"the ballot in our hand"

posted by k


How do we make our votes count?

The question has been raised in a letter in today's Observer which calls for a referendum on proportional representation. Suddenly a new voting system, which has been resisted by parties in power, seems likely.

There are many kinds of proportional representation. In some voters choose a party and leave it to that party to decide which candidates enter parliament. It seems to me to put too much power in the hands of the party.

The system I prefer, which has the unwieldy name of "single transferable vote in multi-member constituencies" has a key advantage: voters put candidates in order of preference. The voter chooses individuals rather than parties and can choose a selection of candidates on their individual merits. It gives the voter a chance to vote against trends in a party and encourages MPs to advance individual manifestos and engage with voters. MPs elected under this system have the authority to be more than lobby-fodder. While parties are likely to continue, they will be weaker and there's more space for independents. Debates in the House of Commons would be genuine debates and an attempt to change people's minds rather than an opportunity to provide soundbites for the next news broadcast. MPs might even turn up to listen as well as to speak. The disadvantage is that constituencies would be larger: perhaps five times the size of current constituencies but with five MPs. However, constituents are much more likely to find at least one MP that represents their views.

Single transferable vote also requires voters to think more - surely a good idea.

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us"

posted by k

People don't like MPs. They may like individual Members of Parliament but MPs en masse are unpopular. This isn't new. It's quite healthy for individuals to feel cynical about the people they elect to rule them, so long as that cynicism leads into a proper questioning of representatives and involvement in political debate.

The last weeks have transformed the everyday cynicism into a blend of emotions as members of the public have begun to realise that the dislike they feel for MPs is mild compared with the attitudes many MPs demonstrate for their constituents. A heckler on BBC TV's Question Time got it right when he shouted at Margaret Beckett, "So you are better than us."

There are so many outrageous claims: the plasma TVs, the duck house, tax-funded advice on how to avoid tax, London MPs. It's hard to know how to react when discovering that two MPs so far (the Daily Telegraph has more than 400 MPs yet to investigate) have spent some of their parliamentary allowance on large quantities of horse shit. I've begun to wonder who got the better bargain: Sir David Heathcote-Amory who paid £380.80 for manure at 70p a sack or Sir Peter Viggers who spent nearly £500 for 28 tons of the stuff. It sounds like a question for a maths exam: If the MPs buy their horse shit from the same supplier at the same rate, how much does a sack hold?

There's the flipping of houses, the absurd travel allowances, the purchases ranging from imported rugs and champagne flutes to dogfood and chocolate hobnobs. Our taxes have paid for the maintenance of priavtely-owned trees, moats and swimming pools. Of course we're cross.

I'm wondering how it happened. Some MPs are sorry. Cynicism says, "well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" Others insist it was a mistake (so many mistakes), that they acted within the rules (which they made), that the public are just jealous (of that ugly house!), that we don't understand, that officials were at fault, that they deserve our sympathy. There are occasional instances of courage when bemused MPs face the wrath of the voters. And then there are the minority: MPs who didn't fiddle expenses or see how much they could get but thought it their duty to do their job without seeing how much they could get from the Fees Office. I expect some of the MPs who've been blamed for their expenses really did make mistakes or were doing their best to behave ethically in a bad system. Institutions where bad practices are common drag good people down.

But when I feel sorry for MPs (and I do; their position must be horrid), I remember the way the government urges us to "name and shame" all kinds of people, urging us in advertisements to denounce benefit frauds for stealing our taxes. I think of good teachers who've had nervous breakdowns or left their jobs because they couldn't cope with the constant surveillance and the tick-box inspection regime. I think of hard workers who have been condemned for not meeting standards set by artbitrary league tables - government-set standards that change every year. I think of the way the public has been encourage not just to accept government surveillance but to be involved in watching and judging others. Public humiliation has been a government tactic for years.

That's enough on what the MPs have done. The important question is what we - who are not MPs - do about it. However right we are to lose trust in our MPs, this is a political crisis. In the middle of an economic mess and all kinds of international turmoil, we find we can't trust the people who make the laws and all sorts of decisions on our behalf. So what happens next?

One advantage of late middle age is that I know things can be different. I know this because things were different when I was growing up. There wasn't always a common assumption that value could be measured by income and the display of luxury. When I was preparing to leave university, there were articles in the press urging good graduates to go into industry, assuring them that industry, just as much as public service, could bring benefit to the country as a whole. As students we talked about doing good and helping others without irony and didn't expect to be mocked for such ambitions.

If we once believed in public service, we can believe in it again - but it may mean rethinking many current ideas.
We all need to debate - urgently - what we want from parliament and what a democracy is. I assume we all agree that MPs should be paid, because we don't want a wealth qualification for parliament. But how much should they be paid? In retrospect I'm impressed by Dave Nellist's decision to take only 40% of his parliamentary salary, giving the rest to charities and his local Labour constituency association so that he could live on a "worker's wage." MPs need to be in touch with the living standards of their constituents.

