Anonymous by me

Julian Assange. When you hear that name what do you think of? Do you take the Jemima Khan view that he is a champion of the free press and the one man brave enough to expose the evil that is being done in our names? or do you take the view of Sarah Palin et al that he is a terrorist?

One things for sure, even if you've never read any of the material Wikileaks has put our way, you'll know that he's currently fighting extradition from the UK to Sweden to face trial for sex offences.

You could well have an opinion on these charges even if you couldn't care less about Wikileaks. Some take the view that these charges a just a little too convenient and that political pressure is behind them. Others that Mr Assange has previously shown scant regard for the law so perhaps he's guilty of this as well.

Well, whatever. Addressing conspiracy theories is a waste of time. If you believe that Mr Assange is the victim of a 'honey trap' as his lawyer Marc Stephens claims then not a lot is going to change your mind. Even if he is eventually found guilty there is still going to be a large number of people who believe this is all politically motivated.

The entrenched views of both sides have generally left me shrugging my shoulders and letting everyone get on with it. Yeah, yeah, I know. Not very responsible of me. Well, reading the Guardian's website has spurred me in to action.

An article by famed champion of feminism's third wave, Naomi Wolf, claims that accusers in rape cases should be named. That their anonymity in sex cases stems from a Victorian sense of victims being 'damaged goods' and that society doesn't see the victims like that any more. That anonymity is just the law treating women like children and that if you accuse someone of something you should do so publicly.

She then claims that having the accusers identity hidden encourages rape myths such as how rape victims look/dress. The flaw in that argument is so obvious it's almost difficult to put a finger on it.

If a victim of rape has nothing to fear from public opinion then why do myths like 'she was asking for it' persist? Why should someone who has already been through so much place themselves in a position to be defamed by the defence lawyers just so the rest of society can see justice served? Or even to be known by everyone as 'that girl who was raped by that guy' for the rest of her life?

Ms Wolf goes on to say that the accusers in the Assange case are particularly undeserving on anonymity because it is a high profile case. Mr Assange has had his private life gone over with a fine tooth comb and we now know far more about his life than is required or desired. He's a famous person. Does Ms Wolf believe that none of this would have come out without these accusations? Given the taste of the press they almost certainly would.

Mr Assange's accuses are not famous. At least I don't think they are. I've heard that some of Mr Assange's supporters have released their names, addresses and telephone numbers online so I guess if one was Ulrika Jonsson we would have heard about it.

Ms Wolf claims that: "Here, geopolitical state pressure, as well as the pressure of public attitudes about Assange, weigh unusually heavily."

The term 'geopolitical' is key here. Clearly Ms Wolf is in the camp that believes Mr Assange is the victim and the accusers are working for the US government. She couldn't care less that they might not want to be known as the women who were raped by Julian Assange for the rest of their lives. Or that they might not want every aspect of their private lives to be judged by a media half of which think Mr Assange is a saint. Mr Assange doesn't really have a choice in this. He's so famous now that everything about him is in the public domain. Should his accusers only have the choice of seeking justice or having their private lives become public property? Naomi Wolf seems to think so.

She also claims that there can be no fair trial for the accused when he is the victim of "media glare and an attack by the US government while his accusers remain hidden". Again the US government is brought up. Seeing as she is so keen to look at peoples motivation it is good of her to make her's so clear.

I have sat on the press benches during many sex offence cases and there is an argument to waive anonymity. The jury sees the accused in the dock looking like a nice young man in his suit. Wife sitting dutifully in the public gallery occasionally wiping a tear from her eye. How can they fail to sympathise with him more than the shoddy, improvised curtain hiding the alleged victim?

Anonymity for victims clearly is not perfect but it does not exist because of the law treating women as children it exists because without it far fewer people would come forward.

Without anonymity rape victims may well feel like they've been through enough and just try to get over it somehow. Justice is a public service. We should not discourage people from seeking it.

Oh and by the way. Comparing someone accused of rape with the 19th century persecution of homosexuals is unbelievably offensive.

