Miliband Minor; Not a "Socialist Intellectual"

To most people, Ed Miliband is a pompous, indignant potato wearing a bad wig. Not for Labour "thinker" Maurice "Halt Immigration" Glasman. According to that weapons grade bellend, the failing leader of the opposition is best described as follows:

He described the Labour leader, whose Marxist father was a university lecturer, as "socialist and an intellectual" with an "angry insurgent side".

The final description is perhaps the most laughable. Ed Miliband, a vacuous political lightweight, is not a "angry insurgent" in any way, shape of form. He is not the political equivalent of an IED. He is the political equivalent of a jobsworth promoted well beyond his actualy level of ability.

As for socialist - if he is a socialist, then he shouldn't be in the Labour party. That party became a caricature of itself a long time ago, and while it remains statist to its core, it lost its socialism when Michael Foot demonstrated that socialism was about as popular as mass dysentry in the 1983 election. A true socialist would join the Greens. Or maybe waste their time in the SWP. The Labour party is for naked political careerists who want to be seen as slightly more touchy- feely than the Tories. The Labour party remains a dangerous, statist organisation that should not be in power. But that does not make it socialist. Whether it was truly a socialist organisation is a debate for another day; here it is worth noting that a socialist in the Labour party is someone in entirely the wrong organisation.

And intellectual? Please. Modern politics is no place for a true intellectual. Just as it is no place for someone who genuinely has principles or a moral compass. In order to be a modern politician you need to switch off your brain and compromise both your principles and whatever morals you might have. That is why we end up with bland, empty political ciphers as our party leaders. Y'know, people like Clegg, Cameron and, well, Miliband Minor.

Since the moment he declared his candidacy for the Labour leadership, people have been trying to make out that Miliband Minor is some sort of return by the Labour party to its roots - that he is a new radical who is destined to bring about a brave, new socialist dawn for his party and then for his country. This plan is, of course, fatally flawed in one crucial way - it has Ed Miliband at its centre. A loathsome little individual who is so lacking in charisma and conviction that his own brother - a total dweeb in his own right - thought that the best thing for the party was to continue to fight against him. The likes of Glasman can make up whatever shit they want to about Miliband Minor; the fact of the matter is that the sooner they wake up and realise that Miliband Minor is a fucking disaster, the sooner they can actually get around to electing a credible leader. Not a socialist intellectual (nor should they want one, given how that socialist intellectual Foot did as leader), but a credible leader.

Conspiracy Theory Loons

Whenever we are faced with a mix of tragedy and terror, two things tend to happen. Firstly, the government of the nation concerned flexes its muscles and - by intention or otherwise - suppresses freedom in an attempt to make the land safer. Secondly, the conspiracy theorists flex their limited intellectual muscles, and see the atrocity as part of a wider government led conspiracy to control the citizens. To date, the former hasn't happened in Norway. But in relation to the events of Friday, the latter certainly has - as some of the comments on this Orphans of Liberty post so ably demonstrates.

See, it isn't enough that a man might have gone a bit mental and killed loads of people. No, that isn't ghastly and terrible enough. Instead, we need the spurious and completely farcical notion that the governments of the nations concerned have run lethal operations in order to inflict draconian policies on their people. So the conspiracy nuts won't see Breivik as working alone or with one of two accomplices in the manner of Timothy McVeigh. No, he's a cipher - part of a "false flag" operation run by the government and/or its associates.

Of course, this is utter horseshit with no real grasp of reality. I mean, most governments are incapable of lacing their own fucking shoes without a government leak and the accurate accusation of incompetence. Look at the Watergate scandal - a genuine attempt by a government to create a conspiracy around a pointless fucking burglary. And the conspiracy unravelled within months despite all the power of the imperial presidency leading Nixon - who had just won one of the most stupendous electoral victories in US history - to resign. If a government runs a conspiracy, it will probably be the worst conspiracy in the world.

Yet this sort of analysis is not good enough for a conspiracy theorist. And so JFK was murdered on the orders of LBJ, just as the US government destroyed the Twin Towers with help from a Jewish Cabal. The fact that no government would be capable of the sort of secrecy involved in this sort of conspiracy is irrelevant. Instead, the conspiracy loons see malign shadows that are, at best, tricks of the light for the terminally naive. They are adding 2 and 2 and getting not just 5, but 55.

But why does this matter? Why not let the loons babble their nonsense without passing comment on it? Well, the answer is twofold. When so-called friends of liberty start spouting this shite, it reflects badly on us all. We cannot credibly point out the draconian knee-jerk reactions by government to terror attacks when so many of our numbers are unconvincingly accusing the government of having commissioned that atrocity in the first place. It obliterates what little credibility we have.

