It's the Media wot won it for Cameron

One response to this horrendous 2015 general election result is to assert  that the voters have been unduly influenced by right-wards bias in the media.

Can we substantiate this claim?

Yes.

First, the 3:1 R:L newspaper readership figures. For every reader of left-leaning newspapers there are three readers of right-leaning newspapers. This is clearly unbalanced and bad for democracy.

Defenders of this situation claim that there is no evidence that newspapers influence their readers' opinions. This is not true. Studies show that newspapers do influence readers' perceptions of "salience" - that is, what is seen as important. Therefore, if the Green Party's serious policy proposals are  not reported in the papers, they are  not seen as important.

One straw in the wind that indicates a right wing bias in the media generally is that the media driven election agenda left out stuff like Climate Change, Fracking, Austerity and Corruption.

Second, we need to look at bias in broadcast media.

Coverage of the Green Party in TV and radio political commentary programmes can be measured.

A reasonable proxy, that can easily be retrieved, is to demand that the BBC (and other channels, perhaps, but the BBC is key, as a public service broadcaster that is expected to be neutral) should present figures of interviews given to the leaders of the Green Party and of UKIP on programmes such as Today, World at One, Any Questions, PM, Newsnight, Question Time and Hard Talk since May 2010.

The position in May 2010 between the Green Party and Ukip was roughly comparable. Ukip led slightly in the polls, but we had one MP. We should therefore have been given roughly equal coverage.

I predict that we will find a gross imbalance in the figures.

I will be doing this as an individual citizen in the interests of BBC impartiality, not on behalf of the Green Party, because the Party would be expected to be further punished and excluded were it to make any critical noises.

Third, Media Studies departments need to study, or publish if the studies have already been done, the "Interruption Rate" of big interviewers such as Humphrys, Neil, Paxman etc in their interviews. The Interruption Rate (IR) is a clear metric, It can be matched against the position of the interviewee on a right-left spectrum. Here are my findings for Andrew Neil on Natalie Bennett.

I predict that the IR will be higher on politicians on the left.

The Green manifesto sought to tighten laws on cross media ownership so that no individual or company could own more than 20% of the media; to implement Leveson, and "Maintain the BBC as the primary public service broadcaster, free of government interference, with funding guaranteed in real terms in statute to prevent government interference."

This is a reasonable start, though I feel 20% is too generous. I would add a requirement to put the name of the proprietor on each mast head of a newspaper.

So here we have one established fact, and two lines of enquiry that support the idea that the UK media is biased to the right, and that this bias must be corrected.

Two ideas for bringing about Proportional Representation

Clearly we need a proportional representation voting system.

Parliament will not deliver PR, because Parliament was elected by FPTP, and therefore most MPs will believe that FPTP is the best system in the world.

Therefore PR can only come about through intense extra-parliamentary action.

Demonstrations are ineffective, because the corporate media will not cover them if they are peaceful, and if demonstrations  are violent, they will say look at the disgraceful anarchist vandals who are trying to subvert our Parliamentary system.

Some will argue that the Trafalgar Square riots did put an end to the Poll Tax; but the poll tax was just one stupid new idea that one party was trying to introduce. FPTP is a long established method of voting, supported, to their everlasting shame, by the Labour Party as well as the Tories.

This unholy alliance is a chink in the armour of FPTP. If we can demonstrate Lab and Con both support this useless system, it will at least embarrass them.

We could demonstrate it with a regular  demonstration outside local Conservative Party and Labour Party HQs. Choose Friday afternoons, when the local MP is holding surgery (that way we can avoid kettling, by claiming that we are legitimately lobbying our MP). If the police do try to kettle us, we enter the building, and they are kettling the MP.

Demonstrate and chant outside the Labour, then march to the Conservative HQ and do the same there. Do it regularly, weekly or monthly, and spill over into out of hours, so the police have to pay overtime.

This will bring pressure on the two parties. One thing is that in safe seats (Tories in the South, Labour in the North) the weaker party, used to getting pathetic votes, and knowing that their votes are forever "wasted" will be more open to the idea that PR might be better.


At the same time, we can link it with a General Tea Break.

Every Monday morning, at 9 am, PR activists will meet up at work at the water cooler or someplace, and talk about PR for 5 minutes. That's all. Talk about the PR for 5 mins. Anyone who comes along "Hello, we are just discussing PR. What do you think about it?".
After 5 mins they get to work.

As numbers gather, the time slowly extends to 10 and 15 minutes.

If management comes up and says "Why aren't you at your stations?" the response is "We are talking about the electoral system. FPTP is useless, do you not agree? We were just going back to our work stations, but since you are here, we would like to know what you think? Do you think it will end up with a General Strike if we don't get PR soon?"

Management will get the idea, as soon as they realise it is happening in other companies. They will realise we are tooling up for a General Strike, on the QT.

This begins to put an economic cost on FPTP, and economics, in the end, is what drives policy in the Tory/Labour brain.

