Time to re-open the debate on Europe

Europe has historically been a bit of a red-herring for UK voters. Despite being an oddly heated issue with plenty of impassioned arguments made on both sides, it never actually mattered to most people before 9/11 and the Credit Crunch, probably the two defining moments of this the first decade of the 21st Century. Back then the pound was strong, the economy booming, the biggest challenge facing our troops was keeping the peace in Northern Ireland and the biggest threat to the environment was the hole in the Ozone layer. However, as long as we could be a member of the Single Market and the single biggest trading bloc in the world, without having to give away any more of our sovereignty, Europe was only an issue for idealogues and academics.

Now things are different though. Our troops are struggling desperately in Afghanistan and Iraq; we have just entered potentially our worst recession in 30 years if not more; the pound, at its lowest point in years, is almost at parity with the Euro; and the developing world has become both a battleground for the Great Powers again as well as a breeding ground for terrorists. On top of all that, the threat of global warming has become an increasingly urgent concern that most political leaders are only just waking up to. Regardless of the wide-ranging political opinions on any one of these issues, all must admit that times have changed significantly and in turn so must our priorities as both voters and political activists.

However, whilst we have already a clear picture of where we stand on development, NATO expansion, the Special Relationship, taxation, the environment and economic policy, in light of these changing times, Europe has continued to take a back seat. Even when the press try to make it an issue again, bringing up the Lisbon Treaty and the prospects of joining the Euro, the government nips it in the bud, out of sheer terror of taking a position on which public opinion is ambiguous at best. Yet, the significance of our relationship with Europe is greater than ever before. Will joining the Euro save our economy or kill it? Is a more joined up European foreign policy the key to easing the pressure on our armed forces and better protecting our country or is that too high a price to pay for burden sharing? Is the European Carbon Emissions Trading Scheme the first step to a viable solution to global warming or is it a waste of time or simply not far-reaching enough?

I'd like to re-open the debate on Europe and see where it runs. I want to avoid repeating the mistakes of old though, with Europhiles and Euro-sceptics alike dogmatically drawing their lines in the sand, resulting in nothing more than an intellectualised name-calling contest. So, let's start with a few key assumptions that hopefully we can all agree on and go from there:

1) Retaining our sovereignty is essential to securing the national interest, but there is only so much we can achieve alone which is why we were happy to pool some of our sovereignty to join the single market and NATO in the first place;

2) Co-operation with Europe is itself desirable. The only sticking point is the mechanism of co-operation i.e. should EU agreements be binding and how much of a role should supra-national bodies such as the European Commission and the European Parliament play in facilitating co-operation;

3) Britain's relationship with Europe should not affect its 'special relationship' with the United States.

I'd like to know now what everyone else thinks...

US-style primaries will never work in the UK

I wrote the following in response to an article in the First Post by Daniel Hannan MEP entitled: 'The primary reason MPs don’t listen to the voters' which can be read at http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/45945,opinion,the-primary-reason-mps-dont-listen-to-voters.

Today, I write in praise of Mr Hannan and his well-written piece advocating the introduction of US-style primaries for the election of our own MPs here in the UK. However, as much as I agree with his criticisms of the government's proposals to make Parliament more representative, I must confess that I don't believe replicating US-style primaries in the UK would ever work for the simple reason that US-style elections require US-style political systems.

Anybody who votes in a general election does so, with the odd exception of course, with the intention of deciding who they want to run their country. In the US people directly elect their President; in the UK, the Prime Minister is chosen by the party with the most seats in Parliament. And whilst it is foolish to pretend that the party to which a presidential nominee belongs in America, and the person who leads their party in the UK, are of no consequence, it still holds that the 2008 US election was between Barack Obama and John McCain and that the next general election in the UK will be between Labour and the Conservatives.

Also, as attractive as primaries may appear in principle -and indeed I do envy the time and opportunity American voters are given to grill their candidates for office- they are by no means perfect. Having to get elected twice means having to campaign twice and campaigning costs money. The more money a politician needs to fund their campaign, the more likely they are to sell their soul -or at least some political favours - to rich people on fancy yachts. As a result, whilst Daniel Hannan may champion primaries in the US as giving power to the people, the vast sums needed to run a meaningful campaign end up giving far more power to industry leaders, tycoons and pressure groups than ordinary Joe Public.

Although state-funding for political parties would go some way to rectifying this, US-style primaries do still raise the question: what kind of democracy suits us best? A more representative democracy of the sort we currently have in Britain is immensely valuable because it allows the electorate to choose a person or a party whose general outlook and value systems they most agree with, whilst allowing those elected the freedom to make informed decisions on important national issues even if they defy popular opinion - the death penalty being a good example. Tilting the balance towards the more direct style of democracy that primary contests engender, however, can lead to legislative gridlock, as it often does in the United States, with elected representatives more concerned about re-election than governing in the national interest.

The only viable argument for introducing primaries in the UK is that it could increase voter turnout by giving people more of a stake in their chosen candidate, as Hannan himself says. Yet when the Conservatives tried this for the London Mayoral elections, an election far more suited to US style primaries precisely because Londoners were being asked to vote for the person, not the party, they most wanted to run their city, only 20,000 people in a city of 10m turned out to vote. On top of that, they had to pay £1 a minute for the luxury of registering to vote by phone and had to be Conservative supporters, although I have no idea whether they had to have membership cards on the ready to prove it. Their guy might have won, but I don't feel like democracy in London has been particularly enriched in the process.

As for Harriet 'half-baked' Harman's proposals for women only shortlists and ethnic minority quotas, I can't think of any nobler plan more likely to backfire spectacularly. Whilst I completely agree that Parliament should be more demographically representative, I also believe that distinguishing our candidates for poltical office by their gender or the colour of their skin only serves to undermine sexual and racial equality. As Barack Obama has proved, a gifted person destined for high office will get there regardless of their skin colour and will open more minds than any number of ethnic minority politicians who had their positions handed to them on a plate.

Private security or public safety?

I phrase this blog post as a question as I have begun to worry, particularly this week, that it is impossible to have both public safety and private security at the same time. I mean this in reference only to street crime; not always the most serious type of crime, but certainly the most prevalent and most commonly experienced.

In theory the safety of our streets, provided for us by the police service, (public) should be enough to secure the safety of our homes, our cars and other property as well as our families (private). In reality of course, limited police resources restrict them to a more reactive role and no matter how fast they respond to a 999 call, more often than not they arrive too late.

So eventually, after the third or fourth burglary or maybe just one truly harrowing assault, we look to other means of protecting ourselves. We use state of the art technology for our homes and cars, security firms to patrol our roads, and perhaps even hand-held weapons to defend ourselves and our families.

This was precisely the context of the congregation of tired and frightened neighbours I observed on Monday night. Approximately 50 of us turned up to the attractive mini mansion owned by our gracious host, himself a victim of several burglaries. He had invited us there to hear Peter Williams, who runs a private security firm called London Community Services, pitch to us his firm's private security package, by his own admission the most expensive of those offered by all security services in north London.

Mr Williams was a large gentleman whose default expression was 'hard-arse'. Running a security firm seemed like a natural progression for him, probably from being a pub bouncer and school bully before that. After all this was a man who had retired Ghurkas working for him. In fact they, he boasted, were the reason his firm was so expensive - apparently no-one is better placed to guarantee the safety of your children than a gang of short, angry Asian men with broken English and a chip on their shoulder.

In any case his pitch was terrible. It amounted to him telling us that we must buy into his security scheme after admitting that he thought it would never work when originally approached by our caped crusader neighbour; telling us that he could stop and prevent criminals from terrorising our road even though his team of militias had no more legal authority to detain them than any of us; promising his state of the art alarms, linked up to his HQ, would be more effective than calling the police and then explaining that if one were to go off his team's response would be...to call the police.

