Politics | Steve Woods

Qu’ils mangent des navets

24/02/2023 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics

Thérèse Coffey, the alleged Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has advised consumers to opt for turnips as tomato and cucumber supplies dwindle, owing to shortages.

This instantly reminds your correspondent of that phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette, supposedly uttered by her during the French Revolution: “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche“, usually translated into English as “Let them eat cake“.

However, there is no there is absolutely no historical evidence that Marie-Antoinette ever said “Qu’ils mangent de la brioche” or anything like it, although folklore scholars have found similar tales in other parts of the world.

Anyway, back to Coffey, a minister devoid of humanity and compassion, but richly endowed with incompetence, callousness and that all-important can’t-do attitude.

Coffey has stated that shortages of salad and other vegetables in UK supermarkets could last up to a month. However, critics have accused the government of bringing the problem on itself by failing to support local growers and through Brexit policies.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Coffey told MPs British consumers should “cherish” home-grown produce, whilst castigating the latter for wanting “a year-round choice“.

In her own words:

“It’s important to make sure that we cherish the specialisms that we have in this country. A lot of people would be eating turnips right now rather than thinking necessarily about aspects of lettuce and tomatoes and similar.”

Finally, so that Coffey can indulge in ‘cherished‘ home-grown produce, your ‘umble scribe will perform a public duty by providing a link – should the alleged Secretary of State happen to be reading this post, to a recipe for cream of potato and turnip soup.

Enjoy! 😉

Update 25/02/23. One consequence of Ms Coffey’s advocacy of “cherishing” this humble root vegetable is that supermarkets are reported as running of turnips. Your correspondent could find none at his local Lidl yesterday, although swedes (the Swedish turnip) are plentiful.

As a final postscript, your ‘umble scribe notes from The Guardian today that its political sketch writer John Crace has written:

Four years ago I tweeted, “Let them eat turnips”. It was meant to be a joke about Brexit. Now it’s government policy. Satire comes at you fast these days.
Farewell Nadhim Zahawi

29/01/2023 Steve WoodsLinux, Media, Politics

News broke this morning that the alleged prime minister minister, one Rishi Sunak, had finally shown some of the “integrity, professionalism and accountability” promised when he was inexplicably made Conservative Party leader by its ageing right-wing membership.
Yes, he’s finally sacked Nadhim “Stable Genius” Zahawi as Party Chair for what is described as a “serious breach of the ministerial code“.

And the nature of that serious breach? While he was in office briefly as ~~Chancellor~~ Chancer of the Exchequer under disgraced former alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, Zahawi by failing to declare he was investigation by HMRC into his tax affairs. It subsequently transpired that he has had to pay the taxman £5 mn. in back taxes and a penalty for tax avoidance. Despite his ministerial media appearances involving prominent – possibly patriotic – display of the Union flag (which some call the Bloody Butcher’s Apron. Ed.), environmental campaigner and philanthropist Julia Davies subsequently wrote in a Guardian opinion piece entitled “Dear Nadhim Zahawi: here’s what patriotic British millionaires do – we pay our proper taxes“.

Your ‘umble scribe cannot remember any time in his six decades of life when the minister allegedly in overall charge of collecting the country’s tax revenues has been investigated and penalised by the people he’s supposedly administering for not paying what he owed.

Even before the Zahawi incident, Sunak, who so far has only been PM since the end of October, had already lost one cabinet minister within two weeks of assuming office: over-promoted fireplace salesman “Sir” Gavin Williamson resigned as a result of alleged bullying.

However, looking around what passes for the current alleged government of the English Empire (which some still call the ~~United~~ Untied Kingdom. Ed.), it seems that despite Zahawi’s sacking, other members of Sunak’s administration seem to regard compliance with the ministerial code as an optional extra during their terms of office.

Take for example one the case Dominic Rennie Raab, supposedly the Secretary of State for Justice and Deputy Prime Minister.

Dominic is not a boy who took any notice of his mother’s admonitions to “play nicely“. He is currently under investigation for allegations of bullying. The Guardian reported in December that eight separate incidents of bullying by Raab during a previous term of office at the Justice Ministry during Johnson’s premiership.

Johnson himself faces a Commons privileges committee inquiry into whether he ~~lied to~~ misled parliament over the Partygate scandal.

Handy tip for anyone who believes there is any integrity in Johnson: never trust a middle-aged man with a toddler haircut who combs his locks with a balloon.

It doesn’t look as if there’s much of Sunak’s “integrity, professionalism and accountability” on either the front or back benches of what passes for the political party he is supposed to be leading.

