Human Rights Act
Signing up to the human rights act was one of the best things that this government ever did. It sometimes tires me out to hear people decry such a bill. It only gives rights to criminals, they proclaim.
Well... no, it gives rights to those accused of a crime. These are typically the people who need their rights protected. The police, and the government, are not typically greatly interested in due process (I know, I'm obsessed), and need the law to protect them. Its all too easy to get convinced of a suspect's guilt because of a certain way they acted, or way others have acted in the past. The impartial process of law is important, and the human rights act helps protect it against the tyranny of government. Consider the number of illiberal laws the government passed as a consequence of 9/11, which were intended to circumvent our legal system. It is clear that, given the chance, government would like to ignore due process.
People talk a lot about "victims rights", a curious thing to focus on. Victims of crimes are, of course, deeply unfortunate people who the government should support, through councilling and compensation. But there is no need for them to have a measure as to whether they have as many rights as the accused. They have the same amount of rights, and were they to be implicated in a crime, they could take advantage of them as well.
Labels: politics, rant
A rant on due process
Gordon Brown was never elected prime minister. That's ok, because nobody really is- the president would be an elected position, the prime minister never has been. Of course, its a shame that our prime minister has an absurd amount of power. In the US the legislature, excecutive and judiciary are split into seperate bodies of government, to allow for a set of checks and balances. Over here, at least until recently, they were all in one house. In addition, thanks to the prime minister effectively inheriting the powers of our sovereign, the prime minister can go to war without consulting parliament.
All in all, its a funny system, and leads to Gordon Brown having absolute power despite never having won an election. It means he can do things like make people who save him from having to resign into incredibly powerful people. I am talking, of course, about Peter Mandelson. Mandelson has had to resign from government not once, but twice, thanks to scandals on finance. He was and is one of the sleaziest individuals tied up with new labour. Thanks to Labours reform of the house of lords, in which they managed to make it even less democratic than it was before, he now will sit in the house for the rest of his life, and sits on almost all of the Labour committees.
So, a little bit of back story there. Now in latest news, Mandelson wants companies to cut internet access to those illegally downloading files. Hmm. Now, I could be wrong, but I thought we lived in a country which had some pretense at due process and law. Typically, if we have evidence that someone has broken the law, we either prosecute them, and if they are found guilty a judge will sentence them. For example, if we have video footage of someone shoplifting, we might take them to court, or might let them off with a warning. What we wouldn't do is ban them from going into shops.
This government have been in power too long. They have always had a slight arrogance of belief that they are incorruptable, and in more than one instance in the past, have seeked to free themselves from petty things like respect for the law. I simply cannot vote for a party that has lost its way as much as Labour has over the past 12 years.
Labels: politics, rant
Up
Went to see Up last night with Alice. Pixar has done it again, by taking risks and crafting original and wonderful stories, there's yet another masterpiece to the company's name.
Up is an extremely moving film, perhaps surprisingly so- it actually made Alice weep reasonably profusely, and I was certainly very teary. After all, it is the tale of an old man who has lost his wife searching for meaning, and regretting not having taken more chances in the past. The main character has not had a bad life by any means, but always meant to travel with his wife, and never did. Now she's lost, he contrives a Dahlesque plan to fill his house with baloons and travel to South America.
The story feels a little like a Dahl story, with an effectively parentless child joining Carl on his journey. Once they get to South America adventure begins, and while the first half of the film is a well observed, touching, and indeed amusing story about a man with little left trying to recapture it, the second half becomes a somewhat more standard Pixar adventure, which is no bad thing- its extremely funny, with the dogs providing a lot of the comedy.
Are there any animators as brave and inventive as Pixar? Their back catalogue really is astonishing, I truly am somewhat in awe of this company. This film is definitely worth watching.
If you can, however, try to avoid watching this with, for example, 3 11 year old boys with the emotional complexity of, well, 11 year old boys. I really need to get better about letting people like that take me out of the movie. Oh well.
Labels: film, review
A Madness of Angels (Kate Griffin)
This book came very close to losing me.
It opens in first person, a rather frenzied, unexplained narrative, the main characters performs inexplicable acts and heads round London, engaging in a fairly unexplained magical combat with a creature made entirely of litter. Its meant to draw you in, but it failed with me. There was no tension, because I didn't really know what was going on, and I had no certainty that the story would make any more sense.
