Time to start thinking about boycotting Beijing

It is hard to know quite what is going on in Tibet because of the obstructionism of the Chinese government. What is clear is that the people of Tibet—who have long been denied their right to self-determination by the Communist regime—are suffering and protestors are being killed. 

Amidst all the excitement about China’s rapid economic growth, we all too often forget that it remains a brutal Communist dictatorship. It is time now to use the leverage that the Olympics gives the rest of the world over China and start talking about a boycott. 

I would urge you to read both Rod Liddle’s column in this week’s magazine on the Tibet situation and the letter drafted by Vaclav Havel over at Comment is Free. Here is the key final section of the letter:

Merely urging the Chinese government to exercise the "utmost restraint" in dealing with the Tibetan people, as governments around the world are doing, is far too weak a response. The international community, beginning with the United Nations and followed by the European Union, Asean, and other international organisations, as well as individual countries, should use every means possible to step up pressure on the Chinese government to allow foreign media, as well as international fact-finding missions, into Tibet and adjoining provinces in order to enable objective investigations of what has been happening; release all those who only peacefully exercised their internationally guaranteed human rights, and guarantee that no one is subjected to torture and unfair trials; enter into a meaningful dialogue with the representatives of the Tibetan people. 

Unless these conditions are fulfilled, the International Olympic Committee should seriously reconsider whether holding this summer's Olympic games in a country that includes a peaceful graveyard remains a good idea.

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Why do we call it Good Friday?

Why is the most solemn day in the Christian calendar called Good Friday? In Sweden and Denmark it’s “long Friday”; in Germany it’s Charfreitag or Sorrowful Friday. That all chimes with what we commemorate at 3pm today – Good Friday does not. I have been unable to find any convincing explanation of this online, so I thought I’d call on the collective wisdom of Coffee Housers. Any answers? 
 
PS – Can we be as precise as to say 3pm, the Jewish “ninth hour”? Four years ago, a pair of astronomers claimed to have scientifically verified this. Their computer programme looking at star activity between 26AD and 35AD found the first full moon after the vernal equinox was registered on Friday 7 April AD 30 and Friday 3 April at 3pm on 33AD. The solar eclipse, described in the Bible, was only visible in Jerusalem on the latter date.

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How McCain can help Cameron

It is a definite coup for David Cameron that John McCain saw him as well as Gordon Brown today. It was a significant statement that a President McCain expects to have to deal with both men when in office; he clearly expects Cameron to be PM before 2012.

But McCain can help Cameron in policy terms too. Cameron has struggled to come up with an inspiring way to talk about his greenery, it can sound rather too doom and gloomy. McCain offers a solution to this problem. He talks inspiringly about how tackling climate change is going to create jobs not cost them, spur economic growth not constrict it and increase rather than harm America’s competitiveness. If Cameron did this, I suspect that he would find the right far more congenial to his greenery than it currently is. 

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Poetry Corner

For some reason, MPs have been struck by the poetry bug recently.  First there was the anonymously-penned verse attacking the Prime Minister.  And now Theresa May's got in on the act, reading out her poem on Brown's staffing problems in the Commons today.  Here it is:

"At Downing Street the other day, I met a man sent on his way.

Close to Gordon for many years, the PM's rants brought him to tears.

But for all this he didn't care. He was pleased to see his minister there.

He'd been important once, you know. Now Carter told him: 'You must go.'"

I doubt she'll be winning the T.S. Eliot prize any time soon.  Can CoffeeHousers do better? 

UPDATE: Thinking about it, this is a set-up for a competition if ever there was one.  Just post your political poems in the comments section below and we'll pick out the best one early next week. The winning poet will get a Coffee House t-shirt...

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Cameron v Balls, Round II

David Cameron's been picking on Ed Balls recently, and to good effect.  Here's footage of the Tory leader's latest swipe in PMQs yesterday:

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Reforming the Lords

As today's FT reports, Jack Straw is leading the charge to reform the House of Lords.  Under his plans, most of the existing members would be ejected from their red leather seats and replaced with around 400 elected "senators".

The theoretical benefits of an elected second chamber are plain to see - greater accountability, no more cash-for-honours worries etc. etc.  But it's hard to imagine the existing crop of Lords going down without a fight.  And if they want to throw their weight around, there's always those votes on the Lisbon Treaty...

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Backing Boris

Mike Smithson makes a good observation over at Political Betting.  The detailed results from that recent YouGov poll show that some 41 percent of Brian Paddick's supporters would choose Boris as their second preference.  Only 34 percent would pick Ken.  It's a finding which goes completely against previous assumptions about where Lib Dem voters would gravitate towards.

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Keeping shtum

Iain Martin's article for the Telegraph today is well worth a read. In it he's praiseful of Project Cameron, but throws in a substantial caveat – that the Tories aren't saying much on the economy. The silence on matters fiscal was typified by Cameron's performance in PMQs yesterday. Brown accused him then of not having answers for “the problems of this country”. But – says Martin – top Tories suggest instead that it's all part of the grand plan:

“A member of the shadow cabinet denies that he and his colleagues simply do not have a clue about what to do: 'The economy is going to turn into a fight between the people and the Government; there is no point us getting in the middle.'”

There are signs that the public are ever-so-slowly turning against Brown and Darling on the economy. But – surely – effective opposition should never be about just sitting back and watching things happen?

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Meeting McCain

John McCain is doing Europe tomorrow: Brown for breakfast, Cameron for afters and Sarkozy in Paris in the afternoon. It's significant that he's setting aside as much time for Cameron as Brown. In Bournmouth 06, Cameron hailed McCain as the next president of America - not a claim he (or anyone) would have repeated in Blackpool last October. But Cameron was right first time, and his initial bet has paid dividends.  Normally, American presidential candidates resist being photographed with Opposition leaders, but I understand McCain is happy to pose with DC. Let's see if footage of them together makes the news tomorrow.

UPDATE: McCain arrived a little early (I wonder why…) and I bumped into them both as I came into the Commons. While the cameras are focused (and there was no audio), Cameron had to do that hand-waving thing. McCain knew the game and nodded dutifully. CentreRight has the pics which show the visibly more relaxed tone to the meeting with Cameron (and five of his closest friends).

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A weak document

As Pete said earlier, even by this government’s low standards, the National Security Strategy is a pitifully weak document. It looks like it was ordered up in 24 hours’ notice: the pages have wide margins, large type and pointless platitudes. “Our assessment remains the same as in the 1998 Strategic Defence Review,” it says – ie, not a snowball’s chance of any nation threatening the UK with weapons, ever. Not a hint here of Russia’s new belligerence and massive ballistic spending that may one day be at the disposal of a nationalist psycho in the Kremlin. And defence wise, “we are entering a phase of overall reduced commitments” – huh? This is the same government fighting two wars and considering deploying to Kosovo? 

In parliament, Brown also said the EU has no implications for defence. It has. Plenty of them. “The European Union does not have an official role in foreign and security policy” Brown said in the debate. Has he read the Lisbon Treaty?  That mutual defence clause stuff, how it duplicates many Nato functions? Many, many loose ends here.

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