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  Sunday, September 20, 2009Those Bloody Scots!Everyone remembers 9/11, and most people agree it was the defining moment of the "Noughties." It changed everything. The hijackers of the planes flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center were predominantly from Saudi Arabia. It's a testament to the power of propaganda, then, that the U.S. and U.K. politicians got away with using the terrorist attacks to launch their very own - not on Saudi Arabia, no, but Afghanistan and Iraq, where Operation Iraqi Liberation began (later changed to Operation Iraqi Freedom, when White House adviser Karl Rove thought O.I.L. might be a bit too blatant a giveaway as to what they were really after). The War on TerrorTM had begun. Then came mass protests, the resignation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and American President George W. Bush Jr. seeing his approval ratings to the lowest levels since Harry Truman. And here we are, with HopeTM and ChangeTM as the brand-new brands bought by the general public, and - hey - everything is OK! Hmm. But what 9/11 also provided was - as one British spin doctor put it - "a good day to get out anything we want to bury." Jo Moore did her job, suggesting that coverage of the 9/11 terrorist attacks would dominate airtime so much that any other revelations would barely be noticed. Unfortunately for her, she was caught doing her job by the people, when her email suggestion was leaked, and she was fired - as if that sort of thing didn't happen all the time (they even took her advice!)  Blair's chief propagandist, the infamous and odious Alastair Campbell, supported her removal - because, I suppose, it gave spin doctors, y'know, a bad name. Were we to instead believe they never manipulated facts and events to portray a politician more favourably than they deserved? That they had our interests at heart? What exactly did Jo Moore do that was so wrong? I wouldn't be surprised if her contract and job description even included "advise Transport Secretary Stephen Byers...liaise with civil servants...bury bad news." She was just doing her job! (Just like Evening Standard journalists, according to Ken Livingstone)So, what's dominated the news the last several weeks? The release of the Lockerbie Bomber! You no doubt remembered the bombing of Pan-Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on December 21st, 1988 - and if you hadn't, you will have by now. I was just a kid at the time, and had pretty much forgotten about this horrific yet isolated incident until this summer.  Whereas Colonel Gaddafi looks like a used car salesman, the Libyan named Megrahi - or Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, if you're not into the whole brevity thing - looked like a killer! He had the Evil Staring EyesTM that are a must for any tabloid newspaper showing a guy to be a wrong 'un. He was tried and convicted of being responsible for the bombing of the plane. There has been some doubt as to whether or not he actually did it, but aside from that, this summer, he was suffering from terminal prostate cancer (so he was going to die, basically). That saved anyone calling for a death sentence! He was done; finished; kaput. Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice, released Megrahi on compassionate grounds for him to be returned to Libya to spend his last dying days in the desert.You'd think that would be the end of it, really; even if you were as Old Testament-badass enough to want the guy dead for what he did, he was indeed about to die, anyway. But no, that wasn't good enough! He had to stay in prison and die in Britain! I watched the news and almost expected to see people running through the streets of Scotland carrying flaming torches. They wanted him staying in his British cell, dying there, and - I'm only assuming, here - publicly gutting in front of Scottish children who were then to play with the entrails before burning them to prove their loyalty to the British Commonwealth. But seriously, every time I was in the pub for a peaceful pint of real ale, I'd glance at the television screen and see yet more coverage of the Lockerbie BomberTM! Days of it. Weeks of it! I was hoping Kanye West would interrupt the whole thing. And I couldn't help but thinking that - with a drawn-out, blown-up story like this one - the spin doctors would be busy burying the bad news that actually affects us all. Thanks, angry mobs! Thanks a bunch. One local chap even suggested this was the fault of the Scots themselves and the devolution of their parliament; "they have too much power!" He went on to suggest that with Gordon Brown as Prime Minister, and the whole line of Scottish blood through New Labour's history - from John Smith, to Tony Blair, to Alastair Campbell - the Scots were taking over Britain, and ruining it! Sabotage? You think? Oh yeah. Because, like, the Scots have really been bad, eh? Ah, the Scots. I'm from Northern England, but thanks to my Scottish neighbours up there, I'm from the heart of the country of Great Britain. The Scots gave us Robert Burns, Irvine Welsh, Billy Connelly, the Bay City Rollers, a football team called "Hamilton Academical," the Land Reform Act, and Grand Theft Auto. How could they be bad? They wear kilts!  What does a Scotsman wear under his kilt? Why, his shoes, of course! Nah, no one really hated the Scots. They were just pawns in a bigger game here. The racism wasn't directed at them. The friendly rivalry between the English and the Scots was used as an excuse to express the real racism: hatred of Asians and Muslims.I was in a seminar recently and one guy claimed the reason there weren't many jobs available for an ordinary white working class man like himself was because "the foreigners're takin' all the jobs." Mere minutes later, when prompted to take an opportunity to elaborate on his views, he said "I'm not racist," following it with that immortal word "but," before explaining "there's an Afghan guy moved in on the end of our street, and I know for a fact he's not got a job; I know for a fact he'll never ever work." I had to give it to him: he'd done his homework - he knew for a fact, after all, and was even able to see into the future. I wanted to hire him right there on the spot to work for me. So, in other words, if they do work, they take our jobs, and if they don't then they're lazy welfare recipients. Wow, and this is the thanks they give us for bombing their country into oblivion and driving them from their homes to all across the globe, eh? And this is what's funny about the case of the Lockerbie BomberTM. To keep him in prison here in Britain would have cost money. That's okay, I guess - but giving money to honest, hard-working Asians who are then free to use it to buy goods and services and boost our economy is wrong.  There is something deeply racist in the fibre of British society, and racism breeds extremism. Such racism surely has to be attributed to all the "positive" images Rupert Murdoch's Sky News and similar channels provide us of Muslims and Asians, eh? Forget the Scots - the Lockerbie BomberTM is not just a good way to bury bad news...he's the best enemy they can give us.- Jay Baker; South Yorkshire Labels: George W Bush, Gordon Brown, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair
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10:14 AM
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Sunday, August 23, 2009Pity ThemThey say there's a first time for everything, and I'm here to offer sympathy for some politicians. I know what you're thinking: "Ah, Jay Baker's caught swine flu, or he'll be blogging while drunk or something - he'll come to his senses later," but I shit you not! Bear with me here. Just after that time, of course, it emerged that - after giving the issue forty years of thought - 57% of the American population did not believe the official version of President John F Kennedy's assassination. No surprise there: the evidence of a conspiracy had been fairly well documented, not just by DA Jim Garrison's case (as adapted for the screen by Oliver Stone), but by the documents released by the CIA showing that an international assassin had been captured in Dallas just 48 hours after JFK had been shot dead, only to be flown out of the country by authorities! Conspiracy "theories" were never necessary with JFK - the facts made it obvious that Lee Harvey Oswald was exactly what he screamed he was not long before he, too, was shot dead: "just a patsy."
