Liberal Burblings

Archive for January, 2010

After fisking dear old Lembers for his “Daily J Arthur” column last week, it is only fair that I draw attention to his column this week because it has some good liberal views expressed in it. His brain has obviously come back from holiday (Warf Warf). Well done Peter Black for drawing this to my attention and for his comments below (In the absence of an updated Prawn Free Lembit I have cut and pasted the whole column at the bottom of this post. If you want to look at it in its original form on the Daily Sport website with adornments that might get you sacked if you look at it during work hours, it’s here):

Lembit talks about Haiti and urges his readers to cut out a couple of pints this weekend and give the money to the aid appeal. He talks about Tony Blair giving evidence to the Chilcott enquiry and he also writes this:

“THE UK Independence party caused a rumpus this week by calling for a total ban on women wearing burkas. They say this piece of clothing – which completely covers a Muslim lady’s face – is a sign of a “divided Britain”. No, no, no! The fact people are allowed to wear their own religious clothes shows just how tolerant and inclusive Britain is. If we use UKIP’s logic to ban burkas we’ll have to follow it up with a ban on turbans, skull-caps, crucifixes and whatever it is that Jedi Knights wear. We might as well go even further and just give everyone a string vest, rolled up trousers and a hanky for their head so that we can all look “British”. Diversity is the spice of life – it’s one of the things that makes Britain a good place to be. It might be okay to ask people to take off face coverings when they enter a bank or passport control. But you’d need to be a berk to ban the burka!”

That is entirely in line with what Sarah Teather and others said on Question Time on Thursday but, more importantly, it is addressed to those who would not dream of watching that programme and who might be taken in by UKIP and the BNP rhetoric on this issue, using language that they can relate to. It is at times like these that Lembit shows the value of his column. He should do it more often.

Here’s the full column:

Real hell in Haiti

Friday, January 22, 2010 by Daily Sport.

---

WE complain about all kinds of things here in the UK, traffic jams, the weather, the price of food, overcrowded trains. Well, ALL that is nothing compared to the troubles in Haiti. The devastating earthquake left more than 100,000 people dead and the entire country in ruins. Water supplies, houses and hospitals have all been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands are at risk of starvation or dehydration. And many of the injured are simply lying in the street with no medical help and nowhere to go. It’s one of the worst humanitarian disasters of our time. The world’s response has been tremendous. Food,water, troops, rescue workers, engineers, vehicles and medical supplies have been flooding in from around the globe. Amazingly, old foes have put their differences aside to help. For the first time bolshie Cuba has allowed US aircrafts to fly through its airspace so they can reach Haiti faster. The UK public have donated more than £23 million. British charities like Oxfam, CAFOD and Christian Aid are pulling out all the stops to get relief to the people who need it most. There are even British firefighters out in Haiti, searching for survivors and helping with the rescue work. That’s a true human good news story. But it doesn’t take away from the catastrophe. With the ports damaged and roads destroyed loads more people will die. On top of this, a lot of the United Nations workers based in Haiti were killed in the quake so the relief effort has taken a real battering.  As if things weren’t bad enough,a strong aftershock on Wednesday wrecked even more buildings and hampered rescue work further still. So here’s mychallenge to all you: if you haven’t donated yet, cut out a couple of pints down the boozer on Friday, log on to www.dec.org.uk and give a few quid to the appeal. By converting your ale into aid, you’re actually going to save yourself a hangover and save some lives in Haiti. If every Sport reader chucks in a fiver that’s over five million quid. We can make a REAL difference—and I hope we do.

 

DID you hear about that lucky family who won 26 million quid on the lottery this week? It’s more dramatic than the lottery to win tickets for the 80 places to watch former Prime Minister Tony Blair give evidence at the Iraq War inquiry. He’s the Star Witness. The lucky winners will watch Tricky Tony being grilled on why he led the country into a war that killed British soldiers and Iraqi civilians and cost billions. I don’t know what he’ll say,but I’m pretty sure he won’t say “Sorry, I got it wrong” or “We did it for the oil” or “Saddam was asking for it.” But how on earth can he make good the worst decision of his political career? I  like Tony.He’s decent, friendly and smart. Which makes it all the stranger he committed us to a war which wiped out hundreds of thousands of lives. If you had the choice of a ticket for the Blair session or the lottery ticket which won the £26m, which would you choose? IF Tony comes clean at the inquiry, it would be a priceless moment in British politics. But what are the chances of that? Put it this way, I’d take the money . . .

