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27 April

National Identity Cards? One word: no. Another word: never. And some more words: absolutely no way at all. It's not often I find myself agreeing with that spluttering old bore Peter Hitchens but on this one he's spot on: forcing citizens to carry ID cards fundamentally changes the relationship between people and the state. It moves us from a situation in which They have to identify themselves to The People, to one in which we have to account to Them for our movements. It's the end of liberty as we know it and I for one am never having my eyeball scanned onto a piece of plastic and put into a government database. Consider me a conscientious objector from this moment onwards.

All the arguments for ID cards are spurious. They'll counter terrorism? Didn't work in Madrid. They'll stop illegal immigration? Only if you can find the immigrants who don't have them. And since when did placating the Daily Mail become a good reason for a Big Brother State? Everyone else in Europe has them? So what? They have high taxes and proper public transport as well, and we don't seem in any hurry to import those, more's the pity. The best and most spurious argument popped up on BBC news yesterday: after all, said some tosser, there's more information on supermarket loyalty cards about your personal habits than there will be on an ID card. Yes, there probably is. The solution: THROW AWAY THE FUCKING LOYALTY CARDS AS WELL! Jesus. Since when did shopping become more important than liberty?

About 1986, I'd say. Sigh.

Posted by paul at 10:31 AM | Comments (0)

24 April

Did you celebrate St George's Day yesterday, fellow English people? No, neither did I. I wanted to, but there was nothing to do! One of the things that the English are really good at is failing to celebrate their national day, and then complaining about the fact that no-one celebrates it. This is a shame. Granted, St George was a bit of a bore, historically speaking, and never even set foot in England. But wouldn't it be nice if we could reclaim Englishness from the twin clutches of the multicultural left, who claim that it doesn't even exist or that, if it does, we can't mention it in case someone gets offended, and the racist right, who think it's all about having white skin and a tiny mind? Wouldn't it be nice if the vast majority of people who are at neither extreme could celebrate their culture and history without feeling guilty?

There's a book in this somewhere! Watch this space…

Posted by paul at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)

21 April

The good news just keeps coming. Must be the onrush of spring. Bluebells are out in the woods, the flowers are forming on my elder tree, swans are nesting on the river and now the government has rejected a hideous port development that was planned for the edge of the New Forest, in Dibden Bay, Southampton. Dibden Bay is a key wildlife site with four separate European, national and local conservation orders on it, a major centre for overwintering birds and a place of tranquil beauty in an increasingly industrial landscape. So it made perfect sense that the massive Associated British Ports corporation (ABP), which owns the land, wanted to slap a £600 million container port on it. Thousands of local residents, the local MP, English Nature, the Ramblers Association, the Countryside Agency and New Forest District Council objected, and it seems they won the day.

Can you guess, by the way, what the ABP spokesman said about the development? Can you guess what his rationale was for the mindless destruction of such a priceless place? Go on - take a wild stab in the dark. That's right - its construction was 'vital for the British economy.' Whenever you hear that phrase, be very afraid - you can be sure that evil is being done somewhere, usually by someone fat and pasty with an army of shareholders baying at his heels.

Well yah boo snooks to you, ABP, for this time justice has been done. Excuse me if I seem a little over-excited, but there's so little good news in the world of the committed greenie that when it does come along it's worth indulging in fully.

So take a deep breath, let it out slowly and calmly, smile very widely, and then go here to read more about what might have been but thankfully never was.

Posted by paul at 04:48 PM | Comments (0)

18 April

Aren't the weekend papers wonderful? Only yesterday I was informed by the Guardian's fashion section that this season's trend is, apparently, not to follow any trends. It seems that forming your own opinions about what to wear, rather than waiting for fcuk to do it for you, is the new black. Obviously this comes a relief to me. It means that, for the first time in my life, I find myself basking in a ray of sunlight falling through a small, albeit temporary, window of hipness. Until next season, of course, when not thinking for yourself will presumably become de rigeur again. I hope someone will let me know when this happens.

There was even better news in today's papers, where I read the headline "Jordan 'targeted by chemical bomb'". Not before time, and if it takes out Peter Andre too, then it really will have been a great weekend.

Posted by paul at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

14 April

Here's something really fascinating. I heard it on the radio today while I was planting carrots on my allotment, but don't let this put you off. Professor Deborah Cameron is the 'Rupert Murdoch Professor of Language and Communication' at Oxford University (this Professorship, by the way, is on the shortlist for the 2004 Henry Kissinger Awards For The Most Depressing Example Of Unintentional Irony, which I've just this minute invented). Still, don't let this put you off either, because Cameron has put together a fascinating study of the use of language as a cultural tool - specifically the Americanisation of communication as a bludgeon for corporate globalisation.

