It's Like Being Told There's No Santa

This is a snippet of the conversation that took place between LibDem MP John Hemming and Radio 4’s always brilliant Eddie Mair on Tuesday’s PM. Mr Hemming’s constituency office had been occupied by student protesters who where more than a little pissy about his party’s U-turn over their definite pledge not to increase tuition fee,

EM: How are you going to vote on Thursday?
JH: At the moment I’m very likely to vote for the increase simply because we cannot reward the bad behaviour from today. I have … [interrupted]
EM: Just a second. Part of your thinking might be to punish protesters?
JH: The problem you’ve got is this. If you reward this form of behaviour, if it has any effect which is a positive effect, you’re encouraging the behaviour in the future.
EM: Part of the reason you’re going to reach your decision is based on the protests?
JH: Part of the reason has to be based on the protests because I cannot allow that to influence me in any favourable manner whatsoever.

And that was it; if you’d have listened very carefully you could have hear my heart breaking.

I have hung on as long as I could and have tried to understand their role within the coalition but I just couldn’t do it any more. I am no longer a Liberal Democrat.

Well, in spirit I am I suppose but in a direct, financial, card carrying way I am not. I have cancelled my membership of the party.  I still share many of the goals and ideas that the grass roots members hold dear but I feel that we all have been let down/betrayed by the leadership.

 I did not vote for and give money to a party that wanted raise tuition fees, part privatise vast sections of the NHS, make massive cuts in public spending (including welfare cuts, cuts in local council budgets, rise in state pension age and, oddly for Tories, cuts in Defence spending), constantly attack, undermine and take money from the BBC, sell off forests and not punish bankers who got us into this position in the first place (I mean a 0.05% levy is nothing, 0.75% would pay off the deficit) yet that is what they are enabling the Tories to do.

  Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the party is a collection of people with different ideas and points of view and that it is not there just for me and it’s not as if I signed up to all of their ideas 100% but I definitively did not vote for the Conservative party which is what we have. I struggle to find any LibDem influence on the policies of the coalition.

 I want to make it clear that this is not just a childish, knee jerk or petulant reaction to the situation but it is a consider action, the tuition fees debacle was just the cherry on top of a less than tasty looking cake and Mr Hemming was the straw that broke this mixed metaphor’s back.

 This brings a new problem, who to vote for next time? Suggestions on a postcard please.

To cheer myself up, let’s do some awards,

The Award for Worst Short Cut of the Week,

This has to go to who ever decided that it might be a good idea to take Charles and Camilla home from the Royal Verity Performance through the middle of a riot.

They didn’t look happy, although they had just seen Michael McIntyre and Cheryl Cole so what can you expect?

The Award for Best Use of Police Time of the Week,

We keep being told that we face multiple terror treats from absolutely everywhere but, as usual, we look without rather than within. Thank the Lord then for the police of Oxfordshire. These dedicated officers are never taking their collective eyes off of the metaphoric ball.

 What dedicated cell of terrorist fundamentalists have they broken? Was it Al-Qaida, the Real IRA or ETA? Umm, no, it is the type that advertises it’s self on Facebook and is organised by a 12 year old of course.

 Nicky Wishart, a pupil at Bartholomew School, Eynsham was interviewed by Thames Valley police and the school was contacted anti-terrorism after he was planning to picket David Cameron's constituency office.

 He was taken out of his lessons and, speaking to the Guardian, said: "In my lesson, [a school secretary] came and said my head of year wanted to talk to me. She was in her office with a police officer who wanted to talk to me about the protest. He said, 'if a riot breaks out we will arrest people and if anything happens you will get arrested because you are the organiser'."He said even if I didn't turn up I would be arrested and he also said that if David Cameron was in, his armed officers will be there 'so if anything out of line happens ...' and then he stopped."

Scaring 12 year olds, nice, you must be very proud of yourselves. Sleep soundly in your beds British citizens of the UK because your Police force is here to protect you (by abusing their power, illegally, possibly, interviewing a child and insinuating threats of violence).

