Thursday, May 09, 2013 

Probation policies exchanged.

If the constituent parts of the coalition seem determined to do one over on their enemies within purely out of spite just at the moment, for which see the Tory backbench attempt to get a vote on the EU referendum next week, designed to make things even more difficult for poor old Dave, as well as Clegg doing the equivalent of poking his finger into the eye of Liz Truss over her beloved childcare plans, it's worth remembering that elsewhere relations seem just as cosy as ever.

Take the Home Office and Ministry of Justice.  Apart from Clegg's attempt to kibosh the "snooper's charter", the Lib Dems have barely raised a squeak over anything that's from the departments helmed by Theresa May and Chris Grayling.  True, they've made clear their opposition to any Tory attempt to withdraw from the ECHR, but then that has never been considered a serious option.

The latest policy they seem to be at one on is Grayling's pet privatising of the probation service.  As is so often the case in government, it involves one idea that could be a genuinely good reform, introducing probation for those serving short sentences in an attempt to reduce re-offending, and then covers it with two others that completely negate any potential benefit, in this instance putting the likes of G4S and Serco in charge and making life for those under supervision even more miserable than it may have been inside. Think of it as a shit sandwich reversed, which underlines just how stupid the Lib Dems have been to take a bite.

Grayling's only justification for not allowing the state to bid for the new contracts (unless the local bodies set themselves up as co-operatives, in which case their bids will be considered and then rejected) is that due to the cuts, more has to be done with less. While there is always the potential for waste to be identified, it's mostly found in the back office rather than at the stretched front line. Indeed, that the state will continue to have a monopoly in supervising the most serious offenders and those under MAPPA rather suggests that on the whole the current system is working. Why not extend that expertise rather than rely on companies and third sector organisations that are either untested or have had poor results in other payment by results schemes?

The answer is that this is another of those off the rack policies provided by Policy Exchange. Their spokesman today spoke of vested interests, but at least we know why NAPO is opposed. Policy Exchange by contrast is one of those think-tanks that refuses to say where its funding comes from, although we can make a few educated guesses based on the reports it's churned out over the years. PE has been instrumental in the pushing of the payments by results model, which so far has led to much in the way of payments (although not enough to keep some of those sub-contracted from going bust) but little in the way of results, the latest set of Work programme figures having been delayed repeatedly in the hope something will turn up (see recent Private Eyes).

Lest it be forgot, the Lib Dem position at the election was for short sentences to be all but abolished. That was never going to happen unless judges and magistrates had their discretion further eroded, which would have been a retrograde step, yet it looks as though we've somehow ended up with a system that will combine the questionable parts of community service with the alienation of prison life. It could well help some, while making things even more problematic for the majority.  Which is a perfectly good summary of what the coalition as a whole has achieved so far.

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5/09/2013 08:18:00 pm | | | links to this post

Wednesday, May 08, 2013 

The cavalcade of idiocy rolls on.

If there's one day a year when it's impossible not to be proud to be British, it has to be on the state opening of parliament.  No other democracy can lay claim to such an awe-inspiring spectacle: the grandeur, the opulence, the incomprehensible and the entirely risible.  We might be behind most other countries when it comes to small things like having a democratically elected second chamber, but who needs a senate when you have a ceremony which involves a gentleman with a black rod entertaining the head of state? And what could be more quintessentially British than asking a 87-year-old woman to put on her finest rags, plonk a regal hat on her head that weighs about the same as a small bag of potatoes and then read out the political equivalent of a ridiculously vague shopping list, only rather than being on paper the list is inscribed on goatskin vellum? The European parliament can't even begin to hold a candle to the mother of them all.

To drop the irritating sarcasm, there can't be a better example of what can only be described as the cretinous decision to carry on with the state opening in its current form regardless of Brenda's advancing age than how even Fergie is deciding to jack it in at the end of the season.  He's 71, for comparison's sake. If we can't just dispense with the entire stupidity, then surely Charles can take the place of his mother, as is happening at the next meeting of the Commonwealth.  He is after all ever so keen to prepare for his kingship; let him announce how his mummy's government "is committed to a fairer society where aspiration and responsibility are rewarded".

Chaz would doubtless approve of the tone of the speech, if not with some of the policies (it's doubtful he approves of HS2).  If you thought George Osborne had overdone it a bit in the budget with the nonsense about how it was all for those "who want to work hard and get on", then it's probably best to avoid a television tonight, as those responsible for writing Queenie's sermon went off the deep end.  Hard work this and hard work that; those who do will be properly rewarded, not with a living wage of course, or a cut in VAT, or anything that might actually help with the cost of living, but indirectly through the continuing crackdowns on those not doing "the right thing".  Never mind, sheer aspiration and responsibility will get you there in the end.  Look at the example set by Dave's inner circle, all there purely on merit, achievement and hard graft.  What more inspiration do you need?

As for the proposed bills themselves, they're a mixture of the piss weak and the stuff that's been talked about for months already.  There's very little to object to in either the care bill, which introduces the Dilnot proposals, albeit with the cap set higher than he advised, or the pensions reform act, although we can quibble about why those who've never had it so good will be getting a further increase when everyone of working age suffers.  More objectionable are the "offender rehabilitation" bill, which will see the probation service part-privatised and those sentenced to under 12 months coming under supervision for the first time, which isn't necessarily a good thing when it's the likes of G4S and A4E that'll be "helping" them not to reoffend, and the latest in a long line of crime/anti-social behaviour acts, which looks set to further infringe on the rights of teenagers to be seen in a public place, while also holding whole families responsible for the actions of one member.

Then we have the immigration bill.  It's come to something when someone so closely associated with Cameron as Ian Birrell is denouncing this latest piece of nonsense in the most virulent of terms, but such is the point we've reached thanks to the panic over UKIP.  How many times does it need to be said that immigrants pay far more in than they take out, or that you can't make things harsher for those who few who are claiming benefits without doing the same for those born here?  For a government supposedly dedicated to reducing the burden of red tape, it has no qualms about imposing more on private landlords, who will somehow be required to check whether those renting aren't here illegally, without explaining how this will work in practice.  Are landlords meant to be the newest arm of the Home Office? Doesn't making illegal immigrants homeless increase the potential problem rather than reduce it? We can't deport every single one, as the Liberal Democrats said at the last election.  Even more concerning is the potential limit of 6 months JSA for those resident elsewhere in the EU if they can't prove they have a chance of finding a job.  Something so obviously discriminatory can't possibly be legal, unless as mentioned above it was introduced across the board.

Whether it's a good thing or not that neither the introduction of a minimum price for alcohol or requiring cigarettes to be sold in plain packets made it in is debatable.  I've long doubted something so easily dodged as making strong booze more expensive would work in practice, although evidence suggests it's had an impact in Canada.  Nor have I ever believed that the packs cigarettes come in somehow persuade people to start smoking, yet if the industry is so vehemently opposed to it then perhaps there's something there after all.  Much as I loathe the hypocrisy behind making smokers pariahs when the government benefits so massively through heavily taxing them, and the cigarette model is the obvious one when it comes to decriminalising drugs, it's exceptionally difficult to feel the pain of those who in the end profit from giving people cancer. Politically, dropping both probably makes sense for Cameron.

