Liberal Provocateur

.. that's a gain from the Liberal Democrats.

Rastus Odinga Odinga has taken Wolverhampton Southwest, that's Enoch Powell's old constituency -- an important gain there for Darkie Power.

Arthur Negus has held Bristols -- that's not a result, that's just a piece of gossip.

Sir Alec Douglas Home has taken Oldham for the Stone Dead party.

... And so it's beginning to look like a Silly landslide, and with the prospect of five more years' Silly government facing us.

n.b. When somebody said about the pink pussycat on irc.. I believed it.. d'oh.. posted here in the hope that somebody else might fall for it.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/speaker/speakers/irene/ - I just watched her final speach, it was astonishing, even more astonishing is that I can't think of a UK politician in recent memory ever delivering something so good. Clegg and Cameron could learn a thing or two from her.

The BBC Breakfast editorial team seem to really have an agenda on cannabis, once agin this morning they wheeled out a reformed cannabis abuser and his mum to say how it's horrible really and you shouldn't touch the stuff.

It's infuriating that anecdotes seem to trump science, they didn't even bother attempting balance - throwing softball or scripted questions, no doctor, no scientist, nothing.

We never get anything about prescription drugs, or alcohol, yes they continue to demonize cannabis.

God forbid that anyboy be allowed to use anything naughty in moderation - it's ok for the presenters to have a couple of glasses of wine a night, but drugs are *bad* and "even trying them will run your life".

.. Looks like this is tied in with the new homeoffice "talk to frank" campaign on soft drugs - the "impartial" service that's part of the home office and follows their bizarre logic on drugs - playing down the dangers of alcohol and playing up the dangers of anything the home office feels it needs to "send a message" on.

Have you ever seen any "talk to frank" ads about the dangers of underage drinking? No, of course not.

f**ktards.

It looks to me that the Lib Dems are being left behind by the Tories and Labour when it comes to new technology.

As far as I can see, nobody at Cowley Street or the Shadow Cabinet. even a junior minister has any knowledge, remit or portfolio for Information and Communication, while even labour has Lord Carter of Barnes, as the Communications Minister.

Lynne Featherstone now has a job championing e-campaigning, but nobody is doing an iota about technology policy - try getting a policy from any MP on any loosely technical subject and with the honorable exception of John Pugh MP, few of them will know anything about the Internet beyond that 'facebook is popular, and I click the little blue icon to get the internet'.

Something is very wrong indeed when how to use technology to win some council seats or discuss speed limits in some village in somerset, has a load of priority and publicity, but how to turn around public sector waste and failure on IT projects and spending, or how we should handle the problems of governance of nominet and the UK TLD, or how we should be shaping the future of communications and technology through groups like BSI, ICANN and ITU or the UN are unmentioned, unheard of and those in charge of the party and policy are utterly clueless about them.

This week both the Tories and Labour have come out with Policies and Reports, The Lib Dems have done zip, nada, zilch in the last decade in this area and our new president with all her talk of reform and modernity hasn't made a sound on the subject.

Colour me very unimpressed.

I get mailshots asking me to write software for free to help campaigners - I don't see many other professions providing pretty expensive services for free, and certainly not when they have absolutely zero representation or input in policy!

I already commit enough time writing open source software that I'll actually use, I'd even consider writing code for worthwhile projects like MySociety, but Cowley Street is happy to shell out a fortune for expensive marketing experts and people to cold call and ask for yet more cash again for a bunch of faceless councillors I never hear from... *sigh*

curtis poe posted an interesting entry on his blog this morning, I think it sums up much of what I think when I hear hardline libertarians like Charlotte or Tristan or hardline lefties like um.. no I can't think of any hardline lefties I find worth reading ;)

The Software of Economics and "Logic Smells"

That's pretty shocking

Money collection is pretty heavily regulated, particularly when it comes to actual enforcement with bailiffs, having dealt with debt collectors and bailiffs, I certainly wouldn't want them to have more power than they already do.

My experience is that Bailiffs and debt collectors will be sent to the wrong address, be requested to enforce disputed payments or even fraudulent invoices as well as various errors.

I've never had a dealing with a bailiff or debt collector regarding a debt that I actually owed :
* for somebody elses business that I ran the website for (which was also disputed, and being the guy who ran the website I helped to deal with the dispute, and was livid that Citylink were trying to bill for a package sent by another of their customers from a totally different address and it was clearly a fault in their system).
* for a gas bill unpaid by a previous tennant
* for rental arrears by Felicity J Lord on a property they forgot to update on their automated billing system, which nobody spotted until threatening letters arrived in the post

I've heard of friends receiving fraudulent threats by both criminals and legitmate businesses.

That's why we need to ensure debt collection and recovery / enforcement is tighly regulated - it's the most vulnerable people who are on the receiving end, and it's used carelessly, badly or fraudulently - the last thing we need to do is allow the use of force.

Yes, I've seen it. Yes, I have a working link, no I won't provide it.

