Layer 301 . . . The Day After The Day After : Demanding Democracy, Taking Back Parliament, All Along The Watchtower, and Having A Laugh

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“There must be some way out of here,” said the joker to the thief
“There’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth”

“No reason to get excited,” the thief, he kindly spoke
“There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we’ve been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late”

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl . . .

http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/all-along-the-watchtower


Oona King, ex-MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, on the radio this morning, spoke about her 'inheritance track', and incredibly chose my own track - Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's 'All Along The Watchtower'. Amazing woman, this Oona. Love her to bits. She's so well-off being out of politics - and she knows it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oona_King

I don't know why I'm so amazed that Oona chose this track. I'm more amazed that everybody doesn't choose it.
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There was a superb episode of The News Quiz yesterday - one of the best ever. It's now in its 71st series. A real national gem. Thank goodness for Sandi Toksvig, Jack Dee, Jeremy Hardy, Francis Wheen, and Sue Perkins. Comic geniuses, every one of them.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00s7fb0/b00s7f5z/The_News_Quiz_Series_71_Episode_4/

"The UKIP campaign didn't really take off, did it?"

"Zak Goldsmith's mate! - Hooray!"

"Hazel Blears is back in Eccles and Salford . . .  or Salford and Eccles - depending on which way she's flipped them."

"Nick Griffin blamed his rout on immigrants that didn't vote for him."

The polling stations were obviously run by the people who run the Post Office.

In Hackney there was a sit-in after disgruntled voters realised the polling station was much nicer than their homes.

The markets! - "We're all disoriented! - let's do something something mental, like sell pork bellies."

Four points all - we've got a hung quiz!

The headmaster at Eton says he's not just looking for brainboxes, but all-rounders who can rub along with other boys.

Lembit Opik lost his seat - but at least he's now free to return to the mothership.

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Actually I take back what I've said about The Opik. He was on Election Have I Got News For You, and was very funny indeed - in a hurt, humbled and unemployed kind of a way. Great gurner. Can also play the harmonica - for spare change.

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Two more of the nation's comic geniuses also appeared in an election special yesterday - Paul Merton and Ian Hislop. At one point in the programme they moved around and sat together in a coalition, at the suggestion of Jo Brand, who was chairing.

"Especially recorded after the election so that we'd know what the result is."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00sbqfw/Have_I_Got_News_for_You_Series_39_Have_I_Got_Election_News_for_You/

"We have no government. Does that mean we can do whatever we want?"

"The result of the election's still up in the air - unlike UKIP's plane."

Merton even made himself laugh at his mime of Gordon Brown slipping out of his troosers round at the house of that "bigoted woman".

"You should really write porn", said Jon Richardson, who was also very good.

Quick as a flash Merton replied, "Too busy living it, mate!"



"Now they're applauding pornography! After the air crash this audience'll applaud anything! I've got a dead kitten in my pocket!"

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Malcolm Tucker's May 7 outbox

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/07/malcolm-tucker-may-7-outbox

It's time to throw in the towel and call in Dave "Dude, Where's My Majority?" Cam and let him deal with the horrendous fuck-pie of cock-stew that's bubbling. Let him do the cuts. Where there is discord, may he bring petrol bombs. Where there is error, may he bring bullshit. Where there is doubt, may he bring Osborne. And where there is despair, may he bring the noise.

Let's get some kip and catch you on the flip side.

Regards,

M x

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Polly Toynbee has another must-read column in the paper today -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/may/08/hopes-decades-clegg-unthinkable

The hopes of decades rest with Clegg. He must hold his nerve

For once, Lib Dems are in a position to demand crucial voting reform. A once unthinkable progressive coalition is on the table

If not now, when? For the first time the prize is within grasp. The people have spoken – and none of the above won. Radical reform to an electoral system that has fallen apart is at last on offer. The deadly duopoly between two moribund parties has broken. But will it be cobbled together again as if nothing had happened?

All depends on the nerve of Nick Clegg. Has he the spine and the iron resolve to stick to the one condition that offers a chance of a progressive future?

All through the election the Conservatives' City friends have done all they could to spook voters into fearing coalitions, though coalitions offer the most stable economies across Europe. Imagine the reassuring sight of Alistair Darling and Vince Cable working together to steady the markets, deciding together how to cut the deficit with the least damage and the fairest tax rises. Those who believe in electoral reform want exactly this kind of open pluralism. To make it happen, join the electoral reform protest in Trafalgar Square today at 2pm.

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Demo for democracy, Saturday May 8th 2pm Trafalgar Square

http://www.power2010.org.uk/blog/entry/demo-for-democracy-saturday-may-8th-2pm-trafalgar-square/

POWER2010 is joining together with other organisations to Take Back Parliament.

If enough of us turn out and join the call for reform the politicians will be forced to listen.

"The Tories got 36% of the vote, but Labour and the Liberal Democrats, promising a referendum on electoral reform, got 52% of the vote. There is an undeniable, democratic mandate for Parliament to deliver that referendum."

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Layer 166 Shitbags and Trolls, and a Working Class Hero.

So the results from the local government elections were just as horrendous as we thought they'd be, and New Labour is in very bad shape. Good. Someone on Radio 4 was just saying that if it hadn't been for 'Lord' Mandelson fighting hard for Gordon's survival then the Prime Minister would have been ditched by his Parliamentary 'colleagues'.

Well that's one way of seeing it. Another way would have been to assume that the likes of Straw, Darling and Miliband managed to reach the only sane conclusion for themselves – that given the state of our politics Brown's resignation would have made a general election inevitable and a Labour wipeout a certainty, and what kind of idiot turkeys actually vote for an early Christmas?

