Monday, December 03, 2007

It's Why People Go Into Politics

At a time when politicians are held in low esteem it is heartening to see the success of Sayeeda Warsi and Lord Ahmed in persuading the Sudanese government to release Mrs Gibbons. If they had forgotten the reasons they went into politics this trip will have reminded them. They are to be congratulated for achieving what the British government failed to.

It is also a good day for moderate Muslims in Britain too. When this incident was first reported I admit I wondered what the reaction might be. But I haven't heard a single Muslim voice which has criticised Mrs Gibbons. Even the Muslim Council of Britain has been uncharacteristically sensible. So good on all those moderate Muslim voices in Britain who have spoken out in support of Mrs Gibbons.

66 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank God for the House of Lords!

Its the only bit of the Government that actually seems to be working at the moment. They do a damn fine job keeping the show on the road.

It would now be good to see the Lords reform their own expenses and allowances system too without being pushed into it. If they make it fair and above board - it might well catch on in the Commons too!

Man in a Shed said...

The episode made their religion look ridiculous. Even the MCB could figure that out. They were acting very much in their own interests.

If they start condemning the regular rape and murder of Christians in Pakistan and Iraq on trumped up blasphemy charges, then perhaps then they can be taken serriously.

They could also act to prevent honour killings in the UK. And campaign for the freedom of religion in such countries as Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan - and indeed Britain where converts from Islam fear for their lives.

Then we might see something worth praise. Until then don't be taken in Iain.

Roger Thornhill said...

Two points:

1. While this is good in its way, we need to be on guard against the idea that Muslims alone deal with Muslim issues. There was an attempt to get official endorsement for the mission and I am glad it was resisted.

Make no mistake - there are those who wish to entrench the idea of separateness legally, politically. The very fact that there is a Muslim Parliamentary Group should be a warning.

2. The MCB, though embarrassed and outraged at the naming of a teddybear, still reserved the right to anger and a demand for legal power if the circumstances were different. This has to be resisted.

Anonymous said...

Very well put, Iain. They did a wonderful job, and quite possibly saved a life. They have also changed the Sudan forever. That personal acts of diplomacy resulted in a solution of moderation and generosity should be an example to all nations.
raincoaster

JohnofScribbleSheet said...

Well, this whole fiasco, teaches us the differences in culture. Congrats to Sayeeda and Lord Ahmed.

cassandra said...

Iain, you seem to have forgotten that a)most of the complaints to a Sudanese paper of the light sentence came from the UK. b) fifteen days is a very short time and would be over by the time these two Muslims had talks (in parrallel with HMG) begging the question just what can be achieved.
c)this whole thing was blown up out of all proportion by who and for what reason? the teacher admited her 'guilt' and said she was sorry and she got a very light sentence! The 'rent a mob' demonstration was a show, egged on by certain Islamic clerics who gave the mob no idea what the 'offence' actualy was. d) this "teddybeargate" crisis has all the hallmarks of a set up job/deflection story to make certain headlines 'go away' with the added benefit of showing us 'natives' how our homegrown muslims have come to our rescue!
Call me paranoid but isnt it just a bit TOO convenient that the "teddybeargate" non crisis pushed all the corruption stories to 2nd place?
You should know that the NuLiebour commisars are quite capable of the kind of dirty tricks that would make Putin & Mugabe blush! Please dont be taken in by the ZANULAB gang, while they are down they will play any trick to survive, but when they are on top they would not blink or hesitate to destroy your party.

Anonymous said...

But isn't this cynical political manaoeuvre as with the sailors captured by Iran?

Just as in their case, a public act of clemency was part of the original plan.

Can't believe you are taking this story at face value.

lilith said...

Anon, we have a lot to thank the House of Lords for....

Anonymous said...

There have been some very critical comments of this lady made on Fivelive by British Muslims. But for the most part the moderates have out-shouted the rest.

Anonymous said...

"They are to be congratulated for achieving what the British government failed to."

Oh, get real. It's patently obvious that this has all been a political game from day one - the Sudanese government first of all persecute and punish the poor woman to win some hardline support and then 'magnaminously' pardon her once the job is done.

The British government has had to play along with that stupid game and played its hand as well as anyone could. The visit by the peers was all part of that diplomatic chess game, not some heroic independent initiative.