Does it though for Clegg? This is an overwhelmingly Tory set of bills, with very little indeed for Nick or the Lib Dems to boast about.  Clegg has also failed to fully kill off the "snooper's charter", which can still be resurrected and doubtless will be considering the lobbying of late from the security services.  As this is also likely to be the last Queen's speech before the election, it provides a dismal summary of just what they've achieved in the coalition.  As for the Tories, today just reinforced how they intend to fight the election: by blaming the continuing dire state of the economy on Labour.  Everything that's still deemed to be wrong or unreformed will be Labour's fault, and all they'll do if you let them back in will be to borrow more.  The party that demands everyone else take responsibility continues to accept none itself.

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Tuesday, May 07, 2013 

Cameron: a hostage to fortune.

Although it feels like aeons ago, it was only back in January that David Cameron delivered his Bloomberg speech, pledging an in/out referendum on EU membership should his party win the next election. At the time it must have seemed a good idea, and initially it looked like it had had its desired effect: his restive backbenchers cheered him to the rafters, it seemed to have trapped Labour, and surely it would have some impact on the increase in support for Ukip.

Less than six months later and it's as though the jaws of the trap have snapped back. To further mix metaphors, it always seemed as though Cameron was setting himself up as a hostage to fortune. The man he so wanted to be the heir to never gave in to his backbenchers; instead he thrived on picking fights with them. True, Cameron failed where Blair succeeded, which partially explains the backbencher ire in the first place, yet Dave caved in at first sign of trouble.  Rather than being sated, they've demanded ever since that Cameron move faster, to the point where it looks as though legislation may be forthcoming in this parliament as a further sop.

Nor has it had the desired effect on Ukip. Indeed, they've been emboldened by it, as was predicted. As counter-intuitive as it seems, support for Ukip isn't about Europe, as is now hopefully apparent. It can be overstated just how far the popularity, such as it is, for Farage is down to a state of mind, and it'd be great to quantify how many of those saying they'd vote for the party would still do so if there was to be a vote on the EU tomorrow.  Total disaffection and/or sending a message of protest nonetheless explains much of it.  It's possible that some of those who've decamped could be won back if Cameron shifted slightly further to the right, or better yet, recruited some advisers from outside his own social milieu, but it's deeply dubious as to whether those voicing their discontent beyond a mere protest can be so easily persuaded to return.

Thankfully, it does seem as though those making clear that much of Ukip's support is irreconcilable are now in the majority.  As easy as it is to fall into stereotype, it's difficult not to meet the odd person that fits all the descriptions of being a Kipper, and they usually aren't shy in venturing their views on Britain as it is in 2013.  They might not be racist, but they certainly don't like immigrants even if they don't mind those they know of locally; they blame the EU at the first opportunity; and they are invariably complaining about something or other.  They don't have to read the Mail/Express/Telegraph, but it helps, and they regard things as being much better at some point in the past, even if they can't say exactly when.

The obvious point to make is that plenty of people also hold one or more of the above things to be self-evident, yet they either don't let everyone else know about it or would ever dream of voting for a party other than the main three.  Nor are any of these things irrational or wrong; rapid change in local communities as happened post-2004 was bound to lead to a backlash, while even those of us who would stay in the EU hardly regard it as being anything close to an unmitigated force for good.  Nostalgia also has to be taken into account: reading the Graun's pieces today on 1963 you can't help but think that was a pretty good year on the whole.  Would any of us who weren't around at the time actually want to live in that period were such a thing possible though?  Almost certainly not.

Those who have moved to Ukip also realise they can't turn the clock back.  They might want to, and they want to make clear that they do, but they know full well that Ukip isn't going to win a general election, nor necessarily would they want Farage to be the prime minister.  This is the conundrum facing the Tories: in almost every way, the party would be a better vehicle for their discontent, as many of their MPs also hold Ukip voters' prejudices, yet for any number of reasons they've lost faith in them and so would rather register their anger elsewhere.  This can't all be put down to Cameron or the detoxification strategy, nor can it be easily explained by all three parties fighting over the same territory.  It is more, as Max Dunbar writes, a lashing out at the present while coming over all rose-tinted about the past.  Perhaps it can be best explained thus: whereas the young disenchanted simply don't vote, those who feel much the same but who were brought up with the importance of the franchise drilled into them regard putting an X in the Ukip box the least worst option.

Lord Lawson's call for us to leave the EU immediately doesn't really change things much.  The EU is the least of most people's worries, although should the Tories increasingly fight over just how soon the referendum should be they might become excised at the amount of attention something arcane is receiving.  Cameron's problem is that a move that was designed to buy him more time and hopefully damage the other parties has so spectacularly backfired.  He doesn't want us to leave the EU, businesses on the whole don't want us to leave, and nor I'd wager would the electorate should the vote be held tomorrow.  He can't however take such a risk, and so the uncertainty that is so damaging will continue instead.  And all the time the boneheads within his party continue their rattling.

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5/07/2013 10:36:00 pm | | | links to this post

Friday, May 03, 2013 

Surprise at the surprise.

The one thing about the supposed UKIP breakthrough in yesterday's local elections that surprises is just how it seems to have taken politicians and commentators by, err, surprise.  I mean, who could have possibly guessed that if you essentially say you agree with the party on immigration, Europe and welfare and let them get away with repeatedly abusing statistics, linking Romanians explicitly to crime and generally scaremongering in the most irresponsible way possible that they'll win over your supporters who see you seemingly not doing much about these things?  Who knew that if you dismissed them as loonies, however accurate that description is for some of its supporters, that it would simply come across as ignoring legitimate concerns? Why does it come as a shock that at a time when wages are stagnating and the cost of living is going up, with all three main parties offering either austerity or austerity-lite, that an upstart fourth party gains support regardless of its own economic policies?

Before we get into the caveats and wider perspective, it's also hardly surprising that a populist fourth party has finally established itself considering the media we have.  The Daily Express and Daily Mail are basically UKIP supporting papers (the Sun is also to a lesser extent, it's just far more comfortable with the country in 2013), it's just that their editorials urge votes for the Tories.  Both constantly fulminate against the "abuse" of human rights laws, 'elf 'n' safety, the EU, the welfare state, immigrants and modern life in general.  Neither can properly pick out when exactly it was that Britain was great, the 50s having been abandoned, although the Mail seemed to be trying its best to suggest it was the 80s as Maggie was waiting to be buried, but it most certainly isn't today.  There's been a gap for some time for a force on the hard right between the Tories and the various openly racist parties, and Nigel Farage has succeeded where others have previously failed.

Add in how little scrutiny the party received prior to the last week from the wider media, despite the likes of Paul Nuttall (nominative determinism) laughably claiming it's been smeared, as well as how Farage has been treated by the BBC (and the likes of the Graun) not so much as a politician but a likeable novelty act it would be churlish to ask serious questions of, and the party's showing in the county council elections is fairly easy to understand.  It has to be emphasised these are county council elections as I simply don't believe as yet that UKIP would have made such inroads into the cities and urban areas.  Yes, they've had strong showings in all the recent by-elections, but these can be mainly understood as protest votes, as YouGov's poll on why people have supported UKIP suggests.

