Consider This

There is a country where the democratically elected leader was ousted by an internal party coup. Their current leader was not elected by anyone - he was simply crowned leader of his party after an internal election where he refused to allow anyone to run against him. Since being crowned leader of his party in the non-contest, this leader has refused repeated opposition calls to have a democratic election to give him a mandate to rule. His government have used national funds to prop up banks that have failed partly through government policy. His government have taken the details of citizens - including children - and lost that data, potentially leaving it open to criminal abuse. And his government have taken donations from shady sources that are, by the admission of the government, illegal. This government is incompetent, corrupt and - above all - unelected.

Which country, you might be asking? Somewhere in the developing world? What about a former Soviet Republic? A South American country?

Errr, no. It is here. This is Britain.

Hysterical? Probably. But consider the description above. If it was describing a government in the developing world or Eastern Europe or South America we would be looking down on that country and tutting in a sanctimonious way. The Guardianistas and neo-cons would be united, talking of sanctions and election inspectors. The country would be made into a pariah internationally. However, because it is happening in Britain, it is accepted as ok.

So as you read of every new fuck up and scandal from the Brown administration, every new policy initiative that you don't agree with, remember he was never elected. He has no mandate. This country (for reasons that defy understanding) elected Tony Blair. Not Gordon Brown.

Cable the Capable?

Yesterday, we had what is rapidly becoming a weekly British tradition. We had the (really rather wonderful) spectacle of Gordon Brown being ritually kicked half to death in the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s Questions. Cameron was relishing the situation, questioning whether Brown is actually up to the job of being Prime Minister. But the killer comment came not from the leader of the Opposition, but rather from a different source. For it was Acting Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable who so memorably described Gordon Brown as having gone from Stalin to Mr Bean in just a few short weeks. That is the sort of description that will stick.

And it is not the first time that Cable has managed to attract attention for his beleaguered party. He was the party leader who refused to meeting the visiting Saudi royalty, and he got headlines for (incorrectly in my view) calling for the nationalisation of Northern Rock. For the first time in recent memory, the Liberal Democrats are getting into the news for something other than having a drunk or an incompetent old fool as a leader.

Guido is right, there must be some Liberal Democrats ruing the fact that Cable didn’t stand. And regardless of whether Hideous Huhne or Calamity Clegg wins the leadership election, the Liberal Democrats could do far worse than keeping Cable in the public eye.

A Government In Freefall

A poll in The Independent:

"The survey, taken after Gordon Brown's worst week since becoming Prime Minister, puts the Tories on 40 per cent (down one point on last month), Labour on 27 per cent (down six points), the Liberal Democrats on 18 per cent (up two) and other parties 14 per cent (up four). If repeated at the next election, the figures would give David Cameron an overall majority of 64 seats."

It would be absolutely wrong of me to smirk at the current woes that seem to be drowning the government of our unelected Prime Minister.

That is not going to stop me though.

Three quotes

Quote one:

"Any restriction on free speech is dangerous. You start by saying people should not speak and you end up with burning people at the stake. Free speech is an absolute, it is universal."

Quote two:

"I'm flabbergasted that people who claim to be intellectuals invite extremists in the name of free speech to give them a platform and let them air their perverted view."

Quote one is from a little racist fuckwit. Quote two is from a survivor of the Rwandan genocide (both via The Independent). I am startled to find that the latter comes across as more of a fascist than the former.

I could write a lot on this topic, but my stance in nicely summed up by a third quote from the same article. Luke Tryl, the person responsible for organising the debate, says:

"David Irving and Nick Griffin have awful and abhorrent views but the best way to defeat those views is through debate. I remain committed to the principle that free speech has to prevail. I really worry about how the far right has been able to portray themselves as free-speech martyrs and I hope that this sort of debate will help dispel that myth – to show that the liberal mainstream are prepared to take them on and beat them in debate."

Exactly. Let Irving, Griffin, and any one who holds similar views to spout their crap. And then you can use the opportunity to show why what they are saying is wrong, ignorant, unsubstantiated and, well, crap.

John Howard and Term Limits

Over on the other side of the world something quite interesting has happened. After 11 years in power, John Howard has been summarily booted from office. And, to top off the indignity, it looks as if he has lost his seat as well in the landslide against his government. Why did he suffer such a massive defeat? You could argue it was his policy on Iraq. You could argue it was his policy on the environment. But ultimately, the truth seems to be that after 11 years in power, people were just sick of him.

Now, you could blast the Australian electorate for rejecting someone on such spurious grounds, but that is ultimately pointless. People vote for politicians for a variety of different reasons – some of those reasons may be dumb, but the joy and the problem with democracy is that people will vote for many different and very disparate reasons. It seems that people in Australia just wanted a change.

The more interesting thing to observe is how politicians act. Had he not run for a fifth time, and instead stood down, then Howard might have been remembered as one of Australia’s most successful Prime Ministers. And Howard is not alone in this desire some politicians have to go "on and on." But those who do go on and on tend to end up leaving office under a cloud, if not in total defeat.

Look Thatcher and Blair. Both of them never lost an election – in fact, at the ballot boxes, they were both phenomenally successful. But Thatcher was forced from office by her own party, event though she wanted to go on, because she had lost the confidence of part of her party and because she was no longer seen as a election winner. Blair was forced to announce his timetable for resigning a year before he actually stood down, in the wake of poor local election results and amidst scandal surrounding his key political allies. His regime ended not with a bang, but with a whimper. A lame duck PM, forced from office.

Compare this with the US, where Presidents can only stand for two terms. Bill Clinton never lost a Presidential election, and despite his many flaws and mistakes whilst in office, he is remembered fondly by a lot of America. The term limits means Bush Junior will be saved from the ignominy of not standing/not getting the Republican nomination, or losing the General Election, next year. In the US, Presidents can’t go on and on, meaning few of them are forced from office, utterly compromised and broken.

So what is the solution? Should we introduce term limits? Should Australia?

My answer is no. Frankly, I don’t care if politicians decide to go on and on and end up screwing their political legacy as a result. That is their choice, and if they are naïve enough to think that it will never happen to them they are fools.

But also because, as the Australian election so comprehensively proves, we do have term limits – both here and in Australia.

They are called elections.

Source: Sent to me from the Moai.

Verity Lambert (1935-2007)

Verity Lambert, TV producer and co-creator of Doctor Who, has died.

Within Verity’s career, there is a hell of a lot that someone could be proud of. She was a young, female producer who made herself a success in the male dominated BBC of the 1960’s. She owned her own TV production company, and was instrumental in creating some of the finest dramas ever screened. She was also responsible for some popular sitcoms, and some less than popular – but still famous – TV as well.