There are more than enough good reasons to criticise the Brown government right now without having to fabricate flimsy attacks like this one.

Alex said...

On the contrary, If I was in Mrs Gibbons shoes the last person I would want to be negotiating my release would be two members of the House of Lords with no experience of international affairs. Well, probably not the last, but certainly not the first.

Jonny Wright said...

"They are to be congratulated for achieving what the British government failed to." - I'm not convinced by that. Surely it was very clever diplomacy to send British Muslim parliamentarians out there in the first place? It made it far more politically palatable for Sudan to release her. The government has to know its limits; it's to be congratulated for realising that this couldn't be solved in a heavy-handed or direct way.

Anonymous said...

On a personal level I wish for the speedy safe return of Miss Gibney from the The Soudan. However I cannot help being bemused by the hypocritical cant being spouted by self-righteous people here about intolerance and barbaric attitude in the The Soudan. We should look to our own country first and examine how we have arrived at a stage where, in Mid Wales, an Irishman received a prison sentence for referring to a Welsh woman as English bitch. In the words of Jeff Thomas of the CPS “ The Police took the view that this was a racially aggravated incident. We looked…and agreed.” He went on to say it was ‘in the public interest”. For the barbaric attitude of the crowds baying for her blood look no further than the crowds of British citizens baying for blood outside the Oxford Union. All in all it makes me proud to be British. Not.

Paddy Briggs said...

Agreed that the two politicians have done well – presumably they were operating under Foreign Office direction so it is a good day for diplomacy as well. But the fact remains that this was a wholly unnecessary affair caused, I would guess, by some blinkered cleric who thought that there was mileage to be gained by embarrassing a western woman who was just doing her best to teach in trying circumstances. Sudan is not a single religion state – there are Christian communities in both the North and the South of the country and traditional African religions are practised as well. One wonders how these non Muslims are treated – we know, of course, how the inhabitants of Darfur are being treated and the repulsive ethnic cleansing that goes on there. Perhaps one good thing might come from this sorry affair and that is politicians and the media will look more closely at Sudan and public awareness might increase.

Newmania said...

Back to corruption

IT IS NOT WHY PEOPLE GO INTO POLITICS

I remember you said Iain that in your opinion people go into Politics to do “good” this was during my ( unlikely to be repeated) outing on Doughty Street. I was inwardly spluttering toast and marmalade onto the breakfast table and it has struck me since that this was an astonishingly naive thing to say. Fame and fortune and power is the main reason people go into politics and the reason they do good is that the people that elect them demand that they express and enact policy which to some extent reflects that desire . Voters however are only slightly less venal and vote largely with their wallets which does not seem tome to be unreasonable.
Politicians and others are in a formal dance with the voter in which they pretend to care about , shall we say , Rwanda, and the politicians pretend they do as well. On occasion the entire theatrical backdrop falls down revealing the embarrassed stage hands . Such an occasion was the trip to Rwanda when the country failed to suspect disbelief at the who imposture and collectively sighed ..“Oh do come off it “

Great things can be achieved by silly vain and greedy people . Mozart was one and even Shakespeare’s ambitions were no more than to return loaded back to his provincial town and swank around a bit on his wealth.. Orwell for one remarked that in Western democracy hypocritical posing was an essentially elevating process dragging each unwilling participant up a moral hill.

I can see the point but I maintain that the gulf between rhetoric and reality is now so great as to encourage stupid false debates on all subjects and paradoxically this allows corruption to spread by allowing the real world of bribery inertest and ambition to be seen as only a side show . It is the real show .

Power money , fame and sex is what drives politicians and voters in most decisions , Doing good occupies a part of the brain roughly proportional to the wealth to contribution ratio for an honest donor . If he gives £500,000 he ought to be worth £50 million. That is how Abe was caught and that is what we are .

Personally I prefer honesty on the subject to the bizarre supposition that politicians are uniquely “Good”. I suspect they are less so than the average man who will tend to be less consumed with personal ambition.


Off topic really , sorry

Anonymous said...

On the one hand I agree they should be congratulated on their success in obtaining the release. However I slightly resent the fact that we submit somewhat to the Sudanese islamist regime by channeling our efforts through two respected Muslims from our country.