Reply to an Irritable Reply

Well, I guess sometimes you can strike a nerve. Especially when you have a patronising pseudo-intellectual attitude.

I blogged the other day about how just saying that the Daily Mail made stuff up wasn't serious political debate. I went on to say that breaking down their arguments would be a far better way to get people thinking about the issues. That blogs were too full of name calling and accusations that it was all lies instead of serious discussion.

The blog I happened to have in mind was Angry Mob. It just happened to be the one I read but there were plenty of examples, particularly on the Mail's rather lazy and one sided take on Harriet Harman's views on remittances.

Despite having to put up with a bit of name calling myself I'm pleased with the response. Angry Mob's new blog is far better and lays out the case for what is wrong with the views of the Mail and the anonymous Tory..

I personally wouldn't go as far as calling the Mail anti-journalism but it's far better to hold it account by showing what is really wrong with what they are saying. Angry Mob claimed that what I was saying is that "It is a shame that you didn't spend more time considering the utterly false argument made by the Daily Mail...." Given what you say in your About section I'd have thought that is exactly what you would want to do.

Liar Liar Pants on Fire!

There seems to be quite a lot of hyperbole going around these days.

Sorry, did I say 'quite a lot'. I meant 'more hyperbole than there has ever been ever!'

If a football club loses a game they are in crisis. When it snows the country is in chaos. When a journalist writes something you don't like they're a ridiculous liars but what else could you expect from the likes of them!

It can be quite tiring hearing that everything that happens is the most extreme example of it's kind since records began but now that I'm more used to Arsenal losing and the snow has left us for the time being it's the inability to have a grown-up debate about the news that is irritating me the most these days.

Most of these attacks come from the blogosphere. Here people seem to spend a large amount of time reading newspapers that they know they won't agree with. This way they can then write a fatuous blog stating in no uncertain terms that everything in the paper is made up and only idiots read it.

The recent outrage and counter outrage over Harriet Harman's comments about heroic immigrants sending their dole money abroad is a good example.

Probably unsurprisingly this story broke in the Daily Mail with Tim Shipman giving us the 'facts' and Melanie Phillips telling us Harman is 'immoral'.

Fair enough wouldn't you say? A news article with a few comments, mostly from Tories but it's not like anyone is deceived as to the political slant of the Mail. Anyway, the story is about something a prominent Labour person has said so a Tory response is in line with standard journalistic practice.

Not according to the Angry Mob blog it isn't.

Angry Mob is a website devoted to pointing out the daily lies written by the Mail. In their article More Lies About Immigrants the Shipman article is portrayed as completely misrepresenting Ms Harman's statement. The key area of discussion was whether she was pleased immigrants were sending job seekers allowance back home or whether they were sending home part of their earnings which included benefits for low income earners.

Angry Mob was not interested in dissecting the Mail's argument that if you are on income support or housing benefit you shouldn't have enough money left over to send any home and that the real hero is the unassuming British tax payer who is now funding social security in Africa as well. They just claimed that the Mail made it all up and Ms Harman said nothing of the sort.

This is a shame because the Mail's argument is pretty easy to pull apart. If people are receiving benefit for being on a low income then they are employed, paying tax, doing a job no Brit wants to do. If they can scrape by and send a few quid home then they are epitomizing the selfless behaviour the Mail now believes is lacking in our society.

Whether you agree with that or not, it is the argument that could be made. It is certainly the argument Ms Harman would make. After all, she did say that people could be on child benefit or tax credits while sending money home. She does not think it immoral, she thinks it heroic and was brave enough to say what she thought.

Political debate is certainly not aided by pretending that everything is a distortion just because it is accompanied by some opinion.

Perhaps if we could all just grow up and have a discussion about the issues rather than believing that everything is some sort of conspiracy people might engage again with politics.

Not that Sort or Fair....

Fair is a strange word. It can mean a lot of things. From fair-dinkum to the fair sex the dictionary is packed with meanings for this four letter word.

You'd think that having a word with so many meanings would be very useful and I suppose it is. The problems start when the same definition means different things to different people.