The highlight of his performance was when he told us that he could offer an escort service (no not the kind you're thinking of) for anyone walking home in the dark, but that the escort would under no circumstances be allowed out of his patrol van, nor the 'client' allowed in, and would be absolutely forbidden to converse with the 'client' in any way shape or form. That's like a real escort service charging£1000 for a handshake. Incidentally, £1000 per year per person was the estimated cost given for providing the service for 60 people on one stretch of road.

Yet, there was still vocal support for the scheme amongst the audience as they shared the trauma they had suffered, such as the woman who had been pinned to the ground and mugged on her doorstep or the man who woke up in the middle of the night to find a burglar in his front room. Simply by recalling their own harrowing experiences to an already fearful audience, they did a much better of job of selling Mr Williams' service than Mr Williams himself.

Nevertheless, questions came from all corners of the floor, none of which were particularly well received or dealt with. The lowest moment for Williams was when he silenced the room after snapping at a "dissenter" that she should buy her son a stab jacket for his 16th birthday if she didn't like his service. Eventually I managed to get my question in and I asked him if he thought that a private security service for the few who could afford it would convince the police they were no longer needed and jeopardise the safety of those who couldn't. He laughed this off, mocking me for suggesting that the police had ever ventured down our way to begin with (they had and they still do if but very occasionally).

The point was still valid though. In fact he took several minutes to stress to the questioner before me that his team would alter their patrol routes, quite drastically if necessary, to avoid even passing households who weren't paying for their services.

Now the Metropolitan Police, quite understandably, allocate their resources based on local crime stats that identify trouble-spots. Fortunately for me, my area is no Gotham City; statistically, crime is low - or at least lower than the other surrounding areas - the very reason why so few police turn up to patrol it already. So, it does not seem unreasonable to fathom that they may stop bothering at all if they see street crime fall by a few percent. That's assuming the ridiculously expensive private patrol service actually works of course, for which there is no guarantee.

But what if it does work and keeps the rest of us none paying scroungers safe by association; what happens then? Mr Williams' best guess was that the crime that once plagued our street would move over to the next and make a new bunch of unsuspecting residents miserable and afraid. That didn't seem to bother him though, whereas at least even the most ardent supporters amongst the audience expressed some remorse about it (although understandably if forced to choose between the safety of their family and someone else's, it would be no contest). I couldn't get over the thought though that we wouldn't simply be profiting out of the hardship of our distant neighbours (if the criminals are over there, they're not over here) but that we would be indirectly causing it.

I'm still convinced there's a better way though: setting up a voluntary neighbourhood scheme for example, informed by the Met's own publicly available crime maps of each road in London; setting up a security committee comprised of members of local residents' associations which would liaise with the Safer Neighbourhoods Panel and the wardens of the local estates on a regular basis; and organised lobbying of the local council for better security systems for council housing and better street lighting. A large role for the council is particularly crucial, as we enter our first recession in almost two decades, if the causes of crime, crucial to any long term solution, are to be addressed too.

These are just ideas from off the top of my head. They could be rubbish, but I think they're at least a start. Bottom line is until we recognise that we each have a stake in each other's safety and that we must be prepared to take some responsibility for ensuring it by working together, rather than leaving it all to a skeletal police service or toothless vigilantes, the private security/public safety paradox will never be broken.

My Ethical Dilemna

This week marks the opening of the infamous Dr Gunther von Hagens exhibition: 'Body Worlds and the Mirror of Time', a collection of carefully preserved corpses whose bodies have been skinned and filled with a plastic that allows them to be shaped into a range of poses. The exhibition appears to be part science part art in aim, educating visitors on the ins and outs of the human body (such as how a diseased lung after a lifetime of smoking looks in its natural habitat) in a way only medical students are normally privvy to, whilst fostering a new appreciation of human anatomy in all its glory.

There is a reason, however, why Dr von Hagens' reputation is one of infamy, why he was only reluctantly allowed to put on his exhibition in London and why across Europe he is known as 'Dr Death' and, in his own native Germany, as Dr Mengele. The bodies von Hagens uses are at the centre of the controversy; bodies' whose background stories the Doctor prefers to say as little about as possible as he doesn't want any 'human' stories to detract from appreciation of the anatomy on show. He insists that every single one of them has been legitimately donated to science, but his detractors say different.

In 2004, German magazine Der Spiegel published an expose on von Hagens, whose laboratories are based in China and Kyrgyzstan and whom German authorities refused to recognise as a professor because he qualified for the title in the Far East. They accused him of using the bodies of Chinese political prisoners and aborted foetuses, victims of the regime's one-child policy, as well as of buying the bodies of the homeless and mentally ill from Russia with the added charge of not even consulting their relatives beforehand. The end result of the subsequent investigations, two years after his exhibition first came to the UK, was that von Hagens was forced to return several corpses to China after admitting they 'may have been' executed prisoners.

The public reaction, mirrored in the press has naturally been quite polarised. The anatomist's critics were quick to leap on the revelations to qualify their initial revulsion at the exhibition whilst his supporters defended him as an open minded pioneer of progress whose achievements could be used to gain a whole new understanding of the human body.

These reactions pretty much sum up my own mixed feelings towards the exhibition. On the one hand, how fascinating it must be simply to see other humans in this form; to study an Alzeihmers ridden brain not from a book or TV show, but from within the very skull it was encased all along; to see the posture of the basketball player and all the muscles, organs and bones once shrouded in the mystery of a thin layer of skin, paralysed in time as if just for our benefit. Yet, how sickening the feeling that the dead foetus and mother on show might ne nothing but props in a scientist's fantasy with absolutely no regard for their story; no regard for the baby who might have lived a long and happy life if only it were born in a country that valued that life; eve less regard for the woman whose family might still be asking after her, unbeknown to them that her body was sold off like meat in an abbatoir, to the highest bidder, after she met her end alone in a Siberian mental asylum.

There are wider implications of this ghastly cadaver trade though. Warwick University just spend hundreds of thousands of pounds purchasing some of von Hagens' bodies for their own medical students to study on. People across Europe have been paying good money to see these bodies, introducing a cash incentive for their exploitation and, in some cases, murder. What about stem cell research, the scope of which has now been significantly widened by the successful passage of the goverment's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill? If it is morally repugnant to use the corpses of individuals for possibly ground-breaking research without their express consent, then what of growing and discarding human embryos for exactly the same purpose and under the same circumstances - especially if you believe, as I do, that the absence of unequivocal proof that an unborn child is not alive requires it to be endowed with the same right to life as the rest of us?

Why The European Constitution Has Imperilled European Security

I wrote this post for Eurodefense UK - www.eurodefense.co.uk

Few reforms are needed more urgently in Europe today than the forging of a coherent and, as far as possible, single EU foreign policy and yet few reforms are less likely to see the light of day in the current political climate. The blame for this must lie squarely at the feet of the European Council, ultimately responsible for trying to insert the proposals for an enhanced decision making process and an EU foreign minister, amongst others, into a confusing constitution that never had much chance of being approved by an angry electorate.

When the citizens of the EU were asked to rank the most serious problems facing the continent earlier this year by the German Marshall Fund, they naturally put terrorism and the credit crisis at the top of the agenda. However, a large majority also expressed grave concerns about the resurrection of the Russian bear and its use of its energy supplies as a weapon, not to mention its tanks and warships, whilst almost as many said they wanted closer relations with America and that NATO was still essential to their security.

It’s safe to say the ‘masses’ were on the money in their assessment of the most immediate threats to European security. Indeed, their concerns, along with illegal immigration, cyber-crime and climate change, have featured heavily in the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy’s drive to establish a new security strategy for Europe. Central to formulating a single European response to these challenges, therefore, has been the push to update the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP).

As they are, the policies have failed to unify the EU in its dealings with the rest of the world, rendering the Union inefficient on the occasions when member states do take a common approach, such as in the Balkans, and wide open to manipulation by foreign powers when they don’t, such as the United States during the Iraq war and Russia now. The reforms envisaged by the constitution went some way to addressing these problems: a single foreign minister to represent the EU abroad; a legal personality to allow the EU to conclude international agreements; EU-wide investment in research and development; an EU equivalent of NATO’s clause 5 committing all states to collective “aid and assistance by all the means in their power”; the agreement of all member states to make available troops assigned to other multi-national task-forces to European battle-groups too; as well as a refined decision making process with opt-outs for any member state opposed to any EU decision to deploy troops.

