In a word...

...disgusting.

The fact that this facility is taxpayer funded means you are paying for this sort of shit.

This blog was set-up primarily to discuss politics, with occasional forays into other areas that I find interesting. Yesterday, this blog had its biggest day ever by a country mile in terms of visits, with over 900 people stopping by. And what was the big story that made the vast majority of visitors stop by? The previous day's review of Doctor Who.

I'm fully aware that there are other, and better, websites to head to for a daily fix of politics. But that isn't going to stop me, just for a little bit, from believing that Doctor Who has finally become more importat that politics - just as I knew it would always do...

Doctor Who: The Almost People

Let me give you one of my pet theories here. The most important scene in the film Psycho is not when the apparently main character decides to take a shower, but rather when the real killer is actually revealed. The fact that the knife-wielder is Bates rather than his mother is one of those great moments when a story pulls the rug from under your feet and leaves you wondering what the hell just happened. It is a very effective way of rounding off a story if only because it can be, if done right, so wonderfully effective. Hell, M. Night Shyamalan has tried to build a career based on trying to pull off this sort of twist.

Of course - as the career of M. Night shows - it can be a dishonest way of telling a story, since the twist can hide a mulititude of sins within the story as a whole. So before we consider the cliff-hanger that ended The Almost People, let's pause for a moment and think about the forty odd minutes that preceded it.

In a sense, it was a bit of a gamble to use Matthew Graham, if only because he has a track record of turning in both outstanding and utterly disappointing endings to his stories. Anyone who has seen the superb final episode to Ashes to Ashes will know just what a genius he can be; anyone who has sat through the largely nonsense conclusion to otherwise really rather good The Last Train. So The Almost People, based on Graham's track record, was either going to be very good or really rather poor. Which was it?

Somewhere in the middle, really. In fact, it felt a lot like a typical ending for an generally good Doctor Who story. It managed to end with a more emotionally satisying twist than just flicking a switch to solve everything, and there were some wonderful moments - especially hearing the voices of previous incarnations when the Almost Doctor first spoke. But equally some elements of the plot seemed a little to contrived. Plus, the final monster was completely unneccessary, and rather undermined the whole idea that the Flesh were meant to be basically human (as did the X-Men 3 style "curing"of the Flesh in the TARDIS). Although the twist with the Doctor's shoes was nice, even if I did see it coming. There may be a lot to come, as well, from the fact that Amy revealed to the real Doctor that she saw him die.

So satisying but not outstanding. The sort of Doctor Who you would want to watch again...

... especially when you factor in that cliffhanger. And that's what I mean by the twist ending, the jaw-dropping moment when the whole story changes. I mean, I knew that the Doctor was up to something from the beginning of the last episode (on the grounds that he had some sort of a plan). But what happened at the end...

Of course, the comments section is there for you all to speculate, but in the interim between now and the next episode I'd like to ask some questions:

Amy's pregnant. Who's the father? (No pun intended)

Where is she?

Who took her?

And for what reason?

And who is the eye-patch Lady who's been breaking into the Almost Amy's adventures?

But for me, the absolutely crucial question - the one that could define not only the next episode but the rest of the episodes when the show returns after the summer - is when was she taken?

Hopefully, we'll learn more next week when a good man goes to war. Of course, I thought that good man would be the Doctor, but given what's happened to Amy, it might just be Rory...

Government Enforced Giving

Longrider comprehensively fillets this pile of shite here, and I've not got a lot to add. All I would like to highlight is in relation to this idea:

The Government will also launch a ‘major campaign’ to promote payroll giving, where employees are encouraged to commit a slice of their monthly pay cheque to charity.

I would just like to point out that I already give up - without being given the choice - about a quarter of my monthly pay cheque to the government. It's a bit like charity but with me having the choice to (a) give up the money and (b) choose what it is spent on. But that's not relevant. My point, rather, is this - if the government wants me to give more to charity, they should substantially reduce the amount the extort from me each month. Economics plays a crucial part in all this, see? I only earn a certain amount of money each month, which means I can only ever give a certain amount to others. You want me to give more, Mr and Mrs Coalition? Let me give more by letting me retain more.

But this is the problem with the Big Society, and it is the logical fallacy at the very heart of David Cameron's spurious, ill thought through project. He expects more from the people of this country - he expects them to go an build a big society. But he won't reduce the burden that the state places on them. This is why the Big Society will fail. At its heart, it could be about a radical redistribution of power in favour of the people of this country. In reality, it is little more than a fig-leaf to disguise the fact that the money has run about but that the Tories are afraid of the genuine spending cuts and tax cuts that would really make a difference to this country.

So, yeah, by all means ask me to give more from my monthly pay cheque. But until you reduce the tax burden, you can frankly whistle for it.

The Beast*: A Symbol of Modern America

Obama is driven around in a great, hulking limo equipped with so many security precautions and devices that it is a security nut's/techno freak's wet dream. It even has its own oxygen supply, for God's sake. Yet it cannot even clear a simple ramp in the road.

Which, in a sense, sums up modern America**. As a country, it is big, ostentatious, leading the world in technology but also spectacularly unable to win wars against much less capable or well-armed adversaries, and also seemingly unable to get its own economy - that many in the US see as the model for the world as a whole - to work properly again. And despite all its advanced technology, vast swathes of the country still believe in the invisible sky fairy and the country as a whole ends up more interested in where their President was born rather than what he is actually doing. America, the giant, technological behemoth of the world, unable to get over even the smallest of speed-bumps.

*According to the US Security people, the car that got stuck wasn't the Beast, but some sort of back-up limo. Then again, they would say that as it is mightily embarrassing that their car designed to protect the President from all manner of attack actually can't get over a simple ramp.
**And this is not just a jibe against the Obama era America; the rot set in far earlier, and was given a massive boost by the utterly inept administrations of one George W. Bush, a man not fit to tie his own shoelaces, let alone lead a world super-power.

Ooo, guess who's back? It's Harold Camping, the Preacher with a hard-on for the Rapture, here to explain what happened - or, rather, why what he predicted didn't happen. Apparently he got his calculations wrong. I don't think many people would dispute that right now. But he does seem remarkably indifferent to those who spent their life-savings advertising his idiotic predictions for him. From the BBC:

Asked if he had any advice to offer those who had given away their material wealth in the belief the world was about to end, Mr Camping said they would cope.

"We just had a great recession. There's lots of people who lost their jobs, lots of people who lost their houses... and somehow they all survived," he said.

"We're not in the business of giving any financial advice," he added.

Well, I'm not in the business of offering financial advice either. Instead, I'll offer a little bit of common sense advice to all those who wasted their time and money on this delusional, fundamentalist idiot: don't listen to him, or anyone like him, ever again.

