Cleggsistential Crisis

The Libdems have been soul searching of late. Lord Oakeshott went a little further than head-rubbing introspection or offering empty phrases involving learning the lessons of the elections. He roguishly commissioned a small and biting poll which suggested that the party would get more support if Nick left. That backfired a little and he ended up leaving, to the happy cheerios of other Libdems. The outcome – with top Libdems having to pledge their allegiance to the Clegg – seems to be that, whether they like it or not, they're all stuck with him through the next election. What does it all mean?

I voted for the Liberal Democrats at the last general election. Like many of my naive peers, I didn't have a great knowledge of their values beyond the great word 'liberal'. I hadn't read the Orange Book. (Had I read it, I wouldn't be particularly surprised about their homely residence alongside the Tories.) Instead, I thought they were a centre left party which understood the difficulties of being marginalised, like many normal people are, because they were perpetually on the margins of the House of Commons. One suspects, foolishly perhaps, that a party which never gets into power keeps itself going because it believes in something, as opposed to the two main parties which shift and lie and deceive in order to hang on their power.

Well they leapt at the chance of real power without so much as a blink, reneging on the promises which earnt them their valuable votes, but more worryingly, supporting privatisation of NHS and the Royal Mail, supporting the punitive cuts on welfare, failing to reform finance, and having the gall to say that the economic recovery is good for us (good for whom?) and hence it's all OK. Being 'liberal' added up to telling the poor people who were being punished that "it's not your fault", thereby providing the only distinction to the Conservatives who naturally assume that poverty and wealth are deserved where they are found, and the poor are to blame for most things.

Then there's Europe. The Libdems are unashamedly the only party of 'in'. They're also the only party that fails to even attempt to make an argument in favour of the EU, or even attempt to outline what the EU does. Clegg's all about the party of in, not out, the party of forward, not backwards, the party of up, not down, the party of for, not against... Such a porridge of empty words coming out of Nick's preciously sincere face makes him look like a complete turnip, and something of a fear-mongering turnip at that. That's not an inspirational argument: fear-politics is anathema to the few dedicated souls who are still listening when Nick talks; fear-politics is what has already drawn many voters to the dark side. Perhaps Europe is an emotional debate, and it's the hearts that have to be one instead of the minds, but hearts and minds are united in nausea with Clegg's patronising European leg-humping.

And that's all the one can say about them. They make no difference to government, and they don't articulate an argument for Europe. They've lost the votes of the young, many of whom were just getting politicised and now have crept back into apathy after the post-crash protests petered out. The ones who've kept voting have sought out the Greens or local socialists or the new Left Unity for a real left wing vote, or, somewhat tragically but understandably, Ukip. Did the Libdems sell out, or are we seeing the truth behind the yellow mask? A dying few are continuing to care what the real answer is.

Tactically, replacing Clegg probably would give them a boost, because he's become the figurehead of Libdem hypocrisy (unfairly, on some occasions), but it won't be enough to convince this sorry slither of disenfranchised electorate to wave any yellow flags any time soon.

Inclusive Capitalism, Exclusive Capitalists

Capitalism's about to get friendly again, according to capitalists. A couple of days ago there was a conference called Inclusive Capitalism: Building Value, Renewing Trust. The name gets to the nub of the problem, at least, that is, the problem as far as capitalists see it. For it appears that some pretty strident capitalists were the ones framing the debate at this conference. So which wealthy sages were to lend us their thoughts?

Come on down!

The Prince of Wales, Duke of Rothesay, Duke of Cornwall and King of England to be, Charles Philip Arthur George of the House of Windsor. At an estimated worth of $210 Million he would of course be my choice to spearhead a conference which seeks to understand and combat the double-headed monster of privilege and inequality. If you thought that this comically-faced royal's virtues ended at making jabs at climate change deniers, and making comparisons between world leaders and Hitler, then you'd be mistaken, because he thinks that we need a fundamental change of global capitalism in order to save the world from global warming. It's not very specific, true, but you have to admire the thrust. I mean, considering that he's not a scientist nor an economist, and many might wonder why the hell anyone should listen, he gave it a good shot.

