While the closing of the gap between the Tories and Labour to less than 10 points on most polls - including today's ICM for the Guardian - is welcome news, the accompanying chorus of calls for a March election seem pretty daft. There is going to have to be an election by early June in any case. So why not wait at least until May? What possible advantage is there in going two months earlier - with the weather still potentially dodgy?
The Tories must be getting pretty scared at this point though. With the current bias in the electoral system they might well end up short of an overall majority. At which point things start to get interesting. My money would be on a Tory-Lib Dem coalition, although that might actually split the Lib Dem party. But if things tighten to (say) 5 points then Labour might actually end up the largest party - and then who the hell knows.
15 December 2009
11 December 2009
Why is the Guardian giving a platform to Sarah Palin?
I will disclose at the very start of this post that I like The Guardian. It's the Jim Callaghan of what used to be called 'Fleet Street' before everyone moved out (and most of the pubs closed); it's a bit wishy washy, but it's heart is in the right place. And I don't buy the paper often enough because all the good content is online, but I would very gladly pay a subscription if they established one (something I can't say about the Murdoch press, which I hardly ever read anyway. I have a dartboard with David f***ing Aaronovitch's head on in my office). Comment is Free is one of the best comment sites anywhere on the web - full of right-wing nutters of course, but hey, it's care in the community, right?
But I certainly don't buy the Guardian - or click on the website - to read crap by Sarah Palin about how Copenhagen should be boycotted. This sort of rubbish should be left to the Times and in particular the Telegraph, who has its own in-house team of loonies such as Christopher Booker and James Delingpole.
There is in fact an increasing proliferation of syndicated or freelance duff right-wing articles in the Guardian. While some would argue that airing the opposing point of view is a useful exercise in open-mindedness, the right-wing press never reciprocate (when was the last time you read a left-wing article in the Telegraph?) and all it really does is piss off the readership. Which probably increases the number of hits on Comment is Free, but doesn't do much for the paper's coherence, or credibility.
The Guardian should focus on what it does best - marshalling progressive forces for a forthcoming election where the left will need as much help as it can get. Leave the climate scaremongering to the right-wing papers who get paid by vested interests to do this sort of thing. And guys, sort out a system for charging for online content and you can stop losing millions of pounds a year. This is getting really urgent now.
But I certainly don't buy the Guardian - or click on the website - to read crap by Sarah Palin about how Copenhagen should be boycotted. This sort of rubbish should be left to the Times and in particular the Telegraph, who has its own in-house team of loonies such as Christopher Booker and James Delingpole.
There is in fact an increasing proliferation of syndicated or freelance duff right-wing articles in the Guardian. While some would argue that airing the opposing point of view is a useful exercise in open-mindedness, the right-wing press never reciprocate (when was the last time you read a left-wing article in the Telegraph?) and all it really does is piss off the readership. Which probably increases the number of hits on Comment is Free, but doesn't do much for the paper's coherence, or credibility.
The Guardian should focus on what it does best - marshalling progressive forces for a forthcoming election where the left will need as much help as it can get. Leave the climate scaremongering to the right-wing papers who get paid by vested interests to do this sort of thing. And guys, sort out a system for charging for online content and you can stop losing millions of pounds a year. This is getting really urgent now.
08 December 2009
Cometh the hour, cometh the dodgy dossier from a leading credit rating agency...
All eyes on the Pre-Budget Report tomorrow - basically a daft name, as it's really an autumn Budget statement, with little to differentiate it from the main spring Budget.
We can debate the pros and cons of the PBR - personally I'd prefer to scrap the Budget entirely and just introduce finance bills like any other bill in the Queen's speech - but in the current economic crisis, we'd certainly expect a set-piece like this to provide a platform for lobbyists who want to exercise disproportionate influence on government policy.
Which is presumably why credit rating agency Moody's has just come out with an assessment that the UK (and the US) could "test the boundaries" of the top AAA credit rating due to the high debts being incurred because govt revenues have collapsed in the wake of the economic crisis. A summary is provided here by the unusual (for giroscope) source of the Taipei Times: I couldn't find a decent UK-based reference, having just seen the report on Channel 4 News.
On the face of it, downgrading the UK's status from AAA seems totally absurd. Debt is currently predicted (by OECD) to reach around 90 per cent of GDP in 2010. Many countries have run debt levels a lot higher than 100 per cent with no long-run problems. We've got a hell of a long way to go before we reach that point. So why are Moody's acting nervous?
When viewed rationally, the issue must be political rather than economic. Moody's is run by banking types who do not like the Labour government - particularly if, as is quite possible, it is set to move a bit further for the left - and so they want to engineer a financial crisis by downgrading the UK, ensuring a Tory victory in the 2010 election, at which point they will upgrade it again. It's the dirty tricks brigade - simple as that. And anything Moody's are putting out now is at least as dodgy as the infamous 2003 dossier from the UK "Intelligence" (ha!) services on Saddam Hussein. Alastair Darling should say as much in tomorrow's speech, and should point out that the credit rating agencies - who were shown up to be a complete bunch of clueless morons when 'safe' investments went belly-up in the credit crunch - are deliberately bullshitting investors for political ends. This govt has reaped the biggest dividends from the current crisis when it has faced down the bankers and squared with the electorate. And I do believe the best in this vein is yet to come.
We can debate the pros and cons of the PBR - personally I'd prefer to scrap the Budget entirely and just introduce finance bills like any other bill in the Queen's speech - but in the current economic crisis, we'd certainly expect a set-piece like this to provide a platform for lobbyists who want to exercise disproportionate influence on government policy.
Which is presumably why credit rating agency Moody's has just come out with an assessment that the UK (and the US) could "test the boundaries" of the top AAA credit rating due to the high debts being incurred because govt revenues have collapsed in the wake of the economic crisis. A summary is provided here by the unusual (for giroscope) source of the Taipei Times: I couldn't find a decent UK-based reference, having just seen the report on Channel 4 News.
On the face of it, downgrading the UK's status from AAA seems totally absurd. Debt is currently predicted (by OECD) to reach around 90 per cent of GDP in 2010. Many countries have run debt levels a lot higher than 100 per cent with no long-run problems. We've got a hell of a long way to go before we reach that point. So why are Moody's acting nervous?
When viewed rationally, the issue must be political rather than economic. Moody's is run by banking types who do not like the Labour government - particularly if, as is quite possible, it is set to move a bit further for the left - and so they want to engineer a financial crisis by downgrading the UK, ensuring a Tory victory in the 2010 election, at which point they will upgrade it again. It's the dirty tricks brigade - simple as that. And anything Moody's are putting out now is at least as dodgy as the infamous 2003 dossier from the UK "Intelligence" (ha!) services on Saddam Hussein. Alastair Darling should say as much in tomorrow's speech, and should point out that the credit rating agencies - who were shown up to be a complete bunch of clueless morons when 'safe' investments went belly-up in the credit crunch - are deliberately bullshitting investors for political ends. This govt has reaped the biggest dividends from the current crisis when it has faced down the bankers and squared with the electorate. And I do believe the best in this vein is yet to come.
02 December 2009
Let 'em go
Interesting stuff here from the sometimes sensationalist, but usually worthwhile, Robert Peston at the Beeb: RBS directors have threatened to walk out if they aren't allowed to pay £1.5bn in bonuses.
I say sack the lot of them and replace them with some of our 2.5 million strong unemployed reserve army of workers who could probably do the job a damn sight better.
Shit, I could do it better. And I'd do the director job a damn sight cheaper than any of these f***ers... say £100,000 a year? That be OK? I would do it for less but I'm earning good money as it is. They'd probably be able to find someone cheaper - and better - than me.
And as for the bankers who have threatened to walk if they're not paid their bonuses? Guess what - they can piss off as well. Middle-ranking civil servants would do a much better job at lower cost.
I've finally sussed it. The key to a sustained economic recovery... is to get the morons who got us into this out of the way as fast as possible. And that means a cull of private sector financial managers and senior bankers. Let's kick out the jams and start again. I'm no fan of the Chairman but you could almost call it a little Maoist.
I say sack the lot of them and replace them with some of our 2.5 million strong unemployed reserve army of workers who could probably do the job a damn sight better.
