A work, as of yet without a title, that may or may not be finished.
I sing a shallow selfsong of the man
The man of twists and turns
The mind that cantered through a dozen different successes
And decided that none was adequate.
The man whose head held him high
The man whose eyes walked up the carpeted walls of a nearly-there house
And hung above in stasis, comfortably hesitant
With umber cataracts of streetlight screenburn.
Somewhere inside, upstairs, and beyond, a door let itself open
Inviting in the bad dreams and movie scenes
Of too many late nights and white noise.
Walking up the walls further still
The stairs slide away into crowds of darkened laughter
And I light a flame just to cast a shadow.
In the melee below, they’re shouting.
Loud and voice-proud, they’re shouting loudest
They’re thrusting in leaps and bounds, and coming on far faster
Than I’d expected. Than I’d hoped.
I fall out into the hall
With blue thunder running down my face
And a melancholy mistaken for indifference
Like an empty can crushed underfoot
Like a liberated gaze longing for capture
Like cigarettes between lips, or
An asymmetrical pair of hands on hips
Falling through the floor.
Shining a violent green,
Risen above like a jealous totem
With many masks smiling and laughing and raging in fury
Talking of anger, money, sex, and the French
Walking on stolen paths in commandeered shoes
And still the transcendent blue eyes climbing to the ceiling
Refusing to be laid to rest.
If this all evolves into catastrophe then that’s probably for the best
You said
“This isn’t some kind of fucking odyssey”
And you took your coat and left.
Wednesday 22 December 2010
Tuesday 23 November 2010
Avast, a poem.
The Underground Pirate
In this, the turning tube of inertia, disjointed through the terra firma
On the Metropolitan line, at some kind of time
Between the braying invasion of the strategic pubs
And the neon halo atop the bald doorman’s head
We are ferried below the city’s swollen belly.
We clatter to a halt, the doors slide away to let the people fall out
And he boards, the clock of his crutch-leg deafening the dumb.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen...”
He crows, and the chipped beech parrot on his shoulder affirms.
“I’m only getting off at Moorgate” he explains,
Holding us at ransom to our copies of the Metro,
Shifting his weight from one spindle to the other, splintering the easy deck.
Blinking in the white noise from within sallow hollows
The clearest blue eyes circling like gulls over a torrid blackbeard sea.
“If you can spare anything...”
The underground pirate, sailing from station to station
Recommencing his beaten demands to all and to each
While the luvvies roll their eyes across the floor
Turning blind.
“Thank you for your time. Have a safe journey home”
And with that-
He disembarks, plots a course, and disappears-
As we rumble onward,
Onward into our own green seas of guilty duvet dreams.
In this, the turning tube of inertia, disjointed through the terra firma
On the Metropolitan line, at some kind of time
Between the braying invasion of the strategic pubs
And the neon halo atop the bald doorman’s head
We are ferried below the city’s swollen belly.
We clatter to a halt, the doors slide away to let the people fall out
And he boards, the clock of his crutch-leg deafening the dumb.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen...”
He crows, and the chipped beech parrot on his shoulder affirms.
“I’m only getting off at Moorgate” he explains,
Holding us at ransom to our copies of the Metro,
Shifting his weight from one spindle to the other, splintering the easy deck.
Blinking in the white noise from within sallow hollows
The clearest blue eyes circling like gulls over a torrid blackbeard sea.
“If you can spare anything...”
The underground pirate, sailing from station to station
Recommencing his beaten demands to all and to each
While the luvvies roll their eyes across the floor
Turning blind.
“Thank you for your time. Have a safe journey home”
And with that-
He disembarks, plots a course, and disappears-
As we rumble onward,
Onward into our own green seas of guilty duvet dreams.
Monday 18 October 2010
Belated shadow cabinet and front bench appointments comment
So, this was originally meant to be entered to Leeds Student for the 15/10/10 issue, but the repsonse to the Browne Report rightly took precedence.
Since the announcement of his victory in the Labour leadership contest, Ed Miliband has been under scrutiny from analysts and bloggers of all political colours who are trying to discern the direction in which he will lead Labour. It has been two weeks since the results of the shadow cabinet and front bench appointments have been revealed, and instead of confirming expectations, he bucked them and further confounded commentators. While his choices were unexpected, he must take care to ensure he is still making wise ones- and there are certainly a few that raised some eyebrows in and outside of Westminster.
Foremost, of course, was the decision to appoint Alan Johnson as shadow chancellor, denying the position to frontrunners Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper. Miliband confidently and knowingly prevented either one of Labour’s prominent economic experts from being the one to spearhead their response to the coalition deficit reduction plans. Alan Johnson’s appointment is likely to pacify those who feared the “lurch to the left” in the wake of Ed Miliband’s leadership victory aided by the trade union vote- those who, like Johnson himself, backed the leadership campaign of David Miliband. His position regarding deficit reduction is nearer to that of former Chancellor Alistair Darling’s- the pledge to half the budget deficit within four years- and it will appeal to those within the party who were more reluctant to strike down the spectre of New Labour that has dogged the party in the wake of their election defeat. He has already proved a strong counter to Osborne in the Commons, but the government’s rebuke- citing inexperience and “deficit denial”- is clear and damning.
Despite his comparative economic failings, Johnson may well be a more strategic choice than Balls. Ed Miliband will seek to avoid the kind of personality clashes that appear to have rocked the Blair-Brown relationship- elder brother David’s refusal to serve in the shadow cabinet might too be seen in this light- while exercising more of his own economic expertise over Johnson. Elsewhere, some of his chief allies within the party were appointed to key posts, with campaign manager Sadiq Khan becoming shadow justice secretary, while erstwhile lefty and unsuccessful leadership candidate Diane Abbott became shadow minister for Public Health. Conciliatory measures such as these showed an opposition leader intuitively taking control of his party, disregarding outside anticipations. Unfortunately, and confusingly, this intuition did not extend to all reaches of his party appointments.
Phil Woolas, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, was among those appointed to Ed Balls’ team of junior Home Office ministers. During the general election campaign Woolas and his team published a leaflet defending his “strong” stance on immigration, while apparently attacking Lib Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins on his party’s plans for an amnesty for certain immigrants who had come to Britain illegally. “The Lib Dems plan to give hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants the right to stay [in Britain]...Do you want the extremists to win?”, read one line on the leaflet, accompanied by inflammatory pictures of radical Islamist demonstrators brandishing signs with slogans such as “Behead those who insult Islam”. In the wake of other campaign material that featured doctored photos of the Lib Dem candidate being arrested, and false claims that he possessed a criminal record, Watkins issued a legal challenge to Woolas and his subsequent election victory.
Not only were the tactics of Woolas’s team churlish and petty, they were frankly offensive, and clearly designed to play on the fears of what prosecutor Helen Mountfield described as “the white Sun [reading] vote”. E-mails between election agent Joseph Fitzpatrick and Woolas speak of “[getting] the white vote angry” and going strong on the “militant Moslem [sic] angle”. Telling untruths about a candidate’s personal life or political manifesto is bad practice enough, but deliberately invoking racial tensions in the community in an effort to revitalise a flagging campaign is downright despicable; it is something for which the BNP were overwhelmingly rejected by the voting public this May.
If Woolas is defeated in court, he will be expelled from parliament and a by-election called. It would be the first major scandal to hit the opposition, and would surely bring Ed Miliband’s judgement into question. Left-wing bloggers have hit the roof over the selection of Woolas. His shadow cabinet decisions already made the headlines for their unexpected nature. If any one of his choices proves disastrous during Labour’s opposition, there will be no one else to blame.
