Big Sticks and Small Carrots

If you were really, really cynical, you could build a brilliant conspiracy out HMRC’s astonishing behaviour.

The lost discs contain an enormous amount of information which would be useful to identity thieves . The information on the discs is password protected but not encrypted so it really isn’t very secure at all. (If the Conservatives had been in power, the password would probably be 1234 but that’s by the way.) The government have created what is essentially a Holy Grail for organised criminals and identify fraudsters. The difference being that these discs definitely do exist, of course.

If they do fall into the wrong hands, it’s almost certainly going to lead an increase in identity spoofing and other identity related crimes.

And if identity related crimes are on the increase, well, that’ll just confirm the need for the government to implement it’s secure and infallible National Identity Register and ID Card scheme…

In reality, the idea that this was in any way intentional is a non-starter. You only needed to see Alistair Darling’s face as he addressed the House to know that. In fact, I have marked this with the introduction of a new post category - “Incompetence”. Incompetence on a really extraordinary scale was what this undoubtedly was.

If in due course we did see an increase in identity related crimes because of this however, who would really be surprised if the government argued that this was a clear sign that we should trust them with even more of our own personal details?

(Changing the subject completely, blogging might be slightly hit and run here for a few more days. That “time” has a lot to answer for, I tell you.)

Scots are used to it, of, course, but we were so very. very close.

It is disappointing that we didn’t quite make it but the fact that we came so close is an amazing achievement. When the draw was made, I doubt there was a single Scotman in the country who thought we had any chance of qualifying. At that point, Scotland’s world ranking was in free fall (as low as 88 at one stage). Italy, France and Ukraine? Most of us were just hoping that it wouldn’t get too embarrassing.

Instead, we were one goal away from qualification with five minutes of the campaign left to play. We beat France twice and we’re currently ranked 13th in the world. With our new ranking putting us in the second group of seeds, we can look forward to the World Cup draw with some amount of optimism.

The team have done us proud. Cheers lads!

(Good luck to England on Wednesday, by the way. Although I’d quite like to see the return of the home internationals, I’d also genuinely like to see them qualify.)

The IAEA has released it’s latest report into Iran’s nuclear activities (pdf).

It’s interesting. One of the myths which you’ll find on the interwebs is the suggestion that Iran has stopped cooperating with the IAEA and denied them access to all of their nuclear facilities.

Not so.

Here’s what the IAEA had to say about the access they have been given to Iran’s Fuel Enrichment Facility (FEP) in Natanz:

Since March 2007, a total of seven unannounced inspections have been carried out at FEP.

That’s a lot of unannounced inspections.

The IAEA also reports that:

Iran has provided sufficient access to individuals and has responded in a timely manner to questions and provided clarifications and amplifications on issues raised in the context of the work plan.

The Iranians are actually providing a substantial degree of cooperation to the IAEA.

Nevertheless, questions remain regarding Iran’s nuclear programme. The IAEA remain concerned about the heavy water reactor the Iranians are building at Arak. This reactor, once complete, could be used to produce weapons grade plutonium. The IAEA report says:

The Agency must rely on satellite imagery of this plant as
it does not have routine access to it while the Additional Protocol remains unimplemented.

The Additional Protocol was a voluntary arrangement which the Iranians agreed to abide by for 2 years or so and then withdrew from in 2005. As such, the Iranians are not currently obliged to provide routine access to this plant under the terms of the NPT.

Estimates vary but the Iranians say this reactor could be completed as early as 2009. As is the way with these projects, it’ll probably take longer than that but the Iranians appear determined to complete the project at the earliest opportunity.

Iran’s nuclear activities have clearly generated a huge amount of hype, misrepresentation, lies and scaremongering in certain quarters. Frightening claims are made which are simply not true. We should contest these fictions and fight any attempts by our government to build policies based on them.

But we shouldn’t forget that there undoubtedly is a factual basis for concerns regarding Iran’s nuclear programme. This is potentially a very serious issue indeed.

Gordon Brown is now determined to build a consensus on the required length of the extension to the current 28 day limit.

That attitude conveniently overlooks the fact that the government has not made a convincing case for an extension of any sort. Lord West accidentally pointed this out yesterday. One instant audience with the Prime Minister later, he was very quickly back-pedalling.

Lord West isn’t a professional politician. He wasn’t to know that government ministers are not supposed to highlight the intellectual bankruptcy of the government’s position. He’ll learn, I suppose.

The other day, I listened to the Home Secretary attempting to make the case for an extension. It was the ridiculous hypothetical situations she grasped at which really gave the game away. I would have attempted to take on her arguments but I couldn’t find any arguments to speak of to challenge.

