Here’s the outrage

What is there to be outraged about , UK let freedom of speech go far enough, muslim hate groups chanted “death to Blair, UK, US, etc. just a few months ago, and look what happened.

It is about time stiffer laws where put in place.

A Labour government (A LABOUR GOVERNMENT!)

Perhaps the Home Office will “hire a fleet of taxis”:http://www.politicos.co.uk/item.jsp?ID=4105 to scuttle around London handing out Speechcrime notices to its own workers.

You guys in the UK up for a race to the bottom?

Well, I’ve written about the issue twice thus far.

Maybe the lack of popular outrage has something to do with feeling screwed in a much more pervasive way, by circumstance, by the injustices of everday life, by the very real erosion of individual autonomy in so many ways. It would be hard to have sympathy for those who get jerked around by a law on speechcrime when everyone is already being royally fucked over in ways that go unremarked.

helllloooo? They can already jail you for speech crimes. Try expressing some robust opinions about Islam or dark people, for example.

One assumes it’s the nature of the speech which
has you such high dudgeon.

What does that make you?

much better, thanks.

This is a bit overblown. The reason there is no outrage is the same reason there was no outrage about ID cards – because most people know that whatever the law, in practice it will have no impact on their lives – much as the sovereignty of the Queen does not really restrict our democracy.

People haven’t read the law but the feeling is simply that the UK has been too liberal about allowing extremists to express their views and in so doing indoctrinate people to do hateful things. Since most people in the UK don’t encourage youngsters to bring down the state, they don’t much care about the interests of those who do.

It looks like a bad law but that’s nothing new. The intention behind it however, I have some sympathy with.

RJT of course knows the true value of these laws, by making certain types of speech crimes they can target members of ethnic groups that are most likely to use these types of speech, without having a law specifically targetting ethnic groups which would be against EU rules and probably other previous laws.

what happens three years down the road when some bloke in a pub says “as long as Bin Laden is blowing up those bloody yanks he’s okay in my book” has not yet been addressed.

Maybe the lack of outrage is due to the fact that people are more concerned with their right to live their lives without being victimised by Islamist extremists than they are with the rights of said Islamofascists to spout their poisonous hatred.

Or maybe it’s the fact that people think the high-intensity overblown rhetoric from this law’s opponents sounds so ridiculous. Sent to jail for a pub conversation? Get real!

I enjoy seeing the spectacle of the erosion of the legitimacy of the state. They should pass a ‘law’ – yeah, right as if a state could actually pass a law; it’s a bit like the golf club rules supported by violence and stupidity – to arrest people for walking on the cracks on pavements. Honestly, Daniel … why get so excised: you don’t really believe that these cyphers, mediocraties and general no-marks have any legitimacy do you? If so, why … ?????

Where’s the outrage? It was stifled over the last 20 years by the entire PC speech movement (i.e. a left-wing movement). The harsh fact is that for at least a generation it has been known that rote conformity is required-REQUIRED- in order to be a professor in the West. In the US, mere expressions of opposition to affirmative action would lose you a job in any university you care to teach at-I’m sure its similar in the UK (feminism, anti-Western, liberal, you know the list). In the US (in Kentucky), the ACLU is suing parents, and students, of a public school, obligating them-OBLIGATING THEM- to attend gay rights teaching that they don’t want to attend.
So where’s the outrage? You’ve nicked and nickelled and dimed and trivially picked at the very concept of freedom of speech, and freedom of thought, for twenty years. With the intelligensia willing to, and actively, shrilly dictating to the hoi polloi how to speak and how to think, it should come as no surprise that threats of violence, followed by bus bombings, qualify for limitations just as much as opposition to feminism or disagreement with Edward Said. Let’s face it, nothing is absolute (relativism-another liberal concept, n’est pas?)-not even freedom of speech. I suspect this is an awful, Orwellian, oppressive, odious law. But you reap what you sow.

Steve

We live in a world where the likes of RJT can demand that his own right to free speech be curtailed. It’s time to realise the darkest truth about totalitarianism: it chimes in with deep fears we all have about taking the responsibility for our own freedom. Some of us give in to these fears and start to demand a ‘leader’ to take away this irksome responsibility.

