Working For the Clampdown: Lib Dem Tory lash-up

The pretty face of oppression. Arch-villainess Anna in 'V'

I'm supposed to be recording the final links for Chopsticks At Dawn (BBC R4) tomorrow, but bronchitis has duffed up my throat and everything's swimming like a fever dream. Sorry, not a fever dream. Just media coverage of the election. Back under the duvet where it's safe ...

AAARGH! Just peeked out.

I thought I was watching the Scyfy series V, where the Fifth Column under the fabled John May is struggling to organise itself from atomised particles in order to fight evil Anna and her people-devouring cohort. A bit like the Labour Left up against impossible odds. It makes as much sense as anything else I'm seeing.

So Labour dumped Brown and is about to replace one right-winger with someone from another right-wing group of cutters. The media shove Jon Cruddas at us as the only left-wing choice even though, as I am reminded by Red Snapper, “Cruddas voted FOR the war. FOR oppressive terrorism laws. FOR persecution of asylum seekers. FOR ID cards. AGAINST enquiry into Iraq war.” However, they ignore the very existence of John McDonnell who has demonstrated integrity and genuine progressive views over the years.

The cuddly Lib Dems have ripped off the mask and revealed themselves as the Orange Book free-market privatisers and service-cutters that they are. Thanks for giving us the Tory government to which you were supposed to be opposed.

And look at who's in the new Tory leadership: Ken Clarke who, as director of British American Tobacco thought it OK to peddle his cancer-wares to a new generation of Chinese youth when sales in the West nosedived, is now "Justice" Minister. And torture supporter Peter Ricketts is head of National (In)Security. Hi, Peter. I look forward to being on at least one of your lists. (But be warned: I'm very particular about dungeon decor and I don't look good in a ball-gag.)

So what's in store for us?

A quick trawl around recent news stories shows us a world being restructured along the lines of the Eloi and the Morlocks in The Time Machine.

The Tories want to plunder our public services. Their financier Lord Ashcroft refuses to pay the taxes he owes — a Wapping (sic!) £120 million over ten years of digging in at his Dr No hideout in Belize.

Tesco posts record profits. Bankers are doing very well. I keep hearing we have no money and yet there’s plenty at the top. When Blair came to office there were no UK billionaires — Richard Branson was worth a few hundred million. Now there’s squillions of them created during one of the weathiest decades in British history.

Meanwhile, Paul Chambers is fined £1,000 and given a criminal record for a private expression of frustration in the form of a bad joke over the closure of Robin Hood Airport. How very thought police of the authorities. I don't think they care about Chambers' guilt or innocence: they're just flexing their muscles and practising for when there's serious social unrest.

Everyone (at the bottom) is being criminalised under new laws, whether for downloading, finding new legal highs, or taking photographs.

Police are acquitted of assault charges when one batons a demonstrator at the Ian Tomlinson memorial protest. No-one's prosecuted for police killings. The practice of "kettling" peaceful demonstrators for hours goes unchallenged. While housing construction has all but ground to a halt we have plenty of shiny new prisons.

The way this is set to run, there’ll come a time when we’ll look at China and envy them for their freedoms.

But remember, kids. "John May Lives".

Working For the Clampdown: Lib Dem Tory lash-up

The pretty face of oppression. Arch-villainess Anna in 'V'

I'm supposed to be recording the final links for Chopsticks At Dawn (BBC R4) tomorrow, but bronchitis has duffed up my throat and everything's swimming like a fever dream. Sorry, not a fever dream. Just media coverage of the election. Back under the duvet where it's safe ...

AAARGH! Just peeked out.

I thought I was watching the Scyfy series V, where the Fifth Column under the fabled John May is struggling to organise itself from atomised particles in order to fight evil Anna and her people-devouring cohort. A bit like the Labour Left up against impossible odds. It makes as much sense as anything else I'm seeing.

So Labour dumped Brown and is about to replace one right-winger with someone from another right-wing group of cutters. The media shove Jon Cruddas at us as the only left-wing choice even though, as I am reminded by Red Snapper, “Cruddas voted FOR the war. FOR oppressive terrorism laws. FOR persecution of asylum seekers. FOR ID cards. AGAINST enquiry into Iraq war.” However, they ignore the very existence of John McDonnell who has demonstrated integrity and genuine progressive views over the years.

