Crazy Diamonds

  Three days ago, the internet exploded with testimonials and tributes to the late, great paragon of rock music virtue - which, of course, means vice by anyone else's standards - that was Kurt Cobain. 

  This man, who took his own life at the age of just twenty-seven, was an inspiration to many of contemporary rock's greatest stars. Bands of the size and stature of Muse, Blink-182, Nickelback (come on guys, their early stuff was post-grunge, don't be like that) and, of course, the Foo Fighters draw huge inspiration from the Aberdeen-born singer-songwriter. The King of Grunge will be remembered forever as a legend of the rock world, and rightly so.

  As I write this, I am listening to the album Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. Whilst this record didn't claim the sales figures of Dark Side of the Moon or spawn a feature film like The Wall, I personally think it represents the pinnacle of the band's musical achievement - and so do Richard Wright and David Gilmour, so that's all right. 

  The reason I mention this is because this album draws heavily on the theme of loss, specifically the loss of the band's original lead singer Syd Barrett whose drug addictions had accelerated a mental decline which left him unable to make the music which had driven him so much in his early years. Barrett died in 2006, aged 60, 38 years after leaving the band. Death, when it came, was probably more of a release than anything else.

  Two stars of rock music, born twenty years apart, who lead such similar lives in their early years, but whose fates were so ultimately different. To use Cobain's own words, one burned out, the other faded away.

  The loss of both men was tragic, but in a different way. The brief, fiery career of Kurt Cobain was cut short untimely by his struggles with depression and heroin addiction, depriving the world of surely many more outpourings of musical genius to come. Barrett, meanwhile, destroyed his own, already unstable mind so completely with LSD and a lethal cocktail of other drugs that his career simply melted away - the masterwork of the Floyd's early material giving way to weak efforts to replicate his early success, and then to nothing as he locked himself away from the world. 

  Which is a better way to go? I can't help but feel Cobain's exit was by far the better. The spectre of a fate like Barrett's ahead of him - failure, decline, seclusion and ultimately a withering away - it is not hard to see how the grunge pioneer reached the conclusion he did. And, perhaps as a direct result, Cobain's name lives on, world-famous, while Barrett's - sadly - remains known only to a decreasing few.

  I'm not entirely certain whether this post has a point. I'm not convinced it really needs to. But if there is a moral to the story, as it were, then it's this: we should remember Cobain and Barrett equally, as men whose lives were taken from them before their time, and whose careers as exceptional musicians were curtailed long before they could fulfill their potential. Remember both their names - for they were two of the best of us. And they both deserve it.

  But most of all, remember this: Shine on, all you crazy diamonds. 

People (Without) Power

Victorious candidates by party

  It occurred to me the other day that many of my friends are astoundingly apolitical - that is, they have no real appreciation of what the political establishment is up to and, whilst they have opinions which could be described as political views, they tend not to associate problems in their own lives with the failure of the governments whose policies are ultimately responsible. Why, I wondered, is this?

Interesting map showing second-place
candidates by party

  I suspect the answer is, at least in its fundamentals, quite simple: politics is seen as boring. Politicians are grey men in greyer suits, who shuffle around on dull stages delivering bland speeches on uninteresting topics to audiences of sycophants and equally incomprehensible media types. They are not, in short, the kind of people that the public associate with the ideals and principles which motivate them. Idealism requires passion, and few of today's crop of political masters displays anything close to that.

  This basic disconnect between politicians and the rest of society, particularly the younger generation, is growing ever more pronounced. Membership of the 'big three' parties has plummeted since the high point of over 4 million in the early '50s to a low of around 400,000 today. More and more people are being turned off by the empty promises and hollow platitudes of the political class, and voter apathy is setting in, big time.

  This is a BAD THING.

  On the face of it, voter apathy looks like a bad thing for politicians - it means, after all, that they aren't connecting with the public. Time to pull their collective socks well and truly up, then? Well, no. When you think about it, voter apathy is actually hugely beneficial for the politicians. At the last general election, for example, turnout was only 65.1% of the electorate. This means that 34.9% of the adult population of the UK did not take part in the election, and therefore that the politicians could safely ignore over a third of the country. 

  If this was a freak occurrence, then such a move would be risky, but it is not - over the last five general elections, the average turnout has been just 67%, meaning that a third of the population consistently skip polling day, and therefore can have their opinions discounted by the political class. It is this kind of apathy which allowed the Labour government to be re-elected in 2005 with only 35% of the electorate's support, essentially eliminating the government's democratic mandate at a stroke. But that didn't matter - they had an overwhelming majority in the House of Commons, and so could force their legislation through when nearly two thirds of the population didn't want it in the first place.

  Turnouts for local and European elections are even more shocking - 42.3% for local, 33.52% for European. And they're both averages - the most recent results are even lower. This means that local councils and the EU Parliament, often criticised for being undemocratic, really are just that.

  It's been a little statistic-heavy today, and for that I apologise. But this stuff's important - the lessening interest in what's going on around us is allowing politicians to ignore large sections of society and - since it's been shown that the younger, poorer and more ethnically diverse the cross-section, the less likely they are to vote - it's the people who are being most disadvantaged by the current political paradigm who matter least to the politicians who seem hell-bent on ruining our lives. 

  So, the moral of the story is, vote. Get yourself down to the ballot box at every opportunity and make a difference, even if it's only a small one. Sure, you have only one vote - but if that entire third of the electorate were to turn up at the polls in 2015, that's a hell of a lot of ones. And if you can't bring yourself to put a cross in any of the available boxes, so equally repugnant are the choices before you - and believe me, I sympathise - do something about it. Campaign, march, set up a political party, stand for election, write a cynical blog on the internet - anything to shift the political consensus in the direction you want.

  That's democracy, after all.

Osborne's Not-so-Grand Design

  Well, THAT was anticlimactic, wasn't it?

  For those who pay no attention to politics whatsoever - other than reading this masterpiece of a blog of course - yesterday the Right Honourable Mr. George Gideon Osborne announced the government's Budget for the financial year ahead. This document contains many things, ladies and gents, but by far the most important is that word which strikes fear into the hearts of princes and paupers alike - taxes.

  Now, the Budget is usually one of, if not the most important pieces of legislation of the year. It allows an ambitious chancellor to restructure the UK economy at a stroke, changing the very way in which that shiny stuff we call cash in transferred to and from the vaults of Her Majesty's Treasury. Judicious use of the Budget can make the reputation of a Chancellor, and of a party too.