Of course, as another poster points out, another reason the chattering classes are less than concerned about this is they think (and in the short term they are probably right) that these laws will not be used against them. These laws are aimed (as some posters have perceptively commented) solely at immigrants, arabs, and others in the ‘underclass’.

However, as another poster even more perceptively commented, this is the thin edge of the wedge, and this is indeed a ‘first they came for the Communists’ moment.

Is anyone still up for my idea of having a public praising of terrorism outside parliament when this freedom-destroying law is passed, incidentally?

Incidentally I didn’t realise that when I wrote my post above that Matthew McGratten had replied to me. We are thinking about setting up some form of Pledgebank pledge against this law.

“‘In fact, if someone was to, say, set up a Pledgebank pledge to do exactly that, I’d be happy to sign it…’

What does everyone else think? Is anyone else up for it? I certainly am…..”

Brendan, I’m definitely up for it. If you are interested in taking it further, maybe email me? (matthew DOT mcgrattan AT philosophy.ox.ac.uk)’

I will be back from holiday on the 27th (yes i think about this sort of thing even when lounging on the beach…no rest for the wicked….) and will pursue it then if anyone is interested.

Brendan

The harsh fact is that for at least a generation it has been known that rote conformity is required-REQUIRED- in order to be a professor in the West.

The precise phrasing of Steve’s little rant is significant. “It has been known” because the right has been spreading these lies in this country for at least a generation (though to be honest, I had always heard that this was only the case in the U.S….when did it become “the West” in general? or can we simply assume that decadent, godless Europe is leading us into the abyss?).

Of course, as has already been pointed out upthread, it is simply not the case that conservatives are systematically prevented from achieving academic success in this country (or, so far as I know, elsewhere in the West). And much cited conservative causes célèbres, such as Winthrop Professor of History Stephan Thernstrom’s course at Harvard University being publicly criticized by a number of undergraduates in the 1980s, constitute poor evidence indeed for Steve’s case.

On the lack of outrage: I think there’s the presumption that either those dangerous radicals in the House of Lords or the ‘activist’ Old Etonian judiciary will do the job and keep this ridiculous turd out of the statute book, or strike it out as soon as a conviction is achieved.

I’d say that while those Carlton Club keepers of the revolution may have bailed out BlairCo from some of its more fuckwitted knee-jerks in the past, having to rely upon them now is somewhat dangerous.

Let them try to enforce it. But any Blairite lickspittle that votes for this one deserves to be woken by pizza deliveries at 4am for the rest of their term.

Daniel, come on, you read the Brit blogs. Chris Lightfoot, Nosemonkey, myself, Samizdata, John B, Chicken Yoghurt, Backword Dave…we’ve all got entirely different economic and political views and we’ve all been shouting at Nu Labour over civil liberties for a year at least. ID Cards, Civil Contingencies Act, Belmarsh, suspension of Habeus Corpus and now this. Perhaps there hasn’t been all that much on this specific idiocy but that’s because we’ve come to expect it, just view it as part and parcel of the Project.

“The harsh fact is that for at least a generation it has been known that rote conformity is required-REQUIRED- in order to be HIRED AS a professor in the West.”

But this too is utter bollocks. Just one example off the top of my head – a mate of mine was hired recently for a permanent job by a major British university. His job talk was a defence of ethnic profiling by law enforcement agencies. Hardly PC.

“The harsh fact is that for at least a generation it has been known that rote conformity is required-REQUIRED- in order to be HIRED AS a professor in the West.”

But this too is utter bollocks. Just one example off the top of my head – a mate of mine was hired recently for a permanent job by a major British university. His job talk was a defence of ethnic profiling by law enforcement agencies. Hardly PC.

This point is so clear and so obvious as to be nondebatable. Polls have long established that the professoriat (and the main-stream media, by the way) track better than 90% liberal, in a nation where liberals and conservatives are evenly split (can’t speak for Britain). After all the snickers and jokes (“Liberals are just smarter” haw haw), imagine if the professoriat were 90%+ male (in a nation where the sexes are evenly split…)? Imagine if even one school had a faculty that was better than 90% male? How many excuses would you accept (“men are just smarter” haw haw, “women are simply attracted to other professions, like business and think tanks” haw haw). This entire train of argument is and has been decided by anyone with a lick of common sense. Feel free to continue to argue (yes, the Emperor’s new suit IS quite fetching), but that fight is done.