The cuddly Lib Dems have ripped off the mask and revealed themselves as the Orange Book free-market privatisers and service-cutters that they are. Thanks for giving us the Tory government to which you were supposed to be opposed.

And look at who's in the new Tory leadership: Ken Clarke who, as director of British American Tobacco thought it OK to peddle his cancer-wares to a new generation of Chinese youth when sales in the West nosedived, is now "Justice" Minister. And torture supporter Peter Ricketts is head of National (In)Security. Hi, Peter. I look forward to being on at least one of your lists. (But be warned: I'm very particular about dungeon decor and I don't look good in a ball-gag.)

So what's in store for us?

A quick trawl around recent news stories shows us a world being restructured along the lines of the Eloi and the Morlocks in The Time Machine.

The Tories want to plunder our public services. Their financier Lord Ashcroft refuses to pay the taxes he owes — a Wapping (sic!) £120 million over ten years of digging in at his Dr No hideout in Belize.

Tesco posts record profits. Bankers are doing very well. I keep hearing we have no money and yet there’s plenty at the top. When Blair came to office there were no UK billionaires — Richard Branson was worth a few hundred million. Now there’s squillions of them created during one of the weathiest decades in British history.

Meanwhile, Paul Chambers is fined £1,000 and given a criminal record for a private expression of frustration in the form of a bad joke over the closure of Robin Hood Airport. How very thought police of the authorities. I don't think they care about Chambers' guilt or innocence: they're just flexing their muscles and practising for when there's serious social unrest.

Everyone (at the bottom) is being criminalised under new laws, whether for downloading, finding new legal highs, or taking photographs.

Police are acquitted of assault charges when one batons a demonstrator at the Ian Tomlinson memorial protest. No-one's prosecuted for police killings. The practice of "kettling" peaceful demonstrators for hours goes unchallenged. While housing construction has all but ground to a halt we have plenty of shiny new prisons.

The way this is set to run, there’ll come a time when we’ll look at China and envy them for their freedoms.

But remember, kids. "John May Lives".

UK Chinese parliamentary candidates' general election hustings

Yesterday's first ever UK Chinese hustings, featuring five of the eight Chinese parliamentary candidates running in the general election and attended by an almost entirely Chinese audience, was an interesting if disappointing affair. Organised by bbcchina.com and bbcchinese.com, this was a much-needed initiative considering that Chinese are the third-biggest minority in the UK, but you were left with the impression that the candidates represented solely the business class and that there was barely a cigarette paper's width of difference between them.

Your faithful reporter nearly fell at the first hurdle. After the first round of introductions in which most of them extolled "hard work", business and the family, I thought I'd wandered into meeting of the Women's Institute circa 1935. In Germany. It made me want to dial Nein, Nein, Nein!

Only the fabulous Anna Lo, Alliance member of the Northern Ireland Assembly and the UK's first Chinese politician, stood out. She's my hero, having done socially conscious work in Northern Ireland for twenty-five years, courageously defended persecuted Romanians, and earned herself death threats for her pains. How'd you feel if Loyalists planned to march past YOUR house?

Sonny Leong, Chair of Chinese For Labour, manfully represented the Labour party. They have yet to produce any Chinese candidates, but he assured us that a few are being groomed for the next general election. He is an intelligent, stylish chap with a big heart but sometimes I do feel sorry for him having to defend the indefensible, which — actually possessing personal integrity and considerable communication skills — he manages to avoid, preferring to promote Labour's ideals.

Former Metropolitan Police Officer George Lee is the Conservative standing against Frank Dobson in Holborn and St Pancras where he, like the others on the panel (aside from Anna), stands not a snowball's chance. With a bouncer's build adorned by a smart black suit and crisp white shirt with what my mate said was one button too many undone, and hair side-parted in a thick black wave you could surf on, I was unsurprised to hear a voice not unlike Del-boy Trotter emanating from him. He Trottered out the Tory line and was quite the little terrier when nipping at his opponents' heels. Expect to see more of him in the media.