The one argument the government can’t make in public is the one which is really pushing this on. Gordon Brown needs to be seen to be doing something. The status quo is not an option.

It doesn’t seem like a very good reason to me.

Here’s a brief musical interlude.

I think it’s made of straw.

Despite how it may occasionally look, I’m not really interested in getting involved in “flame wars”. There is a point to this post.

That said, I do have say that I’ve been thoroughly educated and entertained by Dizzy’s comments over the last two days.

Dizzy, as we’re all already aware, is a “net-libertarian who does what the hell he wants on his website”. When attempts are made to scrutinise certain blogs or bloggers, Dizzy can often be found arguing that such criticisms are pointless and/or unjustifiable. There’s even a sort of slogan:

If you don’t like it, don’t read it.

Dizzy used those very words in one of the many comments he took the time to leave under my post over the last two days. Very early into what became really quite a long attempt to criticise my post, he explained that he was leaving these comments because, as he put it, he was “getting sick of seeing people leap to to conclusive causes…”

I probably don’t need to spell out what’s funny about that.

And, of course, whatever I write about Dizzy now, if he wants to argue the point, I can respond by saying that rather than wasting his time obsessing over what some obscure blogger has said about him or his friends, he should adopt his own principles, quit whining and go read something else. He certainly wouldn’t be in a position to consider that provocative or wrong in any way. It’s what he believes in.

I’ll try to resist the urge to make (any more) hay with that though. As I said, I’m not actually that interested in a “flame war”.

It’s the principle of the thing which intrigues me. While it might be a clever intellectual exercise in property rights, the “if you don’t like it, don’t read it” argument simply doesn’t stand up in the real world. What you do in the privacy of your own your home is your business true enough but if you painted “My Neighbour is a Fucking Idiot” on the outside of your house in ten foot high red letters, that’d be a different story.

(Or “Gordon Brown is a…” Or “David Cameron is a…” Or “Eddie the Eagle Edwards is a…” Whoever, it’s a hypothetical.)

If your next door neighbour had painted something like that on his house, you’d probably be a bit miffed and rightly so. And as long as the words are there, you’re probably going to struggle to sell up and move elsewhere. People other than the owner can see the outside of the house so that brings up the whole thorny issue of externalities.

Like blogging. Unless you’re an incurable exhibitionist, blogging is not like the inside of your house. Other people can see what you write. It’s kind of the point. And because blogging is a public activity with externalities, there are circumstances in which it simply isn’t enough to say “It’s my property. If you don’t like it, don’t read it”. How would that line of defence work out for the guy with a 10 foot high swearword on the front of his house?

It’s just silly.

And what is the famous slogan used to defend?

Well, I can’t help but notice that Dizzy yesterday posted about Ed Balls refusing to retract an accusation and Gordon Brown refusing to answer a simple question.

[Aside: I don’t recommend availing yourself of Dizzy’s comment facility. He is quite open about the fact that he’d have no qualms about deleting any valid arguments you might make. As such, I can’t see the point. It’s up to you though.]

While I’ve not had the time to look into either post in much detail (but also, you’ll note, didn’t take the time to submit numerous comments trying to cast doubt on what he’s written or indeed critique his claims here), these posts do raise an interesting point.

I’m pretty sure that most ordinary non-partisan people (people with no party political affiliations) and indeed many party people are tired of the behaviour of many in the political classes. Obfuscation, half truths, misrepresentations, smears, spin and all the rest are used by all the main parties to one extent or another and people are fed up of it. Dizzy himself appears to be fed up of it. In certain circumstances.

There’s not a great deal us little people can do about that sort of thing when it happens in parliament or on TV but when it happens on the interwebs, things could be different. Out here, if politicians and their supporters play fair, the little people have a real voice.

When Nadine Dorries MP posted her ridiculous accusation on her website, it appeared that ordinary people (some of the readers of Ben Goldacre’s blog, for example) could point out that it was totally unjustified and demonstrably untrue.

And ordinary people could see what her reaction was. (although not her own readers, of course). The comments were not published, no retraction was made and the little people were no longer allowed to submit comments because Nadine was “too busy”.

When Conservative political activist Ellee Seymour later attempted to sell a new improved “I’m under attack” version of Nadine’s explanation for closing down comments, it appeared that ordinary people could point out that Nadine had not published comments which were pointed but polite regarding an untrue accusation she had made. It appeared that it would be possible to raise legitimate questions about the behaviour of the MP without coming under personal attack yourself and then having your own replies to these attacks disappeared into the interweb ether*. But as we know, that didn’t quite work out either.

What people certainly didn’t get was honest engagement.