Since the announcement of his victory in the Labour leadership contest, Ed Miliband has been under scrutiny from analysts and bloggers of all political colours who are trying to discern the direction in which he will lead Labour. It has been two weeks since the results of the shadow cabinet and front bench appointments have been revealed, and instead of confirming expectations, he bucked them and further confounded commentators. While his choices were unexpected, he must take care to ensure he is still making wise ones- and there are certainly a few that raised some eyebrows in and outside of Westminster.
Foremost, of course, was the decision to appoint Alan Johnson as shadow chancellor, denying the position to frontrunners Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper. Miliband confidently and knowingly prevented either one of Labour’s prominent economic experts from being the one to spearhead their response to the coalition deficit reduction plans. Alan Johnson’s appointment is likely to pacify those who feared the “lurch to the left” in the wake of Ed Miliband’s leadership victory aided by the trade union vote- those who, like Johnson himself, backed the leadership campaign of David Miliband. His position regarding deficit reduction is nearer to that of former Chancellor Alistair Darling’s- the pledge to half the budget deficit within four years- and it will appeal to those within the party who were more reluctant to strike down the spectre of New Labour that has dogged the party in the wake of their election defeat. He has already proved a strong counter to Osborne in the Commons, but the government’s rebuke- citing inexperience and “deficit denial”- is clear and damning.
Despite his comparative economic failings, Johnson may well be a more strategic choice than Balls. Ed Miliband will seek to avoid the kind of personality clashes that appear to have rocked the Blair-Brown relationship- elder brother David’s refusal to serve in the shadow cabinet might too be seen in this light- while exercising more of his own economic expertise over Johnson. Elsewhere, some of his chief allies within the party were appointed to key posts, with campaign manager Sadiq Khan becoming shadow justice secretary, while erstwhile lefty and unsuccessful leadership candidate Diane Abbott became shadow minister for Public Health. Conciliatory measures such as these showed an opposition leader intuitively taking control of his party, disregarding outside anticipations. Unfortunately, and confusingly, this intuition did not extend to all reaches of his party appointments.
Phil Woolas, MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth, was among those appointed to Ed Balls’ team of junior Home Office ministers. During the general election campaign Woolas and his team published a leaflet defending his “strong” stance on immigration, while apparently attacking Lib Dem candidate Elwyn Watkins on his party’s plans for an amnesty for certain immigrants who had come to Britain illegally. “The Lib Dems plan to give hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants the right to stay [in Britain]...Do you want the extremists to win?”, read one line on the leaflet, accompanied by inflammatory pictures of radical Islamist demonstrators brandishing signs with slogans such as “Behead those who insult Islam”. In the wake of other campaign material that featured doctored photos of the Lib Dem candidate being arrested, and false claims that he possessed a criminal record, Watkins issued a legal challenge to Woolas and his subsequent election victory.
Not only were the tactics of Woolas’s team churlish and petty, they were frankly offensive, and clearly designed to play on the fears of what prosecutor Helen Mountfield described as “the white Sun [reading] vote”. E-mails between election agent Joseph Fitzpatrick and Woolas speak of “[getting] the white vote angry” and going strong on the “militant Moslem [sic] angle”. Telling untruths about a candidate’s personal life or political manifesto is bad practice enough, but deliberately invoking racial tensions in the community in an effort to revitalise a flagging campaign is downright despicable; it is something for which the BNP were overwhelmingly rejected by the voting public this May.
If Woolas is defeated in court, he will be expelled from parliament and a by-election called. It would be the first major scandal to hit the opposition, and would surely bring Ed Miliband’s judgement into question. Left-wing bloggers have hit the roof over the selection of Woolas. His shadow cabinet decisions already made the headlines for their unexpected nature. If any one of his choices proves disastrous during Labour’s opposition, there will be no one else to blame.
Tuesday 5 October 2010
Cameron keeps his Coul(son)
With the Conservative Party conference proving the ideal platform for plans to slash Britain’s structural deficit- £109bn being the figure touted- one particular figure is yet to be cut from the picture. Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s media adviser, is facing fresh allegations from a senior journalist that, while editor of the News of the World, he listened to hacked voicemail messages obtained by reporters. Such a controversial claim, the like of which is very serious indeed, should alone be enough to warrant an investigation; but the actualities of the case seem almost more worrying than the claim itself.
The former NOTW executive, who spoke as part of Channel 4’s Dispatches program, threw light upon Coulson’s distorted sense of media integrity. He claimed that the former editor insisted upon seeing or listening to the phone messages in order to determine whether the proposed stories would include misinformation that might be subject to libel or defamation lawsuits. In what twisted world or journalistic immorality (if that concept is itself not a paradox) can a newspaper editor demand assurance that the illegally obtained material before him is legally viable to print? The answer, it seems, is the world of News International, the UK wing of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. His publications all but ignored the issue; The Sun gave a passing note on Scotland Yard’s ruling out of an investigation due to insubstantial evidence, and Cameron granted Coulson affirmed sanctuary. When last year a news anchor on US channel Fox, of which Murdoch is CEO and Chairman, asked the Australian to divulge, he was flatly met with refusal. The anchor replied: “No worries Mr Chairman, that’s fine with me”; and the interview continued anew. This kind of insidious contempt for freedom of the press must not be permitted shelter under the centre of Britain’s democracy.
The original allegations of Coulson’s involvement in phone hacking date back to 2007, when he resigned as editor of the tabloid newspaper following the revelations that Clive Goodman, at the time the paper’s royal correspondent, had hacked the voicemail messages of three members of the royal household. For one reporter’s illicit activities to go unnoticed by his editor is not beyond belief; but when claims began to surface of the widespread practice of phone-tapping within the NOTW offices, we are left to draw one of two conclusions. Either Coulson’s authority over his reporters was so weak as to be entirely irresponsible for their actions, or his denial of involvement and distancing from the allegations was watertight enough for him to elude suspicion. After all, Goodman was subsequently imprisoned for his role in the scandal, while Coulson managed largely to escape intense scrutiny and in a matter of months was appointed Conservative Party Director of Communications. Coulson has frequently and fervently denied his knowledge of his reporters’ practices, and since taking up his role within the innermost circles of the coalition government, seems to have benefitted from the protection of both Cameron and Murdoch, who owe much to one another following the News International union of newspapers’ full and unequivocal backing for the Tories in the recent election.
In a tumultuous few months, senior coalition figures have already been forced to bow out amid scandal and cries of foul play. David Laws, short lived Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was the first to go after details of his expenses claims were unnecessarily conflated with stories of his sexuality. William Hague had a turbulent week when he too faced “malicious rumours” regarding his own sexuality and relationship with his wife, after sharing a room with his aide on the campaign trail. Hague clung on, and rightly so; it would have been grossly unjust had he been forced to retreat under the pressure of the gossip-hungry hacks baying at his door. In the case of Andy Coulson, the same reporters who attacked Laws and Hague are those who hold positions Coulson himself once occupied: part of the same network of intrigue and backroom deals, whose reputations are made and veritably owned by News International. Now Coulson needs to be brought forward and made to account for himself, if not by tribunal then by Cameron himself, or by any senior Conservatives concerned for their party’s integrity. In this case, the allegations- unlike those regarding MPs’ sexualities- are of indiscretions that have absolutely no place in the upper echelons of government, and that further jeopardise the ever-questionable ethics of the free press. Here stands one figure whom I would be glad to see cut by the Tories.
