liberal Democrats are now level-pegging on 23%, but also that Labour could still have a chance of emerging as the largest party at the next election if they switch leader. Curiously, David Miliband is identified as the potential Labour saviour, with even Jack Straw ahead of Alan Johnson - I'm somewhat dubious on that score!
No convictions, but very easily flattered
"I have no convictions", ace Jury Team by-election candidate John 'Smeato' Smeaton revealed at his press conference the other day. He didn't mean it quite that way, of course, but the statement could hardly have been more apt, given the startlingly bland non-opinions the man who claims to be ready to "set aboot Westminster" had been offering up to that point. Immigrants have been great for this country, but the system needs to be fairer. In what sense does it need to be fairer? Well, it just needs to be 'fairer all round'. Superb, Smeato - you'll really wipe the floor with us rascals who only want the immigration system to be partly fair. And as for his answer to the query about whether he supports elected select committees...well, it was difficult to escape the conclusion that he was trying to bluff his way out of the awkward fact that he had never previously encountered the term 'select committee'. No shame in that, of course, but I might have expected a 'man of the people' to be unapologetically honest about it.
So why on earth does a man who seemingly believes in nothing (save for the need to dispense the odd 'banjoing' when required) want to enter parliament? The truth is, of course, that this 'independent' candidate is dancing to someone else's tune, whether he realises it or not. And history tells us that Smeato simply can't resist being wanted - it doesn't really matter by whom. How else can we reconcile his cringe-inducing star turn during Gordon Brown's speech at the Labour party conference a couple of years ago with what he's been saying about Labour recently?
The effect of Smeato's intervention is also very difficult to judge at this stage. Assuming he can't win (although unlikelier bandwagons have taken off in the past), my guess is that he would appeal more to natural Labour voters, given his slightly authoritarian instincts (I think that's fair comment). So bad news for Labour, then? Well, not necessarily. For the SNP to have any chance of victory in such unbelievably tough terrain for them, they'd need to be claiming a shedload of precisely those type of natural Labour voters, just as they did in Glasgow East a year ago - they can't afford to see those votes siphoned off to a third candidate.
But one positive effect of Smeato's candidacy - he's finally injected some life into this interminable by-election, which thanks to Labour's refusal to move the writ we seem to have been anticipating since Bruce Forsyth was a lad.
So why on earth does a man who seemingly believes in nothing (save for the need to dispense the odd 'banjoing' when required) want to enter parliament? The truth is, of course, that this 'independent' candidate is dancing to someone else's tune, whether he realises it or not. And history tells us that Smeato simply can't resist being wanted - it doesn't really matter by whom. How else can we reconcile his cringe-inducing star turn during Gordon Brown's speech at the Labour party conference a couple of years ago with what he's been saying about Labour recently?
The effect of Smeato's intervention is also very difficult to judge at this stage. Assuming he can't win (although unlikelier bandwagons have taken off in the past), my guess is that he would appeal more to natural Labour voters, given his slightly authoritarian instincts (I think that's fair comment). So bad news for Labour, then? Well, not necessarily. For the SNP to have any chance of victory in such unbelievably tough terrain for them, they'd need to be claiming a shedload of precisely those type of natural Labour voters, just as they did in Glasgow East a year ago - they can't afford to see those votes siphoned off to a third candidate.
But one positive effect of Smeato's candidacy - he's finally injected some life into this interminable by-election, which thanks to Labour's refusal to move the writ we seem to have been anticipating since Bruce Forsyth was a lad.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Aux armes, citoyens!
Via the Dr Helen blog, I came across yet another vintage example of smug-and-unintentionally-funny American right-wing commentary on life this side of the pond. For your delectation...
"Are we citizens or are we subjects?
It's a civil war of sorts.
The British people are subjects under a constitutional monarchy that provides a titular head of state, who reinforces the relationship between the government and the governed.
The state must take care of its subjects. The British like this...
Citizenship is messier. People have more personal responsibility.
Everyone is equal. People shout down congressmen. How rude.
Subjects are not individuals. Subjects are simply members of a group...
Citizens see people as individuals, and respect those who march to their own drumbeat...
This also explains the affinity a fair portion of the electorate feels for Sarah Palin. She's not a slick politician. She's not an elitist. She's in touch with ordinary life...
Being a citizen is harder than being a subject because it comes with more responsibility...
But it is who we, as a nation, are."
Apart from the highly amusing unspoken suggestion that absolute monarchy and communism are in fact one and the same thing (in which case the Russian Revolution doesn't seem like such a big deal after all), what's wrong with Mr Don Surber's thesis? Let's take it in turn...
1) People in Britain are citizens - a legal fact. If he doesn't believe me, I can show him my passport.
2) The evidence for 'British subjects' being dutifully deferential towards their politicians is, how can I put this...a wee bit thin. Indeed, British politicians don't seem to be altogether shy in shouting each other down, either. Evidently, Mr Surber is not an avid follower of PMQs. And what is this American 'rudeness' of which he speaks? Must be when opposition politicians just give the president forty-seven standing ovations during the State of the Union address instead of eighty-nine. Gosh, that's jolly unsporting, what?
3) To me the definition of an elitist is someone who thinks that the voice of people who are already sitting pretty with health insurance is far more important than the voice of the sixty million who are not insured. The opposite of an elitist is someone who thinks that the disadvantaged in society count for just as much as the advantaged. And, call me eccentric, but that's also the way I interpret the word 'equality'.
