Love and Liberty

Yesterday morning, I didn’t make a speech. That’s not unusual: I didn’t make a speech on any of the previous hundred or so mornings, either. But yesterday morning I had a rallying call ready, and wasn’t called (as I’d almost told myself). Liberal Democrat Conferences are democratic – ordinary members or Leaders can speak, and each has one vote – and yesterday’s debate more than usually so, giving us the chance to debate a “Manifesto Themes” Paper long before the General Election. So now you can see my contribution, both written and delivered on YouTube live from a broom cupboard!

A Stronger Economy in a Fairer Society – Enabling Every Person to Get on in Life is a title regular readers will recognise: the Liberal Democrats’ main message. I’ve been doing quite a bit of work to broaden it into a slightly longer statement that reflects more of our values, and that was what I was going to talk about yesterday morning (before Nick Clegg’s cheeringly similar “No, nope, nah” refrain in the afternoon). Thanks to Caron Lindsay for wielding the camera-phone and offering use of the tiny office – it was an odd experience delivering a speech designed for a big hall and big audience in a tiny space and to two lovely people, and it made me feel rather hammy. It’s also much easier when there’s a lectern to rest the speech on and hide behind, as I talk with my hands and shuffle my feet! This version lasts rather longer than the statutory four minutes: I didn’t have a time limit in the broom cupboard, and wander about a bit in the middle, but when practicing it earlier I worked out which bits to gabble through and could sprint to the end in 3.45…

Freedom Is Our Signature Tune

A stronger economy, a fairer society, a million jobs… It’s a good tune, but it sounds a lot like what everyone else is playing. We need that competent, managerial message, but we need passion, too. To make our signature tune sing it needs something more – and freedom is a tune only we can play.

It’s great to see my favourite bit of the Preamble in here. It’s a start. But it’s politically streetwise to pump up freedom higher in the mix. Freedom says we’ve got principles – it inspires our activists and attracts those converts that no-one else can reach.

And it’s streetwise because if we don’t stand up for freedom in the campaign, it will be much harder to make it cast-iron in Coalition, or to make voters understand why we’ll give up other priorities for it.

Make no mistake – it will be much harder next time. When Labour were the most authoritarian government in modern British history, the Tories discovered a taste for freedom. Back in power, they’ve rediscovered how much they love to boss people about. And still, the Labour bully-boys’ first reaction on every liberty is to attack the Coalition from the far right.

Yet if you combine freedom and economic responsibility, austerity can be a friend to some freedoms. Because appalling illiberal authoritarian schemes aren’t just appalling illiberal authoritarian schemes – they’re always expensive appalling illiberal authoritarian schemes. So make the Lib Dems the party of economic responsibility by attacking the other two for wasting a ton of money on their bullying pet projects when there’s so little money to spare.

ID cards waste a ton of money, so don’t.
Snoopers’ Charters waste a ton of money, so don’t.
“Go Home” vans, and porn filters, and every massive intrusive database waste a ton of money, so don’t.

Of course there are positive Liberal commitments I’d like to see in the Manifesto too.

I want to say a personal thank you to every moral Liberal Democrat at Westminster – on our twentieth anniversary next year, Richard and I will be getting married. Thanks to you voting for equal marriage. But the Manifesto should have more than a picture celebrating the partially equal marriage we have now – a commitment to fully equal marriage, so that trans people can be as happy as we are.

I want to see in this Manifesto a Greater Repeal Bill, to expand on the Freedom Act the Tories watered down.
I want to see us repealing all the victimless crimes that waste people’s lives and waste court money and waste police time.

But most of all I want to see a ringing rallying call.
Your mission, David, should you decide to accept it, is to set out a clear, concise vision that combines our big slogan message, our priorities for government and our Liberal principles.
It sounds like mission impossible, but it can be done. And as readers of my blog will know, here’s one I prepared earlier.

Sing Along

The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom for every individual – freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.

To make that freedom real needs both fairness and economic responsibility: an economy that works, that encourages enterprise, and where everyone pays their fair share.

So freedom from poverty requires responsible spending, not debt, built on fairer taxes where lower earners pay less tax and the wealthiest pay more, and building green jobs for the future.

Freedom from ignorance needs better education and training, so people have the opportunity to realise their potential.

And freedom from conformity, supported by freedom from poverty and ignorance, means everyone should have the liberty to live their lives as they choose – without harming others; with equality before the law; with a better say, because no government always knows best.

That’s why Liberal Democrats are working for a greener, stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life.

I wanted to make a positive contribution, so gambled on putting in a card to speak mostly in favour of parts of the motion on the Manifesto Themes. Had I played the Conference ‘game’ and put in to speak against on something the vast majority supported, I’d have been much more likely to have been called: in retrospect, it would have been tempting to speak against the first amendment. Sadly, no-one did, and it was passed overwhelmingly, despite being a shoddy piece of drafting and an ugly piece of wording. It’s bad enough that it was a piece of self-indulgent fappery from Liberal Left, adding rambling statements of the obvious as if only they’d thought of them, and deleting one paragraph merely to reword it slightly differently and less flowingly. What really got my goat about it was that in their eagerness to indulge themselves they dropped things from the original wording. How do you support children by taking out any mention of parents or early years education? And, shamefully, where the original lines talked about “removing barriers faced by communities such as ethnic minorities”, an open-ended and Liberal commitment that gives in example groups who face particular barriers but with its “such as” implies that we want to break down barriers all around, Liberal Left’s clumsy redraft was exclusive, not inclusive, only wanting barriers removed for its chosen groups. Barriers of sexism? Homophobia? Transphobia? Anyone else but Liberal Left’s chosen few? Then their amendment excludes you.

Shameful.

Labels: Gay, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Personal, Richard, Speeches, Video, What the Lib Dems Stand For

As we’re in Glasgow, the city where my Dad was born and to which Alex Salmond is so eager to make me an alien, I thought the First Minister deserved some rigorous intellectual analysis. What do his ‘Independence-Lite-Ambiguity-Heavy’ reassurances to a sceptical Scotland really mean?

‘So I want us to move out, and you’re nervous you won’t like the new place. But it’s OK! Putting Britain through a divorce they don’t want and stiffing them with the rent won’t change anything. We’ll still be able to shag them whenever we want and borrow all their stuff – just no strings! What do you mean, you’re not convinced? How could anyone resist my charms?’

You know, he sounds just like a load of other men I’ve heard boasting after their divorce.

Just not for very long after.

Labels: British Politics, Comedy, Nationalism, Scotland, SNP

Half-way through Liberal Democrat Conference in Glasgow, I’m turning from the hotly argued policy votes to essential principles and eight Lib Dems’ own individual, diverse, but unifying rallying cries on What the Lib Dems Stand For. Some are shorter, some longer, some I’ll link to for more, but all are recognisably Liberal Democrat. Here’s what Sam Phripp, Prateek Buch, Andrew Tennant, Dave Page, Maelo Manning, Nick Barlow, Andrew Brown, Chris Richards – and me – have to say: which inspires you? Try some in your local party, or on the doorstep, or your leaflets and speeches… And share yours, too!

