Rolled-up Trousers

Welcome to Scotland

Scotland's airports have been fitted out with new posters welcoming people to the country.

With the slogan "Welcome to Scotland" are different iconic images dependent on which city it is. At Glasgow Airport, this picture is plastered up of a Muslim boy from the demonstration I helped organise a week after the airport attack in June.

It's a great move. The location and the image neatly sum up how Scotland reacted to the outrage - by coming together and uniting against those that want to kill and maim.

Incidentally, does anyone know who this young man is? From what I gather, he's not been able to milk his fame properly.

While one photographer was looking for a picture like this, another took this one below:

Scotland and England on equal terms

I came across this copy of the Scotland Act in the foyer of the Scottish Parliament yesterday. Click on the image for a larger version of the Act that brought back into existence the Scottish Parliament in 1998.

This particular copy is personally signed by Tony Blair and addressed to Donald Dewar. He says:

To Donald,
It was a struggle, it may always be hard : but it was worth it. Scotland and England together on equal terms!
Tony Blair

Who would have thought this is what Tony really intended? We must redouble our efforts to make his vision a reality!

St Albert's revisited

HMIE this week delivered a damning report into the management of St Albert's Primary School in Pollokshields, Glasgow.

Readers may remember that I blogged about the school almost two years ago, after Muslim parents were accused of being "extremists" for objecting to their children being forced to sit through Mass in the Muslim-majority Catholic denominational school.

I said at the time, in the face of much criticism, that the Head Teacher Frances Diver was grossly mismanaging the situation. It would be easy to say I feel vindicated in that stance given that she was singled out for criticism in the report, and was effectively sacked a few months ago in anticipation of the report's findings. The issues that HMIE identify though are more serious than this.

White Paki

Just heard about a Muslim lady that was abused at the new Silverburn shopping complex in south Glasgow. She was pushing along a double-buggy containing two infants, while her other four-year-old son was walking along with her.

A group of youths started shouting "White Paki", presumably irked by the fact she is a convert to Islam that wears a hijab. They then lobbed a glass bottle at her which smashed into pieces but thankfully missed the family.

None of this is being reported to the police, despite advice to her to do so. My fear is that many incidents like this are going uncatalogued, meaning not only are louts getting away with it, but the scale and growth of the problem is going unnoticed by the authorities.

Labour donors anonymous

Why do so many Labour donors seem embarrassed about giving to the Labour Party? David Abrahams did it through his employees. Wendy Alexander's leadership campaign, where she had to beat nobody, raised £17,000 through attracting several donors of £995, just under the £1000 mark where they would have to be declared.

One of them as revealed in the Herald today was Jersey based (and thus not allowed to contribute) but did it through a Glasgow company. To compound matters, this is no different from the case of Abraham, or I believe front organisations like the Muslim Friends of Labour, which have served the effect of keeping anonymous people who are embarrassed at the idea of donating to Labour openly.

A few sandwiches short at this teddy bear's picnic

Meet Adam the Prayer Bear. This toy is owned by hundreds of Muslims up and down the country. He happens to share the name of a Prophet. If this is a crime, then there are a lot of Muslims guilty of it.

He's called a 'prayer bear' because he recites various lines when any of his limbs are pressed. As I was putting him away after taking his photo, I accidentally pressed down on one of his paws. He said "In the name of Allah, the most Merciful, the most Kind". Appropriate.

St Andrew's Day march against racism

Well done to the STUC for yesterday again organising their St Andrew's Day march against racism. Some of the media coverage - Scotland on Sunday and BBC.

I had a short article in the programme for the event. Points I touched upon were the reaction to the Glasgow Airport attack, Martin Amis's cruel experiments, and the attempts of some Labour MPs like Margaret Hodge to triangulate with the BNP.

This year's march marked 200 years since the end of the slave trade. I made the point though that neo-slavery is very much in existence on our high streets. We all have a duty to buy ethically.

