I think I’ve said before that democracy, although it should work, doesn’t. It means “power+people”, literally, yet the problem is that the people are stupid and mean.
But it’s the best alternative, the only alternative we have to a tyranny. Unless… well, unless I was in charge. Don’t get me wrong, I’d do good stuff – reforming the electoral process, greater direct democracy, cleaning up the free market, all of that shit. After I’ve had my fun, anyway.
Give me two years and then I’ll hold an election. Or in fact, give me a Mediterranean island with a population of English-speaking, easily convinced people and I’ll stop pestering you.
I’d style myself as the most stylish dictator the world has ever seen. I’d divert all the military funds into a world-class kidnap service, so I could imprison Valentino or Ralph Lauren to make my suits. I’d rig every room in the nation to play the Star Wars theme tune whenever I walked in, and have a state inspection service to militarily enforce coolness. No squares! Nerds are only good for shooting! I'd also legalise cross-species marriage (vegetable-human couples never hurt anyone), print money on Edam and outlaw Leona Lewis (not just her music, but her very existence).
And I wouldn’t be in the UN or EU (I’d want my own currency – the “Mark”, geddit?) so that when I got bored and flattened obscure, oil-rich countries for popularity purposes, I couldn’t be held accountable.
Put simply, it’d be the best, coolest - and most oppressive tyranny in history. And all of these statements are the reasons that support the worst fact about democracy – namely, anyone can be put in charge. Even crazies like me.
Monday, 15 February 2010
Reality Anasthetic
In the mid-1960’s, when a direct link between cancer and cigarettes was discovered, one of the executives of the tobacco companies was quoted thus: “our product is fear”. What he meant was that they needed to sow disbelief among consumers, that smoking was a harmless pastime for Real Americans, and that they should continue buying their cigarettes. Today, advertising isn’t much different. Ok, so Dettol and Cillit Band aren’t evil like Marlborough or Lucky Stripe, but the root selling point is similar.
Most commercials for household cleaners, for example, have a template that gets repeated ad hominem, with better graphics added over time. They show a scene of domestic bliss; but wait!? Is that dirt? Dirt?! In your home!?!?! How could you let this happen, idyllic housewife? Your children might be in danger! Flee, flee from the dirt! It’s over your surfaces, your carpet, your beautiful bathroom, your baby!
But do not fear – Dettol MultiAction Spray is here! Wipe that dirt from the face of the earth! You’ve seen the CGI-imagined homeworld of the dirt-men, so launch a tactical airstrike with NEW UltraSterile Wash, before the dust eats you and your pure Aryan children alive!
These ads are aimed essentially at doting mothers who are petrified by the idea of bacteria/viruses in the home, despite us having a rather handy all-in-one solution from evolution; the immune system. There’s always a guarantee to kill (not destroy or anything scientific-sounding, just “kill!”. Kill; kill, for the good of the fatherland! Strike the invaders at their infidel hearts!) 99% of nasties – they can’t say for legal reasons that their magical death bleach will exterminate anything it comes into contact with, which is a pity because for the average, smiling suburbanite, only Zyklon-B pellets will truly cleanse their home from flesh-eating viruses and (horrific!) dust mites.
Either that, or your middle-class, “snapshot of society”-type friends will mock you for your uncleanly incompetence. Heaven forbid your friends should smell something that’s not Chanel, or freshly baked bread. It just wouldn't do to look poor. You won’t win Home of the Year in Good Housekeeping magazine with dust around, it could infect you with something. In fact, why not remove all signs of natural life from your abode? Before everyone wakes up in the morning, scorch it with a flamethrower – even norovirus can’t survive 1000C heat!
So yeah. All I mean is that adverts on TV are aimed entirely at OCD types who’ll buy anything that can massacre germs, instead of treating us like liberated, educated adults who don’t need a digital flyby to know what a bacterium looks like, or a cartoon-villain to be vanquished by a brave “toilet duck”. Or maybe I’m wrong – maybe I should try and be more like the courageous, manly toilet duck. Quack!
Most commercials for household cleaners, for example, have a template that gets repeated ad hominem, with better graphics added over time. They show a scene of domestic bliss; but wait!? Is that dirt? Dirt?! In your home!?!?! How could you let this happen, idyllic housewife? Your children might be in danger! Flee, flee from the dirt! It’s over your surfaces, your carpet, your beautiful bathroom, your baby!
But do not fear – Dettol MultiAction Spray is here! Wipe that dirt from the face of the earth! You’ve seen the CGI-imagined homeworld of the dirt-men, so launch a tactical airstrike with NEW UltraSterile Wash, before the dust eats you and your pure Aryan children alive!
These ads are aimed essentially at doting mothers who are petrified by the idea of bacteria/viruses in the home, despite us having a rather handy all-in-one solution from evolution; the immune system. There’s always a guarantee to kill (not destroy or anything scientific-sounding, just “kill!”. Kill; kill, for the good of the fatherland! Strike the invaders at their infidel hearts!) 99% of nasties – they can’t say for legal reasons that their magical death bleach will exterminate anything it comes into contact with, which is a pity because for the average, smiling suburbanite, only Zyklon-B pellets will truly cleanse their home from flesh-eating viruses and (horrific!) dust mites.
Either that, or your middle-class, “snapshot of society”-type friends will mock you for your uncleanly incompetence. Heaven forbid your friends should smell something that’s not Chanel, or freshly baked bread. It just wouldn't do to look poor. You won’t win Home of the Year in Good Housekeeping magazine with dust around, it could infect you with something. In fact, why not remove all signs of natural life from your abode? Before everyone wakes up in the morning, scorch it with a flamethrower – even norovirus can’t survive 1000C heat!
So yeah. All I mean is that adverts on TV are aimed entirely at OCD types who’ll buy anything that can massacre germs, instead of treating us like liberated, educated adults who don’t need a digital flyby to know what a bacterium looks like, or a cartoon-villain to be vanquished by a brave “toilet duck”. Or maybe I’m wrong – maybe I should try and be more like the courageous, manly toilet duck. Quack!
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
NeoTokyo, circa 1981
So last Saturday I trotted along to the local ark-sized multiplex cinema to see the biggest film in cinema history, Avatar. Not sure what all the fuss was about? Well, you're missing out. This is one of those films you shouldn't miss, like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Compared to the spectacle (excuse the pun) of watching it on the big screen through 3D glasses, watching it on a DVD will be pants. And as I was sitting there having my retinas scorched by this uber-awesome visage, I was thinking: this is the future of cinema.
