Paying the Price

In 2009 I intend to run an occasional series of postings about modern martyrs. In deference to the season of goodwill and peace this first posting will tell the story of someone who did not pay the ultimate price for his faith. Pastor Wally Magdangal was sentenced to death by hanging on 25 December 1992 for “blaspheming Islam”. A Filipino national, he had led a secret house church in Riyadh. He was kept in solitary confinement and tortured, but finally released and deported on the day he was due to be hanged. His release is a testimony to the effectiveness of international appeals.

I wish all readers the blessings of health and happiness in 2009.

Autumn celebrations

I was rather disturbed by local television news reports (I was in Derbyshire) during the past week dealing with arrangements for those not wishing to be disturbed at the doors of their homes by young persons demanding sweets as a reward for assuming costumes of what one might call a Gothic character, representing Death, ghosts or witches. The idea that the “celebration” of Hallowe’en is an established part of the cultural landscape of Britain is if I am not mistaken a recent development. The custom has apparently crossed the Atlantic in both directions, an American development of earlier Irish traditions. Meanwhile the celebration of Bonfire Night seems to be in decline. Fireworks are in evidence, but Guy Fawkes less so: the masks which were once on sale in newsagents next to the toffee are nowhere to be seen.

This development is without doubt partly attributable to economics: retailers can sell more costumes associated with Hallowe’en. There is little money to be made from a guy constructed from clothes no longer of any use. Safety concerns about fireworks may also play a part.

I wonder however if the Protestant nature of Bonfire Night, which is essentially a celebration of the failure of a Catholic coup, has meant that in some quarters at least its decline is little mourned.

Applause

I am rather puzzled by the ubiquity of applause nowadays - not, I hasten to add, applause directed at me. When I was a boy, applause in church was almost unknown. Certainly one might clap during choruses to mark the time, rather as with a tambourine or other percussion instrument, but not after a sing so as to applaud the performers. After a solo, there might be murmurs of "Hallelujah" or "Amen" but never applause. The idea was that the singer was performing to the glory of God, not for his or her own glory as performers in a secular theatre or cabaret did.

I do not mean to refer to the practice of a "clap offering" intended in itself to be a form of worship. What I am referring to is the practice of applauding in church in the same kind of way as in a theatre, as a congratulation on the quality of a performance. The loss of the old attitude with its consciousness that only God should be glorified in church does not seem to me to constitute progress.

How Big is London?

The resignation of Sir Ian Blair as Metropolitan Police Commissioner shows what a multi-polar polity has come into existence over recent years. At one time the support of the Home Secretary would have sufficed to keep the Commissioner in post: now he needs the support of the Mayor of London as well. Westminster politics is no longer the only significant level.

Several if not most reports refer to the Commissioner as “Britain’s top policemen”. Is this just a journalistic puff? Surely the Commissioner has no authority outside his territory in the Metropolis?

Sir Ian Blair’s resignation statement mentions no current responsibilities other than those he has for London. However, both the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister have referred to his national role. It is not very clear to me at least what function the Metropolitan Police Commissioner has in respect of policing outside London.

This is probably a rather crude piece of political manoeuvring: by suggesting the existence of a function extending beyond London’s boundaries they are trying to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the role of the Mayor of London in the Commissioner’s resignation.

Cameras are not unlawful, usually

After an unconscionably long rest from blogging, what drove me back to the keyboard was nothing more momentous than a television documentary of the fly-on-the-wall genre. This one broadcast on Thursday evening was about motorway police and showed a remarkable incident where two Swedish sisters took a walk along the central reservation of the M6. Both were badly injured running away from police across the carriageway. The programme in allowing the police to speak for themselves showed them in a sympathetic light in very difficult circumstances. One thing that struck me however was that one policeman told members of the public - drivers whose vehicles had been stopped - to stop taking photographs or filming, and that otherwise he would take away their cameras.

