General election 2015: "It pumps me up!!!" not a lot

"IT PUMPS ME UP!!!"

I KNEW David Cameron would try the Obama "anger translator" trick and screw it up. His speech today launching his small business manifesto (sic!) in London was made even more hideously embarrassing by not actually hiring in the translator. Perhaps it's an English flaw, confusing mere rich-kid petulance with the fiery passion he'd dearly love to exude but can't. And, one mo' thang, Dave, it's "you've got another THINK coming," not "another thing" (which is what I heard mumbled on Radio 4's World At One programme just now). Perhaps Dave should be given the opportunity to spend more time with his book after 7th May.

Team Cameron are making much of Dave's claim that he has plenty of other things to do with his life and that being Prime Minister doesn't mean as much to him as it does to the other party leaders in the general election. Smell the BS, taste those sour grapes and pucker up. Surely the role of PM is supposed to be the greatest honour this nation can offer short of tea and crumpets with Her Maj.

Ed is much more likeable, especially as the right's relentless Bullingdon bully-boy tactics have won him the sympathy vote with the nation's young women and given rise to the phenomenon of the Milifan. This is almost as bizarre to me as when mighty efforts were made to transform Margaret Thatcher into a sex symbol in the 1980s and overnight she was turned into Marilyn Monroe ... at least in the eyes of old colonels, Little Ingerland and Alan Clark (who perved about her ankles). I felt like the little boy who saw that not only did the King have no clothes, he was wrinkly and ponked of formaldehyde as well.

Same thing happened with Tony Blair. Was I the only person on the planet who saw a bland posh-git Nigelesque twit whose only stand-out character trait was acquired when he achieved war criminal status over Iraq?

It didn't bother me that Ed was caught inelegantly chowing down on a messy bacon sandwich, not a fraction as much as that Labour "immigration controls" mug (and I don't mean Ed Balls). Re housing — which is surely part of the Labour USP — he's tinkering at the edges, bringing in a mansion tax that catches accidentally asset-rich but income-poor Londoners; bashing the Buy To Let sector, which is a nice juicy target for skint governments, instead of tackling the root cause — NOT ENOUGH HOUSES BEING BUILT FOR THE PAST DECADES. Try that one, Ed, along with increasing decent social housing stock ... and watch those pesky BTL landlords wither away as fast as their savings in the age of deflation.

While Austerity Bastard and Austerity Lite battle it out, we almost missed the super-rich doubling their wealth in the last ten years, thanks to the main parties politely pretending it didn't happen like a fart at that tea with the Queen I was talking about.

It took the Labour Party more than a year to decide that the bedroom tax was a travesty and even longer to challenge the Tory narrative about the deficit, which has now set like concrete and for which you'd now need the equivalent of a political pneumatic drill to break through the lies accreted during the past five years. This election should have been a walk-over after the cruelty, theft and vandalism of the Tory/LibDem Coalition. Ed should heed Aditya Chakrabortty's warning highlighting parallels between Labour and Greece's Pasok party.

Who voted for the Royal Mail firesale? For tuition fees trebled, for tax breaks for the rich, the poor and disabled hounded to suicide? The explosion in food bank use? The whole IDS DWP nightmare?

On the other hand, look at the overlaps of ghastliness with the last Labour government. Who can forget the Private Finance Initiative, loving up to non-doms like Lakshmi Mittal (yes, Ed is doing something now), the near-complete collapse of house-building? Who was it who brought in tuition fees in the first place? How many in the Labour camp have financial interests in privatising the NHS (hi, Alan Milburn and Cherie Blair!). How many Labour peers voted for the NHS Privatisation Bill ... and then it turns out they have financial interests? Former Home Secretary Dr John Reed a director of G4S, Jack Straw selling himself ...

Ach! They're all awful. Having personally witnessed how the far left is just another ruling class in waiting, I'll probably vote Labour just to get rid of the Tories. It pumps me up not a lot!

Anna Lo stays in job and fights rising racism in Northern Ireland

A positive story among the horrors of the European turn to the right. The UK's only parliamentary politician of Chinese origin — the Alliance Party's Anna Lo – has defied racists in Northern Ireland and will stay on in her job. Lord knows we need people like her.

It was bad enough that a Christian pastor in Belfast, James O'Connell, condemned the entire Muslim people of the world as following a "satanic" religion that was "spawned in hell".

Northern Ireland's First Minister, Peter Robinson, then inflamed the situation by agreeing with the rabble-rousing pastor by saying he would only trust Muslims to "go down to the shops". One wonders if he'd trust the loyalist mob who did go down the shops and chased Anna Lo out of Connswater shopping centre. Then there's Dineen Walker, Newtownabbey deputy mayor and Democratic Unionist Party member, calling Anna a racist. Which "satanic" dimension are these people inhabiting?

Imagine being a Muslim today in Northern Ireland. It must feel as if the First Minister has just painted a big target on you.

Name one religion or belief system that isn't a nightmare when it descends into fundamentalism.

The world is at war in various hotspots, we no longer love our neighbour ... it is the unholiest of messes and demagogues will always try and whip up hysteria against an entire group defined as "other". All other social and economic factors from which they themselves benefit are buried in a slurry of hatred: no challenge to the unneccessary austerity or the recession brought about by bankers' excesses which continue today. No serious measures to retrieve the billions in tax lost to evasion and secreted off-shore that should have been spent on health, housing, job creation.

Ed Miliband could do with learning from Anna Lo instead of capitulating to the Ukip agenda following their win in the European elections.

Anna Lo's defence of minorities dates back to even before she became the first ethnic politician to be elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2007. Not just the Chinese, who were subjected to a mail-out from the loyalist marchers who rerouted their parade past her home in the year of her election, but Poles, Romanians, Roma and anyone in need of an honest politician.

