Gnus of the World

Just popped back in to fetch something

2007-09-28T14:32:00.000+01:00

This needs to be known about; although everyone in the blogosphere who needs to know about it probably already does.

Just wanted to add my name to the list of supporters of free speech.

Goodbye... for now

2006-09-11T10:32:00.000+01:00

"There's a world of deluded weirdoes out there in cyberspace, endlessly posting as if what they think matters two fucks to the rest of the world." (The Friday Thing)

And I'm one of them - or, at least, I have been. The more observant among you (ie the half-dozen people who actually read this blog) will have noticed that blogging action on my part has been, shall we say, light recently. No, shall we say completely non-existent, which is far more accurate?

Here's how it is. My career in the frightening arena we bloggers sneeringly refer to as Real Life has taken off to the extent where I am busy three weeks out of four. Proper busy - eight hours a day busy. Aha, you cry, not too busy to blog, then? Eight hours' kip a night and you'll still have eight hours for blogging! Well, yes, but I do have a two-year-old and a partner who's quite interested in remembering what I look like.

But there's more to it than that. Look at some of the blogs on the left (esp. in the must-read section) and you'll see some really high quality journalism there. Justin of Chicken Yoghurt would put most writers of any description to shame with his punchy, witty but thoughtful (and incredibly quick) responses to current events. The same goes for most of the rest of them. I've tried to compete, but the amount of time and effort needed to make a worthwhile contribution is beyond my resources. It's not that I'm not capable of writing as well as them - it's just that the amount of work and hours I would need to put into it is more than I feel I can spare. There's no point in wasting everyone's time producing a second- or third-division blog when the first-division people are doing so well and really saying everything I want to say, only doing it better.

To cap it all, I'm getting so disillusioned with everything I want to write about. Blair's government is beyond satire and there's little point in writing critical posts about how awful they all are when the only people who want to listen are, really, other bloggers. I've tried to preach to the unconverted on the messageboards I frequent and all I get in response is a lot of shoulder-shrugging. People either feel there's nothing they can do, or they believe Cameron offers a viable alternative (boy, are they in for a shock). There's little sense arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, when the rest of the world can't even see the pin and is more interested in who's the next one to be kicked out of/invited back into the BB House.

So I'm letting this blog go on ice for the time being. I may be back - I think it's almost certain. I've managed to keep this blog going for over a year, which is some kind of achievement in itself. But if you want tip-top political comment, or just want to read about what an awful journalist Lucy Mangan is, you'll have to find it elsewhere. Start on the left.

Didn't I tell you?

2006-08-16T10:41:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

If he can do it, so can Mr Beardy Terrorist.

Mind you, I'm looking forward to the thought that the Blairs might be strip-searched and interrogated when they fly back from Barbados...

The (hopeless) state we're in

2006-08-15T15:07:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

I haven't blogged properly for ages, which is unforgiveable especially considering the news over the last week or so.

It's not that I don't have an opinion about the recent terror scare. I was booked on a flight from Glasgow to Gatwick the morning all the fun started. Already worried that I was way over the baggage allowance, I wasn't looking forward to turning up at the airport with a big metal case containing a video camera, plus a three-foot long shoulder-slung tripod case, plus my overnight bag and trying to persuade the check-in attendant to let me take them all on board whilst at the same time persuading him/her that there was nothing sinister about my intentions. My colleague with whom I was travelling, on learning of the security situation, announced that she was too scared to fly home. My attitude in such circumstances is that lightning is unlikely to strike twice, and Glasgow-Gatwick is probably one of the lower-risk flights (compared, say, to Heathrow-JFK). But her fear prevailed over my bravura and, coupled with the check-in issue, I was persuaded to undertake a (surprisingly pleasant) Virgin train journey back south.

When I woke up that morning and heard the news, my immediate reaction (like NoseMonkey) was "oh, come on". If planes had been blown out of the sky, if Canary Wharf or wherever had come tumbling into dust, if there had been running gun battles at Stansted, I might have been convinced immediately. But the sudden news that a 'plot' had been 'revealed' and that the stable door was rapidly being shut across airports all round the country (even those airports where no horse had been sighted) made me instantly suspicious that this was yet another eye-catching government initiative to rouse us sleepy British citizens from our complacency and drive us into wide-eyed, Labour-voting screaming terror.

If this seems uncharitable, let's remember how many times this government has cried wolf. The terrorist shot on the underground turns out to be not a terrorist at all. The government and police spend a few days assassinating his character (he was an illegal immigrant, he jumped the barrier when challenged, er... well, you just had to look at him, he must have been up to something) before revealing that there was nothing to be concerned about at all, except the death of an innocent man at the hand of over-zealous law enforcers (remember that phrase 'over-zealous', we'll be coming back to it). Then a raid on houses in Forest Gate results in dangerous terrorists being put out of action - or not, just an unfortunate man being shot in the leg (was it?) because he was committing the heinous act of living in his own home and being in possession of a Muslim-sounding name. And I haven't mentioned the 'ricin plot' which got a jolly good going-over in the media before it was quietly revealed that there was no ricin, no possibility of ricin, and nothing at all to get worried about. But the World Cup had probably begun by that point, so people had stopped noticing.

As for 'over-zealous', let's go back to those stable doors. The list of forbidden items being read out on the news made me wonder if, in my sleep, I'd slipped out of this dimension into a comical Orwell-inspired fantasy world in which basically everything is forbidden unless there is specific instruction otherwise. No water bottles, no spectacles cases, no books, no jars of baby food, no mobile phones, no tissues (is that right? To be honest, you could just make up a list of forbidden objects, it would be equally implausible). If you're carrying milk for your baby, you have to taste it in front of them. I was half expecting the newsreader to stop mid-sentence, wink, and say, "naaaah, 's all right, I'm just 'avin' a laugh, ain't I?"

Why was the response so absurd? First, it created a huge amount of unnecessary work for security personnel at the airports, frisking and searching passengers who were clearly innocent of anything beyond parking infringements. Second, it caused delays and damage to the airline industry which could not be sustained in the long-term (which is why the regulations have now been relaxed). Third, any security arrangement put in place can be circumvented with enough time and imagination. Unless they were proposing that the next stage be forcing passengers to strip and board planes naked, there was no future for the hand luggage restrictions. Fourth, it created the impression that masses of terrorists were still on the run; strangely, a few days on, with no new arrests made, we're not hearing anything about that now, even though the restrictions have only just been lifted.

I don't - for the moment - doubt that there was a plot. I don't doubt that the security services acted before any harm was done. If all this is indeed the case then they are to be commended for bringing about a successful end to the conspiracy before anyone was killed or even so much as hurt. I do doubt, however, that the timing of the arrests had nothing to do with the Home Secretary's speech to Demos in which he suggested that freedom of expression and movement is going to have to take a back seat indefinitely, in view of the virtual inevitability of another terrorist attack (how prescient of him). I also doubt that it was necessary to throw the country's airports into chaos, imposing risible security checks on harmless objects carried by law-abiding folk, making the whole thing look like a grown man chasing a wasp with a rolled-up newspaper before it's even stung him.

Anyway, one bit of good news: anyone who's come here from NoseMonkey's comments will be relieved to hear that BA have promised me a full refund on my flight.

Much more good stuff on this at the usual places, ie Chicken Yoghurt, Bloggerheads, Bruce Schneier, Diamond Geezer, Rachel, and especially Craig Murray.

Third Test: England win by 167 runs

2006-08-13T13:47:00.000+01:00

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scorecard

I know it's approaching a week after the event, but I've spent the last few days filming and travelling around the country (and out of it, if you consider Scotland to be a separate entity as many do). Anyway, this victory means that England have won the series and reclaimed their position at No. 2 in the world Test Match rankings. Which makes sense, because England almost certainly are the second best Test side in the world - and, this winter, may be found to be the best. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Go on, click 'More'. Go on!

As my taxi arrived to take me to Euston for the Birmingham train, Mohammed Sami went for a run so suicidal it would have made the organisers of Dignitas flinch, and Pakistan lost their seventh wicket - which was pretty much game over. At the beginning of the final day, however, I felt it was England who were on the back foot. Having conceded a lead in the first innings, despite what had looked like a pretty hefty first-innings score, they posted 345 in the second innings, led from the front by captain Andrew Strauss who brought up his tenth Test century (more on this in a bit). Pakistan had been set a total of 323 runs to win, on a pitch which seemed to contain no surprises and with three of the world's best batsmen in their side (plus a couple of others with decent records). Hoggard was rumoured to be carrying an injury, Harmison's devastating form of Old Trafford had once again retired to the back of his mind, Sajid Mahmood was showing no indication that his continuous selection was justified and only Monty Panesar suggested any threat to the strong Pakistani line-up. Despite the size of the target (even these days, anything over 200 is deemed to be a hard ask for the fourth innings) I felt Pakistan had the strength in batting to make it and defy the records - so many records have been broken in the last five or so years, after all.

As it happened, Panesar was every bit as threatening as his earlier form had promised and bowled incredibly tightly and accurately. But the real star was the previously hopeless Sajid Mahmood, who defied the "traitor" taunts of the enormous contingent of Pakistan supporters in the crowd (these people are British - what's wrong with them? It's only a bloody game! Even if it is the best of all possible games...), and grabbed four wickets of batsmen who might have been his team-mates had his dad not upped sticks and came to Britain in the sixties. It was his best performance in an England shirt by miles, and must give him a guaranteed place on the plane to Australia (where he may find the bouncy wickets to his taste, even though his questionable accuracy will equally be a feast for the Australian batsmen).

England had three other shining lights in the match. Ian Bell scored his third hundred in successive Tests, a feat matched by such greats as Bradman, Hammond, Sobers, Richards, Compton and Sutcliffe, not to mention many of his more imposing contemporaries such as Ponting and Dravid. What was all the more impressive was the manner in which he scored them - fluid, competent, chanceless, rarely looking ill at ease. The No. 6 spot - previously unquestioningly belonging to Flintoff - looks like a surer bet in his hands which means the six batsmen four bowlers option must be strongly tempting for England.

Chris Read had a miserable start to his Test career. Not with the gloves - his keeping was usually flawless - but with the bat. He failed to pass 20 in his first set of matches, and once famously ducked a yorker. Dropped (with dreadful timing) by the selectors for his poor form, he went back to county cricket to work on his batting. On the strength of this match, the work has paid off. His first Test fifty bolstered the English lower order in the second innings and ensured a defendable total. He dismissed five Pakistani batsmen in the match, including the last to fall - Inzamam dancing (as only Inzamam can) down the wicket, missing Panesar's deceptive delivery, and hearing Read tap the bails off with the ball. I'm sorry to see Geraint Jones dropped, and feel the manner of his falling could also have been handled much better by the selectors - who display a lack of empathy that would make a Cyberman blush - but if Read's fine form continues, the order will be strengthened by his inclusion.

What can one say about Andrew Strauss? In thirty Test matches, he has scored ten centuries. That's a rate of one every three matches - only Bradman, Headley and Walcott have a better rate in Test history. That Strauss's average is still below 50 is indicative of his frequent inability to get a good start - but, once he gets past fifty, the road to a hundred seems free and open every time. His Test average has actually improved since he took over the captaincy. What's more, with England in a potentially difficult position on the last day he maintained his calm and authority and, with the help of some excellent bowling and a good helping of luck (which all good captains need), he steered his side to victory. He is genuine captain material. With Vaughan unlikely to play international cricket again, and with Flintoff barely able to recover in time for the Ashes (and with question marks over his ability to pull his side out of trouble when things are going badly), surely it is the time for the ECB to appoint Strauss the official, no-questions-asked, not-waiting-for-anyone-to-come-back-and-take-over England captain.

So to the Oval, where Pakistan's best bowler looks likely to play, having recovered from his injury and where the playing field will be more level (apart from that little dip behind the wicket at the Pavilion End of the pitch). The toss - and the weather - will probably be as strong a factor in the result as any performance by the players. England have announced an unchanged squad today. My money's on the draw, but the great thing about cricket is that anything can happen.

Second Test: England win by an innings and 120 runs

2006-07-31T13:07:00.000+01:00

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scorecard

England are back on form! This crushing victory inside three days has re-established English cricket as resurgent and confident. This is going to be a long post, so do click 'More' to read it in full.

Discounting matches against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, this is England's joint biggest victory since 1974 (they also beat Pakistan by an innings and 120 runs back in 1978), and although it was another team effort, one bright shining new English star has emerged into the media's glaring, cruel eye: Mudhsuden Singh Panesar.

Monty is a bowler of enormous promise. He already has 25 Test wickets from only eight matches. Although a finger spinner, he can turn the ball sharply. Despite a lack of variation in pace and of a doosra, he managed to trick and trap the Pakistani batsmen - traditionally brilliant players of spin - into gifting their wickets. Doubtless he had some assistance from the pitch, yet this assistance mysteriously vanished when the Pakistani spinners were bowling; leaving one to draw the obvious conclusion that it was sheer talent, and not just a dodgy surface, that accounted for Panesar's match figures of 8-93. At last, England have a spin bowler who is not only handy (as Giles was before him) but capable of winning matches (as Giles, for all his talent, was not).

Let's not overlook the other positives that have emerged from this match, however. Steve Harmison, who for a good couple of years has frightened batsmen all over the world yet has rarely lived up to his billing, stormed his way through eleven Pakistani wickets. He bowled furiously and often accurately, forcing the batsmen into errors (watching Inzamam - one of the top ten batsmen in the world - completely misreading Harmison's length, and trying to duck a ball which only rose to hip height, was a joy). Harmison now has a performance to match his achievements against the West Indies at Sabina Park and his devastating (but sadly not match-winning) return at Lord's in last year's Ashes.

On the batting front there were delights as well. Alistair Cook and Ian Bell have now made hundreds in consecutive matches. Whether or not Cook is entirely secure in the No. 3 position is a question for another day. For the time being, he is the proud holder of a Test average of 59.40 after only seven matches, with three hundreds - a record only exceeded among current England players by his captain, Andrew Strauss. To say that he is gifted is an understatement. And, come the winter, the Australians will remember the double century he scored against their bowlers last year at Chelmsford.

Ian Bell's century was his most assured innings in an England shirt. Aware that, after his poor performances in last year's Ashes, he has merely been keeping the seat warm for the injured Andrew Flintoff, he has given the English selectors the delightful headache of showing himself to be a viable option should they decide to play six batsmen and only four bowlers. Although I have reservations about using this tactic in Australia, Bell's self-confidence in the middle order and the brilliance of Panesar make a strong case for dropping Flintoff down to No. 7 (where he will be a frightening prospect for the opposition, matched only by Gilchrist for the Australians).

And, last but not least, Strauss is now able to relax in his sudden role as England captain, since Flintoff will be recuperating from his operation until October. At Lord's he erred on the side of caution, delaying his declaration until he was sure the game was safe. At Old Trafford he was prepared to countenance more aggressive tactics (although there was a case for declaring the moment Bell made his hundred). English captains have tended to under-bowl their spinners, but Strauss recognised that Panesar was the man for the job and he was not afraid to let the left-armer operate unbroken at one end while the latter ploughed his steady way through the formidable Pakistani line-up, and Harmison scared the wits out of them at the other.

There is one positive remaining to be mentioned, and I have left it until last as it is shrouded in irony. Geraint Jones had a marvellous match behind the stumps, taking six catches and pulling off a marvellous rapid-reaction stumping. This achievement is rendered all the more remarkable by the fact that five of those dismissals took place in Pakistan's second innings, during which Jones was keeping with a broken finger. While he has failed to live up to his early promise with the bat, Jones's keeping has improved from frankly amateur (none of his blunders cost England the Ashes, but there would have been plenty of opportunities for criticism had the series not gone England's way) to international standard. Yet England have used the broken finger as a chance to drop him from the team - not to give his finger time to recover, but to punish him for his overall poor performance.

The questions that arise are: if Jones's form with the bat was considered below standard (the reason given for dropping him) why was he not excluded from the team sooner, ie at the start of the summer, allowing his replacement ample time to get some international experience under his belt before the trip Down Under this winter? If his form with the bat was considered good enough to play these matches, why has he been dropped for a player (Chris Read) whose own record with the bat at international level is equally miserable? If the England selectors were not convinced Jones's performances were adequate, why did they wait until the convenient excuse of his injury emerged - why did they not have the courage to drop him on merit alone? If Read was treated shoddily two years ago, by being dropped by selectors seduced by Jones's batting form on the county circuit, then Jones has been treated just as shoddily. It's behaviour like this that is holding back English cricket from being on a par with the Australians.

On the bright side, England have six strong batsmen, all of whom have made a Test century this summer, two pacemen in the world's top ten bowlers, a spinner capable of bowling a side out and not just holding up an end, and a captain beginning to look assured in his role. Flintoff, Simon Jones and Anderson may well be fit in time for the Ashes tour, and several other Young Turks are making a good case for consideration (Dalrymple, Loudon, Joyce, Shah, Plunkett). The future of English cricket, if it can only overcome its natural hesitancy and its tendency to pay too much attention to individual performances, looks bright indeed.

Genius is what happens when wit meets opportunity

2006-07-31T10:33:00.000+01:00

TECHNOGNU

Via B3ta, I've come across a YouTube video calling itself Vader Sessions, the premise of which is that Darth Vader has an incestuous love affair with his daughter and suffers a nervous breakdown. The real genius of the piece is that the footage consists entirely of extracts from the original Star Wars and the voice of Vader is taken from other films starring James Earl Jones, who provided the original Vader voice (I would guess some of the films in question are Paul Robeson, The Great White Hope, Field of Dreams and possibly Blood Tide).

If the guy who made this isn't already working professionally as a sound editor, someone needs to sign him up and pay him for his talent!

Blast Straw

2006-07-27T21:50:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

At last, something to shake me out of my non-blogging torpor (Israel-Lebanon is too ghastly to comment on, and there's nothing useful I can add to what others are saying, and not much else is happening apart from the usual awfulness). This is worth doing, not just for its comedy value, but because there's a serious issue of accountability at stake:

"I will write to Jack Straw to tell him he's a cretin but only if 100 other people will too."

Note to Tories: this is not just a random, Labour-bashing initiative but a very specific campaign in support of TheyWorkForYou.com which has been criticised by Straw for wasting MPs' time by - gasp - getting them to correspond with their constituents!

Bloody cheek; these people will be wanting the vote, next.

[POSTSCRIPT: I bet Slaughter's behind this.]

Oh, and on an unrelated matter: if you thought our government's ID card scheme was bad, see what's happening in another country.

Wunch of bankers

2006-07-24T16:21:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

It's still very hard to believe that this event isn't just an elaborate hoax.

Apart from the thought that I might turn up and see someone I know (thus rendering my performance instantly futile), what puts me off is the idea that I might be duped into believing the whole thing is genuine and turn up to be greeted by sniggers and pointing fingers - "aah! You thought this was for real! You stupid wanker! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!"

Anyway, Channel Four are covering it, so it must be a load of bollocks (oh, see what I did there! Hysterically funny).

Whodunnit? Er, no one

2006-07-18T11:38:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

Who killed Cock Robin?

"I didn't," said the sparrow. "Even though I held him down in the Tube carriage and fired seven shots into his head at point-blank range with a bow and arrow that has been banned under international warfare conventions, I didn't kill Cock Robin."

Who saw him die?

"I didn't," said the fly, "I was off taking a piss at the time. I didn't see him die."

Who caught his blood?

"I did," said the fish, "in my little dish. I caught it and hid it somewhere, so that there needn't be an independent inquiry."

Who'll dig his grave?