One man who does know his stuff is Mark Carney. The newly appointed governor of England who's presided over growth of about 0.7% since being appointed in late 2012. True, a housing bubble seems to be on the cards with massive investment coming into lucrative London by rich investors, but with figures in the positive, everyone's smiling. He also knows all about the dark caverns of banking, having worked at Goldman Sachs for 13 years, an insight which apparently helped Canada in the financial crisis, where he was the Bank of Canada's governor. In the UK his salary is said to be £874,000 a year the type of wage always deemed as 'worth it', in order to get the best. According to the Daily Mail (so read with caution) he and his wife live in a £3M property in London, with a £4,800 a week housing allowance from the taxpayer. Given the context of the conference, one wonders if Carney attacked values such as that?

It's not unheard of. The Uraguian President, Jose Mujica gives 90% of his salary away to charities and small entrepeneurs, and lives on a small farm. It's a bit of an exception, though.

Carney went a little broader than individual wealth, saying that market fundamentalism had spun out of control. The financial crash epitomised the rule of privatising profit and socialising debt, of "heads-I-win-tails-you-lose", to use an appropriate money metaphor. Financial industries have to learn to be ethical, so he says. It's something that Barclays has attempted, as they are reportedly planning to ditch their sponsorship of the football league, with worries that their ethics don't match up. That's right, Barclays – Libor rate fixers, electricity market manipulators, gold price manipulators (and that's just since the financial crash) – are worried that their image is tainted by an association with football. Antony Jenkins, the new boss of Barclays also told his staff to get with the ethics – respect, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship – or leave. It's a shift in tactics, blaming the staff instead of the system. Indeed, whenever I deposit a cheque in the bank I'm sure to treat the cashier with a hefty dose of righteous contempt.

But if appealing to the consciousness of individual bankers and business leaders is not enough, then what else can we do? Enter Lagarde!

Christine Lagarde has been the Managing Director of the IMF since mid-2011. She's worth a mere $4M, and is also a politician for France's UMP, putting her neatly on the centre-right. The IMF is a great cattle prod for financially troubled countries, and only bails them out when they agree to make reforms which work in favour of the west, namely privatisation. It follows the well-known neoliberal creed that government spending is only good for private contracts and bailouts. When Greece was bailed out by the IMF and Eurozone, one massive recipient was Spiros Latsis, an oil, shipping, housing and banking man of €4 billion who'd previously bought a huge stake in Greek Government bonds. That bailout was mostly from German taxpayers, and was complemented by devastating austerity on Greece's public services, huge unemployment, and rising neo-Nazism. But at least Latsis's fortune was safe! For a more eloquent account of the IMF's questionable record, and the economic ideologies that inform it, read Joseph Stiglitz's Globalisation and its Discontents.

Lagarde's vision for capitalism is "trust, opportunity, rewards for all within a market economy – allowing everyone's talents to flourish". She noted progressive taxes, banking regulation and reform as necessary evils, that her incredibly wealthy audience might have to eventually consider. All this comes down to trust and opportunity. Indeed, the very notion of inclusively suggests opportunity, but that "inclusive capitalism" is an oxymoron is a tricky belief to dispel, especially if you have but a whisker of understanding about capitalist economics and it's legacy.

The last big hitter was Bill Clinton – America's Blair, humanitarian pioneer and sexual dare-devil. Third Way politics is a buttery paste of economic and social worldviews that lives with us now in the Siamese triplets of Cameron, Clegg and Miliband (the latter possibly slightly less so, but who knows?). The sand shifted, Thatcher put enthused privatisation on the map, and Blair and Clinton stuffed it with a less vindictive attitude. That's the Third Way – right wing economic policy and left wing social policy. As we all know, right wing economists always that the plight of the poor close to their hearts...

As for Clinton's ideas for inclusive capitalism, no online source seems to have bothered to report on it. So let's consider some other Inclusive guests. There was the Google executive chairman, Eric Schmidt. Google gobble up anything which might one day rival it, and have no sense of the concept of privacy, so it's good to have them on board. Indeed, what could be more 'inclusive' than a company that shares everything with everyone, (for profit)?

Also we have Paul Polman, previously of that pinnacle of ethics, Nestlé, and now the CEO of Unilever, a company that sells you almost everything, and has notoriously bad environmental record which is now being tackled with "corporate social responsibility" and massive expansion. Prince Charles, are you listening!? 

