The Politics of Dancing

Laughter In The Dark  It has been alleged that, as part of a student initiation ceremony, the British Prime Minister placed his penis into the mouth of a dead pig. We are consequently now all engulfed in Pig-Gate,- and surely we have now reached the stage when for a whole generation there must be puzzlement as to why the suffix ‘gate’ has to be attached to every political scandal. In a short story I once wrote something to the effect that bananas are inherently funny. The same, for obscure reason, is also true of pigs. Twitter was made for just such a moment and now you cannot move for pig puns, admittedly having provided more than my fair share of them myself. The head grows dizzy with a constant play on words, hog, pig, pork and porky; and so we descend collectively to the playground world of eleven year old's sharing smutty jokes. All great fun at the expense of a privileged group, born to rule and to ignore the rules which are never intended to be observed by the ...

For the Russian revolutionaries of 1917 there was a moment that rigorously interrogated their moral conscience, it took place in February 1921 at the Kronstadt naval base. Here the demands from delegates, amongst other things, were :-   ‘Immediate new elections to the Soviets; the present Soviets no longer express the wishes of the workers and peasants. The new elections should be held by secret ballot, and should be preceded by free electoral propaganda for all workers and peasants before the elections. Freedom of speech and of the press for workers and peasants, for the Anarchists, and for the Left Socialist parties. The right of assembly, and freedom for trade union and peasant associations.’ In response Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolshevik leadership crushed the uprising with great brutality, ‘ historians estimate that from 1,200–2,168 were executed after the revolt and a like number were jailed.’ [1] It was a turning point and many supporters of the revolution began ...

If you are a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn and have not stopped celebrating since Saturday morning read on at your own peril, you will not like what I have to say. If this does not describe you, these are my first thoughts on his election as Labour Leader.  

When I was a child and I was faced with difficult choices or unpleasant activities I would go out and play, believing the longer I played the more the dilemma would go away. I did once put off a visit to the dentist in this way, though it proved a pyrrhic victory. I thought about this form of magical thinking when I saw pictures of David Cameron surfing in Cornwall as the refugee crises unfolded. (Being swept ashore by the waves just as the bodies of refugees were being swept ashore on the waves – the Prime Minister is not only morally blind but does not even have the wit to understand how such an image might be perceived).  There is something very deficient about David Cameron, it is the sort of deficiency one finds in those who have had it too easy in life, who have never really known what it is to taste defeat or deprivation. He throws tantrums when thwarted, blusters and goes red when he is bested and sulks, as he did after the Syria vote, when he cannot get his own way....

After New Year’s Day the Tuesday after carnival is the most poignant day of the year. Especially this year, falling as it did on Sept 1st. It's as if summer turns to autumn overnight. Sure enough Tuesday morning saw a sky turned black and the heavens open on the still grubby and dishevelled streets. Streets on which I caught first sight of the black dog that will haunt me throughout the autumn and winter months. So as I thought about what to write about, in a world growing ever darker? As toddlers with their parents, desperately trying to escape war ripped Syria, drown in the Mediterranean. As a Trotskyite friend of fascistic theocrats and apologist for Putin looks set to become the next leader of the Labour Party. As the Chinese experiment with Capitalism looks set to implode. As Putin gears up for another hefty shove at wobbly western resolve? What to write about?