Longrider

Following my post on archiving my Blog-City posts over to Wordpress, a commenter; Martin Smith has very kindly come to the rescue with a little Java script. This converts the Blog-City XML files to Moveable Type format. Then all that is needed is to run the import script in Wordpress for Moveable Type posts and it’s all done.

There are some caveats. The Blog-City XML files do not contain categories, so you will have to do this manually. As the posts are imported as drafts, you can do this as you publish them.

Caveat two is more interesting. The timestamp on the XML files is the last time that the file was updated - so, if there are comments, the timestamp will be the time of the last comment not the time the post was originally submitted. So, if that’s an issue, you will have to manually reset the timestamp on posts with comments.

September, October and November 2005 all have a timestamp of 03/12/05 @ 11:59. This is because Blog-City had a problem at about that time - I recall them being down for a couple of days. Clearly this affected the data. So, again, you will need to manually correct.

You can download Martin’s file from here.

Doctor Vee has criticised Bob Piper’s remarks about Liberty Central. He chose to take a somewhat sarcastic approach, but there is an underlying point worth exploring. A point I see that has now been picked up by Pete.

Liberty central is a coalition across the political spectrum. Bob’s dislike of coalitions is not new in British politics. Indeed, many of those in the two main parties would find that the idea of a coalition government, for example, sticking in their craw. This is, perhaps, the main objection to a shift from our first-past-the-post electoral system in favour of some sort of proportional representation. The current status quo does, at least, mean that one party maintains a firm grip on power during its tenure - and, ostensibly, it is a majority party.

That the last point is manifestly untrue, is why there is now a backlash building. A PR system may well give undue influence to smaller parties through a coalition, but the current arrangement has given us electoral dictatorship by an immovable minority party with no means available to the electorate to influence them between elections. Political lobbying of ones MP is a pointless, soul-destroying exercise in futility.

Coalitions do, indeed, have weaknesses. Internal differences can lead to the breakup of the coalition and that may lead to more elections. Italy was well known during the seventies and eighties for its regular elections.

However, back to the main point - that of the principle of coalition. Bob dislikes his political opponents - indeed, he is rather dismissive of them:

I dislike intensely Liberal Democrats. I consider them to be, broadly speaking, spineless, hypocritical snivelling shits.

Really? Broadly? And how many would that work out to be? Most of them? 75%, perhaps? As much as 90%, maybe? Not too much of a sweeping statement of the utterly inane. That’s a bit like saying that all Labour councillors are mindless jerks with mouths where their brains should be (or was I thinking of something else?) - except that it isn’t true. My Labour councillors happen to be decent well meaning people who work hard at what they do. One of them is a friend. As someone who was raised “old” Labour, who actively participated in the trade union movement and was a paid up member of the Labour Party until the Party became so utterly authoritarian, that I couldn’t remain, at no time did I dislike my political opponents because they held a different political opinion. Why should I? I now regard Bob a political opponent as he supports the Labour political machine; but why should I dislike him? I don’t know him well enough to draw such a conclusion. Come to that, I might find that on a personal level, I could like Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Blunkett… Okay, maybe that’s stretching it a bit…

Doctor Vee pointed out that the Labour movement evolved from a coalition. Bob’s response was dismissive:

You may be engrossed in the events of 1903, but they are not big news around here.

The good doctor wasn’t engrossed, he was simply making a point - and a good one. The Labour movement came about because groups from the left banded together to form it. In that way, it is no different to what is happening here. Coalitions are what we do. Whenever people gather together for a common aim, you get a coalition. Political parties are coalitions, and when the governing party loses its way, invariably the opposition to it will come from across the spectrum - and you get a coalition.

Does this make me a Labour basher or someone who just wants Labour out of power? Well, I do want Labour out of power. Frankly, three terms is too much for any party. One term isn’t enough for the party to put into place its agenda. Two is just about right. The third term seems to be when the rot really sets in. They start to get too used to the power. So, yes, I want to see them go. I certainly don’t agree with Neil Harding that we should just vote blindly for a party to keep out the opposition. Indeed, such shallow, partisan thinking causes me to recoil. If a party’s policies are repugnant to me, I will not vote for them. If it is a party I have belonged to and supported, I will still not vote for them. I don’t do unthinking loyalty - my loyalty has to be earned.

