The Brandian Revolution

Oh hi there! It’s been a hwee hwhile. The last thing I wrote a little over a month ago was lending relative praise to British politics when compared to US politics as they were in the midst of the shut-down crisis, which was itself comprised of so many farcical elements that I haven’t the energy to go through them again now. It turns out this was a little ironic, as within days, if not hours, I descended into a murk of cynicism regarding all forms of politics everywhere, at all points in time, past, present and future. Eloquently I say, I stopped giving a toss.

Thanks to Twitter I even have a record of how exactly this happened, my various tweets prior to this sophisticated number, “Temporarily lost all interest in the world, politics and society. Total cynicism attack. Socialists, liberals, conservatives… #suckmyballs,” telling me that it was the Tory party conference wot did it. Or at least, the last of several apathy inducing conferences that served to me precisely the opposite effect of being politically energised. Add a dash of Richard Dawkins taking another pathetic jab at religion completely devoid of intellectual value and the looming final of the Great British Bake Off, and one can see why I might have switched off from matters of import.

There’s just too much diatribe sometimes, whether it’s fronted by big dick intellectuals, warriors for justice, cold and robotic government suits or populist ranters, and that’s hardly not the case at present. Strange that I’d wade back in now when a month ago I was even getting completely sick and tired of my own cognitive involvement in whatever bollocks it was, Miliband vs Cameron vs the energy sector vs the people or Greenwald and the Guardian vs… Christ, everything it seemed at certain points. As a side note, and although I do profoundly care about security services acting wildly beyond the brief, the less I see of Greenwald’s endlessly and eminently affronted person, the better.

So along comes Russell Brand, encapsulating precisely the reason I think I shut down in the first place, with another impossibly unanswerable dilemma for us all to chew on. Nothing so well contained as the Big Six making us choke on our winter porridge as we digest our energy bills, or the issue of the NSA or GCHQ or whatever, but actually the dilemma of… everything. It’s all crap apparently, the whole system and all of its enablers, and we ‘the people’ are in dire need of a wake up call to arms to turn it all on its head in, I kid you not, a “utopian revolution”.

I’m not going to go off on one against this bewildering comedic figure and all of his loquacious eloquence, that’s just kind of tired and Mr. Robert Webb and a thousand other commentators already had a fairly well-rounded crack at criticising most of Brand’s semi-constructions of politico-socio-economic dissatisfaction in his interview with Jeremy Paxman. I won’t even comment much on the “live chat” that Brand had with The Huffington Post’s Mehdi Hasan last week or his various articles penned lately, as it was all essentially more of the same thing, eliciting more of the same kind of varyingly disapproving or admiring sentiment.

What makes me grind my teeth more than any commercially golden posturing (if you choose to see it that way, the Brand brand is growing increasingly lucrative with so much attention) is the broader complaint of the global movement that at least here in the UK has temporarily and slightly unwittingly anointed Brand as its guru. Not just the Anonymous hactivists with their trite Guy Fawkes mask, (references to V for Vendetta aside, the history behind Fawkes and his movement speaks very little to the desires of these people today, Papist Catholic hegemony I’m sure not being the intended destination), but also Occupy and the entire anti-establishment family.

It’s not that I don’t sympathise to some small degree, my own aforementioned disillusionment being hypocritical otherwise, it’s just that the conclusions these folk reach and their employed means of promoting these conclusions are just so… f@cking immature! Just because the system isn’t currently working for them, or us, or indeed many, many people, is the practical response really to want the whole thing to come tumbling down? Really? Are you going to rebuild it? With your masks and twinkling fingers of democracy? Oh that’s nice of you, because there for a second I thought you were all full of shit and couldn’t provide the change you seek even if you were endowed with the power to do so. Why? Because there isn’t a fully fledged concept among you to speak of, beyond your points of criticism, rampant as they are.

To quote a representative of the Million Mask March, regarding the weekend’s slew of anti-establishment demonstrations across the globe, “It was a march against many things; political corruption, capitalism, the global dominance of the financial services industry, austerity, the democratic deficit in people’s lives, the assault on the welfare state, soaring bills and falling wages.” Flipping hell… while in this fully loaded statement are the fractured pieces of the narrative that the majority of people in the world aren’t adequately reaping the benefits of global systems, they, the protesters, heinously fail in forcing these elements to coalesce around a single actionable goal.

Silly me, why should it when you can just launch a few fireworks at Buckingham Palace, hug Russell Brand and go home feeling like you were a part of something. You were a part of nothing, I’m afraid, you are not organised enough, you are not disciplined enough, not concise enough and no where near representative enough of the sort of changes that most people would be happy with, which are largely simple and achievable. Living with some degree of comfort, as far removed as possible from the economic desperation that many today feel. Forget sea-changes, revolution or uprisings, most of us aren’t so contrived as to call for anything that grand.

The most important aspect, however, of the miserable failure that is or will be this movement, is the fact that its constituents have situated themselves squarely outside of, and in opposition to, any recognisable manifestation of the establishment they want to change. Beating on the windows or doors as loudly or as violently as you care to won’t change the fact that you’re out in the cold while the grown-ups are inside making all the decisions. This may indeed appear to be a symptom of exactly the problems you are railing against, but in truth the only way to have a reasonable impact on the conversation is to be a legitimate part of the conversation. That is, short of breaking down the doors and causing the sort of drama that no-one should ever wish for (see the details of… every genuine revolution that ever was).

