Black Country, New Road - For The First Time
24 minutes ago
Saturday, 24 April 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
Preliminary Analysis of the Officially Released ACTA* Text
*The EU Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
'Sun' censored poll that showed support for Lib Dems
The Sun newspaper failed to publish a YouGov poll showing that voters fear a Liberal Democrat government less than a Conservative or Labour one.
The Liberal Democrats accused the newspaper, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, of suppressing the finding. The paper, which endorsed Labour in the past three elections, declared its support for David Cameron during the Labour Party's annual conference last October. Like other Tory-supporting papers, it has turned its fire on Nick Clegg over his policies, pro-European statements and expenses claims since he won last week's first televised leaders' debate.
YouGov also found that if people thought Mr Clegg's party had a significant chance of winning the election, it would win 49 per cent of the votes, with the Tories winning 25 per cent and Labour just 19 per cent. One in four people Labour and one in six Tory supporters say they would switch to the Liberal Democrats in these circumstances. The party would be ahead among both men and women, in every age and social group, and in every region. On a uniform swing across Britain, that would give the Liberal Democrats 548 MPs, Labour 41 and the Tories 25.
The Liberal Democrats hope the long-standing argument that supporting them would be a "wasted vote" is breaking down following the surge in support for them in the past week. However, even the most optimistic Liberal Democrats do not expect to win the election.
The party has taken comfort from YouGov's unpublished finding that more voters would be delighted by the formation of a Liberal Democrat government (29 per cent), than by a Tory government (25 per cent) or a Labour one (18 per cent).
Only 21 per cent would be dismayed if a Liberal Democrat administration were formed, compared to 45 per cent for the Tories and 51 per cent for Labour. A Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition, which would delight 14 per cent of people, would be a more popular outcome than a Conservative-Liberal Democrat one (9 per cent).
The Liberal Democrats are angry that The Sun did not publish these figures. Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, the party's Treasury spokesman, said: "The numbers show that half the country cannot stand Gordon Brown and that the other half can't stand David Cameron. I wonder why The Sun wouldn't share this news with its readers.
"We always knew...that when people believe the Liberal Democrats can win, there is a big jump in our support. In 90 minutes in the first debate, Nick Clegg tore open the two-party straitjacket which has stifled British politics for the last 80 years. Now, at last, people can vote for what they want, not against what they fear."
The Sun declined to comment last night. On the day the poll's findings were published on Tuesday, it focused on the Tories moving into the lead in the share of the vote and said there were signs that the Liberal Democrats' surprise surge was on the wane. An editorial comment said: "Mr Clegg is the political equivalent of a holiday romance. An exciting fortnight's flirtation so long as you don't ask too many questions. We cannot gamble the nation's future like that."
However, Sun journalists said YouGov's extensive daily poll always contained too many findings to publish. On Monday, the paper ran a front-page story saying the Liberal Democrats had taken the lead, based on the previous day's survey.
Peter Kellner, the YouGov president, said in a commentary on the unpublished poll that it was no longer outlandish to ask whether Mr Clegg could end up as prime minister. "The answer is probably no – I'd put the odds at 10-1 against – but longer-odds horses have won big races in the past," he said.
Mr Kellner added: "Not only is a Lib Dem government the most popular option; it is the one that frightens voters far less than any other option. If the Lib Dem bandwagon is to be halted and sent into reverse, Labour and the Tories must do far more to persuade voters that a vote for the Lib Dems would be seriously bad for Britain."
Another poll published yesterday suggested that the Liberal Democrats' advance has proved more damaging to the Tories than to Labour.
According to the Ipsos MORI poll for Reuters, the Tories have achieved a 5 per cent swing from Labour since the last general election, in 2005, in Labour-held marginal constituencies. That suggests Britain is still heading for a hung parliament, with the Tories as the largest party.
The poll, conducted between 16 and 19 April, showed support for Labour fell to 36 percent compared with 41 per cent two weeks ago, while Tory support dropped to 32 percent from 38 per cent. Liberal Democrat support jumped to 23 per cent from 11 per cent.