I cannot think what powers he would have to do this. I can well understand that members of the public could be so close as to interfere with operations, but it seemed to be the photography rather than the proximity of the members of the public to which he objected. The whole incident was of course being professionally filmed in any event.

To me, this is an example of the way in which a perfectly lawful activity in most circumstances - photography - apppears to have become an object of suspicion to the police. Mr Austin Mitchell MP has I believe drawn attention to this development. To me it is all the more remarkable that one of the few legal restrictions on photography - photography immediately outside a court - is flouted in most news bulletins with impunity.

National Day of Luxembourg

Today marks the national day of Luxembourg. Most countries’ national days mark an event of historical significance: the United States’ 4 July marks of course the declaration of independence, while Sweden’s 6 June commemorates the accession to the throne of Gustav Wasa – effectively the start of independence from the Danish-dominated Kalmar Union.

Today marks the official birthday of the Grand-Duke, but no Luxembourg sovereign has ever actually been born on 23 June. Grand-Duchess Charlotte was born on 23 January 1896, but the date of the national day was displaced by five months in the hope of better weather.

The choice of date therefore shows a mixture of pragmatism and respect for tradition which is perhaps not untypical of Luxembourg.

15 June 1215

On this day seven hundred and ninety-three years ago at Runnymede King John assented to the Magna Carta:

“No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his rights or possessions, or outlawed or exiled, or deprived of his standing in any other way, nor will we proceed with force against him, or send others to do so, except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land.
To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice.”[1]

What is wrong with that?
[1] Text from British Library: http://www.bl.uk/treasures/magnacarta/translation/mc_trans.html

Not just 42 days

The resignation of the shadow Home Secretary has placed even further emphasis on the 42 days clause of the Bill currently before Parliament. Imprisoning suspects without charge for six weeks is a shocking development, but I wonder if the 42 days clause, appalling as it is, has distracted attention from some other unwelcome developments.

One provision that struck me was the power given to ministers to hold inquests in secret. Section 77 of the Bill which amends the Coroners Act 1988 provides in part:

“The Secretary of State may certify in relation to an inquest that, in the opinion of the Secretary of State, the inquest will involve the consideration of material that should not be made public—

(a) in the interests of national security,

(b) in the interests of the relationship between the United Kingdom and another country, or

(c) otherwise in the public interest.”

The idea of secret inquests – presumably held in camera without a jury – is an unsettling one. I cannot help wondering how wide the definition of public interest in (c) will prove to be. Will it be taken to mean anything embarrassing to the authorities?

Evangelism in Birmingham

I can add little to the chorus of (justified) condemnation of the West Midlands PCSO who abused two evangelists handing out tracts in Birmingham last week. Nonetheless, I would wish to call into question the concept of a “Muslim area” which apparently has formed in some quarters.

The United Kingdom is just that. Its laws apply equally in all parts of the kingdom, unless those laws provide otherwise. In particular, the Bill of Rights 1689 which refers to “this Protestant kingdom” has not been revoked. One may practice any religion in this kingdom, but the state itself is Protestant.

The Christian faith is a missionary faith. Our Lord has commanded us “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost…” (Matt 28:19). Those who decry proselytization are not obedient to this last command Our Lord uttered before His ascension.

Returning to RIPA

I see from the Daily Telegraph (22 May 2008) that Northampton Borough Council has “admitted using the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act five times to catch dog owners who let their pets foul on grass.” The powers were also used in two cases of noise nuisance and two of anti-social behaviour (as well, admittedly, as ten fraud cases).

I looked at RIPA in some detail a little while ago. What puzzles me a little here is (if the report is accurate) into which of the Section 29(3) grounds anti-social behaviour could fall. Anti-social behaviour is not as such a crime to my knowledge in England and Wales. Unless public safety or public health can be invoked, one has to wonder whether the council was acting within its powers.

Whit Sunday

Acts 2:1
“And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.”