"I won't," said the owl. "I didn't even know he was dead until the next day, honest."

And all the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing.

So, there we are. No one did it, according to the CPS. Despite the catalogue of failures and shortcomings, no one can actually be blamed for the death of Cock Robin. Hardly surprising that the whole operation was headed up by a Dick.

Stephen Waldorf. Harry Stanley. Jean Charles de Menezes. Why can't they shoot someone who deserves it? (I would link to someone who deserves it, but they'd probably get me for glorifying terrorism.)

First Test: Match drawn (haven't I used this title before?)

2006-07-18T11:01:00.000+01:00

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scorecard

It could have been so much worse. At a time when Pakistan have edged England into third place in the official ICC world rankings, you would expect a series between the two to be closely fought. Had both sides been at full strength, you would say it was too close to call. However, both sides are nursing injuries which more or less cancel out any advantage to the other. I myself still think the series will end in a draw.

In retrospect, it's hard to imagine either side coming out of this game with a victory. Both were using depleted bowling attacks against a strong batting line-up on a flat pitch which deteriorated only a little. England possibly had marginally better bowling, Pakistan marginally better batting, but there was no prospect of a result - expect perhaps Pakistan's fielders might have done well not to smear butter on their fingers before the first day's play.

England emerged with many positives that should eclipse the embarrassing failure to beat Sri Lanka on the same ground in May. Without Flintoff, they still managed to save a game that could have run away from them. Four of their batsmen scored centuries: Collingwood marked his true arrival as a world-class Test batsman, having appeared little more than an also-ran for several years; Strauss silenced his critics with his ninth century in only 28 matches, reminding everyone of the great potential he showed two years ago when he entered the squad with a blistering run of high scores; Bell gave the selectors a pleasant headache by proving his mettle in the No. 6 position, keeping out the Pakistani attack even more effectively than he did when England had their disastrous tour over there before Christmas; and Alistair Cook rode his luck to three figures, keeping his Test average over fifty, and ensuring that he won't be far away from selection when the Ashes are next contested in November. Add to this some pretty nifty spin bowling from Monty Panesar in the second innings, in which he was stopped from adding more wickets to his name only by the inexplicable myopia of should-have-retired-years-ago umpire Bucknor, and there are many reasons to feel that English cricket is looking in reasonably strong shape, despite the injuries that have plagued the team so strongly that Duncan Fletcher must be feeling Pharoah had it easy.

Yet one feels Pakistan have a trump card which is unmatchable - their middle order. Mohammad Yousuf scored a scorching double century in the first innings, and 250 runs in the match in total, dismissing England's almost world-class attack with contempt. And Inzamam proved once again to be unmovable, unbeatable, more rock-like than his Indian counterpart Dravid. You feel England will one day get him out for less than fifty. But you don't feel that day will be any time soon.

So, onto Old Trafford - Flintoff will be fit again, and must surely play on his home ground. So, what do you do about selection? Someone has to make room for him. There are players who pick themselves: Trescothick, Strauss, Pietersen, Fred himself, Panesar, Harmison, Hoggard, Collingwood after that display. That leaves three places. One of them has to keep wicket, so let's assume Jones keeps his place despite his abysmal form with the bat (but look how his keeping has improved to compensate!). That leaves two places for three players: Cook, Bell and Plunkett. Which one gets the chop?

Only one of the three put in a poor (or less than adequate) performance in this last match, and that's Plunkett. Indeed, although his bowling has shown great promise, and although his future looks bright indeed, he has under-performed in his Test career so far (especially given that he was brought into the side partly because he was believed to be a bit of a whizz with the bat). However, if Plunkett is dropped, that means the bowling will rely entirely on Harmison, Hoggard, Flintoff (just back from an injury possibly aggravated by too much bowling) and Panesar. Is a four-man attack enough to dislodge the concrete walls in the middle of the Pakistan order, especially given that they will soon be joined by their equally solid colleague, Younis Khan?

If not, Plunkett must play, and England must face the embarrassing situation of having to drop a player who has just made a century. Of the two, Cook's century looked the less smooth and confident. He was lucky not to have been dismissed several times in the innings, partly through Pakistani error and partly through the effect of the vision-reducing spectacles of Blind Lemon Bucknor. In the second innings he looked out of his depth, and was dismissed cheaply, whereas Bell provided excellent support to his captain and would probably have batted to the end of the day, had not Strauss completely lost his judgement and called a suicide run. On the other hand, Cook's record in Test cricket is compelling and he will frighten the Australians in November, having destroyed their attack at Chelmsford last year. Would it not be a good idea to give him a run in the side in advance of the approaching tour?

If there's a strong case for retaining Cook, there's also a strong case for retaining Bell. His century was fluid and confident, and showed the same kind of patience and judgement he displayed against the same opposition in the winter. He may look like a paralysed rabbit against an Australian attack, but against Pakistani spin he looks assured. One could argue, of course, that Cook came in when England were in a difficult situation, having lost Trescothick early, whereas Bell came in when there were already plenty of runs on the board. One can also argue that keeping Bell and dropping Cook would force Bell to come in at No. 3, a position in which he is naturally less comfortable. (However, he did score well against Pakistan in November, batting in that very position.)

I'm glad I'm not the person to make the call. Given that the Old Trafford surface has become pacier lately, I fancy our bowlers could do some damage, so we need the strongest attack available, especially if Pakistan win the toss - they will want to bat first and post a big total, knocking us out of the game, so we will need to put as many holes in their line-up as we can. That means retaining Plunkett. Since Bell has shown more promise against the Pakistan bowlers than Cook (although we only have the one match with which to judge Cook, so it's not really fair), I'd be tempted to keep him - especially since it was at Old Trafford that he had his only success in last year's Ashes. But this is a very close call indeed, and the slightest thing could make my assessment invalid.

Of course, this being England, someone will probably get injured in the meantime, rendering the whole discussion academic.

Not a moment too soon

2006-07-13T11:17:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Distasteful though it is to have to link to a Tory blog, this is intriguing, and you might even want to have a go. Mind you, since it looks like they're out to make money from the competition (typical Tories), maybe not.

(Via Bloggerheads.)

Actually, here's a much better use of your time. Go sign!

Today's terror alert status: RUN FOR THE HILLS!

2006-07-12T16:40:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I briefly assumed it was a joke when I returned from holiday on Monday to hear that the UK is to get its own regular Terror Alert warning system, which would give the public an idea of how dangerous it was to go outdoors lest the man in the next seat on the tube might be carrying more stuff in his bag than a Blackberry and his lunch. Then I remembered John Reid is Home Secretary, and suddenly nothing looks like a joke.

What precisely are we supposed to do when we find out that the alert level is, say, 'severe'? Refuse to board a bus, until everyone with a beard is forced to get off? Walk up and down any train from Leeds or Luton, carrying a big stick and looking for anyone with a rucksack? Or just spend every spare minute quaking in our shoes, waiting for the moment when our name is inscribed in some grisly online Book of Remembrance? Alas, as with so many ZaNuLabour initiatives, the answer is mundane: it's yet another way the government can look like it's doing something about terrorism while actually not helping at all (cf. ID cards - on which subject, some good news at last).

As it happens, the alert level is likely to remain 'severe' until we all die or until the scheme collapses under the weight of public ridicule, according to the Mirror. Let's face it, we're a rich, complacent, barely post-colonial nuclear power. There's always going to be someone who's got it in for us.

In the meantime, you'll have to carry on enduring rubbish-strewn train carriages because of the authorities' refusal to put bins on station platforms. And, while the terror level remains at anything other than "Chill Out, Man, It's Not Going To Happen", be vigilant (as if thirty years of IRA terrorism had never happened, and had taught us nothing). Oh, and always carry some means of identification: it makes things quicker for the police when they arrest you for carrying a copy of the Guardian.

Back from hols

2006-07-11T09:05:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

Back from a stress-filled holiday (well, I do have a two-year-old) to find that Blair's still in power, Craig Sweeney is still getting far more free fame than he deserves, the loans-for-peerages scandal still won't go away, Prescott is still being a fat tit, England are still shit at sport, and it seems you can now be arrested for reading. So I guess I haven't missed much.

Incidentally, can anyone explain how this works? (Via the Friday Project.)

More later.

World Crap

2006-07-01T16:56:00.000+01:00

I'm deliberately posting at 5pm on Saturday afternoon, in order to show that my extended silence is not because I've been glued to the bloody football. What a total waste of time and money (especially money). Next week I shall be on holiday in Switzerland, far away from any balls and yellow cards and imbecilic hysteria. Let's hope Portugal win today, so all this nonsense will be over with for another four years.

[UPDATE, the next day: Tee hee.]

Reasons to vote Conservative (snigger)

2006-06-19T20:40:00.000+01:00

LAND OF HOPELESS TORIES

Just dropped in to direct you to b3ta.com's challenge to invent Tory campaign material for the next election. Much joy, and a strong reminder of how much sensible people (yes, all three of us) hate both the Tories and their new incarnations, New Labour. (Not that we have much time for the LibDems, either...)

Sorry, won't be able to blog tomorrow, will be at the cricket. Actually, why am I apologising? It's not like you're paying to read this.

Apologies for lack of service

2006-06-15T20:51:00.000+01:00

Not dead, just too busy to blog. Feel guilty about this, even though there is no rational basis for my feeling (can feelings have a rational basis? Never mind). Trouble is, writing a decent blog entry commenting on the news of the day demands a minimum of half an hour - and writing an exceptional one takes all morning. How the rest of you manage, I don't know. Either you're all unemployed or you have imaginations like quicksilver. Will be back soon, I do hope.

Third Test: Sri Lanka win by 134 runs

2006-06-06T12:05:00.000+01:00

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scorecard

Although it feels almost too depressing to write about, several things have to be acknowledged about this match, only Sri Lanka's second ever Test match victory over England in this country. First, England did not lose the series - so they remain unbeaten at home (in terms of series) since 2001; second, Muralitharan is one of the greatest bowlers of all time; third, England have a half-baked team - even though seven of the Ashes-winning squad played in this match, the absence of key performers like Vaughan, Harmison and Simon Jones has made all the difference; fourth, English cricket is going through a psychological handicap that seems to affect all English sport: complacency.

No one expected Sri Lanka to perform well in this series. Unfortunately, that included the England team who seriously underestimated their opponents. Jayawardene out-thought Flintoff throughout this match - where Fred stuck to unimaginative, over-defensive field placings and bowling changes, Jayawardene mixed things up, experimented and learned the lessons of the two previous matches. As so often, England suffered from the belief that the Sri Lankan tail would just roll over and die once seven wickets were down, a belief which has cost them dear in matches for several years now. Knowing they were up against a theoretically weaker side, England simply didn't try hard enough (nine dropped catches at Lord's tell their own story). And, when things suddenly started to look difficult, they tried too hard.

The problem in this match was largely with the batting, however. It seems that England know only one game - get out there and blast the bowling. That sort of cricket doesn't work against a side more intent on attritional cricket, ekeing out runs in singles and aiming to occupy the crease. Against a spinner who's almost unreadable, attempting anything cavalier is likely to end in disaster. And so it proved.

Presumably English attention has been focused more on the series against Pakistan, coming up in the summer. Let's hope the homework will not have been wasted, and let's hope this series will have served as a warning. England are not the best team in the world, nor even the second best. They have to fight to regain the psychological top spot. The Ashes are coming (which I predict we will lose, especially if the side is still weakened) and the Australians forgive no weakness, especially on their home soil.

Let's not let the football wrench attention away from English cricket. Let's give the fans something to cheer.

Link nonsense

2006-06-05T10:36:00.000+01:00

TECHNOGNU

I can scarcely believe that a week has passed since my last post, but I guess real life has an unfortunate tendency to intrude into one's virtual, online life. I wonder if I will ever be anything more than an occasional blogger.

Anyway, time is still limited, so you'll have to be content with a list of Things I Have Enjoyed Reading on the Internet. (This really is bog-standard lazy blogging, almost pointless.)

First up (I do hate that expression, why do I use it?) is this at the Onion (via Jim), satirising the thin undercurrent of xenophobia running through this once most open of societies.

An impressively written account of last year's bombs by survivor John Tulloch. In future, I won't be so quick to curse the many people who get onto the Tube at rush hour with loads of suitcases.

A wonderful piece from Justin about the blurred line between truth and fiction. Isn't there some kind of sporting competition taking place in Germany this month to distract the masses?

Why Germans are funny from Jamie (via Worstall's BBRU). No. not because of the war.

Also via the BBRU, The Gorse Fox discovers an unpleasant fact about the Criminal Records Bureau. I alluded to this fiasco in an earlier post but it's worse than I thought. Incidentally, the Gorse Fox is the first blogger I've come across who uses the same Blogger template as me. Maybe I should think about changing it - one does want to keep one's individuality, especially at a time when one's identity is under threat from one's own government.

Rather late in the day, Madeleine Bunting gets the message. Nice work, Madeleine, but you could have written almost exactly the same thing three years ago and still have been right.

And finally, Dilbert Blog on why stupid people shouldn't vote.

I'll be back when we've lost the Test match.

The awful consequences of doing the right thing

2006-05-29T13:58:00.000+01:00

LAND OF HOPELESS TORIES

I feel no regret in supporting the 'Backing Blair' campaign. Blair is an arrogant, ideologically vacant, borderline psychotic Prime Minister and his personal magnetism which made it hard for me to hate him whatever he did has now worn off. But those of us who lend our support to it must be aware of the consequences of doing so. Most of us live in constituencies (whether parliamentary or local government) where there is a straight fight between Labour and the Conservatives. If our sitting MP/councillor is Labour we have the power to unseat him/her by voting for the opposition. The principle behind Backing Blair is that we should demand of our member that he/she push for Blair's resignation or we will transfer our vote to the party most likely to defeat him/her. In many cases, this brings the awful prospect of voting Tory.

I couldn't vote in the local elections at the beginning of this month. Although Mrs Wildebeest and I registered to vote as soon as we moved into our new home, Hounslow Council decided that we were too late to be included in the register to vote (probably because we live in the posh bit, and so were more likely to vote Tory). In any case, the ward in which I live is safe Tory territory. However, the collapse in Labour support has meant that Hounslow Council has a Tory administration for the first time in over thirty years.

You only have to look at the smug expression on Councillor Peter Thompson's face (he's the new leader of the council) to see what a coup this is for the Tories. His expression is matched by Tories across the country. These are the sickening, well-to-do types whose arrogance is exceeded only by Blair's, who have been waiting for years to take revenge on 'the Lefties'. Expect social services to be cut ruthlessly, as the Tories seek to slash council tax bills and ease parking charges for those in the more 'respectable' (ie white and middle-class) parts of the council - yes, the people who can actually afford to pay those high council tax and parking bills.

Scroll down on that last link to see the new Mayor, Felicity Barwood, a Tory straight out of Central Casting. "Oh, look at me," her face seems to say, "how important I look in this outfit. I'm going to have a jolly good time lording it over the peasants."

(Apparently, when Barwood was proposed for the mayor's office by her fellow Tory councillor, Paul Lynch - a man with a taste in bow ties that would have made the late Eric Forth look sober and shrinking - he remarked that she should have done a course in lion taming to prepare her for the post. If this is the kind of twee, desperately unfunny 'wit' that we have to expect from our new executive, then God help any consituent whose needs actually have to be taken seriously.)

This is the awfulness of being put in this situation by Blair. We want to hold him to ransom, but if he refuses to negotiate we have no choice but to shoot all the hostages. He's still in power, we have blood all over our hands and now we have to be the ones to do the cleaning up. This doesn't mean I'm supporting Polly Toynbee in her silly nosepeg campaign. It's just to say that it's all very well to oppose Blair - in fact, it's essential - but let's bear in mind that he's in no hurry to go anywhere. Two million people marching through London couldn't stop him going to war, for heaven's sake. Let's not cut off our noses to spite our faces by voting Tory, in the meantime, 'cause cutting off your nose bloody hurts.

The naked nurse and the man with the camera

2006-05-25T16:59:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

It's nice to be distracted from the news now and again with something like this.

Woman sunbathes naked in her garden. Next door neighbour films her on his camcorder. She gets prosecuted, but he doesn't.

The other thing I can't understand is why, in cases such as the above and also this, nudity is perceived as being harmful to children. Are children supposed to grow up believing that your clothes become welded to you as soon as you become an adult? If I were a child, I'd find that thought more scary than any number of wrinkly boobs in my next door garden.

Where's Benny Hill when you need him?

Apparently, I'm a total pussy...

2006-05-24T21:12:00.000+01:00

TECHNOGNU

... according to the new quiz at Tampon Teabag.

So, what are you? A Dick, a Pussy or an Asshole? You may think you know people who are all three, but apparently you only get to be one of them.

Actually, I don't much mind being a pussy. You get stroked a lot and if you don't like someone you can claw them to death.

Protect the emperor from his nudity at all costs!

2006-05-24T12:45:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I saw this invitation to demonstrate in support of Brian Haw too late to post it on here. But I did follow the link to find out more about Blair's complete disconnection from reality.

I once had a boss who acted like Blair (in this respect). He was obsessed with appearances (he once told me off for not going to a meeting in a suit, even though I was clean and smart and was wearing a tie - oh, and none of the clients was in a suit, either); desperate to show off to high-paying clients (he maintained offices in Covent Garden which were way beyond the company's means); over-eager to stress his international profile (he had a casual relationship with a company in the States who took all the profit on our international projects and let us do most of the work); and determined to exercise control over every bit of his company's operations (in my office - which was never visited by clients - I'd pinned a couple of cartoons up on my otherwise undecorated wall; when I was on holiday, he took them down and destroyed them). When he didn't get his way, he would shout and literally stamp his foot like a three-year-old.

The company went bust after I left. The prestigious Covent Garden offices are now a shoe shop (it's recently opened in the lot marked 'vacant' on this map).

Size ten, Prime Minister?

ID cards - what more do you need?

2006-05-23T10:27:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I know you're probably all fed up with my banging on and on about ID cards (actually, regular readers probably aren't fed up because they'll share my beliefs), but Jarndyce's comment this morning prompted me to dredge the subject up again.

It seems iris scanning is only 90% accurate and fingerprints only 96% accurate. Those sound like pretty good figures but, as Jarndyce observes, that's a lot of people out of a population of 56 million. in fact, four percent of fifty-six million is 2.24 million. TWO AND A QUARTER MILLION PEOPLE MISIDENTIFIED. Who therefore may not be allowed to travel. Or get benefits. Or get medical treatment. Or who may just be taken into a side room for "further questioning". And, of course, this doesn't account for bureaucratic errors in the database.

Think this is an over-reaction? It's already happened to two thousand, seven hundred people. And I bet none of them comes from Nottingham, where it seems pretty much everyone can be regarded as a criminal.

And there's nothing we can do about it. Except maybe this (PDF).

Dictatorship is nigh

2006-05-19T11:22:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I've been out of the news loop a bit for a couple of days, so I've missed all the fun over the bloody Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill, which has now apparently reverted to being an Abolish Parliament Bill, despite government assurances.

NoseMonkey is on it. I'll say more on the matter another time.

Death of a b'stard

2006-05-19T11:11:00.000+01:00

LAND OF HOPELESS TORIES

It is unseemly and self-degrading to celebrate anyone's death. But I won't be shedding any tears over the demise of Eric Forth, MP for Bromley & Chislehurst.

The obituaries, ever watchful for any negative comment so soon after the Grim Repear has visited, have labelled him "colourful" - the kind of word they always use as a substitute for 'lunatic' when writing of one recently deceased. But to call Forth "colourful", unless referring to his ghastly taste for loud suits and ties, makes him seem all too loveable, like a beneficial presence in the Commons, when he was anything but.

