The shrewd, insightful words of Mr Boy George esq, shortly before he won his first Nobel Peace Prize, opining, through the medium of the pop charts, that war is, indeed, stupid.
It seems that Mr George was indeed correct in his prognostication for no less an authority than the former chief of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, agrees with him. Speaking at the current inquiry into the Iraq war, she said, “"There was no credible intelligence to suggest that connection and that was the judgment, I might say, of the CIA. It was not a judgment that found favour with some parts of the American machine. It is why Donald Rumsfeld started an alternative intelligence unit in the Pentagon to seek an alternative judgment.” A unit to make the facts fit the story Dubya wanted to tell.
More compelling yet though was her insistence that "Our involvement in Iraq radicalized, for want of a better word, a whole generation of young people - not a whole generation, a few among a generation - who saw our involvement in Iraq, on top of our involvement in Afghanistan, as being an attack on Islam”, adding that Britain and the west are more, not less at risk from terrorism than we were before this all began.
Given that we remain in Afghanistan, this opinion is of far more urgent importance than deliberations of just how we got into Iraq in the first place. That cannot be undone. The current catastrophic loss of life among British and American troops in Afghanistan can be halted.
It’s sad that we seem to learn so few of the lessons of history, particularly when they should be so recent and fresh in our minds. Sadly, truths do not always fit into the narratives the ruling classes want to hand down. They would have us believe that the Cold War was won by Ronald Reagan rounding up a posse, saddling up his horse and winning a shootout with that varmint Gorbachev. That it was all down to the west winning the arms race, that the threat of Star Wars eventually toppled the Kremlin.
In the end though, it was all rather more banal than that. The eastern bloc was beaten from within, by its own citizens, who tired of their own oppression, who railed against the grey, drab conformity. It was MTV, Levis and Coca-Cola that won the Cold War, the urge of those in the east to sample the same kind of consumer lifestyle that we had long since taken for granted. And in the end, it is the same kind of things that will be more effective in bringing some kind of peace again. Provide aid, hope, eventual wealth to those who are currently living in poverty and the motivation for them to take up arms will melt away. If the lives of you and your people are comfortable rather than constant struggle, the imperative to strap explosives to yourself is no longer there.
Not that that will rid the world of the problem of religious extremists, but nor should we pretend that the only such extremists are Islamic, not when anti-abortionists still firebomb and intimidate those who work in abortion clinics in the USA for instance. By their very nature, religious nuts are just that – nuts. If they are motivated by a religious hatred of the infidel, how are you going to stop it?
You can’t wipe out vast swathes of population in nations that might just harbour such extremists. All you can do is create social and political conditions that make it harder for them to radicalise and recruit others to the cause. Invading a nation and stamping all over it is not the way to go.
Which, in roundabout fashion, brings us to Trident and the innate lunacy of replacing it in the years to come at ruinous cost, some £100billion over 25 years – wouldn’t that make a hole in the bank created deficit? This is a very different world to the one of the post-war settlement some 60 years ago, when there was a genuine arms race and the threat of mutually assured destruction. That threat is broadly gone, there appears to be no realistic possibility that any nation state, not even Iran, has any desire or intention of unleashing nuclear weapons upon other nations. It may be that Britain should keep an independent deterrent, though frankly, its hard to see why, but if that is the case, the infinitely cheaper Astute system should certainly be considered.
That was certainly the view of the supine Liberal Democrats in the days when they had principles, ie when they were in opposition and could say anything because it didn’t matter. Nowadays of course, they think that being allowed to disagree with nuclear power policy is ok as long as they don’t vote against it, a little like saying you don’t believe in burning down houses as you pass an arsonist a box of matches and a tin of petrol.
Once upon a time, when Labour needed the votes of the Conservatives to get their last vote on Trident through, the then Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell – who’d be turning in his grave at the current fiasco if only he were dead – said, “The government's got its way, but it's a humiliation for the prime minister that on a policy to which he has attached his own personal reputation he is unable to carry the House of Commons without the votes of the Conservative Party. It's a bit like the Iraq vote once again."
Although the coalition agreement allows the Liberal Democrats to argue for alternatives to Trident, it’s pretty obvious that will amount to nothing, which is why Cameron let them have it. But what is it for? The nation threat has gone. The threat of nuclear destruction lies elsewhere, inside the briefcase of a fanatic who, one day, will wander into Times Square or Trafalgar Square, and open Pandora’s Box. And what good will Trident be then?
It used to be true that, as various Presidents were quoted as saying, if you had them by the balls, their hearts and minds would follow. Those days are gone, blind servitude to the man with the money is over, and politicians need to wake up to that fact and the danger it presents. Hearts and minds are suddenly much more important.
Send that £100billion to aid the developing world and that briefcase might just remain closed.
Wednesday 28 July 2010
Monday 26 July 2010
Jackie's still sad about it
Wrong time, wrong place. Gordon Brown knows all about that, though history will ultimately be rather kinder to him than the media and the ballot box was. The same will be true of one of the finest bands you’ve probably never heard of, Diesel Park West.
A glorious guitar band just at the point when indie was on the wane in the late ‘80s, when baggy was in and every band had to pretend “there’s always been a dance element to our music”, the Diesels stuck to what they believed in and sold only a fraction of the number of albums they should have before heading back to obscurity.
Diesel Park West were the band that should have been Oasis. More technically accomplished, a better songwriter in frontman John Butler, a sound with more heart and greater depth, with a truly political edge, the Diesels were highbrow to Liam’s unibrow. But they ran straight into a music press that only had ears for the, admittedly magnificent, Stone Roses.
Ironic then that the Roses and the Diesels were different heads of the same coin, both drawing on jangly, psychedelic ‘60s roots, both built around a guitar sound that owed much to the Byrds and The Beatles, yet only the Roses prospered. They played the game more cleverly perhaps, courted controversy superbly and created a commotion where the Diesels simply plugged in and played anywhere that would have them, building a loyal audience but not commandeering the necessary column inches.
Those that failed to listen closely enough simply cast them aside as ‘60s retreads, though that never stopped Oasis once the tide of trends had turned again and guitar groups were back in vogue. But where the Gallaghers crafted an entire career from “I Am The Walrus”, the music of Lennon, McCartney, Stills, Young and other acid drenched creators of rock music’s handbook, Diesel Park West used it as a starting point and took the music elsewhere.
Never afraid to engage with the grotesque realities of Thatcherite destruction of the country, nor the hypocrisy of the press or religious leaders, Diesel Park West had a relevance and a bite that music needed but the arbiters of taste looked instead to the Soup Dragons and the Mock Turtles for guidance. With an aggressive musical edge that you’d expect from three front line guitarists, their souped-up take on acid rock pointed the way towards BritPop, the denizens of which mopped up the money after dance music had crashed and burned and indie kids returned their roots.
Wrong time, wrong place. But records were made and they will endure, and people will return to them again. No effort in life is ever wasted. Mistimed, temporarily misplaced perhaps, but never wasted. Diesel Park West left their mark, most notably with “Shakespeare Alabama”, and continue to do so. Maybe their time might come, they might be rediscovered the way Big Star were. In the meantime, Liam and Noel owe them as big a chunk of their royalties as they ever owed John, Paul, George and Ringo.
www.dieselparkwest.com
All the myths on Sunday
A glorious guitar band just at the point when indie was on the wane in the late ‘80s, when baggy was in and every band had to pretend “there’s always been a dance element to our music”, the Diesels stuck to what they believed in and sold only a fraction of the number of albums they should have before heading back to obscurity.