When the Church’s history begins, we find the people of God gathered in a single location. This fact gives little encouragement to those who think that belief is an essentially private matter: Christianity is a corporate matter and has been from its first day. Not only were they gathered in one place: they were of one mind. It is perhaps not a very adventurous interpretation of this verse to suggest that the unity of purpose among God’s people was a precondition for the coming of the Holy Spirit. If part of the message of Pentecost is that worship is a corporate public matter, the third of the Church’s major festivals is a holiday worthy of public celebration.

Family seats

So Ms Tamsin Dunwoody, a member of the Welsh Assembly from 2003 to 2007, is to contest the Crewe and Nantwich constituency formerly represented by her mother. One may well think that the writ for this by-election was moved with unseemly haste: Mr Hoon the Labour chief whip (both he and his opposite number Mr McLoughlin have Derbyshire connections) might have waited for Ms Dunwoody to be buried.

I am reminded of a by-election in 1944 in Mr McLoughlin’s constituency of West Derbyshire. The seat had been held almost without interruption by a member of the Cavendish family since 1885. When the marriage of Major Henry Hunloke and Lady Cavendish-Bentinck ran into difficulties, he was obliged to resign the seat, although with the excuse of Army service in the Middle East. Lord Hartington was adopted as the Conservative candidate at a selection meeting chaired by his father, the Duke of Devonshire, while Lord Hartington, on leave from the army, was waiting outside the room.

He was to lose the by-election, in spite of the wartime electoral truce between the major parties, to an independent Labour candidate, Charles Frederick White, whose father of the same name had also previously been elected to the same seat.

The Crewe and Nantwich by-election will be closely watched as by-elections usually are: I suspect for what it’s worth that the family connection may not be very helpful to Ms Dunwoody on this occasion.

The Neighbours' Business?

I see in the Economist that Kofi Annan, the former Secretary-General of the UN, has stated that “southern Africa’s leaders must do more to resolve the impasse” in Zimbabwe. This idea appears never to be questioned in fora of public debate, yet to me it seems a little curious. Without any particular knowledge of public international law or diplomacy, I do not know the basis of the principle that a failure to respect the results of an election in a given country gives rise to responsibility on the part of neighbouring countries to remedy the situation. In fact there appear to be counter-examples. The recently-resolved crisis in Belgium was in some ways diametrically opposed to that in Zimbabwe, in that the crisis was not caused by the refusal of a losing government to stand down but the difficulty in identifying a replacement one. Nonetheless, during the ten-month interregnum there was never any suggestion that France or Germany should take a hand. Similarly the disputed Florida vote count which might have led to Al Gore’s winning the 2000 Presidential election was left to the American machinery of government to resolve: no-one proposed that the Canadians or Mexicans should step in.

Any statements about Zimbabwe from a First World government probably risk being characterised as neo-colonialism. Also, it may well be fair to consider that Zimbabwe’s immediate neighbours bear the brunt of its exodus of refugees, which in itself should give them some sort of right to express an opinion. If I keep my house badly enough, at some point it becomes the neighbours’ business.

Hope springs eternal

T.S. Eliot famously described April as the cruellest month, but a new cricket season is surely always grounds for hope. Derbyshire opened the County Championship campaign at Bristol with a team showing significant changes from last year: there were I think four debutants against Gloucestershire. Derbyshire followers could nontheless be forgiven a sense of weary resignation on scanning the scorecard for the first innings of the match; a score of 124 all out suggests that the long-standing batting problems have not been entirely dissipated. The four debutants managed a combined total of 13 if I have counted correctly. The 124 was put into perspective by the Gloucestershire total of 314, and if the order of the innings had been reversed Rikki Clarke would probably have been asked to bat again in his first match as captain. The second innings was more encouraging however with 114 from Chris Rogers, who is apparently to feature prominently this season as Jayarwardene will not play at all.

To be optimistic, there is a long tradition of Derbyshire’s batsmen getting the side into trouble and the bowlers getting them out of it. Even in this match victory was not entirely out of the question: the hosts, 27 for 1 when rain had the final word, needed another 145 with nine wickets in hand.

