And another thing…

Flashback to my first post on 13 March 2008

TWO years.

Ah, yes – I remember it well. It was a Thursday, and after months of weighing up the pros and cons, I finally succumbed to the urge to return to the world of blogging. And so, And another thing… was (re)born.

I never thought I’d still be going two years on, but here I am. So once again, thank you for reading.

SOME might say that, as the author of a blog that did rather well in the last two Total Politics Blog Awards, I have more to lose than others by indulging in a boycott of this year’s contest, as proposed by Though Cowards Flinch.

The boycott is being suggested as a response to Total Politics publisher Iain Dale agreeing to interview Nick Griffin for the latest issue, a decision which resulted in the resignation of Labour MP Denis MacShane from the TP board.

And of course I sympathise. And I admit I raised an eyebrow when Iain announced on his blog that the interview was happening. But I won’t take part in the boycott, for a number of reasons.

The first of those is that Griffin and his odious chums are now democratically-elected representatives of the British people. I wish it were not so, but it is. And ignoring the BNP now isn’t too far from ignoring the views of however many people voted for them. Not a particularly democratic principle, I think you’ll find. And I trust that all those who now want to boycott Total Politics also refuse to watch Question Time…

Secondly, Total Politics is a magazine that political anoraks like us should be encouraging, not boycotting. In this anti-politics age, where celebrity tittle-tattle is considered more important than democracy, shouldn’t we value those very few magazines which seek to portray politics and politicians in a reasonably positive way?

Third, I started this blog to try to rebalance the blogosphere, to add what I hoped would be a popular and articulate Labour voice to the more popular right wing blogs. Large numbers of left-wing, Labour and progressive blogs boycotting the annual poll would effectively mean us retiring from the arena, making the results in the “Labour-supporting” and “Left-wing” categories meaningless. Another victory for the right-wing, then.

Fourth, I worry that the “no platform” argument is used too often as an alternative to addressing the issues which drive voters to abandon the mainstream parties in favour of the BNP in the first place. Yes, the BNP are racists, but that cannot be the end of the debate. And we can’t win the argument with someone to whom we refuse to listen.

Fifth: why is it always the Left which calls for boycotts? Why must that, rather than argument, be our gut reaction? That and banning stuff, obviously.

And lastly, I rather like those Total Politics widgets in the right hand column. They’re dinky.

JAMES Mackenzie of Two Doctors fame greeted me with a less-than-friendly Tweet this morning, casting doubt on my human compassion in light of the asylum debate that’s been kicked off again by the terrible events at the Red Road flats in Springburn on Sunday.

This kicked off an exchange of Tweets and eventually led to James suggesting that we cross-post, so that both our views on this issue could be seen by readers of both our blogs. Here they are, with James’s first:

by James Mackenzie

First, a word of thanks to my host today. However much I disagree with Tom, I’m grateful he’s agreed today to swap blog posts about asylum policy following a brief debate on Twitter. His post on my blog is here.

Nothing tells you more about a government than how it treats the vulnerable, especially those who cannot vote. Labour’s most striking domestic failure of this sort has been their approach to people fleeing persecution and torture: successive Home Secretaries since 1997 have sought ever more uncompromising ways to make their lives harder once they get here.

Very few of us will have experienced the kind of mistreatment which is commonplace amongst those seeking asylum. I’m not in danger of being arrested for being in the wrong political party, like my Green colleagues in Rwanda and China are. My family don’t come from a marginalised group being subject to ethnic cleansing. I don’t know anyone who’s seen family members executed for attending peaceful anti-government protests.

>But do the thought exercise: what if that had happened? If Scotland had become as brutal and lawless as the Democratic Republic of Congo, if state-sponsored “disappearances” or a round of ethnic cleansing had begun here, I’d want to know I could seek sanctuary in India or Ireland or Indonesia and have my case taken seriously.

And in those circumstances, I wouldn’t want to be spat at in the street or forced to present stigmatising vouchers in supermarket queues to buy the basics. If the Scottish expat community was in Delhi, I wouldn’t want to be forcibly settled in Varanasi. It would mystify me to be told I couldn’t work and contribute, then read Government Ministers complaining that I’m somehow scrounging off the hard-working locals.

If I had kids, it’d fill me with despair to see them locked up in adult detention centres and subjected to levels of brutality that would inevitably remind me of what we’d all been though in the first place. If I’d had Kafkaesque bureaucracies ranged against me at home, a life of endless forms and interviews in a foreign language without proper legal support would seriously jeopardise my mental health: imagine if an irritating call-centre also had the power to deport you back into danger, or if they sang racist songs at you mocking your plight.