Mr Smith went to Washington and stayed there, he didn’t rock up, shit on the doorstep and run off to high-five his mates, or start taking heads for that matter. While it would clearly be delusional to hope that in real life one would ultimately claim victory with something akin to Paine’s climactic mea culpa, the point stands that we already have this wonderful mechanism for change called elected government that is only further neutered by calls to reject the system, (allowing the corruptible, invested and entitled to dominate affairs) instead of becoming involved and enriching it and being a part of the change you want to see.

Don’t tell me politics are just an inaccessible bastion of hereditary elites, as despite whatever lingering strain of that we still see, politics are in fact just about open enough to those who are passionate and committed to them. It’s defeatist to claim otherwise, a guaranteed lease of life for this status quo that you find so terrible. Simon Jenkins threw down the gauntlet to Brand. Serious about your own message? Why, there’s an upcoming race for Mayor of London, what a perfect opportunity to enter the system in a substantive fashion. But I doubt it will be seized upon. When offered the chance to support his critique with some solutions, Brand has simply said, “It’s not my job.”

Whose is it then? The people he wants chucked out of the doors of Westminster and onto the streets… what’s wrong with this picture? It seems to me that a surge of fervour for the current system, as it should be, would take us further towards desirable change. Active democratic participation is actually what makes politicians serve you. Younger voters get a raw deal because they don’t vote and political jobs aren’t threatened by ignoring their interests. How on earth can we expect the government we want if we’ve only just in 2010 crept back up to 65% eligible turnout after 2001’s pitiful 59%, and are already hearing calls to reject voting altogether?

The Liberal Democrats provide the best case I can think of for putting the shaft up that argument, having inspired some of the spike back to a lukewarm turnout and then appearing to consummately betray or fail their base with anything from tuition fees to social welfare reforms and much more. But then being on the verge of a hung parliament that forced the current coalition dynamic and all this unsavoury compromise is itself a symptom of democratic laziness and indecisiveness. We’re waiting for the political class to serve us up with something fresh, getting all worked up in a huff for not getting it, when all the while that something has to come from us.

This is a democracy, the political class is us, you, me and everyone who resides on the Isles. The sooner we remind ourselves of that fact and inject some enthusiasm back into the system, rather than embracing anything so Brandian* as saying, “Bugger it all,” the better. As disenfranchised as I felt this past month, which is a perfectly acceptable thing to feel from time to time (we can’t all have one eye on the state of affairs all the time), it is beyond important that we occasionally renew in ourselves at least some sense of constructive involvement in our political process and never reject it wholesale.

Also ironically then, I could perhaps thank Brand for providing what to me are some heavily objectionable opinions and for forcing me back to the keyboard. At least one of his stated goals in all of this was to get people thinking and talking, which I daresay he has achieved to an impressive degree. I just hope people are thinking practically and independently enough not to prescribe to the other specific points of his strain of wisdom, or rather the strain of wisdom that is prevailing among certain circles.

And by the way, if you didn’t hear much about the Million Mask March, it’s probably just the corporate media conspiracy keeping it all under wraps, but don’t worry. The established media is to be the next target of ire for these masked crusaders, further proving they have less focus than an addled puppy that can’t choose between eating dinner and licking its own balls. I would say to them that the established media probably lost interest in their ilk back in 2011 when the best they could elicit from the grimy hippies of Zuccotti Park were statements of lesser cogency or coherence than the aforementioned addled puppy could provide.

Methinks the protester doth protest too much. Or too painfully ineffectually. Right then, enough. Fin.

*Brandian, phrase coined courtesy of Suzanne Moore of The Guardian, who shall be paraphrased to provide the definition of, “endlessly see-sawing between braggadocio and yoga-ed up humility”

Charity in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom is blessed and cursed in equal measure. We are clearly a nation of conscience, as indicated by such a plethora of charitable institutions that almost no cause is left unrepresented. That is our blessing. However, every one of these institutions was not so fortuitous as to have been formed by an eccentric billionaire and do need funding in order to achieve their goals. Funding requires fundraising, and fundraising requires a vigorous campaign in order to extract as much money from the available sources as possible. Whether rich or poor, or somewhere in the middle, we are that source. That is our curse.

I would think there are very few people throughout the country who have not experienced the sharp end of a fundraiser’s pitch at this point. In the past years, despite recession, the industry has boomed and whether it was some bubbly young individual on the High Street, at your front door or unexpectedly on the phone, you have probably been asked to yield your hard earned money to at least one noble enterprise. Probably many.

For a certain minority, this is not a problem at all. There are some people who are genuinely enamoured with the work of an organisation and will happily and selflessly provide support, even to the extent of effecting their own lifestyle. For most, it’s a worthy nuisance and will offer support to a reasonable degree and hope the pestering won’t overcome the sense of satisfaction for essentially doing something good. And for many still, charities are an actual blight on society. The notion of giving away what is theirs in aid of something that doesn’t effect them is a mystery, and it’s an imposition and an insult to even be asked.

I work in professional fundraising, both out of necessity to achieve my ambitions but also because of all the things I could be doing to enable those ambitions, it is the best. Hospitality, retail or services would probably allow me to meet my financial obligations but I would possibly feel dead to my core, and so going to work and raising money for a number of undoubtedly important causes actually feels pretty great. In a slightly distant sense, I am part of a mechanism which varyingly saves or improves lives on a daily basis. I experience that diversity of reaction to my wholehearted attempts to represent the campaign I am working for and have plenty of time to think about the nature of this unwieldy beast.

