Deep Dish - Say Hello

Would you like some awesome sauce with your Sunday dinner?

Read more ...

Dave and Scottish Independence

Back in the noughties, there was a Stoke-on-Trent councillor who faced a very strong challenge from the BNP for his seat. The fascists threw the kitchen sink at it, and Labour countered by ensuring they went door-to-door. It was touch-and-go but in the end the BNP did not win and the incumbent clung on. The thing is, despite staring down the barrel and with the fash snapping at his heels our councillor refused to go out and canvass for support. I bring this up because Dave's approach to the Scottish referendum is almost exactly the same. Sure the No Campaign - Better Together - have the poll lead but the momentum is increasingly with with the Yes'ers. Where is our Prime Minister? Where is the elected political leader of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as centrifugal forces tear at the 1707 Act of Union? Nowhere near Scotland, of course.

Like the rest of his male, pale, and very, very stale front bench, Dave is locked into body swerve mode on pretty much every key issue. And as issues go, they rarely get bigger than this Autumn's referendum on Scottish independence. If Dave was any kind of leader, he'd be all over the campaign. For a man who said yesterday that we have "seven months to save the most extraordinary country in history", he has been remarkably mute about this referendum.

Far be it for me to advise Dave, but the vote provides a golden opportunity. Sure, not many people in Scotland likes Tories but, from a cynical point of view, having him swashbuckle his way through the lowlands and highlands, facing down Alex Salmond in a live debate, being seen *to listen* to grievances of ordinary Scots. it could allow him to project himself as a national figure - a Prime Minister for all Britons. If he was to take such a lead and the No Campaign won, he could reap considerable political capital as the Man Who Saved the UK. That would be his legacy, not the bedroom tax. He might even get himself re-elected in 2015.

Unfortunately for those who wish Scotland to remain with the rest of us (that includes me), the biggest asset the Yeses have is David Cameron and the worthies of Official Britain who line up with him. The historical crisis of the leadership of the ruling class has landed us a Prime Minister who couldn't be less suited to bat for a voluntary union of peoples. Thatcher was a class war premier, but she was canny. She constructed a flag-draped narrative pitting 'the nation' against the 'enemy within'. It was plausible enough for the support needed to return her to government and to see off organised labour, even if it was poppycock. And it all came apart when she departed significantly from this "one nation" course with the introduction of the Poll Tax. Remind me, which part of the UK served as a laboratory for it?

Dave, however, is neither as sharp or as lucky as Thatcher was. His mob are of the school that they don't just believe what they say, they take flight from anything inconvenient rudely intruding into their field of vision. They probably really do think austerity means "we're all in it together", just don't show them a cumulative impact assessment of social security cuts. I'm sure Dave is sincere in his belief that he acts in the nation's best interest. The problem is his idea of 'the nation' coincides with the most backward, most decadent sections of British capital. Dave's government is very far from being the "committee for the common affairs of the bourgeoisie", let alone representing the interests of everyone else. And the thing is, most Scots know this. They know the Tories are not for the likes of them, which is why they return one Conservative MP out of 72 to Westminster.

That's one big problem. Here's another. What compelling reason is there for Scotland to stay? Okay, naysayers can point out what kind of independence involves keeping the Queen, the pound, and nuclear submarines. You can argue that it's a bit silly letting the Bank of England and the Treasury control your economic fates, semi-colonial-stylee. Scotland might be less able to weather the headwinds of global capital and could find the path to EU membership a tortuous one. Some business might relocate south of the border to remain in EU territory until that is sorted out. And Scotland will have to take The Krankies back. Yes, some might want to frighten Scottish voters into casting no ballots. But, sadly, that's all Better Together have got. Just look at Dave's speech - a pile of platitude topped off with guff. Quelle surprise, one of the most important speeches of his political career has absolutely nothing to say.

You could level the exact same criticism at the SNP-led campaign, of course. The difference is the Yes'ers are holding out the prospect of change. No one knows what an independent Scotland would look like, but it wouldn't be Tory. As such it can be a catch-all for every hope and dream, of a new start crammed with new ideas. Of a Scotland defining itself against the corpse blue of Tory England. No offers nothing, just more of the same. If the union is to be preserved, the No Campaign has to offer something more than Olympic Medal Tables - nothing less than a re-visioning of Britain will do, and that means commitment to deep, lasting constitutional reform. But the chances of that happening are a great deal less than Scotland voting yes.

