Friday 30 September 2011

Out of office, Labour can be as wacky as it likes. And one for hacks to chew on, then spit out as worthless

The standard view is that once out of government and into opposition, political parties are able to breathe a sigh of relief, stretch themselves, once again drink too much and indulge themselves in all manner of off-beat behaviour in the certain knowledge that it doesn’t at all matter, that nothing matters for a year or two because no one is taking a blind bit of notice. They are, for the time being anyway, yesterday’s men and women. For the older ones, the outgoing PM and his Cabinet, it might sting a little, or even a great deal, not having the chauffeur-driven sedan and no one touching their forelock any more, both metaphorically and literally, every time they brush past on their way from one important meeting to another. But for the former party grandees there are the compensations: a berth in the Lords for some, several journalistic sinecures perhaps, a well-paid directorship or two (and we are talking of Labour as well as those fucking fascist nasty Tory cunts - I would hate to be ambiguous here). The older ones can also look forward, now that the pushing and shoving of political life is over, to easing themselves gently into the role of eminence grise and that of a man or woman whose informed opinion should be sought by those with the money to seek it. They will even allow themselves a degree of indiscretion, spilling the beans a little on the past failures of colleagues.
For the younger ones, the former junior ministers and ambitious MPs, opposition is the time to make their mark, to climb the party’s greasy pole and get down and dirty in an awful lot of boring, though utterly necessary, manoeuvring, so that when the party to whom they lost power in turn finally loses the plot - as, of course, eventually they always do - they are in prime position to present themselves for selfless public service, knowing that the old guard is well out of the way and regularly getting pissed in the genteel bars of the Lords.
But before that grand moment comes, there is a year or two of hiatus before the real jostling for power and position within the party begins. Most certainly it is going on in the background, indeed, it never stops, but as far as the public is concerned they can relax a little: after all no one is taking a blind bit of notice as the public knows this lot will be in no position to form the government for five years at the very least and so they have nothing to lose.
So it was with Labour after May 2010. The Coalition government was formed here in the United Kingdom by the Conservatives, who won most of the votes, and the Liberal Democrats who were buggered if they were going to form a coalition government with Labour. (Although they often seem appeal to the same constituency and like to present themselves as the ‘caring party’, the Lib Dems and Labour hate each other just a little bit more than the Conservatives and Labour hate each other. So despite a little virtual flirting with Gordon Brown after the last election - which was all nothing more than strengthening his hand when it came to bargaining with the Tories - Nick Clegg plumped for coalition with the Tories as we all knew he would.
Labour needed the break. Like the Tories in 1992, they were knackered, not just out of ideas, but out of puff and, to push a phrase more or less to utter breaking point, out of sorts. The problem the Tories had in 1992 was that everyone - Labour, the Lib Dems and, crucially, they themselves, confidently expected them to lose the election, which would have meant a few quiet, relaxing years in opposition and time to top up the personal coffers and take the wife to that lovely little hotel in Dorset they used to visit before they married and where she gave him his first blow-job. As it turned out, the bloody electorate played silly buggers and re-elected the Tories for another, utterly miserable, five years in government, which caught everyone on the hop and persuaded everyone, as if they didn’t already know, that you simply cannot trust the voters.
So now it is Labour’s turn to drop their guard and come out with all the wacky things they privately believe but, as a rule, are too wise do support publicly.

. . .