Let's face it, he was a misogynist, a racist, and a homophobe. He had disdain for his constituents - he boasted that he never held any surgeries. He killed off, seemingly for the fun of it, Private Member's Bills which were at worst harmless and at best positively worthy (bills to restrict the sale of fireworks, to license minicabs, even banning hunting - if the PMB had gone through we would have been spared the toing and froing that occurred when the government pushed it through, which contributed to its desire to pull the teeth of the Lords once and for all). He was an enthusiast for hanging.

Like another well-known ex-Communist, he started on the far left and ended up on the far right.

Not for nothing did Private Eye label him Eric "B'stard" Forth. I'll not grieve.

Happy birthday to me

2006-05-17T12:44:00.000+01:00

This blog is now a year old, and I'd like to thank the 20-30 people from all round the world who drop in on a daily basis. Although I'm but a pinprick (a Slimy Mollusc, apparently) on the [draws breath] blogosphere, it's nice to know that my words mean something to somebody. Until I become famous in my field, this blog will continue in between work and family commitments.

Looking around, I notice that Ken at Militant Moderate does not know whether to classify me as right-wing, left-wing or centralist. That suits me fine. Although I would self-immolate if I were knowingly to be taken as right-wing, I'm happy to categorise myself loosely as sitting on the liberal left. Having said that, there is something about me that instinctively breaks step whenever I find myself matching the pace of those around me. That can be a lonely existence sometimes, but at least I'll die knowing my mind is my own. There is virtually no belief system that should not be challenged, questioned, probed, examined, taken to task, interrogated to see if it stands up. Internal contradictions cannot withstand such scrutiny, nor can 'conventional wisdom', nor can, "X says it and he's on my side, so he must be right".

Some would say this attitude risks ending up in total cynicism, an ability to believe in nothing. I reject that, too. Rather, it means your beliefs are constantly in a state of flux. The world changes and, as if log-rolling, you have to be constantly moving as the current threatens to tip you over and drown you. The Pope has denied the value of moral relativism. He is wrong - everything is relative. While there are absolutes that I cling to, I know that I'm fooling myself, that the illusion of security brought by such apparent certainty is precisely that - an illusion.

We all say we reject dogma but, in truth, most of us couldn't cope without it. So strong is the human impulse to say "that's right!" or "that can't be right!" that it takes an extra effort of thought to bite one's tongue and ask, every time, "is that right?" Blogs do a magnificent job of peering into every aspect of human life and examining it, because their writers are interested in going beyond the superficial posturing of the mainstream media. I've read things on blogs that have changed my mind on key issues, even opinions I didn't want changed (and still don't).

Worldwide, there are at least 50 million blogs. I can't read them all. But every blog is a voice. Discounting those blogs that exist purely to spout a dogma of the author's choice, that leaves a lot of people who are thinking, writing, discussing. Every aspect of our life is being examined. That's healthy. Long live the internet.

Happy birthday, Oscar.

Mornington Crescent

2006-05-16T17:03:00.000+01:00

TECHNOGNU

Scaryduck has had a Mornington Crescent game going. Unfortunately, it's all over now, but see if you can spot where Mark made his tactical error in the second game.

Oh, and it's all bollocks about Pepys inventing it.

First Test: Match drawn

2006-05-16T16:28:00.000+01:00

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scorecard

Until now, every England Test match I have ever attended has been won by England.

Mid-way through Saturday, there was no reason why this should not have continued to be the case. We'd made a comfortable 551-6dec, with Pietersen matching (but not exceeding, the imbecile) his highest Test score, and skittled the amateur-looking opposition for 192. With two and a half days to go, it was absolutely the right thing to do to enforce the follow-on.

Perhaps there should be an England policy of never enforcing the follow-on, however, because we made incredibly heavy weather (even when the actual weather was fine) of bowling them out a second time and, indeed, failed to do so. Credit must be given to the Sri lankans for a highly heroic fightback, led by captain Mahela Jayawardene and supported by virtually everyone else, but England's performance was as amateur as Sri Lanka's had looked earlier. Flintoff, still uncomfortable in his role as captain, lacked the imagination necessary to alter the pace and balance of the match with the kind of experimentation and unorthodoxy that has been the trademark of his predecessor, Michael Vaughan (whose Second Coming we anticipate with as much fervour as your average Jehovah's Witness). Setting defensive fields when England were still over 200 ahead was inexplicable. To make matters worse, Flintoff mistook his team's efforts for his own personal efforts and believed that he should therefore be the man to bowl the way to victory. He will pay for the fifty overs he sent down, and England will pay with him.

What really let the side down was the catching - England put down either nine or ten chances, depending on how difficult you judge a catch to be before it becomes a chance. This won't always be the case, of course, but our fielding has often been one of the stronger parts of our game. Our bowling was weakened by the absence of Jones, Harmison and Anderson and at least one of them should be fit for the Second Test. Our batting, contrary to its reputation, was magnificent (although Sri Lanka can hardly be said to have the most devastating attack in world cricket).

These matches were supposed to be the warm-up for the series against Pakistan later in the year, but one thing has emerged more clearly than anything - English complacency, so often our enemy, has no place in this current series. The England team have been given a wake-up call. Not, thank goodness, a tough one - we didn't lose the match and were never in danger of it - but we've been reminded that we have to fight for every victory. If we're the second best team in the world, we'd better start playing like we are and no longer taking it for granted just because we had a great series last summer.

BritBlog round-up

2006-05-16T16:20:00.000+01:00

TECHNOGNU

I discourteously omitted to include a link to Tim Worstall's latest BritBlog round-up in which my piece on assisted dying made an appearance amid the usual right-wing nonsense about how awful the EU is, and the lengthy philosophical musing (although I did like the bit about Innocent Smoothies).

ID cards - nothing we didn't already know, but...

2006-05-15T16:51:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I was at Lord's on Saturday with a mate from Manchester and we got talking about ID cards. He told me of a conversation he'd recently had with a Labour Party activist back at home. My friend had asked where the idea of ID cards had come from. The activist shook his head and said something to the effect of: "I don't know. None of us wanted it. I didn't want it. My MP didn't want it. What seems to have happened is that it was a policy idea which accidentally got announced to the media as a policy initiative, and now no one can face backing down on it."

So, there you are, from the horse's mouth. Someone launched the rocket by accident, before the control panel had been installed, and now no one knows how to stop it triggering the enemy's SDI defences. The guest that no one invited has moved in, eaten all the food out of the fridge, slept in the master bed with his shoes on and shat all over the bathroom floor, and everyone's too embarrassed to ask him to leave.

This mistake is going to cost us £18bn.

Any other metaphors welcome, by the way.

Popbitch bitch

2006-05-15T11:06:00.000+01:00

TECHNOGNU

I was looking at this site's stats on StatCounter, and I couldn't understand how I'd received over 400 hits in one day from here, until I read to the bottom of the (very long) page and discovered a fleeting reference to Lucy Mangan. Purely for the sake of reference, I reproduce it here:

I met the unfunny try-hard yesterday. She's even less interesting in real life - and her arse is eye-bogglingly massive. Happily for her bosses, she's a total word-slut and will happily write (poorly) about any old shite (hence today's Tv reviews in G2).

A subsequent reply referred the masses to this site.

I never even had an opinion about her a few months ago...

[EDIT: This post comes up third if you Google "Lucy Mangan arse". Tee hee.]

Right to die? Or wrong?

2006-05-12T10:13:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

Today, the House of Lords debates the Assisted Dying Bill.

As someone whose father is in a nursing home following a series of strokes, is in a permanently confused and distressed state of mind, and nearly died of scepticaemia last winter, I have a lot of sympathy with the Right to Die campaign.

On the other hand, as Tim Worstall has observed, it's only one step from Voluntary Euthanasia for the Needy to Compulsory Euthanasia for All (although one should be cautious about believing what one reads in the Torygraph, or indeed any paper). The bill is not a 'Shipman's Charter' and that's a silly way of putting it.

Nevertheless, the use of death as a problem-solver for the things society finds difficult to deal with has a long tradition. I'm not going to start going on about abortion here, as that's a complex issue, but I can never quite understand how (a) those on the Right are happy to use death to deal with the problem of violent criminals, but unhappy to use it to deal with the problem of the terminally ill or disabled babies (I suspect there is some kind of unhealthy notion of 'innocence' behind all this, as if any individual or group could be trusted to determine who "deserves" to die and who doesn't); and (b) those on the Left get so het up about taking life away once it's begun, but are happy to deny life to thousands of healthy children who are aborted for what is euphemistically called "social reasons".

I was praying for my father to die last November, because I knew how unhappy he was with his life and I also knew there was no prospect that the brain damage he had suffered could ever have been reversed. If there had been a legal option available to supply him with fatal medication, I would have seriously considered it. He pulled back from the brink of death by means of antibiotics, and is now leading a life in his nursing home that is.... well, as good as can be expected. In retrospect, I cannot deny that part of my reason for wishing him dead was the desire to achieve 'closure' (silly expression), to remove the burden of thinking about him, caring for him, waiting for the eventual day when death takes him and puts him out of his misery. That said, "misery" is the word I use to apply to the way his condition appears to me from the outside. I don't know what it's like to be in his head.

Opponents of the Bill would argue that it's too much, too soon - that we risk investing more time, effort and attention into killing off the terminally ill than in improving palliative care and relieving distress and suffering without termination of life. While my father's condition is unlikely to improve, one can see there are moments in which he is apparently content. His short-term memory has diminished to an extent that he can only truly live in the moment. That he does not recognise his surroundings is a source of irritation to him. That he can now immerse himself in a thought or activity without caring about any other troubles must be a source of, if not joy, then at least gentle pleasure.

On the Today programme this morning, the presenter (I forget whether it was Humphrys or Naughtie) asked an opponent of the Bill whether terminally ill people should have to put aside their own desires for the 'greater good'. The mere fact that such a question can be asked shows how accustomed we have become to putting the individual's perspective above our communal needs. If the greater good in this case means that we actually have to take responsibility for the less perfect, more damaged or disadvantaged people in our society - whether that be people like my father, children with Down's, or mentally ill serial killers - shouldn't that be the guiding principle in situations like this? That said, we have a duty to relieve suffering when we encounter it, which is what makes me a cautious supporter of the Bill. But what worries me most is that we, as a society, lack the maturity, thoughtfulness and care to determine where the 'greater good' lies - which means we are almost certain to tip over onto one side of the slippery slope or the other.

[FOOTNOTE: Must read - the perspective of a doctor (via Coffee Lover).]

Nothing obscene here

2006-05-11T12:20:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

It doesn't take long.

Tee hee.

Today's third (and most important) link

2006-05-10T12:06:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Via Rachel, a link to the online petition calling for a public inquiry into the London bombings. Go sign away.

Rachel also has a splendid in-depth piece about the Home Office's forthcoming 'narrative' on the events of 7 July, as well as the report by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee. Do go and read her account - but, in a nutshell, the Home Office is trying to put it out that the four men acted completely independently and off their own private bats, while the ISC report states that they had direct connections with a terrorist cell which had been under surveillance by the security services for over a year. The shortcomings in this surveillance allowed the bombers to slip through the net and carry out their action.

Rachel manages to find a way to reconcile this apparent contradiction - and it results in a most worrying conclusion. This is a new war, without a front, and with implications for us all (but not in the way the government would have us believe).

ID A to Z

2006-05-10T11:56:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Via Justin, your handy A-Z guide to ID cards at silicon.com. And you don't even have to cut it out and keep it!

Up from the Ashes...

2006-05-10T11:46:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I can't not link to Tim Ireland's latest piece of genius.

Get this man his own TV series (and don't put it on Channel Four at 1.30 in the morning)!

It's time for the Left to stand up again

2006-05-09T11:25:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Well, perhaps Mr A. C. L. Blair does read this blog, for he has all but announced that the clock is ticking. Following last night's meeting with backbenchers, in which they are believed to have demanded a timetable, he has apparently pretty much indicated that he'll stand down next year. That same Guardian report claims that only four MPs spoke in Blair's favour, while seventeen spoke against him. Which I would say matches the mood of the public pretty well.

Poor Tony. No eclipsing of Thatcher. No triumphal exit from Downing Street, his popularity intact, hordes of wellwishers crying: "Don't go, Tony, we love you, we need you!" (although no doubt some activists will be hired on the day for precisely that purpose, just as they were when he first came to power).

And today a Populus poll puts Labour down at 30%, their lowest showing since 1992 (what's interesting is that Cameron still can't break 40% even with the government on the ropes - and even the bookies are not writing off Labour's chances in 2009 - but let's save that for another time).

What's interesting is all the talk of the 'hand-over' of power to Brown. Didn't the Tories partly run into trouble last year precisely because Howard was made leader unopposed (and therefore unelected)? Didn't it give the impression that the Tory leadership was a poisoned chalice - or, on the other hand, that no one else was up to the job? Brown may enjoy a glorious coronation (although there's no evidence that he'll really be given enough time to hit the ground running as Prime Minister) but won't the voters feel that their national leader has been imposed on them? At least Major came to power by way of an election. His popularity must have been boosted not only because he was not the hated Thatcher but because he suddenly acquired the air of a winner (and how quickly that rubbed off).

Should there be a leadership contest? On the one hand, it will make Labour look divided. It will also run the risk of a Blairite candidate emerging, to spoil the fun for Wee Gordie. On the other hand, it means the possibility of a candidate emerging from the Left, a genuine Old Labour candidate, someone to represent the party I joined in 1992, not the one I left in disgust in 2000. Who that could be I don't know, and I invite speculation.

Brown's premiership will be no different from Blair's - it will just lack the charisma. We will still have PFI projects, we will still have the anti-terrorism laws, we will still have British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, we will still have CIA rendition flights using British airspace, we will probably still have ID cards (although I'm hopeful that they'll be quietly ditched, given that Brown knows exactly how much they're really going to cost). Can the Left really not organise someone at least to put forward a true socialist vision, in which public investment means money going to the people and places that really need it and not to management consultants, in which personal freedom and privacy is respected and not interfered with in the name of 'security', in which American and British international interests are not automatically regarded as synonymous? That candidate may not win the election, but at least he or she would give an opportunity to those who share those ideals but who haven't yet torn up their membership cards (if such people still exist)? The Left seems to be convinced that Brown is some sort of socialist saviour, where in fact he's just Not-Blair. Just as Prodi's coalition in Italy is held together by virtue of being Not-Berlusconi, so the Left risks being snared up with disgruntled Blairites, economic eggheads, besuited policy advisers and dour Scots who are all united by being Not-Blair but who nevertheless share many of New Labour's ideologies.

Get someone to stand. It doesn't matter who he or she is, as long as s/he can articulate a true left-wing direction for the party. It would remind Brown that not everyone he is claiming to lead works in the securities industry or privately-run energy companies. Hell, even if the candidate loses (and s/he probably will) at least there'll have been a platform. At least there'll be an extra name on the ballot paper. Drop me a hint now, please, so I can rejoin the party now and qualify for the vote in a year's time.

(I see the undermining of Brown has begun. Is Blair really so full of himself that he's prepared to sink the whole boat just because they won't let him wear the captain's hat any more? Possibly.)

First they came for the man in the tent

2006-05-08T12:52:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Brian Haw has had his protest declared illegal.

It's starting. Removal of anyone who is not a Friend of Tony. The Reality Exclusion Zone around Number Ten. How long before he retreats to the bunker with Eva and Traudl and Joseph.. oh, damn, I'm doing it again!

(Via Curious Hamster.)

Thatcher's child

2006-05-08T11:09:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I'd just like to say hello to all who are visiting this blog for the first time, especially those of you who came here via Tim Worstall's BritBlog round-up. Tim kindly included my rant about Kitty Ussher's condescending (is there any other adjective to describe New Labour? Well, I suppose there's 'spineless', 'drifting', 'morally bankrupt', 'two-faced' and 'scumbag' to start with) piece in the Guardian about how there was nothing to worry about in the local elections, and how everyone likes New Labour really, if only they could bring themselves to say it.

Anyway, Kitty's protestations look a bit hollow now, seeing that Labour not only failed to gain control of Burnley Council, but lost five seats to the LibDems. OK, the BNP only managed to pick up one seat, but they still have six councillors. And her claim that it wouldn't be electoral meltdown for Labour looks a thin given the headlines about Blair's fragility. And Andrew Slaughter must have known he was holding back the tide when he begged his few constituents in Hammersmith & Fulham to turn out, for that council went blue (if you ever walk down the scruffy King Street of a Saturday evening, remind yourself that this is a Tory council and a Tory constituency and shake your head in amazement).

Speaking of Blair and his future... I've been thinking a lot about the man lately (yes, I have a strong stomach). It's occurred to me that his real motivation in staying on is not sorting out the NHS or resolving the pensions crisis. It's not even fear of having to find somewhere for Cherie's cosmetics in the new pad. No, Blair has one very simple aim: outlast Thatcher. Do read on, by clicking below.

Thatcher's spell as Prime Minister began on 4 May 1979 and ended on 28 November 1990 (oh, happy day, I remember it well). That's eleven years and (doodles on envelope) 208 days. For Blair to exceed that, he would have to step down on 27 November 2008 (taking his start date as 2 May 1997). That's still two and a half years away, by the end of which time even Jonathan Powell, his Chief of Staff, will be sick of him.

Blair wants to wipe out memories of Labour government failings in the past and establish an unbeatable record of enduring Labour tenure in office. This he has probably already achieved, far surpassing the former record of six years held by the Attlee and Wilson administrations. However, since he regards himself as Labour's saviour and since New Labour is inextricably associated with Blair and his personality, he has made the fatal Louis XIV error of confusing himself with the regime he leads (although Roi Louis probably never actually said: "L'état, c'est moi"). Thatcher is still seen by Tories (and by many countries outside Britain) as the benchmark of greatness - Blair wants to take her mantle. This is why he has been so driven to keep everyone 'on message'. However, unlike many previous absolutists, he has one disadvantage - he can't have anyone shot. The worst he can do to a rebel is sack him (Dobson, Short, Cook) or expel him (Livingstone). The target is rapidly receding out of his reach.

Another disadvantage he has is that times have changed. People are more fickle towards political parties and governments than they used to be. As consumer choice has proliferated, as brands have multiplied, so people have come to demand satisfaction sooner and come to grow tired of their choices sooner. Thatcher was ruling at a time when these things were changing - Blair has come to power at a time when this change is established. It's simply harder to go on and on and on, when the inevitable mistakes and shortcomings of government are exposed more than ever before thanks to greater media communication. To stay at the top for a long time one must re-invent oneself, which Blair has singularly failed to do. He's no longer the young, confident, firm leader that came so soberly to power in 1997. His youth has been usurped by Cameron (and Cherie's probably too old for another baby now - although you never know), his confidence has been undermined by public and backbench opposition, and his firmness now looks like intransigence (and probably is).

Blair's private ambition is at odds with his public standing. (Note: Godwin's Law coming up.) Just as Hitler was forced to retreat into his bunker and surround himself with one new loyalist after another in order to shore up his belief that he could prevail, so Blair cushions himself from reality by pulling his few remaining allies closer to him, dismissing any talk of a timetable for a hand-over, and clutching at the few straws that suggest he has a chance of making it through the next two and a half years. Meanwhile, Brown, Goering-like (I'm going to stop the Nazi analogies now, they're making me uncomfortable), is finding his arm forced by his supporters into assuming real control while his leader froths at the mouth and issues increasingly impossible orders. Of course, the Chancellor has problems of his own, but more on them in another post.

