Daily Express Translation Service - "Beware The Blacks"

The warning, appropriately on the right, from today's Daily Express is its sensationalist interpretation of an allegedly "explosive report" on research by the University of Leeds. This predicts an increase in the proportion of black, Asian and other ethnic minorities to 20% of the population by 2051. The story has also offered another chance for the Daily Mail to provide a platform for Sir Andrew Green and his right-wing pressure group Migration Watch, who repeats their call - yet again - for cuts in migrant numbers.

However, the BBC points out that one of the report's authors, Professor Philip Rees, has made it clear that predicting population movement is "not an exact science" because it is "impossible to predict exactly how people will move into, out of and within the country... as all of these trends are influenced by a whole range of socio-economic factors." One would imagine that the forthcoming scorched earth policies of the ConDem government might well be one such factor.

Equally, the study's computer modelling suggests that whilst white British and Irish populations are expected to grow slowly, the "other white" ethnic group may expand extremely quickly - as a result of predicted high levels of immigration from Europe, Australasia and the US. But for some reason, the Express is rather less concerned about the 300 000 Russians, 200 000 Yanks, 120 000 Poles, 39 000 Germans, 41 000 Aussies, 27 000 Kiwis or 38 000 French - and these are mainly the figures for London alone. About the only good thing you can say is at least the paper doesn't loathe the Irish any more, although on its past form I'm not so sure the same applies to the eastern Europeans.

But then 'ethnics' isn't even coded language in the way that, say, 'Muslims' is often used to mean Asians. The meaning is absolutely clear - people who aren't white and who Express readers should therefore be afraid of. That's not even subtle - it's nothing but the most base-level racist shitmongering.

There's another obvious conclusion from the report that is worth mentioning- 4 out of 5 people in this country will still be white in 2051. Such a lack of vibrant diversity seems woefully inadequate and is the main reason why I definitely prefer London to the paleness of the provinces.

The final word goes to Charlie Brooker on Twitter:

Would You Like Fries With That?

News today of the probable abolition of the Food Standards Agency and accusations that Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has caved in to the food industry might seem to suggest that the multinationals who provide us with processed, high-fat, high-sugar food have spent the last decade in the political wilderness. Nothing could be further from the truth, as this story from Third Sector ably demonstrates:

McDonald's confirmed as volunteer coordinator for London 2012 Olympics

Lord Coe says fast-food chain will be 'presenting partner' for the volunteering part of the games

McDonald’s will be responsible for recruiting and training the 70,000 volunteers needed to run the 2012 Olympic Games, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games has confirmed.

Lord Coe, chair of Locog, announced on Friday that the restaurant chain had been appointed as the ‘presenting partner’ for the volunteering aspect of the games. "I just instinctively know we have to get this right and recruit 70,000 of the best volunteers," he said. "McDonald’s is pre-eminent in training and retention, and I’m delighted it will be our partner.

"Athletes know they are supported in so many ways by the quality of the volunteers."

Coe declined to reveal the financial terms of the deal.

Steve Easterbrook, chief executive of McDonald’s, said branches of the chain would display posters encouraging people to volunteer at the games. Some of the firm’s staff would be seconded for two years to recruit and train the volunteers, he said.

"Selecting and training talent is what we’re about," he added.

The volunteers will be called ‘games makers’. There will be specialist volunteers for medical services and press operations, and general volunteers working as spectator assistants, uniform distributors and ticket checkers.

Coe said the applications process for specialist volunteers would open on 27 July and the process for general volunteers on 15 September.

As we all know, nothing quite sums up the Olympian spirit like a Big Mac and fries, but Coe must have super-sized on fizzy cola if he really believes that McDonald’s is renowned for retention. What's the old joke? Stay all day and become assistant manager?

Incidentally, there's a few things that potential 'game makers' need to bear in mind: as well as their 15 hours of training, they must be prepared for at least 10 days of unpaid work during 2012. But at least they'll be provided with "an official Games Maker uniform" that "can be kept as a souvenir of the experience and contribution to the Games".

Zero salary, a free uniform and an undisclosed McProfit for the company. Now I see why McDonalds has been appointed.

64748 - The Number of the Boast

Private Eye's 'Rotten Boroughs' column has been having some fun alleging that sycophantic Newham council staff down at Building 1000 by the Royal Albert Docks have been busy thinking up ways to celebrate the 64, 748 votes the Great Helmsman received in May's elections.

Ideas apparently include t-shirts with "64 748" printed on them, the inclusion of the number on the Mayor's headed notepaper and "having the figure engraved on a pair of cuff links for the great man to wear". But none of these ideas seems substantial enough for a man of Sir Robin Wales' enormous importance and so I'm starting a competition for better suggestions.