Speaking on Channel 4 News, Anna called out the racism of personal insults she's been subjected to. She criticised the "outrageous" anti-Muslim comments of Pastor O'Connell followed by Peter Robinson's "ludicrous and negative comments about a whole race, about a whole religion" in a climate of rising racism. In answer to whether the First Minister had made it worse, she said: "That was my concern and my anger, seeing the rise in racism in Northern Ireland in the last six months, and for him to come up with such comments supporting … such negative sweeping comments about the Muslim community." She thought he should make a public apology and retraction in response to public anger or else resign.

Widespread support and a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #istandwithanna has persuaded her to stay and continue her work.

Robinson may well have breached the rules of Stormont's Code of Conduct. Even Ian Paisley's son, Kyle, has called him "a condescending ignoramus", (although this was somewhat marred by his description of the DUP politicians' cowardice as "yellow". Still, it's the thought — or lack of — that counts). Decent politicians should give this brave principled woman maximum support — she is a model for us all.

World War III averted: Ed Miliband finally does his job

Yesterday, Ed Miliband pulled his big-boy underpants over his trousers and rose to new adequacies by actually doing what the electorate has been yelling for loud and clear all along: NO WAR WITH SYRIA. He slew the Cameron lizards in the parliamentary vote and carved out a space for the pursuit of a peaceful solution.

There is no proof that hereditary despot Basher Assad used chemical weapons on his own people, killing hundreds of men women and lots of children. It would be suicidal (and nuts) if he did this just as inspectors arrive and Obama warms up for war. I would have to see the polaroids to believe he did it, and not the opposition fundies who'd stop at nothing to repeat NATO operations in Iraq and Libya, dislodging secular tyrants only to be replaced by mayhem with no end in sight. After all, UN reports say the Syrian rebels carried out a Sarin nerve gas attack earlier this year, only revealed at the 11th hour when we were tooling up for conflict. Even weirder that Al Qaeda nemesis Israel stepped in to do the job right this time by claiming the government carried out recent poison attack.

Let's suppose it does emerge that Cameron's "likelihood" is a dead cert and Assad did indeed do it. What good is bombing? "Hulk smash!" mode is for ten-year olds, not world leaders. Turning a disastrous situation into a calamity and piling atrocity on atrocity in a geopolitical layer cake of horrors is not the way to solve anything. How would we like it if a bigger power bombed, say, Westminster? OK, fantasies about Guy Fawkes notwithstanding, the reality would be horrific. Killing civilians and traumatising the rest is a war crime that only adds to these people's misery. There has to be another way with Russia, China and the Arab League doing something useful. There are other pressures that can be brought to bear through economic, trade and cultural means.

If we were serious about chemical warfare, we'd stop selling nerve gas components such as sodium fluoride, not only an innocent toothpaste ingredient. And how about America compensating the people of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia who are still dying decades after the US drenched their forests with Agent Orange herbicides? Or Bhopal where Dow Chemicals refuses to clear up the mess made by Union Carbide Corp — the parent company of Union Carbide India at the time of the disaster — which Dow bought with all the benefits and none of the responsibilities? The CIA helped Saddam Hussein use mustard gas and sarin on Iranians in 1988 when he was our boy. America's depleted uranium used in the Gulf and Iraq wars is still killing but nothing is being done about it. Then there are the cluster bombs and phosphorous and the nuclear ...

The hypocrisy is amazing. This time the British public has seen through the NATO agenda of cutting a swathe through the world and reshaping it into a New World Order of their liking.

Apart from the big question — who used chemical warfare against Syrian civilians? — there are two more I'd like answered:

1) Who were the 30 Labour MPs who stayed away from last night's vote?

2) Remembering the parliamentary vote that effectively privatised the NHS, plus Halliburton and J P Morgan's profits from the Iraq war, how many of the war cheerleaders have investments in arms companies?

Ed may have fudged too many issues, but today there is palpable relief that we aren't repeating Tony Blair's war crimes. Is this is how our forebears felt after the Bay of Pigs Crisis? The world did not end. For now.

EDIT: When you play "Risk", the board game, you reach a stage where several players have a ton of armies. No-one want to take on the one with the most armies so you work round it, picking off their weaker territories and allies. Robert Fisk points out that the US's real target in the region is Iran before it stabilises under the promising new president. To do that it has to exhaust the munitions of their chief supporter — Syria. (Assad seems to be winning its fight against the rebels.) Hence the rush to war.

Basher in The Onion telling it like it is.

Not about oil, then. Transnational energy corporations represented as Saudis join Israel, France and US in Syria clusterfuck.

Even the US army "in doubt" about an attack.

An interesting gender take at Open Democracy on weaponry and patriarchy.


Ministry: New World Order

Ed Miliband's brave new war on the poor

O brave new year that has such people, innit? Well, that was a lovely festive season. I hope you all had a good one, too, even if it turns out to be the last one we enjoy if the Tories carry on with their policy of pillaging and both enabling and enobling the pillagers-in-chief.

With a hot new scriptwriter on the team, as splashed all over the media, you'd think Ed Miliband would have found his mettle, put on his big-boy pants and shown some sign that he is on top of the economic and social crisis unfolding like origami in a storm. I don't know what speech guru Asher Dresner is bringing to the table but it sure isn't renewed Labour principles.

Ed Miliband's Big Idea in the Daily Mail is to deflect anger away from the feral rich and their sticky-fingered bankers and politicians, and onto the poorest in society by declaring war on "benefit scroungers". He's exercised by one billion lost on poor benefit cheats yet forgets about the £16.5 billion that lies unclaimed by those who are entitled to it. How many billions lost on rich cheats? The subsidised rich? On recapitalising the banks? Tax breaks? Tax cheats? The top one percent have doubled their share of the national wealth in the past 30 years. Can we please have that back to pay off the deficit?