But it will be Doctor Who that she will be remembered for. But really, is that such a bad thing?

Today is the 44th anniversary of the first broadcast of Doctor Who. 44 years after the first broadcast, it could probably be argued that it is the BBC’s flagship programme and still entertains millions of people – not just in this country, but around the world. And let’s be honest, to have played a crucial role in creating such a well-loved programme is an enviable legacy by itself.

Russell Brand has named his autobiography "My Booky Wook".

The phrase "what a cunt" springs to mind.

Send Out A Message: Sack Ian Blair

It is clear now that Ian Blair is lost in a world of self-delusion and long ago lost any residual grip he had on reality. The fact that he can describe himself as a "a man of honour", presumably with a straight face, shows just how detached he is from the real world. He’s not going to resign; I’d be surprised if he knew why people were laying into him so much.

But there is another, more crucial question. Why is no-one willing to start the process of sacking him? Why is no-one being held to account of the brutal killing of an innocent man on the tube? Oh, I know that the Met has been found guilty of breaching the Health and Safety Act, but really, who does that punish? Other than the tax-payer, who ends up paying for it.

See, the organisation is guilty. The court case proves that, for anyone who needs further proof on top of the corpse lying on floor of a tube train. Yet no-one has been held to account for the killing. And this is the Metropolitan police, for fuck’s sake. Their basic job is finding the guilty person and holding them to account for their crimes. What sort of pissing message does it send out if they are not even willing to do their basic job internally?

Sure, there have been calls for Blair to resign. From the Tories and from the Lib Dems. There is even a Facebook group devoted his removal.* But no-one who actually can do anything about it is doing anything. And I cannot figure out why. What hold does Blair have over people? Does he know where the bodies are buried? (Brazil in this case.) Is he fucking someone in power, who refuses to let him fall? How is he managing to stay in power when his organisation went out and killed someone, but refuses to accept any of the blame for it?

This is the public sector, though. This is how it works. Even if your organisation kills a man, you don’t have to worry. Your job is not in danger. There is no concept of taking responsibility for your actions.

An example should be made of Ian Blair. He should be sacked. A clear message should be sent out that the buck stops with him when it comes to the Met; therefore he should be binned. But will this happen? Will it fuck.

Our government and our public sector seem to have lost sight of the fact that mistakes can, and often do, have negative outcomes. And that is one of the reasons why this country is disappearing down the toilet at a rate of knots that would be funny if it wasn’t so fucking alarming.

*That I haven’t got round to joining. For reasons that defy understanding joining "Readers of Mr Eugenides" seemed like more of a priority.

Two quotes from the National Audit Office to HMRC about the missing CDs:

"Please could you ensure that the CDs are delivered to NAO as safely as possible due to their content."

And:

"I do not need the address, bank or parent details in this download - are these removable to make the file smaller?"

Evidently the answer to both questions was "no".

Resigning Issues

If your organisation loses the data of 25 million people then you'll take some stick, but you should be OK.

If your organisation repeatedly shoots an innocent man in the face, your job should be safe.

If your team loses a game of football, then you're fucked.

Pathetic, isn't it?

Anthony Seldon discussing Gordo in The Daily Telegraph (emphasis mine):

"I have tried to be balanced about both sides," says Seldon. "But Brown after 2001 doesn't come out of this book well. In some ways his personality resembles that of Edward Heath: brooding, hectoring, introverted. He was undoubtedly wronged by Blair over the succession – Blair broke his promise to hand over to Brown in the second term – and was clearly the more brilliant of the two intellectually. But while Blair grew in stature during his premiership, despite the setbacks, Brown emerges as a diminished figure."

Quite. And he's Edward Heath in another way too.

He's shit.

The End of the Line

As this government lurches from one embarrassing crisis to another, it is tempting to wonder just how Brown’s government has managed to go from the plaudits of the summer to resembling the stagnant, rump end of the Major years in such a short space of time. You could say it is simply circumstance, but that it not good enough. All politicians have to deal with negative and damaging events. The test of their mettle is how well they do that. And that is why Brown seems to be failing so abysmally.

It is not just Brown himself, although God knows the man has had the repugnant stink of angry failure around him for years. He is a dark figure in British politics – he looks not unlike a Labour version of Richard Nixon - haggard, bags under the eyes, jowly and angry at the world. He wallows in self delusion, drowning in a gloom caused by his own failings. He sees himself as a political genius, an expert at playing the political game. But like Nixon, he is a workmanlike politician at best, and is cursed with a deep cowardice that always drags him down at the very moment when he should be bold and when he could be carving out his niche as the conviction politician he so desperately wants to be. The real problem lies not just with the one-eyed git who is our PM, but also with the cadre of lacklustre fuckwits who provide Gordo with the iron ring that so detaches him from reality.

You sometimes hear the phrase, particularly from Nu Labour, that a political party who has been in power for a while needs to regenerate itself whilst in power. Now, translated from political doublespeak, it roughly means “the opinion polls have turned to shite, we don’t know why, and we don’t know what to do about it. So fuck it, we’ll acknowledge it without committing ourselves to any real course of action.” But there is some truth in any statement that the Labour government needs to attract some new talent. Because those at the very top of the government are not so much the bottom of the barrel, but rather the fetid bottom of a stagnant cesspool.

Take those in the Great Offices of State. Brown is in one. Enough said. Then take our foreign secretary: he is a geek who looks not just like he was bullied at school, but is actually still bullied today, in the Cabinet and everywhere else he goes. Our Home Secretary is such a non-entity that even now, after several months in the job, the focus of the media is on her cleavage rather than any policies or political actions. Say what you like about John Reid, but at least he gave you a reason to hate him. Smith just gives, and achieves, nothing. And finally, there is our Chancellor – a puppet Chancellor, a mouthpiece for Gordon Brown, and a man who will probably be remembered solely for looking like a cross between a man and a badger. These people are the best that the Labour party has to offer. These people are leading our government. I wouldn’t trust these people to lace their own shoes without several years of intense training. I overuse the phrase “Worthless Cunts” on this blog, but it perfectly sums up the muppets running our government at the moment.

And it comes at a time when the opposition parties are starting to figure out how to oppose again. Sure, I would rather douse myself with battery acid than actively support either the government or the two parties that make up the opposition, but at least the latter are starting to look credible. A look of the Tory front bench shows that there are the media savvy, the eloquent former leader, the intellectual and the bruising elder statesman. With the departure of Howard and the enforced exile of Clarke they have finally managed to escape the shadow if the Major years. Hell, they have even managed to find a role for the idiotic IDS. I still can’t stomach Cameron or the New Tories, but I do concede that they at least look like a future government now.

