Tuesday 20 May 2008

New Labour legacy

It is a real legacy (if not a really noble one). New labour have found the 'Poor'. I mean for years and years the Poor were simply to be oppressed and ignored (by conservative and then Labor). Now they are yet another political (as so meaningless) term to be bandied about (rather than to be wooed). Cameron makes cynical political capital claiming to talk for the poor (Clegg does the same). the claim is nonsense (look at Tory policy to see that, well as much as they have them). But that is not the point. the point is that New Labour have defined this category as something which matters, a word not to be lost (well for the next few years at least).
a legacy of sort I suppose!
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Cut it out

Aspiration to tax cut?
a code for let us make political capital talking about hopes we never mean to achieve (and are not really desirable anyway), but which will excite greed in people now, and make them more likely to vote for us.
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Where to Begin

If is he problem with biology that is has no respect for morality. It is the problem of morality that it has no ability to define itself beyond the opinion poll or artificially constructed consensus, that is beyond politics. Politics therefore starts to see into the world of chemicals, cells, and unborn things. only problem is that to define what it is doing their it needs not moral criteria but religious ones. At which point everything become utterly problematic, as we never have been able to define an acceptable axis in which to have a politics of god...
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Wednesday 14 May 2008

Brief notes of media debating styles.

1). Splicing: the rules for splicing are simple enough.
a) wait until one political opponents slip up big time. Warning you will need to wait to the critical momement when the media frenzy help to itself has reached fever pitch. Hint as a rule of thumb if the story does not run without your help in the first place, never attempt t splice it. Many a good splice is ruined by jumping onto the bandwagon too early. You Will need large complex stories to achieve splicing bliss.
b)  the look for other sequence of event to claim is like this story. There is a real art to this move. One needs o choose these event carefully. one needs a degree of disgruntlement with these over event, and yet not too much. The disgruntlement will mean that your plublic will want to dislike the policy, and your aim is to allow that distain to be expressed 
c) one then produces speeches attempting to link the to stories. here one must simply assume they are linked, describe in the same way (and not attempt any reasoned argument).Tthe aim is to woo people into expressing their loathing for one though there distain for the other. There need not be a direct link therefore, merely a president.
d) Once the link is make prod the issue once or twice to stoke up the fire a little, and then move on. never linger around the blaze you have caused in case it engulf (or illumines) you. So once light run like hell, onto the next one!
e) enjoy yourself! this siam  game so keep relishing it. To attempt to  play this with a Po face is to court disaster.


2) The Game of Mee Too. Another political classic. A game of two Halfs. One must claim to see a  Mee too in the policy of others while "mee tooing" their policies yourself.
a) the cardinal rules of this game is not to start too dam early. never game a Mee Too, unless your political opponent as all too obviously borrowed one policy from you, the more publically the better.
b) You must therefore listen to what the other lot are saying rather carefully. they must look shifty  when they deny the Mee Too, 
c) however once One Mee Too is established the flood gates are open. the rules change utterly the game is now to claim other Policies are a Mee Too.
 Here two moves are advised. the simplest, for beginner involves a list. Here the aim is simply to sound as if the other  claims are true (they need not be). the Mee Too will if done with proper panache, communicate a reality beyond the boring world of facts!
d) An alternative strategy is to explore your opponents Meet Too is a more detailed manner. Seeking to exploit the differences between you, while allowing the too of your are rather similar.
 On the alternative side, if you a genuinely  practicing the gentle art of Mee too,and what to get away with it, you will need these two additional rules.
e) Remember the best defence strategy in the game is to allow your opponents Mee Too may be true (never admit it, merely imply, without saying the argument has been in common currency for a while), but claim your version of it is better. You gain  the political benefit then and negate the Mee Too, For primacy will not necessarily beat competency.
f) do note however you must be careful before allowing yourself this last move. If the policy was pants in the first place, better to let it be forgotten than to take it yourself. You will be blamed if it fails, and no one will remember the policy was not yours in the first place!

g) Do not be tempted to actually Mee Too o often (or to claim it in others too often), there is a real art in the timing of the Mee.