See, as the standard of living and good times in general get better, we'll all get bigger televisions and better sound systems. And when you put it down to it, that's the main pull of movies right now, at the cinema. The movie industry is declining, and television will soon overtake it. Another point is that - in the same way that Great Expectations was published in magazines as a serial when it was first penned - soaps might become film-sized. I'm not saying that Coronation Street will be getting Best Actor at the Oscars in 20 years, I just mean that eventually shows like that will die out - as all products ultimately do - and television will become more cinematic.
The 3D experience - offering people an innovative, new and mind-blowing film - is what cinema has to fall back on, and it's the only card Hollywood holds over networks. But pretty soon that will comes into our homes - the 3D week on Channel Four was just a taster - and cinema will die out. It's sad, but it happens.
But the real thing that will revolutionise and eventually come to dominate entertainment in both the home and public places - video games. Sure, they've come from humble, teenage-niche beginnings; Mario jumping on platforms avoiding Donkey Kong, for instance, but they're becoming more and more immersive and more and more innovative. The concept is simple: don't just watch the story, live it. Fight your corner in 1945 Berlin or pilot an X-Wing down the main trench of the Death Star. The success of the Wii shows how video games aren't just for 11-30 year-old guys.
And where Hollywood is sinking the video game industry is swimming - last year video games manufacturers as well as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft posted record profits. And although the industry is really still adolescant, there have been some geniusly constructed games so far. Take the Grand Theft Auto series, the games where you run amok in a fictional American city running your own crime empire. These games never fail to cause "outrage" amongst reactionary parents and clergy-esque polemicists, but an often-ignored fact about the games is that they are works of satire. True, it's black-hearted, incredibly dark satire, but satire nontheless. Alongside the sporadic and insane violence featured, there is some brilliant comedy. Take the radio broadcasts, for instance - when you drive a car, you can listen to pre-recorded radio shows, some talkshows and some rock stations or chartshows. The voice artists are hilarious; Vice City , the Scarface pisstake, features a neoconservative senator who thinks democracy means "being rich, and laughing at the poor - or being in government and laughing at the electorate". In the same programme, you hear the hellfire televangelist Pat Robertson lampoon shoot a nudist for offending his project to build a space-going, armour plated 400ft statue of himself.
In the last century we've had very few films as funny as that. And the main restriction on video games - the graphics - is improving with every new release. If you look at the Call of Duty franchise, the success is of a similar calibre. Starting out as essentially interactive versions of the movie Saving Private Ryan, the games have morphed into brilliantly absorbing action games. The latest two, the Modern Warfare series, are basically James Bond movies, only instead of Daniel Craig blowing up the desert base, it's you. Every action depends on your joystick - the fate of the world in your fingers. You don't just play through an infantilised level with cardboard-cut SS Commandos to shoot, you are the soldier. The way the controller reacts to your responses makes it feel like an extension of your hand.
On the other hand, there are even better games than CoD or GTA; for instance Lego Star Wars is absolutely genius. It transposes the true spirit of the original films (when you got down to it, A New Hope was Errol Flyn's Robin Hood with lasers) and synergises them with the gorgeously peaceful world of Lego - a name which for me, is synonymous with toys and fun. Surely, whilst World of Warcraft is the future of the fantasy genre, and war-games like Call of Duty the next step in historical action flicks, games like Mario and Lego Star Wars will replace kid's films?
I mean, why not teach them morals n' shit interactively - its how school works isn't it? There was a book I read when I was about ten - about a game that came with a 3D suit, and when you played the game you were actually fighting the minotaur or drinking the poisoned wine, or swashbuckling with vampiric demons. In the book, the suits came alive and the corporeal existence of the world as we know it was threatened by a rather camp-sounding villain called the "Gamesmaster", but the premise of the 3D suits might be the future of gaming. And the future of gaming is the future of entertainment. Remember the holodeck from Star Trek - that room where the crew went to chill in whatever environment they chose. Well, think of that, minus all the insane malfunctions it went through (like that time the whole ship turned into a tree or something).
With the burgeoning technology of augmented reality becoming manifest, it's only a matter of time before some bright spark combines all these gadjets and gizmos into the most awesome-est entertainment experience the world has ever seen. Imagine it: you're finishing a lager in your favourite pub (decor inspired by The Nag's Head, circa 1981), and you're suddenly bored. Nazi Communist laserthugs show up, and you chase them through the streets and sky-lanes of NeoTokyo in your CFX51 VoidFighter - then you think "pause", blink, and go and make a lovely cup of tea.
Ok so it probably won't be like that, and that sounds like the most appallingly bad game ever, but it's not so farfetched. Internet, 3D, augmented technology and video gaming are bound to hybridise one day and it will be very, very cool when it happens.
See, as the standard of living and good times in general get better, we'll all get bigger televisions and better sound systems. And when you put it down to it, that's the main pull of movies right now, at the cinema. The movie industry is declining, and television will soon overtake it. Another point is that - in the same way that Great Expectations was published in magazines as a serial when it was first penned - soaps might become film-sized. I'm not saying that Coronation Street will be getting Best Actor at the Oscars in 20 years, I just mean that eventually shows like that will die out - as all products ultimately do - and television will become more cinematic.
The 3D experience - offering people an innovative, new and mind-blowing film - is what cinema has to fall back on, and it's the only card Hollywood holds over networks. But pretty soon that will comes into our homes - the 3D week on Channel Four was just a taster - and cinema will die out. It's sad, but it happens.
But the real thing that will revolutionise and eventually come to dominate entertainment in both the home and public places - video games. Sure, they've come from humble, teenage-niche beginnings; Mario jumping on platforms avoiding Donkey Kong, for instance, but they're becoming more and more immersive and more and more innovative. The concept is simple: don't just watch the story, live it. Fight your corner in 1945 Berlin or pilot an X-Wing down the main trench of the Death Star. The success of the Wii shows how video games aren't just for 11-30 year-old guys.
