Quantcast
Channel: New Statesman Contents
Viewing all 19496 articles
Browse latest View live

Challenges lie ahead after Aung San Suu Kyi's victory in Burma

$
0
0

Burma's vote for changes has thrown up new problems  not least, how to deal with corruption.

It has been a long road for the Burmese. As the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) received news of its landslide victory in national elections, thousands gathered outside the party’s headquarters in Rangoon. It has been a long road in particular for the party’s 88-year-old chairman, the retired army general Tin Oo, whose face hung on banners over NLD supporters gathered on consecutive nights to celebrate as the results roll in.

The NLD is best known for its association with “The Lady” – as Suu Kyi is known – and yet the election she has dominated will not lead to her elevation to the role of president, because of a law that appears designed to keep her out. The president of Burma cannot have a foreign spouse, as she did (the Oxford scholar Michael Aris), though days before the election, Suu Kyi told a press conference that she would be “above the president”, leading to speculation that a proxy would represent her in the job.

This is just one of many limits to the NLD’s impressive mandate, the work of an obstinate and belligerent military regime that seized power in 1962 and has dominated Burmese politics ever since. It was their failure and brutality that made a folk legend out of Suu Kyi – and produced a nation desperate for change. On polling day, voters were often unaware who the local NLD candidate was. “I voted for Daw Suu,” said Tun Thein, in Rangoon’s Mingalar Taung Nyunt constituency, displaying his inky thumb. “I don’t know or care who the candidate is here.”

When I first visited Rangoon in 2010, it was to cover that year’s election. This was widely regarded as a farce, the military and its proxy, the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), attempting to mimic civilian rulers to secure a political future. In those days the city was poorly lit and its buildings were haunted by a sense of paranoia. Suu Kyi was still under house arrest. Her NLD boycotted the polls and the USDP was selected to run the country with a constitution voted in by means of a dubious referendum.

Reporting from the country was complicated. Burmese journalists were frequently jailed and tortured – though things began to change as the military tried to shore up its position and regenerate the country’s flagging economy. Foreign journalists now pack out popular hotels in Rangoon. KFC has arrived, along with a wave of foreign investment to the tune of £5.6bn per year.

Still, as the former Irish president Mary Robinson noted this past week, observing the elections on behalf of an American NGO, “there are serious flaws in the constitutional framework”. The highest body in the Burmese government is the 11-member National Defence and Security Council, dominated by unelected military personnel who can legally declare a state of emergency at any moment. What’s more, the military automatically occupy 25 per cent of parliament and are granted portfolios in the ministries of defence, home affairs and border areas. To change the 2008 constitution, a party needs over 75 per cent of the vote – in effect allowing the armed forces a legal veto on almost everything.

“The military has locked itself in power with the 2008 constitution and no matter how large the NLD landslide nothing is going to change that fact,” said Phil Robertson, the deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch.

The economy, too, has been reorganised to suit the regime. Western trade sanctions were dropped after 2010 and yet the money coming in was monopolised by the same people western governments sought to disenfranchise – a clique known locally as “the cronies”. These are business people with connections in such places as China and Singapore who import arms and refined oil in exchange for natural resources and narcotics.

After 2010, state-owned assets were “privatised”, with crony businessmen and military holding companies picking up the best assets. The Union of Myanmar Economic Holdings, for instance, was “first at the trough for any profitable enterprise that the government had regulatory control over”, Robertson said. “Any new government will have little power to demand accountability from this military-dominated conglomerate.”

The IMF says tenders were handed out in closed processes before 2011. The jade industry alone is worth £20bn a year, according to the NGO Global Witness. The value of this industry vastly outstrips government spending on health services. Burma may have voted for change now, but the task of wresting key budgets from camouflaged hands has yet to begin. 

Getty

Never have football's top players earned so much money – and enjoyed it less

$
0
0

The discipline now is brutal. All the staff at Man United will probably have to sign a form saying they’ll never talk to van Gaal unless he speaks first.

Oh no, it’s another weekend without any decent football, no Prem or Championship games, ’cos boring old England are having two friendlies against – oh, I can’t even be bothered to look them up, though I’ll watch them, obviously. But bang goes my lovely Saturday and Sunday routine, watching wall-to-wall Prem football, with breaks to stuff my face and sleep. I can now manage a kip of exactly 45 minutes on a Saturday afternoon between games. All it takes is practice.

I wonder if I can sue? BT advertised all the wonderful Euro Championship games they’re going to show us – but unless all four Prem teams progress, which seems unlikely, I think they’re guilty of getting money out of us on shaky grounds. Both BT and Sky put the price up all the time, yet we seem to get more empty weekends. Any road up, what am I going to do with myself this weekend? Then a thought struck me. What about the players?

Who cares, most fans will say – they have their millions to comfort them. But they, too, must hate this sort of weekend. Trailing across the world, often on their own, if they come from a small country, to play in some potty friendly, against another small country, where they might get injured and lose their Prem place.

And what do the ones who are not international players do? Stay in bed or pop over to Florida to look at their luxury apartment they’ve never seen? No chance. They’ll be getting whipped on the training ground till they bleed.

This is one of the lovely ironies about present-day football. The top players have never before earned such money – and enjoyed it less. The discipline now is brutal. All the staff at Man United will probably have to sign a form saying they’ll never talk to van Gaal unless he speaks first. That includes coaches who sit on the bench beside him. Mourinho, of course, issues death threats to staff who cross him.

Even that nice, calm Mauricio Pochettino at Spurs has as good as brought Andros Townsend’s Spurs career to an end, all for saying boo to a fitness coach. Steve McClaren at Newcastle is insisting all his players say please and thank you, wear club blazers in the showers, never chew gum and be hanged if they’re late for training.

Prem players live under continual fear and stress, restrictions and restraints. No wonder they have little time to enjoy their wealth. It’s not just their limbs that get knackered, but their teeth. A report last week said that 7 per cent of players felt their dental problems were affecting their play. It’s those stupid sugary so-called health drinks they swig all the time.

I did feel sorry for Jermain Defoe at Sunderland, having to advertise for a PA on £60k a year to stock his fridge and collect his dry-cleaning. He simply hasn’t the time. And what about poor old Raheem Sterling of Man City? He is too famous to go out and get his hair cut, so he’s had to instal a barber’s shop in his mansion. Did you see that TV prog about Wayne Rooney? He only has two little kids but their play area in the garden is about the size of Disneyland. They can’t play in the street like he did.

And when it comes to investing money, so many of them give the odd spare £10m to some wideboy financial adviser to put in a dodgy tax scheme – and never see it again.

Two weeks ago there was a news story about Arsenal’s reserve goalie, David Ospina, doomed probably never to get another game since Petr Cech arrived. I didn’t even know he was the reserve goalie, yet I go to Arsenal games, now and again. The amazing bit about the story was that he lives in a £16m house – a player I wouldn’t recognise if I met him in my porridge.

While he was away playing for Colombia against Peru, thieves broke in and stole one of his cars – a £100k Mercedes – had a joy ride, then dumped it.

So, this weekend, if you find yourself moaning about the lack of any decent footer, think about our elite footballers, wherever they are, either being shouted at or feeling worried sick. Remember them in your prayers. 

Getty

The 1939 Register: where did Britain sleep before war was declared?

$
0
0

The register brings the texture of one night 76 years ago within touching distance. What will happen for other records like it?

The 1939 Register is a “wartime Domesday Book”. Vast and yet intimate, it is a picture of precisely where people in England and Wales slept on the night of 29 September 1939. Forty-one million handwritten entries record jobs, date of birth and marital status, filling books that would reach twice the height of St Paul’s Cathedral if stacked together. Refugee children who escaped Nazi-occupied Europe are listed with their adoptive families. The “Cambridge Five” Soviet spies are there. Ian Fleming gives his occupation as “stockbroker”, not novelist; Oswald Mosley is an “ex-officer, ex-MP”.

In the online version, which was published last week, the Register is feted as a powerful tool for family history. And why not: 1939 was the year when Virginia Woolf – sleeping at her country home in Sussex on the night of the 29th – wrote: “Is not anyone who has lived a life, and left a record of that life, worthy of biography – the failures as well as the successes, the humble as well as the illustrious?”

It brings the texture of one night 76 years ago within touching distance. But there is an enormous distance between the way it was made and the way it is now being sold. During National Registration Week, data was gathered by 65,000 public enumerators – often unemployed office workers – who delivered questionnaires and wrote them up. “Were it not for the fact that there is a war on,” the Daily Mail said on 26 September, “Mrs Great Britain would not be taking kindly to the man presenting himself on her doorstep this week.”

When an attempt was made to introduce a national registration scheme during the Great War, it was smeared as “Prussification”, an adoption of German bureaucratic values. In 1939, parents were just as nervous about drawing attention to children who might be conscripted. It worked the second time because it was linked to ration books. Children not on the Register might not be conscripted, but neither would they eat. Rather grimly, civil servants referred to the Register’s success as “parasitic vitality”.

