Anarchish

Maggie Thatcher, comin' atcha!

2012-01-09T09:20:00.000-08:00

On Friday night I joined several of my more virulently radical comrades at a showing of Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady. The film split opinions amongst my our little gang of leftists. Perhaps this is predictable - any film about the perennial hate pin-up and sometime Prime-Minister was always going to be controversial. Yet I ended the night wondering why so many of my friends so disliked what was, at worst, a fairly harmless film.

The occasionally unseemly battle for Thatcher’s legacy has been in full swing since she left office, but undoubtedly found new legs when Gordon Brown tried to forestall allegations of sense by suggesting the old brute be treated to a state funeral. Since then the tug of war over how Thatcher should be remembered has become rather ill mannered on both sides. This film, by contrast, seeks to explore Thatcher as though this fierce contest did not exist: portraying her primarily as a frail old woman, her mind leaving her, consumed by visions of the past. The response has been predictable. Miners wives have formed pickets outside cinemas showing the flick, while the Prime-Minister himself has said that he believes that “this film is wrong at a time when Thatcher is still going on” (or something like that).*

Shortly after seeing it, I described the Iron Lady as “Downfall without the happy ending”. I wasn’t just doing this to wave an anti-Thatcher flag (though my anti-Thatcher flag is lovely and ripples beautifully when unfurled in the current political winds). While Thatcher is a more controversial and divisive figure than Adolf Hitler, both films seek to paint their protagonists as human, contrary to the instincts of the audience. Whether she is lionized or demonized, Thatcher is almost never seen as just a person, making flawed choices at the centre of a corrupt and compromised system.

A lot of us on the left would have enjoyed watching Thatcher portrayed as a bloody-fanged tyrant, warped with un-earned power. Such a portrayal would have reinforced our historic assumptions about her, but it would not have done much good beyond that. Thatcher the monster may be how we’d like her to be portrayed, but the sense of the superhuman that invokes serves our opponents, too. Great leaders (in either sense) must appear larger than their subjects. By robbing her of this quality, the film robs her of that which would excuse her more criminal behavior – from sinking the Belgrano, to letting Irish dissidents starve to death in her care.

In her life and career, Thatcher always sought to portray herself as above conventional criticism. This may be one of the factors that has allowed our rhetoric (in, for example, wishing death on an old woman) to surpass what is normally acceptable. If the person you are attacking is not truly human, what you say about them does not need to conform to human standards of decency. I have said abhorrent things about Thatcher (not more abhorrent than, say, threatening a nuclear strike on Argentina, but still) and felt entitled to do so, for this very reason. After watching this film, I wonder if that this natural approach is the right one.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think we should feel one iota of sympathy for the vile old bat. Indeed, seeing her losing her mind to one of the most unpleasant diseases imaginable only made me yearn even more for the moment she’ll be put out of her misery. Yet I’m reminded of the time, a little way into George Bush’s junior's second term, when a startling and terrifying revelation hit me. Of the two caricatures we had made of this reprehensible man – of a malevolent despot and a buffoon – only one was close to the truth. We truly had an idiot in charge of the free world. The moral judgment we were making of him were not relevant, as he did not have the capacity to be otherwise. Perhaps we should come to see Thatcher as the same – not evil, just catastrophically wrong – and save our energy for undoing the damage she’s done.

The XXX Factor

2012-01-06T10:05:00.001-08:00

For everything that is undeniably shit about now, we still live in an incredible age. A hundred years ago, in polite company, it was considered lude for a woman to show her ankles. Fifty years ago, in the UK, two men could be prosecuted and imprisoned for having consensual sex. Less than ten years ago, three or more men still couldn’t fuck without risking jail time, which must have been terribly awkward when it came time to decide who got to go first and who had to wait their turn in the corridor. Today, we live in a world where thousands of sexual sub-cultures flourish. We’ve gone from the love that dare not speak its name to a Britain where, no matter how awesomely obscure your fetish is, you can share and celebrate your sex with likeminded people online. People don't need to be alone any more - even the most inventive pervert can find people to share support, advice and bodily fluids with. Which is why the trial R v Peacock was an obscene relic of a bygone age.

The act on trial wasn’t sex. It was the depiction of sex. Obscenity laws over half a century old were wielded against a man who had the temerity to sell DVDs of adults consensually doing things which were not, themselves, illegal. It would be wrong to say that nobody was getting hurt – in many cases the whole object was to inflict pain in a manner that, when coupled with a careful combination of theatre and trust, would transmute itself into ecstasy for all the parties involved. Or, to put it more bluntly, the men were shoving their hands up each others arses, pissing in each others mouths and using each others inflated balls as punching bags, and having a brilliant time doing it.

I’ll happily admit that the detailed descriptions of these acts, tweeted from the courtroom, made me feel squeamish on several occasions. But so what? Each time I so much as hear about X Factor I’m overcome with a deep, nauseous sense of despair, but for some reason I can’t fathom, nobody ever suggests banning it. Which is odd as, if you live in Britain with functioning eyes, you’re pretty much forced to know about X Factor, but anal fisting mostly keeps itself to itself. If men were having their urethras dilated on the cover of More magazine, or the screams of men having their bollocks electrocuted was Christmas number one, I might understand the prosecution. Instead, Simon Cowell’s abomination (the show’s pre-production title) assaults me at every turn, while my first knowledge of Michael Peacock’s sex life came from his trial.

That graphic depictions of extreme sex had to be shared in order to try a man for sharing graphic depictions of extreme sex is, to say the least, ironic. Perhaps, under the circumstances, everyone involved in the case, including Peacock himself, should be immediately arrested if a verdict of guilty is delivered. Of course, the graphic descriptions of graphic descriptions required to try this new batch of obscenators would themselves be obscene and the resulting cascade of larger and larger trials would grow like a judicial version of The Blob, till every man, woman and child in Britain is being tried for obscenity.

Thankfully, that now looks unlikely (even more so, I mean). In the last few minutes, the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. This will be a blessed relief for all decent human beings, and a blood vessel bursting nightmare for Daily Mail readers. Win-win.

Still, despite his acquittal, Michael Peacock has been severely punished for not committing a crime. The vagaries of the process itself – the soul-churning moment of arrest, the months of worry that followed, the endless meetings with lawyers (though the firm that represented him, Hodge Jones and Allen, are as awesome a group of people as you could ever hope to meet, and have gotten me out of a tight spot on more than one occasion) are all deeply stressful and costly events. These are standard ways the process punishes people, but in Peacock’s case they were coupled with revelations about his private life which must have been excruciating. Even the most vanilla of you probably wouldn’t want your mum hearing every detail of what you do in bed, particularly not if you were telling her from the dock. This may be why Peacock was the first person to plead not guilty and opt for a trial by jury, an act of heroism for which he will be derided in the press as a pervert. Sensible folks (that’s us) should now turn the spotlight round and ask the perennial question: what the fuck were the police playing at?

I can understand why the obscenity law remains on the statute: when penned in 1959 it was actually a liberalizing bill, and reducing but not eliminating the scope for what could be considered obscene must have seemed like common sense in a UK that had yet to witness the 60s. It has not been politically expedient to repeal or reform the bill since because, while the bulk of politicians behavior is obscene, publically calling for more obscenity has rarely won anyone an election. However, lots of laws are rarely, if ever, enforced. Even if I walked into Scotland Yard and confessed that I’d never picked up a bow in my life, I’d be more likely to be charged with wasting police time than failing to keep up with my mandatory archery practice.

So why spend police resources on Michael Peacock? His prosecution was no accident, police did not discover the obscenity while investigating a more heinous crime. Instead, a squad that exists specifically to bother people about their private lives targeted him by sending an undercover cop to buy his DVDs. Yet the police’s story doesn’t quite add up – they claim they came across Peacock’s services via Craigslist and decided to look into them, but the prosecution, by way of suggesting he set out to corrupt people, described his ad as offering “innocent” porn. Where, then, did the police get the idea that they should be sending officers into the home of a young gay man and looking for reasons to arrest him?

The not guilty verdict will hopefully discourage the police and CPS from future shenanigans, but with a dedicated “extreme pornography” squad looking to justify their budget, and many previous defendants choosing to plead guilty rather than have their fetishes publicized in a court room, one has to suspect that the nonsense will continue. The verdict today suggests that many of those previously convicted were effectively blackmailed into a guilty plea. While we’ll never know exactly how the jury made their deliberations, the fact they took less than two hours to consider their verdict suggests they sat down, said “well, this is fucking silly” and sent for the clerk.

Unlike some people, I believe obscenity exists and I believe the crown’s definition of "that which corrupts and depraves” is actually a good one. Like anything pleasurable, pornography can be addictive, and addiction corrupts anyone afflicted by it. Depravity, to me, is treating people like objects, and pornography surely can do that too. Yet the law is obsessed with depravity only when it is also erotic, and seeks to protect only our sexual morals from corruption. When people bay for the blood of strangers, or debase themselves for a moment of fame, the state stays curiously silent.

In other words, if we're going to ban people from watching things that we think are weird and bad for them then, please, for the sake of my sanity, let's start with the fucking X Factor, and let people cum in peace.

Pride and Privilege

2012-01-04T15:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I displayed my talent for sticking not only my foot but my entire shin and part of my upper thigh in my mouth by going on Twitter and implying that I thought having an abortion was a privilege. Give the last few words in that sentence a read back just so you can get a feel for how much of a preposterous bellend I must have seemed. Those weren’t the words I used but, in bursts of under 140 characters, I gave a lot of people the impression that’s what I thought. I’m not going to pick through every tweet that made up the back and forth (because it would be boring and petty and take forever, and I don’t think that the people I offended or who offended me necessarily want to be namechecked). Instead, here’s what I was trying to say.

First, having to decide what to do about an unwanted pregnancy is an experience that could range from inconvenient to soul-destroying, but it’s never going to be good. Even so, I think that having that choice is a privilege. It’s not a privilege like going to Eton or owning a fancy hat, both of which are reportedly fun. It’s the kind of privilege where you have something other people don’t and, if it doesn’t make your life better, it at least makes it less bad. I have lots of privileges - from my race, my gender, my class and the various intricacies of my circumstances. My situation is not one to complain about, and I’m not. That said, the fact remains that having that level of reproductive autonomy is a privilege I don’t have.

Usually my instinct when I think of the few ways that the hand I’ve been dealt doesn’t play well is to shut up about them. To do otherwise is like whining that your Ferrari doesn’t handle well once you get it over 90. This time I made an exception for a few reasons. For a start, we were discussing why men should take safe sex seriously, and so I pointed out (in words much less well chosen than the ones I’m about to use) that the moment of intercourse is the only time a man gets to exercise his reproductive autonomy. In some ways, I argued, it makes the pregnancy-related risks of unprotected sex greater for men than for women. Obviously, those ways don’t include the physical risks of bearing a child, and the psychological impact of a termination is never going to be as great for someone who doesn’t have to experience the procedure themselves. But for men, unsafe sex is an all-or-nothing gamble. Yes, your sexual partner might make the same choice you would have. Or they might not. Either way, it isn’t up to you, and you could become a parent (or be party to an abortion) against your will.

The idea that becoming a parent might be a big deal for men was a problematic one for some people. Men, I was told repeatedly, can just walk away. That women have the same option (after birth) but instead largely choose termination instead was a fact left absent from the debate. Some women will choose abortion because as well as not wanting a child, they don’t want a pregnancy either, particularly as pregnancy might create societal or psychological pressures that would make it harder to “walk away”, perhaps even too hard to manage. Surely another reason women choose termination is that they don’t want to create a person who they can’t look after. They don’t want to accidentally give someone a bad life, they don’t want the emotional trauma of never knowing what happened to the person they weren’t there for and they don’t want to always wonder if they’ll, somehow, walk back into their lives with all kinds of fair but impossible questions to ask. That men, as well as women, might not want these things was not a concept the debate entertained. In fact, the only reference that was made to men’s responsibilities as parents concerned child support – which men get away without paying. At one point, I was told, that if a man didn’t want a baby, then he shouldn’t have had unprotected sex – an ugly thing to say when then same argument was once used to deny women the right to an abortion. The implication as times was that, once a man had gotten unprotected sex (it’s always men who want unprotected sex, of course. Women couldn’t possibly enjoy it too) he’d had everything he wanted from her. To ask to take an interest in what happened to his sperm after that was, frankly, a little odd, even suspicious, yet another way men had discovered to hurt women, this time by impinging on their territory as mothers.

Reading the above list back, I don’t know how much of it was really being implied, and how much I was projecting the prejudices of a patriarchal society onto people. It was surely a little of both.

Good points were made: some thought I was suggesting women’s reproductive autonomy, as a privilege, should be stripped away or given to men. I wasn’t: women’s reproductive autonomy should be absolute, even at the expense of men’s. This trade off of rights is bad, but it’s the only system that makes any kind of sense. Until we become post-human, reproductive rights are not something both genders can have.

Others said that exercising bodily autonomy couldn’t be a privilege as it was actually a right. I think it’s both. As a white male I can walk down a street relatively unmolested by cops and totally unmolested by perverts, except for those occasions when cops are also perverts. These things are obviously rights; what sucks is that the rights of women and people of colour aren’t respected like mine are. Likewise, my ablist privilege allows me to walk and talk and do all manner of things with my hands. It’s my right to do these things, my bodily autonomy, my choice. The solution to these privileged rights isn’t to cut off my hands or break my legs (though I imagine if I chose to stop talking, there’d be plenty of support around). It’s to be as aware as I can of my advantages and how what I say and do might affect those who don’t have them.

When you tell people they have a privilege – particularly one which is inherent like those based on race or gender – people often react in the same way. They’ll deny that the privilege exists, or dismiss the examples cited as rare and unrepresentative, even if the person they’re talking to has experienced them personally, many times. They’ll also suggest that their privilege in this instance should be discounted, as there are many times when they are denied privilege due to membership of the group in question, or because other groups have privilege over them in different circumstances (why not use the comments section to accuse me of doing this? I literally don’t have a response! Also, check out these total asshats*). Finally, they might tell you that the privilege itself is somehow a burden, that being rich won’t make you happy for example, and so, really, you’re silly to want it too. I did all these things the first time I was told I had privilege, and like a karmic boomerang I met all these stances again yesterday. That people reacted like they had privilege doesn’t make my analysis right, but coming from people whose analysis of privilege, including their own, should have been sharp it was disappointing. When a woman told me that I should be glad I’d never have to choose whether or not to have an abortion, I lost my cool and told her she was being insensitive and that she should check her privilege. Which was the first time I’d actually used the word, and also the moment Twitter fucksploded in my face.

It probably didn’t help the level of shittyness in the ensuing shitstorm that I was a man telling (mostly) women they were wrong, a position traditionally held by dicks. As the debate got more heated and newcomers came, I did little to assuage anyone of the belief that I, too, was a dick. I’ve apologized to some people personally, and I didn’t fight a one-way battle, but to any and all I was rude to, I’m sorry. The reason, along perhaps with tiredness, is that the hypothetical experiences of the hypothetical men that were being belittled were actually my own. I didn’t tell people this during the conversation. I don’t why I didn’t and I don’t know if I should have. A decade ago I was the expectant father of a child about whom I didn’t get to choose. It was one of the most terrifying and lonely times in my life, particularly because I was still a teenager. I didn’t try to change my partner’s mind – it was her body and her choice. I didn’t walk away from the situation, either, as men apparently are expected to do. I stayed around and raised the child we had made. My life was very, very different as a result. It was a long time ago now, I don’t resent the person who made that choice about my life, and I love my son very much, but having that experience treated as trifling and irrelevant was deeply unpleasant. It triggered old feelings. I’m told this kind of thing happens to women and people of colour a lot when they try to explain lack of privilege to people like me.

I think we all have privileges, and privileges can and do come from membership of groups which, overall, are not privileged. Everyone being privileged does not change the fact that some people are much, much more privileged than others. What it does do is help us find our place in the world, and use the advantages we have to help make it a little more like we’d like it to be.

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Edit:

Since posting this last night several people have pointed out that reproductive autonomy isn't a privilege enjoyed by all women. Around the world women have this right taken away from them, frequently by men. Even in rich, liberal democracies the right to abortion is not assured. It can be taken away by Governments (for example in Ireland) religious movements (the U.S.) or coercion (violent or otherwise) by partners, family and so-called friends (anywhere).

As a result of these facts it has suggested that it is incorrect (and also unhelpfully divisive) to call reproductive autonomy female privilege. I don't think I used that term anywhere, but the gendered language I did use clearly implied it along the way. This is frustrating, as I was, in part, trying to demonstrate how privilege does not respect the lines we have drawn between ourselves, though it may favour one side of the line more than the other. In this context, to have implied reproductive autonomy equals female privilege is an epic fail.