 

THERE’S a storm in Israel at the moment surrounding sexy lingerie model Bar Rafaeli. Busty Bar, famous for her raunchy photo shoots and on-off relationship with actor Leo DiCaprio, is getting flack off the Israeli army for dodging military service! Israel is the only country in the world where women, as well as men, have to do a compulsory stint in the forces. But they can get out of it if they’re married. So the fetching Ms Rafaeli married a man friend, got exempt for the draft, then got a divorce! Cunning. Now the army are calling for a boycott of her products and fellow supermodel Esti Ginzberg — who did do her military service — has joined in the criticism. I don’t know how good a soldier she’d be. Perhaps they should set up a platoon specifically recruiting ladies like Bar and Esti. They’d certainly be model soldiers who’d excel on the front.

 

THE UK Independence party caused a rumpus this week by calling for a total ban on women wearing burkas. They say this piece of clothing – which completely covers a Muslim lady’s face – is a sign of a “divided Britain”. No, no, no! The fact people are allowed to wear their own religious clothes shows just how tolerant and inclusive Britain is. If we use UKIP’s logic to ban burkas we’ll have to follow it up with a ban on turbans, skull-caps, crucifixes and whatever it is that Jedi Knights wear. We might as well go even further and just give everyone a string vest, rolled up trousers and a hanky for their head so that we can all look “British”. Diversity is the spice of life – it’s one of the things that makes Britain a good place to be. It might be okay to ask people to take off face coverings when they enter a bank or passport control. But
you’d need to be a berk to ban the burka!

photo credit: John McNab

It’s very easy to paint Massachussets as a Democratic heartland (as indeed I did) where the Republicans hardly get any votes. That way, the Republican win this week looks even more humiliating for Obama.

However, it is worth reflecting on a couple things. First of all, Since 1991, there have been five Governors of the Commonwealth of Massachussetts. No less than four of them have been Republicans.

Secondly, it’s very easy to assume that Ted Kennedy was always a shoe-in to be re-elected Senator throughout his life. However, I have coincidentally just been reading the passage in his memoir “True Compass” where he describes his 1994 election campaign. The chapter is entitled “Capaigning for Political Survival”. He basically says that he nearly lost to Mitt Romney and had to fight a very stiff campaign, accompanied by $10 million of spend (he had to re-mortgage his house), to win.

So elected posts in Massachussetts are not the Democratic sinecures some would have you believe this week.

Do you have one of these?

Did you get it as a free offer type thing from a garage?

Or were you given one of them as a Christmas present? (In which case the person who gave it to you probably got it from a garage as a free offer type thing).

Tell me, have you ever actually used any of the mugs? And if you have, have you ever got down to the blue one and used that?

photo credit: Johnny Grim

There must be an election coming up. You can measure the bovine scatology being talked about householders and intruders by the yard. Question Time last night was in danger of being inundated by the stuff. “Historian” (Cue: gravespinning by A.L.Rowse and his like) Andrew Roberts was in particular danger of asphyxiating on his own output (He held up the Mylene Klass knife waving episode as an example of the absurdity of the law. Give me strength. Marina Hyde has very clearly outlined how that whole thing was a PR stunt by Klass).

Let’s be clear here. Munir Hussain was courageous in chasing burglars out of his house. But a jury – yes a jury of ordinary men and women – found him guilty of grievous bodily harm because he chased the burglar into the street and hit him repeatedly so hard with a cricket bat that it broke in three places (just try breaking a criket bat and see how far you get – they are robust, believe me). He deserved the suspended sentence he has belatedly been given by the Lord Chief Justice.

The law allows “reasonable force” to be used by householders, outlined here in elaborate detail by the Crown Prosecution Service. There was a lot of talk on Question Time last night about the word “reasonable” not being clear.

Codswallop. Claptrap. Hogwash. Tiddlyfart.

“Reasonable” is the most clearly defined and well established term in English law. Juries know instinctively what it means after a few moment’s explanation.

And now we come to the Conservative position as spelt out by Caroline Spelman on Question Time.

O-H      M-Y      G-O-O-D-N-E-S-S.

Pass the sickbag, Alice.

Spelman said that the Tories want to change the law so that householders are in the clear as long as they do not use “grossly disproportionate force”. I see. So that means that they can use force that is somewhere between “reasonable” and “grossly disproportionate”. So that means that they can use disproportionate force but they cannot use “grossly disproportionate force”.

It’s worth savouring that. The Tories say that they want householders to be able to use disproportionate force in warding off burglars (as long as it isn’t gross). Disproportionate force is by definition “unreasonable”. So the Tories want people to be able to use unreasonable force to fend off intruders. Unreasonable force. Brilliant. That’s force, as in NOT reasonable.

See what they’ve done there? They’ve turned centuries of the British legal tradition of fair play on its head because there’s an election coming up.