Shit, I could do it better. And I'd do the director job a damn sight cheaper than any of these f***ers... say £100,000 a year? That be OK? I would do it for less but I'm earning good money as it is. They'd probably be able to find someone cheaper - and better - than me.
And as for the bankers who have threatened to walk if they're not paid their bonuses? Guess what - they can piss off as well. Middle-ranking civil servants would do a much better job at lower cost.
I've finally sussed it. The key to a sustained economic recovery... is to get the morons who got us into this out of the way as fast as possible. And that means a cull of private sector financial managers and senior bankers. Let's kick out the jams and start again. I'm no fan of the Chairman but you could almost call it a little Maoist.
26 November 2009
VT day (Victory on the Trains)
Everyone in East Anglia pour themselves a cold one... National Express will be losing their rail franchise for the region in 2011. This is as a result of their default on their East Coast franchise. National Express thought they could give up on loss-making franchises while continuing to milk the profitable routes. Sorry guys, you is dead wrong. Congratulations to Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis for sticking to his guns on this one.
I won't be sorry to see the back of National Express management. They are a bunch of shysters committed to screwing the customer in exchange for ever-deteriorating levels of service. They are the most wretched hive of scum and villainy this side of Mos Eisley spaceport. If you see one of them... put him/her in the bin.
Would be even better if the franchise were being returned to the public sector in 2011, though.
I won't be sorry to see the back of National Express management. They are a bunch of shysters committed to screwing the customer in exchange for ever-deteriorating levels of service. They are the most wretched hive of scum and villainy this side of Mos Eisley spaceport. If you see one of them... put him/her in the bin.
Would be even better if the franchise were being returned to the public sector in 2011, though.
25 November 2009
Got a bank overdraft, kids? Say hello to corporate power...
OMG... the banks have managed to screw consumers yet again...
The Supreme Court's judgement in favour of the banks on unauthorised overdraft charges is absolute cack. Listen to this:
Has Lord Phillips ever tried living in the modern world without a bank account? Or finding a bank which doesn't impose extortionate overdraft charges? Good luck to him. The idea that banking is some kind of free choice, in the modern economic system, makes about as much sense as saying that eating or breathing are some kind of free choice. It's patent bollocks.
Yet more licence for an already overstuffed banking sector to wheedle more money out of the consumer. After one botched attempt last autumn, we most definitely need full-scale nationalisation of the UK banking sector so the damn thing can be run properly. As in, NOW.
The Supreme Court's judgement in favour of the banks on unauthorised overdraft charges is absolute cack. Listen to this:
In explaining his ruling, the Supreme Court's president Lord Phillips said that bank customers agreed to pay overdraft charges as part of the price of having a current account, so they fell outside the scope of the 1999 consumer contract regulations.
Has Lord Phillips ever tried living in the modern world without a bank account? Or finding a bank which doesn't impose extortionate overdraft charges? Good luck to him. The idea that banking is some kind of free choice, in the modern economic system, makes about as much sense as saying that eating or breathing are some kind of free choice. It's patent bollocks.
Yet more licence for an already overstuffed banking sector to wheedle more money out of the consumer. After one botched attempt last autumn, we most definitely need full-scale nationalisation of the UK banking sector so the damn thing can be run properly. As in, NOW.
22 November 2009
Any of you kids remember February 1974?
Latest opinion poll from Ipsos MORI for the Observer raises speculation about a hung parliament - with Labour on 31%, the Tories on 37 and the Lib Dems on 17.
Despite the post title, it's not really that much like 1974; Labour was only about 1% down in the popular vote in the February general election that year, and came out with 4 more seats than the Tories, in a hung parliament. If they'd been six points down, Edward Heath would almost certainly have secured an overall majority. Heck, in 1979 Thatcher was only 7 points in front of Callaghan and still secured a majority of over 40.
But first past the post is a system which has vast potential to produce idiotic results; last time, a majority government with 35% of the vote, and perhaps this time, Labour with more seats than the Tories, despite being five or six points behind them.
Despite the post title, it's not really that much like 1974; Labour was only about 1% down in the popular vote in the February general election that year, and came out with 4 more seats than the Tories, in a hung parliament. If they'd been six points down, Edward Heath would almost certainly have secured an overall majority. Heck, in 1979 Thatcher was only 7 points in front of Callaghan and still secured a majority of over 40.
But first past the post is a system which has vast potential to produce idiotic results; last time, a majority government with 35% of the vote, and perhaps this time, Labour with more seats than the Tories, despite being five or six points behind them.
This poll could be a blip - it happened just after Labour's win in the Glasgow East by-election, after all. But on pretty much all polls, the Tories are down from 20-point plus leads in the spring and summer to 10 points - or less - now. If I was Dave Cameron I'd be shitting bricks at this point.
I would laugh so much if the Tories failed to secure an overall majority - despite everything they've said about Brown being a complete turkey, etc. And I'm sure Brown would laugh too. (If he can.)
The Tories do have on ace up their sleeve in the event of a hung parliament - Nick Clegg, a carbon copy of Cameron who would, I'm sure, prefer to do a deal with Cameron than Brown. Clegg's problem is that his party would probably disintegrate into left and right factions if he did that - particularly if Cameron offered no deal on electoral reform.
Brown's best option in the event of a hung parliament is to offer a deal on electoral reform - a referendum, at least - and carry on as head of a coalition for a couple of years before resigning and giving way to a new leader. Given everyone's predictions of total electoral annihilation, it would be a very satisfying way for him to bow out.
I'm not really sure how Labour has ended up with the political momentum here - they haven't really done anything spectacularly good since the banking bailout - and even in that case, they have spectacularly failed to offer useful long-term banking reforms rather than short-term subsidies and handwaving. Probably, the main factor is that the Tory front bench - George Osborne in particular - are being increasingly scrutinised, and found to be the biggest collection of duffers possible. These guys are incapable of making a coherent speech on the economy, and in the current economic situation, that worries people. Long may it continue to do so.
17 November 2009
Some thoughts on the TUC's "Beyond Crisis" conference
Spent an enjoyable day at the TUC yesterday for a one-day conference called Beyond Crisis. Very interesting selection of speakers.
Rowan Williams was thoughtful, incisive, and about as radical as his position allows him to be. I think the Pope is doing him a favour by offering to take all the extremist nutters off his hands. Just one thing he said in the Q&A session I didn't understand, so I'll raise it here in case anyone can clarify: there seems to be a problem with the employment rights of Anglican clergy in that their employer is not the Anglican, but God(?) So they can't have normal trade union representation? I don't really understand this - how can your employer be an entity whose existence is disputed? That would mean that if God didn't exist you wouldn't have any employment contract at all. It would seem much simpler to just say that the Anglican Church employs priests. Anyway, it's not a point that's relevant to the rest of this post, but I found it bizarre so I'll mention it anyway.
The morning panel session with Ann Pettifor, Gillian Tett, John Kay and Dave Prentis was also v interesting. John Kay has moved from someone who was a mainstream Conservative in the 1980s to a radical now and that is really quite amazing, given that - as with other former establishment stalwarts such as Meryvn King and Adair Turner - he's not the first person you'd expect to man the barricades. John Kay's main point deserves reiteration here so I'll summarise (vidcast available here). Like Paul Krugman, Kay sees the current crisis as the latest in a series of asset price bubbles, followed by collapses which have been addressed by governments flooding the financial system with liquidity - thus reinflating the bubble a few years later. Phase 1 was the Asian crisis of 1997-8, Phase 2 the dot com bust of 2000-01 and Phase 3 the credit crunch of 2007 and following.
Because policymakers have been either too unimaginative, too in hock to the financial sector, or too stupid to reform the financial system, John feels we are now headed into Phase 4 of the crisis - which could well be the terminal phase. Another collapse could lead to the breakdown not just of the economic system, but a number of national political systems as well, as people will (rightly) be hopping bad with the bankers, but their anger will be directed towards populist solutions. If the left doesn't emerge with a coherent response to the crisis in terms of major institutional reforms (Kay recommends separating utility banking from investment banking), the extreme right could benefit instead. In other words we're looking at 1933 all over again. Apocalyptic stuff perhaps, but it would certainly fit in with what the more intelligent sections of the left have been saying about this crisis for a long time now.