But apart from all these trifling points, that whole American 'citizens' versus British 'subjects' thing was really well-conceived, Don.
"Are we citizens or are we subjects?
It's a civil war of sorts.
The British people are subjects under a constitutional monarchy that provides a titular head of state, who reinforces the relationship between the government and the governed.
The state must take care of its subjects. The British like this...
Citizenship is messier. People have more personal responsibility.
Everyone is equal. People shout down congressmen. How rude.
Subjects are not individuals. Subjects are simply members of a group...
Citizens see people as individuals, and respect those who march to their own drumbeat...
This also explains the affinity a fair portion of the electorate feels for Sarah Palin. She's not a slick politician. She's not an elitist. She's in touch with ordinary life...
Being a citizen is harder than being a subject because it comes with more responsibility...
But it is who we, as a nation, are."
Apart from the highly amusing unspoken suggestion that absolute monarchy and communism are in fact one and the same thing (in which case the Russian Revolution doesn't seem like such a big deal after all), what's wrong with Mr Don Surber's thesis? Let's take it in turn...
1) People in Britain are citizens - a legal fact. If he doesn't believe me, I can show him my passport.
2) The evidence for 'British subjects' being dutifully deferential towards their politicians is, how can I put this...a wee bit thin. Indeed, British politicians don't seem to be altogether shy in shouting each other down, either. Evidently, Mr Surber is not an avid follower of PMQs. And what is this American 'rudeness' of which he speaks? Must be when opposition politicians just give the president forty-seven standing ovations during the State of the Union address instead of eighty-nine. Gosh, that's jolly unsporting, what?
3) To me the definition of an elitist is someone who thinks that the voice of people who are already sitting pretty with health insurance is far more important than the voice of the sixty million who are not insured. The opposite of an elitist is someone who thinks that the disadvantaged in society count for just as much as the advantaged. And, call me eccentric, but that's also the way I interpret the word 'equality'.
But apart from all these trifling points, that whole American 'citizens' versus British 'subjects' thing was really well-conceived, Don.
Monday, August 24, 2009
The Daily Mail, aka the FHM edition for people who think Quentin Letts is funny
I've just crossed over to the dark side for the first time in many weeks - I actually read an article at the Daily Mail website. Yes, I know, I know, but I simply couldn't resist reading the latest on the supposedly imminent US boycott of Scotland, which will doubtless lead to kilts being rechristened Freedom Skirts (or, better still, someone suggested Salvation Skirts). Talking of Lockerbie, does anyone give the slightest credence to this rumour doing the rounds about the British Embassy in Tripoli handing out Scottish flags to those welcoming Megrahi home? My first reaction was that it was paranoid drivel (which indeed it probably is), but then I did just begin to wonder where the average Libyan would locate several large Scottish flags (in pristine condition) at short notice.
But I digress. What I was going to reflect on was the character of the Mail itself, which is something that always startles me when I have a peek at the website. Given the well-known disdain the paper holds for, say, the coarseness of the BBC, or indeed for anything that offends the 'decent' values of Middle England, I would have rather naively expected the editorial staff to...how can I put this...actually reflect those stated values in their own choice of content. Instead, scrolling down the list of articles, I'm always left with the impression that I'm in fact reading a 2-for-the-price-of-1 combined edition of Heat and FHM specially designed for people who believe that the pictures are justifiable, but only when they're essential to the plot. (And of course who think asylum seekers spread disease, worry about being liable for inheritance tax even though they're not, and think Quentin Letts is actually funny.)
Exhibit A - "Danielle Bux narrowly escapes a wardrobe malfunction while showing off her holiday tan"
I would elaborate on the story, but I think the headline may already have spoiled it for you slightly. Danielle Bux's breasts almost slipped out of her dress...but didn't. Oh, and a photographer from the Mail just happened to be present at the dramatic moment (thankfully he wasn't wasted on trifling matters like the Afghanistan war). That pretty much covers it. Put these two facts together and what have you got? Material that is apparently more than sufficient for a lengthy story accompanied by three exclusive pictures of the, er, incident happening. Or...not happening.
And for the Heat-leaning female demographic, turn to page 27 for our shocking world exclusive photos that show Madonna now looks even more like Gollum than when we did the same stunt last year. Don't worry, we need to show you these pictures - how else are we to judge whether she's fit to be a mother?
But I digress. What I was going to reflect on was the character of the Mail itself, which is something that always startles me when I have a peek at the website. Given the well-known disdain the paper holds for, say, the coarseness of the BBC, or indeed for anything that offends the 'decent' values of Middle England, I would have rather naively expected the editorial staff to...how can I put this...actually reflect those stated values in their own choice of content. Instead, scrolling down the list of articles, I'm always left with the impression that I'm in fact reading a 2-for-the-price-of-1 combined edition of Heat and FHM specially designed for people who believe that the pictures are justifiable, but only when they're essential to the plot. (And of course who think asylum seekers spread disease, worry about being liable for inheritance tax even though they're not, and think Quentin Letts is actually funny.)
Exhibit A - "Danielle Bux narrowly escapes a wardrobe malfunction while showing off her holiday tan"
I would elaborate on the story, but I think the headline may already have spoiled it for you slightly. Danielle Bux's breasts almost slipped out of her dress...but didn't. Oh, and a photographer from the Mail just happened to be present at the dramatic moment (thankfully he wasn't wasted on trifling matters like the Afghanistan war). That pretty much covers it. Put these two facts together and what have you got? Material that is apparently more than sufficient for a lengthy story accompanied by three exclusive pictures of the, er, incident happening. Or...not happening.