To get the ball rolling, here's one initial idea: what about twinning Newham with Golden City, Missouri (population: 884), whose United States Postal Service zip code is 64748? Perhaps Building 1000 could be renamed 'Golden City' as a tribute?

Or perhaps this: surely there must be somewhere in the borough where D_C_X_LM_VDCCXLVIII (64748 in Roman numerals) could be carved for posterity and the enjoyment of future generations?

Or as the hexadecimal for dirty grey is #064748, perhaps Newham should abandon its use of imperial purple in the council logo and use this colour instead?

Anyway, enough nonsense from me. Competition entries by the end of August. Judge's decision is final.

UPDATE

An offline suggestion - and trust a member of the local Labour Party to offer something this harsh. Their idea is for a full-length jacket for both of Newham's MPs with the number 64748 embroidered along the bottom, as a tribute to their coat-tails that dragged up the Mayor's vote as constituents worried about the prospect of a Tory government. Ouch!

Please Don't Vote Random Blowe

In A Ruler of Men, the American storyteller O Henry joked, "a straw vote only shows which way the hot air blows". Quite so, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, between now and the end of July a fair number of regular bloggers (see here and here, for example) will ask their readerships to vote in an annual straw poll of the nation's political blogs, organised by the magazine Total Politics.

Most see this as nothing more than a bit of fun and perhaps a little recognition for their hard work. But I'd like to make a request: if you are one of the 10,000+ unique visitors to this blog in the last month and have enjoyed reading it, please don't bother to vote for it in this year's poll.

Let me explain. I know others are deliberately opting out and some have very specific reasons - in protest against the magazine's decision to interview BNP leader Nick Griffin for instance. There is also clearly a great deal of enmity against the popular Tory blogger and 'aspiring' (read: failed) politician Iain Dale, whose company Biteback Media owns Total Politics. As I am never likely to meet Dale, I find the strength of feeling against him hard to properly comprehend - yes, he can be a pompous twat, but having occasionally checked out his blog, more than anything I've found it incredibly dull. Anyway, Dale is both a Tory and a blogger - and let's face it, most Tories and all bloggers have a tendency towards a little pomposity from time to time.

My own reasons for asking people not to waste their time voting for my blog are as follows:

1. It's like comparing oranges and orangutans

At first glance, there seems like an similarity, but then you realise that one has little in common with the other. The straw poll is just a crude popularity contest, unlike the annual Orwell Prize that at least has an interest in the calibre of individual pieces of writing.

Moreover, Total Politics attempts to lump together a wide range of individual opinion into extremely broad and arbitrary categories - what constitutes a 'Left-of Centre' blog covers a huge range of profound disagreement. My own blog is listed on the magazine's website as 'Green', presumably because I sometimes write about climate activism, which ignores the fact that far more posts are about policing issues. Not once have I ever endorsed the Green Party, although I have a lot of time for its MP Caroline Lucas. If you are a regular here, you'll know that at the last general election, I didn't vote for anyone.

The trouble is, everything has to be made to fit within the narrow viewpoint of Dale and people like him who are trapped inside the Westminster bubble, evidently incapable of recognising that politics is not just a restricted profession carried out by political parties and tribal party supporters. Incidentally, this viewpoint doesn't just apply to Tories either. It includes the sort of arrogant Labour leftwinger who would dismissively sneer, "of course there were also the anti-party crowd, but they’ll never amount to much and can be ignored" - as if the Labour left has amounted to much on its own over the last decade.

2. It's just a marketing tool

The annual blog poll is organised primarily as a means of promoting a magazine that I neither read nor have any interest in, in order to generate more profit for its publishers. Now, as far as advertising and marketing goes, I'm usually in agreement with the comedian Bill Hicks. Encouraging bloggers who eventually end up on a 'Top 100' list to add a commercial advertising badge to their sites without demanding payment in advance may well be clever marketing - but seriously, that's all it is.

3. There's the APCO issue

If you care about such things, the sponsorship of the poll by a US lobbying company with links to BP and tobacco industry astro-turfing (see my previous post and this from Sourcewatch) cannot just be discounted as irrelevant - especially for something that's just 'a bit of fun'.

4. If you want popularity, join the commentariat

Tthere are a number of blog writers who would love nothing more than to be discovered and then offered regular gigs on the Guardian's 'Comment is Free' site or in the New Statesman. Others seek greater recognition inside whatever political party they happen to belong to. That's their choice and I guess crude popularity contests may help them on their way to stardom. But this isn't that kind of blog.

