Tesco update

Back in February, the local Tesco on Downland Drive (as well as the branch in Dobbins Place) had it's alcohol licence suspended after repeatedly being caught selling booze to under-18s in operations run by Sussex Police and the local Trading Standards. However, Tesco immediately appealed, and so the suspension has not taken effect.

There was another Tesco branch in Worthing which was subject to the same treatment for the same transgression, and the local council there had acted earlier. In the same way, Tesco appealed, and the appeal was heard and lost a few days ago.

The two Crawley stores are the subject of appeals on 9th and 16th of July (it isn't obvious from reports which one will be heard on which date). Unless there is some significant difference in the details, it would seem likely that the cases will go the same way - meaning that the shops would have to sell no alcohol for 28 days and when they get the license back ensure that a named licensee is on the premises on weekend nights.

Blogertarian reveals true colours

Justin at Chicken Yoghurt says farewell to Blair in unsurprising terms, finishing up with a list of 151 awful things that he's done in the last ten years.

Not wishing to pick through the whole list to decide which I concur with and which are just paranoid warblings, I'll just look at the preamble to see where this comes from:

‘But think of all the good he did,’ say his vestigial supporters. The first ‘good’ to fall from their lips is his three general election victories. The thing is, the Labour Party isn’t like the Brazilian World Cup team - an election victory isn’t a trophy to put in the glass case until the next tournament. To hear most of Blair’s hagiographers speak, winning has been the end in itself.

I agree with this part - to a certain extent. Of course, that Blair won three elections is a measure of some success, and has the advantage that Hague and Howard didn't win any elections.

Once you get past the three golden ‘historic’ election victories, the rest of the trophies accrued over the last ten years look small and brassy. What about economic growth during every quarter of his premiership, cry the faithful. Or the minimum wage? And tax credits?

The thing is, who really cares about such things?

Me for one. Am I alone here? Isn't it part of the Labour movement, if not the vast majority of what we call the 'progressive' wing of politics to at least care about things like the low paid and unemployment? I tell you what, if the minimum wage was revoked today (unthinkable now, but not in 1997) or the economy slowed up, people would start to care an awful lot about it.

Especially when they’re administered in such cack-handed, inhumane ways.

Inhumane? The minimum wage is inhumane? Economic growth has been brought about in a cack-handed manner? I don't get the point - unless Justin has already moved on from the things he doesn't care about...

I think I'll pass on the 151 things that Justin does care about (I suspect that a great many aren't solely down to Blair, and that some are suggestions or quotes rather than actual policies).

Unity on the Ring Thing

In an earlier post, I mentioned that the parents of Lydia Playfoot, the 'Silver Ring Thing' girl, were somewhat involved with the running of the Silver Ring Thing in the UK.

In a sterling post, Unity from Ministry of Truth explains in full detail that involvement, along with a few more details about the case and the organisation.

But there's more. He also uncovers (with help from Tim Ireland the history of one Denise Pfeiffer, who appears to:

1) be involved with the PR firm which works for the Silver Ring Thing,
2) have been actually working for the Silver Ring Thing in 2004 as 'Assistant National Director',
3) be such a rabid Michael Jackson fan that she was charged with making obscene phone calls to the man who accused MJ of abusing his son (she was deported from the USA for that),
4) be the current or ex-girlfriend of one Clive Potter, BNP parliamentary candidate and a man heavily involved in the Solidarity 'Trade Union' and the Christian Council of Britain (both BNP fronts),
5) have, along with Potter, been involved in National Front activities in 2000 against the Leicester Mardi Gras,
6) be a lingerie model (at least in 2006)
7) work for 'mediamarch', an organisation which calls for lots of censorship
8) claim to be an 'asexual' and adult celibate

Blimey!

Following in the fine tradition of Sir Winston Churchill

Anyone can rat, but it takes a certain ingenuity to re-rat.

is attributed to Churchill, commenting about his leaving the Liberals to rejoin the Conservatives.