After 1945, the information was used to found the National Health Service. The originals are held at the National Archives in Kew, with the records of both the living and recently dead redacted. But as of 2 November, 28 million records have been released online by the family history company Findmypast. Searching is free, but to look at the documentation for one household costs £6.95. Fifteen households costs £54.95.

Ancestry is a lucrative business. Andrew Marr, who has been promoting the resource out of enthusiasm rather than any paid brand ambassadorship, tweeted: “hardworking geeks spent two years digitising this . . . a huge job. Don’t they deserve to be paid?” Certainly, the National Archives don’t have funding enough to support this sort of undertaking any more.

Two days after the Register was published, the government released its “Snooper’s Charter”, the draft Investigatory Powers Bill. “Spooks have been harvesting our phone and email data for 14 years,” the Mail said.

Rather than a freeze-frame of one night, this would be rolling, documentary footage for future historians. But if they can get hold of this data, it seems likely they’ll have to pay for that, too. On 20 November, consultation closes on the introduction of charges for Freedom of Information requests: the very tool used by one researcher to trigger the release of the 1939 Register. 

Wikimedia

George Osborne's latest wheeze leaves the taxpayer £125m worse off every year. Here's why

$
0
0

Far from getting a great deal for taxpayers, the Treasury will be the worse off in the long run, explains Jolyon Maugham.

Here’s what George Osborne tweeted the morning the government sold off Northern Rock's mortgage portfolio:

It was probably something I ate, because I woke up in a rather sceptical mood: what’s the “gain” he’s referring to, I wondered?

So I looked at the Treasury's press release. It doesn’t tell us much. But it does say that:

The Chancellor has today (13 November 2015) authorised a record-breaking £13 billion sale of mortgages acquired by the government during the financial crisis.

And the word “gain” seems to refer to the fact that the price achieved represented a £280m (or “almost £300m” as the Press Release goes on helpfully to observe. Political rounding, you might call it) surplus over book value.

That’s not especially illuminating because, if I have an asset worth 100, write it down in my books to 10, and then sell it for 30 I can say I’ve made a “gain” on book value of 20 even though actually I’ve lost 70. But because I didn’t know the actual cost to us of the mortgage book – known in the trade as the Granite Portfolio – I left the point alone.

But then I wondered: who purchased it?

Well, it’s something called Cerberus Capital Management LP – “one of the world’s leading private investment firms” – and it’s been on a buying spree of real estate debt from across Europe (as its website helpfully points out) including Germany, France, Britain and Scandinavia. And it seems to be buying this debt through what the Irish Times describes as “a network of Irish companies” Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs if you’d like to pretend to know what you’re talking about), each of them owning hundreds of millions or billions of pounds of assets but having no Irish employees and paying no Irish corporation tax.

The Irish Times is pretty brassed off about this – well, wouldn’t you be if you were Irish? – but is there a UK angle?

Reader, there is.

The bulk of the loans in the Granite Portfolio pay interest at 4.79 per cent – so says the Financial Times at least. Calculating 4.79 per cent of £13,000,000,000 on an eight digit pocket calculator is a little tricky but I think we get to £623m per annum of interest income. If that income were subject to UK corporation tax (even at our special low low rate of 20 per cent) it would generate UK corporation tax receipts of £125m per annum – less any expenses of course.

But by selling it to Ireland all those prospective tax receipts go to… hang on… the Irish don’t get them either. We don’t and it’s a racing certainty that no-one else will. Typically they disappear off to a Dutch or Luxembourg Company where they’re received as a dividend and are tax exempt.

Cerberus, by the way, is also the name of a “monstrous multi-headed dog who guards the gates of the underworld, preventing the dead from leaving.”

I don’t know that Cerberus have brought the Granite Portfolio through an Irish SPV. But the Irish Times tells us that Cerberus have used this structure to buy other UK property loans – so it’s a reasonable bet. And I’m sure HM Treasury will tell us, if anyone cares to ask them.

We could, of course, have insisted on a UK buyer. That way, we would have kept in the national coffers the contribution made by £623m of annual taxable income. But because a UK buyer would have had a tax liability on that income he wouldn’t have been prepared to pay such a high price. And George Osborne wouldn’t have been able to send out this morning’s tweet trumpeting his “gain”.

I should mention for the sake of completeness that a UK borrower is in principle required to deduct and pay to HMRC 20 per cent tax when he or she pays interest to a foreign lender.  This can be reduced or eliminated if the UK has entered into a so-called "double tax treaty" with the country in which the foreign lender is based.  It will not surprise you to learn that the UK has entered into a treaty with Ireland, and the rate of tax the UK is entitled to deduct under that treaty has been reduced to… zero.

This article originally appeared on Waiting for Tax.

James Bond's real enemy? The British housing crisis

$
0
0

I would argue that Spectre, despite all its aerial gymnastics, also has a subtext dug deeply into the built environment.

I want to write about Spectre, the new James Bond film . . . No! Don’t turn the page! I know you probably read Ryan Gilbey’s judicious review in these pages and the column by the estimable Laurie Penny in which she argued that Daniel Craig’s portrayal of the ultra-violent assassin embodied the messy contradictions of masculinity under late capitalism – which was all well and good, though the same could be said of every Bond iteration, all the way back to the first spunky and sadistic tales to spurt from Ian Fleming’s pen. But fret ye not: my concern is with a different aspect of the film altogether.

Taking £41.3m at the box office in its opening seven days, Spectre has beaten the previous British box-office champ, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, into a sorting hat. This represents a huge crowd of moviegoers – and what do they see once the lights go down but another huge crowd, dressed up as carnival-goers attending the Day of the Dead celebrations in Mexico City. I have no idea if this sequence was shot in the Mexican capital but there were no computer-generated stand-ins for the hundreds upon hundreds of extras cavorting in skeleton costumes and skull masks.

Over the past 20 years, film-makers have become deranged by their new ability to summon up great hordes using only keystrokes. It is arguable that a whole subgenre of films came into being merely to capitalise on this. Hugo Dyson’s memorable words on hearing J R R Tolkien reading aloud from The Lord of the Rings– “Oh, no! Not another fucking elf!” – could have been shouted ceaselessly from the rooftops in the early 2000s as the pixellated pixies streamed across our screens.

But there came a point when we ceased to be fooled. Our eyes started to detect the machined masses’ stereotypes – the indistinguishable and blurred faces, the limited palette of movement. I remember watching a DVD of Waterloo (1970) at around this time and marvelling at the lavish battle sequences, in which the Soviet director Sergey Bondarchuk used 15,000 foot soldiers and 2,000 cavalrymen to achieve an indisputable degree of verisimilitude. It was said at the time that Bondarchuk was in command of the seventh-largest army in the world.

But that was before Bond began chest-waxing and everything went to hell in a state-subsidised handcart. Nigh on half a century later, the role of the crowd in epic film-making has, I would suggest, altered significantly. No longer are the masses rendered in all their contrariety and uniformity so as to convey the nightmare of history from which we are all unable to awake, but rather Bond is seen to be singular only in contradistinction to the crowd: it consists of myriad sheep, while he is one among a handful of wolves. A handful of wolves who, having ravaged Wall Street, are now intent on exploiting the London property market for everything they can get.

In City of Quartz, a marvellous book on the psycho-history of Los Angeles, Mike Davis advances the theory that the subtext to Ridley Scott’s landmark sci-fi film Blade Runner was the downtown LA property grab then being undertaken by Japanese multinationals and property dealers – hence the polyglot (but mostly Asian) crowds that pulse through the rain-drenched alleyways in almost every scene.

I would argue that Spectre, despite all its aerial gymnastics, also has a subtext dug deeply into the built environment. At the end of Bond’s last outing, Skyfall (2012), the Terry Farrell building on the Albert Embankment that houses the real MI6 as well as the filmic one was wrecked by an explosion. At the beginning of Spectre, its burnt-out, computer-generated shell is still standing but the evil new “C”, Max Denbigh, has persuaded the government not only to integrate MI6 and MI5 but also to supply the new agency with a parametrically designed waveform skyscraper headquarters. This simulacrum of a building is sited directly opposite the “old” MI6 HQ, at the north end of Vauxhall Bridge, and it closely resembles the tacky block of “luxury flats” that is actually being erected there as I type.

The entire Thames littoral between Vauxhall and Chelsea Bridges is undergoing a huge redevelopment, at the core of which is the new US embassy and the massively refurbished Battersea Power Station. Such auto-cannibalism of the built environment is possible only once land values have risen so high that it is cost-effective to demolish buildings that, in some cases, have stood for only a few decades.

If you aren’t among the hordes that have descended on the multiplexes yet, avert your eyes now, because what follows is a plot as well as a property spoiler. The main evil of the film’s villain, Oberhauser, consists not in his desire to gain access to the world’s computer data, but in the insouciance with which he razes the Terry Farrell building, leaving a convenient brownfield site in one of central London’s prime locations.

The lesson of all this is simple: when it comes to the masses’ anxieties, vertiginously rising property prices are far more salient than overarching criminal conspiracies. What 007 really needs is a licence to build affordable homes.

