Thomas Ash

Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin (London, OK): There's still time to get your camera out if you want to take part in a major Europe-wide protest against the database state this Saturday:

NO2ID have teamed up with the Open Rights Group to show Parliament the 'Big Picture' by constructing a giant image made out of thousands of pictures taken by UK citizens of surveillance state ephemera. YOU can join this protest from anywhere in the UK by simply sending us a photo. We would like you to send us a picture of 'the database state' in YOUR life. We want images of the signs of mass surveillance, and any form of intrusive ID or state control - cameras, cards, scanners, forms, whatever you like.

Kanishk Tharoor

A recent piece on Politico takes the temperature of the Republican base, and sees it reaching feverish desperation. The mood at recent McCain-Palin rallies has turned more "frenzied" and "visceral". Examples of this nastier turn can be seen in the video posted on openUSA yesterday. Are such demonstrations of emotion admissions of impending defeat? Or inklings of a last ditch Republican tactical coup? More likely the former. As Tom Ash pointed out this week, negative campaigning doesn't seem to work.

Anthony Barnett

Anthony Barnett (London, OK): There are reports that gleeful Labour MPs are celebrating the Prime Minister's handling of the banking and credit crisis as a 'Falklands' style triumph for him and the Labour Party, after he has slapped around Iceland with anti-terror laws. Somehow, I doubt it. It is true that Margaret Thatcher was responsible for triggering the Argentine invasion by insisting on the withdrawal of HMS Endurance, the only naval presence, as a cost-cutting measure. But Brown's responsibility for the over-exposure of the UK is of long-standing and the coming wreckage will be laid at his door even as he presents himself as providing 'world leadership'.

Tony Curzon Price

Plan 'B"

Face up to it: the Brown re-capitalisation plan may not work. The banks have relied to a massive extent on Credit Default Swaps, a sort of insurance on lending. They have given themselves false comfort, and in some cases very real cash-flow, on an insurance pyramid that will not hold-up under even modestly higher default rates. Liabilities under these insurance contracts are vast. One hedge fund was insuring 100 times its cash base before it went under. If the banks that we are now the proud part-owners of end up being heavily exposed to these liabilities--the total CDS market is measured around $50 Trillion, almost 1000 times more than the Brown rescue--we should just cut our losses and let the banks go under.

The problem is the protection of the real economy. The Federal Reserve has shown the way here, with its direct lending to companies, started 2 days ago. We should start a new state bank, recruit bankers and accountants from the City, and get them to work on lending to the real economy. At first, they will not have the time to distinguish good and bad loans. They will have to be lax but short-termist in their lending decisions. Their task will be to rapidly and efficiently become ``relationship bankers''--understanding the underlying businesses they are lending to and setting appropriate and gradually tougher lending terms. Once financial flows to the real economy are safe, the state bank should be broken into 10 identical pieces and with 9 sold to private investors who will operate in a new regulatory regime. The tenth should remain in state hands, as a benchmark bank, a way for the state to stay close to what is happening in the markets.

It is disturbing that the Brown re-cap was hatched by the Treasury, the Bank of England and top bankers. The trouble any regulator has is that the people who best understand the business and the crisis are the people you are trying to regulate. This is the basis of every regulatory capture. You cannot trust what the knowledgeable say to you. If the liabilities of the banks start to mount, let's make sure this plan B is ready to be deployed.

Karl Smyth

While the result of this year's presidential election remains far from conclusive, the complex reality of making the transition from one administration to another at the upper echelon of American politics means that the gears have already been set in motion behind the scenes in Washington.

In an executive order signed today, the White House has created a Presidential Transition Coordinating Council-chaired by Chief of Staff Joshua Bolton and composed of a broad spectrum of representatives from within the executive branch-to begin liaising with and preparing both the Democratic and Republican camps for their potential ascendancy to the highest office in the land on 20 January 2009. As the White House press secretary Dana Perino noted, "It has probably never been more critical that a transition from an administration from one to the next is as seamless as possible. Our nation is at war. We are dealing with a financial crisis. And we are trying to protect ourselves from terrorist attacks."