  But it can also break it. And perhaps that is the reason why this particular Budget has contained virtually nothing of any importance. There is an increase in the Personal Allowance (untaxed income) to £10,500. That is welcome, but is a limited change, considering that such an Allowance still falls more than £5,000 short of covering the minimum wage. The threshold for the top 40% rate of income tax has also been raised slightly, effectively extending the tax break given to low earners to those earning more money. For those lucky enough to fall into the reprieved bracket, such a change will also be more than welcome - for the rest, this is actually a bad thing, as it means less tax revenue for government and therefore more spending cuts to follow. But hey, we're used to that, right?

  Other than this, not a lot has changed. Pensioners can now withdraw their savings as a lump sum rather than an annuity - this makes sense, as it allows people to organise their own spending, but has little actual effect, provided the pensioner in question is able to resist the temptation to spend it all on sweets. Savers have had a break - after long years of irritation over the low 0.5% interest rate, the removal of the 10% starting tax rate on income from savings will surely be welcome. Alcohol duty is down 1%; tobacco duty up 2%. But these are small changes - tinkering at the edges. There is no meat on the rather bleached and sandblasted skeleton of this Budget.

  Why is this? Most likely, Osborne is saving himself for next year. For that will truly be a momentous occasion - the last Budget of this Parliament, just a couple of months before the general election in which the record of the first Coalition in Westminster since the Second World War will be tested. Osborne will be desperate to make sure that that budget goes down very well with the public indeed. It could have a huge effect on the outcome of the election, one way or the other, and the government needs as much money in the bank as possible to create a plan which will inspire the public to cast their vote in a favourable manner. The best way to achieve that, at least in the traditional Conservative mindset which dominates the Coalition, is to keep the economy steady and scrimp on spending now so more money will be available in the future. Hence the tinkering.

  Oh, and give us a lovely new pound coin to keep everyone occupied. Look! Isn't it shiny?!

  Ahem. In any case, Osborne and co. must have access to data I don't if they think that their current approach is going to get the economy to a position in just one year that they can provide an attractive Budget in time for the election. Much has been made of the drop in UK unemployment in the last quarter, but it must be emphasised that this is merely a numerical drop. Percentage-wise, it hasn't budged one iota - it remains 7.2%, currently 2.33 million people. And that figure doesn't include other dependents, such as pensioners and children. There's still a long way to go before Britain is working again. 
  
  Meanwhile, the government - for all its talk of austerity - borrows more every year, with the result that the UK structural deficit is now 5% of GDP. To put it another way, fully one twentieth of everything this country produces is rerouted to pay off the interest on our national debt. The interest Not the debt itself - not by a long way. Despite this rising borrowing, however, public sector cuts continue. All this begs the question - where the Hell is all our money going?! It would be incredibly cynical even for me to suggest it might be to line the pockets of wealthy elites and Tory business partners, but there it is. 

  All in all, not very impressed, Mr. Osborne. For your sake, and your Party's, next year's Budget had better be a vast improvement.

  Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to play with my shiny new twelve-sided pound coin like an obedient corporate puppet.
  

Russia... It's not the only place that hates gays

I’m sure we have all read or seen something upon Russian anti gay legislation recently with all the media concerning the Olympics etc however I’m not paying as much attention to that as some may think I should.

Now don’t get me wrong I am by no means a fan of Russia and detest the way they are treating my fellow LGBTQs, however with all the focus upon them currently it is all too easy to forget one simple thing.

There is discrimination  in other countries throughout the world and many at a far higher level than Russia.

The Russian law is incredibly vague which has allowed people to make claims about what its intentions are and what it allows. And thats fine you can argue back and forth about what it allows and how it is discriminating against us it is great to see people so passionate about LGBTQ rights. What I wish is to see that transferred to other countries throughout the world who are for the most part ignored. Also you have to remember that no one has been killed in Russia as a result of this and only a few dozen at most have been arrested. It is still an unacceptable breach upon their human rights and I detest it and wish to see it disappear but I am more concerned about those in other countries who are threatened with losing their life.

So what countries am I talking about at discriminate worse than Russia? Well the list is quite long, however there are a couple that implemented legislation very recently or are going to as a result.

Obviously Uganda, this one was in fact recently challenged in court by activists in Uganda but first what does the anti-gay act in Uganda entail?

You see this bill does infact ban homosexuality completely heres a quick summary:

• Life in prison for gay sex of including things such as oral or life imprisonment for being in a gay marriage.
• Seven years for attempting to commit homosexuality which includes things such as simply kissing a man.
• Seven years in jail if you “promote homosexuality” and/or a 25,000 pound fine.
• Seven years in Jail for the director of any business that “promotes homosexuality” and the business being shut down.

Obviously this is a simplification but I think you can see why this is worse than Russia.

Granted you might have heard of the Ugandan legislation as it has at least been reported on, however not nearly in the same amount as the Russian one has.

So why is this? Well a couple of reasons spring to my in this case one is minor and pure speculation, but I find it interesting enough to consider and the other is more important.

The minor reason is that the problem is fueled at the moment by American Evangelical Christian Conservatives. A several hundred have set up parishes and are preaching literalist Biblical views causing the anti gay views to grow in Uganda, now you could say that the American Media has no wish to report this fact though either way I have nothing concrete in support of it. I just thought it was a possible idea and it does help explain why there is so much anti gay feeling in Uganda and many other African countries as Uganda is not an isolated incident of this.

Now the bigger reason that it is gaining less attention is the HIV or AIDs virus which is prolific in African countries such as Uganda. Now the gay population gets the blame for this problem so some people, mostly right wing americans, attempt to justify the legislation against homosexuality in this way so feel there is no need to report upon such things as it is to them an acceptable concept.

I will point one thing out however, gays do not count for the any significant amount the AIDS problem in places such as Uganda. It is infact impoverished couples that account for the major population with the AIDs virus. This is because they do not have the means to protect themselves from the virus with condoms etc and in some cases, again due to evangelicals and people such as the ex-pope, they are told not to use condoms and are lied to saying that it encourages the spread of aids. Meanwhile the legislators are of the opinion it is the fault of the LGBTQ community so make such things illegal.