I'll probably refer back to more from this conference in posts to come over the next couple of weeks as it was such a good analysis of where we're at at the moment. Well done for the TUC for putting it all together. I must start regularly reading John Kay's FT column.
15 November 2009
What's happened to posting this month?
Good question. The answer is: about 4 work deadlines at once. Don't worry, I'll be out the other end of it soon (probably around the end of this week) so there should be more posting going on by the end of the month. There goes my target of 200 postings this year... unless December is very busy.
07 November 2009
Review - BSG "The Plan"
I was excited earlier in the week as Battlestar Galactica - The Plan arrived on DVD from the US. Last time a bought a BSG special on US import it was Razor, which was great, but appeared on UK DVD at almost exactly the same time - and I was left feeling a bit of a chump for having assumed it wouldn't make it out here for a while.
This time, UK viewers aren't so lucky: The Plan is not on DVD release here yet, and I don't think Sky have set a date for airing it yet, so it probably won't happen until they do.
But is it any good? An interesting diversion, but not essential, I'd say. NOTE: there are some spoilers below if you haven't seen the rest of the series...
This time, UK viewers aren't so lucky: The Plan is not on DVD release here yet, and I don't think Sky have set a date for airing it yet, so it probably won't happen until they do.
But is it any good? An interesting diversion, but not essential, I'd say. NOTE: there are some spoilers below if you haven't seen the rest of the series...
There are two really good things about The Plan. One is some of the best CGI (for the destruction of the colonies) that the series has ever had. The other is Dean Stockwell getting a lot of screen time and being superb, in a his inimitable Dean Stockwell kind of way. The third thing of note is that there is an interesting subplot involving a number 4 Cylon (the "Simon" character - Rick Worthy), which is nothing mega-exciting but nice, in that number 4 was kind of underused in the series in general.
There ain't much else, really - director Eddie Olmos (Adama) did about as good a job as he could cutting between footage from the miniseries and Series 1 and 2, and new footage shot to 'extend' certain scenes, but it's not easy when you're joining together 2009 footage with 2003 footage. How many of us look exactly the same as we did six years ago?
So the whole thing was nice, but a bit 'join-the-dots' - an exercise in weaving in as much backstory and parallel story as possible with the confines of a narrative that had already been pretty thickly sketched. And there are some key personnel absences which make the whole thing less convincing than it could be - for example, given that we know that there was at least one number 3 agent (Lucy Lawless) in the fleet (see series 2 episode "Final Cut"), isn't her absence from the Cavill "briefings" in the chapel a bit strange? I know it was because they couldn't get her back to be in The Plan but it's still a bit inconsistent.
Oh well - given the constraints they were under, it's not a bad effort. But probably for completists only (which of course, is a group I fall into).
31 October 2009
Fired for telling the truth
The Government's decision to sack Professor David Nutt, the chief drugs adviser, is appalling, and shows what can happen to people if they don't toe the line of the police state, even if it happens to be complete garbage.
Nutt was accused by Home Secretary Alan Johnson of 'undermining the scientific independence of the council'. Why? Because he happened to voice an independent scientific opinion - that cannabis was actually less harmful than nicotine or alcohol. Given the relative numbers of people who use all three drugs, I would wager that alcohol is by far the most harmful (although I would need to check the evidence to be sure, something that David Nutt has done, and Alan Johnson and Gordon Brown haven't).
The real reason David Nutt was sacked is because he dared to use his own brain rather than doing what Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson do, which is just to regurgitate whatever the Daily Mail tells them. Drugs policy in this country is dictated by the tabloid press - and it is a shameful failure. Reclassification of cannabis to Class C when David Blunkett was Home Secretary was a step in the right direction; reclassification back to Class B is a ludicrous retrograde step. Full legalisation is the best way to go - and would also allow the product to be subject to quality controls, which would mean less of the extremely strong 'skunk' varieties (which can, in some cases, cause psychotic episodes) would make it out into the market.
More problematically, David Nutt feels that drugs legislation should be decided by an independent committee along the lines of the Monetary Policy Committee which sets interest rates. I can see some logic in that but taken to its logical conclusion it would mean the death of democracy - policies would just be decided by committees of experts. There are big problems with that (particularly if the experts fall into the hands of corporate lobbyists) but given the crap that mainstream politicians talk about some of these big issues, you can understand why intellectuals like Nutt get frustrated by all this.
I hope the government's whole drugs advisory board resigns and leaves them with no experts - presumably they would have to replace them with a list of advisers specified by the Daily Mail. It would serve them right.
Nutt was accused by Home Secretary Alan Johnson of 'undermining the scientific independence of the council'. Why? Because he happened to voice an independent scientific opinion - that cannabis was actually less harmful than nicotine or alcohol. Given the relative numbers of people who use all three drugs, I would wager that alcohol is by far the most harmful (although I would need to check the evidence to be sure, something that David Nutt has done, and Alan Johnson and Gordon Brown haven't).
The real reason David Nutt was sacked is because he dared to use his own brain rather than doing what Gordon Brown and Alan Johnson do, which is just to regurgitate whatever the Daily Mail tells them. Drugs policy in this country is dictated by the tabloid press - and it is a shameful failure. Reclassification of cannabis to Class C when David Blunkett was Home Secretary was a step in the right direction; reclassification back to Class B is a ludicrous retrograde step. Full legalisation is the best way to go - and would also allow the product to be subject to quality controls, which would mean less of the extremely strong 'skunk' varieties (which can, in some cases, cause psychotic episodes) would make it out into the market.
More problematically, David Nutt feels that drugs legislation should be decided by an independent committee along the lines of the Monetary Policy Committee which sets interest rates. I can see some logic in that but taken to its logical conclusion it would mean the death of democracy - policies would just be decided by committees of experts. There are big problems with that (particularly if the experts fall into the hands of corporate lobbyists) but given the crap that mainstream politicians talk about some of these big issues, you can understand why intellectuals like Nutt get frustrated by all this.
I hope the government's whole drugs advisory board resigns and leaves them with no experts - presumably they would have to replace them with a list of advisers specified by the Daily Mail. It would serve them right.
30 October 2009
Blair: Sanity prevailing?
Some good news in the news this morning - there's just a chance that Tony Blair's star is on the wane as far as Europe is concerned. A lack of support from European socialist leaders is undermining his chances. Not surprising when you consider that Blair is about as obviously a centre-right politician as you're going to get (and further to the right on many issues, like foreign policy, where he is a Bushite neo-conservative). Is that really going to be attractive to anyone on the left? I don't think so.
Significantly, the few leaders who have spoken out in support of Blair are centre-right leaders like France's Nicholas Sarkozy, Germany's Angela Merkel, and the UK's Gordon Brown. Left-wingers like Austria's Werner Fayman and Spain's Jose Luis Zapatero have criticised Blair for being too close to Bush. In any case, the centre-left in Europe is not what it once was; despite a big success in Greece recently, they did not do well in the Euro elections in June and they lost badly in Germany last month. So it may be that the left does a deal with the right whereby the left gets the EU foreign minister position whereas the right gets to pick the president.
The irony is, of course, that Blair could be the ideal centre-right candidate. But I don't think the European right would trust him enough.
It's a pity this whole argument isn't taking place next year - at which point (presumably) Gordon Brown would be eligible for the job. While Brown is not that much better than Blair in terms of political pedigree, he is some slight improvement with regard to most issues - and it would be hilarious for a UK Tory government to have to watch Gordon Brown in that position in Europe. It might even lead to Britain leaving the EU - which in some ways might be a good thing. Tony Blair as EU president might have a similar result, but we can't submit hundreds of millions of EU citizens to leadership by a war criminal just because it makes Dave Cameron's life difficult. That's not fair.
Significantly, the few leaders who have spoken out in support of Blair are centre-right leaders like France's Nicholas Sarkozy, Germany's Angela Merkel, and the UK's Gordon Brown. Left-wingers like Austria's Werner Fayman and Spain's Jose Luis Zapatero have criticised Blair for being too close to Bush. In any case, the centre-left in Europe is not what it once was; despite a big success in Greece recently, they did not do well in the Euro elections in June and they lost badly in Germany last month. So it may be that the left does a deal with the right whereby the left gets the EU foreign minister position whereas the right gets to pick the president.