In the run up to Christmas time is precious (my mince pie production line takes up a lot of time) and this is true for nearly all of us so not much blogging or podcasting for a little while. There will definitely be no blog next Sunday because we will be in that London. We are seeing Robin Ince’s 9 Lessons and Carols for Godless People on Saturday evening and are very much looking forward to it.

Have a lovely week.

A Lucky Find

I was browsing a local second hand bookshop the other day trying to find a title that wasn't authored by Dan Brown, a harder task than you might imagine (it seems several million people can be wrong but they realize this by the end of chapter 3 rather than when they are standing in the queue waiting to pay. If you are not sure about the quality of the novel that you are about to purchase you can carry out this simple test. Hold the book somewhere you can see it. Look carefully at the front cover, the spine and then the back cover If the words Dan Brown appear at any point (whether that be as the author or in a quote from a review i.e. “if you loved Dam Brown then you'll love this..” or “..the new Dan Brown,,”) gently place the book back where you found it, go home, sit quietly for a moment and think about how close you came to intellectual death. Maybe you could tell your friends who, seeing how close they came to loosing you, will buy you a drink.)
I was looking through some of the older works in the shop when I spied a battered old tome. The leather binding was fraying and the gold embossed title down the back was difficult to make out. Was it? No, it can't be, can it? I removed it from the shelf and tried to wipe some of the dirt off. A musty smell arouse from it as I opened it to the title page. A deep joy filled me to my very core! It was! It really was!
I held the hallowed book in my hands. They trembled slightly like a frightened vole or a nervous virgin bride on her wedding night might. It was a very rare 1839 copy of “Keeping the Poor in their Place” by Valentine Slaymaker. The volume was subtitled “exploiting those who deserve it or how to keep the mud of your boots by walking on the backs of prostrate oiks.”
Well this excited me greatly, as I am sure you can imagine. In that rare group of people who sit happily in the intersection of the Venn diagram that shows Economists and Bibliolaters, as I do, this was a book that was talked about in hushed, reverential tones. It's revolutionary theories and it's total disregard for human dignity in the face of profit making is legendary. Yet here it was with my slightly sweaty fingers fondling it's content.
As I leafed through the pages of this almost mythical edition dust coated my fingers. Everything pointed to this book being a first edition. I was suddenly having a very good day.
The chapter headings alone indicated the polemic direction of this publication, titles such as “The Poor as a Source of Fuel” and “War is Good for Keeping Their Numbers Under Control and for Profit” didn't really hide the political leanings of the author.
As I read on further something started to dawn on me. I was beginning to recognize some of the ideas. I had heard them before and quite recently as well but I couldn't put my finger on it. So I read on.
The chapter on education, for instance, rang a bell somewhere in my over stimulated brain. Mr Slaymaker's argument was that only a very basic level of literacy was necessary for the poor as their minds could actually be damaged by trying to learn too much. They also had no concept of accruing money so there was no need for them to fully understand finance. (He also has a sub-section on how to entertain the poor and the best way to do this. They could be sated with regular minstrel shows it seems. The better minstrels, he advised, would say that they were singing for their mothers who had recently died of plague, whether or not it was true it was not important, it would get the crowd on their side.)
Higher education should be reserved for those who could afford to pay for it as well. He argues that there only social mobility the country needs is the aristocracy moving from Town to the Country when the weather gets warmer.
Another chapter about “The Natural Sciences” makes the case for private investment, and only private investment, in carrying out experiments. To quote the great man “Why should the working man's hard earned taxes (of which only the poor should pay as large companies should be allowed to keep all of their monies as they invest it, thus creating jobs in sustainable sectors such as tulip bulb speculation) be wasted on finding things out when we already know all of the things that we need to know. God is responsible for all that we don't know and can't understand. The inquiring mind is an ungodly mind.”
He continues by saying that he has nothing against Gentleman Scientists because they have their own money to waste but their work is of no relevance. He gives a for instance, “I have heard of one so-called scientist who is getting his son to play an oboe near a snooker table upon which he has placed any number of earth worms. I ask of you, what can this possible tell us other then whether worms like Vivaldi or not?”
I'm sure you can appreciate how this sort of rhetoric was sounding eerily familiar but still from whence I had heard I could not tell. I continued to flick through the book.
I was checking for damage or defacement that may effect the price that I would pay when I came across some scribblings on the inside of the front and back covers. Most of the childish style script was unreadable and in some sort of crayon but from what I could make out it was a declaration of ownership. It seems that the book had once belonged too, and was well thumbed by, someone called Gideon Osborne.
Who was this mysterious man with the very posh name? We shall never know. Just another one of life little mysteries like rail ticket pricing or where the LibDems backbone has gone? Where is he now I wondered?
I am now, of course, the proud owner of this historical oddity and I regularly read though it having a little chuckle at it's outmoded political sentiments.