So why then, if European electorates agreed on the supra-national nature of the threats and challenges facing their countries and their governments agreed on a set of measures to tackle them, were the proposed reforms thrown out by the Irish this year when they voted in a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, seen by many as simply a watered down version of the constitution? The answer is simple. The EU’s attempts to package these paramount changes within a vast and unreadable document that few wanted made it impossible to pass them. Indeed a poll taken of voters immediately after the Irish referendum revealed that the majority of those who voted ‘no’ did so because they did not understand what they were voting on.

However, Europe’s electorates lost faith in their elites long before then. The reasons behind the French and Dutch ‘no’ votes on the constitution proper in 2005 were far less kind than the Irish and revealed a deep-seated resentment of European elites and indeed their own. And for what? A flag and an anthem that we already have and that nobody cares about. Since then, any attempt to do the sensible thing and try and pass the reforms necessary to create a single coherent foreign policy has been viewed with suspicion and contempt. Indeed if the Lisbon Treaty hadn’t been voted down by the Irish it probably would have fallen at a later hurdle. Of course, the peddling of half-truths and even outright lies by the Europhobic press in countries most likely to need a referendum on such treaties like Ireland and the UK hardly helps.

What hope remains for a single European foreign policy then? Ironically, it would seem that the security of the continent now lies in the hands of national leaders regaining their people’s trust and convincing of the merit and the need for a unified approach. The election of a President in the United States with a respect for the transatlantic alliance and an understanding of the importance of a multi-lateral approach to the world’s most serious problems would go a long way too.

Is it fair to villify the bankers?

'The week that shook the world' is the modest term being used by one of my favourite online publications, 'The First Post', to describe this week's events starting with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Investment Bank. The economic turmoil and mass panic that has ensued has inevitably led the press, hungry for the 'goodies and baddies' formula that sells their papers by the dozen, to pin the blame on whoever they hastily declare to be guilty within minutes of the news breaking. No prizes for guessing who they decided to pick on.

Will Self of the Evening Standard, for example, said: "All you bankers have had your fat years. Now get ready for some very thin ones."

Alice Miles wrote in The Times of "compensations in watching the comeuppance of the hubristic and the avaricious".

Now, anybody who knows me also knows that I'm not in the business of painting multi-millionaire investment bankers as an innocent and victimised minority. Indeed I must confess that when I first saw the pictures of all the newly unemployed brokers on the front of the papers, I reacted with a distinct sense of schadenfreude rather than the compassion my better judgement mandates of me.

I also agree that the corruption, greed and complaceny that has poisoned the City over the last couple of decades, following its rise to pre-eminence during the Thatcher years, is predominantly to blame for this crisis. However, the sadist, self-righteous and personal nature of the media's attacks with their "Don't let the spivs destroy Britain" headlines has truly made me wince over the last few days.

This is not only because bankers are still people with families to feed and mortgages to pay(despite their many shortcomings)nor the fact that it is hard to deny that the success of the City is what kept this economy so strong for so long right up until the crash. Rather, it is because the last thing any of them were actually worried about when the story of the biggest crash since 1929 broke was the suffering that would be felt across the country as a result.

Where were these crusaders, apart from the odd legitimately concerned journalist, when the City's excesses led the nation's wealth gap to widen into a chasm, when the bankers - now villified by all - were paying less tax than their cleaners on their salaries and no tax on their bonuses, and when the rest of us were being hopelessly priced out of the housing market? There might have been a day's headlines to be sure, but nothing compared to the vitriol heaped on benefit 'scroungers', unruly youths and unwelcome immigrants that filled the tabloids' pages on a daily basis.

Those were the days when it might have been appropriate to pour scorn over the financial sector and even then it was the system and woeful lack of regulation that was to blame rather than the people themselves (not that I doubt that investment banks have had more than their fair share of sociopaths amongst their ranks). Now though, is the time to be getting behind those who have lost their jobs and their employers who have lost everything else. For should they continue to fall down the big black hole they admittedly dug for themselves, there is little doubt that the whole country will follow right behind.

Diagnosis by google and the man who ate too much fish

So, on Monday I had to go to Accident and Emergency. Nothing serious, but worth getting checked out to assuage my own over-active paranoia. However, before going to the A&E I went to the walk-in clinic in Soho - kind of like an emergency GP's office - to make sure that it wasn't something that could wait a few days to go see my actual GP about.

After spending an hour waiting to see someone, and having to subsequently cancel my evening with two old friends to which I had been looking forward for some time, this little Irish lady popped her head out of her room and called my name like it was an item off an Indian takeaway menu. Nevertheless, I followed her in and I told her what was wrong. Now what followed was possibly the least confidence inspiring experience I have ever had in a doctor's office.

At first, everything was going normal. She checked my vitals and asked all the right questions, but then it came to making a diagnosis - or even just a rough estimate would have been helpful. After reading all my symptoms that she had scribbled hastily on to her little notepad for the third time, she said: "oh my God, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. If I were you, I'd go to A&E, but I just don't know."

Now, you can imagine how I, the patient who had been panickly saying those exact words to myself for the last hour, felt on hearing these words. Fair to say, I was starting to have my doubts about the ability of this particular nurse practicioner. Yet lo and behold, she had an idea. Perhaps I had misjudged her. Maybe she did know her stuff all along and I was just being too hard on her.

So, I stood next to her and watched as she typed my symptoms into google and then proceeded to scroll through each website that came up, most of which were internet forums dominated by random people discussing the details of their own exotic illnesses to each other. For a brief moment she thought she had struck gold when she found one post listing all the same symptoms as me. Alas her hopes were dashed as she read on and discovered that the author had in fact been complaining about mercury poisoning he had contracted through eating too much fish.

So, I finally put our brave friend out of her misery, informing her that I now definitely would be going to the A&E where I could see, you know, an actual doctor. She asked for my number (try not to get too hot under the collar here - it's not what you think) so she could check on my progress because she was "just curious" as to what the hell exactly was wrong with me. Luckily she has not yet called me, so either she forgot or she finally found the answer she was looking for on google. In any case, she has saved me an awkward conversation and an unwanted reminder of the dilapidated state of British medicine today.

God bless the NHS!

Obama-Biden: Pleasant Surprise and Wise Choice

Back during the primaries, I cited this pairing as my idea of the dream ticket - not because I could foresee it happening, but because I liked the look of Biden just as much, if not secretly more, than Obama, mainly because of his foreign policy experience. I was, therefore, thrilled to hear him announced as running mate, even though I never realisitically expected him to get it.

The immediate response to him in the press has been predictable in terms of the pros and cons assessment of Biden and what he will bring to the ticket. Only one commentator though, Justin Webb of the BBC, has mentioned what for me is the biggest risk of Obama´s choice: people starting to wander if the ticket should not be the other way round. As admirably mature as Obama´s decision was, bringing in a popular, headstrong, wise and very experienced Senator who is more than a match for McCain in his own right, has ironically made Obama look like something of a rookie.That said, I am not too concerned. Once the campaign is in full swing, Obama won´t hesistate to remind people who is calling the shots and his maturity will shine through. Besides, a fresh open minded approach is exactly what the US needs right now.

In many ways, Obama´s selection of Biden is very much like Kennedy´s choice of Johnson for running mate in 1960 - an experienced and accomplished political operator who knows Washington better than anybody. However, there is a warning in that too. Johnson and Kennedy strongly disagreed on foreign policy with Johnson lacking Kennedy´s in depth understanding of foreign affairs and innovative approach to dealing with the Soviet Union. Fortunately, this time it´s the VP who has all the foreign policy nous and as long as Obama is serious about making the right decisions for the country he´ll pay close attention to what he has to say.