If this sounds familiar, it may be because, after the planes hijacked by mostly Saudi Arabian men flew into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers on September 11th, 2001, planes were seemingly grounded for all but the special flights helping Saudi members of the Bin Laden family from the U.S. Sure, it's true no skyscraper in American history had ever collapsed due to fire as a result of impact from a plane, it's true the twin towers were designed specifically to withstand collapse upon being hit by jetliners, it's true there has never been an acceptable explanation for the mysterious and entire collapse of World Trade Center's huge Building 7 later that day - and those are issues worth pursuing. But that doesn't mean it's a conspiracy, and heck, if it was a demolition job, why not openly have a demolition, spare the hijack hassle, collapse the twin towers, and just blame that on the terrorists, like the attack in 1993? And even without the pursuit of such fact-finding crusades, the very fact that the Bush Administration was repeatedly warned about the threat of an attack yet did little to nothing, the fact that the Bushes and Bin Ladens were doing business together, the fact that the former helped the latter flee the country after the attacks, and the fact that this was all used as an excuse to invade Afghanistan and, remarkably, Iraq, killing thousands of innocent civilians, is enough to complain about, by sticking to the facts. The entire government - the entire administration - could be discredited based on those facts alone, facts that have even been acknowledged by both politicians and the mainstream media! And with those facts alone, the Bushes and Blairs of the world could be put on trial, convicted, and imprisoned. Anything else leaves the questioners open to questioning, and even ridicule. When asked about the subject by Alternative Radio founder David Barsamian for the book What We Say Goes, Noam Chomsky said "Of the couple hundred letters I'm getting every day, the flood that's really abusive, which says, 'It's your responsibility to set this as your highest priority and to drop everything else,' is coming from the '9/11 truth' people. It's almost a kind of religious fanaticism." Who are these people, Michael Jackson fans or something? Since Jacko's death, internet forums showing any support of Jarvis Cocker's famous 1996 Brit Awards protest, or acknowledgment of MJ's suspect interactions with children, seem to have been met with flaming abuse. Who knew Jackson fans would turn out to be such tough little bastards baying for blood of anyone with a differing opinion? The 9/11 Truthers are picking on the 80 year-old Chomsky in a similar way, and all because he won't put all his other great work on the back-burner and join their conspiracy cause? "I suspect people in positions of power like it," explained Chomsky. "It's diverting enormous amounts of energy away from the real crimes of the administration, which are far more serious. Suppose they did blow up the World Trade Center? By their standards, that's a minor crime. Increasing the threat of nuclear war and environmental disaster is a far worse crime, which might lead to extinction of the species. Take the invasions of Iraq and Lebanon. Or look at what they're doing to working people in the United States. We can go on and on."
On February 16th, 2008, I took a Greyhound bus with my colleague and friend Lenna into Toronto to attend what was advertised as a protest against the Security & Prosperity Partnership, which is an undemocratic movement amongst North American politicians to open up the continent to adopting the USA's security policies, extending their "no-fly list," and make that beautiful, pure Canadian spring water a communal resource. When we arrived, we found ourselves surrounded by not New Democratic Party activists, but 9/11 Truthers carrying signs against a supposed "North American Union" and standing beside a bus bearing the slogan "Ron Paul Revolution" - referring to the American libertarian Republican who opposes gun control and abortion, wants less public spending by scrapping taxes altogether in addition to less government interference in the market (though despite the presence of that bus, he denies being a 9/11 Truther, saying "the blame goes to bad policy," not a conspiracy). As we wondered what we'd got ourselves into on this "SPP protest," our mouths dropped, and our hearts sank. Nonetheless, Lenna made the most of our day by going up onto the stage, grabbing the microphone, and announcing the imminent arrival of our incorporated social enterprise, SilenceBreaker Media (to which one protester responded - hilariously - by shouting "No! No more corporations!") The NDP people arrived as everyone was leaving, and I asked "Where the heck were you when we needed you?" and they just smiled politely, as usual. I'm guessing they got there late because they take public transit.
The thing is, the military spending and presence around the world can still increase, as it looks set to, and health care plans can still be compromised, as they are being right now. Nothing Obama’s done has been particularly radical. And of course, they never were going to be. The Democrats are Republican Lite™ - they're still right-wing capitalists, despite the Republican cries of "socialist" at the President, which I'm sure he actually loves because it appeases the antsy lefties and progressives who helped him rise to power and now take a break from anti-war activism, while he sends more troops into Afghanistan, stalls on closing Gitmo, and goes easy on the bankers who essentially committed an act of terrorism on the country and its people. They were all so busy believing in Hope™ and Change™ before celebrating the removal of the GOP that they neglected to look at what exactly would really be changed: very little. American politics being as it is, things are not going to get that much better. But I'm not the bearer of bad news, not at all: when I say politics, I'm talking about party politics - because while the race for the White House features a choice of two parties (one more than the Soviet Union, as Jesse Ventura likes to say), Ralph Nader's raiders and the real grassroots activists can still cause real change. Change will come from the bottom-up, not the top-down. As Shami Chakrabarti told me in Escape from Doncatraz, "I don't believe people are any less political than they've ever been - they're just less party political."
As time went by, this - along with his increase of child poverty while increasing the number of billionaires, and introducing unprecedented debt for students while also attacking the health service - made Blair extremely unpopular. Even though it was damaging his party beyond repair, and his refusal to regulate the financial sector threatened to damage the economy beyond realistic recovery, Blair kept hanging on and hanging on, welching on the handshake deal he had with Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown (who refused to challenge him for leadership of the Labour Party in 1994 in return for supposed control over domestic policy and becoming his successor in around 2003). Blair in fact held on for a further four long years, by which time Britain was a mess. You can almost imagine Blair saying to Brown, "Sorry for the delay, old boy, but I've finally got this little country for you," as he holds his hands outwards and offers a clump of dirt, "And apologies for leaving it such a shit state, mate. Goodbye, now - I'm off to convert to Catholicism, write a book, get a tan, and be envoy to those rag-heads in the Middle East. Good luck, and so long, sucker!"
Brown's presided over a mess that Blair left him. As Blair's been tanning, Brown's gone pale with worry. While Blair's almost salvaged a reputation despite being a war criminal, Brown will be the one remembered for leading Britain into its darkest hour. It's not really fair and I, for one, feel sorry for the bloke! Do I agree with him on most things? Not by any stretch of the imagination - come on, I haven't taken complete leave of my senses here! But it's Blair we ought to despise most, not Brown. Blair's been the worst Prime Minister in decades, even worse than Margaret Thatcher because, while Blair was a wolf in sheep's clothing, her disguise was as transparent as the wolf in grandma's bed in front of the Little Red Flag-flying lefties. She chewed us up and spat us out - just like she said she would. No one was there to save us, and no one has been since. While Barack Obama's got some old CIA links, there was no OO7 in Britain able to rescue us from the jaws of recession.
At the end of the day, these politicians are still people. They're part of a system that's rigged to keep the right-wing capitalists in power, and in control. And in accordance with capitalism, they have to play dog-eat-dog, while getting their media mogul friends to create stories encouraging you and I to play kick-the-dog. As a result, we've blamed refugees, immigrants, Muslims, welfare recipients; you name it - anyone at the bottom of the barrel, because it's easier to kick them when they're down than reach the rich and powerful up at the top, especially when the press don't highlight what they're up to much. But of course recently, the papers have been showing what I already exposed over a year ago in my film Escape from Doncatraz: politicians fiddling their expenses to get a bit extra. And while Shami Chakrabarti was right about people being "less party political," it's not necessarily a good thing. We've all heard the conversations in the pub: "Ah, they're all the same, them politicians; they all piss in the same pot." That cynicism was never stronger than in the recent European elections where - just as we did in the 1970s and 80s, allowing Thatcher to take hold of power - the working classes stayed at home, and didn't vote. The percentage of votes for the racist BNP rose as a result, giving the impression that people were, in fact, turning to them (they weren't; the BNP’s votes actually dropped). But this is the danger that comes with cynicism and apathy. We can't afford to sit at home and disconnect from it all - the thing with democracy is, you either use it or lose it. Just vote - even if you have to vote for the "evil of two lessers." When hearing I was writing this, my friend and talented playwright Gary, brilliant as ever, suggested I play the Rolling Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil in the background, it might help." It did make me think: choosing the evil of the lessers is better than nothing. I mean, the Devil got cast out, and it doesn't look like things improved much around here as a result, did it?
