The Russians are Coming

Vladimir Putin made a very significant speech this weekend. An edited version is now available on Comment is Free. The central theme of his speech is encapsulated in this paragraph:

Today we are witnessing an almost unrestrained hyper-use of force - military force - in international relations, a force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts. As a result we do not have sufficient strength to find a comprehensive solution to any one of these conflicts. Finding a political settlement also becomes impossible. We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. One country, the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations.

Putin, the wily ex-KGB officer, knows full well that it's a message which will be well received by huge numbers of people all over the world. I certainly can't find much fault with the message itself but that doesn't mean it's time to join the Vladimir fan club. Putin is seeking to exploit the whole "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing but he's really not the sort of man progressives ought to be befriending.

And not just because of Alexander Litvinenko, Chechnya, or Russian restrictions on the operation of NGO's.

There are underlying motivations to Putin's speech and they shouldn't be ignored. Russia's involvement with the Iranian nuclear programme and it's wider economic relationship with Iran is the most obvious. Putin's opposition to military action against Iran should be welcomed but it should also be recognised that it's a position based largely in a desire to protect Russian national interests.

And, while it would be an exaggeration to say that Putin seeks a return to the days of the Cold War, it is clear that this speech signals a desire to build a new coalition which would challenge the current hegemony of the United States. Potential allies might include China and India but there's no doubt that Putin expects Russia to lead this new alliance. Again, Russian national interests are the driving force in this desire to challenge American dominance of international relations.

This might still appear useful to progressives worried about the current U.S. administration's unilateral approach to international affairs but it doesn't offer the prospect of any real reform of the way nation-states interact with each other. Putin isn't standing up for multilateralism, he's attempting to recreate a bipolar world with his nation at the head of one of the two dominant blocks.

Putin's message may be appealing but his proposed solution is a return to the past, not a step into the future.

"Blog Wars"

"Guido" has agreed to give an interview to Sunny at Pickled Politics. He wants a "fair hearing" apparently. Now there's an irony of genuinely monumental proportions. Fair play to Sunny for offering Paul something which Paul himself never considers offering to others. Likewise Tim and Justin and others.

Given his own attitude towards such things, it will be interesting to hear Paul explain why he threw a hissy fit and threatened to take everyone to court yesterday. Whatever happened to "If you don't like it, don't read it"?

Meanwhile, Iain has decided that playing the victim card is the way to go after all. How very noble...

I didn't highlight this before, but here's a further titbit about Iain which might explain a little more about the reason why he's become involved in the "blog war". After my post on his refusal to answer my questions on Nicholas Boles, Policy Exchange and a certain party political issue - a genuine attempt to ask questions on matters of fact - Iain turned up in the comments to my post to say this:

nice to see you have deleted my comment I left last night.

I've checked and the comment was definitely left by someone signed in using Iain's blogger account. I think it's reasonably safe to assume that it was Iain. As I said at the time, I did no such thing. Iain did not respond again however; he was happy to just leave his allegation hanging there.

Now, it seems to me that there are two possibilities here. The first is that Iain made a spurious accusation against me in an attempt to deflect attention and/or make me look bad.

The second is that Blogger somehow lost Iain's comment. Since I switched from Haloscan to Blogger comments, no-one has ever made a complaint about a missing comment before and I'm not aware of this being a problem for Blogger users. Nevertheless, the possibility cannot be ruled out completely.

Iain, however, certainly did rule out that possibility. He made a specific and unqualified allegation against me which was entirely false. When challenged, he didn't withdraw it or offer an apology; he let it stand. That's not the sort of thing you'd expect from someone who says they like blogging because it enables conversation. At best, Iain has made an ill-advised claim in the heat of the moment which he now ought to withdraw. At worst, he has deliberately attempted to smear me.

I'm not really a fan of the victim card myself but I'd ask you to consider what chance I'd have of getting Iain to retract his spurious accusation.

Again, I must stress that for me, this whole issue is only coincidentally related to left and right. What I'm currently attempting to do is point out the ways in which two of the U.K.'s most prominent bloggers behave.

It'd be nice to think that these two people, underneath it all, are human beings who might now be reflecting on the way they treat other people on the interwebs. At this stage, however, and particularly in light of Iain's post today, I have to say that that doesn't look likely.

