Paisley's Pants

Hamas Consult PR Experts Over Political Rebranding

2006-01-27T13:56:00.000Z

In defence of George

2006-01-13T15:06:00.000Z

The continual criticism of George Galloway is getting wearisome to be honest. The Independent devoted three pages to what a disgrace he is during the week; Richard & Judy have a daily segment on Celebrity Big Brother, which inevitably turns into a discussion of just how cruel Galloway is being to Jodie Marsh; and it all came to head for me watching Question Time last night, where Mark Oaten, Norman Tebbit, Mariella Frostrup, and Ed Balls (is there anyone in parliament any more bile-boilingly smug than this odious man?) and Matthew Parris were discussing what a joke Galloway is for being on the show, and how he is neglecting his duty to his constituents. It was time, I thought, to try and redress the balance.

George Galloway is a man of principle. He has a strong sense of morality, and this dictates his political positions. He backs these positions to the hilt with strong argument and rhetorical flair, something that is well documented. Obviously, someone with such strong opinions is going to cause a reaction opposite him, hence Galloway faces such strong opposition from such large portions of the media and political class. Almost invariably, Galloway comes out on top in such confrontation – he has undoubted skill, shown in the Senate last year, and shown again in the election, where he led his party to win a seat in its first election, an entirely unprecedented feat.

This, naturally, rubs his opponents the wrong way, and so they seize upon anything they can in an effort to discredit the man. The infamous meeting with Saddam Hussein, and the continuously quoted out of context 'Sir, I salute your strength, your courage, and your indefatigability', the continued (and entirely fabricated) controversy surrounding the Oil-for-Food programme, and any payments Galloway may have received from it. All of this provides opponents plenty of firepower with which to discredit him.

But why does Galloway generate so much controversy? Because he has no sense of PR, and rightly so. He values his principles over his public-image. He believes firmly, that the truth, and justice, will out, no matter how he is portrayed. And this leads to situations, such as the Hussein meeting in 1994, which would be unpalatable to any other western politician because of the negative PR it would generate. Galloway had no sense of this, but instead went to show his opposition to UN sanctions in place against Iraq, which were starving the poor of the country.

And so to Big Brother. Galloway saw this as a chance to push forward the anti-war argument to a bigger audience, but any such discussion has been edited out by channel 4, and Galloway is continuously bleeped out on the live coverage. It is effective censorship by channel 4, masquerading behind, I presume, this Ofcom set of guidelines. However, double standards are clearly present here, as debate about animal rights is allowed to be aired, whereas people agreeing with Galloway about the war on the first night are edited out. So Galloway is effectively silenced, and his reason for being in the house is removed.

And so it is galling to watch centre ground luminary Mark Oaten, and New Labour lackey Ed Balls mock Galloway, to an appreciative audience (many of whom confessed to be looking for a party to the right of the Conservatives to vote for – step forward the BNP), for making, as Matthew Parris called it ‘a PR blunder’. It highlights just how far style has become prioritised over substance in British politics. The contrast was highlighted by Mark Oaten, who just five minutes earlier had confessed that the three parties, now fighting over the centre ground, lacked any philosophy, any principles.

Galloway comes up against such strong opposition because he is an anomaly in modern politics – he prefers substance to style. It is a sad state of affairs when this is regarded as something to be criticised for.

(see also: Zoe Williams in The Guardian)

Memorial fountain for the Queen Mother

2006-01-10T17:43:00.000Z

Apparently the Royal Family are looking to build a fountain as a memorial to the Queen Mother, and have asked artists to send in their ideas for the fountain... I thought all you loyal readers would like to see my entry before I sent it of to the palace.

Perhaps a brief explanation is in order. My memorial shows the Queen Mother riding godiva style on a horse, showing both her love of the animals, and also allowing gratuitous 'pubes n' tits' pictures (original plans to make the horse shit money, showing her love of gambling, proved too difficult to construct). The horse is showing trampling a group of non-specific darkies, as I'm sure it's what she would have wanted. And finally, rather than water in the fountain, my memorial will have gin, which will liberally spray forth from the bottle she holds aloft, rather like Liberty's torch.

I await the palace's response.

Links

2006-01-10T15:38:00.000Z

Firstly, to the National Secular Society, as I'm always one to jump on a bandwagon, after 'The Root All Evil?' documentary on channel 4 last night, presented by Richard Dawkins.

And secondly, after he declared himself to be finished with blogging (a decision which lasted weeks), Luka Majuka has dipped his toe back into the blogging waters once more, with a changed address, Head Left. That isn't to say he'll be posting anything any time soon, but we can live in hope.

More Big Brother

2006-01-08T21:11:00.000Z

Call me Mr Silly, but is it really sensible to let Michael Barrymore into a house with an indoor swimming pool?

(I'm obviously referring to his lack of confidence in the water. Which is odd, because cocaine usually fills people with confidence, although one should always follow doctors advice and not swim up to two hours after your last line)

Big Brother

2006-01-06T22:38:00.000Z

So George Galloway is in Celebrity Big Brother this year, which is all well and good. As is this rumour aired in Pandora in the Independent today:

* Could Oona King perhaps be tempted to follow the well-trodden path from political has-been to reality TV starlet? I only ask because sources at ITV say the former MP was asked to compete in Dancing On Ice, a version of Come Dancing, to be fronted by Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean.
"For some reason, Oona never made the cut," I'm told. "We don't know if it was her decision or ours, but it's a missed opportunity: look what reality TV did for Neil Hamilton and Ann Widdecombe."
King's office says she's on holiday until 15 January. This has led to separate (and, at the time of going to print, unconfirmed) rumours that she'll be jollifying Celebrity Big Brother.

Apparently BB will be as sadistic as ever this year, if not more so. I don't know if I can think of anything more sadistic than introducing Oona King into the house after a week or so, just to watch GG chew her up and spit her out on live television. Jolly watching all round.

Little Britan receives award for comedy writing...

2005-12-15T13:31:00.000Z

An infinite number of monkeys could write Shakespeare, but it only takes two to come up with Little Britain.

Last night, David Walliams and Matt Lucas were awarded with the inaugural Ronnie Barker award for Comedy Writing at the British Comedy Awards. It is, appropriately, an absolute joke.

Little Britain engages in the cheapest, laziest form of comedy writing, that is, catchprhase comedy. It is the reason it is so successful - the catchphrases translate so very easily into playground language, mainly because they're not too far from it already. While in the first series, there was some element of intelligence in the writing, that has been ironed out in favour of crude stereotyping and the ever-present catchphrases.

The actual humour of catchphrases escapes me. How often is it funny to hear somebody say 'I want that one'? Yet the studio audience, and presumably the audience at home (the show receives absurdly high viewing figures), relish the prospect of this line being said twice an episode. Some would argue that the hunour comes partly from knowing what is going to happen next, but if this is true, then LB lacks the imagination to make the journey from premise to punchline entertaining for the viewer (a failure which is highlighted by the absurd, entirely predictable, but hugely entertaining comedy of errors 'The Worst Week of My Life', shown after LB). Even The Fast Show, the last big catchphrase comedy show, showed imagination, and allowed characters to develop within the established framework of 'what they do' - look at Ted and Ralph, for example.

By all means award Little Britian for gaining high audience figures, or selling a huge amount of merchandise, or even opening the gates for getting comedy off BBC 3 and onto the mainstream channels, but don't reward Matt Lucas and David Walliams for the quiality of their writing, as any quality is woefully absent.

Boris Berezovsky - motivated by greed

2005-12-12T13:22:00.000Z

Boris Berezovsky was the subject of the opening episode of a BBC 2 documentary last week, 'Russian Godfathers' Berezovsky is one of the oligarchs who rose to prominence under Yeltsin. WHat sets him apart from Roman Abramovich et al. is that Berezovsky gained huge political influence in Moscow. So much so that it was him who proposed Vladmir Putin to suceed Yeltsin, which of course he did without election.

Things changed for Berezovsky when Putin took advantage of the huge wave of public support he had and turned on his makers - Mikhail Khordorkovsky, CEO of Yukos oil firm was imprisoned, Berezovsky himself was exiled, and is wanted by interpol. He currently lives in Britain, who granted him political refuge, and Israel, where he his allowed back due to his being a Jew.

Berezovsky now has one mission - to bring down Putin. He operates mainly through his newspapers in Russia and the Ukraine. However, he also financed the Orange Revolution that took place in the Ukraine last year, in which the Kremlin backed Viktor Yanukovych was displaced by the populist Viktor Yuschenko. The protest in Kiev that stretched out for weeks were funded by Berezovsky, in an effort to undermine the Kremlin's influence.

Berezovsky claims his motivation is to do what's good for Russia, and to bring democracy to the country. This is utter rubbish. The man has become obsessed with power, and is trying to win it back. Berezovsky had no regard for democracy when he put Putin in power with no election, and if he still held influence in Russia, he would still not care a jot for the will of the poeple. It is only now that he is exiled that he sees that the word 'democracy' is his key to regaining power. It is a pitiful and cynical manipulation of language that he his employing to justify his actions, and unfortunately it acts to cheapen that which he involves himself in, such as, regretably, the Orange Revolution.

Marines missing Iraq recreate fun

2005-11-29T13:07:00.000Z

The Sun brings us pictures of Marines apparently disgracing the good name of the British armed forces by running around and touching each other while naked. (Insert your own joke here about public schools, sports teams etc...) Apparently the lads were just letting off steam because they were relieved to be back in England after a tour of duty in Iraq.

I personally theink that they should be shipped right back out there - they clearly miss it so much that they want to recreate life in an Iraqi prison run by allied forces. Ah, those halcyon days when we got the prisoners to fight each other naked...

Unfortunately, The Sun won't let me copy the photos form it's website, so I've done a quick mock up of what I'd imagine them to look like:

Hang on a second, think I've got my wires crossed somewhere...

Anyway, if you get off looking at heavily pixilated men rub themselves against each other, The Sun website has the photos here...

"Ah, Mr Blair, come right this way - I have something I'd like you to see... This, Mr Prime Minister, is the door"

2005-11-10T18:53:00.000Z

A big defeat for Tony Blair over on the 90 day detention motion. And yet he claims that MPs are 'out of touch' with public opinion. What he means, is that MPs are out of touch with his opinion. Blair has lead by force of personality throughout his PMship. He has willed his party to back him by sheer faith. When Blair was gold, and could do no wrong in the public's eyes, this worked - MPs were prepared to back him because he could win them votes come election time. However, Blair is now becoming a lame duck, rather like Bush is in America.

Ever since the Iraq war started going wrong, Blair has started to go wrong. Having pinned his reputation so closely to the war, and it being such an article of faith for Blair, he is now suffering as the war goes badly. (The same is true with Bush.) As the progress of the war faltered, and the insurgency began, Blair faced crucial votes on top-up fees and foundation hospitals. Although he won both votes, he was pushed very close to the wire, and for the first time, he looked fallible in power. Quite simply, his power of persuasion through personality (nice aliteration) was waning. Blair however did not react to this, and has tried to carry on the same style of leadership that worked for him in his first term-and-a-half.

Unfortuantely for Blair, the decay has continued as the war has continued to be a weight around his neck. This decay was throust into the public limelight at election time, when so few Labour MPs were using Blair in their election bumpf - he was losing them votes with the public. This fact was also demonstrated by countless opinion polls that showed that Gordon Brown, if he were Labour leader, would win the election with a majority of however many hundreds, compared to Blair's eventual 67.

As Blair's star faded with the public, so has his ability to persuade his parliamentary party through sheer faith. And yet he has so far seemed unable to change his leadership style. Where a better leader would try to adapt, and begin negotiating and compromising to achieve his aims, Blair has simply reacted with incredulity that his old way doesn't work.

With crucial votes on education and health coming up - votes on unpopular policy - Blair needs to start working on building support for his policy. He can no longer rely on the power of the whip to get his party behind him. If he fails to do so, the truth that Blair is a showman, not a politician, will be exposed - he can soundbite, he can debate in the chamber, but he simply cannot build support or a consensus.

Apologies

2005-11-08T19:15:00.000Z

Apologies that is for not posting for a while. Have been very tired recently, having just started a new job, and haven't really got round to getting any news, let alone writing about anything that's happened.

And just my luck, I suppose, that somthing as momentous as the Paris riots takes place in my down time... I'm not going to post about it at length, as I think I would just be repeating what has already been said. I will direct you to read the excellent post by Apostate Windbag, and also browse through Dead Men Left's postings on it.

Just a quick though though, stemming from the quote in Newsweek (linked in Mr Windbag's article) that 'the riots [will] swell the ranks of jihadists in Europe'. What rubbish. These protests are nothing to do with religion, and entirely to do with the treatment of huge numbers of the population as second class citizens. It is, as both bloggers I've linked to point out, a movement coming out of the oppressed poor.

What could well swell the ranks of jihadists in Europe is the continuing policy of both the governments and someparts of the media to demonise and scapegoat young working class muslims. When Europe so completely and cynically rejects them, why should they accept Europe?

Letters to the editor

2005-10-26T17:45:00.000Z

From time to time, readers of this blog take the trouble to write in an effort to draw attention to their causes, and in the hope that I may turn champion for their cause. I have, in an action of what I feel is admirable ambivalence, reproduced a couple here in order to avoid having to do anything about them.

From: Mrs T Angyeman, secretary to the Federation of Banana Republics
Sir,
For too long now, the term 'banana republic' has been used in a solely negative context. We at the Federation of Banana Republics demand that this practice ends immediately, as the comparisons that are made have a negative impact on our standing within the international community. For example, the council elections in Birmingham this year: 1000s of voting cards were found abandonned and uncounted, disgracing the name of democracy in the country, and what does Judge Richard Mawrey say? That the events would 'disgrace a banana republic'. What sort of impact do you think this has on the image of our member countries? It tarnishes the proud tradition of democracy that many of them have. Take, for example, Nicaragua, one of the founding members of the Federation. Nicaragua successfully held elections, only to have America of all people interfer! This is the America that to elect George Bush had to rely on a group of people mainly appointed by other republicans! And they call us corrupt.
I trust that this letter will go someway to redressing this slanderous behaviour.

From: Mr J Smidge
Sir,
With all the talk of banning smoking in public places, will someone please spare a thought for the passive-smokers out there. Those of us who enjoy sitting in other's smoke, who take pleasure in distinguishing between brands and flavours of other's tobacco. There are those of us who have a nicotine addiction, but cannot afford to buy cigarettes to satisfy the cravings. There are those who are not allowed to smoke by wives, husbands, children, pregnancies etc. and relish the prospect of going to a smoky crowded room to get the merest of nicotine rushes, and to surreptitiously licking ashtrays at the end of an evening. Surely by banning smoking in public places, the government is infringing our rights to smoke passively.

