spinoff

"The decommissioning of the arms of the IRA is now an accomplished fact." This the word from John de Chastelain, top bod in charge of overseeing the destruction of IRA weapons dumps.

This revelation - that the nationalist war has effectively been called off - is good news. Excellent news, in fact. However, one should hold back from lauding the Republicans too enthusiastically. There have been revolting republican murderers operating for years - ought we to pat people on the head for not murdering people? Certainly not. On top of which, one suspects this is not an end to all of the murdering.

This Spinoffite does, however, feel a grudging admiration for the Republicans. The post-9/11 climate turned world opinion sharply against terrorist organisations, and the Republicans have been quick to adjust their profile accordingly. The guns have been handed in, and now de Chastelain is happy they're gone.

The real losers in all this are of course the hard-line loyalists. Without a Republican army, exactly who can you fight against? The answer came in the form of the shocking riots in Belfast last month: they do on occasion fight the police, but mainly they are happy just to fight each other. Factions boasting a dizzying array of initials are struggling for control of lucrative protection and drug-running rackets, and of course the shootings continue.

The line between Loyalists and Unionists became perilously thin during the marching season, when footage was broadcast of Orangemen attacking policemen who had prevented them from marching in a catholic area. Yet another PR disaster.

But Sinn Fein has been clever. It has understood that, in the post 9-11 world, the politics of violence will get you nowhere, especially when it comes to the sympathetic money men in the US. The more the Loyalist/Unionist community continues to seethe, and the longer the Unionist cause takes to modernise, the further they will get left behind.

Yours etc,
 

Spinoff.

'Lib Dems Call for withdrawal from Iraq'. Really?

Is it a surprise? No.

Is it a bad bad move? Yes.

There seem to be an awful lot of specifics wanting here, and Mr Menzies Campbell looks very much like a man bid to do what a man would really rather not be bid to do at all.

One wonders what on earth Menzies got in return for standing up and demanding withdrawal. One also wonders why, say, Mr Kennedy for instance, did not stand on the platform at the Party Conference to make this demand. Presumably Mr Kennedy does not want to look like the one who had the bright idea, just in case the whole thing falls flat. The headline is good enough for him.

No doubt lots of handwringing will be acted out on Newsnight, and other such discursive fora, none of which of course will make the slightest bit difference to anybody living in Iraq.

In short, this "troops out," yelp is nothing but cheap political posturing. To what end? you may ask.

Well - Mr Kennedy knows; a) is not even remotely likely to happen, and that b) is the only way to get the media to write about the Lib Dem conference, and if that's not so, then this Spinoffite is a monkeys uncle.

Yours etc.,

Spinoff.

There is a battle on for the soul of the Tory Party. For those that aren’t too enamoured with that particular institution, then this won’t come as especially troubling news. “POLL TAX, BOOM AND BUST, STOP AND SEARCH, BACK TO BASICS, AITKEN, ARCHER…” Sympathy is thin on the ground.

The Tory dilemma, however, is this; the party needs a new leader, and the leader is currently chosen by the party grass roots rather than by MPs. This system has so far given the Tory party: William Hague, Ian Duncan Smith and Michael Howard. It now looks like giving the position to David Davis, a man who will, quite obviously, never become Prime Minister.

Davis lacks charisma, the empathic quality needed to ease votes from the undecided, as well as the profile and the character to perform well on television. One fellow Spinoffite described Davis as looking for all the world like “a fascist robot.” This perhaps slightly barbed comment (the Spinoffite in question is roaringly anti-Tory) belies a greater truth; namely that Davis very obviously lacks the tools for the job.

Cue Ken Clark. Ken declared his intention to stand as leader this week. Problem is, he’s hated by swathes of the Tory faithful. They think he’s louche. The grass roots regard him as the worst sort of surrender-monkey for his pro-European ideas, and as the kind of roly-poly fool who’d sell the country down the river to Brussels at the drop of a hat, who’s too old, and who’s irrevocably damaged by his association with the Major Government. Under the current system of leadership selection, the grass roots will never stand for Ken as the head man.

Which is ironic, seeing as Ken is, quite frankly, the only man in the Tory ranks with even the slightest, teeny-weeniest hope of levering Labour off the throne. He’s the only one. He’s a good performer, is reasonable, represents the middle ground, is a consensus-builder rather than hectoring moraliser, appears genial on the telly, and people know who he is. A recent poll on BBC’s Newsnight showed that 40% of people questioned recognised Ken. No other Tory candidate got anywhere near that.

The vocal anti-Tory lot love this. They can see that, like Portillo, Clarke is going to be yet another realistic candidate who will get cast aside by the Tory grass roots in favour of a rightist, unelectable nit – Portillo lost out to Duncan Smith, and now, Clark will lose out ot Davis.

Unless, of course, the rules of the game are changed. Allow MPs to chose the leader and Ken might just get a look in. But even if the rules are changed and MPs get the final say in the contest, the new so-called Notting Hill set, fronted by Cameron and Osborne, might well take away support that would otherwise go to Clark… Either way, it’s not looking good for the Tories, and believe it or not, what’s not good for the Tories is not good for the country.