The irony is, of course, that Blair could be the ideal centre-right candidate. But I don't think the European right would trust him enough.
It's a pity this whole argument isn't taking place next year - at which point (presumably) Gordon Brown would be eligible for the job. While Brown is not that much better than Blair in terms of political pedigree, he is some slight improvement with regard to most issues - and it would be hilarious for a UK Tory government to have to watch Gordon Brown in that position in Europe. It might even lead to Britain leaving the EU - which in some ways might be a good thing. Tony Blair as EU president might have a similar result, but we can't submit hundreds of millions of EU citizens to leadership by a war criminal just because it makes Dave Cameron's life difficult. That's not fair.
28 October 2009
Catholic Church: Dawkins tells it like it is
I've resisted the temptation to write another critical blog post about the Catholic Church, as Richard Dawkins in the Washington Post has done it much better than I can. This is one of the best articles ever written. Get this:
It's a home run out of the park! The guy is a genius.
What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders.
They [Anglican clergy converting to Catholicism] just can't stomach the idea of women priests. One wonders how their wives can stomach a husband whose contempt for women is so visceral that he considers them incapable even of the humble and unexacting duties of a priest.
It's a home run out of the park! The guy is a genius.
27 October 2009
The REAL extremists in society go unchecked and unnoticed
Excellent articles by Mark Thomas and Henry Porter on the continued growth of the UK's police state - in particular, the use of a covert surveillance network to monitor "domestic extremists".
"Domestic extremist" is a new category which encompasses such "dangerous" people as anti-war demonstrators, climate change activists, and animal rights protesters.
As the Guardian reports,
ACPO seems to be largely unaccountable to the public and is exempt from Freedom of Information requests as it's a private body - as this letter makes clear.
So what we have is a situation where unaccountable covert operations are taking place to monitor people who in most cases have committed no crime and have no criminal record.
Even if you do something as anodyne and uncontroversial as going to an anti-war or climate change demonstration, or attending a public meeting about airport expansion, you could be a candidate for tracking via the automatic number-plate recognition system.
When confronted with the notion that this surveillance of people who have done nothing wrong - and are very unlikely to do anything wrong, except if you call embarrassing the government being wrong - was unacceptable, Anton Setchell, national co-ordinator of domestic extremism operations for ACPO, retorted: "everyone who has a criminal record did not have one once."
Of course, that's an argument for 24/7 surveillance of the whole population. Which is where we're headed - by stealth. This country is becoming surveyed up to the eyeballs (or the camera-eye-balls) and we are making it easier for an authoritarian dictatorship to take over in the next few decades than you can possibly imagine.
Perhaps most annoying about this is that some of the biggest extremists in our society - for example, the kind of homophobes that beat up a police trainee in Liverpool earlier this week - aren't being tracked at all. Despite the fact that they are causing far more violence than any climate change protester. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that ACPO's definition of what constitutes a 'domestic extremist' is determined by its political agenda - which is extreme right wing.
Other dangerous groups who seem to have so far escaped surveillance as domestic extremists are:
"Domestic extremist" is a new category which encompasses such "dangerous" people as anti-war demonstrators, climate change activists, and animal rights protesters.
As the Guardian reports,
Three national police units responsible for combating domestic extremism are run by the "terrorism and allied matters" committee of the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo). In total, it receives £9m in public funding, from police forces and the Home Office, and employs a staff of 100...
Surveillance officers are provided with "spotter cards" used to identify the faces of target individuals who police believe are at risk of becoming involved in domestic extremism. Targets include high-profile activists regularly seen taking part in protests. One spotter card, produced by the Met to monitor campaigners against an arms fair, includes a mugshot of the comedian Mark Thomas.
ACPO seems to be largely unaccountable to the public and is exempt from Freedom of Information requests as it's a private body - as this letter makes clear.
So what we have is a situation where unaccountable covert operations are taking place to monitor people who in most cases have committed no crime and have no criminal record.
Even if you do something as anodyne and uncontroversial as going to an anti-war or climate change demonstration, or attending a public meeting about airport expansion, you could be a candidate for tracking via the automatic number-plate recognition system.
When confronted with the notion that this surveillance of people who have done nothing wrong - and are very unlikely to do anything wrong, except if you call embarrassing the government being wrong - was unacceptable, Anton Setchell, national co-ordinator of domestic extremism operations for ACPO, retorted: "everyone who has a criminal record did not have one once."
Of course, that's an argument for 24/7 surveillance of the whole population. Which is where we're headed - by stealth. This country is becoming surveyed up to the eyeballs (or the camera-eye-balls) and we are making it easier for an authoritarian dictatorship to take over in the next few decades than you can possibly imagine.
Perhaps most annoying about this is that some of the biggest extremists in our society - for example, the kind of homophobes that beat up a police trainee in Liverpool earlier this week - aren't being tracked at all. Despite the fact that they are causing far more violence than any climate change protester. It's hard to avoid the conclusion that ACPO's definition of what constitutes a 'domestic extremist' is determined by its political agenda - which is extreme right wing.
Other dangerous groups who seem to have so far escaped surveillance as domestic extremists are:
- the UK Conservative Party, which is a European alliance with neo-Nazi homophobes from Latvia and Poland;
- the current leadership of the Roman Catholic church, which is forging an alliance of reactionaries by poaching the most conservative elements of the Church of England;
- the war criminal Tony Blair.
It's a crazy world when innocent people are molested for going about their business, while the real nutters are allowed a free rein. But what can you do?
Monbiot on Blair - this is a classic
I love this from George Monbiot in the Guardian:
"Making this ruthless liar EU president is a crazy plan. But I'll be backing Blair".
Monbiot makes the very interesting argument that if Blair were EU president, he would probably have to travel to countries where the crime of aggression - waging an unprovoked international war - is recognised (it isn't in the UK, worryingly). And that would provide an opportunity to arrest the bastard.
Blair would of course argue that there was provocation - that Saddam Hussein was a 'clear and present danger' to the West. But since the evidence for that is about as good as the infamous 'dodgy dossier', I wouldn't expect that evidence to get him out of the hole.
It's a crazy plan, perhaps. And yet it might just work. Good on ya George (Monbiot, not Bush, obviously).
"Making this ruthless liar EU president is a crazy plan. But I'll be backing Blair".
Monbiot makes the very interesting argument that if Blair were EU president, he would probably have to travel to countries where the crime of aggression - waging an unprovoked international war - is recognised (it isn't in the UK, worryingly). And that would provide an opportunity to arrest the bastard.
Blair would of course argue that there was provocation - that Saddam Hussein was a 'clear and present danger' to the West. But since the evidence for that is about as good as the infamous 'dodgy dossier', I wouldn't expect that evidence to get him out of the hole.
It's a crazy plan, perhaps. And yet it might just work. Good on ya George (Monbiot, not Bush, obviously).
26 October 2009
Blair had better watch it
Now here's a good headline:
Tony Blair warned: fight or you'll lose EU job (Guardian)
I hope Blair doesn't go round fighting, as that would give a lot of people the excuse they've been waiting for to lay one on the bastard.
Perhaps someone should point out, in any case, that it might be a good idea to, y'know, have a president we actually voted for?
I was in Chelmsford last Saturday and there was a guy on a soapbox in the high street with a UK Independence Party rosette on talking about how bad the EU was. There were up to 2 people listening to him at a time. Both with UKIP rosettes on. I'm now convinced that UKIP is a front funded by the EU to make the anti-EU side seem stupid by making the arguments in the most lame and unconvincing way. We need a proper left-of-centre anti-EU movement. So how about it, kids? Come on, otherwise we're gonna get Tony Blair as President.
Tony Blair warned: fight or you'll lose EU job (Guardian)
I hope Blair doesn't go round fighting, as that would give a lot of people the excuse they've been waiting for to lay one on the bastard.
Perhaps someone should point out, in any case, that it might be a good idea to, y'know, have a president we actually voted for?
