European Political News

Dave Walker was not alone. Two other bloggers who have gone public with their Cease and Desists from Mark Brewer

Sam Norton has had a reply to his latest correspondence from Mr Mark Brewer, which I reproduce below: From: Mark Brewer To: Sam Norton Sent: Wednesday, July 30, 2008 8:56 PM Subject: RE: your cease and desist request to me Sir Neither English nor American law permits you to engage in what you term “fair comment” with respect to a private [...]

I was planning to write this evening about Cease and Desist notices, what they are used for and my opinions about how to assess them and respond. Instead, I have something far more interesting for you; one of J Mark Brewer's Cease and Desist notices itself. Sam Norton runs the blog "Elizaphanian". He is one of the Bloggers in receipt of "Cease and Desist" notices from J Mark Brewer, who runs the Saint Stephen the Great organisation. On July 26th, Sam noted that he had been sent a "Cease and Desist" notice by Mark Brewer: For the record, I've been 'served' a cease and desist as well... Now he has decided to publish the entire correspondence.

In my opinion Dave Walker's posts have been a careful reporting of the developing situation at SPCK, where he has been restrained and taken care to avoid stepping over the line of objectivity.

Having followed the story for over a year, my opinion is that his reporting on Cartoon Church has been temperate and thoughtful; I have observed him repeatedly advise commentors to have cool heads, and I have regularly seen comments edited or removed when he thought they went too close to the line of controversy.

In order to help place the true facts - in my opinion - of this case where they can be sensibly debated, I am republishing some posts that were the subject of the complaint by Mark Brewer.

Perhaps you would care to reach your own opinions on the matter. You need to review the full set of 75 posts to reach an overall decision; I am sure that someone will give you that opportunity in due course.

"Thank goodness that we have this one, last bastion of free speech – the Internet. The internet, in particular, is the only truly free “press” we still have."

(Mark Brewer Campaign Site 2000)

This morning's cartoon is this afternoon.

(Sorry - life has been slightly hectic and I'm trying to get back to normal as well).

A shortish one today.

Words of J Mark Brewer

‘Like other business people, lawyers exist in a competitive world. They must be willing to withstand the scrutiny of those whom they serve and those whom they seek to serve.’

Ay-men !

(Brewer and Pritchard Previous Website) (H/T)

This article is a summary of articles, news items, and letters that have appeared in the Church Times over the last two and a half years. Apart from Cartoon Church, the Church Times is the only outlet that has really covered the story.

I'm preparing a precis of these articles, but it is taking some time.

My aim is to let you dive into the backstory of the current SPCK / Dave Walker / Mark Brewer affair as painlessly as possible. To get to grips with it you probably need to skim them once (sorry!).

This list is cross-posted from the Church Times blog. It is not an exhaustive list - some 'in brief' items are omitted to keep the list manageable.

Regarded as something of an anglophile, Barack Obama has said that it is time to “recalibrate” the relationship between the US and the UK, and to end the “poodle status” of the latter. The relationship will be a more equal one. Obama also favors the EU, which, he believes, is a democratic union of countries, brought together by the will of the people. This month, despite massive opposition, and the British public being denied a vote on the issue, Britain’s unelected Prime Minister Gordon Brown signed the Lisbon treaty, relinquishing more of Britain’s sovereignty to the EU. What will this mean for Britain’s and the US’s relationship?
 
Contradictions of political beliefs aside, Obama is the man of the moment, and his presence has been very much welcomed by the most visible figures of British politics, who are clambering to improve their public image. Brown is particularly in need. A few days ago his Labour party lost the Glasgow East by-election to the Scottish National Party (SNP). One of the most deprived areas of the United Kingdom, Glasgow East has also been one of Labour’s safest seats, and its loss has triggered much talk of a possible coup to oust Brown from power, or his possible resignation in the coming months. It also makes Scottish independence – or at least greater autonomy for Scotland – more likely after 2010, when the SNP plans to hold a referendum on the issue, though the SNP’s electoral gains in Scotland and the Conservative Party’s in England are a clear signal at the electorate’s increasing dismay at Labour, and not enthusiastic endorsements of the other parties. The voters have, in effect, switched to their second choices.
 
