On The Day That Thatcher Died . . . An Epitaph of Tweets

On the day that Thatcher died there were millions of tweets pouring into cyberspace. This selection of them is an archive for anyone who didn't really understand the feelings of the majority of people in Britain about Thatcher.

How dare politicians tell us we must respect Mrs Thatcher - she ruined our society - she was as loathed as Saddam Hussein, she really was. -- Julie-Ann (@BienSoeur)

Best thing the left can do after Thatcher's death is resist the coming hagiography & ensure her shameful political record is fully contested -- David Wearing (@davidwearing)

Thatcherism is undead. -- Daniel Trilling (@trillingual)

Whatever we blame Blair or Cameron for; they're only continuing that woman's work. The destruction of the welfare state is her epitaph. -- Dan Thompson (@artistsmakers)

Nothing to celebrate. The battle continues. -- Thee Faction (@TheeFaction)

@PhilosophyExp @stefanstern civility? she fucking sold it along with our other national assets -- e_p_smythe (@e_p_smythe)

@BienSoeur I can't believe the number of people mourning her loss given the social injustice and inequality she promoted. So much hypocrisy. -- Sue Hill (@SusieSpur)

The death of Thatcherism would be something to celebrate. The death of Thatcher is just... the death of an old lady. -- Holly Robinson (@holbolrob)

Watching TV news I feel like a North Korean as government and media put a spin on events that clearly doesn't reflect opinions of population -- Steven Dick (@dickmagician)

If you didn't live under a Thatcher govt pls don't get upset with those of us who did and who are NOT feeling griefstricken right now... -- Charlie Moores (@charliemoores)

Any and all Thatcher defences will be met with blockings, no exceptions -- Jim (@jcw163)

I think the hand-wringing folk fail to see that we aren't just crowing, we're all genuinely pleased -- Jim (@jcw163)

Think of her children. Her racist, disgusting children. -- Murray (@muzrobertson)

RIP, Mrs T. "Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there; I do not sleep; I am the thousand benefits cut; I am the A&E department, shut." -- Stuart Houghton (@stuarthoughton)

My dad: "I feel very sanguine about it. She may be dead but we've got these bastards instead and they're even worse." -- Ellie Mae O'Hagan (@MissEllieMae)

I have two nice, well dressed ladies in their 70s here laughing that mrs thatcher has died. She wasn't loved, she was loathed by most. -- Julie-Ann (@BienSoeur)

Busy day for Mephistopheles today. -- Drac Noise Person (@Dracnoiseperson)

Thatcher is DEAD! At last, the miners and heavy industry workers whose lives she destroyed can rejoice. -- Steve (@Cadrieu)

What bitter irony in a week when many are suffering further division & humiliation the women that started this strain of conservatism dies! -- Elizabeth (@lizzjones18)

#Thatcher may have died, but we should not be distracted from the need to fight her rancid ideology which still prevails. -- Jack Darrant (@JackDarrant)

I hope people took no happiness from the deaths of Pol Pot, Hitler, Pinochet, Marcos or Franco. That would be wrong. -- Otis B. Driftwood (@DocHackenbush)

The greatest peacetime British Prime Minister of the 20th century was Clement Attlee. -- Jacob Richardson (@jjarichardson)

As Davina would say, "Let's have a look at your best bits." To start with "No sanctions - Nelson Mandela is a terrorist." -- Mark Steel (@mrmarksteel) 

As a member of society, can I just say: "There is no such thing as Margaret Thatcher." -- Pete Sinclair (@pete_sinclair)

#Thatcher's legacy was destruction of the economy,& ppls livelihoods,3 generations of destitution & individualism over community. #NoTears -- Ed Pomfret (@EdPomfret)

I'm feeling oddly elated, and I don't know why. ;-) #NotReally #IActuallyFeelMorbidlyIndifferent #Thatcher -- Lee Hyde (@anubeon)

Interesting taboo around reactions to death. Why is it ok to have sadness reaction but not happiness? Is the dead person supposed to care? -- the greener grass (@TheSilverGreen)

