Last one before I get addicted!

Who needs Farmville on Facebook when you can mess around all day with this?

My David Cameron!

The original poster, which currently adorns 1,000 billboards across the country (there is one about five minutes walk from me on West End Lane). Some people think the first line is an allusion to a line in Elvis Presley's 'Suspicious Minds' ('we can't go on forever with suspicious minds'), but it could be a reference to a line in Heaven 17's 'Temptation' ('we can't go on living like this').

This is becoming a bit of a Net sensation, so if you want to join in the fun and make your own, go to:

http://mydavidcameron.com

I had a go with the random generator and I submit these for your perusal:

 

 

You'd think as an ex-PR man 'Call Me Dave' would see the hazards in this, but then again he only worked for Carlton TV, where to repeat again the words of former Sun Business Editor Ian King, DC was regarded as a:

'poisonous, slippery individual' and a 'smarmy bully who regularly threatened journalists who dared to write anything negative about Carlton- which was all the time.' (The Sun, December 5th 2005, quoted in Larry Elliiott and Dan Atkinson (2007) Fantasy Island, p.73- appropriately enough in Chapter 4: 'Bullshit Britain').

Some stuff I've seen recently

Some bits and pieces that I have spotted recently which you may want to peruse.

Joseph Stromberg  discusses the enclosure of land in England and  collectivisation of agriculture in the Soviet Union.

Some brain food for the person in your life who thinks 'My European Union, Right or Wrong'.

Is there an anti-war 'Right' in the USA and can it co-operate with the 'Left' (and vice-versa)? (Hat-tips: antiwar.com and Leif Brecke!)

Meanwhile Michelle Bachmann is being touted as the new Sarah Palin for the Neo-Cons and Born-Agains who appear to dominate the Republican Party in the US. However, she is hardly the anti-statist her public image would suggest...(H-T: Leif B again!)

It is from the Republican No-Nothings that an awful lot of the nonsense about Barack Obama comes from and the internet is a way they spread their notions ('ideas' may be too strong a phrase), as Robin Ramsay shows. (you may have to register to read this link- it's free though!) BTW the latest issue of  Lobster can now be downloaded for free!

As the China v Google stand-off starts, it is pretty clear that battles over the internet, access to it and surveillance of it will become increasingly important in the decade to come. (This came my way as I was putting this post together. H-T: Tim P!) There are several bodies in existence who are interested in various, if overlapping, ways about the internet which you may want to look at further:

 

1. Right2Link

 

2. Blackout Europe

3. Open Rights Group

 

4. Pirate Party UK

Hope that satiates your intellectual appetites for a bit!

Words Words Words...

Cracked has had a competition. This is the winner...

One of the most boring cliches of recent times is the claim that Shakespeare, if he were alive today, would be writing for soap operas. That as well may be, but I doubt whether he would be writing management consultancy tomes...

Some Blairite and Blair-Bashing (And Why Not?)

The Vanguard of Ultra-Blairism breaks through the gates of Downing Street to storm the Brown Bunker, bringing the Renegade from the Principles of Hey-Look-Y'Know-Murdoch-Kowtowingism to justice...oh sorry, false alarm...

New Year, New Decade- hope you are all well. It has been pretty cold out there for a good week. However, I've finally warmed up a bit and events have encouraged me to post something.

I think I was trying desperately to keep or get warm on Wednesday afternoon gone. Whatever I was up to I missed the coup attempt against Gordon Brown. The attempt by Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt (almost typed 'Patrician' there- Freudian slip?) to force a ballot of the Parliamentary Labour Party to decide whether GB should remain as leader was a bit of a fiasco. Not least, as a Though Cowards Flinch has pointed out, the entire Labour Party still decides who becomes Labour Party leader, not just the PLP. So unless GB resigned pretty quickly in the face of a ballot and a coronation (yet another one) of a new leader took place within days, the Labour Party would have had to organise a leadership contest. This would have taken a minimum of several weeks and cost the party a fair amount of cash when it is hardly rolling in it. Once elected, a new leader would almost immediately have to get ready for a General Election (latest date it can be held is June 3rd). I can hardly imagine anything worse that a bruising (and quite possibly highly personal) leadership (and almost certainly deputy leadership) contest to ensure the Labour Party lost the 2010 General Election very badly.