The Barack Obama European Tour

Sounding like an ageing supergroup doing one last tour to top up the pension funds rather than a credible politician undertaking vital diplomatic missions, Obama's doing a tour of Europe. No doubt this is entirely about important work and nothing to do with his re-election campaign. I know, I know, I'm joking - but the Barack Obama Re-Election Tour of Europe would have been too obvious even for this blatant attempt to look like a statesman with international credibility while the opposition party in your country haven't even got around to the serious mud-slinging that will inevitably happen before they choose their nominee for President next year.

Much like Nixon visiting China and the USSR in the run-up to the 1972 election, this is just the start of a campaign to convince enough voters in the US that Obama is a credible statesman who is also a safe pair of hands. And given the state of the Republican party at the moment, it's probably going to work.

The Pastor Who Cried Rapture

We've all made predictions that didn't come off, and we've been left with egg on our faces. I remember being so sure that David Davis would win the last Tory leadership election that I advised a couple of friends to put money on that outcome. I was wrong, they lost their cash, life went on. Which is the way it goes.

Unless, of course, you predict that life won't go on, and that the world will end. Because there's no wiggle room when you predict something like the Rapture and it doesn't happen. It's pretty absolute. When you're wrong, everyone can see you're wrong, and people are either laughing at you or hating you, depending on how they treated your really rather ludricrous claim about the end of everything.

Perhaps this pastor truly believed that yesterday was the end of days. Perhaps it was a more cynical ploy to to increase the profile of his radio station - in which case it worked a treat. Except that it can only ever be a short-term win for the pastor and his organisation. After all, this is the second time he has said the Rapture is coming only for nothing to happen. You'd have thought that his credibility would have been shot to shit after the first time, but no. Many still seem to have believed him. Surely, though, even the most devout of people - those who believe that the Rapture is something more than the final fiction in a fictional book - must be at the very least doubting this pastor's predictive ability when it comes to the Rapture?

No doubt that if this pastor shows his face in public again it will be to spout a whole host of excuses about why the Rapture didn't happen. I just hope that the law of diminishing returns kicks in, and the next time he decides he's a-going to ascend to heaven, even fewer people treat his mad ramblings with anything other than the utter scorn they deserve.

Doctor Who - The Rebel Flesh

Almost by definition, it is difficult to write an original Doctor Who story. And almost by definition, a Doctor Who story will be unable to hide its inspirations (sometimes intentionally). And so we have The Rebel Flesh - unoriginal, and very derivative.

But also really rather good.

So let's try to work out why. Why did this unoriginal episode work in a way that the equally unoriginal The Curse of the Black Spot did not? I think part of it is down to the direction. Everything about this, from the location, to the Visual FX, to the lighting helped to make this moody and atmospheric. This one is a classic base-under-seige story - thank heavens that the direction succeeding in making that base claustrophobic and unsettling.

Then we have the pacing. In both The Curse of the Black Spot and The Rebel Flesh you can pretty much work out what is going to happen from the outset. For example, from the moment the Doctor touches the gunge, you know that this episode is going to end with the Doctor's duplicate showing himself. But here the pacing feels a lot like the fabled peeling back of the onion skin until we reach the climax. It all feels like someone has taken the time to properly plot this out, and it feels like even if we know where this journey is going to end up, at least the writer is going to keep us interested until we get there. Which didn't happen with episode three...

And yes, it's derivative. But if you are going to steal, then steal from the best. Why not allude to Frankenstein - and blatantly copy moments from The Thing - if you're going to be derivative. There's no point in going for Pirates of the Carribean - far better to take from a source that is actually good.

I'll never tire of saying this, but the only way to assess a Doctor Who story that is in more than one part is to see the whole story. And here we take a gamble, given the writer of this story. If it is the Matthew Graham who created five episodes of compelling drama only to give up and make the final episode of The Last Train self-indulgent, nonsensical tripe, then we have a problem. But if it is the Matthew Graham who helped to create the utterly superb final episode of Ashes to Ashes then we may be about to watch something pretty bloody specatacular. So let's hope it's the latter...

...and with the hints of the Doctor fighting the Doctor in the manner of the only good scenes from Superman III combined with the hints that the Doctor knows more about this situation than he is letting on (including apparently activating the gunge that makes his duplicate with the Sonic Screwdriver), I think we should have seen something that is pretty good come this time next week.

On the subject of the Rapture...

...I've got some questions. Assuming that this is the second coming of Christ and not the delusional rantings of an old man who has already failed to accurately predict the Rapture once before, I'd like some clarity around the etiquette of the whole thing. So my questions are:

(1) Is there a strict timetable that needs to be adhered to? For the Royal Wedding (another big event with religious overtones) there very much was a timetable, and that way anyone interested in what was going on could more or less know exactly what was happening and when. I know there's supposed to be a big earthquake today, but what happens after that? And all unbelievers are due to be dead by 21st October - do we get to choose when we go to hell? If so, I'd like to book as later a slot for that as possible.

(2) Is there a dress code? I'd hate to be condemned to internal damnation because I wasn't wearing a suit.

(3) I know Jesus is meant to be all-knowing, but frankly he doesn't offer any proof of that. Therefore, in the interests of fairness, I'd like the chance to pitch to Jesus about my worthiness before he decides whether I burn for all eternity or not. Surely not too much to ask...

(4) Is Jesus going to factor in that some of us aren't going to be ready because the conduit to communicate the coming of the Rapture was a daft old man with zero credibility? Had the Pope said it then we might all be taking it a little more seriously; as it stands, I rather think a lot of us aren't going to be ready.

(5) Bearing in mind it has been a longtime since the world last saw Christ, is he going to do something to make him clearly recognisable? The reason why I ask is because there are a couple of people in every neighbourhood who wondered around cursing people and chuntering on about the end of the world all the time. I just want to make sure that Christ differentiates himself from them. Otherwise, all manner of farcical merriment could ensue.

I hope someone comes back to me with answers to my questions soon. After all, there's not long left. Or so I heard...

The Frightening, Bitter World of a Guardian Reader

Over at The New Statesman, we have a frankly rather wonderful headline:

What a frightening world it must be if you only read the Daily Express

Yes, very true. And just imagine what the world would be like if you only read The Daily Mail? Not only frightening, but also hate-filled. The very thought of it makes me shudder.

Then again, what would the world be like if you only read The Guardian or The New Statesman? I'd argue that it would also be a frightening place. And a world almost designed to make you a bit bitter. After all, you would be constantly told that you are part of a progressive majority that is thwarted at every turn by a malign conspiracy between right-wing politicians, news outlets and automatically malign big business. You would also be told that your leaders are constantly disappointing - the only time they are actually of any use is when they are not in power and they can revel in the need not to compromise that is the privilege of politicians in opposition. And you would also be constantly told that we are awaiting the wrath of Gaia, who is mightily pissed off that the majority haven't been recycling.

