In which I credit the Tories with something positive for a change

Not hugely positive, and I still loathe the Cobbleition almost as much as the last lot, but this is still good to hear.

Governments must not interfere with the internet, the British government said Tuesday - weeks after suggesting police should curb online access during riots.
Foreign Secretary William Hague said the fact that criminals and terrorists can exploit digital networks is not "justification for states to censor their citizens."
And Prime Minister David Cameron said governments "must not use cybersecurity as an excuse for censorship or to deny their people the opportunities that the Internet represents."

As the article points out this is a bit of an about turn from the post riot noises about Twitter clampdowns and turning off mobile phone networks from some in the government, and the cynic in me wonders if this is less a Damascene conversion to the cause of liberty than a dawning realisation that they just can't stop people talking to each other, but whatever the reason it's welcome. Not so sure about this next bit though.

Britain supports the less proscriptive idea of internationally agreed online "norms of behavior." That approach was backed by US Vice President Joe Biden, who warned against imposing a "repressive global code" for the Internet.

And who's doing the agreeing? I suspect we know the answer already and that it'll be governments agreeing for their citizens without giving them any say in the matter, which rather sours the happy mood. Still, backing away from overt censorship isn't a bad thing at all. Statists and authoritarians run so much that any concession they make, any little victory at all, is worth mentioning.

Quote of the day

Okay, to be fair on Victorian Water Minister Peter Walsh, talking here about Melbourne's biggest dam reaching 50% full for the first time in seven years, this really ought to be called "Incredibly selective quote of the day" but never mind.

I can't have thoughts as the minister...

Hanging together

Despite the last post saying there'd be no blogging 'til after the weekend I'm going to make the time for a very brief blog on the topic of capital punishment, currently the subject of a reinstatement campaign by The Sun and Guido Fawkes. As usual it's a splitter, and in the blogosphere as well as day to day life. Some bloggers for whom I have a lot of respect - the Ambush Predator, Sue and Anna Raccoon, to name just three - are in favour of capital punishment while others who are equally estimable - such as Captain Ranty, Sadbutmadlad c/o The Raccoon's Arms virtual pub and ironically The Grim Reaper - are opposed to it. As I've written before (here and here, for instance) I'm very much in the opposed camp, and trying to put it beyond reach is one of the very few things that I think politicians have somehow managed to get right. Quite possibly by accident or for other motives but whether it's design or serendipity I'm not the slightest bit sorry about it.

Since this is supposed to be brief, at least by my normal prolix standard, I'm not going to go deeply into the reason for my opposition, which can be found on those links anyway, but I'll summarise it with a copy of a comment I left at Captain Ranty's an hour or so ago.

I say this time and time and time again: it simply astounds me that so many people who are so critical of the state - an entity that so many of us agree is corrupt, incapable of finding its arse with both hands and prone to abusing its authority if not acting ultra vires - are willing to give it back the power to kill its citizens. Fuck the criminal scum, a noose around the neck of the most evil man in the land is a potential noose around the neck of all.

Oh, you might be safe with a Cameramong or Millivanilli government but which of you death penalty supporters knows what kind of toad-licking swivel-eyed fucknuts you'll have for PM in 10, 15, 20+ years? For all we know right now the future could hold a Chancellor Sutcliffe or a British Mugabe, and why the hell would we want to make the bastard's job any easier? And I can't think of any democracy that hasn't elected a bastard at some stage and we all know that some have elected utter batsards, so there's really no reason to think it can't happen. In fact I'd bet that if you wait long enough it's almost inevitable.

If you love liberty the answer is straightforward: you must never, ever entrust the state with any power that you would not also be happy giving to a homicidal dictator.

It can be put even more succinctly than that (though clearly not by me). Old Slaughter, who doesn't even describe him as a libertarian but a "small government conservative", comments at Anna Racoon's blog:

... the death penalty is the ultimate symbol of the state's presumption of authority over our lives. I would find it incongruent with libertarianism to advocate such a policy.

Indeed, and I did leave a comment telling Old Slaughter him that I was going to nick that. Please don't hang me for it.

QOTD

Claiming that Whitehall mandarins are accountable, via ministers to Parliament, is a bit like claiming that the Press Complaints Commission properly oversees tabloid newspapers.

Douglas Carswell.

Aaaah, look, they're getting all grown up

For a blog that's supposed to be the semi-coherent rantings of an English expat upset at the goings on in the land of his birth I feel it's been a bit overly focused on Aussie affairs lately, and was determined to give it a rest for a bit. The trouble is that while the phone-not-hacking business seems to be dominating news in the UK, and is also being so well blogged elsewhere I haven't got much to add, there appears to be a wider variety of things going on here that have got sufficiently far up my nose to blog about. Money being wasted, carbon tax, some more money being wasted, different money being wasted elsewhere, politicians saying one thing and doing another, politicians talking complete bollocks, politicians talking bollocks whilst wasting money, politicians destroying the cattle industry - Christ, I've just realised I haven't even done that one, but fortunately the Real World Libertarian has covered that as well. Well, best intentions of mice and bloggers blahblahblah, because I'm going to do another one. No apologies though, because this is important - Australia's nannies have decided it's growing up enough to be allowed scary videogames.