Of course, the Tory MP Quentin Davies has merely 'ratted' today, but with impeccable timing. Tomorrow Gordon Brown will take over from Blair, and on Thursday the new cabinet will be named. As Davies has once worked on Northern Ireland, I daresay that there will be speculation that he's after the job that Paddy Ashdown turned down last week.

Davies has issued an open letter to David Cameron, outlining the reasons for his defection:

Under your leadership the Conservative party appears to me to have ceased collectively to believe in anything, or to stand for anything.

It has no bedrock. It exists on shifting sands. A sense of mission has been replaced by a PR agenda.

Hmm.

You had come to office as leader of the party committed to break a solemn agreement we had with the European People's party to sit with them in the EPP-ED Group during the currency of this European parliament.

For seven months you vacillated, and during that time we had several conversations.

It was quite clear to me that you had no qualms in principle about tearing up this agreement, and that it was only the balance of prevailing political pressures which led you ultimately to stop short of doing so (though since then you have hardly acted in good faith in continuing with the agreement, for example you never attend the EPP-ED Summits claiming that you are "too busy" - even though half a dozen or more prime ministers are always present.)

This is crucial. When Cameron argued for a referendum on the new EU Treaty / reheated Constitution in Parliament yesterday, it was pointed out by Blair that the EPP-ED had met last week to consider the treaty, along with senior right wing Europeans. If it's so important that a referendum is required, what was Cameron doing last week that stopped him engaging himself in the process?

You are the first leader of the Conservative party who (for different reasons) will not be received either by the president of the United States, or by the chancellor of Germany (up to, and very much including, Iain Duncan Smith every one of your predecessors was most welcome both in the White House and in all the chancelleries of Europe).

It is fair to say that you have so far made a shambles of your foreign policy, and that would be a great handicap to you - and, more seriously, to the country - if you ever came to power.

Ouch!

Although you have many positive qualities you have three, superficiality, unreliability and an apparent lack of any clear convictions, which in my view ought to exclude you from the position of national leadership to which you aspire and which it is the presumed purpose of the Conservative party to achieve.

Double Ouch!

To put the icing on the cake, as far as those of us who may be less than sympathetic to the fortunes of the Tories, Quentin Davies is the MP for Grantham and Stamford, the birthplace of Maggie Thatcher.

The Silver Ring Thing Ding Dong

Odd case this one - a girl suing her school (which she's leaving this year having finished her GCSEs) because they banned her from wearing her 'Silver Ring Thing(tm)' Ring. The SRT is a movement, not a religion. Check out the main website and its Vision and Business Plan. It is also a very odd idea. I have no problem with the idea of abstinence, although equally I don't think it's a big sin to have pre-marital sex. I think that making kids proclaim it with a ring is bizarre. But encouraging pledging kids to meet up and date but not go beyond a certain point, while expecting them to abide by their promise is startlingly naive and a recipe for failure. That's not just my opinion, as a study from Texas bears out

The school concerned is Millais, in our neighbouring town of Horsham. Millais is an all-girls school, twinned with Forest Boys school. In three months time, most of the able students (and we can assume, I hope, that Lydia Playfoot is able) go on to do their A and AS levels at Collyer's Sixth Form College.

I happened to go to Collyer's myself, and the Millais girls were suddenly, at 16, among the testosterone-filled boys from Forest, not to mention the worldly lads from Tandridge (Horsham's mixed school) and a few chirpy Crawley wide boys. A real test of anyone's pledge of abstinence that, I think.

But, even so, the idea that a ring (a corporately produced one at that) is a religious symbol on a par with the Sikh kara bracelet is ridiculous. The kara is part of the central core of Sikhism, one of the 'Five Ks'. While it is disputed, the Islamic practice of hijab has a real history. Millais would allow the wearing of a crucifix, a real Christian symbol, so it's not like Christians are being persecuted or anything.

The fact that her parents are themselves heavily involved in the Silver Ring Thing in the UK suggests to me that this is not about her rights, as much as it is about their campaign. Now that is a true religious tradition - the use and control of the young to further the ends of the people running it.

