The blogs run frit!

Thursday, September 11, 2008

The blogs run frit!

(Updated with additional links.)

The Independent got the point, running the story on its front page, with the banner headline, "Cleared: Jury decides that threat of global warming justifies breaking the law."

Like us yesterday, the paper also picks up Zac Goldsmith's role in the affair. And, in a blog by John Rentoul, it notes that Goldsmith "wants to be a Conservative MP". He is, in fact, the Conservative choice for the parliamentary seat of Richmond Park.

Rentoul cites Goldsmith (pictured below right) saying, "If a crime is intended to prevent much larger crimes, I think many people would regard that as justified," in which context we are reminded that the Labour Party got into trouble over the same principle.

This was over whether it was right for councillors to defy the law on rate capping, or for MPs to refuse to pay the poll tax. Neil Kinnock, the then Leader of the Opposition, says Rentoul, got it right, and said that it was not acceptable for MPs or people who aspired to be MPs to break the law or to advocate breaking the law. 

Can David Cameron live up to that standard, Rentoul asks, or will he take refuge in the semantic defence that Goldsmith was merely saying what "many people" would regard as justified? 

This is not a question the main Conservative blogs seem to be addressing. They seem to be running scared – "frit", as a former prime minister might have said.

Tom Watson MP, the Labour Cabinet Office minister, however, does raise the issue on his blog and Melanie Phillips writes a storming denunciation on her blog.

One lowly Tory blogger, Neil Reddin takes it on, Tony Sharp is brave enoughto have a view and the indefatigable Englishmen's Castle also understands the importance of the issue. The US blog Watts up with that also addresses the story, it dealing with the role of James Hansen.

Alan Harten, of the Fair Home blog notes that the trial has set off alarm bells at E.ON and many other similar companies, who believe that this ruling now gives cart blanche to any group who wants to invade and occupy any facility that they see as a danger to the environment.

Tony Juniper in Comment is free, on the other hand, argues that the government's energy policy, not the protestors, should have been on trial. This underscores the fact that the Greenpeace action was intended as a highly political statement, one with which Zac Goldsmith obviously agrees.

That point is taken up on the other side of the Pond where Iain Murray writes at length on the story in National Review, opening with the words, "This is very big …".

Clearly, though, it is not big enough for the mighty Iain Dale. From him, we get silence. At the time of writing, he had not blogged anything today but his last substantive post was at 8.44 pm yesterday – long after the "Kingsnorth six" story had broken. But his story was far more "important" – revealing that the Lib-Dims had revamped their website.

More in sorrow than in anger, we have to report that the excellentConservative Home blog has yet to offer any commentary, while the famous (in his own lunchtime) Guido Fawkes seems to have decided that this is a matter of little consequence.

In us pointing up these "big three", some might suggest that we are being a bit precious. Not least, dog should not eat dog – or blog eat blog. Us bloggers should stick together and not criticise each other. But, at the same time we are assailed by claims of how wonderful bloggers are, and how they are going to take on the dead tree media, etc., etc.

In that frame, all of these three claim to be leading political bloggers. Yet, if they cannot deal with important political issues such as this – perhaps because they are a tad uncomfortable – then can they really lay claim to that title, or are they just propagandists?

And, for those who might think otherwise, this is not an attack on the Conservative Party. We want the Conservatives to succeed at the election, but not at any price. We want to see a Party with genuine conservative principles, and sound policies take the country by storm and put into action a real conservative agenda.

Supporting mob rule – for that is what the Greenpeace action was – is not one of those principles. Unless the Conservative Party is prepared formally to distance itself from the actions of its advisor and candidate, Mr Goldsmith, it can only be seen as endorsing him and his views. That is something of vital importance to all of us.

COMMENT THREAD

Who should decide? - Part 1

Today of all days it is excusable to write about American politics but this posting is not precisely about that. It is about weird attitudes to it in Britain, Europe and the rest of the world as conveyed to us by sundry journalists, the BBC and various tranzi representatives.

We have all heard the narrative before: the United States is a very powerful country and who its President is affects many of us. Therefore, the rest of the world should elect said President and, surprise, surprise, the rest of the world will undoubtedly vote in the Democrat, particularly a seriously left-wing one like Barack Obama.

This argument is so fatuous that we, on this blog, would ignore it if it did not have certain rather dangerous aspects to it, given that it is all part of the great battle democracies, especially the United States, are waging against the unaccountable transnational oligarchies.

Let us get the superficial problems out of the way. The argument about the all-powerful President ignores the role of Congress, of the Supreme Court and of the individual States with their legislatures and executives (surely the word Governor has acquired some meaning for these so-called experts). In other words, there is a complete ignorance of the American system but then what would you expect from people who hate the very idea of constitutional democracy?

Secondly, the rest of the world seems to consist of 22,500 people asked by the BBC World Service over a course of several months in 22 countries, many of which do not precisely have elected, accountable governments themselves. Plus there are the left-wing journalists (mostly a tautology) and people who work for the UN, various NGOs and other suchlike organizations. Who exactly appointed them to speak for the world? Come to think of it, how do they know that the people of those countries really would vote for Obama? They might have many of the same reservations that Americans do about him.

Wherever the people of the rest of the world have had a choice they have managed to discard left-wing ideologies and socialist parties have had to start pretending that they believe in the free market and small government. Little of it comes through in reality but, at least, they know that they need to say this in order to get elected. Why, given all that, would anyone be so certain that a left-wing Democrat would be the world's choice?

Of course, as I have said, we are not talking about the world, merely about a very small segment of it – the people who have appointed themselves without asking the rest of us to be our spokespersons.

Two things have triggered off this particular splenetic outburst: a pollconducted by the BBC World Service and an article by Jonathan Freedland inThe Guardian. There has been a certain amount of anger about both of these, in particular on Conservative Home, America in the World (Tim Montgomerie’s second string) and, over the Pond, on American Thinker,Chicagoboyz and sundry others, too numerous to mention.

There is a great deal more to say on the subject and I shall do so later today. However, at this precise moment other duties call, so I shall post this introduction to the theme. To be continued …