The Prime Minister has said that worries over the economy have created the backlash, but no sensible person can believe this. Mass immigration, a divisive “multicultural” ideology, failed hospitals and national health service, an inept, politicized police, the emergence of organized criminal gangs from Eastern Europe, an explosion of violent crime, and the belief that Labour will do nothing to reverse this downward spiral, accounts for the voter’s reaction. The Conservatives have been looking to the US, and to Obama, for solutions.
 
According to the latest Home Office figures 130,000 knife crimes were recorded last year in Britain, averaging one every four minutes. Cameron wants to see a ‘zero tolerance’ policy based on the approach that the NYPD took under Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Police chief Bill Bratton, who was instrumental in tackling crime in NY, will now act as advisor to London Mayor Boris Johnson. The carrying of knives, the presence of gangs, and antisocial behavior such as drunkenness or drinking on the streets (a common sight in Britain), are the initial targets.
 
Cameron is also talking of a “responsibility revolution;” but to what exactly? He has repeated Obama’s recent call for Black fathers to take responsibility for the upbringing of their children. Since then Britain’s Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) has issued a report [pdf], noting the positive effect of male role models on specifically poor White boys, who are not only often without a father, but who, academically, fall well below ethnic minority (including Black) children of similar economic backgrounds. The “responsibility revolution” seems to be “multiculturalism” repackaged: half-baked British ingredients, American label. But, this is not new.
 
Europeans and Americans have long wanted to mold their own countries on their perceptions of the other, though these perceptions have generally been wildly inaccurate. Europeans want to emulate their imagined liberal, modern, ephemeral, multicultural Hollywood America; Americans respect old world tradition. “Our [the US’s] founding institutions were profoundly shaped by the English tradition,” Obama announced on his visit to the UK, doubtlessly unaware of how embarrassing a phrase “English tradition” has become in England. Doubtless, he was also unaware that parliament disposed of Habeas Corpus in June of this year.
 
Cameron’s enthusiasm for emulating NY and Obama will not yield fruit, because he ignores the fact that the US has become, and remained, a great country because its leaders have continually reverenced legal ‘tradition,’ as well as cultural tradition, and the history of the nation. New York recovered in part because the city had the American tradition still in its social foundation. Americans – even NY liberals – believe their country is a great country, respect its founding fathers and Constitution, and are overwhelming religious and well mannered. Britain, which seeks to adopt the fashions and ideas of the US, has no such basis. Similar criticisms of the EU might also be made.

I promised one more Hofmeister commercial. Here we go.

And this is the final reminder.

For online campaigning, follow the case of the Bear.

As shown by these outtakes (start at 7:49) there will all sorts of thrills and spills, so you need to explore lots of different avenues of actions - and a few may work.David Cameron Questions Gordon Brown on 42 day detention 11/06/08.

I came across Chris Applegate's rather wonderful algorithm for a David Aaronovitch simulator, based on this column:

• Step 1: Go ad hominem from the very start and label your opponents as being part of some mythical self-styled intellectual commentariat (while ignoring just how eminently qualified you are yourself to belong to that same cadre):
• Step 2: Posit a false dichotomy and put your opponent at one extreme end of it.
• Step 3: RePush the boat out even more - emphasise how the bad men will get you if you don’t do what they say. Go for the heart-tugging “as a father” line if need be:
• Step 4: When all else fails, wring your hands and play the race card.
• Step 5: Ask a sub-editor to top it off by giving it the headline “Ignore the paranoid fantasists” and voila! Instant column!

That invites a question:

Could we re-engineer Eliza to be an Aaronovitch simulator and thereby prove that belief in the real one is logically unnecessary?

What next? The cat is out the bag. Glasgow East was the tipping for Labour and no longer can they pretend nothing is wrong. Gordon Brown is under fire from all quarters, including his cabinet behind the scenes. But what should they be plotting to actually do? After all, while it might be the majority of [...]