A charity is basically a non-profit, non-governmental public service that relies on donations to function. In the majority of cases, these services could be provided under the tenants of a public health organisation such as the NHS were it better equipped and funded. But that is effectively how charities came to be. Philanthropic individuals or groups saw gaps in the support provided by public bodies and sought to bridge them, utilising the generosity and good sense of a people which saw the need. Establishing a national organisation off the cuff would be rather improbable and so a number of similar regional organisations would grow and either collaborate after a point or diversify their remit to remain independent and viable.

The result is that there are thousands of charitable organisations in the UK, most of which are highly valued but many of which are working separately of one another in almost exactly the same field. And they all need money. Want to provide meaningful support to children’s protection? A big ticket donation to Barnado’s is a good idea, but what about the NSPCC or The Children’s Society? People with disability need an extra hand, but while Scope is the leading organisation you might have heard about the growing Camphill Family? Cancer is one of the greatest threats to humanity, but do you go for Cancer Research UK? Macmillan? Marie Curie? Breakthrough Breast Cancer? Children with Cancer? Leukaemia Care? The lists are endless and don’t even stop with the more obvious problem areas. If you can’t decide between the National Trust or English Heritage as to who will better care for your local history, you’re in real trouble. God forbid I even get into the horde of environmental charities.

Disorganisation and inefficiency seem to be a macro-dilemma for the national, let alone global, charity behemoth. In most cases, you would hope to think that within the charities themselves there is an effective administration that distributes available funding to the core of their mission. It is clearly a point of consternation with many in the public that some organisations spend significant sums of money on campaigns and advertising, which although essential for survival under the current model, is definitely not the best use of funds. Often, the larger a charity becomes, the more expensive the administration and  the smaller the portion of that donated pound ends up supplying research or aid. Relatively speaking this isn’t the end of the world as the revenue stream of a large charity will still mean lots of money is going to the cause, but this clearly isn’t the best system.

Consolidation would seem to be the first logical step. If I had one pound to give to the cause of beating cancer, it would be best used by one organisation rather than ten. It would be easier for me to allocate those funds knowing that I wasn’t depriving another sound entity of that funding and I would not be subjected to their appeals. If the UK had a small group of headlining organisations, each replete with substantial resources dedicated to thoroughly distinct goals, the increased efficiency of revenue distribution would surely provide exponential improvements to those services.

Secondly, I would actually cut out the fundraising element altogether. Professional fundraising organisations are usually excellent value for money, giving substantial returns on investment, but do in fact seek to make at least a nominal profit. They are locked in an eternal struggle with the public to extract as much money as possible and, although doing so for excellent reasons, can only apply so much pressure. Public awareness of the methods and pro-activity of these companies is growing and one senses it is something of a bubble waiting to burst.

Taxation is the answer, as government is undeniably good at one thing and that is sucking money from the people on a scale that any fundraising company could only ever hope to dream of. As described earlier, a significant portion of the public do provide for these charities, often on a significant basis, but supporting these services shouldn’t be a question of individual altruism informed by individual thoughts on what is a more or less important service. They are all equally important with all dispositions accounted for, whether it be curing cancer, protecting children or the homeless, helping the disabled, ensuring the survival of habitats and species or preserving the rich legacy of a nation. I believe it is the responsibility of a society to ensure these goals are achieved and so whether it pleases you or not, you should contribute.

Spread across the wealth of a nation, this system would be a minor financial imposition to some, a minor relief to others, and yet we could all share in a sense of societal pride that is so obviously already generated by the existence of the NHS. Consistency of revenue is paramount to the effective functioning of a charity and so not only would they be seeing an improved intake themselves but the budgeting advantages would be huge. A greater part of the functionality of a charity could be directed towards the mission, with longer term planning. It’s important to stipulate that the charity would remain a private entity, equipped with all it’s expertise and experience, but government could in theory be a very effective paymaster. These institutions do generally have a good idea of what they need to fulfil their aims and so a new ministerial portfolio could quite easily oversee the appropriate distribution of these funds. The competitive aspect for increased funding would also motivate the different charitable sectors to provide better outcomes for better value.

It is true, I am arguing my form of employment should be made redundant, despite the satisfaction I take from it. But that is purely on the basis that I fully believe in the value of charities and think they should be better enabled. For every conversation I have where a supporter expresses satisfaction for their actions and offers further support, there are many times more conversations where stress and regret are apparent for not being able to do more. The rest usually involves patent irritation for my invasion of their personal time and an expressed desire to take my arguments elsewhere, often to the government who many feel should do more.

Of course the only way government could do more is with more taxation, but that should not technically be an issue. Negative public sentiment towards taxation is most often the result of poor use of those funds but if we were always able to see the material gains of our marginally increased burden then why not? If cancer survival rates improved and if every time you walked past a wheelchair bound individual and knew that you were part of a society that did as much as it could to provide that person with as damn near the same quality of life as everyone, how could you complain? The argument that charitable support should be voluntary so as to provide a sense of individual goodness is a morally utilitarian quibble at best.

And ultimately, who wouldn’t be happy to see the chugger (charity mugger) vanish from the High Street so you can get from shop to shop without the awkward averting of eyes or completely staged mobile phone call? Who wouldn’t be happy knowing that your home was indeed your castle where at the end of a days work you could relax without the phone or the doorbell calling upon your generosity, knowing you’ve already met your obligation to society? I’m the only loser really, but until the entire system changes, don’t expect a reprieve. Professional fundraising companies are highly effective and work on behalf of some the best causes imaginable. Too right they persevere.