Her work has studied not just the obvious spread of the US-version of the English language (if such it can be called) around the world, but also the way that the specific forms of that language have infiltrated others - how, for example, Hungarians now use US-style formulation in their own language. Much of this is the result of the pernicious influence of US-trained 'communications experts', and the method of its global spread has been the corporation, which systematically trains its workers in the use of US-style language, based on the ideological certainty that American-style communication is the way to go. She writes, for example:

"Last summer I took part in a BBC World Service programme on which I discussed this issue with a New York-based therapist. She argued that there was no place in the modern 'global village' for cultural variation in discourse styles: we must sacrifice diversity for the sake of efficiency and subordinate national differences in the cause of international understanding. She illustrated the point with reference to Japan, where she claimed that the existence of multiple levels of politeness/formality was problematic not only in communication between Japanese and foreigners, but also in communication between Japanese themselves! She seemingly did not notice that the 'sacrifice' she was advocating was essentially a matter of everyone else in the global village assimilating to the preferences of its richest and most powerful resident."

The result of all this is the homogenising not just of languages themselves, but of the way people use them - and as Orwell famously pointed out, the way language is formulated affects the way people see the world.

Posted by paul at 04:44 PM | Comments (0)

13 April

Together, 'sustainable' and 'development' are the two most tedious words in the English language. And sure enough, today's big report from the government's 'sustainable development commission' is packed with phrases like 'key headline indicators', 'overarching commitment to sustainability', 'spatial planning frameworks' and - God help us all - 'actively engage key stakeholders'.

It's worth sticking with this Jonathon-Porritt chaired report a bit further though. It makes some interesting observations: that, as I wrote here a few weeks ago, the use of GDP to measure the state of society is hopelessly inadequate. That an obsession with economic growth can ultimately be damaging (duh!). That despite Tony's Blair's occasional impassioned speech on global warming, our greenhouse gas emissions are increasing. That we have the worst road traffic in Europe, and the government's response to this has been to keep inventing new targets to meet, rather than actually trying to meet the ones they set last time.

There's a smattering of praise for the government in there too, but you'll have to read it yourself to find out why. One good thing, at least, is that this commission exists at all and that, despite its occasional wishy-washyiness, it's doing something to even talk about these things.

Read the report here.

Posted by paul at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)

6 April

Now here's an interesting bit of news that hasn't had much coverage. Last week, a new international agreement, with the typically dull name of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (OK, this may explain the lack of news coverage) was ratified by the European Union. This means that the agreement, more commonly known as the International Seed Treaty, will become law in June.

Don't go away: this could be a big deal. Proposed and put together by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, the International Seed Treaty aims to ensure that seeds - the very basis of human civilisation - are protected for future generations. It's intended to conserve the diversity of seeds and seed crops and, most importantly, ensure that major seeds cannot be patented by private interests.

It's this last bit that really matters. Recent years have seen an explosion in 'biopiracy' - the practice of a private corporation patenting seeds or plant varieties that have been held in common for millennia by rural communities. Once the patent is granted, ownership of that variety essentially passes to the company; meaning that they can profit from it, and the communities who originally developed it are denied its use.

This is a vicious and deeply immoral corporate crime. It's also, along with the development of GM crops, the basis of the biotechnology industry, the aim of which is to acquire ownership of the world's common food resources. Private property, of course, is the basis of capitalism. The expansion of corporate agribusiness thus requires the privatisation of that currently held in common - land, rural knowledge, and seeds themselves. In the last few years we've seen patents taken out by multinationals on soya beans, wheat used to make Indian chapattis, corn used to make Mexican tortillas, and a strain of basmati rice.

In theory, this treaty should make all that a lot more difficult - though as ever, much will depend on its interpretation. It will be interesting to see how it pans out. Read more here.

Posted by paul at 01:40 PM | Comments (0)

1 April

Well, well. Some good news at last: no GM crops are likely to be grown in Britain for five years or so, it seems, following Bayer CropScience's decision to give up trying to commercially grow its variety of GM maize, Chardon LL, in Britain. According to Bayer, it was forced to do so because of the 'constraints' placed on its plans by the government - pesky things like consulting local farmers, monitoring environmental impacts, informing communities etc. Democracy, in other words.

Bayer says it 'remains highly committed to the further development of plant biotechnologies in the UK', but it's quite possible that this could be the death knell for commercial planting of GM crops in Britain, at least for a long while. There's simply no market for them, and the government - which has had to respond to the huge upswelling of public opposition to the technology - has been forced to impose conditions which, while not as strict as some environmentalists would like, are still strict enough to make life difficult for Bayer and its fellow agri-corps.

Expect some whingeing from the biotech corporations and their various flunkies in the press (watch out for dutiful appearances by Philip Stott, Melanie Phillips and anyone from the Institute of Ideas) about how legitimate and vital scientific progress has again been scuppered by scare-mongering eco-fascists, intent on preventing those nutritious GM crops from reaching the poor world, where people need them so desperately. Ignore it all; it's the bleating of losers. Celebrate, instead, the fact that the further corporate takeover of farming, and consequently of food itself, has been set back further by this decision.

Posted by paul at 04:38 PM | Comments (0)