Monday, 24 September, 2007
- 24 Sep 07, 04:28 PM
Brown
"I will not let you down," says Gordon Brown as he promises to build a "Britain of aspiration" in his first speech to the Labour conference as Prime Minister. But can he really "unlock the talents" of the British people and provide public services "personal to all"? Jeremy is at Labour's conference in Bournemouth and will be interviewing Cabinet Minister Jack Straw.
Plus, what do the voters think of the new Prime Minister and his Tory rival David Cameron? Frank Luntz speaks to a focus group of floating voters who are… err… less than flattering.
And the game that's sweeping the conference - Guess Gordon's Election Date.
Ahmadinejad
Guest speakers are often welcomed within the hallowed walls of America's Ivy league colleges. Occasionally, they even have quite controversial things to say. But some cause more of a stir than others. Tonight, Iran's president will be welcomed at a question and answer session at Columbia University in New York.
Students will be able to ask Mahmoud Amadinejad about his government's policies, his Holocaust denial, and his alleged development of nuclear weapons. It promises to be quite a good watch, and we'll bring you the highlights, Match of the Day style, of Iran's answer to The Special One.
Burma
It's been a huge show of dissent against a government not known for it's tolerance of dissent. Up to a hundred thousand protesters have marched through the streets of Rangoon - the sixth day of marches, sparked by economic worries over the government's rise in fuel prices.
The demonstrations in Burma have grown in size and confidence by the day. In fact few can understand why the ruling junta hasn't cracked down on them before now. Today, the first shot across the bows as the country's religious leader warned the many marching monks not to take their protests further, invoking images of the violence that occurred during the last crackdown. So will the protestors take heed? Or has the peace movement gathered enough momentum to carry on regardless?
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Columbia University 'welcomes' Ahmadinejad!
No matter how much you disagree with the policies of the leader of a country, you do NOT invite him to speak only to insult him before he starts. That is the height of bad manners on a startling scale.
Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger defended the university's decision to invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at the campus today, then got stuck into him, saying Ahmadinejad behaved like "a petty and cruel dictator." (I thought Bush had that distinction!).
So did they invite him just for Bollinger to be able to insult him face-to-face? Looks like it to me.
Whilst I disagree with much of what the Iranian government stands for, and with what Mr.Ahmadinejad says, he is still an elected world leader and therefore merits respect.
The US has never got over the fact that they were totally unable to rescue their hostages in 1979 and were shown up to be military incompetent ... again.
Get over it! Stop lying about Iran's nuclear activities and start to work for P-E-A-C-E, damn yer!
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MAN OF THE MANSE
Has anyone noticed how closely "Man of the Manse" rings with "Man of La Mancha"? Both are about deluded old men with a false sense of importance. Has anyone asked those who lost their pension pots (a form of savings) how they feel now that New Labour (who refused to reimburse them, on cost grounds) has propped up savers in the Rock and is rumouring a general 100K guarantee?
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Newsnight, though normally one of my favourite TV programmes, tonight comes in for some harsh criticism.
Labour Conference: For Heavens Sake stop going On and On about when an election might be held. It is Boring Boring Boring and you are making fools of yourselves. Newsnight should be discussing proper issues raised at the conference instead of devoting a big chunk of the programme to pictures of daft women putting pins in boards and a snippet of Neil Kinnock's bad language.
Unfortunately the most interesting thing you showed from the Conference was Tony Benn sitting outside on the pavement smoking his pipe.
Why can't you discuss some proper issues like comparing the Hyperbole and Hypocrisy of Gordon Browns speech about standing up for hard working Britons with at the same time threatening to take away the rights of Royal Mail workers to the Pension Schemes they have signed up to and been paying into for years. This might lead to a Christmas Mail Strike and the Managers wont be stepping in to man the Mail Centres as they will also be affected by the Great Pensions Robbery.
American Poll Guy: he had many of the same people on his focus group this week that he had in his focus group last week (though not all of them were the same). This doesn't give the viewer confidence that it is a representative panel. Anyway I am sick and tired of this US Pollster.