And where Hollywood is sinking the video game industry is swimming - last year video games manufacturers as well as Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft posted record profits. And although the industry is really still adolescant, there have been some geniusly constructed games so far. Take the Grand Theft Auto series, the games where you run amok in a fictional American city running your own crime empire. These games never fail to cause "outrage" amongst reactionary parents and clergy-esque polemicists, but an often-ignored fact about the games is that they are works of satire. True, it's black-hearted, incredibly dark satire, but satire nontheless. Alongside the sporadic and insane violence featured, there is some brilliant comedy. Take the radio broadcasts, for instance - when you drive a car, you can listen to pre-recorded radio shows, some talkshows and some rock stations or chartshows. The voice artists are hilarious; Vice City , the Scarface pisstake, features a neoconservative senator who thinks democracy means "being rich, and laughing at the poor - or being in government and laughing at the electorate". In the same programme, you hear the hellfire televangelist Pat Robertson lampoon shoot a nudist for offending his project to build a space-going, armour plated 400ft statue of himself.
In the last century we've had very few films as funny as that. And the main restriction on video games - the graphics - is improving with every new release. If you look at the Call of Duty franchise, the success is of a similar calibre. Starting out as essentially interactive versions of the movie Saving Private Ryan, the games have morphed into brilliantly absorbing action games. The latest two, the Modern Warfare series, are basically James Bond movies, only instead of Daniel Craig blowing up the desert base, it's you. Every action depends on your joystick - the fate of the world in your fingers. You don't just play through an infantilised level with cardboard-cut SS Commandos to shoot, you are the soldier. The way the controller reacts to your responses makes it feel like an extension of your hand.
On the other hand, there are even better games than CoD or GTA; for instance Lego Star Wars is absolutely genius. It transposes the true spirit of the original films (when you got down to it, A New Hope was Errol Flyn's Robin Hood with lasers) and synergises them with the gorgeously peaceful world of Lego - a name which for me, is synonymous with toys and fun. Surely, whilst World of Warcraft is the future of the fantasy genre, and war-games like Call of Duty the next step in historical action flicks, games like Mario and Lego Star Wars will replace kid's films?
I mean, why not teach them morals n' shit interactively - its how school works isn't it? There was a book I read when I was about ten - about a game that came with a 3D suit, and when you played the game you were actually fighting the minotaur or drinking the poisoned wine, or swashbuckling with vampiric demons. In the book, the suits came alive and the corporeal existence of the world as we know it was threatened by a rather camp-sounding villain called the "Gamesmaster", but the premise of the 3D suits might be the future of gaming. And the future of gaming is the future of entertainment. Remember the holodeck from Star Trek - that room where the crew went to chill in whatever environment they chose. Well, think of that, minus all the insane malfunctions it went through (like that time the whole ship turned into a tree or something).
With the burgeoning technology of augmented reality becoming manifest, it's only a matter of time before some bright spark combines all these gadjets and gizmos into the most awesome-est entertainment experience the world has ever seen. Imagine it: you're finishing a lager in your favourite pub (decor inspired by The Nag's Head, circa 1981), and you're suddenly bored. Nazi Communist laserthugs show up, and you chase them through the streets and sky-lanes of NeoTokyo in your CFX51 VoidFighter - then you think "pause", blink, and go and make a lovely cup of tea.
Ok so it probably won't be like that, and that sounds like the most appallingly bad game ever, but it's not so farfetched. Internet, 3D, augmented technology and video gaming are bound to hybridise one day and it will be very, very cool when it happens.
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Seriously Now
So yeah, climate change. I tend to take a pretty nonchalant view towards it (i.e. we're all going to die, so don't have a hissy fit), but I know it's real. Why? Because it's science. And science is irrefutable, infallible logic. There isn't such a thing as "environmentalism" because it is free of politics and dogma; logic just happens.
Firstly, remember two things; science is based on the idea of theories - you formulate one (say, that the world's average temperature is increasing) and you make experiments and take readings and poke lizards and suchlike in an effort to disprove that theory. Fact on fact, mano el mano. You don't have to believe in science because all science follows logic (and uses logic to find any possible, disproving flaws in other logic). So when nearly all the science points to a general rise in temperature, which will subsequently upset our planet's environmental balance (like, the increase of freshwater into the Gulf Stream, which would make things colder. SNOW DOES NOT DISPROVE GLOBAL WARMING), we have to take it as fact. You don't have to believe it because it is cold hard fact. There is not debate about climate change except for what to do about it; science is logic and logic does not require debate. That's what Nigel Lawson was banging on about in last week's Question Time and he was an idiot and looked like Joseph Fritzl. Debate is for philosophers and Aristotle never got his chemistry A Level by arguing the toss.
Before anyone says "You're not qualified, Sam", I'm not saying I am. But, I have three B's in GCSE triple-sciences, and have watched An Inconvenient Truth and that basically puts me in the 15% of the population who actually understand climate change (trust me, there are a lot of morons in Britain. Just look at the EDL).
Secondly, the ice caps are melting. More gases in the air means that more heat from the Sun gets locked in the planet's atmosphere, meaning we get hotter. You can't dispute that, they showed the pictures of the icebergs on Newsround for Christ's sake. More heat means more melting and that means more water in the sea which means higher sea levels. You can't dispute that, it's right in front of us. It's happening. By the way, predicting climate change is a). prone, as all science is, to anomalies and human error. Get over it. b). it's completely different to predicting the weather for Tuesday. The fact that the weatherman said it's gonna rain and it was just a bit overcast does not disprove the whole environmental change science canon, dickwad.
People who "deny" climate change are just stupid, plain stupid. They won't come around to a sensible point of view because they made up their minds as soon as they saw Al Gore trying to tell the world about this shit. They saw that this scenario conflicted with all their politics, so they deny that it is happening at all. Here's a conspiratorial correlation for you: ever noticed how it's the US Republican party - the guys who are perpetually, always, always the bad guys - who don't like climate change? They don't even cover their evil stuff up (Dick Cheney is the CEO of Halliburton, wake up guys), so is it any surprise that the party with connections to the oil lobby (not just connections, more like umbilicle cords) doesen't like a situation that calls ultimately for the disuse of oil?
Ever noticed how it's the idiots who believe in UFO's who don't like climate change? The people who believe in made-up deities with bipolar personalities? Denying climate change is tantamount to, possibly worse than denying Darwin's Theory of Evolution because climate change is threatening our way of life. Darwin just threatened the church, and all he did was to look at the world in front of his eyes. Quite frankly, if the Bible can't stand up to that amount of scrutiny, then it deserves to be consigned to the wastepaper basket.