So I'll try some mindfulness. I feel sad for her friends/family in mourning. I feel glad for the symbol of a tyrant's passing. I move on. -- the greener grass (@TheSilverGreen)

It shows how pathologically split we are as a culture that we can't tolerate *both* responses. Also how immature that we fear death so bad. -- the greener grass (@TheSilverGreen)

Observation: "the left" being warned re family in grief. "The right" allowed to parade Thatcher's legacy in front of every family she broke -- the greener grass (@TheSilverGreen)

Thatcherism has led to the tragic premature and ignored deaths of many thousands of people over 30 years. Let us remember them today. -- AdamRamsay (@AdamRamsay)

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This was surely the sweetest and most innocent tweet of the day -

Am I the only one who doesn't know who Margaret Thatcher is or what she's done wrong? -- Carissa Fairhurst (@CJFairhurst)

And finally, whilst I have some respect for Phillip Blond - the Red Tory - this is ridiculous. It's probably the vaguest and blandest thing he could think of saying about Mags:

The thing I liked most about Mrs Thatcher was that she had a global vision for Britain - she knew we mattered and wanted to make us matter -- Phillip Blond (@Phillip_Blond)

Here's the thing, Mr Blond - everybody on this earth matters. Thatcher didn't think the working classes mattered because they didn't, on the whole, like her, agree with her, or vote for her. So who is this "we"? As for her aspirations for Britain - she was full of ridiculous and untenable "global visions" - none of which were rooted in any kind of reality. Thanks to her privatisations, deregulations, etc, Britain and its financial system, as well as its manufacturing sector, became completely busted.

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Suzanne Moore's thoughts this week:

At least in Thatcher's day we knew what we were up against

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/apr/10/thatcher-we-knew-what-against

She and her spawn clung like zealots to the idea that the market would somehow step into towns stripped of industry. And the ultimate free market did fill the void all right. Heroin flooded into decimated "communities".

This nostalgia is to do with activism being thrilling. She was all you wanted in a hate figure: pro-apartheid, a shrill-voiced, demi-wigged prig whose veins flowed with some repulsive idea of respectability.

She absolutely performed gender as it suited her, switching from housewife to warrior queen to grandmother. The whole housekeeping model – though incorrect – still underpins the logic of the cuts.

Thatcher, though, did not invent Thatcherism: Keith Joseph, among others, shaped it and credit must be given to cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall, who deconstructed this mixture of post-Fordism, aspiration and hegemony. I was working at Marxism Today when this was happening and many of those people became ultra–Blairites, for the analysis of Thatcher's appeal resulted in New Labour. When I started working there, "the project" was revolution. When I left, "the project" was New Labour.

What matters now is that in these ultra-conservative times, oppositional culture bafflingly appears to have little to coalesce around but tax and toffs. Maybe because what remains of her agenda is privatisation that is so internalised, it is immoral. By this I mean that a loathing of those who have little, who are weak or uncertain is justified by a political discourse which says we can longer afford the weak. The Thatcherite fetishisation of strength enables the coalition to trample on the already broken. We are saving money apparently because some humans are not worth saving. That's just housekeeping.

Cameron will exploit her in death; grief, like nostalgia, is a commodity after all. A politics of utter selfishness, certainty and greed is meant to have won the day.

Thatcher dies alone. But in the Ritz. Joyless.

Layer 406 . . . Comic Genius, The Two Nicks, Cliff, Bill Bailey, Ross Noble, Bruce, Student Activists, Syndicalists, Anarchists, and Revolting LibDems

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Lawks - a whole programme on Cliff Richard on BBC1. Something to avoid, surely?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wv75d

In fact it was a very well made documentary - well shot, well edited, good interviews, etc. And the man, regardless of what anyone thinks about his music and his Christianity, is interesting. For a start - 70 years old and still sounding young; only more confident, more relaxed, more articulate.

I'd no idea he'd lived in India for so many years before coming to England, and no idea his parents had both been born in India and had lived there for their entire lives before moving to England. None of the family had even visited Britain before moving their home to this country.

