Democracy Coma*

Now, I’m not the world’s biggest fan of democracy. I’m certainly not one of these people who fetishize it and argue that it should be an aggressive international export; sent by the West across the globe (by force if need be). But I am even less of a fan of our version of democracy. Because, for me, our democracy has ceased to be about politics. In fact, I’d argue that our democracy has become the absence of politics.

Don’t believe me? Well, when was the last time you had contact with your elected representative? For most people, the last engagement with those people and therefore with what we laughably call politics was at the polls either in the general or local elections. Putting your “x” in the preferred box (or, most likely, voting for your least hated option). And that’s it. That’s you done, politically speaking. If humans are, to paraphrase Aristotle, social and political animals, then we’re only about 50% human.

Of course, there is more that we could do politically if we wanted, but it is all largely pointless. Write to your MP – why? It isn’t going to change how they vote in the House – that tends to be based on what the Whips want – and unless you are one of the very few that they can proactively help then the chances are you will end up with a very polite fuck off letter. Write to a more senior politician and you’ll be lucky to get the brush off – most likely your epistle will be consigned to the file marked “b1n”.

Then again, we could be involved with a political party. But again that little question springs up – why? What does that achieve? Join one of the main political parties will involve substantial compromise for most, and will see you joining a party that, in vast swathes of policy and ideology, broadly agrees with its main opponents. And as for joining a smaller party – well, you may as well take your membership subscription and flush it down the toilet. Overall, you’d be better off joining some sort of pressure group. At least they tend to believe in something, and often have the tunnel vision to effectively pursue that belief.

So there we have it; democracy, or voting whenever you are given the chance, is the extent to which we get to engage with politics in this country. For the rest of the time, the vast majority of us are in a democracy coma, or a political stupor induced by being able to vote for people you don’t know and even if you did, you probably wouldn’t rate. In the meantime, that empty ritual of voting allows the self-perpetuating oligarchy in charge of this country to do pretty much what they want, to the occasional but utterly impotent howls of the people.

What’s the alternative? Well, we often hear that direct democracy is the way forward. Let’s have more referenda. Let’s get the people making legislation whenever they can. Which is all well and good, until you consider the cost of such exercises. And that nature of a referendum – the government decides a question, and you get to say yes or no to it. And then there’s that sinking feeling I get when I think about the sort of results we might get from referenda. I’d be pretty happy to have one on the EU right about now, because I’m reasonably sure I would agree with the outcome. But one of the death penalty? Thanks, but no thanks. Part of it is a lack of faith the in intelligence of the electorate (look at how many millions still voted for Gordon Brown in 2010, for example), but if I’m totally honest a lot of it boils down in my lack of faith that the electorate will always back what I believe in.

Besides politics could – and should – be about a lot more than assenting or otherwise to a closed question designed to rubber stamp (almost certainly uncontroversial) government policy. Therefore, to have a genuine return to politics in this country, politicians need to do less and the people more. There needs to be a fundamental redistribution of powers from the former to the latter. We need more localism, and less central government. And we need it urgently. We need disparate and different communities that reflect our diverse and fundamentally pluralist culture – not an attempt by central government to come up with policy designed to impress all 60 million people in this country that ends up impressing none. And we need the right of exit within those communities, so the successful ones are able to flourish and the less successful ones fade away without government intervention to favour or suppress any particular preference in terms of community.

Of course, the chances of this happening are next to none. Our political class won’t let it. They are like black holes when it comes to power – power is dragged towards them, almost like a law of physics, and power moving in the other direction looks like an impossibility. But we’re responsible for it too, you know. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be fobbed off with the chance to vote every few years for anonymous candidates representing largely indistinguishable parties. We should demand more. Because we certainly aren’t going to get to be active participants in the political process unless we do so.

*Also a song title by Manic Street Preachers. 

Ed Miliband: Loser

Far be it from me to call Ed Miliband a dweeb, but...:

Labour leader Ed Miliband has revealed he was a "bit square" as a youth, eschewing drugs and under-age drinking.

Rock 'n' roll Miliband Minor, then. Although one does wonder what he did with his youth:

In a GQ magazine interview with Piers Morgan, he said his greatest talent was being "good at the Rubik's Cube".

Now I can believe that Ed Miliband's greatest talent is fiddling with the Rubik's Cube, but that is mainly because he displays no other talents whatsoever. And I suppose I should insert a quip about Asperger Syndrome here, but it just seems too easy.

Asked if he had ever been in a fight, he said: "Well, I may have been hit a few times. I went to a tough school."

So what do you want? A fucking hug?

Of course, I shouldn't care about the fact that Ed Miliband is a total dweeb. In the same way that I shouldn't care about Gordon Brown crying on TV, or Nick Clegg claiming to be some sort of puffy faced Mr Lover Man. Indeed, William Hague's claim to drink massive amounts in his youth should also be irrelevant. But when these fuckers parade themselves in front of the public like shameless publicity whores then I'm forced to care. See, it isn't that Ed Miliband is a faintly autistic Rubik's Cube obsessive that bothers me. It is the fact that he is so devoid of ideological substance that he feels the need to reveal this irrelevant toss that really, really fucks me off.