I last published a round-up of responses to my What the Lib Dems Stand For Challenge immediately before our last Conference in March. Most of the responses below were published not long after that, so a particular thank you to all contributors who got in fairly quickly, and apologies for taking so long to compiling them all. Once again, don’t wait to be asked – if you think you can do better, or more personally, or simply more to your own taste, please send me your own idea or publish it yourself (and ideally let me know, so I don’t miss it). I originally challenged other Lib Dems to come up with roughly 150 words – though that was just for ease of use, so whatever length they fancy, really – summing up what the Lib Dems stand for, after first coming up with my own for people to borrow or blame, a synthesis of the Preamble, the party’s achievements in government and the party leadership’s latest messaging. You’ll find mine below, again, and once again, feel free to borrow it wholesale for your own leaflets, speeches or pizza and politics nights, or to say where I’ve gone right or wrong (or say that about the others, but I’m more comfortable inviting potshots at me than at guests). So here are the next eight, a good mix from across the party, some from people I know well and others I don’t, some more to my own taste than others, but every one a rallying cry from the Lib Dem tradition…

Sam Phripp – “A Voice For the Voiceless”

So Sam said… is the most recent “Why I’m a Liberal Democrat” piece I’ve read – Sam prepared it to form part of his selection speech as Lib Dem Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for North East Somerset, but I read it, liked it, so introduced myself to him at Conference the other day and asked if I could reprint some of it. You can read the whole thing on Sam’s blog, but here’s a crucial part:

“The reason I’m a Liberal Democrat, is because I believe Liberal Democrats are a voice for the voiceless - and I know it because I’ve been there.

“When I was young, successive Conservative governments vilified single parent families to the point that mothers including my own were given enough money to feed their children but not themselves.

“When I was growing up and realising that I wasn’t like other boys, Labour legalised Civil Partnership but still didn’t believe that I should be able to marry – actually, properly, marry – the person I love…

“The only people who come to bat, every single time, for people like that, people like me, people who are marginalised are the Liberal Democrats…

“If we don’t do it, nobody else will do it for us. That’s why I’m a Liberal Democrat, and that’s why I’d like to be an MP, because people deserve a voice and people need to have someone on their side.”

Prateek Buch – “The Freedom and Means To Live Fulfilling Lives Free From Poverty, Ignorance and Conformity”

As part of a series of articles on “Putting social liberal values into action”, Prateek gives his own short statement of values as an opening contribution:

“We believe the political economy should empower all citizens with the capability to secure for themselves the freedom and means to live fulfilling lives free from poverty, ignorance and conformity – and that where it falls short, we should promote social justice and tackle barriers of inequality in wealth, voice and power.”

Andrew Tennant – “An Individual’s Right To Self-determination and Control Over Their Own Life”

Andrew Tennant‏ tweeted a shorter version still:

“Believing in an individual’s right to self-determination and control over their own lives, as well as how governed.”

Dave Page – “Increasing People’s Freedom To Enjoy Their Own Potential”

The ever-so-lovely Dave expands on a previous post to hone his appeal both to Lib Dems and to other people of a liberal cast of mind (and potentially Liberal cast of vote). While I’d urge you to read what he has to say in full, here’s his key message:

“The Liberal Democrats stand for increasing people’s freedom to enjoy their own potential, helping everybody to get on in life. We believe in meaningful representative democracy to balance people’s conflicting priorities, and in ensuring protection for the individual from the State and other powerful organisations.

“We believe that nobody should be constrained by lack of opportunity, particularly by the circumstances of their birth. We believe that Government should set the rules by which society operates, so people are rewarded for hard work and innovation, but not for exploitation or pollution. We believe that people should be respected as individuals regardless of their gender, colour, wealth, sexuality, or any other quality – not as homogeneous groups defined by those qualities.

“We believe in accountable, democratic institutions giving people more of a say in their immediate lives and local communities, as well as more of a say in the issues too big for one person, or one country. We believe in solutions which get to the root of the problem rather than just addressing the symptoms.”

Dave’s title for his piece, “This Is What the Lib Dems is About”, always puts this fab track into my head. ‘Moo moo! Moo moo! S-L-F!’ as Dave would no doubt sing. “All aboard, all aboard, woah-oh!”

Maelo Manning – “Fairness, Equality and Community”

I’ve pulled out of the “LibDem Child” blog some of her positive case for the party:

“I believe the party stands for: ‘fairness, equality and community’… For Fairness, I am extremely thrilled at the decisions taken like raising the tax threshold and a commitment to green issues… For Equality – Everybody is given a fair start and supported in the necessary way for them to be able to participate in society. For example, schools in poorer areas are given extra support and guidance to help the pupils have a fair start in life, and the equal marriage bill… For Community – demonstrated at local levels by our superb councillors who are in tune with the needs of their local communities; and party campaigners.”

Nick Barlow – “Maximise the Happiness and Potential of Every Individual”

I recommend reading Nick’s full exploration of the party’s key areas and overall themes, but here’s the coherent message he hones them into at the end:

“We believe in a society that works to maximise the happiness and potential of every individual, one that works to give everyone the opportunity to live their life as they want, providing they do not harm others. We seek to create an open, liberal and democratic world, where power is spread around, people have a real say in decisions that affect them and fair and impartial justice is available to all. A liberal society should protect the environment, promote education, create opportunity, reward enterprise and encourage innovation. Everyone should be free to participate in society and we seek to both tear down the barriers that restrict them and help people to overcome circumstances that limit them. In a liberal society everyone should be free to live their lives, free of restraint by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”

Andrew Brown – “Promoting the Freedom of the Individual Within A Society In Which All Can Achieve Their Potential”

Andrew on The Widow’s World offers his own Lib Dem statement of belief:

“Liberal Democrats exist to promote the freedom of the individual within a society in which all can achieve their potential.

“Liberal Democrats have a fundamental belief in the equality of all regardless of income, wealth, status, gender or gender identity, disability, personal capacity or sexual preferences – and that this should be enshrined and supported in law.

“Liberal Democrats believe the role of the State is to facilitate the ability of individuals to reach and exceed their potential and to provide an underpinning of support for those who fail to do so. They believe that spending to meet these aims is of benefit to all and that the burden of taxation should be progressive but not punitive.

“Liberal Democrats are pragmatic, concerned with outcomes not methodology and resisting traditional dogmas of left and right in favour of evidence-based policy which demonstrably support our aims.

“Liberal Democrats support these aims in the UK, in Europe and internationally.”

Chris Richards – “It’s About Freedom”

Chris Richards takes an interestingly different approach, not starting from scratch, from the Preamble to the Lib Dem Constitution or the other inspirations others have taken but looking to a favourite Lib Dem publication, the ‘Values Paper’ It’s About Freedom. I recommend it, too, with co-authors including such impressive names as a long-pre-Leadership Nick Clegg and, er, Alex Wilcock (best to ignore a couple of recent defectors in there, though).