SEXUALLY explicit and violent video and computer games banned in Australia could soon be sold here after all state and federal governments except New South Wales agreed to an R18+ rating for video games.

Now as I've mentioned before, the reason we don't already have one was that one state, South Australia, would not agree and that unanimity was required for change on this, so you'd be forgiven for thinking that nothing much has actually changed. NSW abstained rather than objected as SA had done in the past, although the new Attorney-General from NSW, Greg Smith, is reportedly a conservative (yeah, that Liberal kind of 'liberal' again) and argued against introducing an R18+ classification.

Mr Smith said he abstained from the vote because it needed to go to state cabinet first as the government was new - it was elected in March - and so he could consult the community.

Same same but different, you'd think, because that's really not far off the old situation - one strongly conservative view, quite possibly religiously influenced, held by a paternalist know-it-all in a position that lets him decide for the whole country rather than just his state (or better yet, his family) has apparently been exchanged for another. However, the federal government are not letting one state lay down the law for the whole country anymore. Kind of begs the question why they've been content to do so up to this point, but nevermind.

Brendan O'Connor says the Federal Government would over-ride NSW and implement the R18+ rating regardless of its decision.

And then there's that community Greg Smith mentioned, and that can be divided into three groups: the gamers, who overwhelmingly want to be able to buy adult oriented games since so many of them are adults; the non-gamers who mostly don't care or support the gamers; and the small but phenomenally noisy and, for their numbers, highly influential Christian lobby, who up 'til now have mostly opposed games that would be rated R18+ because of the violence and the risk of a T&A being included. Presumably the feeling is this sort of thing inevitably leads to hot women playing World of Warcraft in the nip and naked gaming parties, which in turn can only lead to sticky sheets, Kleenex shortages and babies, and this game-induced lust-fuelled sexmageddon will meet the game-induced bloodlust-fuelled murderpocalypse head on.

No, I don't know how they get there either, and that many of the kind of games they worry about are not only not banned but are sold to 15 year olds here in Australia because of rather than despite the lack of an RA18+ rating seems to have escaped them until now. On that point there seems to have been a waking up and smelling of coffee...

THE Australian Christian Lobby has overturned its opposition to a new R18+ category for adult computer games, saying a new in-principle deal would keep extreme games out of Australia.

... though it's not exactly a Damascene conversion.

“The draft R18+ guidelines as originally proposed would have matched the R18+ guidelines for films,” spokesman Rob Ward said.
“This was clearly never in the interests of the community, with the boundaries of the R18+ film guidelines slowly eroded to allow extreme violence, actual sex and simulated pedophilia in films.
“Although ACL awaits the final detail from the meeting, it appears that the existing ceiling for games has been maintained with a commitment to move the more extreme MA15+ games into a newly-created R18+ rating.”

So while the Christian lobby, or at least one of its most vocal parts, has worked out that the current situation is counter-productive they haven't gone quite as far as conceding that they don't speak for 'the community', just themselves, or that adults in Australia should be able to buy the same games that are available elsewhere without the game developer having to specially ruin it for the local market.

Still, the main thing is that the opposition to an R18+ category has pretty much dried up and I'd say it's almost certain that it'll be in place in time for Christmas orders. And I'd be prepared to bet that although the wording on the game classification guidelines may be slightly different to those for other media I'd be prepared to bet that the official censors - the people who've been employed to nanny us but have often allowed games aimed at adults to slip through as MA15+ - will allow into Oz unaltered games that they can't at the moment.

I'd prefer to see an end to the gaming nanny completely, and realistically with online sales growing - my last two games purchases were made via Steam and with the prices of games in the shops I'm likely to carry on buying that way - I don't see how they expect to stop someone downloading games that aren't for sale here anyway. Even if the internet filter plan hadn't stalled I'm sure serious gamers would be working out ways around it so they could download ZombieSplatterKill4 from the US or elsewhere.

So I have mixed feelings about it, but overall there are more positives than negatives. It didn't go as far as I'd hoped and certainly not as far as I'd like, but baby steps I suppose. Progress has been made and Nanny is going to let us play the scary and slightly naughty games now, which for a country with the biggest and most blatantly sited sex shops I've ever seen is probably about time.