If you have any letters for the editor, please address them to Paisley's Pants etc etc. Alternatively, you could send an email to paisleywhitworth[at]fastmail[dot]fm

What an absolute cunt

2005-10-24T17:55:00.000Z

I realise this is quite behind the times, but I still think it's worth publishing. From some Christian news website:

Rev. Bill Shanks, pastor of New Covenant Fellowship of New Orleans... sees God's mercy in the aftermath of Katrina... Shanks says the hurricane has wiped out much of the rampant sin common to the city.
The pastor explains that for years he has warned people that unless Christians in New Orleans took a strong stand against such things as local abortion clinics, the yearly Mardi Gras celebrations, and the annual event known as "Southern Decadence" -- an annual six-day "gay pride" event scheduled to be hosted by the city this week -- God's judgment would be felt.
“New Orleans now is abortion free. New Orleans now is Mardi Gras free. New Orleans now is free of Southern Decadence and the sodomites, the witchcraft workers, false religion -- it's free of all of those things now," Shanks says. "God simply, I believe, in His mercy purged all of that stuff out of there -- and now we're going to start over again."

And presumably it's free of lots of poor people, and lots of black people. And the last line in this article?

Shanks heeded warnings to evacuate New Orleans, and is currently staying with friends in the Jackson, Mississippi, area.

Who says there's justice in the world?

If Hurricane Katrina was God's way of ridding New Orleans of gays, witches, blacks and poor people, then surely Hurrican Wilma is God's way to rid the Florida Keys of overweight, rich white retirees... I don't think any pastor will be saying that from the safety of his friends house.

Unfortunate work

2005-10-24T12:37:00.000Z

For my last post, I had the unpleasant task of going through both the David Cameron and David Davis campaign websites. Not something many people would do voluntarily, I'm sure you'd agree. However, I did find some interesting things.

For example, the outright withholding of the truth in David Cameron's Frequently Asked Questions section - not once does it ask him whether he's taken drugs or not, and that must be one of the most asked questions he's had.

Or the fact that the David Davis site has been cunningly designed to be an absolute arse to use, cunningly reflecting David Davis' personality, in an oh so cunning way.

Again from Mr Davis, the site confirmed for me my feelings that he's just too similar to Robert Kilroy-Silk to be palatable. His voice sounds similar, he looks not too dissimilar, and when he makes a joke during a speech, he has the same smug sneer that flashes across his mouth.

And my visit to Cameron's site really did confirm what a smarmy git he is, and how close to Blair he really is.

So there' the choice for the conservative's - Blair or Kilroy. Unfortunately, the tories have already managed to lose anyone who would support Blair and Kilroy already, to people who are much better at being them than Davis or Cameron are, namely Blair and Kilroy.

British politics: the bastard son of his sister

2005-10-24T11:54:00.000Z

It isn't half incestuous in Westminster these days. For example, from the BBC:

In a speech in Downing Street, Mr Blair will argue that plans for greater autonomy for schools are a "pivotal moment" for his final term in office.

And from the campaign website of David Cameron:

We need greater freedom for schools to manage their own affairs

And from David Davis' campaign manifesto: (warning: don't click on the link unless you can stomach endless pictures of David Davis gurning out at you. Truly hideous)

And in other countries, there is alos less central direction of public services... Taking power away from the centre and giving it to the people... are crucial steps... if school standards are to rise

(excessive editing there, admittedly, but the meaning isn't changed, honest)

So what is the end product of all this? Well, contrary to popular rhyme that 'incest is best', political incest as seen here only leads to one thing:

Wouldn't you be ashamed if your child looked like that? Charles Clarke - the political equivalent of a fenland foundling. Poor bugger.

Lazy follow up post

2005-10-13T14:00:00.000Z

Following up this post, I found this quote somewhere, I forget where.

"We have put out a Statement of Administration Policy saying that his advisers would recommend that he vetoes it if it contains such language," White House spokesman Scott McClellan warned yesterday.The administration said Congress was attempting to tie its hands in the war against terrorism.

The use of Presidential veto is considered to be a sign of a weak presidency. As a point of reference, Bush did not use a single veto in his entire first term.

Bush imperilled

2005-10-10T17:58:00.000Z

The evidence is certainly mounting that Bush is becoming more and more powerless in Washington. The Iraq war, his disastrous performance after Hurricane Katrina, and his unpopular welfare reform are all acting to drag down the president. Politicians in Washington are becoming less likely to support the administration, and power is shifting towards the House and Senate in Washington.

Firstly, Bush's two nominations for the Supreme Court, John Roberts and Harriet Miers, are notable only by their absolute blandness. John Roberts is more understandable. His nomination came at a time when the Senate was busy tearing itself apart over the nomination of Priscilla Owen and others to lower courts, so it seems reasonable to nominate someone who at least has a chance of being confirmed, and at least is moderately conservative. Many on the right weren't happy, but allowed it to pass - the biggest complaint was that Roberts would do nothing to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark abortion case. However, he was confirmed by a 78-22 Senate vote. Miers, on the other hand, looks like having a much tougher ride; however, almost all the complaints are coming from the right. She is yet again a moderate conservative, but she is the moderate conservative that broke the donkey's back, as it were. Right wingers are furious at yet another backward step in the march towards a permanent conservative revolution. The truth is, Bush simply lacks the clout to now get any nomination through that he likes. Instead he must take a more moderate line. (The irony that he is merely reverting back to his original 2000 election pledge of 'compassionate conservatism' is not lost)

The second bit of evidence is that the Senate are putting up more of an opposition over Iraq. In a spending bill, a clause has been added, by a 90-9 vote, that would prohibit the use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment" against anyone in U.S. government custody, regardless of where they are held. This astonishingly bipartisan vote gives a clear indication of how feelings are swinging in Washington, and around the country too. People are growing fed up with Iraq, and associate Bush with Iraq. With midterms coming up next year, it is crucial for any Senator who is looking for re-election to distance himself from an unpopular president. The coattalis effect, where a president's popularity carries his supporters through in elections, also works in reverse.

Coming up to the 2004 election, Bush was still riding fairly high - anger over Iraq had not set in with the American public. However, Hurricane Katrina seemed to act as a catalyst for anti-Bush feeling, and now resentment is growing. I'm not much of a political historian, but I would wager a fair amount that this must be the earliest into his second term that a president has become a lame duck. It is going to be a long a drawn out last 3 years of his presidency.

Tories still need Ken Clarke

2005-09-29T18:52:00.000Z

David Davis and David Cameron both launch their leadership bids today. I watched a bit of their speeches, and an interview with their chosen representative, on the Daily Politics, and a major fact hit me. They are both, Davis is particular, so bland.

Cameron less so. From what little I saw of his speech, he seemed pretty switched on and engaging. David Davis on the other hand, was a different matter. He is the frontrunner in the race, with, it is reckoned, twice the support of Ken Clarke amongst the parliamentary party. However, watching him on the podium, settign out his stall for the campaign ahead, he came across as grey, uninspired and uninspiring. In fact, he reminded me greatly of John Major, and that is never a good comparison.

If the tories are going to fight New Labour on the centre ground, which they must to win votes, then they must be prepared to fight over very little ground. And when the margin is so small, the result depends ever more on charisma, on charm, on that hideous phrase, the 'x factor'. David Davis lacks this. Ken Clarke on the other hand has charisma in spades, which is why he is easily the most recognised face in the leadership election (I'm afraid I can't remember the exact poll figures, but he was around 10% ahead of the next candidate).

Critics of Ken Clarke point out his popularity with the electorate almost as a weakness. How misguided are the tories becoming? Or is it simply that they've become so used to losing elections, their little 'c' conservative instincts tell them not to upset the status quo.

Ken Clarke provides exactly what the tory party needs - a charismatic, recognised face to lead the party. His age does count against him, but he should be able to get the tories up to speed again by the next election, and after that, David Cameron should be ready to take over.

Lib-Dem's shift right?

2005-09-22T19:21:00.000Z

Most people are predicting it, but why then is the Orange Book out of print? From The Independent:

While the authors of the now infamous Orange Book, which advocates a lurch to the right, are busy on the conference fringe, the book itself is in somewhat short supply. A sad notice in the official conference bookshop declares that the party faithful can order the tome and have it posted to their home.
So why no copies of this seminal text? "It's out of print but one of the authors has a few copies left that we can get hold of,"

Now, is it just that it's so popular that they've simply run out of copies to sell, or just that demand was so low that they didn't reprint it? The fact that 'the authors having a few copies left' does summon up images of the lonely self-publishing author, sat at home, surrounded by piles of his own book that nobody wants to buy, and are destined to become Christmas/birthday/bah mitzvah presents for years to come...

Following on...

2005-09-21T19:40:00.000Z

from this post yesterday, it struck me today that the finest example of unions being largely ineffective against an American corporation is the Gate Gourmet situation over the summer. Despite hugely disruptive solidarity action from BA baggage handlers, and the TGWU hard at work negotiating with the Gate Gourmet executives, still nothing has come from negotiations, except the promise of (probably pitiful) compensation. But 500 workers are out of a job with no source of income.

What is more worrying is this statement from Tony Woodley:

"We are in active discussions, we are talking, and we are trying to make progress but with these people [Gate Gourmet's bosses] having switched a gear on so many occasions I wouldn't like to get my hopes up,"

This suggests that he doesn't entirely have a grip on proceedings. In fact, it suggests that the Gate Gourmet executives, far from being in the thrall of the power of the union, are rather merely pandering to them. I would suggest that the GG bosses are letting PR guide their side of negotiations, rather than the TGWU having any real force. Indeed, GG needs the renewed contract from BA, who in turn will only sign once the whole situation has been cleared up neatly. GG are going for the least possible compensation which causes the least possible backlash amongst the sacked workers, and therefore the least possible bad PR.

A situation where someone's livlihood is dictated by such things is entirely wrong, but unfortunately is entirely inevitable with the trade unions so cripplingly emancipated. Thatcher turned them into toothless relics, Blair has done nothing to reverse the process. And now once proud and powerful unions are, on a large scale, impotent in the face of corporate power. Which is why, of course, we must oppose the forces of neo-liberalism, leading to the joyous success here, and here, and here, and here...

Yes! Yes yes yes! But let's not get too carried away, it's just the beginning...

2005-09-20T19:30:00.000Z

Dead Men Left is getting very excited about the German election result, and rightly so. The post ends on this optimistic note:

There is now the potential, probably everywhere, to create broad-based radical parties in opposition to neoliberalism. The language and the style of the politics needed have been around for a while, in the form of the anti-capitalist and anti-war movements; what is now being demonstrated is that the social base exists to support popular parties built on these lines.

I have to agree with his optimism. This seems like it could be the start of quite an exciting time for the left. Hoorah!

(P.S. I'm sure I have posted along these lines somewhere before, but seemed to have mislaid it... If anyone comes across this wandering post, please point it in my direction - the poor dear's probably scared out of his skin out there all alone)

Some niblets about Wal-Mart, ideal for dinner party conversation

2005-09-20T18:31:00.000Z

This is all courtesy of Johann Hari's column in The Independent today, but readable here. The article itself isn't really much - it reads more like an oxfam pamphlet, giving countless case studies in a bid to extract cash, rather than say anything, and his conclusion is more misty-eyed dreaming than anything viable. But, such case studies can be rather interesting, and useful to drop into conversation sometimes. So anyway:

The company has admitted locking workers in at night without a key, supposedly to stop theft. Some employees told The New York Times they were threatened with the sack if they used an emergency exit, and that when someone became ill, it could take hours to get medical help. There have been two decades of court judgments finding they discriminate against women. They pay poverty-level wages: at the time of the buy-out, they offered just £7000 a year for a full-time job.
...
the country they would appear to most love working in is China, where trade unionists are punished with jail. In 2001, the National Labour Committee found that Wal-Mart was paying many suppressed workers seven pence an hour
...
a woman in Bangladesh... was forced to work seven days a week, from 7.45am to 10pm, for six months without a break
...
[In Asda] There is evidence of a "crackdown" on toilet breaks and a slicing of employment benefits: higher pay rates for working weekends and Bank Holidays, for example, have been abolished.
...
In their Wigan store, for example, the men working in the storerooms were told to increase the number of back-breakingly heavy boxes they carry by 40 per cent an hour. This wasn't physically possible without risking a serious injury - but the management wanted them to proceed anyway. Only a strike by Wal-Mart's mortal enemy, the trade unions, saved these men from risking injury.
...
All Asda storeroom staff... are being fitted with electronic tagging equipment while they are at work.

The conclusion that Hari draws is that the Asda workers are somehow leading the fight against Wal-Mart because they are unionised - or 20,000 of them are, at least. This seems to me to be somewhat wishful thinking. The only reason that Wal-Mart are facing problems now that they weren't before is that there simply were no trade unions that they had to worry about before. Now, they have 20,000 employees out of 1.7 million worldwide who belong to a union. The proportion is staggeringly small, as is the size of the problem for Wal-Mart. The unionised British workers are not a wedge that will drive open the chest of the company and expose it's evil exploitative heart - the unions are simply too weak to have any real effect against a corporation of this size. Simply put, the status quo of market driven ethics in business will continue until somebody at government level puts a stop to it, most crucially in America. This, of course, will never happen, as Luka so eloquently points out.

Defining terrorism

2005-09-20T17:52:00.000Z

After all the bother at the UN last week over defining terrorism, I was going to post a little thing about it. Unfortunately Mr Majuka beat me to it, and has done quite a fine job too. I suggest you go and read it (and maybe, like me, pretend it says 'posted by paisley whitworth' at the end of it).

And this comes after he complained about my lack of posting. There's just no pleasing some people.

Biblical scenes in New Orleans

2005-09-02T16:28:00.000Z

It has been said over and over that New Orleans is witnessing 'biblical scenes'. To which I say 'If only'.

Just think how much better off New Orleanites would be if all that water were turned to wine. Looters would become so malcoordinated that they could not loot. All those trapped would be able to drink themselves happy. Even those drowning would be better off - from past experience I can safely say it's much nicer to drown drunk than sober. I do feel sorry for all those stuck in the stadium though - there must be so many pub bores in that building it'd be unbearable.

Anyway, bring on the son of God, say I.

Ken Clarke’s leadership bid

2005-09-02T11:06:00.000Z

It must be rather depressing for David Davis, Malcolm Rifkind, David Cameron et al. There they are, steadfastly and resolutely not in any way fighting the non-battle for the Conservative party leadership all through the summer, when suddenly in the space of a week, the are all but forgotten when Ken Clarke throws his hat (and cigar, probably) into the ring. Now the others can’t get newsprint for love nor money, and if they do, they are usually just being tacked onto the end of a piece about Clarke.