The swing to the third party comes mainly from voters who were previously not sure they would vote.
The truth about those smears against Clegg
Claim: Liberal Democrat donors paid up to £250 a month into Nick Clegg's personal bank account (The Daily Telegraph, yesterday).
Truth: Despite the front page headline Mr Clegg did not break any parliamentary rules, and the cash – which the party said helped pay for a researcher in Mr Clegg's office – was declared in the Commons register of members' interests. The Daily Telegraph says he made separate claims under his office allowances budget to cover staffing. The Liberal Democrats say the story is "wrong in fact" and have produced paperwork to back up their assertion.
Claim: Clegg lobbied for "lax" EU bank laws (The Daily Telegraph, yesterday).
Truth: Before becoming an MP, Mr Clegg had a brief spell as a lobbyist for GPlus. Its clients included the Royal Bank of Scotland, which was attempting to amend EU directives. Mr Clegg did work on the RBS account, but did not lobby "externally" on its behalf. GPlus said last night that Mr Clegg worked for it two days a week for about eight and a half months.
Claim: Clegg made a "Nazi slur on Britain" and said the British have a "more insidious cross to bear" than Germans over the Second World War (Daily Mail, yesterday).
Truth: The comments were made in a newspaper article by Mr Clegg in 2002 when he was a Euro MP. Written after two Germans working in a call centre in Swindon went to an industrial tribunal to protest about the abuse they suffered, it argued the British still laboured from "anti-German mania". He concluded: "All nations have a cross to bear, and none more so than Germany with its memories of Nazism. But the British cross is more insidious still. A misplaced sense of superiority, sustained by delusions of grandeur and a tenacious obsession with the last war, is much harder to shake off."
Claim: "Clegg refused to return a £2.4m donation to the party from convicted fraudster Michael Brown" (The Sun, Tuesday).
Truth: Brown's donations in 2004 – the biggest in the party's history – have hung over the Liberal Democrats for years. First, there were questions whether Brown's company, 5th Avenue Partners, was a genuine UK business. Then in 2008 Brown was charged with fraud and money-laundering and fled bail. He was convicted in his absence and sentenced to seven years in jail. Despite the conviction, the Electoral Commission has concluded the donations were permissible because the firm "was carrying on business in the UK" at the time and the Liberal Democrats had no need to return the money.
Claim: The Liberal Democrats have "flip-flopped shamelessly" on Afghanistan (The Sun, yesterday).
Truth: This is based on a party conference motion last year which said ministers should focus on "concluding the Afghanistan mission" and called on the UK to end the "military first" approach to the country. However, motions passed at party conferences are not binding and the party's foreign affairs spokesman, Ed Davey, told delegates the party supported the war. Its manifesto stops short of setting a timetable for withdrawal and says the Liberal Democrats will be "critical supporters of the Afghanistan mission".
Claim: Britain's security would be risked by Liberal Democrat policy to scrap our Trident nuclear defence (The Sun, yesterday).
Truth: The Liberal Democrats' manifesto does say they would "rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system" to save £100m. However, they also say they are multilateralist, not unilateralist. Former leader Sir Menzies Campbell favours replacing Trident with cheaper, nuclear-tipped cruise missiles which could be stationed on smaller Astute-class subs. This would mean Britain would remain a nuclear power with a seat at the UN Security Council.
Claim: Liberal Democrats' "crazy" immigration policy would give jobs to asylum seekers (Daily Express, yesterday).
Truth: The Liberal Democrats propose an amnesty for failed asylum seekers and illegal immigrants who have been here for 10 years and not committed any crimes. This is controversial because of fears it could encourage illegal immigrants to try their luck in Britain in the hope of triggering a further amnesty in the future. The Liberal Democrats would also introduce a regional points-based system to allow migrants to work only where they are needed. It would be backed up by "rigorous checks on businesses and a crackdown on rogue employers who profit from illegal labour".