Their share of the vote locally is something deeper.  Local elections have long had low turnouts, and those most likely to vote are generally older, fitting Lord Ashcroft's study that suggests UKIP most appeals to older men who are estranged from modern life and culture and don't want any part of it.  What's so odd is that on almost every point, the Tories do reflect their concerns on Europe, immigration etc.  Where they fall down is that they get the impression that they don't, and that their façade on trying to be all things to all people has further alienated them.  This goes beyond mere disenchantment though, as the Ashcroft poll suggested: this is just as much lashing out as it is expecting UKIP to make any real difference.

Which puts the Tories in such a quandary.  Cameron knows full well, even if his backbenchers don't, that he can't win a general election by being ever so slightly to the left of UKIP.  He couldn't win in 2010 on a centre-right policy platform, albeit one which made promises on protecting budgets his party would otherwise like to cut.  He therefore can steal some of Farage's clothes, cracking down harder on benefits or the perceived access that immigrants have to them, or by possibly bringing forward the EU referendum, although that will entail a battle with the Lib Dems, but go any further and the centrist support he has is likely to evaporate.  The real question is whether come 2015 those now plumping for UKIP decide they'd rather have Cameron as prime minister than Ed Miliband, and my guess is that many will come back to the Tory fold, such will be the level of propaganda about a return to power of Labour.  Some though clearly won't, and it might be those few that end up costing Cameron vital seats.

Then again, we've been here before with the sudden rise of fourth parties, almost all of which have quickly disappeared back into the ether.  Farage himself was talking about the SDP, but more apposite is the surge of the Greens in 1989, or the brief period when it looked as though the BNP might have shaken off its neo-Nazi image.  It's one thing to get elected, it's another to then keep the seat once the electorate have seen what you've done with it.  In this respect it wouldn't be a shock if, like with the BNP, UKIP fairly rapidly fades away.

Overshadowed by UKIP's success is the continuing decline of that former protest party, the Lib Dems.  To get just 352 votes in the South Shields by-election isn't just humiliating, it's catastrophic, as is the loss of another 124 council seats.  If the Eastleigh result showed us that you need a local operation to win, then the decimation the party is suffering bodes ill for 2015.  Nor was yesterday a happy day for Labour, who really ought to be doing far better than winning just shy of 300 seats at this point in the electoral cycle.  They're claiming that they're doing well in the areas which they need to win come 2015, but at the moment it looks as though the party is barely improving on its 2005 result, when disenchantment with Tony Blair was at its high point.

Strangely then, it's the Tories who probably had the second best day of it.  Yes, they've UKIP to worry about, but to lose 335 council seats from such a high point is just about the best they could have hoped for.  It's how the party reacts to the threat from its right that will define how it does over the next couple of years, and all the signs are it's going to fall exactly into the trap outlined above.

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5/03/2013 06:39:00 pm | | | links to this post

Thursday, May 02, 2013 

The Sun ain't gonna shine (anymore).

If you're ever in need of a good laugh, and happen to share my often bizarre sense of humour, you can't really go wrong with recalling the very first editorial published in the Sun following Murdoch's takeover. We will be politically independent it said, amongst other highly amusing statements of how it meant to go on ("the new Sun will be the paper that CARES ... about truth, beauty and justice", went the leader the Saturday before the new paper emerged).

To be fair, for the first few years of its existence and while Keith was still finding his feet as a proprietor in the UK, it was pretty much independent or at the least, undecided. 10 years on though, and the paper's shift was complete. It still didn't pledge allegiance to either Labour or the Tories; rather it supported whoever Murdoch decided was both likely to win and wouldn't threaten his business interests. This has been the case ever since, only with politicians ever more willing to do obeisance before him.

Well, at least it was up until the Graun uncovered a little local difficulty at the News of the Screws. Since then only Boris Johnson and Alex Salmond have impressed the Dirty Digger, both being willing to ignore things like mass law breaking while Murdoch temporarily smiles on them.

It's hardly surprising then that the Sun hasn't endorsed anyone for today's local elections. David Cameron might have been "our only hope" 3 years ago, but he's close to being a no hoper now, such has been Murdoch's ire at the prime minister's support for the agreement between the parties on the press charter. Ed Miliband burned his bridges at the outset of the phone hacking scandal, and as for the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg, well. It does however signify that we may well have reached the point when Keith's power or rather assumed power has finally begun to dim. And if that isn't something worth celebrating, there isn't a whole lot that is.

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5/02/2013 08:13:00 pm | | | links to this post

Tuesday, April 30, 2013 

Let's be beastly to crims (and dole bludgers).

It's the week of the local elections, which means it's the absolute opportune time to announce a new round of unpleasantness to those considered to be unpleasant.  Moving away from the usual targets, benefit claimants (on whom more in a moment), Chris Grayling has pounced upon the only people less popular with politicians, those convicted of crime rather than just deemed guilty of a moral one.

Out then go the old soft regimes where it was somewhat left up to prison governors how they operated the privileges system in their respective nicks, and in comes a new tougher scheme which seems focused on making the first two weeks in prison even more uncomfortable and depersonalising than it was already.  No longer will prisoners be allowed to wear their own clothes to begin with, have a TV in their cell (Ben Gunn says those on the basic level don't as it stands now; they also have to pay for them, contrary to popular belief), an increased number of visits or access to private cash; all must instead be earned.  Plenty of people will look at that and think that all sounds perfectly reasonable, and on one level it is.  The problem though is that it's the first few days in prison when those who are new to the experience are at their most vulnerable, both from other prisoners and themselves.  If the purpose of prison is to both punish and rehabilitate, then it helps no one if further avoidable harm is done to the individual at the very outset of their sentence.

As with so much of our policy on prisons, a little honesty and humility would go a long way.  Again, few are going to protest at prisoners being made to work a longer day, but they might if they knew there aren't enough jobs to go round in the first place, or what prisoners get in return for their labour.  There are a few schemes where they can earn in the region of £30 a week, although far more usual is pay of £4 to £10.  This is often work of the most menial kind, as a recent Howard League for Penal Reform report set out, and which hardly gives the kind of experience likely to impress employers on the outside.  For those who can't be found a job, they're likely to spend most of their time banged-up. While it's not explained exactly how prisoners can be stopped from watching TV in the daytime if they're on the higher privilege level and have one, what else are they expected to do? Read, if they haven't already finished those books they've got? Continue with any education programmes they're on, regardless of the lack of access to a tutor? Just kick their heels? Imposing boredom might be considered a punishment, but it brings with it its own set of obvious problems.

Nor do these changes take into consideration those who continue to maintain their innocence.  As admitting guilt is the first thing you have to do in order to take part in the rehabilitation programmes designed to prove your readiness to be released, those who refuse to do so will forever be stuck on the basic level, something that seems bound to lead to a legal challenge.  Then there are just the silly inconsistencies: prisoners won't be allowed 18 rated DVDs (they've long been prohibited items in medium or low security hospital wards), but will presumably be able to watch such films if they're shown on television.