So, two ideas for bypassing the Parliamentary reluctance to think about changing the FPTP system. If you don't like them, put forward your better ideas.

Election Results, relation of votes to seats

This table is shows the relation of votes cast as a percentage of the total, and how they translate into Parliamentary seats occupied as a percentage of the total 650 seats.

Party.              % of votes.               % of seats

Con                  37                             51

Lab.                 31                             36

UKIP.              13                               0.2

LibDem.            8                               1.2

SNP.                  5                               9

Green                4                               0.2
DUP                  0.6                            1.2
Plaid                  0.6                            0.5
SinnFein           0.6                             0.5
UUP                  0.4                            0,3
SDLP                0.3                             0.5
Others               1.1                             0.2

It shows that the small nationalists have a rough proportionality between votes and representation, because their votes are concentrated in a small area, but that gross disproportionality shows up in other parties.

Ukip fares particulary badly, with an under-representation factor (URF, votes/outcome) of 115.
Greens under-representation factor is 20. LibDem is 65.

For Tories and Labour the system works to amplify their representation, with Tories amplified by 1.8, and Labour by a factor of 1.2.


All of which goes to confirm, as though we didn't know already, how grossly discriminatory is the hated/outdated FPTP system.

In terms of power, the factor for the ultimate "winners" is infinite, in that their 37% of the vote (which at a 2/3rds turnout, slips down to a mere 24% of the electorate) translates into 100% of the political power in this backward country. This is even more worrying when we remember that Osborne's plan is to experiment on Britain, reducing it according to his "small state" ideology - an experiment that has never been tried before, but is unlikely to make us happy.

Linked to the everyday corruption in the Westminster system, and the outrageously distorted media in our country, we the people should consider what kind of action we must take to bring Britain into the 21st century. 

How Investigators can identify the VIP child abusers

The fish, it is said, rots from the head down.

We cannot have a healthy democracy and society if the upper workings of the State includes criminals who sexually abuse children.

A number of politicians, civil servants and other high-ranking individuals have abused children, but their colleagues are reluctant to allow them be brought to justice for fear of the echoes and repercussions that will affect the power structure of Westminster.

Nevertheless, identification of these VIP abusers and their friends is vitally necessary. 

It is not technically difficult.

At present detectives in several inquiries are sifting through mounds of evidence relating to historic abuse. They interview many of their own colleagues who were active in the past, investigating trails of evidence. The common pattern that their colleagues experienced is that when the trail began to point towards MPs and other high rankers, their investigation was closed down.

Two changes are needed. 

First, the officers giving evidence need to be freed from the constraints of the Official Secrets Act.  

Second, the officers running the current investigations need to be given the power to ask these questions when they are relevant:

"Who gave the order that this abuse story was to be set aside and ignored?"
or "Who did you hand the lost file to?"
or even simply "Who was your superior officer?"

The detectives then move up the chain of command until they identify the source of the order. Some may have died, but contemporaries, colleagues and aides of the dead officers may have leads.

This process is simple and effective. 

The problem is not complexity; the problem is political and psychological. It means that junior officers will be closing in on their own superiors. In doing this, juniors will need courage, integrity, and support. The support will have to come from politicians and journalists, who similarly will need courage and integrity.

The establishment would prefer that police detectives spend their time in a Sysiphan task of sifting through an ever growing mound of data, than that they should turn their attention to finding and eradicating the 20 or so powerful politicians, civil servants and establishment figures who have committed serious crimes.

It is up to us, the people, to make sure that we support a police effort which is directed efficiently at the top figures in the establishment of our nation.

Rwandan Green Party moves forward, Rwandan dictatorship recedes

Frank Habineza at the Dakar Conference of the Global Greens

Below is a cleaned up version of an emailed press release on the Global Greens list. It indicates that the Green Party is able to register in Rwanda, which indicates in turn that President Kagame of Rwanda may be in the process of turning back from his course which was sailing towards dictatorship. If so, this is a real triumph for all those who campaigned and wrote to condemn Kagame's dictatorial tendencies, and in particular it may be a triumph for quiet diplomacy of the Commonwealth. Let's all hope so.

Tuesday, 14th August 2012

Media Release:

Rwandan Democratic Green Party is Resuming Political Activities Inside the Country.

On the occasion of the third anniversaryof the Democratic Green Party of Rwanda, we take the opportunity to inform all party members, well-wishers and the general public that we have re-committed ourselves to resume political activities inside the country.

The party leader, Frank Habineza, who has been away in Sweden, since August 2010 will be back
early September to spearhead the process of registering the party and preparing for the September 2013 parliamentary elections.

During 2011, we were able to launch the Friends of Rwandan Greens, in Australia and participated in the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, in Perth, Australia. CHOGM proved to be of great importance.