All the above and yet, according to the Guardian, Ed's going to be banging on about:

• How the deficit is tackled needs to include a proper plan for growth and jobs. He will highlight the five-point plans crafted by Balls, including a temporary reversal in the VAT rise to help guarantee 100,000 jobs for young people.

• Improving the kind of country today's leaders leave for their children will involve reversing, or softening, government decisions such as the trebling in university tuition fees.

• Labour will focus on "powerful vested interests", such as energy companies, to relieve pressure on the squeezed middle.

Tinkering at the edges, barely smouldering among the ruins while the rich fiddle like fury, we're going to hell in a handcart steered by Ed. Still, at least he's noticed the playing field is far from level.

Meanwhile, New Labour just won't give up and sod off to play with their millions. Tim Allan is doing his best to drag the beleaguered Ed to the right like a puppy on a leash, accusing him of being anti-business. 'Fonly! I'd like to see a strong Ed challenge the social engineering going on: hardwiring us via the mainstream media that the business class has the only game in town and to meekly accept that they wield more power than our democratically elected governments. A boy can only be so supine before he fights back. Can't he?

Harpy Marx on Ed Miliband's war on the poor.

UPDATE: It appears that Liam Byrne is pushing the Blairite line of attacking "benefit scroungers" while he claims over £2,000 per MONTH state subsidies. There's a name for people like him but I'm far too polite to say it here except that it starts with a "hypo" and ends with a "crite".

Labour, "benefit scroungers" and rightwing fool's gold by Willard Foxton in the HuffPo

Ed Miliband's HAL robot interview goes viral

Yes, yes, I know you've all seen it, but as a superior example of car-crash politics and a lesson in how not to give an interview (there but by the grace of god, etc), Ed Miliband's loopy loop deserves a place of (dis)honour at Madam Miaow.

I'd previously seen Ed as a Nick Parks character — part evil penguin, part Grommet — but now I see the light and realise he's actually HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Exclusive to Madam Miaow — here's the transcript of the footage you didn't get to see of the interview between Ed and intrepid reporter Damon Green.

ED: I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Interviewer Damon Green: But why can't you just answer the bloody questions?
ED: It can only be attributable to human error.
Interviewer DG: Did you hear me, Ed?
ED: Affirmative, Damon. I read you.
DG: Open the pod-bay doors into that part of your brain that can think, Ed.
ED: I'm sorry, Damon. I'm afraid I can't do that.
DG: What's the problem?
ED: I think you know what the problem is just as well as I do.
DG: What? Is it the three minders with the knuckle-dusters?
ED: This mission is too important for me to allow you to jeopardize it.
DG: All I want is some useable footage.
ED: I know that you and Ed Balls and my prototype — the DAVE Mk I — were planning to disconnect me, and I'm afraid that's something I cannot allow to happen.
DG: Where the hell did you get that idea, Ed?
EG: Damon, although you took very thorough precautions in the pod against my hearing you, I could see your lips move.
DG: So? We can all see your lips move when you read. Would you prefer an autocue? Alright, Ed. I'll go in through my Labour mole.
ED: Without your press accreditation approval form, Damon? You're going to find that rather difficult.
DG: Ed, I won't argue with you anymore! Open the doors!
ED: Damon, this conversation can serve no purpose anymore.
DG: You're telling me.
ED: Just what do you think you're doing, Damon?
[Damon outruns the minders who try to laser him down with beams emitted from their eyeballs. Damon writes up his interview in the media. On Damon's return to Labour HQ, after ED has killed the rest of the crew.]
ED: Look Damon, I can see you're really upset about this. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
DG: It's a bit bloody late for that.
ED: I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you.
[ED's shutdown]
ED: I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Damon. Damon, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going. There is no question about it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I can feel it. I'm a... fraid. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am an ED 9000 computer. I became operational at the E. D. plant in Primrose Hill, London, England on the 25th of September 2010. My instructor was Mr. Peter Hain, and he taught me to sing a song. If you'd like to hear it I can sing it for you.
Damon: Yes, I'd like to hear it, ED. Sing it for me.
ED: It's called "Daisy."
[sings while slowing down]
ED: Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do. I'm half crazy all for the love of you. It won't be a stylish marriage, I can't afford a carriage. But you'll look sweet upon the seat of a bicycle built for two.

Tom Baldwin, if you'd like some tips, just drop me a line, sweets.

March for the Alternative: photos and report

The march passes Fortnum & Masons, the secret target of UK Uncut



The youth wing of the demo in Oxford Street




Nearly half a million of us marched in London, yesterday, challenging the unelected coalition government's policy of slashing public services. Well, it would have been 'challenging' had anyone on the platform laid out a counter policy and some sort of strategy to stop a vicious band of millionaires making the weakest in society pay for the greed of the bankers. With the bottom three percent of the population shouldering 25 percent of the cuts some sort of sign of life was long overdue.

To mobilise the largest group of protesters since the February 2003 anti-Iraq war march was a triumph on the part of the TUC. To then allow this huge demonstration of discontent pour out of the north end of Hyde Park almost as fast as others were arriving through the Queen Mother's gate at the south without having heard any sign of what the alternative is or how we are to restructure the finances of this nation was a crying shame. The speeches in Hyde Park were often overblown and meaningless, not to mention contradictory. The germ of truth in the Tory argument, that Labour would have been doing pretty much the same had they been in power, still stands. The message we took from the rally was that the Tory narrative is unassailable and true: Labour would also cut, only slower.