Then there's Andrew N. Liveris, the head of Dow Chemicals, the company that used the division of labour so effectively that its workers didn't know they were producing napalm and Agent Orange to kill or otherwise disfigure innocent Vietnamese citizens and unborn babies (Warning – this website illustrates the point horrifically). Andrew's role has been to transform Dow into the socially acceptable face of lightly regulated chemicals that we can all get behind, and the awards have piled in to this end. And we all love the smell of hubris in the morning, don't we?

And a load of investment bank leaders, who as we all know are second only to the clergy when it comes to keeping a clean record. At a combined wealth of £17.8 trillion the Inclusive Capitalism conference contained just about the most exclusive group of people you could imagine. How much room for us normals do you think is likely to be granted around this 'inclusive' table?

Well there's not much room next to Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, co-host of the conference. She's married to a knight, of all things, who is sure to ride in with his protruding javelin erect and at the ready if a mere peasant so much as breathes in the vicinity. One suspects that Prince Charles – with his whacky but endearing environmentalist spats – was the closest thing to a peasant the Lady could find. The Rothschilds come from a family of semi-ancient banking nobility, literally nobility. They triumphed during the age of empire, turning their attention to whatever profits could be swept up, from mining to wine. They have their own coat of arms.

The conference was "conceptualised" by The Henry Jackson Society, a neoconservative think tank that sees liberal democracy as the pinnacle of civilised societies. It supports interventionism – economic and military – to meet those ends. Looking back over the past few decades of economic and military western-backed coups or invasions, like Thatcher's friend Pinochet who had warmly embraced neoliberal capitalism along with some bloody torture and murder, or the overthrow of the Iranian PM in 1953 which lead to dictatorship, and an eventual revolution with ingrained hatred towards the USA, or the more recent Iraq War, who could dispute with such a conviction?

It was also hosted by the City of London Corporation, which was the intended target of what became the Saint Paul demonstrations. The City of London is a secretive and very very old institution, holding a position in the UK as a kind of rich, powerful and quiet uncle. In the City, companies vote. Parliament has no authority over the city. They have their own police (with cooler police vans than the normal Met ones). If you (or Mark Carney or Christine Lagarde, for that matter) are looking for an answer as to why banking regulation hasn't gone far enough since the crash, then the Corporation would be a good place to start asking questions (not that you'll get an answer). More info about them here, from Mr. George Monbiot.

The backgrounds of some of these Inclusive Capitalism conference ticket-holders might make us question the real intention behind the initiative. Thankfully, we don't need to be mind-readers to find out the truth behind the smiley inclusiveness that beams out from between their gold-fillinged teeth. As this Guardian article shows, those behind the conference didn't exactly hide the fact that the conference was a gimmick to restore trust in the direction that capitalism's going. That is, not change direction, but change perception.

Conc.

At the conference, Lagarde suggested that 'Inclusive Capitalism' is the answer to the Marxian analysis of capitalism's fundamental contradictions sowing its own demise. Thomas Picketty recently wrote a much-chattered-about economic book on capitalism and inequality, noting that increasing inequality is the rule of capitalism. Capitalism's history has no doubt seen great technological leaps, but except for exceptional post-war circumstances, inequality has never let up. Lagarde never actually disputed the contradictions that Marx outlined; she and the rest were seeking a way to gloss over them so that ordinary people might not notice. Inclusivity suggests equality of opportunity, the opportunity to climb to the top of the pile. The rest of us, with our student debts and huge bills and expensive shopping lists, are pretty much condemned to play our parts in the bowels of capitalism just to get by. That sounds fairly inclusive to me.

But three decades of stagnation for most wages, and increasingly stressful and precarious work, has apparently tested the patience of workers and voters to a worrying degree, meaning the super-rich can no longer be so complacent. Perhaps, additionally, it's getting harder to paint protest movements like Occupy as a bunch of brainless, Starbucks-swilling hypocrite Trots, like a New Labour pressure group does here, as did Boris Johnson and, of course, the Daily Mail. What happens when people who aren't hippies start to realise that the hippies were right? The Occupy movements don't only care about inequality, but the vicious and vacuous nature of capitalism, the crass, materialist mantras and the closing down of alternative ways of living in favour of marketed, prescribed alternativeness, and the selfish and greedy command to undercut and outpace your neighbour to get in the ratrace and 'succeed' in the much vaunted 'social mobility' game, leaving behind the feckless dregs who were once your brethren. Capitalists are now trying to claim ownership of the narrative before they lose control of it.