Ahmadinejad: Will G W Bush now show us his mettle by going to an Iranian university to take part in a televised debate amongst millions of hostile braying Iranian students? I think the chance that he will must be more than one million to one.
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Kinnock swearing or Kinnock's wearing?
Both exactly the same by the sound of it.
His cameo performance at the LPC should go down well with his fellow "Tory Bd" Peers in the House of Lords; and should do wonders in pulling the votes of the other eight million or so Tory Bd voters in England.
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I wish people would stop going on about the old Labour party and how Gordon appears to them. Who cares?
The cold war is over people and times have moved on whether you like it or not.
You (old Labour) never got power back then because you were to busy in your talking shops so we the labour people of now have to deal with what we have not what you would have liked us to have if you had been elected 25 years ago.
You let us down and therefore should stop moaning and be thankfull we have a party who can make a change and has.
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What’s the point on having a debate on whether we should have invaded Iraq on Tuesday’s program? It's already happened! We should be debating what the best resolution is now and how best to withdraw.
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What an absolutely brilliant Newsnight last night with Jeremy (31/10) & co in Bournemouth! Brilliant interview with Jack Straw and Michael C. However, I was almost choking with laughter at the site of Jeremy shouting "roll up , roll up" and then having a "pin the election date" to the board game. Perhaps there should have been a blindfold added too! Ha ha ha ha ha :-)
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for the westminster village to go on and on about the election is not making fools of themselves, it is making fools of us. at least some public money goes into this public school boy game that gets played anytime there is the whiff of an election. al scardino referred to editors salivating, and most tv journalists are visibly animated - it's benny hill level politics, no conscience that perhaps after 10 years of cocktail party politics we actually have a bit of stability and some basic protestant values coming back into focus - and i refer to the political context of that religion as per the excellent programmes on Â鶹ԼÅÄ4 - presenter's name escapes me, tall hooray type young man but great analysis.
and this boys club mentality is exactly what peter oborne was suggesting, in dispatches last night, has indeed been structurally embedded into our so-called democracy - well it is beoming very authentic in the sense that only free athenian men were included in the demos.
but more importantly the private team-game, played out in public, is depriving us of any real news. I switched from Â鶹ԼÅÄ24 to Sky a couple of years ago when I realised Sky's news coverage is broader and more popular than the Â鶹ԼÅÄ's (and I got fed up of seeing women dressed in cocktail outfits at 7 am!) and now I have switched to France24 where there appears to be a Europe and a World out there beyond Westminster, Iraq and Afghanistan.
It is no wonder the British are anti-Europe, we hear and see nothing about what goes on in some very interesting countries - Germany and France both have huge intellectual traditions that we seem to completely dismiss over here - then there's Turkey - a vitally important country, where's the coverage, where's the support for an Islamic country struggling to Westernise in the face of rising mysogynistic fundamentalism? What about Canada, Australia, what's going on over there? what are the cultures like etc. etc.
we seem to be bogged down in this ridiculous attempt to be western and all things ethnic at the same time and it won't work. the iraq war may have been about oil but with that came the act of a good samaritan - the fact that the act of charity was wasted on the waring tribes of the middle east is hardly our fault and the violent reaction has now jeopardised any chance of Burma being rescued for fear of the same although I think assistance against a tyrannical regime in Burma would be truly appreciated - different religion, peaceful ideology.
i had to laugh when i heard that armadinejad said he couldn't understand why holocaust denial is not allowed under free speach - yep, armi, westernisation is not as easy as you thought - it is subtle, nuanced and dialectic, which is something that the isalmic religion is not and thus followers find the thinking of the enlightenment difficult to get the hang of - but stick with it, it's a thought pattern available to anyone - no races, genders or sexualities are barred.
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Sir, One line on Iraq (mind you he did sign the cheques) no mention of Equitable Life, a referendum on Europe or MP's expenses as witnessed on Channel 4. They have no shame, and yet we give a standing ovation. What a strange breed we are. Sincerely, Steve.
