Brown feeling blue

It’s safe to say this has not been a good week for Gordon Brown. First came the news that Northern Rock, the mainstay UK bank that had a bank run about a month ago and was bailed out by the government, can’t find a buyer except predatory private equity firms making obscenely low-ball bids. This is bad news for chancellor Alastair Darling because the government may not recoup its bailout money, and although they assured the bank’s customers that their money was safe in order to stave off the bank run, it is now unclear whether that money really is safe.

But this news was quickly overshadowed by the bombshell that dropped Tuesday, when it was revealed that the government has lost data on 25 million Britons. Two unencrypted disks with the records of 7.2 million families claiming child-benefit payments went missing when they were sent from the Revenue and Customs department, which is overseen by the Treasury, to the National Audit Office. It's the biggest loss of personal data in British history, and second only to the loss of data by the VA in the US last year.

Then yesterday Sir Ken Macdonald, the Director of Public Prosecutions, and Lord Goldsmith, the former attorney general, told the House of Commons yesterday that not only did they not support Brown’s proposal to extend the amount of time suspected terrorists can be held without charges, they would resign if any such changes were to be imposed.

It’s been a meteoric fall for Brown in the last two months, from riding high during his initial ‘honeymoon period’ to his current position, it’s unbelievable how a PM can fall so far so fast. It all started when Brown allowed election rumours to persist unabated, catching political flack when he finally squashed them. This made Brown look irresolute and calculating, and gave the Tories a big opening to criticize him. Now, with the vicious tongue lashing delivered by David Cameron to Brown in yesterday’s prime ministers questions, some in the Labour party are even quietly wondering whether Brown is the right man to lead them into the next elections. Even though there’s virtually nothing Labour MPs could do to change this, the fact that they are hypothesizing about it must be deeply worrying to Brown’s team.

Something tells me those elections won’t be coming for a long, long time now.

Farewell, crown jewel

My India visit is drawing to a close, I'm now just trying to kill time while I wait for my very long journey home. Overall it was an interesting and enjoyable trip but I'm eager to get home and be in my own bed. Interestingly, when I lived in New York I would dread going back after a trip, but now each time I go away reinforces how much I love living in London. It's funny, I moved there feeling fairly neutral about the city and have ended up - dare I say it - falling in love with London.

Bombay has been interesting, I definitely enjoyed it more than Delhi. It's so much easier to get a handle on, being as centralized and compact as it is. I’d say Bombay is like New York and Delhi is like DC, both in terms of their layout and their vibes.

Exploring all of the Victorian architecture here in Bombay is a real trip. It’s also nice the way it’s laid out all along the Arabian Sea. The air quality is still horribly bad, but at least in Bombay you get a breeze off the ocean, unlike in Delhi where the dirty air just seems to hang there. Either way I’m eager to get a gasp of fresh air once I get back to London.

Observations on India

I’m on day seven here in India and it’s safe to say the hassles of everyday life are starting to get to me! I keep thinking that if I were here for pleasure I’d be having a really amazing time, being able to relax and just sit by the pool or do sightseeing. But being here on business is a completely different story. The lack of modern amenities and decent infrastructure make getting around extremely difficult here, and when you’ve made five appointments per day spread out across the city, it gets a little stressful!

Not that I’m not enjoying my visit, it really is a fascinating place. But relaxing is definitely not a word I would use to describe this trip. I’ve learned so much so far on this visit though, things I had no idea about before. I really thought that India’s two largest cities would be more developed. Certainly, there is a great deal of development going on, but it would be a stretch to describe these places as ‘developed’ in their present state. Essentially India is where the West was 100 years ago. They’re in a state of rapid building and unprecedented growth, sitting on the back of a 19th century infrastructure and society. It really is like a trip back in time being here. The streets are teeming with the poorest of the poor, the creaking rail cars are filled with people hanging on to the sides, the markets are a jostling cacophony of street merchants. Yet dotted throughout these cities are modern developments, shielded by walls and guards from the rabble outside. This is exactly what New York City would have looked like 100 years ago.

Sarko fever: catch it!

Sacre Bleu! I can’t get over these headlines today from the US about Sarkozy’s visit. “We love America, Sarkozy tells Congress” screams ABC. “Bush, Sarkozy stand on common ground” says the LA Times. “Sarkozy -- a Frenchman conservatives can love,” declares the Baltimore Sun. “French President Says America Can Count on France,” contorts Voice of America.

Head to the other side of the Atlantic and the coverage is very different. The BBC focuses on the disaster Sarkozy heads back to today with the headline “France divided as Sarkozy woos US”. Reuters highlights the distaste Sarkozy’s reception in the US will leave with most French people saying “Sarkozy returns from US to skepticism” And the Belfast Telegraph notes that “Sarkozy's warm words mask deep divisions with US.”

Were they watching the same speech?

New EU terror laws

The EU got one step closer today to establishing a coordinated anti-terrorism policy through all member states. And they didn’t pull any punches this time. The ambitious plan calls for banning web sites that show how to make a bomb or advocate violence, and creating a Europe-wide registry keeping extensive information on the people flying into and out of the EU.

The changes, of course, closely mirror what’s taken place in the United States since September 11th and in fact, such directives were put in place by the EU way back then. But with all the chaos over the failure of the constitution, it got lost in the shuffle and little has been done on a coordinated basis.

The report accompanying the new laws issued by Franko Frattini, the feisty and ambitious European Justice Commissioner, basically criticizes every European country for being too soft on terrorism. Frattini is calling for countries to have a specific category of “terrorist murder” offences with tougher penalties spelt out in law. In addition the commission wants all 27 EU members states to have similar separate crimes for terrorist incitement to violence, terrorist recruitment, terrorist planning, etc.

The commission targets the UK, Italy, Germany, Spain and Ireland in particular on this front, saying they have developed few or none of the specific terrorism offenses the EU called for after September 11.

Why are we bound by borders?

A Turkish friend of mine just sent me this map which I find extremely interesting. He was pointing to the AFJ-designed hypothetical creation as an example of “US arrogance,” but I think it makes for an interesting study as the crisis with the PKK pushes Turkey further and further toward an invasion of Iraq.

The map is a redrawing of the national borders of the Middle East based on ethnic and religious lines. It accompanied this 2006 article in the Armed Forces Journal about what a fair Middle East would look like. Apparently the map has been circulating around Turkey without the accompanying article (I had to do some super sleuthing to even find the article) and is being presented as actual plans of the US military to redraw the Middle East. This assumption, of course, is not only wrong but idiotic, considering that much of this redrawing would be not in American interest and the US is actively resisting such a redrawing by clumsily trying to hold together the nonsensical, European-drawn borders of Iraq. A group in Turkey even announced a competition to redraw the US map in retaliation. Check them out here, they’re absolutely absurd. Isn’t the fact that no Turk was able to draw new borders for the US that make any sense evidence against their own point? The US is a culturally and linguistically homogenous nation, and the ethnic and religious divisions that exist are spread out. None of these entries even takes into account the political differences that might actually be astute (like the infamous “Jesusland and United States of Canada” map that came out after the 2004 election).