The ultimate test of such changes ought to be whether they improve behaviour while in prison or decrease recidivism upon release.  One expects that studies will be established once the changes start in November to measure if this turns out to be the case.  Otherwise you could be forgiven for thinking the entire episode was designed as a purely populist measure to win a few votes during the traditional period of purdah.

Definitely not designed to win votes is the latest imposition on those without a job, a questionnaire apparently put together by the government's behavioural science unit, which must be completed on pain of the loss of benefits.  Those looking for work are presented with 48 statements, some of which are patently ridiculous ("I have not created anything of beauty in the last year"), and then asked whether they agree or disagree.  Any possibility this might help those lacking self-esteem or self-confidence is only slightly undermined by how the results at the end are largely identical regardless of whether you fill in the boxes or not.  For those worried about the creepiness of a test that bears more than a resemblance to the Oxford Capability Analysis carried out by Scientologists, it doesn't seem as though the results are recorded, which nonetheless isn't much of a reassurance.  Nor is it apparent what the point of it is, although that seems a perfectly adequate summary of the work of the "nudge" unit thus far.

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Monday, April 29, 2013 

The rise of the unpopular populists.

Ah, UKIP.  There are a number of ways you can explain the rise in support for Nigel Farage's unhappy band of monomaniacs, whether it be disaffection from modern society at large, disaffection with Cameron's Conservatives, a protest aimed at the main three parties, for which there are a whole variety of reasons, complete opposition to continued immigration, or, and this is possibly the least significant factor, hatred of the European Union.

To give the typical nerdy fuller answer, the rise is in some way attributable to all these reasons, but also a couple of others.  Unlike much of the rest of Europe, we haven't seen a rise in support for the traditional far-right, somewhat to do with how the BNP have turned into a basket case and the EDL are a bunch of thugs led by a convicted violent criminal with an identity crisis, leaving those who are racist and xenophobic (decreasing numbers, it should be stressed) with having to compromise their feelings somewhat.

Far more important is that the media and indeed most politicians have given Farage almost a completely free ride. Farage has appeared on Question Time more often than any politician other than Vince Cable, regardless of the amount of support his party was up until around this time last year attracting.  When interviewed one to one, which is rare, he's also barely questioned on his party's policies beyond getting out of the European Union, which when even so much as glanced at fall apart.  A 40% increase in the defence budget, doubling the number of prison places, and spending £90bn building new nuclear plants? You can make the case for those policies individually perhaps, but all at the same time? Pull the other one.

Farage and UKIP have been most obviously helped through the completely wretched scaremongering that has surrounded the upcoming lifting of the controls on the number of Bulgarians and Romanians who can come here to work.  This hasn't just been thanks to the usual suspects at the Mail and Express, although they were in the vanguard, but also to politicians who either haven't bothered to challenge such silliness or have in fact connived in it.  One of the most basic lessons of politics is that you don't win by stealing the policies of outlier parties, as the Eastleigh by-election ought to have shown.

By doing so, you either buy completely into their myths, or give them further credence: witness Sajid Javid on QT last week talking almost solely about making Britain "a less attractive place" for Bulgarians and Romanians to come to, when there is no evidence whatsoever that the level of benefits plays a significant role when people make decisions about where to go, or indeed when all the evidence suggests recent immigrants overwhelmingly put more in than they take out.  It's a measure of just how far the debate has been shifted when Farage isn't called out on his linking of Romanians to crime; it may be just about true that 30,000 people giving their nationality as Romanian have been arrested in the past 5 years out of a population in the region of 100,000 (it's not clear whether these arrests were all made in London or not), but this is close to being a worthless statistic when it's convictions that matter, not arrests. We also quite rightly worry when black and Asian men are disproportionately stopped and searched, but not it seems when it's foreigners linked to criminality by politicians.

Another factor is that once a bandwagon's going, plenty of people jump on precisely because it's seen to be the thing to do. Some of those who've voted UKIP in recent by-elections would no doubt be aghast at the views of Godfrey Bloom, and wouldn't dream of supporting a party where he's one of the most senior figures, but as a protest at the way politics has been conducted in recent years it makes sense to climb aboard.

It is therefore just a little rich when UKIP complains that its poorly vetted candidates for the local elections on Thursday are being, err, held up to the same standards as everyone else.  You can of course quite easily portray most people who have a presence online as being unpleasant or worse by cherry-picking questionable tweets or posts and presenting them out of context, yet if UKIP wants to be considered the third or fourth force in politics in this country then it can hardly expect to be given the benefit of the doubt, as it has been up to now.

The question of how you respond to UKIP's rise is a far more difficult one.  Difficult as it is to disagree with Ken Clarke when he reprises David Cameron's old line about the party being made up of closet racists and other assorted eccentrics, just dismissing Farage out of hand is a dangerous game.  Lord Ashcroft's polling may well have suggested that a large percentage of UKIP's support comes from those who are irreconcilable, and as likely as it is that come 2015 the vast majority of those currently flirting with the party will return to one of the main three, a UKIP victory in next year's European elections isn't something to savour.

The very first thing to do then has to be stop agreeing with them: we are not going to be flooded by Romanians and Bulgarians come January, nor will those few who do come have any discernible impact on the number of jobs available for our own young people.

Second, challenge them on their policies which have nothing to do with the EU (PDF): what's their stance on the NHS? Why do we need to double the number of prison places when crime is at a historic low? Why do we need to increase the defence budget so massively if we're going to leave peacekeeping and interventions to others, especially when we face no conventional threats whatsoever? How can their proposed flat tax possibly be fair, or affordable? How can they reconcile their opposition to gay marriage or decriminalising drugs with their claim to be a libertarian party? What impact will a halt to immigration have on the economy?

Third, question their every assertion on the EU, whether it be how much it costs through to their claims on red tape and the amount of laws decided in the European parliament. Hit back at their every soundbite or statistic with one that either flat out contradicts it or disputes it.

And fourth, just wait. UKIP and Farage are still at the moment a media novelty, and one that will be quickly tired of. They will only become a true fourth force in politics if they are indulged as such, as their overall appeal to the majority as anything other than a convenient protest is slight. Populists who fail to make a true political breakthrough quickly fade away. Farage isn't close to being a Boris Johnson yet.

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4/29/2013 09:08:00 pm | | | links to this post

Friday, April 26, 2013 

On Syria and chemical weapons.

Everything said in this sarcastic piece applies just as much now as it did then.  Even if it was the regime's forces that used sarin, and considering the number of bases the rebels have overrun it's highly possible they could have got their hands on some of Assad's stockpiles, setting up a "red line" on the use of chemical weapons, however slight, is unbelievably arbitrary.  What kind of moral calculus is it that decides a few deaths due to one specific weapon requires intervention, while thousands of deaths as a result of more conventional warfare do not?