This will be a daily update about the Dave Walker case. This first one is longer than is normally planned, because a lot has happened over the weekend.

The Dave Walker case is beginning to get some more attention among British Political Blogs - for whom attempts to restrict comment by threats using our Libel Laws are a very hot potato indeed.

There are also several new cartoons out, and a Dave Walker case specific RSS feed.

A very quick update. There will be more detail later this evening.

• I have added some more supporting sites to the list.
• I have separated the articles into sites expressly “supporting” Dave and sites “reporting” the story. I have only included sites “supporting” are in the downloaded list, to discourage attempts to insert spam links here, and also so that any media sites that start covering the story will be easier to find.]
• Current status:
  • Supporting sites: 47.
  • Reporting sites: 6
  • Facebook group: 250 members

If you need to refer to the list article concisely, you can do it using this link:

tinyurl.com/davewalker

More than 200,000 Germans turned out in Berlin on July 24 to hear a carefully stage-managed Barack Obama tell them exactly what they wanted to hear: If he becomes US president, America will become a whole lot more like Europe.

Amid roaring applause, Obama told the assembled masses that he shares Europe’s utopian globalist worldview. The junior senator from Illinois promised to beat American swords into European plowshares, and American spears into European pruning hooks. Obama declared that the world should be rid of nuclear weapons, the war in Iraq should end, and that the world should join together to confront global warming, reject torture and welcome immigrants. Under Obama, nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.

Obama was also careful to indulge German narcissistic anti-Americanism by criticizing the United States on foreign soil: “I know my country has not perfected itself,” he said. “We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.” Germans are loving it.

And especially the German news media, which has taken upon itself the task of elevating Obama into a cult-like figure. The leftwing magazine Der Spiegel says Obama would make a good “President of the World.” The mass circulation tabloid Bild calls Obama a “political pop star.”

Obama’s Berlin speech followed weeks of controversy surrounding the appropriate venue. German Chancellor Angela Merkel successfully prevented Obama from using the symbolic Brandenburg Gate for “electioneering” purposes. Her thinking is that only sitting presidents should be afforded that honor; anything else would be presumptuous rather than presidential.  

As a result, Obama ended up delivering his address at the Prussian-era Siegessäule (Victory Column), a militaristic monument that celebrates the founding of the German Empire in 1871, as well as the concomitant conquest of other American allies in Europe.

Are there any historians among Obama’s 300-plus foreign policy advisors? The Siegessäule was moved to its current location by Adolf Hitler in 1939 to make way for his planned transformation of Berlin into the Nazi capital “Germania.” Hitler saw the column as a symbol of German superiority.

Or did Obama deliberately choose the Siegessäule venue because in recent years it has served as ground zero for the Love Parade, an annual dance festival/political demonstration for love, peace and international understanding?

 
Is Obama a “Blame America First Democrat”?

Obama’s image advisors hope his trip to Germany will bolster his foreign policy and national security credentials with American voters. After all, Obama has rarely traveled to Europe and he has convened no policy hearings since becoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on European Affairs.

But what are Obama’s views on Europe? Given his lack of foreign experience, Obama’s views on Europe may be easier to discern by examining what some of his foreign policy advisors are saying about Europe.

Take, for example, Denis McDonough, Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor and a former legislative aide to former Senator Tom Daschle (D-ND). He believes the new mission for the transatlantic alliance should be the pursuit of low-carbon energy alternatives. Like Europeans, he also wants US foreign policy to be more Iran-friendly.

Then take Philip Gordon. A senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Gordon is an (unpaid) advisor to Obama on European affairs. Like much of the American foreign policy establishment, Gordon believes that further European integration, which implies the counter-balancing of American power, is in the US national interest. Gordon also believes that the creation of a European army, one which may undermine NATO, is good for America.

No big surprise, then, that Obama says he supports [pdf] “Europe’s strategy of enlargement, which has been history’s most successful democratization strategy and has brought peace, stability and prosperity to millions.”

As any honest observer of contemporary European politics will acknowledge, the European Union is not a democratic project, as the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty proves. Moreover, the United States, not Europe, is responsible for the peace, stability and prosperity that millions of Europeans have taken for granted since the end of World War II.

