A Bad Week For Brown. Again.

Wonderful understatement:

Cabinet minister Lord Mandelson said it was "turning into a bit of a week". He denied the PM had lost his authority.

Yes, it is a bit of a week for old Gordo. But when the ruddy fuck was it last a good week for Gordo? He lunges from calamity to calamity, like a cross between Jonah and Job. The last time he really had a good week was when he won the Labour leadership election - a contest that, lest we forget, offered no opposition for him (yet he still failed to win all the votes).

But let's not talk about timing or bad luck. Let's not talk about political incompetence either - although Gordon is a political idiot of the very highest order. No, this week his problems are all about his lack of that fabled moral compass. He's fucked himself by treating Gurkhas badly. He's fucked himself by proposing a change to the expenses system that reduces transparency and instead rewards people for turning up to their job. He's fucked himself because he didn't have the basic ethics to realise that both positions he adopted, and both policies he's getting his arse kicked on, were morally wrong.

I've no sympathy for Gordon, but that shoudn't be news for anyone. However, his allowance proposal and his stance on Gurkhas further illustrate what a terrible, terrible little man he is.

Pandemic imminient! Pandemic imminent! Jesus Christ, pandemic imminent!

*Yawns*

People are going to get swine 'flu, they're going to pass it to each other because our public transport is largely enclosed and we are all reliant on air conditioning. But this, in itself, shouldn't really be news. People have been getting 'flu for years. It has made them ill. It has made them really ill. And yes, 'flu can kill. And does, every year.

But we can all help to limit the spread of swine 'flu, and for everyone in London here's a real easy way. When you are on the tube, and you feel the need to cough, stick your hand in front of you mouth. It helps prevent the spread of this virus, it is a polite thing to do and it also stops a great big chunk of flob jumping from your coughing mouth onto my book. Three good reasons to do what you should have learned to do back at school - cover your mouth when you cough.

Obama: 100 Days

So, Barack Obama has been in power for 100 days, and a Republican Senator has given him the extra special gift of a defection. I find it mildly amusing that the press has suddenly picked up on the first 100 days of the Obama presidency again - most of their coverage petered out at around Day 36, when the media realised that Obama wasn't really going to do anything other than be a President - and that role isn't actually that newsworthy on a day to day basis.

They'll be some celebration and some commiseration about Obama's achievement today - if you can call being in power for 100 days an actual achievement. After all, all he has had to do is not die or be impeached. Which most US Presidents, but not all, have been able to manage.

Whether you think Obama has been a success of not is really down to your political views - he's certainly done a great deal, but sadly spent a lot of money and grasped a lot of power for the state in the process. No-one should be surprised, though, at his actions in his first 100 days. He's been a Democrat; not exactly a revelation given the party he's a member of and leads.

But it is this defection - which puts Obama very close to having a filibuster proof majority - should be the big story now the first hundred days are at an end. And it is the motivations of Senator Specter that fascinates me. He's moved to Democrats because the Republicans have moved so far to the right. And with Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin acting as the de facto leaders of the Republicans, his claim can't really be disputed. And the Republicans are beginning to resemble the Conservatives in 1997 - lurching to the right because the party doesn't know where to go but instead is listening to the loudest voices.

The problem is that whilst a small minority love Limbaugh and Palin and their rabid ilk, it does not provide a coherent platform for realistic opposition within US Politics. Obama and co can laugh off the Republicans as fundamentalists, reactionaries and far right. They can dismiss their case without breaking into a sweat. Which further negates and already crippled opposition in the US.

The Republicans need to take the media manufactured landmark of Obama's first 100 days to take stock and find a platform that will appeal to the people. That is the first step to them becoming an effective opposition again. It may not win them control of Congress in two years or the White House back in four years, but at least they will have a coherent argument to oppose Obama. It is a first step in their recovery. However, this lurch to the right moves them further away from a coherent platform and being a credible opposition.

And they need to be a credible opposition more than ever now. Because, as the example of Britain in 1997 shows, a photogenic, popular young leader with absolute control of the legislature and no credible opposition can wreak havoc in that country. Unless the Republicans remember how to be in opposition, the same could happen in the US.

Mac Query - Urgent

A quick shout out to any Mac users - and in particular those who would class themselves as experts - I've got a problem with my Mac Book. When you turn it on, it comes alive and goes to the white screen with Apple on it. It shows the dial that indicates something is happening. Then, it turns itself off again, only to restart and got through the whole process again. And again. And again.

If anyone knows why it is doing this (and, more importantly, how to stop it doing this) then please let me know in the comments section. I've suddenly realised just how dependant I am on my computer for... well, just about everything, and the Apple store don't have any appointments until next month and the forums make as much sense to me as Labour economic policy.

Thanks all.

I have, of course, e-mailed the guru himself on all things Apple with this problem.

We are all going to die!

Of like, a bad cold or something.

There is nothing the media likes more than whipping up a paranoid storm about some coming apocalypse. Be it terrorists, dirty bombs, suitcase nuclear weapons, war, nuclear war, cyber-terrorism, flesh-eating bugs, serial killers, evil clowns* - whatever the ruddy fuck the end of the world of the moment is, you can bet there is something that is going to come and fuck you up real bad.

Today it is swine flu - presumably a porcine version of that Avian flu thing that never really took off despite the hype. And looking at the coverage in the media, you'd imagine that this swine flu really is going to create the end of everything. Certainly, it has had its moments in Mexico, as the dead there would be able to attest to (if the dead could attest to anything).

Except, it isn't actually that scary:

Symptoms of swine flu in humans appear to be similar to those produced by standard, seasonal flu. These include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, chills and fatigue.

Sounds a lot like... well, 'flu to me.

And there is basic stuff that you can do to try to prevent coming down with pig flu. Like this:

It is also important to wash your hands frequently with soap and water to reduce the spread of the virus from your hands to face or to other people and cleaning hard surfaces like door handles frequently using a normal cleaning product.

And in fairness, you should be washing your hands anyway. If you aren't then you are a bit a filth wizard to be honest.

Of course, I could be wrong. But I suspect this will turn out to be a contagious epidemic that bloats column inches with mindless speculation, rather than a contagious epidemic that ends everything. Ignore the shrill tone of a lot of the coverage, and instead look at the worst case scenario. You might get 'flu.

A pisser, but it isn't the end of the world, now, is it?

*Part of me does believe that Obnoxio the Clown will play a role in the End of Days. I don't know why, it is just a nagging feeling. Probably because is represented by a picture of Pennywise the Dancing Clown.

Quote of the Day - On Obama

Quote of the day from the BBC:

George Bush was criticised for being a lazy president, he delegated and sat back, preferring to clear brush down in Crawford. Barack Obama is, yet again, Bush's opposite. He's super busy, ever on the move, doing. Will he stand condemned for doing too much?

Ignoring the insane assertion that Bush was a lazy President (as moronic as the invasion of Iraq was, it was hardly the act of a do-nothing President), it is worth noting that Obama may yet go down in history as one of those Presidents who just tried to do too much. However, the chances are that it won't be around the issue of torture that these condemnation is likely to centre. Like our Prime Minister, the danger for Obama is that he'll be seen as having tried to do too much to avert an economic downturn. And by "tried do too much" you can also read "tried spend too much. Because, in the final analysis, it won't so much be the amount of things that Obama, Brown et al have tried to do; rather, it will be the colossal amounts of money they have wasted and the tax rises required to pay back that wasted expenditure that will haunt our borrow, tax and spend leaders both in power and when we come to assess their legacies.

Pay Equality

The government is pushing on with plans to create equality by naming and shaming companies who they perceive to be discriminating (and forcing all other companies to reveal details of their payrolls as well). Those of us with a firmer grasp of reality than those in the Nu Labour government will, of course, see the limiting factors in this idea, and indeed would best summarise this plan as palpable bullshit. Yes, discrimination exists in society. Bureaucracy ain't going to help anyone though.

There is the further argument that it is absolutely the wrong time to do this sort of thing, what with the recession and all. Fortunately, Harriet Harman has a counter-argument for that one:

"The economies and societies which will prosper in the future are not those that have rigid hierarchies, where women know their place and where you can't go forward because of the colour of your skin," she said. "That's a very backward-looking argument."

Couple of points on that one. Firstly, Nu Labour had a good decade - ten years, 120 months, 520 weeks etc - of a strong, prosperous economy to introduce this sort of legislation. The fact that they have failed to do so until the economy goes down the shitter shows either a lack of interest in equality on their behalf, or gross incompetence. Actually, with Nu Labour, it could be both. And then you've got to point out the fallacy in what Harman is saying - you can have prosperous societies which have rigid hierarchies. There are plenty of moral arguments for equality - this socio-economic argument is, unfortunately, just not correct.

