Turn ABC and SBS into hyperlocal content hubs, says review submission

Yesterday, I wrote about Pay TV’s submission to the government review of the two national broadcasters, ABC and SBS. Today I want to look at another of the 2,400 submissions; this time a less self-interested but no less well argued one from four prominent Queensland academics. The submission is called “Social Innovation, User-Created Content and the Future of the ABC and SBS as Public Service Media” and was written by Terry Flew, Stuart Cunningham, Axel Bruns, and Jason Wilson.

The submission calls for both ABC and SBS to focus on user created content and redefine themselves as media organisations rather than broadcasters. The latter call is timely as The Inquisitr reveals that a 2:1 majority of Americans watched the Obama inauguration on the Internet rather than TV. The public service remit, argue the authors, should not be confined to specific technology like radio and television but to the services they provide – regardless of platform. They go even further and suggest that now is the ideal time for the ABC and SBS to change their emphasis and become participatory public media harnessing the power of citizen journalism.

The authors are making these recommendations from personal experience and research. Since 2007, all four have been intimately involved in an Australian Research Council Linkage Project called “Investigating Innovative Applications of Digital Media for Participatory Journalism and Citizen Engagement in Australian Public Communication”. The title is a mouthful but in a nutshell it is an investigation into the possibilities of citizen journalism using established industry partners such as SBS and Cisco. The project’s aim was to devise prototypes for “emergent forms of political citizenship and public communication in 21st century Australia".

The project began by creating an aggregated citizen journalism site called youdecide2007.org for the 2007 federal election. They provided tools and resources to enable hyper-local citizen participation in partnership with national organisations and then set to work documenting their findings in the wider international context of citizen journalism and web 2.0 developments. The project also researched attitudes (see attached pdf) within SBS about user-created content, a subject the authors saw as a crucial development for both national broadcasters.

According to the submission, the question of how SBS and ABC respond to changes in the media environment due to technological and cultural reasons is a matter of ‘social innovation’. By this they mean the application of a new idea (or a new application of an existing idea) that delivers lasting social value. The two areas driving social innovation are the technological revolution (as exemplified by the Internet) and cultural activity (increasing the number of voices in a democracy). The two areas are blurring as innovation increasingly comes from the margins and a network economy emerges that is both distributed and co-ordinated in a many-to-many fashion. The often non-commercial aspects of these activities deliver social, cultural, and public value and are mirrored by the public service aspects of the charters of ABC and SBS.

The challenge for the public broadcasters in the 21st century, say the authors, is to continue delivering unique and compelling content while also being conduits for user-led social innovation. To that end, the charters need to redefine the organisations as media rather than broadcasters, providing media services. They should then make the leap to become ‘participatory public service media’ to harness and encourage social content creation. In effect, they want to see ABC and SBS become an Australian digital commons.

Both ABC and SBS already have a strong digital presence and bring considerable strengths to a web 2.0 environment. They are trusted brands with informed audiences, they have access to large networks of media professionals, have good reputations as innovators, and large archives that could be digitised. ABC has already taken some small steps in collaborative culture with its Pool initiative which allows users to share and remix content. ABC has also allowed public feedback in long form in forums such as Opinion and Unleashed. But the authors say they could do more to encourage participation without harming their traditional public broadcasting function.

On the contrary, the authors say that enabling citizen journalism will allow organisational resources to be harnessed better in the traditional functions. The benefits will be in the areas of expanding direct participation in democratic processes and providing local communities, particularly remote ones, with a means of communication. The authors say the ABC should transform its national network of local bureaux into hyperlocal hubs for content created by local communities. As the experience with youdecide2007 showed the researchers, citizen media provided an outlet for the stories of remote communities, disadvantaged groups, and minority political opinion in a way “more traditional media sources could not match”. Flew, Cunningham, Bruns and Wilson’s submission is one of the more radical, imaginative and exciting visions for Australian public media among the 2,400 voices and deserves some serious merit. If ABC and SBS won’t provide the platform, it will simply go elsewhere. But if it does, the nation will be the loser.

Twitter and public broadcasting issues under one mumbrella

A real breath of fresh air on the Australian blogging scene is Tim Burrowes at Mumbrella. The former editor of B&T magazine is one of the few bloggers who actually breaks stories and he broke two good ones today. Just minutes ago, he revealed that the viral Twitter messages that a plane on fire caused Melbourne airport to close this evening were a gross overreaction. While it was true that a passenger reported seeing fire from the left wing of a Boeing 767 this evening, the plane was cleared after eight minutes and there were no further consequences. But while Burrowes confirmed there was no fire with a quick phone to the airport, the Twitter world was happier just to repeat the "plane on fire" news ad infinitum in an Australian version of the Hudson plane landing incident. But in this case, the airport press office was justified telling Burrowes that “unfortunately the Internet is full of gossip.”

In scotching the rumours, Burrowes exemplified the remarks of Jason Wilson’s provocative post at Gatewatching last week by showing that “journalists use telephones”. Burrowes was also on the phone earlier today after he read one of the more contentious entries of the 2,400 submissions to the review of Australia's two national broadcasters, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) and Special Broadcasting Service (SBS). The government will review the submissions ahead of the broadcasters' next funding review in July this year.

Burrowes’ interest was in the submission by Astra, the peak body representing Australia’s subscription TV industry. In their submission, Astra were critical of the plan to give six new digital channels to ABC and SBS. Astra picked on the point made by ABC’s managing director Mark Scott that the new channels (in areas of news, children’s entertainment and foreign language programming among others) addressed a “market failure”. Astra denied there was a market failure and said they were (or will be soon) delivering similar products to what ABC planned to deliver. It was a persuasive argument if you leave out the fact that just two million Australians subscribe to pay TV and that leaves a potential market failure for 19 million others.

Nevertheless the newsworthy element that Burrowes noticed was an Astra comment that the public broadcasters are doing aggressive deals that lock out pay TV from showing up-to-date content. They claim “ABC and SBS have included pursuit of commercial terms which seek to ensure longer than industry standard ‘hold back’ clauses in production and acquisition deals, and in some instances the ABC in particular has been willing to pay more for content to ensure this happens”. The result is that pay TV has to wait longer to get content for re-run and Astra says this is contrary to ABC 1983 charter goals (a charter Astra says is out of date as is the 1992 Broadcasting Act).

Once again Burrowes picked up the telephone and spoke to both SBS and ABC today for comment on Astra’s accusation. SBS firmly denied the claims and gave examples where SBS and Pay TV have cooperated in acquiring broadcast rights. Their spokesperson also told Burrowes that they often allow World Movies Channel and other pay TV channels to run content first. The ABC spokesperson was similarly dismissive: “The ABC is not sure how ASTRA can justify such claims of warehousing when there are many examples of rights sharing of programs between the ABC and the subscription channels” he said. But this controversy is not likely to go away and Burrowes may have reported on what is likely to be the opening salvo of a long running debate between the public broadcasters and the Pay TV industry for hearts, minds and control of the digital spectrum.

Israel's Supreme Court overturns electoral ban on Arab parties

The Israeli Supreme Court yesterday overruled a parliamentary panel which had barred the Arab parties United Arab List-Ta'al (UAL-Ta’al) and Balad from running for Knesset (parliament). The decision enables the two parties to run in the national elections scheduled for 10 February. The nine Supreme Court justices unanimously accepted the UAL-Ta'al appeal, while the Balad appeal was accepted by eight justices against one.

