The Politics of Dancing

Would you buy a used car from this man? There was a moment last week when George Osborne revealed the true scale of his cynicism, which I now think I have the right to call bottomless, his dishonesty and political corruption. In a move dripping with class war spite and malignant zeal he announced that in future the newly unemployed must now wait seven days before making any claim for unemployment benefit. Since if you have been working you have been regularly paying into the exchequer and paying your National Insurance contributions, this represents a further development of an unreported phenomenon, the nothing for something culture. That this is not only vicious and dishonest, a dog whistle for the Tory right and UKIP voters, it is also stupid and self defeating, since it will acerbate further employment insecurity, a climate in which it is not safe to take short term employment. That it is stupid I suspect the expensively educated Osborne knows, the amount of money it saves ...

The stupid lie spouted by the Obama administration, the NSA and various other apologists for the American administration, that by exposing the mass surveillance of US citizens, and indeed the citizens of states across the world, Edward Snowden has assisted the terrorists is risable. Any self respecting Jihadist who does not work on the assumption that he or she is being monitored, that their e-mails are opened, phone calls listened to and apartments bugged should give up the job and go into some other line of work. We have all assumed that security services were doing just that. If they were not what the hell were we paying them for? What most people did not assume was that we are all being monitored in this way. It is even possible that this side of the pond the situation is even worse, that we have all been monitored much more closely than we imagined for years, and that the so called ‘snoopers charter’ was simply designed to place this on a legal footing. No, the real basis for...

* A person who induces others to break the law so that they can be convicted. Bob Lambert was a police spy and agent provocateur. He infiltrated Greenpeace in the 1980’s; during his time spying on British citizens he had several sexual relationships and fathered a child. In 1986, under the cover name Bob Robinson he co-wrote a leaflet that led to the infamous McLibel case. BOB LAMBERT THEN AND NOW In the 1980’s the McLibel case shone like a beacon of resistance against the growing power of bullying corporations. Whilst McDonalds may have technically won the case morally and in PR terms they were the losers. The role of this agent provocateur, - a term strangely alien to the British political scene, - in this affair has only just come to light. I believe that morality and ethics have nothing to do with religion. I believe we are all born with a predilection toward human solidarity. It is even possible that the golden rule is innate. As nature and nurture take their cour...

On being told that The sun was doing nothing against the law Ms Lucas stated that "the law was obviously not strong enough!" THE NIGHT OF THE BONFIRES 05/07/2016 There was a great deal of celebration on the day that the Hate Speech/Defamation of Women Bill was passed. In the evening groups of men and women began to assemble on waste ground around the country. They carried armfuls of magazines and books, along with copies of the Sun Newspaper and Playboy. Others carried Rap videos and science fiction comics. As to books some books simply chose themselves, Mien Kampf and sundry BNP books and pamphlets; about others there had been some debate, indeed some dissension. Some wanted to burn Henry Miller, others Ernest Hemingway, while still others wanted to hurl Lolita into the flames. Some made the case for The Human Stain and Sabbath’s Theatre by Philip Roth. In the end it turned into a free for all, you burned what you thought fit for the pyre. As the flame...

Of all the words in the English language the one I am least comfortable with is hope. Hope is as tangible as hot air, as solid as candy floss and, we are constantly told, as essential as oxygen. “You must have hope,” people intone, seeking to press a promissory note into your hand, redeemable at some unspecified date in the future. People living crappy lives all over the world either live in hope, or are exhorted to do so. Politicians and priests are the primary sellers of hope; jam tomorrow, the meek inheriting the Earth. Hope indeed being the main product sold by religion*:-                          'His Oath, his covenant,his blood                           support me inin the whelming flood.      ...

IN MEMORY OF THE XVII PARTY CONGRESS A VAGANOV 1989 Imagine a best-selling journalist, polemicist and blogger in Germany writing the following lines. ‘Regardless of the controversies, one thing is clear: Hitler was able to maintain and strengthen a giant country, and with tremendous effort made it into one of the superpowers of the twentieth century.’ And who posed the following questions:- ‘Was Hitler a despot in his relations with his colleagues and subordinates? Did Hitler interfere into our army’s management and lessened its ability to fight? What caused the repressions in the period preceding World War 2? Why Hitler’s speeches on geopolitics, are still relevant and important today? Why Hitler’s contemporaries used to think that he was a very witty man? Why is it that in our modern time those that falsify history have taken on the memoirs of Hitler’s associates? Why Albert Speer hated Hitler so much?’ You would I thin...

In the late 1830’s the Tsarevich, Alexander was due to visit the province of Vyatka . ‘ Five days before the Tsarevich was due to visit Orlov, the Mayor had written to Tyufyayev [ The Governor of the province ]…that so and so, a wealthy merchant and prominent person in the town, was boasting that he would tell the Tsarevich everything, [respecting corruption]. Tyufyayev disposed of the man very cleverly; he told the mayor to have doubts of his sanity…and send him to Vyatka to be examined by the doctors…The mayor did as he was bid; the merchant was placed in the hospital at Vyatka .’ [1] ‘The head of the health watchdog, Dame Jo Williams, cast doubt about the mental stability of a high-profile whistleblower who she wanted the Health Secretary to remove from the board, The Independent can reveal. Kay Sheldon, a non-executive director of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), was subject to ‘priority monitoring' and declared a ‘risk’ to the regulator after she had raised conc...

It’s been a depressing period and my capacity to hold bad news is being severely tested. Some days it feels like everything necessary for a civilised and humane society is being consigned to the shredder. Legal Aid being the latest item on the Coalition government’s list of items targeted for attention. Nick Cohen has written a very depressing piece about this. [1] Of course the preposterous claim that ‘we are all equal before the law’ is risible, money always buying a better brand of justice; still with proper provision of legal aid claimants and defendants at least were given a fighting chance. Now the government have so constructed access that those from poor backgrounds will be denied justice in a whole range of areas, from housing to welfare rights. Within the criminal justice sphere the idea that the poor or even modestly wealthy should enjoy choice of representation has been ditched, whilst even the notion of innocent until proved guilty feels under attack. Tom Bra...

The Institute of Economic Affairs is a right wing think tank. One of its sources of funding is the tobacco industry.   ‘British American Tobacco, the company behind brands such as Lucky Strike and Dunhill, has confirmed that in 2011 it gave the IEA £10,000, plus £1,000 in event sponsorship. Last year it donated a further £20,000 to the institute.’ [1] The IEA has lobbied vigorously against the introduction of plain packaging.   "It's hard to believe that the government would ignore the responses to the public consultation which were two to one against plain packaging. Around 500,000 members of the public, as well as numerous serving police officers, members of parliament, trade associations, intellectual property experts and trade unions have expressed serious concerns about this measure. Surely a Prime Minister who promised us in 2008 that the 'era of big, bossy, state interference, top-down lever pulling is coming to an end' will ultimately reject this i...