Shouldn't our efforts be lead directly by the Foreign Office in all cases such as this. Have we in effect established a parallel foreign policy apparatus, specially to deal with Muslim nations without offending their sensitivities

Little Black Sambo said...

"The moderates have out-shouted the rest."
Very well put. I wish they would all shut up.

Anonymous said...

You're such a sap Iain; you're like Elizabeth Bennet's sister in Pride and Prejudice, only capable of seeing the good in people and never the bad, so you actually don't see them at all. What are we meant to cheer because 'good' muslims convinced 'bad' muslims that they were nuts?! Wake up and smell the roses boy! Can't you really see what's undelying this agenda? No I suppose you can't can you.

Mulligan said...

Or as the BBC (Adam Mynott) reported the visit ; the Labour Peer Lord Ahmed and another muslim peer.

Anonymous said...

..and now that she's freed on to the most important question: what happened to the bear?

Anonymous said...

sorry, the fact that some muslims think that naming a teddy bear "mohammed" isn't a crime is something we should be grateful for?

Anonymous said...

Just a thought. Do we actually want people going into politics to do good?

Do-gooders are constantly dreaming up new laws, increasing the role of government and striving to redistribute income; they will happily devote 270 hours of Parliamentary time to the discussion of foxhunting and only 20 hours to the decision to go to war in Iraq.*

Would we not be better served by men and women whose interest is simply in sound and efficient administration?

------------
*These figures from memory, and subject to correction.

Unsworth said...

No Iain, it's why some people go into politics.

Others, witness recent events, do it for entirely different reasons.

Heresiarch said...

Lord Ahmed, wasn't he the one who made such a fool of himself over the Salman Rushdie knighthood?

It's good he succeeded in knocking a few days of Mrs Gibbons' sentence, but the main beneficiary of this will be his own credibility.

Anonymous said...

Man in a shed 10:06 has it absolutely right.

Ms Gibbons displayed either gross ignorance or incredible naivety in allowing the children to select that particular name. Did she not hear about the Danish cartoons incident?

However, it is clear that an innocent, somewhat stupid, mistake has been manipulated by the Sudanese in the interests of gaining political advantage.

What is of concern is that we don't hear much more from the 'moderate' Muslim community in the UK when this sort of thing happens. Their relative silence does nothing to assuage fears about the growth of Islam in the UK.

Croydonian said...

I will offer you Lombard Street to a rotten orange that the unfortunate woman will get death threats and the like from home-grown fanatics once back in the UK.

Were I her, I would go to ground upon my return and seek police protection for any public appearances for the foreseeable future.

Anonymous said...

Top result - but Gibbons was incredibly naive and/or stupid. Must have had her head up her backside since 9/11 to believe we share any values with the Moslem world.

Helen said...

I wonder what we offered in return?

Anonymous said...

Newmania 10:59 - Brilliant! You should polish it and submit it to Iain for his new mag.

[11:39] nailed it.

I'm disturbed by this incident. The government has now ceded negotiating rights to negotiate for a British citizen overseas to a very, very, very special interest group. Such negotiation is the purview of the Foreign Office and the Foreign Office only; not freelance 'muslim peers'working to burrow the influence of their religion into the underpinnings of the British government.

The Foriegn Office is mighty enough to negotiate for the wellbeing of an indigenous British person overseas without the self-serving "help" of greedy people with the glint of "agenda" in their eyes.

Apart from that, it wasn't even a difficult situation. We say we want our citizen on the next plane back, to arrive no later than midnight. If this doesn't happen, at one minute past midnight, all aid money to Sudan stops. Click.

These self-aggrandising muslim peers should never have been accorded such a role in the British national interest. It is disturbing and frankly, I cannot see the French or the Americans ceding the remit of their Foreign Office/State Department to an overly-ambitious faction of an overly-ambitious religion.

This was a very grave precedent and the muslims will triumphantly work it to their advantage in Britain.

I am appalled.

Anonymous said...

Helen - I don't see that the crux of this story is what we offered in return (probably our word that we won't put a hold on wire transfers), the crux is individuals from an aggressive religion shoe-horned themselves into a role which was absolutely none of their concern.

Helen said...