The two appeals were submitted by the Israeli-Arab rights group Adalah earlier this week. Adalah claimed that the decision to disqualify the parties was a violation of their rights. They also claimed it also ignored the legal opinion of Attorney-General Menahem Mazuz that there was not enough evidence to justify preventing the participation of the parties in the Knesset elections. Jafar Farah, director of the Haifa-based Mossawa: Advocacy Center for Arab Citizens in Israel, called the decision part of a "fascist atmosphere that exists in the media and in political parties that is excluding the Arab community in Israel."

The original decision had been made in the heat of the Gaza conflict. Two ultra right parties Yisrael Beiteinu and National Union-National Religious Party requested the Arab parties be banned by the parliamentary Central Elections Committee (CEC) which comprises of members of all party factions. The CEC met on 12 January and ruled the parties ineligible to fight the elections on the grounds they did not recognise Israel and called for armed conflict against the state. Arab CEC members boycotted the vote and called the vote the actions of a “fascist, racist state”. Members of all three major parties (Kadima, Labour, Likud) voted to expel the parties.

However it was the ultra-right faction which was predictably unhappiest with the court’s overruling. Yisrael Beitenu Chairman Avigdor Lieberman described it as "unfortunate” as it established no boundary to prevent Arab Knesset members from being disloyal to the state. He warned his party would continue the offensive. “[The ruling] gave the Arab parties license to kill the state of Israel as a Jewish democratic state," he said. “In the next Knesset, we will pass a citizenship law that will prevent the disloyalty of some of Israel's Arabs.”

However the left-wing non denominational Hadash party welcomed the judgement. Hadash Member of the Knesset (MK) Mohammad Barakeh said he had expected the decision. He wants to go down the opposite path to Avigdor Lieberman and deny the CEC the right to disqualify parties from running. This is not the first time that the CEC has attempted to ban the Arab parties, or the first time the court has overruled it. "It's a scenario that is renewed during every election, said Barakeh, “due to the hopes of Lieberman and those similar to him to recruit more anti-Arab members to the committee."

Israel is home to 1.4 million Islamic and Christian Arabs who form about 20 percent of the total population. But they are represented by only 8 percent of parliament with just ten 10 Arabs in the 120-seat Knesset. Balad holds three of those seats. It was formed in 1995 in order to create political awareness within the Arab sector in Israel and oppose the 1993 Oslo Accords.


UAL-Ta’al was established around the same time as Balad and now holds four seats. It has similar goals to Balad and calls for an end to the Israeli occupation and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Both parties now hope that the indignation over their ban and the general conduct of the Gaza war will result in a strong Arab turnout at the ballot box. UAL-Ta’al leader and MK Ahmed Tibi described the ruling as a rallying call for his party. “This battle is not yet complete because racism has now become the mainstream in Israel,” he said. “We will finish this operation in Israel on the day of elections."

President 2.0 – Obama gives whitehouse.gov a makeover

The new Obama administration has wasted little time in getting its agenda out. The whitehouse.gov website underwent a makeover at midday, the time of the inauguration. The site contained several pre-written blog posts, all date-stamped Tue, January 20, 12:01 p.m. EST. Jimmy Orr, who directed website operations during Bush 43’s first term, believes the site resembles Obama’s campaign site which he says is no bad thing. “President Obama ran an excellent e-campaign and his website was very user-friendly, as is this one,” he said. “The site is attractive, modern looking, easy to navigate, free of clutter, and makes an excellent use of photos.”

But what the site does not yet have is a personal Obama touch. In his influential PressThink blog NYU Professor of Journalism Jay Rosen advises Obama to write the blog himself. “Don’t start a blog and make it an extension of the press release,” cautioned Rosen. “You’d be worse off, with a lame blog and a blown start in the race to be smart online.”

But so far Obama has been silent online. One person who has introduced himself on the blog is Macon Phillips. Phillips described himself the Director of New Media for the White House. He says that the three new media priorities are communication, transparency and participation. To these ends, the new administration has set up a briefing room about presidential events and public statements, a policy agenda, and a feedback form for contact. Phillips says WhiteHouse.gov is “just the beginning of the new administration's efforts to expand and deepen this online engagement”.

According to LinkedIn, Macon Phillips is a director of Strategy & Communications at Washington DC-based Blue State Digital which specialises in Internet election strategies. The company has strong Democratic Party roots and was founded in 2004 by former staffers of Howard Dean’s presidential campaign that year. In early 2007 the Obama campaign hired the company to provide technology, communication and media services. They were instrumental in giving Obama the platform to attract a social network of 850,000 people and raise $200 million online. BusinessWeek called them “Obama’s secret digital weapon”.

And as the New York Times noted in December, Obama campaign’s communications strategy was predicated in part on what it called “an aggressive indifference” to the usual media insider set. The campaign mastered new political media including a vast database of e-mail addresses, discussion boards, web sites, blogs, YouTube videos and text messaging. It was reflected in the number of friends and followers Obama collected in social networks. In MySpace for instance, Obama held a clear lead, with 844,927 friends compared to McCain's 219,404 (up to November 2008). In the same period he also trounced McCain on Twitter with 118,108 followers compared to the Republican candidate’s 4,942. Blue State Digital could take a lot of credit for these results.

Although Macon Phillips wasn’t one of Blue State Digital’s founders, it is likely he will bring a lot of the company’s expertise to the White House’s online presence. Phillips says the goal of the revamped site is to give people a better view of the governing process and a greater opportunity to participate. As well as the blog and associated RSS feed, there will also be e-mail updates, and texts of executive orders and proclamations. “One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President,” he said. “We will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it.”

These are bold claims and the project deserves respect as well as time to grow. In his inauguration speech, Obama referred to a need to “do our business in the light of day.” The new whitehouse.gov site will be an important source of that light. It will also be an antidote to the obsessive secrecy of the Bush regime. The makeover is needed because, as Obama noted, “only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.” The people will be watching, and participating.

Harry Nicolaides is latest victim of Thailand’s archaic lèse-majesté laws

An Australian teacher was yesterday sentenced to three years imprisonment in Thailand for insulting the Thai monarchy. Harry Nicolaides originally received six years but the sentence was halved after he pleaded guilty and apologised to the king. The case was filed under the country’s notorious lèse-majesté laws which can allow for a 15 year jail term for insulting the Thai king, queen or (as in Nicolaides’s case) the prince regent.

The 41 year Nicolaides is a Melbourne man who has worked in Thailand as an English teacher and freelance writer. He was arrested at Bangkok airport as he tried to leave the country on 31 August last year. Nicolaides was charged under article 112 of the Thai criminal code which reads "Whoever defames, insults or threatens the King, the Queen, the Heir-apparent or the Regent, shall be punished with imprisonment of three to fifteen years." Nicolaides was alleged to have made the insult in a paragraph in his 2005 novel Verisimilitude (see full text in linked pdf). Nicolaides intended the novel as a commentary on contemporary Thai political and social life however the book was not exactly a page-turner. Only 50 copies were published of which only seven were sold.