There was optimism after the crash – no one really had it in them to believe that governments everywhere would seriously shit right on the heads of ordinary people just to keep their crippled boats afloat as the weight of their wealth threatened to drag them under. But they did, and the damage has been patched up with a series of phoney measures which have seen wealth of the rich accelerate at a crazy rate. And with reforms painfully lacking, and gratuitous wealth fuelling housing booms which are pricing people out, and the privatisation of the Royal Mail, the NHS and prisons etc., the people, who are just about managing to wipe the shit from their eyes, have only to find that their sinking in a whole field of the stuff. Inclusive Capitalism was a PR trick, but we don't buy it, you indignant, smug, greedy, evil fucks.

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Estimated wealths taken from the net-based source of self-loathing and ambitious fantasy, www.therichest.com

BBC: Big Bad Copper

Happy Valley's on tonight, the TV highlight of the week. I've found myself squirming, shuddering and looking away as the violence has become ever more unbearable. There's little justice in this northern town – there's decent people who get slapped at every turn, weak people thrown into terrible situations, and downright evil to fill in the gaps. 

: spoiler time :

It's interesting that Fargo is on 4 a couple of nights before, because Happy Valley's kidnapping comes from the same place as the one in the Fargo movie – a supposedly harmless spot of abduction for a bit of cheeky cash. 'Ultraviolence' is arguably another property shared by both, as inevitably the crimes deepen. But Happy Valley has this grim, gritty realism which contrasts with the Fargo series, which is slick and contains dramatic, thought-out passages full of riddles and metaphor. Fargo's main characters, except for the female officer, are pretty hard to decipher, whereas Happy Valley's characters have their aims and worries and pressures and pasts, all written on their faces, often ready to rip them apart. The only time the realism breaks down is when Sergeant Cawood has terrifying visions of her dead daughter, visions which increase in intensity as the local pressures increase, showing the fragile relationship a mind has in dealing with reality itself. 

Of course, such a blunt approach to violence has its critics. The Daily Mail's deft tactic of being morally outraged at something while reselling it to their readers (just think of all the bikini girls on their website, alongside tut tutting articles condemning the sexualisation of kids – Dacre, you old fox) is put in full force, as they show an almost frame by frame coverage of Cawood's brutal beating and its aftermath. At the same time they align themselves with viewers who found the violence to be too much, and Mediawatch-UK who suggested that the show depicts 'gratuitous violence, often against women.'

It's a little strange to interpret misogyny into this show, considering that, more than any other show I can think of, it has in Cawood the most human, strong and substantial female character you're likely to find. The beating she gets at the end of episode 4 is just a phsycial manifestation of the emotional onslaught that she's been continually bearing, a result itself of various cases of extreme violence on women. Far more than showing violence, the series expresses the damage that violence can cause. Many shows are just violent – bang, bang, and move on. 24 is probably a decent enough example. I doubt that palatable violence is preferable to shocking violence. In Happy Valley, it all goes to show how fragile and human Cawood is – she only shows herself to be different from the rest of us when she puts on that professionally chipper tone when addressing a member of the public. 

The Mail also wrote a good review of Happy Valley. But of course generally the paper gets irate about the BBC's political correctness. Not this time, hey. Perhaps, dare I say, the Mail just has a problem with the BBC. I rarely watch BBC dramas because they're a little trite and camp, and predictable, with the same BBC gloss pasted over them. Happy Valley is a great exception to the usual BBC tricks (I do like the BBC in general, by the way). It's on tonight, and I'm already emotionally preparing myself for some hard-to-watch awesomeness. But if you're still not convinced, listen to the creator Sally Wainright, who retorted, 'you can always turn the telly off.'

Friday Night Pick-me-up

You can keep those pints and pitchers to yourself, for I've found a poem about cancer which will keep me jollying into the night. It's by JBS Haldane, the scientist whom I've mostly found interesting of late, who was musing on his own incurable diagnosis.

Cancer’s a Funny Thing

I wish I had the voice of Homer

To sing of rectal carcinoma,

Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact,

Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked.