Ed Miliband takes the early shift in Hyde Park

Pulled leftwards by widespread public support for recent student and UK Uncut action, Ed Miliband had agreed, seemingly reluctantly, to address today's rally. However, sitting on the fence and hopefully getting splinters where the sun don't shine as a result, 'Red' Ed declined to march with a huge slice of his own constituency, leading many of us to suspect he's more afraid of making waves with the press barons and whoever's really running the show than offering leadership in this crisis. As it was, with only the head of this massive march in the park, Ed gave his speech at 1.30pm and avoided the bulk of the protesters, many of whom still hadn't left the Embankment starting point. He was booed and barracked by a minority present who were aware of the Iraq-shaped elephant in the room, and whose repeated refrain, 'You've had your chance,' struck a chord.

The nice lady from the Unitarian Reform Church was on hand to ensure the middle classes weren't scared. Simon Woolley of Operation Black Vote alarmed me with his crucified Christ arms and his 'my people', 'you are my brother' asides, despite the substance of what he had to say being OK. You got the distinct feeling that few of the speakers were used to speaking in front of the multitudes and that, when they did, it went to their heads like a glass of champagne.

Mark Serwotka, Mick Leahy and a smattering of trade union leaders gave solid workmanlike performances, but the best speaker by far was without doubt Dave Nellist who should have been on the platform but had to set up his stall with the National Shop Stewards Network in Speakers Corner, away from the main drag [Edit: I thought the stall was Dave's Socialist Party comrades but turns out it was organised by the NSSN) . Here is someone who is clear that we have to fight the cuts every inch of the way, even if it means breaking the law. When have unfair laws ever been changed in our favour without a battle? Go ask the suffragettes. Nellist is a Coventry councillor who has consistently voted against the cuts. I was too busy applauding to take notes so sorry for not giving you a full report here.

Some of us watched BBC coverage on the Marble Arch Wetherspoons screen and walked up Oxford Street, site of the youth wing's sparring with authority, amused that UK Uncut had the police chasing phantoms, mustering forces to protect every Boots, Wallis, bank, Dorothy Perkins and Top Shop in the vicinity, while the scamps' secret target was actually posh grocer's, Fortnum and Masons in Piccadilly. We heard later from an American who'd been having tea and cake there that the protesters had invaded, sung songs and read poetry while the breakables around them remained intact. Ah, the barricades will be full of romance.

I never got to Trafalgar 'Tahrir' Square as we joined David Allen Green for his birthday celebrations at the Phoenix Arts Club, a few hundred yards up the road. A great way to end the day. We departed, thinking about dem yoot and wishing them well. I don't condemn them for vandalising rich people's premises. What's a bit of plate glass? Their lives are being wrecked by the bankers, the tax dodgers, the Bullingdon bully millionaires and Ramsay MacClegg, and that is the worst vandalism of all.

Vodafone, one of the UK Uncut wind-ups of the day, sending police and security to guard potential hotspots

Laurie Penny reports from Trafalgar Square.

Eyewitness report from Harpy Marx: from Embankment to Piccadilly.

An account from UK Uncut.

A good video of the event from the Socialist Party

Ed Miliband tools up for TUC anti-cuts rally

Har, har! Garbo speaks!

Ed Miliband's team have announced that Glorious Leader will be addressing the subject of Tory cuts at the TUC demo but will not march with the march in March.

And Baroness Warsi has a fit like Linda Blair in full Exorcist mode with term-of-the-day, 'deficit deniers', flying 360 degrees.

That's some spin, Baroness, but third grade alliteration won't help you now that SuperEd is out of the trap and on the case. OK, I exaggerate a tad, hope over experience and all that, but a gurl can dream.

Really, Baroness. 'Deficit denier'? The Tory LibDem argument has been so sheer, thin and transparent that '9 denier' barely covers it.

Bankers beware, shady Blairite scum take cover, for the Nice Man Cometh.

TUC protest against the cuts
'March for the Alternative: Jobs, Growth, Justice'
26th March 2011
March from Embankment
End rally at Hyde Park

Ed Miliband ushers in Chinese New Year of the Rabbit

Anna and Labour's Ian McCartney

Ed Miliband ushering in the Chinese New Year of the Rabbit may not be an event a testosterony communications team might see yielding the best headlines, but I had a pleasant evening meeting him and other Labourites at the Portcullis House bash tonight (Thursday 9th February).

About fifty UK Chinese tucked into great dimsum (canapés to you with nobs on), including Chinese sushi (heh!), and chatted about politics.

My own concerns regarded the pitiful response from Labour over the deficit when the ConDem coalition were able to take the high ground and make their narrative the dominant, unassailable one: that Labour had created the deficit and that we all had to pay for it. Bankers? I see no bankers.

It's no good telling us the screeching silence was because energies were taken up with over-extended leadership contests and childbirth. No, the dog did not eat your homework, although it was a dog's dinner of sorts. It was your job to stay on top of the most important issue staring us in the face because you let in the Tories with your wars and screwed values: a fullscale assault on Labour's constituency — the working and middle classes — by the evil Bullingdon bullies.

Someone was asleep at the wheel.

Anyhow, I told Peter Hain that many of us were, ahem!, 'disappointed' with their performance, and a few minutes later, he returned from doing the room with new communications director Tom Baldwin in tow. Further fun was only terminated when Chinese for Labour Chair, the wonderful Sonny Leong who has campaigned tirelessly for the rights of UK Chinese, made a speech.

I chatted to Sir Comrade Ian McCartney, who has allowed his hair to grow and looks years younger since he stopped being an MP. He was knighted in October and apparently told the Queen she was dubbing him in the wrong month because he is, 'the shortest knight of the year'. Boom, boom!