The former NOTW executive, who spoke as part of Channel 4’s Dispatches program, threw light upon Coulson’s distorted sense of media integrity. He claimed that the former editor insisted upon seeing or listening to the phone messages in order to determine whether the proposed stories would include misinformation that might be subject to libel or defamation lawsuits. In what twisted world or journalistic immorality (if that concept is itself not a paradox) can a newspaper editor demand assurance that the illegally obtained material before him is legally viable to print? The answer, it seems, is the world of News International, the UK wing of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. His publications all but ignored the issue; The Sun gave a passing note on Scotland Yard’s ruling out of an investigation due to insubstantial evidence, and Cameron granted Coulson affirmed sanctuary. When last year a news anchor on US channel Fox, of which Murdoch is CEO and Chairman, asked the Australian to divulge, he was flatly met with refusal. The anchor replied: “No worries Mr Chairman, that’s fine with me”; and the interview continued anew. This kind of insidious contempt for freedom of the press must not be permitted shelter under the centre of Britain’s democracy.
The original allegations of Coulson’s involvement in phone hacking date back to 2007, when he resigned as editor of the tabloid newspaper following the revelations that Clive Goodman, at the time the paper’s royal correspondent, had hacked the voicemail messages of three members of the royal household. For one reporter’s illicit activities to go unnoticed by his editor is not beyond belief; but when claims began to surface of the widespread practice of phone-tapping within the NOTW offices, we are left to draw one of two conclusions. Either Coulson’s authority over his reporters was so weak as to be entirely irresponsible for their actions, or his denial of involvement and distancing from the allegations was watertight enough for him to elude suspicion. After all, Goodman was subsequently imprisoned for his role in the scandal, while Coulson managed largely to escape intense scrutiny and in a matter of months was appointed Conservative Party Director of Communications. Coulson has frequently and fervently denied his knowledge of his reporters’ practices, and since taking up his role within the innermost circles of the coalition government, seems to have benefitted from the protection of both Cameron and Murdoch, who owe much to one another following the News International union of newspapers’ full and unequivocal backing for the Tories in the recent election.
In a tumultuous few months, senior coalition figures have already been forced to bow out amid scandal and cries of foul play. David Laws, short lived Chief Secretary to the Treasury, was the first to go after details of his expenses claims were unnecessarily conflated with stories of his sexuality. William Hague had a turbulent week when he too faced “malicious rumours” regarding his own sexuality and relationship with his wife, after sharing a room with his aide on the campaign trail. Hague clung on, and rightly so; it would have been grossly unjust had he been forced to retreat under the pressure of the gossip-hungry hacks baying at his door. In the case of Andy Coulson, the same reporters who attacked Laws and Hague are those who hold positions Coulson himself once occupied: part of the same network of intrigue and backroom deals, whose reputations are made and veritably owned by News International. Now Coulson needs to be brought forward and made to account for himself, if not by tribunal then by Cameron himself, or by any senior Conservatives concerned for their party’s integrity. In this case, the allegations- unlike those regarding MPs’ sexualities- are of indiscretions that have absolutely no place in the upper echelons of government, and that further jeopardise the ever-questionable ethics of the free press. Here stands one figure whom I would be glad to see cut by the Tories.
Saturday 25 September 2010
Baroness Warsi's e-mail to Conservative supporters following the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader
Dear _____,
On behalf of all of us in the Conservative Party, I congratulate Ed Miliband on his election as Leader of the Labour Party.
He will have many challenges ahead in these next few days, but if he wants to be taken seriously, the first thing he's got to do is own up to his role in creating the mess that Britain is in and tell us what he'd do to fix it.
From advising Gordon Brown in the Treasury in the 90s, to serving in his Cabinet in the 2000s, he must recognise his central role in creating the financial mess we're all paying for.
For the past five months, all we've heard from Labour is knee jerk opposition to our plans to tackle the deficit. Now is the time for Mr Miliband to tell us what he'd do instead. He promised us a Labour spending plan before the spending review, now we'd all like to see it.
The new Labour leader now has a clear choice. He can either serve the national interest by joining with us and the Liberal Democrats and set out how he would cut the deficit, or he can stand on the sidelines and refuse to engage with the biggest challenge facing Britain in decades.
The fact that Ed Miliband owes his position to the votes of the unions does not bode well. At the moment this looks like a great leap backwards for the Labour Party.
After 13 years of Labour failure, we need your help to hold Ed Miliband to account. So please forward this email to your family and friends - and don't forget to follow and share our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
Yours,
Sayeeda Warsi
Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party
On behalf of all of us in the Conservative Party, I congratulate Ed Miliband on his election as Leader of the Labour Party.
He will have many challenges ahead in these next few days, but if he wants to be taken seriously, the first thing he's got to do is own up to his role in creating the mess that Britain is in and tell us what he'd do to fix it.
From advising Gordon Brown in the Treasury in the 90s, to serving in his Cabinet in the 2000s, he must recognise his central role in creating the financial mess we're all paying for.
For the past five months, all we've heard from Labour is knee jerk opposition to our plans to tackle the deficit. Now is the time for Mr Miliband to tell us what he'd do instead. He promised us a Labour spending plan before the spending review, now we'd all like to see it.
The new Labour leader now has a clear choice. He can either serve the national interest by joining with us and the Liberal Democrats and set out how he would cut the deficit, or he can stand on the sidelines and refuse to engage with the biggest challenge facing Britain in decades.
The fact that Ed Miliband owes his position to the votes of the unions does not bode well. At the moment this looks like a great leap backwards for the Labour Party.
After 13 years of Labour failure, we need your help to hold Ed Miliband to account. So please forward this email to your family and friends - and don't forget to follow and share our updates on Facebook and Twitter.
Yours,
Sayeeda Warsi
Co-Chairman of the Conservative Party
Wednesday 8 September 2010
US blind spot? A quick post.
The BBC reports on the plans of Florida pastor Terry Jones and his Dove World Outreach Center to burn copies of the Koran on the 11th of September.
"On Monday, General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, warned troops' lives would be in danger if the church went through with its bonfire. The US Attorney General, Eric Holder, called the idea "idiotic and dangerous"."
Not "bigoted and intolerant"? All they seem to think about is the impact on America... and American soldiers, rather than daring to speak out against what I fear is an attitude shared in whatever form by many more than the fifty Florida churchgoers in question. The safety of American Christians serving in Afghanistan may be put at risk, but what about the safety of American Muslims at home? There doesn't appear to be any indication that this consequence has been considered.
"On Monday, General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, warned troops' lives would be in danger if the church went through with its bonfire. The US Attorney General, Eric Holder, called the idea "idiotic and dangerous"."
Not "bigoted and intolerant"? All they seem to think about is the impact on America... and American soldiers, rather than daring to speak out against what I fear is an attitude shared in whatever form by many more than the fifty Florida churchgoers in question. The safety of American Christians serving in Afghanistan may be put at risk, but what about the safety of American Muslims at home? There doesn't appear to be any indication that this consequence has been considered.
Friday 3 September 2010
The Sad Story of Mr. Hague
I'm always anxious as to how these are read- if they are read at all. They're merely off-the-cuff musings that I should probably take more time to think about, but that if I don't write down immediately will probably fizzle out and never reappear. Maybe I shouldn't even write them at all. With that in mind, do proceed.