Look, even if climate change is not caused by mankind's addiction to hydrocarbon emissions, it's still happening. Something is fucking up the atmosphere, and it looks 99% like it's us. And even if it was the sun, or something. We're still gonna run out of oil. Any ideas how to fix that one, numbnuts? You can't put ten-pound notes in your petrol engine, David. So we still need windfarms or hydroelectric farms or nuclear power (which has a bad rep, it's actually pretty ace - there's just this crazy gloopy shit we don't know what to do with. We should probably dump it in Somalia or somewhere nobody cares about) to fix the energy defecit.
Of course people will put any possible action off until the last possible moment, at which they will throw their arms out in a Jesus-pose and blame New Labour for everything. They're not all that bad really. I got a pretty good education (even if the school looked like a maximum security prison, but you can't blame Gordon for that, even if you try really hard) out of them, we also got the minimum wage and the Freedom of Information Act. Aside from the political aspect, people won't do anything about it. They have the power - in their ballot-papers, of course, but because we're all hampered by class divisions and party loyalties or just straight-out racism if you're voting BNP, we won't elect anybody prepared to really solve the world's problems with an actual solution.
Ultimately though, the reason is that we can't look beyond our own wallets. I guess it's human nature, you spend your whole life accruing resources for the sole purpose of attracting females/cementing your place as alpha male of the suburbs and the government - whose efforts don't seem to benefit your - takes some of your money away. And why should you help those other people? Why should your taxes be spent on fixing roads in Scotland, when you live in Cornwall?
People are selfish and cold-hearted and they don't want to change unless they can see a bonus for themselves. It's times like these you can't help but think that people do not deserve democracy. It's too good for them.
Firstly, remember two things; science is based on the idea of theories - you formulate one (say, that the world's average temperature is increasing) and you make experiments and take readings and poke lizards and suchlike in an effort to disprove that theory. Fact on fact, mano el mano. You don't have to believe in science because all science follows logic (and uses logic to find any possible, disproving flaws in other logic). So when nearly all the science points to a general rise in temperature, which will subsequently upset our planet's environmental balance (like, the increase of freshwater into the Gulf Stream, which would make things colder. SNOW DOES NOT DISPROVE GLOBAL WARMING), we have to take it as fact. You don't have to believe it because it is cold hard fact. There is not debate about climate change except for what to do about it; science is logic and logic does not require debate. That's what Nigel Lawson was banging on about in last week's Question Time and he was an idiot and looked like Joseph Fritzl. Debate is for philosophers and Aristotle never got his chemistry A Level by arguing the toss.
Before anyone says "You're not qualified, Sam", I'm not saying I am. But, I have three B's in GCSE triple-sciences, and have watched An Inconvenient Truth and that basically puts me in the 15% of the population who actually understand climate change (trust me, there are a lot of morons in Britain. Just look at the EDL).
Secondly, the ice caps are melting. More gases in the air means that more heat from the Sun gets locked in the planet's atmosphere, meaning we get hotter. You can't dispute that, they showed the pictures of the icebergs on Newsround for Christ's sake. More heat means more melting and that means more water in the sea which means higher sea levels. You can't dispute that, it's right in front of us. It's happening. By the way, predicting climate change is a). prone, as all science is, to anomalies and human error. Get over it. b). it's completely different to predicting the weather for Tuesday. The fact that the weatherman said it's gonna rain and it was just a bit overcast does not disprove the whole environmental change science canon, dickwad.
People who "deny" climate change are just stupid, plain stupid. They won't come around to a sensible point of view because they made up their minds as soon as they saw Al Gore trying to tell the world about this shit. They saw that this scenario conflicted with all their politics, so they deny that it is happening at all. Here's a conspiratorial correlation for you: ever noticed how it's the US Republican party - the guys who are perpetually, always, always the bad guys - who don't like climate change? They don't even cover their evil stuff up (Dick Cheney is the CEO of Halliburton, wake up guys), so is it any surprise that the party with connections to the oil lobby (not just connections, more like umbilicle cords) doesen't like a situation that calls ultimately for the disuse of oil?
Ever noticed how it's the idiots who believe in UFO's who don't like climate change? The people who believe in made-up deities with bipolar personalities? Denying climate change is tantamount to, possibly worse than denying Darwin's Theory of Evolution because climate change is threatening our way of life. Darwin just threatened the church, and all he did was to look at the world in front of his eyes. Quite frankly, if the Bible can't stand up to that amount of scrutiny, then it deserves to be consigned to the wastepaper basket.
Look, even if climate change is not caused by mankind's addiction to hydrocarbon emissions, it's still happening. Something is fucking up the atmosphere, and it looks 99% like it's us. And even if it was the sun, or something. We're still gonna run out of oil. Any ideas how to fix that one, numbnuts? You can't put ten-pound notes in your petrol engine, David. So we still need windfarms or hydroelectric farms or nuclear power (which has a bad rep, it's actually pretty ace - there's just this crazy gloopy shit we don't know what to do with. We should probably dump it in Somalia or somewhere nobody cares about) to fix the energy defecit.
Of course people will put any possible action off until the last possible moment, at which they will throw their arms out in a Jesus-pose and blame New Labour for everything. They're not all that bad really. I got a pretty good education (even if the school looked like a maximum security prison, but you can't blame Gordon for that, even if you try really hard) out of them, we also got the minimum wage and the Freedom of Information Act. Aside from the political aspect, people won't do anything about it. They have the power - in their ballot-papers, of course, but because we're all hampered by class divisions and party loyalties or just straight-out racism if you're voting BNP, we won't elect anybody prepared to really solve the world's problems with an actual solution.
Ultimately though, the reason is that we can't look beyond our own wallets. I guess it's human nature, you spend your whole life accruing resources for the sole purpose of attracting females/cementing your place as alpha male of the suburbs and the government - whose efforts don't seem to benefit your - takes some of your money away. And why should you help those other people? Why should your taxes be spent on fixing roads in Scotland, when you live in Cornwall?
People are selfish and cold-hearted and they don't want to change unless they can see a bonus for themselves. It's times like these you can't help but think that people do not deserve democracy. It's too good for them.
Saturday, 23 January 2010
Broken Britain
So, my favourite politician the Right Hon. David Cameron gave a rather well publicised speech yesterday, not about our gloomy fiscal woes, but about the silent enemy, the danger within: the moral recession. Yes that's right, a recession of morals. We had loads - there was a bubble - but now it burst. Now, he's done this because every Tory rag screams some spectacularily brutal story about children bashing each other's heads in with rocks, like the Edlington case that got wrapped up yesterday. Obviously those cases are horrific violent crimes, but they're isolated. You can't link one robbery in Dagenham to a wave of crime across the country and the fact that two completley brutalised children who had the most appalling of upbringings did something that our society can only classify as evil - does not mean the whole nation is a feral, unfettered wasteland of bloody carnage. Not even the north is like that anymore.