Even the Lib Dems, who I maintain are fundamentally pointless, have had the good sense to eject the desiccated Ming the Merciful. And regardless of whether it is Calamity Clegg or Hideous Huhne as their next leader, they will at least look more fresh and capable than the front bench. They have the strangely popular former leader, the youthful new leader (whichever one it ends up being), and some capable, some media savvy people coming through the ranks. I wouldn’t vote for them unless there was a gun to my head, but they look more of a credible proposition than the Labour cabinet.

Nu Labour is anything other than new now. It is tired, it is old, and there is nothing even resembling talent left in the upper ranks of the party. The Labour party have never been competent, but this is the real dregs of that incompetence.

With every new crisis, and against the opposition to the Brown administration, Nu Labour have come to resemble the over-flowing colostomy bag in desperate need of emptying – something that is full of crap and something that no-one wants to go near.

Darling and the AWOL Data

The Daily Telegraph reports, with some glee, that Alistair Darling is fighting for his political life over the fucking catastrophe that is losing the personal details of 25 million people in this country.

See, I’m not so sure that Darling should resign over this. I’m not sure that this is actually Darling’s fault. Don’t get me wrong, I have no great love for the bespectacled, skunk faced fucker who is Brown’s puppet chancellor. But, whilst this appears to have happened on his watch, we can’t forget that he has only recently taken on the role. And who was in charge of the department prior to Darling? For a decade? Oh, that would be the one eyed, spineless runt who is now our Prime Minister.

Of course, Brown won’t accept responsibility for this debacle. Indeed, his recent Commons performance shows he is desperate not to accept any blame. His personal ring of yes men and butt kissers won’t allow him to realise that this disaster has occurred in his former department and during his time as Prime Minister. The buck won’t stop with Brown. He’ll abdicate that responsibility to Darling, and anyone else who happens to get caught in the crossfire.

I don’t think that this is Brown’s equivalent of Black Wednesday – I think, with the gross damage it did to his carefully fabricated image for competence, that happened with the election date debacle. But if this story continues to rumble on (and given the implications for nearly half the population of this country, I rather think it will) then someone will have to take responsibility for this. And it won’t be the man at the top. It won’t be the man who has run the Treasury for the past 10 years. It won’t be the man who I think is probably most responsible for this. Of that, I think we can be quite sure.

If Brown has an ounce of decency, then he won’t let Darling fall over this. But if I was Darling, and replying on Brown having an ounce of decency, I’d be a very worried man. And I would be updating my CV as a matter of priority.

15 million...

...banks details lost but the government. Read that figure again. 15,000,000.

But it is all ok after all, as the government does not believe "the records - names, addresses, date of birth and bank accounts - have fallen into the wrong hands." Which makes everything ok, doesn't it? Unless, of course, the government - who lost the fucking records in the fucking first place - is wrong about this, like it is wrong about so many other things.

And, lest we forget, people, this is the same government who feel they can successfully implement an ID card scheme.

The shower of cunts who rule this country simultaneously sicken me and scare me. There seems to be no end to their jaw-dropping incompetence - and that incompetence has the potential to affect everyone in this country.

Sweet Jesus Christ, we are all fucked if this mob of cretins is not swiftly booted out of office.

UPDATE

Via Mr E, I see the figure is actually 25 million. 25 million people have had their details lost. By the fucking government. Apparently Darling is staying on to help solve the crisis. I think the best way he could help is by going and jumping in the fucking river. Preferably taking every incompetent, fuckwitted member of this Nu Labour government with him.

UPDATE #2

The radio is reporting that Darling has ordered an enquiry into the farce. I'll save him the time (and the tax-payer's money) by offering a way to prevent a repeat of this fiasco. Don't let a junior official download confidential information and then stick it in the fucking post.

Self Serving Shite

Chris Langham has given an exclusive interview to Sky News, talking about his self-inflicted imprisonment. Apparently he isn’t a paedophile, and is just misunderstood. Probably worth noting that if he didn’t want to be branded a paedophile then he shouldn’t have downloaded child porn. He says:

"There is an assumption that if you look at images like this, therefore you must have a sexual interest in children and it's an odd logic because one of the reasons was I wanted to write about it."

I’m guessing that you can write about child abuse without viewing images of it. Otherwise a lot of other writers would be have been convicted of child porn charges as well. And it sounds like a fair enough assumption that if you look at pornography, you are sexually interested in that pornography. After all, that is the point of porn, isn’t it? To arouse sexual interest.

Langham is a talented man, as just a brief glance at his work shows. But this sort of interview, so soon after he was released after a curtailed jail sentence, reeks of sympathy seeking and a desperation to rebuild his career. But I’m not fucking interested in his pleas or his excuses.

See, he could be telling the truth, and he might have downloaded child porn for research purposes. If he did, he’s a stupid cunt. If he downloaded child porn to jerk off over it, then he is an evil cunt. The images apparently showed the extreme abuse of children. There is no excuse for downloading child porn.

Regardless of whether he did it innocently or to satisfy a sexual interest in kids, Langham has shown himself to be a cunt. And I really can’t be bothered with anything he says or does anymore.

Calamity Clegg

The one ray of light on this otherwise shitty, rainy, bleak winter day came from that most unexpected of sources - the Liberal Democrat leadership campaign. Just when you thought they had given up finally there comes the faint whiff of a contest. For the Huhne campaign, or at least an over-zealous researcher, have dubbed the faintly bemused looking Nick Clegg "Calamity Clegg". You can read all about it here, and I would advise having a look at the video as well. It is great just to see how over-bearing, rude, and arrogant Huhne is, next to the schoolboy hurt and utterly ineffectual nature of Clegg. Swear to God, it looks like Clegg is going to cry at one point.

Of course, this is nothing compared to the wonderful 2006 Lib Dem leadership campaign. I mean, no-one has had to resign over being pissed up all the time, and no-one has been exposed as a shit obsessed rent-boy addict. But finally, it looks like there may be a bit of fight left in the scrag end of Britain's third party. And with the petty, but effective, viciousness of Huhne's attack, you really note that the Liberal Democrats don't need enemies when they have each other.

Calamity Clegg is a tag that is going to stick, and I already think of young Nicky boy with that nickname. But in the interests of fairness, I think Huhne should have a nickname as well. Any suggestions, please put them in the comments section. But I rather favour "Hideous Huhne".

90 - Sorry, 200 - lashes for being raped

A story from our allies, Saudi Arabia, whose Royal Family were recently honoured (in idiosyncratic style) by our Royal Family:

"According to the Arab News newspaper, the 19-year-old woman, who is from Saudi Arabia's Shia minority, was gang-raped 14 times in an attack in the eastern province a year-and-a-half ago."