Furthermore, state legislation actually isn't the best way to foster equality. State-enforced equality simply creates more resentment. Look at positive discrimination - it devalues the achievements of minorities by creating the implication - that incessant whisper - that those achievements were purely down to the state insisting that the minorites get what they apply for, regardless of ability. Sometimes that implication is correct, other times not. But it simply makes those who have lost out resent the concept of equality.

So what will forcing companies to publish details of their pay structures actually do? A lot of companies may introduce rigid pay scales to create the perception of equality, and in doing so, reduce their ability to reward talent within their organisations. Other companies - who do discriminate, for whatever the reason - may be less likely to take people from minorities on. Are they creating equality with this bill? Are they bollocks. They are creating resentment in this country, and forcing the companies to create more elaborate ways of hiding their discrimination.

For once, the Tories are actually talking sense on an issue:

Shadow work and pensions minister Theresa May said earlier this year: "You don't make people's lives better by telling them they have a legal right to a better life. You do it by tackling the root causes like family breakdown and poor education."

Quite. If you want to minimise inequality, then your answer is education. But it isn't just about educating young people to maximise their potential and to achieve all they can achieve. It is also about education making the moral case for why discrimination is wrong. Setting out the argument, and then letting people make their own choice. Because if people can choose their own path, they are far less likely to resent the outcome.

But education is a long term solution that requires government to let people make up their own minds. It is also a point of view that requires an optimistic view of the majority of people in this country - that, if you leave them to their own desires, they will come to the right conclusions. And as a result of these factors, it is a solution that Nu Labour could never countenance. So we get more legislation, more bureaucracy, more businesses going under - and ironically, the thing we won't get is the thing Harman et al are trying so desperately to achieve - more equality.

Malcolm Tucker v. Damian McBride

Tomorrow - from broadsheets to wank rags - I want pages one, two and three to be a profile of Tom looking like a fucking political colossus, you know - Tom meeting the Pope, Tom in a NHS hospital chatting to little, baldie kiddies. I want pages four and five to be a timeline of British politics with ME at the center, looking fucking indispensable and fucking benign, and I want page six to be fucking Israel or some bullshit, not a fucking DoSAC deepshit legacy-distracting COCKUP.

Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It

Much has been made of the more than passing resemblance of the adorable, sweary Malcolm Tucker to one Alastair Campbell. And it is easy to see why; there are definite points of connection. Yet, as well as reflecting previous amoral bullies in 10 Downing Street, much of The Thick of It also predicted what has happened recently with that e-mail scandal. And whilst Malcolm Tucker is far better looking - in that he isn't a sweaty, pink faced pig of a man - you can also see a lot of him in Damian McBride. In fact, part of me wonders whether McBride saw The Thick of It and designed it wasn't so much a comedy as an educational video, teaching him how to do his job.

And then compare The Thick of It reflecting/predicting the outrageous behaviour of British political attack dogs with The West Wing apparently predicting the future of US politics. Because Barack Obama's journey to the White House does closely reflect that of Matt Santos. Political drama in the US shows an aspirational story of someone who was written off achieving high office. British political comedy in the UK reflects the appalling behaviour of those who protect our leaders. As well as coming up with new and inventive ways to insult and swear at people.

They'll be some that claim that this is down to cultural differences. That is, of course, horseshit. What it does reflect is a mix of TV producers consciously trying to reflect reality, and also where those countries are in their political cycles. In the US, the media jumped on the chance to point out the similarities between Santos and Obama, because both are seen to represent hope. And regardless of what you think of Obama's politics, he was elected on a sea of goodwill and a real hope that he might be able to do things differently. However, here in the UK, we've got another year of a failed Prime Minister desperately trying to spin his way into another term (or even just keeping his job until the election). Of course we're going to look at the dark as pitch The Thick of It, and note how that reflects reality. 

Tucker was a representation of Campbell, and now we can look at how neatly the programme he was in predicted the godawful, sleazy events of the McBride scandal*. It is symptomatic of a wider problem in British politics at the moment - namely it is an ideologically redundant place where the pursuit of power by any means possible is the be all and end all. And The Thick of It will continue to accurately show what British politics is like until we stop voting in the shower of shits currently in government in this country. 

*There is even an episode about the sending of a controversial e-mail...

How Harriet Harman Might Save Gordon Brown

From a wonderfully predictable Telegraph article that suggests that Tony Blair opposes the income tax rise on the rich*:

But ambitious ministers such as Harriet Harman would almost certainly try to force a leadership contest. The Brown loyalist said: "If the results are bad, the prospect of a leadership contest, and Harriet winning, might stop people trying to force Gordon out."

Read that paragraph again, and marvel at it. So Labour MPs might not force a failed PM from office for fear of an even worse option getting into power. And who would that even worse option be? Why, the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, of course.

That's now bad things are for the Labour party, and clear proof - if anyone needs clearer proof - that the leadership of that party is dismissed even by the party itself. 

I'm so glad we have another year of all this...

*Of course he does. He was all about the stealth taxes, that one.

Susan Boyle and Appearance

The only thing I tend to watch on television is Doctor Who, and I'd avoid programmes like Britain's Got Talent like the plague. Partly because I don't believe Britain does have talent - in fact, I think the title of the show should be more honest and go with the title of "Britain is has a large proportion of egotistical toe-rags believing they are talented whereas they are actually going with the country in one direction and one direction alone - to hell in a handcart." But the main reason why I would rather beat my testes into a fine paste rather than watch something like Britain's Got Talent is because of the odious examples of human waste who turn up on that show. And I'm not just talking about the judges there.

The latest sensation discovered by this menagerie of eyesores and talentless tosswits is one Susan Boyle. Apparently, she has a voice like an angel. Wouldn't know, never heard her sing. But she certainly doesn't have a face like an angel.

I'm sorry, but she doesn't. She simply isn't good-looking. She looks like Annie Wilkes after a pie-eating contest. Sure, she can sing (apparently) but you can't hide the fact that she is, well, ugly.

Of course, that isn't her fault. And it doesn't change the fact that she is talented. And maybe her appearance shouldn't matter, but this is the real world and people do make assumptions (rightly and wrongly) over her appearance. But for all those wringing their hands and doing trite moralising over how she was initially treated when she stood up on that stage, please do go fuck yourselves. It is guilt pure and simple - almost everyone will have the same thought when they first see this woman, and it isn't positive.

But there is another dimension to this. Boyle doesn't help herself. She isn't blessed in the looks department, but she can control her appearance. However she is overweight - something that she could (if she so wished) do something about. Likewise, she can control the fact that she dresses like a bag lady; there is nothing stopping her from buying some decent clothes and occasionally dragging a comb through her hair.

I don't claim to be good looking, well-groomed or at the peak of physical perfection myself, but I do make a bit of an effort. For whatever the reason, Boyle chooses not to do this. Which is fine; good luck to her. And in fairness, she really doesn't seem to give the first fuck about what people think about her appearance. But all those pundits doing their tedious stories about how Boyle was judged for her appearance in the first instance would do well to remember that whilst she can't control having been beaten with the ugly stick, she can control what she wears and what she eats.

UPDATE:

Someone's pointed out to me that she's had a makeover. Good on her, but there is a phrase about polishing and turds that springs to mind. Plus, whilst she has made an effort, I can't help but feel there is work to be done. Before, she looked like a hairy bag lady. Now she looks like a frigid librarian going on her first date. 

Shake A Baby!

Maybe this is a further sign that I am immoral, evil, and going to burn in Hell (if Hell exists and actually isn't Redditch) but I find this game - about shaking babies - laugh out loud funny:

The iTunes description included the line: "See how long you can endure his or her adorable cries before you just have to find a way to quiet the baby down!"

Of course, it goes without saying that his game is in horrifically bad taste and you'd have to be one sick puppy to want to download it. But as a gimmicky bit of bad taste, it actually makes me smile. I admire the audacity of it, and think it really grabs attention.

Inevitably, the game has been generated a lot of protest:

Jetta Bernier, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children, said: "I am disheartened that with this new application Apple is encouraging frustrated adults to shake infants, not only to end their crying, but to end their lives.

"There are many effective infant soothing strategies that adults can use to calm their fussy, crying babies. Shaking is not one of them," the Daily Telegraph reported her as saying.

And it is perfectly ok for people to complain about things they don't like. But I'd point out one important factor - technically Apple aren't "encouraging adults to shake infants." In fact, the game:

...also included a disclaimer: "Never shake a baby."

So it doesn't encourage people to shake babies. In the same way that a racing game doesn't encourage you to drive like a reckless Lewis Hamilton, a boxing game doesn't encourage you to go ten rounds with Ricky Hatton and a James Bond game doesn't encourage people to shoot foreigners in the face at close range with a silenced pistol. Perhaps it is difficult for Ms Bernier, but most people in this world can tell the difference between a game and reality.

But the game's been banned - something as inevitable as it is tedious. Not least because I'm now going to have spend a lot of my day looking for a copy of this game now it has been ripped off the App Store...