What must be worrying for the other leadership candidates, and for New Labour, is that Clarke seems to be talking a fair bit of sense, something which seems to have been lacking for a while now, and something which will resonate with voters.

From The Independent today:

"The 65-year-old political heavyweight, who described himself as midway through his career, directed his fire at Mr Blair rather than his rivals for the Tory crown. He adopted a strongly liberal approach to anti-terrorism laws, accusing the Prime Minister of a knee-jerk rush to legislation through "moral blackmail" and "unhelpful and undignified" attacks on judges.

He warned that bringing in new laws after every terrorist atrocity could be counterproductive, saying they could feed a sense of panic and enhance the grievances from which the terrorists hoped to derive sympathy. "You do not beat the enemies of freedom by taking freedom away," he said, warning that moderate Muslims were being alienated."

A couple of points to draw from these two paragraphs. Firstly, Clarke is sensibly targeting Blair rather than resorting to in-party fighting. This gives the impression that Clarke is the natural opposition leader, who will hold the government to account. Secondly, he has the centrist policies that will appeal, as he has pointed out, to most voters – the Tories have for to long tried to win elections by appealing to their own voters. (Just as an aside, one can’t help but feel he’s simply stating the bloody obvious. Unfortunately, the bloody obvious has been all too absent recently)

He has ditched the pro-Europe stanch which lost him the last two leadership elections. In doing so, he has gained the support of UKIP (Ken Farage, UKIP MEP is quoted as saying "Ken Clarke is a man of great principle and experience… He says he’s the best man for the job, and we at UKIP agree wholeheartedly"). While this in itself may not be such a bonus, it does indicate that those to the right of the party may be willing to back him.

Critics have said that he is both too old, and too much of a reminder of the Thatcher/Major era. On the first count, this seems a fair point – he will be 69 at the next election. However, until the Tories produce somebody else who can win, there seems to be little choice in the mater. On the second charge, I doubt this will have little baring on a vote – the electorate can have a surprisingly short memory.

Clarke basically seems a shoe-in to the job. Or at least, he should be. Lets not forget that this is the party that got IDS instead of Clarke on 2001, although with the rule changes coming in, this shouldn’t happen again. Clarke gives the Tories a viable chance in defeating Labour in 2009.
And the other candidates for the leadership? Malcolm Rifkind is reduced to a weak criticism over consistency, and as for David Cameron:

"David Cameron moved to counter Kenneth Clarke's challenge for the Tory leadership yesterday by trying to position himself as the candidate in touch with the concerns of young voters, vowing to make Britain "the most civilised place in the world to live". "

Mmmm, them’s fightin’ words.

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-02T10:31:00.000Z

I recommend looking over China's postings on the topic over at Lenin's Tomb, particularly this one.

The scenes coming in from New Orleans and surrounding places are horrific, that much is plain. What is also horrific is the absolute balls-up any sort of authority has made of imposing, well, any sort of authority.

The attitude towards those left in New Orleans is abhorrent. Around 300,000 people, almost all of them too poor to escape before the hurricane. They are told to wait for aid and rescue, but none is forthcoming. Then, when they try and obtain food for themselves, they are shot by the National Guard. There were pictures on the news last night of people, starved of food and water, showing the cameras where there are supplies locked up, which they are not allowed to take to feed themselves and their families. This zero tolerance policy towards looting has made people fearful, and the inevitable result of this is the gunfights that are taking place in the streets – the natural reaction when a person is afraid is to strike out to defend themselves. This in turn means that any paltry aid efforts are further hampered. People are dying in the streets – the people have, as China says, become ‘expendable’ to the authorities. The current rescue efforts are the equivalent of the US Federal authorities, right up to the President, closing their eyes and sticking their fingers in their ears, and hoping the problem will go away.

China describes it as a ‘catastrophe of mismanagement’, but I think this does not cover it. Mismanagement suggests effort is at least being made, but hampered by mistakes, poor judgement and incompetence. In New Orleans, the biggest obstacle in the way of any aid operation is an absolute reluctance to help. It is sheer obstinacy. I’m not going to try and offer reasons for the reluctance – many others have done so, citing race and class as two possibilities. It is not ‘mismanagement’ hampering the rescue effort, but callousness and selfishness on the part of the authorities – a refusal to manage.

Probably most indicative of the rather sickening attitude of the authorities is President Bush’s speech made on the subject, where he spent more time reassuring the American public that oil prices, and subsequently petrol prices would be kept as low as possible. This was deemed more important than any sort of leadership or decisiveness or willingness to offer help to the stricken region. But then, its not the first time that oil has come before the lives of people. Bush will not come out of this looking good in any way – presumably why he is so keen that "people don't play politics during this period of time". The reason is that he simply cannot win – his reticence and delay speak too loudly in themselves.

McDonalds advertising

2005-08-12T19:52:00.000Z

Just saw a new McDonalds advert, proudly boasting that a McDonalds' burger contains 100% beef, and no additives etc. The advert showed the finished burger, then reversed and showed the meat coming out of a mincer, then going into the mincer as chunks, and then finallys topping at the 'start', which was a fresh cut of beef.

I wonder why McDonalds didn't go the whole way and show the actual source of their meat? Maybe they could show the mass deforestation in South America that their cattle production results in? Or maybe they could show the bloody spectacle of a slaughterhouse?

I don't think it's right that people are shown a ready prepared cut of meat as the start product. First of all, they should be shown the indiginous people being eveicted from their land by various cattle racnhers. Then the deforestation should be shown. Then I think the introduction of cattle should be accompanied by an explanation of the damage that intense grazing does to an ecosystem. Then, in whal could be a nice 'personal' touch, we could follow the story of one cow, taken off to be electrocuted and slaughtered - maybe get Tarrentino to guest direct this, with nicely ironic background music. Maybe then we can get on to the factory butchery, before finally getting onto the making of the burger, although not in a hand worked mincer as shown in the current advert, but the big factory jobs that they use. And of course showing all the meat that they put in, not just the presentable bits. Then maybe we could get round to shaping a burger, and freezing it, and exporting it to Britain. But why stop there? We could follow it all the way to the mouth of the child it's fed to, and follow the individual fat molecules (very BBC documentary) as they clog up the veins and arteries of the child.

I wonder why they don't show all that?

The fruitless quest for Britishness

2005-08-06T12:43:00.000Z

There seems to be a mad search at the moment for ‘Britishness’. It is the concept that all of us reasonable folk subscribe to, and yet the suicide bombers on July 7th did not, despite being British citizens. It is the quality which supposedly should be instilled to all newcomers to the country in citizenship classes. It is the quality which defines us, apart from geographic criteria, as separate from the rest of the world. For some, it is the quality which built the empire; for others, it is that which made Britain swinging in the 60s; for an unfortunate few, it is the image of cool Britannia. Since the revelation that the four suicide bombers on July 7th were all British, there has been a lot of searching, both in the media, on blogs, and in the general public, for the quality of ‘Britishness’ – firstly what it is, and also how it should be ‘taught’ to those coming into the country. The search, however, is futile.

Jonathan Freedland wrote in the Guardian on Wednesday about this very subject. He started off fairly sensibly. Or at least, he quoted someone else saying something sensible. Aatish Taseer, who interviewed second-generation Pakistanis for Prospect magazine said ‘If you denigrate your own culture you face the risk of newer arrivals looking for one elsewhere.’ The second part of this statement is the crucial part, that newer arrivals will look elsewhere for a ‘culture’. It highlights the natural human drive to want to label ourselves, to group ourselves together, to reject individualism and instead form societies, groups and communities. This has been done throughout history, through religion, race, tribal allegiance, nationality and so on. The idea that Taseer proposes is pretty straightforward – young Pakistanis are aligning with their religion over their country (and Britain must be described as ‘their country’, they were after all, born here).

What Freedland proposes is that we take our lead from the Americans, and promote a stronger culture of Britishness, that we push and promote our values so they become more attractive than that of a global religion. In America, Freedland claims, emphasis is placed both on the individual diversity, and also the glue that holds all those individuals together, namely the patriotic ideal of ‘America’.

This is all well and good, but Freedland offers no suggestion for exactly what the culture of Britishness is that we should be promoting. In fact, nowhere that I have looked has been able to define just what this ‘British culture’ is. Many people have offered up their suggestions – as I said at the start, they range from imperialistic to New Labour blandness – but no one has been able to give a clear and unambiguous, and most importantly universal, definition of what Britishness is. The reason, I propose, is that there simply isn’t one. The idea of a national characteristic is a fallacy; a creation by those who want to group themselves together by something other than geography.

Take America for example. Here, nothing is possible if it is ‘un-American’. Political debate rages over the issue of whether something is ‘American’ or not, rather than any issue. But ‘American’ is a hollow concept, as explored by countless writers throughout the 20th century, such as Miller and Steinbeck. If ‘American’ is to subscribe to the core ideal of the American dream, which I would argue it is, then it has been shown time and time again to be a fallacy, a construction to pacify and mollify.

And now in Britain, people are trying to find something similar, a glue to hold together all the disparate people in Britain. They search for that British ideal that we can all subscribe to, to unite us. But they are looking for something which simply doesn’t exist. The ideal of Britishness is as hollow as the American Dream: how can anything unite a well off middle class family in the Home Counties with a single mother living in some council estate in any city? How can the lives of pupils in a boarding school be correlated with the lives of pupils in an inner-city comprehensive, where they must be scanned with metal detectors each morning? The ideas of what Britain is, and what Britain can do for them will be drastically different for each group of people. There is simply no way that a concept can be found, in terms of nationality, that can unite these people.

That is where religion enters the frame. In religious belief, at least under monotheistic religions, all believers are equal in the eyes of God. Religion provides one single, absolute teaching. It provides one single, absolute concept to unite all believers, that is, God. The reason people turn to religion over their country, as Freedland laments, is that religion can offer the sort of certainty and absolute unifying concepts that a nation, or Britain at least, entirely lacks. In the past, it could be argued that the monarchy provided this, or even possibly the concept of the Empire. These two institutions are both dead, and with them, any uniting qualities they may have had.

The idea of Britishness will always be an opinion – it is red telephone boxes, or village cricket, or ‘Jerusalem’, or a football team, or going out and getting pissed on alcopops on a Saturday night, or package holidays in the Costas. It will also remain the rhetoric of right-wingers. The response to the July 7th bombers is not to be found in a futile search for a non-existent concept.

2005-08-05T15:43:00.000Z

"This is America today. A land of degenerates! Is it any wonder that the rest of the world has started to despise them? What kind of... probity can we expect from a nation which conducts itself in such a way? This is a country that professes one thing and then does the opposite - but in full view of everybody! It preaches religion and morality but then its women bahave like whores. It forces other countries to disarm but the it spends all of its money building up the most terrifying arsenal of nuclear and conventional weapons on the planet. It spits in the face of the Muslim world and stampedes through the Middle East in its thirst for the oil to fill its petrol-guzzling cars and then it professes astonishment that a man like Osama Bin Laden can exist and believe what he believes."

(spoken by Munir in The Closed Circle by Jonathan Coe)

"It’s Political Correctness Gone Mad! An Opinion" by Captain Sir Arthur T. Fortesque (ret.)

2005-08-03T09:17:00.000Z

[It is with great pleasure that Paisley's Pants opens up it's pages to other commentators, hopefully to provide a more broad range to you, our dear readers. The first, is Captain Sir Arthur T. Fortesque (ret.), who will comment sporadically on these pages for the coming few months at least.]

Not a week ago, I was in Mr Smith’s, in my humble opinion the finest butcher in Lower Oldhamhall. I do enjoy a once weekly trip into the village, the walk is most pleasant in the morning, and one can work up quite an appetite for Mrs King’s mid-morning tea. After purchasing my usual meats, I saw that Mr Smith had liver for sale. I, being naturally light-hearted in nature, made a comment that I hadn’t had a good faggot for a while. Mr Smith replied that it was hard to come by a good faggot these days, what with all these queers about! Oh how we laughed! But then, to my astonishment, another customer in the shop took umbrage at Mr Smith’s remark, and told him, no less, that the correct term was a homosexual, and that he found the term ‘Queer’ offensive! I was taken aback on two counts here: firstly, that the parish council are so lax as to let these nancy, Guardian reading types into the village; and secondly at the sheer audacity of the aforementioned nancy Guardian reader to challenge Mr Smith on his choice of word to describe these degenerates! It is, as the title of this piece suggests, ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’. I subtitled this piece ‘An Opinion’ cautiously. I’m sure in Blair’s Britain that it’s actually rather frowned upon to hold one.

But where does this culture of political correctness come from? It stems from three things: women, children, and homosexuals.

In the 1960s, I was an officer in Her Majesty’s Army, posted away from England for long periods, and unaware of changes afoot in dear old Blighty. Perhaps if I had been aware of what was going on, maybe I would have been more anxious to come home, rather than defend Her Majesty’s Empire. Obviously the real threat came not from those damned Indian’s wanting independence, but from our very own women. No longer were they sweet, doe eyed dears, waiting back home for their husband’s return; having dinner prepared on the table for when he walks in through the door after a hard day in the city, doing a job far too complex for her fragile little mind, which is more suited to flower arranging. No, suddenly, British women were cutting their hair short, burning their bras and demanding equal rights. The damned cheek of it! After all men had done for them, earning money, keeping them in the style they had become accustomed to – the latest kitchen utensils, needlecraft kits, flower arranging periodicals – after all this, women were just throwing back in our faces! They wanted the opportunity to apply for top jobs, they wanted equal pay, they wanted maternity leave! Surely this last point highlights the difference between men and women the most – women are designed for childbearing, men are designed for hunting. And women, having smaller brains, simply cannot cope with the demands of high-powered jobs. Men gave these concessions. But were women happy? Oh no, now they wanted to change men’s attitudes towards them – they were no longer ‘birds’; one could no longer touch their bottoms in the workplace, no matter how pert; one had to include them in meetings, and at least pretend to note down ideas that they had. But, were women happy? No! They still expected men to give up their seats on a bus or train. It was a disgrace to the good name of this country.

My second point – children. I had a happy, wholesome childhood. Nanny suckled me until I was three, at which point I was sent to prep school in Weston-Super-Mare, and then onto Eton. I remained at boarding school until I was eighteen, at which point I entered the army, training as an officer. My childhood was one of conkers and cricket, of caning and Cartwright, the sadistic Latin Master. I knew not the evils of pop music, of drugs, of sexual intercourse. The children of today are a mess. I know not of one child who is not drugged up to her eyeballs on heroin while she is made pregnant by some oik called Wayne, who more than likely is the product of his own sister. What is more, institutions such as manners and grammar seem to have been lost to an incessant wave of sex and violence on television. Children can no longer amuse themselves without getting pregnant, high or arrested. What happened to the good old conker? And marbles? I know not of one child who has been arrested playing marbles (Stinker came close when a master caught him playing after lights out – gosh he really got such a thrashing. Couldn’t sit down for a week). What is needed with today’s youth is corporal punishment! A good thrashing with the cane never hurt anyone! But what do we have instead? A society which mollycoddles, and nurses children. Take it from me, the Empire was not built by Social Services workers, but by the cricket, caning and good honest buggery of a boarding school education.

