The Politics of Dancing

In 1977 a speaker mounted the rostrum at the Conservative party conference and addressed the assembled delegates in the sonorous terms of middle aged authority, though for all the gravity of the speakers tone there was something pompous even ridiculous about the speaker, for he was a sixteen year old boy. “Half of you won't be here in 30 or 40 years' time", he impertinently informed his enraptured audience. The speaker was one William Hague. It is now approaching forty years since he made that speech and William Hague is now exactly where he intended to be, doing exactly what he was born for, holding one of the great offices of state. In 2010 William Hague was appointed First Secretary of State and Foreign Secretary. Hague is the consummate performer, both playing the statesman and engaging in parliamentary debate. He is an able parliamentarian and witty speaker. Though can I be the only one to detect another presence in the chamber when he is speaking, the ghos

In March 1939 Hitler summoned President Hacha, head of the much reduced though still democratic and independent Czech state, to Berlin . In the thirty or so minutes of the meeting between the two men Hitler made it clear who was boss. He then went on to extend the generous hand of friendship to the Czech people offering them the status of autonomy within the framework of the Greater German Reich. The rest as they say is history. Ukraine in the EU? I don't think so Angela  On the 9 th of November 2013 President Vladimir Putin summoned the Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych to St Petersburg . [1] In a meeting, the duration of which we do not know, Putin made it clear who was boss. Concerned by the prospect of Ukraine moving into the embrace of the European Union he made it clear that such a move was not possible without Russian consent. That consent, he informed President Yanukovych was not forthcoming. No doubt he also extended the generous hand of friendship to the

I am never impressed when told that someone has been privately educated, that they have been to Eton , Harrow , Westminster or Cheltenham Ladies College . Such institutions rarely produce rounded individuals but are very adept at turning out the emotionally retarded and sexually delinquent. It took George Orwell fifteen years to undo the damage done by Eton , a period he later described as ‘five years in a lukewarm bath of snobbery .’ Boris Johnson and The Bullingdon Club It was once my misfortune to manage someone educated in this way, probably one of the most unpleasant people I have ever worked with. He made no secret of the fact that he thought it inappropriate that I should be his senior and managed to combine an innate sense of entitlement with extremely large dosages of self pity. He once sought to have me disciplined by going behind my back and misreporting something I had done to a senior manager of the charity for which we worked. [1] The prime example of the

I have always been a passionate advocate of voting. Indeed I have often fiercely argued with those who dismiss voting as at best irrelevant at worst even harmful. That said, like Russell Brand and Jeremy Paxman, I did not vote at the last election. I had up until then voted at every general and local election since February 1974. In 2010 I had felt I could no longer vote at a General Election for the Labour Party, and there were no other options for me on the ballot paper. In short I had grown sick of voting for a Party that I watched shredding civil liberties year after year. Casting my ballot felt increasingly felt like providing the Labour Party with a blank cheque. I was not happy not voting but a spoilt ballot paper felt like the ultimate admission of impotence a tick in the ‘none of the above’ box would have been preferred, but no such option existing I chose to abstain. When ever you watch parliamentary debate, and I do often, you are struck by several things, a) the un

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/a-new-boom-industry-coaching-select-committee-witnesses-for-ordeal-by-hodge-8945619 . In the face of corporate power that blows away attempts at democratic accountability with the force of a hurricane, MP’s are like little children attempting to control a rabid Pit Bull terrier. Multi-national corporations continually demonstrate nothing but contempt for national governments, parliaments and other democratic assemblies. They do what they will regardless of the protests of elected representatives, those that is that they have not already bought. They wield their power with the connivance of ruling elites; as in the UK when the government turns a blind eye to blatant tax avoidance and the exploitation of the local labour force. Now the poor dears are worried because they feel their ‘image’ could be damaged by being required to appear before a select committee. Lord Bell, who runs some sort of consultancy advising these corporation