A terrible story, but one that is not unique to the Middle East. Gang-rape can, and does, happen everywhere. And it looks like the rapists were brought to justice:

"Seven men from the majority Sunni community were found guilty of the rape and sentenced to prison terms ranging from just under a year to five years."

A year to five years strikes me as a little light for the crime of gang rape, not least because the crime can carry the death penalty in that country. But, hey ho, I’m sure the judges know best.
Ah, wait, not they don’t:

"But the victim was also punished for violating Saudi Arabia's laws on segregation that forbid unrelated men and women from associating with each other. She was initially sentenced to 90 lashes for being in the car of a strange man."

The victim was sentenced to 90 lashes. That’s the victim. And her crime? Being in the car of a strange man. Jesus, it is just as well that this particular law isn’t applicable in the UK. Otherwise there would be mass floggings every Sunday morning.

"On appeal, the Arab News reported that the punishment was not reduced but increased to 200 lashes and a six-month prison sentence."

Well, I’ll bet that the rape victim is really happy with the outcome of that appeal then.

I know that you should obey the law of your country, and I know that if you don’t, you should accept the punishment if you are caught. But it is a bit difficult to escape from the pungent air of misogyny that surrounds a law that sees a rape victim sentenced to 90 lashes. And then, on appeal, having those lashes more than doubled. With a six month prison sentence stuck on top.

And these people are our allies.

You could argue that, given my decadent Western ways, I can’t understand where this ruling is coming from. And you know what, you’d be right. Because I find the idea of lashing and jailing a person who was raped 14 times utterly abhorrent.

Still, it could have been worse. The victim could have been raped in Iran, where the penalty is far harsher.

Understatement of the Week

Via the BBC News website:

"In court he was described as "a very convincing fantasist"."

Very convincing? The guy shot himself not once, not twice, not three but a massive seven times in the chest with a frigging nail gun. That is more than convincing. It is fucking psychotic.

From Rational to Irrational in One Easy Meeting

This morning, someone at the very heart of our government was talking sense about extending the 28 day detention limit. At 8am this morning Admiral Lord West, the security Minister, stated:

"I want to have absolute evidence that we actually need longer than 28 days. I want to be totally convinced because I am not going to go and push for something that actually affects the liberty of the individual unless there is a real necessity for it."

And also:

"I still need to be fully convinced that we absolutely need more than 28 days and I also need to be convinced what is the best way of doing that."

How wonderfully sensible. How unprecedented for someone at the heart of the Nu Labour government to want to see evidence before suggesting policy, rather than replying on hysteria and knee-jerk draconian reponses that hopefully play well with the readership of The Sun. Lord West should be praised for his sage approach to security in this country.

Except, he has very suddenly changed his mind:

"I am quite clear that the greater complexities of terrorist plots will mean that we will need the power to detain certain individuals for more than 28 days."

And:

"The Government would be failing in its responsibility to protect national security if we waited until we needed more than 28 days to act."

Oh dear. From rational and logical in one moment to completely irrational and completely illogical in the next. And what caused the change?

According to the BBC:

"But then at 0930, after a half-hour meeting with Mr Brown, the peer told the BBC he was "personally convinced" that the 28-day limit needed extending."

So there we have it. West went from rational to irrational after a meeting with our dear Prime Minister. Proof that meeting our PM can make a normal man hysterical. And that the drab drip in No 10, Downing Street, can change that man from a position of respecting liberty to restricting freedom in just 30 minutes.

I wonder what the PM said to cause such a dramatic turnaround?

UPDATE:

The BBC is now reporting that West has explained his u-turn in the following way:

"(I'm a) simple sailor and not a politician I didn't choose my words very well".

Allow me to pose these two wee questions: if West is just a "simple sailor" then what the ruddy fuck is the total fucking cunt doing as Security Minister? And why the shitting hell has the slack-jawed fucktard been put in a position where he can make crucial goddamned choices that affect civil liberties in this Christing country?

Just asking is all.

Evolution at Work

This is a nice example of not so much survival of the fittest, but rather the non-survival of the borderline braindead.

"A man has been found dead in a cat flap after trying to get back into his girlfriend's house."

At the risk of sounding harsh, you will pay the price for being a total fuckwit.

I walked to work this morning through a park in Central London. It was a typical scene. There were commuters, walking briskly on their way to work. There were a couple of joggers showing an enthusiasm for exercise in the morning that is completely alien to me. There was the token wino, sitting on a bench, contemplating life. There was also a hyperactive photographer, snapping Buckingham Palace and causing congestion amongst the pedestrians as he tried to take his photos.

And I saw a couple of police officers. Both wearing stab proof vests, one carrying a rifle, the other with a handgun strapped to his side.

I didn't bat an eyelid. I did not even consider it in anyway wrong that I was looking at two heavily armed police officers strolling in the park at about 8am. To me, that sight was completely normal. Even though, as our police force isn't armed, it shouldn't have been.

So my question is this. When did it happen? When did it become normal for police officers in London to wander around carrying powerful rifles?

Answers on a postcard to the usual address. Or failing that, in the comments section.

Lord Levy Calls For Cap On Party Donations

No, really. See here for details.

I am speechless. Absolutely speechless. Lord Levy. Offering advice on political donations.

Staggering.

Salvation From Drink!

Whether you want it or not.

We don’t need to the government to dream up new ways to suppress our freedom to make choices and take away our liberty. Oh, no. Non-governmental alliances will do it for them.

Take the Health Alcohol Alliance, who are using some very spurious evidence and logic to try to make our money grabbing Prime Minister shaft us even further.

"The Health Alcohol Alliance says 13 children are admitted to hospital every day as a result of Britain's growing alcohol misuse."

Now, I’m fairly fucking sure that children drinking alcohol is a criminal offence. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but all that needs to happen here is for the existing law to be correctly implemented. No need for more taxes, no need for more rules or regulations. The laws are in place. Let’s use them.

"It wants TV adverts for alcohol banned before 9pm and stronger health warnings to be placed on promotional material."

What is a ban before the watershed going to achieve? Save kids from seeing evil advertisements for booze? Well, that’s a waste of time then, isn’t it? Because, as has already been noted, children can’t drink. It is illegal. You could make every ad in the breaks for kids TV about booze, and it wouldn’t matter. The law is very clear. It is illegal for children to drink.

And what would health warnings on alcohol adverts achieve? For as long as I can remember cigarette ads have had warnings that basically say "If you smoke you are fucked" on them, but it hasn’t made people stop smoking, and it hasn’t stopped people from starting to smoke.

"It calls for the government to adopt a twin strategy of increasing tax and reducing the easy availability of alcohol."