Besides, the real issue is not Syria, which it's clear we couldn't give two stuffs about otherwise we would have found a way to get fully involved, but whether or not come the fall of the regime Assad is desperate enough to pass on his stockpile to Hizbullah.  Just as likely now is that the al-Nusra front and its allies gain access to them, who would have no qualms whatsoever about supplying the stock to their friends in the Islamic State of Iraq or other jihadis.  Then again, considering that once the regime does collapse everything we've seen so far might end up looking like a Sunday picnic, they might just want to keep them for themselves.

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4/26/2013 02:13:00 pm | | | links to this post

Thursday, April 25, 2013 

Osborne as sadist.

It's a sign of just how grim the economic news has been over the past year that the fact we've narrowly missed out on plunging into an unprecedented triple-dip recession is being regarded as something approaching a minor success.  All it confirms in reality is that the economy remains broadly flat: taking into account the 0.3% decline in the last quarter of 2012, which followed on from the 1% rise in the third quarter that can be almost wholly put down to the Olympics, the economy has barely grown since the slight recovery of 2010/11.  The figures could also yet be revised down, as the full data from March and the impact of the snow has yet to come in.

If anything, it's the worst of all possible worlds.  George Osborne has rightly been under severe pressure over the past week, with a further credit rating downgrade from Fitch, the IMF finally getting off the fence, saying the chancellor's austerity programme should be loosened, and the borrowing figures that showed a minute in real terms drop of £300m.  He's used the 0.3% to claim, against all the evidence, that it's "an encouraging sign the economy is healing".  It could well be a sign that this year will see an extremely modest return to growth, but even if it is it's not going to do almost anything to reduce the deficit, nor is it proof it's his policies that are responsible.

Indeed, for all the coalition's talk of rebalancing the economy and Osborne's laughable march of the mallards makers, manufacturing remains in the doldrums (some of which is undoubtedly down to the ongoing woes in the Eurozone), while construction activity continues to plunge. The figures also make it more difficult for the incoming governor of the Bank of England Mark Carney to convince the other members of the monetary policy committee that further intervention beyond quantitative easing is needed to boost growth, which was exactly what Osborne was said to be relying on.

Of course, if Osborne were to suddenly decide that continuing with his plans as they stand is more damaging in both the long and short term than bringing the deficit down at a slower pace with the risks that entails, he would still be able to borrow at close to record lows, in spite of the credit downgrades he once scaremongered about and said his policies would prevent. Despite Plan A not really existing any longer though, such has been the success of austerity so far, we simply have to stick to whatever it is we're doing now. We've gone past the point at which this was a mere fetish to it bordering on full blown S&M, where Osborne's the sadist and we, like it or not, are the masochists. It's hurting but it isn't working doesn't even begin to cover it.

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4/25/2013 07:40:00 pm | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 17, 2013 

We are all bourgeois now.

As unhappy coincidences go, today's announced rise in unemployment seems as fitting a tribute to Maggie as anything else.  We all Thatcherites now, says David Cameron, and while you can't level the accusation against him that he believes unemployment an acceptable price to pay for his overall reforms, especially considering no government since has believed in full employment, his government is going way beyond Thatcher's obstinacy on economics.  She after all did relent to an extent when monetarism sent the economy into free fall; Cameron and Osborne seem likely to ignore the advice of the highest priests of neoliberalism, the IMF, to scale back on austerity, such is the way they've made it impossible to do so without humiliating themselves.

Just as I didn't watch the royal wedding (and why on earth would anyone, for that matter?), I somehow managed to avoid the funeral.  Quite why so many find something to admire in our ability to put on pageantry when required equally escapes me; authoritarian nations also tend to be pretty good at putting on a show, and yet with the exception of the opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics, we usually make fun of them precisely on that basis.  Just as the only reasonable reaction to goose-stepping soldiers is to laugh at them, so the pomp and circumstance that surrounds the monarchy and also now the chosen few regarded as being the equivalent of royalty ought to be mocked.  It is utterly ridiculous, almost everyone except for the dewy-eyed few know it to be ridiculous, and so undoubtedly this ridiculous tradition will continue to be rolled out for every major state event, such are our ways.

If nothing else, today has at least been revealing of how politicians regard each other in private.  Both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were first elected to parliament in 1983 on "the longest suicide note in history" manifesto, but neither it seems had any objection to Thatcher being given a quasi-state funeral.  Indeed, it seems the only major thing the Tories added to the plans drawn up under the last government was the military aspect.  They might not have known that the right would take the opportunity of her death to attempt to portray her as second only to Churchill in the great national figure stakes, yet if they've had any such concerns since they certainly weren't on display today.  Nor has the week of hype and eulogising left the Mail drained; if anything, it's reached such a peak that you doubt they'll be able to top it when Liz pops her clogs.  "A journey's end", the front page read, while below they claim up to 250,000 were lining the route of the procession (since changed to a more realistic 50,000).  Just as you have to multiple the figures given by the police for any demonstration other than one by the Countryside Alliance by the power of 4, so it now seems you have to divide the numbers given by the Mail by the same amount.

Nor was the ceremony itself beyond critique.  Today wasn't the time and place to discuss her politics, said the Bishop of London, Richard Chatres, who then decided at the end that it actually was as he defended her over the infamous "no such thing as society" comments.  She did believe in society, and the interdependence of people, he said, which is almost certainly true; what went unsaid was that however you read her remarks, she clearly said people shouldn't even expect to be housed by the state. I don't think anyone disputes that first and foremost our responsibility is to look after ourselves; it's that a majority of us still believe that the state should provide an adequate safety net, whether that be in housing or benefits. Society is not the state, as the Tories said at the last election, but Thatcher's government did more to fray the threads that tie communities together and make up society than any since the war.

The real irony of today is that for all their tributes to her, not to forget George Osborne's solitary tear, Cameron spent his first years as Conservative leader trying to repair the damage her overthrow did to the party. Arguable as his overall success has been, the last week has been a reminder to everyone that her legacy is still inescapable.  To suggest this is unlikely to go down well in those places that the Tories need to win to get a majority next time out is to put it too lightly.  The overwhelming mood might be apathy rather than anger, such as that in Leeds and Edinburgh rather than Goldthorpe, yet you shouldn't bet against Labour using a few of the images of the past week come in 2015, hypocritical in the extreme or not.

This said, Cameron was right in saying we are all Thatcherites now.  At least he was if he was meant the political class, as they clearly are all Thatcherite in one sense or another.  A significant number of the population by contrast remain in favour of an alternative, it's just they aren't so much as offered one. Nor are they likely to be. And eventually, something is going to break.

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4/17/2013 09:54:00 pm | | | links to this post

Monday, April 15, 2013 

A small, ridiculous gesture for a massive, undignifed death jamboree.

One of the problems that comes from Labour deciding to just let the Tories have their week of mourning/deification with the very minimum of criticism is that you let the likes of George Galloway represent what a significant amount of people are thinking.  It was an utterly absurd, cowardly move for the BBC to not play Ding Dong in full, instead opting for the typical compromise that pleased neither side.  I really thought we'd moved past the point at which things that were in poor taste were banned/censored due to outside pressure, not least when it comes to music.  There's plenty of music in the top 40 that's offensive in terms of how objectively awful it is, but if people buy it, it gets played.  It's how the system works.  Start altering that and it renders the entire exercise even more completely and utterly pointless than it already is.  Also, regardless of what Guido or the Mail think, for 52,000 people to buy a song in one week purely as a protest only underlines how the attempts to claim Thatcher as our greatest peacetime prime minister are a step too far.