No Verity, there was a reason why the Rage was fuelled in Sudan. They wanted something in return for that completely predictable pardon (yes, I did predict it). What was it? We shall find out eventually but I am not sure we are going to like it.

As it happens I do not think that two members of the House of Lords, much as I dislike these two, are a special interest group.

Anonymous said...

Helen - Most certainly agree with you that there was a reason this seething by the RoP took place in Sudan. And of course the "pardon" was completely predictable. They value those wire transfers.

Here is where I disagree with you when you say: "As it happens I do not think that two members of the House of Lords, much as I dislike these two, are a special interest group."

You don't think they had the backing of islamic interests in Britain? I do.

Draw attention to how much people must "respect" their "prophet" and re-inforce it. It's all about trying to force civilised peoples to bend the knee to their desert cult leader. Those two peers were doing the bidding of the Muslim Council - although how they could do that with a straight face, given Bari's rug and the fragrant Inayat Bunglawala - is a mystery. Nevertheless, they were advancing the cause of islam in their host society by posing as saviours - they should excuse the term - of a British citizen. (Who could perfectly well have been negotiated for, BTW, by the British embassy. Does anyone think she was ever in the slightest danger - except from an elevated heart beat, from the threats?)

We don't need alien islamics "negotiating" for our indigenous citizens. That's what the Foreign Office, with its centuries of experience, is for.

This was an exercise in manipulation and cowardice. The FO should have told Khartoum to FO.

Anonymous said...

Islam is not an aggressive religion.

The so-called "Islam" practised by those who imprisoned the good teacher were no more muslime than Verity.

This solution had everything to do with proving that diplomacy works. Does anyone sensible (ie not you Verity) believe that threatening Sudan with reprisals would have done anything other than escalate the situation? Talk about playing into the hands of the terrorists.

"Click" Was that the sound of a dud round being fired? Thank goodness reason plays its part and not the corrupting cynicism and naive posturing of idiots.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Islam is not an aggressive religion.
Oh do me a favour. Tell that to the 9/11 victims, the 7/7 victims and all the victims of the ongoing Shia/Sunni blood-letting. Tell that to the victims of the Taliban and other islamo-fascist-nutters. I could go on and on and on and on.

Anonymous said...

Anon - Your opinion - widely held amongst the numpties on this site - presumably means you think David Koresh was a Christian.

Islamism - the corrupted form of Islam, the "Koran-bashing far-right of the primitive terroristic subjugating medievals" is an aggressive cult.

English as a language is often merrily abused by fools like you , but that doesn't make it a foolish language.

Go and get some education or a job. stop wating your gap year.

Anonymous said...

"Islam is not an aggressive religion."

Apart from the conquests in the middle east, Byzantium, the Balkans, North Africa, Spain, Persia, India, and the genocide against Israel, conflicts in South America, riots in France, death threats everywhere, and bombs all over the place.

Anonymous said...

Brave anonymous of 9:25 -
"Does anyone sensible (ie not you Verity) believe that threatening Sudan with reprisals would have done anything other than escalate the situation?"

Are you that naive? Are you an islamic or just someone with a passionate wish to kowtow to this belief system to show what a great soul you are.

There was actually no situation to escalate. Can't you recognise a put-up job when it's staring you in the face? Are you really so naive that you can't recognise infantile bullying tactics?

All the FO had to say is, "release our citizen or all aid ceases and you can seethe your brains out. Seething in the north of England will be dealth with." Cannot you understand that islam is a bullying religion and when confronted, they back down? That's why they attack anonymously rather than arguing their case for their absurd shariah laws in civilised countries. They know it wouldn't wash, so they try to change minds in the cowardly way, with anonymous violence.

Grow up, anonymous. And if you're one of them, give some serious thought to apostacy, there's a good lad.

Anonymous said...

Numbptibrainlessness abounds! These were no more modern Islam than the Crusades were modern Christianity. Religion - the excuse for most wars, not the cause.

Come on, surely you can do better, unless you're a Commie, of course.

Anonymous said...

I'd go further - No religion is aggressive, and no teachings by "prophets" encourage aggression. Quite the opposite. unfortunately that doesn't stop aggressive people from being horrid to one another.

Then again, an ability to type doesn't prevent addled brainless wasters from regurgitating half-digested tabloid junk into the ether.

Anonymous said...