View Larger Map -- Sexyland, just off the Tullamarine freeway about ten minutes from Melbourne international airport

For those who are interested there's a good potted history of the road to an adult games rating on The Age's Screen Play blog.

Oh, fuuuuuh (Fit the Second)

High cost of energy? Are you keeping up, carbon tax fans? And while we're on the subject, what the fuck is all this crap about a London style congestion tax (fortunately given the flick by the Victorian government - see, fellas, you can get something right) when it turns out that car use has fucking declined over the last six years?

Is this genuine idiocy or is it a secret plan to tackle immigration concerns by making the place so ridiculously expensive to live that no bugger wants to come here anymore?

'Kinell. I'm off for a shit - who do I make the cheque out to when I flush the bog?

Black is white, up is down, Labour is Tory

As if to prove that this political metamorphery (apparently not a word, but I'm sticking with it anyway) of Tories into Labour that I've been ranting about the last couple of days is not unique we have the precedent of the grinning mutation mentioned earlier today, who, according to a lifelong member of the Tory party I knew, was among the best Conservative Prime Ministers he could remember. To be honest I wasn't sure how much he was complimenting Blair and how much he was slagging off Major and whichever tool they had as leader whenever it was we were discussing it, but it seems as if Blair was not a one off. Either that or Frank Field is starting to channel Norman Tebbit.

When Tony Blair won the 1997 election, the total number of benefit claimants of working age stood at 5.7 million. When Gordon Brown went to the country in 2010, the level was the same – even though more than three million jobs had been created under Labour.
The problem was that, of those new jobs, 80 per cent went to immigrant workers. And now, the same disturbing pattern is repeating itself. In fact, it is even more marked: over the first year of the Coalition, 87 per cent of the 400,000 new jobs created were taken by immigrants.
[...]
Overwhelmingly, voters reject the idea that the right to welfare should be decided on grounds of need. A vast majority insists that welfare should instead be earned. Voters are deeply uneasy with the direction of policy, begun in the early Sixties, that has seen Britain move away from its insurance-based system, where benefits were awarded only to those who had paid in, to a means-tested system that gives a universal right to benefits to anyone whose income is below a certain level. Especially since, under the guise of tax credits, a third of the country has been sucked into the welfare net.
Voters are equally hostile to the way social housing is allocated. The rules determine that those deemed to be in greatest need shoot to the top of the housing queues. The public fundamentally disagrees. It believes that those who have waited the longest, who have been good, reliable, decent tenants, who have paid their rent on time, whose children haven’t caused trouble, shouldn’t be pipped at the post for the best housing.
Yet even so, the Coalition looks set to continue the post-war policies to which voters are hostile. Iain Duncan Smith’s Universal Benefit is little more than Gordon Brown’s approach on speed.
[...]
The Work Programme, if anything, has had an even easier ride. The Government believes, for two reasons, that its approach is superior to the horrendous number of such schemes Labour introduced and endlessly refined. First, private providers will be free from most bureaucratic restraint; second, they will predominantly be paid by their results, getting their reward from the taxpayers only when they place people in work (and the longer they remain in work, the bigger the reward).
It sounds simple, but again, I doubt whether it will have a huge impact on the numbers of workless claimants, and particularly on the number of those who have never worked.
[...]
But what of those lads, barely able to read or write, who tell me they wouldn’t dream of taking a job that doesn’t pay three times the rate they gain on benefits, and who refuse those jobs available on the grounds that such work is fit only for immigrants? This group of recidivist, workless claimants know from past experience that governments leave them alone.
Again, voters have other views. Three quarters of the public – including benefit claimants themselves – believe that those who willingly refuse to seek work should lose all or a very large proportion of their benefits. Yet no government has shown any willingness to reflect voters’ views in the sanctions it imposes.

Frank Field, in case anyone needs reminding, has been a Labour MP for more than thirty years and has served both in cabinets and shadow cabinets. He may have a track record of taking a different line from his own party and of course he was the guy who set out to think the unthinkable on welfare reform, at least until Blair told him that the unthinkable was, er, unthinkable. Still, the point is we have Tories in the Cobbleition being more Labour than Labour and one of the longer serving Labour MPs is being more of a Tory than almost any of them. And for what it's worth he's making more sense too.

What the fuck is going on?

Playing games

ZOMBIES!! Over there! Quick, kill 'em, kill 'em. We're allowed now, or at least we will be soon.

I wasn't planning to blog much over the next day or two but I'm going to make the time because of a rather unusual event: nothing less than a proposed reduction in the nanny state. Or, since we're talking about computer games, Australia's lack of an R18+ classification and the vocal minority who insist that we shouldn't have one, perhaps the religiously inspired moral arbiter state might be a better term. But however you want to describe it the bottom line is that it looks as if it's about to change and there'll be a little, though only a little, less nannying when it does.