In May 2012, we were also able to participate in the Commonwealth Workshop for Government and Opposition in East Africa, which was held in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

The workshop discussed the importance of the Opposition Parties complying with all relevant laws and playing a constructive role in the National debate. It also highlighted the Governments duty to recognize that in a multi-party democracy sometimes it is right for the Opposition to say how a particular law or policy can be improved or modified. We have no doubt that The Commonwealth is a serious partner in this noble cause of having a vibrant democracy in our country.

In June 2012, the Government of Burkina Faso, officially registered the African Greens Federation (a coalition of over 30 Political Parties and movements on the African continent), which DGPRs President, Frank Habineza, chairs. The Secretariat of this federation was launched in July 2012 in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.

In March 2012, the African Greens Federation was also able to host the 3rd Global Greens Congress in Dakar, Senegal. The gathering brought together parties from over 70 countries.

BRIEF BACKGROUND

The Democratic Green Party of Rwanda was launched on 14 August 2009 as an opposition and alternative party to the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front-RPF.

However, it became impossible for the party to register before the August 2010 presidential elections. Link

Then, on the 14 July 2010, its First Vice President, Andre Kagwa RWISEREKA was found decapitated.

(After this murder, which was suspected to be political, Frank Habineza went into exile in Sweden, where he continued to fight for Rwandan democracy, with the success that we find here. This gives to the lie to the nihilists who say political pressure is pointless).

Arab Spring confounds old Left/Right political categories

The Arab Spring uprising has changed the face of world politics.

The old categories of right and left are floundering.

In the case of Libya, the non-interventionist Left finds itself sharing a skanky Tracy Emin-type bed with right wing ranters like Kelvin MacKenzie and the Israeli Government, who, surprisingly, have historic ties with Ghaddafi.  Israel backed Mubarrak, and seems to think it has an interest in surrounding itself with amenable (to them) dictators, seeing democracy as a threat that could bring Islamicist parties into, or near, power. This Israeli mis-perception, expressed in the Washington lobbies, may be one reason that the Obama has been so slow to come in on the side of the Libyan freedom fighters. Fearing an Arab outcry if he intervenes, he finds that he is under increasingly strong criticism for his reluctance to intervene.

The failure of the Left to see that if Ghaddafi wins, democratic movements everywhere (including in the West) are more exposed to lethal violence from dictatorial states, is remarkable.  It is a triumph of narrow political ideology over humanitarian and democratic aspirations across the world.  It seems that in their view, since Ghaddafi preaches some kind of socialism, and is a friend of Chavez of Venezuela, there is no case for Libyan people to experience freedom and self-determination. This is not rational thinking.

What is socialism for, if it does not stand for the interests of people against repressive, corrupt and brutal regimes?

Another mental short-circuit exists over the West. Because the US and UK have acted illegally and foolishly in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is reasoned that they must never intervene, even to stop massacres.  It is a short circuit, because it is thinking in absolutist, not operational categories. The West has acted wrongly, therefore it will always act wrongly. This is the same mistake that parents can make, in saying "You are a bad child" rather than "That action was a mistake".

The Arab Uprising is a game changer. It is an uprising of youth, often suffering a high rate of unemployment, but well educated, and in communication with youth across the world through social media.  Amazingly, they are demonstrating non-violently, at least initially, before force is used against them.  Tunisia and Egypt show that so long as the Army is not deployed against the demonstrators, peaceful demonstrations can overcome brutal dictatorships, and this is a great cause for hope.

The outcome of these democratic changes depends almost entirely on the post-revolution economics. If countries persist with the old, quasi-free-market economics, unemployment will persist, and the revolution will sink back into the quagmire of political and economic stagnation, leading to general disorder and a return of dictatorship.

If, on the other hand, the new countries develop a new economics aimed at stabilising access to basic resources like water, food and renewable energy, unemployment will be a forgotten nightmare, and the world can set off  towards a new, peaceful and sustainable future.

What can we do to stop states like Libya killing protesters?

Here is a letter to your MP that you can copy, modify and email to your MP here.
It is more powerful if you also send a hard copy by mail to your MP at House of Commons, London SW1A  OAA





Dear [MP name]

In common with everyone who watches the news, I am deeply impressed by the courage and determination of the secular democratic movements in the Southern Mediterranean, and shocked by the use of lethal force  by regimes against unarmed civilian protesters.

The Foreign Secretary has been forthright in his condemnation of the state-sponsored killings, but deeds are needed as well as words.

Swiss banks froze the accounts of Hosni Mubarak the moment he left office, with the City taking similar action on the estimated $5 billion he holds in UK accounts.

The state violence could be inhibited were HMG to notify all regimes that in the event of their using or permitting lethal force to be used against unarmed civilians, it will be deemed a crime, and their legitimacy will immediately be called into question, and their assets will be frozen, as they would in the case of any other criminal.

At the same time, all UK registered corporations should be notified that if any regime uses said lethal force, they will be required to suspend all dealings in that country until a new democratic government is in place.

I would be most grateful if you would put these points to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Sincerely

[your name]

Alternative vote in a nutshell

If AV falls, the idiots will say "That's settled then. The people have voted for FPTP. End of."