Increasing tax simply means people end up paying more and the government has more money to cunt away on pointless schemes. And what do we mean by reducing the easy availability of alcohol? Putting it on higher shelves in supermarkets? Presenting a series of Krypton Factor style challenges before people can buy a four pack of Stella? Making it a specialist shop purchase, like a wank mag in a porn shop? No matter, no doubt the Alliance will have some sort of idea that will make it terribly inconvenient for anyone who fancies a beer or a bottle of wine after work.

"The Alliance says increasing tax by 10% could cut all alcohol-related deaths by between 10% and 30%."

Or it could make fuck all difference other than making drinkers pay more for their poison. Or it could turn half the population into dancing bears – because we don’t know what the outcome of a 10% tax rise would be. Other than really pissing me off.

However to increase tax based on a projected possible outcome from a biased alliance strikes me as a frankly shitty way to make policy, to be totally honest with you.

"The charity Alcohol Concern said the price of all alcohol in shops has barely changed since the mid-1990s - with some wines and lagers becoming cheaper."

Good, quite frankly. For once consumers ain’t being fucking shafted by prices rises. This should be a cause for celebration, not for mealy mouthed carping from bastards like the Alcohol Concern.

"The number of alcohol-related deaths has more than doubled from 4,144 in 1991 to 8,386 in 2005. There has also been a substantial increase in the number of people suffering serious disease, such as the permanent scarring of the liver known as cirrhosis."

As with all stats, some context would be nice. What constitutes an alcohol related death? Did the classification change in the 14 year period? How has the increase in population affect the figures? Had the ability to detect cirrhosis improved over the period in question?

But anyway. 8,386 deaths in a population of over 60,000,000 doesn’t strike me as a major problem, however awful it might be for those affected. And certainly doesn’t strike me as a valid reason to start punishing the whole population with more taxes.

"The government has recently beefed up its Home Office target for reducing harm from alcohol."

The government reliance on targets rather than action may be a good thing here. But why is the Home Office dealing with harm from alcohol? Surely this should be a health issue? Unless the government sees drinking – something people do in their private lives – as a legal issue. What an interesting Freudian slip. What you do in your private life, even if it is enjoying more than one glass of wine, is not a health concern. The Home Office want to know. And the Home Office will be watching you…

"It has also introduced a cross-departmental Alcohol Strategy."

*Yawns.*

Cross-departmental strategy. Which roughly translates as "we don’t have the first fucking clue about what to do about this so the whole government will talk about it." Hopefully, in this case, inconclusively.

"This includes a public information campaign to promote sensible drinking, an independent review of alcohol pricing and promotion, toughened enforcement of underage sales by retailers and plans to introduce more help for people who want to drink less."

Campaigns, reviews, being tough, plans. Any drinker in this country should be quite happy that our government seems quite incapable of doing anything other than talking about possibly doing something in the future.

Except…

The Health Alcohol Alliance are calling for more government taxation. And you don’t need to encourage the shower of cunts who run this country to tax more. They do so just as easily as they breathe.

Furthermore, if people chose to drink, then fuck it. It is their choice. They are adults (and I can’t stress enough – it is illegal for kids to drink). They make a choice. It is a patronising, insulting and pointlessly paternalistic attitude from the Health Alcohol Alliance that allows them to think that they know best – better than you – about how you should live your life. It wouldn’t surprise me if the government jumps at the chance to implement some of what the Alliance wants, because their mindsets seem to be equally arrogant.

I do wish the arrogant shitheads who make up the Health Alcohol Alliance would go and drown themselves. Preferably in a vat of alcohol.

Party Political Spam

Back in the days when I had an aspiration for this blog to be something more than an occasional outlet for random rants, I signed up to receive regular e-mail updates from the four major political parties. Yep, I said four – the Tories, Nu Labour, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP. I appreciate that many people wouldn’t count UKIP as a main party – hell, some wouldn’t got the Liberal Democrats as a major party – but I wanted a bit more variety than the just the two main parties, and adding UKIP helped maintain the left/right* balance.

The theory was this: by hearing directly what the parties had to say I would have plenty of material to comment on, and some great material to fisk. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. In fact, all that happened was, one by one, I stopped reading the e-mails and, one by one, they were transferred from my inbox to the spam folder.

The first to go were the missives from the Liberal Democrats. The pointless platitudes spouted by that earnest, yet deeply irritating, party – all written against a backdrop of bright, friendly colours that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a kindergarten – were too much to cope with.

Nu Labour’s e-mails were the next to be classed as spam. To be fair, they always looked quite professional but ultimately, they didn’t really seem to say anything. So I guess you could say that they were quite representative of the party it came from. But there are so many times that you can read "Let’s have a conversation about this policy" from a draconian, anti-democratic, arrogant and aloof party before the irony of it all becomes a hideous, stomach churning, anger inducing insult.

The Tories went next. Partly it was because of my disappointment (to use a very neutral term) with the Tories under Cameron, but also because every other letter or e-mail they sent to me was begging for cash. Until we reached the farcical point where the Tories were sending me letters asking me to take part in a lottery within their party. So, on the one hand, I could enter the National Lottery, and potentially win millions. On the other hand, I could enter the Tory lottery, maybe win a couple of thousand, and finance Francis Maude sending out more shite about lotteries to other people. Tough choice, but I think the National Lottery ticket I bought was a better waste of money than the Tory alternative.

Which left UKIP. Their e-mails are generally succinct, easy to read and – whilst the format occasionally fucks with my online e-mail account – not unpleasant on the eye. And yet I can’t be bothered to read them anymore. Why? Because, more often than not, they don’t say anything. Sure, they pass on information, but they don’t really say anything. The problem is that I don’t really care what radio programme Nigel Farage is going to be appearing on. The e-mails have become little more than an overview of the work diary of the UKIP leader. Which, let’s be honest, is hardly the most crucial or exciting of information.

Some people will probably think I was naïve to expect anything other than meaningless tripe from the free e-mails going out to random lists compiled by political parties. But these e-mails are going out to supporters and would-be supporters of these parties. They should be informing their supporters of what the parties believe in and why potential supporters should bite the bullet and join the parties. Instead, they say nothing worth reading.

And it is no wonder that the political parties have little or nothing to say to the public as a whole when they don’t even have anything worth reading for their supporters.

*Not that I believe it is helpful or accurate to talk about left and right in politics anymore. But that is a long post for another day.

It turns out...

...that using a gun is not the best way to change a tyre.

What can I say to such a revelation? Nothing, really, other than to note that if you are fuckwitted enough to use a gun when trying to change a tyre then you probably deserve the ensuing pain, hospitalisation and international derision that follows.

Bush. Clinton. Bush. Clinton?

Headline in The Times:

Fear of a dynasty denies Hillary Clinton votes.

Good, as far as I am concerned.

