Will nobody stand up for New Labour?
Topic: Politics
It's been over 24 hours since I posted my view that 'New Labour' had achieved little in its eight years in office. Given that it's won two elections by substantial majorities and is expected by everyone to win the next one too, there ought to be someone out there who will defend it. Yet despite that, I have not received one message defending the current government!

Thatcher was reviled by many, but she had her passionate supporters too. How can a party be so far ahead in the polls and yet inspire nobody?

What has New Labour achieved?
Topic: Politics
The phony election is hotting up. Party political posters have already appeared, despite the lack of any formal announcement. I've been fascinated to see that the Labour Party's posters are so negative. I'm not against negative advertising, but in Labour's case, I would have thought that after close to eight years in government they would have more to say for themselves than just reminding people what interest rates were like under the Tories thirteen years ago or what unemployment was under Thatcher.

All of which prompts the question of what the party has actually accomplished. As you know, I very much support what Blair has done with respect to Iraq and believe that it will reap huge benefits for decades to come. But what about domestically? Have any of the public services improved? Do you believe the crime or hospital waiting list statistics any more? You might think that the economy has done well for you, but are you aware that your pension savings, if you have any, are being raided like never before and that you may not be able to retire as early as your parents did?

For my money, Labour did one FANTASTIC thing for this country and did it on day one when it made the Bank of England independent. Not doing so was the Tories' biggest ever mistake. With central bank independence comes greater confidence in sterling and therefore interest rates can be kept low. If the Tories had done this, they might still be in office now.

But otherwise, it seems to me that Labour's great accomplishment is to create a party that occupies a central position on the British landscape, funded by stealth taxation that many people, especially the young, don't understand. It has wasted taxpayers money on greatly expanding the state, with little discernable benefit.

I am interested to know what readers think.

About the Comments Section
Topic: Misc.
I've noticed a few people on the Gutshot and Hendon Mob forums claim that I've deleted posts that they have written in the comments section of this blog. I would like to make clear that while I reserve the right to delete comments, in practice I have only ever done so for two reasons. One is obscenity - which happened on the first day that I enabled comments. The other is for duplication, when someone has unintentionally entered the same comment twice (see below).

Note that posting a comment is a two-stage process. After typing it in and posting it (press 'continue'), you will be given a preview of how it will look. But this is only a preview and if you leave at this point, your message will be lost. You must press 'post comment' for it to be lodged. This takes time and some people press it a second time and thus duplicate their post, because nothing seems to be happening. Please be patient.

It is possible that sofware problems have caused posts to fail to appear in the past, but I strongly suspect that most people who think I've deleted something didn't realise that they had to press 'post comment' after seeing the preview. I have never deleted something just because I didn't agree with it.

The pros and cons of going to Vegas:
Topic: Misc.

America gets it.
Topic: Politics
The US is to start a European-based Arabic language television station. The idea is to combat the one-sided anti-American bias of existing Arabic language stations like Al Jazeera.

From the source article:

"Obviously some of the people who are discontented and are recruitable for terrorism are Muslim minorities in Europe," said Harvard professor Joseph Nye, a noted soft-power advocate and former chairman of the National Intelligence Council -- the federal government's strategic intelligence think tank. "The idea of appealing to these people to try to attract them away from an oversimplified view of America-as-villain seems to make sense," he added.

It's a great idea. And it's also a good indication that the US understands Europe's future far better than Europe itself does.

Me and the Hendon Mob.
Topic: Poker
Over at Andy Ward's Diary, I spotted a sideways comment about me from Big Dave D, regarding the fact that I post less about poker on this site since I started writing for Gutshot. David wrote this message to Andy:

You're fetish with Samuels is a bit of a leak...as is your continued posting on THM. I'm sure now that you are fully "pimp my ride" with a panoply of poker sites, all posts will strictly be Pay per View. And maybe, like DY, u can stop on that funny poker stuff.

