Sometimes the headline is enough

From the Graun's homepage at the moment. Brilliant.

Last post on Gove's Bible nonsense (probably)

Education has continued to become a more horrible place to work since I last blogged. The proposed changes to Ofsted mean that everyone has to desperately revise the way lessons work in order that we can tick the new boxes that mean you know how to do your job. This is even more tedioius and time consuming than you can imagine.

On top of that, the failure of all the teaching unions to keep a coherent strike strategy to stop the pension tax thus far means we're stuck with being screwed even more for at least a while.

And now Gove's managed to find some rich Tory fucks to pay for his narcissistic Bible project. I think I'll see if the English department want ours, since it's fuck all use in RE - as I've mentioned before.

Now Dawkins has chipped in with something fatuous.

I am a little shocked at the implication that not every school library already possesses a copy. Can that be true? What do they have, then? Harry Potter? Vampires? Or do they prefer one of those modern translations in which "Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, all is vanity" is lyrically rendered as "Perfectly pointless, says the Teacher. Everything is pointless"? That is Ecclesiastes, 1:2, as you'll find it in the Common English Bible. And you can't get much more common than that, although admittedly the God's Word translation provides stiff competition with "absolutely pointless" and the Good News Bible challenges strongly with "useless, useless".

Where to start? Labour decided that not all schools need a library any more and the Tories apparently agree. So the first sentence should probably read 'I am a little shocked that not all schools have a library,' which is a sentence I could agree with wholeheartedly. As it stands, it's little more than petulent whingeing. Our school library doesn't have a copy of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, which is surely a crime against literature.

Then the further whingeing - 'they don't have a 17th century version of a book that is available in many more accessible versions but which I have a nostalgic attachment to because it reminds me of the old days at public school, but I BET they've got some of those books kids actually enjoy like that Harry Twilight fellow, eh?'

I suppose what's getting to me is the way that this whole issue seems to have become a faux-battleground where middle-England can indulge its nostalgia for some mythical Jennings/Mallory Towers-era of education (a world without If... and with no memory of Kes), and engage in yet another defence of white middle-class privilege against the evil hordes of philistines with their 'pointless'es and their 'useless'es on their Klout Twitterbooks - why, public school-educated white men are the *real* oppressed class!

And this is the battle they pick? Honestly, what do we all actually, in the sense of 'how does this help education' rather than 'how does it make Mail readers feel', gain from Gove's vanity project, other than the chance to bury a book (with his name printed in gold on the spine, no less) at the back of the stockroom?

It's not relevant to Key Stage 3 English or RE. It's not part of any of the major GCSE RE specs and is highly unlikely to form part of the English or Eng Lit GCSE specs either, I suspect. It's not useful for A Level New Testament study either, for the twin reasons of unreliability and inaccessibility. What a pointless, pointless act to become a national priority that requires the intervention of the Secretary of State and multiple comment pieces in newspapers.

So that's it. The only national story relating to RE in my memory and it's a bunch of fatuous reactionary dicks belly-aching about whether people should be made to read more 'thees' and 'thous' than they would be expected to if they aren't from Staffordshire. And RE is NOT ABOUT THAT.

Trust me, I'm a Marxist RE teacher.

Oh, for Gods' Sake

There are many reasons not to like Michael Gove. But aside from his elitism, parochialism, incompetence, viciousness, fundamental opposition to the concept of public service, his general meanness of spirit and possession of less charm than Arnold J Rimmer, his stupidity is what is currently annoying me.

This isn't actually related to the strikes - that's a whole other seething cauldron of outrage. This is his move to put a copy of the KJV in every school in the land - with a foreword of his own.

OK, it's only 2 lines, so it's not worth getting too worked up about. But he's not a Biblical scholar. He can't have anything to add to the text other than his own opinion on it - and who the fuck cares what he thinks about the Bible? It's only a few months since he tried to remove the statutory requirement to teach RE from the national curriculum, and has completely opposed including RE in the EBacc. And judging from his behaviour, he clearly isn't much of a Christian either, so sending round copies of his no doubt awe-inspiring thoughts on the KJV just smacks of arrogance.

What really annoys me about this is not the redundancy of spending money at a time when he's cutting everything else on a book that all schools have plenty of anyway (as the National Secular Society have pointed out).

