Robert Hampton

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In the News

14th November 2015

Liberté, égalité, fraternité
Posted by at 11.17pm | In the News | No responses

Eiffel Tower

What to say about the Paris massacre that hasn’t already been said? I’m finding it difficult to find the words to convey the mounting sense of shock and horror that I felt as I watched the evening’s events unfold on television. I can’t even begin to imagine the trauma that those directly affected are feeling.

I try to look at these things unemotionally. Mathematically speaking, the odds are in our favour. If you live in a stable Western democracy, chances are that you will never be caught up in a random attack.

But even the most rational human could not totally rid themselves of the nagging doubt, the fear that you could be one of those people who are later described as “being in the wrong place at the wrong time”. There’s always a slight possibility that a routine shopping trip, a visit to the cinema, or the commute to work can turn tragic in the blink of an eye.

I am comforted by the many acts of kindness that were reported in the immediate aftermath. The Parisians who opened up their homes for stranded people. The taxi drivers who took people home for free. Cities are imperfect places in many ways, but at times like this the anonymous mass of people somehow always seems to coalesce into an impromptu support network.

Paris will recover, and carry on – just as London, New York, Mumbai and countless other places have had to do. The only alternative is for everyone to hide under the bed and never come out – although admittedly, telecommuting and online grocery shopping makes this a very feasible option these days.

But carrying on can wait for a day or two. In the meantime, let us all honour and mourn those whose lives have been cut short so brutally.

15th June 2015

Runnymede and Titan, yes sir, I’ve been around
Posted by at 8.13pm | In the News | 1 response

Today marks the 800th anniversary of the signing of Magna Carta, the document which, legal scholars agree, laid the foundations for our modern legal system. David Cameron is celebrating big style. If the commemorations seem a little over the top, bear in mind that most current Conservative party supporters were around for the original event – it’s a big thing for them.

Addressing the crowd, the prime minister, who has advocated Britain’s withdrawal from the European convention on human rights and replacing the Human Rights Act (HRA), said Magna Carta had altered “forever the balance of power between the governed and government”.

It does rankle slightly to hear the Prime Minister talk in reverent tones about Magna Carta, while also advocating the withdrawal from the European Convention of Human Rights and promoting the Snooper’s Charter – more legislation which will forever alter the power between governed and government. As comedian Paul Sinha pointed out on Twitter earlier today, Cameron is King John in this scenario.

Cameron appeared on Letterman in 2012, where he was asked what Magna Carta meant. He didn’t know.

17th May 2015

Charity begins at phone
Posted by at 6.28pm | In the News | 1 response

I’ve been interested and saddened by the story of Olive Cooke, the 92-year-old who, it is alleged, was hounded by charities for donations in the weeks before her death.

Olive Cooke, 92, threw herself into a gorge in Bristol after struggling to cope with charities calling her up to 10 times a day and sending her almost 200 letters a month requesting donations.

Before her death she had almost 30 direct debits to charities and was struggling to cope with hundreds of pounds of bank charges after failing to meet her commitments.

A while ago, I was walking down Church Street in Liverpool City Centre. Anyone who has visited this, the city’s principal shopping street, will know that a trip to Marks & Spencer can quickly turn into a game of cat and mouse with the many “chuggers” that lie in wait there – so much so that Liverpool introduced restrictions on their operations.

“Hi there Mr Sunshine!” – ah, the fake compliment; the chugger’s calling card.

I failed to take sufficient evasive action and ended up cornered by one of these people. This was years ago, before my aggressive masculinity asserted itself (stop laughing, you) and I ended up signing the form that got thrust into my face. In any case, it helped assuage the guilt I feel as a do-gooder liberal leftie.

This wasn’t enough for said charity, though. I got calls from them every couple of months, and a constant stream of letters through the post. I’m pretty sure my entire monthly donation was being spent on postage and phone call charges.

He wasn’t ready when I said that on reflection, I should probably just cancel the direct debit as I couldn’t afford it (this was actually true; at the time I was going through a bit of a squeeze financially). Not sure if he’d get any commission for that call.

So that was my experience with Big Charity. The point is: if I can be guilt-tripped into donating money like that, I can’t begin to imagine how a vulnerable person would feel.