Finally, homosexuals. Some have the audacity to suggest that the Empire itself was built by homosexuals, it being inbred in anyone who received a boarding school education. Well let me reply to them that there is a world of difference between the friendly buggery between prefect and boy at school and the debauched world of disease and sleaze that degenerates inhabit. Am I the only one in this green and pleasant land that is shocked at the increase in homosexuals on television, and the subsequent increase of retardation in the young? Look at the television schedules for tonight (which is a Saturday). There are ‘Ant’ and ‘Dec’ presenting some dross where a member of the working class could win a dishwasher; countless footballers poncing around on Match of the Day; and finally a talent show where the winner is openly gay. Now tell me that all this degeneracy is not having an effect on our young population. I myself witnessed a single mother (I shall not pass comment) dressing her son in a pair of pink sports trousers. I confronted the lady, who informed me that her daughter in fact liked the colour pink. I replied that if that was a girl, why was she wearing trousers, and not a pretty pleated skirt like girls were supposed to. I did not understand the reply that I received, as the lady quite failed to enunciate properly, but needless to say, it was not pleasant.

So, here we have the three root causes of political correctness. But why must we do something about them? Well my dear readers, we must act now to maintain decency and standards in this glorious land of ours. It is a sad day when I can no longer go to my local butcher and use the word ‘queer’. It is a sad day when, after being attacked by a terrorist organisation, we cannot say 'Death to all rag-head scum’, and instead must settle for the ineffective ‘Unpleasantness to anyone who had something to do with this, but only after they have been given a fair and honest trial by a foreigner’.

It is a sad day, readers, when I cannot touch the bottom of a lady who catches my eye without being reprimanded. Unfortunately for us, readers, we may have to endure this for some while longer: while Tony Blair’s Labour government is in power, we will continue to have homosexuals (Peter Mandelson) and women (Charles Clarke) thrust upon us in politics, and we will have a government which will continue to fail to ban the working classes from having children. It is time for change, and I urge you all to join me in calling for it.

A warning to those organising the forthcoming World Athletics Championships

2005-08-02T12:54:00.000Z

Don't allow any british policeman. All those foreigners, running as quickly as possible, some of them hurdling over obstacles? You're just asking for trouble...

I'm back...

2005-08-02T12:49:00.000Z

Limbs all in place, sans denghue fever (to the best of my knowledge), countless plastic models of Angkor Wat in handluggage...

It seems like I didn't really miss anything - bombings, police shooting those damned foreigners, racist attacks - business as usual then...

No blogging for a while

2005-07-07T18:19:00.000Z

Right, well I'm off to Cambodia tomorrow, so there won't be anything from me until at least the 1st August.

Cheerio.

Whoopeefuck

2005-07-06T15:56:00.000Z

So London got the Olympics, with the bid based on a games that would provide facilities for the future, and improve the environment on people all over the country - the word 'legacy' was thrown about a lot...

I have just a couple of problems with this. Firstly, it's absolutely bollocks that the games will benefit the rest of the country. The entire thing is centred in Stratford, conveniently close to John Ptrescott's London Gateway development, or whatever it's called. Any tourist benefits will be felt solely in the south. But hey, why should the north complain - they had the Commenwealth games in Manchester...

My second comlaint is more of a question to ask why it is necessary to disguise all this 'legacy-building' with an expensive advertising opportunity? What's wrong with building sports facilities merely benefit a community? Or improving the transport infrastructure simply for the sake of providing an efficient transport system?

But whoop whoop! Here come the games!

"Hello fucking London"

2005-07-05T15:56:00.000Z

Live 8 has attracted much criticism - indeed, most of my hits are coming from people searching for 'live 8 criticisms' in Google. Dead Men Left has a fair bit to say about it, and Bionic Octopus is quoted on that page having a fair old rant about St Bob.

However, I can't help but feel that the people who are complaining about the swearing in the concert are missing the point slightly.

By all means complain that the concerts aren't representative, or detract attention from the real protest up in Edinburgh, or that they put Dido on a fucking stage, when everyone knows that she belongs in one of Hades' Sulphorous Pits Of Blandness, or even that the BBC didn't show any of the films about Africa, but instead showed (intelligence of a) Fern Cotten babbling inanities with C-list celebrities. Don't complain, though, about Madonna saying 'fucking', even if she does write children's books. Or Snoop Dogg coming out with 16 'mother fuckers' (not literally). Because to be quite honest, it doesn't really matter.

It funny that the children that it is claimed are being corrupted by this bad language are the same ones who are wearing hoodies and waving fake guns and mugging people and getting ASBOs.

And even putting this aside, does a bit of swearing really matter in the scale of things? In a concert designed to protest against poverty, I think scale shouldn't really be that hard to grasp.

And just as an aside thought, do you think Madonna was only greeting those in London who were fucking? What about the rest? Goddamit, that's just plain rude - I must write to that nice Terry Wogan about this...

Heard a rumour

2005-06-27T12:26:00.000Z

Apparently Richard Whitely isn't actually dead. I've heard that he's gone off to hook up with Tupac, and will feature in the rapper's next 'posthumous' album.

Elvis on backing vocals. As opposed to Elves.

Where have all the ladybirds gone?

2005-06-27T12:23:00.000Z

Has anyone else noticed a lack of ladybirds? I have only seen two this year, and they were both on their last legs, and that was before it started snowing in the spring... And not only have I not seen many ladybirds, but I've seen hundreds on greenfly, suggesting a shortage of aphid-munchers.

There's something for Bill Oddie to get working on.

Chinese protests

2005-06-20T11:05:00.000Z

There have been a few whisperings here and there of a revival of left wing movements, and it seems there is a fair bit of evidence to support this. From the uprising in Bolivia, the protests in Ethiopia, to the success of Respect in May, and the prospect of success for Oskar Fontaine in the forthcoming German elections.

To be added to this list, I think, are the growing protests of Chinese workers and the poor in the west of the country, protesting against the rapidly expanding powers of big businesses in the country. The event that triggered interest in the protests was the tactics employed by Hebei Guohua Power, who wanted to build a power plant in an area where 13 villages would have to be demolished. While 12 of the villages accepted compensation, 1 did not, and the company hired hundreds of thugs, bussed them in, and ordered them to beat villagers and destroy the village. 10 people are thought to have been killed in the attack.

A government report has estimated that 3.1 million people took part in protests in just one month last year. These are presumably made up of smaller protests, like the 50,000-strong riot in Wangzhou city, after people were forcibly cleared from their land to make way for the planet's largest construction project, the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River.

The protests appear to be disparate and unconnected at the moment. If some sort of national movement could be formed, then a hugely powerful organisation would be able to get the voices of 140 million migrant workers heard in Beijing. How far the Chinese government would allow this to happen is unclear, but it is unlikely that it would allow any such group to become too powerful. However, there are clear indications that there is desire for change amongst the Chinese poor, and they are willing to take to the streets in an effort to make themselves heard. Let’s just hope that some sort of organisation can come from these disparate bases.

There's making someone confess, and there's torture...

2005-06-13T12:30:00.000Z

but this is taking it too far:

A top al-Qa'ida suspect in Guantanamo Bay was stripped, forced to bark like a
dog, and subjected to the music of Christina Aguilera, it
emerged as debate intensified in the US capital over the future of the detention
camp in Cuba.

Over the next couple of days I'll be discussing the implications of this - does MTV have a future? Is Christina Aguilera worse than having your fingernails pulled out? Have people poured Britney Spears' piss over a Qu'ran? All this and more...

The problem with caring

2005-06-10T11:03:00.000Z

It’s not easy caring about something. Anyone unfortunate enough to support a football team (a real one, not Chelsea or Arsenal or Man Utd) will confirm that it brings the best and the worst of times. When they lose, the sky is falling, and the ground can’t swallow you quick enough. Success on the other hand is sweet. Living on such a rollercoaster is hell. For the length of the season, your attitude towards life is entirely dependent on how successfully 11 men kick a ball around. It is entirely irrational, and to none-football fans, it is not understandable. It would of course be so much easier if one simply didn’t care so much.

Politics is rather like this. People are generally on one side or the other (or glory supporters straight down the middle: they want the best of all worlds, but never have the same feeling about success and failure - rather like centrist politics, the feeling is completely bland), they celebrate successes and failures, there is a feeling of belonging, that we are all in this together – success for one is success for all, and failure is felt across the board.

Of course, this is too simplistic. In reality, politics is like two teams squaring up, left vs. right, red vs. blue, but in each team, the 11 players are bickering with each other, and supporters choose to back a particular player rather than the entire team. However, I think in broad terms, the team analogy works.

Sometimes, it feels like we’re running straight up against a brick wall. We’re fighting powers that are beyond us, swinging lame punches way above our weight, and ultimately, the cause is hopeless. Politicians will not listen to us, no matter how loudly we shout. They will line the pockets of a few, exploiting everyone else for their gain. Take the Africa situation for example. 20 years ago, Live Aid thrust Africa into the spotlight. Hundreds of millions of pounds were raised for the continent. Not only this, but awareness about the situation was raised. Demand for change grew, people called for change, and for the West to stop the unfair practices that didn’t allow the African people to get themselves out of the poverty that the west thrusts upon them. What happened then? Debt grew, poverty grew, trade tariffs grew. Any voices of protest were resolutely ignored. Any movement for change was left impotent. And how will Live8 be any different? There is absolutely no desire among the world leaders to bring genuine change about – only to throw symbolic figures of money at the continent. Just look at the figures in The Independent yesterday - $1 trillion on arms, $78 billion on aid. America promises $5 billion in aid. What the fuck will $5 billion achieve? Absolutely nothing. It is a paltry sum designed to be just big enough so they cannot be blamed of doing nothing, but small enough not to make a noticeable dent in the pockets of ordinary Americans, who quite simply couldn’t care about Africa: Africa isn’t a vote winner, so nobody gives it any serious thought. We will be holding another concert for Africa 20 years from now, and asking ourselves the very same questions. It is disheartening to consider how powerless we seem to be. Geldof can muster as many pop bands as he likes, the entire population could march to Edinburgh, people could start a fucking riot at Gleneagles, and it would make fuck all difference.

Of course, it would be so much easier if one simply didn’t care so much. But how can we not care when the price of apathy is the lives of millions? We have a duty to protest. To not try is a heinous crime, to try but fail is largely forgivable. Similar principles apply to politics in general. On the left, people care because they react to the injustice they perceive in the capitalist system, and they cannot live with a system that perpetuates such an injustice. On the right, the fight is for an individual’s freedom to strive to realise his own worth, and personally benefit from his own work. Somewhere along the line, everyone has looked at each side and made a decision, conscious or not, as to which ethos suits them. When something is so important to you, it is impossible to simply not care.

Following a football team will have its positives eventually (unless it’s a team like Shrewsbury), and similarly, we gain from the successes of our political side. The left at the moment are basking in success. From Galloway’s victory in May, to the success of the German Work and Social Justice party in the state elections, to the defeat in the European Constitution referenda, to the uprising of the poor in Bolivia, all over the world, to the rule of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, it seems like people are finally standing up once more. The name of socialism, tarnished by the Soviet Union, rubbished by the neo-liberals that came in with Thatcher and Reagan, is being shouted out again proudly. The socialist banner is held high again after years of quiet and triangulation and centralisation. That era finally seems to be over, and the left seems ready to stand up and shout once more.

We care because we have a duty to. It would be easier not to care, but if we did that then we would be committing a grave injustice to our own principles. Unfortunately, with care comes an attachment that can be the both the best and worst thing. When things go well, we have the power to change the world; when they go badly, we are running into brick walls. The results come when we carry on believing things can change even when everything is going against us.

For more on the Bolivia situation, see Apostate Windbag's excellent summary of events.

Live8 Critics missing the critical criticism

2005-06-04T12:30:00.000Z

OK, so Live8 has a few problems:

1) There are no black performers in the Hyde Park concert. Not even the seemingly ever present Jamelia is on there.

2) There are no African performers. Well, there is Youssou N'Dour in the Paris concert, but he's the only one. According to the organisers, African performers simply do not have the 'superstar status' of the acts featured. Does this strike anyone else as absolute rubbish? And what better time to showcase acts from the continent.

3) The concert won't change anything/ we've thrown enough money at them all ready/ those dictators will just buy more wives with it. (delete as appropriate). This criticism doesn't really hold up: the difference between this concert and Live Aid is that Live8 is about raising political awareness, rather than raising money. It aims to raise grassroots support for the campaign for trade justice and debt relief.

None of these criticisms really pick up on the major flaw in the Live8 plan: Mariah Carey is down to host and headline the London concert. What the fuck? Not only is she a diabolically awful performance artist, musically the equivalent of a dripping wet turd being poured into one's ears, but she has a reputation for being a fussy, demanding, spoilt brat. Is someone who requires an entourage the size of a football crowd to massage her ego and tell her how wonderful she really the right image the organisers want to project to the world? Rather I would suggest she should be placed in a vat of her own melted down bargain basement singles, so she can wallow and boil in her own musical-vomit.

Catholic Archbishop in Sense of Humour Shock

2005-06-03T10:12:00.000Z

Archbishop Faustino Munoz, the newly appointed Papal Nuncio in the UK caused a bit of a stir at a party in the Italian embassy yesterday.

When asked if he was going to appoint a new bishop in the diocese of Paisley, he replied 'Aah, Paisley. The very important and charismatic politician in Ireland. I never knew he had a diocese as well.'

I'm sure the Reverand Doctor loves having Catholics take the mickey out of him.

Son of Star Wars facing Russian opposition

2005-06-03T09:54:00.000Z

(Mr Majuka will like this one, although it's pretty badly written - brain not quite clicking into place)

The Star Wars project is beginning to get up people's noses. Not (yet) in a mega serious, lets start a nuclear war sort of way, but it certainly could produce quite a stand off between the two countries. This was after Bush revived the plans to build the space-based missile defence system.

Sergei Ivanov, Russia's defence minister has said that Russia will not tolerate any country putting weapons into space. He also said, somwhat ominously, that any country that did so would face Russian retaliation to their actions. Athough he did not mention the US or the Star Wars project, he did say that Russia was 'categorically against the miltarisation of space'.