Blair turned down Bush offer to stay out of Iraq

Tony Blair has admitted in his interviews with David Aaronovitch for the BBC's Blair Years, that George Bush offered to keep Britain out of the Iraq war before it began. Blair turned it down.

Can somebody in government please at last explain what this was all really honestly about? Clearly it was not to help the US because they did not need it, and said so. Blair was providing political cover for Bush, in a show of a coalition which didn't really exist.

Why? What did Britain get from taking this blood price from Iraqis and paying it from our own troops? What national interest was served? Was it oil as many say? Other theories say that US neocons had the security of Israel in mind. Was that in Blair's thoughts? If it was about the security of our country, was that served by inserting ourselves into Al-Qaeda's declared war against the US?

I commend this article by Linda Colley who ponders why Britain's connection with the EU is routinely questioned, but there is no equivalent debate about our relationship with the US:

Basra attacks down 90% since British troops left

Here's some news you might have missed.

Hat tip to Craig Murray

The Brightest and the Best

I feature in the Sunday Herald's special pullout today entitled "The Brightest and the Best" about the people who are building the new Scotland.

It's not online so I can't give you a link. Same is true of a news piece on a project I'm working on at the moment. Check out the paper if you can, otherwise hopefully I'll blog about it in the near future.

Bangladesh Cyclone Appeal

The DEC in Scotland yesterday launched their appeal for the victims of the Bangladesh cyclone.

Here's Habib Malik of Islamic Relief Scotland speaking from Bangladesh:

“The situation here, the extent of the devastation is horrific, I can only describe it as a complete nightmare.  Village after village has been completely destroyed, the extent of the damage is unimaginable.  It’s a race against time to get water and food and particularly medicine to people, many areas are still cut off.  Everywhere you look they are still bringing out the dead from paddy fields and other areas and desperately trying to find coverings to wrap the bodies in.

What do you call terrorists?

Muslim extremists? Islamic terrorists? Al-Qaeda inspired terrorists? Islamofascists? Islamists? Jihadists?

So ponders Timothy Garton Ash in today's Guardian.

He concludes that 'jihadists' is best. Certainly, this has sometimes been used in Muslim circles for those that took a fighting view of the world.

My very serious hesitation is, as Garton Ash acknowledges, that jihad as a Islamic concept should serve noble purposes. It is to struggle for good. A word that has been hijacked by Al-Qaeda & Co, and all too many in the West have accepted their version of it.

Pessimistic

Strathclyde Police's new chief constable used his first interview in the job to declare that it was "almost certain" that Scotland would face another terrorist attack. Stephen House said he would be "surprised" if there wasn't.

I think this is an extremely pessimistic view. If he's basing his assertion on intelligence, then we should be able to stop this before it happens.

This is a similar to the idea recently floated by intelligence services that there are 200 "hardcore" people in Scotland and 20 who are of "significant interest". It sounds like they have been identified - why is it not possible to arrest them and put them on trial like Atif Siddique, the lyrical terrorist and the paintball terrorists?

If Mr House is making a political statement, then I don't think his views on the matter are any more deserving of publicity than anyone else's. There's the possibility of another attack of course, but it's by no means certain. To talk up the ability of the terrorists to get round our security services is curious for the man in charge of police.

Hear, hear!

Scottish Futures has Gerry Hassan's full article declaring his support for independence. The writer, policy analyst and Labour Party member's article was published in the Sunday Times, but for some reason its Scottish edition doesn't appear online.

His views, not just about the opportunities independence brings, but also on the nature of the British body politic, particularly chime:

Independence provides the Scots with an opportunity to develop a new national narrative and story - one which motivates and inspires us, including most elements of Scottish society, giving us a sense of purpose and mission.