It's fascinating that reproductive autonomy could be a function of almost any type of group privilege depending on the context: gender privilege (male or female), class privilege, racial privilege, cultural privilege, ablist privilege, hetero privilege, and sis privilege. In fact you need at least four of these, in some combination or another, to achieve reproductive autonomy, yet the only one that is absolutely necessary is (some form of) ablist privilege (assuming you want to have a baby with your own genetic material).

Though there's membership of no single group guarantees full reproductive autonomy, there are several whose membership all but guarantee you'll never lose it entirely. Here, unsurprisingly, the familiar hierarchies come back into play: while women can face rape or forced marriage, a man who chooses to wear a condom is very unlikely to completely lose his reproductive autonomy. This assumes he can afford condoms of course, and class is another privilege which pretty effectively safeguards against total reproductive disempowerment. Likewise, being a western Caucasian significantly reduce your chances. In the end, it's sobering to realise that, even with a privilege this nuanced and complex, rich white men are still the safest people on earth.

Whose farm? Their farm!

2011-09-22T11:14:00.000-07:00

Do you like having somewhere to live? I know I do. In fact, I like living somewhere so much I think that everyone should do it. If you feel the same, you might like to come down to Dale Farm and help stop several hundred people from being kicked out of their homes. I did, and can tell you that as well as being the right thing to do, it’s also amazing, life-affirming and (I probably shouldn’t tell you this bit) fun.

My girlfriend and I arrived at Dale Farm late on Sunday night. As we walked down the road to the site we were flanked by friend and foe on either side. To our right, gypsies from the legally occupied part of Dale Farm greeted us warmly with smiles and thank yous. To our left, a mist was rising through the floodlit field occupied by the bailiffs who have, ironically, built themselves a shiny new compound without any planning permission.

Despite the friendly welcomes from residents I felt uncomfortable and awkward as I walked through the gate. I remembered that, despite proudly declaring my anti-racist sentiments at 16, I made an exception for gypsies, whose lifestyles I felt were selfish and destructive. In the last few weeks I’ve discovered one in three people still hold the same views as I did as a child, probably for the same reason I did – because they’ve never actually met any. I like to think I’m much less ignorant and intolerant now, but my trip into Dale Farm still represented a kind of first contact. As such, I was surprised by how normal it all was. Dale Farm is a community like any other – houses, streets, families. My discomfort at the implicit racism my own sense of surprise revealed was mixed with shock and rage at what was planned for the next day – a full on £18m assault on this place, paid for with taxpayers money.

Only a few things stand out as different about Dale Farm. The first is the shrines dotted here and there – most of the residents are devoutly Catholic, but despite my own agnostic fundamentalism debating the reality of transubstantiation felt like an argument for another day. The second is that Dale Farm is a real community – everyone knows everyone else, the kids run around freely, their parents safe in the knowledge that they will be looked after by their friends who are also their neighbours. In fact, seeing how the gypsies live made me a jealous - I live as part of a community, but I don’t live in a community. Once you see the difference it’s easy to understand why they resisted the council’s offer of limited, scattered council housing. If someone wanted to move you away from everyone and everything you knew and loved, you’d resist too.

Enough about cultural differences – what’s really exciting on Dale Farm is how thoroughly they’re overcome. The activists are spread throughout the campsite, but their main HQ, nicknamed camp constant, has a lovely kitchen and campfire around which activists and gypsies gather together to chat, eat and get a little tipsy in the evening. When we arrived there people were sorting themselves into groups and finding roles. My role was that of a medic. I was not entirely happy about this. I’ve done action medic training but, as a wimp, I’ve conspicuously avoided using it before. I got together with a few more experienced action medics and brushed up on the finer points of keeping people alive until I felt a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.

Many of the gypsies opened their homes to the activists but some of us slept in tents dotted round the site ready for the big day. We were expecting the eviction to begin as early as 8 AM so the morning was filled with activity – building barricades, scouting the perimeter, playing up to or avoiding cameras. I was surprised that, despite the fact they were under siege, I saw the gypsy children being sent off to school like it was any other day.

As I was helping construct one of the barricades one of the women came up to us asking us to help her clear some rubbish from her plot. It was a surreal experience – here she was with the hammer of eviction hanging over her head and she was busily making sure the place was clean and tidy. She was obviously distressed. As we piled the rubbish up she told us that she couldn’t read and write – her three children were the first in her family to be able to do so. Why had the council given them an education only to take it away again? I hadn’t got an answer. “People hate you” isn’t something you want to tell a woman on the verge of tears.

Just after lunchtime a shout went up that the bailiffs were coming. We rushed down to the front gate ready for the worst. Barricades, lock-ons and a massive concrete-filled car called “the beast” were in place ready to deter any potential onslaught. Things were tense but it was a good kind of tension, spirits were high and the scaffolding was filled with activists and gypsies singing, chanting slogans and ready to resist.

The bailiffs, flanked by cops (who are, of course, neutral and only there to keep the peace), arrived at the gate. Despite the council’s £18m budget they appeared to have bought themselves a megaphone from Toys R Us. They warbled something vague about health and safety then asked us if we’d like to fuck off quietly so that it didn’t cost them too much more money. We politely declined their offer.

To everyone’s surprise the bailiffs then wandered dejectedly back to their own compound. The firm, Constant & Co, has a reputation for nasty, violent evictions, and they specialize in providing solutions to what they terrifyingly refer to as “the gypsy problem”. Constant & Co even designed their website so it’s one of the first to come up when you type the word “pikey” into Google. They are, without doubt, an unalloyed armada of cunts.

Once the unstoppable force of bigotry having met with the immovable object of health and safety legislation, everything calmed down for an hour or two. Then a huge cheer went up. The fog of war being what it is I spent a good five minutes running around like a circus giraffe before I heard the good news – a last minute high court injunction had forestalled the eviction for at least a few more days. The mood was jubilant, the sound system was pumping and gypsy and activist alike were going cheerfully mental.

The next night there was a huge meeting between everyone on site. The solidarity between the gypsies and activists was incredible. The main debate was about whether to open the gate. Many activists thought it was a bad idea, but all agreed that the final decision belonged to the gypsies. “But we don’t want to be forcing you to do anything” opined one gypsy woman “the last thing we want is someone ringing up the Sun and saying we’re keeping you all here as slaves” she continued to the laughter of all. Our side was equally concerned that we might not be wanted there. “Don’t be silly” one of the gypsies responded “ye’re the best comrades we could ever have.”.

The main point I’m trying to make is this: come to Dale Farm. You’ll be doing something amazing and you’ll have an amazing time doing it. It’s about half an hour out of London on the train – Liverpool Street to Wickford. Call 07961 854023 or 07583621312 once you’re on your way to arrange a lift. Piece of piss. If you could bring some spare cups or cutlery that would be nice, but the most important thing to bring is yourself.

The eviction could begin again as early as Friday afternoon, but my educated guess is that it will begin either Saturday or Monday morning. But whenever you come, and however long you come for, it will be awesome. I hope I’ll see you there.

More info:

Dalefarm.wordpress.com

http://mattpearson.org/2011/09/19/what-does-dale-farm-teach-us-about-ourselves/ - brilliant blog dispelling many of the myths about Dale Farm.

Post-script:

Late Tuesday night an odd man turned up, on his own, and immediately made us all suspiscious. He spun an almost believable story about being a kayak instructor from Canada. I sat with him for an hour to suss him out and try to work out if we had a situation – these things are very delicate, as you don’t want to go accusing people who might be genuinely be well meaning outsiders of being undercover cunts. He told us he was staying for the next four days, but by morning we were pretty certain he was one of the baddies and we walked him off site. The clincher was when I asked to borrow his phone, with the intention of checking his messages, and he pretended not to have one. Naturally, you can never be sure, and we were all a little concerned we might have done the wrong thing.

Luckily, on this occasion, we can be sure as the twat in question went on to pen this barely readable puddle of bile in The Sun. Naturally, it’s filled with venom and bullshit and conveniently forgets how utterly fucking inept the "journalist" in question was at his job. If you can bare to feel your eyes boil at its acrid prose, you might like to have a read. Or, if you want a real treat, you might prefer to inject fermented rat shit straight into your retinas. It’s your call.

The main thrust of his verbal shit sculpture is that there is a gulf between the activists and the gypsies. This is true - we come from different communities, different backgrounds, different worlds. That is why it is amazing and inspirational to see the two groups working together in respect and solidarity. In the hour I spent talking to Nick I spoke a lot about how intertwined the two communities had become. Shame he did not deign to put that in his shit-rag of a newspaper.

Post-post script: After we rumbled him it was generally agreed he was probably an undercover bailiff as he seemed too thick to be a journalist. Now we know he works for the Sun, everything makes sense.

The prison blogs will return next week. Ta for your patience.

The kids are all riot

2011-08-30T07:41:00.000-07:00

"Morning Splinter" I say as my giant of a cellmate rose from his bunk "there's been trouble in your manor." I've got the lingo down now, you see.

I flip the channel to show him what I mean. It seems you lot have been busy. Rioting across Britain. Police losing control of the streets. Violence, arson, anarchy. Thank Christ I'm safely locked up in here.

The rolling, if Breakfast, news coverage hits on the salient point and Splinter holds his head in his hands.

"They're Rioting in Brixton" he opines "and I'm fucking stuck in here!".

Less than an hour later Splinter gets told he's going to C wing and we say our brief goodbyes. It's odd seeing him go - while I think Splinter would agree we didn't quite qualify as friends, we'd bonded during our four days in a locked room. Worst of all, I never got round to asking him how to rob a bank, which would at least have given me something to fall back on if comedy doesn't work out.

With Splinter gone I use some of my direct action skills to occupy a space, in this case the bottom bunk, thus making me king of E 4-05. Before my new roomie arrives, however, I am spirited away for resettlement, an Orwellian sounding process which actually only involves asking me a few questions ostensibly to make sure I've got somewhere to stay when I leave and won't mug an old lady for her housekeys on my way out of the gate. Towards the end of my friendly interrogation, the screw filling out the form asks

"Is there anything we can do to help prevent you from re-offending?" I think about this for a moment before deciding to answer honestly.

"Imprison Rupert Murdoch." There isn't a tick box for this, so she diligently writes my answer down under "other". If I end up back in here, the state has only itself to blame.

As we were waiting to be taken back to our cells, something I've become quite adept at, talk to turns to violence inside and outside of jail.

"They use rubber bullets and bean bag guns" offers Mr. Ben, who has set himself up as an expert on riot control.

"Actually, on the mainland..." I interject.

"They do inside High Down." He informs me. I'm out of my depth.

Rugrat, a comrade from E wing, seems undeterred though. "There's a lot more of us than there are of them" he points out accurately "we should just bash out at S&Ds and do it."

"They'd lock us up 24/7" interrupts one lag.

"So?" responds Rugrat "We're locked up all day anyway." I laugh nervously. I'm pretty certain this is all just banter, but who knows? Maybe this is how prison riots start.

Before going back to the lodge I'm buttonholed by Bucky, a guy from C wing, who says he's

heard I'm writing about the prison. Clearly walking everywhere with a pen and paper in my hands is not a particularly subtle strategy. He tells me a story of the genuine violence which happens within these walls. A week ago Bucky had said the wrong thing to a couple of screws while he was collecting his dinner and they'd followed him back to his cell. When he realised what was happening he ran for the door and asked another jailer to lock him inside, but it didn't work. The two guards pinned him down in his dwelling and kicked the shit out of him- his face is still puffy and distorted from the beating. He looks at me like I'm crazy when I ask if he's thought of reporting it.

Back in my own stone box, my new cell mate, Rocksteady, has arrived. He's asked me not to write about his circumstances, so I won't. Luckily he didn't say anything about hacking his voicemail, so I still have options if he tells me anything really juicy.

We spend a lot of the evening chatting about riots and getting to know one another. Annoyingly for you, his story is fascinating. It's annoying for me, too, but at least I got to hear it. I mean, seriously. Wow. Prison has its perks.

I spend some time working out what to do if there's a prison riot, interspersing calm strategising with the occasional mindblowing glimpse of vertigo when I realize that, yes, I'm considering this as a real possibility. With a little luck you won't get to read about my plans in the papers before you read this blog. They mostly involve hiding.

There's one other unsettling note to my evening. According to Rocksteady, screws don't take too kindly to people writing about what's going on inside. Considering Bucky's story, I can see why.

So, if you're reading this, ends day 7.

Day 6 - Prisonomics

2011-08-24T05:09:00.000-07:00

Here, as far as I can gather, is how the prison economy works.

Every Sunday (today) our captors furnish us with a “canteen sheet”. This is a double sided A4 list of purchasable sundries, ranging from chocolate to tweezers, playing cards to bibles, super noodles to shaving foam. The most important items are phone credit (40p a minute) and tobacco (“burn” in prison parlance), both of which make appearances at the top of the canteen sheet.

Convicted enemies of the state, such as myself, get a maximum canteen spend of £17 a week (to come out of any money we’ve brought in with us or earned inside) whilst prisoners on remand, like Splinter, can spend as much as they like. I invest in some chocolate, paper, stamps and tangfastics then sink the rest of my liquidity into the blue chips: coffee and burn.

Tobacco is the currency of choice here in jail for one simple reason: most people smoke. Even if you don’t, there will always a market for the lethal stuff, so it makes an excellent, if short term, store of value. So far I’ve traded burn for paper, pens, stamps, sexual favours, semtex and coffee.

Coffee acts as the prison’s second currency of note, the Euro to burn’s Dollar, though there is less demand for it and most inmates are looking to trade coffee for burn rather than the other way round. Of course, in our barter based system anything can have value to the right customer, and I’ve made a range of happy trades swapping jam, salt and porridge (yes, I know) for stuff that I actually want.

Another item in seemingly high demand is tin foil and its substitutes – yoghurt lids, polo wrappers etc. I’ve yet to actually be offered drugs here but the shadows of the black economy fall long away from the searching eyes of the screws. I couldn’t tell you exactly how drug deals work inside but I’m guessing that, as the price of skag comes in a fair bit dearer than £17 a week, most money changes hands on the outside – just get your people to talk to theirs. A lot of stuff can be bought this way, though the import tariffs here are steep – a bog standard mobile phone is £250-£300 (still cost effective compared to the payphones) and a gram of skunk will set you back £50, around five times street value.

However, there is one drug that the prison’s awash with, and it’s absolutely free. Methadone maintenance programs are Wandsworth’s quick fix for dealing with junkies: heroin users who don’t opt for detox are shuffled onto D wing, where their “treatment” awaits, along with a whole cornucopia of commercially available chemical delights. Absurdly, the methadone maintenance program stops abruptly when users leave jail: shivering junkies are turfed out onto the street , told sternly not to reoffend and given £47 to start a new life with. NHS waiting lists for methadone can be weeks long – many will be back inside before the wait is up.

Methadone is unpopular even amongst those who take it. Many of my new junky pals describe it as harder to quit than smack and resent the prison for providing them with this chemical cosh. If you’ve been using on the outside you’re often entered onto a programme without consultation, a cruel temptation for those I’ve met who see their periodic visits to jail as rare opportunities to give their bodies a break.

It’s not all doom and gloom, though. With the death of EMA, jail is now the only place in Britain that still values education, and you can earn as much as 90 pence per three hour session learning a variety of trades. Inmates can train in anything from plastery to radio production (at our in-house station “radio wanno”). Private companies have seen a chance to make a buck too, and Timpsons (the key/shoe making people) provide a range of courses which then offer you the chance to do some unpaid work for them on the outside, followed by the somewhat dubious promise of a full time position.

There are inside jobs, too, paying similarly princely sums for your time. You can work as a cleaner, cook, orderly, wing rep, or anything else the screws are too lazy, apathetic or incompetent to do themselves. I shouldn’t badmouth these posts too much – they represent one of the few useful ways to spend your time inside, and speaking to an orderly is generally far more pleasant and productive than trying to convince the guards to do their jobs. Yet however helpful they may be, some lags see prisoners who take these positions as no better than collaborators, an image which isn’t helped by the fact that they come with an impressive range of perks, from a break room with a plasma TV in it to all the sly burn you can… er… burn.

