spinoff

Having got strung up over the war, Labour’s now trying to turn attention back to the domestic agenda, their strong area. They make forceful arguments about the benefits we’ve all derived since 1997 and why this means Labour deserves its (drum roll please) “Historic Third Term”.

What they are doing is forcing an outlook on the electorate. Whereas for the last week, the outlook has been “War, lies, war, lies, war, lies,” the new one will be “better hospitals, schools, Gordon and I aren’t arguing, better hospitals, schools, Gordon and I aren’t arguing…”

We are drawn to, and therefore try to impress on other people the world view that presents us in the best light. Politicians do this too – they attempt to shift the electorate’s mental gaze.

There should be a word for this phenomenon, but there isn’t.

If any readers have a suggestion for a word that best suits the meaning: “to gain advantage by impressing one’s world view upon an individual or individuals to the exclusion of their own,” then please post it in the comments section below.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

On being too clever (a brief exercise in parentheses)

When this particular Spinoffian (Spinovite? Spinovian? (and, incidentally, who on earth thought of calling fans of Doctor Who ‘Whovians’? I mean, I ask you – it’s bad enough that they know every episode since William Hartnell first appeared, and can recite the names of the Doctor’s enemies in reverse chronological order (probably) but they also had to go and give themselves a name that sounds like it could be an alien race – though probably a slightly boring one, with, I expect, acne)) was at university (a red-brick one, but an old red-brick one, now you ask, doing a blazingly complex joint language honours degree of two languages, one living, one dead, neither (before you ask) European), s/he (no clues here) took the time after a lesson and before the clever fourth years were due to come in to write on the chalkboard (chalkboard – very proud of that; we didn’t have blackboards at university since we on the student union council, in a fit of Orwellian double-think, had decided they were racist and had banned the word. Whiteboards became dry-wipe boards the same day. Hurrah for the triumph of the linguistically aware student lefties!) the following little verse:

I would I were a little bug
With hairs upon my tummy
I’d climb into a honey pot
And make my tummy gummy.

Followed by the instruction “Translate into Arabic” (for this was one of the languages this particular Spinovite (see above) was studying) “. Extra points will be awarded for references to 13 century poetry.” Cue much ‘Ha ha that’s taught those over complacent year four clever clogs’ (clever clogs? Clever clogs’s? Clogses? Take your pick).

Of course, the following morning, in beautiful literary Arabic, written in the style of one of the great Arab poets, was a little verse about honey covered bugs.

Bastards. Just goes to show, one should never over-estimate one’s own ability to be clever – or under-estimate the ability of others to be cleverer.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

In an era where we are told that ‘choice’ is all, where anything can be found on the internet if you look hard enough, and where the shiny new Freedom of Information Act makes us believe that everything about government is interesting and important, it is worth remembering that most things are not worth knowing about at all.

What, gentle reader, can possibly not be worth knowing about? Well, virtually everything, actually. 99.9% of what government does is fundamentally useless to the average citizen and, apart from the political-geek-interest of seeing facsimiles of letters from inside the Cabinet Office, is there anything that actually, really, makes a difference?

Take the debate on Lord Goldsmith’s advice to the government on the legality of the war in Iraq, for instance. Did we need to know what he said? No, because we could guess. He said “You can if you must, but here’s a load of reasons why you shouldn’t. Oh, and by the way, I’m only a lawyer, so this is only advice”. That, my non-lawyer friends, is what lawyers ALWAYS say. The idea of a lawyer giving a straight, definitive instruction is as alien to them as a plumber giving you a quote before making that sucking in noise with his teeth that means ‘the next figure I am going to give you is twice as high as you had possibly imagined’.

Lawyers equivocate. That’s just what they do. So is it worth knowing that Lord Goldsmith equivocated? Only if you have the imagination of a stunned hamster or you want to make trouble for party political purposes. (Please note, I am not casting any aspersions on those people who wanted to out Lord Goldsmith's advice. But if the cap fits…).

So what else don’t we need to know? It always used to be the great ‘government secret joke’ that the menus at the House of Commons were classified as ‘restricted’. Well, that’s very silly. But do we need to know what our elected members eat? No, of course not, because, of course, we can guess – it’s better than anything you or I will eat tonight, and it’s cheaper, too. And with the sheer amount of official, semi-official, demi-semi-official and god-knows-what official paperwork that the public sector generates, we could be here for ever.

There are, of course, things that are very much worth knowing about. Is our food safe to eat? Are our leaders incompetent? Is somebody going to try to set off some terror weapon in our streets? Why has the postal service collapsed in the last few years? But they get lost in the welter of false indignation when someone, somewhere, wants to find out something they can’t.