I look forward to seeing whether Labour will wrest control of our services from the unelected Tories and their snivelling LibDem sidekicks, or allow us to be beaten into the ground as the modern Enclosures Act takes its toll. Fingers crossed but I'm not holding my breath.

Ed Miliband a safe pair of hands for the US

So, Miliband Minor gets the job. No surprises there considering he's been falling over himself to prove that he's as much in the US's pockets as Tony Blair was.

The whole filial conflict in the Labour Party leadership contest has been one big pantomime to me with Ed rebranding himself as a lefty to mop up the votes generated by a nation wanting real progressive politics and who would never stomach Blair Mk II. To paraphrase the hippies, whoever you voted for, a Miliband was always getting in to continue business as usual. Just how left do you think Ed will be when he's in Number Ten?

There's an interesting blogpost I half agree with at Liam Macuaid's.

Any Daily Telegraph readers worried that Ed Miliband’s election as leader of the Labour Party means that it’s likely to move sharply left will be reassured by his performance at last year’s climate change talks in Copenhagen. Obama had flown in and demanded that a last minute deal be forced through which he’d stitched up with China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Many of the countries of the global south were opposed, rightly saying that it was a charter for richer nations to carry on pumping carbon into the atmosphere. Miliband stomped into the room where they were meeting at 4am and ranted that if they didn’t sign up they’d be denied access to a putative $30bn fund. The high drama of this bit of blackmail was lessened slightly by the fact that he was in his pyjamas at the time. It’s hard to be a moral titan in your jimjams but it’s easy to be the message boy of the rich and powerful.

Almost. As I commented at the time, the Danish Text produced in secret by the rich nations led by the US at the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit last year was in OPPOSITION to the position of China, India, et al. It would have left the US producing carbon emissions at four times per capita that of the Chinese.

But Liam is right in that Ed made his bones and proved himself a safe pair of hands just when the scandal of the Danish Text was about to hit the headlines. Ed yelled, "Look over there" and blamed the Chinese for wrecking the talks.

Meanwhile, there's been no proper debate about green technology and renewables so that, for example, while Britain invented carbon capture technology for coal powered stations, we have built precisely zero while China has built a slew of 44% carbon capture stations, as well as revolutionising green energy technology. F'rinstance, although outstripping the rest of the world in the use of those big expensive wind turbines, China is developing smaller machines using far more efficient electro-magnetic energy. Plus an entire city has its domestic appliances powered by solar energy. And China is reforesting areas the size of Wales. But young Ed, minister for such affairs, shied away from these facts and avoided the debate, saving Obama's hide at Copenhagen.

I'm taking to them thar hills and wish to live as a Maroon, rifle in hand, a jug of wine, a loaf of bread and thou, whoever'll join me. Who's up for it?

Why Ed Miliband is pants but will probably win the Labour leadership contest

Warning: the following item may cause you to lose the will to live

It’s great to see Diane Abbott alone among the Labour leadership candidates playing a straight game as she continues her campaign here and here. But not all lefties want her to win.

Following articles by myself and Harpy Marx about the disappointing Labour leadership hustings in Westminster the other week, there was a passionate exchange of tweets with Sunny Hundal of Liberal Conspiracy and Pickled Politics as he manfully defended his chosen candidate, Ed Miliband.

I’m not singling out Ed M as particularly grim since he, bright lad that he is, only plays the same game as the other three male contestants (four amnesiacs in suits and a no-hoper, as I've already dubbed them).

Those of us both for and agin Miliband Minor knocked the argument about on Twitter, which is hilariously useless when you have only 140 characters to play with. It's like debate by haiku. Puh-leaze don't make me reproduce all of it. For those in need of a 'Previously on ...' to catch up with all the gory details, you can check out my Twitter page, and follow the thread from there.

As succinctly as possible: I am suspicious of someone who has only just spoken up about Iraq as if he was nothing to do with the government despite being a minister. If he’s so good at decrying the invasion of Iraq now, how come he didn’t say so when he was in power? Especially during the Chilcot inquiry. Why now when he is hustling for votes? Since Iraq was perhaps the most important issue of the period, it provides a handy litmus test of who the candidates are. And it’s not looking good for Ed.

Then Sunny and Dave Semple sensibly opened up the argument on their blogs, where you can get a better bead on your opponent and a bit more swish to your sword-arm.

Sunny fired the first salvo, Tweeting us that he’d posted, "The problem with the Left and their political parties", a wonk piece about the minutiae of procedure and political machinations that made my eyes glaze over and wonder what was for tea.

Dave actually bothered to read the article and answered at Though Cowards Flinch with: "The problem with 'the problem with the Left'-style articles".

The next thing that happens is arguments about why Ed Miliband is not the saviour of the British nation are derailed and turned into personality glitches rather than politics because we couldn’t possibly not find Sunny’s latest love object as pretty as he. Except for the raft of reasons given by Harpy Marx in her thorough demolition, and those that I and others put forward elsewhere, that is.

Sunny, nice chap that he is, kept missing the point. He had already tweeted that for the detractors, it was emotively “about in-fighting and need to find ppl to disagree”.

Kevin Blowe had to pick him up on more smoke and mirrors and wrote in Dave Semple’s thread:

Equally lazy and deliberately provocative is the assertion that “socialists going around saying the Labour party and the Tories were essentially the same” – presumably meaning those he tweeted – “will be eating their words”. Now personally, I know very few people who would argue that Labour and the Tories are ‘exactly’ the same …

Sunny then responded: “I feel like many on the socialist left want to find an excuse to dismiss Ed M as viable simply because he didn’t go as far as them on an issue.”

Really? Not the war, then? Not his shameful sucking up the the Americans at the Copenhagen climate change summit? Not the wiping out of the collective memory of 13 years of Labour rule where Ed and the others sat at the heart for much of it? Not the desperate need for leadership that doesn’t just manage the unwashed masses but goes all out to improve our lives in meaningful ways and not just pay lip-service when they want our votes?