Chris chooses the opening of the paper’s conclusion to champion what the party stands for and I print that first, but I recommend also reading his whole piece, where he chooses many of his favourite passages and highlights some of those he thinks are particularly relevant today. I’ve picked out a small selection of those, too:

“It’s about freedom. That one word is the call for all Liberal Democrats. Liberal Democrats believe that maximising personal freedom is fundamental to a liberal society. We believe that freedom means the opportunity to make the most of our lives, while recognising that our actions must not prevent others from sharing those opportunities and that we may need to take active steps to extend freedom to all.”

“The freedom of the individual is, however, limited or non-existent if he or she is prevented by economic deprivation, lack of education, disadvantage or discrimination from exercising choices about how to live or from participating in the democratic process… Institutions are required which keep markets free and prevent monopoly. Other mechanisms are needed to ensure that individuals have access to the things which markets are unable to provide.”

“We reject the use of the state or the law to enforce beliefs… Liberal Democrats do not have a blueprint of how life should be lived, but we do have a set of principles with which to approach problems and decisions.”

“Our first political duty – particularly if we are ourselves in power – is to ensure that mechanisms to protect freedom are in good order, and power is as widely shared as possible.”

Alex Wilcock – “Society Should Be For Everyone, and Every Individual Should Be Free”

I started this whole thing with my own short rallying call, carefully crafted for consensus from the Preamble, our priorities in government, the party’s key message and a bit of me. Very on message, in volume and over time, and so that’ll be up again in just a minute. But last week, I decided to do what several other people have done and write a longer, much more personal story, of how my life experience led me to being a Lib Dem and how the golden thread of Liberalism runs through my life. So I’ve now done what I’ve done to other people’s personal pieces, and filleted it to pull out some of the key ideas:

“My first political memories are of shouting at bullies… With all the division in society, a political party should be for everyone, not hating half the people all the time – or even hating other countries – and that with what I was experiencing personally, everyone should have the freedom to live their own life, too. And that naturally led me to the Liberal Democrats, who were not just appealingly internationalist but, to their core, the only party saying that society should be for everyone, and that every individual should be free…

“Liberalism means that if you start with every individual, you can’t put any person on the scrapheap or hate them for who they are. The founding principles of Liberalism over the centuries – of individual freedom, equality before the law and controlling arbitrary power – are living, breathing, vital ideas that I’d discovered for myself in the desire to choose my own life, my belief that everyone should be treated the same, even as a little boy knowing that you had to stand up to bullies… Part of not favouring any one ‘side’ is realising that anyone can be a bully, or can be bullied – or, in philosophical terms, any sort of power can threaten liberty, but any sort of power can protect it, too. Whether it’s the state, or big business or big unions, or just other people, any of them can boss you around and anyone can help stop you being bossed around. So you can’t do away with any of them – and you can’t say any of them are right all the time, or be in their pockets. Which means aiming to create The Perfect Society will always be a disaster, but working at making a better society means there’s always more real life to be listened to and more work to be done…

“That’s why for me saying what we stand for is more important than any single policy. It’s important because unless we keep sight of why we bother, there’s nothing to inspire us. And it’s important to remember that we’re for everyone, that everyone should be free to live their own lives, and so we’re here to bring everyone together, as far as we can, and to stop people being pushed around, as far as we can… We’re still the only party that says society should be for everyone, and that every individual should be free.”

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge (so far)

A very big thank you from me to all those who’ve taken part so far – both in today’s contributions, and back in March. I hope you encourage and inspire many others not just to read but to think and come up with their own versions of What the Lib Dems Stand For in turn. If that’s you this time, dear reader, please do! And then I might publish a third collection.

Once again, feel free to borrow my own message – below – and use it yourself. It’s my contribution to open-source Liberalism – getting across what we stand for in something more meaningful than a soundbite but still short enough to be no more than a minute’s speech or a box on a Focus leaflet. If you do make use of it, I’d prefer it if you let me know, but that’s not compulsory (I imagine the other contributors above feel much the same, but it’s probably polite to ask them first). So, synthesising the Preamble to the Constitution, the party’s priorities in government and Nick Clegg’s repeated mantra, here’s my on-message message again:

“The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom for every individual – freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.

“To make that freedom real needs both fairness and economic responsibility: an economy that works, that encourages enterprise, and where everyone pays their fair share.

“So freedom from poverty requires responsible spending, not debt, built on fairer taxes where lower earners pay less tax and the wealthiest pay more, and building green jobs for the future.

“Freedom from ignorance needs better education and training, so people have the opportunity to realise their potential.

“And freedom from conformity, supported by freedom from poverty and ignorance, means everyone should have the liberty to live their lives as they choose – without harming others; with equality before the law; with a better say, because no government always knows best.

“That’s why Liberal Democrats are working for a greener, stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life.”

Happy 25th Birthday, Liberal Democrats – and What the Lib Dems Stand For 2013.1

Why we should sum up What the Lib Dems Stand For, and how it’s developed over the years.

What the Lib Dems Stand For 2013.2 – a Challenge and a Meme #LibDemValues

Setting out my ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ based on the Preamble, practice and core messaging, and challenging other Lib Dems to come up with their own.

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge 2013.3 – Eight Answers (so far) #LibDemValues

After receiving the first set of responses, rounding up eight different Liberal Democrats’ versions of what we stand for.

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge 2013.4 – What It’s All About #LibDemValues

Inviting people to use my short declaration of ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ and explaining what each bit of it means.

What the Lib Dems Stand For 2013.5 – Why I Am A Liberal Democrat #LibDemValues

The long version of my personal philosophical story, as quoted in brief above.



Two last points that suit this sort of round-up. Simon Titley of Liberator has been one of the party’s more outspoken critics of “a stronger economy in a fairer society”, though not conspicuously proposing any alternative. However, on the cover of last month’s issue, Liberator offered “one simple amendment” to make it “Fairer Economy, Stronger Society”. I don’t have a problem with the first part of that, but the second sends shivers down my spine. Together, they sound more like the authoritarian left to me than any kind of Liberalism; on its own, the second half could be any communal bully from the state to a village to unbreakable ‘tradition’, reactionary, conservative and the enemy of the individual. Maybe “Stronger Society” just has a different ring to those of us a strong society has almost always wanted to push around than to those society’s always privileged, but I’d want no part of that oppressively authoritarian, illiberal combination.

I do, though, recommend Lib Dem Blogger of the Year 2013 David Boyle – congratulations, David – in his look back at Jo Grimond’s most famous speech on its fiftieth anniversary, and well done to Simon Titley, this time, for reminding David of the hero of the Liberator crew back when they were exciting Young Liberals. I’d had it in my diary to cover too, but as I’ve been knackered, and ill, and it’s Conference, and as most importantly David’s written a much better article than I would have anyway – look out for the less famous (merely infamous) words of a Labour councillor – I’m very glad that rather than writing it up for one of my own ‘Liberal Mondays’ I can simply point you to David’s excellent “The Sound of Gunfire revisited”.