And for the Heat-leaning female demographic, turn to page 27 for our shocking world exclusive photos that show Madonna now looks even more like Gollum than when we did the same stunt last year. Don't worry, we need to show you these pictures - how else are we to judge whether she's fit to be a mother?
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Conditional compassion
With the mounting controversy surrounding Kenny MacAskill's forthcoming decision over whether to release the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, I had a peek last night at the Victims of Pan Am 103 site. This is obviously a very difficult area to pass comment on, because the founders of that site have clearly been through unimaginable grief and are sincere both in their absolute belief in Megrahi's guilt, and in their belief that any early release would represent an appalling injustice. However, following one or two of the links on the site, to commentary made by those who are not relatives of the victims, it struck me once again the extent to which Americans in general are a people of 'conviction' - often starting with an unshakeable belief in the truth of something, and then working backwards to amass supporting evidence, and to rubbish any contrary evidence. (That's perhaps how creationism and a denial of global warming have such an unusually strong hold in the US.)
Witness the curious logic of Richard Marquise, billed as 'a former FBI agent who investigated the bombing', in a rebuttal piece that was apparently also published in the Herald's letters page. In it, he takes great exception to the newspaper's implication that the relatives of UK victims are more inclined to show compassion to Megrahi. "Americans are a very compassionate people" he assures us loftily, "but we also believe in justice". Neatly glossing over the reality (as clearly stated by the Herald) that the different approach to Megrahi displayed by many of the UK relatives is based almost entirely on the fact that they have learned over the years there is considerable doubt about the Libyan's guilt - they simply believe in a profound injustice being righted. More to the point, they know this represents the only way of getting to the real truth of what actually happened in 1988 - which, however unbearably painful it might be to have to go back to square one, is ultimately in the best interests of all those touched by the tragedy. For as long as Megrahi's guilt remains nominally a 'legal fact' (and unfortunately MacAskill's decision cannot change that one jot) very little progress can be made in the search for answers.
So what does Megrahi have to do to earn the compassion that Marquise says is very much on offer from Americans? Simply admit his guilt. Compassion for a dying man who is the victim of an appalling miscarriage of justice is apparently not even a theoretical option. 'Facts' are simply 'facts', and Megrahi's guilt is one of those facts, whatever the evidence might show. Curiously, Marquise lists a number of questions that Megrahi has failed to answer, and apparently satisfactory responses to these questions is something that's also required to satisfy the criteria for American compassion. Quite what the point of Megrahi responding to these questions would be when the answers are supposedly already long-established fact is a bit of a mystery. In reality, of course, there are probably any number of reasons why a Libyan intelligence official would not want to answer awkward questions about his actions or the actions of his colleagues in the late 1980s - which needn't have anything to do with Pan Am flight 103.
It's also a bit much to see Marquise ripping into the Herald journalist for mistakes she apparently made about the respective functions of different American agencies. "A reporter should have a basic understanding" of the US system, he snorts. Hmmm. I've rarely seen American reporters take anything other than a "fill in the blanks as we go along" approach to the more alien aspects of other countries' systems.
Witness the curious logic of Richard Marquise, billed as 'a former FBI agent who investigated the bombing', in a rebuttal piece that was apparently also published in the Herald's letters page. In it, he takes great exception to the newspaper's implication that the relatives of UK victims are more inclined to show compassion to Megrahi. "Americans are a very compassionate people" he assures us loftily, "but we also believe in justice". Neatly glossing over the reality (as clearly stated by the Herald) that the different approach to Megrahi displayed by many of the UK relatives is based almost entirely on the fact that they have learned over the years there is considerable doubt about the Libyan's guilt - they simply believe in a profound injustice being righted. More to the point, they know this represents the only way of getting to the real truth of what actually happened in 1988 - which, however unbearably painful it might be to have to go back to square one, is ultimately in the best interests of all those touched by the tragedy. For as long as Megrahi's guilt remains nominally a 'legal fact' (and unfortunately MacAskill's decision cannot change that one jot) very little progress can be made in the search for answers.
So what does Megrahi have to do to earn the compassion that Marquise says is very much on offer from Americans? Simply admit his guilt. Compassion for a dying man who is the victim of an appalling miscarriage of justice is apparently not even a theoretical option. 'Facts' are simply 'facts', and Megrahi's guilt is one of those facts, whatever the evidence might show. Curiously, Marquise lists a number of questions that Megrahi has failed to answer, and apparently satisfactory responses to these questions is something that's also required to satisfy the criteria for American compassion. Quite what the point of Megrahi responding to these questions would be when the answers are supposedly already long-established fact is a bit of a mystery. In reality, of course, there are probably any number of reasons why a Libyan intelligence official would not want to answer awkward questions about his actions or the actions of his colleagues in the late 1980s - which needn't have anything to do with Pan Am flight 103.
