New #Vodafonefail

Vodafone admit to me here that they swallowed Mubarak's line on national security justifying their phone blackout!:

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2011/01/31/exclusive-vodafone-justifies-censorship-in-egypt-over-national-security/

 

--

Rupert Read

Green Party Councillor, Norwich.

http://rupertread.net

[If you have an urgent email for me while I am away from a regular computer, you may wish to try contacting me instead on rupertread+mob AT gmail.com]

WHY NOT FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER?: twitter.com/GreenRupertRead

#Yes2AV letter of mine in PROSPECT

This letter has just been published, in the latest issue of PROSPECT magazine:

 

  To the Editor;
Peter Kellner's piece (Jan. '11) on how the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill badly underestimates the effect that AV will have on the composition of the Commons.
Because it puts an end to the main form of tactical voting and to the 'wasted vote' argument, AV changes the expressed first preferences of voters. For example, the rise of the Greens in Australia has been predicated on growing numbers of Aussies voting Green even if and where the Greens have little chance of winning; voters can affords to do this, because their second preferences etc will still count.
If the AV referendum goes through, expect much more substantial changes to British politics (than Kellner has woken up to) - including an accelerated rise for the Green Party.
  Faithfully,
C'llr. Rupert Read, one of 21 Norwich Green Councillors
Norwich
NR2 3TT.

Eastern Region Green Party calls for MPs & govt to put pressure on #Mubarak to democratise now

Green Party members from all over the East of England met in London yesterday for a Regional gathering. The following statement was unanimously agreed:

"We are concerned about the de facto militarisation of the Egyptian government, when what is really needed is a swift and clear promise of _democratisation_. We praise the bravery of those protesting against the dictatorial Mubarak regime. We call on our MPs and our government to exert the strongest possible economic and diplomatic pressure on the Egyptian regime to refrain from treating protesters with violence and brutality, and to concede forthwith the free and fair elections that are their main demand."

Stand with #Egypt!



I don't often do this, but in the case of the #Jan25 revolution, its worth it. Indeed, it feels compulsory. ...I've signed; I hope you will too:

 

Forwarded from the good people at Avaaz:

 

Brave Egyptian protesters will determine in the coming hours whether tyranny or democracy prevails in Egypt and across the region. They've appealed for international solidarity – let's send them a massive response, and hold our governments accountable to stand with them too:

Millions of brave Egyptians are right now facing a fateful choice. Thousands have been jailed, injured or killed in the last few days. But if they press on in peaceful protest, they could end decades of tyranny.

The protesters have appealed for international solidarity, but the dictatorship knows the power of unity at a time like this – they've desperately tried to cut Egyptians off from the world and each other by completely shutting down the internet and mobile networks.

Satellite and radio networks can still break through the regime blackout -- let's flood those airwaves with a massive cry of solidarity showing Egyptians that we stand with them, and that we'll hold our governments accountable to stand with them too. The situation is at a tipping point -- every hour counts -- click below to sign the solidarity message, and forward this email:


https://secure.avaaz.org/en/democracy_for_egypt/?vl


People power is sweeping the Middle East. In days, peaceful protesters brought down Tunisia's 30-year dictatorship. Now the protests are spreading to Egypt, Yemen, Jordan and beyond. This could be the Arab world's Berlin Wall moment. If tyranny falls in Egypt, a tidal wave of democracy could sweep the entire region.

Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak has tried to crush the rallies. But with incredible bravery and determination, the protesters keep coming.

There are moments when history is written not by the powerful, but by people. This is one of them. The actions of ordinary Egyptians in the coming hours will have a massive effect on their country, the region, and our world. Let's cheer them on with our own pledge to stand with them in their struggle:  


https://secure.avaaz.org/en/democracy_for_egypt/?vl



Mubarak's family has left the country, but last night he ordered the military into the streets. He's ominously promised 0 tolerance for what he calls 'chaos'. Either way, history will be made in the next few days. Let's make this the moment that shows every dictator on our planet that they cannot stand long against the courage of people united.