Because without an effective opposition, Parliamentary democracy can’t work. Full stop. Without a decent opposition, Labour has been able to do pretty much exactly what it has blimming well wanted, and that’s absolutely not in the electorate’s interest. Ken Clark is the only Tory even remotely capable of taking on Gordon Brown in a general election, and if we don’t see Tory leadership contest reform, then we wont get Ken - we’ll get David Davis. And if we get Davis as the leader of the opposition, then Labour will romp home with a massive, “you cant touch us, so thbbb,” majority. Again.

The Tories need to reform, and they need to get behind Ken Clark. If not, then our bumbling, dozy meander towards a one-party state will continue. And that cannot be allowed to happen.

Yours etc.,

Spinoff.

On BBC Radio 4 this morning, an official from the US Embassy refused point blank to admit that there had been any failings in the relief operation in New Orleans. He would not have it. This in itself was an admirable piece of verbal jousting; he bounced about well and avoided being pinned down by the interrogator. He was a tribute, in other words, to the people who taught him his lines.

But one comment stuck out. There was one comment which came across as so unpleasant, so brutish and stupid, that it ruined all the rest, and in doing so, taught a lesson. What the grey-suited one said, and I paraphrase (at the moment this line was delivered, I dropped the Spinoff Dictaphone in disgust), was; “You see, when you’re dealing with a disaster the size of the entire UK, things are bound to be difficult, and take some time.”

Some points. Firstly, the disaster in question is not “the size of the UK”. The disaster is in New Orleans, (formerly) a city of 500,000 people. Which is a 14th of the size of London. Secondly, the phrase “when you’re dealing…” implies that the US has done this before. Whereas of course it never has. It's only done it this time. And has cocked it up. Thirdly, this was an attempt to bat down the questioner, to patronise, to pat on the head and to say – “this problem is bigger ‘n you, and your stupid country. You don’t understand things on this scale – shut up.”

And at that point, this Spinoffite was enlightened. ("Don't worry lill' fella - we can take away all the pain.") In that moment, the truth pinged out of the radio louder than the witterings from the grey-suited, prating, Embassy drone. ("Now you just run along, and let the big boys do their thing.")

Put very simply, that lesson is that, “being big is not the same as being right.”

Yours etc.,

Spinoff.

The most striking thing about the footage from New Orleans is the colour of those who were left behind – almost exclusively black. They were left without water for four days in 35 degree heat. There was no transport, food or for that matter any assistance at all. The only manifestation of state intervention came in the form of heavily-armed police and soldiers, who arrived with instructions to shoot looters on sight. The picture that has developed is a hideous one. The federal emergency organisation, FEMA, was shown up as useless, and the blitheringly inadequate rescue effort combined with the White House's apparent lack of urgency in the drive to supply aid has created a horrific impression – that black people were simply not worth the government’s time or effort.

This, however, would be to take it too far. As easy a conclusion as it may be for Liberals to draw (this Spinoffite counts himself a firm member of that particular political attitude), the White House is not staffed by racists. To conclude this would be grossly simplistic, and would also ignore the prominence in this administration of Condi Rice (would a racist last 5 seconds within a 500 yard radius of Condi?) and, until recently, Colin Powell (within 1,000 yards?) No. This disaster has not shown up a racist fault line within American society, after all, there were white people left behind in New Orleans too. The disabled and old were also left behind.

Not racism. It shows something else. To divine exactly what, consider for a moment those who managed to evacuate. The group that left New Orleans before Katrina hit heard the announcement on the radio or TV – a storm was coming. They then phoned work and got time off, packed the bags, got in the car, filled up with petrol, and drove as far out of the danger area as possible. The ones left behind are therefore a combination of those who: didn’t hear the warnings on TV or radio, couldn’t afford the prospect of being without work, did not have a car, and could not afford other means of transport. They were, in other words, the poor, and most of them happened to be black. Poverty was their defining feature, and it was this, rather than colour, that condemned them to stay.

There are many things which will arise form this disaster – the political fallout will be considerable. The charges are many: America has too many resources overseas; it is excellent at mobilising armies but not at helping its dying citizens; its Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is run by a man whose sole experience of project management consists of having arranged horse shows; FEMA’s budget has been cut in favour of the Department of Homeland Security; the government doesn’t care about the urban poor – after all, they don’t vote; the New Orleans district authorities were meant to reinforce the protective levees but did not; George Bush’s first comments on the disaster – a warning issued to looters – were misjudged; and that general incompetence combined with poor judgement and a lack of preparedness has cost thousands of lives.

But the most shocking revelation has been the dramatic exposure of America’s poverty problem. How shocking, how utterly jaw-dropping it is to learn that the world’s only super-power - nay, hyper-power - has an urban underclass so crushingly poor that its members are unable to afford even a bus ticket out of town. This revelation adds to the picture of a country where the poor are being left behind. The Bush administration has been toying with the idea of privatising welfare for years, and has sought to introduce welfare cuts in order to pave the way for reforms. Tax cuts have been given to high earners as a political sop - see the most recent drive to reform estates tax - leading to the charge that this is a White House that ignores the poor, and insted funnels money to the rich.

One glance at the people abandoned in New Orleans seems to confirm this charge - in America nowadays, the poor are simply left behind. That the vast majority of these people are black is as shocking as it is disgraceful.

Yours etc.,

Spinoff.