Ye Gods, part 2

I'm not sure if the sound I'm hearing is the death rattle of the Labour Party, or the sound of the bottom of the barrel being scraped. Because that must have been where the Miliband brothers were dredged up from.

A newspaper asked the five candidates to identify a book they might recommend to a friend:

Yesterday, all five of the Labour candidates were asked, in a newspaper questionnaire, what book they would recommend to a friend “for pure pleasure”. Ed Balls, to his credit, said Middlemarch. Andy Burnham nominated Tony Harrison’s collected poems. Diane Abbott drew attention to Robert A Caro’s The Years of Lyndon Johnson. All solid, individual, believable choices.

On the other hand, Ed Miliband tied himself in knots trying not to sound superior. “Anything by Henning Mankell – and get it on DVD with Kenneth Branagh (but maybe not the one in Swedish, since this is about pleasure...)” You see, if books are too hard for you after 13 years of Labour-directed education, just get the DVD, it’s exactly the same – and don’t get one with subtitles, ’cos that’s too hard too. His brother David, however, managed the difficult feat of sounding even more patronising. He nominated The Gruffalo, a work of literature intended for readers between three and five-years-old. “All you need to know to get by in life,” Mr Miliband opined.

Has it really come to this? For some years now, adult readers have become less inhibited about including juvenile works in their reading matter. When adults first started to be seen on the Tube reading the Harry Potter novels, it seemed worthy of comment. Now, we are all used to it. All the same, there are limits. If you saw an adult reading The Gruffalo in a public place, the normal reaction would surely be to edge away nervously.

Not all politicians are as enthusiastic readers as Nick Clegg, with his admirably honest keenness for Beckett, or Macmillan with his passion for Jane Austen. Mrs Thatcher once let it be known that she would be “re-reading” Frederick Forsyth on holiday. But has anyone in David Miliband’s position ever been so terrified of intimidating the public that the first book they recommend as reading for pleasure is a book written for three to five-year-olds? (1)

The Gruffalo, of course, is a children's story in which a cunning mouse frightens off a variety of predators. And now we can look forward to being 'led' by an idiot who thinks nominating The Gruffalo as a serious reading choice is likely to make himself more appealing. If you distilled the essence of Tony Blair into its purest form, you couldn't get a worse answer than that. It's a wretched answer, a clumsy attempt to appear likable and down to earth.

Perhaps David Miliband has, unintentionally, given us the metaphor for this campaign, for the candidates all share a rodent quality. I have still seen nothing from the other candidates that challenges my growing - but reluctant - conviction that Ed Balls is the best on offer. Note, 'best,' not 'good.' Surrounded by mice, the rat is king.

But my disgust at the arrogance of the parliamentary Labour Party is even stronger. Their incompetence, scheming and unspeakable uselessness, supine Blairite tendencies and feeble egotistical careerism brought us to this mess - in opposition, looking like the nasty, authoritarian party that no-one in their right mind would vote for.

The Labour Party, traditionally, has been staffed by working men who took advantage of the opportunities available to them, worked and learned hard, often at their own volition, and rose through their effort. Men like Keir Hardie, Ernst Bevin and Nye Bevan - none of whom enjoyed a formal education - would have dismissed Miliband's pat, patronizing answer with the scathing contempt it deserves.

1 - "Miliband’s choice reads like a fairy-tale," by Philip Hencher. Published in the Guardian, 28th of June, 2010. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/philip-hensher/philip-hensher-milibandrsquos-choice-reads-like-a-fairytale-2012090.html)

Funny how ...

... quickly the painless cutting of flabby state spending that the Tories were promising turned into a frenzied assault on the poor and vulnerable with a chainsaw.

1.3 million jobs are expected to go over 5 years as a result of George Osborne's 'emergency' budget cuts, according to forecasts the Chancellor somehow forgot to include in his budget. Osborne HOPES that the private sector will expand at a faster rate, and more than compensate for the public sector losses - but business confidence seems to be on the way down. And if people are too scared to invest, where are these jobs going to come from?