The prison economy usually functions fairly well but ran into trouble recently after a group of rogue orderlies began lending large quantities of tobacco to inmates with the promise they’d hit them back a few snouts once they got their canteen through. Demand for these credit-fag swaps was high, so high that orderlies were soon raiding the store cupboard to feed Wandsworth’s appetite for cheap burn. By the time the scale of the problem became clear, it was already too late. The two bed properties many lags had put down as collateral turned out to be worthless as they already belonged to the prison. The Governor has already authorized several costly bailouts in an effort to put an end to the crisis, but the prisoners smoked those too. As I write this, A and C wing teeter on the brink of default and, for the first time, E wing risks losing its coveted triple “Aaargh!” status. In just a few short hours, canteen forms are due back at the landing office and the tension on the wings is palpable.

So ends day 6.

Day 5 - Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Wandsworth

2011-08-24T04:44:00.001-07:00

I’m worried I’m going to end up writing 14 stories where nothing happens. It’s sobering to think that The Shawshank Redemption chronicled 20 years in sing-sing and still only found a few hours of narrative - and Stephen King was allowed to make stuff up.

I’ve rather lost the Shawshank spirit myself over the last 24 hours. Fighting with heart and mind against an unjust system feels a bit silly when you’ve only got 8 days of oppression left. My initial attempt at a blog for today – a withering polemic on the purpose of prison itself – was brusquely abandoned mid-flow when Deal or No Deal came on. It was, in any case, an effort to use the abstract of my situation to conceal the embarrassingly mundane reality of life in here. We’ve spent most of the day waiting for Harry Potter.

Films are a big deal in prison. With next-to-nothing to look forward to, most of the chatter on the wings naturally gravitates to TV, particularly films, and for the last few days all of the talk has been of Harry Potter. This is particularly weird when you realise that Watchmen is on tonight, and the other night we were treated to Blade, which has a vampire in it and lots of massive guns.

Harry Potter is a kids' film. About a wizard.

I woke at 6 again this morning to another imperial pronouncement from Hubba-Hubba, God-emperor of the Hoobs and the future overlord of all mankind. Something about the Hoobs' incessant cheerfulness and utter contempt for humanity unfailingly seems to penetrate my slumber. You see, the TV is always on; Splinter can’t sleep without it, so every day I wake up to its sickly glow. My first few nights inside I didn’t mind, I was exhausted anyway, but there is so little to do in here my body has now caught up on its sleep debt and considers the most minor stimulation to be a clarion call to get up and DO SOMETHING, no matter that, of course, there is fuck all to do. As a result I have developed my first bit of jailtech, using rolled up Rizla as rudimentary earplugs.

Jailtech is amazing. Jailtech (I’m the only one who calls it that) is simply the art of being creative with what you’ve got. Prison toothpaste becomes glue for photos from home, old magazines become lampshades, orange peel becomes air freshener, forks and bowls and towels, somehow, become a curtain to shield you from the afternoon sun. One inmate, left without a working kettle, pulls the broken apart and carefully lowers the wires into a bucket to boil water. Human beings are capable of incredible things, if only you try to stop them.

I spent the morning glazing at the telly, writing up yesterday’s court adventure, and waiting for the exercise yard. At around the time I should have gotten to stretch my legs, a guard came round and informed me I had a surprise visit. It was a surprise because I’d been told I wouldn’t get visitors until I’d filled in the right forms, which I couldn’t fill in until I got my visitors’ addresses, which I couldn’t get until I made a phone call, which I couldn’t make because this prison is run by incompetent twats. So, a very nice surprise indeed.

The visit was glorious, an hour with three of the people I love most on this earth. In truth it’s a little overwhelming. I’m not allowed to take notes – or, indeed, anything – with me, so a list of questions lies unasked on the desk in my cell as I make my first contact with the outside world. With so little time it feels like we should spend all of it talking incessantly at high speed, like coked up chipmunks, but instead odd silences gape awkwardly between bursts of news. It’s all over far too quickly and I’m taken back to my cell, a bittersweet taste in my mouth, wondering if a little of something can be worse than nothing at all.

I spend much of the day considering this, how the poverty of our condition here seems to help us to cope, makes us take an almost spiteful pleasure at times in the little we do have. Every ad break my giant gangster of a cell mate and I sing along to the snatches of music in the adverts. We particularly look forward to one trailing the forthcoming “Street” season of programs on channel 4, which has some nice grime beats we can’t get our hands on anywhere else. I have a feeling we wouldn’t appreciate these as much if we, you know, had something good to listen to.

The same goes for friendship. Splinter and I would be unlikely to mix in the same social circles outside of prison, but in here necessity means that we get along (though, if I’m honest, I think Splinter’s embarrassed to be locked up with such a shit criminal). Likewise, Wandsworth’s walls can even make friends of potential enemies. Take gadget, who I met today in the exercise yard. He’s just started a 5 month stretch for GBH and, as we lapped the little square of dirt which is our outside, we traded life stories. His world is as different from mine as Splinter’s is, though all three of us have kids. His 9 to 5, a concept I find alien, is spent at the MoD. We joke that, if we met on the outside it would probably be across a police line. Still, gadget and I get on, and even discuss politics. He points out one of the nice things about this place is that, under the glare of the guards, we’re all equals. While I think the gang that I hear runs A wing might disagree on that point, I can see what he’s getting at – there’s a certain camaraderie to being a lag, a sense that we’re all in this together as David Cameron would put it if sweet, sweet justice ever landed him behind bars.

Later as I sit in my cell I consider the horrible irony of this. As an anarchist I dream loftily of a world where people are all equals, none above another. Now I discover that the best way to achieve that might be to lock everyone up. Who knows; maybe prison really does work.

At time of signing off, E wing has gone eerily quiet. It's time for Harry Potter.

So ends day 5.

Day 4 - Don't Fear The Jailer

2011-08-19T05:43:00.000-07:00

Every day feels like a week in prison, but today was the first where seven days actually got knocked off my sentence. It nearly didn’t happen.

I was woken at 6 by a screw informing me that I had a surprise court appearance. A surprise for me, I mean – the prison must have known for at least a couple of days, but decided to keep it to themselves, presumably because they know how much I ruddy love surprises.

I made myself a rolly and a bowl of coco pops and plonked myself down in front of the Hoobs. The Hoobs, for the uninitiated, are a gang of brightly coloured extra-terrestrial fuckwits whose pre-invasion intelligence gathering operation consists of asking children what a farm is or how to make a kite. I ruminated darkly on how futile my appeal seemed in the face of this inevitable alien onslaught.

I also wondered if it might not be futile in the face of a legal system that seemed determined to fuck me in any available orifice. The past few weeks showed an unmistakable pattern – every time I made a concession, it seemed to make things worse. I was sick of the ragged nuggets of hope held out to me by the state only to be cruelly snatched back at the last second. I wouldn’t take the bait this time, I decided. Why waste a day of my sentence languishing in a custody cell (worse, by far, than prison) just so an old man in a wig could restate how bad I’d been, when I could stay in Wandsworth and write, smoke and listen to Splinter’s stories to my heart’s content?

Then I thought of MiniMarbles and the summer I was missing with him. Despite my noble, pigheaded instincts, if there was just a 1% chance of me going home that day I had to take it. I let the screw stroll me to the van.

No more compromises, though, I thought. I’d not spend the day throwing myself on the court’s mercy. The prison offered to let me change into my own clothes. I declined. That’ll show ‘em, I thought, my sleep-deprived brain quickly rationalising my spiteful nose-chopping. I would not dignify a process that did not dignify me. Or something. So they took me to court in my prison sweats.

As I was handed over to SERCO, my reign of half-arsed defiance continued.

“Take your shoes off.” Barked the guard in a needlessly confrontational manner. After all, we’d only just met.

“Take your shoes off… please.” I suggested. The guard looked understandably confused.

“I don’t have to say please to you.” He stated accurately.

“But you can.” I replied, matching his accuracy. “There’s no reason we can’t be civil.”

“Take your shoes off.” He growled again, getting all up, as they say, in my grill.

“No.” I replied, because I am four years old.

A torturous and surprisingly lengthy exchange then followed wherein we argued the comparative merits of my captors either asking me politely to take off my shoes, or doing the job themselves. They eventually plumped for the latter option.

“Chuck him in solitary.” Spat my former debating partner as he dropped the shoes back at my feet. I secretly beamed. Solitary meant I’d actually get a chance to write and think and maybe even grab a little sleep. Sleep, I dimly realised, was something I probably needed, as I appeared to be starting pointless arguments with petty dictators over the square root of fuck all.

I sat in solitary and thought about my predicament. I realised that, along with my appeal would come a lawyer, with whom would come news of the outside and through whom I could talk to the people I loved. I spent the next hour hastily scribbling messages to my family, my friends and my girlfriend, trying to cram four days of homesickness into a few paragraphs of prose. By the time my barrister arrived I’d almost forgotten there was going to be an appeal.

As usual when interacting with lawyers I tried to give as much thought and gravitas as possible to decisions which, most of the time, might as well be fucking guesswork. As wonderful as my particular briefs are, they are legally bound not to tell me what to do. At times it’s rather like having a surgeon ask you where to make the incision, and can lead to me saying some fucking stupid things. Like “guilty”.

In this case the rub of the matter was that the presiding judge could allow our appeal, refuse it, or, in fact, lengthen my sentence. This obviously raised the stakes somewhat, but I was told such an outcome was “very unlikely”. I recalled the same two words being used about prison, but I took the gamble anyway.

I’ll say this for our legal system: it’s more entertaining than daytime TV. Watching the judge squirm through my appeal was enormous fun, and I even got to steal a glimpse or three of my gorgeous girlfriend through the Perspex of the perp box. To be fair to his honour, he was caught between a rock and a hard place: no honest reading of the sentencing guidelines could place me in prison, but he’d be persona non grata on the dinner party circuit if he just let me go. It was quite a bind the poor sod was in.

In justifying the injustice of my continued incarceration, the bewigged one made some rather eyebrow raising pronouncements. First of all, his honour suggested my crime had overtones of contempt of court. It wasn’t a court, he hastily added, but it, sort of was, as well, a bit. Though also, it wasn’t, obviously.

Of course, if it had been a court Murdoch and Son had been sat in, I wouldn’t have made such a tit of myself at all. Indeed, had the bastardly duo been addressing any body with real power, then I’d never have undertaken my slapstick crusade. For me, the fact a pie in the face could deliver more justice than the select committee was the biggest joke of all.

Finally, the judge said, I must remain in prison as “a deterrent”. Perhaps this was to prevent a wave of copycat pieings of octogenarian billionaires at parliamentary show-trials, or perhaps to teach the public that, no matter what the letter of the law says, if you humiliate powerful people then you will be punished. The words of my cell mate, Splinter, occurred to me again: “If someone comes at you, you gotta come back at them hard, to show you ain’t no dickhead.” Splinter would have made a fine judge.

Though the crown was, on this occasion, no dickhead, his honour did make a nod to the evident ludicrousness of my incarceration. While, naturally, he was unmoved by the arguments of the defence, the magistrate in my case should have taken into account my guilt plea (she had done) and so my robed benefactor would be taking a week off my sentence. Abracadabra – nobody did anything wrong, but somehow mistakes were made. The legal system saves face whilst pulling a slightly less silly one and I’m left with just ten days of free room and board. I make no effort to hide my new grin and practically skip back to custody.

I’m led back into the van, a week lighter and feeling pretty great. I steal a newspaper from my custody cell and smuggle it into the van with me. Perhaps it’s sleep deprivation or conjugal withdrawal, or perhaps it’s just elation, but as we roll through London I start to feel feral, already free, untamable. My name comes over the Kiss FM news and the other isolated cons and I trade wolf howls from our tiny cells.

Back at Wandsworth the SERCO screws wander off, leaving us alone in the sweltering van for almost an hour. We can’t see each other but the shouts of growing anger are audible throughout the van. Before long one of my fellow captives has had enough and begins hurling himself against the door of his cell. The van rocks gently. I begin to do it too, timing my jolts to coincide with his, bouncing back and forth off the walls of my cell as the momentum grew. One after another the whole pack joined in, unseen but united, the van tilting precariously, decentralised networking at its finest. After that, the screws let us out pretty quickly.

“Aren’t you that bloke who threw the pie?” asks a sharply dressed cockney I make a pitiful attempt at a rolly. I nod.

“What’re you up on?” I ask, trying to change the subject.

“Multi-kilo cocaine conspiracy.” He replies. “Got a spare snout?”

I’ve been warned against the cardinal sin of generosity inside, but I’m in an obnoxiously good mood so I oblige anyway.

“Don’t make a habbit of it, though.” I warn “Cos I’m the hardest cunt in here and I’ll fucking have you.” My new friend grins as he sparks up.

Strolling back to my cell I’m informed from various quarters that I’ve been on telly again. Some of the lags come up and pat me on the back or call me a variety of lucky expletives, but back at my cell there is someone less keen to congratulate me.

“Allright Splinter? How are you?” I ask jovially through the door.

“How the fuck am I? You’re going home next week!” A traitor part of me wants to point out the fact that I didn’t rob a bank, but that’s hardly the point. This place isn’t good for anybody and Splinter has as much right to feel pissed off about staying here as I do to feel good about leaving seven days sooner.

So ends day 4.

47 hours in a locked room

2011-08-17T04:10:00.000-07:00

I'm tired and I need a pillow.

Yesterday my captors moved me upstairs to a cell with a spotlessly pillow-free bunk for me to sleep on. Despite Splinter's spirited efforts to get the boys with the keys to rectify this, along with my own, meeker entreaties, I'm still without a cushion for my head. This is not the only reason that I'm tired.

As anyone whose ever really tried it knows, doing nothing is exhausting. The mind and metabolism grind to a halt and even staring into space feels like an effort. We're supposed to be let out of this little room for about half the waking day - 6 hours worth if the posters dotted on the landings are to be believed - but in practice what we get is about an hour, split into two chunks. Today we didn't even get that.

Our first daily dose of diet freedom, the exercise yard, was rained off. There was no big announcement, no wet play, it just didn't happen. Then the clock rolled round to rec time, (or "S&Ds" as it's apparently called) and it kept on rolling. After a while the reason became clear - the weekly canteen delivery (the snout, supernoodles and sundries prisoners buy with their own money) was making the rounds, and it got scheduled for the same time as S&Ds. So S&Ds got cancelled.

It's hard to know whether such a mistake comes from callousness or incompetence. Both events are regular, predictable, part of the vital clockwork of the prison. Both are important. But somehow the institution couldn't schedule them for slightly different times. Even moving things round by half an hour would have made all the difference, to us anyway. I guess it doesn't seem quite so important from the other side of the door.

One of the first things I realised in here was that when you've got next to nothing, what you still have means the world. The bright side of this is that a friendly conversation or an unexpected cup of tea brings more joy than I ever remember getting from the games and gadgets that occupy me on the outside. The dark side is that, when even the little you've been told to hope for is taken away, it's devastating.

Part of me feels ridiculous, whining about being locked away in here. This is, after all, a prison, and missing out on 30 minutes respite sounds like small beans, but when you're in here, it means a lot. Not being let out means we can't shower, we can't call home, we can't apply for visits or doctors appointments or jobs. It means we can't talk to each other or take a walk or just get a little space. It means we'll spend nearly two full days in a locked room, smoking and sweating and bickering with each other, staring at the walls or, worse, the TV, wondering if the next break will come round or if some further fuck-up will cancel that, too. Most of all, it means the glum exhaustion of doing nothing.

It's 10 PM now and a guard came round to check we hadn't somehow escaped through the 40 foot tunnel I've been secretly building. I managed to get his attention before he breezed past.

"Can I get a pillow please, guv?" I shouted at him through the slit.

"Office is closed." he barked back dismissively. "You should 'ave asked during S&Ds".

So ends day 3.

So, prison is scary, right?

2011-08-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

As I got back from my medical this morning E Wing was on lock down. From floor 4 I could hear shouting and screaming, banging of prison doors. It was a right kerfuffle. “You're fucking dead, mate” shouts one prisoner, which is a pretty unfriendly thing to say to your mate. Floor 4. The floor I was about to be moved to.

The exercise yard is tense. I feel exposed walking laps on my own until a guy I recognised calls me over and I take a seat with his crew. They talk gangster shit I half understand interspersed with a quiz regarding my own illegal antics.

“So, why'd you do that, Blood?” asks Ruxspin. I give him the long answer: Beyond hacking dead girls phones, Murdoch supports despots in dictatorships and democracies and has poisoned the public discourse with racism, class war and ever shriller cries for harsh and punitive “justice”. The short answer is that he's a cunt.

“You shoulda thrown a grenade, mate” suggests Ruxspin. While I might not agree with his tactics you can't fault the boy's spirit, particularly not to his face.