Claim: The Liberal Democrats would free 60,000 convicts (Daily Mail, Wednesday).
Truth: The Liberal Democrat manifesto does promise to "introduce a presumption against short-term sentences of less than six months – replaced by rigorously enforced community sentences which evidence shows are better at cutting reoffending". The Daily Mail claimed that in 2008 "no fewer than 58,076 people were sentenced to a prison term of six months or less". The Ministry of Justice said the real figure was 55,333. The Liberal Democrat policy would spare offenders from going into prison; it would not "free" prisoners.
Claim: Clegg is posh (The Sun yesterday).
Truth: His half-Russian banker father sent him to one of Britain's smartest prep schools, Caldicott; he went on to Westminster School and Cambridge. A friend is quoted as saying: "His father was an incredibly wealthy banker with loads of houses – in London, in the Chilterns, a French chateau, a ski chalet in Switzerland... I think." So true – but then so is David Cameron.
Andrew Grice @'The Independent'
Banning music in Somalia
After two decades of internal warfare, Somalia has demonstrated a consistent ability to create disheartening news. Long acknowledged as the world’s ultimate failed state, Somalia has more recently—justifiably—become known as the headquarters of maritime piracy. Now its homegrown Islamist insurgents, the Shabbab (the Youth), who have espoused an allegiance to Al Qaeda’s global jihad, are doing their utmost to outdo their counterparts in other countries in applying an unflinchingly severe version of Islam.
Last week, the group, which controls most of southern Somalia and large sections of the capital, Mogadishu, announced a ban on music—and even, reportedly, on school bells—in its territory, as “un-Islamic.” The BBC and other Western broadcasters are also forbidden. The Shabbab had previously prohibited international aid organizations from distributing food or providing medical treatment to the hundreds of thousands of needy, war-displaced Somali civilians living under its armed custody.
Yesterday, Human Rights Watch issued its latest report on Somalia. It paints a devastating, bleak, and upsetting portrait of life for Somali civilians under the Shabbab. Entitled “Harsh War, Harsh Peace,” the report details human-rights violations by all of Somalia’s armed parties: the Shabbab; the weak central government headed by the Western-backed, Islamist-firebrand-turned-moderate President, Sheikh Ahmed Sheikh Sharif; and even the several thousand Ugandan and Burundian troops of AMISOM, the U.N.-backed African Union peacekeeping force. AMISOM provides security to Sharif’s government and is all that keeps it from falling to the Shabbab.
For now, a ceaseless war of positions goes on in Somalia, punctuated by the odd Shabbab suicide bombing or renewed bout of fighting. In Mogadishu, the Shabbab’s front lines are just a few miles from Villa Somalia, the presidential compound; you can see them from there with the naked eye. Last August, I travelled to Mogadishu to report a story on Sheikh Sharif (subscription required) and stayed at Villa Somalia. One day during my stay, a heated round of back-and-forth shelling took place. Neither side gained any ground, but a dozen or so civilians were killed in the shelling.
It is because of the carelessness of such barrages that the government and AMISOM come in for criticism from Human Rights Watch. Nevertheless, the report makes it clear that the Shabbab are by far the worst human-rights transgressors in Somalia. In the south of the country, as the Human Rights Watch report details, Somalis live in greater peace from rival warlords or the depredations of marauding militias, but in fear of the Shabbab. As one resident of a southern town explained: “We just stay quiet. If they tell us to follow a certain path, we follow it.”
Human Rights Watch conducted over seventy interviews with civilians living under the Shabbab. They describe the insurgents as having imposed a cruel tyranny in their territory, behaving especially harshly toward women. The litany of cruelties is depressingly familiar: amputations and floggings are said to be routine; women are beaten for leaving their homes without wearing their abaya robes in the properly decreed manner. There are stonings and beheadings and firing squads and assassinations, to which not just women but men and boys are subjected for various infractions.
