The Uncertainty Principle

Purple Haze

I registered a heady mix of emotions when I first heard of the cornflour and condom attack on our democratic process. The first was 'Bloody Hell! This is quite worrying, how on earth can this happen when we are on hightened alert to terror attacks?'. I then found out that there was no real damage done to our noble leaders and that the attackers were not Al'Queda affiliates but angry and misguided absent fathers. At which point my concern was replaced by venom towards the tactics of Fathers 4 Justice and a grudging respect at their good aim.

In the now raging debate over parliamentary security I have become relieved that I so passionately defended the installation of the security screen. It is, of course, important that Parliament doesn’t become an ornate gothic fortress. Without launching into the first lines of ‘Jerusalem’; the Palace is the mother of all Parliaments and all democrats want people to have as full access to it as possible. However, we have to get away from this attitude that just because Britain has been dealing with the IRA for so long, we don't need to counter the terrorist threat here.

Protecting yourself against terrorism is not allowing it to win. Freedom comes with responsibilities and sometimes you have to prioritise security over access in order to safeguard the real basic tenets of the democratic process; like the ability of the Prime Minister to be held to account at oral questions without being attacked by either ricin or stuffed contraceptives.

In discussions over the security screen, it was denounced as 'overkill' as visitors had to go through two metal detectors to get through to the chamber already. In fact, we learn today that the Fathers 4 Justice Protestors got through the frisking by stuffing the materials down their y-fronts and assembling them in a toilet. A plan of cunning and fanatical devotion to the cause not beyond a terrorist I would say.

Alarm bells should be rung by the confusion the the chamber in the immediate aftermath of the attack. Blair was unconcerned and wanted to carry on; a couple of MPs legged it to get help and later the Tory Chief Whip tried to clear his MPs out. IDS has since commented:

"What we did today was categorically the opposite of what should have happened. I was sitting still telling people to stay put. If it had been a chemical or biological agent, which it was not, what we just did would successfully have spread it around London. With a threat like this, you should seal the doors completely."

The heroes of the hour were, apparently, mssrs. Prescott and Reid who put paper over the powder to try and stop it spreading. I don't know if this MI5 Approved technique but it is quite amusing. As Hoggart's sketch today remarks: 'There's something very British about this. "In the event of a terrorist attack, put down lots of paper."'

I do not revel in the restrictions of access that are to follow but a new, comprehensive security policy is necessary. I claimed and still claim, that the quality of British democracy is not reduced by the presence of a security screen and I apply the same logic to this case. Of course you can go overboard and isolate the legislature, but just because it is hard to judge adaquate security, doesn't mean we cannot recognise and act upon patently inadaquate security.

As for Fathers 4 Justice, the more derision that can be reserved for their tactics the better. They have a compelling case to make. However, how they think they will prove to anyone that they are rational, mature and responsible parents when they chose to make their case by lobbing rubber jonnies at the PM is beyond me.

Parliament in Widescreen

In another place I have been indulging in a wide ranging debate over the new security screen in the Commons. The Debate on the 22 April 2004 saw the narrow approval of a permanent security screen.My position directly contradicts the opinion of two thoughtful and intelligent parliamentary assistants not to mention a whole cohort of MPs. Even more rarely I seem to be in agreement with the Rt Hon Peter Hain.

I do not love the addition of the screen either aesthetically or in what it represents; but I acknowledge that it is a sensible move. The arguments against it have been fairly unsatisfactory. First is the issue of practical assistance. The Boy 'Fig writes thus:

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how exactly the protective screen will prevent a terrorist attack. If you want to hit MPs, why not Central Lobby during a vote? You go through a pretty rigorous security check on the way into the Palace and then another one when you go up to the gallery...What are people going to throw, their shoes?

I would point out that being checked for metal is not the same as being checked for a tiny phial of chemicals. Also, there is a need to include protection of the members within an ongoing review of security across the palace for all westminster based staff. However, the screen is not a disproportionate response to a threat. As Peter Hain mentioned in the debate; "the director general of the Security Service made an unequivocal recommendation that the screen be installed", and later, "It is not a question of doing what we are told but taking serious advice from the director general of MI5, who hourly combats a terrorist threat from al-Qaeda. She said that the best way in which to protect the House was to erect a screen because the Chamber is a target".There is no mechanism or screening procedure that finds chemical and biological weapons. Nothing in this world could have prevented the anthrax being taken into Washington—no such machine is available."

The other major criticism of the screen is extremely speculative and grounded in Britain's general attitude towards the terror threat. This was exemplified in the debate on 22 April by Mr. Sion Simon MP a Labour member for Birmingham:

That thing—that screen—sends a signal to our constituents that we are frightened. It says to Mr. Terrorist, "I am frightened of you. You have made me change my ways. You have put a barrier between my Parliament and my people." It says, "You are winning, Mr. Terrorist. I am running, I am hiding." British democracy should not hide from terrorists; that is not the way

I get throughly annoyed by this attitude. I am not suggesting we have to sacrifice all freedoms to protect ourselves from terrorism, but we do have to renegotiate some. Yes it is difficult to know where to draw the line but because it would be non-sensical to try and do everything to insulate ourselves from danger doesn't mean we should not take certain carefully considered steps. If you protect yourself from terrorism - terrorists haven't won. In WW2, building air raid shelters did not make the blitz a moral and intellectual defeat. It is not about 'running and hiding' it is acknowledging the threat and prioritising what is important.