Perhaps that is what the plotters planned. It is ironic that Patricia Hewitt wanted to use a PLP-only secret ballot to bring down GB. Thirty years or so ago she was in the forefront of campaigning by the Labour Left to make sure future Labour leaders were chosen by the whole Party, via an electoral college, rather than just the PLP, which was the case until 1981. She has not been alone in taking the road from ultra-Bennism to ultra-Blairism, although not all erstwhile bastions of Labour Party 'democracy' get to be a 'special consultant' to Alliance Boots.



When Geoff Hoon hung out with The Big Cheeses: 'Hey pal, I've shaken Saddam Hussein's hands a few times, but I do have standards...'

Geoff Hoon once told his fellow Labour MPs: 'What's wrong with managerialism?' (Nick Cohen Pretty Straight Guys, 2003, p.254). Mr. Hoon has always come across as a rather over-promoted middle-manager (and one definitely not good enough to organise an intra-party coup d'etat) or a very average member of the Outer Party of Ingsoc in Nineteen Eighty-Four. The trouble for those who, frankly, would like Tony Blair to still be Prime Minister is that they are hardly an inspiring bunch. Ultra-Blairite Lord Mandelson does not want to help them (why should he, when he could get a job with the real 'Heir to Blair'in the next few months?) and Charles Clarke's constant moaning about Gordon Brown is hardly clever politics. One would expect him to lead the struggle in a more clever, more covert manner- as behoves a man who almost joined the spooks at MI6 following the 1992 General Election (Francis Beckett & David Hencke The Survivor: Tony Blair in Peace and War, 2005, p.125).

I will stick to my oft-made prediction that the ultra-Blairites in Labour's ranks will end up in alliance with the Tories after the next General Election. (Think the National Labour Party led by Ramsay MacDonald in the 1930s.) The fact that Tony Blair's Vicar On Earth, Martin Kettle, has discussed a Grand Coalition between Labour and the Conservatives after the next General Election gives an inkling of where the Blairites think British politics may be heading.

As for The Great Man himself? I think he will be pretty happy to see 'Call Me Dave' in Number 10. Providing he does not end up in The Hague on war crime charges, 'Call Me Tony' might end up doing something more in the next few years than getting lots of money from JP Morgan, getting his autobiography ghost-written and watching the Middle East burn. I can well imagine Mr. Cameron is in awe of his idol's ability to bullshit and will find him some high-flying, well paid, but ultimately pointless, position (for example, trying to repatriate powers back from the EU)for the Media Class to follow ad nauseum.

I have come across a few things written about TB's political life which I doubt will make their way into his autobiography. Previously referred to in this post is the best single biography of Tony Blair I have come across, Beckett and Hencke's The Survivor (previously published as The Blairs and Their Court). I thoroughly recommend you buy or borrow a copy. Lots of interesting bits and pieces in it.



For example, there is anecdote worth citing for when people say TB has 'the common touch.' The Survivor (pp.104-5)recounts a time when Labour was still in opposition and TB was not leader:

…Sedgefield’s council’s chief executive, Alan Roberts, came down to London with the then leader of the council Brian Stevens, and another councillor to see their local MPs.

They were taken to the crowded and smoke-filled Strangers’ Bar in the Commons to have a few pints of cheap Federation bitter and rub shoulders with some well-known figures. The job of hosting them was shared somewhat unenthusiastically between Blair and an MP from a neighbouring constituency, Derek Foster. Foster asked his political adviser, Roger Pope, to join them. It must have been a remarkable scene as the teetotal Foster and the occasional drinker Blair reluctantly joined the councillors and other officials for round after round. As Pope remembers it: ‘Suddenly Blair turns to me and asks me to come outside the bar, and makes his excuses to the Sedgefield councilors. We get outside and he gets his wallet out, pulls out a fiver and gives it to me. He says: ‘Go and buy them a round. I’m off. I can’t stand these people.’

