London mayoral race doesn't inspire

I've never understood those passionate about local government. The world of sewerage, rubbish collection, footpaths, planning, bylaws, parking and strategic visions is far from inspiring. In fact whilst many of these activities are respectable businesses, the deathly bureaucratic insipidness of how local government loves to govern should send shivers down the spine of any person who has a sense of life. I'm not saying there aren't good people in local government, sadly local government dominates some sectors so that professionals in those sectors have few other places to work - roads being one. However, those who get excitement about the potential for local government to make people's lives better are really deluded and possibly ill. Local government is perhaps the least accountable layer of government there is. It generates the lowest electoral turnout, it almost always attracts people of modest achievement compared to national politics and by and large most of what it does is so tedious that only in particularly egregious cases of incompetence does it get media coverage.

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So in one respect the lack of coverage of any aspects of the English local body elections this year is a blessing - it shows how little time most people have for it. The only contest of interest is the London Mayoralty. One aspect of UK local elections is how national politics is replicated at the local level in that Labour, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats all contest such elections, and by and large, local results reflect national polling. So this time round Labour is worried, and the prize of London is coveted by the Conservative Party.

So this is why Boris Johnson was selected. Who else could the Tories choose to defeat the self promoting ego-centric Ken Livingstone than the entertaining quick witted Boris Johnson, known for having his foot in his mouth more often than not, but by and large well loved for being a comedian. Boris's wit and general congenial character means he is a chap likely to give the Mayoralty a good shot, although some of his embarrassing past remarks have seen him be carefully stage managed, rather sadly. Livingstone on the other hand has, pretty much, seemed like a grumpy old sod who thinks he is the centre of all that is special about London, whilst he largely ignores a lengthy set of claims about the use of public resources to campaign and the waste of money by his self selected dubious advisors.

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For me I simply want Livingstone defeated. He is a ghastly little man who still blames poverty on Margaret Thatcher, is sycophantic towards leftwing dictators like Castro and happily pours money down nonsense such as "city embassies" in Caracas, Beijing and Delhi. His ambition to gain London the Olympics is seeing a monumental waste of taxpayers' money on managing it all, and granting the construction sector a massive windfall. Londoners and UK citizens may wonder how much money would be available to them all in taxes if London had abandoned this folly. A vastly overcrowded city with creaking infrastructure and a booming tourist sector doesn't need the Olympics - but it's a fait accompli I'm afraid. Livingstone has promised all sorts of socialist nonsense from free tube trips at peak times for pensioners, to his enormous public housing campaign. He has nothing good to add, and his attitude to corruption allegations (throwing the word racist at opponents) should seal his fate. Yet Boris Johnson's good qualities - wit and humble determination to do his bet, aren't quite enough to get me excited. I'll rather cheer the end of Ken than have solace with Boris.

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Take one area I DO know. Transport. It is rather hard to tell the two apart except on a couple of points. Boris doesn't like articulated or "bendy" buses, rather passionately. About the only reason to hate them is how they've become the free buses of much of London, as one notices hooded youth tending to enter by the back doors and not flashing Oyster cards to pay. Ken saw them introduced. Ken wants to convert the congestion charge into a punitive tax on big cars, Boris wont. However there is no serious challenge to the status quo. Both oppose a third runway at Heathrow Airport, although clearly there is the demand from travellers. Neither advocate doing anything substantial for roads, although London has perhaps the worst developed arterial road network of any major Western city. London's bus network costs over a billion pounds a year in subsidies, is dirt cheap to users and most buses run with very few passengers on a per km basis. The tube is costing a fortune to recover from years of public sector underinvestment, yet it doesn't cost seriously more while it is overcrowded than at other times. Meanwhile Ken pursues expensive but low impact projects like the East London line extension, whilst renationalising maintenance and management of two thirds of the tube!