This would be exciting and emboldening for most people in Scotland - and not without some risk. However, there are so many more opportunities. Scottish independence would be good for Scotland and good for the United Kingdom, dealing a crucial blow to the deformed nature of Westminster and British politics. And it would be good internationally, weakening the Atlanticist nature of British foreign policy. I would like to contribute a small part to this.

Britain out of Europe

So England aren't going to Euro 2008 either. At least they went out with an English manager. I remember the English press championing Steve McClaren's case last year as opposed to a foreigner. Gary Lineker remarked on Middlesbrough's cup runs in 2006 that "England only play in cups". If only. In qualifying group E he actually did slightly better than the mid-table mediocrity he managed at club level. He was always bound to end in disappointment.

The marked thing for me about tonight's game was despite all the hype surrounding English football, technically the England team is inferior to so many other nations. Even after they equalised tonight, with near-on 100,000 English fans behind them at Wembley (a brief period when they weren't booing their own players or the opposition's national anthem), Croatia were still dictating the play. They looked so much more comfortable and natural on the ball.

Anyway, now we get to watch Euro 2008 with objective peace. Best of all, no Ian Wright on our screens, droning on about why his adoptive son is left out the squad/on the bench/not playing all that well.

HMRC's CDs kill ID

After the unbelievable fiasco of the Her Majesty's Revenue sending out the details of 25million people on a couple of CDs via unrecorded mail, I really hope that any idea of a big computer housing all of our personal details with the ID card scheme is stone dead.

It's one thing for details to be held for a purpose. There is no good reason for ID cards.

At last, there seems to be a flurry of outrage at Martin Amis's proposed collective punishment of Muslims. As usual, it's only in the Guardian - Ronan Bennett and Kamila Shamsie

Happy birthday to me

This blog recently celebrated its second birthday.

To mark the occasion I thought I'd thank everyone who links here. Particular appreciation should go to the biggest referrers, and to do it properly, the top ten blogs and websites over the last 12 months are recognised below:

1. Deenport
2. Blogistan
3. Islamophobia Watch
4. Lenin's Tomb
5. Austrolabe
6. Tartan Hero
7. Obsolete
8. British Muslim Initiative
9. Mere Islam
10. The Corner

What's changed over the last year is the growth of the Scottish blogosphere. If I do an analysis of the last three months rather than one year, here's how it comes out:

Ware persists in his double-standards

John Ware complains about the focus placed upon his Panorama documentary of 2005 in the recent report commissioned by London Mayor Ken Livingstone about Muslims and the media.

Islamophobia Watch take issue with his criticism of the experts who compiled the report. Certainly, they are more eminent than the "leading Muslims" he based his documentary on.

I want to highlight his opening assertion though:

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) claims to be "the most reasonable and most representative spokesperson for the British Muslim community". Unlike most religious organisations, it is also explicitly political. The MCB has opinions on everything, from school uniforms to the NHS; from the recall of Parliament to the extradition to the US of Babar Ahmad. And it is not shy about lobbying for them.

Partisanship

Matthew Marr's descent over the last few days has got my unusually troubled by the antics of a Labour spin doctor. I know Matthew since we met at organising meetings for the Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh 2005. He was working for Catholic charity SCIAF at the time.

We later crossed paths again when he was an aide to Glasgow City Council leader Stephen Purcell. I won't go into the details, but I can well imagine the scene at Prestonfields last week as I was myself at the sharp end of a Marr tonguelashing over what was a relative non-issue. I was by no means under his employ or anything, and have seldom been spoken to like that in life over so little. It seems I'm not the only one either.

Don't believe them

The government's latest wheeze is to seem to offer compromise on extension to detention without trial. The floated ideas (later denied) are:

• detention beyond 28 days could only be triggered in certain prescribed circumstances
• it would require the specific prior authorisation of the home secretary
• in addition it would require judicial approval every 7 days beyond the original 28
• the home secretary would have to notify Parliament and then report back to them after the end of the extended detention
• the power would be time limited - lasting not years but perhaps just weeks or months

If these do turn out to be the government's position, it should be distrusted and rejected by all. Currently 28 days is meant to be subject to judicial review, but there's no doubt in anyone's mind that we have 28 days detention in this country such is the formality it's seen as. The control order legislation was wearily passed through Parliament in 2005 after a promised 'sunset clause' after 12 months, but it was waved through without a whimper after the time limit elapsed. Please, let's not get conned again.

