Official: writing poetry isn’t terrorism

Law in action, Security theatre
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I blogged about the socalled “lyrical terrorist”last year, who was arrested an prosecuted for writing bad jihadi poetry as well as having some dodgy books on her bookshelves. Eventually she was convicted under the 2000 terrorism act, but appealed and now she has had her conviction quashed:

Samina Malik, 24, was given a nine-month suspended jail sentence at the Old Bailey last December after she became the first woman to be found guilty of storing material likely to be of use for terrorism.

Malik, of Southall, west London, adopted her nickname because of extremist lyrics she wrote on till receipts, but was never prosecuted over her poetry.

The lord chief justice, Lord Phillips, sitting in the court of appeal with Mr Justice Goldring and Mr Justice Plender, quashed the conviction after the Crown conceded that it was unsafe. In his judgment, Lord Phillips said the court decided that an offence would only be committed if the material concerned was likely to have provided practical assistance to a person either committing or preparing for terrorism. Propagandist or theological material did not fall within the legislation, he said.

“We consider that there is a very real danger that the jury became confused and that the prosecution have rightly conceded that this conviction is unsafe.”

In other words, once again it’s the judges that have to clean up the mess New Labour made passing badly drafted laws.

Three for three

Football
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Dutch supporters

The last of the group matches for Oranje and the least exciting, as we’re already through and the “b-team” is starting. First half was a bit hesitant, got better by the end, but still goalless by halftime. By then the other game, much more interesting than this one but you have to stay loyal to your own team, had already decided the Romanians’ fate, as the French got a penalty against and Italy scored. Once Klaas Jan Huntelaar and Robin van Persie scored in the second half it was all over. Romania couldn’t come back and Oranje remained unbeaten, but what a pity Italy got to go through instead; the Romanians deserved it more.

Seeing the Oranje “b-team”, though hesitant and awkward at first, still grow as a team during the game and seeing how good some of those lesser players actually are, gives me great hope for the rest of the tournament. We’re not just dependent on one or two genius players this time. We even seem to have a decent defense for a change!

The voice of the soft Labour left

Civil liberties, Nu Labour, War on Terror
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Reading David Osler’s blog is always interesting, because he always manages to capture the views of the soft, making excuses for New Labour left, like Polly Toynbee with better writing skills and slightly more self knowledge. A good example is his commentary on l’affaire David Davis. For those who didn’t pay attention last week, shadow home secretary David Davis resigned his seat in parliament to force a by-election after the government won the vote on extending the time terrorism subjects could be held without charge from 28 to 42 days. According to Davis (and I would agree with him) “42 days is just one – perhaps the most salient example – of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms.”

So how did Osler respond to this? By portraying it as an opportunistic stunt of course, sounding little different from Harriet Harman:

Part of me almost admires the gesture he is making. In so far as it will keep up the pressure on the government to rescind the disgraceful legislation that the Commons carried last night, I’d even go as far as to call it a good thing. But a gesture it remains, and a deeply opportunistic one at that.

Myself, I’m with Blood and Treasure:

It seems to me that the choice available over this is to outsmart yourself by trying to uncover the “real reasons” behind his resignation or take him at his word and push the issue. And whatever else Davis might have in mind, and whatever you think of his framing it as “fundamental British freedom” this is the issue.

That seems to me to be a much more productive attitude to take than jeering about how opportunistic Davis is, or how much of a rightwinger. But that’s the soft left for you. A guy like Osler always ends up making excuses for Labour, letting tribal loyalty overrule his disgust of the party’s policies by arguing that the Tories would be worse, even if it’s getting harder and harder to do so with a straight face. That’s why he has to rubbish Davis.

No means No, except in Europe

EU "democracy"
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Last Thursday the Irish, as the sole EU inhabitants to get the option, voted to reject the Treaty of Lisbon which was to further centralise and restructure the union. Which means that after three years of navelgazing and rapackaging the quest to establish an EU constitution is once again back at square one. Then it was the French and the Dutch who rejected the constitution and who therefore this time didn’t get to vote on it. If you vote the wrong way you’ve clearly shown not to be mature enough to decide on these weighty matters. For the Irish government it was more difficult to ignore the population, as the need for a referendum on constitutional matters is enshrined in law, so they had no choice but to call for a vote and hope for the best.

but once again these hopes were dashed, and this in a country traditionally quite Europe-minded. Once again it leaves the EU project floundering and once again the immediate response of European politicians and media is to blame the voter, not the treaty. Three years ago the rejection of the constitution led to a “process of reflection” from which emerged this treaty, largely the result of copying the constitution into a new document and doing global search and replace, with some relatively minor concession and symbolic changes. As if making the EU flag the mandatory symbol of Europe was why people objected to the contitution. Doing the same again isn’t feasable, but the process has to move forward so instead we get various European bigwigs like French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner threatening the Irish for their impudence while Gordon Brown amongst others has called for ignoring the vote by going ahead with the ratification in other countries and leave the Irish government to sort out things at their end.

Because the people in charge are convinced of the essential rightness of the constitreaty we don’t get any serious attempt to understand why first the French and the Dutch and then the Irish voted against it, but instead we get whisper campaigns to delegitimise the results of these referenda. For the Irish result the talking point being pushed is that it’s quite undemocratic for one million Irish to decide for 250 million other Europeans (one example). I agree with that, but it wasn’t the no-voters who decide the rest of Europe shouldn’t have a vote. The other way to delegitimise the Irish vote, and one much in evidence three years ago as well, is to disparage the motives of the voters. If you look at this Crooked Timber thread for example you see arguments that the Irish voted no because of their ignorance, their fear of foreigners, because the yes campaign wasn’t good enough, that it was just too complex for ordinary people to understand, and so on.

The common thread in all of this is that yet another no vote should not intefere with the orderly transition to the EU the European political elites want, but their voters are at best lukewarm about. It is brought as a matter of survival, as if the very functioning of the EU is under threat if these changes aren’t made, but we’ve seen how true that is in the three years since the rejection of the original constitution. Yet somehow the EU muddled through. It’s no wonder people are skeptical when all these grand plans are made without their input, their vote is only taken seriously if they vote yes and when they do vote against them their leaders don’t listen and they’re portrayed as xenophobic ignorami.

That’s what I’m talking about

Football
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Dirk Kuyt celebrates his goal

Four-one against France. After the three-nil victory over Italy with which Oranje started the tournament, the big worry was that this was a fluke, a one-off. With this game Oranje proved it wasn’t, that they won against Italy not because Italy was so bad (though they were) but because the team was so good. Against France they had to struggle harder to win, but they still won. So Oranje is now through to the quarter finals and the country is very very happy indeed for a team nobody had much trust in before the tournament started.