And then there's the creation of paranoia in the minds of the loons. For the most part, this is harmless. But the Norway killer seems to have believed in one of the increasingly popular conspiracy theory bollocks - that of cultural Marxism. And that may well have motivated his carnage. Of course, it is more than possible that the motivator for the killing spree is irrelevant since Breivik would have found an excuse for his killing anyway. But the more people believe in this non-existent underworld of absolutely non-existent conspirators, the more they lose connection with reality and with that the ability to respond to reason. Everything feeds their paranoid theories; nothing can be disprove those theories. It makes trying to debate with them like trying to debate with a block of concrete - completely pointless.

As an advocate of free speech, of course, I don't want to suppress the loons, even if the bollocks they spout has all the connection with reality as an episode of the Teletubbies. But I will use my right to free speech to call them on the shite they vomit forth, and in the process hopefully elucidate an analysis of the threats to freedom that actually has a connection to the real world.

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.

AHRC Funding and the Big Society

There’s some fantastic academic screeching going on at The Guardian over a proposal that AHRC funding should be used to research the Big Society. Among all the enraged carping, my favourite quote from Tristram Hunt, a Labour MP and historian (apparently):

"It is disgraceful that taxpayers' money is being spent on this bogus idea."

Well, a Labour MP is probably well placed to talk about wasting taxpayers’ money. After all, his odious party spent the best part of 13 years doing so. But seriously, “bogus”? How’s Bill, Ted?

Anyway, as far as I can see, there are three big problems with the complaints about the info in The Guardian article. Firstly, funding has always gone to topical issues. You want to research Ethnic Conflict? You can probably find some funding. You want to write about allusions to masturbation in Wuthering Heights? Guess what? Funding’s going to be more difficult to find. You might not like it, but that’s the way of the world. And guess what else? The Big Society is topical; funding always will go to topical things before more *ahem* idiosyncratic projects. Trust me, I know this personally.

Besides, surely we’re missing the point of research if we assume the outcome of that research? You can carry out research on the Big Society and conclude that it is a Big Old Bag of Bollocks. See, if the AHRC wants to give me say, ooo, I don’t know, £13,000 a year to divert my research into the political philosophy around the Big Society, I’ll do it. But I reckon I’ll end up concluding that it has all been said already – and more eloquently, coherently and convincingly than anything to spill out of the mouth of David Cameron.

But I wouldn’t get that money, even if I was seriously applying for it. Because here’s the third, and most fundamental, problem with the story. It’s bollocks.

Paranormal Activity 2

I once lived in a haunted house. There would be a strange tapping at the window - the upstairs window. And the alarm would sometimes go off all by itself, despite not being set. Creepy, eh? Except, of course, until you take into account that the tapping noise was probably water dripping and the alarm going off was probably caused by the fact that (a) it was really old and (b) the electrics were probably corroded by the fact that the whole house was sodden with damp. Then, when you combine the fact that these events took place over the course of nearly three years, you get to the truth that this "haunting" was the world's dullest one. At least until you watch Paranormal Activity 2.

For the first hour of the film, nothing really happens. In fact, the first half hour of the movie is mainly taken up with the conundrum of how a pool cleaner can exit a pool by itself. Lacking a pool cleaner, a pool, and any real empathy with the main characters, this all comes across to me as really rather tedious. Fortunately the ghost/demon ups the ante. By turning on and off lights, opening and closing doors, and doing other really rather boring stuff. The biggest scare in the first hour or so is cupboard doors opening. No, really. It is like the demon was having an off day, and actually couldn't be bothered. Or he/she/it was saving its best to last. Whatever the plan, Paranormal Activity 2 feels a little misleading. Paranormal Inactivity would be a better title.

Even when things gear up for the big finale the film still fails to get interesting. In fact, it seems at pains to reenact scenes from the first film. Woman dragged along the floor - check. Person thrown at camera - check. Yes, it has a higher budget, but that doesn't really make it look any more realistic. And the moment when a character gets his neck snapped is unintentionally comical.

However, this sequel is determined not just to be boring - it also wishes to piss all over its far more effective predecessor. The reason for the demonic haunting is explained away using sub-Faustian bollocks. Memo to film-makers - arbitrary evil is far more unnerving than evil with a cliched explanation behind it. We don't need to know why this is happening; in fact, not knowing makes it scarier. But no. We get exposition. Or shit a teenager read on da interwebs. We also get a deeply convoluted attempt to tie this story in with the continuity of the first film, meaning the whole story feels curiously tacked on to a much simpler - and much better - original. Quite why we couldn't have another random haunting is beyond me. Instead, though, we end up with a paranormal soap opera. The "twist" is only really clever if you care a lot about these characters. Unfortunately, the film doesn't do anything to make me care about them. In fact, it makes me care even less about the characters in the original.