It's also a bit much to see Marquise ripping into the Herald journalist for mistakes she apparently made about the respective functions of different American agencies. "A reporter should have a basic understanding" of the US system, he snorts. Hmmm. I've rarely seen American reporters take anything other than a "fill in the blanks as we go along" approach to the more alien aspects of other countries' systems.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Still big (ish) in South Africa
Not having updated this blog for an age, I've been intrigued to notice that the very small amount of traffic it's still been getting has been coming mainly from two reliable sources - people doing a Google search for the words 'there is always someone out there who will care for you' (an unwittingly inspired title for a blog post, just a pity about the contents), and referrals from the Gun Owners of South Africa site. So I must admit curiosity finally got the better of me and I couldn't resist having a peek to see what it was they said about me that has had such a...well, lasting impact. Could it possibly match the genius of the 'cockney bastard' jibe? Sadly no. All they said was this -
"14 April 2009 : An anti-gunner's position
Kevin over at The Smallest Minorty found an anti prepared to debate the gun issue with him. The anti came up with the following perfect cameo before he succumbed to mental exhausion :
'The difference in this debate is that I have been arguing on the basis of what I believe to be true, and doing my best to explain why I believe it. Kevin, by way of contrast, claims to be able to literally ‘prove’ his case beyond any doubt whatsoever by recourse to detailed statistical data.'
Yes. That's pretty much what we've been saying all along."
They really don't get it, do they? I think I'm going to have start adding footnotes to my rebuttals for slow learners. The point I was making is that, yes, people like Baker have indeed been saying they can prove it all along, and that is problematical for them because they have spectacularly failed to actually do so. (Did I really need to spell that out?)
After all, some people have been saying all along they can prove that Shergar shacked up with Lord Lucan in a bedsit in Peckham in 1983, but we've thus far been left disappointed on that score as well.
"14 April 2009 : An anti-gunner's position
Kevin over at The Smallest Minorty found an anti prepared to debate the gun issue with him. The anti came up with the following perfect cameo before he succumbed to mental exhausion :
'The difference in this debate is that I have been arguing on the basis of what I believe to be true, and doing my best to explain why I believe it. Kevin, by way of contrast, claims to be able to literally ‘prove’ his case beyond any doubt whatsoever by recourse to detailed statistical data.'
Yes. That's pretty much what we've been saying all along."
They really don't get it, do they? I think I'm going to have start adding footnotes to my rebuttals for slow learners. The point I was making is that, yes, people like Baker have indeed been saying they can prove it all along, and that is problematical for them because they have spectacularly failed to actually do so. (Did I really need to spell that out?)
After all, some people have been saying all along they can prove that Shergar shacked up with Lord Lucan in a bedsit in Peckham in 1983, but we've thus far been left disappointed on that score as well.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
A blog post for anyone who prefers their pet kitten NOT to be armed with a Kalashnikov
Well, I had been starting to think that, with the European elections out of the way (in a very satisfactory manner), I might just let this blog fade away quietly into the sunset. But then last night I received a visit from the Ghost of Easter Past. Mr. Kevin Baker has a very serious itch, it seems, and he just needs to scratch it. Endlessly. Until the end of time. As it happens, I’m actually not proposing to join him on that voyage into infinity, but as I started to feel the danger of being drawn into yet another trainwreck of a comments thread, I thought it would at least make matters simpler to say my piece here.
A few months down the line, the obvious question I ponder when Kev dredges all this up yet again is, how on Earth did I ever get drawn into this? After all, gun control isn’t (or wasn’t) an issue I think about a great deal. In terms of issues which I could have imagined myself getting into conflict with American right-wingers over, the death penalty would have come top of the list by some distance. That is a subject I feel extremely passionately about and always have done. Indeed, I’m entitled to a vote in American federal elections and I always go out of my way to vote for candidates who are opposed to the death penalty (which led me, against almost every instinct in my body, to vote for Ralph Nader ahead of Barack Obama). If I see that a candidate is in favour of greater gun control, that’s certainly something that pleases me and makes them a more attractive option for me, but their views on that subject are not really a dealbreaker. Probably even their views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict would rank higher up the pecking-order than gun control.
So, given the low priority I instinctively accord the issue, how on earth did I end up (albeit briefly) in a ‘one-on-one debate’ about gun control with someone who seems to live and breathe nothing else?
The answer, of course, lies in my long-term fondness for the Rachel Lucas blog. Some of her political views are to the right of Genghis Khan, but her blog is unfailingly entertaining, and she is brilliantly witty. For the most part I was able to enjoy reading it without being tempted to enter the lion’s den by leaving a comment. The problem kicked in when she moved to the UK a few months ago. As always seems to happen with depictions of British life by Americans who live here (curiously this never happens with Australians or New Zealanders, or people from the Caribbean countries), everything I read seemed to have gone through some kind of weird distorting lens, and it just wasn’t describing a place I recognised. Probably this is something that happens to all of us when we are presented with an ‘alien culture’ – we just latch onto the few things we actually do recognise and are able to get our heads round, and use that information to try to make sense of the rest. Needless to say, the overall picture this leaves us with is hopelessly faulty. In Ms Lucas’ case, the information she was clinging to seemed to be coming largely from the type of people who leave comments after Telegraph or Daily Mail articles. This was leading her to excitedly ‘detect signs’ of a stirring in the British soul, that perhaps at some point during her stay here, she might even be witness to some kind of revolution, where the good people of Britain finally rise up, and demand an end to health care free at the point of need (‘socialised medicine’), human rights legislation, and the tyranny of a largely gun-free society. And of course, as someone who is plugged in to the rhythms of British society, the temptation was growing and growing just to gently say to her (for the sake of her avoiding inevitable disappointment as much as anything else!) “er, no. It just isn’t like that.”