Yet, thanks to modern surgeon’s skills,

It can be killed before it kills

Upon a scientific basis

In nineteen out of twenty cases.

I noticed I was passing blood

(Only a few drops, not a flood).

So pausing on my homeward way

From Tallahassee to Bombay

I asked a doctor, now my friend,

To peer into my hinder end,

To prove or to disprove the rumour

That I had a malignant tumour.

They pumped in BaS0₄.

Till I could really stand no more,

And, when sufficient had been pressed in,

They photographed my large intestine,

In order to decide the issue

They next scraped out some bits of tissue.

(Before they did so, some good pal

Had knocked me out with pentothal,

Whose action is extremely quick,

And does not leave me feeling sick.)

The microscope returned the answer

That I had certainly got cancer,

So I was wheeled into the theatre

Where holes were made to make me better.

One set is in my perineurn

Where I can feel, but can’t yet see ‘em.

Another made me like a kipper

Or female prey of Jack the Ripper,

Through this incision, I don’t doubt,

The neoplasm was taken out,

Along with colon, and lymph nodes

Where cancer cells might find abodes.

A third much smaller hole is meant

To function as a ventral vent:

So now I am like two-faced Janus

The only* god who sees his anus.

*In India there are several more

With extra faces, up to four,

But both in Brahma and in Shiva

I own myself an unbeliever.

I’ll swear, without the risk of perjury,

It was a snappy bit of surgery.

My rectum is a serious loss to me,

But I’ve a very neat colostomy,

And hope, as soon as I am able,

To make it keep a fixed time-table.

So do not wait for aches and pains

To have a surgeon mend your drains;

If he says “cancer” you’re a dunce

Unless you have it out at once,

For if you wait it’s sure to swell,

And may have progeny as well.

My final word, before I’m done,

Is “Cancer can be rather fun”.

Thanks to the nurses and Nye Bevan

The NHS is quite like heaven

Provided one confronts the tumour

With a sufficient sense of humour.

I know that cancer often kills,

But so do cars and sleeping pills;

And it can hurt one till one sweats,

So can bad teeth and unpaid debts.

A spot of laughter, I am sure,

Often accelerates one’s cure;

So let us patients do our bit

To help the surgeons make us fit.

J. B. S. Haldane (1964)

EU da man!

The EU elections are tomorrow, but I'm not voting. Am I Russell Brand? No. The main reason is that I haven't bothered registering since coming back to the UK.

But the better sounding reason is this. The whole debate is bastardised into some in/out referendum. Clegg and Farage, neatly representing caricatures of in and out, offered us the only (potentially) meaningful debate, and was consumed by a meaningless trade-off of bad puns, rhetoric and dubious statistics. And it was about in or out. Since then, the media has been on a Nigel high, using any excuse to get him and his pint into the news. "Nigel's booming support!" "Nigels a raving racist!" etc. The media level their judgements, and good old Nige blames immigrants and, ultimately, the EU. Again, are we in or out? Then, in reports which sound like obituaries, Clegg dribbles out something about being the "party of in", saying "of course" all the time. "Of course there are problems, of course we need improvements, of course no one believes a word I say..." Vote Lib Dem if you want to be in Europe... um, we already are! 

Then the other two parp up to say nothing much. Blue offer a referendum, red offer it if an exchange of powers happens. Once more – twice more! – it's about in or out. The Greens, pushed down into 5th place by the masturbatory anti-eu obsessives, are forced to use what slither of airtime they get by stating their own case for "in", and also supporting a referendum. They tend to list some achievements that the EU has made (and admirably often look beyond narrow "British" interests to a wider picture). Fair enough, but it's still about in or out. No MEP is going to Europe with a mandate to get a referendum, the whole farce is a symbolic argument about competing ideas of patriotism and interest. As long as the argument remains purely symbolic, not about EU policies, people will feel alienated by Europe and they'll mostly want to leave. I don't blame them. Even I want to leave!

But I can't shout loud enough to remind them that this EU election isn't a referendum. It's actually about sending people there to vote on things. What things? I don't know, they never say! 

The process of the European parliament is a little hazy to me. Do they just vote? Can they debate? Or propose bills? I'm not sure. But here are a few suggestions of what to campaign on – realistic or not, procedural or not – starting with the most prescient. (These are suggestions which cover the spectrum, not necessarily things I want to happen).

