Britblog Roundup #250

Britblog Roundup #250 is up at Charles Crawford.

Dodgy UK banks dodgily lend to dodgy borrowers

British banks have lent large sums to Dubai:

British banks are more exposed than most to the United Arab Emirates, of which Dubai is the economy built on sand, or rather excessive debt. According to the authoritative statistics of the Bank for International Settlements, UK banks have lent around $50bn to the UAE, more than 40% of all bank lending to the UAE.

Is there any investment these banks have made that isn’t dodgy? And are we going to have to prop them up with yet more public money? Wouldn’t it be better to cut our losses and say no more public money to dodgy banks who do dodgy deals with dodgy foreign institutions?

Tories worse than Labour on filesharing

Labour’s Digital Economy Bill is bad enough. But what is the Conservatives’ position? This extract from a parliamentary debate which occurred a fortnight ago makes clear that they’re worse (the yellow marking is my emphasis):

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Culture, Media and Sport; South West Surrey, Conservative)

Everyone understands the need for safeguards, but will the confirm that, assuming the successful passage of the digital economy Bill, the earliest an illegal file sharer could have their internet connection temporarily cut off is February 2012? That is hardly an example of the Government at their most decisive.

The Tories want to disconnect people sooner.

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

[...] I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman could confirm to the House that he supports the proposals as they stand.

Jeremy Hunt (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Culture, Media and Sport; South West Surrey, Conservative)

I am happy to confirm that the Conservatives support the proposals. We just do not think that they, on their own, will do the job.

The Tories want even more punishment of alleged filesharers.

Not that Labour have anything to shout about; earlier in the debate their minister says:

Siôn Simon (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Culture, Media and Sport; Birmingham, Erdington, Labour)

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that question. People who have done nothing wrong should not be in any danger of having their internet interfered with at all. Hardly anybody, other than the most serious and egregious recidivistic offenders, should ever be in danger of having any of their internet affected, and nobody will have their bandwidth squeezed or their account suspended until they have had repeated letters, been given a healthy notice period and then had a right of appeal—indeed, two rights of appeal—as she requests.

An appeal is what you do when you’ve been found guilty and you want to reverse the verdict. The fact that Simon uses this word implies that he regards alleged filesharers as guilty unless they can prove themselves innocent.

So there we have it,  the Labservative duopoly at its finest: pro big media corporations, anti the British public.

(via William Heath)

Mandelson wants to quit

Many people think the Digital Economy Bill is a bad law. Lord Mandelson, who’s in charge of it, presumably thinks it’s a good law; either way, it’s a major piece of legislation that his department is pushing through in the run-up to the the general election. So you’d think Mandelson would be keen to remain as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, to steer the bill through parliament.

You’d be wrong:

Gordon Brown is facing demands to make Lord Mandelson foreign secretary in a row that risks tearing apart his government.

The business secretary is secretly pressing Brown to hold a cabinet reshuffle so he can achieve his life-long ambition of running the Foreign Office. Mandelson made the request after he was snubbed for the post of European Union foreign minister at last week’s Brussels summit.

Mandelson is a vain, self-centered man who puts his personal ambition before his minsterial duties. He’s not fit to run a whelk stall, let alone an important government department.

Pirate Party Edinburgh meetup

Pirate Party UK is having an Edinburgh meetup next Monday, 30th November from 7pm onwards in the Standing Order pub on 62-66 George Street.

You’re welcome to come along if you’re member of — or curious about — Pirate Party UK, you’re interested in the wider issues of the law relating to the internet, or you’re interested in taking action against the government’s Digital Economy Bill.

I’ll be there from 7 onwards. The Standing Order is a large pub so when you get there if you call my mobile number (07930 631730) you’ll be able to find us.

Petition against disconnecting filesharers is 19th most popular

The petition on the Number 10 website against disconnecting filesharers is now the 19th most popular in terms of total signatures.

As I write it now has 8889 signatures, with 8000 people signing it over the last few days, since the Digital Economy Bill was announced.

If you’ve not already signed, do so. Unless of course you want to have your net access cut off on the say-so of the music industry.

(via glynwintle on Twitter)

UPDATE 2009-Nov-24 06:16: The petition now has 15,233 signatures, having gained over 6,000 in a day. It’s now the 12th most popular. Let’s make it the most popular — then politicians will realise this is a vote loser.

Britblog Roundup #249

Britblog Roundup #249 is here.

The Guardian on the Digital Economy Bill

The Guardian has a good editorial on the Digital Economy Bill:

The digital economy bill is misnamed. A more honest title for the legislation, recently introduced in the Lords, would be the copyright protection and punishment bill. It is less about creating the digital businesses of the 21st century than protecting the particular 20th century business models used in music and film.

The bill is narrow in vision but dangerously broad in creating sweeping ministerial powers to punish digital pirates. It boils Digital Britain down to three Ms – media, music and movies – myopically ignoring the pioneers of new technology, and showing a blind spot for all creativity outside the so-called creative industries. Digital Britain is much more than digital media – there are the start-ups of London’s Silicon Roundabout, the great success story of Cambridge chip designer ARM and the small businesses all over the land using the net to open up opportunities. Instead of empowering digital Britons, the bill follows the lead of music and movie corporations, who already apply a presumption of guilt to their customers. Instead of treating the web as a platform of possibilities, it recasts it as a tool for mass theft.

I wrote in the comments that I agree 100% and it could have been written by the Pirate Party! When views this much in agreement with us are published in edotorials in national daily newspapers, it demonstrates we’re winning the argument.

Scottish Roundup

The latest Scottish Roundup is up here: Blogging births, deaths and marriages.

Devolve drink-drive limit to Scotland?

An MSP wants the alcohol limit for drink driving to be devolved to the Scottish Parliament, so it can be lowered:

UK ministers have come under fresh pressure to allow a lower drink-driving alcohol limit in Scotland.

Highlands and Islands MSP David Thompson wants the limit cut from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg. The SNP backbencher says the UK Government is dragging its feet by not giving Holyrood the power to act. Giving MSPs the ability to alter the limit was recommended in the Calman report on devolution, which Labour ministers are considering.

This is not something I favour, though I would favour if most of transport policy because a devolved matter. The vast majority of road journeys in Scotland start in Scotland, end in Scotland, and never leave Scotland throught their itinery. Therefore they are Scottish matters and it would be more natural to deal with them at the Scottish level than the UK level.

Currently all transport policy is reserved for Westminster. The Calman commission recommended that the drink-driving limit be devolved, which is a very minor change. The vast majority of road transport policy should be a devolved matter.

Overall Calman has been very timid and unambitious in recommending more powers be devolved. If Scotland is going to re-visit the devolution settlement, and devolve more powers to the Scottish Parliament,  then it must be realised that changing the ettlement isn’t something that happens often, so each time Scotland seeks to change the settlement, it might as well have a big shopping list of new powers, rather than just a few. Just as if going to the supermarket was a long journey, you wouldn’t just buy one item.

For example the Calman Report says policy on airguns be devolved, when it would make more sense if all firearms policy became a devolved matter.

Another matter that could be usefully devolved is internet policy. At the moment, the internet is a reserved matter, but if Mandelson’s Digital Economy Bill looks likely to become law, it would make sense for Scotland to devolve this power, so it wouldn’t have to implement such a damaging law.