With hope and admiration for the Egyptian people,
Ricken, Rewan, Ben, Graziela, Alice, Kien and the rest of the Avaaz team

More Information:

Egypt unrest: Alert as mass protests loom
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12303564  

Egyptian government shuts down the Internet
http://www.renesys.com/blog/2011/01/egypt-leaves-the-internet.shtml

North Africa: Will dominoes fall in the region? 
http://allafrica.com/stories/201101280659.html

'Beginning of the end' for Egypt's Mubarak as son and wife flee
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/105117/20110126/beginning-of-the-end-for-egypt-s-mubarak-as-son-and-wife-flee.htm  

Amnesty International condemns the crackdown on demonstrations
http://amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/egypt-must-stop-crackdown-protesters-2011-01-26 

Regular updates are being posted by Egyptian activists here: 
http://www.elshaheeed.co.uk

ACCESS campaign for digital freedom in Egypt:
https://www.accessnow.org/page/s/help-egypt  

#Egypt: What I have just written to MPs

 Just a quick note to say - I hope you are urging the British govt today to tell the Egyptian govt today that a massacre tonight would be totally unacceptable. You need to threaten the cutting off of all aid, the imposition of sanctions, etc.

 

  It is so crucial that the British govt makes very clear to the Egyptian govt right now that the army attacks on the protesters that have now begun - I am watching live coverage on Al Jazeera, this minute - must stop...

   Egypt needs to be told that it will become a pariah state, facing sanctions, etc., if it does not allow these demonstrations to continue, and allow democratic reform in Egypt...

 

People's lives - and the reputation of your govt - are in the balance, at present....

 

 

Do join me: Write to your MP now!

Egypt and Tunisia - an inspiration

Listen to the remarkable double interview in this morning's The World Today
programme on the BBC World Service.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00d4rpr/The_World_Today_27_01_2011/

The interview, beginning at about 26'4" into the programme, is with two young
people: Ahmed in Cairo (whose phone is intermittently jammed by the
dictatorship) and Sanay in Tunis.

They express mutual support and solidarity. Their revolution is one.

Near the end of the interview, at about 30'48', the BBC guy asks Sanay: "Do you think history
is on your side?"

And without a milli-second hesitation, she delivers the right answer:

"We are making history; people are making history!"

‘One World Column’ relaunched as blog for East Anglia’s progressive majority...

Today our six East Anglian writer-campaigners - Rupert Read, Mark Crutchley, Charlotte Du Cann, Marguerite Finn, David Seddon, & Trevor Phillips - launched the @OneWorldColumn blog an an online magazine, forum and news network for the region's progressive organisations.

The One World Column was for six years a regular weekly feature in the Eastern Daily Press, commenting on issues including international development, poverty, globalisation, peacemaking, human rights, international relations and the environment. It also commented on local news from a global perspective. The column was written by a rotating team of six volunteer writers and also published on its own website. When the EDP terminated the weekly column, the writers decided to produce a blog and develop a partnership with progressive organisations with similar interests. Campaigning groups and charities will provide guest writers and news – and network the blog to their organisations' supporters, creating a wide audience.

The blog was launched last night at a party at the East of England Production Innovation Centre (EPIC) in Norwich. The event was attended by forty guests from independent media, social enterprises, environment organisations, trades unions, charities and political campaigns.

One World Column blog will be:
- a focal point for news and comment on local events linked to global themes
- a link to progressive local NGOs and campaigns and their work - a fresh voice from East Anglia, completely independent of corporate media interests - a place where ideas and information are shared - a forum for guest writers on 'one world' themes, especially young writers
- a medium with audio-visual and other new elements, too.

...In a time of increasing global dangers and national political challenges it is important to bring local progressives into supportive partnerships. We want to establish a relationship with other independent media, like-minded writers, progressive campaigns, NGOs, artists and others throughout the region - to develop the One World Column as an asset for us all - reaching members and supporters of our organisations plus the wider public. Organisations can write to (explain how ) to be part of this venture.

David Fleming - a great man

I'm still reeling somewhat from the death of my friend David Fleming late last year. Here are a couple of great tributes I've picked up:

http://www.darkoptimism.org/FlemingTimesObit.html

http://www.darkoptimism.org/2010/11/29/in-memoriam-david-fleming/

I'm pleased that the last time I saw David, in September of 2010, we had a great time together, and some superb chats (as one virtually always did with him). He will be sorely missed, but his influence lives on.