And so now Big Ben is to be silenced for the duration of Saint Margaret's funeral.  It's a small, ridiculous gesture for what is turning into a massive, undignified summation of how for all Thatcher's rolling back of the state, the parts that were in most need of trimming are still fully functioning.  Turning your back on the entire charade really does seem to be the best possible way to register discontent with what has been a fully fledged political campaign from the moment the news of her death came through.

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4/15/2013 08:32:00 pm | | | links to this post

Thursday, April 11, 2013 

A political Queen.

Writing about Thatcher (and politicians in general), it's easy to forget that behind the often harsh, apparently uncaring exterior, there was a real, feeling woman who clearly was capable of great kindness as well as denouncing her opponents in the strongest of terms.  One of the more myth-squashing anecdotes from yesterday's Commons and Lords sessions was Lord Butler's retelling of how a student challenged her on referring to children as "illegitimate", despite their parentage not being something they had any control over.  Thatcher responded that it was better than calling them the alternative (bastard), yet later she reflected to Butler that having thought about it, the student had been right.  Looking at the photograph taken of her in Battersea Park only last month, I was reminded of my grandmother's passing last year, who also spent her final years battling with dementia.  Regardless of what we do with our lives, at the end every single one of us dies the same way, alone.

All the more reason why we shouldn't let Thatcher be remade into what is effectively political royalty.  The way Tory MPs tried to shout down both David Winnick and Glenda Jackson yesterday may well be typical Commons behaviour which all sides are often guilty of, yet it was surely inappropriate when so many of their colleagues made tributes that went far beyond the sycophantic and instead into the most slavering hero worship.  The idea she had any role in the fall of the Soviet Union beyond her early picking out of Gorbachev is absurd, as is her much overstated love of freedom.  She believed in it for those under Communism, not so much those under authoritarian regimes that were British allies.

Fair enough, David Cameron clearly admires her deeply, and so his rhetorical flourishes can be forgiven.  Ed Miliband also acquitted himself well, making a well-judged speech that covered both the good and the bad without riling either side. It's also unclear just how much of the planning for the funeral was done by which government: we now know Operation True Blue dates back to around 2006, indicating that some sort of public remembrance was going to take place regardless of who was in power. Which would have been fine. A ceremonial funeral goes well beyond that, giving her the same status as a royal, ignoring how one of the reasons we continue to grudgingly put up with Brenda is that she has stayed resolutely above politics.

The comparison is apt, because much as any criticism of Liz is treated as being akin to a modern form of blasphemy, so it seems the likes of the Mail now want Maggie to get the same treatment. As predictable as the outrage was from the usual suspects at those not treating their heroine's death with the due amount of respect, the Mail's pursuit of those behind one such death party is incredibly petty. Splashing two days in a row on the opponents rather than celebrating Thatcher's life and legacy seems a really odd way to go about things.

Then again, perhaps the Mail thinks focusing on the beastliness of some is the only way to win over those it would normally consider its natural allies.  To judge by the ratings the tribute programmes hastily screen on Monday picked up (3 million) and the number of views news stories on the major websites have received since, Thatcher's demise and the circus that has followed since might be fascinating the politics nerds (guilty), but it doesn't seem to be transfixing many others.

And why should it?  Those born on the day she left office are now 22, while the passing of time for those older appears to have dulled both the interests and opinions of the majority.  Moreover, we can either bemoan or celebrate her legacy, but none of the mainstream political parties want to truly break with it.  The battles she fought appear to be all but over, while her main disciple is urging Ed Miliband to not so much as inch leftwards.  Looks as though, yet again, it's up to the next generation to break the spell Thatcher cast over British politics.

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4/11/2013 09:11:00 pm | | | links to this post

Wednesday, April 10, 2013 

Anthems for a 17-year-old girl.

One thing almost completely buried (ho ho) by the passing of Margaret Hilda Thatcher (and credit where credit's due to both David Winnick and Glenda Jackson for refusing to go along with the consensus in today's tribute debate) has been the remarkable treatment meted out to Paris Brown, the unfortunately named 17-year-old appointed to be yoof crime tsar by Kent's police and crime commissioner.  Try to put aside the fact that Brown's mission was supposedly meant to be to bring the police and young people closer together, as "they used to be", or that almost no one wanted the PCCs in the first place, and instead marvel at the sheer laziness, cynicism and callousness involved in the Mail on Sunday's attack on someone still not old enough to cast a ballot herself.

You might recall that back in 2009 the Scottish Sunday Express ran what was quite possibly the most ill-judged and despicable newspaper piece in many years.  Written by Paula Murray, the article "exposed" what it described as the "shame" of the survivors of the Dunblane massacre, who now having reached 18 were daring to live their lives the way almost every other 18-year-old would. Murray had scoured their social networking profiles for the slightest evidence of "bad" behaviour, whether it be drinking, swearing, sex, getting tattoos or even into the odd fight, and instead of being told by her colleagues or indeed even her editor that this was just about the most appalling breach of privacy imaginable, Derek Lambie went ahead and splashed it on the front page.  Deserved opprobrium duly landed on the heads of all involved.

Four years later, and we have the first major evidence that the politicians and public figures of the future are likely to be damned for what they put on their Twitter or Facebook pages potentially decades previous.  The hatchet job performed on Brown is still astonishing though, both for the vehemence of the attack and the sheer breadth of what the MoS decided to focus on.  Understandably, most attention was focused on Brown's comments on "pikeys" and her description of everyone on Made in Chelsea as "fucking fags", but the paper also saw fit to draw attention to the fact that Brown talked of how the "worst thing about being single" was "coming home ... horny and having to sleep alone".  A young woman daring to express sexual desire in a public forum? How dare she!

Regardless of when she made some of the tweets, and as Brown swiftly deleted the account we can't check whether she did make some when she was 14 or 15 and not recently, there really isn't much here to get even slightly outraged about.  No, it isn't clever to say you're glad your little brother hit someone who gave his friend a black eye, nor should it be acceptable to call people fags or faggots regardless of the changing meaning of the word, although it should be remembered programmes like Made in Chelsea are produced with the intention of winding people up.  As for her attack on "pikeys", it's fairly apparent she was using the word not as an attack on gypsies directly, but in the sense it's came to be used in as shorthand for thieves in general.  Still not anywhere approaching OK, but are there many who can say that at Brown's age they didn't also make such sweeping condemnations of people, or even use racist language?  I know I can't.

Quite apart from the hysterical hypocrisy of the Mail stable of newspapers condemning someone's non-PC comments on race relations and gay rights, what really rankles is that they chose to draw attention to some of her more introspective, vulnerable tweets, including one where she's obviously criticising herself for how she has sometimes behaved when drunk.  17-year-old has on occasion had a drink! Hold the front page!