The offending passage in the novel was just a few sentences which described the turbulent marital relations of its fictional prince. It is a thinly-veiled account of the sexual affairs of Thailand's Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn. Vajiralongkorn is the 56 year old first son of the long-reigning monarch Bhumibol Adulyadel. The heir to the throne is the Edward VII of Thai royalty, an occasional philanderer who is waiting forever for his aged and revered parent to die in order to ascend to the throne. Vajiralongkorn lacks the stature and popularity of his frail father who has reigned for 62 years old. Time magazine compared him to a more recent British example calling him “Charles’ Siamese Twin” picking on the similarities of “an elderly monarch, an heir with a troubled marriage, [and] rumours of adultery”.

At Nicolaides’ trial, the presiding judge said the passage in Verisimilitude "suggested that there was abuse of royal power," and caused "dishonour" to the king and the heir apparent. After the trial the prosecutor warned journalists not to repeat or publish the offending material. The warning was treated seriously by CNN which chose not to repeat the allegations “because it could result in CNN staff being prosecuted in Thailand.” As a result most people in Thailand remain unaware of the details of this and other similar cases.

In his 2005 birthday speech King Bhumibol cautioned against the over-exuberant use of this criminal provision. However it remains a convenient tool for many factions within the Thai elite and is unlikely to be repealed anytime soon. The laws are a serious problem for Thai media and effectively muzzle public discussion of a range of issues relating to the country’s ongoing political crisis. As the Thai news and analysis site New Mandela points out, the lèse majesté laws “helps guarantee an unrelenting public diet of positive royal news.”

The obscure laws have been invoked several times in recent years as the role of the king comes under sharp focus in Thailand’s fraught post-coup environment. Last year Chotisak Onsoong was charged for refusing to stand during the national anthem in a cinema. More seriously, a government minister Jakrapob Penkair was charged with after a speech critical of the country’s patronage system which “bordered” on lèse majesté.

And as recently as last week Giles Ungpakorn, an associate professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University, was arrested for “unspecified charges” believed to be related to his critical public statements about the monarchy and his book A Coup for the Rich. The pugnacious Ungpakorn has refused to be silenced and promised to fight the charges in order, as he says, “to defend academic freedom, the freedom of expression and democracy in Thailand.” Ungpakorn, Nicolaides and the others deserve the support of everyone who cares about the precarious health of democracy in the 21st century.

British police abuse Section 27 powers to target football fans

Police in Manchester have been forced to issue an apology to 80 football fans after wrongfully preventing them from attending a football match. The 80 were all fans of Stoke City and were in a Manchester pub prior to a game against Manchester United on 15 November last year when they were all bundled into buses and made to return to Stoke. Despite the fact there was no evidence of any disturbance, Police issued a Section 27 notification in accordance with the Violent Crime Reduction Act which enabled them to take the extraordinary action of making them leave town. The fans received no apology for missing a match against the English champions and no refund for their expensive tickets.

According to Greater Manchester Police (GMP), they had received intelligence that around 80 fans were intent on causing trouble. They claimed it was their “duty to keep public order” that drove their action to detain the fans for four hours and send them back to Stoke. The GMP admitted it was now reviewing its use of the act to ensure it was only used when necessary. However they also said that only “a small proportion” of the 80 were not trouble makers, with a clear implication that the majority were. The GMP offered no rationale for their belief that peaceful fans were troublemakers nor have they revealed the "intelligence" that caused them to invoke Section 27 in the first place.

On the day of the incident, the Stoke fans had met at the Railway Inn in Irlam near Manchester for a few pre-match beers. The pub was a natural stop-off point to the stadium for those arriving via the M6 motorway or the local railway station. The atmosphere was quiet in the pub and the landlord made no complaint to the police. According to one fan at the pub, “there were no football chants being sung at the Railway Inn and no evidence of disorder whatsoever. If there had of been we would have left the pub and made our way elsewhere.” Nevertheless the premises were surrounded by police and the 80 supporters were all required to sign Section 27 forms or else face arrest. Police refused requests from some fans to state on the form that they were not intoxicated.

Section 27 (pdf) of the Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006 introduced a little known new police power to give directions to leave to individuals to leave a locality. The section can be invoked when an individual’s presence is deemed likely to cause or contribute to an “alcohol-related crime or disorder in a locality”. The Home Office circular related to the new powers directs chief police officers to use them “proportionately, reasonably and with discretion in circumstances where it is considered necessary to prevent the likelihood of alcohol-related crime or disorder.” Not only did the GMP fail to apply this test of the law, they were also guilty of a severe lack of proportionality.

According to Henry Portman in The Guardian, the police behaviour was both “oppressive and arbitrary”. Portman linked to a press release issued by the civil liberties and human rights group Liberty which gave further details of the inhumane way they treated the fans. Liberty said the 80 on the coach were deprived of toilet facilities and instructed to urinate into cups, which spilled over the floor of the bus. They had to sit with urine sloshing around their feet for the 65km journey back to Stoke.

Malcolm Clarke, the head of the Football Supporters' Federation (FSF), has taken up the cause of the wronged fans. He has appealed on the Stoke City fansite The Oatcake for anyone served with a Section 27 order to lodge a formal complaint. Clarke told Woolly Days that while Manchester Police have apologised to a subset of the 80 fans, they have not admitted illegality or agreed to pay damages. Clarke also noted there have been examples of other fans served with Section 27 orders. In December, South Yorkshire police prevented several Plymouth Argyle fans from attending a game at Doncaster Rovers and escorted them back to the south coast.

Clarke believes the hardline anti-fan attitude of individual police authorities is undermining the good work of the UK Football Policing Unit established in 2005. Football-related arrests have been dropping in recent years despite the highest league attendances in 35 years. “The Football Policing Unit has a very sensible strategy,” said Clarke. “But we don't have a national police force in the UK and they have no direct control over individual police forces.” The FSF will need to remain vigilant to ensure other police forces are not tempted to invoke the easy collective punishment aspect of Section 27.

Obama and Tocqueville: thoughts on the inaugural journey

Barack Obama’s inauguration train pulled into Washington overnight after a journey from Philadelphia that commemorated a similar ride by the first Republican president Abraham Lincoln. Well-wishers lined the route to greet the President-elect and the Obama family took in the scenery as the normally two hour journey took nine hours (it was still a big improvement on Lincoln’s 1861 trip from Ohio which took 12 days). The not-so-express stopped in Baltimore for a trip to the War Memorial and also in Wilmington, Delaware to pick up that state’s senator and vice-President elect Joe Biden.

Now that the administration team is in Washington, the world awaits as the wheels of American democracy turn and the free world gets new leadership. The US’s first black president carries a weight of expectations from his many constituencies but has a wealth of national and international goodwill behind him as he takes the Oath of office on Tuesday. It was the biographer of American democracy (ironically a freedom frying Frenchman) Alexis de Tocqueville who said that in America all men were “born equal". However Tocqueville wrote that before slavery ended in the south and he was only too aware that rule did not apply to blacks. “The negro,” he wrote in Democracy in America (1835), “cannot have any control over his own existence without committing a theft”.