Update

More reactions to Iain's latest post.

Bloggerheads: Iain Dale plays the victim... again

Ministry of Truth: Open Letter to Iain Dale

Obsolete: Ceasefire?

Tygerland: Iain's Wet Rebuttal

Busy again this morning but here's something I've noticed.

That post by "Guido" attempting to mock Tom Watson for having to disappear a story has, er, disappeared. It's not been corrected or updated, it's just vanished into the ether. You'd never even know it had been there if you hadn't seen "Guido's" site yesterday.

Interesting.

President George W. Bush has finally gone on record with specific allegations against the Iranian government. Oh no, hang on:

The US officials, speaking off camera on condition of anonymity...

What's that all about then?

Scottish Blog Roundup 18 is out now.

Yes, it's late. Bet you can't guess whose turn it was this week...

Been busy today but I can't help but notice that Iain still hasn't apologised. In light of that, I've taken the opportunity to add a button to the blog to highlight a true statement. Just to emphasise the point, the difference between this and a smear is that this is a true statement.

Get them while they're hot.

Guardian: How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish

Paul Bremer, the head of the CPA, reminded the committee that "the subject of today's hearing is the CPA's use and accounting for funds belonging to the Iraqi people held in the so-called Development Fund for Iraq. These are not appropriated American funds. They are Iraqi funds. I believe the CPA discharged its responsibilities to manage these Iraqi funds on behalf of the Iraqi people."

Bremer's financial adviser, retired Admiral David Oliver, is even more direct. The memorandum quotes an interview with the BBC World Service. Asked what had happened to the $8.8bn he replied: "I have no idea. I can't tell you whether or not the money went to the right things or didn't - nor do I actually think it's important."

Q: "But the fact is billions of dollars have disappeared without trace."

Oliver: "Of their money. Billions of dollars of their money, yeah I understand. I'm saying what difference does it make?"

Brian 1 - 0 Politicians

Brian Haw has won this year's Channel 4 award for Most Inspiring Political Figure.

Mr Haw received 54 per cent of the votes cast by the public in the channel's political awards for 2007.

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British Army, who embarrassed the Government by saying troops should be withdrawn from Iraq, came second with 18 per cent.

Tony Blair was backed by eight per cent and David Cameron by six per cent.

Excellent.

Like one tiny water molecule in a very large wave, my own small effort to encourage people to vote for Brian was entirely surplus to requirements.

The boy wonder's six percent really is quite astonishing. He polled even fewer votes than the stupendously unpopular Mr Blair.

When Cameron told Blair that "he was the future once" he was right. Now, of course, he's finished (although he appears not to have realised it). It's hard to even be interested in pointing out the absurdities of what he says any more. Proper enquiries into his behaviour during his time at Number 10, particularly with regard to Iraq, are what I'm waiting for now.

And yet, the boy wonder, as leader of the opposition to a government which is widely reviled, still doesn't seem to be the future.

(And the Lib Dems are not going any better either. They really need to up their game.)

We can safely assume that the result of the Channel 4 vote demonstrates the unprecedented levels of public dissatisfaction with politicians of all stripes which currently exists in this country. Rather than fighting over the scraps using the same methods (sometimes wrapped up in shiny new packaging), politicians should be attempting to rebuild confidence and genuinely re-engage with the badly disillusioned public.

The opportunity is there. People still care about politics; they just don't care for scheming politicians.

PS - "Guido" is a tool.

Bloggerheads: Iain Dale is a lying liar.

Update


Iain is having a "rare" night off tonight so it looks like an apology is not imminent.

It would be churlish to speculate as to whether he's preparing the full apology or the already overused victim card. Decisions, decisions...

Simon Jenkins: This aerial onslaught is war at its most stupid

Watching a person kill another is the purest horror. Watching it done from the air, from a sanitised distance, is less so. Distance launders the bloodletting and technology purifies it. War becomes another video game. The camera sees no broken bodies. If it sees a mistake it does not see the mistake that caused the mistake.

The Non-Existent Neo-Con Nonsense

Guido 2.0: Iain Dale and the non-existent neo-cons

Iain 1 - 0 Strawman

Thinking about this, and looking back on previous posts, I've realised that I'd been rather careless in something I'd written last week about 18 Tory Street. I wrote:

Fox News Lite was exactly what it looked like.