Labels: Blogs, Gay, Ideas, Jo Grimond, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Liberal Mondays, Liberalism, Liberator, Memes, Top Tips, What the Lib Dems Stand For

Another Liberal Democrat Conference starts this weekend, and once again I’m looking at What the Lib Dems Stand For. Before this Spring’s Conference, I published a series of articles challenging us to combine our principles, our priorities in government, and our Leadership’s message to tell other people we’re about and inspire ourselves to be enthusiastic about it. Tomorrow I’ll be publishing some more ideas of what we stand for written by other Lib Dems. Today, it’s something more personal: how did I get here? Why did I become a Lib Dem in the first place? And why do I stay?

If you scroll down below, you’ll find my short rallying cry designed for anyone to use – please borrow mine and use it yourself. Or, ideally if you’re quick, you can send me your own version. But as I’ve prepared to print the next round-up of other contributors’ ideas, I’ve noticed how much more personal many of theirs are, and I’ve been reminded what I said the last time I published that sort of compilation: that one day I’d have to challenge myself to be less on-message and consensual, and say what my Liberalism is by instinct, speaking straight from my head, my heart and my life.

There are lots of passions that make me tick, and lots of experiences that have formed my life and my Liberalism. Sometimes I’d think more of the quirkier elements (not least, Doctor Who), sometimes more of my family or friends. Today’s personal testament looks for the explicitly Liberal line through my life.

My Political Story – Why I Am A Liberal Democrat

My first political memories are of shouting at bullies. I didn’t think of this as political until a long time later, but that’s what it was [1]. With the fearlessness of the very young, I saw much bigger boys being mean and thought it wasn’t fair, and told them so. I didn’t do it often, but it stuck in my head because it seemed to be the right thing to do, standing up for the underdog. Luckily, a small boy shouting at them seemed to shame them rather than get my head kicked in.

I was less brave when I got into my teens and was bullied myself. It’s a quirk of my personality that finding the drive to stand up for someone else has always been far easier than defending myself alone: under personal attack, I tend to crumble into depression and want to hide. What forced me to be braver and brought back that burning desire to stop unfairness was realising I was gay. It was the 1980s, and I didn’t know anyone that was gay – or so I thought at the time. All I knew is that everything about society told me I was wrong and seemed to hate me for something that was simply me. Pretty soon I decided there was nothing wrong with me at all, and that it was the world that had to change, so I came out early and uncompromisingly. I wanted it to get better, for everyone I knew to know at least one gay person, for me never to hide – and I never have for nearly a quarter of a century, from workplace to election, from embrace to rejection. I might have got involved in politics anyway, but that decision made it essential.

At the same time, politics in the 1980s just seemed nasty. Labour had wrecked the economy; the Tories were building back bits of it so it was all right for some, but left a lot of other people on the scrapheap of massive unemployment. And it wasn’t just that both sides seemed like they were only interested in ‘their’ people – they always seemed to me that they just hated the other side, too, and class hate sickened me as much as racism or what I didn’t know yet was called homophobia. It probably helped that I had an American Catholic Mum and a Scottish Baptist Dad, so I’d always understood that people with different beliefs, different ‘tribes’, even different countries, not only could get on but really had to.

Those two feelings came together in a firm belief that with all the division in society, a political party should be for everyone, not hating half the people all the time – or even hating other countries – and that with what I was experiencing personally, everyone should have the freedom to live their own life, too. And that naturally led me to the Liberal Democrats, who were not just appealingly internationalist but, to their core, the only party saying that society should be for everyone, and that every individual should be free [2].

I didn’t have a political background, I didn’t have money, I didn’t have anyone pushing me to get involved. I just felt that I wanted to change the world, and that if everyone just sat around and waited for someone else to do it, it would never get done. So I joined the Lib Dems, and I did everything I could from delivering leaflets to eventually standing for Parliament. And even though when I first threw myself into campaigning for the Lib Dems we were on 4% in the opinion polls, I knew this was the only party that was offering real change, however long it took – why join another party to campaign for things to stay the same? And I kept campaigning for things to change within the Lib Dems, too. It was often an uphill struggle to get heard, and I made plenty of mistakes, but determination and ideas won me influence. Where I often felt I was having the most impact was when I was elected over many years to the party’s Policy Committee. In part, that was writing individual policies that formed part of several election Manifestos, and knowing in particular that I’d contributed to pushing equal treatment, respect and opportunity for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people a bit further every time. But, for me, it wasn’t just the issues that really grabbed me, but the ideas.

I learned how to put my gut instincts into philosophy, and realised I’d been a Liberal all along. That Liberalism meant that if you start with every individual, you can’t put any person on the scrapheap or hate them for who they are. That the founding principles of Liberalism over the centuries of individual freedom, equality before the law and controlling arbitrary power were living, breathing, vital ideas that I’d discovered for myself in the desire to choose my own life, my belief that everyone should be treated the same, even as a little boy knowing that you had to stand up to bullies. It was Conrad Russell (a Liberal Democrat I got to know through the Policy Committee who became a friend and even a mentor) who said the point of Liberalism was to stand up for everyone against bullies, and that just lit up a lightbulb over my head. Suddenly, I could see that Liberal line through my life. It’s not just that a party owned by one group of special interests can never be fair – that it inevitably discriminates against the rest and divides society. It’s that part of not favouring any one ‘side’ is realising that anyone can be a bully, or can be bullied – or, in philosophical terms, any sort of power can threaten liberty, but any sort of power can protect it, too. Whether it’s the state, or big business or big unions, or just other people, any of them can boss you around and anyone can help stop you being bossed around. So you can’t do away with any of them – and you can’t say any of them are right all the time, or be in their pockets. Which means aiming to create The Perfect Society will always be a disaster, but working at making a better society means there’s always more real life to be listened to and more work to be done.

That’s why for me saying what we stand for is more important than any single policy. It’s important because unless we keep sight of why we bother, there’s nothing to inspire us. And it’s important to remember that we’re for everyone, that everyone should be free to live their own lives, and so we’re here to bring everyone together, as far as we can, and to stop people being pushed around, as far as we can.

So when, sometimes, being in government is frustrating or disappointing, and it is, because there’s not enough money to do what we want to do or because the Tories we’re in government with have different priorities, I can see that Liberal line of what we’re getting right, and why we’re doing it. No Lib Dem joins just to get into power. We do it to make a difference. It took perseverance for me inside the Lib Dems, but it took the whole party a whole lot more hard work and struggle to go from 4% in the polls to more than double our number of MPs and win a place in government – not the easy way, and not to do the easy things. No wonder Liberal Democrats take a long term approach on the importance of education to unlock people’s potential, and the environment to lock in fairness for the future – we had to work at it for a long time, so we’ve never gone for quick fixes. I’m deeply proud that this government’s the one that legislated for mostly equal marriage at last, but it’s the bigger ideas that matter still more. Worse than the 1980s, Labour had wrecked the economy again. But despite the damage being deeper and longer than it was when I was growing up, while unemployment is still too high it’s much, much lower than in the 1980s, now that Liberal Democrats are in government and not just the Tories. From apprenticeships to green jobs to tackling the banks, it’s not just rebuilding the economy as ‘all right for some’, but putting it back together differently. You need economic responsibility to make things work – but without fairness, too, society falls apart.