 

RR on the Beeb on fuel prices

To listen to me uncut on carbon rationing, go 1 hr. 24 minutes in to this BBC Radio Norfolk piece:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00d12q3/Matthew_Gudgin_19_01_2011/

PHILOSOPHY AND PUBLIC POLICY: MAKING AN IMPACT

Seminar 2: Friday 25th February 2011.

Please click to enlarge the event schedule:

Tony Blair - war criminal: the final verdict

The revelations from Lord Goldsmith (http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/99953 ) are at once completely unsurprising and completely devastating. We now finally know that Goldsmith told Bliar that 1441 didn't authorise war.

In any decent society, Goldsmith would (as the MS points out) have told us this at the time. But, far more important, in any decent society, this news would now lead at least and at last to the indictment on war crimes charges of the former PM.

Sadly, we are it seems a long way still from being a truly decent society. Blair still 'walks tall', despite having been definitively exposed as a liar and as the author of the ultimate international crime (as defined by the Nuremberg tribunals): aggression leading to mass killing, mass murder.

Hopefully, his day in court will still come. We can but hope that the International Criminal Court will catch up with him and Bush, just as Pinochet eventually had to face the music (though he then cunningly faked dementia, to escape from it - will that be how Bliar too ends his days?...).

Guardians for the future: A talk

UEA Law School Research Seminar Series Spring 2011

 

I'm kicking off this series: 

 

Wednesdays at 4.30pm in Blackdale Building room 0.32. Please direct any questions to Magda Raczynska M.Raczynska AT uea.ac.uk (research seminar convenor, UEA Law School).

   

26 January

Dr Rupert Read (PHI)

Guardians for Future Generations; a Radical Proposal

 

Wittgenstein as WorldWarII writer - my piece appears in NLH.

Current Issue Access Current Issue (Subscription Required) | View Sample Past Issue 41, 3 (2010) Summer 2010 Edited by Rita Felski Bruno Latour, "An Attempt at a 'Compositionist Manifesto'" | Download Article Ian Hunter, "Scenes from the History of Poststructuralism: Davos, Freiburg, Baltimore, Leipzig" Robert Pippin, "Philosophical Film: Trapped by Oneself in Jacques Tourneur's Out of the Past" Krishan Kumar, "The Ends of Utopia" Shira Wolosky, "Relational Aesthetics and Feminist Poetics" Rupert Read, "Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations as a War Book" James Phillips, "Wordsworth and the Fraternity of Joy" Nergis Erturk, "Those Outside the Scene: Snow in the World Republic of Letters" Angus Fletcher and Michael Benveniste, "Defending Pluralism: The Chicago School and the Case of Tom Jones" Patrick Redding, "Whitman Unbound: Democracy and Poetic Form, 1912-1931" Forthcoming issues include "Character," "Context?" and " In the Mood."

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Australia's floods: Debate on the role of Global Warming - Senator Bob Brown

From the excellent Aussie Greens:

 

'Following our devastating floods in Australia, Bob Brown called for our nation to implement the mining profits tax that is being discussed here, and for some of this tax to be put towards a fund to help Australia cope with the likely increased natural disasters from global warming. Two of Bob's media statements follow.

 

Bob's call follows the observations by climate scientists that global warming is lifting more water vapour into the air, so increasing the intensity of torrential downpours, especially in Australia's north. Professor David Karoly from the University of Melbourne's School of Earth Sciences said that "Australia has been known for more than a hundred years as a land of droughts and flooding rains, but what climate change means is Australia becomes a land of more droughts and worse flooding rains." http://www.theage.com.au/environment/fates-conspire-to-concoct-a-recipe-for-disaster-20110111-19mp7.html

 

Sadly, the Queensland Government also wants to avoid looking at long term causal issues of the floods. Queensland Premier Anna Bligh has started the process of finding answers in the aftermath of the floods by calling a commission of inquiry, but the terms of reference for the Inquiry have given little, if any, explicit consideration of the role of climate change. This is a strange omission, given that only three months ago the state published an assessment of the potential impacts of climate change. The report said "Climate change is also likely to affect extreme rainfall in south-east Queensland (and) the projected increase in rainfall intensity could result in more flooding events."