This was careless in two ways.

1. It would be very easy to misrepresent what I meant.
2. It is possible that some people genuinely misunderstood what I meant.
   

It was one of those moments where I knew what I meant and didn't clarify the matter because I presumed it was obvious. Careless.

To avoid any possible confusion, here's a clarification of the point I wanted to make. The short version is that 18 Tory Street looks exactly like Fox News Lite in the context of the British political scene.

Fox News is stacked full of neo-cons and various other Republicans talking heads discussing whatever subject from an (American) conservative perspective. Internal memos from the man responsible for the editorial direction of FOX News clearly demonstrate a desire to push the agenda of the Republican Party. They do this under the banner "Fair and Balanced". Satire truly is dead.

18 Doughty Street is not literally exactly like that. It isn't stacked full of neo-cons and various other Republican talking heads. That isn't the point of the comparison at all.

18 Doughty Street is about the Tories, not the neo-cons.

18DoughtyStreet Talk TV launched in October as Britain's first political internet TV channel. It describes itself as "an anti-establishment TV station on the internet" with "citizen journalist reporters" who will be "championing rebel opinions" and "constantly questioning authority". But its five directors are all former Conservative candidates or employees and it advertised for staff in America with the claim that it would be "Like Fox News".

18DoughtyStreet streams up to five hours a night of political chat (talk radio for the eyes) untroubled by Ofcom regulations that require "due impartiality" from broadcasters. And it is not subject to Ofcom's Broadcasting Code that states, "No politician may be used as a newsreader, interviewer or reporter in any news programmes unless, exceptionally, it is editorially justified. In that case, the political allegiance of that person must be made clear to the audience."

It's like Fox News in the context of the British political scene. It's stacked full of Tories and various other conservative talking heads.

Now, you may say that an internet TV station directed by former Conservative candidates or employees is obviously going to strongly favour the Tories and you'd be right.

Sometimes, it can be a good thing to state the obvious. This is especially true when there are signs that "anti-establishment" positioning and use of "citizen journalist reporters" is intended to draw attention away from the obvious and add "real world" authenticity to a venture clearly run by members of the Conservative Party.

(Just to clarify, as well as Iain, I believe that actual real world citizen journalists are also used occasionally. That provides bonus authenticity points. They might not be quite so keen on citizen journalism if someone wanted to make a film about Nicholas Boles using time and/or facilities provided by Policy Exchange to create a home for a personal website with a clear party-political purpose, however.)

18 Tory Street is not currently subject to Ofcom's Broadcasting Code. For this reason if no other, some scrutiny of their activities is almost certainly in order.

Do the directors of 18 Tory Street welcome that scrutiny? Perhaps it's too early to come to a definitive conclusion but one of them doesn't appear to be hugely enamoured by the idea.

New Statesmen: Not Bright's Blog III - Guido j'accuse!

British political blogging saw an outburst of internecine strife in the last few weeks as two of blogging’s biggest names trained their artillery on each other.

Campaigning blogger, Tim Ireland of Bloggerheads fame, broke a fragile ceasefire by opening a front on the notorious Westminster gossip peddler Guido Fawkes. Tim’s beef with Guido is largely a charge of rank hypocrisy.

Read more.

Top stuff.

The Fog of War

Jalal Sharafi, an Iranian diplomat, has apparently been kidnapped in Iraq.

The Iranians are claiming that the kidnapping was the work of a group linked to Iraq's defence ministry "which works under the supervision of American forces". The American authorities have denied any involvement.

The kidnappers were wearing Iraqi army uniforms (36th Commando Battalion) and there is a possibility that were carrying official Defence Ministry identification.

A senior Iraqi official said that the credentials initially appeared to be genuine but that investigators later received conflicting information about whether the men had been dismissed from the ministry but somehow kept their identification.

According to Reuters, six of the kidnappers were caught by the Iraqi police but have since disappeared.

The official said that police close to the scene opened fire on the gunmen and arrested six of them. Later, another security force came to the police station and said they were taking the six to the Serious Crimes building in Baghdad but the police discovered later that they never arrived there.

Curiouser and curiouser.

In truth, there's really know way to know what actually happened to Mr Sharifi. There are any number of possibilities and speculating on those possibilities is probably pointless. It is strange that the captured kidnappers seem to have vanished but strange things happen in Iraq every day.