8th May 2015

Oh no

I should have listened to Ian:-

He was worried about “shy Tories”. I tried to stay calm and confident. Thursday evening the polls were neck and neck and it looked as though Labour, even if it wasn’t the biggest party, had enough votes to lock the Tories out.

And yet… I had a nagging feeling that all wasn’t well.

Then the exit poll came out, and hope dissipated:-

Labour figures were duly wheeled on screen to tell Andrew Neil that the exit poll didn’t square with their experience in constituencies across the UK. However, once the results started to come in, it became clear that, if anything, the Tory vote had been underestimated.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I was looking forward to the wrangling of a hung Parliament and the promised “anti-Tory bloc”. I had little meme GIFs ready to go.

I continued tweeting out the odd daft joke, fuelled by an unholy combination of coffee and Pepsi Max. I finally gave up just after Sheffield Hallam declared, with Nick Clegg just hanging on to his seat. A few crumbs came in the form of Esther McVey and George Galloway losing their seats, and Nigel Farage failing to take Thanet South. Really though, Thursday night can’t be viewed as anything other than a disaster.

Through it all, I felt numb. It was only this morning when Ed Miliband announced his resignation, that it finally hit home what had happened. The Tories, now with a majority, and the freedom to push through all their crazy ideas.

Say goodbye to the Human Rights Act, the European Union and the NHS. Say hello to the Snoopers Charter and (probably) water cannon on the streets. Savage cuts to welfare, council services and the BBC are all in the pipeline. All the progress made during Labour’s 13 years in government – gone.

Perhaps the worst thing is that this represents a victory for the old establishment. Rupert Murdoch, Paul Dacre, the Barclay Brothers – this is the result they wanted.

I don’t mind admitting that I cried a little bit. I’m genuinely scared for the future. The next five years are going to be difficult for anyone on the left. The best we can hope for is that Labour regroups quickly, as it did after 1992. Meanwhile, I’m considering moving to Scotland… or Berlin (subject to EU free movement rules of course).

6th May 2015

Ballot Dancer

Note: this post is quite long. I’ve tried to rewrite it a couple of times, and each time it still ends up quite rambling. It doesn’t say all I want to say; for example, it barely mentions the Greens (which I’m not happy about) or UKIP (which I am much less unhappy about). But voting takes place tomorrow, so I’ve more or less run out of time to say anything about the election. On the basis that the text below probably makes about as much sense as any other comment on this unusual and unpredictable election, I’m posting it as-is.

TLDR: Labour aren’t perfect, but Ed Miliband as PM is the best possible outcome.

Opinion polls are rubbish. Seriously.

During this campaign we have seen two or three new opinion polls released each day. Generally, one shows a slight Labour lead, and Labour supporters get excited for a couple of hours, until a different poll comes out showing the Tories a couple of points ahead. Average them all out and both parties are in a dead heat. In fact, the polls have barely moved since the start of the campaign on 30th March.

Politicians are fond of saying that the only poll that matters is the one on election day, and they’re probably right this time. We could easily see a rerun of 1992 when the polling got the election result spectacularly wrong. On the other hand, the polls could be right, and both Labour and the Conservatives could end up more or less level in terms of seats.

(As an aside, my friend Ian Jones’s UK General Election blog is an excellent source for number-crunching and statistics)

In short, we are going into Thursday’s election with no definite idea of what the result will be. Lots of commentators are saying it is the most exciting election in living memory. Yes, it’s exciting – the same way I’d be excited if I didn’t know whether my birthday present was a gold watch or a lump of dog shit. If this election goes the wrong way and the Tories somehow get back in, I think it would be a disaster for the country.

Read the rest of this post »

27th February 2015

He Lived Long and Prospered

A lot of love on my Twitter feed at the moment for Star Trek‘s Leonard Nimoy, who has died today at the age of 83.

He had a long career, but let’s be honest, he will be remembered above all else for his role as Spock, across three seasons of Star Trek, eight films, and one of the best episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation:-

After the Original Series ended, Nimoy was reportedly upset at being typecast as Spock. He got over that in later years though, going on to poke fun at his image in my all-time favourite episode of The Simpsons: “Marge vs The Monorail”.