Of course, all that the usual suspects at the Telegraph and Daily Mail actually tell us is that there are conservatives around (of both the small and large ‘c’ variety). And that there are ‘disgusteds of Tunbridge Wells’ around. But then there always have been. If these people haven’t managed to instigate a full-blown revolution at any point since 1945, it’s a touch optimistic to think it’s going to suddenly happen within the next year. (There was the ‘Thatcher revolution’ of course, but apparently even those sweeping changes weren’t enough to remove the ‘socialist’ label in Ms. Lucas’ eyes!)
So the temptation to point out these obvious truths eventually became too strong, and I left a comment. Fatefully, I did so after a post about a murder on the streets, the sole significance of which for Ms Lucas seemed to be that Britons were stupid and complacent for not realising that they could instantly solve such problems by having millions upon millions of legally-owned firearms sloshing around. Just like they have in America, where they have…er, a murder rate three times as high as we have here. Yep, that made sense. To be fair to Ms Lucas, she very charitably suggested the reasons for our stupidity and complacency were that we “are too damn nice”, and that we therefore “don’t like to make a stink”. (I’m sure certain members of the European Commission would be intrigued to hear that.) So I’m guessing that the majority of British people of both the left and the right would instantly understand why I regarded those remarks as provocative enough to finally say what I’d been half-wanting to say for quite some time – “no, you really just don’t get it”. I could have said that on any number of issues, but in the case of gun control the point is that we are, on the whole, rational people, we had a rational national debate after the Hungerford and Dunblane tragedies, and a considered, consensus view emerged on gun control legislation. It’s not an unwanted thing that is merely ‘tolerated’ (which ironically, is the case with so many other laws Ms Lucas could have chosen to mention).
What I didn’t realise is that contrary opinions on the Rachel Lucas blog are as common, or as welcome, as experts on the Geneva Conventions were in the inner reaches of the Bush administration. Soon I was fielding dozens of indignant objections, to which I had to come up with quick responses. Like most instinctive supporters of the consensus view on this matter in Britain, the arguments aren’t something I think about a great deal (because we don’t need to, the matter is settled). So I didn’t have a ton of ready-made statistics to fire back at people. But what most of us in Britain do nevertheless have is a kind of ‘race memory’ of the incidents that led us to where we are today, and that’s what I fell back on in response to the people who took issue with me. Of course, Dunblane and Hungerford are a big part of that race memory, but for most of us glimpses of what happens across the pond are a big part of it as well. For me, the most shocking incident I can remember was of an Aberdonian businessman who knocked on the door of a house in Texas seeking help. The homeowner decided on rather flimsy evidence that his home was under attack by burglars, took a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach, and shot the entirely innocent businessman dead. Shockingly, not only did the homeowner not face any legal proceedings, but he was in fact lauded by many as having done ‘exactly the right thing’. So in defence of my corner, I naturally raised this case as an example of just how cheap life becomes in a paranoid, gun-ridden society.
As I was going purely from my own memory of news reports from some fifteen years ago, I did search for information on the incident on an internet search engine to refresh my memory. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any trace (I assumed that was because 1994 was largely ‘pre-internet’). So instead I related the story as I remembered it. I was soon lambasted for leaving out details – the incident had taken place in the early hours of the morning, and the businessman had jumped over a fence to knock on the back door, having received no response at the front. Of course, none of these details make any material difference (ie. ‘it’s 4am, someone’s pounding on my back door, therefore he quite simply must die’). But the fact that I had ‘conveniently omitted’ these details was cited as evidence that I ‘was not arguing in good faith’. This was endlessly repeated in various forms (another favourite was ‘intellectual dishonesty’) as a kind of mantra afterwards, and indeed it was trotted out again a few hours ago at Kevin’s blog by the ever-reliable 24-carat slab of walking, talking Pure Offensiveness that is the poster ‘Unix-Jedi’. Or perhaps it was ‘Linoge’. One of those two, anyway.
It’s been a recurrent pattern ever since, particularly once I moved into the debate phase with Kevin. If ever I couldn’t instantly provide rebuttals based on a similar range of precise historical details, numbers, statistics that all the obsessive gun enthusiasts have at their fingertips, that was a sign of intellectual dishonesty on my part. But I’m not steeped in this issue, and I’m not interested in becoming so. What I can say – as I believe could most instinctive supporters of gun control in Britain – is ‘this is what I believe, this is why I believe it. I’m a rational person, and my rationality is no less deserving of respect on this issue just because I don’t happen to have fanatically devoted my entire life to it. And as a rational person, I’m also capable of recognising holes in your contrary argument, and here’s what they are’. That I believe is a perfectly defensible basis for someone who only takes an occasional interest in an issue to enter into a debate with a true obsessive. And let’s not forget Kevin’s (utterly insincere) words when he challenged me to a debate –
“No, James, it's not about ‘winning’ or ‘losing,’ it's about the philosophy.”
