The Left that dare not speak its name?

Something struck me as a bit odd after my last post - the BBC seems to be having trouble with the fact that Demetris Christofias, the incoming president of Cyprus, is a communist. They seem to have adopted a strangely bland circumlocution: "a left-wing leader" ; "left-winger...leader of the Greek Cypriot communist party" ; "Left-wing Cypriot leader Demetris Christofias...who heads the communist AKEL party". Some other quarters have a similar aversion - USA Today, awkwardly, call him "communist-rooted".But other outlets don't seem to have the same reticence at all - CNN, al-Jazeera and Reuters, for example.

Of course, Christofias isn't a "proper" communist - the IHT explains why, although the Cyprus Weekly draws direct parallel with Moldova, the only other European country with a communist head of state - and the original Communist party was banned in Cyprus to be replaced by AKEL, the Progressive Party of the Working People - but I was wondering if there is some kind of BBC aversion to the label, as if the only communists we can imagine in the West are Stalinists or human rights abusers. Interesting.

(Talking of image, AKEL themselves don't seem too shy about it!)

Has the Med finally got its Castro?

Here's irony. Fifty years after the US feared that Cyprus was going to get its own "Castro of the Mediterranean", it has - just as the original and best steps down.

Let's hope that Mehmet Ali Talat is right to be this optimistic.

Heartening news - somebody was wrong about something!

This is the sort of thing we need more of. Sundry TV channels and opposition parties have attempted to make mincemeat of Alistair Darling (why aren't there more Blackadder jokes about him?) because he apparently trashed the idea of nationalising Northern Rock a while ago, only to do exactly that over the weekend. But it turns out that Hansard wasn't quite quoting him correctly, so Nick Robinson has gallantly confessed. Bravo. We shall see if this ends all this fuss about Darling resigning - probably not, since admittedly the Chancellor does cut a slightly beleaguered figure at the moment. But the tug of war between an opposition which senses very senior blood in the water, and a prime minister who probably cannot afford to lose his Chancellor at a time when his own economic record is coming under fire, will be interesting, if a little exasperating, to observe.

Is this news?

From the BBC News website ticker: "Actors Tom Hanks, Harrison Ford and Nicole Kidman to hand out Oscars in Los Angeles".



I would suggest it's a slow news day, but that seems to count for news, so best just get used to it, I suppose.

China: the Olympics is not the finish line

I'm not sure that it will enhance my credentials as a self-proclaimed moderate to endorse President Bush's foreign policy pronouncements in my first proper post, but I'm a sucker for nostalgia and by God we'll miss him when he's gone¹. The issue on which he is scoring points is China - specifically this BBC interview, in which he suggests that the West should not mix politics with sport. Despite a principled stand by a clutch of eminent figures, I'm with Bush on this one.

Why? Well, I'm no apologist for China's distasteful, hypocritical and fancifully ornate regime of subcommunists. I'm not going to wish democracy on Beijing automatically - although the signs are that it would find a more comfortable home there than in Russia - but China's "patchy" application of human rights demonstrates that change is badly-needed. Harking back to the peg-on-nose era of Cold War tyrants, the only reason that China isn't one of our bastards is its sheer size - the conventional wisdom after all is that one day soon, we'll be China's bitch.

But my instincts are that hoohah and razzmatazz, campaigning and loudhailering, letter-writing and hectoring will not in this instance make for a clean break. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor Apartheid dismantled, segregation lifted or women granted suffrage. In Burma, for instance, the promising monk riots of last year failed to turn into the coup we'd expected². What could work - what generally does work - is patience and persistence. I don't want to be glib: people will die as a result of China's policies in the mean time and there's no point denying it. But if we shout China down, it's fractious and gigantic enough to exit the tent on its own - and, like Johnson and Hoover, we don't want things to be that way around. (Sudden action doesn't have universal appeal amongst people campaigning for Darfur either).

The Olympics this year should of course be part of the campaigning - a brilliant opportunity to provide a certain amount of focus on China and the terrible issues that centre around it. But the risk that we take, in this age of banner politics, instant zeitgeists and the blurring of the lines between the grassroots and the fickle "public", is that proper ethical issues are dealt with on a "fireworks basis" - a sudden flare of attractive publicity generates intense public interest, and the pressure is on to achieve a bang before the sadly rather monochrome attention of the media moves on and the impetus is lost. Events are great for raising awareness - but the real challenge is to use them not as a finishing tape, but as a launchpad³.

Part of the reasoning here is that doing so is less likely to rub up a powerful country the wrong way at a critical time. China is hoping for a good Olympics, cynical or not; if we really spoil the party by getting heavy in the run-up, we'll only worsen our chances of a proper, challenging dialogue. China doesn't have to listen, and if those campaigning for change overplay their hand, it simply won't. This is not a recipe for trust.

Am I just trying to have my cake and eat it, by suggesting that Bush's tactic will serve the Save Darfur Coalition's laudable aim in the long run? Quite probably. This whole issue is far more complex than I can hope to discuss here, but then anything which involves balancing human suffering against the sloth of governments has a certain amount of simplicity: the suffering should stop. But it won't happen like that, and we must do the best we can. It may be slow, but it's something. And, I believe, it's often best achieved not by radical boat-rocking or ignorant collusion, but by proper, reasoned moderation. Nothing is perfect, but from where I'm standing moderation and compromise is the least worst option.


1 If you're so inclined, you can download your own countdown here. Read on.
2 It was drowned out by the Democrats (no fault of their own) but things may be looking up. Back to top.
3 This being probably the only, and certainly the greatest, example. Onward.

Is this a blog I see before me?

What's this? A blog? Radical. What has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun, as they say. So why bother?

Well, here's the thing. The blogosphere may be noisy, but it's the left and right which are the most crowded. Hoist a virtual butterfly-net into the opinion-rich ether, and what you catch tends to have only one wing. There are plenty of vocal bloggers bringing you their own brand of common sense, free thinking or progressive politics. But the middle is a bit sparse, in our view. The moderates are missing!

Your present authors, then, are a loose-knit cabal of deep-thought-types who, on the whole, believe that moderation is not just an insipid compromise between the people with the big ideas. Instead, we think it's the best way for us to conduct ourselves as a national (and international) community - and that goes for politics, the media, and pretty much everything else.

Ah, politics and the media - topics about which everybody is talking, but few, it sometimes seems, are really listening. Ironic, then, that we're adding our online voices to the clamour. True, but we have to admit that we hope for a few readers (at least!) who, like us, have been listening out for the voice of reason, moderation, and good sense - not the right claiming to be the voice of the long-suffering majority, or the left laying claim to the opinions of the people, or even the media thinking on our behalf, but genuine open-mindedness on any and every issue. We think people might be looking for that, and we hope that this is where they'll find it - and contribute to it.

So if you like a good, reasoned debate without going over the top, welcome. If you value tolerance and respect for their own sake, rather than because they are banner issues for a wider agenda, then this could be the place for you. If you believe you know better, then this is probably also the place for you, because we hope you will join us in debate and, who knows, you might just persuade us. Allons, as they say, y.