Whether or not a black President can heel centuries of racial discrimination remains to be seen, but Obama’s victory was certainly no theft. It is also notable that Tocqueville framed the “negro” as a he, and writing in the 1830s, he wanted to extend suffrage rights to black and Native American men only. It was unthinkable that any woman would have the vote. (It makes me wonder which of our ‘self evident truths’ will seem backwards to our descendents a century from now?) But he was prescient to know that sooner or later, that the destiny of the world would be tied up with America.

And as in 2007, a Democrat presidential win became increasingly likely, it was equally obvious that the country would have its first black or female president. To that end, I actually wanted Hillary to win at first, as she represented an even large disenfranchised group than Obama (perhaps a Democrat Condoleezza Rice would have been ideal). But as Obama opened up through the campaign, it was clear he was the most striking and intelligent candidate. Those type of candidates don’t always win of course, and even less likely as a young black senator of less than four years standing in the Senate. He got the media onside with occasionally inspired oratory. But it was his use of "netroot" democracy which tore up the rules of campaign finance and enabled him to outspend Clinton in the long war of attrition in the primaries.

With Bush’s reputation in tatters, it was always likely that Obama would beat any Republican candidate once he’d seen off Clinton. The GOP chose the least Bush-a-like player in the party, but the base could never really get fully behind the maverick McCain despite his war hero status. They brought in Sarah Palin to compensate for his age, unattractiveness, and liberalism, but after brief stardom she was immolated in an orgy of Late Night Comedy. Dubya’s internal and international failures hung over the Republicans like a bad smell. Obama seized the metaphor for change and by end of the Democrat convention he was already the President-in-waiting just counting down the days to Dubya’s demise.

Curiously it is George W. Bush who claims his favourite political thinker was Alexis de Tocqueville. Bush liked Tocqueville’s description of a healthy America polity thanks to its ubiquitous "associations" or community groups. But there are pitfalls with pushing Tocqueville’s prescriptions. As Ted Widner points out in the International Herald Tribune, “the chief danger is that people will actually read him.”

Tocqueville accurately predicted the rise of the commercial classes that would eventually capture power in America. He knew even then that the country’s relentless conformity would mean that dissent and extremism would never become part of the political landscape. He knew Americans were not interested in other cultures. But none of that criticism seems to matter to his reputation in the US. This week alone, his words were not only quoted in the IHT but also by, among others, the Miami Herald's editorial about the inauguration, The Nation's story about Obama’s international impact, a letter to the Salt Lake Tribune about Abu Ghraib, The Baltimore Sun's story about the impact of TV, The Independent's (UK) story about Lincoln and even in the New York Times’s review of Slumdog Millionaire.

The humorist Russell Baker once suggested that of all the great unread writers, Alexis de Tocqueville is the most widely quoted. But it is true that for over a century and a half, his book has held up a mirror to Americans, allowing as Gerald Bevan puts it, “each generation to see themselves and their values in it”. What will Obama’s generation see in it?

Dawkins and the “new atheists" take to the buses

A Christian bus driver in Southampton, England has refused to drive a bus which carries a pro-atheism message on the side. The driver said he was shocked by “the starkness of this advert which implied there was no God”. 800 buses in England are now adorned with the message "There's probably no God, so stop worrying and enjoy your life." The English move follows a campaign in Washington DC last year which planted the message: "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake” on 240 buses. Here in Australia, the ad agency APN Outdoor took a more prudish stance and rejected a $16,000 campaign to put such slogans as "Sleep in on Sunday mornings" and "Celebrate reason" on local public transport.

While Australian atheists have been forced to take their case to the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Board, their counterparts in the UK would probably be delighted with the publicity their campaign has afforded. While the idea was the brainchild of comedian Ariane Sherine, it was quickly taken up by the country’s most public atheist Richard Dawkins. Sherine got a thousand people to pledge money to counter a pro-religion bias in the advertising world. Dawkins, the author of “The God Delusion” and the TV documentary “The Root of all Evil?” came to the party by agreeing to match all contributions up to the first £5,500. His endorsement also helped the credibility of the project, and in the end, the fundraising drive raised more than £140,000.

The campaign has raised a predictable outcry from the religious lobby and also some surprising support. The activist group Christian Voice has complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about the ads. However, the Methodist Church said the campaign might be a "good thing if it gets people to engage with the deepest questions of life”. But even some non-believers are finding this new militant brand of atheism off-putting and unnecessary. According to Natalie Rothschild in Spiked, the new atheists are engaging in religion-bashing. She says the reason the likes of Dawkins believe preachers and charlatans form such a threat to rational thinking is because of all the gullible masses that “apparently so easily fall for their quackery”.

But Rothschild’s argument is flawed. She says that Dawkins (and the other atheist campaigners) are preaching at the public rather than trying to engage it. Even if that were true, they would simply be mimicking the way religion also advertises itself. In any case, Dawkins went to great pains in The God Delusion to avoid preachiness and engage with the debate. The book presents 400 pages of closely argued points that look at the evolution of belief, its role in society, morality, philosophy and the impacts of organised religion. Harking to the bus campaign, one of his chapter headings is “why there is almost certainly no God”. Ironically it is one of the least interesting chapters (with its over-intellectual ruminations on irreducible complexity, god of the gaps, and the anthropic principle) of an otherwise engaging book and passionate polemic.

In an early chapter, Dawkins quotes the words of his late friend Douglas Adams. In the speech, Adams tackles the whole notion of the sacredness of religion. Religion was a notion, he said, that people were not allowed to say anything bad about. Adams continued:

“Why not? - because you're not!' If somebody votes for a party that you don't agree with, you're free to argue about it as much as you like; everybody will have an argument but nobody feels aggrieved by it. If somebody thinks taxes should go up or down you are free to have an argument about it, but on the other hand if somebody says 'I mustn't move a light switch on a Saturday', you say, 'Fine, I respect that'.”

Dawkins called it an example of “society’s overweening respect for religion”. Religious grounds are still the best bet for a wartime conscientious objector. And in those wars, Dawkins noted a “pusillanimous reluctance” to use religious names for the warring factors. Religions are exempt from a whole raft of laws (include taxation) that govern every other organisation. In the US, the constitutional right to the freedom of religion has been used to justify warped behaviour and discrimination against homosexuals and other minority groups. In the Muslim world, the furore over the Danish cartoons published by Jyllands-Posten was deliberately stoked up by a small group of Muslims living in Denmark. The clerics took their propaganda campaign worldwide with predictable results. Libyan rioters killed nine people and burned an Italian consulate. Pakistanis and Nigerians burned Christian churches, while in Britain some Muslims carried banners which read “behead those who say Islam is a violent religion”.

Believers deemed the hurt and suffering they felt as a result of seeing the pictures worse than any physical violence perpetrated on anyone who got in the way of their revenge. What Muslims share in common with believers of most other faiths is that their values trump anyone else’s. The atheist campaign is not about gratuitous offence or hurt to religious belief. But it is a valid protest against the disproportionate privilege of religion in otherwise secular societies. Dawkins quotes the words of the great H.L. Mencken: “we must respect the other fellow’s religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart”.