Jesus fucking Christ, will you let her fucking rest?

Can we have a little opposition please?

David Cameron on yesterday's budget:

The last Labour government gave us the winter of discontent. This Labour government has given us the decade of debt. The last Labour government left the dead unburied. This one leaves the debts unpaid.

And:

He [Gordon Brown] will never bring the changes required because he does not accept the economic model he has run during the last 12 years is fundamentally bust.

Yeah! Yeah! Go go gadget Cameron. You're really socking it to Brown! He must be feeling the pressure of your... of your... well, mildly tough rebukes. Of your hints that everything isn't hunky dory. And... and... well, that's it, really.

Yesterday's abortion of a budget should have been a rallying point for the Tories. They should have come out all guns blazing to really smash the living fuck out of this terrible fucking government. Instead, we get mild scorn from David Cameron. It's like he knows the budget was bad, but he can't really be bothered to point that out because, y'know, he's probably going to win the next election anyway.

Where is the rage against Brown? Where is the boiling anger at the crippling debt we are being saddled with by an unelected Prime Minister? Where the fuck is the outrage at the idea that the rich should be penalised for being rich?

Sure, we aren't going to see Cameron do what I want him to do - namely scream the word "cunt" at Gordon Brown across the floor of the Commons. He has to use professional and diplomatic language in his job. But that doesn't stop him from being able to be scathing what he says. I'd have like to have heard him say something like this:

"This budget is nothing short of repugnant. It shows that the Nu Labour experiment has utterly failed and the Labour party has reverted to type - a borrow, tax and spend party. The new 50% tax rate sends a very clear signal to the successful, wealth-creating people in this country - you'll be penalised, because you are successful. It is an odious concept; one that is immoral and wrong. It increases inequity in society, and further divides a nation already reeling from a decade of Nu Labour mis-management. But it isn't just the rich who are going to suffer; again, those who commit the terrible sin of having a drink or a smoke, or those who dare to use a car are going to be stung for more money by this ideological cadaver of a government.

"And it isn't just this generation of British people who will suffer from the ill effects of this budget. The mountain of debt - caused by the incompetence and inefficiency of the incumbent government - is a cross to bear for future generations. Every government looks to leave a legacy; it is clear that the legacy of this miserable excuse for a government is crippling national debt.

"This isn't a budget for 2009; it is a budget for 1979. It is an anachronistic and jarring return to old Labour. And we all know the damage done to this country by Old Labour."

You won't hear Cameron say the above, though. However much you might wish that he did. But one of the reasons why we are in this fucking hole is because of the failings of the Tories. Not because of what they did pre-1997, but rather what they have done since then. And there utter failure to hold Nu Labour to account, and to offer leadership and a real alternative to the Labour government. In short, Cameron's muted response to the budget shows the ongoing failure of the Tories.

So memo to the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition - the clue to what you need to do is your job title. Oppose.

Budget 2009: A Summary

The budget in one word: craptacular.

To summarise it, Darling basically said he is going to pillage the purses and the wallets of everyone in the country to allow him to spend massive piles of cash whilst also borrowing eye-wateringly large amounts of money. True, that sounds like a lot of other Nu Labour budgets. But this time out the figures were much, much higher. And this time it was just brazen; there was no attempt to hide in anyway that his is a tax, spend and borrow budget.

Darling, and his evil overlord Brown, have shown us that they are numerically dyslexic morons with no concept that the actions they take now are going to have crippling affects on the country later down the line. We'll be talking about this budget for a while yet; we'll be suffering from it for a lot longer.

Liveblogging the Budget, 2009

We're fucked.

*ends*

See, we're going to give you a salary AND an allowance for, y'know, turning up to work.

When is reform not really reform at all? When it is Gordon Brown's plan to change the MPs expenses system:

Gordon Brown has said MPs' second homes expenses should be replaced by a flat-rate daily Commons attendance payment.

Commons attendance payment? So, we are going to pay MPs an allowance for turning up to work? You what now? What the bleeding hell is their salary for then? And what other job will give you an allowance for turning up to fucking work? Other than, you know, your wage or your salary?

And this is meant to restore people's faith in the system? We're going to have our faith restored by paying MPs an allowance on top of their salary for turning up at their place of work? Yeah, that'll restore my faith in our MPs. My faith that they are a bunch of money-grabbing, shifty lazy bastards who want booting out of the corridors of the power as soon as possible.

Instead, let's go with my plan for MPs expenses. Every single receipt for every single expense should be visible to the public. It should be in both the national and local news. We should know exactly how much each and every MP is costing us. And then we can make the decision at the next election as to whether we keep them on or not. Furthermore, if an MP has lost a receipt, then they refund the public purse from their own purse.

One thing, and one thing alone, will restore public confidence - transparency. Anything else - including all this freeform bullshit about attendance allowances - will do nothing other than increase the naked contempt the electorate feels towards their MPs.

On Hayfever

Summer is definitely coming. The sun is in the sky, the grass is green and growing. The trees are coming back to life, and there are flowers in the garden. People no longer have to wear three layers when they step outside, and people are starting to enjoy the common being there again, rather than treating it as a shortcut between their house and the station. And the final bit of proof that summer is coming? Those little bits of pollen - some faintly visible, most completely invisible - floating in the sky and heading toward their ultimate destination. Which seems to be right up my nose.

Yep, I'm a hayfever sufferer, so summer is a bit of a mixed blessing to me. Sure, the city ceases to resemble a Soviet era metropolis in the grip of a famine, but my nose, ears, eyes and throat are all casually ravaged by bits of floating plant spunk. And before anyone starts, hayfever is not a minor problem. Whenever you say you are suffering from hayfever, there is always someone who looks at you as if you have just said you've messed yourself. To them I say: you try living with your head and face being attacked each and every day; it isn't a fat lot of fun. If you don't have hayfever, let me take you through just how unpleasant it can be.

Every single one of your nasal hairs is itching painfully, like some malign imp has set fire to the tip of each and every one of them. You sniff a lot - you can't help it, but you do. It doesn't help. Your nose runs faster than a log flume, and whilst you hope against hope that it will stop, it doesn't. You end up resembling a Captain Trips victim on a really, really bad day. And then the sneezing starts.

These aren't normal sneezes. These are powerful sneezes. They have enough force to make you think that you are being propelled across the room. After each of this mega-sneezes, you feel you have just expelled a bit of your brain and several major arteries through your nose. If you could harness them, then you could probably use these sneezes to propel rockets.

It also attacks the eyes. Your eyes itch, and whilst you try as hard as you can not to scratch them, but of course that doesn't work. They just itch too much. Far, far too much. So you rub your eyes. And the rubbing becomes addictive, and you just cannot stop. Like masturbation, you can't stop until you get that release. Except the release just doesn't come, and you end up with red raw eyelids, watering eyes that still... that still... that still itch.

Your ears itch as well. Scratching doesn't help. But the itchy ears isn't as bad as the itch in the throat. Because, seriously, what can you do about an itchy throat? You can't scratch it with your fingers - even if they were long enough, you'd be at the risk of provoking your gag reflex and therefore adding a hearty chunder to your growing list of problems. Instead, you have to sit there, the back of your throat feeling like a bad case of athlete's foot. And there is nothing, nothing you can do about it.

Of course, your entire head being aflame and starting to resemble a large flea bite is an exhausting thing. So you want to sleep. Except you can't really sleep. Because you are still sneezing like a gas explosion. Plus your face feels like someone has been using sandpaper on it. So you lie in this sort of half-awake, half-sleeping stupor, wondering whether it is possible to die from hayfever, and if it isn't, why isn't it possible?

Sure, there are pills. And the right combination of pills can make you feel human again. But it does take a lot of hefty dose of medication to take the edge of the summer plague. And there is a cost too. Hayfever medication ain't cheap. Chemist Direct can really, really help (thank you, young Moai) but a trip to boots to get the drugs you need to get you through the day can easily relieve you of a tenner. And you can easily spend that a week, if you're not careful.

Hayfever is a pisser and a shitter rolled into one (a shisser, if you will) and anyone who says otherwise is a weapons-grade cock with all the empathy of Damian McBride talking about a smear website. And if it wasn't against Nu Labour's anti-hate laws, I'd strongly advise you to punch anyone who implies that hayfever isn't a grade-A nightmare right in their fat, stupid face.

Anyway, enjoy the summer.

A Flattering Portrait of Gordon Brown

Yes, that's right, Gordon Brown is going to get one of the best compliments any politician can get. His predecessor might have featured on The Simpsons, but Gordon is going to get the privilige of being on South Park. And it sounds like it is going to be a great episode, if a little bit too realistic given the agreements at the recent G20 meeting:

In the episode to be aired later this year, Mr Brown becomes part of an international plot to steal money from aliens in a bid to solve the global recession.

He and other world leaders agree to claim the "space cash" found on a fugitive spaceship.