Skinner *hearts* Miliband

Odious leftie fire-brand Dennis Skinner has decided to back centrist Blairite weasel David Miliband in "race" for Labour leader. His reasoning, if you can call is that, is as follows:

“The big question is who are the Tories afraid of? Who is the best candidate to stand up against Cameron at the dispatch box? Who has the best chance to beat Cameron in an election?”

“For me the best choice is David Miliband and that is why I will be supporting him as next Labour leader.”

Three things arise from this for me. Firstly, Labour is not focussed on reforming itself or working out why it lost last time. It has only one thing on its mind - future victory. And Miliband Major is the sort of candidate who reminds them of the halycon days electoral success under Blair. Of course, this logic is more than just flawed; it is downright stupid, since at the last election the voters not just rejected Brown, but also Blair and Nu Labour. By harking back to Blair, they are harking back to what has been (finally) rejected by the voters. They need to find something new, and Miliband - a continuity candidate for Nu Labour if ever there was one - certainly isn't new.

And I'm not sure whether Miliband Major is the one the Tories are afraid of most. I mean, he's always struck me as a total dweeb; the sort of chap Cameron (and possibly even Clegg) could make mincemeat of at the dispatch box. I will say this, though - if the Tories do fear Miliband the most, that doesn't mean that they are actually afraid of him. It could be that they just see him as the most credible opponent Labour have running as leader. Which, given the dearth of talent in the line-up, is a backhanded compliment at best.

Finally, if the likes of Skinner are supporting Miliband, who the hell is going to vote for Diane Abbott?

Skinner backs Miliband Major - further proof that the Labour party has utterly lost its way.

Voting Labour Is Moronic

I can sort of see why people would want to vote Tory, Liberal Democrat, UKIP, Green – hell, even the BNP. Personally, I would struggle to vote for any of those knobheads – especially the last in the list. But I sort of get it. Yet I really cannot understand why anyone would want to vote Labour.

Sure, I understand that some people will vote for Labour because they have always voted Labour. As far as I am concerned, voting for a party based on the same sort of allegiance that you might show to a failing football team is pretty dumb. But my thirty years of existence on this planet has shown that people are really dumb consistently.

But is the notion of voting Labour because you always have done actually any more stupid than some of the other reasons we are given for putting your cross in the Labour box at the next election? Let’s take a look at some of the typical reasons for voting for our terrible, incumbent government:

Labour saved the economy

No, they decimated it and then spent billions of dollars trying to provoke a recovery that was going to happen anyway. It is a bit like wanting God to be Prime Minister because he saved the economy – it is total nonsense.

Labour will save the fox-hunting ban

This may be true, but I’ve yet to be convinced that repealing the fox-hunting ban is going to be the first priority of any incoming Tory administration. But let’s get some perspective here – on the one hand, you have a Tory party who may revoke a ban on hunting with dogs. On the other, you have a Labour party responsible for the deaths of hundreds of British troops and the deaths of thousands of others through their unflinching backing of one of the most egregious US Presidents in history.

I find fox-hunting repugnant, but on balance I find war-mongering far, far worse.

Only the Labour Party can stop the Tories

This may be true, but my gut response is to wonder just what Labour supporters think the Tories are going to do. Because here’s the truth of recent political history in this country. Just as the success of the Tories in the 1980’s and early 1990’s broke the ideological spirit of the Labour party, so the unfathomable success of the grinning homunculus broke the ideological spirit of the Tories. The Tories and the Labour aren’t the same, but they are far from radically different either. You can tell by the way in which they slavishly follow each other, and relentlessly vie for the supposed centre ground of British politics. The Tories were going to follow Labour’s spending plans; now the opposite seems to be happening.

Put simply, so what if the Tories are going to have to cut spending? The Labour party are going to have to do exactly the same thing.

The Labour Party are the only alternative for left-wing voters

Well, ignoring the fact that the traditional left-right divide is about as relevant for modern times as Amstrad home computers and Chesney Hawkes, I’d also question the extent to which the Labour Party is actually left-wing, even in the traditional sense. The first point would be the Iraq War, but I’ve already touched on that. So let’s look at some of the other ways in which the Labour party has shown itself to be anything other than left-wing:

• The Banking Bail-Out: There is nothing left-wing or socialist about the government choosing to bail out failed banks. Nothing at all. Yeah, the Labour party is now trying to bash the bankers. Great, yeah. Very left-wing. Very fucking populist. And something that would be 200% more convincing if the Labour party hadn’t spent so much money on propping up their pet fucking banks. Why is the Labour party having to make spending cuts? Because it spent billions trying to nationalise the banking sector at the worst time possible. How very left-wing.

• The Ongoing Attack on Civil Liberties: Once upon a time, being left-wing was about trying to increase freedom. Now it is about trying to reduce freedom as much as possible. The Labour government has attempted to bring in ID cards, a longer period of detention without charge, and ignores the advice of experts when it comes to drug legislation. And that is quite literally the just the tip of the iceberg. There is nothing left-wing about that. Unless for you left-wing means Stalinist.

