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Politics

The Monarch Two

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After the news over the weekend that a Monarch flight back from Spain had kicked off two Asian passengers because some of the other passengers complained that they looked a bit like terrorists. Bear in mind that they had been cleared by airport security, and the complaints were that they looked a bit weird, were wearing heavy coats, and talking in Arabic. At the weekend we had the various passengers who complained, and over the past couple of days we’ve had the two passengers themselves putting their side of the story.

It transpires that the two passengers were a pair of students on a day trip to Malaga, and from the pictures on the TV probably could be described as a bit weird, but no more than many other people look or looked when they were students. With regards to the heavy coats, they had those on because it was chilly in Manchester when they set off. As to the speaking Arabic, they weren’t, it was Urdu.

The current situation is effectively that everybody is pointing towards the pilot as having made the final decision. Interestingly he apparently blamed the Spanish authorities when the two were removed from the plane saying that they wanted to check something, but the Spanish authorities just escorted them off the plane and did nothing else, saying that since they had twice cleared the security checks, and the complete sweep of all the luggage on the plane for explosives had come up clear they were happy. They were only escorting the two off the plane at the insistence of the pilot. Monarch, the airline involved are refusing to apologise.

I find it really reminiscent of the worrying vigilante attacks that occurred a few years ago on innocent people who were labelled as paedophiles, after elements of the media had whipped up fear. In exactly the same way, the current security alerts had whipped up the same level of fear and suspicion in airline travellers. The key problem was the way it was handled, where the people in charge pandered to the paranoia. What should have happened is that the crew should have assured the concerned passengers that the two students had cleared security, and given the complaining passengers the option to fly on a later flight if they were still concerned. What happened effectively set a precedent whereby passengers can set up a kangaroo court to boot off a flight anybody they donít like the look of without any actual evidence. Bear in mind when you consider this labelling of weird looking Asians as terrorist, that both Richard Reid the shoe bomber who was overpowered on a plane trying to blow it up was white, and apparently a number of the people involved in the current plot were also Muslim converts. When you look at the pictures of the various men involved in the London bombings last year, they also all looked like regular guys.

Having said that, the two students don’t seem exactly upset about it. Bear in mind that they were flown home the following day anyway. The airline itself isnít commenting, but I suspect that without any evidence they would have been treated the same as any other bumped passengers and been put up in an airport hotel overnight too. On top of that, easyJet, a rival airline have offered them free flights to Spain, which of course is making Monarch’s continuing refusal to even issue an apology look worse and worse.

Church, Movies & TV, Politics

The BBC and Christian Voice

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I’ve grumbled before about Christian Voice, the organisation probably best known nationally for their campaigns against Jerry Springer: The Opera, that included publishing personal contact details for BBC executives, and their associated arm twisting of Maggie’s Cancer Centres, and the way that following the Springer complaints, the BBC have given significant airtime to the organisation. Quite often Stephen Green has been included in panel discussions as the sole Christian, and will be portrayed as giving the ‘Christian opinion’.

What always bugs me about these appearances, is that it totally fails to acknowledge that there is a breadth of Christian opinion on many topics, and also runs the risk of mainstream Christianity being associated with a number of the organisations more hard-line, and in many cases offensive campaigns and press releases, such as this release from last year release in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, stating that it was a judgement on the city of New Orleans.

I have to say that I wasn’t alone in my opinion that they were getting a lot of coverage. It all came to a head when Stephen Green appeared on Question Time on the BBC. This resulted in a statement from Rev Dr David Peel, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church:

It is a matter of some regret that … the BBC should choose to undermine the reputation of Question Time by giving a platform to a small, self-selecting group distinguished mainly by its absurd claim to represent Christians in this country.

Opposition to the organisation also resulted in a Google Bomb for ‘ignorant bigots‘ that directed to their website.

Anyway, as a result of the complaints over Question Time, the BBC reviewed their policies, and since then I haven’t seen Stephen Green on the BBC.

That was until this morning. Heaven and Earth, the BBC’s Sunday morning religion and ethics show were doing a special programme from Edinburgh Fringe, which this year has a high proportion of religious content. As a result the topic of religion and comedy was up for discussion.

The first person they introduced was comedian Ed Byrne, who describes himself as atheist – although it is worth noting that the BBC had originally invited the altogether more controversial Jim Jeffries, but as reported in the Independent and on Mediawatch, Stephen Green refused to appear with him. Then we had Stephen Green. Before I could get really annoyed by it, they introduced the other two panellists were introduced, Larry Jay Tish, a Jewish comedian, and Canon Robin Gamble from Manchester Cathedral. At this point things started to look a bit better – at least they are now not bringing Stephen Green on as the sole representative of Christianity.