There are 2 major annoyances that outrank this:

1. He doesn't seem to be in a rush to send out copies of other major religious texts. The excuse for this surfeit of self-promotion is the 400th anniversary of the publication of the KJV. Last year was the 100th anniversary of the first simultaneous English-Arabic translation of the Qur'an. I don't remember a free copy turning up at school.




2. The KJV is not a good translation. Most of the NT is based on a single, late, Greek edition and from an educational point of view the NRSV is much better, being a modern English edition based on decades of study by scholars piecing together a representative text based on the widest possible selection of the most accurate available texts. Personally, I wouldn't use the KJV in teaching.

In short, another day, another reason plethora of reasons to dislike the secretary of state for education.

The inevitable pre-strike post.

(h/t)
Phew, we're nearly there. The Tories have obligingly refused to 'negotiate' any further so not even Barber has an excuse to cave in now. We're nearly there.

*A scuffling is heard from the back of the crowd. A scruffy urchin forces his way through the press of bodies. Removing his woebegone cap in an automatic gesture of genuflection, the wide-eyed, soot-besmirched imp stares in wonderment.*

"What's that, Tide? You wanted the Tories to break off negotiations? Why you left-wing communist with your infantile disorder!"

"Young fool", saith I, loftily, "that is not so. For you see, there were no negotiations to break off!"

"Why sir, you are a veritable verbal prestidigitator and no mistake! But how so? For surely I heard Mr Cameron this very morn insist that they would make no more concessions. Logically there must have been some in the first place for there to be any more even in potentia?"

Ahem. I'm dropping this frankly ludicrous pseudo-literary device now.

No. There were no negotiations. There was a bit of clumsy divide-and-rule, trying to hive off the very lowest paid and those closest to retirement from the rest, but it was so appallingly done that no one fell for it.*

Even more brilliantly, the government point-blank refused to carry out the triannual review. This is the 3-yearly review to check if the pension fund is OK. The fact that they wouldn't do this review is pretty good evidence that they knew there wasn't a problem. For corroboration you could look at these two interesting facts:

1. The teachers' fund has had £46 billion more paid into it since 1923 than has been taken out.
2. Teachers' pensions are unfunded. The money just disappears into the Treasury.

They should really just admit that the extra money would in fact go not on our pensions anyway, but on deficit reduction. Because we don't need to put any money into the pension scheme. So while Cameron boasted yesterday about cutting corporation tax and a maximum wage for the wealthy has been ruled out, the poorest paid in society (civil service pensions average at around £5,500 annually) are to be taxed to reduce the deficit. Say it again: "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER."

I'm not going to be dumb enough to try to predict the future in a situation like this, but I think it's clear that the best chance of breaking this deceitful, manipulative, plutocratic shower of piss that calls itself the coalition has got to be a big day next week. And where possible it has to be whispered: All out and stay out.

Because this isn't about protest. It is about winning.

---------------------------------------------------
*Here's how it would work. Those earning under £15k would not face an increase in contributions. Hurrah! You might think. But this would include pro-rata posts. So you could work 2 days a week and still face a doubling of your contributions. And guess what? Lots of low-paid workers are part-time! Clever.

At the other end of the scale, the over-50s were told they wouldn't have to face an increase in retirement age. But they'd still have to double their contributions and they'd still have had the RPI measure switched to CPI. So they'd still lose.

*Attenborough whisper* The mistake I think the ConDems have made is in assuming that we're as stupid as they are.

The Louise Mensch Beverage Scale of Permitted Capitalist Criticism

Following Louise Mensch's remarkable revelation of a new form of critique of political economy on Friday



I have reflected on this remarkable insight. If she's right, then whilst the liberal left are 'swooning at her brio' we're missing valuable research time. As Marxists we are bound by our own credo to rigorous materialist analysis, and beverage consumption is such an obviously materialist habit that it deserves close attention. Let's elaborate this remarkable theory, I thought to myself in my secret underground Marxist lab at Proletarian Towers. And to that end, I have devised the 'Louise Mensch Beverage Scale of Permitted Capitalist Criticism' heretoforeafter referred to as the Mensch Scale.