The Survivor also provides evidence, if any is needed, that TB has total contempt for the Party that made him more than a jumped-up lawyer from a feepaying school and for those who led the Party before him (ibis, p.264):

Roy Hattersley recalled…a lunch with Daily Mail executives….One of the journalists asked why the Blairs should not simply send their children to the local comprehensive. ‘Your children will go to university. Wherever they go to school,’ he pointed out. Blair said he wasn’t so sure: ‘It didn’t work for Harold Wilson.’ The journalist observed that Wilson’s children had done all right: one was ahead teacher, the other an Open University lecturer. Blair retorted contemptuously: ‘I hope my kids do better than that.’

It sort of puts TB's declaration during the 97 General Election campaign that his Government's priority would be 'Education, Education, Education' in some sort of context. His contempt for the idea that a child of a Labour Prime Minister might want to work for the Open University I find particularly irksome, as one of the few achievements of the 1964-70 Wilson Government which people from all across the political spectrum admire is the creation of the Open University. (I get a feeling most people here are also rather glad Harold Wilson didn't send troops to help the US in Vietnam...) Indeed, I seem to remember reading that Margaret Thatcher, Education Secretary in the 1970-4 Heath Government, was opposed to the abolition of the OU, as she saw it as a way for people to improve themselves. This is one of the very few things Margaret Thatcher has done in her political career I have a fair amount of admiration for.



One book I haven't read yet is Lib Dem's MP Norman Baker's The Strange Death of David Kelly. This, apparently, might have more information about TB which is very unlikely to end up in his autobiography. However, that is for another time. I seem to be have typing and looking up stuff for this post longer than the Hewitt-Hoon coup lasted!

Happy Christmas/Yule/Festive Season (delete as appropriate!)

One resolution for 2010 is to increase the number of posts I put up here. My PC has been cleared of spyware and other nasties, so I can start again in many ways. I've hit 40, which is the new 30 or something apparently. Anyway, that can all wait. I'm going to have a relaxing few days and recharge my batteries. Hope you have a peaceful and stress-free break from it all too. Hope you've put the sprouts on already...

Quick Note on Media Stuff

As you may be aware, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp is planning to charge for access to the websites of its publications. It is also drawing up an alliance with Microsoft, while Google will be unable to index News Corp publications when people ‘Google’ for stuff on the Net. There appears to be no set timetable for this to happen, just some time next year.

Rupert Murdoch has never liked the internet, on the grounds that so much of its content is free. He would much prefer it if there were a series of firewalls blocking access unless one is prepared to cough up the readies. I am sure he looks on with envy at the way his mates in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party block access to various internet sites in mainland China.



Glenn 'The Poor Man's Bill O'Reilly' Beck exposes the Chinese Communist connections of Rupert Murdoch on Fox TV. (Hat-tip: News Corpse)

I seriously wonder if people will pay good money (or any money) to access Murdoch’s various publications. I mean, news is much the same wherever one goes. Most people, if they cannot go to websites of The Times and The Sun will go the websites of other newspapers here. Whether it is highbrow stuff, business news, sports coverage to just plain old celebrity gossip, there are more than enough other places to go. I am pretty familiar with the output of The Times, Sunday Times, News of the World and Stun. The only part of the whole ensemble I would think of paying for in its own right is the Sunday Times ‘Culture’ section, and some weekends that would be touch and go (particularly at the moment when all culture/review/book sections of all papers are going through their Xmas Books/Books of the Year phase. It is just one big mutual backscratch amongst writers who get published. It is almost as bad as the period of late Spring/early Summer when the papers give us page after page of their Summer/Holiday reading selections...by the very same people who gave us their recommendations six months before! Give me some proper reviews!).

Perhaps the best comment I have heard about Murdoch’s plan’s is by principled anarcho-capitalist/Libertarian Lew Rockwell:

Neocon billionaire Rupert Murdoch has been threatening to stop Google from indexing his newspapers and other media outlets. Google pointed out that any business may have its site de-indexed on request. Now the Rupester is negotiating with MSMFT to de-Googleize and join up with Bing. Please go ahead, Rupert. Anything that cuts your readership is good for the world.

Moving away from Planet Murdoch, a quick prediction: within the next 5 years ie by 2015, The Guardian and New York Times will merge, probably through a friendly take-over by the former. The Guardian Media Group has wanted to make The Guardian the world’s leading ‘Liberal’ newspaper for a few years now and the New York Times has its financial problems (so has GMG, but not to the same extent). It would be a logical tie-up.