The outstanding wacky idea of these past few days was the suggestion by some idiot or other (i.e. a chap called Ivan Lewis who bears an uncanny resemblance to Lembit Opik, a former Lib Dem MP) at this week’s annual Labour party conference in Liverpool that all British journalists should be ‘licensed’ by the government and that if they behaviour in any way fell short of what the licensing committee deemed fit, they would be ‘struck off’. On the scale of wackiness, it almost scores a perfect ten. Leave aside completely the ethics of a democratic government deciding who should and who should not form that country’s free press, the true measure of quite how daft the suggestion is is the sheer impossibility of making a licensing system work. Whichever idiot is was spent the best part of three seconds thinking it all through. What, for example, would the state do with those bolshy individuals (of which, thank God, Britain has more than its fair share) who were unlicensed but still indulged in some kind of journalistic activity? What sanctions would apply? A fine? A short term of imprsionment if the fine remained unpaid, and most certainly it would? A longer term of imprisonment for persistent unlicensed behaviour? And what would constitute ‘journalistic activity’? Would this kind of blogging be regarded as such? Or would all ‘journalistic activity’ be tolerated as long as it did not touch upon a list of sensitive subjects drawn up by the government’s licensing committee?
And how exactly would the government stop ‘unlicensed journalistic activity’? Yes, it might impose fines, followed by imprisonment, followed by, for persistent and unrepentant offenders, the death penalty, but this would, in practice, prove to be cumbersome at best and a bureaucratic nightmare at worst. In the meantime, all those saintly types who now work for the ‘Indy’ and the Guardian and all those gin-soaked fornicators who now work for the ‘right-wing press’ - none of whom, irrespective of their politics, would for a second agree to the government dictating what and what they might not write - would rapidly form a thriving underground press.
Lewis’s suggestion has, unsurprisingly received a universal raspberry from members of the press of all stripes, ranging from Helen Lewis-Hasteley in the News Statesman to Tom Chivers of Her Majesty’s fascist press who writes a blog for the Telegraphy. I should, incidentally, mention that Ms Lewis-Hasteley is a case in point that the daft chararacterisation by many of the caring left-of-centre press and the nasty right-of-centre press (or the other way around, if you get my drift) is at best simplistic. Ms Lewis-Hasteley, or Helen as I shall call her simply because it is shorter, now writes for the New Statesman, avowedly left-of-centre. Odd then, if the simplicissimi are to be believed, that before she took up that job and agonised over the plight of the downtrodden many, she worked - very successfully - for the fascist Daily Mail (whose editor is widely believed to eat at least two babies for breakfast) as a commissioning editor and features executive.
Somehow, I don’t think a list of British journalists, licensed and regulated by the government, will see the light of day.

. . .

I have not previously come across Ivan Lewis, who, apparently, is Labour’s shadow cultural secretary. But not for long, I should think. Lembit Opik (once described by Private Eye as ‘the well-known anagram’) also has something of an odd history. He began his career as a Lib Dem MP showing some promise and was, I think, even considered by some of them as a ‘coming man’ (always the kiss of death). But as time went on, he made more headlines for his love life than as a politician and things started going pear-shaped. First, there was a longish romance with a Welsh TV weather presenter (who cut up rough as increasingly it didn’t ever seem likely to end at the altar and was eventually dumped). Then the youngish roue took up with a Cheeky Girl, one of two Romanian sisters who had a very minor pop hit and who then found fame as to Romanian sisters who once had a very minor pop hit. It seemed an unlikely pairing, and so the Cheeky Girl involved seems to have decided for she gave her beau Lembit the boot. What he does now I don’t know and care even less.
As for the ‘regulation of hacks’, it less of a chance of seeing the light of day than a snowball surviving in Hell. But never say never, so if, by chance, there does come a time when hacks are licensed by the government (with that nice Ivan Lewis holding the licensing committee’s casting vote), I want to make sure from the off that I am ruled out completely. I could and would never countenance being regarded as in any way ‘acceptable’ by anyone in authority. So let me say publicly: Ivan Lewis is a complete prat. That should it, if the guy has even a modicum of self-respect.



Tweedledum and Tweedledee: which is which? You decide

Tuesday 27 September 2011

How a change of rules and new technology helped me realise I and rugger buggers can exist in the same universe. We don’t have to mix of course (which would be too much to ask of me)

Here’s today’s question: what do Finland, Luxembourg, Vanuato, Norway, Monaco, Nigeria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Guam and Tahiti in common? Give up? Thought you might, because it’s not obvious unless your answer was that vast majority of the citizens of those ten countries have two legs. Well, the answer is that they are all in the bottom ten in the International Rugby Union board’s ranking of national sides. Perhaps you would have cottoned on a lot sooner had I asked what New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, England and France have in common - they are all in the top five and of all the many connections one might make between the five of them, being rugby nation would not necessarily come too far down the list. But what suprised me was seeing how many nations around the world play rugby. Monaco? Really? Surely the place isn’t big enough for a full-sized rugby pitch? Finland? Well, as sure as eggs is eggs it will be a summer game up there, unless they play rugby on skates.