I think the government would be better if it was all Lib Dem and we could do more of what we wanted to do. Well, I would say that. But it’s also good to prove that people with different beliefs, different ‘tribes’, can make it work together as well. I look at the difference we’ve made, not just since the government was elected but compared to the 1980s when I grew up, and I’m proud of how we’ve changed things for the better: unemployment that much lower than the Tories ever cared about before the Lib Dems entered government, taxes for ordinary people that much lower with the Lib Dems while the wealthiest pay more than they did under Labour, green growth and protecting education so that the economy and opportunities will last into the future. I’m proud – but I’m not satisfied. I still want to change the world. But I can see how Liberal Democrats are doing just that, more slowly than I’d like and with a few wrong turns, but we’re still the only party that says society should be for everyone, and that every individual should be free.

The way the party sums that up now is that the Liberal Democrats are building a stronger economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life. Freedom. Fairness. Being for everyone. I find myself nodding, because the Liberal Democrats are still saying what made me join all those years ago, only now they’re putting a bit – a fair bit – of it into practice.

[1] I had a long conversation about my politics with my Grandma when I was in my twenties. She nodded, and said she could see I’d be political when – and this is one I’d not remembered – I was aged four and strutting about naked on a beach and told a big boy off for kicking down another boy’s sandcastle. I said she was probably right (though I bottled out of adding, ‘And obviously that’s why I’m a naturist now, too’).

[2] If you’ve ever wondered where my blog title “Love and Liberty” comes from, it’s my original two gut instincts distilled into three words. You can read the annotated version of most of my 1999 booklet “Love and Liberty” online too, where my concept of Liberalism is re-expanded into many, many more words.

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge (so far)

If you’re quick, you can send me your own idea by tomorrow. Or just feel free to borrow mine and use it yourself (I’d prefer it if you let me know, but it’s not compulsory. Think of it as open-source Liberalism). The idea’s an ongoing investigation, collaboration and rallying cry about what the Liberal Democrats stand for, to challenge myself, first, then other Lib Dems to get across what we stand for in something more meaningful than a soundbite but still short enough to be no more than a minute’s speech or a box on a Focus leaflet. And to make things harder, I aimed for broad consensus by synthesising the Preamble to the Lib Dem Constitution, the party’s priorities in government and the party leadership’s latest messaging. Did it work? Here’s my go at that:

The Liberal Democrats stand for freedom for every individual – freedom from poverty, ignorance and conformity.

To make that freedom real needs both fairness and economic responsibility: an economy that works, that encourages enterprise, and where everyone pays their fair share.

So freedom from poverty requires responsible spending, not debt, built on fairer taxes where lower earners pay less tax and the wealthiest pay more, and building green jobs for the future.

Freedom from ignorance needs better education and training, so people have the opportunity to realise their potential.

And freedom from conformity, supported by freedom from poverty and ignorance, means everyone should have the liberty to live their lives as they choose – without harming others; with equality before the law; with a better say, because no government always knows best.

That’s why Liberal Democrats are working for a stronger, greener economy in a fairer society, enabling every person to get on in life.

Happy 25th Birthday, Liberal Democrats – and What the Lib Dems Stand For 2013.1

Why we should sum up What the Lib Dems Stand For, and how it’s developed over the years.

What the Lib Dems Stand For 2013.2 – a Challenge and a Meme #LibDemValues

Setting out my ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ based on the Preamble, practice and core messaging, and challenging other Lib Dems to come up with their own.

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge 2013.3 – Eight Answers (so far) #LibDemValues

After receiving the first set of responses, rounding up eight different Liberal Democrats’ versions of what we stand for – so far…

The Liberal Democrat What Do We Stand For Challenge 2013.4 – What It’s All About #LibDemValues

Inviting people to use my short declaration of ‘What the Lib Dems Stand For’ and explaining what each bit of it means.

Then there’s today’s, and with a bit of luck there’ll be more tomorrow.

Labels: Blogs, British Politics, Coalition, Gay, Ideas, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Memes, Personal, What the Lib Dems Stand For

Have you heard the Doctor Who adventure with the future Time Lord from The Thick of It? Not that one – the other one. Alex MacQueen stars in UNIT: Dominion as the Other Doctor, alongside Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor and Tracey Childs as fabulous antihero Elizabeth Klein – sometime companion, sometime scientist from an alternate Nazi future. Available in boxed set or download from Big Finish, this is an epic audio drama, not unlike a movie remake of Doctor Who (but which?), and the threat of total dimensional chaos has been cheering me up today.

“Ahhh, the giddy joy.”

I have had an unremittingly crapulent day. Booked to go to a one-day Doctor Who event from Fantom Films, I’ve been horribly ill all the way throughout the night and from dawn to dusk, so I’ve missed out on seventh Doctor-themed excitement and meeting the likes of Lisa Bowerman (Professor Bernice Summerfield), Tracey Childs and Sylvester McCoy. However, having spent much of August catching up with a ton of Big Finish’s Doctor Who audio plays from several years, and particularly those featuring Sylvester – including twenty-six in a fortnight of an especially fine story arc of A Death in the Family and Gods and Monsters – I’ve turned to a special release (and much chocolate) to winch my spirits off the floor. Spoilers follow…

Dr Elizabeth Klein (Take I)

Readers familiar with Big Finish’s CDs or who listen to Radio 4 Extra will have a head start for Elizabeth Klein, the BBC station having broadcast a trilogy of her stories with (or against) the Doctor. There’s more to hear in the Big Finish originals, as well as the story from, goodness me, twelve years ago now that set the whole thing off: Doctor Who – Colditz. In 2001 it seemed a relatively average historical adventure for the Doctor and Ace, but with a twist, and slightly let down by being one of the few Big Finishes where something went wrong in the production (bits sound like they’re recorded in a tin can), it was always a decent enough tale, with the main thing I remembered from it at the time being Klein, an interesting character and concept: when the Doctor and Ace accidentally change history, she’s the dedicated scientist who travels back from the future Nazi timeline they created… And is stranded in our world, determined to single-handedly restore what to her is the ‘real’ history. Clearly, though, only a twist in the story and a loose end they’d never return to. These days, Colditz stands out in story terms as the first Doctor Who to feature the much more substantial figure of Klein – and in production terms as the first Doctor Who to feature the even more substantial figure of David Tennant, though here playing a villain and not another Doctor. And, shh, Tracey Childs’ cold intelligence and charisma made more of an impression then than David’s bullying Nazi…

Tracey Childs later appeared with David Tennant’s Doctor on television, too, in the fantastic The Fires of Pompeii. Colditz was about a future timeline coming back to see you unexpectedly – where Tracey Childs co-starred with David Tennant, the next Doctor but one. The Fires of Pompeii was about predictions of the future – where Tracey Childs co-starred with Peter Capaldi, the next Doctor but one. Keep an eye on her co-stars, that’s all I’m saying. And listen if she suggests you cross her palm with silver.

