In the way that members of a certain generation remember exactly where they were when they first heard that John F Kennedy had been shot, those who either worked or volunteered on, or were in any way emotionally involved with the Yes to AV campaign will never forget the circumstances under which any of us […]
Archives for October 2014
The Beaver Trilogy
Many years ago, my Chicago Connection rolled into London from wherever he’d last been. Kenya? Malaysia? Guatemala? He had with him a VHS tape (remember those? They were archaic even back then) that he said contained a film entitled “The Beaver Trilogy” that I just had to see immediately. I looked at him semi-sceptically until […]
When you think about it, conservatism and UKIP-ism are complete opposites
British conservatism, or modern Toryism, rests on two key principles as I see it. The first is the idea that people, once of an appropriate age, are completely responsible for themselves and the consequences of their behaviour. No outside factors should be weighed in for consideration; it’s rather unfortunate if you had an abusive parent, […]
Sadiq’s lament: Labour’s attempt to lure the Green vote
Sadiq Khan has been given the task of winning over “Green strays” and getting them to vote Labour “again”. I put the words I did in quotations to reflect the way Labour tends to see this stuff; these are people who they should without doubt be winning over, in the collective mind of the party. […]
Manilla Envelopes
There’s a saying that goes politics is show business for ugly people. There’s probably some truth in that. But I’d counter with this: show business is politics for stupid people. I probably would have been better off knowing that prior to diving head first into an attempt at an acting career in 2004. Bizarrely, it […]
A farewell to Godfrey Bloom
My favourite Godfrey Bloom moment of all time, before today’s announcement that he has stepped down as UKIP’s whatever-the-hell-he-was-it’s-not-important-enough-to-bother-googling, was an appearance he made on BBC’s Have I Got News For You. A sort of “Godfrey’s greatest hits” reel was playing as part of a bit, you know all the classics: Bongo Bongo Land, the […]
The Tories really, really have to stop trying to out-UKIP UKIP
Over the last few days, in reaction to Carswell winning UKIP’s first democratically earned seat in parliament, the Tories have been going slightly apeshit, falling over themselves to seem more electable to the very people they described as loonies and fruitcakes not all that long ago. Those being people who are seriously considering voting UKIP […]
The London Excel Centre as existential hell: The final AV referendum count, revisited
The day of reckoning for Yes to AV was upon us. We faced it with weary resignation, made even more jaded by the fact we were all hung-over to the gills. For those of us who didn’t need to be on the ground, May 5th 2011 was mostly a pretty calm day. At around five […]
Anarcho-Syndicalism Exposed
What you are about to read comes from something I wrote for a prospective book on the AV referendum that I’ve decided not to publish. But some bits of it are helpful to those who might think about trying to run a national referendum anytime in the near furture. Or if you just think arcane […]
Heywood and Middleton by-election result demonstrates UKIP’s threat to Labour once and for all
Heywood and Middleton is, by any reasonable standard, a safe Labour seat. But perhaps for not much longer – perhaps not even in 2015. Labour held the seat yesterday, but only by just over six hundred votes. In the 2010 general election UKIP gained 1,215 votes there, not even enough to keep their deposit. Yesterday, they […]