Wednesday, September 22, 2010
4.50 From Liverpool
Another week of mystery (will the media report anything like what's actually going on?) and suspense (will Millennium finally win the Blogger of the Year Award?) has drawn to a close with outgoing President Ros Scott's final set-piece speech to Liberal Democrat Conference. Yet one of the biggest questions remains unanswered. Why is Ros not standing for another term of office? Conspiracy theories abound as she returns to her village (no, not that Village, as she hasn't technically resigned). Well, I saw her just now at Jury's Inn Hotel before she left, and I can exclusively reveal her new vocation, thanks to a slip from Ros' constant companion, that endearing old buffer Colonel the Honourable Lady Mark.
It turns out that with the murder rate so high in the House of Lords and all those international business conspiracies operating out of the draper's in her 'quiet' little village ofSt Mary Mead Ottery St Catchpole Creeting St Peter, she has her work cut out for her – so she's retiring to deploy those brilliant listening skills that so deftly directed the Federal Executive and picked up Lib Dem gossip from around the country to fight crime. Her first investigation, I'm told, is to pin down who killed off the Trident programme; was it the Liberal Democrats, in the morning, with the policy motion? Or was it, as incisive old Miss Cable judiciously dropped into conversation the other day while picking up a macaroon, the knives of the Treasury?
So be careful, murderers and masterminds, next time you see a little old lady sitting in the corner apparently fixed on her knitting. It could be Ros, if she looks uncannily glamorous for her 97 years and has a distinguished gent with a beard at her side. Or, more dangerously still, might it be the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Crochet?
I even came under suspicion myself just the other day; my old friend Kiron Reid stopped me in the Arena lobby and asked if I'd like to help him lift some boxes of Liberator Magazine. Of course while nothing could give me greater pleasure, I had a cast-iron alibi in the form of telling him that, no, I had to retire to my hotel room and type up my interview with Nick Clegg from last Friday. While Kiron was eyeing me warily, as if he thought this might in some way be an excuse, at exactly that moment the Deputy Prime Minister happened to walk by and ask, "Have you written up that interview yet?" So, if you think suspiciously conveniently corroborated alibis only occur in Agatha Christie novels, and then only for the guilty party, nothing could be further from the truth. Why, for me to be guilty, I would have to have secretly not in fact wished to lug about several boxes through the rain, and nor would I yet have finished typing up my piece about Nick a couple of days later. Um…
Oh, and there's something else I have to pass on, as well. Ros' implausibly demanding retirement wasn't the only secret Colonel the Honourable Lady Mark let me in on. Apparently she's investigating someone terribly senior, and I've just thought of exactly the clue she's been looking for.
But first, I'll just have this cup of tea that's been left here for me. It must have been Richard, though I didn't hear him come in or say hello – I must have been engrossed in typing. Odd tea they serve here; smells like bitter almonds…
It turns out that with the murder rate so high in the House of Lords and all those international business conspiracies operating out of the draper's in her 'quiet' little village of
So be careful, murderers and masterminds, next time you see a little old lady sitting in the corner apparently fixed on her knitting. It could be Ros, if she looks uncannily glamorous for her 97 years and has a distinguished gent with a beard at her side. Or, more dangerously still, might it be the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Crochet?
I even came under suspicion myself just the other day; my old friend Kiron Reid stopped me in the Arena lobby and asked if I'd like to help him lift some boxes of Liberator Magazine. Of course while nothing could give me greater pleasure, I had a cast-iron alibi in the form of telling him that, no, I had to retire to my hotel room and type up my interview with Nick Clegg from last Friday. While Kiron was eyeing me warily, as if he thought this might in some way be an excuse, at exactly that moment the Deputy Prime Minister happened to walk by and ask, "Have you written up that interview yet?" So, if you think suspiciously conveniently corroborated alibis only occur in Agatha Christie novels, and then only for the guilty party, nothing could be further from the truth. Why, for me to be guilty, I would have to have secretly not in fact wished to lug about several boxes through the rain, and nor would I yet have finished typing up my piece about Nick a couple of days later. Um…
Oh, and there's something else I have to pass on, as well. Ros' implausibly demanding retirement wasn't the only secret Colonel the Honourable Lady Mark let me in on. Apparently she's investigating someone terribly senior, and I've just thought of exactly the clue she's been looking for.
But first, I'll just have this cup of tea that's been left here for me. It must have been Richard, though I didn't hear him come in or say hello – I must have been engrossed in typing. Odd tea they serve here; smells like bitter almonds…
Labels: Liberal Democrat Conferences
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Lib Dem Conference Excitement: Presidential Candidates and Showing Off Our BOTYs
I've been rained on; I've hugged confidantes, candidates and Cabinet ministers; and, like everyone else, I've kept a wide berth of the glum Labour hack staffing the TUC stall despite all the freebies they're offering. Yes, it can only be Liberal Democrat Conference time again. For the first time ever, the thing the media say we're all talking about really is the thing we're all talking about – how do we think the coalition's going? So I might write about that tomorrow, because people are also talking about the internal elections and Lib Dem Voice's Blog of the Year Awards. Thankfully, I've been able to get here, with much gratitude to my lovely Richard and to my body for slowly returning to its usual levels of rubbish health over the last few weeks, after four or five months of spectacular horridness (well, last week was pretty horrid again, but I'm hoping it was a blip).
In effect, the Liberal Democrats have two deputy Leaders; one's elected by the MPs and deputises in Parliament or if the Leader falls under a bus or Simon Hughes' taxi – that Deputy Leader is now Simon Hughes – while the other is the President, elected by the whole party to deputise as the voice of us all. In the early days of the Liberal Democrats, the first was a largely ornamental position that didn't do very much while the latter was hotly contested; over time, that's almost swapped over (not least because Simon's two immediate predecessors in the job became Acting Leader), with several Presidential elections going uncontested and every President after the first one (under whom the party nearly went bankrupt) easily getting a second term. Yes, I remember all this stuff; Richard drove four of us up to Liverpool through middle England's scenic traffic jams yesterday, and while not singing new Labour Leadership-related lyrics to War of the Worlds' Brave New World (when you hear the lonely, dying, doomed "ooooh-laaaa" afterwards, think 'Poor Andy Burnham') I regaled everyone with thrilling tales of Presidential terms past. Well, they needed a nap.
This year's Presidential election, then, is a startling change to form. Ros Scott fought a brilliant grassroots campaign two years ago and thrashed poor Lembit to win the post, so everyone expected her to be returned unopposed for a second term, her nomination and consequent re-election this month pretty much a formality. So when she announced a week and a bit ago that she wasn't going to stand, a ripple of surprise went round the party – still more so, as there's no obvious 'establishment' successor. So far, four different candidates have declared, which (if they all get enough nominations) will be a record for the contest, all from a standing start. Millennium and the lovely Helen Duffett are organising bloggers' interviews with all four, and I've already joined one of them at noon today. As we went down to interview Tim Farron, the coronation music from Doctor Who – The Androids of Tara was stuck in my head; I wonder what my subconscious was trying to tell me? Consciously, I'd say the election's between two of the candidates, but I don't know which one's likely to pull ahead; I'll also have great difficulty deciding between three of them for my first preference. The one I don't know was always going to get my fourth, despite having read some good things about him… However, having observed his flunkeys persuading people to nominate him not by saying 'These are the nomination papers for X' but by claiming, "Sign here to ensure there's a contest," I shall be asking him rather curtly about that. I wonder how a candidate will justify a direct and calculated deception of voting representatives to Conference just to get as far as standing for election? Meanwhile, should you wish to enable one of the other candidates to have a fair fight, you can help here (without necessarily committing to vote for her).
Once we've completed all the interviews, I hope to write them up in one post – I'm asking each of them the same couple of questions, plus a specially fashioned extra one individually tailored to be the nastiest I can think of for each of them. So with a bit of luck that'll be sometime later this week.
The highlight of every Lib Dem blogger's year is, of course, the Blog of the Year Awards, unveiled at a glittering ceremony in whatever dingy bar Lib Dem Voice has been able to afford for the first day of Conference. In tonight's, Millennium Dome has been shortlisted again for both Blog of the Year and Best Post on a Liberal Democrat Blog – hurrah (I nominated both him and Caron, both of whom it's lovely to see on the list)! Last year, of course, I was privileged to accept the coveted award for Blog of the Year itself… On someone else's behalf, naturally. Having spoken twice and been nominated twice for the top award, I remain confident that these two functions will never intersect (particularly as I've had such a pitifully low rate of posts this year, falling into ill health and, worse, Twitter). Despite that, I'm one of those up for Best Post, which is very flattering and doesn't actually put me under too much pressure to write more than once a month.
Many are nervous that the terrifying Curse of the BOTYs will strike again; three of the four past winners have almost immediately vanished into oblivion, so there's a bit of a concern that this year's will again say 'Thank you, and good night'. Frontrunner Mark Reckons has slightly presumptuously pre-emptively retired from blogging ahead of the awards; while he would of course be a worthy winner, were I a judge I would of course vote for Millennium. Being what you might call an aggressively secularist little elephant, he holds no truck with curses. Except possibly bad words about Labour Leadership candidates.
Speaking of bad words about Labour, I don't know who to back for Best Post on a Liberal Democrat Blog – it would be jolly nice to win, obviously, but I don't think mine's actually the best. Sadly, Caron's is particularly topical given the idiocy of yet another "child protection" nonsense last week. Noticeably, though, all the shortlisted posts (not necessarily reflecting the general tone of each blog from which they're taken) are ones attacking the Labour Party, either directly or – as they're taken from right across the last year – a particular action of the then government. Two of those I sent in to be considered are up there: Millennium's and Andrew Hickey's messages to Labour. Both are excellent, and I'm especially pleased to see Andrew's up there, as it's pithy, sweary and perfect (I suspect the sweariness may get in the way of winning). Millennium also wrote excellent pieces attacking the Conservatives or assessing the coalition, for example, which might have provided a little more balance (yes, yes, I know, critiquing the judges before the results are announced might be unwise). I admit I do quite like my shortlisted Considering the Evidence Means You Must Consider Your Position, being at least among my better posts of the year – this is the good bit:
For best non-Lib Dem blogger, voting for either Charlotte Gore or Left Foot Forward would do us credit. Charlotte is a former Lib Dem, and voting for her would show that unlike the Labour Party, we can appreciate talent and interesting thoughts even if they've left the party, rather than screaming 'Traitor!' and 'Splitter!' Alternatively, we might show how Liberal and tolerant we are by recognising that Left Foot Forward is quite well-written, interesting and effective, despite also hating everything that their lying, warmongering, hypocritical, bossy, illiberal, bankrupting, pathetically evil party stands for. There, you see – I can play nice about Labour!
It's the day after, and last night was an unexpected one – at long last, Millennium won the Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Award! You can see him with it here, after we left the awards (and after we had a very late meal, and after we were bought a bottle of champagne by someone Terribly Important… Today's been a bit slower, for some reason).
If anyone thinks the shortlistees know in advance who's won, the proof came that it isn't like election night – when any gasps of surprise from the candidates on the platform are completely faked for the cameras – as Richard nearly fell over when the lovely Iain Roberts (finally coming out to, ah, great surprise as the former Costigan Quist, proof that the "Curse of the BOTYs" was in fact no barrier to his writing 600 blog posts in the last year, merely not under his winning name) announced his name and he and Millennium had to go up to the front. I failed him; in previous years, I'd prodded him to get a speech ready, but… Oops. But I was so proud of them! What fantastic news, and I can tell you that they were both absolutely delighted, once recovered from shell-shock. Poor Millennium was so overcome that he didn't speak at all!
I suspect we though Millennium was never going to win after the year that all three of us thought he was at his most consistently brilliant, prolific, inclusive and innovative – and wasn't even nominated (the more embarrassing of the two times I was nominated for the top slot, as I didn't think I remotely should have been and had very much wanted him to win). But if he didn't win for quite his best year, there's no better time for a soft toy to win than, as Richard said – eventually – in his acceptance speech, just as we reach the centre of government for the first time in ninety years and are expected to 'behave' and look just like everyone else. We won't.
Congratulations, too, to the other winners Nick, Nick – people are minded to agree with Nick, apparently; it must be #NickCleggsFault – Alex, Andrew and Charlotte, who looked almost as stunned as Richard. It was only at the Awards that I thought what I might say should I win, not expecting to, and came up with three things: as I was wearing a t-shirt with a particularly striking shot of Tom Baker as the Doctor announcing "I deny this reality" (from my favourite story), I would have insisted that being stuck in the 1970s and denying reality was not a sign that I had suddenly been convinced by Ed Balls; that I was delighted to win the best single post, and with my ever-decreasing writing rate would eventually reach my target of just one post a year, in the hope that it would still be nominated; and that I thought Andrew Hickey's was better, and that he should have won. Fortunately, he did. Unfortunately, as he makes clear below, it wasn't for the post I nominated but a different one (one link above, the other in the comment below), which shows that I shouldn't just glance at a similar title but at least glance at the thing itself again before I link.
Andrew's winning article is a heartfelt and thoughtful appeal to Labour people on how they might bring their party back from the brink; I'll close, though, with a sliver from a slightly earlier one of his. Having simultaneously attacked us as evil Tories and consistently attacked us from the right, particularly in their racist flame-fanning on immigration throughout the election, the moment the election was over, Labour leaders all announced that they had 'won' the election by adding our vote to theirs, because according to them they owned it, really. Many Lib Dems took this as a perfect crystallisation of just why we despise the Labour Party, but it was Andrew's brief and explosive post that hit that nerve better than anyone else for me:
A Much More Interesting Presidential Election Than We Were Expecting
In effect, the Liberal Democrats have two deputy Leaders; one's elected by the MPs and deputises in Parliament or if the Leader falls under a bus or Simon Hughes' taxi – that Deputy Leader is now Simon Hughes – while the other is the President, elected by the whole party to deputise as the voice of us all. In the early days of the Liberal Democrats, the first was a largely ornamental position that didn't do very much while the latter was hotly contested; over time, that's almost swapped over (not least because Simon's two immediate predecessors in the job became Acting Leader), with several Presidential elections going uncontested and every President after the first one (under whom the party nearly went bankrupt) easily getting a second term. Yes, I remember all this stuff; Richard drove four of us up to Liverpool through middle England's scenic traffic jams yesterday, and while not singing new Labour Leadership-related lyrics to War of the Worlds' Brave New World (when you hear the lonely, dying, doomed "ooooh-laaaa" afterwards, think 'Poor Andy Burnham') I regaled everyone with thrilling tales of Presidential terms past. Well, they needed a nap.
This year's Presidential election, then, is a startling change to form. Ros Scott fought a brilliant grassroots campaign two years ago and thrashed poor Lembit to win the post, so everyone expected her to be returned unopposed for a second term, her nomination and consequent re-election this month pretty much a formality. So when she announced a week and a bit ago that she wasn't going to stand, a ripple of surprise went round the party – still more so, as there's no obvious 'establishment' successor. So far, four different candidates have declared, which (if they all get enough nominations) will be a record for the contest, all from a standing start. Millennium and the lovely Helen Duffett are organising bloggers' interviews with all four, and I've already joined one of them at noon today. As we went down to interview Tim Farron, the coronation music from Doctor Who – The Androids of Tara was stuck in my head; I wonder what my subconscious was trying to tell me? Consciously, I'd say the election's between two of the candidates, but I don't know which one's likely to pull ahead; I'll also have great difficulty deciding between three of them for my first preference. The one I don't know was always going to get my fourth, despite having read some good things about him… However, having observed his flunkeys persuading people to nominate him not by saying 'These are the nomination papers for X' but by claiming, "Sign here to ensure there's a contest," I shall be asking him rather curtly about that. I wonder how a candidate will justify a direct and calculated deception of voting representatives to Conference just to get as far as standing for election? Meanwhile, should you wish to enable one of the other candidates to have a fair fight, you can help here (without necessarily committing to vote for her).