With a choice between hope and a miserable status quo argument saddled with liabilities, who would you vote for?

Read more ...

Dithering Dave and the Floods

Dithering, indecision, fighting shy of consequences, all these can kill a political career. Ask Gordon Brown about the election that never was. But for all his faults - and they are legion - Dave does a good job of affecting the prime ministerial. As a pointy-elbowed member of the ruling class with the born-to-rule training and public relations CV at his back, he is one oily slick customer. Yeah, Ed occasionally bests him at the despatch box but most people don't bother with PMQs, and don't see his frequent slips into schoolboy bullying a red-faced ranting. Dave knows about the importance of presentation and the need to project, for want of a better phrase, 'activist government'. So why has it taken until now for him to recognise that the west country floods are a big deal, and that he should do something about it? Telegraph hack Iain Martin is similarly stumped. Leaving aside his silly attempt to blame the foreign aid budget for cuts to flood and coast defence monies, there's certainly a 'thing' here. Iain slaps on some generous gloss, suggesting a perfect storm of leaving ministers to their own devices and not wanting to be seen panicking underlies the indifference. I beg to differ.

We've been in the long election campaign for a wee while now, and some of the inaction can be laid at the door of Conservative election strategy. "Hold on a minute, Phil. Surely that's preposterous. Look at the seats affected, look at the Dorset coastal constituencies - most are Tory-held, and only a couple could be described as marginals. In the past, only Labour made the mistake of dumping on its natural support. There's got to be another explanation?" As Dave doesn't do detail, I wouldn't be shocked if his knowledge of that part of the world is confined to Oliver Letwin representing West Dorset. But, electorally speaking, we're talking about - hideous phrase klaxon - the wider campaigning narrative. Even my lampshade knows the Tories grab bag of electoral tricks has "dung" stamped on it, and we can expect relentless negativity about the past crimes of the Labour Party. Anticipate the Winter of Discontent, that most knackered of warhorses, getting dragged out the stable some 35 years after the fact. The blanket negativity towards the opposition has to be balanced by a positive offer. In a zone free of policy beyond kicking the poorest and most vulnerable, Dave and Crosby want to concoct a vision of Britain going places. We've had the previews already - more people in work than ever before, sorting out the deficit, more apprentices and students, a surging economy, vague references of a plan to prosperity. Unlike 2010 when Dave talked Britain down, this time talking Britain up is the message. That's the crux of the emerging CCHQ lines - Labour = bad, Britain = good. Labour + Britain = bad. Yes, some people get paid lots of money for zoning the Tories' strategic messages in a Manichean fashion.

This matters for the floods. Putting aside government failure for a moment, having train lines knocked out, sea walls breached, homes ruined and farm land inundated does not radiate positive, soft nationalist vibes. It speaks of failure, of being overwhelmed and consumed by disaster. Far better the PM do nice things, like looking at factories or having cups of tea with photogenic "normal" people. Disaster then has to be boxed off from the official view that all is peachy in the country's garden.

Related to this is Dave's utter aversion to criticism, to being held to account. His frequent anger at PMQs indicates a skin thin to the point of translucence. The noted preference for letting ministers to get on with their own departments is less a philosophical preference to a looser practice of government and more a way of devolving responsibility away. Gove, Pickles and IBS - of which more shortly - are proper hate figures, and deservedly so. But as meat shields for their boss, they carry the can well. Ultimately, everyone in education, local government or social security know Dave is equally culpable for what is being done to them, but the ministers successfully intercept more than their fair share of blame. It's almost as if it was designed that way. Dave then is adept at a-duckin' and a-divin', hence his instinctive recoil from anything to do with the floods because it's an opportunity for him to be held responsible. There's no escaping that his government announced cuts to flood protection on the eve of this round of flooding, and as the disaster has settled on sodden land and become a hot potato, trying to keep Owen Paterson and the Environment Agency's Chris Smith in the firing line is no longer tenable. Hence yesterday's hasty announcement under focused questioning at PMQs that more money was being made available.

