Pretty Poison

sweetgirl7808 made some stunningly gorgeous snowy SPN icons here. Inspired by her work, I spent a couple of hours in photoshop figuring out how she did it. The result is my lovely new layout; I was going to make a Hogfather layout for December, but this is so much prettier. I don't have the margins quite right on the layout, but I'm working on it :-)

I bought a new slow cooker today. I love slow-cooked cassaroles and can't wait to try it out again. I was on my way home, lugging this huge box toward the bus station when a man stopped me. He said he was a reporter for the local paper - didn't show me any proof, but he was writing in shorthand. Not many men know that unless it's essential for their work. Anyhow, he was interviewing random people about this plan to ban plastic bags from the city centre. I told him what I thought, and that was that. So maybe I'm gonna get quoted! *shrug* The local paper is a rag with all the journalistic integrity of The Sun, so if he does quote me I'll be shocked if he does so accurately. But I'll be interested to see it.

This whole plastic bags thing is a tough issue. Yes, they are horrible. Yes, they fill up landfill and aren't generally biodegradable. Yes, there are too many of them around. But if we ban them altogether, what takes their place? In an ideal world, of course, we'd all use reusable bags, all the time. My Nan always shopped with this little string/net bag with leather handles. Empty it fit easily into a pocket, and full it held at least as much as the average plastic bag. But it had some downsides, like stuff getting wet, or small items falling through the holes. Also something like that kind of assumes all your shopping will fit in one bag: those were the days when most people used buses or shanks' pony to do the shopping. Nowadays most people use cars and buy a lot more in one go.

No, the problem is people are used to getting bags when they go shopping. So if we ban plastic bags, what will we use instead? Paper bags? If we made the same number of paper bags that we now use plastic, we'd be back to the bad old days of major deforestation. Not that deforestation ever really stopped, but think how much worse it could be. Demand would just be too high.

I think the best solution is to make people pay for their plastic bags. Or better still, make the stores pay to take them back. When I was little, we bought soft drinks in big glass bottles and the store would pay 10p for each bottle returned intact. Can't we adopt the same model for bags? They'd need to be heavier plastic than the ones the stores give away free at the moment, but if you were paid, say, 5p for every bag you returned to the store, and the store could then re-use them, there'd be a lot less in landfill, wouldn't there? It would take a major cultural change, but it would work.

Also in the news, I found this article today: Christian group demands prosecution of the BBC over Jerry Springer - the Opera. Essentially, they want to use UK blasphemy laws to bring a private prosecution because the BBC screened the show.

I never saw it, but I'm pretty sure from what I've read that the show would meet the criteria for a blasphemy prosecution. In the UK we don't have a right of free speech. We have a principle of free speech within a bunch of restrictions on what we can do with it. Similarly, we have freedom of the press, but with a bunch of caveats surrounding that, too. But the article - and the group it's all about - aren't arguing the law. They're arguing moral rights.

The article raises some interesting points. One of them relates to the play Behzti (Dishonour). They are comparing their objections to JSTO with the reaction of the Sikh community to that play. But there's a big, big difference. No court stopped the performances of Behzti (Dishonour): the theatre chose to pull the play after protests threatened to become violent. Also, I have no idea who wrote JSTO, but I'll bet he or she isn't a practicing Christian. Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti, who wrote Behzti (Dishonour) was writing about her own culture. People objected not because it was racist, but because it wasn't.

They also compare it to the worldwide furore over the Danish anti-Islamic cartoons. Here, again, there's a point to be made. I believe those cartoons were intended to be offensive and degrading. They were no different from the Nazi cartoons of Jews, depicting Mohamed riding a bomb and suchlike. But you can't compare that to similar depictions of Christianity. We in the West have a long history of lampooning our religion through pictures. Good heavens, even some of the most famous religious artworks are inherently subversive.

Ultimately, however, I have to consider the source of these complaints. "Christian Voice" are not a Christian group. They're a gang of bigots using religion as an excuse to spread hatred. This is the group that the Co-operative bank told to take their business elsewhere, because they objected to the bank having a presence at Manchester Gay Pride. When they initially campaigned against the BBC's showing JSTO, their main objection was that Jesus was played by a black actor. As well as campaigning against the BBC for a single showing of JSTO, they campain against equal rights legislation, civil partnerships and gay right, women's rights, and so on. They are scum.

I am troubled. Because there is a line beyond which satire becomes deliberate insult, and religious groups do deserve some level of protection from that. I believe in freedom of speech, but not when it extends to spreading hatred. Not when it's used as an excuse to cause genuine harm. In this case, the messenger colours the message, but the message is partially sound. The challenge is to filter out the propaganda and find the specks of truth hiding in there.

Forgive me, but I'm going to talk politics.

This week, MPs voted for a fully elected House of Lords. If it happens, this will be possibly the most significant reform of the political landscape in Britain since the execution of Charles II. And, seriously, the reform is way overdue.

I'm a republican. I oppose our monarchy and have for most of my life. I see no value in the House of Lords being filled with hereditary peers. An accident of birth should not confer political power.

I am also a secularist. My religious beliefs are my own, private. But I believe strongly in separation of religion and state. Religion should not be taught in schools, our head of state should not be titular head of any religion and I can see no value in allowing Anglican bishops seats in the House of Lords when the leaders of other faiths do not enjoy parallel privilege.

But I do not believe a fully elected second chamber is the answer. In fact, I'm convinced that it's a disaster waiting to happen.

The role of the Lords is to provide a check and balance for the elected House of Commons. During the last few years the Lords have been responsible for reigning in the worst of our Prime Minister's attempts to turn the UK into a police state. They were also responsible for watering down the anti-hunting bill so much that it's utterly toothless. In the first example, we see the Lords acting as a second chamber should, in the second, we see the privileged class hijacking legislation in order to retain its privileges.

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem. The only reason the Lords have been able to rein in Blair's so-called anti-terror laws is because they are an unelected body, accountable only to the Queen. If they were elected, they would be subject to the whims of their political parties, wealthy lobbyists, they would have to worry about getting re-elected...and who would be elected? Politicians, no one else. Even if this hypothetical reformed House of Lords were elected by a fair system of proportional representation (and I don't see our present government being that progressive), it would inevitably be dominated by the main political parties, and thus subject to the orders of the party leaders. We would, in short, end up with the equivalent of the USA's Senate - now that might work for them but it won't work in the UK without significant reform of the Commons as well.

The Lords also contains significant expertise. Our MPs are politicians and they draft legislation very poorly at times. They don't really think about the ramifications. The Lords do. The defeat of the worst measures contained in the Mental Health Bill are a prime example. I don't have a lot of time to watch the parliament channel these days, but if you do, try it for a while. Yeah, it's boring debate. But listen to the tone of the talk. The Commons is like a school playground with bullies and cliques and games of one-upmanship going on all the time. A Lords debate, by contrast tends to be measured, intelligent...and adult.

What is needed is a way to retain that intelligence and expertise in our Second Chamber of government, and yet somehow create a chamber with a genuine democratic mandate. I do not have a solution. But I'm convinced that a 100% elected Second Chamber will not serve the purpose.

Other articles:

My links are, inevitably, a skewed toward the reform side of the argument because the most intelligent comment on the subject has been on the Guardian site. I'll add to this list as I find more worth reading.

Roy Hattersley says he will join the Lords to fight for the House's destruction

David Ramsbotham defends the current system

Tony Benn says he would stand for election to a reformed House of Lords

Howard Jacobson on the dangers of elected power