I've Got 99 Problems But Trying To Form A Government Ain't One

This really is only a short post but I have to put it up here because I can't reduce it to 140 characters and stick it on Twitter.

So we still have no Government (although things seem to be ok without them, maybe we should carry on) and the parties still seem to be negotiating and offering things to each other. My question is this, is this the worst of all possible outcomes for the LibDems?

They have 3 options,

1, Join (formally or informally) with the Tories.

This will piss off most of their party members because they will be giving power to a Right-Wing party that sits in Europe with people that Nick Clegg described as “Nutters”.

It will piss off everyone who voted for them because they didn't want the Tories in but could no longer vote Labour.

This will also loose them their support with the Left leaning press.

2, Join (formally or informally) with Labour plus the other little parties.

This will piss off most of their party members because they voted to get rid of Gordon Brown and the Civil Liberty abusing Labour Government.

It will loose them any floating Tory-lite voters who, for whatever reason, decided to vote LibDem this time.

This won't really effect their coverage in the Right-wing press because they already hate them for being reasonable in the first place.

3, Pull out of all negotiations.

This will impress no one, well maybe only really hardcore party members (can you have hardcore LibDems?), it will piss of Labour and Tory supporters who will describe the LibDems as irresponsible for not helping to form a Government.

This will probably loose them all sides of the press.

Whichever way they move it will loose them support in the press and, probably, voters. This situation is fantastic for the 2 biggest parties as there is the distinct possibility this will crush the LibDems.

I do not envy Nick Clegg at this moment in time.

Vote LibDem? Maybe? Please? Just Think About It.

So tomorrow is Election day, vote-agedon if you like, and I would ask you to go out and vote but before you do consider these points.

 You can, of course, vote for who you like and I'm pretty sure that I would no influence over you decision at all but that isn't going to stop me trying. I would ask you to considering voting Liberal Democrat.

 Now some of you will be having a rather significant knee jerk reaction to this but have you thought about it properly? If you are the reader of a Tory newspaper then you will have been told that a Hung parliament would be a disaster for the country and the economy. Their argument is that the credit rating agencies (they said that derivatives were fine you know) would down grade us from a AAA investment and that the markets would hate it. This is untrue. Did you know that of the 16 countries that have AAA rating - 10 have hung parliaments, 12 use system of PR So it is a lie, scaremongering if you will.

 There is also the point that do you think that your decision should be influenced by international money men? People that have no interest in our country and only in your money?

 Let us consider the really big issue, the Economy. Whose fault is it that we are in the situation were it is (maybe) necessary to have massive cuts in Public Spending and that we had a recession? That would be the Tories and Labour. 