Doctor Who is not an economist

I noticed an interesting little exchange of dialogue on Doctor Who this evening. The Doctor and Donna had just found out that a race called the Ood were in fact the slaves of humans in the 42nd (I think) century. When Donna expressed shock the Doctor suggested it was not so different an arrangement from that of our own times, asking Donna who made her clothes.

The writer probably intended to be outrageous, but I think that equating the manufacture of clothes in (for example) East Asia with slavery is really so empty-headed that it is worth hoisting a flag of protest. Is it really necessary to point out that people are not in general forced to work in clothes manufacturing: they do so because even though the work may be uncongenial and require long hours in insalubrious settings, the alternatives open to them, such as working the land, are worse? Is it really necessary to point out that multinationals obviously source from such countries partly because labour costs are lower than elsewhere, but that they would be unable to find staff except by offering pay and conditions which are at least as good and probably better than the local alternatives? Is it really necessary to point out that even if the people who make clothes are poorer than the people who buy them, both parties are better off than if the transaction had never taken place at all?

Proportionality

I was not very surprised to see a report in Friday’s Telegraph that Poole Borough Council had used powers in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 to establish whether parents of a three-year-old child who had applied to an oversubscribed school had given a false address. The article states “The Act was pushed through by the Government in 2000 to allow police and other security agencies to carry out surveillance on serious organised crime and terrorists.” I doubt that this was the only motive. Section 29(3) of RIPA[1] provides for authorisations on no fewer than seven grounds, national security being only one:

“ (3) An authorisation is necessary on grounds falling within this subsection if it is necessary—
(a) in the interests of national security;
(b) for the purpose of preventing or detecting crime or of preventing disorder;
(c) in the interests of the economic well-being of the United Kingdom;
(d) in the interests of public safety;
(e) for the purpose of protecting public health;
(f) for the purpose of assessing or collecting any tax, duty, levy or other imposition, contribution or charge payable to a government department; or
(g) for any purpose (not falling within paragraphs (a) to (f)) which is specified for the purposes of this subsection by an order made by the Secretary of State.”

Moreover, sub-section (b) refers to crime only, not for example to crimes punishable by any particular sentence. So on the face of the wording of the Act, any crime could potentially justify RIPA surveillance. However, the Explanatory Notes[2] to RIPA indicate:
“194. Section 28 and 29 provide that authorisations cannot be granted unless specific criteria are satisfied, namely, that the person granting the authorisation believes that:
the authorisation is necessary on specific grounds; and
the authorised activity is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by it.”

The mention of proportionality is a reference to Section 28(2)(b). The pressure group Liberty has according to the article described the operation as disproportionate. However proportionality is a difficult concept here. The council is reported as having claimed that lying on a school application amounted to fraud. Perhaps the safeguard in Section 28(2)(b) only means that the activity must not be disproportionate with respect to the operation carried out, and offers no yardstick for judging the purpose of the operation itself? At any event, it is certainly a bad thing if people lie to get their children into any school. That fact does not to my mind mean that one can look with satisfaction on the use of covert surveillance for this purpose. Would it be impertinent to suggest that Poole Borough Council’s resources and energies would be more usefully employed in raising standards in its less popular schools rather than in policing the barriers to entry for its more popular ones?

[1] Crown Copyright 2000: source http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/ukpga_20000023_en_1
[2] Crown Copyright 2000: source http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/en/ukpgaen_20000023_en_1.htm

A Roundabout Route

The Telegraph is reporting that “The Olympic torch has arrived at the O2 Arena after chaotic scenes during its tour of London as more than 35 protesters were arrested.” The public debate is about whether those individuals, several of whom are notable sportsmen and women, should have boycotted the relay taking the Olympic flame through London. The question of whether it is preferable, in the light of the recent oppression of protests in Tibet, to boycott the events surrounding the Olympiad or to engage with the Chinese authorities is not one I propose to answer here. However, I recall that even at the time the games were awarded to Beijing it was suggested that the need to make a success of them would be a powerful incentive for the Chinese government to adapt its internal policies in the direction favoured by world opinion. That particular argument cannot, I think, be very convincingly sustained now.

