This has been a very peculiar election campaign indeed. Several very odd things have happened, most of them to the detriment of democracy.
Firstly, we have seen the completion of the hijacking of the democratic process by the media. In a country with two major rolling news programmes we have had wall-to-wall election coverage, with almost total coverage of the three main party leaders, yet almost no serious discussion of policy. The level of wall-to-wall coverage has extended so far as to invade Gordon Brown’s privacy by broadcasting his private ‘drawing of breath’ after meeting a member of the public. Surely, the mic line feed had an off switch. This seemed to give the broadcast ‘journalists’ opportunity to analyse, dissect and further analyse his comments ad infinitum, ad nauseam.
Secondly, we have had the leader’s debates, set up in such a way as to suggest that anodyne would be too dynamic a word to describe them. Both the debates themselves and the analysis of them concentrated almost solely on ‘performance’ and, again were devoid of in-depth policy analysis.
Thirdly, we have had a huge number of opinion polls, creating confusion in that most have been voting intention polls, whilst some have been ‘leaders debate performance’ polls. That is not to decry the value of opinion polls, but the sheer number does tend to again emphasise the media victory of process over policy.
Fourthly, the ordinary people of the country have been almost totally excluded from the pre-election process. For example, the chattering classes, through the London-based media, have begun to question if there is a re-alignment of the Left with the Liberal Democrats replacing Labour, and much talk has been of a Labour meltdown; all this on the basis of the flimsiest of evidence.
Before discussing this in any detail it is worth questioning the Liberal Democrat credentials as a party of the Left. It is the descendent of the Liberal Party, an establishment party, primarily concerned with issues relevant to the middle-class, such as civil liberties, equal opportunities, meritocracy etc. It is not a party primarily concerned with social rights, equality and wealth redistribution. The Labour Party, on the other hand, despite the gentrification of the party in the 1980s and 1990s, still retains some of those Left credentials. Hence the huge chasm between the Liberal Democrats and Labour over fundamental policies at this election such as maintaining Sure Start Children’s Centres, nursery fees and Working Tax Credit / Childrens Tax Credit. The Liberal Democrats, for all their posturing cannot see beyond the middle-class.
Today the Guardian has endorsed the Liberal Democrats and urged its readers to vote Liberal Democrat rather than Labour to keep out the Tories. The Guardian has always been a Liberal newspaper and only supported Tony Blair in 1997 to jump on the anti-Tory bandwagon. The opinion polls are showing Liberal Democrat and Labour exactly equal, about four points behind the Tories, with over 30 per cent of respondents still undecided. This neither points to Labour meltdown or the Liberal Democrats outpolling Labour. With the current distribution of parliamentary seats it actually points to a balanced parliament with Labour or Tory as the largest party,
Political choice in a democracy is surely about voting for an individual and / or a Party on the basis of what they are actually going to do, not what the Party leaders are wearing or their posture and demeanour.
The media campaign to defeat Labour may have serious repercussions. If, it does succeed, and we end up with a Tory of Tory / Liberal Democrat coalition (and don’t believe that the Liberal Democrats are not considering it), it will be a dark, dark day for the poorest 25 per cent of people in our country. Tax credits will not be protected, the schools budget will not be protected, the cuts will be immediate not in one years time, giving neither fiscal stimulus to the economy, nor giving the poorest people in our society any kind of opportunity to prepare themselves. The recession will return and abject poverty of a kind not known since the 1930s will stalk us like a spectre, with daily bankruptcies, job losses and evictions.
The measure of a civilised society is the quality of life of its poorest members. If some individuals and communities in our society do not have the wherewithal to participate fully in the economy, culture and polity of our society, we are all diminished. If significant numbers of people fall below the poverty line, that financial poverty draws down multiple other forms of educational, social and cultural poverty. It is, in effect, social exclusion.
Nothing points to the Liberal Democrats as anything but a ‘softer’ Tory party. Their real value in our polity is to split the Tory vote; if they eat into Labour support on a bogus claim to be progressive, modern, or even, ‘Left’, it will be music to the Tories ears. I would thus urge those who think the Liberal Democrats are a progressive party to examine their manifesto and scrutinise the coherence of their ideas. Indeed, I would challenge anyone to actually state in basic, straightforward terms, what the Liberal Democrats actually stand for. The basic philosophical underpinning of Labour and of the Tories is manifest and easy to understand; despite the various degrees of gloss they both tend to overlay it with. The Tories stand up for big business, privilege and minimal government; Labour stands for social inclusion, the welfare state and full public provision of the essentials of education, health and social care.
On a lighter note, we need a touch of realism. As a grandfather I am old enough to have witnessed many general elections and have drawn my own conclusions on the way this election will eventually pan out. My experience this time round is that there is a definite majority of people who don’t want a Tory victory, and those people comprise Liberal Democrat, Labour, Green and Scottish and Welsh Nationalists. Of these groups the Liberal Democrats have had a media influenced surge, which is beginning to tail off, whilst Labour (after being in power for thirteen years) is holding its position. As we see the election campaign rush towards its climax and eventually the votes are counted we will see a parliament returned with little support for the lunatic fringe (BNP, UKIP, English Democrats etc), one possible MP for the Greens, the Liberal Democrats in third place (both in terms of sets and popular vote) and either the Tories (probable) or Labour (possible) as the Party with the most seats and the largest share of the popular vote. To ensure that the Tories don’t get in by default I would urge all those who are considering putting their lot in with the Liberal Democrats to think again, examine their consciences, think seriously about the most vulnerable people in our society and cast a vote for their Labour candidate on May 6th.
Saturday, 1 May 2010
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Election
Gordon Brown has announced that the General Election is to be on May 6th (alongside council elections in parts of the UK). Given the current economic climate this may well prove to be the most important election since 1997. I was going to say 1979, but the 1997 election ousted the (then) last remnants of Thatcherism.
Although the election was announced yesterday, everyone has known that May 6th would be the date for some time. The government could have gone to the country as late as June, but late spring has always tended to be a preferred date for UK elections, given the traditional May date for local elections. The silliness has already started with the various Party Leaders commencing their various election stunts.
Labour's election slogan is 'A Future Fair for All' and, it is to some extent backed up with policies, not least in terms of dealing with the deficit, that appear to have the ring of social justice, although tax rises beyond simply increasing National Insurance would be helpful. They have however outlined a longer timescale than the Tories to reduce the deficit, avoiding the obvious pitfalls of mass unemployment, reduced tax receipts and an increased benefits burden that would accompany any stark changes in economic activity levels.
The Tories have an election slogan 'Vote for Change', yet recently voted against the reform of the House of Lords and the removal of hereditary peerages. I guess that they mean a change of occupant in Number 10 but the retention of aristocratic privileges that pre-date the Magna Carta. Further they have reverted to classic Thatcherite 'solutions' in what little bits of policy that have inadvertently slipped out such as massive cuts to public spending that somehow don't impact on frontline services. Perhaps they mean an NHS without administrators, the abolition of school meals, volunteer firemen; it is hard to tell. But if anyone can square an economic circle then it must be 'Boy' George Osborne and 'Call me Dave' Cameron. After all, they claim to be a modern go-ahead Party whilst still remaining lukewarm on Europe, and decidedly vague on climate change. They also propose cutting public expenditure very sharply very quickly to reduce the deficit. Any person of even moderate intelligence can see that this is a complete non-starter. It would put tens of thousands of public sector employees out of work with a serious knock-on effect on the retail and other service industries as their spending power is reduced. This would lead to increased unemployment in the service sector, actually increasing exponentially the burden on the public purse by increasing the total of benefits payments. This brings us to their real policy to curb the deficit. They want to make poor people pay for it. One policy they have let slip is that are to reduce in-work and out-of-work benefits, hitting the very poorest in society at a time of great economic privation. Then again they are Tories!