However, the Prime Minister orders a nuclear attack on Finland after he discovers that it plans to tip off intergalactic police about the ploy.

Not quite sure why the makers of South Park feel the need to throw Gordo into the mix though; after all they already have a fat misanthrope on their cast in the form of Eric Cartman. Although, in fairness, Cartman is more eloquent, intelligent, emotionally mature and stable that Brown...

Darling: Cutting Spending.

The Budget is coming, and the BBC is reporting that it will have £15 billion in spending cuts. You might expect that someone like myself, who is not a fan of government spending and believes it should be cut at every opportunity, would support this. And I do. I'll concede that it is a step in the right direction.

The problem is that this is a small step in the right direction. In fact, it is a tiny step in the right direction. Baby's first, faltering step in the right direction. If said baby is lethargic, lazy and really unwilling to start walking.

Sure, £15 billion sounds like a lot. Until you compare it with minimum of £50 billion (read that again, the minimum) that the government has spunked away on propping up failed banks. So the government may be cutting spending by £15 billion, but that still leaves a deficit of £35 billion (again, as a minimum) to cover. And that is just the money wasted on the banks, which is, in itself, a small amount compared to the overall government spend. £15 billion is a drop in the ocean.

And given the government has spent a great deal more than it planned to, where do we think it is going to find the money to cover this additional spend? I'm guessing, dear reader, that the cash will be coming from me and thee. Keep your eyes peeled in this budget for stealth taxes. And even if we don't see tax rises in this budget, they are coming. Maybe in the next Labour budgetary outing, or maybe the sneaky shits really will leave it to the Tories to have to raise taxes in their first budget. Whatever their plan is, be warned: unless there are substantial spending cuts, your tax bill is going to go up. And up.

Besides, this grudging announcement of grudging spending cuts actually flies in the face of government policy, which was that we were going to spend our way out of the recession. So one day we are increasing spending, the next day we are cutting it. This is not just lacking a coherent policy for the government, this is unthinking insanity from the government - a desperate attempt to grab headlines without thinking about any overall policy. Joined up government my arse. It is difficult enough for strategic thinking, intelligent MPs to come up with decent policies. Panicked ministers making up contradictory policies on the spur of the moment is a recipe for disaster.

Despite all this, I will applaud these cuts. So listen very carefully, and you can hear the sound of that applause. It is the sound of one hand clapping.

J G Ballard

There are few authors I have enjoyed reading more than the late J G Ballard. Truly a visionary writer, he managed to make the most outlandish of concepts seem reasonable, and managed to get you to buy into his characters - no mean feat, given they are often undergoing the extreme symptoms of various mental conditions and horrific events. Some writers create wild and imaginative mindscapes and landscapes, others create readable novels. Ballard had the rare talent of being able to do both.

His death is a tragedy, but it is more the place of his family to mourn his passing rather than his readers. So instead I'll use this post as an opportunity to urge your to go and read his work if you haven't already. My favourites include Empire of the Sun, The Drowned World, High-Rise, Running Wild, Rushing to Paradise and, of course, Crash. But he was a prolific writer, and there is far more in his roster of novels to enjoy than just that limited list. You might enjoy his books, you might find them challenging: whatever you find, though, will be well worth your time and effort.

"If you haven't got anything nice to say about anybody, come sit next to me. "

Alice Roosevelt Longworth

The Fictional Truth about George Osborne

Via Henry North London, I give you this gem of a story (that I really wish I'd written myself) mocking the attempts by Damian McBride and his fellow evil goblins to make up random shit about the Tories:

George Osborne is concealing a terrible secret.

In 1998, ten prostitutes were found murdered and mutilated in Oxford. Horrific crimes that shocked even the hardened lead detective on the case - the hard-drinking, twice-divorced, reckless but loveable maverick Jack Riley.

When Riley interviewed the helpful, blandly smiling clean-cut student George Osbourne to take a routine witness statement, a distant alarm bell started ringing in the back of his mind. There was no evidence tying this handsome and well connected young man to the horrific murders, but....

There's something about him, thought Riley starkly. I can't put my finger on it. Something wrong.

He started investigating Osbourne's movements and alibis for the nights of the murders, and told his sergeant. The next day, Riley was summoned to a private meeting with his sergeant. He was formally told he was being removed from the investigation.

'We're replacing you with Detective Muppet,' his sergeant told him awkwardly. 'You're being transferred to the Makework case.'

Riley stared at him in disbelief.

'You can't be serious. Muppet's never solved a case in twenty years.'

His sergeant didn't quite meet his eyes.

'I'm sorry, Jack. This comes from higher up. I'm just following orders.'

Yet, haunted by his suspicions concerning Osborne, Riley continued digging in secret. God damn it, he needed to know the truth. The more he learned, the more chillingly certain he became that Osborne's charming facade concealed a deadly psychopath. He learned of the woman who'd been found killed in the exact same way near Eton five years ago. Another identical case near the village where Osborne had grown up. Jesus, Osbourne had been doing this all his life. And now he was out of control.

Then quite unexpectedly, Riley was summoned for a meeting with the Chief Commissioner. The urbane and silver-haired older man greeted him warmly, and ushered him into his book-lined inner sanctum.

'Care for a glass of scotch, dear boy? Forty years old. I have cigars too, if you'd care to indulge.'

They stood together before a roaring fire. Riley felt as tense as strung elastic. The Chief Commissioner patted Riley's arm. The gesture was avuncular, yet somehow sinister.

'You are a young man. You have a promising career before you. I will do everything in my power to help that career progress. But first, you must let these ridiculous suspicions drop.'

Riley stared at the Chief Commissioner. He could feel the blood draining out of his face.

'W-what do you mean?'

There was a new and steely note to the Chief Commissioner's voice.

'You know exactly what I mean, Detective Riley.'

Riley hadn't told anyone he was still investigating Osbourne. He was sure of it. Jesus Christ, was he being followed?

As soon as he got back home that night, Riley went straight to his computer and started searching for answers. The luminous white light from the screen illuminated Riley's disbelieving face, as the final piece of the puzzle fell into place - and he found himself looking at a family photograph from an old news article that said it all.

Oh my God, Riley thought starkly. The Chief Commissioner is Osborne's uncle.

He grabbed up his mobile and rang a trusted friend - a newspaper journalist. He had to share what he knew with the world, before it was too late. His friend's voice answered on the sixth ring, sleepy and irritated.

'Jesus. Riley. Do you know what fucking time it is?'

'I've got something to tell you,' Riley said urgently. 'This is front page shit, Greg. I can't talk over the phone. It might be bugged.'

'So come on over,' his journalist friend grumbled. 'But this had better be good, motherfucker.'

Riley raced out of his flat, down the dark and silent stairs and out into the freezing, moonlit night. The world was deadly silent. Nobody around. He got into his car, his heart hammering away inside him. He slammed the door behind him, and turned the key in the ignition.

The car exploded in a ball of flame. Riley died instantly. His knowledge intact.

His death was blamed on a terrorist ring he'd helped to lock up five years ago.

To this day, the ten prostitutes' murders have never been solved.

Okay, it's not even remotely true, but it would make a fantastic story.

And there can be few better summaries of just where exactly McBride went so wrong: "Okay, it's not even remotely true, but it would make a fantastic story."

Tony Blair and Lady Luck

Luck is a part of life, and the harsh truth is that some people are luckier than others. But part of life is about how you exploit luck - both your own good fortune and the misfortune of others. There is also some truth in the old adage that you make your own luck in this world.

Now, I think Gordon Brown has been unlucky in his time as PM. Events have chosen to shit on him time and time again. Part of his problem has been the inept and crass way he has responded to every issue. And his time as Chancellor means he had, on some levels, been the architect of his own misfortune. Yet when you compare Brown's luck with that of his predecessor, the extent to which life has chosen to mess with the incumbent PM is brough into sharp relief.

Truly, Tony Blair was lucky; in fact, pretty much every aspect of his career as a political leader was blessed with luck. He was in the right place at the right time to run for the Labour leadership. Seriously, he was up against Prescott and Beckett. He couldn't fail to win. And look at the Labour party he inherited from Kinnock and Smith. A party that had shed those idiotic members who wanted to be part of a student union style Trotskyite fan club, and instead had become a party that realised it had to fight for power rather than expect it to fall into their laps because they were well-meaning and they thought the Tories weren't very nice. Forget talk of the Clause IV moment; the real battles for the Labour party took place in thew 1980's under Kinnock. Blair inherited a party that was ready to fight and compromise for power.

And look at the government Blair was required to oppose. The Tories were more interested in receiving money in brown envelopes from grubby associates and fucking anything that moved than being a coherent government. And as well meaning as John Major was, he was broken and compromised by a lack of charisma, Black Wednesday and a fitful Tory party that didn't rate him but also didn't want to replace him. In this regard, Blair had the same good fortune as Cameron to simply be able to stand next to his opponent and say "well, at least I'm not him."