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A lot could be done, but Boris doesn't want to rock the boat. He is waiting for Ken to lose, although he does advocate confronting the transport unions and fighting petty crime. That and being more spendthrift would be nice. However Boris is no Thatcher, he wont cut spending and council tax, he wont privatise what London needs privatising. London will continue to make money from the City and tourists, while bleeding elsewhere and subsidising half of its population and most of the UK, whilst having pitiful infrastructure that barely keeps up. It could be so much better, but socialist Britain wont hear of it.

TAP Air Portugal? 3 stars

I recently flew TAP Air Portugal for the first time, London to Lisbon return, in scum class. No I didn't expect much, and neither should you. Portugal is a nice country, the people are lovely, the airport at Lisbon was better than many, but the airline could do with some polishing. I've reviewed it on my travel blog, which will now include flights and hotels that I experience and think you should know about. The verdict? BA's better - although at least my luggage turned up.

UN “experts” with vile credentials

The reputation of the United Nations is, for most I dare say, one of morality, peace and even handedness. Yet the UN more often than most know appoints so called experts who, in any sane interpretation, would be considered cranks. The sort of people who should be standing on a street corner with a cup whilst they blast out their unhinged nonsense.
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David Aaronovitch writes about two of them in The Times. Professor Richard Falk, once Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University (I remember reading some of his articles when I was at university) has been appointed expert on Israel by the UN Human Rights Council. Remember this same council selects the likes of Cuba and Libya to be on it to judge the human rights of others. Imagine an organisation of convicted child abusers advising on how children should be protected. It is that hypocritical, that despicable and that fraudulent.
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As Aaronovitch writes, Falk himself has taken to comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. Falk believes “suicide bombers appeared as the only means still available” for the Palestinian “struggle” to go on. Falk also has written a chapter in a book called “9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out”, a book authored by David Ray Griffen. The book talks of how no plane ever flew into the Pentagon and how the World Trade Centre came down by a “controlled demolition” (though how they explain the two airliners flying into it is a little harder).

Of course the UN would give this intellectual with some severe problems a job.

Aaronovitch also writes about how the Swiss government convinced the Human Rights Council to appoint Professor Jean Ziegler to its advisory committee. Professor Ziegler has defended Mengistu, the former Ethiopian dictator who was responsible for the famines in the 1980s (Ethiopia once exported food until Mengistu collectivised the farms), Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro and Muammer Gaddafi.

However, given Switzerland’s proud history of sitting courageously on the fence being bankers to the Nazis whilst Europe burnt around it, I don’t expect a great deal from the Swiss. Being neutral in what was the defining war between good and evil (and evil and evil) in the 20th century is indifference to evil.

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The UN of course is not indifferent to evil, just hypocritical beyond words. Of course it was created after World War 2 to stop another such war. However, imagine what harm it would have done if it had existed in advance of that. Would it have stopped the Nazi goosestepping advance across Czechoslovakia, then Poland? Would it have stopped the Japanese empire, which had already enslaved Korea advancing its racist brutal dictatorship along the Chinese coast, past Indochina and in Malaya and the Dutch East Indies? Hardly. Of course a review of the UN would only expose that it is fully constrained by appealing to the majority of states, which are typically quite corrupt and power hungry, and by not offending Permanent Members of the UN Security Council, two of which – China and Russia have been held predominantly by totalitarian or authoritarian regimes since the UN was formed. So the UN is the sum of its members, and many of its members are morally dubious, and some quite evil indeed. However that is another story.

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You see some see the UN as being a repositary of virtue in international relations, or some authority that should be listened to or respected. However, it is none of the sort. The most recent appointments of an "expert" on Israel who is a conspiracy nutter, and an advisor on human rights who sympathises with Robert Mugabe continue to deny it any real claim to morality. Until the UN or its member states unite against such repulsive individuals having any role within it, it will remain a place where those who are great achievers and those who cheer on murderers are treated the same. Anyone who looks to that for inspiration or guidance will surely be lost.

Maori party's despicable sophistry

A chap who shares part of my name has posted on SOLO about the Maori Party's attempt to place criminal gang members on the same level as Jews in Germany in the 1930s.