As Neil Young sang, "keep on rockin' in the free world..." - Jay Baker; South Yorkshire You can read a compilation of Jay Baker's best blogs from the past several years, and a few exclusives, in his brand-new book "Soon To Be Banned: Musings of a Media Activist," available here. Labels: Barack Obama, Escape from Doncatraz, Gordon Brown, Iraq, JFK, Tony Blair, War on Terror
posted by Jay Baker at
11:07 AM
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Friday, March 13, 2009An End to Brown-Nosing"(Milton) Friedman created this crisis! He is dead and, really, it's too bad. I'd like to see him arraigned before the International Court of Justice for crimes against humanity. With his idea that market operation is perfect, he let all greed, all human voracity, express itself openly." - Michel Rocard, former Prime Minister of France Let's go back in time eighty years, before it all began...  The Wall Street crash of 1929 was economically devastating for the United States, and its knock-on effect was felt across the Atlantic, in my homeland of Britain; the reverberations of which would affect my grandfather (and, therefore, my father) to forever fear the "rainy day" and hold onto as much cash as possible at all costs (when my grandfather died - after successfully resisting ever opening a bank account - literally thousands of pounds was found, in cold crisp cash, in hiding places all over his house).On top of the Great Depression, Britain had even greater financial difficulties following the Second World War of 1939-1945, which drained much of its remaining resources in the fight against fascism. By this time, economist John Maynard Keynes had arrived to identify the solutions to these problems, and put in place a series of proposals for measures that were adopted by the British government. While U.S. President Franklin D Roosevelt was enjoying the realisation of his "New Deal" economic stimulus programmes, post-war Prime Minister Clement Attlee (now considered to be the best British premier of the 20th century) utilised the Beveridge Report that nationalised many industries, funded education, provided welfare, and created the National Health Service - all of which were accepted as backbones of British society for decades...until the Conservative Party's Margaret Thatcher came along, breaking its back, and brandishing her own Ridley Report that recommended smashing the strongest unions by brute force in order to reduce workers' rights, which she did by defeating the National Union of Mineworkers in 1985. Along with Republican Ronald Reagan, she then embraced economist Milton Friedman's ideas of privatisation and deregulation and essentially everything that led to our current troubles. On May 6th, 2005, I wrote a blog about the British election titled "The End is the Beginning is the End," in which I predicted Gordon Brown would, indeed, replace Tony Blair as Prime Minister. In that blog, I also called Brown "a darling of the big business Brown-nosing lobbyists." Also predicting that Brown's lack of charisma would lead to Labour's eventual defeat, I suggested this might create an opportunity for the socialist back-benchers and trade unionists to take back control of the party. That's how it unfolded. That's how it began. Blair, discredited largely by his decision to illegally invade Iraq on top of his continuation (and, arguably, extension) of Thatcherism, resigned as Prime Minister, and Gordon Brown, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer forced to fund such decisions, finally took his place. Brown's since inherited financial shockwaves strong enough to send an economic tsunami across the ocean; the biggest since the original crash, today a "crunch." Hilariously, it's the Tories who are claiming they're the ones to do something different! And while Brown's not totally to blame for this mess, nor is he the Keynesian problem-solver he'd like to believe, and he has to recognise that his lack of popularity is indeed precisely because there's not enough difference between the major parties. Next you'll be telling me that the Liberal Democrats are for tuition fees and war in the Middle East! Wait, they are? Oh, well, there you go. There has to be investment in welfare, in education, in health-care, in transport, in training, and in the cultural sector, which will benefit other sectors, too. Capitalism has failed, and socialism is no longer a dirty word. It's the only option left now, logically. But do Labour have the guts to re-embrace it at this hour? Last night here in the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire I attended a meeting called "Re-engaging Citizens in Democratic Politics" with Prof Gerry Stoker (who wrote Why Politics Matters) and Sheffield University's very own Prof Colin Hay (author of Why We Hate Politics). It was an interesting event seeking to look at why people are turned-off by politics, with topics ranging from election reform to the importance of politicians interacting with people more. I think it goes much further, much deeper, and much darker than that. If you're still awake and reading this, I'll tell you what I took from the findings... According to statistics pointed-out by the professors, the working class are less likely to vote than anyone else, and voter turn-out plummeted as soon as New Labour rose to power. Now, these things seem to state something very obvious: once Labour allowed itself to be guided by the twice-disgraced Peter Mandelson, away from social democracy and towards embracing big business, the mass majority of working class people, feeling betrayed, simply stayed at home, or decided to protest. Anyone with a memory not affected by two hundred satellite channels of (un)reality shows and eMpTyV editing knows the Tories won't do better if they get into power; they themselves are at the root cause of the whole situation. But even if Gordon Brown is booted and - as I've been predicting - David Miliband becomes Labour leader, it won't make much difference because the party itself isn't much different so long as it's New Labour. Milliband's ready to receive the Obama treatment, giving the perception of ChangeTM and HopeTM with no tangible substance to go with the style. Sure, his father was a Marxist, but both Blair and Brown were considered to be socialists once, too. He may be referred to as a social democrat, but his voting record is absolutely appalling. No wonder we don't vote, then. Like Obama, Miliband is a slippery fish, only likely to offer very light relief. No, the party needs fundamental across-the-board changes. Here in Britain today, we have all three major political parties on the right. This means that not a single one of them reflects the interests of the mass majority; the working class population. There is no representation whatsoever of any sense of spectrum in politics, of anything other than their own greed and corporate friends.  That is why fewer and fewer people are engaged in the democratic process - it's like going to a supermarket and having a choice between Coke and Pepsi: sure, they're constantly engaged in fierce competition with each other, but both are bad for you; it's just that one is red and the other is blue. That's pretty much it. When we go into a bar and ask for a "Jack Daniels and Coke" and the bartender replies "Is Pepsi okay?" we tell them of course it is, because most sane people really couldn't give a shit - there's no significant difference! It's the same with the major political parties: there's no difference, so we don't give a shit. Thus, low turnout.Labour has to turn back now. They have to stop the foreign policy of aggression, they have to stop privatisation, they have to stop ignoring the unions, they have to stop selling off public housing, they have to stop eroding civil liberties; all of it. They must stop now and turn back, because it's the only way they can save themselves long-term, and save us. Like the anti-heroes of The Italian Job, they're finding themselves in a money-filled bus that's on the edge of a cliff, but with Michael Caine nowhere in sight to offer "a great idea." Sometimes we find ourselves back where we began. But it's inevitable when we go around in circles, in the same place. Now is the time to stick it to New Labour. And the Tories. Heck, the Liberal Democrats, too. Their warmongering corporate interests and their ilk from elsewhere must be held accountable. That's why, on April Fools Day, people are heading to London as the G20 arrive for their little conference. The bailed-out bankers and Brown-nosing lobbyists will be subjected to the wrath of the commoner. This common man, for one, will be there to play the fool. I hope you will, too. - Jay Baker; Doncaster, England Labels: Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher, New Labour, Tony Blair
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3:27 PM