And then there is the framing device, or rather the crude attempts to explain why all this is being filmed. Yep, I get that it is about security. But that is rather undermined when the person who had the cameras installed refuses to check them when strange stuff happens.

But the biggest flaw is in the editing of the film. The first film was quite taut, moving from exposition to scares with a certain fluidity. Not so here. The editing is absolutely abysmal. Clearly, the filmmakers decided that reality is best reflected through showing normality. And then more normality. And then more normality. And then something weird happening. Or not, as the case might be. Unfortunately, that isn't interesting. In fact, it is so boring that it breeds resentment. That scene when the guy gets his neck snapped? I'd spent so long watching the cunt lounging on a sofa prior to him buying it that I frankly wanted the dopey sod to die. Which I'm guessing was not what was intended.

So we have another tedious horror movie. Why get so worked up about this one? Because the first one - despite its flaws - was actually curiously effective. This one, however, not only killed the fledgling franchise for me, but also robbed that first film of much of what made it effective. Not so much a missed opportunity but a spectacular own goal.

Paranormal Activity 2 - don't bother.

True Blood

See, the truth is that vampires are a bit shit. No, really, they are. They are the sort of horror adversaries that are favoured by feckless, emo kids. Whereas a zombie will bite your face off and a werewolf will undergo a radical change then bite your face off, a vampire will look ashen-faced, forlorn and them bite you as some sort of inadequate substitute for good, old fashioned humping.

And this goes right back to Dracula - the one of the first and the most famous of vampire stories. For much of the novel, the "action" centres on forlorn Victorian types chasitely lusting after each other, with Dracula in the background adhering to the cliche of the rapey foreigner. It is telling that the most effective episodes in the novel - the voyage of the Demeter and the Bloofer Lady - both contain nothing of the main human characters of the novel and only oblique references to Dracula. Compare Dracula to Frankenstein - the latter has a compelling, demented and terrifying monster. Dracula sadly lacks that, and ends up being a collection of letters pertaining to a crappy antagonist.

This, I believe, is why the more successful vampire stories make it clear that their bloodsuckers are proper monsters. Take Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot - to my mind, the most successful vampire tale of all time. The vampires are set up to be utterly inhuman - or, to quote the text, "unspeakable" - long before they properly turn up in the story through the murder of the child. And Let The Right One In has a vampire who is a predatory, manipulative sociopath whose gender is unknown (at least in the film version), but used to manipulate those it wishes to work with. It is a being of such power that it can make one of it's servants drink acid - and is preying on a teenage boy. These are real monsters, and they are a long way from Dracula.

Of course, the vampires in True Blood are neither the gothic Dracula, nor the plague-esque monsters that came to 'Salem's Lot, or the emos of the Twilight series. They aren't that interesting. In fact, they are just pretty shit. They are crudely drawn "alternative" types, with nothing genuinely interesting or unique about them. The vampire "hero" looks like an aging, Boy Band reject whose main reason for winning this starring role seems to be his constant ability to look meaningful and moody in the general direction of the camera. And he's the best of them - the best of a very bad (as in crap, rather than evil) bunch.

But then again, that's fair enough, given the human characters (or at least the humans and the human/dog shapeshifty thing) are beyond bland too. They drink, they take drugs, they fuck, they argue - all without ever being interesting. They never really come across as real - which is a bit of a problem, given the basic series needs something to ground it in reality. Actually, scratch that. They need someone to make it interesting. Which, sadly, neither the humans nor the vampires can do.

The scripts don't help, though. Long and poorly paced, the early episodes of season one feel like weak eighties Doctor Who - elongated padding before someone central gets into trouble. But even as the plot progresses and we learn more about the killings, it still fails to take off. It takes a truly special (and not in the good way) series to make serial killing boring; True Blood is that series.

I have no idea why this programme is so highly acclaimed. While watching it, I turned to my wife and said "I wrote this. When I was thirteen". It got the biggest laugh - and was also the most interesting moment - of that series. True Blood? True bollocks, more like.

Big Society, Big Government

Cameron's been defending his Big Society programme in The Guardian (of all places). It is, much like its author, anodyne and pretty bland. The only people it could truly work up are those who believe, like some sort of tedious cultists, that cuts are bad. To everyone else, it is a bland repetition of a case that already isn't convincing anyone.