Diesel Park West were the band that should have been Oasis. More technically accomplished, a better songwriter in frontman John Butler, a sound with more heart and greater depth, with a truly political edge, the Diesels were highbrow to Liam’s unibrow. But they ran straight into a music press that only had ears for the, admittedly magnificent, Stone Roses.
Ironic then that the Roses and the Diesels were different heads of the same coin, both drawing on jangly, psychedelic ‘60s roots, both built around a guitar sound that owed much to the Byrds and The Beatles, yet only the Roses prospered. They played the game more cleverly perhaps, courted controversy superbly and created a commotion where the Diesels simply plugged in and played anywhere that would have them, building a loyal audience but not commandeering the necessary column inches.
Those that failed to listen closely enough simply cast them aside as ‘60s retreads, though that never stopped Oasis once the tide of trends had turned again and guitar groups were back in vogue. But where the Gallaghers crafted an entire career from “I Am The Walrus”, the music of Lennon, McCartney, Stills, Young and other acid drenched creators of rock music’s handbook, Diesel Park West used it as a starting point and took the music elsewhere.
Never afraid to engage with the grotesque realities of Thatcherite destruction of the country, nor the hypocrisy of the press or religious leaders, Diesel Park West had a relevance and a bite that music needed but the arbiters of taste looked instead to the Soup Dragons and the Mock Turtles for guidance. With an aggressive musical edge that you’d expect from three front line guitarists, their souped-up take on acid rock pointed the way towards BritPop, the denizens of which mopped up the money after dance music had crashed and burned and indie kids returned their roots.
Wrong time, wrong place. But records were made and they will endure, and people will return to them again. No effort in life is ever wasted. Mistimed, temporarily misplaced perhaps, but never wasted. Diesel Park West left their mark, most notably with “Shakespeare Alabama”, and continue to do so. Maybe their time might come, they might be rediscovered the way Big Star were. In the meantime, Liam and Noel owe them as big a chunk of their royalties as they ever owed John, Paul, George and Ringo.
www.dieselparkwest.com
All the myths on Sunday
Sunday 25 July 2010
Sound and fury, signifying nothing
It was the slogan of the election if you recall. “I agree with Nick”. After last week’s shambles at Prime Minister’s Questions, you can’t find anybody who’s going to go with that one.
The level of the tea boy’s reputation is going down quicker than a Cumbrian reservoir for, after two months of hanging around with his mate, trying not to look bewildered, the truth is out. He really is bewildered. And dangerously so.
Question time in the Commons may look as if it’s just a bit of pointless knockabout theatre, but it’s one of the very few forums where the government of the day is held accountable, and where its views go on the record. It’s not like making an off the cuff comment on television that you retract in a press release later, it’s an arena where what you say, goes. Never more is that true than in matters of warfare.
So, after around a quarter of an hour of general humiliation for Clegg, who clearly hadn’t got the foggiest – no wonder they’re finishing “Last of the Sumer Wine” – he finally lost his rag and accused the previous government of waging “an illegal war” in Iraq. Nice that Clegg has decided to become judge, jury and executioner on a decision that has to be made elsewhere and by people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Sadly though, that isn’t the end of it, for as Deputy PM – God help us, how did we get into that kind of mess? – his allegations have weight. Some are suggesting that they use his words as the basis for some kind of legal action given the government of the day has declared the war to be illegal, an apparent admission of guilt for many. Which means that an out of his depth politician throwing a tantrum could end up putting former ministers, forces personnel and ordinary servicemen up on trial for war crimes.
The government issued strenuous denials that Clegg’s declarations were actually the views of the coalition, but his performance thus far makes John Prescott look like Gladstone. The tea boy has been promoted about 250 levels above his appropriate pay grade, somewhere below minimum wage, and needs removing from office. Except they can’t can they, because the Tories are currently hiding behind him and Cable who offer some vestige of cover for their version of slash and burn economics that are designed to destroy the welfare state even more ruthlessly than Thatcher massacred the unions.
But we won’t forget the guilty men on an ego trip in government cars when the chance comes round to vote them out. And let’s not be too harsh on Clegg for in the longer term, he may have done us all a great service, for he might finally awaken us from the mistaken belief that voting in a general election is exactly the same as voting for an X-factor winner. That, after all, was the criteria on which he managed to shore up the Liberal voter, that he was the new, young, clean cut, exciting pretender on the stage with a winning smile and a way with a one liner put down. And yes, if he were voting for somebody to read the weather forecast on Orkney TV, I’m sure he’s have been a fine choice.
Sadly, we were actually voting for somebody with the intelligence, vision and gravitas to lead the country through tough times. Instead, we got the government that nobody wanted which is, day after day, making it perfectly clear that we really ought to invest a bit more thought in choosing our leader next time. And if Clegg gets us to do that, then he hasn’t been all bad. Which will represent some achievement considering what he’s done so far.
The level of the tea boy’s reputation is going down quicker than a Cumbrian reservoir for, after two months of hanging around with his mate, trying not to look bewildered, the truth is out. He really is bewildered. And dangerously so.
Question time in the Commons may look as if it’s just a bit of pointless knockabout theatre, but it’s one of the very few forums where the government of the day is held accountable, and where its views go on the record. It’s not like making an off the cuff comment on television that you retract in a press release later, it’s an arena where what you say, goes. Never more is that true than in matters of warfare.
So, after around a quarter of an hour of general humiliation for Clegg, who clearly hadn’t got the foggiest – no wonder they’re finishing “Last of the Sumer Wine” – he finally lost his rag and accused the previous government of waging “an illegal war” in Iraq. Nice that Clegg has decided to become judge, jury and executioner on a decision that has to be made elsewhere and by people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Sadly though, that isn’t the end of it, for as Deputy PM – God help us, how did we get into that kind of mess? – his allegations have weight. Some are suggesting that they use his words as the basis for some kind of legal action given the government of the day has declared the war to be illegal, an apparent admission of guilt for many. Which means that an out of his depth politician throwing a tantrum could end up putting former ministers, forces personnel and ordinary servicemen up on trial for war crimes.
The government issued strenuous denials that Clegg’s declarations were actually the views of the coalition, but his performance thus far makes John Prescott look like Gladstone. The tea boy has been promoted about 250 levels above his appropriate pay grade, somewhere below minimum wage, and needs removing from office. Except they can’t can they, because the Tories are currently hiding behind him and Cable who offer some vestige of cover for their version of slash and burn economics that are designed to destroy the welfare state even more ruthlessly than Thatcher massacred the unions.
But we won’t forget the guilty men on an ego trip in government cars when the chance comes round to vote them out. And let’s not be too harsh on Clegg for in the longer term, he may have done us all a great service, for he might finally awaken us from the mistaken belief that voting in a general election is exactly the same as voting for an X-factor winner. That, after all, was the criteria on which he managed to shore up the Liberal voter, that he was the new, young, clean cut, exciting pretender on the stage with a winning smile and a way with a one liner put down. And yes, if he were voting for somebody to read the weather forecast on Orkney TV, I’m sure he’s have been a fine choice.
Sadly, we were actually voting for somebody with the intelligence, vision and gravitas to lead the country through tough times. Instead, we got the government that nobody wanted which is, day after day, making it perfectly clear that we really ought to invest a bit more thought in choosing our leader next time. And if Clegg gets us to do that, then he hasn’t been all bad. Which will represent some achievement considering what he’s done so far.
Sunday 18 July 2010
Hunt saboteur
I’d long imagined that the Culture Secretary merely organised yoghurt, but no. It appears that Jeremy Slang-Rhyming has decided to meddle in the affairs of the BBC.