Why police chiefs should not be elected

The issue of elected police chiefs is one that has been broiling for some time. The Tories have been a fan of the idea of creating American style sherrifs for a while now. Last year, Sir Simon Milton of the LGA officially proposed direct elections for Chief Constables, a proposal endorsed by two of the three main London Mayoral candidates in May's elections, including the eventual winner. Now, even the Home Secretary has got in on the game. Sensing that more and more people are converting to the cause, she has decided to do an Italy, changing sides just as it becomes apparent who's going to win.

Alas, so desperate to follow popular opinion wherever it may go so she can lead it, I fear she is making a terrible mistake, even by the Home Office's standards. Chief Constables and Commissioners must not be directly elected any more than High Court judges or military officers. Public safety is too important to be decided by a show of hands, which is why I baulked at an article written in the First Post (see link) today by Daniel Hannan - oh how I loathe that man! Hannan's whole argument seemed to rest on one survey result from 2001, carried out in nine constabularies with a dose of Ian Blair bashing to boot.

Coming off a little like a host of Family Fortunes, he reported how the survey indicated that the constabularies viewed "recruiting more ethnic minority officers, cracking down on sexist language, [and] improving their relations with the gay community" as their core priorities. Carrying on his faultless Les Dennis impression, he added that when extended to the local population of each constabulary, the survey said: "catch more criminals". Now even if we ignore the ridiculously open ended nature of the question that makes it impossible to fairly compare the answers given -somehow I suspect the Police consider catching criminals not so much a priority as much a raison d'etre- the answers do paint a worrying picture of what we could expect in any Police Authority election. How do these people know that improving police relations with minority communities, often vital sources of police intelligence in sensitive investigations, and eliminating discrimination within forces themselves to ensure that only the best qualified individuals get the best jobs, is not integral to catching more criminals? And how many right-thinking (as opposed to vote seeking) officers would place catching criminals as a higher priority than preventing crimes in the first place?

'Catching Criminals' makes for a great soundbite and indeed soundbites are what win elections: 'The Economy Stupid' and 'Tough on Crime, Tough on the Causes of Crime' come instantly to mind. But the level of jurisprudence, reponsibility and integrity required for such a vital role in our society cannot be condensed into soundbites. Furthermore, the critical decisions that Chief Constables take every day on everything ranging from tackling anti-social behaviour in town centres to counter-terrorism must be objective not political. The pandimonium that would inevitably arise from a Chief Constable feeling pressured to put his/her core constituents before their professional opinions is unimaginable. No sensible person would ever suggest subjecting our leading Generals to popular election because they dare not think how different the war may have turned out had General Montgomery been kept from the front because he lost an election to an opponent pledging to kill more Germans. To say that Police chiefs should be treated differently is to say that pubic safety is not as important as national security when in fact, as anyone who was around on 7/7 knows, the two are heavily intertwined.

However, this not to say the police should be accountable only to themselves. The core requirement of any liberal democracy that the state remain under civillian control at all times means that they will always be subject to a degree of political decision making. But this is because the police service is not responsible for making the law, but only for implementing it, leaving legislation to those who were elected to perform that very purpose. This is right and proper as any population that does not expect to get a say in the formation of the laws that govern them is living in a dictatorship.

Those same elected officials though rely on the independent expertise of the Police to enforce those laws if for no other reason than to make sure those laws are effective, so they can keep their seats come election time. The people have already had their say. Put another way, I'll vote for brain surgery to kept available on the NHS, but when it comes to the doctor performing the operation itself, I want the guy who finished top of his class at Medical School not top of the opinion polls in my local borough.

Knife crime

Knives have been a pre-eminent theme this week with the government announcing that from now on anyone over the age of 16 caught carrying a knife in public can expect to be prosecuted. As someone who had the privilege of working for the country's most senior police officers for six months, I think this is a terrible idea. Surely, the decision to prosecute for possession of a knife should be based on criminal intent and the circumstances of their arrest.

Anyone who thinks that such a response equates to being 'soft on crime' should look at surveys conducted by the ONS and the Youth Justice Board which show that one of the main reasons why children carry knives today is out of fear of being a victim of knife crime themselves. Are we really saying that the very children who are so in need of our protection that they have taken to arm themselves are, from now on, to be lumped into the same category as the gang members and bullies who prompted them to take these measures in the first place?

Furthermore, when the Police Service has to spend more of its time combating the stigmas of old that manifest themselves in the resistance to increased stop 'n' search and surveillance powers, not to mention the chronic under-reporting of crimes that most hampers the ability of police forces to do their job, are we really prepared to alienate a whole new generation of youngsters?

If that's not enough, think of all the paperwork that police officers will have to fill out for every random youngster they find carrying a knife, even for the most innocuous reasons. Should such officers decide merely to give these youths a reprimand so they can focus on real crimes, they'll be lambasted by their Chief Constable, and their force condemned by the Home Office, as a failure.

In short, Rod Morgan, the former chairman of the youth justice board and one of the government's advisers on youth justice, was wrong to label this measure as gesture politics. It's just bad politics.

John McCain's Prophecy of Doom

Found this on American comedian John Hargrave's website: http://http://www.zug.com/pranks/senator/letter_mccain01.gif

Pretending to be a 10 year old boy doing a project on government, he wrote to all senators in 2003 asking them what their favourite joke was. I wonder what people woud make of McCain's joke now.

At least he replied though. Hillary Clinton came out as the unfunniest senator, who "couldn't even be bothered to send in a joke to a ten-year-old who was dying of cancer (even though he didn't mention the cancer part in his letter, because he's classy)."

Unfortunately, Barack Obama wasn't in the Senate when this prank was played. I would like to have seen what joke he'd have come up with, not doubting for even a second that he would have replied.

Why We Should Legalise Tax Evasion

"Up to £42bn - enough to eradicate UK child poverty ten times over - could be going begging every year through tax evasion and (legal) avoidance, of which just £4bn is recovered by tax inspectors. There is also £12bn lost to VAT fiddles every year. " This, reported by Private Eye, based on figures supplied by HMRC in 2005, sums up just how desperate the situation has become when it comes to paying taxes in the UK. At the same time as this is going on, we read about pensioners being driven into poverty by ever increasing rates of council tax and cleaners paying more in income tax than their multi-millionaire employers. As if this wasn't bad enough, last year the government added to the woes of low income earners across the country, abolishing the 10p tax rate (or rather doubling it) to finance a juicy tax cut for the rest of us. Yet, public spending is increasing, the government is being called on to save reckless banks from themselves -using taxpayers' money of course- as the credit crunch unfolds, and as of the end of 2007, according to the Office of National Statistics, general government debt stands at £618.8 billion, equivalent to 43.8 per cent of GDP.

The numbers alone show what a problem tax evasion and avoidance is for the economy. The greater underlying problem is the glorification of these practices by those who see and portray tax as a cost or a burden imposed upon us by government. So why is tax important? For a start, the public services we continue to clamber for whilst rejecting any proposed tax hikes, as well as our emergency services and armed forces depend on taxation. Increased revenue through taxation allows the government to retain more control over our economy, constrain public debts and prevent dependence on foreign investment. Taxation is also crucial to the equitable re-distribution of wealth; the silver bullet for many of the social problems that plague our nation ranging from child poverty to illiteracy. The Tax Justice Network likens the redistribution of wealth through taxation to shareholders' dividends, arguing that "companies do not make profit merely by using investors' capital. They also use the societies in which they operate, whether that is the physical infrastructure provided by the state, the people the state has educated, or the legal infrastructure that allows companies to protect their property rights. Finally, and most importantly in my view, taxes are our stake in the state, securing our right to representative governmentand free speech.

