She means well, I’m sure. I do tell myself that she means well, but of all things to raise right now the very last thing that Tessa Jowell should touch on is this:

Civility in ‘ourspace’

Should we introduce a blogging code of conduct to increase the quality of internet debates? Today, I’ll be online to discuss this.

The internet is a vigorous and now invaluable part of the public realm, or what I prefer to call “ourspace”. Ourspace, whether physical or virtual, includes those places and spaces where people meet as equals; where public engagement and debate takes place.

Ourspace is part of the “commons” of the UK and something that goes much wider than just the state to include, for example, public service broadcasting; the arts, culture and sports; parks and other public open spaces; and of course the internet - in short, spaces where all feel welcome to participate, to enjoy themselves and to learn.

User-generated content on the internet - citizen journalism - is just one welcome example of “virtual ourspace” being used in this way. But as power shifts increasingly into the hands of citizens, responsibility must follow. The internet is transforming the way the government interacts with people and the way people interact with one another. But change never comes without challenges.

That’s why in a lecture for the organisation Progress on Monday night, I publicly welcomed and supported the initiative by web pioneer Tim O’Reilly and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales for a blogging code of conduct.

The wonderful, anarchic, creative world of the blogosphere shouldn’t be a licence for abuse, bullying and threats as it has been in some disturbing cases.

There is a need for serious discussion about maintaining civilised parameters for debate, so that more people - and women and older people in particular - feel comfortable to participate.

I’m not wedded to the specific words and phrases in the draft code that O’Reilly and Wales have proposed (that is up for debate), but I do think their proposal is right in principle and should be adopted here too. Blogging took off earlier in the US and the blogging community has become a powerful political force there - I hope the same happens here. But surely its full potential to benefit civil society cannot be realised unless the quality of online debate itself is civilised? Surely we do not want online discussions simply to mirror the often aggressive, boorish and pointless exchanges that sometimes pass for debate on the floor of the House of Commons, and which are such a turn-off for voters?

Some commentators have suggested that the idea of a code of conduct shows the growing maturity of the blogging community in the US, although some of the more virulent attacks on the suggestion (and on O’Reilly and Wales themselves) have shown nothing except the immaturity of some users. But perhaps, taken as a whole, this proposal is a rare example of a good lesson for us in Britain to learn from American politics?

D’oh.

Should the Groan get around to issuing the validation e-mail I appear to require, despite already being registered on Comment Is Free, then I will be putting this into the discussion for Tessa to chew on - ah, it’s just arrived, so this is what I’ve to Tessa - should I get a response, I’ll append it below, together with any other interesting remarks she makes.

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First, so we’re clear about where this is coming from, I am both a member of the Labour Party and a ‘veteran’ of online discussion and debate stretching back over at least 10 years, from the Usenet newsgroups to political discussion forums right through to blogging, where my online ‘home’ is to be found at www.ministryoftruth.org.uk.

As far debating civility and free expression is concerned I’ve been there, seen it, done and bought several t-shirts over the years.

Bloggers and other internet users already have a ‘code of conduct’ - we call it ‘netiquette’ - and a means of ‘enforcement’, which we call ‘personal choice’.

If you don’t like a particular blog or blogger for whatever reason - don’t go there.

If, as a blogger, someone repeated posts abusive comments to you or your other readers, then most blog software permits you to exclude that individual from you blog.

If someone crosses the line of acceptability in terms of threats, harassment, stalking, and particular if they give any indication that they may take their behaviour off line and into the real world, then we have more than sufficient public order legislation to address such situations and the police have sufficent powers under RIPA, etc to conduct investigations and bring forward prosecutions.

Blogging, as a medium, is self-organising and self-regulating - bloggers stand and fall on their personal reputation, lose that and you lose your readers and your reason for blogging - the ultimate sanction is ostracism.

That’s how it all works out here, and much of this culture, even in Britain, stems from the the influence of the US on the development of this and other online media forms.

But for the matter of libel - where our own laws are so pernicious and biased toward the plaintiff that even Americans now the UK as the jurisdiction of choice for such litigation - the vast majority of establish bloggers operate on the premise that the kind of freedom expression we enjoy while online is that afforded to US citizens by the First Amendment. My own blog is physically hosted in California and, as such, is legally entitled to the protections afforded by the First Amendment other than where statute law in this country provides for jurisdictional pre-eminence, as in the case of libel and applicable elements of criminal law.