Doubtless the former Charterhouse and Oxford University management consultant – he must be from the good kind of management rather than the public sector kind, a critical condem distinction – has conducted a line by line analysis of the corporation’s expenditure over the last five years, giving him a full grasp of its affairs, thus enabling him to make the definitive statement that there is “extraordinary and outrageous” waste at the BBC. Or perhaps he just read it in the Daily Fail.
It appears, for instance, that 85 execs at the BBC are paid more than £142,500pa, or more than the Prime Minister’s salary. You might take from that the fact that the PM – not the current moon faced one, but a theoretically good one – should be paid more in a year than John Terry gets in a week, but let’s not digress. For Mr Slang-Rhyming is on a roll, fully embracing the politics of envy that he and his ilk so derided when Labour were in power.
Basically, it’s all the fault of Jonathan Ross for getting so much money. Never mind that the Tories have spent years telling us that the best should get rewarded and, as it goes, Ross is as good as it gets at his job, adding considerably more to the sum of human happiness across the spectrum than, for example, the aforementioned Mr Terry, who earns considerably more.
And lest we forget, as the head of a production company, Ross is also an employer, precisely the kind of private sector entrepreneurial spirit that is going to fill the gaping hole in the economy that Slang-Rhyming and his colleagues are currently digging. Incidentally, why hasn’t Jeremy Clarkson been similarly scapegoated for his big BBC pay packet? Because he’s a Sun columnist, of which more later.
So the answer? Well, amid the current self imposed austerity – the one that the majority of the world economists seem to think is reckless at best – the BBC needs to cut its cloth, and the best way to do that is reduce its funding. Which of course makes no sense. The BBC gets its revenue from the licence fee. It does not take any other tax revenues, and therefore, there’s no way it can be part of deficit reduction, unless the government wants to nick some of the BBC’s money for something else. So that justification is, plain and simple, garbage.
What is going on is something rather more cunning. A cut in licence fee is shamelessly populist at a time when Slang-Rhyming and his mates are busy shredding the economy and charging us more and more tax for the privilege. They think that by knocking £20 off the fee, we’ll all be enthralled. This is because you notice you’re paying tax when the licence fee demand comes, but you don’t really think about it when you buy things in a shop and the VAT is largely hidden from view.
So, if you buy a £600 TV for example, after January you won’t necessarily notice that you’ve already paid £12.50 more tax than if you’d bought it today, thanks to the VAT increase. That’s why the Tories, the party who introduced VAT and the only party that has ever increased it, love it so much. People don’t really think they’re paying it – they blame the shop for charging them too much rather than the government for having money out of their pockets.
Oddly, at a time when we are looking to exports to boost the economy, Slang-Rhyming does not note the value of the BBC’s exports, the fact that it sells its programmes to broadcasters all over the world thus helping our balance of payments. It’s ability to sell its programmes on DVD also indicates the quality of its output. People might queue for a copy of “The Office” but they’re rarely camping out overnight to get their hands on “Come Dine With Me” are they?
Culturally, the BBC is the real crown jewels in this country, giving us a standing in the world that any other country would love to have. When you go online, do you ever consult any foreign news agencies for information? Few Brits do. But people all over the world turn to the BBC for their information because they trust it. They do not turn to Sky or to Fox. And there’s the nub of it all. Payback time.
Because after throwing the weight of his newspapers behind the neo-Conservatives, Mr Murdoch wants his pound of flesh. He wants the BBC brought to its knees, he wants them to have less and less money for programming, less to spend on sports. He wants the list of protected free to air sports events to disappear so that he can own Wimbledon, the FA Cup Final, the World Cup, the lot.
As Sky subscriber numbers stubbornly refuse to go up, as the market has been opened up to other competitors to carry his products – another reason for turning on the previous government – Murdoch needs another magic bullet like the Premier League, the institution that saved him from bankruptcy. More sport is it, coupled with a collapse in the BBC’s other core programming so that whatever Godawful garbage he shovels out on his countless channels, there will be no alternative.
More important, if the BBC’s ability to scrutinise the news is compromised, how much easier it will be for him and his lackeys in Downing Street to do whatever they like without being questioned? They’re already trying to decide who is allowed to go on “Question Time”, next they’ll be vetting the questioners, and presumably only going on Sky. A win-win for Murdoch and the government.
So, the Murdoch empire or the BBC, the choice is yours. The BBC costs you just under 40p a day, for which you get four TV channels, the BBC online network, the national and local radio stations, and a rare reason to be proud of this country.
Or you can get The Times, a shadow of its once impressive self, online, at an annual cost of just under 29p a day. How many radio stations and TV channels does it also provide for that subscription? That’ll be none. Precisely the amount of intelligent comment we’ll have left in this country if Slang-Rhyming is allowed to emasculate the BBC.
He should have stuck to yoghurt.
Doubtless the former Charterhouse and Oxford University management consultant – he must be from the good kind of management rather than the public sector kind, a critical condem distinction – has conducted a line by line analysis of the corporation’s expenditure over the last five years, giving him a full grasp of its affairs, thus enabling him to make the definitive statement that there is “extraordinary and outrageous” waste at the BBC. Or perhaps he just read it in the Daily Fail.
It appears, for instance, that 85 execs at the BBC are paid more than £142,500pa, or more than the Prime Minister’s salary. You might take from that the fact that the PM – not the current moon faced one, but a theoretically good one – should be paid more in a year than John Terry gets in a week, but let’s not digress. For Mr Slang-Rhyming is on a roll, fully embracing the politics of envy that he and his ilk so derided when Labour were in power.
Basically, it’s all the fault of Jonathan Ross for getting so much money. Never mind that the Tories have spent years telling us that the best should get rewarded and, as it goes, Ross is as good as it gets at his job, adding considerably more to the sum of human happiness across the spectrum than, for example, the aforementioned Mr Terry, who earns considerably more.
And lest we forget, as the head of a production company, Ross is also an employer, precisely the kind of private sector entrepreneurial spirit that is going to fill the gaping hole in the economy that Slang-Rhyming and his colleagues are currently digging. Incidentally, why hasn’t Jeremy Clarkson been similarly scapegoated for his big BBC pay packet? Because he’s a Sun columnist, of which more later.
So the answer? Well, amid the current self imposed austerity – the one that the majority of the world economists seem to think is reckless at best – the BBC needs to cut its cloth, and the best way to do that is reduce its funding. Which of course makes no sense. The BBC gets its revenue from the licence fee. It does not take any other tax revenues, and therefore, there’s no way it can be part of deficit reduction, unless the government wants to nick some of the BBC’s money for something else. So that justification is, plain and simple, garbage.
What is going on is something rather more cunning. A cut in licence fee is shamelessly populist at a time when Slang-Rhyming and his mates are busy shredding the economy and charging us more and more tax for the privilege. They think that by knocking £20 off the fee, we’ll all be enthralled. This is because you notice you’re paying tax when the licence fee demand comes, but you don’t really think about it when you buy things in a shop and the VAT is largely hidden from view.
So, if you buy a £600 TV for example, after January you won’t necessarily notice that you’ve already paid £12.50 more tax than if you’d bought it today, thanks to the VAT increase. That’s why the Tories, the party who introduced VAT and the only party that has ever increased it, love it so much. People don’t really think they’re paying it – they blame the shop for charging them too much rather than the government for having money out of their pockets.
Oddly, at a time when we are looking to exports to boost the economy, Slang-Rhyming does not note the value of the BBC’s exports, the fact that it sells its programmes to broadcasters all over the world thus helping our balance of payments. It’s ability to sell its programmes on DVD also indicates the quality of its output. People might queue for a copy of “The Office” but they’re rarely camping out overnight to get their hands on “Come Dine With Me” are they?