The Liberal Democrats, bless them, so liked both the Labour and the Tory slogans that they combined them in a commendable spirit of inclusion. Their slogan is 'Change that Works for You - Building a Fairer Britain' and, to be fair their policies seem reasonable, but, with the exception of the hung parliament scenario, irrelevant as they will not be forming a government any time in this or any subsequent centuries.
It is easy to poke fun, but there is a genuine nightmare scenario on the horizon. The Tories could win and the darkest days of social division and the complete lack of any genuine hope that epitomised the 1980s could return. Never forget that David Cameron used to be a speech writer for Thatcher and that he presides over a party that is Eurosceptic to the point of xenophobia, that still tends to adhere to the greed is good mantra and sees public services not as an integral and vital element of a civilised society but as an 'add-on' and an economic burden.
The mark of a civilised society is the capacity of the poorest members of that society to participate in the social, cultural and economic life of that society. We need properly funded schools, free university education, a health service free at the point of delivery, free and accessible social services and in-work and out-of-work benefits and state pensions fit for purpose if we are even to begin to call ourselves civilised. None of these are safe in the Tories hands - remember Thatcher. We must never let it happen again!!
Although the election was announced yesterday, everyone has known that May 6th would be the date for some time. The government could have gone to the country as late as June, but late spring has always tended to be a preferred date for UK elections, given the traditional May date for local elections. The silliness has already started with the various Party Leaders commencing their various election stunts.
Labour's election slogan is 'A Future Fair for All' and, it is to some extent backed up with policies, not least in terms of dealing with the deficit, that appear to have the ring of social justice, although tax rises beyond simply increasing National Insurance would be helpful. They have however outlined a longer timescale than the Tories to reduce the deficit, avoiding the obvious pitfalls of mass unemployment, reduced tax receipts and an increased benefits burden that would accompany any stark changes in economic activity levels.
The Tories have an election slogan 'Vote for Change', yet recently voted against the reform of the House of Lords and the removal of hereditary peerages. I guess that they mean a change of occupant in Number 10 but the retention of aristocratic privileges that pre-date the Magna Carta. Further they have reverted to classic Thatcherite 'solutions' in what little bits of policy that have inadvertently slipped out such as massive cuts to public spending that somehow don't impact on frontline services. Perhaps they mean an NHS without administrators, the abolition of school meals, volunteer firemen; it is hard to tell. But if anyone can square an economic circle then it must be 'Boy' George Osborne and 'Call me Dave' Cameron. After all, they claim to be a modern go-ahead Party whilst still remaining lukewarm on Europe, and decidedly vague on climate change. They also propose cutting public expenditure very sharply very quickly to reduce the deficit. Any person of even moderate intelligence can see that this is a complete non-starter. It would put tens of thousands of public sector employees out of work with a serious knock-on effect on the retail and other service industries as their spending power is reduced. This would lead to increased unemployment in the service sector, actually increasing exponentially the burden on the public purse by increasing the total of benefits payments. This brings us to their real policy to curb the deficit. They want to make poor people pay for it. One policy they have let slip is that are to reduce in-work and out-of-work benefits, hitting the very poorest in society at a time of great economic privation. Then again they are Tories!
The Liberal Democrats, bless them, so liked both the Labour and the Tory slogans that they combined them in a commendable spirit of inclusion. Their slogan is 'Change that Works for You - Building a Fairer Britain' and, to be fair their policies seem reasonable, but, with the exception of the hung parliament scenario, irrelevant as they will not be forming a government any time in this or any subsequent centuries.
It is easy to poke fun, but there is a genuine nightmare scenario on the horizon. The Tories could win and the darkest days of social division and the complete lack of any genuine hope that epitomised the 1980s could return. Never forget that David Cameron used to be a speech writer for Thatcher and that he presides over a party that is Eurosceptic to the point of xenophobia, that still tends to adhere to the greed is good mantra and sees public services not as an integral and vital element of a civilised society but as an 'add-on' and an economic burden.
The mark of a civilised society is the capacity of the poorest members of that society to participate in the social, cultural and economic life of that society. We need properly funded schools, free university education, a health service free at the point of delivery, free and accessible social services and in-work and out-of-work benefits and state pensions fit for purpose if we are even to begin to call ourselves civilised. None of these are safe in the Tories hands - remember Thatcher. We must never let it happen again!!
Friday, 20 November 2009
My Tea Towel
Nine out of ten readers whose cats expressed a preference have commented on the quality of what they (erroneously) think is my new black and white tea towel. One of my friends popped round the other day and caught me drying the dishes, and the second thing he said to me was, “Stewart, that tea towel is a reet bobby dazzler; I’ve nivver seen one like that afore”. (The first thing he said to me was, “Why ist tha drying dishes, ist tha a puff”.) One needs to note at this time that he is from Barnsley, and in terms of that fair town is seen as something of a new man. Not only does he rarely physically chastise his children but he also allows his wife to vote in local elections. He even admits to one time having partaken of a vegetarian meal, which he felt was alright, although following it he did need to take a couple of days off work because of “a bit o’ gut trouble”. But I digress somewhat. The tea towel is not new, but is to some extent novel. I feel now is the time to tell the full story of my excellent tea towel.
The story begins in 1973, predating the three day week and the winter of discontent, although where I worked on the railway there were a fair few discontented souls and despite turning up for five days in each week most only actually worked a one day week. The phrase “work is the curse of the drinking classes” could easily have been coined for the staff in West Offices in the 1970s. It all started with a trip to the local butchers. We were a bit strapped for cash so my mum sent me out to buy a sheep’s head. Now, in these days when less than choice cuts of meat are hard to come by and offal is either trendily expensive or simply unavailable, and BSE and scrapie have ruled out the sale for human consumption of nervous tissue, a sheep’s head is not even perceived of as food. How wrong that is. Anyway, I went to the butcher and asked him for a sheep’s head, to which the hilarious wag replied, “what do you want a sheep’s head for, your own head seems to fit you very well”. He was such a card. I patiently responded by stating that I was not Wurzel Gummidge and only wanted the sheep’s head for food and sustenance not as an alternative adornment to my neck. I then added “could you leave the eyes in as I want it to see me through the week”. He then proffered me a nice looking head complete with a full set of peepers, for which I paid him one shilling and then duly took home to my mum.
Upon receiving the sheep’s head my mum washed it and then put it in a big bowl and covered it in brine. (Now, as a relatively poor family we didn’t buy those fancy bottles of made up brine, but made our own just by adding table salt to cold water, and I remain convinced that it is just as good as supermarket brine.) She left the head to soak in the brine overnight and then she washed it again, put it in a big pan, covered it in cold water, added a stock cube and brought it to the boil, then simmered it for two hours, constantly topping up the water. She then removed the head from the pan and left it to cool. She added diced carrots, sliced onions and a handful of pearl barley to the remaining liquor and brought it back to the boil. She then removed the chaps (cheeks) from the sheep’s head, cut them into small pieces and added them to the pot. This was left to simmer and reduce and within another couple of hours we had a tasty pan of sheep’s head broth. Mum then removed the tongue from the sheep, peeled off the outer skin and placed the peeled tongue on a plate and added a weighted plate on top. By the following morning we had some delicious pressed tongue for sandwiches and salads. Finally, she cracked open the skull and removed the brain, which then went into the fridge to chill, and was used as a wonderful creamy paté or spread. (It may seem strange today, but my memories of sheep’s brain are that it is one of the very nicest things I have ever eaten.)