I was in Chelmsford last Saturday and there was a guy on a soapbox in the high street with a UK Independence Party rosette on talking about how bad the EU was. There were up to 2 people listening to him at a time. Both with UKIP rosettes on. I'm now convinced that UKIP is a front funded by the EU to make the anti-EU side seem stupid by making the arguments in the most lame and unconvincing way. We need a proper left-of-centre anti-EU movement. So how about it, kids? Come on, otherwise we're gonna get Tony Blair as President.
24 October 2009
Now 8 million people know that Griffin is a lame-ass punk
Well I watched the episode of Question Time on the iPlayer last night (we were just too knackered to watch it Thursday night) and all I can say is: well done Bonnie Greer. The politicians on the panel (I mean, the non-fascist politicians) were all OK, although they all made the mistake of trying to compete with the BNP by sounding tough on immigration. Whereas in fact, while lack of funds for local authorities to provide services for immigrants in certain local areas is a huge concern, the fact is that without the huge influx of cheap highly skilled labour from the EU accession countries from 2003 onwards, the UK economy would have gone down the toilet a whole lot quicker than it actually did.
But Bonnie Greer showed Nick Griffin up to be the incoherent, preposterous blubbermouth that he really is. Griffin: "we want only the indigenous population that were here 17,000 years ago to be allowed to stay". Bonnie: "what about the Romans, Nick? They had people of every colour in their society and their armies... and when the empire collapsed those people were mostly left here".
Griffin couldn't answer any of the substantive arguments. Worse, he tried to laugh off serious criticism. Worse still, when questioned by a "non-indigenous" member of the audience who asked "I love this country, Nick - where am I supposed to go instead?" he said "you'll be allowed to stay". So he didn't even have the guts to tell someone, face to face, that he wanted them out of the country.
Worst of all, Griffin wasn't even able to give a straight answer to whether he was, or had ever been, a holocaust denier. He claimed that European law wouldn't let him. Bullshit!
I'm really pleased Griffin went on Question Time, and I think David Dimbleby (who I normally think is a pompous right-winger) did quite a good job putting him on the spot. 8 million people saw the show, apparently, and I would be extremely surprised if there was any uptick in support for the BNP as a result of this cringeworthy performance. Griffin has been revealed to be the lamest of opportunistic hack politicians and with any luck, this will be seen in retrospect as the point where the party's decline into irrelevance started.
UPDATE: A poll in the Telegraph conducted immediately after the programme shows that 22 percent of voters 'would consider' voting for the BNP. Meanwhile, support has increased from 2% to 3% over the last month. But that's not even a statistically significant increase. Whilst there's no way we should be complacent about the BNP polling even 1%, these kind of numbers suggest that the Question Time appearance is not going to make the BNP an electoral threat anytime soon.
But Bonnie Greer showed Nick Griffin up to be the incoherent, preposterous blubbermouth that he really is. Griffin: "we want only the indigenous population that were here 17,000 years ago to be allowed to stay". Bonnie: "what about the Romans, Nick? They had people of every colour in their society and their armies... and when the empire collapsed those people were mostly left here".
Griffin couldn't answer any of the substantive arguments. Worse, he tried to laugh off serious criticism. Worse still, when questioned by a "non-indigenous" member of the audience who asked "I love this country, Nick - where am I supposed to go instead?" he said "you'll be allowed to stay". So he didn't even have the guts to tell someone, face to face, that he wanted them out of the country.
Worst of all, Griffin wasn't even able to give a straight answer to whether he was, or had ever been, a holocaust denier. He claimed that European law wouldn't let him. Bullshit!
I'm really pleased Griffin went on Question Time, and I think David Dimbleby (who I normally think is a pompous right-winger) did quite a good job putting him on the spot. 8 million people saw the show, apparently, and I would be extremely surprised if there was any uptick in support for the BNP as a result of this cringeworthy performance. Griffin has been revealed to be the lamest of opportunistic hack politicians and with any luck, this will be seen in retrospect as the point where the party's decline into irrelevance started.
UPDATE: A poll in the Telegraph conducted immediately after the programme shows that 22 percent of voters 'would consider' voting for the BNP. Meanwhile, support has increased from 2% to 3% over the last month. But that's not even a statistically significant increase. Whilst there's no way we should be complacent about the BNP polling even 1%, these kind of numbers suggest that the Question Time appearance is not going to make the BNP an electoral threat anytime soon.
21 October 2009
A little light weekend reading
In advance of the BNP's appearance on Question Time tomorrow, the excellent Wikileaks site has published the party's membership list as of April 2009. Have a look and check if any of your friends, family or work colleagues has a guilty secret.
Vatican makes the lines clearer: it's time to jump ship, Michael
Only a few days after my previous post about Michael Moore and progressives vs conservatives in the Roman Catholic church, the news emerges that the Vatican has set up a special section of the Catholic Church especially for 'conservative' (i.e. reactionary, sexist, homophobic) Anglicans unhappy with 'dangerous' reforms such as female bishops, to jump ship.
It's an calculated play by the Catholic church to boost its numbers at the expense of the Anglicans. And if I were Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, I'd be very pleased.
Why? Because this is his chance to get rid of all the reactionary idiots who have been standing in the way of the Anglican church actually being something relevant for the modern world rather than the middle ages. This is the break that liberals in the C of E have been waiting for.
The present situation is confused, with the Catholic church containing its fair share of people with a brain in amongst all the reactionary Stalinists and people who are content to let the Vatican do their thinking for them. Conversely, the Anglican church features its fair share of dorks in amongst the enlightened modern Christians.
It'd be much easier if all the sexist homophobe assholes jumped ship for the RC church, in exchange for people who have some hope of integrating into modern society.
Of course, this means that the best place for Michael Moore to be is in the US Episcopalean church, not the Catholic church. So how about it, Michael? When you gonna jump ship?
It's an calculated play by the Catholic church to boost its numbers at the expense of the Anglicans. And if I were Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, I'd be very pleased.
Why? Because this is his chance to get rid of all the reactionary idiots who have been standing in the way of the Anglican church actually being something relevant for the modern world rather than the middle ages. This is the break that liberals in the C of E have been waiting for.
The present situation is confused, with the Catholic church containing its fair share of people with a brain in amongst all the reactionary Stalinists and people who are content to let the Vatican do their thinking for them. Conversely, the Anglican church features its fair share of dorks in amongst the enlightened modern Christians.
It'd be much easier if all the sexist homophobe assholes jumped ship for the RC church, in exchange for people who have some hope of integrating into modern society.
Of course, this means that the best place for Michael Moore to be is in the US Episcopalean church, not the Catholic church. So how about it, Michael? When you gonna jump ship?
20 October 2009
We need to give the BNP enough rope to hang themselves
An interesting debate has been raging about whether the British National Party should be on Question Time this week. Several prominent politicians, including Peter Hain and Alan Johnson, have said they shouldn't.
Clearly the BNP is the biggest bunch of fascist assholes operating in the UK. Nick Griffin is a fatboy version of Adolf Hitler. It would be funny if millions of people weren't voting for this shit.
But because millions of people are voting for this shit, the BBC is quite right that it has to invite the BNP on to Question Time - it is, after all, meant to be impartial.
I think that if the BNP was kept off the programme they would be able to present themselves as the victims of a witch-hunt, which in the long run would work to their advantage.
Instead, if Griffin goes on the programme and talks what will undoubtedly be a load of fascist claptrap, he will be exposed as one of the most dangerous people in Britain, with stupid and incoherent arguments, and it is unlikely that BNP support will go anywhere but down the plughole. This process will be made easier if the other participants in the programme - Chris Huhne, Bonnie Greer, Jack Straw and Baroness Warsi - are even halfway competent. And I think they will be at least that.
One problem for the major parties, of course, is that their own rhetoric - particularly on issues like immigration and national security when they try to 'talk tough' - often sounds like the BNP, and one can't blame voters for being confused. But that's the major parties' fault. Griffin could quite reasonably claim that Gordon Brown's phrase "British jobs for British workers" sounds like something out of the BNP manifesto. Because, let's face it, it does. So Jack Straw might have a bit of explaining to do there. But if this process helps other parties become less like the BNP that's surely a good thing.
12 October 2009
Does Michael Moore prove that Catholicism is progressive?
An interesting post from Austen Iverleigh at Comment is Free about Michael Moore.