Let's move through to Blair's time in power. Elected with the sort of majority that would allow you to piss on the British population with impunity, Blair was challenged by remarkably little during his first few years in power. The Fuel crisis and Foot-and-Mouth disease were real problems, but the media seemed reluctant to actually take the government to task over these glaring issues. And the scandals came and went, but didn't engage the public mind as much as the smut and sleaze that made sure Major's Back to Basics campaign was stillborn.

The real problems started to come to Blair after he had cruised to victory again in 2001 against an impotent and broken opposition. The Iraq War represented the first real challenge to his authority... yet, luck again plays a role. Because whilst there was opposition from some Labour MPs and the Lib Dems, the Tories backed up Labour and therefore helped ensure that Blair survived. The opposition to the war was led by that ginger drunk, Charles Kennedy - which as it turns out was a lot like leaving your vital brain surgery in the hands of the village idiot.

And his luck held, despite the ongoing war. Every official investigation into his actions seemed to conclude that Blair was A-Ok. The opposition within in Labour was subdued grumblings, and whilst the Tories had decided that they should start opposing again, their chosen leader had the mis-fortune to be one of the least telegenic people and speakers in history (altogether now - "peepil".) And when he again sought election, the British people decided that whilst they did want to give him a bloody nose, they didn't want to beat him up too badly and wanted to leave him with a workable majority. Inertia in the electorate proved to be good luck for Tony Blair.

And when the wheels did come off Blair's premiership, they did so in a way that was very fortunate for him. There was none of the drama that comes with a General Election defeat, and there was nothing like the high drama that ended Thatcher's time in power. It was just that the grumblings within the Labour Party got louder, meaning Blair had to lay out a year long timetable for departure. A year long departure! How lucky is that? How often does anyone get the chance to plan their departure for nearly 12 months in modern British politics?

Think about the timing of his departure. He was in power for just long enough to be considered one of the longest serving Prime Ministers of all time. He left without being forced out, and he left just before the country disappeared down the shitter and round past the U-bend. Can you imagine if he'd waited for three months? For six months? For longer? If he'd gone after the loss of those data discs, or as the banks started to collapse, or as the whole Nu Labour facade finally shattered? All the talk would have been about how events had forced him out, how he was effectively resigning in disgrace and he'd have been heckled as he left the Commons, rather than applauded. Blair's luck held out and he left at just the right time. Sure, those of us in the know realise that Blair is as responsible for the dreadful circumstances we now find ourselves in as Brown. But a lot of people associate Blair with the good time, just before Brown took over and the UK went to hell in a handcart.

It is tempting to hate Blair for being lucky, but that misses the point. As I mentioned earlier, like it or not, luck is a part of life. But what you can hate Blair for is what he did with the good luck he encountered. Because he used every little piece of luck he encountered to shore up his own position. As leader of a political party and then leader of a country, he used his good fortune to his own selfish ends. At no point did Blair take his good luck and use it to the benefit of the fucking country he was meant to be running.

Seriously, after such an easy 10 years for a Prime Minister, you'd have thought that the country would be in a much better position. But no. Internationally, we are fighting two wars and still losing troops. Nationally, we are mired in debt and recession. This is Tony Blair's legacy; his years in office displayed the best of luck for that cockbag, but were tremendously bad luck for the poor people in this country.

If there was any justice now, Blair would be accompanied wherever he went and whatever he did by a slow, scornful handclap. In every moment of his worthless life, he should be followed by the relentless beat of sarcastic applause for a wasted decade in power. Far from being lauded as an elder statesman, he should be vilified as utter failure that he so clearly is.

But that won't happen. See, Blair's too lucky. He'll be able to swan around as a cross between an evangelical minister and international diplomat.

He's got the luck of the devil, that one.

In tribute to this wonderful post I give you some unlikely yet technically correct summaries of famous films:

THE SHINING: Sometimes getting away from it all isn't the answer.

X-MEN: THE LAST STAND: Evolution can be cured, apparently.

ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST: Angry paedophile winds up then tries to murder respected mental hospital nurse.

CARRIE: School has memorable prom night.

THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT: College students get forced into hysteria by stick figures and a run-down cottage.

THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION: Convicted murderer escapes prison then persuades fellow killer to break parole.

THEY LIVE: Drifter gets new glasses, goes on killing spree.

ZODIAC: Cartoonist stalks unknown serial killer.

THE FLY: Getting somewhere quickly doesn't compare with getting there safely.

THE OMEN: American diplomat tries to murder young boy based on a conspiracy theory

Any other suggestions, pls stick 'em in the comments.

UPDATE:

Some suggestions from my good friend The Moai:

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Boy travels through time, is passionately kissed by own mother.

GREMLINS: Boy fails in basic care of exotic pet, several innocent people die gruesomely as a result.

BLADE RUNNER: Man discovers that artificial life-forms have emotions, kills them anyway.

GHOSTBUSTERS: A city is laid waste as failed academics barbecue a giant marshmallow with illegal nuclear reactors.

How Gordon Brown isn't like Richard Nixon

The McBride scandal - or Smeargate if you really insist - is starting to lead to a resurgence in that old comparison between Brown and Nixon. It is a compelling comparison - one I've made on this blog before now. And on many levels it works.

Both figures are deeply flawed. Both figures are brooding misanthropes; paranoid, socially awkward and with very, very nasty sides. They both have that odd misconception that they were in some way deserving of the power they achieved, and that no-one else could offer what they could. And with that in mind, any tactic, any smear was fair game to keep the Right One in power.

There is even a physical similarity between Nixon and Brown. Go look at some photos of them both and compare. Both are dark, grey figures. There is something ghost like about the pair of them; as if the weight of simply being presses down on them and damages them. Their physical appearance reflects their personalities - grey, grim and ghoulish. And both went from being what some might describe as handsome young men, and turned into twisted, jowly versions of what they once were.

But there, it stops. Because whilst Nixon was a warmonger who promised peace, a man who was apparently drunk at times of international crisis and a man driven by terrifying demons, he also achieved a great deal in his life. He did bring peace to Vietnam, although his means was a torturous as it was murderous. More impressively, Nixon - the once virulent anti-Communist - was the President who strengthened relations with the Russia and re-opened relations with China. The ending of the Cold War under Thatcher and Reagan was made possible by the giant leaps forward under President Nixon.

Compare this to the achievements of Gordon Brown. At best, at best, you can point to the G20 as a triumph for Gordon. He managed to persuade world leaders to spend over a trillion dollars of money they don't have on nebulous and non-existent programmes without requiring those leaders to ask the poor sods they represent for their opinion. Even if you do regard that as an achievement rather than a massive con, it doesn't quite compare with helping to end the Cold War, now, does it?

And then there is the reason why Nixon was so into his smears - he was a fighter. A proper, arrogant, nasty political fighter. He had no issue with fighting for power, and fighting elections. He ran for the House of Representatives, the Senate, the Vice-Presidency (twice) and the Presidency three times. He won, in 1972, one of the most stunning victories in recent US electoral histories. His conduct in elections may not have been outstanding, but at least he had the backbone to put his neck on the line and fight. Compare this to Gordon; a man who has ducked every election he possibly can, and who appears pathologically afraid of putting his neck on the line and actually going out the the voters.

Nixon will always be a deeply divisive figure who is hated by some; and I can really understand why. But he did achieve things in his lifetime - things that he was justly proud of. Whereas Brown hasn't managed to achieve anything.

The sad truth for Gordon Brown is - even against the deeply flawed figure of Richard Nixon - he comes across as a failure.

"-gate"

The McBride fiasco has highlighted one of the things that really does my head in about modern journalism and so much of the commentary on modern politics: the sticking of the suffix of "-gate" at the end of anything even whiffing slightly of political scandal. As if by linking it to Watergate will make it more important and more scandalous.

So, we now have "Smeargate".

As embarrassing as the antics of Damian McBride et al have been for the Labour government, it is a bit much to link them to Watergate. Two Labour party drones swapping smutty lies about Tory politicians like two schoolboys swapping notes about teacher is hardly the same as an illegal cover-up of a break-in that stretched right up to the highest point of the US government and cost a President his job. Maybe the McBridge scandal will get worse before it gets better; certainly, some of those involved seemed determined to keep it going. But I doubt "Smeargate" will have the same impact as Watergate.

Secondly, the reason why the Watergate Scandal was called Watergate is because of the Watergate hotel; where the scandal began. With that in mind, Smeargate makes no sense. What does it actually mean? That the smears took place on a gate? That the gate itself was smeared? What does a gate have to do with anything anyway? What is this gate, and why has it been dragged into the McBride scandal? Hell, if Watergate happened today, it would probably be known as Watergategate.

I know it is shorthand, and I know that I'll probably use Smeargate in the future when I can't be arsed to write out a long version of the title of this scandal. But Smeargate is just a stupid name; this is the McBride Scandal, or the McBride/Draper Scandal*.

