The Wardman Wire

This is a fairly brusque Britblog Roundup for the 6/10/2008, as I am currently off the Internet at home – so this is being written at home in Blogdesk (highly recommended – at least double your blogging productivity, and you can write in the bath subject to electric shocks when you drop your laptop. Mac Users can go looking for “Ecto”) and in the bar of a local pub with free Wireless Access. The imagined beady eye of the landlady watching over the time/revenue ratio dictates that the style of the Roundup is “spare”.

This week: lots of Civil Liberties going .. going .. gone missing, lots of feminism, some politics, a bit of analysis to Party Conferences, and the (first?) ex-Minister announcing his new status on a Blog within a few minutes.

Civil Liberties with a bit of Editorial

• * Cabalamat: The war on civil liberties continues, and why can we not photograph drunkards.
• * Tim Worstall on Gerald Toben, an alleged Holocaust denier arrested while on transit through a UK airport at the behest of the German authorities for material he published on the Internet in Ausralia 5 years ago. In other words – a pre-emptive 2 week period in jail before you have been found guilty for something that only deserves arrest (argument, but not arrest – these are vile claims) in the most repressive of worlds in the first place.We now have a mechanism in place for automatic cross-Europe censorship of material published anywhere in the world that offends any prosecutor in any EU country. We are in the brown stuff up to our necks.

  As Tim comments, what happens when one country in Europe passes a law that allows the Islamists – or anybody else – to claim “hate speech”? Or I suppose, when the Greeks decide that Plane Spotting is a security threat in any country in Europe.

• * The UKIP Press Officer at the European Parliament fell foul of the conflict between being a political officer and the Civil Service-style regulations he is subject to due to his employment with the EP. being where, but the ruling has now been half reversed (notable cross-spectrum support from some pro-EU bloggers).
• * Craig Murray on Censorship.
• * Pat Condell’s banned video.
• * Self-censorship od books when people make threats. How did this happen? Good survey article.“The forces ranged against freedom of expression in this area are greater than they were twenty years ago: more subtle, better organised, richer. Some well-intentioned but intellectually lazy Western liberals are too willing to listen to their arguments. But the real betrayals stem from a less principled combination of fear and self-interest”

Feminism and Things

• * A 10-year-old has her say on girls’ magazines.
• * Why banks go bust.
• * A critique of queer Tory policy .

Politics

• * Appealing for help for an alternative community.
• * Some quotes from Hansard.
• * Mick Fealty posted a video about how bloggers can be “grass roots public service broadcasters” by engaging with politicians as well as kicking them. This is what is known as a “two takes” video.
• * Private Jails top the League Table for restraining Kids.
• * Abracadabra: Library to Cafeteria.
• * Can Muslims Trust the Tories?
• * Politics will be about Managing Culture Clashes.

Tory Conference

Two pieces on the Wardman Wire from David Keen:

• * Looking at David Cameron’s Vision and Values as expressed in his speech.
• * A numerical comparison of the speeches of Mr Brown, Mr Clegg and Mr Cameron.

Bloggers belong on the Back Row … er … Benches

• * Ex-Minister Tom Harris MP speaks out about enforced Departure from Government.
• * And about all the people who commented.

A quote from Tom:

“Years ago, during one of Tony Blair’s reshuffles, one minister was attending a conference, waiting to deliver the keynote speech. She was called on her mobile and told her services were no longer required. Shocked, she hung up and turned to her private secretary to tell him the news. The private secretary expressed the appropriate amount of sympathy, then took the speech notes from the ex-minister’s hands, informing her that, as a back bench MP, she was no longer authorised to speak on behalf of the government. The private secretary then delivered the speech instead. Brutal, eh?”

From Harris to Haggis

• * It’s all over for now for Harris, but could it all be over for Haggis as well?

Mirrors and Reflections

• * Wheel of Life.
• * Chris Dillow on Character and Judgement.

Cats

• * Cats in autumn.

“Uncategorisable”

• * They did like to be beside the seaside.
• * Blooming Islington.
• * Be afraid.
• * It was put back.
• * Clash of the Titans.

Blogging

• * Blog commandments.

Wrapping Up

Tat’s it for this week. Next week the Roundup is at Redemption Blues. Send nominations to britblog AT gmail DOT com.

All the gen can be found at Britblog Central.