So, for my part, that suggested I was being invited to expound my ‘philosophy’, and that Kevin was not interested in declaring victory whatever I said. Curious, then, that when I did just that, I found myself being instantly taunted that I had ‘lost’ (ahem) the debate – because I had dared to concentrate on my ‘philosophy’ and hadn’t bothered to try to compete with Kevin on his reams of voodoo statistics. I did, of course, point out that statistics that powerfully counter Kevin’s own are extremely easy to locate, and the fact I wasn’t interested in that kind of sterile exchange couldn’t be taken as meaning those statistics don’t exist. But, of course, with the childish triumphalism I’ve come to know and expect, Kev and his band of not-so-merry-men pretended to take it precisely that way.
The irony is, of course, that Kev’s barrage of voodoo statistics really are a distraction, something that shields him from having to front up to the real issue – and that issue is precisely his ‘philosophy’. His blog is entitled 'The Smallest Minority’ – the minority referred to is the individual. The contention appears to be that no society can be considered truly free unless the freedoms of that smallest minority are fully protected. Taken to a logical extreme, this means that no individual should ever be subject to taxation (without taxation there is no infrastructure or support network of even the most rudimentary kind, but that’s OK because with absolute ‘freedom’ comes the absolute responsibility of the individual to fend for himself). That to me is a rather bigger, meatier issue than the question of whether the individual should be allowed to own luxury items like handguns. But, that’s the bit of individual freedom Kevin chooses to fetishise, and that’s his prerogative. So why, then, does so much of his argument rely on get-out clauses such as ‘oh well, if the guns weren’t there legally, they’d be there illegally, you can’t wish away guns’. The obvious implication of such an argument is that if you could wish away guns, it would be a desirable thing. Kevin does not believe that, and never will. So why isn’t Kevin content to argue on the strength of his positive philosophy on freedom, rather than resort to these (to put it kindly) more pragmatic arguments?
Not only does he rely on them, he’s built up a kind of fortress based on ‘evidence’ that all supposedly points to the same conclusion – that, conveniently, the sort of society his philosophy demands, will also be a safer society. To him, that fortress is impregnable. With astonishing (and admittedly highly amusing) conceit, he declares the matter proved beyond doubt, then sits back, admires his handiwork, and then plaintively asks “why isn’t being right good enough for us?”.
There’s a saying in scientific circles that ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'. The notion that a world in which the individual has an absolute right to own and carry firearms has been literally proved beyond doubt to be a safer world, is I would suggest precisely such an extraordinary claim. But unfortunately Kevin’s epic dissertations have failed to meet the standard of even ‘ordinary proof’. When I pointed out a few of the holes in his presentation of voodoo statistics (broadly the ‘correlation is not causation’ point) he and his supporters simply demanded to know where the statistical evidence was to underpin my own arguments. But the problem is, I hadn't actually at any point made the extraordinary claim that Kevin had made. I had simply set out my philosophy. Which is precisely what Kevin had requested that I do.
When I then pointed out this rather important distinction, Kevin was incredulous, and ever since has characterised what I said in the following terms (or a variation thereof) –
“In other words, ‘No fair using data against my emotions!'”
Simply won't wash, Kevin. Not even close.
So I return to the question of why Kevin prefers to hide behind his voodoo statistics, rather than make the positive case for his philosophy of individual liberty. I’d suggest it’s because if he did, he’d have to concede that even if there was compelling evidence that the price of his freedoms was a large number of avoidable deaths, he’d think that was a price worth paying. At the absolute minimum he knows there are specific circumstances in which it's almost unarguable that legal gun ownership has resulted in tragedy (Dunblane is such an incident). How can he present such a brutal, and frankly selfish philosophy to the world in completely unmediated form? He can't. For he also knows, that even in the US, the centre of gravity in public opinion is that there are some things that trump the absolute freedom of the individual. That’s why even in the ‘Land of the Free’, taxes must be paid, and clothes must be worn on the street. And I firmly believe that when it really comes down to it, the gift of life would always trump the individual’s right to own a luxury item.
NOTE : As always, I determine my own comments moderation policy and answer to no-one for it, a near-universal principle in the blogging world that is well-understood, except it seems by the KBFC. I will, however, repeat my previous offer – if anyone would be kind enough to explain the detailed circumstances in which this moronic catchphrase “Reasoned Discourse” came about, I will undertake to let your comment through. And in doing so, you might go a little way to dispelling my overwhelming impression that you have no interest in truly reaching out to, or communicating with anyone beyond your own closed little world, with all its little trademark in-jokes.
A few months down the line, the obvious question I ponder when Kev dredges all this up yet again is, how on Earth did I ever get drawn into this? After all, gun control isn’t (or wasn’t) an issue I think about a great deal. In terms of issues which I could have imagined myself getting into conflict with American right-wingers over, the death penalty would have come top of the list by some distance. That is a subject I feel extremely passionately about and always have done. Indeed, I’m entitled to a vote in American federal elections and I always go out of my way to vote for candidates who are opposed to the death penalty (which led me, against almost every instinct in my body, to vote for Ralph Nader ahead of Barack Obama). If I see that a candidate is in favour of greater gun control, that’s certainly something that pleases me and makes them a more attractive option for me, but their views on that subject are not really a dealbreaker. Probably even their views on the Israel-Palestinian conflict would rank higher up the pecking-order than gun control.
So, given the low priority I instinctively accord the issue, how on earth did I end up (albeit briefly) in a ‘one-on-one debate’ about gun control with someone who seems to live and breathe nothing else?