Next week: Real Meals

Loco Steve/Flickr

Disproportionate coverage of Paris attacks is not just the media’s fault

$
0
0

Actual audience behaviour is increasingly impacting on journalistic decision-making – it’s not just journalists’ fault anymore.

The horrendous terrorist attacks in Paris and the resulting blanket media coverage have once again raised questions about the proportionality of news coverage when it comes to reporting deadly events.

The argument goes that the Paris attacks are unfairly given more coverage than similar events in other places around the world – such as last Thursday’s bombings in Beirut, which killed 44 people, or the shooting of 147 people at a university in Kenya in April, to name just two examples.

And as large numbers of Facebook users apply a French flag filter to their profile pictures, others are questioning why it did not offer Syrian flags to show solidarity with the victims of terrorist attacks in that country.

As a long-time observer of how news media cover death and dying, such disproportionate coverage is not particularly surprising – even if it continues to be a source of personal disappointment for someone who believes all people are equal and should be treated as such.

The question is: what should, or could, be done about it? To simply say journalists should report in equal amounts on such deaths, regardless of where they occurred, may be nice from a normative perspective. But is it realistic?

The rise of analytics and metrics

Journalists produce news they believe their audiences will read, watch or listen to – and increasingly, on social media, like, share or recommend.

In times past, these judgements were generally based on gut feelings about what would interest readers. Today, newsrooms across the world have access to every minute detail about what stories are actually successful through elaborate analytics tools. And, increasingly, these so-called web metrics are having an impact on news coverage.

I recently conducted interviews with journalists across a variety of Australian newsrooms about the use of metrics and the influence that such audience figures are beginning to have on news coverage.

Journalists tended to be quite cautious about the feedback they receive and were at pains to point out that these were only a part of the toolkit and could be used to make stories more relevant. But many also acknowledged the potentially worrying influence such feedback could have.

One editor told me that a story about a multiple murder-suicide was tracking extremely well online, until it emerged that the people involved were Indigenous. From there on, the editor said, the story’s readership figures dropped drastically.

In this instance, it didn’t lead the newsroom to drop the story. But, more broadly, audience figures increasingly play a role in many newsrooms in determining which stories to place most prominently.

Caring about ‘people like us’

The worrying sign is that audience metrics are now providing empirical evidence for decisions that journalists used to make based on their hunches. In the days before detailed audience feedback, it was easy to blame journalists for applying their own stereotypes to the coverage of foreign deaths.

Now, armed with empirical evidence, journalists can actually claim that no-one is interested in deaths from countries that are “not like us” and that they are merely responding to human nature. As American author Susan Moeller once argued:

We tend to care most about those closest to us, most like us. We care about those with whom we identify.

Newsrooms have applied rudimentary principles for decades when it comes to reporting foreign deaths. Australian journalist Stephen Romei, for example, once criticised formulas such as:

… one Australian is worth five Americans, 20 Italians, 50 Japanese, 100 Russians, 500 Indians and 1000 Africans.

In the case of the Paris attacks, other factors also came into the equation. That they took place at a concert hall, cafes and restaurants and a football stadium increased the “it could have happened to me” factor.

Add to this the unexpectedness of the events, the political, economic and cultural ties with France, and the story was always going to be huge.

Audience must share the blame

But journalists are not the only ones to blame for the disproportionate coverage. If more people actually read stories about Beirut or Kenya, it would be more difficult for the news media to avoid such stories.

To change news coverage, a change in people’s mindset is also needed – and, with that, a change in their empathy with others.

One might argue that the only reason audiences are not interested in stories about people who are not “like us” is because they have been conditioned by media coverage. This may well be true to a certain extent, and I do not want in any way to completely exonerate journalists in this.

But blaming only the media would also be simplistic. It is important to see the impact that active consumers of news can have on the news, now that actual audience behaviour is increasingly impacting on journalistic decision-making. There are opportunities for change, but the responsibility lies with both audiences and the media for that to happen.

The Conversation

Folker Hanusch, Vice-Chancellor's Research Fellow, Queensland University of Technology

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

DANIEL SORABJI/AFP/Getty

Jeremy Corbyn criticises media for lack of coverage of Beirut and Ankara terrorist attacks

$
0
0

The Labour leader said the events were given "hardly any publicity". 

Jeremy Corbyn has accused the British media of failing to give adequate coverage to  terrorist attacks in Beirut and Ankara. Twin explosions in Beirut on 12 November killed 43 people and wounded more than 200, while 128 people were killed and 400 injured in an attack on the Turkish capital in October. 

In an interview with Lorraine Kelly on ITV this morning, the Labour leader condemned the Paris attacks:

“I think first of all what happened in Paris was appalling, this is a vibrant, multicultural city, young people of all faiths, and older people as well, all there together, and cultures, and this terrible thing happened."

He placed them in the context of the similar attacks in Beirut and Ankara, and accused the UK media of a Euro-centric bias: 

“Likewise, which didn’t unfortunately get hardly any publicity, was the bombing in Beirut last week or the killing in Turkey. I think our media needs be able to report things that happen outside of Europe as well as inside. A life is a life.”

Later in the interview, Corbyn speaks out against airstrikes in Syria, arguing that a political settlement should be reached instead:

"Does the bombing change it? The idea has to be surely a political settlement in Syria, but it's very difficult to achieve.

"One war doesn't necessarily bring about peace, it often can bring yet more conflict, more mayhem and more loss."

The segment was Corbyn's first live daytime interview since his election as leader of the Labour party. 

ITV

What is the point of changing your Facebook profile picture to a French flag?

$
0
0

If you aren’t personally affected by the attacks in Paris, then putting a filter on your profile picture can look a lot like a superficial repetition of a publicly acceptable opinion.

It is shocking, but death, terrorism and murder have become a normative image when we (in the western world) think about the Middle East. By contrast, and exemplified by the reactions to Friday’s attacks on Paris by social media and mainstream news, such attacks in western cities are received with total horror, fear and anger. For most people going about their daily lives in busy European cities, such attacks are assumed to occur predominantly in distant war zones and countries which are not politically stable. More and more, it is becoming clear that this imagined distance is just that, and that terrorism is becoming increasingly transnational.

Friday’s attacks on Paris have, once again, brought the concept of terrorism and the danger of spontaneous death, through no fault of one’s own, into the forefront of many people’s minds. We are aware that such attacks are extremely difficult to predict and prevent. This fear of impending danger is heightened by the fact that Friday’s events took place in relatively “local” regions of Paris – it was not the Sorbonne, or the Louvre or Gare du Nord that was targeted, but a series of Friday night hotspots packed with local Parisians.

People interacting on social media forums have been extremely quick and vocal in their reactions to Friday’s attacks. However, this seems to have elicited two main reactions: the first is that small changes and demonstrations, such as changing one’s Facebook profile picture to include the French flag, are kind acts of support. The idea is that collectively we are stronger – that wherever we can, we will help each other.

However, the second, perhaps more cynical or perhaps only more nuanced, opinion, which I heard many people suggest over weekend, is that such proclamations are short-term, pointless and somewhat selfish. If none of your Facebook friends were personally affected by the attacks, then the only people who will see your new profile picture and so-called declaration of support are those who do not need supporting. By changing a photo of yourself for a week, you are doing nothing for the victims; instead, you are making the issue about yourself, by making your public, online persona appear more sympathetic. These arbitrary changes mean nothing in real terms, and they belittle the seriousness of the situation in Paris by the fact that they are in the company of videos of dancing dogs or memes of Kylie Jenner. Thus, some people view these acts of “support” as insensitive and indicative only of the depressing idea that people love to be part of a crisis.

Some of my French friends responded to another friend’s status which expressed this scepticism yesterday, saying that, to the contrary, they found the images of support encouraging and consoling, even if they did not know the people who were posting images of the Eifel tower or quotes from Martin Luther King; the point was that citizens from across the world were with them in spirit. Are these opinions – those of the people who are most in need of consoling – more valid than those of others, further removed from the situation, who are more critical?

Ultimately, it falls to the individual to decide. Personally, I find these social media – I want to call them fads – trends, such as changing one’s profile picture to reflect current affairs, superficial. Take, for example, the large number of people who changed their pictures to incorporate the rainbow flag after the American Supreme Court passed gay marriage. The vast majority of these people had done nothing to aid the LGBT community’s fight, and some campaigners were unhappy about people jumping on their victorious bandwagon. I’m sure that such people were in full support of gay marriage as a concept, and, of course, you can support a cause without actively participating. However, taking a strongly positioned stance in public – and I think this issue of “public” is the crucial point – on any given issue or event once it has occurred does, to me, seem superficial. Is this merely people pointing out that they are aware of current affairs and repeating a publicly acceptable opinion – indeed, the dominant, preferred discourse? How much does that count for?