Oh, and if you're still lucky enough to have a job, you'll find your wages don't rise as there is suddenly a reserve army of labour waiting to fill it for you ... and, meanwhile, VAT driven inflation increases diminish your wages in real terms:

Unpublished estimates of the impact of the biggest squeeze on public spending since the second world war show that the government is expecting between 500,000 and 600,000 jobs to go in the public sector and between 600,000 and 700,000 to disappear in the private sector by 2015.

The chancellor gave no hint last week about the likely effect of his emergency measures on the labour market, although he would have had access to the forecasts traditionally prepared for ministers and senior civil servants in the days leading up to a budget or pre-budget report.

A slide from the final version of a presentation for last week's budget, seen by the Guardian, says: "100-120,000 public sector jobs and 120-140,000 private sector jobs assumed to be lost per annum for five years through cuts."

The job losses in the public sector will result from the 25% inflation-adjusted reduction in Whitehall spending over the next five years, while the private sector will be affected both through the loss of government contracts and from the knock-on impact of lower public spending.

The Treasury is assuming that growth in the private sector will create 2.5m jobs in the next five years to compensate for the spending squeeze. Osborne said in last week's speech that tackling Britain's record peacetime budget deficit would help keep interest rates low and boost job creation. "Some have suggested that there is a choice between dealing with our debts and going for growth. That is a false choice." However, investors are increasingly nervous about the lack of growth in the world economy. The FTSE 100 fell more than 3% yesterday as fresh jitters hit confidence. (1)

It's much more likely that 1.3 million jobs will go than 2.5 million new jobs will be created. The 1.3 million will go regardless, because Osborne has cut the funding for them. The 2.5 million might appear if the economy starts to grow strongly and there is lots of investment. Which won't happen if the economy slips back into recession - which is still likely, and possibly more likely because of the punitive spending cuts, increase in the number of jobless and the reckless effort to reduce debt and deficit.

Welcome to Cameron's Collapsed eConomy. Not as snappy as Brown's Broken Britain, but that's what you get in this ConDemNation - second best and shoddy.

1 - "Budget will cost 1.3m jobs - Treasury," by Larry Elliot. Published in The Guardian, 29th of June, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/29/budget-job-losses-unemployment-austerity)

Out, but not down

Marc Paston is a hero for the ages.

Italy will henceforth be known as "Finished Behind New Zealand."

New Zealand will also be re-branded, and henceforth known as "Finished Ahead Of Italy."

In centuries to come, there will be intense cartographical confusion about where 'New Zealand' and 'Italy' actually were, as the new names refer to places that no longer exist ... leading to scholarly dispute, the citing of ancient maps and the occasional fist fight.

With the All Whites out of the cup, I'm backing Slovakia all the way. I like their entirely random style: initially, indifferent against us; then, useless against Paraguay; finally, lethal against Italy. Such inconsistency appeals to me as a Scot - though Scotland only range from indifferent and useless.

Tories: tough on wine

Almost £18,000 has been spent topping up the Government wine cellar since the General Election, it has emerged - leading to calls today that the entire collection should be sold off to raise money.

Foreign Office minister Henry Bellingham revealed that Government Hospitality, which manages the cellar, had spent £17,698 on new stock since May 6 - bringing the total value to £864,000 - though he insisted the standard practice of buying wines young saved money for the taxpayer.

But with public sector pay and pensions set to be squeezed in Tuesday's Budget as ministers seek further cuts to deal with the £155 billion deficit, Labour former Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson called on the coalition to sell off its fine wines to prove "we're all in this together". (1)

Do they really need almost a million quids worth of plonk? Is Douglas Hogg planning on filling his moat with it, or does George Osborne want his own personal wine lake to go boating on?

Astonishing that these smug arses will spunk money on bloody grape juice while canceling free school meals and swimming lessons. Arrogant two-faced scum.