Before the announcement of Zahawi’s sacking, there did not appear to be much local support in Stratford-on-Avon for their tax-avoiding dishonourable member. Given the opinions expressed to The Guardian four days ago, our Stable Genius would be well advised not to seek the Conservative Party candidacy for the next general election.

Update 31/01/23: In today’s letters in The Guardian, Keith Flett of the Beard Liberation Front remarks that Nadhim Zahawi “has now managed to bring the hirsute into disrepute“.
Content liability: Big Tech squares up to Uncle Sam

27/01/2023 Steve WoodsPolitics, Privacy, Social Media, Tech

Following the announcement anti-trust action by the United States Department of Justice along with the Attorneys General of California, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia against Google, Meta (owners of Facebook and Instagram), Microsoft and Twitter have all made statements seeking to defend their actions.

In their legal opinions, the big US tech giants, including Microsoft, Meta and Twitter, are warning the Supreme Court against amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA). This would enable actions against content recommendation algorithms, French IT news site Le Monde Informatique reports.

One week after Google’s filing of a defence statement with the US Supreme Court warning that amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) “would upend the internet“, several companies including Twitter, Meta and Microsoft, have filed their own legal opinions. They support Google’s argument that a restriction of the law could have disastrous consequences for the content editors. By virtue of the 1996 CDA, the companies are shielded from liability for content posted by their users, including comments, criticism and advertising.

US Supreme Court.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons and UpstateNYer

However, the Supreme Court has been asked to examine whether Section 230 was still pertinent and appropriate, given that it was promulgated before the internet became part of everyday life. The law was subject to a minute before the suit filed by the family of Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23 year-pld US citizen killed in Paris during the 13th November 2015 terrorist attacks claimed by ISIS. The Gonzalez family asserts that the algorithms should be regarded as editorial content not covered by the immunity from liability granted by Section 230 and thus Google’s YouTube subsidiary has violated the US Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) when its algorithms have recommended ISIS-linked content to users. The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the case on 21st February next.

Criticisms of the protections of Section 230 for websites

Both Democratic and Republican members of Congress have criticised the protections provided for by the law. The Republicans believe that those in respect of liability make websites take partial decisions regarding content removal, whilst the Democrats would like the same sites to take more responsibility as regards moderation. In a statement President Biden has stated that his administration would support the position that Section 230 protections should not apply to recommendation algorithms. In its petition of 19th January, Microsoft asserts that if the Supreme Court makes amendments to Section 230, it would “strip these digital publishing decisions suit—and it would do so in illogical ways that are inconsistent with how algorithms actually work.“.

The company added that any decision aimed at restricting the law “thereby expose interactive computer services to liability for publishing content to users whenever a plaintiff could craft a theory that sharing the content is somehow harmful“. In its own petition Meta stated that the plaintiffs’ argument is “deeply flawed from a legal point of view”; by interpreting Section 230 as a means of protecting sites from liability for content posted by its users whilst removing protection from content “ignores the way in which the internet works“. The company continued by describing the plaintiffs’ position as “regrettable from a practical point of view” and by stating that a ruling in their favour would ultimately prompt “online services to remove important, provocative and controversial content on matters of general interest“.

Protection from liability essential for website operation according to Twitter

Twitter has said that the current interpretation of Section 230 “ensures that sites such as Twitter and YouTube can work in spite of the unfathomable amount of information they make available and the potential liability that might result from this“. Since Twitter’s acquisition by Elon Musk, the site has been criticised for having reinstated the accounts of people it previously banned, such as disgraced former president Donald Trump or alpha male par excellence and all-round amateur human being Andrew Tate who is currently under investigation in Romania for alleged human trafficking.

However, the review of several other high-profile cases will have to take place before the law is changed. Last week the Supreme Court was set to discuss its jurisdiction in two cases that challenge Texas and Florida laws prohibiting online platforms from removing certain political content. In addition, a Twitter vs. Taamneh case, which has many similarities with the Gonzalez vs. Google case, is due to oral pleadings on 2nd February. In this case Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are accused of having aided and abetted another attack claimed by Islamic State.
A family with the wrong members in control

23/01/2023 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media

In 1941 in the midst of World War 2, George Orwell wrote his essay The Lion and the Unicorn on the state of England in wartime and examining what the England of the 1940s could have in common with the England of 1840.

His line of reasoning resulted in him penning the following paragraph.

England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare’s much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control – that, perhaps, is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.

There is so much in that one paragraph that is still pertinent today: the cupboards bursting with skeletons; the poor relations who are horribly sat upon; deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income; and above all a family with the wrong members in control.

