Labour’s Democracy Review

Labour List reports the initialisation of the Labour Party’s “Democracy Review, together with some snide comments about its pace, suggesting that it is designed to  cement Corbyn’s leadership.  and succession rather than ensure it reports to the membership in time to debate the changes before conference.  I say more on my other blog, but have uploaded the PID as a mirror from this site. …

Fall of Fallon

Michael Fallon has resigned as Secretary of State for Defence as part of the fallout from the #metoo campaign. The Guardian covers his resignation and MoD achievements in an article, entitled, “Fallon: the image-conscious minister felled by indiscretions“. While they talk about why he resigned,

I am more interested in their statement that his pursuit of Trident and the Aircraft Carriers, in opposition to the senior military have left the UK defence capability weaker than ever.

They also look at the hypocrisy and lies told about UK interventions in Syria and the Yemen. In their final paragraphs, they say

….. he said he had fallen below the high standards required of the services. But he was never a member of the armed forces. The standards he was required to uphold were those of a parliamentarian.

It may not be over for him yet!

  …

In Writing

More rules shit! Chapter 7.IX.6

Any notice required to be given under these rules shall be in writing which may include electronic communication. Notices to be sent to affiliated organisations and Party units shall be addressed to the secretary thereof.

Correspondence must be between Secretary positions. …

Scope Creep

At LP Conference, Moshé Machover published an article in the Labour Party Marxists freesheet for which he was expelled under Rule 2.I.4.B. The rule is a disgrace, but the expulsion letter also accused Machover of anti-semitic speech. This would have been a scope creep permitting the expulsion of an anti-Zionist for his views, without public evidence, without a hearing and without an appeal. This is almost certainly the motivation for the expulsion, to avoid a Chapter 6 process.

Machover has been reinstated. He is now, rightly, waiting for an apology.  Expulsion/exclusion would have been a disgrace, as it is for all those expulsions under this rule. …

One long year

I am documenting my CPD’s and reviewing the contents of my LinkedIn blog and came across this, “The GDPR will become British law”, published last year where I predicted that the GDPR would be grandfathered into British Law via the proposed “Great Repeal Bill”.

What a difference a year and a general election makes.

I did not predict that since the GDPR has member state derogations and that the Government would bring a Data Protection Bill to Parliament. The fact they’ve lost their majority and are now frightened of loosing votes in Parliament is another motivation for sticking a big complex bill into the time table; iit burns time and one would hope that it can be uncontroversial so there’s no chance of loosing a vote, and even if they do, who cares, apart from people like me.

This could of course be a complete waste of time as it’s the courts which will decide what the law means and if we should leave then the issues raised here … will apply. …

Cheating

The pursuit of the criminal activity of the Leave campaign has come to the fore again, I have captured some of the articles and tweets in a storify story called “Follow (Leave’ EU’s) money”. It talks of Jo Maughan‘s case to get the Electoral Commission to pursue their overspanding. and Carole Cadwalladr‘s attempts to document their receipt of illegal foreign donations and gifts in kind. I also make reference to JJ Patrick’s article on the role of Russian botnets, which would, if collusion were proved,  almost certainly be an illegal foreign donation in kind. …

River of Data

I was first introduced to the concept of a river of data, by Dave Winer; I was reading one of his feeds; I’ve not actually met him. In his mini-polemics against google reader, which used a mail browser metaphor, he argued that feed reading was like standing on the bank of a river;  you could and should only read what you can see while standing at the bank. Any attempt to catchup with the water gone past is a waste of time.

Anyway that’s how I remember it. …