Less than a hundred years ago, MPs weren't paid. Working-class MPs (and there were a few) were dependent on funds raised by supporters and constituency parties. In 1911, an MP's salary of £400 per year was introduced and MPs had the further advantage of free travel on the railways. It was a fairly good salary for the times; it was more than twice the average annual salary for a teacher but less than a third of what a barrister or solicitor would expect to earn. However there was no second home allowance; MPs had to make their own arrangements, pay their own staff and meet all other expenses. Many MPs had other jobs while others - particularly Labour MPs - saw their parliamentary duties as their job.

What is an MP's job? Should an MP be independent, take instructions from constituents, follow the manifesto regardless of changing circumstances or act as lobby fodder for a party? Is an MP's main work helping constituents or is this intervention just a means of garnering votes and keeping a job? What say should MPs have on creating and approving laws - and how much attention should they pay to the details of drafting? And who should keep an eye on what MPs are doing?

These used to be theoretical questions - the sort of thing raised by students and in debating societies. The role of MPs was determined by MPs themselves. Parliament judged the conduct of its members. Now public debate may affect what happens next - and there will be a general election in less than a year.

I don't know who passed the information about MPs expenses to John Wick or why it was brought into the public domain just over a fortnight ago. It may have been released by someone concerned for the public good, for money or to advance a particular agenda. Now we know some of what's been going on and there will be more relevations which could easily continue till the end of June or beyond.

MPs look shocked and battered. The voters are shocked and battered too. I think people are suddenly realising that a vote isn't enough; citizens have to consider what kind of government they want and try to make their voices heard.

Craig Murray gives evidence today

posted by k

Craig Murray, sacked as British ambassador to Uzbekistan and smeared by New Labour for the offence of publicly opposing British collusion in torture, gives evidence to the Parliamentary Human Rights Committee today (Tuesday 28th April) at 1.45 p.m.

Read more HERE.

Watch Craig Murray's evidence live at the parliamentary website HERE.

This is the first time Craig Murray has been able to give his evidence officially although he first spoke out in 2004.

I hope the press will cover his evidence - it's still important.

The Lost Principles of Policing

The Nine Principles of Policing were written in 1829, expanding on Sir Robert Peel's original Nine Points of Policing. Copies were issued to all members of the Metropolitan Police. There is some uncertainty about authorship. What is certain is that over the last 180 years, the themes which lie behind these philosophical guidelines have been forgotten.

The Nine Principles of Policing:

1. To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

2. To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

3. To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

4. To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

5. To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour; and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

6. To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

7. To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

8. To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

9. To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

Dodo

"the lie of Authority"

posted by k

I hesitated to post about the policing of the G20 protests in London. I wasn't there. But for once it was possible to follow the confusion and complexity of what happened through press reports. The Guardian's live blog, using Twitter, was particularly helpful as it gave brief reports with times as the events happened.


Watching from my laptop, it seemed to me that the policing was sprodaically more violent than it needed to be from the very beginning of the protest. The attack on RBS, initially by a single protestor (against protests from at least one fellow-demonstrator) and then by a small group, was puzzling.

RBS is currently the most unpopular bank in the country because of the arguments about the pension of its previous boss Sir Fred Goodwin (Fred the Shred). There had been an attack on his home and some of his cars and newspapers and journals all over the world were suggesting that banks and bankers were in danger. So why wasn't the RBS building in the city of London boarded up, like all the neighbouring shops and offices, during the G20 demonstrations? It's as though someone wanted a nice, photogenic attack on a bank.

Looking at photos of the event, I'm struck by how few people were involved in the attack on the bank. There's a crowd of demonstrators, press and photographers simply watching and recording what is going on. The attack on the bank was plainly not the action of the majority of demonstrators. It could probably have been stopped by the police at the very beginning - but it wasn't.

Publicity before the event may have suggested there would be violent protests and that bankers would be in danger. The call to "hang the bankers" was plainly understood as a joke and there were similar jokes from city employees. As in previous years, city workers waved bank notes at the protestors.

But everything began to turn nasty. There was a report of a man dying of a heart attack, rescued by heroic police as anti-capitalist demonstrators pelted them with bottles. That report came from the police and it turned out to be a lie. A series of videos showed the man, Ian Tomlinson, being pushed by the police and hit with a baton. He was attacked by a one of a group of police who were masked and had removed their identification numbers. It was a group of demonstrators, including a medical student, who went to his rescue and they were initially told by police to go away. The latest post mortem suggests that the cause of death was the police attack on Ian Tomlinson. As for the thrown bottles, one account suggested that a single plastic bottle might have been thrown before all the demonstrators realised that someone needed urgent help. The Guardian's collection of witness statements gives a better idea of what happened than any single source can provide.

Usually demonstrators aren't taken seriously when they talk about police conduct. When I was held in a pen by the police some years ago (there were 75 of us on an anti-war demo and 200 police), the police initially denied both the numbers involved and the length of time we'd been held. It was a shame for them that they also penned in the editor of a small local paper.

This time, the demonstrators had cameras which recorded events. And, although press photographers were sometimes told to move away and stop filming, they had pictures and video footage too. Again, the Guardian has led the way in assembling video evidence and posting it on the newspaper's website. Other newspapers have also commented on the way the protests were policed and on the death of Ian Tomlinson. This was just as well as the initial reports said that there was no police film and no CCTV footage. The Police Complaints Commission has now admitted that this was untrue.