As all this was going on I was watching the telly. Not surprisingly, Bruce Forsyth was on reprising his act from the first ever TV broadcast in 1936. Although I am not his biggest fan it was nice to see him (to see him nice?). Then my mate Dave rang up on our new trimphone and asked if I had heard of the new competition on BBC2. They were offering a prize of a weekend in London and a meeting with PLO leader Yasser Arafat for the person who could best complete the phrase “What shall we do the National Front do dah do dah, what shall we do the National Front?????…..” Dave the brave (so named because he once went to Leeds by himself – although it later transpired that the epithet was somewhat undeserved as most of his family actually lived in Leeds) knew I had a more than passing interest in politics so thought I would be the man to give it a go. I pondered the phrase for several hours and discussed with my mum and dad and eventually came up with the answer. “What shall we do with the National Front do dah do dah, what shall we do with the National Front, make them go away” Amazingly I won, manly because the only other entrant was an illiterate lunatic from Cardiff who just sent in a picture of a racing car. When the man from the BBC rang me up I was quite excited, partly because of winning the competition, and partly because I loved the ring tone of the trimphone.
So, it was time to go to London. I then remembered the sheep’s head and asked my mum if I could have the eyes, so she got them out of the bin, washed them and gave them to me. “What you want to take these eyes from me for?” she sang; “because I have read that sheep’s eyes are a delicacy among Arabs and I think Mr Arafat is an Arab”, I replied. (I had read it in a book somewhere that was all about weird food like salami, olives, garlic and such stuff.) Anyway, I got on the train and went to London and met Mr Arafat at the BBC Television Studios, where he had just completed a recorded interview with Robin Day. I was shown into his dressing room and immediately offered him the sheep’s eyes as a gift of friendship. “You’ve read that bloody book, haven’t you, I am up to here with sodding sheep’s eyes, but thanks for the gesture, it beats that knobhead last week who brought me an entire casserole of pig’s eyes; what he was thinking beats me, and he was the Israeli Prime Minister for God’s sake. Look lets go the Savoy Grill and have a proper meal; I’m paying”. So we dined on Caesar Salad, Beouf en Croute and a nice bit of Blue Stilton from the cheesboard, washed down with a creditable yet unassuming Bordeaux Villages, and a couple of Crème de Menthes. We then got talking about vexed question of Israel and Palestine. I must admit he did seem to have a slightly one-sided take on the issues, but you know what it is like; when you are too close to something it is hard to see the wood for the trees. My main contribution was to posit the ‘two-state’ theory and suggested that it would probably begin to see the light in about forty years. He was unsure, but thanked me for my contribution and offered me a gift in appreciation of my efforts; he gave me his keffiyeh (his distinctive hat).
I bad him farewell and made my way back home with my wonderful prize. Sadly, as the years went by I lost the agal (headband) so the keffiyeh became reduced from a symbol of Palestinian nationalism to the role of a large yet distinctive tea towel, which upon marriage and subsequent children served me very well, drying a million dishes whilst all the time I was thinking of the day when Palestine would be liberated. Unfortunately as the years went by it become more and more worn out, until last year I had a fateful decision to make; do I throw it out or renovate it. Despite the cost I got a team of expert cloth renovators in to give it a complete retread, and once again it graces my kitchen and has started the process of drying its second million dishes. So my tea towel is not new, but it is novel, and will always hold a special place in my heart.
All of this is true. I know, as I made it all up myself.
The story begins in 1973, predating the three day week and the winter of discontent, although where I worked on the railway there were a fair few discontented souls and despite turning up for five days in each week most only actually worked a one day week. The phrase “work is the curse of the drinking classes” could easily have been coined for the staff in West Offices in the 1970s. It all started with a trip to the local butchers. We were a bit strapped for cash so my mum sent me out to buy a sheep’s head. Now, in these days when less than choice cuts of meat are hard to come by and offal is either trendily expensive or simply unavailable, and BSE and scrapie have ruled out the sale for human consumption of nervous tissue, a sheep’s head is not even perceived of as food. How wrong that is. Anyway, I went to the butcher and asked him for a sheep’s head, to which the hilarious wag replied, “what do you want a sheep’s head for, your own head seems to fit you very well”. He was such a card. I patiently responded by stating that I was not Wurzel Gummidge and only wanted the sheep’s head for food and sustenance not as an alternative adornment to my neck. I then added “could you leave the eyes in as I want it to see me through the week”. He then proffered me a nice looking head complete with a full set of peepers, for which I paid him one shilling and then duly took home to my mum.
Upon receiving the sheep’s head my mum washed it and then put it in a big bowl and covered it in brine. (Now, as a relatively poor family we didn’t buy those fancy bottles of made up brine, but made our own just by adding table salt to cold water, and I remain convinced that it is just as good as supermarket brine.) She left the head to soak in the brine overnight and then she washed it again, put it in a big pan, covered it in cold water, added a stock cube and brought it to the boil, then simmered it for two hours, constantly topping up the water. She then removed the head from the pan and left it to cool. She added diced carrots, sliced onions and a handful of pearl barley to the remaining liquor and brought it back to the boil. She then removed the chaps (cheeks) from the sheep’s head, cut them into small pieces and added them to the pot. This was left to simmer and reduce and within another couple of hours we had a tasty pan of sheep’s head broth. Mum then removed the tongue from the sheep, peeled off the outer skin and placed the peeled tongue on a plate and added a weighted plate on top. By the following morning we had some delicious pressed tongue for sandwiches and salads. Finally, she cracked open the skull and removed the brain, which then went into the fridge to chill, and was used as a wonderful creamy paté or spread. (It may seem strange today, but my memories of sheep’s brain are that it is one of the very nicest things I have ever eaten.)
As all this was going on I was watching the telly. Not surprisingly, Bruce Forsyth was on reprising his act from the first ever TV broadcast in 1936. Although I am not his biggest fan it was nice to see him (to see him nice?). Then my mate Dave rang up on our new trimphone and asked if I had heard of the new competition on BBC2. They were offering a prize of a weekend in London and a meeting with PLO leader Yasser Arafat for the person who could best complete the phrase “What shall we do the National Front do dah do dah, what shall we do the National Front?????…..” Dave the brave (so named because he once went to Leeds by himself – although it later transpired that the epithet was somewhat undeserved as most of his family actually lived in Leeds) knew I had a more than passing interest in politics so thought I would be the man to give it a go. I pondered the phrase for several hours and discussed with my mum and dad and eventually came up with the answer. “What shall we do with the National Front do dah do dah, what shall we do with the National Front, make them go away” Amazingly I won, manly because the only other entrant was an illiterate lunatic from Cardiff who just sent in a picture of a racing car. When the man from the BBC rang me up I was quite excited, partly because of winning the competition, and partly because I loved the ring tone of the trimphone.