I recall a similar pattern of steadily growing obsessiveness about upholding and safeguarding “Islamic purity” during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, before the American invasion in 2001. The Taliban had banned music early, but later on, perhaps because they had free rein, and perhaps because they could, they began adding more and more items to their “banned” list. As Amy Waldman reported in the Times in 2001, this came to encompass
Last month, I went to see Sharif in Birmingham, England, during a week-long visit to Great Britain. He had come to meet the members of the Somali emigre community in a convention centre in a beat-up part of town. As hundreds of Somalis filed in, I was shown through a tight police security cordon and into an upstairs waiting room. Sharif was sitting in a small meeting room with an aide, eating lunch. During the previous few days there had been an upsurge in fighting in Mogadishu; the Shabbab had been attacking government positions in an effort to probe them, seemingly, and to advance; there had been dozens of deaths. I suggested that the Shabbab looked prepared to put up a fight. Sharif shrugged, and said, “It is their counteroffensive before our offensive.” The offensive, he assured me, was coming soon.
Last week, the group, which controls most of southern Somalia and large sections of the capital, Mogadishu, announced a ban on music—and even, reportedly, on school bells—in its territory, as “un-Islamic.” The BBC and other Western broadcasters are also forbidden. The Shabbab had previously prohibited international aid organizations from distributing food or providing medical treatment to the hundreds of thousands of needy, war-displaced Somali civilians living under its armed custody.
Yesterday, Human Rights Watch issued its latest report on Somalia. It paints a devastating, bleak, and upsetting portrait of life for Somali civilians under the Shabbab. Entitled “Harsh War, Harsh Peace,” the report details human-rights violations by all of Somalia’s armed parties: the Shabbab; the weak central government headed by the Western-backed, Islamist-firebrand-turned-moderate President, Sheikh Ahmed Sheikh Sharif; and even the several thousand Ugandan and Burundian troops of AMISOM, the U.N.-backed African Union peacekeeping force. AMISOM provides security to Sharif’s government and is all that keeps it from falling to the Shabbab.
For now, a ceaseless war of positions goes on in Somalia, punctuated by the odd Shabbab suicide bombing or renewed bout of fighting. In Mogadishu, the Shabbab’s front lines are just a few miles from Villa Somalia, the presidential compound; you can see them from there with the naked eye. Last August, I travelled to Mogadishu to report a story on Sheikh Sharif (subscription required) and stayed at Villa Somalia. One day during my stay, a heated round of back-and-forth shelling took place. Neither side gained any ground, but a dozen or so civilians were killed in the shelling.
It is because of the carelessness of such barrages that the government and AMISOM come in for criticism from Human Rights Watch. Nevertheless, the report makes it clear that the Shabbab are by far the worst human-rights transgressors in Somalia. In the south of the country, as the Human Rights Watch report details, Somalis live in greater peace from rival warlords or the depredations of marauding militias, but in fear of the Shabbab. As one resident of a southern town explained: “We just stay quiet. If they tell us to follow a certain path, we follow it.”
Human Rights Watch conducted over seventy interviews with civilians living under the Shabbab. They describe the insurgents as having imposed a cruel tyranny in their territory, behaving especially harshly toward women. The litany of cruelties is depressingly familiar: amputations and floggings are said to be routine; women are beaten for leaving their homes without wearing their abaya robes in the properly decreed manner. There are stonings and beheadings and firing squads and assassinations, to which not just women but men and boys are subjected for various infractions.