So what do we do? A good template is the American system where citizens living abroad are obliged to pay US taxes on all their earnings no matter where in the world they are. If they have a problem with this, then they are offered a simple choice: pay your taxes or renounce your citizenship and do what you like with your money. Only problem with this is that it does nothing to prevent domestic tax evasion or avoidance, so here's my idea: legalise tax evasion. Send all current British taxpayers a form where they can smply tick a box to opt out of paying any taxes on their earnings at all levels of government. In doing so, they agree to give up the right to free health care, and to a free education for their children. They forfeit their national insurance as well as their citizenship. They lose the protection of the law and access to emergency services and most significantly, they give up the right to vote. All these things depend on taxpayers' money to function and they are all instrumental to allowing us to lead the lives we do and enjoy the freedoms bestowed upon us by the gradual evolution of the sacred social contract. It's time we call the libertarians' bluff and give them exactly what they want and then see how they feel about taxation.

Election Dilemna

Tonight I had the privilege of attending a truly refreshing exercise in direct democracy, a town hall meeting of sorts with Nick Clegg and Brian Paddick. Ok, there was nothing to vote on or anything, but what I -and any other member of the public- were treated to, entirely for free, was the opportunity to grill both men on their policies, beliefs, pretty much anything for an hour and a half. What made it more amazing was that these two were taking the time to subject themselves to this from people who, for the most part, were already on their side anyway, with just two days left till the local and Mayoral elections. Time they could have spent, in other words, campaigning to people whose votes they needed and didn't already have.

Clegg has been doing this frequently across the country since becoming leader. It's part of his programme to re-engage with the vast swathes of the population who couldn't bring themselves to vote at the last election, outnumbering the total of those who voted for the winning party for the first time in history. Paddick joined in naturally, with the event being held in London and the election round the corner, to highlight his own Mayoral credentials. It was him that I went along to see in particular, hoping that he would assuage some of the doubts that have so far been keeping me from voting for him this Thursday. Unfortunately, he failed.

One of Paddick's top manifesto pledges is to chair the Metropolitan Police Authority, giving him the power to influence the Met's policing strategy and, therefore, focus their efforts and resources on the key areas of crime and disorder as specified by him. Although this would hardly turn the Mayor into the Tsar of the Police Service, he would still have a decisive stake in the hiring and firing of Police chiefs whilst his opinions and decisions, as an elected official, would carry far greater weight with the public. Some may celebrate this as a brave attempt to make politicians truly accountable, to the people they represent, for the state of their city. Sir Simon Milton, President of the Local Government Association, is one of those people and in February called for local councils across the country to be gven the power to hire and fire their respective Police Chiefs. I, however, harbour great concern that it would mark the politicisation of the Police Service and therefore felt compelled to question Mr Paddick on his declared intention to chair the MPA, when presented with the unique opportunity to do so tonight.

Sadly, he did not share my point of view, replying to my question with a tirade against Commissioner Sir Ian Blair and Ken Livingstone for backing him through all the trials and tribulations of late. This told me more about why he wanted to chair the MPA than anything else and subsequently reinforced my view that such a position should be kept well out of reach of the London Mayor and his political agenda. However, it was not just his all too clear grudge against his former boss that bothered me, but the lack of any foresight on what I consider to be a very contraversial issue.

The need for the Metropolitan Police Service, and indeed all police forces, to be independent so that each Chief Constable and Commissioner can focus their attention on solving and preventing crimes and not on tending to their political masters with the impending fear of losing their jobs if they refuse, did not seem to register on Mr Paddick at all. This in spite of the fact that he himself recently criticised Sir Ian Blair for so forcefully backing the government up on their calls for an extension of the pre-charge detention limit to 90 days back in 2005. Speaking to the BBC that day, he said: "If there's a perception that their (police forces') chief is aligned to a political party...that undermines the rank and file officer."

It is not unconceivable that in such an instance as the 90 day campaign, a Mayor with the power to fire the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, a far less complicit Commissioner in this scenario, could publicly accuse him of undermining the security of the city, whilst privately threatening him, if he refused to get on board. And of course, why does the support of the Police matter so much in such heated political debates? Because the opinion of the police is considered, by not least the public, to be independent and only concerned with the security of the citizens under their protection, thereby serving as the perfect endorsement for what would otherwise be a distinctly political decision.

As a result, the failure of Brian Paddick to take any of this into consideration as well as the precedent that such a move would set throughout the rest of the country if he, or Boris who has the same policy, were to be elected this Thursday is what's stopping me from pledging my support for him. That and his whiter than white rhetoric which displays a significant naivety on his part and which you just know will come back to haunt him at some point in the future.

On the upside, I did think that Paddick had an otherwise good night, making some thoughtful and impassioned arguments, and being interrupted for applause on several occasions. Nick Clegg, meanwhile, was absolutely breath-taking. He seemed so genuine, engaged and passionate. His answers were thorough and actually addressed the questions put to him, a first for many a politician. Tonight I found myself, for the first time, being truly inspired by him and his vision for the country. If only he could pull off such amazing performances on TV, the we might not be languishing on 17% in the polls, but rather taking advantage of Labour's meltdown. In any case, a truly stimulating evening with two very talented politicians, who for all their flaws, still have an incredible amount to offer the people of London and throughout the UK. Hence my dilemna.

No place for scroungers in the UK (unless they wear a suit and tie)

We really do hate scroungers in this country, don't we? Every day there is a new story about someone living on benefits, ripping off the nation, spending other people's money on booze, fags and designer clothes, whilst pleading poverty when brought before the courts fot not paying their bills. One such story in the news this week was that of the Nickells, a couple living on incapacity benefit, and fighting a council decision to refuse them housing benefit, after squandering £100,000 of scratchcard prize money. The hapless couple, who claimed they were unable to work because Mr Nickell has a frozen shoulder and Mrs Nickell is awaiting a hip replacement, told GMTV how they were knee deep in debt and could not pay for their own upkeep without additional benefits. The public response was predictable. GMTV viewers wrote in saying how the Nickells made their 'blood boil' and how the taxpayer should not be made to bail them out for being stupid. Even the photo of the couple on the GMTV website came with the caption 'scroungers'.

Of course it is not just the media who are keen to cash in on the public's resentment of benefit claimants. The government, keen not to miss the bandwagon, have made a big deal of talking tough on the unemployed with the proposal of 'fit notes' from doctors to cut down on the number of people claiming incapacity benefit and endless tv ad warnings of the latest crackdown on benefit fraud. One Conservative member of Medway council in Kent recently even insisted, whilst discussing the case of the mother of abducted Shannon Matthews, that the burden placed by unemployed parents on society was so great that the only solution was forced sterilisation. He later apologised, although it would have been interesting to hear how exactly the lifestyle of a mother of seven in West Yorkshire was breaking the backs of the 1.6m residents of Kent.

Now, I was just as gobsmacked as the next person by the Nickells' wrecklessness and I expect them to do everything possible to cover their own costs, such as selling off the car and caravan they bought with their prize money, before they turn to the council. But I was more astounded by the selectiveness of the moral outrage displayed by the public and the media. If its scroungers they want to lynch, they're looking at the wrong people. They should be focusing on the likes of Adam Applegarth, the former chief executive of Northern Rock, who is due to collect a £760,000 pay-off after running the bank into the ground and forcing the government to bail them out with £24bn of taxpayers money. They should be focusing on the high-flying executives who egregiously exploit loopholes in the tax system so that their cleaners end up paying more than them.

As for the government, rather than wasting their revenues on adverts designed to intimidate the unemployed, how about they spend it on closing the loopholes that allow so many to escape paying any tax. In short, it is estimated that, whereas benefit fraud costs taxpayers £3bn a year, tax evasion costs £23bn a year. On top of that, time and again, we hear about public sector consultants, whether it's Bob Kiley the London transport chief or Stephen Carter, Gordon Brown's latest star signing, and their astronomical salaries, benefits and pay-offs all paid for by the tax-payer and all for doing...well not that much by the looks of it.

Then again, the scapegoating of the unemployed is only consistent with the trend in Britain today to put spin over substance and unfortunately people like the Nickells are not as well versed in manipulating the media to defend themselves as the smartly-clad, clean shaven city slickers.

The Immigration Debate: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

This week the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee unveiled its report on the effects of immigration into the UK, concluding that the "economic benefits to the resident population of net immigration (immigration minus emigration) are small, especially in the long run." Yet immigration remains a highly charged and divisive issue in the UK.