Steve

No, not analogous. “Incitement to hatred” is and always has been a crime, like “harassment”, and it should be. There is a real difference of legal principle here between the mere expression of an opinion and the attempt to cause a specific act of violence. The current Clarke proposal is apparently intended only to stop people from inciting terrorism, but the law does not actually contain any test that the speech concerned is intended to incite, which is what makes it a speech crime law (which I am against) rather than an incitement law (which I am in favour of). I was opposed to the draft religious hatred incitement law precisely because it contained a weakening of this test.

Looks like we have another irregular verb….

I’m EXPRESSING MY POLITICAL VIEWS!!You’re glorifying terrorism.He’s inciting hatred.

Or, if you like,

I’m merely criminalizing harassment.You’re weakening the test for incitement law.He’s PROPOSING TO PUT PEOPLE IN JAIL FOR POLITICAL SPEECH CRIMES!!

Daniel, the line between “glorifying terrorism” and “incitement to hatred” or “harassment” is probably definable, but it’s way too fine and blurry for you to be huffily defending one while screaming about the other in upper-case letters. As I’ve said before, I’m not thrilled about the idea of criminalizing “glorifying terrorism” myself. But dealing with the problem of terrorism–and, more particularly, terrorist front groups–will require the drawing of some important fine lines–a task that will be easier if those discussing it are a little more sparing in their use of the “shift” key.

Steve’s comparison between the number of liberals and conservatives in the academy and the number of liberals and conservatives in the U.S.population at large is simply not evidence for his claim (which is now that you need to be a conformist in order to get an academic position).

First, presumably the relevant comparison would not be to the general population, but to people with PhDs, or perhaps applicants to graduate programs. If one found that these populations politically resembled tenured (and tenure-track) faculty — and I think you would — where exactly would discrimination be taking place? Self-selection seems like a better explanation.

Let me put this another way. Medical doctors are more Republican than the population at large. But it would ridiculous to use this fact as evidence that medical schools are discriminating against liberals.

Secondly, even if one somehow proved that American academic departments were hiring an unusually large number of liberals in relation to a relevant population, how does that = conformity? There are many bitter arguments, both about politics and about professional matters, to be found among American liberal academics (e.g. Nader vs. Gore in 2000).

Professional disciplines do tend to reproduce themselves methodologically (this is a very old story), and that rather limited form of conformity can be seen throughout the academic professions. But that does not universally work in favor of the left. See, for example, the fortunes of radicals in most economics departments in the U.S.

If anyone is proposing a quick sing-song outside the gates of 10 Downing Street singing “Glory Glory O Bin Laden” I think I am probably up for it.

I’m sure Osama appreciates the irony here. Do you?

While it’s pretty bad, it’s just the latest in a long line of bits of illiberalism (ban on foxhunting, Belmarsh, various Terrorism Acts, ID cards, “incitement to religious hatred” etc.) to come from this government. It’s going to be hard to get a general push against illiberalism until something is done to address the fears which bring it out.

I’d just like to say that the main giveaway that the incitement to religious hatred law is bad is that prosecutions can’t be brought under it without leave from the DPP. It’s not a law of the people in any meaningful sense, it’s a pure weapon of the government. In fact, I would be very surprised if there were more than one or two prosecutions under it in the next few years. Passing the Bill was, like the foxhunting ban, more a payoff to supporters than actual policy.

No it isn’t. Incitement is incitement to a specific act and contains a mens rea test. The mens rea test was weakened in the proposed religious incitement legislation (the clause “or likely to …” showed up in the legislation with no explanation of why it was there) and the draft glorifying terrorism legislation doesn’t have it at all. Mens rea isn’t a little detail of the criminal law, and nor is the difference between incitement to a specific act and generalised “glorifying”.

Okay, let’s play “Spot the Intent”:

“Attack A was a glorious act.”

“Attack A was a glorious act, and we need more glorious attacks.”

“Attack A was a glorious act, and we need more such glorious attacks.”

“Attack A was a glorious act, and we need more such glorious attacks, in places throughout the country.”

“Attack A was a glorious act, and we need another such glorious act next week at location B.”

Now, one may well have a clear opinion as to when this chain of statements shifts from “expressing a political opinion” to “incitement”. But I’d hope that we can all agree that the distinctions are (1) independent of whether the attack is a terrorist attack on the host country or a racist attack on one ethnic group of its citizens, and (2) subtle enough that reasonable people can differ about them without being yelled at by other reasonable people.