Indian premier league: Slumdog Millionaire

It seems difficult to believe, but a plot twist involving Rickie Ponting is the favourite to scoop this year’s Academy awards. Slumdog Millionaire is a hyper-energetic rags-to-riches tale from Danny Boyle which deserves to pick up every Oscar it can lay its hands on. This Britsh-Indian co-production that out-Hollywoods Hollywood (not to mention beating Bollywood) is already scooping awards. This week A R Rahman made history by becoming the first Indian to win a Golden Globe for his score and the film also took out Globes in the fields of best director (Boyle), best screenplay (Simon Beaufoy) and best drama. Drama is the operative word for Slumdog - its shamelessly romantic tale is an old-fashioned heartwarmer that Frank Capra would have been proud of.

Except not many Capra films featured concepts of torture, rape, murder, ethnic violence, gang culture or media exploitation. And Americans would never have filmed a story about the phenomenal growth of Mumbai, slum life and the contradictions and regeneration of India, among other things. The fact is that Slumdog is just too difficult to categorise. Yet it has universal appeal. In Danny Boyle’s capable hands it is a simple film in the best tradition of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl and boy, does he pull out the stops to find her again.

The premise of the story is that the hero, Jamal (played by the British actor Dev Patel who appeared in the Bristol teen drama “Skins”) goes on to the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire in order to win his girl back. Inadvertently, he gets all the answers right. The authorities are suspicious of a “slumdog” winning the millions and interrogate him to get at the “truth”. The story of how he knows all the answers is told in a series of energetic flashbacks that explain much of Jamal’s eventful life. The plot arc sent movie reviewers scurrying back to Dickens for contrast and comparison. For Roger Ebert, Jamal was Oliver Twist; for James Berardinelli he was David Copperfield.

But this is an ancient story which is dressed up in modern clothes. There is a real life Indian version of Millionaire called “Kaun Banega Crorepati” (which translates as who wants to be a “ten millionaire” according to the inflated value of the rupee). The joke here is that the show’s host is Amitabh Bachchan, the 1970s Indian film star who is the answer to the first of the questions that lead Jamal to his magic millions. The clever script is by Simon Beaufoy (who also wrote The Full Monty) and is based on "Q&A" a novel by Vikas Swarup. Swarup is a level-headed Indian diplomat who doubles as a writer of fiction. But even he has been overwhelmed by the reception of the film treatment of his book having done 30 interviews in the last two days.

The Slumdog phenomenon has even affected the normally starchy Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw who admitted he was forced to enjoy the film. “Despite being overpraised” he said, “this is still very effective entertainment.” However in typical Guardian fashion the spoilsport Bradshaw notes out the film is co-produced by Celador Films who own the rights to the original TV show “and so it functions as a feature-length product placement for the programme.” Yet as Bradshaw himself admits, it would be churlish to deny the film’s wonderful entertainment value. Like Jamal, Slumdog Millionaire is a winner: it is written.

Optus spanked for spamming

The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has imposed a major fine on Optus for sending thousands of unsolicited and anonymous text messages. Optus were fined under the Spam Act for not providing sufficient identification of origin on text message that were sent out to 20,000 customers. Optus tried to negotiate their way out of the penalty but failed and now face a substantial $110,000 fine for two related offences.

ACMA issued the two infringement notices to Optus for failing to provide clear and accurate sender identification with SMS promotions. The messages promoted the OptusZoo entertainment service to mobile phones with the sender identification of ‘966’. ACMA chair Chris Chapman did not accept Optus's assumption that message recipients would make the connection between the keypad letters of Zoo and 966. “This was not considered sufficient identification, as 966 could be used to represent any number of permutations on a telephone keypad,” he said. He went on to warn companies considering similar shonky schemes that “ensuring spam compliance procedures are understood by all staff is imperative for all businesses if they want to avoid the risk of costly fines.”

The fines are mandated by the 2003 Spam Act (pdf) which regulates unsolicited commercial electronic messages such as emails, SMS messages, MMS messages and instant messaging. The act imposes three key obligations on businesses that send electronic messages. They must firstly only send messages with the implied or explicit consent of customers, secondly they must include clear and accurate information about the identification of the sender and finally they must include an “unsubscribe” function in all messages. Unlike the weak ‘opt out’ US CAN-SPAM Act (message recipients had to ask the sender not to send future messages), the Australian legislation was ‘opt in’. Only charities, religious organisations, political parties and the Government are exempt from the law. The downside is that is has no jurisdiction over foreign spammers.

Yet if ACMA are to be believed, the Act has been successful in significantly reducing locally-generated spam. They say that at the time the penalty provisions of the Act were introduced (2004) Australia was 10th in the ranking of spam-relaying countries. However by end 2007, Australia had fallen to 35th. The biggest offender against the Act so far has been DC Marketing Europe Limited which copped a $150,000 fine for contraventions relating to missed call marketing (short duration calls which deliberately leave a ‘missed call message’ to entice callers to ring back) in 2006. DC Marketing breached the Spam Act on all three counts; sending unsolicited messages, not identifying the sender and not containing an unsubscribe facility. While it is arguable that Optus also failed under the first of these requirements, ACMA charged them over the second requirement. The problem is that spam remains an attractive business proposition despite the high penalties. “Eliminating spam is a war you cannot win," according to one computer security expert. "It is much cheaper to send spam than stop it.”

Nonetheless the best tactic for consumers inundated with unwanted corporate pap is to ignore it. An Optus customer who did not want to be identified told Woolly Days he had gotten the spam emails that incurred the wrath of ACMA. He said the “966” texts could be identified as coming from Optus as the term "optuszoo" did appear in the actual text. However, he added, "like all other unsolicited text I receive, I just disregard them."

Barnaby Grudge: Joyce considers his options

The maverick Queensland National senator Barnaby Joyce has been hogging his fair share of headlines in the last week. Today the Federal Government gleefully reacted to his comments that carbon emissions trading would do nothing to counter climate change and would cost jobs. Joyce took the argument to its Godwinesque conclusion when he compared climate change sceptics with Holocaust deniers and said he would not be "goosestepping" along with environmentalists. Agriculture Minister Tony Burke then called on Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull to get Joyce to retract his comparisons with Nazi Germany. But given that Joyce has crossed the floor many times against his Coalition colleagues, it is doubtful Turnbull has much influence over him. It is also possible Joyce made the comments as part of his own ambitions to replace the Nationals' ineffectual leader Warren Truss.

Joyce is up for Senate re-election in 2010 but has recently expressed his desire to cross to the lower house and contest for the party leadership after an endorsement from former PM John Howard. Joyce has publicly vowed to consider contesting a seat not held by the Coalition if it will boost his profile and his party’s election chances. However, the most logical seat for him to represent would be his St George hometown seat of Maranoa held by the veteran National Bruce Scott. The problem is that Scott is not in a hurry to resign and is no fan of Joyce. Today he came out swinging and told The Australian that "if Barnaby Joyce wants to boost our chances by taking a seat off Labor or an independent, that's fine."

But Scott may yet have to deal with internal pressure to stave off a Joyce assault on his territory. Maranoa is Nationals heartland and their safest seat with a massive 21 percent margin. Scott has held the seat since 1990 and will be 67 at the time of the next election. As one staunch National party member told the rural news site Agmates recently “Bruce is a really nice man, but he’s had his go, time to move over and let someone else have a shot - especially if it’s Barnaby". He continued, “If Bruce won’t stand aside, someone in the Party needs to tap him on the shoulder.”