Although between 1 in 25 and 1 in 50 of the British population took part in demonstrations against the Iraq war, the advance publicity about the G20 demonstrations has led to mistrust of the demonstrators. It's worth reading what they have to say. It's also helpful to look at the film of the Climate Camp to understand what most of the demonstration was like and how the police caused most of the violence. I found the video in the Daily Mail which is emphatically not a left-wing paper nor a supporter of the protests.



The conclusion of the video, in which the police attack the protestors, suggests that the police aren't "out of control," as is often suggested. When I see the police at demonstration or at railways stations on football match days, they are wearing earpieces so that they can receive orders and act in a co-ordinated way. It seems to me that the police are very much "under control" - and that is much more frightening.

"I am a camera"

posted by k

It took the News Quiz to alert me to the latest change in the law. The police are to have new powers to stop us taking their photos. They're using a provision of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008.

It's rapidly becoming impossible to obey the law. Taking a snapshot of a tourist site may turn out to be illegal. More seriously, what would happen if a member of the public witnessed a police officer commiting a crime or abusing police powers and tried to document this by taking a picture? A ban on photographing the police adds to police powers and makes it easier for rogue officers - or rogue forces - to break the law, suppress the evidence and punish the witnesses. This should not be possible in a free, democratic society.

Soon pictures like this will be illegal. Although the police are concealing neither their faces nor their weapons, we're told that taking their pictures may put them at risk.

Perhaps I'm old-fashioned. I grew up with a police force that rarely carried weapons, in the days before tasers had been invented. Nowadays even police without guns carry an arsenal of alternative weapons strung about their waists. We've come a long way from Dixon of Dock Green and the respect given to a friendly neighbourhood bobby.

I know Dixon was a fiction but the myth gave good policemen a kind of gentle authority. Dixon's salute at the end of each episode as he bade goodbye to the audience with the phrase, "Evening, all," suggested a police force that worked with and respected the public. Big guns, tasers and laws that threaten our freedom don't make me feel that the police respect me. They don't make me feel safer. They make me feel afraid.

There hasn't been much publicity for this latest change in the law but there is a demonstration on Monday 16th February. Press photographers, whose freedom is also threatened, will be taking part and the comedian Mark Thomas will be taking part.

Meanwhile, there's interesting potential for a conflict of laws. A publican in Islington has been told he must install CCTV as a condition of his licence. But what happens if a policeman enters his pub?

But we shouldn't worry. The provisions of the Act won't be abused. We can be sure of thus. The government keeps telling us so.


A fellow contributor to this blog directed me to gizmonaut who, as often, follows this issue far more comprehensively. Evidently a busy week at work prevented me from paying sufficient attention to the blogosphere.

"Nothing ever happened."

posted by k

Harold Pinter died on Christmas Eve. When the news was released on Christmas Day, poters on the BBC's Have Your Say site rushed to condemn him, as though there were a peculiar merit in being first to condemn a man after he has died.

I don't understand that attitude. When icons of the right - even dictators - die, I try not to rejoice. I may sometimes feel relieved that people are free from fear as a result but there's something disgusting in publicly rejoicing at a fellow-human's death. Those who have suffered abuse or worse may be allowed their celebrations but these come from so twisted a world and so bad an experience that we should offer sympathy and understanding rather than trying to outdo them in shrieking hurrahs.

Many people disliked Pinter. He wasn't afraid of controversy and, like all of us, was imperfect. But he was willing to speak for those in need of help and for those who were threatened by state power. I wouldn't always agree with him but I admired his willingness to be engaged and to speak out, when silence would have been easier. I wonder how much his sympathy with oppressed people grew out of his experience as a Jewish tailor's son at school in the East End of London. He must have been fourteen or fifteen when the newsreel film of Belsen was shown in cinemas. Yet he became a conscientious objector in the late 1940s and, more recently, associated himself with Jewish campaigners who called for justice for Palestinians as well as Jews in Israel. These weren't popular or easy positions to hold.

Many of the swift attacks on Pinter target his work as a playwright, calling him "talentless," "shallow" and, of course, "intellectual." There's a laziness in most of the criticism. As a playwright, Pinter continually experimented and took risks. He also, in his early plays, wrote about working-class people - not nice, cosy, working-class people but people who were complex, hopeful, dangerous, often at odds with their society and one another. I'm no expert on Pinter's plays but they make me think - and that's high praise.

As a writer, Pinter cared about language and its relation to truth. The lecture he gave after receiving the Nobel prize for literature has, as its title, "Art, Truth and Politics." it was deeply concerned with two subjects: the way in which language can be abused to conceal the truth and the way in which government and the media prevent us from knowing the acts of horror which are committed on our behalf. Pinter's speech, famously, attacked the United States' role in supporting military dictatorships, and the way in which the United States' conduct is widely ignored. With corruscating irony, Pinter said:

"It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

And that's true of so many horrors, from bombing civilians to starvation and the destruction of the planet. It's easier not to know. It's certainly easier not to think about the grief, the corpses, the injuries, the sheer mess of wars and bombings conducted on our behalf. Again in his Nobel lecture, Pinter quoted Neruda (writing of Republican Spain):

"Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!"