*I appreciate it can't be know as just the Draper scandal, lest people confuse it with Draper's earlier scandal. That is known by some as Lobbygate. *Sighs*

McBride - a bit of perspective, please

There'll be those who tell you that it has been a good week for right-wing bloggers. Certainly, Guido has chalked up another victim, and given the reports about his personality, it can only be a good thing that Damian McBride no longer holds a position of any power or influence in the UK. And a story effectively started in the blogosphere has dominated the headlines over a Bank Holiday weekend.

Yet it is worth sounding a note of caution here. Yeah, this story was high profile over the weekend, but against any standard it was quite a slow news weekend. And McBride was a special advisor to Brown; a particularly unpleasant one, but those ministers who have been taking the piss through their incompetence and greed still very much have their place at the trough of the public purse. And - farcically - Derek Draper still seems to be running LabourList. Although if that site is to truly become independent, then it needs a new editor. In fact, if it want's to survive as anything other than the butt of a whole lot of jokes, it needs a new editor ASAP.

But above all, Brown is still in power. And whilst he has been mildly damaged by the actions of McBride, his position looks as safe now as it was when I went home on Thursday. Which means that we still have an incompetent, socially inept embarrassment with a hard-on for spending money he does not have on our behalf and at our expense in Number 10. And it doesn't look like he'll be going anywhere until next year. So for all the celebration at the demise of McBride, it is worth noting that it is nothing more than an entertaining sideshow. The real enemy - the incompetent fuck in Downing Steet at the moment - is still in place. And whilst he may be damaged, he's still going to fight on.

Random Quote of the Day

"Things will be hard, but it may not be a bad life. It will be up to us what we make of it. At least, we will be our own masters. It will no longer be a matter of living on the sufferance of a state that cheats and bullies and swindles its citizens and, at last, when they become a burden, murders them."

The Death of Grass by John Christopher

Doctor Who: Planet of the Dead

Last night we had the first of the final adventures featuring David Tennant. Given this is a very Doctor Who lite year, I felt a little like a junkie awaiting his fix.

So, what to make of Planet of the Dead? It had one hell of a lot going for it. A mix of real-life and CGI monster, a coming storm bringing death, the sort of ludicrous ideas that make Doctor Who special (a bus driving through a wormhole, said bus flying through the wormhole because of an amalgamation of the bus, alien technology, and a old British treasure) and the sort of dependable yet manic performance that David Tennant does best. The best bit for me? When the Doctor started on the stolen ancient artifact with a hammer. Magic.

Yet, whilst this episode was far from bad, it also lacked a certain something. It is destined to be one of those middle-of-the-range editions of the show; remembered mainly by the fans as "the one with the bus" and will sit squarely in the middle of any polls of stories overall. Not a bad story, just not that memorable either.

Which leads me to ask why that is the case? What is it about Planet of the Dead that just fails to hit the mark? Yeah, there is an over-use of CGI, slapstick and flying buses, but this is a sci-fi show and it doesn't actually have to reflect reality. No, the problem was that the episode lacked soul.

Let me explain. Russell T Davies's big innovation with Doctor Who was to introduce an emotional core to the show. Before that, whilst still having emotional moments and starting to move in the direction of overall emotional character development with the Seventh Doctor and Ace, the show largely did very little in terms of giving the characters story arcs and exploring their emotions in relation to traveling in the TARDIS. RTD changed all that. Suddenly, you had Rose Tyler and the Doctor falling in love only to be separated forever (well, a couple of seasons, as it turns out), Martha falling for the Doctor only for him not to notice, and Donna changing from the ignorant Essex temp into a woman who quite literally changed the universe. Likewise, when we met the Doctor again he was a battle scarred warrior who had seen his own people die, who slowly learned to trust and love again only to lose his love saving the world. We then saw him confront the last member of his own race - someone who decided to die (although I suspect his deceased status may change before the end of the year) rather than spend the rest of eternity with the Doctor. And finally you had him watching a earth woman grow to become the DoctorDonna, before he had to return her to her previous, ignorant and self-absorbed state to save her life. The stories ceased to be just about fighting monsters and creeping people out - they had an emotional side to them as well.

Which is where Planet of the Dead fell down. The Doctor was pretty much content with his lot, his companion was a very confident and content thief, and the humans - whose characters were developed for about 15 seconds a piece only to be ignored for pretty much the rest of the episode - were simply there to raise the threat. The only real character development was Lee Evans's Malcolm. Who went from a geek respecting the Doctor to being a geek in love with the Doctor. Had his character been less of an irritating prat, we might have cared.

Of course, there needs to be an adventure in each episode of Doctor Who, and if it simply was about emotions and relationships then we may as well be watching Eastenders or something. But you could literally substitute Tennant for any of the classic series Doctors (except, possibly, McCoy) without denting the story in anyway. In fact, I think it would have made an outstanding Davison adventure, but that's by the by. It was a romp, that is all. And the problem with watching an adventure romp on the TV is that you tend to forget almost as soon as the end credits role.

So, roll on The Waters of Mars. Because, as enjoyable as it was, there is no real need to linger on Planet of the Dead.

Draper And The Search For The Truth

So, first of all the e-mails didn't exist. Now they do exist, and they were "a bit juvenile and inappropriate" but also "brilliant and rather funny." Lord alone knows what they will be like tomorrow, when examples of them are actually published by the papers. The story will change again, no doubt. I really do hope that this is the last stand of the odious Derek Draper - someone who resembles Nu Labour's answer to Gollum as far as I can see - because keeping up with his ever changing stories is pretty much a full time job these days. 

Draper writes:

At the end of the day, though, the lesson is that we should leave tittle tattle and gossip to the right wing blogosphere. We on the left should concentrate on ideas, policy and campaigns, which is what LabourList, whatever is thrown at us, will continue to do

Yeah right, Derek, that isn't going to work anymore - if it ever worked in the first place. Draper and his piss-poor excuse for a blog act as a talking shop for second rate Labour party members and as an ill-conceived attack post against the Tories. Nothing more. Draper concentrating on ideas etc is like claiming that Draper is going to concentrate on the truth - because as this nasty little scandal shows, the truth for Nu Labour has nothing to do with the conventional definitions of the truth. Rather, the *truth* for Draper et al is a holding position - an attempt to minimise embarrassment between scandals. 

Doctor Who is on later today, meaning (as an uber-geek) I will be spending the whole day in a state of fitful excitement, like a kid waiting for Santa. Or, to be more topical, the Easter Bunny.

Review to follow tomorrow; in the meantime, please make sure you are watching BBC1 this evening. 

Let The Right One In

Watched Let The Right One In yesterday afternoon. Frankly, I can't think of a better way to celebrate Good Friday than watch a freaky teenage vampire take out Swedes in a nondescript, icy suburban cityscape. 

It is a great film, and well worth a couple of hours of your life. It manages to be touching, beautiful and creepy all at the same time. It even manages to throw in some moments of slapstick humour (Cat Attack!!), although I wasn't quite sure whether these were intended or not. And as the film ended, I was unsure of whether it was about young love, or something far more sinister on the part of the vampire. But then again, that ambiguity probably was intended.

Go see it. Of course, it is in Swedish, but there are subtitles. If you can't be bothered to read subtitles, then wait for the English language remake. But since that will come at the hands of the director of the largely unwatchable Cloverfield, I'd advise seeing the original first. Otherwise you may just end up wondering what all the fuss was about, once everything interesting about the film has been stripped from it and it has been transported to a small US town, like just about every other horror movie you have ever seen.

And the English language version inevitably as caused some controversy, as the BBC reports. The reality is, of course, these films will be remade, because otherwise some of the potential audience will be missed out, and as a result potential revenue will be missed as well. As the editor of TotalFilm points out:

"I think what it boils down to is that the Hollywood studios are aware that many Americans, particularly around Middle America, just won't go and see a subtitled film, so it's a harsh economic reality."

It isn't just Middle America; it will be Middle England too. And it does come down to a matter of individual choice, but I also think that the more something is remade, the more the law of diminishing returns comes into effect.

Let The Right One In is definitely worth seeing; I'd personally make the effort to see it in it's original transition from book to screen. 

Ian Tomlinson and Blogging about Blogging

Reactions on the blogosphere (my oh my, I hate that word) have been inevitably mixed. A lot of people see his treatment at the hands of the police as absolutely shocking, whilst some point that he may have been provoking the police. I'd be in the former camp, but debate is always good and seeing an alternative perspective is part of the point of seeking the opinions of others. 

But one of the more worrying responses to this police attack (and, provoked or otherwise, it was an attack) is the desire of some blogs to criticise others for not shouting about this more promptly or in the *right* way - particularly those on what is referred to as the right of the blogosphere (seriously, who came up with that word? Someone who really, really hates bloggers and wants them to have the worst name ever in the history of the English language?)