Today, Scott Steel at Pollytics weighed in with a delicious pummelling of the time-serving current Maranoa member. He said Bruce Scott was “channeling Charlton Heston’s greatest NRA convention moments and giving [Joyce] the 'from my cold, dead hands' spiel.” He went on to say a Barnaby Joyce leadership represents the best chance for the National Party to rescue itself and position itself toward a more independent line by “doing something profound in Nats circles – actually representing the interests of their constituents.” Independence, says Steel, is the only way the Party can prevent extinction. However he also points out the double dilemma Joyce poses for his party. Firstly, finding a lower seat house to suit him and secondly, defending his seat in the Senate at the next election.

The Australian’s Queensland political reporter Sean Parnell believes Joyce may need to switch state to achieve his lower house ambitions. Parnell quoted fellow Queensland National senator Ron Boswell who suggested that he take on independent MP (and former National member) Tony Windsor in the NSW seat of New England. Although Joyce does have farming interests in the seat, it is likely Boswell is being disingenuous in order to focus attention away from more winnable Queensland seats especially ones held by National MPs who dislike Joyce’s perceived independent stance in parliament.

Joyce himself said he would more than likely stay in Queensland. Ben Raue, writing at The Tally Room, proposes the seat of Flynn which borders Joyce’s home seat of Maranoa. Labor gained an eight percent swing in Flynn in the last election to win the seat but it now hangs on a knife-edge with a swing of just 0.2 percent needed to win it back. Also as Raue points out, a redistribution is likely to pull Flynn further away from urban centres, which could be enough to make it a notional Nationals seat.

Meanwhile the Mackay Daily Mercury suggests that Joyce is eyeing off James Bidgood’s seat of Dawson. Bidgood became the first Labor MP for the Mackay seat in 30 years when he took it in the 2007 election with a 13.6 percent swing from the National’s De-Anne Kelly. The seat could be won back with a swing of less than 4 percent. Joyce has himself admitted Dawson is one of his best options.

However as Scott Steel says, the historical volatility of North Queensland and uncertainty following the re-drawing of electoral boundaries make the likes of Flynn and Dawson problematic seats for party leaders to hold when they should be concentrating on national issues – as Joyce’s recent mentor John Howard found out to his cost in the last election. Maranoa is the best option, but it means carrying out the difficult task of removing the deadwood Bruce Scott.

Sri Lankan government implicated in death of prominent critic

The death toll in Northern Sri Lanka’ 25 year old war has risen to 70,000 after the military captured two Tamil Tiger bases in a heavy air and ground assault. The hardline Colombo government has vowed to crush the separatist movement over the next few months after overrunning their administrative capital Kilinochchi a week ago. The government is also clamping down on internal critics and a heavy shadow has been cast over the country after the assassination of one of Sri Lanka's leading journalists last week. Lasantha Wickrematunge had been one of the country’s most prominent editors and was a scathing critic of government and military figures. On Thursday, he was shot repeatedly with an automatic pistol equipped with a silencer while driving to work in the capital and died of his wounds in hospital.

Wickrematunge was a freelance reporter for Time and the editor of popular Colombo weekly The Sunday Leader. The Leader was well known for being critical of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa's government. Wickrematunge founded the paper in 1994 with his brother and it quickly became one of the strongest voices for democracy in Sri Lanka. It spoke out against corruption, terrorism, organised crime and human rights violations. But it got in most trouble for its attitude to the war in the north. In a recent editorial, the paper accused the president of stepping up the war in order to stay in power. In return Rajapaksa called Wickrematunge a “terrorist journalist”. But Wickrematunge was more of a victim of terrorism. He had been subject to numerous threats and on two occasions he was brutally assaulted, while on another his house was sprayed with machine-gun fire.

Yesterday Wickrematunge’s niece Natalie Samarasinghe wrote an article in The Guardian defending her uncle’s legacy. She denied he acted against Sri Lankan interests, called him “a true patriot” and said he loved his county and was loyal to his principles. However she decried the lack of world attention to the brutal war going on in the country’s north. “Until justice is done and someone starts giving a damn about Sri Lanka, she said, “a nasty stain remains on the conscience of the world.”

Wickrematunge knew he was in danger. In the preceding weeks, he had received several threatening telephone calls. At home on the morning of his death he got a call from the Sunday Leader office that some people had observed suspicious activity and that he was being followed. However he was determined to go to office to commence writing his column and to take steps against this new threat. He never made it to the office. An eyewitness to the shooting said he saw motorbikes speeding off and people moving towards a parked car. When he approached the car he saw that the window on one side was smashed and the main windscreen was damaged. He looked into the vehicle and found a person lying across the two front seats. "I saw that he was finding it difficult to breathe. Then I called on some of the people standing around to carry him to a van that was there. We carried him into the van. He was bleeding heavily from the head," he said.

Wickrematunge was taken to hospital but died after three hours of extensive surgery. This weekend, his Sunday Leader newspaper printed his powerful final editorial where he foretold his own death. The article was entitled “and then they came for me” reflecting the words of Pastor Martin Niemöller about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power. In it Wickrematunge knew his life was in danger but said the “call of conscience” demanded he continue his work to the end. The article even predicted what would happen after his death. “In the wake of my death I know you [President Rajapaksa] will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry,” he wrote. “But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too.”

Wickrematunge’s death is the latest in a long line of attacks against Sri Lankan media workers critical of the government. Amnesty International last year said that at least 10 journalists were killed in the last two years. It said that many more were abducted, detained or had disappeared. The state has also locked up some of its more vociferous critics. In December Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on the Sri Lanka government drop charges and free a prominent Tamil journalist on trial for his writings. J.S. Tissainayagam, a columnist with the Sunday Times newspaper, was arrested in March by the Terrorist Investigation Division and eventually charged for printing and distributing a pro-Tamil magazine and “aiding and abetting terrorist organisations”. HRW says that since 2006 the Rajapaksa Government has intimidated and silenced the media and any other dissenting views of the government's military policies.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has called on foreign ambassadors to “weigh in forcefully and immediately” with President Rajapaksa to stop the attacks on the nation’s media. Wickrematunge’s death came two days after an early morning assault on Maharaja TV (MTV) studios outside Colombo. 15 masked men shot at and destroyed broadcast equipment, held staff at gunpoint, and attempted to burn down the station's facilities after state media had called the station "unpatriotic" for its coverage of the war.

Reporters Without Borders also condemned Wickrematunge’s murder. They issued a statement which said Sri Lanka has lost “one of its more talented, courageous and iconoclastic journalists.” They warned that military victories against the Tamil Tigers must not be seen as a green light for death squads to “sow terror among government critics”, including outspoken journalists. “The international community must do everything possible to halt such a political vendetta,” they said. The last word belongs to the end of Lasantha Wickrematunge's extraordinary final message to his Sri Lankan audience. “Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.”