On 25 May 2011, the Minister for Justice, the Hon Brendan O’Connor MP, issued a media release announcing draft Guidelines for the Classification of Computer Games for the information of the public.
Under the Classification (Films, Publications and Computer Games) Act 1995 (Cth) Commonwealth, State and Territory classification Ministers may approve guidelines by agreement to assist the Classification Board (the Board) apply criteria in the Code. Under the Classification Act, computer games are to be classified in accordance with the Code and the guidelines. If an R 18+ category is introduced, guidelines would assist the Board in applying this classification.
Separate guidelines for computer games have been drafted because of compelling research evidence indicating that interactivity may increase the impact of the classifiable elements in computer games (compared with films).

That's the good news. The bad is that there is still wiggle room in which the government and the Board can manoeuvre to concede other people's freedom to the religious minority that shrieks that violent games must be banned for the chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiildren and that even scary games designed and marketed for adults should look like this.

Maybe not quite like this.

Now there are a couple of caveats here, so we shouldn't get too excited. First there is the use of the phrase "if an R18+ category is introduced" suggesting that it's not a certainty, although personally I feel it's pretty likely that it will happen. Second is the decision to believe in research (exactly what research isn't specified) that says interactivity "may" - another one of those could, might, may instances - increase the impact on players of sex, drugs, violence and all the other stuff the wowsers are worried about rather than research that says that in fact the opposite could/might/may be true. I'm not saying one lot of researchers are right and the others are wrong but I am saying that the government appear to have picked a side which, coincidentally I'm sure, appeals to the nannies, paternalists and other self-righteous pricks, and that greater impartiality would have been more appropriate.

Then there's the fact that once again South Australia seems to be playing silly buggers and wants the new category not as an addition to the current lineup but as a replacement for MA15+. So much for the new(ish) SA Attorney General being a more enlightened type when it comes to censorship. Still, in fairness to John Rau his concern that a lot of adult games are actually being sold as MA15+ here in Oz precisely because there hasn't been an R18+ category. Take Alien vs Predator, for example, it's an 18 in the UK and most countries, but only MA15+ here. Daft? Yes, it is daft that we have violent games being given a classification intended for less adult titles because there's no other option, but isn't it just as daft to want to reverse the situation so that games which really aren't that violent have to get lumped in with the all the alien-slaying zombie shoot 'em ups? I suppose that with Adelaide also being known as the City of Churches there's probably a significant religious vote for the local politicians to worry about. However, when something like 90% of the country thinks an 18 category is well overdue you'd expect the religious Righteous to be in a minority even in the City of Churches - just because there are a lot of churches it doesn't mean everybody goes.* Fortunately there is nothing in the proposed new guidelines about removing MA15+ and it doesn't look like happening.

Finally there are the guidelines themselves (here in PDF and here in DOC for those interested) and I have to say that there is still some cause for concern over a couple of sentences. First in the code (my bold):

The Code

Under the Code, classification decisions are to give effect, as far as possible, to the following principles:
(a) adults should be able to read, hear, see and play what they want;
(b) minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them;
(c) everyone should be protected from exposure to unsolicited material that they find offensive;
(d) the need to take account of community concerns about: (i) depictions that condone or incite violence, particularly sexual violence; and (ii) the portrayal of persons in a demeaning manner.

Oh dear, the right not to be offended rears its ugly head again, though as usual it's not applied to the vast number of things that offend me. And nor should it unless you want to deprive millions of people of soap operas, soccer and manufactured pop music. I'm particularly offended by this pernicious belief, unsolicited examples of which I get every time I turn on the TV or open a newspaper, of various busybodies that I can't be allowed to make my own mind up and need protection from myself. That last clause suggests more of the same and could presumably be used to ban games which depict, say, overweight and brightly coloured people with aerials on their heads and a vocabulary of their own name plus five other words as being ravening zombies to be decapitated by a shotgun blast to the head. As we all know you don't need to find one to complain - you just need to find someone else who's prepared to complain on their behalf. Better to ditch the approach of worrying what may offend and demean people and just point out that computer and games console comes with an off switch.

More worrying is the bit about "community concerns", especially when taken with this section on the R18+ category itslef.

VIOLENCE

Violence is permitted except where it offends against the standards of morality, decency and propriety generally accepted by reasonable adults to the extent that it should not be classified.

Is it just me or does this sound like a sop to the Helen Lovejoys who'd probably like Scrabble to be restricted or for the letters S, E and X removed from every set? Australians would be allowed to buy adult games but only ones which don't offend the standards of morality (as defined by the Classification Board no doubt) which are accepted by reasonable (presumably also defined by the Board) adults and don't cause any community concerns (I expect defined by the Board and anyone who can drum up a few thousand signatures of people who want to express their outrage). There's also a bit that says that sex in games must only be simulated and that real sex is forbidden, though I'm not sure why anyone would think that's even necessary - wouldn't it void the warranty?