As Wee Jimmy Krankie would say:

F-A-N-D-A-B-I-D-O-Z-I

Well done to Liberal England and @urchinette and @helenduffett on Twitter for highlighting this extraordinary slide show of London in the 1960s. I would thoroughly recommend watching it – perhaps with some music going in the background. I had “Pink Panther Lounge” by Henry Mancini from Spotify going, which seemed wonderfully 60sish and went well.

Observations:

• Crikey – life’s long if you’re lucky. I think I first visited London at the same time of some of these photos – when I was knee high to a grass hopper. Good grief – how it’s changed!
• One black face amongst a sea of white faces. Now we can rejoice in the fact that London is one of the, if not the, most cosmopolitan cities in the world.
• Lots of grey and black clothes with the odd red dress or top
• No change: London cabs
• No change: Double deckers
• No change: VW Beetles
• The cars! Was the Austin 1100 the most popular car ever or what? It was everywhere. Also: Ford Anglias. Humbers. Minis. Ford Cortinas. Morrie thous. Those Citroens which went up when you switched them on. And cars you hardly ever see except cherished by the most anorakish of anoraks: Ford Zephyrs! Joy Oh Rapture! My Dad had one, and two Zodiacs (closely related).
• BOAC. BEA. TWA. RIP
• Docks where they actually put things in ships! (rather than just putting boxes on the ships)
• The Post Office Tower – what an innovative piece of architecture that was – it stands out remarkably amidst all the old buildings
• Battersea Power Station actually working with actual smoke coming out of it!
• Fleet Street with newspapers actually in it!
• Dirty buildings (due to smoke) which hadn’t yet been sand-blasted
• Hard back phone books tidily stacked in red phone kiosks!

Earlier today I received an email asking me to sign this petition concerning the Equality Bill. It’s about Schedule 9, Paragraph 2, Subsection 8. I tried to do a bit of reading on this but soon found myself tightly enmeshed within a complex web of accusations, denials, schedules, clauses etc etc

The petition reads:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Remove the current employment provisions set out in Schedule 9, Paragraph 2, subsection 8 of the Equality Bill (the occupational requirements relating to sex, marriage and sexual orientation for the purposes of organised religion). These restrict the rights of religious bodies to employ personnel who conform to their teachings only if their duties are confined to worship activities or the explanation of doctrine

Here’s the relevant passage and explanatory notes from the Parliamentary website:

(8) Employment is for the purposes of an organised religion only if the employment wholly or mainly involves.

(a) leading or assisting in the observation of liturgical or ritualistic practices of the religion, or
(b) promoting or explaining the doctrine of the religion (whether to followers of the religion or to others)

EXPLANATORY NOTES

This exception would apply to a requirement that a Catholic priest be a man.

This exception would not apply to a requirement that a church youth worker or accountant be heterosexual.

Other requirements relating to religion and belief: paragraph 3

 

Effect

This paragraph allows an employer with an ethos based on religion or belief to discriminate in relation to work by applying a requirement to be of a particular religion or belief, but only if, having regard to that ethos . being of that religion or belief is a requirement for the work (this requirement must not be a sham or pretext); and. applying the requirement is proportionate so as to achieve a legitimate aim.

Background

It is for an employer to show that it has an ethos based on religion or belief by reference to such evidence as the organisation’s founding constitution.

This paragraph is designed to replicate the effect of provisions in current legislation.

Example

A religious organisation may wish to restrict applicants for the post of head of its organisation to those people that adhere to that faith. This is because to represent the views of that organisation accurately it is felt that the person in charge of that organisation must have an in-depth understanding of the religion’s doctrines. This type of discrimination could be lawful. However, other posts that do not require this kind of in-depth understanding, such as administrative posts, should be open to all people regardless of their religion or belief. 

…Seems perfectly fair to me.

But the commentary from a David Skinner, attached to the email asking me to sign the petition, seems to think the sky’s going to fall in if this Schedule 9, Para 2, Subsection 8 is passed unamended:

I wish to alert you to amendments to the Equality Bill that are to be voted on in the House of Lords on 14^th Jan which potentially will take away the right of every citizen to live according to their religious faiths and consciences, especially with regard to employment and the way their places of worship operate. The Equality Bill will strike out all exemptions on the basis of religion which will mean that all will have to conform to secularist values and ideology. Whether in our places of worship, the workplace and even the home….By not signing the petition you are inviting your own oppression.

I don’t see it somehow. How can such a strong, cataclysmic outlook be attached to an obscure Schedule in a Bill which, in any case, the government says it will clarify in the Bill, if necessary, to allay fears expressed?

I did find this from the Government’s “Mythbusters” page on the Bill:

Everyone should be protected from discrimination and should have the right to be treated fairly in employment and in other areas of life. The Equality Bill recognises and protects people’s rights to hold and manifest religious belief. It also protects gay men, lesbians and bisexual people from being discriminated against. Where such rights have the potential to come into conflict, the Bill strikes an appropriate balance between them.