What is clear is that this kidnapping is only going to increase the current extremely high levels of tension between the U.S. and Iranian government's.

This is an experiment. Please ignore.

Iain has just switched on comment moderation. Interesting.

Who thinks the most outlandish anonymous allegations, and hence the easiest to refute, are the one's most likely to make it past Mr Moderator? Just so his readers know what Iain has to deal with, you understand...

Anyway, it's competition time. Your specialist subject is Nicholas Boles.

The Richard Gere Moment

That name had to come up eventually and now it has finally happened. I've blogged as CuriousHamster for nearly two years now so I suppose I should be grateful it has taken this long but I've always known it was only a matter of time before someone took the obvious cheap shot. Tonight's the night. I'm not good at all that suspense stuff so I'll tell you who it was straight away. It was Iain Dale.

For a full understanding of the rest of this, you'll need to have read this first.

OK?

Right, here are some facts.

Iain Dale is a trustee of a think tank called Policy Exchange.

Iain Dale is also one of the directors of 18 Doughty Street. He's in charge of scheduled programming.

18 Doughty Street is about to make an attack ad targeting Ken Livingstone, the current Labour major of London.

Nicholas Boles is the director of Policy Exchange.

Nicholas Boles is also reported to be the front-runner in the race to become Conservative candidate for major of London. Although Ken won't be standing again, any attacks on the current Labour major which drives down Labour's poll ratings could be of significant benefit the Tories come election time. In particular, they could be of significant benefit to Nicholas Boles.

In the interest of openness and transparency, I thought I'd ask Iain about these facts in the comments to his post plugging the attack on Livingstone. Iain's answers are most revealing but perhaps not in quite the way he'd like.

So is Mr Boles, the Policy Exchange director, still the front front-runner to be the Conservatives London mayoral candidate? Who knows? It's difficult to tell from Iain's answers whether he's even still a candidate.

I didn't think it was appropriate to trouble an independent charity with a request for information on what is obviously a party political issue so I've emailed a request for a full list of the candidates to Conservative HQ instead. Can't imagine it's the sort of thing the Conservatives are keeping secret so we'll hopefully find out what Mr Boles' position is soon enough. I've said this already but it really is quite surprising that Iain doesn't know.

Anyway, I'd like to point out for the record that I have never met Richard Gere. Not even once.

And finally tonight, a quickfire quizz. Who said "It's when I read this sort of rubbish that I know it's hitting home"? Was it:

A) Pete Doherty
B) Rocky VIII
C) Iain Dale

And at the buzzer...

Update

Just in case anyone isn't aware of it, this unlikely possibility having only just occurred to me, the Gere story is an urban myth. And the Great Wall of China is not the only man made object visible from space either. Vigorously mock anyone who suggests that it is. The wall is how wide exactly? And that's wider than, say, a motorway then, is it? Urban myths. Bah!

Tree Hugging Hippy Crap

Yesterday, the U.S. government published their latest National Intelligence Estimate.

The intelligence community judges that the term 'civil war' does not adequately capture the complexity of the conflict in Iraq, which includes extensive Shia-on-Shia violence, al-Qaida and Sunni insurgent attacks on coalition forces, and widespread criminally motivated violence.

"None the less, the term 'civil war' accurately describes key elements of the Iraqi conflict, including the hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilisation, and population displacements."

The 16 separate U.S. intelligence services who together compile the report, on the record, said that Iraq's civil war is only one of the problems facing the country.

I guess all 16 agencies have been infiltrated and subverted by those dastardly Bush hating liberal media types...

There was also supposed to be a briefing on Iranian "meddling" in Iraq yesterday but that has been postponed (via).

The NIE downplays Iranian involvement in Iraq's sectarian violence.

The involvement of these outside actors is not likely to be a major driver of violence or the prospects for stability because of the self-sustaining character of Iraq's internal sectarian dynamics.

Bloody appeasers...

Tim at Bloggerheads has been trying to ask Iain Dale some questions this week. I've had a wee go too.

A brief summary of the state of play so far.

Iain Dale made a film claiming that the Smith Institute, which operates as an independent charity, is too close to Gordon Brown.

Iain Dale is a trustee of right centre think tank Policy Exchange.