He talked about discovering rock n roll, and his love of those first great performers - Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers . . .

I hadn't realised he'd left school at 16 and went to work in the same factory as his dad, or that his family were 'dirt poor' and lived in a council house.

You have to admire his continuing joie de vivre, his openness, his quiet sense of humour, his quiet convictions, his obviously spiritually intelligent approach to life. Just don't listen to his saccharine music. He talks far better than he sings.

The best part of the programme was listening to him describe how, when he was quite young, he'd run into his parents' bedroom one day and found his dad 'on all fours - praying'.

No, Cliff. That wasn't praying.

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Bruce

The Springsteen documentary that was shown on TV last week was a superb piece of work. The key idea that came out of it, for me, was that Bruce and the E Street Band really grew up together during the three years they were writing and recording the Darkness on the Edge of Town album. They developed a 'ferocity' in their attitude and their performances, and "took no prisoners". They also developed a vision of NOW - a feeling about how to live life in the present moment, to avoid looking forward too much or backward too much, to enjoy every day to the full, and to be authentically themselves - with no compromises for the sake of becoming more popular or selling more records. Truly a Zen band.

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Spellcheck
I came across a newly refurbished pub the other day that had pretentions to being a bit of a gastrobar. It had quite a good menu too. However, it listed these items -

Ploughman's with cheese or brie (!!!)
locally sauced fish  (it was on the coast)
baked potato with tuan
garlic bead

Now, call me a pedant but . . .  Is the proprietor someone who
i) can't spell
ii) doesn't check the spelling and grammar of people who are paid to produce the menus
iii) makes mistakes even his friends dare not point out to him
iv) is such a creep that no-one would bother to help him correct his mistakes
v) is all or several of the above

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Ross Noble
Ross Noble was on the Merton and Hislop show this week, and managed to be effortlessly the funniest person in a brilliantly talented group of people. Even Merton was giggling at Noble's improvisations. Time to make an effort next year to get out and see at least one of his live shows.
The best of his raps for me was sounding off about politicians appearing on light entertainment programmes such as Strictly Come Prancing. He imagined himself being the MC on the show and leading people like Ann Widdecombe and Vince Cable out of  the studio and into the street, and shoving them into a skip. 

"Politicians - Do your job, or get in a skip!"

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More Comic Genius
QI had a stellar group of panellists this week - Bill Bailey, Rob Brydon, Rich Hall and Alan Davies. These are all fantastically able and funny individuals, and must-see performers. National treasures, indeed. (Rich is an honorary Brit.)

The Guardian printed a feature article on Bill Bailey yesterday:

Bill Bailey: 'It's genius, evil genius'

Bill Bailey has been described as the world's seventh greatest comedian. But he's a lot better than that. Who else could make inverse femtobarns (look it up) funny?

Bailey's current show is more overtly political than hitherto.

"I thought supporting Labour and being leftwing is an outlook on life. It's wider than politics. That kind of life was, and is, being eroded. Somehow the Tories have deflected the righteous anger at the bankers who we bailed out. The Tories manage to take that outrage and direct it at benefit claimants. It's genius. Evil genius."

He has been a keen supporter of students protesting against the rise in tuition fees, tweeting his backing to student sit-ins. "It's the spirit of the 60s. Fair play to them. That's the time to do it – when you're a student and filled with unshakeable conviction. I'm desperately envious of that. One of the lines in my show is that I'm envious of certainty."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/dec/18/bill-bailey-stuart-jeffries-saturday-interview

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Susanne Moore certainly nails her colours to her mast.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/18/suzanne-moore-anarchy

Anarchy rules! But it's about a lot more than just lobbing things at police

It's more often used now as a jibe against someone who throws something at a protest, but anarchism has a long, complex history, and it's never really gone away

Just for once, I am quite "on trend" with this anarchy lark. Someone called me an anarchist when I stood as an independent candidate in the last general election. As though that is a bad thing. Now it's all the rage.