It was hardly surprising then when, presumably pressurised into doing so, Brown sat across from the PCC Anne Barnes apologising for the messages while crying her eyes out, all in front of the TV cameras.  I don't think I've seen a more pitiful sight in quite some time; a young person thought she was doing something to help those her own age, and was duly rewarded for it with the kind of attack usually reserved for those who have in some way or another attracted the Mail's ire.

Brown shouldn't have had to resign, but almost certainly had no option. Joe Jones says she have been fully vetted, with her social networking profiles looked at, yet is this really the kind of territory we're now getting into?  When teenagers can't even be allowed to make mistakes or say stupid things for fear they might later have them picked up on, we're in clear danger of creating a generation of politicians who are so desperately dull and have such indistinct opinions that the public becomes even less enthused with the system than they currently are.  Whatever you thought about Thatcher, she believed in what she was doing.  Plenty of those now growing up have the potential to be outstanding future leaders with similar qualities, and are presumably exactly the sort the Mail on Sunday would approve of.  If we're going to attempt to kill them off before they even get started because of daft things they've done on the internet, our democracy is going to be a very dry place indeed.

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4/10/2013 06:51:00 pm | | | links to this post

Tuesday, April 09, 2013 

Thatcher's victories.

The only appropriate response yesterday seemed to be to mock.  Thatcher had become and will remain a myth, for both right and left.  For her most devoted followers on the right, and for an example of the loopiness she has on even those usually most staid of academics, historians, one only need read the Graun's interviews with Michael Burleigh and Andrew Roberts, she was a giant who will never be equalled.  It doesn't matter to them how many communities her policies ripped the heart out of, how many lost their jobs as an effect of her repudiation of the attempts to maintain full employment of the post-war years and were thereafter bought off with incapacity benefit, or how the ultimate effect of the castration of the unions was the soaring inequality we have today (or if it does, they rationalise it as unavoidable collateral damage).  They really, genuinely, believe that she saved the country as David Cameron said yesterday.

Equally, for some on the left, Thatcher became the ultimate depiction of the nasty, heartless, even evil Tory.  There is no such thing as society, she said, and that quote came to symbolise how they felt she cared nothing for the working man who wanted little more than a secure job and a roof over his head.  If he wanted to buy that house, then that was different, he became "one of us".  All the rest could be disregarded, or if they were actively hostile, they could be characterised as the "enemy within".  The previous solidarity of local communities and workplaces was broken down through such rhetoric, while the police were used, whether against the miners or the strikers at Wapping as her effective line of enforcement.

As you might expect, my own view on Thatcher is closer to that of the latter rather than the former.  It's difficult to draw such a broad conclusion though when she resigned as prime minister 5 days shy of my 6th birthday.  Indeed, one of the many absurdities of yesterday was that so many of my generation and younger were either celebrating or certainly not feeling the slightest bit sad about the death of someone they could either barely remember as being in power or had resigned years before they were even born.  I don't have very solid memories of much before I was about 7, although I can extremely vaguely recall the news of the poll tax riots.  As for her political passing, there's just a blank.  I might be a child of Thatcher, but actually remember her time? I certainly don't.

Britain in 2013 is nonetheless still her country.  It's undoubtedly a more socially liberal and multiracial place than it was in the dying days of 1990, but economically it resembles it more closely than it has in years previous.  Enterprise zones, straight out of the Thatcherite handbook are back, as is the language of there being no alternative. George Osborne even lifted directly from her for his budget slogan, that it was one for those who want to "work hard and get on", as tactless a message as we've come to expect from the sledgehammer chancellor.

It's here where a certain section of the left's demonisation of Thatcher begins to fall apart.  To understand what she achieved, you don't just have to be aware that not a single one of her privatisations, financial reforms or trade union laws was unpicked by Labour between 97 and 2010, but also that support for her was so total from the vast majority of the media that it forced everyone that has come since into trying to ride the press tiger.  All have tried, and all have failed, although John Major refused to play the game to anywhere near the extent that Blair, Brown and Cameron did.  It's been said repeatedly that New Labour was Thatcher's greatest achievement (including by herself), and it's one of those rare cases when such a widely shared view is probably right.  In fact, New Labour didn't just keep to her settlement, it expanded on it: one of Gordon Brown's very first acts as chancellor was to give away the only remaining power that the Treasury had kept, that of raising and lowering interest rates.  The free market was triumphant.  That Labour would have almost certainly won in 97 regardless of Tony Blair's transformation of the party is now just another of those what if scenarios.

Although I disagree with plenty of the Heresiarch's analysis, he's right to note that the most fundamental difference between the New Labour machine and that of Thatcher was language.  New Labour (initially at least) spoke compassionately and continued to denounce the evils of Conservatism while going far further than she had dared in many areas.  Whereas she may not have cared two hoots for the NHS, she didn't introduce privatisation, as New Labour did; nor were the unemployed or others on benefits denounced in anywhere near the terms that became familiar in the final years under Labour (Tebbit's "on yer bike" anecdote about his father aside, although the denunciation of single mothers wasn't many moons away).  The use of the private finance initiative boomed, while the City was allowed to do whatever it liked, and duly did.  Thatcher undoubtedly wanted as many as possible to get rich, but she never said anything amounting to the immortal line uttered by Peter Mandelson.  She also might have loathed anything that wasn't bourgeois while having no interest in wider culture whatsoever, but she didn't expand the prison estate in the way her successor and then Labour did, or impose the restrictions on civil liberties Labour did in the aftermath of 9/11, despite almost being murdered by the IRA.

While then it was at least nice to hear one alternative voice yesterday, and it's difficult to disagree with Ken Livingstone that Thatcher's reforms set the political failures on housing and the City we're living with today into motion, his opponents were also right when they stated back that his party did nothing to change them and in some cases have ended up exacerbating the problems.  Just then as Thatcher lay the foundations for New Labour, so too did New Labour set the foundations for David Cameron's Tories and the coalition.  David Cameron's attempt to rebrand the Tories has undoubtedly been more spin and less substance than the remaking of Labour was, yet it just about worked.  That in power almost all of the fluffiness has fallen away and been replaced by some incredibly harsh rhetoric isn't just a mirror on the 80s, it's also how Blair and Brown operated when they thought they had to.

You can't imagine though that when either Blair or Brown go there will be impromptu street parties to mark the occasion.  Thatcher wasn't just divisive, as has been admitted even by Cameron, she polarised the country.  Apparently capable of great charm and kindness in private as well as rudeness, her public demeanour inspired hatred.  You were either with her or against her, a position only Tony Blair has since invoked.  For all the claims of how she was an inspiration for people in the Soviet bloc and had a passion for freedom, this only went so far.  If you were unlucky enough to be under the yoke of a dictatorship of a British ally, whether in Chile, Indonesia or Saudi Arabia to name but three, then hard luck.  The same went for the ANC in South Africa; she may well have opposed apartheid, but she continued to refer to Nelson Mandela as a terrorist and refused to impose sanctions on the regime.