Of course he's done this for political points, and it's sickening that he'd use a scenario like this for votes. It's also sickening that the tabloids use these stories to get more sales, but they have always done that. And it is of course, blown completely out of proportion. What the hell is he going to do about it, anyway. Get a "good vibes stimulus package" through Parliament?Make everyone listen to the Beach Boys for an hour a day? There are no roving death squads of thirteen year olds toting uzis and pick n'mix gummy snakes outside. People only live off of benefits when there is no better alternative - who would risk the villfication of our entire society if you could get more cash 9-5?
And it's not the "PC Brigade" that has done any wrong, either. Health and safety certainly never sent anyone back to the Dark Ages - being polite (yes, even at your own discomfort) never hurt anyone. Seriously, blaming things on "do-gooders"? You haven't got anything better than that? Attacking Good Samiritans is hardly the answer to a society in moral decline, is it? Affirmative action - when minorities get picked over white people for jobs and suchlike, might have meant a few white kids had to go to state schools they really didn't fancy, but it probably saved more black kids from getting stuck in the same pattern. The qualifications you get at highschool really aren't worth anything except to get into sixth form anyway - the thing you gain from highschool is your personality, and the proportion of bullies from one school to another doesen't change all that much. Immigrants are hardly the problem - crime is higher in minorities because they're poorer, not because they all came to Britain to steal your silverware.
"Broken Britain" is a result of a massive pearl-clutching orgy of curtain twitching, neighbourhood-watch types seeing an unaccompanied teenager outside then going on the internet and being scared out of their skins by some article about "how A-Levels are easy peasy". Gordon Brown is not Big Brother (the government does not control every CCTV camera in the country, as you may believe), the Thought Police are not watching your every emotion. You are not the dead. You can go outside and have a nice walk to the shops without a child stabbing you in the head with a sharpened Action Man. There are not droogs roaming about on the streets searching for old women to rape, or for Bargain Booze outlets to sate their febrile lust for alcopops. You needn't punch your son in the kidneys if he uses words like "cool" or "google", or if he listens to My Chemical Romance*, or if he stays up past ten o'clock - and you don't have to castigate teachers for not shooting all of the pupils in the class who throw paper aeroplanes. You live in Middle England, not the world of Mad Max. Just because seventeen year-olds can drive does not mean the motorways resemble Death Race 2000, "acid house" is a music genre, not a religion, computer viruses can't hurt you in the real world and seeing Cheryl Cole's receding neck and hem-line will not transform your children into degenerate murder-addicts.
You can go out at night and not be beheaded by teenagers who saw Saw too many times. In fact, why not go out now, and curtail your time on the internet. Have a pint and talk about the football with your friends. Or if you don't believe me, stay inside, lest the snow come back and freeze you where you stand. Hide! Hide, whilst death rains cold from the skies, or the do-gooders might come back and kill you with their kindness!!!
*My Chemical Romance: Labaratory safety protocol said no, but my heart said yes!
Of course he's done this for political points, and it's sickening that he'd use a scenario like this for votes. It's also sickening that the tabloids use these stories to get more sales, but they have always done that. And it is of course, blown completely out of proportion. What the hell is he going to do about it, anyway. Get a "good vibes stimulus package" through Parliament?Make everyone listen to the Beach Boys for an hour a day? There are no roving death squads of thirteen year olds toting uzis and pick n'mix gummy snakes outside. People only live off of benefits when there is no better alternative - who would risk the villfication of our entire society if you could get more cash 9-5?
And it's not the "PC Brigade" that has done any wrong, either. Health and safety certainly never sent anyone back to the Dark Ages - being polite (yes, even at your own discomfort) never hurt anyone. Seriously, blaming things on "do-gooders"? You haven't got anything better than that? Attacking Good Samiritans is hardly the answer to a society in moral decline, is it? Affirmative action - when minorities get picked over white people for jobs and suchlike, might have meant a few white kids had to go to state schools they really didn't fancy, but it probably saved more black kids from getting stuck in the same pattern. The qualifications you get at highschool really aren't worth anything except to get into sixth form anyway - the thing you gain from highschool is your personality, and the proportion of bullies from one school to another doesen't change all that much. Immigrants are hardly the problem - crime is higher in minorities because they're poorer, not because they all came to Britain to steal your silverware.
"Broken Britain" is a result of a massive pearl-clutching orgy of curtain twitching, neighbourhood-watch types seeing an unaccompanied teenager outside then going on the internet and being scared out of their skins by some article about "how A-Levels are easy peasy". Gordon Brown is not Big Brother (the government does not control every CCTV camera in the country, as you may believe), the Thought Police are not watching your every emotion. You are not the dead. You can go outside and have a nice walk to the shops without a child stabbing you in the head with a sharpened Action Man. There are not droogs roaming about on the streets searching for old women to rape, or for Bargain Booze outlets to sate their febrile lust for alcopops. You needn't punch your son in the kidneys if he uses words like "cool" or "google", or if he listens to My Chemical Romance*, or if he stays up past ten o'clock - and you don't have to castigate teachers for not shooting all of the pupils in the class who throw paper aeroplanes. You live in Middle England, not the world of Mad Max. Just because seventeen year-olds can drive does not mean the motorways resemble Death Race 2000, "acid house" is a music genre, not a religion, computer viruses can't hurt you in the real world and seeing Cheryl Cole's receding neck and hem-line will not transform your children into degenerate murder-addicts.
You can go out at night and not be beheaded by teenagers who saw Saw too many times. In fact, why not go out now, and curtail your time on the internet. Have a pint and talk about the football with your friends. Or if you don't believe me, stay inside, lest the snow come back and freeze you where you stand. Hide! Hide, whilst death rains cold from the skies, or the do-gooders might come back and kill you with their kindness!!!
*My Chemical Romance: Labaratory safety protocol said no, but my heart said yes!
Thursday, 21 January 2010
Foolish Earthlings
Our country has been labelled "the worst liberal democracy in the world". But the United States is rapidly becoming an even worse advert for democracy. Just when you think that an entire nation, the most powerful in the world, can put its differences aside and reach for the stars, they tap you on the shoulder and remind you that a Real American never looks any further than his own wallet. In case you don't know what they've done this time, this guy got elected for Massachussets. Just when you think they've woken up and smelled the coffee, they go and spill it in their lap.