More perplexing is Obama’s outdated notion that further European enlargement is somehow in the US national interest. Although the European Union started out in the 1950s as a benign economic bloc, in recent decades it has morphed into a complex political project that seeks to turn Europe into a global superpower that can counterbalance the United States on the world stage.

The biggest barrier to European superpowerdom, however, is its lack of a credible military capability. As a result, Europeans are working assiduously to balance the geopolitical scale with the United States by establishing a system of international law that de-legitimizes the use of military “hard power.” The European objective is to make it increasingly difficult for the United States to use its military might to resolve international problems. It is the Lilliputians tying down Gulliver.

The problem for the United States is that Obama says he supports the European project. This implies that he either does not fully understand the ramifications for the United States of further European enlargement, or that as a “global citizen” Obama wants to replace American exceptionalism with a post-modern globalist agenda of saving the planet from, well, America.

This, in any case, was the thrust of Obama’s pandering of German public opinion in Berlin. Indeed, the very fact that Europeans are so captivated by Obama should be a warning to Americans: Beware.
 
This article was published by American Thinker on July 25, 2008
 
Soeren Kern is Senior Fellow for Transatlantic Relations at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group

Democrats and star-struck adulators will remember Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin as something more than it actually was. “By this foreign policy speech will future ones be measured,” declared dKos editor Tim Lee Lange, and, well — not really. The truth is that the definitive statement on the speech is probably Jim Geraghty’s: he acknowledged that “[t]here was not a ton to object to, and indeed a lot to like,” and then challenged his readers to see whether they could distinguish its rhetoric from that of We Are the World. You can’t, and that’s the point. Barack Obama’s celebrity appeal is not (contrary to what he appears to believe) fueled wholly by his innate qualities: the elements of desperation and projection, powerfully amplified by his comparative lack of public accomplishment, build him into the apparent juggernaut — and thus enable him to travel to Berlin, deliver a thoroughly pedestrian speech, and receive adoration for it.

What Barack Obama’s partisans want to hear less than this — that their candidate’s speech was unremarkable — is that it was very much in the rhetorical tradition of one George W. Bush. In listening to it, the recollection was not of the oft-cited JFK or Ronald Reagan, but of the current President’s Second Inaugural Address. The central themes are quite nearly the same: a wholesale reversal of John Quincy Adams’s formulation of American foreign policy, which stated that America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.” George W. Bush explicitly rejected this when he proclaimed, “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.” Barack Obama expressed the same rejection less succinctly:

Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century … Now the world will watch and remember what we do here — what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time? Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words ‘never again’ in Darfur?

The implied answer to each query: under President Obama, yes we will!
 
If George W. Bush and Barack Obama share the same conceptual view of America-in-the-world as an active exporter of values and mores, it does not follow that they are the same in their particulars. (The President, mercifully, never inflicted upon us pseudo-scientific whoppers such as, “As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.” Question: will some alert member of the press corps ask Obama to identify and travel to the inch of Atlantic coastline that “cars in Boston and factories in Beijing” shrunk?) Nonetheless, it is tremendously important to understand that their differences are fundamentally those of process, not premise.
 
Again, this is not what Obama supporters want to hear — nor, I suspect, is it what the President’s ever-shrinking fan club wants to hear. The group that loves the one generally loathes the other. There are good reasons for this, but we increasingly see that the basic vision of America’s place in the world is not one of them. The specific differences matter, but can we argue that one is fundamentally worse than the other? With Iraq still at war (however improved that war is), with Osama bin Laden still free, with the Taliban resurgent, with the Iranian nuclear program going strong, with Hamas in possession of a de facto state, with Hezbollah ascendent, and with Pakistan still unstable, is there a case to be made that the vapid platitudes that undergird Barack Obama’s foreign-policy program are qualitatively worse than the vapid platitudes that informed most of George W. Bush’s?
 