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Wednesday, August 6, 2008Blighty Blighted!Heard the news from the British media lately? The whole country's in trouble - the waves of immigrants, house prices plummeting at alarming rates, waves of immigrants, Madeleine McCann still missing, waves of immigrants, vermin in the hospitals (probably, in fact, immigrants), and waves of immigrants. Yep, the news is bleak. There's something terribly wrong with the country, isn't there? But who's to blame? Is it, in fact, the immigrants entering the country, taking our precious jobs such as pizza delivery and driving cabs? Forget the fact that, as documented in my film Escape from Doncatraz, there are barely more people entering Britain than there are leaving it (to get away from foreigners, according to some noted in my film). Marlene Guest, fascist British National Party candidate for Rotherham, was also interviewed in 'catraz and told me the country was "gonna sink" if they let in any more people. Bloody hell! Sink? Really?! Being from the Socialist Republic of Sheffield, it's even more shocking, then, that the BNP actually gained a foothold in the neighbouring town of Rotherham in this past May's local elections just hours after I held the world premiere for Escape from Doncatraz. If only I'd been sooner. The BNP had a 28.7% average share of the vote in the town, contesting five seats on Rotherham's council and winning two of them - in the process ousting the sitting mayor, Allan Jackson (from the New Labour Party.) And the key to all this may be in the last three words of that sentence, because when Tony Blair made Labour "New" in his image, the working classes - the masses - were betrayed, and Labour left a void that the BNP are now filling. Hey, it worked for the Nazis in 1930s Germany, right? If people are in poverty, blame the foreigners, blame the immigrants, blame the Jews - just, whatever you do, don't blame capitalism. As singer-songwriter Ray Hearne says in 'catraz, "it's an old, old game." Other news stories from the May election time included the fact that "Red" Ken Livingstone - who had allowed Londoners on welfare to receive discount-price travel thanks to an oil deal with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez - lost his position as Mayor of London to one Boris Johnson, an absolute buffoon from the Conservative Party and distant relative of King George II (no, not King George Bush II). Ken Livingstone, an independent candidate, had previously represented Labour, booted from the party by leader Tony Blair, who said "Red Ken" would be a "disaster" for London if made Mayor. Blair later admitted he was wrong (for once), and he was - it's Boris Johnson who's the "disaster."  Not the prettiest of people either, Boris Johnson's change of job caused a by-election for Henley, where Louise Cole and Amanda Harrington ran representing the surprisingly feminist "Miss Great Britain Party," whose intention was "to make Westminster sexy, not sleazy." Meanwhile, a model of some fame and reigning Miss Great Britain, Gemma Garrett, ran in the Crewe and Nantwich by-election as well as in the Haltemprice and Howden by-election - which was caused by the resignation of MP David Davis.So just when we thought it was "Labour/Tory, same old story," things got interesting. David Davis is a name you may find familiar, and this is probably because he was the "other" candidate in the race for leadership of the Conservative Party, against the eventual winner, David Cameron, the molly-coddled Eton boy (and, like Boris Johnson, a "blue-blood" - related to King William IV!) David Davis quit because he was concerned about the rise of the "surveillance state" in Britain, the home of the largest DNA database, the highest concentration of CCTV cameras, and the obsession with compulsory ID cards. Credit to the Tory, then, for his Churchillian principles. Meanwhile, though, instead of being reminded of all this crap by the corporate media outlets, we get updates on what The Beckhams are doing. Or they get us looking the other way with their stories of "waves of asylum seekers" coming into the country, the two party leaders outgunning each other in election debates over how many people they can deport. Imagine how much better we'd all be if they outgunned each other on, say, how many corporate crooks were captured, or maybe how much they were going to increase corporate tax! "I'm going to deport Rupert Murdoch for tax evasion!" "Yeah? Well I'm going to tighten border controls so companies can't shift factories overseas!" But that doesn't happen. Instead they have us pointing fingers at each other. Illegal aliens invading our homeland? It's like some kind of 1950s sci-fi B-movie! And even those films were inspired by America's morbid fear of communism that had its people distracted for so long. Art imitates life, and the "Reds under the beds" scares led to the infamous McCarthy witch-hunts that went into Hollywood. It's something still happening to this day in one way or another, with right-wing writers like Cindy Osborne attacking actors against the war. Those with vested interests get worried when art starts questioning things (I've experienced it myself as a filmmaker). They much prefer to keep us apathetic and ignorant to their ways and what they're doing to our country; they'd much rather we keep watching their programs that don't say anything or question anything. Shockingly, UK voting turnouts had for decades been decreasing, while about forty million votes were registered for the reality television show Big Brother. They nurtured our voyeuristic tendencies to take us to our television sets to watch ordinary people belch, fart, and scratch their arses, becoming famous for doing very little. It's one thing living vicariously through a soap opera, but another thing to make stars from bad next-door neighbours merely literally living on television. It's a TV show that doesn't require us to think, even though I know we're capable of extending our concerns beyond reality TV and celebrities. I know this because Big Brother is getting desperate, adding features to the program as they lose viewers now the novelty is fading and people are starting to realize there's a lot more important stuff going on here - and in 2005 more British people voted than in many elections before. Heck, with the current rise of the "surveillance state," we've seen many protests against Big Brother...and not all of them were about the TV show, if you know what I mean.  So, just how has politics been able to catch up with Big Brother? Well, they tried to garner similar numbers by using media celebrities as politicians! Arnold Schwarzenegger, son of a Nazi and Adolf Hitler sympathizer, ran for Governor of California and won, because of his celebrity. British "Page 3 Girl" Katie "Jordan" Price stood as a candidate in Greater Manchester in 2001, and former porn star Ilona "La Cicciolina" Staller became a member of Italian parliament before attempting to enter Hungarian politics.The "Miss Great Britain Party" - one step ahead of even Paris Hilton and her own proposed presidential bid in America - was just the next logical step, except this time these well-known yet concerned citizens have used their celebrity to harm the politicians, not help them, or be used by them. Paving the way for celebrities to be accepted in politics has finally caught up with the bastards. And why not go with it? Britain is in so much trouble, with so little hope and so little light at the end of the tunnel (not least for the refugees crawling under the English Channel), its future seems the most bleak of all the Western countries, having had Tony Blair tear up the magna carta, Gordon Brown be blamed for the economy that's simply too tied to America's, and no obvious difference between New Labour and the Conservatives. Britain's desperate, so there's no wonder the electorate are turning back to the tabloids and televisions. Maybe celebrity culture isn't such a bad thing after all. Now, when are we going to make former Skunk Anansie singer Skin the Prime Minister of Britain? - Jay Baker; Kitchener, Canada Labels: BNP, George W Bush, Gordon Brown, McCarthy, Nazis, New Labour, Skin, Tony Blair