Greenhouse gas emissions still on the rise in Queensland and Victoria

A new report has shown a year on year rise in greenhouse gas emissions in eastern Australia that is unevenly distributed. While both Victoria and Queensland recorded a rise in greenhouse gas emissions, NSW recorded a fall. The Climate Group (headquartered in London but also based in the US, Brussels, Beijing and Melbourne) has tracked greenhouse emissions from energy use in NSW, Victoria and Queensland on a weekly basis for two years. The results in their 2008 annual report (pdf) show a 3.6 million tonne increase in emissions in the three Eastern Australian mainland states which represents a 1.3 percent increase on 2007. However the increase was not uniform; Victoria and Queensland emissions rose 2.2 and 2.0 million tonnes respectively, while in NSW emissions fell by 0.5 million tonnes.

The results also showed a marked increase in emissions across all states since 2000. In 2008 the NSW Indicator was 25 per cent higher than its 2000 emission, the Victorian Indicator was 6 per cent higher and the Queensland Indicator was 34 per cent higher. The Climate Group said the 2008 figures would have been worse but for high petrol prices most of the year. Petrol sales decreased by 9 per cent in NSW, 7 per cent in Queensland and 2 per cent in Victoria though there was a marked increase in diesel use in all three states.

The Climate Group report said the discrepancies between the states were due to economic growth and population increases in Queensland and Victoria that were not matched by NSW. Most of the increase in emissions in the two offender states was from coal-fired generators. The Climate Group’s Australian director Robert Posner issued a media release yesterday which said the results demonstrated the reliance on coal for electricity is Australia’s biggest greenhouse issue. “We need to change this pretty quickly if we want to cut greenhouse emissions,” he said.

Posner said the results should be a wake-up call. He said action was needed now if Australia is to reduce greenhouse pollution. “The window of opportunity open to us to prevent dangerous climate change is becoming smaller but there are lots of things that people can do immediately to start making a difference,” he said. This call is unlikely to be heeded in Victoria where the government authorised a new $750m coal-fired power plant in the Latrobe Valley last year.

Predictably, the Victorian Government has come out fighting against the report's recommendations. State environment minister Gavin Jennings described the results as “mischievous” while Government spokesman Stephen Moynihan claimed emissions improvements had been made on a per capita basis. He told The Age that "Victoria's per capita energy-related emissions have fallen by 5.4 per cent from 2000 to 2008.”

Meanwhile reaction was more muted in Queensland, the other offender state. The Brisbane Courier-Mail reported the Climate Group’s figure of Queensland’s two million tonne surge in emissions but did not note any response from the local state government. However, the local Greens released a statement saying the increase “was proof of the utter failure of the Labor government to cope with the challenge of climate change.” Given that the 2008 Queensland budget promised over $600m in subsidies to the local coal industry, it is difficult to disagree with their assessment.

On Edmund Burke

The recent death of Conor Cruise O’Brien brought to mind one of his greatest works, the life and times of Edmund Burke in his book The Great Melody. Edmund Burke was one of the greatest minds of the 18th century. There were many resemblances between his life and that of his greatest biographer O’Brien two hundred years later. Both were born in Ireland of mixed religious parentage and both left the country to seek a role on a bigger stage. But both found that Ireland had never left them and it preoccupied both their careers.

Burke was a statesman, political thinker, orator and an ardent campaigner. He was central to the great debates about liberty, empire, and the great American and French revolutions that dominated political thought in the latter half of the 18th century. Though raised in a wealthy Protestant family, he had much Catholic heritage. His Co Cork mother Mary Nagle never truly renounced her Catholic faith and his attorney father Richard Burke was a reluctant convert to the ascendency religion in order to escape the tyranny of the Penal Laws which made life intolerably difficult for Irish Catholics.

Burke’s earliest schooling was in a Catholic hedge school near the Nagle homestead in the Blackwater Valley. Aged 12, he was transferred to a Quaker school and eventually attended Trinity College Dublin where he graduated with a BA. Richard Burke wanted his son to follow him into the legal profession and young Edmund was enrolled at London’s Middle Temple to study law. Little is known of Burke’s life in the six years after he left Dublin. However by 1757 he had published his first two books and got married to Jane Nugent, daughter of an Irish Catholic physician. Edmund and Jane had two boys, only one of which, Richard, survived into adulthood.

By the early 1760s, Burke was beginning to lay the foundations of his political career. In 1765 he found a life-lasting patron Charles Watson-Wentworth, better known as the Marquess of Rockingham. At the time Rockingham was the leader of a section of Whigs and was about form a government which would last a year. Burke himself was elected to parliament for the rotten borough of Wendover and quickly attracted attention with a brilliant maiden speech in January 1766. However the first Rockingham administration was unstable and fell later that year. Burke would loyally remain with his patron in opposition for 16 years.

In 1774 he was elected for the proper seat of Bristol, then a thriving port and the country’s second city behind London. As the decade progressed, Britain became involved in a debilitating war against France and the rebellious colonies in America. Burke risked the wrath of his constituents by supporting a proposal to import Irish goods and abolish duties. But Bristol’s merchants wished to maintain a protected trade and refused to support him in the 1780 election. His mainly Protestant electorate were also unimpressed by his support for the repeal of some of the penal laws two years previously.

Burke was an early sympathiser to the demands of the American colonialists. He admired their energy, audacity, ingenuity and hardihood; qualities he celebrated in many major speeches. Yet he didn’t immediately want to see them leave the union. His dilemma was that he abhorred slavery and therefore was not prepared to see the Southern colonies represented at Westminster. He opposed coercive taxation measures and could see that war was inevitable which would have only one result: an independent American state. Even “our victories there,” he prophesised, “can only complete our ruin”.

However, Britain under the influence of King George III was reluctant to compromise with the rebels. With the nation in crisis, George was anxious for Rockingham to form another government. But with Burke manipulating in the background, Rockingham would not consent unless the King dropped his royal veto on American independence. George refused to do so until 1782. By then Burke was back in parliament in Rockingham’s pocket borough of Malton. It was Burke who devised the unambiguous words by which Rockingham would regain power: “The King must not give a veto to the independence of America.” George eventually caved in, and with it royal power was diminished: Britain had made the transition to constitutional monarchy.

Burke’s obsession with India was even longer than that of America. For 30 years until his death, he denounced the abuses and corruptions of the all-ruling East India Company. From 1782 onward, he insisted it be brought under the control of parliament and argued for the impeachment of the company’s most senior officer Warren Hastings. Hastings was the defacto ruler of British India and extracted collective extortion from the natives on behalf of the Company. However he was undone by the testimony of a functionary Philip Francis. Francis alerted Burke to Hastings activities and he (Burke) set up a parliamentary investigation of India.

After Rockingham formed government, Burke began to direct Indian policy. The Company had powerful friends including the King who brought down the second Rockingham administration and asked William Pitt the Younger (then aged 24) to form a government. Yet Burke continued to expose Company rackets in parliament and he left Pitt with no option but to impeach Hastings. His trial would last seven years and he was eventually acquitted, but Burke had his victory: the Company was brought under the control of parliament.

Burke’s greatest fame (or infamy depending on political view) is for his strong views about the French Revolution. His early feelings were ambiguous: “The spirit is impossible not to admire; but the old Parisian ferocity has broken out in a shocking manner”. But his view quickly hardened against it. In 1790 he prophesised that the national assembly would not last and the mob would someday hang the king. That year he published his “Reflections on the Revolution in France” where he said the revolution would be obliged to be “purified by fire and blood”. The September Massacres, the Terror, and the royal executions would prove Burke right. He also foresaw Napoleon when he said that power would be seized by a “popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery”.