Interestingly, today's announcement coincides with an article penned by Sam Stein of the Huffington Post yesterday which revealed that the McCain campaign is lagging well behind Obama's in terms of both its readiness to succeed the current administration and the resources they are prepared to commit to it prior to election day - due predominantly to the wishes of McCain himself. Stein's article cites sources both within McCain's inner circle and from previous transition teams who have voiced concern with the Arizona Senator's approach, contrasting as it does with Obama's methodical division of nearly one hundred people into working groups in recent weeks to produce policy agendas and potential governmental appointees.

Such contrasting organisational approaches seem strikingly endemic of how both candidates have handled their respective campaigns throughout the race, given Obama's very professional strategic mobilisation of grassroots support during the primary season and McCain's almost myopic tendency in recent weeks for short-term gambles designed solely to achieve victory to the detriment of greater cohesion and security in the long-run (e.g. Palin's selection as VP, suspending campaigning during the financial bailout, etc.).

Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin (London, OK):Henry Porter added a significant item to the charge sheet against Sir Ian Blair's stewardship of the Metropolitan Police in his Observer column at the weekend:

the conduct of the police during protests against President Bush's visit in June when it was alleged that unreasonable violence was used against the marchers. The surveillance and pursuit of legitimate demonstrators three months afterwards is to say the least very worrying. It smacks of a police state. 

As the Daily Mail and the Guardian reported at the time, 25 people were arrested at the demonstration on 15 June following clashes that erupted after the police sealed off part of Whitehall, and prevented the marchers from handing in a letter to Downing Street.

Reports of further arrests have since surfaced on Indymedia. The Metropolitan Police have confirmed that 3 people were arrested in connection with the demonstration on 1 August, while a fourth person arrested on 20 August has since been charged with theft of a police baton and two counts of assaulting a police officer.

Last month, the Met's Deputy Assistant Commissioner Chris Allison appealed to the public for the identities of another four marchers:

"In a climate where London is at a severe level of threat from global terrorism any attempt to breach security measures designed to protect the President had to be defended by our officers.  

"What our officers did not deserve was to be the subject of such violence, being pelted with bottles and struck with metal barriers. 

"A number of officers even had sharpened sticks poked into their eyes and faces.  The acts of violence we witnessed that day were deplorable and no one could claim they were in any way a lawful demonstration.

"This post event investigation aims to identify and arrest the worst offenders to make them answer for their actions that day."

The Met's allegations are disputed by the Stop the War Coalition, which is asking anyone contacted by the police to get in touch with its defence campaign on 020 7278 6694 or by email at office@stopwar.org.uk:

The Stop the War Coalition has held more than twenty national demonstrations, everyone of which has been peaceful, everyone of which has been stewarded by members of the Stop the War coalition. This one was a particularly well-organised demonstration, one that we had negotiated with the police beforehand, although we hadn't negotiated a march route.

Spokesman Stewart Halforty admitted that some placard sticks may have been thrown over police lines, but said that did not justify the response that followed.

My experience of it was that in a very co-ordinated way, the police drew their batons and that suggests that they were prepared for this. They also had 1,200 police on the day and we think there may even have been more.

For the first time ever they estimated our numbers at the same figure that we estimated them at, 2,500. In fact they seemed to think there were 3,000 there.

Stop the War also points to an account of the demonstration that appeared in the Mail shortly afterwards, which raises some intriguing questions about police tactics:

The man in the T-shirt was tall, well-built and handsome, smiling but with a hint of menace. He pushed aside children and elderly people.

He continued to shout slogans such as: 'Pigs Out.'

On his back was a black rucksack and he carried a professional-looking camera with a large telephoto lens. Hardly the sort of kit for a few snaps of his day out.

My friends and I, standing a few rows back, asked him a couple of times to calm down, but he ignored us.

I wondered why I was drawn to him. Was it his dark good looks or was I worried for the safety of my 70-year-old friend and children nearby?

Then it dawned on me. I had met this man at a party. I tapped him gently on the shoulder and said: 'Have we met before?'

Instantly he recognised me. 'Hi, how are you? It's really nice to see you here.'

My puzzlement grew. This chap wasn't really the sort you'd expect to see shouting abuse at police officers at an anti-war demo. He was, after all, a policeman himself - and a high-ranking one at that.