What I find difficult to understand is why the utility of a relay taking the Olympic torch so far out of its way is universally accepted. If one accepts that it is necessary to kindle the flame at Olympia in Greece, why cannot it make its way to China as directly as possible? The flame ceremony itself was, I believe, originated for the Berlin Olympiad of 1936, which hardly seems an auspicious origin. I cannot remember if much was made of the relay taking it to the host city before the Los Angeles Olympiad of 1984, when the distinction of carrying the torch for portions of the relay was for the first time sold off to generate income. I am sure that nothing so crass is happening here: it’s hard to imagine that Steve Redgrave or Tim Henham paid for the privilege of carrying the torch. However, there’s little doubt in my mind that the reason for all this to-ing and fro-ing with the Olympic flame is to stretch out media coverage in advance of the games themselves as much as possible. Even this little platform is to some extent part of that, I suppose.

Relegation for the Rams

So relegation is now confirmed for Derby County. There has been little hope for most of the season, even though the opening result – a draw against Portsmouth – was some encouragement, as was the solitary win against Newcastle on 17 September. For me at least the defeat against Birmingham on 25 August was a very ominous sign, in its way even worse than the 6-0 defeat against Liverpool on 1 September. My reasoning was that several sides would lose at Anfield and nonetheless escape relegation, but few would lose at home to Birmingham – a side that Derby led in terms of league position for much of the 2006-07 season – and still survive.

As Derby’s supporters, although possibly not many of the players – look forward to the Championship, I am left wondering what is the best a club like Derby can expect in playing terms. The top of the Premiership table is dominated by four sides that will probably stay there for a long time, but Portsmouth after 32 games lies in sixth position. Meanwhile, West Bromwich Albion, the team Derby defeated to win their place in the Premiership, has a semi-final fixture against Portsmouth in the most open F.A. cup competition for many years. There is still a place in football, perhaps, for clubs outside the wealthy elite.

Snow and staying at home

The BBC is reporting that motorists in Derbyshire and other places “have been told to keep out of their cars because of Easter snow”.

My Swedish friends are always amused over the immoderate reaction to very moderate falls of snow in the UK. The slightest dusting leads to shops closing early, police solemnly advising motorists not to travel unless necessary (it is never explained what this means) and of course school closures. If schools in Sweden closed for 10 cm of snow it would be hard for anyone to get an education at all.

Part of the difference is of course that people in the UK expect to be able to drive around on the same tyres all year round: winter tyres, common in places with a similar climate to that in Britain, are not so much unpopular as unheard of in the UK. Accidents are then attributed to the failure of road authorities to grit the roads early enough rather than to the use of what in the rest of Northern Europe would be called summer tyres.

Predisposition, Predetermination and Grace

A good deal of comment has been provoked (as was doubtless his intention) by Mr Gary Pugh, a spokesman on DNA matters for the Association of Chief Police Officers. Mr Pugh was quoted in the Observer on 16 March as saying “'If we have a primary means of identifying people before they offend, then in the long-term the benefits of targeting younger people are extremely large.” The idea is to register the DNA of very young children identified as predisposed to crime. I cannot help wondering about the timing of this intervention. Recently there have been two high-profile murder cases in which DNA evidence played a part, and a suggestion, quickly denounced in many quarters, about the possibility of a universal DNA data base. Is it possible that a kite is being flown here so that some proposal yet to emerge will look moderate in comparison?

From a legal point of view the idea of future crime is meaningless. In the criminal law of England a crime generally consists of two elements: an unlawful action (actus reus or “guilty act”) and the intention to commit the unlawful action (mens rea or “guilty mind”). So if there is no action – no actus reus – there is no crime. Even for attempted crimes there must be some action that goes beyond mere preparation.

