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Practical Politics: How the Leaders’ debates were quietly replaced
Via Michael Crick, about how the demands from small parties to take part in the debate were quietly castrated behind the bike shed:
I can report that the “Leaders’ Debates” at the forthcoming election have now been cancelled.
Instead, over the past 2-3 weeks they’ve been quietly replaced with “Prime Ministerial Debates”.
It’s a cunning manoeuvre, agreed by the three main broadcasters (the BBC, ITV and Sky) and the three main parties, to exclude the SNP and Plaid Cymru leaders from the debates.
Since the SNP will only be fighting the 59 Scottish seats then Alex Salmond can’t possibly become prime minister (nor Plaid’s Elfyn Llwyd), so both are thereby disqualified from the TV debates.
I’d love to know who dreamt up this clever wheeze. A politician or a broadcaster? The latter, I bet.
I wonder if ‘eck is still planning legal action?
Post from: The Wardman Wire
Practical Politics: How the Leaders’ debates were quietly replaced
Binyam Mohamed: finally, an end
Carl Gardner, of Head of Legal, comments on the final resolution of the Binyam Mohammed case.
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to comment on the Court of Appeal’s judgment in R(Mohamed) v Foreign Secretary. People usually claim to hate saying they told you so. I love saying it if I’m honest, but only if I really did tell you so, something you may well doubt if you listen again to my podcast discussion with Charon QC about the case at an earlier stage.
I said at that time that I thought the whole case has become something of a farce, since Binyam Mohamed already had disclosure of the material he needed; the question whether one judgment should or should not contain a few paragraphs was a side issue. I criticised the judges for going back on their original ruling that the paragraphs should not be published, on the basis of an unduly close reading of a General’s letter and a wrong assessment that the US position had changed.
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New Humanist Richard Dawkins oooops
New Humanist is a “magazine for free thinkers” with a blog which delights in pointing out the absurdities of some – especially Roman Catholic and US Evangelical – religion from time to time.
They also campaign for a number of causes I thoroughly agree with, particularly around freedom of speech and libel law reform (e.g., the Simon Singh case). They’ve also recently published an interesting piece on whether there should be a the right to carry Sikh Kirpans (ritual knives) and previously a review piece about Michel Onfray, the French philosopher. I disagree with them on other current issues, such as faith schools – I think there’s far too much fuss being made.
Anyways, yesterday there was a wonderful piece reporting that a Christian network had been claiming to have prayed the Dawkins Forums into oblivion.
Unfortunately Christwire.org is a spoof itself. But bully for NH, they posted an instant correction.
Post from: The Wardman Wire
They’ve gone too far this time … owners of Christ the Redeemer sue Hollywood
Via Madpriest:
The backstory is interesting here:
Rio de Janeiro’s Catholic archdiocese is demanding unspecified damages and interest from Columbia Pictures for showing the iconic landmark being destroyed in a worldwide apocalypse in the film, “2012,” that came out last year. The archdiocese manages copyright issues related to the 40-meter (130-foot) high statue erected in 1931, which [...]
Post from: The Wardman Wire
They’ve gone too far this time … owners of Christ the Redeemer sue Hollywood
Plane Spotting: How to find the Line between Tourist and Terrorist?
It is a strange misfortune that Liberty is the first victim in a world that lives under the cloud of an omnipresent danger of death and destruction. We live in one of the most troubled times of history – a time when the cost of safe-guarding democracy seems to invariably mean that we pay with Liberty.
On February 15, 2010 two British nationals, Stephen Hampston (46) and Steve Martin (55), were detained by the police in New Delhi. The hotel staff where the two were staying found their actions suspicious. The police, in a mode of heightened security, would not take any chances with these two men who claimed to have a hobby of plane spotting – something that is rarely heard off in India.
The breach of civil liberties of innocent citizens is the common fallout at a time when the fear of terrorist strikes forms a clear and present danger. From New York to New Delhi, as tougher laws increasingly become the rules by which we live, the helplessness of innocent citizens caught in the quagmire of an already stretched security apparatus in indeed the painful fact of life today.
Post from: The Wardman Wire
Plane Spotting: How to find the Line between Tourist and Terrorist?
Kay Burley: Can a Good Sex Life Prevent Murder?
A couple of blogs have noted that Sky News’ Kay Burley made a gaffe about Jo Biden’s public display of Ash Wednesday Ashes.
Post from: The Wardman Wire
Muddled and Pernicious Authoritarianism: Police harrassment of photographers
This is a cross-post from Liberal England.
The police campaign against amateur photographers is still in full swing. Yesterday’s Guardian reported that:
Police questioned an amateur photographer under anti-terrorist legislation and later arrested him, claiming pictures he was taking in a Lancashire town were “suspicious” and constituted “antisocial behaviour”.
This is despite promises last year from senior officers last year that the police would scale down their use of anti-terrorist legislation, such as Section 44 of the act, after a series of high-profile cases in which photographers said they had been harassed by police for taking innocuous images in the street.
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Muddled and Pernicious Authoritarianism: Police harrassment of photographers