In Steve’s world, once a supermajority reaches a a sufficient size (90%?) it simply goes without saying they will discriminate against the minority. No further evidence is needed. Perhaps this explains why he finds it so offensive that these namby-pamby liberals want to teach the youth of Kentucky that beating up the gays isn’t on. As long as the gay population is a tiny minority, we should just accept that straight people can’t help but discriminate against them.

The RWDBs, for all their crap about poor widdle oppressed conservatives etc, have one valid point: hate-speech legislation opened the door for this sort of shit. The UK’s hate speech laws are, like this proposal, wrong in principle and counterproductive in practice – the common law already had plenty of things to cover incitement that leads directly to specific acts of violence.

Which reinforces my view that far the best thing about the US Constitution is its First Amendment.

“Church of England bishops have suggested Christian leaders apologise to Muslim leaders for the war in Iraq. A report from a working group of bishops says the war was one of a ‘long litany of errors’ relating to Iraq.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4259062.stm

Have the Bishops learned nothing from what happened to Thomas A Becket in 1170 and to Archbishop Cranmer in 1556?

Commenters seem to have missed that the proposal, as shown by the link on Daniel’s original post, is not to create a new criminal offence of glorifying terrorism. That would be bad enough, but clever barristers and sane juries would probably make it unenforceable. It is an extension of the proposal to give the Home Secretary enormous powers to confine people to house arrest etc. etc. if it looks like a good idea to him, on the mere balance of probabilities. The proposal is doubly toxic.

I find it ironical in the extreme that liberals in here are on the bandwagon attacking Blair for an attack on free speech.

Liberals have been in the business of creating a CULTURAL MACHINE designed to shut people up – aka political correctness. Universities in the States have resident liberal “gestapos” who enforce speech codes, and if they don’t succeed in getting offical mechanisms to punish the guilty, they ensure that any person they deem incorrect is socially ostracized.

Eric J. Wasserman of FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) puts it this way …

“Speech codes are tools that administrators use to quash speech they do not agree with, and to punish students and faculty members for expressions they do not agree with.”

An example in these rooms, was the casual use of the neologism “Eurabia” – obviously a satirical reference to a contemporary demographic shift, and a term also occasionally used by muslims in a humorous vein. The appearance of the word evoked calls by a liberal poster to have posts disabled!!!!

Give me a break. Liberals have NO RIGHT to assume a righteous stance on this issue of free speech, when they have been engaged in an orchestrated effort to control speech in public forums.

Several commenters have presented an “argument” along these lines: American leftists have stiffled freedom of speech in US universities, so a Welsh financial analyst living in London has no right to complain if Her Majesty’s Government restricts his right to sound off about the benefits of terrorism (should he so desire) over a few pints down at the Pig and Whistle.

Even if we grant the premise, how does the conclusion follow? Are Brits under some obligation to succumb as feebly as those poor, downtrodden Yanks, beaten into submission by PC academics and the liberal MSM?

Aidan, while vaguely reluctant to engage with you at all, do you have ANY evidence at all that this:

“Universities in the States have resident liberal “gestapos” who enforce speech codes, and if they don’t succeed in getting offical mechanisms to punish the guilty, they ensure that any person they deem incorrect is socially ostracized.”

is true?

I’m familiar with the “incitement to religious hatred” law dsquared. Not always enforced as rigorously as it could be though.

Matt I’m reluctant to engage with you period. Starting your comment in this fashion reflects precisely the type of arrogance I’m referring to …

try googling for it.

Aidan, I’m reluctant to engage with you since you are a) clearly trolling and b) knocking about phrases like ‘liberal gestapo’ …

Dan, this way you will be able connect almost anything with incitement; most obvious example is computer games, like the notorious Grand Theft Auto, where players shoot and kill cops, hijack cars, etc. Or movies, like Natural Born Killers. You really want to fight this – ban glorification of any violence. And better ban and take out of circulation the words that describe any violent acts too.

Aidan, you idiot, the ‘esteemed liberal pundits’ here have been arguing _against_ punishing speech that is not direct incitement. If you want to ask someone ‘should this be banned too’, you should be asking Charles Clarke.
Somewhere else.