Which brings us very neatly to today’s Daily Mirror font page with some blunt advice for the current “wrong” members in control.

The ‘irresponsible uncles’ mentioned by Orwell

When alleged prime minister Rishi Sunak entered Number 10 he promised: “this government will have integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level.”

His words have rung hollow, as revealed by his own actions – not wearing a seat belt in a moving car whilst being over 17 years of age – and those of others such as disgraced former alleged prime minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson’s cronysim. Furthermore, Sunak has revealed himself to be particularly foolish. Who else would video themselves breaking the law and then post the evidence on social media?

However, perhaps far worse than that is the case of present Tory Party chair Nadhim “Stable Genius” Zahawi. It has now come to light that he was under investigation by the Revenue for tax irregularities while he was ~~Chancellor~~ Chancer of the Exchequer. It has emerged today that Zahawi actually had to pay overdue taxes as well as a penalty.

Last time your ‘umble scribe looked, those who handle their tax affairs with integrity generally have to pay penalties to the taxman.

Sunak’s fine words in respect of integrity, professionalism and accountability have a distinctly hollow ring, reminiscent of a phrase of Orwell’s regarding political speech in his 1946 essay Politics and the English Language.

Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.

One wonders whether Sunak’s answer to all the sleaze, corruption and general misbehaviour rife in his party with an updated version of John Major’s 1990s Back to Basics campaign. However, your correspondent doubts Sunak has the political skills.
Spending other people’s money

18/01/2023 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

One Mary Elizabeth Truss has the distinction of being the prime minister of the English Empire (which some still call the United Kingdom. Ed.) with the shortest term of office, staying in post a mere 49 days.
However, that did not stop her crashing the economy with the budget cooked up by her and her Chancer of the Exchequer Kamikwasi Kwarteng‘s disastrous 2022 mini-budget, as well as being profligate with other people’s – i.e. taxpayers’ – money.
The Mirror reveals that Truss’ so-called ‘Jenga‘ lectern specially made for her cost the public purse £4,175. That equate to an ependiture of £85 for each of the forty-nine days she served. The Mirror piece reveals that Truss also had a second similar lectern made, but that was paid for by those gullible people who pay membership subscriptions and donate to the Tory Party.

Mary Elizabeth Truss and that lectern. Photo credit: gov.uk

It wasn’t as if Downing Street had a dearth of lecterns at the time; current alleged prime minister Rishi Sunak never bothered to have a bespoke lectern made and is using a predecessor’s cast-off that “was purchased under a previous administration” at a cost of £3,050. What an absolute bargain the former Goldman Sachs asset is.

When she was pretending to be the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (FCD), Truss gained quite a reputation for her spendthrift ways. These included using half a million pounds of public funds to hire a private jet for a visit to Australia. At the time Truss was roundly criticised for her reluctance to use a regular, cheaper and faster scheduled service. The most expensive business-class ticket for the former foreign secretary’s entire itinerary on Qantas would have come at a cost of £7,712 to the public purse.
Mary Elizabeth’s final months as Foreign Secretary were likewise characterised by a similar propensity for spending others’ money, racking up £2m worth of air miles in six months on 20 overseas trips..
However, it was not just Truss’ love of air travel that drew the media’s attention. Back in September 2022, Sky News reported that Foreign Office expenditure during Truss’ tenure included 2 trips to the hairdresser for her at a cost to the taxpayer of nearly £3,400. Then there was nearly £2,900 spent by her department at the Norwich City online store – £1,318 on 21 October last year and £523.50 on 21 March 2022 by an unknown purchaser for unknown goods. Truss is allegedly the Member of Parliament for South West Norfolk, so that might explain this anomalous FCD expenditure.
Stolen sculpture – city council prevaricating over return

09/01/2023 Steve WoodsBristol, Media, Oddities, Politics

In 1897 British troops attacked, burned down and looted the palace of the Oba (king) of Benin in West Africa. The former Kingdom of Benin (1180–1897) is now part of present-day Nigeria.

Amongst the squaddies’ loot was a huge haul of bronze sculptures, many of which found their way into museums, galleries and onto the western art market.

One of these was acquired in Bristol City Museum & Art Gallery in 1935, where it is described as Object Number Ea7821.

Back in 2020 Prince Edun Akenzua of the Royal Court of Benin made a direct appeal to Bristol to return the looted artwork to Nigeria, as reported at the time by the Bristol Post.