Despite the somewhat less controversial replacement comedian, the discussion still did not exactly go Stephen Green’s way. It started with Ed Byrne making the point that many comedians use religion in their acts because it is a concept that many in the audience would understand, but that is controversial – many wanting to do something controversial in order to attract publicity – indeed going back to the Springer episode, the programme got a much higher audience than could have been expected thanks to the Christian Voice publicity. However Stephen Green fairly swiftly got on to the topic of judgement. This produced and interesting reaction from Ed Byrne who commented on the content of the Christian Voice website and questioned how Christian it actually was. Several panellists, including the Canon from Manchester raised the question of whether with war in the Middle East, and all over the world, God would really be worried about a few jokes? The Canon also made the point that if comedians are making jokes about Christianity, it is a positive thing because it keeps religion in the public consciousness.

All in all I thought it was a pretty good discussion, and the Canon from Manchester was a good representative of a more mainstream Christian opinion, providing a strong counterpoint to Christian Voice. Whilst obviously I’d prefer if the BBC stuck to their decision to not include him at all, at least by providing another Christian more obviously representative of mainstream opinion, it stops the misunderstanding that Stephen Green represents all Christians.

General, Politics

Security Alert

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So today the news is filled with the latest security alert – following ‘disruption’ of a potential plot to blow up an aircraft in flight. Of course as with most of these alerts, solid information is minimal. There are numbers of people arrested, but the rest is largely speculation from all the various experts turning up on the 24-hour news channels.

Current speculation includes that the plot involved some sort of explosive liquid – based on the fact that only baby milk is being allowed on to planes, and even then it has to be taste tested.
The main result of the alert is massive disruption at airports as the levels of searching have been increased, plus everybody is having to check their cabin baggage – the only thing they can carry are essential documents and medicines in a clear plastic bag.

I have to say that on the one hand I’m expecting this to be much the same as the previous big alerts, when for example we had tanks outside Heathrow, in that after the initial chaos, it will all be forgotten, and things will go pretty well back to normal. However what is causing some discussion are the advantages of the new policy on hand baggage. Somehow, a flight where everybody has a single small bag, rather than the scrum of oversized luggage boarding and leaving a plane, or the time it takes to search all the bags at security being reduced because everybody is limited to a single clear bag all seems rather appealing after some experiences I’ve had.

Update: The Register has a pretty thought provoking opinion article looking at the reaction from the US authorities to our new security measures.

General, Politics

Pylon Blight

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Today I had one of those situations that left me feeling unavoidably bad, but there was really nothing I could do. Beth sent me a text message part way through the morning asking me to get home promptly as she had arranged a viewing of a great house in Wokingham, where the sale had fallen through, and had just come back on to the market. Apparently it had sold on the first day it came on to the market, and looking at the details I could see why. It had a double length garage, three good sized bedrooms, two reception rooms, a secluded garden, and all at a reasonable price. Looking at the pictures it looked like it was well decorated too.

Looking on the map, it was just round the corner from work, so on my lunch break I thought I’d go take a look – which is where I found the big problem – power lines. The power line that crosses this part of Wokingham goes straight over the top of the house – indeed I was quite amazed that the agent managed to get two external shots of the house without it being visible.

There has been a lot of stuff in the press about links between proximity to power lines and cancer, although it is worth stressing that the link has not been proved. However the big problem now is that according to this article from May, there is enough concern over power lines that there is consideration of banning development close to lines, a move supported by National Grid themselves. There are a couple of options of how this would work in practice, one would be to purchase all existing property close to lines that wouldn’t meet the new regulations. However the other, much cheaper option, is more of a concern for buying a property like this one. The planning regulations would be changed to ban new developments – but do nothing about existing property. Whilst it saves the government and National Grid a lot of money not buying all the existing properites, owners of those properties would find that the value of their property would plummet overnight, as the planning decision would all but confirm to most people that living close to a power line is dangerous. This would blight thousands of properties across the UK, knocking an estimated £7bn of property prices.

Anyway, after thinking about it for a bit, I asked Beth to cancel the appointment. She was all for going to look at it anyway, as we had agreed a time. But ultimately, since I don’t want to buy a property that could have thousands wiped off the value in a few months or years, I wouldn’t consider buying this house however good the house itself is. Whilst I feel exceptionally sorry for the people who own the house currently, and who have obviously spent a lot of time on decorating and refurbishing it, I thought it would be cruel to go and view the house when I have no intention of buying it.

Having said that, the exercise has been worthwhile, as the article lists the currently proposed distances from power lines, which especially around here could blight a significant number of houses, particularly large parts of Penrose Park, parts of the new Poppyfields development, and a number of other otherwise desirable properties in the area. Certainly double checking the locations of houses on an Ordnance Survey map, which shows power lines would be a worthwhile exercise.

The BBC also has an informative Question and Answer page on the British Medical Journal study linking proximity to power lines with childhood leukaemia. The study suggested that those living within 200m of power lines had a 70% higher risk than those more than 600m away.

Incidentally, the picture above was taken by Donovan Hide, and isn’t of the house in question.