Now I’m not going to get bogged down in a debate about Clinton’s relative merits – or lack thereof – as a Presidential Candidate. But fuck me, it is a bit worrying if the best the US can come up with, since 1988, is people from the same two fricking families, isn’t it? Population – over 300 million. Number of families the president is drawn from – 2. Hardly reinforces your belief in US democracy, does it?

One quote is particularly striking:

"Peggy Noonan, former speech-writer to President Ronald Reagan, noted in The Wall Street Journal last week that Obama was beginning to win support from Republicans and independents who "see him as a Democrat who could cure the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton sickness"… She added: "I say sickness because on some level I think it is driven by a delusion: ‘We will be safe with these ruling families whom we know so well’. But we won’t. They have no special magic. Dynasticism brings with it a sense of deterioration. It is dispiriting.""

Of course, Noonan will have an agenda that is worth acknowledging – as a Republican, another Clinton in the White House is not good news for her. But her points still stands. The thought of Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton (and with Jeb waiting in the wings in four to eight years time) is not edifying.

I’m unsure of who the best candidate would be – whilst Obama has a certain (albeit deeply vacuous) charm I rather think Giuliani will be the more capable administrator. But it would be depressing if the very best the US can offer is more of the same two families who have dominated US politics since the 1980’s.

I once read about an old saying that went around the USA when JFK was President (and Bobby was eyeing up the White House for when his big bruv stepped down) that went something like this:

"We’ll have JFK until 1968, then RFK in 1968 and 1972. We’ll then have Teddy Kennedy in 1976 and 1980. When he steps down, well, then it will be 1984."

I can’t quite see the US disappearing into Orwell’s dystopia just yet – the growth of these dynasties reminds me more of the stagnation of the Roman Empire, or the shameless nepotism associated with the Borgias. Either way, neither option is an outstanding example for the world’s supposed leader in democracy.

The Liberal Democrat Leadership Slog

See, calling the contest between Clegg and Huhne a race is a little like calling the medical choices of a Jehovah's Witness sensible - ie, just plain wrong. Clegg and Huhne seem to agree on everything. And even as a relatively politically aware person in the UK, I struggle to tell the two apart even when I see their pictures. The simple rule I use is Huhne has greyer hair.

But both men should be worried. Deeply, deeply worried. The most recent Tory and Labour contests generated column inches, even though they largely consisted of like-minded people being nice to each other, and even though both had a clear front-runner. The fact that no-one seems to give a flying fuck about who becomes Lib Dem leader sends a pretty clear message to whichever man wins the leadership: no-one cares. And whilst someone like me banging on about how irrelevant the party is may be pretty much par for the course, the fact that the media and, ergo, the electorate, no longer care should be a massive alarm going off - a political equivalent of the Four Minute Warning.

Neither man is offering anything new, just a younger version of what went before. Neither man is proposing a way out of the Lib Dem decline, which means whoever takes the crown has no way of reversing the poll freefall that the coalition of geography teachers and bearded women who make up the Lib Dems have been experiencing.

At the risk of repeating myself I'll say it again - that party fucked itself when it ditched the ginger drunk. And no amount of radio silence from the candidates can change the fact that being made Lib Dem leader in 2007 makes becoming Tory leader in 1997 look like a dream political job.

The Daily Mail Tendency

Over at the DMT, I rail against The Daily Mail's tendency to ignore the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven, and find, in an extra-ordinary twist, a moment of hope in the webpages of The Daily Hate.

As always, anyone wanting to write a post for the DMT is invited to do so. Please send any contributions to thenamelesst[at]yahoo[dot]co[dot[uk.

Control

No, not another post about how the government is robbing the citizens of this great nation of more and more freedom through their ever expanding control of this nation, although, Lord knows, there is an near infinite amount to write on that particular topic. Instead, this post is about Anton Corbijn's Control.

As always, there are spoilers ahead.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the story of Ian Curtis would not lend itself easily to the creation of an enjoyable movie. For anyone not in the know, Curtis was a Manchester born post-punk musician, known for his brooding, intense - almost gothic- music. He was the lead singer of Joy Division, who were about to become nationally famous when he took his own life on the eve of an American tour. He left behind a wife, a baby daughter and a Belgian lover. A compelling story perhaps, but not one that would necessarily translate into a good picture.

Yet Corbijn manages to make the film eminently watchable, and also, on some levels, enjoyable. He remembers to include some humorous moments, with both the portrayals of Rob Gretton and Tony Wilson being very entertaining. He resists the instinct to film the areas around Macclesfield and Manchester as unremittingly bleak, and allows moments of beauty to permeate what could be a very dour film. The black and white print again could make the film drab, but actually makes it more realistic.

But the perhaps the best part of the film is the sensitive presentations of the main characters, and particularly the central love triangle of Curtis, his wife and his lover. There are no heroes and no villains. Without having to spell it out, the film makes it clear why Curtis married, why that marriage did not work as well as it could have done, and why his lover appealed to him so much (and vice versa). There is also a very telling scene, where favourite colours are discussed, that shows that Curtis is still very young and very immature. The film indicates that Curtis found himself with a choice between living the typical life of a man born and bred in Macclesfield - wife, child, two up, two down house - and living the life of an avant garde rock star. And given his immaturity, his illness (epilepsy) and his depression, he managed to paint himself into a corner - and he felt that there was no way out. Hence his tragic, premature, death.

Ultimately the film manages to be sad and tragic rather than harrowing and depressing. And given the subject matter, that is a triumph for Corbijn.

Remembrance Sunday

Tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday - and I think everyone should take a moment to think about what the day means. It doesn't matter whether you think war is a legitimate tool of foreign policy, or a necessary evil, or is totally wrong. Likewise, it doesn't matter whether you are a rabid nationalist, or a occasional patriot or, like me, someone without a real national identity. Because tomorrow isn't about war or the nation. It is about remembering those who fought, and especially those who died or were wounded. It is about remembering those who made a sacrifice. And just for one day, you can forget about all those arguments over whether the sacrifice was right or not.

I won't be on line tomorrow so I will leave you with the striking, poetic lines from the Ode of Remembrance today:

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

School Shootings

There was another school shooting this week, although unless you were keeping your eyes open when reviewing the media, you might have missed it. See, this one occurred in Finland, rather than in this country or our favourite former colony, meaning there was much less attention given to it.

I wrote a lot about the last massacre committed by an angry loner, and I think a lot of those comments can be related directly to this more recent tragedy. I don't know whether Finland will respond in the same way that the US did to the VA murders, but the temptation will be there to start the old blame game. "Oh, he watched violent videos so he wanted to kill", "Oh, he had access to weapons so he wanted to kill" and so on, ad fucking nauseam, until every cliche has been trotted out. Well, shite. The only person directly responsible for these murders is the person who grabs a gun and starts shooting. And when, as they so often do, they kill themselves after the rampage or as the police close in, well, you just have to accept that the prepatrator has escaped the punishment society so desperately needs to inflict to console everyone.