Policy Exchange, which operates as an independent charity, looks to be just a bit close to David Cameron.

Questions were asked about this.

Iain's response has been most informative. New Labour trolls? Oh dear.

The Long Goodbye, Part 94

The captain is merrily steering the ship directly towards an enormous iceberg, every alarm on board is flashing in that way that really alarming alarms do, and the crew are still busy discussing the finer points of a smooth and orderly transition.

Those of a sensitive disposition may want to look away now.

The Questions Iain Dale Should Answer

First, an important point. I don't have a problem with Tories blogging. I have a problem with these Tories blogging.

Personally, I have no interest in playing down the Smith Institute story or diverting attention away from it. My view is that both main parties sail very close to the wind when it comes to their relationship to "independent" think tanks. This is about something else.

The short version (a longer version is in the pipeline) is that the Tories may finally be managing to create the impression that they are electable and that they're using the interwebs as an important part of that process. As such, their behaviour ought to be scrutinised in a way that it really hasn't been up till now. I believe this is essential if we are to have any hope of actually improving the standard of behaviour of our politicians, particularly on the interwebs but more generally too. I'm sure most people (party types aside) would agree that an improvement is desperately needed.

So, following on from Unity's post on Policy Exchange, I did some googling to see what other people had to say about this "independent" think tank and it's director

The Globalisation Institute: Britain's most influential policy wonks

Nicholas Boles is part of the Notting Hill Set of Conservatives surrounding Tory leader David Cameron. The think tank he founded, Policy Exchange, very much sets the ethos of the Cameron leadership, and publications from Boles's organisation are very likely to be adopted by Cameron as Tory policy. A future Cabinet minister.

Spin Watch: After Blair

But The Smith Institute, named after ex-Labour leader John Smith and set up to pursue a social justice agenda, is closest to Brown. Bell Pottinger's Bingle goes as far as to say: 'The Smith Institute will provide the strategy and context under which Brown operates. [Its director] Wilf Stevenson is the holder of the Brown agenda, bringing it all together and moulding it.'

Policy Exchange has correspondingly strong ties to Cameron. It was set up three years ago by director Nicholas Bowles, the MP Michael Gove and Francis Maude.

Bowles says its key areas of interest will be economic competitiveness, security and terrorism, childcare, the environment and public service reform. A main income source is a 'business forum' that companies pay £5,000 to £10,000 to be part of. Members include BP, SAB Miller, BSkyB and Bupa.

'Corporates want intelligence about the policy directions and instincts of how a Cameron-led government would think', he explains.
[my emphasis]

An "independent" charity which openly charges money to corporations for providing inside intelligence on the way the leader of the Conservative Party thinks?

Here's my favourite.

Reform (no lefties there): The champions of New Politics

Policy Exchange (PE), founded by Tory MP Michael Gove and chaired by the former Daily Telegraph editor Charles Moore, is closely tied to David Cameron.

[...]

While Reform's closest links at the top of the Tory party are with David Davis, the home secretary, Policy Exchange is tied to Cameron and his 'Notting Hill' advisors.

Policy Exchange claims to be the most progressive of the Tory think tanks. Boles, 41, is severely critical of Blair, arguing that his failure to be radical during his third tenure has been a disaster for him and the government. PE has about 15 different events and interviews on the fringe at Bournemouth this week and it's a fair bet that Boles will have had a hand in Cameron's big speech tomorrow.
[my emphasis]

The director of an "independent" think-tank being rude about Tony Blair and helping the boy wonder write his conference speech?

And here's Jesse Norman, a senior fellow at Policy Exchange and already selected as a Conservative candidate at the next election, having a wee cheer for Cameron and a wee pop at Brown (and plugging a book) in the comments at CiF. I hope he wasn't doing that on "independent" charity time...

So when Iain Dale, Conservative A-lister and trustee of the "independent" Policy Exchange, Cameron's favourite conservative think tank, makes lots of noise on the interwebs about Brown's overly close connections to an "independent" charity while failing to mention his own connections to a very similar organisation with very similar connections to the boy wonder, I'm inclined to believe that it wasn't a great day for standards of openness and transparency in political life on the interwebs. I am, rather, inclined to think about pots and kettles, glass houses and dirty tricks.

That's what this is about.