I get back to my cell and am told I'm moving in an hour. I pack my things, say goodbye to Mr. Magoo and steel myself. I've already gotten the knack of moving round the prison, avoiding eye contact, spotting the nutters with my peripheral vision and keeping a wide berth. It's not too hard - after all, I was raised on the mean streets of Windsor. These tricks only work on the wings, though. It's a different story in a 6x8 cell.

“You taking the piss, guv?” opines Splinter, my new bunk buddy. He is the very man many of my haters wished on me after my light hearted prank/vicious assault on our democracy: a big black bloke from Brixton who likes neither my ethnicity nor my proximity to him. Maybe we could both take it up with the Judge?

“I'm Jonnie” I offer, hand extended. No response. After a few silent minutes I try “I sense you'd prefer to be on your own?” I'm curtly informed that Splinter does not give a fuck.

Splinter gruffly orders me to make my bunk up, which I do. “Nah, make it up proper, I don't want you fucking about later when I'm trying to sleep or watch telly”. By way of apology I tell him that I'm new at this. “What do you mean you're new at this?” I explain it's my first day in prison, like, ever.

“Why, what you in for?” he asks

“Well...”

20 minutes of laughter, handshakes and spreading the news down the wings later and the mood has lightened considerably. Splinter gives me some hard won prison advice. He's been in and out of the system for 30 years.

“If someone comes at you in here you gotta come back at them hard. You've gotta smack them up” I tell him that I respect his counsel, but suspect that I might not be the hardest bloke in Wandsworth.

“That's what I'm saying, bruv, people are going to come at you and you gotta show that you ain't no dickhead.”

We break for rec. time and showers. I drop the soap, slip over and hurt my arse. Write your own joke for this, you lazy pricks.

During rec. time I also fail to get a phone call. Some bureaucratic fuck-up is still working its way through the system and the guards are unsympathetic to my plight. I've yet to speak to anyone in the outside world.

I get angry for the first time and kick the walls of my cell impotently. My problems, of course, are neither remarkable nor surprising. Wandsworth houses over 1600 inmates and, like everything else, is spluttering under the cuts. That means fuck-ups, and a penal system that does not keep to its already deliberately low standards. The daily frustrations must take their toll after a while. It's no surprise people kick off.

At this point 4 huge blokes block the doorway to my cell, peering round expectantly as another slips through and squares up to me. He looks, well, hard.

“You Jonnie?” he quizzes me. It seems silly to argue. “Yeah? Well Murdoch sent me”

I scan his face for a hint of a smile but I find none, a look I'm all too familiar with from the stand-up circuit. Who is this guy? A Wendi Deng fan?

“Murdoch sent you?” I reply, remembering Splinters words and trying to hide my fear.

“Yeah, he's my uncle” he says. We both break into grins and the familiar dance of how, why and handshakes plays out. I give him the short answer first, then the long one. Five minutes later Beebop, my newest lag friend, is getting me to sign his copy of The Sun. He says he is going to sell it on e-bay. Maybe I'll buy it.

So, prison is scary, right? Yes and no. Yes, there are men of violence here, and others who have simply coped with the system's bullshit for too long. So far, though, the philosophy that brought me here has served me well. Everyone is human and none above another, whether they're a billionaire or doing bird.

As I write this Splinter is passing the time by watching Top Gear - a reminder, if one was needed, that there are far worse people than the ones you find in jail.

Day 1 - Going Down

2011-08-13T17:36:00.000-07:00

Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

I remember the blood rushing through my ears and the sick cramp in my stomach as the judge passed her sentence. My probation officer, my lawyer and the law of the land all agreed that I should not go to jail. Rupert Murdoch had dropped the charges. But this woman, alone and unaccountable, was having none of it. There were rules, she said, but she, like I, was willing to break them to make a political point. I got 6 weeks.

My girlfriend was in tears and I was in shock as I was led into custody. The man who took me down worked for SERCO, a private contractor, the same one currently bidding to run the probation service. My own probation officer was hard working and overworked, dedicated, caring, fastidious and fair. I dread to think of the plight of future defendants if his job is taken by the lazy gang of plastic pigs who clumsily processed me.

The one exception was Amy, SERCO's sole female guard. She came and asked if I was OK and I burst into tears. As she comforted me I told her about my son and the summer I would miss with him.

Minimarbles, if you are reading this, whenever that is, I am deeply sorry from the depths of my heart. I love you and miss you. Not seeing you is my real punishment here; the only one I care about, anyway.

My first contact with another prisoner, in the dungeon beneath Westminster Magistrates Court was a trifle unsettling. As the plastic SERCO pig opened the door to my new, temporary digs the man inside (we shall call him Dangermouse, because that is not his name) leapt to his feet. He wasn't supposed to be put in with anyone else, he protested. There had been problems. Violence. The look of fear in his eyes matched the one growing in my heart, but the SERCO screw locked the door on us anyway.

The mood soon changed once I introduced myself to Dangermouse and we got talking. I was relieved to hear that we would soon be furnished with dinner and tobacco. Dangermouse and I traded prison tips for protest anecdotes till the time came for my appeal.

To nobody's great surprise the same power-drunk petty dictator who had sentenced me also refused my bail application. She did not give her reasons. It must be excruciating to live a life where everything you do is so utterly predictable.

An hour later and we're rolling through the gates of Wandsworth Prison. Its 40 foot walls are iced with barbed wire and spikes, which I reckon is gilding the lilly, to be honest. Who has a 40 foot ladder?

I'd been advised by Dangermouse not to say what I'd done, just that I was in for assault. This plan went up like a lit fart the moment I stepped into E-Wing. “Oi, Pie man!” shouted one of my fellow lags. A few cons come over to alternately shake my hand and take the piss. We have some of what I believe is known colloquially as “banter”, something I have not enjoyed since university. It is not like riding a bike.

An “insider”- a prisoner whose job it is to show n00bs like me the ropes. I'm told I'll be on E wing for a week before being moved. “Go to A wing if you want a quiet life” says a man who was not called Donatello “Go to B or C if you like socialising. If they try to take you to D wing, protest. That's where they put all the drug addicts”.

I've already been advised to keep my tobacco in my sock and never leave it in my cell. “It's the main currency in here” confides Donatello “That and coffee”. Suddenly I wish I was better at giving stuff up.

My tobacco comes, along with a bag of sundries: 1 plastic plate, 1 plastic bowl, 1 plastic knife, fork and spoon, 1 plastic cup which I immediately lose, 1 tube of toothpaste, 1 toothbrush, 2 sachets of shampoo which state that they have not been tested on animals, 1 bar of soap which does not, 1 envelope, 1 pen, 1 sheet of HM prisons paper. The spartan functionality of my welcome pack immediately focuses the mind. I decide straight away that the item in shortest supply is paper. Donatello quickly finds me some through some quasi-contraband process which I do not understand but for which I am eternally grateful.

That night I watch Celebrity Juice with Mr. Magoo, a sickly Romanian man recovering from an operation who is my new cell mate. Celebrity Juice is easily the worst thing that has happened to me in jail so far.

As I lie on my bunk drifting to sleep I notice a 2Pac quote inked on the wall above my head.

“Please father, I'm a sinner
I'm living in hell
Just let me live on the street
cos there ain't no peace in jail.”

I hope this place won't be like that. Maybe 2Pac was a wimp.

5 Reasons the left should support Labour councilors supergluing themselves to Eric Pickles

2011-02-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

During the next few weeks, many local councils are setting their budgets. Some, particularly Labour councils, are being forced by central to make savage, destructive and irreversible cuts – the sort of cuts that were roundly rejected by the electorate in May last year. Paul Cotteril, a Labour councilor and political campaigner, yesterday made the case for Labour politicians to roll over and play dead to stop that big, bad Eric Pickles from doing something even nastier. Here’s why that strategy is bullshit.

1.) Eric Pickles will cut if they don’t

The Conservatives are pushing cuts onto local councils in order to shield themselves from the blame for their own policies. If this sounds like a conspiracy theory, ask why the worst of the cuts are all happening in Labour controlled areas - Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Newham, Liverpool and Manchester, to give some examples. By collaborating with central Government, Labour Councilors play right into Eric Pickes hands, taking responsibility for their opponents unpopular, damaging, undemocratic policies. Resisting cuts means the Tories will take the blame for their own shitty ideas.

2.) The removal of penalties means councilors don’t have to go to prison unless they want to.

Cotteril argues that the removal of criminal penalties for refusing to implement cuts makes it harder to resist, as councilors can no longer martyr themselves. This is patent nonsense - if councilors – Labour or otherwise – need a crash course in civil disobedience, I’m sure members of Britain’s ever-expanding anti-cuts community will be more than happy to oblige. When your local finance officer tries to implement cuts, disrupt the meeting, D-Lock yourself to the door, or do whatever you can to convince him to join the resistance. If Pickles takes over in his place, request a meeting and superglue yourself to him. There should be more than enough room on him for everyone to get stuck in.

3.)Resigning as a councilor means you don’t have to pretend to be a councilor any more.

If you’re unwilling to fight for the rights of your constituents, if you’re unwilling to pursue the mandate under which you were elected , if you are unwilling to say no to policies which will ruin the lives of people in your community you have no business being a councilor and you should resign. Arguing that doing this robs you of your powers is not the point – if you aren’t going to use your position to fight for people’s rights, step aside for someone who will. Plus, as a former councilor who had the integrity to stand up against Pickles and his mob, you can use your new-found credibility to help stop the Tories in a whole range of new, fun and exciting ways (see previous point).

4.)The cuts have no democratic mandate

As I’ve already stated, Labour politicians were not elected to implement the Tory cuts program. Neither were the Government. The scale of planned Tory cuts was concealed during the election campaign, and is being driven through, shock-doctrine style, in its aftermath by a party which failed to secure a majority. It is not the duty of progressive politicians to deliver the lesser of two evils. It is the democratic duty of every progressive in this country to resist the cuts by whatever means necessary.

5.) The Conservative agenda must be stopped

Along with the cuts, the Tories are planning the most radical set of public sector reforms in living memory. It is not hyperbole to state that, if they succeed, public services as we know them will cease to exist. To aid them in any part of their program is collaboration. This isn't about careerism or winning the next general election - it is about drawing a line and digging in. Even if you believe we cannot stop them, we must do anything and everything we can to slow them down, to make their lives difficult, to choke their bureaucracy and starve them of resources. If we don't, we'll spend our golden years telling our grandchildren what the NHS was, and how we failed to save it.

How to win at kettling – a guide for non-policemen

2011-01-28T00:31:00.000-08:00

During the second half of 2010 an exciting and physically challenging new urban sport broke out of the sub-cultures and into the big time. Kettling, once the preserve of climate activists, anarchists and anti-fascists, took the student world by storm throughout the winter, and is now set to hit the mainstream in 2011 with trade-unionists, benefit claimants, evictees, the disabled and anyone else who gives a flying fuck about their fellow human beings all set to get involved. The first match of the year is scheduled for Saturday, 29th of January, and both TSG and protesters are limbering up ahead of the big game.

But how, exactly, do you play kettling? Well, first you'll need to split into two teams – attackers and defenders. Team A, the defenders, will be formed of disparate groups of individuals with broadly similar but occasionally conflicting aims. So as to best identify themselves, they should wear hoodies, masks and an expression of determined optimism. For Team A the aim of the game is to remain free and at liberty for as long as possible while expressing their opposition to the status quo.

The offensive team, Team B, will be smaller in number, better armed, and dressed like angry glowsticks. The aim of the game for Team B is to trap Team A in as small a space as possible and stop them from leaving, thereby eliminating their right to free expression.

So far, Team A has suffered from a lack of training and equipment, as well as the fact that the rules were written by Team B, and breaches of even these rules are frequently ignored by the Federation International de Kettling Association, or “IPCC” as it is commonly known. For example, whilst Queensbury rules state that a sterile cordon can only be created in response to violence or breaches of public order, it is now routine for Team B to justify kettling in response to the perceived or imagined threats that these things may occur. This unsportsmanlike innovation means that some tactics previously used by Team A – such as not breaking the law – are unlikely to prevent Team B from kettling them anyway.

One thing that does play in Team A's favor is sheer numerical superiority. At it’s core, kettling is a struggle between a small, well equipped force trying to surround a much larger group. The principle is one which has been used throughout history, most notably by Hannibal at the battle of Cannae. By encircling his enemies within as tight a space as possible, Hannibal was able to create a front line where he actually outnumbered his opponents, despite their greater numbers, whilst simultaneously creating panic within their trapped ranks.

This is precisely the situation Team A wants to avoid. To do so, they should make good use of one simple concept that any GCSE biologists reading will be familiar with – surface area to volume ratio. The larger the space Team A occupies, the harder it will be for them to be kettled. At the beginning of a march this could mean starting at multiple rally points, or splitting up soon after setting off. It also means moving quickly, as a fast moving, albeit chaotic group covers more ground and occupies more space than a slow and orderly one. In fact, it makes sense to move unpredictably as this makes it harder for team B to spring an ambush, and also spreads the message to people who would not normally get to see dissent on their streets. In France, where this tactic has been popular for some time, it is sometimes called a “wild protest”

Team A might ultimately want to make their voice heard in a place of geographical significance – parliament square or Millbank for example. When this happens, Team A will probably get kettled. This may divide Team A into two groups, one inside and one outside of the kettle. Try to set up a secondary or tertiary rally point for groups outside of the kettle to converge at – this will prove useful later.

To best defend against the coming kettle, Team A should spread out as widely as possible within their rally space. This will both thin Team B's lines and create a more comfortable atmosphere for all involved. Depending on the situation, particularly on the number of people in Team A, Team B will either kettle geographically or physically. The former is the nicer kind of kettle, where there will be probably be lots of free space and individuals may even be allowed to leave freely, though not as a group. The latter tactic – sometimes known as “hyper-kettling” involves Team B crushing Team A into as tight a space as possible, using violence to squeeze people into an abnormally, sometimes dangerously cramped space. This is horrible.

To prevent hyper-kettling occurring, Team A should keep an eye on the body language and positions of Team B. Unlike Team A, who are free to do as they wish, Team B can only act under orders from one of their team captains, so if you see them moving in a group, putting on helmets, changing their stance or otherwise altering their behaviour, that means an order's been given. Try and ask yourself: what was that order? Was it part of a strategy? What will they do next?

If members of Team A see a kettle forming, the best thing to do is get beyond Team B's lines as quickly as possible. At the start of a kettle's formation these lines are usually weak and can be darted through. Shouting about the kettle is a good idea. Waiting for others to react to it isn't – the best way to convince others to leave is to lead by example. In any case, you will be more use outside than inside, as kettles are easier to break from the back of the line. Once out of the danger zone, use social media like Twitter and the new sukey.org website to inform your teammates of what’s going on.

For those left inside the kettle, it is imperative Team A fills as much space as possible, quickly. Getting those around you to join in is vital. Grab onto people and link arms tightly to form chains and encourage others to do likewise. You could also sit down, though this makes it harder to push back against police lines, and it will be easy for the police to tighten their cordon should you at any point be forced to stand up. Indeed, Team B may be happy to kettle a crowd sat on freezing concrete for as long as that crowd is willing to stay sat still. Still, at least you'll have some space.

Whether you are in a physical or geographical kettle, Team A pros will only have one thing on their mind: breaking out. Breaking out is one of the most challenging and rewarding parts of kettling, and freeing your teammates from an illegal and inhumane open prison is one of the most empowering things you can do as a player. To break out successfully, Team A must choose a weak spot in Team B's offense, pick the right moment, and then concentrate as much force as possible in that location. Good spots to target are places where the lines are only one or two glowsticks deep, or where more inexperienced members of Team B are playing. In London an organization called the Territorial Support Group are Team B's “A-Team”, to use a deliberately confusing metaphor. As well as the usual giveaways of riot shields and helmets, TSG members have a letter U on their lapels – this stands for “Utter fucking bellends”. The TSG is limited in size and for big games large numbers of other players – normal bobbies without riot training - will be brought off the subs bench. Keep an eye on who knows what their doing and who doesn't.

A good play from Team A will see them focusing their energy on a point where opposition players have the least direct access to their teammates – in a geographical kettle this might mean the edge of a line beside a wall or van, in a physical kettle it is simply the point furthest from reinforcements.

Timing is crucial. While it is generally best to wait until you can apply the maximum possible force to a weak point before rushing in, sometimes opportunities appear that are likely to be short lived. Acting swiftly and decisively in these situations can break the kettle.

The aim of focusing energy on one point is to create a gap in the line which can then be opened as wide as possible. One good way of doing this is to form a wedge or triangle shape, with the player at the front opening the space and allowing a fan of other players to spread it as they follow behind them. This is easier in geographic kettles than physical one, but in either case the structure will be more effective if players link arms and build momentum before reaching Team B's lines. Keep a look out for groups with home made shields, helmets and padding – they are likely to be looking for ways to break the kettle. You can help these Team A pros by allowing them to move through the crowd, then sticking close behind them.

