Big fat amnesty event
Friday, June 22, 2007

Not another sausage roll and wine in a box gathering to keep Rhodri Glyn Thomas nourished and lubricated, I hear you cry.

Well, no.

Instead, it's my somewhat novel and absolutely not likely to happen suggestion to clear the air if or when the assembly gets full law-making powers and twenty extra members.

Over the last tortuous couple of months, one thing has become abundantly clear: some AMs are in the wrong political party.

Of course, they'd never own up to it, and there's something very British about that. It's like when we accidentally take the wrong turning in the car. The easiest thing to do is to turn around right away and double back. But something in us makes us persevere - 'If I just take this left and then follow that road it'll all be... ah, bollocks!'.

Some of our AMs, I fear, are lost in the Stevenage roundabout network. Their political compasses are way off track.

And so, when the assembly inevitably expands some time in the future, why not have an amnesty so that politicians can start again with a clean slate and stand on a different ticket?

We already know that Glyn Davies voted Plaid Cymru, Leighton Andrews was a Liberal and Alun Davies was a big fish in Plaid. As for Mohammad Ashgar, there's a story doing the rounds that he tried to join every other party (bar the BNP) before eventually stumbling into bed with Newport's hordes of Welsh nationalists.

More recently, it seems there are people in Labour who should be in Plaid and people in Plaid who should be with the Tories. There are people with the Tories who should be in UKIP and as for the Lib Dems, well, they could probably take their pick.

They know who they are. Perhaps we should send them the membership forms, just to give them something to think about?

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posted by Blamerbell @ 1:29 pm, ,


Stop internet repression
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Some people just don't get free speech.

I've written many times about the people who abuse it. But back in October (readership: zero) I wrote about the people who try to restrict it. And that's a far worse crime.

Amnesty, though, is on the case.

The worst we have to deal with when we step out of line is Leighton Andrews getting a bit cross. But in China and Egypt people are sent to jail just for having their say. And Microsoft, Yahoo! and Google help to put them there.

There will be a live internet solidarity event on Wednesday 6 June at 18:30. In the meantime, check out their website: irrepressible.info

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posted by Blamerbell @ 12:20 pm, ,


Amnesty for bloggers
Friday, October 27, 2006

I can write whatever the hell I like. But in other parts of the world people are being locked up because of what they say on the internet. Today, Amnesty is launching a campaign to do something about it.

But the guilty aren't just the usual suspects - China and Iran. Amnesty claims that online giants Microsoft and Yahoo! are also implicated in releasing information about web users to repressive regimes.

The whole attraction of the internet is that it's largely unregulated. Multinational corporations should be mindful of this when they're asked to restrict people's liberties in countries which aren't as free as our own.

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posted by Blamerbell @ 7:38 pm, ,