Free Speech in Brighton - and Baghdad

Free Speech in Brighton - and Baghdad
A party that won't tolerate free speech in its own ranks is not one that deserves anyone's vote but at the end of the day if Labor Party decides that
delegates who heckle should be evicted that's their affair.

What is not their affair is that Walter Wolfgang was held under the terrorism act when he tried to reenter the conference. I'm not going to say I'm shocked. I was shocked when the British parliament passed that act. That was the Rubicorn and abuses of the act like this can be expected for so long as it remains on the statue book.

But Wolfgang was wrong. However much that the coalition has done much that has been counterproductive – it is fighting on the side of democracy and freedom. The “resistance” have been quite open about their hatred and democracy. Should they win any hope of freedom of even most trivial kind will be wiped out for whole generation of Iraqis.

I don't like Straw but he wasn't talking nonsense – just the simple truth.
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Politics
Iraq
Britain

London as one

This from 21st Century Vision
who describes London at 12 expressing the same sentiment as we did at 18 in Trafalgar Square:
"Locally in the London Boroughs of Enfield & Barnet many people left their workplace and stood silent on the street. We visited the Palmers Green Bookshop and joined them as they shut their doors and stood silent outside. Others came out of their shops and joined together in this act of remembrance. It was an emotional moment that made us all realise that underneath the diversity of this great city, London was at one."

London Together after the Bombings on Trafalger Square

I chose this detail from the pictures I took because of the contrast. Of course it doesn't automatically follow that waving a Union Jack means that person is opposed to a pull out from Iraq. And the people carrying the "London-Fallujah No more bombs" might have just have meant that air attacks is not the right way to fight terrorism in Iraq (but I suspect not). I was a little uncomfortable that was there was a section who took an anti war message from the atrocity on the 7th of July. I think is quite possible that, in the short term, a pull out from Iraq would take the heat off us but it wouldn't reduce suicide bombings. Instead of us in London, other people somewhere else in the world would be victims. But London wouldn't be united if those who are anti war hadn't been there. London being united doesn't mean we don't disagree.

I'm not so sure about the Stop the War Coalition folk tho. I got into an argument with one of them - okay, I picked an argument with one of them. Did he think pulling British and American troops out o Iraq would end the war. Yes he was 100% sure. So why, I asked him, are most of the victims Iraqi? "I don't know." When someone can't attempt a coherent argument they can't blame others for suspecting that they arn't being totally honest in their aims. My suspicion is that they are not anti war but pro war - just they want the Iraqi "resistance" to win.

I have never been to Iraq and don't know whether the terrorists will succeed in dividing Iraqis, one against each other but I do know they won't succeed in London. That was the message that virtually every speaker gave and we standing there didn't mind the repetition - it was what we wanted to hear.

David
London Bombings

The French Reject Blair's Folly

The constitution is a monument to Tony Blair's negotiating skills in persuading the rest of Europe's leaders to accept an anti Federalist constitution that is an unworkable compromise. Only increasing the power of the European Parliament to act will solve the problem of the democratic deficit but that is an anathema to the Euro-sceptics that Blair is pandering to.

There is a plan B. Governments have failed to produce a workable constitution. It is time to elect a Europe-wide constituent assembly.