The whole Star Wars project is absolutely a bad idea. It is expensive: in the past 30 years, $122 billion has been thrown at the project, with no results. The presence of such a system will only increase military tension in the world. And, how likely is it that America will need such a defence against ICBM missiles? They went out with the cold war. Terrorists don't need missiles, just a couple of planes, or bombs taken on board trains, or a small vial of chemicals. And is there any country that will seriously attack the US? With the current leadership especially, any attack against what could be perceived as 'US interests' would be close to suicide for the responsible country.

Middle Class Crises of Confidence #1

2005-06-01T21:14:00.000Z

"Am I a racist/homophobe/snob for not liking any of the Big Brother contestants?"

Africa - everyone else is writing about it, I thought I should too

2005-06-01T11:47:00.000Z

Richard Dowden, President of the Royal Africa Society, wrote in the Independent today offering up 5 things that need to be done:

Firstly, we can fight to end the agricultural subsidies for farmers in Europe, America and Japan that keep world prices low and squeeze African commodities out the market. And end the export subsidies that allow cheap food to be dumped in Africa destroying African markets. High tariffs keeping out African goods need to be cut, but African countries need a bit of time before reciprocating the removal of trade barriers, as they have no safety nets to protect workers who lose their jobs.
Secondly, we could look closely at the outside dimension to corruption in Africa. Britain has resisted signing up to the UN Convention on Corruption and British companies are fighting regulations that would make them responsible for corrupt practices by their agents as well as their own staff. London looks to be the laundry of choice when it comes to laundering African corruption money - and although the reporting regulations have been tightened up, few reports from banks about suspicious funds are followed up by the Financial Services Authority unless they are related to drugs or terrorism.
Thirdly, we have to stop encouraging the brain-drain from Africa. There are said to be more Malawian nurses in Birmingham than in Malawi, a country ravaged by Aids. It is not about a ban, but maybe finding ways of turning the ebb and flow of skills into a win-win rather than a win-lose, as it is at the moment.
Fourthly, the arms and mines that kill in Africa's wars are mostly made in the former Soviet Union, but the dealers are mostly in London and the deals are made in the City. They are not licensed or regulated in any way.
Fifthly, Britain has got to do something about its immigration policy. Thousands of Africans living in Britain - or trying to come here for study or to visit relatives - are left with an impression of Britain somewhat at odds with Tony Blair's passion for Africa. I spent a day and half trying to get a visa for a well-known Ugandan MP, who was scheduled to speak at a meeting I was organising. Not even the intervention by our new Minister for Africa, Lord Treisman, could move the Home Office to deliver it in time.

If I could add two of my own points here. Firstly, 100% of all debt must be cancelled - it is all well and good giving aid to a country, but it is meaningless when most of it has to go back out in debt repayments. Secondly, aid aid should be channelled into education, starting with free primary schooling, and working upwards. The only way for a country to develop and progress is through the education of its workforce. What is more, an educated workforce will demand rights and democracy, something which the UN has declared to be crucial in changing the corrupt ways of so many African governments.

We laugh less now than we did in the 50s

2005-05-31T15:36:00.000Z

So says the finding of some scientific report that Richard and Judy talked about today. Not strictly true. I know that I laugh much more now than I ever did in the 50s.

Also espoused by R&J, political correctness is dead. Hoorah! Lets stick it up the nig-nogs once again!

My thoughts on Europe

2005-05-31T15:32:00.000Z

The title of this post is a little misleading. I have absolutely no thoughts on Europe, as I'm too busy flicking between Celebrity Love Island and Big Brother whislt downloading the Crazy Frog ringtone, before going out and happy-slapping someone wearing my hoody, all the while trying to squeeze more topical things into this post, with a faint air of desperation.

10,000 men and all that

2005-05-25T11:00:00.000Z

Met* the Duke of York yesterday. Had a funny body odour, kind of like new paint. Probably runs in the family.

*I say met, he walked right past and ignored me...

Picking at scabs

2005-05-23T14:27:00.000Z

Almost as satisfying as the clotted blood variety.

Scabbity scab scab scab scabbity scab. Scab scab scab scabby Wogan scab scab scab. Scabbity scabbity scab.

Bet he's not really Irish either.

Recapturing the 50s, becoming more conservative, and burying heads in sand.

2005-05-23T13:19:00.000Z

An interesting article in the G2 section today on the rise of an industry dedicated to serving a growing nostalgia for 1940s and 50s Britain. Andy Beckett proposes that this is indicative of an abandoning of the British inferiority complex. This is wrong: instead, it indicates the continuation of that complex, and the rise of conservative urges to return to a more innocent and better past.

Beckett gives examples of the success of shops specialising in nostalgic products – the picture shows a 1950s sweetshop, fronted by a man with a waxed moustache; the article opens with the change in fortunes of a couple who used to own a clothes shop selling 1940s garb which had to close, and are now having great success with a very similar shop in the middle of Norfolk; there is talk about he rise of fish % chip shops, and their conversion to (I presume) gastro-chippies. The value of beach huts, the regeneration of seaside towns, and the trend to buy ‘knobbly old potatoes from farmers’ markets’ are all given as evidence of the resurgence of interest in all things British. I can’t help but feel that he is a little misplaced.

The trends do not indicate the discarding of the British inferiority complex. If that was the case, then people would be interested in British invention of the early 21st Century, not of the mid-20th. British fashion and style would be popular now, and held up with pride by the media – as it is, British fashion designers go and work for European fashion houses, and the London fashion week has become a showcase for Princes Trust teenagers making clothes from the contents of a rubbish bin. The fact is, the trends do not show a resurgence in desire for British things per se, but very specifically a resurgence in British things from the past – the 50s are in demand now, just as the 60s were in the 1990s.

The 50s represent a golden age of innocence: Britain was coming out of a war victorious, and heading into a period of prosperity - they had never had it so good. The mood of the country was buoyant, and it was epitomised by the 1951 Festival of Britain, which celebrated all things British. Why would channel 4 choose the 50s for a television experiment comparing the education of two eras? Because the 50s epitomises so many things in the mind of the viewer – life was simpler then, neighbourhoods were friendly, children were safe playing in the street, the state provided for all our needs – and did so effectively, and we were unimpeded by all this modern political correctness rubbish. The real threat of nuclear war was not yet hanging over the country in the early decade, and while relations between Russia and America were growing colder, they were still relatively stable. The world felt safe.

It is easy to see how this particular sandbox can seem appealing to us now. If we believe everything we read – and many people do – we live in a world of uncertainties. 9/11 threw the western world into a state of turmoil: we were no longer safe, and what is more, we cannot see our enemy. George Bush’s Star Wars defence system couldn’t stop the planes hitting the twin towers, no more could Spain’s intelligence services stop the Madrid bombings. We don’t know whether to trust our Government any more. We’ve started fighting a war against an invisible enemy, an enemy which we can never catch, which produces a war which will never end. We have been told to suspect everything – bags in airports and in train stations, people acting suspiciously. We need ID cards, we need to put people under house arrest, we need to torture people in prisons. We must kick out these Muslim hate agents. We must curb immigration. We must stop immigration. We’re letting in terrorists, the terrorists are already here, they’re being trained in their hate-mosques. It’s not a call to prayer, it’s a call to arms. Left and right are no longer there – left is in the centre, right is out of sight. The left went with the miners and the Trade Unions. Call-centre workers don’t form unions – which doesn’t help when their jobs are outsourced to India. Everybody has a 2.2 in business management, nobody has any skills any more. Get a vocation, people say, but then complain that the vocational courses offered are meaningless. How simple the 1950s must seem to people caught up in this madness. In the 50s, boys learnt woodwork at school, the girls did sewing – wholesome, practical skills. People went into apprenticeships, very few went to university. Women stayed at home, men went to work, children went to school, nobody wore hoodies. It is a balanced, calm, certain idyll.

Why did we look to the 60s during the 90s? Because the 60s represent revolution. Coming out of the Thatcher years, we felt staid and grey – and John Major reflected this. In came Blair, with his charm, charisma, giving ‘party politics’ a whole new meaning. It was a breath of fresh air through the place. Many people wrote before this years election about how they felt let down by Labour. The expectancy in 1997 was there: people were ready for change, and people would embrace change. ‘Cool Britannia’ came in (albeit briefly), and people looked back to the last time Britain was cool, the 1960s, and drew its own parallels. In place of the Rolling Stones and the Beatles were Blur and Oasis; instead of Alfie, The Italian Job and If… there was Trainspotting and Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (not necessarily good, but popular); George Best and David Beckham. But the 60s was also charged with revolutionary feeling – feminism, student protest and all that. This was the thing that was lacking in the 90s, where people were still too stuck to their material wealth gathered under Thatcher, and too focused on getting nice wooden floorboards and a lovely minimalist living space. This could possibly be one of the reasons people felt let down by New Labour.

The nostalgia for the 50s is nothing more than the collective ostrich burying its head in the sandbox of a rose tinted history book. However, it also represents something which could be slightly more sinister – the move towards a more conservative agenda. 50s Britain is overwhelming white and middle class – that simply isn’t reconcilable with the reality of Britain today. (The fact that the Windrush arrived in 1948 has been neatly edited out.) There is a desire for conservatism – we want to be safe in our homes, we want to have our children educated properly, we don’t want to be overrun with immigrants. We want to be able to trust our Government to do this for us.

Britain is still in the grip of its inferiority complex. Britain today is adrift in uncertainty, and the trend to go back to the 50s is simply people trying to recapture a seemingly more innocent and simpler age. It is possible that with this trend will come the more disturbing move towards a conservative agenda, to try and recreate 1950s Britain, or at least the feeling of it.

Things that annoy me at the moment

2005-05-21T08:47:00.000Z

1. These fucking Sudoku puzzles. I don't care if everyone's talking about them. I don't care if I could be a Sudoku Grand Master. All I care about is that I'm able to read the paper at some point during the day. It is made very difficult for me when some scrotum insists on staring at a grid of numbers for 40 minutes, writing in a 4, scribbling it out, distractedly drawing a moustache on Jacques Chirac, before tearing out the damn thing and ripping half the paper with it.

2. Newspaper humourists that insist on attempting to write in the style of George Galloway's speech. We have this effort in the T2:

“Sure, jump in. Say, aren’t you that political guy from the UK? I bet you meet with the Queen all the time, huh?”
George was indignant. “Cab driver, you drive a most cavalier idea of a cab! This is just more smoke to smokify your smokescreen,” he declaimed. “Listen: I. Have never. Met anyone, nor. Has anyone I may have met. Had meetings with any person. Who may have met anyone else in any meeting. If you had met such a person, why not produce him?” (by Dave Mattin)

Or there was the contribution from Matthew Norman in the Independent yesterday, unfortunately not available on the internet (at least, I can't find it). Listen to me. I. Find your coloumns. Absolutely and unequivocably. Unfunny. You cunts.

That's about it actually. There was more, but I can't remember it, so it can't have been that annoying really.

Leaked E-mail Reveals Truth Behind Blair’s Hospital Trip

2005-05-21T08:46:00.000Z

An e-mail leaked to Paisley’s Pants last night revealed the true reason behind Tony Blair’s trip to hospital on Thursday.

The e-mail sent by an aide to all cabinet ministers disclosed that Blair had suffered severe tissue damage to the colon and anal sphincter. The e-mail also details the treatment Blair received in hospital.

The e-mail does not, however, shed light on how the injuries were sustained. That was revealed after Paisley’s Pants did some investigation of its own.

On the telephone to a senior government employee, Paisley’s Pants discovered that Blair received the injuries from a rather unusual accident.

It was just after 10:30 PM in 10 Downing Street, and Cherie Booth, top QC and wife of the PM sat down to do her daily Sudoku puzzle, only to find that Blair, 52, had gone and filled in the numbers already. Booth flew into a rage, and proceeded to thrust The Times newspaper up Blair’s arse.

The source disclosed ‘Things are a bit tetchy in the household at the moment. Cherie’s gone into rehab, and Tone is still pulling fragments of Libby Purves out of his arse. He shit a bit of Alice Miles yesterday.

‘A slipped disc?’ he continued ‘That can lay you up in traction for months. I told him it was a silly cover up. Nope, there are other reasons he’s walking a little stiffly.’

Peter Atkinson, tory spokesman for Blair’s Arse Affairs and Defence said yesterday that he wished Blair the speediest recovery, and that it would not be appropriate to turn this incident into a political issue, but you wouldn’t find Michael Howard doing that if he was PM.

Heard a joke... it was quite funny

2005-05-20T09:47:00.000Z

So I thought I'd put it on here.

There's an anarchist walking down a country lane, and he's got a bomb in his pocket. He sees someone cominh the other way, and he thinks it might be a policeman. Not being in the mood to bring down the authorities just yet, he throws the bomb into the field next to him, where a bull eats it.

What word best describes this situation? Abominable.

And what word best describes the situation five seconds later? Noble.

Ha ha.

Soya responsible for the destruction of the rainforest

2005-05-20T09:43:00.000Z

So it is claimed here.

And you thought getting Tarquin's non-dairy milk for his cereal was harmless? Just imagine what Ophelia's tofu sandwiches are doing to the whales...

Not to mention the damage the fucking jeep that you insist on driving your child (singular) to school every morning is doing to the place.

Coincidence? I think not...

2005-05-18T08:22:00.000Z

So Labour get re-elected, and Kylie announces she has cancer.

Is there no low these beasts will sink to?

Nothing in the news...

2005-05-16T13:29:00.000Z

(I mean politically, of course. I think it would be more than a little crass to describe the massacre of 500 Uzbekisatni protestors as 'nothing')

Here we are, basking in the aftermath of an election: an election which signalled the first heartbeats of a regenerated left-wing; that signalled to the tories that they may actually have to try and win votes, rather than just keep them; an election that has fooled the Lib-Dems into thinking they are electable; an election which has managed to wipe that grating smirk from Tony Blair's face; an election which put a funereal cloud over the New Labour project. This was an election which by all rights should have put some life back into a political system that has been strangled by the political marketing machine of New Labour. So why does everything feel so odd?

There is a strange air in politics after the election, and the only thing I can really compare it to is the slightly guilty tweak in the stomach of a teenager after his first self-induced ejaculation. That feeling that somewhere, at some point, he will be made to pay for this, and that somewhere along the line in the past, something went quite wrong that he ended up doing it in the first place. The desperate way that politicians are scrambling to change leaders, to rid themselves of the seemingly tainted past which clings to them like a bad smell. The feeling that maybe we all got a little too excited about the whole thing at the time: there was so much to write about then, we are now left with an empty feeling - we have gorged so much on political backstabbing, on dirty campaigning, on accusations of fraud and lying and racism, that now we are left with a massive appetite, but nothing to feed it. The hollow in the stomach signals to us that we have surfeited on commentary, and the inbred reaction to excess is as ever, guilt.