It might be because I don't live in the "Empire of Liberty" and therefore know nothing about Main Street, that dystopian reality where frenzied soccer moms fight to the death for a can of baked beans. And it might be because I've got an inherently liberal outlook over these sorts of things - but Obama wanted to give them free healthcare. FREE! And there's a hell of a lot of Americans out there, all paying taxes. The cost, split amongst the whole lot, can't be a massive increase. The Republicans are far worse than our domesticated equiavlent (Conservatives are too media savvy to let wingnuts have an actual say) - not just because they pander to every right-wing conspiracy theorist/hellfire preacher, but because they won't listen to reason. Scott Brown said that the healthcare bill had not been given a proper debate. Firstly, it's spent half a year in Congress - proper debate does not always mean a Fox News special - and secondly, how do you hold intellectual debate with someone who thinks you're either a Nazi socialist (don't even begin to try and fuse those two together) or you were born outside of the US (and therefore don't have legitimate opinions). Those people do not deserve the oxygen of debate - they need to suffocate in the cold waste of mutual ignorance.
And apart from slightly different levels of eagerness to go to war with the first third world country who sounds off about you, and varying amounts of propensity to jump into legislative gridlock, the two parties aren't all that different. Both the Democrats and the Republicans, like our own Labour and Conservative, have their own elite cliques, the Blairites and Thatcherites. The policies aren't ultimately different, and America would probably be better off without democracy - at least the leader would be able to get stuff done. And if it was really crap stuff he was getting done, then you can always have an armed revolution or whatever takes your fancy.
Okay actually that's a rubbish idea. But unless the US political system gets some serious reform, it will just wallow in it's own pigswill until the American Empire falls from grace and begins a steady decline. And all the other western democracies will follow, until we finally succumb to the Chinese supermecha war machines that fire lasers from their elbow turrets and enslave our entire earth in a huge, globe-spanning white goods manufacturing empire. I for one welcome our new electronic goods-making overlords.
It might be because I don't live in the "Empire of Liberty" and therefore know nothing about Main Street, that dystopian reality where frenzied soccer moms fight to the death for a can of baked beans. And it might be because I've got an inherently liberal outlook over these sorts of things - but Obama wanted to give them free healthcare. FREE! And there's a hell of a lot of Americans out there, all paying taxes. The cost, split amongst the whole lot, can't be a massive increase. The Republicans are far worse than our domesticated equiavlent (Conservatives are too media savvy to let wingnuts have an actual say) - not just because they pander to every right-wing conspiracy theorist/hellfire preacher, but because they won't listen to reason. Scott Brown said that the healthcare bill had not been given a proper debate. Firstly, it's spent half a year in Congress - proper debate does not always mean a Fox News special - and secondly, how do you hold intellectual debate with someone who thinks you're either a Nazi socialist (don't even begin to try and fuse those two together) or you were born outside of the US (and therefore don't have legitimate opinions). Those people do not deserve the oxygen of debate - they need to suffocate in the cold waste of mutual ignorance.
And apart from slightly different levels of eagerness to go to war with the first third world country who sounds off about you, and varying amounts of propensity to jump into legislative gridlock, the two parties aren't all that different. Both the Democrats and the Republicans, like our own Labour and Conservative, have their own elite cliques, the Blairites and Thatcherites. The policies aren't ultimately different, and America would probably be better off without democracy - at least the leader would be able to get stuff done. And if it was really crap stuff he was getting done, then you can always have an armed revolution or whatever takes your fancy.
Okay actually that's a rubbish idea. But unless the US political system gets some serious reform, it will just wallow in it's own pigswill until the American Empire falls from grace and begins a steady decline. And all the other western democracies will follow, until we finally succumb to the Chinese supermecha war machines that fire lasers from their elbow turrets and enslave our entire earth in a huge, globe-spanning white goods manufacturing empire. I for one welcome our new electronic goods-making overlords.
Monday, 11 January 2010
Forlorn Hope
Right, so, since my rather feeble naive hope that people might see Gordon Brown as more of a fighter than a wounded stag too weak to strike back, the Tories have basically netted the election. Since the failed rebellion, they've gained at least three points in a recent Sun poll. I'd love to repeat that delicious Simpsons' line, but I'm afraid that I for one, cannot welcome our new right-wing overlords. I'm not flying the red flag here, but a victory for the Conservatives will be a defeat for democracy. Because they won't have won because of superior policies, or for progress, or for the greater good - they'll have won because we don't have anyone else to turn to, which is a pretty sorry choice.
This is the reason why democracy is flawed; because although it gives every citizen a voice, far too many of those citizens take that voice for granted - and misuse it, either with a reactionary vote or through abstaining. It doesen't just boil down to people being stupid, or stupid people being manipulated by the media by the politicians (or vice versa) - it boils down to us accepting that. We don't have to vote for the "next best option". We're not even really meant to vote on a nationwide basis - the whole idea is that we elect an MP so our constituency is represented in Parliament. That doesen't give us any right to vote in a candidate that might affect other constituencies. Why should the choice of one old dear, hobbling down to the polling station in a fit of pearl-clutching fury affect me? We don't have to vote for a reforming government if our area doesen't need reform (though obviously it's better). How can you expect your MP to pay attention to their constituents when you elected them because you liked David Cameron? And how can you whine about underrepresentation when in the same sentence you damn all politicians as being self-serving, fat-cat swines? Disdain breeds disdain.
The other problem with democracy is that, in a modern, post-imperial nation like the UK, there are two many people for it work. Simply, nobody wants exactly the same things. There will never be more than 50% of the population in favour of the government - the other half essentially get no representation, and no voice. That's why the American Revolution kicked off, and if they started a war about it, then we should at least have a demo or two. This mobocracy is fuelled by another problem. There are more stupid idiot-type voters who treat political parties like football clubs than there are people who consider the options and make informed choices. Again, I'm not running on a Lib Dem ticket, but it's clear they're the thinking-man's party. Their policies genuinely make sense - ideas that make you wonder why they're not law already. But only about 40% of the population actually pay any attention to them - even less are swayed enough to vote orange.