. I. I have lived in London now just over thirty years, having moved here on 4 th July 1983 . I don’t know how long you normally have to wait to claim squatter’s rights but thirty years seems a good enough period to me. The glory of London is its parks and open spaces, you are rarely ever far away from a London park, common or heath. I am within fifteen minutes walk of Kensington Gardens or Holland Park , much closer to several smaller areas with grass and flowers and benches on which to sit, all maintained by Kensington and Chelsea council who also still believe in the value of trees. Those who would see what they call ‘the state’ shrink rarely mention such items in their calculations. What does it cost to maintain a tree? Too much by far for the likes of those right wing think tanks whom and I fear the phrase is soon likely to break under the strain under which it is now being placed, know the price of everything and the value of nothing. Holland Park is one of t

Denial is the art of attempting to conceal from your self the truth. Families where the father is a violent and abusive alcoholic often desperately pine to be ‘normal and consequently pretend that their domestic life is characterised by harmony. This denial has been likened to placing a tablecloth over an irritable rhino, pretending that it is in fact a coffee table. In dealing with Putin western European diplomats seem intent to engage in a similar form of denial, treating Putin as if he were just another politician like themselves. The British government’s current supine position, all the more reprehensible for representing an about face from the previous stance taken by the Labour government, is part of a much older political tradition going back to the 1930’s. When faced with the murder of a British citizen on the streets of London using highly radioactive material by agents of the Russian state, the previous Labour administration, not unreasonably, thought a line had been cro

A series of programmes about the Cold war is an enticing prospect and is a subject long overdue for thoughtful analysis. If this programme is anything like the rest of the series that moment has not arrived yet. It is not in itself a bad programme, just monotone and one dimensional. It offers up a very traditional perspective on the events of the late 1940’s, you will find the same narrative in any school textbook. It was surely a mistake to rest the whole programme on the voice of one man, the narrator Dominic Sandbrook. No other voices, aside from clips from the archive, are heard and he appears to speak in sentences all concluding in exclamation marks, his voice rising and falling like some pantomime villain to make each point. One feels that if watching this programme with a child they would ask, “Why is he talking funny?” There are however some priceless moments in the programme, not least archive footage of ‘The Red Dean,’ Hewlett Johnson, receiving the Stalin Peace Priz

On Friday I was given the news of the death of someone I was proud to call a friend. Donne’s observation that,  ‘ Any man's death diminishes me, Because I am involved in mankind.’ [1] Only ever feels true of the death of a friend. I wake this morning diminished, the world a poorer place. Some people live using as little as thirty percent of their life force, some fifty, or even seventy five, rare is the person who throws themselves one hundred percent into the world, fully engaging with life. Bobby was just such a person. To live fully does not necessarily mean to live ‘well’ in the sense that that is most often propagated as being a good life. To live fully does not necessarily mean to live virtuously. Bobby lived life to the full but he was no saint, and to my mind the better for it.   Bobby disdained religion and piety, though was strong on friendship and loyalty. Indeed sometimes he was loyal to those who harmed him and his best interests, and he knew that

I watched the appearance of the heads of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ yesterday in front of the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, [ISC]. To say that the questioning at times was soft would be an understatement. The tone of the proceedings can be summed up as:   We all thank you   for the wonderful job you do of keeping us safe, and applaud the wonderful selfless and public spirited people who work for you. Do you think recent newspaper revelations have damaged the security of this country? I exaggerate little. The really interesting questions were simply never asked. For example no one thought to explore something along the lines, you say you harvest the whole haystack so they you may bag the needle, what sort of things in the stack are you looking for that might lead you to the needle? As a PR exercise though it was flawless and I am amazed that hitherto they have been so reluctant to hold such an event. The head of MI5 Andrew Parker appeared positively cuddly. I a

If you want an example of the subtle censorship currently operating in the UK when it comes to issues related to Islam, today the BBC offered up a text book example. A man currently placed under government restrictions, the rather sinister and Orwellian terrorism prevention and investigation measures (TPim) notice, [1] escaped by donning a burqa. On BBC news this morning he was reported to have escaped wearing ‘women’s clothes.’ If I said that one of my male friends had taken to dressing up as a woman you would not, I imagine, picture him donning a burqa. A burqa only constituting women’s clothes in medieval theocracies like Saudi Arabia ; in western countries burqa's are still, thankfully, comparatively rare. This mischievous misinformation was undoubtedly adopted for fear that referencing the use of the burqa might ‘pander to Islamaphobia.’ The burqa being controversial the BBC sought to alter the facts. Of course it was stupid and the BBC could not possibly hope to maintai