Andy said he was going to stop writing on the Hendon Mob forum, but hasn't stuck to it. I said the same, but have stuck to it. It's been 14 weeks now. Amazingly I'm still second in the all time posting list after over three months of silence. Shortly before I stopped posting on there, there was a discussion on another blog somewhere in which either Dave or 'chaos' suggested that I was partly to blame for the deterioration in the quality of the forum, because of my many posts about politics. In my defence, while agreeing that I did write a lot about politics, I should stress that many of the actual threads in which I did so were actually started by other people. These threads were also very popular with many people and came at a time when the US, and indeed the world, stood at a crossroads, because of the November election.

So on Andy's site I wrote this:

"A few months ago, there was some talk on Big Dave D's blog to the effect that I was partly responsible for ruining the Hendon Mob forum by getting involved in lots of discussions about politics.

Shortly afterwards I grew disillusioned with the forum and stopped posting on it on the 17th of November. Since then, does anyone think it's gotten better? I don't. I now find it amazingly boring and look at it about one fifth as much as I used to.

The problem wasn't the offtopic discussion, I don't believe, as much as the endless abuse dished out from total nobodies at anyone who presented a view. Combined with adoration of people who never contributed anything to the forum (Devilfish, Surinder and half of the Hendon Mob themselves), I began to wonder why I bothered. The more you write, the more people think they have the right to insult you. The move was obvious. Do nothing unless someone pays you.

Why Pete Birks continues to give away free content I don't know. He's one of the only worthwhile posters there left. Save it for Stan James, Pete! The fact is that the forum exists to promote the site and the site exists to renew the Mob's amazing deal with Prima. You are basically working for free to get Ross and Ram into comps. And they don't even send you a thankyou note!

Such is the power of fame."

It only took a few hours for someone, under an alias, to write a post titled 'David Young calls the mob cun*s'. I don't recall using those words or any remotely similar, but the poster did at least provide a link to what I did say, so people can see for themselves that I didn't. He also added the short message 'Burn him'. It is very possible that this person has written this ironically, especially after Andy's excellent post on groupthink, which pointed out this exact phenomenon in poker. The next poster to the thread didn't make clear whether he actually bothered to read my original words and said:

"Everybody is entitled to their own views and opinions but I have to say that I think the HM have done more for British poker than most. Along with Devilfish and Dave Colclough (+ a few), these are the recognised faces of our UK game and they promote it in a very positive light. I think the biggest issue is they are at the top of thier "field" and as such, people seem to take fun in trying to run them down.

My guess is they are big enough to take it. I was lucky enough to spend a fair amount of time with them at the Bellagio in December and each and everyone of them were great. Happy to talk, help and be all round good guys. My hat is off to them.
They were and still are, where most of us aspire to be."

Take fun in trying to run them down? How does he draw that conclusion? I'm also interested to know how Devilfish, Colclough and the Mob have "done more for British poker than most". Genuinely baffled in some ways. The Mob's greatest contribution by far, in my opinion, is the forum. It was fantastic a few years ago, but now seems populated with people who want to moan about online poker being rigged when their aces get cracked and er... er ... well I'm not sure, as much of it is so unmemorable now.

Is it so nasty to point out that the site was (I guess) built from the outset with the intention of getting a sponsorship deal? It seems fairly obvious to me. Now that the deal exists, it continues in order to get that deal renewed. Surely that's a statement of the obvious?

Meanwhile, what is Devilfish's contribution to British poker? I know that he's made British players seem more of a threat to the Americans and I'm not even sure that I'm grateful for that. But has he built a bricks and mortar cardroom, like Barry and Derek did with Gutshot? Has he negotiated a rake rebate for online players, like some others I could name? No! He hasn't even told Ultimatebet to get a sterling bank account, like I told Phil Hellmuth it should do. Nor, when I last looked, did UB seem to have taken the British market into account in scheduling its tournaments, with all the decent sized ones starting at 2am, to suit the Americans. Things may have changed, but I wouldn't know, as I gave up waiting for UB to be more British-friendly about a year ago and haven't looked at it since. It's not even downloaded on my new computer.