Picking up the tail-end of this entirely unimportant non-news story, I feel compelled to write a short piece on my belief that the rumours about Foreign Secretary William Hague's sexuality and following PR disaster-a-thon were not at all worth writing about. Got that?
Already, one coaltion minister has, effectively, been forced from his post after a media storm about homosexuality. And here's the thing- that story wasn't about Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws' sexuality at all. It was about his questionable expenses claims, a misdemeanour that happened to coincide with the fact that Laws paid rent to a person who happened to be his long-term partner. The disclosure of his homosexuality was somehow twisted by the press so as to make it seem as though this was about something more sinister, more seedy, than it was- and in fact, it was nothing. We recently saw prisons minister Crispin Blunt express his wish for time to 'come to terms' with his homosexuality- as though he was forced, all of a sudden, to become accustomed to having wheels where his feet once were. I don't mean to suggest that he doesn't need an adjustment period if his life has changed significantly- he has left his wife, and thus possibly his home as well- but the language used to convey this situation still betrays a benign homophobia that colours the way in which these people are portrayed in the media. The hideous result of mixing MPs' private lives and their media representation came to a head with the utter non-story of William Hague's sharing of a room with an aide when campaigning. Now, I'm not the biggest Hague fan, but if his job is now under threat as a result of this shitstorm, then that's not right.
So, it transpired that Hague had indeed shared a room with aide and colleague Chris Myers (who has since quit his job and fled from the intrusions of the media) whilst on the campaign trail for the general election. Teeheehee, he's sharing a room with a man- he's GAY! Many Tories have blasted Bill Hague for this apparent 'error of judgement'- as though we the public are helplessly and interminably compelled to put two and two (read 'man' and 'man') together and get five (read 'deviant/devious homosexuality'). Of course, by no means is this a phenomenon exclusive to the happenstance of two men sharing a room, for if an unmarried (or separately married) man and woman shared a room, people would cry 'foul play' all the same. This is surely a symptom of a collective mindset by which we're driven to suspect, doubt, decry and denounce at every opportunity- where we're all so self-important and yet tragically insecure, where we need to condemn others so that we ourselves are absolved. Gone is the innoncence of companionship, where two men might dare to do something so suggestive as share a hotel room. The nihilist's explanation for this suspicion is of course that people are all morally corrupted and probably guilty of everything with which we charge them. Unfortunately, a few thousand years of inhumanity, death and destruction don't do much to prove them wrong. But morals are an intangible and arbitrary construct, and so don't really have any business guiding our animalistic thrill-seeking pleasure-quest through life, right? Another day, another post.
I've lost my place. Apparently these rumours of homosexuality have dogged Hague for a while, for reasons that The Telegraph un-tongue-in-cheekedly points out (in an editorial, no less) are probably applicable to half of all MPs, let alone Tory ones. The rest of the story, I shan't go in to here- but it's the next part in which Bill, unfortunately, makes a mess of things himself. And I don't mean in the way that Alastair Campbell seems to think- that, by announcing his and his wife's history of miscarriages in a public announcement, he has somehow fuelled yet more speculation about his sexuality. Rather, by putting out an intensely personal statemant about deeply sad family matters, he has further convinced the media that his private life is the property of hacks who have nothing better with which to fill newspaper pages or screen time than affairs of the home. Instead of crushing malicious rumours (and I'm worried that the 'malicious' might refer to an accusation of homosexuality being offensive, rather than the intent behind the accusation) and getting on with his job- which he could stand to do better- he has unbolted the door to the figurative politician's home, and invited the hungry journos in to take photographs onf said politician's figurative underwear drawer. Or something like that. Now Hague's judgement is being questioned- just like David Laws' was. And I fear that Laws' fiscal affairs weren't the only reason.
Picking up the tail-end of this entirely unimportant non-news story, I feel compelled to write a short piece on my belief that the rumours about Foreign Secretary William Hague's sexuality and following PR disaster-a-thon were not at all worth writing about. Got that?
Already, one coaltion minister has, effectively, been forced from his post after a media storm about homosexuality. And here's the thing- that story wasn't about Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws' sexuality at all. It was about his questionable expenses claims, a misdemeanour that happened to coincide with the fact that Laws paid rent to a person who happened to be his long-term partner. The disclosure of his homosexuality was somehow twisted by the press so as to make it seem as though this was about something more sinister, more seedy, than it was- and in fact, it was nothing. We recently saw prisons minister Crispin Blunt express his wish for time to 'come to terms' with his homosexuality- as though he was forced, all of a sudden, to become accustomed to having wheels where his feet once were. I don't mean to suggest that he doesn't need an adjustment period if his life has changed significantly- he has left his wife, and thus possibly his home as well- but the language used to convey this situation still betrays a benign homophobia that colours the way in which these people are portrayed in the media. The hideous result of mixing MPs' private lives and their media representation came to a head with the utter non-story of William Hague's sharing of a room with an aide when campaigning. Now, I'm not the biggest Hague fan, but if his job is now under threat as a result of this shitstorm, then that's not right.
So, it transpired that Hague had indeed shared a room with aide and colleague Chris Myers (who has since quit his job and fled from the intrusions of the media) whilst on the campaign trail for the general election. Teeheehee, he's sharing a room with a man- he's GAY! Many Tories have blasted Bill Hague for this apparent 'error of judgement'- as though we the public are helplessly and interminably compelled to put two and two (read 'man' and 'man') together and get five (read 'deviant/devious homosexuality'). Of course, by no means is this a phenomenon exclusive to the happenstance of two men sharing a room, for if an unmarried (or separately married) man and woman shared a room, people would cry 'foul play' all the same. This is surely a symptom of a collective mindset by which we're driven to suspect, doubt, decry and denounce at every opportunity- where we're all so self-important and yet tragically insecure, where we need to condemn others so that we ourselves are absolved. Gone is the innoncence of companionship, where two men might dare to do something so suggestive as share a hotel room. The nihilist's explanation for this suspicion is of course that people are all morally corrupted and probably guilty of everything with which we charge them. Unfortunately, a few thousand years of inhumanity, death and destruction don't do much to prove them wrong. But morals are an intangible and arbitrary construct, and so don't really have any business guiding our animalistic thrill-seeking pleasure-quest through life, right? Another day, another post.
I've lost my place. Apparently these rumours of homosexuality have dogged Hague for a while, for reasons that The Telegraph un-tongue-in-cheekedly points out (in an editorial, no less) are probably applicable to half of all MPs, let alone Tory ones. The rest of the story, I shan't go in to here- but it's the next part in which Bill, unfortunately, makes a mess of things himself. And I don't mean in the way that Alastair Campbell seems to think- that, by announcing his and his wife's history of miscarriages in a public announcement, he has somehow fuelled yet more speculation about his sexuality. Rather, by putting out an intensely personal statemant about deeply sad family matters, he has further convinced the media that his private life is the property of hacks who have nothing better with which to fill newspaper pages or screen time than affairs of the home. Instead of crushing malicious rumours (and I'm worried that the 'malicious' might refer to an accusation of homosexuality being offensive, rather than the intent behind the accusation) and getting on with his job- which he could stand to do better- he has unbolted the door to the figurative politician's home, and invited the hungry journos in to take photographs onf said politician's figurative underwear drawer. Or something like that. Now Hague's judgement is being questioned- just like David Laws' was. And I fear that Laws' fiscal affairs weren't the only reason.