Then again, maybe Mandy did indeed have to talk sense into a bunch of idiot turkeys. And in any case it's not unlikely that some of those people, at least, might just fancy a quiet life on the backbenches right now, or possibly dropping out of the fucked up world of politics altogether - a world in which there are three circles of power: Parliament, the government, and Gordon Brown and his cabal of personal appointees to the House of Lords.

The thing that's truly appalling is that Mandelson, an unelected and unelectable bastard of the first order, is now not only deemed to have such massive power, but Brown has given him a huge promotion – to First Secretary of something or other – and he's now said to be effectively the deputy prime minister. I wonder what Harriet Harman, a far more decent individual, says about that. I seem to remember writing about this a few weeks ago when someone else suggested that Lord Pete is really the deputy PM.

I was appalled to hear today that 'Lord' Adonis, another complete shitbag, has been promoted to Transport Secretary. How can that happen? What's more, 'Sir' Alan Sugar has been given a peerage and will become some sort of business overlord. Brown must be out of his fucking mind, especially if he thinks the vast majority of people will be pleased with Sugar's elevation. What next? Simon Cowell as Minister for Culture? Piers Morgan as Minister for Adminstrative Affairs?

These are the kind of people running the country, very influential in our national life, and supposedly representing us – we, the people. Like fuck they do.

Or then again, maybe they do have a mindset that pretty much corresponds with that of the poor brainwashed citizens of this unenlightened country, where the likes of Thatch, Major, Blair and now Brown have ruled the roost for so long. Think of that little lot, think of Barack Obama, and weep.

Think also of Hazel Blears, lest we forget. As Sue Perkins said on The News Quiz, if a Titian troll walks out on the party, how come that's supposed to be a bad day for our country? Everybody else on the programme jumped in and gave her a good kicking as well. Wonderful.

It's really not so funny though. There were these two excellent letters in yesterday's Guardian:

Having let my Labour membership lapse, I thought I was over any residual tribal feelings, but that hasn't protected me from my shock at the minister for local government's treachery on the eve of council elections. If the Salford party don't deselect the money-grubbing troll, there really is no hope forLabour.
Rob Raeburn

So Hazel Blears wants to get back to grassroots politics. Some party members like myself never left the grassroots and are struggling to win or retain county council seats. In the last three weeks on the doorsteps I have had to face more questions about the antics of Hazel Blears than all other local issues combined.
Brian Moss

Why wait to deselect her? Why not just kick her out of the party immediately for treachery ('Rocking The Boat'!), bringing the party into disrepute, and attempted avoidance of capital gains tax? Simple – because Brown, the idiot, continued to support her and say what a terrific asset she was, right up to the day of her resignation.

That was the day I first saw her on TV wearing her leather motor bike outfit, looking for all the world like some new species of cave-dwelling leathery dwarf. She can't even walk with any style or grace. (Sorry about the personal abuse – but if you put yourself up for attention, public recognition and admiration . . .)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/05/letters-hazel-blears

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A Real Working Class Hero

Blears tries hard to trade on her Salford origins and constituency - to give herself some sort of woman-of-the-people credibility - but she's as bourgeois as they come. She's an embarrassment to the working classes, if that's really where she came from.

Bobby Moore, on the other hand, was the real deal. Waiting for the big match to come on this afternoon (Khasakstan 0 England 4) I watched a documentary (by Tony Palmer) on our Bobby - hero of 1966 and all that.

He went to school in Leyton, near where I worked after leaving college. He spoke with an Estuary accent, unlike his boss Alf Ramsey, who tried to distance himself from his humble roots by going to elecution classes and learning to speak "properly". Bobby was bright, dedicated, humble and decent. He worked hard at his trade, and was a natural leader. As the film said - he led by example, not by being authoritarian and egotistic.

There was an incredible number of ex-players and journalists, plus friends and family, who spoke about him, and about his shockingly early death from cancer, and not one of them had a single bad thing to say about him. People around the world loved the man, just as they loved that other giant of the game, Pele.

Pele also loved Bobby. It was really moving to hear people like Pele, Jack Charlton, George Best and Alan Ball talking about what a great player he was, and what a wonderful human being. They all said how much they missed him. Especially his son and his daughter. And his wife.

He was calm, quiet and thoughtful, and did everything properly and thoroughly, as a player and as a private individual. He obviously excelled in emotional, social and spiritual intelligence. He played the game for the love of it.

As a young player he earned £8 per week - which was less than his girlfriend earned from her job. Of course the bosses and the owners made a fortune from the sweat of players like Bobby. It just didn't occur to them that they should pay higher wages to the very people who brought in the spectators through the turnstiles.

That's how the class system worked - one set of expectations for the bosses and a different set for everyone else. To be working class meant that you did the work and someone else raked in the profits from your labour. It seems incredible now to think that in those days there was a fixed maximum wage that footballers could earn, and no fixed contracts. If a club signed you, then you belonged to them till they decided to get rid of you.

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Apparently Blears has said, "I passed my 11+. My brother didn't. He drives a bus. I'm in the Cabinet!"

This is the kind of elitist, snobbish attitude that drives New Labour education policies. Manual work bad; non-manual good. No work at all even better, providing you have plenty of money. In their minds there are hierarchies of jobs and hierarchies of people. With the rulers, the government, at the top, of course. They just wish they were better paid. Which is why so many of them were eventually caught filching money from the public purse. All within the rules, of course.

Ẁikipedia has quite a lot of stuff on Blears, including her voting record:

* Voted for introducing government registers on everyone in Britain backed up by ID cards.
* Voted for introducing foundation hospitals.
* Voted for introducing student top-up fees.
* Voted for the Iraq War
* Voted against investigating the Iraq war.
* Voted for replacing Trident.

Nothing there that any self-respecting Tory wouldn't vote for.
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