Culturally, the BBC is the real crown jewels in this country, giving us a standing in the world that any other country would love to have. When you go online, do you ever consult any foreign news agencies for information? Few Brits do. But people all over the world turn to the BBC for their information because they trust it. They do not turn to Sky or to Fox. And there’s the nub of it all. Payback time.
Because after throwing the weight of his newspapers behind the neo-Conservatives, Mr Murdoch wants his pound of flesh. He wants the BBC brought to its knees, he wants them to have less and less money for programming, less to spend on sports. He wants the list of protected free to air sports events to disappear so that he can own Wimbledon, the FA Cup Final, the World Cup, the lot.
As Sky subscriber numbers stubbornly refuse to go up, as the market has been opened up to other competitors to carry his products – another reason for turning on the previous government – Murdoch needs another magic bullet like the Premier League, the institution that saved him from bankruptcy. More sport is it, coupled with a collapse in the BBC’s other core programming so that whatever Godawful garbage he shovels out on his countless channels, there will be no alternative.
More important, if the BBC’s ability to scrutinise the news is compromised, how much easier it will be for him and his lackeys in Downing Street to do whatever they like without being questioned? They’re already trying to decide who is allowed to go on “Question Time”, next they’ll be vetting the questioners, and presumably only going on Sky. A win-win for Murdoch and the government.
So, the Murdoch empire or the BBC, the choice is yours. The BBC costs you just under 40p a day, for which you get four TV channels, the BBC online network, the national and local radio stations, and a rare reason to be proud of this country.
Or you can get The Times, a shadow of its once impressive self, online, at an annual cost of just under 29p a day. How many radio stations and TV channels does it also provide for that subscription? That’ll be none. Precisely the amount of intelligent comment we’ll have left in this country if Slang-Rhyming is allowed to emasculate the BBC.
He should have stuck to yoghurt.
Tuesday 13 July 2010
Follow the money
This deficit business. Don’t you think it’s weird that we have one, yet so do the French, the Spanish, the Germans, the Americans, the Italians, the Irish, the Greeks, and most of the rest of the western world, in spite of the fact that we’ve all had governments of differing philosophies, in power for different lengths of time and with differing attitudes towards public spending and taxation?
Given Cameroon and the tea boy keep insisting upon the fact that the reason we’re in the mess we are was because of Labour’s profligate spending, surely those nations that didn’t have Labour in charge and had specifically right wing governments – eight years of Bush the baboon for instance – and hardly any public sector on which to lavish fortunes should be in infinitely better shape?
And yet they’re not. As I say, odd.
Yet not. Because the reason we’re all in the mess together was because of the banks. Remember a couple of years back when they went into meltdown and then held a gun to the head of the world’s economies, saying that if you let us die, we take you down as well? That’s where the deficit came from, because of the money that had to be pumped into failed institutions, that had to be injected into otherwise crippled economies, that had to be made available to ensure liquidity.
Remember in this country the way we had to give the kiss of life to Northern Rock and the rest, a process that was repeated around the globe? That’s where our deficit came from, and where the rest of it came from.
So why then are we getting rid it of by slashing public spending, by following a policy that will see children going to schools that are falling down around them, that has pensioners having to find £8billion over the coming years thanks to the VAT increase, that will see the NHS privatised?
Why aren’t we taking back the money – our money – from the banks? Banking is bizarrely, embarrassingly, one of the few growth sectors in this economy. Bonuses are beginning to come back for those at the top end – not the normal workers of course - profits are being made, and it’s like nothing ever happened.
What about taxing all bank profits and bank bonuses at 100% until the deficit is recouped? After all, Barclays, for instance, made profits of £1.8bn in the first quarter of 2010. At that rate, wouldn’t take us that long to get the bulk of it back would it? Never mind the NatWest sending volunteers out to paint cricket pitches green or whatever those idiots are doing in the adverts, give us our bloody money back. And then we might be able to keep hospitals open, rather than selling them off.
It’s pretty obvious really, I can’t think why it is that Saint Vince Cableanduseless hasn’t thought of it. Unless the government has a specific agenda that it wants to push under cover of the “crisis”. And they’re doing it well, because the public appears to be feeling virtuous that they’re helping to get the nation’s finances back in order. As Goebbels demonstrated, there is nothing so successful in propaganda terms as the big lie, and as a former - and current - PR man, Cameroon knows that better than anyone.
The biggest lie sits beneath the surface, the idea that the cuts are for the greater good. They’re not. They’re to change the face of this country, to smash the state’s role in the economy and in so doing ultimately create a situation where the need for tax revenues will be massively reduced.
The end game here is to bring the top rate down, perhaps as far as 30%, and who gives a damn if the schools and the hospitals are crap. Those at the top end can simply opt out and use their hugely increased pay packets to go private. Won’t we all feel virtuous then, when we’ve washed away a century of moving towards greater equality, an equality which is easy to give away, but much harder to recapture.
Given Cameroon and the tea boy keep insisting upon the fact that the reason we’re in the mess we are was because of Labour’s profligate spending, surely those nations that didn’t have Labour in charge and had specifically right wing governments – eight years of Bush the baboon for instance – and hardly any public sector on which to lavish fortunes should be in infinitely better shape?
And yet they’re not. As I say, odd.
Yet not. Because the reason we’re all in the mess together was because of the banks. Remember a couple of years back when they went into meltdown and then held a gun to the head of the world’s economies, saying that if you let us die, we take you down as well? That’s where the deficit came from, because of the money that had to be pumped into failed institutions, that had to be injected into otherwise crippled economies, that had to be made available to ensure liquidity.
Remember in this country the way we had to give the kiss of life to Northern Rock and the rest, a process that was repeated around the globe? That’s where our deficit came from, and where the rest of it came from.
So why then are we getting rid it of by slashing public spending, by following a policy that will see children going to schools that are falling down around them, that has pensioners having to find £8billion over the coming years thanks to the VAT increase, that will see the NHS privatised?
Why aren’t we taking back the money – our money – from the banks? Banking is bizarrely, embarrassingly, one of the few growth sectors in this economy. Bonuses are beginning to come back for those at the top end – not the normal workers of course - profits are being made, and it’s like nothing ever happened.
What about taxing all bank profits and bank bonuses at 100% until the deficit is recouped? After all, Barclays, for instance, made profits of £1.8bn in the first quarter of 2010. At that rate, wouldn’t take us that long to get the bulk of it back would it? Never mind the NatWest sending volunteers out to paint cricket pitches green or whatever those idiots are doing in the adverts, give us our bloody money back. And then we might be able to keep hospitals open, rather than selling them off.
It’s pretty obvious really, I can’t think why it is that Saint Vince Cableanduseless hasn’t thought of it. Unless the government has a specific agenda that it wants to push under cover of the “crisis”. And they’re doing it well, because the public appears to be feeling virtuous that they’re helping to get the nation’s finances back in order. As Goebbels demonstrated, there is nothing so successful in propaganda terms as the big lie, and as a former - and current - PR man, Cameroon knows that better than anyone.
The biggest lie sits beneath the surface, the idea that the cuts are for the greater good. They’re not. They’re to change the face of this country, to smash the state’s role in the economy and in so doing ultimately create a situation where the need for tax revenues will be massively reduced.
The end game here is to bring the top rate down, perhaps as far as 30%, and who gives a damn if the schools and the hospitals are crap. Those at the top end can simply opt out and use their hugely increased pay packets to go private. Won’t we all feel virtuous then, when we’ve washed away a century of moving towards greater equality, an equality which is easy to give away, but much harder to recapture.