These leaked concessions come after the government seized upon the suggestion by Liberty and others that an extra 30 days detention already exists under law if the government declared a state of emergency. These new proposals are designed to allow the government to take advantage of the additional 30 days without taking the drastic step of declaring an emergency like General Musharraf. Instead, the Home Secretary would just have to say, and then it would be.

Que sera sera, whatever will be will be, we're not going to Switzerland, que sera sera

As I was growing up, Scotland's glorious exists from tournaments were at the competition stage proper rather than qualification level. Our participation at a major finals again cannot be far off now though.

I was obviously willing the team on yesterday along with the rest of the country. We were playing the world champions Italy and it's fair to say we battered them for most of the game. The mouth was watering at the propsect of a summer abroad again. I was at the last one in France 98 and had the time of my life. Maybe it's about getting lost youth back, but I hope it's more than that.

We're very well placed for South Africa 2010. The draw is next week, and rather than being fourth seeds as we were for this campaign, we'll be in Pot 2. There will be 13 European teams to go to the World Cup from eight groups as opposed to the 14 that qualified from 7 for Euro 2008. This means a play-off between teams finishing in second place, which we should be able to handle on current form no problem.

More than this is the personnel situation. We've got genuine talent all over the park now from Craig Gordon at the back to Faddy up front. Alan Hutton showed once again against Italy that he is the 'White Cafu', while Scott Brown, Darren Fletcher and the experienced Barry Ferguson form a formidable midfield triumvirate. Around the SPL clubs there is more waiting to burst through the ranks in the coming period.

Facebook faceoff

Social networking websites are said to be the new battleground for politics. The contest for Glasgow Central is no different.

Both myself and Anas Sarwar have groups set up to support our respective campaigns. As of time of writing my group has 214 members, his 156.

You can join Osama Saeed for Glasgow Central here. His has been set up for about a month now, while mine has been in existence for a couple of weeks. Within 24 hours of it being put up though, my group raced ahead despite the headstart for the other guy.

Now if only elections were decided on Facebook...

Also, thanks to Marco Biagi for the kinds words of endorsement

28 days, stop and search, ID cards - the continuing civil liberties battles

The arguments over 28 days detention rumble on. The opposition parties are hopelessly on the backfoot on this one. The position should not just be against an increase in 28 days, they should be calling for the limit to come back down. This would be in line with other Western democracies.

In the world of concessions, if you don't adopt a decent bargaining position, then you end up paying a lot more. By arguing that we stay on 28 days, it is inevitable there will be some increase on that. Already the opposition offered up post-charge questioning and the use of intercept evidence as an alternative to increasing the detention limit. The government gobbled these up and still want an increase in pre-charge detention. Whatever the case, sadly Gordon Brown gets what he wants, which is to look tough on the issue, not matter how absurd his proposition is.

On stop and search, these look like continuing indefinitely in Scotland by the British Transport Police. The rationale seems to be that because of the new form of terror, having surveillance of train stations to be on the lookout for suspect packages is not good enough anymore. Now people strap them to themselves or smash in with their cars. By randomly stopping and searching people, the argument goes that our transport network becomes a hostile place for would-be terrorists.

The problem with this analysis is that a would-be bomber would simply have to press a button if stopped by the police while on his way to detonate a bomb. His job would be done. Meanwhile, stop and search is humiliating the disproportionate number of Asian-looking people that are stopped under it, undermining good relations between police and communities which are essential at this moment in time.

