British Politics embraces reality TV

British politics has taken a new turn with the first ever live Prime Ministerial TV Debate, the first of three. Interestingly equal footing has been given to the three biggest parties, the Conservatives, Labour and Liberal parties, even though the Liberal party has always been the third place party.

What this has meant is that the Liberal leader Nick Clegg has been given the kind of platform and exposure the former Liberal leaders could have only dreamt of. And by and large as Gordon Brown and David Cameron traded insults, Nick Clegg come out as the winner in the debate, distancing himself from his rivals and remaining dignified and confidently presenting his parties policies. David Cameron on the other hand did not look comfortable with the jibes from Gordon Brown when he was pressed on specific policies, so we can expect this to be exploited in later debates.



It's all good fun anyway at a time when the British public thinks many politicians are just crooks and scoundrels, fiddling their expense claims and selling their serivices as lobbyists to the highest bidder.

This was real Reality TV and a lot of newspapers in Britain have been speculating on how this will change the course of the election. I think they should lock all the leaders of all the political parties in the Big Brother House for four weeks and then let the public vote for who to lead the country at the end. This will ensure that the fascades all come down and the politicians will be exposed as they really are.

When you can't trust the politicians and you can't trust the church, what is their left to believe in?.....TV perhaps

Swiss Government Exercises its Right to Freedom of Speech

The Swiss Peoples Party (SVP), the largest party in the Swiss government, has stuck this poster up all of Switzerland. Its part of a new campaign aimed at deporting the families of foreigners when a family member commits a crime.

The image is of the good people kicking out the black sheep, but it also has racist connotations and the back, red and white colour scheme does have that 'hint of Nazi' vibe going on.

The SVP have also published a poster showing a veiled Muslim woman with the question, "Where are we living, Baden or Baghdad?".

Jewish groups, left wing parties and even the UN have complained about the poster. According to the BBC, the United Nations special rapporteur on racial discrimination, Doudou Diene from Senegal, has asked the Swiss government for an official explanation of the campaign.

The SVP responded by saying, "We have got freedom of speech in our country. Obviously [Mr Diene] has not understood our culture of democracy. I would suggest he reads up on it."

When Lars Vilks published his Mohammed cartoon he said he did so to provoke and to see where the limits of freedom of speech are. Much has been written since then regarding this issue, so I wonder what pepole think of the SVS evoking the 'freedom of speech' arguement in this case.

This isn't just a rogue person after all who one can choose to ignore, or some small rightwing group looking for publicity, but rather the democratically elected government of a soverign European country.

Delicate Tightrope for Reinfeldt

When Fredrik Reinfeldt meets Muslim Ambassadors on Friday to discuss the controversy over the publication of the Mohammed cartoons, he is going to have to walk a delicate tightrope between the Swedish people who support freedom of speech as an absolute right and the sensitivities of the Muslim world.

One problem is that now it has been shown how easy it is to provoke the anger of the Muslim world it will be easy for anybody to publish their own pictures purely to get a reaction. What would happen if far right groups started doing this as a way of provoking Muslims? And every time this happens, the whole Swedish nation and Swedish government are held accountable.

I'm all for freedom of speech, but also I don't want every idiot who wants to piss of the Muslims to be able to do it in my name.

The Muslims on the other hand need to understand that people will always say and do things to provoke a reaction and the right thing to do is to register your distaste and ignore it. If they react so strongly to everyone who insults them, they risk opening up the floodgates to anyone who wants to upset them for their own personal ends.

High Cost of War hits US Bullet Sales

SvD has an article today about how all the wars the US is fighting is driving up the cost of bullets. I wonder how expensive it needs to get before war becomes unacceptable on economic grounds.

Wouldn't it be ironic, for example, if the NRA (National Rifle Association) started lobbying for the troops in Iraq to be pulled out because the cost of bullets for it's members was getting too high!

In general people are selfish in that they worry most about the things that directly affect them. For the average person in the US, the war does not change their daily lives so much unless they have some personal link to the people serving there. It's not until there is some direct effect which impacts on their daily lives that they start really making a fuss which the politicians need to take account of.

A great day for Texas?

The US state of Texas has just executed its 400th. prisoner, since the death penalty was re-introduced in 1976, according to SvD. How can a country which prides itself on being free just and democratic still cling to the barbaric practice of executing criminals?

Its not a deterrent, it does nothing to protect society and although the families of those hurt by crime might feel some sense of justice, it is a cruel way to treat the families of those being killed who are themselves innocent of the crimes. It's very hypocritical to condemn others for violating human rights and at the same time continuing to violate the right to live. Sure these people are convicted killers themselves, but that is not the point. I don't hold with this 'eye for an eye' mentality.

I wonder why the Christian Right does not stand up and demand an end to the killings? They seam to have such influence in so many other areas of American life, they must have an opinion. I guess the problem is that the bible has as many passages which can be interpreted as being in favour of capital punishment as it has ones which appear to appose it.

The New Gold Rush

Dagens Nyheter writes today about the rush by Russia, Denmark, Canada and the US to lay claim to what they believe are their rightful slice of the North Pole.

But is not about simple territorial disputes, it's about making big bucks from exploiting one of the last un-spoilt parts of the Earth to feed the need for oil and gas. And whenever big money is involved things can get nasty!

The irony is that getting the oil out is very difficult, because of all the ice. But luckily, because we are burning so many fossil fuels, the Earth is getting warmer and the ice is melting, so in 30 years time it might be possible to extract the oil and .... ermm.....burn some more fossil fuels....

Good Bye Mr Blair

Well its finally all over and Tony Blair has stepped down as the UK Prime Minister and Gordon Brown has taken over.

Luckilly sitting here in Sweden I feel quite ambivolent to it all. I'm much more concerned about changes to the property tax laws the Swedish government is discussing and much less about whether Gordon Brown can fix the educated, health, welfare etc... problems of the UK.

Which is all very good and proper as this is my home now and I may never return to live in Britain again. So has Tony Blair been a good Prime Minister for the UK ? Was he a good Prime Minister for Sweden for that matter?

Tony Blair pulled off the almost impossible task of pulling the Labour party around and thrusting them into power 10 years ago by re-branding the party and ditching the old policies which the electorate had so many times said not thanks to. Britains certainly voted for 'New Labour' not the old labour party.

Fast forward to 2006 and this became the model for Fredrik Reindfeldt's New Moderata which also finally managed to overturn years of Social Democratic rule. The New Labour movement showed that it was never too late to change and adapt to the modern politics of the day and turn a tired old party into one which the people would actually believe in and vote for.

Maybe Sweden has also benefitted from the British Governments stance on Europe. With France, Germany and many of the other European countries rushing to take up the Euro, the British government stood out as the only major economic power to say, 'No, we want to control our own ecenomy'. If Britian had joined up I have no doubt that countries like Denmark would have followed suite and so too would Sweden as Swedes always vote with the Danes (you just have to watch the Eurovision Song Contest to see this).

The result would have been that Sweden would have been bogged down in the poor economic growth of the other Euro block countries (although I guess Finland has not done too badly).

Finnally Tony Blair played a strong role in securing peace in Notheren Ireland so we should all be hopeful he can work some magic in the Middle East in his new role as peace envoy (although it is an odd choice to appoint a peace envoy to a region where he has already invaded two of the countries and has been pushing the UN to impose greater sanctions on a third ????)