One person who has made a difference to poker in Britain and much of the rest of Europe, is the much maligned Nic Szerameta. Few realise that he's the one who came up with the format for Late Night Poker, which is what lead to the massive growth in the game. Nor that he's one of the founders of the World Heads Up championship, a real innovation that the Americans never thought of. And he was also involved in getting Europe's best structured tournament going - the E-WSOP, which for years ran with a two hour round structure!

But he gets abuse while Devilfish and Colclough get praise. Why? Well it doesn't help that Nic spends so little time in London or the South East meaning that many people never get to know him. But the real thing that gets you praised is winning a high profile tournament. When Surinder Sunar won the WPT event in Paris last year, I was stunned by the number of people who wrote in to praise him on the Hendon Mob forum, as though Surinder ever looked at it. Of course he didn't. He never even replied. My guess is that he's never looked at the site and never even found out that people were praising him on it.

Don't get me wrong. I like the Hendon Mob. I've been to two of them's houses. I like Surinder, Devilfish and Colcough. I've spoken on friendly terms with all of them. But I'm not going to credit them with doing much for the British game. That credit should go to others, many of whom you've never heard of.

In the meantime, if you think I'm being so hard on Ross and Ram, can you find anything that they have written on the forum in the last three months (Diary pieces don't count). And have any of them thanked Pete Birks for his many fantastic contributions, which stand head and shoulders above the general dross?

Has the worm finally turned in Germany?
Topic: Politics
It was bound to happen eventually, but I didn't think it would be this soon. A German magazine has published an article that considers the possibility that Bush is right about the middle east and that Europe is wrong. Before you say 'So what?', I should explain that the German media has been the most anti-Bush biased that I have ever seen - far worse than the Guardian, Independent, New York Times etc. In fact a whole blog has been devoted to exposing this bias:

http://medienkritik.typepad.com/

So it was refereshing to see this in Der Spiegel:

'Could George W. Bush Be Right?' (English Translation)

The article notes that Reagan's demand for the Berlin Wall to be torn down was considered far fetched in 1987 and he drew scorn from the German media then for being "inopportune, utopian and crazy". Yet he was proved right within three years.

The article notes: "Europeans today -- just like the Europeans of 1987 -- cannot imagine that the world might change. Maybe we don't want the world to change, because change can, of course, be dangerous. But in a country of immigrants like the United States, one actually pushes for change. In Mainz today, the stagnant Europeans came face to face with the dynamic Americans. We Europeans always want to have the world from yesterday, whereas the Americans strive for the world of tomorrow."

That's revolutionary talk coming from a German print magazine!

Appeasement be upon him.
Topic: Religion
Am I the only person shocked by this?

Oxford Cambridge and RSA Examinations policy statement

It states:

"OCR will always put 'peace be upon him' after Muhammad in the form of an Arabic colophon as a mark of respect. However we do not expect candidates to do this. A reference to this can be found on page 13 of the OCR GCSE Religious Studies Notes for Guidance.

Why is a UK examination board paying respect to Muhammad? Where is the objectivity in this?

Islands for sex criminals?
Topic: Misc.
I don't believe that sex criminals, in particular those who molest children, are like other criminals. I don't suppose it's their fault that their urges are the way they are. I don't see how they can reform. A man who steals from a shop can be made to see how his actions are wrong, but what can you do with someone who has a sex drive that requires that others be harmed?

So I've been thinking recently that they should be placed on some remote island where they can do no harm to others once they have completed their time in prison. Conditions need not be harsh. They would not be there for extra punishment, merely to prevent further harm to others.

Would this be immoral?

Royal madness
Topic: Misc.
Apologies if you came here to read about something other than the forthcoming marriage of Charles and Camilla, but this made me laugh. It's from the BBC's 'Have your say' page:

Never should Charles be allowed to re-marry - especially to a divorcee. This is a good reflection of our country today. He also should forfeit the right to be king, as the rules are rules. If the law is changed to accommodate this, then we will riot.

Tim Cross, Reading, Berks

Somehow I doubt this.