So all in all I'd say there'd still be some room for the finger waggers, prodnoses, nannies and disapproving busybodies to get in the way of other people's lives on the thinnest of pretexts, and therefore still room for improvement. I'd like to see a voluntary code where games makers simply put the content on the box and the kind of age group they've aimed it at, and beyond that leaving it up to parents to do some parenting and retailers to be sensible about it when someone 4 foot high asks in a piping voice for a copy of Naked Zombie Orgy Death Shotgun 3. At the least the draft proposal could make it plain to the tiny but noisy minority that what responsible adults choose to buy to entertain themselves with is nothing to do with anyone else, and they could do that by going back to that code and removing half:

The Code
Under the Code, classification decisions are to give effect, as far as possible, to the following principles:
(a) adults should be able to read, hear, see and play what they want;
(b) minors should be protected from material likely to harm or disturb them;
(c) that's it, now as long as you all play nice you can knock yourselves out.

I realise that of both my readers at least half are not resident in Australia (hi Mum) but if the proposal affects anyone reading this and you agree that the having game classifications should be about providing information to consumers, not about providing the means for small numbers of noisy wowsers to have censored anything they personally dislike, then you might like to know that the Commonwealth government have set up a short survey asking simply if you support the R18+ addition and/or the draft guidelines along with any comments you may have. It closes on the 22nd June, so why not get a copy from the proposal from links above, look it over then pop along and leave them some feedback?


* I'm not sure why so many of the people who get upset about people playing games with zombies in also happen to venerate someone who's supposed to have risen from the dead. Even the approval of Catholic bishops in Australia for R18+ is qualified by the statement that they'd still prefer it wasn't available at all.

How do you know when a politician isn't lying?

When he's saying that lots more got away with what he was sent to prison for.

Eric Illsley, an MP jailed for expenses fraud and released after just four months of a year-long sentence, has immediately proclaimed that he was a “scapegoat”.

A third of his sentence? Someone remind me, is that more, less or about the norm these days? Even if they have given him a Peckham Rolex to wear. Not that he's a danger to the public or likely to be in a position to do it again, but it still seems like he shouldn't be whining the second he's out. Though given what he's whining about he does have a point.

The former Labour MP for Barnsley Central said there were “lots of MPs” who had cheated the expenses system in the same way as him and his case should never have been heard in court.
[...]
“My case shouldn’t have been brought before the court,” said Illsley. “There are so many others who have walked free and nobody is going to say a dickie bird about their situation.”

What a brilliant defence! Shame he only thought of it just now otherwise he could have suggested it to the toughing bastards who tried (and eventually failed) to use the Bill of Rights to avoid court. If only they'd thought to use the brilliant defence of "But everyone else is doing it so why should we have to stand trial?" they could have avoided all that unpleasantness. I'm sure every other criminal will be walking free from court from this week on simply by pointing out that the crime of which they're accused is not unique and that therefore they shouldn't have to answer to a court at all. Mind you, this might even work with some judges.

Sarcasm aside, Eric, I'm sure you're right that you were just made a scapegoat of, but even if every single last one of your fellow MPs had ripped off the taxpayer to an even greater extent than you did - and this is demonstrably not the case - it doesn't fucking excuse whatever level of thieving or fraud, call it what you will, that you yourself were up to. It just doesn't, okay?

Other than that Eric makes a good point and I'm inclined to believe him that there probably were a lot of guilty parties who went unpunished. And of course it's hard to believe the expenses fiddling has actually gone away.

In a veiled reference to David Laws, the former Cabinet minister, Illsley said: “I should have been allowed to apologise to the House of Commons and get on with my career.”

Boom, headshot!

You're still a cunt in my book though, Eric.

It's QOTD everywhere else

Well, not really but a lot of people have talked about what Cleggy Nick said about government the other day (QOTM at the UK Libertarian for instance).

"I need to say this – you shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good."

Not just there either. Three days before he said that to The Observer he was saying similar things in The Teletubbygraph in support of the govenment's disappointingly watered down and limited Freedom Bill.

The nature of power is such that, the longer a government has it, the less inclined they are to give it up. We must not take our chances. When it comes to cherished British liberties, even the most well-meaning of governments cannot be trusted.

What the hell was going on there? Is some inner classic liberal trying to claw its way out or was he temporarily channeling the spirit of Ronald Reagan?* Whatever the reason it's important that someone reminds him of his own words every time he or the government he's a part of falls short on that ideal, and since that seems to be almost all the time - the Freedom Bill itself being an example - I expect he's going to wish he hadn't said anything before long.


