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On Thursday "The Insider" (a laughable conceit of sniping from behind anonymity mostly at people trying their best to do some good in local politics) in the Oxford Mail complained that a Green councillor had not updated his blog for a few months, describing a blog as a "self important forum to tell people what you have been up to".

Until I got into this I was extremely skeptical myself about it. And I did think blogging was a bit of onanistic self-promotion that probably nobody would ever read. Of course the Insiders gives the lie to that suggestion - since he, or she, obviously does follow them sometimes. We've seen how instant news from ordinary people on the scene - long before the news crews could get there - gave us insights into the July bombings, the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, the war in Iraq direct from a chap in Baghdad. How the BBC and other news networks are paying people for their camera phone eye-witness reports and images and so on.

All one can reasonably conclude is that it is in fact the media running scared. Blogging offers an opportunity for people to air their opinions for others to find and read. It threatens the monopoly of the "Fleet Street" scribblers in holding our attention for a few precious minutes every day. And of course they do it for money - whether the journalist or commentator getting paid, to the media giant continuing to attract advertising - if we all got our opinions from each other (and they're no less valid - often it seems more honest and truthful than opinion journalists in my experience) instead of from the self-important scribbler in a newspaper or television office, they have little else of worth to us.

Finally running scared of the power of the web are we, "Insider"?

...I'm going to take a shot at it. I see Tia MacGregor, one of the pair of new Tory councillors on Oxford City Council has been a media-whoring, trying to get another opportunity in the local rag to justify the unjustifiable. I notice in her latest self-defense New Tory Councillor Defends Her Move (from thisisoxfordshire) she no longer mentions her earlier suggestion that she was seduced by Tory policy on the NHS.

Could it be that they do not actually have any policy on the NHS yet? For it seems it must be up in the air in one of those interminable policy review groups, for her new colleagues in Cornerstone are trying to influence the outcome...

I wonder if Dr MacGregor agrees with their approach:

Tory right-wingers step up pressure on Cameron over NHS

By Colin Brown

The group, which is led by senior Tory backbencher Edward Leigh and has the support of a number of front bench spokesmen, said in a report that scrapping the NHS as a tax-based system could enable the Tories to offer "massive" tax cuts at the next election.

This is the party you have joined, Tia. How are you going to look your patients and voters in the face and explain this to them?

The Independent and others today highlight a report from US "Intelligence Agencies" that says that Iran ended any nuclear weapons program it had going four years ago in response to threats of sanctions and force and international signs of disapproval

Iran 'has halted its nuclear weapons programme'

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 04 December 2007
In a blow to Bush administration hawks demanding military strikes on Iran, a US intelligence report reveals that Tehran's secret nuclear weapons programme was shut down four years ago. The finding which has come as a surprise to friends and foes of the US concluded: "We do not know whether [Iran] currently intends to develop nuclear weapons." That is in sharp contrast to an intelligence report two years ago that stated Iran was "determined to develop nuclear weapons".

Now, I've never really got as worked up about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the powers that be in the west seem to want me to be. Armed with just a little knowledge of how Islam views the gifts of God - nature - and everyone's right to share in that bounty I see no contradiction in their claim that Iran has a right to the same advantages of nuclear power as anyone else on the planet and should be allowed to develop its own fuel security - perhaps especially so for an economy so tied to dwindling hydro-carbon fuel sources.

Scary mad? or Funny mad?

But I also have a bit more regard for the Ayatollahs' level of self control and state control than most I suspect. Ahmadinejad is not a Saddam Hussein. The autocrat in Iran is not the populist big-mouthed macho President, but the scion of the pious, quiet, considering religious cadre, the "Supreme Leader". And, despite the circumstances of their rise to power, I've always believed them to be that much more circumspect about dealings with the rest of the world, and a bit more interested in maintaining a place at the table rather than posturing as pariah state. And most importantly, it is they and not the secular presidency that holds sway over foreign policy.

So I hope this "news" will help some world leaders find a way of stepping back from the brink a little, though there is, it appears, enough comfort in the report that keeping a lid on the situation is a credit to Bush's hawkish policies towards Iran for the past few years for him perhaps even to ignore this report completely. But for me now the way forward with Iran must be one of constructive engagement rather than brinksmanship. Ultimately the way we may be able to change what is still to me an odious regime is going to be through showing ordinary Iranians by whatever means we can that liberal democracy is a better way and we can only do that if we both open up a bit.