Social media can be extremely useful, and I applaud the PorteOuverte hashtag on Twitter, which afforded many stranded Parisians the help and comfort they desperately needed on Friday night. This is the way social media, and strangers actively participating in a crisis, works best. To me, this makes so much more sense than a swiftly changed profile picture, doubtless prompted by a newsfeed cluttered with identical changes – a change made in order to be seen to publicly agree that, yes, this has been a tragedy. Such a statement is unnecessary – I won’t assume that, just because you didn’t change your picture, you are somehow condoning these atrocious acts of violence. By sending someone a personal, private message you let them know that you are thinking about them; by making a general, public statement, the sympathy and goodwill you express is impersonal and somehow misdirected.

Some people think social media is a good thing, and an almost limitless and helpful resource; some people think it cheapens statements of support because they are two-a-penny. Some people are learning about current affairs through engaging with social media, while others deplore the fact that many seem only to be able to express horror and anger when the violence is directed at people and places close to home. Perhaps there is no real answer – you cannot know with what sincerity something has been typed, nor what any given individual has done or tried to do in the name of a stranger.

Getty

Where David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn agree on Syria

$
0
0

Both leaders emphasise that a political solution is required. 

The Paris attacks have revived the debate over whether the UK should participate in air strikes against Isis in Syria. But they have not changed it. Labour remains opposed to intervention, leaving David Cameron insufficiently confident of winning a Commons vote. Mindful of his defeat in 2013, the Prime Minister is not prepared to act without a guarantee of victory. There is no legal requirement for him to consult parliament but since Iraq, votes on military intervention have been part of our unwritten constitution.

Cameron told the Today programme this morning: "I support the action in Syria. We are part of the enablers of that. It is happening anyway. The question is should we go further and join that action. I have always said that we should. Isil don’t recognise the border between Iraq and Syria and neither should we. But I need to build the argument, I need to take it to parliament, I need to convince more people. We won’t hold that vote unless we can see that parliament would endorse that action, because to fail on this would be damaging – it is not a question of damaging the government; it is a question of not damaging our country and its reputation."

It is understandable that many speak of a gulf between Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn, who opposes military intervention in Syria and has opposed every action in recent history. But it is the degree of consensus between them that is most notable today. Both men agree that air strikes against Isis will be largely futile without a political settlement in Syria. Corbyn told ITV's Lorraine: "I am not saying sit round the table with Isis, I am saying bring about a political settlement in Syria which will help then to bring some kind of unity government – technical government – in Syria." 

Cameron similarly recognised that a political solution, rather than a military one, was required (a notable shift of emphasis), telling Today: "Of course you can’t really deal with so called Islamic State unless you get a political settlement in Syria which allows you then to permanently degrade and destroy that organisation. It’s still got a long way to go, but there are some hopeful signs in that the meeting of foreign ministers, including the Russians and the Iranians, as well as the Americans, the British and the French, has made some progress and I hope to have some discussions with Vladimir Putin this morning". 

As supporters and opponents of intervention trade rhetorical blows, both leaders have recognised the limits of that debate. 

Getty Images.

Labour must set the terms of the devolution debate

$
0
0

George Osborne cannot get away with posing as a kind of lord high devolutioner.

It is amazing how quickly ideas can come into fashion in political debate. Just a few years ago arguments about devolution of power and resources were confined to the margins of the conversation: a technocratic obsession for the insufferably wonky. Now devolution seems to be the only show in town. We have metro mayors of Manchester, extra powers for the Scottish assembly and the London mayoral contest seems to be a race to outbid each other for the extra powers they will demand. Even the inner sanctum of the Treasury seem to have caught the devo fever.

But fashions come and go, and the newfound enthusiasm for devolution remains skin-deep. There are two real dangers here for those of us who have been championing this agenda for a long time. The first is political. As my colleague Chuka Ummuna has argued, Labour must not let George Osborne get away with posing as a kind of lord high devolutioner, benevolently bestowing new powers on well-behaved local authorities. We must set the terms of the debate and make sure the Chancellor’s sloganeering does not obscure the real issues.

Yet it is the second danger that is the bigger worry. There is a risk that in the excitement of winning the argument on devolution, we lose sight of why we wanted it in the first place. We need to be clear about what devolution is not about. It is not a chance for a competition. This is not about kicking off a fight between us and other city regions, or between us ourselves. No good will come from cities in the north wasting time rowing with each other.

Take devolution in Liverpool, what I call devoscouse. A better train line between Liverpool and Manchester obviously benefits each place at either end. Same goes for new business opportunities. So we need to work together with the rest of the north, not against each other. No one city population is big enough to drive the economy of the north on its own: this is about all of us, not just some of us.

Devoscouse, then, is a chance for us to co-operate. And as a socialist, that suits me just fine. Our economic development needs us to plan for our future and work together for a growing, strong city. But how? Well, not the Osborne way, that’s clear. You shouldn’t be allowed to wax lyrical about the north if you are responsible for heaping cuts on the north, while you cushion the south of England. You shouldn’t be able to talk about any kind of power house while people in London receive 24 times the cash per head for transport investment than people in the north east.

The whole point of devolution is that our cities do not have to be dependent on a Tory chancellor, our strength can come from within. To develop this strength we need to build up our financial, human and economic capital.

In economic terms, northern cities need greater control over capital budgets. In Liverpool we need capital to deal with brown field sites, both those that remain in the city centre, blighting what is otherwise a very successful city, and the wasted opportunities in the land that forms the perimeter – on both sides of the river - between downtown and the outer suburbs. For this we need business investment.

Yet, our country’s financial capital – the City of London – often feels far away, and in its mindset, it is. Merseyside and the wider north west is dominated by manufacturing new and old, whereas the south is home to a larger service sector. One in ten in the north west work in manufacturing; one in 100 in London and the south east do. We should be looking to work with our northern financial sector, for example in Leeds, to build links and encourage investment.

Secondly, apart from financial capital, there is an even more pressing need: human capital. The skills we each have are the biggest determinate of the economic growth we will experience. And what’s more, our ability to turn economic growth into a plan to end poverty relies entirely on getting those with least chance in the labour market better opportunities. Social justice requires a coherent, workable skills plan for the city region.

Finally economic growth is not needed merely for its own sake. It is not virtuous by definition. We need growth for our city because of the people in it, and because we want them to lead a good and successful life. Economic growth that leaves some people behind is not good enough. Our society needs something more than just buildings and the chance to make a buck.

This is my final kind of capital that we must grow: social capital. We needed a shared purpose, a story of our city that everyone can be a part of, and a vision we can collectively work towards.

In Liverpool we make things and send them off around the world. It is what we do. Whether that is writing stories or inventing new technology, large scale manufacture or small creative business, at the moment, it feels like our city region is humming with new ideas. I think the next new idea could be a bigger vision of what we can be. 

In the past, our city came together – and still, unfailing, unites - to help us deal with tragedy and cope with adversities. That unity can now be our strongest foundation. In making things, we will secure our economic future, but, what’s more, we’ll have a purpose everyone can be a part of.

Alison McGovern is MP for Wirral South

Christopher Furlong

What is the Schengen Area – and what could happen to it now?

$
0
0

Europe's commitment to free movement is being contested.

What is the Schengen Area?

The Schengen Area is defined by the Schengen Agreement – an accord between 26 countries in Europe that have abolished passport controls at their “internal borders”. This area has a common visa policy, and in some ways functionally operates as a single country in terms of free movement. Generally, this has also involved strengthening their border controls with non-Schengen countries. It’s harder to get in, but once you’re in, it’s easier to move about.

(It's called the Schengen Agreement because it was signed in 1985 in Schengen, Luxembourg.)

Who is signed up?

Notably, not the UK. (There's a map of who's in and who's out here.) The United Kingdom and Ireland are “opt-outs”, even though both are EU member states.

Why?

With a common travel area between the United Kingdom and Ireland – plus a sometimes controversial internal land border between Northern Ireland the Republic – it was considered better to retain the Common Agreement of free travel. (That means that technically, you don’t need a passport to travel between the United Kingdom and Ireland, although in practice airlines and other carriers often ask for one.)

There’s also the fact that, as an island, movement to the United Kingdom operates differently in practical terms than it does, for instance, across the land border between France and Germany. The checks used in the rest of Europe are not designed for an archipelago.

What checks are in place elsewhere?

It varies, but normally involves registration with the police and carrying ID. Often carriers – airlines, ferries and so on –still ask for a passport. In theory, though, you should be able to move freely across Schengen borders.

There are currently four EU member states (Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus and Romania) who are obliged to join the Area, but they must first demonstrate that they’re prepared. This involves being assessed in four areas: their air borders, visas, policing and data protection.

What’s happening now?

A few things. Last week, Sweden and Germany were granted authorisation to temporarily reinstate border controls following a large influx of migrants to the EU. The European Commission explains that this is permitted within the rules of Schengen:

The temporary reintroduction of border controls between member states is an exceptional possibility explicitly foreseen in and regulated by the Schengen Borders Code, in case of a serious threat to public policy or internal security.

Other countries such as Austria, Slovakia and Finland have also set up controls.

Additionally, the UK's 2014 Immigration Act has introduced exit checks, meaning the government can now monitor who leaves the country and when.

So what did it mean when France closed its borders?

It didn’t, contrary to what it sounds like, ban border crossings. It did however close what were previously borders “open” under the terms of the Schengen Agreement, and introduced full nationality and identity checks.

