Archive for Fourth Way Society Foundations, Humanities and Principles

Disappointing vision

February 13, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

With Simon Thomas dropping out of the Plaid leadership contest to support Elin Jones (Western Mail, February 6), the campaign should have become less of a one-horse race that Leanne Wood was guaranteed to win, but reading Elin’s “vision” on her website disappoints me.

Elin talks Wales down from the start, feeling she has to justify we are a nation.

She says our legal system is not a separate jurisdiction, that we can only legislate in a small number of areas, and that we have no tax-raising powers so are therefore a “quandary” with no “power and status”.

As a Master of Laws, I’d argue all of these are wrong. Since last May, Welsh laws have to receive Royal Assent from the Queen, which means that it is only a matter of time before a conflict between ‘Welsh law’ and ‘English and Welsh’ exists before the Supreme Court will have to determine whether Welsh law is to be treated on par with Scottish law.

In terms of tax-raising powers, the Assembly does have those. It can pass any law it wants on local government providing it doesn”t take away their law enforcement and civic responsibilities. This means it could decide to set council tax on a Wales-wide basis and order the local authorities to pay the tax they collect through the precept directly to the Welsh Government.

The Assembly is now a Parliament in all but name. Primary legislative powers are just that, and Elin needs to move with the times.

Law, Letters and other Op-Eds, Socio-legal

Voters would say yes to Welsh independence if given more facts

February 9, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

As a recent covert to supporting independence for Wales I am not surprised that only 10% of those surveyed from Wales would agree to it in light of the polarised debates on the subject (Voters would say “No” to an independent Wales, February 2). Things will change though.

I am not a separatist for wanting Wales to be independently constituted – I am as British as I have always been. I want joint British and Welsh nationality, and the current settlement does not give me that. Nor am I a nationalist for wanting independence – I am as much of a British and European Unionist as I have always been. I want a British Isles Customs Union (BICU), where each of the four British nations is equal rather than Wales being legally constituted as a province of England.

Independence within the EU could actually make our British union stronger not weaker – we just need to drop the archaic United Kingdom constitution. In such a set-up it would be illegal to discriminate against someone because they are Welsh. And Welsh firms would be expected to be treated as favourably as those in England when tendering for work in England and not charged more tax as present (Western Mail, November 16, 2011).

I do not think Wales should have a seat on UN like Plaid – in fact I think the EU should sit as one block. I don’t think Wales would need its own passport office as Labour seem to – We can share all these state entrappings, including the DVLA and other registrars within BICU, as Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg do with Benelux. If they can be independent in the EU while dependent on one another – why can’t we?

Socio-legal, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

How Labour and the Trade Unions Destroyed the Construction Industry’s Marxist Utopia

February 6, 2012 jonathanbishop 2 comments

Pre-2007 many workers in the construction industry of which I was part were de-facto Marxists – they were self-employed and could decide when they worked and when they didn’t, and how much they were willing to work for and which they wouldn’t.

But then at the request of the trade unions, the Labour Government forced nearly all these workers to become employed by the private firms. In effect, they were working against the Marxist ideal of the workers controlling their own lives without being dictated to by business owners, by forcing them onto employment contracts that meant private business owners had more say over their working terms and conditions than before! Whereas before they could take a holiday whenever they wanted, now they had to do it whenever it was best for the firm. They may have had more employment rights, but this was at the sacrifice of other perks, like having allowable expenses and paying a flat 20% tax. So, a Labour Government in effect, in order to please the unions and get a few more bucks for the tax man, took the dreams of its party’s founders, of an end to domination of people’s lives by big capitalist firms, and replaced it with further domination by capitalist firms by taking away the rights of workers to withdraw their labour on their terms without having to ballot a trade union for the right to do so.

Any Marxist sympathisers who would rather willingly work for someone else’s private firm than set up their own on either a self-employed or sole-shareholder limited company basis therefore, is too much talk and not enough action. How exactly do they expect capitalism and the state to fall if they are each day of their working lives sucking their metaphorical teet?!

Any socialist who willingly works for a private firm that they or their family don’t own are capitalist sell-outs also. If they truly believed in their ideology they would do what I have done:

Take control of the means of production, distribution and exchange by becoming self-employed and the sole shareholder of their own firm, while co-operating with others through mutually owned co-operatives.

It seems to me on most issues, the people who claim to believe that the workers should own the means of production, distribution an exchange, are all too happy  for the status quo of a government, trade union, and big business oligopoly to continue rather than take the risk of going it alone as Marx envisaged.

Bestowal, Boundlessness, Breadth, The Official Weblog of Jonathan Bishop

Policy on Women’s Rights

February 5, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

It is my view that women should not seek to treated the same way as men but should assert their own identity and expect to be treated equally to them by their differences being taken into account.

Consider for a moment this jovial comment:

My wife is so funny – so typical of women. She always gets me to put the toilet seat down. Why doesn’t she put it up for me?!

Would you say this was sexist? If yes then you need to question your ethics. By not accepting that women have different needs to men, then people are being institutionally discriminatory on the grounds of sex. Treating women equally means treating them differently. One would treat women the same if they were made to use the same urinals as men – but they would not have equal access to relive themselves as men unless there were WC cubicles installed.