Monday 21 June 2010
"Unacceptable behaviour", cries formerly homophobic pro-fox hunting Home Secretary.
In one of the first great acts of her tenure as Home Secretary, Theresa May MP has banned the Muslim public speaker Zakir Naik from entering the UK to give a series of talks. She has cited the reasons for this action as being the "unacceptable behaviour" of Naik, regarding certain unidentified comments. It is at this point that I take it upon myself to highlight to the Home Secretary the pompous folly of her actions, and the myriad issues surrounding the suppression of free speech that are once more called into play with this announcement. Certainly, Mrs. May should be well advised to think carefully before crying "unacceptable behaviour".
As disclosed in the midst of post-election confusion and cabinet speculation, May's voting record in the House of Commons reveals some highly questionable opinions from the person who is now both Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equality. Having repeatedly voted against the banning of fox hunting, adoption by unmarried gay couples, and abstaining from such votes as that to lower the age of sexual consent for gay couples to 16, Theresa May herself would herself be considered guilty of "unacceptable behaviour" by many liberally-minded sectors of British society. I certainly find her views no more acceptable than I do those of Islamist preachers. And if persons might be denied entry to the UK based on views regarding propagation of 'extreme' religious views, should not a state visit from Pope Benedict XVI also come into question, after he claimed that Britain's legislation to equalise gay rights "violates natural law", and in previous statements has claimed condom usage proliferates HIV/AIDS? I believe it should. Theresa May, whose party has long decried New Labour's 'Nanny State', obviously disagrees with me.
Yes, this is all another murky puddle of 'free speech' and 'no platform' business. Recently I have oft found myself using the quotation attributed to Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." In the same way that I find the dispositions of May and her fellow Conservative Party MPs to be unacceptable- nigh on offensive- I accept that, in a society that we proclaim to be democratic, while I may not believe that what they say is valid, I believe entirely that their right to say it is. Geert Wilders should not have been barred from showing his film Fitna, in the same way that Naik should not be barred from speaking words that might be likely to offend. For this is not simply a matter of allowing others free speech, but of strengthening our own also. The further we limit our exposure to extreme or offensive opinions, the further we limit our propensity to construct an informed and effective response. Censorship is never the answer- silencing what we hear only has the effect of silencing what we say.
As disclosed in the midst of post-election confusion and cabinet speculation, May's voting record in the House of Commons reveals some highly questionable opinions from the person who is now both Home Secretary and Minister for Women and Equality. Having repeatedly voted against the banning of fox hunting, adoption by unmarried gay couples, and abstaining from such votes as that to lower the age of sexual consent for gay couples to 16, Theresa May herself would herself be considered guilty of "unacceptable behaviour" by many liberally-minded sectors of British society. I certainly find her views no more acceptable than I do those of Islamist preachers. And if persons might be denied entry to the UK based on views regarding propagation of 'extreme' religious views, should not a state visit from Pope Benedict XVI also come into question, after he claimed that Britain's legislation to equalise gay rights "violates natural law", and in previous statements has claimed condom usage proliferates HIV/AIDS? I believe it should. Theresa May, whose party has long decried New Labour's 'Nanny State', obviously disagrees with me.
Yes, this is all another murky puddle of 'free speech' and 'no platform' business. Recently I have oft found myself using the quotation attributed to Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." In the same way that I find the dispositions of May and her fellow Conservative Party MPs to be unacceptable- nigh on offensive- I accept that, in a society that we proclaim to be democratic, while I may not believe that what they say is valid, I believe entirely that their right to say it is. Geert Wilders should not have been barred from showing his film Fitna, in the same way that Naik should not be barred from speaking words that might be likely to offend. For this is not simply a matter of allowing others free speech, but of strengthening our own also. The further we limit our exposure to extreme or offensive opinions, the further we limit our propensity to construct an informed and effective response. Censorship is never the answer- silencing what we hear only has the effect of silencing what we say.
Thursday 10 June 2010
The Price of Education
Universities minister David Willetts has, according to today’s Guardian, given ‘his clearest indication yet that students could soon be forced to pay higher tuition fees’. Student tuition fees have proven a hot topic throughout the aftermath of the banking crisis, as top-ranking universities have been faced with deep spending cuts, lay-offs and course restructuring in an effort to ride out the wave of austerity. Oxford and Cambridge have long wished to break through the £3,225 a year cap on fees, in an attempt to compete with research institutions like Harvard, Yale and other US Ivy League private universities. Of course, Oxford and Cambridge tend to attract students whose parents have much deeper wallets than most. There is, after all, a reason why an equivalent of the Bullingdon Club does not operate at one of the many former polys across the country. The price of having 'Oxon' or 'Cantab' attached to your degree is likely to triple if chancellors get their way; and many students are likely to be priced out of higher education for fear of leaving university with debts that won't be repaid for decades.
This issue also highlights one of the manifold rifts within the Tory/Lib Dem coalition; one that students throughout Britain will hope won’t fall in line with those that Nick Clegg has already dismissed in his decorative role as Deputy Prime Minister. The Lib Dems fought an election campaign based on many principles, one of which was the scrapping of unfair student tuition fees. Both Clegg and Vince Cable have already sacrificed many of their flagship policies in what we may presume were attempts to allow the coalition government to operate smoothly in its first months. As much as Mr. Willetts’ comments infuriate me, I know that Labour hadn’t correctly answered the student finance question either. Wanting to put ten or twenty thousand more students into higher education whilst slashing university spending, coupled with an already inefficient and overburdened Student Loans Company, would no doubt have proved rather disastrous.
Willetts wants more school-leavers to ‘consider apprenticeships as a possible route into higher education’. This has my full and wholehearted support. However, I would not wish to take an apprenticeship simply because that is not a route in which my skills might flourish. My talents in English are all I have ever aspired to cultivate throughout my education, and attending a Russell Group university like Leeds is one of the best paths that I might take with that end in mind. However, it is a costly one. One that I would never be able to take without the aid of student loans. As a student from a low-income, single parent household, I already receive the maximum amount of loans and grants available. Thus I, like many thousands of others, am already likely to leave university in the depths of a quite obscene debt. I know others here whose tuition fees won’t trouble them in the slightest, whose parents or family will even be able to entirely foot the bills at the end. That’s a situation I won’t know, and I’m glad of that fact. I would rather work my way out of debt in the knowledge that responsibility for my education lay with me. Though it is an expensive responsibility.
I am incredibly proud to be a student at a prestigious Redbrick university, and to have consistently achieved highly in my work here. I refuse to deny the gratifying knowledge that I am doing the best I possibly can and that I am justifying my being here. I should not be made to feel as though I do not have a right to study alongside, and surpass, the sons and daughters of millionaires; I should not be made to question my right to knowledge because of fiscal constraints. If studying at university level is an irresponsible course of action due to the costs incurred, then I would vehemently defend my irresponsibility against any government that compels me to choose between my money and my aspirations.
This issue also highlights one of the manifold rifts within the Tory/Lib Dem coalition; one that students throughout Britain will hope won’t fall in line with those that Nick Clegg has already dismissed in his decorative role as Deputy Prime Minister. The Lib Dems fought an election campaign based on many principles, one of which was the scrapping of unfair student tuition fees. Both Clegg and Vince Cable have already sacrificed many of their flagship policies in what we may presume were attempts to allow the coalition government to operate smoothly in its first months. As much as Mr. Willetts’ comments infuriate me, I know that Labour hadn’t correctly answered the student finance question either. Wanting to put ten or twenty thousand more students into higher education whilst slashing university spending, coupled with an already inefficient and overburdened Student Loans Company, would no doubt have proved rather disastrous.