So these are heady days for those, such as myself, who are attached to the cause. Not, of course, that we will agree on exactly what that cause is. The word anarchist has become lazy shorthand for anyone who wants to bring about disorder and upheaval. But an anarchist is really somebody who advocates the abolition of government and wants a social system based on voluntary co-operation. To be for mutualism or syndicalism these days is to want the moon on a stick. It is to be hopelessly deluded or romantic. Maybe. But that's still better than being Eric Pickles.

I find myself entranced by anarchists again. I don't mean by the idiot thugs. I mean by hearing again lovely utopian fantasies.

Anarchism has a long and proud history, a complex and symbiotic relationship with Marxism, and has been an important international movement. The splits within it and away from traditional and centralising parties of the left have meant it has had very different incarnations in different parts of the world, from Spain to Bangladesh; from Kropotkin to Proudhon, Bakunin to Emma Goldman, from Noam Chomsky to Jello Biafra, anarchism has never gone away.

To have this complex movement – which, at heart, is about total redistribution of power – reduced to little more than a jibe at someone who throws something at a policeman is a travesty. The more political parties merge into one seamless entity, the more we are told that there is no more money, that there is no alternative, the more we need to be reminded that there is. The paradox for anarchist groups is always how to take power without becoming an anti-democratic and hierarchical operation.

This new generation is using the old anarchist methods of direct action, civil disobedience, graffiti and sabotage, but with thrilling expertise and brilliant uses of technology. Still, the anarchist vision of a leaderless society with no bosses, of real as opposed to virtual freedom, runs counter to the sometimes blind allegiance to the Wikicult.

The measured "good sense" of the main parties cannot capture the mood of those weird "anarchists" who flashmob and bizarrely insist that huge businesses should pay their taxes. These cases are so manifestly unjust, yet it is ordinary people, not governments, now piling on pressure. It is direct action that focuses on injustice. Such movements may crash and burn, but don't forget, anarchists have protested globally for a very long time, and have been at the forefront of the green and feminist movements.

Indeed, my favourite placard of the recent "unrest" read "Does my society look big in this?"

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A friend sent me this wonderful piece of expert analysis on the Irish political and financial crisis:

An Irishman Abroad  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koY6kXhQDQo

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Desert Island Discs

His most famous creations are Wallace and Gromit. The world they inhabit is one of Jacobs cream crackers and tea-strainers - so it's little surprise that in real life too Nick Park's own creature comforts are modest: "The thing is, I have everything I want really. I've got my little house, I've got a campervan, I love the British countryside, I'm not after yachts or things like that."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wntyl

What a strange guy Nick Park turns out to be. Your heart sinks with his first choice of record - Cockney Rebel.

But then he comes up with Neil Young for his second.

I agree with Nick (!) that Elvis Costello is a poet who writes 'clever words' , but he's NOT a good singer or performer.

And then The Proclaimers. Bloody Hell. Say no more.

John Shuttleworth. Sigh.

Give up at this point.

And then he chooses Bob Dylan! "Another poet - fantastic words . . . "
Not only that, he goes for  "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" from Blonde on Blonde. An incredible track that fills a whole side of vinyl. A very enlightened choice.

And then Van Morrison, from Poetic Champions Compose, "I Forgot That Love Existed". Possibly Van's best-ever album, and best-ever track. Amazing instrumental bits. Great rhythm. Spine-tinglingly good.

Nick chose this one as his favourite.

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For the sake of balance, on the subject of burlesque, on which plenty has recently been published, here's an interesting piece from the Guardian:

This jiggle-fest has nothing to do with sex or power

As a former burlesque dancer, a new film about the artform confirms to me how it has now been reduced to glib titillation

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/13/burlesque-sex-empowerment-misogyny

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Roy Hattersley, as usual, writes good sense on the big issues:

Radical Lib Dems must revolt – or lose everything

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/16/radical-lib-dems-electoral-reform-av

I can forgive Nick Clegg, but if none of his MPs rebel against the coalition the party will suffer badly

Nick Clegg's position should be understood and forgiven. He is instinctively a conservative, and he should not be blamed for following his heart and head. It is the so-called progressives who have betrayed what they once insisted were their principles. A half-hearted revolt over student fees is not enough to salvage their reputation. Nor is Simon Hughes's occasional grand-standing about coalition policies that he never actually opposes. No Lib Dem who was offered a place in the government declined to serve. No groups have been formed within the party to oppose the coalition in principle. Danny Alexander is the boy who stands on George Osborne's burning deck and Vince Cable is the self-appointed captain of David Cameron's praetorian guard.