The Equality Bill will not change the existing legal position regarding churches and employment. It clarifies the existing law to ensure a balance is maintained between the rights of people to manifest their religion and the right of employees not to be discriminated against because of a protected characteristic such as sexual orientation.

In the case of Ministers of Religion and other jobs which exist to promote and represent religion, the Bill recognises that a church may need to impose requirements regarding sexual orientation, sex, marriage and civil partnership or gender reassignment if it is necessary to comply with its teachings or the strongly held beliefs of followers. However, it would not be right to permit such requirements across all jobs within organised religions, such as administrators and accountants, and the Equality Bill makes this clear.

UPDATE:

The devil is in the detail of the wording in Bills and often careless wording can have consequences not intended by the bill’s drafters. But, cutting to the chase, the intention of the Bill is that people ministering the faith in, say, a Christian Church can be chosen on the basis of their faith and gender or sexual orientation criteria. On the otherhand, selecting Administrators would have to be done on a normal equality footing - i.e no discrimination. This could end up with a situation where there is a Church Administrator who is not a Christian. Problem? I think not. If they are a good administrator with good empathetic people skills for dealing with parishioners; that’s fine. After all, surely we want to open up our churches, don’t we? - that administrator might become a great believer in time.

The problem with this legislation might come in respect to jobs on the borderline between ministering religion and being an administrator. For example, the “youth worker” mentioned above. Church Youth Workers often lead prayer and preach, so it does not seem unreasonable to expect a Church youth worker to be a Christian. (However, I would not for a moment suggest any other selection criteria for youth ministers such as in respect to gender or sexual orientation or partnership/marital status.)

So, really, the entreaty from  David Skinner that “By not signing the petition you are inviting your own oppression” really is rather over the top, to put it mildly. OK, the drafting of bills has to be debated with care, and it is right to lobby, and I very much respect the view of Archbishop Sentamu on this but let’s not give people the idea that Christians are alarmist shall we? Yes, it is right to voice views to legislators as the bill goes through, but let’s not put the tin hats on and staff up the barricades just yet, shall we? It’s a Bill going through the carefully nuanced machinations of the genteel House of Lords, not a war.

I remain open to anyone with a view on this or who can point me to any further reading on it. Unfortunately I was unable to find any mainstream commentary on it. Where is the Guardian when you need them? (Update 24/1/10 There is no such a commentary on the Guardian’s CiF site by Simon Sarmiento).

FURTHER UPDATE:

The government has further clarified the intention of the Bill and answered the point about youth workers:

A spokesman for the Government Equalities Office said ministers planned to amend the law to avoid ‘confusion’ about its impact on religious groups.

He said religious organisations would still be allowed to restrict the employment of certain categories of workers involved in prayer to people of faith.

He added: ‘In the case of youth workers, a church is likely to be able to impose a requirement about sexual orientation if the job is mainly teaching a bible class.

‘However if the youth worker’s job is mainly organising entertainment activities, then the church would not be able to apply such a requirement.’

Equalities minister Michael Foster said the Government had already made concessions to religious groups. He added: ‘The Equality Bill will still allow churches to hire only male clergy and will let faith-based charities continue to recruit people of the same faith where this is a requirement of the job, such as care staff who may also be asked to pray with the people they look after.

‘We have been absolutely clear on this throughout the Bill’s passage, but as there has been some misunderstanding around our intentions we will amend the Bill to make this clear beyond doubt.’

In a discussion elsewhere, Steve Walsh of London has made this excellent comment, which, for me, sums up the whole thing. Thank you, Steve Walsh:

Christians don’t half go over the top with this sort of thing. Lets be realistic and ask ourselves how much will actually change. Do we really need the man who services the church van or opens the doors to be a christian. I sometimes think that we are desperate to be presecuted like the young church in the first century. If we need a christian youth worker to lead the kids and pray then nothing changes we are always going to recruit one. Jesus’ message was simple. Tell all nations about him. People are attracted to the charachter of Jesus not the church. He never hesitated to speak the truth to people but with such overwhelming love that they either followed Him or went away. We should not be too concerned that people do not follow Him. But we should not spend time obssessing about this sort of bill. We are not under attack and if we ever are in the UK we can carry on as usual and see accept what happens.

Update #3: I’m getting Googled a lot by people looking for info on this specific clause of the Bill, so here’s some further info that might help those Google searchers:

Rev Peter Ould has posted a couple of updates on this matter. It’s being debated in the House of Lords on Monday and he helps us through the thicket of amendments which will be debated here.

Please also see my later post on this subject here: Churches get their knickers in a twist over the Equality Bill