On other matters, provisions within UK law, especially civil and common law provisions are effectively unenforceable - while the UK courts may have some jurisdiction over myself as an individual they have no such jurisdiction over my blog and its contents. This, I might add, is entirely deliberate.

That’s our culture - free expression, a free exchange of ideas and a clear will to use every legal means at our disposal to preserve those freedoms and, as might already be obvious, any attempt to interfere with it is certain to meet strenuous resistance. You say ’should we introduce a blogging code of conduct’ - my question is just who do you define as we.

‘We’, so far as I am concerned, is the already established online community of bloggers, of which I but one small part.

‘We’ is not the government, or a quango, or any external regulatory authority imposed on us from the outside. ‘We’ is not you, at least not unless or until you start your own blog, at which point you are responsible for deciding what does and does not constitute acceptable behaviour on your little piece of the electronic frontier, but not on mine - that’s my responsibility.

It is not for you to make determinations about the ’standard’ or ‘quality’ of debate that takes place on-line - you are welcome to encourage people to improve the quality of the debate, but not to try and enforce your opinions as to what constitutes ‘good’ and ‘bad’ blogging on others. Your services are required only where someone crosses the line into illegality - in which case we will call you - or rather the police - you don’t have to call us.

Calls for a ‘code of conduct’ for bloggers are not a sign of the medium’s ‘maturity’ but a reflection of the development of the medium and events that have happened before, first on Usenet and later on discussion forums. To begin with, the technical demands of a new medium in its early days limit its use to the more technically proficient members of society - or those who can seek out the technical support necessary to join the early adopters. If you’ll forgive me for saying this, you get a better class of user at the beginning because the limiting factor on access is education and knowledge.

All these mediums - to use an analogy - started out as ‘broadsheets’ and the basic mode of discussion was generally civil and respectful of others. As the medium develops and becomes more widely accessible then, to use another analogy, along comes the ‘Sun readers’ - actually we used to call them AOHellers - at which point, there goes the neighbourhood. What then has happened in the past is that new medium emerges and the early adopters move on to enjoy another halcyon period of civility before the rag-tag army of online chavs turns up again and drag it downmarket. This happened with Usenet and it happened with online discussion forums and it may well happen to blogging at some point - the only thing that changes is the pace at which these mediums develop such that their Elysian start-up period gets shorter with each iteration.

That’s the reality out here and that is what you need to understand about our culture, Tessa. If you want a better standard and quality of debate, then the answer is education, education, education and not regulation, regulation, regulation.

The underlying issues are social and not a function of the medium.

Last words - in terms of political blogging, that which you and other politicians reap is only that which you have already sown.

If you want to encourage serious political discussion and debate then you have to stop treating the electorate as a bunch of idiots. If you engage with the electorate at the intellectual level of the Times and the Guardian, you will facilitate over time a quality of political debate that takes place at that level. If you keep pitching at the level of the Mail, Express and Sun, well let’s just say that tabloid politics breeds tabloid standards of debate, and it common knowledge that the Sun - and others - pitch their use of language to that of a reading age of seven.

If you’ve not done so already, you would do well to read Robin Cook’s account of his final two years in government - ‘The Point of Departure’ - and reflect upon what he has to say on the subject of the relationship between politicians and the media. The media will not change a thing because its priority is profit, not political discourse - you and others in Parliament can change things if you choose.

Mmm… I’m not normally one for taking too conspiratorial a line on things, especially when that leads me to veer in the direction of something suggested by John Hemming, but in this case I’ll make something of a minor exception.

Only yesterday, John Hemming responded to the arrest of two Birmingham Lib Dems, a sitting councillor and a candidate at this year’s election with these remarks:

One Lib Dem Candidate and a Lib Dem Councillor in Birmingham have been arrested in respect of allegations about the 2006 Local Elections. The real question is why this has been done two days before the election (this morning) rather than after the election. (Mohammed Saeed and Cllr Zakar Ullah Choudhry)

Superficially it appears that the police are intervening in the election itself. They arrested one of our candidates in the 2006 election. He, however, was found to have not committed any offence (the postal votes found with his wife were his, his wifes and their children).

We know that some form of setup is going on because a postal vote was misdirected to the same Lib Dem Candidate’s house. It is a bit like harrassing people with Pizzas and Taxis instead we have harrassment with postal votes.

