Month: May 2005

Terry Wogan – he of the xenophobic pub bore commentary – just said ‘vote for the Gypsies’ when the Hungarian song was voted for. Calls for his resignation, anyone?

Fistful of Euros reports on Dutch Finance Minister Gerrit Zalm’s disquiet about the forthcoming European referendum in the Netherlands.

It’s strange that the US is moving further towards political control of the judiciary, just as the UK is moving away from it, with the establishment of a Judicial Appointments Commission.

The US already, of course, has a fair degree of political control, but at least the filibuster kept the process from being entirely partisan.

The role of the judiciary, and indeed any role designed to limit the power of the demos, is a tricky area for a democrat. If the demos should have control of what you can do (through the legislative system) as well as guilt or innocence in individual cases (through juries), why not go the whole hog and give it power to appoint judges?

The answer in the case of the US is fairly straightforward – giving the party with the Senate majority the power to appoint judges is not the same as giving the demos that power, particularly when gerrymandering of electoral division boundaries is driving the competition for seats into primary contests, where politicians have to pander to more extreme activists.

But more generally, there is always a role for proper independence for the judiciary in a democracy. The judiciary should be representative, trustworthy, and removable in the event of crimes or misdemeanours. But – for all the rhetoric about old fools making law from the bench – sometimes democracy needs to be protected by a drop of oligarchy.

George Galloway’s hard-nosed performance at the Senate yesterday has been noted around the web. He was right on a lot of things, of course, and his bullish manner was something Sen. Norman Coleman presumably didn’t expect – the House of Commons and Jeremy Paxman are good teachers, it seems.

That’s not to say, though, that Mr Galloway is any more of a pleasant man than he was yesterday. He still exemplifies everything wrong about the old left – arrogant, self-righteous, pious, dogmatic. And his election tactics in my former home of Bethnal Green and Bow were right out of the demagogue’s handbook. Please God, don’t let him become some sort of hero for the Democrats.

Coleman vs Galloway, louse vs. flea – which shall be the victor?