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So when's Newsnight going to invite the Little Man from Barking on the programme for Paxo to taunt? Columbia University did OK, putting yes/no questions.
Pity that the visit by the suave Iranian leader in his well-cut suit will upstage a discussion at that same university tomorrow by the Estonian and Georgian presidents, with Bollinger again moderating. But those two aren't trying to spin their way towards an atom bomb, as those many whirling centrifuges are doing in Iran. The Estonian President happens to be a graduate of Columbia.
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So when's Newsnight going to invite world leaders on the programme for Jeremy Paxman to quiz? That university in New York did OK yesterday, putting yes/no questions.
Pity that yesterday's discussion will upstage a discussion at that same university tomorrow by the Estonian and Georgian presidents, with Bollinger again moderating. But those two aren't trying to spin their way towards an atom bomb, as those many whirling centrifuges are doing in some countries. The Estonian President happens to be a graduate of Columbia.
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WILL HE, WON’T HE?
The speculation about the date of the next election gets ever more feverish. But let’s get one thing clear. Gordon Brown will not truly know himself until after the focus groups and opinion polls have settled down; say a couple of weeks after the conference season. As Frank Lutz on Newsnight last night showed, public opinion has rarely been more volatile; the only thing his panel agreed on was ‘a plague on both your houses’ and the result is the massive swings in the polls from day to day.
Assuming, though, that his pollsters find good news what are the arguments for an election now?
1. VOLATILITY: Public opinion is getting ever more unpredictable. So he will be well advised to seize what advantage he may now have.
2. THE ETERNAL QUESTION: Tony Blair found that his last year was crippled by the media focus on when he was going; this one question wiped out coverage of everything else he did. Brown may find his first year equally swamped by much the same question. When will he go to the country? Putting the media out of its misery may, though, be a good reason for calling an election now; and will show how mature he is and how much he puts the country first!
3. THE KNOWN UNKNOWNS: It is bad enough to be at the mercy of totally unknown future events – Callaghan destroyed by the winter of discontent, Wilson simply by England being knocked out of the World Cup – but there are already a number of spectres on the horizon. Iraq, with Bush capable of every mistake in the book, is never safe. Equally the arguments over the Channel about the new treaty EU could have very unpredictable results. But the biggest threat of all is the looming meltdown of the US economy; already trillions of dollars in debt and with a banking industry totally out of control – and the Fed reduced once more to throwing around cheap money. The problem is that this will roll over into the global markets and hence to the UK. The problems will, more than likely, swamp our governments efforts; and destroy Brown’s carefully fostered image of financial probity.
4. CAMERON’S WEAKNESS: We have yet to see the outcome of the Tory Conference, and our hero may with one bound be free. So, like our PM we will be best advised to wait and see. But Cameron, the ultimate celebrity famous for being famous, has lost his invulnerability – along with his boyish good looks! The call has been made that this emperor has no clothes; and, where he can no longer duck the issue of a total lack of policies, he will be brought to his knees by Brown’s long list of actions not promises. With an immediate election he is totally exposed. It is too late to create and sell a viable manifesto of policies; though – given another year – he might do just that (another reason for Brown to go to the country now!).
I think the PM’s speech showed that, subject to the polls, he has already taken the decision to go now. It was a carefully crafted masterpiece of selling an election manifesto; the trustworthy giant of a PM versus the boy pretender. However time, just three weeks or so, will tell!
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Two points on Ahmadinejad's visit to Columbia University:
1) Despite assertions reported in the NYT and elsehere, read carefully (i.e. not relying on Western press translations) Iran/Ahmadinejad has never said that 'Israel' (which Iran refers to as 'The Zionist Entity' as it does not rtecognise the *state* of Israel) should be *physically* destroyed. What it has challenged is the political entity. This is rather like Eire and the IRA calling for the end to an independent Northern Ireland.