What about migrants arriving in Greece?

It’s already been proposed that the normal Schengen rules be suspended in regards to Greece. This week, the Greek authorities said at least one of the men responsible for the attacks in Paris looks to have passed through the island of Leros with refugees (the BBC reports that the man apparently “registered in Greece and had his fingerprints taken”), which will likely intensify the debate.

What will happen next?

Obviously, it’s hard to tell – but it’s not likely to be nothing. Earlier this month, Brendan Simms and Timothy Less theorised in these pages that the growing pressure from the migrant crisis may help bring about the end of the “European project”.

The Economist also addressed the threat to Schengen earlier this year, while the Atlantic’s Citylab asked whether the closure of the French borders on Friday could herald further tension after France called for "systematic border controls".

VIRGINIE LEFOUR/AFP

Writing under the English skies: how artists handle the weather

$
0
0

Two new books by Alexandra Harris and Christine L Corton show how weather - and pollution - have powered the English imagination.

I was once shown one of Kenneth Williams’s desk diaries. On each page were three separate entries, in red, green and blue ballpoint. No matter what he’d done or however desperate he had become that day, Williams would begin with a detailed description of the weather. It was as if the vicissitudes of his emotional life were encoded in every cloud.

This autumn, two books have appeared that chart what is seen as a national obsession. Drawing on a vast and eclectic range of sources, Alexandra Harris’s Weatherland creates a cultural history of the English climate – as if, like Williams’s diary, our emotional state might be read in the air above us. “Weather,” she writes, “is written into our landscape.” From the winter-bleak poetic meditations of the Anglo-Saxon writer of “The Wanderer” to Shakespeare, under whose wooden O open to the skies the wind and rain become characters in their own right, we have been drawn to a drama we cannot control.

We even invested our monarchs with the seasons. Elizabeth I was depicted as “Albion’s shining sun”, a kind of “weather goddess” who conjured up a “Protestant wind” to defeat the Armada. Her image became, in Harris’s nice phrase, “a pact between the cosmic and cosmetic”. Her gowns sprouted spring flowers as emblems of her eternal vernality, though the cracks in her face were filled with make-up and all life portraits of the queen were forbidden.

As Europe entered its Little Ice Age, the weather turned apocalyptic. The 17th century experienced at least 20 El Niño events, as well as an unusual number of comets (the words “meteor” and “meteorology” share the same root). The English Civil War was blamed on the bad weather, and “some believed that the air was writhing with devils”. “It was like living on the stage of The Tempest,” Harris writes, “except that the spirits were less tricksily benign than Ariel.” But this was the break point between magic and science – a step away from the true magic of forecasting; with Robert Hooke’s barometrical experiments in the 1660s, the very air acquired substance and weight.

With the advent of Georgian Britain, the sun returned. Harris, as ever, has the telling anecdote: the warm summers of the 1720s and 1730s encouraged the architect John Wood to create his terraces in Bath, glowing with honey-coloured stone. The Enlighten­ment brought a new way of seeing the weather: through a “Claude glass”, developed by the artist Claude Lorrain to enhance a sublime vista. Reflecting reality in their tinted, oblong slabs of glass, tourists would trip themselves up as they walked, intent on seeing the landscape through a lens darkly, much as their modern counterparts hold up iPads to the view. Meanwhile, the stage itself was reproducing meteorological effects. After the dramatist John Dennis used rolling cannonballs to create a sound effect for a play that failed, he was enraged to discover them used in a production of Macbeth: “See how the rascals use me; they will not let my play run, yet they steal my thunder!”

When Alexander Cozens described clouds in the 1780s, he seemed to prove that Hamlet – co-opted by Coleridge as one of the first Romantics – had been right to see shapes like whales overhead, even as the changing weather turned him mad. (I often wonder why we don’t step outside and cower at the massiveness of what is going on above our heads.) The poetry of Wordsworth, Keats and Shelley was powered by weather. Shelley devised seditious pamphlets to be borne aloft on balloons and carried up the Bristol Channel. He even envisaged enlightening Africa by the same technique.

John Constable and J M W Turner relied on “skying”. But soon Turner’s greatest champion was diagnosing a new doom: although in 1883 John Ruskin had declared that there was “no such thing as bad weather, but only different kinds of pleasant weather”, by 1884 he was warning of “The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century” drifting over his beloved Lake District. Even down south,
Thomas Hardy’s mayor of Casterbridge is told, “’Twill be more like living in Revelations this autumn than in England.”

I cannot love Weatherland enough. Exquisitely illustrated, it has the wit and wonder of an exceptional literary work. Harris often evokes the magical-modernist voice of her heroine Virginia Woolf, and throughout her time-shifting account I felt as if I were in the company of an updated Orlando, wandering elegantly through every weather.

Where Harris rejoices in the clarity of a Renaissance sun or a Georgian summer, Christine L Corton, clad in an overcoat, with a linklighter before her, takes us into the gloomier, long 19th century, where she revels in its Gothic grasp. Also beautifully illustrated, London Fog delves fascinatingly into that swirling miasma. The city, as Corton shows, was geographically sensitive to such conditions on account of the Thames Basin, surrounded by higher land.

The metropolis became a catchment for mist which, when mingled with the smoke from domestic chimneys and multiplying industries, coalesced into something specifically London. Hence the various names that emerged in celebration, ironic or otherwise, of this localised weather, as if the cynosure of the world deserved an equally impressive climate of its own – from the “London particular” (a telling phrase, as “particular” also meant “mistress”) to “London ivy”, because its smut clung to everything, including the copybooks of City clerks who were fined if they didn’t close their ledgers against the deposits of the daytime fog.

Even before the 19th century, the burning of “sea coal” had been blamed for the fog – as if the sea had conspired with the clouds to create an oceanic obscurity. The diarist John Evelyn fretted about the effects of this on the population’s mental as well as its physical health. But by the 1820s, the burgeoning Industrial Revolution had made these “weather events”, as our modern media would call them, frighteningly frequent. “Londoners were being buried underneath the fog” as if entombed under a dome. The very colour of the fog seemed sickly, a sulphurous yellow, thick with particles. One observer declared, “It hurts your eyes, and takes your breath away.” Indeed, later in the century, enterprising businessmen would market fog spectacles to protect the eyes. An even more forward-thinking American devised a way of delivering personal puffs of clean air to relieve fog-bound citizens.

By 1849, the fog was a tangible phenomenon for visitors such as Herman Melville, who, as Corton notes, was the first person to record the phrase “pea soup” in relation to the London fog during his stay in the city that year. It was this vivid image that would stick, like thick soup to the sides of a bowl. And for one writer, above all, the fog would become an instrument of his work. For Charles Dickens, it was almost another character, in the way that the moor is in Wuthering Heights.

Corton delights in the details furnished by Bleak House, Our Mutual Friend and “A Christmas Carol”. Nothing sets the scene so well as the evocative opening description in this last. It is three o’clock in the afternoon in the city, but “. . . it had not been light all day—and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.”

For Dickens, as for Ruskin, the fog is a judgement on the venal city. “To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.”

The notion that human activity had adversely affected nature was unacceptable to free-marketeers such as John Bright and Thomas Huxley, both of whom, for various reasons, could not countenance the notion of restrictions placed on economic growth. Although a nascent clean air act was passed in 1853 to limit omissions, the fog grew at unstoppable speed with the imperial city, for all the Times’s protests against the industrialists’ “vested interest in compelling us to consume their smoke”. Fast-forward to the 21st century, and I wonder what a modern Dickens would make of the sly invisibility of diesel particulates, poisoning London’s air anew. I can almost hear him sighing.

We may have said goodbye to the old-style London fog – last seen on the streets in 1962 – but it is impossible for us now to regard the weather as a literary backdrop. A decade and a half later, in 1979, as Harris notes in Weatherland, the Met Office warned for the first time of the “significant effects” of increased carbon dioxide in the air. All that weather, all that observation, art and literature, comes down to this: the reality of human-induced climate change. The drama is now in our hands, and yet we feel more helpless than ever. It is telling that there are few contemporary artists and writers dealing with the subject. Perhaps it is simply too big, and too scary, like the sky itself.

Philip Hoare’s books include “The Sea Inside” (Fourth Estate)

Alexandra Harris will be in conversation with Robert Macfarlane at the Cambridge Literary Festival on 29 November

Weatherland: Writers and Artists Under English Skies by Alexandra Harris is published by Thames & Hudson (£24.95, 432pp)

London Fog: the Biography by Christine L Corton is published by Harvard University Press (£22.95, 391pp)

CLAUDE MONET/MUSÉE MARMOTTAN MONET, PARIS, FRANCE/BRIDGEMAN

Morgen und Abend is thoughtful and beautiful – but it does little for opera

$
0
0

English Nationa Opera's The Force of Destiny and The Royal Opera House's Morgen und Abend.