The Tories seem happy to impose austerity on the rest of us while quaffing all this fermented grape juice. If they weren't cutting free swimming lessons, free school meals, programs to get people off the dole, industry stimulus packages, hiking up VAT, then maybe it wouldn't stink so ripely.

But they're buying themselves enough wine to float HMS Victory in, cutting business taxes, limiting Capital Gains Tax because having it at the same rate as other income is taxed would be somehow unfair, and generally behaving like you'd expect Tories to behave.

For a Conservative administration that was elected on a lot of hysterical squealing about uncontrolled spending and debt crisis, it's just vomitous hypocrisy. We'll have the wine, at your expense, but you paupers can't get so much as a plate of cold chips in the school canteen.

I don't actually have a problem with them spending a bit of money on decent wine per se, but I do have a problem with the people that were howling about debt mountains and deficits, and how Britain was going the same way as Greece and public spending had to be cut NOW.

Still, at least there will be something nice in the trough for them to snout up.

1 - "Government spends £18,000 topping up wine cellar," by Craig Woodhouse. Originally published by the Press Association, reprosuced in The Independent, 19th of June, 2010. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/government-spends-pound18000-topping-up-wine-cellar-2005067.html)

Ed is Dead

... Is the title of a great Pixies song, and pretty much sums up my feelings towards Ed Miliband's leadership campaign.

Miliband dodged my question on proportional representation - which was voiced by others as well. I wasn't surprised, but you live in hope.

It was a very bland performance (1). Ed Miliband believes in 'values' - which is nice - and even mentioned what some of these values are - "equality including narrowing the gap between rich and poor, fairness where everybody is looked after and people who make a contribution to our society are properly rewarded, the dignity of work where if you work, you don't find yourself in poverty and also values beyond work: love, time, compassion, a sustainable planet," but it all seems so bland. No-one would say they were against any of these things, they are so vanilla, and so vaguely defined. Narrowing the gap between rich and poor, for example - by raising taxes, increasing the minimum wage, credits or what?

And another thing, while avoiding questions on important stuff like Iraq and PR, and so on, he managed to answer the same question - basically, "You've never had a proper job, what qualifies you to be leader?" - several times over. Which either means he thinks he's got a lot to justify, or he's dodging hard questions in favour of personal stuff. Neither of which really inspires, or makes me 'aspire' (see? I was listening!) to vote for him ...

Asked about the qualities a good leader needed, he identified, "empathy, toughness, idealism, ability to listen, judgement."

Well, he showed his ability to selectively listen to the questions and exercised judgment in skipping the ones he didn't like ... I suppose he was tough enough to ignore people who were so rude as to keep asking them, though I'm struggling to fit 'empathy' into his performance, since he didn't seem to care much for what we, the people were asking him about.

The only reply I liked was the made in reply to a question about his father, a noted Marxist intellectual. the suggestion in the question was that he had betrayed his father's ideals. I detected genuine anger there, instead of the soporific rote responses to other questions. Let the rage out a bit more, Ed, and you might be in with a chance of distinguishing yourself from the Bland that has colonized the upper echelons of the party. You might make the odd mistake or say something silly if you do, but it will be better for you - and your campaign - over all.

Have to say, this whole exercise is a bit facile and pointless. Letting the candidates pick and choose the questions to answer is dopey. We're seeing nothing but blandspeak, though I suppose the medium might be the message in this case. Depressing to see how little was said, and how predictable it was. I'm becoming increasingly unhappy at the lacklustre candidates we've got on offer, to the point I'd consider voting Lib Dem next time round, in the hope of getting more Tory Lite, rather than risk voting labour and letting in the Tories with a majority ...

And that, Ed, is why First Past The Post is a bad thing and you should support proportional representation.

Sorry, Ed, but just an hour ago I quite liked you. Now I'm tearing my hair and thinking "What has the Labour party done to deserve this slate of monotonous, oleaginous smarm merchants contending for the top job?"