I am something of a recent convert to rugby, despite being impeccably middle-class with quite marvellous manners to boot and charm most others would die for, and despite the fact that I shall never see 59 again. In fact, I used to loathe it, and, to be honest, there are aspects to rugby I still loathe. I suppose it would be more truthful to say I have become a fan of the game of rugby when it is played during the Six Nations tournament at the beginning of every year and, as now, during the World Cup, now being staged in New Zealand.

To clarify my earlier loathing (now downgraded to intense dislike) a little more, it is English rugby and its so-called ‘rugger buggers’ I dislike: their attitudes, their vastly
OTT – and for me wholly unconvincing – swaggering machismo, their apparent conviction that man was put on earth solely to get arseholed on beer when he is not actually out training or playing, and, if I’m honest, the fact that so many very fanciable women are rather taken with the ‘rugger bugger’. On that score the only way I can console myself – i.e. that there will not be a snowball’s chance in hell that those women would ever even give me the time of day – is that it is more than likely that they are just as stupid as the men and that any conversation between us when not restricted to the possible size of Lawrence Dallaglio’s balls would surely be over within about three-and-a-half minutes, if not sooner.

I am happy to point out that this intense dislike is solely restricted to English rugby. In Wales it is very much the national sport played by all, and although Scottish rugger buggers have more in common with their English cousins than their fellow Celts, I don’t find them half as irritating. For one thing, they often share their fellow non-rugger buggers Scots sense of humour. My loathing started when, at the age of 13, and after four years attending German schools the last three at a Jesuit college, I was sent to the Oratory School. I was unfeasibly innocent – I remember suggesting to my mother that one sure way to tackle world over-population, a contemporary concern in the early Sixties, would be if all men and women simply stopped shagging. She laughed but did not (and possibly could not) explain why my solution was something of a non-starter – and life at and English boarding school (oh, all right, public school) was not so much a wake-up call but a nightmare for this tender young lad. I knew nothing of ‘queers’, ‘stiffs’ and ‘wanking’ and after just a few days got very, very homesick. I know realise that all the other boys had also been very, very homesick at one point, but as I was the only one of two in my year’s intake of 40 who had not previously been to a prep school, my homesick came later on in my school career. Those poor saps had gone through it all when they were seven or eight and were first shipped out as the inconvenience many middle-class parents regarded them. Football – soccer, to you Yanks – was the game I liked and followed, but it wasn’t played at the Oratory. Rugby was, and the connection between English rugby and an almost blinding unhappiness was made. It didn’t help that at 13 I had reached my teenage weight, but not yet my teenage height and was rather chubby to boot. My first nickname was ‘Preggers’ – perhaps you can guess why.

So there you have it: the reason why I find English rugby, its followers and everything about it loathsome. There is even a certain accent which, whenever I hear it, is like a stab in the back. Irrational? Certainly, but then someone once observed that what distinguishes humankind from animals is not that we have the capacity to be rational, but that we often behave totally irrationally.

. . .

But I have come to appreciate the game a great deal more, and for two simple reasons. The first is the various rule changes which have made the game far more fluid. When I was forced to play the game – and occasionally watched it – you often had to guess what was going on as the ball would get lost for what seemed like hours in a pile of rugby forwards and mud. This made it all rather boring. But rules changes mean that union is now almost as fluid as league.

The second change which made watching rugby (and, by the way, cricket) more of a pleasure was the gradual introduction of new technology which meant numerous replays, often in slow motion, and several angles were available, which helped one understand the game far better. Admittedly, many already did, but I wasn’t one of them.

These days I support Italy in the Six Nations. They have almost always been coming last, but they are getting better and better, for one thing they seem to have more in common with the Australian, South Africans, New Zealanders and French than those awful rugger buggers.