The odds at Political Betting put Blair as almost certain to go over this summer. Not even ten years. Imagine how he'll feel. Imagine how Cherie will feel when she has to pay for her own haircuts.

Crisis? What crisis?

STOP PRESS: Elephant falls from sky (and the last (of) Straw)

2006-05-05T11:06:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Yes, yes, yes!!! Fungus the Bogeyman will bogey us no more!

Blair wasted no time in bringing the axe out. The lying, hopeless sweaty baboon has been ditched in favour of the more aggressive, less bumbling John Reid (anyone care to guess what the new Home Office guidelines on cannabis will be?). And the toadying Jack Straw has at last been ditched from his seniority. The new face of Britain will be ... er, Margaret Beckett.

It's a curse, the Home Office, isn't it?

(More live comment at Europhobia and probably lots of other places.)

Charity begins at home? Doesn't begin at all, by the looks of it

2006-05-05T10:44:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

I see I have been promoted to Slimy Mollusc in the TTLB Ecosystem. Doesn't sound very nice, but it actually represents a step up from Lowly Insect.

What must be helping my position in the rankings is an increase in the number of inward links from other bloggers, including The Charity Blogger. It's worth a look at his/her site for:

Comment on a new ratings website for worldwide charities

Why Sri Lanka is still being fucked over, sixteen months after the tsunami (worth remembering when you watch England take their cricket team apart in the next few months - these players probably still have family living in tents)

Why long-term need in the Third World doesn't excite us

The downside of the National Lottery and its rivals

Go visit - there aren't enough people talking about this sort of thing. Wonder if Charity Blogger has read my stuff about Oxfam...

Some stuff about the elections later.

If you can't win the game, change the rules

2006-05-03T14:53:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

The first step in the abolition of democracy. How did I miss this one? I expect it was announced on a Friday afternoon.

(Via Davide.)

Six degrees of impossibility

2006-05-03T11:56:00.000+01:00

TECHNOGNU

Gary the Coffee Lover has thrown down a challenge. He wants to do the Six Degrees of Separation thing to connect himself to liddle ol' me via bloggers who have actually met each other in the flesh.

He knows he has met Rob of Trial by Shorthand (whose blog I shall now investigate, as it looks worth a read). Rob has definitely met Tim Worstall, but the trail goes cold there, even though Tim has met loads of bloggers.

I'm sorry to spoil all the fun, chaps, but I am absolutely certain I have never met, in the flesh, anyone who has his or her own blog. Absolutely certain. Mrs Wildebeest doesn't even know I have one.

I think I met Danny Finkelstein once. I certainly knew someone who knew him. Also, my brother lives in Edinburgh, so he may well have met one of the multitude of Edinburgh-based bloggers (such as Devil's Kitchen, Tiny Judas, Arthur's Seat, Bookdrunk and several others). Unfortunately, my brother doesn't have a blog, but I can ask him to start one if it'll help. You'll have to wait until he's finished his Engineering finals, though.

The only people I mix with these days are film-makers and cricket fans. There's a couple of leads there. Good luck.

Perhaps there is a point to all this. Finkelstein's talk at the Adam Smith Institute suggested that blogs could have a direct impact on the behaviour of goverments and public figures, over and beyond the influence of the mainstream media. If I, unknown to anyone but my family and extremely close circle of friends, can influence any aspect of public life, then the power of the blog is handsome indeed. If only there were a way of proving it. It doesn't seem to have affected that blinking, condescending oaf, Andrew Slaughter. And Fungus the Bogeyman hasn't resigned yet.

Perhaps I should just get out more.

[EDIT: Just had a thought. I met Clive Soley once, and only once (in 1997). He has a blog. He won't remember me, but find someone who's met Clive Soley and bingo!]

[SECOND EDIT: If anyone wants to meet me in the flesh, I'll be at Lord's for the Sri Lanka Test, but only on the Saturday and Sunday.]

[THIRD EDIT: It's 'Wildebeest', not 'Wildebeast', Worstall...]

Slaughter to the rescue - oh, no, Slaughter to the slaughter

2006-05-03T09:33:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Just 24 hours to go before the electoral meltdown begins and we can start ticking off the remaining days of the Blair regime. Coincidentally, I'm sure, this is the day when I happen to receive another emailed newsletter from my ex-MP, Andrew Slaughter (who has not replied to my last email about the Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill). I'm going to get myself taken off his list, since I'm no longer his constituent, but it's interesting nevertheless to read his last-minute pleading for votes.

Slaughter chooses not to lay into the BNP (although more on them in a moment) but desperately tries nevertheless to persuade us that the Tories fighting for control of Hammersmith Council are little better:

The Tory strategy borrows from the Libdem Focus pavement politics campaign, where every street and many individuals are named to give a faux-local feel to what are often nationally-produced leaflets. But ironically it is the hard right of the Tory party – often using Lord Ashcroft’s money - that is pioneering it. Still very powerful, this faction – known by other conservatives as the Tory Taliban – knows its ideas are unpopular, but wants to slide its supporters into winnable seats whether in councils or Parliament. They are to the Tories what Militant was to Labour in the 1980s, but better-resourced and connected, and therefore more dangerous. They are happy to pick up centrist votes on the coattails of Cameron, but they are no friends of his. The Tory candidates in H&F are overwhelmingly pro-Liam Fox, the defeated right-wing candidate, and three of the four sitting councillors who supported Cameron have been deselected.

Two of these, Emile al-Uzaizi and Amanda Lloyd-Harris, are standing as independents and are running neck-and-neck with the official stooges in Palace Riverside - the safest Tory ward in London. Emile and Amanda point out rather bewilderedly that they have given 30 years loyal service to the party, held senior positions and thought, with Cameron’s accession, that their time had come. Emile is gay, half-Arab and on the wet wing of the party. Amanda is a single parent who hails from the Antipodes. Just the sort of candidates Dave the Chameleon says he wants – but they were dumped for identikit hoorays. Perhaps Eton is still more important than diversity in the new Tory party.

But while this is all fun, the consequences for non-yuppies in H&F will be dire if the Tories win on Thursday. The Tory Taliban openly boast that they will turn Hammersmith into Wandsworth mark 2. That means £50 million in cuts, mainly in education and social services, but also in Neighbourhood Policing (which H&F uniquely funds) and street services like the popular orange-sack recycling and Smarter Borough seven-day-a-week street cleaning operation. But the damage will be more lasting than this. They plan the same type of social engineering pioneered by Wandsworth and Westminster in the 1980s. No more social housing, only riverside penthouse development: driving the poor out of the centre of cities so they can become playgrounds for the super rich.

While all the above is possibly true (and I wouldn't take any Labour MP's word for anything, especially during an election campaign), the fact is that Slaughter is on a hiding to nothing. The Tories are widely predicted to take Hammersmith & Fulham and sending dire messages to his local supporters (many of whom actually live in Ealing and not in Hammersmith & Fulham at all, much of which is under the Tory MP, Greg Hands, who probably has a very different story to tell) won't do Slaughter and his party any favours at a local level.

Anyway, it's Slaughter's turn to invoke the BNP Demon:

H&F also has its first BNP candidate standing in a marginal ward in Fulham. I feel there is some irony that he chose here to stand, where almost every street reveals redevelopment needed to replace houses destroyed by the Luftwaffe. My father remembers demonstrating when Mosley tried to speak at Olympia 70 years ago. It is a pity that, with the knowledge of the Holocaust and other extreme consequences of racial hatred, fascists still bid for our votes. There is one easy remedy. See that they are rejected and humiliated.

Preaching to the converted, there, Andrew. Still, good to see you're following the national strategy of warning about a BNP takeover if Labour supporters fail to turn out tomorrow. It's not going to happen - and, even if it did, BNP councillors have an appalling record of corruption, in-fighting and disregard for their constituents, which nearly always results in their resignation or rejection at the next election.

Slaughter continues:

And no abuse. This may partly be because targeting means you spend ever more time persuading your supporters to vote than trying to change others’ minds. But there are more real achievements to point to than four years ago - don’t take my word for it go to Polly Toynbee's column. At one residents meeting last month I felt I was in the ‘If Carlsberg did…’ ad. In response to questions the Labour councillors were able to talk about: new kitchens and bathrooms, roofs and windows for council flats; the new leisure centre and swimming pool; the new health centre; better results and new buildings in local schools; new bus services; the new neighbourhood police team… Not that everything was going well, but there was plenty to point to that was improving the quality of life locally. I have heard less criticism of local councils at this election than any previous, but will that be enough to save Labour seats if there is a national swing to the other parties?

Thanks for the link to Toynbee's column, Andy. Somehow I missed it. It's exactly the kind of tongue-up-Blair's-arse that she has mastered, and of which I complained in yesterday's post. Read it and weep. Anyway, the rest of what Slaughter says above is the Kitty Ussher tactic: tell the voters that you can't understand why people think Labour's going to lose when everything's going so well. I think Slaughter and Ussher (sounds like a firm of funeral directors, doesn't it?) know damn well why there's going to be a catastrophe tomorrow. It's the old sleight of hand thing, again - "don't look over there, look over here, no, here, don't look around my eyes..."

And here's the master stroke; his final paragraph:

The problem is some voters use local elections not to decide who should run local services but to give a progress report on the Government (shocking, I know). While I would not try to deny that there are some little national difficulties, I also feel both public and politicians are being set up. The media is bored with Blair as PM, they want to get on to Brown v Cameron, and they see bad local election results as their best chance of tipping over the Blair bandwagon at last.

Little national difficulties??? And what's all this about blaming the media? The media is bored with Blair? How about every fucking British citizen is sickened with Blair and his neo-fascist policies? How about every other Labour supporter is seething with ill-repressed fury that this vile, patronising man has taken our party and shoved it so far to the Right it's about to fall off the edge of the world? How about I'm fucking glad you're not my MP any more, Andrew Slaughter?

Ciao, tosser

2006-05-02T17:38:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

Well, at least one complete bastard has had the decency to resign.

The Victorian lesbian strikes again

2006-05-02T11:25:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

It's local elections day on Thursday, and our annual opportunity not just to give Blair a bloody nose but to stick him in the morgue (note to any policemen, security officials or Home Office employees reading: this is irony, OK? Mind you, I'm safe from their prying eyes for a while, as I'm a British citizen and therefore not a priority at the moment).

Understandably, as Davide has already pointed out, Labour are desperate to deflect attention away from their crises at national level and to argue that the campaign is purely about 'local issues'. They're also desperate to frighten their supporters into voting for them no matter what, by conjuring up spectres of something far, far worse, as I've noted before.

Whose turn is it among Blair loyalists on the back benches to attempt this futile sleight of hand? Step forward, Kitty Ussher, MP for Burnley (whose name is not, alas, Victorian slang for a lesbian, but it was a nice thought). Take a look at Kitty's article in today's Guardian.

Now, the Guardian is fast recasting itself as a mouthpiece for the New Labour project (good old Polly Toynbee is pushing her stupid nosepeg idea again - saying, in effect, "we know New Labour are shit, but vote for them anyway, because, hell, just do it; I can't think of any reason why you should, but look at them, the poor dears, they might not have a job on Friday". By the way, Polly, since you brought up the metaphor of Hitler's bunker, aren't you doing the Goebbels job of saying, "we may be surrounded on all sides and being virtually wiped out, but we'll come through and turn the tables, you'll see". Perhaps you haven't seen Downfall - it's jolly good. Might get you thinking.)

Anyway, back to Kitty. Apparently, everything in the garden's Red Rosey:

If you believe everything you read in the papers, it's all going to be a disaster. All I can say is I'd like to invite the people who write the papers to join me knocking on some doors in Burnley. Sure, it isn't all a bed of roses, but it certainly isn't (famous last words) in any senses a meltdown.

The justification for Kitty's optimism? No one's talking about Prescott, Hewitt or Clarke on the doorsteps, she claims. Even assuming that Kitty is talking to real voters and not some reality-starved glass-eyed party loyalists, people aren't going to say to her face something like, "I was all set to put my cross next to Labour with enthusiasm, but when Prescott dropped his trousers I immediately thought, no, I'm not having this, I'm switching to the Tories". As Polly herself reports (Polly? Kitty? Have we been over-run by pets? Perhaps we have - so craven has the Guardian become that we might as well rename every columnist Fido), voters react to Labour with sullen silence or laughter. They don't rationalise their voting decisions based on one incident. The disenchantment with New Labour started years ago, long before the Prescott affair hit the papers, long before Hewitt was barracked, long before Clarke decided he was competent enough to sort out a mess of his own making.

Kitty goes on to plug the 'local issues' line:

You cannot dispute the investment my town is currently receiving. A new leisure centre, a new health centre with new NHS dentists in it, sure start rolling out. Hundreds of millions committed and being spent to sort out our sub-standard housing, with house prices at last rising again as a result. Regeneration projects on the old canals finally coming on stream. Five brand new secondary schools given the go-ahead. Exam results better. Plans to have a new retail centre with the high-street brand shops Burnley needs and wants coming to town. A new hospital building, delivered on time and to budget. Waiting lists down, life expectancy up. Add it all up and it comes to half a billion pounds over the next few years. And that's just in my constituency.

It's an age-old device of political talk that, when you can't think of what to say, you start listing. But let's leave that aside. What Kitty fails to do is to show that there is a connection between what she says is happening in her constituency and the voters' perception of it. She forgets that people use local elections to judge the parties nationally. They don't look at a new leisure centre in the town and think, "cor, Tony Blair must have organised this building personally, I'm definitely going to vote Labour now". They see the things that are going well, but they don't credit national government with it. What we're left with is a list of vague achievements which Kitty sees and marvels at, but people on the ground barely notice (at least in any political sense). Pleading with your voters to ignore all the fuck-ups and "look at the wuvly new swimming pool" is shameful and insults their intelligence and perception.

Undaunted, Kitty plays the other trump card (not seeing that its face value has diminished rapidly): the good ol' BNP. Except, apparently, they're nothing to worry about, either. Careful, Kitty, aren't you going off-message?

I'm fairly confident we'll beat them then. Their popularity has peaked. They were on a roll a couple of years ago but when people realised that they had nothing constructive to offer [...] that support ebbed away just as fast as it had arrived. They're still a large part of the political landscape but they just don't have that kind of fashion appeal that they used to.

Fashion appeal? Oh, so people voted BNP because it was fashionable? Blimey, that Nick Griffin, he's the new Brad Pitt.

Actually, what's probably going on here is the kind of reverse psychology that Curious Hamster once referred to with reference to the government's warnings about the terrorist threat (can't find the post, CH, help me out if you get a chance): only start worrying when they tell you there's nothing to worry about. The government magnifies the threat of terrorism (which is not to deny the reality of 7/7) in order to conceal the fact that the threat is not all that great, and their anti-terrorist measures are not really called for. In the same way, the government has tried to magnify the threat posed by the BNP in order to scare its supporters into voting after all. The fact that people like Kitty are trying to be reassuring suggests that the threat is real and that Burnley Labour councillors are deeply concerned. So they bloody well should be - not because of the BNP, but because their dipstick MP is writing mindless crap like this.

Weather forecast looks good for Thursday. Expect a high turn-out. Of Tories, that is.

A Brown stain at the bottom?

2006-05-01T10:54:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I haven't posted much on the government's current troubles, partly because of the holiday weekend, partly because others have done it better and partly because I was waiting to see how things panned out. But there's something very interesting in all this, isn't there? It's not just an aimless government coming painfully to the end of its natural life in much the same way that the Major adminsitration did. The comparison with Major only works completely if one assumes that, say, Michael Heseltine had been waiting in the wings to take over from Major for years.

What's the one thing that unites the sudden avalanche of stories about Cabinet ministers fucking things up (literally, in one case)? Hewitt whimpers that the barracking at the RCN conference was 'organised'. Of course it was bloody organised - and very nicely, too! Anyway, it was her fault, she said they "might as well just shout at [her]". All this stuff about foreign prisoners has been going on for years, but suddenly it hits the news and Clarke wakes up from his post-prandial slumber, murmurs "what's happening?" and comes within a handshake of losing his ministerial car, only keeping his job thanks to some last minute obfuscation of the details (three weeks may not sound very last-minute, but that's a blink of an eye in the civil service). Similarly, Prescott's affair has been an open secret since it began, but never made the news.

What links Hewitt, Clarke, Reid (see below) and Prescott? Blairites all (although Prescott is said to straddle both camps). At a time like this one has to ask cui bono? Who stands to gain? The Tories, yes, although they could have gained from general government unpopularity anyway (or could if they weren't still such a lacklustre bunch). But the more likely beneficiary is Brown and his allies. Four (all right, three and a half) Blairites embarrassed simultaneously, a week before the local elections which may decide the future of Blair? Labour MPs lining up to press for a leadership challenge if things go badly on Thursday? Surely this is the first public shot fired by Brown at his own side.

But New Labour are even more skilled at media manipulation. Yesterday's news was full of Tracey and her gob full of Prescott's nob (sorry if you've just had lunch, send me your dry-cleaning bills), which left little time for Fungus the Bogeyman and none at all for Hewitt. Prior to that, there was a little flurry about a bit of dirt at John Reid's house, although that turned out not to be a reference to Dr Reid himself. Just the way New Labour would have wanted it - get the hopeless Hewitt off the front pages, buy some time for the Safety Elephant and let the two Johns take it on the chin. Let's face it, Tony's boys say to themselves, we've never liked Prescott anyway, let's hang him out for the slings and arrows. Bollocks to this idea that he's going to 'manage' the transfer of power, we're not going anywhere. As for Reid, he embarrassed us about smoking, let's get our own back.

(Questions hang over that Reid story: apparently the cannabis was found during a "routine sweep". If it had been there for 20 years, why hadn't it been discovered in similar sweeps? If it was 20 years old, it would have looked like a bit of dust - so why was it picked out and tested? Does it have anything to do with this man? John Reid's wife is a film-maker; I hate to malign my fellow professionals, but perhaps some of her friends came round for a 'party' one night, and forgot something? This is a story masquerading as a non-story masquerading as a story. I smell a New Labour rat: put out a mildly embarrassing story about a Cabinet minister, let another mildly embarrassing story run - both stories concerning things which the voting public don't feel warrant resignation by themselves - and cover up the genuine incompetence. There are more layers to this than your average pickled onion. Unless that onion's just been eaten by Fungus, of course.)

What we're witnessing here is a ruinous turf war between the two camps, who have both been simmering for years and years. Blair's down, his days are numbered, but no one knows what the number is. Tone himself wants to out-reign Thatcher, go the full twelve years. Brown's the only man who can win a fourth term (he still polls better than Cameron in some respects). With all this fighting on board, it's likely one of the two factions will blow a hole in the side and the entire ship will go down. Cameron may find himself in Number Ten without having to make any effort at all.

[EDIT: Handy summary of all the action from Davide Simonetti and how Blair has literally fucked everything up over at Backing Blair. Plus a list of links at Rachel's.]

Bollocks - a missed opportunity

2006-04-26T11:57:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Sod it! Fungus the Bogeyman offers to resign, and Blair refuses to accept it!

Of course, there are other reasons why Clarke should resign, which are too obvious to go over again now, but it can't be long now...

The price of things that come for free

2006-04-25T09:12:00.000+01:00

TECHNOGNU

Blogger is pissing about. It may be difficult for me to post in the near future. Don't know what the problem is.

Eventually I shall upgrade to WordPress, or something similarly reliable.

In other news, I see I have risen to the status of Lowly Insect in the TTLB ecosystem. Thanks to all those who continue to link to me. Please let me know if I haven't returned the favour.