I’ve lived under a Tory government; I could do so again. We really do need a change. I don’t hold out a great deal of hope that Cameron will be a shining beacon, but the current administration is well past its sell-by date.

One final point. Bob states that he is an individual.

…we are individuals after all.

Better not let the thought police find out…

My polemic earlier on has warranted a bloody devil award. Well, I don’t know what to say…

Thankyou to my mother who claims responsibility for my writing prowess - and, indeed, thankyou to Tony Blair, without whom, I would not have lost my temper and had the necessary inspiration to write such rich vitriol - and well deserved it is, too. :devil:

Also, this week’s britblog roundup is up.

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it,” Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945)

Today’s Guardian offers a defence of his record, by the right dishonourable Tony Blair.

There is a charge, crafted by parts of the right wing and now taken up by parts of the left, that New Labour is authoritarian, in particular, that I am. We are intent on savaging British liberties, locking up those who dissent and we abhor parliamentary or other accountability.

Indeed. And why is that? Why do the left and right converge in common accord on this? Is it, perhaps, because it is true and that we value those liberties being stolen from under our noses?

The reason right wingers are keen on this is clear. New Labour has eschewed traditional forms of leftist statism.

Bollocks!

But first, the true record. This government has introduced the Human Rights Act, so that, for the first time, a citizen can challenge the power of the state solely on the basis of an infringement of human rights, and the Freedom of Information Act, the most open thing any British government has done since the Reform Acts of the 1830s. We have devolved more power than any government since the 1707 Act of Union introduced transparency into political funding and restricted the Prime Minister’s right to nominate to the House of Lords. In other words, I have given away more prime ministerial power than any predecessor for more than 100 years.

The human rights act is not a guarantee of human rights. Indeed, there are those who will argue with some justification that it is counter productive. Personally, I remain neutral, waiting to see the outcomes of test cases before I make a judgement. Devolution, frankly, has been a monumental fuck up. Scotland gets a parliament, Wales gets a quango talking shop; an extra layer of bureaucracy interfering in peoples’ affairs and England gets sidelined. As for the Lords, we get Tony’s cronies while the hereditary peers get booted out. We were promised Lords reform, I seem to recall. This certainly isn’t it. If you think the horrendous fudge we currently have is something to be proud of, you are nothing but a feckless wastrel with rather low aspirations.

As for parliament, I have spent proportionately more time answering questions than any predecessor; given more statements; am the only PM ever to agree to appear before the select committee chairs; the only one to give monthly press conferences.

Yes? So? That’s your fucking job, you mendacious mountebank. That’s what we pay you for.

What about the charge that ID cards and anti-terrorism legislation transgress basic liberties and are, as David Cameron put it, ‘unBritish’? Here, we must put a new case about liberty in the modern world. I am from the generation that I would characterise, crudely, as hard on behaviour, but soft on lifestyle, i.e. I support tough measures on crime but am totally pro gay rights. I believe in live and let live, except where your behaviour harms the freedom of others. A society with rules but without prejudices is how I might sum it up.

Oh, this is good. Really good. A new case about liberty. Liberty doesn’t need a new case - the old one was just fine. Freedom from charlatans like you who would have us all subservient to the state. “New liberty” is just another term for new slavery.

But the ‘rules’ are becoming harder to enforce. Antisocial behaviour isn’t susceptible to normal court process. Modern organised crime is really ugly, with groups, often from overseas, frequently prepared to use horrific violence. And, though I get into constant trouble for saying it, while I completely condemn IRA terrorism, I believe it was different in nature and scale from the new global Islamic terrorism we face. For me, this is not an issue of liberty but of modernity.

No, it is not, you dissembling poltroon. Organised crime has always been ugly - unless Al Capone was pretty? Or, closer to home, the east end gangs such as the Krays, were sweet boys really? Modernity is not an excuse to sweep away our freedoms - only a charlatan would believe it so. There is nothing new here that was not here before.

There is no “global terrorism”, simply the politics of fear used by illiberal politicians keen to compound their grip on power. The risk may be different in nature because the jihadists use a different modus operandus to the IRA, but we do not need to sacrifice our liberties to combat it - so doing is to hand them victory.

The question is not one of individual liberty vs the state but of which approach best guarantees most liberty for the largest number of people.

Oh, for fuck’s sake! Individual liberty is the way to guarantee liberty for the largest number of people. Are you really this utterly stupid or are we being treated to more newspeak?