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coal barons should help pay for catastrophes - Brown

Media Release

Sunday 16th January 2011

 

The full tax on excess profits by the coal mining industry, as recommended by Treasury, should be imposed with half set aside for future natural catastrophes in Australia, Greens Leader Bob Brown said in Hobart today.

 

"It is unfair that the cost is put on all taxpayers, not the culprits," Senator Brown said.

 

"Burning coal is a major cause of global warming. This industry, which is 75% owned outside Australia, should help pay the cost of the predicted more severe and more frequent floods, droughts and bushfires in coming decades. As well, 700,000 seaside properties in Australia face rising sea levels."

 

"A Goldman Sachs study found that the reduction in the mining super tax agreed by the current Labor government (the coalition opposes the mining tax) would cost Australians $35 billion in forgone revenue to 2019-20."

 

"Scientists agree that current floods come from record-high temperatures of Australian oceans this season."

 

"We also ask insurers to show some compassion to Queensland's flood victims, and to others who face loss as wild weather besets the country. Many people believe they have flood cover and, if not, the fine print should have been disclosed to them."

 

------------------------------------------

17 January 2011

 

The Role of Global Warming

 

After the hottest and wettest year in recorded history, the seas off

northern Australia are also currently warmer than ever before.  This

heat has led to increased evaporation and so, rainfall.

 

Sceptics and defenders of the coal industry may dispute this scientific

data, but they don't.  Instead, they are arguing that there should be no

debate - not, at least, until some undefined time in the future when the

cataclysm has passed and its injuries are behind us. 

 

A week after the "inland tsunami" struck the Toowoomba region, with the

flood crest having passed in Brisbane, and Rockhampton beginning to

recover, Australia's newspapers are now carrying letters expressing

frustration at the absence of debate on the causes of the floods across

the nation and, indeed, in Brazil, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.

 

Like the drought, heatwaves and bushfires these floods are predictable

calamities and worse is in store as the planet is heated by human

actions.

 

We may collectively choose to do nothing about the rapidly increasing of

burning of coal, here and overseas, from coal being mined in Australia

by wealthy corporations largely owned overseas.  However, that choice

should not be made without informed debate.  If there is a later time

better for this crucial debate to begin, let the critics name it.

 

Bob Brown

Australian Greens Leader

http://bob-brown.greensmps.org.au/

 

Green Drinks: Shifting Cultural Values | The Green Dragon, 18th January, 7:30pm

If you can come along, you're welcome!:

Green Drinks Tonight: Shifting Cultural Values

With Dr. Rupert Read, reader in philosophy at the University of East Anglia, co-founder of values-change blog Green Words Workshop and Norwich Green Party Councillor.

The Green Dragon, 18th January, 7:30pm

Hello Everyone,

To date our Green Drinks themes have had quite a practical focus, but this month we're tackling something that at first glance seems a little more esoteric - shifting cultural values. In fact it's pretty much central to all Sustainable Bungay's projects and is at the heart of Transition; but we generally only acknowledge it in so much as we recognise that, if we're to tackle climate change, come to terms with finite resources and cope with a radical economic readjustment we'll have to change the way we think about each other and the world. At Green Drinks this month, and with the help of Dr. Rupert Read, we'll delve a little deeper.

Ready to be nudged?

The Government is keen to 'nudge' us into making 'better' choices and believes that this approach could replace regulation to help it achieve its commitments to public health, the environment and well-being. But many argue that without big shifts in our values, approaches that attempt to shape behaviour are likely to have little impact in a culture where the consumer is still king and economic growth is the most important measure of national success.

A Common Cause

At our first Green Drinks evening we talked briefly about a report called Common Cause: The Case for Working with our Cultural Values published by a consortium of organsiations including WWF, Friends of the Earth, Oxfam and the Campaign to Protect Rural England. The report makes a clear case for a wide range of civil society organisations to work together in order to strengthen those cultural values that have been shown to underpin people's concern about a whole range of problems - from climate change to global poverty. It goes on to argue that the public will only put enough pressure on politicians if they place greater emphasis on those 'intrinsic' values (which include the value we place on things like relationships with other people, the natural world, a sense of place/belonging).