Drug Policy, Stupid

National drug policy is an area I’ve explicitly avoided since beginning this little project. There is an unavoidable impression created when advocating pragmatic measures that I didn’t want to impose upon myself. The suggestion that a government might look at the ample evidence and respond in a sensible fashion with intelligent policy undoubtedly causes at least some readers to write off a persevering commentator as immature or obnoxiously liberal. It’s a risk I’m willing to take at this stage, as in the past few weeks I have been subjected to a renewed debate surrounding the UK’s approach to narcotics, a debate that I am frankly sick to death of. I’m certainly not the only one.

I don’t believe the supposedly revelatory UKDPC report spoke of a single thing that hasn’t been held as the obvious truth for many years now. Drug policy is overly-simplistic and enforcement ineffective, unjust and horrendously wasteful. This fact resurfaces every few years in the confident pages of some commission or review and although in theory should be reinforced by the consistency of every single legitimate approach to the issue, very little happens. Except of course, that the anger and fear of any politician forced to address the matter bridles with particular indignation. Like petulant children they often respond to these eminently well-researched documents, created by serious and intelligent people, by doubling down on the same tired, stock responses.

I imagine many are wholly ill-informed of the contents of these reports as how else could they reply as they do. “We’re worried about the message decriminalisation would send to young people,” or “We should be giving harder penalties to drug abusers, not relaxing the law!” If not outright denial, it is deflection or truisms, “We should focus more on awareness and treatment and it’s terrible so many heroin addicts are stuck on methadone,” and my most hated, “We should absolutely look into this matter after doing the appropriate study into its potential effects.”

Well as said, the studies have been done. Over and over and over again, with practically the same outcome every time. The war on drugs does not work. That nothing has changed suggests to me that governments here and in many other parts of the world are happy with flushing vast sums of money down the drain on a monthly basis while achieving precisely nothing of any use. Of course, thousands of people are punished under the law, lives ruined, but the availability of drugs remains virtually constant. Prohibition does not work as it has been proved, with the same relentless consistency as the messages of those generally ignored advisory reports, that making something illegal for which there is a public appetite creates organised crime.

This article appeared in the Guardian very recently. I was outraged and was even motivated to write to my MP with the suggestion that it should have been titled, “Government drug policy causes surge in gun violence,” along with other damning opinions on Westminster’s archaic ways. Unsurprisingly I did not receive a response, something I happily prescribed to the dismissive nature of politicians to common sense. It is through no sense of personal slight that I offer that conclusion here as it is relevant to one reference I made in that letter to the former chair of the ACMD, David Nutt, who was summarily relieved of his post upon offering the statistical truth that ecstasy is less dangerous than riding a horse. My opinion then, as much as now, was that he suffered a great injustice, where ignorant social rhetoric oppressed scientific evidence. Although I find the occasionally proffered Galilean associations to be a little hyperbolic, there is a kernel of truth in them.

You’ll note at this point I’ve only suggested that policy and criminalisation deserve criticism, and this is quite often a refuge tactic for one avoiding overt support for anything in the area of decriminalisation. But I will properly throw my hat into the ring. You can infer from the hugely negative effects of criminalisation, that making drugs legal would save astounding amounts of money in enforcement, deprive crime of revenue and relieve a staggering burden on the justice system. One of the oldest arguments available is that government could control and tax them in the manner of alcohol and tobacco, thus generating substantial revenue.

The British Empire was arguably built on the crass and detrimental proliferation of opium in many parts of the world, notably China, so I would never argue that drugs should be a free market commodity. Government should certainly exercise a degree of moral authority as it so miserably failed to do in the 19^th Century when Jardine and Matheson along with many other commercial enterprises wilfully undermined large tracts of societies across the globe. But the sheer dissonance of a situation where, no matter what, drugs are available, and yet government chooses the option to not profit and exercise control, is infuriating. The information campaigns alone that could be funded would far outstretch the relatively ineffectual efforts of today. I remember well the day a former addict and campaigner for drug awareness came to my school. This was the only occasion in memory and I must say that this ephemeral event left little of the desired impression.

An important distinction to be made is in the type of drug under discussion, one rarely made in political forums. “Drugs” is a catch-all for everything from cannabis to cocaine and heroin and this itself is an obstacle to practical reforms. The suggestion that cannabis and heroin are even remotely similar in their addictive properties and potential harms is either a patent and cynical lie or yet another indicator that policy makers just don’t know what they are dealing with. And although I recognise the potential horrors that can result from hard drug addiction, it’s still difficult to work past the rational consideration that if in any event the substance will be available, it should be made available by those with supposedly an inkling of social conscience. Namely government.

Cannabis, on the other hand, is a point of extreme consternation to me. I witness so frequently the appalling consequences, both immediate and long term, of alcohol consumption that its legality provides simply no room for an argument for cannabis illegality. Successive governments since the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act have drawn the most arbitrary and hypocritical lines imaginable. The misguided conservative fear of narcotics stems from the 19^th and early 20^th Century when the world was finally getting to grips with a rampant culture of abuse of opium and its derivatives, including morphine and heroin. The fear in the 1920’s, when the UK first listed cannabis as a potentially harmful narcotic, was perhaps understandable, if still reactionary and racist based on the substance’s origins, but it is shocking we have not moved on.