Monday 26 September 2011

More blogs out there than sand grains on the beach - what is a boy to do to make his mark? And will the colonels return to Greece? That's what the CIA thinks (according to the rumour)

Surprisingly enough, I am not the only bod conceited enough to record his thoughts in a blog, and furthermore there is any number of blogs out there in what in the early pioneering days was called ‘cyberspace’ passing on their thoughts on the euro crisis. I discovered exactly how many when I came across a suggestion on the BBC News website outlining different possible outcomes to the euro crisis http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14977728 that the CIA has warned of a military coup in Greece. This rather intrigued me, because BBC, despite apparently being staffed wholesale by lefties (©Daily Mail), is, as a rule, rather circumspect in its pronouncements and is not given to making foolish claims lightly. For one thing the level of editorial control is such that anything published on its website will be seen and checked by at least three people. So, I reckoned, there must be at least a little credence in the suggestion that the CIA is actually worried that there might be a military coup.
I’ve previously thought that such a coup was not utterly impossible – as I have previously written that both Portugal and Greece, of the Med nations, have only been democracy for less than 35 years and were ruled by dictators before that. But the crucial difference between me and the CIA is that I am just some obscure blogger with more opinions than sense but the CIA has access to quite a bit of information, not least from the U.S. ambassador in Athens as well as from its ‘station’ if these days it bothers having a station in Athens. (Might sound odd to write that but I recently read a book by a Robert Baer, a retired CIA operative, who was dismayed that the new generation of the CIA upper echelon is far more in favour of intelligence gathered by eavesdropping than for running agents on the ground. Baer also suggested that current thinking means stations around the world were being closed down. Whether or not that is true, I don’t know – how could I? – but that is what he claimed. So it is reasonable to ask whether a CIA station was once existed is still operating in Athens or whether it has been downgraded to a chap with a mobile phone and a laptop sipping ouzo in a taverna.)
Whatever is the case, the chances are that the CIA is in a better position to know what is going on that good old me. So after reading that the BBC was repeating the CIA’s fears I googled ‘military coup 2011 greece cia’ and there they were – thousands upon thousands of blogs all saying the same thing. Trouble is
they might all be repeating the same silly rumour, but given the nature of the web a rumour can, almost within minutes, become established fact. And then it even occurred to me that perhaps the BBC, despite it levels of editorial control, had fallen for what is, perhaps, nothing but a rumour.
So listen up: there are claims out there that the CIA has warned of a possible military coup in Greece. Whether or not they have any substance I don’t know. And nor do you. The only people who would know are the good folk in Langley, Virginia, and I can’t see them emailing me once they have read this either confirming or denying the claim. And even if they did email me and tell me something either way, there would be no way of knowing they were telling the truth. Would there?

. . .

If, hypothetically, there were a military coup in Greece, I wonder what the reaction of the EU commissariat in Brussels would be? Going by previous reactions to crises, I think they would restrict themselves to ‘condemning in absolute terms and unequivocally the events in Greece’ and promising a definitive response ‘by Christmas’. That’s what they are good at. If issuing statements of intent, condemnation and reassurance – loads and loads of those these past few months to ‘calm the money markets’ – were a marketable commodity, the EU leadership would be rich beyond its wildest dreams. It firmly believes that frantic activity is the same as consequential action which is why very little seems to get done, althoughgetting everyone in ‘the club’ to agree to the latest proposal can never be easy. Trouble is, activity never was the same as action and it never will be.
So what would happen if the colonels again took over Greece (promising elections in a few months’ time, of course – they all do that)? Well, bugger all, really. There would be a lot of hand-wringing, especially on the left, but there is not much that could be done. Would Greece be suspended from the EU? They did something along those lines - though I can’t remember what - a while back when some unsavoury far right type in Austria looked like getting quite a bit of support. Actually, rather then Greece being suspended, I should imagine the first thing this hypothetical group of colonels would do would be to dump the euro and go back to the drachma. That (according to my reading - I would hate you to think I know what I am talking about) would benefit the country in the short term but would stoke up inflation in the long term. And I should also think it would tell the EU to go and take a running jump. Undoubtedly, there would be a lot of trouble from the country’s left, but if, initially at least, my hypothetical colonels ensured that the economy stabilised and that civil servants were paid again, they might find they had rather more support than the left.
Naturally, ‘the markets’, as we are now obliged to call them, wouldn’t know what to do. They would like it if my hypothetical colonels brought stability, but they would also know that these colonels, unless they were wise, might be unwilling to honour Greece’s debts. In fact, they might believe the best thing to do would be to seal of Greece from much of Europe, and only allow tourism - they would need the income - and the export of what Greece is good at exporting. Most worrying for the EU would be that other countries might be encouraged by the action of my hypothetical colonels - and then the Europoean dream would be well and truly over. The EU would probably shrink back into a rump of of the 12 states which once formed the then European Community before Delors and his ilk decided to go for broke and try for a ‘United States of Europe’. What Britain would do, I really don’t know. Probably just lose the Ashes to Australia again. That’s the kind of thing we do in a crisis. Oh, and get roaring drunk.