* Not that Reagan lived up to those words since the US government still grew during his time. Still, at least he said it like he might have believed it, or am I just cynical about that because he was an actor?

Okay, Dave, now what? UPDATED

So now that Parliament has had a vote on the issue of prisoners voting and decided by 234 to 22 that prisoners can stuff off, what does Cameramong do now? Earlier today in the Teletubbygraph Benedict Brogan thought he was going to be in an awkward position.

If as we expect the motion is passed, Mr Cameron will be duty bound then to make sure it is enforced. That’s where it gets tricky: we have so far had no indication of what the Government might do: withdraw the UK from the jurisdiction of the court? Hand responsibility for abiding by the convention to the Supreme Court? Test the link between membership for the EU and the ECHR? Mr Cameron is encouraging revolt, but he has to have a plan for what happens when MPs follow his lead. What he can’t do, as some suggest, is kick it into the long grass.

Well he certainly shouldn't, but I wonder if it might actually be an option. I was watching a BBC video clip over at Chez Puddlecote in which Andrew Neil, who had the chore of interviewing this arsehole, suggested that the European Court ruling was simply that the UK had to review this situation.* If so then can Cameramong reply to the Court that the British parliament has reviewed it by a majority of more than ten to one and leave it to be argued over for another few years? That would be longish grass, possibly long enough for iDave's purposes. The alternative is confrontation and possibly a move to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the European Court (as argued for here). If he has the stomach for withdrawal I think a lot of people in Britain who are fed up both with the EU, the European Commission and the European Court will think better of him for getting the country out from under at least one of them. Big if, though.

On the issue itself I've always felt the simplest answer is to agree that they have the right to go and vote but point out that while serving prison sentences their right to liberty is temporarily suspended, so getting to the polling station in time is going to be a bit of a challenge. If this was combined with an overhaul of the abuse-prone postal and proxy vote system so that the latter was restricted to people actually out of the country and the former dropped altogether then the only prisoners actually able to vote would be a relative handful of low risk types who'd been let out on day release or something.

The right to vote shouldn't necessarily come with the right to be able to use it if your own actions have deprived you of your liberty.

UPDATE - very good question asked by Max Farquar.

All the MPs in the HoC had a free vote today, a chance to show their disdain for something that they almost all found totally unacceptable. Rightly so. That's how it should be. So .... when are we going to be offered the same opportunity to be able to show our overwhelming disdain for all things EU. When are we going to have our free vote Dave. An EU Referendum. You know ... the one with the cast iron guarantee.

See my point?

I do indeed, Max. That's a question worth asking again and again, louder and louder, until someone comes up with an answer.


* If he can call someone a Paki then I can call him an arsehole.

New Labour, Cobbleition Tories, very few meaningful differences.

I've said this already often enough but Douglas Carswell spells it out loud and clear today.

... From where I'm sitting, the problem is not that the Coalition is failing to be traditionally Tory. Rather it is that ministers are not being radical enough. Yes, the talk is bold, but how much has public policy really altered since May?

Cutting the deficit? Ministers say so, but not the maths. Borrowing is up. Like pretty much every other post-war government, this one seems to be using higher taxes and inflation to solve its debt problems, rather than seriously curb state largesse.

Political reform? All those interesting ideas, mooted at the height of the expense scandal, including recall and open primaries, seem forgotten. Instead we’re to have a referendum on AV – which was in neither Coalition party’s manifesto.

Bonfire of the quangos? It’s gone out.

Localism? Maybe. But what about the localising the money?

Great Repeal Bill? Try googling it.

Europe? This afternoon the government will announce we’re opting into yet another EU proposal on criminal justice. Plus ca change.

Welfare reform? Full marks. But is this a change of policy or an acceleration of the reforms Labour’s James Purnell piloted.

Defence? We carry on cutting what we need, while spending on ruinous contracts we can ill-afford.

New politics? Same sofa.

Quite, and since Douglas Carswell is a Conservative MP and presumably better able than most to see what's going on in his party it's a fairly safe bet the rest of us who thought the new government was depressingly similar to the old one didn't imagine it. But it does raise one intriguing question.

Why the hell is Douglas Carswell still a Conservative when the party isn't?

Thank you for using Johnnytube.