Thursday 8 July 2010
I should be so lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky
There are few more beautiful – did I say beautiful? Sorry, I meant rancid – sights than that of The Daily Excess getting itself into a moral uproar in the hope of taking middle England along with it. Today, it was in its element – “Now Asylum If You’re Gay” it fulminated, alerting us to the danger that the nation is about to be overrun by invading hoards of homosexuals, racing away from persecution, darting through the Channel Tunnel as an act of situationist symbolism and drowning the nation beneath a tide of pink chiffon.
The reason for this? Because those bloody stupid Judges in the Supreme Court have only been upholding the law again. Two gay men, one from Cameroon and another from Iran, both faced deportation after their appeals for asylum were rejected, in spite of the fact that both would have faced persecution on their return home.
In a rare piece of evidence that this might just still be a country that tries to do the right thing even if it might be expensive – see those taxpaying veins popping on the heads of Excess journalists as they read that? – Home Secretary Theresa May welcomed the decision and said that the government would not deport any asylum seekers who had fled their countries because their sexuality put them at “proven risk” of jail, torture or execution.
But that’s not good enough for The Excess who dug out a prehistoric Tory, Philip Davies MP, who tells us, “It’s a dangerous game to play to go down this line because it’s quite feasible that this could offer an ideal line of defence for someone who wants to try to avoid being kicked out of the country, whether it is true or not that they are gay. By its very nature, it’s very difficult to prove one way or another. My concern would be that this may well be exploited by some people as a way of avoiding deportation.”
Now some might think that anybody who treks away from their homeland and is desperate enough to seek asylum in the UK – whatever the cause – is somebody we should look on with humanity and tolerance. What would drive you to leave everyone and everything you have and know behind and try to set up a new life thousands of miles away with no guarantee you’ll be allowed to stay? Take something pretty drastic wouldn’t it? Anyeway, if therehave to be asylum seekers, from a Tory point of view, gay ones are the best kind – at least they won’t be spawning a lot of brats and demanding child benefit, so no financial issues there. And as the lawlord who summed up yesterday, Lord Rodger – you couldn’t make this up could you – noted, the pink economy will be suitably boosted.
But if, as Phillip Davies insists, we should be 100% certain that such asylum seekers genuinely are gay, think of the job creation possibilities. A crack squadron of, not to put too fine a point on it, crack investigators will be on perpetual standby. Asylum seekers will be quizzed on the minutiae of Dale Winton, they will be required to show complete knowledge of a full range of show tunes, asked for interior decorating tips and, should any doubt remain, they will be given an intimate audience with Mr Davies himself, since he’s so keen on weeding out the non gays amongst asylumists.
Of course, you’d think such stereotyping would be something I’ve done for comic effect, something from the distant past, but not quite so. Even in doing the right thing, Lord Rodger couldn’t help but make a pillock of himself. “Just as male hetero¬sexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically-coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates” was his reasoning behind the fact that the two men in question should not be forced back to their respective countries and simply deny their sexuality.
I’m not entirely certain that having the freedom to buy Kylie’s latest waxing – her new record, not the contents of her Brazilian you understand – is more important than the freedom not to have your nuts blown off by bigots and religious fanatics, and in reinforcing age old stereotypes he’s perhaps done more harm than good, though fortunately not to the two men in question.
What he has certainly done is give two people the chance of better lives, lives free from the kind of persecution they would have otherwise endured. Certainly a better solution than that of the Abcess, which was that they should simply pop back home and deny their sexuality and pretend to be straight and try to get away with it. So let’s make a deal. They can do that if – and only if - the editorial team on that newspaper deny the fact that they’re a bunch of loathsome, fascist bastards and pretend to be decent human beings. No, don’t get holding your breath eh?
And finally, just because Lord Rodger’s summing up reminded me of it, a link to the genius of Peter Cook:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUrnTTJQQYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U&feature=related
The reason for this? Because those bloody stupid Judges in the Supreme Court have only been upholding the law again. Two gay men, one from Cameroon and another from Iran, both faced deportation after their appeals for asylum were rejected, in spite of the fact that both would have faced persecution on their return home.
In a rare piece of evidence that this might just still be a country that tries to do the right thing even if it might be expensive – see those taxpaying veins popping on the heads of Excess journalists as they read that? – Home Secretary Theresa May welcomed the decision and said that the government would not deport any asylum seekers who had fled their countries because their sexuality put them at “proven risk” of jail, torture or execution.
But that’s not good enough for The Excess who dug out a prehistoric Tory, Philip Davies MP, who tells us, “It’s a dangerous game to play to go down this line because it’s quite feasible that this could offer an ideal line of defence for someone who wants to try to avoid being kicked out of the country, whether it is true or not that they are gay. By its very nature, it’s very difficult to prove one way or another. My concern would be that this may well be exploited by some people as a way of avoiding deportation.”
Now some might think that anybody who treks away from their homeland and is desperate enough to seek asylum in the UK – whatever the cause – is somebody we should look on with humanity and tolerance. What would drive you to leave everyone and everything you have and know behind and try to set up a new life thousands of miles away with no guarantee you’ll be allowed to stay? Take something pretty drastic wouldn’t it? Anyeway, if therehave to be asylum seekers, from a Tory point of view, gay ones are the best kind – at least they won’t be spawning a lot of brats and demanding child benefit, so no financial issues there. And as the lawlord who summed up yesterday, Lord Rodger – you couldn’t make this up could you – noted, the pink economy will be suitably boosted.
But if, as Phillip Davies insists, we should be 100% certain that such asylum seekers genuinely are gay, think of the job creation possibilities. A crack squadron of, not to put too fine a point on it, crack investigators will be on perpetual standby. Asylum seekers will be quizzed on the minutiae of Dale Winton, they will be required to show complete knowledge of a full range of show tunes, asked for interior decorating tips and, should any doubt remain, they will be given an intimate audience with Mr Davies himself, since he’s so keen on weeding out the non gays amongst asylumists.
Of course, you’d think such stereotyping would be something I’ve done for comic effect, something from the distant past, but not quite so. Even in doing the right thing, Lord Rodger couldn’t help but make a pillock of himself. “Just as male hetero¬sexuals are free to enjoy themselves playing rugby, drinking beer and talking about girls with their mates, so male homosexuals are to be free to enjoy themselves going to Kylie concerts, drinking exotically-coloured cocktails and talking about boys with their straight female mates” was his reasoning behind the fact that the two men in question should not be forced back to their respective countries and simply deny their sexuality.
I’m not entirely certain that having the freedom to buy Kylie’s latest waxing – her new record, not the contents of her Brazilian you understand – is more important than the freedom not to have your nuts blown off by bigots and religious fanatics, and in reinforcing age old stereotypes he’s perhaps done more harm than good, though fortunately not to the two men in question.
What he has certainly done is give two people the chance of better lives, lives free from the kind of persecution they would have otherwise endured. Certainly a better solution than that of the Abcess, which was that they should simply pop back home and deny their sexuality and pretend to be straight and try to get away with it. So let’s make a deal. They can do that if – and only if - the editorial team on that newspaper deny the fact that they’re a bunch of loathsome, fascist bastards and pretend to be decent human beings. No, don’t get holding your breath eh?