If there is a referendum on AV, I shall vote in favour. But if Lib Dems continue to kiss the lash of Tory domination – salivating with gratitude whenever Cameron throws them a bone – they will alienate so many Labour supporters that the chance of starting the programme of electoral reform will be lost. So will the Lib Dems' hope of playing a significant part in the next general election.

All that then remains will be a choice between the alternative routes to oblivion that Clegg has charted – absorption into the Conservative party or independent annihilation when Labour tells the floating voter, "If you want a Tory government, vote Liberal Democrat". I persist in the belief there are still real radicals in the Lib Dem ranks. And I do not want them to be swept away. I want Labour to work with them and I will argue that the door to co-operation must be kept open for when the time comes to form a new government.

But the Labour party has to be convinced that partnership is the right way forward. The creating of an ecumenical majority depends on the emergence of positive evidence that some Lib Dems also want to create a progressive alliance. For the sake of their own future, the Lib Dems are in desperate need of a serious and sustained revolt.

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Layer 389 . . . More Royal Wedding Thoughts, Civilisation, Closing Libraries, Conservatism, Blandness, Blairism, Thatcher's Children and the Class of 68

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What kind of philistine country allows its libraries to close down - no matter how desperate its politics and economics?

Without libraries, we will lose a mark of our civilisation

250 libraries are earmarked to be closed, yet the government ignores this huge loss to the community

by Catherine Bennett

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/28/library-closures-catherine-bennett

How happy does it make you when you hear your library will be closed to save money?

Soon, Mr Cameron's happiness project may help councils to establish whether libraries do, as philanthropists once believed, have something important to offer communities or whether, as many authorities have concluded, the contribution of this service to general well-being is so negligible as to make it a prime candidate for cuts.

Of course, for the almost 250 libraries already earmarked for closure, their role in the happiness supply chain is probably irrelevant. By the time experts have established that, where the alleviation of ignorance, illiteracy, isolation, helplessness, unemployment, infirmity, boredom, neglect and poverty are concerned, libraries do, after all, offer something culturally irreplaceable, they will be gone. It is becoming clear that Mr Cameron's government will do nothing to protect them.

In another model example of the big society at work, his proposal is furiously opposed by an existing community group, Friends of Gloucestershire Libraries. This is not merely because they want librarians who have been trained to run libraries, a job that involves helping other citizens input highly personal information into computers as well as recommending and ordering books, supporting literacy, hosting community groups, storytelling, helping with homework, dealing with the lonely, needy or difficult individuals who rely on the places in ways that vast chunks of the supposedly squeezed middle, as well as prosperous county councillors, will never know.

Lauren Smith, a spokesperson for another volunteer group, Voices for the Library, points out that it is the very people who do not use libraries "whose voices are loudest".

Without libraries, another campaigner predicts, many of the uneducated, unemployed and otherwise forgotten former users will end up needing much costlier help, further down the line, inside job centres, doctors' surgeries, advice centres, housing offices. But a more pressing problem is that "community-run" can only, where it is divorced from the prevailing library service, be a euphemism for permanently trashed.

Supposing every devolved library were to be taken over by a group which was, by chance, composed of kindly, discreet book-lovers with no family commitments, willing to travel and with a gift for incessant fundraising and building maintenance, there would still be no way customers – or beneficiaries – could depend upon it. How do users complain when the library is shut during advertised opening hours?

Bastards. This is sickening and outrageous. We need more and better libraries, not fewer - if we're to become the civilised and enlightened country many of us hoped we might be. But then bringing civilisation, empowerment and enlightenment to the masses was never on the Tory agenda, was it? Far better for people to stay at home with their soap operas, tabloid TV and 'newspapers', celebrity magazines and satellite sports channels.