There is hope though, organisations are pushing for education of the population of these areas and the provision of condoms etc, so while I cannot think of a solution for Russia apart from perhaps a complete governmental reform. I feel that there is at least a chance for people in Africa as they have legislated out of fear essentially, so bringing media attention could not only highlight the plight but help to promote education and aid in such countries and to highlight those who spread the lies that the gay population is to blame. So don’t just focus on Russia the please do report on it, devote a larger amount of time to a problem we could actually solve.

Finally I recommend watching Kenya as due to Uganda a study has been ordered as to how they can enforce their own anti gay legislation more severely, so keep an eye on them as it is likely to develop in the next few months.

Blood On the Sands

  On Wednesday, a barrage of rockets was fired by Gaza-based Palestinian militants into the southern part of Israel. Later that day, the Israeli government launched retaliatory airstrikes on twenty-nine sites in the Gaza Strip in an attempt to destroy the culprits. For a wonder, no-one was killed - this time.

  But since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 countless people - soldiers and civilians; citizens of Israel, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, the Lebanon and other countries further afield - have perished in the conflict which has been a central feature of the Middle Eastern political landscape for long, painful decades. Approximately 16,000 people have lost their lives. And for what?

  The roots of the conflict stretch back into ancient history. The expulsion of the Jewish people from their homeland of Judea after the Jewish-Roman War of 132-135 led this people to spread across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, facing much persecution for many centuries. After the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany against the Jews during the Holocaust, the victorious Allies - particularly the UK and the USA - felt it was their responsibility to bring an end to the persecution of the Jewish people. They decided that the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Eretz Israel, as long called for by the World Zionist Organisation, was the best way to ensure this.

  But there was one slight problem: Eretz Israel was part of the British Mandate of Palestine and home to 1.76 million people, over a million of them Palestinian Arabs with a history of conflict with the Jewish nationalists in the area dating back at least twenty years. Nonetheless, the State of Israel was created and achieved independence on the 15th of May 1948. A separate Palestinian state was also intended to be created, the two countries almost overlapping one another (see map).

  The next day, however, the fledgling nation was invaded by thousands of troops from neighbouring Arab  states, beginning the first in a series of intermittent wars which would tear the region periodically apart throughout the mid-twentieth century. During these conflicts, the land designated as Palestinian would be seized by Israel, along with other Arab territories (see above).

  Fast-forward to the modern day, and the divisions remain as deep as ever. There is religious conflict - many of the holy sites of both Islam and Judaism are the same and extremists on both sides demand that they be denied to the opposition; this on top of a deeper inter-faith conflict which has existed in the area for centuries and also includes Christian groups. There is ethnic hatred - anti-Semitism as a phrase cannot be used here, as both Jews and Arabs are Semitic peoples, but there is a definite and ingrained racial and nationalistic prejudice on the part of each group for the other. There is good old-fashioned economic self-interest - the richer Israelis make a good living out of exploiting the poor Palestinians. And there is severe political pressure on the leaders of both sides to continue the conflict - after all, the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty after the 1973 Yom Kippur War led to the assassination of Egyptian President Sadat for daring to conclude peace talks with the enemy.

  And all the while, the conflict escalates. Israel builds illegal settlements on Palestinian soil, destroys shipments of humanitarian aid and launches airstrikes at civilian targets in the hope of picking off a few Hamas fighters. Even as I write this, the Israeli Parliament has passed a law to extend military conscription. The Palestinians respond with missile launches, bombs and other terrorist tactics. And understandably so.

  Let me make this clear - I do not support the terrorism of Hamas. But I do understand it. Whilst there has been in the past clearly fault on both sides, the fact remains that the land Israel occupies is fundamentally not theirs. No Jewish state existed in Canaan for over 1,800 years. That is far too long a time to maintain any kind of legitimate hold over a territory. By that argument, a quarter of the world's surface is sovereign territory of the UK, most of Asia belongs to Mongolia and the coastline of the Mediterranean should be in Italian hands. This kind of reasoning is frankly preposterous. Added to this is the hugely heavy-handed tactics of the Israeli military in response to a relatively minor Palestinian threat - airstrikes in response to the launching of a couple of rockets is the kind of over-exaggerated response that no principle of self-defence can possibly condone. In recent years, casualties in the conflict have overwhelmingly been Palestinian fighters and - tragically - Palestinian civilians, even children.

  The fighting must end.

  Clearly it is no longer practical to remove the State of Israel from the region. The Jewish population is too entrenched and would be persecuted terribly in an Arab-dominated state. But, equally, the terrible racial, religious and socio-economic apartheid of the Israeli state must end. We have to, therefore, push for a two-state solution - one in which both sides have sovereign territory to call their own, so that both Israelis and Palestinians have the security to establish their homes and raise their families in peace. What is more, the Palestinian people must be compensated for the land that has been progressively stolen from them - involving, if not a return to the original 1947 UN plan, then at least a significant redrawing of the status quo.

  If this goal cannot be achieved, the conflict will rage on. More young men will lose their lives in pointless fighting. The lands considered holy by three major world religions will continue to be a battlefield for those same faiths to clash in fruitless war. There will forever more be blood on the sands of Canaan.

Workers of the World Unite! Or Something Like That...

  This famous (mis)quotation from the 1848 Communist Manifesto sums up the general mood of the Year of Revolutions. There was a general feeling among the lower classes across the nations of Europe and their colonial empires that the aristocracy and the rising bourgeoisie had oppressed the rest of the population for just about long enough, thank you very much, and the people were going to do something about it. And though in most places the wave of revolutionary activity failed to achieve lasting change -  Denmark, France and Austria-Hungary being notable, if partial, exceptions - the 1850s saw an upsurge of socialism and trade unionism on a scale never before imagined. For a time, it looked as if the words of Marx and Engels might inspire real, dramatic reform.

  Now, with the death of Bob Crow, RMT leader and surely the most outspoken trade unionist since the 'glory' days of Arthur Scargill, perhaps it is time to look back on the long decades of unionism and ask ourselves whether we need a change in direction.