  The Tories removed most of the regulation for banking, such as the separation of high street banks and investment banks, and Labour didn't put it back. Labour decided on “light touch” regulation of the City which lead to the Banks becoming to big to fail. Everyone invested in derivatives and many other forms of incredibly complicated financial products, with our money, so that when the failed it effected every economy in the world. Governments, who up until that point were all for independence for the markets and not getting involved, suddenly found themselves forced to bail out private companies. They had lost our money and because of this they had to helped with our money. I am not criticizing Private companies or the Government Bailouts (they had no choice), I am merely pointing out the facts.

 The recession was caused by foolish investments by companies that were allowed to hold Governments to ransom by those very Governments.

The Tories and Labour both have many friends in the City and are only proposing light, cosmetic changes to Banking regulation. Not the LibDems. They want to bring back the separation of High Street and Investment Banks. With this they can let large investment banks fail if they get themselves into trouble because they won't take huge swathes of the economy with them.

 Fairer Tax policies as well. The rich, as they can afford it, should pay more and no income tax on the first £10,000 you earn. The Tories want to change Inheritance Tax in order to help the 3000 richest families in the Country, are you one of those families? If so, vote Tory, if you are not, think about who they will run the country for.

They also support Mutuals, Co-operative and Credit Unions.

On Trident the LibDems don't want to replace it with something that is exactly the same. This will be needed in 20 years time but it is out of date now. It is a Cold War system in a post Cold War World. Why do we need an independent Nuclear Deterrent anyway? Who is deterred? Did it deter other countries from building Nuclear Weapons? I think you will find that that is a no. If anything it probably encouraged them to.

 The threats that we face today are not from other Countries or States but from Terrorist organisations. Did all of America's nuclear might deter Osama Bin Laden and his pilot friends from attacking New York? How about the London Bombers, were they put off by our lovely submarines? No, no they weren't. It is an awful lot of money for just making some uninformed people sleep well in their beds whilst not actually protecting them.

On immigration their policies are the ones that stands out the most. Those that complain about foreigners coming over here and taking our jobs should ask themselves this, would you pick lettuces for minimum wage? Or how about clean toilets, gut fish or pack meat? If we did these jobs ourselves then maybe we wouldn't need outside assistance.

Another example of a this is within the NHS. Many years ago the NHS went to the rest of the World to ask them for some nurses. Why was this? It was because they had to. The Tory government had cut funding for nurses training and were paying them a pittance so we didn't have any nurses.

The rest of the World bailed us out so now I think they deserve a little gratitude. Labour and the Tories say deport all illegal immigrants, interesting proposal but they don't know where they are. That's sort of the point about being here illegally, you have a tendency to hide. The LibDems propose an amnesty on these people. Get them registered and paying tax. If they are here illegally they are not claiming benefits because they can't, so they must be doing something to support themselves. They are working. A lot of the time they are working for gang masters who barely pay them and treat them badly. Why not utilise these people and make their lives better at the same time.

We also have to admit to ourselves that with a rapidly ageing population we are going to need some imported young people to do the work and pay some tax so that we can pay for our care homes, unless, of course, we think that Government mandated minimum family sizes is a good thing? How would the Daily Mail feel about the Government telling you to have at least 3 children?

 They are the only Party with proper green policies, a proper feed-in tariff for micro-generators. Setting aside extra money for schools who want to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. They will pay back the loan over time from energy savings, creating a rolling fund to help insulate every public building. Investing £400 million in refurbishing Northern Shipyards so that they can make wind turbines. Investing £140 million in a bus scrappage scheme that helps bus companies to replace old polluting buses with new, accessible low carbon ones and creates jobs.

There are many other very good reason to vote LibDem, have a read of the manifesto here, such as a proper relationship with Europe, smaller class sizes, ring-fenced science funding, grown up, evidence based drug policies, tackling tax avoidance and evasion, scrapping the IT card scheme, restoring the link between State Pensions and earnings, Winter fuel payments to be extended to the severely disabled, I could go on but it would bore you, (that is assuming that you are not bored already) all I would ask is that you give serious consideration to voting Liberal Democrat tomorrow.