"Please mum, can we go to the library today?" "Shut up and get back to your cartoons, you bloody little bookworm."

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Typical of the vile comments on Comment is Free at the foot of the article is this one by someone whose icon says Smash The State:

I have to say of all things, Libraries are not a priority.
If it has to be done close libraries in wealthy areas, especially those silly small ones what never have the book you want. They can afford their own book anyway.

Leaving aside the small matter of why this type of moron is crawling all over the Guardian website these days (because there's now a paywall around the Murdoch empire?) - this is precisely why children, as well as adults, need libraries. So that some of them at least don't grow up to be bigoted, ignorant fuckwits.

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She might be a bit of a whacky Hackneyite, but it's good to see Suzanne Moore back in the Guardian this weekend:

Royal wedding? It's the bland leading the bland
Kate Middleton is the perfect people's princess for this dull, conservative land

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/nov/26/kate-middleton-conservative-style

Had I recently arrived from a land far away – and indeed it's a long time since I have been in this newspaper – I wouldn't have much trouble telling you which government is in power. I would simply glance around at people's homes, the clothes they wear, the programmes they watch on TV, and I would see as clear as day that conservative taste stalks the land. It was creeping up on us before the Tories were elected but now it is triumphant. In its understated way of course. Conservative taste does not present itself as anything but good taste. It is just "classic". It is nice, cosy, comfortable rather than sexy. It is simply the way things should be.

To see it in action just look at the swish of the Middleton hair. Of course this lovely young woman has lovely hair which has been blow-dried into glossy swishiness. This is the pinnacle of her achievement and every woman in the land should aspire to it.

This may, of course, be about my refusal to age gracefully, but why, watching this hard-edged girl and diffident young manboy, did I feel unable to place them generationally? They don't resemble any young people I know. It was her tights that did it – flesh-coloured. Opaques would bring down the monarchy.

But what do I know? Fashion editors liked the dress. Possibly "surrendered wife" is the look du jour. Of course it's all nice enough in a middle-aged "don't frighten the horses" Tory spouse way.

The prevalence of Conservative style is the norm to which we all aspire . . .

This is a style that explicitly represses sex and money. Bling is for those who don't have wealth. Sex is about Sam Cam style prettiness and should not be overt. It's about cleanliness and enormous amounts of grooming. No wonder that every subculture at some point makes women look properly dirty with smeared mascara and messed-up hair.

Conservative style is about everything being in the right place whereas real style depends on interesting juxtapositions. It is about more than buying a Heals kitchen or getting a nice blow-dry. These conventions are deadening and restrictive. During a recession nostalgia sells, but nostalgia for what exactly?

This is not fashion. Or actual taste. It is buying into a vision of classlessness that has been defined entirely by the upper middle class as just the way things are. It is heart-stoppingly dull. These signs and rituals of respectability are part of the dominant consensus. This blanding out is a narrowing down of what culture can do. Of what life can be.

The down-home, retro, neutered aesthetics of conservatism are as deadly as their politics. Resist on every front.

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This article says all you need to know about the former PM and the Tory leadership - that they so admire the creature formerly known as T Blair.

Tony Blair's misleading lesson

They call Tony Blair the master and quote from his book.

by Stefan Stern

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/26/davidcameron-georgeosborne

It's love. "I love A Journey," Michael Gove has confessed to this newspaper. Tony Blair's memoirs are like no other book he has ever read, he declared. And Gove's passion is shared by many in the cabinet. David Cameron has admitted how much he enjoyed the book; George Osborne is said to have an audio version, which allows him to hear the author telling his story in his own voice. At No 10 and No 11 Blair is known as "The Master".

Health secretary Andrew Lansley is another fan. "If you read Tony Blair's memoirs, he makes it clear that he regrets the fact that they did not pursue ... reform much more strongly in the early days of the Labour government," he told the PoliticsHome website (paywall). Gove has drawn a similar conclusion. "One of the ... lessons of A Journey – there are many lessons in it – is don't hang around," he said.