This is because 21st Century Britons find it increasingly difficult to reconcile their anxiety over increased immigration with their committment to racial equality. And this is because no clear solution to the problems associated with immigration has been presented that isn't intrinsically linked to race. This may seem unavoidable - after all, people who travel here from abroad are by definition foreign and, as native Brits living in British Overseas Territories already enjoy the same rights as us mainlanders, the likelihood is that immigrants will therefore be of a different nationality, religion, culture or race. However, things get more complicated when we consider migrants who have successfully settled here: Should they be forced to learn English; Are they a burden on public services; Are they planning to bring their families over? Suddenly we find ourselves in the sticky situation of addressing the rights of ethnic minorities in this country and the continuing influx of more and more of them into the country as one and the same question.

In 1968, however, when Enoch Powell made his Rivers of Blood speech, Britain was a very different place. Even if you ignore the debate over whether he was quoting a constituent or simply paraphrasing Far Right propaganda to support his argument, his position remained one which would be considered anathema to most people today. When he made his speech, he was arguing against anti-discrimination laws in housing and employment. He was arguing to protect an era where pubs commonly displayed signs reading: "No blacks, No dogs, No Irish". He was defending an old woman's (his alleged constituent) right to refuse to house black lodgers simply because they were black, depicting them as violent thugs for good measure. The result of Powell's speech was to energise the National Front and stoke fears amongst the white working class that the black man would one day have the whip hand over the white man. We still see similar sorts of racism today especially in tabloid newspapers. A poll of The Sun readers last year showed that on average they believed immigrants accounted for 25% of the population. Actually its just 8%.

My view is that the problems associated with immigration: housing shortages, strained public services, fierce competition for jobs etc are more examples of market failure than anything else. At the end of the day it is economics, and the British financial regulatory system to boot, that are screwing over the white working classes who claim to suffer most from the fallout of increased immigration. The CBI says businesses choose immigrants over domestic residents because they work harder and longer for less money. Housing shortages occur not because there are too many people, but because there aren't enough houses. When social housing is sold off by ruling parties for political gain and the super rich are invited to buy up as many houses as they want, thereby also driving up the price of housing, a squeeze on the most vulnerable -domestic and immigrant alike- is inevitable. When the government solicits ultra-rich foreign businessmen by allowing them to claim non-dom status and pay less tax on the same earnings than everybody else, people naturally begin to feel alienated.

Furthermore, with social mobility lower now than it was in the 1960s, and the difference between skilled and non-skilled, in our almost entirely service sector oriented economy, means choosing between selling shares and cleaning toilets, opportunities become limited and discontent rife. Also a lack of any real interest in foreign cultures or languages amongst the native population is restricting their ability to adapt and seek new lives and fortunes abroad in neighbouring European countries, just as their French, German and Spanish counterparts are learning English and bringing their skills to the city.

Indeed, if the last 40 years of immigration legislation have taught us anything it is that the more you tighten the law surrounding immigration, the more immigrants you will attract. This was the case in 1962 when immigration surged following the ratification of a new Act, restricting immigration, as settled immigrants who might one day have returned home felt they had no choice but to bring their families over pemanently for fear they may never be able to return to Britain again should they ever leave.

To blame, therefore, housing shortages, job shortages and a failing public service on anything but economics is ludicrous and to blame it on immigrants themselves is nothing more than thinly veiled racism.

Is the Church right on hybrid embryos?

Following the government's announcement of its plans to update the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act to allow scientists to create human animal hybrid embryos to develop stem cells for medical research, a debate on the ethics of such a policy has been raging. The Catholic Church in Scotland has denounced the prospective legislation as immoral whilst an array of medical charities have vociferously defended it, and the potentially massive medical benefits it could deliver, with Lord Winston weighing in today with accusations that the Catholic Church has been misleading the public on the issue.

A secondary issue causing much controversy is also whether or not MPs should be given a free vote on the proposals when they go through the Commons. Gordon Brown has come under extreme pressure to remove the whip for the vote and allow MPs, especially those for whom the bill presents a religious or ethical dilemna, as David Cameron and Nick Clegg have already pledged to do.

The aim of the legislation, as I understand it, is to allow scientists to take advantage of the ubiquity of animal embryos and replace the nuclei with human cells, such as skin cells. The embryos mature, thus converting the skin cells into stem cells that can be used for ground-breaking research that will hopefully provide treatments for a range of diseases and conditions such as Parkinsons and Alzheimers. In 2000, the goverment originally agreed to ban the development of such embryos on the advice of the Chief Medical Officer. Clearly, Gordon Brown has now decided to reverse this decision and explore the potential of stem cell research.

As I write this, I am struggling to understand the position the Church has taken on this issue - and I say this as someone who has consistently agreed with the Vatican's position on abortion and euthanasia, albeit for different reasons. I too would consider the development of such embryos immoral if they were to be matured to term - if that were even possible - but this is not the case. Rather, the embryo would be be destroyed after a maximum of 14 days. As they are not the product of human fertilisation, the anti-abortion argument can hardly hold as long as the Church continues to have no problem with killing fully developed animals for food. Furthermore, allowing scientists to create hybrid embryos will deter them from using fully human embryos for the same purpose which, for me, presents a very real ethical dilemna.

Most importantly though we must remind ourselves that scientists pioneering this research aren't just looking for a new toy to play with or to test the boundaries of human morality at their leisure. Although any rhetoric, whether that of a scientist, a priest or a politician, must always be taken with a pinch of salt, it very much appears that Stem cell research is our best bet yet for curing debilitating and ultimately terminal illnesses. In other words we are talking about people's lives. My grandfather died of Motor Neurone Disease, enduring a torturous six years of decline, losing first the ability to walk and eventually even the ability to swallow. If, on the day of his death, I had learnt that my government had tried to pass legislation that would help save him, but was held back by the musings of a Cardinal and the recalcitrance of a reactionary Church, I would be furious.

This brings me finally to the issue of whether or not Gordon Brown should give Labour MPs a free vote. Although I have never warmed to the idea of the 'whip' in the first place - if MPs are to be bound to vote a certain way on any issue, it should be by the constituents they represent and not their party leader - there can be no doubting its instrumentality in pushing through government policy. The conventional wisdom is that MPs should be allowed a free vote on issues of conscience where the subject of the bill before the Commons directly conflicts with their own core beliefs. Not only do leaders who rebuke this wisdom attract severe criticism for their decision, the can also end up with egg on their face should a handful of rebels decide to ignore the whip regardless. Doubtless this will be the only factor that may motivate the Prime Minister to give in to the mounting pressure and grant his MPs the free vote they are clambering for.

As for those MPs who do vote on conscience, particularly those sympathetic towards the position of the Catholic Church in Scotland, I can only hope that the core beliefs of the people they represent to Parliament factor in to their decision as much as their own. I also hope they accept that should they vote against, the subsequent deaths of those suffering from terminal illnesses, who could potentially have been spared by the future development of a viable Stem Cell treatment, will too be forever ingrained in their conscience.

Post Offices: Glenda's Great Betrayal

Wednesday night (March 19) marked the great betrayal of Swiss Cottage residents, not to mention the rest of Hampstead and Highgate, by our own MP Glenda Jackson. On Wednesday she was handed the opportunity to vote against the government, whom she has happily voted and spoken out against in the past, and their planned closure of thousands of local post offices across the country and she flatly rejected it, choosing to toe the government line instead. Ironically, it took a Tory Early Day Motion to present her with this opportunity in spite of their own pitiful record on public services, not to mention the failure of their leader to even turn up for the vote itself. The motion was wholeheartedly supported by the Lib Dems, who themselves have been vigorously campaigning on behalf of their own constituents to save their post offices for years. Although our Glenda showed some promise at the start, speaking against the closures during the debate, in the end admitting that the Tories and Lib Dems actually had a point was evidently just too much to bear and therefore the price of representing her own constituents to Parliament too high to pay. She voted against.