It is a world of vast migration, most of it beneficial but with dangerous threats. We have unparalleled prosperity, but also the break-up of traditional community and family ties and the emergence of behaviour that was rare 50 years ago.

Bollocks! Get your history books out, you ignorant prick! Criminal behaviour has been with us since we dropped out of the trees. It will always be with us. Our “traditional” methods have evolved as the best way of dealing with it while preserving the rights and freedoms of the innocent. Oh, but you, with all your arrogance and conceit know better than hundreds of years of evolution. Oh, yes, you, Saint Tone of Blair, you know better. Well, you don’t. All you know is the fascism of state control.

Organised crime operates to incredible levels of sophistication. Organisations that support terrorism take enormous care to avoid infringing the strict letter of the law.

Yes? So? Nothing new here. These are the same people who will make a fortune forging the unforgeable identity cards and hacking into the NIR and stealing peoples’ identities.

People should be prevented from glorifying terrorism. You can say it is a breach of the right to free speech but in the real world, people get hurt when organisations encourage hatred.

Frankly, only a moron or a bare faced liar would come out with such tripe. Of course it’s an infringement of free speech and if you believe the crap you are spouting in this article, you don’t understand how free speech works. But, then, that’s no great surprise.

On ID cards, there is a host of arguments, irrespective of security, why their time has come. Most people already have a range of different cards, for workplace, bank or leisure. And, contrary to what is said, it will not be an offence not to carry one.

This pile of poppycock is almost not worth the bother of a response. Their time has indeed come. That time was 1939 - 1952. That time is past. The “host of arguments” has been thoroughly debunked. There is only one reason that a government would want to pass this bill and that reason is state control of the populace.

Finally, back to politics. The worry some people have is that the Tories have joined with the Lib Dems and that we are therefore on the wrong side of the debate.

Oh, fuck you, you asinine arsehole.

Their attitude to liberty does indicate, though, a refusal to understand the modern world. If the nature of the threat changes, so should our policies. That is not destroying our liberties, but protecting them.

No. It is you who does not understand liberty. This whole sorry pile of piffle demonstrates once more that you are utterly unfit for office. Go now and quickly, please.

This is a Sunday morning. Usually I am in a peaceful and relaxed mood on Sunday mornings. Reading this has raised my blood pressure somewhat - hence the rather less than passive style. Once I’ve taken a few deep breaths, I’ll restore normal service…

Please note that Longrider blog is moving. The new URL is: http://www.longrider.co.uk/blog.

For the moment, my current Blog-City account will be active as I’ve paid up until October 2006. After that, it will probably disappear. Certainly it will need to stay around while I figure out how to import my archives into Wordpress.

Those of you who link to me, please update your records.

Many thanks

Mark

The spectre of Margaret Thatcher has risen like a cadaverous apparition in the British blogosphere of late. It all started innocuously enough with a comment about her authoritarian tendencies. I stand by my original statement; Thatcher had an authoritarian streak running through her a mile wide. However, as the Pedant General pointed out:

…she was thoroughly autocratic with her own party but NOT WITH THE COUNTRY.

I wouldn’t go so far as to agree that she was libertarian, though. Her management style was that of an autocratic bully. A libertarian manager would have adopted an enabling style of management whereby rather than aggressively ridiculing dissenters, would have embraced the dissent and used it creatively to sense check her decisions. Believe me, it helps one avoid catastrophic mistakes, just as it can confirm that one was right in the first place. I avoided a few mistakes by listening to dissenters in my team; had Thatcher done so, she might have avoided the Poll Tax debacle.

It all started to get interesting when others became involved in the discussion. For the record, I do not need a history lesson as Mr Harding asserts.

…YOU need a history lesson mate!

I recall those years clearly and I am capable of looking back dispassionately and recognising what Thatcher was and what she wasn’t.

Margaret Thatcher was the reason I joined the Labour party. I despised her hectoring, bullying style. Also, during the early years of her premiership I found myself adrift in her economic reforms. I never want to see the inside of an unemployment benefits office again; soulless, life-sapping places filled with the bureaucratic and the despairing. Indeed, the two occasions that I was forced to sign-on were such deeply depressing experiences that I took anything rather than have to go back. In the latter years of the Thatcher tenure, high interest rates; peaking at around 15%; and the poll tax combined to kill my embryonic driving school. My main clientele were either young people who suddenly found themselves facing a £1000 poll tax bill or people who came late to driving and were facing massive hikes in their mortgage payments, not to mention that £1000 poll tax bill.