We've invited Dr. Rupert Read, reader in philosophy at the UEA, co-founder of values-change blog Green Words Workshop and Norwich Green Party Councillor to help us think about some of these issues. As usual we'll ask Rupert to speak for 5 or 10 minutes then open the floor for questions and a general discussion before breaking up into smaller informal conversations. It's never possible to say exactly what will come up at Green Drinks but we might talk about;

• What kinds of values do we need to shift to and what are we moving away from - is it as simple as a move from 'Me' to 'We'?
• How can we strengthen the kinds of intrinsic values outlined in the Common Cause report and bring them to the fore locally?
• Should we begin talking to other local groups about emphasizing these values? How?

And much more besides... there is bound to be a lively discussion!

It would be great to see you there.

Best wishes,

Josiah

(on behalf of Sustainable Bungay)

Sustainable Bungay is a community-led response to peak oil and climate change and is part of the Transition Town Network: www.sustainablebungay.com

Bank regulation - an exciting precedent

Rupert's readers! You might be interested in the article below, by Gillian Tett in the FT,
which describes an approach to re-regulating the banking system being taken in South Korea. 

    www.ft.com/cms/s/0/8bfc81e2-1f30-11e0-8c1c-00144feab49a.html#axzz1B3bTiTpm

The accompanying paper by Professor Hyun Song Shin is well worth

reading too, at
    www.princeton.edu/~hsshin/www/MacroprudentialMemo.pdf

Would it be too much to hope we could do something like this in Britain? Under this government (or its predecessor), yes. #VoteGreen...

The People’s Bank; a way out of the current crisis for Britain – and Ireland

The Dail voted through Ireland’s Euro-bailout package. The Irish Greens wanted an election in January: they haven’t got it. But Cowen, the Irish PM, did say in November that; “It is my intention at the conclusion of the budgetary process, with the enactment of the necessary legislation in the New Year, to then seek the dissolution of parliament.” So we may now be very close to the onset of elections in Ireland.

Given that context, where now, for Irish political economy, and in particular for we on the Left and in the Green movement, to whom surely the chain of events that led to the baiout looks particularly wrong, particularly venal and disastrous?

So: I was phoned up recently at random by MORI, for an opinion poll. One of the main questions was: “Do you think that Britain help should bail out Ireland to stop it going bankrupt?” This question helpfully brings out an insane inconsistency in the current British governmental approach to debt and pump-priming. According to Osborne, Cameron, Clegg and Cable, the British government must pump a few billion into the Irish economy in order to stop it from going under …while it is taking a lot more billions out of the British economy … to stop it from going under. Is that a contradiction? Is the Pope Catholic?

If something’s good for the Irish goose, then it’s also good for the British gander.

Here then is the germ of a suggestion for how the Irish Green Party, which faces to say the least a difficult electoral challenge, might put clear green water between itself and Fianna Fail, in the run-up to the likely upcoming General Election in Ireland. Why not stand firm on the kind of rejection of cuts that the Green Party over here in Britain has stood firmly on; and argue that, if there is to be a bail-out in Ireland, then it should be accepted only on the basis of the nationalised banks being truly nationalised, truly run in the public interest?

To the objection that this kind of proposal is unfeasible in modern capitalist economies, we can reply simply by pointing people to the example of Brazil, where around half of all banking takes place through the national Banco do Brasil. This doesn’t seem to have held back their development…

So: Greens in Ireland could fight the election promising to work for a solution like that that is, since I proposed a motion that was successful to Green Party Conference this autumn, party policy in England and Wales. Namely, that there should be at least one large permanently nationalised bank (say RBS, in our case) truly government-controlled and setting its interest-rates in the public interest, and consistent with macro-economic policy. The key point here of course being: Banking is a public service. The other remaining commercial banks would have to follow suit to a large extent, if they wanted any substantial amount of business from ordinary retail lenders and borrowers. The permanently-nationalised retail bank might be called the Bank of Britain. (In Ireland, the name the Bank of Ireland suggests itself…) Or: the People’s Bank.

Standing up firmly in favour of banking being run as a public service and against bail-outs that allow continued private dominance of profits even when the losses have been socialised would be a way in which the Irish Greens, like their British counterparts, could gain the moral and political high ground. It would set them radically apart from Fianna Fail. If the Irish banks are going to get bailed out, then Ireland needs to think about how a solution can emerge from that that does not simply create the conditions for a new crisis, and that preserves [creates] banking as a genuine public service for the Irish people.