I set out below my policies in relation to women’s rights.

The Status Quo

These are a number policies that are currently law relating to women that I agree with:

  • All women-short-lists are a proportionate means to acheive a legitimate aim of increasing the number of women in public life.
  • In the case of interviewing people for employment, where there is a tie between a man and a woman, the woman should be treated more favourably, except if the man is disabled and she isn’t.
  • Women who have new born children should be allowed to bring them into the workplace and be able to breast feed them if they wish providing they are never left unsupervised, for their own protection as any.
  • Women with young children should be allowed to ask for flexible working in order that their job supports their family life rather than detract from it.
  • Women should have the right to abortion – It is inhuman and degrading treatment to expect her to carry a foetus she doesn’t want.

New Rights

These are a number of new rights I want women to have:

  • When a woman is the best person for the job, she should be given the right to request that the second best candidate be offered the chance to job share with her if she wants flexible working.
  • Women who are in self-employment should have the same access to maternity pay and other rights as women who are employed.
  • A woman should have a statutory right to have her embryos frozen so that she can have her career without the risk of sacrificing her chance to found a family afterwards.

These are the rights I want women and parents/guardians in general to have:

  • Where a parent has a child with behavioural difficulties they should immediately qualify for a Blue Badge and be able to park in disabled parking spaces.
  • All ‘accessible toilets’ currently for disabled people should be fitted with baby changing facilities and other essential features a mother (or other parent) and child might need.
Auto-Wiki, Boundlessness, Policies and Consultations

Policy on Media Ratings and Vulnerable Person Protection

February 4, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I have expressed various concerns in the past on the nature of televisual material, such as music videos, with a lot of sexualised content. Being a man over the age of majority this is quite appealing to me, but as a supporter of the NSPCC I am concerned about the sexualisation of childhood. Also, as an egalitarian, believing in treating people as individuals and not based on arbitory criteria which may not apply to them, I have now pretty much finalised my policy on media ratings and the protection of children and other vulnerable persons.

A standardised media rating system

Instead of age-based ratings there would be the following, regardless of media type (e.g. DVD/website/TV-channel):

  • Universal – All exempt media and those currently suitable for all ages
  • Parental Advisory – All media currently rated PG and 12-15. Parental in this context could refer to a legal guardian in the case of vulnerable adults.
  • Explicit – All media currently rated 18 or X-Rated.

A national media rating authority

The Video Recording Act is administered by the British Board of Film Classification. I would like their remit to be extended to all media, from advertising to music videos, from video games to websites (and other hypermedia systems).

In terms of video and advertising they should have to rate them in advance, and this would be the case for software and video games to that fall within the definition of the VRA as needed to be pre-authorised. In terms of websites and other more immediate consumer-generated media sources, the BBFC would only rate following a complaint. This could be referred to them by the Advertising Authority for instance. In other cases, standard anti-virus software could runs scripts that rate the content and block any content as appropriate based on the parental control settings.

Enforceability

Each media outlet would be responsible in the short term for setting its own policy to determine who they deem as appropriate to view the specific media. This could be based on age-discrimination in the short term. They would be legally responsible for any psychiatric injury.

In the future, media outlets would have to use pre-screening technology where they could “reasonably foresee” that a particular person would not be suitable for a particular rating. Such as a child for an Explicit movie. This person would then have to watch a short video clip and then depending on how much this distresses them, measured by emotion recognition technology, then that would determine which media rating they are suitable to.

In terms of home-based media, parents/guardians would be responsible for maintaining the parental controls. It would be their choice about whether they let their children or vulnerable dependent see explicit content or not, but the child protection authorities could intervene if they thought this was having an adverse affect on the welling being of the vulnerable person.

Any media outlet that did not put proper protection in place, including websites like chatrooms/messageboards, would be criminally liable. Such offences could including making sexualised or violent context available to vulnerable persons without their parent/guardians consent. This may include sexual jokes one would not want one’s children to see, but others do not show discretion in relaying.

Auto-Wiki, Notices and Announcements, Policies and Consultations

The Gynadom

February 1, 2012 jonathanbishop 7 comments

Should women wear gynadoms to prevent unwanted births? Is this the way to stop the prisoner dilemma of female opportunist DNA Thieves from not taking the contraceptive pill knowing their male partner won’t be wearing a condom?

Who is to blame if a woman doesn't wear a gynadom?

I invented this after saying to my mother that I thought a nominal charge on the CSA was fair as it would be a disincentive to women opportunist DNA Thieves who get men blamed for not wearing condoms in order to extort money from them – well with this invention men may have no choice but to wear protection or instead no blame if the woman does not!

Consciousness, Leonardo's Tribute Gallery

More powers for Wales’ interests

January 28, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I must contest F S Wusteman’s claim that an independent Wales would not have an independent voice in the EU (Letters, January 26).

If one were to look at the current EU Treaty (TFEU) there are 62 areas in which every EU country has to agree unanimously before that law can be passed – one of these is Article 113 relating to indirect taxation like VAT so no member state has to give up its tax regime as they suggested.