So the world of the person who just reads The Guardian would be just as frightening as the person who just reads the Express (albeit in different ways). The simple truth is that if you want a balanced worldview and to make your own choices about life, you need more than one source when it comes to current affairs.

Doctor Who, Ratings and Success

One of the sticks that those who like their Doctor Who to be anondyne and without any complexity have been using to bash the Steven Moffat era is that the ratings were down. The fact that just 6.52 million people watched The Impossible Astronaut is, according to them, a damning indictment of that story. Of course, it is worth pointing out that (1) people couldn't have known that the story was going to be complicated before watching it, so surely that can't account for the dip in ratings and (2) the number of people watching a programme is no indication of its quality. Around double of the number of people watched Attack of the Cybermen on its first broadcast than watched Ghost Light on its first broadcast; doesn't stop the latter from being a little piece of genius and the former being, well, not that good.

But all of that is predicated on the assumption that the ratings for The Impossible Astronaut were, in some way, disappointing. Actually, the consolidated ratings put the episode at 8.86 million - the second highest rated programme of the day, and sixth overall for the week. On BBC America, it got 1.3 million viewers - making it the most watched programme in that channel's history. And then we get the news that 4.11 million people recorded the programme - making it the most recorded programme in TV history. To me, this is not evidence of a TV programme struggling to find viewers, but rather of a show in rude health.

The reality is that people are watching TV in increasingly different ways. When you can record things and watch them online, the need to watch them on their initial broadcast diminishes. Of course, if Doctor Who's production team want more people to watch that initial broadcast, they could push it to later in the day's schedule - but that's another story...

The 2012, Made In America Barack Obama Mug

I wonder whether he's had one of these sent to Donald Trump?

The Strange Death of LPUK...

...and looking to the future.

In a moment of what looks like outstanding petulance from a (former) party chairman, LPUK is felled by its own leadership clique:

Final closure: de-registration papers have been received by the Electoral Commission this morning. When they have been processed, LPUK will cease to be a political party.

And the reason for this? The leadership seems more willing to destroy the party that open the accounts up for a bit of scrutiny. Which is ironic when you consider that one of the reasons why the party was formed was to campaign for more openness in politics.

A word of warning, though, for those people who have been predicting an acrimonious breakdown in the party since its inception: before you start your "I told you so dance", remember that the confusion in the party has been massive over the past few weeks, and in particular over the past few days, so there is every chance that half the party will claim that it is finished while the other half claim it is still a going concern. Clarity is something surely lacking in all aspects of the Libertarian party at the moment. (As if to prove the point, while I was writing this post, there has already been a counter claim that the party is not finished. Way to go, people.)

But if the party is truly dead and gone, then two things are going to happen. FIrstly, they'll be a lot of blame to fling around. Some of it will probably end up heading in the direction of Anna Raccoon and perhaps even blogs like this one, which have been fiercely critical of LPUK of late. That would, of course, be blaming completely the wrong people. Besides, any party that can be felled by a few blogposts really isn't a credible political organisation.

No, the blame lies with a leader who was utterly irresponsible, in particular with the finances of that fragile organisation. It also lies with a chairman who, when faced with serious allegations about the party finances, decided that a vapid, banal report determined to blame just about anyone else other than the leadership clique was the best way to cope with that problem. Ken Ferguson's insider account of the past few weeks is a startling read, and a damning indictment of an incompetent and incapable leadership - and, if I were a senior member of that party,that report would leave me wondering whether a police investigation into the finances would be the best way to move forward.

The second thing that is going to happen is that the supporters of the party who aren't utterly disenchanted with politics after this whole sorry farrago will have to decide what to do next. Joining UKIP isn't a credible answer, in my book - mainly because they aren't a Libertarian party. Likewise, forming a new party is probably not the answer - even if a constitution was put in place to try to stop this sort of thing happening again, a new party would still have the crushing problem of being staffed and led by interested amateurs with other jobs that would make their political efforts, at best, part-time. A party needs paid political professionals, and for that it needs a decent amount of money. That will only come when the issues it represents have been forced into the limelight.

So the best thing the (former) party's supporters can do, in my opinion, is to do everything they can to raise the profile of libertarian (and liberal) issues in this country. Attend things like this, support organisations like this, and contribute to joint ventures like this. Then, when a genuinely liberal alternative has been brought to the attention of a much wider audience than the libertarian wing of the blogging world, it would be time to form another party.

On the troubles of Chris Huhne

I've been following the Chris Huhne story with a certain amount of weariness and disinterest. I mean, I don't know whether he got his estranged wife to to accept speeding points on his behalf. I don't know he or his wife and (judging by this nasty little spat) I don't ever want to know either of them. But there is something intuitively plausible about this story. Because Chris Huhne comes across as utterly ghastly. He seems to be the sort of person who would fuck you over not just to get ahead, but also to assert a curiously misplaced sense of superiority over you. And this comes across in his desperation to lead the Liberal Democrats. Quite why anyone would want to lead Britain's second-rate third party - especially at the moment, when leading it is effectively taking a deep swip from a not just poisoned but also utterly toxic chalice? I guess because it would make Huhne important; it would make him a leader. Which would make him better than you, my non-leader reader.

There is an air of undeserved smugness around Chris Huhne - that unpleasant air of arrogant mediocrity. He comes across as someone who believes he should be in Parliament - and therefore have some sort of control over you - for no other reason than he just plain thinks he knows better than you. And if other people have to fall by the wayside in order for him to get ahead - if he has to abdicate personal responsibility to others for his own mistakes to get ahead - then that's absolutely fine with it.

Which leads me to the point of this post, and my question - what is about being a politician that turns most people into being the sort of self-serving shit you would cross the street to avoid?

Donald Trump; Definitely Not Going To Be President

Apparently, Donald Trump wants to spend more time with his business interests rather than running for US President. I rather suspect, though, that his main concern (despite protestations to the contrary) is the fear of losing. After all, he's a brand - and an ignominious defeat to someone like Sarah Palin or Mitt Romney in the Republican primaries would damage that brand. As well as potentially damaging his colossal ego. Because he would never have made it all the way to being the nominee, and therefore the man Obama will defeat next year. He was not, and will never be, a credible candidate for the highest office in the US.

