A routine lie

Gordon Brown says that it is down to Sir John Chilcot to decide whether the Iraq inquiry is to be held in public or behind closed doors. How was it then that Brown’s initial announcement was that the inquiry would be held in private? I doubt that Sir John phoned him up to tell him. Nobody can believe that Brown will leave the decision to a civil servant in practice, but he assumes that he can transfer to Sir John the opprobrium that accompanies the “in camera” decision. The saddest thing of all is that nobody in the media bothers to call Brown a liar. It is taken as read.

The Front Line

We must listen to the cry of the earth which is asking for help. The earth has no price. It can't be bought, or sold or exchanged. It is very important that white people, black people and indigenous peoples fight together to save the life of the forest and the earth. If we don't fight together what will our future be? Your children need land and nature alive and standing.

These are the words of Peruvian Indian spokesman Davi Kopenawa Yanomami as Alan Garcia’s government backed by foreign multinationals sets about removing the indigenous people from the Amazon and tearing down rainforest. Read about it here

Targets

My much loved father-in-law died in April in a North London hospital. He died from an MRSA infection, although his death certificate said bronchial pneumonia. This morning I heard a government spokesman proclaiming the great strides made in countering MRSA as a result of there being government targets for this matter. Well, one way of meeting targets is to fiddle the figures. At any event it would perhaps have been worthwhile to have a government target for the amount of excrement smeared on the lavatory walls. The ward where my father-in-law died would have brought a satisfied gleam to the eye of the administrator assigned to reporting the hospital’s achievements in this respect.

Government by acronym

The STV (Single Transferable Vote) is now the most important voting criterion. It is the only way I can see to obtain a trustworthy government. The FPTP (First Past the Post) system delivers governments representing a minority, which descend into disaster as they pull every stroke to maintain their hold. For GB (Gordon Brown), some kind of PR (Proportional Representation) is his only hope so for him it’s just another slimy trick. However, there is just a chance of a coalition government representing the people more equably, and, just as important, less corruptible by the establishment paymasters. You will not see the Tory press supporting PR.

Tips for a healthier lifestyle

Pretty soon now the oil and gas will be running out, the IMF will be in imposing high taxes and cuts in public spending. There will be a devaluation of the pound to reflect the true value of the currency as a result of monetary easing. We groundlings will be struggling to pay for a decent meal, heating and clothing. Many will feel aggrieved that the staples of their lives are being wrenched from them. Quite a few of these people have a tendency to violence as it is and the need to sustain life will aggravate this. It is time to buy a gun and see what barbed wire is going for on eBay.

Lest we forget

Nicky Campbell’s Phone-In yesterday was about the election results. A very articulate BNP voter spoke of the 8 people in the 100 dwellings in his street who had a job and the ease with which foreigners could come over and get jobs. The best exchange however was the following:

Nicky: John of Mablethorpe, how did you vote?
John: I didn’t vote, Nicky.
Nicky: Shame on you John. People died in the war so that you could vote.
John: No Nicky. People died in the war so that other people could make a lot of money.
Nicky: Helen in Hull. How did you vote?

Baron Stoneybroke of Kircaldy

There is a pattern of sacrificing the future to the present. Why would he sell the gold reserves? This is living off your capital. You can live really well for a time selling off assets and running round town with a fat wallet. That’s what we have done. Firstly we have raided the family vaults and then when they were bare we borrowed money from strangers to keep our crazy lifestyle going. That is Gordon Brown’s legacy, but why did we let him do it? The fact that nobody in the Cabinet disagreed with him or was able to stop him tells us a lot about the sorry bunch round Blair.

Amateur History Boy

I listen to “Any Answers” and the people who phone up seem so sure of themselves. What am I trying to say? Given the same set of facts available and in this case the things Gordon Brown has done, it seems possible to draw a spectrum of conclusions. He is described as a towering genius and as a waste of space. He is almost certainly neither but I feel a mission creeping over me to be a bit of an amateur historian. When Ho Chi Minh was asked whether the French Revolution had been a success he replied that it was much too soon to say. I think he was just being a clever dick.

Banks Jim but not as we know them

This lunchtime I went to HSBC to pay in some cheques. I was struck by the number of employees just standing round and smiling at people. There must have been at least a dozen. They had 4 machines for paying in cheques but they were all in use and there was a queue. I went downstairs to the counter where there was no queue and the chap just did a bit of stamping and the deed was done. And there was music interspersed with bank messages like “Don’t hesitate to ask a member of staff for advice”. It reminded me of The Truman Show for some reason.

Not waving but drowning

The British electorate comprises a sad bunch of bastards. We let our opinions be formed by the Sun or the Daily Mail on the whole. Jostling for space with Jordan’s love life, Amy and Pete’s substance abuse and the sexual peccadilloes of ugly footballers are the messages Lord Northcliffe and Rupert Murdoch want us to internalise. A shared set of chummy bigoted values is assumed as if all right thinking Brits pin the economic malaise on the scapegoat of the moment and agree that we are under constant threat from Islamic extremists. We are drowning in a mire of crass ignorance.

The rich have discarded New Labour

The newspapers, the radio and the television have been telling us for some time that Gordon Brown is a busted flush and has to go. I can see why all of these (apart from the BBC) would propagate this view. For the media proprietors and their friends New Labour has run its course. Blair and Brown have presided over a lax regulatory framework, sold off national assets at knockdown prices, and done deals to mortgage the nation’s future under banners like PPP and PFI. And the beauty of it was that Labour was supposed to be the party of the poor. But they are no use to anyone now.

Gordon is just another bloke

The last couple of days have seen a media feeding frenzy on the political body of a barely surviving Gordon Brown. On Nicky Campbell’s Phone-In yesterday he was all things from the finest politician of our generation to the single-handed destroyer of the nation’s well-being. There are 60 million people in the UK and 6 billion on the planet so I think the media are spending too much time on the foibles and fate of a particular individual. Gordon is neither the author of our joys nor of our ills. He has simply gone along with our glib acceptance of a higher standard of living than we deserve and for which the rest of the world is now presenting the bill.

Lisbon Treaty for Dummies

People keep rattling on about the Lisbon Treaty so I thought I would find out about it. The first lesson I learned was not to start at Wikipedia. Even the summary section confused and frightened me. I need Lisbon Treaty for Dummies. The BBC has a more accessible Q&A but the thing still eluded my grasp. It defeats me how the Lisbon Treaty can be such a hot political issue when there are probably only a handful of people in the world who know what is in it.

The Yes Man

There’s something not quite right about the bloke. They made a big deal of how he could do a speech without an autocue. So he has a good memory, but he speaks strangely. For example:

Yes, our country can change. Yes, we can build a better future for ourselves and our children. Yes, we can get the change we really want.

When he gets home from work does he say:

Yes I want a cup of tea. Yes I fancy a bit of dinner. Yes it’s time for Eastenders?

I warrant he doesn’t for fear his wife would tell him to stop being a prat.