The book came under fierce attack by supporters of the revolution who were quick to pen their responses. These included Mary Wollstonecraft “A Vindication of the Rights of Man” and Thomas Paine’s “The Rights of Man”. Burke ignored these and continued to work on his parliamentary colleagues to condemn the events in France. He made peace with Pitt and George III who were also against the revolution. Burke was also alarmed by the spread of Jacobin ideas to his native Ireland as the 1790s progressed. He did not live to see unsuccessful rebellion which spread there in 1798. He died a year earlier at home on 9 July 1797 with his wife Jane by his side. He was 68. He was survived by the wealth of great writings and speeches which rank among the masterpieces of English eloquence.

Irish Crime and Punishment: the corruption of Charlie Haughey

I left Ireland after Christmas with the nation in a strange time warp that reminded me of the 1980s. The current economic crisis was superficially similar to how it felt at the time when I first left the country 24 years ago. The similarities were still there this week as the Dell plant in Limerick closed with the loss of 1,800 jobs. The country offered nothing to me in 1985 and I felt a more interesting life could be had first in Britain and then in Australia. While I wasn’t an economic refugee, 1980s Ireland was a mostly stagnant pool. At the start of that decade the Magill journal published the shocking news that 1 million of the country’s then 3.2 million citizens were living below the poverty line. As the decade developed, things seemed to be getting no better. A falling growth rate, rising unemployment and excessive government borrowing suggested the country was heading towards disaster.

Yet the disaster never eventuated. In the 1990s, Ireland reinvented itself on the back the almighty dollar. Ireland was a suddenly a Celtic Tiger riding an exhilarating wave on the tech boom. Numerous US multinationals (Dell included) were enticed into the country with dubious tax sweeteners. By 2000, the economy was self sustaining and the construction industry had taken over as the most profitable sector. After spilling its people out for its first 60 years, the Irish state was suddenly actively recruiting, both from within the Irish Diaspora and without. The social make-up underwent extreme change.

I said the current crisis was only superficially similar to the crisis of the 1980s. For starters there is now money in the country. There is also a new and talented pool of individuals who like millennia of invader generations before them “have become more Irish than the Irish themselves”. There is also no Charles Haughey, the thief-in-chief who cast a long shadow over the Irish polity from when he emerged as bright but opportunistic junior minister in the 1960s to his retirement in scandal in 1992. British files from 1978 recently released under the thirty year rule described him even then as likely to be corrupt and as someone who “associated with the nouveau riche of the Dublin business world”.

I am reminded of these things after reading a book on the long trip home by Waterford-born Oxford academic Roy Foster. Called “Luck and the Irish: A brief history of change, 1970-2000”, it is an enjoyable and forensic examination of the main reasons for change in Ireland in those hectic 30 years. For better or worse, and it is mostly worse, Haughey was a major figure through much of the era.

Charles J. Haughey became a notorious figure in 1970 when he survived unscathed out of a murky Arms Trial. Haughey and fellow Fianna Fail minister Neil Blaney were arrested and charged for attempts to import arms into the state for use in the North. Then Taoiseach Jack Lynch sacked him from the cabinet (but restored him after a few years in exile). Haughey was acquitted but contradictions in testimony suggested there had been more covert government acquiescence than appeared in court. Haughey retreated to the back benches to the disgust of many who wanted him sacked from the party.

Haughey went back to his party machine to lick his wounds. While he kept a low profile, there were compensations. For starters, he had become exceptionally rich. His academic degrees in commerce and law enabled him to establish a successful accounting business, but as Foster notes, Haughey’s “way of life soon outpaced even that of the richest of his clients.” He used his own windfall tax act to avoid paying duties on a Georgian house he sold at a massive profit in 1969 and moved into the 250 acre Abbeville Mansion at Kinsealy. He added to his portfolio with a stud farm in Meath, a large yacht, and the ultimate status symbol, his own island Inishvickillane, off the coast of Kerry.

No one could tell quite how he could afford it all. After 1960 he was no longer active in the accountancy business and lavishness wasn’t viable on a slender government minister’s salary. Yet no one cared, apart from his bank manager. By the end of the 1970s his personal debt at the Allied Irish Banks quadrupled to a million Irish pounds and was becoming a serious embarrassment to the bank (though not to the politician, who full of chutzpah, solemnly told the people of Ireland “they had been living beyond their means”). By then, he was Taoiseach and in a position to ignore AIB’s complaints about the money he owed them.

His ascension to the top job stunned most of his government colleagues. When Jack Lynch retired, his designated successor George Colley had the support of 22 of the 25 government ministers. But Haughey assiduously worked the back bench and won the ballot. Jack Lynch retreated in shock to his native Cork and although he lived on for another 20 years studiously avoided all further party activity.

Becoming Taoiseach did not change Haughey – his main interest was the accumulation of wealth. His financial go-between Des Traynor transferred bank debts by collecting “loans” (in practice, never paid back) from businessmen and moving the balance to heavily shielded accounts in the Caymans. Haughey surrounded himself with corrupt politicians such as Padraig Flynn and Sean Doherty who followed their master’s venal habits. Haughey also gained control of Fianna Fail party funds and many donations ended up in his pockets aided by the blank cheques provided by naively trusting party secretary Bertie Ahern (who would eventually inherit Haughey’s leadership mantle in 1997).

Haughey’s shonky dealings gave no indication that a major economic recovery was just around the corner. The economic crisis meant most of his 1980s budgets were hairshirt affairs. The burden of taxation was unfairly borne by salaried employees while farmers (and some politicians) paid virtually nothing. When Haughey was returned to power in 1987 after a gap of almost five years, the country was making slow steps to what would become an astonishing transformation. Much of the early wealth was skewed. Although Ireland was beginning to get a dividend from EU membership, large farmers fared best from the Common Agricultural Policy. Agribusiness also benefited from phony export credits. Meanwhile property developers made money from tax breaks and land rezoning.

It wasn’t until the late 1990s that politicians began to be called to account for their crimes in a series of tribunals. The McCracken tribunal found the offshore accounts but luckily for Haughey, Traynor his bookkeeper was dead by then and the secrets of who owned the money died with him. The Flood Tribunal showed Fianna Fail cabinet members had accepted bribes from businessmen for land deals. By the time of the Moriarty Tribunal it was clear Haughey was the biggest offender. The tribunal found he had taken payments of 12 million euros between 1979 and 1996 for “services rendered”.

But by then Haughey had long retired. In 1992 his position as leader became untenable after a series of party room blunders. Finance minister Albert Reynolds positioned himself for a spill. After a sacked and embittered Sean Doherty revealed Haughey had ordered phone taps of unfriendly journalists ten years earlier, the game was up. For the remainder of his 14 surviving years, much of his remaining reputation withered as further revelations of his malfeasance emerged. His death in June 2006 was marked with mixed commentary. The best I could say of him at the time was “he was the first quintessential modern politician in Ireland. He was driven by desire not by dogma.” Having read Foster’s account, I’m even less inclined to be charitable. Haughey was a criminal who infected the body politic for decades and made corruption acceptable at the highest levels. Ireland is a far better place for his passing.