George Osborne obviously has a different view of what is fair to Alan Johnson. Although it took a while to notice as Johnson seemed more concerned with cracking jokes during his response to yesterday's spending review.

Fairness is quite similar to irresponsible in that the two main parties seem to disagree over what it means. Yesterday in Parliament Ed Miliband branded the governments plans for cutting the deficit an 'irresponsible gamble' during the warm up act of PMQ's. Others might think it is irresponsible for the government of the day to run up a huge budget deficit.

Responsibility could also do with having its definition clarified. Yesterday Johnson seemed somewhat reluctant to accept that the previous Labour administration was responsible for the state of the countries finances.

Deciding to ignore the fact that it was the budget deficit that was being discussed Johnson made the claim that it was a "myth" that the last government was to blame for the global economic crisis. Not just any myth but "the most incredible myth" pushing Heracles in to second place.

Seeing as the Tories were unlikely yo have regulated the banks any better than them this could be seen as fair. Here he is implying that the new bogeyman of the left, the banker from Deal or No Deal, is responsible and that Labour's handling of the economy was sound.

The problem with this argument goes back to Gordon Brown promising that there would be no return to boom and bust. If there's never going to be another "bust" you've got nothing to worry about have you? Spend all you like. Unfortunately not everything is within a governments control. Whatever your definition of irresponsibility is bankers were definitely it.

The consequences of this are still a painful memory. That point when we all learned that numbers went higher than we previously thought and the government was giving that much away in sterling to people you wouldn't buy a used car from.

Labour seem to blame the budget deficit on the bail out and none of this nasty cutting business would be necessary if we weren't in so much debt because of it.

This isn't true. The deficit is how much the government has to borrow to meet its spending commitments each year.

Brown's administration was basing its spending on forecast growth. Essentially what this means is that the economy was getting bigger so we could spend more money. Even if the economy hadn't reached that size yet it was going to so why worry? After all, boom and bust was a thing of the past, right? Right?

Wrong. The global nature of the crash meant that no-one was safe. When the banks' irresponsibility caught up with them (and us) the economy shrunk, growth was recalculated and we could afford what we'd already spent. By spending so much money that it didn't have and relying on cheap foreign credit Britain was in a weaker position than it needed to be.

Labour's alternative to all these cuts is to trim the budget deficit rather than balance the books. This is exactly the same blinkered attitude. It would undoubtedly be okay as long as everything remained as it is. But if it doesn't, if there is some other international crisis Britain, would be in a truly terrible position.

The Observer's leading article last week urged Osborne to "think globally" before making cuts. Their argument is that the apparently inevitable trade war between China and the US will mean that Britain won't be in a good position to export goods and therefore the private sector won't be able to create jobs. Possibly true. However, a truly international perspective here would reveal that Britain had better get rid of her budget deficit fast.

The reason behind the tension between the US and China is that China has been manipulating her currency so that it can produce cheap goods for export. One of these goods is credit. This has boosted China's economy and weakened America's. Now America wants goods to be produced in the good ol' US of A and not to import so much.

This will all lead to a protectionist stand off that could affect on the price of global credit and cost Britain a fortune. It won't then be a question of what to cut, everything will be cut to the extent that yesterday's cuts will seem generous.

I'm sure that's the definition of something though not everyone will agree of what.

'Right' to Strike?

This week those of us with enough time on our hands will get to see David Cameron make his first speech to the Conservative Party conference since becoming Prime Minister.

We nearly missed out on this TV gold due to the latest threat of industrial action when three unions at the BBC voted to cause a media blackout at the time of Cameron's speech.

Whether a conference blackout would have truly filled our screens with darkness or with repeats of Homes Under the Hammer was not made clear.

Whatever would have been on no doubt viewers will be wishing the BBC had carried out its threat after a few minutes of hearing more talk of how cuts were needed and we should just take our medicine without complaining.

The action was called off after Auntie tabled an improved pension offer to the various unions involved.

Not everyone at the Beeb was keen on taking strike action with several high profile figures, including Jeremy Paxman, speaking out against it.

