NUJ fightback

I'm not managing a lot of posting just lately, but I certainly can't ignore the wonderfully heartening fightback by National Union of Journalists members against the motion to boycott Israeli goods which was narrowly carried by their national conference. ITN, the Observer and a big chunk of the BBC have all come out against. Say what you like about the British media (and, yes, I quite often do like) there plainly still is such a thing as professionalism at its upper levels, and professional journalists understand that their job is to report the news that then enables the rest of us to make decisions about who, if anyone, we want to boycott.

As for singling Israel out for a boycott - a country that's open and democratic enough for this kind of thing to happen - here's a fascinating insight into the kind of company which the kind of people to whom this makes sense (specifically, the by now grossly misnamed Socialist Workers Party) are happy to keep. Based on my past experience of Trot politics I should have known better than to imagine that, just because a handful of these creeps can swing a conference vote, they are remotely representative of the membership.

Talking of Trots, I see that a fulsome endorsement from the Gorgeous One was not sufficient to save Tommy Sheridan's seat in the Scottish Parliament. Never mind, now he'll be able to spend more time with his Scrabble set.

Returning to serious politics, all the links come directly or indirectly from Engage, who are clearly doing sterling work in the fight against the boycott. Much more power to their elbows.