Friday 23 September 2011

Essert-Roman. Day 334 - I waffle on a bit more about the euro, the Palestinians, the Third World and then call it a day to prepare for la retour a casa (or something, you get the drift).

Essert-Romand, Haute-Savoie, France.
Last day of this holiday here in sunny Essert-Romand and, as usual, rather wishing it wasn’t. I think I might once try a three-week holiday. What with packing, hunting down tea-towels, chocolate with the town logo on it and other tourist tat, cleaning up the apartment - I’m buggered if I’m going to leave it looking like a tip - and other boring stuff, I rather think the last day was yesterday. Then there’s all the strategic eating - i.e. finishing off as much as the food as possible as fresh produce will have to be thrown away, and I hate wasting food (Catholic upbringing, see). Then, as it’s Friday, got to get the puzzles pages printed at work, alert Nicky, make any amends she spots, blah-blah, so it really would seem that yesterday was the last day. Tomorrow will be a bit of a rush as we have to get from here to Geneva airport by 9am at the latest, and what with all the bloody windy roads to start with, I have no idea how long the trip will last, and we don’t want to miss our plane. I suppose all this fraught whingeing is a sure sign the holiday is over. Heads down for Christmas now and most probably months of utter chaos as Britain yet again grinds to a halt by the unexpected arrival of some cold white stuff falling from the sky.

. . .

And the euro crap grinds on. Everyone knows what’s going to happen - ten years of Japan style stagflation at best, wall-to-wall repeats on TV at worst - so why, why, why, don’t they just bite the bloody bullet and we can all get on with swapping our austerity war stories. When the crash comes, the social fashionista will be at the insufferable worse, trying to outdo each other with how much money they have lost, how much harder life is for them now, even looks like they won’t be able to take a second foreign holiday this year, even thought of renting out the weekend place in Dorset, you know, it’s times such as these which make you realise quite how desperate life must be in the Third World. (Ironically, of course, the Third World is no longer the Third World and even using the term the Third World indicates that one is an out-of-touch, condescending dickhead. What was once the Third World is largely doing rather better than the First World, and as for the Second World, well they really must try a lot harder.)
I have no idea how this might affect me. I just keep my fingers crossed that my Mail shifts will carry on as usual until November 2014 because the alternative would be hitting the casual trail again in London or stacking shelves in Asda, and I have the stomach for neither. Bloody Greeks, bloody EU, bloody van Rompey or whatever the idiot’s name is, bloody EU cheerleaders. These past few years have been a blueprint for how to fuck up the lives of several million people while piously claiming their lives are being improved. At least if and when the EU evolves into something less smug and all-embracing we can start making stupid nationalistic jokes again, such as: Where’s the safest place to hide your money in France? Underneath the soap. Trouble is that that kind of Johnny Foreigner sentiment is hugely out of date. Still a good joke, mind. Made another yesterday when Mark and I spotted an obvious hire care with Swiss plates and an unmistakably German couple inside. Lost their way while looking for Poland, I remarked. OK, so not that good, but look, times is ’ard, squire, spare a few coppers for a cup of tea?

. . .