The Mensch scale is a comparison scale between 0 and 4, where a level 4 subject is permitted full criticism of capitalism up to and including promoting anarcho-syndicalism as an alternative means of the self-reproduction of society, and level 0 represents someone whose consumption of beverages enmeshed in the capitalist system of production should just keep their fucking mouths shut, the ingrate serf scum.

Like the Beaufort Scale, we must have examples so that if we are in conversation with someone we know exactly the point at which any criticisms of the capitalist system or any of its constituent parts goes beyond the permitted maximum. As soon as this point is reached, the correct response is to raise your hand firmly and instruct the vagabond to halt their discourse. 'Cease your mimsy prattle, fool,' instruct the presumptuous ignoramus, 'for the way in which liquids that trickle through your digestive tract AS YOU PRESUME TO PEDDLE YOUR CRITICAL MIND-TURNIPS THIS DAY were produced preclude your being given an attentive ear.'

THUS WILL CONSERVATIVE DISCOURSE TRIUMPH.

As an alternative, you may use the classic 'T' symbol beloved of basketball sportspersons to indicate a 'time out'. In our case of course, the 'T' will stand for actual tea.

Enough elucidation - I realise that you must be gagging to classify yourself, family and friends!

Level 4
Permitted criticism of capitalism = Total. Academies, Goldman-Sachs, concentration of capital, etc.
To achieve level 4, you must drink untreated mineral water collected yourself from a babbling mountain brook near your hermitage. Of course, you must not boil the water before drinking it, unless you mine the metal to create a kettle yourself. Purchasing so much as a camping kettle with one of those little whistle cap thingies on it basically takes you right back to the level of the Koch brothers.

Famous Level 4s: none.

Level 3
Permitted level of criticism of capitalism = TNCs, sweatshop labour and the military-industrial complex.
To achieve level 3, you are allowed to drink water from the tap, despite its being produced by privatised water companies. You *must not* add Robinsons' Barley Water to it to make a weak lemon drink, however.
Famous Level 3s: basically, this is John Harvey Kellogg.

Level 2
Permitted level of criticism of capitalism = privatised train networks, quality of the gifts in Kinder Surprise.
To achieve level 2, you may drink tap water and fairtrade tea and coffee. On no account must you purchase this coffee from some kind of franchise or drink Ribena. THIS WILL RENDER YOUR UNHAPPINESS WITH TRAIN JOURNEYS NULL AND VOID.
Famous Level 2s: Lucy Mangan, probably.

Level 1
Permitted level of criticism of capitalism = the speed of service in Nando's. AND NOTHING ELSE.
Level 1s will drink Fentiman's lemonade at National Trust gift shops, then think NOTHING of washing it down with R Whites. Why don't these people just FUCK OFF AND DIE? They probably drink Ty-Phoo, the despicable BASTARDS.
Famous Level 1s: YOU. If you're LUCKY.

Level 0
Permitted level of criticism of capitalism = What on earth makes you think you can criticise capitalism, you insignificant, smelly turd? IT PROVIDES YOUR BEVERAGES.
Level 0s would drink Coca-Cola at a Showcase Cinema, EVEN IF SOMEONE WAS WATCHING.
Famous Level 0s: given the size of the sample, it was hard to narrow it down, but here's two:

Luis 'Chile' Eduardo, Columbian Sinaltrainal union official working with employees of Coca-Cola bottlers, who routinely receives messages like this:

The Paramilitaries of Magdalenena Medio, The Black Eagles, call on the terrorist Coca-Cola trade unionists to stop bad mouthing the Coca-Cola Corporation given that they have caused enough damage already. If there is no response we declare them military targets of the Black Eagles, and they will be dealt with as they prefer: death, torture, cut into pieces, coup de grace. No more protests![1]

Erol Turedi, one of the Coca-Cola Icecek (Coca-Cola Turkish subsidiary) workers sacked for asking for a wage increase and organising union representation in their workplace. At a demonstration where 200 sacked workers walked into the Dudullu plant,

'1,000 police [were] drafted in to cope with the 200 protestors. The Cevik Kuvvet - 'robo cops' in full body armour - mass outside and are deployed into the building in groups. They fill the corridors. They occupy the balcony. They take the floor above the workers. Hundreds of police appear in the atrium, with riot shields and batons at the ready. The police charge nets six arrests and forces the protestors into a corner, the women and children huddled at the back by the walls. The men stand in front of them. They have linked arms together in an effort to protect themselves and their families, but when the assault finally comes their efforts are proved to be instinctive rather than practical. In front of them are 1,000 police and behind them the children have started to cry.