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Monday, July 2, 2007SEND THEM BACK! (Part 1)The news these days! Eeeeh, I don't know... Now Madeleine McCann's story has, predictably, gone with no resolution, the papers have had to switch back to some other sensational stories: Prince Harry supposedly hitting on a girl in a bar in Canada; Paris Hilton in jail, then out of jail, then in and out again; exploding cars in Scotland, which wants to be free from Britain and its foreign policy anyway; and professional wrestler Chris Benoit killing his family then himself over three long days - called an act of "roid rage" by the press (yep, a rage lasting three days even - because, naturally, all screaming, stupid, salivating, sweaty pro wrestlers are on steroids and therefore pure evil...it's the only thing about the business worth reporting on since they refuse to cover it under Sports or Soap Operas). Oh, and Gordon Brown, the man with no charisma, became Prime Minister. Aside from these, though, there is one tried-and-tested story that's always been useful for dividing communities and distracting each individual from how the Powers That Be are royally shafting us: immigration! Yep, immigration remains a hot topic in the British press. Labour Party deputy leader candidate Hazel Blears caused controversy around her campaign when she claimed immigrants were involved in anti-social behaviour and street drinking (because, like, we've all seen Muslim immigrants coming here just to get rat-arsed...boy, do those Islamists love their drugs - the Koran reads like a drug instruction manual, after all!) But the scream for attention didn't work for ol' Hazel "I Heart Blairs" Blears; her fellow female candidate, Harriet Harman, took the job, and joined Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister who wasn't even elected by the British people. Our current Prime Minister is unelected! But then, hey, so is our head of state, Queen Elizabeth II. Ah, our country is still a true example of democracy and Freedom®. The thing is, even now, long after the Tories based their entire pathetic general election campaign on outgunning the opposition on how many "foreigners" and "gypsies" they were going to boot from Britain, we are still reading racially-charged comments from politicians in the newspapers run by media moguls. Together, they don't tell us to pity the poor immigrant - they tell us to hate them, reject them as "scroungers" and "spongers" on the state, claiming as much as - shock, horror! - forty quid a week in welfare, yet often leaving comfortable homes in their native countries that we watched get blown up through our TV sets. Yeah, let's detain or even deport these people, and they can face the heat back home! Ha! What's that you say, Abdul? Your liberal-mindedness and desire for democracy back home has made its bosses hell-bent on killing you and cutting you into itty-bitty pieces? Whatever, son - back there you go, you coward! (Kids, don't watch what happens next!) That'll teach 'em to come into our country and ask for help and hand-outs! Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch avoids taxes that could have regenerated our communities his right-wing beliefs destroyed, and Tony Blair goes on a world tour, prepares for publishing deals and book signings, and converts to Catholicism, because, like George W Bush, he's had God on his side all along, damn it! Ah, there's nothing quite like the rewards of being hated by your people and bombing dark-skinned territories back into the dark ages, eh? Let's canonize him at the zenith! Ahem. Saint Tony Blair, the war criminal. Sounds strange? It shouldn't - the Pope was in the Hitler Youth! Yet still these right-wing newspapers like The Sun support the corrupt Labour Party, and instead distract us with stories of these immigrants, these lesser people, these aliens! They tell us to "send them back"! They tell us to tighten border controls, they tell us to beware the Muslims, and they tell us to support the War on TerrorTM. They report "news" that is so very crucial to our everyday lives, news that effects each and every one of us: like stories on Madeleine McCann, or Paris Hilton, or Chris Benoit. They drone on about the royal family, and Prince Harry; his time in the armed forces and whether or not he should serve over in Iraq. My, my, should Prince Valiant be put in harm's way over there? Surely that's only a place for the likes of the 150+ working class kids who already got killed! You know: those young 'uns who joined the forces for the Ministry of Defence and instead were sent on the offence, to conquer a country for Big Business. As for the hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians we supposedly went over there to "liberate"? Well, they're just Iraqis, so no one seems to care. Yep, in the video game world of Operation Iraqi Liberation (O.I.L.), a British life is inevitably worth far more than an Iraqi. So after we've bombed these countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, it should be no coincidence that the two primary nationalities of people seeking asylum in countries all around the world, including ours are - you guessed it! - Afghan and Iraqi. They leave everything they ever knew; homes, loved ones, livelihoods, and risk their lives to reach Western civilization...and then they realize that some of us aren't so civilized after all... The British National(ist) Party, led by Nick Griffin, gain votes by wearing suits and spreading what I call the Kick the Dog Syndrome; "if you don't have a job, blame the dark-skinned immigrant who came in and got one working at the car-wash for a few quid a day!" When really, the BNP is the same people who wore jackboots and braces and goose-stepped through our ghettos just a few years ago; they hate anyone here who isn't white. And the major political parties and people in power feed this, through immigration policies as well as anti-terror laws that, as a nice little coincidence, also take away our civil liberties and our right to protest. The last general election was all about who was going to beat up on asylum seekers more; it was like some weird Frankie Goes to Hollywood music video, seeing suits rolling up their sleeves and trying to out-tough their opponent. They say they ought to speak the language, they ought to wear jeans, they ought to "mix" and "fit in"...as if the BNP nurture a multiracial environment! Remember Norman Tebbit's "cricket test"? The old Tory suggested that immigrants shouldn't remain fans of teams from the lands in which they grew up, which is like telling me that if I live in Canada, I'm not allowed to follow Doncaster Rovers anymore. Even if Toronto FC are losing too - c'mon! - I'd still miss seeing my old team struggle! Well, if we're talking about deporting people who just aren't quite British enough for ya, let's start with the royals themselves! After all, these ruling blue-bloods are nothing but a bunch of Germans. It's true! The royal family are German. And I'm not talking about the infamous photo of Prince Harry dressed in a Nazi outfit; I mean they're bloody Germans! Prince Albert was a German, and he married Princess Victoria, who would become Queen Victoria. Aye, there's a lot of foreign blood in there them royals, and they've got to go! Get 'em!  So let's get them packing up their stuff in their palatial homes. Because I have an idea that would end the whole "should he stay or should he go" Prince Harry debate straight away; I say, sure, send him to Iraq...but why stop there? Send the whole family! And let's make it a one-way ticket. Put them to purpose - we pay them enough! And it's a lot more than £40 a week, I assure you. In fact, in 2004, the royals cost British taxpayers thirty-seven million pounds - and the sale was on that year, folks, because they cost much more than that in previous years. Thirty-seven million quid! What a bargain. And while I'm a bad guy for taking a polluting plane to shoot a documentary overseas, the Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall cost us £345,710 for one chartered flight to the Gulf and Bosnia. Man, has no one told them about Expedia? They could've saved us some cash and given it to the poor or something. "Shut up, Jay, you pinko commie!" Sorry, what was I thinking? Silly me! It's okay, I'm back to my senses now. So, where was I? Ah, about sending the royals to Iraq... Remember, old Queenie delivered a Christmas speech a few years back supporting the attack on Iraq by standing in front of a row of tanks. Well, she can bloody well go and get in one! I'm sure Lizzy's prepared to put her money where her mouth is and fight as one of those on the front lines. Plus, it's a better job than prostitution, an industry which, in a sense, she's been a part of for so long - as the British people paid such large amounts of money to see her do nothing but walk around in fancy costume like some high-class whore. "Ooh! More tea, vicar?" Just...no. Way too weird. Even after we've sent the royals to Basra instead of Bavaria, there's a lot left to do, and the punch-line of the joke for the BNP and all those who hate foreigners living in our country is the fact that we're all, well...how can I put this? Hmm, okay: JK Rowling, in her Harry Potter stories, called it a "mud-blood." Well, that's what we all are. Yep, us British are a mixture of all kinds of peoples. Why? Because Britain, this little island, was the single most bullied, picked-on and invaded territory of ancient times. The Celts showed up and spread their filthy seed, as did the Romans, the Germans (Anglo-Saxons), the Scandinavians (Vikings), and the French (Normans). For centuries, it wasn't just about rape, pillage, and plunder; it was also about, eventually, settling in together, getting cosy, trying the crazy concept of consensual sex, and having one big happy orgy! So, most of us - their offspring - are a bit of everything. And heck, even further back than that, science suggests the origins of all human life (Homo erectus, later Homo sapiens) lie in the African savanna. Africa for goodness sake! We're all Africans! Shocking how we Homo-whatevers treat our original Homo-home of Africa these days. (There's that word again - hmm, I guess we're all Homos too; someone tell the Eastern Europeans to stop beating up Right Said Fred - too sexy for that blood-stained Union flag shirt!)  In the Second World War, the Nazis persecuted gays, socialists, Jews, you name it. All kinds were defended by the British, and we are all kinds, as you can see - from all over the place. Oh dear. All kinds, huh? It seems we British are not such magnificent specimens of the master race after all, are we, Mr Griffin? Especially you, you right-wing pillock. - Jay Baker; Sheffield, England Labels: Gordon Brown, New Labour, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair
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Monday, May 1, 2006No More HeroesIn a previous blog I talked about the eternal Prime Minister-in-waiting and implied most people thought he was a Stranglers song, Golden Brown. Well now another Stranglers classic seems relevant to reference: No More Heroes. In that song, the band suggested that all the great heroes had died away, such as Leon Trotsky (who, instead of being believed when he warned of the imminent rise of Nazism, got an ice pick stuck in his head for his troubles). Well, these days, our heroes haven't been killed. Instead, they just seem to have sold-out, one by one.  Whatever happened to...The Labour PartyWhen I was a kid growing up in South Yorkshire, Labour represented the masses, as opposed to the Conservatives who served the vested interests of big business - the clout of which was used to misinform the rest of us who voted for the Tories. But in spite of the corporate press propaganda about Labour's historical irresponsibility with the economy (in fact messed up by the Tories and inherited by the incoming Labour government), Labour came close to gaining power several times. The party's politicians like David Blunkett, John Prescott, and, yes, even Tony Blair were socialists dedicated to opposing the right-wing policies of the Conservatives. Neil Kinnock, however, was being told that Labour would always be that close second so long as they weren't wooing the cash of the big businesses to fund campaigns that would sway the majority. As a result, he softened the party's socialism and the money slowly but surely started to flow. After he left, John Smith became leader, and he further set out a plan to shift the party away from its socialist roots. He clearly decided the money (and, thus, power) was to be found not with the unions, but with the corporations. Instead of resisting this, Blunkett, Prescott, and Blair went along with it, and in fact, when Blair took over from Smith when he himself died (of a heart attack), he went even further. New Labour was born - the so-called "Third Way" - and everyone in the party seemed so seduced by the prospect of that long-elusive power, nobody complained, and if they had any conscience over selling-out their principles, they didn't show it. Tony Blair even achieved the impossible, by gaining the support of media mogul Rupert Murdoch, who had his leading tabloid The Sun switch sides from the old grey Tories to New Labour. The national newspaper of propaganda was the last great weapon Blair needed, and, whilst removing his jacket and throwing it over his shoulder to trick the working class party faithful into trusting him, he walked into 10 Downing Street, where he's been ever since. During that time, of course, he's started to privatize as much as possible; created draconian laws to restrict public protest and civil liberties; waged wars alongside American neo-cons; and, when the British public tried to tell him they were sick to death of him, sacked his cabinet when the terrible election results came in. Labour are dead, in more ways than one - how long until Murdoch's media returns to the Conservatives? And will it really make a difference to you or I now that these two parties have such similar policies?  Whatever happened to...Bob GeldofBob Geldof, of course, shot to fame as front-man of the Boomtown Rats, best known for their hit I Dont Like Mondays. But his legacy remains the Live Aid concert of 1985, followed more recently by Live 8 in 2005, both organized to raise funds for poverty in Africa. However, in spite of being referred to as a political activist, Sir Bob failed to use the momentum to attack Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan (arguably the proliferators of capitalism and unfair foreign policy, and therefore causes of Third World starvation). He also refused to support the miners' strikes, and, recently, even buddied up to Tony Blair and George W Bush, after he'd sold his production company Planet 24 for seven million pounds and his online travel company for seventeen million. His marketing company Ten Alps has a subsidiary that creates branded environments for such fine organizations as GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft, and BP. Geldof's worth thirty million pounds, but his continued support for capitalists, his corporate investments, and his charity organizations all mean that not only is the Third World likely to continue to suffer, but it'll be the likes of you and me, and not him, that are expected to cough up to help.  Whatever happened to...Anita RoddickDame Anita Roddick is the founder of The Body Shop, which sold natural beauty products that were considered ecologically sustainable. In spite of being a chain store, the shop became a huge success with the more ethical consumer, and Roddick made millions from it. However, rightly or wrongly taking a leaf from the playbook of Bob Geldof (and even Gandhi) as a privileged person ready to "save" the masses, she once famously tried living on the street as though she were homeless in order to raise the plight of the underclass, and generally fought the cause of ethical business. She wrote an autobiography entitled Business as Unusual, where she talked about being morally responsible as an entrepreneur. However, this year, Roddick sold The Body Shop to L'Oreal, the most unethical cosmetics company in the world, for six hundred and fifty-two million pounds. L'Oreal is also part-owned by Nestle, which has been condemned as unethical for years. Whilst Roddick has asked critics to focus on Nestle - and her staunchest of supporters have claimed the ethics of The Body Shop may spread through these other companies - the motivation for the sell-out was pure greed. The Body Shop was doing just fine, but Roddick took the money and ran.  Whatever happened to...Tom AndersonYou can't use the term "took the money and ran" without mentioning MySpace itself, after its founder, Tom Anderson, sold it all to Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation for five hundred and eighty million dollars. And with the site's all-new terms and conditions, everything you and I put on MySpace becomes copyright...not by us, but by them: News Corporation. Except this blog. I'm not sure they'd particularly want this, anyway. But as they may be reading, I have to say: Tom, I'm not your friend, so don't presume it. I hate when people add me to their MySpace friends without knowing me, just to look popular. Whatever happened to all the heroes? I'm sure you can (and will) add more to the list. But it sure looks like we're left with no more heroes. That is, none at all in the ivory towers of the corporations or in the corridors of power. The true heroes are to be the same as they've always been: those like you and I. From where we stand is where Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela came, not in a high-tech television studio or a government chamber, not in any office furnished with the finest materials and decorations, paid for by our taxes and subscriptions. The birthplace of the true hero is the street, just like John Lennon said. And that's why it's always the most difficult existence; the streets aren't paved with gold and the pockets aren't lined with gold, either. It's easy to take the money and run, as we've seen. But what difference does that make? Go ahead - be a hero; a hero like those neither rich nor famous. Those like Jill Phipps, Rachel Corrie, and Flt Lt Malcolm Kendall-Smith, to name but a few. "If you want to be a hero, then just follow me." - John Lennon. - Jay Baker; Sheffield, England Labels: George W Bush, Gordon Brown, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair
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Friday, May 6, 2005The End is the Beginning is the EndLike me and my website, my fellow British readers are perhaps sporting the colour black today...because Tony Blair is still in power as I write on this morning of May 6th, 2005. But, even though it's important that he soon loses his job as Prime Minister, the election was still a good one! Here's why... Firstly, largely due to the attack on Iraq and the subsequent mass protests, the voter turnout was actually higher than the last election, breaking the apathetic downward spiral of recent years. Secondly, former Labour leader Neil Kinnock had more of the population's vote as a loser in the 1992 election than Tony Blair has received as a winner in this or the last election! And finally, the Liberal Democrats - the only anti-war party in the mainstream - was also one of the few to make such huge improvements on their previous performance in terms of votes; had our election been based on proportional representation, the Liberal Democrats would have doubled their amount of Parliamentary power to about 140 seats (see The Independent this week for more on this). Weeks before the election, New Labour MP Brian Sedgemore defected to the Liberal Democrats, and encouraged people to give Blair's party "a bloody nose." And after the television debates, which - like the American election television debate of 1960 - featured a Kennedy against a sweating warmongering liar, New Labour were given just that, losing a hundred seats from their majority, with masses of Labour voters joining Sedgemore himself and switching to Charles Kennedy and the Liberal Democrats. Okay, so a majority of the seats went with New Labour, and a majority of the voters did, too (albeit only just). But this is because those who have been betrayed by the party since 1997 figured the Tories are slightly worse, and are only recently coming round to the reality that there's no longer any major difference between the two. Also, many didn't realize they were able to vote for the Liberal Democrats; the rest just saw a vote for the "third party" as doing more good for the Tories than harming New Labour. Even Billy Bragg expressed this belief in May 2nd's edition of The Independent - particularly embarrassing because that very newspaper had just days before printed results from a study that showed the Tories weren't able to win through the proverbial back door, rendering his rant invalid. But unfortunately Billy's not the only one forgetting to read The Independent and, as it happened, a lot of good people voted for New Labour simply because they feared the worst: the Tories. But many, many others voted for the Liberal Democrats, who continued their trend of increasing their popularity and becoming a legitimate threat to this New Labour - Conservative coalitionTM. So, the lack of choice is now officially over. With this election, the electorate - no matter who they voted for - have come away realising that there is a legitimate choice here, with others too making huge strides. In addition, the New Labour - Conservative coalitionTM received the majority of the "grey" vote, while most young people voted for the Liberal Democrats, the only party, unsurprisingly, to support a law change to allow 16-18 year-olds to vote (if they're old enough to be taxed on earnings, I'd say they're old enough to vote - what happened to "no taxation without representation"?) All this means that the future looks pretty damn good. And besides, what with Iraq becoming the new Vietnam - one which we were part of from the start - Tony Blair has been left caught lying, and lying in the bed he made for himself. I reckon even he voted for Charles Kennedy yesterday. Hey, if I were Blair, I wouldn't vote for myself either! Here he is with his wife, going to vote Lib Dem...  Oh, dear. What happened to Tony Blair, eh? This is the party that after years of failing to defeat the Tories totally destroyed them in the 1997 general election, and convincingly returned to power in 2001, still successfully fooling the British public with the facade of "Labour" still working on the working classes, although wearing away slightly. It was, of course, after September 11th, 2001, that it all started going wrong for Tony Blair. With 9/11 providing the perfect excuse to bomb Afghanistan, letting Osama bin Laden get away in favour of the country's oil, Tony Blair joined George Bush in the War on TerrorTM, continuing the campaign by bombing Iraq in what has recently been proven to be an illegal war by the press...and I don't just mean the BBC. While Prince Charles has hilariously called the BBC "too left-leaning," Blair's gang has blamed them for the death of Dr David Kelly, the man who was revealed to be the source of information to them on the "sexed-up" dodgy dossiers about Iraq. But in the midst of the election hype, the media missed Blair's admission that it was his own party who revealed the identity of the BBC's source. And yet to this day, largely as a result of the white-wash Hutton Report, the BBC has been the scapegoat for the demise of the doctor, who was found dead as Tony Blair himself was staying at the holiday home of old crooner Cliff Richard. Even Sir Cliff said he regretted letting the Blairs stay there because he was sickened by the situation. But Blair's never been one to lose sleep over the deaths of others, whether it be his own troops, Iraqi civilians, Dr David Kelly...or members of his own party... At the beginning, in 1994, when Labour leader and "common man" John Smith dropped dead, Tony Blair was grinning like the Cheshire Cat, taking over and becoming the more marketable face of the party, shifting Labour to the right, shoulder-charging the Conservative Party from their spot like a desperate spoiled brat craving attention, moving even further away from Socialism and taking the Tories' place, in an embrace with the corporate world. And why not? After all, Tony became a Tory, forgetting his roots, years ago. Even so, he somehow managed to hoodwink the "Red Flag"-singing Labour faithful into sticking with him in the 1997 British general election, unknowingly sharing their seats with right-wingers at Labour Party conferences - where Tony took off his jacket, flung it over his shoulder, and had them saying to each other "See? He's just one of the people," while the yuppies suppressed their snickering. Because if you look at the monies which came pouring into the party when it became New Labour, it's obvious it has become a party of vested interests. Labour Means Business, they said. I couldn't have put it better myself... * Fringe party meetings of Foreign Policy Central (patron Tony Blair) included speeches by Jack Straw, Hillary Benn, and Peter Hain, and were sponsored by Nestle, a company accused of aggressively selling unsuitable baby milk in the developing world, leading to many avoidable infant deaths. * Meetings on disability with Matthew Taylor, Andrew Smith, and Rosie Winterton were sponsored by Unum Provident, an American multinational specializing in private health insurance and who have been fined a million dollars for refusing to pay out to sick policyholders. * Health Minister Rosie Winterton, like myself from Doncaster, also attended a meeting sponsored by health care company BUPA! In addition, Superdrug sponsored a private breakfast seminar on "democratizing health." * Consumer Affairs Minister Gerry Sutcliffe spoke about consumer debt at a talk sponsored by the Finance and Leasing Association, who represent store card, credit card, and other loan industries. * Environment Minister Alun Michael talked about how planning decisions can be accelerated, in a meeting sponsored by the Mobile Operators Association, a lobby group keen to get cellular phone masts installed even against local opposition. * A talk by Transport Minister Tony McNulty and chair of the Commission for Integrated Transport David Begg was sponsored by Arriva, who were of course fined two million pounds for poor service yet in receipt of government subsidies of one hundred and twenty-one million pounds of taxpayers' money. * Culture Minister Tessa Jowell spoke at a talk on whether the Lottery was working properly. This was sponsored by Camelot, who run the bloody thing! * Last but by no means least for a media activist such as myself, Tessa Jowell also attended the meeting "Charter Review and the Future of Television" - an event sponsored by Rupert Murdoch's Sky...with the BBC uninvited. Oh, yes. New Labour means business. And so, of course Anthony Blair isn't one of the people. Sure, he can remove his jacket and reveal a blue collar, but his tie's blue as well, just like his loyalties. What does Tony Blair know about hardship? In addition to actually being a Tory in the first place, he went to a private school and married a celebrity's daughter, silver spoon remaining firmly in his mouth. Blair hates Britain's old values, its loyalty to local industry, its self-sufficient communities, its working class and workers' rights. Of course, he's not the first. The "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher used to say she was "not for turning," and while she was good at turning plenty (particularly our stomachs), she was however at least quite open and honest about her own political position; the press joked about her love affair with Ronald Reagan, the Trans-Atlantic alliance of laisse-faire free enterprise. But Blair wasn't quite so honest, was he?  