But Trump isn't the only one to opt of the race to be beaten by Obama - the ever idiotic Mike Huckabee has said "all the factors say go, but my heart says no." Whatever the fuck that might mean. As far as I can see, rather like Trump, what he actually means is that the factors are really saying no. He knows he would lose (again) if he decided to run. Wouldn't win the general election. Mainly because he wouldn't even make it to being the nominee. Last time, he lost to a grumpy old man. This time, who knows who he would lose to? The only guarantee would be that he would lose...

Of course, all of this reduces the field of potential Republican nominees. And actually makes it much less mental. Now all we need is for Sarah Palin to say she's not running and we might end up with a field of sane, if rather dull, people vying for the nomination. Which probably won't lead to a Republican President come 2013, but will also mean that the party of Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan hasn't been completely captured by its loopy, extremist elements.

The LPUK Fallout

Let's pause for a moment and look at the LPUK "investigation" into their (former? - there seems to be some confusion on that point) leader, Andrew Withers. The report is available, and it is a startling document in almost every way possible. Startlingly poor, that is. It has all the credibility of Richard Nixon promising that there would be no whitewash in the White House.

For me, a report by a political party into the potential wrong-doings of its leader should (a) challenge the allegations head-on and (b) reach some sort of conclusions. This dunder-headed report struggles to do the first; it utterly fails to do the latter.

Throughout it, there is a sense of incredulity that certain basic things, particularly around finances, have not been done. It also adopts a very aggressive tone towards Anna Raccoon (who decisively dissects the report here), who initially alerted an apparently clueless party to the behaviour of its leader. It also takes time out to have a pop at a former leader*, for no other reason than he happened through no control of his own to become embroiled in this disaster for the party.

But those issues do not represent the biggest problem with this report. That comes with the conclusions - which are little more than a set of potential areas for future investigations. Was there a breach of the Data Protection Act? You fucking well tell me - you did the investigation. Is Anna Raccoon's timeline accurate? Again, you tell me - although quite how you're ever going to reach any conclusions on that point is utterly beyond me given the party's self-confessed ineptitude when it comes to pretty much any bit of admin. And the ongoing lack of clarity around financial issues is terrifying - how could any new members, or former members like myself, ever have any confidence in rejoining the party when we don't have the first clue about where our money would be going?

Now, more than ever, the future of the party hands in the balance. There seems to be a lot of anger from grassroots members, despite the decision by Withers to stand aside. There's going to be a new leader, I hear - with the name Max Andronichuk (who has made the occasional cheer leading comment for LPUK on this blog) being mentioned quite a bit. But it also has been hinted that he is Withers' preferred choice of new leader, which in my eyes (rightly or wrongly) automatically raises a lot of questions - after all, should the party right now be taking the advice of Withers of all people?

Besides, leadership isn't the party's main problem - there is now a substantial credibility gap between what the party initially aspired to (a new, more transparent kind of politics) and what it has offered (the very opposite of transparency). A new leader is the very least of the party's worries; basic financial procedures and some sort of transparency about the way the party conducts its business are far more important. And yeah, it's difficult with volunteers manning the party etc etc ad fucking nauseam. But when it comes to fundamental points like the voluntary financial contributions individuals make to the party, a basic level of professionalism is not too much to ask for, surely?

It is very telling that the party's most noticeable event to date isn't a campaigning or electoral success, but rather an utterly depressing tale of ineptitude and irresponsibility at its very heart.

*Ok, let me declare an interest here - I like Chris Mounsey. He has always been encouraging when it comes to my blogging, and he's a good chap to go for a few beers with. But that's precisely why I feel the report if being utterly pathetic when it deals with him. For all of his flaws, he's open and honest - he has a certain level of integrity that appears to be lacking in the current party leadership. He also - when I last caught up to him face to face at the end of last year - expressed no problems (or "issues") with the end to his time running the party leadership. Quite the opposite, in fact. So the decision to make him, in part, responsible for the scandal that has engulfed (and may yet destroy) the party is yet another alarming lack of judgement in a leadership that has already shown precious little judgement to date.

TUC and the Rally Against Debt

A TUC spokesperson on the Rally Against Debt:

"Half a million people joined the TUC march for the alternative to deep, early spending cuts.

"The fact that only a few hundred people rallied for more Sure Start centre closures and punitive cuts on disabled people, shows how little support there is for the government's economic plans."

Where to begin with this utter bilge? Firstly, no alternative has been offered to the government's reduction in spending other than "we'd prefer them not to do it" - a position which, given how crippled this country is with debt, just doesn't work.

Secondly, it is pretty offensive to claim that people were rallying for Sure Start closures and punitive cuts on disabled people. They weren't. They were rallying against the idea of future generations being burdened with completely unneccessary debt - something the TUC seems to be completely ok with.

Furthermore, I'd imagine most of these people don't support the government, and would like a more radical debt reduction plan combined with a refusal to contribute to further EU bailouts - neither of which the present government seems willing to do.

And yeah, only a few hundred people turned up - to a grassroots rally designed to advocate the taking of difficult decisions now for future generations. As opposed to the TUC backed march, organised by backers with thousands, if not millions, of pounds to spend and thousands of members to call upon. Furthermore, it is always easier to get people marching in favour of naked self-interest - which is what the TUC backed march earlier this year was about.

Doctor Who - The Doctor's Wife

The reason why Steven Moffat and RTD have been so successful at producing (generally speaking) great Doctor Who is because they can both write. Sure, you might not always like the end result, but they can - when pushed - produce great story arcs and (arguably more importantly) great individual episodes. Which is why it was a stroke of absolute genius for Moffat to get other establised writers - who have had serieses of their own as well as particular, idiosyncratic writing styles - to get involved with Doctor Who. And tonight's episode attests to that genius.

Throughout the entire episode, there was always a feeling that this was an assured, competent and - crucially - imaginative writer leading us by the hand through a desperately exciting race of an episode. Sure, I guessed that Idris had become the TARDIS. But that didn't stop there being numerous other twists that I didn't see. Partly because this was a consummate story teller who knew exactly where he wanted to take us and - crucially - also knew the pace at which his story had to go at in order to work. Compare this episode to the previous one - the latter felt like an exercise in padding, the former felt like a great author determined to say everything he wanted to say about Doctor Who in 45 (utterly outstanding) minutes.

Part of the success of this episode was that it never left with time to breathe, and to think about what was going on. But it was also about how the story changed (in a very natural way) during its runtime. It went from sci-fi to fantasy to body horror to traumatic mind-fuck to iconoclastic yet very reverential Doctor Who. The story had no problems with adding to the overall mythology of the show, but did so in a way that is intuitively plausible - why shouldn't the TARDIS have chosen the Doctor rather than the other way around, and why shouldn't she have chosen where he needed to go rather than following his commands about where he wanted to go? After all, that could explain why the Doctor almost always ends up in the thick of an adventure...