And yes, one does have to agree with John that the timing of these arrests is a little inconvenient, coming only two days prior to polling day, especially as the allegations relate to last year’s election, rather than those scheduled for tomorrow. Whether this is indicative of police intervention is rather less certain as the timing here could stem from the timing of the complaint/allegation and when and how information supporting the allegations sufficient to justify arrests was provided to the police.

Today, Birmingham is back in the news - a mere 24 hours before polling begins - as figures for differences in postal vote registrations between 2004 and this year appear have found their way to the BBC via the usual back door.

Post votes down after fraud probe

More than 20,000 people have dropped off the register for postal votes in the wards in Birmingham at the centre of fraud allegations three years ago.

In Aston and Bordesley Green - both the focus of the investigation - the number of postal voters is down by 80%.

A High Court judge said the widespread vote-rigging which took place in the city’s 2004 council elections would have “shamed a banana republic”.

Figures seen by the BBC suggest the problem was worse than first thought.

In four other wards, where there were allegations of fraud at the time but no formal enquiry, more than half the postal voters have disappeared from the list.

Elsewhere in the city, the figures have remained about the same.

The numbers began to fall when West Midlands Police and the city council carried out an audit to check that existing voters knew they were registered.

They have continued to drop since the introduction of new computer checks.

The timing, again, could be considered to be either convenient, or inconvenient depending on your political persuasion.

The question, therefore, has to be asked as to precisely what is going on here and, in the case of this last story, how this information came to be ’seen’ by the BBC - ’seen’ in  this case, is the usual journalistic euphemism that alludes to an off-the-record briefing having been given, as opposed to a ‘leak’, which happens when documents actually change hands.

The police are, of course, one possible source and not necessarily always averse to quietly feeding the odd titbit of information to journalists to send a ‘we’re being vigilant and doing a good job’ message to the public.

A much more likely suspect, however, is Birmingham City Council, whose public reputation for competence in administering local elections has taken rather a pounding in recent years as a consequence, first, of the problems that arose over ballot fraud and, only last, after it miscalled the results in Kingstanding and briefly handed a seat on the council to a now ex-BNP candidate, necessitating yet more legal proceedings to put in place the correct result and councillor.

The third possibility is, of course, a local politician or party.

Labour has nothing to gain, of course, from this information reaching the press and the timing is particularly damaging to its interests.

The Lib Dems, it has to be said, have motive both a Labour main competitor in several wards, including those to which the story refers and also, rather more cynically, the may be something to be gained from using a story of this kind to deflect attention from yesterday’s arrests - although that would be a riskier tactic as such a move could easily backfire and lead voters to think that LDs past effort to highlight electoral fraud were now starting to look rather like the pot calling the kettle black.

As for the Tories, anything that mires both Labour and the LDs in the appearance of sleaze is a win-win for them and, despite controlling the council in a coalition with the LDs, they remain rivals especially in light of the party’s all too obvious national strategy of trying to put the squeeze on the LD’s vote in order to make gains against Labour.

Finally, one cannot rule out the possibility of either communalism or internal rivalries within local minority communities as a motive.

Plenty of motive then, and no great shortage of opportunity one suspects either - to the press, a good story is a good story.

As for having the means, perhaps the least convincing would be the communalism or internecine community rivalry conjecture as this requires both the existence of such rivalries and access to information that could only come from one of two sources, the police or the council.

All of the other possibilities are plausible - they all to some degree, have access to the information in question and none could genuinely claim to be, I think, unaware of how news of a sharp fall in postal vote registrations would be presented by the press or the impression it would create in some parts of the local electorate.

So we come back to one question - cue bono? Who benefits? Or rather who benefits most?

The police? Marginal at best?

Politicians/Parties? Possible but on the back of yesterday’s arrest risky, for all that it afforded John Hemming the opportunity to rise one of his favourite hobby horses on the Today programme this morning - without any mention of his own party’s local difficulties of course.

The council, itself?

Mmm. Very possible as one of two major elements of the story given particular emphasis in BCC’s apparent success in cleaning up its voter registrations, and the council’s Chief Executive - also on the today programme - showed no real awareness of or concern about the political implications of the timing of this information reaching the press and seemed entirely sanguine about the whole thing.