The answer, of course, lies in my long-term fondness for the Rachel Lucas blog. Some of her political views are to the right of Genghis Khan, but her blog is unfailingly entertaining, and she is brilliantly witty. For the most part I was able to enjoy reading it without being tempted to enter the lion’s den by leaving a comment. The problem kicked in when she moved to the UK a few months ago. As always seems to happen with depictions of British life by Americans who live here (curiously this never happens with Australians or New Zealanders, or people from the Caribbean countries), everything I read seemed to have gone through some kind of weird distorting lens, and it just wasn’t describing a place I recognised. Probably this is something that happens to all of us when we are presented with an ‘alien culture’ – we just latch onto the few things we actually do recognise and are able to get our heads round, and use that information to try to make sense of the rest. Needless to say, the overall picture this leaves us with is hopelessly faulty. In Ms Lucas’ case, the information she was clinging to seemed to be coming largely from the type of people who leave comments after Telegraph or Daily Mail articles. This was leading her to excitedly ‘detect signs’ of a stirring in the British soul, that perhaps at some point during her stay here, she might even be witness to some kind of revolution, where the good people of Britain finally rise up, and demand an end to health care free at the point of need (‘socialised medicine’), human rights legislation, and the tyranny of a largely gun-free society. And of course, as someone who is plugged in to the rhythms of British society, the temptation was growing and growing just to gently say to her (for the sake of her avoiding inevitable disappointment as much as anything else!) “er, no. It just isn’t like that.”
Of course, all that the usual suspects at the Telegraph and Daily Mail actually tell us is that there are conservatives around (of both the small and large ‘c’ variety). And that there are ‘disgusteds of Tunbridge Wells’ around. But then there always have been. If these people haven’t managed to instigate a full-blown revolution at any point since 1945, it’s a touch optimistic to think it’s going to suddenly happen within the next year. (There was the ‘Thatcher revolution’ of course, but apparently even those sweeping changes weren’t enough to remove the ‘socialist’ label in Ms. Lucas’ eyes!)
So the temptation to point out these obvious truths eventually became too strong, and I left a comment. Fatefully, I did so after a post about a murder on the streets, the sole significance of which for Ms Lucas seemed to be that Britons were stupid and complacent for not realising that they could instantly solve such problems by having millions upon millions of legally-owned firearms sloshing around. Just like they have in America, where they have…er, a murder rate three times as high as we have here. Yep, that made sense. To be fair to Ms Lucas, she very charitably suggested the reasons for our stupidity and complacency were that we “are too damn nice”, and that we therefore “don’t like to make a stink”. (I’m sure certain members of the European Commission would be intrigued to hear that.) So I’m guessing that the majority of British people of both the left and the right would instantly understand why I regarded those remarks as provocative enough to finally say what I’d been half-wanting to say for quite some time – “no, you really just don’t get it”. I could have said that on any number of issues, but in the case of gun control the point is that we are, on the whole, rational people, we had a rational national debate after the Hungerford and Dunblane tragedies, and a considered, consensus view emerged on gun control legislation. It’s not an unwanted thing that is merely ‘tolerated’ (which ironically, is the case with so many other laws Ms Lucas could have chosen to mention).
What I didn’t realise is that contrary opinions on the Rachel Lucas blog are as common, or as welcome, as experts on the Geneva Conventions were in the inner reaches of the Bush administration. Soon I was fielding dozens of indignant objections, to which I had to come up with quick responses. Like most instinctive supporters of the consensus view on this matter in Britain, the arguments aren’t something I think about a great deal (because we don’t need to, the matter is settled). So I didn’t have a ton of ready-made statistics to fire back at people. But what most of us in Britain do nevertheless have is a kind of ‘race memory’ of the incidents that led us to where we are today, and that’s what I fell back on in response to the people who took issue with me. Of course, Dunblane and Hungerford are a big part of that race memory, but for most of us glimpses of what happens across the pond are a big part of it as well. For me, the most shocking incident I can remember was of an Aberdonian businessman who knocked on the door of a house in Texas seeking help. The homeowner decided on rather flimsy evidence that his home was under attack by burglars, took a ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ approach, and shot the entirely innocent businessman dead. Shockingly, not only did the homeowner not face any legal proceedings, but he was in fact lauded by many as having done ‘exactly the right thing’. So in defence of my corner, I naturally raised this case as an example of just how cheap life becomes in a paranoid, gun-ridden society.
As I was going purely from my own memory of news reports from some fifteen years ago, I did search for information on the incident on an internet search engine to refresh my memory. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any trace (I assumed that was because 1994 was largely ‘pre-internet’). So instead I related the story as I remembered it. I was soon lambasted for leaving out details – the incident had taken place in the early hours of the morning, and the businessman had jumped over a fence to knock on the back door, having received no response at the front. Of course, none of these details make any material difference (ie. ‘it’s 4am, someone’s pounding on my back door, therefore he quite simply must die’). But the fact that I had ‘conveniently omitted’ these details was cited as evidence that I ‘was not arguing in good faith’. This was endlessly repeated in various forms (another favourite was ‘intellectual dishonesty’) as a kind of mantra afterwards, and indeed it was trotted out again a few hours ago at Kevin’s blog by the ever-reliable 24-carat slab of walking, talking Pure Offensiveness that is the poster ‘Unix-Jedi’. Or perhaps it was ‘Linoge’. One of those two, anyway.