In a recent Youtube clip, the extreme right-wing Fox News host Sean Hannity invites Moore to classify himself as an "unapologetic socialist."
It's a sad comment on contemporary America (and indeed Britain) that Moore didn't just say "yes I am". Instead he said "I am a Christian" and then got into an argument with Hannity about the true nature of Christianity - or to be more specific, Catholicism.
Moore wins out in this instance, because Hannity is an ignorant bully-boy moron, just like everyone else on Fox News.
And I'd certainly agree that there's a lot that's socialistic about Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels. But what about Roman Catholicism in particular? Is it a progressive ideology?
Overall I would have to say that Catholicism as laid down by the leader of the Catholic Church - i.e. the Pope - cannot be progressive, because it is fundamentally characterised by two reactionary assumptions. These are:
In a recent Youtube clip, the extreme right-wing Fox News host Sean Hannity invites Moore to classify himself as an "unapologetic socialist."
It's a sad comment on contemporary America (and indeed Britain) that Moore didn't just say "yes I am". Instead he said "I am a Christian" and then got into an argument with Hannity about the true nature of Christianity - or to be more specific, Catholicism.
Moore wins out in this instance, because Hannity is an ignorant bully-boy moron, just like everyone else on Fox News.
And I'd certainly agree that there's a lot that's socialistic about Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels. But what about Roman Catholicism in particular? Is it a progressive ideology?
Overall I would have to say that Catholicism as laid down by the leader of the Catholic Church - i.e. the Pope - cannot be progressive, because it is fundamentally characterised by two reactionary assumptions. These are:
- the completely anti-democratic principle that the Pope is chosen by a conclave of Catholic leaders (cardinals) rather than elected by churchgoers;
- the stipulation that women cannot be Catholic priests.
There are other things that the Catholic church does that I disagree with but these seem to me to be the two obvious stipulations that make it impossible to see the "official" Catholic church line as anything but reactionary. It's built on authoritarianism and misogyny.
Now it's certainly the case that there are millions of people in the Catholic church - including Michael Moore - who are very left of centre politically. And they may well be left of centre because they're influenced by Christian teachings. But to me, they're left of centre despite being in the Catholic church.
So why stay in the Catholic church if the leadership is diametrically opposed to your views about the way it should be run? Why not leave and join another church? It's not as if there aren't a lot to choose from.
That's the question I'd like Michael Moore (whom I have the greatest respect for, by the way) to answer.
09 October 2009
Why has Barack Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize?
????
I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the guy, and he deserves the Ted Kennedy memorial prize for not being George W Bush, or something like that.
But after only 9 months in the job can anybody really say that he's done enough to qualify for this prize? Is not starting any more wars enough to qualify?
If he'd pulled troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, created a Palestian state, managed to persuade Robert Mugabe to give up the presidency without bloodshed, and brought proper democracy to China - and indeed to the US and the UK - then maybe, just maybe. But it all feels a bit premature.
The Nobel Prize committee says the reward is for intentions rather than achievements. But that's like saying we should give the 14-year old kid who's the fastest in the world at 100 metres for his or her age the Olympic Gold medal on the basis that they 'intend' to win the title one day soon. I thought it was meant to be an achievement award? By all means let's have a "pre-Noble" for the Person Most Likely To, or something. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.
Next up: a Mercury Music prize for my new avant garde glam rock project, "Lawrence Stole My Evolver." Because I haven't recorded it yet, but I've got every intention of it being the best album ever made. Which must be enough, right?
I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the guy, and he deserves the Ted Kennedy memorial prize for not being George W Bush, or something like that.
But after only 9 months in the job can anybody really say that he's done enough to qualify for this prize? Is not starting any more wars enough to qualify?
If he'd pulled troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, created a Palestian state, managed to persuade Robert Mugabe to give up the presidency without bloodshed, and brought proper democracy to China - and indeed to the US and the UK - then maybe, just maybe. But it all feels a bit premature.
The Nobel Prize committee says the reward is for intentions rather than achievements. But that's like saying we should give the 14-year old kid who's the fastest in the world at 100 metres for his or her age the Olympic Gold medal on the basis that they 'intend' to win the title one day soon. I thought it was meant to be an achievement award? By all means let's have a "pre-Noble" for the Person Most Likely To, or something. But we're getting ahead of ourselves here.
Next up: a Mercury Music prize for my new avant garde glam rock project, "Lawrence Stole My Evolver." Because I haven't recorded it yet, but I've got every intention of it being the best album ever made. Which must be enough, right?
08 October 2009
Possibly a blip, or...
Jeez, Dave Cameron does talk a bag of shite.
It's "more big government that got us into this mess"?! Nah mate, as Hyman Minksy pointed out, Big Government is the thing that's actually keeping us afloat...
Very interesting poll in YouGov today... Tories 40 percent, Labour 31. The lead down below points for the first time in about 10 months. That could be just a blip, of course. Or it could be that people have taken a look at Tory policies... and they don't much like what they see.
Not much cuddly Conservatism left anymore... it's all cheap authoritarian punks like Michael Gove or Liam Fox. These guys don't want small government... they want Big Government shoving a jackboot up yer ass. Just like their friends on the Polish and Latvian far right.
As Millwall so rightly say... F*** em all.
It's "more big government that got us into this mess"?! Nah mate, as Hyman Minksy pointed out, Big Government is the thing that's actually keeping us afloat...
Very interesting poll in YouGov today... Tories 40 percent, Labour 31. The lead down below points for the first time in about 10 months. That could be just a blip, of course. Or it could be that people have taken a look at Tory policies... and they don't much like what they see.
Not much cuddly Conservatism left anymore... it's all cheap authoritarian punks like Michael Gove or Liam Fox. These guys don't want small government... they want Big Government shoving a jackboot up yer ass. Just like their friends on the Polish and Latvian far right.
As Millwall so rightly say... F*** em all.
06 October 2009
Latvia: towards revolution
I haven't blogged anything about the Tory party conference yet as it's simply too duff to comment on. Maybe in a couple of day's time. In the meantime here's an interesting piece from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph about possible collapse in Latvia, which has become an economic basketcase as a result of the implosion of the debt bubble coupled with bone-headed intervention by the IMF:
Welcome to Keynesian economics, kids. If anyone at the IMF had half a clue about macroeconomics they wouldn't be enforcing this idiocy. As it is, it looks like the government could be about to collapse. With youth unemployment over 30%, there's gonna be plenty of kids willing to take to the streets... we could be looking at the EU's newest revolutionary state in a matter of weeks. You thought the far left was only doing its thing in Latin America? Wrong, it's gonna happen in the Baltic. And I fear things could get pretty messy.
Latvia has failed to deliver draconian spending cuts agreed to secure the next tranche of its €7.5bn (£6.85bn) bail-out from the EU, the International Monetary Fund, and Sweden, balking at 20pc cuts in pensions and a further 15pc cut in public wages...
...Latvia's economy contracted by 18.2pc in the twelve months to June, trumped only by Lithuania at 20.4pc. "Latvia's currency peg is back on the agenda, " said Hans Redeker from BNP Paribas. "The government has to relax policy for social reasons. The hardship this winter is going to be unbelievable."
...Washington's Center for Economic and Policy Research said the IMF is enforcing a"pro-cyclical contractionary policy" in Latvia. Foreign banks (mostly Swedish) are being rescued at the cost of local taxpayers. The IMF deal equals 34pc of GDP. Latvia is piling up debt to defend its peg. The policy may backfire in any case. Fiscal contraction is causing tax revenues to implode, feeding a vicious circle.
Welcome to Keynesian economics, kids. If anyone at the IMF had half a clue about macroeconomics they wouldn't be enforcing this idiocy. As it is, it looks like the government could be about to collapse. With youth unemployment over 30%, there's gonna be plenty of kids willing to take to the streets... we could be looking at the EU's newest revolutionary state in a matter of weeks. You thought the far left was only doing its thing in Latin America? Wrong, it's gonna happen in the Baltic. And I fear things could get pretty messy.
03 October 2009
The Blair nightmare may be coming true...
Ireland ratified the goddamn Lisbon treaty so it could be hello President Blair. A sad day for us, Ireland and the EU. America just got rid of the election thief and war criminal George W Bush - so why the hell do we want to install our own version (unelected!) in a position like this?