Luckily I was on a plane to America, so was forced to persist. I'm glad I did, because once our main character is forced to engage in some actual dialogue, the narrative actually takes shape, and its lovely. Set in a modern day London, with the idea that life itself spawns magic, it features such marvels as a creature of shadows begin kept back by a spell invoked by the terms and conditions of an oyster card, which manages to be hilarious and rather tense at exactly the same time. When the author takes her time to tell us whats going on, you find yourself in an involving and inventive narrative, that really does grip you all the way to the finish.
Its interesting though, how close it came to failing, to losing me entirely, by not grabbing me at the start, but almost actively repelling me. I would definitely recommend it, and indeed, give it a hefty chance to draw you in.
Labels: books, review
Question Time
I watched it, how could I not? The BBC were pushing this hard, with their news channel reporting pretty much nothing but the event that evening. While the BBC loves nothing more than to report news on itself, this got a little pathetic, to the point where it was clear at least one person in the BBC thought this show would bring excellent ratings. I'm sure it did. Question time was a bizzare format to attack Griffin with, because the nature of the format should be to rove on a lot of topics and not really focus on any particular member. This was, however, no ordinary Question Time.
It was, basically, an excuse to point out Griffin's extremely unsavoury views by a fairly excellent panel. Mostly, it worked well, with Griffin smirking pathetically as people demolished him with his own words, memorably he attempted to say that he couldn't say why he had changed his mind on holocaust denial, because he would get arrested. Jack Straw, in one of the greatest moments of the night, pointed out that he was the justice secretary and to go right ahead. Marvelous!
It wasn't all great. Jack Straw was stunningly ineffective across the evening, reading long diatrabes that would impress no-one, and stumbling completely on immigration. The tory policy on immigration is rather similar to Labour's, but Straw utterly failed to communicate this, and undoubtedly switched off viewers and garnered the conservatives a few votes.
I also felt that Griffin's attack on Islam needed a stronger rebuttal, especially considering Sayeeda Warsi was sitting right from him. The attacks were silly, as an audience member pointed out, because its not hard to quote any holy book and make any religion sound dangerous. One could, of course, have an argument just about that, but picking on Islam is just a wholly ignorant thing to do.
Sayeeda Warsi was very effective, managing to dodge a question on homophobia neatly (I imagine if Griffin was there she might not have got away with it), saying that she believes that if gay people want a civil union they have a right to. Well.. yes, thats the law, but that hardly tells us your opinion, does it? It was a tricksy answer. I find such attitudes coming in to the next government rather disturbing, but perhaps its what I should expect of a conservative government.
Still, I think Griffin was mostly shown as the nasty little man that he is, a horrible excuse for a human being. His attitudes on race are not well hidden- the BNP still has voluntary repatriation and a halt to all immigration as key pledges on their site, and now thanks to this show people may become aware of his opinions that had not before. I hope this turns out to hurt the BNP in the long run... we shall see..
Labels: rant, review, television
In America
Ah, theres nothing like a 23 hour journey to make your heart sing with joy. It wasn't too bad, although the 5 hour wait in the airport was not great. I managed to eat some nice American cuisine (grilled sandwich and chips!), and discovered that if flying United, I should not say that I'm a vegetarian. I was given a "special" meal, which consisted of soggy spinach, nasty eggs, mushrooms and a pitiful tomato. Everyone else got eggs, bacon, waffles, fruit and a bun. Bah.
I watched Moon on the plane, which, other than being a bit depressing, really wasn't a great film to see on a plane. I'm not sure there are too many which are suited to that unique medium. I am now in my fairly pleasant hotel room, in the rather unexciting state of Missouri. I'm not certain, but this may be the least interesting state in the world...
Labels: my life
America!
Off to the US tomorrow. I shall be leaving my house at 3:30 in the morning, and arriving in Columbia, Missouri, at approximately 7, if all goes well. I will effectively have travelled for a day, and gloriously will be there for three whole days before travelling for another day on Sunday and getting home on Monday. Woo, and indeed, hoo. No doubt this is an exciting experience, although I do wish the conference was actually a little longer to justify the absurdly long travel times.
Labels: my life