At the same time, though, this was written by someone with enormous respect both for the fan and for the casual viewer. There were details - from the big (like the use of the previous TARDIS control room) to the small (like the use of the little communication boxes from The War Games). Yet the whole thing was carefully, yet not patronisingly, explained - we were never left if any doubt about what was going on without having to have lots of idiotic exposition scenes. In a sense, this made tonight's episode the most successful of the season so far, in that it genuinely seemed to have been written with everyone in mind. Plus, it was full of laugh-out-loud moments - a particular favourite of mine being the TARDIS's decision about who was the pretty one.

Yet it wasn't just about the writing. This was also extremely well directed. The shots seemed to have been properly thought through, and were consequently very well composed. Two standout moments for me: the moment when the Doctor and Idris were in the same frame, with the latter present through the use of a reflection in a shaving mirror, and the moment when Amy walked into the corridor dedicated to maligning her. Plus the acting was uniformly good. Matt Smith in particular got to run the full gauntlet of emotions, while Suranne Jones gave an utterly convincing performance as an old, sentient time machine not used to talking contained in the body of a woman.

Was it perfect? Well, no, but as near as to make no difference. My biggest gripe was the Ood - not that it did anything wrong, but just that it didn't need to be there. House itself was enough of menace; we didn't need another monster grafted on top. Plus, some of the CGI around the Doctor's mail didn't quite work (although the FX in this episode was otherwise pretty strong). But these are minor, almost pedantic points. This was the sort of Doctor Who that I just lap up, and an utterly convincing explanation for why I like the show so much. Inventive, funny, scary, clever and sad - the Doctor himself in a nutshell.

In short, an absolute success of an episode. And when Steven Moffat leaves, the show could do much, much worse than giving Neil Gaiman a call about its vacancy.

Idiot of the Day: Laurie Penny

Laurie Penny, apparently without any sense of irony:

In my final year at a British private school, over 30 kids were handheld through the application process for Oxford or Cambridge, whereas in most state schools a maximum of one or two begin the gruelling process, usually without the considerable staff support that we enjoyed.

Of those 30, about half were successful, and at least four or five of those were -- excuse my French -- thick as congealed slurry on the bridle path. They were dull, unimaginative posh kids who had no real interest in learning , who were just good at passing exams with the right training. What they had was the confidence to shine at interviews, and most importantly, the right kind of swagger to fit in. They had grown up being told they belonged at Oxford or Cambridge. As a consequence, they were deemed Oxbridge material, whereas thousands of state school pupils were not.

And where did Penny go to university, I hear you ask? Why Oxford, of course. Which surely makes her one of those "handheld through the application process". It also makes her as "thick as congealed slurry" and possessing "the right kind of swagger to fit in". Either that, or she's a total fucking hypocrite.

Of course, I do realise she could be all of the above...

UPDATE: Matt M in the coments section rightly points out that Penny could be classing herself (hell, she probably is) as one of the two thirds of the successful applicants that weren't as thick as congealed slurry. My bad; I meant to re-edit the article before publishing it but didn't. It should have read "it also gives her a circa 33% of being as "thick as congealed slurry".." She's still a fucking hypocrite, though, as she clearly benefitted from the private school hand-holding she now seeks to rebuke.

Big thanks to Blogger, who as well as being down for a lot of the past 48 hours and randomly withdrawing posts, also managed to attach my real name to each and every post for an unknown length of time. I’ve often contemplated mentioning who I am in real life (not that anyone who doesn’t already know would have the first clue who I am – this isn’t the secret blog of David Davis or anything) and y’know what, one day I just might. But I’d prefer that day to be decided on by me, rather than some sort glitch relating to Blogger.

Which is not too much to ask, surely?

Elsewhere...

Over at the Orphans, I've got a post up about the idea of the rich being able to pay for extra places and how spectacularly our politicians failed to have a meaningful debate about the idea. Do go take a look.

Blue Labour: Reactionary, Unrealistic and Illiberal

Chuku Umunna on Blue Labour:

At the root of this is a belief in our innate mutual dependence. We believe individuals should be given the freedom to flourish, thrive and prosper, not just economically but in spirit and heart too. This can only be achieved in the context of a strong, cohesive society supporting each of us and our families in that endeavour, promoting the common good.

What sounds like the sort of typical blandishments and empty cant that you might expect from a politician from any one of the main parties is actually a front for a more controlling and dangerous ideology.

First up, the use of the word “dependence” is concerning. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that we are mutually interdependent. But the point is that it is interdependency. I may be dependent to some extent on the people around me but in other, no less important, ways they were dependent on me. The problem with phrasing the debate in terms of dependence is dependence automatically sets up a hierarchical power relation. If we are dependent on others with that dependence being in some reciprocal, then they have power over us. And that is the sort of mindset that has created a culture of welfare dependency among many people in our country.

Also, I get very uncomfortable when people – especially politicians – talk about the common good. Because, in short, it doesn’t exist. In a modern, plural, diverse and multi-cultural society the common good is a nonsense. A community as wide as the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will be able to find no consensus on what constitutes the common good. Hell, you’d struggle to find such a consensus on the common good in most families and friendship groups. And such diversity is fine; it allows people to have choice about the different ways in which they can live their lives.

But when a politician talks about the common good, you want to be asking them who decides on the common good. Because the answer will be them. And this is exactly what is happening here. There is no common good; we are simply seeing another politician saying what they think is good should be the conception of the good that everyone has to live under. What makes it worse is there is no pitch, no attempt to sell a common good to the people to create a consensus around it. No, this is what parties of all shapes, sizes, colours and creeds do – they try to force their conceptions of the common good on everyone else without really debating it. So this isn’t a politician explaining what he thinks we have in common with each other, it is a politician arrogantly assuming that his conception of the good life is one that everyone else should comply with.

And his whole mindset is accurately portrayed in the first line when he talks about people should be given freedom. The arrogance is so strong that it is almost audacious – you can only have freedom if someone Umunna decides to give it to you.

But this isn’t that surprising for a Labour politician – after all, they spent a large proportion of their time in power telling you how to live your life. What is surprising, though, is reading that a Labour party member like Umunna is actually a conservative at heart:

Glasman has been accused of indulging in nostalgia, which some cite as the “blue” in Blue Labour. This misses the point. When the case is made for the conservation of certain cherished national institutions such as our forests, the post office, Dover Port or, in London, the Billingsgate fish market porters, it is not made for tradition’s sake but because these institutions are part of the social fabric of our country that bind us together – they institutionalise our social democracy for future generations, something we failed to do sufficiently enough in government.