[12:33] -Don't be so sloppy! You forgot northern Thailand, where they're committing murder and mayhem and, as always, one of their favourite spots, the Philippines. In fact, anywhere in the world where there's a violent problem, you'll find the muslims.

Anonymous said...

Verity
Twaddle as usual. "Brave" is an adjective that attaches to people who put their lives on the line - presumably you think you are brave because you call yourself by that misnomer.

Fat on the brain, decadence, whatever, if your unique death-wish approach had been adopted, that teacher would have suffered. That is a no-brainer.

I guess your problem is dietary - consider a good diuretic before you present your mis-conceived prejudices in future.

Anonymous said...

All the FO had to say is, "release our citizen or all aid ceases and you can seethe your brains out."

Is that a joke? If so, it was in very poor taste. The woman had been threatened with the firing squad. Keep your disgusting fantasies to yourself.

Anonymous said...

William Quilliam

Try reading a bit.

Anonymous said...

For anyone out there not completely put off by Verity's rubbish...

There's a perfectly respectable position taken on Shariah laws in financial investment - increasingly backed in the City.

To put it simply...
Shariah is against money making money out of itself, and against making money out of investments in alcohol, drugs, and other items on a (probably predictable) list. It is in favour of financial gain as a result of added value, rather than the "interest", "derivatives, and other such schemes it regards as "gambling".

This is not an absurd position - it is an arguable one. The market for such financial investment products is growiing, among non-muslims as well as muslims, and the Northern Rock fiasco will no doubt increase the desirability of investment ion companies that do not see money as a "whoesale product", but rather as a reward for a fair day's work.

Anonymous said...

[4:28] - It escalated to firing squad because the FO dithered and demonstrated weakness. There's nothing the muslims find more appealing than weakness (other than a good seethe).

There is no excuse for these ridiculous "muslim peers" to get involved, as though only muslims can deal with muslims and only Christians and deal with Christians and only Jews can deal with Jews. What a bloody Dark Ages mindset this religion is. There are plenty of islamists (in the original, scholarly, experienced sense of the word) in the FO and they are well capable of dealing with muslim nutjob administrations.

This is Iain's property. Get your own blog, which none of us would visit, of course, before ordering Iain's visitors to "keep their disgusting fantasies to themselves."

That other time stamp which I can't be bothered to refer back to: the City isn't increasing adopting shariah. Sharia is being allowed because there's money in it among islamics. The most successful financial system the world has ever known is capitalism.

Shariah's been allowed in London because, why not? Some other venue would only get it if we didn't, so what the hell. "Growing" among people not glued to this belief system? I think not.

Anonymous said...

Verity
I seem to remember another of iain's posts where you criticised capitalism for allowing fees to be charged as a percentage of the contract sum, or size of estate value.
That's when i realised you lack a proper grounding in the system you so adore. Regurgitated tabloid rot, I'm afraid. Capitalism might well be a fantastic system, but many people want to see it finessed.

Ever heard of SRI?

Islamic banking facilities are responding to market demand. So are SRI's, not restricted to tree-huggers, any more than bingo cards are restricted to people who are "past it"
Your world-view is strange, almost medieval.

Anonymous said...

9:57 - You failed to add, "in the case of probate". Yes, the size of the estate is none of the lawyers' business. The solicitor's job is to follow the instructions of the deceased, and for that they should charge an hourly fee, not pick at the bones of the dead.

Oh, you poor thing! Referring to me as "almost medieval", as though to offset my charge that islam is a Dark Ages cult that has never evolved into the light.

I don't give a fig either way if the islamics want to have their own financial system at the direction of their cult leader (the L Ron Hubbard of his day), and if London can turn a few bob on their adherence to their Dark Ages, unsophisticated beliefs, good on London.

Who on earth cares what a bunch of stone-agers believe?

Who cares if they have doolally sharia laws in islamic countries? Just keep that shariah garbage out of Britain and the advanced West.

Anonymous said...

"There's a perfectly respectable position taken on Shariah laws in financial investment"

Ha ha ha.

More Islamic hypocrisy. They want interest on their money, they just like to call it something else. Bunch of medieval hypocrites.

Anonymous said...

Referring to me as "almost medieval", as though to offset my charge that islam is a Dark Ages cult that has never evolved into the light.