A quick look around blogs is quite revealing - Dead Men Left goes all academic and quotes lots of statistics; Lenin picks out little ironies from Jack Straw; Apostate Windbag picks up on the political affiliations of a basketball player (albeit the Most Valuable one...); while Harry's Place is busy rehashing old accusations of George Galloway's alleged fraud, while stating that Uzbekisatn is in desperate need of a 'process of democratisation', which when put in context of the last 'democratisation', is an ominous sounding phrase. Even perfect.co.uk gives an unmerited amount of coverage to the plan to ban hoodies. I have picked out just five, but they seem to be typical of the whole.

There is simply nothing to write about, hence the reason the hoodies story is given so much coverage: there is only so much one can write about political parties devouring themselves from the inside out.

I'm sure this affliction will go away soon, once parliament starts and Blair starts trying to lead the Labour party (I will watch with gleeful shcadefreude at his efforts to control a reduced, and hostile, majority).

"The times they are a-changin'"

2005-05-09T08:58:00.000Z

The fallout from the election is beggining to settle, and it is looking particularly noxious for Tony Blair. Labour rebel backbenchers would only need 72 names to force a leadership election - they got 62 last year, and it is not a huge stretch to think that there are 10 Labour MPs whose majorities are looking a little thin after this last election, and will blame Blair. There are those in the party who think that these rules only apply when the party is in opposition - if that is the case, then there is a complicated procedure involving the annual conference calling a special conference, and electoral colleges and majorities and that sort of thing. Of course, this sort of thing may not even be necessary - Blair could be ousted by men in grey suits from smokey filled rooms (by which I don't mean Blair will be attacked by cliches).

As to Blair's replacement, Gordon Brown still looks to be a dead cert. However, it is unlikely to simply be coronated as leader - he will face some sort of competition from the left. For too long have New Labour neglected the Old, but as the New Labour support crumbles on the left, Old Labour's support for New will become more and more important. This could herald a step to the left fror the party, which could well open up ground in the middle for the Tories, if they elect the right leader, to get a toe into. I'm not saying that a move like that would grant the Conservatives power, but I think it would open up some debate over who rules the middle turf.

It will be very interesting to see which side wins the Tory power struggle - Fox or Davis on the right against Duncan or Rifkind on the left. I can't help but feel that it is absolutely crucial for the more liberal wing to win. If not, the conservatives simply do not have a hope of regaining power.

Dead Men Left is mooting that a tory coalition with the Lib-Dems would make 'perfect sense', something which seems to be echoed by Alun Duncan in an interview in the Independent. WHile not expressly backing them, he certainly picks out the 'orange book crew' (as DML calls them) as being along the right sort of lines. He says:

The Liberal Democrat "young turks" including David Laws, Nick Clegg and Ed Davey, vilified by some in their own party for producing the "Orange Book" proposing market-based solutions, are just Mr Duncan's sort of people. "The Orange Book liberals should feel happy in my sort of Conservative Party," he said. "What is more, we would then all have a future. There is a tradition in Liberalism which overlaps significantly with Conservatism, someone like Menzies Campbell, for example; it's liberal economics, non-statist and one that enjoys and respects diversity. That is my sort of politics. Apart from high tax, some of their thinking is very cogent, a bit trite but cogent."

This definately leaves the door open for cooperation should someone on the right of the tories win the leadership. As it is, if the right wins again, the the Tories would carry on down the same road. Duncan says that the Conservatives simply do not understand the country they aspire to govern, and that they must now catch up if they ever want to look seriously electable. Electing someone like David Davis would be a backwards step in doing that.

Idiocy courtesy of Harry's Place

2005-05-07T08:46:00.000Z

"Tony Blair has seen off 4 Conservative Party leaders and even at a time when British soldiers continue to die in a hugely divisive foreign war, he has led the Labour party to an unprecedented third-term with what would be considered, in any other circumstances, a more than healthy working majority. If the Conservatives could not beat Labour last night, then when?"

The reason the Conservatives could not see off Tony Blair had nothing to do with Tony Blair's brilliance, and everything to do with the Tories ineptitude. In Michael Howard, they have a leader that only drove the party to the right. This merely continued the trend started by IDS and Hague. Sometime soon, the Tories will realise that the only way for them to win an election is by using exactly the same tactics that Labour did - target the middle ground.

A party cannot win the middle ground by extolling far right immigration policies. Similarly, a party cannot win the middle ground by proposing radical redistribution of wealth. A party wins the middle ground through appealing to the blandest common denominator, and then dressing it up to seem like the best option available. Communitarianism is a good example of this. When an ideology is so bland, it is simply impossible to attack it, as there is nothing to latch on to. To call it unprincipled, as many would view it, is to be labeled as an extremist.

Tony Blair won with a majority of 66. This compares favourably to other majorities, and is unprecedented in terms of a third term majority. However, one must remeber that Tony Blair had a majority of 167 in the second term, and 179 in the first term. In these two periods, Blair was untouchable, and he only dropped 12 seats. Coming into the thrid term then, to drop 101 seats is disastrous. The only reason Blair is still in power is because he had such a huge majority in the first place.

No doubt there was a protest vote against Labour. However, this is likely to have been forgotten come 2009 when the next election will be. If New Labour are still going (about which there still remains questions) and the Tories are still ploughing the same right-wing furrow they are now, then Labour will win again, but with an increased majority. However, if the tories can turn themselves around, and start to appeal to the middle ground voters, then they could very easily win in 2009 - Labour will go into that election looking rattled and tired of power, and if the tories can look dynamic enough, they should be able to push Labour very close.

How can we move on?

2005-05-07T08:38:00.000Z

"In addition, I know Iraq has been a deeply divisive issue in this country. But
I also know and believe that after this election people want to move on."

How can we move on when civilians and troops are dying every day in Iraq? How can we move on when the man who misled us into a war is still in power? How can we have closure on an issue which cannot close? The war on terror, by its very nature, cannot finish. How can we be expected to lie down passive in the face of such injustice?

We must continue to protest and fight and argue and stand in the way until the troops are out of Iraq, Blair is out of power, and the 'war on terror' becomes a war on what causes terrorism - poverty, inequality, trade injustice, imperialism. Until we have acheived this, we cannot move on.

Well done Carl Beaman

2005-05-06T09:45:00.000Z

I would like to extend my warmest congratulations to Carl Beaman, ex-potential leader of the Veritas party, and Veritas candidate for Somerton and Frome. Although you only polled 484 votes, I'm sure you deserved every one of them. And hey, sometimes we just don't get the breaks, do we?

Or it could be that people don't particularly like your party's particular brand of xenophobioa.

I suppose I should also congratulate you, and the rest of the right wing, for managing to help increase the BNP's vote in the country. They polled roughly 5% in the constituencies they stood in. There are proven links between politicians talking about immigration, and stirring up base instincts within people, and increases in racial attacks. There is no doubt that the shift to the right in politics, caused by UKIP and Veritas, has allowed the BNP to make the gains it has. The 2006 council elections will shock a lot of people when they see how well the BNP do. I hope you, and the rest of your vile party are proud of being in some small way responsible for the slow building of fascism in the British political system.

Georgie Boy did it!

2005-05-06T09:44:00.000Z

But I'm sure you all know that by now.

Blowing my own trumpet

2005-05-06T09:41:00.000Z

As predicted here, Peter Law won the Blaenau Gwent seat. What is surprising is the size of his win - a 49% swing away from Labour. He won by nearly 10,000 votes, overturning a Labour majority of around 20,000.

Hurrah for the democratic process!

Maybe Tony Blair is like the rest of us...

2005-05-03T09:31:00.000Z

Tony Blair was asked how big Labour's majority will be. He replied that talk of a guarunteed Labour victory 'sends a chill down my spine'.

I'm glad he's not the only one.

Nuclear weapons

2005-05-03T09:29:00.000Z

Another leak, although I’m not sure how beneficial this will be to Labour, or even how much impact it will have on the election, but Blair is planning to authorise a £10 billion replacement system for when the Trident nuclear submarines are taken out of action.

Not only does this contravene the NPT on nuclear weapons, but it is downright hypocritical to demand of other countries that they give up nuclear weapons, but develop our own systems at the same time.

Britain has no need for nuclear weapons. The chances of us being drawn into a nuclear conflict without the Americans are next to nil. Further to this, they are impractical to use in warfare, they are indiscriminate, they are no effective threat to the terrorist cells that we are supposedly at constant risk from, and the results of their use are horrific. One country possessing nuclear weapons only inspires others to do the same – look at India’s development of the Bomb, which it saw as crucial if it was going to be taken seriously on the international political stage.

The CND website is linked at the side of the page. Go and visit, and join the campaign to rid the world of this unnecessary evil.

Cynical reasoning behind the Iraq intelligence leaks

2005-05-03T09:28:00.000Z

(Second time I’ve had to write this now – internet is playing up… grr…)

I may be being too cynical in suggesting this (although some might argue that there is no such thing as being too cynical with this government) but I can’t help but feel that the timing of the Iraq leaks last week is all a little convenient.

Labour is facing a problem, in that its core vote is simply not motivated enough. According to MORI, around 60% of Labour supporters are certain to vote, compared with nearly 80% of Conservative supporters. (Incidentally, this is part of the reason why the MORI polls are so much closer than the rest – they only include certain voters. The gap is currently at 2 points.) Labour supporters appear to have become complacent that Blair will win.

What more useful, then, than a spate of very critical media coverage, showing Blair to be a liar. Timed a week before the election, it is enough to spur the Labour support into rallying around the flag, but is far enough away to ensure that the negative campaign does not impact too much on the vote.

As I posted recently, the war is only really an issue in certain constituencies. On a national scale, the fodder issues of health, education, the economy, and (possibly) crime will decide the election; and of course the Reagan ‘feel good factor’. As the News of the World declared when it was nailing its Labour colours to the mast, ‘despite Iraq, it’s the home policies that will count.’

It is cunning and manipulative, and probably came straight from the arse of Alistair Campbell.

Johann Hari and why he is wrong

2005-04-29T11:22:00.000Z

Johann Hari, writing in the Independent today, suggests that we should listen to the Iraqi people, as opposed to politicians and a ‘remote British lawyer’, before we form our opinions over the war. As an example of our ignorance of the Iraqi’s opinions, he cites the television show when June Sarpong interviewed Tony Blair. While debate was raging, and going nowhere, over the non-existence of WMDs, one Iraqi girl spoke up and said that she, and all her family ‘supported the war because there was no other way to get rid of Saddam Hussein’. Hari reports that the audience was silenced for a few moments, before the debate returned to WMDs. He also quotes the new Iraqi President as saying ‘Our struggle for a better, emancipated Iraq is now only possible because of the coalition of the willing.’

This would all seem to suggest that if we actually listened to the Iraqis, we would not be able to oppose the war because they wanted Saddam removed, and the coalition removed Saddam, and that was that.

Unfortunately, Hari misses quite a few key points.

Firstly, he is guilty of a fair degree of selective hearing. He only hears the voices of those who supported the war: what about the voices of the thousands of protestors who have demonstrated against the continued occupation of their country. In the elections in February, most Iraqis voted for the United Iraqi Alliance, whose main policy point (or one of them at least) is the withdrawal of all occupation forces. Bombings and murders are still taking place. One can’t help but feel that the Iraqi people don’t actually seem all that keen on being occupied; and as the occupation is a direct and inevitable consequence of the war, it follows logically that most Iraqis would seem to be opposed to the war.

Secondly, we have heard from Charles Kennedy on Question Time last night (with paraphrasing from Lenin):

After all, the Iraq Survey Group had been into Iraq, studied it closely and found that the regime was ripe for implosion. It would have been sufficient for Iraqis to see how weak Saddam's weapons systems were. He had no more chemical weapons to dump on his people, and his army was a shambles. The Emperor, thus found without his clothes on, would in all likelihood have rapidly fallen on the sword of popular insurrection.

The invasion, then, seems not to be the easiest way of going about the removal of Saddam Hussein. It is reasonable to suggest that Iraqi civilians would not have recognised this at the time, because no effort was made to point it out to them. To continue the Emperor’s new clothes analogy, someone had to play the part of the little boy in the crowd, telling everyone the real state of affairs.

My arguments are a little tenuous, I’ll admit that. But at the same time, so are the pro-war arguments. In that situation, where no clear moral ground can be found, we must fall back onto the legality of military action. This is why Hari is absolutely wrong in suggesting that we should not listen to some ‘remote British lawyer’. People will support and oppose the war, both here in Britain and in Iraq. There are no clear moral grounds regarding the invasion, and that is why we must listen to the lawyers. They do not deserve to be underplayed in the way that Hari does, and should, quite frankly, take centre stage in any decision.

The oldest parliamentary system of government in the world, and we still can't get an election right

2005-04-29T09:54:00.000Z

Does this strike anyone else as being a little worrying?

Amid concern about the failings of postal votes, a team of international election monitors arrived in Britain yesterday and confirmed they would study the issue as part of a wider inquiry into how the election is being conducted.
Kare Vollan, the Norwegian leader of an 11-strong team, said officials would meet with returning officers, agents, candidates and the Electoral Commission. Monitors from Denmark, Canada, Macedonia, Russia, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, the US, Hungary and Serbia are to base themselves in London, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

It all smacks of one of those nasty little foreign countries, where all the locals are terribly backwards and probably don't even speak English. I can't help but feel it's a little worrying too, although at least we will have some idea of how fair our election was... Maybe they'll look into this sort of thing.

War, war go away...

2005-04-28T13:44:00.000Z

I'm repeatedly told by various people around the place that the war will not be a major factor in the election, and within a few days, it will all have blown over. They usually quote the Guardian statistic that for only 4% of people, the war is the most important issue.

I think that nationally, there may be some legitimate grounds for this: on a national scale, people don't care about a few thousand Iraqi civilians illegally killed (it would of course be completely different if the British body count had been higher). Ultimately, people will vote in this election on whether they feel better now than they did in 1997, and the answer to that is largely 'yes'. This is the reason the tories cannot make any inroads in the polls, the figures for which have been more or less stagnant for nearly two weeks, ever since Gordon Brown came to the fore.

However, on a local level, in certain constituencies, the war will be the only deciding issue. Respect are clearly capitalising on this by targetting just 26 seats, in all of which they have a fair chance of making an impact. The same is true for the independent candidates targetting senior New Labour candidates: Reg Keys against Tony Blair (who incidentally seems to be running neck and neck amongst declared voters, with 60% of voters undecided); Craig Murray against Jack Straw; Rose Gentle against Adam Ingram. In all these seats, the war is by far the most important issue, and it is the issue that the election will be fought on.

To dismiss the war as meaningless as an election issue to to neglect to account for the massive strength of feeling that it engenders. In certain constituencies, it will decide the result.