Once we've completed all the interviews, I hope to write them up in one post – I'm asking each of them the same couple of questions, plus a specially fashioned extra one individually tailored to be the nastiest I can think of for each of them. So with a bit of luck that'll be sometime later this week.
Spanking New BOTYs Tonight
The highlight of every Lib Dem blogger's year is, of course, the Blog of the Year Awards, unveiled at a glittering ceremony in whatever dingy bar Lib Dem Voice has been able to afford for the first day of Conference. In tonight's, Millennium Dome has been shortlisted again for both Blog of the Year and Best Post on a Liberal Democrat Blog – hurrah (I nominated both him and Caron, both of whom it's lovely to see on the list)! Last year, of course, I was privileged to accept the coveted award for Blog of the Year itself… On someone else's behalf, naturally. Having spoken twice and been nominated twice for the top award, I remain confident that these two functions will never intersect (particularly as I've had such a pitifully low rate of posts this year, falling into ill health and, worse, Twitter). Despite that, I'm one of those up for Best Post, which is very flattering and doesn't actually put me under too much pressure to write more than once a month.
Many are nervous that the terrifying Curse of the BOTYs will strike again; three of the four past winners have almost immediately vanished into oblivion, so there's a bit of a concern that this year's will again say 'Thank you, and good night'. Frontrunner Mark Reckons has slightly presumptuously pre-emptively retired from blogging ahead of the awards; while he would of course be a worthy winner, were I a judge I would of course vote for Millennium. Being what you might call an aggressively secularist little elephant, he holds no truck with curses. Except possibly bad words about Labour Leadership candidates.
Speaking of bad words about Labour, I don't know who to back for Best Post on a Liberal Democrat Blog – it would be jolly nice to win, obviously, but I don't think mine's actually the best. Sadly, Caron's is particularly topical given the idiocy of yet another "child protection" nonsense last week. Noticeably, though, all the shortlisted posts (not necessarily reflecting the general tone of each blog from which they're taken) are ones attacking the Labour Party, either directly or – as they're taken from right across the last year – a particular action of the then government. Two of those I sent in to be considered are up there: Millennium's and Andrew Hickey's messages to Labour. Both are excellent, and I'm especially pleased to see Andrew's up there, as it's pithy, sweary and perfect (I suspect the sweariness may get in the way of winning). Millennium also wrote excellent pieces attacking the Conservatives or assessing the coalition, for example, which might have provided a little more balance (yes, yes, I know, critiquing the judges before the results are announced might be unwise). I admit I do quite like my shortlisted Considering the Evidence Means You Must Consider Your Position, being at least among my better posts of the year – this is the good bit:
"When Professor Nutt said that you’re more likely to die horse-riding than taking cannabis or ecstasy, to wails of horror from Labour hypocrites, he was simply looking at the facts of risk. Yet even that’s not really comparing like with like: unlike Professor Nutt, I support legalisation, which would enable proper quality checks (as well as destroying the criminal trade) – no-one gets on a horse, trots half-way along the path, then finds the ‘horse’ collapsing under them because they suddenly discover the beast is in fact half-gerbil."…But you might also like to read my article on the difference between Lib Dem and Tory tax cuts, from which you can deduce which bits of the Budget came from which party, say, amongst my more anti-Conservative pieces. Or two silly picture ones, if you've had enough words from me already.
For best non-Lib Dem blogger, voting for either Charlotte Gore or Left Foot Forward would do us credit. Charlotte is a former Lib Dem, and voting for her would show that unlike the Labour Party, we can appreciate talent and interesting thoughts even if they've left the party, rather than screaming 'Traitor!' and 'Splitter!' Alternatively, we might show how Liberal and tolerant we are by recognising that Left Foot Forward is quite well-written, interesting and effective, despite also hating everything that their lying, warmongering, hypocritical, bossy, illiberal, bankrupting, pathetically evil party stands for. There, you see – I can play nice about Labour!
Fantastic News Update: Congratulations, Millennium!
It's the day after, and last night was an unexpected one – at long last, Millennium won the Liberal Democrat Blog of the Year Award! You can see him with it here, after we left the awards (and after we had a very late meal, and after we were bought a bottle of champagne by someone Terribly Important… Today's been a bit slower, for some reason).
If anyone thinks the shortlistees know in advance who's won, the proof came that it isn't like election night – when any gasps of surprise from the candidates on the platform are completely faked for the cameras – as Richard nearly fell over when the lovely Iain Roberts (finally coming out to, ah, great surprise as the former Costigan Quist, proof that the "Curse of the BOTYs" was in fact no barrier to his writing 600 blog posts in the last year, merely not under his winning name) announced his name and he and Millennium had to go up to the front. I failed him; in previous years, I'd prodded him to get a speech ready, but… Oops. But I was so proud of them! What fantastic news, and I can tell you that they were both absolutely delighted, once recovered from shell-shock. Poor Millennium was so overcome that he didn't speak at all!
I suspect we though Millennium was never going to win after the year that all three of us thought he was at his most consistently brilliant, prolific, inclusive and innovative – and wasn't even nominated (the more embarrassing of the two times I was nominated for the top slot, as I didn't think I remotely should have been and had very much wanted him to win). But if he didn't win for quite his best year, there's no better time for a soft toy to win than, as Richard said – eventually – in his acceptance speech, just as we reach the centre of government for the first time in ninety years and are expected to 'behave' and look just like everyone else. We won't.
Congratulations, too, to the other winners Nick, Nick – people are minded to agree with Nick, apparently; it must be #NickCleggsFault – Alex, Andrew and Charlotte, who looked almost as stunned as Richard. It was only at the Awards that I thought what I might say should I win, not expecting to, and came up with three things: as I was wearing a t-shirt with a particularly striking shot of Tom Baker as the Doctor announcing "I deny this reality" (from my favourite story), I would have insisted that being stuck in the 1970s and denying reality was not a sign that I had suddenly been convinced by Ed Balls; that I was delighted to win the best single post, and with my ever-decreasing writing rate would eventually reach my target of just one post a year, in the hope that it would still be nominated; and that I thought Andrew Hickey's was better, and that he should have won. Fortunately, he did. Unfortunately, as he makes clear below, it wasn't for the post I nominated but a different one (one link above, the other in the comment below), which shows that I shouldn't just glance at a similar title but at least glance at the thing itself again before I link.
Andrew's winning article is a heartfelt and thoughtful appeal to Labour people on how they might bring their party back from the brink; I'll close, though, with a sliver from a slightly earlier one of his. Having simultaneously attacked us as evil Tories and consistently attacked us from the right, particularly in their racist flame-fanning on immigration throughout the election, the moment the election was over, Labour leaders all announced that they had 'won' the election by adding our vote to theirs, because according to them they owned it, really. Many Lib Dems took this as a perfect crystallisation of just why we despise the Labour Party, but it was Andrew's brief and explosive post that hit that nerve better than anyone else for me:
"THERE IS NO LIBDEM-LABOUR COMBO! THERE IS NO LABOUR+LIBDEM. WE ARE TWO SEPARATE PARTIES!
"Yours is the party of war criminals, destruction of civil liberties, and inflating economic bubbles that favour the middle-classed and middle-aged against the young and poor.
"WE ARE NOT YOUR FUCKING BACKUP PLAN."
Labels: Blogs, Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrat Conferences, Liberal Democrats
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
William Hartnell and Dynasty (A Match Made In Repeats)
I’m immensely fond of the original Doctor, William Hartnell, and it’s a good week if you are too. After showing Hell Drivers on Monday, in which he’s the villain and Patrick McGoohan’s his heavy, at 12.45 today BBC2 present The Mouse That Roared, in which Billy’s the heavy and Peter Sellers is most of the rest of the cast*. Now, if only they’d repeat a season of Billy’s Doctor Who stories as well… And while not all of those still properly exist, tomorrow a CD boxed set of the “missing stories” is released (you can pre-order it for half price). Although the five adventures (across a dozen CDs) in Doctor Who – The Lost TV Episodes Collection One: 1964-1965 have previously been released separately, the box works out a little cheaper (or much cheaper on the current offer) and has some extras this time, in the form of pdfs of the original scripts and a couple of other bits and bobs. Two are particularly good, too, while only one’s a bit shallow. No doubt there’ll be more of these boxes to come, thanks to the BBC’s brilliant archive-burning policy of the 1960s and 1970s.
If you follow BBC7, you might also be entertained by today’s episode (on this morning, on again at 10pm) of The Little World of Don Camillo. I read a lot of these gently satirical small-town 1950s Italian religion and politics stories in my teens, and it’s an occasional pleasure to catch up with one of the stories on radio, featuring Joss Ackland as God. Today’s had a particularly satisfying punchline for me (if not for the Communists), and a bishop like an altogether milder version of Rev’s relishably Satanic archdeacon.
And finally… Yes, I know I should be posting something to celebrate, evaluate or castigate the coalition’s first hundred days, but I’m still too ill and generally grumpy for proper analysis. I have, however, been cheered daily by CBS Drama’s repeats of Dynasty, which have today reached the climax of the series’ penultimate season, and which make me laugh (almost always unintentionally). This was the eighth season, with ratings in free-fall after their mid-’80s glory days – I picked up watching this set of repeats half-way through, in time to catch the hilarious ‘wedding massacre’, surely Dynasty’s finest ten minutes (even if the cliffhanger is then resolved by all the machine-gunned Carringtons and Colbys getting up again save the two unsuitable partners: the gay man and the not-quite-white-enough woman).
I can understand why the ratings declined; I almost turned off during the seventh season, in which evil brother Ben became tortured and saintly, everyone became suddenly concerned with family values and a baby kidnap story went on for weeks and tedious weeks – most spent shouting at the screen for the long-telegraphed kidnap actually to get on and happen, and wondering eventually if the twist would be that it wouldn’t (it did, long after anyone stopped caring) – so I suspect I’d have run out of patience too if I’d seen it at the original pace of one dreary episode per week rather than five. Fortunately, the eighth season got mean and nasty again, so I’ve stayed watching. There’s the running theme of Alexis’ fourth husband, the increasingly psychotic and laughably hammy Sean Rowan, with his Hooded Claw-style plots, multiple names and multiple deaths, and a backstory that, like much of this season, digs shamelessly into the series’ past to dig up threats from beyond the grave (in one episode, all four of Alexis’ husbands were competing for the storyline. Including the dead one). Then there’s the wronged niece who’s turned into the horribly inept ‘bad girl’, the miscast replacement daughter who’s at least better than the horribly miscast replacement other daughter from the previous season (so bad they dropped her between episodes without even a goodbye scene, with even her loving / feuding parents no longer giving a toss) but who they still have no idea what to do with, Blake fighting the world’s least busy and least plausible race for Governor, Alexis challenging him and – incredibly – that leading to some scenes that actually say something interesting about women in politics, before she’s accidentally almost assassinated by her ineptly vengeful husband…
The final season starts tomorrow. I just hope it’s as funny as this one.
*Despite being utterly different in tone to Dr Strangelove, watch the two movies back-to-back and they have so much in common on paper that it’s difficult not to conclude that Stanley Kubrick saw the earlier movie when he was in a really bad mood, and got ideas.
If you follow BBC7, you might also be entertained by today’s episode (on this morning, on again at 10pm) of The Little World of Don Camillo. I read a lot of these gently satirical small-town 1950s Italian religion and politics stories in my teens, and it’s an occasional pleasure to catch up with one of the stories on radio, featuring Joss Ackland as God. Today’s had a particularly satisfying punchline for me (if not for the Communists), and a bishop like an altogether milder version of Rev’s relishably Satanic archdeacon.
Dynasty
And finally… Yes, I know I should be posting something to celebrate, evaluate or castigate the coalition’s first hundred days, but I’m still too ill and generally grumpy for proper analysis. I have, however, been cheered daily by CBS Drama’s repeats of Dynasty, which have today reached the climax of the series’ penultimate season, and which make me laugh (almost always unintentionally). This was the eighth season, with ratings in free-fall after their mid-’80s glory days – I picked up watching this set of repeats half-way through, in time to catch the hilarious ‘wedding massacre’, surely Dynasty’s finest ten minutes (even if the cliffhanger is then resolved by all the machine-gunned Carringtons and Colbys getting up again save the two unsuitable partners: the gay man and the not-quite-white-enough woman).
I can understand why the ratings declined; I almost turned off during the seventh season, in which evil brother Ben became tortured and saintly, everyone became suddenly concerned with family values and a baby kidnap story went on for weeks and tedious weeks – most spent shouting at the screen for the long-telegraphed kidnap actually to get on and happen, and wondering eventually if the twist would be that it wouldn’t (it did, long after anyone stopped caring) – so I suspect I’d have run out of patience too if I’d seen it at the original pace of one dreary episode per week rather than five. Fortunately, the eighth season got mean and nasty again, so I’ve stayed watching. There’s the running theme of Alexis’ fourth husband, the increasingly psychotic and laughably hammy Sean Rowan, with his Hooded Claw-style plots, multiple names and multiple deaths, and a backstory that, like much of this season, digs shamelessly into the series’ past to dig up threats from beyond the grave (in one episode, all four of Alexis’ husbands were competing for the storyline. Including the dead one). Then there’s the wronged niece who’s turned into the horribly inept ‘bad girl’, the miscast replacement daughter who’s at least better than the horribly miscast replacement other daughter from the previous season (so bad they dropped her between episodes without even a goodbye scene, with even her loving / feuding parents no longer giving a toss) but who they still have no idea what to do with, Blake fighting the world’s least busy and least plausible race for Governor, Alexis challenging him and – incredibly – that leading to some scenes that actually say something interesting about women in politics, before she’s accidentally almost assassinated by her ineptly vengeful husband…
The final season starts tomorrow. I just hope it’s as funny as this one.
*Despite being utterly different in tone to Dr Strangelove, watch the two movies back-to-back and they have so much in common on paper that it’s difficult not to conclude that Stanley Kubrick saw the earlier movie when he was in a really bad mood, and got ideas.
Labels: Comedy, Doctor Who, Dynasty, Film, Reviews, William Hartnell
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Still Alive; Nothing to See Here
Of all the many posts I’ve started (either in my head, or more rarely with actual typing involved) in the last couple of months – most of the political ones are now woefully out of date and only marginally likely to see the light of day eventually out of historical interest – the one that I absolutely wasn’t going to write was the self-pitying personal one. I’ve tried to get up the enthusiasm to write, but even an imagined post of a few lines regarding Carry On Up the Khyber passed by at the weekend without setting fingers to keyboard. But this morning I’ve noticed after another rough night that I’ve managed to let a complete calendar month slip with nothing at all for the first time since I started this blog in 2006, which spoils my at times already tenuous record, leaves a gap in my sidebar and makes me more sourly dispirited but ironically (if no doubt temporarily) more interactive than usual.