All the more reason why yesterday we should have heard more widely from those who opposed her at the time.  The closest the mainstream came to acknowledging the depth of feeling of some, not to mention what was happening online were the one or two interviews with miners, with Red Ken and Shirley Williams turning up on Newsnight, alongside the odd reference to George Galloway's tweeting.  The 80s were hardly a sanitised era, and Thatcher herself was ruthless in her attacks on the media when they refused to follow the Conservative line, particularly the BBC, although perhaps most notoriously when Thames broadcast Death on the Rock.  Nor was there much, if any comment on the continuing censorship during her decade in power: the video nasty panic and the influence of Mary Whitehouse on Thatcher went unremarked upon.

Nor should it have been decided so swiftly that she would receive a ceremonial, if not state funeral, although the difference is frankly semantic.  Regardless of what you think of Churchill as a politician both before and after the war, his leadership during the conflict demanded that he receive full state honours when he died.  He worked to unite the nation and give it the belief to fight on.  Thatcher did the opposite of the former, while indirectly promoting a class conflict that continues to this day.  If the family wanted a public event, then by all means they could have either paid for it themselves (as they are doing in part) or had it privately funded.  Those pushing for a full state funeral should note that if Thatcher deserves one, then when Blair goes he will also surely merit such recognition.  It will also inevitably attract much protest, which raises the question of how it's going to be policed.

The ultimate conclusion to draw is that as always, it's the victors that end up writing the history.  Where the left has arguably succeeded socially (although there is much still to do) the right has most definitely triumphed economically.  What Thatcher and Reagan instituted in the 80s ought to have been exposed by the crash of 07/08 and the depression that has followed.  Instead, after a initial bout of Keynesianism, neoliberalism has re-emerged if anything stronger than ever.  There is, we are told, no alternative.  They're right, as the left has completely failed to set out that alternative.  Thatcher won then, and her successors are doing so now.

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4/09/2013 07:19:00 pm | | | links to this post

Monday, April 08, 2013 

Death to penguins!

  • GREATEST WOMAN TO HAVE EVER LIVED, DECLARE BLAIRITES
  • GREATEST WOMAN TO HAVE EVER LIVED, DECLARE LABOUR MPS TOLD TO BE ON BEST BEHAVIOUR
  • WHO'S JOSEPHINE STARCHER, ASKS EVERYONE UNDER 16

Madam Josephine Starcher, the first and so far only female British prime minister has died at the age of 106, her chief propagandist Lord Ho Ho has announced.

Struggling to hold back the tears and dressed entirely in black, the normally jovial Ho Ho delivered his message to the massed ranks of the British press, knowing that this was a truly historic moment.  "This is a truly historic moment.  Madam Starcher is dead.  She choked on a Ritz cracker.  Mark and Carol Starcher have asked for the utmost media intrusion at this time.  As a supporter of a free press, it's what their mother would have wanted."

From humble upbringings, born into a family of fish gutters, Madam Starcher rose to be one of the defining political personalities of the 20th century.  Abandoning a career in turning the windmill round at the local crazy golf course, she joined the Conservative party, influenced heavily by the political philosophy of the German panel beater Herman von Paddle Steamer.  Realising that his aquatic based economics were rather antediluvian, she soon settled on the far more sensible writings of Fredrich von Hayek.

First selected by the Tories to contest the safe Silly Party seat of Luton, she nonetheless succeeded in reducing their majority by first 10 and then a further 5 votes.  It was not until 8 years later that she finally entered parliament, having won the London seat of Finchley thanks to a mistake on the ballot which listed her as the Ayn Rand Continuity party candidate.  The electorate were rather miffed at first to have elected someone so moderate, but soon took Starcher to their hearts.

Starcher's first taste of real power was as education secretary in the Conservative government of 1970.  Given the position by noted sailor and bon vivant Samuel O' Beckett, who approved of her past flirtation with the works of von Paddle Steamer, she excelled in the job, with her decision to introduce Turkey Twizzlers onto the lunch menu of every school in the country welcomed by all, especially newspaper owner Sir Bernard Matthews.

Rising to become leader of the party after O' Beckett mysteriously fell off a barge into the Grand Union Canal, she fought both sexism and the patronising mentality within the Conservatives, many of whom kept mistaking her for the charwoman right up until her resignation in 1990.  She nonetheless led the Conservatives to victory in 79, the Labour party's policy of discounting tents for summer holidays having been a unmitigated disaster for the country.

Once ensconced in Downing Street, she set about introducing reforms which were controversial from the outset.  At first, it seemed as though her policy of "Voucherism", whereby money was abolished and vouchers given out instead was leading Britain towards ruin, as unemployment increased by 25 million and a 6 hour week had to be put in place.  Criticised and cajoled by the "damps" in her cabinet, she gradually reintroduced money and later claimed that she had never supported voucherism at all.

Despite this set back, her first term came to be defined by the Rockall war.  The tiny island was invaded in 1982 by penguins who declared a socialist state, much to the dismay of the local population of British gannets.  Intervening on the side of the gannets, who she believed shared her political philosophy, the war lasted 30 minutes and cost the lives of approximately 59 penguins.  1 British soldier took a peck to the groin.  The successful action came to be the seen as the turning point in the government's fortunes, and the slogan "death to penguins" was a rallying cry for young Conservatives everywhere during the 83 election campaign.

Her second term was dominated at first by a strike by sewage workers, whose campaign of civil disobedience came to a head when they almost killed Starcher with a massive "shit cannon" blast in Brighton.  After defeating their leader Captain Crabs, she set about privatising much of the country's infrastructure, starting with the state owned glass eye maker.  Her victory in the 87 election assured, concerns began to be raised that power had gone to her head.  Her edict that every man, woman and the child in the country with the exception of nuns and the insane had to cut off their left ear, legislation that became known as the "ear tax", resulted in riots in Victory Square.  Challenged for the leadership of the party by Didbin Jane, she failed to win on the first ballot and was persuaded to stand down, leaving Number 10 with noticeably wet armpits.

In a sign of the unanimity of feeling across the political spectrum, a joint statement on Starcher's death has been issued on behalf of David Cameron, Ed Miliband, Nick Griffin and Nigel Farage:

"Truly, Starcher was the queen of hearts.  She cured the blind, healed the sick, and only once did she call for everyone to cut off their left ear.  Her successes were numerous, and the country was transformed from the hell hole it was in 79 to the paradise it continues to be today.  She literally single-handedly defeated the Soviet Union, the evil empire collapsing like a pack of cards with one swish of her right hook, while she also established the enterprise culture that today means anyone can take out a payday loan on an APR rate of 600,000%.  We hope that all will join us in saying one last time, death to penguins!"

Nick Clegg was unavailable.

The response elsewhere has been mixed.  In Scotland, where many of her policies were first tested out, a mass event appears to be taking place in Glasgow's George Square, although reports are unclear about whether or not the mass drinking is usual for a Monday.  Also indifferent it seems are the young, many of whom appear to be unaware of the legacy left for the country by Starcher.  One 15-year-old asked for his opinion merely grunted and then walked off, while a 17-year-old left the following message on Twitter:

"Everyone in politics is a fucking fag."

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4/08/2013 03:07:00 pm | | | links to this post

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