I believe that most ordinary bloggers don’t want this medium to become just another place where the disingenuous games of the political classes play out. At the moment, thanks to the activities of certain self-proclaimed top political bloggers and their supporters, that’s the way it’s going. As a little person myself, I have to say that I think that would be a great shame.

Dizzy may or may not attempt to deploy the straw man about “demands” and “property rights” again but you need to strip away the sophistry to see what the argument he makes actually defends. It defends the right of politicians and their activists to obfuscate, use half truths, and misrepresentations, smears, spin and all the rest on the internet. It says that we should not expect politicians and their activists to conduct themselves in an honest and forthright manner on the internet and should have no cause for complaint if they do not do so.

That doesn’t sound like the kind of democracy I want to live in.

* I’ve still not received any reply as to whether I can submit further comments. Jherad has tried but hasn’t succeeded and one of mine was not published so I’m operating on the assumption that any I submit now wouldn’t see the light of day. Read the rest of this entry »

As Tim has already noted, Dizzy has written about the selective deletion and removal of comments on Ellee Seymour’s blog.

Tim has addressed many of the points it raises already but it is, I have to say, a remarkable thing.

Before going on, I’d just like to ask if anyone has any suggestions as to why Dizzy included a misleading summary of a recent court judgement? He has left half of it out as part of his selective presentation but most bloggers are going to know that. What’s the point?

Anyway, Dizzy doesn’t explicitly challenge Tim’s version of what happened but does question the “veracity” of the available evidence. This amuses me because I saw all three versions of the jiggled thread myself. But that undoubtedly wouldn’t be enough to convince Dizzy.

I’ve also got some screenshots I took myself and there are plenty of monkey’s with better photoshopping skills than mine. But that undoubtedly wouldn’t be enough to convince Dizzy.

I could email him the original screenshot files, I suppose, but that undoubtedly wouldn’t be enough to convince Dizzy.

I could point out that my own first comment on the thread in question clearly references Tim’s earlier comment, a comment which is plainly no longer there. But that undoubtedly wouldn’t be enough to convince Dizzy.

I could point out that the abusive comment targeting Tim’s first comment now appears before he does in the edited thread. But that undoubtedly wouldn’t convince Dizzy.

I could even highlight the other thread where other bloggers pointed out that Ellee has obviously replied to a comment which is no longer visible. They asked for but did not receive an explanation for Ellee’s denial that any comments had been removed. But that undoubtedly wouldn’t be enough to convince Dizzy.

In fact, while he’s been very careful not to explicitly say that Tim’s description of events isn’t true, it may very well be impossible to convince Dizzy that it is. Call it a hunch.

Dizzy then moves on to his central argument that the truth is irrelevant in any case because Ellee owns the website so she has the right to “maintain” it in any way she likes. Nice one Worzel.

In a comment, Gracchi very politely raises the rather obvious flaw in Dizzy’s attitude:

Dizzy in your judgement is there a distinction between something that is illegal and something that is immoral. I can see that I should never be banned from putting stuff up on my website or dealing with it the way I want to (within limits to do with paedophilia incitement etc) but that doesn’t mean it isn’t immoral for me to put certain content up does it.

It was a very civilised way to set fire to a strawman.

Dizzy’s answer is:

Gracci, whether it can be immoral to put certain content up is a bit of moot question because that refers to the act of upload (adding new content) rather the specific in my post about the act of deletion (maintenance).

Some people might say that this was a deliberate refusal to answer the question but Dizzy may be suffering from over-exposure to politicians so it could be involuntary.

The sort of half an answer he does give, however, suggests that to Dizzy, deletion and comment moderation are always issues of maintenance with no moral implications.

So, if a Labour MP has been caught bang to rights making an unfounded accusation and if they switch off their blog comments when attempts are made to present evidence proving that it was an unfounded allegation, Dizzy thinks there’d be no moral implications to that. This method of attempting to sustain an unfounded allegation in the face of the evidence would merely be “maintenance” apparently.

And if a Labour party activist then wrote in defence of the MPs decision to switch off comments and further attempts were made to highlight the evidence and point out that a retraction of the unfounded allegation might be a better option, Dizzy thinks there’d be no moral implications if comments were then selectively deleted and a denail of the same issued in an attempt to weaken the position of those wishing to present demonstrable fact. This too would be an entirely ethical activity, it seems.

How odd.

No-one is denying that the hypothetical Labour MP and the activist have the right to behave in this way on their own blog. It does not follow from that, however, that their actions have no moral implications. Not unless you can think like Dizzy, at any rate.

