Charlie's Diary

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Sun, 02 Mar 2003 Close, but no banana The ongoing Iraqi situation is having a distorting effect on British -- and world -- politics. There's a fascinating article on the Guardian which explains the background to last Wednesday's huge parliamentary rebellion. Key extracts give a feel for how badly the Labour party is rattled: ... Foreign Office Ministers were dispatched to the Commons to start 'pressing the flesh'. At 10am Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, was to be seen at the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in Committee Room 14. Ann Clwyd, darling of the Left, told the meeting that Saddam Hussein should be deposed on humanitarian grounds. How else could the world look the Kurds of northern Iraq in the eye after the years of persecution, torture and death they had suffered at the hands of Iraq? More than a dozen MPs said that they swung back behind behind the Government after hearing Clwyd's impassioned call to arms. Clwyd will now start a tour of constituency parties of members who fear de-selection because they decided to side with the Government. Let me explain just how important that underlined final sentence is. Prior to a parliamentary election, candidates are selected by their local constituency party (subject to some nobbling from Central Office). While most MPs stay in the same constituency for their entire career in parliament (there are no term limits so runs of five or six re-elections are not remarkable), de-selection is the ultimate sanction that a local constituency organisation can impose on a sitting MP -- it forces them to look for another constituency, often one with a worse electoral margin, and puts their career at risk. (It also makes them look like a political carpetbagger.) The Parliamentary Labour Party, in thrall to Blair, is actually afraid that MPs who voted for the government could be punished by their local party organisations for defying the will of the voters. As Michael Portillo points out, there are eerie parallels between Blair's persistence in following his policies with messianic fervour in the face of massive public opprobium and the events leading up to be overthrow of Margaret Thatcher by her own party. And as Kamal Ahmed put it, at the end of his time-line of events leading up to the commons rebellion: Parliamentary opponents of war said that they will consider tabling a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister if he takes military action without a second resolution. Blair had been given more than a bloody nose. There was now a chance it could be a bloody nightmare. Meanwhile, some other fun snippets: huge SNAFUs caused by privatisation of most logistics functions have left British troops in Kuwait so short on food that they're relying on food parcels sent by their families. Huge cost overruns in an upgrade to the royal dockyards at Devonport look set to line Halliburton's pockets, while the army's Apache helicopters are in mothballs because an attempt to privatise flight crew training resulted in a typical competitive tendering mess. (Oh, and they're outsourcing to the private sector responsibility for maintaining the Ministry of Defense's secret records.) If Blair gets his way and sends the British military into Iraq he'll be sending them in with inadequate equipment and supplies, largely due to his slavish pursuit of Thatchernomics. Meanwhile in the rush to stick Saddam's head on a pike the real issue of who's behind Al Qaida sort of got ignored. It turns out that the Saudi ambassador to London is a former secret policeman and torturer who is alleged to have bankrolled Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden's right hand man. (But that's okay, he isn't a member of the Iraqi Ba'ath Party.) And would it be churlish to mention the US dirty tricks campaign currently being pursued against non-aligned nations with seats on the UN security council right now? [ Link ] [ Discuss Iraq invasion ] posted at: 17:00 | path: /wartime | permanent link to this entry

specials: Is SF About to Go Blind? -- Popular Science article by Greg Mone Unwirer -- an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction Inside the MIT Media Lab -- what it's like to spend a a day wandering around the Media Lab "Nothing like this will be built again" -- inside a nuclear reactor complex Quick links: RSS Feed (Moved!) Who am I? Contact me Buy my books: (FAQ) Missile Gap Via Subterranean Press (US HC -- due Jan, 2007) The Jennifer Morgue Via Golden Gryphon (US HC -- due Nov, 2006) Glasshouse Via Amazon.com (US HC -- due June 30, 2006) The Clan Corporate Via Amazon.com (US HC -- out now) Accelerando Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB -- due June 27, 2006) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Free download The Hidden Family Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) The Family Trade Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Iron Sunrise Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) The Atrocity Archives Via Amazon.com (Trade PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (Trade PB) Via Golden Gryphon (HC) Via Amazon.com (HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (HC) Singularity Sky Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.com (US ebook) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Toast Via Amazon.com Via Amazon.co.uk Some webby stuff I'm reading: [ Engadget ] [ Gizmodo ] [ The Memory Hole ] [ Boing!Boing! ] [ Futurismic ] [ Walter Jon Williams ] [ Making Light (TNH) ] [ Crooked Timber ] [ Junius (Chris Bertram) ] [ Baghdad Burning (Riverbend) ] [ Bruce Sterling ] [ Ian McDonald ] [ Amygdala (Gary Farber) ] [ Cyborg Democracy ] [ Body and Soul (Jeanne d'Arc)  ] [ Atrios ] [ The Sideshow (Avedon Carol) ] [ This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) ] [ Jesus's General ] [ Mick Farren ] [ Early days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod) ] [ Respectful of Otters (Rivka) ] [ Tangent Online ] [ Grouse Today ] [ Hacktivismo ] [ Terra Nova ] [ Whatever (John Scalzi) ] [ GNXP ] [ Justine Larbalestier ] [ Yankee Fog ] [ The Law west of Ealing Broadway ] [ Cough the Lot ] [ The Yorkshire Ranter ] [ Newshog ] [ Kung Fu Monkey ] [ S1ngularity ] [ Pagan Prattle ] [ Gwyneth Jones ] [ Calpundit ] [ Lenin's Tomb ] [ Progressive Gold ] [ Kathryn Cramer ] [ Halfway down the Danube ] [ Fistful of Euros ] [ Orcinus ] [ Shrillblog ] [ Steve Gilliard ] [ Frankenstein Journal (Chris Lawson) ] [ The Panda's Thumb ] [ Martin Wisse ] [ Kuro5hin ] [ Advogato ] [ Talking Points Memo ] [ The Register ] [ Cryptome ] [ Juan Cole: Informed comment ] [ Global Guerillas (John Robb) ] [ Shadow of the Hegemon (Demosthenes) ] [ Simon Bisson's Journal ] [ Max Sawicky's weblog ] [ Guy Kewney's mobile campaign ] [ Hitherby Dragons ] [ Counterspin Central ] [ MetaFilter ] [ NTKnow ] [ Encyclopaedia Astronautica ] [ Fafblog ] [ BBC News (Scotland) ] [ Pravda ] [ Meerkat open wire service ] [ Warren Ellis ] [ Brad DeLong ] [ Hullabaloo (Digby) ] [ Jeff Vail ] [ The Whiskey Bar (Billmon) ] [ Groupthink Central (Yuval Rubinstein) ] [ Unmedia (Aziz Poonawalla) ] [ Rebecca's Pocket (Rebecca Blood) ] Older stuff: June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 (I screwed the pooch in respect of the blosxom entry datestamps on March 28th, 2002, so everything before then shows up as being from the same time)

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