As Einstein said that ‘I may not know very much, but I know where to find out almost everything’: we know where to find things out if we really want to, but until then, let’s keep our heads clear for the things we need.

So let’s forget the things it is not worth knowing about. We don’t have the space in our heads, or the time in our lives, to know about them. Focus on the things we do need to know, and let the irrelevant stay where it belongs – in the files of the Civil Service, or in unvisited sites on the Internet.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

Howard will lose the election unless it becomes clear over the next few days that Blair has killed a kid with his bare hands very recently. Indirectly killing 100,000 Iraqi civilians hasn't done him that much harm, so it needs to be more immediate, more brutal.

Ideally on telly. And naked, if you get my meaning.

The assumption is that Howard will hang on for a bit to pave the way for his successor. The bookies' favourite is David Davis, with Liam Fox just behind. However, they are not well liked in the party and the former might lose his seat anyway. David Cameron, despite having gone to "School", is a favourite because he's youngish, clever, presentable, safely-seated, moderate, has a disabled child and is not tainted by having been a Tory MP prior to 1997.

That said, I've got £50 on Rifkind to be next leader. The reasons are because he's a very good operator, he's not been around for a while, his reputation in 1997 was pretty good (Bosnia issues apart) and he's got a very, very safe seat in K&C. He is also said by reliable sources to be "very ambitious" at the moment.

But the biggest reason I made said bet is because he was 20/1 at Hill's and we're going to lay it off straight after the election on Betfair. He'd shortened to 12/1 by the time they dropped the market.

Just before the time of party conference might be a more likely time for Howard to go than May 6th. Then again, he might do well enough because of low turnout or events over the next week to stay for a couple of years. Slightly difficult to say.

But I'd say the chance of him fighting another election in 2009 or 2010 is nil.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

Ten minutes to spare? Then complete this fascinating thing.

http://www.politicalsurvey2005.com/

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

A Revealing exchange concerning the respective positions of Mr. George Galloway (Respect) and Miss Oona King (Labour).

FIRST VOICE
George Galloway is an egomaniac who is mostly out for himself. And you, who are pro-war, seemingly happily pro-Labour are not going to vote for Oona King, who is an intelligent ambitious woman who thinks for herself, and was pro-war like you, and therefore solidify the horrible unilateralism which, despite what anybody mutters about backbenchers and dissenters, is taking place in the Labour party. You're going to vote for him?

Why in all the constituencies that Mr. Galloway could have picked, do you think he picked Bethnal Green and Bow? There are plenty of constituencies with large muslim communities. Why that one? Forgive me if he's said so on his election address, I havent been party to that little piece of joy.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

SECOND VOICE
Why vote for Oona King?

- She's a bright, Jewish, black woman with a disarming smile.
- She supported the vote for the war.
- She's not any of the others.
- She actively campaigned against the Saddam regime in Iraq whereas Galloway was an out and out apologist for it
- she isn't cynically manipulating the residents of the borough in order to win votes

Why vote for George Galloway?

- he would make a spectacularly good constituency MP.
- the only contact I personally have received from Ms King is one letter, three weeks ago, telling us what she'd been doing to try and improve the postal service in the borough. Excellent. Except that's all we've heard, at all, since the day she was elected. She is virtually unknown in the consitutency, and has paid no attention to it. Galloway has been prominently visible from day 1.
- Tower Hamlets needs a high profile MP who wants a fight, because the incumbent has done nothing, nada, zilch, about the endemic poverty, the appalling housing stock, or the discrimination the non-white inhabitants of the borough face every day.
- If one wants to send a warning to the government that they are rapidly getting onto borrowed time, I'd rather vote for a 'socialist', however champagne, misguided, vicious or self-centred, than a Tory or a LibDem.
- the Green candidate in Bethnal Green & Bow is called John Foster. He has as much chance of winning as anything else green in the constituency.
- We need some pro-Islam MPs to balance the government's (and the West's) dangerous demonisation of Islam and Muslims.

Pro-Arabists, pro-cultural diversity, left wingers are faced with a real problem come this election. In geopolitical terms, the UK is following the US in coming under the influence of the neo-conservative christian white. And that's not good - for liberal democracy, for the equality and sanctity of the individual, or for our corporate national morality.

Someone like Galloway, deeply unpleasant as he is, is a consumate politician. I think he would be good for the constituency, or at least better than the incumbent, and I will not vote for any of the others. If there was a choice, where one had a national vote and a local one, I would vote Labour in the nationals and Galloway locally. There isn't, so I think (and I have to say I have not made up my mind yet, so remain to be convinced by reasoned argument) I shall probably end up voting for GG. With regret.