Yet all of this is the reality of Labour’s asylum policy, the legacy of their thirteen years in government. No Daily Mail headline has gone un-pandered to, no dog-whistle to racist voters has gone un-blown – and waiting in the wings is a Tory administration that backed every last clampdown. It’s not a casual or frivolous decision to leave your home country and come here to face racist abuse, to become a stock figure of hate for tabloid editors and the politicians who love them, but there is no softer target to demonise, not even those “feral children” we are also encouraged to fear and hate.

Yes, we need a system which checks individuals’ claims, not one which accepts everyone who just says the magic word. But the priority with this system should be to ensure no-one gets sent back to face torture. The price of someone without a decent claim being accepted by mistake is low if unfortunate, but the price of a false rejection could be someone’s life. The system should move quickly to a fair decision, but we should bend over backwards and help those who apply to make their case.

We Scots fancy ourselves (especially in our Tartan Army incarnation) as responsible visitors to other countries, and like to think of this as a welcoming country. In many ways it is, but without an end to Labour/Tory domination of asylum policy this will never be the whole truth.

by Tom Harris

THE TRULY tragic case of the three asylum seekers who committed suicide by throwing themselves from the high-rise block of flats in Glasgow has resurrected the debate on our asylum system.

We still don’t know enough about this specific case to be able to make a judgment as to what actually occurred and why. The media have, at various points, described the deceased as Russian and Kosovan. One report suggested at least one of them was suffering from severe mental illness. They may or may not have successfully claimed asylum in Canada before arriving in the UK.

The fact is we don’t know how much, or if any, of this is true. And it would be irresponsible in the extreme, in the meantime, to make hysterical accusations based on rumours and speculation.

Which is why, presumably, Robina Qureshi has been all over the Scottish media doing just that.

Robina, with whom I’ve crossed swords before, is the director of a branch of Solidarity housing “charity”, Positive Action in Housing, who provide support to failed asylum seekers in Glasgow. Yesterday, in the immediate aftermath of the terrible news breaking, she told The Times that “if the suicides had anything to do with the Border Agency telling the victims that they could not stay in the country, then the agency was culpable”.

But despite her qualifying her own conclusions with that “if”, she organised a demonstration outside the Border Agency office in Glasgow today, telling Radio Clyde and anyone else who would listen that what happened in Springburn was a direct result of official threats to return the asylum seekers home. She’s also called for a public inquiry, although since she’s already decided what the facts are, I’m not sure why she needs one. If Robina had her way, every claim for asylum should be awarded and public servants who enforce the law are barbarians.

She also said:

We believe there should be a public inquiry into these deaths, and the impact of the UK Border Agency and its terror campaign – disguised as asylum policy – on the lives of asylum seekers who have lived here for years.

Yes, many of them have lived here for years – illegally and after being told repeatedly that their asylum claim had been rejected because there was no threat to their safety in their home country. And by describing asylum policy as a “terror campaign”, Robina is demonstrating why no-one other than a few gullible hacks take her seriously.

Even the normally sensible James Mackenzie, who works for Holyrood’s two Green MSPs, accused me of a lack of compassion in the comments I made to The Times. Fair enough. I’ve been dealing with this issue too long to expect people to approach it objectively and without recourse to emotive language (see his guest post above).

Even if it emerges that the deceased threatened officials with suicide if they attempted to remove them, surely that threat could not be allowed to be a veto over legal process?

When phoned by The Times yesterday, I knew I couldn’t talk about this specific case – apart from the fact that we didn’t really know what had happened, the deaths didn’t happen in my constituency – but agreed to talk about general asylum policy.

But until the facts, rather than speculation and rumour, hold sway, it would be most unwise to make subjective judgments about this case, however tempting it would be for some to try to make political capital on the back of such a human tragedy.

GROWING numbers of readers of this blog are opting to receive updates via the RSS feed, and it falls to me to offer a little plug for this particular gizmo, gadget, doo-dah, call it what you will. Click on the button for more details.

FOLLOWING a campaign of cyber-bullying from two readers (both of whom are undoubtedly Jamie Reed pseudonyms), I am bowing to the inevitable and putting old Spikey-Top himself on the blogroll – right between Iain Dale and John Prescott. Make of that what you will.