Chicken Yoghurt

2005-04-26T12:42:00.000Z

This blog has an excellent post regarding the leaked Attorney General report, and Labour's weasling to try and get out of this particular tight corner. An excellently written post, which voices an anger which a lot of people are feeling, but most lack the eloquency to voice.

Putin doing democracy in his own time

2005-04-26T10:10:00.000Z

Hypocracy is rife in Russia it seems. President Putin is his annual state of the union address makes a couple fo claims:

* "Any unlawful methods of struggle ... for ethnic, religious and other interests contradict the principles of democracy."

Place this alongside the Amnesty International report on Chechnya, where Russian troops are responsible for 'violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including "disappearances", extrajudicial executions and torture, including rape. These violations would be serious breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute war crimes.'

* Promising free television and radio

All the while tightening the governemnt's grip on the state channels.

But at least Putin doesn't lie. When he says Russia "will decide for itself the pace, terms and conditions of moving towards democracy", he is telling the gospel truth - the pace will be extremely slow, if not backwards, and it will be dictated entirely by him.

(In a nice touch of editing, the Independent had a very Orwellian photo of a television shop where massive rows of televisions are all playing the president's address. It is a very subtle but poweful commentary on how Putin rules. The photo is here, and is the fourth one on the page)

Jack Straw: articulate, coherent, open - just like the case for the war

2005-04-26T10:04:00.000Z

Jack Straw making a mockery of himself on the Today programme, trying to answer a question about what was discussed in the cabinet meetings where Lord Goldsmith gave his evidence for the legality of the war:

Yeah and also... if you... I haven't... if you look at... I've dealt with this,
and... keep your hair on, Er, I dealt with this

Well, he's convinced me.

Blair facing a rebellion after the election?

2005-04-26T09:49:00.000Z

Brian Sedgemore, announcing his defection in the Independent today, is clearly filled with the same sense of bitterness and betrayal as the rest of the left over New Labour's time in power. However, there was one passage that caught my eye:

But I can let them into a secret. I am not alone. A small group of us - all MPs who are standing down - decided we would leave the Labour Party immediately after the election. Among the MPs, there are 150 who loathe Mr Blair, 50 more who have grave doubts about him and a further 200 who love him. They are sometimes called the Clones or the Stepford Wives.
For some of us, it's not just about the war, it's about top-up fees and privatising the health service. We were going to issue a joint statement. That would have been the easiest thing for me to do but I believe I owe it to the voters to speak out now.

'We were going to issue a joint statement'. Does this mean that the statement will still be released? If so, it would be a massive display of an absolute loss of faith in Blair by his own party, after which it will be difficult for Blair continue to lead.

It seems this most Thatcherite of PMs may have one last Thatcher-esque move to make.

One another train of thought, are Labour heading for the same kind of divisions that have plagued the tories since Major was leader? If this declaration heralds a revival of Old Labour within the parliamentary party, then we could see much bitter infighting between the Old and New wings of the party. This would be bad news for both sides, as it would make the party near-on inoperable, opening the door for the tories.

Election transport update

2005-04-25T13:26:00.000Z

Desperate to get away from the endless helicopters and buses, BBC Breakfast had a motorbike and sidecar this morning, complete with trailer shot of presenter in leathers holding a helmet. Is there any imagination in telly these days?

Tony Blair simply cannot stay

2005-04-25T13:05:00.000Z

His honesty has been questioned repeatedly; the public’s trust in him has slumped; he is becoming a liability for the Labour party. Now, with the Attorney General’s leaked report, Tony Blair simply cannot be allowed to stay in power after this election.

The report offers six damning statements as to why the war should be considered illegal. The statements were given before Blair went into the war: he absolutely ignored the most senior legal advisor in the country.

I almost feel like I have run out of words to describe Blair now – it has all been said already. He is a liar. He has no respect for international law. He has the blood of Iraqi civilians on his hands. It is like listening to a stuck record – everyone has heard it all before. This becomes dangerous when people start taking all that for granted. They start looking past Blair’s lies, and focusing on other issues – exactly what New Labour, and their various press pundits – are trying to persuade us to do. It is absolutely right that the war should be at the top of the election agenda, and it will do George Galloway and Reg Keys absolutely no harm.

Blair has demonstrated his absolute contempt for the law, and for the bodies that uphold the law. For this, he can no longer claim a mandate, no matter how many seats he wins by in the election. He has acted outside the system he is meant to be head of: the kind of precedent that this sets is largely boundless.

Blair must go after he is elected, preferably by impeachment – only through that will it be demonstrated that no one Prime Minister can act as an absolute executive – he must be held accountable by the legislative branch that he himself is part of. However, I fear that his leaving office will be entirely his own choice – and with him will go any hope of reasserting the dominance of the legislative branch, and creating an ever stronger executive.

Chernobyl remembered, but we still need nuclear power

2005-04-25T12:45:00.000Z

I wrote in January that it was necessary to start building nuclear power stations again, as they seemed to be the only way of slowing the global warming effect that fossil fuels have. I did accept at the time that a return to nuclear power would mean that would have to live with the consequences of a meltdown – an accident that would be almost inevitable with the numbers of reactors that would have to be built (this, coupled with the human knack of cutting corners and costs at the expense of certain safeties).

The Guardian has an excellent extract from a book ‘Voices of Chernobyl’ by Svetlana Alexievich in the G2 supplement today. It certainly makes my position uncomfortable. The personal accounts are harrowing and uncomfortable to read, particularly considering I am advocating putting other people at risk of suffering the same consequences. I would not like to be the person that tells these victims that we are building more nuclear power stations.

However, I am undeterred in my position. The consequences of not doing anything are far greater. The ‘global Somalia’ advocated on the channel 4 documentary will become a reality if global warming is allowed to continue unchecked. There is not much hope of getting the biggest consumers of fossil fuels to change their ways rapidly – George Bush barely accepts that global warming is a genuine problem. Renewable sources of energy are good, but simply not enough. Nuclear power regrettably seems the only solution, with all that it entails.

Blood on his hands, lies from his mouth

2005-04-22T09:45:00.000Z

Blair finally admitted last that it was the government who released Dr David Kelly's name, an action that led to his suicide.

"[His death] was a terrible, terrible thing to have happened. I don't believe we had any option but to disclose his name, because I think had we failed to do so, that would have been seen as attempting to conceal something from the committee that was looking into this at the time."

That may have been the case, but the whole thing stinks of scapegoating and buck-passing. The government caused the death of David Kelly in order to save itself. It is guilty to the highest degree. For once, I may agree with Michael Howard, and say that Tony Blair is indeed a 'stranger to the truth' - so many times he must have been asked whether the governemnt released Dr Kelly's name, and so many times Blair must have lied and denied that it had.

The Sun backs Labour

2005-04-21T13:17:00.000Z

I have to grumble a little about this, as I ever so smugly declared that The Sun would 'of course' back the Tories, even having the cheek to claim that 'this has probably been predictable since Michael Howard had tea with Rupert Murdoch around March last year.'

I stand well and truly corrected.

Labour still isn't the natural party fot The Sun - they admit this as much themselves. However, the cynic in me can't help but feel that The Sun have possibly gone that way because Labour now look a dead cert to win - the question is now of how big the majority will be, not who will have the majority. By chosing the as-near guaranteed winner, The Sun can once again claim to be 'wot won it'.

Also full marks to The Sun for the genuinely amusing way in which they let the world know who they were backing.

Just a quick pointer...

2005-04-21T13:12:00.000Z

Chocolate Covered Bananas has become God Hates God... still well worth a visit...

New Labour stand to lose their second strongest seat

2005-04-19T12:15:00.000Z

Blaenau Gwent (Ebbw Vale) is New Labour's second strongest seat in the country, but they stand to lose this as a result of their policy of drawing candidates from female-only shortlists. To protest against this, Peter Law, Labour's current Assmebly Memeber for Blaenau Gwent, is planning to stand as an independent candidate in the constituency. His plans were all going to plan until he got diagnosed with a brain tumour. However, he has made a ridiculously quick recovery, and has tossed his hat firmly into the ring.

The likelihood is that Labour would lose this seat. The nominated candidate is Maggie Jones, an English Blairite, while Law is very popular locally and staunchly socialist. In 2001, Labour won here by 60.9% of the vote.

Local Labour party candidates are also facing expulsion from the party after proposing and seconding Peter Law's candidacy.

My voting options... limited at best

2005-04-18T13:43:00.000Z

According to Who Should You Vote For, I should be voting for the Lib-Dems (scored 88), although in my defence, there were only 8 points between them and the Greens (80). (Labour got -20, conservatives -59, UKIP a worryingly high -1, although this could be because I was pretty neutral over Europe).

I've been thinking about my voting options recently, what with there being an election on and everything, and I can't help but feel that in my particular constituency, there isn't much of a choice - my sitting MP is a minor conservative front-bencher, with a majority of 5,000 over Labour, and a further 2,000 ahead of the Lib Dems. The only other candidate standing is someone for UKIP. I can't help but feel there isn't much of a choice there. I also can't help but feel a little put out when people complain about my plans to spoil my ballot: it is the only way we can register dissatisfaction with the whole system.

Veritas: a veritable joke

2005-04-14T13:23:00.000Z

(Firstly, I must apologise for the title of this post... I'm sorry)

On the day of Veritas' manifesto launch, news comes to my ear that serious moves have been made to axe Kilroy-Silk as the head of his own party. While rumours of power struggles have been rife since the party's inception in February of this year. Pandora, the Independent's gossip coloumn thing ran this story:

COULD THE former Labour and UKIP politician Robert Kilroy-Silk be about to part company with his third political party? There are rumours of an ugly power struggle at the top of his new "firm", Veritas.
According to senior party sources, Kilroy-Silk was threatened with replacement as leader at a recent meeting of his own ruling executive. Apparently, a leading financial backer is unhappy at the "direction" of things.
Putting meat on this bone is tricky, though. The official Veritas press officer strongly denies any putsch. As well she might. Her name is Jan Kilroy-Silk, and she's the former chatshow host's wife.

That was published on 24th March. However, it has now come to my attention (I have my first genuine source now, which I'm quite proud of) that the Veritas leaders (apart from Kilroy, obviously) went as far as to offer the position of leader to other people. Carl Beaman, the party's candidate for Somerton & Frome was offered the position, apparently because he's the only candidate with any respectable business credentials. The party's top dogs were apparently unhappy with Kilroy's channel 4 program where he went to live with a family a gypsies for a week. Obviously showing gypsies to be real people, rather than hate-sponges goes against party policy.

Kilroy launched the Veritas manifesto today with the words

The idea that everybody should respect each others' cultures was "nonsense", he said, adding that not all cultures were equal - some were "reprehensible".

I hope this character is never given any sort of power, in any context. He is odious, his views are disgusting, and he is responsible for bringing out intolerance in people, and forcing a shift to the right in British politics.

Labour unveils plans to tackle child obesity

2005-04-13T18:49:00.000Z

Tony Blair unveiled new plans to combat growing obesity rates among children today.

The campaign will promote bulimia and anorexia in a style designed to make them appealing to children. It is thought a number of celebrities have signed up for the campaign, with figures such as Victoria Beckham and Renee Zellweger being involved in the project.

Miss Zellweger, the star of Bridget Jones’ Diary, who famously put on and then lost pounds for the role, will feature in a commercial wearing as Bridget Jones and wearing a fat suit. After announcing that ‘No one likes a fatty’, she will turn away, vomit, and take the fat suit off, revealing a svelte figure. The tag line is ‘Check it out, Chuck it up’.

Mr Blair said of the plans ‘We are very concerned that one in three children in the UK is overweight. This campaign will go some way to readdress that balance.’

Professor Lympton Harvey of the University of Reading was the brain behind the government plan. He said ‘It is a very odd phenomenon. During the 90s, anorexia was all the rage. Unfortunately it seems we went too far with the anti-eating disorder campaigning, and we find ourselves with fattest children in Europe. This campaign will reign in some of those fatties.’

Other slogans in the campaign include ‘Starve Yourself Skinny’, with the television advert showing a child being beaten every time he tries to eat a cake. Another advert shows a boy being showered in liquidated fat taken from a liposuction operation. The tagline is ‘Fat is Disgusting’.

The Conservative party were quick to condemn the proposals. Sir Robert Highgrove-Barnsley, tory spokesman for Fat Children, said ‘The Labour plans are simply unrealistic. Children today are too unwilling to change. That is why we are proposing a cull of all children who are more that 6 lbs over their ideal weight. Are you thinking what we’re thinking?’

The Liberal-Democrats criticised both sides as ‘Not very nice’, before the spokesman added ‘But look at wee Donald, isn’t he cute and lovely? Ooosa big boy then? Ooos got ‘is daddy’s eyes? Looky looky looky.’

mutter mutter...plagarism... grumble grumble...

2005-04-12T12:38:00.000Z

I'm sure there are rules against this sort of thing. Barely a week after Paisley's Pants brought the news of Pope Idol to the world, Mark Steel cropped up in the Independent advocating the very same contest. And now today Miles Kington is proposing 'Big Father', with a plug for Pope Idol in the italics at the end of his article.

However, a quick google search reveals 5,280 sites, all of whom had the same idea to spin a news article out based on an increasingly strained pun.

Note to self: be more original.

"It won't be the worst thing that ever happened"

2005-04-12T12:34:00.000Z

So said Oona King when questioned how she would feel if she lost her seat in the forthcoming election. Shades of defeatism? I think possibly. She should also be embarassed at throwing away a 10,000 majority.

Howard denies racism

2005-04-11T13:37:00.000Z

Michael Howard was plunged into controversy last night after a number of organisations accused him of racism.

The accusation came after Howard was seen beating a black woman to the ground, before repeatedly kicking her, while calling her a 'bloody colonial'. Oliver Letwin was said to have also been present, grinning inanely.

The head of the Comission for Racial Equality, Trevor Phillips, said 'This sort of thing really is unnacceptable. For a high-profile MP to be involved in such an attack is surprising to say the least. Mr Howard is an out-and-out racist.'

However, aides rushed to defend Mr Howard's actions. A spokesman for Mr Howard said 'The attack was perfectly reasonable. This foreign woman has come into the country, is probably infected with all sorts of ooga-booga diseases, and will steal the job from a hard-working english person. You know they breed four times faster than white people? Soon the country will be full of 'em'.

Mr Howard was questioned about the attack at a press conference in Frinton, and justified his actions further, but denied any allegations of racism 'My actions were merely demonstrating to the British people how in touch I am with them. I know these lynching-style attacks are becoming more popular, and I was showing how in touch I am with the people of Britain. And I was winning a job back for a hard working british person.'