And I may, of course, bottle it completely at the ballot box.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

There’s a lot in the media at the moment about T Blair’s “trust” issue. People have lost trust in the Prime Minister, the argument runs, and so he’s becoming an electoral liability.

The prime minister who has overseen the most successful economy in Europe, under whom unemployment has consistently fallen and inflation remained low, who has balanced the delicate wire between Europe and America, and whose government has been one of the most consistently popular of any since the war, and people have lost trust in him? Why?

Because of the war, the argument goes. But what about his opposite numbers? Michael Howard introduced the Dangerous Dogs Act, was a minister in the government that introduced the Poll Tax, was the coiner of “Prison works”, and is now, as the son of immigrants, whipping up a racist fervour against immigration. A more trustworthy man than Blair? Surely not.

And cheeky Charlie Kennedy, jovial fag-smoking leader of the Liberal Democrats, with the host of rumours about his health, people trust him, surely? Ignore the Neil Kinnock factor (‘No-one in Britain will vote for a ginger-haired Celt’), the reason why people trust him is that he’s never done anything, never been in power, never had to make a decision. Ask those people who have had LibDem councils, though, particularly in London, and their trust in the party is significantly lower, and deservedly so, that those who have not.

So when all the arguments about ‘trust’ are swept away, what’s the problem about Mr Blair? People don’t like the fact that he smiles a lot. Insincerely. They don’t like the fact that he’s started to strut, like George W. They don’t like his ties. Or his suits, or his wife. He’s been around since 1997 and they’re getting a bit bored with him. They have, in short, decided they don’t like him, and because that sounds as silly and trite as it is, they disguise it in the fact that they don’t ‘trust’ him.

Which is, simply, pathetic. When all the presenting arguments go away, it’s a visceral dislike of someone under whom Britain is, quite happily, prospering. It is becoming a triumph of form over substance – a way of disguising bias and boredom under the respectability of trust. Trusting Michael Howard is dumb, if only because of what he used to do when he was in power. There’s no evidence whatsoever that that particular leopard has changed his spots (though he has stopped saying ‘peepil’ rather than ‘people’, which shows some serious voice coaching somewhere). There’s tons of substance there, of a right wing Home Secretary who is showing all the signs of wanting to be a right wing Prime Minister. Nothing wrong with that, but don’t tell me he can be trusted.

But oh, we can’t trust Tony Blair because of the war. Rot.
1. He got intelligence, which was flawed, yes. His fault? No – the fault of the people on the ground, of the intelligence services, and of their inability to tell fact from the fiction that certain members of the Iraqi opposition found it useful to feed them.
2. He acted on the intelligence. Well yes, that’s what it’s there for.
3. He lied about weapons of mass destruction. No he didn’t. He repeated what he’d been told.
4. He took us into war under false pretences. No, not true - Lord Goldsmith’s first report was as equivocal as you’d expect a lawyer’s to be, but his final one pager was quite clear enough.

Mr Blair, in short, is not a liar. Or a cheat. Don’t pretend he is. If you dislike him, say so: just don’t pretend there’s a real reason for it. It is, unfortunately, alright to be shallow.

When it becomes hypocritical is when that shallowness is disguised as political thought. Which is where we seem to be and where, unless as a country we start thinking like grown ups, we shall remain. Trust me.

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

Everyone knew that the Labour party buggered about with its legal advice. Twisted it, sexed it up, spun it – just generally fudged it – so that they could wade in behind the Americans.

We all knew this. Everyone did. You could see from Blair’s face every time the subject came up. You can always tell when people are cornered – when you’ve got them bang to rights. Their eyes go slightly glazed and they get shouty and defensive.

And so, in accordance with the current muckiness of British politics, the twisting, sexing, spinning and fudging process is gradually being leaked to the newspapers. Like pus from a particularly belligerent zit, the grubby, nasty little story of how the Government’s top lawyers were expected to make the law fit the invasion rather than vice versa is bit by bit being squeezed onto the political mirror. Splat! Plup! We look on in disgust.

But of course, the truth is now irrelevant. Why? Because we know it already. Both legal advice and intelligence were stretched to within an inch of their lives. There’s nothing new to learn here. The newspapers are revelling in their scoops, but I mean come on – we don’t need to be told what we already know.

No. What we need is for the Government to take responsibility. We simply need them to acknowledge the truth; that, fearing a US drift towards isolation, the UK government needed to send troops and fiddled its legal advice in order to do so.