For me, though, it is all about looking for those telling little signs that Cameron isn't actually all about smaller government. And you have to sift through pretty much the whole article to get to the crucial point. But, just so you don't have to, here it is:

But we understand that while the opportunity lies in the future the local authority cuts are happening now. So this week we are launching a transition fund to help charities prepare to bid for these contracts and a big society bank to provide some working capital when they're awarded them.

Or, to translate from Cameronspeak, the government will still fund various organisations, and make those organisations vie for funds. The difference between what has been happening and what will happen under the Big Society is a little lost on me: the government still takes money from its people and redistributes it to organisations of which it approves. Which is not so much Big Society as Big Government.

Which is the big problem; this isn't about reducing government control over society, it is about redefining government control. Paternalism rather than centralisation seems to be the order of the day. Which is fine if you are a paternalist; any true liberal, though, should be feel pretty despairing when faced with the Cameron vision of a Big Society.

I don't doubt some will latch onto the word "transition" in quote above, and argue that this is all a stepping stone to a genuine redistribution of power between government and society. They may yet be shown to be right, but at the moment that requires a leap of faith that I just can't make. The Big Society is still an exercise in central government control - plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

A Suggested Housemate for Celebrity Big Brother

For reasons that could best be classified as classic work avoidance, I caught the opening episode of Celebrity Big Brother on da interwebs yesterday. And, by God, what a bunch to total non-entities they picked! If your most famous people are one of the also-ran Baldwin brothers, a Hollywood madam, a talentless bit part player from a Guy Ritchie movie and Dane fucking Bowers, then your programme has absolutely no right whatsoever to use the word celebrity. It is an insult to any genuine celebrities out there. I mean, for fuck's sake, they've got a woman on there who is famous only for fucking a Rolling Stone. At this rate, Iain Dale will end up popping up as a special, last-minute addition. No, scratch that, he's too famous. Maybe Dizzy would be a better choice.

And the introduction episode was just that - Davina McCall (who, amazingly, still has a job despite having less charisma than the nail on the big toe of my left foot) introduced these celebrities. Since most people don't know and don't care who "Sov" is.

Still, I've got an idea to make this show more fun. I think, in order to shake things up a bit, they should get the Ood on there. In character and all. Seriously, as well as looking a bit freaky with the fronds and the egghead, the Ood are also eminently quotable. They could introduce themselves with the words:

Some may call him Abaddon. Some may call him Krop Tor. Some may call him Satan. Or Lucifer. Or the King of Despair. The Deathless Prince. The Bringer of Night. And these are the words that shall set him free.

Oh, and when there's an argument, this would be a handy phrase:

The Beast and his armies will rise from the pit to make war against God.

And, finally, when someone leaves the Big Brother house, they could say:

This song is ending, but the story never ends.

I reckon this is a brilliant idea, and that the Ood might even be able to win Celebrity Big Brother. And even if you reckon that having a fictional alien from a TV show is a bad idea, let me ask you this - would having the Ood on Celebrity Big Brother actually make it any worse?

Despite Labour's best efforts, Hannan Still Fails to Embarrass Cameron...

Reading about the latest "scandal" to hit the media about one Daniel Hannan, MEP, I have been wondering about the state of the left in this country a lot. It now seems that much of the left-wing seem to think that political figures can only be supported if they are utterly beyond reproach. Thusly no-one should back Enoch Powell because of his (admittedly extremely crass) views on immigration. Which is fine until, as the angry baby man suggests, you look at some of the heros of the left. You can berate Hannan as much as you like for his views on Powell. But if you see Castro as a hero and have a Che t-shirt in your closet, then you are wide open to the dual charges of being a hypocrite and a moron. After all, the actions of one Fidel Castro have done far more to destroy lives than the words of Enoch Powell. There we have it - the state of the left in Britain today. So lost in their own desperate rhetoric that they fail to see when they leave themselves wide open to the charge of hypocrisy.

However what is really interesting about this "story" is the timing of it. As Guido points out, this interview happened about a month ago. It has only been pushed to the top of the agenda after Hannan created controversy with his opinions on the NHS. It is almost as if the Labour party are now hunting for any sort of controversial comments from Hannan to highlight to the national media. Which does beg the question: "Don't the Labour party have anything better to do than to constantly highlight the comments of one Tory MEP who is on the fringes of his own party?"

The answer is clearly "no". Despite being in control of the whole country, the actions of the Labour party shows that they don't seem to have anything better to do that trawl the web for the wit and wisdom of Daniel Hannan. I can sort of see why. After all, it can be an effective way of slamming your political opponents. It is the Obama strategy towards Sarah Palin - the Obama campaign didn't have to attack John McCain. Instead, they could point to the comments and actions of his ludicrous Vice-Presidential pick, and use her as a weapon to bash him. Labour want to do the same with Cameron. Nothing is sticking to young Hug A Husky at the moment, so instead they seek a member of his party with non-mainstream views and try to use his comments to attack Young David. It worked for Obama; ergo, it should work for Brown and his Labour drones.