I am, in case anyone’s concerned, still thoroughly committed to both Doctor Who and the Liberal Democrats, if with more muted enthusiasm for the recent adventures of both than usual. I am, however, just about self-aware enough to know that while this may be a function of Moffat and coalition (though Michael Howard yesterday slagging off what the latter’s doing does, naturally, help), being horribly ill and generally despising most things about my life right now means that it’ll take quite a bit of time before I can be in a proper position to judge, as there’s rather a large alternative reason for not enjoying things to be taken into account. Amongst other things it means I’m still not able to get out much, to put it mildly – I’ve managed to get further than the local shops three times in the best part of three months, after each of which I’ve completely collapsed for several days, so I’ve missed an awful lot to do with both Lib Dems and Who that I’d have wished for (just in the last few days: sorry, Jennie; sorry, Jago and Litefoot).
Richard is being very lovely, trying not to react when I’m a total git, trying to pretend he’s not worried at the repetitive sound of my retching, and trying not to look completely aghast at the state both and I and the flat have got into. I have on occasion been cheered a bit by e-mails from some very nice people, and I’m afraid I’ve not been replying to many, because while I appreciate it my appetite for interaction is significantly suppressed right now (sorry to several lovely people whose birthdays I’ve entirely ignored recently, too). So if anyone feels like cheering Richard up, please do, because he’s not having a great time with me.
Regular readers should know that, while I have several long-term health problems, the vomiting and all the other stuff that kicked off in mid-April have meant the last few months have been an awful lot worse, albeit that while there’s still at least one day a week every bit as bad as when it all started, over time I can I suppose note an improving trend. I can eat and keep it down most days (chocolate too, now, which is an enormous relief). But the general effect of being painfully and exhaustingly ill for a protracted period means that even when it’s very, very slowly abating, I’ve long since stopped putting a brave face on it and coping, and the additional pressure of feeling I have to compose blog pieces then keep them up, explain where I’ve been on Twitter and keep that up, reply to correspondence… Even if I felt any joy or confidence in writing, I’m afraid it’s still much simpler right now to batten down the hatches and not write anything that’ll mean I then have to write something else, which I’ll inevitably not manage.
In short, I’m still alive, just not enjoying it very much.
I am, in case anyone’s concerned, still thoroughly committed to both Doctor Who and the Liberal Democrats, if with more muted enthusiasm for the recent adventures of both than usual. I am, however, just about self-aware enough to know that while this may be a function of Moffat and coalition (though Michael Howard yesterday slagging off what the latter’s doing does, naturally, help), being horribly ill and generally despising most things about my life right now means that it’ll take quite a bit of time before I can be in a proper position to judge, as there’s rather a large alternative reason for not enjoying things to be taken into account. Amongst other things it means I’m still not able to get out much, to put it mildly – I’ve managed to get further than the local shops three times in the best part of three months, after each of which I’ve completely collapsed for several days, so I’ve missed an awful lot to do with both Lib Dems and Who that I’d have wished for (just in the last few days: sorry, Jennie; sorry, Jago and Litefoot).
Richard is being very lovely, trying not to react when I’m a total git, trying to pretend he’s not worried at the repetitive sound of my retching, and trying not to look completely aghast at the state both and I and the flat have got into. I have on occasion been cheered a bit by e-mails from some very nice people, and I’m afraid I’ve not been replying to many, because while I appreciate it my appetite for interaction is significantly suppressed right now (sorry to several lovely people whose birthdays I’ve entirely ignored recently, too). So if anyone feels like cheering Richard up, please do, because he’s not having a great time with me.
Regular readers should know that, while I have several long-term health problems, the vomiting and all the other stuff that kicked off in mid-April have meant the last few months have been an awful lot worse, albeit that while there’s still at least one day a week every bit as bad as when it all started, over time I can I suppose note an improving trend. I can eat and keep it down most days (chocolate too, now, which is an enormous relief). But the general effect of being painfully and exhaustingly ill for a protracted period means that even when it’s very, very slowly abating, I’ve long since stopped putting a brave face on it and coping, and the additional pressure of feeling I have to compose blog pieces then keep them up, explain where I’ve been on Twitter and keep that up, reply to correspondence… Even if I felt any joy or confidence in writing, I’m afraid it’s still much simpler right now to batten down the hatches and not write anything that’ll mean I then have to write something else, which I’ll inevitably not manage.
In short, I’m still alive, just not enjoying it very much.
Labels: Health, Personal, Richard
Saturday, May 08, 2010
All Four of Our Cast-Iron Priorities: Deal. Anything Less: No Deal.
My message to the Liberal Democrat Federal Executive, meeting this afternoon (mail yours to balancedparliament@libdemvoice.org).
In one line – all four of our cast-iron priorities: deal. Anything less: no deal.
I hate the Tories. I hate Labour. I don’t want a deal with either of them.
But we don’t have a Lib Dem majority, and we support a system that almost inevitably leads to coalitions. So we must listen to the voters and negotiate in good faith, because while we hate Labour and the Tories, the voters have given them larger chunks of power.
What happens if we don’t negotiate? A minority Tory government, sustained by the DUP. Can any Lib Dem honestly say that a Tory government made less horrible by Lib Dem participation would be worse for the country than a Tory government made more horrible by the Paisleyites?
So, the national interest is to bargain hard for a coalition.
Our party interest is not to touch it with a barge pole.
Clearly, we haemorrhaged votes at the last minute because voters say they like politicians talking to each other, but are terrified of us talking to ‘the wrong ones’ and were scared back to the Labour / Tory to stop Tory / Labour getting in.
If we deal with either party, we run the risk of splitting. And either way will help Labour, who deserve to be ground to dust after their appalling record.
Do a deal with the Tories and we give Labour a lifeline to be the only opposition.
Do a deal with Labour – however that would work, as we simply don’t have enough seats – and we give a lifeline to Labour to keep being in charge.
Either way damages us horribly.
First, if we do a deal, it has to be for a formal coalition, for a fixed term, published out in the open. Otherwise the Prime Minister can just cut and run with a new election for party advantage, and we’re stuffed.
Second, we must learn from Scotland. We went into a formal coalition with Labour to get things done: we insisted on over 20 pages of over 80 firm commitments, so we not just got Liberal Democrat policies made real. We made Scotland better for it – and could point to our explicit achievements. We weren’t rewarded for it at the ballot box – but we weren’t hammered for it, as we would have been if we’d only propped up what Labour were going to do anyway. So any agreement isn’t secret, but written down for all the world to see and so the Tories can’t lie about it later.
Third, Nick’s made it very clear, as has our manifesto, what our bottom lines are. We get the four fairnesses, or there’s no deal. We should bargain for as much as we can of the rest of the manifesto – but if we don’t get those four bottom lines, we can’t possibly agree.
Cameron yesterday said warm words, but no detail at all – basically just the Tory manifesto bits that sounded a bit like us, but with no meat to it.
There’s no way that’s good enough.
Lib Dem tax cuts for low and middle earners, with increased taxes on the rich to pay for them.
Breaking up the banks and a green economy.
Solid money to support poorer kids in schools.
Big money out of politics, elected Lords and above all STV.
All those are hard for the Tories to swallow, but tough. They’ll have plenty of things we don’t like that we’ll have to give way on.
If we get a coalition with at least those four as a baseline, we would change Britain for good, and we can prove it to people. We will still be hurt, but we’d achieve something massive. It would be worth it.
If Cameron sticks to what he said yesterday, we should tell him we’d rather bring him down. Labour lied to us and the country for thirteen years over electoral reform. We would have to be lobotomised to listen to the same from the Tories.
They hate STV; we love it. Fine. Referendum, this Autumn, one question, for or against. Tories free to be against, us free to be for. Sorted. If they’re afraid to defend their system to the people, they’re weak and won’t afraid of the voters.
The Tories have just been given their fifth lowest share of the vote for 200 years. If they think that’s a mandate, it isn’t.
Cameron promises a “committee of enquiry” on electoral reform. That’s what Heath said in 1974. We told him to sod off, too (as quoted in The Independent today!).
Both Labour and the Tories are vile. But if we get our priorities, we get a less vile government. If we don’t, stuff it.
We should be very loud in saying – we told the voters every day what our four bottom lines were. We will stick to every one of them, and hope to deliver more of our manifesto, but recognise we have to compromise on that.
If the Tories say they can’t deliver, Nick should go for the jugular and attack Cameron as a weak prisoner of his extreme party:
Liberal Democrat member
Former Parliamentary candidate, 1997 and 2001
Former member / Vice-Chair of Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee, most of 1993 to 2007
I am, of course, also working on a long version which may be posted later setting out exactly what I think. But the headlines above summarise what I think should be done.
In one line – all four of our cast-iron priorities: deal. Anything less: no deal.
In Full
I hate the Tories. I hate Labour. I don’t want a deal with either of them.
But we don’t have a Lib Dem majority, and we support a system that almost inevitably leads to coalitions. So we must listen to the voters and negotiate in good faith, because while we hate Labour and the Tories, the voters have given them larger chunks of power.
What happens if we don’t negotiate? A minority Tory government, sustained by the DUP. Can any Lib Dem honestly say that a Tory government made less horrible by Lib Dem participation would be worse for the country than a Tory government made more horrible by the Paisleyites?
So, the national interest is to bargain hard for a coalition.
Our party interest is not to touch it with a barge pole.
Clearly, we haemorrhaged votes at the last minute because voters say they like politicians talking to each other, but are terrified of us talking to ‘the wrong ones’ and were scared back to the Labour / Tory to stop Tory / Labour getting in.
If we deal with either party, we run the risk of splitting. And either way will help Labour, who deserve to be ground to dust after their appalling record.
Do a deal with the Tories and we give Labour a lifeline to be the only opposition.
Do a deal with Labour – however that would work, as we simply don’t have enough seats – and we give a lifeline to Labour to keep being in charge.
Either way damages us horribly.
How to Square the Circle
First, if we do a deal, it has to be for a formal coalition, for a fixed term, published out in the open. Otherwise the Prime Minister can just cut and run with a new election for party advantage, and we’re stuffed.
Second, we must learn from Scotland. We went into a formal coalition with Labour to get things done: we insisted on over 20 pages of over 80 firm commitments, so we not just got Liberal Democrat policies made real. We made Scotland better for it – and could point to our explicit achievements. We weren’t rewarded for it at the ballot box – but we weren’t hammered for it, as we would have been if we’d only propped up what Labour were going to do anyway. So any agreement isn’t secret, but written down for all the world to see and so the Tories can’t lie about it later.
Third, Nick’s made it very clear, as has our manifesto, what our bottom lines are. We get the four fairnesses, or there’s no deal. We should bargain for as much as we can of the rest of the manifesto – but if we don’t get those four bottom lines, we can’t possibly agree.
Cameron yesterday said warm words, but no detail at all – basically just the Tory manifesto bits that sounded a bit like us, but with no meat to it.
There’s no way that’s good enough.
Lib Dem tax cuts for low and middle earners, with increased taxes on the rich to pay for them.
Breaking up the banks and a green economy.
Solid money to support poorer kids in schools.
Big money out of politics, elected Lords and above all STV.
All those are hard for the Tories to swallow, but tough. They’ll have plenty of things we don’t like that we’ll have to give way on.
If we get a coalition with at least those four as a baseline, we would change Britain for good, and we can prove it to people. We will still be hurt, but we’d achieve something massive. It would be worth it.
If Cameron sticks to what he said yesterday, we should tell him we’d rather bring him down. Labour lied to us and the country for thirteen years over electoral reform. We would have to be lobotomised to listen to the same from the Tories.
They hate STV; we love it. Fine. Referendum, this Autumn, one question, for or against. Tories free to be against, us free to be for. Sorted. If they’re afraid to defend their system to the people, they’re weak and won’t afraid of the voters.
The Tories have just been given their fifth lowest share of the vote for 200 years. If they think that’s a mandate, it isn’t.
Cameron promises a “committee of enquiry” on electoral reform. That’s what Heath said in 1974. We told him to sod off, too (as quoted in The Independent today!).
Conclusion
Both Labour and the Tories are vile. But if we get our priorities, we get a less vile government. If we don’t, stuff it.
We should be very loud in saying – we told the voters every day what our four bottom lines were. We will stick to every one of them, and hope to deliver more of our manifesto, but recognise we have to compromise on that.
If the Tories say they can’t deliver, Nick should go for the jugular and attack Cameron as a weak prisoner of his extreme party:
“Mr Cameron – if your party want to act like spoiled children and won’t compromise, don’t pretend they aren’t extremists.Alex Wilcock
“If you can’t deliver your party in the national interest, don’t pretend you’re serious about governing.
“The voters did not give you the power to do whatever you like. Don’t pretend they did.”
Liberal Democrat member
Former Parliamentary candidate, 1997 and 2001
Former member / Vice-Chair of Lib Dem Federal Policy Committee, most of 1993 to 2007
I am, of course, also working on a long version which may be posted later setting out exactly what I think. But the headlines above summarise what I think should be done.
Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Lib Dem Fair Taxes: The Reverse Poll Tax
You want the most blatant difference between parties? Tax. The Liberal Democrats would raise taxes on the richest to give a £700 tax cut to low and middle earners; Labour have just raised taxes again on low and middle earners; the Tories claim they want to reverse Labour’s tax rise, but won’t say how to pay for it – while their biggest commitment is a massive handout to double millionaires. And the simplest way to explain that difference? Remember the last Tory Government’s flagship poll tax, taking proportionally most from the poor? Lib Dem fair taxes are the exact reverse.
And, yes, I know this one’s pathetically late, but come on – the Lib Dems will keep on campaigning on it, and the Tories will keep on slashing the poor to subsidise the rich.
The poll tax was the Tories’ big new idea to take them into the ’90s. It was so shockingly unfair that it brought riots on the streets. Simple idea: instead of taxing people on the value of their homes, everyone would pay exactly the same. Sounds fair for a second… Until you realise people on the lowest incomes would have to pay just the same as a multi-millionaire. A tiny fraction of the ultra-rich’s income; a massive hit to someone working hard to make ends meet. No wonder that tax break for the richest brought down Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister and forced the Tories to cobble together the mess that’s the council tax instead.
Today, exactly the same instinct that created the poll tax has risen to the privileged top of the Tory Party again. They just don’t learn. For three years, it’s been their main tax priority to cut inheritance tax for double millionaires. At a cost of £6 billion to the rest of us, only the richest 3,000 families in the country would get a tax cut of a quarter of a million quid each. Nice if you can get it!
In complete contrast to the Tories’ tax plans, the Liberal Democrat flagship policy in this election is a massive £17 billion tax switch. Everyone earning up to £100,000 a year would pay no income tax on the first £10,000 they earn. That means a tax cut of £700 for most people on low and middle incomes.
And to pay for that enormous cut? Five different tax rises at the other end of the scale: equalise capital gains tax with income tax, so people can’t dodge taxes by sticking their loot into property; giving everyone the same basic rate pension relief, instead of giving twice as much back to the wealthiest; a 1% mansion tax on any property value above £2 million; cracking down on tax avoidance, including specific measures on stamp duty and a new general law against measures designed to dodge tax; and taxing air travel per plane, not – as it is now – per passenger, so air freight pays its weight in tax and polluting planes fly full instead of half-empty.