When Big Finish eventually asked Tracey Childs to return nearly nine years later, they’d put a lot of work into making Klein’s story something special, though, and it shows (not least in the fabulous, furious vignette of that name). A Thousand Tiny Wings reintroduces Klein in 1950s Kenya, never able to go home, with sweltering heat, terrific characterisation and never quite being sure where you stand with anyone. Survival of the Fittest is better still, with both Klein’s point of view and the alien culture well-sketched, building to a great ending. She’s a match for him. The only shame is that there’s only one story with the original Klein as the Doctor’s ‘companion’, as their mutual talent, strong convictions and tendency to knock sparks off each other was something I’d’ve liked to have heard more of. But, no, there’s no time to get comfortable: for both of them, the story drives on into The Architects of History. In this ‘Fall and De-Klein’, not only are a quiet, dangerous Sylvester and a ruthless Tracey clamping down on her underlying despair both terrific, but we even get another companion for the Doctor, in Being Human’s Lenora Crichlow. It’s easy for stories in which time is rewritten to unravel, either shooting up themselves or becoming merely pointless, but this pulls it off in making the events matter by nailing them to the effects on the people involved. There’s just a hint of the subtext of the Doctor as Nazi-hunter and who the looming Nuremberg would be – then I surprised myself by getting a little misty-eyed at the shot at redemption.

Big Finish is in the middle of releasing a new trilogy starring the seventh Doctor and Klein – Persuasion, Starlight Robbery and Daleks Among Us – with the alternative, rewritten re-Klein who doesn’t hail from the Nazi universe; Richard and I are waiting to listen to them all together. But in between the two trilogies, Big Finish last year brought out a new development for the DVD season box age, not monthly single releases but a boxed set containing one big story. UNIT: Dominion isn’t just the Doctor re-united / starting off with a new Klein, but a story so big it has another companion (or more) and an Other Doctor, too. Plus the title protagonists in UNIT, the UN-run special services that sometimes work with the Doctor. The story works better for some of its five competing leads than for others…

UNIT: Dominion – An Epic That Delivers

UNIT: Dominion is something of an epic. It sounds much more visual, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, than most Big Finish plays, and in a boxed set of four hour-long episodes (plus a ‘making of’) it runs to a fairly epic length as well. But while the extraordinary sound design and cast grab your attention, I’d give the strongest praise to the writers Nicholas Briggs and Jason Arnopp: it’s generally a strong story, though as ever I can find flaws along the way, but what’s really impressive about it is that they manage to keep it all together: a four-hour disaster movie teeming with different characters, locations and extradimensional beings could very easily have descended either into incomprehensible mulch or constantly had to stop for the forced dialogue of ‘Look, Doctor, at that [four lines of description] doing that terrible [four more lines of description]!’ Instead, they take a story that seems not at all suited to the intimacy of the audio play and make it work.

There will be spoilers, so I’ll tell you now that UNIT: Dominion is fun, and huge, and in quite a few ways, not what I was expecting – though predictably with Klein and the Other Doctor stealing much of it. I recommend it. But be careful reading on, as the further you get towards the end, the more spoilertastic detail there’ll be.

The first episode is the best, with lots of new ideas; the second’s the weirdest, mainly everyone caught with different extradimensional ooglies which have the feel of very early Twentieth Century weird sci-fi (but Mind Leeches, Skyheads and lava spiders work as terms that instantly sketch in the sort of thing they are), with Sylv entirely sidelined; the third is the most disturbing, as Sylv gets back into the story but someone else forces everyone’s hands; and the fourth, the several big finishes, including shocking codas and Klein’s second and so slightly less effective ‘happy ending’ that sets her up for the new trilogy.

With the Doctor, the Other Doctor, Klein, Raine and UNIT all vying for attention, and four hours for them to play in, there are large stretches for which different ‘lead’ characters are to the fore and others disappear into the background. So which of the five potential protagonists make it?

The Doctor

Sylvester McCoy is the Doctor, and marvellous he is, too. It’s always a pleasure to hear him back again, particularly now he’s a big movie star: in a curious way, he’s one of the actors who always feels most like the Doctor, in his case I suspect because the New Adventures gave him such a long and compelling reign, the actor always in my head even when he wasn’t actually in employment for the role. It’s even true that, while if asked to pick out my favourite arrangements of the Doctor Who Theme Keff McCulloch’s would not be near the top of the pile, Sylvester remained the Doctor throughout such an influential part of my life that his Theme always gives me the shivers when I hear it from Big Finish, far more than others that my head says I prefer.

This time the Doctor – the seventh Doctor – gets his best material in the opening and closing episodes of the story, as the relationship between him and the Other Doctor is so incendiary that they can’t be together too often. That means the one we know is not so much sidelined as stranded in a different dimension and almost a different story. This inevitably means he’s a smaller presence for much of the story, which makes you appreciate him all the more when he breaks back into the narrative – and he finds a terrific resolution in the finale. Along the way, Sylvester rises to some great material, and while the ‘main story’ feels like a major reimagining of one old story in particular, there are subtler echoes of many other stories in this Doctor’s scenes in particular. Like Big Finish’s Project Lazarus, it dodges around making this a ‘two Doctors story’ by mostly keeping them apart and separating the Doctor, too, from the suspicious scientific-military organisation. There’s a hint of Russell T Davies’ early story Damaged Goods in Sylv as sinister Umbrella Man, and of Russell’s late story The Stolen Earth in Ace’s flickering cameo warning messages and all realities breaking down (the idea of Ace being on Gallifrey also having their cake and eating it as regards the Lost Stories, and yet more of the Time Lords’ sinister secrets, if not the Othering Other himself).

There are a few weak points in the treatment of the Doctor too, though; not so much all the time when he’s not in the loop, but the elements where he’s rather behind the audience in working things out, and most of all the weirdly out-of-character moments where he of all Doctors goes on and on about how would never interfere in his own time stream. It’s one of the script’s few jarring failings that, given one of the more complex and morally ambiguous Doctors to set against the Other Doctor, rather than comparing their different attitudes to interference and ruthlessness and using each to illuminate the other, it bottles the difficult questions and – despite Klein’s fear of him – leaves the Doctor a bit… Vanilla. Still, particularly if you can ignore the awkwardly inserted denials of his own methods, the contrast between the master manipulator who keeps everything broodily close to his chest and the swaggering extrovert Other Doctor who knows more than he does is very entertaining (as MacQueen does unto McCoy as McCoy did unto Davison in Cold Fusion). No wonder Sylv’s Doctor follows several other Doctor-Doctor clashes and detests him on sight.