Finally Coca-Cola's managers agree to talk to the union. So while the police corner the families downstairs [union] President K and the union lawyer go upstairs for talks. It is late afternoon when they gather in a meeting room, which is small. Around a table, which is large. Alongside the managers, which is essential. And next to the police ... which is baffling.

... If events were going badly upstairs, events downstairs took an unexpected turn for the worse. On the frontline Erol looked out at the police - 'they just pulled down the gas masks and that was when we knew.' ... Their eyes widen as they tell of stumbling into each other in panic and blindness, gasping for breath. Thye curse the polie as children were separated from their parents and the men beaten with riot sticks. And they hold out their hands when they talk of being bundled into the police wagons outside, of reaching up to the small windows to gasp for fresh air - only to be sprayed in the face by the police.[1]

Shut up! You drank Coke! What do you think you're doing, Level 0s?
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[1] Mark Thomas, Belching Out the Devil: Global Adventures with Coca-Cola, 2008

Just so we're clear...

This is a BAD idea:

Ministers are scrapping a requirement for teachers to record instances when they use physical force, as part of a wider move to "restore adult authority" in the wake of the riots in England.

Here are some reasons why neither I nor any teacher I know thinks this is good:

1. Pupils should not be afraid of their teachers, as this is a barrier to their learning. If you are afraid of your teacher, you are less inclined to view your education as an opportunity, and more likely to view yourself in opposition to it.
2. There are plenty of alternatives to force in dealing with classroom behaviour issues. If you do need to use force, you have already lost your authority.
3. The link with the riots is specious. It is not a coincidence that the riots happened in the most deprived areas of London. The underlying cause is inequality, not a lack of caning.
4. I didn't get into this job to beat children. However annoying it is when a lesson doesn't go to plan, grabbing hold of a kid is not a solution to the problem.
5. This whole thing feeds into the right-wing myth that the primary cause of bad behaviour is a lack of discipline. This is part of the whole hang 'em, flog 'em, dose of national service bollocks. As Lenin recently noted: Greece has national service. It is not 'discipline' that is the problem. Discipline is an issue for the army and a prison, not a free society. Yes, we need a certain level of co-operation to do our jobs, and yes there needs to be an understanding that there are consequences for poor behaviour, but this has to be based on the understanding that co-operation and good behaviour are beneficial to the individual students and their peers, not 'cos I'll give you a clip round the ear if you don't. Which can be complicated and tedious, but has the benefit of not being neolithic.

As you were.

Something to make teachers angry

If you're a teacher and you're being balloted about whether to strike, there's a handy thingummy here that will allow you to calculate exactly how much you're being screwed by proposed Government changes to the pension scheme.

For example, I'm going to lose over £166,000 over my working life. In other words, a house.

I don't like Tory scum for many reasons, and few of them have to do with my personal situation as a worker under attack, but this is a nice illustration of the viciousness of what they want to do to me and thousands like me.

If your union hasn't yet balloted, speak to your rep and put pressure on them to do so. Together, we are strong. Divided, we will be screwed by total and utter bastards.

Remember, we're not all in this together - they are attempting to make us pay for their fucking crisis.

There is literally no snark left...

I've not updated for a bit, partly because I've been to busy with ... you know ... stuff ... and partly because I generally want to post on here in order to snark at news stories that make the little veins in my eyes start throbbing with greater urgency than a diarrhoetic in a 10 items or less queue at Boots*, but the absurdity event horizon seems to have passed me by. I mean, look at this:

George Osborne said he would be watching oil companies "like a hawk" to make sure there was "no funny business" following his budget decision to cut 1p from fuel duty.

Honestly, where do you start? It's times like this I am painfully aware that I can never make a great satirist. I can't see it with ironic detachment. It's just a matter of - this is utter, nonsensical madness. What's the right response to this? A clever gag, a series of bullet points explaining the various levels of hypocrisy and untruth at work, or what?**

I know everyone else has pointed this out as well - if even the shadow chancellor's got it then it's a fair bet few are fooled, but Jesus. They really do think we're a Burkean mob, don't they?