In the end, they share the most vapid platitude of all: that America’s mission in the world is to, well, “lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty.” We’re a long way from the United States’s former mission — you know, the one compelling it to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.” America’s engagement in the world after 1945 used to be justified and justifiable on those terms, and every postwar president till now more or less grasped this. George W. Bush decisively changed that, and the question was whether his re-orientation of America’s raison d’etre was unique to him, or a lasting shift in foundations of American policy. With Barack Obama’s speech in Berlin today, we know the terrible answer.

George Handlery on the week that was. Obama in Berlin: what is in the package? Russia’s permission is needed to defend Europe. Negotiating by not talking. America as an ally. Leopards and their spots. A convenient pretense: both sides are right. Minority rights and majority protection.
 
1. Obama in Berlin. It is an attractive venue as Berlin is a symbol of hanging on tough in moments when surrender appeared to some to be the easy and wise choice.  Watching the performance the excellent packaging makes a striking impression. Under the wrapper, a lot of space-filling Styrofoam. It protects a miniscule object. The hard-to-describe item has fuzzy contours. The crowd cheered loudly when fashionable slogans were fed to it. Especially the implied dropping of Iraq got approval. Notable is the reception of Obama’s inconsistent reference to “defeating terror’ in Afghanistan. The claim that America needs her European “partners” help there – to which Germany is officially committed – brings silence. This speaks loudly. It also lends credibility to the claim that Obama’s “wishy” instincts match Germany’s “washy” preferences. Great endorsement. Comforting reassurance for the correctness of the proposed path says the campaign. Poor America.
 
2. Obama’s popularity here comes from the fact that he is a surface upon which the desires of the historically protected and undeservedly lucky locals can be projected. What many Europeans want from Obama is something that even they, who are ignorant about free lunches, know cannot be gotten from McCain. The wish is an America that is an effective last resort guarantee of security while she, contradictorily, avoids confrontations by evading them through dexterous submission to pressures. The shadow of future disappointment darkens the anticipated end of the road. Even Obama is unlikely to be willing and able to practice as much appeasement as is expected of him.
 
3. Obama (July 15) called upon the US to end her single-minded “focus on Iraq.” Between the lines, this sounds like a first call to drop the entire Iraq project. The US might officially forget such retreats. Furthermore, her politically only temporarily interested citizenry could also fail to notice the facts and the implications of backing out of commitments. However, future friends and foes will be made to think. One result: friends will seek distance and the enemies will be emboldened by yet another self-willed defeat.
 
4. An insight generated through extensive Obama-watching. To be nominated you must proclaim how, if compared to all others, different you are. Once nominated you better prove that you will continue to manage things as before in the existing framework. Add that you will do this better than the other guys could. Leopards do not change their spots. Obviously, some of the candidates are not leopards.
 
5. A categorically reduced presence in Iraq has crept into the platform of a party that might win the US’ presidential contest. Through a withdrawal that is not warranted by earlier military success and Iraq’s ability to combat the Jihadists, America will be sending a message. The meaning of the smoke-signal: new challenges posed elsewhere will in the future not be met resolutely.
 
6. Something we know but have not learned. The simple solution that enables the voter instantly believe in it without thinking is not necessarily the best response to problems to be solved.
 
7. July 16. The US sent an envoy to Geneva to accompany the Solana-led Europeans in their talks with Iran. Meanwhile Iran held air power tests and announced that it is invulnerable. Conclusion: every effort to meet Iran halfway after one has already moved part of the way in her direction is met with new threats.
 
8. Regardless of the EU’s, and newly of the US’, concessions, Iran is unprepared to suspend the enlargement of her nuclear activities. Obviously, Iran regards (anticipating a new President and the promised stalemate in Iraq) military action against her nuclear project as unlikely.
 
9. Iran refuses to halt her enrichment program in exchange for material concessions by the EU and the US. Meanwhile, Iran wishes for the talks to continue. The question might be: what talks? Besides gaining time to complete ongoing projects, what purpose can talks, held merely to exchange noises, have? July 19. The meeting with the representative of the Great Powers plus the US’ Burns represented a major gain for Iran. So did the proposition that a “freeze for a freeze” be agreed to by Tehran.  (Iran does not expand her ongoing enrichment activity. In exchange, the concerned Powers refrain from additional sanctions. Plainly put this means that Iran continues without accelerating while the Great Powers persevere in doing nothing.)
 