It has now been more than two days since I emailed Ellee to request an explanation for my lost comment and ask if I was still able to comment on her posts but there’s been no reply as yet. I still don’t know whether my comment was lost or moderated out of existence. And I still don’t really know whether Ellee thinks Nadine Dorries should retract the provably unfounded allegation or whether she continues to maintain that “I admire Nadine and respect her judgement on this”.

I’m not demanding a reply, of course. I’m merely making a note of the fact that I haven’t received one.

There is clearly vital and compelling evidence of the need to extend the maximum period of detention without charge to 90, no, 28, no, 56, no, 47 days, 4 hours, 18 minutes and 29.5 seconds.

No, let’s try that again.

There is clearly vital and compelling evidence of the need to extend the maximum period of detention. I hope MPs don’t rue the day they refuse to acknowledge the vital and compelling evidence of the need extend the maximum period of detention without charge to 90, no, 28…

Drat.

One more try.

There is clearly vital and compelling evidence of the need for Gordon Brown to be seen to be doing something.

And we’re off.

According to the Guardian:

There is evidence that Gordon Brown has not yet formed any strong personal opinion and he is said to remain “genuinely open-minded” on his preferred option.

Much as I’d like to be optimistic, this is probably a reference to Brown being genuinely open-minded on the length of the extension needed, not on whether one is needed at all.*

But it’s no wonder he hasn’t made up his mind yet; there are serious issues to be considered here. Would an extra 14 days be enough to convey the sense of a competent, trusted statesman dealing responsibly with a complicated issue? Would going for an extra 28 days so soon after the last doubling add a suggestion of gravitas and decisiveness or would it look Blairish and hysterical?

It’s not an easy call.

To pass the time while Gordon decides what’s needed, feel free to submit your guesses below. There won’t be any prizes if you get it right, I’m afraid, but on the plus side, participation is unlikely to lead to entrants being imprisoned without charge for up to three, no, one, no, two months.

Every cloud and all that.

* I’d be more than happy to be proved wrong.

[Subject: Comment Policy]

[10th November, 4.40pm]

I have noticed that you have not approved the comment I submitted to the thread below at approximately 8.30 pm on the evening of 7th November.

http://elleeseymour.com/2007/11/06/my-sympathies-for-nadine/

Could you please advise me as to whether I should post it again or whether there was a specific reason why it was not published?

I also noticed that you have published a comment on the same thread this morning which clearly refers to a group of people, myself included, as “scum”.

Can you please advise me of the extent to which you will allow me to defend myself from this ad hominem attack on your blog? If limitations are in place, can you please explain the reasons for these limitations?

Please be advised that I have posted a copy of this email on my own blog as I am quite happy to have this conversation in public.

Garry Smith

www.sticksandcarrots.net

Yesterday, Justin posted an excellent article for Liberal Conspiracy on the whole issue of honest debate on blogs

There’s been an interesting development in the comment thread. At  around 1.30 am this morning, someone posted a comment using an ID from a brand new Blogger account. That brand new blog contains very thinly veiled nasty personal attacks on Nadine Dorries. They are, in fact, exactly the sort of attacks which are described in the standard defence employed by certain bloggers - “I refuse to answer your legitimate question and to justify that refusal, I’m going to spin it to look like it’s part of a personal attack”. The brand new blog contained unjustified attacks of just the sort which are often falsly claimed.

When Justin deleted the first comment, the brand new blogger complained about Liberal Conspiracy “sinking to the depths of Guido Fawkes, Iain Dale etc”.

Which is funny given that the brand new blog contains just the sort of unsubstantiated tabloid gossip, crude jokes and other assorted cheap shots pioneered by Guido.

There is a very obvious difference between deleting links to nasty gratuitous personal attacks and deleting legitimate comments because they are politically embarrassing. We can argue about what is and isn’t legitimate but here a couple of my own rules of thumb:

1. Questions about the behaviour of a member of parliament acting an their capacity as a member of parliament - normally OK.
2. Links to nasty personal attacks of a potentially libellous nature - normally not OK.

I don’t think that’s overly controversial (especially for a project like LC) but it apparently is to the brand new blogger.

Of course, a link to that nasty personal attack against that MP in that context would have been very useful to those attempting to spin away legitimate criticisms with false accusations of “vitriolic” personal attacks. A cynic might draw conclusions from that.

A cynic might also suggest that someone is deliberately attempting to divert attention from the legitimate discussion and turn the thread into a fatuous debate about Liberal Conspiracy’s own comment policy.

But we’ll never know what their motivation was. The brand new blogger chose to remain anonymous so it could have been anyone at all.

Anyway, Sunny has deleted the brand new blogger’s comments and rightly so. Liberal Conspiracy has a clear comment policy.

If anyone wants to sensibly continue the discussion into the difference between nasty personal attacks and legitimate comment, feel free.