What about being "hands on" like Gordon Brown was shortly after 2007's summer floods? There's little chance of that, because Dave is at pains to avoid getting ambushed by angry residents in front of the media. Remember this from just after Christmas? Probably not. But with greater international interest and the possibility of a dithering, speechless prime minister getting a mouthful from ruined farmers and homeowners, election-winning footage this would not make. Hence the distancing, hence the apparent indifference.

Thirdly, Dave's paralysis is symptomatic of a wider malaise afflicting the Tories. I make no apologies for plugging the decadence and stupid empiricism theses yet again, simply because I find them so useful for framing the Tory Party's behaviour - especially its leading figures. It is a truism that power does not like truth to be told back to it, and that's definitely the case here. IBS stops the DWP collecting stats on food bank use, refuses to authorise a cumulative impact assessment of his policies on social security recipients, and dodges questions in the House and select committees. Gove is notorious for thinking that he "just knows" what the most optimal education system is - sod decades and decades of evidence and study. And as for Pickles, well, because no local authority has gone under yet there must still be room for even more cuts. Each fights shy of the real world addressed by their policies and prefer to inhabit a comfort zone concocted on the basis of their own prejudices and ignorances. Dave is no different. Suppress an inconvenient HS2 report? Why not. Write off the last three years of economic stagnation? We'll have that. Zero hour contracts a problem? Any job is better than no job. It goes on, and on, and on.

Yes, these people are running the country. Fortunately, in this case sociology is destiny. They are stuck in a groove. Their dreamworlds are locked in by the decay of the Tories and the right. They're proper stuck. The problem is that they might still be able to convince enough voters to give them a punt in 2015. And if that happens, if they defy precedent and increase their support, they will drag the whole country with them into a dead night of decadent irrelevance.

Read more ...

Strike Ballots and Unintended Consequences

Johnson's at it again. Rather than sit down and have meaningful dialogue with workers' representatives on the London Underground, he's been carping about a "lack of mandate" because the RMT's successful strike ballot came off the back of a 40% turnout. Instead, Johnson believes every ballot for industrial action should meet a 50% threshold to qualify as lawful. Ever keen to mimic the buffoon and curry favour with the wilting Tory grassroots, Dave has intimated that he'd like to see the Underground classed as an essential service, an imposition of a minimum service agreement during stoppages and, of course, a turnout threshold. For both men, it's about an instinctive hatred of a group of working people who have a record of winning disputes.

In Johnson's case, there's a bit more to it. He talks about not negotiating with the RMT "as long as it holds a gun to Londoners' heads", but has not met with the union for nigh-on five years. This is part distaste for the hoi polloi, and part calculation so he can trot out this transparent line when occasion demands. The second thing is that Bob Crow condenses in one man absolutely everything Tories like Johnson hate about working class trade unionists. He's militant, refuses to "know his place", is successful and worst of all, refuses to be taken in by the Boris Johnson Show. If Johnson can take him and the RMT out, he can lay credible claim to Thatcher's union-busting legacy, deepen his base in the party and extend his appeal among those backward types who see the pay and conditions of Underground workers as something to vilify, not to attempt to win for themselves.

Like the rest, Johnson is fully immersed in the stunted outlook and smug decadence gripping his party. Therefore, I'm not in the least bit surprised he (and Dave) haven't properly thought through the unintended consequences of their move to impose ballot thresholds.

The first is well-trailed. As the New Statesman points out, Johnson wouldn't have been elected if the threshold was applied to mayoral elections. The same can be said for European and local authority elections, parliamentary by-elections and, in some cases, a few constituencies on general election day. Johnson himself was elected on a 38% turnout. The RMT's ballot managed 40% which, as it happens, is quite high for an industrial dispute. The mayor has been asked about this comparison frequently, and a typical routine of muttering and mumbling comes by way of reply. Some might say a strike ballot and election are two different things, but Johnson knows the legitimacy principle is the same for both. And so do the public. He is canny enough to be aware that every time he gibbers something about the threshold, he is dumping over his own standing as an elected politician. Yet, simultaneously, he ignores the signals his antennae are picking up as if it won't affect him. He doesn't care that prodding a socket with copper wiring would give politics a nasty shock. The oaf is ultimately undermining his and his party's medium and long-range interests all for narrow egotism and a deluded sense of invulnerability. Decadent is one word for it. Another, much shorter d-word also comes to mind.