Opposition to ID cards continues to grow too, with Baroness Shirley Williams the latest to say she will go to jail rather than carry one.

Black boy with a big mouth

I attended the best public meeting I've been to in a long time last night. It was organised by SACC and Glasgow Stop the War on the issue of civil liberties. They actually called it a few months ago, possibly with sage like precision on what a topical issue it would be right now.  They could not though have predicted how things would be panning out for Aamer Anwar at the moment.

A number of the speakers got standing ovations, including Atif Siddique's brother Asif and Rose Gentle. A member of the audience pointed out that the issue of the war and terrorism were going to continue, not least because so many years in, it is now personally affecting so many families here at home including some of those in attendance.

Glasgow 2014

The joy in Glasgow at getting the 2014 Commonwealth Games is probably best summarised by pictures like the one above more than by any words.

It's fitting that the Empire's second city gets a chance to host the games. It will display Glasgow in all it's glory - a city that has been transformed in recent years against the grain of popular perception, and will go through even further regeneration in time for 2014.

The benefits for Glasgow need to be seen in the context of what it did for Manchester. The games reinforced Manchester's reputation for cool and success, so much so that the popular perception of the place is now as England's second city despite Birmingham being larger.

Glasgow already has several top class stadia and venues. More are going to be constructed in time for the games. It's all go. Congratulations to all involved in the bid, and a heartfelt thank you.

Donating Organs

Recently it was reported that Alex Salmond is ready to give his support to an opt-out system when it comes to organ donation.

IndyGal had a motion successfully carried on this at SNP conference. I don't do apologies for puns, but this is an issue that is close to my heart.

Whether the system is opt-out or opt-in, as a country we are taking a position on the issue. I think we should have as default the view that people would want to take the option to save lives. If they do not wish to do this though, they can register to not have their organs harvested.

I've also been asked for Islamic viewpoints on organ donation. See here, here and here.

Simon Jenkins on the MI5 and Queen's Speeches

There can be only two results from this abuse of publicity. One is that the public demotes such scares to wolf-crying and treats them as background noise. The other is that, as all scare stories stereotype communities, the host nation distances itself from whatever group allegedly harbours the threat. The latter in turn retreats and denies the police the intelligence required for public safety. In other words, speeches such as those from the head of MI5 are wholly self-defeating.

...

One question remains. No sensible person has a problem with rounding up suspects for questioning for a limited period. But if Evans and his like claim to "know" 2,000 Britons who are "actively engaged in terrorist-related activities" and pose a "direct threat to national security and public safety", why are these 2,000 still at large? It cannot be for lack of powers, after half a dozen laws enacted to this specific end.

Could it be that headlines about 2,000 terrorists "on the loose as we speak" are more helpful to the government and its agencies than if they were under lock and key in Belmarsh? We should regret the day the secret service stopped being secret and became just another government front organisation.

Comment is Free

Met guilty in De Menezes killing

Just as Al Capone was done for income tax evasion, the Met has been found guilty in the case of Jean Charles De Menezes on health and safety grounds.

Focus has been on calls for Sir Ian Blair to go. This is a diversion surely from the main issue - Operation Kratos. Shoot-to-kill may well be necessary in the case where a bomber is about to pull the trigger. Clearly though, in the case of Jean Charles there was a complete breakdown in identifying who he was, from the moment that an officer decided he had to take a leak, through Ivor following him around the streets and buses of London, and finally to the embraces on the Tube itself.

Aamer Anwar on trial (updated)

This has all got a bit out of hand. Whatever you thought of Aamer Anwar's comments after Atif Siddique's trial, it should not have got this far.

As noted in the Sunday Herald, lawyers in England commonly make such statements after trials. There is as far as I can discern, no rules in Scots law barring this either, with albeit the culture being different.

Anwar has since apologised for not making it clear he was speaking on behalf of his client. To think that he could potentially be disbarred from practicing due to this is contemptuous in itself.