Safe in our hands... oops, butterfingers

2006-04-24T12:51:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

I frequently get spam asking me if medical bills are killing me. Naturally, I don't open spam, so I have no idea exactly what the shady types behind these emails are actually offering me. I can instead sit back and chuckle to myself, safe in the knowledge that I can enjoy medical treatment that is free at the point of delivery.

Well, that complacent mask is beginning to slip, and it's not helped by stories like this. For those unfamilar with west London (I guess that covers most of you) there's a small hospital, next to a lovely park, called Ravenscourt Park Hospital. It's a centre of orthopaedic excellence, and in fact enjoys a good reputation in the area for the things it can do with bones. And it really is as nice as the photo makes it look.

Anyway, right on the edge of the hospital buildings is a nursery, ironically named the Happy Times Nursery. Mrs Wildebeest and I went there for one of our ante-natal classes before Baby Gnu was born. It's an extensive and well-stocked place, full of toys and children's artwork, with attractive space to run around outside.

The nursery is no more. It's been kicked out by Ravenscourt Park Hospital, who claim that Happy Times are 21 days late with their rent (21 days? Even the credit card companies give you more than that!). Happy Times say they're not late with the rent, and that the trust running the hospital hasn't counted a payment they've just made. What may be happening is that the hospital is to be taken over by the private sector and needs the space for its new facilities. The motivation behind this plan? The hospital is £12m in debt, and its losses are expected to reach £37m by 2010. Who runs Ravenscourt Park Hospital? Why, Hammersmith Hospitals NHS Trust. Haven't we seen that name somewhere before?

In the meantime, bouncers stand on the doors threatening to forcibly remove any five-year-old who attempts to gain access and get their drawings back.

Oh, well, never mind. The NHS is having its best year ever. So, that's all right, then.

[Footnote: Blogger is fucking about today, so God knows how many times this post will appear.]

Auguri!

2006-04-19T21:03:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

YES!!! Or, rather, SI!!!

Next stop, Euston (or rather: next, stop Euston)

2006-04-19T11:57:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

My brother is coming to visit me with his family on Thursday. They'll be arriving at Euston Station.

I only mention this because thinking about Euston has prompted me to look into the absurdly-named Euston Manifesto. I'd seen mention of it on a few sites but never took much notice, since no one seemed to have a good word to say about it (and some had a lot to say against it - useful list here).

Anyway, I skim-read it, and it looks like another attempt by Blair cronies to appeal to the self-styled 'Decent Left' - on the surface, nothing anyone could reasonably disagree with (we are for democracy, freedom and nice things; we are against racism, sexism and nasty things). As usual, the devil's in the detail and Phil Edwards has found many, many devils in his excellent analysis.

Ultimately, though, what the hell is the point in issuing a statement such as this, other than perhaps the self-congratulatory reward of seeing one's name attached to a 'worthy' document and having something to talk about at dinner parties? It smacks of bald men fighting not over a comb, but over a wig with which to hide their moral emptiness.

If only...

2006-04-19T11:47:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

...this were true. However, until 95% of the population are regularly using the net as a source of information gathering and not just emailing their family in Australia or ordering Arctic Monkeys from Amazon, we will remain lonely voices in the wilderness.

Lucy Mean-gan

2006-04-18T13:49:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

I've noticed that a good many people who come to this blog do so by searching for 'Lucy Mangan'. They inevitably end up on my rant about her stupid piece about decaff (I've decided to keep the second 'f', it just looks better) coffee. Some seem to think I harbour a grudge against Ms Mangan. Truth be told, this was the first article I'd ever read by her. So, in a spirit of fair play, I thought I'd trawl through the Grauniad's website to sample her other material, in the hope of understanding the mindset of her apparently vast fan club.

What's alarming about her 'journalism' is that two themes emerge from it strongly:

Lucy hates herself.

Lucy hates everyone else.

With regard to Point One, the references to self-hatred occur about once an article: "they exuded a confidence that I spent the next 20 years looking for in myself but never found"; "how deeply I wish to plumb the depths of self-loathing"; "my house is full of gin and scrofula"; "I was only deflected from a hugely promising career as a mathematician by the inability to spell it on a UCAS form", and so on and so on. Self-deprecating humour can work, but only as an antidote to laughing at one's own jokes. Week upon week of it just looks pathetic.

As for hating everyone else, Lucy seems to enjoy picking on other social groups, especially fellow females. For example, glamorous older women: "Madonna is 47 and has devoted her life to looking 12 in Lycra"; actresses: "staring into the middle distance with a slightly superior expression while people move scenery around you, a la Amanda Burton?"; women who have facelifts: "women keep flocking to the butchers instead of the bakers during their lunch hours"; iPod owners (OK, but Hungbunny has been doing this sort of thing for months, and much more wittily); and, for an inexplicable reason, Scarlett Johansson, for whom she often has a choice epithet.

It's not that she doesn't have a sense of humour, or that she can't pack an elegant turn of phrase into her pieces (several turns of phrase, in fact, so that the article becomes less a serious critique of social trends and more an exercise in "look, aren't I just the female Stephen Fry?"*). But her pieces are classic examples of Cynicism Journalism, picking on people whom she finds irritating (because they are wealthier and happier than her, or aspire to be so) and throwing snide comments at them, in the hope that some of her readers will be equally self-loathing and enjoy a conspiratorial snigger.

And it's not that what I write is any wittier or has more impact or should necessarily be taken more seriously. It's just that she's given a platform by a national newspaper, one that I read regularly, in order to moan about how annoying she finds everyone. Something about that just doesn't feel right.

[* In fact, any reading of Fry's pieces for the Telegraph will reveal a genuinely radical but wise philosophy behind the wit, which is not matched by anything Ms Mangan produces.]

Vote Labour, or the bogeyman will get you

2006-04-18T11:31:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Be afraid, be very afraid.

I don't know. Last year it was 'if you don't vote Labour, the Tories will get in', which might have been true if every single Labour voter in the country had voted with his conscience - although if that had happened all the votes would have gone to anti-war parties and we'd have had our first Lib Dem government. Now they've found an even bigger monster to scare us with.

Now the media take the shit that comes from Margaret Hodge (she should see a bowel specialist to stop it coming out of her mouth) and stir it in with some misinterpretation of their own, following a report by the Joseph Rowntree Trust. 25% of voters might consider voting for the BNP, apparently.

Hello, guys! That's MIGHT CONSIDER. I might consider sticking my fingers into an electric socket, but I would quickly persuade myself it was a bad idea. I have considered using a hosepipe on the garden, in accordance with Geraldine's desire to tell Thames Water to fuck off, but I don't know my neighbours very well and Justin has given me good reason to hesitate.

The BBC, on the 10pm news last night, did the government's work for them by hauling a load of toothless EastEnder types from Central Casting onto the screen to mutter dark things about "too many immigrants".

If the report had said that "25% of British people are a bit racist", I'd have looked up from my paper and murmured "is that all?" before returning to the saga of Michael Vaughan's knee.

Let's be clear: voting for a party at a General Election is something people still take seriously. If they can't take it seriously, they usually don't vote at all, or they vote for a candidate who has absolutely no chance of winning (eg Raving Loony, or Kilroy-Silk - excuse the tautology). If they want to register a protest vote, they do it at a by-election, a local election or a Euro-election. When you're choosing the government of your country, you don't piss about (which makes it all the scarier that one person in five still wanted Blair and his maniacs in charge). The BNP stands for principles which are abhorrent to the majority of people, who consider themselves decent-thinking: fairness, balance, restraint. Most people might have a fairly woolly concept of what those things are, but luckily they still associate the BNP will Millwall-suporting thugs. Sure, many British voters don't like it that the people who've moved in down the road have big beards, cook funny-smelling food and don't speak English. But they don't want them deported, put into camps, or even have their windows smashed.

The only thing that is potentially worrying is that more people are now prepared to say to a market researcher that they'd consider voting BNP. But that doesn't translate to an imminent jackbooted revolution.

Britain will never have a BNP government, and all these dark hints from the government are yet more scare stories told by a desperate administration, like an over-controlling Victorian parent trying to frighten disobedient children into compliance. You would hope the former Children's Minister would have better things to do than make kids nervous.

(Further excellent comment from NoseMonkey and Chris.)

How not to spoil your vote

2006-04-13T21:46:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Live in London, sick of Blair, but can't bring yourself to vote Tory? London Strategic Voter has the answer.

Trouble is, I can't vote at all, because Hounslow Fucking Council decided I had moved into the borough too late to register for the elections, even though they have already put me on the electoral roll. Mind you, they're all Tories round here - there's even a Victorian Society based round the corner. I suppose twice a year they have someone go in and turn their clocks back for them.

(Via Backing Blair.)

At last, some good news

2006-04-13T09:56:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

The Financial Times reports that the government may be about to back down on the Legislative & Regulatory Reform Bill (good, because I'm sick of typing its name out):

Jim Murphy, the cabinet office minister, said the government would back down from the highly contentious plans [...] He said he would amend the legislative and regulatory reform bill “so that it can no longer be misconstrued as an attempt by government to take a wider constitutional power”.

“At the moment, in clause one, the bill deliberately seeks to take a wide power,” Mr Murphy said. “We’re going to focus that power more on regulatory outcomes, such things as productivity and competitiveness and reducing bureaucracy, rather than replacing legislation.”

The minister also pledged to give a statutory veto to the regulatory reform select committees in the Commons and Lords, allowing them to block proposals to fast-track legislative changes under the new law.

Of course, as Spyblog (from whom I got the link) notes, select committees are generally dominated by government MPs, so these concessions may not be as concessive (is this a word?) as they sound. Murphy's promise that the Bill won't be used to replace legislation may be worth as much as most Zanu-Labour promises of recent years.

Hooray for terrorism

2006-04-13T09:41:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Terrorism - don'tcha love it? I do! Hooray for terrorists! Isn't terrorism glorious? Osama - what a pin-up boy! Whoopee! Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists, hooray, hooray, hooray! Bombs, guns, knives - I can't get enough of it!

Support violence to remove a regime? You bet! Kill innocent people? That gets me going! Encourage kidnappings, explosions on public transport, armed insurrections aimed to provoke civil war? Nothing I like better! Trespass on nuclear sites? Plan to spend my Easter weekend doing it!

Tip for Blue Peter fans: Get an old bedsheet and a tin of paint (any colour, but red's probably most appropriate). Paint the words 'TERRORISM - IT"S GREAT' on the sheet, and hang it out of your window.

Come on, then, arrest me. Since you've got nothing better to do, like hold a bloody public inquiry.

[EDIT: Curious Hamster has posted the text of this part of the Act on his blog. It seems that, to qualify for 'glorifying terrorism' I must not merely say "terrorism's great". I also have to state or imply that readers should be actively encouraged by my words to go and blow people up, or whatever. Painting bedsheets probably doesn't count. Damn.]

Berlusconi: "It's so unfair!"

2006-04-11T21:23:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

One would have expected this from the man desperate to maintain his immunity from prosecution. Slimy Silvio has challenged the election result on the grounds that:

* He got more votes than Prodi in the Senate, even though he won fewer seats.
* Prodi must have cheated.
* Nobody won anyway, because the vote was so close.
* It's so unfair! I hate you!

Now he's proposing a Grand Coalition, like in Germany. Presumably he's hoping history will repeat itself - the two opposing sides come together to form a government and, oh look, they make the right-winger the de facto leader (although I think a more apt comparison would be that the oily, corrupt slimeball gets kicked out of the leader's chair). He claims "I have no personal ambitions [to remain Prime Minister] - I just want what's good for the country." Like not being sent to prison, which would obviously be disastrous for Italy - just think of all the Italian citizens who would die laughing.

(Via this report in La Repubblica again.)

[EDIT: Splendid summary of all the fun from Harvard University, and what this means for the three Bs (Berlusconi, Blair and Bush) by Davide Simonetti (both via Nosemonkey).]

Neanch'io so che succede (I don't know what's going on, either)

2006-04-11T09:15:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

Well, I guess you all know about as much as I do now. After the swings and roundabouts of last night, Italy is left in an electoral mess of the sort it hoped it had left behind.

With all but some (see below) votes counted, Berlusconi controls the Senate with 155 seats to Prodi's 154. Prodi has won the lower house by beating Berlusconi by 0.1%, automatically winning him an allocation of a majority 340 seats.

What's critical is that there are six Senate seats being voted for by Italians living abroad which haven't declared yet. Prodi says he expects to win four of those seats, giving him a one-seat majority over Berlusconi - though how he knows which way those seats will fall is anyone's guess.

Berlusconi, meanwhile, is spitting with fury in that charming way of his and demanding recounts. Mind you, given that he loses his immunity from prosecution the moment he stops being Prime Minister and a host of potential indictments may face him, he would probably demand a recount if he'd only polled 0.2% nationally.

Sadly, the live updates at La Repubblica aren't much help at the moment. I'll post again the moment I know more.

UPDATE: Another article in La Repubblica shows the basis for Prodi's optimism (in Italian only - the article, not Prodi's optimism). Based on results already being counted, Prodi looks set to take four seats, Berlusconi one and the Association of South American Italians one (there are loads of Italians in South America, but I don't know what they'll do with their one seat in the Italian Senate). Of course, if last night's events are anything to go by, we should learn not to trust press reports until the actual numbers are on the table.

Even then, this won't be allowed to rest. The Italian President, Carlo Ciampi, is one month away from the end of his term of office. A new President has to be appointed before the new government takes over (because the President appoints the government), and it was already agreed that Berlusconi would head a caretaker government in the meantime. Presumably he'll spend the time going round the governmental offices with a tube of Superglue, affixing his ministers and himself permanently to their chairs. I doubt the thought of bribing/bullying/threatening the new President to let him form the government has so much as even crossed his mind...

UPDATE: Another report in La Repubblica notes that Berlusconi got 66% of the votes in Iraq. From Italian ex-pats, that is. I wonder if they had ink on their fingers? No, just blood, probably.

UPDATE: It's over for now. Prodi got those four Senate seats, and Berlusconi only got one. So Prodi takes the Senate 159-156 and the lower house 340-277. Berlusconi hasn't said a word, but you can bet he's preparing another Florida 2000. Subject to legal challenge, the Berlusconi era is over. Bet he's not grinning now; although the plastic surgery has probably etched the grin onto his face permanently...

Che succede? Chi ha vinto?

2006-04-10T14:08:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

Polls have just closed in Italy, and I'll blog on whatever happens in the next few hours. Italian exit polls are notoriously unreliable, so don't expect much of a clear picture to emerge just yet, or perhaps even for days.

UPDATE 2.21pm: A Nexus exit poll reported on Rai Tre (one of the few TV stations not owned by Berlusconi) has Prodi's Unione beating Berlusconi's CDL by between one and nine points. Not very revealing. They're not promising any projections this side of 5pm BST... (The poll's margin of error is 2 points, so it could even be a tie. Or it could be way, way off-target.)

UPDATE 2.33pm: Another poll, this time by Piepoli, shows Prodi winning 52% in the lower house and about the same percentage in the Senate. A more detailed Nexus poll is promised in the next fifteen minutes. The Piepoli poll shows Berlusconi's Forza Italia party, only one part of his coalition, has lost 8% off its support.

UPDATE 2.52pm: News via Bloomberg (inexplicably headed 'Germany') that there is another exit poll, conducted by IPR Marketing, which shows almost identical figures to the Nexus poll.

UPDATE 2.59pm: La Repubblica's handy table gives Prodi's Unione 340 seats in the lower house versus Berlusconi's CDL's 277, and gives the Unione a minimum of 159 seats in the Senate versus the CDL's maximum of 150. All this could be bollocks, of course, it's only an exit poll.

UPDATE 3.36pm: La Repubblica has refined its forecast to give the Unione 52.2% in the lower house and the CDL 47.1%. Forza Italia have already admitted defeat looks likely. Prodi has celebrated Blair-style by drinking coffee. No sign of that more detailed exit poll, but real results should start to come in very soon. Update to update: Senate results give the Unione a 10-point lead in that house, but it's early days. Italian votes tend to be very concentrated regionally, so calling it now would be like trying to predict a Labour victory on the basis of the results from Sunderland and Hamilton.

UPDATE 3.47pm: Jolly useful, these real-time updates from La Repubblica. The Senate results are being counted first, and Prodi's lead has dropped back to two points - but it's so early that these fluctuations are not surprising. Still, the Senate result should give a reasonable indication as to how things are going to go in general. There will be some Italians who have split their vote, voting Berlusconi in one house and Prodi in the other (just as some US states will vote Republican for President but cheerfully elect two Democratic senators), but they won't be in the majority.

UPDATE 3.57pm: That updated exit poll is available at last, and it alters absolutely nothing. Still showing Prodi with 50-54% and Berlusconi with 45-49%. Thanks, guys.

UPDATE 4.01pm: Prodi's lead in the Senate shoots up to a massive twelve points. Only 3% of the results are in, mind. This isn't going anywhere fast - time for a break.

UPDATE 4.40pm: Over 10% of the Senate votes have been counted, so this gives us a possible early indicator. Prodi has a 7.5 point lead in the Senate, although no seats have actually been declared yet. His lead in the lower house is massive, but hardly any votes have been counted yet. Still within the boundaries of the exit poll. That said, there are some regions where hardly any votes have been counted (eg Lombardia) and the votes from ex-pat Italians - who have been allowed to vote abroad for the first time, without being required to go back to Italy to do so - aren't in yet. An allocation of seats is kept back for the foreign votes, and it was the overseas votes in the Israeli election of 1996 which gave Netanyahu power when it looked like Peres had won a narrow victory. Not that I think we'll end up in that sort of situation here. As I write, the proportion of Senate votes counted rises to about 12% but Prodi's lead remains constant. We'll see how things develop. About two hours from now we should have a reasonable idea of how things are really going to go.

UPDATE 5.05pm: Nearly one-fifth of the votes counted and still no seats declared! Prodi's lead slips back to five points, but still consistently hovering over the 50% mark, below which it has never slipped. Nexus's latest projection gives Prodi 158 seats in the Senate (50.4%) and Berlusconi 151 (48.6%). The projection for the lower house remains vague, but unchanged from the original figures.

UPDATE 5.21pm: It occurs to me that, under PR, they won't declare seats until the share of the overall vote is known. Dur... Anyway, it means that the share-of-vote figures have genuine meaning. Berlusconi's share seems to be holding up extremely well only in certain areas, such as Lombardia, Veneto and Friuli - I guess the rich are voting for one of their own (the Northern League votes in these areas will obviously make a difference to his share as well). He's also polling well in the extreme South, where the Left is not traditionally strong. Prodi seems to be ahead everywhere else, particularly in Emilia-Romagna, Basilicata, Abruzzo and Toscana, in all of which he is currently polling at over 60%.

UPDATE 5.59pm: The latest exit poll refinement puts Prodi on 50% for the Senate and Berlusconi on 49%, so things are tightening up for the Professor. That said, he maintains his lead in the actual votes: 51.3% to 47.9%, with well over a third of the votes counted. Prodi's lead in the lower house continues to be much stronger, but counting has hardly begun.

Have to sign off for now, as the family are home and dinner is more important than international politics...

UPDATE 7.59pm: As always with these things, things don't look so good as the night wears on. The projection now shows Berlusconi with a majority of seats in both houses, despite being behind on the popular vote. With two-thirds of the Senate votes in, Prodi's lead has collapsed to 0.6% and his rating has dipped below 50%. Berlusconi is projected to get 157 Senate seats, to Prodi's 152; I don't know how they work that out. There are going to be a hell of a lot of red faces among the media and political classes tomorrow. Just like Kerry - ahead on the exit poll, but going down to defeat. Looks like Berlusconi may have the last laugh, after all. Sorry I couldn't bring you better news.