Harold Pinter insisted that we see the reality, sure that if enough people saw what was really happening elsewhere, their common humanity and decency would ensure a gentler and more generous outcome.

Pinter's death came only four days after the death of another campaigning writer, the poet Adrian Mitchell. He too was concerned that people see and acknowledge the truth. His most famous poem, "To whom it may concern," was written about Vietnam but many of its words can be applied to all sorts of uncomfortable truths that we would prefer not to know. The economy is built on debt and injustice. We have prospered because other people starve. Our government sends its servants to lie, torture, maim and kill. Children born in this country are locked away because their parents are asylum-seekers. Even in Britain - even in peaceful suburbs - our fellow humans sleep in doorways and on pavements and don't have enough to eat. Lies are more comfortable. We can live in our cosy world where "Nothing ever happened" and choose the newspaper that tells us our lies of choice.

"How can we be beggars with the ballot in our hand?"

posted by k

The Barclay brothers, millionaire owners of The Daily Telegraph, claimed that they were bringing democracy to Sark. In a series of court cases, they overturned Sark's rule of primogenture, which laid down the rule that property should pass from the father to the eldest son, and then gained a judgement that replaced Sark's feudal system with a general election.

It all sounded fine. Sark is one of the tiniest inhabited Channel Islands with a population of about 600. Its laws and customs have seemed quaint rather than dangerous and, to the outsider, this tiny island where transport is by bicycle, tractor or horse-drawn vehicle seems picturesquely old-fashioned. Until the Barclay brothers bought the neighbouring island of Brecqou, no-one really worried that the island was run by the absolute power of the Seigneur, who held the island in fief from the Queen. I'm a republican and a democrat so not in favour of the system and I'd worry that it might favour the rich and established families over the poor workers. If I'd been asked, I'd have said Sark should have free elections, just like the rest of Europe.

Sark had its first general election yesterday. I don't know the details of the campaign but there were fifty-seven candidates for the 28 seats in Chief Pleas, at the parliament is known. The Barclay brothers involved themselves in campaigning, using the Sark newspaper they own as well as The Daily Telegraph, which they also own. They warned the voters not to vote against the candidates they supported, using personal attacks and threats. The voters were warned that a vote against the Barclay brothers' candidates - for instance, in favour of income tax or against the introduction of motor vehicles - would risk the withdrawal of the Barclays' investment in Sark. Perhaps as many as a quarter of the inhabitants of Sark work for the Barclay brothers. Their employers were threatening them: "Vote as we say, or you'll be out of a job." There is no social security on Sark.

It sounds like a lively election campaign - a difficult one, too, with major disagreements. Almost 90% of the electorate turned out and the result went to a recount. The voters didn't respond to the Barclays' attempt to win the election - they resisted methods which look like bribery or blackmail to me (but I suppose the Barclays had expensive legal advice to tell them how far they could go). The methods of the Barclay brothers don't sound democratic to me - they sound like an attempt to purchase power.

It turned out that the voters of Sark were brave enough to defy the two men who thought they had a right to say who sat in Sark's parliament. The Barclay brothers don't have control of Chief Pleas because Sark voters chose not to be intimidated. But now the Barclay brothers are carrying out their threat.

The businesses owned by the Barclay brothers - hotels, restaurants, building firms, estate agents, shops - are being closed down. People are thrown into unemployment and poverty just in time for Christmas. It's a more brutally feudal attitude than Sark is used to. The servants didn't do what the bosses wanted and now they're being punished.

The Barclay brothers are the owners of a number of newspapers and magazines, including The Daily Telegraph. I don't think that people who use threats to try influence the outcome of an election are proper people to own a newspaper. I'm going to boycott The Daily Telegraph, which I've bought on occasion, for as long as the Barclay brothers own it. How about you?

Milton's Birthday

John Milton was born 400 years ago today.
"Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to my conscience, above all liberties."
"No man who know aught can be so stupid to deny that all men naturally were born free."

The world of words-on-the-page, the world of ideas, of the free expression and exchange of ideas is being perverted and stifled perhaps as never before. The increasingly less subtle domination of reports by an official line, by the apparatchiks of the new-establishments whether in the UK or the USA, is becoming more effective and extensive with access to tools beyond the dreams of the more primitively effective practices of a Third Reich or a Soviet system.

We live in a sound-bite culture in which shortened attention spans and a reduced capacity for recollection and linkage has its effect. Shifts in the priorities of a profit-led education sector have reinforced the roll-back of the development of a free mind. By way of one example, I suggest a brief reference from which I quote: "The nation’s elite universities disdain honest intellectual inquiry, which is by its nature distrustful of authority, fiercely independent and often subversive." This from the USA rather than the UK , but there are UK commentaries on the perversion and erosion of our Education system from Gold Stars in the Nursery to the award of a Master's. And now, as a part of the “Every Child Matters” programme, the Common Assessment Framework begins with the unborn (Contact Point, the associated widely accessible database on our children, goes live in January). Supposed to be selectively applied , the practice of this Social Policing will become commonplace. Even Thatcher would be spinning in her grave (whaddya mean she's not dead yet?).