Fundamentally, I just don't give a shit whether this site is more or less popular than another, any more than give a shit whether the things I write about are popular or not (the apparently 'lost causes' are the only ones worth fighting for anyway). Visitors drop by for the same reasons that I read the sites listed in the 'Blogs of Note' column on the right of this page - because they are occasionally curious about an individual post. The rest are basically my mates (morning everyone!) or people have a particular interest in policing issues or things happening in Newham.

So please, don't vote for me. It's not worth the time or effort and there's no way I'm advertising someone's dodgy Tory shit-rag here for the next twelve months. I decided a long time ago that I'll only ever promote causes I actually believe in and care about.

UPDATE

I see Phil at AVPS has set up a 'Top 100 Worst Blogs Poll', which at least has the virtue of not surreptitiously advertising a minority-interest magazine. If you thought this post was utter bullshit, then please go ahead and vote for me there!

Die-In At Stratford Station

Local anti-nuclear campaigners marched around the perimeter of the Olympic Park this afternoon and staged a symbolic 'die in' at Stratford station to highlight the threat posed by the regular movement of nuclear waste trains through London, including through the Olympic site.

Bored coppers at Stratford atation

Today's Forest Gate Festival

I had a lovely afternoon at the Forest Gate Festival today - unlike last year the weather was great, but some things remained as consistent as ever - the lack of commercialism and the genuine sense of community. The response from local people about this Wednesday's public meeting on plans by the police to build an Olympic operation base on Wanstead Flats during 2012 was also very encouraging.

We also had the annual appearance of the Great Helmsman on Osbourne Road, looking 'very fetching' in his ostentatious mayoral chain and middle-manager's short sleeve shirt and posing with his minions for any and every photo opportunity. More pictures of the Festival on Flickr.

Above: Sir Robin models the free Festival bags. Nice.

Ian Tomlinson - 500 Days of Injustice

On Friday 13 August, 500 days will have passed since the death of Ian Tomlinson during last year's G20 protests in London and yet the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer has still failed to announce a decision about whether to bring charges against police officers involved in his death.

This continued and unacceptable delay has left the Tomlinson family in a legal limbo, worried that speaking out and demanding answers may be used to blame them for jeopardising the prospects of a fair trial. Whilst other aspects of the protests around the Bank of England and at Bishopsgate on 1 April 2009 have been the subject of reports, investigations and pledges to change the way that public order situations are policed, the DPP's failure to make a decision also means that Ian Tomlinson's death appears to have been all but forgotten about.

So on 13 August, I'd really like you to take action. There are a number of things you can do:

If you are a blogger or journalist - please write about Ian's death, about how his family are still awaiting justice and about how 500 days is far too long for the DPP to sit on a decision to prosecute or not. You can find background information about the case at:

www.iantomlinsonfamilycampaign.org.uk

And feel free to use the badge on the right - you can download it from here.

If you use Twitter - let's see if we can make sure that both #iantomlinson and #500days are trending, leading up to 13 August and on the day itself.

Please send letters to the press demanding that Starmer stops stalling:

The Guardian letters@guardian.co.uk
The Independent letters@independent.co.uk
The Times letters@the-times.co.uk
The Daily Telegraph dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
The Observer letters@observer.co.uk (subject field of email should say “Letter to the Editor”)
Daily Mail letters@dailymail.co.uk
Mail On Sunday letters@mailonsunday.co.uk
Daily Express express.letters@express.co.uk
Financial Times letters.editor@ft.com
The Sun letters@the-sun.co.uk
The Mirror mailbox@mirror.co.uk
News of the World your.letters@news-of-the-world.co.uk
The Morning Star lettersed@macunlimited.net

Send messages of protest to the Crown Prosecution Service on 13 August via its online feedback form

What happens if a decision is announced before 13 August?

Then so much the better - it's not as though a few days short of 500 isn't bad enough already. The whole point is to apply some pressure, to try and remind those in power that Ian Tomlinson's death at the hands of the police it not a footnote and has not been forgotten.

OK, that's it. I hope you can help.

LAZY FRIDAY - Trust Me: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

Today's Lazy Friday lunchtime distraction is from the brilliant Mark Fiore, wwith a reminder that Tony Hayward and BP aren't the first to revel in the wonders of 'voluntary regulation'.