It did evolve, and is doing so. You, in contrast, are revolving, backwards, without having picked up the slightest insight during your time alive. Never any appreciation of any other view. just your own swivel-eyed, fingers in ears rot that you soaked up from some tabloid.

Modern Muslims are perfectly normal, moderate people. You, thankfully, are virtually alone in you mis-conception, and slowly buit surely your ideas will die out along with the aging bit of the Far Right that Heseltine used to be accused (unfairly) of massaging.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous of 3.08pm

Have you based your view on any evidence? Anything you can refer me to to back that up? The fact is that Sharia-approved investments do not attract "interest" in the conventional way, they do not make money out of money, and they do follow strict moral guidelines.

I'm not muslim myself, but I'm interested to see how these investment vehicles develop, and dare I say "evolve". If Darwin could have read neanderthal-dominatedthreads like this, he would have had a re-think!

Anonymous said...

Verity
Probate professionals charge a percentage of the estate in many cases - ask Lloyds Bank's service, or look them up. It's called capitalism (tethering fees to CAPITAL sums, not hourly rates) and you are inadvertently destroying one of its tenets when you describe is as vulture-like.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous - We went all through this on another thread around a month ago. Your view was defeated.

Anonymous - "Modern Muslims are perfectly normal, moderate people."

Oh, certainly! The women in Saudi Arabia cannot be seen in public with a male who is not a CLOSE family member. They can't go out of the house without wearing muli-layer bin liners. They can't drive cars. They have to tolerate their husbands having three other "wives".

Most "perfectly normal,moderate people" don't murder their daughters for falling for a fellow from the wrong group (i.e., not muslim). I'd never heard of female genital gruesome mutilation before I read it was a muslim habit. Most "perfectly normal" people don't kidnap foreigners and behead them. And video the murder for their later viewing pleasure.

Most "perfectly normal" people of every race on the planet know that marrying a close family member is likely to produce - uh - odd offspring. The Pakistanis, with an apparent (according to the government, which means it's a lie) 1.6m, account for 31% of birth defects deriving from marriages to first cousins - for generations. Thirty-one percent of the genetic abnormalities treated on the NHS are Pakistanis.
(Too bad Inayat Bunglawangla missed his appointment.)

In most societies, women are not required to, bizarrely, cover their hair. In a hot climate, those sebaceous glands must work overtime under those burqas and their scalps must smell vile. Normal societies do not have five times a day prayers. This is ridiculous. They're either preparing to pray, going to pray, praying, coming back from praying or planning to pray again. No wonder they never invented anything. No time.

Normal societies do not kill animals by the stomach-churning halal method which needs to be outlawed.

I dunno. I just don't see them as "normal people" at all.

Anonymous said...

"They want interest on their money, they just like to call it something else"

What an extraordinary remark!
Is Rent now "interest"?
Are share price rises "interest"?
Are increses in capital values now "interest"?
Are profit margins "interest"?
Are wages "interest"?

The level of intelligence just carries on sinking, does it not?

Anonymous said...

7:42 writes: "The level of intelligence just carries on sinking, does it not?"

With posts as abstruse as yours, it certainly does.

Anonymous said...

My posts might well be difficult for you to understand, but that is your problem not mine. Try reading up on capitalism and economics, don't just stick to the Express.

Anonymous said...

My argument prevailed - you had no counter to my charge that your knowledge of capitalism was woeful.

Nor have you begun to explain how abolition of taxation would not be medieval.

Likewise you have no argument to challenge my position on modern Islam. I was not talking about Saudi treatment of women, or any other primitive behaviour which occupies you so much.

Your views on Pakistanis are racist in tone, and to make such generalised offensive remarks ought to risk your position as one of Iana's "visitors"

Anonymous said...

The Soviet Union also liked to lie about what was really happening in its economy. Eventually the Russians got fed up of being poor. Sadly muslims have spent centuries wallowing in the Islam-created poverty they were left with when the spoils of conquest ran out.

They make loans. The loans attract interest. Face the truth dhimmi boy.

Anonymous said...

anonymous -

Like Verity, you conflate religion with nationality. Ridiculous.

Sharia investments do not attract "interest". Fact. They increase in value, and the yield from such increases provides benefit. Capital growth , inter alia. Otherwise known as Capitalism.