The threat from Saddam
Topic: Politics
A writer in the comments to an earlier piece, named 'R We Safer now in sunny kent?' tells me:

"this wasn't an imperitive war like ww2"..."there was a case for the war, but did this justify the cost?"

For a moment, I would like to set aside my conviction that the war was justified in terms of regime change and reform of the middle-east and instead focus purely on the threat that Saddam posed, which many people wrongly assume to be non-existent, merely because no stockpiles of nuclear weapons have been found.

I suggest that everyone has a look at the Iraq Survey Group's findings. They are a damming indictment of the philosophy of containment.

The section titled 'Regime Strategic Intent' explains:

Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.

In order to end sanctions, Saddam used the 'Oil for Food' programme not only for personal gain, but also to bribe foreign politicians to campaign for an end to sanctions. Once that was achieved he would then restart his WMD development. In other words, a system that was designed to contain Saddam was actually being used by Saddam to contain the free world. Those who argue that there was no threat from Iraq resemble the man who falls from the Eiffel Tower and as he passes the second floor on the way down observes 'So far so good!'.

Check out this page from Wikipedia for summary of the findings. Note the last one, which makes clear that Saddam convinced his own military commanders that Iraq did have WMD in order to prevent a coup. This explains why so much of the intelligence coming out from the country reported that WMD did exist.

Drug-related madness.
Topic: Politics
A study in Scotland has found that heroin users can lead normal lives. Glasgow Caledonian University's study of 126 users found many were holding down normal jobs and relationships and passing exams. On the surface this ought to be considered a good thing, but the discovery seems to have caused more anger than relief. Social workers and politicians have instead rushed out to stress that the report did not state that herion was safe.

It's distressing that this is the level of thinking. I certainly have no interest in drugs and I would strongly counsel anyone against taking them. But if it's possible for a heroin user to go to work and earn their keep, pay tax and maintain a semblance of normality then this has to raise the question of why we leave the drug to the black market where prices are high and impurities are added to the product. Where is the fresh thinking on this matter?

Drug laws are killing people. Most heroin addicts would not inject if the price were cheaper and thus would not catch infections from needle-sharing. They would also have more money in their pockets if the price were lower and if they chose to go into rehab in order to quit once and for all, would be more likely to have the money to pay for it themselves, instead of the state picking up the tab. They wouldn't turn to crime. Your insurance premiums would be lower. And we wouldn't be exporting money to criminal gangs.

This last point is more important than most people realise. Many third world countries are impossible to govern because of the power of drug gangs. The money they earn allows them to buy weapons and bribe law enforcement officials. This is notable in Mexico and Columbia to pick just two examples. The situation in Columbia is particularly tragic, since the US insisted that the country be sprayed with chemicals to prevent the cultivation of coca leaves. In a tragic illustration of the law of unintended consequences, the effect has been to aid the drug growers at the expense of everyone who is honest. The drug cartels have developed spray-resistant strains of the coca plant and the spraying now merely serves to kill weeds and other competing vegetation. The result is a bumper cocaine harvest. Meanwhile honest farmers who grow other crops are suffering when the spray reaches their crops, resulting in ruin.

Those of us on the right who believe that 'you can't beat the market' should insist that an end be put to this madness.

Historic day for the middle-east.
Topic: Politics
Iraq votes today, under circumstances that are far from ideal. Nevertheless, it looks like turnout will be not much different from the turnout in the UK's election in 2001 (59 per cent). I was hoping to make a forecast that Iraq's turnout will be higher than ours was, but I don't know enough about how it's calculated. Excluding the Sunni areas, it will be higher for sure.

Given that some Iraqis have been killed at polling stations, it puts our political apathy to shame. Violence will continue for some time, but if the turnout is respectable, the terrorists who want Iraq to be a theocratic dictatorship will know that they have lost.

Vicky Coren gets an ear full of cider.
Topic: Misc.
It's time I updated readers regarding the third annual Young-Quance chess challenge. Julian and I normally hold this in Amsterdam but this year neither of us went for the festival, so we agreed to play in a pub in London. Also in attendance were Neil Channing and Victoria Coren.