Mr Pugh might well say that of course the children whose details he wants registered are not (yet) guilty of anything in legal terms, but they could commit crimes in the future. So could he or I. He thinks that it is possible to identify children who are - actuarially - more likely to commit crimes than others. This seems to me to make depressingly deterministic assumptions about the heredity and environment as factors influencing children.

I recently read “Freakonomics” by Levitt and Dubner. One of the more startling ideas in this book was the explanation of the decline in the murder rate in the 1990s in the USA. Pointing out that the decline in the murder rate was a sharp change from previous trends and that it had been completely unpredicted by all experts, the authors conclude that the true explanation is neither policing policies nor economic trends, but abortion. The young men who would have in their peak offending years in the 1990s had not only not started to offend: they had not even been born. This involves the assumption that the circumstances of the women who started undergoing abortions in large numbers in the 1970s were such that their children would have been likely to embark upon a life of crime.

This may be so in actuarial terms. This week however we remember our Lord’s sacrifice on the cross of Calvary: the deepest act of love ever. Instead of abandoning us to our predetermined fate, our Lord entered our world to suffer and die for us, and to rise again from the dead: “Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10, AV).

A Happy Easter to all.

Cymru am byth!

Congratulations to the Welsh on the Grand Slam: two in three years is very impressive bearing in mind that the Welsh teams of the seventies came up with three Grand Slams and ever since have been looked on as representing the golden age of Welsh rugby. It was fitting that Shane Williams should score the try that marked the turning point in the match against France: he makes things happen when the ball comes his way.

England's second place may be the best finish since 2003 but losing two matches in a season means that it still feels flat. Could Ireland be starting a period of relative decline as the generation of Brian O'Driscoll and Ronan O'Gara fades away?

Anyway, the days are getting longer and thoughts start to turn to the smell of newly-mown grass and the crack of leather on willow...

Songs from Sweden

Last night Charlotte Perrelli won the competition to represent Sweden at the Eurovision song contest. It is difficult to convey how seriously this event (“Melodifestivalen”) is taken in Sweden. There were over 3400 entries for the event: this in a country of 9 million. There are four heats (semi-finals) and a repechage (“andra chansen” or “second chance”). Ten entries contest a grand final held at Globen in Stockholm. The complicated voting system to select the winner depends on the results of eleven regional juries which are combined with results from a telephone poll.

There were no fewer than 2.410.200 telephone votes last night. The winner receives a trophy representing a songbird, which is presented by the previous year’s winner – or is meant to be: last year winners the Ark inadvertently swept past Carola Häggkvist who was trying to give them the trophy.

Charlotte won the competition in 1999 when she was still called Nilsson, and so knows her way around the event.

Why don't we see tap penalty moves nowadays?

Mompesson has been enjoying the Six Nations tournament, but struck by an insistent question - whatever happened to tapped penalty moves in international rugby? Pivot moves were a staple at club level in my playing days, but seem to have died out. Perhaps they became too predictable and easily countered. Can it be that the change in 1992 (I think) to award the put-in at line-outs to the kicking side after a penalty kick into touch made touch-kicking a better option in most cases? This afternoon for example, Italy kicked for touch inside the French 22-metre line.

St David's Day

In years past when I was often in Wales at this time of year I usually noticed signs of daffodils patriotically trying to make an appearance by St David's Day: this February however I was more struck by the appearance of reasonably priced strawberries - of course from Spain - in supermarkets. In Marlowe's Dr Faustus there is, if I remember right, a scene where Faustus produces grapes for a lady: he explains to her that he has a demon to fetch them from a part of the world where they are in season. As perhaps do we. Is it a yielding to temptation to choose strawberries as a treat in February? An orthodox economist would say that a deal that is freely struck shows that each party gets something of more value to him than what he surrenders. Others say that the externalities of the means of distribution are not fully accounted for: the pollution released into the atmosphere by the planes and lorries used are not fully reflected in the price paid by the shopper. Something different strikes me: that what was a summer treat in my boyhood is now a part of my diet almost all year round. Perhaps if I want a real summer treat it will have to be plucking the strawberries in my own garden.