  Like it or not, Trade Unionism has become synonymous in recent years with a bullying, self-serving group of powerful union bosses who held large portions of the country to ransom in order to preserve their own popularity within their unions. This kind of behaviour was emphatically not what Marx and Engels had in mind. The purpose of trade unions in the 19th Century was to protect their members from the callous abuse of power that many employers chose to undertake. For the most part, they performed this purpose admirably. As employment laws became more and more stringent during the twentieth century, the role of the unions changed. They became policy-makers, becoming involved with the process of formulating new laws. This allowed the governments of post-War Britain to ensure that new economic and industrial policy would be amenable to the workers who had to live by it. But this new function, whilst undeniably useful, had problems.

  Trade Unions placed themselves in the position of having considerable power over legislators - particularly the Labour Party, which they had disproportionate control over - whilst simultaneously trying to continue in their original purpose of championing the rights of the workers. It should be fairly clear to see how this could not be sustainable - one cannot both be part of the establishment and attempt to challenge it. The unions did try, however, and it led to chaos - anarchy in its least political, and most total sense. When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, she was having none of it, and curtailed the powers of the unions so severely they have never really recovered. And when Tony Blair took over Labour following the death of John Smith, that party too began to cut the ties with the now-disgraced unions.

  Witness the modern trade union, then - an organisation largely founded around the personality of its leader, where the individual members have little power. A group associated to other unions through the once-titanic TUC - now relatively powerless and no longer in control of the Labour Party it helped found - many of whom have nothing in common with it and whose interests are as likely to run contrary to its own as alongside them. A political entity reviled by the media, disparaged by government and opposition alike, and whose support among the very people it claims to represent is falling away.

  It would be a shame if the death of Bob Crow also marks the final nail in the coffin of British trade unionism, but to be honest I wonder who exactly would shed a tear if it did? In its current state, I certainly wouldn't.

  But this terrible tragedy, the death of a man who - whether you liked him or not, and I didn't - died far too young and had much left to offer British politics can be used to fuel a revolution within trade unionism itself. Ed Miliband's Labour Party, by removing the unions' disproportionate level of control, has in fact done trade unionism a favour. Now finally separated from the political establishment, the way is open for new unions, democratically organised and without the dominance of the individual we have seen in recent years, to step up to the plate of truly representing the working classes. 

  It would be a fitting tribute to Bob Crow's memory, after all, to create the kind of unions he always aspired to but never succeeded in building.

Newer Labour?

  One week on from Ed Miliband's landmark speech on Labour Party reform, things are looking generally positive for the party. In case you've been in the political wilderness for the last month or so, Miliband's reforms are intended to complete the work of John Smith, forming the culmination of a 21-year process of democratisation of the party. Essentially, the three-college electoral system of the Labour Party - whereby the MPs, party members and affiliated trade unions carry equal weight in elections - is being replaced by a one member, one vote electorate. And this only 86 years after the UK itself introduced a similar system! My, they do catch on quick, don't they?

  In all seriousness, though, this is a significant step forward for Labour. The issue I have always had with the party, and no doubt many others have experienced similar frustrations, is that is claims to be the party of the working people but in actuality concentrated its own internal power in the hands of its increasingly middle- and upper-class MPs and the frankly self-indulgent, megalomaniacal union bosses. These people did not represent anyone much, and as long as the party's fortunes were in their hands no kind of moral high ground could be taken over the opposition. After all, it's hard to criticise the Tories from being in the thrall of multi-millionaire business leaders if your own party dances to just as much of an external tune.

  Miliband, by breaking the stranglehold of the unions and bringing Labour MPs back down to the level of ordinary members, has made good on Labour's claim to represent the people - made it good for the first time since at least the 1960s. However, by cleverly still allowing union members to participate in leadership elections - for a relatively small contribution as compared to Labour party members - he has eliminated the power of the big bosses without narrowing his support base. Miliband's expressed wish is to bring more working people back into party politics - and with these reforms, he might just do it.

  With an 86% approval rate within the party - and this without John Prescott shouting from the sidelines - the reforms are looking popular. It is difficult to imagine Bob Crow and the other union bosses being too pleased, but no-one need lose much sleep over that. Perhaps they will take this as a sign that they, too, should look at internal reform - maybe even deciding to genuinely represent workers, rather than selfishly advance their own interests by holding the country to ransom? We can but hope. In the meantime, though, at least this shows that the Labour support base isn't as idiotic as some of the people it has representing it.

  And with these reforms in place, they might get rid of some of them, too!

  The icing on the proverbial cake, though, is the number and diversity of political heavyweights who have expressed support for Miliband's move. And, whilst the interjection of Tony Blair has put rather a dampener on things (why did he have to go and support the changes? That's bound to put people off) the fact that David Owen - (in)famous member of the so-called 'gang of four' who split the Labour Party to form the SDP in 1981 - has been so impressed with the changes he has made a significant public donation to the party cannot be over-emphasised as a success for Miliband's grand strategy. 

  It is just possible that the man who, less than a year ago, looked like the worst leader Labour could possibly have chosen might actually turn out to be the best thing that has happened to them in a long time.

  We shall see...

From Putin With Love

Maria Alyokhina took this photograph of herself and
Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in the back of a police van

  Vladimir Putin has done it again. Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, two members of the Russian punk rock band Pussy Riot have been arrested in Sochi. Their crime? Well, in this case, the nefarious deed of walking down a street.


  The two women had planned to shoot a music video for a new song, Putin Will Teach You to Love Your Motherland in a local Church. Given the vast and entirely unwarranted overreaction to the punk collective's now-famous protest at the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, it would perhaps not have been much of a surprise if they had been arrested during such an action. But they never made it. Instead, they were picked up by police whilst on their way to the planned protest. They have been accused of robbery, but as yet no charges have been filed. 

  Clearly, though, this accusation is pure nonsense. Perhaps, were the incident isolated, we might be persuaded to reluctantly swallow the official story. But it is not. At least nine people are in police custody for clearly political motives, among them former Italian MP and LGBT rights campaigner Vladimir Luxuria, with an unidentified number of others having been picked up but subsequently released. This assault on the rights and freedoms of both the Russian people and international visitors to the Winter Olympics host city is characteristic of the heavy-handed and oppressive Putin regime, but that the authorities have carried on their campaign of repression when the city is in the full glare of the international spotlight demonstrates both the cavalier ease with which they can carry out such actions and the security Putin feels in his control of the country. It is a fresh reminder, if any were needed, that this is a man and a government willing to do anything to maintain its iron grip.

