Hemorrhage

Well one did think it would all descend into farce. the funding issue slips into ridiculous mode when a man who knew someone who was someone's brother s accused of illegally giving £3000 or so . Raising that deep political question so what?

 Or better if this is illegal then the la is so badly drafted that normality is now illegal.

 Or maybe it simply raises the suspicion that given the BBC's funding is under review at the moment, the reporters are merely returning fire by running with any stories they can to put pressure back on the government...

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Loony Wars

Perhaps i have said this before?

No matter it cannot be said to  often. It is one of the effects of 24 hour headline hunting that we need to create conflicts which are easy and cheap to report. The easiest and cheapest of such conflicts are at home. All the more so when there is o real blood on the carpet. Elections which might be (in another light) positive in themselves (there is something rather wonderful about the Democrats either having a women or  black candidate), are turned in to an all our (if virtual) war.

 Division and are, you see,  so much easier to report than anything else...

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Classic mistakes for our times: :

Lesson 1: 

 I suppose it is comedy really - or a brief lesson in what not to do. 

Do not, when in government pass fiendishly difficult anti-corruption laws.

 All the more so never do it when the corruption that has been found was either minor or merely alleged.

 One will find if one does the laws which were to police a fantasy of corruption (a fantasy which is of course so useful to opposition), become a nightmare when passed.

 On the one hand  will be tied in pointless red tape: A situation which is all the more pointless as other parties with better layers, might mange to avoid the laws anyway...

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scars one way or other.

Problem is adulthood hurts - or at east it should do!

 I mean perhaps the mean falling out of rhyme and reason in classroom is tied to the collaspe in childhood as a state, no one (well under eight or so) is a child any more. We all scramble off as soon as possible into teenagehood, and once we are there we never seem to leave it!

 Trouble of course is that teenagehood descends on those who are not really able to 'cope' with its complexity.

Trouble is tennagehood remains to blight the life of those who should really know better, who should have move on.

Trouble is the drink industry are making a killing from all of this.

 Trouble perhaps is that all the old initiation rights for adulthood (voting, drinking, driving etc) have disappeared, leaving children to invent their own (getting drunk, and cutting themselves up).

Perhaps then we need to invent them again!

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Well what is the point of it then?

A strange admission on the part of the stock market

 they claimed this week that markets were able to cope very well with success or with failure,but hated doubt and uncertainty. But the question needs to be immediately asked was not their very purpose to mange such uncertainties? Any idiot can design an economy if everything its certain - it was the point of the market to cope with uncertanity - and if they are now claiming they cannot do it - perhaps we should start to look for another system! 

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The deep problem with Liberalism

Well  Marx said as much

 He always thought liberalism was hot air. A system of platitudes and nonsense, devoid of content or meaning. A nice set of after dinner speeches and easy attitudes. The lastestt survey of liberal values reveals this fact starkly. We might all be now professing liberal values (well like religion that is cheap), and yet when push  comes to shove behave the same as we always did (men do not d the housework, and we all use cars).

 Moreover we all when push comes to shove and w are faced with poverty and hoplessness ( the liberal values are very neatly pushed aside, and the old horrors of intolerance are once again to the fore.

 What price liberalism then?

 Some poor fluffy bunny might at this point say at least we are talking right. To which the cynical Marx would add that they 'talked right'  about poverty for almost all of human history : There has been therefore incessant talk about helping the poor, and the folly of wealth : But that was all we do. And when the society actually motivated itself to act, through the miasma of religion or imperalism, it has seldom been in the interest of a collective good (think crusades or empire here - but also note the creation of the drains).

 As ever then we remain fill of hot air and easy chat, but seldom want to take the consequences of these fine words is the hurt us in anyway at all: this is of course the deep secret of the strength of the Tory party...

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Just Stop it!

It is an unholy alliance, when the press, the law, and 'events' come together to make a life like a soap opera. I mean here the Media circus, sorry 'inquest' about the death of Diana. Personally, while she was alive  I had no liking for her, but after death I have found my sympathize shift, as every jumped up would be B movie or soap opera star has jumped onto the reality (or tragedy) TV what has become here life in death.

 In my more vicious moments I want to start removing tongues and hands; when I feel more sorted I merely want us to accept that this 'inquest' is low drama, and not a court of law at all (and look shame faced about it). 

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Pass the popcorn!

It is one of the strange features of elections, particularly other peoples elections, that they bring out the 'entertainment side' of democracy well (at least to junkies like me) . We watch them as if they were sporting competitions or soap operas. We have our 'runners and riders' and have of favorites,  which we are attached to, for really no very good reason at all. We merely feel we ought to show preference. This is all good fun of course when the election is not your own (and so you can do nothing other than this), trouble comes when this runner and riders approach becomes the only way to think about democracy, we really ought to be about something other than passing the popcorn....