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Oddball

Since when has Politics involved an unlikely and very unlovely splicing of a game of football and the game of government?
ell for a while now.
But there is something really odd don't you think when the language of politics (with its teams, fight backs pep talks) and the language of football coalesce. The Game of Politics (which the media love so very very very very much- well it makes story seas and cheap) , is caught up with drafting endless new laws, that actually have to be enforced - that actually can (and very often do) bugger up peoples lives.
We ((i mean the country) end up with useless laws whose sole purpose was to rescue a government from it whole, and idiotic leaders, who work as political mascots rather than as leaders.
The point to think again about the system of government? Or to just relax and 'enjoy the show' - a deep problem for the west.
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Tyranicde

It is always the moment one knows a government is on the way out, when even its supporters cease really to care about voting to it. Phrases like last straw, and made me realize, drip of the media, and with them call time on Gordon Brown. problem is of course we have lived with his desire for the top job so long that not only are we rather borred by him, but also his very all too obvious ruthless desire for the job for so many years gave us a weird expectation of what he would do. I mean would he live up to his own billing, and Prove that he was the lost mesiah of the Labour party (the man who it was worth sacrificing the careers of numerous other big labour beasts for - I mean Ried or Clarke)? Or was he a silly little man with an over blown ego, and a large grudge which he mistook for ability?
The problem for Brown was that the second answer was always the more likely one, as Lost Mesiahs ares so hard to be in the flesh (and so easy to stage in the fantasy),and rather readily become olly Hary.
the Probem for the Country is that is our desire to reject the Sat and Laurel of the Labour party, we will end up woht that arch insinuator, and all round twerp Cameron (perhaps a Harold Lloyd figirue?)


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Tuesday 13 May 2008

GREED GAME

Always the problem is if you give someone your shirt they are likely to want your trousers in the end/ the game of government is therefore to ensure a lightfooted genorousity (so that each interest group does not organize around what they WANT next. Trouble is the game of political funding is to offer people hope of greeds to come. the real game of being a prim minister is the game of poll dancing - you must always titillate without ever offer climax.
Are you volunteering to tell this to Gordon Brown?
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Bloody Mystery

I suspect the epitaph of Brown is less one of treachery and more one of loyality to his own creatures. why is he screwed? Because the kind of people (the balls) as this would who are prepared to plot with you for ten years and work against everyone else interest (biting off the heads of any potential rivals), are almost by definition lousy minsters. And poor of Brown, who seems to feel a blinding loyality to such creatures does not seem to realize it!

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Test

It is an old an hackneyed problem. To test one needs to know what one is testing. the problem with public tests is that they are just that public, and means that schools perform like so many bloody infant-phenomena ballerina at a school dance. Which might be okay (after al this process is only slightly more random than flipping a coin, even if it is most expensive, but in its being a little worse than doing nothing is rather good for a government policy!)Te really problem then coms that no one can be aloud to fail (too badly). t which point the entire thing becomes utterly problematic as are forced to orbit not around 'objectivity' (whatever that is) but the crying political need to get a certian range of result from schools and pupil. exams and school, minster and journalists move off into a three way gang-bang and all claims not to be anything more useful are lost.

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Wednesday 7 May 2008

Virtual wars part two

The choice for an american politician is facing up to a beautiful battle between the virtual (Obama and the promised Kingdom) and the also purely actual (MacCain, been there done that a while ago). In these fights it has to be said the virtual has all the advantages (the media) and tends to win (blair major, Clinton Bush. Bush Gore etc) as selling democracy is always selling hope not memory. the only problem will be is the media suddenly in the interests of their paymaster) turn all actual on Obama and demand reality form his, which must be the hope of the republicans...
A fact that makes this rather an interesting watch.


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look at me again!

It is an odd game Cameron is playing - or perhaps he has never lived in Crewe? To go to Crewe and to argue that they will be daft enough to support the tories in order to hurt Brown, when that plan will help the Tories most (and them least) seems to rather misjudge. Why they might will ask help the smarmy party of southerners and rich kids who will not helping them much. hitting the government id one thing, but helping the Tories in another, and it would be better if Cameron allowed for that fact (that is if he still can, and if the cancer of look a me-ism, which eroded the sanity of PM's has not already infected him, which seems rather probable)...

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Thing about virtual wars

It is of course the trouble with virtual conflicts. they cannot really end. the Hilary versus Obama fight cannot therefore ever really end, as who can win the fight between the rival claims of women and Black-Americans.There is no ration point one can break off. It follows that there is a deep belief that his fight will age right trough the American election (to the joy of MacCain). as indeed would be the case if that conflict is aloud to remain in all its virtual glory (destroying the democrats). They can only hope that when it comes to actually politics and the task of really voting for presidents with policies then the virtuality will vanish into a whiff of old memory, which is after all the normal state of affairs (voters in virtual conflicts are all mouth). the only real problem here is that the media are th mouth merchants, and will want to keep that fight on rolling...
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