  But has Putin made a mistake? By re-arresting Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova, so soon after their two-year internment in separate Siberian concentration camps was cut short by the politically-motivated Amnesty Bill last December, huge publicity will surely be drawn to the political skirmishes around Sochi which, thus far, the media has been too blinded by the glittering spectacle of the games themselves to focus on. By making two women who have already been identified as targets of the Putin regime once more into martyrs for the cause, Putin will perhaps find the small but growing number of voices raised against his corrupt leadership become louder. 

  Whilst most Russians have sadly been sufficiently taken in by the conspiracy of Church and State to mutilate their morality that they are ambivalent towards, or even support, the persecution of minorities in their native country, there are enough who refuse to bow to Putin's warped image of the world to cause problems for his administration. The international community, meanwhile, whilst as ever slow to react has - in general - been a supporter both of Pussy Riot and the wider human rights campaign. As this news hits the headlines, perhaps it will start to filter through to the collective world consciousness that the problems in Russia remain as great now as they ever were - and perhaps now, finally, we might start to do something about it.

  One thing is for certain - the neo-fascism of Vladimir Putin and his allies in the Orthodox Church is just as corrupt, just as damaging as the Stalinist perversion of Marxism in the old Soviet Union was. The rest of the world has a duty to respond to the plight of those people trapped by Putin's barbaric, coercive laws into a life of lies and violence and to do our best to rescue them from the clutches of what is, now more than ever, an evil empire.

Where There's Smoke...

  The House of Commons has just passed a resolution allowing the government to impose a blanket ban on smoking in cars containing children. Just to be clear, this emphatically does not mean that a ban has been created - it merely enables the government, at any point in the future, to do so. This is quite likely to occur in the fairly near future, as failure to do so would be highly damaging politically, but as of yet, no. Just to be clear: you may continue to poison your children's lungs for a little while to come. 

  Now, it would be fair to say that I broadly support this move. I do think that children need to be protected from dangerous chemicals, of which tobacco smoke is one, and government's major responsibility is to prevent harm to the citizens of the country which is governs. It is a sad, sad thing that legislation is even necessary in this area - seriously, why the Hell is anyone smoking in front of their kids anyway? - but NHS statistics suggest that 430,000 children are regularly exposed to second-hand smoke in their family cars. So yes, this move was an unfortunate necessity.

  But...

  There's always a but, isn't there? And in this case it's a big one, because this move DOES impinge on civil liberties - there's no question of that. You can argue the toss one way or the other as to whether this particular impingement is justifiable - and as I say, I would consider that it is - but it represents what is a creeping attempt to curtail the freedoms of the people. Now, as a once radical anti-smoker, it will likely come as a shock to many who know me when I say I think the ban on smoking in pubs should be overturned. I agree that in restaurants, shops etc. it is reasonable but pubs are traditionally places where people go for their leisure time - and if they want to smoke, why legislate to stop them? There might be those who don't wish to breath in the smoke, of course, but it would be a fairly simple matter to put a screen of some kind up to create a smoking area if a pub wants to attract both smokers and non-smokers. In any case, this kind of decision should rest with the landlord - not the government.

  The reason I support the new move is because the protection of children has to be legally enforced. Simply put, children should not be exposed to dangerous chemicals until they are old enough to take that decision for themselves. Adults, though, should be free to do what they wish provided it does not cause undue harm to non-consenting persons. So yes, legalise marijuana. Yes, allow smoking in designated smokers' pubs. Yes, allow people to continue gorging themselves on fast food if that is their choice. If health problems result from this, then they should be made to pick up the tab, but it is firmly not government's job to tell adults what they can and can't do in situations where it hurts no-one else. Civil liberties are important, and we must begin the process of clawing them back from the state.

  Otherwise, when they come for the really important ones - freedom of expression, assembly, religion etc. - we'll be so used to it no-one will think twice.

Where Have All the Rockers Gone?

  Check the BBC's official charts. Go on. I dare you.

  Depressing, isn't it? When the most rock 'n' roll track in the Top 40 is by Imagine Dragons, of all people, you know something is deeply, deeply wrong. Radio stations consistently ignore rock music in favour of the latest teenage pop ballads, hip-hop of a standard that would make MCA turn in his grave and that most terrible of all noises - I won't call  it music - DUBSTEP.......

  Oh dear....

  That being the case, your average listener could be forgiven for thinking that rock 'n' roll was, indeed, dead - or at the very least, on its way out. Nothing, though, could be further from the truth. One only has to look at the Top 40 albums chart to see that the odd rock band is still managing serious commercial success. British pop punks You Me At Six have claimed the top spot with their latest offering, Cavalier Youth, and other rock artists are scattered down the length of the list. This is all well and good - but where's the airplay? Non-existent, for the most part - unless, like me, you only listen to Planet Rock and the occasional lapse into Absolute Radio for those areas where digital cannot be had. We need more of this already-popular rock 'n' roll on the radio - if only to counterbalance the mindless warbling of Taylor Swift and her army of clones.

  And another thing: Where's all the metal gone? Encouraging though the presence of You Me At Six and the Killers in the Top 40 Albums chart is, both bands fall decidedly into the poppier end of the rock spectrum. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course - I'm fond of both bands - but this ignores the legions of hard rock and heavy metal bands out there, many struggling to make a name for themselves. I see Of Mice and Men have managed to creep onto the charts, but that's about your lot - and I was never a fan of theirs anyway, if I'm honest. The popular explosion of Heaven's Basement's Filthy Empire this time last year shows there is a demand for the heavier brands of rock music, but - that phenomenon aside - the presence of such hard rockers is next to nothing on any kind of mainstream radio. Not good enough.

  You might say: Who cares? After all, rockers like myself can just listen to specialist radio stations, and let everyone else get by with their own music. To this I say: No! Simply put, rock music is one of the most powerful forms of expression available to people today - particularly the young. Whilst I'm certainly not going to say that the likes of One Direction don't occasionally strike an emotional chord with their fans, the basic reality is that they are corporate shells, propped up by the massed power of the record companies and with limited actual talent. They've done very well for themselves, and good luck to them, but think about it - in thirty years' time, will anyone know their names? Hell, I don't know them now!