And we will be stuck with FPTP for yet more dreary decades.

If AV, for all its pusillanonimity, wins, the FPTP log jam will have been broken.
This will be a symbolic change.

We can then campaign for its upgrading for AV+, a kind of PR, which will mean that the will of the people is represented in Parliament.

How does democracy cope with non-democratic parties?

Mohmoud Salem is a most excellent blogger writing as @sandmonkey on Twitter.

He has been tweeting from the front line throughout the Egyptian Revolution.

Yesterday he kicked off a debate with a thought-provoking series of tweets, which I have copied and  pasted here below. He puts his finger on a real dilemma:

How does democracy  cope with parties that could become undemocratic, 

or have undemocratic features?

He is thinking about the Muslim Brotherhood.

Here are his thoughts:

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Ok, Sandmonkey prediction: 

If we end up getting democracy through the military, we will end up with the Turkey Model. 

Wanna Take bets? 

They will set up a constitution that won't allow Muslim Brotherhood specifically to come to power & will give themselves coup powers if that [happens].

And that's what the US is probably negotiating with them about. How to be the firm-handed daddy caretaker of democracy 

It's a very attractive balance for them: 

Provide democracy, maintain their hold on power when they deem necessary, & no Islamists.

And it would be acceptable to the majority of the people who are fearful of sharia-based* government taking over for a war on Israel. So u will have a system that's secular, that will advance the rights of women & Christians, but will not provide equal treatment to Islamists

So, the question is, if we are democrats, would that be fair? 

Would we take away some rights from some of us for "the greater good"?  It's conflicting for me, because on one hand I am very much pro individual rights & liberties on very absolutist terms without compromise.

But on the same time, I can see a significant majority of the Egyptian people wanting it this way. It will make many people comfortable.

Which brings us to the question: [does] supporting democracy mean supporting what the majority always want? Or... is it supporting the democratic process instead, even if the majority is against it? 

Let's flip it: if an Islamist government reached power through democratic process pledging to end democarcy, should the army stop it?

Not to mention the bigger problem: what kind of democracy allows a non-democratic entity the power to revoke democracy as they please? 

And what if they look at this is a compromise first-step, letting the system exist & then amending it later like Turkey is doing?

And this is where my mind comes and goes. I know what I believe in, equal rights for all, until some try to take the rights of others. All I know is: if we were put in this situation, what we choose will forever define us as people. It's a huge test

----

An intense discussion followed, which you can find by going here  and scrolling back to Feb 14.

So this is the problem: how does democracy cope with its non-democratic or anti-democratic constituents?   

We have a Western example here: Hitler's Nazis were voted into parliament, but then took over the state by the Enabling Act of 1933 which allowed him to exercise dictatorial power. 

One defence against this is a good constitution that forbids that kind of thing. However, a Constitution can be overthrown (the Egypt Revolution is having to do that). But a well-designed democratic constitution does draw a line in the sand.

Funnily enough, the USA Constitution, with its separation of Church and State, and separation of powers between the Legistature, Executive and Judiciary, is a good model for anyone flexing their fingers in front of a blank screen entitled EGYPT CONSTITUTION. 

Benjamin Franklin did not expect the USA to last as long as it did. The neo-cons have undermined the Constitution with their accursed Patriot Act, and the nation is so infested with fundamentalists, of both free market and Bible varieties, and so brainwashed by Murdoch's Fox News, that it is clearly going down the pan.

However, back to Sandmonkey's question. 

First, the price of freedom, and democracy, is continual vigilance. Democracy is something that exists in the doing, not in the theorising.

Second, Democracy is not a Thing that Exists anywhere. It is just the assertion that the power of any state resides ultimately with the people. The Egypt Revolution has just demonstrated that to perfection. When enough people say No to the state, the state has to back down.

Failed revolutions, as in Iran after the elections, and in Burma in 2007, fail because not enough people take to the streets, whether out of fear or because they have not yet suffered enough. As a general rule, it takes a generation to pass before people say "enough".

Having said that, the manifestations of democracy are variable. In the UK we have a clapped out voting system a feeble Parliament, a sclerotic Civil Service and an out of touch Government. But we do have the ability to kick one set of idiots out and let in a different set of idiots.

The virtue of this Box and Cox arrangement is that at least the Prime Minister gets changed. Being in power for too long damages the brain. The leader gets used to being surrounded by sycophants. The amygdala of the brain probably becomes overactive. That's why the Pharaohs and many other rulers became "gods", and why triumphant Roman Generals has a slave whispering "Remember Caesar that thou art mortal" to them.

So the number one virtue of any vaguely functioning democracy lies in the ability to truncate the term in office of the resident. That is why no US President is allowed to serve more than 8 years. We should have the same rule in the UK. But then, we do not have a written Constitution.

Addressing the Egyptian problem, if they go for a more truly democratic system of voting, Proportional Representation, the Muslim Brotherhood is unlikely to form a Government outright.

