>>Nostalgia For Infinity

M.I.A, Born Free from ROMAIN-GAVRAS on Vimeo.

Brilliant, horrifying video.

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“The issue of the deficit and who pays for it is the single biggest issue in this electoral morass. There is nothing that comes close to how important this is for the City, for British capitalism, and for the future of welfare and public services in this country. It is in this light that we have to judge the available options now. No one on the left can afford to take their eye off that ball – it isn’t fundamentally about PR, though I don’t dismiss the issues underlying the demands for PR. It’s the economy, stupid. (Or, in a more marxist idiom, it’s the class war, stupid.) I hope that this is one issue on which socialists and left-liberals can agree. If we do, then perhaps I can also persuade liberals of two other things: 1) the best outcome is a government with Labour in it, however much we rightly despise their wars, their pandering to the rich, and what they have done to social democracy, because a government with Labour in it is one that has a mandate to at least limit the ferocity of any cuts; 2) it is important that the government should have a weak mandate, not a strong mandate, because a stronger government will be far more effective in imposing cuts. If those are basically correct points, then a Lab-Lib pact would probably be better than either a Con-Lib pact.”

As per usual lenin has some good early analysis over at the Tomb which is well worth reading for those wondering where the left can go from here. Enemies of Reason also has a couple of good posts that nicely express the confusion and emotionally bipolar reactions most British people are probably feeling right now.

Personally I’m both happy and vaguely smug about Lucas’s victory, and considering joining the Green Party to get involved in maintaining their left and progressive ambitions. I’m also horrified although not shocked at the idea of the Lib Dems going into coalition with the Tories. It’s an appalling concept but it doesn’t come as much surprise, except perhaps to their activists, supporters and voters who are likely to have wanted a centre-left alternative to Labour, not some sort of Diet Tory bullshit.

Back in November ’08, when Obama claimed the presidency, many cautionary voices on the radical left warned that for activists the real work was just beginning. The Obamamaniacs had gotten their man into office, but now they had to work to ensure he remained their man. We’re far from an equivocal situation here in Britain, but it’s important to remember that the real work of a functioning democracy remains ahead of us. We can’t just pencil an X into a box, snigger at the local crazy independents, then sit back and bitch for four years. There’s work to be done, no matter how tired, betrayed or dispirited we feel.

I was at band practice last night, and opted not to stay up late following any election coverage as no one really knows what’s going on anyway. This morning I had to hurry into work whilst being accused by my landlord of taking a bottle of tomato food (I didn’t take his sodding tomato food), so it wasn’t until half nine that I finally saw the results of our glorious democratic process.

So! Initially it’s depressing, a wash of Tory blue flooding over the country, particularly here in the southeast. Frankly, I think we should cut Kent off and let it float away. Or sink. No one needs another British principality.

But, as  the last few contested seats start to come in, it’s clear that there is no Tory majority. Labour have done better than I expected but still lost a lot of seats, and the Lib Dems have hung on to most of their seats but lost a few overall (despite some impressive wins, such as Eastbourne). Despite that the Tory lead is not big enough for them to govern alone.

It seems that the Lib Dems’ success in polls and Clegg’s performance in the debates has not translated into votes or seats, just like in every other general election for the last twenty years if Private Eye are correct. This is probably as much a result of voters picking the lesser of two bloated evils as anything else. Who wants to risk letting the Tories in?

Well, the voters of Brighton Pavilion. I’m extremely pleased to see that so many people in my constituency turned out to vote for a politician like Caroline Lucas, someone who has proven herself as a South-East MEP over the last few years, who has a long history of anti-war and environmental campaigning, and who is pushing for the Green Party to straighten itself out (apparently the anti-science bullshit, for example, is being torn up by younger Green activists). It was a close race between Lucas and Nancy Platt (Labour’s new candidate to replace previous incumbent David Lepper) and the Tory candidate did better than I thought possible, but ultimately Lucas won it with a 1,300 vote lead.

Fucking awesome. Here’s hoping she, and the Green Party, do a good job of this significant opportunity for progressive/left and environmental politics. And here’s hoping that whatever coalition ends up forming to govern the country with usher through the electoral reform that is increasingly being demanded.