Over at the Adam Smith Institute blog there's news that Boris Johnson has again taken a brief break from quoting Homer in which he squeezed the idea that London's tube network might have driverless trains because, as the ASI note, the damn things don't keep going on strike. I have to admit that the idea of driverless trains didn't thrill me when it was suggested and then implemented on London's Docklands Light Railway more than 20 years ago, but having used it a few times since then as a passenger I'm completely comfortable with the idea of automation. Wikipedia mentions only two accidents since 1987, one of which was due to unauthorised testing (a human decision presumably) before the line opened, and there are similar systems in operation all over the world. I'm not sure how I'd feel about the Total Recall Johnnycab type taxi I referenced in the title, or even a Johnnytram since if I'm not driving that's my usual public transport choice - they have to share the roads with cars, trucks, cyclists, pedestrians and animals, and I feel the environment is just too random for automation. But lay out some track that the automated system has all to itself so that everything moving on it is under its control, and I think experience shows that it can work just fine. The Tube network seems ideally suited to it, and in fact is already largely automated on the Victoria, Central and Jubilee lines according to BoJo. It might have been more but he'd slipped into Latin again and nobody understood a word.

Needless to say this has not gone down well with the union bruvvers, as reported by the Socialist Worker.

London mayor Boris Johnson signalled his intent to keep up the attacks last week when he told a collection of bankers and City grandees about his plans for “driverless trains” on the tube network.

He said, “Anybody in this room could in a matter of a few weeks acquire the qualifications to supervise an underground train.”

Bob Crow responded by saying, “Boris Johnson’s comments show he has complete and utter contempt for the staff who ensure safe transport of Londoners every day.

“It is clear he is planning to sack thousands of tube drivers and that act of provocation will be met with fierce resistance.”

Okay, and of course I'm all for the right to strike, being at its most basic people being at liberty to withhold their labour. But it's all a bit one sided, isn't it? I'm also for employers being at liberty to keep their business functioning while a strike is on, which must mean that if some of the strikers find their jobs have been filled by other people while they were waving signs and standing round braziers, fucking tough. As things stand they can have their cake and eat it, knowing that striking doesn't put their jobs at risk. At least not directly.

And what of the commuters, because these strikes do keep buggering up everyone's commute, don't they? There may be a certain amount of sympathy from a handful but if the Tube staff were universally loved and thought of as heroes who keep the capital moving then it seems unlikely that this would ever have been made.



Instead the reality is that a couple of doctors sang a song in which they called Tube drivers lazy and greedy and fucking useless cunts, and as I recall far from being widely condemned (outside the unions obviously - I'm sure they spat a few dummies) it got emailed all over the place with subject lines like 'LOL, sooooo true' - I got it at least twice from separate sources. Harshly put maybe, but many people agreed.

And then the SW sticks its head in the sand.

Few believe that Johnson’s boast is anything more than rhetoric. It would cost millions to upgrade the tube network in the way the mayor is fantasising about.

And yes, the whole country is boracic at the moment, but that's kind of the point. Right at the time the UK needs to tighten its belt and make some serious economies Tube drivers and staff are taking industrial action. Again. And as the ASI note:

The London Chamber of Commerce calculated that each day that the Underground is closed costs the UK economy £48million. So the five strikes cost us £240million last year, whilst it has also been argued that once all the Tube trains are converted to automatic systems it would save a further £141million a year.

So yes, while it would undoubtably cost millions to upgrade the network it would also save millions, which is the object of the exercise.

Still, the SW have got Boris bang to rights on one point.

And, far from destoying the unions, workers still retain power on driverless systems—as a strike by RMT members on the DLR system this week will prove. [Since cancelled, I believe - AE]

And they say that like it's a good thing.

Wa-wa-wankers.


PS - this marks the second use of my Politicians Getting Things Right For A Change tag.

That took its sweet time.

Finally! ID cards are at last dead and decently buried, despite the best efforts of some to hold things up by insisting that the 12,000 or so useful idiots and government hirelings* who bought one of the bloody things could have a refund. As I said in September, caveat emptor always applies whether it's a crap first car that a young Exile bought against the advice of older and wiser heads or an ID card that always stood a better than evens chance of being abolished before long.

You had the option to not buy something from a relatively unpopular government being lead by a hugely unpopular mucus munching madman, something that the opposition parties made clear they would scrap if they got in, but in spite of that you went ahead. Too fucking bad. Am I going to get a refund on all that NI I paid if, as I expect, the UK state pension pot has gone tits up by the time I reach retirement age? No, I highly fucking doubt it too. Fucking thousands taking from me under threat of violence, fucking thousands. And you peck sniffing, blister palmed, pox ridden cockslots are whinging about your thirty fucking quid even though it cost the rest of the taxpayers twenty grand between them for that bit of plastic.

Fuck. You. All. Fuck you right in the face.

And well done, Cobbleition. Now... what the fuck's going on with all the rest of that civil liberty stuff you were talking about?


* I can't recall where I read it and can't now find the link but I'm sure I saw somewhere that a large number of the ID cards issued had been to people who worked in the department issuing ID cards and other public sector employees.

Dodged that bullet.

Aw, shame.

Australia received a single solitary vote and was the first nation eliminated in the fight for the right to host the 2022 World Cup. It ended up being a fourth-round battle between Qatar and the United States with the Middle Eastern nation winning 14-8.