 I understand that this is not my most well formed arguement or snappily written piece but it is truely what I passionately believe. Please don't be scared into to voting for someone that you don't really like because of newspaper headlines or Politicians trying to scare you, vote for what you believe.

Conservative Support Amongst Sheep

The Liberal Democrats have always been quite strong here for some reason, perhaps it’s because they used to be a bit of a tree hugging, lentil eating, sandal wearing hippies that appeals to middle class “spiritual” sorts, but recently they have been doing really rather well.

 Our current MP, Oliver Letwin(d) (I know it’s a childish joke but it was first made by a child so there) who is a Conservative, works for a bank and seems to have had his Wikipedia page changed since the election was called (it used to mention that he has changed his name from Gideon because he thought it too posh and that he is the heir to a Baronship (or whatever the correct word) but this isn’t the kind of  image the Tories are trying to portray in this campaign. Although he’s not as posh as the bloke standing for Dorset South, owner of 7,000 aches of land, Richard Drax, or to give him his full name, Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax ), only has a majority of just over 2,000.

 During this election campaign I have noticed something a little strange, only large areas of open land seem to be supporting the Tories, mostly boggy fields, such as here



and here.

All over Dorchester are little orange diamonds expressing their support for Sue Farrant



but I have found only one supporter for Mr Letwin(d) and he didn’t seem that proud (I’m sure there are more but I haven’t seen their signs).

 Is this proof that we have a large swing to the Lib Dems following the leadership debates and hard work by local activists or that the Conservatives aren’t that proud of being Conservatives and only sheep are untroubled by looking as though they might vote that way? Who knows? We will all find out on May the 7^th. To be honest the Tories probably don’t have any posters for homes but that would ruin my narrative and we can’t have that.

Diana Watch

Dear Moany Football Managers,

                         Both teams have to play on the same surface, stop moaning. You lost because the other side scored more goals than you not because the grass hated you.

                                                Martyn Norris

Can you guess which paper has had Princess Diana on the front this week? Of course you can, now you have GCSE Media studies, it’s the Sunday Express,

 I'm not going to take up too much off your time this week because I have got some homework for you.

 Now I'm not saying that you have to read them all the way though because they are really, really dull but here are links to the main parties (and UKIP's) manifestos

Tory, Lib Dem, Green, UKIP, Plaid Cymru

The BNP

There doesn’t seem to be a manifesto for this election on their website but on past performances I think that we can safely assume that it would basically be “Go home Darkies” and would use the word Indigenous a lot without ever spelling out what that means.

The SNP

I can't find a manifesto on their website but they claim to have one. It may possibly be this though,

 Thank you to the BBC for providing this list of all the parties standing and links to information about them.

 OK, that is hard work I know so let's just get on with the awards,

The Award for the World's Most Self Destructive Snack,

 Are you scared of American Imperialism? Worried that the rise of the Religious Right in the US threatens rationalism in that country? Don't understand the appeal of Glee? If I was you I wouldn't worry too much because they will all be dead soon.

 Ladies and Gentleman I give you the KFC Double Down.

 The bread of this bacon and cheese sandwich has been replaced with deep-fried breaded/battered chicken burgery things. 

 If a heart attack could be represented as a food stuff, this is what it would look like.

 The Award Naked Opportunism of the Week,

 This goes to both the Conservatives and the Lib Dems.

 The Government sent out a leaflet saying that the excellent 2 week guarantee for woman with suspected breast cancer to see a specialist was under threat for Tory plans.

 These leaflets were delivered to thousands of homes and, naturally, some of the people who got one had had breast cancer or know someone who has (a bit like how cold reading works). Because people are stupid and self-centred they assumed that the leaflets were targeted at them and have complained about it.

 They were not targeted at anyone, it was just a statistical certainty that this would happen but that didn't stop both the parties weighing in.