If Team A has become split it can be very effective for those outside the kettle to push into Team B's lines from the outside whilst those within the kettle do the same from within. If a small group has escaped just as the kettle was forming they have the opportunity to put pressure on the kettle from the outside just when it is at its weakest. Keep in contact via phones, SMS, Twitter, Sukey etc. Also, use your eyes and ears – they may be old technology, but they’re surprisingly effective.

If all has gone according to plan, you will hopefully spend this Saturday breaking in and out of kettles across London. However, it’s not impossible that the day will end in a disheartening stalemate, with protesters being slowly dripped out of a kettle over many hours. Remember, in these situations the police do not have the right to take your details – not even your name – unless there has been a “Section 50” introduced. Officers WILL attempt to blag it. This includes straight out lying to you about their powers and threatening you with illegal arrest. Look around for a legal observer – these guys are awesome and will put the police in their place.

Finally, though kettling is a fun and addictive sport, it does have its dangers. Anarchish recommends you always wear the proper equipment while playing – knee and shoulder pads are recommended, and ideally a helmet as well. Carpet or foam can be used to provide extra padding underneath your clothes, which should be warm and comfy. Bring lots of food and water – I recommend “Mr. Tom” bars for food as they are cheap, lightweight, high in energy and fucking buff. Also, you can get them from most newsagents. Bringing extra food, water and hot drinks is a recipe for instant popularity.

Remember: kettling is not ultimately about stopping violence or disorder. It is about discouraging protest, about punishing people for having the audacity to stand up against the state. Do not give in to it. Be brave, be bold, be prepared - and play to win.

Stoned

2011-01-14T20:31:00.000-08:00

Both the activist world and the mainstream media have been abuzz over the last few days with further revelations about the life and work of erstwhile cop and pretend climate protester Mark “Flash” Stone/Mark Kennedy. For those of you unaware of the saga, Mark was a policeman who worked undercover as an environmental activist between 2003 and 2009, at which point he was discovered and confronted. What has thrust the story into the public eye in the last 72 hours is the apparent change of heart Mark Kennestone has had, offering his services to the defence in the ongoing trial of activists who were mass arrested before a planned action against Ratcliffe-On-Soar power station - an arrest he helped make happen.

Activists have had a range of responses to the exposure of the traitor in our midst. This is understandable. As well as the political and legal implications, the movement must also think carefully about the effect his betrayal had on those who were closest to him, and who could still be very hurt by any further developments. However, over the last few days we have learned from the media that there is another, much overlooked human interest story in play here. What about Detective Mark Stone’s feelings? Shouldn't we as a movement do everything we can to care for the man's dented emotional well being? Indeed, considering the dramatic turn of events in the last few days, should we not ultimately feel grateful to have been part of Ken Flashedy's inspiring emotional journey?

Being an undercover policeman is a stressful line of work. Admittedly, it wasn’t as stressful for Flash Markstone as it would be for a snitch working amongst East End gangsters, the IRA or drug dealers, for all of whom the threat of a swift and merciless execution would be ever-present. Nor is it as stressful as actually being an activist, lying awake at night, wondering if you really have the strength and courage to change things, and whether those in power will succeed in ruining your life for trying. Still, it was probably really stressful. Day in, day out, living a lie, learning to hide your feelings, to fake your feelings, to forget which ones were really yours. Spending days and nights partying with people, laughing and chatting with them, getting close to them, gaining their trust, knowing the whole time you are betraying them. It must have been awful. And, at some point, Mark had a change of heart. Not the kind of change of heart where you give up your Government pay cheque, stop fucking over the people whom you’ve convinced you care about and actually take a stand. More the kind of change of heart where your actual behaviour doesn’t change in any way, in fact it gets worse, but you sort of feel bad about it secretly, then eventually make a minor, whiney, non-commital gesture, that costs you nothing long after the damage is done to make up for it. Considering what a remarkable turnaround this is, I think we, as a movement, should feel grateful to have been part of Ken Marky’s epic personal journey.

Of course, now that our former comrade has become our current comrade, there are a few things he should do for the movement in order to complete his quest for atonement. As a former undercover cop, Flash Stonedy has some pretty vital information about how insidious scumbags like him operate. Now is the time for Stoney Kennash to share that information with the world. I’m sure a lucrative public speaking career amongst private security firms, intelligence agencies and international police conferences is available to the former officer but, considering how bad he feels, I’m sure they will be of no interest. I'm also sure, considering the complex emotional journey the man has been on, selling his story to Max Clifford would be the last thing on his mind. Instead, I suggest he provides exactly those services, for no charge, to the international climate and anti-capitalist movements. After all, he’s on our side now.

Of course, Stash Koneddy might argue that his security could not be guaranteed at meetings of anarchists, greens and the broad left. I cannot argue with this. For some reason, there are a lot of people who want to kick his fucking head in. Luckily for him, and us, those expertise can be shared without him ever having to be in the same room as anyone who might wish him harm. Uploading his knowledge to blogs, writing articles for activist newspapers and making Youtube videos would all be excellent ways for Stark Mennedy to begin proving that his mumbled half apology and promise of help was more than yet another cynical lie crafted to protect himself at the expense of all around him. I look forward to it.

Save it for the enemy, solider!

2010-12-30T10:35:00.000-08:00

As the last of the left over wrapping paper sandwiches are eaten and Father Christmas is dragged to the side of the road for the dustmen to collect, an amazing year draws to a close and thoughts on the left are finally turning to how we can best fuck ourselves in the twelve months ahead.

Since the coalition slouched into power, a diverse and colourful wave of protests has splattered itself across the political landscape like a Jackson Pollock study in revolution. While it’s true that the demographic of dissenters has been skewed towards those too young for Thatcher to have misappropriated their milk, the idea that this has been purely a minor’s strike is somewhat overblown. Yes, the vanguard of the cuts has come in the form of EMA and rising tuition fees, but the elder statespeople of the left – from unionists to politicians via veteran trots and good old fashioned anarchists – have been waiting in the wings, observing the groundswell of insurrection with a sharp and searching eye. What has been remarkable about the alphabetti-spaghetti of groups sharpening their tongues and for the fight ahead is that, so far, they haven’t knocked seven bells out of each other in the struggle to lead the fightback. That may be beginning to change.

On the blogosphere, in particular, left-on-left sniping has been the sport de jour over the Christmas season. This may, in part, be the shore-leave effect – now alliances are no longer enforced by the immediacy of action, we all have a little room to have it out with each another. Hopefully, this will merely turn out to be healthy spring cleaning, an airing of grievances ahead of what will, by all indications, be a make-or-break year for the anti-cuts movement. Yet I worry that the style in which these inevitable barnies are being pursued could be detrimental should it become the norm. The internet has been a huge boon to our movement, but it would be stupid of us to forget that the medium has a darker side. Read the comments on any Youtube video to see how quickly a civil discussion between people who can, presumably, tie their own shoelaces turns into a cacophony of bile, profanity and comparisons to Hitler. On the net, a fight can get half way around the world before a handshake can put it’s shoes on and, if we’re not careful, the very things that made the web a useful tool for us could be our undoing.

Yes, we will disagree with one another, publicly, but some simple courtesy could go a huge way to preventing utterly unnecessary splits in the year(s) ahead. Three simple rules spring to mind. 1.) – If you’re going to criticize someone, be they an individual or an organization, try to let them know in advance, or at least upon publication, what you’re doing 2.) where possible, give them a right to reply and 3.) If you’re on the receiving end of criticism, avoid oversensitivity, even when your critic has been less than polite. This movement isn’t about manners, or egos, or even who has the best ideas – it’s about working together to stop the Tories ruining the lives of millions of people.

With a bit of luck, all of this will probably turn out to be a case of me wearing shit-speckled-spectacles as I stare over the horizon. The year ahead could and should be a triumphant one for the left. See you on the barricades.

Rather po-faced article about the Burqa

2010-07-25T14:35:00.000-07:00

Liberal opinion has been thoroughly divided this week over France’s (as-yet-unratified) decision to ban the public wearing of the Burqa or Niqab (being a culturally insensitive bigot, I have absolutely no idea of the difference between the two).

The weight of controversy and debate surrounding the topic is proof that this is an emotive and highly complex issue, which I’ll attempt to address with my usual sense of gravitas and nuance.

Obviously we shouldn’t ban the Burqa. Don’t be so fucking ridiculous. The very fact we can have the debate is evidence of an odd sort of intolerance that we reserve exclusively for members of the Islamic faith, clothed up in faux-liberal window dressing about the freedom and emancipation of women.

Let’s start with the core assumption – that women who wear the Burqa, or at least the vast majority of them, are being forced to do so by men. Even those who oppose the ban seem to assume this is true. What exactly do we mean by this? Either, we’re implying that domestic violence is routinely employed in the Islamic community in order to enforce quasi-sharia law (in which case, the problem is much more serious than the Burqa and should be verbalized and addressed head on rather than by proxy), or we are stating that Muslim women are being “forced” by societal pressures into conforming to a stereotype that is anti-feminist. Just like they are in Western society.

It seems almost vapidly obvious to point this out, but women in Western society are not free to dress as they please without social and cultural repercussions. To some, the Burqa represents the exclusion of women from civil and public society, a visual representation of different if not necessarily diminished status, but it’s silly to argue that Western norms of dress don’t do exactly the same thing, presenting women primarily as sex objects to be valued according to their looks.

Now, the obvious argument is that Western women choose to dress in the way they do. They like it. They want the attention. Their choice to be highly sexualized in appearance is in no way based on representations within the media that imply a woman’s primary function in society is giving a men erections. No, these are freely made choices, plucked from the blissful autonomy of the cultural vacuum. Equally, women who choose not to dress like this are in no way looked down upon by other women or openly derided by misogynistic men.

Conversely, no woman chooses to wear the Burqa. This is because Muslim women can’t make choices or think for themselves. When we have finally given them the choice – which, oddly, we can only do by taking away their legal right to choose how to dress – they will, as one, emerge into the bright new dawn of cultural emancipation in mini-skirts, push-up bras and stilettos, as nature intended them to be seen.

I’m not trying to imply that I think the female sexual stereotype of far-right Islam is better than the female sexual stereotype of the supposedly liberal West. What I’m saying is that the only reason we have given ourselves license to discuss such a massively illiberal act of censorship is because we are condemning “foreign” misogyny. If you doubt that, ask yourself: can you really imagine us having a similar debate about banning porn?

More Economics/Less Filth

2010-06-30T08:18:00.000-07:00

Look, I didn’t want to have to do this. I really didn’t. It’s just, they’ve left me no choice. Along with the usual grab-bag of sweariness, tortured analogies and obtuse sesquipedalianism, this blog will, by necessity, contain several, many or more Very Boring Numbers.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I hate numbers. Four, for example, is a complete twat. But today I need their help in showing you the way that the Prime-Minister and his allies in the blogosphere have been lying about the budget.

A lot of you may already have seen the Guardian’s excellent expose on the real impact of coalition cuts on employment. Based on a leaked Treasury report that David Cameron is now refusing to release in full, it makes for stark reading. For those of you who haven’t seen it, here come a few numbers that are too scary to be boring:

• A loss of 500-600 thousand jobs from the public sector
• A loss of 600-700 thousand jobs from the private sector
• A total loss of 1.1-1.3 million jobs

Right wing bloggers have been apoplectic in their response. Their defence of the indefensible largely centres around the separate Office of Budget Responsibility pre-budget report, and another OBS report (conveniently published today, though seemingly not online) - which separately cite private sector job creation of 2-2.5 million over the next five years.

Highly successful, semi-literate professional cockbadger Guido Fawkes helpfully published the bullshit graphic below on his blog, which you may remember as the organ which helped popularise the bollocks claim that Gordon Brown was on anti-depressants in 2009.

Despite making several schoolboy errors (for example, marking down all 1.3 million disappearing jobs as ‘public sector’, despite the fact more than half will go from the private sector) the graph neatly summarises the arguments of both the right wing blogosphere and the prime-minister – namely, that the damage done by cuts will be more than offset by increases in private sector employment. There are a few problems with this argument, which I’ve summarised below.

A.)The increase in private sector employment will occur in spite of, not because of, the budget and is mainly down to two factors, specifically net migration pushing up the size of the Labour pool (See OBR report P.82 - an assumption based on the premise that the Conservatives will ditch their pre-election pledge to cap immigration at 100k per annum) and hilariously optimistic forecasts for economic growth. Speaking of which…

B.) The growth forecasts are complete wank, predicting UK GDP to rise at over a percentage point above the Euro Area trend every year of then next five, as well as assuming that every available economic indicator will turn from shit dust into flying gold over the next twelve months due to some kind of as-yet-to-be-identified magic. Finally…

C.) Even if the highly positive growth forecasts were somehow correct, it would have nothing to do with this budget, which has prescribed economic retrenchment over investment. Any economic growth will, by definition, be the product of external demand and the banks beginning to lend again due to the global economic bailout instituted by whatsisface – you know, the last bloke we had in charge.

In short, what Cameron et al are doing is committing murder and then pleading innocence because babies are being born all the time (see, there’s one of those tortured analogies I promised you). Here’s a quick chart summarising the reality of the situation.

In related news, I hate Excel.

Economics/Filth

2010-06-28T23:08:00.000-07:00

Masochism is rarely an attractive quality. I don’t mean the pretend-coy, arse-slapping methinks-the-lady-doth-cum-too-much masochism most of us enjoy. I mean the woe-is-me, self-hating, auto-industrial-flagellation that our current coalition government loves.

Yes, - I know there’s a deficit. I saw a program about it and everything. We’ve all been very naughty boys and girls – and perhaps a few hard cracks with the economic cane wouldn’t go amiss. A severe increase in the top rate of income tax, or a crackdown on avoidance and evasion, might appropriately redden the national buttocks. But that’s not how this slutty little coalition has chosen to play it. Instead, they’ve left the UK prostrate and hog-tied, ball-gag already in our mouths, and a “Britain: Open For Business” sign proudly hanging above our gaping national arsehole.

Take two recent decisions by our cock-hungry government. First, the scrapping of a loan to Sheffield Forgemasters. Their business – building parts for nuclear power plants – is not one I feel totally comfortable with. But it would, doubtless, have been fantastically profitable over the next few decades. Yet the Government chose to scrap it. What other explanation, apart from balls-deep masochism, can there be for such deliberate economic mismanagement?

Or, take a more recent decision – the announcement by Vince Cable that we won’t “prop up” failing auto manufacturers. In reality, this is just a massive fuck-you to British Industry. It’s not as though our fellow G8, G20 or G195 nations are going to halt their subsidies in response. So all this does is send a big signal to global manufacturers that Britain’s Government has no faith in Britain. We’re just bending over, spreading and hoping the financiers see us as easy.

The sad reality is that, no matter how much Osbourne, Clegg, Cable and Campbell widen their mouths and beg for jizz, all we’re likely to get is a torrent of hot, steamy piss from money-markets who despise weakness above all else. The lesson from those states who’ve stood up to them – for example, Argentina – is that they are much more eager to climb into bed with a nation that maintains a little bit of self-respect.

The HTML gateway, not the deodorant.

2010-06-09T11:20:00.000-07:00

Allo you lot. No time for wordsplurge today, but here's some yummy links to be getting on with.

For the best interview with a giant green feminist that you'll read today, check out:

http://msmagazine.com/blog/blog/2010/06/07/feminist-hulk-smash-exclusive-interview-with-ms/

If Feminist Hulk has inspired you, why not get yourself a fistful of SMASH over at UKFeminista who are crowdsourcing ideas for a campaign against the Daily Mail's bullshit attitude to rape victims:

http://www.ukfeminista.org.uk/discussion-forum/4-feminist-issues/195-the-daily-mails-campaign-of-hate-against-women.html

And, for a highly entertaining deconstruction of something deeply anti-feminist, as well as a brief snatch of Mark Kermode singing the Internationale, go here:

http://dayandnightmag.ie/2010/06/02/mark-kermodes-wildly-entertaining-satc2-review/

The article he mentions in the Stranger is worth a look too:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/burkas-and-birkins/Content?oid=4132715

Be seeing you.

Baddies Hurt Goodies On Boat

2010-06-01T17:40:00.000-07:00

Some goodies got hurt by the baddies on Tuesday when the goodies fought with the baddies on a boat. The boat was in the bit of the sea which belongs to everyone.

The goodies didn’t want to have a fight and were only trying to stop the baddies from hurting people, but the baddies really wanted to keep on hurting people so they decided to fight with the goodies. In the fight, some people got killed.

