Spontaneous Monotony

The Director of the Press Complaints Commission (who would no doubt be paid more if his remit covered blogs) says that he opposes government regulation of the internet, but that all blogs should submit to a ‘voluntary’ code of practice ((BBC News – Voluntary code for blogs ‘needed’)). No way. We already have laws designed to protect people from arbitrary abuse – they are called defamation and data protection. If something is accurate and does not violate someone’s privacy, then why the hell shouldn’t blogs print it. If the ‘voluntary code’ would not stop such material, then there is no need for it.

Tim Toulmin’s problem is that the 21st century makes organisations such as his increasingly irrelevant. The role of the PCC is to suppress lawful information which people find inconvenient – this is incompatible not just with the ease of dissemination that blogs offer, but with the greater trend towards freedom of speech in the world generally.

For all you Guild Wars fans out there, GuildWiki has its new server and is back up and running. Intermittent problems are expected while they sort everything out, but I currently have 9 build pages open in tabs and all of them loaded properly. We can all stop running around like headless chickens now (which, after all, is what we are without wiki since the Prima guide got cancelled).

If you can’t already guess from my general tendency towards equality and human rights, I have nothing but contempt for the opinions of the British National Party. I would suggest that the vast majority of people in this country agree with me. But no matter how distasteful or offensive we find their views, it is essential for the health of our democracy that they are allowed to hold those views. Gordon Brown’s suggestion that laws should be amended to specifically outlaw the views of the BNP ((BBC News – BNP leader cleared of race hate)) shows that he has the same authoritarian tendencies as poodle.

Having nothing else to do with its time (hey, its not like students have any problems that need solving, right?), the Glasgow Uni SRC has decided to hold a referendum (yes, another one) on NUS affiliation. All three student bodies are campaigning in favour of a No vote, with varying levels of spending- the SRC is giving £150 each to the ‘official’ Yes (6 people) and No (26 people) campaigns, while the QM has apparently already spent over £5,000 on its No campaign ((Glasgow University Guardian, 9th November 2006)). Let me outline my own case for sending the NUS apparatchiks back into whatever hole they crawled out of.

• Affiliating would have unacceptable financial consequences. Although initial estimates suggested the cost would be £41,000 a year ((qmunicate issue 39, 1st November 2006)) (unacceptable in itself), it has now emerged that the NUS would charge the maximum £50,000 ((Glasgow University Guardian, 9th November 2006)). Given the already dubious state of the University’s finances, it is likely that this money would have to be cut from existing services. So which of the following would you like to get rid of to pay for NUS affiliation?
  • The entire campus-to-halls minibus fleet
  • A Senior Lecturer’s salary
  • All four paid student positions on the SRC

  Oh yeah – the NUS even expects its supporters to pay for the privilege of campaigning for them – it has refused to reimburse the expenses incurred by the official ‘Yes’ campaign group at Glasgow ((Glasgow University Guardian, 9th November 2006))

• The NUS is politically biased towards Labour. A substantial number of those involved in the upper levels of the NUS use it as a stepping stone to proper politics (take my own spineless ((Jim Murphy has NEVER voted against the government in this Parliament)) MP, Jim Murphy, for example). Most of these go on to join the Labour Party. Do we really want Glasgow’s student bodies to become the North Britain chapter of the Tony Blair fanclub?
• The NUS attempts to censor political debate on campus. The NUS maintains a ‘naughty list’ of organisations which are banned from affiliated campuses because their views do not coincide with those of the NUS ((nusonline.co.uk – ‘NUS representative addresses government committee on campus incitement’)). Now, being Scottish supporter of equality and human rights I am no great fan of the BNP or any of the other groups on that list. But the right of law-abiding political groups to air their views, however unpleasant they might be, is one that we must never surrender. Any groups which are intimidating people on campus (for example) should be banned by our representatives, not by some NUS bureaucrat out to make a name for himself.
• The NUS doesn’t care about students. Those attending the NUS conference are much more concerned with forwarding the political desires of their own pathetic factions rather than furthering the interests of students – you need look no further than their support (brought about by the leftwing ‘Education Not for Sale’ faction) for staff using students’ futures as bargaining chips without their consent ((Guardian Education – Students vent anger over lecturers’ boycott)). If that isn’t enough, April saw the resignations of three board members and an independent inquiry into anti-Semitism. Why? Er… there was no kosher food at the annual conference. ((nusonline.co.uk – NUS cleared of ‘apathy to anti-Semitism’)).

The referendum is on Wednesday 15th November (I’ll have to make a special, 3-hour round trip journey. grr have they ever heard of the word internet?), if less than 15% of students vote then the SRC will not affiliate regardless of the outcome.

I have to say I’m not particularly impressed by this new ‘campaign’, and to be honest I’m surprised that the BBC has been taken in by it. All the site consists of is a list of countries which punish people for exercising their right to freedom of expression. Iran censors the internet. Really? Yahoo helps China imprison innocent people. You don’t say? As sideshows to the ‘main’ attraction, the page offers a clickable map of ‘internet blackholes’ (without actually saying what the fuck we are ‘voting’ for, if anything) and a plug for rsf’s paid blogging service. How far do you think Blogger or Wordpress.com would get if they disguised an ad as a ‘campaign for political expression’ and wanted the BBC to publicise it?