Dr Elizabeth Klein (Take II)

Even though we knew a very different her, at times it seems as if Klein is the only person we know. The Other Klein was raised in a Nazi state and, for all her intelligence, drive and other admirable qualities was ideologically a true believer, the spark for a terrific battle of wills with the Doctor; there was a real danger that this one would seem like she’d been, well, doctored. Fortunately, she’s well enough written to still give her an edge, Tracey Childs is still outstanding, and perhaps most calculatingly she’s put in a position where she has good reason to be deeply suspicious of the Doctor – Sylvester’s in particular. That means that when she’s thrown together with the Other Doctor, while inevitably he steals quite a bit from her, they have a much more interesting if hardly trusting relationship: with her as the brilliant UNIT Scientific Advisor Dr Liz and him an unknown but rather flamboyant quality, it deliberately evokes the abrasive but fabulous rapport between Dr Liz [fascist in an alternate reality] Shaw and Jon Pertwee’s Doctor in the ’70s. Of her colleagues at UNIT, though, there’s much less to be said: they’re far more suspicious of the Doctor, with far less reason, and though in theory you’d expect there to be five competitors for the position of protagonist, with UNIT a better bet than most for having the title, they’re not up to it. Colonel Lafayette is just a comic relief idiot to be killed; Major Wyland-Jones just a cartoon brute. So of all the things UNIT: Dominion works as, a UNIT story isn’t one of them. It’s far less the second series of a new UNIT than a relaunch for Klein, and for someone else, too…

Raine Kreevey

Beth Chalmers’ Raine Kreevey is the Doctor’s travelling companion here. Introduced in a recent series of Big Finish Lost Stories based on scripts that might have gone into TV production had Doctor Who not been cancelled in 1989, her character’s still rather battling to make an impression on me. In part, it’s because she’s not really yet had a story in which she and Sylvester McCoy are the only leads; in part, it’s because Beth Chalmers sounds a bit like Sylv’s earliest companion Bonnie Langford, which makes her less distinctive. Her most notable character trait is that she’s a top thief, giving the Doctor a scene in which he hypnotises her to do some mental safecracking to get out of a dimensional corridor. But even that’s less about her than an illustration of this Doctor’s similarities with the Other Doctor, who also makes much use of hypnosis – though given that the Other Doctor’s hypnosis leads people to box their personalities into safes, it suggests that for all they have in common they have diametrically opposite attitudes about control. Unfortunately for Raine, she’s just nowhere near as interesting as Klein, with whom she comes across as remarkably crass, and not only does she have to compete with all the other four protagonists, but Sylvester’s long-term companion Ace is more immediately memorable in just a distorted cameo.

I’ve said there are spoilers. Last chance, all right?

The Other Doctor

Of the four leads, the anticipation for the Other Doctor has to be the greatest, and Alex MacQueen is hugely enjoyable playing the role. The Doctor he most seems to have modelled himself on is Jon Pertwee, flamboyant, compelling, know-it-all and sometimes a bit of a shit. There’s also more than a touch of another Doctor quite appropriate to a Nicholas Briggs production, but more of that laters.

Puzzling out the character of the Other Doctor, inevitably he called to mind Sylvester’s story Battlefield, in which the master manipulator is manipulated in turn by another Doctor who knows more than he does – like the Other Doctor, identified as a future Doctor but feeling rather more like an alternative. I got a heavy hint of David Collings, too, though, an actor who’s twice played an ‘Other Doctor’. A Doctor who’s forgotten all the details sounded very much like Mawdryn Undead, deeply suspicious from the first, even hinting he might be something like the 517th. And that made me wonder about Big Finish’s own Unbound Doctor story Full Fathom Five, pushing harder at the idea of a Doctor who’s decided that the end can justify the means. Which in turn reminded of that other Doctor Who Unbound story Sympathy For the Devil… Doesn’t this Doctor seem fond of hypnotism – even if we have Sylv doing the same, it’s not to the same extent, and why do we cut away before the words we hear him use…? And why is he so keen to have a set of hypnotised soldiers he can deploy, and then tell Klein he’s abandoned not using guns and killing, while she’s contemptuous of his swimming off to save himself and leave soldiers to die…?

By this point you will have worked out what I worked out long before the Part Three cliffhanger, but while that episode finale wasn’t much of a surprise it was immensely satisfying. The Other Doctor has apparently betrayed UNIT, but as they shoot at him at the drop of a hat you can hardly blame him; the Doctor dives after him into his TARDIS, only to find that he’s not betrayed UNIT after all – that is, not in the way they all think, though answering the accusation that he was going to let them all die with “Tempting, but no” may not be the most reassuring of denials – but that for all its battered police box exterior, the ‘upgraded’ inside is very swish indeed, and just not his TARDIS at all. For all his flamboyance, in this – predictable as ever, but my favourite – scene MacQueen has three little moments where he’s simply at his finest, and they’re all suddenly dialled right down. Two of them are so underplayed that they’re almost subliminal: listen to this while pottering about or doing the dishes and you’ll miss them. While the Doctor is asking so many irritating questions, there’s just a tiny breath of a Muttley laugh; then, as the Doctor realises “You – you’re not me…” the weight of acting up comes off the Other Doctor’s shoulder and “What a relief…” comes out in the tiniest sigh; and while on their meeting in Part One he immediately got the Doctor’s back up with his braying “Hello, you!” and “Laters!” now the Doctor finally recognises the Master he gives a quiet, poisonous and quite brilliantly delivered “Hello, you” to make the spine chill as the music cuts in.

It’s not just that Richard and I keep trying to emulate that intonation when one of us answers the phone to the other, but that now there are two future Time Lords already cast as rivals in The Thick of It, we keep taking our leave of each other with a “Laters!” and a “Fuckettiebye.”

I’ve written before that it was in Sympathy For the Devil that Big Finish previously presented their new casting of the Master – and if you don’t know who he is, I’ve introduced each of his TV incarnations here – and though both of them and both stories are terrific (one actor slightly more here, one story slightly more there), the ‘shock reveal’ nature of each does make them difficult to talk about for fear of spoilers. You’re here now, though. If there’s one little bit of dissatisfaction with Alex MacQueen’s fabulous double portrayal, it’s that although at the reveal he gives a tour de force outmanoeuvring the Doctor from bellowing to near-imperceptible, I was rather surprised to find that his theatrical Doctor impression wasn’t really toned down very much once he was himself, despite an excuse for once for the Master to be the less camp and hammy one. Perhaps it’s just that, as Klein says (and as other Masters had previously proved), he’s envious and loved being the Doctor just a bit too much. And on top of the grandstanding Pertwee affectations (the Doctor seen most as the Master’s other half), the Other Doctor reminded me very strongly of Nicholas Briggs’ incarnation [see below], only with a little more domination and a little less tea. Is it the baldness that brings out that very specific sort of jollity in the Doctor, or just Nicholas Briggs naturally thinking, ‘Now, how would I characterise an Other Doctor…?’