10. Iran calls the proposal rejected by her as being part of a “step forward”. Obviously, the purpose of this odd interpretation is to make the other side appear to be unreasonable once Tehran chooses to make it clear that she will not compromise diplomatically. A clear sign of this came on July 24. According to Iran’s interpretation, the IAEA’s attempts to control – as agreed earlier – her nuclear activities is an insult to her. Either the international nuclear watchdog cuts back on its aggressive sniffling or Iran might stop “cooperating” with the IAEA.
 
11. Russia is reluctant to accept a European anti-missile defense system. Is Russia’s disapproval of such a system of defense a greater danger than the peril implied if, deferentially, the continent is left indefensible. Precisely put, “indefensible” here pertains to having to obtain Russia’s approval for acquiring the relevant technology and then, logically, needing her permission to use it.
 
12. Labor unions and politicians try to maintain branches, firms and jobs endangered by modernization unchanged. That is easier than to advocate instead programs creating novel opportunities that are synchronized with new conditions. The votes come from the people locked in the threatened industries. The future beckons from the latter grouping.
 
13. We have the choice between temporary job-protection from the competition and adjustment to the challenge facing us. It is better to learn to compete effectively than to protect what has become redundant and unproductive.
 
14. There is some confusion about what liberal means. At least in the classical and unpolluted (and in the US out-of-use) sense of the concept, “liberal” is more than a commitment to listen critically, nevertheless attentively to both sides. It also implies that an informed decision will be the upshot of clear-headed evaluations.  Properly, the genuine liberal might find in one side more merit than in the other. What unadulterated “liberalism” does not include is an obligation to proclaim that both diametrically opposed sides are equally valid.
 
15. Regardless of the positive or negative context of a story, the more you talk about the repulsive, the more acceptable the disgusting will become.

 

Psssst.

As our acquaintances increase, accelerated by email, Facebook and group texts, it's possible that we trade quality for quantity. We take our time to build networks, instead of friendships, and occasionally feel quite alone.

ASBO Jesus is hopping mad, as well...

A cartoon from ASBO Jesus.

Reuse note: see Jon's license here. Basically you can reuse the image, but you must give an attribution. You can donate to support Jon at the above link (right hand margin).

I'll be adding this cartoon to the resources page.

When the informal coalition cum network coalesced around the "Usmanov Affair" in autumn 2007, a number of actions happened within the first few days.

At the time Evgeny Morozov, who writes the Daily EM blog about "about the future of technology, media, globalisation and other issues", put together some reflections under the heading "Cyberactivism 101" - documenting the lessons that could be learnt by susequent campaigns.

In this post I am recalling his tips for coalitions where an opponent is attempting to close down debate. This is a summary - Engeny's original article has more detail, and relates the comments to the specific example of the Usmanov case.

A weekly roundup of publications, reports, events & articles from the leading UK think tanks. Don’t let the mention of that lazy trope ‘political correctness’ put you off this weeks ‘must read’ piece -the CPS report ‘Through the Looking Glass’ on Western foreign policy and the sometimes erroneous attitudes that frame it. No roundup next week [...]

Dave Walker is a cartoonist who runs a popular website, which includes the blogs We Blog Cartoons, Cartoon Church and The Cartoon Blog.

On the morning of July 22nd 2008 he received a cease and desist letter threatening legal action unless he removed 75 posts from his Cartoon Church blog by lunchtime - i.e., half a day's notice.

These 75 posts had reported the deterioration and alleged mismanagement over a 2 year period in a UK book chain called SPCK, which had been taken over by a company run by Mark Brewer. Dave Walker's was the main published source reporting the situation, asking questions about the management of the chain, and highlighting the treatment of the employees.

We do not think that reasonable comment should be closed down like that, and we are working to support him.

This article is aiming to help Media Reporters and anybody else find the key information quickly.