The second is less considered, but could be of equal - if not more - significance. Johnson and Dave favour the threshold because a) it will be more difficult to pull off official disputes, b) demoralise union activists as thresholds are repeatedly missed, and c) cost unions more time and resource to meet the new criteria. Quite apart from restrictive new rules running the risk of midwifing wildcat strikes or, more likely, individual acts of workplace damage born of frustration, it's yet another example of complacent suppositions. Remember, the relationship we as labour movement people have with unions is atypical. We go to meetings for one, and we earnestly talk about union issues with real-life people in real-life places. For most trade union members, the relationship they have is the missive through the door and the monthly deduction of subs. A good chunk of workers in organised workplaces won't even know who their local rep is. Consider what might happen if the law changes. A dispute arises, a union goes for a ballot and has to hit the thresholds. It has diverted more resources into a get out the vote operation. That could mean more workplace meetings, more literature through the post, more activists working on turnout and, who knows, a canvassing of members' homes. This is easier to do on a smaller scale, so it's likely disputes involving hundreds or thousands, not tens or hundreds of thousands would become the 'standard' official dispute. But more importantly, the turnout pressure could force members into a closer relationship with their union. A distant, abstract entity might become something more approximate, more immediately relevant, more direct. That's the last thing Johnson and Dave would want.

These things won't necessarily happen, but they could. The question is are Tories willing to run the risk? Given their sectional stupidity and dislocation from the collective interests of British capital itself, there's no evidence they think there even is one.

Read more ...

In Defence of White Dee

If I was a different person, on occasion I might have moralised about Richard Desmond. Words could have fallen onto my keyboard denouncing his objectification of women, of plastering his publications with a feminine body ideal that causes anxiety and misery to many women of all ages, of inculcating a very narrow view of womanhood among his mainly male customers, and for taking an unacceptable creepy tone as the stipulated house standard. And that's before you get to Desmond's porn titles. Well, Desmond flogged the porn a while back but his trajectory since has been far more reprehensible. Both his Express and Star are truly execrable titles. Put them on the floor next to my cat's litter tray and straight away he'll know which one to use. And this isn't because either aren't to my political taste, though that's true enough. It's the fact they're the most brazenly cynical and enthusiastic of all Britain's rags to attack the poor and vulnerable. As disgusting as The Mail is, you know it's part of a semi-coherent stunted world view designed to reflect the prejudices of its dying readership. The Express and Star are less rabid reactionary, and more desperately offer their front pages up as real world analogues of frothing click bate. So it is with this morning's front page.

To put this in context, today's monstering of Benefits Street star Deidre Kelly AKA White Dee is publicity for tonight's "The Big Benefits Row: Live" on, you guessed it, the Desmond-owned Channel 5. Media synergies, eh? This, the blurb says, is a "discussion programme in which experts debate the controversial subject of benefits." Who pray tell are the "experts"? They are Edwina Currie, Kelvin MacKenzie and Katie Hopkins. In other words, the diseased effluvia of political comment. And their purpose is to poke their flabby fingers at the low paid, the unemployed, and the disabled. To pick among the poor to see who is deserving and who isn't. It's a bit like the lords and ladies of Victorian times who did the same, except unlike this putrid bunch at least some of them were motivated by a patrician concern for the needy. 

But I absolutely object to the terms in which this is put. "White Dee: I Deserve to Live Off Benefits" says the headline. Okay, that the subsequent drivel can't muster up a direct quotation, except from the latrinial Hopkins, shows it for the crap it is. But yes, I'm going to "be brave" and stick up for White Dee. She fully deserves the support she receives from the state.

Now there's a line you won't hear on tonight's debate. As viewers know, Dee is in receipt of "disability benefits" because she's on medication for "depression". First things first, Dee doesn't present as someone who appears to be depressed. She's always having a laugh, enjoying good natured banter with her kids and neighbours. In many ways she is positioned as a positive figure, as a street-wise but jolly-hearted matriarch helping keep her multi-cultural community together. There doesn't appear to be anything wrong with her at all. Because the edit she has received does not explore her depression. It's like filming someone who cannot walk but never filming their wheelchair as they star in Are Disabled People Shammers?.