  Rock music is an art form quite unlike any other, and whilst I would not like to say that rock is objectively a better genre than any other (okay, that's a lie - I would like to, but I won't, because music is inherently subjective) it cannot be denied that it has artistic merit at least equivalent to anything else on the radio. So, why is it mysteriously absent? Again, it's that damned massed corporate power behind Rihanna, Justin Bieber, the Black Eyed Peas and the like. The big companies push them, because that kind of music is easy to produce, factory-line style, and distribute to the masses in record  numbers (pun intended). I'm not denying that there is some artistic merit in some chart music, some of the time. I just think we deserve better than the same repackaged, plastic singers with their radio-friendly unit shifters, day in, day out. It doesn't necessarily have to be rock 'n' roll, but a little wouldn't hurt, now would it?

  I will not rest until I see toddlers in Slayer T-Shirts and ten-year-old girls buying Metallica represses on vinyl from HMV. Rock 'n roll will never die!

Ours is Good Terror

  The above is a quote from Australian comedian Steve Hughes. If you're not familiar with him, I urge you to rectify that as soon as possible. As a political satirist, virtually no-one dares go as far. In the particular routine I reference, he points out the hypocrisy of the US-led 'War on Terror' - an exercise which, its futility aside, creates just as much terror as it eradicates. If not far more. Nevertheless, George Bush's ill-omened attempt to wipe out global terrorism, regardless of the cost, has been with us more than twelve years and counting. And the consequences for individual freedoms have been huge.

  The most well-publicised example of the erosion of our liberty has been the mass surveillance undertaken by the NSA - the USA's National Security Agency - and its UK equivalent, GCHQ. These agencies are a subsection of the two nations' security services but, unlike MI5, MI6, the CIA or the FBI, they do not participate actively in maintaining national 'security'. Instead, they monitor public communications and feed this information to the other services. The amount of information these agencies have access to is astonishing. Between them, they can access the online and telecommunications of every US and UK citizen, as well as any foreign national using US- or UK-based websites and many international telecommunication lines into the bargain. Although GCHQ is checked to a degree by UK privacy laws, the NSA is under no such burdens - and as the two agencies share most of their data, this means that UK as well as US security services have access to YOUR personal data. The scale of this information-gathering is equally astounding - Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, has revealed that the NSA acquired over 97 billion internet data items and nearly 125 billion telephone data items in just one month (8th Feb-8th March 2013). This represents an unacceptable intrusion into what is, in both the USA and the UK, legally protected privacy.

  The security agencies claim that this information is necessary to protect us from terror threats. However, since this information in obtained indiscriminately, without warrants, and can be stored indefinitely and passed to third parties as the agencies see fit, it represents a far greater threat to individual freedom than any terrorist organisation the world over. At least al-Qaeda have the good grace to admit that they intend to deprive the world of its civil liberties. The UK and US governments do so on a daily basis, in secret, whilst pretending to uphold democracy.

  And the surveillance state is not the limit of human rights abuses by Western governments. Not by a long way. The continued existence of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, proven to play host to scenes of torture and other human rights breaches and illegal under international law, is perhaps the single greatest affront to the pretense of liberal democracy in the Western world. Despite Barack Obama's stated commitment to abolish the camp by the end of 2010, it still exists today - along with its 155 detainees, at least 18 of whom are children and against none of whom any kind of legally prosecutable case exists. It is a disgrace, for which no justification has or can be made.

  Here in the UK, too, the government is far from innocent. Anti-terror legislation in the wake of 9/11 became quickly and increasingly hysterical, as Blair and his successors used the golden opportunity of mass tragedy to tighten their grip on the country. Having been told their original plan to lock up all terror suspects indefinitely without trial was a breach of their own human rights act, the Blair administration instead created control orders which allow them to place foreign terror suspects under 16-hour-a-day house arrest, relocate them tens or even hundreds of miles from their family and friends and place them under electronic tagging, for two full years. All this without a shred of evidence that would be admitted to any court. And now Theresa May, as Home Secretary, has begun the practise of stripping British terror suspects of their citizenship - without any kind of trial, of course. 37 individuals have suffered this fate since the government came to power, twenty of these in the last two months.

  All of this is set against a backdrop of the continuing US-led Western occupation of Afghanistan and accompanying operations across the Middle East and North Africa. The governments involved don't seem to realise that their actions have helped cause the current crisis, and are certainly unlikely to alleviate it. Aggressive Western neo-imperialism is one of the main reasons behind the growing wave of Islamic fundamentalism, and ending such unwanted interference in the internal affairs of foreign countries is the only way to bring about an end to the chaos that has engulfed the region. The UK and USA should by all means support democracy, but illegal wars and secretive military strikes on the sovereign territory of other nations is hardly conducive to such an aim.

  The simple fact of the matter is this - the War on Terror is doomed to fail, if we take as its objective the eradication of all major terrorist organisations worldwide. It simply cannot be achieved, not by Western military aggression at any rate. If, however, the objective of the exercise is to give the political and administrative leaders of our countries unprecedented control of the populace, then it has already succeeded. And that is something we should be profoundly concerned about.

  As ex-Liberal Democrat minister Chris Huhne ironically once said, 1984 was a warning, not a blueprint.

The Death of Liberal England?

  Those who recognised the reference to George Dangerfield's 1935 treatise on the decline of the Liberal Party, 'The Strange Death of Liberal England', take a house point. Shame on the rest of you...

  The Liberal Democrats are going through what even the most optimistic Cleggite would be forced to describe as a rocky patch. The party leadership's seeming inability to deal with the scandal brewing around former CEO Chris Rennard is but the latest nail in what is already looking like a fairly well-sealed coffin. Having claimed in 2010 that they were creating three-party politics in the UK, they seem to have succeeded admirably - the problem is, they're not one of the three.

  Yes, the spectre of UKIP would appear to have manifested itself in all its betentacled glory. The latest poll, which happens to be the ComRes/Independent on Sunday, puts voting intention for UKIP at 19% - more than twice the Lib Dems' 8%. UK Polling Report, a website which publishes - among other things - a weighted rolling average of the most recent polls, puts the figures closer (UKIP 13%:11% Lib Dem) but even this is a worry for a party savouring its first taste of power in eighty years. If the Lib Dems don't want to end up cast back into the political wilderness, they need to show that they are a stronger party than the upstart UKIP. If an organisation which started out as little more than a single-issue pressure group should manage to overtake the inheritors of a political tradition which stretches back to before the reign of Queen Victoria, it would spell the end of any Lib Dem hopes of further experience of government for the foreseeable future.