The government must acknowledge the truth before it can be subject to it. Because if it is not subject to the truth, then to what is it subject?

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

There were protests in central London yesterday. Not very big protests, but protests none the less. The cause? The British National Party (BNP) was getting airtime on BBC Radio 4 in the form of a party election broadcast. The crowd waved banners and gave out leaflets.

Later that evening, despite legal manoeuvring by the protest’s organisers and complaints from the BBC’s unions, the broadcast went ahead. And what a broadcast it was.

The BNP’s jailbait leader Nick Griffin opened proceedings with a speech. The conclusion? That “racism cuts both ways.” Heads were scratched. Exactly what he meant by this was unclear. Seeing as at the last count there are more than two races of people in Britain, perhaps he should have said “racism cuts many different ways indeed”. But then again, whether or not racism “cuts” at all is itself a topic for debate; (“Dear. Would you mind passing the racism, I’ve just got to cube these parsnips?”)

Griffin’s lecture over, there then followed a song, rendered by guitar and two voices. For some reason, the song was longer than the speech. It wasn’t a very good song (G, D, F, C repeating folk doodle.) The lyrics were more interesting though. Their basic thrust was that if you’re white, your life’s not worth anything. And what’s more, you’re going to get murdered by black people.

I sat staring at the radio. In awe. Fascist folk? The music industry must be quivering with excitement.

Which brings us back to the good folk standing outside the BBC yesterday. On the one hand it is right and proper to take up against, as they term it, “a fascist organisation that stands in the tradition of Hitler’s Nazis.”

But on the other, with frankly potty election broadcasts like this, is anyone really going to take the BNP seriously in the first place? Surely not.

Surely?

Yours etc,

Spinoff.

I got drunk tonight. I don’t mean the ‘Wahay, you’re all my mates’ drunk, I mean the ‘You bastards, go on, I’ll take you all on’ drunk. Really, steaming, pissed-beyond-my-eyeballs drunk. And why?

Because the College of Cardinals has elected Cardinal-bloody-Ratzinger as Pope Benedict XVI, as if he shared anything with St Benedict or Benedict XV of blessed memory. Here’s the Catholic Church, spiritual mentor on one sixth of the population of the world, faced with a choice between a liberal South American, a sort of conservative Nigerian, and a downright doctrinal – well, there must be a better word than Nazi, but I’m damned if I know what it is – and we (they) have chosen the doctrinal bigot, the secretary of state of the Vatican, the chief proponent of death-through-lack-of-condoms, the hatemeister in chief, Cardinal-bloody-Ratzinger.

There were three votes. Out goes the Nigerian (Nostradamus predicts that a black Pope predicts the coming Apocalypse); out goes the Latin American (too populist, too in favour of the rights of the people, too concerned with devolving power to the bishops) and in comes, well, the worst of all worlds. In comes Benedict XVI, the most conservative Cardinal in the Vatican Council, centre of power in the later years of the late lamented Paulus II Johannes, the most conservative, marginalizing and divisive member of the entire College of Cardinals.

What were they thinking of? Not the vast numbers of gay Catholics (100 million of them); not the AIDS sufferers (20 million in Nigeria alone); not the sick, the ill, the poor; and certainly not the liberals. What on earth did they think they were doing? In the five minutes following the announcement of Benedict XVI’s appointment, I received 21 text messages from Catholic friends across the world. What are we going to do? Convert to Islam? Buy a house in Avignon and set up a rival Papacy? Renounce our vows and become part of the regular world? What do we do when our Pope simply does not represent us, does not form part of our world?

For those of us for whom being Catholic is the same as being human, is as natural to us as breathing, what can we do? To rebel against the Pope is as alien to us as to rebel against our lungs, to fight against the beating of our
heart, but how on earth can we have, can we tolerate, a pope like Cardinal Ratzinger? The Pope is created by the action of the Holy Spirit working through the Cardinal Electors, and therefore we cannot question his appointment. Well, yes, but… How are we meant to take this man as the direct line descendant of St. Peter? Is it, perhaps, possible, that just this once the Holy Spirit missed?

The man who can now issue papal bulls, the man who is infallible, who is the head of the Holy Mother Church, is a vicious right winger who has consistently acted according to a doctrine that simply no longer reflects the reality of the world, and which causes enormous pain and suffering to the disadvantaged, the lonely, the sick and the different – all those whom, in fact, Christ loved and loves. What is he doing at the head of the only true church? And what are we, who are members of Christ’s only church, formed in Christ’s image and in remembrance of Him, going to do about it?

I’ve got to take some aspirin…

Yours etc,

Spinoff.