I ORIGINALLY wrote this for the Young Fabians, who wanted a piece on “Top Ten Tips for Labour bloggers”. But it could just as easily be aimed at bloggers of any political hue. It’s now online as part of the Young Fabians’ new “Can The Internet Change Politics?” publication.

1. Politics is dull. Really, really dull. So when you write about it, you have to make it sound far more interesting than it actually is. And the only way of doing that is to be able to write well. A good writer can make just about anything sound, if not interesting, then not quite so dull.

2. Use humour. Political blogs, particularly Left wing ones, have a reputation for being very poe-faced and serious, because, like, politics is about people’s lives, yeah? Don’t take yourself or your politics too seriously – at least not all the time.

3. Go off-topic. Yes, readers will visit your site to read about politics, but it’s okay to talk about other subjects occasionally. Even politicians and local activists have interests outside politics. Whether that’s cooking or gardening or football or movies or… yes, Doctor Who. The key is to connect with your readers on a different level from the political one.

4. Don’t go out of your way to criticise Labour, but don’t be too worried about doing so either. Politics needs to be about debate, and one of the most regular – and valid – criticism of LabourList when it launched was that it was too on-message.

5. Allow commenters to have their say. By all means moderate the abusive ones, but blogging isn’t one-way – a dialogue with readers is the life blood of a good blog. But conduct that dialogue on your own terms.

6. Update regularly. And I mean very regularly. At least twice a day, ideally more often. Your regular readers must understand that paying repeated visits to your site will pay dividends in terms of seeing new stuff.

7. Format and design is crucial. Narrow columns, an attractive, good-sized font with adequate spacing between lines makes it easier on the eye for readers who have an awful lot of other political blogs on their favourites lists all competing for their attention.

8. Blogging is a community in its own right and political differences, while still there, matter less, Be generous on your blogroll. Feature rival parties’ blogs as well as those supporting your own.

9. Don’t become a slave to the wordcount. If a post is worth only 25 words, write 25 words. Don’t try to expand needlessly on a subject just to make it look better. Pithy can be attractive to readers who are in a hurry.

10. Synchronise. Use Twitter to publicise your posts, use your blog to promote your Twitter feed, use Facebook to send hugs to people you’ve never met. It’s all good.

ALTHOUGH in its infancy, I would recommend a visit to the brand new blog of my friend and colleague, Jamieson Reed, MP for Copeland.

He writes well and humorously, and I expect great things of him. Mind you, he’s become yet another rival in the MPs’ section of the Total Politics 2010 Blog Poll…

SOME of you seem to have forgotten my new comments policy already! I blame it on Christmas spirit.

To recap: I will no longer publish any comments which are irrelevant to the original post to which the thread relates. I will not publish any comments which are just plain nasty or abusive. And I will not publish comments which simply try to perpetuate the writer’s peculiar obsessions or conspiracy theories.

And when I delete a comment, I will not offer any explanation or apology – I don’t have the time. So by all means, spend as long as you want concocting a really clever put-down of me or of the Labour Party, or trying to construct a tenuous link between the post and whatever point it is you want to make. Take as long as you want, honestly. But don’t expect to see it on this site at any point.

But if, for any reason, I choose to let a seemingly irrelevant comment through, well that’s my business. Consistency is overrated.

You have been warned. And Happy New Year.

OF COURSE, it’s “just a bit of fun”, as they say. But Yoosk have launched an online vote to try to identify “Britain’s Best MP”.

Having been asked to participate, along with Douglas Carswell, Lynne Feathrstone, Chris Mullin, David Howarth, Bob Russell, Gisela Stewart and Jo Swinson, I agreed to appear on video, answering a series of set questions, which were put to all the candidates.

The results don’t actually mean anything, of course (especially since Douglas is beating me by a margin of more than two-to-one at the moment). But if I win, I will have a series of t-shirts, posters, mousemats and calenders produced to mark my achievement.

Vote here up until 31 December.

SUNNY Hundal at Liberal Conspiracy has written his latest defence of a “class war” strategy for Labour.

But one of the points he makes in its favour rather lets the cat out of the bag, and is one the reasons I oppose it:

it highlights wedge issues Labour needs to advance to narrow their defeat.

Case closed, then.

The only strategy Labour should even consider is one which aims to see us re-elected with a working overall majority in the Commons. Setting our sights anywhere lower than that would be a betrayal of our country and our party.