• The Poor: The Labour party talks a lot about social mobility, but in the final analysis they have done remarkably little to help the poor in this country. The reason is obvious – they get the votes of the poor anyway. Why would they pursue policies to help the poor when they know that if those people vote, they get those votes anyway? Don’t believe me? Look at the debacle over the 10p tax rate. How socialist to shaft the poor.

To recap, I think it is moronic to vote for a party because you always have voted for them. But I think voting Labour for any of those reasons mentioned above is equally moronic. In fact, I cannot think of one good reason to vote Labour. Voting Labour this year would be a dumb thing to do. So guess what?

Don’t do it.

Quote of the Day

"Yes, if it came to it! If you have to wade through all this shit to win the election, then I'm happy to lose it! Alright?"

Peter Mannion in The Thick of It

The Lawless Minority

Conference season is the prime time for politicians to say the right sort of thing that should please the voters without actually stating how they are going to achieve their typically lofty soundbites. El Gordo isn't going to disappoint us; his pronouncements on crime are near perfect examples of saying the right thing without giving any time whatsoever to the practical aspects of policy implementation. Let's take a look at a couple of examples:

"Whenever and wherever there is anti-social behaviour, we will be there to fight it."

Really? You will be there to fight it, Gordon? What, all of it? Every bit of anti-social behaviour? God, you're going to be travelling around the country a lot. And what precisely are you going to do when you confront these anti-social types, Gordon? Chin them?

"We will not stand by and see the lives of the lawful majority disrupted by the behaviour of the lawless minority.

"Because the decent, hard working majority are getting evermore angry - rightly so - with the minority who who will talk about their rights but never accept their responsibilities."

Yes, Gordon, we are sick of the lawless minority. In particular, the lawless minority in the Commons. They should be dealt with. They are making a lot of the decent majority in this country very angry. So sort them out, Gordon, and maybe people will start to support you. Except you won't, will you? Because you are one of the political minority pissing from a great height onto the people of this country. So all your words are largely meaningless, Gordon. So rather than spouting shite at the people in this country, maybe you could just drop dead. And fuck off whilst you're doing it.

Cameron, Brown, Obama; Peas In A Pod?

So both David Cameron and Gordon Brown have used the election of Barack Obama to try to boost their popularity. A truly desperate attempt on behalf of our leaders to get some of the reflected glory from Obama's triumph. But then again, what would you expect from two shameless publicity and popularity whores?

Besides, Obama has achieved something neither Cameron or Brown has achieved (and at least one of them is destined never to achieve) - Obama has won a national election. There are, of course, some other areas in which both Cameron and Brown aren't that similar to Barack Obama - as The Daily Mash nicely points out:

Meanwhile, a spokesman for the president-elect said: "Mr Cameron strikes us as the sort of person who would have owned Michelle's great-great grandparents. "

And as for Gordon Brown - we are nothing like him. Nothing. Like him. At all."

He added: "I want to hear you say it."

Satire, maybe; but those words are probably not a million miles from the truth - assuming that Barack Obama actually bothers to follow Prime Minister's Questions. Which, given what has happened to him over the past 24 hours, seems a little unlikely.

Barack Obama: A Politician For Our Times

Whilst he has my grudging support, I can’t claim that Barack Obama – despite the relentless, exhausting hype surrounding him – is an inspiring choice for US President. In fact, the only reason why he has my support is because he isn’t running with that self-styled pitbull in lipstick or, as I prefer to think of Sarah Palin, the fundamentalist in borrowed clothing. Barack Obama is the least worst option; and as such, he is very much the politician of our times.

Despite the media spotlight shining on him, Obama has still managed to fail to explain what he stands for. We’ve got a pretty good idea of what he doesn’t stand for – he isn’t like George W Bush, he isn’t like Hillary Clinton, he doesn’t like the Iraq War and he thinks that the current economic crisis is a bummer. However, there is precious little from that candidate on what he does stand for, other than the audacity of hope. Which sounds great, but when you really break it down, it is not unlike a Miss World candidate wishing for world peace. It is a great aspiration, but it would be nice to know how the ruddy fuck we get there.

Obama represents the new breed of politicians - he stands as perhaps the most shining (certainly the newest) example of the dubious line of publicity hungry politicos that includes Blair, Clinton and Cameron. Those politicians who don't rely on ideology or policy details to get them into power. Instead they focus on looking good for the cameras, and grinning in the right company. They remind me a little of used car salesmen - except they actually have nothing to offer, and even the best possible used car salesman needs a product to sell before they can fleece you for your money.

It is often said that politicians will do pretty much anything to get elected. Obama et al stand as a rebuke to this truism. Don't get me wrong, they'll do pretty much anything to get elected but they stop short of doing just two things. They won't tell you what they believe in, or what they plan to do when they actually get into power. That's the audacity of hope, see. You have to be audacious enough to hope that Obama will be good when he gets into power. All he is actually willing to commit to is being less awful than his opponent.