2) secondly, some demographic, political context, the first from Columbia itself:
/blogs/newsnight/2007/09/wednesday_19_september_2007.html
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#6,#7 Perhaps I'm misreading New Labour, but given that it's a member of the Socialist International:
can we not take their US (the DSA) version's statement of Democratic Socialism's theory and practice as New Labour's real agenda?
I see David Cameron's 'Neo-Conservative' Party as another group of anarcho-capitalist/Democratic Socialists and that's why the electorate can hardly tell the difference between them. One can almost choose red or blue randomly.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but New Labour, *and* the Conservatives both appear to be anti-Old Labour (i.e. anti-regulation or anti 'socialism_in_one_country' (Stalinism/Statism, i.e the welfare state and large Civil Service) and cite their inability to control international finance as the reason. This appears (paradoxically to some perhaps, but see the attachment below if sceptical), to be fundamentally Trotskyist (i.e Bolshevik see pages 4-7 below especially).
I expect to see more of the Public Sector essentially privatised to the Third Sector (see Probation now the new Offender Management Bill is reaching its last stages in the Houses). Is this not just sugar coated Trotskyism (anarcho-capitalism)? Some of the current policies (education and immigration) appear to me to be guaranteed to dissolve the UK into a quasi EUSSR over time. The current 'education, education, education' mantra will almost certainly just serve to denude the country of talent several generations down the line (as explained elsewhere, it keeps brighter females in education and the workplace longer, reducing family size in the brighter sector of society).
If this is what the majority of this country wishes, so be it. I just hope those welcoming it for their children (if they have time to have them) know what they are voting for, as they may not really have the choice they think they do.
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There are many American academics who speak of strategies to get along peaceably with the leadership of Iran, Syria and the likes. Among them, three professors of Middle East studies stand out: the University of Minnesota's William O. Beeman; Boston University's
Augustus Richard Norton; and Harvard University's Sara Roy.
Why the Newsnight viewers do not get to hear such alternate opinions may not be a mystery if the spotlight on M. Ahmedinejad is in fact aimed at bulldozing any meaningful exchange about American- Iranian relations for which the likes of Frank J. Gaffney and John Bolton are found more than obliging.
When seeking any analysis on Iran, Â鶹ԼÅÄ should ideally invite those who are acclaimed for their knowledge about the country, know the way the Iranian society think and works and those who know at least the basics of Persian language.
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why do some think the more opaque, convoluted, hyperbolic their language the more clever it is?
if you cannot make your meaning clear in plain succinct english then it becomes known as gibberish.
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Glenys Kinnock I do not suffer poverty Thanks to the EU who I did not Support I do now though same as neil. Lovely Dosh
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Fourteen posts out of thirty, written by one poster. Is this a record?
If he created his own blog he could then write to himself at will and be assured that his reader wouldn't have to ask what the hell he was talking about.
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D Allan you are becoming the Bore by the Door at the Newsnight blog party.
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The good moderators obviously censor comments that are personally abusive, so I'll have to make this one a little more allegorical.
Imagine a forum dominated by a person who had one thing to say and said it fourteen times a day. Imagine that that person was boring and unfunny.
Who would they be?
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Dear lovely moderator, please let me post my complaint. I am not being rude anymore. I merely wish to point out that multiple postings are tiresome. And that tiresome postings are tiresome.
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On Ahmadinejad's Columbia speech:
The 59:34 (although MSNBC refers to "an hour and a half" at the end)video included below is worth watching as context for some of the others which have been presented as edited highlights.
A couple of independent Farsi text translations would also be helpful (especially when he responds to the controversial question about the execution of homosexuals and women. Iranian law proscribes penetrative sex between males and punishes the first four other homosexual sexual offences with lashes, it also punishes female homosexuality. Iran is not the only country to have such harsh sentences:
Personally, I think the way that Ahmadinejad (a head of state), was treated at Columbia University was disrespectful to say the least. Sadly, it was only to be expected. It reflected very badly on NYC and the USA.
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