Everyone who’s ever worked on a low wage – and I know this, but I can’t imagine many Tories do – knows that one of the big problems is that benefits vanish just as your hard-earned cash starts to disappear in tax. It means you’re often hardly any better off working than not. No, if you earn under £10,000, you won’t get the full £700 – but you will get to keep what you earn, rather than see it pocketed by the tax man.
Labour prefers to make people dependent – taking money with one hand, giving tax credits back with the other… As long as you jump through the right hoops, and fill out the right forms, and wait for the money to come through, and hope it doesn’t get taken back because they made a mistake or changed their minds. They just love to control people – they just don’t understand that it’s better, simpler, and cheaper than all the bureaucracy just to have the self-respect of keeping your own money, not relying on the whim of government handouts. And to make sure they keep low and middle earners in their place, Labour have done the opposite of the Lib Dems taking people out of paying tax altogether. They’ve claimed not to increase income tax… But they doubled the tax on every single one of the lowest earners by scrapping the 10p rate. They raised taxes on income without saying the words by raising national insurance – which works in just the same way for most. And rather than lifting that threshold at which people start paying tax, Labour’s frozen it at just about £6,000, so that inflation alone means the lowest earners get clobbered for extra tax.
The gap between the rich and the poor is bigger under Labour than it was under Mrs Thatcher. The lowest-earning 20% of people pay a higher share of earnings in tax than the wealthiest 20% under Labour. It’s the purpose of the Liberal Democrat tax switch to tackle that, to make taxes fairer.
I’ve written about the Tories’ very different tax-cutting agenda, instead to widen the gap between rich and poor. But the parties also have a different idea of who to chase hardest for money gone missing. I mentioned that the Liberal Democrats want to chase tax-avoiders. Well, let’s look at the figures. Tax avoidance that’s currently exploiting legal loopholes is estimated to cost the taxpayer nearly £50 billion a year: the Lib Dems’ plans assume that, by taking action to close those loopholes, at a conservative estimate about 10% of that would be scooped up – about £5 billion. That’s not counting getting harsher with not the dodgy dodgers but cracking down on definite criminals: illegal tax evasion costs taxpayers £15 billion a year.
So what’s the Tories’ priority? Not one word about wealthy tax dodgers. Instead, their right-wing dog-whistle posters shrieked “Let’s cut benefits for those who refuse work” and, after twenty years of every government cracking down harder on people who not just refuse to work but are too ill to work or who can’t find a job because the government’s stuffed the economy, how much more do you think can be squeezed by kicking the poor still harder? The Tories scream that they want to kick the poor. The Tories shout that they want to give massive handouts to idle millionaires. And while tax evasion costs taxpayers £15 billion a year… Benefit fraud costs just over £1 billion.
You might be more generous or more imaginative than I am, but I can’t think of a single possible explanation for the Tories attacking people who cost £1 billion and giving extra to people who cost £15 billion that doesn’t boil down to them getting all their funding from rich tax dodgers on the one hand, and wanting to grind down the poor and sick who can’t hit back on the other.
In the election TV debates, David Cameron described the Liberal Democrat tax cut as “a beautiful policy,” but said that it couldn’t be afforded. That was a lie. You can pay for a £17 billion tax cut – by raising £17 billion more from the wealthiest, who currently pay a smaller share of their income than the poorest.
Well, we know why that’s almost literally unthinkable for David Cameron, don’t we?
The difference between Liberal Democrat and Tory tax cuts could not possibly be any clearer. And to return to the comparison with the poll tax…
Remember how the poll tax gave a massive tax cut to people living in huge mansions, while hammering people on tiny wages in tiny homes? The Tories today want to give a much, much bigger tax cut to people inheriting huge mansions – not even to people who’ve earned them. The Liberal Democrats today want to pay for a tax cut for ordinary people, in part, by taxing huge mansions.
Remember how the poll tax took the same amount of cash from everybody, so the rich gave up the tiniest fraction of their wealth and the poor were robbed of a huge slice of what they earned?
The Liberal Democrat tax cuts are the precise reverse of that. By giving back the same amount of cash to everyone earning between £10,000 and £100,000, it’s fair – because everyone gets the same – but helps you more the less you earn, which starts narrowing that gap between rich and poor where lower earners pay a bigger share.
The Liberal Democrats have said they want to give a tax cut of £700 to low and middle earners – which means that the lower down the scale you earn towards £10,000, the bigger the percentage gain to your wages.
The Liberal Democrats have said they want to cap all public sector pay awards, with the economy doing so badly, at £400. Again, a solid cash figure – again, that means that the lowest earners would get the biggest percentage increase, but better-off public servants (like MPs) couldn’t get a larger share.
Not all tax cuts are the same. The Conservatives’ instincts are still exactly the same as those that created the poll tax to help the rich. The Liberal Democrats’ instincts for fairness are exactly the opposite – helping the lowest and lower middle earners most. And, of course – unlike the Tories – the Lib Dem manifesto printed the figures to say how it would all be paid for.
There is all the difference in the world.
And, yes, I know this one’s pathetically late, but come on – the Lib Dems will keep on campaigning on it, and the Tories will keep on slashing the poor to subsidise the rich.
The Tories Only Cut Taxes For the Wealthy – and Make the Rest of Us Pay
The poll tax was the Tories’ big new idea to take them into the ’90s. It was so shockingly unfair that it brought riots on the streets. Simple idea: instead of taxing people on the value of their homes, everyone would pay exactly the same. Sounds fair for a second… Until you realise people on the lowest incomes would have to pay just the same as a multi-millionaire. A tiny fraction of the ultra-rich’s income; a massive hit to someone working hard to make ends meet. No wonder that tax break for the richest brought down Mrs Thatcher as Prime Minister and forced the Tories to cobble together the mess that’s the council tax instead.
Today, exactly the same instinct that created the poll tax has risen to the privileged top of the Tory Party again. They just don’t learn. For three years, it’s been their main tax priority to cut inheritance tax for double millionaires. At a cost of £6 billion to the rest of us, only the richest 3,000 families in the country would get a tax cut of a quarter of a million quid each. Nice if you can get it!
Lib Dems Cut Taxes For Most – Wealthiest Pay More
In complete contrast to the Tories’ tax plans, the Liberal Democrat flagship policy in this election is a massive £17 billion tax switch. Everyone earning up to £100,000 a year would pay no income tax on the first £10,000 they earn. That means a tax cut of £700 for most people on low and middle incomes.
And to pay for that enormous cut? Five different tax rises at the other end of the scale: equalise capital gains tax with income tax, so people can’t dodge taxes by sticking their loot into property; giving everyone the same basic rate pension relief, instead of giving twice as much back to the wealthiest; a 1% mansion tax on any property value above £2 million; cracking down on tax avoidance, including specific measures on stamp duty and a new general law against measures designed to dodge tax; and taxing air travel per plane, not – as it is now – per passenger, so air freight pays its weight in tax and polluting planes fly full instead of half-empty.
Making Work Worth Working For
Everyone who’s ever worked on a low wage – and I know this, but I can’t imagine many Tories do – knows that one of the big problems is that benefits vanish just as your hard-earned cash starts to disappear in tax. It means you’re often hardly any better off working than not. No, if you earn under £10,000, you won’t get the full £700 – but you will get to keep what you earn, rather than see it pocketed by the tax man.
Labour prefers to make people dependent – taking money with one hand, giving tax credits back with the other… As long as you jump through the right hoops, and fill out the right forms, and wait for the money to come through, and hope it doesn’t get taken back because they made a mistake or changed their minds. They just love to control people – they just don’t understand that it’s better, simpler, and cheaper than all the bureaucracy just to have the self-respect of keeping your own money, not relying on the whim of government handouts. And to make sure they keep low and middle earners in their place, Labour have done the opposite of the Lib Dems taking people out of paying tax altogether. They’ve claimed not to increase income tax… But they doubled the tax on every single one of the lowest earners by scrapping the 10p rate. They raised taxes on income without saying the words by raising national insurance – which works in just the same way for most. And rather than lifting that threshold at which people start paying tax, Labour’s frozen it at just about £6,000, so that inflation alone means the lowest earners get clobbered for extra tax.
Tories Prefer To Hit the Poor Rather Than Rich Tax-Dodgers – Who’s Surprised?
The gap between the rich and the poor is bigger under Labour than it was under Mrs Thatcher. The lowest-earning 20% of people pay a higher share of earnings in tax than the wealthiest 20% under Labour. It’s the purpose of the Liberal Democrat tax switch to tackle that, to make taxes fairer.
I’ve written about the Tories’ very different tax-cutting agenda, instead to widen the gap between rich and poor. But the parties also have a different idea of who to chase hardest for money gone missing. I mentioned that the Liberal Democrats want to chase tax-avoiders. Well, let’s look at the figures. Tax avoidance that’s currently exploiting legal loopholes is estimated to cost the taxpayer nearly £50 billion a year: the Lib Dems’ plans assume that, by taking action to close those loopholes, at a conservative estimate about 10% of that would be scooped up – about £5 billion. That’s not counting getting harsher with not the dodgy dodgers but cracking down on definite criminals: illegal tax evasion costs taxpayers £15 billion a year.
So what’s the Tories’ priority? Not one word about wealthy tax dodgers. Instead, their right-wing dog-whistle posters shrieked “Let’s cut benefits for those who refuse work” and, after twenty years of every government cracking down harder on people who not just refuse to work but are too ill to work or who can’t find a job because the government’s stuffed the economy, how much more do you think can be squeezed by kicking the poor still harder? The Tories scream that they want to kick the poor. The Tories shout that they want to give massive handouts to idle millionaires. And while tax evasion costs taxpayers £15 billion a year… Benefit fraud costs just over £1 billion.
You might be more generous or more imaginative than I am, but I can’t think of a single possible explanation for the Tories attacking people who cost £1 billion and giving extra to people who cost £15 billion that doesn’t boil down to them getting all their funding from rich tax dodgers on the one hand, and wanting to grind down the poor and sick who can’t hit back on the other.
The Reverse Poll Tax – The Tax Cut Tories Will Never Agree With
In the election TV debates, David Cameron described the Liberal Democrat tax cut as “a beautiful policy,” but said that it couldn’t be afforded. That was a lie. You can pay for a £17 billion tax cut – by raising £17 billion more from the wealthiest, who currently pay a smaller share of their income than the poorest.
Well, we know why that’s almost literally unthinkable for David Cameron, don’t we?
The difference between Liberal Democrat and Tory tax cuts could not possibly be any clearer. And to return to the comparison with the poll tax…
Remember how the poll tax gave a massive tax cut to people living in huge mansions, while hammering people on tiny wages in tiny homes? The Tories today want to give a much, much bigger tax cut to people inheriting huge mansions – not even to people who’ve earned them. The Liberal Democrats today want to pay for a tax cut for ordinary people, in part, by taxing huge mansions.
Remember how the poll tax took the same amount of cash from everybody, so the rich gave up the tiniest fraction of their wealth and the poor were robbed of a huge slice of what they earned?
The Liberal Democrat tax cuts are the precise reverse of that. By giving back the same amount of cash to everyone earning between £10,000 and £100,000, it’s fair – because everyone gets the same – but helps you more the less you earn, which starts narrowing that gap between rich and poor where lower earners pay a bigger share.
The Liberal Democrats have said they want to give a tax cut of £700 to low and middle earners – which means that the lower down the scale you earn towards £10,000, the bigger the percentage gain to your wages.
The Liberal Democrats have said they want to cap all public sector pay awards, with the economy doing so badly, at £400. Again, a solid cash figure – again, that means that the lowest earners would get the biggest percentage increase, but better-off public servants (like MPs) couldn’t get a larger share.
Not all tax cuts are the same. The Conservatives’ instincts are still exactly the same as those that created the poll tax to help the rich. The Liberal Democrats’ instincts for fairness are exactly the opposite – helping the lowest and lower middle earners most. And, of course – unlike the Tories – the Lib Dem manifesto printed the figures to say how it would all be paid for.
There is all the difference in the world.
Labels: British Politics, Conservatives, General Election, Liberal Democrats, Tax
A Final Glance At the Manifestos
If you’re interested in what the parties have to say, you’ve probably already glanced at their manifestos (available for free online) or bought one of the “Why Vote Party X” books in the shops. I’m not going to do an in-depth analysis of any of them at this stage, though I’ve read some more thoroughly than others. But even at a cursory inspection, you see something of the parties in them. What are their priorities? What do the covers and contributors tell you about their approaches? What about the gays? And why (surprise) do I prefer the Liberal Democrat publications?
The cover of their Manifesto mentions “A Future,” but it’s a retro-future, desperate to ignore all the failures of the past and imagine themselves safely back in a cosy socialist utopia (not one on offer within the text): the cover looks like it was drawn in the 1950s as an advert for Nuclear Families For A Nuclear Future. I’m gay, I don’t trust nuclear power, and I don’t want to go back to the ’50s – and I don’t like Labour always telling me their perfect niche into which I should fit (as ever, no new policies on LGBT equality – though Mr Brown personally attacked marriage equality. Their record is to wait for the Lib Dems to come up with them, vote them down, then pick them up a few years later when it looks like they’re ‘safe’). There are no new ideas – just, as ever, that Labour knows best, mixed with authoritarian dog-whistles like calling a chapter “Crime and Immigration” (but with cartoons, though. Surely no-one who uses crayons could be evil). The Why Vote Labour book makes the same approach still more explicit: it has the central stamp of approval from Gordon Brown’s foreword, but the deniability of being written by someone who’s not an MP; the Conservatives are attacked by implication in the book’s first paragraph, and by name in the second; and while there are many paragraphs allegedly written by other people, most of them are just identified by a first name and a town – like a made-up quote on a leaflet – and all of them are put carefully in their place, framed in boxes under orders as examples of the central Labour Truth.
But neither of these publications matters very much. Can you think of a single new policy that Labour’s been campaigning on? Not one. It’s all been about a tiny fraction of government spending that they can pick out as a potential Tory cut to make you scared, then either saying the “Liberals” will do the scary same thing or cosying up with “I agree with Nick” on alternate sentences.
The cover of their Manifesto offers an “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”. Only the Tories could frame a populist appeal to every citizen in the style of a £500-a-head white tie do, as if assuming everyone goes to them all the time, like they do; only the Tories could invite everyone to participate in government, then spend their entire campaign taking fright and shrieking panicky scare stories about the awful danger of, er, anyone but the Tories forming the Government of Britain. So I admit I’m biased against a cover that might as well be a neon sign saying ‘We Don’t Mean It’. Open it up, though, and it does look more inviting. There’s none of the faux pas of the cover – instead, it’s a graphic designers’ paradise, easily the prettiest of the manifestos. And the mood music is early David Cameron: it feels more like a “liberal” Tory manifesto than any that have gone before. There’s no sign of the hard right policies that have appeared in desperation in speeches and posters as Tory support has sagged during the campaign – there’s little sign of much in the way of firm policies at all, but there are lots of nice full-page pictures of towns across Britain and in other countries, as if the Tories are taking credit for them, or possibly preparing to annex them.