The problem Wales has is we are not properly represented in the EU Council of Ministers in which only David Cameron and his UK Ministers have a right to vote on behalf of the UK. This body must agree to every piece of EU legislation before it is made law – and in many cases it can completely overrule the European Parliament if it disagrees with them.

Wales has no right to veto EU law that could, for instance, affect our manufacturing – we are at the mercy of the UK Government.

Readers will recall me calling for a British Isles Customs Union of the four British nations, which while all independent, would agree to common laws which could include a common position on EU law (Letters, October 22, 2011). If England voted to leave the EU but join the EEA it would have to implement EU law but have no say in making it. But with the BICU Council of Ministers they could do both.

In the meantime, while the argument for independence is being won in principle even if not in detail, as looks likely in Scotland, there is a way all British nations can get an equal voice in the EU decision making processes without any new primary legislation from Westminster.

Section 109 of The Government of Wales Act 2006 gives the Welsh Government the power to ask for new powers from Westminster, which could include the right to direct the UK Prime Minister to veto any EU directive that does not meet Wales’s interests. Scotland and Northern Ireland could be granted the same power.

These provisions could lead to a more united British Isles, where each nation can represent its own citizens’ interests while co-operating where this is in the interest of all citizens in the British Isles.

Boundlessness, Law, Letters and other Op-Eds

Comparing schools

January 25, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

I share the concern raised about the risks of cyber-bullying following the publication of school banding by the Welsh Government (“School banding raises fears over cyber-bullying”, January 23).

As an advocate of New Labour, before leaving the Labour Party when Ed Miliband said it was over, I am strongly in favour of parents being allowed to choose which school their child goes to. The rank and file of Old and Welsh Labour say this won’t work because every parent will want their child go to the best school – well that is the point!

A market in education, such as by removing the unfair catchment areas that partition this market and create geographical ghettos, would mean the best schools would stay open and expand, and the worst ones would close.

In such a market you would need a way for the parents to choose the best school. Government-sanctioned league tables or school banding does not help – parents need to be able to create their own league tables.

Even the “least able” people can go on to websites like GoCompare or MoneySupermarket and select what is important to them about their home or car insurance policy and what is not. If we as citizens can prioritise insurance why not other things? It is not grades that make a school a best school. It is factors such as whether they have special support for your child’s disability, whether they have after-school clubs or extended hours, and whether the school has strong pupil-satisfaction.

So if the Welsh Government is happy to have de facto league tables – why don’t they give parents the choice to have their children educated outside their area so they are not subject to the stigma that they can do little about without “upping sticks”?

Acquisition, Application, Articulation, Info-scientific, Information Technology, Law, Letters and other Op-Eds, Socio-legal

Can’t see positives in conviscating mobiles

January 21, 2012 jonathanbishop No comments

THE Manly Daily reports that children should be made to surrender their mobile phones at night in a bid to stop the devastating effects of bullying, according to a northern beaches expert called Rose Smith (‘Switch off the bullies’, January 18).

As an authority on ‘trolling law’ Ms Smith might wish to know that such a law was put in place in the UK under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 before the parts she seeks her law to do being repealed by the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, in part because of human rights issues.

How does Rose think confiscating a mobile is going to have any positive outcome?

When I was a child, taking one of my possessions would have serious consequences for whoever did and therefore myself.

This may be the case of many children from difficult backgrounds and the approach she says is appropriate is using martial arts.

This may work to discipline one and frustrate others.

Much of the guidance she gives relating to managing one child’s use of the internet is redundant with most of today’s anti-virus software, which makes life much easier for parents to control what their children see and restrict who they speak to.

Rose Smith can find out more about these and other facts at the Trolling Academy by visiting www.trollingacademy.org.

Information Technology, Law, Letters and other Op-Eds

Internet history

January 14, 2012 jonathanbishop 3 comments

I appreciate Walton MP Steve Rotheram writing into the Echo to critique my status as a trolling authority (Letters, January 11). As his colleagues at Westminster would tell him, I could not contact him direct, as he would not be allowed to respond to my letter, unless I wrote to him through my own MP, as this is parliamentary convention.

Mr Rotheram mistakenly says the Telecommunications Act 1984 and Communications Act 2003 existed before trolling. The former Act existed during the time that Usenet was popular, which was a primitive form of Facebook Groups and BBS as well, a primitive form of the Facebook wall. The second Act came about when the social networking technology I invented in 1999 – the circle of friends – was being popularised by Friendster and MySpace, before becoming an essential part of Facebook when it became mainstream from 2007.

So like the word “social media” that he uses is the new word for “social networking” beyond these text-based interfaces, so the word “trolling”, has gone from meaning simply “act of posting a message in a newsgroup that is obviously exaggerating something on a particular topic” as described in 1995 in the Internet dictionary NetLingo, to refer to a specific act of posting inflammatory or obnoxious content (which may not be text) for one’s own or others entertainment.

He would know this, as any other Echo reader, if he read the pithy response to me by D Frederick from Garston in November (Letters, Nov 26).

Information Technology, Law, Letters and other Op-Eds, Socio-legal
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