Mr Eugenides points out that blogs are not a 24/7 news service, and the content of the blog is very much down to the individual author. Absolutely - the fact that Tim Ireland wants Iain Dale to comment more properly on the Tomlinson case doesn't mean that Iain Dale has to. Besides. with something like the attack on Tomlinson, there is no need for blogs to publicise it. The visuals are so arresting (no pun intended) and so immediately controversial that this story heads up to the top of the news bulletins anyway, and will be endlessly debated whether the blogs pick up on it or not. 

We often seem to forget that whether you have a small blog that attracts a few thousands vews a month (like this one) or one that gets hundreds of thousands a month (like Dale or Fawkes), you are still only tapping into a fraction of this country's circa 60,000,000 people. The majority of this population probably don't know what a blog is and don't care; of those that do, a hefty proportion will probably question who these bloggers are, and why they don't get out more.

Yet people will stray onto blogs, particularly over controversial issues like the police attacking a man on the way home from work. And they may see some big debates over who said what and when. And they would be well within their rights just to not fucking care.

Seriously, read this post back to yourself. What is one of the most boring sentences in this post? What is one of the most boring sentences ever written? Which sentence actually bored the author whilst he was writing it? This one: Absolutely - the fact that Tim Ireland wants Iain Dale to comment more promptly on the Tomlinson case doesn't mean that Iain Dale has to. Even if you know who Ireland and Dale are, that sentence is still pretty fucking boring. If you don't know who the two bloggers in question are, then you'll probably be heading back to The Daily Mail's website for a blow by blow breakdown of the case (pun not intended). 

You can passionately care, and rant until you are blue in the face, about the sanctity of blogging and the importance of standards; the reality is that people just don't care. Blogs work best when they are uncovering scandals, expressing controversial opinions and debating the issues of the day. When it comes down to bellyaching about the timings of posts, they are about as interesting as a Latin lesson on a summer's day.

Blogging about blogging is dull, ladies and gents. And with that in mind, I'm going to stop doing it now. 

Chaplain, The NHS and a Moron

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the NHS; generally speaking, I see it as a monstrous waste of billions of pounds that is in dire need of urgent and radical reform, if not outright abolition. I keep my eyes open for any radical ideas for reform. However, Melanie Reid in The Times has come up with perhaps the most startling suggestion for reform – more hospital chaplains.

And she bases this on something she saw on the TV:

The first part of Channel 4's fly-on-the-wall series, which runs for another two weeks, looked into the modern world of emergency medicine. This wasn't ER or Scrubs, this was ugly reality - wave upon wave of young people, drunk, regardless, violent and rude, brought in with various terrible injuries as a result of intoxication.

First things first; if your idea of medical reality comes from ER or Scrubs, then you really do need to do some work in joining the reality based community. They are fiction. They are not real. Likewise, The Bill doesn’t represent real policing in this country in this day and age. And prison isn't actually like Porridge.

What this does point to, though, is not so much a problem with the NHS (although fuck knows there are a whole load of problems with that institution) but rather with society as a whole. If our youth is pissed up and looking for a ruck, then is that really a problem for the hospitals? Or should society as a whole actually be looking at those problems, leaving hospitals to look after the sick and ill? After all, hospitals sometimes struggle with their basic core mission of looking after other people’s health – tasking them with improving the moral rectitude of the whole nation seems a little ambitious.

Not, however, for Melanie Reid:

We would be sensible to regard it as a modern morality play, especially in a week when the National Secular Society called for the NHS to stop funding hospital chaplains. The society estimates that £40 million a year is spent on giving religious groups a presence in hospitals. In many areas secularism has much to recommend it. In this instance they are wrong and mean-spirited. There has never been a greater need for a spiritual presence in hospitals.

We’d be sensible to call it a documentary rather than a modern morality play. On the grounds that, you know, it is a documentary.

And why is there a need for greater spiritual presence in hospitals? Unless Jesus himself comes down from a cloud and opens a can of serious whup-ass on some of the scum clogging up A&E, I rather think the scope of the Church is limited in dealing with these problems.

Not so for the author of this curiously crap article. See, the patients really are part of the problem:

The patients showed a total lack of responsibility for their actions. They swore at staff, they smirked, they were abusive, complaining, obstructive, hysterical and completely unapologetic. As for gratitude, why, it's a free service, isn't it? What's to be grateful for? There was an almost total lack of the embarrassment or thanks that former generations would have displayed.

Just to clarify for everyone, the NHS is not free. But you can’t blame this young proles for treating it as if it is free when every bit of rhetoric about or defending the NHS refers to it as a free service, now, can you? This whole fucking country labours under the delusion that the National Health Service is free. No it fucking ain’t. It is free at the point of service. And if you want people to start respecting it a bit more, then you might want to remind people that it is something they have paid for, out of their hard-earned taxes.

But it isn’t just the wayward youth who contribute to the demand for chaplains to save the NHS: it is the doctors as well:

The doctor, a young man with empty eyes and a hard-drinking face, did not engage with us. He spoke as if we were five miles away. For all he was utterly professional and faultless, I felt as if something had died inside him. He was almost like an addict: I wondered if he was so hooked on the adrenalin of coping with stab wounds and fights that nothing less than that stirred him.

That paragraph is borderline libellous; if I was the doctor and I saw that, I’d be very keen to slap a law suit on someone who disses me on a national newspaper’s website.

And the irony of talking about ungrateful people in the same time as implying a doctor who was “utterly professional and faultless” might also be a hard-drinking adrenaline junkie may have escaped the author, but it hasn’t escaped me.

You see the same look in abbatoir workers' eyes. They shut down all feeling, all judgment. The patients, deserving or not, have become lumps of meat to them. Monica Garnsey, the maker of the documentaries, believes that what patients want most is the sense that their doctor is sympathetic. But their patience has been stretched too far

Again, there’s a gap between talking about gratitude for the professional medical workers in the NHS and then comparing them to abattoir workers.

Yet I’d actually rather have a doctor who sees me as a lump of meat in need of a clean, clinical cure/treatment rather than having a doctor who is a clueless fuck but wants to be my best bud. I’m not looking for sympathy from the doctor or the nurse; I am looking for them to make me feel better.

So maybe a little moral panic would be a good thing; maybe we need more chaplains, if only to check the growth in this new amoral, compassion-neutral transaction, where the drunk and feckless not only waste billions of pounds but leave hospital as ignorant and unreformed as they went in. Maybe we need to be a bit more judgmental, for all our sakes.

I’m going to throw this out to my readers – can anyone really think of an occasion where moral panic has been a good thing? Because I really, really can’t think of a single example to back up that ludicrous statement.

And of course the drunk and the feckless are going to leave hospital as ignorant and unreformed as when they went in – it is a hospital for fuck’s sake, not a shitting school. And as for being more judgmental, that’s all very well – until you consider that judgement and morality is relative. Which allows me to be more judgmental and call Melanie Reid a god-bothering, shrill ignoramous.

In a world sometimes scarily lacking in values, chaplains have a vital symbolic role as well as a practical one. Chaplains, in my experience, do not proselytise; they simply afford patients the kind of time, care and compassion that medical staff can no longer give them. No, they cannot cure binge drinking, but they do stand for something resolutely good and wise.

Chaplains, in my experience, do proselytise, and therefore should be removed from hospitals forthwith.

Of course, my argument is anecdotal and unsubstantiated. But then so is Melanie Reid’s. Her deeply flawed argument easily exposed, let’s move on from that paragraph.

The secularists have missed the point completely. They contacted 233 acute and mental health trusts, which spent £26.72 million on chaplains. This money, they say, could be used to employ 1,300 nurses or 2,645 cleaners, which is as facile as saying that we could save £3 billion plus in A&E budgets by banning booze.

Seriously, this woman actually debates whether it is better to have fucking God spods in wards or nurses who can actually help people get better? What the fuck? Maybe we should go the whole hog, and stop investing in any new medicine and equipment. Instead, let’s have a cathedral in each and every fucking hospital. Then, maybe, we can heal people through the power of prayer.

Terry Sanderson, the president of the society, even claimed that people in hospital should seek visits from their own vicar, priest, rabbi or imam if they needed religious support. What an arrogant man he sounds.

No, he sounds sensible and pragmatic.

It is non-religious people, lost in a crisis, who need chaplains the most. Look at Jade Goody, married and blessed as she was dying.

Right, so we should continue to employ chaplains in hospital because Jade Goody got Jesus before she shuffled off this mortal coil? The policy of the whole of the NHS on God should be governed by Jade Goody converting to Christianity in her final weeks and months? Goody’s death has been used as justification for some good things, and also a whole lotta crap. This is perhaps the biggest load of crap yet.

Look at the tragic, chaotic lives of some of the young people lying in A&E with no family to phone. It is the injured, the dying and the bereaved, who seek, not necessarily God, but a little kindness and succour at their time of greatest need.