Now everybody’s cross.

Even though it was OK for the goodies to hurt the baddies because of what the baddies were trying to do, it wasn't OK for the baddies to hurt the goodies back because the baddies were trying to do something bad. Some people who are friends with the baddies have been saying wrong things, like that the goodies were trying to do something they shouldn't have been, and that it’s the goodies' fault people died. At the special club were everyone is supposed to get together and sort things out nobody can agree on anything because the baddies friends keep telling lies and ruining things for the goodies.

The goodies don’t want to have fights, but everyone treats them very unfairly. This makes it really hard for the goodies to stay out of fights with the baddies, who treat them most unfairly of all. If only the baddies would stop doing bad things and stop trying to kill all the goodies, then it would all be OK.

But they won’t so the goodies have to keep trying to kill all the baddies until everything gets better.

Fire is the cleanser

2010-05-01T18:45:00.000-07:00

Here's a moving picture of my face explaining why I'll be setting fire to my ballot paper on May 6th.

Meow.

2010-03-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

MEPH-ER AGAIN!

KILLER

There is a new drug craze sweeping the nation. They may be cheap, legal and easily available - but stories about mephedrone kill.

Users – known as “readers” - report feeling superior, self-righteous indignation, but side-effects include paranoia, high blood pressure, psychosis - and even death.

FUN

“We do it because it’s fun.” Said Maureen Nibbs, 54, who asked to remain anonymous. Maureen has been a regular Daily Mail user for eight years, and has nowstarted reading Mephedrone stories. “We all get together at the WI coffee morning and read the stories, sometimes four or five in one go. Then we just sit there and tut for hours and hours.”

In hairdressers, bingo halls and cafés across the country, news fiends gather to binge on unscientific rubbish, before spending the rest of the day in a sick angry stupour, shaking their heads and repeating over and over ‘it wouldn’t have happened in my day.’

“We’re not hurting anybody” Maureen says.

But nothing could be further from the truth.

ANIMAL

Readers often become violent, causing danger to themselves and others.

“He was like an animal.” says one victim “I’d just gotten home, and Dad was sat on the sofa. I could tell from the look in his eyes that he’d been reading Meph stories. Next thing I knew, he had me up against the wall, demanding to know what I’d done to the cat. At least, I think that’s what he said. He was a bit pissed.”

SCROTUM

Worse still, while readers think they know what they’re putting in their eyes, many articles are cut with nonsense. One fleet street dealer explained: “If we just reported facts, it’d be very ‘ard for readers to work up a dangerously uninformed sense of moral superiority. So we chuck some other stuff in – a bit of innuendo here, some rumours there, occasionally a drop of complete bullshit – just to give it all a bit more oomph. We cooked up a batch of Meph stories a few months ago and we chucked in a line saying some bloke ‘ad ripped ‘is scrotum off. There was no evidence for it, just a couple of posts on an internet forum. Look, I’m not saying it’s right, but if I didn’t print it, someone else would, know what I mean?”

DEADLY

As readers become increasingly paranoid and deluded, fears are growing that they will turn to legislation to get their next fix, forcing Mephedrone users back onto more dangerous drugs like Cocaine and Methamphetamine. Article addicts are so desperate for more that they're willing to give the mephadrone trade over to armed gangsters in order to satisfy their cravings.

These stories are sick, dangerous and deadly. Today, Anarchish asks: How many more young people will die before we put a stop to it?

Is it just me, or are the tories getting a bit complacent?

2010-01-15T17:54:00.001-08:00

I only review things I've watched all the way through, and other excuses.

2010-01-04T03:55:00.001-08:00

December 31st 2009 saw the end of long running period drama, “The Noughties”. Set over ten years and featuring a cast of over six billion characters, The Noughties' scale and complexity was surpassed only by The Wire. Though The Wire was set primarily on the mean streets of Baltimore and The Noughties was set everywhere, they did share at least one big similarity: both spectacularly jumped the shark in their final incarnation. Along with the sudden and unexpected deaths of what seemed like half of its main characters, and a desperately unrealistic sub-plot in which a black man became President of the United States, 2009 primarily jumped the shark due to the overuse sheer, hysterical melodrama.

Take one of 2009’s main plot twists: the long illness and subsequent death of tragic chav goddess, Jade Goody. After a recent storyline that saw Ms Goody revealed as a thick, racist bully during her second stint on vacuous visual-vomit factory Big Brother, the writers showed absolutely no respect for their audience by turning wildly on a sixpence and proclaiming her a deeply sensitive every-woman the moment she was diagnosed with cancer. Her legendarily low IQ was soon being talked about in Zen like terms, and her pathetic amount of charity work was spoken of in hushed and hallowed voices, as though she was some kind of cross between Princess Diana and Gandhi. All of this hyperbole served to justify the ludicrous lavishing of attention on what must have been the most over-exposed death in history, with the press delving into every irrelevant detail of the irrelevant woman’s demise.

Many were critical of this, pointing out that Jade’s spectacularly public shuffling from this mortal coil seemed to be little more than a commercialisation of death itself, a macabre spectacle in which we, the viewers, were invited to peer into, speculate upon and ultimately own someone else’s final moments. Others celebrated the move, saying the storyline gave us a chance to collectively examine issues to do with grief and our own fear of mortality in a way which was genuinely empowering.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the storyline was so incredibly popular that the writers scheduled a second, American version of the plotline for later in the year. As with all things American, it was bigger, louder and much more spectacular.

The death of Michael Jackson from a heart attack while drugged off his face on his honey-trap of a ranch dominated the headlines for weeks. Cribbing from the Goody story, Jackson had his own chequered and conflicted past. The singer spent the latter part of his life under a cloud, batting back allegations that he had undergone plastic surgery, had sexually interfered with underage boys, and hadn’t released a decent album since Thriller. As with Jade Goody, these contradictions caused polarisation instead of universal revulsion, with the debate over the artist’s life and legacy occupying the news for far more time than one man’s death decently should.

What was really unusual was that the writers of The Noughties gave so much more airtime to these stories than seemingly bigger, more important ones happening elsewhere. In April, the leaders of the G20 nations met in London. There they collectively conspired to give yet more public funds – money which had been repeatedly denied to schools, hospitals, police forces and every form of social program – to the very richest people in society, in exchange for their total decimation of the economy and in return for absolutely no control of the banks. Outside, people who disliked these and other ideas, such as the possibility that billions of people will likely be killed if we don’t stop steadily strangling our planet, were beaten and arrested. One of those who had the shit kicked out of him later died, a killing the police initially tried to pin on the protesters.

The death of Ian Tomlinson was a different kind of media spectacle to the others we’ve examined. Unlike Jackson and Goody, he was never beatified by the press – indeed, initial reports decried him as variously a protester, a yob and an alcoholic who, in all cases, had only himself to blame. It was only as details and, more importantly, videos emerged that the press and police had to tacitly admit it was the state, not the crowds of idealistic youngsters, who were at fault.

This story, one which seemed to uncover systematic state abuse and repression, not in some far flung Middle Eastern Dictatorship, but right here, in 21st century Great Britain, looked for a moment like it was a watershed, a fundamental shift in the institutional framework of the British state. Then the papers found something much, much more important to cover.

In May of 2008, the country was shocked into apoplexy by the discovery that politicians are greedy, earn more than you, and lead quite privileged lifestyles. It was like watching a lynching at the ideal homes exhibition, with each fresh revelation from the register of members’ interests inspiring both violent disgust at the largesse of our leaders and weasely fascination with how the other half live. What the mob seemed impervious to was the constant klaxon call that nothing illegal, or often really even underhand, had actually been done.

The specific items that MPs had claimed on expenses were often farcical, such as Jacqui Smith’s husband’s claim for a hareem of prostitutes and Douglas Hogg’s claim for a space castle, or petty, such as Alistair Darling's reimbursement for half of a penny sweet or Hazel Blears' claim for a single ant. What they were not, in the traditional sense, was news. One felt that public outrage and indignation was being transferred from the bankers, who had largely ignored the hissing and foaming of the masses, onto politicians, who have no choice by to take our idiot heckling seriously, no matter how unfair it may be. The overall result of the public’s rage at wealth, privilege and unaccountability is that they are now more likely to vote for a Conservative government. Good luck with that, guys.

Overall, 2009 was a cautionary tale about the danger of paying attention to the wrong things. From Susan Boyle’s matchingly mediocre looks and voice, to Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize for sending more troops to Afghanistan, to the appearance of a fat stupid racist on Britain’s premiere topical panel show, in 2009 we forgot what was important. Perhaps this was because our real problems – from the recession, to Pakistan, to Climate Change – seemed too big and impossible to properly contemplate, let alone take action on. In the final few episodes of the 2009 series, The Noughties stole once again from The Wire's playbook, reminding us with a failed Copenhagen agreement and dark mutterings about Yemen that it's all cyclical - for all the admitted defeats and perceived victories, little has really changed.

Thanks, future self!

2009-12-30T05:54:00.000-08:00

A lot has changed over the last ten years. Looking back now, the world of 2010 seems almost quaint. At the start of this decade, who could have predicted the rise of MirrorVision, the spectacular death of Elizabeth the Second, or that Nick Griffin – once a figure of hate – would become one of our most beloved celebrities? Perhaps most importantly, few in 2010 could have foreseen that we would end the decade living far beneath the earth’s uninhabitable surface, ruled by the world’s first totalitarian lexical dictatorship. In many ways, 2010 seems like a simpler time.

It’s impossible to talk about the past decade without talking about the rise and fall of David Cameron. Upon winning the general election in 2010 with a majority of just four seats, Cameron immediately embarked on a right wing legislative offensive, with the emphasis on offensive. The move succeeded in uniting the Tories, and not all of the policies that came out of the period were totally disastrous: The re-introduction of the death penalty reduced both the prison population as well as the population as a whole, the reinstatement of the poll tax revitalised the flagging baton and barricade industries, and the invasion of Europe went about as well as could have been realistically expected.

There was very little public outcry over these putative reforms partly because politics is boring, but also because 2011 saw the advent of MirrorVision. MirrorVision was described by its creators, Endemol, as “A devastatingly imaginative social experiment which provides real time content over a hybrid social and classical media paradigm.” In English, 2011 was the year everyone got their own show.

MirrorVision conquered all. For a small/ridiculous fee, you too could have a camera crew, make-up artist and director follow you around 24/7, splicing, editing and adding narration to your life in post production, turning your existence into a glitzy, high concept and totally unwatched TV series. MirrorVision quickly spawned a whole new generation of hyper-celebrities, and none flew higher or sunk lower than Duncan Souch.

Souch became famous for a week long MirrorVision binge. For seven days, Souch lay in his pants on the sofa, literally watching his own life slip him by, narrated live by a man with a pretend Geordie accent. What Souch didn’t know was that his immobile vigil of self-worship was also being watched by millions across the world on his MV channel. By the time he eventually emerged to buy some milk, he was an international superstar, hounded by paparazzi on his way to the newsagents, and hailed as an everyman symbol of the shiny new auto-digital age.

The appetite for news about “Couch Souch” was insatiable, and soon his MirrorVision channel was soon being watched by 200 million people. SouchVision was relocated from a dingy south London bedsit to a brightly lit LA studio, where Souch continued to lie around in his pants only this time on a much more expensive sofa.

It couldn’t last forever. Souch soon began to feel cramped by his onscreen persona, unconvincingly arguing that there was more to his personality than lying motionless for hours on end, watching himself do nothing. Souch started branching out into charity work and political activism, wearing pants he had bought from the NSPCC shop and occasionally muttering dark comments about assorted politicians under his breath. Analysts began to speculate that spending an average eighteen hours a day watching himself watch himself might be provoking some kind of deep-seated existential crisis.

Soon, the backlash began – pundits declared “Slouch Souch” was a self absorbed, lazy twat, and an extremely poor role model for the nation. As quickly as he had been placed on his pedestal, Souch was cast back down into the muck. Editorial after tabloid editorial decried him a nonentity, a fuckwit, unspeakably evil, and a portent of the coming apocalypse. On the third of December, 2012, in full compliance with the Anti-Social behaviour act of 2012, Duncan Souch was burned at the stake.

But the rise and rise of MirrorVision could not insulate Cameron’s controversial government forever, and in 2013 he made his fatal mistake. In response to a parliamentary question, Cameron claimed that “Chav Hunting is part of modern British culture, and it symbolises that once and for all we have moved beyond the misrule and muddled thinking of the Noughties, forwards into the bright new future of the Tweens.”

The comment was highly controversial, both inside and outside of the party. Conservatives were unsettled by Cameron’s suggestion that Britain was going forward into the future, a move they wholeheartedly opposed. Meanwhile, the media and masses became obsessed with Cameron’s flippant use of the word “Tweens”. In a debate which never fully fell out of fashion, pundits and public alike went into total meltdown over what to call their decade. At one point, every post on twitter was tagged with either #tweens, #teens or, #eleventies. The argument became symbolic of everything from the breakdown of the family unit to the rising price of Frisbees, but it ultimately coalesced around one point: Cameron had to go.

Despite a valiant attempt to regain the support of his Cabinet with an emergency bill banning the use of public transport, David Cameron was forced to resign on the third of March, 2013.

Across the pond, dastardly hopemonger Barack Obama won a second term in office, but lost control of Congress. The Republican party blocked his every attempt at reform, and passed several pieces of legislation that went against everything Obama believed. After being forced into signing the “No, you can’t!” act of 2014, Obama was found lying face down on the floor of the oval office, silently mouthing the words “despair and stagnation” over and over again. It looked as though Obamamania was over.

Then, on April 5^th, 2015, a series of terrorist attacks in major cities around the globe gave life, meaning, and most of all, public support to Obama’s flagging administration. After weeks of intensive debate on both sides of the Atlantic, the United States unilaterally invaded Iran, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the Sudan. Britain also invaded the Middle East, but insisted that it was just a coincidence and it definitely wasn’t only copying America to look cool in front of all the other countries.

The war with a huge success, killing hundreds of thousands of people who looked a lot like terrorists, and, totally by accident, as an added bonus, securing several major oil fields. Despite continued, and indeed intensified, atrocities, Obama was lauded for winning the war on terror, and collected a second Nobel peace prize.

Unfortunately, the war was not without its costs. Her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth the Second, insisted on going to the front lines herself to fight, where she predicatably died in the first few hours of the conflict in a parachute drop over Tehran, and was buried in eight separate coffins. At that time, few could have predicted the severity of the constitutional crisis that her passing would provoke.

Events began to spiral out of control when, noting Obama’s newfound popularity, and acting on misguided advice from his father, Prince Charles blacked up for his own coronation. The outcry was unequivocal from across the spectrum. Charles the Third would reign for just three days before abdicating in favour of his son.

But William would never sit on his father’s throne. Before taking the crown, the young prince issued an ultimatum to his Kingdom: He had fallen in love with the glamour model, actress and Booker Prize winner Katie Price. Britain would accept her as their queen, or he would not rule them at all. They were both burned at the stake in a quiet ceremony, shortly before dawn.

Finally, Prince Harry was declared “inappropriate” because of that thing none of us are supposed to talk about, and the situation reached crisis point. By this stage, Britain had been monarchless for almost three weeks. Across the country, school fetes went unopened, parades went unwatched, and swans went uneaten. It was pandemonium. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had little choice but to dissolve the monarchy. Surviving members of the royal family went on to make ends meet in the dying reality TV industry.

The dissolution of the monarchy demanded a new constitution and fresh elections. In an effort to be modern, Boris Johnson introduced e-voting, to be conducted entirely via the comments on Youtube videos and the Have Your Say section of the BBC website. The BNP was returned with a landslide majority of 174 seats.

At the start decade, Nick Griffin had been a figure of public revulsion, but an appearance on the final series of I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here in 2013 changed all that. Nick delighted the nation with his pratfalls and faux pas and audiences up and down the country squealed with glee as a horrified Griffin was forced to swim through a pit of centipedes, swallow a live gecko and shake hands with a black person. By the time he became Prime Minister, Griffin was a household name, presenting his own chat show, cookery program and The Daily Politics on BBC 2. With all of these media commitments, Griffin had little time to govern, and outsourced the day to day work of his office to a Polish labourer, who did a thoroughly excellent job at a very reasonable price. In late 2016 Griffin resigned the premiership entirely to become the new host of Top Gear, triggering the third election in six years.