The dilution of a rooting of human understanding of the world we occupy, its histories, its context, is a part of the "empowerment" of Authority as the source of wisdom and a reduction of the capacity to challenge. We have for many years had a range of observations on what is going on. Suddenly, the integration of what is going on is accelerating. And it is beginning to be evident that these people are now so certain of their rectitude and power that they no longer much care that we know it - they have enough people who are sufficiently ignorant, self-obsessed and with the attention-span of a jellyfish for then to get away with it.

We yet retain the liberty to speak and write, although that is under threat. We no longer have the liberties of public demonstration. Parliament itself is at risk and might be seen by some as on the brink of becoming defunct; the nu-Labour Members are willing to sacrifice the authority of their House and Constitutional protections on Parliament to the Party and its Government. But it is not just through political action that ideas which change a world view can come to influence.

My view that the fifth world war progresses might come to a conclusion without hope - that the play upon the greater stage will dictate the shape of the future and that the performance precludes other than tinkering with the script. Yet I would retain hope while we have the power of expression. We must needs use that in what way we can be that direct politics, life example, creative expression or the (reducing) capacity for conversation in the local pub. We can write our own small scripts. The Fringe Performers. Else “The truth is replaced by silence, and the silence is a lie.” - Yevgeny Yevtushenko. But be aware of the utter ruthlessness of the censors, the critics, the audience. To resist the established, to challenge the zeitgeist requires that you cease to value your position, your job, your comforts, your preconceptions, your physical liberty, your reputation, your home, all that represents your material welfare. This is not that you necessarily relinquish them. It is that you cannot value them for it might be necessary that they are relinquished. To give value to them other than as any more than passing tools precludes the logic of resistance. I might prefer to echo Blake: “What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children. Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy ...”

To return to Milton, whose conception of freedom of expression was rooted in freedom for the exercise of God's Will and might be tainted by that for the modern reader. Many of his arguments in Areopagitica stand beyond that limitation."I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat." And who, then, might we be to refuse to accept "God's Will" (alternatively faith in the power of reason and conscience) for ourselves and in our applications of wit? To refuse the courage to articulate our visions of the world? For there is always another way of looking at that world. If we seek to silence that, whether in others or in ourselves, we are diminished.

"What did 'Liberty' mean, grandad?"

dodo

"Bliss was it in that dawn"

posted by k

John Milton was born 400 years ago today. In his pamphlet, Areopagitica, after which this blog is named, he argued for the free exchange of ideas and knowledge. There were limits to his ideas of freedom of the press but he sketched out, in ringing tones, his belief that liberty and progress were dependent on the search for knowledge, truth and understanding.

Milton's ideas came out of that anxious and hopeful period in English history when parliament was at war with the king. He wrote this pamphlet three years before the Putney Debates in which, for the first time, the idea of one man one vote was advanced, and five years before the execution of Charles I and the establishment of the English Commonwealth. It was a period of immense danger, of grief and the separation of families. It was also a time when individuals questioned authority and took responsibility for debating the future of the country.

Areopagitica shows the excitement of debate at the time, when so many people were willing to look outwards and think questioningly about the world, risking their own safety to enter in a debate about the government of their country. Key questions hinged on liberty and what we would now call "human rights":

"Behold now this vast City: a City of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompast and surrounded with his protection; the shop of warre hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed Justice in defence of beleaguer'd Truth, then there be pens and heads there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions and ideas wherewith to present, as with their homage and their fealty the approaching Reformation: others as fast reading, trying all things, assenting to the force of reason and convincement. What could a man require more from a Nation so pliant and so prone to seek after knowledge. What wants there to such a towardly and pregnant soile, but wise and faithfull labourers, to make a knowing people, a Nation of Prophets, of Sages, and of Worthies. We reck'n more then five months yet to harvest; there need not be five weeks, had we but eyes to lift up, the fields are white already. Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making."

Milton lost and the cause he loved - the Commonwealth - faded. After eleven years, Charles II was invited back by parliament. The leaders of the Commonwealth were hanged, drawn and quartered for their part in the execution of the king. Milton was lucky to survive.

But the ideas of Milton and his contemporaries lived on. In the nineteenth century, working-class radicals were among the most enthusiastic readers of Milton. Thomas Cooper, the self-taught Leicester Chartist, set out to learn the whole of Paradise Lost by heart before he was twenty. He managed only the first three books but Milton's ideas - and other ideas of the 1640s - influenced his writings and popular public lectures.

Milton was in the mainstream too. When English literature became part of formal education in the 19th century, Milton was taught as one of England's great authors. He turned up in classrooms and on the curriculum for A-level English. I remember being shocked when, in 1988, Conservative Education Secretary Kenneth Baker pioneered a National Curriculum in English - and left John Milton out. The mid-17th century was represented instead by a smattering of minor poetry. The great English-language epic - not to mention the plays and essays - was omitted.

Tony Blair's government didn't reinstate Milton. They were more concerned with the appearance of improvement than offering teenagers challenge and excitement. I don't suppose Milton's willingness to question authority suited either Conservative or New Labour governments. I haven't noticed much teaching about the 17th century in school history lessons. It's certainly possible to leave school without knowing that England was ever a republic. I suspect it's possible to leave university with a degree in English without reading a word of Milton. It's certainly rare for students to read the pamphlets.