Politics

Housing Argument Kicks Off Again

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You may remember last autumn that I had a letter published in the Wokingham Times complaining about the pretty tedious arguments that our Conservative local councillor in particular had been having with the opposition Liberal Democrats through the pages of the newspaper. As an aside, in terms of results, it quietened down for a bit, although there were still occasional letters. I had a personal letter from our local Liberal Democrat candidate, but not a peep out of our Conservative local councillor Gary Cowan, until of course election time came around this year and he turned up on the doorstep asking for our votes.

Anyway, recently the argument over housing numbers has flared up again. Initially it was started by a letter from Gary Cowan saying that the Conservatives didn’t support housing development, and blaming the Liberal Democrats, saying that they were backing development. This of course was swiftly followed by a response from the Liberal Democrats, then another from Cowan and so on. The Wokingham Liberal Democrats have produced a press release describing the trigger for this latest round of arguments – in the interest of fairness I’ve taken a look on the local Conservative site but there is nothing about this particular part of the issue. My spin on it is that neither party actually wants large scale development, the differences are actually over how to deal with the issue of the numbers being allocated to our area by central government. As far as I am concerned, both parties could be accused of – to some extent – misrepresenting the policies of the other.

The exchange has now degenerated into an argument over numbers of houses, with both sides claiming that they are against large scale housing development, and blaming the other for the numbers that are allocated, and also having decidedly tedious arguments over the exact figures. Bear in mind that although there is a difference in numbers, both parties would sign up for significant levels of housing development. In truth since the whole house building issue is being driven from central government (take a look at this section by the Campaign to Protect Rural England) it is a slightly irrelevant and pointless discussion as to my mind whoever was in charge, the building plans would be forced through. A local council really has little real power to stop something like this, it really comes down to a question of how you deal with it. Indeed, behind the posturing, elsewhere in the local paper last week it was reported that the Conservative administration had published a list of possible sites for housing – bear in mind that this is really a compilation of sites that have been suggested rather than a definite plan. Having said that, with some definite places and numbers, it has the potential to rattle a number a local communities.

The list perhaps gives a clue as to why Gary Cowan in particular is so keen to distract blame onto the Liberal Democrats, when you take a look at the list. His bio on the local Conservative site highlights that he is executive member for planning, however a look at the locations mentioned reveals quite what a large amount of the new housing allocation will fall on his area. Arborfield Garrison has, since rumours of it’s closure started has always been seen as a likely spot. Already two areas of former land have become the Penrose Park and Poppyfields developments, and the closure of the base will result in up to 2000 new houses being built. However in addition to that, there is another significant development of hundreds of houses listed as ‘Barker Close’, where Gary actually lives – a look at the map shows that the space for building there is all green-field development. The real driver from development is coming from the Labour government, but in this area it is a straight two horse race between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, so it is quite easy to speculate that a well organised campaign by the Liberal Democrats highlighting the inability of the sitting Conservative administration to stop the developments, could pay dividends – Cowan as the named person responsible for development being a prizes scalp. Repeatedly blaming the policies of the Liberal Democrats during the short period that they held minority control of the council, would seems to be the best tactic to try and hold on to power. Interestingly, many years ago another Conservative administration in my local council at the time lost a similar battle with the Liberal Democrats – who still control the local council today – over the routing of the M25, so the stakes can be high.

Anyway, taking a look at the rest of the list, other local sites on the list include the Hogwood Lane Industrial Estate which is brown field. Confusingly a significant development, again of several hundred houses at Church Farm, Finchampstead, currently an area of just over 100 acres of farm land between the housing in North Finchampstead, and the area around the church. However clarification of this in this weeks paper states that this is actually the field bought by a UK landbank to sell to individual developers – not suprisingly this has caused just as much concern as it was believed that the land was protected. Indeed the bulk of the list hits various places around this part of the district. Of course to see the argument for development around here, you only need look at where the bulk of new developments are occurring currently – although Finchampstead received a lot of housing the seventies and eighties, the latest round has been hitting other parts of the district.

But what are the other options? According to the Liberal Democrat press release they are arguing for a single large development, similar in concept to the Elvetham Heath development near Fleet. This is not a new idea, previously there have been large scale developments proposed at Grazely, Spencers Wood and Shinfield – read this English Heritage report for a mention of those – however despite the objections, large scale development has subsequently occurred in both Shinfield and Spencers Wood. The argument for that is that by designating one large development, the developers will be required to provide road upgrades, and sites for new schools and shops – smaller developments could well be built with nothing like that. However designating a single large site, could result in the whole scheme being rejected by an organised campaign – take the Dever Society campaign against the plans for a new town at Micheldever. Having said that, firstly it is difficult to see where there would be space for such a new town around here, and secondly with the Liberal Democrats in an increasingly weak position locally, the list of numerous small scale developments seems likely.

Ultimately, since the building is being driven from national government, and Wokingham sits at the heart of one of the areas with most demand, there seems little that can be done to stop the new building. However I’m sure we’ll still be having arguments in the local paper over who is to blame for a long time to come – which is a pity, as in reality discussion should be on where the new houses are going to be built, and which bits of green field are going to be bulldozed.