Aside from the issue that stringent regulation of industrial hemp, via its inaccurate associations with cannabis production, has hampered the exploration of a potentially far-reaching commodity, the personal possession and use of a substance that can be grown from the earth and consumed as intended, without any treatment or process, should not be a pariah. I would take the pacified introspection of a smoker over the aggressive misbehaviour of a drinker any day of the week, and yet policy makers still have the gall to promote the most skewed perspectives. Margaret Curran MP on Question Time this week was waving the flag. She came so close to an honest portrayal by suggesting that reports indicated the patterns of cannabis use were extremely different to heroin use. She then sadly offered the hatefully distorted view that over a number of years, cannabis has grown stronger (referring to recently higher levels of THC, the main psychoactive constituent of cannabis) and that it is now a serious substance with potentially harmful mental effects.

Put this notion to a scientist who has worked in the area and he would probably have to concede there is a certain amount of evidence that the misuse of cannabis can in theory lead to potential mental problems, although largely in the instance of an existing genetic propensity for such conditions. The scientist’s ambiguity would be that obvious however and he or she would likely never offer the certainty of the potential harms expressed by Curran. Regardless, the key word there is “misuse”. Given my occasionally libertarian views on certain issues, I would argue that if the government is concerned about the misuse of things in our society and was inclined to mitigate all the conceivable harms, we could swiftly say goodbye to almost every enjoyable aspect of life. Misuse begins at free will and I find it personally disgusting that any government would ever try to legislate that.

Indeed, I find it disgusting that they do. In the understanding that morally justifiable free will is limited by not infringing upon the free will of others, government should have no authority to command what one does exclusively to oneself, in the privacy of one’s home. The audacity of any individual to say to another that they should improve their own life through subjective measures is something I cannot abide. I won’t argue for a second that the life of a drug addict would not necessarily be improved by kicking the habit but for me or anyone to sit in judgement is profoundly wrong, and so providing the means of awareness and rehabilitation is the only reasonable recourse.

I think in closing I would provide these rough statistics. Tobacco causes the deaths of close to 100,000 people per year in the UK. There are close to 9,000 alcohol related deaths per year compared with approximately 2,000 drug related deaths, of which close to half are the result of the misuse of prescribed drugs, although opiate abuse in Scotland is more prevalent. There is no strong indication that the patterns of drug use would change or the numbers of users would rise in the event of legalisation because access to drugs is virtually unchallenged by its illegality. What sounds like a bigger problem to you?

Question Time in Brighton

I was wriggling with joy when David Dimbleby, treasure of the British media legacy and all-round hero, announced with evident pleasure that Question Time was back for a new season of lively discussion on the pertinent issues of the week. Having hosted many hundreds of times since 1994, Dimbleby deserves this praise as throughout he has brilliantly employed his privilege of genuinely challenging his political guests and their frequent attempts at speaking politically skewed truths and occasional lies. He is an exemplary moderator who exerts charismatic control backed with an impressive knowledge of the subject at hand. And almost every other subject for that matter. The opportunity for the people of whichever home the show claims from week to week, to directly address public figures and express their honest opinions, is incredibly meaningful in my opinion. I referred to this show an example of a healthy culture of informative and thought-provoking programming recently and stand by this – despite some rather cringe-worthy elements in this inaugural episode of the umpteenth season of the show.

A general and irritating theme throughout the history of Question Time as I’ve experienced it, is the soapbox aspect. Surprisingly, even when confronted with an engaged and sceptical audience, politicians and other public figures have a habit of rattling out the party line or discussing issues in lame platitudes or with populist drivel. Audience members themselves also occasionally betray a false or unduly influenced understanding of certain situations and it can be frustrating. Thursday night wasn’t exactly an exception although there were some pleasingly redeeming aspects on both sides. And regardless of these criticisms I don’t think they have have ever been serious enough to deny the value of this weekly hour of interactivity.

It has been a busy summer of events however and without the show running for most of June through September there was perhaps more pent up angst than normal. The very first question – Will we see the same level of anger as in Athens and Madrid once the full impact of the UK government’s austerity measures are felt?

I don’t want to personally dissect all the questions put to the panel as in fact the panel do usually, eventually get around to saying most of the relevant and insightful things that pertain to the major perspectives on an issue. I also imagine, if reading this, you might have taken the time to watch the episode yourself and I’d rather focus on the inferences drawn from these episodes. In this case, Alexander, Harman and Rees-Mogg traded interesting thoughts that amusingly complied with their party positions. Alexander with confidence and hint of delusion defended government fiscal policy, Harman threw fairly tired criticisms at him that belied Labours shameless hypocrisy when commenting on fiscal policy and Rees-Mogg scoffed at the notion we would ever behave like Europeans. He did actually make some sense though if we filter out his unfortunate Eurosceptic bent and if you have the egalitarian ability to listen past his archetypal posh accent.

Steve Coogan was actually the first panellist to make the hairs on the back of my neck bristle with anger. He entered the fray with an absolute howler, claiming that the Mansion Tax, despite being economically meaningless, should be put in place just to placate the less well-off in the country. I couldn’t believe my ears but had no need to rewind because he reiterates the point a few bumbling times over before letting Alexander jump back in with some actual financial knowledge. This was the start of what turned out to be a very bad hour for the oddly foul-tempered comedian.

I’ve never watched “Location, Location, Location”, and frankly had no idea who Kirstie Allsopp was until Googling her later, but she ably countered with exactly my feelings on Coogan’s thought. People who are not wealthy do not by default begrudge the wealth of others and it is terribly patronising to suggest they do and would be interested in what Coogan saw as a purely vindictive measure. Coogan, millionaire, can in my opinion not possibly speak to the genuine feelings of an entire economic class and if he believes he can, he is a disingenuous moron. Growing up in a happy working-class environment does not a fucking Karl Marx make (excuse my language). Further, he clearly lacks even a microcosm of nuance as he then added to his opinion that people with mansions vote Conservative so of course the Mansion Tax wouldn’t pass… but of course he was the exception that proves the rule (he is the proud owner of the £2.4 million Ovingdean Grange just outside of Brighton) and would be happy to pay up.