A sample of that mild Coulter person, courtesy of arch-liberal Andrew Sullivan:

DERBYSHIRE AWARD NOMINEE: “When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed too. Otherwise they will turn out to be outright traitors.” – Ann Coulter, at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

How such Coulter be punished? She shouldn’t, unless being ignored is punishment, in which case she should be punished continuously.

There are degrees uncle kvetch. When I used the term it was tongue-in-cheek because it’s part of my cultural inheritance too – I’m far from being some sabre toothed ultra-right idealogue.

You guys need to chill out. You are way, way too defensive and you are killing debate.

If this site is designated for one point of view, tell me. There are a lot of other sites I post on. I won’t be grieving.

Donald – I don’t actually agree with everything you have said, but I sure appreciate your civility and fair minded approach.

Yes, I do agree that the tit for tat regimen can become tiresome.

This site has the potential to be a catalyst for understanding and mutual respect between debaters with diverse opinions. While I disagree with a lot of the opinion I have encountered here, I would say that Crooked Timbers hosts some of the best minds of the net.

It’s always easy to latch onto an inflamatory word or phrase in order to mount an attack on an opponent. I’m guilty of this also. The partisan sparring is hard to resist. Having said that I have a great deal of respect for all who come on here and have the guts to give their opinion in real time, political stripes notwithstanding.

I’m trying to find a football game from the U.K. right now lol – so I’m outta here :)

Hi soubzriquet –

The liberal bias in academia is understandable when you consider the demographic breakdown … the last stats I came up that cover the main universities in the States showed 1,397 registered Democrats and 134 registered Republicans. A fairly dramatic imbalance simply on the basis of political affiliation.

Of course, I’m not suggesting that rank and file faculty are part of some wide ranging PC cabal – this would be absurd. The average prof doesn’t have either the time or energy to be an activist on the side. However, there is an energized and influential culture within academia that has has been pushing an agenda that many characterize as “radical” or “leftist” – and even “anti-American”.

At present I don’t have time to search out sources on the net, but you can refer to the writings of authors such as David Horowitz, Mona Charen, Thomas E. Woods, Daniel J. Flynn … these are a few that come to mind … oh, and of course the notorious Coulter has much to say on the topic. Some of these writers are more balanced than others in my opinion. Flynn goes over the top sometimes.

The exploits of and the objections to … the leftist “police” (I’m avoiding the “G’ word) are legendary. A scan of Google will yeild TONS of anecdotal stories, complaints, accusations etc etc, going all the way from affirmative action wrangles to battles over speakers and billboard displays.

On the academic side of things, there is an unfortunate tendency, certainly in the Arts (my area) to excise sub-text from overall context and then magnify with a powerful lense – be it “evil” western imperialism, oppression of women, racism or whatever sub-textual caveat is deemed to be a “minority concern”. So there are major knowledge related concerns also. I do agree with you though that such conflicts will be more typical of one discipline than another.

David Horowitz was actually a prominent Marxist in the 60’s, and he has done a complete about turn. You might be interested in taking a look at his “Academic Bill of Rights,” a manifesto intended to protect students’ academic freedom by removing partisan politics from the classroom.

Doris Lessing, who was certainly no screaming Tory, had this observation to make about PC culture …

“Political correctness is the natural continuum from the party line. What we are seeing once again is a self-appointed group of vigilantes imposing their views on others. It is a heritage of communism, but they don’t seem to see this.”

I’d love to get into this on the thread but I’m short of time at this end.

Yes abb1 you’re correct – by this definition it doesn’t apply – nor would I want it to apply.

I am extremely leery of any type of official control of speech, unless it is clearly and demonstrably warranted … as I argued earlier in the N. Ireland case.

However even your wikipedia example speaks to ambiguity in terms of the actual definition –

“Many courts cannot even decide the definition of hate speech…”

My examples … let’s call them “hateful commentary” … do indeed fall into a different category from the one you outlined and the only “punishment” I would deem appropriate would be censure as opposed to legal prosecution.

“Brown shirts” – Gore in reference to GOP

…Gore said media who challenge Bush and Cheney’s claims of a link [between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda] are intimidated by the administration.

“The administration works closely with a network of rapid-response digital Brown Shirts who work to pressure reporters and their editors for undermining support for our troops,” Gore said.