Harman, the members' choice

The result of the Deputy Leadership elections yesterday was a bit of surprise. Unity over at the Ministry of Truth has an in depth analysis of the round by round results. Personally I would not know how to set a 'left / right' divide among the contenders, only Blears, Cruddas and Harman were really identifiably from any particular 'wing'.

Basically, Harman was ahead in the members' section all of the way through. Johnson was leading the MPs & MEPs section all of the way through too, and Cruddas topped the Union and Affiliates section until he was eliminated.

Seeing as consistent complaints from some members are that the 'leadership' overrule them, and that the unions often are used to override the constituency votes at Conference, it's interesting to note that in this case the Members got their way over the MPs, MEPs, Unions and Affiliates.

Personally I'd rather Cruddas had won, although he did creditably, leading in 1st preferences and coming third overall. As the votes that transferred from him to Harman in the last round included mine, I can't complain too much I suppose. She performed pretty well in the hustings and appeared to move away from the "vote for me, I'm a woman" stance towards picking up on Cruddas' agenda.

And what does Harman do? Straight away she mentions Crawley in her acceptance speech (where Blears appeared to have forgotten about us in her lists of SE marginals).

With Brown announcing that the Deputy Leader would take on the 'Party Chair' role in cabinet (a particular bugbear of mine was that none of the preceding Chairs were ever elected by anyone other than Tony Blair), I'm feeling pretty positive about the outcome.

For Hazel Blears this was a disaster. Despite coming 3rd in the MPs & MEPs section on first preferences, she was some way behind overall and so was the first eliminated. As the current 'Party Chair', she's also already lost her cabinet post into the bargain. Not a good result for the Blairites there.

The Tories are also starting to wobble - the latest polls are going against them - but today they had a good chance to make capital out of Europe. Here's hoping that they don't end up tearing themselves up over the EU again (well, not hoping too much?).

[Update: Tory MP defects to Labour, with Europe as a prime reason. What else should I wish for?

Cameron - Channelling Gordon Brown?

Dave, the smoothy leader of the Tories, told us the other day that he was not like Gordon Brown.

Funny, then, than Tom Freeman has noticed that much of that very same speech was a simplified version of what Gordon himself had been saying - inclusive government, not relying on top-down solutions etc etc.

The main difference between the two is, I think, that Gordon Brown believes what he says and that he'll get some time to demonstrate it. David Cameron is in the business of promising moon sticks (and I still don't understand how the Tory 'new localism' won't lead to an increase in 'postcode lotteries').

Review - Saffron Lounge

(possibly the first of an occasional series, or perhaps just a one-off...)

On Sunday I went along to have a meal at a new Indian/ restaurant in the centre of Crawley, the Saffron Lounge. The place only opened up last week, and due to the timing, it was a very quiet night. The staff were friendly without being intrusive (a common problem on a slow night). The decor is determinedly modern, with much of the wall tiled in pale stones - which made it appear a little antiseptic. Green and orange were the main colours, incongruously set off by neon blue uplighting in the ceiling. The similarity of the scheme to that of the toilets was a little off-putting.

The food itself was clearly designed to be a move away from the traditional 'curry house' menu. The owners are also involved with the Taj Mahal at the south end of the High Street, and it appears to have been pitched to compete directly with the Blue India on the opposite side of the road. The prices were a little on the high side, but the choice was certainly wider than the usual fare.

For starters we had a mixture of tikka pieces of meat and fish, and each of them were very distinct and superbly cooked. For main I had a biryani with chicken and Ms Danivon chose a lamb Bhuna. When they arrived, the portions looked a little on the small side, and we had to return a plain rice as it was cold to touch. However, it turned out that the food was rich enough not to require much more, and the hot rice was quickly and efficiently returned. We had breads as well, a lovely and not-at-all greasy garlic naan, and a surprisingly light and tasty aloo paratha.

Overall, we were pretty happy, although with the aforementioned Blue India nearby and the recently relaunched Zari's in Ifield as competition, as well as a recently modernised Taj Mahal, it remains to be seen whether Crawley can sustain another up-market restaurant specialising in Southern Asian cuisine.