Doctor Who – The Movie Remake

“I made my TARDIS look like yours because I needed everyone to think I was you…”

The biggest single echo of other Doctors in the story is, not unexpectedly after all that, a Pertwee one, too. If UNIT: Dominion is like a Doctor Who movie for audio, it’s almost explicitly like a movie version of 1971’s The Claws of Axos. I don’t mean that as a complaint: this story is far better than The Claws of Axos, and doesn’t just show how you might reimagine an old story on a ‘movie budget’ but how you can take relatively unpromising material and do amazing things with it. If Nick Briggs and Jason Arnopp did take that story as part of their inspiration, their homage to it turns everything about it around. The big flying Sky Heads from the original script are surprisingly friendly, and have fantastically massive voices… The power drain nodes are this time draining the weak aliens who say ‘Help us’ and then turn nasty… The Master again does a brilliant turn as UNIT’s scientific advisor, but it’s UNIT rather than Axos who are blackmailing him by refusing to let him get his TARDIS back… Perhaps most strikingly, at the root of the whole plot is an element that’s always been part of the Master, at its height on TV in The Deadly Assassin but framed here in an especially The Claws of Axos way: the Master hates the Doctor so much that killing him would never be enough, so he wants to humiliate him and destroy what he stands for first. In the 1971 story, the Doctor’s own a short-lived bluff made himself seem like a git who’s flying off to leave everyone to die, but here the Master takes the same idea and (at several points literally) flies with it. Death’s too good for the Doctor; humiliation alone isn’t enough; even endless subservience isn’t enough. The Master’s Doctor plan is tricking him into creating a terrible calamity and then going round as the Doctor being a total bastard on top, to make sure the Doctor’s remembered by the survivors as both responsible for horrors and for being a shit.

Like the more subtle but still clear comparisons the script draws between Klein with the Doctor – and the Other Doctor – and of course between Klein and Klein, this is about both similarities and the choices people make. While the script’s own choices bottle a few of those similarities and contrasts, at heart it’s why UNIT: Dominion works – a thrilling, epic disaster movie that remembers to be about illuminating its central characters for all the Big Giant Heads, Godzilla moments and very loud explosions around it. And between those three fantastic actors all acting as mirrors of each other, I suppose it’s another reason why poor Raine doesn’t get a look in…

The Audio Visuals: When Nick Briggs Was the Doctor

Inspired by last year’s release of Justyce Served – A Small Start with a Big Finish from Miwk Publishing, I’ve also been listening to one of the most obscure Doctor Who series of all, the “Audio Visuals” from the 1980s. As Miwk’s fascinating guidebook details, these were entirely unlicensed Doctor Who audio plays made by fans which, over the course of four seasons, became increasingly ambitious and polished. Unsurprisingly, several of the people involved went on to become the founders of Big Finish and then onto the TV series, most notably Gary Russell and Nicholas Briggs. Today Nick’s known as a writer, director, producer, the voice of the Daleks and more, but to a select group of cassette-listeners in the 1980s he was the Doctor. I was at school when these were produced and only heard of them as tantalising rumours; in the late ’90s, a friend gave me ripped copies which I only heard a few of before upgrading my PC and finding nothing would play that species of audio file any more; but after buying Justyce Served, someone else kindly gave me another set of the Audio Visuals plays that would, well, play. So far I’m three quarters of the way through them, and should I not return to review the lot, each season so far has been a quite remarkable jump in quality from the previous one. The first is a bit ropey in production and acting and all right in terms of stories; the second finds them suddenly finding their feet and producing something much more listenable; the third suddenly sounds professional, with all the stories pretty strong and a persuasive ‘arc’ running through it (though of all the stories, the grand finale is stronger on ideas than coherence). If you come across them in the dark and forgotten lanes of the Internet, there’s a good case for starting at the third series, I’d say. And the strange thing is that of the half-dozen stories remade since with much bigger budgets and more professional casts, mostly by Big Finish, the originals are almost always the most successful…

Labels: Alex MacQueen, Audio Visuals, Big Finish, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee, New Adventures, Personal, Peter Capaldi, Reviews, Sylvester McCoy, The Master, The Thick of It, Tracey Childs

My desk isn’t a desk. Technically, it’s a heavy slab of wood propped on a stand at one end and screwed into the shelves covering one wall at the other. But, functionally, for about fifteen years it’s been functionally identical to a desk, so I forget the technical differences.

Until I sat down this morning, switched on my computer, and the screw on my side snapped, causing the slab of wood to pivot on its diagonal axis towards me. Now, we have a small flat and a lot of stuff, so there are (were) piles of books and papers everywhere on my desk that my keyboard, screen and mouse pads aren’t. Most excitingly, the whole alcove in the shelving into which my desk was bolted was neatly packed with reference books to get the maximum use out of the space – a space about 80cm by 55cm by 30cm. You can make your own estimates of just how many books that enabled me to pack into the space (it’s difficult to count them now they’re randomly slung across almost the entire floor). It’s a very practical arrangement.

Well, it was, until the entire weight of all of them came down in an instant on my left thigh, while all the more randomly spaced contents of my desk (which I was suddenly reminded wasn’t a desk) slithered towards me. Fortunately for me, if not for Richard, my beloved was just about to leave for work. Until then. So when my very manly shriek reached him and as I tried to hold the entire weight with both hands and one thigh, he came to help. It took him very slightly less than twenty minutes to exhume me.

My left leg and both wrists are really quite painful. But from your point of view, dear reader, as I type a placeholder on a borrowed computer, this is to say that – as I have nowhere to put my computer right now, with a large slab of wood stood upright against one wall – I may not be posting (or emailing, or other such activities) quite as much as planned.

Blogging will be light, though my desk isn’t. Because my desk is not a desk.

Richard and I have news.




We’ve had several long talks; knees, nervousness and champagne were involved. And we’re both delighted to announce that each of us has agreed to make the other very happy, and that we’ll be getting married next year.

Richard gave me a ring on our fifth anniversary*, and now that (in the nicest possible way) the law has finally caught up with us, we’re going to do it properly. We’ve chosen the date: October 26th, 2014 will be our twentieth anniversary. As it’s not us but Britain that’s taken so long to make up its mind, we’re keeping the same day and digit for future anniversaries.

And I’m chuffed into little meatballs. As well as having the jitters. Which is how it’s supposed to be, isn’t it?




Millennium makes Richard’s co-announcement here.



*My big gesture that day was to take him to see a bloody Jacobean tragedy starring Ian McDiarmid, the Emperor from the Star Wars Saga. Romance wasn’t dead, but most of the characters ended up that way.

Labels: Daleks, Marriage, Personal, Pictures, Richard