  Most likely the UKIP threat will fade somewhat after the European elections this year, and the Liberal Democrats will find themselves back in third place, if only barely. But even that is just not good enough. If Clegg and his party want to be taken seriously as an alternative to the Labour and Conservative Parties, they will have to do much, much better. At the last general election, the party took 23% of the vote. The chances of them matching that feat this time around seem slim to say the least, and - due to the admittedly unfair first-past-the-post electoral system - they will have to increase that by at least another 10% to pose a serious challenge to the entrenched parties. On their current course, this is simply not going to happen.

  The reasons for the Lib Dems' paltry performance in the polls are many. The betrayal over the tuition fees issue early on in the Parliament is still a wound fresh and raw in the minds of many students, traditionally one of the party's core target demographics. The number of students voting Liberal Democrat in 2015 is likely to be small. Then there is the simple 'guilty by association' effect of being in government with the Tories. With every right-wing policy Cameron or Osborne announces, the Liberal Democrat brand becomes further and further toxified. Meanwhile, those government policies that are the Lib Dems' own - raising the tax threshold, the recent announcement of support for a higher minimum wage, etc. - and would likely prove popular with voters are effortlessly hijacked by the Tories. It seems the poor boys in yellow can do nothing right.

  Put simply, Nick Clegg's strategy of 'aggressive differentiation' is failing. The long years of coalition have alienated many of the Lib Dems' traditional supporters, whilst those who would otherwise have used the party as a protest vote against the government are now forced by their participation to defect to UKIP, or even the Greens. Sad though it may be to see it happen, the Liberal Democrat party seems fated to crash and burn in 2015.

  And with scarcely a hair's breadth of difference on most policy areas between Labour and the Conservatives, that cannot be good for British democracy

The State of the Union

  Michael Fabricant yesterday put forward the latest in a small but growing number of calls for an English Parliament. Whilst his suggested location of Lichfield (his own constituency) may have been slightly tongue-in-cheek, the remainder of his proposals actually make a good deal of sense.

  The time of the UK as a unitary state has long passed. Since the devolution binge of the late 90s, when Tony Blair's administration established national assemblies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, there has remained something of an elephant in the room. That elephant's name is England. Blair's plan for English sub-national assemblies was stymied when the North-East region rejected theirs, and ever since no real action has been taken to reconcile the position of England within the Union. 

  Opposition to an English Parliament of any kind is founded on the principle that the UK is and should remain a united, homogenous nation-state, but this ideal is patently false. We must accept that there is a significant cultural difference between the UK's four constituent countries (as well as within them, particularly in different regions of England) and take this into consideration when planning for the future. Assuming that Scotland does not elect to leave the Union, a relatively safe bet, we have a perfect opportunity in these turbulent times to reshape the constitutional arrangement of the state. 

  The current situation is one of imbalance, with Scotland having more significant powers than Wales, whilst Wales has more than Northern Ireland, and in all of it England has no control over its own affairs at all. This gives rise to significant problems. The West Lothian Question, the issue that Scottish MPs sit in the Westminster Parliament and make decisions which affect only England, whilst Scottish MSPs have sole control over similar decisions made in Scotland, has been a sticking point for more than fifteen years. It led, amongst other things, to the introduction of tuition fees for English Universities only passing Parliament due to the votes of Scottish Labour MPs, whilst Scottish students receive their higher education for free. This is a serious problem, and in the face of high levels of Scottish nationalism is likely to remain so. The same issues could theoretically occur between England and Wales, or England and Northern Ireland, although these countries - having less MPs - will have a reduced impact.

  We have, in short, an odd, quasi-federal system which favours certain areas of the UK over others, often - but not always - to the detriment of England in particular. It would be better, therefore, to create a separate English Parliament with responsibility for specifically English affairs. The Westminster Parliament could then have the number of MPs reduced, saving on political bureaucracy, and would oversee the national assemblies, whilst at the same time retaining responsibility for Foreign Affairs, security and other UK-wide areas. Powers between the four national assemblies should also be equalised, giving each country the same opportunities to administrate their own affairs. This will settle the West Lothian Question, along with other problems that the status quo causes, and prevent resentment of English people towards their Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish counterparts. Let us not forget that, if the Scottish Independence referendum were to be held in England, polls show that the Yes campaign would almost certainly win.

  As for location, there is indeed a real issue with an over-focus on London, and I agree with Fabricant that a prospective English Parliament and government offices should not be located in the capital. Whilst this may seem a little odd, it is vital that greater support is given to the regions of the UK and that London does not race too far ahead. It will also be important to differentiate between the English and UK Parliaments, and having both located in the same city will muddy the waters and prevent a clear distinction being drawn in the minds of most people. Specific location matters less - historically, Winchester makes sense, as the capital of England before the Norman invasion, but economically somewhere in the midlands would perhaps be better, and would also be more central. 

  Wherever the new Parliament is located, though, it will stand as a concrete example of a UK which is not complacent; not afraid to make changes if the status quo is unfair or otherwise damaging. And that is the UK we need to build if we are to succeed in the future.

I Agree With Nigel Farage

  Well, that's a sentence I don't utter very often. As a general rule, I respect Mr. Farage for being one of the few politicians in modern Britain willing to speak his mind, but I rarely agree with those impassioned outbursts that he does so well. On the issue of Syrian refugees, however, some surprising common ground has at last emerged.

  Such a rare event, I thought it justified a blog.

  Because, like it or not, Nigel is making some considerable sense. UKIP grassroots members have lambasted him for allegedly 'giving in to the liberal media' and abandoning his anti-immigration stance by joining the growing voice putting pressure on the government to accept some of the exodus from the terrible Civil War that has torn Syria apart. They argue that it is madness to oppose the influx of Romanian and Bulgarian migrants which many on the right have predicted (but which doesn't seem to have materialised just yet) and at the same time open the UK's arms to thousands of Syrian refugees. On the face of it, this does seem a little hypocritical, but when you think about it it's actually entirely justified.

  Farage and his party oppose economic migration. They are the respectable voice of the significant minority of the British working and lower-middle classes who see immigration as a mechanism by which foreigners come to the country and steal jobs from British workers. But, as the man himself has pointed out, Farage's latest plea is not at all at odds with his main objective, because the Syrian refugees are emphatically NOT economic immigrants. They are desperate people fleeing for their lives from a brutal conflict which has engulfed their homes. 2.4 million desperate people - and the government stance is that not a single one may pass the UK borders.