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/24/gore.bush/

In other words, it is perfectly consistent to oppose criminalising Holocaust denial while also opposing the appointment of David Irving as Professor of Modern History at Oxford.

Aidan:

Those statistics don’t mean anything in terms of proving an intentional and/or policy bias. It is a logical fallacy to compare them to population-at-large statistics…

I know there is a *lot* of material out there, what I was commenting was the apparent lack of material of any real quality. Anectdotal evidence is shaky at best (as I commented w.r.t my own). Wading through a pile of rants that similary unsupported isn’t going to get me anywhere useful.

By the way, quoting people of the calibre of Coulter (only Flynn goes over the top sometimes?) really weakens your argument. Horowitz I have read a bit of, not a fan of the `Academic Bill of Rights’ (which I believe has been discussed here, also).

Look, I know (as previously stated) that you can find extreme examples of people and departments. And I noted that (without comment on the ratio, as I am not knowledgeable about this) this at least exists in both directions. This in no way proves a general intentional bias, or any sort of “PC police” controlling academia. Yet you, like many, trot that out as *fact*. I’m objecting to that sloppy practice, not the existence of extremes.

Unfortunately, I lack time to follow this either, at the moment.

Bearing in mind that being ironical about something in no way precludes that it’s true.

This is my last comment on this thread cos it’s getting a bit long in the tooth and I’ve started chasing recent posts elsewhere.

Soubzriquet … a few points on your response …

1. I at no point provided the statistics relating to card carrying Democrats/Republicans in higher education in an effort to “prove” anything. I merely stated them as interesting facts. The “logical fallacy” you accuse me of is a non-starter because it stems from your assumptions and not my argument re those particular stats. If I had wanted to extrapolate “evidence” from the the stats I would have done so. I didn’t because you can’t stereotype either Democrats or Republicans. Some Democrats can be very right leaning and conservative just as some “progressive” Republican types can be fairly liberal in their postions. It’s impossible to make such labels stick.

2. In the case of students/staff who have been victims of pc policies, it’s hardly like a crime scene where forensics can be gathered and proof presented in the clinical way you appear to demand. We are dealing often with closed door affairs, not unlike unjust proceedings within a club that all hear and know about without necessarily being able to see it all on BBC in a blow by blow expose. Some of these cases will be more thoroughly documented and investigated than others, as is always the case with institutions that maintain is some cases an in-house police force and an administration intent on avoiding scrutiny by the society at large.

3. It may be your opinion that Ann Coulter is someone of questionable “calibre”, this certainly is not my position at all, nor do I think it takes away from the validity of my argument in any way. Coulter may be many things, but I have yet to see her condemned as a congenital liar. She may have her own spin, but she gets her facts straight to support it.

4. I never said that “PC police were CONTROLLING academia” – that’s a misreading of what I was suggesting. It’s a phenomena that relates more to certain universities than others, some departments more than others. In some universities it influences student politics more than others … and so on. To imply that I was inferring some type of “order” with any type of objective existence, akin say to a paramilitary oufit, is verging on the fantastical. To get a realistic assessment of what is really going on along these lines, universities would have to be looked at individually.

Wait a sec – what I have noticed is that you misrepresented what I said earlier and made no effort to explain why you chose to distort it that way, for example re – stats. Apparently spin goes both ways.

If you REALLY BELIEVE that everything that has been argued, debated and exposed over the years in media as unbiased toward the left as PBS,TV Ontario in Canada and the venerable BBC relating to the leftist agenda in US universities is some kind of chimera, some sort of hallucination dreamed up by people eager to create some politically convenient fantasy – then nothing I can say, do or concoct will convince you otherwise. Please enjoy your convictions to the contrary.

No judge will EVER sit in judgement on the sum total of this issue and no ultimate verdict will EVER be passed. As I said earlier it’s not a case involving forensics.

You don’t agree with me – fine. Am I trying to convince YOU personally? No. Do I care if you think statements made earlier need to have all their i’s dotted and t’s crossed … maybe … but I don’t feel a pressing need here and now to launch into a research project to satisfy your personal requirements.

Live with it.

“If anyone is proposing a quick sing-song outside the gates of 10 Downing Street singing ‘Glory Glory O Bin Laden’ I think I am probably up for it. “

How about “Osama Abu?”