I recall a similar pattern of steadily growing obsessiveness about upholding and safeguarding “Islamic purity” during the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, before the American invasion in 2001. The Taliban had banned music early, but later on, perhaps because they had free rein, and perhaps because they could, they began adding more and more items to their “banned” list. As Amy Waldman reported in the Times in 2001, this came to encompass
pork, pig, pig oil, anything made from human hair, satellite dishes, cinematography, any equipment that produces the joy of music, pool tables, chess, masks, alcohol, tapes, computer, VCR’s, televisions, anything that propagates sex and is full of music, wine, lobster, nail polish, firecrackers, statues, sewing catalogs, pictures, Christmas cards.Eventually, even kite-flying was banned on the grounds that it was not Islamic, and because in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, as the Taliban came to call their country, it was considered right that children should be praying, not playing. The Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan, along with other “idolatrous” ancient treasures in the national museum of Kabul, didn’t come about until March, 2001, late in their tenure. That act, in the face of appeals from cultural institutions and governments around the world, seemed as much one of defiance as anything else. Perhaps the Shabbab, now on their own banning frenzy, are feeling threatened, too.
Last month, I went to see Sharif in Birmingham, England, during a week-long visit to Great Britain. He had come to meet the members of the Somali emigre community in a convention centre in a beat-up part of town. As hundreds of Somalis filed in, I was shown through a tight police security cordon and into an upstairs waiting room. Sharif was sitting in a small meeting room with an aide, eating lunch. During the previous few days there had been an upsurge in fighting in Mogadishu; the Shabbab had been attacking government positions in an effort to probe them, seemingly, and to advance; there had been dozens of deaths. I suggested that the Shabbab looked prepared to put up a fight. Sharif shrugged, and said, “It is their counteroffensive before our offensive.” The offensive, he assured me, was coming soon.
Jon Lee Anderson @'New Yorker'
Waayaha Cusub Dumar Qima Badana
For centuries, Somalis used poetry and songs to pass protest messages to powerful rulers they were too afraid to confront directly. Now, some young Somalis are using rap to speak out against Islamists who they say are using religion to wage war in their country. The 11-member Waayaha Cusub band, currently in exile in neighbouring Kenya, wants its rap lyrics to encourage fellow Somalis to stand up to Islamist rebels known as al Shabaab.
They have handed out at least 7,000 free copies of their newly-released album titled "No To Al Shabaab" to residents in Nairobi's Eastleigh neighbourhood, home to many Somali migrants. "We will wipe out the fear of our people that no one can speak out against al Shabaab. We will show our people that we can challenge them," said Shine Abdullahi, the group's founder... "They are unkind, teach terrorism, and worthless lessons, they blindfold, and cause pain, inject drugs, that lead to actions, force them to kill their fathers and relatives," one of the group's raps goes.
The group's only female member, Falis Abdi Mohamud, is a rebel in her own right. In one video, the 23-year-old is not covering her head as most Somali women do, and is wearing tight jeans. "They criticise me and say 'she is not Muslim because of wearing a trouser'. I am Muslim," she said. "I want to reach my people. I will not stop my mission because of fear or other people's desires. History will tell who is right and wrong."
Mohamud was born in the southern town of Kismayu that is now an al Shabaab stronghold. The insurgents have banned music in areas that they control and allow only Arabic Koranic chanting. Waayaha Cusub toured the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland in July but Mohamud hopes to perform in her hometown one day. "The trip to Somalia was great. That is when I realised people like our music, and it really gave us confidence not to stop our campaign because a few people who dislike us." The group's youngest member is 15-year-old Suleqa Mohamed, who is a student at an Eastleigh school.
Most of them want to return to Somalia and live off their music when peace returns but currently survive on sponsorships by businessmen and Somalis in the diaspora. Their songs have angered some people. Even in the relative stability and security of Kenya they have been attacked. Gunmen shot and wounded Abdullahi in 2007. He believes the attack was because the group released a series of songs criticising Ethiopia's incursion into Somalia and suicide bombings by the insurgents. Even mobile phone text message threats from al Shabaab sympathisers in Kenya and Somalia have failed to intimidate Abdullahi.
He says he will never be cowered by what he calls "religious warlords" who present an awful image of Islam to the world. "The attack was aimed at silencing the group, but that did not work," he said, showing scars on his stomach from a bullet and the surgery that followed. "We will not allow anyone to silence us. They misread our religion and kill people. They are cursed," he said...
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