And finally, just because Lord Rodger’s summing up reminded me of it, a link to the genius of Peter Cook:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUrnTTJQQYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyos-M48B8U&feature=related
Sunday 4 July 2010
All we are saying
This was originally written five years ago. Nothing's changed. It's getting worse. Time for a reminder. You can stream and, more important, buy this record at http://latentrecordings.com/cowboyjunkies/music/
EARLY 21st CENTURY BLUES - COWBOY JUNKIES
"Time to kill our children and sing about it". It's a lyric that shocked some American record buyers, made concert audiences distinctly uncomfortable and has even provoked heated arguments among the group’s hardcore following. But it's a line that songwriter Michael Timmins, of Cowboy Junkies, is rightly proud of. It comes from "December Skies", one of two originals on the band's new record, "Early 21st Century Blues", an album that is as passionately, intelligently and eloquently anti-war in its intent as anything rock music has come up with in 50 years of trying.
It's also a timely reminder that music really can make a difference a belief which, shockingly, disappeared almost immediately after its high water mark, Live Aid. There's been little protest in the last 20 years as musicians, like the rest of us, have stopped paying attention, offering little rebuke to a world where wars continue to be fought, often in our name, the multinational conglomerates that simultaneously bankroll rock stars while producing weapons preferring that conspiracy of silence.
Reflecting on a song inspired in part by Timothy Findley's novel "The Wars", Michael explains, "It's really about our attitude to war, the way we glorify it, make it seem a noble calling in some way. We celebrate the fighting, the glorious dead and we make it seem that death on the battlefield is something to aspire to. If we concentrated on the human cost of those deaths, the lives that are broken by it, maybe we wouldn't rush to war so easily."
Bassist Alan Anton is blunter about a song that opens with bodies falling from September Skies. "The day after 9/11, in Washington you had Congressmen standing outside the Capitol Building singing the national anthem and "God Bless America", then sending those kids off to war just a few weeks later – for me, that’s killing their own children and singing about it."
"December Skies" has all the trademarks that have made Cowboy Junkies the most subtle yet most emotionally arresting band of the last 20 years, a group that uses nuance not bombast to make its point and which has a more provocative and lasting impact for it, asking questions not declaiming answers from on high. Stately in pace - "It's not depressing, it's just slow" laughs Michael - his piercing lyric is given its full weight by the gorgeous, langorous delivery of sister Margo, one of three Timmins siblings in the core line-up, younger brother Pete completing the band on drums.
Fully behind the sentiments expressed by her brother, Margo admits it was still a hard lyric to sing. "I have a two year old son and as a mom, whatever the context, it's still a very shocking line. I struggled with it for a time before I found a way into it, but that's ok, that's my job! It was important that I did sing it because I'm very supportive of what Michael is writing about. He's expressing the way that we all feel in the band, that there have to be alternatives to war and that we should all do more to make our voices heard."
The apathy that surrounds the political process is a source of real frustration for Michael for whom it is becoming a recurring lyrical theme. "The title track from our last album, "One Soul Now", was very much about the fact that I feel these are among the worst times of recent history, that things are falling apart around us yet people aren't taking any notice - we felt that as we toured the US last year before the election, so many people were just paying no attention. We need to come together as people, we need to work for change together. That was why we had "One" as the last song on the new album and why we end our live show with it at the moment. I'm not a huge U2 fan but the line "We've got to carry each other, One" pretty much summed up the record."
It’s not hard to see why supporters of the Bush administration might find “December Skies” so unpalatable given the hysterical level that their “my country right or wrong” jingoism reached in the run-up to the Presidential election last November, but it seems that elements of the Junkies core audience is having trouble with it, misreading it just as US audiences missed the point of Springsteen's "Born In The USA" 20 years ago. On the Junkies' June tour of north-east America - pointedly dubbed the United States of Canada Blue States Tour within the band - crowds often shuffled uneasily as Margo Timmins’ rich, gentle vocal unleashed the harshest of lyrics. That wasn't lost on Michael, whose reaction was simple. "Great! If they're uncomfortable with it, they're being forced to think and people don't do that enough. We let things go too easily."
"Early 21st Century Blues" puts Michael's two original compositions amid the greats in the pantheon of protest songwriters - Dylan, Havens, Springsteen, Lennon - and it underlines his maturity as a writer that neither song suffers by comparison. It also illustrates his willingness to let the Junkies look outward when the need arises, a departure from the past where he was largely focused on the politics of relationships. Yet the new album does see a partial return to the almost mythical sound of "the Trinity Session", their breathtaking breakthrough from 1988 that catapulted them to international success, recapturing those textures and tensions through beautifully understated playing, the glorious arrival of Margo's voice on "Handouts In The Rain" as beautiful a moment as anything you'll hear this year.
In hindsight, the "live to two track" recording of nearly two decades ago could not have been made in better surroundings than the Church of the Holy Trinity. Today, it's almost completely enclosed by towering shopping malls, much like Cowboy Junkies themselves, a band producing heartfelt music of the spirit in a marketplace that would rather pedal fear than sell hope. The Church is home to projects helping Toronto's homeless and is festooned with banners demanding "Social Justice Now!" It's a call that the Junkies back wholeheartedly, not least with this record.
Michael cites Dylan as his greatest songwriting influence, but "Early 21st Century Blues" treads more in Lennon's footsteps, an urgent reaction to the US election and the continuing slaughter in the Middle East, reminiscent of the "Some Time In New York City" concept. But unlike Lennon, Cowboy Junkies haven't sacrificed quality for speed and the insidious nature of their nuanced music could have greater lasting significance than the sledgehammer approach the former Beatle often employed.
Often misunderstood or written off as purveyors of melancholy, Cowboy Junkies have long offered the most hopeful music around, music that accepts the trials and tribulations of life but which gets you through to the next day with its warmth, its humanity. It's a music that takes its responsibilities seriously and which offers solace to those most in need including, ironically, US soldiers fighting in Iraq who have written to the band in numbers to thank them for the music they listen to at the toughest of times.
Those soldiers have become the forgotten men in the political elite's determination to desensitise us to their machinations, a project that seems to be working. It's as if we think all the battles were won after the Civil Rights struggle, Vietnam, Rock Against Racism and the like. We've fallen asleep in our post Cold War material comforts. But racism? Still there. Civil rights issues? Still there. Vietnam? Moved to Afghanistan, but it's still there. The need for dissent? Still there, more than ever.
Cowboy Junkies are not singing about killing our children, they're singing about saving them and thousands like them.
War is over. If you want it...
EARLY 21st CENTURY BLUES - COWBOY JUNKIES
"Time to kill our children and sing about it". It's a lyric that shocked some American record buyers, made concert audiences distinctly uncomfortable and has even provoked heated arguments among the group’s hardcore following. But it's a line that songwriter Michael Timmins, of Cowboy Junkies, is rightly proud of. It comes from "December Skies", one of two originals on the band's new record, "Early 21st Century Blues", an album that is as passionately, intelligently and eloquently anti-war in its intent as anything rock music has come up with in 50 years of trying.
It's also a timely reminder that music really can make a difference a belief which, shockingly, disappeared almost immediately after its high water mark, Live Aid. There's been little protest in the last 20 years as musicians, like the rest of us, have stopped paying attention, offering little rebuke to a world where wars continue to be fought, often in our name, the multinational conglomerates that simultaneously bankroll rock stars while producing weapons preferring that conspiracy of silence.
Reflecting on a song inspired in part by Timothy Findley's novel "The Wars", Michael explains, "It's really about our attitude to war, the way we glorify it, make it seem a noble calling in some way. We celebrate the fighting, the glorious dead and we make it seem that death on the battlefield is something to aspire to. If we concentrated on the human cost of those deaths, the lives that are broken by it, maybe we wouldn't rush to war so easily."