The closure of our local post offices by the government is an issue that has resonated throughout the community, particularly its most vulnerable members, since the policy was originally revealed. The government has promised alternative, mobile post offices, that paint a ghastly picture of a cross between a red pillar box and an ice cream van, within a vicinity of no more than 2 or 3 miles. 2 or 3 miles? Now picture an elderly man, widowed, children live far away, lives alone whose only friends are his own age who find it just as difficult as he to move around without pain and discomfort, without running out of breath every few steps. The only time he gets out of his small house that he bought 50 years ago, and is now in a perpetual state of disrepair, the only time he gets to see the few friends he has left is when he goes to his local post office to pick up his pension. In my area, this is the Finchley Road Post Office. There were more, but they've already been closed. The Finchley Road is a busy main road and a hilly one at that. The Post Office therefore is not easy to get to if you have mobility problems. Nonetheless, there are several small shops and cosy cafes further down the road where local members of the elderly community can frequently be found enjoying a cup of tea and each other's company.

Now consider the case of our friend again; that this small, but quaint, local building is his lifeline. It provides him with his sole source of income, lest he be forced to sell his home, and his only point of contact with the outside world - if you discount the care workers upon whom he relies to help him cook, clean and get in and out of the shower. He is being asked to walk 2 or 3 miles. Apply the same scenario to a pregnant woman or someone in a wheelchair and you see where I'm going with this.

Luckily, we live in a democracy where we can show MPs such as Glenda Jackson what happens to Parliamentarians who take their constituents for granted and who choose to be on the winning side over being on the right side. And although this battle may be lost, there are plenty more to come and as long as we pick someone to represent us who we can trust will actually take our side, our fortunes can only improve.

That Obama Picture

Who is behind that Obama picture? You know, the one with him in traditional Kenyan dress so blatantly circulated to remind everyone that Obama has a partially Muslim and, God forgive, non-American background. This is despite the fact that he is a Christian, as he has repeatedly emphasised in his response to the picture. Naturally, the finger has been pointed at Hillary Clinton's campaign with the Obama campaign assiduously accusing them of shameless scare-mongering. However, if you ask me, it is not with Hillary that the guilt lies, but the likely Republican candidate John - the swinging hot-head - McCain.

McCain has already been targeting Obama specifically in anticipation of him being the likely candidate and is no doubt sweating the latest polls which say that if a general election was called tomorrow between Obama and McCain, Obama would win in a 50% - 38% landslide. Granted the poll is just a snapshot of national popular opinion and doesnt' specify how they would fare in each state, but that is hardly necessary to get McCain panicking.

That said, McCain will also be aware that it will be a while yet till his rival candidate is confirmed as the Democrats continue to slog it out primary after primary. Although, he'll probably miss out on his dream candidate, and pretty much guaranteed win, he can still make the most of the ongoing contest and do his best to drag it out as far as possible. After all, Obama can't concentrate his fire on McCain until he's finished off Hillary.

However, the main reason for McCain to do this is simply the knowledge that the Clintons would get the blame, regardless of how profusely they denied it which is, incidentally, exactly what's happening. In so doing, he would stoke up enough fear of Obama secretly being a Muslim to keep Hillary in the game for a little longer (and not damage his own chances in the general either) and, most importantly, poison what has already been a bitter and dirty contest for the Democratic nomination. The aim of this is to ultimately make the Democrats look petty, petulent, and most of all, divided.

As an aside though to obserivng and commenting on what appears on the surface to be just another fascinating political manouver, how depressing is this entire episode? It seems so ironic that such is the lack of progress of religious and racial tolerance in America, in spite of their constitution, the Obama camp has felt so hideously aggrieved by the circulation of the picture. In contrast, if such an image of a British Parliamentary candidate were to be circulated, nobody would have bat an eyelid. Rather, what would have most likely caused offence is the response the the Obama camp felt obliged to give that he is a committed Christian and has never been a Muslim.

It's funny how it's things like this that make me feel incredibly proud to be British.

Skopje: Beware of Greeks Bearing Vetoes

This weekend's Kathimerini (major Greek national newspaper) reported that U.S Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, and Greek Foreign Minister, Dora Bakoyannis, met to discuss the admission of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (originally Skopje) into NATO.

Currently, Greece is threatening to veto the admission of Skopje unless it changes its name and all other NATO and EU members agree to rescind any previous recognition of Skopje as the Republic of Macedonia, it's chosen name. The new proposal recently put forward by Ms Rice is to change 'Macedonia' to 'New Macedonia' in order to achieve a distinction between Slavic Macedonia, the country, and Greek Macedonia, the region.

Although for many external observers the Greek veto threat may appear childish and to more seriously jeopardise the stability of the Balkans, Greece's defiance is just and long overdue. This is because the now longstanding dispute with Skopje is not simply about a name, but about history, ethnicity, territory and therefore sovereignty.

When Skopje declared its independence in 1991 and adopted the name Macedonia shortly after, it was not simply displaying its admiration of the name or reverence towards the historic Greek Kingdom of Macedon, otherwise known as Macedonia. Rather, it adopted the name on the grounds that they were the true descendants of King Phillip and Alexander the Great and that all Greeks living in the region of Greece known as Macedonia were in fact a foreign minority residing within their territory. They were therefore effectively implying that Greece was occupying its own northern quarter. As a result, they used the original Macedonian flag as their own, insisted their own dialect -which predictably they called Macedonian- was the official language of the historic Kingdom and even usurped entire segments of Greek history including, of course, the reign of Alexander the Great. Indeed, the country's major airport, based in its Capital city, is named after him.

Put simply, anyone who thinks that the naming of Macedonia is no more significant than the naming of Paris, Texas; New England; or even Athens, Georgia consider this. Imagine the reaction of the French if Paris, Texas took the credit for the Enlightenment or the reaction of the English if the people of New England declared themselves the rightful heirs of the legacies of Elizabeth I and Winston Churchill. Similarly, no Greek has a problem with Athens, Georgia because at no point have any of its citizens declared their city as the actual home of Pericles.

However, let us not lose sight of the crude politics involved here. The only reason why NATO is suddenly open to compromise is because they cannot admit Skopje as long as Greece retains its veto, a potentially massive embarrasment for the alliance. Similarly, Skopje needs no persuading in accepting any offer to join and therefore carries litle leverage over the terms of their accession. Greece, therefore holds all the cards. This is not just because of the veto but also because any concerted reconstruction effort in the Balkans depends on Greece's co-operation; poltically, militarily, but most of all economically. As Greece's economy has grown over the years, just as their neighours' have been crumbling around them under the pressures of civil war and internal ethnic strife, Greece has leapt on the opportunity to invest heavily in Balkan reconstruction. As a result, the Hellenic Republic has become the single biggest source of investment in all the new Balkan republics, including Skopje, to the extent that now almost a quarter of all banks in the region are Greek-owned.

So, let us celebrate today as the day Greece finally stood up for itself and defended its sovereignty against those who shamefully claim it for themselves, only to return open handed asking for money and security. And let us celebrate the fact that the good old wooden horse trick still works after all this time and remind those who tried to ignore their grievances to beware of Greeks bearing vetoes.

A Defence of the Surveillance Society

The recent story of the bugging of Siddique Khan MP and the subsequent revelations by the national media that such operations were the norm and in some cases required no more authorisation than the go ahead from a senior police officer, led to the biggest assault on the State's powers of surveillance for quite some time. This furore, however, was not a new debate, but rather the fierce reignition of an ongoing one over the use of surveillance technology by UK security forces. In my position as a press officer for the Association of Chief Police Officers, I strangely found myself caught in the middle of this debate, helping the Police to make the case to the public for increased use of surveillance, whilst my own party, the Liberal Democrats were berating it as an encroachment too far of our civil liberties.