And also we have been sold out by New Labour - who promised a referendum on the EU constitution only to say we couldn't have a referendum because it was a 'treaty', not a 'constitution' - despite doing pretty much exactly the same thing - and also by the Tories, 80% of whom apparently want a referendum except that Dave Cameron doesn't, and he's not the most democratic guy around so we ain't gonna get one.
I'd rather be out of the EU than serve under President Blair. But how to articulate that without sounding like a member of the goddamn UK Independence Party?
And also we have been sold out by New Labour - who promised a referendum on the EU constitution only to say we couldn't have a referendum because it was a 'treaty', not a 'constitution' - despite doing pretty much exactly the same thing - and also by the Tories, 80% of whom apparently want a referendum except that Dave Cameron doesn't, and he's not the most democratic guy around so we ain't gonna get one.
I'd rather be out of the EU than serve under President Blair. But how to articulate that without sounding like a member of the goddamn UK Independence Party?
30 September 2009
probably not good enough, but at least The Sun don't like it
I didn't watch Gordon Brown's conference speech yesterday. I'm over that phase really. For about 4 years I had to go to the Labour Party Conference and it was bloody awful. Fringe events with terrible food, terrible booze and no relation to anything happening in the outside world.
Stage-managed conference speeches with no relation to outside-world realities, a bunch of sheep applauding at the end (remember Roger Waters? "Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream"...) and woe betide anyone who stepped out of line... any of you kids remember Walter Wolfgang? An octagenarian bundled out of the conference hall for criticising the Iraq war. This weren't Nuremberg 1936 folks, it was Brighton 2005 (or thereabouts)...
So I am glad to be out of it. The only good things about Labour conferences were the possibility of talking to someone decent like Billy Bragg or Tony Benn on the fringe... and the constant search for low-priced records in charity shops. (I was actually on holiday in Brighton last week - before the security iron curtain descended on the place, and managed to pick up a couple of old LPs by the Barclay James Harvest. Good on 'em.)
The conference speech had the usual impact of politician's announcements these days - they're like the rush from a cup of Nescafe with 6 spoonfuls on it. (Me old mate Benny Voller will remember that feeling from Birmingham '92...) You're carried along on a euphoria and coffeee buzzzz for about 10 minutes and then an hour or so later you've got a headache and want to go to bed but your limbs are twitching so you can't. That's political speeches these days. It's Brown, it's Clegg, it's bloody Osborne.
What was in it? Free personal care - but only if you're almost dead already. No compulsory ID cards - unless you want to apply for a passport or a driving licence. A bit of the old Brown fight came back into it (anyone remember the classic days of 2003 - "we're best when we're Labour etc.?) but too little too late.
However, I am made much more happy by the fact that The Sun has decided to back Cameron at the next election. This is the tail wagging the dog really - its readership switched months, if not years, ago. But I was never comfortable with voting for a party that had the backing of Rupert Murdoch - it was a horrible, stinky affair, and if Labour is to be worth anything in the future it has to be in the teeth of opposition from right-wing corporate fascists, not cosying up to them. So the divorce from Wapping is excellent news.
Stage-managed conference speeches with no relation to outside-world realities, a bunch of sheep applauding at the end (remember Roger Waters? "Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream"...) and woe betide anyone who stepped out of line... any of you kids remember Walter Wolfgang? An octagenarian bundled out of the conference hall for criticising the Iraq war. This weren't Nuremberg 1936 folks, it was Brighton 2005 (or thereabouts)...
So I am glad to be out of it. The only good things about Labour conferences were the possibility of talking to someone decent like Billy Bragg or Tony Benn on the fringe... and the constant search for low-priced records in charity shops. (I was actually on holiday in Brighton last week - before the security iron curtain descended on the place, and managed to pick up a couple of old LPs by the Barclay James Harvest. Good on 'em.)
The conference speech had the usual impact of politician's announcements these days - they're like the rush from a cup of Nescafe with 6 spoonfuls on it. (Me old mate Benny Voller will remember that feeling from Birmingham '92...) You're carried along on a euphoria and coffeee buzzzz for about 10 minutes and then an hour or so later you've got a headache and want to go to bed but your limbs are twitching so you can't. That's political speeches these days. It's Brown, it's Clegg, it's bloody Osborne.
What was in it? Free personal care - but only if you're almost dead already. No compulsory ID cards - unless you want to apply for a passport or a driving licence. A bit of the old Brown fight came back into it (anyone remember the classic days of 2003 - "we're best when we're Labour etc.?) but too little too late.
However, I am made much more happy by the fact that The Sun has decided to back Cameron at the next election. This is the tail wagging the dog really - its readership switched months, if not years, ago. But I was never comfortable with voting for a party that had the backing of Rupert Murdoch - it was a horrible, stinky affair, and if Labour is to be worth anything in the future it has to be in the teeth of opposition from right-wing corporate fascists, not cosying up to them. So the divorce from Wapping is excellent news.
27 September 2009
Some thoughts on the German election results and relevance for the UK
Interesting set of election results coming out of Germany at the moment. Looks like Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (centre-right) are going to form a coalition with the Free Democrats (right wing free marketeers). The left parties - Die Linke (hard left) and the Greens - both did well, securing a combined 23% of the vote. The Social Democrats (Blairite) collapsed to 23% of the vote. So the momentum is all with the far left and the far right.
The CDU played the John Major option: portraying Merkel as a 'safe pair of hands'. That seemed to work OK but those new coalition partners in the Free Democrats ain't gonna want business as usual. They're gonna want slash'n'burn. Could get ugly.
So once again in Europe, the Blairite electoral prescription for the centre-left has been tested, and found utterly wanting. Looks like Germany is headed for the same thing that Tony Benn identified for the UK in 1979: "a bit more left, and a bit more right, and a lot less of the soggy centre".
For the moment that means a right-wing approach. But given that the Free Democrats' policies will condemn Germany to the same economic disaster that is currently consuming countries like Latvia and Ireland, we can expect a big shift to the hard left next time round.
The lesson for New Labour in the UK? The centre left is dead. In the new political order it's back to the early 80s - you're either left or you're right. So which is it gonna be, guys? Jon Cruddas knows it's time for the left, but do any of the rest of ya know?
The CDU played the John Major option: portraying Merkel as a 'safe pair of hands'. That seemed to work OK but those new coalition partners in the Free Democrats ain't gonna want business as usual. They're gonna want slash'n'burn. Could get ugly.
So once again in Europe, the Blairite electoral prescription for the centre-left has been tested, and found utterly wanting. Looks like Germany is headed for the same thing that Tony Benn identified for the UK in 1979: "a bit more left, and a bit more right, and a lot less of the soggy centre".
For the moment that means a right-wing approach. But given that the Free Democrats' policies will condemn Germany to the same economic disaster that is currently consuming countries like Latvia and Ireland, we can expect a big shift to the hard left next time round.
The lesson for New Labour in the UK? The centre left is dead. In the new political order it's back to the early 80s - you're either left or you're right. So which is it gonna be, guys? Jon Cruddas knows it's time for the left, but do any of the rest of ya know?
26 September 2009
Wot I read on ma hols, like
Just had a nice relaxing week down in Sussex. On Friday - the day before we were leaving to come home - I walked into a bookshop in Bognor Regis (a good contender for Britain's most boring seaside town - makes Clacton-on-Sea look like Brighton. There is a delicatessen selling the best damn coffee I've had all year but that's it. Only go to Bognor if you want a decent coffee, and even then, get out fast) and came away with a copy of David Peace's The Damned United. At 4pm, we got home. By midnight, I'd finished the book.
An absolute classic. I have read one previous effort by Peace - Nineteen seventy-four - which is a great, if wearing and brutal, read. The guy makes Irvine Welsh look like a faker and a wuss. Damned United is light reading by comparison - no-one dies, not literally anyway. A smattering of violence, for sure, but this is the seventies, kids. When the terraces were like something off a Tarantino film but with a soundtrack by Sweet. Or so we are told, anyway.