Government Suspends Section 44 Terrorism Powers

As predicted, section 44 of the Terrorism Act is dead. In a statement to the House of Commons today, Home Secretary Theresa May said that police officers will no longer able to use stop and search powers under section 44 on individuals, although they will remain for vehicle searches:

Since last Wednesday, I have sought urgent legal advice and consulted police forces. In order to comply with the judgement – but avoid pre-empting the review of counter-terrorism legislation – I have decided to introduce interim guidelines for the police.

I am therefore changing the test for authorisation for the use of section 44 powers from requiring a search to be ‘expedient’ for the prevention of terrorism, to the stricter test of it being ‘necessary’ for that purpose. And, most importantly, I am introducing a new suspicion threshold.

Officers will no longer be able to search individuals using section 44 powers. Instead, they will have to rely on section 43 powers – which require officers to reasonably suspect the person to be a terrorist.

And officers will only be able to use section 44 in relation to the searches of vehicles. I will only confirm these authorisations where they are considered to be necessary, and officers will only be able to use them when they have ‘reasonable suspicion’.

These interim measures will bring section 44 stop and search powers fully into line with the European Court’s judgement. They will provide operational clarity for the police. And they will last until we have completed our review of counter-terrorism laws.

Labour's response from the Shadow Home Secretary was predictably depressing: Alan Johnson complained that the European Court of Human Rights' judgement was based on the way the powers were used "some years ago" and claimed that section 44 incidents have "reduced considerably over the last two years". This is a line straight from the Association of Chief Police Officers, who argued in June that since a review in December 2008, "practice advice [had been] issued to forces, supported by training" and "no errors have been found in the application process [of section 44] since that date".

Clearly neither ACPO or Johnson are aware of the arrest of a press photographer covering climate change activists at London City Airport or the stop and search of the Tory MP for Croydon, Andrew Pelling under section 44, both in early 2009.

Nevertheless, the suspension of section 44 powers seems like good news, but one problem with guidelines is that they can be ignored. In December 2009, the head of ACPO's Media Advisory Group, Andrew Trotter, issued guidance to police forces about the use of section 44 and the right of photographers, but within days of this 'clarification', armed police detaining an architectural photographer in the City of London. Then, of course, there is the more recent ill-treatment by police of the young photographer Jules Mattsson, which demonstrated that guidance is far from a priority to some police officers at street-level.

That's why we have to remain vigilant. Let's see whether the government's "interim measures" are adhered to. Equally, we need to see whether the police officers simply rely instead on section 43 powers to stop and search people- it was this part of the Terrorism Act that was used against Mattsson in a another incident just two days ago.

Five Years On - A London Bombings Inquiry Is Still Vital

Today is, of course, the fifth anniversary of a terrible, terrible crime - the bombings on the London underground and the attack on a bus in Tavistock Square.

Most Londoners remember that day vividly, either because of anxiously trying contacting friends on overloaded mobile phone networks or because of the huge disruption to public transport. But it already feels like a long time ago. So much has happened since and little has been good - the execution by armed police of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell station, for example, or the the shooting of one of my neighbours in Forest Gate in June 2006.

One of the worst consequence of the July bombings was the draconian Terrorism Act of 2006 that increased pre-charge detention to 28 days - one of the highest levels of detention without charge anywhere in the world. It's worth remembering that at the time, Tony Blair wanted 90 days and over most the last five years, Labour in government repeatedly used the 'toughness' of its stance on terrorism as a political weapon, one that preyed on people's fears and was used to characterise anyone who expressed concerns about the gradual infringements on our civil liberties as little more than terrorist sympathisers.

It was shamelessly populist, but the 'terrorism virility test' is a tactic that the shadow Home Secretary Alan Johnson is still using, even though one result over the last five years has been a growing paranoid suspicion of Muslims.

The ConDem government has promised to act on pre-charge detention (but extended it for another six months, which makes little sense). Nevertheless, there are other legacies of 2005 that it has not yet addressed. Whilst it been prepared to set up a "fully independent" inquiry, chaired by former Appeal Court judge Sir Peter Gibson, into claims that UK security services were complicit in the torture of terror suspects overseas, it has reneged on promises made in opposition by Clegg and Cameron for an proper inquiry into whether the London bombings could have been prevented. Even the inquests, which have taken five years to come to court and initially looked promising in addressing the issue of 'preventability', are facing rearguard legal manoeuvring from MI5, funded by government money.

Unlike some of those who were injured on 7 July 2005, I am rather relieved that ceremonies for today's anniversary has been fairly low-key and involved a minimum level of mawkish sermonising from government ministers. A more fitting legacy for those who were injured and killed would still be an independent public inquiry into the London bombings - but apparently its one that the new government seems as unwilling to offer as its scaremongering predecessor.