Goodoh. That means the Qataris pay for it and not us. In Victoria we spunk away millions every fucking year on hosting the Grand Prix alone, and despite being a motor racing fan I bloody object to that. The soccer World Cup? You can bloody keep it.

And it's also bad news for British fans, though good news for their wallets.

There's a very strong suggestion that England was eliminated in the first round of voting for the 2018 tournament. Serious questions will be asked. Did yesterday's crowd violence in the Birmingham-Aston Villa EPL match have any late impact on voting? What about the BBC program?

Who'd have thought it. A bunch of fighty fans and the BBC may have combined to save the country a lot of money. I mean, what the fuck were they thinking when they bid for the bloody thing anyway? Were they expecting to fund it with the huge profits they're going to make from the Olympics?

Profit? In your dreams, buddy.

Look, I like watching sport. No, in fact I love it and there aren't many things I won't watch (soccer is one of them as it happens). But let's get the principle of the money sorted out once and for all - it is not the job of a government, whether state or federal/national, to act as a fucking sports promoter, okay? It's simply not a government function. By all means talk it up and support it verbally but do not, repeat do fucking not, go putting your sticky fucking mitts into taxpayers pockets to pay for it.

And there's a reason for that. Aside from not unnecessarily separating taxpayers from yet more of their hard earned, which incidentally is reason enough on it's own, what do you think happens when sport thinks it has a practically endless pool of money to dive into courtesy of its good friends in government? It fucking gets more expensive, of course. Again, take the Melbourne Grand Prix or the London Olympics as an example. Do they actually have to cost as much to stage as the governments have to fork over, and if it they do is it worth it? If the answer to both is yes then surely it should be no great challenge to persuade all the private enterprises who benefit from it to chip in instead of robbing everyone from fucking Mildura to Mallacoota to pay for a Melbourne event and Land's End to John O' Groats to fund a London event. And when something is funded with private money value is sought after and normally got, because otherwise the money will stop flowing. However, the fact that Britain has been struggling to get private money in to cover even the minority of Olympic costs that weren't planned to be met willing or otherwise by the taxpayer does rather suggest the answer is in fact no.

As I said, I like watching sport. I'll watch the London Olympics and the Melbourne Grand Prix - I've even paid to go a couple of times - but I'm in it for the sport, not for all the bullshit presentation and pomp that goes with it and that drives the costs up to the point that often only governments, with their ability to rob whole populations en masse, can fucking afford to pay for it. What's needed is a reality check for sporting bodies such as the IOC, FIFA, IRB, FIA and anyone else from the alphabetti spaghetti gang. What's needed is for the bids from governments to host these increasingly lavish and costly events to dwindle away to the point that the sporting bodies have to tone down their expectations for huge opening ceremonies with twenty thousand performers doing something culturally significant yet also utterly mystifying followed by enough fireworks to make the Americans think another war has started, and approach private investors who'll actually expect a more tangible ROI than, "It'll be a great opportunity to showcase the city/state/country".

Normally I'd finish off this kind of rant with some comment to the effect that I'm pretty pessimistic about the chances of this actually happening, but also in the sports news this morning is something that holds out a slim ray of hope that this might be beginning. The Victorian taxpayers' regular contributions to Tiger Woods' ex-wife's lawyer's bank balance has also been an occasional topic of froth spitting rage on these pages, and happily that's going to stop.

THE Tiger Woods gravy train in Melbourne appears to have been derailed by the new state government.

Woods's appearance in the Australian Masters, the tournament he has single-handedly reinvigorated in the past two years, is in doubt because Premier-elect Ted Baillieu said the government would not fund a visit by the world's most famous golfer.

The Brumby government - through its Victorian Major Events Corporation - contributed about $1.5 million in each of the past two years towards a $3 million appearance fee for Woods, which was slightly below the standard rate.

But Baillieu has previously said that a Coalition government would not countenance the payment of a fee, and he repeated it yesterday.

And fucking right too. I don't care one way or the other about the dick swinging stick swinger or whether he comes to Melbourne to play a few holes, or even some golf. But the cost of persuading him to stop having sex long enough to get on a plane and compete here should be borne by those who actually want him, and if he's priced himself out of the market that's up to him. Needless to say I'm quite pleased about this. I was glad to see the back of the Labor state government but naturally I didn't expect to be any fan of the replacement. I'm not eating my words here but I am having a small nibble on the corner of one letter. Credit where it's due, Ted Baillieu is spot on here, and I hope it sets a trend of pollies and governments refusing to further enrich already wealthy sportspeople and bodies.

As a result I'm creating a new tag: "Politicians getting things right for a change". It probably isn't going to see an awful lot of use, but let's hope I'm wrong about that too.