Labour have lost Glasgow East. A seat where they had a huge 13,507 majority and gained more than 60% of the vote at the last election now lost to the SNP, with a swing of more than 22%. When Labour is losing a seat like Glasgow East, which they really should be able to hold easily, [...]

A quick roundup.

• I have added an "Introduction" article, designed to give visitors a quick understanding of what is going on. It is here.
• The number of sites linked with published articles has increased to 35 as of this morning.
• The Facebook group is up 184 members.

Dave Walker is a cartoonist who runs a popular website, which includes the blogs We Blog Cartoons, Cartoon Church and The Cartoon Blog.

On the morning of July 22nd 2008 he received a cease and desist letter threatening legal action unless he removed 75 posts from his Cartoon Church blog by lunchtime - i.e., half a day's notice.

These 75 posts had reported the developing situation over a 2 year period in a UK book chain called SPCK, which had been taken over by a company run by Mark Brewer. Dave Walker's was the main published source reporting the situation, asking questions about the management of the chain, and highlighting the treatment of the employees.

Dozens of bloggers do not think that reasonable comment should be closed down like that, and we are working to support him.

This article is an Introduction to the Campaign to what we are doing and how you can help.

The SNP has pulled off a sensational by-election victory.

Someone is going to be absolutely insufferable.

Oh 'Eck.

I'm going to wrap my head in a wet towel as a preemptive defence against headache I'm going to get listening to the waves of smugness emanating from the Radio tomorrow morning.

This post list of resources that you can use, places where you can make your points, and some suggestions for further things to do. Everything on this page is under a Creative Commons License, and can be used on your own sites and to make further work.

Briefly, Dave Walker, the official Lambeth Conference Cartoonist in Residence, has taken 75 posts down on his blog after being threatened with Libel Action by the new owner of SPCK - the oldest chain of Anglican Bookshops. He has been reporting the story of alleged mismanagement for two years. Already there are a lot Industrial Tribunals from ex-employees, among other things.

For details of the case, please see my other articles.

It's that time of year again. From Iain Dale's blog:

We're asking for your votes to decide the Top 100 UK Political Blogs. Simply email your Top Ten (ranked from 1 to 10) to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com. If you have a blog, please encourage your readers to do the same. I'll then compile the Top 100 from those that you send in. Just order them from 1 to 10. Your top blog gets 10 points and your tenth gets 1 point.

I haven't decided who I am voting for, but they will be blogs that I have enjoyed and want to help get into the top 200-300 rather than the top 10 - especially writers I like who have been blogging for a couple of hundred posts and may be getting weary, or blogs that are relatively new. However, here are some blogs I will not be voting for.

Yesterday I promised another Hofmeister beer commercial.

This is - apparently - about why bears are extinct in Bavaria.

I have also updated the list of people posting on the Dave Walker Cease and Desist notice. There are now 27 linked.

Remember - follow the bear.

The arrest of Radovan Karadzic in Serbia on Tuesday has provided yet another occasion for all the tired old propaganda about the Balkans wars to be taken out of the cupboard and given one last airing. In particular, the war is presented as one between a Serb aggressor and an innocent victim, the Bosnian Muslims, and the former is accused of practising genocide against the latter. Even if one accepts that crimes against humanity were committed during the Balkan wars, it should be obvious that both these claims are absurd.
 
First, the Serbs were no more the aggressors in the Bosnian civil war than Abraham Lincoln was an aggressor in the American Civil War. The Yugoslav army was in place all over Bosnia-Herzegovina because that republic was part of Yugoslavia. Bosnian Muslims (like Croats) left the army in droves and set up their own militia instead, as part of their drive for independence from Belgrade. This meant that the Yugoslav army lost its previous strongly multiethnic character and became largely Serb. It did not mean that Serb forces entered the territory of Bosnia, or even that the Serbs attacked the hapless Bosnian Muslims.
 