Willetts wants more school-leavers to ‘consider apprenticeships as a possible route into higher education’. This has my full and wholehearted support. However, I would not wish to take an apprenticeship simply because that is not a route in which my skills might flourish. My talents in English are all I have ever aspired to cultivate throughout my education, and attending a Russell Group university like Leeds is one of the best paths that I might take with that end in mind. However, it is a costly one. One that I would never be able to take without the aid of student loans. As a student from a low-income, single parent household, I already receive the maximum amount of loans and grants available. Thus I, like many thousands of others, am already likely to leave university in the depths of a quite obscene debt. I know others here whose tuition fees won’t trouble them in the slightest, whose parents or family will even be able to entirely foot the bills at the end. That’s a situation I won’t know, and I’m glad of that fact. I would rather work my way out of debt in the knowledge that responsibility for my education lay with me. Though it is an expensive responsibility.
I am incredibly proud to be a student at a prestigious Redbrick university, and to have consistently achieved highly in my work here. I refuse to deny the gratifying knowledge that I am doing the best I possibly can and that I am justifying my being here. I should not be made to feel as though I do not have a right to study alongside, and surpass, the sons and daughters of millionaires; I should not be made to question my right to knowledge because of fiscal constraints. If studying at university level is an irresponsible course of action due to the costs incurred, then I would vehemently defend my irresponsibility against any government that compels me to choose between my money and my aspirations.
Tuesday 1 June 2010
Review: Marina & The Diamonds, Leeds Met Union, 31/5/10
Pint of Tetley's in hand, I squeeze my way through masses of fourteen year-old girls singing along to Poker Face and In For The Kill to take up a decent viewing spot. Though they take up the majority of space at the front of the venue, the further back you look through the room, the older and trendier the audience, who obviously shun the trauma that I'm putting myself through for the sake of an unobstructed stage view. Conveniently, this serves as a rather fitting metaphor for what Marina's music has become: a meld of cheeky, cheery pop songs that belie oft-intense and harrowing sentiments. Choruses to wail along to, dark lyrics to contemplate with intrigue.
Support comes from a young lady called Spark, taking to the stage in a black catsuit and torn 'ARE YOU DUMB' t-shirt. Hers is a catchy, bass-driven eighties pastiche pop sound: one that, live, seems to overpower the voice that is so prominent on her Myspace recordings. Of course, chiefly due to her billing below her bigger, bolder pop-sister, she seems very similar to Marina- but then, support acts often follow that pattern. 'Shut Out The Moon' and 'Wrap' were highlights, the former of which you can now download from her website. The tween audience members snigger when she announces song 'Blow'.
Appearing first in silhouette form in a film that plays on the back of the stage, Marina steps astride the mic and launches into Girls. With neon-pink lipstick, wind tunnel-blown hair, denim shorts and cheerleader jersey, she looks and sounds every bit the transcendental diva-next-door. The band are tight, and her voice throughout the night is flawless. Sitting to play I Am Not A Robot at the keyboard, she breaks from the constraints of the radio single and gives free rein to the range she first displayed on early songs Daddy Was A Sailor and Simplify, neither of which made the cut for album The Family Jewels and neither of which appear tonight; she performs all album tracks other than Hermit The Frog.
Changing into a big, silken Bambi gown (Yes, she did) for the encore, she covers STARSTRUKK by 3OH!3 and, I gather, Katy Perry. After searching for the song on YouTube, I find the original to be a tawdry club tune with a weak bassline and annoying American whines. Predictably, Marina's voice turns it into something with a poignant vibrancy, and I now wish that hers was the only version I'd ever heard. Ending the night- and the tour- on a euphoric high with chirpy Mowgli's Road, she clearly relishes every moment of it. As the crowd file out, I can't hear a bad word being said.
I leave, entirely satisfied.
Sunday 30 May 2010
Britain's Got a Disregard for Troubled and Vulnerable Individuals
Carole Cadwalladr writes in today's Observer about the risk of humiliated Britain's Got Talent contestants contemplating suicide. The article uses the example of Alyn James, a contestant with a history of psychiatric units and mental health problems, who was, by the sounds of it (I didn't watch the "episode" in question), recently jeered off the stage by a crowd baying for blood. I don't watch the show at all, though I'll admit that I have done in the past. Soon enough, I came to the realisation that if I wanted to see a hairy misanthrope tear people to shreds, I might just as easily watch Peter Jackson's King Kong.
This story is, predictably, the most recent in a long line of criticisms of Simon Cowell's talent contest-cum-reality TV shows. Little more than thinly-veiled exhibitions of Britain's weird and wonderful (though far more air time is devoted to the weird), BGT is both a symptom and a cause of a mainstream culture that deals in schadenfreude and the considerable clout of rose-tinted underdog stories. When Susan Boyle appeared on the show last year (and I'm again working from second-hand information; I've managed never to watch that YouTube clip), she was ridiculed by audience members:
"What are you doing here, fool? Don't you know that people who aren't preposterously attractive can't si- WOW! Incredible! My socially conditioned prejudices never conceived that this unconventionally dressed, middle-of-the-road woman might be at all talented!"
(I'm guessing the reaction went something like that)
Yet anyone who thought that BGT might finally have offered a fair and unbiased opportunity to a diamond in the rough was sorely mistaken. As highlighted by TIME, Boyle was expressly approached by Cowell's talent scouts to appear on the show, while 1970s Cambodian dictator and previous BGT winner Paul Potts had performed before Pavarotti, and with the Royal Philharmonic. Far from being incredible discoveries, their performances were carefully orchestrated pieces of human-interest drama. But then, as many people must know by now, the televised auditions are in fact the second stage of contestants' tribulations: for they must attend an 'untelevised' audition with BGT underlings before they entertain the panel of international supervillains Cowell, Piers Morgan, and Amanda "I know you were singing for your babies/parent/grandparent just then" Holden. This filtration process obviously ensures that the contestants most likely to elicit an extreme response from the audience are put through, as opposed to those with the very best acts. Because that's what TV is all about, right? An exposé of regular people whom we are encouraged to deride because they don't meet our absurd expectations? Right.
And, of course, in last year's grand final, Boyle apparently fell out of grace with "the public", who voted instead for some kids who shuffled about whilst wearing hats (the fact that their act was named 'Diversity' made their victory seem like the fulfilment of an Equal Opportunities quota). I arrived back in London from a holiday in France to the hilarious-yet-awful tabloid headlines of "SuBo in Priory". I'm certain that any irony in one woman's struggle with ceaseless and unscrupulous media coverage receiving ceaseless and unscrupulous media coverage was not lost on the bigwig red-top editors; they who eat irony for breakfast and wash it down with a warm cup of capitalist depravity. Yum.
Cowell's shows have propagated the belief that members of society have not only the right but the obligation to ridicule others on the basis of a very artificial, very public portrayal. His projects throughout the previous decade mutated from glitzy-tacky singing contests to national spectacles showcasing various 'talents', all the while revolutionising the manner in which the viewing public interacted with what they saw on television. Somewhere along the way, laughing at failure become more enjoyable (and doubtless more profitable) than celebrating success. His is a multi-million pound trade that deals in personal strife and public exploitation, offering transient fame and the impossible promise of contestants' unadulterated self-expression.