I despise this particular comment of the wealthy liberal, usually a celebrity, that he or she would be happy to pay out these extra taxes. The truth is this – if Steve Coogan doesn’t think he is paying enough tax then he is perfectly welcome and able to pay as much as he wants. His occasional activities with the Rainbow Trust and other charities are nice and surely appreciated but is he aware that he can give his money to his local NHS Trust, school board, council or any other public service of his choosing? Given that the Mansion Tax is unlikely to be implemented, and that’s according to Coogan’s own view, I look forward to reading about his multi-hundred thousand pound donations to a variety of local and national bodies.

At the same time however, I don’t care what Steve Coogan does, the sheer outrage of trying to be a defender of social justice and a super car fetishist at the same time is enough to make an anti-emetic medication vomit.

He spent most of the rest of this episode making similarly stupid statements, along the lines of all Tories believing that everyone not Tory is a “pleb” and that going through private education inevitably makes one a Tory and disqualifies one from public office because how could a toff ever understand the plight of the working man? I could introduce him to a few people. He was vitriolic, unintelligent and ill-informed and I could only chuckle when Dimbleby retorted to his comment that comprehensive schooling did him no harm by asking if it did him any good.

This episode of Question Time caused a small reaction in the journalism pool, notably from Ally Fogg writing for the Guardian. He clearly has a minor case of tumescence for Coogan as he lavished him with praise for his socially agreeable position and describes the actually intelligible (though admittedly uber-Etonian) Rees-Mogg as a “tubular balloon of hereditary privilege” that he would enjoy throwing solid objects at, for saying something he didn’t actually say. Where Rees-Mogg was explaining he wanted state-provided education to be on par with private education so that working in government was more broadly accessible, Mr. Fogg apparently heard, “people with a state school background are simply not up to the job of politics.”

I am tired of the reactionary celebrity or ideologue trying to involve themselves in matters that are totally beyond them. I am even more tired of the notion that the United Kingdom’s antiquated but ever diminishing set of class sensibilities are the responsibility of an oppressive aristocracy. If this episode of Question Time said anything to me it is that, in the least, both sides of the economic line are responsible for this needlessly angry and tribal discourse. I disagree with Rees-Mogg in a number of ways but I respect his intelligence, although often misapplied. I disagree with Coogan in a number of ways but can no longer respect him (where respect was born for his vocal objections to media violations) because he in no way tried to be objective. He stood on his soapbox and spouted unadulterated nonsense.

Featuring: Harriet Harman, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Kirstie Allsopp, Danny Alexander, Steve Coogan

Issues: UK Economic Policy, Public vs Private Education in Government, Andrew Mitchell vs The Met, Rochdale Grooming, Banking and Housing, The Future of the Liberal Democrats

The State of Governance: UK Edition Two

I need to start this article with an apology. In Edition One of this series I referred to a number of government issues, all accumulating towards a fairly straightforward condemnation of the state of things as they are. And yet I made one significant mistake. By choosing to repeat the moniker of one particular incident, that being the VAT surcharge proposed for certain hot goods sold on and off our high streets, I became complicit in my own pet hatred of a brand of political and media language that we can all do without. I dare not actually repeat the name in question but we’ll just say it stems from an infamous chapter in American history during which one Richard M. Nixon was obliged to resign from the most powerful office on Earth due to his direct involvement in the attempted cover-up of the break-in of DNC headquarters by subordinates ostensibly trying to uncover evidence of illicit funding to the DNC by Cuban authorities. Snappy.

The Watergate scandal, named after the Watergate hotel and office complex, went beyond this incident however and eventually Nixon implicated himself through recordings he had covertly made of private conversations with various individuals subsequent to this attempted cover-up. This was an astonishing episode in the narrative of US politics that had profound implications for the relationship between citizenry and government as well as the question of executive authority. Its importance cannot be understated.

And yet in the ensuing decades we have grown all too fond of the suffix “gate” attached to any and every scandal from the trivial to the somewhat serious. The aforementioned incident involving, amongst other products, a delicacy of the Cornwall region, was perhaps the final straw for me and despite my indiscretion I had sworn never again to exaggerate such pure banality as a Conservative case of mean policy diarrhoea with such a connection to a definitively seminal event. Even if that was what everyone else was calling it.

No, the use of the “gate” term has certainly now run its course, and likely did some time ago. It is idiotic to use such a term when in fact all this does is dilute the understanding of future generations of a time when the leader of the free world engaged in corruption and criminal activities that appeared more along the lines of an implausible Hollywood script, than the true precedent for the benchmark of genuine political scandal. I never felt more provincial than when newscaster after journalist after opposition member, with regards to what I will now rename Osborne’s Pasty Nightmare, regurgitated the term with that often apparent twinkle of self-satisfaction for having dared to be so terribly bloody clever. Oh, the scorn…

Having said this I could now take an elegant tangent back to what was the planned substance of this article, that being a disdainful look at the Labour party. But actually no amount of elegance could adequately achieve the seamless transition I dreamt of and so I find myself hijacked again by a propensity for distraction. I would rather stick to the issue of language in and around politics and my perception of that itself having been hijacked by the effete gaggle of politicians we are these days served by.