Thomas Ash

Kanishk Tharoor

The video below has been doing the rounds in the liberal blogosphere. Filmed at a McCain-Palin rally in Ohio, it edits together the "ignorance" and racism of supporters of the Republican ticket. I find it difficult to watch, in part because I don't know what to make of those filmed (Do they really believe what they say? How "representative" are they?), and in part because of their casual dismissal by those who watch them (see the comments beneath the original posting).

Growing up in New York, I remember thinking of the "hinterland" as a strange and fictitious world (a disease especially common in New York perhaps). Now, I'm made all the more uncomfortable and uncertain when that world (the interior, the Red state) is made "real" to me (to the coast, to the Blue state) in the shape of caricature. What can we take from videos like this, and what shouldn't we?

Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin (London, OK): The Independent Commission set up to examine the funding of the Welsh Assembly Government began its work this week.

The Commission's call for evidence from interested parties comes as rising inflation is forcing the Government to dip into its reserves to cover its spending plans.

It will take over £200m from reserves, cutting them to 1% of the total budget, as spending rises to £15.2bn.

The money released will fund priorities including £60m over two years for the Foundation Phase education for three-to-seven-year-olds.

But opposition parties said local government was being "clobbered".

Over at the Institute of Welsh Affairs blog, James Foreman-Peck of Cardiff Business School argues that the Commission should consider the option of greater borrowing powers:

Devolving borrowing powers will be resisted by the Treasury on the grounds that there is an implicit Treasury guarantee to such borrowing although they cannot control the amount. The UK central government would be obliged to pick up the tab if the Welsh Assembly Government defaulted. But are we not seeing something like this for our big commercial banks at the moment? Anyway the Treasury’s point will need addressing in any recommendation for greater powers.

Tony Curzon Price

Nick Bloom has a good description of the most plausible transmission mechanism to medium term economic activity and growth over at VoxE:

So why is this banking collapse and rise in uncertainty likely to be so damaging for the economy? First, the lack of credit is strangling firm’s abilities to make investments, hire workers and start R&D projects. Since these typically take several months to initiate the full force of this will only be fully felt by the beginning of 2009. Second, for the lucky few firms with access to credit the heightened uncertainty will lead them to postpone making investment and hiring decisions. It is expensive to make a hiring or investment mistake, so if conditions are unpredictable the best course of action is often to wait. Of course if every firm in the economy waits then economic activity slows down. This directly cuts back on investment and employment, two of the main drivers of economic growth. But this also has knock-on effects in depressing productivity growth. Most productivity growth comes from creative destruction – productive firms expanding and unproductive firms shrinking. Of course if every firm in the economy pauses this creative destruction temporarily freezes – productive firms do not grow and unproductive firms do not contract. This leads to a stalling productivity growth. 

I disagree strongly with Nick on his conclusion about the impact of change of policy towards an anti-market stance. The financial markets have imposed not only the huge direct costs of crisis on the economy, but also a huge opportunity cost in taking talent away from other honest, productive activities.

Tom Griffin

Tom Griffin (London, OK): Over at Liberal Conspiracy Laurie Penny highlights moves by abortion rights campaigners to extend the law to Northern Ireland.

Diane Abbott has tabled an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, due for its third reading on the 22nd of October, calling for an extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. This is precisely the same amendment that Emily Thornberry MP was forced to withdraw back in May, when Gordon Brown assured her that the move would be seen as a slap in the face by the nine DUP members who swung the 42 days vote in the Prime Minister’s favour.

The issue has sparked a vigorous debate on Slugger, where veteran Westminster-watcher Brian Walker offers his assessment:

This effort will almost certainly fail and may not even reach the floor of the House of Commons. Much depends on Harriet Harman who is minister for women as well as the organiser of Commons business.  It made waves at Westminster in July by exposing divisions at the very top of government over priorities- which was more important, the rights of women ( Harriet Harman), or the stability of the NI Executive (Gordon Brown)? 

Patrick Corrigan

Patrick Corrigan, (Amnesty Blogs: Belfast and Beyond): The number of rapes being reported in Northern Ireland has increased by 50% in the past six years, according to official figures. More than 450 rapes or attempted rapes were reported last year – more than one every day.