It's a memoir from a different era. Today's "Premiership" football (i.e. soccer for non-Brits) is a pile of steaming and I mean that without reservation. It's inflated egos with inflated wads and inflatable brains, bouncing off each other, a personal benefit gig for Rupert Murdoch week after week after week. And you fucking idiots out there FEEDING THE BEAST. Paying your Two thousand quid a year for season tickets or Sky in the living room, or a New Dealer to pretend to beat you up to give it some terrace authenticity, or whatever the hell it is You People do.
Only 12 months after Brian Clough departed Leeds United in 1974, Pink Floyd saw it coming: "Welcome To The Machine". Football was, for sure, changing into a piece of shit even then. But it weren't quite there. Because someone like a Clough, or a Bobby Robson, or (a few years later) a Graham Taylor could take on the money men and win something. The small man still had a chance. Now? Ha ha. Iain Duncan Smith's "quiet man" would have more chance of winning the premiership than anyone of yer fair-to-middling clubs out there.
Oddly enough, the length of Brian Clough's "reign" at Leeds - 44 days - is the most modern aspect of seventies Leeds Utd, the one way in which they were looking Forward Not Back. Any of you kids remember Colin Todd? He lasted 90 days at Derby a few seasons ago. That was considered short but not exceptional. Nowadays if you lose two on the trot you might be for the chop. Whereas in fact, anyone managing a premiership club that isn't Man Utd, Chelsea or a couple of others with big pockets (temporarily) is doing very well to be optimistic enough just to turn up on the field with their team.
If I was Prime Minister (unlikely!) my New Years' Honours list for 2010 would be a knighthood for any football manager in a premiership team with less money than the Big Five (or Six or whatever). because it takes guts to do the job without the resources. They also serve, who only stand and wait for the takeover by foreign billionaires.
And after that nice little gesture, the grand redistribution of resources in favour of the small clubs - football's Cultural Revolution, if you like - could begin. Starting with the compulsory purchase of all teams by the relevant local authorities, who would then sell controlling stakes in the club off to supporters. Or something like that, anyway... I'm sure Brian Clough would have approved. He was, as The Damned United tells us, a socialist.
I will be ordering the DVD of the same name very soon and I'll let you know how that one goes.
An absolute classic. I have read one previous effort by Peace - Nineteen seventy-four - which is a great, if wearing and brutal, read. The guy makes Irvine Welsh look like a faker and a wuss. Damned United is light reading by comparison - no-one dies, not literally anyway. A smattering of violence, for sure, but this is the seventies, kids. When the terraces were like something off a Tarantino film but with a soundtrack by Sweet. Or so we are told, anyway.
It's a memoir from a different era. Today's "Premiership" football (i.e. soccer for non-Brits) is a pile of steaming and I mean that without reservation. It's inflated egos with inflated wads and inflatable brains, bouncing off each other, a personal benefit gig for Rupert Murdoch week after week after week. And you fucking idiots out there FEEDING THE BEAST. Paying your Two thousand quid a year for season tickets or Sky in the living room, or a New Dealer to pretend to beat you up to give it some terrace authenticity, or whatever the hell it is You People do.
Only 12 months after Brian Clough departed Leeds United in 1974, Pink Floyd saw it coming: "Welcome To The Machine". Football was, for sure, changing into a piece of shit even then. But it weren't quite there. Because someone like a Clough, or a Bobby Robson, or (a few years later) a Graham Taylor could take on the money men and win something. The small man still had a chance. Now? Ha ha. Iain Duncan Smith's "quiet man" would have more chance of winning the premiership than anyone of yer fair-to-middling clubs out there.
Oddly enough, the length of Brian Clough's "reign" at Leeds - 44 days - is the most modern aspect of seventies Leeds Utd, the one way in which they were looking Forward Not Back. Any of you kids remember Colin Todd? He lasted 90 days at Derby a few seasons ago. That was considered short but not exceptional. Nowadays if you lose two on the trot you might be for the chop. Whereas in fact, anyone managing a premiership club that isn't Man Utd, Chelsea or a couple of others with big pockets (temporarily) is doing very well to be optimistic enough just to turn up on the field with their team.
If I was Prime Minister (unlikely!) my New Years' Honours list for 2010 would be a knighthood for any football manager in a premiership team with less money than the Big Five (or Six or whatever). because it takes guts to do the job without the resources. They also serve, who only stand and wait for the takeover by foreign billionaires.
And after that nice little gesture, the grand redistribution of resources in favour of the small clubs - football's Cultural Revolution, if you like - could begin. Starting with the compulsory purchase of all teams by the relevant local authorities, who would then sell controlling stakes in the club off to supporters. Or something like that, anyway... I'm sure Brian Clough would have approved. He was, as The Damned United tells us, a socialist.
I will be ordering the DVD of the same name very soon and I'll let you know how that one goes.
24 September 2009
So what if Obama won't talk to Brown? The history of the 'special relationship' is diabolical
[Note: very difficult to put links in with the phone I'm blogging from on holiday - they'll have to wait until I get back.
The Guardian leads today on a supposed snub for Gordon Brown from the White House - not being allocated a one-on-one meeting with Barack Obama.
I'm actually rather pleased about this. To paraphrase Adam Smith, when the US President and the UK Prime Minister get together it is seldom good news for the rest of the world. In recent years, any meeting between the war criminal and election thief George W Bush and his low-rent UK counterpart Tony Blair inevitably concluded with a new foreign policy monstrosity designed to inflict yet more pain & suffering on the long-suffering peoples of the middle east.
So why prioritise gordon brown - Blair's understudy and a politician with an 8-month time limit at best - rather than spending time with political leaders with more of a future? It makes a lot of sense for Obama to ignore Brown in this situation.
The less of the 'special relationship' we see these days, the better, frankly.
The Guardian leads today on a supposed snub for Gordon Brown from the White House - not being allocated a one-on-one meeting with Barack Obama.
I'm actually rather pleased about this. To paraphrase Adam Smith, when the US President and the UK Prime Minister get together it is seldom good news for the rest of the world. In recent years, any meeting between the war criminal and election thief George W Bush and his low-rent UK counterpart Tony Blair inevitably concluded with a new foreign policy monstrosity designed to inflict yet more pain & suffering on the long-suffering peoples of the middle east.
So why prioritise gordon brown - Blair's understudy and a politician with an 8-month time limit at best - rather than spending time with political leaders with more of a future? It makes a lot of sense for Obama to ignore Brown in this situation.
The less of the 'special relationship' we see these days, the better, frankly.
17 September 2009
Barack Obama vs the US hard right: race is only a small part of the issue
The fight that Barack Obama is facing to get extremely moderate (indeed, too moderate) healthcare legislation passed in the face of vocal right-wing opposition took on a new turn yesterday when Jimmy Carter said that much of the opposition to Obama was based on racism. (Note: Carter did not say, as one commentator on my last post suggested, that "anyone who disagrees with Obama is a racist". That's total b.s.)
I don't think Carter was wrong to say race was a factor in the opposition to Obama - particularly in the South - but I don't think any Democratic president trying to pursue an alternative to the Bush administration's policies (even if it is a somewhat wishy-washy alternative) would face a much easier ride. Fundamentally this is about big corporate America using any means necessary to fight against any encroachment of democracy on its ability to run a fascist dictatorship in the interest of big business. Obama's race is a tool they will use against him to get the result they want, which is his defeat in 2012. If Hilary Clinton had won the presidency they would have used her gender against her instead of her race. When it was Bill Clinton, it was his inability to keep his hands off the White House interns which was used against him. That's how these people operate.
Whereas George W Bush - an ex cocaine abuser who pulled strings to avoid the Vietnam draft, rigged elections, and killed millions of Iraqis and thousands of US troops in an illegal and fraudulently justified war - got a considerably easier ride from the hard right. Why? Because it's OK to be fucking useless, as long as you're Republican and a tool of big business.
So Jimmy Carter is really aiming at too small a target. He's made a big splash by pointing out the race dimension of the opposition to Obama, and I'm not saying what he said was wrong. But if he'd taken the opportunity instead to explain how US corporate power is pulling the strings and trying to undermine Obama every step of the way - and how Obama's misguided attempts at a "bipartisan" approach are undermining his own position - how much more of a splash would that have been? Given that Carter was brought down in no small part by those same forces 30 years ago, you'd hope he'd show a bit more nous.
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