When the curtain rises on a Calixto Bieito production you instinctively brace. On previous form the Catalan director might serve up an orgy in which real-life sex workers simulate oral sex and masturbation (Die Entruhrung aus dem Serail), a homosexual gang-rape (Un Ballo in Maschera), or post-apocalyptic mutilation and more rape (Parsifal). But this new Force of Destiny – a co-production with the hyper-conservative Metropolitan Opera, which might explain things – is more horror than shock.

Drawing once again on the contemporary Spanish history that inspired his recent Carmen at English National Opera, Bieito here looks to the Spanish Civil War to make sense of Verdi’s bleakest and most hopeless of tragedies. Gone are the colourful folky touches and flashes of humour of the original. The gyspy Preziosilla (a storming Rinat Shaham, brittle and brutal) becomes a nationalist troupe-leader, her “Rataplan” aria the soundtrack to a series of executions, while the kindly Father Superior who takes pity on the maddened Leonora does so with the darkest of motives.

And if designer Rebecca Ringst’s grey-and-brown visuals were not clue enough to the production’s sober rewriting, music director Mark Wigglesworth shuns the spectacular 1869 Overture in favour of the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it understatement of the revised 1862 Prelude. There will be no easy musical wins here – you have to earn your melodies.

Yet, while stripping back the Romantic excesses of Verdi’s plot, Bieito has supplemented it with his own visual fuss. Large pieces of set buck and rotate (did ENO get a package-deal with their new La bohèmeAct II sets?) to less effect than the director might like – seismic political metaphors that never quite hit their target. A giant façade down which corpses tumble (they actually wriggle, so gentle is the incline) never quite satisfies as a playing-surface, and forces singers to perform at some deeply unhelpful angles. Sarah Derendinger’s projections are busy, yet another force pulling focus from the stark emotion foreground here, and while a tumbling image of wild-eyed horse ties the production back to its visual source – Picasso’s "Guernica"– it shouts too loudly, a piece of undigested dramatic inspiration that simply isn’t necessary.

Once again the onus is on Mark Wigglesworth’s pit to elevate a production beyond its own limited reach. This ENO’s new music director does with his signature driving energy, carefully deploying Verdi’s brass to devastating effect, and supporting an outstanding cast of singers. Brutalised and traumatised from the start – unable to meet the gaze of her beloved Don Alvaro, let alone touch him  Tamara Wilson is a glorious paradox: physically passive, inward, but overwhelmingly articulate in phrases spun from raw emotion and thickly-spread tone.

Gwyn Hughes Jones’s Alvaro is a lighter, brighter affair – a welcome shot of colour into Bieito’s dark world. When he pleads for forgiveness in Act IV it’s almost impossible to imagine a refusal. Andrew Shore finds unusual depth in conflicted priest Melitone, shining in debate with James Cresswell’s Father Superior. Only Anthony Michaels-Moore’s Don Carlo doesn’t fully chime – desperately nasty, but allowing this characterisation to corrupt and distend his vocal lines.

Sadly this Destiny won’t be the shot in the arm that ENO’s own precarious destiny currently needs, but as a musical showcase of what we can expect from a Wigglesworth Coliseum it’s another sign of exciting times ahead for the company.

“Don't expect melodies, don't expect harmonies, just expect soundscapes.” Composer Georg Friedrich Haas’s advice to those attending the world premiere of his Morgen und Abend at the Royal Opera House should not be taken lightly. His latest opera is a 90-minute meditation on life and death that opens with a battery of bass-drums, noise ricocheting from side-to-side across the stalls, and ends in a dizzy haze of high wind and a blaze of bright light. Between the two extremes, however, very little happens.

The large orchestra – amplified periodically by a wordless offstage chorus – arpeggiate gently, a soundworld somewhere between Ligeti and Philip Glass, supporting the singers’ lyrical, exploratory lines with soft-focus chord clusters that rarely stray far into tonal ambiguity. Graham Vick’s sets are scarcely more assertive: a minimalist fantasy in Farrow & Ball, featuring just a bed, a boat, a door and a chair, the thresholds and landmarks of a life.

With so much emphasis on stasis and anti-drama, it’s hard to see Haas’s Morgen as the obvious work to champion with a mainstage production. Would we have lost so much if the work had been imagined at chamber scale, freeing up this risky, high-profile slot for a composer keener to develop the genre rather than simply pass comment on it? There are also the issues of a work whose music insists on non-narrative stasis pivoting on a big narrative “reveal” – a climax all but imperceptible – and a rather Tristram Shandy-ish rendering of our hero’s birth by Klaus Maria Brandauer.

Baritone Christoph Pohl is our guide for the evening –  a warmly humane Johannes, vocally characterful and carefully understated. He’s supported by Sarah Wegener, a luminous source of hope both as daughter Signer and A Midwife, and contralto Helena Rasker, a fleeting presence as wife Erna. If their efforts alone could carry a show then they would. Haas’s Morgen und Abend is thoughtful and beautiful. Whether it’s an opera in any useful sense is, however, unclear.

English National Opera

Paris shooters may have used PlayStations to communicate – it’s unlikely a Snooper's Charter would have stopped them

$
0
0

David Cameron is using the Paris attacks as an excuse to rush through state surveillance legislation.

After Friday’s attacks on Paris, the French security services began trying to figure out whether – and how – those responsible could have been stopped. Did the perpetrators send messages containing their plans? Were they already being watched by the state?

In the UK, eyes have understandably turned to the draft Investigatory Powers Bill, the latest incarnation of a proposed law nicknamed the “Snooper’s Charter”, which is currently being scrutinised by various committees. In the wake of Friday’s attacks, David Cameron has said the government should “look at the timetable” of the bill, while a leader in the Sun has called for security services’ snooping powers to be “doubled, not diminished”.

But would the powers laid out in the Investigatory Powers Bill have stopped the Paris attacks? The signs suggest not. It’s still not known whether the attackers sent details of the attack to one another or back to other Isis members, but searches carried out in Brussels have uncovered evidence of at least one PlayStation 4 linked to the attackers. Belgian federal home affairs minister Jan Jambon has confirmed that a growing number of Isis members are using PS4s to communicate.

Games consoles that offer chat networks and communal play are difficult for security services to monitor, but under the Investigatory Powers Bill, Sony would be required to collect and store messages sent via the PlayStation Network (PSN) for up to a year. If asked by security services, they would have to pass on chat histories for specific users.

Yet even if they had done so, there’s little that would have marked out the attackers from other, non-threatening users. There is no terrorist profile on a games console – users wouldn’t use their consoles to research weapons or visit chatrooms, and their login details are unlikely to be linked to other communication devices, or even to their real identities. It’s even possible that attackers could communicate via coded forms of play within the games themselves – spelling out words using onscreen characters, for example. This type of communication would be near-impossible to detect or understand.

Of course, this is precisely why the attackers would have used these tactics in the first place. The conversation around surveillance is particularly naïve when it assumes we can stay a step ahead of terrorist groups. As Shiraz Maher pointed out in these pages last week, many Isis members are now using heavily encrypted app Telegram to communicate, just as David Cameron is belatedly panicking about the strong encryption used by Facebook Messenger or messaging app WhatsApp.

And that’s if they use digital communication at all. Paul Denlinger, a technology commentator, pointed out last year on Quora that Isis no doubt know that the ideal is to avoid traceable communication altogether: “Most likely [Isis] are using hand couriers, who are people known within their community by all parties. Human couriers continue to be the most secure and effective communication means in time of warfare.”  The Paris attackers could well have operated autonomously, with no communication back to Isis strongholds.

This doesn’t mean there’s no point trying to intercept and monitor terrorist communications. But it does imply that Cameron’s focus on state surveillance is misplaced. We’re likely to trail one step behind Isis on digital communications and security, which means the only people really affected by increased state surveillance are ordinary citizens.

Perhaps Cameron should be paying attention to a different attack – one that never happened. In Germany last week, a man was arrested by police while driving a vehicle filled with firearms, grenades and explosives. He has since been linked to the Paris attacks.

Huge police spending cuts brought in under Cameron could see 22,000 fewer police officers on UK streets over this parliament. Let’s hope that despite this, they’ll be able to afford the kind of on-the-ground coverage that could prevent future attacks. If not, at least Cameron will have access to their chat histories.  

Getty

Jeremy Corbyn's refusal to offer Labour MPs a free vote on Syria shows his newly assertive approach

$
0
0

Against expectations, the opposition leader says shadow ministers will not be permitted to support air strikes against Isis. 

Since Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader the assumption has been that he will offer his MPs a free vote on air strikes against Isis in Syria (should the government bring one forward). The divisions within the party over the issue and Corbyn's rebellious past (voting against the whip 534 times since 1997) meant that to many it seemed the logical option. Shadow ministers would be permitted to vote in favour of air strikes while Corbyn and others voted against. When asked about the issue at the Labour conference in September, Corbyn refused to dismiss the possibility. 

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, his closest ally, went further and said a free vote would be appropriate: "There are some big ticket issues where there are some principled disagreements. On a lot of other issues you can see consensus and compromise. Jeremy is teaching me how to reach consensus and compromise – bloody difficult I tell you. But on a number of big ticket issues the reality is we have to agree that we can’t agree.