So, it was time to go to London. I then remembered the sheep’s head and asked my mum if I could have the eyes, so she got them out of the bin, washed them and gave them to me. “What you want to take these eyes from me for?” she sang; “because I have read that sheep’s eyes are a delicacy among Arabs and I think Mr Arafat is an Arab”, I replied. (I had read it in a book somewhere that was all about weird food like salami, olives, garlic and such stuff.) Anyway, I got on the train and went to London and met Mr Arafat at the BBC Television Studios, where he had just completed a recorded interview with Robin Day. I was shown into his dressing room and immediately offered him the sheep’s eyes as a gift of friendship. “You’ve read that bloody book, haven’t you, I am up to here with sodding sheep’s eyes, but thanks for the gesture, it beats that knobhead last week who brought me an entire casserole of pig’s eyes; what he was thinking beats me, and he was the Israeli Prime Minister for God’s sake. Look lets go the Savoy Grill and have a proper meal; I’m paying”. So we dined on Caesar Salad, Beouf en Croute and a nice bit of Blue Stilton from the cheesboard, washed down with a creditable yet unassuming Bordeaux Villages, and a couple of Crème de Menthes. We then got talking about vexed question of Israel and Palestine. I must admit he did seem to have a slightly one-sided take on the issues, but you know what it is like; when you are too close to something it is hard to see the wood for the trees. My main contribution was to posit the ‘two-state’ theory and suggested that it would probably begin to see the light in about forty years. He was unsure, but thanked me for my contribution and offered me a gift in appreciation of my efforts; he gave me his keffiyeh (his distinctive hat).
I bad him farewell and made my way back home with my wonderful prize. Sadly, as the years went by I lost the agal (headband) so the keffiyeh became reduced from a symbol of Palestinian nationalism to the role of a large yet distinctive tea towel, which upon marriage and subsequent children served me very well, drying a million dishes whilst all the time I was thinking of the day when Palestine would be liberated. Unfortunately as the years went by it become more and more worn out, until last year I had a fateful decision to make; do I throw it out or renovate it. Despite the cost I got a team of expert cloth renovators in to give it a complete retread, and once again it graces my kitchen and has started the process of drying its second million dishes. So my tea towel is not new, but it is novel, and will always hold a special place in my heart.
All of this is true. I know, as I made it all up myself.
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
The European Election
It has been a strange week. The European Elections have come and gone with some very strange twists and turns. In the UK we voted on Thursday (as did the Netherlands) and had the counts on Sunday so that all the seats across Europe were counted together. Why then did we have to wait until Monday for the result from the Western Isles. Does it take four days to ship the ballot boxes over to the mainland?
Labour had a bad time of it, as part of a protracted attempt to fall on its communal sword. Some Tories began to gloat, not realising that in overall terms their own per capita support had also fallen. They showed an increase in support of 1% on a much lower turnout than last time, and failed to take the disillusioned Labour vote. Similarly for the Lib Dems; no real progress. People stayed at home in their droves, especially Labour voters.
This left the way open for others. On the positive side there was a consolidation of the Green vote, and that cannot be a bad thing. On the negative side there was an upsurge of support for UKIP, an oversized pressure group of xenophobes with half their recent leadership missing because they are in jail.
More worringly, was the opportunistic benefit drawn by the BNP on Labour voters apathy. The BNP effectively rallied the minority racist scum of Yorkshire and the North West to sneak in two of their candidates, including the execrable Nick Griffin, a vile little thug who would have joined Combat 18 but could not count that far without taking his shoes off.
I think it shows the importance of registering your vote even when you don't feel that strongly about something. The Little Englanders stopped ranting about straight bananas for a few minutes and registered their support for UKIP, whilst those who still refer to some of their fellow human beings as Yids, Coons, Pakis and Poofs, came out and gave their support to the BNP. These people do not represent us. The rest of us need to be ever vigilant and recognise the importance of exercising our democratic freedoms. We neither want to be an isolated little island off the west coast of Europe, nor do we want to be a thuggish monoculture of hate and intolerance. We are men, we are women, we are Christian, we are Hindu, we are Muslim, we are Buddhist, we are Jewish, we are atheist, we are straight, we are gay, we are black, we are white, we are British, we are European.
Labour had a bad time of it, as part of a protracted attempt to fall on its communal sword. Some Tories began to gloat, not realising that in overall terms their own per capita support had also fallen. They showed an increase in support of 1% on a much lower turnout than last time, and failed to take the disillusioned Labour vote. Similarly for the Lib Dems; no real progress. People stayed at home in their droves, especially Labour voters.
This left the way open for others. On the positive side there was a consolidation of the Green vote, and that cannot be a bad thing. On the negative side there was an upsurge of support for UKIP, an oversized pressure group of xenophobes with half their recent leadership missing because they are in jail.
More worringly, was the opportunistic benefit drawn by the BNP on Labour voters apathy. The BNP effectively rallied the minority racist scum of Yorkshire and the North West to sneak in two of their candidates, including the execrable Nick Griffin, a vile little thug who would have joined Combat 18 but could not count that far without taking his shoes off.
I think it shows the importance of registering your vote even when you don't feel that strongly about something. The Little Englanders stopped ranting about straight bananas for a few minutes and registered their support for UKIP, whilst those who still refer to some of their fellow human beings as Yids, Coons, Pakis and Poofs, came out and gave their support to the BNP. These people do not represent us. The rest of us need to be ever vigilant and recognise the importance of exercising our democratic freedoms. We neither want to be an isolated little island off the west coast of Europe, nor do we want to be a thuggish monoculture of hate and intolerance. We are men, we are women, we are Christian, we are Hindu, we are Muslim, we are Buddhist, we are Jewish, we are atheist, we are straight, we are gay, we are black, we are white, we are British, we are European.
Tuesday, 17 March 2009
A List of Things
The internet is festooned with lists. There are lists of people’s top fifty favourite songs, top ten favourite films, top advertisement slogans of all time, etc. etc. You may also find lists of people’s one hundred most hated TV programmes, ten worst chat up lines, and even lists such as ‘my twenty best pasta dishes’.
In order not to fall behind in this cut-throat world of lists I have decided to compile my own ‘list of things’ It is not a random list, although for all the use that lists are, it might as well be, but a loosely gathered, relaxed, having a quiet night in, sort of list; cataloguing my prejudices and preferences in all sorts of areas. The value of my list is exactly the same as that of all other lists. It is as valuable as the Oscars or the Nobel Prize or any other celebrity or highbrow list. It is as valuable as somebody else’s shopping list. In other words it is worthless, yet at the same time priceless.
Reading my list, agreeing or disagreeing with the entries on my list, perusing, considering or consuming my list will neither bring you love and romance, nor make you untold riches. It will not enhance your spirituality or develop your intellect. It may amuse you; it could annoy you. Neither is my concern, because it is my list, not your list. If you really want a list, and I can see no discernible reason why you would, then make your own list. It is all the rage and you know you can.
My list begins with the things I don’t like. In reverse order the ten things I like least are:
10. Internet Marketers and other associated snake-oil salesmen that promise everything and deliver nothing. They would be higher up my list, but for their one saving grace. They are consistent. They fleece the unwary every time.
9. Cars and their drivers. Some people need motor cars (automobiles to our colonial friends) for their work. A good example of such people would be taxi drivers and racing drivers. In fact they are the only examples. All other cars are nasty indulgences that pollute the planet and hold back the development of sensible integrated public transport policies. Worst of all car drivers are those Nigels and Jocastas who claim ‘green’ credentials because they recycle all their tin cans and glass bottles and even compost their own faeces, yet still take their kids to school in a Chelsea Tractor.