UPDATE 8.35pm: Berlusconi's victory looking more and more probable. It's Israel 1996 and USA 2004 all over again. Media backpedalling rapidly. Why can't they do exit polls properly? Why do they do them at all?

Fucking bollocks.

ID cards - time to relax

2006-04-10T11:15:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Tom at Blairwatch has done some calculations and worked out that the whole thing is doomed to failure because it's logistically impossible.

Thank goodness for that!

(Via Alex.)

Instant ID

2006-04-09T17:10:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

How marvellous - you can get your own ID card here for free, without having to wait! Smashing idea!

(Courtesy of Worstall's BBRU.)

Fruitcakes, loonies and, er...

2006-04-09T11:04:00.000+01:00

LAND OF HOPELESS TORIES

Genuine letter in last Thursday's Telegraph, quoted verbatim:

SIR - I resent being associated with closet racists. I voted three times for Norman Tebbit and Mrs Thatcher for obvious reasons.

Aren't we always being told it's Americans who have no sense of irony?

Backing Blair (into a big, deep hole)

2006-04-07T11:15:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

I'm sure this blog is already on MI5's extremely lengthy 'To Watch' list, so there's no harm in adding my support for the wonderfully ironically-named Backing Blair campaign.

I didn't support the campaign at the last General Election because it would have meant voting Tory, and I'd rather eat my own spleen (not that I voted for Blair, either, of course). But there's no reason now not to join in and try and get this elected dictator out - by peaceful, democratic means of course (I put that bit in for the Secret Services - what a wuss).

Computer says no

2006-04-06T21:01:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

Bet the Safety Elephant's wishing he'd thought of this.

"What is the purpose of your visit?"
"I'm on holiday."
"Oh, yeah? Computer says you're a terrorist."

"If a person fails, he is accompanied by a guard to a cubicle where he is asked questions in a more intense atmosphere," Mr Kornilov said.

"Tony, it's Charles. Get on the phone to Putin, he's got a wizard idea..."

[EDIT: Longrider wonders what happens if you just tell it to piss off.]

The drugs don't work, they just make you worse

2006-04-06T20:51:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

That's what I like. An inquiry that concludes the bleedin' obvious:

this product showed a pharmacological effect in man which was not seen in pre-clinical tests in animals at much higher doses.

Well, dur. A bit like saying that the 7/7 bombings "happened because some nasty men blew up some bombs on the Tube and killed people. Oh, and a bus."

The only potential interesting outcome of this fiasco would have something to do with the uselessness of animal testing, but we're all supposed to be in favour of that, these days, so no one's making the obvious conclusion (except the usual suspects, of course).

Watch this

2006-04-05T21:33:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

As if you needed persuading: Don't Vote Labour.

(Via practically everyone.)

RUSIANS!

2006-04-05T20:54:00.000+01:00

GNU BRITAIN

The Cuban Missile Crisis, in AOL-teenager speak (generated via Lucas Longley's painfully accurate translator):
TEH CUBAN MISIEL CRISIS REFERS 2 DA TENSE CONFRONTATION BTWEN TEH SOVEIT UNION AND DA UNIETD STAETS R3GARDNG DA SOVEIT DEPLOYMENT OF NUCLEAR MISIELS IN CUBA!!1! WTF TEH PARIOD OF GR3AETST DANG3R STARTAD ON OC2BR 16 1962 WHEN US1!1!!!!1 WTF RACONASESANC3 WAS SHOWN 2 US!1!!! OMG LOL PRESIEDNT O F!1!! K3N3DY WHICH REV3AELD EVIEDNCE FOR SOVEIT NUCL3AR MISIEL INSTALATIONS ON DA ISLAND AND LASTAD FOR 13 DAYS UNTIL OC2BR 28 1962 WH3N SOVEIT L3AEDR NIKITA KHRUSHCHAV ANOUNC3D TAHT DA INSTALATIONS WUD B DISMANTLED!11!1!!1 LOL DA CUBAN MISIEL CRISIS IS REGARDAD AS DA ON3 MOMENT WHEN TEH COLD WAR CM3 CLOSAST 2 ESCALATNG IN2 A NUCL3AR WAR

RUSIANS!1!111! OMG LOL R3F3R 2 DA 3VENT AS TEH CARIB3AN CRISIS WHIEL CUBANS REF3R 2 IT AS TEH OC2BR CRISIS
11!!!1!

(With thanks to Kyle and the guys at Cricket 24/7.)

Move along, please, there's nothing to see here

2006-04-05T12:26:00.000+01:00

GNU LABOUR

Many weeks ago, I wrote to my ex-MP, Andrew Slaughter, about the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill which I've posted about before. Well, here's a thing: I finally got a response out of the man. It took him four weeks but, be fair, he's a busy man: according to his newsletter, he's been doing important things like attending a production of West Side Story by the "Priory Centre’s Descendants project at Acton Town Hall" and watching Fulham beat Chelsea.

Anyway, I'm glad to say he has lost none of the condescending tone he has so successfully mastered in his newsletters. "I am pleased to be able to tell you that your fears are groundless," he informs me (any of my female readers hear the much-used expression "don't worry your pretty little head about it" coming through in an undertone?). He goes on:

While I can understand how, on the face of it, the Bill may appear to grant ministers an autonomy that no believer in democracy could tolerate, I believe that on closer scrutiny, it will become apparent that the bill has one main aim, which is to cut down on expensive red tape, and does not relinquish Parliament's vital power of veto on the Government.

This is the line the government's been plugging since the bill was introduced: oh, it's all about cutting red tape, it's really boring, it's just procedural, it's to make life easier for business, come on, move along. This is what the magician calls 'diversion', insisting you look at his right hand while his left hand is substituting your deck of cards for his loaded deck.

Slaughter continues:

During the passage of the Regulatory Reform Act 2001, the Government gave a commitment that it would not use the order making power to implement “large and controversial” measures. Jim Murphy, the Cabinet Office Minister, told the Regulatory Reform Committee that the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill would not be used to implement “highly controversial” measures. The Government has suggested that what is controversial at one time is not necessarily controversial at another time, so the degree of controversy associated with a particular proposal would need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis. However, it has “reiterated its commitment not to use Order powers to deliver highly political measures, such as amendments to terrorism law or the Parliament Act".

Oh, well, that's all right, then. The government has promised not to do anything controversial with the Bill. That's OK - we trust this government, don't we? And we trust all governments likely to come after it, don't we?

Here's where things get really unsettling:

In essence, this Bill will be used to save time and huge amounts of public money, by removing the obligation for Parliament to go through the motions of "debating" and passing into law non-controversial measures.

Look how he phrases it. "Save time", "save money". How nice - they're doing us a favour, really, aren't they? Removing all that debating, the very thing that Parliament exists for - scrutinising government legislation, having a free and open discussion, the people's representatives holding the government to account for the laws it proposes to introduce. Any measure can be controversial, "Andy". Virtually all laws passed either involve spending public money or proposing transgressions of the law and the punishments for them; many laws involve both. To hide behind the noble-sounding defence of "cutting red tape" is an attempt to distract attention from the other things you'll be cutting: parliamentary scrutiny, freedom of information, government accountability.

Slaughter next ropes in one of his colleagues, as if to spread the blame:

I happen to be a member of the Regulatory Reform Committee, whose job it was to scrutinise this Bill and report to Parliament. The Chairman of the Committee, Andrew Miller MP, says that, "This Bill must be scrutinised with particular care. Our report recognises that there is widespread support for removing redundant regulation and costly red tape. But the problem many people will have with Part one of this Bill, as drafted, is that it provides Ministers with a wide and general power that could be used to repeal, amend or replace almost any primary legislation. That can't be right. We need extra safeguards. What we've done in our report is to recommend extra safeguards to be put into the Bill, which, if accepted, would, I believe achieve the Government's objectives in a manner acceptable to Parliament."

That all sounds very sensible, doesn't it? Problem is, "recommendations" do not safeguards make, if I can put it that way. And Miller has hit the nail on the head: "it provides Ministers with a wide and general power that could be used to repeal, amend or replace almost any primary legislation. That can't be right." You're damn straight, it's not right, Mr Miller. And what makes you think the government, in its determination to have its own way over ministers, MPs and the general population, cares two hoots about your recommendations?

Slaughter's brief conclusion is:

I hope you will agree that I have thought about this bill carefully; and that the outcome should be that with the afore-mentioned safeguards, I should vote for it.

Er, no.

Hang up your tools, Rory Bremner

2006-04-04T16:13:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

There's a saying in poker that you can only bluff an experienced player, simply on the grounds that an inexperienced player is too stupid (in game terms) to be trapped by your bluff.

In the same way, there are some countries and people who are unsuitable targets for satire because their stupidity and ridiculousness goes beyond anything a satirist could dream up.

Hence we end up with this, courtesy of Arthur's Seat.

Goodnight for the Knight? The Professor the lesser?

2006-04-04T15:14:00.000+01:00

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

The Italian general election takes place in a week, with a possible end in sight to the reign of perma-tanned, pate-thatched, nose-jobbed, oily Silvio Berlusconi, a man who makes Rupert Murdoch seem like a modest, retiring, unambitious sort.

Since Italian politics is currently divided rather neatly into Left and Right, the polls make more sense than they normally would. Or they would, if only they didn't show the two sides neck and neck. Which begs the question all foreign observers must be asking: why do so many Italians want to vote for the clearly dodgy Berlusconi (who somehow won himself the nickname 'the Knight')? How can a man with so much scandal and the smell of corruption hanging around him attract so many voters? How can they bear to see him with his hands on the levers of government?

To understand this, one must bear three things in mind:

Berlusconi does not command the poll rating on his own. The rating of 48-50% is for his coalition of the Right, which consists not only of his party, Forza Italia, but also of the Alleanza Nazionale (the ex-Fascists), the Lega Nord (mostly Venetian separatists - it's a bit like Surrey wanting to declare independence from the rest of the UK) and the Union of Christian Democrats (the people who used to run Italy in the good old days - IRONY ALERT) who recently pulled out of the government because they couldn't bear to work with the Fascists. Each of these groups commands strong support in different regions of the country, and Berlusconi's party rides on their coat-tails. Furthermore, the Left is made up of a similarly disparate group of parties and their coalition leader, Romano Prodi (nicknamed 'the Professor', which will probably cost him a few votes), doesn't even have his own party, unlike Berlusconi.

Second, Berlusconi has a number of things in his favour. Italians find him attractive (yes, I know...). He has a certain charisma compared with Prodi, who can come across as a little stuffy. Italian nationalism has grown in recent years, not held back by the hosting of the Winter Olympics in Turin, and Berlusconi is not afraid to appeal to the basest populism. Berlusconi also controls many TV channels in Italy, which guarantees him massive media coverage (although he has been caught out when he strays beyond safe territory, as he found when he was interviewed on Rai Tre, a channel he does not control). And while there is a strong and loyal left-wing tradition among many Italians, there is an equally strong anti-left tradition among others - and Berlusconi has not been slow to throw slurs about a Communist threat lying behind Prodi's benign face.

And the third factor is that Italians have got used to carrying on with their own affairs despite the government. This is a country in which hundreds of directly contradictory laws are still on the statute book, in which favours and bribes are a normal part of everyday life, in which religion, fashion and football take a front seat in the minds of the population and government is relegated to "those people in Rome", in which legal transgression is greeted as often with a "yeah, whatever" as with an "oh, dear". Many Italians can't decide whom to vote for, because they are convinced it doesn't matter.

Anyway, the practice of television debates has leaked over from America, and Berlusconi and Prodi have had a number of set-tos on national networks in the past few weeks - the latest took place yesterday, and was a particularly bad-tempered affair. The Italian press reacted along party lines, so there is no clear indication of who won - however, you know that Berlusconi is rattled when he loses his temper. Let's hope the weekend's poll wipes that irritating smile off his face for good.

[EDIT: Worth reading Martin Kettle on why Berlusconi isn't all bad, except that he is. Worth reading the comments, too.]

The boy blunder strikes again

2006-04-04T13:43:00.000+01:00

LAND OF HOPELESS TORIES

I've just enjoyed the wonderful sound of Charlie Cameron tripping over his own feet on the radio.

New readers start here: Charlie was being interviewed on LBC about the plans by UKIP to acquire information about the Tories' secret ~~donors~~ lenders under the good ol' Freedom of Information Act (or, more properly, Freedom of Information We Choose to Allow You to See Act). Concerned to dismiss this irritation and deflect attention from this issue, Cameron described UKIP as a fringe party, as you do: "fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists".

It was the last remark that got him into trouble. Asked to clarify his accusation of racism, Cameron's well-oiled machine hit a stone in the road and started to fall apart. You could almost hear him thinking, "oh, fuck". He spluttered his way through to the end (hear it via here), but it was possibly the most unconvincing performance he has yet given in the public arena. One was reminded of Iain Duncan-Smith answering a question on the Today programme by laughing repeatedly.

Poor Charlie; the honeymoon really is over. Only two polls out of eight in the last month put the Tories ahead (see UK Polling Report for details). At a time when Labour is in disarray, when the concealed cracks at the top of the government are starting to peek through the wallpaper, his party should be revelling in a massive - or at least consistent - poll lead. His inexperience is showing through; glib and charming in his leadership campaign, he suddenly looks like a sixth-former who desperately wants to be a prefect if only that nasty Mr Blair didn't have the headmaster's ear.

Trouble is, on this occasion it was a fairly good call. A quick glance at UKIP's website (don't make me link to it) includes such enlightened and savoury statements as these:

"[Muslims] have a mission to take us back to the Dark Ages"

"Everyone should have the right to say that other people’s religious beliefs are mumbo-jumbo. That was acceptable when offended Christians would forgive and pray for the soul of the blasphemer. Apparently it is not, now that an offended Muslim might threaten to kill them."

"The United Kingdom lost its independence and identity when a referendum on trade turned out to be a political take-over. Uninvited foreign regulations poured over the border attempting to change traditions and eliminate the country."

"All those entering Britain with the intention of staying [should] be subject to health checks for certain communicable diseases."

"UKIP will repeal the 1999 Human Rights Act [and require] the reinterpretation of parts of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees."

Not actually racist, as such, but you can see where Charlie was coming from. [EDIT: More precise info at UKIPwatch (via Clive).]

Never mind, as Gary has observed, it's nice to watch the Right falling out with each other. If only there were a credible third option to vote for...

Back in business

2006-04-03T17:40:00.000+01:00

The wireless connection is running, the laptop is faster than the desktop (but not as fast as the next desktop, tee hee) and I'm ready for posting again, except it's quarter to six and Junior needs his tea.

Never mind, the good news is that Jim Bliss is also back in business, and some fine posts he has made in the last few weeks. Jim, you'll be on my bl*gr*ll soon. [EDIT: Done!]

More tomorrow, including perhaps why I'll be shutting my Swiss Army Knife in a drawer for ever. Do you think they'll eventually ban me from having one even in my own home?

Fresh woods and pastures new

2006-03-30T11:06:00.000+01:00

I think you'll find that this is the correct quotation, and fresh fields don't even come into it.

Anyway, the entire Gnu clan has now settled into new and larger accommodation in the embarrassingly posh and Tory area of Bedford Park. Owing to the combined incomptence of the builders and BT, I have no internet service, so I am writing this from the hallowed enclaves of Chiswick Public Library (who use Internet Explorer, curse them).

When normal broadband service is resumed, there'll be more about my now ex-MP, Andrew Slaughter, who has contacted me with patronising reassurance about the Legislative Reform Bill. There'll also be more about my new MP, Ann 'Two Flats' Keen. And I might even get round to finishing that post about the Third Test.

Stay tuned, Gnu fans.

Third Test: England win by 212 runs

2006-03-24T16:49:00.000Z

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scorecard

I'm a little late to the party, waiting two days before posting about this marvellous match, but it seems English cricket really is alive and well after all (and after we'd feared for its life in the aftermath of the appalling Pakistan tour).

More comment will follow, but there's the small matter of moving home.

Looks like rain

2006-03-24T15:14:00.000Z

GNU BRITAIN

Water fell out of the sky this morning. That doesn't happen often in London. I got Mrs Wildebeest to stand outside with a bucket, so that we might have some kind of reserve to use when our water company introduces a hosepipe ban - despite the fact that its reservoirs are 96% full and a third of its water is lost through leakage before it even reaches our tap.

Never mind. The Gnu family is moving home next week, and we'll be giving the new garden a damn good spray before the ban comes in. If all else fails, we'll have to spit on the roses. I'll just think of Charles Clarke as I do it - that should get the sputum flowing.

And there was me, thinking we were on the same side

2006-03-18T16:57:00.000Z

Cruelty-free capitulation

GREEN GNU

I should have known.

Your life in their hands

2006-03-14T10:04:00.000Z

GNU LABOUR

So, the game of ping-pong continues. The Commons overturns the amendments added to the ID Cards Bill by the Lords, which would have meant ID cards would be voluntary. So, once again, an ID card will be compulsory but only if you ever want to leave the country.

In the meantime, the government has already spent £32m of our money trying to get this scheme in place, which is supported by only half the country and which hasn't even become law.

In a separate development, the National Audit Office is being asked to investigate failures in a new NHS computer system. The Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre in Oxford has just moved over to the new system, which is intended eventually to cover the entire country. But Computer Weekly magazine was passed documents showing that the implementation of the new system had led to inconvenience for both staff and patients and, in some cases, risk to patient health and safety. Patients disappeared from the database. Appointments were delayed. Not enough time was allocated to test the system properly.

This is just the first stage in what is said to be the world's largest civil computer project. Now, won't the ID cards scheme require another large civil computer project? Never mind, I'm sure they'll have sorted out all the glitches by that time.

Shall we all go and buy the new Pet Shop Boys album?

Second Test: India win by nine wickets

2006-03-13T16:55:00.000Z

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scorecard

The exciting, satisfying task of chronicling the success of the English cricket team in the last few years has turned into a heavy-hearted charting of one failure after another.

This was Old England: batting collapses, bowlers that couldn't judge the line right, an apparent inability to work out what to do when the opposition started fighting back. The disastrous note on which this tour began, with the injuries to Giles, Vaughan and Simon Jones and the mysterious dropping out of Trescothick, was momentarily suspended by the team's successful domination of much of the first Test; but that note is resonating loudly again.

On possibly the most England-friendly pitch in the whole of India, and with Flintoff calling the toss correctly for a second time, this should have been a guaranteed victory. Instead, the tourists capitulated in time-honoured, miserable fashion. So determined have England been to follow the success of their old adversaries Australia (on whom more in a moment) that they have developed an aggressive, punishing style of cricket which has served them brilliantly in the Caribbean, South Africa and on home soil. However, Plan B has somehow slipped out of the team's users' manual. A first-class team, a top-of-the-world team, would be able to adapt its gameplan to different conditions. The Asian sub-continent demands a more patient, probing style of cricket which sacrifices a fast scoring rate in favour of applied, dogged, grinding play of the type Graham Thorpe came to personify. It took Australia several goes to conquer India and England have yet to discover the knack.

There are other factors involved, of course, which makes one feel relatively positive about England's future. They have a very, very inexperienced middle order - Bell, Pietersen and Collingwood have just short of thirty Tests between them. Deprived of the experience of Trescothick and Vaughan, and the match-winning reverse swing of the brittle Simon Jones, England were always going to be on the back foot in this series. Alistair Cook is a great find, with a wonderful future ahead of him, but he couldn't be expected to produce the goods every single match, and India is a cruel place to make your debut. To have drawn (in impressive style) the first match was an achievement which earned the respect of all but the notoriously partisan Indian press. That this match followed familiar lines is... well, it was going to happen at some point.