Union bigwig Ian Pollock was not amused. Pollock accused the Paxman cartel of being undemocratic as the union had voted in favour of the strike. He delightfully described them as working with 'loathsome enemies in Fleet Street' (who could he mean?)

What Pollock fails to understand is that democracy does not end with the union. The BBC has a wholly different democratic role to fill than any other media outlet.

No other news organisation maintains such a veneer of impartiality. This neutral stance is seen as a corner stone of the BBC and is the first thing mentioned in their online editorial guidelines.

That you can rely on Auntie for neutrality means you can scrutinize the countries leaders without having to worry about whether you're being manipulated. This makes the BBC the only true upholders of the 'fourth estate' role and has often been held up as the main justification for the licence fee even when the entertainment schedule doesn't.

This impartiality has often been called in to question with people of all political inclinations occasionally making accusations of bias. (I'm not going to put a link in for this, there are too many examples. Giving just one might seem biased....)

These attacks leave this reputation so fragile just the appearance of prejudice could destroy it forever.

Pollock said that the Tories weren't being targeted deliberately they just happened to be the first big event after what he called the 'long-winded niceties of calling strikes".

Pollock is again missing the point. When walking the tightrope of neutrality appearances mean a lot. If only a few people share the view expressed in Paxman and co.'s letter that blacking out Cameron's speech seems 'unduly partisan' the BBC's reputation is weakened and gives ammunition to its 'loathsome enemies'.

Bargains Up For Grabs In Copenhagen

The UN has often been accused of being nothing more than a talking shop. What the hell does that mean.?


Well, our trusty source of all knowledge, Wikipedia, says: "an organisation or place where discussion is the main activity, with no decisions or actions necessarily arising from the discussion."


This week, however, we've seen a new type of talking shop. This one has plenty of action. Buying and selling.


Copenhagen might have a wonderful Christmas market but this year there are extra special gifts available for Governments of developing countries.


Ease your conscience with the perfect gift: two CO2 cuts for the price of one. What a bargain. By buying some of the CO2 emisions allocated to the developing world you can keep your brand new coal burning power station while telling those who care that you've cut your emissions.


And guess what? It will count towards their cuts too.


So visit your local talking shop today for the gift that will keep on giving. For generation after generation....


For a catalogue of all the products available see Johann Hari's excellent piece in the Independent.

Tally-Ho!

Who said the age of chivalry is dead, eh? Well think again. There is a knight in shining armour still. His name is Boris.

After reading of our Mayor's heroics in saving a passer by from a gang attack, I wondered how history would tell this heroic tale.....

Imagine the scene, dear reader, it is a dark and wintry night. A fair young maid pulls her shawl tight to shield her from the elements. She sees something out of the corner of her eye. For a moment she thinks she catches a glimpse of some Reebok Classics. That can mean only one thing. Hoodies! Then a cat emerges from an alley and she breathes a sigh of relief.

Then a strange noise drifts across the ether. Fear grips our heroine's heart as she recognises the sound. Rubbish R&B coming out of an old Nokia. Young People! The sound gets slowly nearer, she quickens her step, the noise gets louder still.

Then all of a sudden they emerge like a pack of wolves or latch-key kids. The gang of girls surround her. They are shouting at her but she doesn't understand a word. 'They sound like Ali G and Vikki Pollard' she thinks to herself in a moment of clarity. Now they have pushed her up against a car and one of them has an iron bar. Desperately she looks around for an escape route. There is none. 'Where have all the heroes gone?' she wonders 'Who will save me now?'

Then, through the mist, a bicycle bells rings. A mop headed knight on his trusty Raleigh rides forth to save the day.

"Shoo, shoo! Off with you I say!" cries our hero

"Pesky oiks!"

After chasing the fiends away our hero returned to walk the no longer distressed damsel home.

"My hero!" she gasped. "Though I'd still vote for Ken...."

There we go I think he'd like that. If you're reading this Boris, I am available for official biographies.

n.b. This is not how it really happened.