The other Tory, Kagang Wu, standing in Liverpool Riverside, was a speak-your-weight-machine.

Lib Dems Merlene Emerson (Hammersmith and Fulham) and Philip Ling (Birmingham Bromsgrove) were sweet but not terribly effective. Oddly, Philip came to life in the bar afterwards and is a very likeable guy. He almost won me over with the Lib Dems' pledge of a 50p rate of tax, a £10,000 allowance before tax kicks in, scrapping the council tax and bringing in a fairer method of taxation closer to the old rating system, and their initial opposition to the Iraq war. But, oh, Philip, your party's record on race in councils where you've had power has been most unimpressive. Not that the others have been Martin Luther Kingy about such matters.

Hosts Britt Yip and Paul Crook, who had perfect Mandarin being born and raised in Beijing, did a fair job in keeping the rather dull question coming. It was all business, Chinese ethnicity, Chinese business. Fer cryin' out loud, we can do more than this!!!

Unfortunately, my question (the third or so to be asked early in the webcast show) was the only one they quickly moved on from, neglecting to elicit an answer from the panel.

The opening comments from the producer had contained the throwaway remark that we were all relieved that the expected train strike had been stopped by the courts, allowing the event to take place. Implying a universal class view that placed workers who were fighting for their survival somewhere Over There, and the "norm" here in this room, he did make me bristle somewhat. The assumption that the general public consensus is opposition to trade union action was something I thought should be challenged by anyone serious about the democratic process.

This attitude does remind me of the Morlocks and Eloi of HG Wells's science fiction social satire, The Time Machine. Whenever I hear the term "the work ethic" springing from captains of industries and their mini-mes, it makes me think of the troglodyte Morlocks dining off the flesh of the cattle-like Eloi: we work hard for poor pay and worsening conditions so you can live off the fat off the land.

So, after pointing out to George that his accusation that Gordon Brown started the recession due to his raid on pensions was a bit rich considering it was his own Margaret Thatcher who had started the practice with such sickening relish, I asked them: where do you stand in relation to ordinary workers defending their rights?

You'd think, given that this was the first of only two class-based questions in a quagmire of ethnicity and business, that this deserved to be addressed. But noooooooo. They moved on, later pleading time constraints which was, given how long some of the other got for their dull, dull, DULL comments, an utter crock.

George blamed the recession on Labour's housing policy. When some of them, including Lib Dem Merlene, claimed our current situation was due not only to bankers but to a "bloated public sector", some in the audience saw red. Long-time Labour councillor Mee Ling, speaking from the floor, pointed out the folly in this argument, reminding George that Thatcher's council property sell-off infamously deformed Britain's housing market, finale-ing with the observation that a healthy public sector is the mark of a civilised society.

She received a round of applause.

So be warned. Whatever horrors Labour would inflict in sucking up to the City, the Tories and Lib Dems will be even worse.

Obama's dark secret revealed: election hypnosis

Barack Obama hypnotises America

America's wingnuts demonstrate how to admit defeat with grace and style.

I particularly like the bit that goes: " ... Assigning a meaningless task to the rational mind to distract it thus leaving the subject unguarded by the rational mind. ..." (Hmm, not unlike my time on the left.)

Whereas this is how it really went ...


Homer Simpson tries to vote

Johann Hari on four ticking timebombs for Barack Obama

STOP PRESS: Back to Earth with a bump. Barack Obama appoints right-winger to be his chief-of-staff.

Obama's dark secret revealed: election hypnosis

Barack Obama hypnotises America

America's wingnuts demonstrate how to admit defeat with grace and style.

I particularly like the bit that goes: " ... Assigning a meaningless task to the rational mind to distract it thus leaving the subject unguarded by the rational mind. ..." (Hmm, not unlike my time on the left.)

Whereas this is how it really went ...


Homer Simpson tries to vote

Johann Hari on four ticking timebombs for Barack Obama

STOP PRESS: Back to Earth with a bump. Barack Obama appoints right-winger to be his chief-of-staff.