We'll see how well this 'stability' that Gideon's created works on Saturday I suppose...

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*Yes, at Boots. Look, if they were in Tesco's how would you get the cue that they were buying imodium? Look, just forget it.

**Note how I avoided the obvious 'a series of bullets' line there. Never go for the easy punchline, kids. Unless it's funny to do so, obviously.

NEWS!

(imagine it being shouted by a drunken Johnny Vegas for full effect. Yes, I've been watching Attention Scum! too much recently)

Since people neither I nor anyone who reads this blog will ever meet* are getting married, completely understandably nothing else appears to be happening today.

But just in case you were under the delusion that EVENTS can still happen even when the NEW MARIE DIANA is GOING TO UNDERGO AN ADMINISTRATIVE PROCEDURE before the Earth has next rolled around to its current position in its orbit of a ball of flaming hydrogen 1.4 million kilometres across and 150 million kilometres away, here are some illusory gobbets of THINGS.

• Despite compensation being offered to the Gitmo detainees, Shaker Aamer has been held without charge for more than 9 years now. Cage Prisoners will be holding a rally about his case in London on 11th December.
• Sussex University is under occupation by students calling for no rise in tuition fees.
• Cameron has stopped paying his photograher from general taxation.
• Viktor Bout, arms dealer and scumbag extraordinaire, has been extradited to face trial in New York.
• Francis Maude is ConDemNation's Mephistopheles (and a mysterious organisation run from a private house near Stratford on Avon has direct access to the whips' office). OK, I was a little slow on that one.
• The President of the European Council thinks Ireland could destroy Europe. Go, you priest-infested backwater you! Honestly I have no idea whether this is a serious possibility or pointless hyperbole. My instinct is the latter, but who knows? We all remember the damage Father Dougal Maguire could cause with a poorly placed comment, and I assume the republic is basically just like a sitcom about priests.
• There's probably loads more STUFF too. But I can't process more than however many news stories this was in a single day or it all goes out of my ... thing. You know, with the hair and the eyes. Inside that.
• Yeah, that.
  

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*Although to be strictly honest, I did used to work for his dad. He is the one who's dad is Charles, right? He's not the other one? I get confused.

When in doubt, blame the victim.

A classic right-wing move when one of their policies turns out to be very bad for people is to blame the victims of that policy. There are probably a gazillion examples but when I saw IDS's nauseating plans, the first one that leapt to mind was Norman Tebbit’s ‘on yer bike’ attitude at a time when Thatcher’s policies had just cut 2 million jobs from the economy.
It is an exact replication of the same calculated idiocy (by which I mean that if you look at it for a moment you can see how stupid it is, and assume that the ministers responsible are cretins rather than what is actually the case: they are committing deliberate acts of evil in public), whereby employment secretaries conveniently forget that we don’t live in an industrial democracy, and most people don’t have much choice about work, and assume that the reason there is so much unemployment must be because there are so many unemployed. Therefore, goes the ‘thinking’, if you make life hard enough for people who have 'chosen' to be unemployed, this will incentivise them to find the work that 2.5 million of their comrades also seem to be a bit too lazy to find.

Actually, a more accurate title might be: When in doubt, don't just blame the victims. Beat them up a bit more. 'Hey you, you haven't got a job! That makes you basically a criminal, yeah? Here's a bin bag and a rubber glove. Off you go.'

I think what sickens me most is that it’s not even new. I’m assuming that when drawing up the policies, one of the remaining civil servants/photographers were sent round to get some clippings from a 1981 copy of the Times.

It's Happening, Reg! Somthing's Actually Happening!

Today was awesome for anyone who likes to see proper angry protest in a progressive cause. Aaron Porter might think those who smashed windows were "despicable", but as someone who's been on one too many protests where you see too many of the usual faces, a demo like this says something that 'peaceful' (let yourself get kettled by the cops and don't say so much as a bad word about it) protests don't quite so well: we're really angry. I think people in power tend to get more sleepless nights about angry protest than peaceful protest.