I have certainly mentioned in other articles that part of my enjoyment of the political process in a few nations is the theatre of it. This is partly symptomatic of my understood position of glib observer and commentator, but even though politics should be the serious business of making people’s lives better, it is simply true that there is an obnoxious element of PR and marketing. Stemming from this is the majority of that theatrical aspect, which I usually revel in. Sadly, the fun stops with a resounding thud when I’m forced to listen to the politician who, when grappling with profundity and neutrality all at once, in a struggle akin to grasping a lubricated fish, manages to say absolutely nothing. It is bewildering.

We could probably name the usual language of politicians a language entirely unto itself, and indeed, no longer do our esteemed MPs speak English, I hereby call them users of the unwanted dialect of unremitting twattery. Before you accuse me of being rather overly agitated by this impairment of communication, I should defend myself.

God help me but these are actually important individuals, involved in the important undertaking of running the country. I believe that in a democracy the people should be engaged, and speaking as an avid follower of these issues, nothing turns me off more than this dire situation. It does not surprise me in the slightest that direct democratic participation in the UK has steadily declined since 1997 when professional politicians began to outnumber the politicians of conscience (dare I suggest such a thing exists) and this language became prevalent. What ever happened to the statesman who with eloquence and frankness could deliver a message and actively engage the people with it? I am not imagining this was once a real thing as despite Tony Blair’s era bringing this foul culture into play, he was a supreme communicator. As is Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton for that matter, when either are in form.

It now seems the rare exception that a politician speaks in their fashion, although it so desperately shouldn’t be. Vince Cable is often hailed for undressed language, and it’s perhaps his greatest bit of political currency given his occasional habit of proposing curious initiatives. Incidentally, this opens the door to the question of the substance of policy itself. Maybe I am being too hard on the poor folks over in Westminster, as perhaps if they had even the nucleus of a good idea to run with they wouldn’t have to veil needless tripe with a barrage of meaningless qualifiers and exhaustively researched catchwords and phrases that tested well in sample groups. Perhaps if for once a policy could speak for itself we could entirely forgo the mildly sordid and intrusive experience of an MPs ramblings.

We should be so lucky. I realise again as I draw this piece to a close that I’m not achieving the higher goal of discussing such a diamond-in-the-rough as logical policy but then I can find praise for myself in this. Clearly lacking a decent idea at present I say that in distinction to the majority of our lamentable public servants I did not therefore choose to enter politics.

I honestly did want to spend some time with this piece discussing the Labour opposition. And in light of Nick Clegg’s recent surge of heinously transparent policy shifts away from the Tory side of things I think it would be just about reasonable to discuss him a little further. Despite the… Lib Dem thing. But I’m exhausted with rage now and should the House of Commons not collapse in on itself overnight, I’ll have wandered down that way and repeatedly smashed my ailing, frustrated head against its increasingly redundant walls for nothing.

Until next time. Although to corroborate this article and pre-empt the next, please watch this delightful clip featuring Steve Bell offering his commentary on the current Lib Dem conference. Ask no questions as to why I loathe them thereafter.

The State of Governance: UK Edition One

As opposed to the rather more exhaustively referenced piece on Assange and his road to a Butch Cassidy-style ending (Ricardo Platino can be his Sundance Kid, although I’m concerned about the efficacy of English truncheons over Spanish rifles), this one is more visceral. Not just visceral, mind you, more visceral. Thus I defend all oversights of fact and errors of interpretation.

This decision wasn’t at all based on the advice given after the previous article, suggesting that while it’s good to inform, it’s also good to let my readership finish an article without having to catch up on another twenty first. I’m learning. In all honesty, it’s rather more based on the fact that PMQ archives are dreadfully catalogued, and reading endless transcriptions of the speeches of the most asinine political class since time began was making me very sad. I couldn’t be bothered. My hope anyway is that this issue is a little closer to home for some of you and basically irrelevant to the rest. You’ll either know what I’m talking about or not, and if the former, will sympathise or disagree with me based on your existing feelings. This sense is wonderfully encapsulated by a Gary Younge article written pre-election. So before I finish providing my own reasoning for writing this being a waste of time… UK government.

Two and a half years ago I was elated. I might describe myself as a libertarian, which is basically to say I think taxes and government are generally irksome and I prefer to do what I want, when I want. But this conflicts with my other brain which informs me that social justice and equality of most description is incredibly important, and although we can debate the use of taxes and the competence of government in relation to these, it’s not like anyone else is trying very hard.

But two and a half years ago, New Labour had been trying for 13 years and thanks to an affluent upbringing that brought with it some preconceived political ideology, and a smattering of national and global financial catastrophe, I was only too happy to see Brown finally walking the lonely walk out of Downing Street. This emotion didn’t suffer for the short period of uncertainty during which the Con-Lib coalition formed and there was actually a fleeting possibility that Labour could wrangle back the election with some ungodly, mutant “rainbow” coalition of sorts. I would have very seriously burned Westminster to the ground, seeing that democracy as we knew it had died, but I was denied this public service by the marginally acceptable outcome that was.

Even then I wasn’t a complete fascist though, and won’t ignore some of the good things Labour achieved, such as the adoption of the “Third Way”, provision of the national minimum wage and limited aspects of their tax and benefits reforms. Sadly these scarcely served to diminish my increasingly rancorous disdain for Gordon Brown, his affinity for an older, Keynesian model and general denial of the fact that apart from those embodied by Dennis Skinner, I don’t think anyone wanted him. It didn’t help that I found him personally odious, and it would be a good time to mention that I do believe in statesmanship. It may not be the most elevated concept but who leads the nation speaks for the nation, and I’m not ashamed to say that I would have found his disagreeable policies more palatable had he an ounce more charisma to convince me.