The accusation of aggression is intended to introduce by the back door an allegation which in fact has vanished from modern international criminal justice. Although the crime of waging an aggressive war was pronounced to be the supreme international crime at Nuremberg, it has been dropped from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court for the former Yugoslavia which will presumably try Karadzic once he is extradited to The Hague, and even the new International Criminal Court (also in The Hague) does not for the time being have jurisdiction over it.
 
The accusation has the effect of condemning the Bosnian Serb war effort at its very origins (in terms of ius ad bellum) independently of any condemnation for the way the war was fought (ius in bello). In fact, the Bosnian Serb war effort was no more or less legitimate than the Bosnian Muslim war effort. The Muslims wanted to secede from Yugoslavia (and were egged on to do this by the Americans and the Europeans) while the Bosnian Serbs wanted to stay in Yugoslavia. It was as simple as that.
 
In my view, it is not possible to adjudicate such matters using the criminal law since, as political questions, they transcend it. But the fact that the Muslims blatantly cheated by holding the vote on an independence referendum at 3 a.m. after the Bosnian Serb deputies in the Bosnian parliament had all been told to go home, and the fact that the Bosnian Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, remained in office throughout 1992 long after his term had expired and long after he should have handed over to a Serb, meant that the Bosnian Serbs had excellent grounds for believing that the Bosnian Muslim secession was quite simply a coup d’état.
 
In any case, once the Muslims had seized power in Sarajevo, the Bosnian Serbs sought not to conquer the whole republic but instead simply to fight for the secession of their territories from Muslim control. Of course atrocities were committed against civilians during this period, especially ethnic cleansing. But the same phenomenon is observed, I believe, and by definition, in every single war in which a new state is created, whether it is the creation of Pakistan in 1947 or the creation in 1974 of what later became the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. If the Muslims had the right unilaterally to secede from Yugoslavia, why should the Bosnian Serbs not have had the right unilaterally to secede from the new state of Bosnia-Herzegovina which had never before existed and a state, and to which the Bosnian Serbs had no loyalty whatever?
 
Second, the Bosnian Serbs are accused (and two have been convicted) of committing genocide against the Bosnian Muslims in the massacre perpetrated at Srebrenica. Let us leave aside for a moment the Serb claims that the numbers of people killed in that summer of 1995 has been artificially inflated for propaganda purposes; let us also leave aside the undoubted fact that the Bosnian Muslims were using the UN safe haven of Srebrenica as a safe haven from which to conduct constant attacks against the Serb villages surrounding the town, during which many atrocities were committed against Serb civilians. (The commander of the Muslim forces, Nasir Oric, was released by the ICTY in February.)
 
What is clear is that the Srebrenica massacre cannot possibly be described as genocide. Even the most ardent pro-Muslim propagandists agree that the victims of the massacre there were all men. The Bosnian Serbs claim that they were combatants (although that is certainly not an excuse for killing them) but the point is that an army bent on genocide would precisely not have singled out men for execution but would have killed women too. The Srebrenica massacre may well have been a crime against humanity but it is impossible to see how it can be categorised as genocide.
 
Unfortunately, there is a very clear political reason why it has been so categorised. The Muslim president of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Haris Silaijdzic, said carefully on CNN the day Karadzic was captured that Karadzic’s trial was only the beginning of the process by which justice would be done in Bosnia. He said that there were hundreds of thousands of Muslims who had been ethnically cleansed by “Karadzic and Milosevic” and that their project therefore remained in force. The clear implication of what he was saying was this: if the very existence of the Bosnian Serb republic (the autonomous region within Bosnia carved out from the republic during the civil war) is found, in a court of law, to have been had as its president a man, Karadzic, who is convicted of genocide in the process of creating it, then its status would be illegitimate and it should be abolished. The Muslims continue to claim control over the whole of the territory of Bosnia-Herzegovina, while the Serbs merely want the preservation of their considerable autonomy within it.
 
In other words, far from bringing peace to the Balkans, it is quite possible that a conviction of Karadzic for genocide will reopen the Dayton settlement and egg the Muslims on to claim control over the Serb republic too. Under such circumstances, it is inevitable that the Bosnian Serbs would try to proclaim formal secession from Bosnia, just as the Kosovo Albanians did from Serbia.