  Clearly, we cannot take them all - that WOULD be madness. As much as we may wish it were otherwise, the UK does not have the economic infrastructure to accept such a large number of destitute people so quickly. If they were economic migrants, it might be different, but that's another matter entirely. These people will be starting in this country from nothing, and the level of support they will require to survive and thrive here will be too great to admit such large numbers.

  But not to take any? That seems callous in the extreme.

  The EU as a whole has spectacularly failed in its moral duty under the 1951 Covention on the Status of Refugees to help the people of Syria survive this war. 28 member states, covering almost 1.7 million square miles of territory, and we have collectively welcomed just 12,340 refugees. This is a pitiful amount by any standard, and yet even Spain's paltry contribution of 30 places is generous compared to the UK. We are offering nothing. Precisely no places at all. Those UKIPpers who have derided Farage for his humanitarian stance on this issue would probably be the first to revel in the nostalgia of the 'good old days' of 'Great' Britain. But when the UK has failed to match even Germany's modest intake of 10,000, how can this country possibly claim to be anything more than a second-rate backwater power falling rapidly behind the front runners in the race for the twenty-first century?

  If we want to prove that the UK still has the capacity to affect the world around it, and for the better for a change, then the best thing to do is to agree to take in a portion of the persecuted diaspora of humanity that the cruelty of the Assad regime has caused to be exiled from their homes. 

  And what of Farage's suggestion that those we do take be limited to Christian Syrians, a persecuted minority composing about 10% of the population? This is a more difficult topic. We should be instinctively wary of favouring any one religious (or, for that matter, non-religious) group over another in the allocation of asylum places. Certainly, the days when the UK was a Christian-dominated society have long since passed. However, Farage's argument that Sunni and Shia refugees have a number of far more local countries whose official religions follow those faiths, whereas Christians living in Syria have nowhere nearby to go does have some merit. It is true that the persecution of the Christian minority in many parts of the Middle East means that local asylum is not necessarily an option. In such a case, shouldn't western nations whose attitude towards faith is more liberal offer them succour?

  One solution to the problem would be an international organisation for resettling displaced people, which could then ensure that the refugees are distributed fairly among nations and only relocated to countries where they will not face further persecution. In the meantime, the political dangers and moral difficulties over restricting asylum to Syrian Christians means that the best option is to take the refugees as they come, perhaps giving priority to those not of the Islamic faith but not ruling out Muslim refugees. 

  One thing is clear though - however we choose to progress, the UK must do more to help the Syrian people, as must those other Western countries whose governments opted not to offer any asylum places at all. If not, we risk sacrificing what little credibility we have on an international stage, particularly in the Middle East itself. The West has already begun two destructive wars in the region, and is responsible in no small part for the instability that now plagues it. We have now a chance to redeem ourselves, if only partially. Fail to take it, and the diplomatic consequences will be dire.

  The human cost of failure is simply too awful to contemplate.

Energy Wars - The Return of Green Conservatism?

   

And it's your move, Mr. Miliband.

  Yes, that's right, Messrs Cameron and Clegg have struck back against the Labour onslaught with their latest shiny policy - £1,000 for homebuyers to spend on energy-saving measures. This comes, of course, in the wake of several weeks' vicious fighting on the subject of energy prices - a subject which has become the key battleground in the war for cost of living. Since the Labour Party Conference, when Miliband revealed his flagship energy price freeze policy, the conflict has seemingly been going his way. Will the Coalition's latest offering sufficiently bedazzle the public into rushing headlong into the encircling blue-and-yellow arms? 

  Energy policy is a dangerous area for the major political parties. They must strike a delicate balance between keeping costs down for consumers, many of whom are struggling to keep pace with the rising cost of fuel, and appearing to be 'green' in the face of a growing minority of climate change sceptics. The Conservative Party in particular, having rebranded itself with its stylish tree logo under David Cameron, has a very thin line to toe - it cannot afford to forget entirely its pledge to be the 'greenest government ever', but neither can it risk the wrath of the mass media which any kind of environment-linked tax increase would surely bring upon it. Osborne has toyed with the idea of abolishing the so-called 'Green Tax' (a levy on energy bills accounting for roughly 14% of your annual cost) in a bid to reduce energy costs and keep pace with Labour, but the UK as a whole has its own targets to meet - an 80% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2050, based on 1990 levels. It will be difficult, if not nigh-on impossible, for the Coalition to make the necessary improvements towards this target and still cut the levy.

  So in that case, surely the new handouts are, politically, a massive triumph for the government? A thousand pounds isn't a lot of money on a macroeconomic scale, but to individual households it can be the difference between being in fuel poverty and not. It will be popular with the poorer sections of society that the government has previously had a rocky relationship with and the fact that these grants are being given to spend on energy-saving measures means the government looks 'green' into the bargain. Success!

  Well, perhaps. But I think it is much more likely that the policy will be lost into the general melee surrounding energy prices and the wider cost-of-living debate. The thing is, a similar policy already exists - the 'Green Deal'. This initiative is designed to allow businesses and households to become more eco-friendly and pay back the costs of the necessary modifications over time rather than up front. In principle, the Green Deal is a commendable idea, but there's a snag: no-one wants it. In total, by the end of August - a full nine months after the scheme launched - only 677 households had asked to proceed with the scheme. Of these, just twelve had had the energy-saving measures actually installed. Twelve. Take the UK average of 2.3 persons per household and that means an uninspiring 0.00004% of the population have felt the benefits of the scheme. Now that's a figure that even Alastair Campbell would find it difficult to put a positive spin on.

  The new policy, being as it is a straightforward grant rather than a cunningly-disguised loan, is likely to prove more popular but still there is no fire in it. The Coalition simply doesn't have the drive that Labour - long stuck drifting in the doldrums of politics - seems to have finally regained. Miliband's energy price freeze may have been reckless and arguably irresponsible - given its timing - but it has certainly been popular, and has generated much comment in both mainstream and social media. By contrast, the triumvirate of Cameron, Osborne and Clegg have made a number of comments and announced several new policies, but have failed to make much impact at all. The winds of political fortune are still blowing very much Mr Miliband's way - the question is, can he keep it that way? On the subject of green conservatism meanwhile, the jury is out. The Energy Wars will likely rage on for some time to come.