Mr Howard also gave details of his campaign for this week, which include a cermonial torching of a mosque, and a trip to his local synagogue to daub swastikas on the walls. The irony of this last engaement was not lost on Mr Howard, 'I was a little surprised at first, but you'll amazed how far a little bit of self-loathing can get you.' He proceeded to punch himself.

A Labour party spokesman said of Mr Howard's actions 'We utterly condone Mr Howard's actions. Mr Blair will not attack any member of an ethinic minority. Gordon Brown on the other hand is booked in for taunts towards a girl in a hijab next week.' An insider of the party later revealed 'Voters are being turned off by Blair's racist attacks - he's not the safe bet he once was'.

Charles Kennedy condemned the Conservatives as 'not very nice', and asked everyone to 'be nice to each other' because 'Britain's a nice place, with nice people'.

Masturbate for Peace

2005-04-09T13:47:00.000Z

Brought to my attention by Luka Majuka, snappy slogans such as 'War is heinous, finger your anus', among the selection of 586 smutty bids for peace.

My personal contribution - 'Evidence was iffy, but I've got a stiffy', but it may be a little too Iraq specific...

Always nice to see though, that on the Masturbate for Peace website, they helpfully provide a 'Vibrators FAQ' answering such vital questions as 'What if I get it stuck in my ass?'.

It reminds me of the part of Ricky Gervais' second standup show, Politics, where he's discussing a guy who went into hospital with a bottle of tomato sauce stuck up his arse. He made this stroy up about how he was locked out of the house with his shopping, so climbed up to the second floor window to break in, but fell off. While he was falling, his trousers and pants got caught on a nail, and ripped off, and he landed arsehole first onto a bottle of tomato ketchup. The story would have been more believable if the bottle didn't have a condom on it.

Just a quick thought...

2005-04-08T19:13:00.000Z

How do patients feel, lying ill in hospital, when an MP comes round and tels them all that MRSA is running rampant in their hospital, death rates from it are rocketing? It's not the most reassuring visit, is it? I'd rather have a hallmark poem and a bunch of grapes...

And how is voting in the Conservatives going to stop MRSA? Is Michael Howard, once he becomes PM, going to send his lackeys round to clean hospitals himself?

Has anyone seen the pope recently?

2005-04-06T19:03:00.000Z

He looks really awful... Really pale... Like death warmed up...

Never fear all you hunting types

2005-04-06T18:09:00.000Z

I'm sure, if you're a self-respecting toff worth your salt, you'll be disappointed that the shooting season for buck roe deer ended on the 31st March. "What to do!?" I hear you cry. Well never fear, blood sports fans, because marching season is nearly upon us!

Ah yes! That glorious time of year running from Easter Monday to the end of September, when all the great and good and landed of Britain diverge on Northern Ireland, and try and shoot those damned protestants. Here, Paisley's Pants provide a quick guide to Shooting in Northern Ireland.

1) The plumage of the proddy, both male and (more rarely) female, changes to orange for most of the season. While in the wild, this was done to ward off rival species, the main effect now is that it makes the proddy easier to spot, and thus shoot.
2) The proddy further hampers its efforts to avoid being shot by creating a rather large amount of noise. It seems, rather quaintly, to have learnt how to play the traditional marching music of military bands. But remember! These creatures are not cute! And just think how nice a mounted head will look on the wall in the dining room.
3) The leader of the proddy pack is the Rt Rev Sir Lord Ian McPaisley*. He is loud, large and obnoxious. He should be shot on sight.

So there we have it. The very basics for marching season. Happy hunting!

*The proddies do seem to have evolved names of some sort - do not try to learn them, as that is the first step to losing the killing instinct. Just remember them for the hapless colonials that they are.

Arse to Blogger...

2005-04-06T12:30:00.000Z

...for messing up my posting. It's all sorted now though.

Who will The Sun back?

2005-04-05T23:04:00.000Z

The Tories of course.

A couple of days ago, The Sun declared that it had not decided who to back in the election (except the Lib-Dems, who were 'unprincipled' and not worthy of their vote).

Then today, Tony Blair sends a handwritten letter to The Mirror telling it's readers why they should vote. The Mirror, the most naturally left wing tabloid, has long felt snubbed by Blair's premiership, where he has preferred to go to The Sun (see Hutton report 'scoop')

So what does this mean? I would guess a few things:

1) Blair is trying to court the left vote. He has lost all credibility in this area, and it will take more than four weeks to win it back.
2) Following on from this, Labour see Respect as a threat. Up until now, this (widely held) knowledge was based on whisperings emerging from Labour HQ - whisperings like Labour would rather lose 30 seats to the Tories than 1 to Respect. Dead Men Left is the place to look for this sort of thing.
3) The Sun will back the Tories. They are of course the natural party of The Sun, the paper being a slightly higher brow version of the Tory manifesto - burn gypsies, asylum seekers have AIDS, you'll die if you go into hospital etc. etc. Of course, this has probably been predictable since Michael Howard had tea with Rupert Murdoch around March last year.

So there you have it... And note that The Sun hasn't backed a loser since 1971, so this could all be rosy for Michael Howard... or Labour could still win by 47 seats (in my opinion)

Election called: helicopter shares rocket

2005-04-05T22:23:00.000Z

Apparently, those in the know reckon these will be el modus transportatus de jour de la choix for electioneering party officials, seemingly demonstrated by Charles Kennedy city hopping around the north today, and Tony Blair going in and out of Weymouth in minutes in his. (It is advisable for any flailing Labour leader to avoid the mean tory streets of Weymouth) In the first day alone, I counted three at the BBC, although one may just have been a bog standard camera one. Newsnight have their own specific chopper, which is a bit la-di-da... They do have a battle bus, but that was so 1997 darling.

I can't help but imagine the BNP's battlechopper to be like the scene in Full Metal Jacket, except swapping the paddy fields of vietnam for the streets of Bradford, and the gooks become pakis of course...

Anyway, these helicopters can only be a good change - 'battlechopper' sounds so much cooler than 'battlebus': nothing else will rescue the turnout.

US satisfaction at moving up league table

2005-04-05T10:45:00.000Z

The Bush administration expressed 'satisfaction' at the news that the US has moved up a place in the execution league.

The US moved up from 5th place to 4th in the last year, at the expense of Iraq, who dropped out of the top 10 all together, due mainly to a temporary suspension of law and order in the country.

A spokesman for the administration said 'Of course we're all satisfied with the latest figures. They show the world that George Bush is an effective killer, and what is more, he is getting more effective.'

Some leading democrats have expressed doubt over the figures though. Edward Kennedy, a democratic senator, said 'Sure we've moved up the league table, but the number of executions has fallen. We're down 5 on last year, which can only mean that we're falling further behind the competition.'

In the previous year, the US executed 65 people, compared with 59 in the last year. While Vietnam's figures also fell by the same amount, both Iran and China pulled away from the chasing group. However, there is still controversy surrounding China's figures, where only estimates are available - the official count for the previous year was 726, while the unofficial count put the figure at closer to 5,000. In this last year, China's figures could be as high as 10,000.

Commenting on China's continued dominance of the league, the Washington spokesman said 'Of course, we all look on at China with great envy - not only do they show a great verve in their executions, but they surround it with enough secrecy to make the eyes water. They are an example to us all.' When asked whether China were catchable, the spokesman said 'We'd need some new laws for that, but don't assume we won't try.'

Tributes pour in for John Paul II

2005-04-03T12:18:00.000Z

Figures from politics, religion and showbusiness have joined together to pay tribute to the former head of the Catholic Church in Rome. Paisley’s Pants is proud to present a selection of them:

‘He was a fucking top bloke, you know, he supported Band Aid all the way through – you know I wrote the Band Aid single?’ Bob Geldof

‘Ha! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it! God’s messenger on earth are we? Fat lot of good that did you, dead boy! Transubstantiation my arse.’ Archbishop Rowan Williams

‘You’re going home in a Vatican ambulance’ A chant heard from Milwall supporters yesterday

‘This is yet another example of Labour inadequacy. I ask you, how many pontiffs died under the last Tory administration? None. The last two Popes have both died under Labour governments. How hard is it to keep a Pope alive? Are you thinking what we’re thinking? Under Michael Howard, there will be less papal bucket kicking.’ Dominic Grieve, Conservative spokesman for Papal Health Affairs

‘You see, if the Pope had had decent school meals, rather than the processed rubbish we’re forcing down our kids these days, then he would probably still be with us today. Ban those damned turkey twizzlers.’ Jamie Oliver

‘He stood in the way of democracy [in opposing the Iraq war], and he paid the price. As I said before, you’re either with us or against us, and those who’re against us don’t stay against us very long.’ George W. Bush

‘What President Bush meant by those comments was that Pope John Paul II was a fine leader. His dignity and faith are an example to all of us.’ Condoleeza Rice

‘Vote for me’ Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor

‘Bloody Catholics. Just because they can’t become monarch, they have to upstage my bloody wedding with some funeral.’ Prince Charles

‘Twitchy fellow wasn’t he. Bad news at an auction. Wouldn’t have done well on Bargain Hunt. Flog It is probably more his style.’ David Dickinson

'I never really liked the guy' God

My least favourite April Fools joke

2005-04-03T12:12:00.000Z

The one that Luka Majuka pulled on me posting as Ann Coulter...

Arse.

Pope dies: Vatican announce controversial plans for appointing successor

2005-04-02T20:11:00.000Z

As millions of Catholics mourn the death of Pope John Paul II, there is a growing feeling of unease with the Vatican announcement regarding the appointment of the deceased pontiff's successor.

In a statement given shortly after the annoncement of John Paul II's death, a Vatican official said that the plan was for the process to reflect the populist movements within the Catholic church, thereby giving a more representative figurehead. 'We feel the church should reflect the worshippers. That is why we are introducing Pope Idol'.

The format for the selection process is thought to cross talent show with election, with hopeful candidates given 30 seconds to make a pitch as to why they should head the church in Rome, with the aim of impressing a panel of judges. In the final rounds, the general public will be invited to vote to eliminate candidates.

Simon Cowell, pioneer of the original 'Pop Stars' format that spawned countless mind-numbing reality talent shows, said of his latest project 'The people in the Vatican got in touch with me a couple of months ago with regards to coming up with a new idea for choosing the next person to be God's man on Earth. We put our heads together, and we think we've come up with an original, dynamic format.'

Cowell is expected to sit on the panel of judges, and is expected to bring his trademark acerbic comments to the process. 'I won't go easy on anyone - God expects the best, and we have to sort the wheat from the chaff'.

The identities of the other judges is as yet unclear, although Jamie Oliver is being widely touted as a favourite, while the bookmakers are closing the books on Sharon Osborne being on the final selection panel.

Cowell was quick to play down accusations that the whole production was simply a cheap rehashing of a tired idea, mainly done for a bad pun. 'That is an entirely unfair suggestion,' said the high-trousered one, 'This show is entirely original'

The show is expected to be hosted by Ant and Dec, and will air on ITV within the next fortnight.

My favourite April Fools

2005-04-02T14:55:00.000Z

Zimbabwe has fair election.

Gets me every time.

An Apology

2005-04-02T14:38:00.000Z

I recently received a message from a right-wing American political commentator expressing disgust about my reference to her as an ‘absolute whore’. I would like now to state for the record that Ann Coulter is indeed not an ‘absolute whore’. Ann Coulter has never accepted money for any type of sexual activity, not even dirty dirty bum sex, although I have it on absolutely no authority whatsoever that she will let you feel her tits behind the bikesheds if you give her a curly-wurly.

I would also like to thank Ms. Coulter for giving me my first proper complaint, thereby making my irritating ramblings all the more satisfying to write.

I have amended my link to her website so it now reflects a more accurate description of her. I would justify this description, but I think I would get on better by simply engaging in the same tactics she does: smearing targets with sexual innuendo, rather than using coherent arguments based on facts.

Tories Target New Vote Winner

2005-03-25T15:48:00.000Z

The Tories announced a new target in their latest round of electioneering today, setting their sights firmly on those people who go to express checkouts clearly carrying more than their allocated 8 items or less.

Ian Liddell-Grainger, the newly appointed Shadow Spokesman for Checkout Affairs, said yesterday, 'It's time for action. For too long under Labour have decent, right-minded people had their rights usurped by some no good, probably foreign, individuals who feel that the limits imposed on checkout queues are there for other people. Well hear this now - item limits are for everyone, and the Conservative party is here to enforce them'.

Biting back at claims that the Tories were yet again jumping on a populist bandwaggon, Mr Liddell-Grainger said, 'This is a populist movement, but only because people have finally grown sick of Labour's inadequacy at dealing with this serious issue. The Tory party will give people what they want, be it regular gypsy burnings, or a fair checkout system, rather than the Labour party giving people what the Labour party say they need.'

Labour were quick to respond however. A senior Labour backbench MP said 'This is simply rubbish from the Tories. If you look at the figures, while it is true there has been an overall increase in item number-related incidents, that is simply because the way we are recording such incidents has changed. If we look at the more serious 'trolley through basket only aisle' incidents, we can see these have fallen under the current Labour government.'

It remains to be seen whether the new Tory proposals will capture the hearts and minds of the voting public. In a Tesco store in Wycombe yesterday, shoppers remained unconvinced as to the effect the Tory proposals would have, 'I'm unconvinced' remarked one unconvinced shopper. 'I still need convincing' commented one shopper sans conviction.

Jamie Oliver declined to comment on the matter.

Slipping from the agenda

2005-03-25T13:55:00.000Z

So what have we learnt over the past few days? Well, we now know that the grounds for going to war were exceedingly dodgy; we know that Blair was already set on action, and waited for the people who were making the case for war to make his case for war; we know that the Government has been desperately trying to cover things up.

Hang on a second...

All that has happened in the past few days with the Wilmshurst resignation is that we, as the people who have been against the war all along, have merely been told all over again what we already knew.

But now there is a fervour (see front page of Independent - 'Publish or be Damned') to have the full documentation behind the decision to go to war in Iraq. But still, what good will that do? The evidence against Blair is stacked pretty high already, but there is still limited progress being made in taking any effective action against him. What is more, the war is slipping off the election debate - just look at the protests last friday: around 100,000 protestors, and barely a whisper on any major news source. As lenin wrote after the event,

The antiwar movement has been far too staid and conservative, partly because the main bodies in it need to maintain a broad coalition, which means being
inoffensive to mainstream opinion. The enterprising vigour of the anticapitalist
movement would be a welcome addition to the antiwar movement here. I'm not
talking about trashing McDonalds windows (and surreptitiously stealing the McMuffins), but a bit of ingenuity and militancy would not go amiss.

In short, the protests have become predictable, and boring. It need not be the case: look how Fathers 4 Justice got their campaign on the map. Something that catches the headlines and highlights Blair's indiscrepencies over the war needs to be done before the election to tap into the feeling - that is still there - that Blair needs to be brought to justice somehow.