Dear reader, I am gutted to report that despite winning by clear majorities in the first two years, I lost 3-0 in 2004. I am sure that drinking before play rather than afterwards had something to do with it. I can't believe I've got worse at the game.

It was a good natured gathering. The highlight of the evening was watching a sidebet between Vicky and Neil. As the game was played in late December, the pub was playing various christmassy songs, one of which was the 'Fairytale of New York'. On hearing it, Neil said: 'I hate this version. Why can't they play the one with Shane McGowan. This is the cover version by the kid from the boy band'. On hearing this, Vicky said 'Don't be ridiculous. This is the original version with The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl'. Neil was insistent: 'No it's not. I have listened to the original about five times a day this week. This isn't it.'

'What?' said Vicky, 'You're saying someone else has recorded the song the same way with the same harmonies? Don't be ridiculous'. The argument got more heated until one of these sickos suggested a bet. I guess it was inevitable really. It was initially set for #100 at evens each, but Vicky felt like being generous and reduced it to #50. That done, she marched over to the bar and demanded to see the disc that was being played. The barman brought it over a short while later and she was astonished to see that the song was recorded by:

Ronan Keating and Maire Brennan

She spluttered 'But what is the point of recording a cover that is exactly the same?' Too late. She had done her money. Neil was very nice though and told her to put it in the pub's charity collection tin. She returned and announced 'Well there's a charity for the blind that's #50 better off'. Never one to miss the bright side, Neil replied 'Oh that's good. I know you were gutted about that Blunkett thing'.

And the moral of the story. Don't be on facts! Certainly not against Lord Channing.

Thanks to Fred Titmus
Topic: Politics
No this is not a post about cricket. I want to express my gratitude to 'Fred Titmus' for responding to one of the most misinformed posts I've ever seen about politics. I refer to the one on the HM site that says:

"ha ha ha Poor old DY can't reply here, cos of his deal with gutshot. Any way he attacks me on his blog, he trys to bring the budhists into the argument.?? But he doesn't address the point of the programme-the fact that neo-cons will always look for a bogeyman (soviet union or muslim fundamentalists) to maintain their grip on power. Luckily old ronnie reagan didn't buy their bull****...otherwise we wouldn't have had detente.
Can you imagine the cretinous bush dealing with Gorby and the cold war thaw in the 80's?"

I'm glad this person (who effectively admits to being 'DY delusions') wrote this, because it shows how breathtakingly ill-informed he is. Firstly there is the small matter of the fact that I'm not prevented from writing on the site at all. I choose not to because I have found it less and less rewarding for some time now and it was consuming too much of my mental energy when I used to post. There is a growing trend of sheer nastiness, lately directed at Ulliott, Vicky Coren and Roland, that makes it less pleasant to read. Where did all these sad vicious people spring from?

As far as bringing buddhists into the argument, I did that because if I can show that Islamic extremists are active in parts of the world that are not Christian, then it utterly undermines the argument that they need 'Bush conservatives' to flourish. I also showed that they were active long before the 'neo-cons' came to power. So the basic tenet of his argument falls to pieces.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when he writes: "neo-cons will always look for a bogeyman (soviet union or muslim fundamentalists) to maintain their grip on power". Is he honestly saying that there isn't or wasn't a threat to freedom from either of these groups? Does he know about Hungary 1956, Prague 1968 or the many terrorist outrages at the hand of islamic terrorists?

To suggest that Reagan followed a policy of detente beggars belief. We are talking about a man who joked about bombing Russia on radio! Reagan didn't bring down the Soviet empire through talks alone. He did it by accelerating an arms race that the weaker Soviet economy couldn't match without destroying living standards.

So thanks again to 'Fred' for telling it like it is:

"It was precisely because Reagan rejected detente with what he called the "evil empire" that the process of disintegration of the Soviet Union occured when it did. Reagan emphatically rejected the Nixon/Kissinger detente policy."

Amen to that!