And one shouldn't ignore the fact that India have most of the cards in their pocket: Kumble would be the finest leg-spinner in the world, were Shane Warne not to exist. The batting line-up is arguably the strongest in the world (Australia might have the edge over it, but the Ashes showed them to be not the team we thought they were). And, at long last, India have a pace bowler with real talent and threat: in the warm-up game, the unseen Munaf Patel destroyed the English line-up and he repeated the trick here. Brought up on years of warning about the deadliness of Indian spinners, our batsmen were not prepared for some of the fast stuff to be of equal quality.

And so to Mumbai, a spin-friendly pitch, and a match India can almost be guaranteed to win. Down to third go England in the international Test rankings, and there they deserve to be until they can muster the collective (and injury-free) talent and experience to beat the Asians on their own patch. This match, and the Pakistani tour in November, suggest that that time is still some way off.

Still, it's not all bad news: the most incredible one-day international match ever played (though some say the World Cup semi-final of 1999 at Edgbaston was more thrilling) took place yesterday in Johannesburg, and - this deserves bold print - Australia were hammered. Having set the hosts a world-record 435 to win the South Africans, possibly motivated by a "hell, let's go for it, we can't win anyway" mentality, smashed their way through the Australian bowling and set a new world record of their own with one ball to spare.

Since I don't have SKY Sports (I refuse to countenance a penny of my money going into Murdoch's pocket), I was able to follow the match only on the internet, but that was exciting enough. My mother (who has paid the devil's shilling) kindly rang me and screamed her way through the last couple of overs. The atmosphere was extraordinary, and this result sets up a thrilling prospect for the forthcoming Test series. Having been beaten in the Ashes, having lost this one-day series and drawn one with England, having even been beaten by Bangladesh, the era of Australian domination which has reigned supreme over international cricket for a dozen years is just about tipping over the edge into a downward spiral. Read the scorecard and enjoy.

A brief announcement

2006-03-13T16:53:00.000Z

Just passed my driving test, at the age of 37 and at the third attempt.

No flowers, please.

Capitally pissed off

2006-03-07T09:22:00.000Z

GNU BRITAIN

Apparently, there are 'too few public toilets' in London, according to a report for the London Assembly.

While it's obviously difficult to find somewhere to go to the loo in central London, I'm not sure that there's a "quality of life crisis", as the report says. Sounds like someone's trying to make the report sound a good deal more dramatic and important (and less amusing) than it really is.

That someone might be Joanne McCartney, Chair of the London Assembly's Health and Public Services Committee:

"This is not just an issue of inconvenience. It is about people's dignity and quality of life.

Er, yeah. Well, I guess it's pretty undignified if you wet yourself in a bus shelter but, to be honest, in London that sort of behaviour goes pretty much unnoticed.

Just one public toilet for each one of the 28m people who visit London each year. Well, call me stupid (no, don't), but I'd have thought you only need one public toilet at a time. I don't stand in Piccadilly Circus thinking, oh, God, there are six public toilets I can use, which one am I going to pick? The one with the sensor-activated taps? The one with the softest toilet paper? The one with the poncy bloke in a uniform who brushes the lapels of your anorak and then expects a pound in return? The one... oh, never mind, too late now.

Anyway, for those of you still panicking with your legs crossed, here's Oscar's handy guide to where to go to the loo for free in central London (and these are just the ones I know about):

Piccadilly Circus Tube - utterly offensive, smelly, shabby, full of suspicious looking men avoiding your gaze (mind you, that goes for most men's toilets), but perfectly located
The National Gallery - in the basement. Adequately maintained. You can look at the art if you want, but it's simplest to turn right at the entrance, wander nonchalantly down the stairs and find (eventually) the loos. You won't even have to have your bag searched (THINKS: oh, dear, have I just given al-Qa'ida a tip?)
John Lewis, Oxford Street - men's toilets are on the second and third floors. Bit difficult to find among the Persian carpets and mahogany tallboys, but look above you and you'll see the signs.
Prêt à Manger, outside Leicester Square Tube - technically you have to buy something and ask for the code, just like at McDonald's, but hang around outside the door and someone's bound to come in or out and they can just hold the door open for you!
The Natural History Museum - only disadvantage is that there's often a long queue to get in.
Most hospitals - they usually have a public toilet near the entrance. Failing that, ask for Genito-Urinary Out-Patients; they're bound to have one handy.
Any pub - let's face it, the old 'customers only' provision stands, but if the place is crowded enough no one's going to notice (unless they've got those security things in place, which is becoming increasingly frequent - but then just use the Prêt technique, above).

The above applies to men's toilets, but probably works equally well for women's (of which I have far less experience). Anyway, your dignity when visiting the capital should remain intact.

Easy peesy, Ms McCartney. Excuse me, I'll be back in a moment...

First Test: Match drawn

2006-03-06T10:51:00.000Z

THE BEAUTIFUL GAME

Scorecard

England's tour of India could have had a better start, let's face it. All those who were hoping for a powerful bounce-back from the Pakistan fiasco must have been weeping into their Stellas when first Ashley Giles was ruled out following surgery, then Marcus Trescothick flew home in distress to be with his wife (still no one knows why, although rumours are inevitably numerous), then Michael Vaughan's dodgy knee gave way again and finally, our Ashes hero, Simon Jones, was laid up and sent home with yet another freak accident.

So, with a strong-looking Indian team (they've found some seamers at last) facing virtually an England 2nd XI with an untried captain, Flintoff, in command for the first time, and three players who'd never played for England before, the tears must have flowed freely. And at the end of the first day, when England had been reduced to 246-7, the eyes must have been wept dry.

It's a tribute, then, to the depth of strength in this England team that we went on to dominate the next three days' play. Monty Panesar, the delightfully-named first Sikh to play for England, showed that (at least on these wickets) the hype about him wasn't just hype, as he dismissed Tendulkar for his first Test wicket (a prize he shares with Michael Vaughan) and kept the Indian scoring rate to a trudge. Paul Collingwood, after a coming-of-age tour of Pakistan in which he finally dragged his highest Test score beyond 50, now finally arrived on the world-class stage by alternately grinding and thumping his way to an innings-saving 134no. Alistair Cook flew halfway around the world from the England 'A' Tour in the Caribbean, stopped off at Heathrow for whatever magic potion Getafix had been quietly brewing for him, arrived in India, shrugged off the jetlag and made a century on his Test debut. And Man of the Match Matthew Hoggard took five Indian wickets for about two runs in a display of masterful bowling (which I couldn't watch, not wishing to have SKY and not wishing to get up at four in the morning) which proved that he is more than just the quiet one in England's Fantastic Four pace bowlers.

That the Indians put on a battling attempt to make up an impossible target by slogging the ball around in the last session has been wrongly interpreted by the press as a courageous fightback. The target was never seriously achievable, and England's apparent panic and over-defensiveness may have been visibly uncertain but was tactically safe - those idiots who've been going on about 'shades of Edgbaston, August 2005' were way off the mark. Anyway, let's just remember who won at Edgbaston, shall we?

So, both sides emerge with some credit, but fans of English cricket must be delighted that our apparent weaknesses have so readily been compensated for. Like Australia, when our first-rank players are down and out, we just find some spare first-rank players to step into their places. English cricket is healthier in these last few years than it's been for twenty years. If the Ashes didn't prove it, this match - whatever else happens in the tour - has.

Honey, I concealed the mortgage

2006-03-03T11:26:00.000Z

GNU LABOUR

Imagine, if you will, the conversation:

"Honey, can you spare a fiver? I need to pop down to the newsagents'."

"Of course. Here you are."

"Gosh, your wallet looks awfully full."

"Ah, yes, er... it's one of those expanding wallets. It stretches as you put the banknotes in. Gives the impression that it's stuffed full of money, when it isn't."

"How super."

"Yes, I got it in Italy."

Craig Murray is equally sceptical.

Dydd Dewi Sant Hapus

2006-03-01T10:35:00.000Z

GNU BRITAIN

Today, as all fellow Welsh people will be well aware, is St David's Day.

Prompted by The Moai, let me link to these people, who have a topical appeal.

Fisting my MP

2006-02-28T16:03:00.000Z

Hello, Vicar!

GNU LABOUR

Sorry, should have read "fisking my MP". Easy mistake to make, when wish fulfilment overcomes reality.

Anyway, this all springs from an attempt by my MP, Andrew Slaughter, to 'get down and dirty' with the voters. Presumably the leadership has decided that its PR effort needs a little boost (hardly surprising), or perhaps Slaughter has got his eye on the new safe seat of Hammersmith that will come into being after the boundary changes take effect. Whatever the motivation, he has started sending out newsletters to his constituents. Not all his constituents, no - that would be far too democratic. Just those constituents who have contacted his office and, being the ones who have an axe to grind, will be the ones most in need of placating (as if).

So, in the true guerilla spirit of blogging, let's look at his first effort and politely tear seven kinds of shit out of it.

EALING, ACTON AND SHEPHERDS BUSH NEWSLETTER

That's a good start - he's remembered the name of his constituency. Pity he forgot the apostrophe in "Shepherd's Bush" but most of the road signs do, too.

Welcome to the first of my email newsletters.

My name is Andy Slaughter

Andy Slaughter? Oh, how chummy. Are we meant to be friends now?

I am the Labour MP for Ealing, Acton and Shepherds Bush, and this is a new way I am hoping to keep in touch with constituents and others interested in this area and my activities as its MP.

You should only be receiving this if you have previously been in contact with me or my office. Even so, you may well welcome a regular unsolicited email from me as much as you would smallpox.

Oh HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Nice one, centurion!

So, if this is the case, please reply (gently) declining to receive any more and I will delete your email address.

This will be a longer screed than I will usually write

"Screed"? Ponce!

so I can set out some ground rules.

Rules? Rules? Excuse me, I thought I was your employer. You don't get to dictate to me.

What is the purpose of all this?

I get up to 200 emails, a similar number of letters and about 100 'phone calls a day.

You remembered the apostrophe that time.

This is significantly more than most MPs

Look how hard I'm working for you! Look how overworked I am! Look, there's blood on my hands! Oops, no, that's from the detention-without-trial vote.

and a fair proportion are raising questions of general interest or lobbying me on local or national issues.

There appears to be a growing wish for voters to know more about what their own MP's opinions are, what he or she is up to, or simply to learn more about what is going on in their area.

A growing wish? I'd have thought voters have always wanted to know this. Doesn't this swing against your party's moans about voter apathy?

Email is far better suited to this than traditional means. I write a column for the local papers - Ealing Gazette, Hammersmith & Shepherds Bush Gazette and Hammersmith & Fulham Chronicle - but this appears irregularly, has a small circulation and I am curtailed in what I can write!

Whereas in your newsletter you are completely independent and fear no restriction or censure from your party's high command, obviously.

I do and will continue to use Labour Party and my own newsletters to reach those not on email, but it is very costly and slow to produce and deliver 45,000 of these.

Most weekends I pick an area of the constituency and knock on doors to talk to people. This is very good for finding out what constituents think and what local issues are, but I have worked out that using this method it will take me 50 years to speak to every one (just about possible: I am 45 but from a long-lived family).

This is the kind of limp joke a vicar kicks off his sermon with.

So, an increasing number of MPs use this cheap, instant and unregulated method of keeping in touch.

Unregulated! Nice one, centurion!

I've read some of their attempts and they fall into three categories.

The unbearably tedious. I assume you do not want to know when I go to the dentist or spend two hours replying to general correspondence.

The unbelievably pompous. "How my vote defeated the government", "When I told the Chancellor he was wrong about macroeconomic policy"

The informative and entertaining. Self-explanatory - I intend to adopt this regimen, but inevitably will dip into the other two.

Notice the unsurprising lack of names. Personally I don't know any MPs' blogs (and I've read a few) that fall into the first category; and those that fall into the second category are not usually being pompous, but rightly exposing the deviousness and duplicity of government policy and activity. Austin Mitchell, Slaughter's parliamentary colleague, is one example. (Incidentally, Clive Soley, Slaughter's predecessor in the same seat, is one of Westminster's longest-blogging members. If it was good enough for your constituents before, "Andy", why have you taken it away from them?)

Groundrules

There he goes again...

1. I will always write this myself, in the first person. This has the downside that it will be somewhat idiosyncratic, but you can always press delete.

Yeah, and we can vote you out in 2009 (and will, if you have the guts to stand in the new marginal Ealing Acton seat, instead of doing the chicken run to the new safe seat of Hammersmith).

2. I will try and keep it short. Very soon I will have a website up and running, where long-term prisoners and insomniacs will be able to find my articles, speeches and other background material, but I think it defeats the object if I drone on in the newsletter.

Long-term prisoners and insomniacs? How about people who have a genuine interest in how their elected representative is acting in the House of Commons and why he isn't more critical of government policy? Anyway, the promise of a website is welcome - but is it going to be a blog, where you can actually interact with your constituents in a continuation of the democratic principle which brought you to office?

3. By regular I mean roughly fortnightly. But I reserve the right to add or subtract from this. The point is to respond to the times: things are pretty lively in Westminster at present, in mid-August, less so.
4. I am very keen to get feedback on what I say or omit to say; less so to enter protracted correspondence with individuals - there just isn't time.

I guess that means we won't be getting a blog out of him. On the one hand, he's "keen" to have feedback, on the other hand he doesn't want to talk to individuals.

So, please reply with your thoughts, and if you raise issues of general interest, I will deal with them in future newsletters.
5. Please pass this on to others and, if they are content, send me their email addresses. I would like to be communicating with as representative a sample of constituents as possible.

There we go, folks - an open invitation. You can send your comments to SLAUGHTERA@parliament.uk. Remember, he doesn't want "protracted correspondence", so keep it pithy!

ANDY SLAUGHTER'S EMAIL NEWSLETTER

NO.1 MONDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2006.

Big issue - Health.

Hammersmith, Charing Cross and Ravenscourt Park hospitals (the Hammersmith Hospitals Trust - HHT) have some of the best clinical care in the country and are backed by Imperial College which means they are at the forefront of research and development. They also have huge investment going into them. (This week I am visiting the new renal centre at the Hammersmith - £40 million's worth and the newest and biggest in Europe.)

But there are two clouds on the horizon. Firstly, a large deficit. Secondly, the overall review of health services in NW London.

All of this was discussed in a House of Commons debate last week in which I took part. If you want to know what I said click here.

Well, if you read "Andy's" contribution to the debate, you'll see that he spends the first chunk of his speech either swiping at the Tories or eulogising about the work done by the employees of his local healthcare trusts. Hardly difficult debating. He also refers to "black propaganda" about Charing Cross Hospital closing. As regular readers will know, this is a subject I've been blogging on for a while, and as far as I can see the reports of CCH's closure are rather more than black propaganda. If he's so secure about the future of CCH, how come he asks the Health Minister to issue reassurance on the matter? Anyway, after a helpful, Tory-bashing intervention from neighbouring (and soon to be my) MP, Ann Keen (more on her another time), he turns his attention to Ravenscourt Park Hospital, for which he blames much of the health trust's deficit. He goes on to praise the appointment of KPMG to sort it out. Gulp!

In summary, I believe the deficit can be dealt with - most of it results from the under-use of Ravenscourt Park, the old Royal Masonic, which is now a specialist orthopaedic hospital: it's fantastic - and MRSA free - but it doesn't have enough patients!

You could say the Trust is a victim of its own success. The Government set very strict targets on waiting times (a six month maximum for inpatient and 13 weeks for outpatient). HHT got inpatient times down to three months and overspent in the process. Other trusts failed to send as many patients to RCP as expected. There is no excusing the fact that this is a very serious management failure, but a solvable one.

Of course! Let's solve it by sending in an expensive firm of consultants!

One thing that annoys me is that this distracts from the good news that people are no longer waiting very long periods for treatment - one in ten waited more than two years under the Tories. At the last election Labour promised to cut the total time from GP referral to treatment to a maximum of 18 weeks. The Tories promised to pay people with NHS money to go private.

But, what annoys me more is playing politics with Health.

Er, did you read your own speech, "Andy"? You referred to the Tory record on the NHS four times in your speech, and the chairman had to intervene to put you back on track.

In saying this I am echoing what David Cameron said in an interview last Tuesday. Regrettably, on Wednesday he went to Charing Cross to parrot the scurrilous rumour put around by local Tories that Charing Cross Hospital will close.

The only good thing about the Cameron visit was that it brought a clear statement from Jane Kennedy, the Health Minister, that Charing Cross would not close. I have met with Jane and other ministers concerning the problems at HHT. They foresee a bright future for both Hammersmith and Charing Cross.

Hold on, I'm confused now. You criticised Cameron for going to visit CCH and then accused the Tories of coming up with the rumour that the hospital was to close (they didn't). Yet you go on to say that it was a good idea he did go, because it forced the Health Minister to make a statement about the hospital's future.

While I am reassured by this, I will reserve judgment until the Strategic Health Authority review is complete later this year. In the meantime, I will continue to impress on the NHS bosses that we need all our local hospitals to be centres of excellence: accessible, modern and with the highest clinical standards and facilities.

The daily grind - what does an MP do?

The weekend. I met the developers of the Bromyard Avenue site to see what they were planning now. The answer is another 400+ mainly private, mainly small flats to go with the 440 they are already converting from the old government building at Bromyard House. I am very concerned about this. Firstly, this is a huge number of new dwellings to crowbar into a built up area with few community facilities to hand. Secondly, it is affordable family and keyworker housing we need, not hundreds more shoeboxes and cars on the roads. Thirdly, they wish to demolish the family sized flats, currently occupied by prison officers from Wormwood Scrubs and their families, to build the new development.

Right, and you're going to do what precisely about it?

I also attended a meeting called by resourceful local residents in Askew Road to get Thames Water to take action over the blocked sewer which is causing regular flooding of premises in the area. They produced photos and video to prove the problem, which Thames denied, existed. Now, the works have been promised by the end of next month. Another small victory against this dreadful company.

A victory which you had nothing to do with, it seems. Thank goodness for those "resourceful local residents". Keep buttering them up, or they'll be voting Tory next time.

Having sorted out the Church Road at last, I am still pursuing them over Acton High Street and Horn Lane. Please let me know of any other wet spots.

I think I'm listening to a 'wet spot' right now.

Monday. I did my surgery at Shepherds Bush Advice Centre in Uxbridge Road. If you need to see me either here or in Acton, please ring my Commons office (see below). I have two excellent staff who may well be able to sort out your problem without an appointment

...or at least keep you busy and give me time to slip out of my office...

but I am always prepared to see constituents.

Tuesday. I was in committee, scrutinising the Merchant Shipping (Pollution) Bill. All MPs get put on committees, but I do all the transport stuff as I am Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Minister of Transport, Dr Stephen Ladyman. A PPS is an unpaid bag-carrier, but it sounds good.

Grand. You have a meaningless job sucking up to a government minister, but at least it "sounds good".

Wednesday. The debate on West London Health Services, which I referred to above. This is the first Commons speech I have made for some time, having made it a rule to speak only if I think I have something unique to contribute or wish to speak up on matters important to the constituency. Not all MPs have this rule.

That is, if you can speak about relatively uncontroversial matters or promote government policy, rather than risk using your conscience and putting your parliamentary career on the line.