If they use the crap FPTP system, they could do so.

The trade off is that under PR, the MB is likely to form part of many Governments.

Here I should say that the Muslim Brotherhood is more like a Muslim Bogeyman to be used as such by the US right. Their speaker comes across as a cuddly teddy bear, and he is continually distancing himself from extremists. We can accept that, but have also to accept that it could change in future. I have been debating with a US Navy doctor, right-wing as they come, and a fundamentalist Christian. His position is that a Muslim country cannot be entrusted with democracy, in case it comes up with an Islamist Government, as in Gaza. There are two problems with an MB dominated Egypt: one is that they could terrorise women, gays &c. The other is that the loonies in the State Department will be itching to bomb the country back to the stone age.


The power of the MB is likely to be greater if Egypt generates a shed-load of secular political parties, which will split the secular vote, and let the MB walk through. The best outcome in my view is to form an umbrella group from the activists of Tahrir Square, to fight the coming election on the basis of addressing unemployment. This national unity group would outnumber the MB.

In a second Parliament, it is likely that the umbrella group will split naturally into a few major political parties.

So the approach to the democracy puzzle set out by @sandmonkey is firstly pragmatic: Just do it. Do your best, use all your passion and intelligence to persuade the people that a democracy with separation of religion from the state is the best way forward. Then, when in, revolutionise the economy to address unemployment, poverty and the real ecological issues in the country, especially water and food.

Go for unity and pragmatism, not ideological purity and perfection.

Finally in addressing the riddle of democracy: what to do if the people vote for anti-democratic forces?

The Constitution is one defence.

Debate is the second defence.

Which requires a forum for clear public debate, that is, a truly free press and broadcasting system, that is open to all comers, including the non- or anti-democratic forces.

In the end, the question is an antinomy - a contradiction between two statements that seem equally reasonable. There is no intellectual resolution to the question. The only resolution is in practical political action.
 
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* However there is evidence that a majority in Egypt would welcome Sharia punishments (for others, obvs). I file that with the fact that a big chunk of Brits would bring back hanging and flogging. Put it down to poor education.

Tony Blair displays his political paranoia on BBCR4 World at One

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable

-President JF Kennedy

^Photo by Nevine Zaki; second > by unnamed friend 

The BBC World at One has just had the war criminal Tony Blair on, talking about the Egyptian uprising. Predictably, he wants the impossible: he wants to be "certain" of the final outcome, certain that the incoming democratic Egyptian Government will continue with Mubarak's condoning of Israel's  oppressive policy towards Gaza.

There is no certainty in any political future, only probability.

The overwhelming probability is that the incoming democratic Government of Egypt will be secular, on the grounds that the revolution is predominantly secular. The Muslim Brotherhood is elderly and moderate, and has played a minor role in the revolution. There are many inspiring acts of friendship between Muslims in Tahrir. Muslims joined in Christian chants in Tahrir Square today. A month ago, Muslims protected Christians while they were celebrating Christmas.

When we have no final probability, our actions must be led by faith.  Blair's faith is in his belief in the inherent rightness of the American policy wonks whose word he worships, covering all his errors in blind religious faith.

Our faith, on the other hand, is in democracy.

This peace and co-operation is of course in the face of a common enemy, but if it is built on, out of a common victory over the dictatorship, it can help lead the whole world out of the absurd and irrational religious divide between Christian and Muslim fundamentalism, a divide that has no place in the 21st century.

We have ecological and economic problems to overcome. Artificial differences based on centuries old cognitive constructs have no relevance to humanity today. Which is not to say we should ignore the unacceptable practices of Muslim cultures such as mutilation or stoning, any more than we should ignore unacceptable practices of so-called Christian cultures such as nuclear terrorism and  overlordship of the corporations.


Paranoia of Islamic extremism entertained by Western leaders lies behind the outrageous failure of Obama and the West to tell Mubarak to leave office. The more they prevaricate, the greater the danger that the revolution could be crushed like the Green revolution in Iran, or in a dreadful Arabic equivalent of Tiananmen Square,

If that happened, Egypt would end up as a pariah state, and the frustration of the revolutionaries would inevitably turn inwards, causing some to turn to suicide bombings.

In this way, politicians like war criminal Blair find that what you resist is what you get.


Blair, you are no JFK

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See Also
Mubarak: why will Obama not tell him publicly to go?

West has to accept Egyptian Democracy, Muslim Brotherhood warts and all

Seven demands from the Tahrir (Liberation) protesters in Egypt

Seven demands have been reportedly forwarded by the Tahrir Square protesters to the government that should be immediately be met for them to end protests: 

1. Resignation of the president
2. End of State of Emergency
3. Dissolution of The People's Assembly and Shora Council
4. Formation of a national transitional government
5. An elected Parliament that will amend the Constitution to allow for presidential elections
6. Immediate prosecution for those responsible for deaths of the revolution's martyrs
7. Immediate prosecution of  corrupt people & those who robbed the country of its wealth

Mubarak Plays his Last Card: the Threat of Civil War

Mubarak is fed up.