"We haven’t come to this conclusion yet about Syria. But my view – I have been in parliament and on five occasions we have gone to war. It just focuses your mind. You get a chill down your spine when you are making a decision to send people into war where there could be a possible loss of life … When you are sending people with a potential loss of life I think it is a conscience decision, I think it is a moral decision.

"So I am hoping on the Syria thing it should be a free vote on the basis of conscience. On that big ticket issue that is the way we should go. I will try and win the argument. But I have got to recognise on this particular issue I respect people if they feel otherwise because it is such a morally challenging decision to make whether you are going to go to war and a result of that people will be maimed and there could be a loss of life."

But interviewed by Sky News today, Corbyn said: "I don’t think a free vote is something that we are offering". At last week's shadow cabinet meeting, he emphasised the value of collective responsibility and implicitly rebuked shadow cabinet ministers, such as shadow defence secretary Maria Eagle, for undermining his authority by taking contradictory positions. Corbyn's refusal to offer a free vote is the first example of his newly assertive approach. 

His stance means it will be even harder for Cameron to secure a Commons majority for air strikes. While there are around 30 Labour backbenchers prepared to rebel against the leadership, shadow ministers would now be forced to resign in order to vote for military action. At this early stage of the parliament, as they seek to exert influence over Corbyn, few will want to do so.

Getty Images.

Paris attacks: François Hollande declares “France is at war” with Islamic State

$
0
0

The French President cracks down and police make arrests across France as a manhunt continues, following terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 129 people.

The French President François Hollande says France is committed to "destroying" Islamic State. He plans to extend the country's state of emergency to three months, pump more resources into its security forces, and is intensifying the military campaign against the extremist group.

Following last week's deadly attacks in Paris on a concert hall, stadium, bars and restaurants that killed 129 people, Hollande addressed both houses of parliament with his action plan. He said:

"France is at war.

"These attacks were war. It was an attack against our values, against our youth and our way of life."

"Since the beginning of the year, this organisation has attacked Paris, Denmark, Tunisia, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Libya.

"Every single day they massacre and oppress people. That’s the reason why we need to destroy Isis."

The French military has already retaliated with "massive" airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Syria, dropping 20 bombs across Raqqa, the group's stronghold in the north of the country.

While the French government has been cracking down, its police have launched raids across France to seize suspected attackers.

So far, 23 people have been arrested, with dozens of weapons taken in by the police as part of the crackdown. More than 100 people have been put under house arrest.

A police operation has also taken place in Brussels, Belgium. Police have named Brussels-born Salah Abdeslam, 26, as a key suspect, and a manhunt for him is underway. 

Police carried out a raid in the suburb Molenbeek this morning and closed a number of roads. Shots and explosions were heard during the raid in the district, which is known as a haven for jihadists. The aim of this raid was to catch Abdeslam, but ended without any arrests. He is believed to be on the run.

There are reports that Abdeslam was stopped by police in the wake of the attacks while crossing into Belgium, but then let go.

A number of other suspects have been arrested, and seven of the attackers died at the scene, mainly from suicide bombs. The BBC lists them:

> Brahim Abdeslam, 31 - named as the attacker who died near Bataclan concert hall.

> Omar Ismail Mostefai, 29, from near Paris - died in the attack on Bataclan.

> Bilal Hadfi, 20 - named as the attacker who died at Stade de France.

> Ahmad al-Mohammad, 25, from Idlib, Syria - died in the attack at Stade de France (unverified)

> Samy Amimour, 28, from near Paris - suicide bomber at Bataclan.

> Two other attackers, not yet named, died during the assaults in the city.

Al-Mohammad's fingerprints matched those of someone who entered Europe through Greece in October, but links between the attacks and the refugee crisis are being treated with caution.

The mastermind of this terrorist assault is believed to be Abdelhamid Abaoud, 27, who lived in the same neighbourhood of Brussels as the two suspected attackers who were based in Belgium (the brothers Salah and Brahim Abdeslam). He is the leader of an Islamic State cell and thought to be based in Syria.

Getty

Could the radical right benefit from the Paris attacks?

$
0
0

Increased fear of migration would be a political boon for the populist right. 

The passport of a Syrian refugee was found by the body of a dead suicide bomber outside the Stade de France. The man is believed to have passed through Greece in October. These chilling reports have already been seized upon by the radical right in France, Poland and beyond. They give a snapshot of how right-wing populists might stand to benefit from the public’s trepidation of Isis.

“France must immediately stop the entry of migrants on its territory,” reads a new statement from the Front National released today. It advocates the “immediate cessation” of the dispersion of migrants into France, contending that “our fears and warnings” about the consequences of admitting refugees from Syria are “embodied in these bloody attacks”.

Throughout Europe, parties of a similar bent have been saying much the same. “Islam and terror are the same,” tweeted Geert Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, the country’s most popular party. The Polish government has rejected the EU’s migrant quota in the wake of the attacks, pulling out of its previous agreement to house several thousand Syrian refugees. Within hours of the Paris attacks, Ukip’s Suzanne Evans tweeted: “Does France closing borders imply terrorists are not 'home grown' but incomers taking advantage of current migrant crisis?” Douglas Carswell has also warned that “Islamism cannot be appeased”. Tonight Nigel Farage will say: “It is clear that the UK Muslim population are conflicted in their loyalties between loyalty to the UK, its way of life and its institutions and what elements within their organised faith are telling them.”

The populist right is already thriving throughout Europe. Since the financial crash in September 2008, the radical right has exploited concerns about immigration to cloak themselves as defenders of traditional European culture. More ingeniously, populists have argued that open borders irrevocably destroys the ability of national governments to fund the welfare state – and therefore that only they can defend the welfare state.

The characters change but the story stays the same. From the Front National and Party for Freedom in western Europe to the particularly unpalatable Jobbik in Hungary and even the Danish People’s Party and Swedish Democrats in the former social democrat nirvana of Scandinavia, populists throughout the continent are already on the rise.

The Paris attacks could prove a further boon to the radical right, though they could also overreach. “Direct references to attacks by radical right figures can backfire, as voters may reject them as deeply insensitive efforts to politicise tragedy and stoke division,” says Rob Ford of Manchester University. While the Madrid train bombings in 2004, directed by an al-Qaeda-inspired terrorist cell, did not lead to an upsurge of support for the radical right, the murder of the Dutch film director Theo van Gogh in the same year was critical in the Netherlands’ embrace of Wilders.

Yet as the Front National prepared for next month’s regional elections in France, they have a toxic cocktail of anti-immigration sentiment to exploit. The influx of refugees from Syria could increase economic insecurity, fuelling native European fears of their jobs being undercut, while their taxes are squandered on those who have not contributed to the system, including those they do not believe want to work. After the Paris attacks such resentment could be superseded by an even greater fear: that refugees hate the countries they have been welcomed to and wish to do their inhabitants mortal harm.

The French elections next month, then, are shaping up to be local elections with cross-continental significance. Should the Front National flounder, it will suggest that Europe’s reaction to the atrocities is not to embrace the politics of insularity and division, and that parties of the mainstream can succeed in articulating a positive vision of integrated European life in 2015 without coming across as weak on security matters. But if the French people are wooed by Marine Le Pen’s party, it will suggest that the horror of the Paris attacks present an opportunity for the radical right to gain further ground throughout Europe.

Thierry Chesnot

SRSLY #18: Home from home

$
0
0

On the pop culture podcast this week we discuss Aziz Ansari’s new show Master of None, the film adaptation of Colm Tóibín’s Brooklyn and the 2005 film Transamerica.

 

This is SRSLY, the pop culture podcast from the New Statesman. Here, you can find links to all the things we talk about in the show as well as a bit more detail about who we are and where else you can find us online.

Listen to our new episode now:

...or subscribe in iTunes. We’re also on Stitcher, RSS and  SoundCloud– but if you use a podcast app that we’re not appearing in, let us know.

SRSLY is hosted by Caroline Crampton and Anna Leszkiewicz, the NS’s web editor and editorial assistant. We’re on Twitter as @c_crampton and @annaleszkie, where between us we post a heady mixture of Serious Journalism, excellent gifs and regularly ask questions J K Rowling needs to answer.

If you’d like to talk to us about the podcast or make a suggestion for something we should read or cover, you can email srslypod[at]gmail.com.

You can also find us on Twitter @srslypod, or send us your thoughts on tumblr here. If you like the podcast, we'd love you to leave a review on iTunes - this helps other people come across it.

The Links

On Master of None

Aziz Ansari's New Girlfriend Turned Him Into a Feminist.

Call Your Girlfriend on Master of None.

Emily Nussbaum on the surprising depth Ansari brings to the show.

 

Brooklyn

The trailer for Brooklyn we didn't like.

Julie Walters discussing her role on Graham Norton.

A good dissection of Saoirse Ronan’s performance in the film.

 

TransAmerica

The trailer for the film.

Roger Ebert’s original review, in which he finds parallels between the character of Bree and a Jane Austen heroine.

This review highlights some of the problems with the film that we discussed.