8. New Labour. There is a quaint old phrase that states ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, and an equally well known moral precept that states ‘Thou shalt not steal’ The ‘Granta Two’ violated both those by stealing a perfectly formed, unbroken, Labour Party from it rightful owners and then ‘fixing’ it.
7. Reality Television. First it is a complete misnomer. So-called reality television doesn’t reflect any kind of reality I have ever experienced. It generally seems to feature psychologically damaged half-wits doing and saying things that no one with even a tenuous grasp of reality would even consider. Look at Big Brother; could there be a more pointless thing to broadcast? Actually I have found one; read the next point.
6. Television Game Shows and similar ‘formats’. Who wants to be a Millionaire, Strictly Come Dancing, Deal or No Deal; the list is endless. They are complete and utter pap; disheartening and unentertaining. Awful!
5. TV chat shows. If you have ever seen Jerry, Oprah, Montel and their ilk go through their paces it is akin to a living death. The damaged and deranged people they have on and their superior attitude to them is truly sickening. The British clones are little better, saved only by their level of amateurishness.
4. Beetroot. This is surely the most horrible and evil vegetable in the world. It looks as if it ought to be nice. It is a rich shade of burgundy, and is shaped not unlike a swede, which is a more than acceptable thing to eat. But one taste and you want to vomit. It tastes like a turnip soaked in sweetened diesel oil. Disgusting!
3. The Tories. David Cameron has over the past two or three years tried to present himself as Tony Blair mark 2. Firstly, why anyone would model himself on a warmongering, bible-bashing, compulsive liar is beyond me, but each to their own. The problem is that the reality is actually much more sinister than that. Cameron’s New Tories are actually just Thatcher’s Old Tories in sharper suits. They brought Britain to her knees in the 1980s and given half a chance they would do it again. I thought about putting the Iron Tyrant herself on the list but as she is now so close to death why bother.
2. United States of America. The nation that brought us McDonalds, Coca-Cola, post world war two colonialism, the cold war, lynching parties, Charlton Heston, John Wayne, two George Bushes, the CIA, the destabilisation of Central America and the middle-east, and the credit crunch. What is there to like? Let us hope Obama can drag the US into respectability.
1. Text-messaging. I just can’t see the point. Phone someone or send an email. This may have something to do with my own inability to master the whole texting thing. After all I am an adult. My beef I suppose is really with mobile phones (cell phones to the colonials) that can take photos, surf the net, take movies. They are telephones for God’s sake. Has the world gone mad?
In order not to sound completely curmudgeonly, I also have some things that I like:
10. Scrambled Eggs. What could be nicer on a lazy Sunday morning than a nice plate of scrambled eggs on toast? Answer: A nice plate of scrambled eggs on toast accompanied by a nice strong cup of coffee.
9. The Open University. Jennie Lee’s dream of a ‘university of the air’ became a reality and has gone on to become the largest academic institution in the world. It is socialism in action; higher education for all. It is the ultimate ‘second chance’ institution, and I will forever remain both grateful and very proud to one time have been an OU student. Thank you for giving me my chance.
8. Amsterdam. It is twee, petit-bourgeois, and a ludicrously popular tourist trap. It also has a seedy red-light area, too many British drunks, plenty of dodgy characters wandering about trying to deal in hard drugs, and its own fair share of over-priced tourist shops. But it also has the Anne Frank House, the Homo Monument, a brilliant zoo, and an atmosphere of liberalism and tolerance that is refreshing and uplifting. And it is Dutch. And that is quite a thing to be!
7. Email. I sent my first email on an intranet in 1988 and have been a devotee ever since. As a form of (almost) instant communication it cannot be bettered. It has the advantages of instant messaging in that it is relatively immediate, combined with the advantages of traditional; letter writing in that you can compose your mail at your leisure without interruption from the would-be recipient. The best of both worlds.
6. Germany. Although it’s relatively recent history is something Germany must remain deeply ashamed about, there is far more to Germany than that. The nation of Goethe and Schiller, the brothers Grimm and Beethoven, of beautiful 16th and 17th Century inns, the Black Forest (with or without the torte), and the magnificent Rhine valley, Germany is a wonderful place. The best thing about Germany is the people, The Germans, despite their much publicised inner angst, are friendly, fun-loving and welcoming. A great place for a holiday
5. The internet. The internet is the hunting ground of scammers and spivs, porn merchants and bigots, but it is also a wonderful meeting place in cyberspace of multiple different communities. It links families across continents, it connects businesses, and It is the spiritual home of some of the most generous and honest people one could wish to have contact with; the open source community. Not competition, but cooperation. What a fantastic model for the rest of us to follow. Well done Sir Tim, you deserve a medal.
4. Leonard Cohen. He is the singer of my life. He somehow gets to the gist of things in a way no one else can. He is funny, melancholy, sad, open and brave; a true artist in a world of illusionists and hacks.
3. Karl Marx. Marx opened up our eyes to the truth of human existence. Whether he was the sort of chap you want to have round to dinner is debatable, but he clarified the reasons for the inequalities we suffer without recourse to bogus moralising and religious flimflam,
2. Michel Foucault. Simply the greatest philosopher, archivist, archaeologist of knowledge and power we have yet had. He laid the way for a more realistic and sophisticated analytics of the constant ebb and flow of power relations. He revealed the world as it truly is.
1. The Dutch Football team of 1974. This extraordinary collection of ultra-talented footballers captured the imagination of a generation in a way that no football team (or anything else for that matter) ever had before or ever will. Managed by the genius, Rinus Michels, they played ‘totaal voetbal’. Football played in a way never seen before, with skill, strength, intelligence an artistry that went beyond the bounds of a mere game. The team that lined against West Germany on that fateful day in 1974 was without a shadow of a doubt the finest football team the world will ever know: They were:
• Jan Jongbloed,
• Wim Suurbier,
• Wim Rijsbergen,
• Arie Haan, Ruud
• Krol,
• Wim Jansen,
• Johan Neeskens,
• Wim van Hanegam,
• Johnny Rep,
• Johan Cruyff, and,
• Rob Rensenbrink.
Other key members of the squad were Theo de Jong, the van de Kerkhof brothers, and the great Piet Keizer (AKA the ‘starter’); one of the key players in the great Ajax team of 1969-1973. My heart goes out to those of you who are too young to have witnessed this wonderful, wonderful team. Simply the best!!!
There you have it; my list. I could say that I hope you like it, but I don’t really care. Read it and comment if you wish.
In order not to fall behind in this cut-throat world of lists I have decided to compile my own ‘list of things’ It is not a random list, although for all the use that lists are, it might as well be, but a loosely gathered, relaxed, having a quiet night in, sort of list; cataloguing my prejudices and preferences in all sorts of areas. The value of my list is exactly the same as that of all other lists. It is as valuable as the Oscars or the Nobel Prize or any other celebrity or highbrow list. It is as valuable as somebody else’s shopping list. In other words it is worthless, yet at the same time priceless.
Reading my list, agreeing or disagreeing with the entries on my list, perusing, considering or consuming my list will neither bring you love and romance, nor make you untold riches. It will not enhance your spirituality or develop your intellect. It may amuse you; it could annoy you. Neither is my concern, because it is my list, not your list. If you really want a list, and I can see no discernible reason why you would, then make your own list. It is all the rage and you know you can.
My list begins with the things I don’t like. In reverse order the ten things I like least are:
10. Internet Marketers and other associated snake-oil salesmen that promise everything and deliver nothing. They would be higher up my list, but for their one saving grace. They are consistent. They fleece the unwary every time.