Rumour has it that he's on the Queen's birthday honours list.
This story is, predictably, the most recent in a long line of criticisms of Simon Cowell's talent contest-cum-reality TV shows. Little more than thinly-veiled exhibitions of Britain's weird and wonderful (though far more air time is devoted to the weird), BGT is both a symptom and a cause of a mainstream culture that deals in schadenfreude and the considerable clout of rose-tinted underdog stories. When Susan Boyle appeared on the show last year (and I'm again working from second-hand information; I've managed never to watch that YouTube clip), she was ridiculed by audience members:
"What are you doing here, fool? Don't you know that people who aren't preposterously attractive can't si- WOW! Incredible! My socially conditioned prejudices never conceived that this unconventionally dressed, middle-of-the-road woman might be at all talented!"
(I'm guessing the reaction went something like that)
Yet anyone who thought that BGT might finally have offered a fair and unbiased opportunity to a diamond in the rough was sorely mistaken. As highlighted by TIME, Boyle was expressly approached by Cowell's talent scouts to appear on the show, while 1970s Cambodian dictator and previous BGT winner Paul Potts had performed before Pavarotti, and with the Royal Philharmonic. Far from being incredible discoveries, their performances were carefully orchestrated pieces of human-interest drama. But then, as many people must know by now, the televised auditions are in fact the second stage of contestants' tribulations: for they must attend an 'untelevised' audition with BGT underlings before they entertain the panel of international supervillains Cowell, Piers Morgan, and Amanda "I know you were singing for your babies/parent/grandparent just then" Holden. This filtration process obviously ensures that the contestants most likely to elicit an extreme response from the audience are put through, as opposed to those with the very best acts. Because that's what TV is all about, right? An exposé of regular people whom we are encouraged to deride because they don't meet our absurd expectations? Right.
And, of course, in last year's grand final, Boyle apparently fell out of grace with "the public", who voted instead for some kids who shuffled about whilst wearing hats (the fact that their act was named 'Diversity' made their victory seem like the fulfilment of an Equal Opportunities quota). I arrived back in London from a holiday in France to the hilarious-yet-awful tabloid headlines of "SuBo in Priory". I'm certain that any irony in one woman's struggle with ceaseless and unscrupulous media coverage receiving ceaseless and unscrupulous media coverage was not lost on the bigwig red-top editors; they who eat irony for breakfast and wash it down with a warm cup of capitalist depravity. Yum.
Cowell's shows have propagated the belief that members of society have not only the right but the obligation to ridicule others on the basis of a very artificial, very public portrayal. His projects throughout the previous decade mutated from glitzy-tacky singing contests to national spectacles showcasing various 'talents', all the while revolutionising the manner in which the viewing public interacted with what they saw on television. Somewhere along the way, laughing at failure become more enjoyable (and doubtless more profitable) than celebrating success. His is a multi-million pound trade that deals in personal strife and public exploitation, offering transient fame and the impossible promise of contestants' unadulterated self-expression.
Rumour has it that he's on the Queen's birthday honours list.
Sunday 2 May 2010
A response to the actions of Leeds University Union Activities Executive, 12/03/10
The recent events surrounding the LUU Activities Executive’s dealings with the Palestine Solidarity Group, and some of the proposed referendum motions, convey mixed messages. Not only those that contradict one another; for instance, advocating the closure or expansion of the Peanut Gallery, only one of which may be put to referendum; but also those that seem to fly in the face of a democratic and principled union.
From the list of referendum motions, the Peanut Gallery issue has become one of the most controversial, challenged only by the proposed elevation of Jack Straw to Honorary President (I presume this will be somewhat like the position of North Korean ‘Eternal President’ Kim-Il Sung, who continues to preside eternally since his death in 1994).
The main case brought against the Peanut is that it has become the intimidating domain of a ‘highly political clique’. Not only does the use of the word ‘clique’ belittle the sentiments of serious political groups that use the space, but it is an all too easy label to apply to a group that holds ‘asymmetrical’ views. Those who feel intimidated by it are likely to be those that wouldn’t use it anyway, but that’s no case for willing its closure. The invocation of ‘intimidation’ is utterly arbitrary. Students will inevitably feel intimidated by the confidence of others, whether manifest in political activism or nights out in Fruity. The condemnation of the political nature of the Peanut – for one cannot and should not deny that it is the refuge of such groups – seems not only illogical but irrelevant. The Union is not an isolated entity, and the suppression of politics within fosters the kind of apathy that saw a minimal turnout of students in the Union Executive Elections. Though as stated at the outset, this is not the only gripe that I currently hold.
As you may be aware, the Activities Executive moved to ban the Palestine Solidarity Group from using LUU facilities following protests that took place when the deputy consul of the state of Israel, Ismael Khaldi, was invited by the LUU Jewish Society to give a talk at the university. The ban coincided with Israeli Apartheid Week, for which PSG had organised a series of events in conjunction with other societies, like People & Planet, Liberty at Leeds and Revolution, who decided to go ahead in hosting the events despite the ban. Yet in an ‘emergency meeting’ of the Activities Executive on March 2, to which none of the societies in question were invited to defend themselves, members came to the decision to cancel all the week’s events. Justification seems to revolve around the Executive’s unwavering desire to reprimand PSG, with the claim that allowing the events to go ahead would amount to undermining the original suspension of the group.
The meeting’s minutes argue not only that ‘separate’ Facebook pages were not made for the Liberty or People & Planet events, apparently enough to render them null and void, but that it was ‘dishonest’ of PSG to force other groups to ‘act on their behalf’. The Union embargo against PSG was made on the grounds of their behaviour at Khaldi’s talk; grounds not wholly without precedent. yet the motivation behind the events’ cancellation seem inane at best, and at worst, spiteful. The political messages to which the week sought to draw attention are in danger of being repressed: their occurrence under the mantle of a Liberty or P&P event would not have demeaned their importance, an importance now lost in the pursuit of needless one-upmanship. Their outright expulsion from the Union professes not only a vendetta against PSG but a further de-politicisation of the Union space.
The presence of political sentiments within the Union should be encouraged, and under no circumstances quashed. As a physical space, the Peanut Gallery is far from perfect, but as a refuge for those who do wish to be explicitly political, it is something to be cherished. Improve, expand, but do not eradicate. The Union has a bank, a beauty salon, a hairdresser, three clothes shops, two bars, three music venues, and only one democratic cooperative space. The move to cancel the Israeli Apartheid Week events, events spearheaded by both PSG and fellow societies, has sent out the message to such societies that their use of Union space is conditional only upon the consent of a capricious Executive. Let us not allow the freedoms of a ‘highly political clique’ to be threatened by the whims of an anti-political clique.
From the list of referendum motions, the Peanut Gallery issue has become one of the most controversial, challenged only by the proposed elevation of Jack Straw to Honorary President (I presume this will be somewhat like the position of North Korean ‘Eternal President’ Kim-Il Sung, who continues to preside eternally since his death in 1994).