Don’t we employ people – like, say, social workers – who can offer a bit of kindness (and at the same time, something more useful like practical help) for these people in their hour of need? And is Reid really so detached from reality that she believes that your average, drunken and violent young chav is going to show even an iota of fucking respect to a priest?

Besides, aren’t they already chaplains in hospitals? If they really are the answer to the problem of nauseating oiks attending A & E, how fucking come the problem still exists? But then, I suppose, keeping chaplains in hospital is a very NHS thing to do. Keep on throwing money at something that doesn’t work.

Jacqui Smith on the idiotic cop that has to resign:

"Although the operation was successful, he felt that his position was untenable. I want to offer my sincere appreciation of all the outstanding work he has done in this role."

Given all the scandals that have enveloped her over the past few weeks, I really do wonder whether she managed to say someone else's position was untenable without an ironic grin on her face.

Camping and earthquakes

There are few politicians more capable of putting their feet straight in their mouths as Silvio Berlusconi, as he shows with his frankly staggering comments on the recent earthquake:

"They have medicaments. They have hot food. They have shelter for the night," he said.

"Of course, their current lodgings are a bit temporary. But they should see it like a weekend of camping."

Destroyed homes, refugees, thousands of injuries and hundreds of deaths - like a camping weekend?!? Jesus fucking Christ, what sort of camping weekends has Berlusconi been on?

Police Brutality

Paul King on the footage of the police attacking his father, Ian Tomlinson, prior to his death:

"Whether that was a cause to his death we are not to know... We want answers: why? Ian clearly had his arms in his pockets and back towards the police. There is no need for them to step in towards him. It clearly shows that Ian did have an altercation. Now we can say, yes he did. Up until now it has been 'if'. But now we've seen it, we want answers."

Quite. Whether this attack killed Ian Tomlinson is open to question; but the footage shows an unprovoked attack on an innocent bystander by the police. Let's not forget, Tomlinson was not part of the protests; he was coming back from doing his job as a newspaper vendor. Yet he is kicked and pushed to the ground by the police.

Sure, you argue that the police had a day of provocation from nihilistic protestors - and as regular readers will know, I am no fan of these protestors. The police are human, and maybe they snapped after a day of insults, grief and missiles from the nihilists. But acknowledging they are human does not excuse this behaviour; this was an innocent man, kicked to the ground by those who are meant to uphold the law. It is not acceptable; it is also terrifying and appalling.

The irony is that this unprovoked attack on Tomlinson will probably do far more to undermine the status quo and the state than any amount of protesting ever could. There will be many - myself included - who can see themselves in the place of Mr Tomlinson, and therefore see the police as people to fear.

No doubt it is only a matter of time before this happens here:

A FEDERAL Labor MP and ex-union boss, Craig Thomson, is facing allegations that his union credit cards were used to pay for escort services, to withdraw more than $100,000 cash and to bankroll his election campaign.

It would be a Labor MP, wouldn't it?

Some might take comfort from the fact that politicians across the globe are exploiting their expenses; for me, it is just further proof of the naked contempt they show for those they claim to represent.

Parky on Goody

I don't think this has ever happened to me before, but I agree absolutely with Michael Parkinson:

"Her death is as sad as the death of any young person but it's not the passing of a martyr or a saint or, God help us, Princess Di... When we clear the media smokescreen from around her death, what we're left with is a woman who came to represent all that's paltry and wretched about Britain today. She was brought up on a sink estate, as a child came to know both drugs and crime, was barely educated, ignorant and puerile. Then she was projected to celebrity by Big Brother and, from that point on, became a media chattel to be manipulated and exploited till the day she died."

And:

"What bothers me is that the media first of all recommended we hate Jade Goody. 'A slapper with a face like a pig'; 'the most hated woman in Britain', remember? And shortly thereafter tried to persuade us to celebrate her."

Finally:

He said Goody was "the perfect victim of our times...brought up in a cesspit of poverty and died to an orchestrated chorus of exploitation".

The only caveat I'd add is that Jade made the choice to be exploited by the media; she lived off it, loved it and revelled in it. She was the perfect partner with the media in the eradication of anything approaching dignity in her life and death.

Fair play to Goody; she took what little talent she had (namely shamelessness) and used it to turn herself into a millionaire and to look after her kids after her death. But the ongoing media spotlight on her death, and the mourning that seems to go all the way up to fucking Downing Street has nothing to do with celebrating Goody's life, but has far more to do with the Great British past time of wallowing in the misery of others and loving a real life soap opera with a tragic end.

Difficult to know which story is best:

Brian Gibbons, the the Labour Minister for Social Justice and Local Government, claimed £16.50 for a Royal British Legion wreath that he presumably laid at a remembrance service.

Or:

Bill Butler, the Labour MSP for Glasgow Anniesland, tried to claim back a £1 charity donation that a hotel made on his behalf. He says that the hotel made the charge without his knowledge. It was rejected by the Scottish Parliament authorities.

Magic.

*Acting* Against the Expenses Exploiters

Gordon Brown – who, lest we forget, was all for action over expenses a few weeks ago – on the whole expenses row now:

Questioned at a summit he is attending with other EU leaders Mr Brown said: "I think over the last few days the world has made sufficient advances in how we can deal with the economy, how we can deal with terrorism, how we can deal with security and these are the issues I am concentrating on. All these other issues are being dealt with by the Committee on Standards in Public Life".

Harriet Harman on the expenses row:

"Gordon Brown has asked for an independent review and we will be taking action soon," she said.

Anyone clock the slight contradiction in what they are saying? Yep, Gordo wrote a letter and has now lost interest. Harman believes that they will be taking action very soon. It really does appear that Harman and Brown don’t bother speaking too each other anymore. Because Brown lost interest in this fucking fiasco after he wrote a letter. Harman is banging on about it like it is a crucial, imminent policy for the fucking Labour government. They can’t even get their fucking story straight amongst the members of the Cabinet – how the ruddy fuck would they ever be able to come up with a coherent plan for the nation?

The truth is obvious to anyone with even half a brain cell. Labour aren’t planning to do anything about expenses – it would cost their MPs too much financially. Brown, Harman et al aren’t going to do anything other than dissemble in the hope that all will go away. But I don’t think that is going to happen. This issue is going to be on the agenda for a good long time yet. And with each new scandal – particularly since this troughing goes right up to the pigging Chancellor – the anger is going to increase.

And I really, really hope it does. Because it is only when the anger goes into overdrive that we will really see the general public kicking back against the devious, truculent porcine thieves who *serve* in the House of Commons.

Nuclear Free Globe

God bless Obama. Taking his lead from Gordon Brown, he seems dead set on saving the world as well. However, he is planning to do this through getting rid of nuclear weapons rather than solely through dubious economics.

Which sounds pretty fucking dandy. In theory. A nuclear free world has been the chant of so many for so long that it is almost a given. We should all be aspiring to ridding this world of nuclear weapons – they are a source of nothing but grief and potential catastrophe.

Yet things may not be as simple as that.

Even within the article above, there are some of the reasons why it might be so difficult to rid this planet from the blight of nuclear weapons. First of all, it requires rogue nations such as Iran and North Korea to decide to get on board with what the rest of the world is doing. And whilst you might make some headway with the former (particularly if the next elections don’t go the way of the incumbent) I doubt you’re really going to have too much luck with the latter. Note Obama’s refusal to give up on the missile defence system until Iran starts to play ball; he knows that the nuclear free utopia he proposes is not going to happen any time soon.

Then there is the wild card – the nuclear material that has gone missing. It is likely to be in the hands of some extremely dodgy people (if it isn’t already in the hands of international terrorists) and historically those people just don’t play ball. Even if you managed to persuade every country in the world – no matter how loopy the leadership of those countries – then you are still going to have x amount of nuclear material AWOL in the black market. And my understanding is it will be difficult to properly combat that problem, not least because no-one has any idea of how much is out there and where it is.

There is a further point to make here. Nuclear weapons are, arguably, a force for peace. No, really, they are. Had it not been for nuclear weapons, then I think we would have seen world wars over Korea, the Berlin Blockade, and Vietnam to name but a few. India and Pakistan would probably be locked in perpetual conflict as well. Hiroshima and Nagasaki showed the devastating potential of atomic weapons – since then world leaders have been extremely reluctant to engage in all out conflict and risk global annihilation. Nuclear weapons have not stopped wars; however they may have limited the scope of those wars.

And finally, even if all countries and all rogue agents do agree to get rid of nuclear weapons, you can’t unlearn the knowledge of how to create them. And you cannot stop other nations or other players, such as international terrorists, gaining or using that knowledge again in the future. The knowledge of how to create nuclear weapons would still exist, even if the weapons themselves did not.

So a world free of nuclear weapons sounds like a grand idea. But the reality and desirability of this ever happening is very much open to debate.