 "Reform", eh? This is classic Chicago-School neo-conservative Shock Doctrine tactics, of course. Declare a national emergency and then trash whatever social democratic welfare state still remains as fast as possible, before anyone really understands what's happening.

The truth is it is not yet clear how good a leader Blair actually was. The electoral track record looks impressive. But how hard was it to defeat the Conservatives in 1997 and 2001? His last victory in 2005 was by a margin of only 3%.

This is rubbish. It's perfectly clear. As I never tire of saying, this country was so desperate to get rid of the Tories in '97 that it didn't matter a toss who was the leader of the Labour party at that time. Labour was elected in spite of having the twattish Blair(s) as its leader(s) - as far as 'traditional' Labour supporters were concerned.

Blair, however, turned out to be a very able leader - in terms of fooling lots of people into believing he was some sort of progressive politician, in terms of forcing through the continuation of Thatcherism, in terms of taking forward the whole neo-conservative globalising agenda, in terms of championing bankers and big finance, in terms of shackling us to George W and his cronies, etc.

No wonder these Tories love him.

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Thatcher's children can lead the class of 68 back into action

The students aren't just angry about education cuts. They see themselves as a vanguard for a much wider protest campaign

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/nov/26/student-protest-public-sector-cuts

by Polly Toynbee

The scandalous abolition of the education maintenance allowance (EMA), which gives £30 a week to sixth-formers from the poorest families, is as central to their protest as their tripled fees. I read out a heartbreaking email I had just received from a Hackney sixth-former: she and her twin brother live with their disabled mother. Together they will lose £60 a week in allowance and wonder if they can stay on. She went on her first march on Wednesday, peacefully, far from any violence, and was horrified at being kettled by the police for five hours. Are police and government conspiring to turn peaceful young people into outraged militants?

What started as protests about tuition fees accelerated into a political movement against cuts of all kinds. Inequality, poverty, the shredding of public services, unemployment, bankers and boardroom bonuses had become part of the protest. One fight, one struggle, they said, as if 40 years had suddenly fallen away. Not exactly Paris 1968, but in their sit-in meetings they were beginning to see themselves as the vanguard for a wider campaign. Thatcher's children, selfish, materialist, apathetic? Not at all.

Another eye-opener: the coalition has U-turned to shelve its pledge to protect public sector workers who blow the whistle on dangerous, corrupt or incompetent practices. Why? Ministers just realised it would also protect anyone revealing damage done to services by their own cuts.

When the Metropolitan police commissioner talks of a new era of civil unrest, he may not know which way to look for the next wave. Will it be the cavalcade of wheelchairs that so alarmed politicians last time their users tipped themselves on to the pavement outside No10? More school pupils, losing not just EMA but by next year teaching assistants and teachers, along with libraries, swimming pools, school sports and youth clubs? Or mothers with prams, since women are the great losers in income, childcare, nurseries and other services? Or nurses from closed wards? The "squeezed middle" will be angry, the £12,000 to £30,000 earners about to lose £720 a year, as identified by the Resolution Foundation this week. The same middle saw the decade of GDP growth pass them by, with most new wealth sucked upwards to the top few percentiles.

No doubt the government secretly hopes violent protest by striking public sector unions will alienate popular support. The unions need to be cleverer than that, standing on the side of the public and never against them. Striking teachers sending children home so parents lose days of work will lose sympathy that would otherwise be guaranteed by more creative action.

The recklessness in coalition assaults on the NHS, benefits and council services, with the pain distributed so unjustly, suggests a high-risk government speeding without seatbelts. With so many candidates, it's hard to tell what will erupt as iconic "poll tax" issues. Students are always first – energy, time and lack of children make protest easy. But the class of 68 may not be far behind, an older generation dusting down its memories and equally free of family to make its voice heard, the generation who had it all supporting the recession generations, growing up debt-laden with shrunken services, too few jobs and years away from owning a home.