9. Cars and their drivers. Some people need motor cars (automobiles to our colonial friends) for their work. A good example of such people would be taxi drivers and racing drivers. In fact they are the only examples. All other cars are nasty indulgences that pollute the planet and hold back the development of sensible integrated public transport policies. Worst of all car drivers are those Nigels and Jocastas who claim ‘green’ credentials because they recycle all their tin cans and glass bottles and even compost their own faeces, yet still take their kids to school in a Chelsea Tractor.
8. New Labour. There is a quaint old phrase that states ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’, and an equally well known moral precept that states ‘Thou shalt not steal’ The ‘Granta Two’ violated both those by stealing a perfectly formed, unbroken, Labour Party from it rightful owners and then ‘fixing’ it.
7. Reality Television. First it is a complete misnomer. So-called reality television doesn’t reflect any kind of reality I have ever experienced. It generally seems to feature psychologically damaged half-wits doing and saying things that no one with even a tenuous grasp of reality would even consider. Look at Big Brother; could there be a more pointless thing to broadcast? Actually I have found one; read the next point.
6. Television Game Shows and similar ‘formats’. Who wants to be a Millionaire, Strictly Come Dancing, Deal or No Deal; the list is endless. They are complete and utter pap; disheartening and unentertaining. Awful!
5. TV chat shows. If you have ever seen Jerry, Oprah, Montel and their ilk go through their paces it is akin to a living death. The damaged and deranged people they have on and their superior attitude to them is truly sickening. The British clones are little better, saved only by their level of amateurishness.
4. Beetroot. This is surely the most horrible and evil vegetable in the world. It looks as if it ought to be nice. It is a rich shade of burgundy, and is shaped not unlike a swede, which is a more than acceptable thing to eat. But one taste and you want to vomit. It tastes like a turnip soaked in sweetened diesel oil. Disgusting!
3. The Tories. David Cameron has over the past two or three years tried to present himself as Tony Blair mark 2. Firstly, why anyone would model himself on a warmongering, bible-bashing, compulsive liar is beyond me, but each to their own. The problem is that the reality is actually much more sinister than that. Cameron’s New Tories are actually just Thatcher’s Old Tories in sharper suits. They brought Britain to her knees in the 1980s and given half a chance they would do it again. I thought about putting the Iron Tyrant herself on the list but as she is now so close to death why bother.
2. United States of America. The nation that brought us McDonalds, Coca-Cola, post world war two colonialism, the cold war, lynching parties, Charlton Heston, John Wayne, two George Bushes, the CIA, the destabilisation of Central America and the middle-east, and the credit crunch. What is there to like? Let us hope Obama can drag the US into respectability.
1. Text-messaging. I just can’t see the point. Phone someone or send an email. This may have something to do with my own inability to master the whole texting thing. After all I am an adult. My beef I suppose is really with mobile phones (cell phones to the colonials) that can take photos, surf the net, take movies. They are telephones for God’s sake. Has the world gone mad?
In order not to sound completely curmudgeonly, I also have some things that I like:
10. Scrambled Eggs. What could be nicer on a lazy Sunday morning than a nice plate of scrambled eggs on toast? Answer: A nice plate of scrambled eggs on toast accompanied by a nice strong cup of coffee.
9. The Open University. Jennie Lee’s dream of a ‘university of the air’ became a reality and has gone on to become the largest academic institution in the world. It is socialism in action; higher education for all. It is the ultimate ‘second chance’ institution, and I will forever remain both grateful and very proud to one time have been an OU student. Thank you for giving me my chance.
8. Amsterdam. It is twee, petit-bourgeois, and a ludicrously popular tourist trap. It also has a seedy red-light area, too many British drunks, plenty of dodgy characters wandering about trying to deal in hard drugs, and its own fair share of over-priced tourist shops. But it also has the Anne Frank House, the Homo Monument, a brilliant zoo, and an atmosphere of liberalism and tolerance that is refreshing and uplifting. And it is Dutch. And that is quite a thing to be!
7. Email. I sent my first email on an intranet in 1988 and have been a devotee ever since. As a form of (almost) instant communication it cannot be bettered. It has the advantages of instant messaging in that it is relatively immediate, combined with the advantages of traditional; letter writing in that you can compose your mail at your leisure without interruption from the would-be recipient. The best of both worlds.
6. Germany. Although it’s relatively recent history is something Germany must remain deeply ashamed about, there is far more to Germany than that. The nation of Goethe and Schiller, the brothers Grimm and Beethoven, of beautiful 16th and 17th Century inns, the Black Forest (with or without the torte), and the magnificent Rhine valley, Germany is a wonderful place. The best thing about Germany is the people, The Germans, despite their much publicised inner angst, are friendly, fun-loving and welcoming. A great place for a holiday
5. The internet. The internet is the hunting ground of scammers and spivs, porn merchants and bigots, but it is also a wonderful meeting place in cyberspace of multiple different communities. It links families across continents, it connects businesses, and It is the spiritual home of some of the most generous and honest people one could wish to have contact with; the open source community. Not competition, but cooperation. What a fantastic model for the rest of us to follow. Well done Sir Tim, you deserve a medal.
4. Leonard Cohen. He is the singer of my life. He somehow gets to the gist of things in a way no one else can. He is funny, melancholy, sad, open and brave; a true artist in a world of illusionists and hacks.
3. Karl Marx. Marx opened up our eyes to the truth of human existence. Whether he was the sort of chap you want to have round to dinner is debatable, but he clarified the reasons for the inequalities we suffer without recourse to bogus moralising and religious flimflam,
2. Michel Foucault. Simply the greatest philosopher, archivist, archaeologist of knowledge and power we have yet had. He laid the way for a more realistic and sophisticated analytics of the constant ebb and flow of power relations. He revealed the world as it truly is.
1. The Dutch Football team of 1974. This extraordinary collection of ultra-talented footballers captured the imagination of a generation in a way that no football team (or anything else for that matter) ever had before or ever will. Managed by the genius, Rinus Michels, they played ‘totaal voetbal’. Football played in a way never seen before, with skill, strength, intelligence an artistry that went beyond the bounds of a mere game. The team that lined against West Germany on that fateful day in 1974 was without a shadow of a doubt the finest football team the world will ever know: They were:
• Jan Jongbloed,
• Wim Suurbier,
• Wim Rijsbergen,
• Arie Haan, Ruud
• Krol,
• Wim Jansen,
• Johan Neeskens,
• Wim van Hanegam,
• Johnny Rep,
• Johan Cruyff, and,
• Rob Rensenbrink.
Other key members of the squad were Theo de Jong, the van de Kerkhof brothers, and the great Piet Keizer (AKA the ‘starter’); one of the key players in the great Ajax team of 1969-1973. My heart goes out to those of you who are too young to have witnessed this wonderful, wonderful team. Simply the best!!!
There you have it; my list. I could say that I hope you like it, but I don’t really care. Read it and comment if you wish.
Sunday, 8 March 2009
Books that changed my life
There are many lists produced by people of the ten best films, hundred best songs, twenty best books etc. and these lists can be very engaging and interesting. However, even the compilers of these lists would generally admit that on a different day they would compile a different list.
My list is a little different. It is a short list of books I have read that have changed my world view and helped to shape the person I am and my hopes for the world and its future. None of these books is my current ‘flavour of the month’; indeed I first read all of them at least ten years ago.