Always good to see a bit of people power and a progressive cause taking control of the streets, anyway. And if you wanted a demo without dickheads you might as well wish for a police force full of paragons of virtue. Just accept that people REALLY don't like Condem policies, guys.

Not that it needs stating, but just for the record: I don't think violence is to be welcomed, but if you're pushing through policies that hurt people, people can't always be relied on to wait for deliverence from a Mediator. Besides, as a revolutionary I tend to think that only the co-ordinated power of the working class can overthrow the class system itself and bring an end to the conflict inherent in class societies - and I don't expect the bourgeoisie to give up easily.

Not that I was on a demo, mind. I work for a living, me.

ATTENTION SCUM!

With apologies to Simon Munnery (and Stewart Lee, who directed).

Look, it's over there! Insists Gove.*

The so-called "no touch" rules that discourage teachers from restraining or comforting schoolchildren are to be abolished as part of a "new deal" for teachers, the education secretary, Michael Gove, said yesterday.

Personally, I didn't get into this job to hug kids but to teach them. If I can support pupils, that's fine, but I don't want children to see me as part of their extended family either. I'm a professional with a job to do, not a babysitter.

Slightly less callously, and more in tune with what I most especially dislike about this idea, it's important to have a clear 'don't touch the kids' policy for several reasons. An atmosphere where pupils need to fear the teachers physically is a bad atmosphere for learning. It erodes trust between teacher and pupil. Also, kids can be very antagonising and badly behaved - pretty much every school I've worked in has been in a deprived or inner-city area and had behaviour issues of one kind or another. The last thing a stressed teacher approaching the limits of their temper needs is to feel that there is some leeway around physical contact with the kids. It's better for us as well as for them.

I know of schools - heck I've worked in them for brief periods - where there are panic buttons on the walls and teachers carry walkie-talkies. There was one school in Newcastle (not one I've worked in I'm afraid, although one I did visit on one or two occasions in my previous professional life) with metal detectors and an on-site police officer. There are serious behaviour problems at these schools.

But:
(a) there is no miracle solution to this - bringing back the birch will not make the pupils better, in fact I'd say that it would be more likely to prolong the cycle of violence.
(b) violence in schools is always found in the most deprived parts of the community, those most suffering from joblessness and poverty. The very problems, I should point out, that Gove and his government are doing their level best to exacerbate.
(c) this is a tiny minority of schools. In most schools teachers do not feel threatened by their pupils. Certainly I never have. And even if this should change in the future, and some pupil does sincerely make a threat against my personal safety, any putative moves back towards corporal punishment will be a terrible backwards step. How can we teach children that violence solves nothing if we are prepared to use it ourselves?

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* I can't help but feel this is the first salvo in an attempt to blame bad behaviour and school problems in the coming years on pupils, as schools are sapped of vital resources, much-needed refurbishments are shelved and class sizes grow.

Upcoming Attractions

Just a couple of upcoming demos/events:

One of these things is very much like the other

So, late, cryptic and probably way behind everyone else, I thought I'd do a quick post on the whole twuntfest that is the Coalition. Don'tworry, I'm not going to go into what others have said, far better, and elsewhere. Instead I'm going to offer a quote. It should probably be on the other blog, in fact, but even fewer of you fuckers read that one. Besides, there's an original anecdote in this one.*

The kind of crisis Friedman had in mind was not military but economic. What he understood was that in normal circumstances, economic decisions are made based on the push and pull of competing interests ... However if an economic crisis hits and is severe enough ... it blows everything else out of the water, and leaders are liberated to do whatever is necessary (or said to be necessary) in the name of responding to a national emergency. Crises are, in a way, democracy-free zones - gaps in politics as usual when the need for consent and consensus do not seem to apply.

- Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine

The only addendum I'd insist on is that there is a consensus on this occasion - the consensus of the political class and the media. It's only unions, right-wing economists, centrist economists, and left-wing economists and those tiresome types who keep thinking we should try to build a better world rather than a worse one who don't agree.

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*True story, a friend who claims to have some kind of centre-left credentials announced her admiration for Ken Clarke yesterday, on the basis of the 'we're too poor to afford new prisons' policy. Just to be clear: he's not a nice man, he's a bastard standing next to a shower of cunts. There is a difference. And remember, if a Tory ever does the decent thing, it's either an accidental spinoff of something evil (in this case unnecessary and destructive public sector cuts), or just plain accidental. Stopped clock etc etc...