The Conservative Manifesto was launched a couple of days after their Shadow Home Secretary was caught saying one thing in public and another thing in private about gay rights, yearning for the days of signs in windows marked “No Blacks, No Gays, No Catholics”. I wonder, I thought, if the manifesto does the same thing? Well, in panic at their plummeting gay vote, David Cameron… No, actually, he’d just made that awful fuck-up in a Gay Times interview and had to ask them to stop the camera, hadn’t he? Then he spun to the gay press that he’d begin the campaign on 6th April by mentioning gays in his first election speech, but having said that to the gay press, said “Black and white… Rich and poor…” but didn’t say “Gay or straight…” to the crowd and the TV cameras. Say one thing in one place, say something completely different to someone else. That’s the Tory way of speech – what are they like in print? So, amazingly, George Osborne was thrust out as a ‘safe pair of hands’ and promised to tackle homophobic bullying, at long last, and even came up with a uniquely Tory policy none of the other parties had mentioned and which I thought was a good idea and on gay rights. Credit where it’s due – that’s a first! He said they’d go some way (though, of course, not all the way) to quashing convictions of men who’d had sex with men that was only illegal because the law at the time was discriminatory. But… No. Again, the Tories say one thing to gays, but something else to other people. Because on the day their manifesto launched, “homophobic bullying” was put on the front page of their website… But it’s not in their manifesto. Nor is their other idea. Or any other pro-gay policies whatsoever. They do, though, have a nice pretty picture of Brighton, and mention how gay it is, because if that’s in a Tory manifesto it must all be down to the Tories. Somehow, I don’t think it works that way.
Oddly, the Why Vote Conservative book has a more coherent stamp to it, every word written by the same person and advancing an argument… But it’s also by a long way the most deniable of the three. Written by a Tory blogger, it opens not with a foreword from Mr Cameron but a disclaimer that he had absolutely nothing to do with it, nor any Tory MP nor employee. Gosh. So, they’re really keen to be pinned down on policy, then.
Oh, and in the last few days, David Cameron’s rushed out a “Contract” on Britain with a different set of policies again. Some of which were in the manifesto, and some on the posters (no, not the first set – nor the second – you know, this week’s Tory posters), and some presumably were just what Rupert Murdoch told him to say to try and salvage his investment.
It’s not clear which, if any, of these publications indicate what the Conservatives would actually do if given power – except enjoy it.
The cover of the Liberal Democrat Manifesto is quite plain – in both senses. “Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2010,” it’s labelled. “Change That Works For You – Building A Fairer Britain”. And the only other thing on the cover is, would you believe it, policy. Imagine that, for a manifesto? It sets out the party’s four key priorities about Fairness. The same ones Nick settled on last year; the same ones he made the centrepiece of his speech to Lib Dem Conference in March; which I picked out as the party’s key themes at the start of the campaign; the same ones he’s explained in every interview; the same ones I saw him give a barnstorming speech about on TV at his final campaign rally last night. Inside the manifesto, it explains those four key priorities in more detail, right at the front. Then sets out all the other policies, saying up front that the key priorities are the most important, but that they’d try to implement the rest too, depending on how much influence the Lib Dems win in the election (oh yes – and after several decades of being the party most committed to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, even when they were wildly unpopular, there are commitments to plenty of them in there. Including, in the section on education, with tackling homophobic bullying, as well as that on “families of every shape and size,” the workplace, hate crimes…). Every single section has green tabs next to commitments to show how a green approach runs through every area of policy. And, at the back, there’s an index so you can find every issue you’re interested in more easily, and a full set of costings – the only manifesto that sets out how a single policy can be afforded. And this sets out the figures for every single commitment.
This is very odd, after the other two manifestos. Words and numbers, rather than just packing the pages out with pretty pictures (though there are a couple)? It’s as if the Liberal Democrats want you to know what they’re promising, be able to check the figures, and hold the party to them. Imagine!
Then there’s the Why Vote Liberal Democrat book. It has a foreword from Nick Clegg, and it’s written by Danny Alexander, the MP who’s Nick’s Chief of Staff and who also edited the manifesto. Well, I say it’s written by Danny… But, although it’s not afraid to say up front that all this is the Liberal Democrats saying exactly the same here as everywhere else – though, in fact, I prefer the more expansive Liberalism of Nick’s introduction here to the much shorter, more businesslike values page in the manifesto, a document boiled down to concrete promises on fewer pages with larger type – it’s not all written by Danny, and nor do other contributors only walk on as directed to give their name (or part of it) to a carefully spun paragraph. While Danny edits the book and provides the overarching theme, each chapter is written by a different Lib Dem spokesperson or supporter. Where the manifesto gives the bullet-point commitments, this explains the thinking and the philosophy behind them, not by central party diktat but in many people’s own words: MPs; councillors; a former senior police officer; a former Director of Public Prosecutions; actors like Colin Firth; musicians; and, yes, an out gay Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate – Ed Fordham, who I hope very much will win Hampstead today – writing about gay equality. It’s a party not of iron control and a single voice, but people working together and unafraid to speak out. It isn’t just the same as the manifesto – but it’s entirely in harmony with it, complimentary, not contradictory. They’re the only two publications from any of the three parties that actually work together persuasively to say why you should vote for them.
For weeks, I’ve wanted (but not had the energy) to write a piece on each of the manifestos, which I’ve finally got out rather late… And a piece comparing each of the parties’ key pledges announced at the start of the campaign, which – as the Lib Dems had four, Labour five and the Tories six – was going to be Torchwoodishly called ‘The 456 Are Coming’. Perhaps it’s just as well I never got to write the latter: while Nick Clegg and his party have been campaigning so determinedly on the Lib Dems’ Four Fairnesses that I suspect every Lib Dem and a substantial chunk of the public could name them, the other parties’ focus-grouped ‘pledges’ have formed such a minuscule part of what they’ve actually said that I bet they’d be news even to most of their candidates. What, I have to ask, is the point of campaigning to get elected if you don’t know what you intend to do? Are Labour and the Tories really only about power and nothing else? It looks like it.
All the Tories stand for is their sense of entitlement. They think they were born to rule, and they’re damn well going to do it, and do whatever the hell they like, even if only a third of people vote for them. Exactly what they want to do is still unclear: “liberal” Conservatives gave way to ferocious personal attacks on Gordon Brown; now the policies they’re campaigning on are of the hard right, while trying to scare anyone who thinks they shouldn’t have absolute power. Having changed all their policies and their approach several times just in a month’s campaign, it’s difficult not to conclude that they want power because they just want power.
All that Labour stands for is stopping the Tories. Seen their posters? Seen their broadcasts? Heard their speeches? They’re the only party in this election running an even more negative campaign than the Tories are. After thirteen failed years, they’ve got nothing left but scaring people into voting unenthusiastically but worriedly for more of the same. As I’ve observed of them so often, their one theme is, “We’re shit, and we know we are, but – ooh! The Tories! Scary!”
And what do the Liberal Democrats stand for?
The same as we did at the beginning of the campaign. The same as we did before the campaign. The same as we did last year. The only party that’s set out firm priorities, and stuck to them – not panicked and changed them from week to week, or just tried to define themselves by being ‘not the scary other lot’.
The Liberal Democrats stand for fairness:
Labour?
The cover of their Manifesto mentions “A Future,” but it’s a retro-future, desperate to ignore all the failures of the past and imagine themselves safely back in a cosy socialist utopia (not one on offer within the text): the cover looks like it was drawn in the 1950s as an advert for Nuclear Families For A Nuclear Future. I’m gay, I don’t trust nuclear power, and I don’t want to go back to the ’50s – and I don’t like Labour always telling me their perfect niche into which I should fit (as ever, no new policies on LGBT equality – though Mr Brown personally attacked marriage equality. Their record is to wait for the Lib Dems to come up with them, vote them down, then pick them up a few years later when it looks like they’re ‘safe’). There are no new ideas – just, as ever, that Labour knows best, mixed with authoritarian dog-whistles like calling a chapter “Crime and Immigration” (but with cartoons, though. Surely no-one who uses crayons could be evil). The Why Vote Labour book makes the same approach still more explicit: it has the central stamp of approval from Gordon Brown’s foreword, but the deniability of being written by someone who’s not an MP; the Conservatives are attacked by implication in the book’s first paragraph, and by name in the second; and while there are many paragraphs allegedly written by other people, most of them are just identified by a first name and a town – like a made-up quote on a leaflet – and all of them are put carefully in their place, framed in boxes under orders as examples of the central Labour Truth.
But neither of these publications matters very much. Can you think of a single new policy that Labour’s been campaigning on? Not one. It’s all been about a tiny fraction of government spending that they can pick out as a potential Tory cut to make you scared, then either saying the “Liberals” will do the scary same thing or cosying up with “I agree with Nick” on alternate sentences.
The Conservatives?
The cover of their Manifesto offers an “Invitation to Join the Government of Britain”. Only the Tories could frame a populist appeal to every citizen in the style of a £500-a-head white tie do, as if assuming everyone goes to them all the time, like they do; only the Tories could invite everyone to participate in government, then spend their entire campaign taking fright and shrieking panicky scare stories about the awful danger of, er, anyone but the Tories forming the Government of Britain. So I admit I’m biased against a cover that might as well be a neon sign saying ‘We Don’t Mean It’. Open it up, though, and it does look more inviting. There’s none of the faux pas of the cover – instead, it’s a graphic designers’ paradise, easily the prettiest of the manifestos. And the mood music is early David Cameron: it feels more like a “liberal” Tory manifesto than any that have gone before. There’s no sign of the hard right policies that have appeared in desperation in speeches and posters as Tory support has sagged during the campaign – there’s little sign of much in the way of firm policies at all, but there are lots of nice full-page pictures of towns across Britain and in other countries, as if the Tories are taking credit for them, or possibly preparing to annex them.
The Conservative Manifesto was launched a couple of days after their Shadow Home Secretary was caught saying one thing in public and another thing in private about gay rights, yearning for the days of signs in windows marked “No Blacks, No Gays, No Catholics”. I wonder, I thought, if the manifesto does the same thing? Well, in panic at their plummeting gay vote, David Cameron… No, actually, he’d just made that awful fuck-up in a Gay Times interview and had to ask them to stop the camera, hadn’t he? Then he spun to the gay press that he’d begin the campaign on 6th April by mentioning gays in his first election speech, but having said that to the gay press, said “Black and white… Rich and poor…” but didn’t say “Gay or straight…” to the crowd and the TV cameras. Say one thing in one place, say something completely different to someone else. That’s the Tory way of speech – what are they like in print? So, amazingly, George Osborne was thrust out as a ‘safe pair of hands’ and promised to tackle homophobic bullying, at long last, and even came up with a uniquely Tory policy none of the other parties had mentioned and which I thought was a good idea and on gay rights. Credit where it’s due – that’s a first! He said they’d go some way (though, of course, not all the way) to quashing convictions of men who’d had sex with men that was only illegal because the law at the time was discriminatory. But… No. Again, the Tories say one thing to gays, but something else to other people. Because on the day their manifesto launched, “homophobic bullying” was put on the front page of their website… But it’s not in their manifesto. Nor is their other idea. Or any other pro-gay policies whatsoever. They do, though, have a nice pretty picture of Brighton, and mention how gay it is, because if that’s in a Tory manifesto it must all be down to the Tories. Somehow, I don’t think it works that way.
Oddly, the Why Vote Conservative book has a more coherent stamp to it, every word written by the same person and advancing an argument… But it’s also by a long way the most deniable of the three. Written by a Tory blogger, it opens not with a foreword from Mr Cameron but a disclaimer that he had absolutely nothing to do with it, nor any Tory MP nor employee. Gosh. So, they’re really keen to be pinned down on policy, then.
Oh, and in the last few days, David Cameron’s rushed out a “Contract” on Britain with a different set of policies again. Some of which were in the manifesto, and some on the posters (no, not the first set – nor the second – you know, this week’s Tory posters), and some presumably were just what Rupert Murdoch told him to say to try and salvage his investment.
It’s not clear which, if any, of these publications indicate what the Conservatives would actually do if given power – except enjoy it.
The Liberal Democrats
The cover of the Liberal Democrat Manifesto is quite plain – in both senses. “Liberal Democrat Manifesto 2010,” it’s labelled. “Change That Works For You – Building A Fairer Britain”. And the only other thing on the cover is, would you believe it, policy. Imagine that, for a manifesto? It sets out the party’s four key priorities about Fairness. The same ones Nick settled on last year; the same ones he made the centrepiece of his speech to Lib Dem Conference in March; which I picked out as the party’s key themes at the start of the campaign; the same ones he’s explained in every interview; the same ones I saw him give a barnstorming speech about on TV at his final campaign rally last night. Inside the manifesto, it explains those four key priorities in more detail, right at the front. Then sets out all the other policies, saying up front that the key priorities are the most important, but that they’d try to implement the rest too, depending on how much influence the Lib Dems win in the election (oh yes – and after several decades of being the party most committed to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, even when they were wildly unpopular, there are commitments to plenty of them in there. Including, in the section on education, with tackling homophobic bullying, as well as that on “families of every shape and size,” the workplace, hate crimes…). Every single section has green tabs next to commitments to show how a green approach runs through every area of policy. And, at the back, there’s an index so you can find every issue you’re interested in more easily, and a full set of costings – the only manifesto that sets out how a single policy can be afforded. And this sets out the figures for every single commitment.
This is very odd, after the other two manifestos. Words and numbers, rather than just packing the pages out with pretty pictures (though there are a couple)? It’s as if the Liberal Democrats want you to know what they’re promising, be able to check the figures, and hold the party to them. Imagine!
Then there’s the Why Vote Liberal Democrat book. It has a foreword from Nick Clegg, and it’s written by Danny Alexander, the MP who’s Nick’s Chief of Staff and who also edited the manifesto. Well, I say it’s written by Danny… But, although it’s not afraid to say up front that all this is the Liberal Democrats saying exactly the same here as everywhere else – though, in fact, I prefer the more expansive Liberalism of Nick’s introduction here to the much shorter, more businesslike values page in the manifesto, a document boiled down to concrete promises on fewer pages with larger type – it’s not all written by Danny, and nor do other contributors only walk on as directed to give their name (or part of it) to a carefully spun paragraph. While Danny edits the book and provides the overarching theme, each chapter is written by a different Lib Dem spokesperson or supporter. Where the manifesto gives the bullet-point commitments, this explains the thinking and the philosophy behind them, not by central party diktat but in many people’s own words: MPs; councillors; a former senior police officer; a former Director of Public Prosecutions; actors like Colin Firth; musicians; and, yes, an out gay Lib Dem Parliamentary candidate – Ed Fordham, who I hope very much will win Hampstead today – writing about gay equality. It’s a party not of iron control and a single voice, but people working together and unafraid to speak out. It isn’t just the same as the manifesto – but it’s entirely in harmony with it, complimentary, not contradictory. They’re the only two publications from any of the three parties that actually work together persuasively to say why you should vote for them.
What the Parties Stand For
For weeks, I’ve wanted (but not had the energy) to write a piece on each of the manifestos, which I’ve finally got out rather late… And a piece comparing each of the parties’ key pledges announced at the start of the campaign, which – as the Lib Dems had four, Labour five and the Tories six – was going to be Torchwoodishly called ‘The 456 Are Coming’. Perhaps it’s just as well I never got to write the latter: while Nick Clegg and his party have been campaigning so determinedly on the Lib Dems’ Four Fairnesses that I suspect every Lib Dem and a substantial chunk of the public could name them, the other parties’ focus-grouped ‘pledges’ have formed such a minuscule part of what they’ve actually said that I bet they’d be news even to most of their candidates. What, I have to ask, is the point of campaigning to get elected if you don’t know what you intend to do? Are Labour and the Tories really only about power and nothing else? It looks like it.