That is one human emotion that he shares with the democracy protesters in Tahrir/Liberation Square in Cairo and across Egypt. They too are fed up. Fed up with him and his regime. Their inalienable objective is to wave goodbye to his helicopter. They have no choice.

So Mubarak plays his last card. "If I go now, Egypt will be plunged into chaos and civil war",

The question is - Does the unrest last longer if he stays of if he goes?

If he goes, the demonstrators will leave Tahrir Square, go home for a shower, meal and long sleep, then start organising for the elections, whether they be in September or earlier, having successfully demonstrated the essential workings of real raw democracy. They can work intensively, and with utmost determination, to organise secular, rational, political parties, to create a new democratic Government in September or earlier.

They will draw up plans for addressing unemployment, poverty and the many other real problems that the country faces.

Already one party addresses the water crisis - a core green issue.

Egypt can go on to have a fair election, in which the Muslim Brotherhood will doubtless get a bit more than the 20% of the seats, as they do at present. Why will they not dominate? Because the heart of the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 was Youth, not Religion.

If Mubarak goes today, the Egyptian people can re-open their shops and factories tomorrow.

And if he does not go?

If he stays, the present position continues. The pro-democracy protesters will continue, they will organise and defend themselves from attack. In the absence of Army action, the thugs will escalate the violence. Already more have died in Egypt than died after the tragically suppressed Green Revolution in Iran 2008-9, when there were 72 deaths on the streets, which were vigorously condemned by our Governments.

If he stays, his goons will come and get the protesters, imprison, torture and disappear them.
He will manipulate the negotiations.
He will perpetuate his regime.

The dreadful scenario of civil war has been raised. It is much more likely to occur if Mubarak stays.

If he goes, the thugs will go. They are bullies, and bullies are strong when they feel they can get away with what they are doing. At present they are probably acting under orders from, but not attributable to, Mubarak's NDP party. Once the party is decapitated, and their pay dries up, the thugs will melt away.

Those are the options. Of course, the reality that unfolds will not be as simple as that, and nobody knows the final outcome. It could go bad. Nobody knows. But we do know this: that we face a choice between democracy and dictatorship, only a fool would choose dictatorship.

Evidence that pro-Mubarak thugs are police

David Cameron said yesterday “If it turns out that the regime in any way has sponsored or tolerated this violence, that is completely unacceptable...These are despicable scenes that we are seeing and they should not be repeated".

The Guardian reports: The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, condemned the unleashing of what, it appeared he presumed, were state-sponsored attacks on pro-democracy demonstrators, in the face of a direct call from Obama that there should be no violence. "If any of the violence is instigated by the government, it should stop immediately," he said.

Here are a few tweets. I did not record the time and date, but all tweets can be validated by searching for the author and one of the terms in the tweet. You have to start at http://twitter.com/

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@MayaHojeij Alarabiya eyewitness: one sniper caught by protesters had police ID card, they refused to kill him, but they hit him.#Egypt #jan25

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@monasosh One of Mobarak thugs caught, turns out he is a police officer.Yasin Ali Mohamed Ali, from 10th of Ramadan police station. ID 89015191
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@HebzyA  Amiralx Mohamed at #tahrir confirms 3 ppl have been shot by snipers now. Thugs caught have NDP ID. Over 50 thugs have been caught so far.

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@carlesdijous ID cards of people who tried to infiltrate the protest camp. (Photo) http://bit.ly/hmXCeV #Tahrir #Egypt #Jan25

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safeworld4women  R @sharifkouddous: Every now and then an infiltrator is caught. Police ID found. & dragged away roughy to be arrested by army #Egypt #Jan25

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LazyByDefault Ahmed

The confiscated thugs have confessed that they were paid 50 LE to come and protest pro-Mubarak by central forces (via @Gsquare86 & @AmoonaE

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NickKristof Nicholas Kristof

Small jail set up in #Tahrir for thugs and infiltrators with weapons. Best organization I've seen in egypt.

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MT @sharifkouddous: .. think infiltrators in #Tahrir. People walking around filming, not looking the part. #Egypt #Jan25 

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hindhassan @SkyNews foreign editor @ITwitius: I have seen at least 17 ID all from 'mukhabaraat' (secret police). #Jan25 #Egypt #Tahrir

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ShawkattRaghib Shawkatt Raghib

Protesters caught a StatePolice Major Ahmed Mahmoud Abdel Meguid (ID shown) who tried to burn the National Museum. #Tahrir #Jan25
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So there you are, Mr Cameron and Mr Gibbs. Here is some evidence for you, sampled from Twitter searches like #jan25 ID, and #Tahrir infiltrators by an amateur in a few minutes.  You are going to have to search your thesaurus for synonyms for "unacceptable", "despicable", and "stop immediately".