Reading Milton was my introduction to Britain's radical past. I read most of Milton for pleasure - I loved the exhilaration of his language as well as his engagement with the ideas of his time. It didn't matter that some was difficult. I took what I could from a first reading and returned later, for more. Milton may have slipped from the public consciousness but I don't think he'll be forgotten for ever.

Happy 400th birthday, John Milton - and thank you.

"First they came ..."

posted by k

Thomas Cochrane would make a great hero for a historical novel. It's arguable that he already is the hero of several, since he may be the model for Horatio Hornblower and Jack Aubrey.

Somehow I'd never heard of Thomas Cochrane until I read Craig Murray's blogpost about him yesterday. Evidently he's not just an important figure in the naval history of Britain but also part of Britain's frequently forgotten radical past. As Craig Murray points out, Cochrane was a radical MP who believed in one man one vote and the abolition of the "tax of knowledge" which priced newspapers so that they were beyond the budget of working people. In 1815 he was arrested in the Houses of Parliament and the precedent has been cited approvingly by New Labour as the government attempts to justify the treatment of Damien Green, shadow immigration secretary.

Craig Murray rightly points out the irony of New Labour, which has laid claim to radical roots, finding its only precedent in actions taken under Lord Liverpool's government, one of the most oppressive administrations of the 19th century.

I don't think there's much need to spell out what was wrong with the arrest of Damien Green or the search of his office, home, computers and emails. Governments who authorise - even at arm's length - the detention of members of the opposition endanger democracy.

But I wish, in all the fuss about the treatment of Damien Green, there had been more mention of the routine use of dawn raids, house searches and detention without trial in Britain - or of the way people legally in this country are required by law to supply detailed biometric data and to pay hundreds of pounds for this privilege.

Asylum seekers in particular are subject to dawn raids. And foreigners, such as students, who are in the country legally, are expected to pay hundreds of pounds for new, biometric ID cards. It's true they won't be taken to the police station to provide the necessary data. Instead they have to travel to one of six centres and wait in line until someone is free to see them. Failure to possess or update a card will be a criminal offence. This is the beginning of ID cards for all of us.

First they came for the asylum seekers. Then they came for the foreigners. Then they came for an Opposition MP. Where will it end?

"much arguing, much writing, many opinions"

posted by k

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of hearing a public conversation between Iain Sinclair and Alan Moore. Their talk took unpredictable directions and held a large audience's attention. It ended with enthusiastic applause. Unlike most literary events, this was free to anyone who could get there - and about 250 people packed a large lecture theatre at a Midlands university.

I like free culture. I grew up enjoying free libraries and free art galleries - even free Shakespeare plays in London parks. It seemed akin to free speech. I've always thought of libraries in particular as a place of liberty.

It was a shock to discover that libraries can be places where free speech is censored. I'm not talking about whether Sarah Palin tried to ban books in Wassilia. And I'm not talking about books that are judged obscene or in some way offensive. I'm talking about an event that was cancelled in Stoke Newington public library because Hackney council didn't like the opinions the speaker had expressed elsewhere.

The event was the book launch of Iain Sinclair's forthcoming book about Hackney (due in early 2009). According to Iain Sinclair's account on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, the book launch had been arranged. But when the council found out, the library was told to cancel the event. The council doesn't like Iain Sinclair's views and won't have him speaking in their library.

If you didn't hear the programme, you may wonder what Iain Sinclair's views are and why they are so offensive. As a long-term Hackney resident, Iain Sinclair has spoken and written about the effect of the plans for the 2012 Olymmpics on local people - and the council dislikes this criticism. So his book launch has been banned.

I could fulminate about this about some length. But there doesn't seem much point.

I thought of libraries as places where people could enter free of charge, extend their knowledge and imagination, and experience a range of views. Libraries were like that once. And politicians - at whatever level - used to debate with critics. At least, I thought it was so.

"gradations of the dark"

posted by k

Growing up in London, gypsies were a romantic idea culled from books. There were nasty stories, like the one in The Mill on the Floss, that showed gypsies in a bad light, but I didn't like The Mill on the Floss. I tried reading George Borrow but didn't get very far. If I thought of gypsies at all, I was thrilled by the idea of life on the open road, ideally in a painted, horse-drawn caravan, far away from the imprisonment of childhood.

Later I became aware of more complicated views of gypsies or, as they are correctly known, the Roma and Sinti people. Moving briefly to the country, I found people who feared and hated them but also a farmer who respected their knowledge of the land and cultural history - he always invited them to camp on his farm. I was an outsider and the conflict didn't seem quite real to me, even when I saw an encampment beside Honeybourne Station, where I used, occasionally, to catch a train. I don't see how the camp could have troubled anyone. The station was a long way from the two villages - Church Honeybourne and Cow Honeybourne - from which it took its name. And the camp didn't seem to be near farmland. From the outside it seemed a slightly depressed camp - but then, my imagination, schooled in childhood, probably expected brightly-coloured clothes and wild dances to the sound of guitars. Instead I saw a few people living quietly and troubling no-one.