Tony Blair surely looked at America's President Bill Clinton and saw how the Democrats threw ten million people off welfare while still maintaining their millions of voters, who, let's face it, had no alternative anyway. Tony saw Billy's smarminess, not just in his philanderings, but in his smirking approach to his policies, so he, too, started smiling his way through everything. Tony saw Billy playing the sax, so he went in front of the cameras playing his guitar, which he used to pick with his band, the appropriately-named Ugly Rumours.  Since the 2001 general election, though, Tony's been looking a little fraught; his hair's receded further, going grey and dishevelled, his eyes look clouded, and yet his grin remains, meaning he's started to look sort of like "The Joker" from Batman. Furthermore, he's not doing the music anymore; in China recently he was faced with questioning from some students, in particular about the death of Dr David Kelly, when suddenly he was saved by another student (presumably a plant) randomly requesting "a song." A song? Well, even that wasn't so simple for Tony in his current state of mind. So, he had his Liverpudlian wife, Cherie, sing The Beatles' "When I'm 64" while he clapped along in a manner more camp than a Batman villain from the 1960s TV show. He might well be the Prime Minister, but surely he can't think we won't accept him if he comes out of the closet? Look, Tony: Just come out, man. Come out as the Thatcherite you really are. People are open-minded these days, and we know you've suffered from Thatcherism since you contracted the disease in your college student days. It can actually be treated, meaning you can live a fairly decent life for, ooh, many years. Though I doubt you'd get the treatment on the NHS.  Remember Valentine's Day, 2003? The people told Tony Blair to Make Love, Not War, with pictures of him kissing Clinton's replacement, George Bush Jr. And it's accurate; Blair's in love with the Bushes and the way they have devoted themselves to the cause for the few vested interests who put them in power. As is becoming well-documented, Bush never actually won either of his elections. Meanwhile, Blair ignored the millions of people who ground London to a halt the day after Valentine's Day while he ran across the English border. Everything we warned him about has happened. Even with the mainstream media on his side, the British public demonstrated their opposition to the attack on Iraq, a country that had not attacked Britain, but was positioned on the world's second-largest resource of oil. Tony tried to come up with excuses and dodgy dossiers with information pulled from the Internet - something I'd expect from a guy called Sal on the Media degree at my old university, but certainly not from my government! Nonetheless, Sal got kicked from the course for his plagiarism, and Tony now knows he's not untouchable, either. If only the worst of his wrongs was plagiarism. Mass murder is a little bit worse than plagiarism, I'd say. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; they've not found any. Blair went on TV and asked the people to be patient while they keep searching for some. But that's the point: the people were patient, very patient indeed in fact, with many of them wanting to wait for the United Nations, though UNSCOM had already declared Iraq clean several times already, much to the West's frustration. Bush lost his patience and Blair went along with him; who cares about evidence that a country is a threat to us when you’re hell-bent on bombing them anyway? What was the reason for this attack on Iraq? The same reason for the attack on Afghanistan: a Western-funded puppet whose strings had snapped along with the madman's mind, but who is never caught while civilians are massacred, and our governments take over before moving onto the next country on the list. Tony Blair's days as Prime Minister are numbered. He'd have gone already had it not been for the fact he is as pig-headed as he is big-headed. But now, even members of his own party have betrayed him, leaving a sinking ship, or, at the very least, not wishing to be associated with such a "B-liar." Robin Cook's gone. Claire Short's gone. George Galloway remains a thorn in his side as leader of Respect, and formerly the most vocal anti-war Labour MP, who was, coincidentally, subjected to one of the most powerful smear campaigns in the mainstream media, using what were later proven to be false documents to suggest Galloway's corruption. Leave him alone, Tony; he's not been sleeping with the enemy like the other George has. Remember the Bin Ladens, those investors in the Bushes' Carlyle Group? Of course. But the same mainstream media doesn't tend to remind us of that, do they? So, the clock's ticking on Tony. He's scraped through to fulfill his dream of a third term, just like his idol, Maggie Thatcher, but he now knows he has to go for the good of the party. People all over are saying they'll be celebrating when Blair's finally gone, and understandably so. But let's not party too late into the night, because if we do, we might not notice the arrival of the party pooper.  Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, has long been presumed the successor to Tony Blair, and it seems he will indeed be the one. But Brown, just as much as Blair, is a darling of the big business Brown-nosing lobbyists, and the man who, whilst at work in Downing Street, found billions of pounds down the back of the sofa to contribute funds for bombing Iraqis, while Britain's education, health care, and not-so-public transport was neglected. So, there won't be any difference at all. Brown, formerly the late John Smith's right-wing right-hand man, will surely distance himself from Blair, and the PR people will portray him as a nicer man, of course. And this is because they didn't think you, the people, were quite so savvy. They didn't think you cared about a bunch of Afghans or Iraqis. They thought anti-war protests were gone with the tree-hugging hippies of the 1960s. They were wrong. You scared them; you scared Tony Blair and had him biting his fingernails with his pearly whites, the pressure on him from George Bush being the only thing greater than your voice. But you also scared Gordon Brown. He's been watching, from afar, and he knows now that he'll have to do better than Blair; not at pleasing the people, but at hiding the facts from them. He knows he can't do what Tony did, and just keep smiling, because it won't work; it's gone far enough. He - and his party - knows he's going to have to try and convince you. He certainly will try to. He'll have his speechwriters script him something about fear and how the War on TerrorTM is in our best interests, even though war is terror, not peace, as put in Orwellian terms by Nu Labour.  Tony Blair: You are the Weakest Link - goodbye! It's the end of an era for the most radical Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher, his mother-figure who breast-fed him capitalism and who perhaps herself paraphrased Orwell and whispered to him "I shall suck you dry and then fill you with myself." But it's bad milk. Thatcher went, replaced by John Major. And Blair's going to go, replaced by Gordon Brown. And this is what makes me smile... Ask the person in the street if they've heard of Gordon Brown and a significant amount of them will probably say "Yeah; it's that famous Stranglers song." Seriously! People don't know this man, with his unusual accent, sensible side-parting of thick dark hair and strong jaw. Gordon Brown is the next John Major. And we all know what happened to the Tories under that grey man. The boring uncharismatic corpses are rising from the grave, this time to take Labour back with them into the underworld like they did the Tories. If that doesn't destroy the party, the struggle between Blairites and Brownites certainly will. And then? Then it may be time for rebirth, as those old school politicians in New Labour try to turn it back to Socialism, the "New" dropped by the old to make it new again. And so, the end is the beginning is the end. I'll leave you with some alternative lyrics to that famous Stranglers song, written by Karen Mulcahey's brilliant guitarist Luke Pepper... Gordon Brown with his red case Makes me frown from taxes he takes I've seen his wife she's not very nice Look at the clown big dirty Brown Gordon Brown in his black suit He'd be a plum if he were a fruit He's friends with Blair they've both got strange hair Don't bring me down you fatty called Brown -solo- Gordon Brown master at chess He's well renowned but I can't care less Bishop to king gentry to bling London's the town that made ole' mad Brown (never trust...ole dirty Brown) Thanks, Luke! - Jay Baker; Sheffield, England Labels: February 15th, Gordon Brown, Karen Mulcahey, Liberal Democrats, Margaret Thatcher, New Labour, Rupert Murdoch, Tony Blair, War on Terror
posted by Jay Baker at
9:24 AM
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