Since then many fine words have been written by the city council about repatriation both on the museums website and the museums blog with the latter stating the following regarding the fate of the sculpture:

Although we have still not been able to make contact directly with Royal Court officials, we have been looking at the work of the British Museum and the Benin Dialogue Group and discussing options with the Legacy Restoration Trust. To be clear, we are not bound by the thoughts or decisions of any of these bodies, nor the UK government.
We have been gathering information about the best way to take on board the variety of thoughts and concerns of different groups in Nigeria. There has been a lack of consensus about the best place to hold objects that return to the country. The new, but yet to be built, Edo Museum of West African Art is one option that many do agree with.

Since then things have gone very quiet indeed. Bristol University student newspaper Epigram has even accused the city council’s museums service of “heel-dragging“.

Your ‘umble scribe also believes the city council’s museums service could have moved a little quicker and has today filed the following FoI request with the city council.

Dear Bristol City Council,
This is a request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.
The City Museum & Art Gallery contains in its collection a Benin bronze head (Object Number: Ea7821) looted by the Oba’s palace in 1897 and acquired by the museum in 1935.
Some years ago, the local media reported that this object was to be repatriated to Nigeria.
There have been no subsequent reports of its repatriation, so I am assuming this has still to happen.

Kindly provide an explanation for the delay in repatriating this object to where it belongs despite the city museums website (source: https://www.bristolmuseums.org.uk/collections/action-on-decolonisation/repatriation/) stating: “Bristol City Council acknowledges and recognises that the possession of historic Benin Bronzes is highly contentious and that there are calls for repatriation to Benin (Nigeria). As a consequence, Culture team staff are establishing contact with the interested parties in Nigeria and those who are currently negotiating with them across Europe as part of the Benin Dialogue Group and through the Legacy Restoration Trust in Nigeria”.

Yours etc.

In the past couple of months museums in the United States of America and Germany respectively have repatriated far more Benin bronzes than one bronze head, so come on Bristol, it’s time for you to exdigitate or if you can’t manage that, get your finger out! 😀
Fools and social media

21/12/2022 Steve WoodsMedia, Politics, Social Media, Tech

Your ‘umble scribe has not bothered with social media since the obscenely wealthy and undertaxed man baby masquerading under the name Elon Musk took the helm of Twitter and promptly set about trashing it with his control freak approach to company management, sacking lots of the tech staff that keep the platform running and demanding those that survive show their dedication to the company by working excessive hours.

This was a big wrench for your correspondent, as time not spent working was generally filled with social media discussion and debate, and so entailed a wholesale change in his daily activities (Note to self: must get round to getting on Mastodon some time soon. Ed.).

Following his acquisition of the platform, Musk installed himself as Twitter’s CEO and now seems to have reached the conclusion his rather doubtful skills are up to the job.

In recent days Musk held a Twitter poll to ask Twitter users whether he should remain as the platform’s boss. The results were not flattering if Musk has – as I suspect – a narcissistic streak.

On your bike, laddie!

Musk has now confirmed he will indeed step down as CEO as soon as he can find someone ‘foolish enough‘ to replace him.

One candidate springs to my mind immediately: an egomaniac with current experience of running a social media platform (albeit one misnamed Truth Social. Ed.). Step forward one Donald John Trump, disgraced 45th president of the United States, who spends a large share of his time playing golf (as he did whilst supposed to be occupying the Oval Office. Ed.).

I do hope these two prime examples of the Dunning-Kruger effect play nicely with one another. 😀

PS: The Register is also joining in the fun with its own poll.
Defensive on donations

06/12/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Today’s Guardian reports that donations to the alleged natural party of government (©: the CONservative Party. Ed.) have declined by 40% in just 3 months (although in that quarter it still managed lay its paws on £3m.), according to the latest figures released by the Electoral Commission.

By way of contrast, donations to the Labour Party have risen by almost 25%.

“Hello! Let me introduce you to the powerful and influential person holding me…”

During this time the Tories have worked their way through 3 prime ministers – the disgraceful Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, one Elizabeth Mary Truss and now Goldman Sachs cheerleader Rishi Sunak – and two budgets, including a fiscal disaster from short-lived Chancer of the Excheqeur Kamikwasi Kwarteng.

The Tory spokesperson quoted by The Guardian seems to be very much on the defensive, if your ‘umble scribe’s reading between the lines is accurate.

The Conservative party only accepts donations from permissible sources, namely individuals registered on the UK’s electoral roll or UK registered companies. Donations are properly and transparently declared to the Electoral Commission, openly published by them and comply fully with the law.