One day I took the train and the camp was gone. There were a few broken things left and these included a couple of children's toys. It looked as though the people had been moved on, violently, though I couldn't know for sure. I worried about the children who had been torn from their toys. I was beginning to understand what prejudice and hatred could do and had little hope that anything could be done. The law doesn't usually support travelling people. I mentioned what I'd seen to a teacher I knew - an outstanding teacher who worked hard against routine racism in an inner-city comprehensive. He looked embarrassed. "I have to admit I don't like gypsies. I'll do anything I can to keep one out of my class - or out of the school."

I don't know how to counter such deeply-held prejudice. Roma and Sinti people - including children - face daily hatred. I saw this again when travellers moved, briefly, into the field round the corner a couple of years ago. My nice, kind, helpful neighbours were haranguing and abusing parents while small children - local children and travellers' children - watched and learnt what hatred looks like. Local children were warned to stay out of the field and keep away from the travellers because they were dirty thieves and dangerous. That is how prejudice is taught.

Totalitarian regimes have targeted Roma and Sinti people. There's been relatively little fuss about the gypsy concentration camps in World War II. Few people know the name of Lety u Pisku in which Czech Roma families were imprisoned and many died.

Those who lived long enough were deported to Treblinka and Auschwitz-Birkenau. Dr Josef Mengele found the children very useful for his experiments but in 1944 orders were given for the extermination of gypsies.

The groundwork was laid before the Nazis came to power. Bavarian gypsies were subject to compulsory registration from 1926 and could be jailed for two years for the "crime" of being unemployed.

It's not surprising that the Italian government's proposal to fingerprint all Romani - including the children - has caused widespread anxiety. The poet David Morley drew attention to this in his blog, which has assembled a number of important articles. He recalls the recent death of two Roma children in the sea off an Italian beach. Someone covered their bodies with a towel but the life of the beach continued around their corpses. Games of football took place and sunbathers continued to enjoy the day. Apparently to many people dead children - dead Roma children - are so insignificant as to be invisible.

The problem doesn't just exist in Italy. I was shocked again by the number of people who took the trouble to post comments supporting the sunbathers and the Italian government in response to a Daily Mail article on the deaths of the children. The sickness in Italy also rages here.

There's a petition against the persecution of the Roma people in Italy. Euro MPs Arlene McCarthy and Michael Cashman have drawn attention to it at the European parliament. More signatures and more support would help. If you haven't already done so, you can sign HERE.

It's easy to sign a petition, especially on line. But I don't know what can be done to unpick the centuries of hatred. How can we encourage our friends and neighbours to look at gypsies and see their fellow humans?

"A law indifferent to blame or praise"

posted by k



The year was 1670. Twelve jurors swore an oath to try William Penn and William Mead on the charges of addressing an unlawful assembly. On the bench, conducting the case and preparing the sentence, was Sam Starling, Lord Mayor of London, sitting with aldermen, Sherifs and a Recorder.

The case got off to a bad start when Penn and Mead, in accordance with Quaker practice, refused to take off their hats in court. The question of "hat honour" was thought important by Quakers as the time. They saw it as a way in which undue honour was given to certain individuals because of their wealth, birth or position. There were arguments over evidence and the law - the magistrates were particularly annoyed that William Penn cited statute law in his defence while William Mead demonstrated a knowledge of legal Latin. The case proceeded in a bad-tempered way until the jury, who had heard all the evidence, came back to deliver their verdict. And that's when the trouble began.

Initially there was disagreement between the jurors: eight agreed with one another and four dissented. The magistrates blamed this on a particular juror, Mr Bushel, who they threatened with violence. They sent the jurors out again and eventually they returned to deliver their verdict.

The jurors agreed that William Penn was guilty of speaking in Gracechurch Street but refused to add that the meeting was an unlawful assembly. They found William Mead not guilty.

The mayor and his fellow magistrates were furious. The mayor turned on the foreman of the jury. "I thought you had understood your place better," he said. Then the Recorder turned to the jurymen: "Gentlemen, you shall not be dismissed till we have a verdict that the court will accept; and you shall be locked up, without meat, drink, fire, and tobacco; you shall not think thus to abuse to court; we will have a verdict, by the help of God, or you shall starve for it."

The jury returned the following morning and repeated their verdict. The magistrates refused to accept it.

And so it went on, with the magistrates threatening all kinds of punishment and the jurors refusing to give in. The Recorder even threatened the jurors with that a new law would be made to deprive them of legal protection.

Finally the jurors changed their verdict; they found both William Penn and William Mead not guilty. The magistrates immediately imposed fines on Penn, Mead and all the jurors for contempt of court. On appeal, the jurors were freed under Habeas Corpus, setting a precedent which still protects those who sit on juries.

Today juries and jury trials are under further threat. The British government has already moved many cases from jury trials to magistrates courts. Now it is moving away from trials alogether and preferring detention without trial and summary "justice". On-the-spot fines are cheaper and less time-consuming than law and justice. The right to administer summary "justice" has even been sold to private companies, whose staff can be accredited on payment of a fee. At least the child and adult informers, bribed with rewards of up to £500 to spy and give evidence against their neighbours, aren't yet allowed to act as judge and jury in the cases.