 David Cameron called for an apology and called the tactic “sick” despite the fact that it wasn't a “tactic”. Even the mighty Vince Cable wasn't above lowering himself to getting involved and said there needed to be an investigation to see if there had been any abuse of data protection laws. No there doesn't.

The Award for Having a Dig at a Fellow Sportsman of the Week,

 Golfist Phil Mickelson won the US masters on Sunday. This competition was the much written about return of serial philanderer Tiger Woods to professional golf and the expectation was very high. It blanketed out pretty much everything else in the coverage but he did not win.

 On winning one of the worlds more pointless sports Mr Mickelson dedicated it to his wife.  

The Award for Self Important Self Appointed Busy Body of the Week,

Jim Gamble is the Director of Child Exploitation and Online Protection (Ceop). He has decided, with the help of the Daily Mail, that Facebook is the devil.

 Despite the fact that there is no proof that his idea about having a “panic button” on the social networking site will make any difference to the safety of children using it, he still manages to get himself on the various news programmes and into newspapers to promote himself, sorry, his idea.

The Award for Having the Worst PR Department in all of the Known World,

More good work by the people who work for the Catholic Church this week (I'm getting a little bored of this now. 4^th week in a row that I have to mention child rapists and those that covered up for them).

 They have blamed the Devil, they have blamed the Press and now they blame..... The Gays. Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Pope's number 2, has said that Homosexuality was to blame for most of the “problems” that the Church has been having with continually employing child rapists and not the whole celibacy thing.

 Whilst in Chile he said “Many psychologists and psychiatrists have demonstrated that there is no relationship between celibacy and paedophilia. But many others have demonstrated, I have been told recently, that there is a relationship between homosexuality and paedophilia. That is true. That is the problem.” Oh FFS. What century are you living in? Oh yes, I remember, sometime in the 18^th.

 I understand why they are trying this Blame Others approach. They are attempting to show the faithful that it is the things that the Church preach against that are the problem in a kind of “See, we told you so” sort of way, but it will not wash with the rest of us.

 Don’t expect any change in their policy any time soon though as the Church has only just forgiven John Lennon for his “bigger than Jesus” thing in 1966.

Oh, I supposed I ought to mention a bit of news.

Did you watch the Election Debate? OK, it was a bit dull and they had all “met” far too many people (David Cameron also claimed to have met a black man but I think that that is unlikely) but it does seem to have gone really rather well for Nick Clegg.

 I’m not going to criticize their performances to much though because it was the first ever debate and no one really knew what they where doing. Clearly they had watched the U.S. debates and had noted the tendency to use a heart warming or point making anecdote. Unfortunately they all went over the top and answered almost ever question with a little folksy story. Now all they have to do is practise winking to camera and saying “Y’all”.

 The other problem was the moderator. Alistair Stewart was rubbish. He barely gave them time to answer or rebut and bellowed over the top of them. I’m not sure if Tory loving Adam Boulton on Sky News will be any better though.

Some planes are unable to fly because of a massive cloud of volcanic ash covering most of Northern Europe.

 Whilst most of the papers were concentrating on the effects on travellers and trade, both the Mail and Express decided that the cloud, which is mostly at 25,000ft, will kill you.

 So if you are stuck somewhere and can't get home I do feel a bit sorry for you but to all of those moaning and scare-mongering in the press about food shortages can fuck right off. So what we don't have any asparagus imported from Egypt or lettuce from somewhere in Africa? How about buying British and seasonal? You may remember what food is supposed to taste like and maybe those countries can grow some food for themselves.

 “But I’ve got a business meeting to go to!” yeah, will I have Skype and can talk to people all over the world, on video, for free. Give it a try, you might like it rather than selfishly flying round the world for no good reason.

Oh and I am loving the stories from people who live around airports and can't believe their luck with all the peace and quiet that they are having this weekend.

 Please stop moaning, no one has or will die.

Do you think that your job is dangerous?

 Have a good week and enjoy the sunny weather (as long as it carries on obviously, it's not like you can fly to somewhere sunnier.)