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The Maori Party has had a free run, because of the rather vacuous notion that it is difficult to criticise a party that attempts to define itself as being of a people rather than a philosophy. Except it IS a philosophy. It is nationalism, collectivism and with the possible exception of Pita Sharples on a good day, morally dubious. It has a highly privileged position in having part of Parliament defined on the same basis as it defines itself.

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Having said that, who doubts that, if he believes he needs to, John Key will sell out his principles and policies to the Maori Party for power. Actually sorry he wont do that anymore than I can sell out my ownership of the Isle of Man.

Mbeki and China accessories to Mugabe's bloodshed

As despicable as Robert Mugabe's despotic machinations are to cling to power, steal and prop up his blood thirsty cronies, whilst bulldozing the bodies of ordinary Zimbabweans into the dust, a close second comes to his buddy - Thabo Mbeki - not an appeaser but a partner in the crimes against Zimbabwe. Mbeki by rights, should be persona non grater in international circles. However, South Africa at the moment chairs the UN Security Council, which doesn't particularly surprise me. After all, when Libya gets selected to go on the Human Rights Council it confirms the moral vacuousness of the UN, which has the moral heights of its lowest member.

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The UN, after all, including the People's Republic of China, repeatedly condemned apartheid as an hienous system - not hesitating to comment or pass resolutions regarding the internal affairs of South Africa - but not Zimbabwe.

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So Gordon Brown's call for "the world" to stop Mugabe stealing his election finally shows some backbone, supported by France. China regards this as an "internal matter", but then again China is far from the world's repositary of moral authority. Mbeki chaired the UN Security Council meeting where Brown made this call, and did not mention Zimbabwe. Mbeki despicable betrayal of Zimbabwe seen by his reported "snub" of Brown afterwards and condemnation of "loud diplomacy". Of course loud diplomacy was fine under apartheid - but Mbeki presumably supports the halving of life expectancy, the murders, the electoral fraud, or he insanely believes his wealthy thug of a friend that it is all a conspiracy. This may explain it, given Mbeki's retarded views on AIDS and HIV, he may simply be an idiot who is friends with a bullying fraudster.

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Mbeki's role as "mediator" for Zimbabwe is completely ridiculous. It would be like appointing Mussolini to mediate between the Nazis and the Jews. Morgan Tsvangarai has called for Mbeki to stand down in this role - it is critical that this gets widespread support. Mbeki is known for believing AIDS isn't caused by HIV, but by poverty. This ludicrous notion has undoubtedly killed many South Africans who believed that, with HIV, they could act with impunity.

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He says claims of serious violent crime are exaggerated, apparently 50 murders a day - the second highest rate in the world, isn't bad enough for Thabo Mbeki. Perhaps 100 a day, well apparently Zimbabwe's death rate isn't an issue. He is a quiet man who not only is in denial about his own countries biggest problems (AIDS, crime and now electricity shortages), but is an accessory to murder and a constitutional coup by Mugabe and his Zanu-PF thugs. South Africa's post-apartheid moral leadership of the continent has been lost because of its siding with one of the continents biggest living kleptocratic thugs. It is complete evasion to claim, as Guardian columnist Blessing-Miles Tendi does that this is about South Africa respecting state sovereignty and non-intervention - South Africa is intervening, it choses to let constitutional law in its neighbour to proceed. It treats and warmly embraces the man undertaking it - Thabi Mbeki is embracing a murdering tyrant, and that makes him only one step better.

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Meanwhile the latest step is China - as it seeks to claim the moral highground over the Olympics- is now shipping arms to Zimbabwe, as a Chinese ship has docked in Durban South Africa for transhipment to Zimbabwe. If you wanted another reason to oppose the Beijing Olympics, then enjoy noting that while Zimbabweans starve, Zanu-PF, the army and the police can put them out of their misery with Chinese made arms. Of course, South Africa wont stop the arms shipment will it?