The first life-changing book I ever read was the authorised version of The Bible (not cover to cover but in an ordered fashion at Bible classes). What I took from The Bible was not the distorted message that is the watchword of many so called fundamentalists, but the humanity and sheer goodness that comes from the Sermon on the Mount, the concept of the glory of sacrifice, and the central tenet of The New Testament, to love thy neighbour, when all men are my neighbours. As a teenager the profound effect of The New Testament caused me to ‘get religion’ and I became a Methodist Lay Preacher for a short while. However, as time went on my scepticism grew as I observed so many pious and religious people who clearly defined their neighbours in a much more circumscribed manner. This led me to increasing secularism, but the concept of worldwide brotherly love never left me.
The second of these life-changing books I read was Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Robert Tressell was actually Robert Noonan, an Irish housepainter, who arrived in Hastings via South Africa, and wrote a thinly veiled story of the lives of himself, his workmates and their families in the fictional town of Mugsborough. The book revolves around the central character of Frank Owen, a housepainter who believes the capitalist system is the cause of all the poverty and degradation of himself and his workmates. The book is a brilliant analysis of the hypocrisy of religion and the contradictions of capitalism, written in a style that is easy to understand and exceptionally moving. It advocates a socialist society in which work is performed to satisfy the needs of all rather than to generate profit for a few. Although he completed the manuscript in 1910, the book wasn’t published until 1914, by which time Noonan had died. It is a truly remarkable book, written by a non-professional writer that remains in print to this day. It has been said by senior Labour politicians of the 1970s as diverse as Denis Healy and Tony Benn, that The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, available to servicemen in abridged form, was the book that won the 1945 General Election, and thus brought into being the greatest government that the United Kingdom has ever known.
It is difficult to put a measure on the influence and power of this book. In the end it shows not only hope but anticipation of the better days to come:
The gloomy shadows enshrouding the streets, concealing for the time their grey and mournful air of poverty and hidden suffering, and the black masses of cloud gathering so menacingly in the tempestuous sky, seemed typical of the Nemesis which was overtaking the Capitalist System. That atrocious system which, having attained to the fullest measure of detestable injustice and cruelty, was now fast crumbling into ruin, inevitably doomed to be overwhelmed because it was all so wicked and abominable, inevitably doomed to sink under the blight and curse of senseless and unprofitable selfishness out of existence for ever, its memory universally execrated and abhorred.
But from these ruins was surely growing the glorious fabric of the Co-operative Commonwealth. Mankind, awaking from the long night of bondage and mourning and arising from the dust wherein they had lain prone so long, were at last looking upward to the light that was riving asunder and dissolving the dark clouds which had so long concealed from them the face of heaven. The light that will shine upon the world wide Fatherland and illumine the gilded domes and glittering pinnacles of the beautiful cities of the future, where men shall dwell together in true brotherhood and goodwill and joy. The Golden Light that will be diffused throughout all the happy world from the rays of the risen sun of Socialism. (Tressell, R. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists)
Anyone who cannot be moved by such hope and a burning desire to awaken from our “long night of bondage”, must be a very odd person indeed.
At this point in my life, my early twenties I was active in Labour Politics and had a clear view that the Co-operative Commonwealth was the world I wanted to live in. I knew I was a socialist and that capitalism was an abominable evil, but I lacked any robust skills of analysing and fully understanding capitalism. In my mid thirties I was lucky enough to get a place at university and at this point two more books came into my life. These were Karl Marx’s The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, and The German Ideology, also by Marx. These early Marxian works; one a collection of assorted notes, the other a philosophical treatise, made several things clear to me. Firstly, and most importantly, everything in our capitalist world is essentially upside down. Most importantly they make clear that God didn’t create Man; Man created God, and that capital is stored up labour and that any profit made by the capitalist beyond what is paid in wages is the theft of that stored up labour from the worker. Suddenly, things are beginning to become clear to me, and I am beginning to understand why there are different classes, and why I am destined to be forever poor: I am routinely being robbed and simultaneously being lied to.
University also opened my eyes to the fact that not only was I oppressed and exploited, but as a white European man I was also an exploiter. Yet more books changed my view of the world. The first of these was Robert Miles’ Racism, which laid bare the oppressive nature of Eurocentricism and the routine positing of the Black or the Jew as the other. This was particularly challenging to me as someone proud of his home town to realise that it was the first place of the first recorded instance of racial cleansing. I am from York and on the night of 16th March 1190, the feast of Shabbat ha-Gadol, the small Jewish community of 150 in York took refuge in Clifford’s Tower, to take refuge from the rampaging mob outside. Rather than face the mob, many took their own lives, others died in the flames they themselves had lit for warmth and light, and the rest eventually surrendered to the mob. All of those who surrendered were massacred. Miles takes issue with those who take sophistry too far in trying to determine how one should analyse racism, stating that it is tantamount to “fiddling whilst the gas ovens burn”.
This recognition that as a White European I was an oppressor was quickly followed by another book that showed me that as a man I was also an oppressor. Close to Home by Christine Delphy is an analysis of the patriarchal relations within the household, demonstrating that the household is an arena for the organisation of labour, in which the means of production are owned by the man and the labour of the woman is expropriated.
At this point I am in my mid-thirties and have begun to get a clear grasp of the trajectories of inequality in this world, but still have problems wondering why others can’t see it. At this point I encounter a number of books that one would best describe as social psychology. Many speak volumes in explaining why people are as they are. Erving Goffman (Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Asylums etc.) even explains why people appear different to different audiences. However the social psychological writings that impact on me most are the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud. I still believe that much of Freud’s theorising is based on paper-thin evidence and amounts to little, but he does make a very powerful argument for the internalisation of cultural norms. He shows us that our psyche is an internalisation of our world; thus middle-class families beget middle –class children both in terms of status and in terms of outlook. So I now know why so many apparently intelligent people cannot see what is so plain and obvious.
At this point I have more knowledge but I still have no idea how the Co-operative Commonwealth can be brought into being. Although Marx tells me it will, he does not say how. Everything then falls into disarray. I read Michel Foucault. In The History of Sexuality Volume 1 and in Discipline and Punish, Foucault not only shows the relationship between power and knowledge, but also theorises power in what seems for me a completely novel way. For Foucault, power is not a ‘given’, unchanging entity to be won or lost, but a constant ebb and flow of knowledge and social interactions. He also shows how power can be exercised in absentia through his brilliant analysis of panopticism. Reading Foucault is one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. I suddenly really see the world as it is. This, however, would not have been the case without the books that had gone before. I now am more convinced than ever that the Co-operative Commonwealth will come to pass, that the world will become a greener and more loving place, but it won’t come through a great revolution as in the meta-narratives of Marxism, but through constant vigilance and innumerable small victories, as we, slowly but surely, change the world. At last I know. We can make a difference.
So there you have it; a short, and rather poorly written, essay on the books that have changed my life.
My list is a little different. It is a short list of books I have read that have changed my world view and helped to shape the person I am and my hopes for the world and its future. None of these books is my current ‘flavour of the month’; indeed I first read all of them at least ten years ago.