So, come May, we'll see a gloriously smug David Cameron, complete with Mary on his arm, gliding into Number Ten - a smiling airbushed Prime Minister in a mock coronation (you might want to note here that Cameron's ancestor was George IV, the son of Queen Victoria) put on by gleefully Union Jack-waving peasants. That's what will happen - because a lot of boorish witch-hunting collaboratory types will vote in the Conservatives on the grounds that they're for "commun sence", and because everyone else won't bother to vote. Even the people who would gladly vote anything anti-Tory won't turn up, because the cynics - either in the dead-forest, flaming-clergy press, or in the slightly more cunning slick graphics of Sky News.
When Barack Obama mentioned that his election was a "victory against those who would choose cynicism and isolation and darkness, those who would doubt us and say we can't do it", (hence "yes we can!") he couldn't have had a better rally call. And that couldn't be more relevant to Britain today. The whole basis of the Conservative party is that they stand in favour of the establishment. They are fundamentally against change and reform and rebirth. David Cameron wants a return to austerity - the economic equivalent of tighening our belts, I suppose. But in tightening our belts, to continue that metaphor - we'll be starving ourselves. Everyone knows that to stimulate an economy you need more investment. The Conservatives' pledge to leave the NHS alone simply means they'll drain state schools and everything else till they run dry - including our gorgeous, blessed BBC.
And indeed the BBC is headed for a world of pain. The hostile media - so overt in its loaded criticisms (half the goddamn press is owned by Rupert Murdoch for christ's sake) and pearl-clutching outrage at stunts they've pulled a million times. It hasn't got the best PR department, though god knows if it was properly funded, someone would be able to conjure up outrage about it. A lot of people would have its bloated, overfed stomach pumped - cut down to size. If you cut the BBC down to the parts that won't compete with anyone else, all you will have left would be Radio Four and Blue Peter. The BBC is brilliant and the Tories only want it gone so that the red press will be happy. Think how many good programmes the Beeb airs - Wallander, Doctor Who, Blue Peter, Spooks, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, The Thick Of It, Only Fools And Horses, Yes Minister, Screenwipe, Survivors, Being Human, Mock The Week, Have I Got News For You, Blood Sweat and Takeaways, every BBC4 documentary ever, Radio 1,2,3 and 4, not to mention the plethora of political shows like Question Time, This Week, Andrew Marr, Newsnight and The Politics Show that no other network even bothers with - and of course, the never failing news network. It is the world's best media outlet and we should be damned proud to spend as much money on it as possible, considering that along with tea, bacon sandwiches and cumberland sausages, it's about one of the only UK exports that isn't made of shit (I'm comparing against smallpox, imperialism, puritanism, slavery, chick lit, etc).
Put that up against ITV - which has Britain's Got Talent!, the X Factor and Martin Clunes' "vehicle" excuse for drama Doc Martin (they actually admit it's just his special way of keeping too famous to go on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here), and there really is no competition. You can hardly blame the Beeb for ITV being crap. Considering the license fee is something like £140 a year, that's a pretty good deal. Oh and iPlayer is free if you can't be bothered getting a tellybox.
Elections affect everybody. And that's why every eligible voter should think a little deeper about the impact their X will make - not only on their lives, or the careers of politicians - but on the lives of every other citizen of the country, and of every citizen of the international community, who feel the effect every time we go chraging off on a misjudged crusade or cause financial collapse in pursuit of greater profit, or when our actions endanger the environmental habitat of millions of people. We've got nothing to lose - and everything to win, and it's in our hands. Here's hoping enough of us make the right decision - whichever party that may lie with.
This is the reason why democracy is flawed; because although it gives every citizen a voice, far too many of those citizens take that voice for granted - and misuse it, either with a reactionary vote or through abstaining. It doesen't just boil down to people being stupid, or stupid people being manipulated by the media by the politicians (or vice versa) - it boils down to us accepting that. We don't have to vote for the "next best option". We're not even really meant to vote on a nationwide basis - the whole idea is that we elect an MP so our constituency is represented in Parliament. That doesen't give us any right to vote in a candidate that might affect other constituencies. Why should the choice of one old dear, hobbling down to the polling station in a fit of pearl-clutching fury affect me? We don't have to vote for a reforming government if our area doesen't need reform (though obviously it's better). How can you expect your MP to pay attention to their constituents when you elected them because you liked David Cameron? And how can you whine about underrepresentation when in the same sentence you damn all politicians as being self-serving, fat-cat swines? Disdain breeds disdain.
The other problem with democracy is that, in a modern, post-imperial nation like the UK, there are two many people for it work. Simply, nobody wants exactly the same things. There will never be more than 50% of the population in favour of the government - the other half essentially get no representation, and no voice. That's why the American Revolution kicked off, and if they started a war about it, then we should at least have a demo or two. This mobocracy is fuelled by another problem. There are more stupid idiot-type voters who treat political parties like football clubs than there are people who consider the options and make informed choices. Again, I'm not running on a Lib Dem ticket, but it's clear they're the thinking-man's party. Their policies genuinely make sense - ideas that make you wonder why they're not law already. But only about 40% of the population actually pay any attention to them - even less are swayed enough to vote orange.
So, come May, we'll see a gloriously smug David Cameron, complete with Mary on his arm, gliding into Number Ten - a smiling airbushed Prime Minister in a mock coronation (you might want to note here that Cameron's ancestor was George IV, the son of Queen Victoria) put on by gleefully Union Jack-waving peasants. That's what will happen - because a lot of boorish witch-hunting collaboratory types will vote in the Conservatives on the grounds that they're for "commun sence", and because everyone else won't bother to vote. Even the people who would gladly vote anything anti-Tory won't turn up, because the cynics - either in the dead-forest, flaming-clergy press, or in the slightly more cunning slick graphics of Sky News.
When Barack Obama mentioned that his election was a "victory against those who would choose cynicism and isolation and darkness, those who would doubt us and say we can't do it", (hence "yes we can!") he couldn't have had a better rally call. And that couldn't be more relevant to Britain today. The whole basis of the Conservative party is that they stand in favour of the establishment. They are fundamentally against change and reform and rebirth. David Cameron wants a return to austerity - the economic equivalent of tighening our belts, I suppose. But in tightening our belts, to continue that metaphor - we'll be starving ourselves. Everyone knows that to stimulate an economy you need more investment. The Conservatives' pledge to leave the NHS alone simply means they'll drain state schools and everything else till they run dry - including our gorgeous, blessed BBC.