Bassist Alan Anton is blunter about a song that opens with bodies falling from September Skies. "The day after 9/11, in Washington you had Congressmen standing outside the Capitol Building singing the national anthem and "God Bless America", then sending those kids off to war just a few weeks later – for me, that’s killing their own children and singing about it."
"December Skies" has all the trademarks that have made Cowboy Junkies the most subtle yet most emotionally arresting band of the last 20 years, a group that uses nuance not bombast to make its point and which has a more provocative and lasting impact for it, asking questions not declaiming answers from on high. Stately in pace - "It's not depressing, it's just slow" laughs Michael - his piercing lyric is given its full weight by the gorgeous, langorous delivery of sister Margo, one of three Timmins siblings in the core line-up, younger brother Pete completing the band on drums.
Fully behind the sentiments expressed by her brother, Margo admits it was still a hard lyric to sing. "I have a two year old son and as a mom, whatever the context, it's still a very shocking line. I struggled with it for a time before I found a way into it, but that's ok, that's my job! It was important that I did sing it because I'm very supportive of what Michael is writing about. He's expressing the way that we all feel in the band, that there have to be alternatives to war and that we should all do more to make our voices heard."
The apathy that surrounds the political process is a source of real frustration for Michael for whom it is becoming a recurring lyrical theme. "The title track from our last album, "One Soul Now", was very much about the fact that I feel these are among the worst times of recent history, that things are falling apart around us yet people aren't taking any notice - we felt that as we toured the US last year before the election, so many people were just paying no attention. We need to come together as people, we need to work for change together. That was why we had "One" as the last song on the new album and why we end our live show with it at the moment. I'm not a huge U2 fan but the line "We've got to carry each other, One" pretty much summed up the record."
It’s not hard to see why supporters of the Bush administration might find “December Skies” so unpalatable given the hysterical level that their “my country right or wrong” jingoism reached in the run-up to the Presidential election last November, but it seems that elements of the Junkies core audience is having trouble with it, misreading it just as US audiences missed the point of Springsteen's "Born In The USA" 20 years ago. On the Junkies' June tour of north-east America - pointedly dubbed the United States of Canada Blue States Tour within the band - crowds often shuffled uneasily as Margo Timmins’ rich, gentle vocal unleashed the harshest of lyrics. That wasn't lost on Michael, whose reaction was simple. "Great! If they're uncomfortable with it, they're being forced to think and people don't do that enough. We let things go too easily."
"Early 21st Century Blues" puts Michael's two original compositions amid the greats in the pantheon of protest songwriters - Dylan, Havens, Springsteen, Lennon - and it underlines his maturity as a writer that neither song suffers by comparison. It also illustrates his willingness to let the Junkies look outward when the need arises, a departure from the past where he was largely focused on the politics of relationships. Yet the new album does see a partial return to the almost mythical sound of "the Trinity Session", their breathtaking breakthrough from 1988 that catapulted them to international success, recapturing those textures and tensions through beautifully understated playing, the glorious arrival of Margo's voice on "Handouts In The Rain" as beautiful a moment as anything you'll hear this year.
In hindsight, the "live to two track" recording of nearly two decades ago could not have been made in better surroundings than the Church of the Holy Trinity. Today, it's almost completely enclosed by towering shopping malls, much like Cowboy Junkies themselves, a band producing heartfelt music of the spirit in a marketplace that would rather pedal fear than sell hope. The Church is home to projects helping Toronto's homeless and is festooned with banners demanding "Social Justice Now!" It's a call that the Junkies back wholeheartedly, not least with this record.
Michael cites Dylan as his greatest songwriting influence, but "Early 21st Century Blues" treads more in Lennon's footsteps, an urgent reaction to the US election and the continuing slaughter in the Middle East, reminiscent of the "Some Time In New York City" concept. But unlike Lennon, Cowboy Junkies haven't sacrificed quality for speed and the insidious nature of their nuanced music could have greater lasting significance than the sledgehammer approach the former Beatle often employed.
Often misunderstood or written off as purveyors of melancholy, Cowboy Junkies have long offered the most hopeful music around, music that accepts the trials and tribulations of life but which gets you through to the next day with its warmth, its humanity. It's a music that takes its responsibilities seriously and which offers solace to those most in need including, ironically, US soldiers fighting in Iraq who have written to the band in numbers to thank them for the music they listen to at the toughest of times.
Those soldiers have become the forgotten men in the political elite's determination to desensitise us to their machinations, a project that seems to be working. It's as if we think all the battles were won after the Civil Rights struggle, Vietnam, Rock Against Racism and the like. We've fallen asleep in our post Cold War material comforts. But racism? Still there. Civil rights issues? Still there. Vietnam? Moved to Afghanistan, but it's still there. The need for dissent? Still there, more than ever.
Cowboy Junkies are not singing about killing our children, they're singing about saving them and thousands like them.
War is over. If you want it...
Saturday 3 July 2010
It's a wag, wag, wag, wag world
By Beryl Cole
Ho’way pet, you ok? I’m glad to see the back of that World Cup aren’t you? Having to see wor Ashley all the time, and him being the best performer as well. That never happened when we were married, I can promise you that! Even if he did always finish first, if you know what I’m saying.
“Ghastly Ashley” wor mam called him. Mind, she never likes my men - she said Simon’s eyes were too close set. To his waistband. And wor Bill.He.Is, she says he makes her bilious. She’s a wag!
Well, course, she’s not a wag, cos wor dad worked in the shipyards when we still had any, but you know worrimean. Still, now wor Ant and Dec are running the country, they’ll bring them back. That and Byker Grove. And the Jarrow March.
I had a bit of a tear watching wor Ash though. Well you cannot see yourselves in the papers every day and not feel something can you? I feel a bit the same about Garfield like. I should have married the cat pet.
I couldn’t help thinking we could have saved things, even at the end, but once wor Ash demanded custody of the mirror and the bathroom cabinet, my heart wasn’t in it any more.
Then when he said we should gan round John Terry’s for some therapy, that was the final camel that broke the bridge’s back. Something like that anyways – I was never the brightest.
Ho’way pet, you ok? I’m glad to see the back of that World Cup aren’t you? Having to see wor Ashley all the time, and him being the best performer as well. That never happened when we were married, I can promise you that! Even if he did always finish first, if you know what I’m saying.
“Ghastly Ashley” wor mam called him. Mind, she never likes my men - she said Simon’s eyes were too close set. To his waistband. And wor Bill.He.Is, she says he makes her bilious. She’s a wag!
Well, course, she’s not a wag, cos wor dad worked in the shipyards when we still had any, but you know worrimean. Still, now wor Ant and Dec are running the country, they’ll bring them back. That and Byker Grove. And the Jarrow March.
I had a bit of a tear watching wor Ash though. Well you cannot see yourselves in the papers every day and not feel something can you? I feel a bit the same about Garfield like. I should have married the cat pet.
I couldn’t help thinking we could have saved things, even at the end, but once wor Ash demanded custody of the mirror and the bathroom cabinet, my heart wasn’t in it any more.
Then when he said we should gan round John Terry’s for some therapy, that was the final camel that broke the bridge’s back. Something like that anyways – I was never the brightest.
Friday 2 July 2010
Don't trust the government
The year has barely staggered beyond the midway point, but it’s never too early to hand out the much coveted “Most Cretinous Analysis of the Year” award to the Daily Fail.
It reports that “The National Audit Office said spending on people in the poorer areas is £230 a year higher than those in better off areas”. Or roughly the annual spending on asparagus in your typical Hampstead household, so really not a lot.
The Fail continues, “That means an extra £3billion a year is currently going into the target zones”, or much less than the coming VAT hike will raise.