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Layer 291 . . . Fitness, Fatness, Fighting, Boycotting and Voting

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It's been a busy week - mainly trying to keep up with the outpourings in the press about the election and the debates. Too busy reading to do any writing.

Too Fat To Fight

It seems the biggest threat to the American armed forces is the stark fact that so many of their potential recruits are considered too overweight, and therefore incapable of being effective killers. I'm not sure what sumo wrestlers would make of this.

This is on a par with Arlo Guthrie being turned down by the draft on the grounds of being a convicted criminal - having once been fined for dumping litter. Guthrie, clearly, didn't want to be drafted into the army to go and fight in VietNam, whereas the fatties . . . It shows a great lack of faith in being able to slim them down during basic training. Still - it's for their own good. You can't be too careful when you're out there trying to project  military power.

There's physical fatness, and there's spiritual fitness and fatness. The majority of New Labour's troops were clearly too fat to fight against social injustice and inequality. Why else were they so fucking ineffectual during the last 13 years? They were indolent, sluggish, bloated & moated, expenses-fiddling comfort-lovers, the vast majority of them. You can expect someone like Nicholas Soames to be nothing but a useless reactionary tub of lard, but corporeal lardiness is clearly no indicator of fitness for purpose when it comes to fighting for a better world for the less well off, since the majority of the New Labour crowd were not morbidly obese in anything but a spiritual sense.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8655651.stm

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'Vote for me, I'm flawed'

Meanwhile, Suzanne Moore, left wing journalist and columnist, and longtime resident of Hackney - well-known wearer of lipstick and fuck-me shoes, according to Germain G - has decided to stand for election in Hackney North & Stoke Newington - the safe seat of Dianne Abbott. Go Suzy!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/30/suzanne-moore-independent-candidate

http://www.dalstonpeople.co.uk/news/Q-Independent-Candidate-Hackney-North-Stoke-Newington-Suzanne-Moore/article-2036702-detail/article.html

http://twitter.com/moore4hackney
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/03/gordonbrown.davidcameron
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Guardian Goes LibDem

Under the headline 'The liberal moment has come' the Guardian today declares its support for the LibDems, with the proviso that people should still vote Labour in Labour/Conservative marginals. Exactly. THIS IS A SINGLE ISSUE ELECTION. All three of the major parties stupidly support drastic cuts in public services. The one big issue now is to  get  a referendum on proportional representation.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/apr/30/the-liberal-moment-has-come

Polly Toynbee also comments on tactical voting and proportional representation:

Next Saturday at 2pm, after the election, an instant-response protest is planned in Parliament Square by a score of democracy groups demanding proportional representation and pressing Nick Clegg to accept nothing less. If everything hangs in the balance then reform can still be won.

But if Cameron has won his majority, this event will be a mournful wake. The sound and fury will signify nothing: winner takes all, however huge the majority that voted against him. Your vote is indeed precious, so use it tactically to win reform so that you never need vote tactically again.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/01/precious-vote-apathy-tactical-voting

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Also Too Fat To Fight?

Many headteachers will be quavering at the thought their pay will be docked if they fail to implement SATs tests in their schools, even though the NAHT and the NUT have passed resolutions supporting a boycott of the tests. Headteachers are in many ways a wonderful group of people, but it can't be denied that their lack of fight and lack of determination to do right by their pupils has allowed successive governments to inflict things on our schools and on our education system that should never have been tolerated. Time to finally stand up and be counted.

"School governors have been told by the government they could send heads home if they boycotted the tests.

Schools Secretary Ed Balls wrote to them setting out their responsibilities and what action they could take if their head took part in the joint NUT and NAHT boycott.

The National Governors' Association (NGA) says it is not clear it would be legal to send heads home and is asking the government for details.

They say there is a "huge climate of uncertainty".

Neither union has mandated the heads and deputies it balloted to take part in the action.

This means it is up to individual head teachers to decide what action to take and no-one will be thrown out from their unions if they go against a boycott."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/10094201.stm

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Jon Stewart rocks! -


http://tv.gawker.com/5528164/jon-stewart-mocks-the-laughable-tameness-of-british-political-scandals
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