All the Tories stand for is their sense of entitlement. They think they were born to rule, and they’re damn well going to do it, and do whatever the hell they like, even if only a third of people vote for them. Exactly what they want to do is still unclear: “liberal” Conservatives gave way to ferocious personal attacks on Gordon Brown; now the policies they’re campaigning on are of the hard right, while trying to scare anyone who thinks they shouldn’t have absolute power. Having changed all their policies and their approach several times just in a month’s campaign, it’s difficult not to conclude that they want power because they just want power.
All that Labour stands for is stopping the Tories. Seen their posters? Seen their broadcasts? Heard their speeches? They’re the only party in this election running an even more negative campaign than the Tories are. After thirteen failed years, they’ve got nothing left but scaring people into voting unenthusiastically but worriedly for more of the same. As I’ve observed of them so often, their one theme is, “We’re shit, and we know we are, but – ooh! The Tories! Scary!”
And what do the Liberal Democrats stand for?
The same as we did at the beginning of the campaign. The same as we did before the campaign. The same as we did last year. The only party that’s set out firm priorities, and stuck to them – not panicked and changed them from week to week, or just tried to define themselves by being ‘not the scary other lot’.
The Liberal Democrats stand for fairness:
- A Fair tax system, with no tax to pay on the first ten thousand pounds you earn – paid for by more tax from the richest and on pollution
- A Fair start for children, with a pupil premium for schools to invest in the least well off
- A Fair economy, rebalanced to stand up to bankers and with investment in new green jobs to start the country growing again
- Fair, clean, open politics, including fair votes, the ability to sack your MP if they let you down, no more unelected second chamber so no more cronies, and a Freedom Bill to scrap many of Labour’s unfair 4,300 new laws.
Labels: Books, British Politics, Conservatives, Gay, General Election, Labour, Liberal Democrats, What the Lib Dems Stand For
Time To Vote. Time To Get the Vote Out. And If You Have Any Spare Time… Lib Dems To Enthuse You
With just twenty-two hours left of the most exciting election in our lifetimes, you probably don’t want to read even more political analysis and predictions – not with the real thing nearly decided. So I’m looking at no bets or polls tonight, but I’ve read some brilliant pieces from people about why they’re voting, and what’s worth voting for. Take a peek: these are some of the best, most inspirational pieces of political writing I’ve come across in the last few days (if you read no others, David Matthewman’s “Why I’m A Liberal Democrat” blogs are heartfelt, intelligent and personal).
Among the very many other things I’d meant to do this election and never managed, I was going to write a series of articles about why you should vote positively for the Liberal Democrats. I am enormously grateful, therefore, to the lovely David Matthewman for writing many of the same ones that I would have liked to but didn’t (and in several cases writing ones that I suspect I agree with more than the one I would have written). They’re all excellent, but I’d particularly recommend his first one, which explains just how important one of the two or three Lib Dem policies I’d pick as my favourite really is. He and Richard Gadsden are excessively kind to me in his fifth piece (and Richard tells me something I didn’t know, and blush at), but if you’re short of time, I’d skip to his most recent two, on Fairness and Unpopular Causes, each of which are both inspiring and thought-provoking.
1 The Freedom Bill
2 The Banks, the Credit Crunch and Vince Cable
3 The Green Economy
4 Electoral and Parliamentary Reform
5 Fellow Liberal Democrats
6 Education
7 Fairness
8 Unpopular Causes
Oh, and if you’re still thinking of voting Labour, David has something to say…
…And so does Liz. Less scathingly.
…Oh, as does former British Ambassador Craig Murray. Horrifyingly.
But back to the positivity…
Did you see Nick Clegg’s personal guarantee in some of the newspapers? There’s a pdf of it here. Unlike other parties, we’ve been campaigning on exactly the same four priorities through the entire election. Almost as if we a/ mean them and b/ haven’t been panicking…
If you want to know more about those four priorities, Millennium Dome explains them in superb detail – and contrasts them with the Conservatives’ rival “plans” for “change”.
Like David, Freethinking Economist Giles Wilkes has written his own reasons to vote Lib Dem.
There was rather a good piece in the newly Lib Dem-supporting Guardian the other day along the same lines, too: Five (Other) Reasons To Vote Lib Dem. Historian Timothy Garton Ash is passionate about a Liberal vote for the Lib Dems as well. Go for it!
There are of course local council elections taking place across most of Britain along with the General Election tomorrow, and one of our most fabulous council candidates is the lovely Jennie Rigg. Among her many excellent pieces is one about the Tory press’ desperate ‘mudslinging’ that some Lib Dem candidates are – imagine! – individuals (fantastic fact: the “ventriloquist” candidate, the lovely Chris Young, also wrote the song Letterboxes that Jennie endorses with such feeling).
Speaking of mudslinging, the Independent’s cartoon yesterday about the desperate Tory attempts to expose the ‘horrifying reality’ behind the Lib Dems made me smile…
…As did Jonathan Calder, with one of the best headlines of the campaign.
The lovely Andrew Hickey tries to put partisan feelings aside – with some success – to explain what each of the parties stand for, and (with significantly less success) about tactical voting.
The lovely Chris Lomax writes passionately about the Lib Dems as the party of science. Geek The Vote is campaigning on it.
As I linked to several anti-Labour pieces above, in the interests of balance some Lib Dems are not wholly convinced by the Conservatives:
The Tories appear to being mysteriously (and illegally) aided by theBritish Union of Fascists “Young Britons Foundation”.
One top Tory candidate, hilariously, has complained that “If this was a safe seat we wouldn’t have to do this work.” Very deserving of your vote, then: “Big Society? …High Society, more like,” observes Liberal Vision.
Another Tory candidate, less hilariously, thinks gay people are possessed by demons. Jae Kay is unimpressed by the “liberal” Tories’ response to their medieval high-flyer (presumably not on a broom).
And finally, to concentrate your mind on your vote – Nick Clegg:
David Matthewman: Why I’m A Liberal Democrat
Among the very many other things I’d meant to do this election and never managed, I was going to write a series of articles about why you should vote positively for the Liberal Democrats. I am enormously grateful, therefore, to the lovely David Matthewman for writing many of the same ones that I would have liked to but didn’t (and in several cases writing ones that I suspect I agree with more than the one I would have written). They’re all excellent, but I’d particularly recommend his first one, which explains just how important one of the two or three Lib Dem policies I’d pick as my favourite really is. He and Richard Gadsden are excessively kind to me in his fifth piece (and Richard tells me something I didn’t know, and blush at), but if you’re short of time, I’d skip to his most recent two, on Fairness and Unpopular Causes, each of which are both inspiring and thought-provoking.
1 The Freedom Bill
2 The Banks, the Credit Crunch and Vince Cable
3 The Green Economy
4 Electoral and Parliamentary Reform
5 Fellow Liberal Democrats
6 Education
7 Fairness
8 Unpopular Causes
Oh, and if you’re still thinking of voting Labour, David has something to say…
…And so does Liz. Less scathingly.
…Oh, as does former British Ambassador Craig Murray. Horrifyingly.
But back to the positivity…
More Lib Dem Link Love
Did you see Nick Clegg’s personal guarantee in some of the newspapers? There’s a pdf of it here. Unlike other parties, we’ve been campaigning on exactly the same four priorities through the entire election. Almost as if we a/ mean them and b/ haven’t been panicking…
If you want to know more about those four priorities, Millennium Dome explains them in superb detail – and contrasts them with the Conservatives’ rival “plans” for “change”.
Like David, Freethinking Economist Giles Wilkes has written his own reasons to vote Lib Dem.
There was rather a good piece in the newly Lib Dem-supporting Guardian the other day along the same lines, too: Five (Other) Reasons To Vote Lib Dem. Historian Timothy Garton Ash is passionate about a Liberal vote for the Lib Dems as well. Go for it!
There are of course local council elections taking place across most of Britain along with the General Election tomorrow, and one of our most fabulous council candidates is the lovely Jennie Rigg. Among her many excellent pieces is one about the Tory press’ desperate ‘mudslinging’ that some Lib Dem candidates are – imagine! – individuals (fantastic fact: the “ventriloquist” candidate, the lovely Chris Young, also wrote the song Letterboxes that Jennie endorses with such feeling).
Speaking of mudslinging, the Independent’s cartoon yesterday about the desperate Tory attempts to expose the ‘horrifying reality’ behind the Lib Dems made me smile…
…As did Jonathan Calder, with one of the best headlines of the campaign.
The lovely Andrew Hickey tries to put partisan feelings aside – with some success – to explain what each of the parties stand for, and (with significantly less success) about tactical voting.
The lovely Chris Lomax writes passionately about the Lib Dems as the party of science. Geek The Vote is campaigning on it.
As I linked to several anti-Labour pieces above, in the interests of balance some Lib Dems are not wholly convinced by the Conservatives:
The Tories appear to being mysteriously (and illegally) aided by the
One top Tory candidate, hilariously, has complained that “If this was a safe seat we wouldn’t have to do this work.” Very deserving of your vote, then: “Big Society? …High Society, more like,” observes Liberal Vision.
Another Tory candidate, less hilariously, thinks gay people are possessed by demons. Jae Kay is unimpressed by the “liberal” Tories’ response to their medieval high-flyer (presumably not on a broom).
And finally, to concentrate your mind on your vote – Nick Clegg:
“It may just be a small cross on the ballot paper, but it is a big opportunity.”
Labels: Bigotry, Blogs, British Politics, Conservatives, Gay, General Election, Labour, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Nick Clegg, What the Lib Dems Stand For
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
General Election Pop Anthem Special
The General Election looms tomorrow. Knackered? Footsore? Your brain turning to cheese at repeating that you agree with Nick’s Four Fairnesses seventy-three times a day? Then here are three songs to perk you up. They’re all from the 1990s – no, not Things Can Only Get Better; too much like intruding on private grief – and include, for me, the ’90s’ two greatest pop anthems. The first is foot-stompingly Liberal; the second, a total fake (and not quite the proper song, either); the third wasn’t a big hit, but it’s difficult to find a bigger hitting out at the Labservatives.
I’ve been horribly ill throughout the campaign, but today lifted my spirit if not my body with some music. In a strange way, it was inspired by this week’s Doctor Who DVD release, The Creature From the Pit, David Fisher’s witty novelisation of which has just by remarkable timing has just been broadcast over the last week on BBC7, read by Tom Baker (the final part’s tonight at half-midnight, but you can still catch most of it on iPlayer or, of course, buy the CD). No – I’m afraid none of the songs are about giant green blobs, but a point for each of the two key Liberal messages in the story, and a further one for which well-known Kate Bush single it made me think of, and why. This afternoon, then, I staggered to bed in horrible pain and curled up with Kate to sing me to sleep. While dozing, I remembered her fabulous, bonkers but politically unsuitable anthem Ken, which got me thinking of political songs, while Kate in general got me thinking of the wonderful ’90s Doctor Who New Adventures and their obligatory Kate Bush song titles. That collision in my brain demanded ’90s political anthems… So here they are.
I doubt the Levellers have any party affiliation, but if there’s any finer anthem that sums up Liberalism for me, I haven’t heard it (that techno remix of The Land having failed to chart). Where Labour and Tories want to give you goodies if you fit into their precise definition of a good life, and punish you if you don’t, Liberals think the government can’t know best for you, because everyone’s best is different. Who’s the only party backing a Freedom Bill to sweep away many of Labour’s bossy, vindictive, stupidly timewasting 4,300 new laws? Who’s the only party that wants to give a large tax cut to the vast majority of people, however they choose to live their lives, rather than the Tories’ bribe to people in the right sort of marriages and massive tax break for double millionaires? I agree with Jonathan Calder and – like Simon Goldie – I agree with Nick. Vote Liberal Democrat, and sing along! Or not, according to taste.
This is mean – though not remotely unfair – and isn’t a patch on proper Pulp. It does, however, make a point, and made me laugh.
Labour? Tory? Just the same. If you’re thinking of voting for either tomorrow – just how overwhelming is your amnesia?
Or there’s the thing Newsnight got Right Said Fred to do, but there’s nothing sadder than a commissioned pop anthem, is there?
I’ve been horribly ill throughout the campaign, but today lifted my spirit if not my body with some music. In a strange way, it was inspired by this week’s Doctor Who DVD release, The Creature From the Pit, David Fisher’s witty novelisation of which has just by remarkable timing has just been broadcast over the last week on BBC7, read by Tom Baker (the final part’s tonight at half-midnight, but you can still catch most of it on iPlayer or, of course, buy the CD). No – I’m afraid none of the songs are about giant green blobs, but a point for each of the two key Liberal messages in the story, and a further one for which well-known Kate Bush single it made me think of, and why. This afternoon, then, I staggered to bed in horrible pain and curled up with Kate to sing me to sleep. While dozing, I remembered her fabulous, bonkers but politically unsuitable anthem Ken, which got me thinking of political songs, while Kate in general got me thinking of the wonderful ’90s Doctor Who New Adventures and their obligatory Kate Bush song titles. That collision in my brain demanded ’90s political anthems… So here they are.
The Levellers – One Way
I doubt the Levellers have any party affiliation, but if there’s any finer anthem that sums up Liberalism for me, I haven’t heard it (that techno remix of The Land having failed to chart). Where Labour and Tories want to give you goodies if you fit into their precise definition of a good life, and punish you if you don’t, Liberals think the government can’t know best for you, because everyone’s best is different. Who’s the only party backing a Freedom Bill to sweep away many of Labour’s bossy, vindictive, stupidly timewasting 4,300 new laws? Who’s the only party that wants to give a large tax cut to the vast majority of people, however they choose to live their lives, rather than the Tories’ bribe to people in the right sort of marriages and massive tax break for double millionaires? I agree with Jonathan Calder and – like Simon Goldie – I agree with Nick. Vote Liberal Democrat, and sing along! Or not, according to taste.
David Cameron – Common People
This is mean – though not remotely unfair – and isn’t a patch on proper Pulp. It does, however, make a point, and made me laugh.
Chumbawamba – Amnesia
“Do you suffer from long-term memory loss?”I know that it’s very on-message to talk about the hopes people had for New Labour back in 1997, and certainly, by comparison to the Conservatives today, Tony Blair had a wild storm of optimism around him. But, bitter old git that I am, I always loathed him – I thought he was a Tory from the word go, and though “I told you so” is never an appealing line, I’m not standing for election tomorrow, so I’ll point out that I did indeed tell people so. I said it at my count on election night 1997 (where I stood hand in hand with my beloved Richard on the stage, on the telly – yay!), coming an heroic third in a Labour-Tory marginal, an unemployed Lib Dem against a Labour millionaire. After congratulating her on her win, I warned everyone in the hall (in the sort of barnstorming speech I so rarely get the chance to make) that Labour would let them all down and be exactly like the Tories. I was shrieked and howled down by Labour – as committed to free speech as ever. Of course, I wasn’t entirely right: in so many ways, Labour’s thirteen years have been so much worse than the Tories. So Chumbawamba’s song here greatly appealed to me, though it wasn’t in tune with the times and I was just about the only person who bought it.