“But, largely because of bad diet, inadequate health education and a failure to prescribe enough basic drugs to combat high blood pressure and cholesterol, the health of poor people has worsened in relation to the rest of society.”
Now most of us would conclude that that failure to prescribe proper drugs, give health education and the fact that poor families have to eat crap because it’s all they can afford might point to a need for more and better spending.
What fools we are. The Fail points us towards the light and the truth saying that the statistics, which point out that the life expectancy between rich and poor has widened are, in fact, "Yet more proof that there is little connection between increased NHS spending and better results for patients".
Perfect justification then for huge cuts in the NHS budget. In fact, by the Fail’s peerless logic, if we reach a point where we don’t spend anything at all in poorer areas, they would all become immortal, a bit like the Highlander.
For all that Dick Clameron and their squadron of lumberjacks are catastrophically wrong in their analysis of the current situation – if analysis it truly be rather than a simple piece of ideological opportunism, taking advantage of a perceived crisis to destroy the welfare state – we’ve reached the logical conclusion of the failure of the Blair government of 1997.
Not a failure in any way that the savages of the Fail or the Excess would recognise, but a failure of those whose only hope is the Labour Party, the only vague hope the ordinary masses have. A landslide victory, a once in a generation opportunity to shift the nation in a positive direction, away from the evils of the Thatcherite "no such thing as society" years when if you didn’t have the money to buy refuge, you were done for.
After almost 20 years of the rape of our industry, of the transfer of wealth from the poor to the ever richer, Blair’s huge majority was the opportunity to redress the balance, not least via the tax system, by restoring the top rate of tax for earnings over £100k to something rather fairer. But he did none of that. In spite of the fact that victory was inevitable, in the run up to the election Blair promised no increases in income tax – remember the posters?
Labour have done some pretty dumb things down the years, but that was the clincher, denying the Exchequer huge amounts of cash which would ultimately have helped the public finances at this point, but would also have proved to the vast majority, once and for all, that a fair income tax system actually does not cost the huge bulk of the population anything.
Instead, the better off, a comparatively small elite, would have paid their share after 18 years of getting tax breaks left, right and centre. Mainly right...
But that historic opportunity was blown, Blair lacking the guts to bite the bullet, a problem that hadn’t afflicted the Milk Snatcher when she won power, slashing income taxes for the rich and paying for it by the regressive increase of VAT, not once, but twice, establishing a tradition which Osborne continued last month, ensuring the Tories re still the only party to increase this most pernicious of taxes, although the Lib Dumbs have blood on their hands this time around, having campaigned against an increase more furiously than Labour.
No wonder we don’t trust any of the bastards, even the ones ostensibly on “our side”.
It reports that “The National Audit Office said spending on people in the poorer areas is £230 a year higher than those in better off areas”. Or roughly the annual spending on asparagus in your typical Hampstead household, so really not a lot.
The Fail continues, “That means an extra £3billion a year is currently going into the target zones”, or much less than the coming VAT hike will raise.
“But, largely because of bad diet, inadequate health education and a failure to prescribe enough basic drugs to combat high blood pressure and cholesterol, the health of poor people has worsened in relation to the rest of society.”
Now most of us would conclude that that failure to prescribe proper drugs, give health education and the fact that poor families have to eat crap because it’s all they can afford might point to a need for more and better spending.
What fools we are. The Fail points us towards the light and the truth saying that the statistics, which point out that the life expectancy between rich and poor has widened are, in fact, "Yet more proof that there is little connection between increased NHS spending and better results for patients".
Perfect justification then for huge cuts in the NHS budget. In fact, by the Fail’s peerless logic, if we reach a point where we don’t spend anything at all in poorer areas, they would all become immortal, a bit like the Highlander.
For all that Dick Clameron and their squadron of lumberjacks are catastrophically wrong in their analysis of the current situation – if analysis it truly be rather than a simple piece of ideological opportunism, taking advantage of a perceived crisis to destroy the welfare state – we’ve reached the logical conclusion of the failure of the Blair government of 1997.
Not a failure in any way that the savages of the Fail or the Excess would recognise, but a failure of those whose only hope is the Labour Party, the only vague hope the ordinary masses have. A landslide victory, a once in a generation opportunity to shift the nation in a positive direction, away from the evils of the Thatcherite "no such thing as society" years when if you didn’t have the money to buy refuge, you were done for.
After almost 20 years of the rape of our industry, of the transfer of wealth from the poor to the ever richer, Blair’s huge majority was the opportunity to redress the balance, not least via the tax system, by restoring the top rate of tax for earnings over £100k to something rather fairer. But he did none of that. In spite of the fact that victory was inevitable, in the run up to the election Blair promised no increases in income tax – remember the posters?
Labour have done some pretty dumb things down the years, but that was the clincher, denying the Exchequer huge amounts of cash which would ultimately have helped the public finances at this point, but would also have proved to the vast majority, once and for all, that a fair income tax system actually does not cost the huge bulk of the population anything.
Instead, the better off, a comparatively small elite, would have paid their share after 18 years of getting tax breaks left, right and centre. Mainly right...
But that historic opportunity was blown, Blair lacking the guts to bite the bullet, a problem that hadn’t afflicted the Milk Snatcher when she won power, slashing income taxes for the rich and paying for it by the regressive increase of VAT, not once, but twice, establishing a tradition which Osborne continued last month, ensuring the Tories re still the only party to increase this most pernicious of taxes, although the Lib Dumbs have blood on their hands this time around, having campaigned against an increase more furiously than Labour.
No wonder we don’t trust any of the bastards, even the ones ostensibly on “our side”.
Thursday 1 July 2010
The military two-step
Little Billy Vague, schoolboy foreign secretary and part-time Gollum-a-like, has been talking this week about his favourite dance moves.
He told the Daily Hellegraph, “I’ve always loved the hokey cokey, and, whenever one of my chums has a party, I can’t wait for the dancing to start. After 15 pints, I’m mad for it”.
When the Hagiograph’s journalist questioned him further on this preference with a forensic intensity, suggesting that perhaps the hokey cokey was a little juvenile, Vague reacted swiftly, expressing himself with the kind of eloquence that has secured his place as this administration’s finest Foreign Secretary so far.
“Au contraire! It’s really an allegory for political thought. Take the current government. We put the right boot in, and we let the Lib Dumbs leave their left side out.”
Furthermore, according to the Hellebore, the hokey cokey informs current government policy on Afghanistan too.
“Last week, David Cameroon took the whole troops out by 2015, and then the put the whole force back because there’s no guaranteed timetable. Today, I’m taking the whole military out again by 2014. There’s an election in 2015 after all – and that’s what it’s all about”.
He told the Daily Hellegraph, “I’ve always loved the hokey cokey, and, whenever one of my chums has a party, I can’t wait for the dancing to start. After 15 pints, I’m mad for it”.
When the Hagiograph’s journalist questioned him further on this preference with a forensic intensity, suggesting that perhaps the hokey cokey was a little juvenile, Vague reacted swiftly, expressing himself with the kind of eloquence that has secured his place as this administration’s finest Foreign Secretary so far.
“Au contraire! It’s really an allegory for political thought. Take the current government. We put the right boot in, and we let the Lib Dumbs leave their left side out.”
Furthermore, according to the Hellebore, the hokey cokey informs current government policy on Afghanistan too.
“Last week, David Cameroon took the whole troops out by 2015, and then the put the whole force back because there’s no guaranteed timetable. Today, I’m taking the whole military out again by 2014. There’s an election in 2015 after all – and that’s what it’s all about”.
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