The first life-changing book I ever read was the authorised version of The Bible (not cover to cover but in an ordered fashion at Bible classes). What I took from The Bible was not the distorted message that is the watchword of many so called fundamentalists, but the humanity and sheer goodness that comes from the Sermon on the Mount, the concept of the glory of sacrifice, and the central tenet of The New Testament, to love thy neighbour, when all men are my neighbours. As a teenager the profound effect of The New Testament caused me to ‘get religion’ and I became a Methodist Lay Preacher for a short while. However, as time went on my scepticism grew as I observed so many pious and religious people who clearly defined their neighbours in a much more circumscribed manner. This led me to increasing secularism, but the concept of worldwide brotherly love never left me.
The second of these life-changing books I read was Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists. Robert Tressell was actually Robert Noonan, an Irish housepainter, who arrived in Hastings via South Africa, and wrote a thinly veiled story of the lives of himself, his workmates and their families in the fictional town of Mugsborough. The book revolves around the central character of Frank Owen, a housepainter who believes the capitalist system is the cause of all the poverty and degradation of himself and his workmates. The book is a brilliant analysis of the hypocrisy of religion and the contradictions of capitalism, written in a style that is easy to understand and exceptionally moving. It advocates a socialist society in which work is performed to satisfy the needs of all rather than to generate profit for a few. Although he completed the manuscript in 1910, the book wasn’t published until 1914, by which time Noonan had died. It is a truly remarkable book, written by a non-professional writer that remains in print to this day. It has been said by senior Labour politicians of the 1970s as diverse as Denis Healy and Tony Benn, that The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, available to servicemen in abridged form, was the book that won the 1945 General Election, and thus brought into being the greatest government that the United Kingdom has ever known.
It is difficult to put a measure on the influence and power of this book. In the end it shows not only hope but anticipation of the better days to come:
The gloomy shadows enshrouding the streets, concealing for the time their grey and mournful air of poverty and hidden suffering, and the black masses of cloud gathering so menacingly in the tempestuous sky, seemed typical of the Nemesis which was overtaking the Capitalist System. That atrocious system which, having attained to the fullest measure of detestable injustice and cruelty, was now fast crumbling into ruin, inevitably doomed to be overwhelmed because it was all so wicked and abominable, inevitably doomed to sink under the blight and curse of senseless and unprofitable selfishness out of existence for ever, its memory universally execrated and abhorred.
But from these ruins was surely growing the glorious fabric of the Co-operative Commonwealth. Mankind, awaking from the long night of bondage and mourning and arising from the dust wherein they had lain prone so long, were at last looking upward to the light that was riving asunder and dissolving the dark clouds which had so long concealed from them the face of heaven. The light that will shine upon the world wide Fatherland and illumine the gilded domes and glittering pinnacles of the beautiful cities of the future, where men shall dwell together in true brotherhood and goodwill and joy. The Golden Light that will be diffused throughout all the happy world from the rays of the risen sun of Socialism. (Tressell, R. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists)
Anyone who cannot be moved by such hope and a burning desire to awaken from our “long night of bondage”, must be a very odd person indeed.
At this point in my life, my early twenties I was active in Labour Politics and had a clear view that the Co-operative Commonwealth was the world I wanted to live in. I knew I was a socialist and that capitalism was an abominable evil, but I lacked any robust skills of analysing and fully understanding capitalism. In my mid thirties I was lucky enough to get a place at university and at this point two more books came into my life. These were Karl Marx’s The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, and The German Ideology, also by Marx. These early Marxian works; one a collection of assorted notes, the other a philosophical treatise, made several things clear to me. Firstly, and most importantly, everything in our capitalist world is essentially upside down. Most importantly they make clear that God didn’t create Man; Man created God, and that capital is stored up labour and that any profit made by the capitalist beyond what is paid in wages is the theft of that stored up labour from the worker. Suddenly, things are beginning to become clear to me, and I am beginning to understand why there are different classes, and why I am destined to be forever poor: I am routinely being robbed and simultaneously being lied to.
University also opened my eyes to the fact that not only was I oppressed and exploited, but as a white European man I was also an exploiter. Yet more books changed my view of the world. The first of these was Robert Miles’ Racism, which laid bare the oppressive nature of Eurocentricism and the routine positing of the Black or the Jew as the other. This was particularly challenging to me as someone proud of his home town to realise that it was the first place of the first recorded instance of racial cleansing. I am from York and on the night of 16th March 1190, the feast of Shabbat ha-Gadol, the small Jewish community of 150 in York took refuge in Clifford’s Tower, to take refuge from the rampaging mob outside. Rather than face the mob, many took their own lives, others died in the flames they themselves had lit for warmth and light, and the rest eventually surrendered to the mob. All of those who surrendered were massacred. Miles takes issue with those who take sophistry too far in trying to determine how one should analyse racism, stating that it is tantamount to “fiddling whilst the gas ovens burn”.
This recognition that as a White European I was an oppressor was quickly followed by another book that showed me that as a man I was also an oppressor. Close to Home by Christine Delphy is an analysis of the patriarchal relations within the household, demonstrating that the household is an arena for the organisation of labour, in which the means of production are owned by the man and the labour of the woman is expropriated.
At this point I am in my mid-thirties and have begun to get a clear grasp of the trajectories of inequality in this world, but still have problems wondering why others can’t see it. At this point I encounter a number of books that one would best describe as social psychology. Many speak volumes in explaining why people are as they are. Erving Goffman (Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Asylums etc.) even explains why people appear different to different audiences. However the social psychological writings that impact on me most are the Collected Works of Sigmund Freud. I still believe that much of Freud’s theorising is based on paper-thin evidence and amounts to little, but he does make a very powerful argument for the internalisation of cultural norms. He shows us that our psyche is an internalisation of our world; thus middle-class families beget middle –class children both in terms of status and in terms of outlook. So I now know why so many apparently intelligent people cannot see what is so plain and obvious.
At this point I have more knowledge but I still have no idea how the Co-operative Commonwealth can be brought into being. Although Marx tells me it will, he does not say how. Everything then falls into disarray. I read Michel Foucault. In The History of Sexuality Volume 1 and in Discipline and Punish, Foucault not only shows the relationship between power and knowledge, but also theorises power in what seems for me a completely novel way. For Foucault, power is not a ‘given’, unchanging entity to be won or lost, but a constant ebb and flow of knowledge and social interactions. He also shows how power can be exercised in absentia through his brilliant analysis of panopticism. Reading Foucault is one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. I suddenly really see the world as it is. This, however, would not have been the case without the books that had gone before. I now am more convinced than ever that the Co-operative Commonwealth will come to pass, that the world will become a greener and more loving place, but it won’t come through a great revolution as in the meta-narratives of Marxism, but through constant vigilance and innumerable small victories, as we, slowly but surely, change the world. At last I know. We can make a difference.
So there you have it; a short, and rather poorly written, essay on the books that have changed my life.
Friday, 6 February 2009
Web building guides
I have just written a simple guide to producing a standards compliant, accessible static web page using XHTML and CSS, composed in Notepad.
See http://www.stewartkirkresearch.co.uk/PDF/Buildingabasicweb.pdf
you may also find interesting a short guide to making your own colour palette for DTP or web design at http://www.stewartkirkresearch.co.uk/PDF/colourpalette.pdf
These guides are not meant to be definitive, but to give people an idea of what can be done easily and without the use of expensive software.
See http://www.stewartkirkresearch.co.uk/PDF/Buildingabasicweb.pdf
you may also find interesting a short guide to making your own colour palette for DTP or web design at http://www.stewartkirkresearch.co.uk/PDF/colourpalette.pdf
These guides are not meant to be definitive, but to give people an idea of what can be done easily and without the use of expensive software.
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