Fucking Lib Dem Wankbastwats

Oh well, at least it's taken the difficulty out of the decision for when the government falls this autumn. Never voting for those fuckers again, even if Nick Brown is the alternative.

Hopefully the same will go for most other core Labour voters who, like me, made an unwise choice.

Fuck. Them.

Fuck Me

I've always believed you shouldn't judge by appearances, but do I even have to tell you who this prick is? Jesus.

Sweet Christ I want to stab him in the eyes even before I've seen his politics...

Election Shitcast LIVE 1!one!!!

20:44 Highlights so far:
Tory leader complaining that there's not enough industry in this country.
Lib leader wishing that the three parties had more in common.
Brown's what-am-I-like gag fail.

BTW loved that workfare dig, DC. Nice to know that if I'm ever on the dole again I'll have to take whatever shit job they offer me, no matter how ill-suited it is. Cheers.

Oh, and that bit about how the boss of Marksies likes you. I'll definitely file that under relevant. And if I ever want advice on aggregate demand management I'll definitely ask a luxury food shop about it, rest assured.

20:47 GB got one in on the inheritance tax bit. Nice.

20:48 NC now getting GB for the same thing. Nice too, I suppose.

20:50 DC in favour of inheritance. What a shocker.

20:56 Sorry for being slow - they're deliberately doing tit for tat to keep NC out of the debate, aren't they?

20:58 NC 'by all means pay them lots of money but no bonuses'. I agree with the second bit, although the first should obviously read 'by all means have them shot'.

21:00 GB: bankers are massive fucking liars so it's important that we give them money.
DC: who gave our economy to the banks in the first place, eh? Eh?
Indeed, Dave. Who would have done that?

21:03 GB: DC wants to cut Corporation Tax.

DC: I don't understand the EU or the Euro, and I want to make that quite clear.

21:04 NC demanding the bank levy again. Good.

21:05 GB on the Tobin Tax. Also good. But which is best? There's only one way to find out...

... talk, it turns out.

DC: People with no history of debt have trouble getting loans.

Well no shit, Sherlock. Their credit rating will be low because they can't show they can handle debt well. It's called a fucking credit report. Jesus.

21:09 GB: I heart biotech in this region.

What about the NE Gordy? Where's the love? Where's that Centre for Life lovin'?

21:10 DC for some reason no one can fathom manufacturing seems to have been on the decline since the '80s.

If only someone in power had been able to stop them, 'eh? I'm really not sure this argument helps who he thinks it helps.

NC's point about sustainable development was pretty good.

21:12 NC: who'd have thought that bankers would turn out to be a bunch of selfish bastards?

GB: Universities yay *ahem*do not mention funding cuts to pay for Olympics*ahem*

DC: The government should buy things from my friends.

21:16 Question: if you have 9 energy ministers and 2 of them are the same person, how many energy ministers do you have?

21:18 Wow, what a great question from Joe McThicko there. Was there any point to that, other than to pre-empt Littlecock's next column? "Why do you love furrins and not work for us and do exactly what I want despite me not being able to articulate a coherent question, bitchez?"

21:21 Oh, immigration. Great. Because this NEVER comes up. Sweet Christ, why do we keep hearing from whining NIMBY fuckwads at the moment?

21:24 NC hates nasty people with crates of crime, apparently.

21:25 DC: NC can't get away from this 'amnesty' idea.

'Get away from' seems an odd way to phrase 'keeps saying he wants' but maybe that's just me.

DC and GB: the worst thing we can possibly do is behave in a humane fashion now. Because if we do that, we might have to behave well tomorrow, too.

NC: I am proposing an amnesty, but of course I will be treating people abused by the black economy as criminals, so settle down your Daily Fail aneurysm poppingness.

21:33 NC: I want 1-bed flats to house families.

21:35 Oh no, NC di'nt just mention Scotswood, I just KNOW he di'nt. Uh-uh.

21:41 I think I'm losing the will to live.