Except there is a key flaw with this strategy. Put simply, Hannan is no Sarah Palin. In three crucial ways.

Firstly, Hannan is an eloquent, intelligent man who can defend his own views, comments and actions. Palin - for whatever the reason - never seemed able to do that. Cameron doesn't have to defend Hannan because Hannan defends himself. Whereas during the last Presidential campaign McCain had to defend Palin time and time again, because she just didn't seem able to do it herself. Also, it is worth noting that Palin consistently managed to put her foot in her mouth. The Labour party is now having to go hunting for potentially embarrassing Hannan comments. Palin was the gift than just kept on giving for the Democrats. Not so young Mr Hannan for the Labour party.

The final flaw with the idea that Hannan can become some sort of Palin-esque albatross for Cameron is Hannan's position within the Tory party. He is an MEP on the fringes of the Conservative party. Cameron can very easily hold Hannan at arm's length, and dismiss any controversial Hannan comments as those of a fringe party member. McCain could have done the same thing with regard to Palin... if he hadn't made her his Vice-Presidential choice. You're only really going to be able to embarrass Cameron with a character close to his inner circle. And Hannan isn't anywhere near the dizzy heights of the Tory hierarchy occupied by Young David. It would be like trying to embarrass Tony Blair in 1997 with the comments of Tony Benn. Blair would have shrugged his shoulders and said "nothing to do with me, guv." Just as Cameron did with Hannan's comments on the NHS.

Maybe the Labour party can find someone to use to consistently embarrass Cameron. Unfortunately for them, they are flogging a dead horse with Hannan. He isn't the one.

Bye Bye Big Brother

Big Brother is set to end. I have to say I am surprised. I didn't realise it was still on.

I can't imagine that there will be many who mourn the passing of a programme that became increasingly outrageous and increasingly desperate. And as a result, became utterly irrelevant Ultimately, what is the legacy of Big Brother? That would be elevating Jade Goody to stardom, then relegating her back to the status of hate figure after her appearance on the Celebrity edition of the show.

Ultimately, Big Brother destroyed itself. Instead of maintaining its initial format of seeing how normal people respond to being under surveillance 24 hours a day, it decided to become a tabloid pleasing "persecute the freak" show. Which was fine, until the rest of the TV world caught up with it. Now there is no shortage of "persecute the freak" style shows. Britain's Got Talent, The Apprentice, Wife Swap - nowadays, there's no shortage of ways for the voyeuristic British viewer to get their fix of human detritus on the small screen.

Bye bye Big Brother. The reason why you're going is because you won't be missed.

Ming Campbell, PI

Presumably because all the real politicians are busy doing whatever the hell they do to kill time before they retire/lose an election, there's an interesting choice to head up the investigation into the Damian Green fiasco:

Sir Menzies Campbell is to chair an inquiry into the police raid on the Commons office of Tory MP Damian Green.

The former Lib Dem leader will review how the Commons authorities deal with search requests from the police.

So, the least charismatic politician since Michael Foot - a man so wet he couldn't even lead the wettest party in British Politics - is now heading up an investigation into the police. Unless he suddenly grows a spine, I think it is pretty safe to say that this won't be the most demanding or rigorous of investigations. Even with the likes of Howard and Blunkett - both mentalist ex-Home Secretaries - won't be able to compensate for the stuttering old man in charge of the inquiry. 

Governments can, of course, cripple these sort of investigations through a process of slow attrition. Clearly the government can't be bothered to do that in this case. Instead, they've hobbled this inquiry from the outset by putting a man who is just not up to the job in charge. As far as I can see, Ming the Merciful in charge is just one step away from not bothering in the first place. 

Gordon's Vision for Britain

I can't help but think that Gordon Brown's plan to set out his vision for Britain is (far) too little (far) too late. After all, didn't he decide not to call an election just after he became PM because he wanted to spell out his vision for Britain? Plus - unless his plans are completely free of cost (like smiling at puppies or something) - he doesn't have the money to do anything. Now, with less than a year until he loses power at the next election and nothing but dust in the coffers, he has just as much chance of implementing any vision for Britain as Michael Jackson does of performing at the O2.

Still, this is apparently the laying out of a Labour manifesto for the next election - which will hopefully happen sooner rather than later. Because if Gordon really does care about the future of this country, then he will show it by giving us a chance to vote him out of power. 

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.

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...