At the end of business all Labour MPs gathered in the Chamber for a photograph to mark the centenary of the first Labour MPs being elected: then there were 29, now 354. Parliament is a peculiarly cynical and non-collegiate place

No shit, Sherlock.

and so I was surprised by the genuine warmth of the occasion. I think we all remembered why we were there: to try and improve the lot of the majority of hard-working people in Britain, and particularly those who are disadvantaged.

Copyright, G.Brown, 2005 (incidentally, Brown appeared on "Andy's" election leaflet, but Blair did not - read between the lines, if you will).

The Commons chamber resounded to the spontaneous singing of the Red Flag. "Were you drunk?" my Spanish teacher asked me the next day, bemused by the un-British emoting. Only with nostalgia.

Happy days, eh, "Andy"? When you could be a true socialist without having to worry about the Whips coming to get you...

Thursday. Between votes I scurried over to the Linford Christie Outdoor Sports Centre next to Wormwood Scrubs. Here Barclays, on behalf of Chelsea FC, and Hammersmith & Fulham Council have invested £1 million on a new full-size all-weather soccer pitch, four five-a-side pitches and a netball court. It's superb, and, along with the new running track and the new pool and gym in White City, represents over £6 million invested in sport in Shepherds Bush in the last year. I had my photograph taken with John Terry and Shaun Wright-Phillips, which was painful for a lifelong Fulham fan.

In the evening I spoke at the Cathnor Park Area Action Group meeting. The main topic is a developer's plan to built a monstrous tower overlooking Ravenscourt Park. I intend to give evidence against this carbuncle at the public enquiry in June, but the residents, supported by Hammersmith & Fulham council, are already doing an excellent job of dishing it.

So they don't need you sticking your oar in and trying to take the credit.

I am hugely impressed by the residents groups I have worked with in Acton and Shepherds Bush.

I suspect I will correspond next week as this is one of those big Parliamentary weeks: ID cards, smoking (I'm voting for a total ban) and terrorism. I said this would be succinct. Did you believe me?

You're a Labour PPS. I wouldn't believe you if you offered to sell me your mother.

Shame on you.

Nice one! etc.

Incidentally, "Andy's" website can be found here. Read the text on the front page - it's like a LibDem council by-election leaflet.

A law unto themselves

2006-02-27T15:07:00.000Z

GNU LABOUR

While my sacrum was busy digging itself painfully into my other lower vertebrae whenever I so much as blinked, the government cleverly introduced the boring-when-you-first-hear-about-it-but-actually-terrifying-when-you-think-about-it Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill. In a nutshell, it permits government ministers to dream up new criminal offences without having to go through all that tedious Act of Parliament nonsense.

I don't have time to go into detail about this insanity. Luckily, others have done it for me, so hie ye away to Chicken Yoghurt, Europhobia and Right Links (to whom I wouldn't normally link, but it's taken the least socialist Labour government in history to push me into unholy alliance with Tories).

In the meantime, I'm writing to my MP; no, "Andy", I haven't forgotten you, there'll be more about you tomorrow.

Why Hillary will never be President

2006-02-22T14:19:00.000Z

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

I am presently reading Hillary Clinton’s autobiography, Living History. The self-aggrandisement doesn’t stop at the title. The book is riddled with false modesty, coupled with a peculiar kind of over-reaching grand vision, a large dollop of self-justification and a number of cautious restatements of friendship, favours which will no doubt be called in on a future occasion.

Let’s be clear: I think Hillary’s a babe. As even Michael Moore commented, “Boy, is she easy on the eyes!” (I think it was in here). How Bill could have overlooked her in favour of the frankly rather frumpy Monica Lewinsky is beyond my comprehension (unless he, like his predecessor and hero JFK, is a sufferer from satyriasis, in which case any port in a storm). And one thing that comes through clearly from her memoirs is her dedication to the rights of women and a determination to improve social justice for worse-off Americans.

So, would I weep if Hillary made it to the White House? Not at all. The Democrats would be back in power, we’d have a female President for the first time, and what’s more it would be one genuinely interested in promoting the welfare of her own sex and not ignoring it in a Thatcherish 'more-macho-than-the-boys' sort of way.

I just don’t think she’s going to make it. (Click 'More' now!)

First things first: the 2008 election is a long way away. We haven’t even had the mid-terms yet. There are several possible candidates for the Democratic nomination. Hillary may be heading the list now, but there is no absolute guarantee that she would seek the nomination. I can’t believe she wouldn’t (and there is a grassroots campaign emerging to force her into standing) but there are other contenders, some of whom have already declared an interest in standing (like Joe Biden) and some of whom haven’t but are expected to pitch in (like Mark Warner). There’s going to be a lot of excitement – possibly even desperation – among Democrats about the prospect of wresting the White House back from the neocons, and there are going to be a lot of people who want to be The One That Does It. Even John Kerry can’t be ruled out of having another go (after all, he came close last time and he may have the example of Richard Nixon in mind – a near miss the first time, then victory later on. Of course, a better example to keep in mind might be Adlai Stevenson, another twice-runner).

However, let’s assume the Democrats do go with her and that she wins enough primaries to secure the nomination. I believe that she cannot win the White House back. She’ll get a decent chunk of the vote, but it won’t be enough to carry the necessary states. Here’s why.

First, the most likely Republican candidates would all beat her. At the moment (and, again, remember that there’s still a long way to go) the likeliest candidates are John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Condi Rice. All three come with baggage: McCain and Giuliani are both divorced and have had cancer treatment. McCain was also vociferous in pushing for the War on Iraq, increasingly looking like a mistake in the eyes of many Americans. He failed to win the nomination against Dubya, and is believed to have run a lacklustre campaign, after a promising start. He will also be 72 at election time, which would make him the oldest ever first-time candidate. Giuliani is pro-choice (and a Catholic), and many in the Religious Right have committed themselves to opposing his candidacy. Rice is closely associated with the Bush regime and with the Iraq debacle. She is also black, which may make a difference to some white voters.

Nevertheless, to my sadness, I believe all three would beat Hillary.

McCain enjoys a popular reputation as a moderate (and sometimes maverick) Republican, the only senator to vote against his party on several key bills. He represents a southern state. Although he has been strong in urging on the Iraq War, he has been critical of the way it has been carried out and famously stated he had no confidence in Donald Rumsfeld. He has a high-profile media image and is widely recognised across the US. His strongly pro-life views may help win the Religious Right round to him, despite his marital history. In any case, even if he loses some of the Christian support that helped Bush over the line in 2004, he will pick up a lot of the centrist Democratic vote because of his moderation in key areas, his co-operation with Democratic senators (including Ted Kennedy and Russ Feingold) and his personal charm and appeal. McCain has, as a footnote, toured New Hampshire and spoken in every town there. Although New Hampshire is a small state in terms of electoral votes, and was the only state to swing to the Democrats in 2004, his popularity there may help it back into the red fold - and, in any case, it will give him a good chance in the important first primary (just as it did in 2000).

Giuliani has a strong campaign behind him, even before he runs. He would be challenging Hillary on her home turf, New York (and it would be interesting to see if he could carry that state in a Presidential contest – if he did, it would be all over for her). His handling of the 9/11 emergency is widely believed to have been both efficient and compassionate, and made him a godlike figure among many. He is the subject of a Draft Giuliani for President campaign (like Rice and Hillary). He is widely credited with reducing crime and improving the economy of New York City. A CNN poll last December ranks him even higher than McCain among Republicans.

Both McCain and Giuliani also have the advantage of being male. I’m not sure the Americans are ready for a female President – unless they’re forced to have one, which brings me onto Condolezza Rice.

There is no indication that Rice is considering standing for President (and she is the least likely of the three Republicans I have mentioned to stand), but many former Secretaries of State have moved on to the highest office, and there are many groups attempting to draft her (such as this one). Polls show her beating every likely Democratic contender. She has the Southern credentials which are apparently necessary for any Republican contender these days. Her race may count against her among white voters, but it is likely to push a lot of black voters into her camp. Educated voters will be attracted by her intellectual prowess and her linguistic abilities (though it’s claimed she may not be as fluent in Russian as she appears, leading Fox News to jump the gun on her Presidential ambitions). She was even a Democrat until 1982. Her views on abortion are not known, but are unlikely to be more liberal than Hillary’s.

Perhaps Rice’s strongest suit is her standing on the world stage. She is perceived to have brought gravitas and competence to her office (where her predecessor, Colin Powell, perhaps too nice a man for the job, was often seen to be floundering). As one of America’s faces on the world stage, she has contrasted powerfully with the bumblings of her President, the snarlings of her Vice-President and the inexplicability of her Defense Secretary. (Although part of this is probably the “talking dog” syndrome of which Hillary rightly complains in her memoirs.)

The other person who will beat Hillary is Hillary herself. She’s just got too much going against her to win the election. While she has a strong, vociferous, devoted bedrock of support across the country, she is the kind of person who polarises opinion and there are as many people against her as for her (partly because she’s the kind of person who polarises opinion – after the splits revealed in American society in the last two elections, voters may be looking for a consensus candidate, someone who can bring both sides together. This suggests McCain or Rice, but not Clinton). She is a Chicagoan who represents New York, and the only Southern state she could possibly count on for support would be Arkansas. Rumours, failures and scandal flit around her like evil shadows – Whitewater, the failure of her healthcare plan, her husband’s infidelity, her recent comments on Martin Luther King Day (and more - I can't believe there's an entire Wikipedia page devoted to Hillary-related controversies). She seems to stir up trouble wherever she goes, although it’s clear that most of the trouble is stirred up by her opponents. Karl Rove must have had an anti-Hillary strategy drawn up for years. She’ll be a sitting duck. Furthermore, as one of the many Democrats in the Senate who supported the War on Iraq, support from the left-wing of her core can no longer be taken for granted.

And there's one more thing: how many sitting Senators have gone on to be President? They tend to be elected from governorships (Dubya, Clinton, Reagan, Carter - since the war, only Kennedy made it to the Presidency from the Senate). There's a maxim among political pundits in America that says voters are instinctively mistrustful of Washington insiders, and that they prefer to elect someone who's been 'on the ground' (which swings the balance back towards Giuliani).

I’d love to see Hillary as President, though I’m not at all convinced she’d make a good job of it. McCain and Rice I could live with, if only because they are, respectively, independently-minded and intelligent. But if the neocon agenda, which has already cost the lives of thousands of American and other troops, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians, not to mention benefited the wealthy of America to a huge degree to the detriment of the poorest, is to be stopped this can only be done with a Democratic victory. And Hillary is not the person to deliver that victory, alas.

[FOOTNOTE: I should add that I am notoriously bad at predicting elections, so no doubt 2008 will see George Allen taking on Evan Bayh...]

And we're back!

2006-02-22T14:07:00.000Z

Well, what a long hiatus it's been. I've been furiously editing a feature film (more details when the bloody thing is actually finished, which could be another month or more), but I've got a window of opportunity to resume blogging. And my back, which I put out two weeks ago, has recovered enough for me to sit at the computer for more than twenty minutes at a time.

Anyway, coming up in the next few posts, lots of exciting gnu-fuelled rhetoric and dialectic, including:

Why Hillary Clinton will never be US President.

My MP has a voice! And he uses it!

More about ID cards, the inevitable but insane scheme to put details of us all on a massive, insecure database.

England's tour of India - can the boys recover the pride of the Ashes?

~~The Liberal Democrat leadership contest.~~ (Sorry, too boring.)

Keep watching this space! No, go on, there'll be something along soon. Please don't go. Look, look what I can do! Bet you've never seen that before! Oh, all right, then.

Meme me! Me! Meme me!

2006-01-29T16:05:00.000Z

TECHNOGNU

I have been tagged for a meme by Philip, but only because I complained. So, here goes:

Seven things to do before I die:
Visit New Zealand - but not on a Lord of the Rings tour, which would be unspeakably naff.
Win a major award for film editing - but not an Oscar, which would also be unspeakably naff and, in any case, is as much a lottery as anything else.
See England get to the top of the ICC Test Match rankings.
Pass my bloody driving test (third time coming up in March, fingers crossed).
Instil both self-confidence and a social conscience into Baby Gnu.
Learn some more languages. I fancy having a go at Hungarian, perhaps Europe's hardest language.
Make the world a better place (the bucket's over here, if you want it).

Seven things I cannot do:
Bowl a decent leg-break.
Disembark gracefully from a Routemaster bus (no longer relevant).
Bring myself to vote Tory, under any circumstance.
Open my eyes under water.
Get rid of this instinctive dislike I have of Australian men (even outside the context of cricket). With the obvious exception of Tim, naturally.
Stop myself from saying "fuck" when I drop something, even when within the hearing of Baby Gnu.
Decide whom to vote for if there's no Green candidate in my seat.

Seven things that attract me to my CD player:
The enormous volume control knob.
The built-in MiniDisc player.
The delicate orange glow of the backlight.
The pleasant teak finish on the speakers.
The fact that it's lightweight.
The way the light catches it at certain times in the morning.
The inexplicably aesthetic remote control.

Seven things I say:
Bollocks (especially when speaking to estate agents).
Scumbag (whenever Blair appears on TV).
We'll never retain the Ashes.
Fucking Tories.
Peasant (referring to almost anyone who does something which annoys me).
Jävlar, vad det regnar! (Swedish for "fuck, it's raining!").
Get out of my way (on Oxford Street).

Seven books I love:
Ulysses by James Joyce.
The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck.
The Third Policeman by Flann O'Brien.
Anything by Italo Calvino (or go here if you don't speak Italian).
In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch (every editor should read it).
Labyrinths by Jorge Luís Borges.
Reasons to be Cheerful by Mark Steel.

Seven films I love:
Casablanca
The Third Man
LA Confidential
Fanny and Alexander
Chinatown
Fantasia
Whatever I happen to be working on at the moment.

Seven people to tag:
Oh, God, I don't know now. Everyone I read seems to have done this meme already. Even Noreen's done it. This is what comes of being at the back of the queue. Looks like it'll have to be The Moai next, and Brownie hasn't done it either. The rest can go to the bloggers at TMS 24/7.

Just dropped in to drop someone

2006-01-23T21:17:00.000Z

TECHNOGNU

Just made a hole in my busy schedule to make a couple of observations:

(a) this blog is not dead, it's just resting;
(b) this is the kind of thing we were missing while we were all blubbing over that whale (via Tim); and
(c) I am, with sadness, removing Recess Monkey and Guide Fawkes from my blogroll, after their revolting behaviour over Mark Oaten (read about it all here).

I'm right in the middle of editing a feature film at the moment - more details when it's ready. See you all in a month or so: I promise!

Damn this blogging thing takes too much time!

2005-12-26T14:29:00.000Z

I hope all readers have had a Happy Christmas (or equivalent, for those who are not adherents to the Christian faith).

Regulars will have worked out by now that this blog is on ice. Or, perhaps more accurately, on the back burner. Basically, Christmas is a busy time when you've got an 18-month-old (especially one who's teething and has a cold). Right after Xmas I have a huge project to work on, which will probably occupy me until February. So if I post anything in the next two months, it will be brief, and quite an achievement to boot.

Happy New Year to all.

Why I'm glad I live in a multicultural society

2005-12-19T11:20:00.000Z

GNU BRITAIN

Try and get tickets for this (although it's probably sold out now, and deservedly so). It simply wouldn't work in any context other than an ethnically mixed country, where some immigrant communities have coalesced into virtual ghettoes, keeping alive the traditions of their home country while experiencing clashes with the dominant ethos of their adopted nation.

Shock as Cabinet Minister Shows Compassion!

2005-12-14T11:06:00.000Z

GNU LABOUR

It seems some tiny spark of humanity still burns in the heart of at least one of ZaNuLabour's politburo (via Justin).

(Can a spark burn, technically speaking? Oh, never mind.)

Christmas appeal

2005-12-13T11:28:00.000Z

TECHNOGNU

Schwarzenegger may be incapable of compassion (see post below), but at least Tim Worstall has launched a very worthy appeal for two charities, Ethiopiaid and Send a Cow. And he doesn't even want your money - he's going to take it off those awfully nice and awfully rich people at Google. I can't get my head around how he's proposing to do it, but it's clearly all in a good cause.

(If you're visiting the Send a Cow site, leave the homepage open for a bit - the graphics are quite fun.)

Nice move, Mr Tough Guy

2005-12-13T11:22:00.000Z

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

Williams is dead. I hardly expected anything else from Schwarzenegger - after all, he's governer in a state where the majority of voters support the death penalty, and he's got a 'Tough Guy' reputation to defend (yeah, it's pretty tough to kill someone without having to do it with your own hands and without having to look them in the eye).

I doubt Williams was innocent of the murders for which he was convicted (as many of his supporters have claimed), although there were great gaping holes in the evidence against him. But nor do I doubt the sincerity of his conversion to non-violence. I guess we'll never know what more good work he could have done had he been allowed to go on living, writing and campaigning against gang warfare. Nice one, Arnie, you're real tough. Just remember when your executive limo is torched by a street gang: there was someone who might, just might have prevented it, and you decided to have him killed.

An eye for an eye, or turning the other cheek?

2005-12-12T11:59:00.000Z

GNUS INTERNATIONAL

Speaking of Devil's Kitchen, he and I are involved in an enjoyable spat about capital punishment over at his place.

Or, at least, it would be enjoyable if we weren't talking about an actual man's life. Stanley "Tookie" Williams, convicted for multiple homicide, has spent 25 years on Death Row and may have been executed as I write (given that his fate lies in the hands of The Terminator, I don't hold out much hope). In prison, Williams renounced violence and wrote many books for children, denouncing gang life and trying to ensure that future generations did not go down his path.

Come and join in the debate.

Feel the earth move?

2005-12-12T10:40:00.000Z

GNU BRITAIN

We did. At 5.40 on Sunday morning, Baby Gnu woke me up crying (he was crying, not me). By the time I'd found my dressing gown and made it to the door of the bedroom, he'd stopped (he regularly does this sort of thing - there'll be payback, you mark my words).

Anyway, I got back to bed but - in a pattern which has become uncomfortably familiar - I couldn't get back to sleep straight away. Just after six, I heard a kind of muffled bang. My immediate thought was that something had fallen into the bath downstairs (it was the same kind of muffled but echoing noise you hear when something falls into a ceramic bathtub). But it went on slightly too long, and was slightly too loud. Oh, God, I thought, some piece of furniture has fallen down. But, no, the bang continued to rumble (the way I'm describing it, you'd think it was three minutes long, but it was only a few seconds), and I could tell it wasn't coming from inside the house. Mrs Wildebeest woke up and suggested that it might be a plane coming down (we are within four or five miles of Heathrow). We looked out of the window, but obviously were none the wiser. Assuming it would be on the news if it were anything important, we went back to bed (good old British nonchalance, eh?).

Neither of us imagined it would be something like this, nor that it would in fact have taken place over thirty miles away.

Baby Gnu slept through the whole thing.

[EDIT: Live blogging of the event at The England Project (via this week's BBRU, hosted by Devil's Kitchen, for a change).]

That's a good start, Charlie

2005-12-09T11:07:00.000Z

LAND OF HOPELESS TORIES

Via The Devil's Kitchen, I discover that Cameron's already in trouble for mis-use of Commons headed paper, an offence for which Blunkett has previously got into trouble. Rentamouth backbench Labour MP Stephen Pound is to report Charlie to "Commons officials".

No doubt he'll get away with it, now that he's an "important person". Still, tee hee, eh?

[EDIT: Even more important than we realised, according to this (via Recess Monkey, who has deleted this reference for some reason, but read his Opus Dave post, anyway, as it looks like fun).]