By this time, most BNP members had become disillusioned with politics and the party had all but disbanded. Successive victories for “lol n00b” and “fagzzzzzzz” highlighted the shortcomings of the internet based electoral system, and it was decided that Britain should institute a system of proportional representation. Literally everyone stood in the election of 2016, with the most popular 646 parties each receiving a seat. The years since have been complete legislative deadlock, with the bi-monthly reintroduction and repeal of the fox hunting ban being the only laws consistently passed.

On the 19^th of August 2017, President Murdoch of the United States and acting Prime Minister David Chubbs, of 26 Handell Way, Chorleywood, both received a phone call. It was the head of the International Association of Careless Bankers, Michael Froth, phoning from the Bahamas. While on a morale boosting corporate jolly celebrating the banking sector’s record 2017 profits, the heads of world’s seven biggest banks got a little tipsy, placed those record profits in a big pile, gathered around in a circle and set it on fire. The banking sector urgently needed $1.8 trillion for re-capitalisation, bonuses, and plane tickets home.

It was agreed by politicians that this was no time to play the blame game. World Leaders declared that a financial crisis of unimaginable magnitude was facing the global economy, one that nobody could have predicted. When World Ordinary People pointed out that it could have been very easily predicted just by looking at what had happened before, World Leaders replied that, while it might seem like that, the one thing nobody expected was for the exact same thing to happen to the global economy twice. Decisive action was taken: World Governments borrowed the money they needed to give the banks from the banks they were giving the money to, temporarily solving the crisis. A few months later, after failing to keep up repayments, World Governments were repossessed and sold to the Chinese.

One of the few pieces of good news of the decade came when, after accidentally turning on location services on his iPhone, FBI agents finally caught up with Osama Bin Laden. The fugitive terrorist mastermind admitted to a long list of atrocities but, curiously, not the 2015 attacks which had precipitated the Western invasion of the Middle East.

The real culprit was soon unmasked. Beneath the surface of society, an increasingly atomised cultural diaspora had become irrevocably detached from the rest of civilization, spiralling into a topsy-turvy world of skewed significances, factionalism, and urban warfare. On March the 25^th, 2019, #eleventies became the first twitter hashtag to test a nuclear weapon. It was followed in the next few hours by #tweens and #teens.

It is often said that the resulting atomic conflict had no real winners. I disagree. After the last few remaining Tweensters and Teenites were captured and summarily executed, it seems pretty clear that the Eleventies have won. Other winners include cockroaches, producers of canned food, and the only celebrity to survive the nuclear holocaust, Nick Griffin, whose vast melty face is glaring down at me as I write this from the mess-hall telescreen in the abandoned sulphur mine I now call home.

Indeed, 2010 was a simpler time. If only, knowing what I know now, I could somehow go back to before all this terrible business started, to those bright, clear days populated by naive creatures, blissfully unaware that they stood on the very precipice of destruction. I could play the lottery or something. I’d be well rich.

All hail the one, true #hashtag!

Tatty-Byes.

Copenhagen: The Aftermath

2009-12-22T05:50:00.001-08:00

"What are you doing?" A security guard asks me. My mind is swimming with the events of the last few days, and I am just waking up.

"I’m going to The Bella Centre. I need to stop the summit." I reply.

“Do you know where you are?”

Three days ago I was marching through Ostebro, embedded in the Blue Bloc with the rest of my affinity group. As we crossed the bridge on our final approach, as the protest arrived outside the most important talks the world had ever seen, we were quietly de-legalised. They were supposed to give us three clear warnings, but here was a pattern that had become all too familiar: police failing to keep to even the flimsy rules that remained under the Danish emergency laws. The march ground to a halt outside the main gates. The riot vans closed in behind us and the cops kitted up.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. A couple of dozen people began inflating Lilos and tying ropes. The crowd came together as one, elated at the scent of energy. Slowly it dawned upon them: we were going across the water between us and the Bella Centre.

It took just a few minutes before the bridge was floated and people began crawling across. From our side of the canal, an activist-medic shouted warnings about the potentially lethal danger of falling into the drink. From the police side cops fired pepper spray into the faces of those crawling across the structure. Nevertheless, a few activists made it, straight into the snarling jaws of the dogs on the other side, and immediate arrest.

Word went round that the police had begun beating our comrades at the entrance to the Bella Centre, and we decided to join them in solidarity, using the bridge as a barricade. Within seconds of our reaching the front line, the cops pulled knives and thrust them into the Lilos. I shouted at the lines of armed police.

"Arrest that man! Destruction of property! Carrying an offensive weapon!"

As our bridge deflated, the chant rose from our ranks:

"We Are Peaceful! What Are You? We Are Peaceful! What Are You?"

They answered with a flourish batons raining blows indiscriminately into the crowd. One of my new friends, a protester as peaceful as any you could ever meet, was being hit repeatedly. Flushed with adrenaline, I threw myself between them. It didn't matter to the man with the truncheon: any protester would do as a target.

I registered the pain, but didn't feel it. Yet some primal part of me recognized the violence, and the sickly red rush of anger swam through my veins. A lifelong commitment to peace was being steam-rollered by millions of years of evolution. I felt the tug of my id at the back of my mind, urging me to push, to throw, to punish. Thankfully events took over, and my group withdrew from the front. We went to join the People’s Assembly: an alternative summit, to which delegates from COP15 had been invited, that would propose real solutions to the problems of Climate Change.

Word went around that delegates who had tried to leave the Bella Centre and join our protest had been beaten, pepper sprayed and arrested. I felt sick with fury and impotence, not just at the news, but at the knowledge that just a few days ago, I would not have believed such a thing could happen. Now it seems normal. Somehow this news - that internationally recognised diplomats were attacked and detained to prevent them joining a peaceful protest - has been quietly buried by the UK media.

The People’s Assembly was rich with ideas, but without our friends from inside it was hard for it to be anything more than symbolic. In the end, we marched away as one, crushed and euphoric all at once. I did not know how to feel so I felt nothing, except the dregs of anger that still bubbled at the sight of every cop.

An hour or so later, at an activist info-point, a news report broke the surface tension of my inner turmoil.

"All we are asking for is the economic space to exist." pleaded a South American delegate. Perhaps it was the way that begging for scraps had been clothed in the language of neo-liberalism. Perhaps it was the realisation that our action had failed to move the debate in a radical direction. Perhaps it was just exhaustion and adrenaline. Whatever the case, a wave of emotion coursed through me and I fell apart. Tearful, my friends took me to trauma support where I crashed for a couple of hours.

The next few days were a blur of tiredness and frustration, as we discussed and refused to discuss our cumulative failure. Leaving Copenhagen I hear that the US is only offering 4% cuts over 1990 levels. Even this will not be legally binding. The Copenhagen Accord is a whisper in a gale, a piece of crude and cynical gesture politics, a quiet acquiescence to genocide. We have failed this time, as a movement and as a species, and no building of networks, no shift in our collective consciousness, no revolutionary friendship can truly compensate for this defeat. My inner optimist rails against the futility of it all, a lonely internal protest trying to pull down the fence of facts that cannot be denied. The best I can say is that our work is unfinished. I know a part of me will always yearn for the hope, the energy, and the lost opportunities of those few brave hours on the streets of Copenhagen.

"I’m going to The Bella Centre. I need to stop the conference."

"Do you know where you are?" The security guard asks

I look around, and realize I have fallen asleep at Charing Cross. The frenetic days and stunted nights have finally caught up with me. The security guard looks confused.

"Well, we can't let you stay here. It's a suicide risk."

Still bleary and jangled from sleep, I hear myself say:

"It's too late. Didn’t you hear? The world already committed suicide."

He eyes me weirdly and walks away. I am just waking up, and I slowly realise that I am wrong. We did not commit suicide in Copenhagen. We merely wrote the note.

Jonniemarbles

Read This Blog, And Others Like It, At:
http://www.run-riot.com/taxonomy/term/264

Day 3 - Dec 14th, No borders & Christiania Riots

2009-12-15T06:01:00.002-08:00

Hi, sorry I'm only getting to file 1 a day. Here's the latest:

After two days of abuse, two days of mass arrests, two days in which we witnessed how a country without a constitution behaves, today the movement won it's first big victory.

The (legal) No Borders demo left an hour late because it's organisers had been arrested. The march was peaceful but determined, linking arms tight to form chains around the edges, chanting slogans and singing to the storm troopers as they escorted us.

The tension levels simmered as we approached the MoD and the police lines thickened. Suddenly, we stopped. We were at the ministry of defence. We held tight, braced for impact and... Nothing. Minutes passed, our chains weakened. It became clear we had not got a plan. The people with the plan were in a cage somewhere in Copenhagen.

The demonstration moved on to parliament square and became illegal.

For several minutes two thousand people danced, chanted and sang along to the tunes blasting from the party bus. The huge orange globe was ripped from its tethers and dragged back and forth across the square, then right into the centre of town. The police were a mess: they repeatedly tried to kettle us but we broke through their lines. We began marching towards Christiania.

As we made our final approach the police made one last effort to break through our lines and detain people. We repelled them and for a moment everything seemed like it was about to kick off. Then a message came blasting from a tannoy:

"Please keep calm and continue marching."

The cops were scared. More than scared: they were in retreat. We had won, and we marched to Christiania in peace.

A few hours later the black bloc were denied entry to Christiania by its citizens. They left, but set fire to a car nearby. It was all the pretext the police needed.

Hundreds of riot police descended upon the squat community, firing tear gas and handing our beatings in a vicious revenge attack. Over 150 arrests were made. Make no mistake: this was not policing. It was payback.

All eyes are now on Wednesday and the Reclaim Power Rally. Copenhagen waits on the doorstep of history.

Day 2 - Dec 13th, Stop The Production

2009-12-15T06:01:00.001-08:00

The Danish police enacted the largest mass arrest in their history yesterday. 968 people were detained for the heinous crime of Incitement To Fuck All. The police rested on their laurels a bit today, snatching just a few hundred innocent people from the streets of Copenhagen. A lot of those people were on the way to the docks to protest, and never made it more than a few hundred yards from their assembly point which was, somewhat naively, right in the middle of a triangle of roads. The protest sort of came pre-kettled.

My buddy and I went a different route and, surprisingly, got to the docks. They were effectively closed: the herds of cop vans rocketting up and down between two huge police blockades made sure of that. We eventually found what was left of the kettle, and you can watch videos of that escapade at twitter.com/jonniemarbles.

Later, after returning to the centre, I went to help pick up some people from the police station. Clearly the police have some really crippling targets they have to meet for dicking people about, because instead of just letting the prisoners out at the station and into our waiting van, they tried to secretly drive them away on a coach to a much more inconvenient location. So we followed them, and drove them back home.

This is my second night sleeping in the Voldskarken Skole and already it feels like home. Today was long, tiring and amazing. The atmosphere is beginning to buzz and crackle with speculation about the sixteenth. It is slowly dawning on me that I am part of something very, very big here.

JonnieMarbles

Day 1 - Evening, Dec 12th

2009-12-15T06:00:00.001-08:00

We arrived in cop at about midday. The police gave us no trouble on the way in, though the Green, Yellow and Lilac coaches were hassled quite badly and yellow arrived several hours late.

Today was quite laid back, though as the day went on there were arrests and rumours of arrests. I went with a hastily formed group to the big global day of action. It was fun and lively but it's hard to see what impact my four hour walk had on the issues at hand. Apparently around 400-700 black bloc were arrested just after they crossed the Torvlgade bridge - the police effectively kettled them and then nicked them under the preventative arrest laws. The exact numbers are unclear but I saw at least five police coaches packed out, blue lights flashing, taking the black bloc to jail. So there will probably be a lot of pissed of anarchists released at 4 AM this morning, hopefully leaving enough time for them to get some shut eye before the blockade of the docks at twelve.

Speaking of which: Night Night.

Requiem For A Rubbish Decade (Unamusing Version)

2009-12-02T17:29:00.001-08:00

As I write this sentence we have 700 hours left of this decade. For me, and millions of others, this is a pretty big deal. It is the decade in which we came of age, the decade which birthed our adulthood, the decade that killed our innocence. And, so far, our decade has been a failure.

We entered this century on a wave of fear and anxiety, consumed by gloom over the phantom millennium bug and myriad other impossible Armageddons. Just over 18 months later on 9/11, our fears seemed to be realised, as scenes from a nightmarish action movie were spewed into our newsreel. They are the images which our decade will most probably be remembered for. Thousands died, and with them, our great hopes for a bright new millennium. What followed from those eclipsed dreams was a tornado of destruction that wiped out the lives of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, in Iraq and Afghanistan. Though we marched, though we voted, Blair resigned to a standing ovation in 2007, and Bush walked from the White House unimpeached.

The irony is that an atrocity which cost just half a million dollars to commit, and involved less than a hundred people, could wreak greater terror from our response than its perpetrators could ever have hoped for from its implementation.

That heinous act of asymmetric warfare ushered in a new epoch for human interaction. This has been the age of the individual, the age of ingenuity, the age of the connected. It was an age in which television was democratic, while our governments were not. Twitter, Facebook and Youtube forced the networks to make stars of ‘ordinary’ people. We voted for our gods with our phones and with our wallets, then cast them down into the pit of collective revulsion when our deities became too dull. Much of the story of this decade can be told in these two tales - the unwanted, undemocratic war that churned through the bodies of countless thousands overseas, and the over-responsive, creatively bankrupt culture, which fed off of our democratic instincts to create a cacophony of trivia that absorbed us in the hyperactive zeitgeist.

But there is another side to this story. In Britain, bloggers gave a home to rumours of a scandal in MPs expenses, a story which would come to rock the Palace of Westminster. In Iran, acts of dissent and rebellion which would have once been impossible were made workable through the decentralised network of Twitter. And in America, the power of the Internet broke the power of the party machinery, putting a man who would once have been kept as a slave in the White House. That these achievements all came in the last two years shows that we leave this decade with tools undreamed of by the generations that preceded us, generations that ended slavery, brought us the vote and defeated fascism.

But our decade is not yet finished, and it is not yet failed. As we enter this final month we, the people, have one last chance to redeem our age. In Copenhagen, five days from now, the most important talks in human history begin. Our leaders, weakened by false perceptions, and distracted by false solutions, have already declared the summit a bust. But in 2009 power is no longer the preserve of the few. Power is ours. This can be the decade in which the bright future we dreamed of back in 1999 begins. We can change our masters’ by making our voices too loud to be ignored. The old institutions are crumbling in a way unprecedented in human history. 2009 can still be the year we saved the world, if that's what you want.

Then come to Copenhagen: march, take action, blog, film, tweet, do whatever it is you do, because now is the time to do it. We are not the prisoners of history, we are its authors. Come, write your story. Do it now.

A Challenge

2009-11-23T07:29:00.000-08:00

I forgot to include this in my last post.

I'm challenging any Climate Deniers who believe that the Hadley CRU e-mails show a concerted effort to manipulate data in favour of AGW to pick the e-mail they think shows, beyond all doubt, that such collusion/lying has taken place, and post a link to it here in the comments.

So far, all I have seen are examples of normal scientific practice where the reader has misunderstood the context and nature of the comments (the misreading of the "trick" e-mail being the most obvious blunder).

I look forward to seeing the incontrevertible evidence of conspiracy...

Edit: Tuesday 24th November.

People seem curiously reticent about actually picking an e-mail. I even had one commenter over at the Telegraph admit that 'none of the e-mails' showed any evidence of fraud.

So I'm upping the stakes: If you can find one, which shows beyond reasonable doubt that the Hadley scientists have been manipulating data solely to support the theory of Anthropogenic Global Warming, then I will donate £50 to the charity of your choosing.

Let's be clear, though. I'm looking for that e-mail where the Hadley bunch take results they know to be accurate, and fraudulently alter them to support their hypothesis.

Edit: Friday 27th November

So far, nobody has taken me up on my challenge ("because nobody reads your shitty blog" comes the perfectly accurate reply). However, someone has asked me to clarify the conditions of success.

I will pay £50 to the charity (or church, or political campaign, as I've realised asking climate deniers to pick an actual charity they like might be a bit unfair) of your choice if you can find a evidence amongst the stolen Hadley data which shows that:

1.) Data was manipulated

and

2.) That manipulation made the evidence in favour of AGW appear stronger than it was in reality

and

3.) There was no scientific reason for the manipulation of that data.

I readily admit that these criteria are subjective. For the third one, I will go away and research whether there was a scientific reason for manipulation. If there wasn't one, you get your money.

But think about the odds you are getting! If you win, you get £50 for the charity, group or cause of your choice. What's more, you'll make me look like a complete tool - and considering what a smug, arrogant tosser I am, I have a feeling this is an even better prize than the money. If you lose, you lose nothing. Those are odds of infinity to one. I know the climate denier camp isn't great at calculating risk and probability, but even you lot must see the value there.