But if someone does realky want to try to understand why this sort of tragedy intermittently occurs, and what could be done about it, then it might be worth taking a look at the lives these guys led before they aimed their weapons at their classmates and teachers. Because, generally speaking, them seem to be quite fucking bleak. Take the comments about by the detective looking into the Finnish massacre about the killer (as reported on the BBC):

"Det Haapala described the young man as a "lonely rider" who had been bullied by other students at the secondary school"

Then consider these comments about Cho Seung Hui, the killer at Virginia Tech:

"During Cho's time in middle school and high school, he was teased for his shyness and unusual speech patterns. Some classmates even offered dollar bills to Cho just to hear him talk. According to Chris Davids, a high school classmate in Cho's English class at Westfield High School, Cho looked down and refused to speak when called upon. Davids added that, after one teacher threatened to give Cho a failing grade for not participating in class, he began reading in a strange, deep voice that sounded "like he had something in his mouth." "The whole class started laughing and pointing and saying, 'Go back to China.'" Another classmate, Stephanie Roberts, stated that "there were just some people who were really cruel to him, and they would push him down and laugh at him. He didn't speak English really well, and they would really make fun of him."Cho was also teased as the "trombone kid" for his practice of walking to school alone with his trombone. Other students recall crueler names and that most of the bullying was because he was alone.""

Or take Jeff Weise, who murdered nine people before shooting himself:

"Weise allegedly had a history of trouble at the school, getting into fist-fights. Although no clear motive has been attributed to Weise's actions yet, he was described as a loner, who was bullied – possibly due to his appearance."

Now bullying is not new, and, not matter how many well meaning but faintly patronising campaigns there are, it ain't really going to go away, if we are honest. And not everyone who is bullied becomes a school shooter, just as not all those who watch violent films are going to go on a rampage. But rather than looking for parts of a country's culture to blame after one of these shootings, maybe it would be would be worth examining exactly how a young man can be so ostracised by his schooling and by those around him that he sould see himself as a "social Darwinist" who has the right to wander around the corridors of his school and can "eliminate all who I see unfit".

James - Laid

Lyrically edited version of a fucking awesome song. If you've never heard it before, then go learn about James...

Another day, another headline about evil Muslims indoctrinating our youth with hatred, evil, and murderous desire masquerading as devout religion. You’d be forgiven, sometimes, for reviewing our media and concluding that to become a Muslim is to become a suicide bomber.

Of course, the truth is that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful people, who just want to get on with life. Some radicals do want to blow themselves – and others – into the imaginary next life, but most of them don’t.

You can’t deny that Islamic fundamentalism is a problem with modern society, but it is part of a broader problem that we sometimes forget about. Because, overall, it is religious fundamentalism that causes so many problems today. Don’t just blame Islam, ‘cos Christianity can be such as bad.

Take a look at this article about Jesus Camp in America. It makes for eye-opening, and rather frightening, reading. For the indoctrination and radicalisation of youth described in the article isn’t happening in a Muslim training camp in the deserts of Afghanistan, but rather in a Christian summer camp in the American heartland. Yep, that’s right, at the very heart of the country that is fighting a war on terror against Islamic fundamentalists, Christian fundamentalists are indoctrinating the youth with hate filled, hideous lies masquerading as biblical truth. Two passages spring out to me in the article:

"…a slick, clever, politically ambitious preacher tells his 2,500-strong congregation of impressionable young people that they should have no use for democracy since all the law they need is in the Bible."

That’s right. Bye bye democracy. Bye bye freedom of speech. There is only one truth. The truth contained in the archaic, incoherent and ancient Bible.
And then the article goes on:

"There is no love here. No turning to your neighbour and exchanging a sign of peace. This is not Christianity as we know it. What we see in the movie is children in their hundreds being indoctrinated by nutcases, encouraged to hate and fear and ready themselves for ultimate war."

That’s right, "ultimate war". That’s the sort of phrase that you just can’t spin in a positive way. Preparing the youth for ultimate war is a totally terrifying concept.

I’m tired of reading about how bad Muslim fundamentalism is when other radical wings of various religions are just as bad. Religious fundamentalists of all creeds are unthinking, ignorant creatures, who cling to the ancient words in their out of date texts believing them to be an absolute and indisputable truth. It doesn’t matter whether you follow the teachings of Mohammed or of Jesus. The former strap back packs to themselves and blow up trains to enter paradise, the latter blow up abortion clinics to preserve the sanctity of life. The fundamentalist nature of the religious beliefs is the problem, not the idiosyncratic semantics of the individual creeds.

UPDATE:

And this article shows another example of religious fundamentalism gone hideously wrong. I can understand - and almost admire - this woman for dying for her beliefs. Then I think of the new widower, of the kids who will never grow up knowing their Mum, and who, no doubt, will be indoctrinated with the same warped, archaic beliefs that killed their mother. I know I should support the rights of anyone to have any beliefs they feel are right.

But I will also support my right to tell them that those beliefs are, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking stupid.

The Simple Things In Life

It is always the simple things, isn’t it? The really simple, obvious, little things that should be so easy to do that become fricking sagas. Those tiny jobs that should take five minutes but end up taking hours, and leave you questioning not only why you bothered even trying in the first place.

To give you an example of what I am banging on about, yesterday my girlfriend and I tried to buy a chair. Now this, you would think, should be a really easy thing to do. After all, chairs have been around for centuries. There are no shortage of shops in London that sell chairs. How difficult could it be?

And to compound the apparent ease, yesterday The Observer was offering a voucher that got you money off anything bought at Habitat. Of course this meant that you could have to buy The Observer, but you got money off stuff and you didn’t have to read the fucking newspaper. So, how cool was this scenario? We would be able to pop into Habitat, on a quiet Sunday, and buy a chair on the cheap. As one of my Welsh friends would say, "Happy Days!"

Which it was, until we made the fatal mistake of actually involving shop assistants.

We found a decent enough looking chair, on display in the store, and went to the sales desk to see if we could buy the chair. The shop assistant was helpful enough, in that "I’m a Sunday worker, I really couldn’t give a fuck" kind of way. And he went to the warehouse to see if they had the chair in stock.

A minute passed. Then five minutes passed. Then ten minutes. Finally, after a quarter of an hour of our lives had disappeared into oblivion, our shop assistant reappeared.

"Sorry, we haven’t got that one in stock."

We’d guessed that by the fact that he came back from the warehouse empty handed.