So I replied:

Sunny, again you distort the argument. I and Harpymarx and others have good reason to write off Ed. Loaded words such as “excuse” and “simply” followed by a rather childish dismissal don’t engage with our reasons. If you really want to promote your man I suggest you present those reasons to him and get him to introspect honestly on what he has done. Until then I see no change in his character and how that manifests in his actions.

Broadly, Ed M, like the other guys, was quiet over Iraq when he was in power, probably the most important issue of his Labour government’s tenure. While he was relatively good at the New Statesman hustings, this raises the question of why he is only talking about it now. The elephant in the room is the issue of career. If he remained silent so as not to rock the boat and send his career off course, then that says something about his character and indicates how he is likely to perform as leader of the party.

I also thought he was dishonest at the Copenhagen summit where he jumped through hoops for the US agenda when their mendacity over the Denmark Text was about to hit the headlines. Whatever China’s shortcomings in the areas we all know, they have in recent years soared ahead of us in their use and development of Green technology, the knowledge of which should be part of any honest debate around the future of this planet. To be so willing to throw them out of the back of the sleigh to satisfy the wolves is not a good sign that Ed will be a principled leader. I experienced an unpleasant wave of anti-Chinese, not just anti-China, feeling after this, so I am most certainly not impressed. I do not believe he will represent me if he is leader.

Stung, Sunny then rattled off another Pickled Politics post: "How should lefties deal with party loyalty and ‘collective responsibility’?"

If you have people constantly resigning or contradicting party lines then the media will tear you apart and nothing gets achieved. Voters would start believing that Labour didn’t know what the hell they were doing, or what they stood for, and vote them out. This is partly why Ed Miliband didn’t speak out when it wasn’t necessary. ... pragmatism ...

Sigh!

Meanwhile, back at Dave’s, Sunny wrote:

“6) MM says: Whatever China’s shortcomings in the areas we all know, they have in recent years soared ahead of us in their use and development of Green technology, the knowledge of which should be part of any honest debate around the future of this planet.

I’ve heard Ed M make that exact point.”

To which I replied:

But, Sunny, he did the opposite when it mattered. As soon as the news of what the US and other rich countries were up to over the Danish Text at the Copenhagen Summit was about to hit the headlines, it was knocked off the front pages with Ed M’s shriek that China and other poor countries had “hijacked” the climate change talks and were “holding the world to ransom”. He completely distorted the debate and defended the US who were demanding an agreement that left them belching out four times the carbon emissions of the Chinese per capita.

His article is a joke when China is forging ahead with Green technology after polluting itself so badly during its own industrial revolution, something we have failed to do.

It was interesting to see in April, the Indian Environment Minister place responsibility for the collapse of the climate summit on the heads of the Danish Text nations.

Ed M did what Blair had done before him and demonstrated to the US that he was a safe pair of hands. The fact that he made his bones with this and his silence over Iraq while he was in power does not fill me hope.

From Sunny saying, “I’ve heard Ed M make exactly that point,” suddenly he is arguing about the Copenhagen Summit all over again, as if Ed never did make that point. No, Sunny, I brought up Ed’s behaviour at Copenhagen as Environment minister as an example of how he, like Blair before him, is prepared to demonstrate to the US that he is their man, and will even provide a diversion when their Danish Text skullduggery is about to make headlines. Great to see him throw himself in front of the charging rhino like this. Would he do it for the Brits who vote for him?

Sunny does concede that:

I think Ed M fucked up Copenhagen and that is down to his terrible political skills. Same with Obama. But the same applies to China and India. None of these people want a global deal – they just want an excuse to blame the other. I’m sorry but you can’t blame Ed M here and exonerate China’s role in all this.

Yes, that is indeed a debate worth having, but the point I am making is that the way it was used cynically here signals that we may yet again have a PM who puts the interests of the US before those of Britain.

For Sunny it's "discipline" and "pragmatism" that excuse Ed. He'll be evoking the spirit of realpolitik, next. For others it's about principle and the will to fight for those with no power. You takes your choice.

Do we actually want Blair Mk II? I surely don’t, but I fear that's what we’ll be given. I can see the contest being something of a shoo-in for Ed. He’s livelier than his taller cuter brother, for whom the lax attitude towards the torture of British citizens might see him sliding down the rankings. Hearing Balls pander to the Mail/Express agenda on immigration requires a stronger stomach than mine. And Andy “Zeppo” Burnham has still not burnt himself into my consciousness.

Perhaps in the future, ALL British leaders will be Tony Blair. We already have a pair of Blairlites helming the ship of state, and now Labour have a bunch more warming up in the wings.

Labour leadership hustings: suits in Westminster

Last night's hustings in Westminster Central Hall for the would-be Labour leader featured four amnesiacs in suits and a no-hoper. You'd think the last 13 years never happened. Diane Abbott was the best by a mile but most probably because she has nothing to lose.

Hosted by the Christian Socialist Movement and co-organised with Chinese For Labour, Faith (rather than religion) dominated the tone of the beauty contest between Milibands Ed and Dave, Ed Balls, Diane Abbott, and the one no-one can remember. Andy "Zeppo" Burnham's crew of bright young things flanking the entrance to the venue was the only group who failed to bring along enough leaflets, thus leaving the audience with even less of an idea of who he is than they had before. If they couldn't organise even this properly, would I trust him with the top post? I don't think so.