Alternatively, you could pick up the phone and tell the Egyptian Army that they are going to have a budget deficit of $1.3 billion next year unless they give Mubarak the bum's rush.

Fair play to the Egyptian Army! Big Respect Due!!

The Egyptian Army has just declared that it will not use force against its own people.

In doing so, they have demonstrated that Egyptian Soldiers are righteous, professional soldiers. They are not cowardly killers and beaters of unarmed civilians.

The sole valid reason for an army to exist is to protect the nation from invasion*.

Their role, irrational and problematic though it is when viewed objectively, is to try deter, if necessary with lethal force, any armed invaders who try to occupy their country.

That is the central role of an army: protection of their nation, its people, territory and values.

The real, professional soldier is not there to kill unarmed civilians of their own nationality. 

This is why the Green Party has this policy (PD306): All serving personnel will be required to sign a pledge that they will not obey any order which would entail any breach of international law. In particular they will be able to disobey any order that required them to fire on unarmed civilians of their own or any other country.


Maybe this is a good day to raise this question:

Will the British Army make a solemn oath that they will never use force against non-violent British civilians?

*OK, primary purpose. Commenters are welcome to enter other uses, like, UN peacekeeping missions.

West has to accept Egyptian Democracy, Muslim Brotherhood warts and all

< Thanks to @MuslimAmerican for pic of riot policeman and protestor

It is very clear that the key objective of the Egyptian uprising is the toppling of Hosni Mubarak and the installation of democracy.

The public noises coming from Hilary Clinton and William Hague are about the need for  "political reform". Behind the scenes they may be pressing for Mubarak to step down. They are probably hoping that Omar Suleiman will take over, because he is a man with whom the West has done business. It is exceedingly unlikely that this 74 year old Intelligence chief and negotiator with Israel will be acceptable to the people, not least because he is a man with whom the West has done business. 

The problem for Hague and Clinton is that they are ambivalent, to put it mildly, about real democracy in Egypt, because the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is likely to do well in open elections. They fear that this Islamic movement will come in to Government, maybe even form a Government. To many decision makers in the US this would be unacceptable. Therefore true democracy in Egypt would be unacceptable. Therefore the West will hope that Mubarak will step down, Suleiman will take over, a few reforms will take place, and everything will settle down.

This hope is unlikely to be realised.

The revolution taking place in Egypt now is secular, not Islamist. When the brotherhood began chanting "Allahu Akbar" the crowd responded "Muslims, Christians, we are all Egyptians". Sarah Raslan  reports that when Muslims in the crowd were praying, Christians stood guard to protect them from the police.  This heartening news was re-tweeted around the world, with the solitary objection of one Christian fundamentalist, who quoted St Paul "be not unequally yoked with unbelievers". *facepalm*

Nevertheless, it is possible that the Muslim Brotherhood could benefit politically from the revolution, not least because they are politically organised, unlike the majority of the demonstrators (setting aside their remarkable neighbourhood watch efforts, which deserves a blog post to itself).

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928, and sided with Hitler in WWII. This is not good, but should be set in context: the Daily Mail also sided with Hitler until hostilities broke out, and the Brotherhood wanted to get the British out of Egypt. This is not to excuse them, just to give context. The Brotherhood is banned, and many of their members have been imprisoned and tortured. Despite this, they have been standing in elections as independents, and won 20% of the parliamentary seats in the 2005 elections. They run a network of community social services. They have outgrown political violence, and support democracy.

This is a brief history. I am aware that it may attract a stream of comments providing detail of unpleasantness on their part, and another stream supporting them.

We should have faith in the will of the people. The Egyptian youth have shown immense courage and commitment over the past week. They have more than earned their objectives of removing both Mubarak and his system, both by their courage, and their responsibility in defending the Museum and setting up neighbourhood watches. They have a right to full democracy, not some watered-down version that bans a significant section of the community, imposed in the interests of the US, with the UK yapping agreement.


Yes, there is a risk in all elections. There is a risk that the Muslim Brotherhood could be the most powerful political party in a post-election Egypt. There is a risk that they will follow the example of the Nazis, who gained power through elections, but overthrew democracy once in power.


That risk is for the Egyptian people to deal with, not the West. They have had 60 years of autocratic rule, and are unlikely readily to submit to MB authoritarianism. Let us have faith in the power of democracy itself to sort out an equilibrium.

The political changes in North Africa are of vital importance to peace in the Middle East, and to Europe. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance of transition from authoritarian rule to democracy in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, and many other countries where human rights are abused. The Foreign Office should either give firm support to the democratic movements, or it should give up prattling and prating about the wonderful value of Western democracy. They must remember that the MB is not Al-Q'aeda, that the MB is no longer Hitler, and that it is up to the Egyptian people to choose how their democracy will be constituted.

Democracy is a risky business, but anything else is riskier. Hague and Clinton should welcome the new order that the Egyptian people are bringing in without hindrance, and assist the incoming democratic government to govern successfully, even if it does contain elements that they would prefer not to be there.