Food - Very good (7/10)
Value for Money - Pricey but not unreasonably so (6/10)
Atmosphere - Austere (4/10)
Service - Friendly and effcient (7/10)
Overall 6/10

Saffron Lounge
5 Grand Parade,
High Street
Crawley
res. 01293 529946

Arise Sir Salman

Not being a great fan of patronage and peerage, I'm not usually enthused by the Honours Lists. They are a way to recognise valuable individuals, particularly the local charity workers who may otherwise be unknown. However, it also means the usual list of old polticians, civil servants, military officers and employees of the Royal family getting a gong simply for having done a job.

This year's Queen's birthday list saw the knighthood of Salman Rushdie. It would be unremarkable for an esteemed author (not just a Booker, but the 'Booker of Bookers') to be honoured, except of course that there is more to his history.

When The Satanic Verses came out, he was accused of blasphemy (how a non-Muslim can be accused of blasphemy seems odd, surely any member of a religion that denies Allah's place as the indivisible god of all creation is also a blasphemer). Famously, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini condemned him to death in a fatwah.

Of course, this sort of thing undermines the idea that Islam is a religion of peace, or that it is robust enough to withstand criticism. Like the Danish cartoons affair of 2005/6, a deliberately provoked overreaction led to violence.

Today the Pakistani parliament did their best to calm tensions - by condemning the knighthood in a debate which included a government minister suggesting that it could justify suicide attacks. The Muslim Council of Britain called it an insult.

The real insult is actually the idea that people of a faith can dictate to everybody else what to read, what to say, or what to think.

While I have no problem with Muslims as people, and regard all religions as equally valid, I think that one's beliefs are ones own affair, and should not be imposed on other people simply because they stem from a religion. That includes institutional control like a theocratic government and most definitely includes the threat of violence (or the justification of violence).

Blair on the media

I reckon Tony Blair is pretty well spot on in his speech today. The media is as much to blame for the distortion of politics as politicians. The gleeful way that the press will tear into any public figure, whether a Z-list celebrity ex-reality star, a minister of the state or anyone in between should be compared with the grubby methods of the journos themselves.

Blair is right that Labour was too reliant on 'spin' in the early days of his leadership and premiership. However, the history of 'spin' is often forgotten by the critics of New Labour.

Before Blair came along, and even when he first appeared, the media, in particular the major-selling print media were clearly aligned with the Tories. Labour had also been pretty poor at press management and failed to keep up with the issues as they were raised.

The 'spin' was actually the way that the press will twist any message or policy or position. Many editors and journalists have a bias, even if they claim not to, and will emphasise what they think is good or bad. The 'spin doctor' was supposed to try to deal with the press in a way which limited the bias that could be applied by journalists.

By 1997, Labour's spin doctors were aided by a press that was abandoning the Tories Ineptness and inertia are not entirely popular, and it was clear that the Major government was on its way out. On top of that, the PR dept of the Party was highly effective.

In the early years of the Blair premiership, 'spin' was overused to an extent in order to protect the nascent government. Now, I think that the perception of 'spin' has overtaken reality massively. A politician can hardly try and say anything without being accused of 'spin'. Yet the media are barely held to account for their blatant politicking.

The example used by Blair, the Independent, is a case in point. Many times it has a front page which is almost pure hyperbole, covering a single issue from a particular point of view, calling for action or condemning those who disagree. It is pure sensationalism, no different from a screaming red top headline, or a Daily Mail / Express 'tax bombshell' hype.

Increasingly it is difficult to discern news from comment. The reason that the Indy should examine itself is that when it was founded, it was on the basis of strong journalistic ethics and a lack of editorial agenda.

Don't get me wrong, I may well agree with the Independent's views or conclusions. But presenting opinion and conjecture as fact is what undermines the integrity of the press - and as the press often has a major impact on the way that we view the world, distorts our perceptions.

You can understand, perhaps, why Blair has waited until he's in is swansong phase to make his comments. The fact that he knew he couldn't say them earlier would appear to help vindicate him.