 

Next week

Caroline is watching the children’s TV series Wishbone.

 

Your questions:

We loved reading out your emails this week. If you have thoughts you want to share on anything we've discussed, or questions you want to ask us, please email us on srslypod[at]gmail.com, or @ us on Twitter @srslypod, or get in touch via tumblr here. We also have Facebook now.

 

Music

Eno - Burning Airlines Give You So Much More

Audimachine - Changing Heart

Our theme music is “Guatemala - Panama March” (by Heftone Banjo Orchestra), licensed under Creative Commons. 

See you next week!

PS If you missed #17, check it out here.

François Hollande has called for an international response to Isis – will it finally happen?

$
0
0

As the French president calls on the European Union to support his country's airstrikes, the possibility of a Nato coalition against Isis is more likely than ever.

France’s President Hollande has announced his intention to seek a fresh UN resolution on Syria, and has opened the way to ground operations against Islamic State.

In a series of speeches made after the near-simultaneous attacks in Paris, President Hollande described the deaths of 130 people as an “act of war that was waged by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, by Daesh [Islamic State] against France.”

Islamic State has accepted responsibility, saying that the attacks were carried out in revenge for French air strikes in Syria.

Within hours of the attacks on Paris, Agence France-Presse were reporting a significant escalation of French strikes in Syria, including “a massive bombardment” of the IS stronghold of Raqqa.

France now will seek co-ordinated international action, invoking the principles of mutual defence under UN and Nato treaties.

In a rare speech made on Monday 16th November to both the upper and lower houses of the French parliament, President Hollande said “France is at war.”

Using words carefully chosen to invoke principles of mutual defence under international law, Hollande announced the escalation of air strikes over coming weeks, and that he would seek a United Nations resolution for further action.

He said that France would invoke Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union – the mutual defence clause that guarantees European countries subjected to armed aggression “aid and assistance by all the means in their [other EU states’] power.”

The EU is not a military union, and Article 42 is expressly defined as contingent with “commitments under the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which, for those states which are members of it, remains the foundation of their collective defence and the forum for its implementation.”

So then, Nato?

Boots on the ground in Syria. At last - a co-ordinated, long-term response to eradicate Islamic State by the international community.

Air strikes in Syria are ongoing, and they have a place.

But in truth, air strikes have never been seen as part of a coherent answer to Isis. Those advocating strikes do so for specific purposes. Recent hits on oil infrastructure were designed to limit Islamic State’s ability to pay foreign fighters. Other strikes have been planned to stop Islamic State moving away from their desert strongholds.

But strikes have never been positioned as a compelling response to the fact of Islamic State itself – or to the emerging half-statehood of IS territories.

And it is that compelling response that France now seeks. “Terrorism will not destroy the Republic,” Hollande said, “because the Republic will destroy terrorism.”

And at last – and tragically, following the deaths of more than 120 people, Security Council members appear to back him.

For nearly five years, UN countries have sought a series of resolution on the Syria crisis – the broader conflict in which 250,000 Syrians have died, 10 million people have been displaced, and 500,000 refugees have crossed into Europe alone.

President Assad rules over a rump state from Damascus, less than a quarter of Syria’s land. Assad is backed, and funded by Russia – and with broader reach secured with Russian air-support.

Previous attempts to secure UN support have founded on the rock of Russia.

But now, a deal.

On Friday more than 120 people died in Paris. On Sunday, Obama and Putin met, and agreed to work toward UN-backed negotiations, and a transitional government, in which Assad may or may not play a role.

The talks were not compelling; but they were the last precondition of the international community joining together to take action against Islamic State. We will live with Damascus, in return for access to the ground.

And that action – in which Britain will be expected to take a part – should be co-ordinated through Nato.

Under Article 5 of the founding charter, the 28 Nato member states can also be required to come to the aid of other members subjected to armed attack.

Article 5 has been invoked just once before: by the United States in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Over the weekend, Nato dignitaries prepared the ground for the transfer of the model developed in Afghanistan.

Speaking to The World This Weekend, former Nato Supreme Commander Admiral James Stavridis sketched out the likely shape of action under Article 5, including an extension of air strikes on Islamic State targets, additional training and support for regional forces including the Iraqi National Army and Kurdish Peshmurga, and, significantly, a small Nato force.

He said, “I think this will be a mission in the range of Nato boots on the ground, 10,000 to 15,000.”

An extended use of Special Forces would resolve the key problem encountered by the US – the risk of directly arming factions who may prove half-friends.

The alternative is a “coalition of the willing”. In truth, this may be what Russia prefers. Old – and recent – enmities in Eastern Europe make Nato unpalatable to Moscow.

If the reward is support at the Security Council table, France may calculate the price worth paying, and settle for a coalition of the willing. The cost would be a less effective and co-ordinated campaign.

There is nothing in President Hollande’s speeches of the last few days that suggests anything but the intention to strike at Isis’ heart, and to strike effectively.

Sometimes the hard slow road is the right one. Resolutions take time, but at last there is the chance to bring the full weight of international law and international condemnation down on Isis. And Paris is worth the weight of the entire world’s response.

The will of the international community may yet back taking on Islamic State in the training grounds of terrorism.

How sad that so many people died before we found that will, and that way forward.

Getty

American elections only seem too long because British elections are too short

$
0
0

If America elected their President as speedily as the British pick their Prime Minister, Donald Trump would already be draping chintz in the Oval Office.

The British pride ourselves on speedily choosing our governments. Excluding the phoney war that leads up to any general election, it currently takes us twenty five days to chew through the meat of the business, elect a parliament and send a Prime Minister to warm their toes on the Downing Street cat. Americans are lucky if they can elect a President in less than eighteen months.

Just deciding the party nominees takes all of a year, with the current election cycle expected to see a dozen Republican debates and six Democratic to complement the town hall meetings, rallies, campaign ads, TV interviews, guest slots on various comedy shows, as well as the hardback memoirs most candidates publish to spread their message. Only in the latter half of 2016 will Americans vote for their President with the winner expected to take office in January 2017. It's hardly surprising that some Stateside feel ashamed that it takes that long. Satirist Bill Maher recently suggested that the only reason is that Americans are "dumb". Only, I'm not so sure they are.

Watching last week's Republican debate, I realised that the beauty of the American system is that it gives candidates enough rope to hang themselves; even the most bullnecked ego chance to taste the hard bite of hubris. There is nothing quite so potent in politics as the appeal of the new and a protracted campaign can protect us from our worst instinct of voting first and thinking last. Rather than being wide eyed and optimistic about candidates, voters are forced to delay their judgement until that 'new politician smell' has soured in the nose.

The notorious Howard Dean scream, credited with derailing his campaign in 2004, was not as unfair a reason to judge him as his supporters would have us believe. Nor was the notorious Neil Kinnock "We're alright!" speech credited with robbing Labour of their expected victory in 1992. These are the kind of small misjudgements that campaigns are meant to highlight.

If America elected their President as speedily as the British pick their Prime Minister, Donald Trump would already be draping chintz in the Oval Office. He might do that still but it is hard to overstate the challenge he faces. A year is a long time but longest in politics where public opinion can change at the smallest quirk of character. And there are few quirks about Trump's character that you would ever describe as small. None of Trump's rivals pose as big a threat to his candidacy as Trump poses himself.

I still suspect that both Trump and Ben Carson will slip. Frontrunners usually do. Novelty fades and the American system is designed to provoke moments when a political career hits the death spiral. It is a safeguard to stop the spittle-lipped cranks from getting into the White House on a sudden wave of public approval. The long campaign weeds out those least suited to office. In 2008, Rudy Giuliani's campaign floundered under allegations about finances and infidelity. Rick Perry's run in 2012 failed over the racially derogatory name of a hunting camp that Perry's family leased.

The British elections, by contrast, have become risk averse. Party operations insulate leaders and debates are rendered impotent. We might mock the American system for producing all manner of evangelical windpipes from the Christian right and no doubt some of the candidates are glassy-eyed and dangerous. Yet when did Britain last see a debate among party leaders that was combative and infused with passion? The only debates worthy of the name were for the recent Labour party leadership; a campaign ninety six days long, seventy one days more than the general election before it.

Some might argue that the result of that contest is the most powerful counter argument against long substantive campaigns. The winner, Jeremy Corbyn, is viewed by some as Labour's most unelectable leader since Michael Foot. Yet what I think people really mean is that Corbyn doesn't suit that style of short-game politics of which David Cameron is master. It is the podium-outside Downing Street grandstanding and being so averse to criticism that his only interviews are with the likes of This Morning. It is policies announced through Twitter, PMQs word-for-word the same as the week before, and electorates manipulated through fear and bribes.

America's system doesn't rush. Nor does it allow candidates to pander to the worst instincts of the public. For all its flaws, from Super PACS to attack ads, there remains a commitment to the ideals of democracy. They are ideals that we in Britain allow our politicians to ignore. An election without impassioned debate has no right to be called an election and, by that score, I'm not sure we've had a proper election in this country for a great many years.

Getty
Viewing all 19496 articles
Browse latest View live