Randomly Selected Article or Link

Here's a serious story that made me giggle a little:

Transgender MP in toilet fracas

An Italian opposition MP and former showgirl has expressed outrage after meeting a transgender colleague in the parliament's ladies' toilets.

Elisabetta Gardini, spokeswoman for former PM Silvio Berlusconi's party, said she felt ill after the encounter during a break in Friday's session.

They certainly don't do things by halves in Italian politics do they? Surely the show girl must be used to having all sorts of strange sexualities parading around her in dressing rooms, make-up areas and so on?

But it's the compromise suggestion that is the funniest - that there should be a third loo for Ms Luxuria, the pre-op transsexual MP that has apparently caused the outrage for Ms Gardini. Or maybe Ms Gardini should just take some of the chill pills and spliffs her colleagues use to help them through the day.

(For what it's worth, the principle I would go by is that it is the post-transition gender that should generally apply, unless and until she decides she's not going to finish the sex-change. So Ms Luxuria - what a great name too by the way - should in fact be using the ladies. Indeed, unless they do things very differently in Italy than we do here, it's presumably the more private of the two anyway. And that Ms Gardini is indeed being a nasty prejudiced piece of work in raising the issue in such a way. Calling it "sexual violence" is just laughable.)

It's that time when people try to get motions in through local parties for spring conference, and Oxford East Lib Dems have asked for some suggestions. So, following on from my "Abolish DCLG" petition, and acknowledging that you can't really have proper devolution and localization without freeing up areas like Health, Education and local Policing from central control, here is an expanded version in all its daft draft glory.

Local devolution, autonomy and innovation

A. Conference believes that:

i. a defining principle of a functioning democracy is that government is legitimate only with the consent of the people governed expressed through regular elections,

ii. that in the United Kingdom, the people give their mandate in respect of local governance issues to local councillors,

iii. competition between local government areas and the innovation this will foster is a significant catalyst for strengthening local democracy and improving the working and cost effectiveness of local government,

iv. since the early twentieth century governments at Westminster of all political parties have imposed increasingly more conditions on local government bodies and centralized increasingly more of their powers and functions,

v. in many respects local government now only functions on the sufferance of Whitehall and Westminster politicians, and as such is enslaved by conformity,

vi. but that notwithstanding v) above, Westminster tends to place the blame for problems in local government on the elected local representatives who have so little control over what they are able to do,

vii. that this fundamentally undermines public confidence in and respect for local government and elected local representatives and is an affront to democracy;

B. Conference notes that:

i. the Liberal Democrats have made a strong start in redressing the issues of inappropriate centralization and regulation with our policy of abolishing the Department of Trade and Industry and more recently our pledge to repeal much business and law and order related legislation,

ii. the Liberal Democrats aim to position ourselves as champions of localism and devolution and against overbearing regulation at whatever level of government;

C. Conference resolves that:

the party should extend its policies around freedom from excessive regulation, particularly in respect of functions that are included in the mandate given to local elected representatives, by adopting policy to

i. abolish the Department of Communities and Local Government

ii. slash the powers of the Department for Education and Skills in respect of primary and secondary education for which accountability lies with local government and local school governors,

iii. slash the powers of the Department of Health in respect of management of health facilities and services that need to respond to needs of local people rather than national targets,

iv. slash the powers of the Home Office in respect of management of police forces,

v. localize many social security benefits and pay policies that impose universal entitlements regardless of need and cost of living in different parts of the country

vi. (...insert further clauses for pet Whitehall functions that could be localized here...)

vii. and allow local elected representatives and their communities to devise their own constitutional arrangements, including but not limited to electoral systems and cycles, tax and finance raising powers and mechanisms, and governance structures, including further devolution to other local bodies and co-operation between local government bodies, to be enshrined in a renewal of their individual local government charters independently of Whitehall regulation and interference (and subject primarily to peer review through a strengthened Local Government Association).

Jock Coats, 30th November, 2006

News that the German and British governments have been paying for information almost certainly illegally obtained in order to chase people who try to stash their money overseas should worry us all. Obviously in this case the amounts of money potentially liable for tax are quite large numerically, although small in proportion to the total tax take - though the fact that it is merely around one fifth of one per cent of the total UK tax take we're talking about should alter our opinion about people who try to beat the system when everyone else has to pay. But it is the means employed that are of concern - paying what amounts to a criminal who has liberated customer personal information from the Liechtenstein bank at which he or she worked.

In a world in which it is ever easier for us to trade with overseas companies and individuals, to live in one place and earn in another and to invest in overseas assets, all of which are a good thing, I have warned previously that governments could try to get more authoritarian about chasing money allegedly stashed away or earned elsewhere:

This means ever more intrusive government, clinging desperately to current understandings of money, income and taxing that income as the only progressive way. We are already seeing huge bites taken out of our civil liberties because of immigration fears, terrorism and taxes.

And of course there is an alternative; that we switch to taxing only things that are impossible to hide - like land, which happens to have the added advantage of being value that the occupier does not create, rather than capital wealth or income which the worker or investor has created.

You might think this is just a bunch of rich people getting what they deserve from HMRC, but their willingness to engage is what amounts to industrial espionage to do so is disturbing and is a message to us all, whether we just trade with Americans on Ebay who then send us "gifts" tax-free or decide to retire to Spain, or further afield, whilst keeping a retirement job working online for a UK employer.

Something potentially quite significant saw the light of day today. The launch of the "Liberal Conspiracy" website/blog seeks to provide a forum (network hub as they call it) for those in the "broad left" to coalesce and celebrate and promote their liberal similarities rather than their leftist sectarianism.

It is the sort of thing that I would have thought a few years ago would have fitted my political outlook like a glove. I worry slightly though, from their launch document, that they might well be more "American liberal" than "British liberal", so will watch with interest for now to see how it pans out.

As both my readers will know, I am absolutely and unshakably convinced that the ideas of what could then have been called the "liberal left" in the late nineteenth century were the solutions that were never implemented that would have created a more equitable world in which our current "state of welfare" would not have been needed. And that these solutions have been merely delayed thanks to the fragmenting of the "left" into liberal and socialist and the hijacking of British politics throughout at least the latter two thirds of the twentieth century by a ding dong battle between the protectionists of business interests and the protectionists of labour interests.

So, I'd like to be part of this conspiracy, if they will have me, and if I see that what they mean by liberalism can accommodate such old-fashioned radical liberalism as mine...

Now, we may not be at the end of a war in the conventional sense in which national planning was necessary to keep up the war effort, but have a look at this and see how many of the captions can still be applied to today's political establishment and direction. It's quite scary really:

Courtesy of revver.com after F A Hayek & Look magazine.

Is T Blair the "strong leader" brought in to enforce obedience to the plan whom they thought they would one day be able to dispense with I wonder?

Is there any evidence that the ability of "planners" (aka political leaders) to implement a plan has improved?

Is there not a feeling growing more and more that a propaganda (aka "spin") machine is controlling the agenda we are allowed to hear?