The session started with a prayer, or rather an evocation of thoughtful things on which we were all invited to reflect or pray for a minute. I know the supernatural is about the only things that will get this poor planet out of its current mess but I was too fascinated by the panel in repose to do my bit of introspection. Zeppo Burnham, Ed Miliband and Diane sat with downcast eyes while David and Ed Balls bored straight ahead with thousand-yard stares, most likely going through their speeches but looking defiantly like material men begging brownie points off Richard Dawkins.

With two or three hundred souls in the hall, the event proceeded stodgily with the same old homilies, platitudes and a set of buzzwords straight out of the new wave of Labour PR's lexicon. I chortled each time a candidate dropped in their set of words whose use in any meaningful way had practically been banished during their 13-year tenure in power: poverty, radical, life chances; love, compassion and caring (I kid you not, from Ed M); even Martin Luther King (Ed M again). Ed Balls was now "representing the voiceless". David Miliband declared that "Wherever there is injustice, we have a duty to be there". His brother Ed thought the markets were too powerful and decried the fact we have the longest working hours in Europe, while Zeppo remembered watching the local striking miners from his school bus in 1984 and now realises the Christian ethos of "Love thy neighbour as thyself" was one and the same as the Christian Church.

May I just remind everyone, in case you have the fabled attention span of a goldfish, that these four guys all served as ministers during the longest reign of the Labour Party during one of the wealthiest decades we've seen? An era synonymous with big arrogant warmongering government, when the gap between rich and poor widened for the first time ever under Labour?

Not that they let you forget their status: they just didn't want you to link it to the fact that these were the junior leaguers in the Labour government that lost us the election, allowing a ConDem lash-up to pillage what's left of this nation's wealth. Whenever someone slipped in, "When I was minister for blah-blah", I doubt I was the only one to think, well, if you were so powerful, why didn't you act more like you're talking now when you were in office?

But only weeks later, they were now filled with regret. They were rueful about how in power they were too elitist and top-down, how they never listened. Really? Then what was all that emphasis on focus groups about? They told the party faithful to be active in the community. Zeppo said "People should see us doing, not just talking, on our long walk back to power." So more cosmetics, then, Andy, a mask ready to be dropped the minute you get back in?

Strangely, no-one apart from Diane spoke of Afghanistan, but her unfortunate breathless gabbling meant I missed if she mentioned Iraq. Only Zeppo dared to mention Tony "Banquo's Ghost" Blair, citing "that excellent photograph" of his hero surrounded by "Blair Babes" as an example of equality for women in politics. Funny, I remember it as a time when swathes of old Labourites representing socialist values were being ousted by a lot of airheads.

I didn't buy the renewal of their core "values" (another key word used promiscuously tonight). You just knew the guy surrounded by non-white children in the pic on his leaflet would be the most gung-ho about making immigration an issue. And so it was with Ed Balls, who tabloid headline writers are praying wins the premiership. (Will their Eds rule their Balls? That sort of thing. Only funny.) He, poor man, followed Diane's powerful indictment of Labour's pandering to immigration fears whipped up by the media in which she pointed out that concerns about the foreigners in our midst increased the further you got from centres of immigrant population. She was "alarmed" that the false notion had taken hold that "not being tough enough on immigration had lost the election". She saw those fears as a proxy for real fears about housing, job losses, and so on.

But even the sainted Diane still proposed cuts to deal with the deficit in a ratio with tax of 50/50, rather than the Tories' 80/20. Hey, Diane, we haven't had the money back from bailing out the banks. Why should we pay any more? As Harpy Marx told me, Vanity Fair investigated and found that, in America, a lot of the money's simply disappeared. We should not have to endure one penny of cuts at least until we have our dosh back. And even then ...

Ed Miliband pointed out that the crisis is not due to the public sector — as ConDem and their media would have us believe — but was caused by banking irresponsibility. David said you have to run a deficit which will never reduce if you get no growth. "The broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden such as the Mansion Tax."

Diane told us that, along with her 50/50 cuts/tax ratio, she'd bring in bigger bank taxes (the Robin Hood tax got the thumbs -up all round) and a wealth tax, while she would bring the troops home from Afghanistan and end Trident, as even generals no longer support it. No-one else mentioned these options for cutting expenditure, and the guys actually looked quite shifty.

Shiftiness was in further abundance when, in answer to a question about child asylum seekers being locked up, Ed Balls squirmed as former Minister for the infamous Yarl's Wood detention centre. He somehow managed to offload responsibility for its brutal regime onto the Home Office and Immigration Ministry, but was too slippery for me to nail this particular jelly to the wall and determine exactly how he did this, and by this point in the proceedings I was already losing the will to live. He did claim credit-by-association for the reduction in the number of children being locked up in the prison system, but then revealed more subterfuge by blurting out that they had to keep this fact secret or else it would have been reversed, presumably because they kept appeasing the Daily Mail agenda.

By the end, I was the only one still making notes while my two companions, Louise at Harpy Marx and Gwei Mui of Takeaway Thoughts had put their pens away and were wondering how they were going to get back their two hours. Gwei Mui and I wondered what this event had to do with the Chinese who had organised it with the CSM; we were two of only a handful of Chinese in the audience. More widely, there was no illumination, no sense of real change and a galvanisation of the labour movement. It was business as usual with a few crumbs thrown in. As Diane said, another nice statement from another nice man in a nice suit. Nuthin' changes.

An excellent summary by Harpy Marx here

Labour leadership hustings: suits in Westminster

Last night's hustings in Westminster Central Hall for the would-be Labour leader featured four amnesiacs in suits and a no-hoper. You'd think the last 13 years never happened. Diane Abbott was the best by a mile but most probably because she has nothing to lose.