- disbanding the EU

- making the placement of the numerous presidents' into a position secured by democratic elections

- an end to the agriculture policy

- borders up everywhere, no more free movement

- reform of the EUs parliamentary procedure

- agrarian socialism across the board

- tougher stance on Russia

- changes to the European aid budget 

- environmental targets

- changes to human rights legislation

- European space programme

- the end of private finance initiatives

- no more austerity

- take Israel to court over crimes against Palestinians.

Like I say, I don't associate myself with these ideas, they're just principles that go beyond "in and out", which MEPs could endorse or argue against. I admit though that it's the agricultural policy which grinds my gears the most – hypocritical, neoliberal and unfair, and from that policy I make my judgement about the general principles of the EU. But that's not the point. The point is that when people want to get elected, they should offer something more than either supporting or condemning the institution that they're getting elected to. I guess Ukip's OK for not talking about anything else, because their tiny brains can't think beyond the in/out question. The rest should talk about what they'd stand for in Europe, even if it includes a referendum. 

Anyway, like I said, the reason I'm not voting is because I can't be arsed. So there.

WarAds

I've been enjoying the new army jobs ad. Slow motion machine guns, cool armoured vehicles, football. All with a hip urban beat. Reminded me a little of a South Park episode where Vietnam veterans reminisce on the ups and downs of combat in the jungle. "We had a badass rollercoaster but... all we wanted was a log ride,' says one forlorn veteran. 'We waited and we waited but they never built us one."  

The Army ad doesn't even mention rollercoasters, and it doesn't say what the pay rate or death rate is, and not much about post-traumatic disorder and the like. But the advert is selling a lifestyle, a macho cool that is sure to make the ladies go all weak. Surely it's worth the risk. Maybe some of 'our boys' don't even need log rides and footie. Sometimes people genuinely like killing people, which you can also do in the army. You can kill bad guys, and occasionally good guys. You can get so out of your head that you can't tell the difference anymore, or decide to take a few happy snaps next to a newly expired enemy. 

The incredibly posh Victorian hangover scientist J. B. S. Haldane remarked that he 'enjoyed the opportunity of killing people' during WW1. That's the kind of spirit we need for our troops! High on Medal of Honour and propaganda and ready to fire! But Haldane became a raving Marxist, which, perhaps the Army would frown upon.

Half-filled watering can

It's been a long time since writing on here. Did you notice? Thought not. After quitting Facebook today I felt a little liberated to write about things again, to once more address my tiny readership of one. That 'one', if you're interested, is me. And long may it remain me, for I believe it was Paolo Coelho who said, "writing is a socially acceptable form of getting naked in pubic," and I can scarcely turn my gaze towards a mirror even when fully clothed, let alone shrivel under the torment of another's judging gaze. Shrivel indeed, and those who noticed the not too subtle allusion to a penis under pressure may draw their Freudian interpretations now.

I used to write bits of whatever. Not any more. It's better when there's no purpose to it. It's therapeutic that way. I wrote reviews for theatre and music. I wrote political polemics for high minded university journals. Eventually I started my own art-lit duo. For that I'm still writing a series of books for self-publishing, but the zest of the project has turned bitter. It's probably not the project itself that's at fault. Such bitterness follows all memories, all endeavours, to the extent that each event, in some small manner, has been part of the long and vacuous process of transporting me here, into some form of bleak hell which lacks so much as a spark to get the river of fire alight.

So for a while I will maybe try and explore why the wish to write surfaces, submerges, and sometimes surfaces again. A writer's curse is not knowing if and when the pot of inspiration will dry up. The sense of 'channelling' something is something I relate to, but I'd stop short of labelling myself a writer, anymore than someone who buys clothes can be called a 'shopper'. For me, just the impulse, the lack of inertia is enough to get the little engine of words whirring, and then it doesn't matter if the words are good or shit, read or unread, for after a while a tiny endorphin has poked its scared face out from behind a rock in my skull, and tentatively stepped out into Blood River.

Besides that, maybe I'll dwell a bit on anxiety, joblessness, aimlessness, hopelessness, phonelessness, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, travelling in Taiwan, learning Chinese, idle ways of wasting time, screwing everything up, screwing people over, and screwing people.