(That said, Ed Balls was much better the day before, actually addressing questions directly, gamely listing the five biggest failures of Labour's time in office, and showing a bit of humour, promising to renege on all promises and abandon his manifesto if elected ... just like Nick Clegg (2).)

And, because that's left me feeling thoroughly unhappy, here's the Pixies singing Ed Is Dead (3):

1 - "Labour leadership candidate Ed Miliband: live webchat," unattributed article. Published 17th of June, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/16/ed-miliband-webchat?showallcomments=true#start-of-comments)
2 - ""Labour leadership candidate Ed Balls: webchat," unattributed article. Published 16th of June, 2010. " (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/15/ed-balls-webchat-labour-leadership?showallcomments=true#start-of-comments)
3 - 'Ed is Dead,' performed by The Pixies. Posted on You Tube by KoolMix32, 30th of December, 2008. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvJ8u_zsOkU)

Why proportional representation sticks in Labour's craw

I've just put the following question to Ed Miliband, Labour leader wannabe, courtesy of the Guardian's live webchat, scheduled for later on today:

I imagine you, in common with every leader in a democracy, will tell us you are in favour of 'fairness' - I can't imagine many leaders would openly state they are in favour of 'unfainess,' though what they define as fairness, of course, varies.

Why are you in favour of an unfair electoral system that: entrenches the two major parties at the expense of others; forces people to vote for parties they don't really support out of fear of getting something even more unpleasant if they don't; makes MPs less accountable to their constituents; leads to elections where the result is decided by a few swing seats and the rest, by and large, can be taken for granted (and thus ignored); and leads to decades long blocs of entrenched party power, where the minority who got lucky electorally dictate to the majority? (1)

The refusal of any of the candidates support PR disgusts me. It's seems pretty obvious they're still 'hurting' over the Lib Dem 'betrayal' - conveniently forgetting how they dumped the Jenkins report on electoral reform in 1998. After that, what right did Labour think they had to command the Lib Dems to coalesce with them?

A further reason candidates oppose committing to proportional representation is because they want the current government to put AV through, and then pronounce that elecotral reform is finished, thank you very much, and not leave any hostages to fortune. Which makes them spineless, opportunistic tossers.

Labour thinks the Lib Dem worm has turned and won't to countenance any move towards PR, because they don't want to give any more power to the Lib Dem 'traitors.' They still think they are still playing in a two party political system, when they are actually competing against the Tories and the Tory-Lite coalition, and the voters can vote for one (by voting Tory) or the other (by voting Lib Dem).

On top oof that, for some there persists the old tribal instinct that Labour has to protect its 'homeland' in the big cities, the North East of England, Wales and Scotland - the regions it has traditionally been strong in, and has traditionally taken for granted. Electoral reform might allow the odd blue Tory to sneak in amongst the red hordes, and the idea is enough to quash any reformist urges that the more naive members of the party might entertain from time to time.

Which, bluntly, means the Labour Party is happy to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of its own supporterd in 'Tory' heartlands, for fear of allowing a few blue stains to appear in the red swathes across in the north. My sense of fairness is stronger than my loyalty to the Labour party - and I mean fairness towards the disenfranchised blues and the disfranchised reds.

Blair failing to deliver on 'The Project' will come to be seen as the biggest failing of the last (hopefully not last ever) Labour government. But as long as the Labour hierarchy behave like dim bullies who think they can just squash the Lib Dems, they'll continue in opposition.

I suspect some of the younger candidates know this. I suspect, also, they've been told that if they say anything positive about PR, they're leadership campaign will be scuttled. The quality of a real leader, of course, might be to stand up to the Reids and Blunketts and tell them where to go.

1 - "Labour leadership candidate Ed Miliband: webchat," unattributed article. Published 16th of June, 2010. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/16/ed-miliband-webchat)

You know what I thought this morning?

"Ed Balls might be the best choice."

THAT'S HOW BAD THE OTHERS ARE.

It's like some form of Stockholm Syndrome. I'm starting to love my tormentors.