EDIT: Johann Hari’s Indy column from yesterday is a powerful read. I had just turned 18 when the 1997 general election that swept Labour into power took place. I was in Brentwood and Ongar at the time and voted for independent Martin Bell, who was attempting to unseat Eric Pickles. Accusations were surfacing that a locally powerful and lunatic right-wing church – the Peniel Pentacostal Church – had infiltrated the local Tory Party. I was also told at the time – by one of my sixth form schoolteachers – that the church had distributed anti-semitic literature to Brentwood residents. Anyway, my point is that I’m too young to have any real experience of living under a strong Tory government, and I’m probably unaware of just how bad that could be. Sobering stuff.

Here’s the front cover of today’s miserable excuse for a collection of words and images, British wankrag The Sun:

Piss off, you shower of miserable cunts. This is the most toe-curlingly embarrassing appropriation of Obama iconography I’ve yet seen. As though Cameron represents anything more than the triumph of PR over issues, of a shallow veneer of populism over entrenched class and business interests, of hope that rings hollow and unfulfilled. Fuck you and the media conglomerate you rode in on.

» Read the rest of this entry «

There seems to have been limited coverage of this incident so far. A cursory search with the obvious keywords turns up nothing on the Guardian or Beeb websites.

I’m quite  a fan of the Enemies of Reason blog as 90% of the time author Anton Vowl mirrors my response to media trends and furores – right down to the tirades of colourful invective. Best of all, he reads the tabloids so I don’t have to. I’m impressed that he is prepared to return to those peddlers of bullshit, hypocrisy and lies time and again, and that he invests so much time and energy in not only observing that they’re wrong but also identifying why.

Over the weekend he posted this about a story in the Daily Express. Click on through to read Anton’s post as there’s little point me repeating what he says.

Our deluxe minicabs will transport you to your luxury accommodation.

In essence, the Express claims that a refurbished hangar currently being used to provide shelter for migrants is a “holiday camp” akin to a “VIP club”. Of course, their photos proving this are nowhere to be seen. Fortunately Brighton No Borders and Calais Migrant Solidarity have already posted rebuttals – with photos.

I’ve only a little to add to this. I’ve been following updates from CMS over the last few months and I’m aware that the hangar has been legally hired by CMS to provide for the basic needs of migrants who are without shelter, food, money, medicine, legal and often social and emotional support.

Over the past few months tents and encampments have been repeatedly cleared and bulldozed by police under the orders of a mayor who wishes to appear tough on illegal immigration. Over the freezing winter and record snows we’ve experienced over the past couple of months, police were ensuring that these migrants lacked even the most basic provisions that they needed to survive.

Often travelling alone and traumatised by isolation, trafficking or the experiences they fled, it is probable that without the tireless activities of Calais Migrant Solidarity and other activists, many such migrants would have died, alone, cold and hungry, their last shreds of hope obliterated in the name of political displays of strength.

Our highly-trained staff are ready and waiting to cater to your every need.

Perhaps the Daily Express might consider following in the footsteps of a famous journalist who possessed the courage of his convictions. Follow in the footsteps of Eric Arthur Blair, Express hacks, and experience for yourself this life you so glibly liken to that of a visiting dignitary. Or perhaps open up your offices to visitors: if a hangar containing camp beds and a small office is akin to a “holiday camp”, your organ’s finances and workforce must be in even direr straits than anyone thought.

(Photos courtesy CMS.)

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In happier news, the Scottish Defence League (the north-of-the-border branch of homegrown far-right street thug movement, the EDL) has been thoroughly humiliated in Edinburgh. Outnumbered 15-to-1 and bundled onto buses by police. Fantastic.

From a comment thread over at Liberal Conspiracy, this remark from Sunny Hundal:

We need the people who roll up their sleeves, we need the workers, the agitators, the students, the feminists, environmentalists and even… (shock horror!) meeja types like myself who will fight for and defend the left in the media. There should be space for all types of people to contribute in different ways.

Thank fuck it is not just me saying this, and that it’s being said by someone who is actually read.

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places–and there are so many–where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of the world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

(From You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, via SW’s obit.)

Fuck y’all.