He also launched an ill-advised singing career. The best you can say about The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins is that it’s not William Shatner’s Rocket Man.

It’s unlikely that Captain Kirk will steal the Enterprise to launch a rescue mission to the Genesis planet, largely because none of those things are real. So instead let’s just remember Nimoy’s final tweet from a few days ago:-

22nd February 2015

Standing out from the crowd
Posted by at 12.23pm | In the News, Politics | No responses

Not a big fan of crowdfunding-type things, but this one caught my eye:-

‘I am an immigrant’ poster campaign is a response to the increased anti-immigration rhetoric occurring in politics and the need to shed positive light on immigrants and the social, economic and cultural prosperity they bring to the nation.

The poster campaign emerged out of the Movement Against Xenophobia (MAX) which aims to rid the dialogue on immigration policy of racism and discrimination. With the 2015 General Election, the language and the rhetoric will only get worse.

The deadline to pledge is 24th February (i.e. this Tuesday). They have exceeded their original target already, but extra funding will allow them to run an even bigger campaign. In the run-up to the general election, a counterpoint to widespread anti-immigrant rhetoric is desperately needed. Head on over to crowdfunder.co.uk/i-am-an-immigrant-poster-campaign to pledge.

16th January 2015

Encryptonite

Cameron on the Phone

If anyone thought 2015 was going to be a better year than 2014, the attacks on the offices of Charlie Hebdo and elsewhere in France have surely put paid to that misplaced optimism.

World leaders gathered together in Paris in an impressive show of solidarity … then shortly afterwards started concocting new ways to impinge on our freedoms.

Cameron’s latest wheeze is to attempt to restrict the use of encrypted communications. “In our country,” he said, “do we want to allow a means of communication between people which we cannot read?”

Erm… yes? Cameron wants services such as iMessage and WhatsApp to give up their messages to the security services, but there’s a bigger picture here. Encryption, and the privacy it provides, underpins commerce on the internet. Put your credit card details into Amazon, or do some online banking, and your personal details are encrypted using an algorithm which is very difficult to break. Even social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter default to HTTPS connections these days.

As James Ball points out in the Guardian, weakening that encryption risks damaging the digital economy. If the spooks can listen in, potentially anyone can.

It’s frankly terrifying that someone tasked with keeping the country safe is that ignorant of the way the internet works.

24th December 2014

Value of Nothing

David Cameron has given a Christmas message:-

At this important time of year for the Christian faith I send my best wishes to everyone in the UK and around the world celebrating Christmas.

Among the joyous celebrations we will reflect on those very Christian values of giving, sharing and taking care of others. This Christmas I think we can be very proud as a country at how we honour these values through helping those in need at home and around the world.

Politicians banging on about religion almost always sounds like cynical pandering. It’s especially so when it’s David Cameron – leader of a government which has pushed many families into poverty. 90,000 children will wake up homeless on Christmas morning. Shelter reports that the number of homeless families living in B&Bs has trebled this year.

So merry Christmas, Mr Cameron. I will wait until May 2015 for the top present on my wish list – your exit from Nunmber 10.

15th December 2014

Siege Mentality
Posted by at 10.55pm | In the News | 1 response

Surreal and frightening scenes in Sydney over the past 24 hours, as a tranquil Monday morning turned into for the customers of one cafe. I can’t even begin to imagine how awful it would have been for the people caught up in it.

I’m not going to try and round up all the reaction (there’s lots of it) but this piece from the Sydney Morning Herald was quite good, I thought:

A stampede of politicians, State and federal, took to the airwaves to tell us how to feel. The incident was “horrifying” said Bill Shorten. Attempting a Churchillian gravitas, the opposition leader declared that “Australians are shocked, but won’t be shaken.”

[…]

Why do political activists turn to terrorism? Australia gave the world a lesson today.

They turn to terrorism to win attention, to cause fear, and to use that fear to produce an overreaction. That overreaction is the measure of their success.

[…]

Successful terrorism is so rare in Australia that the overreaction is perhaps understandable. The police response seemed exactly right. But our political and media systems need to get better at measured reaction.

In the aftermath of this dreadful incident, cool heads and a measured response and a are definitely needed. Knee-jerk reactions from politicians keen to get on the telly are not helpful.