I have traditionally been indifferent to the claims that we are 'sleepwalking' into a surveillance society and have found assertions that we are ultimately headed towards a police state, V for Vendetta style, just plain farcical. However, the debate of security versus liberty and where to draw the line between the two has always fascinated me. This was a debate that last month I was fortunate enough to witness myself when I attended the House of Lords Constitutional committee session on surveillance. There, the three chief police officers responsible for presiding over the Police National Database, the DNA database and the use of CCTV sat before this collection of Peers from all parties and were grilled over the impact of their actions on civil liberties in Britain.

I have no intention of giving a verbatum recital of how this debate went (for anyone interested in the transcript though, see: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/lduncorr.htm#const) but safe to say it helped me to clarify my own position on the issues at stake. The Peers' concerns were far more refined than those of the traditional scare mongers who occupy the most media time such as Liberty. They have always frustrated me as appearing to be passionate defenders of freedom without demonstrating any real understanding of why it is important. Rather the Peers got right to the crux of the issues; why were innocent people being kept on the DNA database? Was the stigmatism afforded to people given criminal records for the smallest of offences worth its weight in national security? Did innocent civillians own CCTV images of themselves stored away by the police for later use in an investigation? Were there even any protections afforded to them in return for not seeking their consent to be filmed?

This tight scrutiny yielded many important facts, some very interesting, others quite startling. Perhaps most interesting, for those who accuse the defenders of CCTV of manufacturing a police state, was the revelation that 84% of all CCTV cameras in operation are privately owned, whilst the bulk of those publicly owned were put in place by local councils at the behest of local communities. This is actually a bit of a red herring as CCTV does not prevent crime -or at least not the kind of crime they're afraid of; violent, alcohol fuelled, crime. Rather, CCTV's value lies in its use as an aid to Police investigations, providing evidence to be used in court to seal prosecutions that might otherwise be lost

For example, CCTV evidence was a vital element of the successful prosecution of two recent anti-terror trials. However many cases have continued to fall away because of a horrifying lack of co-ordination between the surveillance methods of the security services and the playback capabilities of the criminal justice system. For instance, CCTV evidence recorded on state of the art digital cameras is frequently deemed redundant owing to many courtrooms possesing nothing more than VHS video recorders for playing evidence back to juries.

Similarly, DNA samples too small to aid investigations when originally taken many years ago or taken for a smaller crime were crucial to solving long-standing crimes such as the Soham murders. The retention of innocent people's DNA was defended as being equally crucial to such investigations. This was because one of the ways Police go about identifying a potential assailant in say a rape or murder case, where DNA evidence is particularly relied upon, is to rule out the people closest to the crime scene by testing their DNA against any samples they may find. This enables them to narrow down their search and gives them a much better chance of actually finding the rapist/murderer. However, this therefore mandates the police to arbitrarily collect the DNA of anyone in or around the vicinity of the crime scene regardless of whether they have any reason to suspect them of doing anything wrong or not. Furthermore, as such cases can take decades to solve, their DNA cannot be removed from the DNA database, the Police argue, without hindering the investigation.

So which side do I fall on?

Well, I've always highly valued my privacy to the extent that I close my curtains even in my own home because I don't want people across the street to be able to see what I'm doing. But, when it comes to CCTV, I have no problem with being filmed by a device that I know could help to put away my potential mugger or worse. Similarly, being observed in public is a lot different to being watched in private. Everyone can see when you walk down the street. The notion that local authorities are violating our privacy by filming us seems somewhat bizarre to me, therefore, even if that does seem simplistic. In fact, I'm far more peturbed by the fact that there is a 4 out of 5 chance that every time I am filmed walking down the street it will be by a privately owned camera. This is for the simple reason that I can't make an ordinary individual think twice about filming me by threatening to vote for somebody else and ultimately that's what my admittedly lax attitude to state surveillance is down to. I could, of course, threaten them with rudementary violence, but I think you'll agree that's not the point.

Indeed it is the snooping techniques of the private sector that bother me the most; inexplicable junk mail from companies to whom you never gave your address, cold calls from salesmen to whom you never gave your number, employers checking your facebook for personal information they could never legally ask you at an interview. It gets worse though. In 2005, the Guardian revealed how Tesco was collating and then selling personal data gathered on millions of households throughout the UK, using a database called 'Crucible'. Apparently amongst the reams of personal information stored on Crucible were: "a map of personality, travel habits, shopping preferences and even how charitable and eco-friendly you are." The information was collected through application forms for Tesco loyalty cards combined with information gathered from subscriptions to magazines run by associated companies as well as the electoral roll. As a result, not only did Tesco gather detailed profiles on their own customers but also on a host of people who had never even shopped there in their life. One journalist trying to garner the full extent of Tesco's information gathering skills filled out an application form for the loyalty card, giving as few personal details as possible. Within one year they had two full pages on her and her shopping behaviour.

And of course, let's not forget the basic bugging devices you can buy from gadget shops or the firms that have taken the role of the old pashioned private investigator to new levels. One U.S firm called 'Advanced Surveillance Groups' offers to spy on their clients' spouses and partners to see if they are cheating on them. On their homepage it boasts: "Private Investigators have the ability to watch your spouse, monitor who they are with, where they go and what they do, discreetly and confidentially. We can do this through surveillance, utilization of vehicle tracking devices and providing you with software to monitor e-mail, chat room discussions and internet activity".

Yet, all I ever hear are complaints that it is the State that is infringing on people's individual liberty, comparing the UK today to totalitarian regimes of the past. They forget that the Police have to regularly submit themselves to investigation by three seperate regulatory bodies created specifically to hold the Police to account any time they take or use someone's personal data in an investigation of their own. They forget that they willingly and regularly open themselves up to questioning by committees such as the House of Lords Constiutional committee and the House of Commons Home affairs committee. They forget that the Police are granted these powers by democratically elected officials and can equally have them taken away as according to the will of the electorate aided by the rigorous probing into their activities by the free press. Most of all they forget that the aim of these measures in the first place is to make our streets safer and to put the few terrorists, rapists and murderers who slip through the net in jail where they belong. Any renegade officers, such as Mark Kearney, who abuse this power are promptly dealt with, rooted out through the fierce scrutiny applied by the Information Commissioner's Office and the Houses of Parliament.

This brings us back to bugging, one of the most contraversial aspects of police surveillance. The main reason why I have not said much on this so far is because the Police are about to go before the Home Affairs committee to be grilled on the Siddique Khan case specifically and I feel that such testimony would make a much better background for a piece on bugging than just my own random musings. But to address it briefly; every police officer I have discussed this with has defended the bugging of MPs when talking to terrorist suspects, especially when the two share a friendship, as necessary for the MP's protection above all else. This defence runs along the lines that an old friend with intimate knowledge of an elected representative's past or simply an emotional connection could attempt to bribe or blackmail an MP to pull strings for them to secure their release outside of due process. How much you buy in to this ultimately depends on how much or how little you trust the Police, but as someone who was initially horrified by the revelations as well as someone who does have a great deal of faith in the integrity of our security services, I was willing to accept this. Although the more cynical alternative remains: that the Police are bugging MPs sensitive conversations so they can coerce them for their own ends, the threat posed by empowering elected officials alone to authorise such activities seems greater to me. After all Joe McCarthy wasn't a police officer.

To conclude, as much as I am grateful to the press for leaving no stone unturned -once they get interested- and even the likes of Liberty for taking it upon themselves to oppose what they see as being breaches of my privacy, I still think they are missing a trick here. Rather than focusing on the seemingly uninhibited surveillance methods of private sector companies who answer only to their shareholders and are motivated only by profit, they allow their instinctive suspicion of the State to cloud their judgement. Whereas someone like me is happy for the State to be as large or small as circumstances require as long as it is under my instruction as a voter and accountable to me as a citizen, they won't be happy until they roll its frontiers as far back as they can go. Getting their way, however, would only succeed in making us more vulnerable to serious crimes and terrorist atrocities - although I don't want to demonise them as if any future terrorist attack could be blamed squarely upon Shami Chakrabarti. In the meantime, Tesco will still be offering my details to the highest bidder even though I made a conscious choice to shop at Waitrose (Sainsbury's at a push) a long time ago.