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Saints bones.

Is it just me - or has the current 'dash for thatcherism' (or its dismembered relics) become rather like on of those medieval struggles to collect the bones of a saint.
St Margret might be dead, but the political world is full of her agents (those who 'masterminded' this or that election or scheme), which can be adopted as a talisman, in some hope the glamour will wear off on them. Liberal get the mastermind of her 987 election campaign, the Labour part the saachi and saachi account, the Tories charles Saachi himself...
to those of us who remember those days, and the shere incompency, of the thatcher government (and the opposition which opposed it), all this is almost beyond parody. Or perhaps it is the stuff of the Decameron itself, where faith becomes enough to transform the vilest of sinners into a saint.
Which is a great story, and a fun way to run a religion, and yet starts to look a little threadbare when one considers how one should run a country...

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Here we go round again

It is surely one of the oldest rules in the game:When you want to drum up support for your policies hit the poor, no mater the injustice involved. The new 'policies' of those cary shary and quite frankly scary Tories are a classic case.

 Problem with such policies are fourfold Firstly,on the admin level they do not work (and are always more expensive in the end): Which is usually why they have never been tired.

Secondly such policies are caught up in the fact they very namely of their victims, that is the poorest and most embittered elements of society, are prepared ultimately to outflank any alleged policy. that is the bottom line is that no government can let them starve (and they are paid so little that starvation is always rather a near option.)

Thirdly, of the group of people contain the most unemployable elements in society. i tis pointless getting forcing them to do anything, as no one will want them. They are less unemployed, and more unemployable.

Finally the group are a very textures mass, full not of the 'lazy' and but also traumatizied (is varying ways), and so any policy is likely to create so much injustice that it is hardly worth the political consequence.

 

Moreover such policies fail because the numbers involved are very small beer (64000 long term unemployed @ 3000( or so) works out at 210 million pounds a year; when Mp's salaries come in at over 39 million a year, and the NHS spends billions.

Really hitting the poor is therefore at once costly, unjust, and not worth the savings, which is why beyond the idiotic postering of the scary shary tories and New Blither, it never is done. This is of course rather a pity, as it certainly is the case that within the miserable mass of poverty which haunts this country there are many sad stories, and many people awaiting so kid of root out. Trouble is as long as the policy is framed in the langugae of the Dail Hate, how to reach these problem remains not just impossible, but also unthinkable.

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Oh No - not a plague of diplomats

One suspects that diplomas are rather like locust or journalists, they turn up in hordes when least wanted. A mere plague of diplomats is of course rather unlikely to solve the 'middle east' problem, unless that is we are prepared actually change our policies (which was never apparently on the cards). I suspect that the most likely thing that this unknown horde is likely to achieve is the selling of more arms to more dodgy regimes, rather than peace. But then perhaps this is the point (well if there is any point beyond Milband thinking it was high time he had his face in the paper - which have been too full of Clegg and Cameron...)


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Just knock there heads together

It goes without saying I suppose that politics and reality Tv are echos of each other. Politics was no doubt the model from which reality TV sprang. That is, it is do doubt reality TV is the 'abstraction' of modern politics, where personal popularity, and worrying about the voters, has replaced (or been obliged to replace) any debate about serious issues. Initially perhaps this was fine and dandy. In a sense reality TV played here the role of the classic fool. It abstracted to the point of idiocy tendencies which where at first merely implicit within the democratic system. And yet problem is of course  the fool has very much taken over the palace, and politics  now appears to have become a (bad) reality TV show. 

Moreover politicians have added a new (and rather vapid) twist on the story. It is of course one of the  facets of reality TV that it clones itself. Big Bottom gave way to small Bottom or whatever.

Politics has run with this idea, but developed it in regard to contestants rather than shows. , Blair (the perfect non-real, reality politician) has given way to the clone of Blair (Cameron) and now the clone of the clone of blair (Clegg). Everyone wants a bit o the 'reality' action. Problem of course is that any like reality has been lost in the process.

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Bang slam...

I suppose it is the real millenium Bug we all appear to have caught - I mean the new year thing. Yet another chance to support the drink industry, and indulge in pure fantasy (which is not necessarily bad in itself). But what really has me reaching for the New-Scruge-Sick bucket is the virality game that large cities, and the media,  are clearly involved in, in their celebrations of the new year. Each large city clearly wants to claim is 'festivities' were the biggest and the best and hence tell everyone how much they cost, and how many watched - as if anyone who was not there was interested!  Which is not only boring for the rest of us, but risks plunging the entire new year thing into one of those festivals of excess, where status is accorded to those who waisted the most money (trouble with this is of course there are rather many ways of waisting money - and how can one tell how good 6 million pounds worth of fireworks should be?).

 But hey- I suppose daft rivalries such as this fill blank news days!...

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