The main case brought against the Peanut is that it has become the intimidating domain of a ‘highly political clique’. Not only does the use of the word ‘clique’ belittle the sentiments of serious political groups that use the space, but it is an all too easy label to apply to a group that holds ‘asymmetrical’ views. Those who feel intimidated by it are likely to be those that wouldn’t use it anyway, but that’s no case for willing its closure. The invocation of ‘intimidation’ is utterly arbitrary. Students will inevitably feel intimidated by the confidence of others, whether manifest in political activism or nights out in Fruity. The condemnation of the political nature of the Peanut – for one cannot and should not deny that it is the refuge of such groups – seems not only illogical but irrelevant. The Union is not an isolated entity, and the suppression of politics within fosters the kind of apathy that saw a minimal turnout of students in the Union Executive Elections. Though as stated at the outset, this is not the only gripe that I currently hold.
As you may be aware, the Activities Executive moved to ban the Palestine Solidarity Group from using LUU facilities following protests that took place when the deputy consul of the state of Israel, Ismael Khaldi, was invited by the LUU Jewish Society to give a talk at the university. The ban coincided with Israeli Apartheid Week, for which PSG had organised a series of events in conjunction with other societies, like People & Planet, Liberty at Leeds and Revolution, who decided to go ahead in hosting the events despite the ban. Yet in an ‘emergency meeting’ of the Activities Executive on March 2, to which none of the societies in question were invited to defend themselves, members came to the decision to cancel all the week’s events. Justification seems to revolve around the Executive’s unwavering desire to reprimand PSG, with the claim that allowing the events to go ahead would amount to undermining the original suspension of the group.
The meeting’s minutes argue not only that ‘separate’ Facebook pages were not made for the Liberty or People & Planet events, apparently enough to render them null and void, but that it was ‘dishonest’ of PSG to force other groups to ‘act on their behalf’. The Union embargo against PSG was made on the grounds of their behaviour at Khaldi’s talk; grounds not wholly without precedent. yet the motivation behind the events’ cancellation seem inane at best, and at worst, spiteful. The political messages to which the week sought to draw attention are in danger of being repressed: their occurrence under the mantle of a Liberty or P&P event would not have demeaned their importance, an importance now lost in the pursuit of needless one-upmanship. Their outright expulsion from the Union professes not only a vendetta against PSG but a further de-politicisation of the Union space.
The presence of political sentiments within the Union should be encouraged, and under no circumstances quashed. As a physical space, the Peanut Gallery is far from perfect, but as a refuge for those who do wish to be explicitly political, it is something to be cherished. Improve, expand, but do not eradicate. The Union has a bank, a beauty salon, a hairdresser, three clothes shops, two bars, three music venues, and only one democratic cooperative space. The move to cancel the Israeli Apartheid Week events, events spearheaded by both PSG and fellow societies, has sent out the message to such societies that their use of Union space is conditional only upon the consent of a capricious Executive. Let us not allow the freedoms of a ‘highly political clique’ to be threatened by the whims of an anti-political clique.
Sunday 14 February 2010
As of today, the BNP is no longer racist. Or is it?
On Sunday February 14th, an amazing thing happened: the BNP instantaneously stopped being a racist organisation. Such a miracle happened because ninety-nine percent of the party (and who cares about the remaining one?) voted ‘yes’ to a constitutional amendment that would allow non-whites to join. Apparently, they can now put all that nasty racist business behind them and concentrate on “saving Britain”.
Hang on, though; isn’t there something wrong with this picture? Well, yes actually; several things, not least that this vote was imposed upon them by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and is in fact nothing but a farcical display of faux-democracy. Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. Griffin, but doesn’t this mean that you didn’t so much jump into ‘multiculturalism’ but were in fact pushed by the long arm of Human Rights law? Once more, yes. This not only suggests that Griffin and the BNP bigwigs were previously in no hurry to instigate such an amendment, but that none of their members had any problem with a membership policy that excluded Britons who were not white. Had the amendment been rejected, the BNP would surely have once and for all been branded as an illegal political party; three hundred members saw to it that that wasn’t the case, while five voted against and four abstained. These nine are the most telling of the meeting’s attendants: they are either opposed to equality or apathetic. And these are the most dangerous qualities possible in members of the voting public.
The BNP’s principal showpiece in this elaborate fraud is Mr. Rajinder Singh: a Sikh who shaves his beard and wears a turban for public appearances only. He purports to share common ground with Griffin in his fears of the “Islamification of Britain”. The BNP have not-so-cleverly replaced racial discrimination with further racial discrimination and masked it with religious discrimination. Mr. Singh’s personal prejudices stem from his experience of the atrocities that followed the partition of India in 1947; committed by Muslim, Sikh and Hindu alike. Events of recent years have heightened Western Islamophobia, while the conservative and centre-Right is experiencing a resurgence across Europe and the US. Tempers are frayed, and the finger of blame is looking to settle on an obvious scapegoat. Parallels with twentieth-century history seem an overworked cliché, but they are disturbingly relevant. The Nazi Party did not invent anti-Semitism, but capitalised on its presence within society and built an incoherent political ideology around it. People like Griffin and Mr. Singh will represent tangible figures of representation for the views of a minority. But the fact that such a minority exists is enough for it to be exploited.
It is the commentator’s fallacy that we continue to pay Griffin undue heed, but doing so does not amount to an admission of his credibility. Instead, with this constitutional amendment, he and the BNP membership have conspired to present their own distorted image of the party: one that claims it to be progressive, accepting, and politically legitimate. While it continues to base its policies and rhetoric around fear and subjugation, it will never be any of these.
Hang on, though; isn’t there something wrong with this picture? Well, yes actually; several things, not least that this vote was imposed upon them by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and is in fact nothing but a farcical display of faux-democracy. Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. Griffin, but doesn’t this mean that you didn’t so much jump into ‘multiculturalism’ but were in fact pushed by the long arm of Human Rights law? Once more, yes. This not only suggests that Griffin and the BNP bigwigs were previously in no hurry to instigate such an amendment, but that none of their members had any problem with a membership policy that excluded Britons who were not white. Had the amendment been rejected, the BNP would surely have once and for all been branded as an illegal political party; three hundred members saw to it that that wasn’t the case, while five voted against and four abstained. These nine are the most telling of the meeting’s attendants: they are either opposed to equality or apathetic. And these are the most dangerous qualities possible in members of the voting public.
The BNP’s principal showpiece in this elaborate fraud is Mr. Rajinder Singh: a Sikh who shaves his beard and wears a turban for public appearances only. He purports to share common ground with Griffin in his fears of the “Islamification of Britain”. The BNP have not-so-cleverly replaced racial discrimination with further racial discrimination and masked it with religious discrimination. Mr. Singh’s personal prejudices stem from his experience of the atrocities that followed the partition of India in 1947; committed by Muslim, Sikh and Hindu alike. Events of recent years have heightened Western Islamophobia, while the conservative and centre-Right is experiencing a resurgence across Europe and the US. Tempers are frayed, and the finger of blame is looking to settle on an obvious scapegoat. Parallels with twentieth-century history seem an overworked cliché, but they are disturbingly relevant. The Nazi Party did not invent anti-Semitism, but capitalised on its presence within society and built an incoherent political ideology around it. People like Griffin and Mr. Singh will represent tangible figures of representation for the views of a minority. But the fact that such a minority exists is enough for it to be exploited.
It is the commentator’s fallacy that we continue to pay Griffin undue heed, but doing so does not amount to an admission of his credibility. Instead, with this constitutional amendment, he and the BNP membership have conspired to present their own distorted image of the party: one that claims it to be progressive, accepting, and politically legitimate. While it continues to base its policies and rhetoric around fear and subjugation, it will never be any of these.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