This has little to do with the Labour movement, and little to do with socialism. This could almost be the voice of the father of British conservatism, Edmund Burke, talking. Except it is arguably more reactionary than anything the deeply conservative Burke had to offer. Because this seems to be calling for the preservation of aspects of British life that have actually, in some cases, had their time and ended. Umunna is basically calling for certain, cherry-picked aspects to life to be preserved even in the face of overwhelming change. That is more than conservative. It is, as I’ve already mentioned, reactionary.

Of course, a case can be made for preserving, say, the forests. But it is a case that needs a more compelling logic than “it’s good because I happen to have deemed it a cherished national institution”. Again, there’s the problem of who chooses what is a cherished national institution. For some people, it might be the Church of England. Yet for others that might be the opposite of an institution that is cherished. Others still might not care in the slightest about that institution. The point is that the classification is based on subjective judgements and far from the sort of beliefs that everyone holds. The classification is very much in the eyes of the beholder, which leads us to question exactly why Umunna’s perception of a cherished national institution should be allowed to dominate over other opposing views.

Furthermore, the idea that these institutions “bind us together” is also problematic. Partly because, say, the fish porters do precisely nothing to bind me to anyone else in this country or beyond, but also because negative parts of life can bind people together just as surely as positive ones. The Blitz, for example, helped to bind many people together. Does that mean that we should recreate the circumstances when, on a nightly basis, death fell from the skies? Of course it doesn’t. But it does mean that Umunna’s arguments needs to be a little stronger that spurious, contestable claims about his own cherry-picked institutions creating a sense of community.

For me, “flag” talks to a sense of nationhood and togetherness. I was roundly condemned by some (on the Left) on twitter for attending street parties to celebrate the Royal Wedding in my constituency. I make no apology for doing so and am proud of the events that took place in my area. Thousands attended and what I witnessed was not some doe-eyed, adulatory worship of the Royal couple but a sense of pride in our country and a delight in the excuse to coalesce, relate, mingle and share some time with neighbours one often only sees in passing.

It strikes me that this is very much a pitch for typical conservative voters; it is all about national pride and preserving stuff associated with rural and/or disappearing parts to British life. Unfortunately, this doesn’t quite work, mainly because Umunna is having to project his own interpretations of events in order to make his arguments work. There is simply no evidence that the people who celebrated the Royal Wedding in street parties did so through some sort of sense of national pride. Some may have done it for exactly that reason, to be sure, but others might have done simply because they had the day off. Others still may have done it to follow a trend. Yet more people may have held a party to express republican sentiments. In order to make a shaky case for a nostalgic, self-serving pseudo-conservatism, Umunna is giving himself some sort of omniscience that he clearly does not, and cannot, have.

Furthermore, the line about spending “some time with neighbours one often only sees in passing” just doesn’t work. You may see your neighbours all the time; you may seldom see them. But the fact that you may or may not have spent some time with them when the Royal couple dominated the TV screens for a day means next to nothing, since we choose the relationships we have to a large extent. You choose your own community of friends. If that includes your neighbours, then that’s ‘cause you’ve chosen it. If it doesn’t, then the same logic applies. We don’t need an event like the Royal Wedding to create a sense of community among neighbours; that happens if we want it to happen.

There’s a sense in which Unumma wants to foist a sense of community on people regardless of whether they want it or not. In that sense, I suppose, his project is very socialist – it wants to remake community and society in the image of what he believes is good, and what he believes is right. What is unpleasant, illiberal and dangerous about his logic is the extent to which it removes your right to choose the way in which you life your life. This Blue Labour nonsense – itself a dull rip-off of the equally odious Red Tory conception of Philip Blond – has little to do with freedom. Instead, it has everything to do with a state led by nostalgic idealists like Umunna nudging, cajoling, rebuking and even forcing you into doing what they think is right. As such, it is very much a continuation of what has gone before – business as usual for modern politics – on the grounds that you are treated like an infant by paternalistic politicians who have the arrogance to think they know better than you on the absolutely fundamental question of how you live your life. The fact that it is presented in a soft way with nice, nostalgic images should not disguise the fact that this is very different to any meaningful manifestation of liberty.

Birthday greetings for the coalition

Oh looky, there's a bandwagon passing me by. Hold up while I jump aboard.

So yes, happy first birthday to the coalition. Good to see that this auspicious occasion is being celebrated in style - through pointless carping between the two leaders in the coalition. Very classy.

Of course, this coalition was always going to be fragile, and the longer it goes on for the more fraught the relationship between the two parties will become. After all, if they agreed on everything, or even most things, then they would be, well, the same party.

But there are a couple of things worth pointing out at this juncture. Firstly, amid all the curious praise for the activist nature of the coalition, I'd like to point out that there is a lot more that still need to be done. To compare the coalition's activity level with that of the first Blair administration (as some people insist on doing) is hardly meaningful; Blair did fuck all in this first term, and his unfathomably successful campaign for re-election was largely built on a promise to acutally do something if re-elected. Yeah, the coalition have been more activist that an administration that was completely inactive. Whoop-de-doo. There's still a lot that needs doing.

Mainly, for me, around the issue of civil liberties. When the coaltion first assumed power, they talked a good game on civil liberties. I even remember talk of a comprehensive Freedom Bill. Well, a year later and I'm still waiting. With increasing impatience. Ending the ID card scheme was just the tip of a massive iceberg. There is much more that needs to be done. And it needs to be done now.

Furthermore, if the coalition really wants to meet its initial rhetoric and usher in a new style of politics, it can start (and help Dave's Big Society) by matching spending cuts with tax cuts. Seriously, we're being expected to give the same (if not more) to the state for less. That is crap measured against any yardstick. So, even if you have to slash spending further, cut taxes, Mr and Mrs Coalition. Go with the ground-breaking idea that the tax-payer should give the state less. You never know, it might prove to be very popular...

But anyway, happy birthday to the coalition. No idea whether they will get to celebrate a second birthday, but if they do, then I would like to have rather more achievements to celebrate than we have seen in this first year.

Elsewhere...

Over at the Orphans of Liberty, I explain why I'm backing Anna Raccoon's call for independent libertarian candidates to stand for election. Please do go have a look.

I heartily recommend reading this article on why the Yes to AV campaign failed. It makes it clear that appealing solely to your core supporters and trying to patronise the floating voter into backing you is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Something Ed Miliband would do well to remember...

Doctor Who: The Curse of the Black Spot

It's funny, in a way, because The Curse of the Black Spot felt far more like a season opener than the episodes that opened this season. In that it was a largely self-contained little romp, designed more to entertain than to provoke any sort of meaningful thought.

