True Grit

A Government's resolve is invariably tested as it approaches
mid-term. PM Dave's recently handling of the Coalition has seen some distinct policy wobbles over the NHS and education which hints at a growing soft-centre. Perhaps his inexperience is coming to the fore again.

Ken Clarke's long-telegraphed penal reforms were carelessly dumped this week. Clumsy old Ken had made a good case for turning away from New Labour's inspired 'punishment first' criminal justice agenda. For a country where crime has fallen for a dozen years, it is more than an anomaly for prison numbers to be constantly at a record high. Slashing the numbers of pointless custodial sentences and the 11,000 needlessly put on remand anually, would also go along way to saving the £2bn demanded to sate the Treasury machine.

Dave sat Clarkey down this week and told him 'no dice' - the power of the right wing media and backbench headbangers was too strong. So the Coalition's sole progresive policy was binned in favour of reactionary prejudice. If Cameron want to achieve status of a PM with a bold vision then this is a mere political molehill compared to the mountain he has yet to climb. This policy triangulation typified Brown's premiership where No.10 evetually reached a state of paralysed fear of upsetting anyone.

Ken is back at the drawing board and must be wondering what his place in the Cabinet is for. Cameron's special advisers must be whispering the same.

Break the Silence

I am not sure of the scale of Richard Branson's wealth but beyond his music business he also owns a train line, an air line and is in the process of acquiring 440 of Lloyd's bank branches. So undeniably successful.

However, according to his interview with the Guardian on Saturday, Mr Branson is an occassional cannabis user.

In response, the Home Office trotted out its familiar line about drug use simply bringing, "misery to communities." How do we reconcile this? The fact is, Government spokespeople, when referring to drugs, invariably paint the picture of heroin addiction which amounts to quite a small amount of drug use.

Branson was not just indulging the journalist, he was promoting his role in the Global Commission on Drug Policy. There has not yet been such an august group of senior policy-makers from around the world who have lobbied for change on UN drug laws- including former Presidents of Mexico, Brazil, Kofi Annan and chaired by George Schultz who was Secretary of State under Reagan.

These respected figures cannot be dismissed as reckless radicals nor could they be accused of political naivety. Yet their modest recommendations were condemned strongly by the US drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, reverting to language of fear, he said, "Drug addiction is a disease...."

The reactionary politicians had an ally in most media who sought to trivialise or demean this worthy attempt at reform. At the same time a group of peers, MPs and senior police wrote to the PM asking for a review of the equally obsolete Misuse of Drugs Act. The open letter was also signed by Mike Leigh and Judi Dench so was dismissed as "Luvvies for Legalisation."

The War on Drugs, set in motion by Richard Nixon, is a hopeless failure. Ian Birrell in the Observer put it succinctly when he portayed its supporters as WWI generals unable to change tactics and oblivious to the human cost.

King of the Twits

The extra-ordinarily famous, philandering footballer who was exposed by disgruntled Tweeters, has now, incredibly sought to bring a case against a journalist who also mentioned his name. It is rather unlikely the hack in question was the first, as thousands of tweets have included the player's name - that medium seems to talk of little else.

These issues are not just gossip; they touch on Parliamentary sovereignty, privacy law, press freedom. But ultimately it is all about money. The footballer is not a callow youth and should know the game is up on protecting his children about his infidelity. His huge weekly wage, spent on grateful lawyers, cannot resolve it. Not even the most gifted silk can promise his client he can actually reverse time or eradicate the new media.

But this striker must have been somewhat encouraged by Lord Igor Judge who gave an extra-ordinarily assessment of injunctions on Friday, exposing his antiquated knowledge of modern communication. "Are you really going to say," inquired Judge Judge, " that someone who has a true claim for protection, perfctly well made, has to be at the mercy of modern technology?"

The answer to his poser appears to be, emphatically YES - partly because the protection this Welsh player insisted on was only possible given his wealth. It was not instilled against outside forces but deemed necessary given his sexual conquests despite being a family man. When the Judge berated websites "peddling lies" the same could be said for the famous left-winger who seeks to perpetuate the myth of his honesty as a husband and father.

The Judge also took a swipe at Parliamentarians who chose to use absolute Parliamentary privilege to expose the most absurd injunctions such Fred Goodwin's (no doubt his media ban was deemed "a claim for protection perfectly well made".) Without their actions which are fully allowable under the Contempt of Court Act 1981, we might not have learned very much about these Kafka-esque machinations in the High Court.

This player from a big club in the north west of England has, very foolishly, instructed lawyers to act against Twitter itself and threaten a prominent BBC journo with jail. Firstly, British law does not apply in San Francisco and Twitter Execs would be well advised to respond with a bemused, declining response. Second, the journo can just wait. By the time any case came to court, the footballer's identity will be even further in the public domain. Any case would have to be tried anonymously which opposes the guiding principle of open justice. In fact any case brought by the footballer would almost certainly mean he would be compelled to identify himself. We are close to the legal madhouse now.