Nicholas Cage

There’s a new film coming out. You can take a look at it here. And I know, just from looking at the details of the film, that it will be shit. I’ve not seen the film, I’ve not seen the trailer, I’ve not even seen a poster. Yet I know it will be a big old bag of crap. How? Well, you just have to look at who is starring in the film.

Nicolas Cage.

Cage is the Harriet Harman of the movie world – someone who has climbed to the top for no other reason than naked, garish self-belief and continual, unjustifiable self-promotion. It certainly isn’t anything to with talent, since Cage is cinematic bromide. He can make the most promising of movies instantly flat and unappealing. No, the only reason why Nicholas Cage is allowed to headline major pictures if because Cage himself thinks he should be headlining major movies.

Cage looks ridiculous, with his receding hairline, his strange mouth and odd eyes. And his desire to act like he is 20 years younger than he actually is. He doesn’t look like a leading man; yet he still manages to get himself treated by some as some sort of heartthrob. Fuck knows why; if you took a couple of inches off his height, doubled them and then planted those inches around his waste, he would look similar to Danny DeVito.

And – in what must he a fundamental problem for anyone in his profession – the fucker can’t act. Really, he can’t. All he can play is himself. He plays Nicholas Cage. Nicholas Cage trying (and, generally, failing) to be cool. In every role, regardless of what he is supposed to be playing, he acts in exactly the same way. Hell, even if Nicolas Cage was playing Nicholas Cage in a film about Nicholas Cage’s life, he still wouldn’t be convincing. He just can’t act.

Look at some of the OK films he’s been in - 8mm was undermined by Cage’s attempts to look haunted and dramatic. Rather than coming across as a family man facing a world he doesn’t understand and that frightens him, Cage came across as a retarded puppy dog having a sulk. Likewise, his idiosyncratically awful performance in Wild at Heart showed that the quirky, surreal world of David Lynch can be rendered irritating and silly if you have an awful central performance. Honest to God, in that film, Cage didn’t need a female lead. It really wouldn’t have made much of a difference had he been shown tossing himself off repeatedly over how gorgeous and irresistible he believes himself to be.

Now, he’s stopped even being in vaguely good films. Instead, he starts in the movie world’s answer to rancid eggs. Ghost Rider anyone? You probably didn’t see it, unless you have a great desire to watch terrible fucking superhero movies. The remake of The Wicker Man? Watch the original. Because the remake is awful in every single way. It isn’t just a slur on the original; it is a slur on everyone who has ever made a film that is worth watching. It is a bitch slap to actors and directors with any talent whatsoever. It is an awful, awful movie that makes you wish film had never been invented.

Of course, this rambling rant will have no affect on the inexplicable popularity of Mr Cage. He’ll still get millions of dollars for starring in films, and some people will – for reasons that defy understanding – go and watch those pictures. For me, Nicholas Cage joins that roster of *stars* that includes Mackenzie Crook, Adam Sandler, Lindsey Lohan and (increasingly and sadly) John Hurt – stars whose name in the cast list means the film is going to be just plain bad.

Gordon Brown: Talking utter shite.

Gordon Brown's latest... well, pronouncements is probably the best word:

"This is the first financial crisis of the global age. And there is no clear map that has been set out from past experience to deal with it."

We've had financial crises before now, Gordon. This isn't the first recession. In fact, you should know this, Gordon, as you claimed to have abolished boom and bust. And in the past recessions, there has been a global economy. There are maps and blue prints out there, Gordon, in the history books - both examples of what to do and what not to do.

"I'm reminded of the story of Titian, who's the great painter, who reached the age of 90, finished the last of his nearly 100 brilliant paintings, and he said at the end of it, 'I'm finally beginning to learn how to paint', and that is where we are."

What, fucking painting? Is this this shittest analogy of all time? What the fuck does this have to do with the global economy? Is Gordon going to paint his way out of recession? Because, whilst that is a bollocks idea, at least it would be cheaper than his constant bank bailouts. But Titian's false modesty has very little to do with the arrogant ignorance of our total cuntwad of a Prime Minister. 

"We're learning all the time about how to deal with what are real problems for which we have no historical analogies to fall back on, because when the 1930s problems hit them, they did not have the global financial markets that we have today."

Extraordinary - again, Gordon, there have been recessions before. The 1930's do not represent the sole economic problems ever experienced by the world, ever. And there were global financial markets before now; which is how, in 1929, the problems of Wall Street managed to bring down the economy of the whole fucking world.

He said a "laissez faire" attitude was not permissible...

Why not, Gordon? By your own admission, you haven't got the first fucking clue what is going on, and you are learning all the time. Perhaps what you are about to learn is that there is nothing wrong with a laissez faire attitude. Because your interventionist attitude has achieved nothing other than the waste of billions of pounds and the achievement of the square root of bugger all.