21:49 DC wants to give teachers a licence to touch kids. Fill in RC joke of your own choosing. Loving DC's 'heads need to be in charge' bollocks. Dear DC, heads are in charge. Ask any staff body whether the SLT have any problems enforcing diktat. What you mean is Gove's insane plan to start treating teachers as badly as the private sector treats its employees.

21:55 re DC and heads. 4,000 pages a year?!!!! eleventy!! How do those poor heads manage?

21:56 DC: I'm standing here for a simple reason - I'm too shit even to run my parents' multi-million pound empire. There will be difficult decisions, but hey, they'll never affect me or anyone I know. Change change change change change change change change change change change change.

21:58 NC: Boo! Just kidding. Change change change change change change change things can only get better it could be you.

21:59 GB: Thanks for coming to my show. We're all individual! Boo! No, really, boo. That's a Tory boo. A big scary boo. If we fuck you next year it's completely different from them fucking you now. *Psst* I don't like being the bad guy here, but those two are just rubbish. *rictus grin*.

22:01 David Dimbleby: *coffin-dry dust cough. Possibly some words. Hard to say.*

The Final Sign of the Degeneration of Culture

And so it has come to this.

This is the symbol of people with a vague sense of how to deal with Tories, and probably the only thing that will happen this election at all.

This is an image that has achieved national prominence as a symbol of political engagement and ambition. Just stop to think about that for a second.

Sometimes I long for a more civilised age...

Obligatory 'How Do I Vote' Handwringing Wangstfest

So, now the three suits have spoken, and a nation has shrugged, what have we learned? Three things really:

1) Whatever Nick Robinson says, this was about personalities and not policy. Because (a) there were very few substantial policy differences to discuss, and (b) this was a political beauty pageant, in which 3 men in suits were put up for 61 million people to gawk at, and then be asked what they thought about them (there was even a scrolling tickertape recording a live Ipsus Mori reaction to it, like the world's dullest lie detector test).

2) All three parties (a) hate public servants, and (b) hate them furrins.

3) The stare-eyed bloke who was sitting behind the BBC presenters discussing the real-time polling, looking like he's touching cloth, is probably already a YouTube hero.

Leaving us where exactly? I'm one of those who normally grits my teeth and votes Labour for fear of the other lot, but the MP in my constituency is such a massive cock that if I try to put the cross in the Labour box this time my own arm might rebel against me and punch me in the face for my presumption. Which leaves a choice of two, since TUSC aren't standing here.

CHOICE A: The Greens.
Not perfect but the best of a bad bunch by a long way, in that they have some policies I actively like, rather than am simply prepared to tolerate. Investment in public transport and raising taxation on the wealthy whilst lowering it for the poorest, for example, or abolishing PFI and decreasing class sizes. I'm prepared to ignore some equivocation in the preamble on immigration as the named policies are largely positive if limited, and a fluffily worded manifesto (cf Sarah Lucas' 'New Labour has its back to the wall in the far corner of the last chance saloon'). So inasmuch as anyone since RESPECT can meet this description, they're the ones I'd 'like' to vote for.

CHOICE B: Lib Dems.
Despite having only one policy that I actually like (and the Greens have that one too) - abolishing the ID card scheme - they're still not as bad as the other two in most respects. Their manifesto is quite annoying, lots of giving figures without references to projected receipts and borrowing, pointless pictures littering the document like a desperate financial pages editor, that sort of thing. Plus their policy on Royal Mail is clearly designed to privatise it, which is very shitty.

But here's the familiar old problem, the one faced by every voter with some kind of idea about the way they would like the world to be. Do you vote for the least of all evils or the least worst of the ones who might actually win?

Mark Steel summed this up neatly when commenting on Blair years ago:
'I know that there are those in the Party who still cling to the old-fashioned belief that we should at least aim to do something. Well let me say this: if you persist with this outdated rhetoric, you will lose us the election and we will never be given the opportunity to do nothing!'

If the Lib Dems do well, they won't do very much, but they might not be as bad as the other two will be.

On the other hand, there would be real change if there were a significant Green victory across the country (although there won't be). But, having been involved in fringe politics for a few years now, I know how important it is for the smaller parties for every increase in vote, because it helps when you're building your movement both to know that the support is there and to be able to show to those outside your base that the support is tangibly there.

In short, Meh.