As things stand, this story - which also makes the Birmingham Post’s coverage of yesterday’s arrests, which includes precise figures on registrations - is playing out in way that gives the impression that most, if not all, of the fall in postal vote requests stems from the council’s efforts to curb the risk of fraud.

This is not, however, an entirely accurate picture of the situation as it fails to acknowledge fully an number of other factors that may, and almost certainly have, impacted on the overall number of requests for postal votes.

One, which did get a mention, is simply that some voters are likely to have decided not to request postal votes out of a lack of confidence in the system stemming from the city’s past problems with fraud.

Another factor that will have some impact is voter ‘churn’ - some of those who requested postal votes in 2004 will not be making such a request this year because the no longer live in the city, and as many of those who request postal ballots out of necessity rather than convenience are likely to be older people and people with disabilities, who would otherwise struggle to get to a polling station, one also has to factor in a degree of attrition by way of death.

One more factor that has failed to get any mention at all is that the attention given to issues of electoral fraud has also altered the behaviour of local parties - in previous years the main parties have been actively promoting the use of postal votes, as this piece by PoliticalHack from the 2005 general election shows. (You’ll notice that on this occassion, it was the LDs who were pushing registration from their local office in line with the policy of the national party).

This hasn’t stopped entirely - it is, after all, perfectly legal is done according to the law - but it is going on in a much less high profile while - the big push by all parties to get as many postal votes in as possible of a couple of years ago has dried up, no doubt for fear of creating an appearance of possible impropriety in light of the all the adverse publicity surrounding electoral fraud in the city.

What’s needed here, in light of today’s reports, is two things - first clarity as to the circumstances in which the figures on postal voting made the press a mere day before the election. Who released this information, why and whose authority if any? And was it release a matter of bureaucratic expediency or was there any political motivation behind both the release of this information and its timing.

Second, there needs to be a proper analysis of the fall in postal vote registrations over the last couple of year - one that seeks to adequately differentiate between those past registration that can reasonably attributed to possible fraud, as opposed to those that stem from loss of public confidence, ‘natural wastage’ (e-hem) or the reining in of active and overt promotion of postal votes by political parties.

Or is that too much to ask of a local authority whose capacity to adequately run an election has, in recent times, been subject to scrutiny and called into serious question.

I haven’t been over to look in on Praguetory’s ongoing efforts to mutate into Guido-Lite for while - but a quick visit today yielded up this absolute gem…

When I submitted my 10 Downing Street petition [which calls for Goldsmith to step aside from any involvement in CPS deliberations in the cash for honours investigation] for approval a week ago (it took four days to get the nod), the potential conflicts of interest were already clear. Sir Ken Macdonald, the director of Public Prosecutions, had stood aside from this case because he was a member of the same chambers as the prime minister’s wife. However, Lord Goldsmith had already clarified his intention to stay in post for constitutional reasons.

Lord Goldsmith’s main line of argument for staying in post has been blown out of the water with the revelation that a law passed in 1997 allows the former Labour donor to delegate his powers to the Solicitor General.

What a brilliant idea, PT - Goldsmith can step aside and allow the Solicitor General to take over responsibility for determining whether Lord Levy et all should face criminal charges…

Just one small point… you do know who the current Solicitor General is, don’t you?

No, didn’t think so…

It’s actually Mike O’Brien QC, the sitting LABOUR MP for North Warwickshire.

I think a new strapline for PT’s blog might be in order - how about…

PRAGUETORY - GIVING DUMB A BAD NAME.

UPDATE

It seems that PT still hasn’t come to terms with Denis Healey’s first law of holes - when in one, stop digging, as he’s now replied in comments with this…

I do know who the Solicitor General is - he would still be an improvement on someone who is a member of the Cabinet and has received gifts from an organisation linked to Lord Levy. My point was that Goldsmith’s excuse is just that, an excuse. As this article shows the person who should be taking the decision is probably Carmen Dowd, head of the special crime division at the CPS.

To clarify matters somewhat further, Mike O’Brien MP is the Labour member of parliament for the constituency of North Warwickshire.