And indeed the BBC is headed for a world of pain. The hostile media - so overt in its loaded criticisms (half the goddamn press is owned by Rupert Murdoch for christ's sake) and pearl-clutching outrage at stunts they've pulled a million times. It hasn't got the best PR department, though god knows if it was properly funded, someone would be able to conjure up outrage about it. A lot of people would have its bloated, overfed stomach pumped - cut down to size. If you cut the BBC down to the parts that won't compete with anyone else, all you will have left would be Radio Four and Blue Peter. The BBC is brilliant and the Tories only want it gone so that the red press will be happy. Think how many good programmes the Beeb airs - Wallander, Doctor Who, Blue Peter, Spooks, Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, The Thick Of It, Only Fools And Horses, Yes Minister, Screenwipe, Survivors, Being Human, Mock The Week, Have I Got News For You, Blood Sweat and Takeaways, every BBC4 documentary ever, Radio 1,2,3 and 4, not to mention the plethora of political shows like Question Time, This Week, Andrew Marr, Newsnight and The Politics Show that no other network even bothers with - and of course, the never failing news network. It is the world's best media outlet and we should be damned proud to spend as much money on it as possible, considering that along with tea, bacon sandwiches and cumberland sausages, it's about one of the only UK exports that isn't made of shit (I'm comparing against smallpox, imperialism, puritanism, slavery, chick lit, etc).
Put that up against ITV - which has Britain's Got Talent!, the X Factor and Martin Clunes' "vehicle" excuse for drama Doc Martin (they actually admit it's just his special way of keeping too famous to go on I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here), and there really is no competition. You can hardly blame the Beeb for ITV being crap. Considering the license fee is something like £140 a year, that's a pretty good deal. Oh and iPlayer is free if you can't be bothered getting a tellybox.
Elections affect everybody. And that's why every eligible voter should think a little deeper about the impact their X will make - not only on their lives, or the careers of politicians - but on the lives of every other citizen of the country, and of every citizen of the international community, who feel the effect every time we go chraging off on a misjudged crusade or cause financial collapse in pursuit of greater profit, or when our actions endanger the environmental habitat of millions of people. We've got nothing to lose - and everything to win, and it's in our hands. Here's hoping enough of us make the right decision - whichever party that may lie with.
Thursday, 7 January 2010
Storm In A Teacup
So, yeah. Gordon Brown - the guy everyone seems to think is the most incompetent, anti-photogenic and in general, useless Prime Minister ever - put out a pretty kickass PMQ performance yesterday. But this was immediatly overshadowed by Geoff Hoon and Patricia Hewitt's suicidal coup attempt hours later - basically, they emailed all the Labour MP's telling them they needed to have a secret vote on who should be the leader of the country. I mean, that's a pretty piss-poor revolution, especially for the guys who're meant to be the socialists, breaking down class barriers and guillotining the royal family with a blood-stained grin.
On the other hand, the Conservatives, having stopped bothering to hide the fact they'd love to reinstall the feudal hierarchy*, fired the first broadside in their campaign to win back government - but has everyone already forgotten? The massive snowfall across the UK - about a foot deep outside my house - and the subsequent media alarm (SNOW!! The end of the world! Stock up on water and canned food before it's too late! ARGH I'M FREEZING?!?!?!?!) seems to have whitewashed over the start of what should have been a massive publicity campaign. David Cameron spent most of the aforementioned Prime Minister's Questions doing his little war dance about "why don't you call the election already", which surely confirms the suspicion that Brown is not as stupid as some would have us believe. If he was, then he'd have lost the race already. And as the email plotters are swiftly rounded up and silenced (politically, I mean - suggesting the Labour party whips are Stazi enthusiasts might be overstepping the mark a little), the Conservatives are now wading in their own internal quagmire - David Cameron's central aide was found to have been arrested in 2008 for not producing a train ticket, then calling the policeman a wanker. Often referred to as Cameron's "brain", which is altogether slightly disconcerting, he has also been cited as the inspiration for The Thick Of It's character Stewart Pearson, an opposition spin doctor who often uses words like "fractioneering" to spur on his troops.
But although both of these are minor hiccups for either side, Gordon Brown is looking increasingly robust and unlikely to step down before and election. And whilst Labour aren't exactly the cool kids in the proverbial high school of politics, (if you listened to the booing in the clip of PMQ's, then you'll agree with me that our elected representatives act like preschool children), they're certainly the lesser of two evils. Because, like all right-wing parties - and the reason for this is unknown to me - all the Tories' airbrushed policies just seem to want to timewarp the country back to the 13th century, when the population was easily controlled by the Black Plague or through constant, apocolyptic wars with the European monarchies.
*Sorry if I'm taking a biased tone, it's just he's so fucking smug about everything.
On the other hand, the Conservatives, having stopped bothering to hide the fact they'd love to reinstall the feudal hierarchy*, fired the first broadside in their campaign to win back government - but has everyone already forgotten? The massive snowfall across the UK - about a foot deep outside my house - and the subsequent media alarm (SNOW!! The end of the world! Stock up on water and canned food before it's too late! ARGH I'M FREEZING?!?!?!?!) seems to have whitewashed over the start of what should have been a massive publicity campaign. David Cameron spent most of the aforementioned Prime Minister's Questions doing his little war dance about "why don't you call the election already", which surely confirms the suspicion that Brown is not as stupid as some would have us believe. If he was, then he'd have lost the race already. And as the email plotters are swiftly rounded up and silenced (politically, I mean - suggesting the Labour party whips are Stazi enthusiasts might be overstepping the mark a little), the Conservatives are now wading in their own internal quagmire - David Cameron's central aide was found to have been arrested in 2008 for not producing a train ticket, then calling the policeman a wanker. Often referred to as Cameron's "brain", which is altogether slightly disconcerting, he has also been cited as the inspiration for The Thick Of It's character Stewart Pearson, an opposition spin doctor who often uses words like "fractioneering" to spur on his troops.
But although both of these are minor hiccups for either side, Gordon Brown is looking increasingly robust and unlikely to step down before and election. And whilst Labour aren't exactly the cool kids in the proverbial high school of politics, (if you listened to the booing in the clip of PMQ's, then you'll agree with me that our elected representatives act like preschool children), they're certainly the lesser of two evils. Because, like all right-wing parties - and the reason for this is unknown to me - all the Tories' airbrushed policies just seem to want to timewarp the country back to the 13th century, when the population was easily controlled by the Black Plague or through constant, apocolyptic wars with the European monarchies.
*Sorry if I'm taking a biased tone, it's just he's so fucking smug about everything.
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