And so in came the Tories, rather jubilant after so long in opposition and content for having expediently arranged victory. The mood was such that you would have thought the Lib Dems were a Tory Lite rump, both parties were so eager for a measure of power. I honestly and totally unrealistically imagined this was the start of a golden age of sensible management and sensible policy, that the coalition would only have the best effect of tempering the Tory right and the more leftwards leanings of the Liberals, resulting in a gloriously harmonious government leading the nation out of recession and into prosperity. It felt inevitable and I ate the Rose Garden scenes up and asked for more. Did India really want independence? Those waves have been looking so glumly unruled…

Oh alas, where to begin? This very question has delayed publication of this article as after only a short while of considering this and marshalling my evidence and subsequent thoughts, my head hurt far too much and I had to lie down. The sheer weight of farce has even forced my to redress the theme as more introductory, the beginning of a serial on the many ways Westminster sapped my faith in humanity. For now, for a start, I think we can find significant complaint simply within the failed or misleading manifesto commitments of both coalition parties and the truly shocking degree of incompetence in the cabinet.

Today we have no electoral reform and no parliamentary reform, but instead a host of reforms to the NHS that were not only excluded by the Tory’s promise not to heavily reorganise, but are at this point broadly a pariah. Instead of the Liberal promise to scrap tuition fees we have the most expensive university attendance in history and instead of bolstering younger levels of educational support we lost EMA’s. Compassionate conservatism evaporated in an instant with punishing welfare and public sector reforms in the same fiscal policy that scrapped the 50p and corporate tax rates. New Deal-esque infrastructural and construction projects have failed to materialise and Trident failed to disappear, but then Mitt Romney did tell me recently that the Russians are still our greatest existential threat and I sleep soundly at night knowing we prescribe to his brand of wisdom. And Pastygate… the malicious brainchild of a demented goblin creature.

On a policy level the situation is clearly poor at best, and gets little better on a personnel level. Before we could blink we said goodbye to David Lawes, a so-called treasury and policy wonk ousted on the back of his miscreant expenses. Andy Coulson later followed under a storm of questions regarding his stewardship of the News of the World, with added embarrassment for David Cameron having firmly stood by him. Liam Fox departed his rather sensitive Defence role thanks to allowing one Adam Werrity to tag along whenever he felt like it. The shadow of the Murdoch’s would later revisit and almost engulf both Vince Cable and Jeremy Hunt, the former for “declaring war” on the BSkyB bid and the latter being asked stern questions as to whether he enabled it.

Teresa May actually did go briefly to war with the Civil Service over matters of immigration, and Andrew Lansley with the entire medical profession for obvious reasons. Incredibly he was one of only a few cabinet ministers to take a real knock in the recent reshuffle. I despise reshuffles, such vapid and cynical posturing usually being the remit of a government running out of ideas. Throw in a touch of Oliver Letwin throwing government documents in a St. James Park bin, Francis Maude dangerously suggesting consumers stock up on petrol reserves during the strikes and Michael Gove’s attempts to reinstate Victorian-era educational methods and the cabinet looks to be in genuine disarray.

That’s before you even reach the big dogs. Cameron, Osborne and Clegg are walking a razor’s edge. Clegg has almost singularly absorbed every gram of ire generated by his support base and their dissatisfaction with the Liberal agenda being thwarted at most turns. Osborne has become the walking, talking vision of nasty Tory ethics and probably avoids dark alleys in the wake of the hardship suffered by many during this time of austerity. And all of this, from Lawes to Osborne, trickles up to the detriment of Cameron. If delaying this article’s release did any good, it allowed me to observe today’s piece in the Guardian, unveiling the first of possibly many brewing coups. That Bob Stewart was loyal enough not to play along is likely only a temporary reprieve from the Tory backbenchers.

Appointing Maria Miller to Culture Secretary was a telling symptom of Cameron’s increasing fear of reprisals for daring to be moderate. Her voting record on women’s and LGBT rights tells all but are probably short of the mark in terms of satisfying the hard right’s blood-lust for some genuine anti-EU or anti-immigration reform. And so with the old Tory party vying internally for supremacy and an increasingly dissatisfied and obstinate Liberal minority, the coalition itself also looks to be in serious danger. How I long for the Rose Garden again.

It’s astonishing how poorly this coalition have failed in their early aspirations. I fully accept that my initially high expectations were unrealistic and naïve but to have been proved so completely wrong still comes as a shock. But then I truly bought the message of a new compassionate Conservative party, free of the dead weight of the Zac Goldsmiths and Maria Millers of the world, that could effectively function with the Liberals. Their defence of globally hard economic times be damned, I could accept that the recovery was still not really taking off if it weren’t for the tonnage of political ineptitude that also smothered it.

The only thing that remains to be said for now is that if the coalition hadn’t so painfully mismanaged the message of it having been Labour’s initial responsibility, they could still rely on that fact to some extent. But two years of being asleep or drunk at the wheel, and spouting that line with a twinkle in the eye, has killed it. Now I actually do just about agree with Miliband the Younger, that two and half years on the buck does stop at the coalition’s door.

This is not to excuse the Labour Party from further criticism however. I’ve run out of time but next up will be a closer look at the quality of their opposition in context and with their time in government. If possible I shall try to be even more shallow in my deference. Watch out Balls.