...and added that "there is implicit protectionism I'm afraid in what is happening at the moment".

Like standing by your call for British jobs for British people, Gordon? Or have you forgotten that you said that, because it passed from your cracked, grey lips more than five minutes ago?

Fuck me, it is bad enough being in a recession. It is even worse to hear the unelected Prime Minister talking such abject nonsense. It isn't even self-serving crap any more. It is simply ill thought out, staggeringly ignorant nonsense that shows that Brown has no concept of what is actually happening in the real world, and no real concept of what life is like outside of his narrow, mental bunker. The policies of Gordon Brown have nothing to do with the policies required by the national or international economies. Gordon Brown would be better off being the Prime Minister of Narnia; at least by living in a fantasy world he would only be damaging himself, rather than every other poor fucker in this country. 

BB

Does anyone still watch this?

Ok, I'm biased - the only reason why I have a TV is to watch Doctor Who and its related spin-offs. But I can't believe that anyone can still get excited by Big Brother - Celebrity edition or otherwise.

To me, Big Brother is like the Woolworths of TV - something that is past its prime, and is waiting for the inevitable axe to fall. So I can't see why it doesn't just happen, and we can all be put out of our misery. After all, the sooner C4 gets rid of Big Brother, the sooner it can resurrect it amongst a storm of publicity in a few years from now. 

Watching Big Brother makes even less sense to me than watch the godawful soaps that clog up the airways. At least in a soap opera, stuff happens. Ok, deeply unrealistic and largely laughable stuff, but there are events. Whereas in Big Brother you just have tedious, unlikable people sitting around behaving like weapons grade dickheads. 

I suppose it is too much to hope that the events of Dead Set will overtake this year's Celebrity Big Brother, but zombies tearing through the assorted has-beens and general publicity whores heading into the house would actually be worth watching...

Monkey: Journey to the West

Theatre/musicals/operas are odd beasts, and generally speaking I try to avoid them like a particularly virulent form of plague. They tend to be performed by drama school dropouts and also-rans; the sort of people who cannot act and cannot sing and are on the stage solely because of their heightened but utterly misplaced belief in their own talent.

That is not to say you will never find anything worth seeing that fall into one of the above categories. And so, when I head about Monkey: Journey to the West; a mix of music, drama, myth, martial arts and animation, I was intrigued. In fact I was so intrigued that by the time I walked into the theatre I was almost excited.

Actually, it is a bit of a lie when I say I walked into a theatre. It was little more than a tent, crudely constructed in the grounds of the O2*. Not only did it look like like a budget version of a tent a rock festival, it seemed to struggle against the elements of the November weather. As the wind picked up, the tent walls were buffeted and the entire structure looked immensely precarious. The whole thing started to remind me of an Irwin Allen disaster movie. And the sad truth is that a catastrophic tent collapse would not have been top the detriment of the show; in fact it would have made the whole shamelessly shite farrago a little bit more interesting.

It is difficult to describe all that was wrong with the show. Mainly because there was so little that was actually right with it. Even the moments that were dangerously close to being interesting were undermined by another element of the performance. All the great acrobatics and martial arts were completed destroyed by the moronic elements to the show. Like the crotch-scratching Monkey and the tone-deaf Pigsy.

The music was puerile, childish and silly. It was a cliched version of what Chinese music should be - if you have got your understanding of Chinese music from terrible, second rate Western cartoons. The lyrics, in keeping with the source material, were in Chinese - and the subtitles were projected onto the canvass on either side of the stage. Creating a problem whereby if you wanted to understand what people were singing, then you had to look away from the stage. And the subtitles were also just crude PowerPoint presentations - something that became very clear when their computer had a moment and the character on stage suddenly started to sing (according to the subtitles) "Click to add title." Mind you, given the calibre of the rest of the lyrics, that might be what they were singing. The lyrics were the very definition of trite and shite. Seriously, they were stomach-churning and facile. They made the average Girls Aloud song sound like Joy Division.

And the characters were dreadful - if you can actually call them characters. They had all the depth of a half-empty paddling pool. Take the lead (and best developed) character - Monkey. In the old TV show, the nature of Monkey was irrepressible. In this show, the nature of Monkey was intensely irritating. The performer playing Monkey seemed to assume that everyone would find his character charming; the reality is that his character was less Monkey and more Ratboy. His constant scratching of his crotch, for example, was less showing a carefree and irrepressible character and instead came across as a character with a bad STD.