The BNP blog comments are fill of "The Reds will firebomb my pub" and "now I'll get grief from every coon who comes into the shop"... so no paranoia or prejudice there then..

A quick look at the (badly formatted, what's wrong with XML or csv that you can fire a perl script at to look at fun statistics like how many members aren't renewing, or are in active service) data is a huge long list of addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses and rather than likely to result in "terrorism" that the panicing muppets are concerned about are a gift to id fraudsters - maiden names, previous addresses, ages, telephone numbers, family members - about 30 mins and you should be able to extract the choiciest details and start stealing identities.

Kerry McCarthy (Labour Member of Parliament for Bristol East) and Bastard Old Holborn (Libertarian Blogger) both manage to be wrong in quite spectacular different ways on their respective blogs.

Supposesly libertarian Old Holborn shows his Tory colours with his racist (although he'd call it un-PC) calls to round up and imprison without trial all the 'immigrants' in St Pauls because the Police 'know who they are' and that apparently prostitution is all the fault of open immigration, not exactly liberal or libertarian.

Kerry McCarthy manages to totally miss the point about the 1984 postings and claims that the LPUKers are making an organised attack on her blog, thing is - they're quite right that she doesn't get it : her voting record and support for her party show she is pro-authoritarian, supporting everything from extending detention without trial to larger DNA databases and ID Cards, while refusing to come out in favour of the pretty well argued liberalisation that would greatly reduce the prostitution problems she describes - quite how she can complain about BMW driving businessmen, while her government keeps the pimps in power by criminalising drugs and forcing heroin users into crime, I don't understand - probably because she's managed to get the hang of doublethink as described in 1984.

Interestingly these two blogs show the uglyness and inconsistent of the rabid socialists ("The state is there to look after, protect the people from themselves") and the Tory/Libertarians like Guido and Old Holborn ("YOU voted for criminals to have more rights than their victims. Not me.").

OTOH both manage to get a few things right, Kerry obviously puts some effort into her constituency work, and OH "organised" a pleasant stroll to westminster in appropriate fancy dress on Guy Fawkes night, the LPUK 1984 book campaign was a good idea and brilliantly timed.. I think that like David Davis, they can sometimes do the right thing on principle that deserves support and applause, even if much of the time I disagree with them and hold some of their views in contempt.

p.s. neglected to post it here on 5th november, but I love this variation of the Obama Hope poster 

W T F ? Seriously! What F**king gives here ?

Cold calls are viewed as nuisence calls by almost everybody, automated (i.e. wardialling) calls with a recorded message have been sensibly outlawed in the US and are the one of the biggest causes of complaints to OFCOM because they are notoriously unreliable, as well as unwelcome, silent calls or pre-recorded messages are even more unwelcome than zealous party activists.

I recently got a phone call from Cowley St asking for a donation to help fund this stupid idea, except of course they couldn't tell me what they planned to spend the money on.

That's one of the really galling things about being a party member, you don't get any input on campaigning, and if you want to do or say anything it's always the same response : "here deliver these leaflets (that people will throw in the recycling unread)" or "if it matters to you come to conference, and put forward a motion", those two things seem to be the answer to everything.

All I asked for is some accountability on campaign spending before I hand over some cash, in this case I'm pretty confident giving these people money would do more harm than good!

How many scientific reports do we need before we can have the "science based" policy that Nick Clegg says we should have ?

Back on the 31st of July the Commons Science Select Committee released their recomended rating system as part of their report on drugs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/31_07_06_drugsreport.pdf).

Anything from our front bench..? No - Just Nick Clegg giving us more "we need more science" hot air and dithering.

Back in March Sir Menzie Campbell claimed that the report was "a wake-up call. Our current policies are clearly not working. We need a non-partisan debate about the way forward." that was when they were discussing the initial findings

So has the front bench woken up ?

It's been, what 4 or 5 years since the last drafting of party policy on drugs, how many reports from scientists, doctors and MPs have we had in that time ? 6, 7, 8 ?

So where is this debate ? None of the front bench are prepared to stick their neck out, even our "radical" new leader is solumnly silent or tries to avoid the subject - Jock barely getting a sentance from him on the subject in the blogger interview with him, and that was just hot air.

Both Nick Clegg and Menzies Campbell have had ample opportunities to make an issue of this and really show the failings of Tory and Labour party policies, but have failed - when Brian Paddick spoke out on the subject, Nick Clegg was quick to call his sensible and well researched suggestions "too radical" - which is crazy and backward, it was exactly what Nick and the shadow justice minister / home secretary should have been pushing.

It's crazy that a supposedly Liberal party is taking an attitude of "see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, do nothing" on what is probably the largest social problem in the western world of the late 20th and early 21st century.

I know there are some illiberal lib dems who oppose sensible drug legalisation, but we are a liberal party and proclaim to base policies on common sense, freedom, justice and in this case "science", so WTF is going on ?