"We do have the plastic version in the warehouse if you would like to buy that," he said, somewhat grudgingly.

Now, the phrase "plastic version" fills me with vision of uncomfortable seats in crappy classrooms, but since we were in the store it was worth taking a look. So, not unreasonably, my girlfriend asked

"Can we see the plastic version then, please?"

The shop assistant looked genuinely staggered that anyone would ask to see a product before they bought it. It took him a clear minute to recover himself, and he left for the warehouse still looking utterly incredulous at what he had just been asked.

Another 15 minutes went by, and again he returned, this time with a white chair in two parts. He put the main part of the chair on the counter, and somewhat excitedly, removed the polythene so we could see the plastic completely. He looked so expectantly at us that I honestly feel he thought that we would fall instantly in love with that chair, and buy it from him eagerly.

Of course, it was a plastic chair, it wasn’t what we wanted, it looked uncomfortable and the chair we actually wanted was on display less than 50 metres from where we stood.

"Is there any chance," I asked, without much hope, "Of us buying the display model?"

The shop assistant thinned his lips, and the expression that crossed his face would suggest that I had dissed his mother rather than asking a perfectly reasonable question.

"Oh," he said, shaking his head like an oncologist giving a patient the worst possible news, "Oh, I’m not sure about that. Not sure about that at all. I’ll have to check with my manager. And two of them are upstairs."

It was difficult to understand why on earth he thought we would care about the location of his managers, or indeed why it would make a blind bit of fucking difference to him contacting said managers. However, it clearly meant something, as our assistant stood stock still, not making any move towards the ‘phone.

"Well, could you check for us please?" asked my girlfriend.

Our shop assistant raised one eyebrow, as if considering this no doubt radical proposal. Then he nodded, and picked up the phone.

"I’ll try to get hold of the manager who’s one this floor," he said, peering at us like he was doing us a massive favour and wondering what he could get from us in return.

There then followed a whispered conversation over the phone, but we knew by the thinning of his lips and the slightly wary look he gave us halfway through the call that things weren’t about to go our way.

And, when he had put the receiver down, he confirmed it.

"Sorry, we can’t sell display stock."

"Ok, let’s just go," my girlfriend said, with a wonderful sense of weariness.

"Does it have a reduced sticker on?" The shop assistant asked.

"I don’t think so," my girlfriend answered, whilst I wondered how on earth this silly little man expected us to remember to remember exactly what tags and stickers the furniture in his shop had on it.

He sighed, almost sadly.

"That’s a shame. Sometimes we can sell reduced display stock, but…"

At this point, a supervisor who had been buzzing about not achieving a great deal in the way that only retail supervisors can manage, decided to insert herself into the conversation.

"What are these people looking for?" she asked the shop assistant, somehow managing to make "these people" sound like "those bastards."

The shop assistant explained the situation.

"Oh, well, have you told them the price of the chair? It is £69. Let’s work it out with the discount."

The irony is that the chair we wanted was £79. And the plastic one was £49. We knew this because during the time we had been waiting for the shop assistant to achieve the square root of fuck all, we had looked up all the prices in the catalogue.

"We don’t want to know the prices, we know them already," said my girlfriend, getting increasingly irate. However the supervisor was not to be deterred, and moments later told us the prices we already knew.

"Let’s just go," said my girlfriend, but I was ready to give it just one last go.

"Look, all we want to do is buy this one chair," I began.

The shop assistant nodded his understanding.

"And that chair is over there." I pointed to the chair on the shop floor.

The shop assistant shrugged.

"So the easiest thing in the world would be to buy that chair, over there."

The shop assistant shrugged again. This time helplessly.

"We aren’t going to be able to buy that chair from this shop, are we?"

The supervisor with all the social skills of an angry puff adder piped up again.

"Well, if they want the chair, they either need to order it," she said to the shop assistant, as clearly we weren’t worth talking to directly. "They can pick it up from the store or get it delivered to their home."

Perhaps we should have pointed out that we had already wasted close on 45 minutes in the store, so waiting for longer for the chair would have been insulting. Perhaps we could have pointed out that we would have had to have wasted further time in waiting for the chair to be delivered, or coming back to the store to pick it up. Or perhaps we should have pointed out once again that the chair was less than 50 metres away from us.

But it was time to cut our losses, and move in with our lives.

My girlfriend said again "Let’s go." I nodded, and we left the bemused shop assistant to listen to his supervisor bang on about prices.

We went to buy a chair. We found the chair we wanted. It was in the shop. And it is still in the shop. And will be there, I reckon, for the foreseeable future.

*Sighs*

UKIP - The Writing's on the Wall?

Back. Although probably not for long.

Couple of things have caught my eye over the past few weeks that I wanted to comment on. First up is the news, relayed with a certain gleeful (and almost infectious) relish by Jackart that UKIP have gained a rather humbling 0% in a recent poll. Of course, you could point out that opinion polls are unreliable – after all, if they could have been trusted, then Kinnock would have become Prime Minister in 1992 - and the 0% is likely to be a distortion of reality. However, and let’s be brutally honest about this – 0% is a horrifically shit figure for any party. UKIP might yet rally and confound their detractors, but it is going to take a massive reversal of their fortunes to turn this disastrous result around.

Now, as a non-aligned political observer, I’m not going to jump up and down, clapping my hands with delight, as UKIP drown in the mire of British Politics. Equally, I ain’t going to wail and gnash my teeth at their slow passing. But it does beg the question, given the recent similarities between the two major parties and the utterly terrible performance of the Lib Dems since they binned that ginger drunk, of how UKIP have managed to fail to capitalise on the situation and push themselves forward as a credible player in the British political scene.

I think the answer is quite simple – and it is one very much in keeping with modern politics. What has crippled UKIP from the outset is an image problem. They are forever, even as they discuss other political policies, perceived to be a single issue party. They are against the EU, and that, many people think, is it. The perceived focus on this issue, particularly since it revolves around some debate about nationality, leaves them open to the ever-present (and largely unfair) accusation of racism. However the problems go deeper than just that. For every eloquent advocate of the party, there is an embittered ex-Tory, a half-baked borderline racist, or a perma-tanned, publicity seeking, self-serving cunt. They have never managed to escape the restrictive straight-jacket of being a small party, and cannot shake the tag of being a single issue party.

There will be those who will continue to push for UKIP, and continue to argue the case for that party in the current format. But this poll probably shows the time has come for those at the very heart of UKIP to ask the question whether it is best to continue to push for UKIP, or to move on from that tainted brand and form a new party – a party that can fully set out a right of centre, Euro-sceptic and Libertarian agenda whilst learning from the mistakes/building on the experiences of UKIP.