And in a sense, of course, there's nothing wrong with that. In some ways, Doctor Who is, and always has been, about entertaining people. And we should be pleased that this episode did (for the most part) entertain in an atmospheric way. It is next to impossible to imagine, for example, the original version of Doctor Who carrying off this same story with the same aplomb. Everything would have been brightly lit and clearly staged in a studio. Here, we got a sense of the ship, and a real feeling that this was an adventure affecting real pirates (at least at first). High production values are not to be sniffed at (even if the airborne Siren occasionally looked like Superman flying in Superman IV: The Quest For Peace).

All those acting in it were also good. Smith's Doctor has a clear character, while Amy and Rory played very much to type. The pirates managed to avoid most of the hackneyed cliches involved in playing pirates, and even the kid managed not to be irritating. In fact, the whole thing had a general air of a high-budget pirate adventure.

Including, sadly, the plot.

Because, the plot, with the best will in the world was well realised but also very slight. Right from the moment Rory got the black spot, I was hoping that getting said spot did not lead to his abduction, and that rather he was avoiding death. However, of course, it was all benign in the end. It was all about a confused alien taking them to look after them. Including the muderous pirates, who got a new lease of life and new ship in which they could commit their crimes. Which is adequate as stories go (especially when the clues as to the ultimate solution are given throughout the episode) but seriously, why couldn't the Siren have been more of a threat? I mean, last week we had the Silence, the week before the Impossible Astronaut killing the Doctor at the very beginning. A basically benign alien medical computer programme is a serious anti-climax.

So yes, this was like a Hollywood movie. Or a one-off special. Or like a simple, no-brainer season opener. In fact, I do wonder why it wasn't the season opener. Because while The Impossible Astronaut and Day of the Moon would not have been damaged at all (beyond a few minor rewrites at the start) by coming after this adventure. Plus, pirates, the Doctor and Easter Saturday may have coaxed more viewers out of the sun for the season debut. Whereas The Curse of the Black Spot - a slight, forgettable, crowd-pleasing episode if ever there was one - was definitely damaged by coming after the two iconoclastic and brilliant episodes that began this season.

Ed Miliband - On Borrowed Time?

You know, I really feel sorry for Nick Clegg. He's spent the best part of the past year acting as a teflon coating for David Cameron, and since Thursday's elections, he's doing exactly the same thing for Ed Miliband. Because it is only the fact that the Liberal Democrats did so badly on Thursday that hides the fact that it was also a very difficult and disappointing set of results for the Labour leader.

Let's look at the best result for Miliband Minor - the fact that the Labour party have gained seats and, indeed, overall control of some councils. As things stand (Saturday at ten to two, fact fans) Labour have gained 800 seats and 26 councils. Yet the vast majority of those gains have been at the expense of the Liberal Democrats, and taking votes from them at the moment really is like taking candy from a baby. But what should be worrying Miliband - what should really be worrying him - is the result for the Tories. Over the past year, they have been heading up a coalition pursuing, for many, deeply unpopular and divisive policies. In fact, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest against those policies. The results at their first electoral test in government? 81 new councillors, and 4 new councils. Far from struggling to hold onto their territory, they have actually gained ground since taking power. Ultimately, Miliband Minor needs to be able to take on the Tories properly if he wants to be installed at Number 10. There's no evidence here that he will be able to do it. In fact, the council results suggest all he has managed to do is win some seats that the Labour party should never have lost in the first place from a massively unpopular third party.

And the council results are the best for him of the day.

Because in Wales, Labour have made some gains, but still seem unable to take control outright. And Wales - Labour's heartland, again where they should never have lost popularity at all - is a crucial sign of the well-being of the party in general. These election results suggest that they health of that party is damaged at the very least. But that's nothing compared to what happened North of the Border in Scotland.

There, the Labour party appear to have handed overall control of the Scottish parliament to the SNP on a silver platter. And this is Scotland, for fuck's sake, where the last Labour Prime Minister was born. If they can't win here, then they are going to struggle to make any headway whatsoever in far more hostile parts of the UK. Furthermore, what is particularly damaging to Miliband Minor is that he campaigned in Scotland, and he's been rewarded with a big fat "fuck you" from the Scottish voters.

He also campaigned for AV, and guess what happened there? Oh, the movement was defeated conclusively at the polls. Miliband Minor seems to have inherited that inverted Midas Touch of his former boss - everything he touches turns to shit. In fact, this t-shirt (via Guido) seems very harsh but also extremely apt:

With results like these, I'd be surprised if Ed Miliband is still leading the Labour party come the next election. In fact, his best bet to lead Labour into that election would be if the coalition collapsed right now. Of course, he could do something extraordinary to turn his fortunes around, but he gives no indications that he is willing to do so, or even that he feels he needs to do so. He's just waiting for the electoral pendulum to swing back to Labour and install him as PM. These results show that just isn't happening.

In fact, we could use this as a litmus test of how serious the Labour party is about winning the next election: they will show they are serious when they get a credible leader, capable of communicating and coming up with some sort of genuinely different, and popular, policies. In other words, when they get a leader other than Ed Miliband.

Yes to AV - Where Did It All Go So Wrong?

May as well jump on the bandwagon and spend a bit of time autopsying the Yes to AV campaign - because, and let's be clear on this, Yes to AV were pretty much humiliated at the polls.

They'll be some who argue that the problem was that AV is more difficult that FPTP to explain. Well, yes it is. But then again FPTP can be summed up in a short sentence. Yet AV isn't that much more difficult to explain. It isn't like trying to explain the Theory of Relativity, or Plato's Theory of Forms. Besides, the campaign had the best part of a year to explain it's preference to voters. Frankly, that should be enough time to explain that voting system.

And they'll be others who point out that the No to AV campaign had more money than the Yes campaign. Which is true, and certainly an advantage to No to AV. But Yes to AV could have made money for themselves had their campaign been a little better. They could have rivaled the spending power of No to AV had their campaign actually been good.

Which leads me nicely to the biggest problem Yes to AV had. Their campaign, with the best will in the world, was shit. It seemed entirely to consist of them trying to rebut claims made by their opponents. Which means, almost every time they spoke, they were not only on the defensive but also reinforcing everything the No camp threw at them almost by default. If you feel you have to answer a charge in a political campaign, you are saying that there is something credible within that charge. And I think the No camp clocked this, and made their claims more and more outrageous. Therefore, you ended up with headlines along the lines of "Yes to AV will help the BNP" closely followed by headlines like "Yes campaign reject BNP claims". Which creates the mental association of "Yes to AV" and the BNP. And it is no good carping that the BNP's Nick Griffin did not favour a yes result in the referendum - he's a slack-jawed, know-nothing moron anyway who wouldn't know something was good for him if it smacked him square in his jowly face.