Finally, the animation was just crap. It looked, stylistically, like an episode of ThunderCats. And the detail of the drawings would only really be acceptable if it had been done by someone in a nursery. For blind children. With no arms. Seriously, if you took that sort of animation to, say, Walt Disney, he would have not just thrown you out of his office, but also have cut your face for good measure. It really was that bad.

The whole show came across as being created by media darlings with grossly inflated egos effectively masturbating in public over how great they think they are. I'd imagine that the creative "geniuses" behind this sorry shower of shite were surrounded by yes men telling them how great this patronising pile of crap was. Whereas what they need was someone to call them dickheads and tell them to shut the fuck up.

Throughout the whole thing I was thinking of Nathan Barley. That is what is felt like - two twats who managed to convince themselves that they have far more talent than they actually have. In retrospect, it is a lot to expect a second-rate artist and the author of a couple of half-decent 3 minute pop songs to come up with a spectacular operatic version of a myth. It is also astoundingly arrogant of them to think that they could actually achieve such a spectacular. And Monkey: Journey to the West stands as a stunning rebuke to that astounding arrogance. They tired to create an opera from a classic piece of writing. And, boy, did they fail.

*I'd never been to the O2 before. Now I have, let me say this about it; it is an execrable abortion of a structure - a testament to just how shoddy, unimaginative and limited human beings can be sometimes. And in all honesty, it is the perfect testament to the Labour government that built it.

Olympics: How Much?

I'm not a sporty person. Sport is something that happens to other people as far as I am concerned. I'm happy for others to play sports, I'm happy for others to enjoy sports. Just so long as they don't involve me.

When it comes to the Olympics, I just don't care really. It is my understanding that the Olympics will happen this year. Fuck-A-Doodle-Do. It will have zero impact on me, other than occasional disruption to the TV schedules. Again, I'm happy for those who will enjoy the Olympics. Means nothing to me.

What does matter to me is the 2012 Olympics; because they are happening in the country (and, indeed, the city) I live in. During the Olympics, I expect the city to grind to a shuddering halt. I don't think the city has the capacity to cope with the Olympics. Still, that's not my gripe, because London always looks like it is going to collapse under the weight of those people living in the city. The archaic, unpleasant transport system just cannot cope. It is fact of life in London - we don't need the Olympics to further make the point.

What really fucks me off about the Olympics is the cost. The Olympics is a national vanity exercise. It is the host country showing off, like a spoilt little shit of a kid at a school play. It is an ego-boost for the government that wins the election, so the cost is simply about giving the already massive ego of Tony Blair a bit of a boost. And what a massive fuck off cost it is!

£9.3 billion. The figure is astronomical. A vast amount. A massive sum of money that is being pissed against the wall for no real reason. I despair of it. I really fucking do. Why does the government have to pay for this? I know all the arguments about the Olympics bringing investment into the country; but if this is the case, why can't that investment pay for the fucking games in the first place? Why does it have to be the poor bastard inhabitants of the host country who pays for this glorified school sports day of an event?

If you are happy to contribute to this £9.3 billion through your taxes, good luck to you. But I know I can't be alone in thinking that this fuck off wodge of taxpayer's money being spent on the Olympics might be better spent by the government elsewhere. Or, as crazy as it sounds, not spending that money at all.

MP Expenses: Virulent, Life Draining Parasites

Parasites can be harmless, you know. There are some that get what they want without really damaging the hosts. However, there are other parasites that keep on draining the host, until that host is broken, despairing, and unable to contemplate life without that parasite, no matter how massive the impact of the parasite is on the host.

Our MPs are parasites. Which of the two categories do you think they fit into?

If you haven’t gone for the latter option without giving it a second thought, then read this:

MPs could seek to avoid future expenses criticism by awarding themselves an automatic lump sum of £23,000 a year for second homes, a newspaper says.

I’d imagine that such a move would prevent them from receiving criticism for expenses. However, should such an idea become policy, it should led to the electorate as a whole screaming “thieving cunts” at MPs rather than criticising their expenses.

Still, the proponents of the plan have another reason for this plan:

The move would avoid the need for MPs to submit claims backed by receipts.

Uh-huh. Because we really don’t want them to need to submit receipts. They can be trusted, can’t they? I mean, in no way have they ripped the living piss out of the expense system even when they have the requirements to submit receipts, have they?

But they’ve set the precedent, now, with this plan, so I’m going to go to my boss and ask her for her feedback on me claiming £23k without offering any receipts. I fully expect her to tell me to fuck right off. Which is fine, because when the MPs come to me at the next election with these proposals/this policy, I will tell them to fuck off. Using my vote.

And I suggest everyone else does the same to these parasitic arseholes who are so determined to drain the taxpayer's money.