Labour? Tory? Just the same. If you’re thinking of voting for either tomorrow – just how overwhelming is your amnesia?
Or there’s the thing Newsnight got Right Said Fred to do, but there’s nothing sadder than a commissioned pop anthem, is there?
Labels: British Politics, General Election, Labservative, Liberal Democrats, Liberalism, Music, Personal, Tom Baker
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Free Doctor Who – Genesis of the Daleks CD Today
Amongst the smears and hysteria in today’s Daily Telegraph, if you can bear to pick up a copy, there’s a voucher for a Doctor Who CD. Just cut out and present it at WH Smith and they’ll hand one over; if you don’t already have Genesis of the Daleks on DVD, go for it. Like the Daily Torygraph’s election coverage, the CD edit is highly selective, doesn’t give you the full picture, and is full of fascists. Unlike their ‘news’, it’s still rather brilliant – one of the best and most fiercely political of all Doctor Who stories, intriguingly abridged.
Genesis of the Daleks, though, is perhaps the most natural choice: it stars Tom Baker as the Doctor, the high point of his superb first season; as the title suggests, it introduces the Daleks’ creator, Davros; it’s one of the best-known, most-repeated Doctor Who stories, and in every ‘favourite story’ poll among fans comes either close to or at the very top. When I wrote my mini-guide to all the Dalek stories a couple of weeks ago, I picked it as one of my favourites, too. But it’s not just for its importance in Who history or its undoubted popularity that’s made it a natural choice for a CD giveaway. It’s that 31 years ago, it became the first Doctor Who story you could enjoy at home whenever you felt like it.
A couple of years before the home video revolution, and to coincide with the sequel being broadcast on TV, the BBC released Genesis of the Daleks on LP. It’s difficult to grasp how exciting this was at the time – even though a two-and-a-half-hour story was cut down to one hour, with no pictures, it was the first ‘proper’ home Doctor Who experience, and after I bought the LP in the Blackpool Exhibition I listened to it until I virtually knew it by heart… So often, in fact, that (before I became such an obsessive collector) it was also the first piece of Doctor Who merchandise I deliberately bought a second copy of, so I could switch discs on the record player as I came to be familiar with exactly where the scratches were on each copy. After listening to theirs so many times, many fans of a certain age still can’t help saying “This seems an opportune moment to end this session” at appropriate moments. And it’s that LP version, in effect – some of the cruder editing cleaned up, which is a blessing, but the thrilling cliffhanger in the middle removed, which is a pain – that’s being given away on CD today.
The political speeches that pepper this story are also striking. I’ve listened to (and, indeed, given) so many speeches that most I hear in fiction seem to have a tin ear. This, though, has real oratory, with both the script and – particularly – Michael Wisher’s superb portrayal of Davros knowing just how speechmaking works. While the Doctor and many others declaim effectively, what’s really impressive about Davros is that, for a charismatic fascist to work, the story realises that he actually has to be both charismatic and persuasive, rather than mistaking just ‘speaking at length’ for ‘making a speech’. His arguments are horribly logical, passionate and resounding, not just a cardboard stereotype, and they’re properly structured, too – if you’re familiar with speechwriting, you’ll probably be aware of how to build up a phrase with the ‘rule of three’. Davros certainly is (even the Dalek’s speech at the end does it).
Perhaps most important of all is not just the political infighting, or the brilliant speeches, but that the story hinges on real, urgent political issues. Blatantly – and even more so on the DVD, where you can see the uniforms – the Kaleds from whom the Daleks grow are Nazis, and the essence of the story is to pit fascism against free will. The Doctor and the few sympathetic people tend to be characterised by doubt; Davros and all the others who do terrible things by absolute, chilling certainty, with the Daleks themselves conditioned to obey unquestioningly. And it’s the Doctor thinking for himself, asking what right he has to perform the mission he’s been sent on, that provides the story’s central moral dilemma. Notably for Liberal propagandists, the Dalek’s instinct to destroy is encapsulated in a hatred of non-conformity; perhaps disturbingly, some of the story’s weaker moments come with a ‘nice’ Kaled who lurches erratically from weapons developer to proto-pacifist revolutionary and tends to be rather more a walking, wooden plot function than someone who’s as electric in defence of compassion as Davros is on removing it. Then, three quarters of the way through the story, the Doctor and Davros discuss science, morality and the Daleks in a scene so gripping – aided by a brilliant score – that it’s still for me the single most quotable speech in the history of the series.
Though there are many fewer speeches on the CD, some of them have a greater immediacy when you’re just listening to them – Davros turning on a scientist he’s framed as a traitor, for example, is a gripping scene on screen, with terrific direction and music building up to blazing effects as the brand new Daleks make their first ever extermination. Brilliantly, those watching cover their eyes, both communicating the scorching power of Dalek death-rays and symbolising the way they’re closing their eyes to what Davros is doing. And yet… Somehow, for me, when the scene is carried just by Davros’ escalating denunciation and the horrible sound of blasts and screams, the bareness of the sound alone is still more chilling.
The script jumps unevenly on CD, but it’s exciting; on screen, things have time to build, but there are a few longeurs (notably, for me, the odd scene where Davros and one of his scientists have rather stiffly written moral arguments about conscience, laying it on with a trowel). You miss the eerie power of the shattered, war-torn landscape that grounds the early part of the story, establishing its seriousness, and you miss the moody direction, with its war story power overlaid with medieval symbolism (a robed Death sending the Doctor on a mission; tattered, bound plague-carriers stalking the hills…).
Perhaps the most obvious losses are seeing Davros’ performance enhanced by a terrific mask, and the inspired lighting – or, rather, turning the lights down low – that frames so many scenes. Less predictably, the outstanding musical score works much better in the full TV version, simply because it’s allowed to play out and build up, rather than chopping and changing, though there are still striking moments on the CD – Davros’ ‘march’, for example, works perfectly on his first full ‘appearance’. I’m still torn, too, as to whether the edited version presenting Davros first as a commanding leader in front of the Doctor gives him the best entrance, or whether I prefer the DVD introducing him first in tantalising glimpses, whispering orders to destroy and announcing the beginning of the Daleks… Or, indeed, whether it’s better to pick up the Nazi analogy through Davros and the Kaleds’ actions and philosophy, or whether to see them smack in the middle of the screen wearing black uniforms and iron crosses!
Which you prefer comes down, really, to the time you have to enjoy it on any given day. The DVD’s certainly the best for me – but I still love the CD, too, and not just for nostalgic reasons. Sometimes it just seems to work better to finish the story with a Dalek shriek of triumph rather than the Doctor drifting away on a cloud of hope; sometimes it’s more satisfying to breeze through at speed and miss out everything to do with the hilariously unconvincing giant clams. Most of the time, I’d rather be spellbound by the whole thing and struck by the story’s most memorable image, as a dark metal Dalek looms, tank-like, against a violet sky. But either way, if you don’t have Genesis of the Daleks to start with, pick up today’s Torygraph. It’s worth it – and if it whets your appetite, you can always buy the DVD later.
Oh, and make sure you’re listening to Tom Baker reading the novelisation of Doctor Who – The Creature From the Pit on BBC7. It’s the third part today, but you can catch the first two on the iPlayer, and hear each day’s instalment at 2.30, 6.30 and 0.30. It’s a witty fable with a remarkably Liberal message – both in how to treat people, and in economic policy. I might even write a piece about that, too, but I’ve only got so much energy at once…
“Today, the Kaled race is ended, consumed in a fire of war, but from its ashes will rise a new race, the ultimate conqueror of the Universe, the Dalek!”The Torygraph’s been giving away Doctor Who CDs all week – tomorrow’s is Mission To the Unknown, a Doctor Who story without the Doctor where the Daleks are in control (if that grabs you, buy the much longer CD of The Daleks’ Master Plan, which brings in the Doctor and continues the story).
Genesis of the Daleks, though, is perhaps the most natural choice: it stars Tom Baker as the Doctor, the high point of his superb first season; as the title suggests, it introduces the Daleks’ creator, Davros; it’s one of the best-known, most-repeated Doctor Who stories, and in every ‘favourite story’ poll among fans comes either close to or at the very top. When I wrote my mini-guide to all the Dalek stories a couple of weeks ago, I picked it as one of my favourites, too. But it’s not just for its importance in Who history or its undoubted popularity that’s made it a natural choice for a CD giveaway. It’s that 31 years ago, it became the first Doctor Who story you could enjoy at home whenever you felt like it.
A couple of years before the home video revolution, and to coincide with the sequel being broadcast on TV, the BBC released Genesis of the Daleks on LP. It’s difficult to grasp how exciting this was at the time – even though a two-and-a-half-hour story was cut down to one hour, with no pictures, it was the first ‘proper’ home Doctor Who experience, and after I bought the LP in the Blackpool Exhibition I listened to it until I virtually knew it by heart… So often, in fact, that (before I became such an obsessive collector) it was also the first piece of Doctor Who merchandise I deliberately bought a second copy of, so I could switch discs on the record player as I came to be familiar with exactly where the scratches were on each copy. After listening to theirs so many times, many fans of a certain age still can’t help saying “This seems an opportune moment to end this session” at appropriate moments. And it’s that LP version, in effect – some of the cruder editing cleaned up, which is a blessing, but the thrilling cliffhanger in the middle removed, which is a pain – that’s being given away on CD today.
The Politics of Genesis of the Daleks
“Brilliant. Brilliant! It has detected the non-conformity.”Appropriately for the General Election campaign, this is one of the most political of all Doctor Who stories, and in at least three crucial ways. It’s a story about politics and political machinations, as characters outplot and outmanoeuvre each other – centrally, it’s about the rise to power of a charismatic fascist, and how he holds the seeds of his own destruction. Davros is in a strong position when the story opens, but he doesn’t have absolute power: most of the plot is about how he gains it, and the Pyrrhic consequences. While this is something that works far better on DVD – when there’s time to let the plot breathe – even in the truncated version it feels almost like an historical drama, clearly taking inspiration from Hitler’s rise to power, and ending in the bunker.
“Aliens! I must exterminate! Exterminate!”
The political speeches that pepper this story are also striking. I’ve listened to (and, indeed, given) so many speeches that most I hear in fiction seem to have a tin ear. This, though, has real oratory, with both the script and – particularly – Michael Wisher’s superb portrayal of Davros knowing just how speechmaking works. While the Doctor and many others declaim effectively, what’s really impressive about Davros is that, for a charismatic fascist to work, the story realises that he actually has to be both charismatic and persuasive, rather than mistaking just ‘speaking at length’ for ‘making a speech’. His arguments are horribly logical, passionate and resounding, not just a cardboard stereotype, and they’re properly structured, too – if you’re familiar with speechwriting, you’ll probably be aware of how to build up a phrase with the ‘rule of three’. Davros certainly is (even the Dalek’s speech at the end does it).
Perhaps most important of all is not just the political infighting, or the brilliant speeches, but that the story hinges on real, urgent political issues. Blatantly – and even more so on the DVD, where you can see the uniforms – the Kaleds from whom the Daleks grow are Nazis, and the essence of the story is to pit fascism against free will. The Doctor and the few sympathetic people tend to be characterised by doubt; Davros and all the others who do terrible things by absolute, chilling certainty, with the Daleks themselves conditioned to obey unquestioningly. And it’s the Doctor thinking for himself, asking what right he has to perform the mission he’s been sent on, that provides the story’s central moral dilemma. Notably for Liberal propagandists, the Dalek’s instinct to destroy is encapsulated in a hatred of non-conformity; perhaps disturbingly, some of the story’s weaker moments come with a ‘nice’ Kaled who lurches erratically from weapons developer to proto-pacifist revolutionary and tends to be rather more a walking, wooden plot function than someone who’s as electric in defence of compassion as Davros is on removing it. Then, three quarters of the way through the story, the Doctor and Davros discuss science, morality and the Daleks in a scene so gripping – aided by a brilliant score – that it’s still for me the single most quotable speech in the history of the series.
CD Versus DVD
“Daleks? Tell me more.”When you cut out more than half the running time and lose all the pictures, obviously you lose rather a lot, but strangely enough I still listen to my own CD from time to time for pleasure anyway (the LP long since having given way to cassette and then CD versions even before today’s giveaway). The sixty-minute edit has charms of its own; you can listen to it when out and about, of course, or simply when you have much less time, and it rattles along at a great pace, with Tom Baker providing an appropriately doomy narration (if with the occasional oddity). The DVD, of course, not only has the full, beautifully remastered TV version, but a host of special features – notably a lively commentary and two pretty solid documentaries.
Though there are many fewer speeches on the CD, some of them have a greater immediacy when you’re just listening to them – Davros turning on a scientist he’s framed as a traitor, for example, is a gripping scene on screen, with terrific direction and music building up to blazing effects as the brand new Daleks make their first ever extermination. Brilliantly, those watching cover their eyes, both communicating the scorching power of Dalek death-rays and symbolising the way they’re closing their eyes to what Davros is doing. And yet… Somehow, for me, when the scene is carried just by Davros’ escalating denunciation and the horrible sound of blasts and screams, the bareness of the sound alone is still more chilling.
The script jumps unevenly on CD, but it’s exciting; on screen, things have time to build, but there are a few longeurs (notably, for me, the odd scene where Davros and one of his scientists have rather stiffly written moral arguments about conscience, laying it on with a trowel). You miss the eerie power of the shattered, war-torn landscape that grounds the early part of the story, establishing its seriousness, and you miss the moody direction, with its war story power overlaid with medieval symbolism (a robed Death sending the Doctor on a mission; tattered, bound plague-carriers stalking the hills…).
Perhaps the most obvious losses are seeing Davros’ performance enhanced by a terrific mask, and the inspired lighting – or, rather, turning the lights down low – that frames so many scenes. Less predictably, the outstanding musical score works much better in the full TV version, simply because it’s allowed to play out and build up, rather than chopping and changing, though there are still striking moments on the CD – Davros’ ‘march’, for example, works perfectly on his first full ‘appearance’. I’m still torn, too, as to whether the edited version presenting Davros first as a commanding leader in front of the Doctor gives him the best entrance, or whether I prefer the DVD introducing him first in tantalising glimpses, whispering orders to destroy and announcing the beginning of the Daleks… Or, indeed, whether it’s better to pick up the Nazi analogy through Davros and the Kaleds’ actions and philosophy, or whether to see them smack in the middle of the screen wearing black uniforms and iron crosses!
Which you prefer comes down, really, to the time you have to enjoy it on any given day. The DVD’s certainly the best for me – but I still love the CD, too, and not just for nostalgic reasons. Sometimes it just seems to work better to finish the story with a Dalek shriek of triumph rather than the Doctor drifting away on a cloud of hope; sometimes it’s more satisfying to breeze through at speed and miss out everything to do with the hilariously unconvincing giant clams. Most of the time, I’d rather be spellbound by the whole thing and struck by the story’s most memorable image, as a dark metal Dalek looms, tank-like, against a violet sky. But either way, if you don’t have Genesis of the Daleks to start with, pick up today’s Torygraph. It’s worth it – and if it whets your appetite, you can always buy the DVD later.