And finally, the No to AV campaign really thought about who it had speaking on its behalf. You had David Cameron - the incumbent Prime Minister - on a stage with a Labour heavyweight and former Home Secretary supporting No to AV. Margaret Beckett - a former Labour Foreign Secretary - also argued against electoral reform. On the flipside, you had Ed Miliband and Vince Cable on the same stage - something that will only really appeal to self-identified progressives who would probably back AV anyway. And on the sidelines you had Chris Huhne chuntering away - surely counter-productive, as he seems to be a man that precisely no-one likes. And the whole keeping Nick Clegg at arm's length thing ended up being counter-productive as well, if only because it generated much press speculation about why Clegg was not spear-heading the campaign.

So in short the Yes campaign was always fighting with one arm tied behind its back - its mistake was to tie the other hand behind its back as well through utterly inept campaigning. There is much to learn from the Yes campaign for those who would reform the electoral system, and they've going to have a long time to learn it since, given the result announced yesterday, it is going to be a long time before electoral reform is on the agenda again.

Election Predictions

With the usual caveat about how dangerous it is to make predictions in politics, allow me to speculate on what might happen in the elections today.

Firstly, Labour should do reasonably well. Not because they deserve to, but simply because it is far easier for the opposition party to fare well in these sort of elections than the governing one. And also because, in the stale end to the Blair years and in the abysmal failure that was the Brown administration, Labour was damn near wiped out in many parts of the country at a council and regional level. It is far easier gain seats when you have previously lost so many, and far easier to end up with a victory that looks far better than it actually is since all you are doing is making up the ground you've lost.

The Liberal Democrats are, of course, going to get a drubbing at the polls. Again, they don't really deserve this - or, at least, their leaders don't. Their supporters - in particular those who cannot understand the need to be pragmatic and flexible in power for the sake of the country - perhaps do deserve it. But then again, it will be those ones who will be flooding into the Labour camp. Which is fine, as far as I am concerned. Stupid people flocking to the stupid party.

And the Conservatives? There'll be losses, and perhaps a partial retreat into their heartlands. But I'd be surprised if there was a wipeout. Mainly because many of their supporters have vivid, recent memories of just how appalling the last Labour government was.

And as for AV, I suspect the "no" camp will win. Mainly because their campaign was simple, overwhelmingly negative and very well-funded. It'll be a victory for them, but hardly the sort of victory that political legends are made off. They won by spending a fortune on slagging off their opponents. Well done you.

And how will I be voting? I won't. Not because I don't want to, but because Leeds City Council have effectively disenfranchised me. Nice work, Leeds. You're breaking new ground in the fiercely contested field of incompetence in local government.

On the Death of Osama bin Laden

So, Osama bin Laden is dead. Make no mistake about it, I don't mourn the passing of that vile, murderous fundamentalist. But equally, I don't see that there's too much to get over-excited about. And I certainly don't think that this news will will make the world safer. Let's look at why:

1. Al Qaeda has never been, and almost certainly never will be, an army in the conventional sense. Consequently, the death of its supposed leader will make little difference to what its myriad offshoots are doing at the moment. The most powerful illustration of how al Qaeda works I've come across is that it is like a venture capitalist firm; it offers funds to those operations it thinks will be most likely to succeed. Just as the demise of a leader of a venture capitalist firm doesn't end capitalist investment, so the death of the nominal leader of al Qaeda won't stop Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

2. Besides, was bin Laden really in control of al Qaeda when he died? I find it hard to believe that he was. Being the world's most wanted man is probably a full-time occupation, and it would make controlling and communicating with a disparate and loose network of people next to impossible. So bin Laden was little more than the figurehead of al Qaeda, and a poster boy for Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Killing him won't have stopped the fundamentalist terrorists already out there.

3. What it has done, though, is make him into a martyr. Much of what constitutes Islamic fundamentalist is a reactionary response to supposed American imperialism - cultural and otherwise. And what could be a better symbol of US imperialism that the gunning down of bin Laden? Of course, I know that the US wants to send a particular message to Islamic fundamentalist (fuck with us and we'll kill you) but I rather think those fundamentalists will have got a different message from this murder (and I use that term deliberately). That message is "the war's hotting up, and we don't want to be seen to be losing". I've read that across the world security measures are being tightened and threat levels raised. I'm not surprised. If there's one think Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are good at, then it's revenge.

4. And let's be clear: this wasn't justice; this was revenge. Justice is where you take a suspect captive, put them through a fair trial and then - if found guilty - they are punished (with the death penalty, if your country happens to have that draconian punishment and deems state-sanctioned murder appropriate in this particular case). Therefore, bin Laden's death wasn't justice. It was a summary execution. It was murder. And by all means say he deserved it, but make sure you get your terms right. Not justice; this was revenge, pure and simple.

Osama bin Laden's dead. Good riddance. But only the terminally naive would think that this actually makes the world safer. bin Laden's death is simply another moment in the ongoing revenge spiral between the US and fundamentalist Islam. The fundamentalists aren't going to give up now bin Laden's dead. In fact, if anything, they will become more determined and more resolute. This murder will simply lead to other murders.

As there has been an increase in the amount of spam hitting this blog and because I'm away for the next couple of days, comment moderation is in place. Rest assured, though, your comment will get through (as long as it adheres to my really rather open comments policy) on Tuesday/Wednesday, when I'm next at my computer screen for an extended period.

Mitt Romney - Republican Front-Runner?

You know, with regard to the Republican nomination for next year’s presidential election, I keep on hearing the name Mitt Romney being mentioned as the frontrunner. And for the life of me, I can’t work out why.

Part of the reason is that Mitt Romney is not an inspiring candidate. In fact, when I think of the name Mitt Romney, all I can think of is the man who strapped a dog to the roof of his car before setting off on a long journey. And that sort of thing doesn’t immediately make me think “oh, he’d be a good president”. Or a credible candidate for the presidency.

Of course, he’s far saner than some of the other potential candidates – and yes, I’m talking about Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee here. He might be dull, insipid and uninspiring (with a penchant for unintentional [?] animal cruelty, but at least he looks and sounds like a credible (if deeply boring) candidate for the presidency. Which maybe why, given his track record of failure when seeking the Republican nomination, he has become the frontrunner.

There’s a precedent for this, of course. A US political party faces the prospect of having to run a presidential campaign with someone far away from the centre ground. Therefore, they take action, and the establishment moves to embrace a much more mainstream candidate. It happened to the Democrats, for example, in 2004, when the more radical Howard Dean (who, for a long-time seemed destined to be the nominee) was replaced by the much more mainstream (and much more pedestrian) John Kerry.

Which is the point – if nominated, Mitt Romney will be the Republican’s answer to John Kerry. And we all know how John Kerry’s bid for the presidency ended…