Since 1997 he has served as:

A junior minister at the Home Office (1997-2001)

Minister of State at the Foreign Office (2001-2004) - and its worth noting that the brief of the current incumbent of this position, Dr Kim Howells, is listed by the FCO as including, ‘the Middle East, Afghanistan and South Asia, Counter Narcotics, Counter Proliferation, Counter Terrorism, UN and UN Reform‘. Unless this has changed substantially since O’Brien’s departure, this would very likely have brought him into contact with Lord Levy, who has acted as Blair’s special envoy to the Middle East since 2002.

Minister for E-commerce, Energy & Competativeness at the DTI (2004-2005),

And Solicitor General (2005 - )

Mike is man of considerable personal integrity and would, no doubt, be perfectly capable of setting aside his party affiliation and considering this matter dispassionately were he to be called upon to do so. However, he would still in no way be considered sufficiently independent to satisfy either the press or opposition parties.

If you were to take the time to properly understand the legal position in this matter, rather than indulge in a piece of fifth-rate show-boating for your own self-aggrandisement, then you would appreciate that:

1. Dowd does not have the legal authority necessary to consider the full scope of the question as to whether charges should be preferred in this matter.

2. So far as Dowd’s authority extends she is empowered to evaluate the documentation provided by the police and reach a conclusion as to whether there appears to sufficient evidence to prefer charges and, if so, under which statutes.

3. What Dowd cannot do is consider or rule upon, amongst other things, the question of whether it is the public interest that charges be brought - such authority is vested in the Attorney General’s office and cannot, legally, be delegated to a third party other that, perhaps, the Solicitor General.

4. Should charges be brought without Goldsmith’s assent, Levy (and any others charged as a result of this investigation) would be in a position to challenge the decision to press charges by a judicial review, on the grounds that the CPS has failed to follow due process to the letter and give due consideration to the question of whether a prosecution is in the public interest.

5. Were this to happen, the Judicial review could not but find in the plaintiff’s favour and remit the matter back to the Attorney General for further consideration.

In short, Goldsmith can either do his job now, and place any advice received from the independent counsel engaged to advise on this case, into the public domain as validation of whatever decision he arrives at OR he can try to step aside and decline to have involvement in the decision, in which case a court will eventually have to compel him to do the job he should have done in the first place.

Should he attempt to take the latter route then the delays resulting from a judicial review and the inevitable flurry of media interest that would generate, would raise serious questions as to whether Levy and others could receive a fair trial and whether, by that time, the combination of overweening media and persistent leaks and speculation might have become so irredeemably prejudicial as to preclude any prosecutions - this being another matter on which the Attorney General may make a ruling, but not a member of CPS staff.

Should any case against Levy et al fold on the basis of prejudice arising from the media interest/coverage, whether on a decision by the AG, who would probably not be Goldsmith at that point, or due to court ruling - which is always a possibility - then we would see all hell break loose.

You side would cry foul and level allegations of a fix. Our side could nought but institute a full inquiry into the leaks and media coverage, one that could easily extend to a number of blogs, especially that of Paul Staines who, were that to happen, might find cause to consider himself fortunate should he only be regarded as a witness.

There is an old proverb that begins, ‘For want of a nail, a horse was lost…’ that you should look up and reflect upon here…

…after you’ve taken the time to acquaint yourself properly with the basic workings of our constitution and judicial system.

It’ll save me the trouble of having to try to educate you, and you the problem of consistently making yourself look a complete twat.

Paul Staines’s take on the resignation of BP Chairman Lord Browne - with that of his usual coterie of comment-box fuckwits - is a veritable master-class in how to peddle a flimsy pile of bullshit even after the facts have been published and turn out to be as dull as fuck.

Here’s Staines setting up the whole banal exercise…

Browne Resigns Amid Rumours of Gay Kiss and Tell

Peter Mandelson and his Reinaldo feature in the story too…

And here, from the Telegraph, a little later is precisely where and how Mandelson features in the story…

“There was another dinner with the claimant, Mr Chevalier, Ms Hunter, Peter Mandelson and the latter’s Brazilian boyfriend at the time - referred to as ‘Reinaldo’- which was held at one of the claimant’s homes, and at which they discussed European Union policy and Chinese textile quotas.”

Apart from the obvious difficulty one has is decided on quite while level of Dante’s version of hell on word find a discussion with Mandelson on EU policy and Chinese textile quotas, the whole Mandelson thing primed by Staines is a complete load of tedious and completely uninteresting bollocks designed only to rouse the comment box rabble to its usual fever pitch of gay-bashing remarks.