Don’t know how the whole ‘we want UN recognition’ thing will work out for the Palestinians, but I must say I am broadly in favour. And it’s not that I am anti Israel. In fact, so far quite the opposite. I have always admired how they stand up for themselves and refuse to take any shit and I have got into any number of arguments taking the side of Israel when, as usual, many trot out their somewhat hackneyed anti-Israel rhetoric (and I am still not convinced that lying just beneath the surface of much of there is not essentially a nasty and naked anti-semitism). And it doesn’t help that supporting the Palestinians has become the fashionable cause.
For example, looking for a neutral cartoon with which to illustrate this entry, I came across any number of rather vicious anti-Israel images and a great deal of ‘pity the poor oppressed Palestinians’, but the problem is just a damn sight more complex than that and it is thoroughly dishonest to pretend otherwise. But that doesn’t stop the fashionistas, many of whom give the impression they don’t have two brain cells to rub together, mindlessly following the latest trend, rather as to this day that image of Che Guevara, with the chap looking all peaceful and
gooey-eyed, ‘makes a statement’ about one’s politics and humanity. The only ‘statement’ it makes for me is that the wearer is ineffably naive.
The problem is that, like most countries, they are split into a left of centre and a right of centre, and the right of centre rather takes the piss what with building settlements where they have no right to build settlement. It is not easy to exist in that neck of the woods with fascists like Armadinejad behaving like some latter-day Hitler (although I suspect his days are rather numbered ruling a country where a vast majority of Iran’s people are under 30 and would rather be free than not. Now there’s a surprise). So Israel must realise that the time has come to give a little, that ‘negotiations’ must mean something, that they must come to some kind of workable solution, and the stragegy by the West Bank Palestinians at least might get things moving a little. The real problem, of course, is that the Palestinians themselves are split, and that there are many in the Middle East who simply want to see Israel wiped off the map, which I why broadly I’m more inclined to take Israel’s side. But I wish the Palestinians luck and perhaps in time sanity will prevail on both sides.

. . .

Unfortunately, it looks like the usual suspects for the knockout round of the rugby world cup, which might mean a consistently ,high standard of play, but coming late to the game (I used to dislike it intensely after having a miserable two years at school and identified that misery with the game. I still can’t English rugby - the pseudo-macho attitudes, the bonhomie and the a ‘real man’ crap, but I have warmed to the game. And for these past few years I have been supporting Italy in the six Nations and all the underdogs in the world cup. Yes, I know they didn’t have a hope in hell of going through to the next round, but . . . The United States held their own against Australia this morning and although the got a drubbing, they have nothing to be ashamed of and even scored a rather tasty try. But, as I say, it looks like the usual suspects going through.

. . .

If perhaps my comments about the Third World, Israel and Palestine and the two nationalistic jibes above has somehow pissed any of you off, let me re-assure you all that there is nothing I want more dearly than Peace On Earth and Tranquillity For All. Now fuck off and enjoy the rest of your day, and if I hear from any of you in the next few days there’ll be real trouble.

Thursday 22 September 2011

How not to solve a crisis, any crisis really. And a gentle bit of tourist activity

In one way, the euro crisis gets more bizarre by the hour. We are told that in order to qualify for the next handout of euro moolah to keep the state from going bankrupt, Greece is being urged to impose every harsher austerity measures. And on the face of it, that makes sense you might say. But it makes absolutely no sense
Pissed off or what. Surprised?

at all to impose even harsher taxes and cuts on folk who have very little money in the first place: state pensions down, a property tax is imposed, state salaries are cut when all of Greece knows that if the wealthy paid, and had paid, their taxes in the first place, this crisis might never have happened. Recently, someone point out that the only problem in Greece is tax evasion. And the only people who can afford clever accountants and lawyers to make that evasion possible are the very people whose taxes would help alleviate the disaster Greece is now in and it is not wonder they have launched yet another public service strike. The low-paid should not be the ones to carry the can, both for moral and economic reasons. But this kind of wacky thinking has dogged the whole euro project from the outset.

. . .

In tourist mode yesterday, Mark and I drove up north to visit Thonon on Lake Geneva (or Lac Leman as I have learned the French call it). After a leisurely pastis by the lakeside, it was off to Evian nearby for another leisurely pastis. I’m not one for marching round museums and art galleries, although as far as I know there aren’t that many around here anyway. Mark who spend many years at French schools is a good source French history and told me the the treaty to end the Algerian war was negotiated and then signed in Evian. The town also has, he says, Europe’s largest casino and is a playground for the rich. Well, I never.