There are serious barriers between the people and their representatives; but the security screen is not one of them. MPs are not even supposed to refer to the people in the Strangers' Gallery unless they are asking them to be removed. There are serious threats to our democracy and major issues of trust and disengagement, but you belittle them if you claim a transparent screen is a massive detriment to the quality of democracy in this country.

A Vision of Europe

"I will do as Russell Crowe in 'Gladiator'. I will kneel in my homeland, take a piece of Ukrainian earth and kiss it." Ruslana, winner of Eurovision 2004 describing the first thing she would do after returning to Kiev.

Late on Saturday night, with a sufficiency of white wine gurgling inside me I let the inevitability of the Eurovision thrashing wash over me. Not for the first time in recent memory I was more than a little disappointed with my country’s performance on the world stage.

For starters, let’s get away from this ‘Oh we plucky Brits are far to busy solving the geo-political crises to bother with that foreign Eurovision nonsense’. We do care. We care a lot, but we are also unable to come to terms with that because we feel like we should not be indulging something so flippant. Never do we enter a genuinely comic piece that we know has no chance of winning as any self-respecting nation that mocked Eurovision would do. No, we can’t bear to give it our full attention. Neither do we want the Euro-johnnies to beat us as our own pop-game. So what we end up with is a half-arsed, turgid apology for a song sung by an anonymous, instantly forgettable mullet with a guitar in a Burtons Menswear two-piece.

www.popjustice.com has pointed to, ‘our typical we-invented-The-Beatles pop superiority complex’. We insist we know what’s best, because we do pop so well. So well in fact, that we only need to provide our entrant with a song that barely scrapes the top-40 here to create a clamour on the continent. We can’t even begin to conceive that Europe likes up-tempo, camp pop rather than the faux-folk sub-Dido banality we inflicted upon them. After all, he had a guitar, therefore he was a singer-songwriter that deserved to be respected as an artist with feelings and musical integrity. Greece, the Ukraine and the particularly amusing Bosnian entrant (‘Im late/ Im losing my weight/ because I want to dance with you’) did not care about such high-minded nonsense. To start with they took already big-grossing artists. Ruslana’s winning ‘Wild Dance’ is taken from her eponymous album that has been the first ever to go platinum in the Ukraine. All they then did is clad them in leather, expose a bit of flesh and inserted phrases like ‘In the disco’ as many times reasonably possible. That’ll be fine. The Ukrainian entry was brilliant and I would download it tomorrow.

It is fair to say the Eurovision is taken more seriously elsewhere. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) is not a gaggle of fake-tanned euro-boppers that meet up at the Berlin Love Parade; they’ve got some serious game. The rules of Eurovision are exhaustive and demand strict compliance from performers, broadcasters and the host nation. A quick scan shows the weighty privileges and rights they keep arrogating themselves. It contains scary sentences like, ‘The EBU and TEAM, the Eurovision Song Contest exclusive marketing agent… shall be responsible for the marketing of all commercial exploitation rights for the benefit of the Participating Broadcasters’. All this seems hardly compatible with the scansion-defying lyrics delivered in sequinned leather shorts that we have come to know and love.

Yes, they take it seriously, but they at least are honest about loving euro-pop. Absurdly partial voting happened despite the system of phone voting being employed specifically to counter it. Block voting happened. And it was hilarious. You could see the young brazen doyens of the new Europe barely controlling their smirks as their people endorsed the generations old prejudice of the contest. When we get screwed by block voting, we take it seriously. Even Wogan didn’t manage to disappear behind his banter: "Someone has got to stop this. The European Broadcasting Union has to take a hand." Get him. As ever, www.popjustice.com is bang on the money:

“Let's not blame Fox's failure on block voting by neighbouring countries. After all, Ireland gave us our highest mark of the night, and we gave Ireland their only points, so it's obviously not favouritism that annoys the Wogans of this world, it's just the fact that not enough people actually like the UK for it to work in our favour.”

Exactly. We have no sensible exit strategy in Iraq, our premier has buckled to the Eurosceptic British public and our immediate neighbours dislike us so much that we not only get beaten by better songs but the foppish pretensions of the French entry. Looks like several nil to the cheese eating surrender monkeys to me.

There are two paths to follow: export great British pop or just go with it and get a guy in a white vest to repeat the words, ‘Disco baby sexy baby hot’ within the allotted three minutes. The latter is fine by me, but we make some world-leading pop in this country. Jamelia and the Sugababes deserve adulation and celebration. Cathy Dennis has superbly piloted the electro-acoustic guitar strum over drum machine beats to such great effect in ‘hole in the head’ and Rachel Stevens’ ‘Sweet Dreams My LA Ex’. So come June I want another transferable vote on my ballot paper to force a democratic mandate on a good pop act to take to Ukraine 2005. Lets bring the game to them my friends.