The second thing to bear in mind is the support mix Dee is likely to receive. As she does not have any care or mobility issues, it's extremely unlikely she qualifies for and receives any form of Disability Living Allowance. Alongside child benefit and housing benefit, I imagine her sole source of income is Employment Support Allowance. This comes in two categories, and a recipient is placed in one of them after spending a year on the contributions-based payment. You are either placed in the work-related activity group, which theoretically is dole for disabled people. It recognises that people on this strand are capable of some form of work and, again, on paper, receive specialist support in helping them into an appropriate job. The second strand is the support group - the payments for those considered too ill to work full stop. As Dee hasn't (or rather, her edit hasn't) mentioned mandated job interviews or work programme meetings as part of her life, it's safe to assume she falls into the latter group.

Still convinced she's swinging the lead? Look at it like this. When you apply for ESA you have to go for one of those lovely Work Capability Assessments. Have a look at the descriptors. They comprise a completely arbitrary set of classifications that are not at all medically informed, but are implemented by Atos-employed "medical professionals". It's a massive con, and you don't need me to tell you about the perverse results. Though, in the old job, I worked on cases that involved incontinent people, people in permanent pain, people with serious mental illnesses, and, sadly, one woman dying, all after being found fit by this test. Hence for Dee to get through that test demonstrates how serious her illness is.

So yes, next time you get worked up in the 60 minute hate against White Dee, remember what you're really doing is venting against a vulnerable single mum with mental health problems. Feel better?

Read more ...

New Blogs January/February 2014

More new blogs!

1. Angry Immigrant (Unaligned) (Twitter)
2. A Room of Our Own (Unaligned/Feminist) (Twitter)
3. A World for the Future (Unaligned) (Twitter)
4. Chris McHugh (Labour) (Twitter)
5. Free North Campaign (Free North)
6. Mutare Orbis (Unaligned) (Twitter)
7. Northern Light (SPGB)
8. Political Eh-conomy (Canada - Unaligned) (Twitter)
9. Public Domain Productions (Unaligned) (Twitter)
10. Push Back Politics (Unaligned)
11. PWF (Labour) (Twitter)
12. The Anger Theory (Unaligned) (Twitter)
13. Unite Manchester Finance (Unite) (Twitter)
14. What is Wrong at the TUC? (Unaligned)

That's your lot for January/February. If you know of any new blogs that haven't featured before then drop me a line via the comments, email or Twitter. Please note I'm looking for blogs that have started within the last 12 months. The new blog round up appears on the first Sunday of every month, and is also cross-posted to Socialist Unity.

Read more ...

Five Most Popular Posts for January

The five most read posts of the month were:

1. Sharon O'Donnell and Jumping the Gun
2. The Top 100 Independent Tweeting Bloggers 2013
3. Sex, Power Play, and Trotskyism
4. The Far Left's Prospects in 2014
5. Immigration and Class Politics

Who now remembers the Sharon O'Donnell story? It seems an age ago. Unfortunately, the attempt to portray a photo opp about the ridiculous Help to Buy policy as something sinister fell apart like jenga with souffle blocks after the most cursory of butchers. And I wrote this mea culpa as someone who enthusiastically tweeted away about it when the "story" broke. It never hurts a blogger to own up to being wrong when they are.

As for the rest, the far left do the business as per. I intended the overview of its prospects to be the only thing I wrote about my erstwhile comrades but the silly, unserious split in the IS Network demanded comment. Quite apart from the revolutionary narcissism of the ISN majority, how do they square their fulmination against mixed race couples' indulging sub/dom play with the idea that socialist society is supposed to offer greater freedom? One supposes that so-minded couples and playmates will have to wait some years after the revolution before the ISN finds such consensual acts permissible. What idiocy.

The post this month begging for a second chance is Why Do People Buy Twitter Followers? Interestingly, the tweeter of the piece - one Oliver James - maintains he has not purchased any followers but merely followed thousands, who he then unfollows in an attempt to bulk up his account. How he finds the time to do so when apparently working 50+ hours a week, and why - several hundred followers down - his Twitter train is filled with spammers and zombie accounts explains my continued scepticism. Nevertheless, motives are what matter and those are explored here.

Read more ...