As you may have noticed, throughout this article, I have scattered enough clues to make a 'jigsaw' indentification of the player. But I am not very fearful. The information is small currency now. It's even on Wikipedia and the front of Scotland's Sunday Herald.

In an ideal world, the connection between him and Ms Imogen Thomas (also being sued) would be made very public through crowd chants at Saturday's Champions League final, which is another clue. Perhaps then he would question whether it was practical to sue 35,000 Barcelona fans for revealing the knoweldge which is now already widespread.

* Apparently his name was reverberating around Old Trafford yesterday thanks to thousands of Blackpool fans. Tough gig.

With a Stain on Your Name

The case against former Met Commander Ali Dezaei lacked a certain robustness from the start (See blog entry March 2010 'One Way or Another').

His release from custody this week is not the end of the story. Although the main witness in the trial was found to be thoroughly unreliable (using a false name in court for a start) he still faces a re-trial.

For that reason I am unable to say much more in view of the law on Contempt of Court. But it was astonishing Mrs Devaei was easily able to uncover the witness's deception when the investigating team did not.

Can You Hear Me at the Back?

The British Tea Party still has some way to go. I trundled down through masses of tourists on Saturday morning to witness the rising of the new Right but failed to spot it.

In Old Palace Yard, opposite Parliament, were about 250 Pro-Cut protestors, John Harris in the Guardian described it as, "not so much a crowd, more of a long queue". The sound system was very poor so not a word culd be heard above the buses and taxis. The Counter demo was one crusty and only five coppers stood around looking at their watches.

From small acorns to mighty oaks? No. This is going nowhere if they can't pull in their own supporters. And politically inept - one sign said curiously "Abolish the Bank of England" and another, rather artlessly "Socialism is Rubbish."

I was asked to sign some anti-trade union Early Day Motion (only MPs can do that). When I refused, assertively, the two sweaty guys in bad suits got rather antsy. The crowd were generally like them, all blokes, all white, upper middle class who looked like they had got lost on their way to the Proms.

Fear not, the future does not belong to them.

Back to Basics

I never really rated Alex Salmond as a politician. He always seemed to over or understate every case and make Nationalist politics of any issue whether justified or not. Now by luck and design Salmond has won an overall majority for the SNP in Holyrood.

Whether he is bumptious and arrogant, it matters not, Salmond could teach Nick Clegg a thing or two about politics. On the issue of a referendum, Salmond is aware of the golden rule - only hold won when you know you are going to win.

Clegg's hamfisted handling of the local elections and AV vote expose him as extraordinarily naive. Cameron has shown he is politically smarter on strategy than before but he was fortunate to have a fall guy to push under the train in his place. He made the most of it and showed his "ruthless" skills. Clegg now is trying to re-assert some authority over the NHS reforms, like a jilted wife insisting she is not going to clean her fiance's shoes.

Ed Milliband's gain of 800 council seats was offset by a bit of a disaster at the hands of the SNP. But the regions are not really the business of Labour HQ, the bare fact is Wales had Carwen Jones a leader with great charisma and authority. Scottish Labour had Ian Grey who is so dull he makes John Major look like Jack Kennedy.

Slowly the Tories are gaining strength. If Clegg doesn't realise he is just a conduit to a longer more established Tory Government you would have to wonder what he really knows about politics at all.

Destroying Democracy

It was certainly overstating the point when David Cameron made a last minute plea to the nation that adopting AV would "destroy" Britain's democracy. It is hard from any perspective to see how this minor shuffling of votes would have any significant change on Parliamentary democracy.

But Dave's hysteria looks shallow and puerile when we witness what democracy under a frontal assualt, like in Syria now. The scenes of massacre against unarmed protesters reveals the brutal regime of President Assad and the extraordinary bravery of the people who oppose him.

Today is expected to be the bloodiest once marches start after Friday prayers. Assad would have had an allay in suppressing democracy in Osama Bin Laden. But his killing this week has again changed the prism through which we view Middle East politics. Bin Laden, although an advocate in the annihilation of individual freedoms, would also have denounced Assad for his western dress and the modernisation of Syrian society where girls are permitted some level of education.

It is still fairly astonishing Bin Laden had the following he did when his vision was to regress to a pre-Medieval utopia where the Koran was the start, middle and finish of every day and where women were mere doormats and all Christians, Hindus and Jews were worthless infidels. This religio-fascistic society could hardly be more opposed to democratic freedom.

Democracy is often banal even boring but for the people of Damascus, Misrata and Bahrain, a life and death struggle.