Good luck!

Similies are like metaphors

2009-11-23T05:52:00.000-08:00

Imagine, if you will, that you are the world's cleverest mathematician, quantum physicist and demonologist all rolled into one. You are cleverer than a billion Einsteins, the "Einstein" being the internationally recognised unit of cleverness.

Now imagine that, one night, hunched over your self invented abacus/particle accelerator/portal to the ethereal darkness, you discover something horrifying. The logarithmic wave function of the prison of Ba'al is going to collapse, very soon, releasing Ba'al from his millenia old torment, to wreak a terrible vengeance upon the Earth. It won't be the end of the world, but it will be pretty bad: millions will die, whole cities will be destroyed, Horne and Corden will be given a third series, before their second has even aired.

Worst of all, you are the only person who has the requisite knowledge, expertise and intelligence to understand the coming catastrophe.

Fortunately, something can be done to prevent Ba'al's infinite wrath from being unleashed. Unfortunately, it's going to be quite expensive. A solid diamond superconducting altar must be built to push the prison of Ba'al back into quantum superposition, keeping him trapped for another thousand years. If everybody mucks in, you feel confident disaster can be avoided.

How do you sell this proposition to the general public, whose money and resources you need to to stop the hellspawn's merciless claws laying waste to all he surveys? They can't be expected to understand the intricacies of mathematical quantum demonology - only a handful of scientists do. So you give it to them in layman's terms. This, naturally, makes the information less accurate, which allows those opposed to the idea of giving up their diamsonds, to poke holes in your arguments. You are fighting against the economic tide.

Time is now running out. Frogs are falling from the sky, a kitten with seven heads is born, and the lion has lain down with the lamb as your models predicted. But the critics are saying there's no evidence that these signs of the coming cataclysm have anything to do with Ba'al. It's just a massive coincidence.

You have done your best, as a scientist, to convey your scientific opinion to those who need it. But it's being twisted, distorted, rejected. Mankind is heading towards a terrible disaster and you are the only one who can see it. What do you do?

In that situation, I'm guessing most of us would decide we had no option but to adopt the tactics of our critics, disingenuous and unscientific as they were. Sure, Ba'al wasn't going to devour the whole earth - at least, probably not, only a few studies suggest that his ancient hunger can only be sated by consuming the whole of creation - but perhaps suggesting that he might would finally convince people to get on and build that solid diamond altar.

And, sure, the nature of your field means that you can only be 80-90% positive that Ba'al is coming. But your critics are preying on your equivocal statements as evidence of doubt. So why not start pretending you are absolutely certain? People are bad at understanding probability in any case - that's why they play the lottery.

Finally, not all of those signs have come in quite how your model predicted. A second kitten is born, this one with only six and a half heads, causing the Sun to run a front page story declaring "Ba'alism HEAD as the dodo!". You decide that, should this happen again, you might just glue on an extra half a head.

This analogy, tortured far beyond anything that would be tolerated under the Geneva Conventions, is of course about Climate Science. E-mails between relatively prominent climate scientists have recently been stolen from the Hadley CRU by, well, who knows? The point isn't their theft (if someone on our side had done it to ExxonMobil I'd be rolling around with glee, so I'll not make any pretence to moral superiority), it is their perceived contents.

Blogs far and wide have declared that the e-mails as showing proof of collusion, cover up and malfeasance at the very top of the world of Climate Science. I, despite my best efforts, can find no such evidence. I can't claim to have read the entire body of e-m,ails, running to some ten thousand, but I have focused on those the Climate Deniers seem to think are noteworthy. In the process I have found numerous examples of data being changed and manipulated - because that particular datum is anomalous or has been gathered in an unusual/unusable way. The only example I have so far found of the Hadley crew manipulating data in an unscientific way to change its appearance was an admission that scientists had given in to "toning down" a document in order to ensure they received more funding in the future!(document number 1089318616 for those who want to look it up on the searchable database). So far, I have not seen an e-mail that provides anything like 'smoking gun' evidence of a conspiracy.

I say 'so far' because I am actually surprised by how little there is to chew on in these e-mails. As our little thought experiment at the top of the page showed, you would expect the scientists to alter and manipulate data, tweaking the presentation so the public's understanding, and from there their actions, are better aligned with objective reality. But there is little to no evidence of that happening

I had always rather assumed that the worst prophecies of the doomsayers were deliberately over-egged, that the temperature curves were sloped a little steeper than was necessary, that we had more time than the scientists suggested. Now, I'm not so sure.

If we've not been being lied to all this time, we're in serious trouble.

JM

P.S. Any of you who like to do your own research, and who therefore clicked through to the e-mail I referenced in the main body, will hopefully have noticed that the 'document' that was toned down was a letter to a superior, not a climate research paper. It in no way supports the claim I made that scientists have toned down their findings to secure further funding. But it is a good example of the kind of deliberate misreading of these e-mails which has been undertaken by those in the Climate Denier camp all weekend.

Don't Look Directly At It

2009-11-10T06:30:00.001-08:00

It's hard not to have a begrudging awe for The Sun newspaper. They can take a seemingly uninspiring story - "one eyed man bad at handwriting" for example, or "grieving woman upset" - and produce a multi-day blockbuster that other news outlets fall over each other to report.

The transcript of a private telephone conversation between Prime Minister Gordon Brown and a bereaved housewife is breathtaking for all sorts of reasons. It throws up a huge number of questions. Why did the PM make the call? Was he advised to do it, or was this fiasco his idea? Was he actually intending to apologise? Did he feel guilty? Was it all a PR exercise? And whose first instinct, on being told they are being put through to the Prime Minister, is to reach for a tape recorder?

This is undoubtedly a scoop for The Sun: a story that, with the inclusion of the tapes, verges on journalism. The raw data - Brown's umming, erring, awkward, miserable style of speech throughout a conversation we were never meant to hear - tells us volumes about our current leadership. The Sun's breathless attempts to ring every drop of scandal and outrage from the PM's words rings false in the face of such personal failure. It is hard, in fact, not to feel sorry for him. One can feel the conversation slipping away on his behalf - Mrs Janes, at one point, complains of being 'brought down' to the level of conversing with our Premier. What on earth was he trying to achieve? Perhaps, one wonders, he has a Messiah Complex. Perhaps he believes, somehow, that just by calling this distraught woman up that he could make right the death of her son?

But as juicy and voyeuristic as this insight into the private musings and possibly unwell mind of our Prime Minister undoubtedly is, it also implies something disturbing about the climate of the country. Assuming, for a moment, that the Sun did not specifically instruct Mrs Janes to make the recording, the newspaper must still have known the recording was made illegally. There is nothing on the tape to indicate that Brown was made aware that he was being taped. While I somewhat doubt that Brown will be dragging Mrs Janes through the courts over her infringement of the data protection act (though it's hard to see how such a move could damage himany further. When things are this fucked, why not just have some fun with it?) it's worrying that our PM, along with most politicians, is held in such utter contempt by the public and media that such definitely illegal and arguably immoral behaviour isn't even questioned.

Let's not forget: this entire 'scandal' arose because the Prime Minister made the choice to send personally hand written letters to the families of the war dead. Had he chosen a less time consuming, less personal option then the mistake - and thus the scandal - would likely not have happened. Indeed, looking at the letter, and as a possessor of fantastically shit handwriting myself, I can well believe that error was one of transcription rather than, er, spelling. In any case, the entire thing feels vaguely reminiscent of the expenses scandal - the public are outraged over mistakes and infractions which they themselves are entirely guilty of. The Sun, in particular, should be the last to criticise declining standards in writing.

But, of course, The Sun, in their dark genius, have tied this in to the 'wider issue': our New Labour Government doesn't care about the armed forces! Where oh where were the Merlin Helicopters that could have safely airlifted poor Jamie to hospital, as a curiously on-message Mrs Janes asked the PM? If he were a more callous man he might have replied that the helicopters were never bought because, at £28 million a pop, the money was better spent elsewhere. On thirty new heart surgeons, for example, or over a thousand chemotherapy courses.

But the Prime Minister didn't make these arguments, perhaps aware that the 'big picture' was not this poor woman's primary concern. She wanted someone to blame, and that person was to be Gordon Brown, no matter what he said in his defence. There has never been a war in history that has been fought with 'sufficient' resources: the nature of conflict itself dictates that whatever is available will be stretched to breaking point, and beyond. Once again, the shrieking, adolescent focus of the tabloids has distracted us from reality and left us blind to the truth, almost as if we'd been staring straight into The Sun.

Post Script: My spellchecker doesn not recognise the word "Janes". How dare blogger disrespect the memory of our brave boys fighting for our blah blah blah...

Lord Monckton Rubbish At Painting Houses

2009-11-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

Below is a video of right wing pundit/terrifying psychopath Glenn Beck interviewing both Lord Monckton, the muppet-faced, climate denying Lord of the realm, and an obviously uncomfortable John Bolton, who seems to be racking his brains trying to work out how his career took him from the United Nations, where he sat beside world leaders and attempted to answer the great political questions of the hour, the the Fox studios, where he is sat beside a wailing madman answering whether Hitler's brain is stored in the UN basement.

But I digress.

Check out the question Beck asks Monckton at 7.20 or so.

Now, I don't know about you, but 51 trillion seems a tad on the high side for painting your roof. Put in context, it's roughly the GDP of planet earth. So, according to Lord Monckton, if literally everyone stopped what they were doing so we could refocus the entire productive arsenal of the global economy on getting the roofs painted white, it would take an entire year. I know manual labour probably isn't Monckton's strong suit, but this sounds a little on the pricey side. It it just me, or is it at all possible that Lord Monckton just pulls facts and figures like these out of the hole in his arse?

Yes, it's about politics

2009-11-09T17:31:00.000-08:00

This morning, after one of my frustratingly common sleepless nights, I decided to go for a little walk and watch the sunrise.

I watched it from under a statue of a large copper horse. actually, thinking about it, it wasn't a large statue of a copper horse, it was a large copper statue of a horse. The original animal probably wasn’t made of metal. I’m guessing it was made of horse.
But I digress.
As I looked out at the lights of Windsor, the gently twinkling snake of cars on the M25, and the low key visual hum of London to the East I thought: we like this place, don’t we? I mean, Earth?

Overall, life on Earth seems pretty sweet. We have fine art, good music, great literature. We have friendships, and love, beauty. I hear series 3 of “Mad Men” is very good, and I just got an iPhone. So, on average, I would declare myself a broad supporter of civilization on Earth. As, I’m guessing, would most of you.

But scientists have been telling us, for a good while now, that Earth is ill. Very ill, in fact. If a doctor was delivering the prognosis, he would almost certainly start by saying “I don’t quite know how to tell you this” before breaking an egg of bad news all over the Gaia's pretty little face. It's not that the diagnosis is terminal, of course. if we would just start taking the medicine, we'd be fine.

Two years ago, at a Climate Summit in Bali, the powers that be postponed coming up with a final, legally binding deal on climate change until December of this year. Why December of this year? I’m guessing because, at the time, it was one of those dates that seemed so far away it might as well be never. Yet, with the monotonous predictability of linear time, the new summit is upon us. To nobody's great surprise negotiations have stalled, and a deal now looks unlikely for another year at best. If a week is a lifetime in politics, the Ministers at Copenhagen are gearing up to put off saving the world for another fifty two lifetimes.

So what’s wrong? If we’re all pretty fond of life on Earth, why are we having so much trouble saving it? One of the reasons, of course, is the cost. The stern report reckoned that effectively combating global warming could cost half a trillion dollars. Put into context, that’s about 1% of global GDP, or about half as much as the world spent on the banking bailout.

So it's actually pretty cheap. A bargain, in fact, when compared to the alternatives (which Stern estimated would cost between 5-20% of GDP a year, every year, forever). But the real problem is nobody can decide who will pick up the tab. Again and again, the debate about Carbon emissions refers back to the emerging economies of India and China, whose 2.5 billion people pollute nearly as much as we 700 million Westerners. It would, of course, be obscenely unfair if the developed world bore the economic brunt of reducing atmospheric carbon levels, simply because we gained all of the economic benefits from driving those levels up in the first place. But surely, as preposterously unfair as this is, doesn’t it make sense for the West, the rich people with the most to lose, to just buckle down and fix it ourselves? After all, when one of your housemates is late on the rent, the rest of you muck in, rather than risk getting chucked out, and settle the bill later.

So, why can’t we get a deal on climate signed? The world is on fire, and we’re idling around the garden centre, stroking our chins at the price of hoses. Why?

Perhaps because the earth is not ablaze. The earth isn’t sick. The earth is healthy. Or, if it the earth is sick, there is no cure. The world isn’t getting hotter. Or, if it is, it's not our fault. And even if it was our fault, how could you possibly know? What, really, do any of us know?

Just because the overwhelming majority of scientists agree on something doesn't make it true. It might be a ploy by climate scientists aimed at getting more money for their niche profession. After all, why does anyone go into academia if not for the Benjamins? And without ‘Climate Change’, how could Climate scientists possibly get paid? It’s not like there’s any money in predicting droughts, floods and hurricanes. Use your imaginations. Is it really that unlikely that a vast conspiracy involving hundreds of thousands of doctors, professors, researchers and other academics has spent the last 30 years conducting worthless research and falsifying the results as part of a nefarious plan to line their own pockets?
Of course, there is a little niggle with this theory. If you wanted to make money as a climate scientist, the quickest and most sure fire way of doing so would be to go and work for an energy company. Better yet, you could go and work for one of the countless think tanks who exist primarily to poke holes in the theory of anthropogenic climate change.
These think tanks, and others, have made the world of climate science a rather murky one for the layman to explore. I don’t know what to think when I hear that a volcanic eruptions produces more CO2 than all of the human beings on earth combined. Or when I hear that simple water vapour is a far more powerful Greenhouse Gas than CO2. I don’t have the time or understanding to research each and every one of the assertions thrown out b y those who doubt Climate Change is both real and manmade. And, in a highly contested environment, one in which both sides accuse the other of systematically falsifying research, how can I possibly know which side to believe.
The only method I have found, and one which reliable tells me that climate change is real, and we are doing it, is the method used by detectives the world over: follow the money. When two sides in an argument have broadly comparable views – say that Pepsi is better than Coke, or vice versa – the side with the most money tends to win. That’s why we have an advertising industry. Yet, in the controversy over climate change, in a fight between energy companies and environmentalists, the environmentalists are winning the battle for the minds of scientists. Why, if not because the science is right? Don’t get me wrong, It’s not that environmentalists don’t have money - Greenpeace has a revenue of $23 million. But the energy companies have more - ExxonMobil’s revenue is $477 Billion.
Yet there is a split, a split in the public’s view of the situation. People are deeply divided on climate change, not just what to do about it, but on whether it’s real at all. The public is split on what is fundamentally an issue of science, and when we understand why, I think we will understand why we have yet to fix the problem.
The division over whether anthropogenic global warming is real splits along political lines – the left believes in it, and the right doesn’t. The reason for this is pretty obvious. There is not a right wing solution to climate change. Even the most capitalist solutions – such as Cap and Trade – require the Government to step in and impose an artificial level on CO2 emissions, in effect to regulate the problem, before businesses can set a price for Carbon.

When an issue has a ‘market solution’ which requires direct Government interference with the Market, the right has a serious problem. Climate Change is not just an annoying, wishy-washy, lefty distraction for them. It is an existential threat to the foundations of right wing thinking. Of course, it doesn’t help that their ‘market solution’ doesn’t actually work. Governments are so given up to corruption that every instance of cap and trade that has been tried has resulted in huge cash giveaways, deals which have allowed the biggest polluters to line their pockets without reducing their emissions one jot.
The problem deepens when you realise the left are either unwilling or unable to put forward real, non-market solutions to Climate Change. Such solutions, to be effective, would require some new form of legally binding, responsive international law – “one world government” to quote the far right. Additionally, massive taxes, subsidies and takeovers of industry, particularly the energy industry, would also be necessary – “communism” to quote our lexically challenged friends once more. While I would love to see a workable solution to climate change come from the centre, or even from the right, it hasn't done so far, and time is seriously running out. We have to do something.

When a problem is fundamentally insoluble within our current political framework, when a collective problem arises in a world of ruthless individualism, and when that problem provides an existential threat not merely to our ideology, but to our existence itself, it is time to abandon the lofty, tarnished principles and do whatever works. It is time to stop worrying so much about economic growth and the absolute freedom of the wealthy. I believe we have thus far failed to solve climate change because it requires a paradigm shift in the way of the world – away from an atomised planet of isolated individuals, and towards a community. To save the world, we must first change the way it works.

Anarch*ish*