You can presume that I was not a fan. I remain so. For Mr Harding to presume that I am suggesting otherwise:

Oh yeah, Mr Longrider, Thatcher was nice really, just a bit authoritarian with her party no-one else, YOU need a history lesson mate! Thatcher made our lives hell, taking away our freedoms left, right and centre! She made Blair look like a pussy!

is, frankly, bollocks. It is a classic strawman argument and one I’ve come to expect. “Nice” is not a term I would use. However; as the Pedant General and Pete in Dunbar said during the discussion, she may have been authoritarian in nature, but her policies weren’t. The problem here is that Neil is using the term “authoritarian” to describe Thatcher policies because he didn’t like them.

It is difficult to conduct a discussion where the two parties cannot agree common terms of reference. I understand what is meant by authoritarianism - so too, do most of the people involved in this discussion - bar one. Let me explain; polices that you don’t like are not necessarily authoritarian. Blair’s policies are. They are, because they involve state interference in peoples’ personal affairs. They are, because they transfer further power to the executive and away from the people. They are, because they put into place the components of a totalitarian regime. Or as the wikipedia entry puts it:

Authoritarianism describes a form of government characterized by strict obedience to the authority of the state, which often maintains and enforces social control through the use of oppressive measures.

Thatcher, for all her faults, did not do this. Her personal management style could, indeed, be characterised as:

…the personality or management style of an individual or organization which seeks to dominate those within its sphere of influence and has little regard for building consensus.

Therefore, by commonly understood terms of reference, she was an authoritarian manager within her party but not an authoritarian prime minister. What she sought to do within the team, she did not seek to do in the nation.

While we are on common understanding there are a couple of other terms that clearly need explaining:

Civil Liberties

Civil liberties are protections from the power of governments. Examples include the right to life, the right to self defense, the right to a fair trial, the right to own property, the right to privacy, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom of assembly.

All of these are under attack by the current Blair administration. Doing this, makes him an authoritarian - but as it’s for our own good, that’s all okay…

Fascism:

…totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic. The fascist state regulates and controls (as opposed to nationalizing) the means of production.

By this definition, it is not the Devil’s Kitchen that qualifies for this slur; rather someone else…

I notice that the ghost of Thatcher past has manifested itself over at notes from a small bedroom while I was writing this. Does this mean great minds think alike or that fools seldom differ?

Clearly, I’m in the wrong job. I should be in the business of selling dodgy technology to the home office. After all, it seems they’ve got £32m to spend. That’s £32m of our money, mind…

The government has already spent £32m preparing for its ID card scheme even before it becomes law.That means spending rose from £25,000 to £63,000 a day in the last six months of 2005, the Home Office said.

This is for a bill that has not completed its passage through parliament… No wonder the conniving bastards don’t want their costs scruitinised.

On a related issue, almost without anyone noticing, those canny Scots have decided to give all their children identity numbers.

Every child at a state school in Scotland is to be given an identity number to allow them to be traced if they go missing.
The Scottish Executive is introducing the scheme for all primary and secondary pupils, understood to be the first in the UK, as part of child protection measures following the murder of a pupil.

Ah, well, as it’s “for the children” and, of course “safety” then that’s all okay, then. I wonder if the number will expire when they reach the age of majority? Or, will it have proved so useful that they might just as well keep it anyway? If people are that worried, why don’t they just microchip them and be done with it?

Well, having trawled the search engines, there isn’t a script that neatly imports Blog-City posts and comments directly into Wordpress.

The cludge I’ve come up with is to download the XML file which doesn’t cut and past very well, but does give me the post numbers. I then use wBloggar to download the post from Blog-City (using the post numbers from the XML file), copy it, reload the Wordpress account and then paste the post back onto Wordpress and then manually paste the comments back in and update the time stamps.

Is it worth the effort? Who knows? It’s certainly time consuming and tedious, but eventually my Blog City blog is going to disappear once my account expires and I don’t keep it active and I don’t want to lose my archives.

So, I guess, slow time, I’ll be putting them back up on Wordpress - slow time being the operative words.