It’s been a recurrent pattern ever since, particularly once I moved into the debate phase with Kevin. If ever I couldn’t instantly provide rebuttals based on a similar range of precise historical details, numbers, statistics that all the obsessive gun enthusiasts have at their fingertips, that was a sign of intellectual dishonesty on my part. But I’m not steeped in this issue, and I’m not interested in becoming so. What I can say – as I believe could most instinctive supporters of gun control in Britain – is ‘this is what I believe, this is why I believe it. I’m a rational person, and my rationality is no less deserving of respect on this issue just because I don’t happen to have fanatically devoted my entire life to it. And as a rational person, I’m also capable of recognising holes in your contrary argument, and here’s what they are’. That I believe is a perfectly defensible basis for someone who only takes an occasional interest in an issue to enter into a debate with a true obsessive. And let’s not forget Kevin’s (utterly insincere) words when he challenged me to a debate –
“No, James, it's not about ‘winning’ or ‘losing,’ it's about the philosophy.”
So, for my part, that suggested I was being invited to expound my ‘philosophy’, and that Kevin was not interested in declaring victory whatever I said. Curious, then, that when I did just that, I found myself being instantly taunted that I had ‘lost’ (ahem) the debate – because I had dared to concentrate on my ‘philosophy’ and hadn’t bothered to try to compete with Kevin on his reams of voodoo statistics. I did, of course, point out that statistics that powerfully counter Kevin’s own are extremely easy to locate, and the fact I wasn’t interested in that kind of sterile exchange couldn’t be taken as meaning those statistics don’t exist. But, of course, with the childish triumphalism I’ve come to know and expect, Kev and his band of not-so-merry-men pretended to take it precisely that way.
The irony is, of course, that Kev’s barrage of voodoo statistics really are a distraction, something that shields him from having to front up to the real issue – and that issue is precisely his ‘philosophy’. His blog is entitled 'The Smallest Minority’ – the minority referred to is the individual. The contention appears to be that no society can be considered truly free unless the freedoms of that smallest minority are fully protected. Taken to a logical extreme, this means that no individual should ever be subject to taxation (without taxation there is no infrastructure or support network of even the most rudimentary kind, but that’s OK because with absolute ‘freedom’ comes the absolute responsibility of the individual to fend for himself). That to me is a rather bigger, meatier issue than the question of whether the individual should be allowed to own luxury items like handguns. But, that’s the bit of individual freedom Kevin chooses to fetishise, and that’s his prerogative. So why, then, does so much of his argument rely on get-out clauses such as ‘oh well, if the guns weren’t there legally, they’d be there illegally, you can’t wish away guns’. The obvious implication of such an argument is that if you could wish away guns, it would be a desirable thing. Kevin does not believe that, and never will. So why isn’t Kevin content to argue on the strength of his positive philosophy on freedom, rather than resort to these (to put it kindly) more pragmatic arguments?
Not only does he rely on them, he’s built up a kind of fortress based on ‘evidence’ that all supposedly points to the same conclusion – that, conveniently, the sort of society his philosophy demands, will also be a safer society. To him, that fortress is impregnable. With astonishing (and admittedly highly amusing) conceit, he declares the matter proved beyond doubt, then sits back, admires his handiwork, and then plaintively asks “why isn’t being right good enough for us?”.
There’s a saying in scientific circles that ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof'. The notion that a world in which the individual has an absolute right to own and carry firearms has been literally proved beyond doubt to be a safer world, is I would suggest precisely such an extraordinary claim. But unfortunately Kevin’s epic dissertations have failed to meet the standard of even ‘ordinary proof’. When I pointed out a few of the holes in his presentation of voodoo statistics (broadly the ‘correlation is not causation’ point) he and his supporters simply demanded to know where the statistical evidence was to underpin my own arguments. But the problem is, I hadn't actually at any point made the extraordinary claim that Kevin had made. I had simply set out my philosophy. Which is precisely what Kevin had requested that I do.
When I then pointed out this rather important distinction, Kevin was incredulous, and ever since has characterised what I said in the following terms (or a variation thereof) –
“In other words, ‘No fair using data against my emotions!'”
Simply won't wash, Kevin. Not even close.
So I return to the question of why Kevin prefers to hide behind his voodoo statistics, rather than make the positive case for his philosophy of individual liberty. I’d suggest it’s because if he did, he’d have to concede that even if there was compelling evidence that the price of his freedoms was a large number of avoidable deaths, he’d think that was a price worth paying. At the absolute minimum he knows there are specific circumstances in which it's almost unarguable that legal gun ownership has resulted in tragedy (Dunblane is such an incident). How can he present such a brutal, and frankly selfish philosophy to the world in completely unmediated form? He can't. For he also knows, that even in the US, the centre of gravity in public opinion is that there are some things that trump the absolute freedom of the individual. That’s why even in the ‘Land of the Free’, taxes must be paid, and clothes must be worn on the street. And I firmly believe that when it really comes down to it, the gift of life would always trump the individual’s right to own a luxury item.
NOTE : As always, I determine my own comments moderation policy and answer to no-one for it, a near-universal principle in the blogging world that is well-understood, except it seems by the KBFC. I will, however, repeat my previous offer – if anyone would be kind enough to explain the detailed circumstances in which this moronic catchphrase “Reasoned Discourse” came about, I will undertake to let your comment through. And in doing so, you might go a little way to dispelling my overwhelming impression that you have no interest in truly reaching out to, or communicating with anyone beyond your own closed little world, with all its little trademark in-jokes.
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