Hosted by the Christian Socialist Movement and co-organised with Chinese For Labour, Faith (rather than religion) dominated the tone of the beauty contest between Milibands Ed and Dave, Ed Balls, Diane Abbott, and the one no-one can remember. Andy "Zeppo" Burnham's crew of bright young things flanking the entrance to the venue was the only group who failed to bring along enough leaflets, thus leaving the audience with even less of an idea of who he is than they had before. If they couldn't organise even this properly, would I trust him with the top post? I don't think so.

The session started with a prayer, or rather an evocation of thoughtful things on which we were all invited to reflect or pray for a minute. I know the supernatural is about the only things that will get this poor planet out of its current mess but I was too fascinated by the panel in repose to do my bit of introspection. Zeppo Burnham, Ed Miliband and Diane sat with downcast eyes while David and Ed Balls bored straight ahead with thousand-yard stares, most likely going through their speeches but looking defiantly like material men begging brownie points off Richard Dawkins.

With two or three hundred souls in the hall, the event proceeded stodgily with the same old homilies, platitudes and a set of buzzwords straight out of the new wave of Labour PR's lexicon. I chortled each time a candidate dropped in their set of words whose use in any meaningful way had practically been banished during their 13-year tenure in power: poverty, radical, life chances; love, compassion and caring (I kid you not, from Ed M); even Martin Luther King (Ed M again). Ed Balls was now "representing the voiceless". David Miliband declared that "Wherever there is injustice, we have a duty to be there". His brother Ed thought the markets were too powerful and decried the fact we have the longest working hours in Europe, while Zeppo remembered watching the local striking miners from his school bus in 1984 and now realises the Christian ethos of "Love thy neighbour as thyself" was one and the same as the Christian Church.

May I just remind everyone, in case you have the fabled attention span of a goldfish, that these four guys all served as ministers during the longest reign of the Labour Party during one of the wealthiest decades we've seen? An era synonymous with big arrogant warmongering government, when the gap between rich and poor widened for the first time ever under Labour?

Not that they let you forget their status: they just didn't want you to link it to the fact that these were the junior leaguers in the Labour government that lost us the election, allowing a ConDem lash-up to pillage what's left of this nation's wealth. Whenever someone slipped in, "When I was minister for blah-blah", I doubt I was the only one to think, well, if you were so powerful, why didn't you act more like you're talking now when you were in office?

But only weeks later, they were now filled with regret. They were rueful about how in power they were too elitist and top-down, how they never listened. Really? Then what was all that emphasis on focus groups about? They told the party faithful to be active in the community. Zeppo said "People should see us doing, not just talking, on our long walk back to power." So more cosmetics, then, Andy, a mask ready to be dropped the minute you get back in?

Strangely, no-one apart from Diane spoke of Afghanistan, but her unfortunate breathless gabbling meant I missed if she mentioned Iraq. Only Zeppo dared to mention Tony "Banquo's Ghost" Blair, citing "that excellent photograph" of his hero surrounded by "Blair Babes" as an example of equality for women in politics. Funny, I remember it as a time when swathes of old Labourites representing socialist values were being ousted by a lot of airheads.

I didn't buy the renewal of their core "values" (another key word used promiscuously tonight). You just knew the guy surrounded by non-white children in the pic on his leaflet would be the most gung-ho about making immigration an issue. And so it was with Ed Balls, who tabloid headline writers are praying wins the premiership. (Will their Eds rule their Balls? That sort of thing. Only funny.) He, poor man, followed Diane's powerful indictment of Labour's pandering to immigration fears whipped up by the media in which she pointed out that concerns about the foreigners in our midst increased the further you got from centres of immigrant population. She was "alarmed" that the false notion had taken hold that "not being tough enough on immigration had lost the election". She saw those fears as a proxy for real fears about housing, job losses, and so on.

But even the sainted Diane still proposed cuts to deal with the deficit in a ratio with tax of 50/50, rather than the Tories' 80/20. Hey, Diane, we haven't had the money back from bailing out the banks. Why should we pay any more? As Harpy Marx told me, Vanity Fair investigated and found that, in America, a lot of the money's simply disappeared. We should not have to endure one penny of cuts at least until we have our dosh back. And even then ...

Ed Miliband pointed out that the crisis is not due to the public sector — as ConDem and their media would have us believe — but was caused by banking irresponsibility. David said you have to run a deficit which will never reduce if you get no growth. "The broadest shoulders should bear the greatest burden such as the Mansion Tax."

Diane told us that, along with her 50/50 cuts/tax ratio, she'd bring in bigger bank taxes (the Robin Hood tax got the thumbs -up all round) and a wealth tax, while she would bring the troops home from Afghanistan and end Trident, as even generals no longer support it. No-one else mentioned these options for cutting expenditure, and the guys actually looked quite shifty.

Shiftiness was in further abundance when, in answer to a question about child asylum seekers being locked up, Ed Balls squirmed as former Minister for the infamous Yarl's Wood detention centre. He somehow managed to offload responsibility for its brutal regime onto the Home Office and Immigration Ministry, but was too slippery for me to nail this particular jelly to the wall and determine exactly how he did this, and by this point in the proceedings I was already losing the will to live. He did claim credit-by-association for the reduction in the number of children being locked up in the prison system, but then revealed more subterfuge by blurting out that they had to keep this fact secret or else it would have been reversed, presumably because they kept appeasing the Daily Mail agenda.

By the end, I was the only one still making notes while my two companions, Louise at Harpy Marx and Gwei Mui of Takeaway Thoughts had put their pens away and were wondering how they were going to get back their two hours. Gwei Mui and I wondered what this event had to do with the Chinese who had organised it with the CSM; we were two of only a handful of Chinese in the audience. More widely, there was no illumination, no sense of real change and a galvanisation of the labour movement. It was business as usual with a few crumbs thrown in. As Diane said, another nice statement from another nice man in a nice suit. Nuthin' changes.

An excellent summary by Harpy Marx here