USA is chasing Assange harder than they chased the terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqarwi

The reaction to Wikileaks can accurately be described as hysterical, in the sense of uncontrolled emotional outbursts. Prominent North Americans including Sarah Palin have issued death threats against Julian Assange. In Canada, the Prime Minister's former campaign manager issued such a death threat, and a lawyer has issued a legal challenge against the threatener. It would seem that in the USA there is no law against issuing a death threat, or if there is such a law, nobody cares about it. We shall see.

What is notable is that there has been swift and effective action taken against Wikileaks' financial assets. I was among the last to make a Paypal donation, before Paypal closed the Wikileaks account. They have frozen about 60,000 Euros of Wikileaks assets according to the BBC.

The Swiss have also frozen Julian Assange's personal accounts, on the technicality that he was not domiciled in Switzerland. I wonder what proportion of accounts in Swiss banks would have to be closed if that principle were generally applied.

The US is attacking Assnge with more efficiency than they attack terrorists, organised crime, arms dealers and the like.

 I took an interest in the freezing of terrorists' bank accounts back in November 2004. Basically, I had been writing to the FCO asking about this. Naturally, they said it was all covered, then it turned out that they had not touched the assets of a very prominent terrorist. More here.

 Interestingly, Bush had avoided touching that terrorist, despite twice having a chance of topping him.

His name was Abu Musab Al-Zaqarwi.

So they regard Assange as worse than a terrorist, at least in terms of the

What should we do about kettling of protestors?

It seems that the police left an old van in the middle of the student demonstrators today in order to give themselves an excuse to kettle ("contain") the demonstrators.

Kettling is arguably unlawful detention, and a case is going to the European Court of Human Rights.
Hopefully, students who were kettled today will form a class action on legal aid (before it is withdrawn) to challenge the police action.

However, for the time being, if we are going to demonstrate, we had all better go prepared to be kettled for many hours.

So, here is a check list for demos:

• Sleeping bag.
• Bedroll
• Tent
• Food
• Drink - in a bottle that can contain urine when empty
• Shepee for the girls.
• Plastic bag for shitting into (NB Resist the temptation to throw filled bags as police lines. It is vital to be friendly to the police, as the Government will have to back down when the police refuse to do the politicians' dirty work for them.)
• Kettle, gas stove, tea bags, powdered milk, sugar (if taken) 
• Hand cranked mobile phone charger. 
• If kettled, organise. form groups of round about 8 people, get to know each other, talk about the situation, and elect a speaker. Get the speakers together to pass on ideas, and elect a main speaker for all the prisoners, who can seek to speak with the police commander. 
• Be mindful that people can be crushed in crowds.

The beauty of this is that kettle or no kettle, suitably prepared demonstrators may decide not to go home at 5 pm, which makes the success of the demonstration that much more likely. That is how they brought down the Berlin Wall, remember?

Are MPs wearing purple this year?

Well, I have been searching for images of the new Parliament in session, and they are evading me. The BBC TV news had an image up yesterday, and I swear that a lot of MPs were wearing purple. 

I hope they were, because purple is the colour of electoral reform.

The Wall: Baldrick's cunning plan

There is a story that a couple of weeks before the Berlin Wall fell, an English hippie was standing in front of the Wall, rattling his can and wondering what to write. The immortal words "Never fear, Baldrick has a cunning plan" came to him, so he put them up, and two weeks later, a sense of awe, of being part of a Great Plan Beyond Comprehension stole over the hippie as he watched events unfold on his flickering snowy black and white TV screen.

Maybe it was that graffitum that caused the wall to dissolve into a blood and tear stained pile of rubble, to be sold off as the East Germans' first foray into entrepreneurialism. It sure as death wasn't the political commentariat, because there were no pundits in 1988 going "I predict the wall will fall sometime in the next twelve months".

What happened is best described by chaos theory applied to social matters. Things go on as normal on the surface of social life, while dissident thoughts build up pressure, until a threshold point is reached, the people act together spontaneously, and the mighty politicians lock themselves in the lavvie with a travel brochure.

Maybe we are in a 1998 situation here, with the seething anger of the public over bonkers bankers bonuses and MP expenses. The Green Party should be drawing up contingency plans for what to do in the case of a non-violent democratic movement for political and economic reform.

In other words, we need to draw up a plan so cunning that we could tie a brush to it and call it a fox.

Homage to those who stand against the forces of dictatorship

I get choked when I watch these videos of the current pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran. The sheer courage and persistence of the Green Movement, the students of Iran, in the face of the cowardly swaggering police and Basij militia is an example to all who aspire to something better than the moronic, thoughtless exercise of power that holds in Iran, and in a different way, in Britain, where the authoritarians in Tory, NuLabour, the Civil Service and the Police Agencies are slowly nudging us in the direction of the Iranian situation.

These beautiful young Iranians are not just demonstrating for themselves and their own country, they are standing up for democracy everywhere.

If you want to help the Iranian democracy movement, click this link.