This proposal offers a way to do this.

And, excitingly, it could help pave the way to what many of us believe is the only longer-term solution to the kind of crisis that has gripped the world in the last 3 years: changing the role of the banks in making money. The role of creating the national money supply should be moved away from private banks, firmly back toward the state. Creating genuine People’s Banks will make this goal of monetary reform — now somewhat-astonishingly even on Mervyn King’s agenda, as an alternative to the mad privatised monetary system that we have at present — more achievable, and much more natural-looking, than it currently is.

7%! New LibDem poll low!

This is truly extreme: the LDs are down to just SEVEN percent in the latest opinion poll: http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/lib-dems-drop-7 . 'Others' are once again beating the LDs, with the Greens in there amongst them of course.

It really does look like the LDs may be heading for oblivion. Step forward, their potential replacers: http://brightgreenscotland.org/index.php/2010/12/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-libdems

Palin beyond the pale

As you no doubt know by now, Rupert's reader, a Democratic Congresswoman who was 'targetted' by Sarah Palin - with rifle-hair-cross-sights on a map - is fighting for her life, after a shooting which has already killed several others.

@SarahPalinUSA tweeted this: "Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: "Don't Retreat, Instead - RELOAD!"

This dangerous moron's willingness to bring the lives of her political opponents into peril seemingly knows no limits.

 

The U.S. is now in a very dangerous place. Check out this thoughtful article: http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com/2009/08/10/is-the-us-on-the-brink-of-fascism/

 

[And these follow-ups to it, about how America might stop its descent into disaster: http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009083311/fascist-america-ii-last-turnoff http://www.ourfuture.org/blog-entry/2009083526/fascist-america-iii-resistance-long-haul ]

#AV : Ask your MP if they are backing #Yes2AV (and if not, why not!)

As MPs who #No2AV claimed were supporters continue publicly to declare for the Yes campaign,

the Yes campaign are encouraging supporters to write to their MPs to ask where they stand: http://www.yestofairervotes.org/blog/entry/where-does-your-mp-stand-on-the-alternative-vote/

Given that No2AV certainly cannot be relied to give out any reliable facts on this matter - see http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/2011/01/no-to-av-meltdown.html - this looks like the best way forward.

No-to-AV meltdown

The #No2AV campaign appear to be having a bit of a crisis...

Last week they published a list of 114 Labour MPs.  Within a matter of hours it emerged that at least one MP on the list had not given them his consent. By yesterday, the count was up to 5: http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/01/no2av-campaign-gaffe/

Now it turns out that Barry Sheerman MP, far from being a No supporter, is an outspoken Yes campaigner: http://www.examiner.co.uk/news/local-west-yorkshire-news/2011/01/06/huddersfield-mp-barry-sheerman-to-campaign-in-favour-of-alternative-vote-86081-27938126/

This of course comes after they wrongly declared that Michael Gove was a supporter: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11845177

They do seem to be in a mess about this. While yestofairervotes.org are, it seems to me, going from strength to strength!

 

Maybe the problem is in part that the No campaign are in fact run by a bunch of right-wing nasties from the Tax-Payers Alliance and the Tories. Maybe that is why they have no accurate idea about what is going on inside Parties such as Labour and the Greens in terms of AV, and why they therefore not-infrequently, deliberately or as a result of cock-ups (as seems to be the case in this case), spread misinformation about the matter...

Heading north - Oldham here I come!

So, my plans are firming up... I am going to be in Oldham East & Saddleworth for Polling Day (and for the count), next Thursday 13th Jan. ... Am hugely looking forward to it!

My last byelection outing was of course Norwich North...  ;-)

Hopefully, the quite disgraceful LibDem lies and misrepresentations on that occasion, matched by Woollas of Labour up in Oldham such that this byelection became necessary, will resonate with some voters who will be willing to give the cleaner Greens a try, instead...

Bad news from Israel

Here is an unusually important and concerning MediaLens piece: http://medialens.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=594:guest-media-alert-killing-journalism&catid=24:alerts-2011&Itemid=68