When was this county's first mosque built, and what did the muslim owners of that mosque contribute to society? There's a clue from "a muslim" further up this thread.

If you can't be bothered to educate yourself, fine. I'm leaving you to wallow in your decrepit morbidity.

No facts from you, just opinion.

Get a job or a course, and turn off the daytime telly.

Anonymous said...

As someone who works in private equity, I can confirm that Anonymous is deluding himself if he thinks he won any argument about Sharia by trying to distinguish interest from Rent, share price rises, increases in capital values, profit margins (?) and wages (?). The penultimate is a ratio, not a return on investment. The last is a return on labour, not capital.

Nomenclature: investors are interested in the timing and certainty (amount and likelihood) of returns on their investment. They really couldn't care about how those returns are labelled. Is income from a property fund capital appreciation or rent? If a bond is PIK (paid in kind) then the additional bonds are issued rather than payment of interest. Is that interest income or capital appreciation? There's a lot of financial engineering to create instruments which are debt for some purposes, equity for others. This can be tax-driven, regulation-driven, solvency-driven or sharia-compliance-driven.

Returns: I'm not a sharia compliant expert, but I believe the notion behind it is profit sharing rather than fixed income. Of course, with some financial engineering you can chop, change and guarantee between entities to create the investment characteristics you require with the nomenclature you require. As long as the cash flows of the asset can bear it, then everyone's happy. Sharia investments are certainly not a sea change from existing investments. They ain't going to solve the pension crisis. All these things are variation on a theme.

Man in a Shed said...

Iain,

Mrs Gibbons may be coming home, but there are people who have converted from Islam in the UK who are in fear of their own lives. See this article in The Times today.

Is it racism that we just care about the lives of white people, or the political correctness of not wanting to confront Muslims with the views of the co-religionists in this country.

Imagine if a person was being chased in fear of their lives because they had declared their sexuality. The media would rally round - but not for converts from Islam.

Maybe the good Lords could do something really useful here ?

Anonymous said...

"Anonymous is deluding himself if he thinks he won any argument about Sharia by trying to distinguish interest from Rent, "

I certainly do not think I've won any argument about distinguishing interest from anything - the argument I won was a piffling one about Verity's ignorance of capital-related fee-charging.

profit margins (?) and wages (?). The penultimate is a ratio, not a return on investment. The last is a return on labour, not capital.

You sugget i didn't know that - my point was to wonder whether a previous "anonymous" thought any sort of income should be regarded as "interest".

Whether appreciation is capital or revenue is of course unimportant to the person who just wants to see a return. The process of achieving high yields is interesting to those who for instance want Sharia-compliant investments, and to those who want SRI influenced ones.

Thanks for your input - the debate improved!"



share price rises, increases in capital values, profit margins (?) and wages (?). The penultimate is a ratio, not a return on investment. The last is a return on labour, not capital.
"

Anonymous said...

Man in a shed -
I entirely agree with you. This sort of oppression is completely wrong, though it's only racist if you ascribe the issue to one race or nationality over another.

The idea of getting rid of such people of course appeals, but to do so as a matter of policy would feed the fires of discontent, and sail too close to the wind of "racist" accusations. Much better to educate out the problem, penalise offfenders rigorously here, and concentrate on protecting those in danger.

Anonymous said...

"You sugget i didn't know that - my point was to wonder whether a previous "anonymous" thought any sort of income should be regarded as "interest"."

Liar.

Anonymous said...

I could have gone on ...
Are Tombola prizes "interset"
Are Chritmas Cracker toys "interest".

You also failed to point out that capital allowances are materially affected by whether expenditure can be offset against capital growth or revenue.

Work in Private Equity?

Liar

Anonymous said...

Hey, I'm the private equity anonymous around here, and don't let any nemo tell you otherwise! Having had my name taken in vain by anonymous 08:56, I'd just like to say that the distinction between capital gains and current income is academic (ignoring tax and signalling effects of distributing cash).

Anonymous said...

As an anonymous of long-standing I apologise for mis-reading the identity - I'd thought we were the only two anons left.

Total respect, and I accept your point - I was being academic in retaliation to being accused of lying; I'm happy to be thought ignorant (I don't work in that field).