A few years ago Iran was heading down a different path - with the opening up of their banking system to the outside world they were making strides towards the economic freedom that could eventually set the people free as well. We don't help those factions inside Iran get back to power by making the current conservative regime seem to be the stalwart defenders of their state and their faith against an always hostile world.

Of course the greatest irony in all this for me is that secretly, I'll bet the very people who got Bush into power in the first place, the evangelical Christian Right in the US, would dearly love to be able to modle their own state on the theocratic fascism of Iran. The thought of the Southern Baptist Convention choosing who may stand for Congress and who can be President and having control over that country's holy firepower is truly frightening.

Following hard on the heels of Chief Constable Fahy, the head of Oxfordshire area's police, Chief Superinendant Shaun Morley, demonstrates what I have come to expect from Oxfordshire's top policemen, a more generally liberal attitude whilst being mindful of the harm some people are inflicting on others and their communities with their irresponsible actions and attitudes.

He clearly talks sense, and from experience. It is utter nonsense to increase the age at which people may buy or consume alcohol. It's arbitrary and unfair to those who are able to enjoy a drink responsibly:

"I am not especially convinced that the answer is to raise the minimum age for drinking alcohol and in general I'm in favour of less regulation, and better self- management."

But the story highlights a few areas where improvements could be made:

Earlier this month, police also revealed one in ten licenced premises in Oxford sold alcohol to underage teenagers in a undercover operation.

I also read this week I think, but can't find it now, that there were a tiny number of operators losing their licenses for such things. 68 in a year in England was the figure that sticks in my mind. Perhaps if we got closer to a zero tolerance approach on sales of alcohol to under-18s people would be more circumspect about who they sell to - none of this namby-pamby fining and so on - let's go for license revocation first time out and so on.

Also, there needs to be a two-way discussion here - on-license holders need to be more responsible about not selling to people who are already too drunk. Many's a time here at halls when after closing time I have found people asleep or comatose in the middle of the road who should probably not have been sold another drink several hours previously. That said, I can't get too sanctimonious, as I for one have certainly had too much on occasion. Though I never get violent, drunk or not - I might start jibbering more than usual and then fall asleep midway through a sentence!

Also, dear to my heart, he singles out students:

"We certainly need a significant change in attitudes to alcohol, especially in the 18 to 24 age group, including students where wholly inappropriate behaviour fuelled by excess alcohol consumption is seen as acceptable by many of that peer group.

I have this pet theory that for "normal" local residents, one of the problems is the demise of the "local" in favour of an array of drinking sheds in city and town centres. Of course these came about as a way of making the throughput of alcohol sales more efficient for the brewers. But what they mean is that particularly for young people, they no longer learn to drink in the relatively safe surroundings of a local pub in a village or estate, where they have the friendly eye of a landlord who hopes and expects to see them again soon, and neighbours, friends and family who can take them to one side and point out when they are becoming a nuisance or worse. If that is true for people with their roots in a particular city it is even more of a challenge for our student residents.

Here at Brookes we are just about to initiate a discussion internally about enhancing the role of wardens in halls of residence such as myself, and I will be bringing this up as part of that. A couple of years ago many were scathing about the comments of the Vice-Chancellor at Brunel suggesting that universities had a parental type duty to teach social skills and personal responsibility to their students and, I have to say that over the past couple of years in particular when license times have been extended in Oxford and people roll into halls leery and noisy at all hours, I am beginning to agree.

I'm not a confrontational person so it would be a challenge to me to face up to some of the drunks that tear about the place after closing time, but I think we probably have to face up to doing that. We have a university disciplinary charge of "bringing the university into disrepute" which I suspect could be used here.

When I was done for driving under the influence fifteen years ago the police had to deliver me home to ensure that someone recognized me at the address I had given them. I wonder if the same applies to people who are arrested for alcohol related offenses in town? If so, perhaps wardens and college authorities should be the ones asked to vouch for such people when they are delivered back to university accommodations. If we had that heads up we could take action to show them that the university does not approve of our students bringing the university into disrepute by their actions out on the town at night.