If as stated the Tories are only accepting donations from permissible sources, that represents a quick volte-face from six months ago when, as Open Democracy reported, it was still donations from Russian sources linked to the gangster regime of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.
A tale of two cities

21/11/2022 Steve WoodsBristol, Politics

Bristol’s so-called Clean Air Zone, which has been long delayed and much contested, comes into force at the end of the month, with the usual doom-mongers predicting it will spell the death of the city centre and its shopping facilities in particular. Leaving aside those whose idea of transport policy involves sitting at the steering wheel of a mostly empty motorised three-piece suite, the scheme has caused some concern, particularly when coupled with the city’s dreadful public transport, exacerbated as it is at present due to a shortage of bus drivers.

A map of Bristol’s Slightly Less Polluted City Centre Air Zone is shown below.

Image courtesy of Bristol City Council

Some might consider it timid and unambitious, especially if the aim is to get people out of their cars and walking and cycling (so-called active travel. Ed.) or using public transport.

The argument is that the city vastly needs to improve facilities for cycling and walking* – providing far more dedicated infrastructure for both – as well as doing rather more in the way of enforcement against pavement parking (posts passim). As regards public transport, millions of pounds in public money have been poured into the city’s bus network over the years (e.g. Metrobus) with very sign of improvement and with the whole system now suffering from a driver shortage, the area’s bus network is even more unreliable than it has ever been. As for local rail services, Bristol’s are a disgrace compared with other major cities. It took decades of campaigning just to get a reasonably frequent service on the Severn Beach Line, whilst improvements to services to towns and cities surrounding local authorities have hardly improved at all. Then there’s the long-running saga of the reopening of the Bristol to Portishead railway line, where in over 2 decades progress can only be described as sub-tectonic, i.e. the earth’s tectonic plates, which shift by mere millimetres a year, are outstripping the bureaucrats. Meanwhile, the country is also failing to deal with a record cancellations of train services.

Could these be the real reasons why Bristol’s implementation of a congestion charging scheme looks so timid and unambitious?

Looking around the country, Bristol’s congestion charging zone appears to be trifling, a mere inconvenience to the majority who can continue to drive without impunity, particularly when one looks at what is being proposed in Cambridge, for example, as shown below.

Cambridge’s congestion charging zone. Somewhere under the dark green shading is (most of) the city.

As can be seen, the Cambridge scheme covers most of the city’s built-up area, as well as some surrounding villages. It too has attracted criticism, with it being described as town versus gown and car versus bike, pitting the city’s ordinary residents against the dreamers in the spires of Academe.

Your ‘umble scribe just wonders what the reaction of Bristol would have been, had a Cambridge-style scheme been proposed for the city.

* = One of the biggest changes that the council could do to make walking a more practicable mode of transport would be to change the timings on pelican crossings so that the signals change to allow pedestrians to cross within seconds of the button being pressed. This was first suggested over 30 years ago by one of the city’s cycle campaigners, the late Chris Hutt of Cyclebag. The council is keeping it persistently out of sight, having filed it in its bureaucratic oubliette otherwise known as its extensive Not Invented Here filing system.
Goodbye Snowdon. Hello Yr Wyddfa

18/11/2022 Steve WoodsLanguage, Media, Politics

Snowdonia National Park Authority committee members have voted to use the Welsh names of Eryri (Snowdonia) and Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) in both Welsh and English contexts Nation.Cymru reported on Wednesday.

Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) from Crib Goch,

Image from Llywelyn200 courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The receipt of a five thousand signature calling on the authority to formalise the use of the Welsh names Eryri and Yr Wyddfa helped to prompt the latter to take decisive action. The petition was received after the authority had already established a commission to examine the use of place names.

Cardiff University’s Dr Dylan Foster Evans was was asked to compile a series of principles for use as guidance when referring to geographical names in the Eryri / Snowdonia National Park.

A start on using the Welsh names in an English context started some years ago when many of the park authority’s English versions of publications and digital media started using the names Eryri and Yr Wyddfa with the English names following in brackets.

Naomi Jones, the Snowdonia National Park Authority’s Head of Cultural Heritage remarked:</p

Many public bodies across Wales have moved to use both the Welsh and English names, or the Welsh name only, when referring to Yr Wyddfa and Eryri, as have many of the mainstream English-language press and filming companies.
This is very encouraging and gives us confidence that this change in the authority’s approach will be accepted for the benefit of the Welsh language and as a mark of respect to our cultural heritage.

Update 20/11/22: This news has not been universally welcomed east of Clawdd Offa/Offa’s Dyke. A typical reaction comes from monoglot, prejudiced Shropshire Star ‘readers‘. Take and look below the piece and cringe.

Criticisms of the protections of Section 230 for websites

Protection from liability essential for website operation according to Twitter

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