Oh, and make sure you’re listening to Tom Baker reading the novelisation of Doctor Who – The Creature From the Pit on BBC7. It’s the third part today, but you can catch the first two on the iPlayer, and hear each day’s instalment at 2.30, 6.30 and 0.30. It’s a witty fable with a remarkably Liberal message – both in how to treat people, and in economic policy. I might even write a piece about that, too, but I’ve only got so much energy at once…
Labels: Daleks, Doctor Who, DVD, History, Liberalism, Newspapers, Reviews, Tom Baker
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Lib Dem Poster Needed!
Does anyone have a nice big Liberal Democrat poster – Bird of Liberty, “Winning Here,” that sort of thing, but not a candidate’s name – which they could post to us? Physically, I’m not a lot of help right now, but we do have a large window, facing directly onto the Thames, which can be seen from the footpath and from all the boats that pass by. Up to about four feet across would be fine… If it’s that big, you could even see the day-glo orange diamond from the opposite bank. If you have a spare, please e-mail me (my addy’s in the sidebar).
I’ve not had an election like this one, and really rather hope not to have one again: my health, never good, has crashed so badly that… Well, I won’t go into the grisly details, but during the last fortnight I’ve lost more than a stone while hardly moving. The extent of my exercise has been occasionally to force myself out to the newsagent usually five-to-ten minutes’ walk away, depending on how brisk I’m being; at the moment, it’s taking me fifteen there, and twenty back, by which time I’m lathered in sweat and can barely stay upright. So I’m feeling just a little bit left out of things, and can’t even eat to cheer myself up. Thanks, then, to the Lib Dem candidate who rang yesterday and pummelled my brain for suitably aggressive hustings lines, as that made me feel slightly better than completely useless and as I could do it from my sickbed and say ‘I’m terribly sorry, I’m going to have to stop now’ without actually falling over in front of them. Oh, and just for a laugh, I could only hold the phone to my right ear, as I’ve also lost most of the hearing in my left in the last fortnight (eardrops from doctor faring no better than the anti-nausea pills).
If you know us, please also be nice to Richard, who as well as having to cope with me is working his usual long days, then working for the Lib Dems at nights, and yet is still managing to be far less ragged than I am (while definitely ragged enough to worry me).
Anyway, if you could send us a poster, that would add to a sense that I’m somehow doing my bit. In fact, an ordinary-sized window poster for the street side would be handy, too. Staggering about our local area this afternoon I noticed that, despite ours being in theory one of England’s few thrilling four-way marginals, there is in fact just one solitary little poster on any nearby street. And even that’s in the Conservative candidate’s house, bless him! So help the Lib Dems surge to, er, parity.
I’ve not had an election like this one, and really rather hope not to have one again: my health, never good, has crashed so badly that… Well, I won’t go into the grisly details, but during the last fortnight I’ve lost more than a stone while hardly moving. The extent of my exercise has been occasionally to force myself out to the newsagent usually five-to-ten minutes’ walk away, depending on how brisk I’m being; at the moment, it’s taking me fifteen there, and twenty back, by which time I’m lathered in sweat and can barely stay upright. So I’m feeling just a little bit left out of things, and can’t even eat to cheer myself up. Thanks, then, to the Lib Dem candidate who rang yesterday and pummelled my brain for suitably aggressive hustings lines, as that made me feel slightly better than completely useless and as I could do it from my sickbed and say ‘I’m terribly sorry, I’m going to have to stop now’ without actually falling over in front of them. Oh, and just for a laugh, I could only hold the phone to my right ear, as I’ve also lost most of the hearing in my left in the last fortnight (eardrops from doctor faring no better than the anti-nausea pills).
If you know us, please also be nice to Richard, who as well as having to cope with me is working his usual long days, then working for the Lib Dems at nights, and yet is still managing to be far less ragged than I am (while definitely ragged enough to worry me).
Anyway, if you could send us a poster, that would add to a sense that I’m somehow doing my bit. In fact, an ordinary-sized window poster for the street side would be handy, too. Staggering about our local area this afternoon I noticed that, despite ours being in theory one of England’s few thrilling four-way marginals, there is in fact just one solitary little poster on any nearby street. And even that’s in the Conservative candidate’s house, bless him! So help the Lib Dems surge to, er, parity.
Labels: General Election, Health, Liberal Democrats, Personal, Richard
Friday, April 23, 2010
Has Microsoft McAfee Just Wrecked My Computer? Or, In Short: Help!
Update: If your computer has had horrible problems in the last few days, you're at your wit's end, and you're reading this on a different machine to distract yourself, this may well be the answer: follow the link in the comments, then get rid of McAfee Anti-Virus. I've used them for over a decade, but never again.
An update to my PC on Wednesday evening seems to have stopped it functioning properly. Anyone got any ideas? Taking a break from how ill I am, yes, now my computer seems to have come out in sympathy. So why do I think it was an update that did it? Because as well as stopping most of my programs from working, whatever did it has slightly redesigned Windows XP along the way. Anyone else spotted anything like that? Because it's a complete pain from where I'm sitting: I'm typing this on Richard's laptop, as nothing much on mine is working.
There's a bit of a cautionary tale here: my PC's five or six years old and I have no idea where any discs would be if I needed to reinstall anything; and, yes, I definitely regret not having done a proper backup for about six months. But here's where I start:
On Wednesday evening, Chrome collapsed a couple of times while I was browsing, so - as I usually do in such circumstances - I restarted my computer. It may have taken a little longer than usual, but once it booted up, that's when the problems started. I could tell at a glance that something was odd: the taskbar looked slightly different. It had suddenly boxed off the icons at the far right. And, checking, several other windows and bars had the same - a redesign that put in extra little demarcation lines, and sharper boxes. Don't like it, I thought, but Microsoft's done more irritating things.
And then it did them.
I opened Chrome - it couldn't connect to the Internet. Hey ho, I thought, switch off the router and let it cool down, and meanwhile I'll clear up my desktop a bit, having let it get very cluttered with manifesto pdfs and other thrilling accoutrements I've downloaded there for ease of access in the last couple of weeks.
I couldn't.
Suddenly, my computer no longer lets me drag and drop. Or right-click to cut and paste. Or use keyboard shortcuts to do it. Well, that's very odd, and a bit worrying, I thought. Let me run a virus scan just in case. Oh - my computer won't let me open up my antivirus, neither from icon nor program menu. That's not helpful.
I slotted in a memory stick. Maybe it just couldn't shift things about on the PC itself? Nope. Still no use.
OK, one more idea - I opened up Word. "Blong," went my computer, without the loudspeaker being on. That's not happened before, I though. I opened up a file. "This document could not be registered" popped up. Well, that's not reassuring. But I clicked "Save As" and, thankfully, that managed to pop a copy onto that memory stick.
Oh, yes, and that oddly redesigned Taskbar? Word didn't appear on it. So it's less of a "Taskbar" than a "Bar" now.
Being able to use "Save As" was a relief, I'll grant you. I've written a lot of stuff, and I'd hate to lose them all. But as far as I remember from last week's virus scan, I've got more than 600,000 files on my machine. That's going to take an awful lot of "Save As".
...Or at least it would, if any programs other than Word seemed to be working. Most of them that I've tried simply don't open up at all. I tried opening Excel this morning to add to my records; oh, crap. Excel opens; "Blong"; up pops "Cannot use object linking and embedding"; but then the program crashes before I can enter anything, still less save it anywhere else. Oh joy. I can't replace any of those records, either.
I left my computer on all night last night; my Virus Scan usually starts about 5am, automatically, every Friday. I thought, though I can't start it myself, maybe it'll do it on its own. Nope. Sigh. But back to the redesign: do I actually think it's a virus? I do not.
Aside from all my stuff being on my own machine, of course, there are problems using Richard's laptop: I get RSI and tendonitis, and while my own chair, desk and keyboard are carefully aligned to minimise this, Richard's aren't; similarly, I tend to swap my mouse frequently to my much clumsier but less painful left hand, and can't do that with Richard's; most importantly, my beloved might occasionally wish to use his own computer (imagine!).
Yesterday I spend the whole day being very ill and feeling weak as a kitten. I still feel very weak, but after getting a significant amount of sleep last night I have just enough energy to write this up and think about dragging myself out to accident and emergency. I would very much like a simple way to sort out my computer without having to take it to accident and emergency, too - because I don't know who'd be able to do it properly, or how much it would cost, and because if I totter up to the Royal London at Whitechapel for them to prod me, the sizeable porn stock in my head will not be embarrassingly accessible...
Any suggestions would be very gratefully accepted.
Update: As the comments below make clear, it was indeed an update, but turned out to be all the fault of McAfee. I am massively grateful to Phil, and wish fiery death upon all their motherboards.
An update to my PC on Wednesday evening seems to have stopped it functioning properly. Anyone got any ideas? Taking a break from how ill I am, yes, now my computer seems to have come out in sympathy. So why do I think it was an update that did it? Because as well as stopping most of my programs from working, whatever did it has slightly redesigned Windows XP along the way. Anyone else spotted anything like that? Because it's a complete pain from where I'm sitting: I'm typing this on Richard's laptop, as nothing much on mine is working.
There's a bit of a cautionary tale here: my PC's five or six years old and I have no idea where any discs would be if I needed to reinstall anything; and, yes, I definitely regret not having done a proper backup for about six months. But here's where I start:
On Wednesday evening, Chrome collapsed a couple of times while I was browsing, so - as I usually do in such circumstances - I restarted my computer. It may have taken a little longer than usual, but once it booted up, that's when the problems started. I could tell at a glance that something was odd: the taskbar looked slightly different. It had suddenly boxed off the icons at the far right. And, checking, several other windows and bars had the same - a redesign that put in extra little demarcation lines, and sharper boxes. Don't like it, I thought, but Microsoft's done more irritating things.
And then it did them.
I opened Chrome - it couldn't connect to the Internet. Hey ho, I thought, switch off the router and let it cool down, and meanwhile I'll clear up my desktop a bit, having let it get very cluttered with manifesto pdfs and other thrilling accoutrements I've downloaded there for ease of access in the last couple of weeks.
I couldn't.
Suddenly, my computer no longer lets me drag and drop. Or right-click to cut and paste. Or use keyboard shortcuts to do it. Well, that's very odd, and a bit worrying, I thought. Let me run a virus scan just in case. Oh - my computer won't let me open up my antivirus, neither from icon nor program menu. That's not helpful.
I slotted in a memory stick. Maybe it just couldn't shift things about on the PC itself? Nope. Still no use.
OK, one more idea - I opened up Word. "Blong," went my computer, without the loudspeaker being on. That's not happened before, I though. I opened up a file. "This document could not be registered" popped up. Well, that's not reassuring. But I clicked "Save As" and, thankfully, that managed to pop a copy onto that memory stick.
Oh, yes, and that oddly redesigned Taskbar? Word didn't appear on it. So it's less of a "Taskbar" than a "Bar" now.
Being able to use "Save As" was a relief, I'll grant you. I've written a lot of stuff, and I'd hate to lose them all. But as far as I remember from last week's virus scan, I've got more than 600,000 files on my machine. That's going to take an awful lot of "Save As".
...Or at least it would, if any programs other than Word seemed to be working. Most of them that I've tried simply don't open up at all. I tried opening Excel this morning to add to my records; oh, crap. Excel opens; "Blong"; up pops "Cannot use object linking and embedding"; but then the program crashes before I can enter anything, still less save it anywhere else. Oh joy. I can't replace any of those records, either.
I left my computer on all night last night; my Virus Scan usually starts about 5am, automatically, every Friday. I thought, though I can't start it myself, maybe it'll do it on its own. Nope. Sigh. But back to the redesign: do I actually think it's a virus? I do not.
Aside from all my stuff being on my own machine, of course, there are problems using Richard's laptop: I get RSI and tendonitis, and while my own chair, desk and keyboard are carefully aligned to minimise this, Richard's aren't; similarly, I tend to swap my mouse frequently to my much clumsier but less painful left hand, and can't do that with Richard's; most importantly, my beloved might occasionally wish to use his own computer (imagine!).
Yesterday I spend the whole day being very ill and feeling weak as a kitten. I still feel very weak, but after getting a significant amount of sleep last night I have just enough energy to write this up and think about dragging myself out to accident and emergency. I would very much like a simple way to sort out my computer without having to take it to accident and emergency, too - because I don't know who'd be able to do it properly, or how much it would cost, and because if I totter up to the Royal London at Whitechapel for them to prod me, the sizeable porn stock in my head will not be embarrassingly accessible...
Any suggestions would be very gratefully accepted.
Update: As the comments below make clear, it was indeed an update, but turned out to be all the fault of McAfee. I am massively grateful to Phil, and wish fiery death upon all their motherboards.
Labels: Personal, Technology
Thursday, April 22, 2010
What will the Tory excuse be this time?
The attacks and smears launched by the Tory "forces of hell" today, the establishment closing ranks behind David Cameron to try to block change, they all signify one thing: regardless of the actual outcome, they all expect Nick to win the second debate.
So the question is, looking at Channel Four's "Ask the Chancellors" and the first Leader's Debate on ITV... what spin are the Tories planning to use this time? And will it be another U-Turn on what they said last time?
Those excuses in full –
- Vince only did well because he was in the middle and looked in control
- Cameron only did badly because he was in the middle and was picked on
- Osborne only did badly because he was on the side and looked sidelined
- Nick only did well because he was on the side and looked like the outsider
- Vince only did well because he didn't get asked any tough questions (by, er, Osborne)
- Nick only did well because he was fed questions that let him talk policy (by, er, Cameron)
- Vince only did well because the audience was stuffed with Liberal Democrats applauding and laughing
- Cameron only did badly because he couldn't connect to an audience who weren't allowed to applaud or laugh
- Vince only does well because the media have him on all the time and put him on a pedestal
- Nick only does well because people have never heard of him
- Cameron (elected Tory leader 2005) only does badly because he's been doing the job so long he's portrayed as yesterday's news
- Nick (elected Liberal Democrat leader 2007) only does well because he's not been doing the job for long enough
[that's enough useless Tory excuses, ed]
The only way that the Tories can plausibly complain that Nick's profile is because people have only just heard of him is if they are retrospectively condemning the media exclusion of Liberal Democrats over the last three years. And are they?
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So the question is, looking at Channel Four's "Ask the Chancellors" and the first Leader's Debate on ITV... what spin are the Tories planning to use this time? And will it be another U-Turn on what they said last time?
Those excuses in full –
- Vince only did well because he was in the middle and looked in control
- Cameron only did badly because he was in the middle and was picked on
- Osborne only did badly because he was on the side and looked sidelined
- Nick only did well because he was on the side and looked like the outsider
- Vince only did well because he didn't get asked any tough questions (by, er, Osborne)
- Nick only did well because he was fed questions that let him talk policy (by, er, Cameron)
- Vince only did well because the audience was stuffed with Liberal Democrats applauding and laughing
- Cameron only did badly because he couldn't connect to an audience who weren't allowed to applaud or laugh
- Vince only does well because the media have him on all the time and put him on a pedestal
- Nick only does well because people have never heard of him
- Cameron (elected Tory leader 2005) only does badly because he's been doing the job so long he's portrayed as yesterday's news
- Nick (elected Liberal Democrat leader 2007) only does well because he's not been doing the job for long enough
[that's enough useless Tory excuses, ed]
The only way that the Tories can plausibly complain that Nick's profile is because people have only just heard of him is if they are retrospectively condemning the media exclusion of Liberal Democrats over the last three years. And are they?
Labels: Conservatives, General Election, Leaders' Debate, Nick Clegg