Some cases still reach juries. However in the past week newspaper reporters and bloggers have fulminated against jurors for reaching an unexpected verdict in two cases. In the case of the would-be terrorists and alleged terrorists tried at the old Bailey, "sources close to the case" informed the press that the jury had behaved badly and the judge had conducted the case wrongly. The verdicts, which the jury returned after hearing five months' worth of evidence, were rubbished in a couple of paragraphs by people who hadn't heard the case or considered its strength.

Perhaps most worrying were the attacks on the jurors for taking time off for illness and medical appointments - and on the judge for allowing this. There is bound to be illness in any group of twelve people during a five month period and of course the case was held up when this happened - all the jurors must hear all the evidence. Had the jurors found the defendants guilty on all counts, I don't believe anyone would have made a fuss.

I was depressed too by blogs attacking the verdict in the case of the environmental activists at Kingsnorth, who were acquitted of causing crimninal justice. The defendants used the defence of "lawful excuse", arguing that climate change presented an urgent threat to people elsewhere in the world. One of their witnesses was an Inuit. The jurors were directed by the judge about the circumstances in which "lawful excuse" applied as a defence. They accepted the activists' argument that their action responded to an immediate need to protect the property of others.

I don't know all the scientific arguments about climate change but the defence of "lawful excuse" has a long history. I can see circumstances in which I too might break the law to protect other people and be glad of that defence. And I believe that the jurors who heard the case had a right to come to that verdict.

What would we do without trial by juries? "Trust the judges," some say. But judges are government appointees, dependent on the state for pay and promotion. While I'm sure that most judges act ethically, giving judges the power to reach a verdict lays them more open to threats and manipulation. The jurors force the lawyers to explain cases fully and clearly, so that each stage of the case and the law is explained publicly. They make the law and the evidence clear. The jury stand for the citizens of their country and have an obligation to justice.

When a jury stands out against public opinion or government, after hearing the evidence and the law, we should respect them and be grateful for their work.

At least one columnist has seen this and defended jurors against the rest of the press. When I read attacks on jurors in the press and the blogosphere, I can do no better than return to William Penn's words in 1670:

"It is intolerable that my jury should be thus menaced: Is this according to the fundamental laws? Are not they my proper judges by the great Charter of England? What hope is there of ever having justice done, when juries are threatened, and their verdicts rejected?"

Back in 1670 many people thought that a public Quaker Meeting was a source of danger. Today a marble plaque in the Central Criminal Court (the Old Bailey) commemorates the twelve jurymen who acquitted William Penn and William Mead.

"Know that we are still here; that we live."

posted by k

In 1660, the restored monarchy of England faced the problem of what to do with John Milton. Milton wasn't just an uncompromising republican, who had recently published the pamphlet The Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Free Commonwealth. He had also responded to the monarchist pamphlet, Eikon Basilike, with his own Eikonoklastes, defending the right of the Commonwealth government to execute Charles I. This made him, in the eyes of Charles II's government, a regicide and the penalty was death by hanging, drawing and quartering. The corpses of dead regicides were disinterred, executed and the decomposing quarters put on public display.

Milton was discreet enough to retreat from London to Chalfont St Giles. It's said his friends and admirers intervened on his behalf, suggesting that his blindness was a divine punishment and that it would be wrong for the king to punish the poet further. The poet was allowed to live and completed his great works of the Restoration: Samson Agonistes, Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

States often have to cope with poets who oppose their regime. This isn't because poets are naturally in opposition - there's also a history of poets supporting the government with fawning praise. Virgil's praise of the Emperor Augustus is excellently done but leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Shakespeare included neat compliments to the monarchs he served in his plays. He knew who paid the bills.

But the way states treat poets and creative artists who oppose them often goes down in history. Regimes that mistreat their poets seem particularly barbaric - afraid of words and their power. The voices of poets survive.

The Jerusalem Post knows it cannot ignore the death of the great Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. Darwish's voice can still be heard - full of power even when I cannot understand the words. The words of his poems - in their original Arabic and in English translation - can be found in libraries throughout the world and on the web.

Mahmoud Darwish's funeral was also reported throughout the world.

There is, currently, less publicity for the imprisonment and torture of Uzbek poet Yusuf Juma. Perhaps everyone is distracted by the Olympic Games or the news from Georgia. Or perhaps we're all so used to the atrocities of Karimov's regime that a tortured poet barely disturbs any more. But he will not be forgotten. Osip Mandelstam's poem against Stalin resonates more strongly because of Mandelstam's arrest, mistreatment and death.

I don't know what we can do about Yusuf Juma who is being held and tortured in Jaslyk prison. His son Mashrab seems to have disappeared in the Uzbek prison system. His wife is appealing for help.

At least, by posting this, I can show that Yusuf Juma is not forgotten. And I hope the Uzbek government will realise that, by imprisoning and torturing Yusuf Juma and his son, they add weight to the words Yusuf Juma has written against them.

I implore the Uzbek government to free the poet Yusuf Juma and his son.